American Airpower Comes of Age

AMERICAN AIRPOWER COMES OF AGE
tion of the devastation inflicted from the air that he had witnessed
in Germany during his recent visit and had just
received D’Olier’s preliminary report of the Strategic Bombing
Survey for Europe, he had to have appreciated realistically
that the Germans were able to continue the war far longer
than probably he, his commanders, and other advocates of
strategic bombing thought possible. The uncertain progress of
the atomic bomb, whose successful testing was less than a
month away, offered little specific encouragement to Arnold
about this weapon’s ability to conclude the war against Japan.
For many reasons, dominated by security considerations,
Arnold, as was his style in all his diaries, made no mention
during the trip of its progress or possible use.
During his meetings in the islands with MacArthur and his air
commander, Gen George Kenney, the latter of whom had visited
Arnold as recently as March during his Miami convalescence,
Hap noted MacArthur’s increased faith in the role of airpower.
The excellent air support and leadership provided by Kenney had
impressed MacArthur and appeared to have modified the latter’s
thinking about the role and operation of land-based air.
MacArthur’s tour as Chief of Staff of the US Army a decade earlier
had not endeared him to very many airmen; they suspected
that his creation of GHQAF had been a maneuver to control if not
squelch the airmen’s latent and occasionally overt desire for
independence. However, MacArthur, still a potentially powerful
force in political Washington, could now be added to the chorus
of American Army ground generals who, on the basis of the
wartime performance of the AAF thus far, were no longer
opposed to air independence if not actively in favor of it.
Arnold’s response to Marshall’s cable for AAF representation
at the proposed meeting of the JCS with Truman on 18 June
is puzzling. The purpose the president stated was that he
“wanted to know definitely how far we could afford to go in the
Japanese campaign.” 24 Hap’s reasons for sending LeMay to
Washington in his stead are not explained in his memoirs, and
his diary offered no hint that he seriously considered returning
himself for these potentially important discussions. It is
difficult to imagine that Arnold, given the briefings he had
attended the past several days from LeMay and his staff,
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