9781422280201

turned out some of the best aircraft of the entire war. Aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang long- range fighter and the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber were vital in bringing enemy air forces and industry to their knees. By mid-1944, U.S. and Allied air forces had complete air superiority over both Germany and Japan. Indeed, it was U.S. air power that finally brought World War II to an end, when the USAAF B-29 Superfortresses dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. An Independent Air Force WorldWar II proved the value of U.S. air power. Although many units were disbanded as the conflict ended, the government recognized that the USAAF should have a new status. On September 18, 1947, the USAF was officially formed as a separate command and given equality with the Army and the Navy. General Carl A. Spaatz was the first USAF chief of staff. As the world war ended, the Cold War began. After 1949, the year in which the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, one of the main roles of the USAF was to defend against or deploy nuclear weapons. The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was created in 1946. Its mission was to launch nuclear-capable bombers against the Soviet Union in the event of a nuclear war. To perform this role, the USAF created new long-range bombers, including the B-36 Peace- maker and, later, the enormous B-52 Stratofortress. In the 1960s, SAC also took over control of many of the United States’ intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), designed to be launched from silos on the U.S. mainland. Nuclear-weapons deployment was only one aspect of the new Air Force. By 1950, it was back in conventional air-combat roles with the onset of the Korean War (1950–1953). In Korea, jet aircraft clashed for the first time in combat, with the USAF represented by the North American F-86 Sabre and North Korea by MiG 15 jets. The battle was close-fought—750 U.S. aircraft were destroyed in the war for over 950 North Korean and Chinese jets. During the 1950s the USAF steadily made the shift from turboprop aircraft to faster and more powerful jet aircraft, supersonic flight having already been achieved—on October 14, 1947, test pilot

D efending the S kies : T he A ir F orce

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