The aeronautical activities of the United States Navy are distributed among the following nine divisions constituting the Navy Department: The Office of Naval Operations Bureau of Navigation Bureau of Construction and Repair Bureau of Ordnance Bureau of Yards and Docks Bureau of Supplies and Accounts The Secretary's Annual Report, made public December 13, 1920, presents the status and organization of Naval Aviation. For three years prior to the spring of 1914, aviation was handled as a matter of experiment in the Bureau of Navigation, with a small appropriation, approximately $10,000 per annum. There was no organization in the Navy Department in which aviation could properly fit, but the office best adapted for aviation affairs appeared to be that of Naval Operations, and accordingly a Captain was ordered to that office for aviation duty. During the conflict with Germany, when aircraft developed from auxiliary into major weapons, threatening to displace in certain fields the older means of warfare, Naval, as well as Military Aviation, grew to such proportions that, because of the lack of the proper administrative machinery to take care of aviation, special and extraordinary means had to be taken to facilitate progress. The Planning Section of the Office of Naval Operations became the center of Naval Aviation activities, and all hands combined to make an unworkable organization function properly and unusual co-operation (a co-operation that could not be expected in peace times,) was extended by the Bureaus to facilitate the administration. The Navy Department, it appears, has made every effort to mold aviation, its newest member, into its established organization, but this apparently having turned out to be an impossibility, Congressional legislation will be necessary to give aviation its proper standing in the Navy. The Secretary in his latest annual report makes the following statement of conditions and recommends certain Departmental changes: "At the present aviation funds for all purposes are allotted through the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, who is directly responsible for the details of aviation. This plan is defective in that it charges the Chief of Operations with numerous details with which he should not be troubled Lieutenant C. C. Moseley and Nerville-Packard Biplane of U. S. Air Service, in which he won the Pulitzer Trophy Race at Mitchel |