 It was not until January 1939, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a public statement calling for an expansion of the Air Corps in anticipation of the coming of World War II and the needs of the United States in defending the Western Hemisphere, that Army policy was reversed. Gen. George C. Marshall, who was soon to move up from head of the War Plans Division to be the Army's chief of staff, received personal instruction on the capabilities and strengths of long-range bombers from new Air Corps chief Gen. Henry H. Arnold.
