Gordon T. Gould, Jr. – Lieutenant General, United States Air Force

LIEUTENANT GENERAL GORDON T. GOULD JR.
Retired August 1, 1974, Died August 7, 1979

Lieutenant General Gordon T. Gould Jr., was director, Defense Communications Agency. As director, General Gould is responsible for the management and direction of the worldwide Defense Communications System. He was also responsible for the system engineering and technical support to the National Military Command System and for provision of technical support to the worldwide military command and control standard automatic data processing systems. In his capacity as manager, National  Communications System, he was responsible for providing effective direction to the worldwide National Communications System, which includes the communications facilities of the various Federal agencies. The Director, DCA, is also chairman, Military Communications-Electronics Board, providing a liaison point for joint and international communications matters.

General Gould was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1916. He graduated from Murphy High School and attended the West Point Preparatory School at Fort McPherson, Georgia. In 1937 he received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., and graduated with a bachelor of science degree and commission as second lieutenant in 1941. He attended the signal officer general course at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; then an electronics course at Harvard University, Massachusetts; and a radar course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

General Gould was then assigned as department head, Radar School, Drew Field, Tampa, Florida, later he served with Headquarters III Fighter Command also located at Drew Field.

In June 1944 he was assigned to the 312th Fighter Wing in China. As communications officer, he was responsible for establishing much of the communications and control system for support of the first B-29 aircraft operations. For this service, he was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1945.

In August 1945 General Gould was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces, China Theater Headquarters, as staff communications officer. Following the Japanese surrender, he directed the re-establishment of airways systems and communications through the portions of China that had been occupied by the Japanese.

He returned to the United States in April 1946 to become assistant chief of staff for intelligence and later chief of staff, Headquarters, Airways and Air Communications Service at Langley Field, Va., and later at Washington, D.C. In May 1948 General Gould entered the graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1950 with a master of science degree in electrical engineering.

He was assigned to Wright Air Development Center, Air Research and Development Command, in March 1950, and assumed the responsibility for the development of drone guidance and instrumentation equipment, and the associated ground support equipment for the atomic tests at Eniwetok. He remained at WADC as assistant chief and later chief of the Armament Laboratory until August 1953, when he entered the Air War
College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

In July 1954 he became chief of the Radar and Communications Division at Headquarters Air Research and Development Command, in Baltimore, Maryland. With the reorganization of ARDC, he was assigned as assistant deputy commander, Weapon Systems – Electronics, and later became chief of the Command and Control Systems Division.

In July 1960 General Gould was assigned to Headquarters Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., as chief of the Communications-Electronics Division. In November 1964 he was appointed deputy commander of Air Force Communications Service and assumed the position of director of Command Control and Communications, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, in July 1965.

General Gould was appointed to the position of director, Defense Communications Agency in September 1971.

His military decorations and awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster and the Special Breast Order of Yun Hui from the Republic of China. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of Sigma Xi and national vice president of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard