American Airpower Comes of Age

AMERICAN AIRPOWER COMES OF AGE
61. It is not known whether Arnold ever obtained the then unusual
transformer.
62. At the JCS meeting, Arnold spoke of the delay in getting Soviet agreement
for transport between Tehran and Russia and the current lack of a Soviet
response to the AAF request to shorten the route through Turkey. Hap’s draft
memo to Truman for Stalin on the issue was approved. At the CCS 2:30 gathering,
nothing was recorded as relevant to the AAF. The account of the JCS
meeting is in FRUS, Potsdam, vol. 2, 139–40; and CCS, FRUS, Potsdam,
161–62. Joseph E. Davies, former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, served
as an advisor to the president and to the secretary of state at Potsdam. His current
position was chairman of the War Relief Control Board.
63. All three structures visited are in the western section of Potsdam in
the park von Sansouci. The Palace of Sansouci was built for Frederick the
Great in 1745–1747 while the Orangerie on the northern edge of the park
with its many works of art dated from 1856. The Neues Palais, also built
under Frederick the Great, was constructed from 1763 to 1769, later having
been used as the summer residence of Kaiser Wilhelm II. American difficulties
encountered with the Soviet guards are chronicled in Arnold, Global
Mission, 587.
64. With the collapse of Germany in November 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II,
along with the Kaiserine Queen Augusta Victoria, fled to the Netherlands
city of Doorn, where he lived until his death in 1941.
65. The Soviet general is not otherwise identified.
66. Charlottenberg is a borough part of and just west of the center of
Berlin. This was the British Seventh Armoured Division, the “Desert Rats.”
One observer of the parade commented, “I suppose I ought to have been
gripped by what this all meant. Here were British troops who had come from
Egypt, through North Africa and Italy, to France . . . parading where masses
of German forces had goose-stepped in the past. Somehow it left me cold.”
Brooke, quoted in Bryant, 363. The Siegessaule or Column of Victory in the
Tiergarten was erected between 1865 and 1873 to commemorate the wars
associated with German unification.
67. Now located in what was formerly East Berlin and from 1961 to 1989
isolated by the Berlin Wall as part of East Germany, the Brandenburg gate
was originally erected between 1788 and 1791. It was modeled after the
Propylaea in Athens.
68. Nothing in the printed account of this meeting related to the AAF. See
FRUS, Potsdam, vol. 2, 197–201.
69. Maj Gen Harry J. Malony, USA, CG, 95th Infantry Division. No issue
relating to the AAF was discussed at this CCS session. FRUS, Posdam, vol. 2,
201–2.
70. Brig Gen George C. McDonald, director of intelligence, USSTAF. The
film became part of the holdings of the National Archives in Washington,
D.C. Arnold sent a cable this date to Eaker, creating an AAF Document
Research Board as of 25 July 1945; copy in George C. McDonald Papers, US
Air Force Academy Library, Special Collection, Colorado Springs, Colo.
400