Bernard A. Schriever: The Forgotten General

United States’ Air Force General Bernard A. Schriever was one of the most influential Air Force officials in the proud history of America’s youngest Armed Service. His contributions to the development of the US Air Force rival that of the legendary Hap Arnold or the enigmatic Curtis LeMay. Today, Bennie, as his friends and family called him, is most recognized for his contribution to the development of the Air Force’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) force. Thus he is known as the father of America’s ICBM force. But he was more than an ICBM proponent. He saw the opportunity rockets presented, not only to the armed services, but to the general public. In line with this vision, Schriever put his immense energy and intelligence into the development of an infant America’s space program.

Bennie was born in Bremen, Germany on the afternoon of September 14th 1910. Early on his life, young Schriever was fascinated, as many boys of his time, by the sight of the massive German Zeppelins passing overhead on their way to strike Great Britain. He felt in love with aviation. A love he would come back to later in his life. He came to the United States in January 1917. His father, an engineer on a German commercial ship, was interned on the US in 1916, thus Bernard mother took his young children (Bennie had a brother) to America. Soon after arriving, the Schrievers moved to Texas. In 1923, young Bernard became a naturalized citizen. After high school, he went to Texas A&M and in 1930, Bennie graduated at near the top of his class. In 1931 he entered the Army as a 2nd Lieutenant on the Army’s coveted Field Artillery Division. It was late in 1931 when Bennie re-discovered his passion for flying. In 1932 he became an aviation cadet, providing to graduate from Kelly Field on June 1933. His first assignment was flying Keystone BE-4 and Martin B-10 medium bombers from March Field. The commander of the air wing was a young Lieutenant Colonel henry H. Arnold. In 1934, Bernard was assigned the air mail route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Cheyenne. The next year he was reassigned to the Civilian Conservation Corps, a reserve status assignment, out of New Mexico. In 1936, Bernard was called to active duty and send to Albrook Field in Panama. There he flew Boeing’s venerable P-12. The flying came to a halt in 1937, when Army budgetary cuts forced the service to decommissioned bases and personnel. As a result, Schriever was forced to become a civilian for the second time in his life. In the summer of 1937, he entered the civilian aviation sector and began flying for Northwest Airlines. His life as an airline pilot lasted almost a year. In October 1938, young Bernard won a major aviation competition granting him an officer slot.

After reenlisting in the Army for the third time, Bernard was sent to Hamilton Field for pilot training. After Hamilton, he was transferred to Wright Field where he assumed test pilot duties. In June 1941, he proceeded to graduate from the prestigious Army Air Corps Engineer School. He followed this accomplishment with a Master Degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. Young Schriever went on to participate in World War II. He flew B-17s, B-25s and C-47s in the Pacific Theater. His actions in combat earned him the coveted position of Engineering Officer in General George C. Kennedy staff. Kennedy was the head of the Fifth Air Force and he took Bernard to every front in the Pacific to gather information about the enemy’s aircraft and systems. On one occasion, in 1943, the now Colonel Schriever was assigned by Kennedy to be at the Manila airport while the Americans where fighting for the Philippines. After the war, General Hap Arnold promptly recognized Bernard’s engineering and management skills and he appointed Bennie Chief Scientific Liaison Section and Deputy Chief of Staff, Material Division. It was there that Bernard would encounter some of the most forward thinking minds in the US Armed forces. His first order was the development of the ICBM concept. A task he took with great pride and joy. He worked tenaciously with scientific luminaries such as John von Neumann, Simon Ramo and Trevor Gardner. On August 2nd 1954, Bernard officially took command of the Western Development Division at Inglewood, California. It was at Inglewood where Schriever merged his scientific, management and industrial skills to form a program which eventually would surpass the scope of the Manhattan Project in force size, budgetary discretions and importance. By the early 1950s, the development of an offensive ICBM force to deter the emerging Soviet missile arsenal; was the Nation’s primary priority.

On October 4th, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. The successful launch by the USSR of the world’s first artificial space satellite put the US ICBM’s effort on a war-type footing. Because of the unexpected Soviet success, the US government gave Schriever’s team an unprecedented amount of liberty regarding human recruitment, technological advances and testing and budgetary constrains. Because of the lifting of those restrictions, Bernard and his team of scientist were able to produce an impressive result. During a period of eight years, the Schriever’s team produced three fully operational ICBM systems, each more advance and accurate than the other. Atlas, Titan and the famous Minuteman as well as the Thor Intermediate Ballistic Missile. Aside from the military implications of his project, Bernard’s achievements were used on the exploration of space. Where his integrated navigational systems were put in lace on civilian satellites platforms.

In 1998, now General Bernard A. Schriever had the uncanny distinction of having an US Air Force facility named after him while he was still alive. He would last seven more years. On June 20th 2005, the pioneer from Bremen, Germany passed away, he was 94 years old. A true pioneer, Bennie is seldom mentioned on the mainstream media these days, but his contributions to the US military as well as to the civilian population its serves paved the way for the development of systems that we still employ today. A remainder of the greatness of General Schriever’s vision and his dedication to his country.

- Raul Colon

More Information:
wikipedia: Bernard Adolph Schriever
Astronautics Now
General Bernard A. Schriever
The Space Review
Air Force Link
Arlington National Cemetery Website

The First One: General Benjamin Delahauf Foulois

In the historied life of the United States Air Force there’s had been a few officers who had stood up. A few, whom their contribution had shaken the very foundation of the service they represent. Much of them are relative household figures. Names such as Hap Arnold or LeMay are widely known in circles outside the military establishment. But for every Arnold or LeMay, there’s a Foulois. A brilliant and innovating pioneer, what Foulois lack in name recognition, he had in the admiration of the service he dedicated his life to improve.

Benjamin Delahauf Foulois was born on a small Connecticut town on the 9th of December 1879. He attended public school until he began his “pluming” career along with his father. He quickly realized that pluming was not in his future an in 1898, young Foulois enlisted in the First US Volunteer Engineers. He went on to serve in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American conflict. He took himself out of the volunteer corps and reenlisted on the regular Army the following year. Later on 1899, he saw combat action on the Philippines where he was assigned to mapping the island of Mindanao. After the Philippines, Foulois went on to attend the prestigious Army’s Infantry/Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In the mid 1900s he participated in operations with the Army of Cuban Pacification. After his service there, he enrolled at the Signal School. It was at the school that he first felt in love with the idea of flying. He commenced to study technics and technical data relating to this new and exiting field. Following his stay there, young Foulois was assigned to the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington, DC.

By the mid 1909, the now second lieutenant, piloted the Army’s first operational ready dirigible. He was also one of the first officers to be introduced to Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Flyer. In fact, he was Orville’s passenger during the Flyer’s last test flight at Fort Myer flying at nearly forty miles per hour. He had the distinction of being the only US Army pilot active between 1909 trough 1911. In 1910, he took the Army’s only available airplane, Signal Aeroplane No I, to San Francisco where he taught himself to fly, mostly by crashing. He corresponded frequently with the by now famous Brothers stating his flying experiences and suggestions. By 1914, Foulois, now a captain, took overall command of the Army’s first fully operational flying squadron, the First Aero Squadron based at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The new squadron was equipped with the newest Curtiss plane, the JN2 biplane. They first saw action during General John J. Perishing’s Mexican Punitive Expedition in March 1916. Although the overall perception of the aerial component of the Expedition, was that of a failure, Foulois and his team did gained value experience, specialty on the logistic aspect of aviation.

The next conflict America would enter, the Great War, found the now major Foulois in command of the Joint Army and navy Technical Committee. It was in this post that the young major first learned how to craft and manage a military procurement budget. The office he headed dealt with the development of the aircraft as a military weapons platform on a large scale. There, Foulois prepared a detailed $ 640 million budget, an massive figure at the time; which eventually passed both houses of congress. A major achievement and one that would give him much satisfaction during the rest of his life. During the dreadful years of the War to end All Wars, Foulois was temporarily promoted to Brigadier General and proceeded to serve in several aviation post across Europe. He first was named Chief of Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, later on he was reassigned to Assistant Chief of the Air Service, Service Supply Division where he put in play the input gather during the Mexican Expedition. He even helped craft some of the air aspects of the Treaty of Versailles.

After his war tour, Foulois returned to Fort Leavenworth with the now permanent rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was briefly assigned base commander of the Mitchel Field in New York. In 1927, Foulois was promoted once again, this time to brigadier general and appointed Assistant Chief of the Air Corps. It was there that the enigmatic Foulois would make an enduring mark. During the May 1931 Air Coast Defense Exercises, Foulois employed all of the Air Corps’ airborne assets in a series of logistic and tactical trials that provided the ground work for the Army Air Corps’ World War II strategy. The success of the exercises earned him another star for his uniform and the promotion to the coveted Chief of the Air Corps post. He once again, had the distinction of being a trailblazer because he was the first Chief who was actually a combat aviator. While acting as Chief, Foulois re-organized the curriculum of the Air Corps’ Tactical School as well laying the groundwork for the eventual establishment of an independent office dedicated to tactical and strategic thinking. The office would be later known as the General Headquarters Air Force. He also drove the Air Corps to expend more time and effort in the development and eventual deployment of advance air platforms. The XB-15 and B-17 programs were a direct result of this effort.

As his star was rising, an incident occurred that dampened Foulois’ reputation for years. In the winter of 1933-34, contract difficulties caused the nation’s air mail delivery service to be suspended. Immediately, Foulois offered the government his Air Corps. As the spring moved in, the Army Air Corps began to assume regular mail delivery duties, but the Corps, not trained for this sort of profile, began to crumble under the stress of the operation. Regular casualties began to mount. During the spring’s months, 66 air crashed occurred, mostly due to poor weather patterns, insufficient mission training and the introduction of nigh flying, killing twelve men and injuring fifty more. As the Corps began to adjust to the realities of in-country flying, the crashes and for that matter, casualties commenced to drop. By the summer, the Corps mail operations ran almost without incidents. Nevertheless, the whole affair became a public humiliation for the Corps and its leader. The incident, which would be known as the Mail Fiasco tarnished the Air Corps leadership image with the public for a generation.

Exhausted, Foulois finally retire from the Army Air Force on January 1st 1936, following thirty seven years of frontline service. In 1956 he became the president of the Air Force Historical Foundation. A post he would serve until 1965. Two years later, on April 25th 1967, Benjamin Foulois passed away. The passing of this great visionary and pioneer was remembered by the Air Force in a quiet ceremony. Today, Foulois’ vision remains the core of the US Air Force’s main logistic strategy. A tribute by itself to the vision Foulois inserted into the Air Corps in the early 1930s.@

- Raul Colon

More Information:
wikipedia: Bernard Adolph Schriever
Astronautics Now
General Bernard A. Schriever
The Space Review
Air Force Link
Arlington National Cemetery Website

Israeli Incursion into Lebanon

During its brief history as a nation, Israel had fought many of the most savage battles in history. In all, although some at great cost, they had defeated its enemies. One of those brutal battles occurred in the summer of 1982. During most of the 1980s, the state of Lebanon was marred in a bloody civil war. Aside the parties involved in that civil war, Lebanon was the host of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a group dedicated to the creation of a Palestinian state on what is now Israel. To accomplish that lofty goal, the PLO employed terroristic tactics. During most of the early months of 1982, PLO guerillas attacked Israeli settlements inside Israel northern border. As the attacks mounted, they were heavy pressured inside the Israeli political and military establishment to respond in force to the attacks.

As the political leaders debated inside Israel, Syria decided to move its forces inside the Lebanon in order to achieve power via a proxy government. The Syrian incursion in Lebanon activated the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) which responded in kind to the attack. By June, the IDF Air Force component fought some of the most brutal air battles in the annals of military history. On June 4th 1982, a group of IDF’s F-4 Phantoms and A-4 Skyhawks streaked over Beirut and proceeded to bomb suspected PLO camps inside Lebanon’s capital. The attack lasted almost 90 minutes without much anti-aircraft fire. But the next attack envelop, which was assigned to attack PLO targets near Beirut’s coastline, did encountered heavy anti aircraft fire. During the attack an IDF’s A-4 Phantom, piloted by Aharon Ahiaz, and was downed by a Soviet-built SA7 shoulder fire missile.

IAI Kfirs of 101 Squadron. (photo, via author)

Meanwhile, the Syrian air force showed up in force on the afternoon of June 7th with a squadron of Mig-21 Fishbeds. The IDF, flying the advance F-16 Falcons, did not have any trouble downing two of the Syrian Migs. At the same time, the IDF ground forces element began to airlift heavy equipment into the mountains southeast of the Lebanese capital. The incursion of this heavy Israeli troop element directly threatened the Syrian position in the all important Bekaa Valley. The Syrians wasted no time in attacking, with Gazelles helicopters gunships, attacking the newly established Israeli position to no avail. The surprising Syrian air response and sub sequential attack put the Israeli war plan in a state of flux. Israeli military leaders now realized that in order to wipeout most of the PLO camps, they needed to neutralize the Syrian threat. By Jun 4th, Syria had placed 19 surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries along the Valley.

On the morning of June 9th, the IDF launched a massive air strike aimed at those SAMs sites. With an air envelope of 90 aircraft, including A-4 and F-4 armed with the advance AGM65 Maverick and Anti-Radiation missiles the IDF destroyed completely fifteen sites and seriously damaged two more. As the same time the Phantoms and Skyhawks were striking the SAM sites, IDF’s F-16 and F-15 Eagles were destroying the bulk of the Syrian air force. In just 60 minutes, F-15s and 16s destroyed 22 Migs 21s and 23s, and severely damaged seven more. Israeli air dominance over Syria was now completed.

A pair of IDF/AF F-15 Eagles. (photo, via author)

When the battle ended, the IDF claimed forty downed Mig 21s and 23s. More impressive is the fact that only 37 F-15 downed such a high number of enemy aircraft. Meanwhile, 72 IDF’s F-16 Falcons downed forty four Syrian Migs. The overall size of the Israeli Air Force rout of its Syrian counter part put an end to any Arab state intention of militarily destroying the Jewish state for the foreseeable future.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Modern Military Aircraft in Combat, Editor Robert Jackson, Amber Books 2008
Air Power: The Men, Machines,…, Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Books 2004

The Nazi’s Inter Continental Ballistic Missile

When Adolf Hitler plunged Germany into the Second Word War he envisioned a short raging contest. Never in his dream had he envisioned a prolonged and straining four year struggle, but by 1942 he was exactly in the middle of his “struggle”. In order to chance the tide of the war, the German leader ordered the design and development of very advance weapon systems. By this time, many civilian initiated, dual-purposes projects were underway in Germany. Chief among them were the V (for Vengeance) weapons platforms. The first of those systems, the V-1 or “Buzz Bomb” was able to bring terror into the heart of London. The V-1, which was essentially the first rudimentary cruise missile, was easy to design and built in large quantities. Next in line came the famous V-2 rocket. There were several variants of this impressive missile system. The more impressive one was the forth generation variant known simply as the A4 rocket. The A4 was the first truly military-controlled missile developed system. In short, the A4 was the world’s first ballistic missile. It was 46′-0″ en length with a circular diameter of 5′-5″. On the base of the rocket, four fins, with a span of 11′-8″ gave stability to the platform. Prior to fueling, the A4 weight it at 8818 lbs. The A4 was able to carry an impressive 1654 lbs warhead. Fully loaded, the rocket weight it at 28440 lbs. The fuel use to power this massive rocket was a combination of alcohol and liquid oxygen that consume itself at a rate of 280 pound per second. This rate of consumption gave the A4 only 65 seconds of power flight. But by the time its fuel had ran out, the A4 was traveling faster than the speed of sound. Operational range for this rocket was an astonishing 220 miles.

The first A4 was launched on the morning of June 13th 1942 from test Stand Number 7 at Germany’s main rocket research facility on Peenemunde. The launch, which was viewed by the Luftwaffe top brass, was successfully. The rocket cleared the launching tower without any problems. If the liftoff was successful, the flight trajectory was not. After reaching the dense cloud formation above the Baltic coast, the rocket exploded in an impressive manner. Nevertheless, the test had proven the feasibility of the A4′s design. Further test were made and, on the afternoon of October 3rd 1942, the A4 made its first successfully launch and flight. The rocket achieved an altitude of nearly 50 miles above Earth and landed more than 120 miles outside the Test Stand area. After less than ten test sets, the A4 was deemed operational by the Nazis and on September 6th 1944, two of these extraordinary rockets were fired at Paris. Within a matter of days, A4s were been fired at London and the important Belgian port city of Antwerp. It is believed that in the later stages of the war, Germany developed over 5,000 V2-class weapons, firing above 1,000 of them towards the English capital.

Artist’s impression of the A9. (photo, via author)

As a weapon of terror, the A4 had its use, but it was far too rudimentary to affect positions on the strategic battlefield. A new kind of missiles was needed. Range and payload became Germany’s obsession when it came to its rocket program. Thus the development of Germany’s next ballistic rocket was centered on those two factors. The new A9 missile was basically a winged version of the current A4 platform. Engineers at Peenemunde found that once a rocket reached its top altitude and exhausted its fuel, it will plummet toward the ground with out many in-flight corrections. But, adding wings to a streamline body will enable the A9 to “glide” to its intended target area. Beside a flight pattern correction, the installation of wings on the bottoms of the missile will give the rocket a much better opportunity to explode above its target instead plummeting hard to the ground as the A4 did. When a missile hit hard the ground, the proceeding explosion is mostly absorbed by it. If the missile could glide to its target instead of plummeting on it, it would hit it more softly causing a bigger explosion effect. When conceived, the A9 blue prints closely resemble that of the A4. It had basically the same frame length and diameter dimensions. The idea of adding the wings, first proposed by designer Kurt Patt during the A4 program; was first viewed as too radical for the A9′s engineers, but as the program progressed, those wing structures were viewed as stabilizing and controlling mechanism. Beside the controlling aspects of the wings, designers estimated that these structures could actually double the rocket’s operational range. As promising as the A9 program was, it was not one of Germany’s top projects until the Allied landings on Normandy. With the Allied armies in northern Europe, London was now out of the A4 range. Thus on the summer of 1944, the German High Command ordered the A9 to full production status despite the fact that the rocket’s new engine system was not fully tested. Clinging to the faint hope of knocking the British out of the war, Hitler ordered massive A4 and 9 attacks on London and its nearby cities and towns. The decision of the Fuehrer basically ended any hope German had of developing a real Inter Continental Ballistic Missile.

On July 1941, Field Marshall Walther von Brauchitsch, Germany’s Army Commander in Chief, suggested to Hitler and the Nazi top brass that the developing of a functional and advance rocket program would give a moral boots to the German people. He also, vaguely, mentioned that Germany should place resources into developing a missile capable of reaching the United States. There are some rumors that Peenemunde’s to secret Projects Office commenced designing a missile capable of achieving long distances. The project, which some had called the “American Rocket” it was rumored to had began in late 1940. The American Rocket was the brainchild of Ludwig Roth, a brilliant, yet obscure German designer; who began looking at the feasibility of installing an A9 missile on top of a massive booster rocket. The concept, now designated A10, was deemed to technically challenge by most German engineers. The A10 program was called off soon after. If developed, Roth’s massive rocket would have an engine capable of giving it almost 200 pounds of thrust for around sixty seconds this would had enable the mounting A9 rocket to reach an altitude of 35 miles. It was estimated the returning A9 could have cover a range of 2,500 miles in just thirty five minutes.

After the A10 program was terminated, there were discussions of developing a manned version of the A9 system. Engineers believed that a manned rocket would have solved the main problem of guiding the rocket to its target. There were even “talk” that a manned A9 with an A10 booster can actually hit small targets such as the Empire State Building. The idea was that once the A9 was in clear sight of its target, the pilot would have bailed out and the rocket would have self-guided to the intended area. Although the project looked promising on the drawing board, it never made it out of it. In fact, all work relating to the A10 booster rocket was terminated in the spring of 1944. Work on the winged A9 proceeded at much slower peace. The A9 project was cancelled in the autumn of 1944 because of material and fuel shortages. Although halted, the A9 and A10 projects did provide Germany with the necessary data from which to further develop its operational missile, the A4. A winged version of the A4 with a new and improved propulsion system, code named A4b, was developed. Unfortunately for Germany, the Red Army was closing fast on Peenemunde and all work related to this program was hastily suspended in late 1944.

If Nazi Germany would had employed the resources needed to configuration A10 booster with an A9 rocket, there is little question that Hitler would have had the world’s first true Inter Continental Ballistic Missile. The extent of German research and development of a true ICBM can better be explained by Wernher von Braun, the brilliant German scientist who led the American effort to reach the moon. When interrogated after the war, von Braun explained that German engineers were commencing the design of a new booster rocket, code named the A10, which would have been a three stage, extremely long range ballistic missile. In fact, he described the A10 as the first moon rocket, meaning that it was intended to get the A9 missile over Earth’s atmosphere. How close Nazi Germany came to actually develop a workable ICBM is anybody’s guess, but the sheer volumes of data clearly point to a massive German effort to develop such a weapon. One could guess that if Hitler and his staff had pressed the rocket program early on the war, what could that program have delivered?

- Raul Colon

References:
Secrets Weapons of World War II, William B. Breuer, John Wiley & Sons, New York 2000
The Air War in Europe, Ronald Bailey, Time-Life Books, Chicago 1981
Top Secret Tales of World War II, Patrick Buchanan, John Wiley & Sons, New York 2000
German Secret Weapons: A Blue Print for Mars, Brian Ford, Ballantine Books, New York 1969