Looking Skyward

The twentieth century's first decades were a time of enormous technological achievement that had profound influences on the modern battlefield. The invention of the airplane and its subsequent adaptation for military use inarguably changed the face of twentieth-century warfare. It was during this dynamic period that America's earliest airmen began to articulate ideas on how air power might best be used and what its presence might mean to the future conduct of war. These thoughts represented the barest beginnings of an airminded culture in the U.S. military. In addition to defining what American soldiers knew and believed about aviation, this culture eventually founded the professional impetus for a separate air arm. Thus, a study of the ideas put forth by these first airmen is an important historical endeavor, lending a more complete understanding of the development of American airpower. This essay relies primarily on articles that appeared in contemporary professional journals and popular periodicals. Airmen laid out a collective argument from which emerge several identifiable themes-crude tenets about the application of airpower as a weapon of war. Conclusions posit these themes as the reflection of a coherent airminded perspective and discuss their historical relevance as a benchmark for later efforts to further develop American air power.