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Strategic Air Command

On 21 March 1946 the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was divided into three separate commands: Tactical Air Command (TAC), Air Defense Command (ADC), and Strategic Air Command (SAC). SAC's original headquarters was Bolling Field, the headquarters of the disbanded Continental Air Force, in Washington, DC. Its first commander was General George C. Kenney

SAC's original mission statement, expressed by General Carl Spaatz, then commanding general of the USAAF, was: The Strategic Air Command will be prepared to conduct long-range offensive operations in any part of the world, either independently or in co-operation with land and naval forces; to conduct maximum-range reconnaissance over land or sea, either independently or in co-operation with land and naval forces; to provide combat units capable of intense and sustained combat operations employing the latest and most advanced weapons; to train units and personnel of the maintenance of the Strategic Forces in all parts of the world; to perform such special missions as the Commanding General Army Air forces may direct.

After World War II and demobilization of the armed forces, readiness in the Air Force Reserve declined. To address this issue, the Air Force formed the Continental Air Command in December 1948 to direct the Reserve from headquarters at Mitchel Air Force Base, N.Y. CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES

That mission makes no specific reference to nuclear weapons, which in any case SAC did not yet possess. In the wake of World War II, the U.S. underwent a major drawdown of military forces, and the few USAAF units involved in the dropping of the atomic bombs were not spared.

SAC retained its organization and mission after the USAAF became the United States Air Force on 18 September 1947. From 9 November 1948, its headquarters was moved to Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue, Nebraska. In October 1948 General Curtis LeMay took over as commander of SAC, and set about a dramatic rebuilding of the command's forces, as well as their mission. LeMay, who had masterminded the American attacks on the Japanese mainland during the war (including the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities), was a staunch believer in the power of strategic bombing: the destruction of an enemy's cities and industrial centers. LeMay believed that the existence of the atomic bomb made this type of warfare the only workable strategy, rendering battlefield conflicts essentially obsolete.

Under LeMay's command, SAC became the cornerstone of American national strategic policy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which was based on nuclear deterrence. SAC's motto became "Peace is Our Profession," symbolizing the intention to maintain peace through the threat of overwhelming force.

Although World War II did not make refueling seem urgent to U.S. military leaders, the Cold War was another story. Several events spawned this shift in thinking. First, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) came into being on March 21, 1946. This group was responsible for delivering nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, but all it could rely on were piston-driven B-29 bombers, which lacked intercontinental range. Then the U.S. government created the Air Force as a separate service on September 18,1947. Carl Spaatz, now a general and the Air Force’s chief of staff, assigned top priority to in-flight refueling in January 1948.

The Air Force sent Gen. Jimmy Doolittle to Britain to investigate Flight Refuelling Limited and its apparatus. Doolittle had long been familiar with airborne innovations. In 1922 he had flown from Florida to California, making just one stop along the way—for refueling, of course. In 1929 he’d made the first instruments-only flight, lifting off, flying a prescribed route, and then landing with a hood covering the cockpit windows the whole time. And in April 1942 he had led the famous bomber raid on Tokyo that boosted Allied morale tremendously.

Doolittle came back with an enthusiastic report. On June 30, 1948, the Air Force activated its first two refueling units, the 43rd Air Refueling Squadron, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Arizona, and the 509th Air Refueling Squadron, at Roswell Air Field, in New Mexico. Late that year each unit received B-29s modified as tankers, which were called KB-29Ms. SAC wasted little time in showcasing its new capabilities. In December 1948 a SAC B-50 flew 9,870 miles in 41 hours and 40 minutes, during which it was refueled three times by KB-29M tankers.

SAC didn’t stop there. From February 26 to March 2,1949, Capt. James Gallagher flew nonstop around the world in 94 hours and 1 minute in the Lucky Lady II, a SAC B-50. The plane refueled four times along the way, over the Azores, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, and Hawaii. After that flight Gen. Curtis LeMay, the commander of SAC, said, “We can now deliver an atomic bomb to any place in the world that requires an atomic bomb.”

Although SAC’s system looked good to observers, in-flight refueling was still unsophisticated. The method in use required a crewman to connect the hose manually in an unpressurized compartment. That limited the system to lower altitudes, where planes fly less efficiently because of thicker air. In addition, the system could transfer only 200 gallons of fuel per minute, and SAC wanted 600. It also failed in severe cold because the hose froze on the reel. The shortcomings in the approach led to a long-running duel between refueling systems. In 1948 Boeing started testing its flying boom, an extendable pipe equipped with ruddervators—essentially little wings—to fly it into position. A year later Flight Refuelling Limited tested its new probe-and-drogue method. In this technique, a tanker dangles a flexible hose that ends in a drogue, which looks like a giant shuttlecock with its open end outward. The receiver is equipped with a spear-tip-shaped probe. To transfer fuel, the receiver flies up behind the tanker and inserts the probe into the drogue.

The Air Force tested the probe and drogue in December 1949 in Project Outing. It put probes on B-29s and Republic F-84 Thunderjets and outfitted a B-29 as a tanker that pulled a drogue from its tail section. The Air Force also modified a YKB-29T tanker with three drogues, one from the tail and one on each wingtip, so it could simultaneously refuel three planes (earning it the nickname Triple Nipple). Although these tests went well, on October 19,1949, the Air Force put out a press release about the other system, the flying boom, that stated: “It is expected that the new system, developed for the Air Force by the Boeing Airplane Company, Seattle, Wash., will alleviate some of the difficulties of the existing method.” Less than a year later Biggs Air Force Base, in Texas, received the first KB-29P, which was a B-29 converted to a tanker with a flying boom.

By the end of 1950 SAC needed a faster tanker, one that could keep up with Boeing’s B-47 Stratojet bomber. At that time the aeronautics industry offered few planes that were large enough to serve as tankers and fast enough to keep up with the jet-age military. To get more tanker speed, SAC selected Boeing’s KC-97 Stratofreighter, which was based on the B-29. The KC-9 7 could outrun previous tankers, but its maximum speed when fully loaded still lagged behind a B-47’s minimum speed. Consequently, some refuelings between a KC-97 and a B-47 demanded a so-called toboggan maneuver, in which the tanker flies at a downward angle to pick up speed and the jet follows along the same path while reducing its thrust. Besides being hard to coordinate, the toboggan maneuver wasted fuel. The receiving plane could end up using half the fuel it had taken on just to get back to its former altitude.

Even as the technology was still being modified, tankers saw action in the Korean War. On July 6, 1951, a KB-29M flown by a SAC crew refueled four Lockheed F-8 O Shooting Stars over North Korea. This appears to have been the world’s first combat refueling. A few days later a KB-29P used a flying boom to refuel a North American RB-45C Tornado photoreconnaissance plane.

KB-29M, originally, B-29-60-BW, S/N 44-69710 "Homogenized Ethyl" of the 43rd Air Refueling Squadron.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base

Davis-Monthan became a military base in 1925, but its origins can be traced to the earliest days of civil aviation. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh, fresh from his non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, flew his "Spirit of St. Louis" to Tucson to dedicate Davis-Monthan Field — then the largest municipal airport in the United States.

The base was named in honor of Lieutenants Samuel H. Davis and Oscar Monthan, two Tucsonans and World War I era pilots who died in separate military aircraft accidents. Davis, who died in a Florida aircraft accident in 1921, attended the University of Arizona prior to enlisting in the Army in 1917. Monthan enlisted in the Army as a private in 1917, was commissioned as a ground officer in 1918 and later became a pilot. He was killed in a crash of a Martin bomber in Hawaii in 1924.

In 1940, with a war cloud on the horizon, the field was selected for expansion. During World War II, D-M served as an operational training base for B-18 "Bolos," and B-24 "Liberator" and, nearing the war's end, B-29 "Superfortress." With the end of the war, operations at the base came to a virtual standstill. It was then the base was selected as a storage site for hundreds of decommissioned aircraft, particularly the excess B-29s and C-47 "Gooney Birds." Tucson's dry climate and alkali soil made it an ideal location for aircraft storage and preservation, a mission that has continued to this day.

Strategic Air Command ushered in the Cold War era at D-M in May 1946, in the form of two B-29 bombardment groups. Once again, the skies of the "old Pueblo," Tucson's nickname, were filled with the sights and sounds of the "Superfortress."

43rd Bombardment Wing

First organized as the 43rd Bombardment Wing, Very Heavy, on 17 November 1947, the newly formed wing's first task was to get the B-29s out of mothballs, make them serviceable and train crews to fly them. The new unit trained in strategic bombing with B-29 bombers at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. From November 1947 through December 1948, the unit served as a double-sized wing controlling the tactical and support components from another SAC wing. The giant B-36 Peacemaker entered SAC's inventory, so B-29 wings received new designations. In July 1948, the unit was redesignated as the 43rd Bombardment Wing (Medium).

On 19 July 1948, the 43rd and 509th Air Refueling Squadrons were activated at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, and Roswell Air Force Base, New Mexico, in preparation for the assignment of tanker aircraft. These two squadrons were the first air refueling units in the U.S. Air Force. They began receiving tanker aircraft in late 1948. These first tankers were simply B-29s modified to carry and dispense fuel while aloft. Employing the British-developed system of in-flight refueling, that is, the use of trailing hoses and grapnel hooks, these tankers were designated KB-29Ms.

By January 1, 1949, the wing was fully operational to meet SAC's global commitments. It began receiving the new B-50, a greatly improved version of the B-29 and KC-29s, the tanker version of the B-29. Aerial refueling was added to the mission. The 43rd Air Refueling Squadron was attached Feb. 10, 1951.

Boeing B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the most advanced and successful of all World War Two bombers. Conceived in the late 1930s as a high-speed, high-altitude, long-range super bomber, the first prototype B-29 did not fly until September 1942. It entered the war in time to make a significant impact, including the dropping of the two atomic bombs that led to the surrender of Japan and the end of the war. This is the complete history of this extraordinarily advanced aircraft, and includes full details of its design and manufacture and service with American and British air forces during World War Two, the Korean War and after. A well-researched and indispensable book this extraordinarily advanced and most successful of all WW2 bombers - the Superfort. Fully illustrated with black & white photographs and an eight-page color section. Written by a professional aviation history writer with twenty-four books to his credit.

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