Edgar Staley Gorrell (February 3, 1891 – March 5, 1945) was an American military officer, aviation pioneer, historian, manufacturing entrepreneur, and advocate for the airline industry. He served eight years in the United States Army, most of it with the Air Service, becoming a colonel at the age of 27 during World War I. He left the army in 1920 to enter private business, first as an executive in the automotive industry, then briefly operating his own investment company to finance the mass construction of private homes. For the last nine years of his life he was the first president of the Air Transport Association of America (ATA), a trade association dedicated to airline safety and the economic growth of the industry.
A 1912 graduate of the United States Military Academy, Gorrell served an obligatory two years in the infantry before volunteering for assignment to the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, in which he became a military aviator in 1915. His only flying assignment was with the 1st Aero Squadron, the Army's first aviation unit, which he accompanied to Mexico as part of the Punitive Expedition. Deficiencies in American military aviation exposed during the campaign led to Gorrell's assignment to MIT, where he earned an advanced degree in aeronautical engineering. His technical expertise led to his inclusion in the Bolling Mission in the opening months of U.S. participation in World War I, followed by staff duties with the American Expeditionary Force. He rose rapidly in rank as a wartime airman from first lieutenant to colonel between July 1916 and October 1918.
Gorrell was an early advocate for the concept of strategic bombing, submitting a staff study in November 1917 proposing a sustained day-night campaign against the German munitions industry. The paper owed much to concepts earlier developed by British planners, but it was never implemented during the war. Described as the "earliest, clearest...statement of the American conception of the employment of airpower,"Grant, "Airpower Genesis", p. 54 it became the basis for the doctrine of strategic bombing adopted by the Air Corps 20 years later, and ultimately the rationale for creation of the United States Air Force as a separate military service.Nalty (1997), p. 133 At the conclusion of hostilities Gorrell was made assistant chief of staff of the Air Service of the AEF with responsibility for compilation and completion of an official History of the Air Service, AEF, covering all its organizational, operational, and technical activities during the war. The history ultimately totaled 280 indexed volumes and became commonly known as "Gorrell's History."
In his capacity as head of the ATA, Gorrell advocated regulation of the airline industry to promote sustained growth, and also developed a strategy for use of the airlines during wartime to supplement a military air transport effort. His ideas on the use of airlines under government contract to provide worldwide air transport were sufficient to dissuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt from nationalizing the nation's scheduled airlines at the start of America's participation in World War II.Serling, "America's Airlines", p. 229
Education and family relationships Gorrell was the son of Charles Edgar Gorrell and Pamelia Stevenson Smith. His father was a carpenter in Baltimore, Maryland. His primary education was in the Baltimore City Schools and he attended secondary school at Baltimore City College between 1904 and 1908. Gorrell took competitive examinations for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and was appointed by U.S. Senator Isidor Rayner to the class of 1912. During his military service he also completed the graduate program in aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from September 1916 to April 1917, awarded a Master of Science degree in July 1917. He also received an honorary Doctor of Science from Norwich University and served on its board of trustees.
Following his return to civilian life in 1920, he married a longtime acquaintance, Ruth Maurice of New York, New York, on December 10, 1921. His wife was an honors graduate in chemistry of Sweet Briar College and did graduate work at Cornell University Medical College, becoming a clinical pathologist. They had a son, Edgar Staley Gorrell, Jr., in 1931. Gorrell married a second time, shortly before his sudden death in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 1945, from a heart attack,Obituary, Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal, Mar 6, 1945, p. 16 to Mary O’Dowd Weidman.
Military career
West Point
Gorrell and the bulk of the USMA Class of 1912 were admitted to the academy on March 2, 1908, as the "class of new cadets." Gorrell had just turned 17 a month before. Their course of preliminary instruction lasted to June 10. The 1908 Official Register lists him as finishing 34th in general merit among the 112 new cadets advanced to the fourth class for the academic year beginning July 1, ranked 3rd in conduct, having accrued just 2 demerits during the preliminary period. He was in the upper half of his class in mathematics and ranked 23rd in English. Gorrell was assigned to Company C of the Corps of Cadets.Official Register (1908), p. 25
Gorrell maintained his relative class standing during all four years at the academy, finishing consistently in the upper half in academics. He excelled in all military aspects of the curriculum, finishing first in conduct twiceOfficial Register (1910), p. 16 and (1911), p. 15 (and first overall for the four years at USMA) and never lower than 7th, which was during his plebe year.Official Register (1909), p. 20 He also finished first overall in drill regulations.Official Register (1912), p.13 He advanced in cadet rank in every class year,Official Register (1912), p.11 fulfilling a pledge he made as a plebe to become the captain of Company C.The Howitzer (1912), p. 83 He graduated on June 12, 1912, finishing 32nd in general merit among his 95 classmates.
Small in stature, slight, and boyish-looking, he was nicknamed "Nap" (derivative of "Napoleon") by his classmates in recognition of his military bearing. Gorrell pushed himself in athletics, going out for the football, track and field, and wrestling teams before settling in as an upperclassman on the broadsword squad, which he also managed for three years. As a "firstie" he won the individual broadsword championship.The yearbook also noted that he qualified as a "sharpshooter" with the M1903 Springfield rifle and used a furlough to learn to ride a horse so that he could participate in the academy's horse show.
One of the most formative events in Gorrell's life occurred near the end of his "yearling" year. At about ten o'clock on the morning of May 29, 1910, Cadet Corporal Gorrell joined a throng of cadets trying to catch a glimpse of a historical event in the making. Pioneer aviator Glenn Curtiss was attempting to complete the first true cross-country flight in the United States, between Albany and New York City.In February 1909 Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World offered a $10,000 prize (about $240,000 in 2015 dollars; US Inflation Calculator) for the first flight before October made by any type of air machine from New York to Albany as part of the public tercentenary celebration of Henry Hudson's cruise upriver and Robert Fulton's 1807 retracing of the route in the steamboat North River. When a pair of dirigibles failed in an attempt during the celebration, the World extended the offer for a year and allowed it to be made in either direction, provided the trip was made within a 24-hour period using only two stops. Curtiss had decided to make the attempt after a week of rain during the celebration on Governors Island had resulted in an embarrassing lack of success in competition with the Wright Brothers. During the spring of 1910 he secretly built an aircraft just for the flight, tested it in Memphis, Tennessee, and was rushing to win the prize before other candidates including Clifford B. Harmon and Charles K. Hamilton could make attempts. (Roseberry 1991, pp. 262-262) An hour earlier a member of the academy staff had telephoned Curtiss during a refueling stop near Poughkeepsie urging him to land on the parade ground so that the cadets could inspect the craft but was turned down. The Corps had then assembled at Trophy Point.
Curtiss approached Storm King Mountain north of the academy at , wary of the wind currents in the gorge. However, gusts caused him to lose control of the airplane momentarily, causing the plane to descend precipitously. He recovered after nearly being tossed out of the craft but the severe up and downdrafts continued. He descended to just above the Hudson River in hopes of finding calmer air. Many of the cadets including Gorrell ran to Cullum Hall on the other side of the promontory, where they could clearly see the airplane as it rounded the point. Gorrell and the others waved their caps and gave a raucous football cheer, clearly observed by Curtiss as he passed. Gorrell averred that from that moment forward he was determined to become an Army aviator.Clodfelter (2011), pp. 7-8Roseberry (1991), pp. 275-276Curtiss completed the historic 150-mile flight in just short of four hours, including two stops for fuel, with a total flight time of two hours and 51 minutes. (Roseberry 1991, p. 280)
Aviation School Required to complete a period of troop duty before he could apply to be detailed to the Aviation Section, Gorrell selected Infantry as his branch of service and was commissioned a 2d lieutenant in the 30th Infantry Regiment. He joined Company L at Fort William H. Seward on September 12, 1912, serving two years in the Territory of Alaska before returning with his company to the Presidio of San Francisco in California on July 14, 1914. He was detached from the 30th Infantry on December 23 and assigned to the Signal Corps Aviation School at San Diego, California for flying training.Cullum's Biographical Register vol. 6B, pp. 1583–1584Gorrell's West Point classmate 2nd Lt. Walter G. "Mike" Kilner preceded him to the Aviation School by seven weeks. Kilner graduated from flying training a month before Gorrell and they served in Mexico together in 1916. During World War I Kilner, three years older than Gorrell, held the distinction of being the Army's youngest full colonel until Gorrell took the "title" away from him in October 1918. Kilner eventually became a brigadier general and Assistant Chief of the Air Corps in 1938. The school was located on North Island near Coronado and was still a primitive program with no written syllabus. It published its first regulations six days after Gorrell's arrival on December 28, 1914. By the end of January 1915 the school had 11 students in training including Gorrell.Hennessy (1958), p. 136
The course of instruction was individually tailored in three phases. The first introduced the student to flying with civilian instructor Francis A. "Doc" Wildman in S.C. 34, a Curtis F flying boat,Hennessy (1958), p. 113 an aircraft heavier than its land counterpart, making it safer to fly in San Diego's gusty conditions at low altitude and enabling the student to perform up to six times as many landings as could be made in a land airplane in the same time. After four to five hours of this phase, the student was handed off to civilian instructor Oscar A. Brindley in a Burgess Model H trainer. After his solo, the candidate had a check ride with the Officer in Charge of Training to determine if his instruction was to continue. He then flew solo until he was ready to take the test for his Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) pilot's license, a requirement for advancing to the third phase. In this Gorrell received training in cross-country flying under a military instructor, culminating in his examination for the rating of Junior Military Aviator (JMA).Hennessy (1958), p. 141