John W. Gulick – Major General, United States Army

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GENERAL JOHN W. GULICK, RETIRED, DIES AT 64

Chief of Staff of the Fortieth Division During the War
Had Received D.S.M.
Served 40 Years in Army
Former Coast Artillery Head Began Career as Lieutenant in Philippines in 1898

PORTLAND, Maine – August 18, 1939 – Major John W. Gulick, U.S.A., retired, wartime artillery officer with the American Expeditionary Forces and former Chief of the Coast Artillery, died in a hospital today of cerebral hemorrhage.  He had been ill for two weeks. He was 64 years old.

After his retirement last November he came here with his wife, the former Miss Florence McMullan of Portland, to live.

Born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, the son of James Wharton and Susan Holland Gulick, General Gulick was graduated from the United States Artillery School in 1905 and from the Army War College in 1925.  His first military service was as a First Lieutenant with the United States Volunteers in the Philippines in 1898.

General Gulick was Chief of Staff of the Fortieth Division, 1917-18, and after the war, from 1919 t0 1924, was on the War Department General Staff. He was appointed Chief of Coast Artillery in 1930. For four years before that he was Executive Officer of the Militia Bureau in charge of National Guard matters.

Surviving, besides his widow, are a son, Lieutenant John McM. Gulick, stationed in the Philippines, and a daughter, Miss Jean Gulick.

Funeral services will be held at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.

General Gulick began his military service with the North Carolina Infantry during the Spanish-American War.  Mustered out as a Captain in 1901, he was commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Artillery Corps of the Regular Army the same year.

He remained on duty in the Philippines until 1903 and then attended the Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia. After graduation his taught there until 1911, with brief terms of duty elsewhere.  In the latter year, he went to Santiago, Chile, as Military Attaché and remained four years.

On his return he served briefly with the Coast Artillery in Texas, on the General Staff Corps at the Army War College in Washington and at Camp Kearney in California as Chief of Staff of the Fortieth Division.

During the World War he received the Distinguished Service Medal from the United States Government and a citation from the French Legion of Honor.  After the war he spent four years in the War Plans Division in Washington.  He was assigned as Executive Officer at Fort Hancock, New Jersey, and soon thereafter be became commanding officer of the harbor defenses at Sandy Hook.

After his four-year tour as Executive Officer of the Militia Division in Washington he was sent to Fort Totten, New York, in 1930.  That same year be became Chief of the Army’s Coast Artillery and as such made tours of inspection to Panama, the West Coast, Hawaii and the Philippines. At that time he advocated the greater use of movable armaments in harbor defense to provide more “flexibility.”

In 1934 he took command of the Port of Embarkation in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1936 was transferred to command of the Second Coast Artillery District with headquarters in New York.  In 1937 he became commander at Fort Monroe, Virginia, his last post.

GULICK, FLORENCE H WIDOW OF JOHN W

  • DATE OF BIRTH: 01/09/1878
  • DATE OF DEATH: 10/27/1965
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 3  SITE 4020-C N
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
  • WIFE OF JW GULICK, M/GEN USA

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