Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, and the Arnold Engineering Development Complex are named for Arnold. The Air Force Research Laboratory generally recognizes Arnold as the visionary who first articulated that superior research and development capabilities are essential to deterring and winning wars. Arnold's ideas underpin the Laboratory's modern-day role within the Air Force.

The cadet social center at the United States Air Force Academy, Arnold Hall, and the Arnold Hall Community Center at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, are both named for Arnold.

Arnold's personal papers, uniforms, insignia, decorations, and wartime diary are held in the aeronautics collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

The Civil Air Patrol has named an award that accompanies the rank of Cadet Airman First Class after him, being known as the Hap Arnold Award.

The Air Force Association recognizes the "most significant contribution by a military member for national defense" with its H. H. Arnold Award.

The top honorary organization in Air Force ROTC, the Arnold Air Society, is named for him, and The George C. Marshall Foundation awards the George C. Marshall/Henry "Hap" Arnold ROTC Award annually to the top senior cadet at each college or university with an AFROTC program. The Air Force Aid Society, which he founded, awards a college scholarship in his name to the dependents of Air Force members or retirees.

On 21 December 1944, Arnold was appointed to the rank of General of the Army, as a temporary rank, subject to reversion to permanent rank six months after the end of the war. The temporary rank was then declared permanent 23 March 1946, by Public Law 333 of the 79th Congress, which also awarded full pay and allowances in the grade to those on the retired list. It was created to give the most senior American commanders parity of rank with their British counterparts holding the ranks of field marshal and admiral of the fleet. This second General of the Army rank is not the same as the post-Civil War era version because of its purpose and five stars.

In 1967, "Hap" Arnold was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

In 1972, Arnold was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.

On 18 May 2006, the Department of the Air Force introduced prototypes of two new service dress uniforms, one resembling those worn by Air Service officers prior to 1926, called the "Billy Mitchell heritage coat," and another, resembling the U.S. Army Air Forces' Uniform of World War II and named the "Hap Arnold heritage coat". In 2007, the Air Force decided in favor of the "Hap Arnold" prototype, but in 2009 the new chief of staff of the Air Force directed that "no further effort be made on the Hap Arnold Heritage Coat" and the uniform change was suspended indefinitely.

During the last mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-134, a five-star insignia of Arnold's preserved in the National Museum of the United States Air Force was carried into space by shuttle pilot Gregory H. Johnson as a commemorative gesture to Arnold's legacy. Arnold was then the featured honoree of the museum's National Aviation Day celebration of 20 August 2011, when Johnson returned the insignia to the museum.

The B-29 Memorial Plaza at Great Bend Municipal Airport, Kansas, commemorates B-29 aircrews and the program's contributors.

The United States Department of Defense high school at the former Wiesbaden Air Base in Wiesbaden, Germany, was named General H. H. Arnold High School in 1949. The school was renamed Wiesbaden High School in 2006 after the installation was transferred to the United States Army.

On 7 November 1988, the United States Postal Service released the H. H. "Hap" Arnold 65 cent postage stamp bearing the likeness of Arnold, in his honor, as part of the Great Americans series.

Arnold Heights, California, was named in his honor; as is Arnold Drive, a main arterial road through Sonoma Valley near his ranch.

Hap Arnold Boulevard, the main access road to Tobyhanna Army Depot in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, is named in his honor.

General Arnold was the class exemplar of the United States Air Force Academy Class of 2012.

Film

In a rare depiction on film, Arnold was sympathetically portrayed in the 1954 film The Glenn Miller Story, played by Barton MacLane. He was portrayed by Robert Brubaker in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell. In 1977, he was again portrayed on film by actor Walter O. Miles in the two-part opus The Amazing Howard Hughes, starring Tommy Lee Jones as Hughes.

Arnold appeared in a speaking role as himself in Men of the Sky, a Technicolor propaganda short made by Warner Bros. and released on 25 July 1942. He appears as himself in the first eight minutes of the twenty-minute short, filmed in May 1942 at Merced Army Air Field, California. In the short, he alights from his C-42 staff transport at the training base to preside at a graduation ceremony for pilots completing their flight training. Arnold delivers a short address and speaks with each of four pilots (actors Tod Andrews, Don DeFore, Ray Montgomery, and Dave Willock) as he pins on their wings.

Summary of service

Dates of rank

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|Order of Merit (Chile), Grand Cross

|Order of the Cloud and Banner, Special Grand Cordon (Republic of China)

|Order of Boyaca, Grand Officer (Colombia)

|Order of Abdon Calderón, First Class (Ecuador)

|-

|French Croix de guerre 1939–1945 with silver palm

|Order of George I, Grand Cross with swords (Greece)

|Military Order of Italy, Grand Cross

|Order of Orange-Nassau, Knight Grand Cross with swords (Netherlands)

|-

|Order of Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Grand Cross (Panama)

|Order of the Sword, Commander Grand Cross (Sweden)

|Aviation Cross, First Class (Peru)

|Order of Military Merit, First Class (Mexico)

|-

|colspan="6"|Military Aviator badge

|-

|}

Published works

Non-fiction books

Children's books

See also

  • List of United States Air Force four-star generals
  • List of United States Army four-star generals

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

  • (Part I)
  • (Part II)
  • Huston's introductory biography is 108 pages in length, and is a detailed account of Arnold's life, both professional and personal, to 1941.

USAF Historical Studies

  • No. 89:
  • No. 91:
  • No. 98:
  • No. 112:

Further reading

Additional sources

  • NMUSAF fact sheet: Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
  • General Henry H. Arnold (official USAF biography)
  • General of the Air Force, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold Air University biography
  • Henry H. Arnold at Arlington National Cemetery – official website
  • Arnold Air Society biography
  • National Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinement page