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Authors: Arthur Herman
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Patterson over the Kokoda Trail, where American, Australian, and Japanese soldiers had been locked in a bitter struggle for months in the mountains and jungle, fighting typhus, malaria, and dysentery as well as one another. More than five thousand Allied soldiers had died fighting for the Kokoda Trail, and then in the capture of Buna. Knudsen sat expressionless as Kenney passed over an American military cemetery set high in the mountains, with over 425 white crosses gently winking in the sun. 12
So many had died; so many more would die, whether it was in the mountains of New Guinea and Italy or on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima. For Knudsen the goal was always to overwhelm the enemy with war materiel so that as few Americans as possible would have to die. “If the threat against them was with guns, he would meet it with more guns,” his biographer wrote; “if with airplanes, he would meet it with more airplanes; if with bombs, he would meet it with more bombs.” 13 Until now all his skill in organization, in forcing through production schedules and battling bottlenecks and delays, had been focused on that end.
It was beginning to affect his health. Photographs of him at PortMoresby show Knudsen looking drawn and fatigued. At sixty-four the gentle giant would have to summon his last reserves of energy for the huge project ahead.
That arrived on his desk less than a month after he returned to Washington in September 1943. Its designers had conceived it as the ultimate weapon, the one they hoped would end the war almost by itself. Now they needed someone who could kick-start it into production.
The project was the B-29, and that someone was Bill Knudsen. It would make the P-38 program look like school recess—and at times even Knudsen would wonder if the biggest bomber ever created would ever get into the air.
The ball had started four years earlier with a midnight phone call at the Fountain Inn in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
General Henry Arnold, the Air Corps’ top general, and his wife were staying there on their way to West Point to visit their cadet son Hank. It was April 14, 1939. In Europe, Germany had just occupied Prague. Italy had invaded Albania. Dutch troops were being stationed on the German border, and in Rome they were conducting air raid drills. But across America, war still seemed very far away—until the phone call brought its reality home.
The phone rang and rang. Finally the Fountain’s proprietor sleepily stumbled to the office in his bathrobe and picked up the receiver. The voice on the other end sounded agitated and urgent. There was also something familiar about the soft tenor voice and the Midwest twang.
“Is General Arnold there?” the voice said.
Yes, the inn’s owner said. But it was late. Who was calling?
Moments later Arnold was awakened by an excited pounding on his hotel door. It was his host. Charles Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle and hero of the historic 1927 transatlantic flight, was on the phone, he explained. Lindbergh wanted to talk to the general at once. Arnold threw on a dressing gown and plunged downstairs. 14
Lindbergh was America’s most publicly recognized expert on airpower and had just returned to New York from a visit to Europe. It wasvital they meet, he told Arnold over the phone, but he warned the general it wasn’t safe to get together in New York. From the moment the
Aquitania
had docked, more than one hundred reporters and photographers had swarmed the gangway and followed Lindbergh everywhere. At every step Lindbergh took, he felt the glass of discarded camera flashbulbs cracking under his feet. 15
Where could they meet?
“How about meeting my wife and me at West Point for lunch,” Arnold said, “at the Thayer Hotel?”
The next day at noon, a late-model DeSoto pulled up in front of the crenellated stone entrance of the Thayer. The long, lanky form of Charles Lindbergh jumped out and dashed into the hotel dining room, with its splendid views of the
So many had died; so many more would die, whether it was in the mountains of New Guinea and Italy or on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima. For Knudsen the goal was always to overwhelm the enemy with war materiel so that as few Americans as possible would have to die. “If the threat against them was with guns, he would meet it with more guns,” his biographer wrote; “if with airplanes, he would meet it with more airplanes; if with bombs, he would meet it with more bombs.” 13 Until now all his skill in organization, in forcing through production schedules and battling bottlenecks and delays, had been focused on that end.
It was beginning to affect his health. Photographs of him at PortMoresby show Knudsen looking drawn and fatigued. At sixty-four the gentle giant would have to summon his last reserves of energy for the huge project ahead.
That arrived on his desk less than a month after he returned to Washington in September 1943. Its designers had conceived it as the ultimate weapon, the one they hoped would end the war almost by itself. Now they needed someone who could kick-start it into production.
The project was the B-29, and that someone was Bill Knudsen. It would make the P-38 program look like school recess—and at times even Knudsen would wonder if the biggest bomber ever created would ever get into the air.
The ball had started four years earlier with a midnight phone call at the Fountain Inn in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
General Henry Arnold, the Air Corps’ top general, and his wife were staying there on their way to West Point to visit their cadet son Hank. It was April 14, 1939. In Europe, Germany had just occupied Prague. Italy had invaded Albania. Dutch troops were being stationed on the German border, and in Rome they were conducting air raid drills. But across America, war still seemed very far away—until the phone call brought its reality home.
The phone rang and rang. Finally the Fountain’s proprietor sleepily stumbled to the office in his bathrobe and picked up the receiver. The voice on the other end sounded agitated and urgent. There was also something familiar about the soft tenor voice and the Midwest twang.
“Is General Arnold there?” the voice said.
Yes, the inn’s owner said. But it was late. Who was calling?
Moments later Arnold was awakened by an excited pounding on his hotel door. It was his host. Charles Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle and hero of the historic 1927 transatlantic flight, was on the phone, he explained. Lindbergh wanted to talk to the general at once. Arnold threw on a dressing gown and plunged downstairs. 14
Lindbergh was America’s most publicly recognized expert on airpower and had just returned to New York from a visit to Europe. It wasvital they meet, he told Arnold over the phone, but he warned the general it wasn’t safe to get together in New York. From the moment the
Aquitania
had docked, more than one hundred reporters and photographers had swarmed the gangway and followed Lindbergh everywhere. At every step Lindbergh took, he felt the glass of discarded camera flashbulbs cracking under his feet. 15
Where could they meet?
“How about meeting my wife and me at West Point for lunch,” Arnold said, “at the Thayer Hotel?”
The next day at noon, a late-model DeSoto pulled up in front of the crenellated stone entrance of the Thayer. The long, lanky form of Charles Lindbergh jumped out and dashed into the hotel dining room, with its splendid views of the
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