Page "Far East Air Force (United States)" Paragraph 7

The senior Air Corps officer in the Philippines was Col. Harrison H. C. Richards, the Department Air Officer.

Col. Lawrence S. Churchill, commanding the 4th Composite Group, was a year his junior in rank.

Cooperation and approval by Richards, a West Pointer, was necessary to accomplish support tasks for the 4th Group, but many officers felt he withheld information from Churchill and deliberately sabotaged group operations.

While both colonels were fifty-one years old in 1941, neither had the confidence of Gen. Grunert, possibly because of open animosity each displayed against the other.

In March 1941, Grunert wrote Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall requesting that a general officer be transferred to Manila to command the Department's air force.