Conclusion

The Kuters collectively wrote hundreds of letters during their life together. Beyond their letters to each other, they routinely wrote long missives to their families keeping them appraised of current goings-on. These letters began during Larry’s time in the Presidio and ran through his time as commander of NORAD and beyond. Beyond the letters, there were the scrapbooks, photographs, and numerous other materials that Ethel and Larry kept before donating the entirety of the collection to the Special Collections Branch of the US Air Force Academy library. Amassed together, the collection constitutes an almost daily entry of their activities from high school through retirement....

Fixing the Far East Air Forces and Creating the Pacific Air Forces

Kuter left Maxwell to take command of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF). As Lieutenant General Kuter flew to his new assignment he was promoted to full general shortly after midnight on May 29, 1955. For an officer whose first flight was in a bi-plane, the importance of assuming his ultimate final rank on a trans-oceanic flight was surely not lost on him. During his career, the United States Army Air Corps had transitioned to a truly global and independent Air Force capable flying Kuter rather comfortably to his new assignment. The Air Force, like Kuter had fully matured and reached a pinnacle thought impossible as little as a decade ago. Kuter had grown with this Air Force, molding it, organizing it, shaping it and giving it the ability to do span the globe. General Kuter helped to reorganize the command and transitioned it to the newly created Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), becoming the new unit’s first commander.

Beginnings, West Point, and Early Assignments

The first chapter functions as an introduction and early biography to Kuter. It begins by focusing on his early life, his decision to attend West Point, his time at the Academy and his graduation and marriage. Following this, it shows how a young artillery officer found an interest in airplanes and their use as aerial observation platforms. Finally, it follows the Kuter family arriving at and attending flying training in the wastelands of Texas at Brooks Field. An interesting aspect of this is how Kuter and family move from the very plush Presidio in California to the “hardly palatial” San Antonio. This chapter also introduces Mrs. Ethel Kuter, whose diaries, scrapbooks, and passion for documenting Larry’s exploits provided a rich historical record to pull from.

North Africa

Chapter Five demonstrates that Kuter’s reputation as an organizer led him to be ordered to North Africa. In January of 1943, Eisenhower consolidated his North African air power into an Allied Air Force. Eisenhower placed “Tooey” Spaatz in overall command with the U.S. Twelfth Air Force and the British Eastern Air Command under him. To help him organize the Allied Air Force Carl A. Spaatz wanted Brigadier General Laurence S. Kuter, to come to Algiers to help coordinate air units widely separated and weakly connected by centralized command. Kuter greatly aided in this and also in linking air and ground operations. In this assignment Kuter crossed paths and crossed words with ground commanders including General George Patton.

The Air Corps Tactical School

The intellectual underpinnings for the development of American air power after the First World War took place at the Air Corps Tactical School, located at Langley Field, Virginia from 1920 to 1931 and thereafter at Maxwell Field in Alabama. Chapter Two traces the true changes in air power thought and theory that began at ACTS in 1930s. Graduates of ACTS included air power luminaries included Harold George, Haywood “Possum” Hansell, Hoyt Vandenberg, George Kenney, Ira Eaker, Claire Chennault, and Kuter, “Larry” to his friends. This chapter is important because it shows these theorists, not only great thinkers, but men, who lived, laughed, argued, and drank with each other. Finally, this chapter discusses the schism that developed between the adherents of strategic bombardment theory and those who focused on pursuit (fighter) aviation. It was not just a doctrinal dispute, but one that tore friendships apart.

The Pacific, War’s End, and Air Transport Command

Kuter followed his herculean efforts in DC by going to the Marianas Islands in May 1945 to become deputy commander of Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Area, and to help operate the U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific. His work here shifted away from bombardment and into aerial transport. Kuter was eventually named commander of the new Military Air Transport Service. Kuter, as head of MATS, became involved in the earliest days of the Cold War including the Berlin Airlift. This shows the rise and importance of massive air transport as an air force mission. The same way Kuter helped give rise to important theories on bombardment, he now did the same for airlift.

The European Theater of Operations

Chapter Four follows the architects of the air war as they were shipped overseas to gain combat experience. General Hap Arnold knew that his most trusted subordinates would need combat missions on their records if they were going to be leaders in a post-war Air Force. Kuter was deployed overseas in October 1942 to take command of the First Bombardment Wing. When General Kuter assumed command he found four understrength groups of B-17's (Flying Fortresses) operating separately. He succeeded in welding the individual squadrons and groups into a coordinated fighting force. Despite his desire to stay and lead the wing, Kuter’s reputation proceeded him and he was forced to depart England only a few weeks after taking command of the wing.

The Coming War

Chapter Three is about the coming war and the invention of American air power. Kuter said on his arrival in Washington D.C. in 1939 that “One thing was apparent: whoever was running the Air Corps at that time, it wasn’t the Chief of the Air Corps.” This chapter will discuss the planning for the coming air war and the writing of Air War Planning Document-1 in only nine days. Beyond planning for an air war with an air force that did not exist, Kuter also led the effort to set up an Air Staff and in 1942 drew national attention by making a huge jump in rank. On January 5th, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and less than a month later to brigadier general on February 2nd, skipping the rank of bird colonel entirely. This made Kuter, at 36, the youngest general officer of his time and the youngest since William Sherman.

Introduction

On 30 September 1974, General Laurence S. Kuter, US Air Force retired, sat on a small chair in his apartment in Naples, Florida. He wore an open-collar button-down short-sleeved shirt and pants with a pattern of crossed golf clubs. His skin was a deep bronzed color thanks to the days in retirement spent on the golf courses of the southwestern Florida coastal city. At nearly seventy years of age, he still looked every part an air force general. With the general in his apartment sat two air force historians who were there to conduct an oral history interview to preserve the historical value of the general’s life from his earliest days through World War I and his experiences in the newly formed US Air Force of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It was part of a program that Brigadier General Kuter himself authorized in the early days of American involvement in World War I when he directed that the Air Staff Historical Section gather history “while it is hot” and that “personnel be selected and an agency set up for a clear historian’s job without axe to grind or defense to prepare.” That directive, signed in July 1942, and the documents, interviews, mission reports, and other items collected during the war became the nucleus of the official archives of the US Air Force, now held at the Air Force Historical Research Agency. This was made possible because Kuter directed that that material be collected, preserved, and archived. Kuter himself might have been unaware at the time that so much of his own story would be captured by this program and that years later his personal remembrance of events would itself be archived away as an official report....

Commander in Chief, North American Air Defense Command

As Commander in Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Not only in charge of air defense of the United States and Canada, Kuter also oversaw the development and building of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. Cheyenne Mountain would become synonymous with NORAD, and the United States Air Force. In his capacity as CINC NORAD, Kuter briefed President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson on the importance of continental defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He advocated extending the missile warning system to cover approaches by missiles from any direction. In this final position Kuter had not attained the zenith of his air force career, but oversaw a global operation that was unimaginable when he graduated from West Point. As Kuter had matured, so had the United States Air Force.