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  Curtis LeMay saw SAC headquarters at Andrews as the Russians saw it: their top target, the one installation that, if allowed to carry out its primary task, could cause the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to cease to exist. And wasn’t it handy that SAC planted its flag right near Washington, just a few minutes inland for a modern aircraft streaking in from the ocean? Hell, if war came, the base might not even survive the back blast from whatever array of nukes the Soviets unloaded on Washington proper. Andrews Air Force Base amounted to a staked goat, a sacrifice. LeMay had no intention of beginning World War III with his command post blown away.

  Thus LeMay saw Nebraska in classic real estate terms: location, location, location. He wanted a place smack in the middle of the continental United States, as far as possible from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and midway between the Canadian and Mexican borders. Those Russian bombers might get there someday. But they’d have to work for it.

  Mapmakers pinpointed the exact center of the continental United States as 98° 35' longitude and 39° 50' latitude, an open field near Lebanon, Kansas, not far from the Nebraska border.11 “X” marked the spot. Putting something out there in the middle of nowhere would take a lot of work, and a lot of time. LeMay demanded a solution way faster than that. He found one. If you went just 160 miles to the northeast, Nebraska offered a ready-made alternative: Offutt Air Force Base, just south of Omaha.12 That would do.

  The move to Offutt happened very quickly, weeks after LeMay assumed command. A plan had been in the works, but LeMay moved out in his usual way—immediately. By November 9, SAC had its command center up and running in Nebraska. The airmen set up in Administrative Building A, a three-story structure affiliated with the shuttered Glenn L. Martin bomber plant. During World War II, that massive factory complex churned out its own B-26 Marauder medium bombers and B-29 Superfortresses on license from Boeing. Among its 515 B-29s produced were Enola Gay and Bockscar, the mission aircraft for the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.13 In that sense, America’s atomic bombers came home.

  The move to Offutt turned out to be the first of many that made SAC the formidable nuclear-armed force it became, so powerful that it took the motto “Peace Is Our Profession.” The message was stark. The Russians wouldn’t dare attack. If they did, they’d be eradicated. LeMay commanded SAC for nearly nine years. When he took over, the organization comprised 450 piston-engine bombers with a war plan to deliver 133 atomic bombs on 70 Soviet targets. When LeMay left in June of 1957, the command fielded 1,655 jet bombers ready to drop 1,655 thermonuclear bombs, each one up to a thousand times more potent than the Hiroshima type, on 954 Soviet targets. After a maximum effort, all that would be left of the USSR would be what one officer called “a smoking, radiating ruin.”14

  And what of Offutt Air Force Base? Once the “go code” went out, its primary purpose would be fulfilled. It then became expendable. As LeMay departed in 1957, SAC moved into its purpose-built Building 500, complete with a three-story deep sub-basement command post. Of course, the advent of thermonuclear hydrogen bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, like the Russian rocket that launched Sputnik that year, meant Building 500’s underground bunker wouldn’t last long even with a near miss. Plus, those hostile missiles could arrive in thirty minutes. To prevent a bolt from the blue, SAC began to keep a relay of command jets aloft 24/7, code-named “Looking Glass.” Even if Soviet warheads obliterated the Offutt rabbit hole, the SAC retaliatory codes would still go out through the Looking Glass.15 Lewis Carroll was unavailable for comment.

  The choice of Offutt Air Force Base as SAC headquarters elevated Omaha, Nebraska, and its quarter of a million residents from a lowly fortieth place among American population centers to number two on the USSR’s hit parade, second only to the capital city of Washington, DC.16 For the Soviet general staff, the death of the people of Omaha would amount to collateral damage, nothing personal, just business. It was a sword of Damocles ever present, if you thought about it. Most people in eastern Nebraska chose not to do so.

  They also likely gave little consideration to another by-product of SAC’s basing decision. Once SAC headquarters got up and running, Soviet foreign intelligence (KGB) and military intelligence (GRU) became very interested in Nebraska. For the entire Cold War, what happened in and around Offutt Air Force Base got plenty of attention.17 Those poking about and asking questions rarely matched the ham-handed Boris and Natasha stereotypes. When assigned an objective, KGB and GRU officers consistently ran sophisticated agent networks to find out the information they needed. Consequently, both U.S. Air Force security entities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation stayed active in and around Nebraska, particularly Omaha.

  So SAC came to Omaha. With the thunder of huge jet bombers coming and going, rattling windows and shaking roofs at all hours, the recognition that Omaha was now a USSR nuclear bull’s-eye, and the suspicion that the next person who asked you for directions could well be working for Moscow, you might think locals in eastern Nebraska would have nothing but contempt for the man who inflicted all of this on them. This seemed especially likely when the laconic LeMay, curt indeed, answered a welcoming journalist’s question about what it all meant. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing to Omaha, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me.”18 So there.

  Nevertheless, they liked him. In so many ways, Curtis LeMay struck Nebraskans as one of their own. He reminded you of the guy who fixed your car: grease on rough hands, brow furrowed, wrench sticking out of a side pocket. Don’t even think about skimping on paying the bill. He’d sock you. No small talk, no BS, just work. Whereas the regal General William C. Westmoreland looked like he belonged at a full-dress parade, Curtis LeMay matched the other kind of commander, the one you’d call up for a desperate battle, a death struggle. His square, determined face, often decorated with a protruding cigar, topped a football player’s physique. Although only five feet, eight inches tall, he looked much bigger. He seemed solid, all muscle, and all aimed at getting things done. LeMay gave you the impression he’d smash right through a wall to go where he needed to go. He’d make things happen, this one.

  LeMay made himself. His Ohio parents worked for a living, and although Curtis considered West Point, the U.S. Military Academy did not consider him. So he went to Ohio State University, worked at a local steel mill, majored in civil engineering, and gained his commission as a second lieutenant in 1928. He sought flight school and excelled in the air. Uniquely among the small U.S. Army Air Corps of the Depression era, LeMay qualified as a pilot and navigator, and could carry out the bombardier’s duties, too. He also learned how to repair aircraft, tune the radios, and serve as a turret gunner. His hands were usually dirty. In 1937–38, he flew some of the first training runs with the big new Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.19 LeMay knew that aircraft cold. No man could outfly or outwork him.

  LeMay was still a first lieutenant as late as 1940, as America prepared for war. He moved up quickly thereafter: captain in early 1940, major by 1941, lieutenant colonel and colonel within months in 1942, then one-star general by 1943. He earned his promotions in the deadly skies over occupied Europe. Never one for lectures or grandstanding, LeMay focused on flying. He drilled his air crews relentlessly. They learned to assemble quickly above the soup of foggy England, fly in tight formations, almost wingtip to wingtip, and use their onboard machine gun turrets to defend each other. Above all, they worked on bombing. In theory, the top-secret Norden bombsight allowed a B-17 to “put a bomb in a pickle barrel” from five miles up. But that presumed pickle barrel wasn’t defended by skilled Luftwaffe fighter pilots. In reality, a bombardment group’s lead bombardier did the aiming. The other guys, jokingly called “toggleers,” flipped a switch once they saw the first plane unload. It made a ragged pattern on the ground. LeMay taught his group to stay tight in their combat box formation.20 Close in the air, close on target—he preached it, taught it, and demanded it.

  LeMay didn’t send his crews out. He led them. He piloted th
e lead B-17. LeMay understood that it all came down to bombs on target. He taught his fliers to press on. Once they started the bombing run, neither flak bursts nor marauding Messerschmitt fighters could divert LeMay’s airmen from their ominous task. His 305th Bombardment Group never turned back. They made it to their targets every time, and regularly put twice as many bombs on their aim points as any other group. The crude bombsights and light bombs of 1943 lacked accuracy and hitting power. Able German defenders exacted a high price. But the 305th set the standard. By the fall, LeMay was leading the entire 3rd Air Division of seven groups.21 He didn’t look back.

  Men died in the air over Germany: 37,500 Americans, 60,000 British and Commonwealth crewmen. People died on the ground, some 593,000. The Americans flew by day, tried to hit individual factories, and in so doing tore up complete German city blocks with high explosives. The British Royal Air Force flew by night and endeavored to burn out factories and workers’ housing. Together, the Allies blew apart and broiled the enemy’s aircraft plants and oil refineries. They paralyzed German rail and road networks. Twice—at Hamburg in July of 1943 and Dresden in February of 1945—British incendiary munitions and American high explosives hit hard enough, in sufficient volume, and in the right weather conditions to generate firestorms, self-sustaining vortexes that immolated entire cities. In ground combat, artilleryman William Westmoreland focused on killing enemy soldiers, the terrible arithmetic of attrition. Airman LeMay saw Westmoreland and raised him, following the path blazed by Sherman in Georgia and Sheridan in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and tried all too often on the western plains. Whole societies made modern war. So entire societies must pay the price. “I’ll tell you what war is about,” LeMay said. “You’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough, they stop fighting.”22 By May of 1945, the Germans stopped.

  Imperial Japan did not. When the sleek aluminum-bright Boeing B-29s finally arrived in numbers, they went to the Pacific theater to be used against Japan. Their unprecedented range allowed them to reach the Japanese home islands from China to the west and the hard-won island airfields of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian to the east. But the mighty Superfortresses proved ineffective. Many of Japan’s industrial facilities were small and well dispersed, dependent on piecework handed out in urban neighborhoods. Tokyo alone hosted 45,000 of these microfactories. In the winter of 1944–45, low clouds and rain squalls obscured Japan’s cities three weeks out of four. For the high-flying B-29 formations, weather up at 30,000 feet featured something unexpected, a 200-mile-an-hour wind sheer known as the jet stream.23 The damn bombs went everywhere.

  Enter Major General Curtis E. LeMay. When he took command of the B-29 force, he learned to fly the streamlined, ultramodern Superfortress, leading his men as usual. Right away, he realized that the standard methods developed in Europe didn’t work for Japan. Determined to get the ineffective air campaign on track, LeMay asked his battlewise subordinates what they thought. He listened. He studied meteorological charts and bomb damage photos. And he looked hard at the gleaming B-29s. Just what could these things really do?

  LeMay checked again with his intelligence officers. It appeared the Japanese didn’t field many short-range antiaircraft guns. Their fighter planes were optimized to climb up and fight in the thin air. They had only a few radar sets, and no real night fighters. And the island country’s production methods—the key industrial targets—relied on piece workers living in the densely packed streets of timber-framed houses. In the capital city of Tokyo, 98 percent of the structures were made of flammable wood. What if LeMay threw out the rule books from the U.S. air war over Germany? Strip down the B-29s. Leave behind most of the machine guns, most of the gunners, and the extra fuel tanks. Load up on incendiary bombs, like the British at Hamburg and Dresden. Go in low, under 10,000 feet. Maybe ease down to 5,000 feet. Go at night.

  LeMay thought hard. He even conjured up a scene from the American Civil War. What might Major General Ambrose Burnside have told the mother of a dead Union soldier after Fredericksburg? We remember Burnside as a callous bumbler. In December of 1862, he took a gamble, pushing the Army of the Potomac up the heights into the teeth of Confederate guns. It failed utterly.24 Was LeMay about to make the same kind of fatal mistake?

  This time he could not pilot the lead plane. LeMay had been briefed on the atomic bomb. His flying days were over. So on March 9, he watched from a Guam runway as 334 B-29s took off into the setting sun, headed for Tokyo. Hours later, just after midnight in Japan, the American aircraft came in low, fast, and heavy with incendiaries. Twenty-seven B-29s didn’t come back. But the others did gruesome execution, dumping enough munitions to kindle a massive fire tornado, Hamburg and Dresden squared. The howling gusts pulled victims into the raging inferno. When the fires finally burned out four days later, sixteen square miles of Tokyo were gone. So were 83,793 people.25 Even with atomic weapons, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki equaled that apocalyptic toll.

  Tokyo opened the fire-bombing campaign. LeMay’s bombers kept it up. They gutted city after city, more than sixty in all, 178 square miles of desolation and 330,000 dead.26 The two A-bombs in August punctuated a rain of horror that broke the proud Japanese. LeMay and his airmen had killed enough. The opponents stopped fighting.

  In the Soviet Union after 1945, as the Cold War grew frigid; Russian leaders knew only too well the saga of the fire raids. They saw in Curtis LeMay a commander who would pull the atomic trigger, and they knew it because he already had. A man who could lay waste to Tokyo, Yokohama, and Nagoya could do the same to Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. Yes, SAC’s nuclear arms provided a deterrent, an assurance that a Soviet attack would be answered by total destruction. Curtis LeMay gave deterrence a face, and a grimly determined one at that.

  Long after World War II, it’s easy to sit in a comfortable living room and paint Curtis LeMay as a heartless, knuckle-dragging monster, especially in light of his role in the Cold War, drilling his fliers to unleash Armageddon. And yet in our self-assured ex post facto moralizing we miss something important. Few men understood the horrors of war better than LeMay. Like others who had been there and done that, leaders who knew what it was like to shoot and be shot at—Grant, Sherman, Sheridan—LeMay understood that vicious as modern war was, it was better to get in, get on with it, and get it over. That’s doubly true in a country where the citizens run the show. General of the Army George C. Marshall, the great strategist of World War II and veteran of World War I and the ugly Philippine Insurrection, argued that “a democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War.”27 Amen. In LeMay’s view, you did no favors by dragging it out. Use the big hammer. Finish it.

  Curtis LeMay realized only too well how bad it could be. Like thousands of his airmen, LeMay made the long, cold, deadly runs over the targets. He’d watched bombers spinning down in flames, armless men tumbling through the thin air, comrades blown to dust in a single flak blast. LeMay knew the deal. He’d been there. He stood in quiet communion, sharing what went unsaid, as bomber crewmen came back from that first awful Tokyo raid silent, faces slack, eyes wide. Many had worn their oxygen masks, not needed below 10,000 feet, but only too necessary to block out the sickly sweet stench of roasting human flesh. Brown soot and a peppering of gritty flecks (wood? paper? skin?) coated the bottoms of their silver planes.28

  And behind them? Below? Well, don’t even think about it. That was the answer, maybe the only answer. Stay busy. Keep working. Focus on the next mission. And the next. Go at it every day. And when the war ended, keep going. Keep doing what had to be done. Handle the next problem: height of burst, aerial refueling, where to put SAC headquarters, how many B-52s to build.

  What did LeMay think about it? What did his airmen think about it? Like most combat veterans, they tried not to do so. And they sure as hell didn’t talk about it.

  CHARLES DEAN HAGEL never talked about bombing Japan. He certainly took pride in his service. For a few years, he commanded American Legion Post 79 in Ainsworth, Nebraska, where he and his fello
w veterans and their families gathered. They said the Pledge of Allegiance, carried the flag in local parades, and wore their distinctive Legion campaign caps. But late in the evening, after the wives took the children home to bed, when the blue haze of cigarette smoke lingered and the shots and beers went down one more time, the young men with old eyes said some things. The marine who’d hugged the black sand of Iwo Jima, the tank sergeant who’d pulled his stricken Sherman from a shell hole at Anzio, the submarine sailor who’d sweated out a depth charge attack in the Bungo Strait, and Hagel the B-24 tail gunner—well, they all talked a bit, usually about practical jokes, or stupid officers, or exotic sights. Never about the worst things. You didn’t have to say them. These guys knew. So you drained the stale beers and stubbed out the smokes and headed home. And next Saturday night you’d do it again.

  Charles Hagel was just eighteen when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. His father, Charles Leo Hagel, known to all as Charlie, served in the Great War. So did Charlie’s two brothers, both so badly wounded that they drew disability stipends and still lived at home with their mother, Bertha, and the Hagel patriarch, Herman Christian, who spoke English with the strong accent of his native Germany. Herman, another immigrant homesteader among many, settled in Rushville. The very name Hagel, German for hail, suggested an elemental force of nature. Sometimes, if pressed, the old man’s temper erupted. But as a rule, Grandpa Herman kept it all well in hand. He epitomized the discipline of hard work. Herman drove a wagon for a living. Near the end of the Indian Wars, Grandpa Hagel often carried supplies north to Fort Robinson, Camp Sheridan, and the other U.S. Army posts rimming the Pine Ridge Reservation just across the state boundary in South Dakota.29 Two counties east of his grandparents in Rushville, Charles Dean Hagel grew up in Ainsworth. There was no doubt that when the army called, he’d go. That’s what Nebraskans did. That’s what Hagels did.