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This Remembrance Profile was originally created by CMSgt Don Skinner - Deceased
Contact Info
Home Town Miami, IN
Last Address Orlando, Florida
Date of Passing Jul 03, 1982
Location of Interment Greenwood Cemetery - Clarksville, Tennessee
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William Ellsworth Kepner was born in Miami, Indiana on January 6, 1893.
At the age of 16, in 1909, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps where he served until 1913. By then, he was also a 2nd Lieutenant in the Indiana National Guard. He served with the 28th Infantry Division in 1917 on the Mexican Border, and then was commissioned into the U.S. Cavalry.
In 1920, he entered the Air Service as a Captain. He qualified as a balloon observer and dirigible pilot. Kepner attended several service schools, including locations in California, Virginia, and New Jersey. In the period 1927-1929, he participated in at least four national and international balloon races. In October, 1930, he was promoted to Major and assigned to Wright Filed, Illinois as chief of Material Division's Lighter then Air Branch.
At March Field, California and Kelly Field, Texas, Kepner learned to fly conventional aircraft in the years 1931-32. He then became the chief of Purchases Branch at Wright Field and participated in more balloon races. In 1934, he was assigned to Rapid City, South Dakota as a pilot and also as commander of the Army Air Corps Stratosphere Flight. It was during this time that he accompanied Major Ira Eaker in his record-setting instrument only experimental flight across the U.S. - a distance of 2,700 miles.
In 1937, Kepner attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon graduation, he was assigned to Langley Field, Virginia as commander of the 8th Pursuit Group. He oversaw all aviation defenses at the Fort Bragg maneuvers of 1938. In 1939, he received a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.
The year 1940 saw Kepner assigned as the Executive Officer of the Air Defense Command, where he received a promotion to Colonel. In two years, he attained the rank of Brigadier General and became Commanding General for the 4th Fighter Command and then the 4th Air Force near San Francisco, California. He gained the rank of Major General in April, 1943, and was assigned to 8th Air Force in Europe. He served as head of 8th AF and the 2nd Bomb Division. Then in 1945, he took command of 9th Air Force. He flew 24 combat missions in both bombers and fighter aircraft.
After the war, he served as Commanding General of Tactical Air Command. In 1946, he served at Headquarters, Army Air Forces, and then was assigned to command the Air Technical Training Command at Scott AFB, Illinois. He later served as chief of the Atomic Energy Division, and after serving in the Pacific area with the Atomic Energy Division, returned and became Commanding General at the Air Proving Ground Command at Eglin AFB, Florida.
He became a Lieutenant General in 1950 and assumed command of the Alaskan Air Command. Holding six aeronautical ratings - command pilot; combat observer; balloon pilot; zeppelin pilot; semi-rigid pilot; and metal-clad airship pilot, General Kepner retired from active duty on February 28, 1953.
He passed away from an undetermined illness on July 3, 1982.
1930-1938, AAF MOS 770, United States Army Air Corps (USAAC)
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the military aviation arm of the United States of America between 1926 and 1941. The statutory administrative forerunner of the United States Air Force, it was renamed from the earlier United States Army Air Service on 2 July 1926 and part of the larger United States Army. The Air Corps was the immediate predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), established on 20 June 1941. Although discontinued as an administrative echelon during World War II, the Air Corps (AC) remained as one of the combat arms of the Army until 1947, when it was legally abolished by legislation establishing the Department of the Air Force.
The Air Corps was renamed by the United States Congress largely as a compromise between the advocates of a separate air arm and those of the traditionalist Army high command who viewed the aviation arm as an auxiliary branch to support the ground forces. Although its members worked to promote the concept of air power and an autonomous air force between the years between the world wars, its primary purpose by Army policy remained support of ground forces rather than independent operations.
On 1 March 1935, still struggling with the issue of a separate air arm, the Army activated the General Headquarters Air Force for centralized control of aviation combat units within the continental United States, separate from but coordinate with the Air Corps. The separation of the Air Corps from control of its combat units caused problems of unity of command that became more acute as the Air Corps enlarged in preparation for World War II. This was resolved by the creation of the Army Air Forces (AAF), making both organizations subordinate to the new higher echelon.
The Air Corps ceased to have an administrative structure after 9 March 1942, but as "the permanent statutory organization of the air arm, and the principal component of the Army Air Forces," the overwhelming majority of personnel assigned to the AAF were members of the Air Corps.
