Aviation Pioneer, Inventor. He is best remembered as an air power advocate who helped to shape the course of U.S. military aviation during World War II. Born Alexander Nikolaievich Prokofiev de Seversky of noble Russian parentage, he entered a Russian military school at the age of ten. In 1908, he was accepted by the Imperial Russian Naval Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, graduating with an engineering degree in 1914, and was serving in a destroyer flotilla when World War I began in July of that year. He was then chosen to train as a naval aviator and attended the Military School of Aeronautics at Sebastopol, Crimea, Russia. Upon graduation in the summer of 1915, he became a lieutenant and was assigned to an aviation unit in the Baltic Fleet. On his first combat mission, he was shot down and lost one of his legs in the ensuing crash and explosion. Fitted with an artificial leg, he was declared unfit to fly until Tsar Nicholas II personally intervened. In July 1916, he returned to combat duty and quickly shot down his first enemy aircraft. He would go on to fly 57 combat missions, shoot down a confirmed six enemy aircraft, and was awarded the Order of St. George (4th class), the Order of St. Vladimir (4th class), the Order of St. Stanislaus (2nd and 3rd class), and the Order of St. Anne (2nd, 3rd, and 4th class). In the 1917 Russian Revolution, he was stationed in St. Petersburg. The following March, he became an assistant naval attaché in the Russian Naval Aviation Mission to the U.S. and decided not to return to Russia. He offered his services to the U.S. War Department as Chief of the Signal Corps' General Kenly and became a test pilot with the Buffalo, New York, District of aircraft production. He then became an assistant to U.S. Army General Billy Mitchell and received the first patent for air-to-air refueling in 1921, one of many inventions that he patented, including the first gyroscopically-stabilized bombsight. In 1923, he founded the Seversky Aero Corporation, and, in 1928, he was commissioned as a Major the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. His corporation did not survive the 1929 stock market crash. However, two years later, he received additional financial support and reopened his business as the Seversky Aircraft Corporation in Long Island, New York, and soon designed and built the SEV-3, an all-metal, multi-place monoplane amphibian aircraft that set numerous speed records. Other aircraft were manufactured, including the SEV-S2, that won three consecutive Bendix Trophy air races beginning in 1937. In 1939, he received the Harmon Trophy for his contributions to aviation. That same year, his corporation was reorganized and renamed the Republic Aviation Corporation, and he was voted out of the company. The new corporation soon began turning out military aircraft, including the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter, as World War II approached. Following the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, he wrote "Victory Through Air Power" (1942) that advocated the strategic use of Air bombardment. It became a #1 best seller on the New York Times list which was adapted into an animated motion picture by Walt Disney Studios in 1943. In 1945, he received the Medal of Merit from U.S. President Harry S. Truman for his work on air power, and, in 1969, he was awarded the Exceptional Service Medal for his contributions as a special consultant to the U.S. Air Force Chiefs of Staff. The following year, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. He was a co-founder and trustee of the New York Institute of Technology in New York City, New York. His other writings include "Air Power: Key to Survival" (1950) and "America: Too Young to Die!" (1961). He died at the age of 80.