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U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues
Where Duty, Honor and Country
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General Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold
(1886 - 1950)
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When Hap Arnold became a military pilot in 1911, the U.S. military owned just two airplanes. By his retirement in 1946, he had built the U.S. Air Force into a separate service of the armed forces. Under Arnold’s guidance, the two planes and two pilots of 1911 had grown to a peak World War II size of 78,757 aircraft and 2,372,292 personnel. During his 35-year career, the versatile Arnold had combined his vision, political savvy, piloting skills, and engineering knowledge to forge a mission and place for the U.S. Air Force better than anyone who had come before.
Hap Arnold as a boy.
Henry Harold "Hap" Arnold was born in Philadelphia in 1886 and attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was known as a prankster and troublemaker. His grades were mediocre, and when he graduated he was denied a commission with the cavalry, his dream position. Instead, he was assigned to the infantry and sent to the Philippines.
But he was lucky enough to befriend Captain Arthur Cowan, who had been charged with finding officers to join the Signal Corps flight training program. Knowing Arnold’s desire to leave the infantry, he chose Arnold. Arnold and another prospective pilot, Thomas DeWitt Milling, were sent to the Wright brothers’ flying school in Ohio to begin training on the newly purchased Wright Flyers.
Henry H. Arnold At College Park Maryland, 1916
Ground school lasted less than a week, and Arnold made his first flight on May 3 in a Wright Model B flyer. On July 6, he earned his civilian pilot certificate and on July 22, he was given military aviator rating.
When their training was completed, Arnold and Milling became flight instructors at the Signal Corps flight school in College Park, Maryland. They also worked on finding military uses for airplanes, which at the time, few people had considered. Arnold was a top-notch pilot and established a world altitude record and in October 1912, became the first Mackay Trophy winner by successfully using aerial reconnaissance to locate a cavalry troop. The next month, while participating in an artillery fire directing experiment, Arnold’s plane suddenly dropped into a downward spin. Arnold survived, performing the first successful spin recovery. When he landed, he asked for a leave of absence from flying and was transferred back to the infantry.
Henry H. Arnold aboard a Wright Flyer, 1911
When Congress increased aviation appropriations at the beginning of war in Europe, Arnold was recalled to the Signal Corps. With a temporary wartime rank of colonel, Arnold spent the war in Washington overseeing aircraft production and mobilization. As one of the few officers with flying experience, Arnold brought a valuable practical viewpoint to his job, and although not happy about being away from the battlefront, he gained valuable administrative experience.
After the war ended, Arnold served at several air bases and attended courses at the Army Industrial College. The new chief of the air service Mason Patrick called Arnold back to Washington in 1924 to serve as chief of information for the air service, charged with keeping abreast of developments in aviation. He was also given the impossible task of trying to subdue the outspoken Billy Mitchell, his old friend and mentor. During Mitchell’s 1926 court-martial, Arnold testified on his behalf. When Mitchell was found guilty and retired from the military, Arnold considered retiring as well, but feeling there was more to accomplish, chose to stay with the air service. Patrick sent him to Fort Riley, Kansas.
Henry H. Arnold in training at Dayton, Ohio, 1911
Despite its reputation as the worst post in the army, Arnold enjoyed Fort Riley. He taught airpower to the infantry soldiers and could interact with them. He could finally spend time with his family, and he wrote children’s stories about a pilot named Bill Bruce.
Leaving Fort Riley and after several reassignments, he was stationed at March Field in California. There, he made valuable contacts in the world of academia, particularly with members of the aeronautics program at Caltech and Theodore von Kármán, the noted aerodynamicist. Arnold became convinced that the only way the U.S. military aviation would be the best would be if industry, military, and academic research institutions all cooperated.
In 1934, Arnold earned his second Mackay Trophy, commanding a fleet of ten B-10 bombers on a roundtrip flight between Washington, D.C., and Fairbanks, Alaska. As a result of careful planning, the 8,290-mile (4,974-kilometer) roundtrip was accomplished with no aircraft losses. And it demonstrated to the American public that the geographical isolation the country had always relied on for protection was no longer a factor.
In 1936, Arnold became the assistant chief of the Air Corps, and when the chief of the Air Corps Oscar Westover died in a plane crash in September 1938, Major General Arnold became chief. Arnold inherited a force of fewer than 2,000 airplanes and 21,000 men at the same time that Europe was gearing up for another major war. Arnold had seen the problems stemming from a lack of preparedness during World War I and was determined that the Air Corps not be in the same position again. Using his administrative, political, and industrial experience, he mobilized both the military and industry. He knew that for the air corps to be useful, it had to have an equal balance of airplanes, pilots, support personnel, and air bases. While he pushed for an increased industrial infrastructure and research to improve his planes, he also developed training programs and built air bases. As much as he wanted the best bombers and fighters, he knew that trainer aircraft were equally important.
Colonel Henry H. "Hap" Arnold (right) with Captain Lowell H. Smith signing the flight log upon Smith's return from the First Transcontinental Reliability and Endurance Test, 1919.
Among Arnold’s successful mobilization projects was the development of the B-17 and B-29, heavy long-range bombers for large-scale strategic bombing campaigns. Other research programs Arnold pushed were radar, bombsights, windshield de-icing, and jet assisted take-off. But as the country moved closer to war, Arnold changed his views on long-range research. Rather than spend his resources on research projects to develop advanced capabilities that would not be completed until after the war, he preferred to concentrate on projects that would expand the combat range, effectiveness, and safety of the current planes. The only exception to this rule was the development of the XP-59A Airacomet, America’s first jet-engine aircraft. Arnold funded the XP-59A project because he felt that jets were the future of aviation. Although its first official flight was October 2, 1942, the plane never performed to a satisfactory level and did not reach high production levels.
U.S. Generals - George Patton, "Hap" Arnold, and Mark Clark.
On June 20, 1941, the air service was renamed the United States Army Air Force. Six months later, the United States was at war. Arnold organized the USAAF into smaller air forces, each with a specific task and war theater. He oversaw an enormous growth of people, airplanes, and support systems. He also supported initiatives that helped win the war and establish the U.S. Air Force: strategic bombings campaigns, Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo, firebombing in Japan, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), and the development and fostering of promising officers who would lead the service in the decades to come. Arnold was devoted to his troops and spent much of the war touring overseas operations. He worked extremely hard and his health suffered for it. He had his first of several heart attacks on January 19, 1945, less than a month after his promotion to five-star General of the Army. His doctors and family encouraged him to retire, but he felt duty-bound to finish the war and bring his flyers home. He finally retired in June 1946, and one year later the U.S. Air Force was founded as a separate service. In 1949, President Truman signed a bill making Arnold a permanent (and in 2001, the only) General of the Air Force. He died the following January in his sleep.
Hap Arnold and Claire Chennault, Curtiss P-40s, Chungking, ca. 1942
Arnold’s pioneering flights, devotion to the concept of air power, promotion of technological development, and leadership during World War II have inspired generations of air force personnel, scientists, engineers, and dreamers. To honor him, the air force named an air force base in Tennessee after him in 1951. Arnold Air Force Base is the only base without a flying unit assigned to it; instead it houses the Arnold Engineering Development Center, the world’s largest collection of flight simulators to aid in advanced aeronautical research. For a man who spent his career promoting technology and research, this is a most fitting honor.
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