Later Life and Legacy
Somervell retired from the Army on 30 April 1946 and moved to Ocala, Florida. His wife Anna had died in January, 1942 and he had married Mrs. Louise Hampton Wartmann, a former student at Belcourt, in March 1943. Somervell accepted an offer to become president of Koppers, a Pittsburgh-based company that mined coal and manufactured and sold coal-based products. Applying the same managerial techniques that he had employed in the Army, he thoroughly reorganized the company, and doubled revenues and tripled profits over the next five years.
Somervell suffered a series of health problems in the 1950s. He had an appendectomy in 1953 and a hernia operation in 1954. He suffered a severe heart attack in September 1954 and returned to his home Ocala to recuperate. In early 1955 he decided to resign as president and withdraw from day-to-day operations. He had a second, fatal heart attack at his home on 13 February 1955. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, not far from his "brain child", the Pentagon. Unfortunately, his other great creation, the Army Service Forces did not survive, being abolished in May 1946. The Washington Post lauded him as "one of the ablest officers the United States Army has produced." The USAT General Brehon B. Somervell, a US Army Reserve logistics support vessel that can carry up to 2,000 short tons (1,800 t) of cargo, is named in his honor.
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