Walter Krueger
Walter Krueger was an American soldier and general officer in the first half of the 20th century. He commanded the Sixth United States Army in the South West Pacific Area during World War II. He rose from the rank of private to general in the United States Army.
Born in Flatow, West Prussia, German Empire, Krueger emigrated to the United States as a boy. He enlisted for service in the Spanish–American War and served in Cuba, and then re-enlisted for service in the Philippine–American War. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1901. In 1914 he was posted to the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. His regiment was mobilized on 23 June 1916 and served along the Mexican border. After the United States commenced hostilities with Germany in April 1917, Krueger was assigned to the 84th Infantry Division as its Assistant Chief of Staff G-3, and then its chief of staff. In February 1918, he was sent to Langres to attend the American Expeditionary Forces General Staff School, and in October 1918, he became chief of staff of the Tank Corps.
Between the wars, Krueger served in a number of command and staff positions, and attended the Naval War College at his own request. In 1941, he assumed command of the Third Army, which he led in the Louisiana Maneuvers. He expected, because of his age, to spend the war at home training troops, but in 1943 he was sent to General Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area as commander of the Sixth Army and Alamo Force, which he led in a series of successful campaigns against the Japanese.
As an army commander, Krueger grappled with the problems imposed by vast distances, inhospitable terrain, unfavorable climate, and an indefatigable and dangerous enemy. He balanced the fast pace of MacArthur's strategy with the more cautious approach of managing subordinates who often found themselves confronted by unexpectedly large numbers of Japanese troops. In 1945 at the Battle of Luzon, Krueger faced the Japanese army under Tomoyuki Yamashita and Krueger outmaneuvered his enemies like he had in the 1941 exercises. This was Krueger's largest, longest, and final battle.
Krueger retired to San Antonio, Texas, where he wrote From Down Under to Nippon, an account of his campaigns in the Southwest Pacific. His retirement was marred by family tragedies. His son James was dismissed from the army in 1947 for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. His wife's health deteriorated, and she died of cancer in 1956. His daughter Dorothy stabbed her husband to death in 1952. She was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court-martial, but was freed by the Supreme Court in 1957.
Education and early life
Walter Krueger was born on 26 January 1881 in Flatow, West Prussia, then part of the German Empire, now part of Poland. He was the son of Julius Krüger, a Prussian landowner who had served as an officer in the Franco-Prussian War, and his wife, Anna, formerly Hasse. Following Julius's death, Anna and her three children emigrated to the United States to be near her uncle in St. Louis, Missouri. Walter was then eight years old. In St. Louis, Anna married Emil Carl Schmidt, a Lutheran minister.The family subsequently settled in Madison, Indiana. Krueger was tutored by his stepfather, educated in the public schools of Madison, and completed high school at Madison's Upper Seminary. As a teenager, he wanted to become a naval officer, but when his mother objected he decided to become a blacksmith instead. After graduating from high school, Krueger enrolled at the Cincinnati Technical High School, where he learned blacksmithing and completed science and mathematics courses in preparation for college studies in engineering.
Early military service
On 17 June 1898, Krueger enlisted for service in the Spanish–American War with the 2nd United States Volunteer Infantry. He reached Santiago de Cuba a few weeks after the Battle of San Juan Hill, and spent eight months there on occupation duties, rising to the rank of sergeant. Mustered out of the volunteers in February 1899, he returned home to Ohio, planning to become a civil engineer.However, many of his comrades were re-enlisting for service in the Philippine–American War and in June 1899 Krueger re-enlisted as a private in M Company of the 12th Infantry. Soon he was on his way to fight Emilio Aguinaldo's Insurrectos as part of Major General Arthur MacArthur, Jr.'s 2nd Division of the Eighth Army Corps. He took part in the advance from Angeles to Tarlac, Aguinaldo's capital. But Aguinaldo had fled, and the 12th Infantry pursued him vainly all the way through Luzon's central plain to Dagupan. While serving in an infantry unit in the Philippines, he was promoted to sergeant. On 1 July 1901, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and posted to the 30th Infantry on Marinduque.
Krueger returned to the United States with the 30th Infantry in December 1903. The regiment moved to Fort Crook, Nebraska. In September 1904, he married Grace Aileen Norvell, whom he had met in the Philippines. They had three children: James Norvell, born on 29 July 1905; Walter Jr., born on 25 April 1910; and Dorothy Jane, who was born on 24 January 1913. Both James and Walter Jr. attended the United States Military Academy, James graduating with the class of 1926, and Walter Jr. with the class of 1931. Dorothy married an army officer, Aubrey D. Smith, of the class of 1930.
In 1904, Krueger attended the Infantry-Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and upon completing the course was chosen as a Distinguished Graduate. This was followed by the Command and General Staff College in 1907. He then joined the 23rd Infantry at Fort Ontario, New York. After a second tour in the Philippines, he returned to the United States in June 1909, and was assigned to Department of Languages at Fort Leavenworth as an instructor in Spanish, French and German, which he could speak fluently. He also taught National Guard officers at Camp Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and Pine Camp, New York. He published translations of several German military texts, most notably William Balck's Tactics. The book attracted the attention of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Major General Leonard Wood, and was widely read.
With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Krueger was offered a post as an observer with the German Army but was forced to turn it down due to familial commitments. Instead, he was posted to the 10th Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. The regiment was mobilized on 23 June 1916 and served along the Mexican border for five months as part of the Mexican Punitive Expedition under Major General John J. Pershing, although no National Guard units fought Mexican troops. The unit was mustered out in October 1916.
Afterwards, Krueger remained with the National Guard. He trained units, and helped establish a school for officers at the University of Pennsylvania. In an article in the Infantry Journal, he called for a large, national, conscript army similar to those of European countries, arguing that this would be in accord with America's democratic values.
World War I and immediate aftermath
After the United States commenced hostilities against Germany in April 1917, Krueger was assigned to the newly activated 84th Division, a National Army formation created largely from draftees, at Camp Zachary Taylor as its assistant chief of staff G-3. He became the 84th's chief of staff, and along with it came the temporary rank of major, as of 5 August 1917.In February 1918, he was sent to Langres, France, to attend the General Staff School of the American Expeditionary Forces. The school had been created by the AEF's commander-in-chief, General John J. Pershing, and his staff, "to instruct and bring up to date many officers who never had any formal or specific staff training". All officers from divisions that were not under orders for France were ordered to return home in May 1918, but Krueger stayed on as G-3 of the 26th "Yankee" Division, an Army National Guard formation.
The French government requested that Krueger be sent home due to his German origin, and Krueger was re-posted to the 84th Division, but he soon returned to France and the AEF, as the 84th Division embarked for France in August 1918. He was not destined to remain with the division for very long, however, as in October he became chief of staff of the Tank Corps of the AEF, a job which he found both rewarding and frustrating, as "he was tied to his desk most of the day, which he did not particularly enjoy", although he hoped that such a position might result in quick promotion.
After the armistice with Germany on 11 November, which ended the fighting, he became assistant chief of staff of VI Corps and, after that was disbanded in April 1919, served in the same role with IV Corps on occupation duty in Germany, advancing to the rank of temporary colonel. His stay was short, however, as IV Corps was also broken up in May, although his somewhat brief service had given Krueger experience in dealing with larger units and formations.
For his services in the war, he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1919. The citation for his DSM reads:
Interwar years
With the end of the war, Krueger returned to the United States on 22 June 1919 and was initially posted to the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1920, he assumed command of the 55th Infantry Regiment at Camp Funston, Kansas. He reverted to his permanent rank of captain on 30 June 1920 but was promoted to the permanent rank of major the next day. He attended the Army War College, graduating in 1921, and remaining for a year as an instructor, where he taught such classes as the "Art of Command".He paid a four-month visit to Germany in 1922 as part of the War College's Historical Section, during which he examined documents related to World War I in the German War Archives. These informed his lectures on the war, and he argued that much of the German Army's effectiveness was attributable to its system of decentralized command. Krueger urged that American commanders in the field should be given wider latitude in carrying out their orders.
From 1922 to 1925, Krueger served in the War Plans Division of the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C. Krueger worked on the United States color-coded war plans, particularly War Plan Green, for another war with Mexico, and War Plan Blue, for another civil war in the United States. He traveled to the Panama Canal Zone in January 1923 to report on the state of the defenses there. After he returned, he was assigned to the Joint Army and Navy Planning Committee, an organ of the Joint Army and Navy Board responsible for coordinating war plans between the two services.
While with the Joint Planning Committee, he worked on War Plan Orange, the plan for a war with Japan, and War Plan Tan, for a war with Cuba. Krueger considered the problems of inter-service cooperation. At his own request, he attended the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1925 and 1926. He continued to ruminate on the nature of command. "Doctrine", he wrote, "knits all the parts of the military force together in intellectual bonds."
Krueger came to feel the prospects for promotion in the infantry were very poor, and in 1927 he tried to transfer to the United States Army Air Corps. He attended the Air Corps Primary Flying School at Brooks Field, Texas, but suffered an attack of neuritis in his right arm, and his flight instructor, Lieutenant Claire Lee Chennault, failed him. In December 1927, he was offered a position as an instructor at the Naval War College, where he taught classes on World War I, and on joint operations.
In June 1932, Krueger became commander of the 6th Infantry Regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he was promoted to colonel again on 1 August 1932. Now aged 51, he became resigned to retiring as a colonel, but in 1934 he returned to the War Plans Division, becoming chief of the division in May 1936, and was promoted to temporary brigadier general in October 1936. In September 1938, Krueger went to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, as commander of the 16th Infantry Brigade.
He was promoted to temporary major general in February 1939, when he became commander of the 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The 2nd Infantry Division was at the time being used as the Proposed Infantry Division. With Lesley J. McNair as commander of the 2nd Division Artillery and chief of staff of the PID, the PID tested of the US Army's new triangular division concept. As a result of the lessons learned from the PID's training and exercises, Krueger was able to offer recommendations for improvements to the triangular division concept, including taking advantage of mechanization and fast-paced tactics. The troops who took part in the PID experiment called themselves the "Blitzkruegers"; the triangular division model was adopted, and became the Army's standard design for infantry divisions in World War II.