Kenney enlisted as a flying cadet in the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps in 1917, and served on the Western Front with the 91st Aero Squadron.

George Churchill Kenney was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 6 August 1889,[1] during a summer vacation taken by his parents to avoid the humidity of the Boston area.

He graduated from Brookline High School in 1907 and later that year he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he pursued a course in civil engineering.

After this was completed, he formed a partnership, the Beaver Contracting and Engineering Corporation, with a high school classmate, Gordon Glazier.

The firm became involved in a number of projects, including the construction of a seawall at Winthrop, Massachusetts, and a bridge over the Squannacook River.

[4] The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and Kenney enlisted as a flying cadet in the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps on 2 June 1917.

He attended ground school at MIT in June and July, and received primary flight training at Hazelhurst Field in Mineola, New York, from Bert Acosta.

Notwithstanding that the enemy returned and attacked again in strong numbers, he continued his mission and enabled his observer to secure information of great military value.

In 1922, while the couple was living on Long Island, New York, a son, William Richardson Kenney, was born to them, but Hazel died soon afterward from complications.

[14] While there, he was reduced in rank from captain to first lieutenant on 18 November 1922,[5] a common occurrence in the aftermath of World War I when the wartime army was demobilized.

Most Air Corps officers, including Kenney, considered the course largely irrelevant to them, and therefore a waste of time, but nonetheless a prerequisite for promotion in a ground-oriented Army.

He performed various duties, including translating an article by the Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet into English.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank M. Andrews was chosen to command it, and selected Kenney as his Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Training.

He became involved in an acrimonious debate with the Army General Staff over the Air Corps' desire to purchase more Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.

"[30] Kenney felt that MacArthur did not understand air operations, but recognized that he somehow needed to establish a good working relationship with him.

Brigadier General Donald Wilson arrived in September and replaced Air Vice Marshal William Bostock as Kenney's chief of staff.

The new headquarters had the authority to change the assignments of aircraft in the forward area, where fast-changing weather and enemy action could overtake orders drawn up in Australia.

[44] What he needed was an effective long-range fighter, and Kenney hoped that the Lockheed P-38 Lightning would fit the bill, but the first ones delivered to SWPA were plagued with technical problems.

The bombers of the day did not have the range to reach Japan from Australia,[47] and there were no typical strategic targets in the theater other than a few oil refineries.

[43] Walker resisted Kenney's proposals that the bombers conduct attacks from low level using bombs armed with instantaneous fuses.

In November, Kenney arranged for a demonstration attack on the SS Pruth, a ship that had sunk off Port Moresby in 1924 and was often used for target practice.

"Pappy" Gunn modified some USAAF Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers by installing four .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in their noses,[55] and two 450-US-gallon (1,700 L; 370 imp gal) fuel tanks were added to give the aircraft more range.

This was successful, and an attempt was then made to create a longer range attack aircraft by doing the same thing to a B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, to operate as a "commerce destroyer".

Kenney described the process this way in 1944:The first step in this advancement of the bomber line is to gain and maintain air control as far into enemy territory as our longest range fighters can reach.

The ground troops get a transport field ready as fast as possible so that we can supplement boat supply by cargo carrying airplanes.

[5] Kenney hoped to get Boeing B-29 Superfortresses assigned to the Far East Air Forces so that, based from airfields near Darwin, they could destroy the Japanese oilfields at Balikpapan.

[72] On 8 May 1946, Kenney publicly presented the Medal of Honor to the family of Thomas B. McGuire Jr., the second-highest scoring US fighter pilot, who had been killed in action.

In Washington, D.C., a group of senators including Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. complained of Kenney's "belligerent" speech, and previous ones in the same vein by Symington, saying that matters of foreign policy should be left to the president and the secretary of state, not to leaders of the United States Air Force (USAF)[76] Another controversy that Kenney became embroiled in concerned the Convair B-36 Peacemaker.

[77] In the context of the Berlin Blockade in June 1948, the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, met with Forrestal to report the poor state of SAC.

[83] His daughter, Julia, married Edward C. Hoagland Jr., a fighter pilot in World War II and later in Korea, who eventually retired from the USAF at the rank of lieutenant colonel.