 Introduction
How is it that at the end of WWI the Army Air Corps was reduced to a fraction of its wartime strength, its men, budgets and material cut back to a bare minimum, yet in the ensuing two decades grew into a fighting force which helped to win WWII? Not much attention has been devoted to just how it was that an organization that had never before engaged in a war of such enormous dimensions was prepared at all to enter WWII with such dynamic force. It may not be a story with the same dramatic and romantic content as those which concern the flying aces of WWI and the aircraft they flew, but without the hard work and planning of a cadre of young officers the outcome of WWII might have been very different.
There is a fascinating back-story of how the Air Force was able to enter into and play a decisive role in the U. S. victory in WWII. In a little over two decades the Air Force grew from a tactical, supportive arm of Army ground forces to a major strategic and tactical force that helped win a world war. How was it that, during a time of limited budgets, prohibitions on offensive military planning and a national policy shaped by isolationism, that this fledgling organization had the capacity to develop the strategic doctrines and define the technological objectives for a future still very much over the horizon?
Army Air Corps officers during the interwar period were a heterogeneous bunch. They came from all parts of the countrys socio-economic landscape, but they shared a common objective: to gain respect and support for airpower as a vital but independent fighting force equal to the other branches. They faced formidable opposition from the military establishment bent on limiting airplanes to a tactical, supportive role and, more importantly, subordinate to the Army and Navy.
America in the Interwar Period
After what it viewed as the successful conclusion to the
"war to end all wars", America turned its attention to domestic concerns. This period of introversion continued through the 1930s, shaped by the economic traumas of the Depression and memories of WWI, America adamantly opposed involvement in foreign entanglements of any kind. This mood was reflected in the country's foreign and fiscal policies. Military budgets were kept unreasonably low, military planning was based on defensive, not offensive, strategies and technological development was morbidly slow.
Operating as an arm of the Army, the Army Air Corps was at an even greater disadvantage in both resources and status. By 1920, the Air Corps had been reduced in size to only 1,168 officers and 8,428 enlisted men (some 5% of its total strength during WWI). Its budget was decimated when the Congress rescinded an estimated $485 million in uncommitted funds. In addition to drastically reducing the number of Air Corps personnel, the cut in funds left it with a small and technically obsolete fleet of airplanes.
The ultimate use and employment of the Air Corps was still a matter of debate among the traditional uniformed services. Always jealous of their prerogatives, they viewed airplanes as a tactical adjunct to support ground forces in combat. The prospects of an independent Air Corps, with a strategic mission equal to that of the established uniform branches, was resisted throughout the post-WWI period and almost to the eve of WWII.
Yet, in a little over 20 years, the Air Force grew from an organization with low-tech equipment, limited budgets and continuing efforts to limit its scope to become a decisive fighting force in the next world war. Because it succeeded, its easy now to forget how new and unknown what the officers of that period were doing. And now, looking back on their achievements, we can wonder if it was due to a unique group of talented people or to a unique set of circumstances that let them do more than they ever thought possible.
The Air Corps Tactical School
Of the centers of innovation and creative thinking that helped shape the Air Corps strategic vision during the interwar period perhaps none was more critical to this effort than the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama, known as ACTS. ACTS had moved to Maxwell Field in 1931 from its previous posting at Langley Field. The Tactical Schools primary role was to train officers in both the practical and conceptual aspects of airpower theory and tactics. It would move, inexorably, in the realm of doctrine, which ultimately would emerge as one of ACTS' primary functions. It was here that a young 1st Lt. named Kenneth N. Walker would make his mark. Walker would become emblematic of a group of young officers whose commitment to airpower and the development of the strategic doctrine necessary to fully implement airpowers potential even it meant risking their careers to do so. The story of Kenneth Walker parallels the emergence of the Air Force as an independent, full-fledged war fighting force from its early years as a tactical adjunct to ground troops and artillery to the first years of Americas entry into WWII.
Walker's Early Years
Walker's formative years as the only child of a single mother may have played a part in the almost fearless manner in which he pursued and argued his ideas and pursued his vision. Kenneth Walkers mother, Emma Overturf Walker, met and married Wallace Walker in Denver. Colorado and moved to Cerillos, New Mexico soon after their wedding where Kenneth was born on July 17, 1898. Shortly after his birth, Emma and Wallace separated and Emma returned to Denver with her infant son.
There they lived a hardscrabble life, as Emma took on a variety of jobs to support the two of them. In the process, Kenneth grew up as a tough, independent youngster, devoted to his mother but very much his own person. By all reports he was athletic, popular among friends and hard working. But there also seemed to be a streak of toughness that meant never backing down in the face of a threat. As a young man, who may have felt the need to protect his mother, its plausible that those same qualities would stay with him as he matured. If so, this early formation in his character was to characterize the way he would manage conflicts in his professional life and account for his unwillingness to back down in the face of controversy or conflicting opinions.
By early 1917 he had started what today would be known as an executive training program with a mining machinery company in Denver, yet seven months after the United States entered WWI Kenneth Walker enlisted on December 15, 1917 in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. He was to become a pilot, an instructor of other pilots, marry Marguerite Potter, a recent graduate of the University of Oklahoma, whom he had met while stationed at Post Field, Oklahoma. Together they traveled to the Philippines where he would begin to enlarge his experience from that of pilot and instructor.
Though his time at ACTS was to be a seminal period in his career, the Philippines may have been the place where the formation of his strategic thinking about airpower first began. He would be associated with two important men during this tour. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Governor-General of the Philippines at the time, under whom he would serve during WWII, and Gen. Billy Mitchell who had arrived in the Philippines on an inspection tour sometime in 1924. His exposure to the dynamic personality and thinking of Gen. Billy Mitchell must have been something akin to an epiphany for this young Lt. Listening to Mitchells analysis of the problems and opportunities for airpower may have begun to broaden the horizons of Walkers own vision and thinking about both his and airpowers future. |
Kenneth N. Walker - Visionary Thinker and Early Pioneer of Strategic Bombing
In 1925, the Walkers returned to Langley Field, Virginia. Their his first son, Kenneth Jr., was born in 1927, while Walker commanded the 11th Bomb Squadron and served as Operations Officer for the 2nd Bomb Group among other assignments. He next entered ACTS in 1928 as a student, graduated in 1929 and remained a member of the faculty. At ACTS he would become a key thinker and actor in the development of airpower theory and its strategic underpinnings. Kenneth N. Walker was emblematic of a group of young officers whose creative energy and vision would help to drive and articulate airpowers strategic mission.
The pace of promotions was painfully slow during the interwar period, as Walker would remain a Lt. for 18 years until promoted to Capt. in 1935, and was still a 1st Lt. in 1929 when he entered ACTS. There he found himself immersed in a culture of innovative, risk-takers who ardently believed in airpowers potential. The preceding years of experience in varied tasks had undoubtedly helped him to refine his thinking on what role the Air Corps should play in the nations defense, but it was ACTS that provided the catalyst for those ideas and vision.
During his time as student and instructor at ACTS his thinking crystallized. He would become one of airpowers pioneer thinkers; a leading proponent of high altitude strategic bombing. Walker and like-minded officers would become known as the "bomber mafia", whose doctrine-known as the "industrial web theory" - centered on the use of high altitude, daylight, precision bombing of an enemys industrial infrastructure. This type of bombing mission, they reasoned, would not require fighter escortvalid at the time, as no fighter had been developed with the range that would enable them to protect bombers.
Standing in opposition to this theory was Capt. Claire L. Chennault, the chief advocate of fighter aircraft at the tactical school. He believed that unescorted bombers would become extremely vulnerable should the enemy combine a central fighter control system and technologically advanced fighters. But the prospect of either central fighter control systems or long-range fighters were far over the horizon in the early 1930s. Thus, these diametrically opposed visions of how air power should evolve would become a central polemic in the struggle for air force independence. In the end, the advocates of strategic bombing won. (It may have been a Pyrrhic victory. As eventually, long-range fighters did become an important element in the airwar during WWII.)
Walker and Chennault would go, almost literally, toe to toe over this issue, and Walker displayed his characteristic zeal in arguing his point. This intensity and single-mindedness would become qualities closely associated, for better or worse, with Kenneth Walker throughout his career.
During this same period two events in Walkers domestic life occurred. His second son, Douglas, was born at Maxwell Field, but shortly thereafter his marriage would end. Shortly after the divorce, Walker remarried and became the father of a third son, John, who went on to become an Annapolis graduate and retired with the rank of Captain (USN). This marriage, too, ended in divorce.
From the ACTS he went on to the next rung in the ladder for young officers on their way through the ranks: The Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon graduation he was promoted to Captain, assigned to the 9th Bomber Group at Hamilton Field, California before leaving for a two year tour in Hawaii.
Though no one was more closely associated with the role of bombers in the Air Corps strategic vision, then Maj. Walker was to become the Commanding Officer of the 18th Pursuit Group at Wheeler Field. Walkers Adjutant in the 18th Pursuit Group was a young Lt. named Bruce K. Holloway who would become a WWII ace with 13 victories in the Asia-Pacific theatre and go on to earn four stars and, after a number of important assignments, become Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.
During his Hawaiian tour he was also Operations Officer of the 5th Bomb Group and Executive Officer at Hickam Field. His association with the 5th Bomb Group once again proved that he exploited every opportunity to pursue and refine his theory of strategic bombing.
In her biography, "Kenneth N. Walker Airpowers Untempered Crusader", author Martha Byrd writes that, "&as Operations Officer for the 5th Bomb Group, he developed a 40-page training directive that included a challenging tactical objective: development and crystallization of the tactics and techniques necessary to insure the effective reconnaissance of sea areas, interception and destruction of a hostile fleet or elements thereof.' The groups duties to that point had included such things as bombing a lava flow to protect a city, planting fig trees from the air, and rescuing men from the ocean. The training under Walker must have been sound: the onset of war in Europe found the groups personnel 'excellently trained for warfare'" In developing this training program, Walker seems prescient in anticipating the war to come in the Pacific as well.
The Air War Plan (AWPD-I)
In 1941, now a Lt. Col., he was reassigned to Washington as Assistant Chief of the Plans Division for the Chief of the Air Corps. It was in this position that Walker would find the opportunity to participate in officially implementing the Air Forces strategic mission when, as part of a team led by Lt Col Harold L. George, that included Maj. Haywood S. Hansell, and Maj. Laurence S. Kuter (all former ACTS instructors) he helped to author the Air War Plan (AWPD-1). It was the plan for organizing, equipping, deploying, and employing the AAF to defeat Germany and Japan should America become involved in the war that was engulfing Europe and the Far East. It was completed by four men in nine days in August 1941. Just two months before Pearl Harbor.
It was by all accounts an incredible feat representing the first time a precise definition and role for air power in a major conflict had been developed. The plans were ultimately approved by then Air Corps chief, Hap Arnold and ultimately George Marshall and President Roosevelt.
The Southwest Pacific Theatre
In late 1941 a strange thing occurs. Kenneth N. Walker, now a Brigadier General, appears on a list of general officers with overseas assignments. That in and of itself isnt strange, as he had sorely missed the opportunity to have flown in combat during WWI and was ready to serve overseas. The strange part concerned the assignment. It wasnt the European Theatre, the Air War Plans primary focus, an area of industrialized countries with the elements that had served as the foundation for strategic bombing theory. It was instead the Southwest Pacific, Australia to be precise. The Southwest Pacific had no industrial centers or webs, the targets were harbors, ships and vast jungles. Whatever his personal feelings about the assignment, he seized it with enthusiasm.
By March of 1942 the Japanese had already landed in New Guinea rapidly closing on the Australian mainland. Operating from bases in New Guinea, with headquarters and resupply operations established at Rabaul, New Britain, elite Japanese forces faced an Allied force still in the early stages of organizing to halt the Japanese advance on Australia.
Brigadier General Walker arrived in Australia with Brigadier General Enis C. Whitehead in July 1942. On his arrival, then 5th Air Force Commander, Lt. General George H. Brett, sent Walker on an inspection tour of 5th Air Force bases. Brett asked Walker to carry out a study of the existing bombardment methods being used. At the time that Walker had arrived, there were three fighter groups, 5 bombardments groups, two transport squadrons and one photographic squadron operational in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) comprising 1,602 officers and 18,116 men.
Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney took over from Brett on 4 August 1942 and was appointed as the Commanding General of the 5th Air Force. Kenney then ordered Walker to command the Allied Air Forces in the North-Eastern area and to reorganize the North-Eastern Area Command which Kenney described as a "scrambled outfit of Australians and Americans that resembled a can of worms."
In September 1942, Air Force Commander, "Hap" Arnold made an inspection tour to the Southwest Pacific, and in his notes from that trip he summarizes his assessment of the situation, "Air has passed from below average under Brett to excellent under Kenney. Walker and Whitehead outstanding. Would not exchange Air Force units for any others." Gen. MacArthur sent Walker a communiqué that same month in which he wrote, "I want to tell you how delighted I am at your splendid work. The improvement in the efficiency of the Air Corps has been marked since you assumed command. I fully expected it but am very proud at its realization."
Though it represents only a fraction of time in his 26-year career, those last months in 1942 were to make Kenneth Walker both a hero and casualty of WWII. He had built his career and reputation on a strategic bombing theory based on an industrialized enemy. In his efforts to rebuild and revitalize the 5th Air Force Bomber Command he faced a range of challenges involving both men and material. But in is determination to share the risks his men were facing and to quickly adapt his strategic assumptions and experience to this new environment, he immediately undertook his education, flying on bombing and reconnaissance missions to observe first-hand what he was up against.
In was in this spirit that he was lost on January 5, 1943, during a daylight raid on Japanese shipping in Simpson Harbor at Rabaul, New Britain. On March 11, 1943 President Roosevelt presented Kenneth N. Walker Jr. with his fathers medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Addendum
Of the 5th Bomber Command B-17s lost in raids against Rabaul, the plane in which Gen. Walker flew, the "San Antonio Rose", has yet to be recovered. The search, however, continues for the crew of the "San Antonio Rose" and the highest ranking MIA lost in combat during WWII.
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