Did so in such a compelling way fooled the slave institution. Not only that they escaped but also demonstrated their cunning, intellect, ingenuity, and mastery over the slave institutions. The story was just very extended compelling. It became celebrities in london. That story to spread like wildfire. So stories of escaped slaves are very, very important and encourage the slaves to know that there was hope. So you get this real sense of intrigue and cunning. So this is why the store was so compelling. For more information on book tv recent visit to georgia and the many other cities in our local content vehicles go to cspan. Org local content. Military historian recounts the career of general henry harley have parnells, commanding general of the u. S. Air force during world war ii. The author reports that general arnold is often considered the father of the u. S. Air force for its expansion of the Military Branch during the war and the technological and strategic advances deployed under his command. This is about 50 minutes. Thank you. I appreciate everybody coming out of a deal like this. What are we doing in here . The son in the sky and all of that. Thats why california became a mecca for aviation. Here we are. Im happy to have you all join me. Thanks for inviting me to come and talk. Well, i am here today to talk about my favorite Childrens Book author. A man named h. H. Arnold, a couple of his books. Bill bruce, the pioneer aviators. Bill bruce becomes an ace, world war one. So, yes, have arnold was a Childrens Book author here. A young major at fort riley, kansas. He had time to us right and half a dozen books for boys in the tradition the books were so popular in those days backwind boys climbed trees and wild with their pocket knives and had no video games. Young boys were also very interested in aviation. Which happens not as a gambling. Nor was he when he was at west point, he graduated in 1907. But when he got the aviation bug he fell hard. He fell rather early in the whole history of aviation. Some of you may have heard of this flight instructor. A couple of boys from bicycle mechanics from dayton, ohio with the name of wilbur and orville wright. Yes, have learned to fly from the right brothers and began a career which took into the as the subtitle in the book says, the man who invented the u. S. Air force. His entire career became part of that of that that effort to build on the aviation into an independent air force. But before i Start Talking about his career i want to mention that there are some family interviews in the book. I depended very heavily on those. In fact i stole a lot of Great Stories from haps a grandson, robert arnold. Very privileged to have with us today robert arnold. I would like to invite robert up to tell a few stories about his early life and career. [applause] thank you. Incidentally the book built road is terrific. Most of my family members have read it. I have positive reviews from everybody. Given the nature of my family, we all agree on something. You know its pretty good. I am not an historian. I am a winemaker from california i can tell you a couple of stories that i heard around the campfire is the man. Fortunately my father love stories. I grew up with them. My dad was bruce arnold, the middle of three sons. There were all west point graduates, became colonels in the u. S. Military. He ended up in the air force. His name was actually William Bruce arnolds, but he was known throughout his life as bruce. Here is background on that story which i will tie and will bill was talking about. The first part we will talk about is 1926 in fort riley, kan. Which is the place where my grandfather wrote these books. He actually wrote them because he read some of the books that his sons were reading and thought they were trash and you could do better. After a while they took on the life of their own. There we go. He had been exiled to fort riley from washington d. C. On the express orders of the president of the United States. Will talk a little bit more about that later perhaps. Much of his time here with his cavalry post and made his comeback in his career there. The remaining part of the story, my father, William Bruce arnold was named bill were barely after haps hero which was Billy Mitchell. At that. 0 generation of army kids were named for Billy Mitchell. Almost everybody in this generation was billy or bill. Even the cavalry kids because the cavalry as recognized their dynamic leader. Here you are in this cavalry post. The problem came up a dinnertime or whenever when mother would yell out the window billy come on now in which billy would show up. Some of my grandmother had this great idea and invited all of her contemporaries over for a bridge party in the usual punch and cookies, being prohibition time. She put out the problem and suggested that the draw cards. They drew cards for who would be bill, billy, william, willie. When he got down the line after that there would use middlemans she was known as kind of a card shark for the area. She did not draw well that day. He became bruce. We will go back a little bit to Billy Mitchell. Billy mitchell was the hero of my grandfathers life. And for that whole generation of folks as well. Although he was not stupid about it in 1924, he had been in washington before he had been sent into exile, the Mitchell Court martial. Im sure most people know about the Mitchell Court martial, hopefully more than it was just a movie with gary cooper and it. In any case it was a National Event, somewhat like the watergate trials would have been to beat everyone was glued to watching newsreels. In any case Billy Mitchell and hap arnold were very much close friends. And before the Court Martial starts on sundays in those days military families would pay cause on each other and leave calling cards. Most of summed it is been doing this. The kids would be left in the car will the parents went and ended their five minute protocol. Its a world that does not exist anymore. One of those those friends was the mitchells. It would go out to virginia. There was a large establishments some independent money which set them apart from most of his contemporaries. This was the place where the families of the First Electric refrigerator never saw. This was 1924. So Billy Mitchell took them out into the kitchen and showed them this brand numerical invention, electric refrigerator which did not require the eyes and a show of. Also pulled out nice jury which could make his own ice. Its absolutely fascinated the kids, the three of them. And so they sit back and discuss whatever matters there were discussing. At that point my father had the bright idea that they could take the ice cubes out and sell them on the street because of this was something of was sold. I went outside and work trying to sell right to go ice keeps the kids in the neighborhood at which point someone looked up the front window and notice these kids out there doing something and accosting people. They went out to see what was happening. My grandparents were deeply embarrassed that there children had been hasting as cubes from the mitchell family. Billy mitchell thought it was funny. So thats on that story happened. My father remembers strategy meetings in the living room during the Mitchell Court martial. And a point there were Death Threats against him and his sister and brothers. Remove the kids out of washington. It was that time. Most people dont know, but it was a serious matter. Not only that, have testified at the courtmartial which gave him one mark on the wrong saddle ledger. And then after the Court Martial he himself testified in a Congressional Committee about air service budgets. He arranged for all of the flyable air service airplanes and the east coast during his testimony. Mustve made hell of a noise. Everybody was upset. Calvin coolidge was sleeping in that day because he had a cold commanded woken up. That did it. Orders to the secretary of war was get rid of that man. And so the chief of staff said to my grandfather, youre going to resign. He said, no, i will not. You can courtmartial me. The army was not going to have backtoback courtmartials. That is how they sent him to fort riley thats my story for the day. [applause] thank you. So that really sets the stage for her career. He was either blessed or cursed with having met Billy Mitchell and having become a disciple of Billy Mitchell, an advocate of airpower. The idea was that air power could do more than just shoot down other airplanes and maybe strafe the enemy trenches. He imagined that air power could reach deep into Enemy Territory and attacked and damaged and destroy enemies ability to wage war, his ability to build more machines and therefore be an important element in winning wars. That was Billy Mitchells radical idea. One of many who bought into that idea, which was, of course, later proven in world war ii that at the time all of our discussion of fort riley, kansas is very illustrative of what the army was like in those days. It was a cavalry force. You know, the people who went to west point, if they got. Raids became engineers, but most of them want to be in the cavalry. Have more its been a cavalry. That was his dream to be in the cavalry. So that was the overarching paradigm in the army. The guys you ran the army all old cavalry guys. Male and greg who was the general, the chief of staff for the army in the 30s, he famously said i dont want the army to be buying airplanes. These damn things get obsolete so fast and then you have to buy more of them. What could ugly. So that was some of the uphill climb that hat was working against. All of the other officers, young officers in his generation who were advocates of air power had to overcome that. So have porches way up. He did not he bit his tongue more often than Billy Mitchell did not line up with Death Threats or courtmartialed. And progressed through the ranks and became assistant chief of the u. S. Army air corps. And in 1938 he became chief of the u. S. Army air force. At that time he inherited a force that was probably the seventh or eighth Biggest Airforce in the world. At a time when anything below five was a pretty pitiful thing. In fact the u. S. Army air corps at the time was just a really pitiful stepchild of the land army. They had 1700 airplanes, most of them obsolete. Thats not exactly true. All of them are obsolete we had a head count of 20,000. It was, you know, the equivalent of ground troops. Was a pretty pathetic thing. Craig was chief of staff. He insisted that we dont need those damn airplanes. That was what he had to deal with. Coincidently this is 1938, he became chief the same week that some german were having a Little Summit conference in munich. Mr. Trilogy, the president of france was there. Mr. Neville chamberlain, Prime Minister prepared was there. And chancellor adolf hitler. And they him there was him there was sort of stretching his muscles in those days. He had rearmed germany. It was something that he wanted to run your. Well, england and france did not want germany running europe, they did not want another war. So they have this summit conference in munich. Hitler said, okay, guys, not in those same words, but you get the indian, if you will just give me north of czechoslovakia then weve got a deal. I wont want any more. There will be no more. So czechoslovakia, britain and france said sure. Neville chamberlain went home. The same week that hat became chief of the Army Air Corps and he waved this signed agreements and said, we have peace in our time. Well, we all know what happened to that. It was it was over the next few years as tap was able to get an audience eventually, not initially, but eventually sympathetic Franklin Roosevelt the u. S. Army air corps started to get what it needed. And you start out with 1700 mostly obsolete airplanes, when youve got to imagine that anything you get on top of that is going to be state of the art because new. And so she started building a this u. S. Army air corps. And he started lobbying for more autonomy for the u. S. Army air corps which leads into this whole idea that this is a man who invented the u. S. Air force. He had a unique l. I. In a man named George Marshall who was the guy who took over for male and greg. Another one of these weird coincidences of history, George Marshall took over for male and great in september of 1939. And which is on the very same week that hitler who was going to be satisfied with czechoslovakia, needed no more territory blitzkrieg into poland and started world war ii, the word that Neville Chamberlain insisted would never happen because we had peace at. So George Marshall took over as chief of staff of the u. S. Army and became hap arnold boss. Well, when half point down the hall to the pentagon, the army building. And he went down the hall to introduce himself to the new chief of staff, the first time they had met, they have actually been friends for some time. At first met general George Marshall when they were on maneuvers in the philippines. This was before hat became a fire, when he was an infantryman George Marshall was still an infantryman. They were on maneuvers in the philippines. Half came across as the other lieutenant to my guess marshall was a first lieutenant. Apple is the second lieutenant, i dont remember. Both very, very young right to five wet behind the ears officers. Have watched this guy, he watched his he was a pencil and paper working out maneuvers. Planning how his group was going to operate in the next phase of the exercise. Half was really impressed by that. A couple of nights later when the exercises were over app went home and said to robbers grandmother, he said, i met a guy one day i bet you this guy is going to be chief of staff. So same date by world war ii started he did become chief of staff. George marshall became one of the militarys greatest military administrators and also later famous for the Marshall Plan that rebuild europe after world war ii, but the two of them being friends and robert talk to you a little bit earlier about the connections that were made to marshall became the key to have some dream of an Autonomous Force within the army, an autonomous airforce. And that came into being during the 95 in june of 1941, half the year before pearl harbor. And again, the United States army air forces, forces plural because there were 16 numbered forces, and hath became the chief of that. He and because it was autonomous this and had a seat on the joint chiefs of staff. So for the first time the joint chiefs of staff, which is actually an organization because they recognize the need for coordination between these various services, army and navy had been in each others throats for centuries at that time. So you had the army, the navy, and the u. S. Army air forces, those three seats on the joint chiefs. And that was part of have been lobbying marshall. So what happens with this u. S. Army air forces that used to be the u. S. Army air corps, well, in six years have built this thing up. He built it up from 1700 obsolete airplanes, most of which had to be thrown away, 17,000 airplanes. It did not stop there. It did not stop the 34,000. Within six years it was nearing 80,000, 20,000 men. Marshalling to two and a half million. Hap arnold built the Largest Air Force in the world. And it is the Largest Air Force in world history. So what did he do with this year forced . Well, he did a lot of things. He finally had a chance to exercise Billy Mitchells theory that if you get enough longrange bombers you can reach into the enemys heartland and take out his armament. You can take that is transportation network. You can destroy his oil wells, is oil refineries. And after you do that you can go after his synthetic petrochemical industry, which the germans had a stated the are one. Hap arnold ticket out. A little story that i like to tell about and a total air power in world war ii, in june of 1944, this was at the point where the u. S. Army air forces were reaching some of the apogee of their power. June of 1944 the allies finally decided that they were ready to invade your. So on ahead to a that even has its own letter, dday, they invaded normandy. And they were fighting the germans. They were fighting can country which in 1939 had been the most had possessed the most powerful armed force in the world, had possessed the most advanced, most competent, most deadly accurate air force in the world, the will falafel was the most powerful air force in the world, 1940. They almost, if it did not been for stupid mistakes they almost destroyed the royal air force, the burden were no air force. Those were the two most significant air forces in the world. So now, push comes to shove and have parnells u. S. Army air force have gone to war with the liftoff of. June 1944 operation overlord, the normandy invasion, there were 10,000 airplanes in the sky that day. A halfdozen of them were from the live lawful. That was the net result of not only the u. S. Army air force fighters to attacked the liftoff of oneonone, but also the strategic forces, the age their force and the 15th air force that had gone after aircraft production in a very, very big way. The liftoff adjusted not have the power to face this force. And the punch line of this anecdote is that since that day, the day that has its own letter, since that day no u. S. Ground forces as ever gone to war the skies that were controlled by a force other than the u. S. Air force. They have haps legacy from this effort is that the United States has controlled the year of every war that it has fought since then. So lest we end on the note that this force that have built was an entirely offensive combat force, a lot of people dont remember the air transport command. Air transport command was just what is says it is, started out the ferrying command, the command that was taking airplanes from northeastern United States inland, very small operation. It grew into what is essentially the Largest Airline in the world and when i say airline and talking about an entity that had tens of thousands of airplanes assigned to it. The regularly scheduled service to every continent in the world except antarctica. They were running flights on a regular schedule across the north atlantic, multiple flights daily, dozens of flights daily across the north atlantic. The south atlantic, across the pacific, south asia, north africa. Central africa to north africa and then after dday and into your. This is the worlds first intercontinental airline. This was have arnolds doing. This thing that he built, this prototype for the independent u. S. Air force which became independent immediately after world war ii was a monumental enterprise. It was something that he did in six years. Most of it is done really in three years. It is a fantastic accomplishment. Toward building an air force of the scale that he had during the period from basically 1941 to 44. He was looking ahead into the future. He impaneled a scientific history group, brought in a guy in the theater of uncommon for a belt pack who is was the world aerodynamics is and he chaired the Scientific Advisory group for happ arnold. They looked at all things of the future. Hap said i want to know about the state of military aviation in five years. In 10 years, he even said frn is years. This is what hap was doing when the war was winding down here he was looking back. He was looking ahead. He also had this idea to create a research and Development Entity outside of the military, i added the government. So he went to an old friend who he had known since well, then that during the first world war, a guy named don douglas who coincidentally is roberts other grandfather. And its a similar story. Don douglas started as a draftsman early in the history of aviation and by world war ii he built what was arguably the largest playmaker in america. Another anecdote to feel at me sort of slip off into anecdotes. The two of them were quail hunting the day they found out about pearl harbor. But thats just anothers dory of the many that we have in this great book. All seriousness aside, so hap got in touch with don douglas and could this idea for research and Development Entity. What are we going to call it . Will call the grand research and development. This was the Rand Organization that was initially douglas in santa monica. And eventually became the independent rand corporation, which still exists, which im sure you have heard. So the first project that ran dead and this was initiated when hap was the chief of the u. S. Aas in his retirement in 1946. The first paper they did was a Feasibility Study for a world circling spaceship. This is more than a decade before sputnik. The organization that hap arnold started it designing a sputnik 10 years ahead of sputnik. So this is a little bit about how hap looked at the feature. A lot of people ask me, what would hap think now . What would he think about cyberwarfare . I usually respond to that. Well, the time he was around he had noted action of such a thing. But i can guarantee you and i think robert will agree with me on this. If you would have given him a 10 to 15 briefing on what cyberspace is then shown a couple things on laptop, he would have been cursed at it and probably wouldve had many ideas of what to do with it. A lot of people also ask me, what would hap arnold thing control warfare, the idea of our time its a remotely powered aerial vehicles flying combat missions. Well, interesting thing you should ask. This book here, wilburys and the pioneer aviators is somewhat autobiographical. Is sort of centers on the 1910 flying meat at Governors Island in new york. All the pioneer aviators who they are. Clint curtis, many other people and bill bruce got to meet them. Well, hap arnold was also there and by the time he knew what it was all about. In this other book, bill bruce becomes an ace. This book is not autobiographical. This is bill bruce went overseas during the great war and became a Fighter Pilot and he became an ace, flying against the red baron and the flying circus and all of these glorious governors in a black leather flying suit and essentially bill bruce of at the world war i career that hap arnold wished he had had. But what hap arnold really did in world war i is even more interesting. Nevermind the fact that when everybody went overseas, he ended up in 10 as the highest ranking man in uniform who actually knew how to fly an airplane, running the home office of the year washington. Never mind that. When hap did go overseas, he went overseas to plan for the deployment of americas First Military drone. Robert and i were talking about this a little bit ahead of time. It was the development of the kettering bug. And yes it was the First American aerial drone that brought together a lot of interesting characteristics very who later became for famous for gyroscopes and hap was air. And the rates where they are. Wilbur had died a few years earlier. They developed an airplane that was powered by plane. No pilot. It was gyroscopic lee controlled that is very spin put on it. This thing actually flew. I beg your pardon . It was developed in 1917, 1918 and it flew and they were starting to build them in quantity and hap went over in the early fall of 1918. His mission was to work out the details for bringing those things over and deploying them against the germans. If it hadnt been for the fact this coincided with november 11, remember the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Then the kettering bugs would have been overseas and it would have been not only americas First Military drone, but the first one to combat. So hap was planning ahead. Another interest in fact, which robert mentioned earlier when we were talking, this thing remained classified until world war ii, was still classified in world war ii has something in his memoir that he was probably proud of the fact that something he worked on was still so secret that even though biplanes are a thing of the past, it was still secret. Those are other examples of how hap was really afford to incur all his life. Back in the 1990s, hap died in 1950, very early in 1950. Attack and about half a century after hap was alive. The u. S. Air force adopted the stock turn of global reach, global power and that is sort of the operational doctrine of the u. S. Air force today. This thing has taken straight out of hap idea for the future of the air force. I mean, his memoirs were entitled globalization, so with hap you have somebody who not only affected the development of the u. S. Air force and basically created it, but you have a guy whose ideas are so alive in the u. S. Air force. I will close with an observation about hap that sort of percolated into my head as i was first starting to work on this project that there is probably no other general in American History probably since George Washington who is as well like and well it within his service as hap arnold was. You know, the army has macarthur and patton, very famous guys, but theyve got an equal number of detractors as they do adherents. So hap had not only invented the air force, but he is ill i was suggesting icon of a guy who represent that air force. So what not, i thank you and well move into questions. Bill. I guess more of a comment and a question. Im biased obviously, but is built in a seminal d. 29 driver. Hap arnold personally interceded into the b29 problem during world war ii and say the program. If it hadnt been for him, i dont know if it ever got to work. It is such a disaster in 1943. People were getting over with the airplane and he had personally made commitments to the president and the president had made commitments and we had the airplane on a specific date and it is impossible. The b29 program is going nowhere. It was dead in its tracks. Of course it was a 3 billion program, a billion dollars more expensive and hap interceded to charge the thing, got the priorities that they needed to get the b29 program back on track. As far as im her and can he save the b29 program. B29 was the ultimate expression of the strategic warfare concept that Billy Mitchell originated and that have championed. It was an airplane it was a Strategic Bomber with greater range than by some number of factors than any airplane that existed at the time. Hap not only facilitated the development of this thing, then the manufacturing of it, but the deployment in record time and where his plane flight he 17 come to be 24 could operate from bases in england and strike the heart of thirdrate. There were no bases available to the United States to defend against japan when the b29 was finally deployed in record time as bill points out. It is now possible to begin taking apart the japanese machine. So the b29 was not just another plane. It was a superlative. Yes, sir. Did he have anything to do with when they were trying to use b17s, old b17s is drone aircraft to go when im basically fly over and crush over there . Yeah, that was another Drone Program that he was involved in. The idea was to basically pack a bomber full of explosives and crash it into an enemy installation. In this case they were going after the b1, interestingly enough the only one say in northern france. An interesting side to that story is one of those missions, the older brother of john f. Kennedy was the pilot and he didnt get out. The pilots were supposed to bail out and thats how he died. Yes, sir. They were quail hunting because i find that stuff really interesting. I did get into those. I stole a lot of stories from robert and what i read that his father had written. So yes, theres a lot of good stories. Any other questions . [inaudible] programs are getting canceled by congress. How do you see the future of the u. S. Air force . Well, it is interesting because this. His stories annoy to the days in the 1930s when hap was trying to develop the u. S. Army air force and he was finding things canceled and cut off and curtailed and what happened then and what i fear will happen in the future is we will see things curtailed in canceled and cut until theres a National Event requires them to be reinstated until there is a need for those things. I really hope that if this happens we have somebody with an understanding of the technology and new vision for how to use it that hap arnold had in the 1930s and 40s. [inaudible] yes, sir. Immediately after there were some effort on the supersonic wind tunnels. Did he have anything to do that quick is interesting because i mentioned theodore von kerman who asserted the worlds leading aerodynamics is. I mean, i guess you could save on carmen was to aerodynamics what einstein was a physics and hap recognized that and brought people into the circle of advisers. Could you characterize his relationship with curtis lemay, their working relationship . Well, that was interest in. I knew curtis lemay. I wish we wouldve talked more about hap. But curtis lemay was somebody with the reputation. There was a lot of elements to this complex reputation. He had somebody who got rings done. Said that was how lemay ended up running the b29 operation. Interesting thing about the air force, operated the b29 was that willoughby said their air forces, fifth and others each had a commander. He maintained personal command of the, but his field commander is curtis lemay. When it came time when hap and didnt sequestered, one of the guys they brought in as part of their little group was curtis lemay. So he did have a