Legalized
Murder: The Army Flies the Mail

     In 1934 the
painstakingly constructed air transportation system that had been hammered together by Postmaster
General Walter Folger Brown was devastated by the decision to cancel all existing civil air mail contracts
and to use the army to fly the mail. This decision by President
Franklin Roosevelt had catastrophic consequences for the army, the
air mail, and the commercial airlines of the day. The reasons
for, and the results of this ill-fated decision, provide a
fascinating glimpse into early airline operations, partisan politics,
and the personalities and egos of the movers and shakers of the
era. In order to clarify the events leading up to the
cancellation, we can break down the era from WWI to the beginning of WWII into four distinct periods with regard to air
transportation.

    
During this period the Post Office initiated air mail
flights with an experimental service between New York and Washington D. C. In order to begin the experimental
service the Post Office borrowed the aircraft and pilots from the
army. From this humble beginning on May 15, 1918, the Post
Office expanded air mail operations into a transcontinental route
with numerous north-south feeder routes. These routes were designed to connect major cities and financial centers by
air. In July 1918 the Post Office acquired the first of its own
airplanes, six specially designed Standard JR-1Bs. Army pilots were replaced by six civilian air mail pilots and the Post
Office began independent flight operations on August 12, 1918.1  System development continued with the establishment of
operational and maintenance bases at various points along
the rapidly expanding routes with the ultimate goal being a transcontinental route that allowed all-season, day and
night operations. The Post Office established navigational aids, radio communications facilities and primitive weather
services along the route. The end of WWI had brought a flood of former military pilots applying for flying jobs with the
air mail service along with 100 war-surplus de Havilland DH-4 from the army.2
The DH-4 became the backbone of the Post Office fleet. By 1921 there were 98 planes operational in the air
mail service, the majority of them DH-4s.3 
     By 1925 the Post Office had completed the installation of
lighting along transcontinental airways. It consisted of
289 flashing beacons and 17 weather stations linked by two-way radio. Post Office pilots flew the mail from New York to
San Francisco in 29 hours 38 minutes. 
     Recognizing the need for better performance and larger
payloads, the Post Office ordered 40 specially built
aircraft from Douglas Airplane Company, the Douglas M-2. It had twice the capacity of the DH-4 and was significantly
faster. This was the largest non-military order for aircraft to
date and ignited the faltering airplane manufacturing industry.
     Ironically, by 1925 the Post Office’s direct role in
flying the mail was coming to an end. The passage of the Kelly
Act, the Air Mail Act of 1925, mandated that the Post Office turn  . . . . .