USAFA History

By c16steven.frank

  • U.S. Army establishes the Aeronautical Division of Signal Corps

  • Army accepts first military aircraft

    Signal Corps Aeroplane No. 1: Wright Type A Military Flyer

  • U.S. Army activates the 1st Aero Squadron

    (Provisional)

  • US House Resolution 5304

    Army aviation receives official status. This bill authorizes the Signal Corps to establish an aviation section consisting of 60 officers and 260 enlisted men.

  • the French Air Service establishes the Escadrille Amercaine

    later renamed the Lafayette Escadrille

  • Lt. Stephen W. Thompson acheives the first U.S. aerial victory

    Lt. Stephen W. Thompson acheives the first aerial victory for the United States military as a gunner-observer with a French squadron.

  • WWI Armistice Treaty

  • Brig Gen Billy Mitchell sinks the Ostfriesland

    To refute Navy claims that capital ships were unsinkable and to assert that bombers rendered battleships obsolete, Brigadier General Billy Mitchell - Chief of Air Service, First Army - mobilizes Martin MB-2 bombers to sink the 27,000 ton ex-German battleship Ostfriesland

  • Billy Mitchell sinks the USS New Jersey and USS Virginia

    11 aircraft sink the USS New Jersey and USS Virginia battleships to prove the Navy's vulerability from the air and to demonstrate the importance of Air Power.

  • Navy airship Shenandoah crashes

    Brig Gen Billy Mitchell charges, "...the incompetency, criminal negligence, and almost treasonable administration of our national defense by the Navy and War departments." Leads to Mitchell's court martial.

  • Brigadier General Billy Mitchell resigns

    died 1936

  • Army Air Corps Act

    U.S. Army Air Service renamed to Army Air Corps

  • Congress authorizes construction of the Academy