Frederick Martin (general)
Frederick Leroy Martin (November 22, 1882 – February 23, 1954) was an American airman best known as the first commander of the US Army Air Service's first aerial circumnavigation of the world in 1924 and as the commander of US Army Air Forces during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Martin, a major at the time, commanded the circumnavigation and piloted the Douglas World Cruiser Seattle, until he crashed in a remote portion of the Alaskan Aleutian Peninsula, after which he relinquished command to Lt Lowell Smith. Martin received the Distinguished Service Medal for his part in the circumnavigation. By the beginning of World War II, Martin had been promoted to major general and assigned to command the Hawaiian Air Force of two Wings (18th Bombardment Wing at Hickam Field and 14th Pursuit Wing at Wheeler Field) and outlying airfields at Bellows Field and Haleiwa Fighter Strip. Martin was temporarily relieved of command after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but was exonerated by the presidential Roberts Commission and given a new command. Early life Martin was born November 22, 1882, to the farming family of John and Nancy Martin in Liberty, Indiana. In 1904, he enrolled in the Purdue University school of Mechanical Engineering. He was active in the predecessor program to the Reserve Officer Training Corps, with his yearbook photo caption calling him "possessed with the idea that he must become a soldier." He commissioned as a Second Lieutenant of Coast Artillery in 1908, and reported to the remote Fort Flagler in Washington State, guarding the entrance to the Puget Sound. During his time at Fort Flagler, he married Grace Margaret Griffiths, of Port Townsend, Washington. In 1916, they had a child, John R. Martin, who eventually became a colonel in the United States Air Force and shares a tombstone with his father in Arlington National Cemetery. Aviator In 1917, now Major Martin transferred to the Aviation division of the Signal Corps. Though he deployed to Europe with the Aviation division during World War I, he was not yet trained as a pilot, and spent the war working in supply and logistics. Upon his return from Europe, Martin trained as a flier in 1920 and began a series of assignments in flight and technical training. In 1923, Major Martin was selected to command the US Army Air Service's first aerial circumnavigation. Martin piloted the Douglas World Cruiser Seattle, from March 17, 1924 until April 30. On that day, already separated from the rest of the planes after losing an engine and being stuck in the remote Alaskan village of Chignik, Martin struck a mountain on the Aleutian Peninsula in the fog. While the Navy and Coast Guard searched, Major Martin and his mechanic Sergeant Harvey hiked down the mountain to a fishing cannery near Port Moller, Alaska. During their ten days in the wild, they lived on concentrated emergency rations and at one point took shelter in an abandoned trapper’s cabin. Though the original plan had been for the prototype