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Authors: Arthur Herman
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Hudson River. Other guests and waiters gawped and tried to steal a peek of the world’s most famous aviator, even though Arnold had arranged for a private dining room. 16
Finally the two men decided they had to find a place where they could converse without drawing attention. They found it wandering over to the Academy baseball field, where Army was beating Syracuse. There in the relative anonymity of the bleachers, they watched the game and Lindbergh began to talk.
He talked of Nazi airpower. He spoke of row upon row of gleaming Luftwaffe fighters, of a regime training thousands of pilots and bombardiers, of factories producing hundreds of aircraft engines and bombs. He spoke of the might of a great industrial nation geared toward one end: the creation of an air force second to none.
Above all, Lindbergh talked about bombers. He told Arnold that Goering was building a long-range bomber force that would be able to range freely anywhere in Europe, one that could be used to dump unprecedented tons of bombs on any target but could also transport tons of men and materiel anywhere on the battlefield. 17
War was coming, Lindbergh said. He was convinced of it. And Lindbergh told the head of the Army Air Corps that in his opinion Hitler already had the bombers he needed to destroy any city in Europe or Britain—and possibly even eventually reach the United States.
We now know Lindbergh’s information wasn’t entirely accurate. His hosts, Goering and General Milch, had put their best foot forward intheir tour for Lindbergh, including flying planes from one aerodrome to the next ahead of Lindbergh’s car to give the impression of a half dozen squadrons of Heinkels or Messerschmitts where there was only one. Nor were all his predictions correct. He told Arnold, for example, that he didn’t think Germany had the planes and pilots for sustained air operations in 1940, which turned out to be tragically wrong.
Still, his picture was accurate enough, and scary enough, to alarm the Air Corps chief. Sitting there in the stands and surrounded by cheering cadets, Arnold realized he would have to drastically revise his plans for future aircraft, particularly offensive bombers.
The general had one last question. Would Lindbergh accept a commission in the Army Air Corps and agree to join Arnold’s advisory committee for future military plane development? Lindbergh said yes. They shook hands and parted. 18
Five days later the committee held its first meeting, at the Munitions Building. After listening to Lindbergh, it recommended the Air Corps develop an entirely new four-engine bomber, a longer-range bomber than the B-17—one that could even cross the Atlantic if need be, in case a German victory in Europe left the United States no margin for confronting the totalitarian menace.
The formal recommendation for such a superbomber came in June 1939. 19 That summer Hap Arnold and his staff turned to the two men they believed could conceive and create it: Claire Egtvedt and Ed Wells of Boeing Aircraft.
Egtvedt was a lean, spare Scandinavian, and ever since he saw Billy Mitchell use biplane bombers to sink two obsolete battleships, the USS
Virginia
and
New Jersey
, he had dreamed of creating a majestic plane that would sweep the skies and rain bombs on enemy targets at will—a true dreadnought of the air. 20 In the spring of 1931 he had found the engineer who could design it for him, twenty-eight-year-old Boise-born Ed Wells, who had been building his own cars since he was fifteen and had hoped to work with Bill Knudsen at Chevrolet or Henry Ford at Ford, but was forced to take a temporary job with Boeing because of the Depression.
Wells would spend the rest of his life running Boeing’s Engineering Division. A whiz with a slide rule, pen, and draftsman’s compass, he andEgtvedt came up with a design for the U.S. Army in 1934 for a monoplane bomber with an unprecedented four engines and a wingspan of 105 feet, and able to carry 45,000
Finally the two men decided they had to find a place where they could converse without drawing attention. They found it wandering over to the Academy baseball field, where Army was beating Syracuse. There in the relative anonymity of the bleachers, they watched the game and Lindbergh began to talk.
He talked of Nazi airpower. He spoke of row upon row of gleaming Luftwaffe fighters, of a regime training thousands of pilots and bombardiers, of factories producing hundreds of aircraft engines and bombs. He spoke of the might of a great industrial nation geared toward one end: the creation of an air force second to none.
Above all, Lindbergh talked about bombers. He told Arnold that Goering was building a long-range bomber force that would be able to range freely anywhere in Europe, one that could be used to dump unprecedented tons of bombs on any target but could also transport tons of men and materiel anywhere on the battlefield. 17
War was coming, Lindbergh said. He was convinced of it. And Lindbergh told the head of the Army Air Corps that in his opinion Hitler already had the bombers he needed to destroy any city in Europe or Britain—and possibly even eventually reach the United States.
We now know Lindbergh’s information wasn’t entirely accurate. His hosts, Goering and General Milch, had put their best foot forward intheir tour for Lindbergh, including flying planes from one aerodrome to the next ahead of Lindbergh’s car to give the impression of a half dozen squadrons of Heinkels or Messerschmitts where there was only one. Nor were all his predictions correct. He told Arnold, for example, that he didn’t think Germany had the planes and pilots for sustained air operations in 1940, which turned out to be tragically wrong.
Still, his picture was accurate enough, and scary enough, to alarm the Air Corps chief. Sitting there in the stands and surrounded by cheering cadets, Arnold realized he would have to drastically revise his plans for future aircraft, particularly offensive bombers.
The general had one last question. Would Lindbergh accept a commission in the Army Air Corps and agree to join Arnold’s advisory committee for future military plane development? Lindbergh said yes. They shook hands and parted. 18
Five days later the committee held its first meeting, at the Munitions Building. After listening to Lindbergh, it recommended the Air Corps develop an entirely new four-engine bomber, a longer-range bomber than the B-17—one that could even cross the Atlantic if need be, in case a German victory in Europe left the United States no margin for confronting the totalitarian menace.
The formal recommendation for such a superbomber came in June 1939. 19 That summer Hap Arnold and his staff turned to the two men they believed could conceive and create it: Claire Egtvedt and Ed Wells of Boeing Aircraft.
Egtvedt was a lean, spare Scandinavian, and ever since he saw Billy Mitchell use biplane bombers to sink two obsolete battleships, the USS
Virginia
and
New Jersey
, he had dreamed of creating a majestic plane that would sweep the skies and rain bombs on enemy targets at will—a true dreadnought of the air. 20 In the spring of 1931 he had found the engineer who could design it for him, twenty-eight-year-old Boise-born Ed Wells, who had been building his own cars since he was fifteen and had hoped to work with Bill Knudsen at Chevrolet or Henry Ford at Ford, but was forced to take a temporary job with Boeing because of the Depression.
Wells would spend the rest of his life running Boeing’s Engineering Division. A whiz with a slide rule, pen, and draftsman’s compass, he andEgtvedt came up with a design for the U.S. Army in 1934 for a monoplane bomber with an unprecedented four engines and a wingspan of 105 feet, and able to carry 45,000
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