Background
Emmett O'Donnell Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Emmett O'Donnell, a high school English teacher, and Veronica Tobin.
Emmett O'Donnell Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Emmett O'Donnell, a high school English teacher, and Veronica Tobin.
After graduating from Manual Training High School in Brooklyn in 1924, Emmett O'Donnell entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and graduated in 1928.
After the Military Academy, Emmett O'Donnell was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry, there he chose to enter pilot training for the air corps, and in 1930 he joined the First Pursuit Group. During the next six years O'Donnell was stationed with the First Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field, Michigan.
From 1936 to 1940 he was assigned to the Eighteenth Reconnaissance Group at Mitchel Field, Long Island, and in the summer of 1939 he attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alaska. In February 1940, O'Donnell was transferred to the Eleventh Bombardment Group at Hickam Field, Hawaii, and in September 1941, holding the rank of major, he led a squadron of nine B-176 to the Philippines in the first mass flight of heavy bombers to cross the western Pacific. The completion of this historic mission, despite primitive service facilities and inadequate weather data, demonstrated that the Philippines could be reinforced by air.
When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, O'Donnell was immediately thrust into action. On December 10 he flew his B-17 to Vigan in northern Luzon to strike Japanese ships and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for pressing home the attack in the face of heavy Japanese antiaircraft fire and mechanical problems with his own plane.
In January 1942 O'Donnell went to Java, where he briefly served as operations officer of the Far East Air Force, and in March 1942 he was evacuated to India. There he became operations officer of the newly organized Tenth Air Force, which was responsible for ferrying supplies over the Himalayan Mountains from India to China.
A year later O'Donnell was assigned to the advisory council of General Henry H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, a post he occupied until March 1944. After his repeated pleas for a combat command, O'Donnell, promoted to the rank of brigadier general, was given command of the Seventy-third Bombardment Wing, which was to utilize the B-29 heavy bomber in raids against Japan. Following six months of training in the United States, he took his wing to Saipan in the Mariana Islands. On November 24, 1944, after training raids against the islands of Iwo Jima and Truk, O'Donnell piloted the lead bomber of 111 B-296 in a 3, 200-mile mission to Tokyo, the first major raid of the Mariana-based Twenty-first Bomber Command against the Japanese capital. He continued to command the Seventy-third Wing in the American air assault against Japan through the end of the war.
For several years after World War II, O'Donnell, who was promoted to the rank of major general in June 1948, served in a series of logistics, public affairs, and joint defense commission assignments before being appointed commander of the Fifteenth Air Force in August 1948.
Shortly after American intervention in the Korean War in June 1950, O'Donnell went to Japan from March Air Base, California, and established the Far East Bomber Command. From the outset he wanted to put "a very severe blow on the North Koreans" and told his superiors that B-296, using incendiary bombs in area bombardment (that is, targeting a large-sized area for destruction), could destroy practically everything of value in North Korea in a matter of days and compel the North Koreans to end their aggression against South Korea. O'Donnell's superiors vetoed this approach because the bombers were needed to support the hardpressed American ground troops. However, O'Donnell ultimately had much of his own way, and within months B-296, operating virtually unopposed, destroyed so many strategic targets in North Korea that there was little left to bomb. As he informed a Senate committee, "Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name. "
Following the entrance of the Chinese Communists into the Korean War in the fall of 1950, O'Donnell unsuccessfully called for air strikes against Chinese bases in Manchuria and targets in North Korea that American leaders had classified as off limits because of their proximity to the border of the Soviet Union. He repeated these recommendations after he was rotated back to the United States in January 1951 and soon aroused controversy with "hangar talk" that apparently urged the use of atomic bombs against Communist China.
Still in command of the Fifteenth Air Force, O'Donnell was a prominent witness before the combined Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees inquiry in the spring of 1951 into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur from his Far Eastern commands. He testified that "his boys" had been frustrated by United Nations policy that they bomb only south of the Yalu River and not violate Manchurian air space. O'Donnell speculated that a wideranging bombing campaign in Korea and Manchuria could have won the war in 1950, perhaps without the use of any American ground troops.
In May 1953 O'Donnell became deputy chief of staff for personnel with the rank of lieutenant general, and in May 1959 he was promoted to full general and named commander in chief, Pacific Air Forces. As Pacific air commander, O'Donnell pushed for greater assistance to the nascent Vietnamese National Air Force in the early stages of South Vietnam's war against the Viet Cong insurgents and the employment of American pilots to support South Vietnamese combat operations.
O'Donnell retired from the air force on July 31, 1963, and thereafter was associated with a number of business enterprises and, beginning in 1964, president of the United Services Organization.
O'Donnell was nicknamed "Rosy" because of his ruddy complexion and frequent blushes.
A volatile Irishman who did not hesitate to speak his mind or question his superiors, O'Donnell was of average size and had pronounced blue eyes.
On December 29, 1930, O'Donnell married Lorraine Muller; they had three children.