"The Tragedy of Lieutenant General Lesley McNair: ..." Topic

…. The Highest Ranking US Soldier Killed in WWII.

"Lieutenant General Lesley McNair never had the historical reputation he deserved. He never got to sit down in a comfortable chair, brandy at his elbow, and compose his memoirs. McNair never got to have the full trappings of a state funeral in his honor. Nor did his fellow Generals and West Point graduates give him glowing eulogies.

McNair never had any of those things because he was blown to smithereens by the US Airforce during Operation Cobra in a friendly fire incident that also left 136 American soldiers dead and over 500 wounded.

McNair was born in 1883 and served during both world wars. He graduated from the United States Military Academy, also known as West Point, in 1904 and became a Field Artillery officer…"
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McNair was "covered up" anonymously without fanfare because Eisenhower was afraid of the political fallout it would create back home, especially since it was the second friendly bombing disaster in as many days which the Thirtieth Division took the brunt of.

Not exactly something you want to draw attention to.

My Father, an INF SGT in WWII. Told me about the incident … I think he was somewhere nearby. He never went into much detail …

It's bad enough to lose troops to enemy fire … but for some reason Friendly Fires makes it a little worse. I'd think …

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is that the Army Air Corps ignored the army's desire that they make their bombing run parallel to the front line and instead made their approach perpendicular to the front. A premature drop caused a good part of the mission bombload to fall upon the American front line.

B

McNair gets a bad press for having overestimated the qualities of the Sherman, notoriously writing that it was the best tank in the world and that the Germans agreed. He is often cited as one of the obstacles to getting the Pershing earlier.

Given how integrated the US logistics system was I think this is a bit inaccurate but he did, did he not, limit the distribution of 76mm Shermans?

McNair has been made the villain of the Sherman/Pershing story.

First of all you have to understand that the US military had to come up with a massive plan to build a complete military-industrial complex. Which means they had to plan everything in 1940-1941 based on the assumptions and data available at the time. Much of which was at best already six months out of date or worse.

To his credit he made sure that the US army got functional equipment, unlike the Germans who simply laid down basic plans, had Krupp, Henschel and Porsche run riot with it and make a fortune selling vastly overpriced tanks to the German Army.

If you convert Reichsmarks to Dollars, Rubles or Pounds, you find that German tanks pound for pound are anything up to three times as costly as Allied tanks, the ones they sell to the Japanese are about nine times as expensive. And almost all prices you find quoted exclude all extra's such as the engine, gun, radio and several other features. All thanks to Speer who was trying to convince Hitler German industry was making production cheaper. The money German industry made during the war was handily stashed away and does much to explain how Germany got back on its feet so soon after the war.

So McNair made sure that the equipment was battle-ready and wouldn't break down as soon as it got off the boat.

Where his plans did go wrong was Battle Need, where he would await reports from the troops in the front lines and figure out what equipment needed to be updated or replaced. Given that the guys in the front lines were too busy to go around making extensive equipment comparisons very little info got through to McNair and therefore he saw no need to prioritize new equipment.

He was against Pershing because of several reasons, it would require at least a year or more for any of the prototypes to be operational, US port cranes were only rated up to thirty tons and while there was an upgrade program already in progress, it would mean that hundreds of Pershings would simply be stuck in US ports. Similarly most European ports were either destroyed, damaged or lacked the cranes. Antwerp had only two cranes capable of lifting more than thirty tons and one of them was a steam crane on a barge that couldn't reach high enough to unload some of the largest ships.

So the US logistics corps had to wait until ports were freed, deliver a dozen high capacity cranes and set them up before you could even unload ships full of Pershings.

McNair finally relented on the Pershing in 1943, but insisted that Pershing be fully operational. The first tanks were delivered in January 1945 and were in action in February 1945 after crews had trained with them.

Believe me if they had fast-tracked Pershing it would be decried to this day as a horrible mistake, a terrible design that was completely useless, broke down all the time and just as useless as the Sherman and worse than a factory pre-sabotaged Panther.

No, McNair didn't think tanks shouldn't fight tanks (it's in the ing manual) he thought tanks shouldn't be bogged down fighting tanks if the US army could provide an alternative, the Tank Destroyer. That didn't work out quite as expected, but Tank Destroyers did exactly what the tin says, they did kill German tanks, except that they were expect to sit idle in between killing tanks. No sensible commander would do such a thing that's why Tank Destroyer as a separate arm was considered a failure and they were simply reclassified as anti-tank assets.

McNair did drop the ball when he had his road to Damascus moment when a British report (already out of date) fell on his desk showing that towed guns were incredibly effective. Given that very few anti-tank guns were self-propelled and most of them were simply truck portees and the British had figured out that self-propelled anti-tank guns were the way forward, McNair made the reverse decision and ordered the Tank Destroyers to give up their M10's and swap them for the horribly bad 3-inch AT guns, too big and too heavy for their intended role. Once they figured out that mistake, they quickly went back to M10s and friends. And to his credit McNair wasn't a prima-donna or went on temper tantrums to force people to go back on their decisions, he did what every sane person would do, he defended his position until he was finally convinced of the opposite and changed his mind. He was aware that he had to make sure the guys in the front lines got the best possible deal, not conform to any of his ideas and rant and damn reality for not complying.

McNair is not the bad guy, he had the difficult task of coming up with a doctrine, adjust it where necessary and was the victim of how information filters up the chain of command and creates a skewed, out of date view of the situation on the ground. Adjustments and introduction of new equipment was lightning fast once it happened, remember Pershings arrived within months of landing in Normandy. Compare this to Tiger which was already being tested before the war started and was only available at the tail end of 1942 a year and a half after the Germans had invaded Russia and figured they needed a heavy tank and they still came with a boatload of reliability problems …

It's things like spare parts and ease of replacement in the field that made US equipment incredibly reliable. German tanks were designed to be repaired in factories and self-proclaimed genius Speer decided that massive stocks of spare parts was for losers and could be used to increase German production to satisfy Hitler. Speer wasn't trying to win the war, he was cutting every possible corner to show to Hitler things were getting better and keep him happy without any regard for the actual situation in the field. So far for Teutonic efficiency !!!

Blutarski I don't know if they ignored it or just screwed up … E.g. when the USN off the Coast of Sicily shot at US ARMY C-47s carrying Paratroops. Shooting down a number of them. As they flew over them even after being told not to fire on those aircraft. But IIRC, the C-47s were targeted right after a LW airstrike on the USN vessels. So happens … and Murphy is always around …
That is why the aircraft over Normandy had the black & white "invasion" stripes painted on.

We used to say no matter what someone always does not gets the word …

You don't learn the important details in a mission until you try it a few times. The AAF wanted to go perpendicular to the enemy lines to reduce AA fire against the bombers, based on experience that turned out to be less important than short drops. L4's example above is another one of those hard experience lessons. War is hell.

@ Patrick R +1 !!!
Excellent posting! Very well written … takes numerous facts into account and builds a very useful perspective.

@ Blutarski & Legion 4
I too have read of the perpendicular approach and the resulting mayhem caused on the short drop.

But I wonder … would a parallel approach really be the obvious alternative?

I mean, we are dealing with a crew error causing grief when using strategic bombers in a tactical role. If you put the bombers on a parallel path to the front lines, and you get a crew error (not in your favor), do you not multiply the damage caused? Is an error left/right (caused by navigator or bombardier) that much less likely than an error short or long?

As I see it, the problem was using a weapon which had a demonstrated critical accuracy measured in miles for a scenario where friendly forces were within hundreds of yards. I just don't see a way to make that plan look good.

(Hope this doesn't read as argumentative. It is not intended to be. Just find this to be an interesting topic and hope to engage in further discussion.)

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

You don't learn the important details in a mission until you try it a few times. The AAF wanted to go perpendicular to the enemy lines to reduce AA fire against the bombers, based on experience that turned out to be less important than short drops. L4's example above is another one of those hard experience lessons. War is hell.

Yes, I frequently mention how important training and experience is. The key thing is to learn from errors and put SOPs/protocols, etc. in place. So that sort of thing does not happen again.

But in some cases mistakes still will happen. No matter what you do. So by taking the corrective action that will not only insure errors won't occur. But also limit damage if happens … And generally it always does in many situations.

I too have read of the perpendicular approach and the resulting mayhem caused on the short drop.

Having Coordinated and/or Restricted Fire Lines are good measures for trying to insure shells, bombs, etc. go on target or don't go where they should not, i.e. on your own troops.

Using clearly identified linear terrain features, e.g. roads, rivers, etc. But in WWII, the accuracy of the shells fired and/or bombs dropped are no where near as accurate and effective as they are today. The tech was just not there. But even today on a rare occasion, Murphy appears. But in WWII he was much more "prevalent" it appears …

Where his plans did go wrong was Battle Need, where he would await reports from the troops in the front lines and figure out what equipment needed to be updated or replaced. Given that the guys in the front lines were too busy to go around making extensive equipment comparisons very little info got through to McNair and therefore he saw no need to prioritize new equipment.

The Brits were telling the US they would need a bigger gun though so I wouldn't let him off that one. British experience had seen German tanks go from 37mm guns and 30mm armour in 1940 to 50mm guns and 50mm armour in 1941 and 75mm guns and 80mm armour by the end of 1942. It was pretty clear the gun armour race wasn't going to end.

McNair did drop the ball when he had his road to Damascus moment when a British report (already out of date) fell on his desk showing that towed guns were incredibly effective. Given that very few anti-tank guns were self-propelled and most of them were simply truck portees and the British had figured out that self-propelled anti-tank guns were the way forward, McNair made the reverse decision and ordered the Tank Destroyers to give up their M10's and swap them for the horribly bad 3-inch AT guns,

Towed AT guns were very effective in the right hands and right circumstances as the Germans proved in the desert with their 50mm and 88mm guns and the Russians did at Kursk as part of a combined arms approach and defence in depth. Also the Brits didn't abandon towed AT guns the towed 17pdr served in RA AT regiments until the end of the war and beyond. I understand US armoured infantry discarded their 57mm AT guns and converted the crews to infantry. The Brit infantry kept theirs and in fact it was a 6pdr that knocked out Wittmann's Tiger at Villers Bocage. I would agree the 3" M5 was a poor gun. It had about the same performance as the German Pak 40, but was considerably heavier and over 2' taller. However the failure of US towed AT guns against German attacks has as much to do with how they were employed rather than an inherent weakness. Take the example of the towed TD battalion attached to the cavalry group in the Losheim Gap during the Bulge. Spread out in penny packets across a large frontage supported by small numbers of cavalry they were never going to stop a major German attack or even dent it. That would have needed an adequate defenc in depth well supported by other arms. Given that the plan for the Cavalry Group in case of a German attack was to fight a delaying action a towed TD battalion seems an odd choice.

By the way does anyone know if the M5 is still used by the Presidential Salute battery?