American Airpower Comes of Age

AMERICAN AIRPOWER COMES OF AGE
infurt mission of 17 August. As Arnold recorded, Williams had earlier suffered
the eye loss while serving as an observer during the Battle of Britain.
This was Arnold’s first meeting with Col Curtis E. LeMay, who commanded
the 4th Bomb Wing. As with other officers, Arnold may well have been sufficiently
impressed with them and their reported performance that he concurred
in their promotions and/or reassignments. In order to encourage
Eaker, Arnold recommended the latter’s promotion to lieutenant general,
which became effective just five days after Arnold’s arrival back in Washington.
LeMay was promoted to brigadier general in October and became the
commander of the 3d Bomb Division only 10 days after Arnold’s meeting.
This is significant in view of Arnold’s having turned down Eaker’s earlier
request on 28 June 1943 for LeMay’s and Col Edward J. Timberlake’s promotions
to brigadier general. The correspondence is in AP. No Colonel White
appears on the roster of the 94th or 389th Bomb Groups at this time; the
reference was probably to Col Jack W. Wood, who commanded the 389th at
Hethel and who had led his B-24s on the 1 August raid against Ploesti.
Colonel White, otherwise unidentified, might have accompanied Arnold from
Hethel to Bury St. Edmunds.
92. Col Alfred A. Kessler Jr., former CO of the 95th Bomb Group, would
become CO of the 13th Bomb Wing at Horham, Suffolk, on 16 September
1943. This was one of several leadership changes at the operating level made
as a result of Arnold’s visit. Gable, the noted actor, had enlisted in the AAF
as a private and had been serving since 28 January 1943 as a captain with
the 508th Squadron of the 351st Bomb Group at Polebrook, Northamptonshire,
where he was assigned to make a training film showing the day-to-day
activities of a typical bomb group in combat. For Gable’s service, see Steven
Agoratus, “Clark Gable in the Eighth Air Force,” Air Power History, 46, 1999,
4–17.
93. Col Frederick W. Castle, at this time CO of the 94th Bomb Group,
was one of the eight officers who had accompanied Brig Gen Ira Eaker to
England in February 1942 as the nucleus of the Eighth Air Force. Promoted
to brigadier general while commanding the 4th Bomb Wing, Castle was
killed on Christmas Eve 1944 flying over friendly troops near Liege, Belgium.
He refused to bail out of his damaged B-17 and was awarded the Medal of
Humor posthumously. Arnold enjoyed a special rapport with Colonel Castle
since the latter was the “class baby” of Arnold’s 1907 class at West Point.
Tradition then dictated that the first child born to a class member was given
that title and Arnold had enjoyed a close friendship with the “class baby” as
well as Castle’s father, Arnold’s classmate. Hap undertook the difficult task
of informing the senior Castle of his son’s loss. A copy of his letter is in AP.
94. Industrial areas in and around Paris were bombed this day by 140
bombers of the Eighth Air Force including the 94th Bomb Group whose
returning 18 aircraft Arnold observed. According to one author, in talking
with the returning crews (the Group did not lose an aircraft during that mission)
Hap did not learn that they had “bombed an airfield as a target of
opportunity while not recognizing it as a dummy.” See Roger A. Freeman,
58