“Well,” he inquired, “who wants to drop the opening bomb?” From the back of the room the salty voice of Dutch Kindleberger resounded. “If you ask me,” he volunteered, “I think you’ve had twenty years of hogwash.” There was a murmur of surprise. “From time to time,” Dutch went on, “you send your bright young men to ask us the same question: ‘how many airplanes can you manufacture X days after M Day?’ And when I counter that question with another—‘what kind of airplanes?’—your young men don’t have the answer.” As Dutch finished, Glenn Martin put in his oar. “I agree with Dutch,” he began, as a titter greeted the idea that these two might agree on anything. “You expect us to give you a war plan,” Glenn went on, “before you have answered the question; and furthermore, you expect us to give you something worthwhile at no cost. According to my estimate,” Glenn continued, “it would cost at least ten thousand dollars for us to get up anything useful, and you apparently expect us to advance it out of profits. It can’t be done.” As Glenn finished, Hap glanced my way. My experience with Army was more limited than that of the others. In Hamilton-Standard, Ray Walsh had handled Army business. In Sikorsky and Vought, the dealings had been mostly with Navy. In Pratt and Whitney, “Tilly” Tillinghast, himself a former Army pilot and a favorite with all, had handled Army contacts. However, there were some fundamentals that seemed to apply to both. “I agree with Dutch and Glenn,” I began, adding to the unusual flurry of interindustry agreement, “and I’ll go a step farther. For a real test of your war plan, I suggest that you start a staff exercise on mobilization and watch what happens.” Hap Arnold flashed me that quizzical Army expression that wonders how any good could come out of the Navy. I went on to explain. My own experience in naval operations had shown me that in a dress rehearsal it is seldom the high private in the rear rank who falls down. More likely, it’s the green second lieutenant in the file closers who gets tangled up in his sword. He’s been so busy drilling others, he’s forgotten to read his own book. You have to put machinery into operation to find out where it creaks the loudest. In this case, if the Secretaries of War and Navy would order mobilization for drill purposes by designating a certain day as M Day, Headquarters could then announce the types of airplanes it wanted to put into production and the number of each it required, and then procurement officers could go ahead with drill purchase orders, and the contractors could place orders to suppliers, and so on. About here I noticed a flicker in Hap’s steely eye. “I guess Dutch and Glenn are right,” he said with a wry grin. “Hell,” he went on, “I can’t begin to tell you today what airplanes we would want to buy, let alone how many. I don’t even know who we expect to fight, nor when, nor where.”