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The U.S. Air Service struggled hard to assert American air power over the Western Front.

By Michael D. Hull

When America entered World War I in April 1917, it had a vast reservoir of manpower, but little else. The U.S. Army had to be equipped and trained by the British and the French, and it would be a year before American troops would begin to make a significant contribution to the fighting. There were immense shortages of weapons and equipment in the United States, and General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), faced an enormous task.

Not the least of Pershing’s problems was the U.S. Air Service, which went to France with but one squadron of obsolete aircraft. Based on the experience of the British and French, and his own experience in Mexico in 1916, Pershing understood the value of military aviation–particularly for reconnaissance. He was determined that American airmen would support their allies in the skies over the Western Front.

Problems would plague the U.S. Air Service until the armistice, as James J. Cooke, a history professor at the University of Mississippi, points out in this study, The U.S. Air Service in the Great War (Praeger, Westport, Conn., 1996, $59.95). Pershing never had enough aero squadrons and balloon companies, and there were constant shortages of air staff officers, airmen, planes, balloons and supplies.

American war production was not equal to the task, and the Air Service had to rely on British and French airplanes. The service was a hybrid of Allied doctrinal and tactical experience and American innovation.

When Brig. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois arrived at Chaumont in November 1917 as a trouble-shooter, he was appalled by the “complete chaos.” The scrappy little plumber’s son who had been the Army’s first pilot started an immediate reorganization of the Air Service.

And yet, somehow, American air power came into being in the last year of the Great War. By November 1918, the Air Service had squadrons that were specialized in aerial combat, bombing, observation and photography. And 16 flying schools had been set up.

Cooke has written a comprehensive history of the U.S. Air Service in France that is meticulously researched, highly informative and literate. His prose is both scholarly and brisk.

The author describes the buildup of the Air Service, the development of the main training base at Issoudun, and the participation of American fliers in the big AEF campaigns of 1918–the Marne, St.-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. And the author provides a wealth of fascinating detail about the leaders and pilots, and the hardships and sacrifices they faced.

Pershing found himself fighting the first modern war, and his quick mind recognized the relationship of aviation to the main ground war. For all the myriad problems and flaws of the Air Service, the aero squadrons that fought on the Western Front became an integral part of the American war effort.

The author points out that the air conflict in the Great War brought a third dimension to combat–height. Never again would battlefields be determined by width and breadth alone.