<text id=00he1206><title>Unification and Separation</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Unification and Separation</hdr><body>
<p>The establishment of a separate, co-equal Department of the Air Force was an idea that had been suggested many times before, and attempts had been made to obtain legislation to that end as far back as 1916. By the end of World War II, the United States Army Air Forces were, for all practical purposes, an independent service. Neither of the senior services challenged that position, nor would they have done so given the exigencies of the wartime situation. The USAAF, in turn, was wise enough not to push too hard and too fast for the recognition it had long sought. The war provided the opportunity for all the services to concentrate on a single goal most of the time, and gave them a chance to learn how to work together in combined operations that tested all their resources and skills.
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<p>This gentlemen's agreement was due to end, legally, six months after the end of the war. The USAAF would, like Cinderella, transform into its old status when time ran out.
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<p>Most of the support for a co-equal Air Force came from the Army, and most of the opposition came from the Navy. Both of those services had studied the problem, informally and formally, and had come up with different conclusions. The Army endorsed the concept of a single unified service structure in a formal plan to Congress in March 1944. The Navy said that was not the way to go.
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<p>The next move was made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who appointed a committee of senior Army and Navy officers and charged them with the task of evaluating three variations on the overall organization of the national defense. Their final recommendation, dated March 1945, was for a single Department of Defense, subdivided into three co-equal services: Army, Navy and Air Force. The committee also suggested that action be taken soon, because of the six-month limitation on the legality of the wartime status of the USAAF.
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<p>The Navy did its own study later that year and found that there ought to be three departments, one each of War, Navy and Air, but not a single Department of Defense. The Army weighed in with its own report in October 1945, recommending a single Department of Armed Forces.
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<p>Congressional hearings on legislation introduced during 1945 to the same basic end produced a parade of witnesses, for and against, and a failure to report out a single bill by the end of the year.
