DOW-UAP-D180, Final Personnel Record for McCoy, Howard M., U.S. Air Force, 1954
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 07
The final personnel record of U.S. Air Force officer Howard M. McCoy, who served on continuous active duty from 1930 until his retirement as a colonel effective August 31, 1954.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
The final personnel record of U.S. Air Force officer Howard M. McCoy, who served on continuous active duty from 1930 until his retirement as a colonel effective August 31, 1954. Only his service stations are summarized here; the file itself is not reproduced.
Why this is interesting
The service record traces McCoy from chief of the Propeller Laboratory at the Army Air Forces Materiel Command’s Engineering Division (1942–1944) via technical services posts in Europe (1944–1945) to Wright Field, where from October 1945 he headed the Analysis Division and the Air Documents Division of Intelligence, T-2. From July 1946 he served, first as acting, as Deputy Commanding General, Intelligence (T-2), and from October 15, 1947, as Chief of the Intelligence Department, Headquarters, Air Materiel Command; a general order of August 8, 1949, named Colonel Harold E. Watson as his successor. According to the duty descriptions, he was responsible for planning, policy and supervision of technical intelligence for the command, including an Air Technical Intelligence Service for the USAF to prevent technological surprise, the exploitation of foreign intelligence sources and the command’s security policy; superiors named in the file include Lt. Gen. N. F. Twining and later Lt. Gen. B. W. Chidlaw and Gen. Joseph T. McNarney. After a year as a student and an air technical intelligence assignment linked to Headquarters USAF and the CIA, he became director of the Physical Security Equipment Agency in March 1951. The file itself does not mention Project SIGN, Project GRUDGE or unidentified flying objects; the link to those projects comes from the official description, through the positions he held at the time.
Selected passages
- “As Deputy Commanding General (T-2 Intelligence), then Chief, Intelligence Department. Headquarters, Air Materiel Command, for the period December 1946”
Background
This file contains the final personnel record of U.S. Air Force officer Howard M. McCoy, who left service as a Colonel, a senior field-grade officer responsible for significant operational and administrative duties. From December 1946 to August 1949, Colonel McCoy served as Deputy Commanding General for Intelligence (T-2), and later as Chief of the Intelligence Department, Headquarters, Air Materiel Command, at what is now known as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. During his tenure, the Air Force initiated two significant studies centering on unidentified anomalous phenomena: Project SIGN and Project GRUDGE. He was among the senior Air Force intelligence officers involved in the early design, administration, and execution of those programs.