Curtis LeMay

LeMay was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 15, 1906. LeMay was of English and distant French Huguenot heritage. His father, Erving Edwin LeMay, was at times an ironworker and general handyman, but he never held a job longer than a few months. His mother, Arizona Dove (née Carpenter) LeMay, did her best to hold her family together. With very limited income, his family moved around the country as his father looked for work, going as far as Montana and California. Eventually they returned to his native city of Columbus. LeMay attended Columbus public schools, graduating from Columbus South High School. Working his way through college, LeMay studied civil engineering at Ohio State University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. While at Ohio State, he was a member of the National Society of Pershing Rifles and the Professional Engineering Fraternity Theta Tau.

LeMay was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929. He received a regular commission in the United States Army Air Corps in January 1930. While finishing at Ohio State University, he took flight training at Norton Field in Columbus, Ohio in from 1931 to 1932. On June 9, 1934, he married Helen Maitland.

LeMay became a pursuit pilot with his first duty station at Selfridge Field with the 27th Pursuit Squadron. After having served in various assignments in fighter operations, LeMay transferred to bomber aircraft in 1937. While stationed in Hawaii, he became one of the first members of the Air Corps to receive specialized training in aerial navigation. In August 1937, as navigator under pilot and commander Caleb V. Haynes on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, he helped locate the battleship Utah despite being given the wrong coordinates by Navy personnel, in exercises held in misty conditions off California, after which the group of B-17s bombed it with water bombs.

In March 1938, LeMay as a member of the 2nd Bombardment Group participated in a good will flight to Buenos Aires. For this flight, the 2nd Bombardment Group was awarded the Mackay Trophy in 1939. For Haynes again, in May 1938 he navigated three B-17s 620 nautical miles (710 mi; 1,150 km) over the Atlantic Ocean to intercept the Italian liner SS Rex to illustrate the ability of land-based airpower to defend the American coasts. In 1940 he was navigator for Haynes on the prototype Boeing XB-15 heavy bomber, flying a survey from Panama over the Galapagos islands. By the end of 1940, he was stationed at Westover Air Reserve Base, as the operations officer of the 34th Bombardment Group. War brought rapid promotion and increased responsibility.

When his crews were not flying missions, they were subjected to relentless training, as LeMay believed that training was the key to saving their lives. "You fight as you train," was one of his cardinal rules. It expressed his belief that, in the chaos, stress, and confusion of combat (aerial or otherwise), troops or airmen would perform successfully only if their individual acts were second nature, performed nearly instinctively due to repetitive training. Throughout his career, LeMay was widely and fondly known among his troops as "Old Iron Pants," and the "Big Cigar".

On June 9, 1934, LeMay married Helen Estelle Maitland (died 1992), with whom he had one child.

LeMay was also initiated to the York Rite Freemasonry, in the Lakewood Lodge No. 601 of Lakewood, Ohio.

Early political life and developments

Because of his unrelenting opposition to the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy and what was widely perceived as his hostility to McNamara, LeMay was essentially forced into retirement in February 1965. Moving to California, he was approached by conservatives to challenge moderate Republican Thomas Kuchel for his seat in the United States Senate in 1968, but he declined.