News Letter 1941 Jul-Dec - Air Force Historical Studies Office

A Resume of Developments ~\ ~
The ~hlef Outlines Our Progress -, \ / /
By Maj. Gen. H. H. Arnold _ ~ /
C::lllef of the Army Air Forccs ~
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I RB ~EFCRE 1the expansion the Air Corps had roughly We had practically no funds either for develop-
2,000 officers, including reserve officers and ment or additional procurement, and there appeared
those detailed from other branches of the army, to be no prospect of flesh and blood for the skeland
20,000 enlisted men, at a time when the German eton of our air streOllth. On the part of some of
Luftwaffe was training an air giant of 1,000,000 our leaders there was a sad reluctance to admit
officers and men.
that the airplane was here to stay.
We had one small-output training center, com- But the Commander-in-Chief in the White Bouse
posed of Randolph and Kelly Fields at San Antonio, _s not one of these. His recognition of our avi-
Texas, which graduated three classes a year-- ation deficiencies and his vision, expressed to us
usWIIlly of less than 100 pilots in each class. duriOllthe fall of 1938, were well ahead of public
PUrthermore, the blight of too littIe funds over a opinion. In January, 1939, after consultat ions
period of too many years had reflected itself in with the President, we outlined to Congress his
all our combat airplanes. proposals to raise our Air Corps objective from
In pursuit, we had an experimental order for 13 2,320 planes, a dangerously deficient target which
Curtiss P-40's, a first class fighter; however, we had never been able to reach, to 5,500 airmost
of our squadrons were flying obsolescent planes and an objectiv. of double our existing
types whose fire-power of one .30 and one .50 cal- strength in officers and men.
iber machine gun each was a pin-prick.
That plan appeared to be adequate at that time.
In bod>ardment, we had the first models of what But after the invasion of Poland in Septenber, in
has since proved to be the most outstanding bomber which it was demonstrated to the world that air
in the wor ld-.the B-17. Today, Eng land and other power packed a Sunday punch, it was c lear that the
countries are pleading with ever increasing fervor goal for the Air Corps must be revised sharply upfor
any of that type they can get, from one up to _rd--at once.
1,000. But we had only 13 of them. COOiress passed supplemental appropriations during
the next few months to augment the program.
B-18's Lsy To Hit
Here is how rapidly ideas and plans can change.
The bulk of our bombardment squadrons were In January, 1940, our Air Corps made an estimate
equipped with B-18's, a sitting target for even of 1,200 planes required for our needs. That was
the slowest of our pursuit planes, and underpowered
and slow. They were duds on every count before Congress with a request for 496 planes.
pared down by varioUl agencies so that we appeared
except training, where they were a life-saver.
After arguing for two months, the House of Repre.
Frankly, pursuit had been allowed to drift in sentatives reluctantly approved a total of 59.
the doldrums, and in bonbardment we had a 100 per The Senate raised that nunber to 157.
cent •• urplus of a type we could use only for
Appropr iation Increa.ed
training and a 99 per cent. shortage of the B-17
type we needed.
In Nay, the French Army broke in disorder, and
We had about 1,000 combat type airplanes, compared
with thousands today---a total built over 4,000 planes.
we were given by C0nlre.. about $1,000,000,000 and
up in spite of heavy diversion of
Alarmed by the German smash
This article is a slightly
plane. abroad. We had a handful
through the Low Countries into a
condensed reprint of a speech
of planes outside the Continental
wingless France whose skies were
lIIhichGeneral Arnold made to the
United States as against many hundreds
in foreign service units to-
called a conference of defense lead-
bare of fighters, the President
United States Military Academy
last month. It is carried here
day.
ers. The figure he dropped on us
because it should be of even
We had less than 20,000 enlisted
wa. a .ashweight.-50,OOO airplanes
more interest to The Army Air
men as against more than 180,000
a year. The Army had only 2.000
Forces, as a report by hiM on
today. We had two or three hundred
airplanes and here was the Chief
developments in the expansion
aviation cadets as against the
Executive talking about building to
10,000 now in training. We had program, than it lIIasto the West an annual product ion of 25 times that
about 2,000 officers as against a Pointers. It is the most author- number. We believe it can be reached.
present strenlth of nearly 11,000. itat ive resume so fsr released.
(over)