to Hamilton Field, California, and in less than a year returned to Washington to serve in the War Plans Division of the War Department General Staff. McNarney became a member of the Joint Army-Navy Planning Committee in June 1939. The following March he was promoted to colonel. In May he was appointed to the Canada-United States Permanent Defense Board and became a brigadier general in April 1941. One month later he was assigned as chief of staff of a special Army observer group in London, serving until December 1941. World War II After the attack on Pearl Harbor McNarney served on the Roberts Commission which investigated the Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii. In January 1942 McNarney was promoted to major general and appointed by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall to chair the War Department Reorganization Committee of the War Plans Division, resulting in the recommendation by Marshall of the plan that resulted in the autonomy of the United States Army Air Forces within the Army. He succeeded William Bryden as Marshall's deputy chief of staff in March with promotion to lieutenant general in June. While deputy chief of staff, McNarney developed a plan for land-based anti-submarine warfare under which the AAF organized the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command with a mission to attack hostile submarines "wherever they may be operating." This offensive measure materially aided destruction of the German hold on sea lanes before it was disbanded in 1943 as redundant to efforts of the United States Navy. McNarney was high among the suggested officers who might serve as supreme commander of the Pacific War, but the position was not created. In October 1942, AAF Commanding General Henry H. Arnold proposed to Marshall that an Army man be named Supreme Allied Commander for the war effort in the Pacific and suggested Douglas MacArthur, McNarney or Lesley McNair for the position, Marshall without comment passed the request to his staff for analysis. There, Major General Albert Wedemeyer and Brigadier General St. Clair Streett examined the problem. Wedemeyer, an Army officer, thought the supreme commander should be an airman; either Arnold or McNarney. Streett, an airman himself, was also in favor of a supreme commander but he recognized the political challenges, projecting that the president would have to make the appointment, not a committee of military men. Streett suggested McNarney or Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, depending on whether