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Benjamin Delahauf Foulois (December 9, 1879 – April 25, 1967) was a United States Army general who learned to fly the first military planes purchased from the Wright brothers. He became the first military aviator as an airship pilot, and achieved numerous other military aviation "firsts". He led strategic development of the Air Force in the United States.
Foulois attended the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from September 1905 to August 1906. In 1907, he married Ella Snyder van Horn, the daughter of Colonel James Judson van Horn. Assigned to attend the Army Signal School in the class of 1906–1907, he was recalled to his regiment in September 1906 for duty with an expeditionary force in Cuba during the Second Occupation of Cuba. His experience in surveying in the Philippines led to reassignment to the chief engineer of the force to perform military mapping. He was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps on April 30, 1908, assigned to the office of the Army's chief signal officer (CSO), Brig. Gen. James Allen, and sent to complete Signal School, which he did in July 1908. His final thesis was The Tactical and Strategical Value of Airship and Aerodynamical Flying Machines, within which he demonstrated prescience in such statements as this:
He forecast the replacement of the horse by the airplane in reconnaissance, and wireless air-to-ground communications that included the transmission of photographs. As a result, the CSO selected Foulois for the aeronautical board designated to conduct the 1908 airship and airplane acceptance trials.Foulois, p. 50. After having selected the Thomas Scott Baldwin airship as the winner of the trial, Foulois was selected as the first military crewman. He took his first flight on August 18 as engineer-pilot, while Baldwin controlled the rudder at the aft end.
The Wright brothers spent 10 months following the fatal crash in making engineering improvements to the airplane. By July 1909, Orville was ready to complete the acceptance test for the Signal Corps. On July 30, 1909, Foulois' first flight in an aeroplane was the evaluation test flight from Fort Myer to Alexandria, Virginia. Pilot Orville Wright and navigator Foulois broke previous speed, altitude, and cross-country duration records, flying at 42.5 mph, 400 feet, and for . The Army purchased this Wright Model A Military Flyer, which became "Signal Corps No. 1".Foulois, p. 65. The final condition of the contract was to train two pilots.
Foulois and Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm were initially designated to take direct instruction from the Wright brothers, but the CSO instead sent Foulois to Nancy, France, in September 1909 as a delegate to the International Congress of Aeronautics, possibly as a result of resentment of his outspoken criticism of the dirigible. He returned on October 23 to College Park, Maryland, where Wilbur Wright had begun training Lahm and Lieutenant Frederick E. Humphreys. Humphreys made the first military solo in an airplane on October 26, 1909, followed by Lahm. Although not contractually obligated to do so, Wilbur took Foulois up and allowed him to handle the controls, then turned him over to Humphreys for instruction. Foulois totaled 3 hours and 2 minutes at the controls, virtually equaling the flight time of Humphreys and Lahm, but did not make any landings, nor did he solo. On November 5, Humphreys and Lahm cartwheeled S.C. No. 1 during landing, damaging the rudder and necessitating replacement of a wing, at a time when neither Wright brother was available. In addition, both officers were recalled to their branches of service.
In early 1911, the United States gathered much of the Regular Army in South Texas as a show of force to Mexican revolutionaries, forming the "Maneuver Division". On March 3, 1911, Foulois and Parmalee made the first official military reconnaissance flight (without crossing the border), looking for Army troops between Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas, with a ground exercise in progress. Two days later, returning from a cross-country flight, they accidentally shut off the engine, and in trying to restart it, crashed into the Rio Grande. Neither was injured and the airplane was eventually repaired and returned to Collier.
Foulois was joined in April by three students from the Curtiss Aviation School in San Diego, including Capt. Paul W. Beck and Second Lt. George E. M. Kelly, to form a provisional "aero company" created April 5, 1911, by the Maneuver Division in anticipation of training 18 more pilots. Beck, like Foulois, was dual-commissioned in the Signal Corps and being senior,Beck was senior to Foulois in rank and all other service aspects (commissioned time, infantry seniority, Signal Corps seniority) except aviation experience. took command of the company, an action that Foulois resented. Friction and mutual rivalry with the new pilots also existed because they had no experience on the Wright machine, instead being trained on the Curtiss D biplane. On May 3, 1911, Beck crashed the Curtiss machine after its engine failed at 300 feet. A week later, flying the same airplane after its repair, Kelly was killed trying to land minutes into his qualification flight.
Foulois blamed Beck for improper repairs to the craft, and also questioned his ability to command, but the investigating board, of which both Foulois and Beck were members, ruled that Kelly's death resulted from landing at too high a speed. In any event, the army shut down all aviation training at Fort Sam Houston and sent pilots and airplanes to College Park, Maryland, where its first aviation school was about to commence. Beck was ordered there as the instructor on the Curtiss machine in June, but Foulois remained on duty with the Maneuver Division until July 11, when he was reassigned to the Militia Bureau in Washington, DC.Hennessy, Dr. Juliette A. (1958). The United States Army Air Arm, April 1861 to April 1917 (USAF Historical Study No. 98), Maxwell Air Force Base: Air Force Historical Research Agency, OCLC 12553968, p. 47
On November 19, 1915, Foulois led the 1st Aero Squadron cross-country flight of six Curtiss JN3s from Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Ft Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, intended as the site for the first permanent base of the Aviation Section, the San Antonio Air Center. In 1916, Pancho Villa crossed into New Mexico and killed 17 Americans. In response, Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing was directed to pursue Villa into Mexico, and Foulois was ordered to take eight airplanes to provide reconnaissance and communication. On 15 March 1916, Foulois and the 1st Aero Squadron arrived at Columbus, New Mexico, for duty. On 16 March, Foulois flew as the observer with Dodd on the first American military reconnaissance flight over foreign territory (overflying Mexico in search of Villa). Within eight weeks, six of the aircraft had been destroyed, as the airplane could not contend with the high altitude, severe weather, and dry atmosphere.Foulois, p. 129.
From March to September 1917, General Foulois was charged with the responsibility for the production, maintenance, organization, and operations of all American aeronautical material and personnel in the United States. In March, he worked with Major General George Squier, who was the CSO, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to detail plans for appropriations of $54 million to support 16 aero squadrons, 16 balloon companies, and nine aviation schools.Foulois, p. 141. The French government requested the U.S. provide 4,500 trained pilots by the spring of 1918, which would require 4,900 training aircraft and 12,000 combat planes. The appropriation signed on July 24, 1917, was for $640 million, the largest for a single purpose in the history of Congress.Foulois, p. 146. On the same date, Foulois was promoted from major to the temporary rank of brigadier general, to enable him to oversee this responsibility.
In October 1917, he was transferred to France, and had the same responsibilities in France, the Great Britain, and Italy.Foulois, p. 157. In November 1917, he became Chief of Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, and assumed additional duties as a member of the Joint Army and Navy Aircraft Committee in France; representative of the commander in chief, American Expeditionary Forces on the Inter-Allied Expert Committee on Aviation of the Supreme War Council, and commandant of the Army Aeronautical Schools.Foulois, p. 160. Resentment of Foulois's staff, with 112 officers and 300 enlisted men, most inexperienced and recently commissioned nonflying officers, led to strong criticism from Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, who commanded the Air Service Zone of Advance. In his memoirs, Mitchell wrote:
"Just when things had begun to work smoothly, a shipment of aviation officers arrived under Brigadier General Benjamin Foulois, over one hundred in number, almost none of whom had ever seen an airplane. … As rapidly as possible, the competent men, who had learned their duties in the face of the enemy, were displaced and their positions taken by these carpetbaggers."
Foulois responded:
"... this extract is proof of Mitchell's disregard for facts" and "While Mitchell had every right to have an opinion about me and my staff, his attitude toward us made our jobs doubly difficult. The seeds of insubordination had already been sown when I relieved him, and his memoirs prove how distorted an opinion he had of himself as an expert on air matters."Foulois, p. 161.Creation and deployment of tactical squadrons lagged badly behind the schedule Foulois had promised Pershing, and the supply situation for the Air Service was not improving. Friction between Foulois' nonflying staff and the aviators in command of the instruction schools and the combat squadrons grew to the point of extreme inefficiency. In April 1918, Foulois tried to enforce a cooperative spirit from his own staff without success. In May, he requested relief from his position as Chief of Air Service and recommended to General Pershing that Mitchell should be replaced. Pershing appointed Major General Mason M. Patrick to replace Foulois, who then became Patrick's assistant.Tate, Dr. James P. (1998). The Army and its Air Corps: Army Policy Toward Aviation 1919-1941, Air University Press, p. 19.Pershing appointed Patrick to bring order to the Air Service AEF, which was described as "a tangled mess" under Foulois. Foulois was appointed Chief of Air Service, First Army, with Mitchell still his subordinate, made chief of Air Service I Corps.Foulois, p. 171. The ensuing change of command and the unceasing bitterness between the two men continued. Foulois asserted in his memoirs that while he felt Mitchell was openly insubordinate, disloyal to his superiors, and constantly deviating from the military chain of command in giving orders, Mitchell also possessed the ability and experience to supervise air battles and create a high fighting spirit, exemplified by the battle of Chateau-Thierry.Foulois, p. 175.
Three months later, when a major loss of coordination between offensive units and replacement units occurred at Toul, Foulois again requested relief from his position, this time to again be in charge of Air Service logistics, to straighten out the snarled lines of communication before the major offensives in the fall. He also recommended that Mitchell replace him as Chief of Air Service, First Army. Foulois briefly became Assistant Chief of Air Service, Zone of Advance, but that position was eliminated when the Service of Supply created a forward headquarters near the front in addition to its main headquarters in Tours, and Foulois became the Assistant Chief of Air Service, Service of Supply.Foulois, p. 176.
In August 1919, Foulois appeared before the Frear subcommittee hearings on aviation during the war, and before the Senate Military Affairs Subcommittee considering the Crowell Commission report (which advocated an independent air force) in October. He testified with stinging accusations toward the Army General Staff and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the assistant Secretary of the Navy.Foulois, p. 188.Foulois accompanied Director of Air Service Maj. Gen. Charles Menoher to the Frear hearings. Menoher testified that in his opinion the enthusiasm of aviators for an independent air arm stemmed from a desire for personal promotion. Foulois was asked to comment and acidly defied the General Staff to produce one officer who had ever done anything constructive for aviation.
Having stirred up Washington, Foulois heard that a military attaché was needed in Europe with aviation expertise. He was sent in April 1920 to The Hague as assistant air attache, with observer duties in Berlin. At the same time his wife asked him for a divorce, which was decreed in 1921. (Ella Foulois later became the wife of General Harry Gore Bishop). Since the United States had not yet ratified the Treaty of Versailles, the allies would not share any intelligence with Foulois, and technically the U.S. was still at war with Germany. Foulois found that the Adlon Hotel bar in Berlin was frequented by many aviation cognoscenti. By sharing food and Allied whisky, Foulois was able to obtain a large amount of aviation intelligence from German pilots who included Ernst Udet and Hermann Göring. After gaining the confidence of these sources, Foulois was invited to join the two top aviation organizations in Germany: the German Aeronautical Scientific Society and the Aero Club of Germany.Foulois, p. 191. During his time in Berlin, he met Elisabeth Shepperd Grant, a Philadelphian working as a translator in the American Embassy, and married her two weeks before his return to the United States in 1924.
Foulois gathered the equivalent of a railroad boxcar full of valuable documents, drawings, technical bulletins, magazines, books, blueprints and reports. By having talked with more than 180 individuals, he had a valuable collection of German aviation knowledge. However, he wrote: "I only hoped that it was being put to good use in America. To my eternal regret, it wasn't. The lack of an air intelligence collection system, inexperience on the part of the military intelligence officers in regard to aeronautics, and a lack of appreciation for the potential value of the fruits of German genius caused much of the material I sent to end up unopened in a warehouse and later sent to the trash heap."Foulois, p. 194.
After many years, Foulois achieved his desire to command a flying unit, and was assigned command of Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, in 1925. The same year, Billy Mitchell was convicted in a court-martial, which resulted in his resignation in February 1926.
In December 1927, when James E. Fechet was promoted to Air Corps Chief, Foulois began a four-year tour as one of the three Assistant Chiefs of the Air Corps, which carried with it a temporary rank of brigadier general, including a year as Chief of the Materiel Division at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, from June 1929 to July 1930. In May 1931 he commanded the Air Corps exercises, leading an armada of 672 airplanes, coast-to-coast defense flights, combat competition and large scale attacks. The leadership of this exercise earned Foulois the Mackey Trophy for the most meritorious military flight of 1931.Foulois, p. 214.
On December 19, 1931, following Fechet's retirement, he was appointed Chief of the Air Corps by President Herbert Hoover, which carried the rank of major general. Foulois had already appeared before Congress on 75 occasions to testify on military matters. During the next four years, he was in constant communication with Congress on the future of the Air Corps, during a time when economic hardships were forcing severe budget cuts. While this initially resulted in a solid base of support from supporters of aviation, it eventually proved a two-edged sword: when he lost their support in 1934–1935, his position as Chief of Air Corps became untenable.
Coast defence had traditionally been a primary function of the Army, with the line of demarcation the range of its coast artillery guns. The range of aircraft ostensibly confused the issue and opened a competition between the Air Service and Naval Aviation for the mission, and thus for further development of its service. A compromise reached between the Chief of Naval Operations and General Douglas MacArthur in January 1931 gave the land-based Air Service the mission, while the Navy was to defend the fleet. Following that, the apparent invincibility of long range Martin B-10 bombers against the slower Boeing P-12 pursuit planes led Foulois and the Air Corps leadership to begin the development of long-range bombers in 1933. Without this foresight, the development of the B-17's and B-24's, essential to eventual separation of the Air Force from the Army, would not have taken place.Foulois, p. 229.
Foulois served as Chief of the Air Corps during the Air Mail scandal of 1934. Under pressure from President Roosevelt, Foulois committed the service to delivering the mail without consulting Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, while knowing that the Air Corps was ill-equipped and untrained to fly in winter conditions. At the time, commercial air carriers derived stable income from carrying the U.S. mail. Allegations of a conspiracy to defraud the government in these contracts resulted in assignment of all air-mail delivery to the Air Corps, beginning on February 19, 1934, and lasting through May 17, 1934. The flown by the Air Corps pilots, with insufficient training, equipment, funding, and experience, resulted in numerous fatal crashes.Foulois, p. 260. Foulois became the middleman in a political battle between the commercial aviation owners, Congress, and the military. Foulois later wrote that the "fiasco" was just as historically significant as the first flight or the first air combat mission. He argued that its lasting effect helped identify the needs of the peacetime Air Corps and the Baker Board's recommendation for a GHQ Air Force, which was implemented in March 1935.Foulois, p. 261.
He accurately warned of the buildup of German air power, and the need to build a strong air force and to take defensive measures to protect the East Coast. Prior to World War II, he ran New Jersey's civil defense program. In 1941, Foulois ran as a Republican for , losing to four-term Democratic incumbent Elmer H. Wene.Staff. "Foulois to Seek Congress Seat", The New York Times, August 5, 1942. Accessed September 9, 2012. "Benjamin D. Foulois of Ventnor, retired Army Air Corps chieftain and civilian defense coordinator for South Jersey, was designated here tonight by Republican leaders to run for Congress in New Jersey's Second Congressional District". When World War II broke out he would have returned to active duty if offered a combat position. When the War Department offered him only a staff job, he demurred and opted to devote his energies to New Jersey Civil Defense. He continued to write and speak for 17 years from his home in Ventnor City, New Jersey.
His wife Elisabeth grew very ill and Foulois had difficulty paying for her care. Generals Carl Spaatz and Ira Eaker interceded with Air Force Chief of Staff, General Thomas D. White, to allow Foulois to live at Andrews Air Force Base. In return he would tour the world as a senior spokesman to promote Air Force issues. Thus, in his eighties he traveled by air, emphasizing national security to the men and women of the U.S. Air Force at home and overseas.
In 1963, Foulois appeared on the television quiz show I've Got a Secret, where his secret was that he had once been the entire U.S. Air Force. General Foulois died on April 25, 1967, following a stroke at age 87, and was buried in his hometown of Washington, Connecticut.
Foulois had worked for 18 months with Carroll V. Glines on a biography of his life, though he died before the publicity tour could take place. The book, titled From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts, was published in 1968. The biography was republished in 1980 for sale to libraries; only 400 copies were produced. A new edition of the biography, re-titled Foulois: One-Man Air Force, emerged in 2010.
As one of the longest living of the first military pilots, Foulois saw the beginning of the Apollo Program – a direct legacy of his many career “first” milestones. He remains one of the most significant figures in the development of U.S. air power.
| Senior Pilot Badge | ||
| Army Distinguished Service Medal | Mexican Border Service Medal | World War I Victory Medal |
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