Carl “Tooey” Spaatz is one of the genuine characters of American aviation. In the wild and woolly days of flight, he was a guitar-strumming free spirit who often offended the military establishment. But over the course of his career, Spaatz did as much to shape the modern Air Force as any other single person. He trained most of the American pilots who fought in WWI, pioneered air-to-air refueling, and his command of WWII’s strategic air forces forever changed the way war is fought. When he retired, President Eisenhower paid tribute to him saying that Tooey Spaatz had never been wrong.
