Education and Early Military Career
A career U.S. Army officer and World War II combat commander, Davidson was born in the Bronx, New York City on April 24, 1904, the son of a New York National Guard officer. In 1923, he graduated from the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was a star on the school's championship football team and a member of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. Davidson realized his boyhood dream of becoming a soldier when he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. There he distinguished himself in football and graduated with the Class of 1927. Upon graduation, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers with the 1st Engineer Regiment at Fort DuPont, Delaware, and maintained a West Point connection as an assistant Army football coach.
In 1930, he returned to West Point as an instructor in the physics department and assistant football coach. In 1933, he became head football coach (at a record young age), finishing five seasons later in the 1937 with a record of 35 wins, 11 losses and 1 tie. From 1938 to 1940 he was posted to Hawaii as a company commander with the 3rd Engineer Regiment. In 1940, he returned to California as the post engineer for Hamilton Army Airfield (now known as Hamilton Air Force Base) on the north shore of the San Francisco Bay. At the time of Davidson's arrival, Hamilton's mission was being expanded from that of a bomber base with the addition of six squadrons of Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighter planes.
Read more about this topic: Garrison H. Davidson
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