Army & Navy: From My Own Men

U.S. Army press officers in London had insisted that Lieut. General Lesley J. Mc-Nair, trainer of the Army’s ground fight ing forces, had been killed by the enemy. But too many-people knew better, and last week the tragic truth came out. Able, respected “Whitey” McNair had been killed by a bomb dropped from a U.S. plane.

Like many a plain front-line G.I., General McNair was hit by a wild salvo dropped in the heavy air preparations for the Normandy breakthrough (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS).

Death from the errors of fellow soldiers is an old story in war—especially in combat involving aircraft. But few officers of such high rank have died that way. Most memorable accident in U.S. military history: the death of General Thomas (“Stonewall”) Jackson, who was shot by his North Carolinians as he galloped at dusk through a grove of trees at Chancellorsville.

When his aides asked the mortally wounded Jackson if he was badly hurt, he answered with an air of wonderment but no bitterness: “I think I am—and all my wounds are from my own men.” Supreme Headquarters’ report included no dying words from Whitey McNair, a thoroughgoing professional soldier who must also have died without bitterness.

Whitey McNair left an only son to carry on. This week the War Department announced that redheaded, 37-year-old Colonel Douglas McNair, a West Pointer and an artilleryman like his father, had been killed in action on Guam.