Mark W. Clark

For other people named Mark Clark, see Mark Clark (disambiguation).

Mark W. Clark
American major general Mark Wayne Clark in 1943
Birth name	Mark Wayne Clark
Nickname	Contraband (while at West Point)
Born	(1896-05-01)May 1, 1896 Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York
Died	April 17, 1984(1984-04-17) (aged 87) Charleston, South Carolina
Buried at	The Citadel Charleston, South Carolina
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1917 – 1953
Rank	General
Commands held	Fifth U.S. Army 15th Army Group United Nations Command (Korea)
Battles/wars	World War I World War II Korean War
Awards	Distinguished Service Cross Army Distinguished Service Medal Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Other work	The Citadel, President

Mark Wayne Clark (May 1, 1896 – April 17, 1984) was an American general during World War II and the Korean War and was the youngest lieutenant general (three-star general) in the U.S. Army.

During World War I, he commanded a company of soldiers in 1917 and was seriously wounded by shrapnel. After the war, Clark’s abilities were noticed by General George Marshall. During World War II, he was the USA´s Commander in Italy. He is known for his triumphal entry into Rome in 1944, the first major Axis city to fall. Some detractors say he ignored the orders of his British superior officer, and they blame him for the escape of the German 10th Army which he let slip in his pursuit for the glory of entering Rome first. The German 10th Army joined with their countrymen at the Transimene Line. Clark became the youngest American to be promoted to general in 1945.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower considered him a brilliant staff officer and trainer. Clark won many awards, including the Distinguished Service Cross for extreme bravery in war, subordinate only to the Medal of Honor.

Early life and career

Clark was born in Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, but spent much of his youth in Highland Park, Illinois, while his father, a career Infantry officer, was stationed at Fort Sheridan. His mother was the daughter of Romanian Jews but Clark was baptized Episcopalian while a cadet at West Point.

Clark, known as "Contraband" by his classmates because of his ability to smuggle sweets into the barracks, graduated from West Point in April 1917, with a class ranking of 110th in a class of 139, and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant of Infantry. He had gained an early appointment to the military academy at age 17, but lost time from frequent illnesses. In the rapid expansion of the United States Army during World War I he rose rapidly in rank, promoted to 1st lieutenant on May 15 and captain on August 5, 1917. He served in France during World War I in the U.S. 11th Infantry, part of the 5th Infantry Division, and was wounded in action in the Vosges Mountains. As a result of his convalescence, Captain Clark was transferred to the General Staff Headquarters of the First United States Army until the end of hostilities, then served with the Third Army in its occupation duties in Germany.

Between the wars, Clark served in a variety of staff and training roles. From 1921 to 1924 he served as an aide in the office of the Assistant Secretary of War. In 1925 he completed the professional officer's course at the Infantry School, then served as a staff officer with the 30th Infantry at The Presidio in San Francisco, California. His next assignment was as a training instructor to the Indiana National Guard, in which he was promoted to major on January 14, 1933, more than 15 years after his promotion to captain.

Major Clark served as a deputy commander of the Civilian Conservation Corps district in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1935-36, between tours at the Command and General Staff School in 1935 and the Army War College in 1937. Assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, Clark was selected to instruct at the Army War College in March 1940, where he received a promotion to lieutenant colonel on July 1. Clark and General Leslie McNair selected the thousands of acres of unused land in Louisiana for military maneuvers at Louisiana Maneuvers.

On August 4, 1941, Clark was promoted two grades to brigadier general as the United States Army geared up for entry in World War II, and made Assistant Chief of Staff (G-3) at General Headquarters, United States Army, in Washington, D.C.

World War II

In January 1942, a month after the American entry into the war, General Clark was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff Army Ground Forces, and in May 1942, became its chief of staff as staff officers were rapidly moved to newly created commands by General Gage Michael Miller.^{[citation needed]}

In June 1942, he went to England as commanding general of II Corps, and the next month moved up to Commanding General, Army Forces European Theater of Operations, promoted to major general on August 17, 1942. In October 1942, Clark became deputy commander in chief of the Allied Forces in the North African Theater. Clark's duties in this succession of assignments was to plan and direct the training of units for the invasion of North Africa known as Operation Torch. Part of the preparation for the invasion involved spiriting him into North Africa by the British submarine Seraph weeks before the invasion (Operation Flagpole) to negotiate the surrender or cooperation of the Vichy French at Cherchell on October 21–22, 1942.

After the negotiations, Clark was promoted to lieutenant general on November 11, 1942. When the United States created its first field army overseas, the U.S. Fifth Army, Clark was made its commanding general and given the task of training units for the invasion of Italy (Operation Avalanche) in September 1943. According to Montgomery, Clark was subsequently criticized by British historians and critics, for the near-failure of the landings at Salerno, as a result of perceived poor planning.

Clark gave orders for the bombing destruction of the Abbey of Monte Cassino based on direct orders from his superior during the Battle of Monte Cassino, February 15, 1944. Clark and his chief of staff Major General Alfred Gruenther remained unconvinced of the “military necessity”. When handing over the U.S. II Corps position to the New Zealand Corps, Brigadier-General Frederic Butler, deputy commander of U.S. 34th Division, had said "I don't know, but I don't believe the enemy is in the convent. All the fire has been from the slopes of the hill below the wall".^{[citation needed]} The commander of the 4th Indian division urged the bombing of the entire massif with the heaviest bombs available. Clark pinned down the Commander-in-Chief Allied Armies in Italy, General Sir Harold Alexander: “I said, 'You give me a direct order and we’ll do it,' and he did."

Clark's conduct of operations in Italy is controversial, particularly his actions during the Battle of the Winter Line. Pope Pius XII thanked Clark for liberating Rome. The American military historian Carlo D'Este called Clark's decision to take Rome "as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate". Although Clark described a "race to Rome" and released an edited version of his diary for the official historians, his complete papers became available after his death.

In December 1944 Clark took Alexander's position as overall command of Allied ground troops in Italy, renamed as 15th Army Group - Alexander, now a Field Marshal, had become Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces Headquarters in the Mediterranean - by that time an international coalition of numerous diverse cultures with often conflicting interests.

He was promoted to general on March 10, 1945, and at the war's end Clark was Commander of Allied Forces in Italy and, later, Commander in Chief of US Forces of Occupation in Austria (there he won the lasting estimation, almost, it would seem idolatry, of the Austrians^{[citation needed]}). He served as deputy to the U.S. Secretary of State in 1947, and attended the negotiations for an Austrian treaty with the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and Moscow. In June 1947, Clark returned home and assumed command of the Sixth Army, headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco, and two years later was named chief of Army Field Forces.

Clark on board USS Ancon during the landings at Salerno, Italy, 12 September 1943.

On October 20, 1951, he was nominated by President Harry Truman to be the United States emissary to the Holy See. Clark later withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952, following protests from Texas Senator Tom Connally and Protestant groups.

During and after the Korean War

During the Korean War, he took over as commander of the United Nations Command on May 12, 1952, succeeding General Matthew Ridgway.

From 1954 until 1965, after retiring from the Army, General Clark served as president of The Citadel, the prestigious military college located in Charleston, South Carolina,. He wrote two memoirs: Calculated Risk (1950) and From the Danube to the Yalu (1954).

In 1962 Clark was elected an honorary member of the South Carolina Society of the Cincinnati in recognition of his outstanding service to his country.

Awards and decorations

	Distinguished Service Cross
	Army Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster
	Navy Distinguished Service Medal
	Legion of Merit
	Bronze Star Medal
	Purple Heart
	World War I Victory Medal
	Army of Occupation of Germany Medal
	American Defense Service Medal
	European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
	World War II Victory Medal
	Army of Occupation Medal
	National Defense Service Medal
	Korean Service Medal
	United Nations Service Medal
	Order of the Crown, Grand Officer (Belgium)
	Order of the Southern Cross, Grand Officer (Brazil)
	Order of the White Lion, First Class (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic)
	Légion d'honneur, Grand Cross (France)
	Military Order of Savoy, Grand Cross (Italy)
	Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, Grand Cross (Italy)
	Medaglia d'Argento (Italy)
	Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari, Krzyż Srebrny/Silver Cross (Poland)
	Order of Ouissam Alaouite, Grand Cross - First Class (Morocco)
	Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom)
	Order of Suvorov, First Class (USSR)

Personal life

Clark married Maurine Doran, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Doran of Muncie, Ind., May 17, 1924. Mrs. Clark died October 5, 1966. Their son is Maj. William Doran Clark, U.S.A. (Ret.), and their daughter Patricia Ann (Mrs. Gordon H. Costing)

Legacy

An interstate spur (I-526) in the suburbs of Charleston, South Carolina, was named Mark Clark Expressway in his honor.
Prior to August 17, 2010, the Mark Clark Bridge in Washington State, connected Camano Island with the mainland. It was then superseded by the Camano Gateway Bridge, the Mark Clark Bridge being demolished the following month.

In film

Clark was portrayed by Michael Rennie in the film The Devil's Brigade.

References

Bibliography

• Atkinson, Rick (2002). Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 0-8050-8724-9. 
• Atkinson, Rick (2008). The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8050-8861-8. 
• Baxter, Colin F. (1999). Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887-1976: A Selected Bibliography. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29119-7. 
• Clark, Mark W. (2007). CALCULATED RISK, The War Memoirs of a Great American General. Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-59-9. 
• Katz, Robert (2003). The Battle for Rome. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-1642-5. 
• Hapgood, David; Richardson, David (2002) [1984]. Monte Cassino: The Story of the Most Controversial Battle of World War II (reprint ed.). Cambridge Mass.: Da Capo. ISBN 0-306-81121-9. 

External links

• Papers of Mark W. Clark, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Finding aid for the Mark W. Clark Oral History, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Historical Sound from General Clark (some statements with German translation)
• Biography from the Korean War Encyclopedia
• General Mark W. Clark - TIME magazine cover of July 7, 1952
• From the Liberation of Rome to the Korean Armistice - General Mark Wayne Clark interview - 1975 Three Monkeys Online
• General Clark explains military situation in Italy, 1943 Footage
• Mark W. Clark Collection The Citadel Archives & Museum

Military offices
Preceded by Newly activated organization	Commanding General of the Fifth United States Army 1943-1944	Succeeded by Lucian Truscott
Preceded by George Price Hays	Commanding General of the Sixth United States Army 1947-1949	Succeeded by Albert Coady Wedemeyer
Preceded by George S. Patton	Commanding General of the Seventh United States Army 1 January 1944 to 2 March 1944	Succeeded by Alexander Patch