First of all, shortly after President Roosevelt had been inaugurated, Postmaster James Farley had canceled the air-mail contracts and Senators Black and Nye had broken out in a rash of Congressional investigations. These had upset the five-year procurement programs of both Army and Navy and reacted adversely upon many manufacturers. For a while, Admiral Moffett had held the fort, but then a great tragedy had deprived aviation of one of its foremost figures at its time of greatest need. The admiral, continuing his absorption with the development of lighter-than-air craft, had succeeded in building and operating the _Macon_ and the _Akron_ and had established a new field near San Jose, California, one that now carries his name. Here the _Macon_ carried out operations with the fleet until an unfortunate accident resulted in her complete loss. The Old Man, still faithful to the rigid airship, continued to fly in them himself until the night the _Akron_ sailed out over the Atlantic and was destroyed. The admiral was lost at sea along with other gallant airmen, close friends and classmates of mine. The loss was disastrous enough from the personal angle, for Admiral Moffett was loved and admired by all his aeronautic organization to a degree seldom attained by any man. Coming as it did at the time of greatest trial on the political front, it deprived us of the one person who might have guided us through our worst rocks and shoals. The admiral was buried at Arlington along with so many of the young lads he had inspired. With his passing, gloom settled over us all. When Adm. E. J. King succeeded to command of BUAERO, he brought to it a type of leadership quite different from that which had characterized its thirteen years under Admiral Moffett. Admiral King, who was one day to become Commander in Chief during World War II, was a man of strong convictions who made his own decisions. With his brilliant intellect and decisive manner, he dominated the Bureau completely. The cancellation of air-mail contracts set off a chain reaction that disrupted the whole United Aircraft and Transport structure. To comply with the law requiring separation of manufacturing companies from transport organizations, United Airlines was split off into a separate company known as United Airlines Transport Corporation. With the transport link between the eastern and western manufacturing groups thus disrupted, we divided them into two separate companies. The four Connecticut companies, Pratt and Whitney, Hamilton-Standard, Chance Vought, and Sikorsky, comprised the new United Aircraft Corporation. The western group took the name of Boeing Airplane Company.