• Eight different schools under American con trol had been established in France and desig nated for training 3,800 officers and 11,700 men.
The Liberty engine intimately connected with the effort to develop efficient aeroplanes in the United States was developed 1917 and put in quantity production in 1918. By autumn of the latter year the monthly output had reached 3,878 motors by the various factories engaged in its manufacture. By the time various dif ficulties and defects had been overcome and remedied this engine in its final 12-cylinder type combined high power with lightness and reliability.
Two months after the armistice was signed the War Department anounced that the Leen ing two-seater monoplane in recent tests at Dayton, Ohio, had developed a speed of 145 miles an hour with a full military load including four guns. In these tests the Loaning plane carrying two passengers climbed 25,000 feet This .monoplane is American designed and American built. It is driven by an eight cylinder 300-horsepower Hispano-Suiza engine and carries fuel for three and one-half hours' flight In September 1919 Maj. R. W. Schroe der at Dayton, Ohio, climbed 31,800 feet in 68 minutes In a Le Pere biplane. In connection with the general discussion of the scandals cov ered by the Hughes report it may be as well to refer here to the controversies regarding the air service in the United States army which were widely discussed in Coagress and elsewhere through the latter part of 1919 after the return of the expeditionary forces from abroad. Under the leadership of Maj. (formerly Brig,: Gen.) B. D. Foulois, chief of air service, Amer ican Expeditionary Forces, the airmen seaned to be unanimous in demanding the consolidation of every aircraft activity now in existence in the United States under one central department of government and under one responsible head. This proposition for the creation of a Depart ment of Aeronautics met strong opposition from the War Department which showed a determina tion to retain active control of all military organizations.
The airinen point to the woeful record of War Department control from 1908 to 1918. The military aviator is the only soldier re quired to risk his life in the pursuit of peace tune duties and therefore demands such control of equipment and organization as will reduce to a minimum the risk of life and limb. He asks that those who control his destiny shall be devoted solely to the task of malting the air service as safe and efficient as the nature of the work will admit.
The statistical summary of the war with Germany published in 1919 by the general staff says that the expenditures for the air service up to 30 April 1919 amounted to $&59,291,000 — 6 per cent of army war expenditure. In No vember 1919 Major Foulois published a state ment that if the United States were called upon to fit out an expedition for service in W.xico it would take at least six months or a year to equip efficiently such an expedition with up-to-date aircraft As these two statemans, one by the general staff as to expenditures and the other by the late chief of air service in France as to post war conditions, may both be assumed to be correct, it would appear needful that some competent authority should tell why, immedi ately after spending $859,291,000, the country has nothing to show for it except a dozen aviation fields and the memory of a great corps of trained airmen disbanded and lost This situation is important because all mili tary authorities predict that future wars will be fought out increasingly in the air. For the first time in England's history her fleet was unable to protect English homes from enemY attack in this vrar. It is certain that even an ocean will not suffice to protect the American seaboard cities from aerial attack in future wars. Control of the air is the only sure safe guard.
Statistics of the Air Services. Balloons.— Before the armistice, America produced 642 observation balloons and received 20 from the French. Forty-three of our balloons had been destroyed and 45 given to the French aid British. At the end of the war we had remain ing 574 balloons. At that time the Belgian army had six, British 43, French 72, and the Germans 170 on the Western Front Thus the American army had at the end of the war nearly twice as many observation balloons as the enemy and the Allies combined had at the front Air Squadrosse—In addition to purely American operations two full squadrons were attached to the British Royal Air Force in March and June 1918 and remaining with the British throughout the war particis4ted in the following engagements: Picardy Drive, Ypres, Noyon-Montdidier, Viellers, Bray-Rosieres Roye, Arras, Bapaume, Canal du Nord, and Cambrai.