Big Picture: The Hap Arnold Story

National Archives and Records Administration ARC Identifier 2569701 / Local Identifier 111-TV-437 Big Picture: The Hap Arnold Story DVD Copied by Timothy Vollmer. The birth and growth of our Air Force into the powerful fighting unit it is today began within the United States Army. During this period, for almost his entire forty-six years of service, General "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Force, completely dedicated himself to building America's strength in the skies. America owes much to him for this development and for the air supremacy and victory in World War II. This is his life, brought to the television screen on THE BIG PICTURE series, as a modest, hard-working and good-natured man. The documentary begins in 1909 when a Frenchman by the name of Bleriot flew a frail contraption across the English Channel. A few weeks after, a young American lieutenant saw it and began to wonder even then about the military effects of many flying machines in the air at the same time. That young lieutenant, Henry "Hap" Arnold, was to be come the Commander of the greatest Air Force in history -- two and a half million men and seventy thousand aircraft.