In
memoranda dated 8 September and 20 November 1950,
GEN Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army,
requested the USAF concur in deleting the weight
limitations on Army aircraft. The chief of staff of
the USAF, GEN Hoyt S. Vandenberg, proposed instead
that the USAF create helicopter assault squadrons to
transport Army troops into battle. In the meantime,
Congress approved funds for the Army to buy H-19 and
Piasecki H-21 cargo helicopters. The funds were
transferred to the USAF for procurement, but the
USAF refused to let contracts for the aircraft.
Meanwhile, the USAF began planning its own assault
helicopter squadron to support the Army.
The Army proceeded developing several plans for
transportation helicopter fleets of various sizes.
One tentative plan was for “a total requirement of
20,000 [helicopters], of which 10,600 were to be
financed in 1951 and 1952.
The Chief of Transportation Corps proposed 3,000
cargo helicopters be acquired within 3 years.
According to another plan, one helicopter company
would be required for each division and one
helicopter battalion for each corps.
In response to USAF objections to various ambitious
Army cargo helicopter plans, the secretary of the
Army ordered the development of a reconsidered Army
program. The Material Requirements Review Panel
consequently developed a procurement program calling
for enough helicopters to equip 15 cargo helicopter
battalions.
The Army chief of staff scaled down the
recommendations of the review panel, recommending 12
battalions of 67 helicopters each. Under this plan,
which was formally finalized early in 1953, actual
procurement was to extend through fiscal year 1959.
In 1951 and early 1952, however, the immediate Army
objective for cargo helicopters was to acquire
enough to equip 5 of 10 companies with 21 aircraft
each. As of November 1951, 97 H-19s and 85 H-21s
were scheduled for purchase with 1951 and 1952
funds, and 80 H-19s with 1953 funds.
Even this modest requirement proved to be a problem
– partly perhaps because of the suspicions
fostered by the more ambitious plans being
considered, but also because most USAF leaders were
opposed adamantly to any expansion of the Army
Aviation mission. The chiefs of staff and the
secretaries of the Army and USAF met on 18 February
1951 to discuss the Army’s helicopter requirements
and existing weight limitations. The USAF expressed
alarm about the projected Army helicopter fleet of
20,000 aircraft.
USAF leaders professed to be especially concerned
about costs, production capabilities of the
industry, and USAF responsibility for providing air
cover for so many Army aircraft.
Army leaders professed to have no knowledge of the
figures cited by the USAF, but agreed to reconsider
the Army’s various estimates of its requirements.
In return, USAF leaders agreed to purchase and
allocate to the Army, “on and experimental
basis,” the 72 H-19s and 33 H-21s the Army had
requisitioned.
Army and USAF leaders agreed that 110 cargo
helicopters were to be allocated without changing
the weight limitations on Army aircraft. Any
modification of those limitations would be
determined through further negotiations – to take
place after the Army completed experiments with
cargo helicopters and decided on the number of
helicopters actually required.
In August 1951, however, the acting secretary of the
USAF notified the secretary of the Army that the
procurement action had been delayed. The USAF
restudied the entire Army Aviation program in light
of its apparent violation of the “spirit and
intent” of the National Security Act of 1947, the
Key West Agreement and the JAAF Adjustment
Regulations 5-10-1.
The USAF spokesman contended the size and quantities
of aircraft requisitioned by the Army could not be
justified to perform the Army’s “emergency” or
“limited” responsibilities. However, this was
true only for those missions for which primary
responsibility had been assigned to the USAF. Both
“aeromedical evacuation and cargo supply,” he
observed, were primarily USAF functions.
A couple of months later in the Army-USAF Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) of 1951, the USAF agreed to
eliminate weight restrictions on Army aircraft.
According to the MOU, the mission of Army Aviation
was defined solely by function.
The authorized function for cargo helicopters was
Army aircraft could transport “supplies,
equipment, and small units within the combat
zone.” The combat zone was defined as normally not
exceeding “50 to 75 miles in depth.”
The 1951 MOU stipulated the USAF was “assigned the
primary functions of supplying the necessary airlift
to the Army.” Furthermore, the Army’s plan to
give the transportation helicopter companies an air
assault-type mission was apparently squelched by a
statement in the MOU that Army aircraft would not
duplicate functions of the USAF in providing the
Army with “assault transport and other troop
carrier airlift.”
Even with the agreement signed, the Army was still
unable to obtain any cargo helicopters. Some
analysts attribute the problem partially to a lack
of total commitment within Army leadership for the
expenditures necessary for an expanded helicopter
program.
Also, there was undeniably a shortage of cargo
helicopters during the Korean Conflict. Before the
war, R&D had been neglected, and production
languished. After hostilities began, the military
services were competing for all helicopters industry
could produce.
The Marine Corps had developed aerial supply and
aerial assault doctrine before the Korean Conflict
began. The Corps obtained new cargo helicopters
during the early months of the war.
A Marine helicopter transport squadron, HMR-161,
arrived in Korea 2 September 1951; it conducted its
first helicopter logistical support mission in
combat 11 days later. In Operation Summit on 20
September, the squadron carried out the first
airborne assault by helicopters in the history of
warfare.
The Army was at a particular disadvantage in
obtaining cargo helicopters because of its
dependence on the USAF for procurement. The Army’s
problems in obtaining cargo helicopters
unquestionably resulted in large measure from its
rivalry with the USAF.
Having become alarmed by the plans within some Army
circles to create a large helicopter fleet and to
use it for aerial assault and transport purposes,
the USAF was creating its own helicopter assault
squadrons to eliminate any reason for the Army to do
so. As helicopters became available, they were
purchased by other services or by the USAF for its
own use.
In January 1952, the vice chief of staff of the Army
urged the USAF chief of staff to provide enough
helicopters for the Army’s planned transportation
companies. He asserted these companies would not
duplicate functions performed by the USAF. They
would be operating only within the combat zone and
performing functions normally performed by Army
ambulances and truck companies.
He further observed there was no requirement then
for USAF rotary-wing support of the Army within the
combat zone, so some of the helicopters the USAF was
acquiring could be turned over to the Army.
The USAF vice chief of staff responded in February
that, according to the 1951 MOU, the Army’s use of
helicopters was “secondary to the primary USAF
function of supplying the Army with its required
airlift.”
Therefore, the USAF must prepare itself to provide
logistical air support to the Army before allocating
“identical critical equipment to the Army for use
in performing a limited secondary function.” The
USAF vice chief of staff added that one H-19 had
already been provided to the Army and another would
be delivered within a month.
During March 1952, both the vice chief of staff and
the secretary of the USAF reiterated that the
Army’s aerial support role was secondary, while
that of the USAF was primary. They also observed
there was a severe shortage of cargo helicopters and
that the next six H-19s completed had been earmarked
for the Tactical Air Command (TAC). TAC would use
them “to organize, train, and partially equip an
assault unit.”
The USAF, they added, was programming for both
fixed- and rotary-wing assault groups to support the
Army in the combat zone.
Instead of responding to the USAF secretary and vice
chief of staff, Army Secretary Frank Pace, Jr.
called together a high-level group of Army military
and civilian personnel on 25 June. They agreed at
that meeting to –
- Compare the Army helicopter program with that of
the Marine Corps and decide whether further
expansion of the Army program for fiscal year 1954
was justified.
- Consider recommending to the secretary of defense
(SECDEF) the creation of a single independent
authority to resolve differences among services
involving helicopters.
- Analyze the Army procedures for helicopter R&D
to determine whether some change, possibly including
and agreement with the U.S. Navy, would be
advisable.
It appears at least some of the decisions made at
the June meeting were acted on and USAF leaders
became informed of them. Also, the Army chief of
staff introduced the Army helicopter program and the
USAF plans to organize assault squadrons in
duplication of the Army units as a subject to
consider at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
in September 1952.
I suspect it is not entirely coincidental the Army
received its first allocation of 21 H-19C cargo
helicopters during this time (late summer of 1952).
Another 50 H-19s were delivered before the end of
the year.
Secretary Pace addressed a long memorandum dated 3
October 1952 to SECDEF outlining the Army’s
requirements for cargo helicopters to transport
supplies and personnel within the combat zone. He
made the Army’s use of transportation helicopters
analogous to the earlier use of mules and trucks.
The Army secretary objected strongly to the USAF
interpretation of the 1951 MOU and to the USAF’s
plans to provide air transportation within the
combat zone to the Army.
The USAF, he argued, had not provided such services
to the Army in the past. The advent of the
helicopter had permitted the Army to organize three
helicopter companies to partially replace earlier
modes of transportation within the combat zone.
Instead of supplying required helicopters to the
Army, the USAF had then proceeded to duplicate the
Army’s program by creating its own helicopter
squadrons.
Secretary Pace also made a case for the concept the
Army would later refer to as airmobility.
“A corollary tactical development,” he wrote,
“ is the increased use of infiltration or vertical
envelopment as a supplemental to lateral
envelopment. To perform or to counteract such
operations, Army units must be able to operate
independently and must have a mobility which ground
transportation cannot provide.”
Secretary Pace further contended it was just as
essential for the ground commander to hace command
and control (C2) over helicopters used in tactical
and logistical operations in forward areas as it was
for him to have C2 over ground vehicles used for the
same purposes.
In compliance with a directive from the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, a new MOU between the Army and the USAF
was negotiated and signed on 4 November 1952.
Although aerial assault mission continued to be
withheld, the memorandum was otherwise generally
according to the recommendations of Secretary Pace.
The 1952 MOU redefined the combat zone to extend
normally from 50 to 100 miles in depth. This MOU
also clearly gave the Army authority to conduct
aeromedical evacuation, but only to points within
the combat zone.
More significantly for our purposes here, the 1952
MOU gave the Army exclusive authority for the
“transportation of Army supplies, equipment,
personnel, and small units within the combat
zone.” The USAF was prohibited from procuring
aircraft for purposes that would duplicate combat
area functions assigned to the Army.
The USAF retained responsibility for air transport
of troops and supplies in aerial assault and later
phases of airborne operations. After the Army was
prohibited from providing this service for itself,
however, it seems the USAF discontinued development
of the planned aerial assault squadrons.
