Frank Maxwell Andrews

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Frank Maxwell Andrews (February 3, 1884 – May 3, 1943) was one of the founding fathers of military aviation in the United States. In leadership positions within the Army Air Corps, he succeeded where predecessors and allies such as Billy Mitchell had failed. Andrews was the first head of an autonomous American air force and the first air officer to serve on the Army's general staff. In early 1943, he took the place of Dwight D. Eisenhower as commander of all U.S. troops in the European Theater of Operations. Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland is named after him, as well as Andrews Barracks (a kaserne in Berlin, Germany).

Contents 1 Early life and World War I 2 Work with the Army Air Corps 3 Later career, and World War II 4 Legacy 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life and World War I

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Andrews graduated from the city's Montgomery Bell Academy in 1901 and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in July 1902. The United States Army he joined upon graduating in 1906 was smaller than that of Bulgaria and beset with internal turmoil, but it gave the young second lieutenant ample opportunities to play polo, see the world (serving as a cavalry officer in the Philippines and Hawaii), and observe the high and low politics of leadership in an ossified organization. After marrying the high-spirited daughter of Maj. Gen. Henry Tureman Allen in 1914, Andrews gained entrée into elite social circles in Washington and within the military.

A story related in the press many times during Andrews' lifetime claimed that Gen. Allen forestalled aeronautical aspirations of his future son-in-law by declaring that no daughter of his would marry a flyer. Andrews' service records, however, show that his commanding officer in the Second Cavalry vetoed his application to shift to Army Signal Corps air duty in February 1914, a decision that held firm despite a plea from the Chief Signal Officer's for reconsideration by higher-ups.

Within a month after the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Andrews was transferred, over the objections of his cavalry commander, to the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps. After a short time in the office of the Aviation Section in Washington, D.C., Andrews went to Rockwell Field, California, in April 1918. There, he earned his aviator wings at the age of 34. Andrews never went overseas during the war. Instead, he commanded various airfields around the United States and served in the war plans division of the Army General Staff in Washington, D.C. Following the war, he replaced Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell as the air officer assigned to the Army of Occupation in Germany, which his father-in-law, Gen. Allen, commanded.

[edit] Work with the Army Air Corps

After returning to the United States in 1923, Andrews assumed command of Kelly Field, Texas, and he became the first commandant of the advanced flying school established there. In 1928, he attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, Virginia, and the following year he went to the Army Command and General School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Andrews served as the chief of the Army Air Corps' Training and Operations Division for a year before taking command of the 1st Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field, Michigan. After graduation from the Army War College in 1933, Andrews returned to the General Staff in 1934.

In March 1935, Andrews took command of the newly formed General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force, which consolidated all the Army Air Corps' tactical units under a single commander. The Army promoted Andrews to brigadier general (temporary) and to major general (temporary) less than a year later. Under his command, GHQ Air Force started the development of air power that became the mighty US Army Air Force.

A vocal proponent of the four-engine heavy bomber, General Andrews advocated the purchase of the Boeing B-17 in large numbers. The Army General Staff disagreed with Andrews, believing it better to purchase a large number of twin-engine light and medium bombers like the Douglas B-18 than a small number of four-engine heavy bombers. However, the war in Europe would soon prove Andrews correct.

[edit] Later career, and World War II

Andrews became a trusted air adviser to a rising officer in the Army bureaucracy, George C. Marshall, but he pushed too hard for the taste of more senior authorities. In March 1939, at the end of Andrews’ term at GHQ, he was reduced in rank, exiled to a remote air base and expected to retire. Instead, he chose to bide his time. After President Roosevelt named Marshall in July 1939 to serve as Chief of Staff, Marshall's first senior staff selection was Andrews — a decision that prompted furious opposition from the Secretary of War and others, over which Marshall prevailed only after threatening to resign his new post. As Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training (G-3), he was in charge of readying the entire Army in the run-up to America’s inevitable involvement in the war.

In 1940, Andrews assumed control of the Army's Panama Air Force, and in 1941, he became commander of the Caribbean Defense Command, which had the critically important duty during World War II of defending the southern approaches to the United States, including the vital Panama Canal. In 1942, General Andrews went to North Africa, where he spent three months in command of all United States forces in the Middle East from a base in Cairo.

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Lieut. Gen. Andrews was appointed commander of all United States forces in the European Theater of Operations. In his memoirs, Gen Henry H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces in World War II, expressed the belief that Andrews would have been given the command of the Allied invasion of Europe — the position that eventually went to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gen. Marshall would say, late in life, that Andrews was the only general he had a chance to groom for a possible Supreme Allied Command later in the war.

However, on May 3, 1943, the B-24 carrying Andrews on an inspection tour crashed while attempting to land at the Royal Air Force Base at Kaldadarnes, Iceland. Andrews and thirteen others died in the crash; only the tail gunner survived. Andrews was the highest-ranking Allied officer to die in the line of duty to that point in the war.

Andrews is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

[edit] Legacy

Andrews Air Force Base, located a few miles southeast of Washington, D.C. and the home base of Air Force One, is named in honor of Andrews. Another base named for him, Andrews Field, in Essex England was the first airfield constructed in 1943 by army engineers in the United Kingdom during World War II. It was used by the USAAF 96th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and the 322nd Bombardment Group (Medium) during the war, and also by several RAF squadrons before being closed in 1946. Today, a small part of the former wartime airfield is still in use as a small private flying facility.

Andrews Field was notable as having been the only named US airfield in the United Kingdom during World War II.

[edit] References

• Biography from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base museum. Public domain. [1]
• Andrews' pre-World War I personnel file: File #1139074, Record Group 94, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
• Larry I. Bland, ed., George C. Marshall Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue (Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Research Foundation, 1991), pp. 510, 582.

[edit] External links

• Biographical pamphlet by DeWitt C. Copp
• Frank Maxwell Andrews' Gravesite