Robert Merrill Tuttle was born on 18 August 1917 to Paul V. Tuttle, a Chief Warrant Officer in the Naval Medical Corps, and his wife Coralinn. He attended school in San Diego, and later his family moved to Napa, California where he met his future wife, Dolores Young of Vallejo. After attending the Drew School and the USMA Prep School at Fort Scott, he received his appointment to West Point Military Academy.
His distinguished flying career began when Col. Tuttle graduated in 1941 from West Point, and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. He returned to California and married Dolores Young. Early flight training took them to Santa Maria, Sunnyvale and Stockton, California. Then it was on to Boise, Pendleton, and Tucson where he learned to fly B-17's. After reassignment to Spokane he was designated commander of the newly formed 569th Bomb Squadron of the 390th Bomb Group (H) at Geiger Field. After final preparations in Cutbank, Montana, he and the 569th departed to the air war in Europe via Framingham, England.
On Col. Tuttle's eighteenth combat mission, shortly after being assigned as Group operations Officer of the 452n Bomb Group, he was shot down while on a mission to Brux, Czechoslovakia. He was taken prisoner and held at Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Poland and subsequently at Moosburg in Germany. After liberation by the US 14th Armored Division, he was assigned as a mathematics instructor at West Point Academy.
With the creation of the Air Force, he was ordered to the Pentagon as a staff planner. In August 1951, he was promoted to Colonel and assigned as Defense Department representative to the newly established North Atlantic Council, first in London and then in Paris - with the birth of NATO.
Col. Tuttle's assignments continued at Fontainebleau with SHAPE, Naples with the Allied Air Force Southern Europe and the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama. Additional roles included Deputy Commander, 2nd Bomb Wing, Savannah and Commander, 44th Bomb Wing, Lake Charles, the Pentagon with Air Force Headquarters in 1959 and then with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In mid-1965 he was assigned as Chief of Staff, Thirteenth Air Force at Clark Air Force Base, the Philippines, his final assignment. Col. Tuttle retired on 1 November 1965.
A second career was enjoyed for the next 17 years as a junior high school mathematics teacher in San Jose, California. He enjoyed his second retirement in 1982 and then in August, 1991 succumbed to cancer. Robert Merrill Tuttle, Colonel, USAF Retired, was laid to rest at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Francisco, California. At the time, he was survived by his wife of 50 years, eight children and eighteen grandchildren.