Hoyt Vandenberg
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Image:Hoyt Vandenberg.jpg Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg (January 24, 1899–April 2, 1954) was an U.S. Air Force officer and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was briefly the U.S. Chief of Military Intelligence during World War II, but his primary duty was as commanding general of the Ninth Air Force, a tactical air force in England and in France, supporting the Army, from August 1944 until V-E Day. Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California is named for General Vandenberg.
The general was born at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from the United States Military Academy on June 12, 1923, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Service.
General Vandenberg graduated from the Air Service Flying School at Brooks Field, Texas, in February 1924, and from the Air Service Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field, Texas, in September 1924.
His first assignment was with the Third Attack Group at Kelly Field, where he assumed command of the 90th Attack Squadron. In 1927, he became an instructor at the Air Corps Primary Flying School at March Field, Calif. He went to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in May 1929, to join the Sixth Pursuit Squadron, and assumed command of it the following November.
Returning in September 1931, he was appointed a flying instructor at Randolph Field, Texas, and became a flight commander and deputy stage commander there in March 1933. He entered the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Ala., in August 1934, and graduated the following June. Two months later he enrolled in the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and completed the course in June 1936. He then became an instructor at the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, where he taught until September 1936, when he entered the Army War College.
After graduating from the War College in June 1939, General Vandenberg was assigned to the Plans Division in the Office of the Chief of Air Corps. A few months after the United States entered World War II, he became operations and training officer of the Air Staff. For his services in these two positions he received the Distinguished Service Medal.
In June 1943, General Vandenberg was assigned to the United Kingdom and assisted in the organization of the Air Forces in North Africa. While in Great Britain he was appointed chief of staff of the Twelfth Air Force, which he helped organize. On Feb. 18, 1943, General Vandenberg became chief of staff of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force and with this air force he flew on numerous missions over Tunisia, Italy, Sardinia, Sicily and Pantelleria during the North African campaign. He was awarded both the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his services during this time. For his organizational ability with the 12th Air Force and his work as chief of staff of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.
General Vandenberg, in August 1943, was assigned to Air Corps headquarters as deputy chief of air staff. In September 1943 he became head of an air mission to Russia, under Ambassador Harriman, and returned to the United States in January 1944.
In March 1944, He was transferred to the European theater, and in April 1944, was designated deputy air commander in chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces and commander of its American Air Component.
In August 1944, General Vandenberg assumed command of the Ninth Air Force. On Nov. 28, 1944, he received an oak leaf cluster to the Distinguished Service Medal for his part in planning the Normandy invasion.
He was appointed assistant chief of air staff at Air Corps headquarters in July 1945.
In January 1946, he became director of Intelligence on the War Department general staff where he served until his appointment in June 1945, as Director of Central Intelligence.
General Vandenberg returned to duty with the Air Corps in April 1947, and on June 15, 1947, became deputy commander and chief of air staff.
Following the division of the War Department into the Departments of The Army and The Air Force, Lieutenant General Vandenberg was designated vice chief of staff of the Air Force on Oct. 1, 1947, and promoted to the rank of General.
Even when he was at the pinnacle of his military career, General Vandenberg’s boyish good looks and outgoing personality often made him the target of attacks on his credibility and experience. But the attention that his appearance brought on wasn’t all bad, having appeared on the covers of TIME and LIFE magazine. The Washington Post once described him as “the most impossibly handsome man on the entire Washington scene,” and Marilyn Monroe once named Vandenberg, along with Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein, as one of the three people with whom she would want to be stranded on a deserted island.
On April 30, 1948, General Vandenberg became chief of staff of the Air Force, succeeding General Carl Spaatz. He was renominated by President Harry S. Truman for a second term as chief of staff March 6, 1952, to June 30, 1953, and the nomination was confirmed by the Senate on April 28, 1952.
A controversy while in the service came just before his retirement, when he opposed the Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson on a $5 billion budget reduction for the Air Force. General Vandenberg maintained that the cut backed by Wilson would reduce U.S. military aviation to a "one-shot Air Force" inferior to that of the Soviet Union. He said it was another instance of "start-stop" planning of a kind that had impeded Air Force development in previous years. The cut in appropriations went into effect in July 1953, immediately after his retirement.
A scratch golfer, General Vandeneberg spent every free moment on the course, but was also a lover of movies, Westerns, and scotch. Unfortunately, his last months in uniform were painful ones. General Vandenberg retired from active duty as a result of illness on June 30, 1953, and died nine months later at Walter Reed Army Medical center from prostate cancer at the age of 55 and was buried in Section 30 of Arlington National Cemetery.
His wife, Gladys Rose Vandenberg, started the concept of the "Arlington Ladies" while he was Air Force Chief of Staff. The program provides that a military lady of the appropriate service represents the service chief at all military funerals at Arlington. She was buried alongside her husband in Arlington National Cemetery upon her death on January 9, 1978. They are survived by their children, Gloria Miller, and Major General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Jr. (USAF, Ret.)
On October 4, 1958 the missile and aerospace base at Cooke AFB in Lompoc, California was renamed Vandenberg Air Force Base. In July of 1963, the instrument ship "General Hoyt S. Vandenberg" was dedicated at Cape Canaveral for duty on the missile and space range in the Atlantic.
General Vandenberg had been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters, Bronze Star, Victory Medal, American Campaign Ribbon, American Defense Ribbon and the European-African-Middle East Campaign Ribbon.
His foreign decorations include: Mexican Military Order of Merit; Netherlands Order of Orange Nassau (Grand Officer with Swords); Brazilian Cruz del Sol (Grand Officer), and Medal of War; Luxembourg Order of Adolph von Nassau (Grand Cross), and Croix de Guerre; Belgian Order of Leopold I (Grand Officer with Palms); and Croix de Guerre with Palms; British Order of the Bath (Knight Commanders Cross); Polish Order of Polish Restoration (2nd Class); Portuguese Ordem de Avis, Gra Cruiz; Egyptian L'Ordre Du Nil Grand Cordon; Chinese Order of Pao Ting (Tripod with Grand Cordon); Chilean Medallia Militar de Primerera Clase; Argentine General Staff Emblem and the Military Order of Italy.
The Manuscript Collection of Hoyt S. Vandenberg at the Library of Congress is currently (11/2005) CLASSIFIED i.e. no one is allowed to view the collection under any circumstances.
The previous is mostly from the United States Air Force (Public Domain); Edited by Staff Sergeant Cornelius Seon (Retired).
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