Instructed in flying by none other than the Wright brothers, Hap Arnold was one of the very first military pilots worldwide. He overcame an original fear of flying due to his first experiences with aerial flight, and became a protege' of Gen.Billy Mitchell all of which at times nearly caused a permanent end to his aeronauitical career. Arnold was attached to the 3rd US Infantry and returned to the United States. En route, he received a telegram in Hawaii from Major William L. Mitchell, whom he had met in 1912 and who was now Executive Officer of the Air Service. On May 20 Arnold was promoted to Capt. (temporary) and reported to Rockwell Field (named for his academy classmate Lewis Rockwell) for duty as a Supply Officer with the Aviation Section, U.S. Air Service. He received a permanent promotion to Captain, Infantry on Sept. 23 Between October 18 and December 16, 1916, Arnold, encouraged by former associates, worked hard to overcome his former fear of flying with volunteer extra duty flying 15 to 20 minutes a day. On November 26, he flew solo for the first time in four years, and on December 16 he performed aerobatics. Before he could be reassigned to flying duties, he was involved as a witness in a controversial incident. A senior officer at Rockwell had authorized an unofficial excursion flight for a non-aviator that resulted in the loss of the airplane. After testifying to army investigators, Arnold was transferred to Panama by the officer he testified against, one day after the birth of his second child, Henry J. Arnold, Jr., on January 29, 1917. Arnold was ordered to find a suitable location for an airfield in the Panama Canal Zone on Feb. 5, 1917, then build it and command the just-forming 7th Aero Squadron. When the military services could not agree on a site, Arnold was ordered to Washington, D.C. to resolve the dispute, and was enroute when the United States declared war on Germany. Arnold requested to be sent to France, but his presence in Washington worked against him, since the Aviation Section now needed qualified officers for headquarters duty. He was immediately given temporary duty as chief of information with a temporary promotion to Major on June 27. On August 5, 1917 he was again promoted and became the youngest full colonel in the army. He spent the next year trying to implement a large aviation appropriations bill over the resistance of the Army General Staff. Although he failed, Arnold gained significant experience in aircraft production and procurement, the construction of air schools fighting in the Washington, all of which helped him significantly 25 years later. Arnold arranged to go to France to brief the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, Gen. John J. Pershing, on new developments. He developed influenza on the ship and was hospitalized upon his arrival in England. He finally did reach France in 1918 but the war Armistice was signed on 11 Nov. 1918. When Billy Mitchell was court martialed, Arnold, Spaatz, and Eaker were all warned that they were jeopardizing their careers by vocally supporting Mitchell, but they testified on his behalf anyway. When Mitchell was convicted on Dec. 17, 1925, Arnold continued to use his position in the Information Division to provide propaganda to airpower-friendly jouralists in defiance of orders from the General Staff and with the knowledge of General Patrick. In February 1926, Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis ordered Patrick to discipline the leakers, and Patrick chose Arnold , with whom he shared a mutual dislike. Arnold was given the choice of resignation from the Army or a general court-martial, but when Arnold chose the latter, the Army apparently decided it did not want another public fiasco, and instead transferred Major Arnold to command the 16th Observation Squadron at Fort Riley, Kansas - a calvary post far from aviation advances.
On Nov. 27, 1931, he took command of March Field, California. This assignment included the refurbishing of the base into one of the showcase installations of the Air Corps and required that he resolve strained relations with the citizens of Riverside, California. He accomplished this by having his officers join at least one of the local service organizations and by a series of well-publized relief efforts. While Base Commander at March Field, personnel under Arnold's command flew food-drops during blizzards in the winter of 1932-33, assisted in the Long Beach earthquake of March 10, 1933, and established a camp for 3,000 boys of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In September 1933, Arnold designated a portion of the Rogers Dry Lake near Muroc as a training site for his March Field squadrons. This site would become today's March Air Force Base. In 1934, he commanded one of the three military zones during the Air Mail Scandal, but his pilots performed well and his own reputation was relatively untouched by the fiasco. Later that same year he won his second Mackay Trophy, when he led ten of the new B-10 bombers on an 8,290 mile flight from Washington to Fairbanks, Alaska and back. On 1 March 1935, General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force was activated to take control of all combat aviation units based in the USA. Its first commander, Major Gen. Frank Andrews, tapped Arnold to command its First Wing, headquartered at March Field. He was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general on 2 March 1935. On 28 December, 1935, Arnold was summoned to Washington by the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Malin Craig and over his protests was made Asst. Chief of the Air Corps under the new Chief, Major General Oscar Westover. Instead of commanding operational units, Arnold was now in charge of procurement and supply. Less than 3 years later Westover was killed in an air crash and Arnold then became Chief of the Air Corps with an immediate promotion to Major General. Arnold's first moves were to plan for the expansion of the Air Corps into a branch of the Army co-equal with the ground forces. His first step was to encourage research and development efforts, particularly the B-17 and the concept of Jet-Assisted Takeoff. To encourage the use of civilian expertise, the California Institute of Technology became a beneficiary of Air Corps funding and Theodore von Karman of its Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory developed a good working relationship with Arnold that led to the Scientific Advisory Group in 1944. Charles Lindberg was also briefly co-opted by the Air Corps as a spokesman for aviation. Arnold concentrated on the rapid rising of the Axis Powers. From 1940 onward, Arnold also pushed for jet propulsion, especially after the British shared their plans of Whittle's turbojet in 1941. In March 1939 Arnold was appointed by the Secretary of War Harry Hines Woodring to head a board to determine the best use of aircraft in the defense of the Western Hemisphere. He reported back to new Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall on 1 September 1939, the day Nazi Germany invaded Poland and triggered World War II. When Congress adopted a "cash and carry law" in November 1939 to permit the selling of planes to the belligerents, Arnold became concerned that shipment of planes to the Allies slowed delivery to the Air Corps. His warning to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at a White House conference on 12 March 1940 against increasing shipments brought a personal warning from the president that "there were places to which officers who did not 'play ball' might be sent...such as Guam. With U.S. participation in the Second World War inevitable, the division of authority between the Air Corps and General Headquarters Air Force was removed with a revision of Army Regulation 95-5 that created the United States Army Air Forces on June 20, 1941. Arnold was made Chief of The Army Air Forces and acting Deputy Chief Arnold promptly gave the new Air Staff as its first assignment; the development of a War Plan for fighting both Japan and Germany
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