For 102 days in 1934, the Army Air Corps flew domestic air mail routes, assigned to the job by an Executive Order from the White House. It followed a year-long investigation that alleged fraud and collusion among the dozen or so airlines that hauled the mail for a subsidy of 54¢ per mile flown.

It was not a new experience for the military fliers. Air mail service in the US had been started by the Army on 15 May 1918. By August that year, the flights were transferred to the supervision of the Post Office Department and civilian pilots were hired to fly the planes.

Private carriers started flying some mail and making connections between Post Office routes in 1920, but it took government action to transfer all the business to private hands. In June 1927, the airlines started to phase in their air mail work, and by 31 December 1927, the government was out of the business and private enterprise was flying the mail.

Major General Foulois was asked on 9 February 1934 if the Air Corps could carry the mail in the event that domestic air mail contracts were cancelled. Foulois answered yes, but it would take four to six weeks to get ready. When he reported to General Douglas MacArthur later that day, he was handed the Executive Order, dated 9 February directing the airlines to stop carrying the mail just 10 days later.

Foulois faced a formidable task. The airlines were moving about 3,000,000 lb (1,360,800 kg) of mail each year with a fleet of about 500 airplanes, operating over a route network of more than 25,000 miles (40,234 km). The Army Air Corps had about 250 airplanes that could fly the routes, but they were obsolescent at best. The Corps' pilots were inexperienced in night and bad-weather flying. Facilities were limited, and the chosen aircraft had some serious deficiencies in instrumentation.

19 February brought a long period of foul weather over most of the country. Inevitably, there were crashes, and some of them were fatal. There was a press outcry, and public reaction, followed by Congressional investigations. The popular perception then—a wrong one—remains even today in a belief that the Air Corps' carriage of the mail was a tremendous fiasco during which planes rained out of the skies and crashed in flames.