Clayton Bissell

Major General Clayton Lawrence Bissell (July 29, 1896 – December 24, 1972) was an air officer in the United States Army and United States Army Air Forces during World War I and World War II.

World War I service

Bissell graduated from Valparaiso University, Indiana, in 1917 with a degree of doctor of laws. He enlisted in the Aviation Section, Signal Reserve, August 15, 1917, and was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Aviation Section, Signal Reserve, January 12, 1918.

He began his aviation training at Mohawk, Canada, in September 1917, and was subsequently stationed at Taliaferro Field, Texas, from November 1917 to January 1918. He commanded the 638th Aero Squadron with the American Forces in Germany until May 1919, when he returned to the United States. During this tour of duty, Bissell was also one of the pilots involved in the controversial Ostfriesland bombing that was the crux of Mitchell's court-martial. He retired on October 31, 1950 at the rank of Major General immediately after a hospital stay following a 72-day whirlwind European vacation.

Controversies

Bissell taught at the Air Tactical School at the same time as did Claire Lee Chennault, later of the Flying Tigers. Bissell once tried to intimidate the Flying Tigers into staying in service by claiming that if they left, as soon as they got back to the United States they'd be drafted into the US Army as privates. The two men became personal enemies when Bissell continued to claim that fighters could not stop bombers from performing their mission. When Chennault was offered an appointment in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a brigadier general, he asked that he be granted a date of rank one day earlier than Bissell's and that was promised, but in the end, Bissell got one day of rank over Chennault. Throughout Bissell's tenure in India, Chennault complained of broken promises about planes, flyers, spare parts and supplies. To resolve the personal animosity, Stilwell ultimately agreed to have Bissell removed from the China Burma India Theater.

In his role as General George Marshall's assistant chief of staff for intelligence, he is known for having ordered the suppression of evidence that the Soviets were responsible for the Katyn massacre of Polish officers. While a prisoner of the Germans, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel John H. Van Vliet Jr spent some time at the site of the Katyn massacre, and concluded from what he saw that the Soviets were responsible for the atrocity. On May 22, 1945, immediately upon his arrival in Washington, D.C., after being freed from captivity, Van Vliet filed a personal report with Bissell indicating what he had found. Bissell classified the report Top Secret in order to minimize its circulation, and later the report disappeared from archives.

Although Bissell claimed he had sent the report to the State Department, State said it never received it, and the Army had no receipt to show that it did. When called to account for his actions before a Congressional Committee investigating Katyn in February 1952, Bissell contended that he was merely carrying out the spirit of the Yalta Conference. In 1950, Van Vliet recreated his wartime report In 2014, a copy of Van Vliet's 1945 Paris disposition was discovered.

Decorations

Effective dates of promotions Source: Bissell was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on January 4, 1973.