US Air Force General. He was the Commander-in Chief of the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) from 1961 to 1963 and is also remembered as the leader of a flight of unarmed B-17 Flying Fortress bomber aircraft whose arrival in Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941 coincided with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Born in Maryville, Missouri, he grew up in Carlinville, Illinois. After graduating from Carlinville High School in 1922, he attended Blackburn College there until 1924, when he received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1928 with a commission as a second lieutenant and received his pilot wings and observer training at Kelly Field (now part of Joint Base San Antonio), Texas. His first assignment was with the 3rd Attack Group at Fort Crockett, Texas. He then served as a flying instructor from 1932 to 1936 at Randolph Field (now part of Joint Base San Antonio) and with the 6th Bomb Group at France Field in the Panama Canal Zone from 1937 to 1939. As the commander of the 38th Reconnaissance Squadron from 1939 to 1942, he participated in the first mass flight of B-17s from Hamilton Field, California (now closed), to Hickam Field (now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam), Hawaii, on May 13, 1941. As a major, on December 7, 1941 while en route to the Philippine Islands with another flight of B-17 aircraft, he stumbled into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, low on fuel and without ammunition. For his evasive actions that day he received the Silver Star. During World War II he commanded the 7th Bomber Command in the Central Pacific as well as a Joint Task Group under US Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz. With the exception of a tour of duty with the Caribbean Air Command (now inactivated), his post-World War II assignments were divided between Headquarters US Air Force at Washington, DC and Germany. He served in the National Security Council Report-68 study group in 1949, which helped to shape US foreign policy in the Cold War for the next 20 years. From March 1951 until August 1953 he served as deputy commander-in-chief and chief of staff for USAFE at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany. In June 1956, he became the commander of the Caribbean Air Command at Albrook Air Force Base (now closed), Canal Zone, remaining there until August 1959. While in Washington DC he was the senior air instructor and later commandant of the Army and Navy Staff College. Other positions he served at Headquarters US Air Force include Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Inspector General, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. In June 1961 he was promoted to the rank of general and the following month he became the Commander-in-Chief of USAFE, retiring in that position on July 1, 1963, with 35 years of active military service in the US Airy Air Corps and US Air Force. Among his military decorations and awards beside the Silver Star include the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, the Air medal with two oak leaf clusters, the National Defense Service Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American campaign Medal, the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. He was a rated command pilot with over 7,800 flying hours. In January 1980 he received a Doctor of Laws Degree from Long Island University, New York. In the 1970 film "Tora! Tora! Tora!," that dramatized the story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was portrayed by actor Norman Alden. He died at the age of 80.