Curtis LeMay
Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was a US Air Force general who implemented an effective but controversial strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II.He had risen to the rank of major by the time of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the United States's entry into World War II.He commanded the 305th Bombardment Group from October 1942 until September 1943, and the 3rd Air Division in the European theatre of World War II until August 1944, when he was transferred to the China Burma India Theater.After retiring from the Air Force in 1965, LeMay agreed to serve as pro-segregation Alabama Governor George Wallace's running mate on the far-right American Independent Party ticket in the 1968 United States presidential election.[6] For Haynes again, in May 1938 he navigated three B-17s 620 nmi (710 mi; 1,150 km) over the Atlantic Ocean to intercept the Italian liner SS Rex to illustrate the ability of land-based airpower to defend the American coasts.In that mission, he led 146 B-17s to Regensburg, Germany, beyond the range of escorting fighters, and, after bombing, continued on to bases in North Africa, losing 24 bombers in the process.Finally, with the deployment in the European theater of the P-51 Mustang in January 1944, the Eighth Air Force gained an escort fighter with range to match the bombers.Furthermore, bombs dropped from the B-29s at high altitude (above 20,000 feet (6,100 m)) were often blown off of their trajectories by a consistently powerful jet stream over the Japanese home islands, which dramatically reduced the effectiveness of the high-altitude raids.LeMay commanded subsequent B-29 Superfortress combat operations against Japan, including massive incendiary attacks on 67 Japanese cities and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Japan had intentionally decentralized 90% of its war-related production into small subcontractor workshops in civilian districts, making remaining Japanese war industry largely immune to conventional precision bombing with high explosives.Although his superiors were unsupportive of this naval objective, LeMay gave it a high priority by assigning the entire 313th Bombardment Wing (four groups, about 160 airplanes) to the task.Upon inspecting a SAC hangar full of US nuclear strategic bombers, LeMay found a single Air Force sentry on duty, unarmed.[28] After ordering a mock bombing exercise on Dayton, Ohio, LeMay was shocked to learn that most of the strategic bombers assigned to the mission missed their targets by one mile or more.At the Dualism Conference in December 1948, the Air Force leadership rallied behind LeMay's position that the service's highest priority was to deliver the SAC atomic offensive "in one fell swoop telescoping mass and time".[34] In 1954 LeMay remarked to pilot Hal Austin, whose plane had been damaged by a MiG-17 while on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union, "Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get World War III started".LeMay insisted on rigorous training and very high standards of performance for all SAC personnel, be they officers, enlisted men, aircrews, mechanics, or administrative staff, and reportedly commented, "I have neither the time nor the inclination to differentiate between the incompetent and the merely unfortunate.In his controversial and factually disputed[38][39] memoir War's End, Major General Charles Sweeney related an alleged 1944 incident that may have been the basis for the "It wouldn't dare" comment.Each of the armed forces had gradually jettisoned realistic appraisals of future conflicts in favor of developing its own separate nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities.At the height of this struggle, the U.S. Army had even reorganized its combat divisions to fight land wars on irradiated nuclear battlefields, developing short-range atomic cannon and mortars in order to win appropriations.The United States Navy in turn proposed delivering strategic nuclear weapons from supercarriers intended to sail into range of the Soviet air defense forces.Though LeMay lost significant appropriation battles for the Skybolt ALBM and the proposed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress replacement, the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, he was largely successful at expanding Air Force budgets.[46] The memorandum from LeMay, Chief of Staff, USAF, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 4, 1964, illustrates LeMay's reasons for keeping bomber forces alongside ballistic missiles: "It is important to recognize, however, that ballistic missile forces represent both the U.S. and Soviet potential for strategic nuclear warfare at the highest, most indiscriminate level, and at a level least susceptible to control.For this reason, among others, I consider that the national security will continue to require the flexibility, responsiveness, and discrimination of manned strategic weapon systems throughout the range of cold, limited, and general war".Instead, an incremental policy, Operation Rolling Thunder, was implemented that focused on limited interdiction bombing of fluid enemy supply corridors in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.In his 1965 autobiography (co-written with MacKinlay Kantor), LeMay is quoted as saying his response to North Vietnam would be to demand that "they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.However, consideration must be given to significant differences in terms of both military objectives and geopolitical realities between 1968 and 1972, including the impact of Nixon's recognition and exploitation of the Sino-Soviet split to gain a "free hand" in Vietnam and the shift of Communist opposition from an organic insurgency (the Viet Cong) to a conventional mechanized offensive that was by its nature more reliant on industrial output and traditional logistics.LeMay became aware that the new single sideband (SSB) technology offered a big advantage over amplitude modulation (AM) for SAC aircraft operating long distances from their bases.Per the Chief of the Air Force General Officers Branch, in a letter dated February 28, 1962: It is clear that a grateful nation, recognizing the tremendous contributions of the key military and naval leaders in World War II, created these supreme grades as an attempt to accord to these leaders the prestige, the clear-cut leadership, and the emolument of office befitting their service to their country in war.General LeMay, fully realizing the extent of the hazards involved, although not required to participate through obligation or reason of duty, undertook the responsibility of directing this mission."[84] According to Fred Kaplan:Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear-war plans run amok, is widely heralded as one of the greatest satires in American political or movie history.
Columbus, OhioMarch Air Force BaseUnited States Air Force Academy CemeteryUnited States ArmyUnited States Army Air CorpsUnited States Army Air ForcesUnited States Air ForceGeneralChief of Staff of the United States Air ForceVice Chief of Staff of the United States Air ForceStrategic Air CommandTwentieth Air ForceWorld War IIKorean WarVietnam WarDistinguished Service CrossArmy Distinguished Service MedalSilver StarDistinguished Flying CrossAir MedalGrand Cordon of the Order of the Rising SunAlma materOhio State UniversityRepublicanAmerican IndependentUS Air Forcestrategic bombingPacific theatercivil engineeringattack on Pearl Harbor305th Bombardment Group3rd Air DivisionEuropean theatre of World War IIChina Burma India Theatermassive fire bombing campaignOperation StarvationUSAF EuropeBerlin Airliftjet aircraftnuclear weaponsCuban Missile CrisisNorth VietnamsegregationGeorge WallaceAmerican Independent Party1968 United States presidential electionthird partyWallace campaignNewport Beach, CaliforniaEnglishFrenchHuguenotMontanaCaliforniabachelor's degreeNational Society of Pershing RiflesTheta TauNorton FieldinterceptItalian liner SS RexpursuitSelfridge Field27th Pursuit SquadronHawaiiCaleb V. HaynesBoeing B-17 Flying Fortress2nd Bombardment GroupMackay TrophySS RexBoeing XB-15Westover Air Reserve Base34th Bombardment GroupChelveston Airfield305th Bomb GroupEnglandEighth Air Forcecombat boxSchweinfurt–Regensburg missionRegensburgGermanyescorting fightersNorth AfricabombersEuropean theaterP-51 MustangRobert McNamaraincendiary attacksYokohamaChina-Burma-India theaterXX Bomber CommandXXI Bomber CommandBoeing B-29 SuperfortressHaywood S. HansellMarianasJoseph W. Stilwellprecision bombingjet streamarea bombingatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasakifirebombing of TokyoModel M-47incendiaryclustersmagnesiumwhite phosphorusnapalmJapanese surrenderUnited States Strategic Bombing SurveyThe New York Timeswar criminalThe Fog of WarGeneral of the Air ForceHenry H. ArnoldBarney M. GilesEmmett O. DonnellRooseveltTrumanJapan had to be invadeddecentralizedsubcontractorhigh explosivesmininglogistics313th Bombardment Wingflying from Japan to the U.S. in September 1945deterrence theory