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156 15. Inventing the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet The vital contributions of the U.S. airline industry during World War II implied the need for some sort of mobilization policy for it after the war. There were many precedents for such a policy, particularly in the merchant marines or navies organized by most major powers. Throughout history, militaries have always contracted, called up, impressed, or simply commandeered civil transportation assets in wartime. Beginning in the nineteenth century, maritime powers, including the United States, established programs to organize and finance the expansion and modernization of their merchant fleets as on-call military reserves. So not long after the end of the war, interested and/ or responsible individuals began looking for an organization and mobilization model suitable to the U.S. airline industry. As might be expected in a policy realm blending military and civilian interests so closely, a complicated interaction of many considerations influenced the ultimate shape of the American civil airlift reserve. These considerations included national strategy, budget priorities, technology, political philosophies, military culture, shareholder interests, and individual personalities and perspectives. Of these considerations, national strategy exerted decisive influence. Just as U.S. national security strategy went through two distinct phases in the 1950s— New Look and Flexible Response—airlift planners developed Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet (CRAF) programs for each one. The first CRAF program reflected the strategic and operational expectations of military leaders anticipating nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. The second program addressed potential American commitments to a wider range of conflicts. Each of these CRAF iterations answered the questions of need, composition, and method in ways that made sense to contemporary policymakers and provided the country with a civil reserve appropriate to evolving military requirements. First Thoughts Immediately after World War II, two mobilization models existed to guide the establishment of a civil airline reserve. The first was based on the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. Under that act, most officers on U.S.-flagged merchant 157 Inventing the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet ships held commissions in the Naval Reserve, and all merchant seamen were required to be U.S. citizens or immigrants in the process of naturalization. These requirements, along with others designed to modernize the fleet, created a merchant navy “capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency.” In the event of war or national emergency, therefore , the Navy and/or the Army would have authority either to direct the movements and loading of civilian ships or to bring them and their crews directly into military service.1 The first chairman of the Maritime Commission, Joseph P. Kennedy, immediately saw the connection between ships and planes. In 1937 the father of the future president encouraged shipping companies to create “air auxiliaries” of seaplanes and airships. By implication, these auxiliaries would have fallen under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act as well, including those regarding mobilization.2 The second mobilization model available was the one actually utilized during World War II and might best be described as “voluntary impressment.” Operationally, voluntary impressment looked like the merchant marine model, in that the government left much of the airline industry in civilian hands while bringing the rest into military service. Those aircraft and personnel left in civil livery flew routes and passengers in accordance with plans and priorities set by the military. The others were painted green or put in uniform and followed orders or suffered the consequences. The only real difference between the two models was that, under voluntary impressment, airline executives met and chose among themselves who would serve in uniform and then determined which of their employees would fill the allocation for uniformed military service . Much of this allocation was found through volunteerism, while calls to local draft boards could take care of the rest.3 The success of voluntary impressment left some military leaders with the impression that a more formal setup was not required. The wartime commander of the Air Transport Command (ATC), Major General Harold George, extolled the value of “the experience, men, and equipment which the airlines threw into the struggle” and made no effort establish a more authoritative process.4 Instead, George and his successor after September 1946, Major General Robert M. Webster , endorsed an indirect approach: the “maximum encouragement of the development of private competitive enterprise in United States international air transport operations.”5 They did this in several ways, including pressing the federal government’s...

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