"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.

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