Lesley J. McNair

Lesley J. McNair
McNair as Army Ground Forces commander, circa 1942
Nickname(s)	Whitey
Born	(1883-05-25)May 25, 1883 Verndale, Minnesota, United States
Died	July 25, 1944(1944-07-25) (aged 61) Saint-Lô, Normandy, France
Buried	Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, France
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1904–1944
Rank	Lieutenant General (Army of the United States ) General (posthumous)
Service number	0-1891
Unit	Field Artillery Branch
Commands held	Battery C, 4th Field Artillery Regiment Battery D, 4th Field Artillery Regiment Reserve Officers' Training Corps, Purdue University 2nd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment 2nd Battalion, 83rd Field Artillery Regiment Civilian Conservation Corps District E, Seventh Corps Area 2nd Field Artillery Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division United States Army Command and General Staff School Army Ground Forces First United States Army Group (fictitious)
Battles/wars	Banana Wars Occupation of Veracruz Border War Pancho Villa Expedition First World War Second World War North African campaign Operation Overlord Operation Cobra  †
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal (3) Purple Heart (2) Legion of Honor (Officer) (France)
Spouse(s)	Clare Huster (m. 1905-1944, his death)
Children	1

Lesley James McNair (May 25, 1883 – July 25, 1944) was a senior United States Army officer who served during World War I and World War II. He attained the rank of lieutenant general during his life; he was killed in action during World War II, and received a posthumous promotion to general.

A Minnesota native and 1904 graduate of the United States Military Academy, McNair was a Field Artillery officer with a background in the Ordnance Department. A veteran of the Veracruz occupation and Pancho Villa Expedition, during World War I he served as assistant chief of staff for training with the 1st Division, and then chief of artillery training on the staff at the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters. His outstanding performance resulted in his promotion to temporary brigadier general; at age 35, he was the Army's second-youngest general officer.

McNair's experience of more than 30 years with equipment and weapons design and testing, his administrative skills, and his success in the areas of military education and training led to his World War II assignment as commander of Army Ground Forces. In this position, McNair became the "unsung architect of the U.S. Army",^[1] and played a leading role in the organizational design, equipping, and training of Army units in the United States before they departed for overseas combat. While historians continue to debate some of McNair's decisions and actions, including the individual replacement system for killed and wounded soldiers, and a controversy over the use of tanks or tank destroyers as anti-tank weapons, his concentration on advanced officer education, innovative weapons systems, improved doctrine, realistic combat training, and development of combined arms tactics enabled the Army to modernize and perform successfully on the World War II battlefield, where the mobility of mechanized forces replaced the static defenses of World War I as the primary tactical consideration.

He was killed by friendly fire while in France to act as commander of the fictitious First United States Army Group, part of the Operation Quicksilver deception that masked the actual landing sites for the Invasion of Normandy. During Operation Cobra, an Eighth Air Force bomb landed in his foxhole near Saint-Lô when the Army attempted to use heavy bombers for close air support of infantry operations as part of the Battle of Normandy.