Paul Ward Beck (1 December 18764 April 1922) was an officer in the United States Army, an aviation pioneer, and one of the first military pilots. Although a career Infantry officer, Beck twice was part of the first aviation services of the U.S. Army, as de facto head of the flying section of the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps in 1911 and as a senior officer of the Air Service in 19201922. He is generally credited as being the first military officer to advocate an air force for the United States separate from the control of other branches of the Army.
The son of a cavalry officer, Beck developed an interest in aviation while detached to service with the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Benicia, California, in 19081910, attending several air meets. He was one of four students in the first class of U.S. Army and U.S. Navy pilot trainees taught by Glen Curtiss beginning January 1911, and commanded the "provisional aero company" at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. On 1 May 1912, he returned to the Infantry in compliance with an army regulation.
Following service as a field grade infantry officer in World War I, Beck returned to aviation as part of the Air Service in 1920. He was assigned as commandant of the Air Service Observation School and assistant post commander of Post Field at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
He was killed by a gunshot to the head during an evening with friends. The shooting was a disputed mystery, with friends, colleagues, the county attorney and an Army investigating board suspecting that Beck was murdered for being caught in flagrante delicto with the wife of a friend, possibly with premeditation by an alreadysuspicious husband. However, the shooter, a wellknown former judge on the Oklahoma Supreme Court, contended that the shooting was an accident during an act of selfdefense after Beck had allegedly tried to sexually assault the shooter's wife in their home. The judge was exonerated by a coroner's jury.
Biography and military career Beck was born to 1st Lt. William Henry Beck and Rachel Wyatt Elizabeth Tongate on 1 December 1876 at Fort McKavett, Texas, a frontier outpost of the U.S. Army. His father, a one-time quartermaster sergeant in the 6th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry Regiment during the American Civil War, gained a commission in the Regular Army following the war as a troop officer with the 10th Cavalry Regiment and retired as a brigadier general before his death in 1911.
Beck married Ruth Evelyn Everett of Lyons, Nebraska on 12 January 1896, and they had a son, Paul Ward Beck Jr., born 27 February 1897. Mrs. Beck, an 1893 graduate of the Fremont Normal School in Fremont, Nebraska, (a teacher's college), was at the time a noted author of short stories and works on American Indians. Paul Beck Jr. also became an army officer.*
Paul Beck was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 5th Infantry on 1 September 1899. During his service in the Philippines between 1900 and 1902 in the Philippine–American War, Beck served with Company C, 5th Infantry, and was promoted to first lieutenant on 25 March 1902 while stationed at Vigan, Luzon.Official Army Register, p. 1106 He engaged in several actions, including a small battle at Parparia, Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, on 15 February 1901 in which he commanded the detachment. He also was responsible for the construction of a road near Vigan, and the building of Camp Gregg at Bayambang, Pangasinan on the central Luzon plain.
He subsequently attended the Infantry and Cavalry School in 1905 and the Army Signal School in 1906. On 4 February 1907 he was commissioned in the Signal Corps and stationed at Benicia Barracks, California. His Signal Corps commission was discharged on 4 February 1911, just after he began instruction in flying in San Diego. On 11 March 1911, now on orders to the Aeronautical Division of the Signal Corps to become an instructor, Beck was promoted to captain, 18th Infantry. (See "Pioneer Aviator" in separate section below for a more detailed account.)
Beck was recalled from his aviation assignment to the Infantry on 1 May 1912 under requirements of the so-called "Manchu Law"The "Detached Service Law," familiarly known in the Army as the "Manchu Law," was a provision of the Army appropriations act passed by Congress on 24 August 1912 that required a Detached Officers List be kept by the Army to enforce its regulation limiting the amount of time an officer could spend away from the organization in which he was commissioned. Prior to passage of the act, detached service was limited by policy, using a regulation created and enforced by General Order No. 68 (26 May 1911), issued by the War Department in response to criticism of the Army for creating a General Staff in 1903, which many in Congress philosophically opposed in a standing army. The regulation was also intended to curb favoritism shown in embassy and other "soft living" assignments perceived as "homesteading," i.e. "permanent residence" in an assignment. The regulation affected many Army agencies and all aviation officers except those permanently assigned to the Signal Corps. It varied in wording from year to year but all variations stressed that at least one-third of an officer's time in service be spent with a "troop unit." Regulations in succeeding years tended to be more complex and legalistic as challenges to the policy grew in the officer ranks, and after 1914, included all officers in the grade of colonel or lower. The regulation required an officer to serve troop duty in his "arm of the service" (branch) for at least two years in any six-year period. Leave, illness, and travel time did not count towards the two required years. The Manchu Law was rigorously enforced by the General Staff and was much hated by the field forces. It was suspended during World War I and repealed by the National Defense Act of 1920. The term arose in usage comparing staff officers sent back to their regiments to bureaucrats of the Manchu dynasty ousted by revolution in China at the same time. In Beck's case, the applicable regulation was Article VI 'Details', Paragraph 40, Regulations for the army of the United States, 1910. and assigned to the 17th Infantry at Fort McPherson, Georgia, with temporary duty on the Mexican border at Eagle Pass, Texas. Eighteen months later, on 1 October 1914, he transferred to the Far East as a company commander with the 15th Infantry.The 15th Infantry had its 1st and 3rd Battalions stationed in China and its 2nd Battalion in the Philippines. It seems likely Beck was with the 2nd Battalion since that was routinely an accompanied tour (dependents permitted) and he obtained his lieutenant colonelcy in the new 31st Infantry, which was raised and organized in the Philippines. After the United States entered World War I, Beck received temporary promotions to major and to lieutenant colonel on 5 August 1917, the latter with the 31st Infantry. On 28 August 1917 Beck received permanent establishment promotion to major, Infantry.
Beck transferred to Camp Fremont, California, and on 9 April 1918 became the lieutenant colonel of the 12th Infantry, training for combat in Europe as part of the 8th Division. On 5 October 1918 Beck accepted his highest career rank, that of colonel (temporary, Infantry), to become military attaché at the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, 1918–1920.Official Congressional Directory, p. 382 On 20 April 1920 the temporary commission to colonel was honorably discharged and Beck reverted to his permanent grade of major.
Beck's permanent promotion to lieutenant colonel, Infantry, came on 1 July 1920, the effective date of the National Defense Act of 1920 (also known as the Army Reorganization Act), which also made the Air Service a combatant arm of the line, thus enabling him to transfer directly into it. Beck was assigned to Air Service duty on 9 August and took additional pilot training at Carlstrom Field, Florida between 30 September 1920 and 31 March 1921 to re-qualify for his Airplane Pilot rating. He became commandant of the Air Service Observation School and assistant post commander at Henry Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on 11 June 1921, and on 25 November officially transferred in grade to the Air Service, with a date of rank of 1 July 1920, making him fourth in Air Service seniority.Beck was junior only to Billy Mitchell, Col. Chalmers G. Hall, and Col. Theodore A. Baldwin, Jr. Hall was an 1897 graduate of West Point, a cavalryman, and organizer of the four "motor mechanics" regiments of the Air Service after being recalled to active duty from a disability retirement in 1917. He also commanded the 4th Regiment Air Service Mechanics, as they were finally designated. He obtained an airship rating in 1922. Baldwin was an infantry officer who first became a balloonist in 1907 and during World War I commanded the Air Service airfield at Orly, France. He received a balloon observer rating in 1921. Both found themselves marginalized by the airplane-dominated Air Service but did retire as members of the Air Corps.
Pioneer aviator After completing the Signal Corps School in 1906, Beck was detached on 2 February 1907 for commissioning and service in that branch with assignment to duty at the Benicia Barracks in California. Between 10 and 20 January 1910, he was assigned to observe the 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field in California for the army. On January 14, 1911, Glenn Curtiss made an unsuccessful attempt to take Lt. Beck on a bombing demonstration during this event. The plan was for Beck to drop a bag of ammunition from an altitude of into a measured space to show that it was possible to use an airplane to drop bombs into gun pits during a time of war. Engine trouble precluded a successful demonstration that day, however.Paulhan Flies to San Pedro and Back. (January 15, 1911). The San Diego Union, p. 1. On 19 January he went up in a Farman III biplane flown by renowned French aviator Louis Paulhan to drop two-pound sandbags in a demonstration of the feasibility of aerial bombing. Using an improvised bombsight of Beck's design, they made three drops from at . The drops were highly inaccurate because the bombsight was adjusted for a much higher speed, but the concept was shown to be sound.
On 29 November 1910 two second lieutenants, George E. M. Kelly of the 30th Infantry at the Presidio of San Francisco and John C. Walker Jr. of the 8th Infantry at Fort Ord, received orders to attend the Curtiss Flying School expected to open in January 1911 on North Island at San Diego, to learn to fly and train to become instructors. At the same time the commanding general of the Western Division assigned Beck to organize and act as secretary for the International Air Meet taking place at Selfridge Field on the grounds of the Tanforan Racetrack in San Francisco, where Kelly and Walker also participated.