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| Information > Biographies > MAJOR GENERAL VON R. SHORES |
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MAJOR GENERAL VON R. SHORES
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Died Jan. 12, 1974.
Major General Von R. Shores is director, Secretary of the Air Force Personnel Council, Headquarters U.S. Air Force.
He was born in Ardmore, Okla., in 1912. He began his military career as a member of the Oklahoma National Guard with two years of ROTC at Oklahoma A&M College before he received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry, U.S. Army, upon graduation from West Point in June 1936. He then completed primary and advanced pilot training at Randolph and Kelly Fields, Texas, and was transferred to the Army Air Corps in October 1937.
His first assignment with the Army Air Corps was in the Panama Canal Zone with the 29th Pursuit Squadron where, he served as a fighter pilot until June 1939, when he became commander of the 24th Pursuit Squadron. He was transferred to the First Pursuit Group, Selfridge Field, Mich., in 1940 and served with this unit as a pilot and group adjutant.
In June 1940 he was enrolled in the California Institute of Technology for postgraduate work and in 1941 received his master of science degree.
General Shores then served as base operations and weather officer at Westover Air Force Base, Mass., until August 1942, when he went to England as one of the initial cadre of the Twelfth Air Force headquarters. Following the planning phase of the North African invasion, he participated in the D-Day operations. While a staff officer at Twelfth Air Force headquarters he flew 29 combat missions in Spitfires.
He returned from North Africa in February 1943 and was again transferred to the Panama Canal Zone. He served as deputy commander and executive officer of the XXVI Fighter Command until May 1945. During this period, he was associated with the Brazilian Air Force in the initial organization and training of a fighter squadron which later participated in active operations against Axis powers.
General Shores returned to the United States and was assigned as commander of the Fighter Combat Crew Training Center at Venice, Fla. When that center was closed at the end of World War II, he was assigned as base commander at Will Rogers Field, Okla. Following these assignments he went to Rapid City Air Force Base (now Ellsworth Air Force Base), S.D., then to Kearney Air Force Base, Neb., as base commander. In June 1946 he went to the Naval War College at Newport, R.I. Upon graduation in June 1947, he was ordered to the Operations Division of the Directorate of Plans and Operations, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. At the time of his transfer to Oslo, Norway, in December 1949, he was assistant chief of the Operations Division.
In Oslo he was assigned as chief of the Air Force section, Military Assistance Advisory Group to Norway. In July 1952 General Shores returned to the United States and the Air Defense Command as vice commander of the 27th Air Division at Norton Air Force Base, Calif.
General Shores was assigned in July 1954 to the National War College, Washington, D.C. Upon completion of this course, he was reassigned to the Air Defense Command as commander of the 58th Air Division, which he activated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
One year later he was assigned to Headquarters Eastern Air Defense Force, Stewart Air Force Base, N.Y., as deputy chief of staff for operations. With the phase-in of the SAGE system in the Eastern Air Defense Force, he assumed command of the Boston Air Defense Sector.
In August 1959, General Shores was assigned as commander, 25th Air Division (SAGE), McChord Air Force Base, Wash., with the additional responsibility of commander, 25th North American Air Defense Region (NORAD), and converted that division from a manual air defense system to the SAGE system. In August 1962 he was assigned to Headquarters Air Defense Command, Ent Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo., as deputy chief of staff for materiel. Six months prior to his departure, General Shores was named acting chief of staff for the Air Defense Command.
In July 1964 General Shores went to Stewart Air Force Base, N.Y., as commander of the 26th NORAD/CONAD Region and 26th Air Division. The 26th Region had responsibility for providing air defense for more than 95,000,000 people living in the eastern half of North America.
In August 1965 General Shores became the deputy chief of staff, operations, Allied Air Forces Central Europe and in September 1966 he became the chief of staff and guided the consolidation of AIRCENT into the reorganized single headquarters of Allied Forces Central Europe, composed of the three former NATO headquarters. With the reorganization he became the deputy chief of staff, operations and intelligence, Allied Forces Central Europe. He had the primary planning responsibility for moving the newly reorganized headquarters from Fontainebleau, France, to Brunssum, the Netherlands, which was accomplished in February-March of 1967. During this entire period of NATO assignment he was the senior U.S. representative in the Allied Forces Central Europe Headquarters.
In September 1967 General Shores was reassigned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force as the director, Secretary of the Air Force Personnel Council.
(Current as of Sept. 1, 1968)
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