Paul W. Airey

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Paul Wesley Airey

1st Chief Master Sergeant of Air Force (1967-1969)
Place of birth	New Bedford, Massachusetts
Allegiance	USAF
Years of service	27
Rank	Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force
Battles/wars	World War II Korean War
Awards	Legion of Merit

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Paul Wesley Airey (born 1923) was adviser to Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown and Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell on matters concerning welfare, effective utilization and progress of the enlisted members of the United States Air Force. He was the first Chief Master Sergeant appointed to this ultimate noncommissioned officer position and was selected from among 21 major command (MAJCOM) nominees to become the first Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force. He was formally installed by Gen McConnell on 3 April 1967.

The chief was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He entered military service after two years of high school in Quincy, Massachusetts, but later in his career obtained his high school equivalency certificate, and later completed 62 semester hours of study at McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois. While Chief Airey spent much of his 27-year career as a First Sergeant, during World War II he served as an aerial gunner on B-24 Liberator bombers and is credited with 28 combat missions in Europe.

In July 1944, while Airey was on his 28th combat mission flying above oil refineries on the outskirts of Vienna, his B-24 was hit by flak. The pilot ordered everyone out of the plane and Airey went straight out the camera hatch at 18,000 feet. When he landed on the ground, a group of farmers beat him until German soldiers and police arrived and took him to a local jail. He ended up at Stalag Luft IV, a German POW camp near the Baltic Sea. As Allied armies pushed farther into Nazi Germany, he and 6,000 fellow prisoners of war began a forced march of 400 miles to another camp near Berlin. He was liberated by British forces in May 1945.

During the Korean War, he was awarded the Legion of Merit while assigned to Naha Air Base, Okinawa. The award, an uncommon decoration for an enlisted airmen, was earned for creating a means of constructing equipment from salvaged parts that improved corrosion control of sensitive radio and radar components.