Albert Coady Wedemeyer
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| Albert Coady Wedemeyer | |
|---|---|
| July 9, 1897 – December 17, 1989 (aged 92) | |
 Albert Coady Wedemeyer |
|
| Place of birth | Omaha, Nebraska |
| Place of death | Fort Belvoir, Virginia |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1919-1951 |
| Rank | General |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Other work | author |
Albert Coady Wedemeyer (9 July 1897 – 17 December 1989) was an American soldier, who served primarily in World War II in Asia. His most notable command was the China theater in the South-East Asia Theatre. During the Cold War, Wedemeyer was a chief supporter of the Berlin Airlift.
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[edit] Life and military career
Albert C. Wedemeyer was born on July 9th, 1897, in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1919, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. At the outbreak of World War II, Wedemeyer ranked at Lieutenant Colonel and was assigned as a Staff Officer to the war-plans division of the United States War Department. Notably, in 1941 he was the chief author of the Victory Program, which advocated the defeat of Germany's armies in Europe as the prime war objective for the U.S. This plan was adopted and expanded as the war progressed. Additionally, Wedemeyer helped to plan the Normandy Invasion.
In 1943, Wedemeyer was reassigned to the South-East Asia Theatre to be Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia Command (SEAC), Lord Louis Mountbatten. In October 1944, with the dismissal of General Joseph Stilwell, Wedemeyer was selected as Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and commander of American forces in China. In this time period, Wedemeyer gained valuable knowledge of the capabilities of the Allied Aircraft as they flew from India over the Hump into China to resupply the Nationalist Chinese Army and American forces. Such forces included the United States Twentieth Air Force partaking in Operation Matterhorn and the Fourteenth Air Force operated by General Claire Chennault.
The issue of forcing the Nationalists into a coalition government with the Communists became a central issue in the "who lost China" debates of 1949-51. Wedemeyer later said he opposed a coalition (Tsou, 1962). However, on July 10, 1945, Wedemeyer told Marshall:
If Uncle Sugar, Russia, and Britain united strongly in their endeavor to bring about a coalition of these two political parties [the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party] in China by coercing both sides to make realistic concessions, serious post-war disturbance may be averted and timely effective military employment of all Chinese may be obtained against the Japanese. I use the term coercion advisedly because it is my conviction that continued appeals to both sides couched in polite diplomatic terms will not accomplish unification. There must be teeth in Big Three[1]
On December 7, 1945, Wedemeyer with General Douglas MacArthur, and Navy Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, the three top military officers in the Far East, recommended to the Pentagon transporting six more Chinese Nationalist armies into North China and Manchuria. However they also suggested that "the U.S. assistance to China, as outlined above, be made available as basis for negotiation by the American Ambassador to bring together and effect a compromise between the major opposing groups in order to promote a united and democratic China."[2]
Wedemeyer served in China into 1946 and eventually was promoted to Army Chief of Plans and Operations. In July 1947 President Harry S. Truman sent Lt. Gen. Wedemeyer to China and Korea to examine the "political, economic, psychological and military situations." The result was the "Wedemeyer Report," which Truman suppressed—thereby intensifying the bitter debate over the role of the United States in the Chinese civil war. Secretary of State George C. Marshall hoped that Wedemeyer could convince Chiang Kai-shek to institute those military, economic, and political reforms necessary to defeat the Communists. Marshall rejected Wedemeyer's call for increased assistance and refused to publish his report, antagonizing those American supporters of China the Wedemeyer Mission was designed to placate. After the Communist victory in 1949 Wedemeyer became intimately associated with the China Lobby and openly voiced his criticism of those responsible for the "loss of China." In 1951 Senator Joseph R. McCarthy said that Wedemeyer had prepared a wise plan that would keep China a valued ally, but that it had been sabotaged; "only in treason can we find why evil genius thwarted and frustrated it." The evil geniuses, McCarthy said, included General George Marshall.[3] Wedemeyer became a hero to the anti-Communist activists in the United States, giving many lectures around the country.
In 1948, he supported General Lucius D. Clay's plan to create an airbridge during the Berlin Crisis.[4]
In 1951, Wedemeyer retired, but was promoted to General (4-stars) on July 19, 1954. On December 17th, 1989, Wedemeyer died at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Primary sources
- Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958.
- Wedemeyer, Albert C. Wedemeyer on War and Peace. ed. by Keith E. Eiler, Hoover Inst. Press, 1987. 245 pp.
[edit] Secondary sources
- Herbert Feis, The China Tangle: The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953).
- Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, 1959), official U.S. Army history online edition
- Stueck, William. The Wedemeyer Mission: American Politics and Foreign Policy during the Cold War. U. of Georgia Press, 1984. 177 pp.
- Tang Tsou. America's Failure in China, 1941-50 (1963)
- Tang Tsou. "The Historians and the Generals," The Pacific Historical Review Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1962), pp. 41-48 in JSTOR
- Keegan, John. "Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation Of Paris." Viking Penguin Inc 1982 (New 50th D-Day Anniversary 365 pp. edition includes a new introduction by the author) pp. 22, 31-4, 36, 37, 38
[edit] See also
- His son Albert Dunbar Wedemeyer, was a Captain in the United States Army and a Central Intelligence Agency Operative.
[edit] Further reading
- Arlington Cemetery biography
- photo
- Berlin Airlift
- concise.britannica biography
- Fact Finding Mission to China: Report by Wedemeyer, September 19, 1947
[edit] Notes
- ^ Romanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI p. 383
- ^ Feis, The China Tangle p. 417
- ^ Joe McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. (1953) pp. 194, 264,
- ^ D.M. Giangreco, D.M and Griffin, Robert E.; (1988) The Airlift Begins on Truman Library website, a Chapter section from: Airbridge to Berlin --- The Berlin Crisis of 1948, its Origins and Aftermath.
