General Curtis LeMay

Strategic Air Command Creator & Commander

- PAUL NOVAK

After World War II, General Curtis LeMay created something the world had never seen before: an air force powered by all-jet engines that was capable of nuclear and conventional warfare at high altitude or low level. The Strategic Air Command, or SAC, flown and maintained by trained professionals, was dedicated to the preservation of peace. The general led SAC from 1948 to 1957.

Abysmal Start

When General LeMay took over the just-birthed SAC in 1948, the fledgling outfit was a terrible mess. The accident rate of SAC that year was over 60 per 100,000 flight hours, which by any count is atrocious. People were leaving SAC as fast as they joined. Morale was miserable, and living quarters for single and married folks were terrible.

One quick significant measure of LeMay's success was a total turnaround in the flight safety record, which plummeted to about 9 per 100,000 hours by the end of 1956. Why? Because he cared. He called the wing commander and went over every accident in detail. It was uncomfortable, but it worked. LeMay developed an aircraft preflight checklist so that every aircraft commander inspected his aircraft before every flight, and each flight crewmember did the same with his own workstation areas and instrumentation. And those checklists were detailed. (I know, because I was the navigator aboard the B-52Ds flying combat missions over North Vietnam in 1972)

One may begin to see that what made SAC the most powerful air force was creativity, innovation, continued re-invention of "what's good enough," and General LeMay's incredible hard work ethic and demands for perfection-both of his people and of himself. But this tells only part of the story.

World War II & the Berlin Airlift