Pierpont Morgan Hamilton

Pierpont Morgan Hamilton (August 3, 1898 – March 4, 1982) was a military officer in the United States Air Force, and the scion of two illustrious families in American history: the Hamilton family, which traces its lineage to founding father Alexander Hamilton, and the Morgan family, which traces its lineage to the financier and banker J. P. Morgan. As a United States Army Air Forces officer in World War II, he was the recipient of the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Hamilton and Col. Demas T. Craw were the first Army Air Forces recipients of the Medal in the European-Mediterranean theater of World War II and the only AAF members to be awarded that decoration for valor not involving air combat. Biography Hamilton was born in Tuxedo Park, New York on August 3, 1898, to William Pierson Hamilton (great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton) and Juliet Pierpont Morgan (daughter of John Pierpont Morgan). His siblings included Helen Morgan Hamilton, Laurens Morgan Hamilton, Alexander Morgan Hamilton, and Elizabeth Hamilton. He attended the Groton School and Harvard University, where he eventually attained both his bachelor's (1920) and master's degree (1946). World War I On August 7, 1917, after the United States joined World War I, he left Harvard, where he was a sophomore, to enlist as an aviation cadet, and was assigned to ground training at the School of Military Aeronautics at Cornell University. Upon his graduation on October 13, 1917, he was transferred to the Aeronautical General Supply Depot and Concentration Barracks at Hazelhurst Field, Garden City, New York, and assigned to the foreign service detachment to complete his flight training overseas. Illness prevented him from sailing with his detachment, and he was reassigned to flight training at Ellington Field, Texas, on February 6, 1918. On May 9, 1918, he received his Reserve Military Aviator rating and was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Signal Officer's Reserve Corps. Hamilton served in the Air Service as an instructor in aerial navigation, meteorology, astronomy and officer-in-charge of bombing instruction at Ellington Field. Hamilton was promoted to captain on September 21, 1918. On December 31, 1918, he was honorably discharged from service.