The Champ

Deadpan, 38-year-old Major General Curtis E. ("The Cigar") LeMay, responsible for the B-29s' hugely successful low-level fire raids, had to give up his B-29 command for a new -- and bigger -- job last week. He became chief of staff to General Carl Spaatz, commander of strategic air forces in the Pacific. LeMay's beloved Twentieth Air Force got a new commander. The new man : smooth, handsome Nathan Farragut ("The Champ") Twining, 48, back in the Pacific (where he was once lost at sea for six days) after a distinguished job of long-range bombardment in Europe.

Stepchild's Father. No shrinking violet by nature, "Nate" Twining had nevertheless long been one of the comparative unknowns of the air wars until he turned up in the B-29 spotlight. With some reason, he and the men of his old Fifteenth, overshadowed in the news by the Britain-based Eighth (now on the way to the Pacific), had called themselves "The Forgotten Air Force."

Organized in North Africa and based in southern Italy, the Fifteenth was originally designed to pace a Balkan invasion. That project was dropped before Twining had had his B-17s settled in Italy.

Working across the narrow Italian front he and his men were among the first to develop through-the-clouds bombing on a big scale (Belgrade and Budapest were among the principal targets). His Fifteenth went through all the ups & downs of shuttle-bombing from Russian bases, and smashed the Ploesti oil refineries in the bargain. Last year the Fifteenth acted as a strategic supporting air force for the final Russian advances.

Cigar-chewing, grey-haired West Pointer Twining is an old footballer, likes to have ex-athletes on his staffs. When he replacedable Curtis LeMay in Guam last week, he said of his new command: "It's like taking over the Notre Dame football team from Knute Rockne."

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