General Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold: Architect of America’s Air Force

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He was one of those individuals who always seem to be smiling. He always looked as though he was thinking about something humorous or was about to tell you a joke. His name was Henry Harley Arnold, but his friends called him ‘Hap’ because of that ever-pleasant expression. Many of those who served with him in World War II, however, learned that he was impatient, had a temper and could express his displeasure magnificently. As his responsibilities grew, his subordinates found that he would not tolerate incompetence, laziness or poor judgment. But as one staff officer, the victim of one of Arnold’s tirades, said, ‘How can you hate a guy who’s always smiling at you?’

The man who would one day command the mightiest air force ever known was born in Gladwyne, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, on June 25, 1886. His father was Dr. Herbert A. Arnold, a physician who served in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War. After graduation from high school, Hap decided to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he spent an undistinguished four years. He later recalled, ‘I never even made Cadet Corporal.’ He was remembered by his classmates as a leading member of the ‘Black Hand,’ a group devoted to pranks in the middle of the night, for which he walked many punishment tours in full uniform with a rifle.

He graduated in 1907 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry, although he desperately wanted to be assigned to the cavalry, then considered the most glamorous combat arm of the U.S. Army. In that same year the Army established an aeronautical division of the Signal Corps ‘to take charge of all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines, and all kindred subjects.’ But Arnold was unaware of that development at the time, since he was serving two years in the Philippines, much of it on mapping duty.

When his two-year tour was over, Arnold chose to return home by way of Hong Kong, Egypt and Europe. He saw his first airplane in the summer of 1909 in Paris, the fragile monoplane (he described it as a ‘frail, heroic freak’) that Louis Blériot had flown across the English Channel in July 1909. The second plane he saw was at his new post, Governor’s Island, when Wilbur Wright landed there after a flight up the Hudson River. His third encounter with flying machines was at the nation’s first international air meet, held at Belmont Park in 1910, where Wright and Curtiss planes and aircraft from Great Britain and Brazil were competing.

But flying did not make much of an impression on the young infantry officer until he was ‘invited’ to apply for flight training with the Wright brothers at Dayton, Ohio, in April 1911. It wasn’t an order, and he could have turned it down, but his adventurous spirit was stimulated. He accepted the challenge and began flying with instructor Albert L. Welsh that spring. Before their first flight, Welsh pointed out a man in a black derby sitting on a wagon on the other side of the pasture. ‘That’s the local undertaker,’ Welsh said. ‘He comes out every day and drives back empty. Let’s keep it that way.’

Another officer sent to the Wrights for training was Lieutenant Thomas DeWitt Milling, and the two took their training together. Arnold soloed in 10 days, after 3 hours and 48 minutes of instruction in 28 flights. The lieutenants then reported to College Park, Md., the country’s first military airfield, where they became instructors. At that time, there were only three qualified Army pilots: Arnold, Milling and Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois, a Signal Corps officer. Two others — Lieutenants Frank P. Lahm, a cavalry officer, and Frederic E. Humphries of the Corps of Engineers — had also taken training from the Wright brothers as a condition of the contract for the Army’s first aircraft, but they had wrecked the plane and had been ordered to go back to their respective ground units. Lahm returned to flying later. Foulois was ordered to take the wreckage to San Antonio, repair it and teach himself to fly. He did so, with advice by correspondence with the Wrights.

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