assigned to the faculty and were responsible for restarting the School of the Line after World War I all received credit for having attended the course, including McNair. Hawaiian Department In 1921, McNair was posted to Fort Shafter and assigned as assistant chief of staff for operations (G-3) at the headquarters of the Army's Hawaiian Department. While in Hawaii, he became a participant in the Army's ongoing debate over the best methods for providing coastal defense, which engaged proponents of the Coast Artillery branch and Army Air Service. Assigned to the project by Hawaiian Department commander Major General Charles Pelot Summerall because of his reputation for objectivity in carrying out analysis and experimentation with military weapons and equipment, McNair created a committee made up of himself, two coast artillery officers, and an aviation officer to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the two branches, especially with regard to defending Army and Navy bases on Oahu, and make recommendations on the best way to employ coast artillery and military aircraft. The McNair board carried out numerous tests of coast artillery and bomber aircraft in a variety of conditions, and compiled tables and charts to depict the results. The panel concluded that coastal artillery was sufficient for shore defense, provided that adequate listening and lighting equipment for detecting and illuminating enemy ships and planes was available, and that bombers were less accurate, but more effective at destroying enemy ships at longer distances from shore, provided they could overcome obstacles including inclement weather. In addition to his work on the coastal defense problem, McNair was also responsible for directing a review of War Plan Orange, the Army and Navy joint defense plan for countering an attack on Hawaii by Japan. This possibility was a major concern of U.S. military leaders during the years between World War I and World War II. Among McNair's contributions to updating this plan was the creation of several contingency plans ("branches and sequels" in Army parlance) to augment the main war plan. These contingency plans included: using chemical weapons to defend against a Japanese attack, declaring martial law in Hawaii, and determining how to maintain a defense against Japanese invaders while waiting for reinforcements from the U.S. mainland. In 1924 and 1925, McNair and Summerall defended McNair's work when it was criticized during the continuing debate about the future of the Army Air Service. The head of the