Twining, Nathan F. (Nathan Farragut), 1897-1982

Air Force officer.

U.S. Army and Air Force officer; later, publishing company executive.

Nathan Twining's military career began in 1916 as a member of the Third Oregon Infantry (National Guard). He graduated from West Point in 1918 and joined the American Forces in Germany as a ground observer in 1919. After flight training, assorted command assignments, and Command and General Staff College, General Twining was named Chief-of-Staff of the Army Air Forces in the South Pacific in 1942. In January 1943, he and fourteen airmen were forced into the Coral Sea and spent six days adrift before being rescued. He was promoted to Major General that same year and commanded the 13th Air Force. He subsequently was appointed commander, Air Forces, Southwest Pacific and placed in tactical control of all Army, Navy, Marine and Allied Air Forces in the South Pacific, one of the first Joint Air Commands in U.S. history. Later that year he assumed command of the 15th Air Force in Italy and then took over command of the Mediterranean Allied Strategic Air Forces. He returned to the Pacific in 1945 and it was his command that dropped the only two atomic bombs used in time of war. After the war and assignments in Washington, D. C., Ohio, and Alaska, General Twining returned to Washington in July, 1950, as deputy chief of staff for personnel. In 1953, he was named Chief of Staff of the Air Force and in 1957 was sworn in as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Eisenhower. He retired from the military in 1960, worked as Vice Chairman of Holt, Rinehart and Winston Publishers, and as a consultant to the Martin-Marietta Corporation until his final retirement in 1967. He died in 1982 of a heart attack.

Biographical Note