page_title: Frank A. Armstrong
section_title: USAF service
hierarchical_section_title: Frank A. Armstrong / Military career / USAF service
caption_attribution_description: Boeing B-47B-40-BW (S/N 51-2212) of the 306th Bomb Wing (Medium) landing with drag chute.
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: Armstrong continued his Air Force career following World War II, first becoming chief of staff for operations of the Pacific Air Command on January 18, 1946, and then senior air advisor at the Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia, on September 9, 1946. After creation of the United States Air Force, Armstrong served as deputy commanding general of the Alaskan Air Command at Fort Richardson, Alaska (March 31, 1948), and its commanding general (February 26, 1949, to December 26, 1950). While commander, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Aero Club of Norway, the highest civil award of Norway, for helping develop a non-stop polar air route from Alaska to Norway to New York.
  On January 13, 1950, Armstrong was promoted to major general and named base commander of Sampson Air Force Base, New York, in January 1951. On May 13, 1951, he became commanding general of the Sixth Air Division, training the first B-47 Stratojet Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, and in 1952, commander of the Second Air Force of the Strategic Air Command at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, a post he held for four years. His final posting was in July 1956, again as head of the Alaskan Air Command, and upon his promotion to lieutenant general, as commander of the joint Alaskan Command. He retired July 31, 1962.
  Armstrong's son, Major Frank A. Armstrong III, USAF, followed him into the Air Force as a pilot and was killed in action in Laos on October 6, 1967. At the time, he was flying a combat mission in an A-1E Skyraider as a member of the 1st Air Commando Squadron.
caption: B-47B Stratojet of the 306th Bomb Wing (Medium) at MacDill AFB, Florida.
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