Reception: 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. CT | Event: 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. CT
This event is free and open to the public. Register today to join us in person or to view the event online.

Join us in conversation with Mark Calhoun, PhD, author of General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the US Army, an in-depth study of the man who contributed so substantially to America’s war preparedness that George C. Marshall once called him “the brains of the Army.”

A reception from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. will precede the event, and Calhoun will sign copies of his book following the presentation. Preorder a copy of Calhoun's book in advance here.

For additional information, please email Connie Gentry, Conference and Programs Specialist, at connie.gentry@nationalww2museum.org.

About General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the US Army

General Lesley J. McNair (1883–1944), a man so instrumental to America’s military preparedness and Army modernization, remains little-known today, his papers purportedly lost, destroyed by his wife in her grief at his death in Normandy. This book, the product of an abiding interest and painstaking research, restores the general Army Magazine calls one of “Marshall’s forgotten men” to his rightful place in American military history. Because McNair contributed so substantially to America’s war preparedness, this first complete account of his extensive and varied career also leads to a reevaluation of US Army effectiveness during World War II.

Born halfway between the Civil War and the dawn of the 20th century, Lesley McNair—nicknamed “Whitey” by his classmates for his blond hair—graduated 11th of 124 in West Point’s class of 1904 and rose slowly through the ranks of the US Army. He was 31 when World War I erupted, 34 and a junior officer when American troops prepared to join the fight. It was during this time, and in the interwar period that followed the end of World War I, that McNair’s considerable influence on Army doctrine and training, equipment development, unit organization, and combined arms fighting methods developed.

By looking at the whole of McNair’s career—not just his service in World War II as Chief of Staff, General Headquarters, 1940–42, and then as commander, Army Ground Forces, 1942–44—Calhoun reassesses the evolution and extent of that influence during the war, as well as McNair’s, and the Army’s, wartime performance. This in-depth study tracks the significantly positive impact of McNair’s efforts in several critical areas: advanced officer education; modernization, military innovation, and technological development; the field-testing of doctrine; streamlining and pooling of assets for necessary efficiency; arduous and realistic combat training; combined arms tactics; and an increasingly mechanized and mobile force.

About the Author

Mark Calhoun is Senior Historian at The National WWII Museum's Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. Calhoun earned his PhD in history from the University of Kansas in 2012 and is the author of General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the US Army (University Press of Kansas, 2015), the first comprehensive military biography of General Lesley J. McNair. The book reveals previously unpublished details of McNair’s 40-year career and assesses the impact of McNair’s views and actions on America’s mobilization for and involvement in World War II. Calhoun’s current research interests center on General William S. Simpson, commander of the Ninth US Army, and the Ninth Army’s operations during the campaign in Northwest Europe from 1944–45. A career US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter pilot and war planner, Calhoun retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2008, after which he served for 14 years as an associate professor on the faculty of the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth.