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Contact Info
Home Town Catskill, NY
Last Address Catskill, NY
Date of Passing Feb 06, 1980
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
General George Henry Decker (February 16, 1902–February 6, 1980) was Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1960 to 1962. General Decker was born in Catskill, New York and attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, receiving an economics degree in 1924. He served in the U.S. Army from 1924 to 1962. He married the former Helen E. Inman in 1926. He died on February 6, 1980 in Washington, D.C.
Military career
According to his official U.S. Army biography, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in June 1924, and began his Army service with the 26th Infantry Regiment, then stationed at Plattsburg Barracks in upstate New York. In 1928, he was sent to Hawaii, where he served with the 35th Infantry Regiment until 1931. He was promoted to first lieutenant in April 1930. After attending advanced infantry training at the Infantry School at Fort Benning in 1932, he remained at Fort Benning with the 29th Infantry Regiment until 1935, followed by service at Vancouver Barracks, near Portland, Oregon with the 7th Infantry Regiment from 1935 to 1936 (during which time he was promoted to captain, in August 1935).
In 1936, he was sent to the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, from which he graduated in 1937. Subsequently, he served with the 10th Infantry Regiment at Fort Thomas, Kentucky and Fort McClellan, Alabama, and the 9th Infantry Regiment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 1940 he took command of Headquarters Company, I Corps, at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and was assistant supply and logistics officer, 1940–1941. In 1941 came a flurry of promotions: to temporary major (January), permanent major (June), and temporary lieutenant colonel (December). He was sent to Washington, D.C. to serve on the War Department General Staff, where he was assigned to the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Supply. He was promoted to temporary colonel in October 1942 and became deputy chief of staff of the Third Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was then sent overseas to the Southwest Pacific, where he became deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff of the Sixth Army, a position he held through the end of World War II. He had been promoted to temporary brigadier general in August 1944 and major general in June 1945, and participated in Sixth Army operations in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Philippines.
General Decker returned to Washington in 1946 to Headquarters, Army Ground Forces and Headquarters, Army Service Forces, but soon went back to the Pacific as deputy commanding general and chief of staff of United States Forces, Middle Pacific, Hawaii from 1946 to 1948.
General Decker became commanding general of the 5th Infantry Division in 1948, and in 1950 was assigned to the Office of the Comptroller of the Army as Chief of the Budget Division. Promoted to temporary lieutenant general in 1952, he became comptroller of the Army from 1952 to 1955. He was promoted to permanent brigadier general in April 1953 and permanent major general in July 1954. In 1955, he went to Germany as commanding general of VII Corps at Stuttgart, and was promoted to temporary general in May 1956.
From 1956 to 1957, General Decker was deputy commander-in-chief of the United States European Command at its headquarters in Rocquencourt, outside Paris, France. From 1957 to 1959 he was commander-in-chief, United Nations Command, and commanding general, United States Forces, Korea and Eighth U.S. Army.
General Decker was appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the Army in 1959, and on October 1, 1960 became Chief of Staff of the Army, serving in that capacity until September 30, 1962. According to his Army biography, highlights of his tenure were supervising augmentations to meet the crisis in Berlin (surrounding the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961), increasing special warfare forces, initiating new divisional and forward depot concepts, and expanding the Army to sixteen divisions. General Decker retired at the end of his tenure.
Awards and decorations
General Decker's awards and decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal (with one Oak Leaf Cluster), the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.
Other Comments:
Born: Catskill, New York, February 16, 1902. BS, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, 1924. Graduate, Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, 1932, Command & General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KansasS, 1937. DSc, Lafayette College, 1943, LLD, St Peters College, 1959, LittD, PA Military College, 1961. Married: Helen E. Inman, June 2, 1926.
Commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Infantry, 1924, and advanced through the grades to General, 1956.
With 26th Inf, Plattsburgh, New York, 1924-28, 35th Infantry, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, 1928-31, 29th Infantry, Fort Benning, Georgia, 1932-35, 7th Infantry, Vancouver Barracks, Washington, 1935-36, 10th Infantry, Fort Thomas, Kentucky, 1937-40, 39th Infantry, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1940. HQ, 9th Division, Fort Bragg, 1940-41, HQ I Corps, Columbia, South Carolina, 1941. Member, War Department General Staff, 1941-42. Deputy Chief of Staff, 3rd Army, San Antonio, Texas, 1942-43, Deouty Chief of Staff, 6th Army, 1943-44. Chief of Staff, 6th Army, May 1944-January 1946. Deputy commander and Chief of Staff, US Army Pacific, 1946-48. Commadning General, 5th Infantry Division, July 1948-March 1950. Budget officer, Dept of Army, 1950-52, comptroller, 1952-55. Commadning General, VII Corps, 1955-56. Dep Commander-in-Chief, European Command, 1956-57. Commander-in-Chief, UN Command, and commander, US Forces in Korea, Commanding General, 8th Army, 1957-59. Vice Chief of Staff, US Army, 1959-60. Chief of Staff, US Army, 1960-62. Retired : 1962. President, Manufacturing Chemists Assn, 1963-69.
Medals: DSM with OLC, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star (US), also medals from governments of Argentina, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Korea, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela. Member: Phi Gamma Delta.
Episcopalian. Mason. Home: Washington, DC. Died: February 6, 1980.
In the early years of WWII he served on staff duty in Washington , DC, later becoming Deputy Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army in Texas and then, in February 1943, of the 6th Army, under Walter Krueger, Southwest Pacific Theater.
Promoted to Colonel, he became Chief of Staff, 5th Army, May 1944. Advanced to temporary Brigadier General August 1944 and temporary Major General June 1945, taking part in Philippines campaign and later in the occupation of Japan. In July 1946 he was appointed deputy commander, Chife of Staff, of Middle Pacific Army Forces, and in July was named commander of the 5th Infantry Division, Fort Jackson, South Carolina. In March 1950 he returned to Wash, DC, becoming chief of the Budget Division and in 1951 Comptroller of the Army.
Promoted to temporary Lieutenant General in May of the latter year. February 1955-June 1956 commander of VII Corps in Germany, and from June 1956, following promotion in May to the temporary rank of General, was deputy commander of UN Forces, US Forces, and 8th Army, all in South Korea. In August 1959 he was appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, and in October 1960 he succeeded Lyman L. Lemnitzer as Chief of Staff. At the expiration of his term in October 1962, he retired from the Army.
He is buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery.
Description The Battle of Manila (Tagalog: Laban ng Maynila ng 1945), also known as the Liberation of Manila, fought from 3 February-3 March 1945 by American, Filipino, and Japanese forces, was part of the 1945 Philippine campaign. The one-month battle, which culminated in a terrible bloodbath and total devastation of the city, was the scene of the worst urban fighting in the Pacific theater, and ended almost three years of Japanese military occupation in the Philippines (1942–1945). The city's capture was marked as General Douglas MacArthur's key to victory in the campaign of reconquest.
On 3 February, elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division under Maj. Gen. Verne D. Mudge pushed into the northern outskirts of Manila and seized a vital bridge across the Tullahan River, which separated them from the city proper. A squadron of Brig. Gen. William C. Chase's 8th Cavalry, the first unit to arrive in the city, began a drive toward the sprawling campus of the University of Santo Tomas which had been turned into an internment camp for civilians and the US Army and Navy nurses sometimes known as the "Angels of Bataan".
Since 4 January 1942, a total of thirty-seven months, the university’s main building had been used to hold civilians. Out of 4,255 prisoners, 466 died in captivity, three were killed while attempting to escape on 15 February 1942, and one made a successful breakout in early January 1945.
At 21:00, a lead jeep crashed into the main gate, triggering a firefight, and its driver, Capt. Manuel Colayco, a USAFFE guerrilla officer, became the first known Allied casualty of the city's liberation. He and his companion Lt. Diosdado Guytingco guided the American First Cavalry. Both were unarmed. Colayco died seven days later in Legarda Elementary School, which became a field hospital. Simultaneously, a single tank of the 44th Tank Battalion, named "Battlin' Basic," rammed through the university walls, Sgt Austin E. Aulds from Texas, a combat medic was the second US Soldier to enter, while four others entered through the Calle España entrance. American troops and Filipino guerrillas immediately followed and, after a brief skirmish, freed many of the internees.
The Japanese, commanded by Lt. Col. Toshio Hayashi, gathered the remaining internees together in the Education Building as hostages, and exchanged pot shots with the Americans and Filipinos. The next day, 4 February, they negotiated with the Americans to allow them to rejoin Japanese troops to the south of the city. The Filipinos and Americans agreed but only allowed them to carry their rifles, pistols and swords. That same day, a patrol from the 37th Infantry Division and 31st Infantry Division came upon more than 1,000 prisoners of war, mostly former defenders of Bataan and Corregidor held at Bilibid Prison, which had been abandoned by the Japanese.
On the morning of 5 February, 47 Japanese were escorted out of the university to the spot they requested. Each group saluted each other and departed. The Japanese were unaware the area they requested was near the American-occupied Malacañan Palace and soon afterwards were fired upon and several were killed including Hayashi. Later in the afternoon, the survivors returned to the university and were captured.
In total, 5,785 prisoners were freed: 3,000 Filipinos, 2,870 Americans, 745 British, 100 Australians, 61 Canadians, 50 Dutch, 25 Poles, 7 French, 2 Egyptians, 2 Spanish, one Swiss, one German, and one Slovak.
Encirclement and massacres
Earlier on 4 February, General MacArthur had announced the imminent recapture of the capital while his staff planned a victory parade. But the battle for Manila had barely begun. Almost at once the 1st Cavalry Division in the north and the 11th Airborne Division in the south reported stiffening Japanese resistance to further advances into the city.
Following the initial American breakthrough on 4 February, fighting raged throughout the city for almost a month. The battle quickly came down to a series of bitter street-to-street and house-to-house struggles. In the north, General Griswold continued to push elements of the XIV Corps south from Santo Tomas University toward the Pasig River. Late on the afternoon on 4 February, he ordered the 2nd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, to seize Quezon Bridge, the only crossing over the Pasig that the Japanese had not destroyed. As the squadron approached the bridge, Japanese heavy machine guns opened fire from a formidable roadblock thrown up across Quezon Boulevard, forcing the cavalry to stop its advance and withdraw until nightfall. As the Americans and Filipinos pulled back, the Japanese blew up the bridge.
On 5 February, the 37th Infantry Division began to move into Manila, and Griswold divided the northern section of the city into two sectors, with the 37th responsible for the western half and the 1st Cavalry Division responsible for the eastern sector. By the afternoon of 8 February, 37th Division units had cleared most of the Japanese from their sector, although the damage done to the residential districts was extensive. The Japanese added to the destruction by demolishing buildings and military installations as they withdrew.
The bitterest fighting for Manila—which proved costliest to the 37th—occurred on Provisor Island, a small industrial center on the Pasig River. The Japanese garrison, probably less than a battalion, managed to hold off Beightler's infantrymen until 11 February.
Mudge's 1st Cavalry Division had an easier time, encountering little opposition in the suburbs east of Manila. Although the division's 7th and 8th Cavalry Regiments fought pitched battles near two water supply installations north of the city, by 10 February, the cavalrymen had extended their control south of the river. That night, the XIV Corps established for the first time separate bridgeheads on both banks of the Pasig River.
The final attack on the outer Japanese defenses came from the 11th Airborne Division, under XIV Corps control since 10 February. The division had been halted at Nichols Field on 4 February and since then had been battling firmly entrenched Japanese naval troops, backed up by heavy fire from concealed artillery. The airfield finally fell to the paratroopers the next day, and the acquisition allowed Maj. Gen. Swing's division to complete the U.S. encirclement of Manila on the night of 12 February.
In an attempt to protect the city and its civilians, MacArthur had placed stringent restrictions on U.S. artillery and air support. But massive devastation to the urban area was not avoided. Iwabuchi's sailors, marines and Army reinforcements, having initially successfully resisted American infantrymen armed with flamethrowers, grenades and bazookas, faced direct fire from tanks, tank destroyers, and howitzers, who attacked one building after another and killed the Japanese—and often the trapped civilians—inside, without differentiation.[5]
Subjected to incessant pounding and facing certain death or capture, the beleaguered Japanese troops took out their anger and frustration on the civilians caught in the crossfire, committing multiple acts of severe brutality, which later would be known as the Manila Massacre. Violent mutilations, rapes, and massacres on the populace accompanied the battle for control of the city, which lay practically in ruins. General Yamashita was subsequently blamed for the massacres and hanged for war crimes in 1946 even though he had no responsibility for the battle itself.
Intramuros devastated
The fighting for Intramuros, where Iwabuchi held around 4,000 civilian hostages, continued from 23 February to 28 February. Already having decimated the Japanese forces by bombing, American forces used artillery to try to root out the Japanese defenders. However, the centuries-old stone ramparts, underground edifices, the Sta. Lucia Barracks, Fort Santiago, and villages within the city walls all provided excellent cover. Fewer than 3,000 civilians escaped the assault, mostly women and children who were released on 23 February afternoon. Colonel Noguchi's soldiers and sailors killed 1,000 men and women, while the other hostages died during the American shelling.
The last pocket of Japanese resistance at the Finance Building, which was already reduced to rubble, was flushed out by heavy artillery on 3 March. Iwabachi was said to have committed seppuku (ritual suicide) on February 25, but his body was never found.
Army Historian Robert R. Smith wrote:
"Griswold and Beightler were not willing to attempt the assault with infantry alone. Not expressly enjoined from employing artillery, they now planned a massive artillery preparation that would last from 17 to 23 February and would include indirect fire at ranges up to 8,000 yards as well as direct, point-blank fire from ranges as short as 250 yards. They would employ all available corps and division artillery, from 240mm howitzers down. (...) Just how civilian lives could be saved by this type of preparation, as opposed to aerial bombardment, is unknown. The net result would be the same: Intramuros would be practically razed." "That the artillery had almost razed the ancient Walled City could not be helped. To the XIV Corps and the 37th Division at this state of the battle for Manila, American lives were understandably far more valuable than historic landmarks. The destruction stemmed from the American decision to save lives in a battle against Japanese troops who had decided to sacrifice their lives as dearly as possible."
Before the fighting ended, MacArthur summoned a provisional assembly of prominent Filipinos to Malacañan Palace and in their presence declared the Commonwealth of the Philippines to be permanently reestablished. "My country kept the faith," he told the gathered assembly. "Your capital city, cruelly punished though it be, has regained its rightful place—citadel of democracy in the East."
Aftermath
For the rest of the month the Americans and Filipino guerrillas mopped up resistance throughout the city. With Intramuros secured on 4 March, Manila was officially liberated, but large areas of the city had been leveled. The battle left 1,010 U.S. soldiers dead and 5,565 wounded. An estimated 100,000 Filipinos civilians were killed, both deliberately by the Japanese and from artillery and aerial bombardment by the U.S. military force. 16,665 Japanese dead were counted within Intramuros alone.
In the month-long battle, the Americans and Japanese inflicted worse destruction on Manila than the German Luftwaffe had exacted upon London, which resulted in the destruction of the city and in a death toll comparable to that of the Tokyo firebombing or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Destruction of the city
The battle for Manila was the first and fiercest urban fighting in the entire Pacific War, from the time MacArthur started his leapfrogging campaign from New Guinea in 1942, leading to the invasion of Japan in 1945. Few battles in the closing months of World War II exceeded the destruction and the brutality of the massacres and savagery of the fighting in Manila.
A steel flagpole stands at the entrance to the old U.S. Embassy building in Ermita, which was pockmarked by numerous bullet and shrapnel hits, and still stands today, a testament to the intense, bitter fighting for the walled city. In this category, Manila joined Stalingrad as being the host to some of the fiercest urban fighting during the war.
Filipinos lost an irreplaceable cultural and historical treasure in the resulting carnage and devastation of Manila, remembered today as a national tragedy. Countless government buildings, universities and colleges, convents, monasteries and churches, and their accompanying treasures dating to the founding of the city, were ruined. The cultural patrimony (including art, literature, and especially architecture) of the Orient's first truly international melting pot - the confluence of Spanish, American and Asian cultures - was eviscerated. Manila, once touted as the "Pearl of the Orient" and famed as a living monument to the meeting of Asian and European cultures, was virtually wiped out.
Most of the buildings damaged during the war were demolished in the name of "Progress" after the Liberation, as part of rebuilding Manila, replacing European style architecture during the Spanish and early American era with modern American style architecture. Only a few old buildings remain intact.
Historical commemoration
The Memorare Manila Monument at Intramuros, Manila.
On 18 February 1995, the Shrine of Freedom also known as Memorare Manila Monument was erected in dedication and memory to the war victims. This monument is located at the Plaza de Santa Isabel, also known as the Plaza Sinampalukan, located at the corner of General Luna and Anda Streets in Intramuros, Manila. The inscription reads:
"This memorial is dedicated to all those innocent victims of war, many of whom went nameless and unknown to a common grave, or even never knew a grave at all, their bodies having been consumed by fire or crushed to dust beneath the rubble of ruins."
"Let this monument be the gravestone for each and every one of the over 100,000 men, women, children and infants killed in Manila during its battle of liberation, February 3 - March 3, 1945. We have not forgotten them, nor shall we ever forget."
"May they rest in peace as part now of the sacred ground of this city: the Manila of our affections."
