Name that MWiF counter - 33

[Greyshaft]

Which MWiF leader was related to US General George Marshall?

[buckyzoom]

His cousin was Clark.

[Greyshaft]

Aged 43 in 1939. General Mark Wayne Clark was a cousin of General George Marshall. He graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1917 and served in France during WWI where he was wounded by shrapnel on his first day in combat. Between the wars he was deputy commander of the Civilian Conservation Corp and attended the Command and General Staff School and then the Army War College, eventually taking up a teaching role at that College. When the USA entered WWII Clark was assigned as Deputy Commander for Operation Torch, the November 1942 Allied landings in North Africa. He was landed on the North African coast some weeks before the invasion to negotiate with the Vichy French, and the subsequent success of the Allied landings was largely due to the token resistance put up by the French. Clark was promoted to Lieutenant General and commanded the US 5th Army for the September 1943 landing at Salerno on the Italian coast. The mountainous terrain worked against the Allies and the drive north on the Italian peninsula was difficult and costly. Clark's generalship was criticized on a number of occasions. The landing at Anzio behind the German lines was successful but the initial success was not rapidly exploited and the Germans retreated in good order to form another defensive line. During his efforts to push north Clark approved the bombing of the historic abbey at the top of Monte Cassino despite there being no military justification for the attack. Although the Germans could have been using the Abbey as an observation post (they weren't) there were any number of adjacent locations that would serve the same purpose just as well, and it was apparent even before the bombing that the destruction of the Monte Cassino abbey would not assist the Allied attack. When Clark finally broke through the Axis lines he failed to encircle the German 10th Army, which retreated north of Rome to dig in and wait for the next Allied attack. On June 4th 1944, Clark entered Rome and in December 1944 he replaced the British General Harold Alexander as commander of the Allied 15th Army Group, which put him in charge of all Allied ground troops in Italy. In March 1945 Clark was promoted to full General, the youngest man to ever hold that rank in the US army. After the end of WWII Clark commanded US forces in Austria and in April 1952 succeeded General Matthew Ridgway as commander of the United Nations forces in the Korean War. Since the two Koreas have never signed a formal peace treaty the cease fire agreement which Clark signed with the North Koreans in 1953 is still in effect in 2006. Clark retired from the army in 1953 and served as President of The Citidal Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina. He wrote two volumes of memoirs: 'Calculated Risk' (1950) and 'From the Danube to the Yalu' (1954). Clark died in 1984 and is buried at the Citidal.(498)