Shift in the Air

While playing golf last week at Tokyo, Lieut. General George E. Stratemeyer, commander of U.S. Far East Air Forces, suffered a heart attack. This week he was under an oxygen tent in a Tokyo hospital. At 60, genial "Strat" was in no shape to carry on, would probably have to write finis to a fine military career, which began with his graduation from West Point in 1915, brought him to command of the Army Air Forces in the India-Burma theater during World War II and to his F.E.A.F. post in April 1949. The Pentagon quickly named a new top team in the Far East air command:

Lieut. Gen. Otto P. Weyland (rhymes with highland) succeeds Stratemeyer as commander of the Far East Air Forces.

CAREER: California-born (1902) and Texas-bred; graduate of Texas' military-minded Agricultural & Mechanical College, where he helped earn his way by peddling candy in dormitories, played trumpet in the school band; in 1923, he entered the Army Air Service, worked up the peacetime ladder; on the eve of Pearl Harbor, he was deputy chief of staff, Sixth Air Force at Albrook Field, Panama Canal Zone.

In World War II, lean, towheaded "Opie" Weyland was chief of the XIX Tactical Air Command, which gave brilliant support to General George Patton's brilliant Third Army. Patton called Weyland "the best damn general in the Air Corps . . . He's not always trying to convince me a thing is impossible just because it can't be done."

After World War II, Weyland served in top staff jobs and as commander of the Tactical Air Command, became vice commander of Far East Air Forces at Tokyo less than a month after the Korean war broke out. He stayed on in Japan until a few weeks ago, when Washington recalled him to the U.S. to apply his experience as deputy commander of the new Tactical Air Command.

Major General Frank F. Everest takes over as new commander of the Fifth Air Force in Japan and Korea, succeeds Lieut. General Earle E. Partridge, who is coming home to take charge of the Air Force's important Research & Development Command.

CAREER: Iowa-born, 1904; West Point, class of 1928; served with the prewar 18th Pursuit Group in Hawaii in 1937 and as an instructor at the Air Corps Technical School; commanded a bomb group in the South Pacific in World War II, later became a staff officer in the Pentagon; after the war, became commander of the Yukon sector, Alaskan Air Command, was back on staff duty with the Atomic Energy Commission when he was sent off to Japan and the prospect of another star.

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