Oliver Patton Echols (March 4, 1892 – May 15, 1954) was an American military officer who brought success in World War II to the United States Army Air Forces by expanding the inventory of America's air arm to meet the needs of the coming war. More than any other man under Chief of the Army Air Forces, General Henry H. Arnold, Echols was responsible for the development, procurement and supply of aircraft and aeronautical equipment. Fighter projects officer Benjamin S. Kelsey, directly subordinate to Echols from 1934 to 1945, called him "The Man Who Won World War II."
Early career
Oliver Patton Echols was born on March 4, 1892, in Charlottesville, Virginia, to William Holding Echols, a university professor. Oliver Echols attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Virginia, studying aviation engineering.
Echols enlisted in 1916 and served in World War I with the United States Army Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, from August 1917 to April 1919, participating as an aviator in the battles of Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. At the rank of captain, Echols served as Chief of Air Service, I Corps, for the final drive against German forces.
Echols's educational and military preparation for his later specialization included attendance at the Army Industrial College, Command and General Staff School, Army War College, and Air Corps Tactical School. He served in the Air Corps Experimental Engineering Section and the Procurement Section before becoming the chief engineer of the Materiel Division from 1934 to 1938.
War production
In January 1936, Echols telephoned Howard Hughes to say the Air Corps was interested in purchasing the record-breaking Hughes H-1 Racer as a pursuit plane—it was faster than anything they had. Hughes agreed to fly the aircraft to Wright Field for a demonstration, but he failed to show up for the appointment that Echols had set up with higher Air Corps brass. After that snub, Echols never again gave Hughes a chance to bid on Air Corps projects, not even in October 1941 when Hughes offered the twin-boom D-2 fighter-bomber design. Echols allowed Wright Field engineers to examine the D-2 but they concluded that it would be too heavy for its own engines after incorporating required military features such as armor plate, a bullet-resistant windshield and stronger landing gear.
Echols was assistant chief of the Materiel Division at Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio from 1939 to 1940. As chief of that division, which was headquartered in Washington, he served from 1940 to 1942. In March 1942, a reorganization changed his title to commanding general, Materiel Command, in the Army Air Forces headquarters—a position changed a year later to assistant chief of staff for materiel, maintenance and distribution. Until April 1945 Echols continued to play the major role in the production of the prime tools of American airpower.
The real impetus to aircraft production came in May 1940 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Congress with a call for a program of no less than 50,000 "military and naval" aircraft per year for the nation's defense. (The Air Corps and the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics agreed that the Navy would get 12,500 of these.)
A year and a half later, on December 7, 1941, the airframe weight of U.S. aircraft production increased sixfold—from the rate of per year, to . By November 1942 the production rate had tripled again, to 50,000 aircraft per year. In the following year and a half to June 1944, Echols supervised another tripling of production.
From 1941 on, United States aircraft production was much greater than the combined output of Japan and Germany, and the force of 3,305 combat planes in December 1941 grew to 41,000 in August 1945. Not all of these aircraft were of self-powered metal construction: in March 1942, Echols told the joint Senate–House committee that the Army Air Corps had ordered 1000 wooden gliders, each capable of carrying 50 soldiers.
One of Echols's most important yet little known roles was his membership from 1943 to 1945 on the Air Production Board and on the executive committee of the War Production Board. He represented the Army Air Forces in the committee task of coordination of all production, and the establishment of priorities for use of tools, materiel and manpower within the national war program. Helping to determine the relative strength of air versus land and sea forces of the United States were one of Echols's responsibilities, as was the task of deciding relative strengths of fighter aircraft to light-, medium- and heavy bomber forces.