Samuel Davis Sturgis III – Lieutenant General, United States Army

The son of Samuel Davis Sturgis, Jr., and the grandson of Samuel Davis Sturgis, he was born at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1897 and graduated from West Point in 1918. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and advanced through the grades to Lieutenant General in 1955. During his career he was Chief of Enginers of the Army.

After retirement from the Army, he made his home in Washington, D.C. where he died on July 5, 1964.

He is buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery. The rest of the family is buried in Section 2.

Courtesy of the United States Army

Lieutenant General Samuel D. Sturgis, Jr.
Chief of Engineers (March 17, 1953-September 30, 1956)

Born July 16, 1897, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Samuel Sturgis, Jr., came from an illustrious military family.  Both his father and grandfather were Military Academy graduates and major generals. Young Sturgis graduated from the Military Academy in 1918. As a junior engineer officer he taught mathematics at the academy for four years. In 1926 he was ordered to the Philippines, where he served as Adjutant of the 14th Engineers. His strategical studies of the islands over a three-year period developed knowledge he used later when he returned to the Philippines in 1944 as Chief Engineer of General Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army.

Sturgis commanded a mounted engineer company at Fort Riley, Kansas,     in 1929-33 and encouraged the adoption of heavy mechanical equipment.   He was district engineer in 1939-42 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he worked on flood control and a large military construction program. In 1943-45 Sturgis’ engineer troops built roads, airfields, ports, and bases from New Guinea to the Philippines.

Sturgis was senior engineer for the nation’s air forces in 1946-48 and was Missouri River Division Engineer in 1949-51. In 1951 he became the Commanding General of the 6th Armored Division and Fort Leonard Wood. In 1952 he was appointed Commanding General of the Communications Zone supporting the United States Army in Europe. He became Chief of Engineers on March 17, 1953. His military decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and Bronze Star Medal. He died July 5, 1964, in Washington, D.C.

Photo courtesy of the United States Army

STURGIS, SAMUEL DAVIS JR
LT GEN US ARMY
VETERAN SERVICE DATES: Unknown
DATE OF BIRTH: 07/16/1897
DATE OF DEATH: 07/05/1964
DATE OF INTERMENT: 07/08/1964
BURIED AT: SECTION 7  SITE 10093-A
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