ORIGINAL: Hornblower
For instance who is Adm. Towers?
John Henry Towers
Chief of Bureau of Aeronautics June 1939 - October 1942
Commander Air Force, Pacific Fleet October 1942 - February 1944
Deputy Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Area and Pacific Fleet February 1944 - July 1945
Commander Task Force 38, August 1945
http://www.freedomdocuments.com/Towers.html
"As Chief of the bureau of Aeronautics he organized the Navy's mass production program for all types of planes, increasing the total naval aircraft from 2,000 to more than 39,000 during is tenure of office. He was responsible for the pilot training program, which began with rigorous athletic conditioning and admitted no compromise with quality even in urgent wartime expansion. He pushed forward a program for training a large corps of reserve specialists to provide capable ground officers without taking time for flight training. In the training program, started during his administration, total personnel assigned to Naval Aviation reached approximately three quarters of a million."
On October 6, 1942, he became Commander Air Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet, with the rank of Vice Admiral. In that command he supervised the development, organization, training and supply of the growing carrier fleet as well as land-based Naval and Marine aviation. Later, as Deputy Commander in Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, this jurisdiction extended to the whole fleet, as well as to Army commands. In this later assignment, his functions were largely logistical and administrative, but he shared in the development of the strategy of the Pacific campaign. He particularly helped to build up the tactics by which air and sea defenses were neutralized in a million square miles of invasion areas even while new landings were taking place. The carrier thus took the offensive role visualized in early Tower's theory, destroying the enemy attack at its source.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal "For exceptionally meritorious service to the Government of the United States....from February 1944 to July 1945. An able administrator, (he) demonstrated outstanding professional ability, sound judgment and an unusual knowledge of the complex details of military and naval operations in the discharge of his heavy responsibility for the provision of personnel, equipment, supplies, shipping and the general logistic support of the combatant units in all services during the fiercely fought campaigns resulting in the capture and development of bases in the Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Pacific Fleet operations which decisively supported the recapture of the Philippines...."
