<text id=00he0301><title>The US Joins the War</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>The US Joins the War</hdr><body>
<p>The United States declared war on 6 April 1917. The only experienced US air unit was the 1st Aero Squadron, tested in fruitless pursuit of a remarkable Mexican guerrilla leader. Their antique airplanes should have been condemned as scrap. At the war's beginning, the US ranked 14th among air powers of the world. In the 14 years since the invention of the airplane by two Americans, the United States had let its potential in the skies fall into other hands.
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<p>The Army saw no real importance in aviation and expected that it would play a relatively insignificant part in the conflict. There were no approved plans for its use, no approved programs to build its strength. The in-service force was pathetic: about 100 pilots, perhaps 125 planes in commission, and not one of them fit for rough service, let alone combat. There were fewer balloons than the Union armies had in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. The aviation industry was a handful of companies who had delivered about 15 per cent of their orders in the year before the war, and were hopelessly behind the very modest production schedules established for trainer aircraft.
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<p>But by 6 April 1917, a few American airmen had been fighting in France for a year. The pilots were volunteers, members of the French Escadrille N.124 'Lafayette', perhaps the most famous squadron in military history. For a year after their country entered the war, these airmen were the only Americans to see aerial combat and to profit from the terrible experience. Formed in April 1916, the 'Lafayette' Escadrille was a major influence on the development of US pursuit aviation. It taught a nucleus of American airmen who later led other squadrons or contributed their expertise to the air fighting. By its publicized example, it probably was a recruiting aid. But in spite of all these positive contributions to the American air arm, it was long after the declaration of war before any formal action was taken to welcome the 'Lafayette' pilots into their own country's air service and to use their expertise. They were commissioned in the US Signal Corps on 18 February 1918, and the 'Lafayette' Escadrille became the 103rd Aero Squadron that day.
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<p>The pace of that transfer was typical of the measured march that moved American airmen to the war. When the first American-trained aircrews arrived in Europe in early 1918, ready to fly and fight, they found that many of their cast-off aircraft had arrived from training bases and were not only unarmed but also in bad repair; that machine guns were not available to install on the pursuit planes; that their pilot training had been sadly lacking in any of the aspects of air combat, including gunnery.
