Background
Castle was born at Fort William McKinley in Manila, the Philippines, on October 14, 1908. The son of 2nd Lt. Benjamin F. Castle, Frederick Castle was the first child born to a graduate of the West Point Class of 1907, thereby becoming the class godson. Among his godfathers in the Class of 1907, also stationed in the Philippines, was 2nd Lt. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, who would go on to become General of the Army, as well as the first and only General of the Air Force to date. Although a friend of Arnold and later becoming Aviation Attaché in Paris following World War I, Castle's father left the Army as a colonel in 1919.
Castle settled with his family in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey after World War I, and he attended Boonton High School and Storm King Military Academy.
Castle entered the New Jersey National Guard on October 2, 1924, as preparation for attending West Point, scoring first on the Guard's competitive examination. He entered the U.S. Military Academy on July 1, 1926, graduating June 12, 1930, 7th in a class of 241 graduates. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and was accepted for pilot training at March Field, California. After earning his wings on December 22, 1931, at Kelly Field, Texas, he served as a pilot in the 17th Pursuit Squadron at Selfridge Field, Michigan, before being assigned to the Civilian Conservation Corps. He resigned from the Army on February 17, 1934, to take a job with Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation, remaining a member of the Army Reserve.
The business skills he developed with Allied brought him an offer to join Sperry Gyroscope Company in September 1938 as an assistant to the company president. Sperry was a military-related industry, and its work in developing both electrically powered gun turrets for bombers and the Norden bombsight brought him to the attention of his godfather, General Arnold, by then the Chief of the United States Army Air Corps.
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