This Military Service Page was created/owned by
AB Raymond Guinn
to remember
Simler, George Brenner, Gen.
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He was posthumously promoted to the grade of General effective August 16, 1972
Other Comments:
U.S. Air Force General. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in 1942 from the University of Maryland. He served two combat tours as an aviator in the European Theater during World War II, the 2nd of which he was shot down, evaded capture, and returned safely to Allied lines. After the war, he returned to the University of Maryland as the 1st professor of Air Science and Tactics in a military capacity. He reenrolled as a student at the University to finish his college courses and graduated in 1948. Afterward, he was assigned as the commander of the 86th Fighter-Bomber Group, the 355th Fighter Group, director of athletics at the United States Air Force Academy, commander of the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing at Kadena AB, Okinawa, and commander of the Tactical Fighter Weapons Center at Nellis AFB NV. In 1965 he was assigned as director of operations of the 7th Air Force in Southeast Asia, where he flew combat missions in all assigned tactical aircraft. In August 1967 he became the director of operations at Headquarters U.S. Air Force. In July 1969 he was assigned as the vice commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and then assumed command of Air Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base TX in September 1970. He was then selected to assume command of the Military Airlift Command (MAC) at Scott AFB IL, effective September 12, 1972. However, on 9 September 1972, he and his aide, Captain Gil L. Gillespie, were killed when their T-38 Talon jet trainer aircraft crashed on takeoff as they were departing Randolph AFB TX en route to Scott AFB IL to accept the new command. He was posthumously promoted to the grade of General effective 16 August 1972.
1942-1945, United States Army Air Corps (USAAC)
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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.
