June 13, 2019
Hello ,
During 42 years in the U.S. military, Henry "Hap" Arnold withstood fear and failure.
He battled sickness and short-sighted army brass.
He made the sh#tlist of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and yet, Arnold prevailed,
as a foundational player in American military aviation.
One of the army's first two pilots in 1911, Hap Arnold's career spanned two world wars ending in his promotion to commanding Five Star General of the Army Air Forces in 1944.
Hap Arnold is known as the father of the U.S. Air Force. I'm writing about him for Father's Day because he was also the father of four children and the author of six children's books.
Professionally, Arnold helped beat the Nazis. In his personal life, he and his wife Bee survived one of the worst things that can happen to a parent--the death of a child.
Due to his engaging and ever-present smile, Henry Harley Arnold, was nicknamed Sunny as a boy, and later known as Happy, and then Hap by friends, families and foes.
As a young man, he was mischievous
and impertinent, but in his army career those qualities gave way to a relentless discipline and drive for success. Photo shows Arnold in 1911 at the Wright brother's flying school.
As a commander, Arnold had no patience with incompetence or negligence, and could be ruthless and hot tempered.
At home, when his son William Bruce had trouble reading, Hap sat and read to him in the evenings. Not impressed with the books available for youngsters, he decided to write his own.
Arnold based Bill Bruce: The Aviator Series on his own experiences as pioneering pilot before WWI, and his later success during the inter-war years activating the first Army Aerial Forest Fire Patrol on the West Coast and aerial border patrol in the Southwest.
"The idea which I carried out in the boys [sic] books was to give facts,
interspersed by thrills and sensations, which would give the reader a
comprehensive idea of the development of aviation," Arnold said. "The thrills and sensations filled the boy's desire in that direction while he absorbed the facts."
"Wake up, Bill, there's a big fish on your line."
"I should worry," replied Bill as he lay on his back on the bank of the McKenzie River. "Let him do the worrying. I am having a marvelous time just lying here thinking how wonderful it is to be here in the Oregon woods. Perhaps in a day or two I will get sufficiently accustomed to the big outdoors, the gigantic trees and the wildlife to get enthusiastic over a fish. In the meantime, let him bite."
Bill Bruce and Bob Finch were officers in the United States Army Air Service. They had been boyhood friends in Flower City, Long Island. At the outbreak of the World War they had enlisted as Flying Cadets and had been sent to the Ground School at the University of California, at Berkeley. They had both finished the ground work and then completed their flying training at the aviation field near Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Below: Hap Arnold shown in one of the early planes in which he learned to fly.
Hap Arnold's flying career nearly ended in its infancy. In a two-month course at the Wright Brother's flight school, he completed 28 lessons, logged 228 minutes of flying time and mastered the aerodynamic characteristics of a two-seater
Wright biplane, with a top speed of 40 m.p.h. Shortly, he set flying altitude records and then broke them.
But in those early days, pilots risked their lives nearly every time they left the ground,
and within a year, two of Arnold's friends died in plane crashes. Then he suffered a narrow escape when forced to crash land his plane in the water while flying army maneuvers in Stamford, Connecticut. Luckily, his only injury was a deep laceration on his chin.
“There I was," he said, "tangled up in the wires and bleeding like a stuck pig. Just then I saw a couple of Grand Army of the Republic veterans sailing toward me. I yelled at them, and they hauled in close to the wreck, looked at me for a moment and then squared away in the wind again. ‘Anybody’s fool enough to get himself into one of those things,’ I heard one mutter, ‘can get himself out again’.”
Eventually, sailors from a nearby Coast Guard station picked up Arnold. Still, this close call combined with the knowledge that odds of a long life were poor for aviators exacerbated Arnold's growing fear of flying. His
The next day he wrote to his commanding officer, "At the present time my nervous system is in such a condition that I will not get in any machine."
Arnold transferred to Washington D.C. as an aide to the chief of the Signal Corps. The next year he married Eleanor "Bee" Pool, then served a stint in the Philippines.
The photo below shows the couple in 1930, by which time the couple had a daughter and three sons.
In 1923, Arnold oversaw the army air corps historical aerial refueling trials, in which two biplane pilots swapped fuel through a hose while in flight.
Biographer Dik A. Daso writes how in the midst of this remarkable event, Hap Arnold was dealt great personal tragedy.
"[The Arnold's] third child, William Bruce, contracted a nearly fatal case of scarlet fever. Then, inexplicably, Arnold’s fourth child, two year-old John Linton, became ill and suddenly died. It was later determined that he had suffered a ruptured appendix. The death struck the Arnolds with tremendous force. Arnold had his work to occupy his time and mind, but Bee had the children and they were her life. Eventually, John Linton’s death was
too much for Bee to handle on her own. By May 1924, she had retreated to the family home in Ardmore, Pa., to recover psychologically from the loss of her child....Arnold, with the expert help of a nursemaid, kept the other children out in California allowing Bee to recuperate in peace."
Below: Two biplane pilots make history by swapping fuel through a hose while in flight. It was an Army experiment, putting to practical use what had been a stunted tried by wing-walkers, June 27, 1923.
From the beginning, Arnold had a vision for military aviation, as a separate and powerful branch of the armed forces. This put him in conflict with the army's experience and dependence on infantry and artillery, and the navy's belief in battleships. He was not afraid
to criticize these views. When military brass and the war department refused to listen, he went to Congress and the press. This so angered his superiors that he was given 24 hours to choose retirement or court martial.
He refused to back down and choose court martial, knowing a trial would allow him to air his arguments for air power. Instead, he was transferred to dingle weeds of Fr. Riley, Kansas. After serving at Ft. Riley, Arnold was appointed to the Command and General Staff College, but the infantry-centered curriculum exasperated him.
He reportedly told his wife, “Well, we fought the battle of Gettysburg again today, and guess who won? Meade did it again, but think what Lee could have done with just one Wright airplane.”
Arnold's stubborn adherence to his beliefs aided his ultimate success, but caused conflict with his superiors right up to the Commander in Chief. Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, Arnold clashed with President Franklin Roosevelt over the sale of aircraft to Britain and France,
Arnold and President Franklin Roosevelt clashed fiercely, but developed a close collaboration. Here, Roosevelt and Arnold confer during FDR's visit to the 314th Troop Carrier Group in Sicily, Italy, in December 1943, shortly after the
Tehran Conference. (National Archives)
Select Timeline of Events
- 1907 Arnold graduated from West Point. He'd wanted to be a Baptist minister, but attended West Point to please his father.
- 1911 Sent by the army to the Wright Brothers Aviation School where he and one other guy became the U.S. Army's first two aviators.They set up an Army Signal Corps flight school and started training pilots for the army.
- 1912 When two of his cohort of army pilots crashed and died Arnold developed a fear of flying and after he survived a plane accident, Arnold gave up flying.
- 1913 Married Eleanor "Bee" Pool.
- 1915 Daughter Lois Elizabeth Arnold was born.
- 1916 Airplane safety improve and with the encouragement of friends, Arnold spent 20 minutes a day in the air until he overcame his fear of flying and regained his aviator certificate.
- 2017 Son Henry H. Arnold, Jr. was born, and one day later the U.S. entered the war against Germany. Arnold hoped to see action, but spent the war on a series of assignments managing aircraft and weapons production. Aged 31, he was promoted as the Army's youngest-ever full colonel.
- 2018 Second son, William Bruce Arnold is born. Col. Arnold travels to war front to brief General John Pershing about the Kettering Bug, an experimental, unmanned aerial torpedo and forerunner of present-day cruise missiles. However, the war ended the day he arrived at the front.
- 2018 Post-war Air Service ranks shrink from 120,000 to 27,000. Military leaders are short-sighted about military aviation, seeing its only service as support to infantry and artillery. Arnold supports Assistant Chief of Air Service Billy Mitchell, who lobbies for a single, unified branch of the military to control and develop military air power.
- 1921 John Linton Arnold, Hap's third son was born.
- 2023 Arnold oversees first-ever aerial-refueling maneuver, but suffers ulcers, and his son Bruce nearly dies of scarlet fever. Months later, Arnold's third son, John Linton Arnold, dies of acute appendicitis. Arnold and his wife are devastated.
- 1926 Arnold asked to resign or face court martial for trying to improperly influence Congress
- 1927, his son David Lee Arnold was born at Ft. Riley
- 1928 Arnold wrote and published six books of juvenile fiction, the Bill Bruce Aviator Series
- 1931 Arnold was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, as commanding officer of March Field, California.
- 1934 Arnold leads a spectacular flight of ten Martin B-10s, America’s first all-metal monoplane bombers, on a 5,290-mile round trip flight from Washington, D.C. to Fairbanks, Alaska, demonstrating the potential for strategic bombing.
- 1938 Promoted to Chief of the Army Air Corp, Arnold lobbies for Congressional approval of the B-17 Flying Fortress, he calls it “a turning point in the course of air power.” His efforts fail due to political opposition and interservice rivalry. Then that fall, Germany invades Poland, Arnold convinced President Roosevelt the U.S. needed long range bombers. And an urgent letter from Charles Lindbergh
warns he had seen with his own eyes the the surging surging power of the Luftwaffe. Arnold engages scientists and engineers to improve and perfect the B-17, work on an even bigger heavy bomber ,the B-29, as well as long-range fighters, and other aerial weapons.
- 1941 The Air Corps becomes the Army Air Forces (AAF). Arnold is working 12-hour-plus days, traveling to factories, fields and training facilities. Pounding industry, government and the military for more planes and more pilots got Arnold in hot water. He bristled at moves to sell American-made planes to France and England, pitting him against Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and even the president. Roosevelt was
so irked at Arnold’s barking that the general spent months in the White House doghouse. After Arnold testified to Congress on the death of a French pilot killed testing an American plane, FDR told his air chief he had places, such as Guam, to which he could assign officers who didn’t “play ball.”
- 1942 The War Department granted the AAF full autonomy, equal to and entirely separate from the Army Ground Forces. Arnold named AAF Commanding General and an ex officio member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. September of that year Arnold approves the Army Air Forces Women's Flying Training Detachment, directed by aviator Jacqueline Cochran.
- 1944 President Roosevelt promotes Arnold to five star general and presses him to bomb the Japanese home islands. Less than two weeks later Arnold suffers a heart attack, his third and most severe in less than two years. He spent the war’s final months on inspection tours in Europe and the Pacific.
- 1945 Arnold directed the founding of Project RAND, which became the RAND Corporation, a non-profit think tank, also aided in founding Pan American World Airways.
- 1946 The only Five Star U.S. Air Force General, Hap Arnold retires after 42 years in the army where he helped guide army aviation from two planes to the mightest air force in the world.
- 1947 President Truman established the US Air Force as an independent service, equal to the US Army and US Navy.
- 1950 Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold suffers his fifth and fatal heart attack.
Above, the five star Commanding General of the U.S. Air Force, and five star General of the U.S. Army stands for photos with students of his alma mater Ardmore Junior High School, Lower Merior Township, PA. Arnold is the only man to hold the
distinction of five start general in two branches of the armed forces.
"[He was a dedicated officer in a specialized field," said Former Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, " and at the same time, a human being, a warm-hearted, loyal, mercurial, flamboyantly belligerent fellow who didn't care who he took on in battle."
Sources:
Wishing a very happy Father's Day to all dads!
Until next week...
Read a great book? Have a burning question? Let me know. If you know someone who might enjoy my newsletter or books, please forward this e-mail. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe anytime
at the link below.
To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com.
Contact me at MaryCronkFarrell@gmail.com. Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. |
|
|
