Curtis LeMay is famously the American Air Force General that implemented strategic bombing during WWII.
Curtis Emerson LeMay was born on November 15, 1906.
LeMay joined the United States Army Air Corps, the precursor to the United States Air Force, in 1929 while studying civil engineering at Ohio State University. 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' subsequent entry into World War II. He commanded the 305th Operations 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. He was then placed in command of strategic bombing operations against Japan, planning and executing a massive firebombing campaign against Japanese cities and Operation Starvation, a crippling minelaying campaign in Japan's internal waterways.

After the war, he was assigned to command USAF Europe and coordinated the Berlin Airlift. He served as commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1948 to 1957, where he presided over the transition to an all-jet aircraft force that had a strong emphasis on the delivery of nuclear weapons in the event of war. As Chief of Staff of the Air Force, he called for the bombing of Cuban missile sites during the Cuban Missile Crisis and sought a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

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. The ticket won 13.5% of the popular vote, a strong tally for a third-party campaign, but the Wallace campaign came to see LeMay as a liability. After the election, LeMay retired to his home in Newport Beach, California, and died in 1990 at age 83.

Early life

Lieutenant Curtis LeMay in 1929
LeMay was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 15, 1906. LeMay was of English and distant French Huguenot heritage. His father, Erving Edwin LeMay, was at times an ironworker and general handyman, but he never held a job longer than a few months. His mother, Arizona Dove (née Carpenter) LeMay,did her best to hold her family together. With very limited income, his family moved around the country as his father looked for work, going as far as Montana and California. Eventually, they returned to his native city of Columbus. LeMay attended Columbus public schools, graduated from Columbus South High School, and studied civil engineering at The Ohio State University. Working his way through college, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. While at Ohio State he was a member of the National Society of Pershing Rifles and the Professional Engineering Fraternity Theta Tau.

LeMay was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929. He received a regular commission in the United States Army Air Corps in January 1930. While finishing at Ohio State, he took flight training at Norton Field in Columbus, in 1931–32. On June 9, 1934, he married Helen Maitland.


In 1938, three B-17s (one navigated by Lt. LeMay) intercept the Italian liner SS Rex 620 nm at sea
LeMay became a pursuit pilot with his first duty station at Selfridge Field with the 27th Pursuit Squadron. After having served in various assignments in fighter operations, LeMay transferred to bomber aircraft in 1937. While stationed in Hawaii, he became one of the first members of the Air Corps to receive specialized training in aerial navigation. In August 1937, as a navigator under pilot and commander Caleb V. Haynes on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, he helped locate the battleship Utah despite being given the wrong coordinates by Navy personnel, in exercises held in misty conditions off California, after which the group of B-17s bombed it with water bombs. In March 1938, LeMay as a member of the 2nd Bombardment Group participated in a goodwill flight to Buenos Aires. For this flight, the 2nd Bombardment Group was awarded the Mackay Trophy in 1939. 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 1940 he was the navigator for Haynes on the prototype Boeing XB-15 heavy bomber, flying a survey from Panama over the Galapagos islands By the end of 1940, he was stationed at Westover Air Reserve Base, as the operations officer of the 34th Bombardment Group. War brought rapid promotion and increased responsibility.

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