Malin Craig

General Malin Craig

Malin Craig (born August 5, 1875 in St. Joseph , Missouri , † July 25, 1945 in Washington, DC ) was an American general . He was the 14th Chief of Staff of the Army from October 2, 1935 to August 31, 1939 .

Life

origin

Malin Craig was born on August 5, 1875 in St. Joseph, Missouri, to a family with strong military traditions. His mother, Georgie Malin (1855–1923), was the daughter of an officer; his father, Louis A. Craig I. (1851-1904), was a professional soldier and at the time of Malin's birth a lieutenant in the 6th Cavalry Regiment. He became a colonel in the Volunteer Army in 1899 and retired as a major in the regular army in 1903 . His father and Malin's grandfather James Craig (1818-1888), lawyer and congressman, had led a volunteer company in the war against Mexico (1846/48) and had been on the side of the Union Brigadier General of the volunteer army in the civil war . Malin's aunts, Clara and Ida - his father's sisters - were also married to army officers. Malin and his brother Louis , born in 1891 , who later also became an officer and retired in 1952, shared the fate of all soldiers' children and the frequent moves to the father's changing locations.

Career up to the First World War

After attending Georgetown School and College in Washington, Craig entered the US Military Academy at West Point in 1894 and graduated there in 1898 as the 33rd of 59 cadets. In April he received his appointment as second lieutenant in the 4th US Infantry Regiment, but in the same year he switched to the 6th Cavalry, his father's regiment , and took part in the conquest of Cuba in the Spanish-American War .

On his return he moved to the 4th Cavalry Regiment and served for the next two years in Wyoming and Oklahoma (1898-1900). In 1900, after the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion , he went with the American troop contingent under General Adna R. Chaffee to China ( China Relief Expedition ), was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1901 and returned to the 6th Cavalry Regiment. In April of the same year he married Genevieve Woodruff, with whom he had a son, Malin Jr. (* 1902), had. In 1904 he was promoted to captain and was regimental quartermaster at Fort Clark in Kinney, Texas from 1906 to 1909. He graduated from Army War College in 1910 and served in the General Staff Corps from 1917 .

First World War and after

When the USA entered the First World War , Craig was promoted to major in May 1917 , as early as August 1917 to temporary lieutenant colonel and in March 1918 to temporary colonel . He was deployed in France as Chief of Staff of General Hunter Liggett in the 41st Infantry Division and then in the I. Corps. Here he became a temporary brigadier general and was Chief of Staff of the Third Army at the end of the war.

After the war he was again Mayor, then Colonel in 1920 and Brigadier General again in 1921. As a major general he was chief of the US cavalry in 1924/26 and then US commander in the Panama zone until 1935 .
From 1935 until August 1939 he worked as temporary General Chief of Staff of the US Army ( Chief of Staff of the Army ), in place of General Douglas MacArthur . In August 1939 he retired; He was succeeded by General George C. Marshall .

Second World War

In September 1941, Craig was reactivated as chief of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's personal advisory staff . In this position he was - although seriously ill with arteriosclerosis - primarily concerned with the distribution and allocation of American personnel reserves to the armed forces and the war industry.

death

Craig died on July 25, 1945 ten days before his seventieth birthday, in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and was on July 30 - at his own request without military ceremony - at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on the side of his Buried in 1941, Mrs. Geneviève. He left a son, Col. Malin Craig, Jr. (1902-1981).

Awards

• Craig received 17 medals and awards including six from other countries.

literature

Since General Craig did not leave any personal or official papers, there is no detailed biography of him. Short biographical sketches can be found in:

• Carol Reardon: Craig, Malin. - American National Biography Online , February 2000. (Accessed August 20, 2005)
• William Gardner Bell: Commanding generals and chiefs of staff, 1775–1991: portraits & biographical sketches of the United States Army's senior officer. - Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1997. - ISBN 0-16-035912-0 ( online )

A chapter on Craig's funeral includes:

• Billy C. Mossman and M. Warner Stark: The last salute: civil and military funerals, 1921-1969. - Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1971 [i. e. 1972] <reprint 1974>

Footnotes

1. ↑ As a former Chief of Staff of the Army, Craig would have allowed 17 rounds salutes and a funeral procession with an escort consisting of an infantry regiment, a cavalry squadron and a field artillery battalion