Evening star., 1954-11-24
Gen. Prentiss
Named 10 Head
Engineer Center
Col. Thomas Lone
To Succeed Him
In District Post
By John A. Giles

Brig. Gen. Louis w. Prentiss,
District Engineer Commissioners
since January. 1853. today was
reassigned by the Army to be
commanding general of the En-.
gineer Center at Fort Belvoir,
Va.
Col. Thomas A. Lane. now en-.
gineer of the Army Field Forces,
Fort Monroe, Va, will replace
him.
Secretary of the Army Ste
vens, who made the announce.
ment, said the changes would
take effect December 10.
Introduces Successor.
Immediately after the an
nouncement this morning, Gen.
Prentiss introduced his success
sor to his fellow members of the
Board of Commissioners and of
the Public Utilities Commission
at a brief meeting in the office
OF Commissioner Samuel Spen-
Ger, president Of the board.
Col. Lane was to attend an
Engineering Department staff
conference later in the day to
get acquainted with the offi-
cialS with whom he will be work.
ing.
Gen. Prentiss said Col. Lane
had worked for him as a dis
tract engineer and Ibid an
outstanding job for me and the
Little Rock (Ark.) district, but
I had to let him go when they
needed a good man to do a hard
job in Okinawa early in 1880"
Like Okinawa Job.
Col. Lane, gray-haired and
more than 6 feet tall, said
his work on Okinawa most
closely paralleled the municipal
duties he will perform here.
There, he said, 1--WE built a com.
plete community from scratch
for more than 5000 million, in
cluding highways. harbor inn
provements, power plants and
housing"
Gen. Prentiss, SIS, has been
active in attempts to relieve the
Districts congested trafic con-
ditions through the institution
of fringe parking lots and high
way improvements. Probably his
major achievement was super
vising the push through Con-
gress Of the vast District public
works program.
Belvoir Command.
p At Fort Belvoir.. Gen. Prentiss
succeeds the late Mai. Gen.
Arthur w. Pence who died of q
heart attack Nov. 8. He will be
in charge of the Engineer
School. the Engineer Research
and Development Laboratories,
the 10th Engineer Group tcon-
struction). the Engineer Regi-
ment Center, the Fort Belvoir
Hospital, Dawson Air Field and
several other units. His COM
mand will comprise more than
$4,000 troops.
President Eisenhower has ap-
proved the assignment of Col.
Lane, as required by law. He is
48 years old.
Col. Lane was commissioned
in the Corps of Engineers in
1928 upon graduation from West
Point, where he stood third in a
class of 261. In 1923 he grad
uated from Massachusetts, Insti-
tute of Technology with the de-
gree of bachelor of science in
civil engineering. He also is a
graduate Of the National War
College.
a native OF Revere, Mass, Col.
+ Lane helped map the mobiliza-
tion and training Of Army Engi-
neer battalions at the start Of
World War II to meet the needs
OF the huge Army Air Corps air.
field construction program.
Later he was transferred to
Southwest Pacific Army head
quarters as operations officer.
He received the Distinguished
Service Medal for this duty.
He entered Japan with the
occupation forces in 1945 and in
November Of that year returned
here for duty on a Joint Opera
tions Review Board to write am.
(See COMMISSIONER, Pg. A-9.)