<p>
Only through tears from fragrant memories, am I able to begin this story of my great friend and classmate, who, a little while ago, fell back from our ranks in the Long Gray Line, to march on in the shadows, <em>Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, IV.</em>, Class of 1906. All over this country and also, over much of the rest of this world, his story has been told and written. It stands out boldly on the pages of history. For the general reader there is little more to be said, but for us, who have lived as he did, through those four wonderful cadet years, and for those of us, who have looked upon military service as he did, with the Spirit of old West Point in our hearts, there is something more to be said. I will try to say it.</p>
<p>
For many of our people during the dark days that followed the disaster of Pearl Harbor, when we began the hard struggle on the long road back to Manila and Tokyo, he became a symbol of the objectives of the war. If he could be brought back to us the war would be a victory. And when he was brought back, he became likewise a symbol of that victory we had won with our Allies over the whole globe. When he first appeared before our people here, men and women reached out to touch his garments as he passed. Sometimes they milled around his table in public places with their eyes a-glitter with emotion, almost threatening to stampede upon him and crush him, until he had to be taken away to restore them to their senses. He has been described as like Isaac of ancient story, who was destined for sacrifice, but by intervention was saved and walked again among us as living testimony of the mercy of God. What he did, what he said, where he lived and how, no longer mattered. Our people realized the immense importance of that sacrificial defense on Corregidor, that gave us time to stop the march of the Japanese toward Australia and to turn the tide of the war against them.</p>
<p>
General Wainwright lived eight years after the Japanese surrender. His name never lost the glamour of the heroism of his action. When he died the press of the nation again sounded his praises as loudly as when he returned from captivity. His old associates, his officers and soldiers, hastened to San Antonio to pay him their last measure of devotion. His body lay in state in Washington in the Amphitheatre of the Unknown Soldier, where thousands passed his coffin to shed their grateful tears for his great service to the nation. The senior officers of the U.S. Government, of the Defense Forces, and of the District of Columbia, joined the silent throng beside his grave as they laid his tired old body to rest beneath the Arlington elms. In the press, in the pulpit, and in the legislatures, the many phases of his experience were proclaimed; his long military preparation for his role; his apparent recognition of his destiny; his sturdy masterful retreat before the overwhelming forces of the Japanese; his organization and defense of Bataan without hope of any replacement for his food, medicines, ammunition, or his badly worn weapons; his bold assumption of supreme command when General MacArthur was ordered out to Australia, knowing the futility of the defense as a local matter but its great global purpose in the war; his stubborn resistance until his island fortress was pounded to dust and rubble; his long and humiliating imprisonment by insulting enemy soldiers; his dramatic rescue and his sudden appearance on board the Missouri, when his captors humbly signed their surrender; his acclaim when he traveled over the nation; his repeated recognition of the wonderful support of his officers and his men in all his addresses before listening America.</p>
<p>
Out of the many tributes by columnists and editors over the nation I will quote only this one, from the Charlotte Observer of Charlotte, S.C. published on September 5, 1953, which in the briefest words summed up his life and service.</p>
<p>
WAINWRIGHT, HERO IN THE FINEST TRADITION</p>
<p>
Jonathan Wainwright was the symbol of American courage. He was “not” the hero of Corregidor, and he would have been the last to claim the honor for himself alone. But as commander of that band of “gaunt and ghostly men”, ragged, hungry, weary and sick, who held out to the end in face of certain defeat, he personifies the heroism of one of the darkest but most glorious pages of American history.</p>
<p>
War is always terrible, but it is less terrible when a soldier can fight back with some hope of winning. The men of Corregidor had no chance of winning and knew it, yet they fought to the last round of ammunition, the last ration of food, the last bandage; and through it all stood that tall, grim figure of Wainwright symbolizing the creed of civilized man that human freedom is more precious than life.</p>
<p>
In the hopeless situation of his army, discretion indicated that he should have surrendered earlier, but again the creed would not let him do it until the last possibility of resistance was gone. By holding out, he saved us precious months while we gathered our forces on distant islands for the long road back. It was the sacrifice play that saved the game.</p>
<p>
Wainwright died of wounds, literally, for the vicious beatings he endured at the hands of brutal captors inflicted the permanent injuries that finally brought his death.</p>
<p>
Let no one assume that America is decadent as long as we have men like Wainwright and the exhausted soldiers who fought with him. They held high the finest traditions of our military history.</p>
<p>
It is easy to understand why tears of sadness were shed for him in prison, tears of gratitude were shed for him when he came home, tears of sorrow fell freely from many eyes when they buried him in Arlington—and they fell all over the nation.</p>
<p>
Such was this man of West Point to whom fate gave one of its hardest roles, and who played it straight under the rules he learned from our Alma Mater.</p>
<p>
This is the story of his boyhood: He was born to Army parents. Major and Mrs. R. P. Page Wainwright, at Walla Walla, Washington on August 23, 1883. His father was graduate number 2573, Class of 1875, and he trained his boy Jonathan in the old traditions, while he moved with his family across the west, trying to make safe the pathways of the pioneers from those Indians who resented their coming. Skinny said once that he came to West Point because he did not know any better. Certainly he knew what it was all about better than the rest of us who came there with him. He and Henry Clagett came through the sallyport together in July 1902, both tall Army boys with western backgrounds, and they lived together all their four years at West Point. They were living in the same house at Fort McKinley, P.I. in 1941, renewing old friendships, when the Japanese arrived.</p>
<p>
Naturally, from his long, bony figure, his life-long nickname came to him. His military preparation paid off. He became a corporal, a first sergeant and the First Captain of the Corps of Cadets. No one ever questioned his right to these offices. His class elected him senior hop manager. He boned cavalry in the riding hall, played on the polo team and chose the First Cavalry, when he graduated, attaining his lifelong ambition to ride like the Army he knew in his western boyhood.</p>
<p>
As a bachelor second lieutenant, he moved for nearly two years across Texas and then sailed for Camp Stotsenburg, P.I. with the regiment in 1908, being welcomed in Manila by many classmates in the old Army and Navy Club inside the walled city. During this tour, he was sent to Jolo to help pacify some wild Moros who opposed the American rule. In 1910 the regiment took him to Idaho and Wyoming, where he met and married Adele Howard Holley, daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Dwight E. Holley. From then on until she was sent back from Manila with all the American women, these two were always together whenever military conditions permitted. Adele said farewell at Fort McKinley in 1941 and did not see Skinny again until he returned in September 1945. The strain of the long wait, the worry over his treatment as a prisoner, the lack of positive information as to his whereabouts, and finally the terrific excitement of his return amid the wild acclaim of our people, continuing for so long, brought on a serious collapse. In spite of the devoted care of her husband, her son, and her daughter-in-law, she has not fully recovered at the time of this writing (November 1953). Their son Jack, upon graduation from school, joined the Merchant Marine and for some 20 years sailed the seven seas, becoming a master with his own ship. When his father became ill, Jack and his wife Elfrida, joined him in San Antonio and remained with him until his death and his burial with that wonderful ceremony at Arlington.</p>
<p>
From his return from the Philippines in 1910 until World War I, Skinny remained with the Cavalry from time to time assigned to special duty. He was a member of the Cavalry rifle team at Camp Perry, Ohio, in 1910; a student at the Mounted Service School for three months in 1913; on border patrol at Calexico, Calif.; on exhibition duty with his horses at the Panama-Pacific Fair at San Francisco in 1915; again at the Mounted Service School for advanced training in 1916; and on border patrol again when World War I called him to other duties. He had now reached the grade of captain and had command of his own troop, the grandest service of all. He was commended by his colonel for marching seventy-two miles in twenty-four hours in pursuit of bandits in the Chiricahua mountains and returning a few days later with his troop in first class condition, a splendid example of leadership.</p>
<p>
When the nation began to prepare for World War I, he was detailed as Adjutant of the First Officers Training Camp at Plattsburg Barracks, renowned for the quality and service of its students and teachers. At the close of the camp he joined the General Staff of the 76th Division at Camp Devens, MA., and went with it to France in 1918. Graduating from the Langres General Staff College there, he joined the staff of the 82nd Division, serving in the Toul and Pont-a-Mousson defense sectors, and in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. At the armistice, he joined the Third Army staff and marched into Germany, remaining at Coblenz until October 1920.</p>
<p>
Upon his return from the war, he began his training for the inevitable recurrence of the world struggle for mastery. He was an instructor at the Cavalry School; a General Staff Officer of the 3rd Division at Camp Pike, Arkansas; on the War Department General Staff for plans and training and later for supply; had troop duty with the Third Cavalry at Fort Myer, VA.; and came back again to the War Department General Staff, from March 1925 until 1928. Then he attended the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood Arsenal; the Advanced Course at the Cavalry School; the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth; was Director of Instruction at the Cavalry School; a student at the Army War College; and then was assigned to the Cavalry School as Assistant Commandant.</p>
<p>
In the summer of 1936 he took command of the Third Cavalry at Ft. Myer, Va., where he had been so many times before. He received his promoti on to brigadier general there in 1938, and went to Ft. Bliss, Texas to be the Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Brigade until September 1940. This was the end of his training for World War II. Europe was already engaged in a deadly combat and Japan was occupying areas in the east on any excuse whatever, making evident preparation for the future struggle for Asiatic supremacy.</p>
<p>
General Wainwright sailed for Manila in September 1940, being promoted to Major General when he arrived and assigned to command the Philippine Division. After December 7, 1941, that memorable date in American history, he went headlong into the defense of the Philippines under General Douglas MacArthur. The Japanese came on as and where they were expected, and he took them into battle, countering their moves in an orderly retreat to the prepared defenses of Bataan. Here outnumbered by many thousands, and deviled by every oriental wile and trick, he held firmly, counterattacked to win back any losses of ground, personally visited every line, as often as conditions warranted, to encourage his Americans and his Filipinos, and in spite of hunger and disease, when food and medicines were low, he maintained morale—the most essential element in war. He assumed command of the whole defense of the Philippines when General MacArthur was transferred to Australia, and moved his headquarters to Corregidor. When the exhausted defenders of Bataan were crushed by sheer weight of numbers and the incessant pounding by artillery and aircraft, he held out on the island until, with constant bombing and shelling, the Japanese were able to overrun his guards and overwhelm his garrison. Long after ordinary men would have given up he held on, until he was sure that the mission was accomplished. He announced the end and quietly walked into the meeting place, accepting his fate as a prisoner of war.</p>
<p>
From May 1942 until August 1945, General Wainwright and his command remained prisoners of war, under sneering, pompous, brutal guards, in Formosa and Manchuria. Lack of his normal food, lack of medicines and good medical treatment, lack of any respect to which his rank entitled him under the customs of war, injured by rough and dangerous brutality, he was reduced to a skeletal semblance of his former self when he was brought by command of General MacArthur from his prison camp to the battleship Misnotiri to witness the surrender of his enemies. MacArthur handed him one of the pens with which he signed the surrender terms. Wainwright had it framed and hung in front of his desk as a symbol of the final triumph of the cause he defended so bravely at Corregidor, and in his will he bequeathed it to his son as one of his very precious possessions.</p>
<p>
On September 8, 1945 he arrived in San Francisco, to be met with loud acclaim whenever he appeared. In Washington he was met by the military leaders, addressed the Congress, and was applauded and praised everywhere. In New York he was given one of the greatest receptions ever accorded a hero by an admiring people. In mid-September he went to White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, for a much needed and well-earned rest for about six weeks, but the demand for his presence was too great to remain longer. He was carried throughout the country, boosting with patriotic fervor the sale of Victory bonds. After a short assignment as Commanding General of the Eastern Defense Command, he was assigned to the command of the Fourth Army at San Antonio. Texas, in 1946. For physical disabilities, incident to his strenuous service, he was retired from the Army on August 31, 1947.</p>
<p>
On March 17, 1948, he accepted the Presidency of the Armed Forces Mutual Life Insurance Company, and later became Chairman of the Board of the Time-Life Insurance Company. These companies specialized in handling the insurance problems of military personnel. General Wainwright brought to these companies an administrative experience that they appreciated greatly. He expanded their scope of operations and added services, building the companies to their present leadership in the field of insurance for military personnel. He remained with this work until his last illness came upon him. They took him to Brooke Army Hospital, where, after the final strokes numbed his bright mind at last, he passed into a coma and died quietly in sleep.</p>
<p>
For his superior service in World War I, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, and for superior service in 1942, he had an Oak Leaf Cluster added to it.</p>
<p>
For extraordinary heroism in action in Northern Luzon, during his retreat to Bataan and his defense there, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.</p>
<p>
For his intrepid and determined leadership against greatly superior enemy forces in the Philippines, the United States Congress awarded him the Medal of Honor on September 10, 1945.</p>
<p>
For his conduct of his command in the Philippines he was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation with two Oak Leaf Clusters.</p>
<p>
For his heroic efforts to save their country from being overrun by the Japanese, the Philippine Government awarded him the Philippine Medal for Valor. Poland presented him with the Polish War Cross (Virtuti Militari), and Mexico presented him with its Medal of Military Merit, 1st Class.</p>
<p>
His many other medals and ribbons include: the Mexican Border Service Medal; World War I Victory Medal with three battle clasps; Army of Occupation of Germany Medal (World War I); American Defense Service Medal with Foreign Service clasp; Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with Bronze Star; World War II Victory Medal; and many others.</p>
<p>
His Degrees were conferred upon him as follows: from West Point, Bachelor of Science; from Pennsylvania Military College, Doctor of Military Science; from College of Puget Sound, Doctor of Military Science; from Syracuse University, Doctor of Laws; from Seton Hall College, Doctor of Laws; from Whitman College, Doctor of Laws; and from New Mexico A&M College, Doctor of Laws.</p>
<p>
His diplomas from military schools were; from West Point, 1906; from the Mounted Service School, 1916; from the Cavalry School, 1929; from the Chemical Warfare School, 1928; from the Command & General Staff School, 1931; from the Army War College, 1934; and from the General Staff College at Langres, France, 1918.</p>
<p>
Wainwright is not a new name in American life. Skinny was the fourth of the family with the name Jonathan Mayhew, and his son Jack is the fifth. His father, Robert P. P. Wainwright, graduated in the Class of 1875, served his country faithfully, and he’s buried in Arlington only a little way from the grave where Skinny was laid to rest. But because of Skinny, the name is now high on the list of America’s great and it will be repeated many times by future orators on days of memory—to stir the timid to action and to spur the brave to higher, nobler deeds in the service of our nation. Yet, through all the terrible days of struggle and defeat and prison, all through the better days of victory and of the highest praise by his countrymen, he never thought of himself as a hero, never spoke of his wonderful service, except to call it duty, performed with honor for his country. We, who have marched beside him in the Long Gray Line, know where he got those three great words that sustained him in the hours of crisis and decision—”Duty, Honor, Country.” And because of him, they shine brighter now on the shield of West Point. They are burned a bit deeper in the hearts of all her living graduates.</p>
<p>
For us who were boys with him at West Point, and for us who served with him in the old Army and sang and made merry with him at parties and reunions, he was our grand, bright, jovial companion, ready to shake the bones with any or all of us for the next round, to sing “The Wild Missouri”, to recite “Fiddlers Green”, or just to work up an argument to enliven our moments together. When he established his home in San Antonio, he called it “Fiddlers Green” after his favorite ballad, and it was a merry place. He was the hero, when heroic deeds were called for, a kind father with Jack and Jack’s wife Elfrida, a loving husband, saddened deeply by Adele’s illness and her absence from his home, a grand classmate whenever he was asked to do his part for West Point, but always the soldier, worthy of his officer’s uniform, loving his organization, knowing its story, eager and ready always, serving his country in the best tradition of the military service. Now it is over, on this plane at least. May the next be his too, in even greater measure.</p>
<p>
And when his ship nears that distant shore from which no man returns, his far-seeing steel-blue eyes, searching the coming shore will see no doubt his many friends waiting for him, but near them in the shadows will be his old black horse with youth renewed and at the bridle his old orderly, young again too. Behind them, the black horse troop, First Cavalry, waiting too, horses in line, men at the bridles, the First Sergeant at his post. Skinny steps ashore, waves to his friends, mounts his horse and rides before his old troop, as it snaps to attention. “Prepare to Mount”, he commands. Left foot in stirrup, hands on pommel, they wait. “What a picture”, he thinks, as he smiles with satisfaction. “Mount, he sounds off with the old long cavalry drawl, just as he did in the days long ago. Gracefully, they swing into the saddles, adjust the reins, pat the necks of the nervous horses. And there it stands, ready for action, that same old troop he led through the Chiricahua Mountains, after bandits raiding across the border. He used to say then, that there was no freer man in all the world than a captain of cavalry on an independent mission.</p>
<p>
“Fours right”, “Harch”. How natural it sounds! How pretty it looks! The troop swings into column and he trots to the head of it. As he rides on he calls to the First Sergeant, who trots to his side.</p>
<p>
“How did all this happen, Sergeant”, he asks.</p>
<p>
“We’ve been waiting here ever so long for you,” the sergeant replies.</p>
<p>
Skinny looks back over the beautiful column, raises his forearm.</p>
<p>
“Trot, Harch”, he commands. Clickety, clickety, clickety, come the familiar sounds from the trotting hoofs, as they take up the new speed over the grassy plain. “Wonderful, wonderful”, he smiles in his joy.</p>
<p>
Gone are the bitter days of Bataan and Corregidor! Gone are the dreadful scenes and the nasty little men of the prison camps! Gone, too, are those days, when, alone, in his hero’s cage, he worked for other men and made their speeches! Here he is a free man again. Turning in his saddle, he raises his arm over his head.</p>
<p>
“Gallop, Harch”, and off they go together, glorious and free, over the Elysian hills into the shadows.</p>
<p>
That’s the way he would like it.</p>
<p>
Goodbye, Skinny, Old Soldier, Young Again.</p>
<p>
<em>—Charles G. Mettler</em></p>