John Dale Ryan - Military Career

Military Career

General Ryan remained at Kelly Field as a flight instructor for approximately two years. From January 1942 until August 1943, he was director of training at Midland Army Air Field, Texas, and was instrumental in establishing an advanced bombardier training school. His next assignment was as operations officer for the Second Air Force at Colorado Springs, Colorado In February 1944, he was transferred to Italy where he commanded the 2d Bombardment Group and later became operations officer for the 5th Bombardment Wing, Fifteenth Air Force. While commanding the 2d Bombardment Group he lost a finger to enemy antiaircraft fire. Later on this resulted in his nickname, sometimes used derisively, "Three fingered Jack."

He returned to the United States in April 1945, and became deputy air base commander, Midland Army Air Field, Texas. In September 1945, he was assigned to the Air Training Command at Fort Worth and Randolph Field, Texas, where he remained until April 1946, when he assumed duties with the 58th Bombardment Wing and participated in the Bikini Atoll atomic weapons tests.

From September 1946 to July 1948, he was assistant chief of staff for pilots of the 58th Bombardment Wing and then Eighth Air Force director of operations. For the next three years, he commanded the 509th Bombardment Group at Walker Air Force Base, New Mexico. Between July 1951 and June 1956, General Ryan commanded the 97th Bombardment Wing and the 810th Air Division, both at Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and the l9th Air Division at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas.

General Ryan became director of materiel for the Strategic Air Command in June 1956, and four years later assumed command of SAC's Sixteenth Air Force in Spain. In July 1961, he was named commander of the Second Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

In August 1963, General Ryan was assigned to the Pentagon as inspector general for the U.S. Air Force. One year later he was named vice commander in chief of Strategic Air Command and in December 1964, became commander in chief. He was assigned as commander in chief, Pacific Air Forces, in February 1967.

The general was appointed vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force in August 1968, and chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force in August 1969.

One of the more controversial moves of his tenure was his disbandment of the U.S. Air Force Pipes and Drums, the only free-standing, full-time pipe band in the U.S. armed forces.

Ryan's tenure as commander of PACAF and Air Force Chief of Staff also engendered controversy when he was described as one of a group that helped destroy General Jack Lavelle's career after Lavelle gave fighter pilots permission to shoot back at bona fide threats, something previously denied them by rules of engagement. This was also related to the court-martial of USAF Colonel Jack Broughton, after Broughton attempted to protect one of his pilots who shot back at an anti-aircraft position also in apparent violation of rules of engagement. The irony is that Col Broughton had to protect the pilot from his own side, and directly from General Ryan, whose "undue command influence" later resulted in the overturning and expungement of Broughton's conviction by the USAF Board for the Correction of Military Records.