departed for the Western Front in November 1917 but suffered a case of appendicitis, resulting in the loss of his flight status. After making a partial recovery, he served in France as senior materiel officer under Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, attaining the temporary rank of major on 7 June 1918. After briefly returned to the United States to serve in Office of the Director of Military Aeronautics in Washington, D.C. from 1 August to 23 September 1918, Brett went to England to command the United States Army Air Service Camp at Codford. Between the wars Brett was posted to Kelly Field, Texas, in December 1918, where he commanded the Aviation General Supply Depot until February 1919, when he became the maintenance and supply officer at the Air Service Flying School. He commanded the Air Service depot in Morrison, Virginia for a month in October 1919 before being assigned to the office of the Director of the Air Service in Washington, DC, where his rank of major became permanent in 1920. That year he took command of Crissy Field. His first son, the future United States Air Force Lieutenant General Devol "Rock" Brett, was born at nearby Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio of San Francisco in 1923. From 1924 to 1927 Brett was stationed at the intermediate depot at Fairfield, Ohio, where he was the officer in charge of the field service section. Starting in June 1927 he attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, Virginia, after which he was selected for the two-year Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He commanded Selfridge Field, Michigan for time before returned to Fort Leavenworth as an Air Corps instructor from 1933 to 1935. After 16 years as a major, he was finally promoted to lieutenant colonel and was selected to attend the Army War College. On graduation, he became commander of the 19th Wing, then stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, with the temporary rank of brigadier general. While he was stationed there, his eldest daughter Dora married his aide, the future general, Bernard A. Schriever. On his return from Panama, Brett reverted to his permanent rank of lieutenant colonel. He was briefly stationed in Menlo Park, California, before moving to Langley, Virginia, where he became chief of staff to his old friend Frank Andrews, now the commander of GHQ Air Force. In February 1939 Brett moved