Old Soldier Retires

All his life Albert Coady Wedemeyer lived in the Army. Both his father and grandfather were Army bandmasters, and he was brought up amid the smells of gun oil and polished leather. And all his own Army life, like any good soldier, Wedemeyer longed for a fighting field command.

But as a close student of his profession and of international affairs, tall, spare Al Wedem was marked out early in his career as a topflight staff officer.* like such contemporary Army "brains" as "Beetle" Smith and Al Gruenther (now Eisenhower's chief of staff), and like George Marshall. Graduating from West Point too late for World War I, Wedemeyer in 1936 was sent to study blitzkrieg tactics at the German War College in Berlin. The experience came in handy in World War II. His firsthand knowledge of the new Wehrmacht (before Pearl Harbor, he got a long letter from his old classroom instructor, Colonel General Alfred Jodl, explaining the Nazi breakthrough in France) made him a key planner in both the Mediterranean and Normandy campaigns, boosted him from lieutenant colonel to major general in two years. In 1944, when "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell was recalled, he took over command of all U.S. forces in China. The youngest (48) of U.S. theater commanders, he doubled as Chiang Kai-shek's chief of staff, re-equipped and retrained China's shattered armies, and won the third star of a lieutenant general.

Two years after the war, President Truman sent him back to the Far East to gather information on Communist strength in China and Korea. The result was the now famous "Wedemeyer Report," which, if followed out, might have changed the course of history. His old friend, George Marshall, personally suppressed it.

Wedemeyer never got over his disappointment. He had idolized George Marshall ever since Marshall, as Chief of Staff in 1941, moved him up to help plan World War II's high strategy. He still revered Marshall, but Wedemeyer's housekeeping command as boss of the Sixth Army on the West Coast brought only frustration. After 32 years of service, 54-year-old Lieut. General Albert Coady Wedemeyer put in his retirement papers and prepared to become a civilian.

*Helping Patton during the Sicilian campaign in 1943, Wedemeyer, then a brigadier general, asked to be reduced to the rank of colonel so that he could take command of a regiment.

Patton refused.

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