“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” I’ve said many times during this narrative of the life and wars of General Curtis Lemay (1906-1990). And when the hour has passed? Well, so passes the man, one might think.

But the muse of history seldom lets go of a good story. Recall, as I’ve counseled before, the first words of Virgil’s Aneid. “Arma virumque cano.” I sing of arms and the man. Though time and history overtake the man of the hour, can he ever really exit the stage?

In the last article, about Lemay and what he told President Lyndon Johnson, we left the general as he retired from the Air Force in 1965 and moved to the tony Bel Aire section of Los Angeles. Lemay took a good job with a fine technology firm. He and Mrs. Lemay settled in, and — it being Los Angeles in the mid-1960s — life was good.

1968 – Vietnam

But time passes, and by 1968 Lemay was frustrated with the direction that the U.S. was taking. The country’s social fabric was fraying. There were riots on college campuses, as well as in the streets of major cities. What was happening to the nation that Lemay had served for his entire career?

Much of the national discord crystallized around opposition to the war in Vietnam. It’s certainly fair to say that Lemay’s frustration came from watching the Johnson administration bungle the fight. And this was no abstract or academic matter to the old bomber pilot from Ohio.

That is, in 1964 Johnson rejected the military advice of his Air Force Chief of Staff, a certain General named Curtis Lemay. Lemay counseled Johnson that if the U.S. was going to fight the North Vietnamese — a big “if,” in Lemay’s view — then the U.S. needed to hit North Vietnam hard and up front with air power. “Throw a punch that really hurts,” said Lemay, and wreck the means by which North Vietnam was waging war against South Vietnam.

This advice was not what Johnson wanted to hear. Instead, Johnson and his counselors escalated the war gradually, on land, sea and in the air, and by 1968 waged it to a bloody stalemate. (“I g****m told you so,” Lemay surely thought.)

Strategy, Operations and Logistics

There were many reasons, at many levels, for what happened in Vietnam. First of all, at the strategic level, the North Vietnamese Communists actually knew what they wanted and what they were doing. The North Vietnamese were serious students of the theory of war, from Sun Tzu to Mao Zedong. They had a plan and an end-game, and it was all quite simple. It was to unite North and South Vietnam into one large, Communist state.

At the operational level, the North Vietnamese also had a thoughtful plan to implement their strategy. They took massive aid from the Soviet Union, Peoples’ Republic of China, and other like-thinking Communist and Socialist nations. Well-armed by the outsiders, the North Vietnamese intended to pour troops and equipment into the South, build up forces and capabilities, and fight for as long as it took to prevail.

What would it take to prevail? In one word, logistics. “In large part the history of the (Vietnam) war,” wrote U.S. intelligence analyst Cynthia Grabo in her insightful book Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning (Defense Intelligence Agency, 2004), “was a chronicle of ingenious and unrelenting North Vietnamese efforts to sustain their logistic movements and of our (U.S.) attempts to disrupt them.”

It gets back to the old military saying that amateurs study battles, while professionals study logistics. Lemay’s advice to Johnson had been to “disrupt them” by bombing North Vietnamese supplies at the source. Kill the logistics, and you kill the enemy’s ability to wage war.

Thus in 1964 Lemay presented Johnson with a plan to bomb the ports of North Vietnam, and mine the harbors through which Soviet and other Communist-bloc aid poured into North Vietnam. Lemay advised mining the coastline to prevent infiltration. Lemay also advised destroying North Vietnamese oil supplies at the storage facilities.

Johnson did none of this. Instead, Johnson’s operational plan was to bomb the jungle trails, through which North Vietnamese supplies and troops poured south. At the end of the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail, Johnson’s operational plan was to “disrupt” North Vietnamese efforts via direct action against an armed invasion force. It was as if someone was squirting you with a fire hose. But rather than turn off the hose at the source, you stood there trying to soak up the water with a towel.

To top it off, Johnson pursued his operational plan gradually. Johnson escalated the Vietnam war slowly. In particular, there was on-and-off bombing, punctuated by well-publicized “pauses.” While the aircraft were chained down, the North Vietnamese rearmed their gun pits and recalibrated their antiaircraft tracking radars.

A Proxy War, a Long War, and Many Mistakes

In the larger scheme of things, the Vietnam war was a proxy war. Other powers — Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, Cuba, China, et al. — waged war against the U.S.

North Vietnam was the proxy in this proxy war, of course. But the prize was conquering the South and defeating the U.S. So the North Vietnamese were OK with their role.

Indeed, the North Vietnamese “gradually” adapted to the gradual war escalation of the Johnson administration. The Northerners dug in and took their hits. They wanted to win. They were patient and ruthless. In a war, that helps.

On the U.S. side there were fundamental misperceptions and misunderstandings. At many levels of command – starting in the Oval Office and moving down the chain — there were geostrategic blunders, strategic errors, operational miscalculations and tactical mistakes.

After he retired, whenever Lemay was asked for his opinion on how the war was playing out, he answered honestly and with characteristic bluntness. Primarily, Lemay criticized Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his crew of “whiz kids” at the Pentagon. The McNamara team was “mirror-imaging” its values onto the North. For as smart as they were — and many dripped with academic wax and ribbons — these geniuses couldn’t make hard choices. They let things drag out.

For most Americans, by 1968 the central point of the Vietnam war was that it was a televised meat grinder, killing hundreds of U.S. soldiers per week. The war cost untold billions and wrecked both the U.S. military, and the larger American economy, from the inside out. So much for Johnson’s “coonskin” that he was going to “nail to the wall.”

The U.S., Painted into a Corner

The year 1968 was a historical tipping point for the U.S. and the Vietnam War. It started with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, in January and February. Overall, the Tet campaign was a battlefield defeat for the Communists. But the Tet Offensive crystallized one overarching idea inside the head of many an American. The Vietnam War had lasted too long and cost too much.

As the Tet fighting wound down, U.S. leadership and decision-making was paralyzed, starting with the top echelons of the Johnson administration. It dawned on the U.S. political classes that they were painted into a corner. The historical record is that Americans will fight a war. But not a long war.

By stringing out the Vietnam fighting over many years, Johnson had squandered the political will of the nation. Where could the U.S. go from here? Who could untie this Gordian knot? The battleground of the Vietnam War spread to U.S. campuses and streets. It was a mess.

A Year of Living Dangerously

Add to this, that the nation was living dangerously. On the worst day of the Vietnam war, there was never a military threat from Hanoi against the U.S. homeland, or towards U.S. allies in Europe and Asia outside Indochina.

But from what Lemay knew – and he knew a lot because he received regular classified briefings as a courtesy extended to a former Air Force Chief of Staff — the Soviets were building a powerful nuclear force with which to challenge the West. At the strategic level there was a “breakout” in the making.

In Lemay’s opinion, with the focus on Vietnam and the accompanying policy paralysis, the bulk of the policy-making class in Washington was oblivious to the Soviet nuclear threat. (Looking ahead to the 1970s, a Soviet nuclear breakout occurred. The top echelons of the U.S. political-media classes eventually figured it out, for the most part — except for some of the supremely stupid ones.)

On March 31, 1968 Johnson announced that he wouldn’t run for reelection. At the national level the Democratic Party descended into chaos. By August the Democrats pulled their party together and nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey as their candidate for president.

Lemay knew Humphrey, but didn’t trust him because of events that dated back to Lemay’s Air Force tenure during the Johnson presidency. “I thought that Humphrey was as big a liar as Johnson,” remarked Lemay at one point.

The Republicans in turn nominated Richard Nixon, with whom Lemay had worked during the Eisenhower administration when Nixon was Vice President. Nixon had his flaws, Lemay thought, but at least he understood foreign and military affairs.

George C. Wallace

In response to the Vietnam War, and a long list of other national issues, a relatively obscure, but smooth-talking lawyer named George C. Wallace (1919 – 1998) appeared on the national horizon.

Wallace had served in the Army Air Corps in World War II. He was part of the 20th Air Force under Lemay in the Pacific, although then-Gen. Lemay and then-Staff Sergeant Wallace never met. After the war Wallace returned to his native Alabama and made a career in politics. By 1968 Wallace was a former governor of Alabama, and his wife Lurleen held the job after Wallace could not run due to term limits.

Wallace offered a Southern-fried version of segregationist populism. Wallace preyed on the social and economic fears of lower-class and working-class white people. Wallace particularly touched nerves with peoples’ fear of the unfolding civil rights movement.

“When I talk about roads and schools,” Wallace once remarked, “nobody cares. But when I talk about black people moving in down the street, people listen real hard.” On this point, Wallace made political hay out of federal efforts to integrate the races. In one famous comment about federal efforts to promote racial integration, Wallace stated “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties.”

Wallace believed that there was a market for his brand of political moonshine outside of Alabama. Hence in 1968 Wallace campaigned as a third-party candidate for president. In order to qualify for the ballot in most states, Wallace needed a running mate.

Wallace went through a long list of possibilities for VP. All of the candidates turned him down, including a private citizen living in Los Angeles named Curtis Lemay, Gen., USAF, Retired.

Vice Presidential Candidate

But Wallace pressed on. He needed somebody to balance the ticket and get on the ballot in most states. And oh, Wallace was smooth. He was slick. He could turn on the charm.

In one call after another, Wallace urged Lemay to become the VP candidate. Wallace enticed Lemay with the idea of speaking to a national audience. Lemay could help, said Wallace, with getting out the message to resolve the Vietnam War. Lemay could focus on national security and defense preparedness.

Finally in October, towards the end of the 1968 campaign, Lemay rose to Wallace’s bait. The reason? In September Lemay learned that, if elected, Nixon planned to negotiate over “arms control” with the Soviets. Lemay didn’t trust the Soviets to negotiate in good faith. Lemay believed that the Soviets would wage a propaganda battle. The Reds would talk nice and smile in public, and then build nuclear missiles in secret. (This is exactly what happened.)

Lemay disagreed profoundly with the direction in which he believed Nixon was heading. So in early October, about 30 days before the election, Lemay agreed to be Wallace’s running mate. Many members of Lemay’s family were shocked. Old friends and colleagues could scarcely believe the news. What the hell was Lemay doing?

Irony of ironies, it’s fair to say that George Wallace was soon shocked as well. From Lemay’s very first day on the ticket, the old warhorse started discussing the possibility of “thermonuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.” Huh? People couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Say again? Sure enough, there was Lemay on national television, talking about “radioactive crabs” at the nuclear testing site at Bikini Atoll. Say what?

Lemay Was No Politician

It dawned on Wallace – too late – that Lemay was no tub-thumping, stump-talking, man-of-the-people politician. Not only was Lemay no politician, but he was reverting to his inner-SAC general. Lemay went out on the campaign trail to meet the voters, but he acted more like he was giving a seminar about nuclear war at the RAND Corp.

For all his image as the gruff, profane war-general, Lemay was an exceedingly intelligent man. When it came to airplanes and weapons, he knew his stuff. Actually, he knew his stuff inside out, down to the last technical detail.

It came naturally for Lemay to talk like he was running a SAC staff meeting, where his targeting cells planned the nuclear strike packages. Even worse for the Wallace campaign, Lemay wouldn’t shut up. Nuclear war? Lemay was an expert. Lemay wrote the book on nuclear war — several of ‘em, in fact, and all classified. Sweet Jesus! Now Lemay was talking up a nuclear storm. And the press loved it.

But could nuclear war really be a campaign issue? This was hardly the kind of thing the American people wanted to hear during a presidential election. In every election, as the saying goes, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But in 1968 there was more on the national plate. Vietnam and civil rights worried people — and angered a lot of them. A candidate could talk about those topics out on the campaign trail. Nuclear war, however, was over the top. That scared the voters.

Furthermore, many public opinion surveys indicated that the core of Wallace’s supporters – his political base — were former enlisted soldiers from World War II and Korea. And here was Wallace, the former staff sergeant, choosing a retired general officer as his running mate. It didn’t balance.

Wallace’s ploy backfired. While many Americans admired Lemay the war hero, many old troopers didn’t like him on first principles. Wallace’s political problem boiled down to the fact that Lemay was a general. In the minds of many old soldiers, he was one of those “brass hats” who made their lives miserable for several years during the war. (Many old soldiers did like Lemay, to be sure. Particularly the troops who served with him. Many of “Lemay’s boys” revered their former boss.)

And the train rolled on. Throughout October 1968, the Wallace-Lemay ticket fell in the polls. By Election Day in November, the Wallace-Lemay ticket was adrift. Wallace-Lemay picked up a lot of votes, and even won entire states in the South — which broke the back of a century of Democrat political dominance in Old Dixie. But at the end of the day, Nixon was the one.

Tarred By Association

Lemay was a national political candidate for all of about a month. In his entire life, he never planned to enter politics – and it showed. Yet there was something worse for Lemay than losing his one and only election. He was instantly tarred with the label of racism that accompanied much of Wallace’s political baggage. The media-historical complex promptly turned its darkest lights onto Lemay. Now it was Lemay’s turn to get firebombed.

After a mere 30 days on the campaign trail, Lemay’s career and accomplishments of almost 40 years went down the memory-hole. Lemay’s long list of accomplishments was replaced by the simple notation that he was “George Wallace’s running mate.” Period.

Lemay Confined WHO to Quarters?

By all accounts Lemay was a tough-as-nails general, but entirely fair-minded and non-biased over issues of race. During World War II in England, for example, Lemay went out of his way to ensure that black troops in the then-segregated Army had access to the same opportunities for housing, food, recreation, training and advancement as did the white troops. One time when Lemay learned that there was a racial fight off base, he confined all the WHITE troops to quarters.

Lemay did much the same thing with black troops in the 20th Air Force in the South Pacific. Everyone got a fair shake from Lemay. He judged people by work ethic and performance.

Pres. Harry Truman officially desegregated the U.S. military in 1948. And during Lemay’s tenure at SAC, in the years after 1948, he made great strides in recruiting and training black personnel to work on and fly the world’s most advanced bomber fleet. Indeed, Lemay was a leader in implementing the Truman desegregation order.

There’s no body of evidence that Lemay shared Wallace’s racial views. But still, Lemay ran on Wallace’s presidential ticket. He spent a month talking about Vietnam and the Soviet military threat. Then the election was over and Lemay returned to private life.

Footnotes to 1968

There’s a short footnote to the story. In 1969, newly-elected Pres. Nixon ordered an IRS audit of Lemay’s taxes, just to send a message. Typical Nixon.

Oh, and there’s one more footnote. In 1972, Nixon implemented Lemay’s old plan to bomb the tar out of North Vietnam and wreck the logistics effort at the source. For about two weeks in December, near 200 heavy bombers of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) — B-52s commissioned by Lemay, with pilots trained and doctrine designed by Lemay — pounded targets in North Vietnam. The effort was called Linebacker II. By the end of the Linebacker II, the North Vietnamese came to the peace table and made a serious effort to end their battle with the U.S.

According to accounts by American prisoners held captive in North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese could not believe that the U.S. had such awesome firepower as SAC delivered, yet had not used it earlier in the war. One North Vietnamese officer told an American prisoner, “If we knew you could have done this to us, we would never have fought against you. Why did your government wait so long?” Why indeed?

Thanks for reading. Until we meet again…

Byron W. King

November 2, 2009

The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay, Part V: Vietnam, Wallace and Nuclear War was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

There are so many questions. There are so many ways to explain things. And lately I’ve been looking at our modern world by focusing on the remarkable life of a relatively unknown man — unknown to most people of recent vintage, at least. Indeed, he’s been dead for 19 years, and he died at a ripe old age. Yet his legacy is still with us. I refer, of course, to General Curtis Lemay of the U.S. Air Force.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” I noted in the previous articles. And the U.S. endured many hard hours during the Second World War and the Cold War. In the worst hours of the most troubled times, Mars, the god of war, gave the U.S. Lemay, a knight of the sky. But knights need swords and steeds. In Roman mythology, Jupiter had Vulcan to forge mighty weapons. In mid-20th Century America, Lemay had a U.S. industrial base that could crank out big bombers.

In Lemay’s case, he had some very big bombers. With the big bombers of World War II, Lemay blasted Germany and burned Japan. With the bigger bombers of the Cold War, Lemay encircled the Soviet Union and kept the Red Army behind its own lines. Lemay’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) was critical to the Western doctrine of “containing” the Soviets. In the annals of American arms, Lemay was a mighty eagle with talons of hardened steel.

Pres. Johnson Chooses His Advice

But times change, and times changed in a big way after the death of Pres. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Vice Pres. Lyndon Johnson moved into the Oval Office.

One can ably argue that Johnson put his broad, Texas shoulders to history’s wheel, and set events in motion that created the modern world. Yet one can also capably argue that Johnson was rolled by history, like a drunk in the hands of a seasoned mugger.

One thing you cannot argue is that Johnson lacked choices and options. Because one of the privileges of the office of U.S. President was (and remains, of course) that the National Executive may choose his advisers. And when you choose your advisers, often as not you choose your advice.

Tough Advice from Lemay

From the Kennedy administration, Johnson inherited Lemay as Air Force Chief of Staff. As far as Johnson was concerned, the military man, Lemay, did not offer the kind of advice that the politician from Texas wanted to hear. In particular, Gen. Lemay gave Pres. Johnson politically tough advice about waging war in far distant Vietnam. Johnson, to be sure, needed a lot of advice on that subject.

That is, Vietnam was a complex place. Leaving aside most of the last thousand years of history, there was plenty of modern mischief in play. In the late 19th Century the French colonized Indochina and ran it until 1942. Then in World War II the Japanese Empire conquered the region and spoiled the party for the colonists. “Asia for the Asians,” said Japanese propaganda, expressing an idea — if not an ideal — that took deep roots despite the irony of Japanese lording it over Vietnamese.

Post-war, the French returned to rule. “Not so fast,” said many locals. Within a decade the French were defeated and driven out by Vietnamese nationalists and Communists. It was tough going. The main road through Vietnam was, in the words of professor Bernard Fall, a Street Without Joy.

The French defeat in 1953-1954 (or Hell in a Very Small Place, also by Bernard Fall) was followed by a north-south division and a festering civil war. The Communist North was slowly, but effectively, invading the South. There was much meddling by outside powers, to include the U.S. Indeed, the CIA — under orders from Pres. Kennedy — sponsored the murder of the president of South Vietnam. And that was just the start.

Lemay understood military power, but he also understood limits to power. Lemay told Johnson that it would be difficult and expensive to wage a defensive war in South Vietnam against Communist-armed insurgents, and regular troops from the North. Vietnam was at the tail end of U.S. logistical lines. It would take years for counter-insurgency operations to work – if they worked, and there was no assurance of that. Would the American people accept years of warfare in a distant land? Especially a land to which the U.S. had no longstanding historical attachments or vital national interests?

Bomb ‘Em? Well…

Sure, Lemay told Johnson – after Johnson asked – the U.S. could bomb Vietnam. But to be effective, the U.S. would have to “carry the war to the north, and really carry it there” (Lemay’s emphasis).

The way Lemay phrased it, if the U.S. decided to bomb Vietnam, “We must throw a punch that really hurts.” To Lemay’s way of thinking, this meant “Knock out all their (North Vietnamese) oil. … This immediately brings a lot of things to a halt.” This from the man whose bombers wrecked Germany’s liquid fuel production in World War II, thus grounding the Luftwaffe and stopping German tanks in their tracks.

Lemay also counseled Johnson to “(knock) out the harbor at Haiphong,” and mine the seacoast to halt weapons imports from the Soviet Union. This too was sound military advice from an experienced military man. Lemay’s historical parallel was what his B-29s had accomplished — and what had worked so well — in World War II against Japan.

Time Is No Ally in War

For all his gruff exterior, Lemay was an intelligent and serious man. He was a keen student of technology, and an even better judge of human ability. Lemay could (in fact, he did) hold his own in a discussion of the principles of radar with engineers from MIT. And the fact is that Lemay ensured the success of his own career, over 25 years in senior command positions, by selecting thousands of the right people and placing them into the toughest jobs in wars hot and cold.

Sure, Lemay had the outward, aggressive spirit of a bomber pilot. Heck, he WAS a bomber pilot. “I’ll tell you what war is about,” Lemay once said to Sam Cohen, the inventor of the neutron bomb. “You’ve got to kill people. And when you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.”

But as a military planner Lemay was deliberate. When it came to the business of fighting, Lemay the warrior believed in scrupulous training and exacting preparation, followed by speed and lethality in the execution.

It’s not just that Lemay was a zoom-zoom, go-fast airplane pilot. Silk scarf or no, in Lemay’s comments, writings and actions, he echoed military scholars from Sun Tzu to Carl von Clausewitz. Lemay understood that the essence of war was to prepare carefully and then act quickly and decisively to defeat an adversary. In warfare, time is no ally.

Clausewitz on War

Consider what Clausewitz wrote on the subject of war, for example. “In war more than anywhere else,” wrote the Prussian, “things do not turn out as we expect. Nearby they do not appear as they did from a distance.” Thus, per Clausewitz, it’s imperative to adapt to the enemy, hit hard, do your business and finish things rapidly. If not, then time degrades one’s ability to reach objectives. Don’t drag things out. “Everything in war is very simple,” said Clausewitz, “but the simplest thing is difficult.”

Damn right. Lemay could have told stories of how “simple” things become immensely complex in wartime. Like getting 500 bombers off the ground from multiple bases in England. Then rallying them over the North Sea. Then driving them in formation across hundreds of miles of defended airspace to bomb a target that’s obscured by clouds and smoke. Then bringing the aircraft home, through more flak and fighters, to land in a night-time fog. And accomplish it all within a drop-dead time-frame (literally) constrained by onboard fuel supplies. Simple, right?

Or if a skeptic fails to appreciate Clausewitz, perhaps the words of Clausewitz’s better-known opponent will work. “Ask me for anything,” Napoleon said to his subordinates during the Russian campaign. “Anything but time.” As he crossed the plains of Russia, Napoleon knew that there were time-imposed limits to weather, supplies, manpower and political will at home to support the expedition.

Thus it’s not difficult to understand the advice that Lemay offered to Johnson when the man in the Oval Office asked the Air Force chief for options. Lemay was blunt, as befits a scholar of warfare. “Apply whatever force it is necessary to employ,” he stated, “to stop things quickly. The main thing is to stop it (i.e., the North Vietnamese-backed insurgency). The quicker you stop it (Lemay’s emphasis), the more lives you save. … The quicker you complete the military action, the better for all concerned.”

Stating the Military Truth

Distilled to its essence, Lemay presented Johnson with a military campaign plan that also served as a strategy for confronting and defeating the North Vietnamese Communists. Lemay counseled that if the U.S. committed its armed forces to war — a presidential and Congressional decision, to be sure — then the troops should be authorized to move quickly and hit North Vietnam with everything, up front.

Lemay knew that the threat to South Vietnam was not a bunch of philosopher-farmers toiling out in the rice paddies, spouting Marxist drivel. The threat was not “agrarian reformers” who wore black pajamas.

No, the threat to South Vietnam was Soviet weaponry funneled into North Vietnam, and then shipped south to supply a well-trained invasion force. Thus Lemay’s war plan was to use U.S. air power to smash and strangle the logistical underpinnings of the slow Communist takeover of South Vietnam. Would it make the Soviets mad? Sure, but that was another issue — and it was what SAC was for.

In Lemay’s opinion, an air campaign against North Vietnamese harbors, and related mining campaign against the seacoast, would strike the North Vietnamese center of gravity.

Center of Gravity? Lemay offered Johnson a practical tutorial on pure Clausewitz, via overwhelming air power dropping steel rain on an adversary. It was the military truth, according to Lemay, and in this world very few people have the ability to state the military truth.

Looking for Different Advice

Unfortunately in this world, a lot of people don’t want to hear the truth, military or otherwise. Johnson was one of them. Johnson saw things differently. The U.S., of course, had immense military power at its disposal. But Johnson lacked the will to use it.

Johnson didn’t want to go all out against North Vietnam, and then have to explain to the voters why he was committing the nation to a large conventional war in a far off place. “I’m not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home,” said Johnson, “to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” No. Of course not.

Johnson saw his presidential legacy in a domestic political agenda. He was going to enact Medicare for senior citizens. He was going to build a “Great Society” at home. He was going to push for civil rights, and rebuild America’s cities from the inside out.

Johnson didn’t want to spend political capital waging a costly war in Asia. Sure, he was obliged to suck it up and confront Communism on the foreign front. There are some things that American presidents HAVE to do. But deep down, Johnson just wanted to cut a political deal with the North Vietnamese, not bomb them.

So Johnson needed different advice than what he was getting from Lemay. Johnson looked around and — it being Washington, D.C. — he found other advisers more to his liking.

Telling Johnson What He Wanted to Hear

The new counselors were no fools. Working for a U.S. President would be good for their careers. So they told Johnson that the U.S. didn’t have to make a rapid, costly, all-out bombing effort against North Vietnam. No need to bomb Haiphong, or mine the harbors, or seed the coastline with mines. Nope, not at all. Forget that center of gravity crap from Clausewitz. What the hell did Clausewitz know, anyhow?

No, said the new advisers to Johnson. There was another way. If Johnson would only pursue a strategy of turning the heat up gradually on North Vietnam, the Communists would change their ways. After all, weren’t the North Vietnamese rational people?

Moving step by step, said the new consiglieri, Johnson could escalate on the cheap until he found just the right level of force at which the Vietnamese opponent would bend to his Texas-sized will. Now THAT was the kind of advice Johnson wanted to hear.

In short, Johnson looked at the complexity of Vietnam. He had a difficult set of choices, and wanted to make it all easy. Johnson wanted to “do Vietnam,” but on the cheap. In one memorable use of his astonishing powers of rhetoric, Johnson referred to Vietnam as a “coonskin.” And he wanted to “nail it to the wall.”

Lemay, the old World War II bomber-general, just didn’t fit into Johnson’s inspired vision for confronting and defeating the North Vietnamese. Hit them hard, up front? Not when you could hit them less hard, and escalate gradually. To Johnson, at least, it made sense. Johnson heard what he wanted to hear. Johnson saw what he wanted to see. Thus in the ancient ways of Washington, Lemay’s clock ran out.

Ushered into Retirement

Johnson kept Lemay on the Air Force payroll through 1964, always with an eye on the upcoming election in November. Even before the nominating conventions, Johnson had a hunch that he would be running against Barry Goldwater. Johnson used the FBI and CIA to dig up dirt to use against Goldwater. Basically, Johnson was paranoid about the election, and he didn’t want Lemay to retire and campaign alongside the old Army pilot from Arizona.

But after the election, in early 1965, Johnson was long past listening to Lemay talk about massive bombing of North Vietnam. So Johnson told his war-bird to retire as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.

Oh sure, it was Lemay’s time to go, everyone agreed. He’d had a long career. It was time for Lemay to hang up the uniform and, as the saying goes, “spend more time with his family.” Yes. Sure.

In true Washington fashion, there was a splendid farewell ceremony. Everyone smiled. The troops paraded. The brass shone. There were fine speeches. The Air Force Band played ruffles and flourishes. Thundering jets roared overhead. Pres. Johnson pinned a medal on Lemay’s chest – as if Lemay needed any more medals. Lemay’s “faithful, zealous and obedient service to America” was “gratefully acknowledged and deeply appreciated.”

And then Lemay passed to others the baton of war and peace. Lemay didn’t mind, or so he said. He had groomed many a capable successor within the ranks of the Air Force. It was time for Lemay to pack up and get out of Washington.

Lemay left town. He went west and took a job in Los Angeles. He settled into private life. Indeed, Gen. and Mrs. Lemay even bought a lovely home in upscale Bel Aire. (Bel Aire? An eyebrow rises at that one.) Things were going well, except for that issue about “gradual escalation” over in Vietnam.

We’ll never know about the advice “not taken.” But we can ponder the “what ifs.” In another article, I’ll discuss Lemay’s post-retirement life, including his 30-day candidacy for U.S. Vice President in 1968. Thanks for reading.

Until we meet again,
Byron King

October 12, 2009

The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay, Part IV: Vietnam and President Johnson was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Who Was This Man?

The hour. The man. But let’s pause, and ask again who was this man? Keep in mind that Lemay was a field general, or perhaps we should call him an “air” general. Lemay devised doctrine, training and tactics for bombers. He planned and commanded air operations. His operations in many ways affected strategy.

But Lemay was always a subordinate, a general officer carrying out the greater aims and subject to the authority of others. That is, Lemay was not a politician, a theater commander or an industrialist. These latter players gave Lemay his orders and his tools. For all his efforts, Lemay was an instrument of the national will and productivity.

A Returning American Hero

Still, Lemay became the face of winged victory. He was the triumphant air marshal. When the war with Japan ended, Lemay flew home in a B-29 and landed to become an American hero. He toured the country, speaking to appreciative audiences, and received honorary degrees. Lemay was on the cover of Time Magazine.

The governor of his native Ohio considered appointing Lemay to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. Lemay declined the offer, preferring to remain on active duty in what was to become the newly-established U.S. Air Force.

Demobilization Fever

Lemay traveled, shook a lot of hands, testified before Congress. He was a walking testimonial to the idea of establishing an independent Air Force. By 1948, Lemay was assigned to build a new organization called the Strategic Air Command (SAC) out of the remnants of the U.S. Army airpower arm. And what a job that would turn out to be.

Building SAC was a Herculean task because the U.S. had demobilized so quickly after the war. It astonished many people – including Lemay — to learn that a mere 30 months after the war ended, U.S. forces operated almost no serviceable, long-range combat bomber aircraft. Nor were there sufficient trained crews or maintenance personnel. What happened? It was a classic case of demobilization fever.

Building Strategic Air Command

Yet Lemay set about accomplishing exactly what he was ordered to do. The World War was over, but the nation soon realized that its dark hours had not passed. Joseph Stalin had his own ideas about the fate of Europe.

On the other side of the world, there was a civil war raging in China. It highlighted the point that there was a world to police, or so went the bipartisan consensus. And someone had to do it, or so went the bipartisan consensus. The U.S. was the only free and great power left — with an intact economy — after the fighting.

So the late 1940s provided other of the nation’s hard hours, and these hours required a certain kind of man, Lemay — again.

Build SAC? Lemay requisitioned aircraft and spare parts from storage sites in the deserts of Arizona and California. He recruited the best pilots and maintenance personnel he could find. He scrounged for funds to build barracks and hangars and command centers. In essence, Lemay had to recreate an entire new bombing air force because the old one was gone.

Berlin Blockade

Lemay’s efforts were soon interrupted when the Soviets placed a blockade around Berlin in 1948. The U.S. turned to its great air general, Curtis Lemay, to organize an airlift of supplies to the beleaguered city. More than a few Germans changed their minds about the American occupation when they learned that Lemay, who used to bomb them, was now delivering coal and food to Berlin.

In the process of relieving Berlin, Lemay suggested making a highly visible geopolitical point. Eventually Lemay ordered B-29 “atomic bombers” to fly to England. The Soviets knew that there was a message in the action, and that message was crystal clear.

“We believe that Lemay would drop atom bombs on us,” said one Soviet diplomat to an American counterpart. The American diplomat smiled, as diplomats do, and concurred with the Russian.

Stalin was many things. But he was no fool. After a period of time, the Soviets wound down the Berlin blockade.

Korean War

Not long after, and again at the behest of that Soviet troublemaker Stalin, in June 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea. Lemay had B-29 bombers ready to roll, and quickly sent his birds to Japan and Okinawa. From bases there, Lemay’s B-29s could hit targets in North Korea.

Lemay’s view was that early, massive, visible blows would help bring the war to a swift conclusion. Thus, early-on in Korea, Lemay urged intense bombing to shatter the economy and military forces of the North Koreans. Lemay wanted to do to North Korea what he had previously done to Germany and Japan. And this time, he had the bombers with which to do it from the start.

But at the beginning of the Korean War, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was in command. MacArthur was an old-school soldier who did not want to see a reprieve of Lemay’s aerial campaign such as had burnt out Japan in World War II. Also, MacArthur had plans to fight and defeat the North Koreans on the ground. So MacArthur blocked Lemay’s idea of early and powerful bombardment.

Meanwhile, the Chinese and Soviets had plans of their own. And those plans involved NOT permitting their North Korean ally to be defeated by a Western army, particularly not by any army mostly American, commanded by a certain Douglas MacArthur.

Macarthur scored successes at Inchon and afterwards. His troops rolled up the invading North Koreans. Then MacArthur made a fateful decision and ordered U.S. and United Nations troops to cross the 38th Parallel. MacArthur’s soldiers spent the late summer and early fall overrunning most of northern Korea.

China would nave none of this. The Chinese had just kicked out the Japanese five years earlier. They wanted nothing of a Western army on their border. So in October 1950 China entered the war, sending vast numbers of troops south across the Yalu River. U.S. and U.N. forces were quickly overrun and pushed back, south of Seoul. It was a humiliating defeat. For this, and a list of other reasons, MacArthur was relieved of command.

After MacArthur departed, Lemay tried once more to move the idea of a massive Korean bombing campaign. But Lemay was overruled by the policymakers in Washington. No massive bombing.

In Korea Lemay encountered the beginnings of the modern American political phenomenon of committing troops to wage war, without the political will to deliver crippling military blows against the enemy. The expression of the soldiers was, “We die for a tie.”

The Worst of All Worlds

The fighting in Korea strung out over the next three years. The bitter combat, and overall air war, eventually pulverized most significant targets in the North. The end-result was the same as Lemay had first proposed. But it played out slowly, not quickly. The fighting and destruction occurred gradually, piecemeal, and at great human and material expense.

Compounding the problem, the war commanders used Lemay’s B-29s inappropriately. Air tasking orders had B-29s performing missions like ground-interdiction and close-air-support. Really, you just don’t use big bombers down low for things like that.

“I have heard of military campaigns that were clumsy but swift,” wrote Sun Tzu. “But I have never seen military campaigns that were skilled but protracted.” That is, time is precious during a war. And over time the North Koreans, and their Chinese allies on the ground, learned how to dig in and take hits from the big American bombers.

The North Koreans and Chinese also figured out how to fight back against the B-29s. It helped that they had at their disposal several hundred veteran Soviet pilots flying MiG-15s. These MiGs were nimble jet-powered fighters, flying from airfields in Manchuria that were off-limits to U.S. attack. By the end of the Korean conflict, 107 of 150 B-29s in theater had been lost to enemy action or in-flight accidents.

“No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare,” wrote Sun Tzu. And of course, Sun Tzu was correct. For American air power, Korea demonstrated the point. It was the worst of all worlds.

{Of interest, the Korean War gave rise to the military requirement for a day-night, all-weather, radar-mapping, low-level attack aircraft with a heavy bomb load. The result was the venerable and incomparable Grumman A-6 Intruder. Intruders Forever!}

Evolving SAC

While Lemay ran SAC, 1948 – 1957, he finally was in a position to drive policy. And he presided over transformations that were astounding. For example, Lemay commanded four different generations of advancing aircraft, and a host of evolving munitions. The logistics requirements, basing requirements, personnel and training requirements and operational planning were a continuous whirlwind.

Think about the complexity. Starting with the World War II-era B-29, Lemay transitioned SAC to the improved, but gigantic and costly B-36. Then came the sleek, jet-powered B-47. The B-47 was followed by the mighty B-52 – which is still part of the backbone of U.S. security, 50 years later. As Air Force Chief of Staff in the early 1960s, Lemay pushed hard for the supersonic B-70 (which never made it past two prototype examples).

Keep in mind, though, that Lemay was always subject to the push and pull of the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC). Sometimes the pork-hawks in Congress gave Lemay what he wanted. Often not.

Evolving Weapons

Still, it’s fair to say that Lemay also had a powerful hand in defining the requirements for several early generations of nuclear weapons, as well as aircraft and missile systems, electronic warfare systems, and precision weapon developments.

When it came to the early nuclear weapons, Lemay needed bombs that could fit inside his bombers (and later his missiles). He needed bombers and missiles that could carry the big-yielding boomers that the weapons designers were dreaming up. Thus for more than a decade Lemay played a key role in aircraft and missile design requirements, as well as in setting the requirements for missions, targets and payload.

Basically, Lemay wanted faster, more potent aircraft, and smaller, more secure, more accurate weapons. Thus did the U.S. aircraft industry, electronics industry, and nuclear weapons complex – among numerous defense sectors — shape itself to the will of one senior officer and his immensely capable staff of aerial war-fighters. Lemay issued requirements that drove technology, shaped industry, and even reached down into the research and teaching levels of academia.

Among other things, Lemay soon realized that most of the new nuclear weapons could be armed and triggered by just one person. So he insisted that the designers build safeguards into the weapons. And Lemay inaugurated the idea of two-person control, with arming keys, and airtight security systems during storage and transport.

Through it all, in the 1950s, much of SAC’s development, acquisition and operating tempo occurred in an era of tight and balanced federal budgets.

The Battles of Washington

By the late 1950s Lemay was posted to Washington as Assistant Chief of Staff, and eventually Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Now he was ensconced within the highest reaches of the MICC.

Lemay got along well with Pres. Eisenhower and members of the Eisenhower administration. At many meetings with Ike, senior military brass and civilian staff sitting around the table, it was as if the old World War II boys were holding a reunion.

Eisenhower was an old soldier who had been the Supreme Commander in Europe. Ike implicitly understood the military and national security issues that confronted the U.S. in those days. Nobody had to explain basic defense and security concepts to Ike, let alone explain them twice. And then came a new presidential administration, in which many of the novices needed spoon-fed – twice and more.

Opposing Bay of Pigs

In the early days of the Kennedy administration, one of Lemay’s first big fights was an unsuccessful attempt to stop the Bay of Pigs operation. Lemay reviewed the plan to land a small number of mercenary troops in Cuba, with the idea of staging an overthrow of Fidel Castro.

Lemay was appalled at the shoddiness of the plan, and said so. But of course the CIA experts knew better how to stage an invasion than did Lemay, the crusty old bomber pilot. Thus despite his best efforts to prevent the operation, Lemay watched in April 1961 as the Bay of Pigs fiasco blew up in the face of Pres. Kennedy.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Bay of Pigs debacle emboldened Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to place missiles in Cuba. Again, this led to an international military standoff, the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October 1962. The U.S. and Soviet Union were perhaps days, if not hours, from going to war.

Through it all, Lemay offered steady and consistent advice to Pres. Kennedy and his advisers. Backing up Kennedy was Lemay’s potent and powerful creation, SAC. This highly trained airborne battle-force, aimed at the heart of the Soviet Union, was critical. SAC – along with the battle forces of the U.S. Navy in blockade-mode — gave Kennedy the military flexibility and credibility he needed with which to negotiate and de-escalate the looming crisis.

Opposing Kennedy-Johnson Vietnam Strategy

Towards the end of the Kennedy administration, and in the early days of the Johnson administration after Kennedy was assassinated, Lemay argued strenuously against the U.S. strategy of gradual escalation that he saw occurring in Vietnam. Lemay’s principle nemesis throughout was Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and what Lemay called “the Whiz kids.”

Lemay visited and toured South Vietnam. He saw that South Vietnam’s security was being undermined by Communist troops and guerilla cadre whose arms and training flowed down from the North. Thus, according to Lemay, if the security of South Vietnam was worth committing U.S. forces (a very big “if,” in Lemay’s view), then it was important to hit the North Vietnamese soon and hard.

At the outset, Lemay recommended destroying and mining North Vietnamese logistic centers such as the port facilities at Haiphong and other coastal areas. Lemay offered a plan to wreck the North Vietnamese supply lines at the source. The Kennedy-Johnson policymakers rejected Lemay’s advice — although this operational plan stayed near the top of the military shelf. The bomb-Haiphong operation is exactly what the Nixon administration eventually did in December 1972, about nine years after Lemay suggested it.

“Back Into the Stone Age”

This period is also the origin of that “bomb them back into the Stone Age” comment, attributed to Lemay about attacking North Vietnam. In 1963 Lemay was working with the author McKinlay Kantor to write an autobiography, entitled Mission with Lemay: My Story. Kantor spent many hours with Lemay. He took notes and apparently took a number of liberties in his writing. In short, Kantor simply made some things up.

According to Lemay, he read the galley proofs and never noticed Kantor’s version of Lemay saying he would bomb North Vietnam “back into the Stone Age.” Hence the made-up quote went to print in a book under Lemay’s name.

The Advice Not Taken

During his tenure in Washington, Lemay offered his fair share of military advice. It’s accurate to say that essentially all of it was based on Lemay’s experience, and it was sincerely presented. As with all advice, some was accepted. And some was rejected – some of the best, in fact, to the eventual regret of those who failed to listen hard enough.

By 1964 there was concern within the highest political circles of the Johnson White House that Lemay might go public with his criticism of defense policy. Pres. Johnson turned on the charm and sweet-talked Lemay into remaining on active duty through the 1964 election. This was to prevent Lemay from hanging up his uniform and campaigning on behalf of another old Army pilot named Barry Goldwater.

Ever the good soldier, Lemay stayed in the Air Force through the election of 1964. He kept his mouth shut, out of deference to his commander in chief. Shortly after Johnson’s inauguration in January 1965, the newly-sworn president asked Lemay to retire.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man? Well, by now Lemay’s clock had run out. It was time for the old warhorse to retire, kick back and think about the good old days. Then again, there were still some chapters yet to be written in a remarkable life.

Thanks for reading Part III.

Until we meet again,
Byron W. King

September 15, 2009

Review of Lemay The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay, Part III was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

When even the biographer begins on such a disparaging note, it’s not hard to understand why Lemay has been the subject of so few worthy accounts. One that comes to mind is Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of Gen. Curtis Lemay, by Thomas Coffey, 1987. But there are few others. So after 22 years we now have a new effort to tell the tale of one of America’s greatest warriors. Better late than never, I suppose.

The Neglected Military and Strategic Genius

Again and again, fine writers have told the stories of almost all U.S. military leaders of World War II and the Cold War. Library shelves strain beneath books detailing the military accomplishments of George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Omar Bradley, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz and others of that mid-century era.

But Curtis Lemay? He’s a neglected captain, if not forgotten. Today, many Americans under age 50 scarcely know his name. To those with only a casual acquaintance of Lemay’s story, his life is summed-up in the disdainful quip – an irreverent dismissal, really — that he was “George Wallace’s running mate in the 1968 presidential election.” Oh, you don’t say. Well, yes he was. And that’s a nugget of truth that explains precisely nothing in the saga of war and peace in our time.

To those with more knowledge, Lemay supposedly said of North Vietnam that “we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.” Actually, Lemay denied saying that. The words are those of a ghost-writer who took too much literary license.

Then there’s the insult of artful insults. It was Lemay who was caricatured as the loony Gen. Buck Turgidson (played by the actor George C. Scott) in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

No, Stanley. Not at all. Not even close. When it comes to portraying Lemay, Dr. Strangelove is literary license on steroids. Here’s the rebuttal. Dr. Strangelove is only a movie. As to Lemay, it’s neither accurate nor fair. Lemay was Lemay, of course, sui generis. But Lemay was no Buck Turgidson.

A Man of Many Great Battles and Campaigns

What a shame, then, that two (going on three) generations of Americans know so little about Curtis Lemay. He was more than just an effective wartime commander. He was one of the most brilliant military leaders and strategists that the U.S. has produced in its entire national existence. Thus it’s about time that the man receives the recognition he deserves in this new volume of straightforward biography.

First, some perspective. How many great battles and campaigns did George Washington plan or fight? Less than ten. For how many great battles did Ulysses Grant or Robert E. Lee set the stage? Under twenty. How about John J. Pershing, or Douglas MacArthur or George Patton? A couple of dozen, perhaps.

What about Curtis Lemay? As commander of the Eighth Air Force in Europe, and later the 20th Air Force in the Pacific, Lemay set the stage for literally hundreds of great aerial battles.

During those battles, Lemay flew many a combat mission. But he was no mere knight of the air. Lemay was directly responsible for inventing and refining many key concepts of aerial warfare, from heavy bombardment to precision strike. Lemay took the abstract ideas of airpower thinkers from Giulio Douhet to Billy Mitchell, and turned them into the steel rain of bomb-dropping reality.

By one macabre statistic, Lemay ordered and commanded actions that led to the deaths of more enemy combatants and civilians than any other military leader in U.S. history. So Gen. Sherman burned Atlanta? Well, Lemay out-Sherman’ed Gen. Sherman. Indeed, Lemay put the torch to Japan, as we’ll discuss below.

Cometh the Hour…

Burn Japan? Yes indeed. Lemay burned many cities — to the ground. That’s what Lemay did AFTER his bombers pounded large swaths of Germany into rubble. Lemay’s record for death and destruction is a strange honor, to be sure. It’s probably a dubious distinction these days, in the hindsight of contemporary morality and the trend towards judgmental, 20-20 hindsight.

But then again, recall the old saying that “cometh the hour, cometh the man.” Lemay lived and served in a time of many desperate hours. His hour came. In the context of his time, the dirtiest of dirty jobs fell to Lemay. He worked with exactly the tools that his nation handed him. It was left to Lemay to act.

Thus in both World War II and the following Cold War, Lemay accomplished what necessity demanded. By all accounts Lemay performed his work out of a sense of duty. History, if not the fates, offered him his hour and assigned him his mission. By all accounts Lemay didn’t relish the death and destruction he rained upon the enemy. But he accomplished what his nation asked him to do, and under the hardest circumstances.

For a while, Lemay even received high praise for his grisly work. Until, of course, some people forgot why they needed Lemay. Until, of course, a new generation came along that knew not of the desperation of those previous hours. But this gets ahead of the story.

Leading from the Front – from Inside a Plexiglas Dome

Unlike many generals – before his time, then or since — Lemay shared the risk. Many times he led his troops into battle over Germany, directing the fight from a cramped perch inside a Plexiglas dome atop a B-17. Lemay was often in the lead aircraft, at which German guns poured heavy volumes of fire.

Later, Lemay flew against Japan as well. He only flew a few missions and wouldd have flown more, except that eventually his knowledge of the Manhattan Project kept him out of the action. Under direct orders from Washington, Lemay could not risk getting shot down and captured.

Later, in 1948 Lemay organized the Berlin Airlift, and not long afterwards orchestrated the 1950 – 1953 air campaign against North Korea during the Korean War.

Throughout the 1950s Lemay built the Strategic Air Command (SAC) of the U.S. Air Force, and set it on a near-constant, wartime footing.

In 1962, as Air Force Chief of Staff, Lemay counseled Pres. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis while SAC and other Air Force capabilities gave Kennedy military options to play out against the moves of his Soviet counterparts.

A Story of a General, and of America at Mid-Century

In the life of any nation, it is for the fates to decide when the hard hours shall come. But whence cometh those men to meet those hours?

The question brings us to Kozak’s new biography of Lemay. It’s not just another book about another military man. Oh, Kozak tells that tale of course. But another theme that permeates the discussion is the story of the U.S. at war in the mid-20th Century.

Lemay’s early life sets the stage. Lemay was a child of an unsuccessful father. Most of the time, his family was destitute. And from such humble roots, Lemay rose to command great air armies, to control god-like nuclear powers, and to advise U.S. presidents – several of them, in fact.

Yet despite his early hardships, Lemay revered the Wright Brothers. He wanted to fly. Eventually it dawned on Lemay that he needed to pursue an education. Thus did Lemay work his way through college. And while in school, Lemay joined the Army Reserve because he figured it was about the only way he’d ever get off the ground.

At first, Lemay didn’t know where the Army would take him. But flying airplanes seemed like a good skill on which to build some sort of career. It’s not unlike the story of another college-man of his era, Ronald Reagan, who joined an Army unit to learn how to ride horses. You just never know where some skills will take you.

Work Hard, and the Army Will Buy the Gas

After college, Lemay passed flight school and took to the air, with the U.S. Army buying the gas. He achieved his success without the advantages of family, politics, good looks, charm or even all that much luck. It’s fairer to say that Lemay succeeded by dint of a phenomenal work ethic. He had guts, street-smarts and the uncanny ability to make good decisions. Later, he maintained his success by selecting other good people who could interpret his ideas and help him accomplish things.

Lemay started as an Army pilot in the 1930s, during the depths of the Great Depression. Funding was tight, although it also was a time of great advances in aviation. Lemay mastered the technical intricacies of every aircraft he flew. He was, in particular, a superb navigator – perhaps the best in the Army; perhaps the best in the country; perhaps one of the best in the world. It would come to matter, eventually.

And Lemay knew his aircraft weapons, too, from guns to arming wires to tail fins. In the process of mastering these systems, he developed a sense of the training and supervision he needed to impart to his subordinates.

Thus Lemay understood the “envelope” of performance in many different respects. That is, he understood what he could demand from both people and machines. Lemay also understood how the Army system worked, and he could out-bureaucrat even the best of bureaucrats.

Finally, Lemay thought broadly about big ideas, of how to employ technology and people within the system, to accomplish the job at hand. People, ideas, machines, systems. That’s what all the great ones understand. They can tie it all together and make something work.

Lemay Rewrites the Book of Bombing in Europe

So there was Lemay, working in the wings of the U.S. Army (pardon the pun) as World War II began in Europe in 1939. Initially, Lemay rose to squadron-level command posts during the U.S. aerial supply effort towards Britain. He learned a lot, and it would prove to be useful knowledge after the U.S. entered the war with Germany.

By 1942, and the early days of U.S. bombing effort against Germany, things were not going well. Targeting was poor. Accuracy was terrible. Losses were high. Into this mix, Lemay was assigned to command one of the first B-17 bomber groups in England.

Lemay immediately focused on crew-training and aircraft-maintenance. He flew with his crews, developing the “box formation” in which the defensive guns of each bomber provided protection not only to themselves, but to others in the group as well.

As the bombers approached the target, Lemay insisted on steady, accurate run-ins despite the murderous German antiaircraft fire. Lemay believed that there was no use taking the risks and losses of air assaults, if the bombs could not be placed accurately on targets.

Lemay’s tactics were successful. Bombing accuracy increased, and his units’ losses went down. Over time, the B-17 even became a fearsome killer of enemy aircraft, shooting down more German fighter airplanes than any other type of aircraft in World War II. Lemay was promoted, and his tactics became operational doctrine. Lemay’s concepts began to have a strategic impact on the war effort.

“A Lot to Learn in Combat”

But Lemay knew – and never forgot — that bombing was a brutal, unforgiving business. The Germans put up one hell of a fight, every time. “We had a lot to learn in combat,” Lemay wrote later. “Many people didn’t last long enough to learn much.”

On a typical mission, flak exploded all around, tossing thousands of pieces of supersonic shrapnel in every direction. Or the German Messerschmitt-109s fired cannon shells the size of milk bottles, filled with high explosive.

Blue Battlefields, Orange Balls

In 10,000 years of human history, there had never been a conflict like this. Up in the blue battlefield, massive airplanes were ripped to pieces in just fractions of a second. Death was random and made no distinction between good men or bad. Aircraft collided. Aircraft maneuvered so violently that their wings ripped off. Aircraft were hit, and exploded into orange balls that vaporized every soul. The lucky ones, at least, died before tumbling 26,000 feet to earth amidst a rain of scorched metal and parts.

In World War II, the Army Air Corps suffered more combat deaths than did the ground-pounding, beach-hitting Marines. Almost every day, for over three years, hundreds of aircraft full of young men took off from bases in England. Later in the day, chaplains stood by the end of the runways, counting the returning aircraft and checking off their tail numbers as they landed. Lemay, too – when he was not up-front and flying — was in the control towers or operations rooms, keeping vigil.

And of those aircraft that never returned? There were just so many, something like 5,000, filled with American aircrew. Later, as time permitted, the chaplains went through the personal effects of the missing. Then the Army sent a footlocker home to a grieving family. Lemay went through many a service record, personally writing thousands of condolence letters.

The Highest Praise Comes from the Opponent

After the war, the Strategic Bombing Survey second-guessed the results of Lemay’s efforts. Targeting was never all that good, the survey pointed out. Indeed, most bombs missed the targets entirely. Bombing did not truly cripple German industry, noted the survey. One key conclusion was that bombing used vast resources for limited results.

Then again, not everything is subject to “survey.” Indeed, Lemay’s European bombing campaign received high praise from the highest of all sources. It came from no less an expert than Albert Speer, the German Minister of Armaments. Speer would know, of course, because it was his industries on the receiving end of Lemay’s bombs.

In memoirs published in the 1970s, Speer noted that the increasingly effective U.S. bombardment required Germany to redeploy over 2.5 million troops, 150,000 high-velocity guns and 20,000 fighters and pilots across Western Europe to cover the “aerial front.” Speer commented wryly on the effect these troops and munitions could have had, if only they had been available to fight the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

Cometh Another Hour…

Thus did one man meet the call of a dark hour in Europe. But Mars, god of war, was not finished with Lemay. There was another trumpet blowing. There was another dark hour for the nation, and Lemay was summoned to Asia.

Thank you for reading Part I. Part II will follow.

Until we meet again,
Byron W. King

September 8, 2009

A Review of “Lemay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay” was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.