This Military Service Page was created/owned by
LTC Bob Thompson
to remember
Simpson, William Hood, GEN USA(Ret).
If you knew or served with this Soldier and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town San Antonio, TX
Date of Passing Aug 15, 1980
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
United States Army General. A combat veteran of World Wars I and II, he rose in rank to become commander of the 9th United States Army. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1909 with a 2nd Lieutenant's commission in the Infantry. Among his early pre-World War I assignments include service in the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion and the Mexican Punitive Expedition (also known as the Pancho Villa Expedition). After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and was assigned to the 33rd Infantry Division, eventually becoming its Chief of Staff, and saw combat action at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 1918) and Meuse-Argonne Offensive (September to November 1918). After returning to the United States following the end of the war, he served in various staff positions and attended military schools, as a student and instructor from 1919 until 1941, including a four-year tour as Professor of Military Science at Pomona College at Claremont, California. In April 1941 he became the first commander of the largest Infantry Replacement Training Center at Camp Wolters, Texas and served there for five months. He was then appointed commander of the 4th United States Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas and was promoted to the rank of Major General. In May 1944, as a Lieutenant General, he took his staff to England and organized the 9th United States Army for preparation to invade France the following month at Normandy. His forces captured Brest, France in September 1944 and two months later they broke through the German defense known as the Siegfried Line. The following March he crossed the Rhine River with his 9th Army and it was the first American force to cross the Elbe River in April 1945. In June 1945, following Germany's surrender, he returned to the United States and, following a mission to China, became commander of the 2nd United States Army at Memphis, Tennessee until September 1946 and he retired two months later with 37 years of continuous military service. Among his military and foreign decorations a d awards include the Distinguished Service Medal (with one oak leaf cluster), the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Philippine Campaign Medal, the Mexican Service Medal, the World War I Victory Medal (with two battle clasps), the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal (with four bronze service stars), the World War II Victory Medal, the French Légion d'honneur (Knight), the French Croix de Guerre, and the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In July 1954 he was promoted to the rank of General on the retired list by a special Act of Congress. He died at the age of 92 and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. Later, a cenotaph dedicated to his memory was erected at the Hood Cemetery (where his parents are buried) in Aledo, Texas. He was featured on the February 19, 1945 cover of “Time Magazine” and the March 12, 1945 cover of “Life Magazine”.
WWII - European Theater of Operations/Central Europe Campaign (1945)/Battle of the Ruhr Pocket
From Month/Year
March / 1945
To Month/Year
April / 1945
Description The Ruhr Pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in late March and early April 1945, near the end of World War II, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. It marked the end of major organized resistance on Nazi Germany's Western Front, as more than 300,000 troops were taken prisoner.
Background
In March 1945, Allied Forces crossed the Rhine river. South of the Ruhr, General Omar Bradley's U.S. 12th Army Group's pursuit of the disintegrating German army resulted in the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine at Remagen by the U.S. First Army. Bradley and his subordinates quickly exploited the crossing made on March 7, 1945, and expanded the bridge head until the bridge collapsed 10 days later.
North of the Ruhr on March 23, 1945, Field Marshal Montgomery's British 21st Army Group launched Operation Plunder and crossed the Rhine at Rees and Wesel.
The battle
Having crossed the Rhine, both Army Groups fanned out into the German hinterland. In the south, while Third Army headed east, the First Army headed northeast and formed the southern pincer of the Ruhr envelopment. In the north, the U.S. Ninth Army, which since the Battle of the Bulge had been assigned to Montgomery's British 21st Army Group, headed southeast forming the northern pincer, while the rest of 21st Army Group went east and northeast.
Facing the Allied armies were the remnants of a shattered Wehrmacht, a few SS training units, and large numbers of Volkssturm (militia units for aging men, including some World War I veterans) and Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) units, composed of boys as young as 12.
Lead elements of the two Allied pincers met on April 1, 1945, near Lippstadt. By April 4, the encirclement was completed and the Ninth Army reverted to the command of Bradley's 12th Army Group. Within the Ruhr Pocket about 430,000 German soldiers of Army Group B, which comprised 21 divisions of the Wehrmacht, and millions of civilians were trapped in cities heavily damaged by numerous bombings.
While the main operations headed further toward central and northern Germany, American forces concentrated on the pocket, taking it section by section. On April 12, 1945, the U.S. 1st and 9th Armies divided the area coming from the south; the smaller, eastern part surrendered the next day. The western part continued a weak resistance until April 18 and April 21, 1945. Rather than surrender and violate his personal oath to Adolf Hitler that he would fight to the death, the commander, Field Marshal Walter Model, committed suicide in a forest south of the city of Duisburg.
German anti-Nazi resistance groups in Düsseldorf attempted to surrender the city to the Allied armies in the so-called "Aktion Rheinland" in order to spare Düsseldorf from further destruction. However, SS units were able to crush the resistance, and executed a number of those involved. Executions of foreign labourers, political prisoners, etc. by the Gestapo had already been occurring since February. The act of resistance did accomplish a cancellation of further bombings on the city by another 800 bombers, through contact with the Americans. Düsseldorf was captured by Americans on 17 April without any notable fighting.
The surviving 325,000 German soldiers from the Ruhr Pocket, and some civilians, were imprisoned in a complex of temporary prison enclosures known as Rheinwiesenlager (in English, "Rhine meadow camps").
