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Contact Info
Home Town Spencer, Indiana
Last Address Fort Crockett, Galveston, Texas
Date of Passing Nov 05, 1934
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Horace Meek Hickam was born in Spencer, Indiana on August 14, 1885, the eldest child of a lawyer, Willis Hickam and his wife, Sallie Meek Hickam. He attended Spencer High School, then enrolled at Indiana University. While there, he joined the Indiana National Guard. In 1904, he obtained an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy.
While at West Point, he excelled in both academics and athletics. When his class graduated in 1908, Hickam was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and posted to the 11th US Cavalry, serving in Vermont, Georgia, and Texas for 2 years. In 1911, while serving at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he utilized his spare time to take flying lessons.
In 1914, he was sent to the Philippine Islands and posted to the 8th Cavalry. In 1916, he returned to the U.S. to a posting with the 7th Cavalry. He served under General John Pershing in the Mexican Punitive Campaign, distinguishing himself in combat against Villanista bandits. His efforts in combat on April 22, 1916 gained him the award of the Silver Star Medal.
After Mexico, Hickam served as Professor of Military Science at the University of Maine. On August 5, 1917, he was promoted to Major and assigned to the Aviation Section of the U.S. Signal Corps.
On August 15, 1918, he received certification as a military pilot and received further pursuit training in Florida. On October 1918, he became Commanding Officer of both Dorr and Carlstrom Fields ( US Air Service) in Florida. In January 1919, he became Chief of the Information Division and wrote the first definitive history of the Air Service.
He became assistant commandant of the Advanced Flying School at Kelly AAF in Texas in 1923. Less than 2 years later, he testified at the courts-martial of "Billy" Mitchell, giving support and reasoning for a separate Air Force.
Following this, Hickam attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley, Virginia; the Command and General Staff College; and the Army War College. Then he was assigned to the War Plans Division, General Staff, where he spent the next 4 years.
He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on March 31, 1932, and was given command of the 3rd Attack Group at Fort Crockett, Galveston, Texas. In 1934, in the mail crisis, he was assigned by President Roosevelt to command the Central Zone, located in Chicago.
Colonel Hickam became commander of Fort Crockett in November 1934, with a fighter group that flew the A-12 Shrike. On May 21, 1935, in a night landing accident while flying the A-12 Shrike, Col. Hickam hit an embankment and was killed in the resultant crash.
On May 21, 1935, the newly-constructed air field located in Honolulu, Hawaii was named Hickam Field, later AFB, now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Horace M. Hickam. An elementary school in Honolulu also bears his name today.
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.
