ARMED FORCES: Operation Powerhouse

Nearing the end of a Denver speech reviewing the history of U.S. military aviation, Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan F. Twining last week made news heard all the way to Moscow. In a two-week period ending Dec. 11, said Twining, more than 1,000 Strategic Air Command B-47 jet bombers flew nonstop combat training missions averaging 8,000 miles each over North America and the arctic. “This is the first time that the nation’s Strategic Air Force has tested the operational capability of its strike force in such large numbers during such a short period of time. These missions demonstrated our capability to launch a retaliatory strike force in minimum time.”

Speaking for itself after Twining’s speech, SAC pointed out that “Operation Powerhouse” took place during “the change in seasons when the North American continent experiences its worst weather … On the day operations were most intense, there were three major weather fronts across the North American continent. The Civil Aeronautics Administration was hard pressed to keep abreast of all SAC and civilian air traffic.” Despite such difficulties, tough, exacting General Curtis LeMay’s SAC put on a near-perfect display of massive, smooth-functioning air power: every plane took off on schedule, every aerial refueling (the B-47s used some 16 million gallons of fuel during the exercise) was successfully carried out at the proper time in the proper place. The only casualties: three crew members of a B-47 that crashed in western Ontario.

Perhaps the most important fact of the exercise was that Operation Powerhouse, immense as it was, represented only a part of SAC’s striking power. Excluded from the operation were SAC’s B-52s, B-36s, F-84Fs (fighters with a nuclear strike capability) and a large number of B-47s. These were held in readiness against the event of actual war—for which SAC has stood on round-the-clock guard for the last eight years.