<p>For the two decades between the wars, proponents of air power fought their battles, sometimes in silence, sometimes loudly and publicly. During those 20 years, they endured the decimation of demobilization, statements of missions that placed air power in a very subordinate position to infantry, innumerable arguments with the establishment of the Army, Navy and War Department, and internal dissension between the protagonists of a separate air force and those who were convinced that it was wise to stay as a combat arm of the Army.
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<p>These proponents suffered very tight budgetary restraints, a worldwide depression and a national revulsion against total war and the mass bombing of cities. They survived more than 15 public investigations and hearings, helped sponsor—and saw fail—a dozen pieces of legislation proposing a Department of Aeronautics and 17 bills proposing a single and unified Department of Defense, and rearranged their structure in accordance with two major reorganization acts affecting the Army and its air service.
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<p>Their training and operational experience was poor, and it showed in the limited tactical exercises conducted in the field, and especially and publicly in what has been interpreted falsely as the fiasco of the 1934 air mail affair. Their leading spokesman. the charismatic Billy Mitchell, was exiled and disgraced by court martial, yet eventually vindicated.
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<p>Strangely, public support of aviation was never higher than during those years. Starting with Captain Charles A. Lindbergh's solo crossing of the Atlantic in May 1927, public enthusiasm built with each successive record flight. Radio broadcasts and movie newsreels chronicled the adventures of brave and daring airmen, both civilian and military.
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<p>When the decades ended in the roar of artillery fire and the clangor of tank engines across the Polish border in September 1939, the air arm had accomplished much. It had achieved a degree of independence with an Air Corps-controlled tactical offensive strike force, then called the General Headquarters Air Force. It had evolved a basic strategic doctrine that was the cornerstone for its future building. And it had completed the acquisition process that gave the Air Corps its first strategic bomber design.
