The U.S. Air Force’s Warfighting Birthright:Seventh Air Force Has Its Share of Battle Scars and Victories

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Rene' White
  • 7th Air Force Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  Our 7th Air Force historian has come upon a significant article published in the 1945 New York Herald Tribune spotlighting the 7th Air Force's contribution before the Air Force became a separate service on Sept. 18, 1947. 

On the 60th anniversary, "the following article vividly recounts the service of the 7th Air Force as one of the warfighting pioneers in World War II that began the proud heritage of today's Air Force," said Jackie Turner the 7th Air Force historian. 

"Furthermore, the author Gill Robb Wilson was himself an early American aviator who is considered the founder of the Civil Air Patrol," Turner added, "a crusade he took up after a 1938 trip to Nazi Germany." 

As a journalist, Wilson describes the numbered Air Force's first home located in the Hawaiian islands, the unit being struck during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the difficult days of battle that followed that fateful day. 

"What's interesting to me about this article," said Lt. Gen. Stephen G. Wood the current 7th Air Force commander, "is to see just how deep the roots of our heritage go. The valor and hard-won honors of those who forged the newly independent Air Force of 1947, which in turn blazed a legacy in the six decades of strife and wars that followed. 

"One of the finest centerpieces of the past 60 years is the armistice and prosperity here on the Korean peninsula," the General said. "We've learned that freedom is not free - we must not forget that we fought together in an alliance 'forged in blood' to uphold 
freedom. 

"The 7th Air Force and our Republic of Korea partners have built an Alliance that is 'second to none' in the world! Our 'ready to fight tonight' air power is precise, intense and overwhelming - whenever and wherever needed," the General added. 

A copy of Wilson's complete article is below. For more information on 7th Air Force click on http://www.7af.pacaf.af.mil/ or https://sps.hickam.af.mil/default.aspx
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THE ARTICLE
Seventh Air Force has its share of battle scars
By Gill Robb Wilson 
Printed in 1945 by the New York Herald Tribune

Announcement has just been made that the Seventh Air Force has been moved forward from Hawaii to become part of Lieutenant General George Kenney's Far East Air Forces. 
This leaves the false impression that the Seventh has been a rear echelon outfit. 

True, the Seventh was created in February 1942, from the old Hawaiian Air Force and has since maintained headquarters in the islands, but these facts are but part of the story. The rest of the story is that the Seventh has ranged 3,000 miles north and south from Midway to the Fijis, and 5,000 miles east and west from Pearl Harbor to the Ryukyus. No land-based air force has ever covered more territory and few have had to average so many hours per mission. 

The story of the Seventh cannot be glamorized with figures on bomb tonnages, enemy air forces destroyed, or great cities demolished because its function has been peculiar. Broken into small units for task force purposes, the Seventh has been a boxer rather than a slugger. Its targets usually have been enemy installations on pin-point central Pacific islands and atolls. 

When Japan struck Pearl Harbor, the Seventh was hard hit but the following June reciprocated by participating in the battle of Midway which turned the Japanese back in their bid for invasion of Hawaii. In this battle Maj. Gen. Tinker, the famous and beloved leader of the Seventh, lost his life. Following Midway came exacting months of patrol and search. The Japanese was ranging the Pacific. 

Then with bases set up at tiny islands, the Seventh began long-range softening of the Gilberts and Marshalls. Some targets we heard about, for their names were synony¬mous with ground action - Tarawa and Kwajalein. The majority of targets never made the news - Nauru, Milli, Jaluit, Moelap, Majuro, Aur and many more. Each mission was a special job. Targets were infinitely small. Weather was unforecastable. Engine failure meant ditching without hope of rescue. 

When the Gilberts and Marshalls were taken, the Seventh went after the Carolines, Mighty Truk and its satellites covering more than 30 degrees of longitude were hit with monotonous regularity ever since early in 1944. The Seventh added targets in the Marianas in the spring of 1944. Many of the Carolines targets become familiar names of the reading public. Yap, Woleai, Palau, Ponape, received their share of attention along with Truk. 

In the Marianas, targets were more complicated, since Guam and Saipan are sizeable islands. With the Marianas captured, the Seventh turned missions northward to the Volcanoes (Iwo Jima and its surroundings) and the Bonins. In sequence came bomber and fighter operations on an island-wide basis in the Philippines, and eventually components of the Seventh were jabbing at Japan itself. 

No air force has used a wider range of aircraft - fighters, medium bombers - than has the Seventh. It has fought and bombed day and night, flown distant reconnaissance, dropped every type of bomb and incendiary, sunk enemy shipping, mined enemy waters and done all the routine and special jobs imaginable. Its personnel have lived lonesomely on isolated dots, had little recognition, and known little except dreary monotony. Several times the Seventh has been scavenged to provide strength for other outfits. Therefore, to leave unchallenged the impression that the Seventh is moving from luscious Hawaii up to join the war is an injustice to the memory of my old friend, "Tink," and the thousands of boys who wear the patch with the star and the numeral 7 sticking down through it. 

The Seventh was the first air force to feel the enemy weight and the first to take the toll of the enemy. It has been to the wars steadily longer than any other similar force.