Page "United States Air Force Academy" Paragraph 3

Prior to the Academy's establishment, air power advocates had been pushing for a separate air force academy for decades.

As early as 1918, Lieutenant Colonel A. J.

Hanlon wrote, " As the Military and Naval Academies are the backbone of the Army and Navy, so must the Aeronautical Academy be the backbone of the Air Service.

No service can flourish without some such institution to inculcate into its embryonic officers love of country, proper conception of duty, and highest regard for honor.

" Other officials expressed similar sentiments.

In 1919, Congressman Charles F. Curry introduced legislation providing for an Academy, but concerns about cost, curriculum and location led to its demise.

In 1925, air power pioneer General Billy Mitchell testified on Capitol Hill that it was necessary " to have an air academy to form a basis for the permanent backbone of your air service and to attend to the ... organizational part of it, very much the same way that West Point does for the Army, or that Annapolis does for the Navy.

" Mitchell's arguments did not gain traction with legislators, and it was not until the late 1940s that the concept of the United States Air Force Academy began to take shape.