Clarence L. Tinker

Major General Clarence Leonard Tinker (November 21, 1887 – June 7, 1942) was a career United States Army officer, the highest ranking Native American Army officer (as a member of the Osage Nation), and the first to reach that rank. During World War II, he had been assigned as Commander of the Seventh Air Force in Hawaii to reorganize the air defenses.

He flew to lead a force during the Battle of Midway in June 1942; his plane went out of control and was lost in the ocean. He was the first U.S. Army general officer to be killed during a battle in World War II, and the second general or flag officer, after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is named in his honor.

Early life Clarence Tinker was born on November 21, 1887, near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in the Osage Nation, the eldest son of George Edward Tinker and Sarah A. (Schwagerte) Tinker. He was raised as an Osage and learned the language and culture from his parents and extended family. His maternal grandmother was half-Osage; both her parents were mixed-race Osage who had Osage mothers, and fathers who were French traders from Canada.

Tinker received his elementary education in Catholic schools at Hominy and Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and at the Elgin, Kansas, public school. Tinker and his friends learned about and idolized the 19th-century Osage Indian scouts who served with the U.S. cavalry, and Arthur Bonnicastle, the Osage chief who, according to Dr. James Crowder in his book, Osage General: Maj. Gen. Clarence L. Tinker.",

Army career Tinker received his commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army infantry in March 1912. After infantry training, Tinker joined the 25th Infantry Regiment at Fort George Wright in Spokane, Washington. In 1913, his unit was transferred to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. There he met and married Madeline Doyle, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia. During World War I, Tinker served in the southwestern United States and California, and was promoted to major.

In 1919, Tinker began flying lessons. One of his assignments after the war was with the junior ROTC at Riverside High School in Riverside, California. When his father came to visit him at the school, they began a conversation in Osage in public; using his native language was one way that Tinker expressed his identity as Osage.

In 1922, he transferred to the Army Air Service. On July 1, 1922, he was assigned to flight duty. For a time, Tinker served as the air attaché to the U.S. embassy in London. He studied at the Army Command and Staff College in the same class as Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1927, he was named commandant of the Air Service Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas. Tinker commanded various pursuit and bomber units during the 1930s. He was steadily promoted, and on October 1, 1940, became a brigadier general. against the retreating Japanese naval forces. Near Midway Island, witnesses saw Tinker’s aircraft lose control and plunge into the sea. Tinker and all ten members of his crew were killed; neither the aircraft nor their remains were ever recovered. Tinker Drive in Mount Holly, New Jersey is named for him.