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Frank Maxwell Andrews

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Frank Maxwell Andrews

Frank Maxwell Andrews (February 3, 1884 – May 3, 1943) was a senior officer of the United States Army and one of the founders of the United States Army Air Forces, which was later to become the United States Air Force. In leadership positions within the Army Air Corps, he succeeded in advancing progress toward a separate and independent Air Force where predecessors and allies such as Billy Mitchell had failed. Andrews was the first head of a centralized American air force and the first air officer to serve on the Army's general staff. In early 1943, he took the place of General Dwight D. Eisenhower as commander of all U.S. troops in the European Theater of Operations.

Andrews was killed in an airplane accident during an inspection tour in Iceland in 1943. He was the first of four lieutenant generals in the U.S. Army to die during the war, the others being Lesley J. McNair, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. and Millard Harmon. Joint Base Andrews in Maryland (formerly Andrews Air Force Base) is named after him, as well as Andrews Barracks (a kaserne in Berlin, Germany), Frank Andrews Boulevard at Alexandria International Airport (the former England Air Force Base), in Louisiana, General Andrews Airport (demolished) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Andrews Engineering Building Eglin Air Force Base, Andrews Avenue in Pasay, Philippines and Andrews Theater at Keflavík Naval Base, Iceland, among others.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Andrews was the grandson of a cavalry soldier who fought alongside Nathan Bedford Forrest and the great-great-nephew of two Tennessee governors, John C. Brown and Neill S. Brown. He graduated from the city's Montgomery Bell Academy in 1901 and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1906.

Andrews graduated 42nd in his class and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 8th Cavalry on June 12, 1906, assigned to the Philippines from October 1906 to May 1907, and then to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. In 1912, he was promoted to an available billet as a first lieutenant in the 2nd Cavalry, at Fort Bliss, Texas, and in 1916 received a promotion to captain in the regiment while at Plattsburgh Barracks, New York.

The United States Army he joined was smaller than that of Bulgaria, but it gave the young second lieutenant ample opportunities to play polo, see the world (serving as aide-de-camp to General Montgomery M. Macomb in Hawaii between 1911 and 1913), and observe the high and low politics of leadership. After marrying Jeannette "Johnny" Allen, the high-spirited daughter of Major General Henry Tureman Allen, in 1914, Andrews gained entrée into elite inner circles of Washington society and within the military. They were the parents of three children: Josephine (1914–1977), Allen (1917–2008), and Jean (b. 1923).

A story related in the press many times during Andrews' lifetime claimed that General Allen forestalled the 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 for temporary aeronautical duty with the Army Signal Corps in February 1914, a decision that held firm despite a plea from the Chief Signal Officer's for reconsideration by higher-ups.

After the United States entered World War I, Andrews was promoted to temporary major on August 5, 1917, and assigned over the objections of his cavalry commander to the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps as part of its wartime expansion. After staff duty in Washington, D.C. in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer between September 26, 1917, and April 25, 1918, Andrews went to Rockwell Field, California, for flying training. There, he earned a rating of Junior Military Aviator at the age of 34. As with nearly all mid-career officers detailed to the Aviation Section, Andrews did not serve in France but as an administrator in the huge training establishment created to provide pilots. He commanded various training airfields in Texas and Florida and served in the war plans division of the Army General Staff in Washington, D.C. Following the war, he replaced Brigadier General Billy Mitchell as Air Officer of the Army of Occupation in Germany, which his father-in-law, General Allen, commanded. While in Germany, Andrews received his permanent establishment promotion to major, Cavalry, when the National Defense Act of 1920 took effect on July 1, and then transferred in grade to the Air Service, which the Act had made a combat arm of the Army, on August 6.

After returning to the United States in 1923, Andrews again assumed command of Kelly Field, Texas, and he became the first commandant of the advanced flying school established there. In 1927, he attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, Virginia, and the following year he went to the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Andrews served as the chief of the Army Air Corps' Training and Operations Division in 1930–1931 before being replaced by the new Chief of the Air Corps, Major General Benjamin D. Foulois. He then commanded 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.

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