Twining was the son of Clarence Walker Twining and Maize (Barber) Twining. His family had a strong military background; his brother
Merrill B. Twining was a general in the
United States Marine Corps, his brother Robert B. Twining attained the rank of
captain in the
United States Navy, and his uncle
Nathan Crook Twining was a
rear admiral in the Navy. Twining's stepmother, Frances Staver Twining, was the author of
Bird-Watching in the West. , Lieutenant General
Millard Harmon, and Major General Nathan F. Twining, conferring over a map whilst serving in the South Pacific, February 1943. In 1913, Twining moved with his family from
Monroe, Wisconsin, to
Oswego, Oregon. He was educated in Wisconsin and Oregon, and was a 1917 graduate of
Portland, Oregon's
Lincoln High School. He served in the
Oregon National Guard from 1915 to 1917 and attained the rank of
first sergeant. After serving in the Army
infantry for three years, including post-war occupation duty in Germany, in 1922 Twining was reassigned to the
Air Service. Over the next 15 years he flew fighter aircraft in
Texas,
Louisiana, and
Hawaii, while also attending the Air Corps Tactical School and the
Command and General Staff College. When
World War II broke out in Europe he was assigned to the operations division on the Air Staff; then in 1942 he was sent to the
South Pacific where he became chief of staff of the Allied air forces in that area. In January 1943, he was promoted to
major general and assumed command of the
Thirteenth Air Force, and that same November he traveled across the world to take over the
Fifteenth Air Force from
Jimmy Doolittle. On February 1, 1943, the U.S. Navy rescued Maj. Gen. Twining, the 13th Air Force Commander, and 14 others near the
New Hebrides. They had ditched their plane on the way from
Guadalcanal to
Espiritu Santo and spent six days in life rafts. After arriving in Europe, he commanded the Fifteenth Air Force as well as the
Mediterranean Allied Strategic Air Force of the
Mediterranean Allied Air Forces during the
Combined Bomber Offensive and
Oil campaign against
the Axis. When
Germany surrendered, Arnold sent Twining back to the Pacific to command the
B-29s of the
Twentieth Air Force in the last push against Japan, however he was in this command only a short time when the
atomic strikes ended the war. On October 20, 1945, Twining led three B-29s in developing a new route from Guam to Washington via India and Germany. They completed the 13,167-mile-trip in 59 hours, 30 minutes.'” The general tone of the memo was that unidentified objects seen in the skies by military personnel were not weather, astronomical or other phenomenon but rather objects that warranted further investigation. Twining wrote “The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” After three years there Twining was set to retire as a
lieutenant general, but when
Muir Fairchild, the
Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, died unexpectedly of a heart attack, Twining was elevated to full general and named his successor. == United States Air Force Chief of Staff ==