Air Force (USAF) gained its independence on September 18, 1947, under the Department of the Air Force, headed by Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. General Carl Spaatz was named the first Air Force Chief of Staff.
At a time of demobilization, the National Security Act only postponed a confrontation between the Navy and Air Force over roles and missions in an era of declining defense dollars. For over a century, the Navy had been America's first line of defense and its offensive arm overseas until the era of the long-range bomber and the atomic bomb. Air power appealed to an American love of technology, a desire to avoid heavy casualties, and to austerity-minded presidents like Harry Truman and especially Dwight Eisenhower. The atomic bomb made air power the preeminent force in the postwar world. Giant six- and later ten-engine B-36 Peacemakers seemed to eclipse the Navy's expensive and vulnerable aircraft carriers in the nuclear world. A group of naval officers, led by Admirals Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, and Arthur Radford, protested when budget restraints forced a Navy cutback from eight to four carriers and the cancellation of a planned supercarrier, the USS United States, large enough to launch atom bomb-carrying aircraft. The outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 ensured higher defense budgets and limited further interservice contention.
Among the changes wrought by World War II for the U.S. Air Force was that affecting its basic composition. What had been a predominantly white male force became over time more representative of American diversity. African Americans had served in many roles during World War II, most visibly as fighter pilots in the 332d Fighter Group in Italy. Their combat record helped pave the way for the full racial integration of the armed forces under President Truman's July 1948 Executive Order 9981 which stated: "There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Services without regard to race." The Air Force achieved racial integration quickly and smoothly, eliminating its last segregated unit (the 332d Wing) in June 1949. American airmen first fought together without racial separation during the Korean War―Captain Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr., an African-American recognized and decorated for his performance as a reconnaissance pilot, came out of that experience. Equal opportunities and promotions for African Americans came more slowly, however, causing several riots at Air Force installations in the 1970s; but the service's commitment to a strong equal opportunity program erased remaining racial barriers. The armed services in general were ahead of the rest of American society on this issue.
