page_title: Frank A. Armstrong
section_title: Wing commands
hierarchical_section_title: Frank A. Armstrong / Military career / Wing commands
caption_attribution_description: B-29 in flight.
context_page_description: Frank Alton Armstrong Jr. was a lieutenant general of the United States Air Force. As a brigadier general in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, he was the inspiration for the main character in the novel and subsequent film, Twelve O'Clock High. After the war, he held a variety of senior leadership positions prior to and following the establishment of the USAF as an independent service in 1947. Promoted to major general in 1950, he advanced to lieutenant general in 1956 and retired at that rank in 1962.
  Armstrong commanded two B-17 Flying Fortress groups and a wing each of B-17 and B-29 Superfortresses in combat operations against both Germany and Japan. He personally led the first USAAF strategic bombing attack from England in August 1942, and the last strategic raid on Japan three years later. He also led the first attack by the USAAF against a target in Germany.
context_section_description: On February 8, 1943, Armstrong was promoted to brigadier general, and then assigned command of the newly formed 101st Provisional Combat Wing on February 17, continuing to fly combat missions over Germany. On June 16, 1943, Armstrong was advanced to command of the 1st Bombardment Wing, replacing daylight precision bombardment theorist Haywood S. Hansell, and was himself replaced at the end of July 1943 after being injured in a fire in his quarters.
  
  During his final combat mission in the European Theater of Operations on April 5, 1943, 104 B-17s and B-24s attacked the Erla Works, used by the Luftwaffe for manufacturing and reconditioning Me-109 fighters, near the Antwerp suburb of Mortsel. The attack caused widespread casualties in the town when the force was subjected to severe air attack during its bombing run and only four bombs hit their intended target. In just eight minutes 936 people were killed, including 209 children under the age of 15 when four schools received direct hits. It was Belgium's worst loss of life in a single incident during the entire war.
  Armstrong returned to the United States where he commanded the 46th Bombardment Operational Training Wing (B-17) at Ardmore Army Airfield, Oklahoma (September 10, 1943 to April 6, 1944); and the 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing (B-29) at Peterson Field, Colorado, and Grand Island Army Airfield, Nebraska (April 7, 1944, to November 7, 1944). When the Manhattan Project was still in its development stage, Armstrong was the leading candidate (along with Colonel Roscoe C. Wilson, the Army Air Force officer providing liaison support to the project) to command the unit designated to drop the atomic bomb. Armstrong's age and his injury in England mitigated against his selection, however, which went to Tibbets instead.
  On November 18, 1944, Armstrong was given command of the 315th Bomb Wing at Peterson Field, Colorado, a B-29 Superfortress wing then in training. Between March 7, 1945, and April 5, 1945, the wing deployed to Northwest Field, Guam on to fly missions against the Home Islands of Japan. On August 15, 1945, Armstrong led the longest and final heavy bombing raid in the war, with the distinction of having led both the first and last USAAF strategic bombing missions of World War II, as well as the first USAAF mission to attack Germany. In November 1945, he flew the first non-stop flight from Japan to Washington, D.C. in a B-29. He received an oak leaf cluster to the Distinguished Flying Cross for each of the above achievements.
caption: B-29 Superfortress
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