Stafford LeRoy Irwin
Stafford LeRoy Irwin (born March 23, 1893 in Fort Monroe , Virginia, † November 23, 1955 , Asheville , North Carolina) was an officer in the US Army . He was in command of the XII Corps in France during World War II , and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Forces in Austria in occupied Austria . He was last in the rank of lieutenant general .
resume
Stafford LeRoy Irwin comes from an old American officer family. He was the son of Major General of the Artillery George LeRoy Irwin , an officer of the First World War , his grandfather was Brigadier General of the United States Army Medical Corps Bernard John Dowling Irwin , who had already served in the Apache Wars .
Irwin was born in Fort Monroe , Virginia, where his father was stationed at the time. He graduated from the United States Military Academy West Point , senior year 1915, a year famous for his graduates, which is called “ the class the stars fell on ” (German: “the year the stars fell on”).
Period of World War I and the interwar period
June 12, 1915 he took up his service as 2nd Lieutenant in the cavalry under General Pershing , and took part in the Pancho Villa Expedition , the punitive expedition against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa . In 1916 in the 11th Cavalry Regiment, he was sent to the Field Artillery School Fort Sill the following year , and became an artillery instructor. In 1919/20 he was a professor of military science and tactics at Yale University . 1920 to 1924 he was an instructor in the Oklahoma National Guard , graduated from the Field Artillery School (1926), the Command and General Staff School (1926-1927), and then taught again from 1929 to 1933 at the Field Artillery School. From 1933 to 1936 he served with the Organized Reserves , and in 1937 he graduated from Army War College .
Second World War
Stafford Irwin entered the war as the artillery commander of the 9th Infantry Division . This unit was used in Operation Torch , the counterattack against Rommel's African campaign , in North Africa. After the battle of the Kasserin Pass , he became the commanding general of the 5th Infantry Division , which belonged to General Patton's department and completed the entire French campaign . This unit came to be known as the Red Devils (it is also called that in America), and in the course of the campaign he became commandant of the entire XII Corps in April 1945 . The 5th Infantry, in the following also called " Patton's" spearhead "division , landed under Irwin at Utah Beach (Normandy), the formation of the II Corps was assembled in Le Mans, from where it crossed the Moselle and Ardennes advanced, took Nuremberg , advanced into Czechoslovakia to Prague , and met the Red Army at Amstetten at the end of the war .
Post-war and occupation times in Austria
After the war he returned to the States and was entrusted with command of the V Corps and Fort Bragg (November 16, 1946 to October 31, 1948). He then moved to the Department of the Army , Washington, DC, as Director of Intelligence , and was there in March 1950 Assistant Chief of Staff of Army Intelligence .
August 1950 he was ordered to Austria and succeeded Geoffrey Keyes as Commander in Chief of the United States Forces in Austria . In this post he served until 1952. In contrast to his predecessor, who was himself still American High Commissioner , this post of the highest representative in the Allied Commission for Austria was transferred to the US Ambassador Walter J. Donnelly in 1950 , and Irwin had not a political but a military-administrative function.
Further curriculum vitae and personal information
He retired on medical grounds in 1952 and died in Asheville , North Carolina in 1955 at the age of 62
Stafford LeRoy Irwin married Helen Hall in 1921. They had a son, Francis LeRoy. His wife died in 1937 and Irwin married Clare Moran in 1941 and had a second son from that marriage.
Awards
Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of Military Awards :
Web links
Individual evidence
- Irwin, Stafford LeRoy "Red" . Entry in US Army Officers of WWII, unithistories.com
- Stafford LeRoy Irwin, Lieutenant General, United States Army , Arlington Cemetery
- ↑ 57th Field Artillery Brigade, after him Fort Irwin , now National Training Center Camp Irwin, Mojave Antiaircraft Range, was named. Historic California Posts: Fort Irwin . In California State Military Department: The California State Military Museum , militarymuseum.org
- ↑ including the five-star generals Omar N. Bradley , Dwight D. Eisenhower , later US president, the four-star generals Joseph T. McNarney and James A. Van Fleet and several other highly decorated American commanders of the Second World War and also the Korean War, see en : The class the stars fell on
- ↑ → en: 5th Infantry Division (United States)
- ↑ → en: XII Corps (United States)
- ↑ → en: V Corps (United States)
- ↑ Executive Order 10171 Transferring Occupation Functions in Austria to the Department of State (3 CFR, 1949-1953 Comp., P 355).
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Campbell Hodges | Commanding General 5th Infantry Division July 1944 - April 1945 |
1947: John C. Church |
| Geoffrey Keyes | Commander in Chief United States Forces in Austria September 1950–1952 |
George P. Hays |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Irwin, Stafford LeRoy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American officer in World War II, Commander in Chief of the United States Forces in Austria |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 23, 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Fort Monroe , Virginia , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 23, 1955 |
| Place of death | Asheville , North Carolina , United States |