On 2 January 1942, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) William W. Ford became director of air training at Fort Sill, OK, for
the purpose of training a group of licensed pilots in the techniques of
aerial artillery spotting from small aircraft. Ford selected Major (MAJ)
Gordon J. Wolf, a Field Artillery reservist, as his executive officer.
First Lieutenant (1LT) Robert R.
Williams and Second Lieutenant (2LT) Delbert L. Bristol assisted Ford and
Wolf in setting up the program. Nine civilian flight instructors also joined
the team.
Training began on 15 January at Fort
Sill’s Post Field with 24 Piper Cub J-3 airplanes furnished by the AAF.
The students, who have come to be known as "Class Before One,"
consisted of both officers and enlisted men. At Fort Sill, they were trained
in both tactical flying and airplane maintenance. For artillery spotting,
they had to learn to fly low and slow: low in order to avoid hostile
aircraft and slow in order to land on the shortest possible landing strip.
Upon completion of the training on 28
February, the detachment was divided into two groups for the tests.
Flight A consisted of six officers and
eight enlisted men. It was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and then to
Camp Blanding, Florida, for tests with the 13th Field Artillery
Brigade.
Flight B consisted of MAJ Wolf, six
other officers, and seven enlisted men. It was sent to Fort Sam Houston,
Texas, for tests with the 2d Infantry Division artillery. LTC Ford divided
his time between the two groups.
In tests, the Piper Cubs operated by
artillery officers performed fully as well as their advocates expected.
Several advantages of the light aircraft were clearly demonstrated. Piper
Cubs were easy to operate and maintain; they could be easily dismantled for
ground movement; and they could take off from and land on unimproved strips.
The tests also demonstrated the
effectiveness of close contact between pilots and ground commanders and of
providing maintenance training to pilots. The validity of the organic light
aircraft concept was proven.
The tests were completed in late April
of 1942. At that time, Brigadier General Mark Clark, chief of staff to the
commander of the AGF, Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, approved the test
reports and recommended the establishment of organic air observation for
Field Artillery. The memoranda of 6 June 1942 resulted from this
recommendation.
The Department of Air Training was
established in the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill a few days after the
War Department memoranda of June. The original training staff consisted of
most of the people involved in the test group, including LTC Ford and MAJ
Wolfe, who continued as director and executive officer, respectively. The
first tactical flight training class, "Class One," began in early
August 1942.
Maintenance was an important part of
organic Army Aviation training from the beginning. The first class for
mechanics began in July 1942. LT Marion J. Fortner, an aeronautical engineer
and a member of the Class Before One, was primarily responsible for the
development of maintenance courses for both pilots and mechanics.
Initially, all tactical flight
training students already had civilian pilot licenses. As the supply of
licensed pilot ran out, the AAF, which had responsibility for providing
rated pilots to the AGF, contracted with civilian companies to conduct
primary flight instruction.
The primary training phase consisted
of 9 weeks of liaison pilot training at Pittsburg, KS, and Denton, TX. After
primary flight instruction, the new pilots received from 5 to 10 weeks of
advanced tactical training in the Department of Air Training at Fort Sill.
