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Retired Gen. Howell M. Estes Jr. dies at 92

Retired Gen. Howell M. Estes Jr., who began his military career with the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and ended it as commander of Air Force mobility operations, died July 2 at his Bethesda, Md., home. He was 92.

Estes commanded the Military Air Transport Service, later called Military Airlift Command, from 1964 to 1969, at the time the C-141 Starlifter was entering service. Authors Roger D. Launius and Betty R. Kennedy, writing in Airpower Journal in 1991, said Estes “perhaps understood better than most people the revolution in airlift that came with the acquisition of the C-141.

“He suggested that the revolution really encompassed two phases,” they wrote in “A Revolution in Air Transport, Acquiring the C-141 Starlifter.” “The first, which he believed was nearing general acceptance, was a recognition of the importance of airlift as a tool for executing U.S. foreign-policy objectives, whether in a peacetime or contingency environment.”

Estes, they wrote, perceived the second phase “as more ethereal and less easy to conceptualize and understand.”

Retired Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman got to know Estes in the early 1990s, after Fogleman assumed command of Air Mobility Command and U.S. Transportation Command.

“He had an amazing breadth of experience in terms of assignments prior to becoming the commander of ... Military Air Transport Service,” Fogleman wrote in a July 5 e-mail. “While he had little or no previous experience in the transport business he had been on the [U.S. Air Forces in Europe] staff during the Berlin Airlift.”

It was a critical time for mobility, Fogleman said, with jet aircraft being integrated into what still was a large fleet of older planes. And with the buildup in Vietnam, it was a time to validate the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which included World Airways, Flying Tigers and Southern Air Transport, among other carriers.

“While a few of these civilian carriers are still around today, they played a major role in support of military operations during the period,” Fogleman said. “General Estes played a key role in getting the CRAF on a solid footing.”

Estes was born in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., in 1914. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1936. Assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas, he was appointed platoon and troop commanding officer of the 7th Cavalry there, according to his official biography. Following assignment to Headquarters First Cavalry Division, where he was an aide to the commanding general, he entered pilot training school.

During World War II he was a flight instructor at Brooks Field, Texas, and eventually was named director of flying for the school. In 1946 Estes was named chief of Plans and Policy Branch, Operations Division, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Wiesbaden, Germany, and a year later became assistant chief of staff, plans, for USAFE.

During the Korean War, on temporary duty from March to July 1951 as vice commander of the Far East Air Forces Bomber Command, Estes flew 25 combat missions over Korea in B-29s.

As the United States continued development of nuclear weapons, Estes, as commander of the 12th Air Division, in 1952 commanded Air Task Group 7.4, Joint Task Force Seven, for Operation Castle, overseas atomic testing. During the operational testing in 1954, he commanded the task force at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Eniwetok Island.

“He was really proud of the hydrogen bomb testing at Eniwetok,” said his son, Charles, of Washington, D.C., recalling that his father brought home glass slides of the testing, and the family viewed them over TV dinners. Later, deputy commander for aerospace systems, Air Force Systems Command, in Los Angeles, Estes helped oversee development of the Minuteman missile silos.

“When we lived out in Los Angeles, we were there about 15 months,” Charles said, “and he was probably on the road three-quarters or more of that time, visiting the silos” that were being built.

In 1964, he was named commander of Military Air Transport Service, later renamed Military Airlift Command and now Air Mobility Command, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. He retired in August 1969.

His marriage to Annah Verbeck Estes ended in divorce.

In addition to his son, Charles, Estes is survived by two other sons, retired Air Force Gen. Howell M. Estes III of Colorado Springs and Michael S. Estes of Lafayette, Calif.; a sister, Katherine Estes of Bethesda; 10 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

Internment at Arlington National Cemetery is scheduled for Oct. 3 following a 12:45 p.m. service in the Old Post Chapel at Fort Myer.