Pushkin

Curtis Emerson Lemay, who for the better part of 25 years dominated the greatest fighting force the world had ever known, had three nicknames

Old Ironpants, the Demon, and bombs away Lemay

He was not that category of leader who led by force of wit, charm, and charisma

Nor was he some great thinker, the kind of leader whose appeal lies with carefully thought out manifestos and elaborate ideologies

Lemay never took his cigar out of his mouth long enough to say anything

He belonged to a different category, the one that gets overlooked

Curtis Lemay, in my view he was the greatest air commander in history

I'm talking to the military historian Conrad Crane

Know his story and writes about the Second World War without considering the legacy of Lemay

Everything he touched, he transformed, he was a dynamic leader, he shared the difficulties of his airman

He was the best navigator of the Air Force to had, he was a great pilot, he could do mechanic stuff

He was the Air Force's ultimate problem solver

But he was one of those guys that you would, if he gave him a problem to fix, you didn't ask a whole lot of questions, I was going to do it

Bombs away Lemay was known as someone who get the job done

My name is Malcolm Gladwell, you're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood

This is part three of my four part series about Curtis Lemay and the events of March 1945

This episode is about the role of people like Curtis Lemay in times of crisis

In the normal course of events, we are led by people of ideas and people of charisma

But when things start to go badly, those people get pushed aside and the problem solver takes center stage

Only the problem solver doesn't play about the same moral rules

Let me give you an example of what it means to approach the world the way someone like Curtis Lemay did

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