George Gage Eddy – Brigadier General,. United States Army

George Gage Eddy was born on 4 July 1895.  He was appointed to the United States Military Academy from Connecticut and graduated with the class of 1918.  He served in both World War I and World War II.

General Eddy died in New Mexico on 5 January 1969 and was buried with fully military honors in Section 13, Grave 39, Arlington National Cemetery.

Brigadier General George G. Eddy, third Commander of White Sands Proving Ground-Missile Range, 12 January 1950 – 14 June 1954; Deputy Commander, White Sands Proving Ground, 12 January 1948 – 12 January 1950.

General Eddy was born in Norwich, Connecticut and graduated from the United States Military Academy in November 1918. He served in the 7th Cavalry at Fort Bliss and transferred to the Ordnance Department in 1920. During World War II he was Director of the Research Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

General Eddy recognized early in his WSPG assignment that to perform the assigned mission, a much broader technical and administrative staff and vastly improved facilities were required. As a result of his efforts, two new divisions were established to provide a technical base for Army testing – The Electro- Mechanical Laboratories Division and the Systems Test Division. The former was largely a civilian scientific and engineering organization for designing and conducting laboratory tests; and the latter was mostly a military organization to field-test Army missile systems. Also, in 1952, after considerable planning and negotiating, General Eddy was successful in having the WSPG instrumentation responsibility transferred from the Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland to the Commanding General, WSPG. The Flight Determination Laboratory was established as a new division to support this mission. Later in 1952, General Eddy was successful in having the USAF Holloman Air Force Base instrumentation, research, development, and operational functions reassigned to the operational control and cognizance of the Flight Determination Laboratory.

During General Eddy’s command, personnel strength at WSPG increased from 1,000 to more than 7,500 and missile firings increased from 63 in 1950 to 696 in 1954. In 1950 he established the first office of the comptroller and the first cost accounting system. He was also instrumental in providing greatly expanded post housing (breaking ground on the Wherry Housing Development in August 1952), a new theater, PX facilities, fire station, commissary, elementary school and dispensary. The expansion of facilities, personnel and technical capability was probably greater during General Eddy’s tenure than any other Commander before or since.

EDDY, GEORGE G
BG USA

• VETERAN SERVICE DATES: Unknown
• DATE OF BIRTH: 07/04/1895
• DATE OF DEATH: 01/05/1969
• DATE OF INTERMENT: 01/10/1968
• BURIED AT: SECTION 13  SITE 39-W
  ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard