Airpower through the Cold War, Part I
Cognitive Lesson Objective:
• Comprehend the impact that airpower and other key events had on
the USAF and US policy during the Cold War.
Cognitive Samples of Behavior:
• Explain the Soviet action taken in the blockading of Berlin.
• Identify the Western Allies’ response to the Berlin blockade.
• Summarize the significance of airpower during the Berlin airlift.
• Identify General LeMay’s accomplishments and impact on the Air Force.
• Describe the significant use of airpower in the Korean War.
• Give examples of the contributions of airpower during the Korean War.
• Describe the effect the Soviet nuclear threat had on US missile
development.
• Identify which missile became the mainstay of SAC’s missile retaliatory
force.
Affective Lesson Objective:
• Respond to the importance of airpower during the Cold War.
Affective Sample of Behavior:
• Actively participate in classroom discussions.
72 AIR POWER IN THE NUCLEAR AGE
After the war the U.S. Army Air Forces established a number of major Commands—
Strategic Air Command (SAC), Air Defense Command (ADC), Tactical Air Command
(TAC), Air Materiel Command (AMC), and Air Transport Command (ATC) among others.
Before his retirement, Hap Arnold, working to insure that America’s air force remained at
the forefront of science and technology, established a civilian Scientific Advisory Group
(now the Scientific Advisory Board), the RAND Corporation “think tank,” and several
flight testing and engineering centers. Arnold proclaimed “the first essential” of air power
to be “preeminence in research.” He and General Spaatz proclaimed the second to be
education, establishing Air University as a major command.
If the USAAF remained subordinate to the Army, its wartime record and the atomic bomb
guaranteed that its status would change. The atomic bomb had altered the nature of
warfare. The organization that delivered it, the Twentieth Air Force, was the predecessor
of SAC, soon to become the world’s dominant military force and responsible for conducting
long-range combat and reconnaissance operations anywhere in the world. The USSBS
had concluded from World War II that “the best way to win a war is to prevent it from
occurring.” A Strategic Air Command, properly equipped and trained, also would help
deter any adversary state from starting a global atomic war and would thereby ensure
international peace.
At war’s end the USAAF continued its quest for an American military establishment
composed of three coequal and separate military departments. The Navy Department
opposed unification and the formation of a separate air force, but the War Department,
led by General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, supported the drive for a separate air
component. The National Security Act of July 26,1947, was a compromise, creating a
National Military Establishment under a civilian Secretary of National Defense (later
designated as Secretary of Defense), with three coequal services that preserved the air
arms for the Navy and Marines. President Truman’s first choice for Secretary of National
Defense, Robert Patterson, turned down the job and James Forrestal, then serving as
Secretary of the Navy, was appointed. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) gained its independence
on September 18, 1947, under the Department of the Air Force, headed by Secretary of
the Air Force Stuart Symington. General Carl Spaatz was named the first Air Force Chief
of Staff.
At a time of demobilization, the National Security Act only postponed a confrontation
between the Navy and Air Force over roles and missions in an era of declining defense
dollars. For over a century, the Navy had been America’s first line of defense and its
offensive arm overseas until the era of the long-range bomber and the atomic bomb. Air
power appealed to an American love of technology, a desire to avoid heavy casualties,
and to austerity-minded presidents like Harry Truman and especially Dwight Eisenhower.
The atomic bomb made air power the preeminent force in the postwar world. Giant sixand later ten-engine B-36 Peacemakers seemed to eclipse the Navy’s expensive and
vulnerable aircraft carriers in the nuclear world. A group of naval officers, led by Admirals
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 73 Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, and Arthur Radford, protested when budget
restraints forced a Navy cutback from eight to four carriers and the cancellation of a
planned supercarrier, the USS United States, large enough to launch atom bomb-carrying
aircraft. The outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 ensured higher defense budgets and
limited further interservice contention.
Among the changes wrought by World War II for the U.S. Air Force was that affecting its
basic composition. What had been a predominantly white male force became over time
more representative of American diversity. African Americans had served in many roles
during World War II, most visibly as fighter pilots in the 332d Fighter Group in Italy. Their
combat record helped pave the way for the full racial integration of the armed forces
under President Truman’s July 1948 Executive Order 9981 which stated: “There shall be
equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Services without regard
to race.” The Air Force achieved racial integration quickly and smoothly, eliminating its
last segregated unit (the 332d Wing) in June 1949. American airmen first fought together
without racial separation during the Korean War—Captain Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr., an
African-American recognized and decorated for his performance as a reconnaissance pilot,
came out of that experience. Equal opportunities and promotions for African Americans
came more slowly, however, causing several riots at Air Force installations in the 1970s;
but the service’s commitment to a strong equal opportunity program erased remaining
racial barriers. The armed services in general were ahead of the rest of American society
on this issue.
Similarly, the Air Force helped lead the nation in the struggle to extend equal opportunities
to women; 29,323 women served in the Army Air Forces in World War II as part of the
Women’s Army Corps (established on July 1, 1943); another 1,074 served as civilian
Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS). Under the leadership of Nancy Love and
Jacqueline Cochran, WASPs ferried aircraft and trained male airmen. President Truman
signed the Women’s Armed Services Act on June 12, 1948, establishing the WAFs
(Women in the Air Force). Another barrier to professional advancement was removed in
1976 when women entered Air Force non-combat pilot training programs for the first time,
and 1993 when the first female combat pilots entered active service.
Atomic bombs carried by strategic bombers eventually ruled postwar Air Force and
Department of Defense (DOD) war planning. Only aircraft such as the B-29 Superfortress,
the B-36 Peacemaker, and the all-jet B-47 Stratojet, could carry atomic bombs that weighed
upwards of 10,000 pounds (the Mark II-IV series). The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),
formed in 1946 to replace the wartime Manhattan Engineering District, succeeded in
reducing the size of the bomb (the Mark 7 weighed 1,680 pounds) but did not change
the basic atomic equation. A handful of Air Force bombers carried more power than all of
history’s armies and navies combined.
Under postwar demobilization, which affected the AEC just as much as the armed
services, the nation’s stockpile of atomic weapons rose to only nine in 1946. In 1947 the
commission took over weapons-building programs and the stockpile reached thirteen
as the Truman administration and the JCS discussed the level of production necessary
74 to maintain an effective deterrent. In December 1947 the JCS approved a goal of 400 weapons
for the AEC. At the same time, while SAC began to recover from the chaos of demobilization, its
state of readiness remained low. Under General George C. Kenney and his deputy, Major General
Clements McMullen, it assigned high priority to establishing a rigorous aircrew training program.
In addition, vast distances to targets challenged the skill and endurance of its aircrews. Although
SAC operated the B-36 intercontinental bomber to strike anywhere in the world, it initiated the
development of an aerial refueling capability in fall 1947. In 1948 it adopted the British hose method,
converting some piston-engine B-29s to tankers, and formed two aerial refueling squadrons in June
1948. SAC later adopted the Boeing flying boom method of refueling, made standard in 1958. Using
four aerial refuelings, the B-50 Lucky Lady II flew nonstop around the world between February 26
and March 2, 1949, to demonstrate the technique’s global strike potential. Destined to serve Air
Force jet bombers and fighters for the next five decades and beyond, the jet turbine-powered KC135 Stratotanker, became operational in 1957.
The crisis that precipitated the Berlin Airlift began on June 24, 1948. Although there were a plethora
of causes and reasons precipitating the blockade, it primarily revolved around American plans for
rebuilding a separate West German State. This led the Soviet Union to initiate a ground blockade
of the Western-controlled zones of Berlin, 90 miles inside Soviet-controlled East Germany. Forcing
the blockade would have required the West to launch a general mobilization, fire first shots, and
possibly set off another global war. Although the United States had deployed the conventional B-29
to Europe, perhaps in a calculated bluff that relied on the aircraft’s reputation as an atomic delivery
vehicle, the crisis continued. The Allies saw an opportunity to resupply Berlin and feed its 2.5 million
beleaguered inhabitants by air through three air corridors guaranteed by agreement with the Soviet
Union. Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay, then commanding U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE),
pieced together an airlift force of C-47 Skytrains left over from World War II, but the 80 tons per
day they supplied were not enough. On July 30, 1948, Major General William Tunner, who had run
the Himalayan “Hump” airlift during the war, replaced LeMay, the combat leader. Reinforced with
four-engine C-54 Skymasters and C-74 Globe-masters, Tunner initiated around-the- clock flights
guided by ground control approach radar. His aircraft landed every three minutes, carrying a record
capacity of 5,620 tons per day. When the airlift appeared to succeed, the Soviet Union threatened
to interfere with it.
President Truman responded by sending a wing of B-29s, widely described in the world press at the
time as “atomic” bombers, to England. They were not, but the Soviet Union apparently believed they
were and made no move to interrupt the airlift. In May 1949 it provided the United States with the
first victory of the Cold War (without a shot being fired) when, after eleven months, 277,000 flights,
and 2.3 million tons of life-sustaining supplies, it opened Berlin to surface traffic. (Please reference
the “Focus On: Strategic Airlift” article.) A few months later in late August, it exploded an atomic
bomb of its own, causing Americans grave national security concerns. Almost before the Truman
administration could respond, it faced a new crisis in Korea.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 75 LIMITED WAR IN KOREA
When North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, in a surprise attack,
they awakened the United States to the dangers of brushfire war in the atomic age.
The earlier crisis of 1948 in Berlin, Communist successes in Czechoslovakia in 1948
and China in 1949, and news of the Soviet explosion of an atomic device in 1949, had
prompted the National Security Council (NSC) to issue a secret directive, NSC-68, in
April 1950. It judged the Soviet Union to be bent on world domination. NSC-68 called for
a massive increase in defense spending of 20 percent of the gross national product if
necessary, the development of a hydrogen bomb, and the containment of Communism.
The sustained American-led buildup of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in
Europe was unmistakable evidence of containment, but Korea would be the first test of
revitalized American resolve.
A heavy reliance on the nuclear strike force left the Air Force ill-prepared to deal with a
conventional war on the other side of the globe. Moreover, when Congress approved the
use of force to repel the North Korean invasion on June 30, 1950, the absence of a formal
declaration of war introduced the Air Force to the new tribulations of limited war. The few
air combat units of Major General Earle Partridge’s Fifth Air Force, the main combat force
of Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer’s Far Eastern Air Forces (FEAF), launched
interdiction raids against advancing North Korean units from bases in Japan in an attempt
to slow their headlong rush down the Korean peninsula. Armed reconnaissance by fighters
against targets of opportunity increased their effectiveness.
The United Nations (U.N.) Security Council had called on member nations to aid South
Korea on June 27, but for a time, the U.S. Air Force’s thin aluminum line was the only
help harassed American and Republic of Korean ground forces could expect. B-26s of
the 3d Bombardment Wing from Johnson Air Base in Japan put the interdiction effort on
an around-the-clock basis with night intruder operations beginning on the night of June
27. B-29s of the 19th Bombardment Group, based at Kadena, Okinawa, added heavy
bombs the next day. Continuing interdiction strikes (40 percent of all missions) against
overextended North Korean supply lines and desperate ground action supported by air
strikes (60 percent of all missions) saved U.N. forces trapped in the Pusan Perimeter. This
success in direct support of U.N. troops freed Air Force units for strikes against strategic
targets in North Korea. Accurate bombing in all weather conditions and North Korea’s
small size allowed the B-29s to all but eliminate its industrial base by September 1950.
General Douglas MacArthur, named Commander in Chief of the U.N. Command in
Korea on July 8, launched a surprise amphibious landing at Inchon on September 15,
coupled with a U.N. drive north from the Pusan Perimeter, clearing South Korea of North
Korean forces. In early October the U.N. changed its objective from saving South Korea
to unifying all of Korea under a pro-Westem government. Before the end of the month,
as MacArthur’s army approached the Yalu River separating China from North Korea,
signs pointed to probable Communist Chinese intervention. The Air Force switched to
interdicting the flow of men and materiel across the Yalu bridges. The freezing of the Yalu
76 River in January 1951, and rules of engagement that forbade American overflights of
Chinese territory on the north end of the bridges, condemned the effort to failure. B-29s
had to fly above 20,000 feet to escape antiaircraft artillery fire from the Chinese side of
the Yalu, but they could not fire back. Bombing became even more difficult when China
escalated the conflict in November 1950 by sending Soviet-provided MiG-15 jet fighters,
launched from safe sanctuary on lightning attacks against American aircraft, especially
FEAF B-29s. The airspace just south of the Yalu River in northwestern Korea became
known as “MiG Alley.” The performance advantages of the MiG-15 in speed and altitude
initially held sway over propeller-driven P-51 Mustangs (pursuit aircraft redesignated by
the Air Force as fighters in June 1948), jet-powered F-80 Shooting Stars, and even newer
F-84 Thunderjets.
Chinese Communist forces counterattacked on November 26, driving U.N. units back
toward South Korea. For the U.S. Air Force, this meant a renewed concentration on
interdiction, combined with a campaign to maintain air superiority against the MiG-15s.
Air Force airlift brought 1,600 tons of supplies to Marines cut off at Changjin (more widely
known by its Japanese name, Chosin) Reservoir and evacuated 5,000 wounded. (Please
reference the “Focus On: Tactical Airlift in the Korean War” article.) After retreating,
U.N. forces stabilized along the 38th parallel in early 1951 and the war deteriorated into a
series of small, bloody battles, with no significant movement by either side. War objectives
changed again. Peace talks opened in July 1951. They were backed by a new American
strategy to force high rates of attrition on the enemy. It would be up to FEAF, now under
Lieutenant General Otto Weyland, and U.S. naval aviation to carry the war beyond the
front, to pressure North Korea and China into a ceasefire, substituting air power whenever
possible for ground operations that inevitably resulted in high casualties.
This strategy presented new threats and complications for the Air Force. Doctrine dictated
strikes against the enemy’s industrial fabric, but the bombing operations of 1950 had
destroyed these limited North Korean targets. Industries supporting the Communist war
effort, located in China and the Soviet Union, were off limits to aerial attack. The Air
Force had to operate under the rules and restrictions of limited war and could not bring
SAC’S massive nuclear power to bear. FEAF B-29 Superfortresses, supported by tactical
aircraft, bombed targets all over North Korea with conventional weapons, including radardirected high- altitude strikes against enemy troops forming for attack. They blurred the
lines between tactical and strategic air power, proving the value of George Kenney’s
“seamless” approach.
After China’s intervention, both the United States and the U.N. sought a more limited
objective, that of a negotiated truce. Dissatisfied, MacArthur advised Congress that “there
was no substitute for victory,” and contradicted national policy. On April 11, 1951, President
Truman fired MacArthur, replaced him with Matthew Ridgway, and in the process changed
the nature of air warfare in Korea. The Air Force would still interdict the flow of supplies
to Chinese units along the 38th Parallel and provide close air support to U.N. forces
opposing them, but it would now also pressure the enemy into a settlement by inflicting
maximum losses of men and materiel. The “police action” had become a war of attrition.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 77 The Fifth Air Force’s new commander, Lieutenant General Frank Everest, believed that
interdiction was key to reducing the impact of Chinese offensives and U.N. ground losses.
One issue which complicated the air superiority campaign was air bases which the Chinese
tried to build in North Korea to support their own forces and which FEAF was compelled
to target. F-86s engaged MiGs in air-to-air combat and B-29s cratered the air bases’
runways, forcing Communist jets to continue flying out of China and limiting their ability to
challenge because of their short range. However, any bomb damage was quickly repaired
by enemy labor units and necessitated continuous return missions. Interdiction, although
costly, racked up long lists of destroyed trucks, trains, rail lines, and bridges, including the
heavily-defended Yalu crossings. Nonetheless, supplies still reached Communist front
lines in quantity by night. Medal of Honor recipient Captain John Walmsley, Jr., of the 8th
Bombardment Squadron gave his life using his searchlight-equipped B-26 as a beacon to
direct other B-26s while they bombed an enemy supply train on September 14, 1951. As
it had in Operation STRANGLE in Italy during World War II, the Air Force learned that no
air campaign was tougher than interdiction.
By the spring of 1952 the Chinese had won the battle of interdiction and the Americans
had failed in their attrition strategy along the 38th Parallel. Communist representatives,
first at Kaesong and then at Panmunjon, stalled peace talks and demanded mandatory
repatriation for prisoners-of-war. General Weyland proposed to break the impasse by
expanding the air war against North Korea. As U.N. casualties climbed and negotiations
dragged on, the new American commander in Korea, General Mark Clark, accepted
Weyland’s proposal. In June 1952 he ordered the bombing of the Suiho Hydroelectric
Complex, previously “off limits” and one of the largest facilities of its type in the world.
It was a major exporter of electricity to Chinese industries across the border. A four-day
onslaught over Suiho and other hydroelectric plants cost North Korea 90 percent of its
power system. Through the remainder of 1952, the Air Force attacked 78 cities and towns
identified as supportive of a number of military functions, chiefly supply; however, to limit
civilian casualties and weaken morale it alerted their inhabitants.
In Korea, as in World War II, the bombing of critical targets attracted the enemy’s air force
into the sky, where it could be engaged. Intelligence revealed that China had a thousand
MiGs ready for combat and Fifth Air Force fighter squadrons, for the first time in the war,
did not have to go hunting-the “game” came to them. A new version of the F-86, the F
model, gave Air Force pilots superior performance to go along with their better training
and tactics. In May and June 1953 the F-86Fs achieved a 133-to-1 kill ratio in combat
over the MiGs. Individual scores rose, with Air Force Captain Joseph McConnell, a B-24
navigator in World War II, topping all pilots with 16 confirmed victories in only four months.
Three developments in 1953 brought peace to Korea. In March Soviet Premier Joseph
Stalin, a major obstacle, died. In May, Air Force bombers increased the frequency of
their attacks again, striking North Korean irrigation dams that, when breached, washed
away railroads and highways and threatened the nation’s rice crop. At the direction of
President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Dulles asked Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru to warn China that the United States intended to use tactical and
78 strategic nuclear weapons and might unleash SAC against Chinese cities if a settlement
was not forthcoming. On May 27, 1953, China agreed to an armistice in Korea. It went
into effect on July 27.
The Korean War should have taught the United States that nuclear weapons had limited
use in conventional wars, but the appeal of the new hydrogen bomb, first tested in
November 1952, and plans for a new all-jet intercontinental bomber, the B-52, continued
to dominate strategic thinking. TAC sought a new generation of fighters (the “century
series,” including the F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104
Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, and F-106 Delta Dart) with supersonic speeds, but also
adapted them to carry tactical nuclear weapons. The Air Force realized that while turbojet
technology was the future, it alone was no substitute for good training, tactics, and
aggressiveness. Military casualties in Korea of over two million for both sides, including
more than 36,000 dead Americans, belied the judgment that this was a “limited” warAmericans learned firsthand the costs of war in Asia. Air Force aircraft had dropped
476,000 tons of explosives to achieve a standoff. Korea exposed the Air Force to the
reality of post-World War II warfare, where conventional (non-nuclear) air power would be
used to “influence” an enemy, not to destroy it.
THE “NEW LOOK” AIR FORCE
After Korea, President Eisenhower told the JCS that the next war they planned would be
nuclear. Conventional capabilities paled before hydrogen bombs such as the Mark 17
(a 41,400-pound thermonuclear device). Only the Air Force B-36 Peacemaker and B-52
Stratofortress could carry the weapon. How to defend America against the Soviet Union’s
nuclear threat was the question of the day. Brushfire wars would be addressed when they
arose, but, so the argument went, they should not occur under the threat of American
nuclear retaliation. In January 1954, Secretary of State Dulles unveiled America’s new
defense strategy-the “New Look.” The United States would deter any Soviet attack by
threatening to destroy Soviet cities. Commanded by General Curtis LeMay, SAC would
expand from 19 to 51 wings, armed with a new generation of smaller, but enormously
destructive high-yield thermonuclear weapons. These wings would be placed on constant
alert, based around the world, and eventually augmented by KC-135 turbojet Stratotankers
to extend their aircrafts’ range. In the mid-1950s the major portion of budgetary allocations
to the Air Force went to SAC. This specified command, responsible for intercontinental
nuclear retaliation, had become “an Air Force within an Air Force.”
Besides acquiring such bomber aircraft as the B-52 Stratofortress and B-58 Hustler, the
Air Force pursued missile development to support the “New Look.” Pivotal to missile
development were the efforts of General Bernard A. Schriever. (Please reference the
“Focus On: Leadership, Gen. Bernard A. Schriever” article.) Beginning in 1946,
Project MX-774 investigated the development of a 5,000-mile ballistic missile, however,
the Scientific Advisory Group, formed by General Arnold, cautioned that atomic bombs
were too large for any such delivery system and directed its efforts toward large, unmanned
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 79 cruise missiles like the Snark. Ballistic missile development lagged until the test of the
hydrogen thermonuclear bomb in November 1952 offered prospects of smaller warheads
with greater power. Intensive research began in 1954, accelerating in 1956 when the
DOD assigned the Air Force responsibility for all ground-launched missiles with ranges of
more than 200 miles (later changed to 500 miles). Success with the liquid-propellant Thor
and Jupiter intermediate range ballistic missiles and Atlas and Titan I intercontinental
ballistic missiles which came online in the early 1960’s came in time to carry a whole
new generation of miniature nuclear and thermonuclear warheads. The solid-propellant
Minuteman ICBM series followed, beginning in October 1962, and became the mainstay
of SAC’s missile retaliatory force. The U.S. Air Force was becoming an aerospace force.
Before ICBMs, manned bombers formed the strength behind the “New Look.” Airmen had
argued since World War I that air power was essentially offensive, but they were compelled
to view it as defensive in light of the damage that resulted from the explosion of even
one nuclear weapon. To detect incoming attacks, President Truman approved the Distant
Early Warning (DEW) radar line which, with Canada’s assent, was built across its northern
territory beginning in 1954. To operate the line and coordinate their defensive forces,
both the United States and Canada established on September 12, 1957, the binational
North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). A generation of interceptor aircraft
began service, beginning with the F-89 and F-100, succeeded by the F-102, F-106, and
F-15. For a time anti-air defenses included surface-to-air missiles such as the Nike Ajax
system. The development of several follow-up designs occurred, but none was deployed.
In the early 1960s the Air Force reinforced NORAD with the Ballistic Missile Early Warning
System (BMEWS) and, later, the Perimeter Acquisition Radar Characterization System
(PARCS). An Air Force general officer historically has served as NORAD commander,
which historically operated from a command center inside Cheyenne Mountain near
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Because of its experience of World War II in Europe, the Air Force expressed little faith in
the ability of America’s defenses to stop a determined air attack, nuclear or otherwise. The
only defense was deterrence, made possible by a protected force of bombers and missiles.
Any strike at the United States would result in immediate, overwhelming retaliation and
a smoking, radioactive wasteland. This “countervalue” strategy targeted cities. Because
accuracy was limited, especially with early model ICBMs, and thermonuclear warheads
were few, the Air Force targeted large, easy-to-hit cities to inflict the greatest possible
damage. A countervalue strategy was at odds with the Air Force’s traditional commitment
to precision bombing, but consistent with Dulles’s doctrine. Reliance on it and massive
retaliation created three problems for the Air Force and the DOD.
The first problem had to do with the increasing vulnerability of manned bombers to
improved enemy ground defenses when airborne and, when not, to a surprise nuclear
first strike. The Air Force’s solution to ground defenses was the production of standoff
weapons (including the Hound Dog and eventually the SRAM short-range attack missile
and ALCM air-launched cruise missile) to keep bombers at a distance from their targets.
“Airborne alert” helped offset the threat of a surprise first strike against the United States.
Beginning in 1957, part of SAC’S bomber force always remained on ready alert, its crews
80 on standby, poised to take off at a moment’s notice; another was dispersed to satellite
bases around the world, complicating Soviet targeting; while a smaller was actually
airborne. The DOD’s ultimate solution was the Triad, maintaining three primary nuclear
forces, each with special advantages. The first element of the Triad was the manned
bomber, important for its load-carrying and ability to be recalled once launched. ICBMs
formed the second component. They were important for their speed, size, and, eventually,
accuracy. Early ICBMs, the Atlas and Titan I, burned cryogenic liquid propellant and
required extended launch preparations which rendered them vulnerable to a first strike.
In the 1960s later model Titans IIs employed storable propellants and, joined by the solidpropellant Minuteman, were placed in protective silos and capable of near-instantaneous
launch. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), including the Polaris, Poseidon,
and Trident, comprised the third component of the Triad. Able to roam the world’s oceans,
missile submarines represented the most survivable of the three legs. Although the sublaunched solid-propellant ballistic missiles at first lacked range and accuracy, technology
soon removed these drawbacks.
The second problem created by a countervalue strategy and massive retaliation had to
do with the control and integration of diverse weapon systems into a single American
war plan. In 1959 President Eisenhower ordered that a single integrated operational plan
(SIOP) be adopted, which required coordination by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The
need for SIOP became apparent when in the late 1950s an investigation revealed that
the military services had targeted Moscow with no fewer than 170 nuclear bombs and
warheads in case of all-out war.
The third problem had to do with intelligence. America’s first steps into space, the “ultimate
high ground,” were associated with intelligence, surprise attack prevention, and nuclear
war planning. The Air Force also sought to exploit space for communications, navigation,
and weather forecasting.
Chuck Yeager and the XS-1 rocket aircraft, the first to break the sound barrier, began
pushing back the aerospace frontier in 1947, as did other experimental aircraft that flew
over 301,000 acres of desert testing ground in California at Edwards Air Force Base’s Air
Force Flight Test Center. The X-15 rocket airplane flew nearly seven times the speed of
sound and seventy miles high in the mid-1960s---records that still stand for winged aircraft.
In 1957 the Air Force began the Dyna-Soar program, later designated the X-20, to build a
manned space boost glider/aerospace plane. Dyna-Soar was cancelled in 1963 in favor
of a Manned Orbital Laboratory, itself scrapped in 1969 because automated satellites
could perform the same missions. The flights of the X-aircraft, however, provided critical
knowledge for manned space travel and for the special materials used in a new generation
of aircraft, starting with the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft.
Strategic reconnaissance became the primary goal of space exploration. Fears of a
surprise nuclear attack, based largely on the memory of Pearl Harbor, and the secrecy of
events behind the Iron Curtain forced every administration after 1945 to seek information
on the status and disposition of military forces inside the Soviet Union. Initially, U.S. Air
Force and U.S. Navy aircraft were deployed along its vast periphery to take photographs
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 81 and intercept radio and radar signals. In early 1956 the Air Force launched 448 unmanned
camera-carrying balloons from western Europe propelled eastward by prevailing winds.
Although inherently random in their coverage, 44 were recovered and provided tantalizing
glimpses of some 10 percent of the Soviet Union’s land area. At the direction of President
Eisenhower, the Air Force, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Lockheed
Aircraft Corporation developed the U-2, a single-engine glider aircraft capable of flying
above 70,000 feet and beyond the range of Soviet air defenses. Eisenhower authorized
U-2 overflights across the Soviet Union beginning on July 4, 1956, but, fearing that they
might become a casus belli, he limited their number. Fewer than 25 missions occurred
before a Soviet surface-to-air missile downed a U-2 flown by Francis Powers on May 1,
1960. The resulting diplomatic crisis ended aerial reconnaissance flights over the Soviet
Union. A more capable SR-71 Blackbird was soon available to replace the U-2, but by
then safer, “national technical means” were available for intelligence-gathering.
In part because of the Soviet Union’s success with Sputnik in October 1957, President
Eisenhower in early 1958 established within the DOD the Advanced Research Projects
Agency, accelerating efforts to exploit space for reconnaissance purposes. The Air
Force had begun investigating the use of satellites for this purpose as early as 1946,
beginning actual development in October 1956 with a contract to Lockheed for the WS117L (SAMOS) reconnaissance satellite. Dissatisfied with the technical prospects of the
SAMOS, which transmitted images to Earth from space, in February 1958 Eisenhower
approved Project CORONA, A CIA-Air Force effort to put into outer space a spy satellite
capable of ejecting film capsules for retrieval on earth. The first CORONA satellite, known
publicly as Discoverer, went into space on February 28, 1959, atop a modified Air Force
Thor IRBM. After twelve consecutive failures, complete success came with number 14 on
August 18, 1960. It provided analysts with film coverage of more of the Soviet Union than
all of the U-2 flights combined. While politicians continued to highlight the missile gap
this first successful CORONA satellite effectively ended the “missile gap” controversy,
revealing that the Soviet Union possessed fewer IRBMs than the United States. Only
a few SAMOS satellites were launched in the early 1960s. Designed to scan images in
space and broadcast them as radio signals to receivers on the ground, SAMOS failed
to return one usable photograph of the Soviet Union. Before leaving office in 1961,
President Eisenhower established the National Reconnaissance Office to direct all U.S.
reconnaissance efforts, with the Air Force and CIA participating. To provide satellite early
warning of a nuclear attack, the Air Force also developed the Missile Defense Alarm
System (MID AS) and its operational successor, the Defense Support Program (DSP),
that detected missiles within moments of their launch. DSP would later play a key role in
detecting the launch of Iraqi Scuds Missiles during the Gulf War.
After the discontinuance of the space reconnaissance mission, on March 28, 1961,
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara assigned the Air Force responsibility for other
DOD military space operations such as the worldwide Defense Satellite Communications
System I (DSCS I). Twenty-six system satellites were launched from 1966 to 1968.
Beginning in 1972, larger geosynchronous communications satellites reinforced the
original DSCS I, followed in the 1980s by a third generation of DSCS and in the 1990s by
the Military Strategic Tactical and Relay Program (MILSTAR) system. Another key space
82 flight project was the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) for monitoring
weather conditions around the globe, with information transmitted to the Air Force’s Global
Weather Center at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The Air Force tracked and identified
space debris produced by space missions through the Space Detection and Tracking
System (SPADATS). The service also held primary responsibility for launching all DOD
satellites at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida (into low inclination equatorial
orbits) and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California (into polar orbits).
President John Kennedy initiated a more activist, interventionist national strategy in 1961,
one that brought profound changes to the overwhelmingly nuclear-strike Air Force. The
Kennedy administration authorized the expansion of the Air Force’s ICBM arsenal to 1,000
Minuteman and 54 Titan IIs, deployed mainly at isolated bases in the north-central United
States. The Navy nuclear component grew to 41 Polaris submarines, while the Army field
forces eventually increased from 12 to 16 divisions and included a counterinsurgency
capability. This expansion was intended to give the President increased flexibility in
ordering a military response to international crises. In the Cuban missile crisis of October
1962, enormous American offensive power forced the Soviet Union to back down and
prompted Secretary of State Dean Rusk to conclude, “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and the
other fellow just blinked.” In addition to the impact of American offensive power, it was
later revealed that the administration agreed to remove weapons from Turkey as part of
the agreement for the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba. (Please reference the
“Focus On: Strategic Reconnaissance” article.) While Kennedy had immense nuclear
power at his disposal in confronting the Soviet Union over its nuclear missiles stationed in
Cuba, he had few conventional options. His military choices were an invasion of Cuba, with
no guarantees of success, or an all-out countervalue thermonuclear war. After the crisis,
won through a third alternative, a naval blockade referred to as a “quarantine,” Kennedy
hastened to adopt the “flexible response” as America’s new war-planning doctrine. SIOP63 introduced the potential for limited nuclear war, while preserving the possibility of an
all-out countervalue strike.
Even while the SAC-dominated Air Force had eagerly adopted the Eisenhower
administration’s “New Look” structure, it had also maintained forward-based units in
Japan, Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and elsewhere on the Pacific rim. With almost
1,000 aircraft in place, these units came under the command of the Hawaii-headquartered
Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), which replaced FEAF as the air component of the Navy-led
Pacific Command in 1957.
Meanwhile, by 1957 the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) had built up an even larger
forward presence to bolster NATO. With more than 2,000 assigned aircraft of all types
(not including SAC bombers also deployed in theater), USAFE’s network of 32 primary
installations stretched from England to Saudi Arabia. Reflecting NATO’s “sword and
shield” policy, USAFE focused on nuclear strike and air defense roles. By the time of the
Berlin crisis of 1961, the command had shrunk in size, but it was quickly reinforced by the
largest deployment of tactical aircraft since World War II. After the crisis eased, USAFE
began a 20-year effort to improve its conventional capabilities in line with the flexible
response strategy, which NATO officially adopted in 1967.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 83 Focus On: Strategic Airlift
INSIDE THE BERLIN AIRLIFT
By Gen. T. Ross Milton, USAF (Ret.) Reprinted by permission
from Air Force Magazine, published by the Air Force Association,
October 1998.
Fifty years later, the Task Force Chief of Staff reflects on Operation Vittles.
The spring of 1948 began quietly enough. New cars were once again in the showrooms,
a chaotic demobilization had ended, and the main excitement ahead, it appeared, would
be the presidential election. On June 24, the Republican Party confidently nominated
Thomas E. Dewey for the White House. The Democrats, having failed to attract Dwight
D. Eisenhower, resigned themselves to Harry S. Truman and defeat.
That same day, Soviet forces had halted all surface traffic into Berlin, citing “technical
difficulties.” They also shut down electricity for the Allied sectors in the German city. Allied
currency reform provided the proximate cause for this new Soviet provocation, but it was
plain that dictator Joseph Stalin intended to end the curious status of Berlin, which had
become a Western outpost deep inside Soviet-controlled territory.
Gen. Lucius D. Clay, commander of US forces in occupied Germany and Europe and a
steadfast figure if there ever was one, announced that no Soviet action short of war would
force the Americans out of Berlin. The question was how to make good on that promise,
for the Western sectors of the city had a total of less than two weeks of critical supplies,
and the small American force in Germany could not have put down the mighty Red Army.
Some farsighted fellow at the Potsdam Conference had inserted a provision for three air
corridors into Berlin, and Clay now asked Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, the commander of
US Air Forces in Europe, to exploit them with an emergency airlift. Looking around for
someone to do just that, LeMay tagged Brig. Gen. Joseph Smith, Wiesbaden (Germany)
Military Post commander. As he assembled this ad hoc operation with about 100 C-47
“Gooney Birds” left over from Sicily and Arnhem and pilots pulled away from their desks
and other duties, a distinct chill settled over occupied Germany.
Life up to that point had been relatively pleasant for the Western occupying forces, with
nice old houses requisitioned as family quarters and cheap cigarettes, coffee, and other
items widely, if unofficially, used as currency. A few cigarettes could get your laundry
done, a carton or so might fetch a hunting rifle or even a piano. Cigarettes were far too
valuable for the occupied, the Germans, to smoke until, that is, they reached the farmers.
They, having life’s necessities, smoked them.
84 No Compromise
British officials agreed with Clay’s uncompromising stand and had, in fact, been a little
ahead on preparations for an airlift. The other concerned ally, France, initially distanced
itself from this challenge but only briefly. France, preoccupied with its struggle in Indochina,
had almost nothing in the way of air transport available in Europe. They would make a
significant contribution later on, however.
The West’s improbable answer to the hostile Soviet action got under way June 26. On
July 4, with a maximum effort, US airlifters delivered 675 tons. It was clearly an all-out
performance, one that could not be continued for long. An assortment of Dakotas (British
C-47s) and converted bombers were delivering a similar amount. Since Berlin required a
minimum of 2,500 tons of food per day to sustain the lives of the two million inhabitants in
the Allied sectors, any serious long-term effort would require some major commitments.
One of the few persons on earth who truly believed air transport could solve this problem
was Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, and he was chafing to get involved. There was no
similar enthusiasm to be found within the Air Staff. Any major diversion of air transport to
Berlin would have a serious effect on combat capabilities, and there was a general view
that this blockade might very well lead to war.
Tunner left on an inspection swing around Military Air Transport Service bases, leaving
me with instructions to haunt the Pentagon and find out what was going on. He called
each night, and he was not happy with my news, for there appeared to be no sentiment
for a major effort and no mention of Tunner going over to run it.
Tunner had commanded “the Hump” operation from India into China during the last year
of World War II. Army Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, Defense Department director of
plans and operations, remembered this as he surveyed the situation in Europe. He,
seconded by the undersecretary of the Army, William H. Draper Jr., urged that Tunner be
sent without delay to take over the airlift to Berlin.
It was a persuasive recommendation. Tunner was ordered to proceed to Wiesbaden,
along with whomever he needed, and assume command of the airlift under the overall
command of CINCUSAFE. He left almost immediately in a C-54 with his longtime pilot
and friend, Col. Red Forman, at the controls. I was to follow with the people Tunner
decided were needed. We left a few days later with a few secretaries and various staff
officers. Our orders called for 30 days of temporary duty.
No room for us was available in the existing USAFE headquarters building, a rambling
structure in downtown Wiesbaden, so we located some apartments on Taunusstrasse,
facing a small park featuring hot sulfur baths. The Schwartzerbach Hotel, where Tunner
and I lived, was just a block away. The Rose, home for most of the staff, was even closer.
And so, barely adjusted to the local time, we set out to survey the situation.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 85 Edge of Exhaustion
Wiesbaden AB, undamaged and with fine permanent structures, was one of two bases that
Smith was using for the Berlin run. The sight that greeted us there was not encouraging. It
was evident that everyone-pilots, supervisors, everyone-was on the edge of exhaustion.
The same was true at RheinMain AB, near Frankfurt. Operation Vittles, as Smith had
dubbed his operation, had been a heroic effort, but the end was clearly in sight, barring
major reinforcements.
Some of these reinforcements, in the form of C-54 troop carrier wings, were already on
the way. However, US authorities had registered no specific requirement. We had made
only tentative calculations.
At about this time, a call came from LeMay’s office, and Tunner sent me over to see
what the general wanted. He wanted to know how many C-54s we would need for the
mission. I told LeMay I would hustle back to airlift headquarters and get right on it. He
had a different idea. LeMay, direct as always, motioned to a chair and table in the corner
of his office and told me to do it there. Maj. Gen. August Kissner, LeMay’s chief of staff,
came in with pencils, paper, and a slide rule, and I was left to my thoughts while LeMay
entertained some foreign visitors.
I scratched away and came up with a total of 225 C-54s, using some planning figures
that I knew to be in Tunner’s mind. Clay was waiting for the answer. LeMay took my work
sheet and placed a call to Berlin, meanwhile giving me a wave of dismissal. I lingered in
the outer office long enough to hear LeMay give Clay not my total, but my subtotal. I didn’t
dare barge back in. Instead, I hurried back to Tunner and told him what had gone on.
He approved the figure of 225 and ordered me back on the run to correct the inaccurate
statement that I had overheard. LeMay then placed a second call to Clay, said something
to the effect that we had made some corrections, and gave Clay the right number. Hanging
up, he said: “Thanks, Milton”-a rare encomium from that taciturn man.
That summer, the C-47s were retired in favor of the augmented force of C-54s, and
Tunner began to eye bases in the British zone, where the distance was a third shorter and
the flat terrain allowed for shorter climbs. British authorities readily agreed to make room
for the more productive C-54s and chose Fassberg, an old Luftwaffe training base on
the Lueneburg Heath. Our initial reactions were favorable. The base had fine permanent
buildings, a gymnasium with an indoor swimming pool, and a visiting officers’ quarters,
complete with a huge armchair, rumored to have been reserved for Hermann Goering, the
Luftwaffe chief and No. 2 Nazi official in Hitler’s Germany.
Fassberg in Danger
The initial results at Fassberg more than justified the move. However, as initial enthusiasm
ran down, real difficulties began to develop. The combination of depressing surroundings,
divided authority, and an impersonal functional organization patterned after the airlinesone that worked against any sense of unit esprit-proved too much. The operation at
Fassberg began to come apart.
86 The cure was simple and the results dramatic. The Air Force reorganized the pilots
and mechanics into squadrons and started to make recreational runs to Hamburg and
Copenhagen. The Royal Air Force turned Fassberg over to the US Air Force, with Col.
Theron “Jack” Coulter assuming command. His wife, movie star Constance Bennett,
showed herself as one of the most formidable scroungers in any service. The mess
halls and the barracks were spruced up with new furniture and the latest movies shipped
by USAFE supply services. Fassberg, very nearly a Berlin Airlift disaster, became a
showpiece.
Britain followed up its gift of Fassberg with an offer of another base at Celle, an attractive
town near Hanover. An old fighter base, Celle was without runways or, it seemed, room for
a runway, but the facilities were excellent. The British said not to worry and, dragooning
the locals, gave an insight into how the British Empire came about.
As the summer went on, the airlift began to lose the happy informality of its early days.
One horrendous foul-up over Berlin put an end to the sleepy air traffic control system that
had served Berlin well enough before the blockade. The weather was bad that Friday,
Aug. 13, and Tunner was due in Berlin. He was, in fact, overdue, as his airplane milled
around in the stack with an undetermined number of others. Meanwhile, new arrivals
were en route along the corridors, generating a chaotic condition that infuriated Tunner.
As it turned out, the day was a blessing. Given such an unmistakable warning, the Air Force
moved when it still had time to straighten out the procedures before the bad weather set
in around Berlin. The job was splendidly done by Maj. Sterling Bettinger, who got some
professional air traffic controllers back in uniform before the weather turned really sour.
Tunner’s Rules
Admittedly, the new procedures instituted after that infamous Friday were calculated to
make any air traffic controller’s job easier. Exact airspeeds were specified for climb, cruise,
and letdown. Tunner declared a new rule forbidding second tries at a Berlin landing.
This made for a smooth and continuous circuit, eliminating the need for holding patterns.
These factors, plus the arrival of the new CPS-5 radar, made it in all likelihood the best
ordered air traffic situation in history.
Another edict required all pilots to make their approaches under instrument conditions,
regardless of the weather. The Ground Control Approach teams, given this continual
exercise, became wonderfully proficient. There was a particular final approach controller,
a Sergeant McNulty as I remember, who could make you believe, by gentle corrections
interspersed with compliments, that your rotten job of flying into Tempelhof was one of
aviation’s milestones.
Across town, at Gatow, things were no different except for the accents. There the RAF
was in charge and thus host to the C-54s from Fassberg and Celle. Sometimes the long
nights in the Gatow tower were lightened by some irreverent American radio calls. There
was the anonymous poet who gladdened the British traffic controllers with his inbound
report:
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 87 Here comes a Yankee
With a blackened soul
Heading for Gatow
With a load of coal.
With the exception of December’s battles against a heavy fog, one that brought back
memories of the Great Fog of 1944 and the Battle of the Ardennes, the airlift became
almost routine. Visitors who came for a look at this famous defiance of Stalin were slightly
disappointed by the orderly and measured way the airplanes came and went through
Berlin.
There was, however, one bit of excitement, and it was provided by the French.
The Allies had constructed a third airfield, located on a former panzer drill ground in the
French sector. The labor force which carried out this project was recruited from the local
populace, and it was made up of a most unlikely mix of women and men, young and old,
most of whom gave no indication of having ever before done manual labor. However, no
group had ever worked harder and with such goodwill. Aggregate for the runways came
from the rubble of air raids, and the heavy machinery, too large for our aircraft, had been
sliced up by acetylene torch at RheinMain, carefully marked, and welded back together at
Tegel. At last, everything was ready for the start of operations, except for one thing. In the
midst of the traffic pattern stood a 200-foot-tall radio tower, one that belonged to Soviet
controlled East Berlin.
British and American diplomats proposed a diplomatic solution to the problem. It called for
the Soviets, in return for compensation, to dismantle the obstructing tower.
French forces thought this notion preposterous. And so, one morning, soon after Tegel
opened for business, Brig. Gen. Jean Ganeval had a platoon of engineers march to the
tower, lay some charges, and blow it flat. Direct action, the French said, is what the
Russians understand. Tegel made a substantial contribution to the airlift and is today, in
its modern form, Berlin’s principal airport.
Early in the airlift, Britain agreed to the concept of a unified command structure with Tunner
commanding and Air Commodore J.W.F. Merer as his deputy. One RAF officer, Group
Capt. Noel Hyde, an unforgettable fellow who had spent four years of the war engineering
escapes from Axis POW camps, came down to represent RAF interests and act as chief
of plans. The rest of our staff remained as before, and there was never a time when there
was any friction between the two Allies. Relations between the temporary duty Airlift Task
Force and USAFE were not quite as congenial after the arrival of LeMay’s successor, Lt.
Gen. John K. Cannon, but it wasn’t important. It was just one of those things.
88 Still Vivid
Even after the passage of 50 years, it is easy to remember the tension of that period.
Scarcely three years had passed since we had thought of Germany as enemy territory. It
still caused a flinch to lumber across, at vulnerable altitudes, those dangerous places we
remembered so well. Now we had a new adversary with 300,000 troops within a day’s
march of the border separating East and West Germany and nothing to stop them if they
invaded.
Well, almost nothing. The United States did have a monopoly on the atomic bomb and
the means-B-29s-to deliver it. Indeed, early in the crisis, Washington had deployed a
squadron of B-29s to the UK, without fanfare. Even so, it was evident that Moscow got the
message. Our strategy, as it would be for many years to come, was one of all or nothing
if it came to war.
For reasons that have never been made clear, the Soviet Union made no serious attempt
to sabotage the airlift. Fighters occasionally made passes at the lumbering transports, but
that was it. It would have been simple to jam the GCA frequencies and the navigational
beacons, but it was never done. For want of a better answer, we have to credit the
presence of those American B-29 bombers in the UK.
The Berlin Airlift was the first real event of the Cold War. Many people in high places
thought it was the first event in World War III. It gave credence to the need for the NATO
Alliance and it was reassuring evidence that the United States had a firm ally in Britain.
Berlin, a shattered city in 1948, was an island under siege. Now, it is once more the
elegant capital of a unified Germany. And while there are many things that contributed
to this present happy state in Berlin, the airlift, 50 years ago, was a vital show of Allied
resolution and competence at a very dangerous time.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 89 Focus On: Tactical Airlift in the Korean War
VALOR: THE ONLY WAY OUT
By John L. Frisbee, Contributing Editor. Reprinted by permission
from Air Force Magazine, published by the Air Force Association,
November 1997.
When China entered the Korean War in November 1950, several thousand US
troops were entrapped near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. Their rescue was
imperative.
On Sept. 15, 1950, United Nations forces staged a successful landing at Inchon on the
west coast of Korea in a drive to outflank the North Korean army. UN forces then advanced
rapidly into North Korea.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur predicted that North Korea would be defeated and the war
ended by Thanksgiving. He thought there was little likelihood that China would intervene
to save its Communist neighbor.
While UN and South Korean forces were advancing, the Chinese were surreptitiously
moving more than a hundred thousand troops into position west of the Yalu River. It was
one of the most successful clandestine maneuvers of military history. After a few minor
feelers by small numbers of “volunteers,” the Chinese struck in force on Nov. 27.
With virtually no support from air, armor, or artillery, some 120,000 Chinese troops
overwhelmed the 12,000 Marines of the 1st Marine Division and the four Army battalions
numbering about 3,000 men. The human wave attack left thousands of dead Chinese as
the UN forces fought a courageous retreat in subzero weather to the vicinity of Hagaru-ri,
a small village at the south tip of the Chosin Reservoir. There, they were surrounded by
an estimated 70,000 enemy troops. Marines and Navy fighters kept the Chinese at bay.
The Marines and Army gathered their wounded and those suffering severe frostbite, to care
for them as best they could. Encumbered by several hundred incapacitated men, there
was no way out. The only solution was air evacuation. Under fire from the surrounding
hills, the Marines scraped out a 2,500-foot strip from the frozen ground. A dike at the north
end made it a two-way strip with landings to the north and takeoffs to the south.
90 Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, commander of the Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo
Command, assigned the perilous task of evacuation to the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron
based at Itazuke, Japan. Eleven of its C-47s, the only available aircraft that could operate
from the primitive strip and carry a respectable load, were moved to K-27 on the east
coast of Korea. They would haul supplies into Hagaru-ri, then fly the wounded back to
K-27 for airlift in C-54s to hospitals in Japan.
Tunner’s C-119s, which could not operate from the strip, dropped additional supplies to
the besieged men. Marine and Navy fighter aircraft provided continuous coverage during
daylight hours.
Operating from the strip called for skilled, experienced crews. The strip was a bowl,
surrounded by mountains. There were no reliable local weather reports, no navigation
aids, and unpredictable braking conditions on the frozen runway. The strip could be used
only during the few hours of daylight. Approach was over enemy occupied mountains and
departure through a narrow valley with hundreds of Chinese snipers concealed in caves.
Most of the C-47s were hit more than once, but none was downed by enemy fire. One
pilot had his elevator cables severed by a lucky shot but, by coordinated use of trim tabs
and throttles, made it safely back to K-27. One C-47 lost was in a takeoff accident in
which there were no serious injuries.
The more or less standard load for evacuation flight was 35 men, compared to 19 or 20
for commercial DC-3s. That standard often was stretched to crowd in a few who otherwise
would have to be left in the cold until another flight arrived. One C-47 mushed off the
runway with 46 aboard.
One of the many hazards faced by crews was poor winter visibility, especially in the early
morning when the strip could be blanketed by smoke and fog. On one morning vertical
visibility was fair but forward visibility near zero.
A pilot circling over the strip announced that he could provide a controlled approach if
anyone wanted to try it. He then directed the approach of a volunteer, telling him when to
turn to final approach, then giving directional corrections on final. It worked until ground
visibility improved.
The evacuation continued for six days, with crews often flying several missions a day to
the point of exhaustion. When the last of the wounded and dead had been flown out, the
tally showed that those 11 C-47 crews of the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron had evacuated
4,608 wounded and 81 dead.
Those totals included some evacuations from Koto-ri, a second strip hacked out to support
the able-bodied who fought their way out on foot when the air evacuation was completed.
In total, the 1st Marine Division had suffered 8,700 casualties. Army losses were even
heavier.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 91 On their inbound flights, the C-47s had delivered 547,000 pounds of supplies,
supplemented by air drops from C-119s that could not operate from either strip. The
C-119s also parachuted several spans of a bridge to replace one south of Koto-ri that the
Chinese had destroyed. The centerpiece of the evacuation was the 21st TCS, however.
That squadron was one of the first three units of the war to be awarded the Distinguished
Unit Citation for its “conspicuous gallantry and heroism that distinguished it from other
units in the Korean campaign.”
92 Focus On: Leadership
GENERAL BERNARD A. SCHRIEVER
THE MAN WHO BUILT THE MISSILES
By Walter J. Boyne. Reprinted by permission from Air Force
Magazine, published by the Air Force Association, October 2000.
Gen. Bernard Schriever not only produced an ICBM force in record time but also
led the way to American dominance in space.
Gen. Bernard A. “Bennie” Schriever, unquestionably one of the most important officers
in Air Force history, ranks alongside the legendary Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay in
terms of long-term effect upon the service and the nation. Foremost among his many
achievements was the development and acquisition in the 1950s and early 1960s of a
reliable and operational ICBM force. It was a towering accomplishment-one that helped
propel the United States to military dominance in space, as well.
No one doubts Schriever’s pivotal role in these two stupendous achievements. In April
1957, his image appeared on the cover of Time magazine, which called him “America’s
Missileman.” His official USAF biography flatly proclaims that Schriever is “the architect
of the Air Force’s ballistic missile and military space program.”
Schriever himself is quick to point to the critical contributions of other members of his
team, but the fact remains that he was the man in charge. Had the ICBM program failed
or fallen short, Schriever would have been held responsible. The program succeeded
beyond all expectations, however.
That Schriever reached the pinnacle of American aerospace technology is an unlikely but
very American story. Born Sept. 14, 1910, in Bremen, Germany, Bernard Adolph Schriever
was the son of an engineering officer on a German ship line. His mother, Elizabeth, spent
10 years living in the New York area. It was there that she met her future husband. The
couple were married in New Jersey but returned to Germany, settling in Bremerhaven
just as a world war was set to explode. Schriever, now 90, vividly recalls how, as a child,
he would watch the enormous German zeppelins pass overhead on their way to bomb
England.
When the war eventually soured German-American relations, numerous German ships
were interned in New York Harbor-including his father’s. Faced with indefinite separation
from her husband, Elizabeth Schriever managed to get herself and her two young sons
aboard a Dutch freighter bound for New York. It was a very rough voyage. They arrived
in January 1917. About three months later, Washington declared war on Germany and
joined the Allies.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 93 The Schrievers, marooned in the US, were forced to make the best of it. They journeyed
to Texas, settling in New Braunfels (a town with a large German-speaking population) and
later moving to San Antonio. In fall 1918, after his father died in an industrial accident,
young Bennie and his brother lived in a foster home for eight months until their grandmother
came from Germany to care for them while their mother worked.
Fascination With Aviation
In 1923, Schriever became a naturalized US citizen. He attended Texas A&M, graduating
near the top of the class of 1931, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in field
artillery. Though an artilleryman, Schriever long had been fascinated with aviation, and he
decided to enter flying school at Randolph Field, Tex.
He did so in July 1932, but the move required him to revert from officer status to that of
aviation cadet. Flying came easily to Schriever. When he graduated in June 1933 at Kelly
Field, Tex., he was commissioned as a second lieutenant for the second time. The Army
soon promoted him to first lieutenant and assigned him to March Field, Calif., where he
flew B-4 and B-10 bombers under the command of Lt. Col. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold. Arnold
was impressed with Schriever’s abilities and would later remember the young Texan when
he needed an airman to whom scientists could relate.
Schriever soon became caught up in the Army’s 1934 misadventure in carrying domestic
airmail. He flew ill-equipped Army Air Corps O-38 and B-4 aircraft on the hazardous Salt
Lake City-to-Cheyenne, Wyo., route. Neither aircraft was equipped for instrument flying.
He survived, but many of his colleagues were killed. For Schriever, the “airmail fiasco,” as
it was called, showed the high price a military force and a nation would pay because of
inferior or inadequate technology.
Schriever went on to spend a six-month tour at Hamilton Field, Calif. However, the tight
military budgets of the day forced him to go off active duty and onto the inactive reserve
list.
In the Great Depression, commercial flying billets were scarce, and Schriever in 1935 ran
a Civilian Conservation Corps camp of 200 boys in New Mexico. When that job ended
in October 1936, he was able to return to active status. He was assigned in December
to Panama, where he was stationed at Albrook Field as a P-12 pilot. In August 1937, he
accepted a position as a pilot with Northwest Airlines.
A year later Schriever learned that the Air Corps had 200 regular commissions available.
He passed the exam for regular officer and, on Oct. 1, 1938, was sworn in once again
as a second lieutenant. Schriever served with the 7th Bomb Group at Hamilton Field and
then moved on to test pilot duties at Wright Field, Ohio. He flew almost every type of
Army aircraft, working with Stanley Umstead and some of the finest pilots in the world. He
attended Air Corps Engineering School and graduated in July 1941.
94 Stuck in Stanford
Schriever gave stellar academic and flying performances while at Wright Field, so much
so that he gained admission to Stanford University’s graduate program-a rare privilege
for a military officer. He was hitting the books in Palo Alto, Calif., when, on Dec. 7, 1941,
Imperial Japanese forces attacked the United States fleet in Pearl Harbor.
Schriever requested immediate assignment to a combat unit. The Air Force denied the
request, ordering him instead to stay in California and finish his graduate work at Stanford.
He did so, earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering (aeronautical) in June
1942.
Within the month, Schriever joined the 19th Bombardment Group in Australia and quickly
jumped into the shooting war with Japan. The Japanese had transformed Rabaul, on the
northeast end of New Britain Island in the Bismarck Archipelago, into their most important
base. Ferocious opposition by fighters and flak forced the 19th by August 1942 to turn to
night bombing.
The newly minted Major Schriever developed a flare-dispensing system for use in night
attacks and tested it in two raids with an old Hamilton Field comrade, then Maj. Jack
Dougherty, who had survived being shot down over the jungles of Java. They flew in a
formation of about a dozen B-17s in a night raid on Rabaul. Their airplane carried the
flares and half the regular bomb load. The flare system worked well, but Schriever wanted
to check on the bombing results, so they made another circuit over the target area. Flak
was heavy but ineffective at the 10,000-foot altitude from which they were bombing.
As they turned, the No. 3 engine burst into a ball of flames. Dougherty, in the left seat,
feathered the prop and shut the engine down. They still had bombs on board but did not
want to set up another bombing approach. A quick conference on the intercom led to a
decision: They would dive-bomb the ships in the harbor. Schriever laughs ruefully today
at the thought of dive-bombing in a three-engine B-17 from a relatively safe altitude down
into the flak over Rabaul, but they pulled it off, sinking a ship and returning to base.
Kenney’s Command
Schriever flew 38 combat missions in B-17s, B-25s, and C-47s, but his truly important
contribution to the war effort lay in managing the Air Corps engineering effort for Gen.
George C. Kenney, commander of Fifth Air Force and ultimately commanding general of
Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific. When 19th BG was told it was being returned
to the States, Kenney called Schriever in to his office. “I’m not letting you go home,” he
said. “I need as much engineering help as I can get out here.”
Schriever welcomed the news, for the title “engineering officer” also encompassed
supply and what later became known as logistics. It was absolutely vital to the war
effort in the Pacific. He became chief of the Maintenance and Engineering Division, 5th
Air Force Service Command, in January 1943. Thereafter, his duties expanded as the
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 95 war progressed. He became chief of staff, 5th Air Force Service Command, and then
commander of the advance headquarters, Far East Air Service Command, where he was
responsible for maintenance in 5th, 7th, and 13th Air Forces.
His rank rose swiftly as he moved his headquarters from New Guinea to Leyte to Manila
to Okinawa. Promoted to colonel at age 33 in December 1943, he kept in the forefront of
the war, moving his headquarters into the battle zone before the firing ceased, sometimes
landing on the nearest highway. He took over the Manila airport while the shooting was
still going on and landed his C-47 on Naha strip on Okinawa the day the Marines captured
it.
After spending 42 months overseas, Schriever returned home to an assignment in the
Pentagon. The Army Air Forces were in the midst of a precipitous demobilization and
at the same time were fighting for independent status. At the end of his career, ailing
physically and beset with all the problems implicit in his job as Commanding General of
the Army Air Forces, Hap Arnold still had the vision to continue the emphasis on Research
and Development fostered by the Scientific Advisory Group he formed in 1944.
Schriever’s engineering and management skills were by that time well-known in AAF. He
was made chief, Scientific Liaison Section, Deputy Chief of Staff, Materiel. For Schriever, it
was the perfect job, for it gave him the opportunity to mix with the brilliant scientists Arnold
brought on to the Scientific Advisory Board (as it became known when it convened in June
1946). It was in this post that Schriever introduced development planning objectives-a
series of planning documents that linked ongoing R&D efforts with long-range military
requirements.
Over the next 10 years, Schriever became well-regarded for his technical expertise and
willingness to buck senior leadership when he thought it necessary. In one of his less
successful efforts, Schriever opposed the bid by Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, then commander
in chief of Strategic Air Command, to procure the B-52 bomber. Schriever maintained that
USAF could carry out the mission at less cost by using a re-engined B-47. LeMay was
not amused and eventually won out. Despite this dustup, LeMay recognized Schriever’s
value, as did other top leaders such as Gen. Nathan F. Twining and Gen. Thomas D.
White.
Heavyweights All
The degree of Schriever’s effectiveness as a leader can be ascertained by looking at
the high caliber of the men who became his closest associates in what would become
his most important technological effort-the creation of a reliable Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile. Numbered among them were such luminaries as Trevor Gardner, Simon Ramo,
and John von Neumann, all heavyweight scientists and technologists. These were all men
of the highest intellect, leaders in their field, and capable administrators. They recognized
Schriever as one of their own, a distinction not bestowed lightly to anyone and even more
rarely to a military officer. They regarded Schriever as “born for the job.”
96 The importance of the ICBM had been clear ever since the existence of the first German
V-2 rocket was made known to the world. However, actually fielding an ICBM was difficult
for political and technical reasons. The services engaged in a fierce rivalry for control over
missile programs in general and any potential ICBM programs in particular. Divisions also
opened in the ranks of the Air Force itself. Most of its leaders were bomber veterans who
did not find it easy to assign priority to a new type of weapon system.
The first problem was resolved for the most part when Washington granted USAF the
charter to develop both the ICBM and intermediate-range ballistic missile. The second
problem was not completely resolved for many years.
The technical difficulties proved to be far more serious. Nobody had ever built an
intercontinental-range missile. Problems were major and totally new, comprising missile
guidance, en route navigation, warhead re-entry, and provision of rocket engines large
enough to lift projected gross weights of 440,000 pounds.
Committees have a bad reputation, but it was a series of committees that guided the Air
Force in its selection of people and methods to produce the ICBM. The Teapot, Killian, and
Gillette committees were almost entirely composed of the brightest leaders in academia,
industry, and the military. Schriever, who was either a member or advisor to each panel,
usually managed to push them in a direction that produced the results he needed.
Although an early advocate of missiles, Schriever, now a brigadier general, was well
aware of the technical difficulties involved. He was attending a briefing of the Scientific
Advisory Board at Patrick AFB, Fla., in 1953 when von Neumann and Edward Teller gave
independent presentations indicating the practical possibility of building a nuclear bomb
weighing no more than 1,500 pounds.
Schriever recalls, “I almost came out of my seat in excitement, realizing what this meant
for the ICBM.”
The breakthrough solved one of Schriever’s most pressing problems-the weight of the
nuclear warhead. The proposed ICBM-the Atlas-could now weigh in at as “little” as 220,000
pounds. The weight difference was enormous. It reduced the rocket-engine challenge to
manageable proportions. Almost equally important, Teller and von Neumann estimated
that the 1,500-pound bomb would yield explosive power of one megaton of TNT, greatly
easing the ICBM’s accuracy requirements.
The very limited yields of previously designed warheads generated the requirement
for extreme accuracy; the ICBM guidance system would have to produce a Circular
Error Probable of about 1,500 feet. With the one-megaton yield, however, accuracy
requirements could be relaxed to a CEP of two to three nautical miles. In consultation
with others, Schriever increased the estimate of the warhead weight to 3,000 pounds, just
to be conservative.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 97 Into Overdrive
Things began to move rapidly. In May 1954, then Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Thomas White
assigned the Air Force’s highest priority to the Atlas. In July, Schriever, Gardner, and von
Neumann briefed the Atlas program to President Eisenhower, convincing him to give
top national priority to the development of the ICBM. On Aug. 2, Schriever officially took
command of the newly created Western Development Division, which had its quarters
in a former schoolhouse on Manchester Avenue in Inglewood, Calif. Schriever had the
privilege and the luxury of picking his top staff and most of the original party. They were
a talented crew.
The project was backed by Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott, whose deputy
for budget and program management, Hyde Gillette, created (with Schriever’s guidance)
a streamlined set of procedures that made WDD solely responsible for planning,
programming, and developing the ICBM. The stage was set.
In size and funding, WDD’s ICBM effort dwarfed that of Manhattan Project. It also faced
a different kind of challenge. The Soviet Union had already demonstrated its scientific
prowess by producing nuclear and thermonuclear bombs. It was producing new, highly
capable bombers even as it mounted an aggressive rocket technology program (which,
in fact, led to the shock of Sputnik and then a workable ICBM). Schriever and his team
could not afford to fail.
The successful October 1957 launch and orbit of Sputnik dealt a blow to US pride and
morale. Ironically, however, it was a piece of incredibly good fortune for Schriever and his
team. For years, the Eisenhower Administration had been cutting back severely on R&D
and defense spending. At a stroke, Sputnik ended the cutbacks and ushered in a period
of rich funding for the American ICBM program.
Schriever’s nominal task was to create an ICBM. His actual task was to create an
organization that managed all the elements of the high-technology endeavor while, at the
same time, coming up with practical means for using the ICBM. This included planning
and building the complex facilities for production and testing. The missile systems,
themselves infinitely complex and almost bereft of computer power at the time, had to
be integrated with the nuclear warhead. To prove that a nuclear warhead could re-enter
the atmosphere without self-destructing, Lockheed opened a secondary program, the
X-17, to test experimental nose cones. The Air Force needed new launch sites, meaning
land had to be acquired and designated for use, and facilities planned and built, and the
operating personnel trained. All this had to be done before the Soviets did it.
Schriever contends that the program succeeded in large measure because the Eisenhower
Administration backed it fully and because he chose a risky path of development. With
his top aides, Schriever created a system based on technical feasibility and concurrencyconducting simultaneously certain development tasks that normally would be conducted
sequentially. It was a revolutionary change in management and administration of a military
program.
98 Schriever also demanded, and got, from the Administration:
Clear and vertical decision-making channels on overall program and policy matters.
Assignment of priority high enough to ensure adequate funds.
Complete responsibility and authority for program direction at the operating management
level.
Competent, highly motivated personnel at all levels.
In short order, Schriever was calling on the talents of 18,000 scientists, 17 prime
contractors, 200 subcontractors, and 3,500 suppliers, employing about 70,000 people.
By June 1, 1957, the WDD had become the Ballistic Missile Division. More than 8,000
individual reporting channels fed back to the master control room at Schriever’s BMD.
Today, Schriever says he did not attempt to understand all of the technology involved,
because it was too much for any one person to assimilate. However, he did understand
the needs of the managers he put in charge, and he understood whether they were
obtaining the results he wanted.
Colleagues from the time recall Schriever as being a workhorse, putting in 16-hour days
and shuttling around the country to put out-or start-fires. He was known to be tough but
fair. He was easy to get along with if you were producing. If not, you could expect to be
gone in short order.
When success came, it was on an extraordinary scale. The first Atlas was launched by a
Strategic Air Command crew from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Sept. 9, 1959. Deployment
went ahead at a feverish pace, despite the requirement to put a large part of the Atlas
force in huge underground silos as protection against Soviet ICBM attack. By 1963,
SAC had 13 Atlas missile squadrons, with 127 missiles deployed, sufficient to meet the
contemporary Soviet threat.
Tale of Four Missiles
This was but one of Schriever’s accomplishments. While the Atlas was being conceived,
engineered, produced, and developed, he had simultaneously supervised creation of the
Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile, which went from contract award in December
1955 to Initial Operational Capability in June 1959-in other words, in less than four years.
The far more sophisticated Titan ICBM reached its IOC in April 1962. Most amazing of
all, an entirely new concept in ICBMs, the solid-fuel Minuteman, achieved its IOC in
December 1962, rendering obsolete all but the Titan II missiles.
In just eight years, Schriever and his brilliant organization had created a missile industry
able to provide the US Air Force with four complete missile systems of almost unimaginable
complexity and capability. By comparison, it took 10 years to take the contemporary F-102
fighter from concept to completion.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 99 American dominance in space came about in part as a by-product of Schriever’s
development of missile technologies. In February 1957, he had announced that about 90
percent of the developments in the ballistic missile program could be used to establish
a USAF presence in space. However, even Schriever himself would not have predicted
that, four decades later, the Atlas design would still be used as a satellite launcher.
Though Schriever’s hardware was useful and long-lived, his revolutionary management
changes were even more important for the space program. Today’s navigational,
meteorological, intelligence, and communication satellites owe their existence to the work
of Schriever and his team.
As his successes mounted, Schriever exerted greater and greater influence on USAF’s
structure and organization. He became commander of Air Research and Development
Command in 1959. Two years later, he was promoted and given command of a new
organization he had long advocated-Air Force Systems Command. As a four-star general
at AFSC, he was able to apply his management rigor to the acquisition of all USAF
weapon systems. He insisted on technologically superior performance standards for new
weapon systems. At the same time, he demanded that they be produced under tough
cost controls to meet the pre-established production schedules.
By 1963, Schriever was overseeing about 40 percent of the Air Force’s budget, with
AFSC employing 27,000 military and 37,000 civilian personnel.
In that same year, he directed Project Forecast, a visionary look into the future of technology
that helped chart the nation’s journey to superpower status. It identified key areas that would
lead to great improvements in air and space weapons, including computers, advanced
composite materials, radical new propulsion systems, and a prodigious expansion in the
use of satellites.
Schriever retired as a four-star general in 1966 after 33 years of Air Force service. In
retirement, he immediately started a busy second career, serving as chairman of the
President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Defense Science Board, the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization Advisory Committee, and many more defense-related
organizations. His advice is still sought by research organizations and government
agencies.
When it comes to technology, Schriever still has strong opinions on what remains to be
done. “We are now in a period of history where global engagement with the enemy is right
at our fingertips,” he asserts. “We can defeat the enemy in his own backyard at the speed
of light.” It is a bold and penetrating prediction, just the sort of thing you’d expect from the
man who built the missiles.
100 Focus On: Strategic Reconnaissance
AIRPOWER AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
By John T. Correll. Reprinted by permission from Air Force
Magazine, published by the Air Force Association, August 2005.
In the summer of 1962, a conspicuous military buildup was under way in Cuba. US aerial
surveillance in July reported an exceptional number of Soviet ships moving toward the
island. They rode high in the water, suggesting military cargo—such as missiles, which
occupied considerable space in relation to their weight.
In August, US intelligence received reports of sightings by ground observers of Russianbuilt MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers.
CIA U-2 spyplanes overflew Cuba twice a month. On Aug. 29, they found SA-2 surfaceto-air missile sites at eight different locations. That was of interest but of no great concern.
SAMs were defensive weapons.
The U-2s also found MiG-21s, confirming the earlier sighting reports. Possibly, though,
these aircraft were simply upgrades from the older MiGs the Cubans already possessed.
CIA director John A. McCone was suspicious. In an Aug. 10 memo to President Kennedy,
he guessed that Russia was about to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba.
Why, he asked, would they be deploying SAMs, except to protect something important,
like offensive missile sites?
For Kennedy, the question had political as well as military implications.
In late August, Sen. Kenneth B. Keating (R-N.Y.)—whose sources were probably Cuban
exiles in Florida—said there was evidence of Soviet “rocket installations” in Cuba and
urged Kennedy to act. Others, notably Sen. Homer E. Capehart (R-Ind.), joined in the call
for action.
Strangely, U-2 flights ceased for more than a month, from Sept. 5 to Oct. 14. One reason
was bad weather, but another was anxiety on part of the President’s advisors, who worried
about the consequences of a U-2 shootdown.
To the dismay of the CIA, the Air Force took over the U-2 missions when they resumed.
The first flight was by Maj. Richard S. Heyser on Oct. 14.
When CIA analysts on the next day pored over Heyser’s reconnaissance film, they found
SS-4 medium-range ballistic missiles. Senior Administration officials were told that night.
The President was notified early on the morning of Oct. 16.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 101 The Cuban missile crisis had begun. By the time the public was informed one week later,
the U-2s had also discovered an SS-5 intermediate-range ballistic missile site and Il-28
bombers.
President Kennedy spoke to the nation on television Oct. 22 and announced “unmistakable
evidence” of Russian missiles in Cuba. He declared a naval “quarantine” and said any
missile fired from Cuba would be treated as a Soviet attack on America.
On Oct. 27, a Russian SAM crew shot down a U-2, killing the pilot, Air Force Maj. Rudolf
Anderson Jr. The White House decided not to retaliate.
On Oct. 28, the Russians bowed to overwhelming US strategic power and agreed to
withdraw their missiles.
It was as close as the Cold War ever came to World War III.
Khrushchev’s Gambit
As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev told it later, the crisis began the previous April.
“It was during my visit to Bulgaria that I had the idea of installing missiles with nuclear
warheads in Cuba without letting the United States find out they were there until it was too
late to do anything about them,” he said in Khrushchev Remembers, published in 1970.
He was reacting, superficially at least, to the Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles
the United States had recently installed in Turkey. More important, though, Khrushchev
wanted to compensate for Russia’s strategic disadvantage in long-range missiles.
“In addition to protecting Cuba,” he acknowledged in his memoirs, “our missiles would
have equalized what the West likes to call ‘the balance of power.’ ”
Protecting Cuba had little to do with it. Khrushchev saw the possibility of an instant strategic
adjustment. IRBMs based in Cuba could reach US targets as easily—and faster—as
ICBMs from launch sites in the Soviet Union.
Missiles had recently taken center stage in the Cold War. Ironically, one of Kennedy’s
issues in the 1960 election was an alleged “missile gap,” with the Russians ahead. There
was indeed a missile gap, but it was in favor of the United States.
The Russians had only four ICBMs in 1961. By the time of the Cuban missile crisis, they
probably had several dozen, although some estimates went as high as 75. What the
Russians did have was medium-range ballistic missiles, about 700 of them.
The United States had 170 ICBMs, and the number was rising rapidly. It also had
eight ballistic missile submarines with 128 Polaris missiles. To make matters worse for
Khrushchev, the Soviet missiles were of inferior quality.
102 Khrushchev had added to the perception of a missile gap by his loud and untruthful
boasting that the USSR was turning out missiles “like sausages” and his claims of longrange missile capabilities he was nowhere close to having.
The US Air Force had deployed Thor and Jupiter intermediate-range missiles to Europe
as a direct counter to Soviet MRBMs and IRBMs. The Jupiters had been operational in
Turkey since April 1962.
Fidel Castro agreed readily to accept the Soviet missiles in his country. He did not see a
need for them for Cuba’s defense, but he was eager to be part of the communist team,
the point man in the Western Hemisphere.
The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 had failed to oust Castro, but he remained on
Washington’s hit list. “Operation Mongoose,” a scheme to undercut the Castro regime,
was still running.
Castro welcomed the installation of the Russian missiles as an opportunity to stick it to
the Yanquis.
A survey team, led by Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, chief of the Soviet Rocket Forces, visited
Cuba prior to the deployments. Upon his return, Biryuzov assured Khrushchev that the
missiles would be concealed and camouflaged by the palm trees.
Khrushchev believed him.
The force proposed for Cuba included 24 MRBM launchers and 16 IRBM launchers.
There were two missiles (one as a spare) and one nuclear warhead for each launcher.
There would also be four combat regiments, 24 SA-2 batteries, 42 MiG-21 interceptors,
and 42 Il-28 bombers.
The ships began moving from the Black Sea in the middle of July. The first MRBMs
arrived at the Cuban port of Mariel aboard Poltava on Sept. 15.
“Soon, hell will break loose,” Khrushchev told an aide at the end of September.
The U-2
The state of the art in aerial photo intelligence was the Lockheed U-2.
Reconnaissance satellites were coming along, but the technology was not yet fully mature.
The U-2 was developed in the 1950s by the fabled Lockheed Skunk Works under the
direction of the equally fabled Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. The prime customer was the
CIA, but the Air Force was also offered a share of the program.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 103 At first, according to a declassified CIA history of the U-2, Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, commander
in chief of Strategic Air Command, said that “if he wanted high-altitude photographs, he
would put cameras in his B-36 bombers and added that he was not interested in a plane
that had no wheels or guns.”
The Air Force bought some U-2s anyway. They were assigned to SAC’s 4080th Bomb
Wing at Laughlin Air Force Base, near Del Rio, Tex. The aircraft began arriving in June
1957. Mostly, the Air Force U-2 pilots flew missions around the Soviet periphery and in
the Far East.
The U-2 was built to go high and far. The wingspan was 80 feet, almost twice the length
of the body of the aircraft, which was not quite 50 feet. It flew at 72,500 feet, more than
13 miles high.
To get range, altitude, and endurance, the Skunk Works had traded off everything else.
The U-2 was not very fast. Cruise speed was 460 mph.
“One unusual design feature was the tail assembly, which—to save weight—was attached
to the main body with just three tension bolts,” the CIA history said. “The wings were also
unique. Unlike conventional aircraft, whose main wing spar passes through the fuselage
to give the wings continuity and strength, the U-2 had two separate wing panels, which
were attached to the fuselage sides with tension bolts.
“The fragility of the wings and tail section, which were only bolted to the fuselage, forced
Kelly Johnson to look for a way to protect the aircraft from gusts of wind at altitudes below
35,000 feet, which otherwise might cause the aircraft to disintegrate.
... The U-2 remained a very fragile aircraft that required great skill and concentration from
its pilots.”
Flying the U-2 at altitude also demanded precision.
“The air was so thin it could barely support the weight of the plane, and the difference
between maximum and minimum speeds was a scant six knots (seven mph),” a Washington
Post reporter wrote after interviewing Air Force pilot Heyser.
“If he flew too fast, the fragile [aircraft] would fall apart. If he flew too slow, the engine
would stall, and he would nose-dive.”
At the end of each wing of the U-2 was a “pogo,” an outrigger with a wheel on it, to keep
the wingtips from dragging on takeoff. When the aircraft broke ground, the pogos dropped
away. The wingtips had skids for landing.
104 USAF Takes the Flights
The U-2 cameras carried 5,000 feet of film. Had it all been spooled on the same side of
the camera, the weight of the film—about 300 pounds—would have thrown the airplane
out of balance. Thus the film was divided into two strips, each nine inches wide, feeding
from opposite directions. It would be recombined in the laboratory to produce images 18
inches square.
Each U-2 mission took about 4,000 pictures.
The U-2’s free run of crossing Soviet territory came to an end on May 1, 1960, when CIA
pilot Francis Gary Powers, flying out of Pakistan, was shot down over Sverdlovsk by a
Russian SA-2 SAM and captured.
There was great political uproar, both in the United States and abroad. President
Eisenhower, who had detailed knowledge of the overflights and who approved the
missions, denied his involvement and canceled the overflights of Russia.
The CIA U-2s continued to fly other reconnaissance missions, including the semimonthly
passes over Cuba in the summer of 1962. At that point, two events, neither of them the
doing of the CIA, intervened.
On Aug. 30, a SAC U-2 on a mission unrelated to Cuba overflew Sakhalin Island in
the Far East by mistake. The Soviets protested and the US apologized. On Sept. 9, a
Taiwanese U-2 was lost, probably to a SAM, over western China. Taiwan had bought its
own U-2s from Lockheed.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy became
concerned that one of the SAMs in Cuba might shoot down a U-2, setting off an international
controversy. So—just as the missile shipments were approaching port in Cuba—the U-2
missions stopped. There were no overflights from Sept. 5 to Oct. 14, although the CIA
was allowed to fly peripheral runs, taking pictures from slant range, 15 miles offshore.
On Sept. 28, Navy reconnaissance aircraft photographed large crates on the deck of the
Soviet ship Kasimov, on its way to Cuba. The size and shape of the crates indicated that
they contained Il-28 light bombers, which was later confirmed.
On Oct. 12, the Administration transferred responsibility for U-2 overflights of Cuba to the
Air Force. Various reasons were given, but the real explanation was that the Administration
did not want another CIA U-2 flap and believed that it would be easier to concoct a cover
story if the missions over Cuba were flown by the Air Force.
There is also some indication that the Department of Defense and the Air Force pressed
hard to get the mission. McCone was away when it happened.
According to the CIA history, “The acting DCI [director of central intelligence], Lt. Gen.
Marshall S. Carter, US Army, reacted strongly to the Air Force takeover of a major CIA
operation. At one point, he remarked, ‘I think it’s a hell of a way to run a railroad. It’s
perfectly obviously a geared operation to get SAC in the act.’ ”
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 105 Dino A. Brugioni, whose book Eyeball to Eyeball is a detailed remembrance from inside
the CIA, said Carter was surprised to learn that McCone had previously mentioned to the
President “that the U-2 missions were getting progressively hazardous and he might want
to consider a transfer of the responsibilities to the military.”
No matter how Carter and the CIA felt about it, the Air Force had the job, and the missions
would be flown in the best models of the U-2, which the CIA had and the Air Force didn’t.
In 1962, the most experienced pilots at Laughlin were Heyser, of Apalachicola, Fla., and
Anderson, of Greenville, S.C. They went to Edwards AFB, Calif., for familiarization in the
U-2Cs and to bring back two of them, which the Air Force was borrowing from the CIA.
The U-2C could fly 5,000 feet higher than the Air Force’s U-2As.
Finding Missile Sites
It is sometimes reported that Anderson flew the first Air Force mission over Cuba, the
one that found the missiles, or that he and Heyser both flew that day. That was a public
relations maneuver instigated by the Pentagon after Anderson was shot down.
The fact is, Heyser flew the first mission alone, from Edwards. Anderson was the backup.
Heyser took off from California in the middle of the night on a schedule that would put him
over Cuba an hour after sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 14.
It took five hours for him to reach the Gulf of Mexico. He swung wide around the western
end of Cuba and approached the island from the south. He crossed the Isle of Pines at
7:31 a.m. and turned on the cameras.
Heyser flew north, across San Cristobal, west of Havana. San Julian airfield was off to
his left. He exited Cuban airspace at 7:43 a.m. He landed at McCoy Air Force Base at
Orlando, Fla., where an airplane was waiting to take the film to Washington, D.C. At the
debriefing, Heyser described the mission as “a milk run.”
The film was delivered to the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center.
Analysis on Oct. 15 revealed components of SS-4 missile batteries at San Cristobal and Il28 bombers at San Julian. No nuclear warheads were seen. That evening, Administration
officials were tracked down and notified.
President Kennedy was informed at 8:45 a.m. on Oct. 16. On his orders, the Air Force
U-2s began flying as many as six missions a day over Cuba. “ExCom,” an executive
committee of the National Security Council, was formed to work the crisis.
On Oct. 17, the U-2s found an SS-5 IRBM site (the first of three to be identified).
106 The range of the SS-5 was 2,531 miles, double that of the SS-4. It could reach any point
in the United States except for the Pacific Northwest. (Although the sites were under
construction, no SS-5s reached Cuba. They were on ships that turned back.)
By Oct. 19, US intelligence had discovered 16 operational SS-4 launchers, 22 Il-28
bombers, 24 SA-2 SAM sites, and a nuclear warhead storage bunker.
In his memoirs, Khrushchev blustered, “We hadn’t had time to deliver all our shipments to
Cuba, but we had installed enough missiles already to destroy New York, Chicago, and
the other huge industrial cities, not to mention the little village of Washington.”
Some Administration advisors agonized that Cuba was within its rights as a sovereign
nation in permitting an ally to install nuclear missiles. Kennedy understood, however, that
a nuclear missile threat 90 miles off the Florida coast could not be tolerated.
Showdown
The public learned of the crisis when President Kennedy spoke to the nation on television.
He said that the United States would “regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba
against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the
United States, requiring a full retaliatory response against the Soviet Union.”
He also announced a naval “quarantine” of Cuba, avoiding the term “blockade,” which is
an act of war. The Organization of American States supported the quarantine.
For the first time in history, Strategic Air Command went to DEFCON 2, one step short
of general war. Up to a third of the B-52s were on airborne alert, and the rest of the
fleet was ready to take off in 15 minutes. The North American Air Defense Command
moved fighter-interceptors and Hawk and Nike Hercules anti-aircraft battalions to the
southeastern United States.
While the U-2s continued to work at high altitude, other Air Force and Navy aircraft flew
photo missions over Cuba at lower altitudes. The Air Force RF-101 used six cameras that
could photograph the missile sites from treetop level.
There was some talk of a “surgical strike” to take the missiles out, but with the capabilities
and bombing accuracies of the day, that was not to be. The Air Force told the President
that it would take hundreds of sorties to be sure of getting 90 percent of the missiles.
That was a no go.
Meanwhile, Castro—who had been steadily ignored by both the Russians and the
Americans—was growing impatient. He had anti-aircraft guns of his own scattered around
the island, and he ordered the Cuban gunners to shoot down the American airplanes. The
Soviet ambassador tried to persuade Castro to cancel his order, but he refused.
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 107 That was the situation on the morning of Oct. 27, when Anderson took off from McCoy
Air Force Base in a U-2. He crossed the northern coastline of Cuba at 9:15 a.m., flew
south, over Guantanamo Bay, and then back northward. The SAM site at Banes, on the
northeastern coast, picked him up about 10 a.m.
The Cuban gunners couldn’t reach Anderson at the altitude he was flying, so the Soviet
SAM crewmen at Banes decided they ought to help their allies. The overall Soviet
commander, Gen. Issa Pliyev, could not be found at that critical moment. The SAM battery
fired three rockets, two of which hit Anderson’s U-2 and knocked it out of the sky.
There were mild reprimands from Moscow and orders not to shoot down any more U-2s.
Khrushchev lied about it, of course. “Castro gave an order to open fire, and the Cubans
shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane,” he said in his memoirs.
ExCom had decided earlier that if a U-2 were shot down, the SAM site would be attacked
and destroyed. Accordingly, the Air Force prepared an F-100 strike on Banes, but President
Kennedy would not allow it.
A week after the shootdown, the Cubans turned over Anderson’s body to a United Nations
representative. Kennedy personally ordered the Air Force to award posthumously to
Anderson the Air Force Cross—the first ever presented.
End Game
On Oct. 27, the same day Anderson was shot down, the Air Force put its first 10 Minuteman
I missiles on alert at Malmstrom AFB, Mont. It was another reminder to Khrushchev that
he was years away from achieving strategic parity with the United States, and he knew it.
“We could see that we had to reorient our position swiftly,” he said in Khrushchev
Remembers, claiming fear that Kennedy would not be able to control the warlike US
military leaders. He notified Kennedy, “We agree to remove our missiles and bombers on
the condition that the President give us his assurance that there would be no invasion of
Cuba.”
Khrushchev pulled back from the confrontation in a Radio Moscow broadcast Oct. 28,
declaring that he had ordered “the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as
‘offensive,’ and their crating, and return to the Soviet Union.”
“Eyeball to eyeball, they blinked first,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a reporter.
That was so, but the United States also made a concession, which was not announced.
The Jupiter missiles would be pulled out of Turkey.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy told Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, backchannel, that “within a short time after this crisis was over, those missiles would be gone.”
It was no great loss to the United States or NATO. The Jupiters were obsolete, and the
mission they were performing was taken over by Polaris nuclear submarines.
108 Photoreconnaissance on Nov. 1 confirmed that the MRBM sites had been bulldozed.
Ships began taking missiles and other equipment back to the Soviet Union on Nov. 5.
SAC went back to its normal alert posture on Nov. 20, and the naval quarantine ended.
Khrushchev was removed from power in 1964. The reasons were mostly domestic, but
the Cuban missile fiasco had cost him support.
Years later, it was revealed that, in addition to the missiles, there had been 40,000 Soviet
troops in Cuba, many more than the US had estimated. There were also about 20 nuclear
warheads in Cuba, although none of them had been mounted on the missiles.
On Nov. 26, at Homestead AFB, Fla., Kennedy presented the
He also visited and thanked Navy fliers at Key West, Fla.
“I may say, gentlemen, that you take excellent pictures and I have seen a good many of
them, beginning with the photographs which were taken on the weekend in the middle of
October which gave us the conclusive proof of the buildup of offensive weapons in Cuba,”
Kennedy said to the U-2 crews.
“The 4080th contributed as much to the security of the United States as any unit in our
history and any group of men in our history.”
Airpower through the Cold War, Part I 109