Curtis Lemay's Role In The Vietnam War

Curtis Lemay is one of the more controversial figures in the ranks of twentieth century US military leaders. He is probably best known for running for vice president under George Wallace in 1968, or for wanting to bomb Vietnam “back to the Stone Age.” However, the bombers under his command played a pivotal role in World War II, against both Germany and Japan. After the war, he commanded the Strategic Air Command, the US’s group of nuclear bombers that were always prepared to retaliate against the Soviet Union. Lemay was born on November 15, 1906 in Columbus, Ohio. As a boy, he became fascinated with aircraft after seeing an early Wright flyer in 1910. He moved often as a child due to his father’s inability to find and keep a stable job. The

He participated in two exercises that demonstrated the power of long-range bombers. In 1937, Lemay navigated bombers to find a battleship off the US’s Pacific coast. In 1938, he completed a similar feat to find another ship, only over a larger area of the Atlantic. When World War II began, Lemay was in charge of the 305th Bomb Group as a major. Due to the US’s lack of supplies at the start of the war, Lemay only had a handful of bombers for a large number of crews. The unit was sent to England in October 1942. Lemay personally led many missions in the lead bomber. The firsthand knowledge that came from this helped his develop several bombing strategies. The most famous, the combat box, consists of twelve planes set up in four triangles set in a diamond shape. The planes fly at varying altitudes to allow their weapons to cover as mush area as possible. Lemay was promoted to brigadier general in September 1943, becoming the youngest general in the army. Six months later, he was promoted to major

He took full control of bombing Japan in January 1945. However, the B-29 Superfortresses that Lemay used were unreliable, and the bombers that did make it to the target only had a 5% success rate. Lemay threw out the only precision bombing strategy, and decided on quantity over quality. He armed his bombers with incendiaries, and had them bomb at night. This took away the Japanese antiaircraft guns’ advantage, and caused more damage to the wooden Japanese buildings. The most destructive air raid of the war, the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945, used these strategies. The raid, which used 325 B-29’s, caused more damage than either atomic bomb. Overall, Lemay’s firebombing killed around half a million Japanese. Despite some opposition, most people supported this bombing for two reasons: 1. Most Japanese manufacturing was not centered in one factory like the Germans, but spread out between individual homes 2. The American invasion of Japan was estimated to cause more than a million casualties. Lemay’s bombing, and then the use of the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender on September 2,