The
Aviation Section, Signal Corps, was the military aviation service of the
United States Army from 1914 to 1918, and a direct statutory ancestor of the
United States Air Force. It absorbed and replaced the
Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, and conducted the activities of Army aviation until
World War I, when its statutory responsibilities were suspended for the duration of the war. The Aviation Section organized the first squadrons of the aviation arm and conducted the first military operations by United States aviation on foreign soil.