know you will be eager to have the crowds back once we get doors open, everyone is feeling healthy and safe and get back to a little bit of normal life, as we like to say. patrick, thanks for your time this afternoon. it has been terrific. brig. gen. mordente: thank you for the opportunity, patrick. it was good to see you. announcer: the c-span cities more to do hundred cities. our staff stay close to home due to the coronavirus now. and look at one of the city tour visits next. [plane engine] when a fellow learns to fly with the army air corps he does

not learn it all in a day, a week, or even a month. the gateway to the air service is a schooling ground at san antonio, texas, the primary training point for army pilots. >> we are at randolph air force base where aerospace power began. we are on building 100, the taj mahal, one of the great iconic buildings. from here you can see the entirety of randolph air force base. its circular design, it is a beautiful base, a functional base. it was built in time to help the air force build numbers so we would have a running air force by 1942, 1943. they built it to be the showplace of the air force and it became known as west point of the air. as with engineers and a ternary specialists in the army, here's where you learn the craft of flying and supporting flying operations.

>> a lot of people mention this base as being important to san antonio. it is. why is it important? >> it has always been a steady generator for business, technology innovation, and some of the best of american society come here. it is one of the most diverse basis in the air force. if you want diversity of thought, diversity of background, religions, the air force is the place to go. randolph might be more emblematic of that than any other base. we all learn to fight, fly, and win here. almost everyone comes to randolph at one time or another. ♪ >> randolph field for the basic course. nearby kelly field for advanced students, combined to form the nerve center of the air force training program. expanding u.s. defense calls for the schooling of 30,000 pilots each year. >> san antonio had always been

looking for another base outside brooks and kelly as the air force expanded. they realized the need to have a larger base. act gavethe air corps a lot of money to the federal government and the army air corps to build new bases. the selection of land here north of san antonio kind of brought together the fruition of all es, training the pilots necessary, as we move between the war periods in the 1920's and 1930's. randolph became that iconic visual for the air force. as you come through harmon drive, you see the taj mahal, the administered of building and it is an oppressive thing. for young people coming to the air force, that first sight of this impressive, tall building gave them a sense of pride not only in what they were about to do, but in their country. i think, in that way, it was

reflective of the pride of the nation at the time. [engine starting] ♪ in those early films from early world war ii, it was almost recruitment. the army would use it in different bases throughout the country, the air corps branch would use it here at randolph to highlight and say, hey, if you're thinking about joining, join the air service. back then the movie was the thing you would go to. every saturday the kids would go and they would see the randolph west point of the air. they would see the training and even then, remember, flying was new. the idea of getting into an aircraft and leaving the bounds of the earth or something every young person imagined they would be able to do. for a lot of folks, especially leading into world war ii, which

turned out a lot of pilots for the service. >> when you look from this perspective what you see is you see the layout of the base. clark, who laid out the base, was working in a motor pool and aumly field in general l had been promoted to take care of the training and get the base layout. clark designed the base. he was an architect and now he was a goner instructor and he decided he would layout the base so there was three flying ramps, or flying strips, and in the middle it would be a concentric area where, centered in the middle in a circular design around the three sides of the airstrips, it was easy access. from any point on the base you could cut through the circle, through the middle circle, and get to another part of the base rather than having to walk all around. it is a neat design and clark

wanted to design what he called an air city and that is what randolph is today. there was always flying training going on at randolph. are t38s, t6s. they train training instructors. the aircraft today are already piloted -- licensed pilots, who are coming to learn how to train other pilots. it is one thing to be able to fly a plane. it is another to teach someone else how to fly a plane. that is what they do at randolph. >> the hospital on randolph is

part of the aviation medical complex that came from brooks to randolph when he opened. one of its first and enduring missions is to study the physiology of flight. during world war ii the developed all types of things like the g suits that kept pilots conscious during flights. after the war it became a focus of space training. a lot of people do not realize it, but before nasa the air force was in charge of space, the aspect of technology and investigative research. as space became more and more the international proving grounds and battlefield randolph became less and less prominent in much of the space training went back to brooks which became the human systems command. as i speak, that technology has made it full-circle. the technology that made randolph possible, the aviation

technology that was exploding in the 1920's and 1930's, now we have the space for it. we have seen the space force common and who knows where that headquarters will be. and it will have started here at randolph and we will hand that baton to the space force. in fact, we already have. as we have learned from studying this base you never know where that is going to lead, what technologies and may be a new base, or an old base we can visit in 90 years, and see with the impact was. you can watch this and otheryou can watch this andr c-span.org/cities tour. this is american history tv, only on c-span-3. >> the victorious allied forces met at the versailles conference in 1919. the united states and britain

battled behind closed doors about the size of the u.s. navy. the former historian recounts events between the two outwardly friendly nations. the national world war i museum and memorial posted and provided -- hosted and provided the video for this event. >> it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker tonight. kuenh currently serves as the fleet admiral, professor at maritime history at the u.s. naval war college, and is the emeritus major chair of historical research at the u.s. army command and general staff college. he retired from the u.s. navy in 2004, at the rank of commander after 23 years. serving as the officer flying land and carrier-based aircraft. he has taught a variety of