later commanded the VI Corps Observation Group to February 1919, when he became commanding officer of the Second Army Observation Group. In April 1919 McNarney was attached to the American Expeditionary Force Headquarters in Paris to write a manual on air observation and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in May. Between the wars McNarney returned to the United States in October 1919 to take charge of the flying school at Gerstner Field, Louisiana. McNarney experienced the chaotic ups and downs in rank common to Regular officers following the reorganization of the Army by the National Defense Act of 1920. He first reverted to his permanent rank of captain of Infantry on 21 February 1920. On 1 July 1920, when the Air Service became a combatant arm of the line, he transferred to the Air Service as a captain, then was promoted to major on the same date by virtue of a provision in the National Defense Act that allowed officers who earned their rank in service with the AEF to retain it. On 4 November 1922 he was discharged when Congress set a new ceiling on the number of majors authorized the Air Service and reappointed as a captain, then promoted again to major on 16 June 1924. McNarney went to Langley Field, Virginia, in November 1920 as a student in the Air Service Field Officers School and remained there as an instructor until 1925. McNarney graduated with honors in June 1926 from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Air Service became the Air Corps in July and McNarney served the next three years in the Air Section of the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department General Staff. In August 1930 he completed the Army War College course and went to March Field, California, as commandant of the Air Corps Primary Flying School, moving with it to Randolph Field, Texas. He succeeded Major Carl A. Spaatz as commanding officer of the 7th Bomb Group in October 1931, and on occasion concurrently served under Spaatz as executive officer of the 1st Bomb Wing at March Field. McNarney was an instructor at the Army War College in Washington from August 1933 to March 1935, when he went to Langley Field, Virginia, as G-4, helping in the organization of the new General Headquarters Air Force with immediate promotion to lieutenant colonel. In July 1938 he was assigned