Lt. Colonel Townsend E. Griffiss (April 4, 1900 – February 15, 1942)[1][2] was a United States Army Air Forces aviator, the first American airman killed in Europe following the United States' entry into World War II.
Early life
Griffiss was born in Buffalo, New York, to polo player Ellicott Evans and Katherine Hamlin, both from wealthy New York families. His mother later married San Diego banker Wilmot Griffiss and Townsend took his surname. Known to his family as "Tim," he was raised in Coronado, California, an affluent coastal suburb of San Diego.
Professional career
Griffiss graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1922,[a] and joined the U.S. Army Air Corps.[1][3] He trained as a fighter pilot in Texas, then served in Hawaii from 1925 to 1928. His family's wealth allowed him to rent a house on Waikiki Beach, and there he wrote a guidebook, When You Go to Hawaii You Will Need This Guide to the Islands, which was published in 1930.[1] He shared his birth-father's passion for polo, and joined the military team based in Hawaii, led by Major George S. Patton.[1]
Returning to the United States in 1938, he became a student at the Air Corps Tactical School. In 1939 he worked for the Assistant Secretary of War, and then for the War Department Chief of Staff, and in 1940 he was promoted to major.[1]
In 1941, with Europe already at war but before the United States had entered World War II, Griffiss was seconded to London. There he was part of the staff of General James E. Chaney, the team was coordinating U.S. military cooperation with the U.K. in the North Atlantic theater, and organizing the US occupation of Iceland.[1] Ordered to the Soviet Union to discuss planning for US air cargo flights between Alaska and the Russian Far East, Griffiss spent two months in Moscow, before moving to Kuibyshev when advancing Nazi Germany forces threatened to overrun Moscow. In November, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.[1]
Arriving on an unusual route over occupied Europe, the then-unfamiliar B-24 was mistaken for a four-engine Focke-Wulf 200; the intercepting Spitfire pilots were based in Exeter and had not been adequately briefed about the inbound B-24 flight, which ended south of the Eddystone Lighthouse. All nine aboard were never recovered and the incident was a major embarrassment for the Air Ministry.[1]
Camp Griffiss, a U.S. military base in Bushy Park, London, was named after him. It served as the European Headquarters for the USAAF from July 1942 to December 1944 and was General Dwight Eisenhower's SHAEF headquarters. The USAF had originally named the Fort Worth Army Airfield in Texas as "Griffiss Air Force Base" on January 1, 1948, but it was soon changed on February 27 to memorialize native son and Medal of Honor winner Major Horace Carswell, who gave his life while attempting to crash land his crippled B-24 over China.[5]
His great-nephew (sister's grandson) and namesake is Rear Admiral Townsend Griffiss Alexander of the U.S. Navy,[1] who retired from active duty in 2013.[8]
Notes
^Griffiss was a member of the class of 1923, but chose to graduate at the end of his third year under provisions of an Act of Congress.[3]
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