Edgar S. Gorrell

Gorrell and the bulk of the USMA Class of 1912 were admitted to the academy on March 2, 1908, as the "class of new cadets." Gorrell had just turned 17 a month before. Their course of preliminary instruction lasted to June 10. The 1908 Official Register lists him as finishing 34th in general merit among the 112 new cadets advanced to the fourth class for the academic year beginning July 1, ranked 3rd in conduct, having accrued just 2 demerits during the preliminary period. He was in the upper half of his class in mathematics and ranked 23rd in English. Gorrell was assigned to Company C of the Corps of Cadets.[6]

Gorrell maintained his relative class standing during all four years at the academy, finishing consistently in the upper half in academics. He excelled in all military aspects of the curriculum, finishing first in conduct twice[7] (and first overall for the four years at USMA) and never lower than 7th, which was during his plebe year.[8] He also finished first overall in drill regulations.[9] He advanced in cadet rank in every class year,[10] fulfilling a pledge he made as a plebe to become the captain of Company C.[11] He graduated on June 12, 1912, finishing 32nd in general merit among his 95 classmates.[9]

Small in stature, slight, and boyish-looking, he was nicknamed "Nap" (derivative of "Napoleon") by his classmates in recognition of his military bearing. Gorrell pushed himself in athletics, going out for the football, track and field, and wrestling teams before settling in as an upperclassman on the broadsword squad, which he also managed for three years. As a "firstie" he won the individual broadsword championship.[11][n 1]

One of the most formative events in Gorrell's life occurred near the end of his "yearling" year. At about ten o'clock on the morning of May 29, 1910, Cadet Corporal Gorrell joined a throng of cadets trying to catch a glimpse of a historical event in the making. Pioneer aviator Glenn Curtiss was attempting to complete the first true cross-country flight in the United States, between Albany and New York City.[n 2] An hour earlier a member of the academy staff had telephoned Curtiss during a refueling stop near Poughkeepsie urging him to land on the parade ground so that the cadets could inspect the craft but was turned down. The Corps had then assembled at Trophy Point.[12]

Curtiss approached Storm King Mountain four miles (6.4 km) north of the academy at 2,000 feet (610 m), wary of the wind currents in the gorge. However, gusts caused him to lose control of the airplane momentarily, causing the plane to descend precipitously. He recovered after nearly being tossed out of the craft but the severe up and downdrafts continued. He descended to just 40 feet (12 m) above the Hudson River in hopes of finding calmer air. Many of the cadets including Gorrell ran to Cullum Hall on the other side of the promontory, where they could clearly see the airplane as it rounded the point. Gorrell and the others waved their caps and gave a raucous football cheer, clearly observed by Curtiss as he passed. Gorrell averred that from that moment forward he was determined to become an Army aviator.[12][13][n 3]

Required to complete a period of troop duty before he could apply to be detailed to the Aviation Section, Gorrell selected Infantry as his branch of service and was commissioned a 2d lieutenant in the 30th Infantry Regiment. He joined Company L at Fort William H. Seward on September 12, 1912, serving two years in the Territory of Alaska before returning with his company to the Presidio of San Francisco in California on July 14, 1914. He was detached from the 30th Infantry on December 23 and assigned to the Signal Corps Aviation School at San Diego, California for flying training.[14][n 4] The school was located on North Island near Coronado and was still a primitive program with no written syllabus. It published its first regulations six days after Gorrell's arrival on December 28, 1914. By the end of January 1915 the school had 11 students in training including Gorrell.[15]

S.C. No. 26, a Burgess H trainer, at North Island, 1915.

The course of instruction was individually tailored in three phases. The first introduced the student to flying with civilian instructor Francis A. "Doc" Wildman in S.C. 34, a Curtis F flying boat,[16] an aircraft heavier than its land counterpart, making it safer to fly in San Diego's gusty conditions at low altitude and enabling the student to perform up to six times as many landings as could be made in a land airplane in the same time. After four to five hours of this phase, the student was handed off to civilian instructor Oscar A. Brindley in a Burgess Model H trainer. After his solo, the candidate had a check ride with the Officer in Charge of Training to determine if his instruction was to continue. He then flew solo until he was ready to take the test for his Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) pilot's license, a requirement for advancing to the third phase. In this Gorrell received training in cross-country flying under a military instructor, culminating in his examination for the rating of Junior Military Aviator (JMA).[17]

In February, Gorrell was part of a group of student officers instructed in a new course on the maintenance and repair of the Curtiss OX engine.[18] He obtained his FAI certificate in June and entered the final phase of instruction. On June 26, nearing the end of his training, Gorrell was making a solo flight from San Diego to Long Beach, California in S.C. No. 37, a Martin TT tractor-configured (forward-facing propeller) airplane, when his engine began vibrating and the propeller flew off, destroying his landing gear. He glided into an alfalfa field, stalling in the process, and flipped the aircraft on its back. Gorrell was not injured in the crash.[19]

The first standardized examination for JMA was promulgated on April 10 and had both technical and flying requirements. On July 1 the flying aspect was increased to require a candidate to demonstrate:

*Five figure 8’s around pylons, keeping all parts of machine inside a circle whose radius is 300 feet. *Climb out of a square field 900 feet on a side and attain 500-feet altitude, keeping all parts of the machine inside of square during climb. *Climb 3,000 feet, kill motor, spiral down, changing direction of spiral, that is, from left to right, and land within 150 feet of previously designated mark. *Land with dead motor in a field 800 feet by 100 feet, assuming said field to be surrounded by a 1O-foot obstacle. *From 500 feet altitude land within 100 feet of previously designated point with dead motor. *Cross-country triangular flight without landing, of approximately 60 miles, passing over the following points: starting from North Island, over Del Mar, La Mesa, Coronado Heights. *Straightaway cross-country flight of about 90 miles without landing from the vicinity of Santa Ana, California, to North Island, California.[20]

Gorrell passed the examination and received his JMA rating on July 12, 1915, which under provisions of the Aviation Act of 1914 automatically carried with it a temporary promotion of one grade to 1st lieutenant, Aviation Section Signal Corps (ASSC) and award of an Expert Aviator's certificate from the Aero Club of America, then the national governing body of civil aviation in the United States.[n 5]

1st Aero Squadron JN3 "Jennie" in Mexico, April 1916

Gorrell remained with the Signal Corps Aviation School in Coronado as its secretary (adjutant). The 1st Aero Squadron, based on the same field, had received eight new Curtiss JN2 "Jennies" and spare engines on June 21, but before the squadron could fully flight test the new aircraft it was ordered to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Disassembling and crating the aircraft again, the squadron left San Diego by train on July 26. A section of two aircraft and four pilots was ordered to Brownsville, Texas shortly after its arrival in Oklahoma.[21] Gorrell joined the squadron when it relocated to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, on November 25. As junior officer in the squadron,[n 6] he was assigned the collateral duties of squadron adjutant and supply officer.[4][n 7]

By then the 1st Aero Squadron had suffered a number of setbacks, enduring two crashes and serious injuries to two pilots, transfer to a new "air center" in San Antonio on which no work had been done in preparation of its arrival, and worst of all, a near mutiny by the pilots of the squadron over the inadequacies of the JN2. In addition to sloppy workmanship and poor materials the airplane was underpowered with substandard engines and had serious design flaws in the wings and tail that made it unsafe. The head of the Aviation Section was unsympathetic to the complaints and slow to correct them, aggravating already serious divisions between the aviators and their nonflying commanders that had begun the year before when the pusher airplanes had shown similarly unsafe performance characteristics. The matter came to a head when the acting commander of the Brownsville detachment, 1st Lt. Byron Q. Jones, bypassed the chain of command and sent a written complaint directly to the commanding general of the Southern Department, who grounded the aircraft. Two newer JN3s arrived as replacements and the six remaining JN2s were modified with new wings, empennages, and engines to JN3 standard.[22][n 8]

Gorrell (right) and 1st Lt. Herbert A. Dargue at Casas Grandes, Mexico, posing with S.C. No. 43 on April 11, 1916

While work went forward on improving camp conditions at the new base, problems with the airplanes continued. With the added weight of improvements, the JN3s were no more capable than before modification. This situation still existed when Pancho Villa and a force of 500 Mexican insurgents crossed the border on March 9, 1916, and raided Columbus, New Mexico. The next day President Woodrow Wilson authorized a military expedition commanded by Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing to pursue the retreating Villistas into Mexico and capture Villa if possible. United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker ordered that the 1st Aero Squadron be included in the expedition for liaison duties and aerial reconnaissance, and on March 12 it dismantled its aircraft at Fort Sam Houston and loaded them onto a train, along with all its motor transport and engineering section. Gorrell was among the ten aviators sent with the eight airplanes to Columbus at noon on March 13, arriving on the morning of March 15. The expedition had already marched into Mexico as the squadron unloaded its equipment.[23]

The 1st Aero Squadron took several days to prepare for field duty. Its ten four-wheel drive Jeffery Quad trucks were the only motor transport immediately available to the expedition when the Mexican government disputed American use of its railroads, and these were impressed into service hauling materiel and men south. Gorrell was assigned to command the first "truck train," two trucks sent into Mexico on the night of March 15–16. Airplane mechanics untrained in the use of infantry weapons guarded the small convoy when it stopped until daylight in the village of Las Palomas before continuing on to the expedition's headquarters at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua.[24]

Early on the afternoon of March 19, after four days of assembling and testing their airplanes, doing the same for 27 new Jeffery Quads sent to the expedition, and moving supplies and men into Mexico, the 1st Aero Squadron received orders to join the expedition immediately at its new base. However, the nine flyers including Gorrell making the flight were unable to complete preparations before twilight and unwisely attempted to complete the two-hour flight, although untrained in night flying and having no means of navigating to Casas Grandes after dark. Gorrell's airplane[n 9] was so heavy with fuel and gear that he barely cleared a wire fence at the end of the takeoff field. Another of the eight JN3s[n 10] had difficulty hurdling the same fence and immediately developed engine trouble, circling back to land. Four managed to remain in proximity to each other and landed together near La Ascención, halfway to their destination. The other three, including Gorrell, flew on individually in the dark. Gorrell flew past the American camp, unaware of its presence and drawn by the light of a wildfire he mistook for a bonfire that was to have been lit to mark the landing ground.[n 11] He decided he had flown too far south and reversed course, finding and guiding on the star Polaris.[25]

When his fuel was exhausted[n 12] he performed a short-field deadstick landing in darkness without damaging the airplane, coming down near a stream and what appeared to be several abandoned adobe buildings. He continued north on foot, expecting to cross the expedition's line of communications at some point, but reversed course again when he experienced symptoms of heat exhaustion after the sun came up on March 20. Although he fainted several times, Gorrell retraced his path to S.C. No. 52 and the source of water.[26] Later Gorrell encountered a Mexican mounted on a horse at one of the nearby buildings, and through a combination of offering money and waving his service pistol, persuaded the man to take him the 20–30 miles to La Ascención, reaching it on March 21. He was provided a small amount of gasoline and engine oil the next day and driven to his airplane in an automobile being used by the 6th Infantry, guarding the line of communications. In heavy rain and wind he took off and flew back to nearby Ojo de Federico to refuel from a passing truck train. However, during the ensuing takeoff the crosswind caused the lower left wing to strike the drum from which he had taken on fuel, destroying part of the spar. When fabric on the wing began to tear away, he landed again at Ojo de Federico. He sent word of his whereabouts to the squadron and hitched a ride on a truck convoy the next day, March 23, reaching Casas Grandes at noon.[27][n 13]

The 1st Aero Squadron lost two of its eight JN3s during the move to Casas Grandes.[28] It began operations with the remainder on March 20 but the aircraft performed poorly flying in the mountains and their prevalent downdrafts, while their laminated propellers were prone to fall apart in the dry conditions. An article by freelance journalist Webb Miller detailing the frustrations of the pilots appeared April 3 in the New York World, causing a furor at the highest level of the War Department over criticisms of the Aviation Section's senior officers. Of those quoted, only Gorrell was willing to admit to having spoken with Miller, but when Pershing chose to support his aviators, the controversy died.[29][30][n 14] Noteworthy among Gorrell's flying missions was that of April 15 in which he was an observer with 1st Lt. Herbert A. Dargue. The reconnaissance flight covered 415 miles in three legs, at the time an operational record.[31]

Gorrell received the permanent establishment rank of 1st Lieutenant of Infantry on July 1, 1916, and with it an automatic temporary promotion to Captain, ASSC.[14] On August 31 he was detached from the 1st Aero Squadron and ordered to report to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on September 21 to begin post-graduate study in aeronautical engineering.[28] Gorrell received a Master of Science degree from MIT on July 5, 1917, by which time the United States was at war with Germany and Gorrell was serving in France.[14]

Gorrell had nearly completed his studies at MIT when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. That evening, already under orders for post-graduation assignment to the Office of the Chief Signal Officer (OCSO) in Washington, D.C., he reported for duty as Chief of Intelligence of the Aeronautical Division.[32][n 15] He was assigned May 5 with Major Benjamin Foulois and Captain Virginius Clark as the Army's representatives on the Joint (Army-Navy) Aircraft Technical Board. Gorrell and Foulois[n 16] worked together on preparation of a budget proposal to Congress for expansion of the Aviation Section. Using ordinary grocery wrapping paper, Gorrell prepared large charts breaking down the appropriations needed to fund expansion as a briefing aid for the Chief Signal Officer, Brig. Gen. George O. Squier. These amounted to more than $600,000,000,[n 17] a sum noted by Squier as being greater than that enacted for the recent building of the Panama Canal. Squier endorsed the proposal and Gorrell joined Major Raynal C. Bolling, formerly general counsel for U.S. Steel, in drafting the necessary legislation.[33][n 18] Gorrell was promoted to captain in his branch and Major, ASSC as part of the mass promotions of pre-war officers on May 15, 1917.[14]

At the end of May, Gorrell and the Joint Army-Navy Board received a proposal from French Premier Alexandre Ribot that the United States create an aviation corps of 4,500 airplanes to be ready for combat by the spring of 1918 and from it drew up an outline for the manufacture of airplanes and engines to meet the requirements.[34] After the Aircraft Production Board (APB) rejected European proposals that the United States manufacture for its own use aircraft already being produced in Europe, and pay a royalty on every airplane built,[n 19] Bolling was appointed to the board and charged with taking a commission to Europe to resolve the royalty controversy and select aircraft types with which to arm the United States. determining which should be made under license in America and which should be purchased from Europeans. Gorrell and Clark, in their capacity as aeronautical engineers, joined Bolling as the Army's members on the 12-person commission, which became known as the "Bolling Mission." The mission sailed from New York aboard the RMS Adriatic on June 17, 1917, arriving in Liverpool on June 26. The Bolling Mission spent nearly six weeks in England, France, and Italy gathering information in fulfillment of its mission, after which both Bolling and Gorrell remained in France on the staff of the American Expeditionary Forces.[35][36][37]

Gorrell's initial AEF assignment was as a staff officer to the nascent "Air Service, Line of Communications" in Paris, a position eventually designated as Chief of the Technical Section.[n 20] His job as the Air Service's chief engineering officer was essentially a continuation of the work he performed for the Bolling Mission except that the materiel he procured and the information collected were for operational use in combat rather than for APB study in the United States. In addition to identifying and performing the necessary functions of his job in the three months he spent as chief, Gorrell also built the Technical Section from a one-man office to a functioning staff section of seven divisions staffed by 19 officers and 31 enlisted men, and operated an airfield at Orly for experimental aviation and acceptance of new aircraft.[38][n 21] Gorrell was ultimately responsible for the acquisition of $80 million of aircraft, equipment and other property for Air Service use in his brief time as head of the section.[4]

Gorrell was promoted to lieutenant colonel (temporary, Signal Corps) on October 27, 1917. In November Foulois, now a general and ranking officer in the Air Service, arrived from the United States with a large staff of non-flyers to replace virtually all of the aviation officers who had built up the original Air Service staff.[4][n 22]

His ex officio superior while chief of the Technical Section was Col. Billy Mitchell, who was already in Europe as an observer when war was declared and succeeded Gorrell's former squadron mate, Major Townsend F. Dodd, as Aviation Officer of the AEF during the period when Gorrell was in England.[n 23] Mitchell, requiring an expert to formulate the aircraft requirements for a force to bomb Germany, selected Gorrell for the position when the Bolling Mission broke up in early August.[39] Mitchell's initial recommendation to AEF commanding general John Pershing for such a force had been ignored in the first proposed organization (the "59-Squadron plan") of the Air Service issued in July. In their meetings with the Allies' aviation experts, Gorrell and Bolling had both been favorably impressed by arguments for a bomber force put forth by Sir David Henderson, Director-General of Military Aeronautics and formerly head of the Royal Flying Corps, and by the actual use of such a force by the Italians.[n 24] Gorrell in particular was persuaded of its value by the designer of the Italians' tri-motor Ca.3 bomber, Gianni Caproni. Chief among his precepts was that for an offensive bombing campaign to be effective it must be "systematic, thorough and consistent," which Gorrell thoroughly endorsed.[40]

In addition to studying Mitchell's views, garnered mainly from RFC commander Major-General Sir Hugh M. Trenchard, Gorrell consulted a number of individuals and their writings. In the Air Service, Majors Harold Fowler and Millard F. Harmon provided practical battle experience. In addition to his views, Caproni supplied him with an English-language copy of Let Us Kill The War; Let Us Aim at the Heart of the Enemy, a compilation of his ideas written by journalist Nino Salvaneschi. He also met with Wing Commander Spencer Grey, a liaison officer of the Royal Naval Air Service attached to Air Service headquarters who had participated in a number of bombing raids and developed specialized ordnance. However, the greatest influence on his work came from another RNAS pilot, Major Lord Tiverton.[n 25] Tiverton had just authored an in-depth study of strategic bombing against German industry to which Gorrell added sections addressing American objectives but otherwise used verbatim in his own paper.[41]

Gorrell presented his study to Foulois on November 28, 1917, and was assigned on December 3 to head a planning branch for "Strategical Aviation, Zone of the Advance" to implement it. Pershing agreed to the plan in general on January 5, 1918,[n 26] and Gorrell was transferred to the General Headquarters of the AEF in Chaumont as the Air Service Officer of its G-3 (Plans and Operations) Section. In March, as his attention focused increasingly on tactical support matters, Gorrell helped the GHQ staff install an "Office of Air Intelligence" in its G-2 Section that included a bomb target unit which was the model for those used in World War II. Gorrell's successor as head of Strategical Aviation had been a mining industrialist in civilian life[n 27] and was ineffectual in promoting the bombing plan, but Gorrell himself acknowledged that the primary obstacle to a sustained bombing campaign in 1918 was the failure in U.S. aircraft production that resulted in growing resistance by GHQ to any diversion of resources from tactical support of the ground forces.[42][n 28] The first night bombing unit of the Air Service, AEF[n 29] did not reach the Zone of the Advance until only two days prior to the cease-fire.[43]

Gorrell's plan reflected its origins in Caproni's and Tiverton's ideas, a sustained campaign against key industrial nerve centers to end the three-year stalemate on the Western Front, with the goal of identifying and destroying critical components of the enemy's capability, not a generalized "total war" campaign against the German economy and civilian populace. Even so, the likelihood of support for such a campaign from the White House and the War Department was low had the war continued into the summer of 1919.[44] Wrote Air Force historian Thomas Greer: "Gorrell's theories were destined to lie dormant in the Army of postwar years; it was not until the eve of the next World War that they emerged again...to win at last the blessing and support of the General Staff."[45] Resurrected by the Air Corps Tactical School for inclusion in its 1937 and 1938 curriculum,[4] it was characterized by USAF General General Lawrence S. Kuter as the "earliest, clearest, and least known statement of the American conception of the employment of air power."[46]

Gorrell, just 27 years old, received promotion to colonel, Air Service on October 27, 1918, and became Assistant Chief of Air Service, AEF, the youngest officer in the U.S. Army to hold the rank since the American Civil War.[47] His staff responsibilities at the close of hostilities on November 11, 1918, were coordination and liaison at the Army group level of all Air Service operations in the AEF. Gorrell was awarded the American Distinguished Service Medal, the British Distinguished Service Order, and the French Legion of Honor for his World War I service.[4]

In February 1918 the War Department in Washington, D.C. created an Historical Branch on the General Staff to begin the process of documenting the Army's participation in World War I. Simultaneously the AEF set up its own historical unit at its headquarters in Chaumont. In May the effort reached down to lower levels of the AEF when its Services of Supply (formerly named "Lines of Communication" and "Zone of the Interior") in Tours created an historical records section. As part of the SOS, the Air Service delegated its portion of the task to its Chief of Information, Capt. Ernest LaRue Jones, publisher of the magazine Aeronautics in civilian life.[48] Jones was only able to devote a staff of five men to the program while combat continued, but he did create a small unit to produce, collect, and preserve a photographic record of Air Service activities.[49]

In the two weeks immediately following the Armistice, the Chief of Staff of the Air Service, First Army, Lt. Col. William C. Sherman, compiled an extensive document collection of the operations of its tactical units and submitted it to the commanding general of the First Army, with a copy submitted to the final Chief of Air Service, AEF, Major General Mason Patrick.[50] Gorrell recognized in Sherman's work a vital need for a much larger project encompassing the Air Service as a whole, identifying the tactical lessons learned and providing an institutional memory for future war planning and appropriations. He persuaded Patrick to undertake the historic project[51] and Sherman's "history" provided the necessary shape the information was to take. Sherman's headquarters and Jones' activity in Tours renewed efforts to collect information from units and organizations, making submission of the material a requirement before their units could return to the United States. To coordinate and supervise the collection of the information, on December 4, 1918, Patrick created the position of Assistant Chief of Staff based in Paris and appointed Gorrell to fill it, in effect making him the "chief historian" of the Air Service, AEF.[52]

Patrick issued Gorrell instructions on December 12 to produce a "Final Report" to be sent to Pershing, including statistical summaries.[53] Gorrell selected a former fighter pilot and writer, 1st Lt. Charles B. Nordhoff, to be editor-in-chief of the Final Report. On January 6, 1919, Gorrell moved the entire project to Tours, where he could use the 70-man Information Section of the SOS to begin the laborious filing process. Two days later he held a conference in which he integrated both Jones' and Sherman's projects into his own. Jones supervised nearly 100 persons in assembling, indexing, and binding the documents and photographs as they came in,[54] and an editorial board of 30 was set up to provide material to Nordhoff for inclusion in the Final Report. In Chaumont, Sherman was assigned to write a Tactical History describing the Air Service's combat operations, assisted by a staff of 13. In all, by February 5, 1919, more than 250 personnel were directly engaged in the production of the history.[55]

The Final Report of Chief of Air Service emerged as a document of 252 pages, 134 of them narrative and 56 of supporting photographs, charts, tables, and maps. Two years after it was written it was published for Air Service use and in 1948 it was included in the Army Historical Division's massive history of the AEF.[55] Sherman's Tactical History, submitted to Pershing on February 14, 1919, came to 158 pages. Both documents were edited for style before being sent on to the War Department, but not for content.[56] By the time of completion of the entire work, officially the History of the Air Service AEF but popularly known as "Gorrell's History," it had become 282 bound volumes including two for indexes. These were organized into 18 general categories in lettered series, A through R.[57] It was shipped to the War Department in the summer of 1919 to be the source material for definitive historical narratives on each of its categories, but that work was never begun because of a lack of funding. "Gorrell's History" was finally moved from a vault in the Munitions Building, where it had resided since 1919, to the National Archives in 1961.[58][n 30]

In March 1919 Gorrell accompanied Patrick to an aviation commission of 12 Allied nations assembled in Paris to write a convention regulating international aerial navigation, as both his technical adviser and fellow delegate. Gorrell (along with Bolling) had also been a delegate in 1917 to the contentious, four-nation "Inter-Allied Aeronautical Commission" and was familiar with all the preliminary discussions. Each of the five main Allied powers[n 31] to the 1919 conference brought two delegates and submitted a draft convention. Soon after its first meeting the 1919 commission was also made an advisory body on aviation matters to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference.[59] Although neither Gorrell nor Patrick was present at the finale in October and the United States did not become a signatory, the commission resulted in the Paris Convention of 1919.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Gorrell returned to the United States in July 1919 for duty in Washington, D.C. with the Advisory Board, Air Service. The board of six field grade officers had been created in the March 13, 1919 reorganization of the Air Service to advise the director of the Air Service, like Patrick a non-aviator major general, on technical matters. This assignment lasted only from July 19 to September 8, 1919, when his five-year association with the Air Service ended and he was assigned to the War Plans Division of the General Staff.[14]

In the month preceding his transfer, controversy had enveloped the Air Service, some of it along politically partisan lines, as a select committee of the Republican-controlled Congress investigated the deplorable record of U.S. wartime aircraft production. At the same time bills had been introduced in both houses that would remove military aviation from the Army and Navy and create an independent air force.[n 32] Strong public and congressional support had rallied behind Billy Mitchell in favor of the bills. The Army's hierarchy vigorously opposed the movement and created the Menoher Board of four artillery generals[n 33] to articulate its position and counter the popular and flamboyant Mitchell.[60]

Gorrell was immediately assigned by the Army to assist Director of War Plans and Menoher Board member Maj. Gen. William G. Haan in formulating their stance, which also deprived the airmen of one of their most articulate exponents at the same time.[n 34] Gorrell's appearance in August 1919 with Patrick before the Frear Committee[n 35] while still a member of the advisory board, to refute erroneous and polemic allegations made during earlier testimony, was well-remarked,[4] but his second round of testimony on October 27, 1919, in which he returned to read into the record the just-issued report of the Menoher Board, is largely overlooked. In addition to putting forth the Army's arguments, the report bluntly opposed any independent role for the Air Service and averred that it could never become more than an auxiliary branch of the Army.[61]

By January 1920 reprints made in the press at the height of debate over Senator New's independent air force bill attributed the Army's statement to Gorrell personally.[62] If Gorrell was in fact opposed to any autonomy for the Air Service, he made no public statements or writings regarding his personal position after an initial endorsement of the report's contents during his testimony.[63] Shortly after, in the wave of officer demotions to permanent grade then underway (his would be back to captain), Gorrell concluded that despite demonstrated loyalty to the General Staff he was not to be among the favored few officers who would be permitted to retain their wartime high rank[64] and abruptly left the Army.[65]

Immediately after the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor went public, Western Airlines responded to a request to move ammunition to units without it along the Pacific Coast. Other carriers followed the example within hours and on December 11 Gorrell cabled both Chief of the Army Air Forces Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall that the airlines were performing their assigned functions in the plans.[76] Nevertheless, President Roosevelt's initial impulse was to nationalize the scheduled air carriers[3] and on December 13 he issued Executive Order 8974 to take control of the airlines.[n 45] Gorrell was aware that airline responsiveness was crucial to forestalling nationalization and promptly provided aircraft and crews at the first strategic request, made to ATA the same day.[77][78][n 46] The next day, while a deal was being brokered with Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert A. Lovett to turn over voluntarily more than half the airlines' aircraft[n 47] and crews to the AAF Ferrying Command (ACFC) on a contract basis,[79][n 48] the promised transports arrived at their staging points.[80]

The executive order was not revoked, however, and Gorrell moved ATA's headquarters to Washington, D.C.[80] His foresight and wariness were proven sound when the AAF reacted to early Axis success worldwide by using the EO to attempt transfer of the Civil Aeronautics Administration to the Army Air Forces. Although the main purpose of the move was to bring the Civilian Pilot Training Program under the military, it would also have the effect of passing to the AAF regulatory control of the airlines. Brigadier General Donald H. Connolly was recalled to active duty in January 1942 from his civilian position as CAA administrator and made Military Director of Civil Aviation (MDCA) with the explicit purpose of carrying out EO 8974.[81][n 49] The MDCA took Gorrell with a six-man ATA liaison staff into the AAF Office of Civil Aviation on an unpaid advisory basis, tasked to establish travel priorities and prepare a system for the mass movement of troops within the western hemisphere and to Hawaii using civil carriers.[82]

The plan was unworkable, however, because it was drawn up as an "on-demand" operation. Before it was fully implemented, Arnold ordered the commander of ACFC, Maj. Gen. Robert Olds, to take "complete military control over all parts of your operation." On February 18, 1942, all overseas contracts except those in the western hemisphere were cancelled and their associated civil operations (primarily those of Pan American) were militarized.[83][84][n 50] The AAF had neither sufficient resources nor expertise, however, and C.R. Smith, now a colonel in the AAF, was appointed second-in-command of ACFC in April.[n 51] He brought ideas and extensive transport experience to the transport command, which its senior officers did not have, developing a workable long-range plan to maintain the civil status of airline operations before further militarization took place.[85][n 52] In the meantime Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson opposed the attempt to subsume the CAA into the AAF and honored Lovett's agreement with the airlines not to invoke EO 8974. In August 1942, along with Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, he put the nationalization issue to rest by writing Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones that the CAA would conduct its war support activities as a civilian agency.[81]

Throughout the pre-war years Gorrell had linked the purpose of the ATA to national defense, going so far as to post the concept in the association's letterhead, and his war plan for the use of civil air transport parallels that of his plan for strategic air bombardment in that it soon became accepted as elementary doctrine.[4] In 1952 the Civil Reserve Air Fleet was created to establish a permanent system for use of the airlines in times of national emergency. Gorrell's achievements as president of ATA were four-fold: the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 that provided civil aviation a secure economic base, development of a system of air navigation radio facilities in the United States and Alaska, preparation of a war plan for the utilization of the airlines, and the use of government contracts with the airlines to provide worldwide transportation during World War II.[4] The ATA honors his legacy by annually awarding the "Edgar S. Gorrell Award" for outstanding contributions toward aviation safety.