"Buying Aircraft: Matériel Procurement for the Army Air Forces" offers the reader a liberal education in military procurement. It examines in depth, and with judicious understanding, the following: procurement of aircraft; budgeting and budgetary changes; contracting; design changes; the nature and development of the aircraft industry; manufacturing techniques, especially in the introduction of mass production into the aircraft industry, and problems in the use of automobile assembly plants for making aircraft; and the War Department's relations with Congress and the Comptroller. Professor Holley recognizes the broad sweep and interrelationship of political, economic, legal, and military problems, and stresses the importance of organization within both government and industry. The volume focuses upon problems inherent in procurement, but does not concern itself with air or ground force doctrine. Its subject matter is the procurement, not the employment, of air power. Because Professor Holley's volume offers concrete examples of problems involved in the design and purchase of complicated and expensive items of military equipment over a period of years, the experiences described should profit the officer engaged in procurement of missiles and aircraft today as well as the student of logistics, and will add immeasurably to the thoughtful citizen's understanding of national defense.
About the Author: Irving Brinton Holley, Jr., received his B.A. from Amherst College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Enlisting in the Army, he rose to the grade of staff sergeant as an instructor in aerial gunnery, attended the Army Air Forces Officer Candidate School at Miami Beach, Florida, and graduated in April 1944. After serving as a gunnery officer in the First Air Force, he was assigned to technical intelligence at Headquarters, Air Matériel Command, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. From 1945 to 1947 he was a member of the faculty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. In 1947 Mr. Holley accepted an appointment in the History Department of Duke University, where he is now a full professor. He holds a commission as a lieutenant colonel, USAF Reserve, and has continued to take an active part in reserve affairs. Professor Holley is the author of Ideas and Weapons, published by the Yale University Press in 1953, as well as numerous articles and reviews in scholarly publications.