Master of the Air: William Tunner and the Success of Military Airlift

14 / Final Battles

14 / Final Battles After Korea, the logical next step for General Tunner should have been back to MATS, in a position to head the organization as soon as Laurence Kuter stepped down. It was not to be. Tunner came back from Korea and was at MATS only briefly when Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg called him in. In spite of all he had done with airlift, Tunner would be assigned as deputy commander of Air Materiel Command (AMC), which handled supplies and inventories, and helped develop new products for the air force. Vandenberg told his subordinate he needed the training at different jobs, to learn about other aspects of the air service as preparation for bigger things to come. It was not a felicitous assignment, and there is reason to be suspicious as to its intent.The obvious question was why he did not go to MATS as commanding officer; instead, in 1951 the U.S. Air Force appointed Lieutenant General Joseph Smith, Tunner’s predecessor in Berlin, to this post. One source claims that while Smith got the job because he was “an excellent officer, and it was his turn to command,” other factors also played a role besides seniority. At that time the service was stressing the importance of nuclear-armed bombers, and the last thing they wanted was a powerful voice calling for more airlift. Kuter felt strongly that he too would be pushed out because of his advocacy, and his next assignment, as deputy chief of staff for personnel, does not indicate that he was held in high regard. Smith, however, firmly believed in the bomber mission and a diminished role for MATS, not to mention the fact that he was more gentlemanly and less pushy than the visionaries; he referred to Kuter’s idea of 234 / Final Battles a larger airlift command as “empire building.” He would remain in charge of military airlift until 1958—an extraordinary long time to hold one post— during the period when bombers were the supreme instrument in the U.S. military and received the most prestige and the greatest funding. As one student of this era wrote, “he was a respected shepherd, who simultaneously quieted the troublesome, out-of-step ‘bleatings’ of Kuter and Tunner, and guided MATS into obedient and productive compliance with Air Force strategic priorities.”1 Tunner clearly did not like going to AMC; he told interviewers in 1976 the move was something “I didn’t look forward to with any pleasure.” Part of the problem was the atmosphere; the operation was run by business school grads, bean counters.Tunner had no such educational background, and while he subscribed to many of their methods, he remained an independent, an entrepreneur , rather than having a middle-level mindset. Even worse, the move defied one of his basic principles, to remain a professional in one area and fight for that bailiwick. Tunner did not seek to be chief of staff, did not need to learn about every aspect of a far-flung service. His view, instead, was that “you’ve got to have specialists in the Air Force. A man who is a general doesn’t have to be a jack of all trades just because he is a general.” Tunner knew who he was and what he wanted: “I did know the air transport business . . . better than anyone in it, and I wanted to stay with it.”2 All in all, it was a curious appointment, for the obvious reasons. In addition, as Raymond Towne pointed out, if Tunner was slated for leadership roles, why had he been kept at the two-star level, while many of his contemporaries with fewer victories had gone on to an additional star or two? Tunner’s past decisions were haunting his career advancement.3 Stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Tunner did his work, but took every opportunity to follow airlift and insert himself into the public discussion of military strategies and needs. When the U.S. Air Force introduced the C-124 cargo plane and the Washington Daily News did a story on it, they interviewed an officer referred to in the article as “the top Air Force expert on mass transport,” who explained that with planes of this size, the United States could run both the Berlin and Korean airlifts simultaneously.Tunner also published an article, “Technology or Manpower,” in Air University Quarterly Review , which recapitulated the familiar arguments on the larger role air transportation must play...