ii

Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center Cataloging Data

Rast, Vicki J., 1966–

The Air University pantheon of air, space, and cyberspace power thinkers / compiled by Vicki J. Rast.

p. ; cm. 

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-58566-192-3 

1. United States. Air Force—History. 2. Air University (U.S.) – History. 3. United 

States. Army. Air Corps Tactical School – History. 4. Aeronautics, Military – United 

States—History. 5. Astronautics, Military – United States—History. I. Title.

358.400973—dc22

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely 

those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the 

United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government 

agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Air University Press

131 West Shumacher Avenue

Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-5962

http://aupress.au.af.mil
iii

Contents

Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

United States Air Force Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Wright Brothers: Wilbur (1867–1912)

and Orville (1871–1948) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Col Edgar S. Gorrell (1891–1945) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Maj Gen William L. “Billy” Mitchell (1879–1936) . . . . . . . 16

Col William C. Sherman (1888–1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Dr. Robert H. Goddard (1882–1945) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Maj Gen Haywood Hansell, Jr. (1903–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold (1886–1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Air Corps Tactical School (Acts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Lt Gen Harold L. “Hal” George (1893–1986) . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Gen Muir S. Fairchild (1894–1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Brig Gen Kenneth N. Walker (1898–1943) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Gen George C. Kenney (1889–1977) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Gen Laurence S. Kuter (1905–1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Maj Gen Claire L. Chennault (1890–1958) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Gen Ira C. Eaker (1896–­­1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Dr. Theodore von Kármán (1881–1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Illustrations

Page

Orville and Wilbur Wright pose for the camera, 1909 . . . . 4

Wright Flyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Dargue and Gorrell photographed in Mexico in 1916 . . . . . 8

Members of the Baker Board in 1934 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell standing 

by a VE-7 at Bolling Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Inside the courtroom during Mitchell’s 

1925 court-martial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Lt William C. Sherman in a Wright C Flyer . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Dr. Robert H. Goddard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Goddard and his team in Roswell, 

New Mexico, in 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Maj Gen Haywood Hansell, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Lt Col Henry H. Arnold, Air Corps, 16 February 1935 . . . 42

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Air Corps Tactical School, class of 1937 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Lt Gen Harold L. “Hal” George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Gen Muir S. Fairchild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Brig Gen Kenneth N. Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Donnenberg, Overturf, and Walker in the 

Southwest Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Gen George C. Kenney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

iv
Page

Forde, MacArthur, Blamey, Kenney, 

Clowes, and Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Gen Laurence S. Kuter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Maj Gen Claire L. Chennault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

“Three Men on a Flying Trapeze” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

American Volunteer Group “Flying Tigers” . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Gen Ira C. Eaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Eaker in an informal shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Dr. Theodore von Kármán . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

v
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vii

Foreword

This compendium offers a broad sweep of some of our 

service’s most remarkable and memorable figures in the 

context of an evolving center for airpower education. 

An initiative of Gen Steven R. Lorenz, former Air University 

(AU) commander, now commander of Air Education and Training Command, the Air University Pantheon of Air, Space, and Cyberspace Power Thinkers is an effort to identify the intellectual roots of 

Air University. By giving us a glimpse of the synergism of the 

exchange of progressive, nontraditional ideas among AU faculty 

and students, this pantheon helps us to realize how the application of these ideas have influenced airpower. In part because Air 

University serves as a forum for innovative thought and discussion, the United States continues to be the preeminent air, space, 

and cyberspace power.

The dawn of today’s Air University was with the Army Air 

Corps Tactical School’s (ACTS) move to Maxwell Field in early 

1931. There the school served as a think tank for new ideas, 

including the development of airpower doctrine. Gen George 

Kenney became a supporter of both close air support and interdiction while teaching at the ACTS. Former ACTS instructors 

Hal George, Laurence Kuter, Ken Walker, and Haywood 

Hansell created the famous Air War Plans Division-1 strategy 

that became known as the “air plan that defeated Hitler.” The 

progenitor to AU has since fostered generations of Airmen who 

would sustain AU’s role as the Air Force’s intellectual center.

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold envisioned that as early as 1940, 

a future independent Air Force would need its own education 

system and insisted not only on high-caliber schools but also on 

a first-rate library and research center. In 1946 the Air Force 

officially dedicated Air University, fulfilling Arnold’s dream. 

vii
viii

Gen Muir S. Fairchild, AU’s first commander, advanced the 

idea of academic freedom to provide an environment to encourage views which might be divergent from the norm. 

Together, these biographies provide a framework for understanding the evolution of Air University and its powerful legacy in 

providing a forum for academic discourse, contributing to dramatic changes in the employment of airpower. Air University has 

been graced with individuals possessing imagination and keen intellect and the fortitude to bring their vision to reality. May their 

examples inspire a future generation to add its fresh ideas and unconventional viewpoints so that the Air Force can continue to preserve America’s peace and security.

viii
Introduction

The Air University Pantheon of Air, Space, and Cyberspace

Power Thinkers is designed to integrate and extend Jeffrey C. Benton’s They Served Here: Thirty-Three Maxwell

Men (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1999). In addition 

to his diligence, several authors contributed to this work by drafting biographies and creating the book’s framework. From the 

project’s outset, I have remained indebted to Dr. Richard Muller, 

Dr. Daniel Mortensen, Col Scott Gorman, Gen William Looney 

III, and Gen Stephen R. Lorenz. 

Additional information contained within this manuscript originates 

with other authors, especially those who published their works within 

the “public domain,” thereby delegating ownership to the US government. As such, throughout the text citations have been omitted unless 

deemed directly relevant for validating specific ideas (e.g., Ira Eaker’s 

position regarding female pilots) or the verbiage emanates from copyrighted sources. For those sources, please refer to the endnotes at the 

end of this text. With this caveat in mind, principal sources include: 

• Air Force Association (especially Air Force Magazine), Arlington, Virginia 

• Air Force Historical Foundation, Andrews AFB, Maryland 

•Air Force Historical Studies Office, Washington, DC 

• Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 

• Air University and Air University Press, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 

• Aviation History Online Museum, http://www.aviation-history.com 

• Defense Visual Information Center, Riverside, California 

• International Space Hall of Fame, New Mexico Museum of Space History, 

Alamogordo, New Mexico 

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

• Robert Hutchings Goddard Collection, Clark University, Worchester, 

Massachusetts 

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC 

• United States Air Force (especially Air Force Link) 

•US Centennial of Flight Commission, http://www.centennialofflight.gov/

index.cfm 

ix
x
United States Air Force Vision 

Global Vigilance, Global Reach, Global Power 

Historical Lineage 

The twenty-first century United States Air Force 

finds its roots steeped in a rich tradition of innovation, technical prowess, and youthful fascination with the impossible. This book profiles 16 individuals who collectively are responsible for the United 

States Air Force’s air, space, and cyberspace expertise. 

These professionals led development within their respective fields and, through their imaginations, made tangible 

what had previously been theoretically and practically 

infeasible. Each of them lived his life believing that “if 

you can see it, you can do it.” They did both! To appreciate their legacies within their respective chronological 

contexts, we must acknowledge the historical lineage 

that produced the world’s most capable Air Force. 

Before it became a separate service in 1947, Airmen developed ideas and applied their third-dimensional weapon 

under multiple organizational constructs. Each is listed 

here to preserve our legacy and contextualize the stories 

of the courageous Airmen you are about to engage. 

1
2

Born of the National Security Act of 1947, today’s 

USAF remains linked directly to the legal authorities and 

purpose for which it emerged. While technologies have 

changed dramatically, the USAF’s role in providing for 

our nation’s defense continues to accomplish the core 

principles that spawned the service. 

Legal Authorities 

The National Security Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 502) provided 

for the creation of the US Air Force. In so doing, the US 

Congress framed the service’s operational scope as follows: 

Era Organizational Construct

1 August 1907–18 July 1914 Aeronautical Division, US Signal Corps

18 July 1914–20 May 1918 Aviation Section, US Signal Corps

20 May 1918–24 May 1918 Division of Military Aeronautics 

24 May 1918–2 July 1926 US Army Air Service (USAAS) 

2 July 1926–20 June 1941* US Army Air Corps (USAAC)

20 June 1941–18 September 1947* US Army Air Forces (USAAF) 

18 September 1947–Present United States Air Force (USAF) 

*The Air Corps became a subordinate element of the Army Air Forces on 20 

June 1941, and it continued to exist as a combat arm of the Army (similar to Infantry) until disestablished by the US Congress with the creation of the US Air 

Force in 1947. 

2
3

In general the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces 

both combat and service not otherwise assigned. It shall be organized, 

trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive 

and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for 

the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime 

components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war.1

Accordingly, the purpose of the USAF is established 

by 10 United States Code § 8062. The USAF is established to 

• preserve the peace and security, and provide for the 

defense, of the United States, the Territories, Commonwealths, and possessions, and any areas occupied by the United States; 

• support national policy; 

• implement national objectives; and 

• overcome any nations responsible for aggressive acts 

that imperil the peace and security of the United 

States.2

3

The Wright Brothers

Wilbur (1867–1912) and Orville (1871–1948) 

♦ Fathers of flight 

♦ Invented airplane (1903); first sustained 

 flight (1905) 

♦ Advocated airplane’s military utility 

(US Army, 1909) 

♦ Established first US civilian flying school

5
6

I

t all began with the Wright brothers.” Many histories of aviation begin with a variation of this sentence, but the history of aviation teaching, learning, and development at what became Maxwell Air Force 

Base began with two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, 

Ohio—Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Seven years after the Wright brothers successfully completed their historic first powered heavier-than-air flight on 

the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December 1903, Wilbur Wright traveled through the South in 

search of a wide expanse of land on which to establish a flying school. Visionary members of the Montgomery Commercial Club, the predecessor of the chamber of commerce, 

quickly made available a good spot on the “flat land” next to 

the Alabama River. The Wrights arrived in late March 1910 

with one of their latest aircraft designs, the Wright “Transitional Flyer.” The Montgomery Advertiser reported that “a 

strange new bird soared over the cotton fields to the west of 

Montgomery, ascending in a long, graceful curve. Under 

perfect control it followed the hand of Orville Wright, turning, ascending, descending at his bidding.”3

 The school was 

soon training its first students. Corporate sponsorship was 

much in evidence; the red barn-like hangar built for the 

Wrights bore a local merchant’s slogan: “Our Prices Like 

Wilbur Are ‘Wright.’ ” Curious townspeople flocked to see 

the spectacle—some traveling on a special train shuttle from 

Union Station downtown. 

Thus was born the first civilian flying school in the nation. Another aviation “first” during the Wright brothers’ 

6
7

stay in the River Region was an airplane flight at night. 

Although it only operated for two months, the Wrights’ 

flying school established a pattern that continues to this 

day—a vibrant center of air and space innovative learning 

in Montgomery. By the 1920s, Montgomery became an 

important link in the growing system of aerial mail service. 

It was in the early 1930s when the Army Air Corps Tactical School moved to Maxwell and Montgomery became 

the country’s intellectual center for airpower education.4

Perhaps the most fitting tribute to the Wright brothers is 

captured by a label identifying the 1903 Wright airplane 

on display at the Smithsonian: “By original scientific research, the Wright brothers discovered the principles of 

human flight. As inventors, builders and flyers, they further developed the aeroplane, taught man to fly, and opened 

the era of aviation.” One of their sales points to the Army 

was the potential utility of aircraft for reconnaissance. 

Learn more . . . 

• Billy J. Singleton, Montgomery Aviation (Charleston, 

SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007).

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 

“America by Air,” http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/

gal102/americabyair/index.cfm. 

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “The 

Wright Brothers: The Invention of the Aerial Age,” 

http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/index_full.cfm. 

7
8
9

Col Edgar S. Gorrell 

(1891–1945) 

♦ Pursued Gen Francisco “Pancho” Villa

(Mexican Expedition) 

♦ Designed first “strategical” bombing plan—

framework for industrial interdiction 

employed during World War II 

♦ First Air Transport Association (ATA) of 

America president 

♦ Advocated aviation safety—led to creation of 

modern-day Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 

9
10

I

n 1917 the great armies of Europe remained 

locked in a struggle along the trenches of the 

western front. On the first day of the Battle of the 

Somme, nearly 80,000 British soldiers had been killed 

or wounded; similarly, the Battle of Verdun “consumed 

the young men of a medium-sized town” every morning 

and every afternoon for the 10 months it lasted.5 Leaders on both sides sought an alternative to the carnage of 

“modern” war. Edgar S. Gorrell—a virtually unknown 

major assigned to the technical section of the newly arrived US Air Service—emerged as one such leader. 

Gorrell graduated from West Point in 1912 and then 

spent two years as an infantryman in Alaska before 

transferring to the Signal Corps, where he joined the 

1st Aero Squadron, serving under Gen John J. Pershing 

in Mexico. On one of his flying missions in Mexico, 

Gorrell ran out of gas and was stranded in the desert 

for several days before being rescued. Upon returning 

to his unit, he began to criticize the poor equipment US 

pilots were forced to use, both in terms of actual aircraft 

components and the signals and communication equipment used on land. In 1917 he was promoted to captain, 

and in World War I he became the chief engineering 

officer for the Air Service and eventually the chief of 

staff for the Air Service, with the rank of colonel. After 

the war, Gorrell remained in Europe representing the 

United States at conferences and peace talks.6

Aware of the promise of emerging aircraft technology, 

he initiated a study of the military situation and the po10
11

tential for bombardment aviation to contribute decisively 

to the struggle. Using analytic techniques that would become forerunners of modern targeteering principles, 

Gorrell maintained that a heavy air attack on key industries supporting the German war effort could successfully impede the supply of munitions to the front. 

Gorrell designed an aerial operations plan entitled 

“Strategical Bombardment.” Drawing heavily on ideas 

borrowed from British and Italian theorists and aviators, Gorrell argued that modern armies could be compared to a steel drill. The hardened steel drill bit represented an army’s formidable combat power: if the more 

vulnerable shank (the industrial and societal effort supporting that army) could be broken, the drill would 

prove useless. WWI ended before his plan could be executed. Lawrence Kuter would later capture the irony of 

Gorrell’s work by characterizing it as “the earliest, 

clearest and least known statement of the American 

conception of air power.”7 After the war, Gorrell turned 

his energies to producing a lessons learned historical 

analysis of WWI air operations. 

Under his direction, in 1919 the Air Service drafted 

two manuals: “Notes on the Employment of the Air Service from the General Staff Viewpoints” and “Tentative 

Manual for the Employment of Air Service.” Despite 

Gorrell’s explicit advocacy for strategic bombardment as 

an independent course of action, both manuals empha11
12

sized airpower’s role in support of ground operations 

(i.e., the Army). Nonetheless, Gorrell’s brief foray into 

independent airpower theory development would carry 

long-term implications: during the 1930s, the Air Corps 

Tactical School faculty rediscovered the “Gorrell Plan” 

and used it as the basis for a more sophisticated theory of 

targeting, an approach focused on incapacitating an adversary’s “industrial web.” An adaptation of Gorrell’s 

“strategical bombardment” concept, WWII air operations interdicted German supply lines, thereby ensuring 

Allied victory in Europe. 

Colonel Gorrell resigned his Army commission in 

March 1920 and joined the automobile business. He 

served as the vice president of Marmon Motor Car Company until 1925. He worked his way up the corporate 

ladder, becoming vice president, director and general 

manager, and then president of the Stutz Motor Car 

Company of America. Despite this brief venture into the 

automotive field, Gorrell never completely separated 

himself from airpower development or the policy process 

that guided its employment. 

As a result of the Air Mail Scandal, in 1934 he sat on 

the Special Committee on the Army Air Corps, also 

known as the Baker Board.8 While Gorrell and his colleagues did not advocate establishing an independent air 

service, they did establish the basis for eventual separation by recommending the Army establish General Headquarters Air Force, giving it responsibility for all aviation 

combat units within the United States.9

12
13

In January 1936, Gorrell returned to his roots, reentering the aviation world when the ATA elected him 

as its first president. Through this organization, he promoted safety in civil aeronautics and became a vocal 

advocate for the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, the law 

that provided for government control and regulation of 

civil aeronautics. Gorrell continued to support civil 

aeronautics until his death in 1945.10

13

Members of the Baker Board in 1934

Reprinted by permission from Air Force Magazine, 

published by the Air Force Association
14

Learn more . . . 

• William Edward Fischer, Jr., The Development of Military Night Aviation to 1919 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air 

University Press, 1998), http://www.au.af.mil/au/

aul/aupress/Books/Fischer/fischer.pdf. 

• Edgar S. Gorrell, “An American Proposal for Strategic Bombing in World War I,” Air Power Historian 5 

(April 1958): 102–17. 

• Edgar S. Gorrell, Gorrell’s History of the American Expeditionary Forces Air Service, 1917–1919, National Archives microfilm publications, no. 990, vol. B-9 

(Washington, DC: National Archives and Records 

Administration, 1974). 

• Col Edgar S. Gorrell, “The Measure of America’s 

World War Aeronautical Effort” (lecture, delivered 

under the James Jackson Cabot professorship of air 

traffic regulation and air transportation, Norwich 

University, Northfield, CT, 1940). 

• Maj Dennis Larm, “Expendable Remotely Piloted 

Vehicles for Strategic Offensive Airpower Roles”

(thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1996). 

• “The Plan of Bombardment Aviation,” appendix 2 to 

annex 3 (Field Orders No. 9), Plan of Employment of

Air Service Units 1st American Army, Headquarters 

First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, 7 September 1918, RG 120, NA. 

14
15

• Smithsonian Institution Research Information System 

(SIRIS), Edgar S. Gorrell Collection (1936–1940), National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, http://

siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001

~!227754!0&term=#focus. 

15
16
17

Maj Gen William L. “Billy” Mitchell

(1879–1936) 

♦ Commander, US Army Air Service (USAAS) 

Forces, First Army, in France (World War I) 

♦ Airpower crusader: advocated coastal 

defense via airpower 

♦ Only person to have a US aircraft—the B-25 

Mitchell—named in his honor 

17
18

Court-martialed (and found guilty of insubordination) in 1925 and having resigned his commission 

in lieu of punishment in 1926, William Lendrum 

“Billy” Mitchell is recognized as the Airman who sacrificed 

his career in an attempt to guarantee the birth of an independent Air Force. While assigned to the Army General 

Staff as an Army Signal Corps officer, he became intrigued 

with aviation through the conduct of a collateral duty—assessing aviation’s utility relative to military application. He 

became so enamored with the possibilities he personally 

envisaged for airpower employment that in 1916, at the 

age of 38, he began flying lessons at his own expense. 

Assigned to France in 1917 shortly after the United 

States entered the Great War, he served as an aeronautical observer charged with recording and disseminating 

lessons learned. Earning flag officer rank, he “commanded 

all American combat air units within France. In September 1918, he planned and led nearly 1,500 allied aircraft 

in the air phase of the Saint Mihiel offensive. Recognized 

as the top American combat Airman of the war (he was 

awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and several foreign decorations), 

Mitchell, nevertheless, managed to alienate most of his 

superiors—both flying and non-flying—during his 18 

months in France.”11 Returning to the United States in 

early 1919, the Army appointed Mitchell assistant chief 

of the Army Air Service; for this post he retained his flag 

officer rank. As relations with superiors continued to deteriorate, he attacked both the War and Navy Depart18
19

ments for being “insufficiently farsighted regarding airpower.”12 Perhaps this Mitchell quotation encapsulates 

his viewpoint most effectively: “Those interested in the 

future of the country, not only from a national defense 

standpoint but from a civil, commercial and economic 

one as well, should study this matter carefully, because 

air power has not only come to stay but is, and will be, a 

dominating factor in the world’s development.”13

Mitchell’s fight with the Navy climaxed with the dramatic 

bombing tests of 1921 and 1923 that sank several battleships. He used the tests to argue that aerial bombardment 

relegated surface fleets as obsolete instruments of national 

security and defense. Within the Army, he also challenged 

traditional thinking. In early 1925, the Army transferred 

him to a post in Texas; once assigned, he reverted to his 

permanent rank of colonel. He interpreted both actions as 

attempts to isolate him, thereby ensuring the Air Service 

remained subordinate theoretically, doctrinally, and organizationally to the existing armed services. 

Shortly after Mitchell’s posting in Texas, the Navy’s dirigible, the Shenandoah, crashed during a storm killing 14 

crewmembers; Mitchell publicly proclaimed his frustration. He accused senior Army and Navy leaders of incompetence and “almost treasonable administration of the national defense,” and of military aviation specifically.14

Pres. Calvin Coolidge responded to Mitchell’s public insubordination by directing a court-martial. 

19
20

Found guilty of insubordination and sentenced to five 

years without pay (later reduced to half of five-year’s 

pay), Mitchell resigned his commission and turned to the 

private sector to attempt to influence public conceptions 

of aviation. Once out of uniform, Mitchell would never 

enjoy the same degree of influence. 

In 1942 Pres. Franklin Roosevelt promoted Colonel 

Mitchell to two-star general officer rank in the US Army 

Air Corps (retired list). To reinforce the value of his contributions to airpower development and its application to 

military functions, in 1946 the US Congress awarded 

him the Congressional Gold Medal. Gen Carl “Tooey” 

Inside the courtroom during Mitchell’s (standing) president-directed courtmartial for insubordination (1925)

Courtesy US Air Force

20
21

Spaatz, first chief of staff of the United States Air Force, 

presented the medal to Mitchell’s son two years later. 

“Billy Mitchell”—his name remains identified with the 

birth of a separate air service and acts deemed unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Even those who cannot 

overlook his insubordinate acts recognize his contributions to air operations. Absent Mitchell’s persistence, 

some argue that the autonomous Air Force would not 

have come as soon as it did.

Learn more . . . 

• James J. Cooke, Billy Mitchell (Boulder, CO: L. 

Rienner, 2002). 

• Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air

Power, rev. ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975). 

• William (Billy) Mitchell, 1879–1936, Papers (1907–46), 

MS 59–154, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 

Washington, DC, http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/

arch/arch_repos/GUIDE.PT4.html(repository listing).

21
22
23

Col William C. Sherman

(1888–1927) 

♦ Proposed that aviation’s morale effect 

outweighed physical destruction 

♦ Set two-man duration and distance 

record of four hours, 22 minutes for 

220 miles (28 March 1913, with 

Lt T. D. Milling) 

♦ Lobbied for an Air Service academy on 

par with West Point and Annapolis 

(1919)15

♦ Authored Air Service’s first air tactics 

doctrinal manual (1921) 

23
24

Applying clever analytic insight, Maj William C. 

Sherman and a group of officers working with 

him in France at the end of World War I produced an important document entitled “Tactical History” 

under Col Edgar Gorrell’s supervision as part of the history of the Air Service (American Expeditionary Force 

[AEF]). Although published in part as an Air Service Information Circular in 1920, “Tactical History” has remained 

virtually unknown beyond the military aviation community. The analysis provides excellent information about 

the conduct of combat operations and should be of value 

to those interested in aerial warfare in the First World 

War.16 During the interwar period, as the US Army Air 

Service processed lessons learned, Gen Mason M. Patrick 

recognized that the most daunting challenge he faced as 

chief of the Air Service would be to organize his Airmen 

into a cohesive fighting force. As a first step he turned to 

Sherman, charging him to synthesize Army aviation training materials into a cohesive body. Synthesizing ideas from 

multiple sources, Sherman produced the first text on air 

tactics for the Air Service Field Officers’ School. 

Initially the school’s doctrinal texts followed concepts 

officially imposed by the military establishment—success 

in war depended strictly on the infantry, and all air operations were auxiliary to the ground battle. But by the 

mid-1920s, Tactical School instructors began to write the 

air doctrine that Army airmen really believed, and it was 

“a far different concept of the nature of war and the role 

of airpower.”17 In 1921 Sherman authored the school’s 

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first major text, Air Tactics, “a classic Air Service text on 

air doctrine,”followed by a 1922 school manual entitled 

Fundamental Doctrine of the Air Service.

18 While he accepted 

the traditional Army principle that the success or failure 

of ground forces remained contingent upon the infantry, 

he envisaged two potential roles for the Air Service. 

Agreeing with established doctrine, Sherman posited 

Army aviation in the form of the “air-service” sustained 

ground operations and, therefore, should be an auxiliary 

arm of the ground service. Departing from doctrinal 

principles, he suggested that “air-force aviation (pursuit, 

bombardment, and attack aircraft) constituted a true arm 

. . . the first duty [of which] was ‘to gain and hold control 

of the air, by seeking out and destroying the hostile air 

force, wherever it may be found.’ ”19 He went further, 

arguing that “ ‘the backbone of the air forces on which 

the whole plan of employment must be hung is pursuit.’ 

Having established control of the air, the mission of the 

air force was to ‘destroy the most important enemy forces 

on the surface of the land or sea.’ ”20

First published in 1926, designers, engineers, pilots, and 

students of aviation have had many opportunities to evaluate its merits. Still, in that historic year, with the public 

reeling from the outcome of the Scopes Monkey Trial, 

Charles Lindbergh’s solo transcontinental flight, and the 

Billy Mitchell trial and verdict, Sherman advanced a need 

for aerial navigation and lauded the merits of aviation. 

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Coming at a time when flying was in its infancy, the book 

ushered in a new era in airpower historiography.21

Sherman relied on an assortment of illustrations to buttress his contention that aerial navigation would play a significant role in the future of air tactics. Readers may not 

be pleased with the paucity of citations and the absence 

of a bibliography, but Sherman makes it clear that he 

based Air Warfare on notes accumulated while he was an 

instructor at the Air Service Tactical School and at the 

Command and General Staff School. Air Warfare advances our understanding of aerial navigation so much 

so that Sherman can take credit for being the inspiration 

behind some of the technology currently used in military 

operations.22 Air theory attained a more detailed form after the Air Corps Tactical School relocated to Maxwell 

Field in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1931.

The US Army acknowledged Sherman’s contributions 

to airpower development, naming an airfield in his honor 

at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.23

Learn more . . . 

• “Airpower Doctrine—Airpower Theory,” Air University (AU) bibliography, updated by Terry Kiss, 

AU Library bibliographer, Maxwell AFB, AL, October 2004, http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/apty/

apy2bib.htm.

• Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about

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Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). 

• Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic

Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960, vol. 

1 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1989).

• Silvanus Taco Gilbert III, What Will Douhet Think of

Next? An Analysis of the Impact of Stealth Technology on

the Evolution of Strategic Bombing Doctrine (Maxwell 

AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1992).

• Evan Andrew Huelfer, The “Casualty Issue” in American Military Practice: The Impactof World War I (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003). 

• Maj William C. Sherman, Air Warfare (1926; repr., 

Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2002).

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29

Dr. Robert H. Goddard

(1882–1945) 

♦ A father of practical modern rocketry 

and space flight 

♦ Goddard Space Flight Center namesake 

♦ Obtained first US patent for the idea of a 

multistage rocket (1914)

♦ Pioneer in the development of liquid-fueled 

rockets

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Dr. Robert H. Goddard is considered a father 

of practical modern rocketry and space flight. 

From the early part of the twentieth century, 

his experiments with both solid- and liquid-fueled rockets 

formed much of the basis of the development of ballistic 

missiles, earth-orbiting satellites, and interplanetary exploration. Along with Konstantin Eduordovich Tsiolkovsky 

of Russia and Hermann Oberth of Germany, Goddard 

envisioned the exploration of space. A physicist of unparalled insight, he continually demonstrated unique genius for invention. 

Goddard first obtained notice in 1907 in a cloud of 

smoke from a powder rocket fired in the basement of the 

physics building in Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 

School officials took an immediate interest in young 

Goddard’s work: to its credit, the school did not expel 

him. Thus began his lifetime of dedicated work. 

In 1914 Goddard received two US patents. One was 

for a rocket using liquid fuel. The other was for a two- or 

three-stage rocket using solid fuel. At his own expense, 

he began to make systematic studies about propulsion 

provided by various types of gunpowder. His classic 

document was a study that he wrote in 1916 requesting 

funds from the Smithsonian Institution so that he could 

continue his research. This was later published, along 

with his subsequent research and Navy work, in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Publication No. 2540 (January 

1920), “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.” In 

this treatise, he detailed his search for methods of raising 

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weather recording instruments higher than sounding balloons. In this search, as he related, he developed the 

mathematical theories of rocket propulsion. 

Toward the end of his 1920 report, Goddard outlined 

the possibility of a rocket reaching the moon and exploding a load of flash powder there to mark its arrival. The 

bulk of his scientific report to the Smithsonian was a dry 

explanation of how he used the $5,000 grant in his research. Yet, the press picked up Goddard’s scientific 

proposal about a rocket flight to the moon and erected a 

journalistic controversy concerning the feasibility of such 

a thing. Much ridicule came Goddard’s way, setting the 

stage for his reaching firm convictions about the virtues 

of the press corps—a perspective he held for the rest of 

his life. Nonetheless, several score of the 1,750 copies of 

the 1920 Smithsonian report reached Europe. 

After constructing the first liquid-fueled rocket, he 

launched it on 16 March 1926 from a field near Worcester, 

Massachusetts. Although the rocket flew for just 2.5 seconds and rose to a height of only 41 feet, it proved that 

liquid-fuel rockets worked. Four years later, at Roswell, 

New Mexico, Goddard fired a rocket that reached an altitude of 2,000 feet and achieved a speed of 500 miles per 

hour. His experiments led him to develop many of the 

devices still used in modern rockets, including fuel-feeding 

devices, propellant pumps, and gyroscopic stabilizers, as 

well as instruments for monitoring rocket flights.24

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The German Rocket Society formed in 1927, and the German army began its rocket program in 1931. Goddard’s most 

significant engineering contributions materialized during the 

1920s and 1930s. He received a total of $10,000 from the 

Smithsonian by 1927, and through the personal efforts of 

Charles A. Lindbergh, he subsequently received financial 

support from the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim FounGoddard and his team work on a rocket without its casing in Roswell, 

New Mexico, in 1940. Left to right: Goddard, machinist Nils Ljungquist, 

machinist and Goddard’s brother-in-law Albert Kisk, and welder Charles 

Mansur.

Courtesy US Air Force

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dation. The Smithsonian published progress on all of his 

work in “Liquid Propellant Rocket Development” (1936). 

Goddard’s work largely anticipated in technical detail the later German V-2 missiles, including gyroscopic control, steering by means of vanes in the jet 

stream of the rocket motor, gimbal steering, powerdriven fuel pumps, and other devices. His rocket flight 

in 1929 carried the first scientific payload—a barometer and a camera. Goddard developed and demonstrated the basic idea of the “bazooka” two days before 

the Armistice in 1918. His launching platform was a 

music rack. Dr. Clarence N. Hickman, a young PhD 

from Clark University (Worchester, MA), worked 

with Goddard in 1918, providing continuity to the research that produced the World War II bazooka. In 

World War II, Goddard again offered his services—

the US Navy assigned him to the development of practical jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) and liquid-propellant 

rocket motors capable of variable thrust. In both areas, he was successful. He died on 10 August 1945, 

four days after the United States dropped the first 

atomic bomb on Japan. 

Goddard was the first American scientist who not only 

realized the potentialities of missiles and space flight but 

also contributed directly in bringing them to practical realization. This rare talent in both creative science and 

practical engineering places Goddard well above European rocket pioneers. The dedicated labors of this humble 

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genius went largely unrecognized in the United States until 

the dawn of what is now referred to as the “space age.” 

On 16 September 1959, the 86th US Congress authorized the issuance of a gold medal in honor of Prof. Robert H. Goddard. In memory of the brilliant scientist, the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 

established one of its primary space science laboratories—the Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, 

Maryland, 1 May 1959). 

Goddard’s contributions to missilery and space flight 

comprise a lengthy list, one befitting an eloquent testimonial to his lifetime of work in establishing and demonstrating the fundamental principles of rocket propulsion. 

Listed here are his noteworthy “firsts”:25

• Explored mathematically the practicality of using 

rocket propulsion to reach high altitudes and even 

the moon (1912) 

• Proved, by actual static test, that a rocket will work 

in a vacuum, that it needs no air to push against 

• Developed and launched a liquid-fuel rocket, 16 

March 1926 

•Launched a scientific payload (barometer and camera) in a rocket flight (1929, Auburn, Massachusetts) 

• Used vanes in the rocket motor blast for guidance 

(1932, New Mexico) 

• Received US patent in idea of multistage rocket (1914) 

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•Developed gyro-control apparatus for rocket flight 

(1932, New Mexico) 

• Developed pumps suitable for rocket fuels 

• Successfully launched a rocket with a motor pivoted on gimbals under the influence of a gyro mechanism (1937) 

Learn more . . . 

• David A. Clary, Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the

Birth of the Space Age (New York: Hyperion, 2003).

• Lt Col Mark Erickson, Intothe Unknown Together: The

DOD, NASA, and Early Spaceflight (Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 2005), http://www.au

.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Erickson/erickson.pdf. 

• “Dr. Robert H. Goddard: American Rocketry Pioneer,” 

NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, http://www

.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/dr_goddard.html. 

• The Robert Hutchings Goddard Collection, Robert H. 

Goddard Library, Clark University, Worchester, MA, 

http://www.clarku.edu/research/archives/goddard/. 

• “Space,” special Air University bibliography no. 329, 

comp. Diana Simpson, bibliographer, Muir S. 

Fairchild Research Information Center, Maxwell 

AFB, AL, June 2006, http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/

bibs/space06.htm.

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Maj Gen Haywood Hansell, Jr.

 (1903–1988) 

♦ Coauthored Air War Plans Division-1 (AWPD-1): 

advocated daylight strategic bombardment 

without fighter escort 

♦ Commander, 1st Bombardment Division (Europe) 

and XXI Bomber Command (Pacific) 

♦ Credited with four feature film roles regarding 

World War II

♦ Authored The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler

Haywood Hansell devoted his professional life 

to strategic airpower development—the single 

most controversial military debate of the 

twentieth century. Hansell believed wars could (and 

should) be won through precision bombing of military 

and industrial-commercial targets. Much to his dismay, 

the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) abandoned 

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this approach during World War II because the passions 

of war reduced moral concerns involving strategic bombing, technological limitations hampered precision bombardment, and the demands of combat constrained operational flexibility.26

Born into the Army in antebellum quarters at Fort 

Monroe, Virginia, Haywood Shepherd “Possum” Hansell, 

Jr., began to learn Chinese (his Army-surgeon father 

was on duty in China during the Boxer Rebellion) and 

then Spanish in the Philippines before his mother, a former Atlanta belle, taught him English. At Sewanee Military Academy, Hansell acquired the nickname Possum 

that he bore for the rest of his life. According to one story, 

he resembled the animal physically. Another explanation 

held that as a student he slept in class but claimed to be 

“playin’ possum.” The latter may be more accurate: as 

captain of the cadet corps, he was busted to private in his 

senior year because of declining grades. 

The scion of four generations of Army officers refused 

a West Point appointment in favor of studying mechanical engineering at the Georgia School of Technology. 

Following graduation in 1924, he worked as an engineer 

in California. Yet family tradition prevailed in 1928, 

when he joined the Army and entered flight training. A 

year later, he received his pilot’s wings and commission 

as a second lieutenant. 

Lieutenant Hansell joined the staff of the Air Corps 

Tactical School (ACTS) as an armament officer in 1930 

and moved with the school to Montgomery, Alabama, 

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the following year. In addition to his duties in the school’s 

flying squadrons, Hansell flew as one of the “Men on the 

Flying Trapeze,” the Air Corps’ first aerial demonstration team. He also excelled at polo, tennis, squash, and 

dancing and was known as “the unofficial poet laureate 

of the Air Corps.”27

Because of his understanding of how to use airpower, 

Lieutenant Hansell was selected to study tactics and 

strategy under Capt Hal George (1934–35). On promotion to first lieutenant in late 1934 (six years after commissioning but not unusual during the Depression), he 

joined the ACTS faculty. At 31 he was one of the youngest instructors in the school. During his three years on 

the faculty, he became a member of the school’s bomber 

zealots, advocates of daylight strategic bombardment 

without fighter escort. During 1938 to 1939, Captain 

Hansell attended the Army Command and General Staff 

School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

In June 1941, Lt Col Harold “Hal” George selected 

Major Hansell to join the four-man planning team made 

up of former ACTS instructors. They would be instrumental in forming the Army Air Forces’ airpower strategy 

for World War II. Having no existing plans to work with 

and no research arm to use, AWPD officers had to be 

resourceful. Hansell got target information, including 

blueprints, about German power-generating plants from 

New York banks that had financed them. 

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As he rapidly rose in rank—lieutenant colonel (January 1942), colonel (March 1942), and brigadier general 

(August 1942)—Hansell continued to perfect the AWPD 

plan produced in the summer of 1941. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he led 

the revision of the plan. He also helped plan the Combined Bomber Offensive against Nazi Germany and 

served as Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower’s air plans officer. 

General Hansell then got himself transferred to a combat 

command. He led the 1st Bombardment Division in Europe and then the XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific. 

His high-altitude precision daylight B-29 raids on Japan 

were deemed indecisive. Consequently, Gen Curtis LeMay, 

who was to begin devastating low-level incendiary bombing of the home islands, replaced him. 

General Hansell was retired for medical reasons in 

1946 but during the Korean War returned to active duty 

as an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1955 Hansell retired for a second time. 

Learn more . . . 

•Charles Griffith, The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World WarII(Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 1999).

• Haywood S. Hansell, The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler

(Athens, GA: Higgins-McArthur, 1972). 

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• Haywood S. Hansell, The Strategic Air War Against

Germany and Japan: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1986).

• “Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.,” Air University (AU) 

bibliography, comp. Glenda Armstrong, bibliographer, 

AU Library, Maxwell AFB, AL, February 2006, 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/school/ots/hansell.htm. 

• Edward C. Holland III, Fighting with a Conscience: The

Effects of an American Sense of Morality on the Evolution

of Strategic Bombing Campaigns (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, 1992).

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43

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold

 (1886–1950) 

♦ Only Airman to attain the five-star rank of 

General of the Armies

♦ Commanding general of the US Army Air 

Forces, 1938–46 

♦ Career spanned both World War I and 

World War II

♦ Author of Global Mission (1950) 

♦ Father of Air University: “We must think 

in terms of tomorrow.” 

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44

Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold’s contributions to air 

and space power development earned him a 

central place in the pantheon of airpower 

thinkers. His career stretched from the pioneer era (Orville Wright signed Arnold’s pilot’s license) into the jet 

and missile age. 

A top-notch pilot, Arnold established a world altitude record and in October 1912 became the first 

Mackay Trophy winner by successfully using aerial 

44

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold

 Courtesy US Air Force
45

reconnaissance to locate a cavalry troop. The next 

month, while participating in an artillery-fire-directing 

experiment, Arnold’s plane suddenly dropped into a 

downward spin. Arnold survived, performing the first 

successful spin recovery. When he landed, he asked 

for a leave of absence from flying; the Army transferred him back into the infantry. 

When Congress increased aviation appropriations at 

the beginning of war in Europe, the Army recalled Arnold 

into the Signal Corps. With a temporary wartime rank of 

colonel, Arnold spent the war in Washington overseeing 

aircraft production and mobilization. As one of the few 

officers with flying experience, Arnold brought a valuable, practical viewpoint to his job and, although not 

happy about being away from the battlefront, he gained 

valuable administrative experience.28

Under the leadership of Arnold, known best as the organizational genius who built the United States Army 

Air Forces (USAAF) into a war-winning weapon during World War II, the force grew from 2,000 airplanes 

and 21,000 personnel in 1939 to 79,000 aircraft and 

2,300,000 personnel at war’s end. A strategic visionary, 

he remained particularly interested in the development 

of sophisticated aerospace technology to give the United 

States an edge toward achieving air superiority. He fostered the development of such innovations as jet aircraft, 

rocketry, rocket-assisted takeoff, and supersonic flight. 

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After a lengthy career as an Army aviator and commander that spanned the two world wars, he retired 

from active service in 1946. 

Arnold engaged both airpower theory and practice. A 

pioneer in strategic communications, he demonstrated 

media savvy by recognizing the public needed to be 

“sold” on the value of military airpower and commercial 

aviation. He authored (or cowrote) a number of influential books, including This Flying Game and Winged

Warfare. Knowing he needed to reach young people to 

inculcate a sense of air-mindedness across America, he 

created the popular “Bill Bruce” series of aeronautical 

adventure tales. 

As early as 1940, Arnold envisioned that a future independent Air Force would need its own educational system, a “University of the Air.” He demanded not only a 

series of schools equal to those of the older services but 

also a first-rate library and research center. Arnold charted 

the course of airpower’s future by creating the Scientific 

Advisory Board. Its influential studies, including Where

We Stand and Toward New Horizons, addressed such visionary topics as unmanned aerial vehicles, space exploration, 

missile power, and cyberpower—all topics studied at Air 

University today. 

Sadly, in 1946 when the Air Force officially dedicated Air University, Arnold, by then retired and in 

failing health, could not be present. Gen Carl Spaatz’s 

words paid tribute to General Arnold: “The opening 

of Air University fulfills a dream for education in Air 

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Power . . . an academic center of our own.” The dream 

was Arnold’s. 

Learn more . . . 

• “General Henry H. Arnold,” Air Force Link, http://

www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=4551. 

• “Henry H. (‘Hap’) Arnold,” Air University (AU) 

bibliography, comp. Kimberly Hunter, bibliographer, Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center, Maxwell AFB, AL, April 2008, http://www.au

.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/leaders/arnold.htm. 

• Henry Harley Arnold, Global Mission (New York: 

Harper & Brothers, 1949). 

• Dik Daso, “Origins of Airpower: Hap Arnold’s Command Years and Aviation Technology, 1936–1945,” 

Airpower Journal, Fall 1997, http://www.arnold.af

.mil/aedc/bios/daso2.htm.

• Dik Daso, “Origins of Airpower: Hap Arnold’s Early 

Career in Aviation Technology, 1903–1935,” Airpower Journal 10, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 70–92, http://

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/

apj97/fal97/daso.html. 

• Flint O. DuPre, Hap Arnold: Architect of American Air

Power (New York: Macmillan, 1972). 

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Air Corps Tactical School

 (ACTS) 

♦ First airpower think tank—created 

airpower doctrine

♦ Incubator of airpower’s “best and brightest” 

♦ Faculty members produced Air War Plans 

Division-1 (AWPD-1) 

Few noticed when in 1931 the Air Corps relocated 

its advanced officer school from Langley Field, 

Virginia, to Maxwell Field, Alabama. Intended 

as a specialized school for air officers, in practice the 

ACTS assumed the responsibility for developing airpower doctrine and serving as the young branch’s think 

tank for innovative and unconventional ideas. In many 

respects, it served as the forerunner to the contemporary 

Air Force–directed “Skunk Works” directorate.29

Enjoying its heyday in the 1930s, a dedicated band of 

faculty members—among them Harold George, Haywood 

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Hansell, Laurence Kuter, Kenneth Walker, and Muir 

Fairchild—crafted the theory known as high-altitude precision daylight bombardment. They argued that modern 

states depended upon an “industrial web”—a linked network of manufacturing plants, raw material sources, electrical power generation and transmission, and transportation. Using the eastern United States as a model, they 

argued that modern bomber forces could quickly and efficiently cripple this network with a carefully planned attack on the key “choke points” within the industrial web. 

Powerful four-engine bombers could fight their way 

through to the targets with acceptable losses. Long and 

costly battles against the enemy’s armies and navies would 

be unnecessary—airpower offered a better way. In heated 

debates, war games, and discussions in the classrooms in 

what is now the Air University (AU) headquarters building, 

this theory was refined. In August 1941, four ACTS faculty 

members got the chance to convert theory into practice. 

Hap Arnold charged them to write the Army Air Forces’ 

requirements plan—AWPD-1, later known as “the air plan 

that defeated Hitler”—an air strategy to beat the Axis. 

Their ideas proved far from perfect. Unescorted bombers over Europe suffered terrible losses, and the enemy 

war economy proved far more resilient than anticipated: 

a combined arms assault on Fortress Europe was still 

necessary. Yet these dedicated professionals blazed new 

trails. The German air force was defeated in the skies 

before D-Day. Their ideas became the foundation of 

modern strategic airpower doctrine and are reflected in 

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the very latest concepts of effects-based operations, 

network-centric warfare, and cyberspace warfare. All of 

these ideas—and many more—emerged from the hot, 

stifling classrooms of Maxwell Field. 

Learn more . . . 

• “Airpower Doctrine,” AU bibliography, updated by 

Terry Kiss, bibliographer, AU Library, Maxwell 

AFB, AL, October 2004, http://www.au.af.mil/au/

aul/bibs/apty/apy2bib.htm. 

• “Airpower Doctrine: World War II/Post-War Period,” 

AU bibliography, updated by Terry Kiss, bibliographer, AU Library, Maxwell AFB, AL, October 2004, 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/apty/apy5bib.htm. 

• Peter Faber, “Interwar US Army Aviation and the 

Air Corps Tactical School: Incubators,” in Phillip S. 

Meilinger, ed., The Paths of Heaven (Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 1997).

• Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School

1920–1940 (1955; repr., Washington, DC: Center for 

Air Force History, 1992), http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/

numbered_studies/studies2.asp. 

• James P. Tate, The Army and Its Air Corps: Army Policy

toward Aviation, 1919–1941 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air 

University Press, 1998). 

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Lt Gen Harold L. “Hal” George 

(1893–1986) 

♦ Commanding general, Air Corps Ferrying 

Command (redesignated Air Transport 

Command, June 1942) 

♦ Doctor of aeronautical science, Pennsylvania 

Military College (1943) 

♦ Vice president and general manager, Hughes 

Aircraft Company (1948–53) 

♦ City council, Beverly Hills, California (eight 

years); mayor, Beverly Hills (two terms) 

Harold Lee “Hal” George began his Army career as a cavalryman in the Officers Reserve Corps (1917). Serving only a month, he resigned his commission to become a flying cadet in the 

Signal Corps. He studied aeronautics at Princeton University and learned to fly at Love Field, Dallas, Texas, 

earning his wings in March 1918. He went to France that 

September with initial assignment to the 7th Aviation 

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Instruction Center at Clermont. Two months later he joined 

the Argonne front, flying bomber sorties during the 47-day 

Meuse-Argonne campaign. In 1921 George participated 

in Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell’s bombing tests on 

warships that sank six naval vessels. Mitchell set out to 

demonstrate that battleships were highly vulnerable to air 

attack. Although these tests did not alter Army or Navy 

airpower employment, they convinced George that 

Mitchell’s theories proved sound. 

George served in two crucial Air Corps Tactical 

School (ACTS) faculty positions: first, as chief of the 

bombardment section (1932–34) and then as director of 

the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy (1934–36). 

Maxwell Field began to gain recognition as the center of 

innovative doctrinal thinking; George emerged as one of 

the leading proponents of precision daylight bombing for 

strategic operations. He helped develop the theories of 

strategic bombardment, convincing many in that generation of Air Corps officers that strategic bombardment 

could be decisive. Unlike most theoreticians, Colonel 

George’s influence extended beyond the classroom. In 

the summer of 1941, he took charge of the Air War Plans 

Division (AWPD), a position on the newly formed Air 

Staff that would enable him to shape air operations 

throughout World War II’s later stages. 

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly instructed the 

Army and Navy to determine what industrial capacity 

and manpower resources would be necessary to defeat 

the Axis powers. As the Army and Navy staffs rushed to 

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respond to the presidential tasking, George and a team of 

three former ACTS instructors—Haywood Hansell, 

Kenneth Walker, and Laurence Kuter—took the opportunity to advance their theories about the use of airpower. 

The AWPD outpaced the Army and Navy staffs because 

its planners had a military strategy (i.e., strategic bombardment) to leverage production and manpower requirements. ACTS had studied the industrial and economic vulnerabilities of both Germany and Japan. 

Fortuitous concerning timing, AWPD-1 enjoyed an advantage in that Gen George C. Marshall, the Army chief 

of staff, had recently become more aware of the potential 

decisiveness of strategic airpower. 

Colonel George’s small staff had one week in August to 

produce a plan. Immediately its members agreed on their 

main objective: destroy Nazi Germany’s industrial capability. This task, they believed, could be done in no less 

than six months of sustained attacks against Germany’s 

electrical power and transportation systems, petroleum 

industry, and ground- and air-based interceptor defenses. 

The team determined that the plan of strategic, longrange air attacks to destroy Germany would require more 

than 135,000 aircrew and 70,000 aircraft (almost 7,000 

stationed in the European theater, with 2,000 required 

each month for replacements). 

The plan did not neglect the need for ground forces or escort aircraft. However, it did state that ground forces might 

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not be required after six months of strategic bombardment 

and that high-altitude bombers without fighter escorts should 

be able to penetrate German air defenses during daytime 

hours. In revised form, the plan provided the basis for the 

Combined Bomber Offensive; consequently, it has been 

called the “air war plan that defeated Germany.” 

Confronted with the criticism that strategic bombardment alone did not defeat Nazi Germany, zealots countered strongly. While they recognized the employment of 

massive surface forces and the horrendous sacrifices of 

the Soviet Union, they argued that campaign operations 

never truly tested strategic bombardment theory because 

bombers frequently diverted to tactical targets. 

Later in the war, General George directed the Air 

Corps Ferrying Command, which he transformed into 

the Air Transport Command (ATC), with more than 

3,000 aircraft and 300,000 personnel. A predecessor of 

Air Mobility Command, by 1945 ATC possessed worldwide airlift capabilities. 

After the war, he served briefly as director of information for the Air Force and as the senior Air Force representative of the military staff of the United Nations. He 

retired from active duty on 31 December 1946 with the 

rank of lieutenant general, dating back to March 1945. 

In 1955 the Air Force recalled Harold George to active 

duty for eight months as special consultant to the Air 

Force chief of staff; it relieved him from active duty a 

second time on 4 November 1955. 

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Learn more . . . 

• “Airpower Doctrine—World War II/Post-War Period,” Air University (AU) bibliography, updated 

by Terry Kiss, bibliographer, AU Library, Maxwell 

AFB, AL, October 2004, http://www.au.af.mil/au/

aul/bibs/apty/apy5bib.htm. 

• Maj Howard D. Belote, “Warden and the Air Corps 

Tactical School: What Goes Around Comes Around,” 

Airpower Journal 13, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 39–47, http://

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/

apj99/fal99/belote.html. 

• Harold Lee George, personal papers, IRIS no. 

1028861–1028871, Air Force Historical Research 

Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, http://afhra.maxwell.af

.mil/personal_papers/pp086.html. 

•Charles Griffith, The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World WarII (Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 1999).

• Stephen L. McFarland, A Concise History of the U.S.

Air Force (Washington, DC: Air Force History and 

Museums Programs, 1997). 

57

59

Gen Muir S. Fairchild

 (1894–1950) 

♦ World War I combat veteran 

(bomber pilot on the western front)

♦ Participated in the Pan-American 

goodwill flight (1926–28)

♦ Air University’s (AU) first commandant

♦ Vice-commander, USAF
Muir Stephen “Santy” Fairchild began his 

military career in 1916 as a sergeant in 

the Washington National Guard. The following year he became a flying cadet in California but 

finished his training in Europe, where the US Army 

commissioned him in 1918. During World War I, he 

flew bombers on the western front. After the war, he 

held several engineering assignments before participating in the Pan-American goodwill tour to South 

America in 1926–27. Pres. Calvin Coolidge awarded 

the eight pilots of this four-month tour the Distinguished Flying Cross. This honor was one of the few 

times in an illustrious career that Fairchild received 

public notice or acclaim. 

A combat-tested World War I bomber pilot, Fairchild 

pushed the envelope in record-setting flights in the 1920s. 

In the 1930s, he graduated from the Air Corps Tactical 

School (ACTS), Army Industrial College, and Army 

War College before returning to Maxwell Field, Alabama, as an instructor and later as director of air tactics 

and strategy at ACTS. An influential faculty member at 

ACTS during 1937–40, he became an expert in strategic 

studies. A well-read individual, he relished including allusions to Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and William 

Shakespeare in his conversation and teaching. 

The Maxwell assignment led naturally to the plans 

division in Washington and then to selection as secretary of the Air Staff (1941), followed by other highly 

influential Washington assignments. He promoted the 

60
airpower theories he had studied and helped form at 

Maxwell and protected airpower from those, especially in the Navy, who were denigrating its potential 

role in warfare. In 1946 he became the first commandant of the newly formed Air University, an institution he planned to be both the mind and the heart of 

the Air Force. 

From the first, this novel “university of the air” demanded exceptional leadership, someone with not 

only a broad grasp of the theoretical, technical, and 

practical issues undergirding modern airpower but 

also comfortable with the ambiguity inherent in advanced education. Fortunately for AU its first commander, Gen Muir S. Fairchild, was more than equal 

to the challenge. 

General Fairchild served as the first in a long line of 

visionary AU commanders. Gen Carl Spaatz paid him 

tribute by proclaiming that the Air University bore 

the stamp of his “inspiration and wisdom.” Clearly, 

Fairchild’s imprint on AU is still with us. He believed 

passionately in academic freedom. His declaration 

that “faculty members who disagree with concepts 

and doctrines being presented . . . or who feel that 

orders and directives issued to them are in any way 

unduly hampering their conduct of instruction, not 

only have the right but the obligation to present their 

divergent views” ensured that AU remained a univer61
62

sity in the truest sense, a stronghold for free inquiry 

and discussion. To avoid the danger of groupthink 

within the faculty and administration, Fairchild created the AU Board of Visitors, a distinguished group 

of civilian academics and retired flag officers, to bring 

an outside perspective. After serving two years as the 

AU commandant, with his selection as vice-chief of 

staff of the Air Force, Fairchild achieved four-star 

rank. General Fairchild died while on active duty at 

Fort Myer, Virginia, in 1950. 

In more than three decades of service, General 

Fairchild guarded his privacy while he helped mold 

the Air Force. Today, he is recognized appropriately: 

the Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center 

at Maxwell AFB, Alabama; the main academic building at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Washington, are all named in honor of General 

Fairchild. 

Learn more . . . 

• “Muir Stephen Fairchild,” AU bibliography, comp. 

Darlene Chandler, bibliographer, Muir S. Fairchild 

Research Information Center, Maxwell AFB, AL, 

2007, http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/leaders/fair

child07.htm.

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63

• Muir Stephen Fairchild, personal papers, IRIS no. 

0125458–0125598, Air Force Historical Research 

Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, http://www.afhra.af

.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=11124

&page=1.

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65

Brig Gen Kenneth N. Walker 

(1898–1943) 

♦ Medal of Honor recipient for conspicuous 

leadership, personal valor, and intrepidity 

(World War II, 1943, posthumous) 

♦ Cocreated Air War Plans Division-1 (AWPD-1) 

♦ Commanding general, V Bomber Command, 

Fifth Air Force (1942) 

Kenneth Newton “Ken” Walker began flying at 

the University of California’s School of Military Aeronautics. After earning his pilot’s wings 

and Army commission in 1918, he served as a flying instructor for three years. Staff, command, and flying assignments in the Philippines and Virginia followed. 

In 1929 he graduated from the Air Corps Tactical 

School (ACTS) at Langley Field, Virginia, and then 

stayed on as a member of the school’s faculty. He was 

with the school for its move to Montgomery, Alabama, 

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66

in 1931. Lieutenant Walker, a senior instructor at the 

ACTS, stood with the zealous instructors who propounded the theories that strategic daylight bombardment could achieve success without fighter escort, 

ideas in conflict with the Army’s concepts of how airpower should be used. Lieutenant Walker’s debates 

with Maj Claire Chennault (who argued that bombers were not invincible from fighter interception) became legend. 

After graduating from the Army Command and 

General Staff School (1935) at Fort Leavenworth, 

Kansas, Walker was promoted to captain and, two 

months later, to major. He served in a variety of positions in intelligence, bomber, and pursuit operations 

until January 1941. 

Lt Col Hal George selected Major Walker, his former ACTS instructor, to join three other officers to 

form the Air War Plans Division. In August 1941 this 

team, which also included two other ACTS graduates—Maj Larry Kuter and Maj Haywood Hansell—

produced the AWPD-1 plan. During this time, Walker 

also organized the secret American Volunteer Group 

(AVG) in China, the American flying unit that became 

Chennault’s Flying Tigers. Three rapid promotions followed: lieutenant colonel in July 1941, colonel in March 

1942, and brigadier general in June 1942. Extraordinary staff work on the newly formed Air Staff in Washington merited these promotions. 

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67

In July 1942, Brig Gen Ken Walker transferred to the 

Asiatic-Pacific theater. In the Southwest Pacific, he routinely flew B-24 and B-25 bombing missions. Such missions allowed him, as commanding general of the V 

Bomber Command, to learn firsthand about combat 

conditions and to develop tactics to thwart Japanese 

fighters and antiaircraft fire. 

Capt Freddie Donnenberg, Maj Harrison Overturf, and Gen Kenneth 

Walker in the Southwest Pacific. It is believed that Harrison is Walker’s 

cousin; Donnenberg and Overturf were Walker’s aides.

 Reprinted from Martha Byrd, Kenneth N. Walker: Airpower’s Untempered Crusader

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1997) 

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68

Ignoring orders to stop flying combat missions, 

Walker was leading a daylight raid on Japanese shipping in the harbor at Rabaul, New Britain, when enemy 

fighters shot him down on 5 January 1943; he was last 

seen leaving the target area with one engine on fire and 

several fighters on his tail. For his leadership in combat 

and his personal valor, the US Congress recognized him 

with the award of the Medal of Honor. Walker became 

one of 38 Army Air Forces flying personnel so honored 

during World War II. The citation for his medal reads:

For conspicuous leadership above and beyond the call of duty involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life. 

As commander of the 5th Bomber Command during the period from 

5 September 1942, to 5 January 1943, Brigadier General Walker 

repeatedly accompanied his units on bombing missions deep into 

enemy-held territory. From the lessons personally gained under combat conditions, he developed a highly efficient technique for bombing when opposed by enemy fighter airplanes and by antiaircraft 

fire. On 5 January 1943, in the face of extremely heavy antiaircraft 

fire and determined opposition by enemy fighters, he led an effective 

daylight bombing attack against shipping in the harbor at Rabaul, 

New Britain, which resulted in direct hits on 9 enemy vessels. During this action his airplane was disabled and forced down by the attack of an overwhelming number of enemy fighters.30

In January 1948, the US Army designated Roswell Army 

Air Field at Roswell, New Mexico, as Walker Air Force 

Base. Likewise named in his honor, Walker Hall on Maxwell’s Chennault Circle is the home of the Curtis E. LeMay 

Center for Doctrine Development and Education. 

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69

Learn more . . . 

• Martha Byrd, Kenneth N. Walker: Airpower’s Untempered Crusader (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University 

Press, 1997), http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/

Indexes/author_ndx_bks.htm.

• Douglas P. Walker, “A Short Biography of Kenneth 

N. Walker,” Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society, 

http://hiavps.com/Walker.htm. 

• “Kenneth Newton Walker,” Arlington National 

Cemetery Web site, updated 29 November 2006, 

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/knwalker.htm. 

69
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71

Gen George C. Kenney 

(1889–1977) 

♦ World Wars I and II combat veteran 

♦ Commander of 91st Aero Squadron (1919) 

and Fifth Air Force, Allied Forces, 

Southwest Pacific Area (1942–45)

♦ Progenitor of “attack aviation” and the joint 

force air component commander (JFACC) 

construct

♦ First commander of Strategic Air Command

♦ Commander, Air University 

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72

From the early days, the Air Force has striven to 

produce broadly educated officers, schooled in 

air and joint war fighting, who can tackle the most 

complex and challenging assignments. Few epitomize that 

type of “warrior-scholar” more than General Kenney. 

Canadian-born George Churchill “Little George” Kenney 

studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology for three years before leaving to take a job 

with a Canadian railroad; within four years he was president of an engineering company. Kenney joined the nascent US Army Air Service in 1917, becoming a flying 

cadet within the Signal Corps. Earning his wings, he 

soon found himself over the trenches in France, where 

he shot down two German aircraft. Captain Kenney 

ended the war as the commander of his squadron. 

During the interwar era, Kenney made the most of the 

educational opportunities available to him. In 1921 he 

graduated from the Army Air Service Engineering School. 

In the mid-1920s, he completed the Air Corps Tactical 

School (ACTS) and the Army Command and General 

Staff School. From 1927 to 1929, while teaching at the 

ACTS he became an advocate of attack aviation (namely, 

close air support and interdiction). Two years after completing the Army War College in 1933, Captain Kenney 

translated a French version of the essential points of the 

airpower ideas of Italian air theoretician Guilio Douhet. 

These ideas influenced Air Corps thinking and congressional understanding of attack aviation’s potential for decades. Beyond what he learned in the classroom, through 

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these experiences Kenney began several lifelong friendships and associations with officers from other Army 

branches. He understood land maneuver warfare and injected an aviator’s perspective into their discussions. 

Captain Kenney jumped the grade of major, becoming 

a lieutenant colonel. In 1939, while the chief of production at Wright Field, Ohio, the Army promoted him to 

colonel. As assistant attaché for air in Paris in 1940, he 

became convinced that the United States lagged the major European powers in aeronautical technology and 

production. Returning to the United States, he continued his meteoric rise: brigadier general in January 1941, 

major general the following month, and lieutenant general in October 1942. 

George Kenney’s promotions rested on his performance 

as an aggressive, hard-working, and innovative officer. 

Moreover, he combined technical expertise with leadership to make things happen. His innovations included 

low-level air strikes, machine guns mounted on the wings 

rather than the aircraft’s cowling, bulletproof cockpit 

glass, power turrets on bombers, improved oxygen systems, parachute bombs, and antiship skip bombing. 

From 1942 to the end of World War II, Kenney held 

several major command positions in the Southwest Pacific 

theater. As Gen Douglas MacArthur’s air commander, 

General Kenney made MacArthur’s island-hopping 

strategy possible. MacArthur said of Little George, “Of 

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all the brilliant air commanders of the war, none surpassed him in those three essentials of combat leadership: 

aggressive vision, mastery of air tactics and strategy, and 

the ability to exact the maximum in fighting qualities 

from both men and equipment.”31

Kenney’s contributions while on the faculty of the 

ACTS proved especially important. He was the chief of 

the Attack Aviation Branch of the curriculum, educating Airmen in tactics to support the surface fight. “I was 

the papa of attack aviation,” he remembered. “I wrote 

the textbooks on it, taught it, and developed the tactics.” 

He also invented new weapons—including parachute 

fragmentation bombs—that would resurface in a time of 

national emergency. The “Bomber Mafia” may have 

dominated the ACTS, but the school also produced the 

WWII senior leaders who excelled across the spectrum 

of air operations. 

In 1942 the Army sent Kenney to the Southwest Pacific to take over MacArthur’s air forces. A formidable 

boss, MacArthur had proven too much for several of 

his predecessors. Kenney assured MacArthur that the 

Air Force would deliver. In short order, Kenney revitalized Fifth Air Force, transforming it into a powerful 

air component. 

Sometimes referred to as the first modern JFACC, by 

1944 Kenney’s bombers and fighters dominated the airspace and the sea-lanes in the Southwest Pacific.32 The 

ideas Kenney formulated in the 1920s paid handsome 

dividends. 

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After World War II, the most distinguished air commander in the war against Japan led the Pacific Air Command, 1945–46, and the Strategic Air Command (SAC), 

1946–48. Because of additional responsibilities, such as a 

nine-month assignment as senior US representative to the 

United Nations Military Staff Committee and placing too 

much trust in his vice-commander, General Kenney 

neglected SAC combat crew training. Consequently, Gen 

Curtis LeMay replaced him as SAC’s commander.33

Left toright: Mr. F. M. Forde (Minister for the Army), Gen Douglas MacArthur, Gen Sir Thomas Blamey, Gen George C. Kenney, Maj-Gen C. A. 

Clowes, and Brig Gen Kenneth Walker

Reprinted from Martha Byrd, Kenneth N. Walker: Airpower’s Untempered Crusader 

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1997) 

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76

General Kenney ended his 34-year career commanding 

Air University (1948–51). During this period, he wrote 

two books: A Personal History of the Pacific War (1949) and 

The MacArthur I Know (1951). His oft-quoted maxim remains valid in the twenty-first century: “Airpower is like 

poker. A second-best hand is like none at all—it will cost 

you dough and win you nothing.”34 In addition to two 

manuscripts and words recalled by modern-day Air 

Force leaders to substantiate escalating budgets, he left 

behind a legacy of innovation, leadership, and true joint 

war fighting. 

Learn more . . . 

• Maj Timothy D. Gann, “Fifth Air Force Light and 

Medium Bomber Operations during 1942 and 1943: 

Building Doctrine and Forces That Triumphed in 

the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and the Wewak Raid” 

(thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1992).

•Thomas E. Griffith, Jr., MacArthur’s Airman: General

George C. Kenney and the War in the Southwest Pacific

(Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998).

• “Kenney, George Churchill,” Air University bibliography, comp. staff, bibliography branch, Muir S. 

Fairchild Research Information Center, Maxwell 

AFB, AL, February 2006, http://www.au.af.mil/au/

aul/bibs/leaders/kenney07.htm.

76
77

• Gen George C. Kenney, Dick Bong: Ace of Aces (New 

York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1960). 

• Gen George C. Kenney, General Kenney Reports: A

Personal History of the Pacific War (1949; repr., Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987). 

• Gen George C. Kenney, The Saga of PappyGunn (New 

York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1959). 

77
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Gen Laurence S. Kuter 

(1905–1979) 

♦ Cocreator of Air War Plans Division-1

 (AWPD-1) plan 

♦ Commanding general, 1st Bomb Wing

 (England, 1942) 

♦ Commander, Military Air Transport Service

 (1948–50)

♦ Commander, Air University (AU) (1953–55) 

♦ Commander, Pacific Air Forces (1957–59)

♦ Commander, North American Air Defense

 Command (NORAD) (1959–62)

79
Laurence Sherman “Larry” Kuter graduated 

from West Point in 1927. He served in the 

field artillery at the Presidio of San Francisco 

until he entered flying training in May 1929. In 1930 

he was assigned to a bomb squadron at Langley Field, 

Virginia, where he helped develop bombing techniques; he also headed the operational development 

of the B-9 bomber and related high-altitude bombing 

tactics. When Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the 

responsibility for airmail service to the Army in 1934, 

Lieutenant Kuter served in the Eastern Zone airmail 

operations. 

He graduated at the top of his Air Corps Tactical 

School (ACTS) class in 1935 and remained at Maxwell Field, Alabama, on the school’s faculty. Captain 

Kuter’s lectures on bombardment aviation and employment of airpower predicted a 10,000-plane air 

force, a force structure achieved during World War 

II. He challenged his students to understand military 

doctrine to the extent that they could disagree and 

successfully argue their points. 

In 1939 Gen George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff, 

had junior officers assigned to the General Staff. Capt 

Larry Kuter, one of the junior officers selected, planned 

for the basic employment of airpower. In August 1941, 

Major Kuter joined the team of former ACTS faculty 

that was preparing the Air Staff’s response to a presidential tasking for wartime industrial and manpower requirements. The famous AWPD-1 plan set forth not only 

80
the numbers of aircraft and personnel but also presented 

a strategic bombardment plan that the team claimed 

could defeat Nazi Germany. 

In November 1941, Major Kuter assumed duties as the 

assistant secretary of the War Department General Staff. 

Within months, the Army promoted him to lieutenant 

colonel, and then, skipping colonel, he became the deputy chief of the Air Staff as a brigadier general. In late 

1942, as commanding general of the 1st Bomb Wing in 

England, he directed the B-17 bombing of Germany. He 

then served in North Africa until Field Marshal Erwin 

Rommel surrendered in May 1943. In North Africa, he 

came to appreciate the necessity for air superiority and 

the use of airpower to support surface operations. 

Returning to Washington, Major General Kuter participated in strategic-level, politico-military conferences 

in Quebec, Cairo, London, Yalta, and Malta. His book, 

Airman at Yalta (1955), provides a detailed account of 

the Yalta conference discussions. At the end of World 

War II, Kuter served in the Pacific. Just after the war, 

he represented the United States at major civil aviation 

conferences in Montreal, London, Cairo, Lima, and Rio 

de Janeiro. 

From 1953 to 1955, Lieutenant General Kuter commanded Air University. He raised the Air Command and 

Staff School to the collegiate level. By expanding the 

81
doctrinal emphasis of AU, he hoped to make it the brains 

of the Air Force (just as the ACTS had been during the 

1930s). He believed that Air War College students, particularly, had the potential for long-range planning and 

doctrinal research. To disseminate their work, he 

founded Air University Press in 1953. In 1955, with a 

promotion to general, he commanded the Far East Air 

Forces (Tokyo) and its successor, Pacific Air Forces 

(Honolulu). 

From 1959 until his retirement in 1962, General 

Kuter commanded NORAD. While there, he fought 

to prevent downgrading of interceptor defenses, forces 

being neglected because of the increasing Soviet nucleararmed missile threat. His dedication and advocacy 

enabled the USAF to remain dominant throughout 

the Cold War. 

Learn more . . . 

• David G. Estep, “Air Mobility: The Strategic Use of 

Nonlethal Airpower” (thesis, School of Advanced 

Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1994). 

• Gen Laurence Sherman Kuter, Airman at Yalta (New 

York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1955). 

• Gen Laurence S. Kuter, United States Air Force oral 

history interview, 1974, no. K239.0512–810, Air 

Force Historical Research Agency collection, Air 

University, Maxwell AFB, AL. 

82
• Daniel R. Mortensen, “The Legend of Laurence 

Kuter: Agent for Airpower Doctrine,” in Airpower and

Ground Armies: Essayson the Evolution of Anglo-American

Air Doctrine, 1940–43, ed. Daniel R. Mortensen (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1998), 93–145.

83

Maj Gen Claire L. Chennault

 (1890–1958) 

♦ Joined the service in World War I

♦ Combat veteran of Sino-Japanese War 

and World War II 

♦ Chief, China Air Task Force 

(World War II, 1942) 

♦ Commander, American Volunteer Group 

(AVG) “Flying Tigers” 

♦ One of the fathers of pursuit aviation 

85
The “Bomber Mafia” may have ruled the Air 

Corps Tactical School (ACTS) during the 

1930s, but other voices were also heard. Among 

the most strident of these was that of Capt Claire Chennault, the former chief of pursuit training in the Air 

Corps. A fighter pilot to the core, the crusty Chennault 

(known as “Old Leatherface” to his comrades) was having none of the “bomber invincibility” theory. He argued, 

in his course and in a concise article entitled “The Role of 

Defensive Pursuit,” that with proper early warning from 

ground observers and telephone communications, fighter 

aircraft could intercept unescorted bomber formations 

and disrupt their attacks. 

In 1917 Claire Lee Chennault left his job in an Akron, 

Ohio, tire factory to enter the Officers Training School 

at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. Ninety days later 

he emerged as a lieutenant in the infantry reserves. Lieutenant Chennault, however, wanted to fly, so he quickly 

transferred to the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. 

In 1919 he overcame Army opposition to his entering 

flying training because of his age and because he was 

married with three children. In 1920 Chennault earned 

his pilot’s wings. Later that year, he obtained a regular 

commission in the newly organized Air Service and commanded a pursuit, or fighter, squadron in Hawaii. 

As the leader of Maxwell’s daring aerial exhibition 

team, the “Three Men on the Flying Trapeze,” Chennault 

gave practical demonstrations of fighter tactics while 

dazzling local crowds. Chennault’s abrasive character 

86
and eccentric behavior (he was removed from base housing, reportedly for having too many junker cars in his 

driveway, and subsequently flew to his off-base house 

for lunch in his P-12 fighter) led to his departure from 

the service in 1937. Though no one at Maxwell understood that radar was in the offing, Chennault was one of 

the few who argued that an air defense was practical. 

He, like most others there, did not think that long-range 

escort would be feasible. 

87

“Three Men on a Flying Trapeze.” Pictured here are sergeant pilots William McDonald, John Williamson, and Ray Clifton. With Chennault, these 

men flew Boeing P-12 biplanes, a peppy little aircraft equipped with 450-

horsepower engines that could achieve a top speed of 194 miles per hour. 

Courtesy Air Force Historical Research Agency
 Chennault went on to tremendous fame as the commander of the AVG, a cadre of ex-US military pilots 

who signed up to fight the Japanese alongside Chiang 

Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese forces. During the first 

grim months of the war in the Pacific, Chennault’s “Flying Tigers” were a ray of light against an almost unbroken dark backdrop of military disaster. Chennault 

would later return to active duty to command Fourteenth Air Force. 

Chennault reminds us that there must always be a place 

to voice and debate unpopular, innovative airpower 

ideas. His views ran against the Air Force thinking of his 

day. However, the unexpected coming of radar and the 

British development of an integrated air defense system 

made them practical (though neither the Japanese nor 

the Germans succeeded in defending their homelands.)

While his fellow ACTS instructors promoted strategic 

bombardment theories, he advocated fighters, air superiority, and an air-defense warning net (before the development of radar). Needless to say, his colleagues did 

not receive his theories with open arms (or minds). 

Chennault medically retired at his permanent rank of 

captain in 1937. 

However, Chennault did not remain on the sideline for 

long as he became involved in the Sino-Japanese War. 

By 1940 he had secured American assistance and in August 1941 formed the AVG, the “Flying Tigers.” In the 

seven months following the Japanese attack on Pearl 

Harbor, the AVG proved the most effective Allied fighter 

88
group in the Far East, shooting down hundreds of Japanese planes—with 297 confirmed victories—while sustaining almost insignificant losses.35

Chennault returned to US service in 1942 as commander of the China Air Task Force, which had to be 

supplied over the Himalayas from India. His acerbic 

personality and almost insubordinate advocacy of his 

airpower tactics and politico-military strategy led to 

estrangement with Gen Joseph W. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, commander of the China-Burma-India theater, 

and with Gen George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the 

Army. Major General Chennault retired just before 

American Volunteer Group “Flying Tigers” 

Courtesy “Flying Tigers,” Moody AFB, Georgia, Web site, http://www.moody.af.mil

89
Japan surrendered. Subsequently, Chennault formed 

a contract cargo carrier, Civil Air Transport (CAT), 

in the Far East. The CAT provided Chennault, an 

outspoken anti-Communist and friend of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, with the means to support the 

Nationalist Chinese in 1948–49 during China’s civil 

war. The Central Intelligence Agency took over the 

CAT in 1950. 

Appropriately, the street that is home to the ACTS’s 

descendants and the Air Force’s professional military 

education schools is named “Chennault Circle” in his 

honor. 

Learn more . . . 

• Martha Byrd, Chennault—Giving Wings to the Tiger

(Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1987).

• Capt C. L. Chennault, “The Role of Defensive Pursuit,” unpublished, 1934. See also Tom Moore, “Claire 

Lee Chennault (1890–1958): ‘The Old Man,’” http://

www.cnac.org/chennault01.htm. 

• “Chennault, Claire L.,” Air University bibliography, 

comp. staff, bibliography branch, Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center, February 2006, http://www

.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/leaders/chennault07.htm. 

90
• Claire Lee Chennault, Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs

of Claire Lee Chennault, ed. Robert Hotz (New York: 

Putnam’s Sons, 1949).

• Lt Gen Claire L. Chennault/Chennault AFB Collection, 

collection no. 10, Archives and Special Collections 

Department, Frazar Memorial Library, McNeese 

State University, Lake Charles, LA, http://library

.mcneese.edu/depts/archive/chennault010.htm. 

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Gen Ira C. Eaker 

(1896–1987) 

♦ Aviation pioneer and Air Force leader 

♦ Led the Eighth Air Force in its daylight 

precision bombing over Germany 

during World War II (1943)

♦ Air commander in chief, Mediterranean 

Allied Air Forces (1944)

♦ Deputy commander, US Army Air 

Forces (1945–47)

♦ Promoted to lieutenant general and 

general on the retired list 

93
Commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in 

1917, within six months Ira C. Eaker decided 

he wanted to fly. Lieutenant Eaker earned his 

pilot’s wings in 1918. During the interwar years, Captain 

Eaker helped defend Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell 

in his court-martial for insubordination in 1925; piloted 

one of the planes on the 22,065-mile Pan-American goodwill trip of 1926–27; flew with others, such as Elwood 

Quesada and Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, in 1929 on the trimotored Fokker, setting an in-flight refueling endurance 

record of 150 hours (11,000 miles and 43 aerial refuelings, all over Los Angeles); and flew the first documented 

transcontinental instrument flight in 1936. 

His flying included somewhat more routine work: commanding two pursuit squadrons, flying on Western Zone 

routes when the Air Corps carried the airmail in 1934, 

and participating in the Pacific naval maneuvers in 1935. 

During the interwar years, Eaker also furthered his education. He studied at the University of the Philippines 

(1920–21), Columbia Law School (1922–23), and the 

University of Southern California (1932–33), where he 

received a journalism degree. 

From 1935 to 1937, Major Eaker attended the Air Corps 

Tactical School (ACTS) at Maxwell Field and the Army 

Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, 

Kansas. Together Eaker and Hap Arnold wrote This Flying

Game (1936), the first of three books they would coauthor. 

The others were Winged Warfare(1941), which stressed the 

94
need for a separate air force, and Army Flyer(1942), which 

explained the duties and rewards of being a pilot. 

Rapid wartime promotions followed: colonel in December 1941, brigadier general in February 1942, major 

general in September 1942, and lieutenant general in 

September 1943. His fourth star did not come until 1985, 

almost 38 years after he retired. These promotions—and 

95

Eaker in an informal shot

Courtesy US Air Force
96

Ira Eaker’s place in history—rest on his two World War 

II combat commands. 

From 1942 until the end of 1943, he commanded US 

bombing efforts from Great Britain. An advocate of highaltitude daylight precision bombing as taught at ACTS, 

Eaker insisted the B-17 Flying Fortresses conduct combat missions over Europe. In August 1942, Eaker himself 

flew one of the aircraft in the first American bombing 

raid over Nazi-occupied France; subsequently, he flew 

bombing raids over Germany. The absence of adequate 

fighter escorts resulted in crippling bomber losses, especially in the large raids against Schweinfurt and Regensburg. As commander of the Eighth Air Force, Eaker bore 

much of the responsibility. 

Eaker successfully lobbied Col Oveta Culp Hobby (director of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and his superiors to assign a WAC company to his command (first 

in England; later near the front in Italy). Of the WACs 

in Italy, Eaker wrote of their “superb” work habits, suggesting that “one girl is worth three men,” and raved that 

despite “extremely unpleasant conditions . . . this little 

group of American girls is exhibiting the best and most 

cheerful type of morale of any soldiers I have ever seen.”36

As another tangible demonstration of his egalitarian beliefs, despite reservations he honored the request of Dixie Tighe, a woman war correspondent who wanted to 

go on a bomber mission as her male counterparts had.37

Former aide and biographer James Parton reports 

Eaker as saying the Casablanca Conference “turned out 

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to be one of the war’s most decisive, especially in regard 

to the use of airpower.”38 Among the many issues decided 

upon at Casablanca in January 1943, two stand out as 

critically important. First, after much debate, US air 

leaders convinced British prime minister Winston 

Churchill that daylight precision bombing should be 

given a chance. Second, the major participants agreed to 

invade Sicily in an operation code-named Husky. Moreover, the Casablanca Conference provided an opportunity to discuss these issues within the context of grand 

strategy as a whole.39

As the world’s most powerful decision makers met at 

Casablanca, the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) deployed 

major combat air forces in the European and North African theaters. In the United Kingdom, General Eaker 

commanded the Eighth Air Force—the USAAF’s primary strike force for its strategic daylight precision 

bombing offensive against Germany. At this time, the 

strategic bombing offensive constituted the undisputed, 

preeminent USAAF campaign of the war. Eaker’s 

“Mighty Eighth” was created to demonstrate the ability 

of airpower to defeat an enemy nation by bombing alone. 

The commanding general of the AAF, Gen Henry H. 

“Hap” Arnold, hoped that the Eighth and Fifteenth Air 

Forces would defeat Germany by strategic precision 

bombing before the Allies invaded the continent. The 

B-17 and B-24 four-engine long-range heavy bombers 

97
served as their main weapons.40 By early 1943, Eaker’s 

strike force included 337 B-17s and B-24s.41

From 1944 to April 1945, he commanded the Allied Air 

Forces in the Mediterranean theater. Flying first from 

North Africa and then from Italy, his air assets were involved in many missions. They helped keep the sea-lanes 

open, air dropped supplies to anti-Nazi partisans in the 

Balkans, bombed southern Germany and the Romanian 

oil field at Ploesti, and provided air support for landings 

in southern Italy and southern France. In August 1944, 

he personally flew a fighter supporting the invasion in 

southern France. 

After assignments as deputy commander of the 

Army Air Forces and chief of the Air Staff, Lieutenant 

General Eaker retired in 1947. On 10 October 1978, the 

president of the United States, authorized by act of Congress, awarded in the name of the Congress a special 

Congressional Gold Medal to General Eaker for contributing immeasurably to the development of aviation and to 

the security of his country. Almost 40 years after his retirement, at the behest of Senator Barry Goldwater and 

endorsed by Pres. Ronald Reagan, the US Congress 

passed special legislation awarding four-star status to 

General Eaker. On 26 April 1985, Gen Charles Gabriel, 

chief of staff, and Mrs. Ruth Eaker, the general’s wife, 

pinned on his fourth star. 

General Eaker’s influence continued well after he exited uniformed service. For 18 years he wrote a syndicated column for more than 180 newspapers, concentrating 

98
on defense posture, national security, and airpower. An 

exhibit in Air University’s Ira C. Eaker College for Professional Development on Chennault Circle houses some 

of General Eaker’s memorabilia. 

Learn more . . . 

• Paul A. Bauer, “The Heroic Leader: A Role for the 

Eighties?” (research paper, Air Command and Staff 

College, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1982). 

• “Ira Eaker: A Register of His Papers in the Library of 

Congress,” Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 

Washington, DC, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/mss/

eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2003/ms003051.pdf.

• “Eaker, Ira C.,” Air University bibliography, comp. 

staff, bibliography branch, Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center, February 2006, http://

www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/leaders/eaker07.htm. 

• Ira C. Eaker, “The Fourth Arab-Israeli War,” Strategic Review 2 (Winter 1974): 18–25. 

• James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here”: General Ira

Eaker and the Command of the Air (Bethesda, MD: 

Adler and Adler, 1986). 

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101

Dr. Theodore von Kármán 

(1881–1963)

♦ Father of supersonic flight 

♦ Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory 

professor at the California Institute of 

Technology (1930–49) 

♦ Founder, US Institute of Aeronautical 

Sciences (1933) 

♦ Head of US Army Air Forces’ Scientific 

Advisory Group (1944) 

♦ National Medal of Science recipient (1963) 

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Born in Budapest, Hungary, the geopolitical climate shaped by Germany caused Dr. Theodore 

von Kármán’s emigration to the United States 

in 1930; in 1936 he became a US citizen through naturalization. Best known for his work to develop the fields of 

aeronautics and astronautics, modern technologies incorporate von Kármán’s ideas relative to supersonic and 

hyper-supersonic airflow dynamics. 

In 1906 von Kármán received a scholarship to the 

University of Göttingen, Germany, earning a PhD in 

engineering in 1908. In March of that year he made a 

trip to Paris, where he watched an airplane flight by 

French aviation pioneer Henri Farman. Thus began von 

Kármán’s lifelong interest in the application of mathematics to aeronautics. In 1911, after conducting wind 

tunnel experiments, he made an important analysis of 

the alternating double row of vortices behind a flat 

body in a fluid flow, a dynamic known today as the von 

Kármán vortex street. 

In 1913 von Kármán became director of the Aachen 

Aerodynamics Institute and a professor at the Technical 

University in Aachen, Germany. With the outbreak of 

World War I in 1914, he returned to Austria-Hungary 

and became head of Research for the Austro-Hungarian 

Army Aviation Corporation. Although he built a prototype helicopter during the war, the Austro-Hungarian 

army did not pursue his ideas. 

Due to the political upheaval in Hungary at the end of 

World War I, the scientist returned to Aachen (1919) to 

102
resume his post as head of the Aeronautical Institute, a 

position he retained until 1930. While there, he designed 

and built the first wind tunnels at Aachen; in 1926 he did 

likewise in California. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) offered him the post of director of the 

Aeronautical Laboratory. Troubled by the rise of the Nazis within Germany, he accepted the position; in 1936 he 

became a naturalized US citizen. 

Dr. von Kármán was head of the Caltech Guggenheim 

Aeronautical Labs at Pasadena from 1930 to 1957. In 

1935 he began a long association with Frank J. Malina, 

one of his graduate students. Their collaboration resulted 

in America’s first high-altitude sounding rocket, the WAC 

Corporal (1945). In 1938 Theodore von Kármán chaired 

the National Academy of Sciences committee and in 1941 

cofounded Aerojet General to develop rocket engines for 

the US military. In 1944 von Kármán and Malina played 

a key role in the creation of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory. The same year, Dr. von Kármán chaired the 

Army Air Corps Scientific Advisory Group. 

As chair, he oversaw production of Where We Stand, an 

influential report that framed the foundation of the US 

Air Force’s technical needs during the Cold War. For the 

rest of his career von Kármán continued to work closely 

with the US military, as he had earlier with the AustroHungarian army. The group further investigated technologies in the field of rockets, guided missiles, and jet 

103
propulsion. Later, it recommended independence vis-àvis the Office of the Secretary of Defense strategic research program and provided for setting up the RAND 

project.42 In 1946 von Kármán helped create the Scientific Advisory Board to the chiefs of staff. In 1951 he 

proved instrumental in establishing the Advisory Group 

on Aeronautical Research and Development—the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization’s aeronautical research 

arm; he also served as its first chair. 

In 1956 he helped establish the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences and the von Kármán 

Institute for Fluid Dynamics. In 1960 he cofounded 

the International Academy of Astronautics. Theodore 

von Kármán received many honors for his pioneering 

work in aerodynamics, including the Medal for Merit 

in 1946 and the Franklin Gold Medal in 1948. In 1963 

he received the first National Medal of Science, presented by Pres. John F. Kennedy. 

Dr. von Kármán’s scientific reputation rested on a series of profound insights on the nature of aerodynamics, 

which he demonstrated through a highly intuitive style 

of applied mathematics. He published more than 200 papers, which identified much of the technical basis of 

flight. He forged scientific cooperation, developed many 

theories of aeronautical and space science, and played an 

important role in the creation of supersonic aircraft and 

ballistic missiles. 

Theodore von Kármán died at the age of 81 in Aachen, 

Germany, on 7 May 1963. His family buried him in 

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Pasadena, California, near the Jet Propulsion Lab he 

helped found. Craters on the Moon and on Mars are 

named in his honor. He is also commemorated through 

the Theodore von Kármán Prize, established by the 

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (1968): 

the society recognizes the notable application of mathematics to mechanics and/or the engineering sciences 

made during the five to 10 years preceding the award. 

Von Kármán’s most interesting and best-known quotations include: 

• “Scientists discover the world that exists; engineers 

create the world that never was.” 

• “I came to realize that exaggerated concern about 

what others are doing can be foolish. It can paralyze 

effort, and stifle a good idea. One finds that in the 

history of science, almost every problem has been 

worked out by someone else. This should not discourage anyone from pursuing his own path.” 

• “Mr. President, one does not need help going 

down, only going up.” (While receiving the first 

National Medal of Science from President Kennedy at age 81, politely refusing the president’s 

helping hand.) 

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Learn more . . . 

• Michael Gorn, The Universal Man: Theodore von Kármán’s Life in Aeronautics(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992).

• “Theodore von Kármán,” International Space Hall 

of Fame, New Mexico Museum of Space History, 

http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/index

.php?type=name. 

• Theodore von Kármán with Lee Edson, The Wind

and Beyond: Theodorevon Kármán, Pioneerin Aviation and

Pathfinder in Space (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).

Notes

1. National Security Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 502), US Code, vol. 50, 

401 (1947).

2. US Code, Title 10, ch. 807, sec. 8062(b), 26 July 1947, http://

wyomcases.courts.state.wy.us/applications/oscn/deliverdocument

.asp?citeid=194107&PrintOnly=true.

3. Jerome A. Ennels, “The ‘Wright Stuff’ Pilot Training at America’s First Civilian Flying School,” Air Power History 49, 2002. 

4. “Air University,” fact sheet, http://www.au.af.mil/au/facts.asp.

5. BBC News, Special Report 1998: World WarI, “The Somme: Hell 

on Earth,” 3 November 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special

_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/203289.stm. See also Mark Smith, 

The De Laune Cycling Club Rollof Honour, 1993, http://www.delaunecc

.org/Club_roll_of_hon14-18.htm. 

106
6. Biographical note, accession no. XXXX-0057, 2004, Edgar S. 

Gorrell Collection, Archives Division, Smithsonian National Air 

and Space Museum, Washington, DC, http://www.nasm.si.edu/

research/arch/ findaids/gorrell/esg_sec_3.html.

7. Gen Laurence S. Kuter, quoted in James P. Tate, The Army

and Its Air Corps: Army Policy toward Aviation 1919–1941 (Maxwell 

AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1998), 21.

8. John T. Correll, “The Air Mail Fiasco,” Air Force Magazine 91,

no. 3 (March 2008): 60–65; and John F. Shiner, Foulois and the U.S.

Army Air Corps: 1931–1935, Office of Air Force History: General Histories (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1983). 

The members of the Baker Board were Newton Baker, former secretary of war; Maj Gen Hugh Drum, deputy chief of staff; Maj Gen 

Benjamin D. Foulois, chief of the Air Corps; Dr. Karl Compton, 

president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. George 

Lewis of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics; Clarence Chamberlin; Edgar S. Gorrell, president of Stutz Motor Company and former Air Service officer; James Doolittle, head of Shell 

Oil’s aviation department; Brig Gen Charles Kilbourne, Army War 

Plans Division; Maj Gen George Simonds, Army War College; and 

Maj Gen John Gulick, chief of Coast Artillery. Maurer Maurer, 

Aviation in the U.S. Army 1919–1939 (Washington, DC: Office of Air 

Force History, 1987), 300. 

9. According to historian Bernard Nalty, the three Air Corps advocates were Foulois, Doolittle, and Gorrell. Bernard C. Nalty, ed., 

Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the United States Air Force

1907–1950, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1999), 126. 

10. Biographical note, accession no. XXXX-0057, 2004, Edgar 

S. Gorrell Collection. 

107
11. “Billy Mitchell,” in Col Phillip S. Meilinger, American Airpower

Biography: A Survey of the Field (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University 

Press, 1995), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/

mitch.html. 

12. “Brig. Gen. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell,” Air Force Link, http://

www.af.mil/history/person.asp?dec=&pid=123006464. 

13. William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power—Economic and Military (1925; repr., New 

York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1988), 119. 

14. “Statement of William Mitchell Concerning the Recent Air 

Accidents” (statement to the press, San Antonio, TX, 5 September 

1925), airforce-magazine.com 89, no. 7 (July 2006), http://www.air

force-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2006/July%202006/

0706keeper.aspx. 

15. Brig Gen George V. Fagan, USAF, retired, Air Force Academy

Heritage: The Early Years (New York: Johnson Publishing Company, 

1988), http://www.fulcrum-books.com/client/client_pages/lookinside/

604-x.pdf. 

16. Paperless Archives, “World War I: Military Aviation—History” (Beverly Hills, CA: BAC Marketing, 2008). 

17. Thomas H. Greer, The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army

Air Arm, 1917–1941 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 

1985), 16. 

18. Mauer Mauer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919–1939 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987), 594. Also quoted in 

Jody Cook, “A Place Called Langley Field: National Significance in 

American Military and Civil Aviation,” CRM [Cultural Resource Management] 23, no. 2 (2000), 30, http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/23-02/

23-02-11.pdf; and Greer, Development of Air Doctrine, 30. 

19. Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking

in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960, vol. 1 (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, 1989), 40. 

108
20. Ibid., 41. 

21. William C. Sherman, Air Warfare(1926; repr., Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 2002), http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/

aupress/catalog/books/Sherman_B86.htm. 

22. Ibid. 

23. Fort Leavenworth Historical Society, “Sherman Army Airfield,” http://www.ftlvnhistsoc.org/Virtual%20post%20tour%204.htm. 

24. “Dr. Robert H. Goddard,” fact sheet, National Museum of 

the Air Force, http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/fact

sheet.asp?id=12374. 

25. “Dr. Robert H. Goddard: American Rocketry Pioneer,” National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, 

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/dr_goddard.html. 

26. Charles Griffith, The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University 

Press, 1999), http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/catalog/books/

Griffith_B73.htm. 

27. Jeffrey C. Benton, They Served Here: Thirty-Three Maxwell Men

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1999), 32. 

28. “Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold,” US Centennial of Flight Commission, 

2003, http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/Hap

_Arnold/AP16.htm. 

29. See Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal

Memoir of My Years of Lockheed, vol. 1 (Boston: Little, Brown and 

Company, 1994). 

30. “Kenneth Newton Walker,” Arlington National Cemetery Web 

site, updated 29 November 2006, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/

knwalker.htm. 

31. Gen Douglas MacArthur, quoted in Gavin Long, MacArthur:

As Military Commander (New York: Da Capo, 1988), 107. 

109
32. See Salvatore A. Angelella, A Prototype JFACC: General George

C. Kenney (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1994). 

33. Benton, They Served Here, 46. 

34. Lt Gen George Kenney, quoted in Charles M. Westenhoff, 

Military Air Power: The CADRE Digestof Air Power Opinions and Thoughts

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1990), 13. 

35. Confirmed Victories, American Volunteer Group Records, call no. 

863.375, 1941–42, IRIS no. 268966, Air Force Historical Research 

Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL.

36. Ira Eaker, letter to Mrs. Dorothy Dell Kelly, 13 March 1944, 

Ira Eaker Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (container I:11), 1944, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awmss5/

ww2.html. 

37. US Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, American Memory: American Women—World War II, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/

awhhtml/awmss5/ww2.html. 

38. James Parton, Air Force Spoken Here (Bethesda, MD: Adler 

and Adler, 1986), 216. 

39. R. J. Overy, The Air War, 1939–1945 (Chelsea, MA: Scarborough House, 1991), 73. 

40. Maj Bernard V. Moore II, The Secret Air War over France:

USAAF Special Operations Units in the French Campaign of 1944 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1992). 

41. Wesley F. Craven and James. L. Cate, TheArmyAir ForcesinWW

II, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 311. 

42. “Theodore von Kármán,” Google translation French to 

English, http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http:

//www.rr0.org/personne/v/VonKarmanTheodore/index.html&sa=X

&oi=translate&resnum=7&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%252

2Theodore%2Bvon%2BKarmann%2522%2BTeller%26hl%3Den. 

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