LeMay became known for his massive incendiary attacks against Japanese cities during the war using hundreds of planes flying at low altitudes.

LeMay became a pursuit pilot and, while stationed in Hawaii, became one of the first members of the Air Corps to receive specialized training in aerial navigation.

Upon receiving his fourth star in 1951 at age 44, LeMay became the youngest four-star general in American history since Ulysses S. Grant and was the youngest four-star general in modern history as well as the longest serving in that rank.

LeMay gradually became convinced that Nixon planned to pursue a conciliatory policy with the Soviets and accept nuclear parity rather than retain America's first-strike supremacy.

Consequently LeMay, while being fully aware of Wallace's segregationist platform, decided to throw his support to Wallace and eventually became Wallace's running mate.

During the 1968 campaign, LeMay became widely associated with the " Stone Age " comment, especially because he had suggested use of nuclear weapons as a strategy to quickly resolve a deeply protracted conventional war which eventually claimed over 50, 000 American and millions of Vietnamese lives.

LeMay was quite aware of the Japanese opinion of him: he once remarked that had the U. S. lost the war, he fully expected to be tried for war crimes, especially in view of Japanese executions of uniformed American flight crews during the 1942 Doolittle raid.

General LeMay was instrumental in SAC's acquisition of a large fleet of new strategic bombers, establishment of a vast aerial refueling system, the formation of many new units and bases, development of a strategic ballistic missile force, and establishment of a strict command and control system with an unprecedented readiness capability.

A day later, Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis E. LeMay awarded White his new rating as a Command Pilot Astronaut.

On August 20, LeMay arrived to breathe new energy into the XX Bomber Command.

Concerned about the relative failure of the B-29 offensive to deal any crippling blows to Japan, General LeMay issued a new directive on 19 February.

By mid-June, most of the larger Japanese cities had been gutted, and LeMay ordered new incendiary raids against 58 smaller Japanese cities.

The New York Times reported at the time, " Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, commander of the B-29s of the entire Marianas area, declared that if the war is shortened by a single day, the attack will have served its purpose.

Upon inspecting a SAC hangar full of US nuclear strategic bombers, LeMay found a single Air Force sentry on duty, armed only with a ham sandwich.

In 1949, LeMay was first to propose that a nuclear war be conducted by delivering the nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as " killing a nation ".

Despite having a limited range, by the end of LeMay ’ s command in 1957, the B-47 had become the backbone of SAC, comprising over half of its total aircraft and eighty percent of its bomber capacity.

LeMay started shortly after his arrival at SAC, by having SAC planners draw up Emergency War Plan 1-49, which involved striking seventy Soviet cities with 133 atomic bombs over a thirty day period in an effort to destroy Soviet industrial capacity.

LeMay and SAC ’ s continuing efforts to assume greater control over nuclear strategy were vindicated on August 11, 1960, when Eisenhower approved a plan to create the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff ( dominated by SAC ) to prepare the National Strategic Target List and the Single Integrated Operation Plan ( SIOP ) for nuclear war.

As a result, LeMay was relieved when the Korean War ended in 1953 and he was able to go back to building SAC ’ s arsenal and gaining control over nuclear strategy.

For this first attack, LeMay ordered the defensive guns removed from 325 B-29s, loaded each plane with Model E-46 incendiary clusters, magnesium bombs, white phosphorus bombs, and napalm, and ordered the bombers to fly in streams at 5, 000 to 9, 000 feet over Tokyo.

LeMay initially started flying supplies into Berlin, but then decided that it was a job for a logistics expert and he found that person in Lt. General William H. Tunner, who took over the operational end of the Berlin Airlift.

When LeMay took over command of SAC, it consisted of little more than a few understaffed B-29 bombardment groups left over from World War II.

Since fighter opposition was minimal over Japan in late 1944, many of the Army Air Force leadership — most notably Curtis LeMay, commander of the XXI Bomber Command — felt that a ( lighter ) faster bomber would better evade Japanese flak.

Curtis LeMay argued that the large stocks of missiles were in the areas not photographed by the U-2's, and arguments broke out over the Soviet factory capability in an effort to estimate their production rate.

Then, when the U. S. Army Air Forces on the Marianas Islands ran out of conventional thermite incendiary bombs for its B-29 Superfortresses to drop on Japanese cities, its top commanders, such as General Curtis E. LeMay turned to napalm bombs to continue its fire raids on the large Japanese cities.

The situation began to change on 19 October 1948, when Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay assumed leadership of the Strategic Air Command, a position he held until June 1957, the longest tenure for any United States armed forces commander since Winfield Scott.

A key factor enabling the B-47 to become the mainstay of SAC ( and to fulfill LeMay ’ s desire for a long range bomber ) was the development of in-flight refueling.

While the Eisenhower administration approved of the strategy in general, LeMay continued to increase SAC ’ s independence by refusing to submit SAC war plans for review, believing that operational plans should be closely guarded, a view the Joint Chiefs of Staff eventually came to accept.

LeMay loaned out facilities of Strategic Air Command bases for the SCCA's use ; the SCCA relied heavily on these venues during the early and mid 1950s during the transition from street racing to permanent circuits.

USAF General Curtis LeMay updated the concept for the nuclear age.

LeMay soon concluded that the techniques and tactics developed for use in Europe against the Luftwaffe were unsuitable against Japan.

Because Japanese air defenses made daytime bombing below jet stream-affected altitudes too perilous, LeMay finally switched to low-altitude nighttime incendiary attacks on Japanese targets, a tactic senior commanders had been advocating for some time.

After World War II, LeMay was briefly transferred to The Pentagon as deputy chief of Air Staff for Research & Development.

LeMay insisted on rigorous training and very high standards of performance for all SAC personnel, be they officers, enlisted men, aircrews, mechanics, or administrative staff, and reportedly commented, " I have neither the time nor the inclination to differentiate between the incompetent and the merely unfortunate.

Despite his uncompromising attitude regarding performance of duty, LeMay was also known for his concern for the physical well-being and comfort of his men.

LeMay found ways to encourage morale, individual performance, and the reenlistment rate through a number of means: encouraging off-duty group recreational activities, instituting spot promotions based on performance, and authorizing special uniforms, training, equipment, and allowances for ground personnel as well as flight crews.

Though LeMay lost significant appropriation battles for the Skybolt ALBM and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress replacement, the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, he was largely successful at expanding Air Force budgets.

The memorandum from LeMay, Chief of Staff, USAF, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 4, 1964, illustrates LeMay's reasons for keeping bomber forces alongside ballistic missiles: " It is important to recognize, however, that ballistic missile forces represent both the U. S. and Soviet potential for strategic nuclear warfare at the highest, most indiscriminate level, and at a level least susceptible to control.

Owing to his unrelenting opposition to the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy and what was widely perceived as his hostility to Secretary McNamara, LeMay was essentially forced into retirement in February 1965 and seemed headed for a political career.

General LeMay was also a sports car owner and enthusiast ( he owned an Allard J2 ); as the " SAC era " began to wind down, LeMay loaned out facilities of SAC bases for use by the Sports Car Club of America, as the era of early street races began to die out.

On March 13, 2010, LeMay was named the exemplar for the United States Air Force Academy class of 2013.