In May 1940, with France about to fall to the Nazis, Roosevelt called for an annual output of 50,000 planes, imploring the aircraft industry to expand its normal capacity of 2,000 a year to more than 4,000 a month. Congress quickly provided the funding. In Arnold’s words, “In forty-five minutes I was given $1,500,000,000 and told to get an air force.” At the time of the Munich crisis, the American air force, with 1,200 combat aircraft and 22,700 officers and enlisted men, was twentieth in size in the world. By December 1941, it had almost 340,000 officers and enlisted personnel and almost
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