Airpower Pioneers: From Billy Mitchell to David Deptula

John Andreas lsen (ed.).

Abstract

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is among the oldest independent air forces in the world and has emerged in recent decades as a professionally competent and adaptable force to reckon with. A valuable strategic partner of the US Air Force (USAF) since the mid-1990s, this review offers a distant but nuanced summary of the leaders who have shaped the contours of the most powerful aerospace power in the world today.

The use of airplanes for military purposes during the early years of aviation saw Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy at the forefront of doctrinal evolution and operational exploitation. With Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and John Slessor emerging as early military aviation pioneers who championed the case for independent air forces during the inter-war years, the lone figure of ‘Billy’ Mitchell across the Atlantic kept hopes alive for an independent United States Air Force (USAF). Even though the American air effort during World War I was significant, it was only after World War II—when US airmen had demonstrated skill, courage, operational dexterity, and vision, provided by leaders such as Billy Mitchell, ‘Hap’ Arnold, Hoyt Vandenberg, and Curtis LeMay—that President Harry S. Truman acquiesced to the idea of an independent USAF, eventually carved out of the US Army Air Forces in September 1947. Since then, it would be fair to argue that the USAF has been the wellspring of global air power doctrine and its application, propelled in no small measure by visionary airmen. Airpower Pioneers: From Billy Mitchell to Dave Deptula, an edited volume put together by John Andreas Olsen, is a befitting tribute to the architects of the modern USAF.