Air Force Birthday September 18

The official Air Force Birthday is recognized as September 18, 1947, which is the date of the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. That legislation created what would later become to known as the United States Department of Defense. This established the United States Air Force as a separate branch of military service.

Before the creation of the Air Force, the military’s flying operations were handled by the U.S. Army on land and the Navy by sea. The history of this branch of service is an important part of the history of air power in the United States. Naturally, the Air Force birthday owes a great deal to Orville and Wilbur Wright who pioneered mechanized flight with their successful mission in 1903.

But the Air Force also owes a great deal to Army pioneers who, roughly four years after the Wright Brothers’ triumph at Kitty Hawk, began experimenting with using air superiority to gain tactical advantages in combat