Editorial: Gen. McNair
When the Army Chief of Staff last month inspected the Normandy beachhead, he was asked what impressed him most. Gen. Marshall replied that American troops never before under fire had fought like veterans. This was the highest tribute to the bravery and skill of America’s citizen-soldiers. It was also praise – as every soldier and officer knew – for the man who had organized and trained them.
Lt. Gen. McNair was not as well known to the public as such famous front commanders as Gens. Eisenhower, MacArthur, Stilwell and Bradley. But without his work and achievement theirs would have been impossible, as they have always said. He expanded an American Army of 1,500,000 into a team of 7,700,000. They came to him amateurs; they left him professionals. He even followed them to the fighting fronts to check on their training and perfect it, as he did last year in Tunisia where he was wounded.
It was not accident that made Gen. McNair chief of the Army Ground Forces. He had long been known as “the GHQ sparkplug.” Gen. Marshall had called him “the brains of the Army.”
So, Gen. McNair trained the G.I.s, believing that “the infantryman is our foremost soldier.” He was forever reminding his associates that other arms of the service could prepare the way, but the ground soldier must take and hold positions. When the tank loomed large, he, an old artilleryman, helped to bring up the anti-tank weapons and tactics.
He even matched the morale of more glamorous services. When the humble mud-slogging G.I. seemed neglected for the more publicized airmen, paratroopers, tankmen and others, he set up a unit to educate press and public in the Army truism that “the infantry is the Queen of Battles.”
Two weeks ago, the big training job almost done, the War Department announced that the chief of the Army Ground Forces had been given another important assignment overseas. Yesterday the Department announced that he had been “killed by enemy fire while observing the action of our frontline units in the recent offensive” in Normandy.
Americans everywhere, indebted to this great and gallant officer, join in Gen. Marshall’s tribute to him: “Had he the choice, he probably would have elected to die as he did, in the forefront of the attack.”