James Van Fleet - Military Career

Military Career

During World War I, he served as a battalion commander as part of the American Expeditionary Force under General John J. Pershing.

While serving as the senior officer of the University of Florida's U.S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, Van Fleet also served as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team in 1923 and 1924. He led the Gators into national prominence with a 12–3–4 (.737) record.

Van Fleet commanded the 8th Infantry Regiment for three years and led it into combat in Europe in World War II, participating in the D-Day landings on Utah Beach in June 1944. Although widely regarded as an outstanding officer, he was blocked from promotion because the Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, erroneously confused Van Fleet with a well-known alcoholic officer with a similar name. When Eisenhower, now the European Theater commander, informed Marshall of his mistake, Van Fleet was soon promoted to divisional and corps command. He later served with General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army as commander of III Corps.

In 1946, Van Fleet was sent to Greece as the executor of the "Truman Doctrine," and he was instrumental in the outcome of the Greek Civil War by providing advice to the Greek government and 250 military advisers, as well as administering $400 million in military aid. The central square in the northern Greek city of Kastoria has featured a bust of Van Fleet for many years, and was replaced with a new statue as recently as 2007.

Van Fleet was commanding general of the U.S. Second Army from August 10, 1950 to April 11, 1951.

In 1951, he replaced General Matthew B. Ridgway as commander of the U.S. Eighth Army and United Nations forces in Korea. He continued Ridgway's efforts to strengthen the Eighth Army in its campaign against numerically superior Communist Chinese and North Korean enemy forces. His only son, U.S. Air Force Captain James A. Van Fleet, Jr., was a B-26 bomber pilot who was killed in the Korean War.