The Air War College is a relative newcomer to the ranks of service schools for it has been in existence for only five years. Despite its youth, and the growing pains that are inevitable in the inception of any new educational institution, it is already moving to a place in the forefront of advanced military education.
The Air War College is a lineal descendant of the old Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. From that rather modest beginning it has expanded into a full Hedged advanced school for the development of senior Air Force Officers for high command duties. It is the senior component of the Air University, which comprises the Air War College, the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Air Command and Staff School, the Air Tactical School, the School of Aviation Medicine, and the Special Staff School.
The student body is made up of specially selected senior officers of the Air Force, of eleven years’ service or over, usually of the rank of colonel. In addition there are small groups of officers from the Navy and Marine Corps, officers from all branches of the Army and representatives from the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The first class numbered sixty officers but the student body has since been expanded to one hundred and thirty officers for the ten months’ course.
One might think from the name of the school that it would lay primary emphasis upon the use and handling of masses of aircraft and all of the problems incident thereto. In actuality there are no shrines to Douhet and Mitchell in its halls. The fundamental aims of the school are: teaching and learning how to develop and operate an air force— and the grounding of the students in military thinking. The cardinal principle that is reiterated time after time is, “think for yourself—don’t accept anything that has been done before as necessarily right.” To quote a favorite expression of the Commandant, Major General Orvil A. Anderson, “Get away from patternized thinking.” To insure that this principle is carried out in practice during the student’s year at the school, there is no instruction as such by members of the staff. The student is expected to learn by his own effort, absorbing, judging, sifting, and analyzing the material that is placed before him. With this material and in collaboration with his fellow students he is expected to arrive at sound bases for evaluating and solving military problems.
The curriculum is arranged in three major subdivisions, Academic, Military Science, and Planning. The Academic Phase covers about the first six weeks of the school year. During this phase the student is given an introduction to the school, its methods of operation, and its aims. Following this lie is given a course in public speaking and a course in problem solving. During this time he is also initiated into the seminar system that is used throughout the year. Students are divided into seminars of about seven officers each under a student chairman and with a faculty member adviser. Lecture periods usually occupy the mornings and the afternoons are devoted to seminar discussions of the lecture material and the particular problem assigned at the time. These seminar meetings are almost invariably of great value. The discussions are completely free, open, and frank. They provide an excellent medium for learning the points of view of members of other services and for polishing up one’s own ideas against the emery wheel of searching questions and radically different concepts. I recall quite vividly one Air Force Colonel who quoted Mahan in support of his ideas on strategic bombing! His conception was an analogy between the salt water seas and the air seas which cover the globe. It goes without saying that a prolonged and fruitful discussion ensued. I was greatly edified and I hope he was also.
It should be emphasized at this point that there are no approved solutions to the studies assigned. Seminars arrive at what amounts to an opinion concerning the study under discussion. This they do entirely on their own without reference to or direct guidance from the faculty member who monitors their deliberations. His function is merely that of an adviser and observer. Frequently the attendant faculty member is asked for his views by the members of the seminar who are momentarily at a loss. Invariably the faculty member refuses to offer more than the most general guidance—with the end in view of assuring that the seminar remains within the general scope of the topic assigned. This type of guidance is quite unusual in military academic circles and has the great merit that it forces the students to perform that hardest work of all—thinking for oneself.
With each study under discussion there is a carefully selected bibliography usually covering required reading of about four pertinent books plus an optional reading list. Careful attention is paid to professional reading throughout the course and an excellent and up to date reading list is presented to the student.
The second phase, the Military Science Phase, lasts for about three months. During that time the military organization of the United States and the strategy of World War II is carefully scrutinized and the students undertake studies on personnel, training, logistics, research and development, organization and intelligence.
Sufficient flexibility is maintained so that special seminars may be set up to study special problems which arise—for example, those relating to strategic intelligence.
Each seminar is required to produce a written solution to the assigned problem or study. More often than not, one or more members of a seminar entertains a radically different idea of the correct solution to the problem under study. Students are always privileged, in fact encouraged, to develop such minority opinions and to present them. From among the majority solutions two are chosen and the students of those seminars make presentations before the entire student body. At the conclusion of these presentations each, seminar expounds any major points of difference it may have with the material presented. At this time students who have developed ideas which differ from those of the regular seminar solutions are free to make such presentations as they choose. These dissenting opinions are invariably interesting and are usually of great value in exploring new, and at times, radical approaches to the study in question.
The third and final phase of the course deals with the development of a national strategy, the development of a broad over-all military plan to carry out the national strategy arid, as the concluding study of the course, an Air Force plan to implement the plan of the previous study.
Throughout the course the students receive the benefit of an exceptionally fine series of lectures by eminent speakers. Speakers such as Walter Lippmann, Father E. A. Walsh, Dr. Karl Compton, Dr. Baxter, William C. Bullitt, and many other civilians of equal eminence are heard. The military speakers include the leading experts in their various special fields from the three U. S. services and the R.A.F. and also members of the top command echelons of those services. It is the aim of the college to gear the lectures to the subject under study, but due to scheduling difficulties or sometimes due merely to the inherent worth of the lecture the subject may not be directly related to the study in progress.
Question periods which follow all of the lectures afford an opportunity for exploring doubtful points or developing further points of special interest that were presented in the lecture.
Included in the curriculum is the preparation of a thesis by each student. He is presented with a list of subjects upon which the Air Force would like to have research done. However, the student is free to write his thesis on any subject of his own choosing. The research in connection with the thesis and the writing of the opus itself occasions much groaning but nearly everyone has a pet theory or project on which he has yearned for years to devote more time for study and exposition. There is an excellent library available to students for their use in connection with the preparation of theses, and research consultants are available for advice on location of source material and in organizing bibliographies.
In addition to the material presented at Maxwell Air Force Base, the entire student body is given a demonstration trip of several days’ duration aboard Atlantic Fleet carriers, an Army weapons demonstration at Fort Benning, and an aircraft weapons and aircraft demonstration at Eglin Air Force Base, the Air Force proving ground. These demonstrations are eye-openers to the members of the opposite services.
An interesting and valuable feature of the year at the Air War College is a course designed to improve the students’ reading technique. The improvement in reading technique is very marked with this course. The average speed was about 270 words per minute with eighty percent comprehension (a mark of 80 on an exam on the subject matter which had been read) at the start of the course. The class average was 655 words per minute with eighty percent comprehension at the end of the course. Some students attained phenomenal reading rates, one officer was reading at 1,500 words per minute with ninety percent comprehension after taking the course. Several others were in the 1,200 words per minute bracket.
The system for evaluating the students is unusual and interesting. At the conclusion of each study the members of each seminar are given an evaluation sheet on each of the other officers in that seminar. The student then grades his seminar colleagues on their contribution to the work of the seminar, the depth and originality of their thinking and on their ability to express themselves. He also gives a short evaluation of the other fellow as a personality. These evaluation sheets are consolidated and are used to make up the students’ report for the school year. A compilation of the reports on himself is given to each student each three months. As one student remarked: “Ye gods, how can I be so brilliant and so stupid, such a great guy and such a louse all at the same time.” However, these reports are very illuminating and give the student that gift that Burns spoke of “to see ourself as others see us.”
The social life of the students is very pleasant, given comfortable housing, the excellent recreational facilities of Maxwell Air Force Base and a wide variety of extracurricular activities. These include all forms of athletics, hobby shop, book discussion groups, a little theater group and a host of other activities.
Major General O. A. Anderson, the present commandant of the Air War College and its founder, is deserving of great credit for the splendid school that he has developed. The opportunities that it presents for intellectual stimulation and growth are revolutionary in the field of military education. The Naval Officer who is fortunate enough to attend the school will undoubtedly find much with which he does not agree and much that he considers fallacious, but he will also find an intellectual awakening and a renewed stimulus to his professional thinking. Above all he will find a renewed dedication to his country and its security.