JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO, Texas –
While known for being the “father of U.S. military aviation” with his historic flight at Fort Sam Houston March 2, 1910, Benjamin D. Foulois was also the owner of many other aviation-related “firsts.”
1918 – First Chief of Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, 1st Army
Gen. John J. Pershing personally requested Foulois for this job, believing Foulois could end the chaos within the fledgling Air Service in France.
Instead, it produced more friction and confusion. The air officers already in France were, for the most part, Regular Army and rated aviators, and resented having Foulois’ staff imposed on them. Foulois believed his staff brought logistical and administrative skills that were essential to operational success, but others saw things differently.
Billy Mitchell, now Air Service Commander for the Zone of Advance, was Foulois’ bitterest critic. Mitchell referred to the new arrivals as “carpetbaggers,” charging that “a more incompetent lot of air warriors have never arrived in the zone of active military operations since the war began.” Pershing, the AEF Commander in Chief, called his new air staff “a lot of good men running around in circles.”