Whereas, on August 1, 1907, the Aeronautical Division of the Army Signal Corps, consisting of 1 officer and 2 enlisted men, began operation under the command of Captain Charles DeForest Chandler with the responsibility for all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines, and all kindred subjects ; Whereas, in 1908, the Department of War contracted with the Wright brothers to build 1 heavier-than-air flying machine for the Army and, in 1909, the Department accepted the Wright Military Flyer, the first military airplane; Whereas pilots of the United States, flying with both Allied air forces and with the Army Air Service, performed admirably during the course of World War I, the first air war in history, by participating in pursuit, observation, and day and night bombing missions; Whereas pioneering aviators of the United States, including Mason M. Patrick, William Billy Mitchell, Benjamin D. Foulois, Frank M. Andrews, Henry H. Hap Arnold, James H. Jimmy Doolittle, and Edward Eddie Rickenbacker, were among the first individuals to recognize the military potential of airpower and, in the decades following World War I, courageously laid the foundation for the creation of an independent arm for the air forces of the United States; Whereas, on June 20, 1941, the Department of War created the Army Air Forces as the aviation element of that Department and, shortly thereafter, the Department made the Army Air Forces co-equal to the Army Ground Forces; Whereas General Henry H. Hap Arnold drew upon the industrial prowess and human resources of the United States to transform the Army Air Corps from a force of 22,400 men and 2,402 aircraft in 1939 into an entity with a peak wartime strength of 2,400,000 personnel and 79,908 aircraft