Curtis LeMay Quotes
The B-29 engines have more bugs than the insect collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
The production of military equipment and supplies during WWII was little short of miraculous. The military procurement and contractor delivery was one of the major factors in our winning the war. However there were mistakes and one of the worst was the engines of the B-29 heavy bombers. Many American airmen died or were injured as a result of these defects. One of the worst was that to save weight so more bombs could be loaded, many of the parts of the B-29 engines were made of magnesium. The unanticipated consequence was that if the engines caught on fire, there was no way to put the fire out—in the air or on the ground. The magnesium was very flammable and burned at such a high temperature that there was no remedy for the fire which spread faster than fires in engines without magnesium. However, in the midst of the war, those planes had to fly with the risky engines. Fortunately the atom bomb was detonated ending the war and the B-29s could then be retrofitted.
Curtis LeMay, 1906-1990, Air Force Chief of Staff, Vice Presidential Candidate, American Independent Party 1945, d
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was referring to the famous Eisenhower quotation of 1961. See {641114}.
See {615006} for but one example of terrible military money and procurement management.
The relationship between the Embassy and the contractor was so twisted and corrupt that the contractor’s on site manager in Iraq threatened to have Richter killed if he continued to probe into the documents that would incriminate them. In the midst of a war zone where the contractor was responsible for providing armed security for the State department personnel—see the graphic—including Richter, it would have been very easy to arrange. Blackwater then arranged with the embassy to have Richter and another auditor/investigator expelled from Iraq so that they could not complete their entire investigation. The State Department began a complete investigation years later when the press discovered this memo and divulged it.
LeMay became a pursuit pilot and, while stationed in Hawaii, became one of the first members of the Air Corps to receive specialized training in aerial navigation. In August 1937, as navigator under pilot and commander Caleb V. Haynes on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, he helped locate the battleship Utah despite being given the wrong coordinates by Navy personnel, in exercises held in misty conditions off California, after which the group of B-17s bombed it with water bombs. For Haynes again, in May 1938 he navigated three B-17s 620 nm (610 miles or 980 km) over the Atlantic Ocean to intercept the Italian liner SS Rex to illustrate the ability of land-based airpower to defend the American coasts. In 1940 he was navigator for Haynes on the prototype Boeing XB-15 heavy bomber, flying a survey from Panama over the Galapagos islands. War brought rapid promotion and increased responsibility.
