Curtis Lemay

Curtis Emerson LeMay, the tough bomber general who directed the smashing of German and Japanese cities during World War II and then built the Strategic Air Command into a powerful nuclear strike force, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 83. The four-star general relayed President Harry S. Truman's orders to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war, despite his later-expressed belief that Japan could have been defeated with conventional incendiary bombs.

Curtis Emerson LeMay, the tough bomber general who directed the smashing of German and Japanese cities during World War II and then built the Strategic Air Command into a powerful nuclear strike force, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 83. The four-star general relayed President Harry S. Truman's orders to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war, despite his later-expressed belief that Japan could have been defeated with conventional incendiary bombs.

Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, who relayed the orders to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died today. He was 83. The retired four-star general, who would have been 84 on Nov. 15, died of a heart attack at the 22nd Strategic Hospital at March Air Force Base, Sgt. Steve Mahnke said. To an adoring American public during World War II, LeMay was "Old Iron Pants," and he was usually described as "cigar-chomping," "gruff" or "brusque."

Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, who relayed the orders to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died today. He was 83. The retired four-star general, who would have been 84 on Nov. 15, died of a heart attack at the 22nd Strategic Hospital at March Air Force Base, Sgt. Steve Mahnke said. To an adoring American public during World War II, LeMay was "Old Iron Pants," and he was usually described as "cigar-chomping," "gruff" or "brusque."

Within the three decades that military analysts allow as the effective span of great generals, Curt LeMay was indefatigable, truculent, superb. "The ablest big airplane and strategic bomb operator in the world," went his congressional introduction by a superior. LeMay rose from lieutenant to two-star general in four years of World War II while his 8th Air Force flattened Nazi Germany.

Re "Backgrounder: Parsing the rules of war," Opinion, July 26 As quoted in your article, Gen. Curtis LeMay was right: "All war is immoral." We often have to fight to defend and to protect, but once that begins, humans becomes inhuman. The death or mutilation of a buddy creates a desensitization of what might once have been a functioning social being. The enemy is no longer a living organism, and that reference point is often transferable to the civilian populations. Thoughts of humanity are zeroed out of the equation, not necessarily to win a war but to survive.

Re "Curtis LeMay Was Right About Vietnam," Commentary, May 30: Gen. LeMay had a theory that more bombing would have ended the Vietnam War sooner. (But what about their civil war?) I have a theory also. Following the French defeat in Vietnam, mandated elections were not allowed by the United States and the South Vietnamese regime. Had these gone forward, Ho Chi Minh would have walked, not marched, into Saigon and by electoral, not civil war, victory. The Vietnam War could have been avoided with the same result for that country, then and today.

Francis H. (Butch) Griswold, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and one-time commandant of the National War College, died Tuesday of heart failure at a hospital in Laguna Hills. The former vice commander of the Strategic Air Command, who began his career in the Army Air Corps in 1928, was 84. Griswold was a fighter pilot during World War II and served over the years as commanding general of the 20th Air Force in Guam and the 3rd Air Force in England before becoming deputy SAC commander under Gen. Curtis LeMay in 1954.

Thomas M. Coffey, 78, a journalist and author on military issues. Born in Aberdeen, S.D., and reared in Madison, Wis., Coffey was educated at the University of Wisconsin and at the National University in Dublin, Ireland.

Within the three decades that military analysts allow as the effective span of great generals, Curt LeMay was indefatigable, truculent, superb. "The ablest big airplane and strategic bomb operator in the world," went his congressional introduction by a superior. LeMay rose from lieutenant to two-star general in four years of World War II while his 8th Air Force flattened Nazi Germany.

Norman A. Baily, whose work in medical radiology furthered the science of diagnoses and radiation therapy and found applications in the space program as well, died of cancer at his home in La Jolla. Baily, who died Wednesday, was the chief of the division of radiological physics and engineering at UC San Diego's School of Medicine from 1968 until 1988 when he became professor emeritus. He earned his Ph.D.