This Military Service Page was created/owned by
TSgt Gary McPherson (Mac)
to remember
Klocko, Richard Philip, Lt Gen USAF(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Dunkirk
Last Address Hilton Head, South Carolina
Date of Passing Apr 19, 2011
Location of Interment U.S. Military Academy West Point Post Cemetery (VLM) - West Point, New York
Following graduation from West Point, young Lt. Klocko completed basic and advanced flight training in October 1938.
His first assignment in the Army Air Corps was with the 32nd Pursuit Squadron 36th Pursuit WIng, Losey Air Field, Ponce, Puerto Rico. On 13 December 1941, his P-39D (#41-6843) crashed at Arecibo Field due to a mechanical failure.
Next, he was reassigned to England where he served in the Headquarters European Theater of Operations.
In October 1942, in preparation for "Operation Torch" he was assigned to command the new 350th Fighter Group being formed at RAF Bushey Hall, Watford, England, the headquarters for the 8th AIr Force Fighter Command. Major Klocko was stationed at RAF Duxford at that time.
The group flew to North Africa to support the invasion as part of the 12th Air Force. The aircraft of the unit was the P-39 Airacobra.
On 24 February 1943, while on a special mission over enemy lines, dropping messages to isolated units, he was taken a prisoner of war. For this special mission, General Klocko received the Silver Star from the commanding general of the 1st Armored Division. He remained a prisoner of war in Germany until April 1945. He was a POW at Stalag 7A, Moosburg, Bavaria, 48-12 . (Work Camps 3324-46 Krumbachstrasse 48011, Work Camp 3368 Munich, 48-11). At Stalag Luft III " He was a trusted staff officer in South Camp. Among other things, he handled planning for emergency action in the event of an effort by the Waffen SS or the Gestapo to liquidate the prisoners. ")
Upon return to the States at the end of the War, General Klocko was assigned to the War Department General Staff, Washington, D.C., from August 1945 to October 1947. He was then appointed chief, Supplemental Research Branch, Director of Intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Air Force.
From August 1949 to July 1950 General Klocko attended the Air War College, and from July 1950 until July 1952, he served both as an instructor and member of the Air War College faculty. General Klocko remained at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, until July 1954 serving as a member of the Graduate Study Group, working on policy and doctrine for Air Force operations.
General Klocko was then assigned to the U.S. Air Force Security Service, Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, as deputy chief of staff operations. He served in this capacity until 30 June 1955, when he was reassigned as chief of staff, U.S. Air Force Security Service, a position he held until July 1956. During these assignments, he received the Legion of Merit for his contribution to the Security Service mission.
In July 1956, General Klocko was appointed commander, 6900th Security Wing, Frankfurt, Germany. He commanded the wing until August 1960. During this assignment he was promoted to brigadier general. In August 1960, General Klocko was reassigned as deputy commander, U.S. Air Force Security Service. He was promoted to major general in January 1962 and became commander of U.S. Air Force Security Service on 1 September 1962. General Klocko, a command pilot, assumed his duties as director, Defense Communications Agency, Washington, D.C. 15 November 1967 where he served until his retirement in 1971.
He was interred at West Point on 2 May 2011.
Other Comments:
Notes/Links:
http://home.tiscali.nl/~mwarnaar/32nd_%20History_and_serials.pdf http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/558506/Richard-Philip-Klocko.html?nav=5008 http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6080
http://www.aviationarcheology.org/src/dbasn.asp?SN=41-6843&Submit4=GO (crash in 1941)
http://www.usafa.edu/df/dflib/SL3/americans/klocko.cfm?catname=Dean%20of%20Faculty (POW Photo of Gen Klocko at Stalag Luft III )
Notes:
The 350th Fighter Group was largely made up of American flyers who had been fighting as part of the RAF with the Eagle Squadron. Details at: http://www.cieldegloire.com/fg_350.php
World War II
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Overview of World War II
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
