World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is located on a peninsula, bordered on the north and east by the state of New York along the extent of the length of New York City on its western edge. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 9 million residents as of 2017, the most densely populated of the 50 U. S. states. New Jersey lies within the combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia. New Jersey was the second-wealthiest U. S. state by median household income as of 2017. New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes founded the first European settlements in the state; the English seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey after the largest of the Channel Islands and granting it as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton.
New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century. In the 19th century, factories in cities, Paterson, Trenton, Jersey City, Elizabeth helped to drive the Industrial Revolution. New Jersey's geographic location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, between Boston and New York City to the northeast, Philadelphia and Washington, D. C. to the southwest, fueled its rapid growth through the process of suburbanization in the second half of the 20th century. In the first decades of the 21st century, this suburbanization began reverting with the consolidation of New Jersey's culturally diverse populace toward more urban settings within the state, with towns home to commuter rail stations outpacing the population growth of more automobile-oriented suburbs since 2008. Around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa; the pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains.
Around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as many rivers and gorges. New Jersey was settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact. Scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land, now New Jersey; the Lenape were several autonomous groups that practiced maize agriculture in order to supplement their hunting and gathering in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, western Long Island Sound. The Lenape society was divided into matrilinear clans; these clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign: Turtle and Wolf. They first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade; the Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey. The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of land ownership was not recognized by the Lenape, Dutch West India Company policy required its colonists to purchase the land that they settled.
The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which became the Bergen. Peter Minuit's purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden; the entire region became a territory of England on June 24, 1664, after an English fleet under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into what is now New York Harbor and took control of Fort Amsterdam, annexing the entire province. During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and gave sanctuary to the King, it was from the Royal Square in Saint Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York, the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony. James granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.
The area was named the Province of New Jersey. Since the state's inception, New Jersey has been characterized by religious diversity. New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants. While the majority of residents lived in towns with individual landholdings of 100 acres, a few rich proprietors owned vast estates. English Quakers and Anglicans owned large landholdings. Unlike Plymouth Colony and other colonies, New Jersey was populated by a secondary wave of immigrants who came from other colonies instead of those who migrated directly from Europe. New Jersey remained agrarian and rural throughout the colonial era, commercial farming developed sporadically; some townships, such as Burlington on the Delaware River and Perth Amboy, emerged as important ports for shipping to New York City and Philadelphia. The colony's fertile lands and tolerant religious policy drew more settlers, New Jersey's population had increased to 120,000 by 1775. Settlement for the first 10 years of English rule took place along Hackensack River and Arthur Kill –
West Point, New York
West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the American Revolution; until January 1778, West Point was not occupied by the military. On January 27, 1778, Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons and his brigade crossed the ice on the Hudson River and climbed to the plain on West Point to intercept Lt. Major Roldan Kramer and from that day to the present, West Point has been occupied by the United States Army, it comprises 16,000 acres including the campus of the United States Military Academy, called "West Point". It is a Census Designated Place located in the Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, located on the western bank of the Hudson River; the population was 6,763 at the 2010 census. It is part of the New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY–NJ–PA Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA Combined Statistical Area.
West Point, was a fortified site during the Revolutionary War. Picked because of the abnormal S-curve in the Hudson River at this point, the defenses of West Point were designed by Polish military engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko, who served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army, it was manned by a small garrison of Continental Army soldiers from early in 1776 through the end of the war. A great iron chain was laid across the Hudson at this point in 1778 in order to prevent British Navy vessels from sailing further up the Hudson River, but it was never tested by the British; the site comprised multiple redoubts, as well as Fort Putnam, situated on a high hill overlooking the river. Named after its builder, Revolutionary War general and engineer Rufus Putnam, the fort is still preserved in its original design. In the most infamous act of treason in American history, General Benedict Arnold attempted to turn the site over to the British Army in 1780 for a bribe consisting of a commission as a Brigadier General in the British Army and a cash reward of £20,000.
However, Arnold's plot failed. Arnold received a decreased cash reward of £6,000 but was commissioned as a Brigadier General in the British Army. After the conclusion of the American Revolution, West Point was used as a storage facility for cannon and other military property used by the Continental Army. For two months in 1784 the United States Army consisted of only about 80 soldiers under the command of Brevet Major John Doughty at West Point; the United States Military Academy was established at West Point in 1802 and is the nation's oldest service academy. West Point has the distinction of being the longest continuously occupied United States military installation. In 1937, the West Point Bullion Depository was constructed. West Point is located at 41° 23′ N 73° 58' W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 25.1 square miles. West Point and the contiguous village of Highland Falls, New York, are on the west bank of the Hudson River. West Point has a humid continental climate, with four distinct seasons.
Summers are humid, while winters are cold with moderate snowfall. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from 27.5 °F in January to 74.1 °F in July. The average annual precipitation is 50.5 inches, distributed evenly throughout the year. Extremes in temperature range from 106 °F on July 22, 1926 down to −17 °F on February 9, 1934; as of the census of 2010 there were 6,763 people, 685 households residing in the CDP. The population density was 293.4 per square mile. There were 1,044 housing units at an average density of 42.9/sq mi. The racial makeup of the CDP was 82.31% White, 9.09% African American, 0.50% Native American, 3.35% Asian, 0.15% Pacific Islander, 1.64% from other races, 2.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.56% of the population. There were 685 households out of which 75.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 87.8% were married couples living together, 4.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.7% were non-families. 5.4% of all households were made up of individuals and none had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 3.69. The age distribution is 16.7% under the age of 18, 51.2% from 18 to 24, 23.0% from 25 to 44, 3.8% from 45 to 64, 0.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 21 years. For every 100 females, there were 207.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 259.7 males. All of these statistics are typical for military bases; the median income for a household in the CDP was $56,516, the median income for a family was $56,364. About 2.0% of families and 2.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.6% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over. Painter Edith Hoyt was born in West Point. Author Gore Vidal Hudson Valley portal Military of the United States portal Visit Orange County West Point, NY "West Point, N. Y.". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914
Florida Gators football
The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference, they play their home games in Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the university's Gainesville campus. The team's current head coach is Dan Mullen; the Gators have won three national championships and eight SEC titles in the 112-season history of Florida football. The University of Florida was established in Gainesville in 1906 and fielded its first official varsity football team that fall. In over 110 years of football, the Gators have played in over forty bowl games. Since 1906, Florida football has had twenty-six head coaches, including three who were inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for their coaching success, its first head coach was Pee Wee Forsythe with Dan Mullen becoming the Gators' most recent head coach in 2018.
Florida football competed for its first several seasons as an independent before joining the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1912. They moved to the Southern Conference in 1922 left with a dozen other schools to establish the new Southeastern Conference in 1932. Florida is one of fourteen member institutions in the SEC, the football team has competed in the SEC Eastern Division since the league began divisional play in 1992. Florida plays an eight-game SEC schedule, with six games against the other Eastern Division teams: Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky and Vanderbilt; the schedule is filled out with an annual game against Louisiana State and a rotating SEC Western Division team. Until 2003, the Gators played Auburn every season, but contests in the rivalry are now infrequent events as part of the SEC's rotating opponent system. Key conference rivalries include the annual Florida–Georgia game in Jacksonville, the Florida–Tennessee rivalry, the inter-divisional Florida–LSU rivalry with their permanent SEC Western Division foe.
Florida has played in-state rival Florida State every year since 1958 facing off in the last game of the regular season. The two teams' emergence as perennial football powers during the 1980s and 1990s helped build the Florida–Florida State rivalry into a game which has national-title implications. Before 1988, in-state rival Miami was an annual opponent; the remaining dates on Florida's regular schedule are filled by non-conference opponents which vary from year to year. Florida's outdoor sports teams played most of their homes games at a municipal park near downtown Gainesville. In 1911, the university installed bleachers alongside a grassy area on the north edge of the campus and dubbed it University Athletic Field, expanded and renamed Fleming Field in 1915; the football program moved into a modern stadium in 1930, when the university built 22,000 seat Florida Field just south of Fleming Field. In 1989, the name was extended to "Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium" to honor alumnus and sports benefactor Ben Hill Griffin.
In 2016, former player and coach Steve Spurrier was honored by having his name added to the name of the field. The facility is commonly known as "The Swamp", a nickname that Spurrier coined in 1992, when he was Florida's head ball coach. Florida Field has been renovated and expanded many times over the decades and has a capacity of 90,000. After Florida Field was constructed, Florida scheduled "home" game in other cities across the state, most Tampa or Jacksonville; this practice was common in the early years of the program, when the Gators' home field was smaller and traveling to Gainesville was more difficult. The frequency of these rotating home games had decreased from one or two contests per season in the 1930s to one every few seasons by the 1980s. With the exception of the traditional rivalry game against Georgia, the Gators have not scheduled any home games outside of Gainesville since Florida Field expanded to became the largest football stadium in the state in 1990. Florida's football program is a charter member of the Southeastern Conference, which began play in 1933.
Before that, the Gators were affiliated with two different conferences after having founded the program without a conference affiliation. Independent Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Southern Conference Southeastern Conference The 1996, 2006 and 2008 Gators were ranked number one in the final AP and Coaches Polls and were recognized as consensus national champions after winning postseason national-championship games; the 1984 Gators were recognized as national champions by The Sporting News, The New York Times and the Billingsley, DeVold, Dunkel, FACT, Jeff Sagarin rankings. However, they finished third in the final AP Poll and seventh in the final UPI Coaches Poll behind the BYU Cougars, who were number one in both major polls and thus considered the national champions in the pre-Bowl Alliance and BCS era; the 1985 Gators finished fifth in th
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the president to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after April 5, 1917, with the U. S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, which took the form of a heart made of purple cloth, the Purple Heart is the oldest military award still given to U. S. military members – the only earlier award being the obsolete Fidelity Medallion. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New York; the original Purple Heart, designated as the Badge of Military Merit, was established by George Washington – the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army – by order from his Newburgh, New York headquarters on August 7, 1782. The Badge of Military Merit was only awarded to three Revolutionary War soldiers by Gen. George Washington himself. General Washington authorized his subordinate officers to issue Badges of Merit as appropriate. From on, as its legend grew, so did its appearance. Although never abolished, the award of the badge was not proposed again until after World War I.
On October 10, 1927, Army Chief of Staff General Charles Pelot Summerall directed that a draft bill be sent to Congress "to revive the Badge of Military Merit". The bill was withdrawn and action on the case ceased January 3, 1928, but the office of the Adjutant General was instructed to file all materials collected for possible future use. A number of private interests sought to have the medal re-instituted in the Army. On January 7, 1931, Summerall's successor, General Douglas MacArthur, confidentially reopened work on a new design, involving the Washington Commission of Fine Arts. Elizabeth Will, an Army heraldic specialist in the Office of the Quartermaster General, was named to redesign the newly revived medal, which became known as the Purple Heart. Using general specifications provided to her, Will created the design sketch for the present medal of the Purple Heart; the new design, which exhibits a bust and profile of George Washington, was issued on the bicentennial of Washington's birth.
Will's obituary, in the edition of February 8, 1975 of The Washington Post newspaper, reflects her many contributions to military heraldry. The Commission of Fine Arts solicited plaster models from three leading sculptors for the medal, selecting that of John R. Sinnock of the Philadelphia Mint in May 1931. By Executive Order of the President of the United States, the Purple Heart was revived on the 200th Anniversary of George Washington's birth, out of respect to his memory and military achievements, by War Department General Order No. 3, dated February 22, 1932. The criteria were announced in a War Department circular dated February 22, 1932, authorized award to soldiers, upon their request, awarded the Meritorious Service Citation Certificate, Army Wound Ribbon, or were authorized to wear Wound Chevrons subsequent to April 5, 1917, the day before the United States entered World War I; the first Purple Heart was awarded to MacArthur. During the early period of American involvement in World War II, the Purple Heart was awarded both for wounds received in action against the enemy and for meritorious performance of duty.
With the establishment of the Legion of Merit, by an Act of Congress, the practice of awarding the Purple Heart for meritorious service was discontinued. By Executive Order 9277, dated December 3, 1942, the decoration was applied to all services; this executive order authorized the award only for wounds received. For both military and civilian personnel during the World War II era, to meet eligibility for the Purple Heart, AR 600-45, dated September 22, 1943, May 3, 1944, required identification of circumstances. After the award was re-authorized in 1932 some U. S. Army wounded from conflicts prior to the first World War applied for, were awarded, the Purple Heart: "...veterans of the Civil War and Indian Wars, as well as the Spanish–American War, China Relief Expedition, Philippine Insurrection were awarded the Purple Heart. This is because the original regulations governing the award of the Purple Heart, published by the Army in 1932, provided that any soldier, wounded in any conflict involving U.
S. Army personnel might apply for the new medal. There were but two requirements: the applicant had to be alive at the time of application and he had to prove that he had received a wound that necessitated treatment by a medical officer."Subject to approval of the Secretary of Defense, Executive Order 10409, dated February 12, 1952, revised authorizations to include the Service Secretaries. Dated April 25, 1962, Executive Order 11016, included provisions for posthumous award of the Purple Heart. Dated February 23, 1984, Executive Order 12464, authorized award of the Purple Heart as a result of terrorist attacks, or while serving as part of a peacekeeping force, subsequent to March 28, 1973. On June 13, 1985, the Senate approved an amendment to the 1985 Defense Authorization Bill, which changed the precedence of the Purple Heart award, from above the Good Conduct Medal to above the Meritorious Service Medals. Public Law 99-145 authorized the award for wounds received as a result of friendly fire.
Public Law 104-106 expanded the eligibility date, authorizing award of the Purple Heart to a former prisoner of war, wounded after April 25, 1962. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 changed the criteria to delete authorization for award of the Purple Heart to any non-military U. S. national s
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall Jr. was an American statesman and soldier. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff under presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman. Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, although Marshall declined a final field leadership position that went to his protege U. S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the war, as Secretary of State, Marshall advocated a significant U. S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. Born in Uniontown, Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901. After serving as commandant of students at the Danville Military Academy in Danville, Marshall received his commission as a second lieutenant of Infantry in February, 1902.
In the years after the Spanish–American War, he served in the United States and overseas in positions of increasing rank and responsibility, including platoon leader and company commander in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War. He was the Honor Graduate of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907, graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class. In 1916 Marshall was assigned as aide-de-camp to J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Western Department. After the United States entered World War I, Marshall served with Bell while Bell commanded the Department of the East, he was assigned to the staff of the 1st Division, assisted with the organization's mobilization and training in the United States, as well as planning of its combat operations in France. Subsequently, assigned to the staff of the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, he was a key planner of American operations including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. After the war, Marshall became an aide-de-camp to John J. Pershing, the Army's Chief of Staff.
Marshall served on the Army staff, commanded the 15th Infantry Regiment in China, was an instructor at the Army War College. In 1927, he became assistant commandant of the Army's Infantry School, where he modernized command and staff processes, which proved to be of major benefit during World War II. In 1932 and 1933 he commanded Georgia. Marshall commanded 5th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and Vancouver Barracks from 1936 to 1938, received promotion to brigadier general. During this command, Marshall was responsible for 35 Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Oregon and southern Washington. In July 1938, Marshall was assigned to the War Plans Division on the War Department staff, became the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff; when Chief of Staff Malin Craig retired in 1939, Marshall became acting Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff, a position he held until the war's end in 1945. As Chief of Staff, Marshall organized the largest military expansion in U. S. history, received promotion to five-star rank as General of the Army.
Marshall coordinated Allied operations in the Pacific until the end of the war. In addition to accolades from Churchill and other Allied leaders, Time magazine named Marshall its Man of the Year for 1943. Marshall retired from active service in 1945, but remained on active duty, as required for holders of five-star rank. From December 15, 1945 to January 1947 Marshall served as a special envoy to China in an unsuccessful effort to negotiate a coalition government between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and Communists under Mao Zedong; as Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, Marshall advocated rebuilding Europe, a program that became known as the Marshall Plan, which led to his being awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize. After resigning as Secretary of State, Marshall served as chairman of American Battle Monuments Commission and president of the American National Red Cross; as Secretary of Defense at the start of the Korean War, Marshall worked to restore the military's confidence and morale at the end of its post-World War II demobilization and its initial buildup for combat in Korea and operations during the Cold War.
After resigning as Defense Secretary, Marshall retired to his home in Virginia. He was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. George Catlett Marshall Jr. was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, the son of George Catlett Marshall Sr. and Laura Emily Marshall. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall; when asked about his political allegiances, Marshall joked that his father had been a Democrat and his mother a Republican, whereas he was an Episcopalian. Following his graduation from VMI, Marshall sat for a competitive examination for a commission in the United States Army. While awaiting the results, Marshall had accepted the position of Commandant of Students at the Danville Military Institute in Danville, Virginia. Marshall passed the exam and was commissioned a second lieutenant in February, 1902. Prior to World War I, Marshall received various postings in the United States and the Philippines, including serving as an infantry platoon leader and company commander during the Philippine–American War and other guerrilla uprisings.
He was schooled in modern warfare, including a tour at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor. He was the Honor Graduate of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907, graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class. After another tour of duty in the Philippines, Marshall returned to
Eighth United States Army
The Eighth United States Army is a U. S. field army, the commanding formation of all United States Army forces in South Korea. It commands U. S. and South Korean units and is headquartered at the United States Army Garrison-Humphreys, in the Anjeong-ri of Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The unit first activated on 10 June 1944 in the United States, being commanded by Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger; the Eighth Army took part in many of the amphibious landings in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II participating in no less than sixty of them. The first mission of the Eighth Army, in September 1944, was to take over from the U. S. Sixth Army in New Guinea, New Britain, the Admiralty Islands and on Morotai, in order to free up the Sixth Army to engage in the Philippines Campaign; the Eighth Army again followed in the wake of the Sixth Army in December 1944, when it took over control of operations on Leyte Island on 26 December. In January, the Eighth Army entered combat on Luzon, landing the XI Corps on 29 January near San Antonio and the 11th Airborne Division on the other side of Manila Bay two days later.
Combining with I Corps and XIV Corps of Sixth Army, the forces of Eighth Army next enveloped Manila in a great double-pincer movement. Eighth Army's final operation of the Pacific War was that of clearing out the southern Philippines of the Japanese Army, including on the major island of Mindanao, an effort that occupied the soldiers of the Eighth Army for the rest of the war. Eighth Army was to have participated in the invasion of Japan, it would have taken part in Operation Coronet, the second phase of the invasion, which would have seen the invasion of the Kantō Plain on eastern Honshū. However, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cancelled the invasion, the Eighth Army found itself in charge of occupying it peacefully. Occupation forces landed on 30 August 1945, with its headquarters in Yokohama the HQ moved to the Dai-Ichi building in Tokyo. At the beginning of 1946, Eighth Army assumed responsibility for occupying all of Japan. Four quiet years followed, during which the Eighth Army deteriorated from a combat-ready fighting force into a somewhat soft, minimally-trained constabulary.
Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker took command in September 1948, he tried to re-invigorate the Army's training, but he was unsuccessful; this situation was to have serious consequences in South Korea. At the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into North Korea and South Korea with North Korea, becoming a communist government after 1946, known as the Democratic People's Republic, followed by South Korea becoming the Republic of Korea. China became the communist People's Republic of China in 1949. In 1950, the Soviet Union backed North Korea while the United States backed South Korea, China allied with the Soviet Union in what was to become the first military action of the Cold War; the peace of occupied Japan was shattered in June 1950 when 75,000 North Korean troops with Russian made tanks invaded South Korea, igniting the Korean War. U. S. naval and air forces became involved in combat operations, it was soon clear that U. S. ground forces would have to be committed. To stem the North Korean advance, the occupation forces in Japan were thus shipped off to South Korea as as possible, but their lack of training and equipment was telling, as some of the initial U.
S. units were destroyed by the North Koreans. However, the stage was reached as enough units of Eighth Army arrived in Korea to make a firm front; the North Koreans threw themselves against that front, the Pusan Perimeter, failed to break it. Eighth Army arrived in July 1950 and never left. —Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Vandal, CG, Eighth Army, 29 August 2017 In the meantime, Eighth Army had reorganized, since it had too many divisions under its command for it to exercise effective control directly; the I Corps and the IX Corps were reactivated in the United States and shipped to Korea to assume command of Eighth Army's subordinate divisions. The stalemate was broken by the Inchon landings of the X Corps; the North Korean forces, when confronted with this threat to their rear areas, combined with a breakout operation at Pusan, broke away and hastily retired north. Both South and North Korea were entirely occupied by United Nations forces. However, once U. S. units neared the Yalu River and the frontier between North Korea and China, the Chinese intervened and drastically changed the character of the war.
Eighth Army was decisively defeated at the Battle of the Chongchon River and forced to retreat all the way back to South Korea. U. S. historian Clay Blair noted that the Eighth Army was left unprotected on its right flank due to the Turkish Brigade's retreat despite myths that arose about the Turks killing 200 enemies by bayonet. The defeat of the U. S. Eighth Army resulted in the longest retreat of any U. S. military unit in history. General Walker was killed in a jeep accident on 23 December 1950, replaced by Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway; the overstretched Eighth Army suffered with the Chinese offensive, who were able to benefit from shorter lines of communication and with rather casually deployed enemy forces. The Chinese broke through the U. S. defenses despite U. S. air supremacy and the Eighth Army and U. N. forces retreated hastily to avoid encirclement. The Chinese offensive continued pressing U. S. the South Korean capital. Eighth Army's morale and esprit de corps hit rock bottom, to where it was regarded as a broken, defeated rabble.
General Ridgway forcefully restored Eighth Army to combat effectiveness over several months. Eighth Army slowe
United States
United States Army
General
Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece)
Grand Commander of the Order of George I (Greece)
Order of the Lion and the Sun, grade 1 (Iran)[15]
Distinguished Service Order (United Kingdom)
Legion of Honor (France)
Croix de Guerre with palm (France)
Croix de Guerre with palm (Belgium)
Grand Cross of the Order of Orange Nassau with swords (Netherlands)
Order of Boyaca (Colombia)
_Gwanghwa_Medal_ribbon.gif){kind=small}
._Medal.gif){kind=small}
_-_ribbon_bar.png){kind=small}
_-_ribbon_bar.png){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
