Five selected to comm hall of fame Published May 11, 2006 By Gerald Sonnenberg Air Force Communications Agency Public Affairs SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFPN) -- Five Air Force communications pioneers are the newest members of the Communications and Information Hall of Fame located in the Air Force Communications Agency’s Ludwig Heritage Hall here. Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, the Air Force chief of warfighting integration and chief information officer, announced that the late Maj. Gen. Francis L. Ankenbrandt, the late Maj. Gen. John B. Bestic, retired Maj. Gen. Rupert H. Burris, retired Col. Derrel L. Dempsey and retired Chief Master Sgt. William L. Bethea were inducted into the hall of fame during a ceremony May 10 at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. A panel of active duty and retired communicators advised General Peterson on nomination selections. General Ankenbrandt graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1926 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps. At Wright Field, Ohio, from 1936 to 1938, General Ankenbrandt served as air navigations project officer in aircraft radio labs. His work involved creating and testing instrument landing systems that enabled pilots to land in blind flying conditions. He was the last Army Air Forces air communications officer and the first Air Force director of communications, leading the transformation from AAF to U.S. Air Force communications. He retired in 1956 and died in 1976. General Bestic was attending college at the University of Minnesota when he received an appointment to West Point in 1935. For the first two years of World War II, the young signal officer was assigned to the Northwest Air District and 2nd Air Force until he became a member of the 5th Air Force in the Pacific theater in 1943. He moved with the 5th as U.S. and allied forces took New Guinea, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. After the war, General Bestic was at Air Force headquarters as chief of the communications division before becoming deputy director for communications-electronics, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The last 10 years of his Air Force career were as director of the Defense Communications Agency's National Military Command System. He played a major role in setting up the modern NMCS facility and its data processing and communications networks. He retired in 1968 and died in 1969. General Burris enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943. He served as a B-17 gunner/armorer, completing 30 combat missions over Germany and France before he turned 20. He was discharged in December 1946, but re-enlisted three months later. He received his commission in 1948 and began his career in communications after attending the aircraft warning officers course at Keesler AFB, Miss. In 1958, his knowledge of radar technology was needed at Air Defense Command in Colorado. He served first as senior evaluation officer and later as chief of the radar evaluation branch in the communications-electronics directorate on Ent AFB, Colo. By 1975, he became Air Force Communications Service’s vice commander and then commander -- the only non-rated officer to head an Air Force major command. He retired in 1977 and was the first to receive the AFCS Order of the Sword. Colonel Dempsey is considered by many to be a “living legend” in the air traffic control realm. His career began with his commissioning and training as an undergraduate pilot in 1954. He then trained at the air traffic control school at Will Rogers Field in Oklahoma City before serving as a radar approach control and control tower officer. He has 30 years of aviation experience as chief of air traffic control, flight inspection pilot, and air traffic control staff officer at various assignments around the world. During the Vietnam War, Colonel Dempsey logged 1,000 combat-coded flying hours in the C-140A Jetstar. He eventually earned pilot qualifications in 10 different Air Force aircraft. In his final assignment as deputy chief of staff for Air Force Communication Command’s air traffic services, he deployed more than 642 Air Force air traffic controllers to 75 Federal Aviation Administration facilities during the 1981 air traffic controller strike. He retired in 1984. The Air Force’s annual air traffic control officer manager of the year award is named in his honor. Chief Bethea is the second enlisted person to be inducted. He entered the Air Force in 1951 and after basic training, attended teletype and crypto maintenance school at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo. In 1958 he became one of the first secure voice network technicians assigned to the Pentagon. He was selected to establish the first Air Force communications/information maintenance work center supporting the National Military Command Center. In 1968, he was sent to Korea to install a secure voice network at all bases there after the USS Pueblo was attacked by North Korean forces. His last assignment brought him to the Headquarters Defense Communications Agency as superintendent of the facilities control branch. Following retirement in 1978, he helped the Department of Energy implement national policy for computer security related programs at nuclear weapons complex production plants and laboratories. The Communications and Information Hall of Fame was established in 1999 to recognize the achievements of past military leaders and civil servants whose solutions to problems and their innovation, creativity and application of new technologies have paved the way for the communications, command and control, and intelligence capabilities the Air Force now enjoys. The hall of fame site is maintained by the Air Force Communications Agency here. It was officially dedicated March 2, 2001. For more information, visit the Web site at http://public.afca.af.mil/hall_of_fame.htm/.