“It will take an idea like that to interest Don Douglas,” he said. “Remember,” he advised, “Mr. Douglas responds to the eye rather than to the ear.”
In order that we might concentrate on this job, the Voughts now suggested that my wife and I join them at their cottage on the desert. Here at Palm Springs, the task was to do a sort of Mahan analysis of air power in history, and boil it all down to the simplest terms. After a lot of head-scratching, pencil-pushing, and earnest discussion, I finally got it in form.
Feeling now the need for the best possible counsel on this important matter, I wangled an invitation from Rear Adm. John H. Towers, then on duty at Pearl Harbor, and hopped out to Honolulu in a Pan American Boeing Clipper that left San Francisco before supper and arrived at Pearl before breakfast next morning.
Curiously enough, Jack had as his guest a young English lieutenant commander of the Royal Naval Flying Service, who had been sent out by my friend K-P to observe American carrier operations. After two decades, he was doing the Godfrey de Chevalier act in reverse.
During my two-day visit at Pearl Harbor, Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief, entertained at a luncheon for his top commanders who had been called in by air for briefing on the next operation, and he invited me to join the party. As I sat down, the single civilian in a galaxy of top brass, I estimated that the average number of gilt stars among thirty-odd officers must be about two and a half per man. These fellows, all either contemporaries at Annapolis or men with whom I had been shipmates prior to leaving the Navy, had fought through two world wars and participated in world events none had even remotely foreseen.
After a review of my program with Jack Towers and Forrest Sherman, the latter now Nimitz’s planning chief, I caught the Clipper back to San Francisco. We had a full load, top brass returning to Washington and young bluejackets returning home on top priority because of illness in their families or other personal difficulties. Arrived back at Beverly Hills in time for lunch, I called Don Douglas on the telephone, and made a date with him for the morrow.
As our company car pulled up at the entrance to Don’s plant in Santa Monica, the California sun shown on the camouflaged village, which so completely concealed the sprawling plant that it was hard to find the gate. Don sat behind the desk in the shadow of his lightproof and soundproofed ground-floor office, and stood up to greet me as I came in. After a few words to state my business, I handed him his copy of the air-power statement and as Don sat down to read it, I opened my copy with a view to pacing his reading. Don Douglas read carefully, noting every word.
“I’ll go for this,” he said simply, speaking in the soft voice that made it difficult to hear him at times. Then after a moment he added, “What do you want me to do?”
I explained the need for a meeting of our Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce at which the board of governors should adopt the program. We must reorganize the Chamber and give it a set of officers who could direct the program; I suggested that he become chairman of the board of governors. He countered with the statement that this job should be mine, but agreed to accept the vice-chairmanship of the board. I suggested that we borrow John G. Lee from the West Coast Aircraft War Production Council to head up the reorganization of the chamber and, after some consideration, he agreed. We would bring in Clyde Vandenburgh, of the East Coast Council, and Frank Russell, of the National Council, to assist. A meeting of the National Council was scheduled to take place in Los Angeles late in April, 1944, which would be attended by all the company presidents. We would call a simultaneous meeting of the Chamber and put the air-power program before the Board for consideration at that time.
On April 26, 1944, the board of governors of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce met in Los Angeles. In presenting the program, still in its tentative typewritten form, I pointed out that this was a preliminary statement and subject to revision by the members. After all, the Constitution of the United States had been no one-man job but the painstaking effort of many men of different minds; we needed the thoughts of everyone on what would prove an important action by the board. A number of constructive suggestions were offered and voted, after which the revision was adopted unanimously. The preamble to the resolution ran as follows: