Viet Nam Vett

I was looking thru my Corvette Anthology CD ROM and I came across a section called Corvette Top 10 People in Corvette History. He his rated #10.

Click to in large so you can read the text. Go Figure????

JL66REDCPE

Interesting information Mark --thanks

62fuelie

In the years following WWll, top ranking military brass were somewhat more highly regarded by the public than they are today. Apparently Lemay's interest in the Corvette was seen by some as a "legitimization" of the car.

Chuck Gongloff

He was also one of the chosen few to be given/sold a then NEW 1953 Corvette. His old car is still around if I remember correctly. Don't remember the VIN. Chuck

six-T-six

Interesting bit of Corvette history!

RGGregory

Bombs-away Lemay?? Ever hear of the firebombing of Dresden? He may have been a corvette guy, but if it had been left up to him we would have went to nuclear war with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis and about 10 other times when he pushed Kennedy and others to pre-emptively attack the USSR. He was a certifiable whack-job.

I think his persona was basis for George C. Scott's character in "Dr Strangelove."


[Modified by RGGregory, 9:27 PM 12/5/2003]

LT1driver

Gen LeMay was a great military leader, if you don't believe me check out history, all great leaders make some poor choices/decisions now and then. We would not most likely be the great military power and great nation today without men like LeMay, he made the Strategic Air Command what it was and kept us safe during the cold war and contributed to enabling us to become the nation we are today. :hurray:

SWCDuke

LeMay was a key thinker in the strategic bombing campaign of WW II both in Europe and Japan. Historians still argue about the degree to which strategic bombing shortened the war in both theaters, but no one with any credentials as a legitimate historian argues that it was not effective at all in shortening the war.

WW II opened a new era of "total war" where civilians were at risk from enemy bombing. The Poles and Brit experienced it first from the Luftwaffe. Also, Yamamoto's carrier based bombers killed civilians at Pearl Harbor. We later gave it back to the Japanese and Germans in spades, and LeMay was instrumental in developing and executing this strategy, but we didn't start it!

LeMay was also instrumental in developing the deterrence strategy to counter the Soviet threat during the Cold War. After he retired, LeMay wandered pretty far out in right field (he was once George Wallace' VP running mate if I recall correctly), and he got a little cranky with his public comments, but you can't discount the significant contribution he made to winning both WW II and the Cold War.

LeMay was personally acquainted with Harley Earl and encouraged Earl to build a sports car after seeing many in his command bring them back from Europe. LeMay also made SAC bases available to SCCA to set up road racing courses on taxiways and runways. He was instrumental in promulgating the sports car and sports car racing movements in the early post war era.

I'm sure we'll all get a little cranky in our old age, too. Like Patton, LeMay knew you can only win a military conflict by seizing the the initiative to attack, and like all our other great wartime leaders and planners - Patton, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Roosevelt, and Churchhill,... he made his share of blunders.

Duke, Capt. USAFR, (Ret.)
(four years in SAC)

LouieM

:iagree:
:cheers:
:flag

LT1driver

Duke, glad to see another SAC guy on the forum. :D
Mike, Major, USAF retired :cheers:

MassVette

Dresden was ordered fire- bombed by "Bomber" Harris, head of Britain's bomber command.
LeMay ordered the incendiary bombing of Tokyo.
:yesnod:

Islander21

"Dresden was ordered fire- bombed by "Bomber" Harris, head of Britain's bomber command. LeMay ordered the incendiary bombing of Tokyo."

The firebombing of Tokyo was way more spectacular in effect and results mainly because it was a wooden city, not much was left standing.

Former TAC Air Force weenie, DMV.

Goodname4ID

This is really going to stir some conversation!!! Reading about General Lemay and Corvettes stirred my memory.

I read an article years ago that explained that the very first prototype corvette (not even produced by GM) was based on a jeep frame with a fiberglass body on it :-)

Some army guy had purchased a jeep, his wife refused to drive it (pre-SUV era), so he had a local fiberglass boat company build a fiberglass body for the Jeep chassis. Some guys at GM heard about the car, purchased it from him, and based the 53 vette on that converted Jeep. this is probably an urban legend. Has anyone else heard of this Jeepster???

cheers,
:steering:

LouieM

You've remembered the basics of the story, which is not quite an urban legend. The complete and much more roundabout story is told on pages 14-16 in Karl Ludvigsen's book "Corvette, America's Star Spangled Sports Car" BTW I read somewhere that he is revising this book and that it will appear soon.

SWCDuke

I vaguely recall a story about the sports car body on the Jeep circa 1950, but I doubt if GM bought it. Prior to the Corvette in the early fifties, there were several sports cars that either went into low volume production or were available as kits to install on an existing productio chassis. One of them was the Kaiser Darrin.

Look for the 1955 movie "Johnny Dark" -described by Brock Yates as Tony Curtis' last B-movie. It also stars Piper Laurie as Johnny's love interest. It's about an open road race on the West Coast from the Canadian to Mexican border and includes a number of these early sports cars. I can't recall the actor's name who plays Johnny's antagonist, but his character name is "Duke".

I first saw this movie when I was in the eighth grade and fantacized about driving flat out on an open road ever after. I finally got to live out this fantasy in my mid- forties, when I participated in two Silver State Classic Challenges in 1989 and 1990.

The movie disappeared for years, but showed up a few years ago on American Movie Classics and a friend of mine taped it. The scipt is typically fifites hokey, but the cars are neat as is the idea of the race.

Duke


[Modified by SWCDuke, 12:29 PM 12/6/2003]

JohnZ

My (recently-deceased) uncle was a Lieutenant General, and was LeMay's Deputy Commander of SAC in the early 60's, and they were neighbors after they retired in California. LeMay was a tough bird to work for, but he got things done, and inspired people to do far more than they ever thought they were capable of.

John
Captain, U.S. Army ('62-'65)
CO, 114th Aviation Co., Vietnam (Gunship/Air Assault)
:flag

mymaur

Curtis LeMay was probably one of the 5 greatest General Officers of the 20th century. Yes he was the General that gave the order for the Dresden bombing and also the one that fire bombed Japan, my but that was harsh of him!!!

But without his leadership, advanced tactical bombing methods, inovative thinking and just plain damn good leadership, WW2 would have cost MANY more American lives and gone on for who knows how much longer. Hell, If it had been up to me, we would have put a low yield nuke into Berlin as well.

Regarding his desire to use nukes in other conflicts etc. etc. That is why there is a collective decision making process in place. So one man can't just push "the button". ANyone that thinks the President can just say, Nuke-em and the bombs start falling, does not understand the system.

Yikes, this could get ugly.

By the way The General is buried at the Air Force Academy Cemetary. I met him once in the early 70's. He was considered CINC USAF till his death. Powerful personality.

RGGregory

Gentlemen,

Sorry if I offended anyone, but I stand by my statement about Lemay. I do know history very well, and it may be Sir Arthur Harris, who also order the fire bombing of Dresden for the night time raids, since RAF Bomber Command hit the Germans and Italians (before capitulation) at night, while the US 8th Air Force bombed during the day. I'm very familiar with the history of strategic bombing development by Lemay, Harris, Billy Mitchell, etc, especially since I had a great uncle who lost his life in the "Black Thursday" (14 Oct 43) raids over Schweinfurt and a wife's whose Grandfather lost his life in a B-24 over Wilhemshaven!

I'm a student of military history (mostly naval), and a military professional (graduate of the US Naval Postgraduate School and current DON Submarine R&D Engineer), and while I understand Lemay was the right man for the right time WWII, he was not of the right temperament for the Nuclear Age, and I'll debate that point ad naseum. He, like Hyman Rickover (someone I've met and admired), were hard-nosed, hard-working men, who you either hated or loved. If anyone has listened to either the classified or unclassified tapes, or read the transcripts of the NSC discussions on the Missile Crisis would be hard-pressed to state the Lemay wasn't being VERY rash in his advice to Kennedy. Of course, we have the advantage of hindsight, and knowing that the Soviets actually had tactical nukes on the beaches on Cuba, with field-level command authorization for us. I guess I should have been gentler on the General by saying that he, like a lot of our Command Authority at that time, did not fully appreciate the full magnitude of a nuclear war - it was viewed as a survivable, and winnable affair.

Mymaur,

I fully understand how our National Command Authority functions, and am very much aware of who is able to, and exactly how special weapons release is authorized...VERY well.

Again, sorry for the uproar, and back to corvette stuff!!

Bob


[Modified by RGGregory, 11:15 PM 12/7/2003]


[Modified by RGGregory, 11:22 PM 12/7/2003]


[Modified by RGGregory, 11:23 PM 12/7/2003] :mad :D


[Modified by RGGregory, 11:26 PM 12/7/2003]


[Modified by RGGregory, 11:27 PM 12/7/2003]

Mac

The company who built a fibreglass bodied sportscar on a Jeep chassis was Glasspar out in your neck of the woods, Duke, and from what I've read, the GM executives inspected and were impressed by the vehicle. Wayne Ellwood wrote an article describing the Alembic 1 as a precursor to the Corvette. Here's a link to a website describing the Alembic 1 as well as some pictures. I have the Ellwood article in hard print and it has some excellent pictures of the car and it's designer, Bill Tritt.

Edit to add a couple more links...

1) Car & Driver article

2) American Sportscar article

3) Glasspar club article

and a pic...




[Modified by Mac, 9:04 PM 12/7/2003]

71zman

My father once told me a story about this guy that was interesting.

My dad was in the Air Force in the early 60's on a program named Corona that was the first reconnaissance spacecraft for the US. The idea was to put a camera into space, take pictures and send the rolls of film back to earth to be picked up by a airplane. My dad was selected to brief General Le May on the project. He said he went into the briefing room and Le May was sitting there chomping on his cigar. My dad gave a hour long briefing of the project and Le May did not say a word for the entire briefing. When it was completed, Le May stood up, looked my dadm in the eye, and said in his gruff manner, that this was the dumbest idea he had ever heard of and walked out of the room. So much for this guy being a visionary. It makes me wonder about the Corvette stories...... :confused: