October 22, 2007

By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

When you're born to money, spurn it for patriotism, thrill and public service, and have a cherished career on which to reflect after 88 years of flamboyant living, life – what’s left of it – is good. "I live every day as if it’s the last. Life is just a grand adventure," Maj. Gen. Homer I. "Pete" Lewis (U.S. Air Force, retired), affirmed Monday (Sept. 3).

Lewis' mother, Edith, was 16 and married to a World War I Army captain when he was born. He doesn't remember the officer who divorced his mother when the war ended, but it matters little to this saga of a man who romanced the opportunities stretching before him, seizing them when they suited his judgment, fancy and sense of excitement. The highlights include fine – if unexpectedly diverse – military education, building the U.S. Army Air Corps into a formidable force, bombing German targets in World War II, and 30 years later, revitalizing the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command.

In Lewis' office, adjacent to his historic adobe mansion on Olive Street in Eagle Pass , the general surrounds himself with memorabilia and mountains of books. The symbols of Lewis' tastes appear in vertical layers. A high ceiling supported by massive wood beams presides above his untidy desk and long tables, covered by a dozen piles of military histories – thick books by prestigious authors.

Below the tables, on tile floors, ornate leather saddles rest where the general shoved them, evidence of a pragmatic military man who grew up with horses and now owns two ranches in Mexico and three in Texas. "I always wanted to be a soldier or a farmer," Lewis chuckled, proud of his success at both. "On the mantle, above the room's imposing fireplace, is a truly random clutter of photographs, plaques, artwork, a polo mallet, and coffee mugs. They all mean something to Lewis, and he doesn't much care if they mean anything to others.

His memory is sharp, and he reflects with a positive outlook on all the ups and downs. Shortly after he was born, his mother, Edith, whom he remembers as stunningly beautiful, moved to New York City , so her son was early raised by grandparents in rural North Carolina . Edith invested well, and "sold high" on the stock market, just before the catastrophic crash of 1929 that sent the nation spiraling into The Great Depression, followed by drought, rampant poverty, Dust Bowl migrations, and vast archives of black-and-white documentary photographs.

In his youth and adolescence, Lewis attended three military academies – Allen Military Academy, Bryan, Texas, Valley Forge Military Academy & College, Wayne, Penn., and Kyle Military School, N.Y. – before attending and graduating from Culver Military Academy, on Lake Maxinkuckee, Culver, Ind. "It's one of the four senior ROTC academies in the country, and one of the greatest military academies of its time," Lewis said.

In his senior year, Lewis was Culver's regimental commander, in charge of two troops of horse cavalry, two batteries of horse-drawn artillery, four infantry companies and one mechanized infantry company. On his desk now is a framed oval photograph of Lewis then, uniformed like an Austrian prince. On the back of the small gold frame is an inscription to Edith, "the best mother in the world."

In 1938, under an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis , Md. , Lewis earned command of a plebe (freshman) company. “I always wanted to be a naval officer, but my family got all pissed off about it, so I resigned and went to Europe in June 1939. They sent me a ticket on the S.S. Normandie [luxury French oceanliner], so I sailed to Southampton , England , then on to London to join them. My mother was very wealthy by then, had married this Texan who was very close to the Ford Motor Company. My two stepbrothers and I just traveled all over Europe together."

Lewis next attempted to attend the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. "But the registrar's office at A&M wouldn’t accept my Naval Academy credits for engineering courses, so I went to the University of Texas ." Did he complete a degree in engineering? "No, I went to college to meet people and have a good time!" Lewis said with a chuckle. As proof, Lewis met and married Dorothy Jane Lehrer, the woman who would be his life- and soulmate for the next 63 years and one week before she died in 2003.

"Here I was at the University of Texas , and I had a wife, a house, two cars and a polo pony. Dolph Briscoe [Uvalde rancher, governor of Texas , 1973-1979] was one of my classmates, and I studied Latin American trade and resources," Lewis reminisced. In 1940, he received his first commission as an officer, 2nd lieutenant, Reserve Infantry.

Numerous training assignments followed before Lewis was named commandant of cadets for the twin-engine aircraft flying school, Douglas Army Air Field , Ariz. "It was the largest advanced training command in the Army Air Corps," Lewis said. He oversaw preparations of 1,500 [Chinese and American] trainees, flying AT-7 "Navigators", AT-9 "Jeeps", and B-25 "Mitchell" bombers.

Lewis volunteered next for aerial gunner school, and became an instructor in the new skill, eventually flying in 1945 with the 486th Bomb Group, England , as group gunnery officer in numerous B-17 "Flying Fortress" combat missions above Germany and France . "One mission was to bomb the railroad yards at Hof , Germany . Hitler was heading for the Alps , and we thought he was going to guerilla warfare," Lewis recalled. On what he remembers as "a beautiful afternoon," Lewis was part of the colossal 8th Air Force, in the lead aircraft, followed by 200 miles of airborne B-17s and B-24 "Liberator" heavy bombers.

"It was supposed to be a flak-free mission, but the Germans had 88 millimeter antiaircraft guns mounted on rail flat cars, and they got off four shots at us. I had a camera and had wanted to take a picture of 'bombs away,' but the B-17 off our right wing was hit, and just folded up. I froze and could not take the picture," Lewis said. "Then our guys just bombed the hell out of them – to little pieces!"

Unknown, unpredictable ordnance of a kind never before dropped from the skies set a pattern for air-to-ground warfare best known now from the Vietnam War. Napalm was not announced to the crews of the 8th Air Force when they were assigned submarine "pen" targets on the coast of Saint-Nazaire in the Loire River estuary. They were only told to use no electricity in their takeoff and mission conduct. No guns (which were fired electrically), no radio transmissions, "And when we boarded, there was this terrifically strong odor of fuel, but we didn’t know what was in these drop tanks we were to release."

The huge cement "pens" were bombproof until larger ordnance finally crushed them, but a swath of fire was intended when as many as 900 bombers of the 8th Air Force began forming up in a swirling mass England , Scotland and Wales . Lewis' bomb group formed above the Eiffel Tower , then navigated toward the French coast. "The problem was that these tanks had no fins to guide them like bombs do, and they began to collide in mid-air after we dropped them, exploding, and then exploding tanks above them, and eventually the B-17s above that that were dropping them." Lewis does not know how many aircraft were lost in the fiasco.

When the war ended, Lewis served briefly as gunnery officer at Drew Field, Fla., then was discharged from active duty at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio , January 1946. Back in Eagle Pass , he and other Air Force Reserve members had a loosely organized "unit" called "The Little Red Schoolhouse" that met at the American Legion Hall. "We'd just get together, shoot the bull, drink some beer and get a point for being there – no pay."

But in 1951, Lewis helped form the 8707th Pilot Training Wing at Brooks Air Force Base, later becoming adjutant of the reserve unit. Lewis recalls one unusual "training mission" when the entire wing flew to Mexico City , with headquarters personnel in a B-25, and the pilot trainees in their T-28 "Trojans." As they approached the airport in Mexico , one inexperienced pilot radioed the tower: "Do you folks speak English?" The dour reply came back, "A lot better than you do." After landing, Lewis took the lot to his home in Cuernavaca , and threw a party for about 400 people.

Lewis held several reserve positions before becoming Reserve Deputy to the Commander, Headquarters Command, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington D.C. Along the way, Lewis helped write the language of a bill that would forever change the relationship between Air Force reservists and active duty commands. Public Law 90-168, sponsored in the House of Representatives by Rep. F. Edward Hébert, dubbed the "Reserve Forces Bill of Rights and Vitalization Act," created the Office of Air Force Reserve, led by the Chief of Air Force Reserve, a reservist nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate.

Thus, a parallel system of managing Air Force reserve functions was created with Maj. Gen. Tom Marchbanks Jr., serving as first chief of Air Force Reserve, and Maj. Gen. Rollin B. Moore Jr., first commander of Headquarters AFRES, headquartered at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. In 1971, Marchbanks retired for health reasons, and Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson nominated Lewis to take his place. Lewis took the oath of office as Chief of Air Force Reserve, April 19, 1971.

"Whatever his anticipations might have been, General Lewis quickly realized that his tour as Chief of Air Force Reserve was to be no sinecure handed to the faithful reservist headed toward the sunset of retirement. He inherited a program pulsating with turbulence." (Citizen Airmen: A History of the Air Force Reserve, 1946-1994. Gerald D. Cantwell.) Lewis, recognized that the dual system was both divisive and inefficient to the interests of a reserve program, and acted decisively.

"I two-hatted myself," said Lewis, referring to a 1972 Air Force recommendation that Air Force Reserve and Headquarters AFRES be led by a single officer. He successfully managed the reorganizations, but then Lewis' problems really began as Air Force commands began to assail the "dual hat" organization. "I spent four years trying to hold onto what we’d built. The Air Force wanted to bring reserve units under major air commands and have them run them," Lewis said.

But, with the privileges of age and a life on desert terrain, he remains philosophical about the bureaucratic battles. "Think about a rose. My philosophy is that if something doesn't have a thorn, it's no good. And here we live in a country where everything has a thorn!"

He prevailed during stiff fights for supremacy, preserving the reserve units as a distinct group of independent organizations. Lewis said the soaring strength of Air Force Reserve units is maintenance. "That's our forte. In 1975, we had an average of 16 years of experience per man in maintenance, while on active duty the average experience level was only three years. And between 1972 and 1975, not one squadron under my command failed an ORI [Operational Readiness Inspection] because all my commanders were hand-picked."

In retirement, Lewis retains his interest and voice in reserve matters as a trustee on the board of the Reserve Officers Association. "My whole raison d'etre has been to be a citizen soldier."

A portrait of Culver Military Academy Regimental Commander Homer Lewis is inscribed lovingly to his mother on the reverse side of this gold frame. The Indiana school had about 650 students when he attended there in the 1930s. Today's population on the 1,800-acre campus is just below 800. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)



Maj. Gen. "Pete" Lewis relaxes momentarily in his Eagle Pass office, surrounded by the photos, documents, books, and mementos of a lifetime in military service and ranching. His polo mallet on the mantle is replaced by the cane in his lap, but, at 88, Lewis is gratifyingly robust in travel and loquacious in conversation. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag)