Dates

• Existence: 1889-02-19 - 1938-11-09

Biography

Biographical Info: Wikipedia (viewed 9 May 2025) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_MacDill]. "Colonel Leslie MacDill was a United States Army Air Corps officer. MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Florida is named in his honor. Colonel MacDill was one of aviation's early pioneers.

MacDill was born at Monmouth, Illinois, on 19 February 1889. He graduated from Hanover College in 1909 with an A.B. degree, and from Indiana University in 1911 with an A.M. degree. In 1920, he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Doctor of Science in aeronautical engineering in 1922.

He was commissioned from civilian life as a second lieutenant, Coast Artillery Corps, on 13 April 1912. He served with the 6th Company, Coast Artillery Corps from 10 December 1912, until his detail in 1914 in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps. Upon completion of his flying training at the Signal Corps Aviation School at San Diego, California, he was rated a Junior Military Aviator on 2 July 1915, which automatically advanced him to the rank of first lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on 15 May 1917; he commanded a training group assigned to Foggio, Italy in 1917. His second in command was future mayor of New York Fiorello LaGuardia.

After World War I, he stayed in the force during peace time, dedicating himself to aviation development. He went on to serve in a number of positions, including chief engineer officer at McCook Field, an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio. In 1925, he was appointed as a technical adviser for President Calvin Coolidge’s Aircraft Board, also known as the Morrow Board, in Washington, D.C. The board, which convened in the wake of the trial of General Billy Mitchell, advocated in its final report the establishment of an Air Corps within the Army and a five-year program of major expansion.

He advocated for the creation of the Air Corps, predecessor of the Air Force, leading to its creation in 1926. He continued to work for the expansion and funding of the Air Corps through the 1930s until his death. Ironically, when this expansion finally took place in 1939, it included the construction of the air base that would later bear the name of its technical adviser.

He was promoted to Major 1 July 1920. He was later promoted to lieutenant colonel 1 August 1935 and to colonel on 26 August 1936.

MacDill died as the result of an airplane crash on the morning of 9 November 1938, in Washington D.C. The accident occurred several minutes after his takeoff from Bolling Field in a BC-1 aircraft which had engine difficulty.

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Military base named after him (from Wikipedia, viewed 21 January 2020): MacDill Field; located in south Tampa; redesignated from Southeast Air Base, Tampa, 1 December 1939; named in honor of Colonel Leslie MacDill (1889-1938), a World War I aviator in the U.S. Army Air Service; redesignated MacDill Air Force Base with the establishment of the United States Air Force in September 1947)