Brigadier General Harry H. Bendorf is deputy director for force development and strategic plans, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J-5, Washington, D.C.
General Bendorf was born in Memmingen, West Germany, in 1928. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas in June 1947. In June 1951 he received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Southern Methodist University and a commission as a second lieutenant through the Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps. General Bendorf was a distinguished graduate of the ROTC program. He received a master's degree in history from the University of Nebraska in 1966, and is a 1972 graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C.
He entered flight training in July 1951 and received his navigator wings at Ellington Air Force Base, Texas, in October 1952. After combat crew training in B-29 aircraft, he joined the 307th Bombardment Wing at Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, and flew a combat tour of duty during the Korean War. In March 1954 he was assigned to Walker Air Force Base, N.M., as a Strategic Air Command tanker crew navigator. He continued to serve in crew and wing staff positions with the 509th Bombardment Wing until December 1958 when he became chief of combat operations in the 817th Air Division, Pease Air Force Base, N.H. In that position he was responsible for the development of war plans for the 817th Air Division.
In February 1961 General Bendorf transferred to Headquarters SAC where he became a member of a small cadre selected to adapt computer techniques to operations, command and control functions.
Following a tour of duty on the operations staff at SAC, General Bendorf was assigned in May 1967 to the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J-3, where he served as operations officer and later as deputy division chief of the Data Processing Division of the National Military Command System.
In September 1971 he was appointed a senior research associate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Mass. In that capacity General Bendorf served as a faculty resource for the National Security Study curriculum and served as an active participant in the Harvard/Massachusetts Institute of Technology security studies seminar.
In June 1972 General Bendorf was assigned as the deputy, assistant for analysis, Directorate of Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. He then became the chief, assistant for analysis, in May 1973, and in September 1975 was assigned as assistant director for strategy development and analysis. In March 1977 General Bendorf was designated the deputy director for force development. The general was named assistant deputy director for force development and strategic plans in April 1979 and assumed his current duties in April 1980.
General Bendorf's military decorations include the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster and Presidential Unit Citation emblem. He is a master navigator with more than 4,000 hours flying time.
He was promoted to brigadier general April 1, 1979, with date of rank March 31, 1979.
(Current as of June 1980)