ARNOLD, HENRY HARLEY

born June 25, 1886, Gladwyne, Pa., U.S. died Jan. 15, 1950, Sonoma, Calif. byname Hap Arnold air strategist, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, who long and successfully advocated a separate air force ranking equally with the Army and the Navy. Arnold graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., (1907), and in 1911 received flying instruction from Orville Wright. He rose in the ranks of the Air Corps; becoming chief in 1938. Despite the isolationism then prevailing in the U.S., he urged increased appropriations for the air establishment and military aid to the Allies. During the war he commanded the U.S. Army Air Corps throughout the world and served as air representative on the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff, greatly influencing strategic air bombardment. In December 1944 he was promoted general of the Army (five stars; later general of the Air Force, the first to hold this rank). The National Defense Act of 1947 created the autonomous Air Force for which he had worked.