General Carl Andrew Spaatz is not well known by Americans today, yet he served as the senior air commander in the European theater after the United States entered World War II and masterminded the air strategy that helped defeat the Third Reich. A man of few words but strong convictions about the use of air power, he was also one of America’s most experienced military aviators.

Born in Boyertown, Pa., in June 1891, Spaatz graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1914 and was commissioned in the infantry. He served in Hawaii for a year as the white officer in charge of an infantry regiment of black soldiers. He then transferred to the Army Air Service in 1915 — a transfer that marked the beginning of a career that reached a high point during WWII and culminated in his appointment in 1948 as the first commander of the newly independent U.S. Air Force. Those interim years were filled with a wide variety of assignments that served as the ideal proving ground for the man who would eventually head the largest combat air force ever assembled and thus prove the indispensable influence of air power in modern warfare.

His last name was originally spelled Spatz, and most pronounced it’spats.’ That apparently bothered his wife and three daughters, who asked him to change the spelling to Spaatz (pronounced’spots’) by court order. He did so in 1938. While growing up he had acquired the nickname of ‘Boz,’ but that changed to ‘Toohey’ during his West Point days because of his striking resemblance to a redheaded upperclassman named F.J. Toohey. That nickname stayed with him for the rest of his life, though the spelling was later shortened to ‘Tooey’ by everyone who knew him.

Spaatz’s flying days began at the Army Air Service flying school at North Island, San Diego, Calif., in November 1915. He reportedly soloed after only 50 minutes of instruction. His first assignment after graduation the following May was at Columbus, N.M., with the 1st Aero Squadron, which helped General John J. Pershing try to chase down Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa in Mexico in 1916. The pursuit was an exercise in futility, as the squadron’s underpowered Curtiss JN-3 Jennies deteriorated during the mission, doing little except underline the sad state of American military aviation. But the time in Mexico was a valuable learning experience for Spaatz and the Air Service, as the United States entered the war against Germany in 1917. It served as a wake-up call for America that its ragtag air force was not ready for a war in the air anywhere.

Spaatz was sent to France as a major in September 1917 and put in charge of training pursuit pilots for combat at the Air Service’s largest in-theater advanced flying school, at Issoudun. He found a high rate of accidents there; living conditions were horrendous, morale low and discipline lacking. He became base commander and established different phases of flight training at 10 auxiliary fields in spite of the winter mud and construction difficulties.

Spaatz built up a vigorous flying program with 32 different types of aircraft, including 17 different models of the French Nieuport pursuit plane. He improved conditions to the point where he was able to put on an impressive 100-plane airshow for General Pershing and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker in the summer of 1918. Spaatz’s ability to overcome great obstacles caught the attention of his superiors, even though he always maintained an unpretentious low profile. His record showed that he was a ‘doer’ and a problem-solver who got results without fanfare. As a result, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Spaatz wanted practical combat experience before the war ended, and he managed to attach himself to the 13th Aero Squadron, flying French Spads at the front for two weeks. He went on several patrols and was officially credited with shooting down two German Fokkers in September 1918. After the second kill, he stayed too long in the battle area and, out of gas, had to crash-land his Spad in no man’s land. The plane was wrecked, but Spaatz, unhurt, was helped to safety by French civilians.

The Air Service organized the Transcontinental Reliability Endurance Flight in October 1919, and Spaatz won it flying west to east in a Curtiss SE-5. He spent the next two years rotating to peacetime assignments at San Diego, Fort Worth and San Francisco. In 1921 he was made commander of the 1st Pursuit Group at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas, the only pursuit unit in the Air Service at the time, followed by duty with subsequent units at Ellington Field, Texas, and Selfridge Field, Mich. Along the way, he learned how imperative it was for air leaders to be able to solve technical and personnel problems as well as develop tactical improvements. He graduated from the Air Service Tactical School at Langley Field, Va., where the role of pursuit aviation was emphasized.

The concept of an independent air force was a subject of much discussion among airmen after the end of World War I, along with the theory of strategic air warfare, whereby air units would attack an enemy’s vital military resources far behind the front lines. This was in conflict with the Navy’s concept of its responsibility for aerial defense of the nation’s coasts against invaders. The Army view was that aircraft were meant to back up its troops and not go far ahead of the battlefield to bomb rear area enemy targets such as armament factories, rail centers and airfields. To both services, an independent air force was totally out of the question.

The Air Service experience in Europe had proved otherwise to Brig. Gen. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell and others who believed that an air force should be separate from and co-equal to the Army and Navy. Spaatz agreed with Mitchell’s theories, helped him prepare his defense when he was accused of publicly criticizing superiors who had hindered the development of America’s air power, and also testified forthrightly on Mitchell’s behalf at his 1925 court-martial. He was tagged from then on as a courageous advocate of air power, along with future generals Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold, Ira Eaker, Jimmy Doolittle and others.

By this time the lean-jawed, red-haired Spaatz had also established himself among his contemporaries as a man who was gruff in manner, direct, unassuming yet ever mindful of the well-being of the men who served under him. Ira Eaker described his friend as ‘a miser with words’ who was fond of saying, ‘I never learned anything while talking.’ He had a knack for summarizing a viewpoint with sardonic, rhetorical questions that were quote-worthy and sometimes irreverent. At a battleship christening, he asked, ‘How are we going to get it up in the air and drop it on Tokyo?’ When he first heard about the plan to put men on the moon, he quipped, ‘Who’s the enemy on the moon?’ When he toured St. Peter’s cathedral after Rome was captured by the Allies in World War II, he commented that it ‘would make a fine dirigible hangar.’

In the 1920s, pursuit (later called fighter) aircraft were considered by many airmen to be the principal weapon of air warfare. Others believed that bombers could not be intercepted by short-range fighters, as was demonstrated by an air exercise at Wright Field, Ohio, in 1931. However, during maneuvers at Fort Knox, Ky., in 1933, Captain Claire Chennault — who later exercised his theories in China with the so-called Flying Tigers — showed that bombers could be attacked by fighters day and night at all altitudes.

Spaatz believed that bombers were the essential nucleus of an air force for eventual victory, while fighter aircraft could give front-line aid to ground troops. During the interwar period, Spaatz made many trips to McCook Field, in Dayton, Ohio, serving as a member of technical boards and committees. The experience served to broaden his view of the problems of building a viable, balanced air force. He found that the Navy as well as the ground-oriented Army branches would be persistent antagonists in the struggle for military appropriations for an independent air arm.

The Army Air Service (renamed the Army Air Corps in 1926) engaged in a running public relations battle with the Navy by setting aviation speed, altitude and endurance records that always garnered favorable publicity. One of these was the endurance mark set in 1923 by Captain Lowell H. Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter, who kept their de Havilland DH-4B aloft for more than 37 hours with aerial refueling. Not much more attention was paid to aerial refueling as a method of extending the range of aircraft until 1929, when Spaatz commanded a flight in the Fokker C-2A Question Mark with four other crew members. By aerial refueling they managed to keep the plane in the air for 150 hours and 40 minutes. During one part of the flight, Spaatz was splashed with fuel. His crew mates stripped him down and lathered him with zinc oxide to prevent burns, after which he told them that if he had to bail out, they were to continue the mission. In the end, he stayed aboard — ‘wearing only skin cream, goggles, a parachute and a grin,’ according to one historian.

Question Mark’s mission was considered a great achievement at the time. It demonstrated that bombers could take off with lighter loads of gas and heavier bombloads but could increase their range considerably by refueling in the air. However, nothing was done for many years to apply that capability to Air Corps operations.

It was a given in the 1920s that bombers were always slower than pursuit planes and had to be protected by them en route to and from target areas. But by the 1930s, the speeds of bombers and fighters were comparable, and it appeared that the bombers would soon exceed the ability of short-range fighters to escort them. If that developed, it was reasoned that bombers must be equipped to protect themselves. Spaatz testified before the Baker Board in 1934 that a choice for future bomber development had to be made: Design a long-range plane for bomber escort duty or provide more armament for bombers to protect themselves. The latter choice was adopted, and twin-engine bombers were developed with protective firepower, followed by a demand for four-engine bombers. The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator were to provide the answer. The primary use of such heavy bombers would be to destroy the economic fabric of an enemy nation by precision bombing of specific vital war industries.

While the Air Corps battled for appropriations, Spaatz developed a deeper friendship with contemporaries like Arnold, Eaker, Doolittle, Hoyt S. Vandenburg and others who shared his developing views about the employment of aircraft in warfare. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1935 and attended the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he encountered the doctrine that aircraft units were to be employed under Army control only as an auxiliary to the infantry, cavalry and artillery. Never fond of spending time in a classroom and not pleased with a curriculum that ignored the potential of air power, he graduated close to the bottom of the class, with the recommendation from the Army instructional staff that he not be considered for future staff assignments.

Air Corps personnel officers ignored that recommendation. His next assignment was to Langley Field, Va., for a 2 1/2-year tour with the 2nd Wing of the General Headquarters Air Force, organized as a separate combat arm within the Air Corps. This was the premier unit of bombers, pursuit and reconnaissance aircraft that was developing training, logistical and technical improvements as the basis for future operations. At that juncture the first Flying Fortresses were being delivered, and Spaatz was aboard the first one to land at Langley Field in 1937.

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