This Deceased Air Force Profile is not currently maintained by any Member.
If you would like to take responsibility for researching and maintaining this Deceased profile please click
HERE
Contact Info
Home Town Denver, Colorado
Last Address Denver, Colorado
Date of Passing Mar 15, 1982
Location of Interment Fort Logan National Cemetery (VA) - Denver, Colorado
12 January 1961: Major Henry J. Deutschendorf, United States Air Force, 43rd Bomb Wing, Strategic Air Command, flew from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas to Edwards Air Force Base, California with Convair B-58A-10-CF Hustler, 59-2442, Untouchable. There, he flew two laps of a 1,000 kilometer circuit between Edwards and Yuma, establishing six new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) speed records at an average of 1,708.82 kilometers per hour (1,061.81 miles per hour). He and his two crewmen, Captain Raymond R. Wagener, Defensive Systems Officer; Captain William L. Polhemus, Radar Navigator/Bombardier, were each awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
(Major Deutschendorf was the father of Henry J. Deutschendorf, Jr., better known by his stage name, “John Denver”.)
The B-58 Untouchable was sent to The Boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, in 1969 and was scrapped in 1977.
Attention! The dates you selected for being assigned to this Unit are outside the 1926 to 1942 we believe this Unit was in existence. Can you please re-check your dates and click HERE if you wish to amend these? If you believe your Unit was in existence during your selected dates, please let us know at admin@togetherweserved.com.
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.
