Curtis E. LeMay

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Curtis E. LeMay

Curtis Emerson LeMay (born November 15, 1906 in Columbus , Ohio , † October 1, 1990 in Riverside , California ) was an American general . He promoted the development of long-range bombers and built the Strategic Air Command (SAC) of the US Air Force . The SAC was intended to wage nuclear war if necessary .

Life

Second World War

In the difficult initial phase of the aerial warfare against the German Reich during the Second World War , LeMay commanded the 8th US Air Fleet in 1943/44 . Since the bomber crews often reported "technical problems" during the operations, he announced that any broken operation against German cities would lead to a trial before a court martial . As a result, the number of canceled missions decreased. LeMay also developed tactics designed to protect bomber crews from enemy fire. During this time he earned the nickname "Iron Ass" (iron ass or iron donkey).

Normally, the Allied bomber units took an evasive course as soon as they came under fire, even if the target mission had not yet been carried out. However, this retreat and the renewed approach to the target was much more risky for the association than carrying out the drop according to plan. From August 1944, Curtis LeMay, as commander of the XX Bomber Command of the Twentieth Air Force, also ensured efficiency improvements in the war against Japan : US bombers were initially based in Burma . A refueling base had to be opened in the Republic of China ; the establishment of this base was slow in contested China. Too often the B-29s returned without leaving as much fuel as possible in China. LeMay convinced the Air Force Command to set up bases for long-range bombers on the Pacific islands of Saipan , Tinian and Guam . These were closer to the Japanese mainland, so the pilots did not have to stop for fuel and could also take a higher bomb load with them.

He became the commander of the XXI. Bomber Command and Commander in Chief of the strategic air war against Japan. After all, he was also responsible for the use of napalm bombs against Japanese cities: 100,000 people were killed in the bombing of Tokyo in one night. It was the heaviest air attack ever flown.

Cold War

Curtis E. LeMay

After World War II , LeMay became Deputy Chief of the Air Staff for Research and Development at the Department of Defense . In 1947 he was ordered to Europe, where he took over the position of commander of the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). In this role he played a key role in the organization, planning and implementation of the Berlin Airlift 1948/49.

In 1949, after the Berlin blockade was over , he returned to the USA, where he replaced General George Kenney as Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

When he took over the SAC, it consisted only of a few and also understaffed B-29 bomber groups. These bombers (as well as the military personnel, by the way) were almost exclusively veterans of the Second World War. Far less than half of the existing aircraft were even functional or airworthy. The teams were untrained and hardly adequately prepared for possible missions. When LeMay ordered a practice attack on Dayton, Ohio , most bombers missed their targets by a mile or more. It also took a few years of experimentation with successor types of the B-29 such as B-50 , B-36 and B-47 . From the mid-1950s, the SAC had a suitable intercontinental bomber, the Boeing B-52 .

Until 1957, LeMay oversaw the transformation and reorganization of the SAC into a modern, high-performance air force consisting of different types of bomber aircraft for strategic and tactical missions. In the course of this, among other things, new types of bombers were developed or introduced, with additional procedures for air refueling of the bombers being introduced. In addition, he improved the command and coordination system of the SAC considerably.

In 1961 he was finally appointed Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF), succeeding Thomas D. White . In his new position as CSAF, however, he was soon confronted with various criticisms of his military and, above all, strategic ideas and plans. The then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was one of his harshest critics . An essential part of the dispute was McNamara's shift from so-called massive retaliation to “flexible response” (also known as the McNamara doctrine ). Other opponents of LeMay were Eugene M. Zuckert ( Secretary of the Air Force or Secretary of State of the US Air Force) and Maxwell D. Taylor (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ).

LeMay was an outspoken war advocate and ardent anti-communist . For example, in his first strategic war plan against the Soviet Union in 1949, he proposed attacking the Soviet Union in a single massive first nuclear strike . All of the US atomic bombs (133 pieces) in existence at the time were supposed to be dropped on a total of 70 Soviet cities within 30 days. The Soviets did not have a nuclear arsenal at the time.

LeMay suffered one defeat after another in his time as CSAF. For example, he did not succeed in enforcing the preferred AGM-48 Skybolt ballistic missile program of the Douglas Aircraft Company . His proposal to replace the Boeing B-52 subsonic bomber with a supersonic aircraft (the North American XB-70 ) also failed .

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed with President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. He was strictly against a naval blockade and instead called for a more aggressive stance towards the Soviet Union and Cuba. He argued that the US should venture a nuclear war against the Soviet Union while it could still win it - the US at that point had 17 times more nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union and 10 times more nuclear tests. He therefore strongly urged permission to bomb the Soviet missile bases that had just been stationed in Cuba . LeMay himself assumed that he could only destroy 90% of the positions. After the crisis was averted, detailed military analyzes showed that LeMay would have achieved a far lower hit rate in the event of a first strike against the missile bases. As a result, this type of escalation would probably have led to the use of nuclear weapons on the Soviet side as well. Even immediately after the crisis ended and the Soviet missiles withdrew from Cuba, LeMay continued to advocate invading the island.

In the early 1960s, he also took a position that was still very unpopular at the time with regard to US involvement in the Vietnam conflict. He spoke out in favor of a strong and, above all, massive military intervention in Vietnam. LeMay is assumed to be the analogous quote that one should "bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age".

Although LeMay was no longer in office from February 1965, his military doctrine had a lasting effect, especially in the Vietnam conflict, which had now escalated into war. His strategy of massive tactical and strategic air strikes was soon implemented by the US Air Force and maintained as a general doctrine for a long time. The resulting area bombing of southern and northern Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths with relatively little military impact.

Civil life

In the period after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the differences between LeMay and McNamara worsened. LeMay's unyielding, militaristic attitude also increased the tension between the two men. Finally, LeMay had to retire in February 1965. With the support of MacKinlay Kantor , he wrote his autobiography in 1965, entitled Mission with LeMay .

In the following years he tried to set up a political career, which was not very successful. He was the 1968 right-wing American Independent Party candidate for US Vice President alongside presidential candidate George Wallace . Wallace served as a Staff Sergeant in the 58th Bombing Squadron of the 20th Air Force, of which LeMay was in command at the time , during World War II . However, LeMay's remarks regarding the use of atomic bombs in Vietnam were very detrimental to Wallace's presidential campaign. They achieved a majority of votes in five states of Solid South ( Arkansas , Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama and Georgia ) and thus came to 46 electors in the Electoral College ; Overall, they achieved a share of the vote of 13.5 percent and were thus significantly behind election winner Richard Nixon . Wallace and LeMay were thus the last third party candidates to win an entire state in the presidential election.

LeMay died on October 1, 1990 and was buried in the United States Air Force Academy cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Awards

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of the Military Awards :

The LeMay Range , a mountain range on the West Antarctic Alexander I Island, is named after him.

Quotes

"I didn't particularly care about killing Japanese at the time ... If I had lost the war, I would have been charged as a war criminal ... Every soldier thinks a little about the moral aspects of his or her actions. But the whole war is immoral, and if that worries you, you're not a good soldier. "

Cinematic reception

LeMay is portrayed by Kevin Conway in the feature film Thirteen Days (2000), which deals with the Cuban Missile Crisis .

The figure of General "Buck" Turgidson (translated into German roughly for rabbit in heat ) in the film Dr. Strange, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb by Stanley Kubrick, is closely related to Curtis LeMay.

The documentary War in the Clouds - aerial espionage over the GDR illuminated a. a. LeMay's role in aerial espionage over the GDR in the late 1940s and 1950s.

swell

  1. PBS contribution
  2. War in the Clouds - Air espionage over the GDR in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  3. ^ ARD: War in the Clouds - Air espionage over the GDR , accessed on February 10, 2013

Web links

Commons : Curtis E. LeMay  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files