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<em>John Francis Regis Seitz </em>was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on 22 May 1908, the second of six children of George Hilary Seitz and Margaret Jane Collins Seitz. To his father’s Alsatian ancestry we can attribute some of the legendary qualities of both the French and German peoples. From the French would come gaiety and<em> joie de viore</em>; shrewdness and intelligence; the flair and panache of a Cyrano de Bergerac and the battlefield bravery of Cyrano. From the German side, thoroughness, steadfastness, solid dependability, and a somewhat stolid stubbornness at times. From the Irish Collinses, on the maternal side of the family, would come the lilt of Irish laughter and an almost outrageous sense of fun—not to ignore a healthy touch of pugnacity.</div>
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Young Seitz attended elementary and high school in Wilmington and entered West Point directly from high school, appointed by Senator Bayard of Delaware. One of the youngest members of the Class of 1929—his 17th birthday came just 40 days before he was sworn in as a cadet in July 1925—he soon became also one of the most well-liked. His life long nickname, Jeff, came of course From his initials, "Jeffer,” soon shortened to Jeff.</div>
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Beginning in Beast Barracks, Jeff evinced many of the characteristics that were to be with him throughout the next four years, and indeed throughout his life. A wonderful sense of fun and humor, a saving sense of proportion as to plebe customs and as to some of the expressed Military Academy values of that era, a casual and relaxed attitude, but not “indifference” in the cadet sense of that word in those days. Jeff had an apple-cheeked handsomeness, a strong, sturdy body which could do almost anything asked of it, a quick, alert mind which he used or not as he chose—and he chose mostly not to use it very much in academics.</div>
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Jeff studied just enough to avoid “foundation” and the slight stigma of being "turned out” for final exams. Similarly, he gave just enough attention to discipline—that is to such things as not being awarded two demerits for “dust on wall locker shelf, a.m.i''—to avoid walking the area, serving punishment tours, or losing Christmas leave. Perhaps it was not possible to frolic through West Point in the years 1925-1929, but Jeff Seitz came as close to it as anyone could.</div>
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During his final year at the Military Academy, he gloried in the classic and sacrosanct role of clean-sleeved, sloppy First Classman. Upon graduation and his entry into what was to be a lifetime of distinguished service to the Army and to the Nation, the change in Jeff’s attitude was astounding. He became "the very model of a modern” second lieutenant and eventually, of course, "the very model of a modern major general.” As a young officer, he was meticulous and immaculate in his dress and accoutrements, completely attentive to duty, to the welfare of his men, to the mission of his unit—no matter how insignificant, in the piping, but let’s face it—extremely dull times of peace. Jeff was highly conscientious. And he was highly ambitions and not ashamed to show it, and still he was casual and relaxed.</div>
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His first assignment was to the 1st Infantry Division with station at Fort Hamilton, New York, surrounded by the borough of Brooklyn on the western end of Long Island—in all but name a part of New York City. There Jeff began a lifelong love affair with that city which never languished. New York became a lodestone that drew him back time after time. Evenually he was to serve five tours in or closely adjacent to the city, in the First Army area, as it became, including three tours at Governors Island—Fort Jay, that delightful 18th century enclave at the foot of Manhattan Island—where his final assignment in the service was as Deputy Commanding General of the First Army. But all this was long in the future.</div>
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Young officers who display the qualities that Jeff displayed in hix early service do not long remain obscure second lieutenants in emaciated infantry companies. They soon become aides de camp to general officers, as did Jeff. He became aide to Brigadier General John H. Humphreys at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Then came assignments as a student at The Infantry School at Fort Benning; to the Philippines; to the Presidio of San Francisco; and to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, where as a major he was commanding an infantry battalion in the 25th Infantry Division at the time of Pearl Harbor.</div>
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The first part of World War II saw him become deputy director of the International Division, Army Service Forces, in Washington, 1942-1943, and later in 1943 briefly on the staff of the 15th Army Group in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, before he was assigned as executive officer of the 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. He became regimental commander of the 26th in November 1943, as a lieutenant colonel, and he received his full colonelcy on 6 May 1944, exactly one month before D-Day for the cross-channel invasion of Europe, Operation Overlord. He was thus in charge for the entire period of the regiment’s rigorous training in the United Kingdom for the greatest amphibious operation in history. He led the 26th Infantry in its landings on Omaha Beach and its hard and successful fight to gain and retain a beachhead against a stout defense and the unexpected opposition of strong enemy forces accidentally in the area on a training mission.</div>
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Then he led the regiment in the succession of great battles that the 1st Infantry Division fought across France, through Belgium, and into Germany and the Siegfried Line At the large city of Aachen, Germany, the ancient Aix-la-Chapelle of Charlemagne’s time, Jeff’s regiment particularly distinguished itself in the bitter fight for that important locality and road net. Then came the doldrums and the agony of the Hurtgen Forest. And finally the breakthrough up to and across the Rhine.</div>
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By this time Jeff’s leadership qualities and promotion potential had of course long been well recognized. General Eisenhower, when meeting with the troops of the 1st Infantry Division just before the D-Day of the Normandy landings, turned toward Jeff and said to the division commander, Major General Clarence R. Huebner, "Why is this young man not a general officer?” A good question, but general officer appointments and “position vacancies” therefore do not come easy for relatively junior officers even in war-time. It was not until April 1945 that Jeff was transferred to the newly arrived 69th Infantry Division as Assistant Division Commander, a general officer’s slot.</div>
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It was while Jeff was in this duty that his new division made the first United States contact with the Russians—the 25th of April on the Elbe River, But V-E Day and the freezing of promotions came before Jeff could receive star rank. Eight years of peace-time service were to pass before his eventual promotion. For his combat service in World War II Jeff was awarded two Silver Stars for gallantry, the Legion of Merit, and three Bronze Star Medals, as well as numerous foreign decorations.</div>
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After World War II Jeff was a student in the first post-war long course at Leavenworth, served on the staff of The Infantry School at Benning, attended the Industrial College of the Armed Forces served a tour as chief of plans, C3, at Headquarters First Army, Governors Island, and in 1950 was again assigned to command his old regiment, the 26th Infantry, still in Germany.</div>
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From this assignment tragedy prematurely returned him to the United States. In 1931 Jeff had married Helen Hardenbergh, an Army daughter whose family had its home base in Winnetka, Illinois. Helen was an elegant, witty, and joyful young woman whose zest for life matched Jeff’s. It was a wonderfully happy marriage. Then cancer struck Helen in Germany, and the family was returned to the United States, Jeff for station at Fort Meade, Maryland, so that Helen could receive treatment for cancer. She died in January 1953.</div>
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The following June Jeff was promoted to brigadier general on the same list as the writer, a fact we took great pleasure in, as sometime West Point roommates. He was at once sent to Korea where he served as Assistant Division Commander of the 45th Infantry Division in the last weeks of the Korean conflict, thus finally attaining the goal of leading troops in combat as a general officer.</div>
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As a brigadier general in Korea, postarmistice, Jeff briefly continued his service with the 45th Infantry Division until the Eighth Army Commander, General Maxwell D. Taylor, selected him to command the 2d Infantry Division, as a brigadier general, during the intensive training period which followed the armistice. This was a signal mark of approval for a very junior brigadier general with only a few months service in that grade. For his Korean service Jeff was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and numerous Korean decorations.</div>
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Jeff returned to the United States in 1954, was soon promoted to major general, and held a series of important positions: Commander of Camp Kilmer, New Jersey; Chief of the New Jersey Military District; Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group. Iran, 1956-1958; Chief of Staff of First Army at Governors Island, 1958-1961; Chief at Governors Island, 1958-1961; Chief of Staff of NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty) 1962-1964. Then back to New York and Governors Island as Deputy Commanding General, First United States Army, from which position he was retired in April 1966 after nearly 37 years service. He was awarded the Oak Leaf Cluster, second Distinguished Service Medal, on retirement.</div>
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In 1956 Jeff and the beautiful and accomplished American actress, Jessie Royce Landis, had been married in Tehran, Iran. Royce divided her time between being wife and hostess to an active-duty major general and pursuing her career as a principal player on the stage and screen. Following his retirement, the Seitzes took an apartment in New York City and also maintained a country home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where Jeff turned his considerable physical energy and planning ability to creating a show place. Jeff and Royce had six fine years during his retirement until cancer took her from him in early 1972. Then there came to Jeff himself a massive stroke in mid-1972, and his life was essentially at an end, although he lived another six years in a nursing home in Silver Spring, Maryland, near his older son, Jeff Jr., constantly seen to by his children and grandchildren.</div>
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Jeff’s marriage to Helen Hardenbergh had brought them three children. John Francis Regis Seitz Jr., who briefly tried West Point in the Class of 1956, found it not his cup of tea, and is now a manpower specialist with the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC. Jeff Jr., has two sons, Jeff III, born in 1961, and Hal, born in 1963. Helen Seitz Patterson, Jeff Sr.’s only daughter, lives in the Ridgefield home and is a business woman. Jeff's younger son, Raymond, is a United States Foreign Service Officer, with station in the London Embassy at this writing. He has two children, a son Barr, born in 1967 and a daughter Hillary, born in 1969.</div>
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Jeff is also survived by two brothers and a sister, all of the Wilmington, Delaware, area. His younger brother, Judge Collins Seitz, is Chief Judge of the 3d United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Another brother, Alfred, is now retired. His sister, Dr. Margaret Seitz, is a psychologist.</div>
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What shall I say, in sum, of John Francis Regis Seitz, Jeffer, Jeff, friend of my youth, whom I saw only a few times in the thirty years of active service that we shared, but whose activities and reputation I followed with the greatest interest and pleasure. I can say that as an officer he had outstanding ability; he was a superior staff officer and trainer, a brilliant commander and troop leader.</div>
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He could “walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch." His service as Military Assistance Advisory Group Chief, Iran, brought him the intimate friendship of the Shah of Iran. His marriage into the theatrical world brought him the close friendship of Prince Rainier of Monaco and of Princess Grace, with whom Royce had played numerous screen roles. And yet he remained essentially the same Jeff we had always known.</div>
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This is not to say he was not a bit of an actor himself. He had flair. He had panache. And he was never one to hide his light under a bushel. He had, particularly in his later years, considerable flamboyance, but it was both a purposeful, calculated flamboyance and a casual, relaxed flamboyance. In some ways he was like the great George S. Patton Jr., in his flamboyance and a certain extravagance of attitude and manner. And like Patton, Seitz had the solid qualities of character, professional ability and skill, and the priceless gift of combat leadership to back up flamboyance and extravagance of manner.</div>
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He never lost bis sense of fun, his sense of humor, his sense of the ridiculous, if you will. When he was being his most extravagantly flamboyant—when, for example he was giving his famous account of “how I took Aachen”—to hear him tell it he almost (almost, but not quite) took Aachen single-handed—there was a wicked and mischievous gleam in his eye that said, “You and I know that this is a bit of outrageous bravado, but aren't we having fun.”</div>
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And finally, I am told that as a colonel, commanding and leading an infantry regiment in combat, he could convince the lowliest trembling private in the most miserably exposed foxhole that the success of his own squad and of the regiment's mission—and, indeed, tire entire course of the war—depended on how well that private fought in the next hour or so. And isn’t that a large part of what it’s all about, after all?</div>
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<em>—William J. Thompson, 1929</em></div>