Thomas Holcomb

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General Thomas Holcomb, USMC

Thomas Holcomb (born August 5, 1879 in New Castle , Delaware ; † May 24, 1965 there ) was a general in the United States Marine Corps . From 1936 to 1943 he was the 17th Commandant of the Marine Corps and the first Marine to achieve the rank of General. After his retirement he was appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary to South Africa by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt , which he was from 1944 to 1948.

Life

Early years

Holcomb was born on August 5, 1879 in New Castle , Delaware. He attended private schools until he moved to Washington, DC with his family . There he graduated from Western High School in 1897.

On April 13, 1900, he joined the US Marine Corps with the rank of Second Lieutenant . The months from September 1902 to April of the following year, he served in a company of which the North Atlantic - Fleet had been assigned. Towards the end of this service he was promoted to first lieutenant . Following this, Holcomb was transferred to the Philippines , where he stayed until November 1906, with a one-year hiatus from September 1905, which he spent with the American Legation Guard in Beijing , China . On May 13, 1908, he was promoted to captain . From December 1908 to May 1911, Holcomb was again stationed in Beijing, where he served as an attaché and devoted himself to the study of the Chinese language . Subsequently, Captain Holcomb worked from October 1914 to August 1917 as a target shooting inspector. During this period he was promoted to major .

First World War

During World War I , from August 1917 to January 1918, Holcomb commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment at Marine Corps Base Quantico , Virginia, to prepare for the upcoming war effort in Europe . In February, Major Holcomb's regiment was transferred to France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) . There he served as battalion commander and first officer of the regiment. Holcomb was involved in numerous battles on the Western Front , including a. in the Aisne-Marne offensive ( Château-Thierry , Soissons and St. Mihiel ) and the Meuse-Argonne offensive ( Champagne ). Towards the end of the war, his unit marched to the Rhine , followed by the Armistice of Compiègne .

Holcomb stayed in Europe until July 1919 and then returned to the United States , where he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on June 4, 1920 .

1920s - 1936

From September 1922 to June 1924 he was in command of the marine barracks of the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba . He was then posted to the Command and General Staff College of the US Army in Fort Leavenworth , Kansas . He successfully completed this in June 1925 and was transferred to the headquarters of the United States Marine Corps . There he worked in the operations and training department until June 1927. On December 22, 1928, Holcomb was promoted to the rank of Colonel .

From August 1927 to February 1930 he was appointed head of the Marines in the American Legation Guard in Beijing. In June 1930 he returned to America and graduated from the Naval War College in Newport , Rhode Island and the Army War College in Carlisle , Pennsylvania .

The months from June 1932 to January 1935 he was assigned to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations . Following his promotion to Brigadier General on February 1, 1935, Holcomb was appointed Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps Schools in Quantico , Virginia , where he remained until November 1936.

Commandant of the Marine Corps

October 1942: General Holcomb (center) on Guadalcanal.

On December 1, 1936, Thomas Holcomb succeeded John H. Russell as Commandant of the Marine Corps . With his promotion to Lieutenant General on January 20, 1942, he became - until then - the highest-ranking commandant.

On August 5, 1943, after Holcomb had reached the regular retirement age, the then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt put Holcomb in a second term as Commandant. This was due to Holcomb's excellent work. During Holcomb's tenure as Commandant, the troop strength was increased from 16,000 to over 300,000 soldiers, which was mainly due to the entry of the United States into the war. On February 13, 1943, Holcomb set a milestone in the history of the US Marine Corps and general military history to date. On that day, he announced that women could join the Marine Corps in the future. When the inclusion of blacks in the Marine Corps was discussed in 1941, Holcomb vehemently opposed it. He would prefer 5,000 whites to 250,000 negroes . However, it was politically decided that from 1942 blacks were allowed to join the Marine Corps, albeit in separate units, while other non-whites served with whites.

retirement

Holcomb (2nd from right) receives the Distinguished Service Medal from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox (left) on April 12, 1944. Other people in the picture: General Alexander Vandegrift (right) and Colonel James Roosevelt , son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

After serving approximately 44 years in the United States Marine Corps, Holcomb retired on January 1, 1944. His successor was Alexander A. Vandegrift . Because of his unprecedented feats in combat and his outstanding performance in administration, he was promoted to general by voting on a special congressional resolution .

His pension was short-lived, because the President appointed Holcomb on March 9 of this year, succeeding Lincoln MacVeagh Plenipotentiary Envoy in the Union of South Africa (English title: Minister Plenipotentiary to the Union of South Africa ). He officially took up this office after the Senate had confirmed it on June 1 of that year and held it until May 31, 1948.

Holcomb actually retired on the family farm in St. Marys City , Maryland , where he stayed until 1956. For the next six years he resided in Chevy Chase , also Maryland, where he could pursue his gardening hobby. Due to various, sometimes serious illnesses , he moved to an apartment in Washington, DC, before moving to his native New Castle, Delaware, in the spring of 1964. He died there on May 24, 1965 at the age of 85. General Thomas Holcomb was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Holcomb left behind his only son, Franklin P. Holcomb , a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marine Corps and a World War II veteran . Since 1916 he was married to Beatrice Miller Clover (born January 23, 1896, † August 14, 1962).

Awards

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of the Military Awards:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Morris J. MacGregor: Center of Military History, US Army (Ed.): Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 . Government Printing Office, 1981, ISBN 0-16-001925-7 , pp. 100-102.
  2. ^ Morris, Steven (December 1969). "How Blacks Upset The Marine Corps: 'New Breed' leathernecks are tackling racist vestiges". Ebony (Johnson Publishing Company) 25 (2): 55-58. ISSN  0012-9011 .