1. George Churchill Kenney was a United States Army general during World War II.
63 Facts About George Kenney
1. 2.
George Kenney is best known as the commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, a position he held between August 1942 and 1945.
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George Kenney was awarded a Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross for actions in which he fought off German fighters and shot two down.
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George Kenney was responsible for the acceptance of Martin NBS-1 bombers built by Curtis, and test flew them.
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In early 1940, George Kenney became Assistant Military Attache for Air in France.
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George Churchill Kenney was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 6 August 1889, during a summer vacation taken by his parents to avoid the humidity of the Boston area.
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George Kenney graduated from Brookline High School in 1907 and later that year he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he pursued a course in civil engineering.
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The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and George Kenney enlisted as a flying cadet in the Aviation Section, US Signal Corps on 2 June 1917.
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George Kenney was commissioned as a first lieutenant on 5 November 1917, and departed for France soon after.
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George Kenney broke an ankle and a hand, and earned himself the nickname "Bust 'em up George".
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George Kenney accepted combat, destroyed one plane and drove the others off.
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George Kenney remained for a time with the Allied occupation forces in Germany, and was promoted to captain on 18 March 1919.
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George Kenney returned to the United States in June 1919.
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George Kenney was the co-author in 1919 of "History of the 91st Aero Squadron" George Kenney was sent to Kelly Field, near San Antonio, Texas, and then to McAllen, Texas.
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George Kenney applied for one of a number of Regular Army commissions offered to reservists after the war, and was commissioned as a captain in the Air Service on 1 July 1920.
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In 1922, while the couple was living on Long Island, New York, a son, William Richardson George Kenney, was born to them, but Hazel died soon afterward from complications.
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George Kenney arranged to have the infant cared for by his neighbor, Alice Steward Maxey, another nurse.
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On 5 June 1923, George Kenney married Maxey in her home town of Gardiner, Maine.
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From July to November 1920, George Kenney was air detachment commander at Camp Knox, Kentucky.
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George Kenney then became a student at the Air Service Engineering School at McCook Field, near Dayton Ohio.
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George Kenney was the Air Service Inspector at the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company in Garden City, New York, where he was responsible for the acceptance of the fifty Martin NBS-1 bombers that the Air Service had ordered from Curtis between 1921 and 1923.
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George Kenney returned to McCook in 1923, and developed techniques for mounting.
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George Kenney was promoted to captain again on 3 November 1923.
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George Kenney's daughter, Julia Churchill Kenney, was born in Dayton in June 1926.
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In 1926, George Kenney became a student at the Air Corps Tactical School, at Langley Field, Virginia, the Air Corps' advanced training school.
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George Kenney then attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Army's advanced school where officers were taught how to handle large formations as commanders or staff officers.
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George Kenney was particularly interested in low-level attacks, as a means of improving accuracy.
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George Kenney reached the pinnacle of his professional education in September 1932, when he entered the Army War College in Washington, DC At the war college, committees of students studied a number of World War I battles; George Kenney's committee examined the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
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Graduation from the Army War College was normally followed by a staff posting, and on graduation in June 1933 Kenney became an assistant to Major James E Chaney in the Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps, Major General Benjamin Foulois.
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George Kenney performed various duties, including translating an article by the Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet into English.
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George Kenney became involved in an acrimonious debate with the Army General Staff over the Air Corps' desire to purchase more Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.
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George Kenney became caught up in a bureaucratic battle between Andrews and Major General Oscar Westover over whether the Chief of the Air Corps should control GHQ Air Force.
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George Kenney was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 1 October 1937, but the assignment was hardly a choice one for an Air Corps officer.
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In 1939, George Kenney was made Chief of the Production Engineering Section at Wright Field, Ohio.
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George Kenney was sent to France in early 1940, with the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel, as Assistant Military Attache for Air.
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George Kenney's mission was to observe Allied air operations during the early stages of World War II.
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George Kenney was promoted to major general on 26 March 1942, when he became commander of the Fourth Air Force, an air defense and training organization based in San Francisco.
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George Kenney personally instructed pilots on how to handle the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and A-29 Hudson.
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In July 1942, George Kenney received orders to take over the Allied Air Forces and Fifth Air Force in General Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area.
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George Kenney preferred to have Bostock in command, and while he regarded the antipathy between Jones and Bostock as a nuisance, was happy to leave arrangements the way they were.
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However, George Kenney deviated from the normal structure of an air force by creating the Advanced Echelon under Whitehead.
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George Kenney was promoted to lieutenant general on 21 October 1942.
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George Kenney decided to conserve his bombers, and concentrate on attaining air superiority over New Guinea.
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George Kenney switched the bombers to attacking by night unless fighter escorts could be provided.
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George Kenney had Charles Lindbergh teach his P-38 pilots how to extend the range of their aircraft.
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George Kenney ordered Walker to try the fuses for a couple of months, so that data could be gained about their effectiveness; a few weeks later George Kenney discovered that Walker had discontinued their use.
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In November, George Kenney arranged for a demonstration attack on the SS Pruth, a ship that had sunk off Port Moresby in 1924 and was often used for target practice.
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In June 1944, George Kenney was appointed commander of the Far East Air Forces, which came to include the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Seventh Air Forces.
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George Kenney created the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Air Task Forces to control air operations in forward areas, each for a specific mission, another departure from doctrine.
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George Kenney was promoted to general on 9 March 1945.
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George Kenney hoped to get Boeing B-29 Superfortresses assigned to the Far East Air Forces so that, based from airfields near Darwin, they could destroy the Japanese oilfields at Balikpapan.
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George Kenney was encouraged by Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington to join him in the political battle surrounding the establishment of an independent United States Air Force.
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On 8 May 1946, Kenney publicly presented the Medal of Honor to the family of Thomas B McGuire Jr.
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George Kenney left day-to-day operations at SAC in the hands of his deputy commander, Major General St Clair Streett.
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George Kenney selected Charles Lindbergh and Paul Tibbets to perform the inquiry.
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On 6 May 1948, George Kenney spoke to a crowd in Bangor, Maine, telling them that the US was likely to be attacked by the Soviet Union as soon as the latter had enough atomic bombs.
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George Kenney was less than impressed with this expensive and under-performing aircraft, preferring the Boeing B-50 Superfortress, an upgraded version of the B-29 instead.
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The USAF had staked much of its credibility on the B-36, something that George Kenney did not seem to appreciate.
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LeMay was made leader of SAC, and George Kenney became commanding officer of the Air University, a position he held from October 1948 until his retirement from the Air Force in September 1951.
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George Kenney was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in 1971.
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George Kenney died on 9 August 1977, and is interred in Caballero Rivero Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum in Miami, Florida.
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George Kenney wrote three books about the SWPA air campaigns he led during World War II.
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George Kenney was survived by his two children, five grandsons and one granddaughter.