Truman’s Air Force One

I just uploaded some 1950 newsreels to Unto the Breach’s new Rumble channel, where you can see President Harry S. Truman exiting a sharp-looking Douglas VC-118 named The Independence for a conference with Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

“Air Force One” wasn’t an official designation until Dwight Eisenhower was in office, but Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman had already flown in specially modified transports. This was Truman’s second presidential aircraft — he first rode aboard the Douglas C-54 modified to carry Pres. Roosevelt named the Sacred Cow. Independence featured a stateroom in the back of the fuselage and she could carry 24 passengers or be configured for 12 sleeping berths.

William DeGraf is mentioned as the top graduate of the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 1950. DeGraf earned a battlefield commission during World War II prior to joining as a cadet. A few weeks after graduating from West Point, he was leading soldiers on the battlefields of Korea, fighting all the way from the Pusan Perimeter to a few miles from the Yalu River. 20 years later during the Vietnam War, DeGraf returned to the battlefield, now a brigade commander in the 1st Infantry Division.