Charles T. Menoher

Template:Short description Template:Template other Major General Charles Thomas Menoher (March 20, 1862 – August 11, 1930) was a U.S. Army general, first Chief of the United States Army Air Service from 1918 to 1921, and commanded the U.S. Army Hawaiian Department from 1924 to 1925.

Early life

The son of an American Civil War veteran, Menoher was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1862 and graduated 16 in a class of 77 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1886 with a commission as an artillery officer.Template:Sfn Several of his classmates included men who would, like Menoher himself, eventually rise to general officer rank, such as John J. Pershing, William H. Hay, Walter Henry Gordon, Edward Mann Lewis, Mason Patrick, Julius Penn, Avery D. Andrews, John E. McMahon, Ernest Hinds, George B. Duncan, James McRae, Lucien Grant Berry and Jesse McI. Carter.

Military career

File:111-SC-16781 - NARA - 55193650 (cropped) (cropped).jpg

General John J. Pershing, C-in-C of the AEF, and Major General Menoher, commanding the 42nd Division, in front of the 42nd Division's headquarters, Chatel, France, June 1918.

Menoher served in Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish–American War. He later graduated from the Army War College and was selected for the original General Staff Corps, where he served from 1903 to 1907. He was commander of the 5th Field Artillery Regiment from 1916 to 1917.Template:Sfn

He was still in command of the regiment until late August 1917, almost five months after the American entry into World War I, when, earlier that month, he received a promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier general and was sent to France to take command of the American Expeditionary Forces's (AEF) School of Instruction, Field Artillery, located in Saumar.

Menoher held this post until mid-December when he was selected by General John J. Pershing, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the AEF and a West Point classmate, to succeed Major General William A. Mann as commanding general (CG) of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division.Template:Sfn He would remain in command of the 42nd for the next 10 months, commanding the division throughout almost all of its period of combat service on the Western Front, participating in the Champagne-Marne offensive and in the successful Allied offensives of Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. In November, Menoher was succeeded in command of the 42nd by Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, formerly the division's chief of staff but now commanding its 84th Infantry Brigade, in this position.

As the war was coming to an end, Menoher was placed in command of the VI Corps (United States). He later received the Army Distinguished Service Medal, along with foreign awards from France, Belgium, and Italy. The citation for his Army DSM reads:

Following the end of the war, Menoher became first Director and then Chief of Air Service, where he began a famous (and ultimately losing) conflict with his Assistant Chief, Brigadier General Billy Mitchell. He was promoted to major general in March 1921. Requesting an assignment with troops, Menoher then took command of the Hawaiian Division in 1922 before taking over the entire Hawaiian Department. After this, he commanded the IX Corps Area in San Francisco until his mandatory retirement on March 20, 1926.Template:Sfn

Personal life

He married Nannie Pearson. They had four sons: Charles, Pearson, Darrow, and William.Template:Sfn His three youngest sons all graduated from West Point, and served in the Army during World War II. Pearson (1892–1958), a classmate of both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, reached the rank of major general during the Korean War, after seeing service in both of the world wars.

Menoher later married Elizabeth Painter.

Death and legacy

Menoher died of pneumonia at the age of 68 on August 11, 1930.Template:Sfn He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia.

Menoher Boulevard, a major road in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Menoher Drive on Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, are named after him.

Dates of rank

Insignia	Rank	Component	Date
None	Cadet	United States Military Academy	1 July 1882
None in 1886	Second lieutenant	Regular Army	1 July 1886
File:US-O2 insignia.svg	First lieutenant	Regular Army	23 December 1892
File:US-O3 insignia.svg	Captain	Regular Army	2 February 1901
File:US-O4 insignia.svg	Major	Regular Army	25 January 1907
File:US-O5 insignia.svg	Lieutenant colonel	Regular Army	26 May 1911
File:US-O6 insignia.svg	Colonel	Regular Army	1 July 1916
File:US-O7 insignia.svg	Brigadier general	National Army	5 August 1917
File:US-O8 insignia.svg	Major general	National Army	28 November 1917 (Reverted to brigadier general on 15 February 1919.)
File:US-O7 insignia.svg	Brigadier general	Regular Army	7 November 1918
File:US-O8 insignia.svg	Major general	Temporary	3 July 1920
File:US-O8 insignia.svg	Major general	Regular Army	8 March 1921
File:US-O8 insignia.svg	Major general	Retired List	20 March 1926

Bibliography

• Cooke, James J, The Rainbow Division in the Great War, 1917-1919, Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated 1994 Template:ISBN