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Alfred H. Paddock, Jr. How do we honor a man who provided the vision and impetus to establish the foundation for U.S. Army special warfare? Most readers of this professional journal will be unfamiliar with Major General Robert Alexis McClure's name, and visitors roaming Smoke Bomb Hill see scant evidence of his rightful place in our history. He died over forty two years ago. He is the forgotten father of Army special warfare.* Born March 4, 1897, in Mattoon, Illinois, Robert A. McClure graduated from Kentucky Military Institute in 1915, then served with the Philippine Constabulary as a Second Lieutenant. He earned a Regular Army commission on August 9, 1917, and was promoted to First Lieutenant on the same date. Afterwards he served in a variety of infantry and service school assignments in China and the United States until the eve of World War II. During the inter-war years, career officers found promotion excruciatingly slow, and McClure was no exception; he was a Captain for seventeen years. By 1941, however, he was a Lieutenant Colonel with orders to London, England, to be the Assistant Military Attache. McClure Page 2 |
MG Robert A. McClure