LeMay, Curtis Emerson (1906–90) air corps and air force officer and noted aviation strategist, born in Columbus, Ohio. LeMay served as Air Force chief of staff (1961–65) and as head of the
Strategic Air Command (1948–57). One of the first qualified pilot/navigators of the
B-17 heavy bomber (1937), in 1941 LeMay flew several experimental missions to England and North Africa, for which he received the
Distinguished Flying Cross. During
World War II LeMay commanded divisions in the European and the
China-Burma-India theater s. In China he overcame problems with the
B-29 and initiated nighttime bombing of the Japanese mainland with devastating results there. LeMay also helped orchestrate the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki (1945). When the air force became a separate entity (1947), LeMay was given command of all air forces in Europe. In this role he organized the
Berlin Airlift (1948–49). LeMay is credited with turning the
Strategic Air Command into the world's finest strategic bomber force through his skill at procuring modern, complicated weapons systems as well as top-rate flight and ground crews. LeMay also espoused a more confrontational policy toward the Soviet Union than did the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a more aggressive policy in
Vietnam than did the commander in chief, President
Lyndon B. Johnson. LeMay resigned as chief of staff and from the Air Force in 1965, after thirty-seven years of military service.
LeMay was harshly criticized for his call to bomb North Vietnam “back into the Stone Age,” made while campaigning as vice president on the ticket with segregationist governor George C. Wallace in 1968.
