Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 16, Number 23, DeMotte, Jasper County, 19 April 1946 — Georgia Boy Rose From Buck Private To 4-Star General [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Georgia Boy Rose From Buck Private To 4-Star General

WASHINGTON—He was born in Perry, Ga., in 1887, where his father published the Houston Home Journal. As a boy he worked around the newspaper plant but was more interested in the Perry Rifles, a local guard 1 unit. Having heard his parents speak of former members of the Hodges’ family as Confederate soldiers in the Civil war, he was determined to become a soldier. He entered West Point in 1904 but because of trouble with mathematics left the United States Military academy and enlisted in the army as an infantry private. In 1909 he received his commission as a second lieutenant, simultaneously with the commissioning of his former West Point classmates. Instead of spending three years at the Point, he became an officer after service at various Infantry installations. His early army career included service

«vith General Pershing’s Mexican Punitive expedition and the 6th Infantry regiment' of the sth division in France, Luxembourg and Germany in World War I. He was appointed commandant of the infantry school at Fort Benning, Ga., in 1940. He became chief of infantry In Washington, was made chief of the ground forces replacement and school command when the army was reorganized into ground, air and service forces, and later became commanding general of the X army corps. He was assigned to command the Third army. Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in February, 1943, and served in this capacity until March, 1944, when he was assigned to the First army in the European theater of operations. Assistant to Gen. Omar N. Bradley when the First army took part in the invasion of Normandy, capture of Cherbourg, and the breakthrough at St. Lo, Hodges assumed full command in August, 1944. He paved the way for the Third army’s and his famous First’s spectacular lunges across France, was the first into Paris, first into Germany, first army commander since Napoleon to cross the Rhine river in battle, first to enter and clear out the Hurtgen forest in the cold winter months and first to meet the Russians. Among his higher decorations are the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star from the first war and the Distinguished Service Medal and an Oak Leaf Cluster for services in the current conflict. General Hodges presently commands the First army with headquarters at Fort Bragg, N. C. From private to four-star general is a route any soldier would like to travel and Courtney Hicks Hodges is one who did! And in future years some of America’s highest ranking officers Will come from the ranks, from among men who made the army a career.

GEN. COURTNEY H. HODGES