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 became aware that the new single sideband ( SSB ) technology offered a big advantage over amplitude modulation ( AM ) for SAC aircraft operating long distances from their bases.

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.

This was done by LeMay in a 1951 meeting with high level Air Force staff, when he convinced them that unreasonable operational demands were being placed on SAC and, in order to alleviate the issue, SAC should be allowed to approve target selections before they were finalized.

For the presidential race that year, LeMay originally supported Richard Nixon ; he turned down two requests by George Wallace to join his American Independent Party that year on the grounds that a third-party candidacy might hurt Nixon's chances at the polls ( by coincidence, Wallace had served as a sergeant in a unit commanded by LeMay during World War II ).

Humphrey and Muskie received 42. 72 percent of the popular vote and carried 13 states and 191 electoral votes ; Nixon and Agnew won 43. 42 percent of the popular vote and carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, while the third party ticket of George Wallace and Curtis LeMay, running as candidates of the American Independent Party, took 13. 53 percent of the popular vote and took five states in the Deep South and their 46 votes in the electoral college.

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.

When LeMay assumed command of SAC, his vision was to create a force of nuclear-armed long-range bombers with the capability to devastate the Soviet Union within a few days of the advent of war.

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.

Many early SCCA events were held on disused air force bases, organized with the help of Air Force General Curtis LeMay, a renowned enthusiast of sports car racing.

On June 9, 1934, he married Helen E. Maitland ( died 1992 ), with whom he had one child, Patricia Jane LeMay Lodge, known as Janie.

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.

Later McNamara, as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, would often clash with LeMay.

Though LeMay is sometimes publicly credited with the success of the Berlin Airlift, it was, in fact, instigated by General Lucius D. Clay when General Clay called LeMay about the problem.

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.

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.

In the first known published account of the story, Life Magazine reporter Ernest Havemann related that LeMay once took the co-pilot's seat of a SAC bomber to observe the mission, complete with lit cigar.

As chief of staff, LeMay clashed repeatedly with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Maxwell Taylor.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U. S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

Evidence of LeMay's thinking is that, in his 1965 autobiography ( co-written with MacKinlay Kantor ) LeMay is quoted as saying his response to North Vietnam would be to demand that " they ’ ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we ’ re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.

The April 25, 1988 issue of The New Yorker carried an interview with retired Air Force Reserve Major General and former US Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, who said he repeatedly asked his friend General LeMay if he ( Goldwater ) might have access to the secret " Blue Room " at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, alleged by numerous Goldwater constituents to contain UFO evidence.

Curtis LeMay ’ s first contact with military service occurred in September 1924 when he enrolled as a student in the ROTC program at Ohio State University.

Chennault was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in December 1972, along with Leroy Grumman, Curtis LeMay and James H. Kindelberger.

With characteristic impatience, Arnold quickly relieved Wolfe, the B-29 commander in China, after less than a month of operations, and replaced him with LeMay.

He shut down operations from China, consolidated all the B-29s in the Marianas, and replaced Hansell with LeMay in January 1945 as commander of XXI Bomber Command.

Arnold's last wartime heart attack came on January 17, 1945, just days after he replaced Hansell with LeMay.

He served with the XX Bomber Command under General Curtis LeMay, who would be his running mate in the 1968 presidential race.

An additional inspiration was provided by the 1961 interview by Knebel, who was also a political journalist and columnist, conducted with the newly-appointed Air Force Chief of Staff, Curtis LeMay, an advocate of preventive first-strike nuclear option.

Several documents show LeMay advocating preemptive attack of the Soviet Union, had it become clear the Soviets were preparing to attack SAC or the US.

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.

In September 1928, LeMay was approached by the Ohio National Guard and asked to accept a state commission, also as a second lieutenant, which LeMay accepted.

But the reality when LeMay assumed command was that SAC had only sixty nuclear capable aircraft, none of which had the long-range capabilities he desired.

During LeMay ’ s command, SAC was able to effect great changes in American nuclear strategy.

It was this uncertainty that LeMay entered into upon assuming command of SAC which emboldened him and SAC planners to attempt to unilaterally form American nuclear strategy.

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.

But SAC did more than just provide a nuclear option during the Korean War, It also deployed four B-29 bomber wings that were used in tactical operations against enemy forces and logistics All of this led LeMay to express concern that “ too many splinters were being whittled off the stick ”, preventing him from being able to carry out his primary mission of strategic deterrence.

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.

Despite SAC's establishment of " hardened " underground command and control facilities at its headquarters at Offutt AFB, LeMay and his planners knew that a direct nuclear strike by Soviet forces employing hydrogen weapons would likely destroy the facility.

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

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 popular claims that LeMay advanced the notion of preventive nuclear war, the historical record indicates LeMay actually advocated justified preemptive nuclear war.

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.

When Wallace announced his selection in October 1968, LeMay opined that he, unlike many Americans, clearly did not fear using nuclear weapons.

At this time, LeMay was best known to the American public as an enthusiastic proponent of the use of nuclear weapons in war.

General Curtis LeMay, USAF ( former head of the Strategic Air Command and serving at the time as Chief of Staff of the Air Force ), used his considerable influence to allow Producer Sy Bartlett and Director Delbert Mann unprecedented access to various SAC facilities, in the belief that this film would play a vital role in reminding Americans that the Air Force did indeed have its weapons of mass destruction under tight control in sharp contrast to the impressions that the movies Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe ( both based on novels written prior to 1963 whose premise was that accidental nuclear war caused by SAC was not only possible but likely ) would give.