Background
Stratemeyer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States on November 24, 1890. He was the son of George Stratemeyer, an army officer, and Belle Rettig.
( Contains the diary of Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, t...)
Contains the diary of Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, the Far East Air Forces commander during the Korean War. Edited by William T.Y'Blood primarily to make the text more readable. Covers the period from June 25, 1950 to May 20, 1951.
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Stratemeyer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States on November 24, 1890. He was the son of George Stratemeyer, an army officer, and Belle Rettig.
He spent most of his boyhood in Peru, Indiana, where he attended high school. In June 1915 he graduated from the United States Military Academy in the class that included Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley.
In 1924 he returned to West Point as an instructor in tactics; six years later he graduated from the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, Virginia, and in 1932 from the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he stayed until 1936 as an instructor. In 1939 he graduated from the Army War College.
After earning his wings in 1917 at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, Stratemeyer served successively at Kelly Field, Texas, Chanute Field, Illinois, and Luke Field, Hawaii. In 1920 he transferred to the Army Air Service.
Promoted to lieutenant colonel in June 1936, he took command of the Seventh Bombardment Group at Hamilton Field, California.
In 1941 he became executive officer for the Chief of Air Corps in Washington. He briefly commanded the Southeast Air Corps Training Center at Maxwell Field, Alabama, in 1942, returning to Washington, in June of that year to become chief of the Air Staff.
After the beginning of World War II, Stratemeyer's assignment in August 1943 to the China-Burma-India Theater challenged his considerable diplomatic and administrative skills. Originally intended to be theater air commander, he was assigned instead to the India-Burma sector because of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's objection to any change in the independent status of Major General Claire L. Chennault, then commander of the Fourteenth Air Force in China. Stratemeyer's responsibilities included command of the Tenth Air Force in India-Burma and the theater Air Service Command, supply and maintenance of the Fourteenth Air Force, protection of the Hump air route to China, and coordination of the Air Transport Command's theaterwide operations.
In Burma, the first half of 1944 saw the emergence of a new mode of warfare: extended ground operations sustained by air supply and transportation. Its most novel features were long-range penetration and commando operations behind enemy lines, using transports and gliders in unescorted night landings on jungle air strips.
In April, to stem the Japanese encirclement of Imphal, India, two British divisions were flown from the Arakan (Burma) hundreds of miles to the south. Stratemeyer's allied Troop Carrier Command enabled 28, 000 British and 30, 000 Indian troops to sustain combat for three months entirely by air supply.
Stratemeyer proposed a plan in September 1943 for using the new, long-range B-296 to bomb Japan. It provided for basing the bombers in India and staging them through smaller advanced bases in eastern China, thus minimizing the burden on air supply over the Hump.
This feature was embodied in the plan (known as Matterhorn) approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in November, and Stratemeyer was briefly considered to command the operation. Ultimately B-29 operations were directed from Washington, Matterhorn was overtaken by the swift pace of American advances in the Pacific, and most B-29 raids were launched from the Marianas. After the collapse of Japanese resistance in Burma in the spring of 1945, Stratemeyer prepared to redeploy his U. S. air forces to China (now a separate theater), where the Japanese had captured most of the East China bases.
In July, promoted to lieutenant general, Stratemeyer was given command of all American air forces in that theater, including the Fourteenth Air Force following Chennault's resignation. Stratemeyer directed the air support of the summer offensives that ended with Japan's surrender in August. After supervising the massive eastward air redeployment of some 200, 000 Chinese Nationalist troops, Stratemeyer returned to the United States in March 1946, where he was assigned to command the Air Defense Command (renamed the Continental Air Command in 1948).
In April 1949 he went to Tokyo to command the Far East Air Forces of the United States (FEAF). When the North Korean army invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, Stratemeyer was high above the Pacific returning from conferences in Washington, D. C. By the time he landed, South Korean (ROK) forces were in full retreat, American residents were being evacuated, and President Harry S. Truman had ordered United States naval and air forces into action south of the thirty-eighth parallel.
On June 29 Stratemeyer persuaded General Douglas MacArthur, the Far East commander, to extend United States air operations into North Korea as a prerequisite to gaining control of the air. The president subsequently confirmed the order and also directed United States ground forces to support ROK troops. By the end of July, Stratemeyer's air forces, together with navy carriers and Marine Corps aviation, had driven the North Korean air force from the skies.
During the fighting on the upper Naktong River in mid-August, almost 100 of Stratemeyer's heavy bombers, under MacArthur's orders, carpet-bombed a twenty-seven-square-mile area where 40, 000 Communist troops were believed to be concentrated, dropping 1, 000 tons of bombs in twenty-six minutes. It was the most massive operation of its kind since the Normandy invasion, but the results were inconclusive.
Stratemeyer recommended that no similar effort be undertaken in the future except as a measure of desperation. Following the successful landings at Inchon behind enemy lines in mid-September 1950, MacArthur's forces drove northward toward the Yalu River. During the advance, Chinese armies, beginning in mid-October, moved into North Korea on MacArthur's left flank, escaping detection by American air reconnaissance through expert camouflage, bad weather, and cover of darkness. MacArthur's final offensive in late November was halted, and United Nations forces retreated pell-mell southward across the thirty-eighth parallel, suffering very heavy losses. A major threat posed by China's entry into the war was the Soviet swept-wing jet fighter, the MIG-15, which in 1950 and 1951 was supplied to China in unprecedented numbers. It quickly proved superior to all its American counterparts except the F-86 (Sabre). Operating from bases just across the Yalu in Manchuria and later south of it as well, the MIG's challenged American air superiority over northwestern Korea, especially in "MIG Alley" along the Yalu north of the Chongchon River. For several weeks after the long retreat south, Stratemeyer's Sabres were based too far away to escort bombing missions to the far north. Through superior pilot skill, tactics, and coordination, however, FEAF was able to check the buildup of Chinese air power over North Korea, so that Communist ground offensives in May and June received little help from the air.
Stratemeyer's air forces were, however, unsuccessful in their efforts to cripple the superb Chinese logistical support system. Stratemeyer was not involved in the dispute over war strategy that led to MacArthur's dismissal by President Truman in April 1951.
On May 20, 1951, Stratemeyer suffered a severe heart attack, and the following November retired from military service. He died in 1969.
George Edward Stratemeyer for his distinguished service was promoted to the rank of a lieutenant general in 1945. After the establishment of the allied Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) under Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten late in 1943, Stratemeyer also became deputy commander (under a British air marshal) of the American and British air forces. He exercised operational control of all SEAC air forces. For the remainder of World War II Stratemeyer directed air operations, first in Burma, later in China.
( Contains the diary of Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, t...)
An ardent anti-Communist, he also served that year as chairman of Ten Million Americans Mobilizing for Justice, a group formed to oppose the censure of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Stratemeyer died in Orlando, Florida.
He was, however, intensely loyal to MacArthur, whom he regarded as one of history's greatest commanders, and he believed MacArthur's recall was a capitulation to Communist influences in Washington. But Stratemeyer never questioned the political authority of the president.
He married Annalee Rix in August 1916.
