Marcus Hannan Ray was born in Chicago to Randall and Ada Ray in 1904. Randall was a porter for the railroad, and had moved his family to Chicago shortly before Marcus was born; they had previously lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ray graduated from the University of Illinois and soon after enlisted in the Illinois […]
“The big thing I learned in World War II was the urgent necessity of frequent visits … I was abreast of what was going on all over the place. I could sense their reactions and I could see how they felt urgently about this or that, which we at headquarters did not really feel so […]
Benjamin Franklin first envisioned airborne troops dropped by parachute from hot air balloons flying behind enemy lines in a 1784 letter, “And where is the Prince who can afford so to cover his Country with Troops for its Defense, as that Ten Thousand Men descending from the Clouds, might not in many Places do an […]
George Marshall called him “Powder.” Powder ordered a warm winter coat for Gen. Marshall before traveling to Russia and found a birthday cake on Christmas Eve for Katherine to celebrate Field Marshal Dill’s birthday. He traveled to conferences in Paris, Casablanca, Yalta, Quebec, Algiers, and Potsdam, but he was not in any of the photos. […]
On Oct. 3, 1917, Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I, visited the First Division to see training in trench warfare. Acting Chief of Staff Capt. George Marshall arranged for Maj. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., to demonstrate a new method for attacking the enemy in their trenches. Pershing […]
George Marshall loved dogs. He had several as a boy, and usually had one around as an adult. This is the story of Fleet the dalmatian, George Marshall’s dog at the beginning of World War II. Fleet was a gift from Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. Fleet was grandson of a champion; he learned to […]
She wrote the book on code breaking for the U.S. Army, and taught the first cryptography classes to soldiers in WWI. In three months, she decrypted two years of backlogged Coast Guard messages, using only a pencil and paper. She was the only woman employed by the Coast Guard at the time. She served as […]
The third week of December, 1941, a British delegation including Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff arrived in Washington, D.C. for ARCADIA, the first of several meetings in the nation’s capitol, and the last of several conferences attended by the British and American delegations that year. Gen. Marshall suggested to Katherine […]
While a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, George Marshall studied military history and tactics, and was doubtless familiar with Napoleon Bonaparte’s ill-fated attack on Russia that ended with French soldiers freezing in the Russian winter. As a young officer in World War I, Capt. Marshall first met Gen. Pershing when he disputed Pershing’s scathing […]
It is difficult to imagine Marshall as inhabiting anything but the no-nonsense, resolute persona of his professional life. This image is so pervasive that we are commonly asked if he ever smiled at all. The Marshall Foundation archives house documents and photos that reveal the General’s personal life, including his lighter side. In a 1957 interview with Marshall biographer Forrest C. Pogue, Brigadier General […]
When Lt. Col. George Marshall served in World War I, he gained a personal knowledge how hard it is to be separated from loved ones for the holidays. In France 1917, soldiers enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast much like they were used to at home: This must have left quite an impression on Marshall, for in […]
Gen. George Marshall served as Army Chief of Staff from September 1939 to November 1945, longer than the ordinary four-year term. As World War II ended, so did Marshall’s service. Thanksgiving weekend of 1945, Marshall took a much-needed break and went pheasant hunting in North Dakota with friend and co-worker Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold. It […]
“No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta!” telegraphed Prime Minister Winston Churchill to President Roosevelt on New Year’s Day, 1945. The Yalta Conference, set for February 4 through 11, was going to decide the fate of Postwar Europe. But first, the British and American delegations were meeting at Montgomery House on the Mediterranean […]
In late 1938, a decoded Japanese message indicated that in February 1939, the current “A” encryption would no longer be used, but would switch to the new “B” encryption. Japanese diplomatic messages had been decoded and read from the “A” encryption for several years, so the switch was at first worrisome, and then problematic, for […]
In the blog about the 6888th Central Postal Delivery Battalion, it was noted that the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was not intended to serve overseas. It’s not that the women couldn’t serve overseas, but the women serving in the WAAC were not given the same securities as soldiers. They weren’t protected by the Geneva Convention, […]
The 64th anniversary of the dedication of the Colleville-sur-Mer Normandy American Cemetery was commemorated July 18. Among the thousands of graves, there are four American women buried there – three from the same battalion: the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion consisted of 850 officers and enlisted in four companies, […]
June 1942 It was an inauspicious time for the Second Washington Conference to convene. The Allied position in the Mediterranean appeared to be in danger of collapse. On May 26 General Erwin Rommel’s forces had launched a vigorous attack on British positions in eastern Cyrenaica. Rommel smashed a British armored attack on June 5, and […]
My father, Richard H. Hobbs, joined the Washington, D.C. National Guard as a military policeman in 1938, when he was 21. When the 29th Infantry Division (the same National Guard Division in Virginia today) was federalized in February 1941, he was sent to Fort Meade and trained to drive a 2.5 ton GMC truck. In […]
There’s an issue with this photo. Do you see it? Hint: Look at their uniform collars. “Uniform” means everything should be worn the same, which isn’t happening in this photo. Most generals wear stars on both collar points. Sometimes, Gen. Marshall wore his stars on the right, as above, but sometimes on the left. I […]
“The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945,” Gen. Eisenhower to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff from S.H.A.E.F. headquarters in Reims. (Papers of DDE, 4: 2696.) Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces on May 7. […]
This is a previously published blog. General George S. Patton’s comments at the opening of a British Welcome Club for American soldiers in Knutsford, England, are one of many well-known and controversial episodes from Patton’s army career. U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall’s response to Patton’s comments are less well known. They serve […]
Cooking with World War II ration recipes – Main dish Many of us are cooking from what we have in the pantry as we endeavor to keep trips to the grocery and other stores to a minimum. My ingredients are somewhat limited, and it occurred to me that my grandmother faced similar limitations during World […]
On December 7, 1941, the USS Oklahoma was moored at Ford Island, in Pearl Harbor. Japanese aircraft dropped numerous torpedoes that caused the ship to explode and capsize during the surprise attack. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, “when the ensuing chaos subsided enough to allow an accurate headcount of the ship’s personnel, a […]
The relationship between General George C. Marshall and Field Marshal Sir John G. Dill has been considered one of the most critically important personal relationships to the success of the Allies during World War II. Although Dill was a British Army officer, his ability to disagree with Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s opinions, to talk with […]
On Tuesday evening, Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, England, concluded the “Friends” in High Places sequence of the Marshall Legacy Series with his captivating lecture “How Churchill and Marshall Waged War.” His lecture can be seen below, or on the foundation’s YouTube channel. Packwood’s lecture drew […]
This blog was originally published on November 28, 2014. On May 27, 1942, the first of seven documentary films, Prelude to War, was released. This documentary series, Why We Fight, was commissioned by the United States Army. In a letter to President Roosevelt, General Marshall states the films would “replace the series of lectures given […]
Lt. Col. George C. Marshall served as executive officer of the 15th Regiment in Tientsin, an area in northern China, from 1924 and 1927. During that time, he met Joseph Stilwell who was a battalion commander with the 15th Regiment and would later become one of “Marshall’s Men” as an instructor at Fort Benning, Georgia. […]
Last evening Christopher Kolakowski, Director of the MacArthur Memorial, delivered an insightful lecture that examined George C. Marshall’s long and eventful relationship with George S. Patton, Jr. Kolakowski, who served as the Director of the General George Patton Museum of Leadership prior to coming to the MacArthur Memorial, cited many examples of how Marshall directly […]
August 31, 1943, was the last day of General George C. Marshall’s 4-year appointment as chief of staff of the U.S. Army. On the day he had been sworn into office, September 1, 1939, Germany had invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II in Europe. A little more than half way through Marshall’s […]
Seventy-eight years ago this week, Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Senior Military Aide, Major General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson. Watson, who was born in Alabama and raised in Martinsville, Virginia, graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1908. After he completed tours of duty in […]
This month, August 19th, sees the 76th anniversary of the (overwhelmingly) British-Canadian raid on the French port of Dieppe. This assault on the French town also featured small contingents of French, Czech and Polish troops as well as some 50 U.S. Army Rangers. Although a tactical defeat for the Allies, in strategic terms, it was […]
On June 13, 1942 Executive Order 9182 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the United States Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI was seen as the connection between the battlefront and civilians back home. Its purpose was to centralize the various information services of the U.S. government. The OWI not only created a single […]
On this day in 1944, a confidential memorandum from General George C. Marshall was distributed to all War Department General Staff and Special Staff divisions, overseas commanders, Army Ground Forces down to tactical units, as well as Army Air Forces, Army Service Forces, and Defense Commands down to posts, camps, and stations. The constantly increasing […]
This blog was originally posted on May 15, 2015. Oveta Culp Hobby learned about service to community and government from her family. She watched her mother collect food and clothing for the poor and was often sent to deliver baskets of goods to neighbors. From her father she acquired a love of the law and […]
On January 8, 1948, Secretary of State George C. Marshall was the first of over 90 witnesses who would testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in what would ultimately develop into one of the most comprehensive public hearings undertaken on a foreign policy question up to that time. In his opening statement, Marshall […]
The Tehran Conference, codenamed EUREKA and held November 28-December 1, 1943, was a top-secret meeting of the “Big Three”- British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. This was the first time the three met to negotiate military and diplomatic solutions to the war. Negotiations concerned the unconditional […]
On Wednesday evening Dr. Mark A. Stoler, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Vermont and editor of volumes 6 and 7 of The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, delivered the final lecture of The World Wars sequence in which he presented George C. Marshall’s numerous contributions to the army, the United States, and […]
September 1, 2017 marks the anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, the act responsible for starting World War II. That same day in 1939, George C. Marshall became the chief of staff of the United States Army; a position he would hold for the duration of the war and which earned him the accolade “Organizer […]
The first Quebec Conference (code-named QUADRANT) which occurred August 14-24, 1943, was the third crucial Anglo-American conference in seven months. As at Casablanca in January and Washington in May (code-named TRIDENT), the chief difficulty was the strength of Allied commitment to the cross-Channel invasion and the consequent allocation of resources between the invasion of France […]
On the evening of July 30, 1941, General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the United States Army, was suddenly called to the White House. When Marshall arrived, he was directed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to prepare, in secrecy, for a meeting at sea with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his military […]
Noted scholar and author Dr. Steve Taaffe discussed last week the criteria General Marshall used to select Army combat commanders who led Allied forces in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. His lecture, “Marshall and His Generals,” can be seen below, or on our YouTube channel. It was a part of the Marshall […]
During the June 17 Legacy Series presentation of “General Marshall and Private Martin: Two Perspectives on D-Day,” LTC Bradley Coleman focused on General Marshall’s keen interest in using airborne forces to open a second front behind enemy lines as part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Although Marshall’s plans were never implemented, […]
General George S. Patton’s comments at the opening of a British Welcome Club for American soldiers in Knutsford, England, are one of many well-known and controversial episodes from Patton’s army career. U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall’s response to Patton’s comments are less well known. They serve as an example of his leadership. […]
On May 27, 1942, the first of seven documentary films, Prelude to War, was released. This documentary series, Why We Fight, was commissioned by the United States Army. In a letter to President Roosevelt, General Marshall states the films would “replace the series of lectures given newly inducted soldiers as to why we are in the […]
Next week the movie Imitation Game will be released. British mathematician, logician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing was a key figure in cracking the code used by Nazi Germany that helped the Allies win World War II. The British-American movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch, as Turing and Keira Knightley, as Joan Clarke, Turing’s fiancé and fellow code […]