Air power is indivisible. If you split it up into compartments, you merely pull it to pieces and destroy its greatest asset - its flexibility.
Adolf Galland said that the day we took our fighters off the bombers and put them against the German fighters, that is, went from defensive to offsensive, Germany lost the air war. I made that decision and it was my most important decision during World War II. As you can imagine, the bomber crews were upset. The fighter pilots were ecstatic.
Airpower has become predominant, both as a deterrent to war, and-in the eventuality of war-as the devastating force to destroy an enemy's potential and fatally undermine his will to wage war.
Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.
Air power may either end war or end civilization.
Air power alone does not guarantee America's security, but I believe it best exploits the nation's greatest asset - our technical skill.
We're at a real time of transition here in terms of future aviation. What's going to be manned? What's going to be unmanned? There are those who see [the JSF] as the last manned fighter/bomber. And I'm one that's inclined to believe it-whether it's right or not.
My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power - not with ground forces.
To have command of the air means to be able to cut an enemy's army and navy off from their bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war.
The Air Force comes in every morning and says, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb' ... And then the State Department comes in and says, 'Not now, or not there, or too much, or not at all.'
Offense is the essence of air power.
In our victory over Japan, airpower was unquestionably decisive. That the planned invasion of the Japanese Home islands was unnecessary is clear evidence that airpower has evolved into a force in war co-equal with land and sea power, decisive in its own right and worthy of the faith of its prophets.
Strategic air assault is wasted if it is dissipated piecemeal in sporadic attacks between which the enemy has an opportunity to readjust defenses or recuperate.
Air control can be established by superiority in numbers, by better employment, by better equipment, or by a combination of these factors.
The first and absolute requirement of strategic air power in this war was control of the air in order to carry out sustained operations without prohibitive losses.
Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?
The time will come, when thou shalt lift thine eyes To watch a long-drawn battle in the skies. While aged peasants, too amazed for words, Stare at the flying fleets of wondrous birds.
I considered the attacks on London useless, and I told the Fuhrer again and again that inasmuch as I knew the English people as well as I did my own people, I could never force them to their knees by attacking London. We might be able to subdue the Dutch people by such measures but not the British.
... then there was war in heaven. But it was not angels. It was that small golden zeppelin, like a long oval world, high up. It seemed as if the cosmic order were gone, as if there had come a new order, a new heavens above us: and as if the world in anger were trying to revoke it.
England, so long mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear And reign the sovereign of the conquered air.
or simply:
