A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

all-jet B-47 Stratojet, could carry atomic bombs that weighed upwards of
10,000 pounds (the Mark 11-IV series). The Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC), formed in 1946 to replace the wartime Manhattan Engineering
District, succeeded in reducing the size of the bomb (the Mark 7 weighed
1,680 pounds) but did not change the basic atomic equation. A handful of
Air Force bombers carried more power than all of history’s armies and
navies combined.
Under postwar demobilization, which affected the AEC just as
much as the armed services, the nation’s stockpile of atomic weapons
rose to only nine in 1946. In 1947 the commission took over weapons-
building programs and the stockpile reached thirteen as the Truman
administration and the JCS discussed the level of production necessary to
maintain an effective deterrent. In December 1947 the JCS approved a
The enormous ten-engine Convair bomber, the B-36 Peace-
maker, the largest aircraft ever to serve with the USAF. With
atomic bomb-carrying capacity and intercontinental range,
the B-36 was ordered in 1941 and debuted in 1946. When its J
variant was retired in 1959 Strategic Air Command (SAC)
became an all-jet force.
goal of 400 weapons for the AEC. At the same time, while SAC began to
recover from the chaos of demobilization, its state of readiness remained
low. Under General George C. Kenney and his deputy, Major General
Clements McMullen, it assigned high priority to establishing a rigorous
aircrew training program. This program, the secrecy that shrouded atom-
ic weapons jealously guarded by the AEC, and the lack of information
available to operational forces limited SAC’S potential as an atomic strike
force.
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