American Airpower Comes of Age

AMERICAN AIRPOWER COMES OF AGE
continue—could not have encouraged Arnold to believe that
others of the JCS embraced the AAF concept of strategic bombardment.
His fresh perspective on the air war over the Japanese
home islands could prove valuable, however, as the Allied
leaders and the CCS prepared for the Potsdam Conference; he
was the only member of the CCS who had recently traveled
extensively in the Pacific.
Arnold used the five days after leaving Washington and
before the first session in Potsdam in a variety of relaxing as
well as productive ways. A brief fishing trip in Newfoundland
with his friend George Marshall en route to Europe, which
would be repeated on the return journey, allowed some temporary
respite from the demands of war. During his 24 hours
in Paris, he met with the new AAF leaders who had replaced
his friends Spaatz and Eaker as the senior air commanders in
Europe. In these discussions, the AAF Chief shared details of
the planning in Washington and at the same time emphasized
the AAF’s need to look beyond the current problems of an
occupying force and to consider and plan for what lay ahead,
emphasizing the role of research and scientific development.
Arnold’s concern for the future was reflected in the fact that
the three generals who accompanied him on this trip to Potsdam
were all from his Pentagon planning staff.
In his limited time for sightseeing, Hap revisited some of the
Parisian sites he had seen during his April trip there as well
as others he had not viewed since his weeklong stay at the end
of World War I. This brief interlude on French soil was long
enough, however, to rekindle his Francophobic feelings.
Arnold observed that the French were “floundering and need
leaders,” since “DeGaulle hasn’t shown much so far.”
Views from the air and on the ground as he traveled in Germany
reconfirmed Hap’s strong impressions of the destruction
brought by the Allied air attacks, although he seemed naively
surprised by the extent of the routine activities carried on by
this populace, which had been subjected to incessant bombing.
The possibility of a last-ditch German stand in the Bavarian
Alps, centering on Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgaden, had
been seriously considered in Washington during the last
months of the European war. Arnold therefore took advantage
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