Nathan Bedford Forrest III
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Nathan Bedford Forrest III (April 7, 1905 - June 13, 1943) was a Brigadier General of the United States Army Air Forces, and a great-grandson of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Forrest was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Nathan Bedford Forrest II and Mattie Patterson (Patton). On November 22, 1930 he married Frances Brassler and had three daughters, making him the final male Forrest in his great-grandfather's direct line.
[edit] Military service
Forrest graduated from West Point in 1928 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the cavalry. In 1929 he transferred to the Air Corps and subsequently gained rank rather rapidly.
Promoted to Brigadier General in 1942, Forrest was serving as chief of staff of the Second Air Force when he was reported missing in action when his B-17 Flying Fortress, leading a bombing raid on the German submarine yards at Kiel, went down on June 13, 1943. The other members of the squadron reported seeing parachutes, and hoped that the General had survived. However, Forrest was found dead on September 23, 1943 when his body washed up near a seaplane base at Reugen Island in Germany. He was buried on September 28, 1943 in a small cemetery near Wiek. In 1947, two years after the war ended, his widow (who remarried after his death) requested that he be returned to the United States and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was exhumed and reburied in Section 11 at Arlington - coincidentally, on grounds once owned by Robert E. Lee, his great-grandfather's commanding officer - on November 15, 1949.
Forrest was the first American general to be killed in action during the war in Europe.
[edit] Dates of Rank
- February 4, 1934, First Lieutenant
- June 16, 1938, Captain
- January 31, 1941, Major
- January 5, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel
- March 1, 1942, Colonel
- November 2, 1942, Brigadier General
