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Central Edition Des Moines Sunday Register Page2B Sunday, January 25, 2009 Famous lowans War flights by two Lanphiers made history REGISTER FILE PHOTO the air intelligence officer for Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. Lanphier saw his namesake son rise to glory in World War II and afterward before he himself died at age 82 on Oct. 9, 1972, in San Diego. Thomas G.

Lanphier Jr. reaped honors as the fighter pilot who shot down the plane carrying Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the man behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. Lanphier Jr. was 27 and an Army captain serving in the Air Corps when he and other fighter pilots were involved in a skirmish against Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, over Bougainville Island in the Solomon Islands.

Lanphier Jr. was born Nov. 27, 1915, in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was serving in the Army. Lanphier Jr. grew up in the Detroit area and later attended Stanford University, graduating in journalism in 1941.

In postwar years he became an editor of the Idaho Daily Statesman and Boise Capital News. In 1949-50, Lanphier Jr. served as special assistant to Stuart Symington, then secretary of the Air Force. From 1951 to 1960, Lanphier Jr. served as vice president of the Convair Division of General Dynamics based in San Diego, and championed the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile.

Later, the man known as a supersalesman resigned his position to make frequent headlines as a critic of national defense policies, which he called weak. Lanphier Jr. died Nov. 26, 1987, at the veterans medical center in La Jolla, after a yearlong battle with cancer. He died one day before his 72nd birthday.

In recent years, after new assessments, both Lanphier Jr. and fellow pilot Rex Barber are credited with shooting down Yamamoto. Both Lanphiers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. By TOM LONGDEN tlongdengdmreg.com Two men, father and son, with the same name, soared to acclaim in different ways during two world wars. Thomas G.

Lanphier Sr. had standout flight service while piloting in World War I. He then became closely associated with Charles A. Lindbergh. Thomas G.

Lanphier Jr. played a pivotal role in World War II and has been credited with eliminating a key Japanese enemy. Lanphier Sr. was born in Lohrville on April 16, 1890, the son of John Joseph Lanphier and Catherine Carey Lanphier. When Lanphier was 12, his family moved to Omaha, where Lanphier attended Creighton Preparatory School for four years and Creighton University for two years before receiving an appointment to West Point.

At the military academy, according to author Donald Davis, he befriended classmate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Graduating from West Point in 1914, Lanphier was assigned to the 5th Infantry at Plattsburg, N.Y. That fall, the 5th Infantry took off for Panama to guard the Canal Zone. On leave in 1915, Lanphier journeyed to New York to marry Janet Cobb, whom he had met while he was attending West Point and she was studying at Vassar College.

The couple returned to the Canal Zone, where Thomas Lanphier the oldest of the couple's three sons, was born. When World War I broke out, Lanphier Sr. sailed with his battalion to France in March 1918. He served in combat before he was transferred at his request to the air service. He was sent to flying school at Issoudon, France, where 400 pilots were being trained for the front each week.

He flew almost daily in such planes as Camels and DeHavillands. Lanphier Sr. returned to the United States on June 1, 1919, served in various flight training positions and then was named commandant and leader of the THOMAS 6. LANPHIER SR. AND THOMAS G.

LANPHIER JR. Army pilots Col. Thomas Lanphier center, chats with his father, Col. Thomas G. Lanphier and mother, Janet Lan-phier, in late August 1 945, when he was visiting his home in Detroit.

After becoming a World War II ace pilot, Thomas Lanphier Jr. made headlines in 1949 when he made an around-the-world flight on regularly scheduled commercial airplanes. He made the global trip in four days, 23 hours and 7 minutes. Author Donald Davis writes about the Lanphiers in his book "Lightning Strike The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yama-moto and Avenge Pearl Harbor," and says that Lanphier brother, Charles, also a pilot, was captured by the Japanese and died of illness resulting from malnutrition in a prison camp at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. Thomas Thomas Jr.

and Charles Lanphier are all buried at Arlington National Cemetery. fpl Find past articles about Famous lowans and read Tom Longden's blog at DesMoinesRegister.com famousiowans. his friend. Also in September, Lanphier would become vice president in charge of operations of Transcontinental Air Transport of which Lindbergh was on the board of directors. They were on the cutting edge of plans to set up a new crosscountry flighttrain system that would cut in half to two days the time it took travelers to cross the nation.

It was Lanphier's job to train pilots to fly multimotored aircraft. In 1932, Lanphier was asked to give statements in the infamous Lindbergh baby-kidnapping case. In World War II, Lanphier Sr. returned to the Army to become a lieutenant colonel and First Pursuit Group at Detroit's Selfridge Field. Lanphier an advocate of air power and a friend of Gen.

Billy Mitchell, testified for the defense at Mitchell's court-martial for insubordination in 1925. When Lanphier Sr. visited Lohrville in 1928, he was the center of attention at a number of events, and a Des Moines Register account said residents of the town had remembered when the hometown hero was a "sturdy, daredevil scamp" of a boy. At the time, Lanphier had left his post as commander of Selfridge Field, where he had served for four years in command of 40 pilots, 50 planes and 800 men at the Army's largest airdrome. Besides being known as one of the foremost aviation experts in the Army, Lanphier was known for his close association with Lindbergh, and in September 1928, the press reported that Lanphier escaped death and serious injury when his plane crashed in Chicago.

Lanphier's wing had struck the top of a truck parked at the edge of the flying field. Lindbergh had just taken off ahead of Lanphier, when he witnessed the accident and returned to the field to check on Your 2 Cents' Worth Submit your anonymous comments for the Your 2 Cents' Worth column via the Web at DesMoinesRegister.com2cents. Find more comments online. Prison growth rate expected to slow Iowa's prison population is expected to show little growth over the next decade, eliminating the need to construct additional prison space beyond projects already authorized, state officials said. 2009 8,361 2010 8,296 2011 8,350 2012 8,335 2013 8,445 2014 8,569 2015 8,676 2016 8,757 2017 8,834 2018 8,900 We should brag more about our state.

We're hot stuff. Des Moines teen Iowa citizens should be very concerned about the proposal to lease the Iowa Lottery. This is another example of how much our legislators and governor owe to Iowa casinos! This proposal would expand gambling and result in less oversight of gambling activities. The only way this proposal would generate the profits claimed would be if the privatized lottery would introduce Keno and legalize TouchPlay again! Stand up to the casinos and demand that legislators work toward long-term solutions and not sellingleasing assets! Central Iowa taxpayer For those readers who still attempt to contact your representatives in Congress: Tell them bank lending doesn't lead economic recovery, it trails it. Banks do not lend capital and surplus, they lend bank deposits.

Economics 101 professor FYI Legislature: If you wonder why the tax revenues are down, check out how many dollars' worth of cigarette taxes are going down to Missouri; you will find a lot there. Add to it all the sales tax and alcohol taxes that you are missing from this ill-advised smoking in bars ban, and it will be a substantial amount. Southern Iowa woman The angry DSM parent suggesting a cut in teachers' pay must care more about a bank account than an education for children. Anyone willing to say teachers are overpaid has obviously never taught children before. Daughter of an underpaid Audubon teacher Fewer drug offenders heading to Iowa's prisons The number of convicts sent to prison for drug crimes has dropped by 24 percent since 2005, particularly because of a decline in methamphetamine-related crimes, researchers said.

PRISON FROM PAGE IB 2005. There were 343 offenders put behind bars in 2008 specifically for meth-related crimes, down from 697 meth-related prison admissions in 2005. The reduction in the number of people sent to prison for meth crimes is directly linked to a state law passed in 2005 that restricts access to pseudoephredrine and other precursors to meth-amphetamine manufacturing, said Gary Kendell, director of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy. The law took pseudo-ephedrine off retail shelves and put the product behind pharmacy counters. A preliminary report shows 174 meth labs were found in Iowa last year, down from about 1,500 annually in 2004, Kendell said.

"This is probably the best example of legislation doing what it was supposed to do," said Paul Stage-berg, administrator of the Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning. Most people arrested for operating meth labs are charged with a Class felony, which carries a mandatory prison sentence. One concern is that drug-related prison admissions linked to crack cocaine in Iowa rose from 85 offenders in 2005 to 144 offenders last year, Stageburg said. Crack cocaine convictions are often cited as one factor behind the disproportionate percentage of blacks in prison. In contrast, the drop in prison admissions for meth-related criminal charges has primarily affected nonminority offenders, Stageberg said.

Blacks represent about 25 percent of Iowa's prison population, compared with about 2.6 percent of Iowa's general population. lion construction project at the Mitchellville prison will help address the overcrowding issue, said Lettie Prell, research director of the Iowa Department of Corrections. The plan calls for consolidating female prisoners at Mitchellville by transferring women there from prisons at Mount Pleasant and Oakdale. Some other issues facing state officials include: Tougher sentencing laws that will increase the number of sex offenders in Iowa's prisons. An aging inmate population who will require more taxpayer spending for health care.

A reduction in parole releases each of the past two years and an increase in the average prison time served before release. An increase in the number of offenders being freed from prison without being monitored in the community on parole or other supervision because their sentences have expired. State legislative leaders from Democratic and Republican caucuses said they support efforts to curb the growth of Iowa's prison population. Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, a Council Bluffs Democrat, said he thinks too many people who have committed so-called property crimes such as forgery are being sent to prison. "I know that it hurts people when you steal money from people.

But I am not sure the most effective way to deal with that is steel bars and barbed wire," Gronstal said. House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, a Hiawatha Republican, said a trend appears to be growing in favor of using community-based corrections programs for nonviolent offenders instead of prison. "I think you will continue to see an investment there by the Legislature," he said. Amphetamine 9 2 2 1 Cocaine (powder) 64 86 74 68 Cocaine (crack) 85 95 139 144 LSD 1 1 1 0 Marijuana 171 208 192 201 Methamphetamine 697 573 448 343 Other 8 8 7 10 Prescription drugs 12 14 17 27 Unknown 2 111 TOTAL 1,049 988 881 795 Source: Iowa Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning Division The Register DesMoinesRegister.com What you don't want to miss online today This week's most popular stories Here are the 1 0 most popular stories from the past week at DesMoinesRegister.com. 1.

Deployed lowans find jobs at risk 2. Today's Inbox: Discourteous Bush sendoff low point 3. E-mail with racial tone spurs probe of state trooper 4. UPDATED: Police arrest woman for overdue library book 5. Iowa men beat Wisconsin in overtime 6.

Hansen: Podolak falls victim to cell-phone paparazzi 7. I'm a Bush success story, former prisoner asserts 8. Iowa man convicted in '81 love-triangle murder has died 9. Crash kills teen, injures five others 10. Newton parents charged in baby's death mandatory sentence instead of 85 percent.

During the 2003 legislative session, a person convicted of an 85 percent sentence after July 1, 2003, became eligible for parole after serving 70 percent of that sentence. Then, during the 2004 session, all persons convicted of an 85 percent sentence prior to July 1, 2003, became parole eligible after serving 70 percent of the sentence. Still, there are some troubling trends, according to the Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning. For example, women are entering prison at a faster rate than men. A $68 mil- State officials said some of the other factors behind the slowing growth of Iowa's prison population include: New court commitments to prison, which are at the lowest level since 1997.

Also, there was a decline in felony cases being disposed in Iowa's courts for each of the last five years. A decline for the past two years in the number of offenders returning to prison after release on programs such as parole or work release. A decline in the number of inmates through allowing some inmates to be considered for parole after serving 70 percent of their How to Contact Us Kithy Bolttn, Asst. Managing Editor, (515) 284-8283 or kboltendmreg.com Contact a reporter: General e-mail: (515) 284-8065 metroiowadmreg.com 4 1.