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Contact Info
Home Town Boonville, MO
Last Address Lexington, MO
Date of Passing Oct 29, 1979
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
This is to Certify that
The President of the United States of America
Takes Pride in Presenting
THE
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS
to
HOGE, WILLIAM M.
Major, U.S. Army
7th Engineers, 5th Division, A.E.F.
Date of Action: November 4, 1918
Citation:
The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to William M. Hoge, Jr., Major, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action near Brieulles, France, November 4, 1918. After personally and voluntarily reconnoitering the site of a pontoon bridge over the Meuse, in daylight and under direct shell fire, Major Hoge commanded the movement of a train of heavy wagons, under enemy observation, to this location. Major Hoge then supervised the construction of the bridge and the successful crossing of the train.
General Orders No. 37, W.D., 1919
Hoge directed one of the great engineering feats of World War II, the construction of the 1,519-mile (2,450 km) ALCAN Highway in nine months. Later, in Europe, he commanded the Provisional Engineer Special Brigade Group in the assault on Omaha Beach. He then directed Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, in its heroic actions in the Ardennes and in its celebrated capture of the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine. By war's end, Hoge commanded the 4th Armored Division.
During the Korean conflict, at General Matthew Ridgway's request, Hoge commanded the U.S. IX Corps. General Hoge achieved his senior command in the Army as Commander in Chief, U.S. Army, Europe. He retired from active duty in January 1955.
Hoge moved to his son's farm in Kansas in October 1975 and he died suddenly on 29 October 1979 at Munson Army Hospital, Fort Leavenworth.
On graduating from West Point in 1916, William M. Hoge was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers and commanded a company of the 7th Engineers at Fort Leavenworth in 1917–18. During World War I, Hoge received the Distinguished Service Cross personally from General John Pershing for heroic action under fire as a Battalion Commander in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. During the interwar years, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from the Command and General Staff School.
Other Comments:
William M. Hoge’s career reflects the diversity of duties that an Engineer officer may be called upon to perform — soldier, engineer, combat leader, and senior commander. It is a career that spans the spectrum of responsibilities from military and training education, to all facets of peacetime civil and military engineering, to combat in three wars.
Upon graduating from the US Military Academy in June 1916, Hoge served briefly on the Mexican border in Texas with the 1st Engineers before being assigned to duty with the newly organized 7th Engineer Regiment, first in the United States and then in France during the First World War. There he earned the Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star for extraordinary heroism under fire during a bridging operation in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (October-November 1918). Before leaving Europe in July 1919, he directed drilling, salvage, and construction work in France and Luxembourg.
Once back in the United States, Hoge spent much of the next 20 years in military education and training and in Civil Works assignments. After two years as assistant professor of military science and tactics at Virginia Military Institute he was assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1922 to 1923 for advanced work in civil engineering. A brief assignment to the Rock Island Engineer District in Illinois was followed by a two-year tour of duty at the Engineer School, Fort Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir), Virginia, where he was an instructor in tactics. Following a year (August 1927-June 1928) at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Hoge went to the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, as the Engineer instructor and commander of the Engineer troops. It was there that Hoge served with and came to know many of the men who would lead the US Army during World War II, soldiers such as George C. Marshall, Omar N. Bradley, J. Lawton Collins, Matthew B. Ridgway, and James Van Fleet. His years at Fort Benning ended the educational phase of Hoge’s Army career.
With his assignment to the Mississippi River Commission (MRC) in Vicksburg, Mississippi, from July 1931 to September 1932, Hoge entered fully into the Civil Works phase of his career. He was then transferred to the Memphis Engineer District where he served as an assistant district engineer under Brehon B. Somervell until September 1933. Hoge was then District Engineer at Memphis until May 1935. From June 1935 to November 1937, he commanded the 14th Engineers, Philippine Division, at Fort William McKinley. During the latter part of this tour, he also served as the Division Engineer, Philippine Division, and as the Chief Engineer of the Philippine Army under GeneralDouglas MacArthur, who was then the military advisor to the Philippine Commonwealth. Hoge was promoted to lieutenant colonel before returning to the United States in January 1938 as the District Engineer at Omaha, Nebraska. While District Engineer at Omaha, he was responsible for the early planning and development of the large dams on the Missouri River.
In December 1940, with Europe already embroiled in a second world war and the United States beginning to mobilize its military forces, Hoge was assigned to command the Engineer Replacement Training Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. At Fort Belvoir, with the assistance of Paul W. Thompson, another Engineer officer, he built the first obstacle course for military and physical fitness training. After he saw the course, General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, ordered similar courses for all Army training camps.
In February 1942, Hoge was pulled out of Fort Belvoir and given a seemingly impossible task-to build a military highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Big Delta, Alaska, through largely unmapped and at places impassable territory. Promoted to Brigadier General in March 1942, he initially had complete control over the construction from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks—a distance of more than 1,500 miles. The distances involved and lack of reliable communications resulted in a division of responsibility for the highway in May 1942. Hoge was left with the Northern, or Whitehorse, Sector that ran across one of the most inaccessible and rugged areas of North America from Watson Lake, British Columbia, to Big Delta, Alaska. Although he was reassigned in September 1942, before the Alaska Highway was actually opened to truck traffic, Hoge was largely responsible for driving the pioneer road to completion that year.
In October 1942, Hoge was assigned to the Armored Force at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After a brief orientation, he moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, in November 1942 to take command of Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, under his old friend from World War I, Major General John W. Leonard. He remained with the 9th until September 1943 when he was again reassigned, this time to command the 4th Engineer Special Brigade, an amphibious Engineer unit. A month later he received orders to proceed to England as commander of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade, which was to participate in the Allied invasion of the Continent, Operation OVERLORD. In March 1944, Hoge was given command of the Provisional Engineer Special Brigade Group, which included the 5th Engineer Special Brigade, now under Colonel Paul W. Thompson, and the 6th Engineer Special Brigade. His mission was to prepare for and conduct landing operations with the assault divisions on D-day on OMAHA Beach and then develop the beachhead to support the combat troops once they were ashore. On 6 June 1944, Hoge’s command successfully carried out its duties and played a significant part in securing theinitial foothold at OMAHA Beach. He remained in charge of the beachhead until July 1944 when he assumed command of the 16th Port, a Communications Zone unit responsible for supporting the VIII Corps in the Brittany Peninsula and then for clearing the captured French Channel ports, including Le Havre, and establishing supply lines for the American armies fighting in France. Hoge cared little for this work and soon requested transfer to a combat unit. He contacted John Leonard, whose 9th Armored Division had recently landed in France, and Leonard offered him his old command. After a brief reassignment to the 12th US Army Group in October, Hoge rejoined the 9th Armored in November 1944, just in time to gain fame for his stubborn defense of St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge. In the critical and savage fighting at St. Vith, Hoge combined with the 7th Armored Division’s Combat Command B, under Colonel Bruce C. Clarke, another Engineer officer, to hold off the vastly superior Germans from 16 to 24 December. The defensive fighting at St. Vith bought the valuable days that the Americans and British required to reestablish their defenses and contain Adolf Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive. For his actions at St. Vith, Hoge received a Distinguished Service Medal (DSM).
On 7 March 1945, the leading elements of Combat Command B seized the Ludendorff Railroad Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen. Quickly exploiting his good fortune in capturing the only major bridge over the Rhine that was still standing, Hoge pushed over the river and established a firm bridgehead on the eastern shore. For this he received an Oak Leaf Cluster to his DSM and later in March was given command of the 4th Armored Division in George S. Patton’s Third Army. On 2 May 1945, he was promoted to the rank of Major General.
After the war and a special assignment with the Operations Division, War Department General Staff (July-December 1945), Hoge was assigned for several weeks as the Division Engineer, New England Engineer Division (December 1945 - January 1946), before being given command of The Engineer Center at Fort Belvoir (January 1946-June 1948). He was appointed Commanding General, US Troops in Trieste (TRUST) in June 1948. He remained in Trieste until General Matthew B. Ridgway, commander of Eighth US Army in Korea, summoned him to command IX Corps in March 1951. In June 1951 he was promoted to Lieutenant General, and his distinguished service in the Korean fighting earned him another Oak Leaf Cluster for his DSM.
From February 1952 to March 1953, Hoge commanded the Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In March 1953, General J. Lawton Collins, Army Chief of Staff, asked Hoge to take command of the Seventh Army in Germany, the major American ground component in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In September 1953, he received his fourth star upon becomingCommander-in-Chief US Army, Europe (USAREUR). He retired on 31 January 1955.
In February 1957, Hoge became Chairman of the Board of Interlake Iron Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, finally retiring from that job in 1965. He loved outdoor sports, especially hunting, fishing, and riding. Also he enjoyed his dogs and seldom failed to take them on daily walks until the last few years of his life.
In 1975 his failing health led him to move in with his son, Colonel George F. Hoge, US Army (Retired), in Easton, Kansas. Beside curtailing his physical activity and independence, Hoge’s deteriorating health affected his eyesight and deprived him of his ability to read. Throughout his life, he was an avid reader, especially of military history and biography. General Hoge died at Munson Army Hospital, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 29 October 1979 at the age of 85.
General William M. Hoge was remarkable in that he accomplished so much so well during his career. Certainly his extensive achievements in peace and war-in military engineering, combat, military education and training, Civil Works, and senior command-are goals not just for Engineers but for all Army officers to strive toward in their military careers.
His close friend and classmate from the Class of 1916, Major General Thomas D. Finley, put it best: In my opinion, Bill Hoge’s service in War and Peace has been unequaled by anyone in the Army in its diversity, the challenges it posed and the value to the Service and the Country. He has known so many people and influenced so many lives, both civilian and military . . . I can say it, and not just as an old and dear friend, that he was the best man I have ever known, and the best soldier.
World War I/Meuse-Argonne Campaign
From Month/Year
September / 1918
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Description Meuse-Argonne, 26 September - 11 November 1918. At the end of August Marshal Foch had submitted plane to the national commanders for a final offensive along the entire Western Front, with the objective of driving the enemy out of France before winter and ending the war in the spring of 1919. The basis for his optimism was the success of Allied attacks all along the front in August. Furthermore, he pointed out, the Allies already had active operations in progress between the Moselle and Meuse, the Oise and Aisne, and on the Somme and Lys Rivers. Foch acknowledged that the Germans could stave off immediate defeat by an orderly evacuation combined with destruction of materiel and communications. Therefore the overall aim of the fall offensive would be to prevent a step-by-step enemy retirement. As Foch anticipated, the Germans eventually contributed to the success of his strategy. Their High Command could not bring itself to sacrifice the huge stores collected behind the front lines, and so delayed the withdrawal of its armies.
Foch's great offensive, planned to begin in the last week of September, called for a gigantic pincers movement with the objective of capturing Aulnoye and Mézières, the two key junctions in the lateral rail system behind the German front. Lose of either of these junctions would hamper seriously the German withdrawal. Despite grumbling from the English that they lacked the necessary manpower, a chiefly British army was assigned the teak of driving toward Aulnoye. The A.E.F. was designated for the southern arm of the pincers, the thrust on Mézières. Simultaneously the Belgian-French-British army group in Flanders would drive toward Ghent, and the French armies in the Oise-Aisne region would exert pressure all along their front to lend support to the pincers attack.
Pershing decided to strike his heaviest blow in a zone about 20 miles wide between the Heights of the Meuse on the east and the western edge of the high, rough, and densely wooded Argonne Forest. This is difficult terrain, broken by a central north-south ridge that dominates the valleys of the Meuse and Aire Rivers. Three heavily fortified places-Montfaucon, Cunel, and Barricourt-as well as numerous strong points barred the way to penetration of the elaborate German defenses in depth that extended behind the entire front. This fortified system consisted of three main defense lines backed up by a fourth line less well-constructed. Pershing hoped to launch an attack with enough momentum to drive through these lines into the open area beyond, where his troops could then strike at the exposed German flanks and, in a coordinated drive with the French Fourth Army coming up on the left, could cut the Sedan- Mézières railroad.
The task of assembling troops in the concentration area between Verdun and the Argonne was complicated by the fact that many American unite were currently engaged in the St. Mihiel battle. Some 600,000 Americans had to be moved into the Argonne sector while 220,000 French moved out. Responsibility for solving this tricky logistical problem fell to Col. George C. Marshall, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (Operations), First Army. In the ten-day period after St. Mihiel the necessary troop movements were accomplished, but many untried divisions had to be placed in the vanguard of the attacking forces.
On the 20-mile Meuse-Argonne front where the main American attack w to be made, Pershing disposed three corps side by side, each with three divisions in line and one in corps reserve. In the center was the V Corps (from right to left the 79th, 37th, and 91st Divisions with the 32d in reserve), which would strike the decisive blow. On the right was the III Corps (from right to left the 33d, 80th, and 4th Divisions with the 3d in reserve), which would move up the west aide of the Meuse. On the left was the I Corps (from right to left the 35th, 28th, and 77th Divisions with the 92d in reserve), which would advance parallel to the French Fourth Army on its left. Eastward across the Meuse the American front extended in direct line some 60 miles; this sector was held by two French Corps (IV and II Colonial) and the American IV Corps in the St. Mihiel sector. Pershing had available to support his offensive nearly 4000 guns, two-thirds manned by American artillerymen; 190 light French tanks, mostly with American personnel; and some 820 aircraft, 600 of them flown by Americans.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive falls into three phases. During the initial phase (26 September-3-October) the First Army advanced through most of the southern Meuse-Argonne region, captured enemy strong points, seized the first two German defense lines, and then stalled before the third line. Failure of tank support, a difficult supply situation, and the inexperience of American troops all contributed to checking its advance.
In the second phase (4-31 October) the First Army, after the inexperienced divisions had been replaced by veteran units, slowly ground its way through the third German line. The enemy was forced to throw in reserves, drawn from other parts of the front, thus aiding the Allied advances elsewhere. In the face of a stubborn defense, American gains were limited and casualties were severe, especially as a result of the newly devised enemy tactic of attacking frontline troops with airplanes. First Army air unite retaliated with bombing raids which broke up German preparations for counterattacks. By the end of October the enemy had been cleared from the Argonne and First Army troops were through the German main positions. Two notable incidents of this phase of the campaign were the fight of the "Lost Battalion" of the 77th Division (2-7 October), and the feat of Corp. (later Sgt.) Alvin C. York, who single-handedly killed 15 Germans and captured 132 on 8 October.
In mid-October the organization of the Second Army was completed, at Toul in the St. Mihiel sector, to provide means for better control of the lengthening American front and solutions of the diverse tactical problems that it presented. Pershing assumed command of the new army group thus formed.
Before the third and final phase (1-11 November) of the offensive got under way, many of the exhausted divisions of the First Army were replaced, roads were built or repaired, supply was improved, and most Allied units serving with the A.E.F. were withdrawn. On 1 November First Army units began the assault of the now strengthened German fourth line of defense. Penetration was rapid and spectacular. The V Corps in the center advanced about six miles the first day, compelling the German units west of the Meuse to withdraw hurriedly. On 4 November the III Corps forced a crossing of the Meuse and advanced northeast toward Montmédy. Elements of the V Corps occupied the heights opposite Sedan on 7 November, thus finally accomplishing the First Army's chief mission-denial of the Sedan- Mézières railroad to the Germans. Marshal Foch, at this juncture, shifted the First Army left boundary eastward so that the French Fourth Army might capture Sedan, which had fallen to the Prussians in 1870. American units were closing up along the Mouse and, east of the river, were advancing toward Montmédy, Briny, and Metz, when hostilities ended on 11 November.
General Pershing authorized the results of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, the greatest battle in American history up to that time, in his Final Report: "Between September 26 and November 11, 22 American and 4 French divisions, on the front extending from southeast of Verdun to the Argonne Forest, had engaged and decisively beaten 47 different German divisions, representing 25 percent of the enemy's entire divisional strength on the western front.
The First Army suffered a loss of about 117,000 in killed and wounded. It captured 26,000 prisoners, 847 cannon, 3,000 machineguns, and large quantities of material." More than 1,200,000 Americans had taken part in the 47-day campaign.
