Airplanes

Under the Army Air Corps Act of 1926, the Army Air Corps (AAC; later, the Army Air Forces, AAF) was the authorization to carry out a 5-year expansion program with a minimum of 2,200 airplanes for the Army and replacements of 400 per year, an insufficient number to replace units lost to obsolescence and crashes. The goal eventually adopted was 1,800 serviceable airplanes for the Army (1,000 for the Navy) with 1,650 officers and 15,000 enlisted men, to be reached in regular increments over the 5-year period. However, this modest increase never came about because adequate funds were never appropriated. Legislation of June 24, 1936 increased the AAC to 2,320 serviceable airplanes. However, actual air strength remained below 1,800 serviceable airplanes through 1939. Wars in Europe and Asia in 1938 and intelligence provided by returning businessmen from German convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the US must rearm and airplanes must be increased substantially. Under his direction, Congress authorized 6,000 airplanes and the president signed the bill on April 26, 1939. April. With the start of WWII in Europe on September 1, 1939, the airplane industry now was suddenly overloaded with orders from the US, UK, France and Russia. The effective use of airplanes by the Japanese and Germans during the early part of the war reinforced the American military view that airplanes were the key to military victory. However, on the eve of World War II in Europe, the Army Air Forces was severely behind the Axis in numbers and design. In response to Germany's conquering all of western Europe except the UK by June, 1940, the Congress and president authorize a defense budget of $1.3 billion to include 50,000 airplanes. ^{Holley 48-246} The expansion of airplane manufacturing and the construction of airfields, air training and air bases was soon begun. Ultimately, Americans would produce 296,000 airplanes for the US and its Allies during the war. The only way to quickly build so many airplanes was to quadruple the existing plant capacity. There would not be enough available workers at the existing plants, so new plants for existing companiies had to be built where labor was available. Thus Douglas built a new plant at Oklahoma City, Consolidated at Fort Worth, North American at Dallas, Curtiss at Columbus and Cincinnati, Martin at Omaha, Bell at Marietta. ^{Arnold 203}

Aircraft Production, by type