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<em>George Arthur Taylor</em>, the fourth of five sons, was born in Flat Rock, Illinois, on 14 February 1899. When he was five, the family moved to Pryor, Oklahoma, where he graduated from the Pryor High School in 1916 where he was a straight A student. He attended the University of Illinois from June 1917 to November 1918 when he left to enter West Point—graduating on 13 June 1922. His West Point classmates soon observed in George those sterling qualities which in later years were to make him a great battle commander. Patience, persistence, sincerity, calmness, kindness, and thoroughness were among his outstanding traits. He tried to obtain every detail of any subject that caught his interest. His classmates particularly enjoyed being in his class sections. He would at times courteously, persistently, and patiently question the instructor regarding a subject. Sometimes this took up quite a bit of time in the class, much to the satisfaction of other cadets present, because this shortened the time the others had to recite. The points George brought up were of interest to us and we also had the pleasure occasionally of seeing George get the instructor on unfamiliar ground where he was unable to answer some of the questions.</div>
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In July 1924 George married Jean Graham. They had one child, a daughter, Elizabeth Jean, bom 16 May 1929, and she survives—living in San Jose, California, with her two sons. George’s first wife died 23 December 1937 at Fort Leavenworth where he was attending the Command and General Staff School. As a young officer George had various assignments in the Philippines, Hawaii, the Infantry School at Fort Benning and other posts. On 29 May 1941 he was sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where he received amphibious landing training, and as a result was later considered an authority on such landing operations. In August 1942 he left New York as a civilian on a U.S. State Department passport for Foynes, Ireland, and thence to London, England, as amphibious expert. In London he was attached to the Navy under Admiral Bennett as a liaison officer, lie sailed to North Africa and landed with a naval party at Arzew, east of Oran. He left the Navy in February 1943 to take command of the 26th Infantry Regiment of the great 1st Division. He saw his first combat at Bon Arada, and opposed Rommel’s Afrika Korps at Kasserine Pass over rugged terrain and with bitter fighting. In early April 1943 he took command of the 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division and led them through the remainder of the African Campaign which ended at Mateur, Tunisia on 3 May 1943. In March 1943 he was wounded at El Guettar when six German ME 109 planes hit his Command Post. He returned to an assembly area near Oran for further training of his regiment preparing for the invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943. His battle record in Africa and almost continuous battle actions to the end of the war in Europe in May 1945 caused his classmate General Maxwell D. Taylor to write later, “I have always viewed him as one of the outstanding members of the Class of 1922 who established a combat war record which few have equalled."</div>
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He landed with his regiment east of Gela, Sicily, to carry the brunt of the invasion. A desperate campaign followed facing the Hermann Goering Panzer Division. It was riflemen fighting tanks. George gave the order. "Under no circumstances will anyone pull back. Take cover from tanks, but don’t let anything else get through. An artillery company is on its way. Give orders for everyone to hold positions.” The final result was victory—a decisive factor in the Sicilian invasion.</div>
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In late 1943 George and his regiment landed in England in preparation for "D” Day. The following from a California newspaper describes the action at Omaha Beach on “D” Day. “The day twenty-five years ago 6 June 1944 was D-Day in Normandy, France. Taylor and his regiment were the pride of the 1st Division, veterans of landings in Africa and Sicily. But they must have been sickened by what they saw as they approached the beach. There were cliffs over one hundred feet high topped with German machine guns and artillery raining fire on them. The rocket and bomb attacks intended to soften German resistance had completely missed the beaches. The Air Force had dropped 13,000 bombs so far behind the defenses that the Germans did not even know they had been bombed. There were no craters on the beaches. The tanks that were to have protected them did not make the beach. Many of the Americans were landed in the wrong areas. Others were cut down before they reached the beaches. To the survivors huddling behind obstacles on the beach the battle seemed out of control, and lost. Taylor’s boat was the second one to land on the beach. He and those of his men who made it ashore jammed up on the gravel beach in a confusion of disorganized units, no longer with junior officers, and lacking any desire to push through the enemy barbed wire and mine fields. Colonel Taylor endeavored personally to order the mob before him forward through the gaps. But those GIs were not accustomed to getting orders direct from Colonels. Orders from Sergeants, yes; to those they had learned by hard experience to react automatically. But as for orders from Colonels, the men were too numbed by what they had gone through already to absorb any such radically new ideas—they only stared dumbly at him and squeezed a little harder against the gravel. They weren’t moving. Taylor was no man to accept disaster simply because it seemed inevitable. Grabbing the nearest sergeant, he roared out to him and to all the panic-stricken CIs clinging to the gravel near him; ‘Two kinds of people are staying on this beach—the dead and those who are going to die! Now let's get the hell out of here.' And ordering that sergeant to collect a sizable squad, regardless of what unit either he or they belonged to, and start across the road, lie now got action. Soon every non-com, leading men he had never seen before, was on his way through the wire to the bluffs. The tying up of the 16th Infantry on the beach was loosening. Taylor won the Distinguished Service Cross—the Army’s second highest decoration—that day, his men the Distinguished Unit Citation. The next month George was promoted to Brigadier General and sent to the 4th Division as Assistant Division Commander to Major General R. O. Barton. This took him through central France, and he was the first American general to enter Paris after it was liberated. He received, on being transferred 6 October 1944 back to the 1st Division as Assistant Division Commander, a letter of commendation from General Barton for his ability and keen judgment in leading troops in combat. Further combat duty with the 1st Division took him through the Mons and Aachen Campaigns as well as the Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge. After these came the battles for Bonn, Germany, the Remagen Bridgehead, and the final battles of the Harz Mountains and in Czechoslovakia. His last battle achievement was in receiving the surrender in Czechoslovakia shortly before the end of the European War in May 1945, of 70,000 German troops under the command of Lieutenant General Fritz Benicke near Elbogan. General Benicke wished to have the surrender document read ‘Elbogan, Sudetenland,’ but George refused, saying, ‘There is no Sudetenland, you are in Czechoslovakia.’ They also offered a Nazi salute which he refused to acknowledge.” There is a picture of this surrender scene in the California newspaper.</div>
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From there George went with the 1st Division to Nuremberg, Germany, for occupation duty. His first leave in three years of twenty-one days came on 20 August 1945 when he went to Washington, D.C., to carry out instructions of Major General Clift Andrus. From Washington he went to Birmingham, Alabama, and was to have returned to Europe. He became ill there and was taken to Borden General Hospital at Chickasha, Oklahoma. It was then discovered that the wounds suffered in combat at El Guettar when his command post was strafed by six ME 109s, and also at Landrecies, France, in September 1944 were serious enough to place him in the hospital. After a long hospital stay he was retired from active service for disabilities on 31 October 1946. Moving to Palo Alto, California, in early 1948 George became active in civic and military affairs.</div>
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On 26 June 1958 he married Helen Oliver Hubbard at the Presidio Chapel of San Francisco. She survives him and lives in Palo Alto. On 7 and 12 March 1960 George suffered massive strokes, and, after being treated at Letterman Army Hospital, returned home for three years, when it became necessary to enter the Veterans Hospital in Palo Alto where he passed on on 3 December 1969. George was greatly loved and respected by all who knew him.</div>
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He was reticent and quiet with a droll sense of humor. He was a strong character with an awareness of others and a keen understanding of life and its problems. He could be firm, but was always a gallant, gentle man with quiet humility. He was a serene, stable person who lived up to the high ideals of West Point, and of his beloved 1st Division whose motto was, “No mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great. Duty first.”</div>
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He was laid to rest at West Point where Father Lawrence E. Berry, who had served with him at Fort Jay, and later in the African and Sicilian campaigns and also at Omaha Beach, gave a eulogy which moved deeply all present. Part of the eulogy follows—“when he returned to us in combat, we discovered another characteristic, that we knew not of, his void of ambition and his complete calmness under fire. He had no minstrel to sing his praises. No bard to immortalize his deeds. His sole concern was the efficiency of his command. Others used the fruit of his talents to promote their fame. When word came down, prematurely as usual, of the fall of Tunis, he called and told me to get into the city, visit all the hospitals, find out the number of our wounded, and to bring back all those capable of being moved. I was there ahead of the Eighth Army, and didn't like it too well, and so reported on my return. His reply was ‘That’s what we are here for. To take care of our own. We can do it better than they can.’ The only time he raised his voice was when German tanks overran our position in Sicily. His command was, ‘Stay right where you are.’ The rest is history." A great many accolades were received and we have room for only two. General Clift Andrus said, “a great leader of men—a legend in his own time." Major General Kenneth G. Wickham, "General Taylor was a most capable officer who possessed outstanding ability as a leader...The decorations and awards bestowed on him attest to his loyalty, devotion to duty, and courage.” He served in battles and campaigns in Tunisia, Algeria, French Morocco, Sicily, Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe. He had nineteen decorations and citations from the United States and foreign countries including the Distinguished Service Cross and eight Bronze Battle Stars. We say adieu to this great soldier who served his country well, and enriched the lives of all who knew him.</div>
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<em>—Rupert H. Johnson</em></div>
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