Carl Andrew Spaatz (born Spatz; 28 June 1891 – 14 July 1974), nicknamed "Tooey", was an American World War II general.

As commander of Strategic Air Forces in Europe in 1944, he successfully pressed for the bombing of the enemy's oil production facilities as a priority over other targets.

Of German ancestry, in 1937 Spaatz legally added the second "a" to his surname at the request of his wife and three daughters to clarify the pronunciation of the name, as many pronounced it "spats".

[4] His father was a state senator who ran a printing shop and a small newspaper, The Berks County Democrat, which he published from 1904 to 1930.

[3] Other graduates included numerous men who would become general officers, such as Brehon B. Somervell, Charles P. Gross, Jens A. Doe, John B. Anderson, James L. Bradley, Orlando Ward, Harold Francis Loomis, Harold R. Bull, Frank W. Milburn, Ralph Royce, Vicente Lim, and Harry C. Ingles.

Following America's entry into World War I, Spaatz was sent with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in command of the 31st Aero Squadron.

Spaatz was appointed Officer in Charge, American Aviation School at Issoudun, France but after receiving orders to return to the United States, he saw three weeks of action during the final months of the war with the 13th Aero Squadron as a supernumerary pilot.

In this brief period, Spaatz shot down three enemy planes[5] and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; during the time he was promoted to the temporary rank of major on 17 June 1918.

[citation needed] In early 1919, Spaatz was appointed to lead one of the three "troupes" of the U.S. Army Air Service Victory Loan Flying Circus.

The team gave promotional rides and flew aerial demonstrations across the Western and Southwestern United States from early April through mid-May 1919 to raise money to retire the World War I debt.

Spaatz experienced the chaotic ups and downs in rank common to Regular officers in 1920, when the National Defense Act of 1920 reorganized the military.

This made him senior to a number of officers, including Henry H. Arnold (his superior at the time), with greater longevity of service.

In August 1935, he enrolled in the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and while there was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 16 September.

On 7 November 1939, Spaatz received a temporary promotion to colonel, and during the Battle of Britain in 1940, spent several weeks in England as a special military observer.

This roving assignment when combined with his Teutonic name gave rise to rumors to which he once responded by signing in at a British airbase as "Col. Carl A. Spaatz, German spy.

Neither is it easy to think of any other who had both the perception to identify oil targets as decisive and the strength to conserve a part of the U.S. strategic air striking power for them.

Spaatz also identified that "...the chimera of one air operation that will end the war...does not exist", and[8]: 273  advocated Tedder's plan "which retained the oil system in first position, but more clearly placed Germany's rail system in second priority", which encouraged Eisenhower to overrule Air Ministry fears that the "thrust against the oil industry" might be weakened.

On 10 May, Spaatz conducted an interrogation of Hermann Göring along with an American historian Bruce Campbell Hopper at the Ritter School in Augsburg, Germany.

In 1954, Spaatz was appointed to the congressional advisory board set up to determine the site for the new United States Air Force Academy.

Katherine ("Tattie") served in the American Red Cross mobile unit in England during World War II[15] and later married British intelligence officer Walter Bell (diplomat) 1948.