(1897–1982). U.S. Air Force General Nathan F. Twining was one of the most widely experienced and best qualified of U.S. air commanders. He played a large role in directing the air war against Japan during World War II.
Nathan Farragut Twining was born in Monroe, Wisconsin, on October 11, 1897. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1918. Originally an infantry officer, he later transferred to aviation, becoming a U.S. Army pilot in 1924. He gained further experience thereafter as a combat unit commander and as a staff and engineering officer.
In the spring of 1943, as commander of the 13th Air Force in the South Pacific, Twining directed strategic air assaults against the Japanese in the Solomon Islands and in New Guinea. His pilots were so successful in downing enemy planes that they dubbed their combat missions “turkey shoots.” Later, in Italy in 1944–45, he led the 15th Air Force in its bombing campaign against Germany and the Balkans. In the closing months of the war he returned to the Pacific to command the 20th Air Force, which dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Twining became chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force in 1953. He helped make it an almost all-jet combat force with a high atomic-weapons capability. From 1957 to 1960 he served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He died on March 29, 1982, at Lackland Air Force Base, near San Antonio, Texas.