Frank M.Andrews:

Marshall’s Airman

DeWitt S. Copp
Frank M.Andrews:

Marshall’s Airman

DeWitt S. Copp

Air Force History and Museums Program

Washington, D.C.

2003

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Frank M. Andrews:

Marshall’s Airman

DeWitt S. Copp

In war nothing is so commonplace as sudden death. But when the victim

is a high-ranking officer of recognized brilliance, his loss can be shattering and

the ironies of what could have been linger amidst the engulfing emptiness of

unfulfilled promise. So it was on the afternoon of May 3, 1943, when the B–24

Liberator in which Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews was flying crashed against a

fog-shrouded promontory while making a landing approach to Meeks Field near

Keflavik, Iceland. Andrews was commanding general of all U.S. forces in the

newly formed European Theater of Operations (ETO). He had held his post for

just three months, having arrived in England on February 4, the day after his

fifty-ninth birthday. The decision to transfer him from his command of U.S.

Middle East Forces had been approved by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister

Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Conference in

January.

It was U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall who had summoned Andrews to the conference from Andrews’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

Privately, however, Marshall had previously informed Andrews of what was

afoot, for between them lay a tacit bond of understanding and mutual appreciation that dated back to their first meeting in August 1938. At that time, Andrews

was a temporary major general in his third year as Commander of General

Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force, the combat arm of the Army Air Corps that had

been established in 1935. Marshall, a permanent brigadier general who had once

served as chief of staff to Andrews’s father-in-law, Maj. Gen. Henry T. Allen, had

just been appointed head of the Army General Staff’s War Plans Division

(WPD). 

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Andrews, in that last summer of European peace, was having a difficult

struggle, trying to prevail on Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring and War

Department leaders to build up the country’s air strength. In confidence,

Andrews had told Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Past, that every

major country in the world was better prepared than the United States to defend

itself. Helping to prove the point, Secretary Woodring had decided to cancel any

further production of the Flying Fortress, the Boeing B–17, around which

Andrews was determined to establish U.S. air supremacy.

What Andrews confided to Meyer, he told Marshall in far greater detail

when the new Chief of WPD spent a day with him at Langley Field, Virginia,

GHQ Air Force headquarters. Following their initial get-together, Marshall wrote

his host: “I think I learned quite a bit about the problem and will look forward to

some further meetings when I have better coordinated my thoughts with the

information available . . . .” The further meetings quickly followed. Andrews

invited Marshall to accompany him on a comprehensive nine-day inspection of

the GHQ Air Force and aircraft production facilities. No ground officer in such

a high level and important post had ever been given a more complete tour, and

no airman was better equipped to play host than Andrews.

They traveled aboard Andrews’s Douglas DC-2, with Andrews often at the

controls and Marshall riding in the copilot’s seat. What Andrews introduced

Marshall to in their coast-to-coast sweep was an eye-opener for the

fifty-eight-year-old War Plans Chief. The production, servicing, training, and

quality of an air force could not be achieved with the same equations that were

used for ground forces. It was an axiom few ground officers had ever understood. As Andrews put it:

If it takes three months to train an artilleryman and ten months to

build a cannon, then you have got to have a reserve of cannon. But

when it takes a year to build an airplane and up to three years to train

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Gen. George C.

Marshall (left) and Lt.

Gen. Frank M.

Andrews
the crews to operate and maintain that airplane, then there is not

quite such a big argument for a reserve of airplanes, particularly

where aeronautical advancement in types is as rapid as it is today. We

cannot afford to equip the air force of tomorrow with the airplanes

of yesterday.

What Andrews had to say about air power and the potential of its strategic

use with the B–17, his position on the need for air independence from War

Department control, and what he believed must be done in all these areas, was

also of prime interest to Marshall. He listened, he observed, he asked questions.

The journey and its impact—air maneuvers to air depots, experimental aircraft

design to outdated operational models—was a unique experience for Marshall.

In retrospect, there is little doubt that Andrews’s career was to be directly affected by, it while Marshall’s understanding and appreciation of air power was

strongly influenced.

An astute judge of character, Marshall obviously came away impressed by

the clarity of Andrews’s thought and the genial yet firm assurance of the airman’s

manner. Both came from southern backgrounds. Andrews was born in Nashville,

Tennessee, on February 3, 1884, and though Marshall was born in Uniontown,

Pennsylvania, on December 31, 1880, he had graduated from Virginia Military

Institute in 1901. Marshall was reserved and outwardly cool by nature, his sense

of humor well concealed; Andrews’s warmth was nicely balanced by his directness and the quality of his intellect. Both men shared an inbred, old-world courtesy. Andrews’s deft touch in seeing to it that his guest, wearing one less star than

Andrews, was shown the deference and respect of a senior at all their stops could

not have been lost on Marshall.

When the tour was over, Marshall wrote to his old mentor, Gen. John J.

Pershing, expressing his enthusiasm, describing the itinerary, and remarking:

“Altogether I had a most interesting trip professionally and a most magnificent

one personally.” To Andrews he declared: “I want to thank you again . . . for the

splendid trip you gave me, and especially for your personal efforts to make it a

pleasant one and highly instructive. I enjoyed every minute of the trip and my

association with you, and I really think I acquired a fair picture of military air

activities in general. A little study will help me to digest something of all I saw...

With warm regards.”

What Marshall was looking for was an orderly plan by which the country’s

defenses could be built, with the focus on production and training. No such plan

existed, and he appreciated having the benefit of Andrews’s thoughts, particularly as they applied to the lack of a realistic program for building U.S. air power.

Three and a half years earlier, in December 1934, another Army officer of

equal stature had directly influenced Andrews’s career. The officer was Chief of

Staff Maj. Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The two had not flown anywhere together,

but MacArthur selected Andrews to command the airmen’s long-sought GHQ

Air Force. MacArthur never offered a public explanation for his choice of

Andrews for this most important of air commands. But a quick look at some of

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Andrews’s previous activities offers insight into the forward reach of his thinking at a time when the military was economically and strategically constrained,

locked into the rigidity of the status quo.

* * * * *

Shortly after MacArthur was appointed Army Chief of Staff in November

1930, Andrews developed an intense interest in instrument flying. It had been

aroused by the Mount Shasta affair of 1931, in which he had been a principal

planner and organizer while serving as Chief of Training and Operations (G-3)

in Air Corps Chief Maj. Gen. James Fechet’s office. This was a Billy

Mitchell-type test in which bombers of the 2d Group, led by Maj. Herbert A.

Dargue, would fly out to sea from their base at Langley Field and sink the Mount

Shasta, an old freighter. After two days of searching in bad weather, the bombers

finally located the ship and scored one hit out of forty-two bombs dropped. Navy

guns sank the target, much to the chagrin of the airmen. The claim that the Air

Corps was capable of defending U.S. coastal waters took a beating. Andrews, not

looking for excuses, weighed the causes of failure and arranged to take the

three-week instrument training course, inadequate at best, at the Advanced Flight

School, Kelly Field, Texas.

A year later he got permission from Air Corps Chief Maj. Gen. Benjamin

D. Foulois to publicize air mobility by making an epic journey. He led a flight of

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Lt. Gen. Frank

Andrews in cockpit

of B–17.
five aircraft from San Antonio, Texas, to France Field in the Panama Canal Zone.

Previously, Andrews had flown coast to coast numerous times in everything from

DH-4s to the new all-metal Northrop Alpha, but the long operation of shepherding antiquated Keystone bombers and a pair of Douglas amphibians on a

2,200-mile jaunt down through Central America stimulated ideas on all-weather

flying.

In June 1933, Andrews graduated from the Army War College and was

assigned to command the 1st Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field near Detroit,

Michigan. He was resolved to eradicate the belief of most pursuit pilots that

when the weather was bad you did not fly if you could avoid it. At Selfridge, he

found there was not a single gyro compass or gyro horizon-standard equipment

on commercial aircraft-amongst the planes of his three squadrons. His letters to

the chief’s office brought no direct response. Close friends in the Materiel

Division at Wright Field told him that orders from above were to not parcel out

the gyros because they were in such short supply and must be held against the

far distant day when new aircraft would be coming off the line.

Although Andrews made very little progress in establishing an instrument

program at Selfridge, Foulois did set up two small “avigation” schools at

Langley and at Rockwell Field, California, in the fall of 1933. Brig. Gen. Oscar

Westover, Assistant Chief of the Air Corps, was a prime mover in that development. He and Andrews had been classmates at West Point, and through him,

Andrews’s letters may have had an effect. Andrews knew only too well that .inadequate instrument training was dictated as much by the War Department attitude

as by lack of funds.

Immediately after Andrews arrived at Selfridge, an event occurred that

strongly reinforced his thinking about instrument flying, logistics, and navigation. He became host at an internationally publicized aviation venture. In July

1933, Italian Air Marshal Italo Balbo led a flight of twenty-four twin engine

Savoia Marchetti torpedo bombers on a 6,000-mile flight from Orbetello, Italy,

to North American cities. Andrews led two squadrons of the 1st Pursuit Group

to greet the Italian flyers in the air as they crossed the U.S.-Canadian border near

Detroit and to escort them to a landing at Chicago’s World Fair.

The colorful Italian air marshal went on to a presidential welcome at the

White House, completing the longest mass flight in aviation history. The War

Department classed the undertaking as an aerial stunt with little military meaning, but Andrews, and most airmen, recognized the obvious significance of the

mission. Balbo and his men had clearly demonstrated that with proper aeronautical equipment and training, airmen-soon would be able to fly long distances in

adverse weather to reach any adversary’s industrial heartland. If the War

Department failed to recognize what military leaders of other countries foresaw,

U.S. air power could not. keep pace. Andrews was determined to see that this did

not happen.

It was several months after the Balbo flight, in October 1933, that the

Drum Board, appointed by MacArthur and named for its chairman, Mai. Gen.

Hugh A. Drum, endorsed creating a consolidated combat air arm, the GHQ Air

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Force. While reaffirming the Air Corps’ mandate of coastal defense, this fell

short of Air Corps’ aspirations for greater independence from War Department

control. The only airman on the five-man board was Foulois. The others were

ground-bound General Staff officers whose view of air power and its potential

was fixed not so much on the sky as on the trench. Further, the Drum Board

scoffed at the meaning of the Balbo epic, and to Andrews and other like-minded

airmen the message was clear. The Air Corps would never realize its potential

until it gained independence.

There was nothing new in the belief, nor in the concept of a combat arm

for the Air Corps. It had been forced into being by political circumstances rather

than War Department willingness to accept a long-sought military necessity. The

plan for an air force with its own command and staff within the Army Air Corps

had first been proposed in 1923 by the Lassiter Board (named for its chief, Brig.

Gen. William Lassiter), that examined the role of U.S. military aviation. The

board recommended that while the main purpose of an air arm was to directly

support the ground forces, some units not so engaged could be used against other

targets as a separate strike force. The idea had originated with Col. Edgar S.

Gorrell during World War I and was tried out with considerable success by Billy

Mitchell against the Germans in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns

in 1918. Five years later, the Lassiter Board approved assembling such a peacetime force, but it took more than a decade and a gaggle of additional boards

before MacArthur gave his blessing. This was not so much a blessing as a recognition that the War Department was caught between fractious congressional

demands supporting a separate air force and the War Department securing a

coastal defense mission for the Air Corps over Navy objections.

When, by the end of the year, nothing had been done to implement the

Drum Board’s recommendations establishing a GHQ Air Force, the impatience

of those who believed that a separate air force was imperative grew, and with it

a determination to make a new bid for independence. Such a bid must come

through congressional action, and Selfridge Field in Michigan was somewhat far

afield to exert political influence. Yet Andrews did. His ability to do so was fostered by his good friend., Lt. Col. Walter H. Weaver, who was serving on

Foulois’s staff as G-2, Chief of Information. Their friendship dated back to West

Point days. They corresponded frequently, and Weaver’s letters reflected the general spirit of insurrection within the chief’s office. Associates such as Maj. Carl

“Tooey” Spaatz and Capts. George C. Kenney and Robert Olds had had their fill

of what they saw as War Department stultification and were determined to risk

whatever was necessary to get free of it.

Weaver sent an advisory to this effect not only to Andrews but also to Lt.

Col. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, commanding at March Field; to Maj. Hugh J.

Knerr, Chief of the Field Service Section in the Engineering Branch at Wright

Field; and to Lt. Col. Horace M. Hickam, commanding the 3d Attack Group at

Fort Crockett, Texas. Weaver declared that the Air Corps was “in a rather crucial

position. I don’t know if anyone is going to help it unless we do something for

ourselves.”

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The “doing something” would be to draft a bill for independence and put

it in the hands of a congressman powerful and persuasive enough to hold open

hearings. At the hearings, a host of airmen would testify and support the bill’s

passage. In the midst of a shattering depression and an unsympathetic administration, it hardly seemed likely that many congressmen or much of the public

would be interested in creating a new branch of the service. But the airmen had

a champion in Congressman John J. McSwain of South Carolina, Chairman of

the House Armed Services Committee. The War Department saw him as a threat;

Benny Foulois’s conspirators regarded him as a friend.

Weaver was welcome in the upper social circles of the military hierarchy,

his father having risen to command the Coast Artillery. Through such association, he had come to know McSwain. Since the congressman had never met

Andrews, but suddenly made a special flight to Selfridge Field in January 1934

to spend a weekend at the Andrews’s home, there is little doubt that the meeting

had been arranged by Weaver.

The first thing McSwain did upon arriving back at the Capital was to write

Andrews a letter of appreciation and thanks. On February 2, 1934, directly after

his visit to Selfridge, McSwain threw the War Department into a tailspin by

offering a bill to his committee that embodied everything separate air force proponents were seeking. Just the day before, the War Department had placed before

McSwain its long overdue recommendation that incorporated the creation of a

GHQ air force. But it failed to include any of the burning wants of the airmen,

such as a separate promotion list. Some could see in the McSwain bill a

counter-demand aimed at forcing more concessions from the General Staff,

knowing full well the bill itself would never pass. MacArthur, who referred privately to the Military Affairs Chairman as “McSwine,” was not inclined to offer

anything further, and it appeared that a battle royal was in the making. At that

moment the entire issue was overshadowed and held in check by an unexpected

event.

On February 9, 1934, through a piece of political misjudgment, President

Roosevelt stripped the commercial air carriers of their franchises to carry the

mail and assigned the task to the Air Corps. Air Corps Chief Foulois had agreed

that in ten days’ time he could have his planes equipped and ready to take on the

specialized task of maintaining a major share of the nation’s airmail routes. There

were three factors militating against the success of the Air Corps mission, which

used the acronym AACMO-Army Air Corps Mail Operation: its ill-equipped

aircraft, its pilots who were ill-trained for instrument flying, and the worst

nationwide winter weather on record.

In the ten days between Roosevelt’s decision and the start of AACMO,

Foulois, who had given considerable lip service to the need for instrument training but had been prevented by lack of funds from doing much about it, launched

a frantic campaign to equip his planes with radios and rudimentary flight instruments, and to give the pilots some instrument training. It was too late. In March,

Roosevelt was forced by a series of weather-related crashes to ground the operation for ten days.

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As the winter weather abated and pilots gained experience in weather and

night flying, the Air Corps’ performance improved. Nevertheless, the public generally, and the War Department and certain congressmen specifically, considered

the 78-day AACMO a dismal failure. In truth, despite the loss of a dozen pilots

and crewmen and 66 accidents, crews delivered more than 770,000 pounds of

mail without losing a single letter and completed more than 65 percent of all

scheduled flights.

During the airmail operation, Andrews continued to push for instrument

equipment, but with little success. Thirty-eight of his sixty-two pilots were

assigned to AACMO, among them Lts. Curtis E. Lemay, Earle E. Partridge, and

Mark Bradley. The 1st Pursuit Group was so stripped of men and equipment that

it no longer could be considered operational, but Andrews could take heart in the

fact that during AACMO the Air Corps established its first blind flying school at

Wright Field. Capt. Albert R Hegenberger, a pioneer along with Jimmy Doolittle

in the development of military instrument flying, was the school’s first director.

The Air Corps’ improving performance after AACMO’s disastrous beginning did not dispel the outcry within the War Department and Congress for

investigation of air preparedness. A new board was formed-the fifteenth in sixteen years-to be chaired by and named for former Secretary of War Newton D.

Baker. It served the same old purpose: on the surface, to chart a course for the

Air Corps, and beneath it, to assure that the course was not directed toward independence. It, like the Drum Board, whose members were a part of the Baker

Board, was in favor of a GHQ air force.

On May 23, 1934, even before the Baker Board had made known its recommendations, Andrews was ordered to report to the War Department to chair a

committee that was, he told his father, “to make recommendations on organization of the Air Corps for greater mobility.” Serving with him were such keen

thinkers as Spaatz, Hickam, Knerr, and Kenney. Their work was completed by

mid-June. What they had created was the organizational structure for a combat

air arm.

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Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Andrews learned in October that he was to return to Washington to serve

in the War Department Operations and Training Section, G-3, charged with

working out the tables of organization for a GHQ air force he and his committee

had put together in June. In the two months that followed, he realized that his

duties might well come to naught. Congressional hearings and board recommendations notwithstanding, the formation of a GHQ air force was in no way

assured, since General MacArthur’s continuance as Army Chief of Staff was in

doubt. Andrews saw that, without MacArthur’s determination, powerful elements within the faceless General Staff would see to it that the concept of an air

force remained just that, smothered in words and grounded by committees.

Fortunately, President Roosevelt stopped playing coy and let it be known that he

wanted Douglas MacArthur to remain as Chief for another year.

Thereupon, the biggest question in town was who would command the

nascent air force. Benny Foulois was out, in political trouble on all fronts. His

assistant chief, General Westover, who had been AACMO’s titular commander,

was considered a contender. So were some seventy other officers, many of them

senior to Andrews. It was MacArthur alone who made the final decision to name

Frank Andrews Commander of the GHQ Air Force with a two-grade promotion

to brigadier general. That Andrews, a “heretofore obscure field officer,” as Time

magazine put it, was selected was a tribute to his demonstrated ability as a commander and staff officer. It was also, to some degree, a result of fortuitous circumstances.

Following graduation from West Point in 1906, Frank Andrews had served

eleven years as a cavalry officer in the Philippines, Hawaii, and the States. In

1917, he transferred to the Signal Corps for duty with the Aviation Division.

Three years earlier, Andrews had married Josephine “Johnny” Allen, daughter of

General Henry Allen, and had moved into the all-important social inner circle of

the War Department, where his father-in-law was a power. Both Andrews and his

wife also were champion polo players.

From August 1920 to February 1923, Andrews commanded the U.S. Army

Air Service’s European air force of thirteen DH-4s under his highly popular

father-in-law, who was in charge of all U.S. occupation forces in Germany. On

his return to the States, Andrews spent four years at Kelly Field, Texas, in flight

training assignments, followed by attendance at the Air Corps Tactical School,

then at Langley Field, Virginia, and the Command and General Staff School at

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Since he was not in Washington when Billy Mitchell

was fighting his battles of the 1920s, Andrews had never been considered one of

“Mitchell’s Boys,” although he was a confidant of Mitchell after the latter’s resignation in 1926.

Deputy Chief of Staff Hugh Drum, in a letter to Newton Baker, explained

the reasoning behind Andrews’s selection to head the GHQ Air Force: “We all

feel he [Andrews] will be able to meet the situation and develop the force along

the lines contemplated. Furthermore, in addition to being an efficient flyer, he

has been in harmony with all the War Department has been trying to do.”

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* * * * *

On March 1, 1935, Andrews officially assumed command of GHQ Air

Force at Langley Field. Permitted to name his own principal staff, Andrews

chose Majs. Hugh Knerr as his chief of staff; Harvey B. S. Burwell as G-1;

Follett Bradley as G-2; Capt. George Kenney as G-3; and Maj. Joseph E.

McNarney as G-4. All were vintage airmen; Bradley, Kenney, and McNarney

combat veterans. Knerr, Bradley, and Kenney had long been strong independence advocates. Knerr was a bomber-first zealot, a stubborn visionary who not

only foresaw but also played a direct role in developing the long-range bomber.

Kenney’s three years at MIT helped to stimulate ideas that encompassed everything from aeronautical experimentation to correcting the translation from

French to English of the strategic bombardment theories of Giulio Douhet.

Bradley, like Knerr, was a graduate of Annapolis. He had taken his first airplane

ride as an observer with pilot Lt. Hap Arnold in 1911. Most recently, he had

hand-carried an air independence petition coast to coast getting the signatures of

airmen who were in favor of a separate air force. Burwell had flown with the 1st

Aero Squadron on the Mexican border in 1916. Later he served as operations

officer for Andrews in Germany. McNarney, who commanded observation

squadrons in France during the war, had written a book on air tactics and was

well regarded in the War Department. Noted for the caliber of his intellect and

the dourness of his manner, McNarney kept his own counsel on the issue of independence.

At the outset, independence became a moot question for Andrews. Calling

the sixty-seven officers of his staff together, he said, in effect: This is the best we

can get. Separation from the Army will come some day, but for now we have a

five-year mandate to build a combat air force, and we are going to do that. We

have three wings—the 1st at March Field, commanded by Brig. Gen. Hap

Arnold; the 2d here at Langley, commanded by Brig. Gen. H. Conger Pratt; and

the 3d at Barksdale, Louisiana, commanded by Col. Gerald Brant. We have a service test to prepare for in December. Let us get to it.

What they had to work with was considerably less than what had been recommended by the Drum and Baker Boards and approved by MacArthur. Instead

of a force of 980 aircraft, Andrews had 446, with only 176 classed as modern.

Instead of 1,245 pilots, he had less than half that number, and his enlisted

strength was equally inadequate. But if the numbers did not add up, the spirit and

professionalism to make the combat air force fly was fully there. There was enormous enthusiasm throughout the Air Corps for Andrews and for the new organization.

In those first few months of shakedown and preparation there was only one

sour note, and it was sounded privately between Andrews and MacArthur. Prior

to taking command, Andrews had testified in executive session before McSwain

and his Military Affairs Committee. He had been asked questions concerning

U.S. response to the very remote possibility of an attack by Canada, Great

Britain, or France. He used as the basis of his answers War Department contin10
gency plans for such an eventuality. Several weeks later, through not untypical

carelessness, his testimony and that of War Plans Division Chief Brig. Gen.

Charles E. Kilbourne were released to the press. The headline results embarrassed Roosevelt, who demanded of McSwain and Secretary of War George H.

Dern that something be done to prevent such leaks. Dern agreed, and replied that

the officers had given their private opinions, supposedly in secrecy.

Andrews explained that his testimony “represented views on an abstract

military study with no concrete political thoughts or reference.” He believed that

would be the end of it, in spite of outcries by peace groups calling for his and

Kilbourne’s dismissal. Instead, he was stunned by a harsh letter of admonition

from MacArthur. Certainly the Chief of Staff was fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the incident and knew that Andrews’s statements before the

committee were given on the basis of War Department policy.

Andrews called on MacArthur, seeking an answer to what he believed to

have been a mistake, and with the knowledge that the letter would become a part

of his official record. He came away from the meeting angry and disappointed.

MacArthur had brushed the admonition aside, telling Andrews to forget it.

Andrews never would. Loyalty up-and-down was an inviolate principle. The fact

that MacArthur had selected him as GHQ Air Force Commander made no difference.

Between the time of Andrews’s falling out with General MacArthur and

his getting to know George Marshall some three years later, profound political

and military changes were in progress on a global scale. There had been Italian

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Brig. Gen. Frank Andrews and staff being honored with an aerial view at

the newly created GHQ Air Force headquarters, Langley Field, Virginia
aggression against Ethiopia, Japanese aggression against China, and a border

war between Russia and Japan. There was civil war in Spain in which the Fascist

and Communist dictators were testing their weaponry. And in Europe, Hitler was

expanding the boundaries of the Third Reich, annexing the Rhineland and

Austria, with the Sudetenland and then all of Czechoslovakia threatened next. In

all these moves the importance of air power had grown, particularly among the

aggressors, and was recognized as a critical weapon in their military-political

planning.

Such recognition was much slower within the Roosevelt administration.

The reasons are well known: the President’s belief in the fleet, a policy of isola12

(Above) Boeing B–17 Flying

Fortress; (left) Maj. Barney

Giles (right), pilot of the first

B–17 to land at Langley Field, is

greeted by Andrews.
tionism which the public supported in the belief that Europe and Asia should be

left to fight their own wars, the geography of oceans protecting the hemisphere

from attack, and at root, a continuing failure within the War Department to

understand fully or to accept the meaning of strategic air power.

Only in retrospect and with the above in mind is it possible to realize the

towering importance of Andrews in his role as GHQ Air Force Commander. It

was not so much a matter of the size of his command as it was his view on how

the forces must be employed. Any air officer who had passed through the doors

of the Air Corps Tactical School knew the doctrine of offensive strategic air

power: defeat of an enemy by destroying his industrial capacity to wage war

through long-range, high-altitude, precision daylight bombing. Andrews was in

a position to translate doctrine into strategy and tactics, no matter the lack of

understanding or the opposition in the War Department.

At Selfridge, Andrews had not been able to put through his plan for instrument flight training. At Langley the word went out that all pilots in the GHQ Air

Force were to be instrument rated. And soon they were. Mobility was the action

word. Instrument flying enlarged mobility as did ever-extending aircraft range,

altitude, and speed. Somewhat providentially they coalesced in October 1935

with the production of the first long-range bomber worthy of the name-the

four-engine Boeing B–17 Flying Fortress. And then with so much hanging in the

balance, when the long-awaited aircraft was ready for competitive judging, it

crashed on its maiden test flight at Wright Field. The result was that the Douglas

B–18, a mediocre twin-engine plane with far less mobility, was selected to form

the backbone of U.S. bomber power for the next five years.

Andrews, recognizing the severity of the loss, acted swiftly. With the support of Brig. Gen. Augustine W. Robins, Chief of the Materiel Division, and the

approval of the new Air Corps Chief, Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, he was able to

gain reluctant War Department agreement to purchase thirteen of the big

Boeings on an experimental basis.

The first of the B–17s was flown into Langley Field from Seattle, piloted

by Maj. Barney Giles and a proud crew, on March 1, 1937. She was a sleek and

majestic beauty in the eyes of the beholders. But by then Andrews realized that

a modern air force worthy of the name could not be built within the existing

command mold—a mold that placed GHQ Air Force and the Air Corps in a competitive, often acrimonious association, controlled by a War Department whose

antiquated organizational structure acted as a ponderously held bridle on the

need for change.

Secretly, with Hugh Knerr, Andrews had drafted a new bill for Congressman J. Mark Wilcox of Florida, a member of the House Military Affairs

Committee who had long championed the concept of a separate air force. The

Wilcox bill proposed “to create an Air Corps under the Secretary of War, to be

known as the United States Air Corps.” As Andrews put it, “The bill would recognize air power as being on an equal footing with military and naval power... .

The Chief of Aviation...would be placed on an equal status under the Secretary

of War with the Chief of Staff of the Army... .”

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When Army Chief of Staff Malin Craig sent Andrews a copy of the bill and

asked for his comments, Andrews, with a perfectly straight face, wrote a detailed

critique in support. Later, when Craig called him to talk about the bill, the Chief

of Staff, with an equally straight face, admitted he had not taken the time to read

it. Craig already knew that the President and powerful congressmen, not to mention the Secretary of War, were against even holding hearings on H.R. 3151.

Voices crying out in the wilderness of fixed concepts are quickly silenced. If

nothing else, Andrews’s attempt illustrated the change in his thinking. His desire

and determination to seek mobility was horizontal as well as vertical.

Since the political and military emphasis was on defense, it was not possible to speak in terms of offense. But a bomber like the B–17 with a cruising

speed of 230 miles an hour, a service ceiling of 25,000 feet, and a range of 2,200

miles, was obviously a defensive-offensive weapon of great promise. And while

Secretary of War Woodring was calling, in 1938, for a balanced air arm with a

promised 2,320 planes by June 1940, based on the belief that two or three smaller planes could be bought for the price of one large one, Andrews concentrated

on building a strategic air force around the power and promise of the B–17. What

he hoped to do was convince Westover and the War Department that over the

next three years ninety-eight of the Boeings should be purchased, enough to

equip his Air Force with two groups.

He demonstrated the B–17’s promise time and time again, in maneuvers

and long-distance flights. For example, in August 1937, during war games with

the Navy, the 2d Bomb Group’s B–17s, operating under almost impossible

ground rules, sought out and soaked the USS Utah with water bombs 285 miles

off the California coast. The Navy insisted that the outcome of these games be

kept from the public. It was not.

Matters dealing with the promise of aircraft came to a head in May 1938.

Conducting the largest aerial maneuvers on record, Andrews sent three of his

B–17s out to sea some 700 miles in very stormy weather to intercept the Italian

liner Rex, which represented an attacking task force. The photograph of two of

the B–17s flying past the Rex, taken by Capt. George W. Goddard in the third

bomber, made the front page of newspapers around the world. It sent a message

to friends and to potential adversaries alike. The message bounced off the War

Department, and Craig, instead of praising Andrews for the performance,

informed him that henceforth his planes were not to venture more than a hundred miles off the coasts. When Andrews passed this order to Colonel Robert

Olds, Commander of the 2d Bomb Group, Olds informed his crews that from

now on all practice missions over open water would remain within the hundred-mile limit but courses would be plotted north and south.

The continuing effort by Andrews to augment the strength of his B–17s fell

on deaf ears; cost and necessity were the principal barriers. When he let it be

known that ultimately he wished to build his bomber strength to 244 B–17s, or

one-quarter of his promised total while phasing out the inferior B–18, opponents

began to refer jokingly to the Boeing as “Andrews’s folly.”

In a letter to Hugh Knerr, who had been transferred to Fort Sam Houston,

14
Andrews wrote: “The situation with reference to our strategic mission and the

proper equipment with which to perform it, seems to be getting progressively

worse, and we have no court of appeal that I can think of . . . .” Then came the

August 1938 meeting with Marshall. The War Plans Division Chief, upon returning from his nine days of air power indoctrination, found that, indeed, the airmen

had no real representation on the General Staff. He was to become Andrews’s

court of appeal.

On October 18, 1938, Andrews sent Marshall congratulations on his

becoming Deputy Chief of Staff. He enclosed a copy of a talk he had recently

given at the War College, saying it expressed the views of 

practically the entire operating personnel of the Air Corps . . . [who]

believe in a larger percentage of high performance, large capacity

bombers . . . . In every test or exercise we have ever had . . . this plane

stands out head and shoulders above any other type; yet for 1940 and

1941 our estimates do not include a single one. For the support of the

Monroe Doctrine on the American Continent such a plane would be

of inestimable value. In the control of three important defiles of the

world, Singapore, the Mediterranean, and Panama . . . the large

capacity plane is easily the outstanding weapon.

He continued in considerable detail: “. . . any program of increasing our air

power that does not provide us with an increase of equipment, a practical personnel plan concurred in by the men who, in peace and war, are responsible for

the operations, is a half-baked plan and will prove a disappointment when the

emergency arises.”

Andrews then confessed with characteristic frankness,

I have only a few months [left] in this job of mine, and I will be glad

to get out of it for, as it works out, I carry the responsibility and very

15

Two B–17s flying past the liner Rex, May 1938.
little authority. I don’t even know who my principal assistants are to

be until their selection is announced. There is no future in it, and it

is like sitting all the time on a powder keg. But in these few remaining months I hope to be included in the discussions and conferences

on future plans and policies for the development of our air force... .

He was not included, possibly as a result of the meeting he had been invited to attend the previous month. On September 21, 1938, Air Corps Chief

General Westover was killed in a crash at Burbank. The next day Andrews was

asked by Army Chief of Staff Malin Craig to report to him in Washington. He

found himself in a meeting with Craig and all the assistant chiefs. Craig

informed him they were prepared to recommend to the President that Andrews

succeed Westover on the condition that he stop trying to promote the B–17.

Andrews politely refused to accept the condition, and a few days later it was

announced that General Hap Arnold was to be the new Air Corps Chief, a choice

Andrews and many other airmen hailed as an excellent one.

In view of his position, Andrews knew that when his tour of duty as GHQ

Air Force Commander was up on March 1, 1939, his tenure would not be extended. He hoped that he would be assigned to head the Training Command, and if

not that, the Air Corps Tactical School. Instead, with no prior warning, he was

given the Billy Mitchell treatment: reduction in rank to his permanent grade of

colonel and exile to Fort Sam Houston as District Air Officer. There can be no

doubt that Secretary of War Woodring approved the action, whether he originated it or not. The last straw for Woodring had been a public declaration by

Andrews at the National Aeronautic Association convention on January 16,

1939, that the U.S. was a sixth-rate air power. This made headlines across the

country, just at the time Woodring was assuring the public of the nation’s aerial

strength.

When Andy Andrews, wearing mufti, was given a farewell review at

Langley, there were few dry eyes. The mail that flooded in, reflecting sorrow,

anger, frustration, and praise for him, came from admirers high and low, military

and civilian. Truth be known, Andrews was not all that downcast by the vindictive action. He was confident that his isolation would be of short duration, partly because he could see the direction of world events and partly, perhaps, because

he knew that Marshall would not let him go to seed.

* * * * *

On July 1, 1939, George Marshall became Acting Chief of Staff of the U.S.

Army. His first move was a formidable one. He appointed as his new Assistant

Chief of Staff for Training and Operations (G-3), Frank W. Andrews, promoting

him to a brigadier general of the line. Later Marshall was to say that when he

submitted his choice to Woodring, Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson,

and outgoing Chief of Staff Malin Craig, he knew he had a fight on his hands.

He added it was probably the only time in the trio’s association they had ever

16
been in full agreement on anything. Nevertheless, Marshall prevailed and the

appointment was announced. It was the first time in U.S. military history that an

airman had been appointed one of the four assistant chiefs of staff on the Army

General Staff.

Andrews received word of it while on leave. The telegram recalling him

was followed by a sustained roar of approval from airmen everywhere. Not since

F. Trubee Davison had been Assistant Secretary of War for Air (1926-33) had an

air officer felt there was anyone “up there” who knew what they were all about.

As Andrews had said to Marshall in a previous letter: “Under our present scheme

of organization the operating personnel have very little contact with the powers

that be. We know our stuff, but we cannot get it across.” Now, thanks to the new

Chief of Staff, the “stuff ” was going to get across. With Marshall’s encouragement, Andrews would bring other air officers into G-3 with him. The point was

not lost on anyone.

The fifteen months Andrews served as Army G-3 was a period of turmoil.

In Europe the Allied and Axis powers went to war, and relations between the U.S.

and Japan grew increasingly tense. ‘Trying to build U.S. defenses in a strongly

isolationist atmosphere produced political conflict and made increases in military strength difficult and slow. Andrews’s job of developing the method and

policies of buildup covered all the component parts of the Army, not just the air,

and measured against these demands were the military needs of England and

France. It was a time of great effort and greater shortages.

Overall, U.S. policy went under the heading of Hemispheric Defense, and

nowhere was this defense seen as more vulnerable than in the Panama Canal

Zone. Military and naval shortages in the Zone were endemic. The President of

Panama, Arnulfo Arias, was pro-Nazi. So were numerous military and political

leaders of other Latin American countries; still others were on the fence. South

17

Gen. George C. Marshall
America was webbed with 20,000 miles of German-run airlines, some flying

Junkers aircraft that could be converted quickly to bombers. There were large

populations of German, Italian, and Japanese residents throughout Central and

South America. French Guiana as well as the islands of Guadeloupe and

Martinique were viewed as critical danger points following the fall of France. To

further heighten White House concerns, British intelligence was working

round-the-clock, anxious to create in Washington the fear of Nazi action in the

hemisphere. Toward that end, the British sent Roosevelt a supposedly authentic

secret German map, showing the Third Reich’s partitioning of South America.

The fall of France shook U.S. political and military leaders hard. In

September 1940, the President revealed that fifty World War I destroyers had

been turned over to the desperate British in return for permission to build bases

on their Caribbean islands. In October, it was announced that Andrews would be

going to Panama to command the newly established Panama Canal Air Force

(PCAF).

When Andrews, now a major general, arrived in the Canal Zone in early

December, just a year before Pearl Harbor, he saw air power as the backbone of

both Canal and U.S. coastal defense. He thought he had a fairly good picture of

the Zone’s existing air strength, but four months later he was writing Marshall,

. . . you probably know that we do not have a modern combat airplane in the entire area . . . . Fifty fighter airplanes, with an effective

warning service and complete communications, could accomplish

far more in the Canal defense than could five hundred such fighters,

operating under present conditions. The warning service planned,

with its communications, fails to meet our needs as does also the

inter-airdrome communications.

This last involved a fundamental problem of which Marshall was acutely

aware. The Commander of the Panama Canal Department, Lt. Gen. Daniel Van

Voorhis, was a sixty-two-year-old artillery officer who believed an air force

should be used as an adjunct to his artillery and not much else. It was Andrews’s

job to convince him otherwise and to present a plan of air defense that would

encompass the Canal Zone and the Caribbean basin, aiming toward what would

eventually become a Caribbean Defense Command. Marshall knew this.

Andrews knew this. But somehow Van Voorhis failed to get the message. He was

senior in grade to Marshall. His view from Quarry Heights was fixed. Andrews’s

plan was ignored. What Andrews had in mind was to divide the Caribbean into

three regional commands—Panama, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico—each having its

own bomber and interceptor forces, each commander having considerable freedom of action, with a central headquarters at Howard Field on the west side of

the Isthmus.

The principal defense in Van Voorhis’s mind was to be built around coast

artillery and antiaircraft units. In April 1941, Andrews was to write Marshall:

“Drawing upon all the tact and diplomacy that I possess I feel that I have failed

18
to gain Van Voorhis’s complete confidence, consequently, I have made slow

progress in selling him my ideas on the organization and operating of the Air

Forces in the Caribbean .... Things seem to move so slowly and time is now a precious commodity.” Marshall knew how precious, and shortly thereafter Von

Voorhis received direct orders from the War Department which jarred him into

action. The PCAF became the Caribbean Air Force (CAF), and implementation

of Andrews’s plan was begun in earnest.

That same month, Brig. Gen. Follett Bradley, who was in overall command

of Andrews’s skimpy air units in Puerto Rico, was threatening to resign. Andrews

flew to Puerto Rico to investigate the problem. The problem was Maj. Gen.

Edmund L. “Mick” Daley, in command of the Puerto Rican Department. Daley,

an engineer, had been a classmate of Andrews at West Point. Daley’s policy was

that he commanded all CAF troops while they were on the ground, and Bradley

and his staff had control only when the planes were airborne. This was not often,

as Daley used the airmen for duties that had nothing to do with building air

power. Andrews heard this from Bradley and several squadron commanders and

then paid a call on Daley, accompanied by his aide, Lt. Hiette S. Williams, Jr.

They were ushered into Daley’s vast office, which was furnished with a huge

bare desk, a chair, and nothing else. When its owner made no effort to have

chairs brought in for his guests, Williams left the room to find one for his CO.

Once Andrews was seated, he inquired mildly, “Mick, where is your paper

work?”

“I don’t need any, Andy. I make all the decisions myself,” Daley said.

“How do you keep your staff informed?” Andrews asked.

“I don’t need a staff. I don’t trust them anyway.”

19

Gen. Andrews and staff in front of a B–18 in 1936.
“What happened to the letter I wrote you? I never received an answer.”

Andrews sounded matter-of-fact.

Daley opened a drawer in his desk, pawed around, and came up with the

unanswered correspondence. After a few more questions and equally blase

responses, Andrews signaled Williams to follow him out of the office. In the hall

he instructed his aide: “Send this message to General Marshall. `Am relieving

Daley this date. Future assignment immaterial.’ ” He then told Williams to transmit the message outside the normal traffic flow via a direct frequency from San

Juan to the War Department.

The significance of Andrews’s unique summary action was twofold. Both

men were major generals but Daley ranked Andrews on the permanent list.

Although Andrews was Chief of the Caribbean Air Force, Daley was not under

his command but took his orders from Van Voorhis. Yet Andrews relieved him.

He could not have done so without authority from Marshall that outflanked the

normal military chain of command. In a letter to Lt. Col. Thomas R. Philips, the

Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence of the Puerto Rican

Department, Andrews later wrote: “There is no question but that we have too

many congealed minds in responsible positions and that one of our biggest problems is how to correct the existing situation and prevent recurrence in the future.”

He added that General Marshall was both aware of and worried about the same

problem.

During an important diplomatic venture in mid-July 1941, Andrews represented Marshall in making delicate state visits to Latin American capitals, principally Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. While Andrews was in Rio, Marshall

informed him he was to succeed Van Voorhis as Caribbean Defense Commander.

With the appointment would come promotion to lieutenant general, the first airman to attain such a rank and the first airman to head a joint command. Amid a

deluge of congratulatory messages came one from his wife, Johnny: “You’re the

brightest star of them all,” she cabled. “What took you so long?”

In the last three months before Pearl Harbor, Andrews continued to convert

the Caribbean into an “American lake.” From the time of his arrival in the Canal

Zone Andrews had adopted the belief that war could come at any time, and he

impressed the same awareness on all who served with him. He knew that in time,

if there was time, all the shortages would be filled; that his organizational structure for the Caribbean was sound and workable. His most serious doubt was the

role of the Navy in an area that was largely water but where his own land and air

forces, slim as they were, dominated. It all came down to the issue of unity of

command and the old sore point of who was in charge beyond land’s end. The

point was never really resolved before the war came.

In December 1941, Andrews was sent the same alerts from the War

Department as commanders in Hawaii and the Philippines, but his airmen had

their planes camouflaged and dispersed on outlying jungle strips. When war did

come, Andrews’s forces were as prepared as they could be under circumstances

that left much to be desired: one radar station on the western side of the Canal,

a half-dozen B–17s his total heavy bomber strength.

20
With Pearl Harbor, all attention in Washington was focused on the Pacific.

But until the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Caribbean, generally, and the

Canal, particularly, were considered a critical theater of operations where enemy

action was anticipated momentarily.

Following the Battle of Midway, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson visited Andrews and returned to Washington tremendously impressed with the

Caribbean defenses and their commander. Shortly thereafter, Andrews was summoned by Marshall to report to the War Department for a talk. Part of what the

talk was about jolted Andrews; in fact, angered him. MacArthur had informed

the War Department and Hap Arnold that he was not satisfied with the performance of his principal airman, Maj. Gen. George H. Brett, and wanted a replacement. He suggested Andrews for the job. Ordinarily such a request would have

brought a quick rejection because Andrews, like MacArthur, was a theater commander, and to come under MacArthur in any guise would be a step down the

ladder of command. But these were not ordinary times. The war was in a swirling

state of flux, Axis power at its high tide mark, Allied strategy not fully formulated or agreed upon and still badly lacking in necessary forces and equipment.

Even so, it does not seem likely that Marshall would have wanted to shift

Andrews to the Pacific unless he felt Andrews might be willing to accept the

challenge to develop MacArthur’s air power against Japan. Andrews said no to

the offer and shortly thereafter returned to his Caribbean Command.

* * * * *

When Andrews came again to Washington on October 20, 1942, he knew

the purpose was for reassignment. But this time he arrived with a purpose of his

own. Through his longtime friend and confidant, Hugh Knerr, who had retired

from the Army and was working for Sperry Gyroscope, he had learned that a

move was afoot to make the Army Air Forces that had been formed in June 1941

into a separate air force. He was disturbed by what he judged to be the mismanagement of air power at a crucial moment. Through Walter Weaver, he had been

trying to get his opinions put before Roosevelt. The point of contact at the White

House was the President’s military aide, Maj. Gen. Edwin “Pa” Watson. Watson,

however, warned Andrews that he was in danger of ruining his career if he persisted. FDR was dead set against any moves that did not come as a united recommendation from the top. Andrews was too astute to gamble on such a contentious position at such a time. He backed off, willing to accept the present

arrangement because of Marshall.

The Chief of Staff had more immediate considerations on his mind, and he

had again chosen Andrews to play a major role in them. Operation Torch, the

invasion of North Africa, was to be carried out principally by U.S. forces, its purpose to secure Tunisia and the Magreb while the British, driving westward out of

Egypt, attacked Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Egypt was to be the eastward anchor in

the nutcracker operation. U.S. units in the area, which, encompassed the Levant,

the Nile Delta, Eritrea, and Iran, were largely air and included four heavy bomb

21
22

Advocates of continued daylight

bombing included (above):

Ira Eaker, and (right):

Carl Spaatz (left)

and Hap Arnold.
groups and a scattering of service commands. The idea was to combine them all

under one command—U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East, USAFIME.

Marshall, with the Joint Chiefs’ approval, wanted Andrews to take over the disparate organizations, which were suffering from a lack of cooperation, unify

them to support the British Eighth Army, and then use the bombers against

Italian and Balkan targets. Additionally, he was to assist in improving the flow of

U.S. equipment to the Russians via the Persian Gulf.

On October 30, two days after Gen. Bernard Montgomery launched his

attack against Rommel and a week before U.S. forces went ashore in North

Africa, Andrews took off for the last time from his Caribbean headquarters and

for the first time in a B–24, heading for Cairo, Egypt. The plane was a B–24D,

specially equipped with BTO, a newly developed radar device for bombing

through the overcast at low level.

While he had served in the Caribbean for nearly two years, Andrews’s

command of USAFIME was extremely brief, lasting only three months. In that

short time he brought cohesion to the widely spaced service units under his control. Two weeks after his arrival he wrote Marshall a detailed account of his

progress: no unity of command amongst the British but fine cooperation

nonetheless. As to the future: “I am working now on some plans for the use of

our bombardment when we get the Axis out of Africa. Now, of course, everything is devoted to that objective. I hope soon to be able to make contact with

23

Lt. Gen. Frank M.

Andrews
Eisenhower’s forces in West Africa with a view to some joint planning in the

North African area . . . .” He hoped, he told Hap Arnold, to be able to use his

bombers of the Ninth Air Force, under the command of Maj. Gen. Lewis

Brereton, against strategic targets. He was anxious to have Brereton’s B–24s

employed on night raids against Italian shipping and port facilities, using BTO.

The problem was that Brereton had only two crews trained to operate the radar

equipment, and the British were dead against its use lest it fall into enemy hands.

If nothing else, Andrews’s desire to use his bombers for low-level bombing by

night through the overcast indicated his openness and flexibility in the method

of attack. Like George Kenney, Andrews was not married to a single concept of

bombardment but was willing to use any technique that would get the job done.

He was impatient to get the enemy out of Africa, he told Arnold. “We must have

the whole north coast of Africa as one air theater . . . .”

To Marshall, Andrews sent a two-page memo, titled: Thoughts on Allied

Nations European Strategy in 1943. He began: “It is assumed that we have as yet

no definite overall plan for combined Allied military action for 1943. I feel free,

therefore, to advance my own ideas with, however, no claim of originality for

them.” He foresaw “two main practical lines of action.” One was “to build up a

force in England to invade . . . the Continent of Europe as soon in 1943 as possible.” The other was to “implement an all-out air offensive against the Axis.” To

this he added corollaries that included a Middle East offensive against the

Aegean, hoping to bring Turkey into the war, an invasion of Italy, the establishment of air bases there to attack Germany, and the possibility of operations

against Norway to protect the northern shipping route to Russia. Of the two

plans, he came down on the side of the second.

At Casablanca, two weeks later, the Combined Chiefs of Staff would, in the

course of their historic ten-day conference, adopt much of what was in the second option proposed by Andrews. Andrews’s thoughts on future strategy combined viewpoints from both sides of the conference table, where the U.S. chiefs

felt they were being mouse-trapped by the more carefully prepared and unified

British. Agreement was finally reached on all major issues, including the mounting of a combined USAAF-RAF bomber offensive against the Third Reich.

In this regard, until the meeting at Casablanca on January 15, 1943,

Eisenhower, Arnold, and Spaatz had taken the oft-repeated position that the

bombing efforts of the Eighth Air Force in England and the operations of the U.S.

Army and Air Forces in North Africa were all a part of one theater and the same

command. At the meeting on the 15th, Marshall announced that he felt the time

had come to establish a separate European theater of operations in the United

Kingdom. He was proposing that Frank Andrews command it. Eisenhower

arrived at Casablanca that same day, was informed by Marshall of his wishes,

and agreed to the change.

Aside from considerations of geography and an as yet unresolved military

campaign, Marshall’s motivation for the change is clear enough. The British were

dragging their feet on agreement for an invasion of Normandy. Marshall wanted

a commander in London who had the qualities of leadership and administrative

24
ability necessary to direct a buildup toward that end. He also wanted an airman

on a high enough level to keep the bomber offensive on track—someone who

could cooperate with the British but not be swayed by their adroitness and

charm. Perhaps the most intriguing point in the sudden shift was that Andrews

knew it was coming even before he received a message from Marshall asking

him to be in Casablanca within forty-eight hours.

At Casablanca, Andrews received official word of his new assignment and

found he had an immediate problem. The continuance of daylight bombardment

was in grave jeopardy. Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided to convince FDR that the strategy was not working and should be dropped for RAF

type night operations. Arnold, learning of the danger, had sent for Maj. Gen. Ira

C. Eaker, Eighth Air Force Commander, and Spaatz to support him in what he

saw as a very real threat to a doctrine that had been twenty years in the making.

Now Andy Andrews had arrived. The four airmen could join forces to fight for

a belief that was the warp and woof of U.S. air power.

Eaker spent a critical half-hour of debate with the Prime Minister. Arnold

took a twilight stroll with him, dined with him, and stressed the need to continue

daylight operations. Spaatz, who wanted to return to England to resume command of the Eighth Air Force, reiterated the U.S. position in a talk with

Churchill. Present also were Churchill’s air leaders and Arnold.

Andrews met with the British leader and Air Chief Marshal Charles “Peter”

Portal to discuss the directive under which he would be taking command in the

ETO. He told the Prime Minister flatly that he felt the main issue before them was

daylight versus night bombing, and that it would be a mistake to create a command

organization that would force U.S. bombers into night operations. Churchill

brought up his earlier talk with Eaker. Later he was to write that Eaker had

“almost” convinced him, but there can be little doubt that the convincing was also

done by Andrews, Arnold, and Spaatz, not to mention Churchill’s Air Marshals

Portal and Slessor. Had it been otherwise, there is no telling how profoundly the

war in Europe would have been affected. What can be said is that a crucial U.S.

air victory was won at Casablanca, not against the enemy but against an Allied

leader.

In the three months remaining to Andrews, he established himself in London and began the organizational and logistical buildup for what in sixteen

months would become Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of occupied

Europe. His most immediate concern, however, was Ira Eaker’s Eighth Air Force.

The Eighth had been practically disembowled by the demands of air power for

the invasion of North Africa. Due to the needs of seven other theaters and to shipping losses to U-boats, promised replacements of crews and aircraft were not

forthcoming. Arnold’s endemic impatience was making life miserable for Eaker,

whose bombers were few and whose losses were mounting. Andrews provided a

bulwark and a calm, steady influence He knew that in time the promised men and

equipment would arrive. His letters to Marshall show that the problems in

England were a repeat of those he had faced in the Caribbean and the Middle

East: shortages of equipment and trained personnel and the uncertain exigencies

25
of combined leadership.

In late April, Andrews dispatched Eaker to Washington to resell the Combined Bomber Offensive that had been agreed upon at Casablanca but was in

trouble due to War Department critics and demands by the Navy. This was

Andrews’s final action in the long battle to use air power as the principal strategic weapon in the Allied arsenal.

Andrews’s most distant command was in Iceland and he decided to go

there to inspect the troops and evaluate the men in command. Just before he took

off on May 3 with key members of his staff, he wrote a letter to his son, Lt. Allen

Andrews. In it he said,

Our air buildup is coming along nicely now but we continue to have

a tough time with our daylight bombing. It is quite evident that we

have not yet found just exactly the right combination. We should

grow better at a faster clip. I am looking for the answers, our losses

are running too high. Leadership and experience are two of the troubles. We will work it out.

Tragically, there was no more time for him to work it out.

* * * * *

There are those who believe that Andrews’s flight to Iceland was the

intended first stop on a secret summons to Washington by Marshall. In view of

the relationship between the two and the circumstances of the moment, the belief

does not seem illogical. The Trident Conference was about to begin in

Washington. Hap Arnold had suffered a heart attack and would not be able to

attend. Many issues thought resolved at Casablanca were coming unstuck, not

the least of which was the Combined Bomber Offensive. That Marshall would

want Andrews present for matters dealing with the invasion buildup and the

British refusal to be tied down to it, makes sense. Yet, there is no official record

of such a recall, even though Andrews’s widow was left by Marshall with the

impression that such was the case.

Andrews’s failure to land, as instructed by air traffic control at Prestwick,

Scotland, before proceeding to Iceland, is seen by some as an indication of his

haste to reach Washington, but by others as simply Andy Andrews, an instrument

pilot who reveled in bad weather and who would use the prerogatives of his rank

to override what he considered an unnecessary delay. It is known that had he

lived he was soon to receive his fourth star. And so, at the end, a degree of mystery hangs over his departure. He had said that when the end came he hoped it

would be in the cockpit, and he got his wish. Everyone else who knew him or

served under him deeply mourned his loss.

Marshall, who delivered the eulogy at the memorial service for Andrews

in Washington, said of him that he was one of the Army’s few great captains. To

Johnny Andrews, Marshall had written: “He was a great leader and in his post

26
abroad was on his way to rendering a tremendous service to the Allied cause.”

History does not reveal its alternatives, and Andrews’s sudden death leaves

some haunting questions. Had he lived, would he have commanded the

Normandy invasion, as so many of his contemporaries believed? Certainly

Marshall had placed him in the position to oversee the buildup for that thenunresolved strategy. And what then? Whatever his future might have been,

Andrews’s star was in swift ascendancy when it was snuffed out, and all the

bright promise of tomorrow became reflections on the ordeals of yesterday, the

yesterday of a military leader whose name will ever by joined with strategic air

power and the fight for air independence.

Sources

The papers of Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews are located in the Manuscript

Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Tennessee State Archives,

Nashville, Tennessee; and the Archives of the USAF Academy, Colorado

Springs, Colorado. Other papers and additional information are provided by

Allen Andrews, son of General Andrews, and Col. Hiette S. Williams, Jr., USAF

(Ret.), General Andrews’s aide from 1936-39 and 1940-41. Documents and correspondence to and from Andrews during his command of USAFIME and of the

European theater are located in the ETOUSA files, RG 338, Modern History

Field Branch of the National Archives at Suitland, Maryland.

The author’s books, A Few Great Captains (Doubleday, 1980) and Forged

in Fire (Doubleday, 1982) provide a general reference. Both books contain extensive bibliographies and notes.

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