GHQ Air Force

Prime recommendation of the Baker Board last summer was immediate organization of an independent General Headquarters Air Force composed of all Army Air Corps tactical units under a separate commander. Last autumn Secretary of War Dern announced that the recommendation would be followed. Last week he put the plan into effect by removing control of the country's air forces from the commanding generals of nine corps areas and placing it under the personal control of Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur. Completely relieved of authority except for personnel training and aircraft procurement was Major General Benjamin D. ("Benny") Foulois, Chief of Air Corps.

Chief advantage of the GHQ Air Force will be greater mobility and striking power. The Force will be divided into three "wings"--Atlantic Wing, with headquarters at Langley Field, Va.; Pacific Wing, at Hamilton Field, Calif., and Southern Wing, at Fort Crockett, Tex. (later to be moved to Barksdale Field, La.). A highly centralized combat unit of nearly 1,000 planes, the GHQ Air Force was officially regarded last week as the greatest move since the War in the modernization of U. S. military forces.

In direct command of GHQ Air Force will be a hitherto obscure field officer named Frank Maxwell Andrews. Not since Roosevelt I jacked John Joseph Pershing from captain to brigadier-general in 1906 had the Army seen so notable a promotion as that which promised last week to elevate Frank Andrews from lieutenant-colonel to brigadier-general. A onetime cavalryman, Col. Andrews is tough, fiftyish, handsome. Army wives call him the best-looking man in service, like to remember the romantic thrill he gave them in 1914 by taking his bride on a horseback honeymoon in Virginia.

Born in Nashville. Col. Andrews graduated from "The Point'' with the Class of 1906, saw cavalry service on the Mexican border, sought transfer to the Air Corps to achieve faster promotion. His wife, the daughter of his battalion commander, made him. withdraw his application before she would marry him. Not until the U. S. entered the World War did Cavalryman Andrews get his transfer to the Air Corps. An able military pilot, he was lately brought to Washington for General Staff duty after a long term as commanding officer at Selfridge Field, Mich.

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