Smedley D. Butler

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Smedley Butler
El Coyotepe 2

Smedley Darlington Butler (born July 30, 1881 in West Chester , Pennsylvania , †  June 21, 1940 in Philadelphia ) was a major general in the United States Marine Corps . He has been awarded the Medal of Honor twice. He was also called The Fighting Quaker and the Old Gimlet Eye .

Life

Butler was the eldest of three sons in a Quaker family ; his father Thomas S. Butler was a member of the United States Congress from 1897 to 1928 . He left school when he was just under 17 to join the United States Marine Corps . He had his first real combat mission in the Boxer Rebellion in China , during which he was wounded twice, including rescuing a wounded man from enemy fire. He was promoted to the rank of captain while still in the hospital . He had his next missions in Honduras and the US military intervention in Nicaragua , in which he took part in the battle of Coyotepe near Masaya on October 3 and 4, 1912 in the fight against Benjamin Zeledón .

Butler (2nd from right) in Veracruz (Mexico)

In 1914 the butler , who had meanwhile been promoted to major , was employed in the occupation of Veracruz in 1914 , for which he received his first Medal of Honor. The following year he received the second Medal of Honor for his service during the US military intervention in Haiti 1915-1934 , in which he commanded the Gendarmerie d'Haiti as Haitian Major General . During the First World War he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. After the end of the war he became the commandant of a military base in Virginia .

From 1924 to 1925, Butler served as a civilian as the chief police officer of Philadelphia at the request of US President Calvin Coolidge . After returning to the military, he was reinstated in China and made major general in 1929 . The following year he would have been promoted to Commandant of the Marine Corps due to the ranking , but he was preferred to General Ben H. Fuller. Then Butler took his leave.

In 1933 Butler published his memoirs under the title Old Gimlet Eye: The Adventures of Smedley D. Butler as told to Lowell Thomas in collaboration with the journalist Lowell Thomas, who is also well known in Germany . Butler began writing as a civilian, his first book War Is a Racket published in 1935. He categorically rejected wars of aggression per se. In 1932 he applied for the nomination of the Republican Party as a US Senator , supported by Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot , but was defeated by the incumbent James J. Davis .

Butler showed solidarity with the mass demonstration of the Bonus Army in 1932 , which called for an improvement in the situation of war veterans. In 1934 he reported alleged coup plans against President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the forerunner of the Committee on Un-American Activities . A committee of inquiry was set up, but the committee did not have the authority to conduct a full investigation. In the television film adaptation November plan ( The November plan , USA 1977, directed by Don Medford ) was Butler of Lloyd Nolan shown.

Butler died in 1940. General Douglas MacArthur called Butler “one of the really great generals in American history” and named the military base in Okinawa after him. The destroyer USS Butler (DD-636) was named after him in 1941 and was decommissioned in 1948.

Publications

  • Smedley D. Butler, Arthur J. Burks: Walter Garvin in Mexico , Dorrance, Philadelphia 1927.
  • Smedley D. Butler: Old gimlet eye: The Adventures of Smedley D. Butler as told to Lowell Thomas , New York 1933, Reprint Quantico, VA (Marine Corps Association) 1981.
  • Smedley D. Butler: War is a racket , Round Table Press, New York 1935. German translation: War is a crime .

Movie

literature

Web links

Commons : Smedley D. Butler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Smedley D. Butler  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ salem-news.com
  2. ↑ David X. Noack: Debtors, Gunboats, and Bandits for Wall Street . In: amerika21.de . August 21, 2011.
  3. ^ David X. Noack: The "Business Plot" . In: young world . November 21, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Butler, Smedley D.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Butler, Smedley Darlington (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Major General in the United States Marine Corps
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH West Chester , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1940
Place of death Philadelphia