Frederick Charles Bothwell, Jr.



Frederick Charles Bothwell, Jr, (25 December 1913 – 12 December 1985) Colonel USAAF, Bronze Star Medal, OBE - Military, Croix de Guerre avec Palme, was an officer in the 15th Air Force during the Second World War, and a senior executive in New York State government following the war.

Early life
Bothwell, the son of Frederick Bothwell, Sr. and Sarah Adams Bothwell was born in Royersford, Pennsylvania, and educated at Royersford High School, where he lettered in football. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the class of 1936. That year he married Catherine Rose Hannon of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and with her had two sons, Frederick and Anthony.

Military career
Initially assigned to Air Corps flight training at Randolph Field, Texas, Bothwell was subsequently posted as Second Lieutenant to the 12th Field Artillery at Fort Sam Houston, and later at the same rank to the 2nd Field Artillery (Mounted) in the Panama Canal Zone, where he led a mounted battery of 75mm pack howitzers in training exercises in the isthmus. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, he was recalled to service with the Army Air Force in the Ordnance Corps.

War years
At the onset of the war, Bothwell established weapons and crew training and support programs in a number of USAAF bases, including Midland, Texas; Pinehurst, North Carolina; Maxwell Field, Alabama; and at Grenier Field in Manchester, New Hampshire, among others. He advanced rapidly in rank, and at one point was among the youngest full colonels in the U.S. Army.

Bothwell was assigned to service with the 15th Air Force, composed of B-24 Liberator bombers and deployed with that group to North Africa and Bari, Italy, headquarters of the Foggia Airfield Complex. He was assigned to liaison duty with the RAF and Marshall Tito's Yugoslav Partisans. In Yugoslavia he was responsible for securing the repatriation of escaping Allied prisoners of war and bomber crews, many of whom were forced down while attempting to return from bombing missions against Axis oil facilities in Ploesti, Romania.

Post war
Following V-E Day in 1945 Bothwell was assigned to SHAEF headquarters. He retired with a medical disability in 1946, and entered a life of public service, initially as Director of the New York State Civil Defense Authority, later as Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Liquor Authority. He divorced his wife Catherine and married Alice Miles of Portland, Oregon. They had two children, Lawrence and Mary Anne and lived in Garden City, New York. Later the family moved to La Jolla, California, where Bothwell taught high school mathematics in Coronado. He died on December 12, 1985 at his home in California.