Mark W. Clark
Mark Wayne Clark was a United States Army officer who fought in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. He was the youngest four-star general in the U.S. Army during World War II.
During World War I, he was a company commander and served in France in 1918, as a 22-year-old captain, where he was seriously wounded by shrapnel. After the war, the future US Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, noticed Clark's abilities. During World War II, he commanded the United States Fifth Army, and later the 15th Army Group, in the Italian campaign. He is known for leading the Fifth Army when it captured Rome in June 1944, around the same time as the Normandy landings. He was also the head of planning for Operation Torch, the largest seaborne invasion at the time.
On 10 March 1945, at the age of 48, Clark became one of the youngest American officers promoted to the rank of four-star general. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend, considered Clark to be a brilliant staff officer and trainer of men.
Throughout his thirty-six years of military service, Clark was awarded many medals, the Distinguished Service Cross, the US Army's second-highest decoration, being the most notable.
A legacy of the "Clark Task Force," which he led from 1953 to 1955 to review and to make recommendations on all federal intelligence activities, is the term "intelligence community."
Early life and career
Clark was born in Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, but spent much of his youth in Highland Park, Illinois, while his father, Charles Carr Clark, a career infantry officer in the United States Army, was stationed at Fort Sheridan. His mother, Rebecca "Beckie" Ezekkiels, was the daughter of Romanian Jews; Mark Clark was baptized Episcopalian as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.Clark gained an early appointment to the USMA in June 1913 at the age of 17, but lost time from frequent illnesses. Known as "Contraband" by his classmates, because of his ability to smuggle sweets into the barracks, while at West Point, he met and befriended Dwight D. Eisenhower, who lived in the same barracks division and was his company cadet sergeant. Although Eisenhower was two years senior to him and had graduated as part of the West Point class of 1915, both formed a friendship. Clark graduated from West Point on 20 April 1917, exactly two weeks after the American entry into World War I, and six weeks before schedule, with a class ranking of 110 in a class of 139, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Infantry Branch. He graduated alongside young men such as Matthew Ridgway, J. Lawton Collins, Ernest N. Harmon, William W. Eagles, Norman Cota, Laurence B. Keiser, John M. Devine, Albert C. Smith, Frederick A. Irving, Charles H. Gerhardt, Bryant Moore and William K. Harrison. All of these men would, like Clark himself, rise to high command and become generals.
World War I
Clark, like his father, decided to join the Infantry Branch. He was assigned to the 11th Infantry Regiment, which later became part of the 5th Division when it was activated in December, where he became a company commander in Company 'K' of the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry, with First Lieutenant John W. O'Daniel serving as a platoon commander in his company. In the rapid expansion of the U.S. Army during the war, he rose quickly in rank, promoted to first lieutenant on 15 May and captain on 5 August 1917.In late April 1918, shortly before Clark's 22nd birthday and over a year after his graduation from West Point, he arrived on the Western Front, to join the American Expeditionary Forces. Arriving with his company at the French port of Brest on 1 May, his 22nd birthday, the next few weeks were spent in training in trench warfare under the tutelage of the French Army and soon afterwards the division was inspected by General John J. Pershing, the AEF's Commander-in-Chief. Serving in the Vosges mountains, the Commanding Officer of the regiment's 3rd Battalion, Major R. E. Kingman, fell ill and Clark was promoted to acting battalion commander on 12 June 1918, with O'Daniel taking over command of Clark's company. Two days later, when Clark's division was relieving a French division in the trenches, he was wounded by German artillery in the right shoulder and upper back, knocking him unconscious; the soldier standing next to him, Private Joseph Kanieski, was killed. They were two of the first casualties suffered by the 5th Division during the war.
Captain Clark recovered from his injuries within six weeks, but was graded unfit to return to the infantry, being transferred to the Supply Section of the newly formed First Army. In this position he served with Colonel John L. DeWitt, and supervised the daily provision of food for the men of the First Army, which earned Clark recognition at the higher levels of command. He stayed in this post until the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918. He then served with the Third Army in its occupation duties in Germany and returned to the United States in June 1919, just over a year after he was sent overseas.
Interwar period
During the interwar period, Clark served in a variety of staff and training roles. From 1921 to 1924, he served as an aide in the office of the Assistant Secretary of War. In 1925, he completed the professional officer's course at the US Army Infantry School and then served as a staff officer with the 30th Infantry Regiment at The Presidio in San Francisco, California. His next assignment was as a training instructor to the Indiana Army National Guard, in which he was promoted to major on 14 January 1933, more than 15 years after his promotion to captain.Major Clark served as a deputy commander of the Civilian Conservation Corps district in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1935–1936, between tours at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School in 1935 and the U.S. Army War College in 1937. Among his classmates there were Matthew Ridgway, Walter Bedell Smith and Geoffrey Keyes, all of whom he would serve with during World War II.
Assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, Clark was selected by General George C. Marshall, the newly promoted Army Chief of Staff, to instruct at the U.S. Army War College in March 1940, where he received a promotion to lieutenant colonel on 1 July. Clark and Brigadier General Lesley J. McNair, later the commander of Army Ground Forces, selected the thousands of acres of unused land in Louisiana for military maneuvers in the Louisiana Maneuvers. On 4 August 1941, Clark, skipping the rank of colonel, was promoted two grades to the temporary rank of brigadier general as the U.S. Army geared up for entry into World War II, and made Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Training at General Headquarters, United States Army, in Washington, D.C.
World War II
In January 1942, a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the American entry into World War II, Clark was appointed deputy chief of staff of Army Ground Forces, commanded by Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, and in May 1942 became its chief of staff.Service in Europe and North Africa
On 17 April 1942, Clark was temporarily promoted to the two-star rank of major general. Two weeks before his 46th birthday he was the youngest major general in the U.S. Army. In June, Clark, along with Major General Dwight Eisenhower, was sent to England as Commanding General of II Corps, and the next month moved up to CG, Army Forces in the European Theater of Operations. Along with Eisenhower, he was sent to work out the feasibility of a cross-channel invasion of German-occupied Europe that year, based on the Germany first strategy which had been agreed on by American and British military and political leaders the year before if the United States were to enter the conflict. In England Clark first met the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who was much impressed by Clark, referring to him as "The American Eagle," along with General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, then commander of the South Eastern Command.After a cross-channel invasion was ruled out for 1942, attention was turned to planning for an Allied invasion of French North Africa, given the codename of Operation Gymnast, later Operation Torch. In October, Clark was assigned to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations as deputy to Eisenhower, who was now the Supreme Allied Commander in the theater, relinquishing command of II Corps. Clark's duty was to prepare for Operation Torch. Clark also made a covert visit to French North Africa to meet with pro-Allied officers of the Vichy French forces.
File:Mark w clark 1943.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Clark on board USS Ancon during the landings at Salerno, Italy, 12 September 1943
Fifth Army and service in Italy
Eisenhower greatly appreciated Clark's contributions. Clark, at the age of 46, was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant general on 11 November 1942, three days after the Torch landings. He was the youngest three-star general in the U.S. Army. On 5 January 1943, the United States created its first field army overseas, the Fifth Army, with Clark as its CG, although neither Clark nor Fifth Army saw service in the fighting in North Africa. Many officers, most notably Major General George S. Patton Jr., who was both older and senior to Clark, and was then commanding I Armored Corps, came to resent him, believing he had advanced too quickly. Patton, in particular, believed Clark was "too damned slick" and believed Clark was much too concerned with himself. In the presence of senior commanders Patton and Clark were friendly, although Patton, in his journal, wrote "I think that if you treat a skunk nicely, he will not piss on you—as often", referring to Clark after both he and General Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, visited Patton's headquarters as the latter explained his plans for the upcoming invasion of Sicily. Clark, for his part, claimed he found it difficult to command men who had been his senior, and he proved reluctant to remove those commanders if they failed in battle. The Fifth Army's initial mission was preparing to keep a surveillance on Spanish Morocco. His permanent rank was upgraded to brigadier general on 1 September 1943.File:David C Waybur and Mark W Clark.jpg|thumb|right|Lieutenant David C. Waybur chats with Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark who presented him with the Medal of Honor for his conspicuous gallantry under fire, Baia e Latina, Italy, 29 November 1943
File:Mark Clark being awarded Distinguished Service Cross cph.3c35299.jpg|thumb|left|Clark being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy, 13 December1943
On 9 September 1943, the Fifth Army, composed of the U.S. VI Corps, under Major General Ernest J. Dawley—who was a decade older than Clark and about whom Clark had doubts—and the British X Corps, under Lieutenant General Sir Richard L. McCreery—to whom Clark later scornfully referred as a "feather duster"—under Clark's command landed at Salerno. The invasion, despite good initial progress, was nearly defeated over the next few days by numerous German counterattacks, and Major General Dawley, the VI Corps commander, was sacked and replaced by Major General John P. Lucas, who himself was later sacked and replaced after his perceived failure during Operation Shingle. Clark was subsequently criticized by historians and critics for this near-failure, blamed on poor planning by Clark and his staff. Despite this Clark was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the citation for which reads:
The Fifth Army, by now composed of five American divisions and three British divisions, operating alongside the British Eighth Army, under General Bernard Montgomery, subsequently advanced up the spine of Italy, and captured the Italian city of Naples on 1 October 1943, and crossed the Volturno Line in mid-October. Progress, however, soon began to slow down, due to German resistance, lack of Allied manpower in Italy, and the formidable German defenses known as the Winter Line, which was to hold the Allies up for the next six months.
File:Clark a Piazza San Pietro.jpg|thumb|right|Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark riding in a jeep through the recently liberated Italian capital of Rome, June 1944. Sat behind Clark is Major General Alfred Gruenther while to Gruenther's left is Major General Harry H. Johnson.
During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Clark ordered the bombing of the Abbey on 15 February 1944. This was under direct orders from his superior, British General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in Italy. Clark and his chief of staff, Major General Alfred Gruenther, remained unconvinced of the military necessity of the bombing. When handing over the U.S. II Corps position to the New Zealand Corps, under Lieutenant General Sir Bernard C. Freyberg, the Assistant Division Commander of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Frederic B. Butler, claimed "I don't know, but I don't believe the enemy is in the convent. All the fire has been from the slopes of the hill below the wall." The commander of the 4th Indian Infantry Division, Major General Francis Tuker, urged the bombing of the entire massif with the heaviest bombs available. Clark finally pinned down the Commander-in-Chief, Alexander, recounting that "I said, 'You give me a direct order and we'll do it' and he did."
File:Gruenther, Brann, Clark, Garrod cph.3c35296.jpg|thumb|left|From left to right, Alfred Gruenther, Donald W. Brann, Mark W. Clark, and Guy Garrod.
Clark's conduct of operations in the Italian campaign is controversial, particularly during the actions around the German Gustav Line, such as the U.S. 36th Infantry Division's assault on the Gari river in January 1944, which failed with 1,681 casualties in the 36th Infantry Division. American military historian Carlo D'Este called Clark's choice to take the undefended Italian capital of Rome, after Operation Diadem and the breakout from the Anzio beachhead, in early June, rather than focusing on the destruction of the German 10th Army, "as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate". Although Clark described a "race to Rome" and released an edited version of his diary for the official historians, his complete papers became available only after his death.
Clark led the Fifth Army, now much reduced in manpower, having given up both the U.S. VI Corps and the French Expeditionary Corps for Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of Southern France, throughout the battles around the Gothic Line. For the offensive, Clark's Fifth Army was reinforced by the British XIII Corps, under Lieutenant General Sidney Kirkman. The initial stages went well until the autumn weather began and, as it did the previous year, the advance bogged down.
Early on the morning of 28 January 1944, a PT boat carrying Clark to the Anzio beachhead, six days after the Anzio landings, was mistakenly fired on by U.S. naval vessels. Several sailors were killed and wounded around him. Next month, during the air raid he ordered on Monte Cassino abbey, 16 bombs were mistakenly dropped at the Fifth Army headquarters compound then 17 miles away from there, exploding yards from his trailer while he was at his desk inside. A few months later, on 10 June, he again narrowly escaped death when, while flying over Civitavecchia in a Stinson L-5, his pilot, Maj. John T. Walker, failed to see the cable of a barrage balloon, which embedded itself into one of the wings, forcing the plane into a rapid downward spiral around the cable. The plane broke free after the third time around, leaving the outer section of the wing behind. Miraculously, Walker managed to crash-land in an open meadow and the two men escaped uninjured. "I never had a worse experience" wrote Clark to his wife.
File:Lieutenant General von Senger und Etterlin receiving instructions regarding surrender of German forces in Italy and western Austria.jpg|thumb|right|Generalleutnant Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, the commander of XIV Panzer Corps, meets Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott Jr., General Clark, and Lieutenant General Sir Richard McCreery at 15th Army Group Headquarters, where the Germans received instructions regarding the unconditional surrender of German forces in Italy and West Austria, May 1945