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 adju