Clinton D. "Casey" Vincent

Clinton Dermott Vincent was born in 1914 in the small town of Gail, Texas. His parents, Carvin Wyoming Vincent and the former Rosa Lee Burgess, produced 11 While still a small child, Vincent moved with his family to Natchez, Mississippi, where he went to school. and took primary flight training at Randolph Field in Texas, about from his parents back home. In January 1937, during his primary training, his mother died in Natchez at the age of 65. Following primary, Vincent took the attack course in advanced flying at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. In November 1937, he was posted operations officer for the 19th Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Field near Pearl Harbor. Hennessey traveled to Hawaii to be with him, and on February 10, 1938, they married The next day Peggy Vincent began to drive her two daughters to San Antonio to be with family. On December 7 when Hawaii was attacked by Japanese naval forces, the unarmed ship carrying Vincent, traveling with no escort, was ordered to return immediately to San Francisco Bay. Vincent remained in California for another month, joined by his wife and daughter, during which time he learned that Manila had fallen, and that fellow Group pilot Sam Marrett, a friend from West Point, had died in its defense. On January 12, 1942, the USS Mariposa sailed in convoy with Vincent aboard, headed for the Far East. ==China==

Vincent arrived in Melbourne, Australia, in early February, then sailed in a different convoy to Perth. In March, he sailed to Karachi, India, and was posted to Karachi American Air Base, one of the more distant ports that supplied The Hump. There, Vincent served as Director of Pursuit Training for the Tenth Air Force at the rank of lieutenant colonel. Three days into the new job, Vincent wrote in his diary, "Any similarity between the China Air Task Force and a military organization is purely accidental." Another pilot took Peggy I on that mission but belly-landed the aircraft on a road. Vincent borrowed a different aircraft to fly reconnaissance missions on December 17 and 19, but stayed on the ground again during a short visit by Bissell, to satisfy his expectations. General Joseph Stilwell flew in on December 22 to award Chennault the Distinguished Service Medal, and to take him to Chungking, the provisional wartime capital of China. Left in charge of CATF for the rest of December, Vincent led the combat missions he put together. On December 24 he was awarded the Silver Star for his combat performance. and Bruce K. Holloway. Foreground: Albert "Ajax" Baumler and Grattan "Grant" Mahony. In early January 1943, Vincent was officially made executive officer of the CATF, taking over the multiple leadership roles held previously by Scott and by Merian C. Cooper, who were both heading home. He checked out in a C-53 transport, flew it to Chungking for a "short visit with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek", and was promoted to colonel. Starved of fuel and supplies in February, the CATF mounted few missions; during the same period, Commanding General of the USAAF Henry H. Arnold visited with Chennault and Vincent to inform them that a group of fuel-hungry heavy bombers were to be assigned to the CATF, under Colonel Royden Eugene Beebe, Jr. He prevailed upon Chennault to let him take a fighter squadron deeper into enemy territory via advance bases where the fliers would stop to refuel and re-arm. In May 1943, a forward echelon commanded by Vincent with Tex Hill as vice commander was flown out of bases in east China, along the Hengyang–Kweilin line. This bold thrust into enemy-held territory put all major Japanese airbases from north China to Indochina and Thailand under threat of U.S. air attack. Flying Peggy II, a new P-40K he received on June 2, Vincent racked up four more aerial victories, making him an ace, then number six on August 26, 1943. For this, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit; the latter "for outstanding leadership of a small force, which, against numerically superior air strength, succeeded in disrupting enemy communications and routing troop columns." Chennault forbade him from any further combat missions. Upon his return to CBI, Vincent was informed that reconnaissance flights over Formosa (Taiwan) showed a growing concentration of Japanese aircraft. To Vincent, they appeared vulnerable to attack from advance bases, so he and Hill planned a long-range mission. On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1943, Vincent sent Hill in command of a mixed force of eight early Allison-engined P-51 Mustangs, eight P-38 Lightnings and fourteen B-25 Mitchells against 100 bombers and 112 fighters at Hsinchu Air Base—the attackers destroyed 15 of 20 defending fighters as well as 27 enemy bombers on the ground without loss to themselves. Four days later flying escort to B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, Vincent led the 23d Fighter Group against Tien Ho airdrome at Canton—the group shot down 13 of 20 defending fighters. The Formosa attack was one of the most devastating in the CBI Theater—it catalyzed the Japanese to lay plans to invade and seize the advance airfields Vincent had developed in east China. These plans became one of the two primary goals of Operation Ichi-Go, Japan's 1944 invasion of east China. the oak leaf cluster to his Air Medal in December 1944. As an expansion of the 14th Air Force Forward Echelon, the 68th Composite Wing was formed in December 1943. On June 2, 1944, Vincent was promoted to temporary brigadier general, the second youngest general officer in the USAAF. Of Vincent, Caniff said that he "picked his brain" about living and fighting conditions in China. Directly afterward, Vincent was called to attend a formal dinner with American and Chinese generals and ambassadors, honoring Vice President Henry A. Wallace who was on a fact-finding mission. Meeting after dinner in his office, Vincent told Wallace "the unvarnished truth—that, barring a miracle, the Japanese will have all of east China by July 15!" Japanese supply problems in east China were as critical as American ones, and the Japanese advance was slowed until September when Vincent was forced to retreat and destroy his advance base at Tanchuk. The same treatment befell his own headquarters at Kweilin in October. As he circled Kweilin one final time in his command B-25, he said to Time magazine writer Theodore H. White (who was evacuating as well), "I'm going to write a book about this campaign. I'm going to call it Fire and Fall Back." A month later, Vincent's HQ, relocated to Liuchow, was abandoned, with the 68th retreating to the 14th Air Force stronghold at Kunming. On December 13, 1944, both Hill and Vincent completed their tours of duty and left China, Vincent to command the 30th Training Wing at Turner Field in Georgia. ==Postwar career==

In 1946, Vincent reverted to the permanent rank of captain and began teaching at the Air War College. In 1951 Caniff, who had started a comic strip titled Steve Canyon four years earlier, used Vincent as a model for a new character, this time making him the youthful "Brigadier General P.G. 'Shanty' Town". Caniff made General Town into a hard-working peacetime general, concerned with the defense of America. ==Death and legacy==

In 1955, Vincent was ordered to Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he was to serve as deputy chief of staff for operations of the Continental Air Command. On July 5 at the age of 40, after one full day at his new post, Vincent went to bed at his residence on the air base and died of a heart attack in his sleep. Vincent was interred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on July 11, 1955. Caniff responded to the tragic news by having his character General Town die from overwork. In 1975, Vincent's war diaries were made into a book: Fire and Fall Back: the World War Two "CBI" story of "Casey" Vincent, compiled and edited by author Glenn E. McClure. "Tex" Hill said of Vincent and the diaries "He was strong, smart—just one hell of a good man. He was never recognized for what he did. He handled it well in China. But you could tell in his diary that he felt like he'd been left hanging." ==Awards and decorations==