Everything about Henry H Arnold totally explained
General of the Air Force Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold GCB (
June 25,
1886 –
January 15,
1950) was an aviation pioneer and Chief of the
United States Army Air Corps (from 1938), Commanding General of the
U.S. Army Air Forces (from 1941 until 1945) and the first and only
General of the Air Force (in 1949). He is also the only American to achieve five-star rank in two of its armed services.
Instructed to fly by the
Wright Brothers, Arnold was one of the first military pilots worldwide, and the second
rated pilot in the history of the
United States Air Force. He overcame a
fear of flying that resulted from his experiences with early flight, oversaw the expansion of the
Air Service during
World War I, and became a protegé of Gen.
Billy Mitchell, all of which at times nearly ended his aeronautical career.
Arnold became a powerful advocate for creation of an independent Air Force and played a key role in the political struggles over it with the hierarchies of the
United States Army and
United States Navy. He rose to command the Army Air Forces immediately prior to U.S. entry into World War II and directed its expansion into the largest and most powerful air force in the world. An advocate of
research and development, Arnold's tenure saw the development of the intercontinental bomber, the jet fighter, the extensive use of
radar, global airlift, and atomic warfare as mainstays of modern airpower.
Early life and career
Born
June 25,
1886, in
Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, Arnold was the son of a strong-willed
physician also serving in the Pennsylvania
National Guard. The family was
Baptist in religious belief, but had strong
Anglican ties. Arnold attended
Lower Merion High School in
Ardmore, Pennsylvania, graduating in the class of 1903. The Athletic fields at Lower Merion are now named after him. Arnold took the competitive examination for entrance into
West Point after his brother Thomas (already a student at
Pennsylvania State University) refused to do so, but placed second on the list. He received a delayed appointment when the nominated cadet confessed to being married, which was against academy regulations.
Arnold entered the
United States Military Academy in the summer of 1903 at age 17. At the academy he helped found the "Black Hand", a
cadet group of pranksters. He wanted to join the
cavalry but an inconsistent demerit record and an academic class standing of 66th out of 111 cadets resulted in his being commissioned on
June 14,
1907 as a
Second Lieutenant,
Infantry, an assignment he initially protested but was persuaded to accept (there was no commissioning requirement for USMA graduates in 1907). His first posting was to the
29th Infantry Regiment (United States) in the
Philippines.
There, disliking the infantry, Arnold volunteered to assist Captain
Arthur S. Cowan of the
Signal Corps in a military
cartography detail, mapping the entire island of
Luzon. Cowan returned to the United States in January 1909, to become chief of the newly-created
Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps and to recruit two lieutenants to become pilots. Cowan contacted Arnold, who cabled his interest in a transfer to the Signal Corps but heard nothing in reply for two years.
In June 1909, the 29th Infantry relocated to
Fort Jay, New York. In 1911, Arnold applied for transfer to the
Ordnance Department because it offered an immediate promotion to 1st Lieutenant. While awaiting the results of the competitive examination he'd taken for the position, he learned that his interest in aeronautics hadn't been forgotten. He immediately sent a letter requesting a transfer to the Signal Corps, and on
April 21,
1911, received Special Order 95, detailing him and 2nd Lt.
Thomas D. Milling of the 15th Cavalry, to
Dayton, Ohio, for a course in flight instruction at the
Wright brothers' aviation school at
Simms Station,
Ohio. Beginning instruction on
May 3, Arnold made his first solo flight
May 13 after three hours and forty-eight minutes of flying lessons (Milling had already soloed on
May 8 with just two hours of flight time). In June he and Milling completed their instruction. Arnold received
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) pilot certificate No. 29 on
July 6,
1911, and Military Aviator Certificate No. 2 a year later. He also received a Military Aviation badge. This was the original suspended eagle design. While it was soon replaced by the more familiar aviator wings, as can be seen on the photograph above, Arnold wore both types throughout his career.
Arnold and Milling were sent to the
Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps at
College Park, Maryland as the Army's first flight instructors on
June 14. There Arnold set an altitude record of on
July 7 and twice broke it (
August 18,
1911 to ; and
June 1,
1912, 6,540 feet). In August 1911, he experienced his first crash, trying to take off from a farm field after getting lost. In September Arnold became the first U.S. pilot to carry
mail, flying a bundle of letters five miles (8 km) on
Long Island, New York.
The flight school moved by train to
Augusta,
Georgia, in November 1911, hoping to continue flying there during the winter, but their flying was limited by rain and flooding, and they returned to Maryland in April 1912. Arnold accepted delivery of the Army's first plane with a
propeller and engine mounted on the front on
June 26, but crashed into the bay at
Plymouth,
Massachusetts, trying to take off. Arnold began to develop a phobia about flying, intensified by the earlier fatal crash of the Wright Company instructor who had taught him to fly, Allan L. Welch, at College Park on
June 12. Another fatal crash occurred at College Park on
September 18, involving an academy classmate of Arnold's, 2d Lt. Lewis Rockwell.
In October, Arnold and Milling were ordered to enter the competition for the first
MacKay Trophy for "the most outstanding military flight of the year." Arnold won when he located a company of cavalry from the air and returned safely, despite high turbulence. As a result he and Milling were sent to
Fort Riley,
Kansas, to experiment with
spotting for the
field artillery. On
November 5 his plane stalled, went into a spin, and he narrowly avoided a fatal crash. He immediately grounded himself voluntarily and applied for a leave of absence. Flying was considered so dangerous that no stigma was attached for refusing to fly and his request was granted (five of the Army's 14 aviators transferred out during 1913). During his leave of absence he renewed an acquaintance with Eleanor "Bee" Pool, the daughter of a banker and one of his father's patients.
On
December 1, Arnold took a staff assignment as assistant in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in
Washington, D.C. with the task of closing down the flying school at College Park. Although promoted to 1st lieutenant on
April 10,
1913, Arnold was unhappy and requested a transfer to the Philippines. In August, after his first request had been denied for lack of a vacancy, he returned to the infantry.
On
September 10,
1913, he married Eleanor Pool, with Lt. Milling acting as his
best man. Sent back to the Philippines in January 1914, he was quartered next door to 1st Lt.
George Catlett Marshall, who became his mentor, friend and life-long supporter. Soon after their arrival Bee miscarried, but on
January 17,
1915, their first child, Lois Elizabeth Arnold, was born at
Fort McKinley,
Manila. In January 1916, completing a two-year tour with the 13th Infantry, Arnold was transferred to the
3rd U.S. Infantry and returned to the United States. En route, he received a telegram in Hawaii from Major
William L. Mitchell, whom he'd met in 1912 at College Park and who was now
executive officer of the Air Service, offering him the rank of captain if he volunteered for a return to aviation. On
May 20,
1916, Arnold was promoted to Captain (temporary) and reported to
Rockwell Field (named for his academy classmate, Lewis Rockwell) for duty as a supply officer with the
Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps.
Between
October 18 and
December 16,
1916, Arnold, encouraged by former associates, worked to overcome his fear of flying with voluntary extra duty flying fifteen to twenty minutes a day. On
November 26, he flew solo for the first time in four years, and on
December 16 he performed aerobatics. Before he could be reassigned to flying duties, however, he was involved as a witness in a controversial incident. A senior officer at Rockwell had authorized an unofficial excursion flight for a non-aviator that resulted in the loss of the airplane. After testifying to army investigators, Arnold was transferred to Panama by the officer he testified against, one day after the birth of his second child, Henry H. Arnold, Jr., on
January 29,
1917.
Arnold was ordered to find a suitable location for an airfield in the
Panama Canal Zone, then build it and command the aero squadron to be assigned there. When the military services couldn't agree on a site, Arnold was ordered to Washington D.C. to resolve the dispute, and was en route by ship when the United States
declared war on
Germany. Arnold requested to be sent to France, but his presence in Washington worked against him, since the Aviation Section now needed qualified officers for headquarters duty. He was immediately given temporary duty as chief of the Information division with a temporary promotion to
Major on
June 27.
On
August 5,
1917, he was again promoted and became the youngest full
colonel in the Army (Arnold was a Colonel, Signal Corps — for a period of time he also held the concurrent
brevet rank of Major, Infantry), in preparation for being named
executive officer of the Aviation Section ten days later. He spent the next year trying to implement a large aviation
appropriations bill over the resistance of the Army
General Staff. Although he largely failed, Arnold gained significant experience in aircraft production and procurement, the construction of air schools and airfields, and the recruitment and training of large numbers of personnel, as well as learning political in-fighting in the Washington environment, all of which helped him significantly 25 years later.
Arnold's third child, William Bruce Arnold, was born
July 17,
1918. Shortly after Arnold arranged to go to France to brief the commander of the
American Expeditionary Force, General
John Pershing, on new developments. Aboard a ship to France in late October he developed
influenza and was hospitalized on his arrival in
England. He managed to reach France but the
Armistice ended the war on
November 11.
Between the wars
The improvements in aircraft during the war and the creation of organizations such as the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics improved the potential for
United States Army airpower, and it had been made a branch separate from the Signal Corps on
May 14,
1918. However to keep control of aviation in the Army ground forces, the first post-war Chief of the reorganized
Air Service, Maj. Gen.
Charles T. Menoher, was an infantry general who had commanded the
42nd "Rainbow" Infantry Division in France. He was succeeded by another non-aviator, Maj.Gen.
Mason Patrick from the
Corps of Engineers, who General John Pershing had used to head the Air Service of the
AEF.
Arnold was ordered back to Rockwell Field on
December 21,
1918, to supervise the
demobilization of 8,000 airmen and surplus aircraft. He worked hard to preserve and promote aviation with shows and publicity stunts. At Rockwell Field Arnold first established relationships with the men that would become his main aides, his executive officer, Captain
Carl Spaatz and his adjutant, 1st Lt.
Ira Eaker, while supporting the highly visible efforts of Brig. Gen.
William L. Mitchell. He was promoted to the permanent rank of Captain on
June 30,
1920, and the permanent rank of Major the next day,
July 1.
However after demobilization Rockwell became a remote outpost of the service. Arnold experienced several serious illnesses and accidents requiring hospitalization. His fourth child, John, was born in the summer of 1921 but died on
June 30,
1923, of acute
appendicitis.
In August 1924, Arnold was unexpectedly assigned to attend the
Army Industrial College. After completing the course he was reassigned to duty as Chief of Air Service information in January 1925, working closely with Brig. Gen. Mitchell. When Mitchell was
court-martialed, Arnold, Spaatz, and Eaker were all warned that they were jeopardizing their careers by vocally supporting Mitchell, but they testified on his behalf anyway. After Mitchell was convicted on
December 17,
1925, Arnold continued to use his position in the Information Office to provide propaganda to airpower-friendly journalists in defiance of orders from the General Staff and with the knowledge of General Patrick. In February 1926,
Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis ordered Patrick to discipline the leakers, and Patrick chose Arnold, with whom he shared a mutual dislike. Arnold was given the choice of resignation from the Army or a general court-martial, but when Arnold chose the latter, the Army apparently decided it didn't want another public fiasco, and instead transferred Major Arnold to command the 16th Observation Squadron at
Fort Riley,
Kansas — a cavalry post far from any aviation advances. On
February 24,
1927, his son David Lee Arnold was born at Fort Riley.
Arnold accepted his exile and in May 1927, participated in war games at
Fort Sam Houston,
Texas. There he met Maj. Gen.
James E. Fechet, who had succeeded Patrick as head of the service, now the
U.S. Army Air Corps, and successfully completed a difficult assignment for him. During this period Arnold wrote six books of juvenile fiction whose purpose was to encourage young people to fly.
General Fechet intervened with
Army Chief of Staff General
Charles P. Summerall to have Arnold's exile ended by assigning him to the Army's
Command and General Staff School at
Fort Leavenworth. The year-long course was highly unpleasant for Arnold because of doctrinal differences with the school's commandant, but Arnold graduated with high marks in June 1929. His next assignment was commander of
Fairfield Air Service Depot,
Ohio. In 1930 he also became executive officer of the Air Materiel Division, and was promoted to
lieutenant colonel on
February 1,
1931.
On
November 27,
1931, he took command of
March Field,
California. The assignment included the refurbishing of the base into one of the showcase installations of the Air Corps and required that he resolve strained relations with the citizens of
Riverside,
California. He accomplished this by having his officers join at least one of the local social service organizations and by a series of well-publicized relief efforts. While base commander at March Field, personnel under Arnold's command flew food-drops during blizzards in the winter of 1932-33, assisted in relief work during the
Long Beach earthquake of
March 10,
1933, and established a camp for 3,000 boys of the
Civilian Conservation Corps. In September of 1933, Arnold designated a portion of the
Rogers Dry Lake near
Muroc as a training site for his
March Field squadrons. This site would become today's
Edwards Air Force Base.
In 1934, he commanded one of the three military zones during the
Air Mail Scandal, but his pilots performed well and his own reputation was relatively untouched by the fiasco. Later that same year he won his second Mackay Trophy, when he led ten of the new
B-10 bombers on an flight from Washington to
Fairbanks, Alaska and back
(External Link
). Although he lobbied for recognition of the other airmen involved in the
Alaska flight, the Army Chief of Staff ignored Arnold's recommendations, with the result that his reputation among some of his peers was tarnished by resentment.
On
March 9,
1935, General Headquarters Air Force (GHQ) was created to take control of all flying units of the Army Air Corps. Its first commander, Major General
Frank Andrews, tapped Arnold to command its First Wing, headquartered at March Field, and he was promoted to the temporary rank of
brigadier general on
March 2,
1935.
On
December 28,
1935, Arnold was summoned to Washington by the Army Chief of Staff, General
Malin Craig, and over his protests, was made Assistant Chief of the Air Corps under its new Chief, Major General
Oscar Westover. Instead of commanding operational units, Arnold was now in charge of procurement and supply. Westover was killed in an air crash in September 1938 and Arnold then became Chief of the Air Corps, with an immediate promotion to
Major General on
September 22. This move didn't return Arnold to the operational Air Force, but it did empower him to plan for expansion of the Air Corps into a branch of the Army co-equal with the ground forces.
His first move was to encourage
research and development efforts, particularly the
B-17 and the concept of
Jet-assisted takeoff. To encourage the use of civilian expertise, the
California Institute of Technology became a beneficiary of Air Corps funding and
Theodore von Kármán of its
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory developed a good working relationship with Arnold that led to the creation of the
Scientific Advisory Group in 1944.
Charles Lindbergh was also briefly co-opted by the Air Corps as a spokesman for aviation. Arnold concentrated on rapid returns from R&D investments, exploiting proven technologies to provide operational solutions to counter the rising threat of the Axis Powers. From 1940 onward, Arnold also pushed for jet propulsion, especially after the British shared their plans of
Whittle's turbojet in 1941.
World War II
With U.S. participation in the Second World War inevitable, the division of authority between the Air Corps and General Headquarters Air Force was removed with a revision of Army Regulation 95-5 that created the
United States Army Air Forces on
June 20,
1941. Arnold was made Chief of the Army Air Forces and acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Air with command authority over both the Air Corps and Air Force Combat Command (successor to GHQ Air Force). This also provided the air arm with a staff of its own, brought the entire organization under the command of one general (Arnold), and granted it near autonomy. It also by consensus postponed debate on separation of the Air Force into a service co-equal with the Army and Navy until after the war.
Arnold gave the new Air Staff as its first assignment the development of a war plan for fighting both
Germany and
Japan, and it produced
AWPD-1, which became the basis for air strategy during the war. AWPD-1 defined four tasks for the USAAF: defense of the Western Hemisphere, an initial defensive strategy against Japan, a strategic air offensive against Germany, and a later strategic air offensive against Japan in prelude of invasion. It also planned for an expansion of the USAAF to 60,000 aircraft and 2.1 million men. AWPD-1 called for 24 groups (approximately 750 airplanes) of
B-29 very heavy bombers to be based in
Northern Ireland and
Egypt for use against Nazi Germany.
Even before then he'd pushed for aid to Great Britain; with U.S. entry into the war, Arnold, a strong supporter of
strategic bombing, closely supervised the creation of the
Eighth Air Force in England to limit the diversion of Army bombers to
anti-submarine patrol and to the Pacific Theater, and thwart British lobbying to have U.S. bombers sent as individual replacements for the
Royal Air Force.
On
December 6,
1941, General Arnold landed at
Sacramento,
California to warn the air base that war with Japan is imminent. (Exhibit at
McClellan Air Force Base,
Air Museum, Sacramento, California)
In the wake of U.S. entry in the war, Arnold was promoted to
lieutenant general on
December 15,
1941. On
March 9,
1942, the issuance of War Department Circular 59 granted the USAAF full autonomy, equal to and entirely separate from the Army Ground Forces and Services of Supply. The office of the Chief of the Air Corps and the Air Forces Combat Command were eliminated entirely, and Arnold became Commanding General of the USAAF and a member of both the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Combined Chiefs of Staff.
In response to an inquiry from
President Franklin Roosevelt, Arnold directed the Air War Plans Division in August 1942, to revise its estimates and AWPD-42 was issued, calling for 75,000 aircraft and 2.7 million men, but also adding a call for 8,000
gliders and the production of 8,000 aircraft for use by other allies. AWPD-42 reaaffirmed earlier strategic priorities, but increased the list of industrial targets from 23 to 177, ranking the German
Luftwaffe first and its
submarine force second in importance of destruction. It also directed that the B-29 not be employed in Europe because of problems in development, but instead be concentrated in the
Far East to destroy Japan.
Immediately after the attack on
Pearl Harbor Arnold began to carry out AWPD-1. The primary strategic bombing force against Nazi Germany would be the Eighth Air Force, and he named General Spaatz to command it and General Eaker to head its Bomber Command. (Arnold and Eaker had written three books together.) Other Arnold protegés eventually filled key positions in the strategic bombing forces, including Colonels
Frank A. Armstrong and Newton Longfellow, and Generals
Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.,
Laurence Kuter,
Laverne Saunders,
Emmitt O'Donnell, and
James H. Doolittle.
Despite protecting his strategic bombing force from demands of other services and allies, Arnold was forced to divert resources from the Eighth to support
operations in North Africa, crippling the Eighth in its infancy and nearly killing it. Eaker (now Eighth Air Force commander) found from experience that the pre-war doctrine that heavily-armed bombers could penetrate defenses to reach any target without supporting escort fighters was wrong. Early in 1943 he began requesting more fighters and jettisonable fuel tanks to increase their range, in addition to repeated requests to increase the size of his small bombing force. Eaker was resisted not only by opponents of strategic daylight bombing but by his fighter commanders as well, who argued that the use of
drop tanks would endanger their aircraft.
Heavy losses in the summer and fall of 1943 on deep penetration missions increased Eaker's requests. Arnold, under pressure and impatient for results, ignored Eaker's findings and placed the blame on a lack of aggressiveness by bomber commanders. This came at a time when General
Dwight Eisenhower was putting together his command group for the
invasion of Europe, and Arnold approved Eisenhower's request to replace Eaker with his own commanders, Spaatz and Doolittle. Ironically, the very items Eaker requested — more airplanes, drop tanks, and
P-51 fighters — accompanied the change of command and made the Eighth Air Force a success.
With the strategic bombing crisis resolved in Europe, Arnold placed full emphasis on completion of the development and deployment of the
B-29 to attack Japan. The B-29 program had been plagued with a seemingly unending series of development problems, subjecting it and Arnold to much criticism in the press and from skeptical field commanders. The B-29 was the key component of the AAF's fourth strategic priority, since no other land-based bomber was capable of reaching the Japanese homeland, but by February 1944, the
XX Bomber Command, slated to begin
Operation Matterhorn on
June 1, had virtually no flight time yet above an altitude of 20,000 feet.
With a designated overseas deployment date of
April 15,
1944, Arnold intervened in the situation personally by flying to Kansas on
March 8. For three days he toured training bases involved in the modification program, distressed at his findings of shortages and work failures, and on the spot made a military procurement officer accompanying him, Maj.Gen. Bennett E. Meyers, coordinator of the program. Meyers (who would after the war be investigated by Congress in a procurement scandal in which Arnold was compelled to testify), succeeded in the "": despite labour problems and blizzard weather a complete bomb group was ready for deployment by
April 9.
The mechanical problems of the B-29, however, hadn't been resolved, and combat operations identified many new ones. Arnold felt the pressure of not only achieving the goals of AWPD-1, but of justifying by results a very expensive technological project in the B-29, and also the highly-classified knowledge that the B-29 would be called upon to deliver the
atomic bomb, if the
Manhattan Project succeeded. Operations against Japanese targets in China and Southeast Asia began in June, 1944 and from the outset produced far less positive results than expected.
In many ways the difficulties of the
Twentieth Air Force's campaign against Japan mirrored those of the Eighth Air Force's against Germany. With characteristic impatience, Arnold quickly relieved the B-29 commander in China and replaced him with Maj.Gen.
Curtis LeMay. LeMay produced results despite a shortage of resources, and a second B-29 bomber command was moved to the
Mariana Islands in November. One of the architects of AWPD-1 and AWPD-42, General Hansell, commanded the bombers but after two months of poor results, which could no longer be blamed on defects in the bomber, Arnold decided he too needed replacing. He shut down operations from China, consolidated all the B-29s in the Marianas, and replaced Hansell with LeMay.
Arnold made himself commanding general of the Twentieth Air Force, for which he's sometimes criticized for failure to delegate. This unique command arrangement may also have contributed to his health problems (see below), but after the negative experience of building an effective bombing force against Germany, and realizing the consequences of failure against Japan, Arnold may have considered that administrative decisions regarding command could best be handled personally. The
Joint Chiefs also desired to place all military forces in the Central Pacific, where the Twentieth Air Force was to be based, under the operational control of Admiral
Chester Nimitz, and Arnold was adamantly opposed to diversion of strategic bombers to support tactical operations.
Health problems
Between 1943 and 1945 Arnold experienced four
heart attacks severe enough to require hospitalization. In addition to being by nature intensely impatient, Arnold considered that his personal presence was required wherever a crisis might be, and as a result he traveled extensively and for long hours under great stress during the war, aggravating what may have been a pre-existing coronary condition. A lesser but more frequent factor may have been his difficulty in handling
inter-service politics, particularly with the
Navy, which steadfastly refused to recognize him as a Chief of Staff.
His first heart attack occurred
February 28,
1943, just after his return from a lengthy and exhausting trip to the
Casablanca Conference and to
China. He was hospitalized at
Walter Reed Army Hospital for several days, then took three weeks leave at the
Coral Gables Biltmore Hotel in
Florida, which had been converted into a convalescent hospital. Army regulations required that he leave the service, but President Roosevelt waived the requirement in April after he demonstrated his recovery and on the condition that the president be provided with monthly updates on Arnold's health.
His second attack occurred just a month later, on
May 10,
1943, and resulted in a 10-day stay in Walter Reed. His third, less severe than the first two, occurred exactly a year later, on
May 10,
1944, under the strain of the B-29 problems. Arnold took a month's leave, returning to duty by flying to
London for a conference on
June 7,
1944.
His last wartime heart attack came on
January 17,
1945, just days after he'd changed Hansell for LeMay. Arnold hadn't gone into his office for three days and had refused to admit the Air Forces' chief
flight surgeon to his quarters when checked up on. The doctor enlisted a general and personal friend of Arnold's to inquire, after which Arnold was again flown to Coral Gables and placed under 24-hour care for nine days.
Arnold again was allowed to remain in the service, but under conditions which amounted to light duty, he agreed. With the war clearly in its final stages, a surrender document had been agreed to on 29 April--when Hitler was still alive--finally ended the fighting on 2 May. He received word on
6 May,
1945, of the surrender of
Nazi Germany, he was at the base of the
456th Bomb Group in
Italy, in the midst of a tour of
Europe; although the official surrender,
VE Day occurred only on 8 May at a ceremony at Eisenhower's HQ in
Reims, in the presence of British, French and Soviet representatives
The Air Force Research Laboratory generally recognizes Arnold as the visionary who first articulated that superior research and development capabilities are essential to deterring and winning wars. Arnold's ideas underpin the Laboratory's modern-day role within the Air Force.
On
May 18,
2006, the
Department of the Air Force unveiled two prototypes of new service dress uniforms, one resembling the stand-collar uniform worn by U.S. Army Air Corps officers prior to 1935, called the "
Billy Mitchell heritage coat," and another, resembling the Army Air Force's Uniform of World War II and named the "Hap Arnold heritage coat".
Arnold also changed the regulation flight jacket for Air Force pilots: the celebrated leather
A-2 jacket was replaced by a sage-green nylon jacket, which was easier to procure but less popular with the wearers. The A-2 was restored to uniform status in 1988.
All three of Arnold's surviving sons served as
colonels in the United States Air Force. All were also graduates of West Point (Henry H. Jr., 1939; Willam Bruce, January 1943; and David Lee, 1949) and the two youngest are buried near their father in Arlington.
Summary of service
Dates of rank
|
Cadet, United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, 1903 |
No pin insignia in 1907
|
Second Lieutenant, Infantry, United States Army: June 14 1907 |
No pin insignia in 1911
|
Second Lieutenant, Signal Corps, United States Army: April 21 1911 |
|
First Lieutenant, Signal Corps, United States Army: April 10 1913 |
|
First Lieutenant, Infantry, United States Army: August 1913 |
|
Captain (temporary), Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, United States Army: May 20 1916 |
|
Major (temporary), National Army: June 27 1917 |
|
Colonel (temporary), Signal Corps, National Army: August 5 1917 |
|
Captain (permanent), Regular Army: June 30 1920 |
|
Major (permanent), Regular Army: July 1 1920 |
|
Lieutenant Colonel, Regular Army: February 1 1931 |
|
Brigadier General (temporary), United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), Regular Army: February 1935 |
|
Major General, United States Army Air Corps, Regular Army: September 22 1938 |
|
Major General, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), Army of the United States: June 20 1941 |
|
Lieutenant General, United States Army Air Forces, Army of the United States: December 15 1941 |
|
General, United States Army Air Forces, Army of the United States: March 19 1943 |
|
General of the Army, United States Army Air Forces, Army of the United States: December 21 1944 |
|
Retired from active duty: June 30, 1946 |
|
General of the Air Force, United States Air Force: May 7 1949 |
Awards and decorations
From the Arnold Air Society:
