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LeMay

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LeMay

By: Warren Kozak
Narrated by: Grainger Hines
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About this listen

Curtis Lemay's life spanned an epoch in American military history—from his troubled background, heroic service in Europe, and firebombing of Tokyo to his guardianship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the cold war, frustrated career in government, and short-lived political run.

LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay tells the whole story of the innovative pilot and navigator, brilliant strategist, unflagging patriot, and founder of modern strategic bombing. In this biography, Warren Kozak provides an unprecedented glimpse into the might and mind of one of the founding fathers of air power, a leader whose influence and controversy continues to this day.

©2009 Warren Kozak (P)2009 Phoenix Books, Inc. Air Forces Americas Armed Forces Military Military & War United States World War II War Imperial Japan US Army US Air Force Aviation China Cold War
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This is a fairly unimaginative but adequate biography of a fascinating man. It draws heavily upon secondary sources, especially LeMay's own autobiography, so centres very much on his wartime experiences rather than his SAC time and after his retirement. It is also pretty uncritical, and does a weak job in debating the vastly controversial issues surrounding this complex man. Nonetheless, it does describe, albeit from LeMay's perspective, his role in the strategic bombing of both Germany and Japan, and to a lesser degree, his role in the development of Strategic Air Command. His relationship with MacNamara and two Presidents in the '60s is also touched upon, although this fascinating and important topic is not well covered, as it is not well covered in LeMay's own book.

It is fine as far as it goes, but the production is poor. There are many instances where "fluffs" are not edited, but the most salient issue is the narration, which is memorably dreadful. The narrator manages to mangle almost every 4 syllable word in the book (really; after a while I started to watch out for them). He invents new words all of his own as he stumbles past the three syllable mark and loses concentration with the rest of the word. His ability to get the intonation wrong started to turn English into a different language. As for foreign names and places, the fun was often trying to fathom where or whom he actually meant.

All in all, it was OK, but that is all.

Adequate biography, poorly narrated

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