Ben H. Fuller

Maj. Gen. Ben H. Fuller

Ben Hebard Fuller (born February 27, 1870 in Big Rapids , Michigan - † June 8, 1937 in Washington, DC ) was a major general in the United States Marine Corps . Most recently, he served as the 15th Commandant of the Marine Corps . He was also the US military governor of the Dominican Republic .

Life

U.S. Marine Corps officer and military governor

Fuller entered after school in 1889 in the United States Naval Academy , after graduation he was promoted to second lieutenant of the United States Marine Corps on July 1, 1891 . Along with six other members of his class, he took part in the first course for naval officers at the School of Application , which is the basis for today's Basic School of the Marine Corps. He was then promoted to First Lieutenant on March 16, 1893 . After his promotion to captain on March 3, 1899, he was transferred to the Philippines , where he took part in the Battle of Novaleta on October 8, 1899 during the colonial rule there . The following year he was transferred to China and took part in the Battle of Tianjin on July 13, 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion .

After December 27, 1903 Major was promoted, he served from 1904 to 1906 on the naval base of Honolulu , in what was then US territory of Hawaii . Later he was in June and July 1908 on a special mission of an expeditionary force in Panama and then from August 1908 to January 1910 as commander of the naval battalion of Camp Elliott in the Panama Canal Zone . After his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel on February 27, 1911, he was between March and June 1911 commander of the 3rd Marine Regiment at Camp Meyer on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba .

As Lieutenant Colonel, Fuller was then in several posts in the United States until 1915 and was also a graduate of the field officer course at the Army Service School in Fort Leavenworth , Kansas , and the US Army War College .

He then served between January 1915 and June 1916 as an officer in the Marine Corps in the US Atlantic Fleet . After his promotion to Colonel on August 29, 1916, he began training at Naval War College in Newport , Rhode Island .

On July 1, 1918, he was initially appointed temporary brigadier general and then in August 1918 he was appointed commander of the 2nd US Navy Brigade in the Dominican Republic and remained in this post until October 1920. Between November 18, 1918 and on February 25, 1919 he was the successor of Rear Admiral Harry Shepard Knapp acting US military governor of the Dominican Republic . Under his successor as military governor, Rear Admiral Thomas Snowden , he was also secretary for foreign affairs, home affairs, police, war and navy from December 1919 to October 1920 and thus retained key positions in the US military administration of the Dominican Republic.

Promotion to Commandant of the Marine Corps

In November 1920 he returned as a general staff officer at the Naval War College in Newport, where he worked until July 1922. He was then until January 1923 the command of the Marine Corps School in Quantico , Virginia . In January 1923 he was then commander of the 1st US Navy Brigade stationed in Port-au-Prince , Haiti , where he worked until December 8, 1925. On February 8, 1924, he was promoted to (regular) Brigadier General on this post. Upon his return to the United States, Fuller became President of the Marines Examing and Retiring Board at the US Marine Corps Headquarters , Marine Barracks Washington . After almost two and a half years in this position, he was appointed assistant to the then Commandant of the Marine Corps , Major General Wendell Cushing Neville , in July 1928 .

After Neville's death on July 8, 1930, he became his successor himself a commandant a day later and held this office until he reached the regular retirement age of 64 on March 1, 1934. On August 7, 1930, he was promoted to major general. During his time as a commandant , there were not only withdrawals from other states, but also from 1933 onwards a reorganization of the armed forces with the creation of the Fleet Marine Force as the new operational unit of the US Marine Corps.

After his death he was buried in the cemetery of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis next to his son, Captain Edward C. Fuller (1893-1918), who died during the Battle of Belleau Forest .

His awards include: the World War I Victory Medal , the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal with two stars, the Nicaraguan Campaign Medal , the Philippine Campaign Medal and the China Relief Expedition Medal , as well as the Medal of Military Merit of Santo Domingo of the Dominican Republic and the residential Medal of Merit of Nicaragua of Nicaragua .

In addition, the Heywood-class transport ship USS Fuller (APA-7), commissioned in 1941, was named after him.

Web links

• Official Biography of the US Marine Corps (English)
• Commandants Of The Marine Corps (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Valentina Peguero: The militarization of culture in the Dominican Republic, from the captains general to General Trujillo . In: Studies in war, society, and the military. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Neb. 2004, ISBN 0-8032-3741-3 , pp. 35 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 7, 2017]).
2. ^ "New Chiefs", TIME-MAGAZINE August 18, 1930
3. ↑ United States Government
4. ↑ Bartlett, Merrill L .: "Ben Hebard Fuller and the Genesis of a Modern United States Marine Corps, 1891-1934", The Journal of Military History - Volume 69, Number 1, January 2005, pp. 73-91  ( page no more available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Lisle Abbott Rose: The breaking storm, 1919-1945 . In: Power at sea . tape 2 . Univ. of Missouri Press, Columbia, Mo. 2007, ISBN 978-0-8262-1694-6 , pp. 174 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 7, 2017]).
6. ↑ Taylor Baldwin Kiland, Jamie Howren: A Walk in the Yard: A Self-Guided Tour of the US Naval Academy . Naval Institute Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59114-436-6 , pp. 155 ff . (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 7, 2017]).
7. ↑ US Naval Academy Cemetery ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 62 kB)  
8. ^ USS Fuller
9. ↑ Ships Named in Honor of United States Marines  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

predecessor	Office	successor
US Military Governor Harry Shepard Knapp	President of the Dominican Republic 1918–1919	US Military Governor Thomas Snowden