Albert Coady Wedemeyer

Early life

Wedemeyer was born on July 9, 1896, in Omaha, Nebraska, and was a graduate of the Creighton Preparatory School.

Prewar career

In 1919, he graduated from the

In 1943, Wedemeyer was reassigned to the

On December 7, 1945, Wedemeyer with General Douglas MacArthur, and navy Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, the three top military officers in the Far East, recommended to the Pentagon transporting six more Chinese Nationalist armies into North China and Manchuria. However they also suggested that "the U.S. assistance to China, as outlined above, be made available as basis for negotiation by the American Ambassador to bring together and effect a compromise between the major opposing groups in order to promote a united and democratic China."^[11]

The issue of forcing the Nationalists into a coalition government with the Communists would later become a central issue in the fierce "Who lost China" political debates in the United States during 1949–51. On July 10, 1945, Wedemeyer had informed General Marshall:

If Uncle Sugar, Russia, and Britain united strongly in their endeavor to bring about a coalition of these two political parties [the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party] in China by coercing both sides to make realistic concessions, serious post-war disturbance may be averted and timely effective military employment of all Chinese may be obtained against the Japanese. I use the term coercion advisedly because it is my conviction that continued appeals to both sides couched in polite diplomatic terms will not accomplish unification. There must be teeth in Big Three.^[12]

Wedemeyer later said as a military commander, his statement was intended as a call to force the long-heralded, but never implemented, military alliance between the Nationalist government and Chinese Communists in order to rout undefeated Japanese forces in China. He later told others that he had opposed a political coalition. (Tsou, 1962).

After Japan's capitulation, Wedemeyer became alarmed that some Japanese troops were surrendering to Communist Chinese forces. He wanted seven American divisions to be sent to China, but General Marshall replied that it should not be given priority over Japan and Korea.^[13] Wedemeyer served in China into 1946.

Postwar

After returning from China, Wedemeyer was promoted to Army Chief of Plans and Operations. In July 1947, President Harry S. Truman sent Wedemeyer to China and Korea to examine the "political, economic, psychological and military situations." The result was the Wedemeyer Report in which Wedemeyer stressed the need for intensive United States training of and assistance to the Nationalist armies.

Wedemeyer's 1947 report painted a picture of the Chinese Civil War that was both opportune and dire. Chiang's armies were far better-equipped than their Communist adversaries (who had not yet received weapons and training from the Soviets in Manchuria), and pushing them back on all fronts, but ammunition, fuel, and spare parts were severely lacking. These had been promised by Lend-Lease, but not delivered and still charged to Chaing's account. Thus, while the Nationalists had over 16,000 trucks virtually all of them were rendered inoperable, forcing his troops to march on foot. Ammunition shortages were also causing Nationalist divisions to lose battles, and Chaing's troops were forced to scavenge abandoned American dumps because no deliveries had been made. Even worse, much surplus weaponry and ammunition in the Pacific was being destroyed rather than utilized, and Chiang's government was charged exorbitant prices for what remained. For example, bazookas were sold to Greece at $3.65 apiece, while Chiang's government had to pay $162. For rifles, the price difference was $5.10 and $51, respectively. Ammunition cost differences were similar, China being charged $85 for 1000 rifle rounds and $95 for 1000 machine gun rounds, compared to $4.55 and $4.58 elsewhere. Wedemeyer recommended an immediate correction of these deficiencies and sending leftover equipment to China rather than blowing it up.

Lacking confidence in the Nationalist government caused by Joseph Stilwell and George Marshall's meddling, President Harry S. Truman not only rejected the recommendations in the report but also imposed an arms embargo against the Nationalist government, thereby intensifying the bitter political debate over the role of the United States in the Chinese Civil War. While Secretary of State George C. Marshall had hoped that Wedemeyer could convince Chiang Kai-shek to institute those military, economic, and political reforms that would create a Nationalist-Communist coalition, he supported Truman's view and suppressed publication of Wedemeyer's report, further provoking resentment by Nationalist and communist advocates both inside and outside the US government and the armed forces.^{[citation needed]} The report was reprinted, however, in the 1949 China White Paper.

Following completion of the report, he assumed command of the

In 1948, Wedemeyer supported General Lucius D. Clay's plan to create an airbridge during the Berlin Crisis.^[16]

After the Communist victory in 1949, Wedemeyer became intimately associated with the

Wedemeyer became a hero to United States anticommunists, and gave many lectures around the country. After retiring as a lieutenant general in 1951, he was promoted to full general by act of Congress on July 19, 1954.^[14]

In 1957, Wedemeyer was affiliated with the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena. On May 23, 1985, he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

Death and legacy

On December 17, 1989, Wedemeyer died at

Friends Advice, in Boyds, Maryland, was his permanent home throughout his military career and until his death. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Dates of rank

No insignia	Cadet, United States Military Academy: June 14, 1917
	Second Lieutenant, Regular Army: November 1, 1918
	First Lieutenant, Regular Army: February 27, 1920
	Second Lieutenant, Regular Army: December 15, 1922
	First Lieutenant, Regular Army: June 24, 1924
	Captain, Regular Army: August 1, 1935
	Major, Regular Army: July 1, 1940
	Lieutenant Colonel, Army of the United States: September 15, 1941
	Colonel, Army of the United States: February 1, 1942
	Brigadier General, Army of the United States: July 7, 1942
	Lieutenant Colonel, Regular Army: December 11, 1942
	Major General, Army of the United States: September 20, 1943
	Lieutenant General, Army of the United States: January 1, 1945
	Brigadier General, Regular Army: April 6, 1946
	Major General, Regular Army: January 24, 1948
	Lieutenant General , Retired list: June 23, 1951
	General, Regular Army, Retired List: July 19, 1954

^[19]

Sources

Primary sources

• Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958.
• Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer on War and Peace. ed. by Keith E. Eiler, Hoover Inst. Press, 1987. 245 pp.
• General Albert C. Wedemeyer America's Unsung Strategist in World War II, by Dr. John J. McLaughlin. Casemate Publishing, 2012.

Secondary sources

• Herbert Feis, The China Tangle: The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953).
• Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, 1959), official U.S. Army history online edition
• Stueck, William. The Wedemeyer Mission: American Politics and Foreign Policy during the Cold War. U. of Georgia Press, 1984.
• Tang Tsou
  . America's Failure in China, 1941–50 (1963).
• Tang Tsou. "The Historians and the Generals", The Pacific Historical Review Vol. 31, No. 1 (February 1962), pp. 41–48.
  JSTOR 3636649
  .
• Keegan, John. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation Of Paris. Viking Penguin Inc 1982 (New 50th D-Day Anniversary 365 pp. edition includes a new introduction by the author) pp. 22, 31–34, 36–38
• Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom – May 23, 1985 Archived April 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• John McLaughlin, General Albert C. Wedemeyer: America's Unsung Strategist in World War II, Casemate, 2012.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Albert Coady Wedemeyer.

• General Wedemeyer in China
• Albert Coady Wedemeyer at ArlingtonCemetery.net, an unofficial website
• photo Archived May 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
• Berlin Airlift Archived 2016-05-06 at the Wayback Machine
• concise.britannica biography
• Fact Finding Mission to China: Report by Wedemeyer, September 19, 1947
• Newspaper clippings about Albert Coady Wedemeyer in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• Generals of World War II

Military offices
Preceded by Mark W. Clark	Commanding General Sixth Army 1948–1951	Succeeded by Joseph M. Swing