Hugh John Casey Hugh John " Pat " Casey ( 24 July 1898 – 30 August 1981 ) was a major general in the United States Army . A 1918 graduate of the U . S . Military Academy at West Point , Casey served in Germany during the Occupation of the Rhineland . He later returned to Germany to attend the " Technische Hochschule " in Berlin , earning a Doctor of Engineering degree . As an engineer , Casey prepared a voluminous report on flood control for the Pittsburgh District . He was involved with the design and construction of the Deadman Island Lock and Dam on the Ohio River , and was chief of the Engineering Division at the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project , a New Deal public works project . He went to the Philippines in 1937 to advise the government there on hydropower and flood control . In the early part of World War II , he became involved with the enormous wartime construction program . Perhaps his most notable and lasting achievement was his involvement with the design of The Pentagon , the largest office building in the world . Casey served as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur ' s chief engineer during the Battle of Bataan , in the jungles and mountains of New Guinea and the Philippines , and during the occupation of Japan . In the Battle of Leyte , he commanded the Army Support Command ( ASCOM ) , which was responsible for all construction and logistics activities in the forward area . He hoped to become Chief of Engineers , but President Harry S . Truman passed him over . Later , Casey worked for Schenley Industries from 1951 until his retirement in 1965 , and was chairman of the New York City Transit Authority from 1953 to 1955 . Early life . Hugh John Casey was born in Brooklyn , New York on 7 June 1898 , the son of John J . Casey , a plumbing and heating contractor , and Margaret L . Casey . John ' s grandparents were immigrants from Ireland and England . His grandfather served on the Union side in the American Civil War and was killed in the Battle of Shiloh . Margaret ’ s parents were Irish immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania . Hugh Casey was educated at Manual Training High School from 1910 to 1914 , graduating at the age of 15 . He won a New York State scholarship and entered Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute , where he studied civil engineering . After a year there , he took a competitive examination for the U . S . Military Academy at West Point held by Congressman Daniel J . Griffin , the chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs , ranking first out of 62 applicants for the appointment . To enter , Casey claimed to be slightly older , adopting his brother ' s 7 June birthday . Casey entered West Point in 1915 , where his best friend and roommate was Lucius D . Clay . At West Point , Casey played football as a halfback , substituting for Elmer Oliphant . One of Casey ' s duties was tutoring Oliphant in mathematics . Casey decided that winning games was more important than playing , and he helped keep Oliphant proficient at math . Unlike most appointees to West Point , a grateful Casey wrote frequently to Griffin about his progress and sent him football tickets . When Casey ' s younger brother Martin Charles Casey wanted to enter West Point , Griffin directly appointed him to the class of 1920 without having to pass the examination . Martin served with the coastal artillery for eleven years before being medically discharged due to migraine headaches on 30 November 1931 . Martin later became a successful lawyer . Both brothers acquired the nickname " Pat " at West Point . World War I . Because of the United States ' entry into World War I , Casey ' s class graduated early on 12 June 1918 . Casey was ranked third in the class and was commissioned as a captain in the United States Army Corps of Engineers . He was stationed at Camp A . A . Humphreys , Virginia , first as an instructor and then starting in September 1918 as a company commander with the 219th Engineers , part of the 19th Division . The 219th Engineers moved to Camp Dodge , Iowa in November 1918 . Casey returned to the Engineer School at Camp Humphreys as a student in September 1919 . He served with the US Occupation forces in the Rhineland from June 1920 to May 1922 . While there , Casey improved on his high school German to become fluent enough in the language to write his doctoral thesis in the language . He also married Dorothy Ruth Miller , the daughter of Colonel R . B . Miller , the chief surgeon of the American forces stationed in Koblenz , on 22 May 1922 . On their honeymoon they traveled through south Germany , Austria , and Switzerland . The couple had three children : two sons , Hugh Boyd and Keith Miles , and a daughter , Patricia . Between the wars . From 1922 to 1926 , Casey was the officer in charge of the Engineer Unit of the Reserve Officers Training Corps ( ROTC ) at the University of Kansas in Lawrence , Kansas , reverting to his substantive rank of first lieutenant on 27 November 1922 . He again returned to Camp Humpreys in 1926 to attend the Company Officers Course . In 1927 , Casey received his first civil works assignment , as assistant District Engineer at the Pittsburgh District . Casey took over the task of preparing a voluminous report on flood control . The Corps of Engineers was criticized by the Pittsburgh Flood Control Commission for over - engineering , in planning for a " flood that had never happened and never would happen " , and the report was shelved . However , in 1936 the flood did happen . The report was then dusted off and its recommendations were adopted . The Flood Control Act of 1936 assigned responsibility for flood control to the Corps of Engineers and other Federal agencies . Casey was also responsible for construction at Deadman Island Lock and Dam ( now called the Dashields Lock and Dam ) on the Ohio River . In September 1929 Casey was assigned to the Rivers and Harbors Section of the Office of the Chief of Engineers in Washington , DC . This job involved reviewing the project studies , plans and specifications of all river and harbor projects throughout the United States , including flood control and hydroelectric power projects . He also had responsibility for correspondence with U . S . senators and congressmen . During this time he co - designed and patented the Kingman - Casey Floating Mooring Bit for navigation locks . He was promoted to the substantive rank of captain on 1 May 1933 . Casey won a John R . Freeman fellowship from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1933 to study hydraulics and civil engineering in Germany . For the next two years , he attended the " Technische Hochschule " in Berlin , earning a Doctorate in Engineering . His thesis , written in German , was on " Geschieb Bewegung " , the bedload movement in streams . Returning to the United States in June 1935 , Casey was posted to Eastport , Maine as chief of the Engineering Division at the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project , a New Deal public works project . There , he established a concrete testing laboratory under Charles E . Wuerpel which is now part of the Structures Laboratory at the Waterways Experiment Station at Vicksburg , Mississippi . Due to political forces , the project came to nothing and was allowed to die . After the Passamaquoddy project fell through , Casey served with the Boston Engineer District on flood control surveys of the Connecticut River Valley . Along with Lucius Clay , Casey was sent to the Philippines in 1937 to advise the government there on hydropower and flood control . They worked with Meralco and other power companies in the Philippines , and conducted a series of surveys , including a detailed one of the Agno River . After Clay returned to the United States , Casey developed plans for the Caliraya Dam , a hydroelectric project with an estimated cost of $ 5 million . Along with Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D . Eisenhower , the chief of staff to Major General Douglas MacArthur , the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines , and Mr . Rodriquez of the National Power Corporation , Casey presented the project to President Manuel Quezon , who approved it . After over twenty years as a captain , Casey was promoted to major on 1 February 1940 . World War II . Construction Division . Casey returned to Washington , D . C . in October 1940 to become chief of the Design and Engineering Section in the Construction Division of the Office of the Quartermaster General , under Brigadier General Brehon B . Somervell . An enormous construction program was underway to meet the needs of World War II . Working with a staff that included George Bergstrom , a former president of the American Institute of Architects , Casey set about revising the standard designs for barracks . A number of new features were added to improve comfort , safety , and durability . Substitutions were made for scarce materials . It was discovered that the standard 63 - man barracks was now too small . Of the 81 companies in the new triangular division , 51 fitted more easily into 74 - man barracks . By slightly increasing the barracks size , substantial savings were made by reducing the overall number of buildings that needed to be constructed , the size of the cantonment areas required , and the length of required roads and utility lines . Casey was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 8 April 1941 . On the afternoon of Thursday , 17 July 1941 , Somervell summoned Casey and Bergstrom and gave them a new special project : the design of an enormous office complex to house the War Department ' s 40 , 000 - person staff together in one building . Somervell gave them until 09 : 00 on Monday morning to design the building , which he envisaged as a modern , four - story structure with no elevators , on the site of the old Washington Hoover Airport . This would ultimately become The Pentagon , the largest office building in the world . Over that " very busy weekend " , Casey , Bergstrom and their staff roughed out the design for a four - story , five - sided structure with a floor area of — twice that of the Empire State Building . The estimated cost was $ 35 million . President Roosevelt subsequently moved the site of the building , over Somervell ' s objections , away from Arlington National Cemetery . Southwest Pacific . In September 1941 , General Douglas MacArthur requested Casey ' s services as his chief engineer . Casey arrived in Manila in October , shortly before the outbreak of war between the United States and Japan . He acquired construction equipment from the National Power Corporation that was being used on the Caliraya project . Casey supervised demolitions as MacArthur ' s troops retreated to Bataan , for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross . Unlike the rest of MacArthur ' s headquarters , Casey , who was promoted to colonel on 19 December 1941 and brigadier general on 25 January 1942 , did not relocate to Corregidor but remained on Bataan with a small staff of five officers . However , he joined MacArthur and sixteen other members of his staff in their escape from Corregidor by PT boat in March 1942 . For his service in the 1942 campaign in the Philippines , he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal . In Australia , Casey became Chief Engineer at MacArthur ' s General Headquarters ( GHQ ) , Southwest Pacific Area ( SWPA ) . He faced enormous engineering challenges . Most of New Guinea consisted of mountains and jungle , with very few airstrips , ports or roads . All of these had to be developed to support operations . To provide additional expertise in construction , Casey had Leif Sverdrup assigned to his staff as chief of the Construction Section , with the rank of colonel . As U . S . Army engineers were few , Casey worked closely with his Australian Army counterpart at General Sir Thomas Blamey ' s Allied Land Forces headquarters , Major General Clive Steele . Construction activities in Australia were also undertaken by civilians of the Allied Works Council . Casey attempted to coordinate the activities of the various agencies . He had to fend off attempts by the U . S . Army Air Forces to gain control of his aviation engineer battalions . The Royal Australian Air Force organized its own airbase construction squadrons and only with difficulty was Casey able to control their activities . Casey ' s initial need was for engineer units to accomplish the daunting construction program , but soon stocks of engineer supplies and equipment began to run low . This was exacerbated by incoming units arriving without their equipment , or with it stowed on numerous ships , which often arrived at various ports in a theater where ports were hundred or thousands of miles apart . Critical shortages developed of tractors , grader s , concrete mixer s and welding equipment . In the absence of a proper stock control system , an overall coordinating agency , and adequate numbers of engineer depot units , the allocation and distribution of the meager supplies on hand were difficult tasks . The worst problem was spare parts . Equipment was operated around the clock under harsh conditions and soon wore out or broke . A large proportion of equipment became unserviceable for lack of spare parts . Requisitions sent to the United States took months to arrive , so recourse was made to the limited sources of supply in Australia . In September 1942 , MacArthur decided to outflank Japanese troops on the Kokoda Trail by sending an American regimental combat team over the Owen Stanley Range . Two alternate means of crossing the mountains seemed possible . One , the Kapa Kapa Trail was known to climb to elevations above and present formidable obstacles . Casey and Sverdrup took charge of investigating the Abau Trail . They reached Abau on 18 September . Casey explored the harbor , taking depth soundings from a native canoe . Sverdrup set out for Jaure with a party of one American , two Australians from the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit , ten native police from the Royal Papuan Constabulary and 26 native carriers . After eight days on the trail , scaling heights of , Sverdrup concluded that it would not be practical for troops to traverse the route and turned back . Meanwhile Casey had concluded that the harbor was too shallow even for lighters . However , the trip was not a total loss , for Sverdrup had sighted a plateau north of the Owen Stanley Range suitable for airstrips , allowing troops to be flown across the Owen Stanley Range . Casey was awarded the Silver Star . In New Guinea , logistics and construction activities were coordinated by task force engineer staffs . These were often hastily assembled and had not always been able to meet the demands imposed by base development in such a challenging theater of operations . The scale of operations in the Philippines was much greater , so for this purpose the Army Service Command ( ASCOM ) was formed in Brisbane on 23 July 1944 . Casey was appointed to command ASCOM . In his absence , Sverdrup became MacArthur ' s chief engineer . Although part of USASOS , ASCOM operated under the control of Sixth Army , moving as far forward as combat operations allowed , developed new bases , and operated them until USASOS was ready to take over , at which point the units under ASCOM simply reverted to USASOS , allowing a seamless transfer of command . For the Battle of Leyte Casey ' s ASCOM had 43 , 000 men , of whom 21 , 000 were engineers . Casey and some members of his staff came ashore on A - Day ; the advance echelon of his ASCOM headquarters arrived two days later . Work began immediately on the airfield at Tacloban , and commenced on airfields in central Leyte soon after they were captured . Heavy seasonal rains thwarted attempts to develop the airbases in central Leyte and it was decided to abandon their development and construct a new airbase on the coast at a site occupied by Sixth Army headquarters . The need to get aircraft based on Leyte to stop the Japanese from reinforcing the island was so pressing that Lieutenant General Walter Krueger agreed to move his headquarters . Casey had intended to come ashore on the first day of the landing at Lingayen Gulf in January 1945 but was delayed a day because the destroyer he was traveling on had to escort a crippled transport . Despite enormous difficulties ASCOM was able to finish numerous projects on time and some ahead of schedule . On 13 February 1945 , ASCOM was transferred to USASOS and redesignated the Luzon Base Section ( LUBSEC ) . Casey then resumed his old post , now renamed Chief Engineer , US Army Forces Pacific . For his services as commander of ASCOM , he was awarded the Legion of Merit . He was subsequently awarded a bronze oak leaf cluster to his Distinguished Service Medal for his services as Chief Engineer , US Army Forces Pacific . Casey hoped to become Chief of Engineers when Lieutenant General Raymond A . Wheeler retired in 1948 , but President Harry S . Truman passed him over in favor of the Missouri River Division Engineer , Major General Lewis A . Pick . Instead , Casey remained in Japan as MacArthur ' s Chief Engineer until Casey ' s retirement on 31 December 1949 . He edited " Engineers of the Southwest Pacific " , a seven - volume series about their wartime service . He received a number of foreign awards for his service , including the Distinguished Service Star from the Philippines , the Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Australia , the Commander of the Order of Orange - Nassau from the Netherlands , and the Officer of Légion d ' honneur from France . Later life . Casey was Chairman of the New York City Transit Authority from 1953 to 1955 , and served in various positions with Schenley Industries from 1951 until his retirement in 1965 . He was a member of a number of professional societies , and civic organizations . He died of a heart attack on 30 August 1981 at the Veterans Administration Hospital at White River Junction , Vermont , survived by his wife Dorothy and his son Keith . His other son , Hugh , had been killed in an air crash during the Korean War . Father and son were buried adjacent to each other in Arlington National Cemetery . His daughter Patricia , who married Major General Frank Butner Clay , the son of Lucius Clay , had died on 1 January 1973 , and is also buried in Arlington National Cemetery . In August 1982 , a new building at the Humphreys Engineer Center at Fort Belvoir was dedicated in his honor by Dorothy and the Chief of Engineers , Lieutenant General Joseph K . Bratton .