Evolving U.S. Air Force celebrates its birthday

On Sept. 18, 1947, President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, and in doing so, the United States Air Force (USAF) was created as a new separate military branch. Until this action, the USAF was a division of the U.S. Army and had been so since the adoption of aircraft Aug. 1, 1907. This was only four years after the Wright brothers had made their first flight at Kitty Hawk.

The National Security Act of 1947 was a post World War II major restructuring of the U.S. military and of the national intelligence services. The Department of War was renamed the Department of the Army, and it was combined with the Department of the Navy, while the Army Air Force became the Department of the Air Force and all became elements of the Department of Defense. The Act also created the first civilian intelligence service called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as the National Security Agency (NSA).

The actual creation of the U.S. Air Force was only begun on Sept. 18, 1947. The creation of the Air Force, including aircraft and all of the personnel, air bases, support and maintenance functions, and all other elements of the former Army Air Force needed to be included in the transfer to the new military branch. This was a complicated series of events that included 200 separate orders to complete the transfer, with the final transfer order signed June 22, 1949.

Perhaps none of the military branches has been affected by scientific and technological advances to the same degree as the USAF. The USAF has moved into space, and its aircraft inventory now includes radar-evading aircraft as well as remote-controlled aircraft. The latest fighter bomber aircraft have capabilities that were not even imagined by most people when the USAF was created in 1947.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.