Some of you, the older ones, will remember LeMay as the crusty Air Force General that ran for Vice President on the ticket of George C. Wallace in 1968. He was a very outspoken man who believed that if you entered a war, you were there to win and defeat was unacceptable. This philosophy served him well in World War II, but many people were afraid of him during the cold war, they felt that he would incite the situation, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some people even went so far as to call him a war monger, but others felt he was a patriot of the highest order.

Curtis Emerson LeMay was born on November 15, 1906. He had a long life and died on October 1, 1990. He was born in Columbus, Ohio in the heart of the midwest. He studied civil engineering in college and joined the Air Corps in 1928, but didn't become an officer until 1930, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. In 1937 he transferred to bomber aircraft and this is where he made his reputation. He believed that training saved men's lives so when his men were not flying missions, they were constantly training. He was a respected commander, but a very demanding one. So demanding in fact, that his men named him" Iron Ass". He progressed through the ranks and was a Lieutenant Colonel at the start of World War II. When LeMay was the head of a bomber group he often flew on very dangerous missions with his men. No one could accuse this guy of being a sit at home commander. He helped to develop the box formation for bombers, so that each plane could protect the other. In 1943 he led 145 B-17 bombers into Germany on a mission. They had to fly beyond fighter protection. They also few on to Africa, but 24 were shot down.

LeMay fought in the european campaign until 1944. At that time he was transferred to the Pacific. He now was a Major General and was first put in charge of the XX Bomber Command in China and then the XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific. His superiors couldn't help but notice his proficiently at directing bombing raids and he was finally put in charge of air operations against the Japanese home islands. This task suited him just fine. He took to this task like a fish takes to water. First he examined the results of bombing raids that were being conducted and found that the targets were being missed 19 out of 20 times and the bomber losses were extremely high. The Japanese defenses were just to good. This is when the brain storm came. He decided that the only way to breach the Japanese defenses was with low level bombing, since medium and high level bombing was too costly and ineffective. Another measure he took was to replace most of the conventional bombs with incendiary bombs. Lastly the planes would fly at night so that they wouldn't present too big of a target. He knew that most of the Japanese cities were constructed of wood and even paper and would burn very easily.

When the new type of bombing began, it began with a vengeance. Sixty four Japanese cities were fire bombed including the famous firebombing of Tokyo over a two day period in 1945. He even ordered the guns removed from the planes so that they could carry more bombs. The bombers that attacked Tokyo were flying in from between 5,000 to 9,000 feet when they released their deadly cargos. LeMay also was in charge of the attack that dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is estimated that the fire bombing and nuclear bombs cost more than 1,000,000 lives. They also destroyed an estimated 2.5 million buildings. The Japanese had a name for LeMay, he was called "Demon LeMay" and I guess in their eyes we could see why. He had figured out their vulnerability and taken advantage of it, that vulnerability was that Japan was a tinderbox. Today we know that the Japanese were planning to drop a dirty bomb on our west coast only days after we nuked them first. LeMay made his men take Judo, when he was the assistant to General MacArthur during the occupation of Japan and it became very popular in the U.S. after the war.

During the Cold War Period in 1948, LeMay was made commander of the USAF in Europe and directed the Berlin airlift. In 1949 he was again promoted to the head of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), the most powerful force in the world. When he took over SAC, it was in sad shape. Half of the planes in the command couldn't fly and the crews were not sufficiently trained. The total amount of planes had dwindled to only a few air groups after the end of World War II. LeMay was not going to stand for this on his watch. By the time he left SAC in 1957, it had become efficient and was now all jets. He had convinced the Air Force to acquire new large modern bombers and instituted aerial refueling. Under his tutelage many new bases were opened. He also established a strategic ballistic missile force. He insisted on strict training programs and demanded a high standard from his men. When he left SAC it was because he had been promoted to Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, in which capacity he served until 1961. He was then promoted to Chief of Staff of the Air Force. LeMay had many a run in with then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Air Force Secretary. LeMay was the only official of a military branch that survived most of the cuts in budget during that period. LeMay wanted to bomb Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. and even got into arguments with President Kennedy over this.

During the Vietnam war LeMay complained that we needed a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam to win the war. He was probably right. One of the problems was that President Johnson was afraid that a Soviet or Chinese ship would get hit, thus starting a war with those countries, so instead a very limited bombing was conducted called Operation Linebacker. In 1964 a frustrated LeMay retired. In 1968 he allowed himself to be placed on a ticket for Vice President with George Wallace running for President. The party he ran on was known as the American Independent Party and he lost badly.

There are some very interesting ufo tales about LeMay. First of all he admitted that he believed that they were extraterrestrial. One interesting story tells of an interview in 1968 of Barry Goldwater, who stated that he was a friend of LeMay and had asked him repeatedly if there was ufo evidence stored at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, because he wanted to see it. Goldwater said that LeMay became very angry and said "Not only can't you get into it, but don't you ever mention it to me again.". Again this answer would seem to indicate that ufo evidence was stored there. This is a story about a ham radio operator that states he used to talk to LeMay on the radio after he retired. He stated that he visited him once and asked him about ufos and LeMay replied that he knew about them, but that the CIA wouldn't let him know the planets of origin. A book titled "Operation Roswell" by Kevin D. Randle, claims that the famous ufo that crashed in Roswell was shot down under the orders of LeMay who believed that these vehicles were Soviet at the time, only to find out that they were alien. It also states that one alien lived, of course none of this can be confirmed by evidence and the book is said to be fiction by some..