Harold Winfield Grant – Lieutenant General, United States Air Force

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LIEUTENANT GENERAL HAROLD W. GRANT
Retired November 1964, Died March 17, 1989

Lieutenant General Harold Winfield Grant, the commander of the Air Force Communications Service, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1906. He graduated from high school at Evanston, Ill., in 1924, and received his bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University in 1928.

Appointed a Flying Cadet in June l928, General Grant graduated from Primary and Advanced Flying Schools June 22, 1929, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Reserve. He received his regular commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Sept. 4, 1929, and was assigned to Selfride Field, Michigan. Entering the Air Corps Tactical School at Chanute Field, Illinouis, in October, 1930, the general completed the communications course at Scott Field, Illinois, and a year later was transferred to Bolling Field, D.C., as assistant base engineer officer.

Going to Hawaii in August 1932, General Grant was named post signal officer at Luke Field. Returning to Bolling Field in September 1937, he was appointed base adjutant, and later base communications and signal 0fficer. In November 194l the general was named special assistant to the air inspector at Army Air Force Headquarters, Washington, D.C., and the following March became Army Air Force member of the Communications and Equipment Coordination Board. He was designated assistant secretary of the Air Staff at Army Air Force Headquarters in December 1942.

Ordered to the European Theater of Operations in February 1943, General Grant was appointed U.S. Air Signal Planner for Combined Operations. That September he began two months temporary duty in Washington, D.C., and was then named deputy signal officer-in-chief of the Southeast Asia Command in India.

Returning to Bolling Field in May 1945, General Grant became assistant chief of staff of the Continental Air Forces. In July 1946, he assumed that position with the Strategic Air Command at Andrews Field, Maryland. Entering the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in August 1947, he graduated the following June and was named communications officer of the Air Command and Staff Schoo1 there. Two months later the general was designated director of the Communications and Electronics Division of the Special Staff School at Craig Air Force Base, Alabama, and in August 1950 assumed that position with the Air Command and Staff School. In January 1951 he was appointed commander of the 31st Air Division at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and the following September became executive of the Joint Air Defense Board at Ent Air Force Base, Colorado.

Joining the Far East Air Forces, Tokyo, Japan, in October 1952, General Grant was named vice commander of the Japan Air Defense of the Fifth Air Force, FEAF. Moving to Formosa January 15, 1955, he became deputy commander of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command, Pacific Air Forces, FEAF.

Returning to the United States April 1, 1957, General Grant was named deputy chief of staff for operations, Air Defense Command, Ent Air Force Base, Colorado. Moving to Air Force Headquarters July 1, 1958, he became director of  communications-electronics in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, a post he held until his assignment as commander, AFCS July 1, 1961.

General Grant has been awarded the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, and the Order of the British Empire. He is rated a command pilot, combat observer, senior aircraft observer and technical observer.

General Grant was buried with full military honors in Section 5, Grave 153, Arlington National Cemetery.

Dorothy S. Grant Equestrienne

Dorothy S. Grant, 93, a rider, horsewoman and riding teacher who in the 1960s and 1970s was head of Rock Creek Stables in Washington, died of pulmonary disease May 17, 2003, at a retirement home in Louisville, Colorado.

For 25 years until 1989, Mrs. Grant led horseback riding tours in Hungary, and she taught thousands of Washington area residents to ride.

A former resident of Washington and Sterling, she moved to Colorado in October.

She was born in Wagner, South Dakota, and grew up on a ranch near the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation. She graduated from the University of Nebraska School of Journalism in 1931 and took a job with the Norfolk (Nebraska) Daily News. Later she was a freelance journalist and wrote about issues and concerns of American Indians.

In 1933, she married Harold W. Grant, an Army Air Corps pilot who retired as an Air Force Lieutenant General. She accompanied him to postings in Japan and across the United States. They settled in Washington in 1960. He died in 1989.

Survivors include two sons, Bruce Grant of Estes Park, Colo., and Michael Grant of Houston; and three grandchildren.

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