American Airpower Comes of Age

HAWAII, GUAM, IWO JIMA, PHILIPPINES
the written evaluations of his major commanders, he was directing the
retirement of some senior officers. Even his West Point classmate, Lt Gen
Barton K. Yount, was not spared the strong “suggestion” that he retire. As a
consequence, Lynd, Gardner, and Yount all retired within the year.
119. Major Smoak had been an aide to General Arnold in Washington
prior to her reassignment in early 1945. Her current duties and assignment
are unknown.
120. Arnold had been stationed at Fort McKinley twice in his career, the
first time from 1907 to 1909 and the second from 1913 to 1915, just after
his marriage. Upon visiting his former quarters, Arnold found only the front
steps and foundation of the 1907–1909 building still remaining.
121. El Fraile, the small island fortress seven miles south of Corregidor
with walls more than 25 feet thick, was finally captured by the US 38th Division
on 13 April 1945.
122. The 317th Troop Carrier Group dropped the US Army’s 503d Parachute
Regiment at very low altitude on Corregidor on 16 February 1945.
123. Stotsenberg was part of Clark AFB, abandoned in the 1990s by the
USAF.
124. Just promoted to Lt Gen, Ennis C. Whitehead was CG, Fifth Air
Force.
125. Four young lieutenants, all West Point graduates, had lived together
during Arnold’s first posting to the Philippines. Lt Gen Jonathan M. Wainwright,
USA, class of 1906, was still a prisoner of the Japanese; Maj Gen
Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, class of 1908, had been before his death in February
1945, FDR’s military aide; Col William C. McChord, a 1907 classmate of
Arnold, had been killed in a 1937 aircraft accident; McChord Army Air Field,
Tacoma, Washington, now McChord AFB, had been named for him in 1940.
126. Col Millar and his quarters are not otherwise identified.
127. The dwarflike Aetas Negroid were thought to have been the original
inhabitants of the Philippines.
128. Mabalacat is a town, northeast edge of Clark; the specific buildings
are not identified.
129. Dow is a town, eastern edge of Clark.
130. Brig Gen Frederick Harrison Smith Jr., CG, Fifth Fighter Command,
fulfilled Arnold’s expectations when he became a four-star general in 1959.
131. In the China–Burma–India theater, an air commando force had
operated under Cols Philip Cochran and John Allison to support Brig Gen
Frank D. Merrill and his “Merrill’s Marauders” as well as Maj Gen Orde
Wingate and his “Chindits.” The air commando unit, a self-sufficient, multipurpose
force, normally utilized transport, glider, observation, liaison, helicopter,
fighter, and medium bomber aircraft. See the discussion of their
operations in March 1944 in northern Burma in Craven and Cate, vol. 4,
503–95. While the Air Commandos title was retained to refer to US Air Force
special units in the postwar period the scale and cost of the original organization
was later deemed too expensive to be maintained at its wartime level.
The recent accession by the US Air Force Academy Library, of the papers of
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