 One of the Army's first pilots, General Frank Lomb, received congratulations as father of the West Point of the Air. It soon developed into one of the greatest air bases in the world. To this $10 million Texas Air City came headquarters for the Air Corps Training Center. Randolph eventually became the concrete nest where many of America's World War II Eagles learned to fly. Large-scale maneuvers in 1931 over the northeast quarter of the nation. Veteran flyer General Benjamin Folloy, who was to be named Chief of the Air Corps before the year was out, announced that this was the greatest concentration of Army Air Corps planes ever attempted. We had brought to Dayton, Ohio almost 700 Martin, Keystone, and Curtis two-engine bombers, backed by squadrons of swift-bowing P-12 pursuits. For a nine-day period in successful combat maneuvers, air crews practiced with all types of military aircraft, flying almost 2 million air miles. Outside San Antonio, Texas, the third attack group, one of Hoyt Vandenberg's early outfits, developed techniques to destroy enemy planes on the ground. For targets, they used weary willies, a polite name for worn-out and obsolete aircraft. Each Keystone dropped a string of three bombs. Planes destroyed on the ground can never menace the skies. In the early 30s, President Hoover gained the bowling field to decorate an ace. Air Corps Chief General James Fichet read the citation, honoring Captain Eddie Rickenbacker for his heroism 12 years before in the battle skies over France. For two other heroes, the Air Corps dispatched a non-rigid airship to salute a majestic monument, rising from a stone star on the highest of the Kill Devil Hill, among the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Man's first successful flight was thus fittingly dedicated with a wreath from the sky. Here, the history of man's conquest of the air was inscribed in bronze and granite. At Washington ceremonies, only one brother was alive to hear the distinguished flying cross citation read by Assistant Secretary of War, Truby Davison, and to receive the certificates from Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis. Orville accepted for Wilbur as well as himself. Together, they had built a machine which influenced the course of history. While America engaged in peaceful pursuits, on the other side of the globe, the Japanese military machine was preparing for war. Her army and air force swarmed over Manchuria, and aggression exploded. Japanese airplanes and ground troops in the fall of 1931 began an unwarranted attack on Manchuria, the beginning of world conflict. In the States, we agents of the Indian Bureau had asked the water department to help us get food to the snowbound Navajo tribes in Arizona. The 11th Bomb Squad came to us from March Field. After the flyers wrapped these supplies in blankets and fastened them to the bomb shackles, they hung the mercy bundles inside the planes like bombs. Near a line of Curtis bombers, we pointed out the first trading post on the map. Pilots called it the target. It was easy to see that this winter of 32 was a man killer as we flew north past Navajo mountain. Traveling 133 miles an hour in open planes at zero temperatures, we searched the mesa. There it is, the big logs in the middle of the state fence. Flying low, the pilot put the B-2 condor on the bomb rod. Skimming over the foothills, it felt like we'd surely graze those trees on the ridge. There go the mercy bombs. It was magic. Machines designed for killing an enemy were saving our friends. We almost tripped on our own shadow as we waved goodbye and headed back. Agents on the scene reported that by dropping 15 tons of supplies, the air corps had saved entire families. Our aviators engaged in peaceful pursuits. At the same time, there were war rumblings in Europe. While we flew missions of mercy, an ominous voice was threatening the peace of the world. One of us in America had made the mistake of laughing at this at all. From 1933 on, his leaders made their party bay in the city of Nuremberg a tremendous spectacle. The Nazis had finally come into power. These very same kids were to face Allied armies, navies and air forces only a short time later. Within six years, as Germany's war master and Luftwaffe, they threatened the freedom of all the world. Charges that the United States Post Office Department was paying exorbitantly high rates to commercial lines for carrying the nation's air mail. Contracts were canceled, and by presidential direction, Postmaster General James A. Farley signed the order turning the job over to the Army Air Corps, which had pioneered flying the mail. In obsolete planes, including open cockpit fighters and trainers, we maintained day and night air mail schedules. In spite of weather and the lack of equipment, the men of the Air Corps tackled the job as though flying the mail was a series of combat missions. Operating from airfields which still used World War I searchlights and flying without a beacon system, crashes were inevitable. The nation wondered how the Air Corps could ever carry bombs if it couldn't carry mail. But investigations disclosed that if we had been given the planes, personnel and training funds for which we battled all those years, we could have done this or any job. The 30s also began to see a change in Army aircraft design. Sleek monoplanes, all metal construction. General Falloy had urged the aviation industry to compete in the building of a fast bomber. And Boeing delivered the 163-mile-an-hour B9. The same year, Boeing took a powerful 600-horsepower Bratton Whitney engine and strapped on the rugged 24-foot saddle. They called the result a P-26. These first all-metal pursuit monoplanes were still on hand nine years later when the Philippine Air Force tried to use them against the Japs. Pitted against the B9, the Boeing fighter and bomber put each other through their paces. Kicking up a top speed of 230 miles-an-hour, it easily outstripped the B9 bomber and many other planes of the period. Another entry in the bomber competition was Martin's early version of the B-10, also a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane. It had a waste gun, a nose gun, and an efficient bomb bay which could close on a 2,000-pound argument. This armament, plus a 1,300-mile range, made it the most powerful bomber of the time, while its speed of 207 miles-an-hour made it the fastest in the world. An excellent trial for the new B-10s came in 1934 when Lieutenant Colonel Hap Arnold and Majors Hugh Neur and Ralph Royce led 27 officers and men on a long-range test flight. Takeoff, Washington, D.C. Destination, Fairbanks, Alaska. Mission to fly over extensive Alaskan territory, photograph strategic landing areas, determine the feasibility of sending an Air Force to Alaska in an emergency, and report on frontier defense. On the return trip from Juneau to Seattle, the crews flew nonstop through fog and rainstorms 990 miles. Thus, as early as 1934, the Air Corps proved that it was technically possible for an enemy to bomb the United States from the Arctic. After reaching Washington, the Alaskan fliers were honored at Bowling Field. Later in new trials, the Army Air Corps set out to prove that B-10s could operate under extreme Arctic conditions. During back-breaking exercises, picked crews battled freezing equipment as they tried to operate their planes and weapons in sub-zero temperatures. Lessons learned in these cold-weather tests proved invaluable seven years later when Japan reached for the United States via Alaska. While the new bombers hadn't a sense moved America's frontier to Alaska, they also demonstrated that should the need ever arise, their same frontier could receive aid by air. At West Point, where the Army's future officers were schooled, the only flight training for cadets up to June 1935 was the time they put in flying over the hurdles during cavalry maneuvers. But the Class of 36 was the first to start aviation indoctrination. To Mitchell Field, New York, came 279 cadets in three separate groups, under command of Air Training Officer Major Omar N. Bradley. Each group prepared to stay a week to get 20 hours of flying, along with extensive ground courses from Army and Air Corps experts like Air Officer Lieutenant Colonel Walter H. Frank. In this first detachment were future colonels Richard Carmichael, Clinton True, Gordon Austin, and Benjamin Davis, among others. They studied aircraft familiarization, gunnery, and engines. Before long, orders of the day called the names for the first flight, cadets trailing their waltzing Matilda's. Engines were warming up as the cadets climbed aboard, bucking the slipstream. Pilots took the controls in the line of obsolescent LB-6 bombers taxied off the hard stand. At Mitchell, the runway was a cleared field where the big planes formed a huge oval, treating the West Pointers to an air court made prior to taking off. After flying over New York City, the lead keystone bomber headed due north toward the point. Gunnery familiarization was on the curriculum, as was instrument reading, cross country, formation flying, and navigation. Then massed the three flights rowed up the Hudson River to salute the United States Military Academy at West Point. In the years between wars, the Army Air Corps continued to make progress, and U.S. Army Chief of Staff reports began to attach greater importance to military aviation. Squadrons exercised as real fighting units, with the general staff finally conceding that the air arm might be utilized for independent operations. As the next film chapter will show, hopes of big bomber advocates boom during a period of alarming developments on the world scene. In this prelude to war, weapons for American defensive strength and long-range striking power were being developed and proved by the United States Air Force.