Lesley J. McNair

Lesley J. McNair

General Lesley James McNair (May 25, 1883 - July 25, 1944) was an American Army officer who served during World War I and World War II.

He was born in Verndale, Minnesota, which was then a farming and mercantile community of 1,500. McNair, the son of a merchant, went on to graduated from West Point at the age of 21, and saw service under Gen. John J. Pershing, first in Mexico and then in France in the First World War. For his outstanding service, he was awarded both the Distinguished Service Medal and the French Legion of Honor.

In 1940, he was made major general--and undertook the reorganization of general headquarters at the U.S. Army War College. In 1941, he became a lieutenant general and commanding general of the Army Ground Forces. Chris Gabel has written of McNair's training skills, in which he still has no peers, in a book entitled `Louisiana Maneuvers.'

As Commandant of the Command and General Staff College, McNair initiated changes that prepared the College's graduates to meet the upcoming challenges of World War II.

In 1939, eighteen years after serving as an instructor at the General Service School at Fort Leavenworth—during which time he graduated from the Army School of the Line—General McNair returned to Fort Leavenworth to reform and update the instruction.

in 1941, the first African American combat soldiers for WWII entered Army training. McNair had fought the bigotry in the Army for years to allow the formation of segregated units during the war.

In 1942, General McNair was designated Commanding General, Army Ground Forces. Once he was satisfied that the Army could operate in large bodies he concentrated on revising training to simulate the conditions that the Army was facing in North Africa.

McNair, who had already received a Purple Heart for being wounded in the North African Campaign, was killed July 25, 1944 near St. Lo during Operation Cobra, by a misplaced aerial bombardment. He was the highest-ranking American to be killed in action in World War II.

It was said of LTG McNair that he did more than train men—he realized that no army can be fully effective unless it is properly organized, correctly equipped, adequately led, and completely trained. His insistence on these fundamentals, especially realistic training, helped save untold thousands of American lives.

Fort Lesley McNair in Washington, D.C. was renamed in his honor in 1948. McNair Barracks, a kaserne in Berlin, Germany that housed the infantry units of the Berlin Brigade, U.S. Army Berlin, was named in his honor.

In 1954 Congress promoted him posthumously to the rank of General.

External links

• Lesley J. McNair biography from Command & General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas
• History of Fort Lesley J. McNair - from website of the Military District of Washington