IV.

Between the Wars

After World War I, the chief European proponents of the development of air power were Hugh Trenchard, leader of the Royal Flying Corps and first commander of the Royal Air Force (RAF) on its creation in April 1918, and Giulio Douhet, an Italian army officer who commanded his nation's first aviation unit from 1912 to 1915. In 1921 Douhet proposed the idea of strategic bombing of enemy centres. As the war ended, Trenchard and the US general, Billy Mitchell were planning extensive attacks on German war production sites and dropping soldiers behind German lines. Mitchell's attempts to focus attention on the effectiveness of bombing by means of demonstrations conducted in 1921 and 1923 (several battleships were sunk in these tests) led to his gaining national prominence as a prophet of air power. His ideas bore fruit in World War II.

Between 1935 and 1936, Britain and Germany developed the prototypes of the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, and Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters; the Junkers Ju 87, better known as the Stuka dive bomber; and the Bristol Blenheim and Heinkel He 111 bombers. The development of high-speed offence bombers during the 1930s culminated in America's long-range Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Fighter aircraft did not receive the same attention in the United States, because design modifications made bombers self-defending. The United States thus entered World War II in 1941 with the P-39 and P-40 as its main fighter planes. In 1935 Ethiopia became the first victim of fascist aggression when Italy attacked it using sophisticated weaponry, mustard gas, and aircraft. The war in Ethiopia and Spanish Civil War air battles, starting in 1938, served as testing grounds for aircraft design and tactics.