In 1942, Colonel Curtis E. LeMay and his 305th Bomb Group left Syracuse, New York, bound for England, where they joined the Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force in war against Germany and her allies. Over the next three years LeMay led American air forces in Europe, India, China, and the Pacific against the Axis powers. His efforts yielded advancement through the chain of command to the rank of Major General in command of the XXIst Bomber Command, the most effective strategic bombing force of the war. LeMay’s activities in World War II are well-documented, but his personal history is less thoroughly recorded. Throughout the war he wrote hundreds of letters to his wife, Helen, and daughter, Jane. They are published for the first time in this volume, weaved together with meticulously researched narrative essays buttressed by both official and unofficial sources and supplemented with extensive footnotes. History remembers “LeMay, the Commander” well. From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan, will yield a better understanding of “LeMay, the Man.”

Due to advances in resuscitation and defibrillation practices over the past decades, people are returning from the brink of death in numbers unprecedented in human history. Of the millions of people who survive drowning each year, about 20% report a near-death experience (NDE): a reported memory of profound psychological events that contain certain paranormal, transcendental, and mystical features. NDEs are usually hyperreal and lucid experiences dominated by pleasurable feelings and more rarely dominated by distressed feelings. This book presents a summary of 40 years of research on NDEs. It contains 22 drowning NDE accounts and recommendations for how water safety professionals can use NDE-related information in their work with people they successfully resuscitate.