Every Inch a Soldier: Augustine Warner Robins and the Building of U.S. Airpower

As a West Point cadet (1903-1907), Augustine Warner Robins numbered among his classmates and friends Hap Arnold and Frank Andrews. As a young officer, he fought under Black Jack Pershing in Mexico and met a young George Patton and Ben Foulois. As a senior officer, he worked with such luminaries of the day as Charles A. Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Lester Maitland, Orville Wright, and Billy Mitchell. Even more significantly, during his career he was instrumental in developing the first official and workable Air Force supply maintenance and accountability system. He helped establish official guidelines for training of logistics officers, NCOs, and civilians working for the Army Air Corps. Robins's life provides, through his thousands of letters, telephone transcripts, and other primary materials, a unique window on the interwar period, and especially on the history of aviation in America.