Harold L. George

Harold L. George around 1945

Harold Lee George (born July 19, 1893 in Somerville , Massachusetts , † February 24, 1986 in Laguna Hills , California ) was an officer in the US Air Force, most recently Lieutenant General of the United States Army Air Forces . As chief instructor in strategy and tactics at the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1930s, chief of the Air War Plans Division in the early 1940s, and commander of the Air Transport Command during World War II , he laid the foundations for American strategic aerial warfare in many ways during that war .

Life

After attending high school, George originally planned to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , but failed because of the family's financial problems. Instead, he got a job with the Treasury Department in Washington, DC and was able to enroll on this basis in 1914 at the George Washington University Law School. During his studies he joined the US Army Officers Reserve Corps and received his patent as a second lieutenant in the cavalry in May 1917 . After several months of active service in Fort Myer , Virginia, he returned his patent and took an aeronautical course at Princeton University . In March 1918 he successfully completed his flight training at Love Field in Dallas and was transferred to the frontline of the First World War in France in September . After several weeks of indoctrination program at the 7th Aviation Instruction Center in Clermont-Ferrand , he joined the 163d Aero Squadron in Ourches-sur-Meuse , with whom he flew bombing missions on an Airco DH4 in the last weeks of the war .

After the war ended and his return to the United States, George resumed his employment with the Treasury and his studies at George Washington University, graduating from the latter in 1920. Previously, he had part-time in the office of the Supreme Court -Richters James C. McReynolds worked. He was then offered a career in business or the public sector, but George decided to return to the Air Force. He was first assigned to the 49th Bombardment Squadron and was promoted to First Lieutenant in the Regular Army in 1921 . In the same year he moved to the 14th Bombardment Squadron on Langley Field , Virginia, and took part in Billy Mitchell's experimental bombing raids on the German warships Ostfriesland and Frankfurt . From 1921 to 1925 he was stationed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground , where he tried out bombing tactics and new equipment. In August 1925, he took up a post as head of the Bombardment Branch of the War Department's Operations Division . In the same year he testified in favor of Mitchell at his trial before a military tribunal. In the Operations Division, in which he worked until 1929, George later served on influential people such as Carl A. Spaatz and Robert Olds .

From 1929 to 1931 George completed a Tour of Duty in Hawaii , where he was assigned to the 5th Composite Group. He then completed the one-year course at the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field , Alabama, and was then retained as an instructor in the teaching staff at the suggestion of his teacher Kenneth N. Walker . Until 1934 he was head of the Bombardment Section , after a reorganization he became head of the department for tactics and strategy. The credit is attributed to George and his colleagues (later somewhat derogatory as the Bomber Mafia ) for the theories of a strategic air war in a coherent, coherent manner on the capabilities of the US at the time, formulated by people like Giulio Douhet , Hugh Trenchard and Billy Mitchell - Having translated Air Force tailored doctrine .

The majors Harold L. George, Vincent L. Meloy and Caleb V. Haynes during a goodwill stay in Bogotá, Colombia, 1938

In the fall of 1936 George enrolled for the course at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth , which he graduated in 1937. He was then given command of the 49th Squadron of the 2d Bombardment Group on Langley Field. At the time, this was the only group equipped with the new Boeing B-17C . He stayed four years with the 2d Bombardment Group, which he commanded from 1940 with the last rank as Lieutenant Colonel . During this time he took part in goodwill flights to South America. After the German Polish campaign , in which many bombers on both sides had been shot down by fighter planes, he was interviewed by General Delos Emmons for a study that he was doing on behalf of Henry H. Arnold on the fighter-versus-bomber problem, and had to admit that the current US bomber fleet would not be able to hold its own against the US fighter fleet. This went against his earlier views as chief instructor at the Air Corps Tactical School and contributed to future bombers being much better armed defensively and equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks, automatic weapon stations and reinforced armor, among other things.

During the reorganization of the Air Force Command Organization in the summer of 1941, George was appointed Assistant Chief of Air Staff for War Plans , as which he served under Arnold and Spaatz. He got the Air Staff to be properly involved in formulating the 1941 Victory Plan and worked with staff members Laurence S. Kuter , Haywood S. Hansell and Kenneth N. Walker in just a week in the summer of 1941 to strategize Document AWPD-1 , which became part of the Victory Plan and laid down the US’s initial aerial warfare strategy in the event that the war entered the war. George was a proponent of the industrial web theory, according to which continued precision attacks against selected industrial targets would lead to the collapse of the enemy's war production within a few months and thus to the victorious end of the war. Many of the key points of AWPD-1 reappeared in later strategy documents, such as the focus on oil and transport targets and the reduction of enemy fighter pilot forces as an "intermediate target". On August 30, the plan was presented by George to Chief of Staff of the Army George C. Marshall , who recommended it to be forwarded directly to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson , thereby bypassing the Army and Navy Joint Board, from where he was likely to the Navy officials would have been rejected.

After the entry of the United States into World War II as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, George was first appointed as a representative of the Army Air Forces in the Joint Plans Committee . In March 1942 he took over the post of the sick Robert Olds as commander of the AAF Ferrying Command , which was renamed the Air Transport Command a little later . George himself would have preferred to lead a bomber command, but was convinced by Arnold and stayed at that post for the duration of the war. During this time the ATC grew from 11,000 to over 300,000 men. George's deputy was the most capable American Airlines President , Cyrus Rowlett Smith . George has received numerous domestic and foreign awards for his services in the war, including the Distinguished Service Medal , the Legion of Merit , the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal, as well as awards from Great Britain, France, Brazil, Peru and China. After the end of the war, George served for some time as Director of Information of the Army Air Forces, then as a representative of the Army Air Forces in the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations , before becoming Lieutenant General on December 31, 1946, conferred in March 1945 retired from active duty.

George subsequently worked for Hughes Aircraft (together with Ira C. Eaker ) . In the 1950s he moved to the newly established Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation . He had moved to Beverly Hills , California in 1948 , where he sat on the city council from 1952 and was twice elected mayor. In 1955, George was recalled to active duty as Special Advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force for a few months.

In 1934 George was co-founder and first "Wing Commander" of the Order of Daedalians , which has been awarding a prize named after him since 1956.

literature

• Haywood S. Hansell Jr .: Harold L. George, Apostle of Air Power , in: John L. Frisbee (Ed.): Makers of the United States Air Force. Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996, pp. 73-97 ( online ).

Web links

• Lieutenant General Harold L. George on af.mil

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hansell in Frisbee (ed.): Makers of the United States Air Force , p. 93 f.
2. ↑ Former Mayors on beverlyhills.org , accessed on July 2 2017th