American Airpower Comes of Age

EPILOGUE
of postwar than wartime utilization, the aim being to assemble
the strongest postwar AAF team possible. While in the Pacific,
not waiting for the war to end, as is reflected in the diary for
chapter 11, Hap began to relieve and send home to retire several
generals he felt would not be competitive in the postwar
AAF. 5 Not reluctant to be frank, Arnold personally wrote to
generals, including a close friend and three-star West Point
classmate, “you should go on retired status.” 6
Although no mention has been located in Arnold’s papers or
wartime diaries, another facet of this problem was to retain
those deemed essential to a successful postwar air force.
Arnold’s frenetic routine since becoming chief almost seven
years earlier had been duplicated in the lives of other generals
and, as Hap looked forward to retirement on his ranch in California,
he had to have appreciated that others among his colleagues
longed for similar respite. Spaatz, for example, cabled
Lovett less than two weeks after the Japanese decision to surrender
and during the week of the Missouri ceremony, “I shall
come to Washington immediately after the ceremonies in
Tokyo. I am coming with all my baggage, etc., prepared to call
it a day and retire.” 7 Similar sentiments were being voiced by
Eaker, now serving as deputy AAF commander and chief of the
air staff in Washington. He wrote, in the same month that
Arnold announced his decision to leave the service, “The date
of my retirement has not been definitely set as yet but I told
him [Spaatz] that I wanted to get out within a year.” 8 Fortunately
for the AAF/USAF, Eaker remained in uniform for
almost two more years and Spaatz remained until June 1948
after having served as Arnold’s successor as chief of staff.
A question that had been only briefly touched on in the
diaries but was present in the thinking and actions of Arnold
and other senior leaders, including those opposed to a separate
air force such as Admiral King of the Navy, was the role
of a postwar air force in the American military structure. In
Hap’s discussions as recorded in the diaries with both
MacArthur and Eisenhower, they had been supportive of a
department of defense in which the air force would have a
coequal voice with the Army and Navy. Even before the US
entrance into the war, there had been increasing agitation
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