Pruance was unaware of the top-secret meeting, nor did he know about the decisions made here, and if he had attended, he would have immediately seen that Arnold's plan would drag the Atlantic Fleet into the abyss. In fact, Admiral Kim also quickly discovered this huge threat, but at that time it was too late for him to stop Arnold.

On the 19th, Arnold came up with a framework for a battle plan, and it was obvious that it was impossible for him to launch a retaliatory operation on his own at that time, and the first person he found was Admiral King. When Admiral Kim spoke to Arnold, his first impression was that Arnold had taken advantage of the president's revenge, and that the plan had actually been prepared for a long time, just waiting for a suitable opportunity to put it on the table.

Admiral Kim's judgment is not unreasonable. The meeting went on late at night on 18 July, and even if Arnold did not eat or sleep, it would not have been possible to come up with a set of framework documents for the large-scale bombing plan in less than 10 hours; you must know that even if there were sufficient preparations and the conditions were relatively ideal in all aspects, the operational plan for such a large-scale bombing operation would require at least dozens of staff officers to be busy for several days, and then it would take several days, or even longer, to conduct several general inspections, revise the problems in them, and fill in the loopholes. In other words, even if Arnold had gathered everyone in his headquarters at that time, it would not have been possible to come up with this battle plan in ten hours.

Combined with the status of the strategic bomber force of the U.S. Army Air Force at that time. As well as some important factors of Arnold's personal nature, it is not difficult to find the utilitarian element in this plan.

Arnold was the staunchest "air superior" among American generals, and was a loyal follower of the Italian general Duhei, that is, the famous person who first put forward the "air supremacy" and the "air supremacy theory" and laid the foundation for modern air tactics theory. Long before the outbreak of the first global war. Arnold graduated from West Point, and after several years as a soldier, he became fascinated with aviation and learned to fly with the Wright brothers, and then became one of the first pilots in the U.S. Army. From this point on, Arnold became a staunch aeronaut. And it has been making every effort to promote the construction of US military aviation. After the end of World War I, Arnold, who was only a lieutenant at the time, was transferred to the U.S. Army Air Command, where he began his decision-making career within the top echelons of the U.S. military. It can be said that many of the subsequent developments of the US Army Aviation are directly related to him. During this period, Arnold did the most theoretical research, and made extremely great contributions to the improvement of the tactical theory system of the US air force. When the United States entered the war. Arnold first served as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Aviation and then as Commander of Army Aviation. By this time, Arnold was one of only two five-star generals in the Army (Eisenhower and others were not five-star generals at that time, while American five-star generals were comparable to Imperial generals and field marshals).

Arnold was a staunch supporter of the creation of the Air Force, and because of this, he was later called the founder of the modern US Air Force. The problem was that almost everyone else at the time was against or did not approve of the creation of an air force during the war. Arguments for opposition also existed within the army of the Tang Empire. In addition, compared with the army aviation of the Tang Empire, the performance of the US Army Aviation in the war was much worse, and the most worthy of "showing off" was only the large-scale strategic bombing of Germany by the British Royal Air Force from 25 to 27, as well as the German-occupied areas of continental Europe, as well as several limited-scale bombing operations in the Pacific theater. In other words, the performance of the American Army Airlines actually became an important reason for opponents at that time.

Obviously, in this case. Even if no one objected, if the land aviation did not perform better. Then the creation of the Air Force will also be far away. As the war progressed, the situation became more and more unfavorable for the United States, and there were not many opportunities left for Arnold to perform. Especially in 27 years, the US military was in a defensive posture on all battlefields, and the battle line was rapidly approaching the US mainland, and the US Army Air Force, which had been extremely powerful in the European theater, did not even have much use. During this period, Arnold did not sit idle, in addition to obtaining more funds to buy more bombers and train more pilots, he also organized the staff officers of the Army Aviation Command, and formulated hundreds of sets of combat plans in advance for various possible situations and possible battles. It was precisely because of this that Arnold was able to come up with a revised framework battle plan so quickly.

The bombing of New Orleans seemed to others to be a painful lesson, but in Arnold's view, in addition to the lesson, it was also a matter of getting more people to pay attention to strategic bombing, air strikes, and aviation. Arnold's vindictive mentality helped Arnold a lot. Knowing that the president insisted on retaliation, Arnold recognized that the opportunity he had been waiting for had arrived. As a result, when it came time to tell the president about his revenge, Arnold deliberately avoided some major issues, and eventually got the president to adopt his advice.

That is, Arnold was not unaware that there were too many holes in his proposals, there were too many uncertainties, and most importantly, at that time he did not have the ability to immediately fight back, and therefore it was impossible to meet the president's demands. Perhaps, others will give up because of this, but Arnold did not give up this opportunity. In addition, Arnold did not shy away from the problem, the army aviation to make preparations for an all-out attack, it will take at least two to three months, and it also needs the cooperation of other troops, and even needs to mobilize a large number of manpower and material resources. And before that, it was impossible for the army aviation to have a prominent performance on the battlefield. At that time, Arnold had a clear idea, since it was impossible for other troops to complete the task deployed by the president, then he would take advantage of this, that is, use the president's order to mobilize other troops, and replace the army aviation with other troops before it could be fully engaged, so as to buy time for the army aviation to prepare.

Anyone who knew that it was impossible for the Army Aviation to launch a large-scale retaliatory action immediately could tell that Arnold had already framed the rest of the troops when he made his proposal. Relatively speaking, the ground forces of the army, as well as the tactical aviation, have not been greatly affected, after all, neither the ground forces nor the tactical aviation can pose a threat to important targets in the enemy's rear