American Airpower Comes of Age

ENGLAND, NORMANDY BEACHES, ITALY
Stansted, Essex, commanded by Col Reginald F. C. Vance. Arnold repeated
the error in Global Mission, 508.
84. Maj Gen William E. Kepner, CG, VIII Fighter Command.
85. Lt Col Ross Milton was then assigned to the 91st Bombardment
Group at Bassingbourn. His father, Alexander M. Milton, had been a West
Point classmate of Arnold.
86. His previous visit had been only nine months earlier. See vol. 2, chap.
6.
87. Ambassador William Phillips served as political advisor to Eisenhower
until he resigned that post on 17 August.
88. Col Andrew J. McFarland, USA, deputy secretary JCS.
89. There appears no extensive record of the discussion at this meeting.
90. Maj Gen Hoyt S. Vandenberg, now deputy Air CINC, Allied Expeditionary
Air Forces, would become CG, Ninth Air Force, in August.
91. Col Frederick S. Wildman Sr., now plans officer, Headquarters AAF.
92. Of the attendees, only Brooke recorded that the topics discussed concerned
the Pacific with agreement reached on “strategy based on Northwestern
Australia . . . towards Borneo”; Bryant, 161.
93. Arnold was not certain if Churchill was serious about the proposal
for reciprocal citizenship between US and British subjects similar to the
common passport that permitted citizens of any British Commonwealth
nation to enjoy citizenship in any other Commonwealth member nation.
94. Arnold’s first visit to the palace was 24 April 1941, covered in vol. 1,
chap. 1.
95. Air Marshal Roderick M. Hill, RAF, AOC Air Defense of Great Britain.
This organization had previously been designated Fighter Command and it
would revert to that name in October 1944. The presentation dealt with the
air phases of the ongoing invasion.
96. According to Brooke, the discussion centered on Burma but the
British general felt that Marshall “has not even now grasped the true aspects
of the Burma campaign”; Bryant, 160.
97. Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, British Army, now CINC,
British 21st Army Group.
98. Actually, the assault by German V-l rockets, called Crossbow by the
British, began on 13 June when the first missile fired from Pas-de-Calais in
France hit a railroad bridge in central London. Essentially aerial torpedoes
with wings and the first “cruise missiles”; more than 16,000 V-1s would be
fired against Britain and continental targets before the German surrender in
1945. It seems curious that Arnold did not comment in the diary on their similarity
to the “bug,” in which he had become so intensely interested during
World War I. He had envisioned the bug as the main weapon to be employed
by the AAF in World War II against Germany. There is an analysis of the V-1
weapon in Craven and Cate, chap. 4. Arnold had pieces shipped immediately
to the United States for replication. See Postscript to this chapter.
99. The ever-difficult Gen Charles de Gaulle continued to frustrate
Eisenhower and Churchill as the invasion of France was undertaken. Most
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