Celebrating a century of aviation achievement: a salute to the pioneers.

Dr James G. Roche, secretary of the Air Force Remarks to the Centennial of Flight Symposium, Bush School of Government and Public Service, College Station, Texas, Oct 29, 2003

Thank you Dr. Vedlitz for your warm remarks and that gracious introduction. I want to salute you and your great team at the Bush School--and our team from the Air Force History and Museums program--for putting together this intriguing and memorable event. As an avid student of history, as an airman, and as an American, I couldn't be more honored with the privilege of opening this symposium.

We have several special guests with us this week, one of the founders of space operations, General Bernard Schriever, is with us. And, later this week, the former President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, will join us. It is fitting that we should be talking about aviation pioneers this week, because these two great Americans embody the finest examples of the spirit and vision of those responsible for a century of aviation achievement. I, for one, am always humbled to be in their company.

During this program, we will celebrate and recollect the leadership, innovation, and accomplishments of the airmen who have made the past 100 years a century that could fairly be described as the first Century of humankind's ascent into the third dimension. We will explore the historical conditions, philosophies, and the training of airmen that resulted in airpower's rise to prominence during conflict throughout the century. And, we will hear perspectives on the founders and influential pioneers who forged an independent air arm and, through the power of their impassioned leadership, built a legacy of airmen who have fought bravely in our nation's wars since earliest days of powered flight. It is an exciting agenda and one that should prove educational as well as inspirational. I salute you for bringing together such a distinguished group of speakers--present company excepted--leaders, and scholars on the past, present, and future of air and space power.

Just a couple of miles up Washington Boulevard from my office at the Pentagon, and adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, is Fort Myer, home of the Old Guard and site of one of the formative events that led to the development of a military air arm. It was there on Sept. 17, 1908 that the Wright Brothers first introduced us to a new invention that would change the conduct of warfare in the 20th century. On that day, they demonstrated their new military flyer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. It was clear to all present that powered flight offered a new medium from which to project power and conduct military operations. From these humble beginnings, we can trace the wonder of the F/A-22 Raptor, a technical marvel that is transforming the way we think about aerial and ground combat, and the application of technology to warfighting.

When President Taft invited the Wrights to come to the White House in 1909 to accept gold medals from the U.S. Congress, the Smithsonian, and the Aero Club of America, he said of the Wright brothers, "You made this discovery by a course that we in America feel is distinctly American, by keeping your nose right at the job until you had accomplished what you had determined to do."

The achievements of the men and women aviators of this century--in the military, in civilian aviation, in industry, and in the minds of great thinkers--were born of a similarly determined pursuit. And from this relentless quest for innovation and exploration, we have created a remarkable capability for our armed forces and our nation.

From those unassuming beginnings at Kitty Hawk and Fort Myer, airmen have performed brilliantly on the front lines of our nation's battles: Mitchell in his victory at the San Mihiel salient in World War I; Doolittle in his dramatic, fearless and important raid against Japan in 1942; thousands of airmen in 8th and 15th Air Forces who gave their lives to liberate Europe; the partnership of Arnold and Quesada with Patton and Bradley, as well as McArthur and Kenney.

In the last half of this century, America's airmen have continued to provide security for our citizens, assured our allies, and deterred our enemies. From the Berlin airlift to the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, air and space power has contributed to the security of our citizens and has spread the promise of peace and freedom around the globe.

In our most recent conflict, our joint forces moved more swiftly and decisively than virtually at any other time in our history, and our air-ground coordination and close air support were comparable to the historic cooperation demonstrated in the breakout of Normandy in 1944. In the future, historians will be saying the names Moseley and McKiernan in the same breath as those leaders who preceded them in conflict in northern France. Their accomplishments demonstrated our success in returning to the close relationships and integrated capabilities of that era.

It is my great honor to represent the 700,000 active, guard, reserve and civilian men and women of the Air Force; those dedicated "airmen" who continue to serve in retirement; and those in the aerospace industry who make the delivery of air and space power their life's work. They are all "airmen." And our nation remains free today as a result of their bravery, excellence, and selfless service. General Jumper and I are indeed proud to lead these patriots who have chosen service to their nation as their life's work.

During the past 100 years--a century of exceptional advances in science, technology, and industry--warfare has changed more dramatically than during any century in the history of humankind. While countless innovations over the millennia have increased the lethality of warfare, perhaps none has advanced our military capabilities more than air and space power.

In this century of aviation achievement, countless leaders have played an influential role in advocating and promoting the capabilities of air and space power. Yet, while we recall the many towering figures of aviation history, we should never forget those many airmen whose contributions may not appear in the headlines of popular history books, but to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for recognizing the vitality of this new medium.

One of those early pioneers is not someone about whom we usually hear. He wasn't an American, nor was he an aviator. Yet, he influenced both the development of the Royal Air Force and the strategies of World War II. This "aviation pioneer," Jan Christian Smuts, was a South African military officer. Jan Smuts was not only a statesman and a soldier, he was a man of daunting intellect who counted among his friends Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi. During the First World War, he excelled as a field general in the Southwest African campaign and also served on the Imperial War Cabinet. He assisted in the development of the League of Nations. Later, in 1941, he was promoted to Field Marshal of the British Army.

Among his many contributions to allied strategy and operations, the most significant was his work that led to early British recognition of the efficacy of airpower as a strategic weapon to wage war. In 1917, based on his research and an influential, far-sighted report, the British formed the Royal Air Force as the world's first independent air service. But more important than this development, the Smuts' Report sowed the seeds for a prominent role for airpower in the next war, and drove aviation development, strategy, and training for more than two decades.

Writing in 1917, General Smuts' vision of airpower's potential was prescient: "'there is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future independent war use. And the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centers on a vast scale may become the principal operations of war'."

Sir Hugh Trenchard, a student of Douhet and the first RAF Chief of Air Staff, adopted this philosophy as his own and made it the dominant theme governing the development of Britain's independent air arm for the next 20 years. With advocates of airpower winning victories in America as well, the early ideas promoted by Smuts'--among others--found a fertile field for growth and development. But, the British made a terrible mistake in how they handled Naval aviation after World War I.

In 1926, in the U.S., Major General Mason Patrick, then Chief of the U.S. Army Air Service, was successful in establishing an Army Air Corps, not fully independent, but more prestigious and autonomous than its predecessor. Brigadier General Billy Mitchell's campaign to promote the utility of bombardment as a tool of our nation's defense--in line with Smuts' view--later gained the support of Presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt in his 1932 campaign. Roosevelt's early support as a candidate was transformed to bold action as president when he pushed for a greatly expanded airpower capability prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, where the airplane's role in combat would expand beyond the imagination of all but its most enthusiastic advocates. Although the realities of warfare would later force changes to the tactics of strategic bombing advocates, the early ideas of a South African were instrumental in the substantial investment our nation made in airpower. And we did not make a mistake in Naval aviation.

In addition to our great uniformed leaders--about whom we will hear a great deal this week--there is a group of civilian leaders who were similarly influential in promoting and advocating for America's Air Force.

Fifty-six years ago last month, our first Secretary of the Air Force--the late Stuart Symington--took the oath of office and began operation of a military department that would prove to the world, as our founders had predicted, that the Air Force could and would become a powerful and decisive fighting force.

Throughout our brief history, our Secretaries of the Air Force have advanced the cause of air and space power through many challenging times--the retrenchment during the post-World War II years; the Korean war; the resurgence of defense spending following the launch of Sputnik and the start of the Vietnam War; the hollow force of the 1970s, the renewed defense focus of the Reagan Years and the restructuring of our force following the end of the Cold War. In partnership with their uniformed Chiefs of Staff, many of my predecessors continued the work that Generals Patrick, Andrews, Foulois, Spaatz and Arnold began decades earlier.

Secretary Thomas Finletter, partnering with Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg built a 168-wing Air Force in the 1950s that provided the deterrent backbone so crucial to maintaining the balance of power of the Cold War. Secretary James Douglas, with his partner General Nathan Twining, oversaw technological advances in both missiles and satellites, spurred by our competition with the Soviet Union. These advancements have continued to serve us well as we use space assets across the spectrum of conflict. And, for peacetime capabilities too: like GPS and communications satellites, that the citizens of the world take for granted today. Secretary Douglas also brought to fruition the vision to build an Air Force Academy, an institution dedicated solely to educating and training future air and space officers.

Secretary Eugene Zuckert served as Secretary for four years with General Curtis Lemay as his partner. Together, they strengthened the role of Strategic Air Command as the custodian of the most powerful weaponry in the world, and supported an expanded Air Force presence in space. In the late 1960s, Secretary Harold Brown continued the march forward, applying the new technology not only to weapons systems, but to automating and improving missions such as target acquisition and intelligence processing, and developing new types of weapons like air-to-air missiles, and electronic countermeasures.

The tenure of Secretary Robert Seamans' in the 1970s featured modernization and scientific research, and the development of new and vastly improved weapons systems such as the C-5, F-15, B-1 bomber, and AWACS, an exponential increase in aerial battle management.

During the two-year term of Secretary John McLucas--who also served four years as Undersecretary of the Air Force--the Air Force produced an array of new aircraft, dramatically expanding the capabilities of our burgeoning force. In the 1980s, Verne Orr, our longest-serving Secretary, presided over a period of modernization and investment unlike any in the history of the Air Force. When he left office after five years, the Air Force had 650 more fighter aircraft and 30 more tankers than it had when his tenure began, laying the groundwork for our successes in Gulf War I and in the war on terrorism.

In the last decade, Secretary Donald Rice concentrated on developing a strategic framework for the Air Force. He and Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak consolidated the combat power of the Air Force in a single major command--Air Combat Command--a historic reorganization of bomber and fighter aircraft.

Finally, I'll mention one more Secretary of the Air Force, my predecessor, F. Whitten Peters. He and General Mike Ryan--our Chief of Staff and my first partner when I assumed this office--created the expeditionary force that we have today. Most notable of the Air Force achievements of their era, our airmen played a decisive role in the victory over Serbia in 1999; the first conflict in our nation's history where the application of air and space power almost exclusively delivered victory in combat.

Let me briefly point out that there was one influential airman who played a significant role in the conduct of that operation who cannot go unmentioned--the Commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, General John Jumper. You will hear from him later this week. Let me just set the stage for my partner's remarks by saying that he continues the tradition of great aviation leaders, and, in one guy's opinion, many years from now, his vision and leadership will be the subject of speeches at gatherings such as these. When you hear him speak, I think you'll know why.

We have come a long way from the days of Smuts, Mitchell, Douhet, and Trenchard. But it is clear that these prophets of aviation have found vindication in the wars of the 20th century and in our recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is important to put air and space power in perspective. Naval theorists, like Mahan, pointed out in the 1800s that for a nation to be a great sea power, it has to be "sea-minded"--a seafaring nation, whose people, culture, economies and military embrace the importance of the sea. Billy Mitchell, in the Air Corps Tactical School, translated that same concept to air power. And clearly, the same approach must be applied to space power. Only when our nation began to conceive of using the third dimension routinely did we begin to more fully understand its value to defense applications. America must continue to embrace the importance of air and space dominance, and recognize what control of these areas brings to the nation.

That is not easy given the speed of evolution. In a mere 100 years, we have gone from 12 seconds of powered flight covering 540 feet of North Carolina sand, to 44-hour B-2 flights that span the globe. We've gone from the 1926 liquid fueled rocket launch that went up 185 feet, to Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles and advanced satellites that enable everything from weather and communications, to the timing and navigation systems that control our aircraft, weapons, and the automated teller machines you'll probably use at least once this week.

And, in these times of conflict against a new kind of enemy, we are reassessing how we think. We are adapting to a new form of warfare. As we develop thinkers, leaders, and professional airmen of high intellect and unquestioned skill, we are challenging them to adapt our Air Force to this era.

In our recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, our airmen demonstrated an appreciation for the demands of this new era. Taking into account tribal history; religious concerns; the value of food, water, and humanitarian aid; and the enduring power that respect for human life can have on a people yearning for liberty--they carried out their demanding missions with professionalism and excellence.

Our relentless development of competent airmen who understand these demands, and who are prepared to operate in these environments, will be the difference between excellence and mediocrity, success and failure in combat.

As we enter this new age of air and space power, we learn again and again that air and space capabilities can and do have a strategic, coercive, and compelling effect on our enemies, and can dramatically assist our land and maritime forces in achieving victory swiftly and decisively, regardless of distance, terrain, or adversary.

Our successes in conflict have demonstrated that the American way of war has undergone a remarkable transformation. Since the advent of industrial warfare, one would be hard pressed to cite an example of greater speed, maneuver, and precision on the battlefield, all while limiting collateral damage, delivering humanitarian aid, and saving the lives of combatants and civilians alike.

This new age of waging American warfare--with manned aircraft, remotely-piloted aircraft, and space systems-is the product of our Air Force core competencies, decades of sustained research, acquisition, strategy and doctrinal evolution, and the demanding training of 21st century air and space warriors who understand the complexities of warfighting in the information era. And if we have come this far in such a short period--just 100 years--one can only imagine where we are heading in the future.

In the early days of airpower development, there clearly were some whose views of the future were devoid of the imagination that led to the Wright Brothers' success and the expansion of our budding air service. Most notable of them was President Calvin Coolidge, a thrifty New Englander, who, upon receiving a request from the War Department to buy more aircraft, replied:

"Why don't we just buy one airplane and let the pilots take turns flying it?"

Fortunately for our nation, his view failed to carry the day.

As we approach the historic 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' achievement at Kitty Hawk, we recognize that in the history of humankind, we have rarely witnessed a more powerful innovation that changed global society more rapidly of dramatically. These 100 years of powered flight have redefined the way we fight our wars; revolutionized travel and commerce; pioneered the development of ground-breaking technologies; and helped shape a world in which the our nation's safety and prosperity would be accompanied by breathtaking scientific and technical prowess. Powered flight is, and will continue to be, one of humankind's most significant accomplishments.

If properly guided with the same imagination and vision as its creators and those who nurtured its development-explorers in the tradition of Lindbergh and Earhart, innovators such as Curtiss and Northrop, warriors like Rickenbacker and Chennault, and great leaders such as Andrews, Arnold, Lemay, and Jumper--the second century of flight, now to include space operations, will most assuredly advance the peaceful and productive interactions of nations, continue to deter of destroy the threatening and tyrannical, and provide for the benefit of all humankind. This is our wonderful heritage and it is our exciting future.