WITH the War over and the Atlantic Ocean crossed by air a lot of people thought aviation had passed its peak.
“Why not get out of flying?” my brother, Captain Tom Byrd of Virginia, asked me. “You’ve done your bit, Dick. Try something less dangerous for a change.”
Another, a friend more given to violent speech, said:
“It’s all a delusion, Byrd. Flying will never be any safer than it is now. It’s only a question of time before you break your neck.”
“Got to die anyway,” I laughed at him.
“Surely. But why hasten the great day? The man in the street is never going to fly. Commerce doesn’t want to risk valuable articles to the air. There’s still plenty of room on the earth—”
“But not for long,” I broke in. “City traffic has got out of hand. Already the big suburban transits are jammed in rush hours.”
“Their own fault. Besides why push flying and kill a lot of people until humanity really needs it?”
“Don’t we need it now?”
“Only the fighters, the Army and Navy. The war is over; why keep on building weapons?”
And so on indefinitely. Reaction against the war included a wide reaction against flying; at least among a certain kind of people. The Navy was not thoroughly organized as far as aviation was concerned, which was only natural, due to its youth, so we were having our internal troubles. General William Mitchell began at that time harassing the Navy and its aviation, and he had plenty to talk about due to our poor internal organization.
Many in our military forces, and a proportion of the press, blamed troubles of Army and Navy flyers on Congress. It was said widely that Congress wouldn’t make the proper laws or appropriate enough money. This was not so. Both Senate and House were keen about the new means of transportation that would mean so much to many of their outlying districts.
Before I knew it I was drawn into the maelstrom of doubt, rumor, threat and conspiracy that surrounded American aviation.
When I reached Washington after the Trans-Atlantic Flight aviation held a more unenviable position in the Navy Department than I had realized. Many Admirals and others in power were dead set against it. There was no Bureau to handle it. Captain Irwin, “Director of Naval Aviation,” with little authority as compared with heads of other branches of the service, was opposed to creating a special Bureau of Aeronautics in the Department. Members of the General Board were growing irritable over what they called “absurd fancies of young flying radicals.”
And in the midst of it all General William Mitchell was quietly going ahead with his plans for a United Air Service that would take the aviation out of the hands of both the Army and the Navy. Those of us who had come into intimate contact with England’s troubles with her Royal Air Force believed that, in principle, such a plan was wrong.
So we—a group of young flyers—began to organize. What an assemblage it was: full of enthusiasm and enormous belief in the future of aviation. I suppose we had all seen so much violence and death in one form or another that we didn’t quail as much as formerly at charging a few elderly admirals.
In a moment of expansion I volunteered to write a bill to present to Congress for the creation of a Bureau of Aeronautics in the Navy Department. If this could be done aviation would at once be put on an equal footing with other naval activities. My fellow conspirators took me at my word and I was chosen to do the job.
When the bill was ready a picked handful of shock troops, three other pilots and I, took the masterpiece to our superiors. It didn’t occur to us to go directly to Congress the way Billy Mitchell had done. I have always felt very keenly that whatever differences naval officers have should be fought out in the navy. Younger officers are never intimidated for expressing their honest opinions. I don’t believe there has ever existed a purer or more high-minded organization than our navy.
The start was not auspicious. Captain Irwin and the majority of the admirals were against us.
Then, abruptly, the enemy’s works began to crumble. Captain T. T. Craven relieved Captain Irwin and though not with us at first soon became convinced that he was “Director of Aviation” in name only and shifted to our side. Admiral Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, joined us, a brilliant ally. In fact, he had been for the Bureau from the first. Admiral Benson, keen as a whip, began by consigning us to the devil, then became one of our strongest advocates. Franklin Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, came in strongly from the first. When we went to Secretary Daniels and presented our list of credentials he didn’t even make a fight.
“Now what are you going to do?” asked Mr. Daniels.
“Get Congress to pass the bill,” we said, little knowing the size of task we were setting.
The Secretary smiled and dictated for me a strong letter of endorsement for the plan.
My first call “on the hill,” as the Capitol is called, was at the office of Senator Page of Vermont, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee of the Senate. He listened quietly while I told my story. Somewhat to my astonishment he asked some intelligent questions. Men who were not fanatical aviation enthusiasts did not know much about flying then.
“Well, what do you want me to do?” he said at last.
After a quick breath I plunged in. “Call a special meeting of the Naval Affairs Committee and let me make an appeal for a Senator to champion and father the Bureau of Aeronautics Bill,” I told him.
Had the roof fallen in at that moment I should not have been a bit surprised.
The Senator rose, resting his capable hands solidly on his desk as if he had at last come to a weighty conclusion. He looked at me with unblinking eyes. Was I to be committed to an insane asylum for daring to interfere with the routine of so august a body as a senate committee? Or was I only going to be sent to sea at short notice for being an impertinent young upstart?
“Mister Byrd,—” The Senator paused a moment that seemed an hour. “Will Friday do?”
For sending me to a sanitarium or to sea? That was my thought. But I said, in a voice that sounded flat and foolish: “For a meeting of the Committee, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Yes—yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
I got out before I embraced the gentleman from Vermont.
Before the Committee I did better. By that time I began to find out that a senator was a human being like the rest of us, only often a little more human and always more harassed. Also I had “spoken my piece” so many times now that I knew it by heart and could put my sole energy into its delivery. I didn’t exactly win the Committee, but I made a start.
Senator Keyes of Vermont consented to father the bill in the Senate. Then Congressman Hicks got Thomas Butler, Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee and the next ranking member, Fred Britten, on our side. Before I knew it, the Committee approved the bill.
The next task was to get it voted on. There are always hundreds of meritorious bills floating around Congress. But like seeds of the lavish cottonwood, few fall on fallow ground and take root. By some ingenuity our bill’s friends managed to get the floor leader, Frank Mondell, and Martin Madden on the Appropriations Committee, to tack the bill to the Naval Appropriation bill as an amendment. That made a vote sure.
So far I had spent all my time holding myself at the beck and call of the men in whose hands the fate of the bill would lie. I had rushed about the city like a detective looking for clues. I had preyed on my friends and acquaintances until I was about as popular as a case of smallpox. I had nearly worn out my office telephone and one operator had left in disgust at overwork.
Now, I heard at the last minute that one silver-tongued congressman was going to speak against the amendment. People knew so little about aviation in general and naval aviation in particular that any sort of eloquence against the bill had a good chance to kill it.
At the bad news I dashed about in desperation wondering how to head the enemy off. I was not an experienced lobbyist; I knew that I shouldn’t lobby anyhow, but the situation was desperate. At that moment I could think only of the effect of failure on aviation. I didn’t even know who would be a good man to take up the cudgels for the bill on the floor of the house.
I decided to call up Captain Craven to see if he could suggest any one. At the moment I was standing outside the office of Congressman P. P. Campbell, Chairman of the Rules Committee. I went into his outer office and got permission to call Captain Craven. The call was a failure. The Captain couldn’t suggest any one.
Five minutes more and it would be too late. The bill would be up and defeated if some thing couldn’t be done in a hurry. Just then Mr. Campbell came into his office. I didn’t know him. I had no right to accost him. But in desperation I got him to give ear to my story and to the need of the Navy for a Bureau of Aeronautics so that aviation could get a fair chance in our military service.
Even while I was talking the Congressman opposed to the bill began to hold forth on the floor.
Suddenly, to my intense joy, Mr. Campbell held out his hand, with, “You’re absolutely right, young man! Certainly I’ll answer him.”
Whereupon he hastened to the floor of the House and, without preparation other than my jumbled words, launched himself upon a speech so eloquent that it not only carried the day of naval aviation but aroused his colleagues to loud applause.
In the Senate we struck another snag. Senator LaFollette, the elder, had been persuaded by General Mitchell to offer an amendment that would kill the whole thing. It is very easy for one senator to kill such a bill. He was ready to propose that the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics must be an air pilot. On the face of it this was a fine idea. It certainly looked as if the man who would run naval aviation ought to be able to fly. But none of the admirals, such as we should have to have to head the new bureau, had taken up airplane work yet. They all looked upon flying as a young man’s game. The bureau chief could however be an airplane observer and I suggested that substitute.
I went directly to Senator LaFollette. I found to be exactly the strong character I had pictured him. He sat silent as I talked.
“What would you like the bill to say?” he suddenly snapped out at me.
Though taken aback at this unexpected show of consideration I replied: “Strike out the part that requires captains of aircraft carriers and tenders to be flyers, sir, and require the Chief of Bureau of Aeronautics only to be an aviation observer.”
He asked me a few questions to clear up my reasons. Then he thanked me without telling me what he was going to do. I left in some doubt as to whether I had succeeded or not. But I took my troubles to Senator LaFollette’s son, young Bob, who is now senator in his father’s place; he promptly intervened with his father and won the day for us.
The bill passed the Senate without opposition. The Navy at last had a formal Bureau, a complete organization, and one authorized to take care of its aeronautical activities.
Rear Admiral William A. Moffett was made the first Chief of the Bureau. By law his pay was increased 75% for flying. As a result he was the most affluent officer in the Navy, even counting the Vice and full Admirals.
Flying stock went up in the Navy Department. With an Admiral to fight our battles we began to get things done. We soon had more money, safer planes, bigger fields, better experimental laboratory and other lesser things that we so vitally needed. Best of all, we had a well informed group of properly accredited officers to present our case to Congress when aviation matters came up.
The fight was won in the nick of time. General Mitchell had been getting stronger every day. Tirelessly he was working for his one pet idea, that would put army and navy aviation under the control of another department of the government.
Some day, when flying is very far advanced over what it is today, such a service may be justified. But, despite the wonders of aviation, airplane units are just as closely wrapped up with the Navy today as are units of battleships or destroyers or submarines. To be fully competent, officers of each must be intimate with the problems and tasks of officers of all the others. To create a separate air force just now would be to set up a force of officers and men that would tend to lose touch with what constitutes a well-handled naval action on the high seas. As a result there would be lost that fine naval co-ordination which from the days of Nelson has stood for victory.
Mitchell got busy on his plan right after the war. All the time we were struggling for a Bureau of Air he was winning one supporter after another in Congress. Most regular navy officers paid very little attention to what he was doing. They were not interested enough in aviation then to care much whether it was taken away from the Navy or not.
As early as 1919 Mitchell got a hearing for his bill before the Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. The few naval officers who intelligently testified against the bill were impugned as having been swayed against it by insidious propaganda or outright intimidation.
I remember once testifying in a hot session that nearly broke up in a fist fight. Commander Callan of the Reserves followed me on the stand. An ex-army aviator happened to be chairman of the subcommittee before which we stood. Callan fiercely opposed Mitchell’s plan. In refutation of a point that had previously been made by Major Foulois about an army aviator he made a startling statement.
“That aviator, I happen to know,” declared Callan bluntly, “was removed from his post in Europe for incompetency.”
“That aviator” happened to be the chariman before whom we testified.
Instantly the fireworks began. The impugned Congressman shook his finger in Callan’s face. “You’re a liar!” he shouted. “And a coward! You haven’t the guts to do what you ought to do the minute this meeting is over.”
Having been a boxing enthusiast at Annapolis I concluded that I would soon have the fun of participating as second in an old-fashioned fight. But I soon discovered that this sort of thing was just part of the political game. After a bit the rumpus calmed down, “ill-chosen” remarks were expunged from the record and the hearing went on as if nothing had happened.
From that time until 1925, when General Mitchell was suspended from the Army, hearing after hearing was held in Congress to determine the justice of his claims. As early as 1920 he declared that the Army would take over all the Navy’s coastal air patrol stations. He even managed to get a clause to this effect inserted in the Army Appropriation bill. The lethargic conservatives in the Navy Department only half waked up.
I was given the job of getting this clause out of the bill. ‘Senator Wadsworth of New York, Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, agreed to handle the thing for the Navy. Then I took to my bed with another bad attack of influenza. One day as I lay in bed I telephoned Wadsworth to check up.
“Sorry, Byrd,” he said, “but the energetic General Mitchell has already been around to see all the other members of my committee and they now side with him.”
Without bothering to ask the doctor I hopped out of bed, hurried to the Navy Department where I got a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to the senate and orders to represent him. Then I made the round of the Naval committee members just as Mitchell had done with the Committee on Naval Affairs. It was only a matter of giving the facts involved.
When the clause came up on the floor for debate and vote two days later the Navy won, giving me a chance to go back to bed and get well.
All this sounds very simple and easy; just a lot of running around and talking to people. But it was a thankless and nearly always misunderstood job. By some of my shipmates I was looked on as “politician,” a term of mild contempt in the navy. Many thought I was grinding my own ax. Not a few came to the conclusion that we naval aviators were after the same thing as General Mitchell, a separate air force, only we wanted to run it ourselves.
I remember one morning finding a Congressman in his office about to blow up. “A great lot of naval officers you’ve got down there,” he answered. “Damn it, they ought to be all sent to sea! That’s where they should be anyway!”
As this man had just spent a week fighting the Navy’s battles in debate on the floor, I was much concerned. When he calmed down I found he had telephoned the Department for some information about a naval officer from his district. With scant courtesy he was referred from one officer to another, and finally cut off altogether.
I got him to let me man the telephone and in a few minutes had the desired information. Finally I soothed his injured feelings.
When I got back to the Department I reported the incident to the Admiral who headed the particular bureau that had failed the Congressman.
“Bosh!” exploded the Admiral. “Don’t you know that Congress is only a damned nuisance?”
Of course this was an extreme case. But it shows the difficulties and lack of understanding that often exist between the executive and law-making branches of our government. Also it shows some of the barrier of friction that so often slowed the work many were trying to do on behalf of aviation.
Here again knowledge finally made for understanding.
Mitchell did not cease for one moment to try to sink the battleships and bring about a United Air Service. But the violence of his attacks and the extent of his activities finally stirred up the high ranking officers of the Navy whom we young aviators had not been able to influence. Presently we had large reinforcements in rank as well as in numbers.
The finish fight on the United Air Service plan came in 1925. I find in a Congressional Report part of my testimony before the joint committee of Congress which shows my own views. I quote it here as relevant, although it must be remembered that I was only one of many and my part relatively small.
For 40 centuries—ever since the world has known towns and ships—there have been two objectives in warfare: The towns and the ships. This great division of the armed forces of nations is natural since cities are usually attacked and defended by armies, and ships are attacked by sea craft.
Cities and ships can now be approached through the air but the air does not and can not provide a third objective. Therefore no reason exists for a third division of the armed forces of a country. A city can be bombed but can not be captured by aircraft. The Army must be there to take it. Ships can be bombed, but the ships and their personnel can not be taken prisoner by aircraft. The Navy must do that.
There is nothing in the air to attack unless it is put there—then it is only temporarily there. The same is true of the submarine. There can be no objective that exists under the surface of the water to attack except submarines. It does not supply an enemy with a third objective.
Until there is a third objective no reason for a third military department exists.
Our conclusion is clear. Experience has shown beyond peradventure that if the Navy is to reach its maximum war efficiency, it must entirely control its air arm in peace as well as in war.
The forming of a united air service is seen to be so costly that it would place a tremendous financial burden on the country. It would be plain folly, then, to form a department of aeronautics that would not only endanger the effectiveness of our national defense but increase enormously our national yearly expenditure.
With the whole Navy and half the Army against him General Mitchell was finally squashed. In the end he was court-martialed for insubordination and suspended from the Army. I believe he was sincere; but his sincerity was the ruthless pertinacity of a zealot. He did a great deal for aviation, if only by making it a sharp issue before Congress and the country. The valuable appointment of three air secretaries for the Departments of the Army, Navy and Commerce were the direct result of his fight for a separate air service. The trouble was he was ten to twenty years ahead of aviation.
One result of the fight on Capitol Hill was to increase my loyalty and devotion to the Navy. In spite of the general squareness of Congressmen the Navy was at that time often at the mercy of some member from some state that knew nothing of the sea, while the Navy itself had no defense.