title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1958, an orchestra was recorded for the 31st Academy Awards ceremony with Jack Benny on first violin, Mansfield on violin, Dick Powell on trumpet, Robert Mitchum on woodwind, Fred Astaire on drums and Jerry Lewis as conductor; however, the performance was canceled. She sang "Too Marvelous for Words" for "The Jack Benny Program" ("Jack Takes Boat to Hawaii"; Episode 9, Season 14; November 26, 1963). Her club performances regularly featured songs like "Call Me", "A Little Brains, A Little Talent" ("This Queen has her aces in all the right places"), "Plain Jane", "Quando-Quando", "Bésame Mucho", and the song made famous by Marilyn Monroe – "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1962, 20th Century Fox Records released the album "Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas", a recording of her Las Vegas revue "The House of Love". In 1964 MGM Records released a novelty album called "", in which Mansfield recited Shakespeare's sonnets and poems by Marlowe, Browning, Wordsworth, and others against a background of Tchaikovsky's music. The album cover depicted a bouffant-coiffed Mansfield with lips pursed and breasts barely covered by a fur stole, posing between busts of Tchaikovsky and Shakespeare. "The New York Times" described the album as a reading of "30-odd poems in a husky, urban, baby voice". The reviewer went on to remark that "Miss Mansfield is a lady with apparent charms, but reading poetry is not one of them."


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1965, Jimi Hendrix played bass and added lead in his session musician days for Mansfield on two songs – "As The Clouds Drift By" and "Suey" – released as a 45-rpm single by London Records in 1966. Ed Chalpin, the record producer, claimed that Mansfield played all the instruments on the singles. According to Hendrix historian Steven Roby ("Black Gold: The Lost Archives Of Jimi Hendrix", Billboard Books), this collaboration occurred because they shared the same manager. "Wo ist der Mann" sung in German and released by Polydor Records in Austria was much in demand immediately after its release in August 1963. The A-side featured Hans Last's "Snicksnack-Snuckelchen". The Original Sound label released two original songs from the soundtrack of "The Las Vegas Hillbillys" – "That Makes It" (an answer to The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace") on the A-side, and "Little Things Mean a Lot" on the B-side – in 1964.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield had a daughter with her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She was the mother of three children from her second marriage to actor/bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay. She also had a son with her third husband, film director Matt Cimber.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield's son Zoltan made news when a lion named Sammy attacked him and bit his neck while he and his mother were visiting the theme park Jungleland USA in Thousand Oaks, California on November 23, 1966. He suffered from severe head trauma, underwent three surgeries at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, California, including a six-hour brain surgery, and contracted meningitis. He recovered, and Mansfield's attorney Sam Brody sued the theme park on the family's behalf for $1.6 million ($ million in dollars). The negative publicity led to closure of the theme park.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1967, film critic and exploitation movie expert Whitney Williams wrote of Mansfield in "Variety": "her personal life out-rivaled any of the roles she played". Mansfield was allegedly intimately involved with many men, including Claude Terrail (owner of the Paris restaurant Tour d'Argent), Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Brazilian billionaire Jorge Guinle, her attorney Samuel S. Brody, Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli, and producer Enrico Bomba. She met John F. Kennedy through his brother-in-law Peter Lawford in Palm Springs, California, in 1960, but their alleged affair did not last. Mansfield and Brody, her lawyer and alleged lover at the time, were both killed in a car crash.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In August 1963, Mansfield decided to convert to Catholicism. Although she never converted, she did attend Catholic services when she was in Europe, and followed Catholic practices when she was involved with a Catholic partner (including Hargitay, Sardelli and Cimber). In May 1967, her performance at the Mount Brandon Hotel in Tralee, Ireland, was canceled because Catholic clergy condemned it. She wanted to marry Cimber in a Catholic ceremony, but was unable to find a priest who would perform it. While involved with Brody, she also showed interest in Judaism.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In San Francisco for the city's 1966 Film Festival, Mansfield and Brody visited the Church of Satan to meet Anton LaVey, the church's founder. He awarded Mansfield a medallion and the title "High Priestess of San Francisco's Church of Satan". The media enthusiastically covered the meeting and the events surrounding it, identifying her as a Satanist and romantically involved with LaVey. That meeting remained a much-publicized and oft-quoted event both of her life and of the history of the Church of Satan. Karla LaVey asserted in a 1992 interview with Joan Rivers that Mansfield was indeed a practicing LaVeyan Satanist and that she had a romantic relationship with Anton LaVey.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Jayne met Paul Mansfield at a party on Christmas Eve in 1949; she was a popular student at Highland Park High School, and he at Sunset High School in Dallas. On May 6, 1950, they married in Fort Worth, Texas. At the time of their marriage, Jayne was 17 and three months pregnant; Paul was 20. While most major biographies put the date at May 6, some sources say the marriage was on May 10, 1950. According to biographer Raymond Strait, she had an earlier "secret" marriage on January 28, after which she conceived her first child. On November 8, 1950, Mansfield gave birth to her daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield. Some sources cite Paul Mansfield as the father of her child, others allege that the pregnancy was the result of date rape.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Paul Mansfield hoped the birth of their child would discourage her interest in acting. When it did not, he agreed to move to Los Angeles in late 1954 to help further her career. In 1952, she juggled motherhood and classes at the University of Texas. Early in 1952, Paul was called to the United States Army Reserve for the Korean War. While he served in the army, she spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Her life became easier with Paul's army allotment. Returning from the Korean War in 1954, he took a job with a small newspaper in East Los Angeles, California, and lived in a small apartment in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, with Jayne and her pets – a Great Dane, three cats named Sabina, Romulus, and Ophelia, two chihuahuas, a poodle dyed pink, and a rabbit. While in California, she left Jayne Marie with her maternal grandparents and spent the summer semester at UCLA.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: After a series of marital rows around Jayne's ambitions, infidelity, and animals, they decided to dissolve the marriage. It was a long process. In February 1955, Jayne filed for separate maintenance, and in August 1956, Paul filed for custody of their daughter, Jayne Marie. Jayne filed for divorce in California in 1956, Paul filed for divorce in 1957 in Texas citing mental cruelty, and they received their divorce papers on January 8, 1958. After the divorce, she decided to keep "Mansfield" as her professional name. Paul Mansfield remarried, settled into the public relations business and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, but failed to win custody suits over Jayne Marie or restrain her from traveling abroad with her mother.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Following her 18th birthday, Jayne Marie complained that she had not received her inheritance from the Mansfield estate or heard from her father since her mother's death.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield met her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City on May 13, 1956, where he was performing as a member of the chorus line in Mae West's show. Hargitay was an actor and bodybuilder who had won the Mr. Universe competition in 1955. Mansfield fell for him immediately, which resulted in a squabble with West. In the ensuing row, Mr. California, Chuck Krauser, beat Hargitay up and was arrested and released on a $300 bond ($ in dollars).


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: After Mansfield returned from her 40-day European tour, Hargitay proposed to her on November 6, 1957, with a $5,000 10-carat diamond ring ($ in dollars). On January 13, 1958 (days after her divorce from Paul was finalized), Mansfield married Hargitay at the Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The unique glass chapel made public and press viewing of the wedding easy. Mansfield wore a sensational pink, skintight wedding gown made of sequins with a flounce of pink tulle (designed by a 20th Century-Fox costume designer), and at the reception she had Hargitay drink pink champagne.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Hargitay made his first film appearance with Mansfield in a bit part in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?". The couple became a performing team touring in stage shows, where Mansfield's leopard-spot bikini became a topic of discussion and newspaper coverage. As a highlight, Hargitay tossed her around his waist and spun her in wide circles as her shows made more headlines. On screen, he was Mansfield's male lead in her Italian ventures – "The Loves of Hercules" and "L'Amore Primitivo", and a major supporting character in "Promises! Promises!". On stage, he was the male lead in "The Tropicana Holiday", "The House of Love", "French Dressing", and other nightclub acts.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: They made personal appearances on television shows such as the "Bob Hope Specials". Mansfield and Hargitay had a number of business holdings, including the Hargitay Exercise Equipment Company, Jayne Mansfield Productions, and Eastland Savings and Loan. She co-wrote the autobiographical book "Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World" with Hargitay. The book also contained 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1962, she had a well-publicized affair with Enrico Bomba, the Italian producer and production manager of her film "Panic Button". Hargitay accused Bomba of sabotaging their marriage. In 1963, she had another well-publicized relationship with singer Nelson Sardelli, whom she said she planned to marry when her divorce from Mickey Hargitay was finalized. The couple divorced in Juarez, Mexico, in May 1963, where Nelson Sardelli accompanied Mansfield in her legal preparations. She had previously filed for divorce on May 4, 1962, but told reporters "I'm sure we will make it up." During the acrimonious divorce proceedings, the actress attempted to force a more favorable financial settlement by accusing Hargitay of kidnapping one of her children.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield discovered that she was pregnant after her divorce. Being an unwed mother would have endangered her career, so she and Hargitay announced that they were still married. Mariska Hargitay was born January 23, 1964, after the actual divorce but before California ruled it valid. Mansfield sued to get the Juarez divorce declared legal after Mariska was born, and the divorce was recognized on August 26, 1964. A court decree in June 1967 made Hargitay the guardian of Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska, though they continued to live with Mansfield. He married airline stewardess Ellen Siano in 1968, and she accompanied him to New Orleans when he picked up his three children after Mansfield's death. Shortly after her funeral, Hargitay sued his former wife's estate for more than $275,000 ($ million in dollars) to support the children, as he and his wife Ellen would raise them, but he lost the suit. Mansfield had once told Hargitay on a television talk show that she was sorry for all the trouble that she had given him.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield became involved with Matt Cimber (a.k.a. Matteo Ottaviano, né Thomas Vitale Ottaviano), an Italian-born film director, when he directed her in a stage production of "Bus Stop" in Yonkers, New York, costarring Hargitay. She married him on September 24, 1964, in Mulegé, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The couple separated on July 11, 1965, and filed for divorce on July 20, 1966. Cimber took over managing her career during their marriage, and guided her through a series of increasingly tawdry projects like "Promises, Promises" and "The Las Vegas Hillbillys". Mansfield's marriage to Cimber began to collapse in the wake of her alcohol abuse, open infidelities, and her disclosure to Cimber that she had been happy only with her former lover, Nelson Sardelli. Work on Mansfield's film, "Single Room Furnished" directed by Cimber (1966), was suspended. The couple had one son, Antonio Raphael Ottaviano (a.k.a. Tony Cimber, born October 18, 1965). Cimber, and his third wife dress designer Christy Hilliard Hanak, whom he married on December 2, 1967, raised Tony, Mansfield's youngest child. Cimber later worked as an announcer for "Married... with Children" and a producer for "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: At the time, Mansfield had degenerated into alcoholism, drunken brawls, and performing at cheap burlesque shows. By July 1966, she started living with her attorney, Sam Brody, who had frequent drunken brawls with her and mistreated her eldest daughter, Jayne Marie. Sam's wife, Beverly Brody, filed for divorce, naming Mansfield the "41st other woman" in Sam's life.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Two weeks before her mother's death in 1967, 16-year-old Jayne Marie accused Sam Brody of beating her. The girl's statement to officers of the Los Angeles Police Department the following morning implicated her mother in encouraging the abuse, and days later a juvenile court judge awarded temporary custody of Jayne Marie to Paul's uncle William W. Pigue and his wife Mary.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield was a major Hollywood sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s and 20th Century Fox's alternative to Marilyn Monroe. She came to be known as the "Working Man's Monroe". She was one of Hollywood's original blonde bombshells, and, although many people have never seen her movies, Mansfield remains one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: According to Hollywood historian and biographer James Parish, Mansfield's hourglass figure (she claimed dimensions of 40–21–35), unique sashaying walk, breathy baby talk, and cleavage-revealing costumes made an enduring impact. Hollywood historian Andrew Nelson said that she was seen as Hollywood's gaudiest, boldest, D-cupped, B-grade actress from 1955 until the early 1960s.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Frequent references have been made to Mansfield's very high IQ, which she claimed was 163. In addition to English, she spoke four other languages. She learned French, Spanish, and German in high school, and in 1963 she studied Italian. Reputed to be Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde", she later complained that the public did not care about her brains saying, "They're more interested in 40–21–35 [a reference to her body measurements]."


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: A natural brunette, Mansfield had her hair bleached, and colored platinum blonde when she moved to Los Angeles, and became one of the early "blonde bombshells", along with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Mamie Van Doren. In 1958, she also had her eyebrows dyed platinum. Following Jean Harlow (who started the trend with her film "Bombshell"), Monroe, Mansfield, and Van Doren helped establish the stereotype typified by a combination of curvaceous physique, very light-colored hair, and a perceived lack of intelligence. A review of English-language tabloids shows it to be one of the most persistent blonde stereotypes – along with "busty blonde", and "blonde babe".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield and Monroe have been described as representations of a historical juncture of sexuality in comedy and popular culture. Academics also added Anita Ekberg and Bettie Page to the list of catalysts of the trend of exaggerated female sexuality, along with Mansfield and Monroe. M. Thomas Inge describes Mansfield, Monroe, and Jane Russell as personifications of the bad girl in popular culture. Judy Holliday and Goldie Hawn are also identified to have established the stereotype of the "dumb blonde", typified by their combination of overt sexuality, and apparent inability to understand everyday life. Instead of the asexualized and virginal "nice girls" of earlier films, the pneumatic blonde bombshells took over the screen in the 1950s to become a cult that has been consistently emulated from that era on. Social historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg described the 1950s as "an era distinguished by its worship of full-breasted women" and attributes the paradigm shift to Mansfield and Monroe. Patricia Vettel-Becker made that observation more specific by attributing the phenomenon to "Playboy" and Mansfield and Monroe's appearances in the magazine.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Newspapers in the 1950s routinely published Mansfield's body measurements, which once led evangelist Billy Graham to exclaim, "This country knows more about Jayne Mansfield's statistics than the Second Commandment." Mansfield proclaimed a 41-inch bust line and a 22-inch waist when she made her Broadway debut in 1955, though some scholars dispute those figures. She was known as "the Cleavage Queen" and "the Queen of Sex and Bosom".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: It was said that her breasts fluctuated in size from her pregnancies and nursing her five children. Her smallest bust measurement was 40-D (102 cm), which was constant throughout the 1950s, and her largest was 46-DD (117 cm), measured by the press in 1967. According to "Playboy", her "vital statistics" were 40D-21-36 (102–53–91 cm) on her 5'6" (1.68 m) frame.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: It has been claimed that her bosom was a major force behind the development of 1950s brassieres, including the "whirlpool bra", "cuties", the "shutter bra", the "action bra", latex pads, cleavage-revealing designs, and uplifted outlines. R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby have claimed that it was Mansfield, along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, who made the bikini popular. Drawing on the Freudian concept of fetishism, British science-fiction writer and socio-cultural commentator, J. G. Ballard commented that Mae West's, Mansfield's, and Monroe's breasts "loomed across the horizon of popular consciousness". According to Dave Kehr, as the 1960s approached, the anatomy that had made her a star turned her into a joke. In this decade, the female body ideal shifted to appreciate the slim waif-like features popularized by supermodel Twiggy, actress Audrey Hepburn, and others, demarcating the demise of the busty blonde bombshells.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield's drive for publicity was one of the strongest in Hollywood. She gave up all privacy, and her doors were always open to photographers. On Christmas Eve 1954, she walked into publicist James Byron's office with a gift and asked him to oversee her publicity, which he did, for the most part, until the end of 1961. Byron appointed most of the people on her team – William Shiffrin (press agent), Greg Bautzer (attorney) and Charles Goldring (business manager) – and constantly planted publicity material in the media. She appeared in about 2,500 newspaper photographs, and had about 122,000 lines of newspaper copy written about her between September 1956 and May 1957.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Because of the successful media blitz, she achieved international renown. On October 10, 1959, she visited White Hart Lane, England, and watched the Tottenham Hotspur versus Wolverhampton Wanderers FC football match. By 1960, Mansfield had topped press polls for more words in print than anyone else in the world, had made more personal appearances than a political candidate, and was regarded as the world's most-photographed Hollywood celebrity. She made news on a regular basis, for malfunctioning dresses and clothing that burst strategically at the seams, to wearing low cut dresses without a bra. Things worsened when she took charge of her own publicity without advice. According to her agent William Shiffrin, "She became a freak." James Bacon wrote in the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" in 1973: "Here was a girl with real comedy talent, spectacular figure and looks and yet ridiculed herself out of business by outlandish publicity."


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield received her first truly negative publicity after she and Hargitay pleaded poverty when his first wife, Mary Hargitay, whom he divorced on September 6, 1956, requested additional child support for their nine-year-old, first child, Tina, in September 1958. Mansfield said she slept on the floor of her mansion, was unable to buy furniture, and spent only $71 on her daughter Jayne Marie ($ in dollars). During this marriage she had three children, Miklós Jeffrey Palmer Hargitay (born December 21, 1958), Zoltán Anthony Hargitay (born August 1, 1960), and Mariska Magdolna Hargitay (born January 23, 1964).


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In January 1955, Mansfield appeared at a Silver Springs, Florida, press junket promoting the film "Underwater!", starring Jane Russell. She purposely wore a too-small red bikini, lent to her by photographer friend Peter Gowland. When she dove into the pool for photographers, her top came off, creating a burst of media attention. The ensuing publicity led to Warner Bros. and "Playboy" approaching her with offers. On June 8 of the same year, her dress fell down to her waist twice in a single evening – once at a movie party, and later at a nightclub. In February 1958, she was topless at a Carnival party in Rio de Janeiro. She shimmied out of her polka-dot dress in a Rome nightclub in June 1962. In the three years since making her Broadway debut in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?", Mansfield had become the most controversial star of the decade.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In April 1957, her breasts were the focus of a publicity stunt intended to deflect media attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in the Italian star's honor. Photographs of them were published around the world. The best-known photo showed Loren's gaze falling on the actress's cleavage (she was seated between Loren and her dinner companion, Clifton Webb) when Mansfield leaned over the table, allowing her breasts to spill over her low neckline exposing one nipple. The Jayne Mansfield-Sophia Loren photograph was a UPI sensation, appearing in newspapers and magazines with the word "censored" hiding the actress's exposed nipple.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: At the same time, the world's media were quick to condemn Mansfield's stunts. One editorial columnist wrote: "We are amused when Miss Mansfield strains to pull in her stomach to fill out her bikini better; but we get angry when career-seeking women, shady ladies, and certain starlets and actresses ... use every opportunity to display their anatomy unasked." By the late 1950s, Mansfield began to generate a great deal of negative publicity because of repeated exposure of her breasts in carefully staged public "wardrobe accidents". Richard Blackwell, her wardrobe designer (who also designed for Jane Russell, Dorothy Lamour, Peggy Lee and Nancy Reagan), dropped her from his client list because of this. In April 1967, the "Los Angeles Times" wrote: "She confuses publicity and notoriety with stardom and celebrity and the result is very distasteful to the public."


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield adopted pink as her color in 1954, and was associated with it for the rest of her career. Her original choice was purple, but she thought it too close to lavender, Kim Novak's signature color. "It must have been the right decision," she said, "because I got more column space from pink than Kim Novak ever did from lavender." In November 1957, shortly before their marriage, using money from an inheritance, Mansfield bought the 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion (formerly owned by Rudy Vallée) at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. Mansfield had the house painted pink, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink fur in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne; she then dubbed it the "Pink Palace". Hargitay (a plumber and carpenter before taking up bodybuilding) built the pink heart-shaped swimming pool. The year after reconstructing the "Pink Palace" as a "pink landmark", she began riding in a pink Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible with tailfins, then the only pink Cadillac in Hollywood.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Throughout her career, Mansfield was compared by the media to the reigning sex symbol of the period, Marilyn Monroe. 20th Century Fox groomed her, as well as Sheree North, to substitute for Monroe, their resident "blonde bombshell", while Universal Pictures launched Van Doren as their substitute. The studio launched Mansfield with a grand 40-day tour of England and Europe from September 25 to November 6, 1957. She adopted Monroe's vocal mannerisms instead of her original husky voice and Texas accent, performed in two plays that were based on Marilyn Monroe vehicles – "Bus Stop" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" – and her role in "The Wayward Bus" was strongly influenced by Monroe's character in "Bus Stop".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Other studios also tried to find their own versions of Monroe. Columbia Pictures tried it with Cleo Moore, Warner Bros. with Carroll Baker, Paramount Pictures with Anita Ekberg, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Barbara Lang, while Diana Dors was dubbed England's answer to Mansfield. Jacqueline Susann wrote, "When one studio has a Marilyn Monroe, every other studio is hiring Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren." The crowd of contenders also included Sheree North, Kim Novak, Joi Lansing, Beverly Michaels, Barbara Nichols and Greta Thyssen, and even two brunettes – Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Russell. Mamie Van Doren, Diana Dors and Kim Novak also acted in productions of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Even when Mansfield's film roles were drying up, she was still considered Monroe's primary rival. Mansfield considered Mamie Van Doren her professional nemesis. At one point, Monroe, Mansfield, and Mamie were known as "The Three M's".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1967, Mansfield was in Biloxi, Mississippi, for an engagement at the Gus Stevens Supper Club. After two appearances on the evening of June 28, Mansfield, Sam Brody (her attorney and companion), their driver Ronnie Harrison (age 20), and three of her children – Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska – left Biloxi after midnight in a 1966 Buick Electra 225. Their destination was New Orleans, where Mansfield was to appear on WDSU's "Midday Show" the next day. At about 2:25 a.m. on June 29, on U.S. Highway 90, west of the Rigolets Bridge, the Buick crashed at high speed into the rear of a 'Johnson' tractor-trailer, driven by a Mr. Rambo, that had slowed down for an approaching insecticide fog-spraying truck which was flashing a red light. The three adults in the front seat died instantly. The children, asleep in the rear seat, survived with minor injuries.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Reports that Mansfield was decapitated are untrue, although she suffered severe head trauma. This urban legend started with the appearance in police photographs of the crashed car with its top virtually sheared off, and what resembled a blonde-haired head tangled in the car's smashed windshield. However, Mansfield's death certificate, which states her immediate cause of death to be "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain," rules this out. The identity of the head-like shape has not been definitively determined, but it is debated to have been either a wig that Mansfield was wearing or carrying, the top portion of her real hair and scalp, or "something else entirely." After her death, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended requiring an underride guard (a strong bar made of steel tubing) on all tractor-trailers; the trucking industry was slow to adopt this change. In America, the underride guard is sometimes known as a "Mansfield bar", or an "ICC bumper".


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield's funeral took place on July 3 in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania. The service was conducted by Charles Montgomery, a pastor of the Zion Methodist Church. A private funeral service was held at the chapel of the Pullis Funeral Home. A Methodist minister conducted her funeral ceremony. Mickey Hargitay was the only ex-husband present at the funeral. Mansfield was interred in Fairview Cemetery, southeast of Pen Argyl, beside her father Herbert Palmer.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: In 1968, two wrongful-death lawsuits were filed on behalf of Jayne Marie Mansfield and Matt Cimber, one for $4.8 million ($ in dollars) and the other for $2.7 million ($ in dollars). The death car was saved by a private collector in Florida, where it became a roadside attraction in the 1970s. , the car is owned by Scott Michaels and is housed and shown at his Dearly Departed Tours & Artifact Museum in Los Angeles across from Hollywood Forever Cemetery.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Mansfield left behind five children and a crumbling estate, including the Pink Palace. The 1991 US top 40 single "Kiss Them for Me" by the group Siouxsie and the Banshees and the L.A. Guns song "The Ballad of Jayne", are about Mansfield and her untimely death.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: Her daughter Mariska Hargitay became an actress and star of "". She has won several awards for her work on the show, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2005, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, and a People's Choice Award for the Drama TV Star of the Year in 2018.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: After Mansfield's death, Hargitay, Cimber, Vera Peers (Mansfield's mother), William Pigue (Jayne Marie's legal guardian), and Charles Goldring (Mansfield's business manager), as well as Bernard B. Cohen and Jerome Webber (both administrators of the estate) filed unsuccessful suits to gain control of her estate. Mansfield's estate was appraised initially at $600,000 ($ million in dollars), including the Pink Palace, estimated at $100,000 ($ in dollars), a sports car sold for $7,000 ($ in dollars), her jewelry, and Sam Brody's $185,000 estate left to her in his last will ($ in dollars). In 1971, Beverly Brody sued the Mansfield estate for $325,000 ($ in dollars) worth of presents and jewelry given to Mansfield by Sam Brody; the suit was settled out of court. However, her four eldest children (Jayne Marie, Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska) went to court in 1977 to find that approximately $500,000 in debt that Mansfield had incurred ($ million in dollars), including $11,000 for lingerie ($ in dollars), $11,600 for plumbing of the heart-shaped swimming pool ($ in dollars), and litigation had left the estate insolvent.


title: Jayne Mansfield

text: The Pink Palace was sold. Its subsequent owners included Ringo Starr and Engelbert Humperdinck. Cass Elliot is often falsely claimed to have owned the home. In 2002 Humperdinck sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year. What remained of her estate was subsequently managed by CMG Worldwide, an intellectual property-management company.


title: United States Air Force

text: The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.


title: United States Air Force

text: The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense and is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As directed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force, certain Air Force components are assigned to unified combatant commands. Combatant commanders are delegated operational authority of the forces assigned to them, while the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force retain administrative authority over their members.


title: United States Air Force

text: Along with conducting independent air operations, the United States Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field. , the service operates more than 5,369 military aircraft and 406 ICBMs. The world's largest air force, it has a $156.3 billion budget and is the second largest service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, with 329,614 active duty airmen, 172,857 civilian personnel, 69,056 reserve airmen, and 107,414 Air National Guard airmen.


title: United States Air Force

text: The five core missions of the Air Force have not changed dramatically since the Air Force became independent in 1947, but they have evolved and are now articulated as air superiority, global integrated ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The purpose of all of these core missions is to provide what the Air Force states as global vigilance, global reach, and global power.


title: United States Air Force

text: Air superiority is "that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, air, and special operations forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force" (JP 1-02).


title: United States Air Force

text: Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) is defined as "offensive operations to destroy, disrupt, or neutralize enemy aircraft, missiles, launch platforms, and their supporting structures and systems both before and after launch, but as close to their source as possible" (JP 1-02). OCA is the preferred method of countering air and missile threats since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source and typically enjoys the initiative. OCA comprises attack operations, sweep, escort, and suppression/destruction of enemy air defense.


title: United States Air Force

text: Defensive Counter-Air (DCA) is defined as "all the defensive measures designed to detect, identify, intercept, and destroy or negate enemy forces attempting to penetrate or attack through friendly airspace" (JP 1-02). In concert with OCA operations, a major goal of DCA operations is to provide an area from which forces can operate, secure from air and missile threats. The DCA mission comprises both active and passive defense measures. Active defense is "the employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy" (JP 1-02). It includes both ballistic missile defense and airborne threat defense and encompasses point defense, area defense, and high-value airborne asset defense. Passive defense is "measures taken to reduce the probability of and to minimize the effects of damage caused by hostile action without the intention of taking the initiative" (JP 1-02). It includes detection and warning; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense; camouflage, concealment, and deception; hardening; reconstitution; dispersion; redundancy; and mobility, counter-measures, and stealth.


title: United States Air Force

text: Airspace control is "a process used to increase operational effectiveness by promoting the safe, efficient, and flexible use of airspace" (JP 1-02). It promotes the safe, efficient, and flexible use of airspace, mitigates the risk of fratricide, enhances both offensive and defensive operations, and permits greater agility of air operations as a whole. It both deconflicts and facilitates the integration of joint air operations.


title: United States Air Force

text: Global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is the synchronization and integration of the planning and operation of sensors, assets, and processing, exploitation, dissemination systems across the globe to conduct current and future operations.


title: United States Air Force

text: Planning and directing is "the determination of intelligence requirements, development of appropriate intelligence architecture, preparation of a collection plan, and issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies" (JP 2-01, Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations). These activities enable the synchronization and integration of collection, processing, exploitation, analysis, and dissemination activities/resources to meet information requirements of national and military decision-makers.


title: United States Air Force

text: Collection is "the acquisition of information and the provision of this information to processing elements" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to obtain required information to satisfy intelligence needs (via use of sources and methods in all domains). Collection activities span the Range of Military Operations (ROMO).


title: United States Air Force

text: Processing and exploitation is "the conversion of collected information into forms suitable to the production of intelligence" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to transform, extract, and make available collected information suitable for further analysis or action across the ROMO.


title: United States Air Force

text: Analysis and production is "the conversion of processed information into intelligence through the integration, evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of all source data and the preparation of intelligence products in support of known or anticipated user requirements" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to integrate, evaluate, and interpret information from available sources to create a finished intelligence product for presentation or dissemination to enable increased situational awareness.


title: United States Air Force

text: Dissemination and integration is "the delivery of intelligence to users in a suitable form and the application of the intelligence to appropriate missions, tasks, and functions" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to present information and intelligence products across the ROMO enabling understanding of the operational environment to military and national decision-makers.


title: United States Air Force

text: Rapid global mobility is the timely deployment, employment, sustainment, augmentation, and redeployment of military forces and capabilities across the ROMO. It provides joint military forces the capability to move from place to place while retaining the ability to fulfill their primary mission. Rapid Global Mobility is essential to virtually every military operation, allowing forces to reach foreign or domestic destinations quickly, thus seizing the initiative through speed and surprise.


title: United States Air Force

text: Airlift is "operations to transport and deliver forces and materiel through the air in support of strategic, operational, or tactical objectives" (Annex 3–17, Air Mobility Operations). The rapid and flexible options afforded by airlift allow military forces and national leaders the ability to respond and operate in a variety of situations and time frames. The global reach capability of airlift provides the ability to apply US power worldwide by delivering forces to crisis locations. It serves as a US presence that demonstrates resolve and compassion in humanitarian crisis.


title: United States Air Force

text: Air refueling is "the refueling of an aircraft in flight by another aircraft" (JP 1-02). Air refueling extends presence, increases range, and serves as a force multiplier. It allows air assets to more rapidly reach any trouble spot around the world with less dependence on forward staging bases or overflight/landing clearances. Air refueling significantly expands the options available to a commander by increasing the range, payload, persistence, and flexibility of receiver aircraft.


title: United States Air Force

text: Aeromedical evacuation is "the movement of patients under medical supervision to and between medical treatment facilities by air transportation" (JP 1-02). JP 4-02, Health Service Support, further defines it as "the fixed wing movement of regulated casualties to and between medical treatment facilities, using organic and/or contracted mobility airframes, with aircrew trained explicitly for this mission." Aeromedical evacuation forces can operate as far forward as fixed-wing aircraft are able to conduct airland operations.


title: United States Air Force

text: Global precision attack is the ability to hold at risk or strike rapidly and persistently, with a wide range of munitions, any target and to create swift, decisive, and precise effects across multiple domains.


title: United States Air Force

text: Strategic attack is defined as "offensive action specifically selected to achieve national strategic objectives. These attacks seek to weaken the adversary's ability or will to engage in conflict, and may achieve strategic objectives without necessarily having to achieve operational objectives as a precondition" (Annex 3–70, Strategic Attack).


title: United States Air Force

text: Air Interdiction is defined as "air operations conducted to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy's military potential before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces, or to otherwise achieve JFC objectives. Air Interdiction is conducted at such distance from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required" (Annex 3-03, Counterland Operations).


title: United States Air Force

text: Close Air Support is defined as "air action by fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces" (JP 1-02). This can be as a pre-planned event or on demand from an alert posture (ground or airborne). It can be conducted across the ROMO.


title: United States Air Force

text: The purpose of nuclear deterrence operations (NDO) is to operate, maintain, and secure nuclear forces to achieve an assured capability to deter an adversary from taking action against vital US interests. In the event deterrence fails, the US should be able to appropriately respond with nuclear options. The sub-elements of this function are:


title: United States Air Force

text: Assure/Dissuade/Deter is a mission set derived from the Air Force's readiness to carry out the nuclear strike operations mission as well as from specific actions taken to assure allies as a part of extended deterrence. Dissuading others from acquiring or proliferating WMD and delivering them contributes to promoting security and is also an integral part of this mission. Moreover, different deterrence strategies are required to deter various adversaries, whether they are a nation state, or non-state/transnational actor. The Air Force maintains and presents credible deterrent capabilities through successful visible demonstrations and exercises that assure allies, dissuade proliferation, deter potential adversaries from actions that threaten US national security or the populations, and deploy military forces of the US, its allies, and friends.


title: United States Air Force

text: Nuclear strike is the ability of nuclear forces to rapidly and accurately strike targets which the enemy holds dear in a devastating manner. If a crisis occurs, rapid generation and, if necessary, deployment of nuclear strike capabilities will demonstrate US resolve and may prompt an adversary to alter the course of action deemed threatening to our national interest. Should deterrence fail, the President may authorize a precise, tailored response to terminate the conflict at the lowest possible level and lead to a rapid cessation of hostilities. Post-conflict, regeneration of a credible nuclear deterrent capability will deter further aggression. The Air Force may present a credible force posture in either the Continental United States, within a theater of operations, or both to effectively deter the range of potential adversaries envisioned in the 21st century. This requires the ability to engage targets globally using a variety of methods; therefore, the Air Force should possess the ability to induct, train, assign, educate and exercise individuals and units to rapidly and effectively execute missions that support US NDO objectives. Finally, the Air Force regularly exercises and evaluates all aspects of nuclear operations to ensure high levels of performance.


title: United States Air Force

text: Nuclear surety ensures the safety, security and effectiveness of nuclear operations. Because of their political and military importance, destructive power, and the potential consequences of an accident or unauthorized act, nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon systems require special consideration and protection against risks and threats inherent in their peacetime and wartime environments. In conjunction with other entities within the Departments of Defense or Energy, the Air Force achieves a high standard of protection through a stringent nuclear surety program. This program applies to materiel, personnel, and procedures that contribute to the safety, security, and control of nuclear weapons, thus assuring no nuclear accidents, incidents, loss, or unauthorized or accidental use (a Broken Arrow incident). The Air Force continues to pursue safe, secure and effective nuclear weapons consistent with operational requirements. Adversaries, allies, and the American people must be highly confident of the Air Force's ability to secure nuclear weapons from accidents, theft, loss, and accidental or unauthorized use. This day-to-day commitment to precise and reliable nuclear operations is the cornerstone of the credibility of the NDO mission. Positive nuclear command, control, communications; effective nuclear weapons security; and robust combat support are essential to the overall NDO function.


title: United States Air Force

text: Command and control is "the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission. Command and control functions are performed through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, and procedures employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling forces and operations in the accomplishment of the mission" (JP 1-02). This core function includes all of the C2-related capabilities and activities associated with air, cyberspace, nuclear, and agile combat support operations to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objectives.


title: United States Air Force

text: At the strategic level command and control, the US determines national or multinational security objectives and guidance, and develops and uses national resources to accomplish these objectives. These national objectives in turn provide the direction for developing overall military objectives, which are used to develop the objectives and strategy for each theater.


title: United States Air Force

text: At the operational level command and control, campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, sustained, and assessed to accomplish strategic goals within theaters or areas of operations. These activities imply a broader dimension of time or space than do tactics; they provide the means by which tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic and operational objectives.


title: United States Air Force

text: Tactical Level Command and Control is where individual battles and engagements are fought. The tactical level of war deals with how forces are employed, and the specifics of how engagements are conducted and targets attacked. The goal of tactical level C2 is to achieve commander's intent and desired effects by gaining and keeping offensive initiative.


title: United States Air Force

text: The U.S. War Department created the first antecedent of the U.S. Air Force, as a part of the U.S. Army, on 1 August 1907, which through a succession of changes of organization, titles, and missions advanced toward eventual independence 40 years later. In World War II, almost 68,000 U.S. airmen died helping to win the war, with only the infantry suffering more casualties. In practice, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was virtually independent of the Army during World War II, and in virtually every way functioned as an independent service branch, but airmen still pressed for formal independence. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed on 26 July 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, which established the Department of the Air Force, but it was not until 18 September 1947, when the first secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington, was sworn into office that the Air Force was officially formed as an independent service branch.


title: United States Air Force

text: The act created the "National Military Establishment" (renamed Department of Defense in 1949), which was composed of three subordinate Military Departments, namely the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the newly created Department of the Air Force. Prior to 1947, the responsibility for military aviation was shared between the Army Air Forces and its predecessor organizations (for land-based operations), the Navy (for sea-based operations from aircraft carriers and amphibious aircraft), and the Marine Corps (for close air support of Marine Corps operations). The 1940s proved to be important for military aviation in other ways as well. In 1947, Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his X-1 rocket-powered aircraft, beginning a new era of aeronautics in America.


title: United States Air Force

text: During the early 2000s, two USAF aircraft procurement projects took longer than expected, the KC-X and F-35 programs. As a result, the USAF was setting new records for average aircraft age.


title: United States Air Force

text: Since 2005, the USAF has placed a strong focus on the improvement of Basic Military Training (BMT) for enlisted personnel. While the intense training has become longer, it also has shifted to include a deployment phase. This deployment phase, now called the BEAST, places the trainees in a simulated combat environment that they may experience once they deploy. While the trainees do tackle the massive obstacle courses along with the BEAST, the other portions include defending and protecting their base of operations, forming a structure of leadership, directing search and recovery, and basic self aid buddy care. During this event, the Military Training Instructors (MTI) act as mentors and opposing forces in a deployment exercise.


title: United States Air Force

text: In 2007, the USAF undertook a Reduction-in-Force (RIF). Because of budget constraints, the USAF planned to reduce the service's size from 360,000 active duty personnel to 316,000. The size of the active duty force in 2007 was roughly 64% of that of what the USAF was at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. However, the reduction was ended at approximately 330,000 personnel in 2008 in order to meet the demand signal of combatant commanders and associated mission requirements. These same constraints have seen a sharp reduction in flight hours for crew training since 2005 and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Personnel directing Airmen's Time Assessments.


title: United States Air Force

text: On 5 June 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accepted the resignations of both the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General T. Michael Moseley. In his decision to fire both men Gates cited "systemic issues associated with... declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance". Left unmentioned by Gates was that he had repeatedly clashed with Wynne and Moseley over other important non-nuclear related issues to the service. This followed an investigation into two incidents involving mishandling of nuclear weapons: specifically a nuclear weapons incident aboard a B-52 flight between Minot AFB and Barksdale AFB, and an accidental shipment of nuclear weapons components to Taiwan. To put more emphasis on nuclear assets, the USAF established the nuclear-focused Air Force Global Strike Command on 24 October 2008, which later assumed control of all USAF bomber aircraft.


title: United States Air Force

text: On 26 June 2009, the USAF released a force structure plan that cut fighter aircraft and shifted resources to better support nuclear, irregular and information warfare. On 23 July 2009, The USAF released their Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Flight Plan, detailing Air Force UAS plans through 2047. One third of the planes that the USAF planned to buy in the future were to be unmanned. According to Air Force Chief Scientist, Dr. Greg Zacharias, the USAF anticipates having hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicles (also known as remotely-piloted vehicles, or RPAs) by the 2030s and recoverable hypersonic RPAs aircraft by the 2040s. Air Force intends to deploy a Sixth-generation jet fighter by the mid–2030s.


title: United States Air Force

text: The United States Air Force has been involved in many wars, conflicts and operations using military air operations. The USAF possesses the lineage and heritage of its predecessor organizations, which played a pivotal role in U.S. military operations since 1907:


title: United States Air Force

text: In addition since the USAF dwarfs all other U.S. and allied air components, it often provides support for allied forces in conflicts to which the United States is otherwise not involved, such as the 2013 French campaign in Mali.


title: United States Air Force

text: The USAF has also taken part in numerous humanitarian operations. Some of the more major ones include the following:


title: United States Air Force

text: The culture of the United States Air Force is primarily driven by pilots, at first those piloting bombers (driven originally by the Bomber Mafia), followed by fighters (Fighter Mafia).


title: United States Air Force

text: In response to a 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accepted in June 2009 the resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley. Moseley's successor, General Norton A. Schwartz, a former airlift and special operations pilot was the first officer appointed to that position who did not have a background as a fighter or bomber pilot. The Washington Post reported in 2010 that General Schwartz began to dismantle the rigid class system of the USAF, particularly in the officer corps.


title: United States Air Force

text: In 2014, following morale and testing/cheating scandals in the Air Force's missile launch officer community, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James admitted that there remained a "systemic problem" in the USAF's management of the nuclear mission.


title: United States Air Force

text: Daniel L. Magruder Jr. defines USAF culture as a combination of the rigorous application of advanced technology, individualism and progressive airpower theory. Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr. adds that the U.S. Air Force's culture also includes an egalitarianism bred from officers perceiving themselves as their service's principal "warriors" working with small groups of enlisted airmen either as the service crew or the onboard crew of their aircraft. Air Force officers have never felt they needed the formal social "distance" from their enlisted force that is common in the other U.S. armed services. Although the paradigm is changing, for most of its history, the Air Force, completely unlike its sister services, has been an organization in which mostly its officers fought, not its enlisted force, the latter being primarily a rear echelon support force. When the enlisted force did go into harm's way, such as crew members of multi-crewed aircraft, the close comradeship of shared risk in tight quarters created traditions that shaped a somewhat different kind of officer/enlisted relationship than exists elsewhere in the military.


title: United States Air Force

text: Cultural and career issues in the U.S. Air Force have been cited as one of the reasons for the shortfall in needed UAV operators. In spite of demand for UAVs or drones to provide round the clock coverage for American troops during the Iraq War, the USAF did not establish a new career field for piloting them until the last year of that war and in 2014 changed its RPA training syllabus again, in the face of large aircraft losses in training, and in response to a GAO report critical of handling of drone programs. Paul Scharre has reported that the cultural divide between the USAF and US Army has kept both services from adopting each other's drone handing innovations.


title: United States Air Force

text: Many of the U.S. Air Force's formal and informal traditions are an amalgamation of those taken from the Royal Air Force (e.g., dining-ins/mess nights) or the experiences of its predecessor organizations such as the U.S. Army Air Service, U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Army Air Forces. Some of these traditions range from "Friday Name Tags" in flying units to an annual "Mustache Month". The use of "challenge coins" dates back to World War I when a member of one of the aero squadrons bought his entire unit medallions with their emblem, while another cultural tradition unique to the Air Force is the "roof stomp", practiced by Airmen to welcome a new commander or to commemorate another event, such as a retirement.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Department of the Air Force is one of three military departments within the Department of Defense, and is managed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense. The senior officials in the Office of the Secretary are the Under Secretary of the Air Force, four Assistant Secretaries of the Air Force and the General Counsel, all of whom are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The senior uniformed leadership in the Air Staff is made up of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.


title: United States Air Force

text: The directly subordinate commands and units are named Field Operating Agency (FOA), Direct Reporting Unit (DRU), and the currently unused Separate Operating Agency.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Major Command (MAJCOM) is the superior hierarchical level of command. Including the Air Force Reserve Command, as of 30 September 2006, USAF has ten major commands. The Numbered Air Force (NAF) is a level of command directly under the MAJCOM, followed by Operational Command (now unused), Air Division (also now unused), Wing, Group, Squadron, and Flight.


title: United States Air Force

text: The USAF, including its Air Reserve Component (e.g., Air Force Reserve + Air National Guard), possesses a total of 302 flying squadrons.


title: United States Air Force

text: The organizational structure as shown above is responsible for the peacetime organization, equipping, and training of air units for operational missions. When required to support operational missions, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) directs the Secretary of the Air Force (SECAF) to execute a Change in Operational Control (CHOP) of these units from their administrative alignment to the operational command of a Regional Combatant commander (CCDR). In the case of AFSPC, AFSOC, PACAF, and USAFE units, forces are normally employed in-place under their existing CCDR. Likewise, AMC forces operating in support roles retain their componency to USTRANSCOM unless chopped to a Regional CCDR.


title: United States Air Force

text: "Chopped" units are referred to as "forces". The top-level structure of these forces is the Air Expeditionary Task Force (AETF). The AETF is the Air Force presentation of forces to a CCDR for the employment of Air Power. Each CCDR is supported by a standing Component Numbered Air Force (C-NAF) to provide planning and execution of air forces in support of CCDR requirements. Each C-NAF consists of a Commander, Air Force Forces (COMAFFOR) and AFFOR/A-staff, and an Air Operations Center (AOC). As needed to support multiple Joint Force Commanders (JFC) in the CCMD's Area of Responsibility (AOR), the C-NAF may deploy Air Component Coordinate Elements (ACCE) to liaise with the JFC. If the Air Force possesses the preponderance of air forces in a JFC's area of operations, the COMAFFOR will also serve as the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC).


title: United States Air Force

text: The Commander, Air Force Forces (COMAFFOR) is the senior USAF officer responsible for the employment of air power in support of JFC objectives. The COMAFFOR has a special staff and an A-Staff to ensure assigned or attached forces are properly organized, equipped, and trained to support the operational mission.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Air Operations Center (AOC) is the JFACC's Command and Control (C2) center. Several AOCs have been established throughout the Air Force worldwide. These centers are responsible for planning and executing air power missions in support of JFC objectives.


title: United States Air Force

text: The AETF generates air power to support CCMD objectives from Air Expeditionary Wings (AEW) or Air Expeditionary Groups (AEG). These units are responsible for receiving combat forces from Air Force MAJCOMs, preparing these forces for operational missions, launching and recovering these forces, and eventually returning forces to the MAJCOMs. Theater Air Control Systems control employment of forces during these missions.


title: United States Air Force

text: The classification of any USAF job for officers or enlisted airmen is the Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC).


title: United States Air Force

text: AFSCs range from officer specialties such as pilot, combat systems officer, special tactics, nuclear and missile operations, intelligence, cyberspace operations, judge advocate general (JAG), medical doctor, nurse or other fields, to various enlisted specialties. The latter range from flight combat operations such as loadmaster, to working in a dining facility to ensure that Airmen are properly fed. There are additional occupational fields such as computer specialties, mechanic specialties, enlisted aircrew, communication systems, cyberspace operations, avionics technicians, medical specialties, civil engineering, public affairs, hospitality, law, drug counseling, mail operations, security forces, and search and rescue specialties.


title: United States Air Force

text: Beyond combat flight crew personnel, other combat USAF AFSCs are Special Tactics Officer, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Combat Rescue Officer, Pararescue, Security Forces, Combat Control, Combat Weather, Tactical Air Control Party, Special Operations Weather Technician, and AFOSI agents.


title: United States Air Force

text: Nearly all enlisted career fields are "entry level", meaning that the USAF provides all training. Some enlistees are able to choose a particular field, or at least a field before actually joining, while others are assigned an AFSC at Basic Military Training (BMT). After BMT, new enlisted airmen attend a technical training school where they learn their particular AFSC. Second Air Force, a part of Air Education and Training Command, is responsible for nearly all enlisted technical training.


title: United States Air Force

text: Training programs vary in length; for example, 3M0X1 (Services) has 31 days of tech school training, while 3E8X1 (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) is one year of training with a preliminary school and a main school consisting of over ten separate divisions, sometimes taking students close to two years to complete. Officer technical training conducted by Second Air Force can also vary by AFSC, while flight training for aeronautically-rated officers conducted by AETC's Nineteenth Air Force can last well in excess of one year.


title: United States Air Force

text: USAF rank is divided between enlisted airmen, non-commissioned officers, and commissioned officers, and ranges from the enlisted Airman Basic (E-1) to the commissioned officer rank of General (O-10), however in times of war officers may be appointed to the higher grade of General of the Air Force. Enlisted promotions are granted based on a combination of test scores, years of experience, and selection board approval while officer promotions are based on time-in-grade and a promotion selection board. Promotions among enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers are generally designated by increasing numbers of insignia chevrons. Commissioned officer rank is designated by bars, oak leaves, a silver eagle, and anywhere from one to five stars. General of the Air Force Henry "Hap" Arnold is the only individual in the history of the US Air Force to attain the rank of five-star general.


title: United States Air Force

text: The commissioned officer ranks of the USAF are divided into three categories: company grade officers, field grade officers, and general officers. Company grade officers are those officers in pay grades O-1 to O-3, while field grade officers are those in pay grades O-4 to O-6, and general officers are those in pay grades of O-7 and above.


title: United States Air Force

text: Air Force officer promotions are governed by the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980 and its companion Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act (ROPMA) for officers in the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard. DOPMA also establishes limits on the number of officers that can serve at any given time in the Air Force. Currently, promotion from second lieutenant to first lieutenant is virtually guaranteed after two years of satisfactory service. The promotion from first lieutenant to captain is competitive after successfully completing another two years of service, with a selection rate varying between 99% and 100%. Promotion to major through major general is through a formal selection board process, while promotions to lieutenant general and general are contingent upon nomination to specific general officer positions and subject to U.S. Senate approval.


title: United States Air Force

text: During the board process, an officer's record is reviewed by a selection board at the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. At the 10 to 11-year mark, captains will take part in a selection board to major. If not selected, they will meet a follow-on board to determine if they will be allowed to remain in the Air Force. Promotion from major to lieutenant colonel is similar and occurs approximately between the thirteen year (for officers who were promoted to major early "below the zone") and the fifteen year mark, where a certain percentage of majors will be selected below zone (i.e., "early"), in zone (i.e., "on time") or above zone (i.e., "late") for promotion to lieutenant colonel. This process will repeat at the 16-year mark (for officers previously promoted early to major and lieutenant colonel) to the 21-year mark for promotion to full colonel.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Air Force has the largest ratio of general officers to total strength of all of the U.S. Armed Forces and this ratio has continued to increase even as the force has shrunk from its Cold War highs.


title: United States Air Force

text: Although provision is made in Title 10 of the United States Code for the Secretary of the Air Force to appoint warrant officers, the Air Force does not currently use warrant officer grades, and, along with the Space Force, are the only U.S. Armed Services not to do so. The Air Force inherited warrant officer ranks from the Army at its inception in 1947. The Air Force stopped appointing warrant officers in 1959, the same year the first promotions were made to the new top enlisted grade, Chief Master Sergeant. Most of the existing Air Force warrant officers entered the commissioned officer ranks during the 1960s, but small numbers continued to exist in the warrant officer grades for the next 21 years.


title: United States Air Force

text: The last active duty Air Force warrant officer, CWO4 James H. Long, retired in 1980 and the last Air Force Reserve warrant officer, CWO4 Bob Barrow, retired in 1992. Upon his retirement, he was honorarily promoted to CWO5, the only person in the Air Force ever to hold this grade. Since Barrow's retirement, the Air Force warrant officer ranks, while still authorized by law, are not used.


title: United States Air Force

text: Enlisted airmen have pay grades from E-1 (entry level) to E-9 (senior enlisted). While all USAF personnel, enlisted and officer, are referred to as "airmen", in the same manner that all Army personnel, enlisted and officer, are referred to as "soldiers", the term also refers to the pay grades of E-1 through E-4, which are below the level of non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Above the pay grade of E-4 (i.e., pay grades E-5 through E-9) all ranks fall into the category of NCO and are further subdivided into "NCOs" (pay grades E-5 and E-6) and "senior NCOs" (pay grades E-7 through E-9); the term "junior NCO" is sometimes used to refer to staff sergeants and technical sergeants (pay grades E-5 and E-6).


title: United States Air Force

text: The USAF is the only branch of the U.S. military where NCO status is achieved when an enlisted person reaches the pay grade of E-5. In all other branches, NCO status is generally achieved at the pay grade of E-4 (e.g., a corporal in the Army and Marine Corps, Petty Officer Third Class in the Navy and Coast Guard). The Air Force mirrored the Army from 1976 to 1991 with an E-4 being either a senior airman wearing three stripes without a star or a sergeant (referred to as "buck sergeant"), which was noted by the presence of the central star and considered an NCO. Despite not being an NCO, a senior airman who has completed Airman Leadership School can be a supervisor according to the AFI 36–2618.


title: United States Air Force

text: The first USAF dress uniform, in 1947, was dubbed and patented "Uxbridge blue" after "Uxbridge 1683 blue", developed at the former Bachman-Uxbridge Worsted Company. The current service dress uniform, which was adopted in 1994, consists of a three-button coat with decorative pockets, matching trousers, and either a service cap or flight cap, all in Shade 1620, "Air Force blue" (a darker purplish-blue). This is worn with a light blue shirt (shade 1550) and shade 1620 herringbone patterned necktie. Silver "U.S." pins are worn on the collar of the coat, with a surrounding silver ring for enlisted airmen. Enlisted airmen wear sleeve rank on both the jacket and shirt, while officers wear metal rank insignia pinned onto the epaulet loops on the coat, and Air Force blue slide-on epaulet loops on the shirt. USAF personnel assigned to base honor guard duties wear, for certain occasions, a modified version of the standard service dress uniform that includes silver trim on the sleeves and trousers, with the addition of a ceremonial belt (if necessary), service cap with silver trim and Hap Arnold Device (instead of the seal of the United States worn on the regular cap), and a silver aiguillette placed on the left shoulder seam and all devices and accoutrements.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Airman Combat Uniform (ACU) in the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) replaced the previous Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) on 1 October 2018.


title: United States Air Force

text: In addition to basic uniform clothing, various badges are used by the USAF to indicate a billet assignment or qualification-level for a given assignment. Badges can also be used as merit-based or service-based awards. Over time, various badges have been discontinued and are no longer distributed.


title: United States Air Force

text: All enlisted Airmen attend Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for weeks. Individuals who have prior service of over 24 months of active duty in the other service branches who seek to enlist in the Air Force must go through a 10-day Air Force familiarization course rather than enlisted BMT, however prior service opportunities are severely limited.


title: United States Air Force

text: Officers may be commissioned upon graduation from the United States Air Force Academy, upon graduation from another college or university through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program, or through the Air Force Officer Training School (OTS). OTS, located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama since 1993, in turn encompasses two separate commissioning programs: Basic Officer Training (BOT), which is for officer candidates for the Regular Air Force and the Air Force Reserve; and the Academy of Military Science (AMS), which is for officer candidates of the Air National Guard.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Air Force also provides Commissioned Officer Training (COT) for officers of all three components who are direct-commissioned into medicine, law, religion, biological sciences, or healthcare administration. COT is fully integrated into the OTS program and today encompasses extensive coursework as well as field exercises in leadership, confidence, fitness, and deployed-environment operations.


title: United States Air Force

text: The US Air Force Fitness Test (AFFT) is designed to test the abdominal circumference, muscular strength/endurance and cardiovascular respiratory fitness of airmen in the USAF. As part of the "Fit to Fight" program, the USAF adopted a more stringent physical fitness assessment; the new fitness program was put into effect on 1 June 2010. The annual ergo-cycle test which the USAF had used for several years had been replaced in 2004. In the AFFT, Airmen are given a score based on performance consisting of four components: waist circumference, the sit-up, the push-up, and a run. Airmen can potentially earn a score of 100, with the run counting as 60%, waist circumference as 20%, and both strength tests counting as 10% each. A passing score is 75 points. Effective 1 July 2010, the AFFT is administered by the base Fitness Assessment Cell (FAC), and is required twice a year. Personnel may test once a year if he or she earns a score above a 90%. Additionally, only meeting the minimum standards on each one of these tests will not get you a passing score of 75%, and failing any one component will result in a failure for the entire test.


title: United States Air Force

text: The U.S. Air Force has a total force of 5,217 aircraft as of June 2021. Of these, 4,131 are in active service. Until 1962, the Army and Air Force maintained one system of aircraft naming, while the U.S. Navy maintained a separate system. In 1962, these were unified into a single system heavily reflecting the Army and Air Force method. For more complete information on the workings of this system, refer to United States military aircraft designation systems. The various aircraft of the Air Force include:


title: United States Air Force

text: The attack aircraft of the USAF are designed to attack targets on the ground and are often deployed as close air support for, and in proximity to, U.S. ground forces. The proximity to friendly forces require precision strikes from these aircraft that are not always possible with bomber aircraft. Their role is tactical rather than strategic, operating at the front of the battle rather than against targets deeper in the enemy's rear. The Air Force is currently running the OA-X experiment, with the intent to procure an off-the-shelf light attack aircraft. Current USAF attack aircraft are operated by Air Combat Command, Pacific Air Forces, and Air Force Special Operations Command.


title: United States Air Force

text: US Air Force bombers are strategic weapons, primarily used for long range strike missions with either conventional or nuclear ordnance. Traditionally used for attacking strategic targets, today many bombers are also used in the tactical mission, such as providing close air support for ground forces and tactical interdiction missions. All Air Force bombers are under Global Strike Command.


title: United States Air Force

text: The service's B-2A aircraft entered service in the 1990s, its B-1B aircraft in the 1980s and its current B-52H aircraft in the early 1960s. The B-52 Stratofortress airframe design is over 60 years old and the B-52H aircraft currently in the active inventory were all built between 1960 and 1962. The B-52H is scheduled to remain in service for another 30 years, which would keep the airframe in service for nearly 90 years, an unprecedented length of service for any aircraft. The B-21 is projected to replace the B-52 and parts of the B-1B force by the mid-2020s.


title: United States Air Force

text: Transport aircraft are typically used to deliver troops, weapons and other military equipment by a variety of methods to any area of military operations around the world, usually outside of the commercial flight routes in uncontrolled airspace. The workhorses of the USAF airlift forces are the C-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, and C-5 Galaxy. The CV-22 is used by the Air Force for special operations. It conducts long-range, special operations missions, and is equipped with extra fuel tanks and terrain-following radar. Some aircraft serve specialized transportation roles such as executive or embassy support (C-12), Antarctic support (LC-130H), and AFSOC support (C-27J, C-145A, and C-146A). Although most of the US Air Force's cargo aircraft were specially designed with the Air Force in mind, some aircraft such as the C-12 Huron (Beechcraft Super King Air) and C-146 (Dornier 328) are militarized conversions of existing civilian aircraft. Transport aircraft are operated by Air Mobility Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, and United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa.


title: United States Air Force

text: The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent an advantage in the EMS and ensure friendly, unimpeded access to the EM spectrum portion of the information environment. Electronic warfare aircraft are used to keep airspaces friendly, and send critical information to anyone who needs it. They are often called "the eye in the sky". The roles of the aircraft vary greatly among the different variants to include electronic warfare and jamming (EC-130H), psychological operations and communications (EC-130J), airborne early warning and control (E-3), airborne command post (E-4B), ground targeting radar (E-8C), range control (E-9A), and communications relay (E-11A, EQ-4B).


title: United States Air Force

text: The fighter aircraft of the USAF are small, fast, and maneuverable military aircraft primarily used for air-to-air combat. Many of these fighters have secondary ground-attack capabilities, and some are dual-roled as fighter-bombers (e.g., the F-16 Fighting Falcon); the term "fighter" is also sometimes used colloquially for dedicated ground-attack aircraft, such as the F-117 Nighthawk. Other missions include interception of bombers and other fighters, reconnaissance, and patrol. The F-16 is currently used by the USAF Air Demonstration squadron, the Thunderbirds, while a small number of both man-rated and non-man-rated F-4 Phantom II are retained as QF-4 aircraft for use as full-scale aerial targets (FSATs) or as part of the USAF Heritage Flight program. These extant QF-4 aircraft are being replaced in the FSAT role by early model F-16 aircraft converted to QF-16 configuration. The USAF had 2,025 fighters in service as of September 2012.


title: United States Air Force

text: These aircraft are used for search and rescue and combat search and rescue on land or sea. The HC-130N/P aircraft are being replaced by newer HC-130J models. HH-60U are replacement aircraft for "G" models that have been lost in combat operations or accidents. New HH-60W helicopters are under development to replace both the "G" and "U" model Pave Hawks.


title: United States Air Force

text: The USAF's KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling aircraft are based on civilian jets. The USAF aircraft are equipped primarily for providing the fuel via a tail-mounted refueling boom, and can be equipped with "probe and drogue" refueling systems. Air-to-air refueling is extensively used in large-scale operations and also used in normal operations; fighters, bombers, and cargo aircraft rely heavily on the lesser-known "tanker" aircraft. This makes these aircraft an essential part of the Air Force's global mobility and the U.S. force projection. The KC-46A Pegasus began to be delivered to USAF units starting in 2019.


title: United States Air Force

text: Specialized multi-mission aircraft provide support for global special operations missions. These aircraft conduct infiltration, exfiltration, resupply, and refueling for SOF teams from improvised or otherwise short runways. The MC-130J is currently being fielded to replace "H" and "P" models used by U.S. Special Operations Command. The MC-12W is used in the "intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance" (ISR) role.


title: United States Air Force

text: Initial generations of RPAs were primarily surveillance aircraft, but some were fitted with weaponry (such as the MQ-1 Predator, which used AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles). An armed RPA is known as an "unmanned combat aerial vehicle" (UCAV).


title: United States Air Force

text: These aircraft are modified to observe (through visual or other means) and report tactical information concerning composition and disposition of forces. The OC-135 is specifically designed to support the Treaty on Open Skies by observing bases and operations of party members under the 2002-signed treaty.


title: United States Air Force

text: The reconnaissance aircraft of the USAF are used for monitoring enemy activity, originally carrying no armament. Although the U-2 is designated as a "utility" aircraft, it is a reconnaissance platform. The roles of the aircraft vary greatly among the different variants to include general monitoring (RC-26B), ballistic missile monitoring (RC-135S), electronic intelligence gathering (RC-135U), signal intelligence gathering (RC-135V/W), and high altitude surveillance (U-2)


title: United States Air Force

text: Several unmanned remotely controlled reconnaissance aircraft (RPAs), have been developed and deployed. Recently, the RPAs have been seen to offer the possibility of cheaper, more capable fighting machines that can be used without risk to aircrews.


title: United States Air Force

text: The Air Force's trainer aircraft are used to train pilots, combat systems officers, and other aircrew in their duties.


title: United States Air Force

text: Several gliders are used by the USAF, primarily used for cadet flying training at the U.S. Air Force Academy.


title: United States Air Force

text: Utility aircraft are used basically for what they are needed for at the time. For example, a Huey may be used to transport personnel around a large base or launch site, while it can also be used for evacuation. These aircraft are all around use aircraft.


title: United States Air Force

text: These aircraft are used for the transportation of Very Important Persons (VIPs). Notable people include the president, vice president, cabinet secretaries, government officials (e.g., senators and representatives), the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other key personnel.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has held the position in the FIDE world chess rankings since 1 July 2011 and trails only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest-rated player in the world. His peak rating of 2882 is the highest in history. He also holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak at the elite level in classical chess.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: A chess prodigy, Carlsen finished first in the C group of the Corus chess tournament shortly after he turned 13 and earned the title of grandmaster a few months later. At 15, he won the Norwegian Chess Championship, and at 17 he finished joint first in the top group of Corus. He surpassed a rating of 2800 at 18, the youngest at the time to do so. In 2010, at 19, he reached in the FIDE world rankings, the youngest person ever to do so.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen became World Chess Champion in 2013 by defeating Viswanathan Anand. He retained his title against Anand the following year and won both the 2014 World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship, becoming the first player to hold all three titles simultaneously, a feat which he repeated in 2019. He defended his classical world title against Sergey Karjakin in 2016, against Fabiano Caruana in 2018, and against Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2021. Carlsen will not defend his title against Nepomniachtchi in 2023.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Known for his attacking style as a teenager, Carlsen has since developed into a universal player. He uses a variety of openings to make it harder for opponents to prepare against him and reduce the utility of pre-game computer analysis. He has stated the middlegame is his favourite part of the game as it "comes down to pure chess".


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen was born in Tønsberg, Norway, on 30 November 1990 to Sigrun Øen, a chemical engineer, and Henrik Albert Carlsen, an IT consultant. The family spent one year in Espoo, Finland, and then in Brussels, Belgium, before returning to Norway in 1998, where they lived in Lommedalen, Bærum. They later moved to Haslum. Carlsen showed an aptitude for intellectual challenges at a young age. At two years, he could solve 50-piece jigsaw puzzles; at four, he enjoyed assembling Lego sets with instructions intended for children aged 10–14.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: His father, a keen amateur chess player, taught him to play at age 5, although he initially showed little interest in it. He has three sisters, and in 2010 stated that one of the things that first motivated him to take up chess seriously was the desire to beat his elder sister at the game.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: The first chess book Carlsen read was a booklet named "Find the Plan" by Bent Larsen, and his first book on openings was Eduard Gufeld's "The Complete Dragon". Carlsen developed his early chess skills playing by himself for hours on end—moving the pieces around, searching for combinations, and replaying games and positions his father showed him. Simen Agdestein emphasises Carlsen's exceptional memory, stating that he was able to recall the locations, populations, flags and capitals of all the countries in the world by age five. Later, he memorised the locations, populations, coats-of-arms and administrative centres of "virtually all" 356 Norwegian municipalities. He participated in his first tournament—the youngest division of the 1999 Norwegian Chess Championship—at 8 years and 7 months, and scored 6/11.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen was coached at the Norwegian College of Elite Sport by the country's top player, Grandmaster (GM) Simen Agdestein, who in turn cites Norwegian football manager Egil "Drillo" Olsen as a key inspiration for his coaching strategy. In 2000, Agdestein introduced Carlsen to Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, a former Norwegian junior champion and later International Master (IM) and Grandmaster (GM), as Ringdal served a one-year "" (an alternative civilian service programme) at the college.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Over the course of that year, Carlsen's rating rose from 904 in June 2000 to 1907. His breakthrough occurred in the Norwegian junior teams championship in September 2000, where he scored 3½/5 against the country's top junior players and gained a (TPR) of around 2000. Apart from chess, which he studied about three to four hours a day, his favourite pastimes included playing football and reading Donald Duck comics. He also practised skiing until age ten.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: From autumn 2000 to the end of 2002, Carlsen played almost 300 rated tournament games, as well as in several blitz tournaments, and participated in other minor events. In October 2002, he placed sixth in the European Under-12 Championship in Peñiscola. The following month, he tied for first place in the 2002 World Under-12 Championship in Heraklion, placing second to Ian Nepomniachtchi on tiebreak. He then obtained three IM norms in relatively quick succession: the first at the January 2003 Gausdal Troll Masters (score 7/10, 2453 PR); the second at the June 2003 Salongernas IM-tournament in Stockholm (6/9, 2470 PR); and the third at the July 2003 Politiken Cup in Copenhagen (8/11, 2503 PR). He was officially awarded the IM title on 20 August 2003.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: After finishing primary school, Carlsen took a year off to participate in international chess tournaments in Europe during the autumn of 2003, then returned to complete secondary education at a sports school. During the year away from school, he placed joint-third in the European Under-14 Championship and ninth in the 2003 World Under-14 Championship.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen made headlines after his victory, at the age of 13, in the C group at the 2004 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. He obtained a score of 10½/13, losing just one game (against the highest-rated player of the C group, Duško Pavasovič). As a result, he earned his first GM norm, and achieved a of 2702. Particularly notable was his win over Sipke Ernst in the penultimate round, when he sacrificed material to give mate in just 29 moves. His victory in the C group qualified him to play in the B group in 2005, and it led Lubomir Kavalek, writing for the "Washington Post", to give him the title "the Mozart of chess" (although, as pointed out by Edward Winter, the nickname had been given to many illustrious predecessors). Agdestein said that Carlsen had an excellent memory and played an unusually wide range of openings. Carlsen's prowess caught the attention of Microsoft, which became his sponsor.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen obtained his second GM norm at the Moscow Aeroflot Open in February. On 17 March, in a blitz chess tournament in Reykjavík, Iceland, he defeated former World Champion Anatoly Karpov. It was a preliminary event leading up to a rapid knockout tournament beginning the next day. In that event, Carlsen was paired with Garry Kasparov, then the top-rated player in the world. Carlsen achieved a draw in their first game but lost the second, and was thus knocked out of the tournament.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In the sixth Dubai Open Chess Championship, held 18–28 April, Carlsen obtained his third and final GM norm. It made him the world's youngest GM at the time, and the second-youngest GM in history at the time (after Sergey Karjakin, who earned the title at 12 years and 7 months). Carlsen played in the FIDE World Chess Championship, becoming the youngest player ever to participate in one, but was knocked out in the first round by Levon Aronian.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In July, Carlsen and Berge Østenstad, then the reigning Norwegian champion, tied for first in the Norwegian Chess Championship, each scoring 7/9. A two-game match between them was arranged to decide the title. Both games were drawn, which left Østenstad the champion because he had superior tiebreaks in the tournament.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In the Smartfish Chess Masters event at the Drammen International Chess Festival 2004–05, Carlsen defeated Alexei Shirov, then ranked in the world, as well as the co-winner of the tournament. In the semifinals of the Ciudad de León rapid chess tournament in June, Carlsen played a four-game match against Viswanathan Anand, who was ranked in the world at the time and had won the 2003 World Rapid Chess Championship. Anand won 3–1.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In the Norwegian Chess Championship, Carlsen again finished in shared first place, this time with his mentor Simen Agdestein. A playoff between them was played between 7 and 10 November. This time, Carlsen had the better tiebreaks, but the rule giving the title to the player with better tiebreak scores in the event of a 1–1 tie had been revoked. The match was closely fought—Agdestein won the first game, Carlsen the second—so it went into a series of two-game rapid matches until there was a winner. Carlsen won the first rapid game, Agdestein the second. Then followed three draws until Agdestein won the championship title with a victory in the sixth rapid game.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In October, Carlsen took first place at the Arnold Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal with a score 8/9 and a of 2792.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: At the end of 2005, Carlsen participated at the Chess World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. In the knockout tournament, he upset 44th-ranked Zurab Azmaiparashvili in round one, and proceeded to defeat Farrukh Amonatov and Ivan Cheparinov to reach the round of 16. There he lost to Evgeny Bareev, but won against Joël Lautier and Vladimir Malakhov before losing again to Gata Kamsky. Carlsen finished in tenth place and became the youngest player to be an official World Championship Candidate.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen qualified for a place in the Corus B group due to his first-place finish in Corus group C in 2004. His shared first place with Alexander Motylev with 9/13 (+6−1=6) qualified him to play in the Corus group A in 2007.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: At the 2006 international 'Bosna' tournament in Sarajevo, Carlsen shared first place with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (who won on tiebreak evaluation) and Vladimir Malakhov; this could be regarded as Carlsen's first "A" elite tournament win, although it was not a clear first.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen was close to winning the 2006 Norwegian Chess Championship outright, but a last-round loss to Berge Østenstad dropped him into another tie for first place with Agdestein. It also prevented Carlsen from beating Agdestein's record as the youngest Norwegian champion ever. Nonetheless, in the playoff held from 19 to 21 September, Carlsen won 3–1. After two draws at standard time controls, Carlsen won both rapid games in round two, securing his first Norwegian championship win.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen won the Glitnir Blitz Tournament in Iceland. He achieved a 2–0 win over Viswanathan Anand in the semi-finals and achieved the same score in the finals. He scored 6/8 in the 37th Chess Olympiad and achieved a PR of 2820.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In the Midnight Sun Chess Tournament in Tromsø, Carlsen finished second to Sergei Shipov. In the Biel Grandmaster Tournament, he placed second, beating the tournament winner Alexander Morozevich twice.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In the NH Chess Tournament held in Amsterdam in August, Carlsen participated in an "Experience" vs. "Rising Stars" Scheveningen team match. The "Rising Stars" won the match 28–22, with Carlsen achieving the best individual score for the Rising Stars team (6½/10) and a 2700 PR, thus winning the right to participate in the 2007 Melody Amber tournament.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: With a score of 7½/15, Carlsen placed 8th out of 16 participants at the World Blitz Championship in Rishon LeZion, Israel. In the rapid chess tournament "Rencontres nationales et internationales d'échecs" in Cap d'Agde, France, he reached the semi-final, losing there to Sergey Karjakin. In November, Carlsen achieved a shared 8th place of 10 participants in the Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow with two losses and seven draws. He finished ninth in a group of 18 participants in the associated blitz tournament, which was won by Anand.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Playing in the top group of the Corus chess tournament for the first time, Carlsen placed last with nine draws and four losses, scoring 4½/13. In the Linares chess tournament, Carlsen played against top-rated players Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler, Alexander Morozevich, Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, and Vasyl Ivanchuk. Despite being rated significantly lower than any of them, he finished in second place on tiebreaks with 7½/14, having scored four wins, seven draws and three losses, and achieving a PR of 2778.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: Carlsen played for the first time in the Melody Amber blind and rapid chess tournament in Monte Carlo in March. In the 11 rounds, he achieved eight draws and three losses in the blindfold games, as well as three wins, seven draws and one loss in the rapid games. This resulted in a shared ninth place in the blindfold, shared second place in the rapid (behind Anand), and a shared eighth place overall.


title: Magnus Carlsen

text: In May and June, he participated in the Candidates Tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007, facing Levon Aronian in a six-game match at standard time controls, which Carlsen drew (+2−2=2) by coming from behind twice. The four-game rapid playoff was drawn as well (+1−1=2), with Carlsen winning the last game to stay in the match. Eventually, Aronian eliminated Carlsen from the tournament after winning both tiebreak blitz games.