Edward Almond

Edward Mallory Almond (December 12, 1892 – June 11, 1979) was a senior United States Army officer who fought in World War I, World War II, where he commanded the 92nd Infantry Division, and the Korean War, where he commanded the U.S. X Corps.
Edward Mallory Almond was born on December 12, 1892, in Luray, Virginia. He was the first son of Walter, a farm equipment salesman, and Grace Popham Almond. Another boy, Malcolm, joined the family in 1895, as did a sister, Judy, in 1897. Young Almond, nicknamed "Ned" by his family, grew up being told stories by his paternal grandmother about the American Civil War. Almond's maternal grandfather, Thomas Popham, along with his great-uncle, William Barton Mallory, had both served in the Confederate Army during the war. In Almond’s youth there were still many veterans of the Civil War all over Virginia although Almond himself stated in later life that neither his grandparents nor the older people who had been involved spoke much about the conflict. He did note, however, that there seemed to be an undertone of bitterness for having lost the war.
Of his early years, Michael E. Lynch states:
Always interested in the military, determined to be a professional soldier, and inspired throughout his life by the words of Stonewall Jackson's, "You may be whatever you resolve to be", Almond graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in June 1915. He graduated third in a class of sixty-five cadets. He was later commissioned as a first lieutenant in the United States Army on 30 November 1916. The United States entered World War I soon afterwards, in April 1917.
Almond served in France during the latter stages of the war, ending it as a major. He fought in the Meuse–Argonne offensive of late 1918 as the commander of the 12th Machine Gun Battalion of the 4th Division, commanded then by Major General George H. Cameron. During his service in France, he was wounded in action and received a Silver Star Citation (later upgraded to the Silver Star decoration). Of his being wounded, which occurred in early August 1918, he later wrote:
After being relieved from combat in the Meuse–Argonne, Almond's division, the 4th, was transferred to the newly created Second Army in mid-October and Almond was preparing his battalion, which he assumed command of on October 1, for a huge new offensive scheduled for November 12, although the Armistice with Germany brought an end to this plan. The relatively short campaign in the Meuse−Argonne had cost the 4th Division dearly, with 45 officers being killed and 199 wounded, while another 1,120 enlisted men had been killed with a further 6,024 wounded. Almond's battalion had suffered 190 casualties, 4 of them being officers. The next few months for Almond and his battalion were spent on occupation duty in Germany.
On returning to the United States after the war, Almond taught military science at Marion Military Institute from 1919 to 1924. He then attended the United States Army Infantry School at Fort Benning in Georgia after which he resumed teaching at Marion until 1928. He also taught at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, becoming acquainted with Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall, the assistant commandant of the school.
In 1930, Almond graduated from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. After a tour of duty in Philippines, where he commanded a battalion of Philippine Scouts, he attended the Army War College in 1934 after which he was attached to the Intelligence Division of the General Staff for four years. Having been promoted to lieutenant colonel on September 1, 1938, he attended the Army War College, Air Corps Tactical School, and finally the Naval War College, from which he graduated in 1940. Almond was then assigned to staff duty at VI Corps HQ, Providence, Rhode Island, receiving a promotion to the temporary rank of colonel on October 14, 1941.
Soon after the American entry into World War II, in December 1941, Almond was promoted to brigadier general on March 15, 1942 and was named assistant division commander (ADC) of the 93rd Infantry Division, a newly raised African-American formation, commanded at the time by Major General Charles P. Hall, and which was then based in Arizona.
Almond was for a time highly regarded by George C. Marshall, also a VMI graduate, who was now Army Chief of Staff. This regard accounted in part for Almond's promotion to major general, on September 23, ahead of most of his peers and subsequent command of the 92nd Infantry Division, made of almost exclusively African-American soldiers, a position he held from its formation in October 1942 until August 1945. Almond, surprised to be given such an assignment, in later years speculated why he was selected for command of the 92nd, stating:
He led the division during its training in the United States and in combat in the final phases of the Italian campaign of 1944–1945. During its time in Italy the division, arriving piecemeal throughout the latter half of 1944, underwent several changes in its organization, and suffered a total of almost 3,000 casualties during the often bitter Italian fighting, all while forming part of the U.S. Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark and later Lucian Truscott.
Although Marshall picked Almond for this assignment because Marshall believed Almond would excel at this difficult assignment, the division performed poorly in combat with Almond blaming the division's poor performance on its largely African-American troops, echoing the widespread prejudice in the segregated Army that blacks made poor soldiers—and went on to advise the Army against ever again using African-Americans as combat troops. Almond told confidants that the division's poor combat record had cheated him of higher command.
In 1946 Almond was transferred to Tokyo as chief of personnel at General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters, normally a dead-end job. Almond very effectively handled the sizable challenge of staffing the occupation forces in Japan as American forces rapidly demobilized, standing out among MacArthur's lackluster staff. Having won MacArthur's confidence as capable and loyal, Almond was the logical choice to become Chief of Staff in January 1949, when the incumbent, Paul J. Mueller, rotated home.
After the initial North Korean attack in June 1950, United Nations forces were forced to withdraw and eventually fell back to the Pusan Perimeter.
MacArthur decided to counterattack with an amphibious invasion at Inchon in November. The invasion force, consisting of the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division, was originally named "X Force" and was placed under the command of Almond. Because the name X Force was confusing to logistics officers, upon Almond's suggestion, the formation was re-designated as X Corps. MacArthur split X Corps from the 8th Army, then placed Almond, who had no experience with amphibious operations, in command of the main landing force just before the landings.
Almond earned the scorn of Marine officers when, during the early phase of the Inchon landing, he asked if the amphibious tractors used to land the Marines could float. The invasion succeeded, but Almond did not pursue effectively and most of the routed North Korean Army escaped northwards.
During this time, Major General O. P. Smith, commander of the 1st Marine Division, which was part of X Corps (and therefore under Almond's overall command) from October until December 1950 had many conflicts with Almond.
Almond also had a poor relationship with Lieutenant General Walton Walker, commander of the 8th Army, and “his singularly unfortunate rivalry with Walker left an indelible stamp on what happened” in Korea.
Historians have criticized Almond for the wide dispersal of his units during the X Corps advance into north-eastern part of North Korea, in November–December 1950. This dispersal contributed to the defeat of X Corps by Chinese troops, including the destruction of Task Force Faith, and the narrow escape of the Marines at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Almond was slow to recognize the scale of the Chinese attack on X Corps, urging Army and Marine units forward despite the huge Chinese forces arrayed against them. Displaying his usual reckless boldness, he underestimated the strength and skill of the Chinese forces, at one point telling his subordinate officers "The enemy who is delaying you for the moment is nothing more than remnants of Chinese divisions fleeing north. We're still attacking and we're going all the way to the Yalu. Don't let a bunch of Chinese laundrymen stop you." As stated by a close associate: "When it paid to be aggressive, Ned was aggressive. When it paid to be cautious, Ned was aggressive."
Despite these mistakes and partly due to his close relationship with MacArthur, the new Eighth Army commander Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, who became the commander of the 8th Army following the death of Walker in December 1950, retained Almond as commander of X Corps. Ridgway admired Almond's aggressive attitude, but felt he needed close supervision to ensure his boldness did not jeopardize his command. Almond and X Corps later took part in the defeat of the Chinese offensives during February and March 1951, as well as the Eighth Army's counter-offensive, Operation Killer. Almond was promoted to Lieutenant general in February 1951.
Future general and secretary of state Alexander Haig served as aide-de-camp to Almond in the Korean War.
In July 1951, Almond was reassigned and became commandant of the United States Army War College. In 1956, Almond was a delegate to a pro-segregationist conference where Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote the majority opinion for Brown v. Board of Education, was proclaimed an enemy of the United States. Speakers at the conference claimed that the country was facing a "Marxist-Zionist" takeover and equated desegregation to communism.
He retired from the Army on 31 January 1953 and worked as an insurance executive until his death in 1979, aged 86.
He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, near his son, Edward Mallory Almond Jr., a captain in the 157th Infantry Regiment, killed in action on March 19, 1945, in France.
General Headquarters Far East Command: General Orders No. 43 (October 23, 1950)
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Headquarters, Eighth U.S. Army, Korea: General Orders No. 362 (May 28, 1951)
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