US Air Force General. He has been described as one of the more accomplished military air planners and staff officers in the history of the US Army Air Corps and US Air Force. After completing high school in 1923, he received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating in June 1927 with a commission as a second lieutenant in the artillery. He was assigned to Battery D, 2nd Battalion, 76th Field Artillery, at the Presidio of Monterey, California and performed all battery duties except for command. In May 1929 he was accepted for flying training and earned his pilot wings after graduating from the Army flying schools at Brooks and Kelly Fields, Texas (now Brooks City-Base and Kelly Field Annex Joint Base San Antonio). He was assigned to Langley Field (now Joint Base Langley-Eustis), Virginia as operations officer of the 49th Bombardment Squadron, 2nd Bombardment Group and transferred to the US Army Air Corps. In August 1933 he moved up as operations officer, 2nd Bombardment Wing, and assistant base operations officer at Langley. During this period he flew alternate wing position with Captain Claire L. Chennault's acrobatic group, "The Men on the Flying Trapeze," the first recognized aerial acrobatic team in the military service. He then was given a leading role in the operational development of the Boeing Y1B-9 twin engine bombers which pioneered high altitude bombing techniques and tactics in the US Air Force. From February to June 1934, he served as operations officer of the Eastern Zone Army Corps Mail operations and was the last officer relieved from this duty being held over to write the final report and history. He was then selected for the US Army Air Corps Tactical School, Maxwell Field (now Maxwell Air Force Base), Alabama, graduating at the top of his class in the spring of 1935 and was retained at the school as an instructor in bombardment aviation and in the employment of air power. While at the school, he was involved in the development of the role of strategic bombing in future warfare, which played an important part in his next duty assignment in July 1939, with the Operations and Training Division of the War Department General Staff, Washington, DC. In early 1941 he was a principal factor in several augmentations of the Air Corps. In August 1941 he was brought into the Air War Plans Division (AWPD) where he was one of the four principal authors of AWPD-1, the basic plan for employment of air power in World War II. This plan was used almost without change through the war, in the form of its incorporation into the Combined Bomber Offensive. In November 1941 he was designated assistant secretary, War Department General Staff. After participating as one of a committee of three in the reorganization of the War Department, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in January 1942, and at the recommendation of General George C. Marshall to brigadier general a month later. Having never served in the active rank of colonel, he was the first "jump" promotion of an officer as young as 36 since William T. Sherman. In March 1942 he was transferred to Headquarters Army Air Force (HQAAF) as the deputy chief of air staff. In October 1942 he was sent to Brampton Grange, England, where he command the 1st Bombardment Wing (later First Bombardment Division), 8th Air Force, where he was successful in forming its four separately operating understrength groups of B-17 Flying Fortresses into a coordinated fighting force. This was done based on the assumption that the largest practicable combat unit over the target at one time would provide more mutual fire support, saving lives and planes, and improve the probability of destroying the objective without having to repeat. In January 1943 he was transferred to North Africa to command the allied tactical air forces. In February of that year, the Royal Air Forces Western Desert Air Force reached Tunisia and was merged with the Allied Support Command from North Africa, and he became the American deputy commander in the newly consolidated Northwest African Tactical Air Force. Three months later, he was ordered back to the US to become the assistant chief of air staff for plans and combat operations at HQAAF in Washington DC, and later as General Henry H. Arnold's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, plans, in connection with the 20th Air Force and, as it moved into the Pacific Ocean Area, the 8th Air Force. These units later formed the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force, Pacific. In August 1943 and extending through February 1945, he participated in the series of combined chief of staff conferences at Quebec, Cairo and London. When General Arnold became suddenly and seriously ill, he was designated as his representative to attend the Yalta and Malta conferences. In February 1944 he was promoted to the rank of major general. In May 1945 he was assigned to the Marianas Islands to become deputy commander of Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Area, and to help operate the U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific. After the Japanese surrender, he was returning to the US when he was redirected back to the Pacific Theater, to assume command of the airlift forces as General Arnold's and General H.L. George's, personal representative in arranging the airlift of General MacArthur and Army forces into Japan. He then returned to the United States and consolidated three Air Transport Command divisions into the Atlantic Division, ATC, and served as its commander. While in this position, he represented the Air Force of the US-United Kingdom Bilateral Air Conference in Bermuda, and participated in negotiating an agreement with Portugal for U.S. Air Force use of Lajes Air Field in the Azores. In September 1946 he was appointed the US representative to the Interim Council of the Provisional International Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada. The following year, he was reappointed as the US Representative to the then permanent International Civil Aviation Organization. In his appointment he had the personal rank of minister. During this period of the birth of international agreements in aviation, he participated in major civil aviation conferences in London, Cairo, Lima and Rio de Janeiro. His experience led President Harry Truman to nominate him for the chairmanship of the Civil Aeronautics Board. The Senate committee refused to confirm the nomination of another military man to such position, and indicated that it would be necessary for him to resign from the military before accepting the position, which he refused to do and asked that his nomination be withdrawn. In February 1948 he was named commander designate of the proposed Military Air Transport Service (MATS, the forerunner of the Military Airlift Command), the first integrated military service. When MATS was activated four months later, he became its first commander, and proved its organizational soundness and its operational capability in its first six months of operations when its global resources were directed into the operation of the Berlin airlift. In April 1951 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and in October of that year was designated deputy chief of staff for personnel, Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Washington DC. In this position, he initiated actions in the Air Force and in cooperation with the personnel chiefs of the other services which culminated four years later in extensive legislation raising pay and otherwise increasing the desirability of a military service career. He held this position until April 1953 when he assumed command of the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. As its commander, he raised the status of the Air Command and Staff School to college level, the Squadron Officer's Course to school level, and brought the Air University closer to its original concept as a university with a university staff and faculty to handle all levels of professional military education in the U.S. Air Force. This concept has since been adopted by the Air Forces of several foreign countries. In May 1955 he was promoted to the rank of general and assumed the command of the Far East Air Forces, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. In July 1957 the Far East and Pacific Commands were consolidated under Pacific Air Forces and he became its first Commander-in-Chief. His final assignment was the Commander-in-Chief of North American Aerospace Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado and he retired in that position on 1 July 1962 with 35 years of active military service with the US Army, US Army Air Corps, and the US Air Force. Among his military awards and decorations include the Army Distinguished Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters and the Legion of Merit. He was a rated command pilot, combat observer, technical observer and aircraft observer, having logged more than 8,000 flying hours, including 3,200 hours as a command pilot. Before 1952 he had flown around the world seven times visiting Air Force installations. An avid collector and historian, he donated papers covering his entire military career to the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was the author of "An Airman at Yalta" (1955) and "The Great Gamble" (1973). He died at the age of 74. In 1990 he was inducted into the Airlift/Tanker Association Hall of Fame.