LeMay (Great Generals) [Paperback]

This book is a quick and dirty overview of the life and career of Curtis E. LeMay. The biography is rather thin and it hits only the highlights of the general's life. All the books in this series are on the short side and serve more as brief introductions to their subjects than authoritative accounts. There is only so much Tillman can do in the space that he has available and given the constraints he faces, he does a good job. Tillman is a sympathetic biographer and does an exceptional job of explaining LeMay's involvement in the Berlin Airlift. Previous biographers have given this topic little attention. This approach, though, leads Tillman astray when he reaches LeMay's tenure as Chief-of-Staff of the USAF during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Like previous LeMay biographers, Tillman is as dismissive of the national strategies and foreign policies of these administrations as was LeMay. His explanation of these different ideas and approaches is simplistic at best. He is particularly rough on Secretary of Defense Robert S. MacNamara, making the former executive at the Ford Motor Company look at various times as either an incompetent or as a black-and-white villain.

It is clear that Tillman likes his subject, and there is much to admire in Curtis E. LeMay as a professional, a leader, and as a man. Tillman, however, has a difficult time developing the general's complex personality. There was good deal more to him than his gruff exterior. Despite his "bomb `em back into the stone age" reputation, LeMay had a powerful understanding of the bleak realities of what war really was. He was fully aware he was sending off men to kill and be killed, and he was alert to the real damage that they would suffer one way or another. He rarely got romantic about the business of war, which made him all the more human and determined to get results. Despite the caliber of Tillman's biography, the best book on LeMay remains the general's own memoirs. If you can get to a library, it is a good read. Otherwise, this book is pretty good too.

General Curtis E. LeMay is undoubtedly the greatest general of the United States Air Force. LeMay was no charismatic, brash, newspaper prima donna like many of his peers during WW 2 and beyond. General LeMay is the embodiment of the American ethic; extremely hard working, driven to excellence, master of the task at hand and highly determined; yet last but not least loyal.

Barrett Tillman has done a superb job at bringing one of the lesser known generals of WW 2 and the post WW 2 era to life. When talking of great American military leaders of WW 2, LeMay's name is not one that is easily on the tip of most military history buffs tongues. Yet along with Chester Nimitz, he perhaps played one of the greatest roles in winning the war and shaping the future of American airpower. His leadership in establishing long range, daylight precision bombing during the war was key in breaking the industrial might of Nazi Germany. Through statistical analysis he was able to develop the tactics that proved the critics of daylight bombing wrong while getting the maximum performance from his aircrews and planes. When transferred to the CBI theater of operations he took a sagging B-29 program and made it successful against logistical handicaps that would have caused others to throw in the towel. As head of the B-29 command charged with bringing the Japanese to their knees, LeMay's tenacity ruled the day.

While not the first commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), it was General LeMay who built SAC into the greatest command within the United States Air Force. His highly analytical mind was responsible for creating a deterrient force that would eventually lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under his leadership the United States Air Force via SAC was able to create a truly global reach through air and now space forces.

For those Air Force veterans who served in SAC, LeMay's story is one that should have been taught to us when we arrived at our first SAC duty station. The command and control concepts that General LeMay put in place ensured that any member of SAC could perform at the highest operational capacity with the highest degree of proficiency at any SAC base they were assigned to.

LeMay as Tillman rightly points out was a great lead from the front general. Every thing that made Curtis LeMay a great operational commander worked against him as he served an extrordinary long term in Washington, DC as Vice Chief and later Chief of Staff of the US Air Force. Tillman through LeMay's eyes sheds light on the highly byzantine world of politics that our military leadership must contend with. It is through LeMay's perspective that we see the military as well as strategic short sightedness of presidents Kennedy and Johnson who in LeMay's mind bungled the Bay of Pigs as well as VietNam.

Tillman's work is part of a series that covers the lives and careers of great military leaders. Some may view this book and others in the series as light weight in nature. My take is that this book will inspire the reader to learn more about America's Greatest Air Force General.

Barrett Tillman's LeMay is a welcome addition to military aviation literature. Rooted in extensive research, gracefully written, and cogently argued, it places LeMay in a far richer and thoughtful context than the one-dimensional cigar-chomping, firestrom-triggering, finger-on-the-nuclear-trigger caricature of post-Dr. Strangelove, post-Vietnam sensibility. Tillman ranges widely across LeMay's life, relating it to key developments in military aviation, technology, world events, national strategy, and the political and social environment of the times. Nuanced, polished, and engrossing, it is must-read for anyone interested in the development of American air power and the role of this complex and fascinating man, one of the "Great Captains" of air warfare.