The following statements were contributed by Steven cannon Hoppe, grandson of Gen. Cannon.
My grandfather, whom we called Opa, died in January, 1955, just 10 months after he retired from the USAF. There are no longer any men or women currently in the USAF who would have been born during his time, so they might not know the type of person he was. They just know the name of the base. They might not be aware of how well-liked and well-respected he was not just by other generals and officers, but in particular by the Airmen who served under him. They affectionately knew him as "Uncle Joe" (hence "General John K. 'Uncle Joe' Estates" on base). I recall stories my mother would tell stories, and I remember dinner-time discussions about him and those he served with.
My mother would often state that her father especially looked out for his young officers and Airmen. One time, an officer expressed his concern about a young lieutenant whom he didn't feel had enough coordination to be the pilot. Opa replied to him, "I've seen him play golf. He's got plenty of coordination."
In the early 1920s, Opa was involved in a midair collision while practicing for a dogfight demonstration. The other plan clipped Opa's wing. Claire Chenault (later famous due to the Flying Tigers), was observing from another plane and said that Opa's plane spun down like a top. Parachutes had been heard of but were not yet in use. Opa said he pulled wires as he spun down, hoping the plane would not catch fire. Opa's face was smashed in, and he had a steel plate put into forehead area of his skull. It changed his looks forever and left looking older at a young age. My grandmother said that Opa heard the doctors talking and saying he would not live through the night. Opa sat up from the hospital bed and said, "The hell I won't!"
His flight students in the 1920s included a who's who of future Army Air Forces and United States Air Force leaders from the "early days": Hoyt Vandenberg, Nathan Twining, Curtis LeMay, Benjamin Chidlaw and Lauris Norstad.
Charles Lindbergh had been one of Opa's students at Kelly Field in the mid-1920s, when Opa was the Training and Operations Officer at Kelly. This is prior to Lindbergh's historic 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Lindbergh was charged with doing something that was an automatic washout offense. Though automatic, Opa listened to Lindbergh and allowed him to keep his wings. In his autobiography We, Lindbergh wrote, "I had come very close to the "Benzine Board" for an offense of which I knew nothing, but it was probably only the open-mindedness and sense of fair play of the operations officer that kept me from being washed out as a result." The two remained good friends the remainder of my grandfather's life.
His friends and counterparts that were often part of our family dinner conversations included Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, Ira Eaker, Jimmy Doolittle, Nathan Twining, and Hoyt Vandenberg. I'm told the PIO (Public Information Office, now Public Affairs) officer responsible for Opa and his role were continually challenged because he felt public relations was a waste of his time. Hence there is much less published about him then for some other generals. He particularly did not like talking to others about himself and his accomplishments. And my mother does not remember him talking negatively about others,
You probably already know that during WWII the 27th (though not SOW, obviously) fell under Opa's command. So the 27th and the name Cannon have a long relationship that goes well before Cannon AFB. During WWI, Opa's assignments included command of the Twelfth Air Force and the Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Force; commander-in-chief of all Allied Air Forces in the Mediterranean Theater; then, in May 1945, commanding general of USAFE, a position he held a second time 1948-1951, which included the period of The Berlin Airlift.
He was the head of the Air Training Command, at Barksdale AFB, 1946-1948. And in 1951 he was promoted to general and became commanding general of Tactical Air Command, at Langley AFB. When Opa retired, he was the senior airman in point of service and held the serial number 3A. (Generals McNarney and Kenney were numbers 1A and 2A.)
Something that has surprised me is that in recent years his command of Tactical Air Command seems to be disappearing from some of the biographical information about him. I realize TAC and SAC were merged about a dozen years ago to form ACC. But TAC was important part of his career. At least to me, it seems odd to include USAFE but not TAC. At the time, TAC was not a major command and was on its way to being dissolved. Opa became TAC's first commander as a major command, equal to SAC. He worked hard with Congress to get funding and to grow TACs breadth and importance.
One of my favorite photos is the one from the 1950s, in Suwon, Korea. The old fighter pilot and the young fighter pilot talking about his last flight. I was born after my grandfather had died, so I never knew him, other than through photos, stories and documents.