The Touch of Greatness: Colonel William C. Bentley Jr., Usaac/Usaf; Aviation Pioneer

By Stewart W. Bentley, Jr

Colonel William C. Bentley Jr. was a member of the small elite group of U.S. Army Air Corps officers who formed the genesis for the development of what we now know as the U.S. Air Force. He was not only rated as a Command Pilot and was a test pilot on the B-17, but he was a doctrinal visionary in airlanding tactics and serving as an advocate for servicemembers higher education. Colonel Bentley commanded the Paratroop Task Force during Operation Torch; the longest and first airborne mission in American military history. He was the first graduate of the University of Maryland's off campus degree completion program.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449023867

Stewart W. Bentley, Jr

Dr. Stewart W. Bentley Jr. is Colonel William C. Bentley's grandson. A former Army infantry and intelligence officer and airborne jumpmaster, he holds advanced degrees from the Joint Military Intelligence College and Capella University and is a 1984 graduate of the Citadel. He has 20 years of research and writing experience in the military history field. This is his second book. He lives in Lorton, Virginia, with his wife and best friend, Patricia.

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© 2010 Stewart W. Bentley, Jr., PhD. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 4/30/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-2386-7 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-2385-0 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter 2

Chapter Three

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Acknowledgements

This project has been in the works for some twenty years. As noted at the end in comments on references, the primary sources are all personal letters, official records, official reports and period newspaper articles. Pulling in this material and culling through them was time consuming for everyone involved. This work would not have been possible without my great aunt and Bill’s sister Elizabeth’s passion for collecting and keeping the correspondence between the two of them and cutting out the newspaper articles pertaining to him. Next, between my father, Woody and my aunt, Logan, this project would only be half what it is. Their collective memories and the material they saved really provided the foundation of the biography. Logan proofread the draft and provided much needed corrections and observations. My father wrote and provided some particularly insightful material on Episcopal High School and the Air Corps/Air Force social life and how my grandparents entertained guests and their peers. He also provided me with valuable recollections on the Krasas and life in postwar Germany.

I am also indebted to the Air Force Research Historical Agency for their assistance in procuring official records and reports for me related to Operation Torch as well as the Citadel Library and Museum for providing me access to the Mark W. Clark papers.

Bob Swetzer, as part of his own and subsequently our joint collaboration on the Paratroop Task Force, has also provided much needed resources and background material on the Torch operation in both its planning and execution phases.

My father and my brother, William, provided me with a proofreading authority and the requisite military background and experience to ensure that I did not overreach on conclusions and speculations.

Finally, my loving wife, Patricia, who patiently heard me map out writing and research strategies and put up with long weekends with me planted in front of the computer; thank you for everything.

This work is meant to acknowledge my grandfather’s life and contributions to the Air Corps/Force and the United States. I have omitted or briefly discussed those areas covered in depth in other works on period, especially in regards to Operations Torch and Iceberg. My goal was to provide new knowledge or insight into the culture of the Air Corps and Bill’s life. Additional work on the Paratroop Task Force and its role in North Africa will be in a forthcoming joint work by Bob Swetzer and me.

For Bill and Barbara’s children, Logan and Woody

Preface

Colonel William C. Bentley Jr. is not a name or a personality recognized beyond a few footnotes in the history of the US Air Force. But like so many of his contemporaries, he was an aggressive and forward thinking pilot and officer of great merit and achievements who in the post WWII years was overlooked in an organization dominated by a specific hierarchy of importance relative to the kind of aircraft they flew. At the beginning of the history of the U.S. Air Force, there was the Army Air Corps which was bound by Army traditions and mostly traditional thinking. By the time World War Two ended, the pilot and aircraft hierarchy was firmly established and in 1947 the Air Force achieved status as a separate entity. Those who had achieved star rank in WWII were by now firmly entrenched as the recognized Air Force leadership.

However, there was a second group, a small elite, which included Bill Bentley. These were the officers who had trained together, gone to war together, flown, socialized and drank with their peers who rose to the highest star ranks during and after WWII. Despite the fact they did not become as well known to the public, these officers held key positions in the middle of hostilities, were highly decorated, and established reputations among their peers and superiors that resonated throughout the AAC and later, the US Air Force. These men in the postwar Air Force held lesser commands and positions, but were generally treated by all who either knew them or knew of them, as if they held flag rank. They were the quiet heroes of the WWII Army Air Corps. This is reinforced by family memories of the senior leadership of the US Air Force visiting Bull Bentley at his home in Germany while he was assigned to Headquarters USAFE as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence.

Colonel Bentley’s life and career mirrored those of so many of his generation. His contributions to the American success against the Axis and to the development of the Air Force were not unlike those of so many other Air Corps and Air Force pilots. His career differed however in several ways. First, by graduating from the Air Corps aviation school at Kelly Field in 1929, he joined the second generation of American pilots following WWI whose ranks included such luminaries as Hap Arnold and Jimmie Doolittle. This group led the AAC in the changes from the WWI bi-wing pursuit plane to the World War II AAC of the B-17, C-47, and the (fighter) P-51. He was a test pilot in the early B-17s and saw the future potential of war fighting by aviation, influenced by General Billy Mitchell. The high point of Colonel Bentley’s wartime service was the conception, planning, implementation, and command of the longest overwater airborne operation in history, after which he drifted into the comparative backwaters of the war. Otherwise, his career provides a snapshot of the Air Force’s development after World War Two. Bill and thousands of his contemporaries were the men who led the fight against the Axis Powers; many of these men are gone and unheralded. Their legacies have been overshadowed by the giants of the time: Eisenhower, Bradley, Arnold, LeMay, Patton, Stillwell, Vandenberg, Doolittle and Clark to name a few. But their contributions stand the test of time nonetheless.

Chapter One

Legacy

The sons of Virginia have historical, deep and embedded ties to the U.S. military. The list of famous Virginians whose forefathers and progeny served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and the Air Force could be the topic of a book by itself. A few names distinguish themselves from the rest: Light Horse Harry Lee and his son, Robert Edward. George S. Patton’s great uncle died at Gettysburg during Pickett’s Charge. Lew Armistead of the same battle had a grandfather who defended Fort McHenry. Lewis Chesty Puller, the most decorated U.S. Marine, was born and raised on Virginia’s Middle Neck and attended the Virginia Military Institute for one year before enlisting in the Corps. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a former Marine, has a son in the Corps now.

Bill Bentley’s father, William Chamberlayne Bentley Senior, born and raised in Richmond was 53 when Bill was born on July 28, 1903. The senior Bentley, according to family oral tradition and Bill’s recollections, was a drummer boy during the Civil War and had been a runner for a Confederate General. Also judging by the evidence left behind, the elder Bentley likely tore his Confederate artillery unit’s battle standard from its flagstaff during the Appomattox Campaign, stuffed it under his tunic and walked home in 1865. Another family heirloom was a box of buttons given to a Bentley relative from the tunic of Robert E. Lee by the general himself.

The senior Bentley was born on Feb. 28, 1852 and attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, after the Civil War starting in 1867 and graduating in 1869. He stated in a memoir that he was confirmed in 1868 at the Virginia Theological Seminary by then Episcopal Bishop John Johns. It is very likely that his attendance had something to do with several relationships. First, his father Efford Bolling Bentley was a founder of and Vestry Member from 1859 to his death in 1882, of St John’s Church, Richmond and Junior Warden for many of the later years. Efford was also a friend of the Stewart Family of Richmond, one of whose daughters eventually married the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia.

Of his experience growing up in Richmond amid its Confederate legacy, Bill recalled that, …I was reared in an atmosphere of the Civil War and the conversation at our family dinner table was often filled with stories of that period, especially when my uncle was visiting.

Figure%201.jpg

William Weldon Bentley. Source: Family photo

That uncle, William Weldon Bentley, was an 1860 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. At the battle of Gettysburg, then-Captain Bentley, taking command of the 24th Virginia Infantry Regiment during Pickett’s Charge, led the unit over the famed stone wall at the center of the Union line near Alonzo Cushing’s artillery battery. Wounded in the hip, he withdrew across the field back to Seminary Ridge with his unit. During the Appomattox Campaign, he commanded the 24th Regiment under Pickett’s Corps. Fifty years later, Lt. Colonel Bentley served as the honorary commander for the 500 remaining survivors of Pickett’s Charge during the anniversary re-enactment.

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Confederate veterans at the 50th Gettysburg Reunion re-enact Pickett’s Charge. Source: Gettysburg.com

His mother, Lulu Logan, was from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her father was Joseph Glover Logan, who served as a Sergeant in the War and was the brother of Confederate General, Thomas Muldrup Logan, both originally of Charleston, South Carolina. General Logan, at 19, is described in the book Confederate Generals as the youngest Confederate general officer in the War. He served in the Hampton Legion, taking part in the First Battle of Bull Run, Gaines Mill, Antietam, Chickamauga and Knoxville. Leading a cavalry brigade in NC, he was promoted to Brigadier General in February, 1865, ending the war in a strong but unsuccessful charge at Bentonville. After the War, General Logan settled in Richmond and became one of the famous railroad barons. The house at 2417 Park Avenue where the Bentleys lived in Richmond was only a block from Monument Avenue. William Chamberlayne Bentley Sr.’s family lived in the house next door to General Lee’s home during the War on Franklin Street.

Figure%203.jpg

The Lee House in Richmond, center. The Bentley home is to the left.

Richmond then and now

Bill’s family history has even deeper roots. A descendant of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, his Bolling and Gay ancestors lived in Virginia for generations, a family line of great historical importance. His great grandfather Peter Efford Bentley left Richmond for Huntsville, Alabama in the early 1800s leaving only his son Efford Bolling Bentley behind. Peter, the son of Col. William Bentley of Powhatan County, had served as a Sergeant in the Revolutionary War. He enlisted in 1776, served in the Virginia militia, reenlisted a number of times and rose to the rank of Sergeant. He was in the first battle of Camden and the battle of Petersburgh. His grave in Huntsville, Alabama has a commemorative marker from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Richmond at the turn of the century was a city locked in a time warp; newspaper stories continually ran in the Richmond Times Dispatch recounting the past glories of the Civil War. To read some of these articles, doubt could be reasonably cast that the South lost the war. Apologist articles recounting the murderous deeds of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction continually referred to the masked riders as defenders of white women’s virtue even though the real intent indicated that the violence and intimidation were aimed at keeping African Americans from voting and exercising their Constitutional rights and obtaining any political power at all.

Bill’s racial attitudes were probably typical for the time. In a letter he wrote to his wife Barbara from Okinawa in 1945, Bill appeared to believe that whites and blacks had their own distinct place in society and should never intermingle, socially or otherwise. In his later years however, as a result of his experience in the Pacific, he observed that everybody was the same in a foxhole.

In his later years, Bill recalled encounters with Confederate veterans at the Confederate Veteran’s Home, listening to their exploits during the War whether real or imaginary. Even as a child, he could discern what constituted a tall tale and what was the truth. Those veterans would have included William Weldon Bentley and General Thomas Muldrup Logan who lived until 1914 and at whose summer home, Algoma in Buckingham County, the elder Bentleys were married.

Figure%204.jpg

Bill as a choirboy; probably taken in 1911

Family photo

As a young man, Bill followed the family’s military tradition. His first service was in the Richmond Light Infantry, a unit of the Virginia militia. Also known as the Richmond Blues, this unit was a part of the Centennial Legion, a largely ceremonial militia unit, tracing its collective lineage back to the Revolutionary War and the Minutemen. When the State militias were organized into the National Guard, the Blues formally became part of the Virginia National Guard. Despite their participation in social and ceremonial events, the Blues had served the U.S. and Virginia in conflicts dating to the War of 1812, during the Civil War, the Spanish American War and World War One, although they arrived in France just as the Armistice was signed. According to family oral tradition, Bill enlisted in the Blues at the age of thirteen.

Figure%205.jpg

William C. Bentley Jr. in his Richmond Blues uniform.

Family photo

Bill entered John Marshall High School in Richmond in September of 1916. From August 9 of 1918 to September of 1921, he attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria as had his father. His enrollment form consisted of a simple entry in the Headmaster’s School Log with a notation that "Wm. Chamberlayne Bentley, Jr. (born) July 18, 1903 (sic), Father William Chamberlayne Bentley Sr., PO Box 285, Richmond, VA. The Headmaster at the time was Archibald Robinson Hoxton, BA. Apparently the application process was a visit to the Headmaster’s Office and his approval. Clearly, this was a simpler time with few formalities and little paperwork The actual grades and

classes of students for this time period have not survived The only record of the students was the annual yearbook Whispers and the Schoolmaster’s ledger. Bill’s reenrollment on June 25, 1919 is reflected in the Headmaster’s Log