Haywood S. Hansell

Haywood S. Hansell, ca.1951

Haywood Shepherd Hansell Jr. (born September 28, 1903 in Fort Monroe , Virginia , † November 14, 1988 in Hilton Head , South Carolina ) was an American Air Force officer, most recently major general . During World War II he was one of the most influential planners in the United States Army Air Forces .

Life

Hansell was born the son of Army Doctor Haywood S. Hansell Sr. into a family with a long military tradition. In his childhood he learned the Chinese and Spanish languages because his father was stationed in China and the Philippines . In 1916 he entered the military academy in Sevanee as a cadet , but initially did not pursue his military career any further. In 1924 he graduated from the Georgia School of Technology with a bachelor's degree in engineering. He then tried unsuccessfully in California to find a job in his profession. In 1928 he joined the United States Army Air Corps and completed his aviation training at March Field , California and Kelly Field , Texas. In May 1929 he received his lieutenant license and joined the 2d Bombardment Group on Langley Field , Virginia. In 1930 he was transferred to Maxwell Field , Alabama, where he met Claire Lee Chennault and Harold L. George . In 1934/35 he attended the Air Corps Tactical School with the rank of 1st Lieutenant and was kept in the teaching staff after his graduation. He served from 1935 to 1938 in the Air Force Section of the Department of Air Tactic of the ACTS under George, Donald Wilson and Muir S. Fairchild and became a member of the so-called Bomber Mafia , a group of officers who advocated the doctrine of strategic bombing and later moved up to high positions.

In 1938/39 Hansell attended a course at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth and was then transferred as a newly promoted captain to the public relations department of the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps (OCAC) in Washington. In November 1939 he founded the Intelligence Section of the OCAC with Thomas D. White and was its first director until the summer of 1940. He then became head of the Operations Planning Branch before being sent to London as an observer to the Royal Air Force in the summer of 1941 . After his return, he came to the Air Staff's War Plans Division as head of the department responsible for Europe and was involved in drawing up the AWPD-1 war plan. After the United States entered the war , Hansell was promoted in quick succession and was Brigadier General in August 1942. In March 1942 he had been transferred to the Strategy and Policy Group, Operations Division of the War Department and served as the Army Air Forces representative on the Joint Strategy Committee. In July, at the request of Dwight D. Eisenhower, he was appointed head of the Air Section, ETOUSA, and served as deputy for Carl A. Spaatz , the commander in chief of the then still small Eighth Air Force . A little later he became commander of the 3rd Bomb Wing and in December 1942 of the 1st Bomb Wing of the Eighth Air Force.

Hansell at the briefing for an air raid on Tokyo, November 1944

In March 1943, Hansell was appointed head of the committee that should work out the plan for the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive . After that, he was on the staff of the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) and was selected for the post as its deputy in August 1943 after the formation of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force under the British Trafford Leigh-Mallory . In October 1943, however, he went back to Washington to work as a planner in the Joint Planning Staff of the Army Air Forces. After the Cairo Conference , he was named Deputy Chief of Air Staff, as which he worked directly under Henry H. Arnold . In this role he worked out plans for the use of B-29 long-range bombers against Japan from the Mariana Islands . From April 1944 he acted as chief of staff of the Twentieth Air Force set up for this purpose and temporarily represented Arnold as de facto commander after his heart attack in May. In August 1944 he took over the XXI stationed on the Mariana Islands . Bomber Command of the Twentieth Air Force. After lengthy arguments with his successor in Air Staff Lauris Norstad about the alleged lack of results of his favored precision attacks, he was deposed in January 1945 and replaced by Curtis E. LeMay . He then only served in subordinate positions. In December 1946, he retired from service due to his hearing loss.

After working in the private sector, Hansell was recalled to active duty in July 1951 and served at United States Air Force Headquarters and the Department of Defense. In 1952 he was promoted to major general. In 1955 he retired again. He then worked for General Electric in the Netherlands until 1966 , before devoting himself entirely to his writings and lectures on air war doctrine and history.

Fonts (selection)

• The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler , 1972
• Strategic Air War against Japan , 1980
• Strategic Air War against Germany and Japan: A Memoir , 1986 ( Online )

literature

• Charles R. Griffith: The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American strategic bombing in World War II. Air University Press, Maxwell AFB 1999, ISBN 978-1-4294-7231-9 .
• Heather Venable: Rescuing a General: General Haywood "Possum" Hansell and the Burden of Command . In: The Journal of Military History , Vol. 84, No. 2, April 2020, pp. 487-509.

Web links

• Short biography on the US Air Force website