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SSgt Robert Bruce McClelland, Jr.
to remember
Brown, George Scratchley, Gen USAF(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Montclair
Last Address Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Date of Passing Dec 05, 1978
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
George S. Brown became the first Air Force chief of staff since General Nathan Twining to hold the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, Brown served three presidents during an era of limited budgets and constrained force structure. His military career spanned a technological revolution in weaponry.
He started his combat career by flying heavy bombers in the European theater in World War II and retired as a four-star general when the cruise missile rivaled the manned bomber.
He was born in Montclair, New Jersey, in August 1918. He was the son of a West Point graduate and career cavalry officer. He graduated from high school in Leavenworth, Kansas, and, after attending the University of Missouri for a year, he received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated from West Point in 1941 and entered flight training at Pine Bluff, Arkansas He received his pilot's wings at Kelly Field, Texas in 1942.
Following flight training, he went to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, where he became a member of the initial cadre of the 93rd Bombardment Group, flying B-24 Liberators. After a brief stint flying antisubmarine patrol at Fort Myers, Florida, he transferred in August 1942 with the 93rd Bombardment Group, the first B�??24 group to join the Eighth Air Force in England.
Until April 1944, he served in various capacities with the 93rd. As group executive officer, he took part in famous low-level bombing raids against oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania, on August 1, 1943. The 93rd was the second of five B-24 groups that raided Ploesti from a temporary base at Benghazi, Libya. Led by its commander, Lt. Col. Addison Baker, the 93rd flew directly into heavy defenses to hit three of the six targeted refineries. The lead plane and 10 others were shot down or crashed on the target. Brown, then a major, took over lead of the battered 93rd and led it back to Benghazi. For his actions on that mission, he received the nation's second highest military award, the Distinguished Service Cross.
His next appointment was as assistant operations officer, 2nd Air Division, in May 1944. The following May he assumed similar duties with Headquarters Air Training Command at Fort Worth, Texas. In 1946 he joined Headquarters Air Defense Command at Mitchel Field, New York., as assistant to air chief of staff, operations and later became assistant deputy of operations.
In July 1950, during the Korean War, Brown assumed command of the 62nd Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base, Washington In 1951 and the early months of 1952, he commanded the 56th Fighter Wing at Selfridge AFB, Michigan, and in May 1952, joined Fifth Air Force headquarters at Seoul, Korea.
In July 1953, Brown assumed command of Williams AFB, Arizona. After completing National War College, he served as executive to the chief of staff, Headquarters U.S. Air Force until 1959 and continued to serve at the Pentagon for the next four years.
Promoted to brigadier general in August 1959, Brown became commander of the Eastern Transport Air Force, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, in August 1963. In September of the next year he was selected to organize Joint Task Force II, a JCS unit formed at Sandia Base, New Mexico, to test the weapon systems of all the military services.
He served as assistant to the chairman of the JCS in Washington, D.C., from August 1, 1966, to August 1, 1968, when he assumed command of the Seventh Air Force and became deputy commander of air operations, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. In September 1970 Brown became commander of the Air Force Systems Command at Andrews AFB, Maryland. It was the mission of this command to provide the weapon systems and meet the technological needs of the total Air Force mission.
On August 1, 1973, President Richard Nixon appointed Brown to be chief of staff of the Air Force. As chief, Brown worked to enhance the Air Force strategic bomber program and to replace the aging B-52s with B-1s, which could carry larger payloads and penetrate deeper into enemy territory.
As chairman of the JCS, much of his time was consumed with Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks that focused on finding a formula by which the U.S. lead in missile reentry vehicles would offset Soviet superiority in missile throw-weight. Brown led the Joint Chiefs in urging U.S. air and naval deployments to South Vietnam following the U.S. pullout. But public and congressional opposition to any further involvement in Vietnam precluded approval of any military action.
Brown also participated in decision making over the U.S. response to two confrontations in the Far East that were widely perceived as tests of U.S. will in the aftermath of the communist takeover of South Vietnam. These were the Mayaguez incident in May 1975 and the shooting of two U.S. officers and wounding of another by North Korean guards in August 1976 in the demilitarized zone that divided the two Koreas. He also played a significant role in the success of the 1977 negotiations transferring the Panama Canal to Panama.
Brown continued as chairman until his retirement in June 1978. He had contracted cancer and was hospitalized intermittently until his death in December 1978.
Sources compiled from Air Force History Support Office.
ADDITIONAL MEDALS/RIBBONSAWARDS FROM FOREIGN SERVICES INCLUDE :
1. CHEON-SU SECURITY RIBBON (SOUTH KOREA)
Other Comments:
I considered General Brown a friend.
Jackson L. Otis, MSgt, USAF Retired
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase V Campaign (1968)
From Month/Year
July / 1968
To Month/Year
November / 1968
Description This period was from November 1, 1968-February 22, 1969.
Following the cessation of bombing on October 3,. 1968, the United States for the next 4 years restricted flights over North Vietnam primarily to reconnaissance missions. The Air Force diverted airpower resources committed to the campaign over North Vietnam to the air campaign in Laos in an attempt to slow the flow of suppliesfrom North Vietnam down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This interdiction effort covered an area in the Laotian panhandle from about the 16th to the 18th parallel and focused on the Laotian/North Vietnamese border near the Keo Nua, Mu Ola, and Ban Karai Passes. Much information about targets on the l-lo Chi Minh Trail came from air-dropped electronic sensors. When American bombing choked the major transportation arteries. the North Vietnamese directed truck convoys along secondary roads where they became more vulnerable to tactical air strikes. Throughout November and December 1968 U.S. tactical aircraft and B-52s attacked targets in the Laotian panhandle. AC-130 gunships, flying at night and relying on infrared, radar, and other sensors. proved especially effective in destroying trucks. To counter the intense air attacks, the North Vietnamese quadrupled the number of anti-aircraft guns along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while adding logistical personnel in Laos for repair work and transport duties.
The USAF also provided close air support to hard-pressed Royal and irregular Laotian forces in northem Laos, where on December 25, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops launched a strong offensive. By late February 1969 the enemy had driven the Laotian forces back across the Plain of Jars to Na Khang.
In South Vietnam, meanwhile. the Viet Cong suffered temporary setbacks under Allied air and ground attacks. On November 1, 1968, the Republic of Vietnam began a military and civic pacification program intended to bring most of the onuttry quickly under government control. Two operations underscored Allied military approaches to pacification.
In the first, the Allies learrted of a large enemy force moving into the Savy Rieng Province, Cambodia. the so-called “Parrot's Beak" that jutted deep into South Vietnam northwest of Saigon. To thwart this penetration, between October 18 and November 11, 1968, the U.S. Air Force airlifted 11,500 men of the U.S. lst Cavalry Division and 3,400 tons of cargo in C-130s over 500 miles from Quang Tri Province in the north to Tay Ninh. Binh Long. and Phuoc Long Provinces. northwest of Saigon. Until the tum of the year, these U.S. Army forces. working with the South Vietnamese, conducted operations in the Cambodian/South Vietnamese border area along the Parrot‘s Beak between the Vam Co Tay and Vam Co Dong Rivers. The USAF supported these operations with tactical aircraft and B-52s flying air support and interdiction missions against troop concentrations, base areas, logistics complexes and transportation lines. In the second major winter operation. starting the first week of December. the Seventh Air Force launched another air campaign in the A Shau Valley, located near the Cambodian border some 30 miles southwest of Hue. Afterward, in January 1969. U.S. Marines entered the valley and found large amounts of materiel that the Communists had abandoned unable to move it during the sustained air attacks. After months of negotiations on January 18, 1969, representatives of the government of South Vietnam and of the National Liberation Front. the Communist political branch in South Vietnam joined the United States and North Vietnam in the Paris peace talks. While negotiations continued in France, the Communist forces in Vietnam launched their first offensive of the new year.
