<p>
Nobody should be saddled with my obituary. My past is so mixed up I can scarcely untangle it myself. Anybody else would tell only the good—a distorted account, unfair to my memory. No one would report that I’d been fired from the seminary, from college, and from West Point, even though I finished at all of them, the firings and the finishings affecting me differently.</p>
<p>
Early in my career I sensed that it was my calling to make laughs instead of Phi Beta Kappa. So I was content with the middle of the Class in studies, but not in comedies, singing, football, writing, and musical groups.</p>
<p>
I was happy to be called back to the Academy as an English instructor, but it jolted me a year later when 50 of us were sent back to troops under the Manchu law. However, I was back in 1916, and shortly thereafter had my first short story published in <em>Scribner’s Magazine</em>. It was then that Colonel Holt, because of other commitments, gave me responsibility for the English Department, where I had fun with new approaches, one of them leading to the publication of <em>The English of Military Communications</em>, published by Banta and Company.</p>
<p>
In order to overcome that old bugaboo, idleness, I began work on a master’s degree and obtained it in 1913. I also wrote another short story, which a friend of mine sent to the<em> Atlantic Monthly</em>. I called it “Ruggs—R.O.T.C.” and was astonished when it was quickly accepted. It astonished me even more when my story was the first to be published in pamphlet form by the magazine, and I was aghast when that same story was included in the textbook, <em>Atlantic Narratives</em>. I was so stimulated that, when<em> Who’s Who in America </em>asked me, at age 36, to come into its pages I was not impressed.</p>
<p>
I was enjoying my work in the English Department when I was summoned to Headquarters by the Superintendent, General Tillman. He asked me to take the job of adjutant and naturally I accepted. When General MacArthur became Superintendent I initiated action to withdraw as adjutant, but he insisted that I stay and then began the most uplifting period of service of my life. I described those years in a dramatic narrative, <em>MacArthur Close-up,</em> which I laid away.</p>
<p>
In those full years I was asked by William Appleton to write a history of the Army. He argued that it was a disgrace to the country not to have one. He’d been trying for 20 years to publish such a history, but the versions of several quite prominent men were unacceptable. I disliked leaving fiction, but this was a challenge. Reluctantly I signed the contract.</p>
<p>
Then came a detail to Benning as head of the Editing Board with the mission of rewriting the regulations. After that I became head of the Department of History and Methods of Instruction, where I tried to heighten interest with teaching devices using humor and burlesque. The students brightened but the staid standpatters frowned.</p>
<p>
I had just finished <em>The History of the United States Army</em>, when I was detailed as a student at Leavenworth. There I did better in vaudeville acts than in the course. It just seemed to me that I’d been destined always to finish “near the middle.” But I did enjoy a real lift when one of the students handed me a copy of the book review section of the <em>New York Times</em>—the whole front page was devoted to my History! Then followed such superlative reviews in newspapers and magazines from San Francisco to London, England, that I was flabbergasted.</p>
<p>
Naturally, I was soon detailed to the history section of the Army War College in Washington. Additionally I was made the Army’s contributor to the <em>American Year Book</em>, coeditor of the <em>Medical and Surgical History of World War I</em>, and Army editor for the <em>Encyclopedia Britannica.</em> Privately, I contributed twelve biographies to the <em>Dictionary of American Biography</em>, including the one on Winfield Scott.</p>
<p>
Because of my mediocre showing at Leavenworth, I was surprised when I was detailed as a student to the Army War College. But I enjoyed the broad scope of the course there, and after completing it, I was sent as Professor of Military Science and Tactics to Boston University. There the situation was far from normal, for in 1930 the country and many of our schools were shot through with radical pacifism. In my position I was a natural target, some groups even featuring me on pink handbills. General Fox Conner became so concerned that he had me go on the radio to straighten out the misrepresentations of United States’ history in our schools. Initially I did a three month stint on the Yankee Network, but I was asked to stay on. I remained for three more months, but by then the workload was becoming too heavy and I had to discontinue my program. The requests for copies of my talks were so persistent that I eventually produced them in book form under the title: <em>Soldiers Unmasked</em>.</p>
<p>
During the six years that I was at the University I filled many speaking engagements throughout New England, and at the end of my tour there the faculty was kind enough to pass resolutions approving my service. I left Boston to take command of Fort Screven, Georgia, and District F of the CCC camps. I must have done all right at the University, however, for General Moseley wrote to tell me he had given me a straight superior efficiency report. I also learned at that time that Generals MacArthur and Fox Conner had done the same.</p>
<p>
When I was made Chief of Staff of the 99th Reserve Division in Pittsburgh, I was sure the job had the subtle signs of the sidetrack. But the public didn’t take it that way. Before long I was being sought out to speak throughout West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I even addressed a national convention at the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. I take little credit for these “outbursts,” for I had learned that if you can make your audience laugh, slip in a few truths, and sonorously utter one sentence which nobody can understand, you’re “in.”</p>
<p>
It really did come as a surprise to me, though, when out of the blue I was rescued from my decline and fall by General Drum. He wanted me to be Director of Public Relations for the First Army maneuvers.</p>
<p>
After scouting the Carolinas for a suitable site for my headquarters, I recommended the Kirkwood Hotel in Camden, South Carolina. For the type and magnitude of the operation the General wanted, there was no precedent. A building of over 100 rooms had to be converted into suitable accommodations for distinguished visitors: civilian, military, foreign, and domestic; all manner of facilities had to be installed for the press; a briefing room for demonstrating the progress of the maneuvers would be required; and there had to be an acceptable cuisine. Thanks largely to my loyal, zealous staff, General Drum gave me a citation certificate at the end of the maneuver, especially lauding my resourcefulness.</p>
<p>
As PMS&T at the University of Michigan in 1942, I found a deep-rooted pacifism just as I had in Boston, only here it appeared in a different form. There seemed to be a contest here between the humanities and physical fitness. I contended that there wasn’t much humanity in allowing a boy to die in the field simply because he was lacking in muscle or endurance. But the public and the press supported me, and I was called upon to talk in many parts of Michigan.</p>
<p>
We had just won our fight when an amazing wire came from Washington. I was wanted overseas for a “key position!” It was ecstasy after doom. Since seven generals had asked for me to fill “star” positions, only to be told I was “unavailable,” I was sure I was a discard. Miraculously, at age 62, I was to have an active part in the war!</p>
<p>
When I reached Iceland, my joy gave way quickly to sorrow. Only the day before, General Andrews, who had asked for me, had perished with his staff when his plane crashed on a nearby hilltop.</p>
<p>
When I reached London, the new incumbents, hastily assembled, were desperately trying to dig in. Naturally, they had no time for a spare colonel, who himself didn’t know what his job was. But my history odor must have reached somebody’s nostrils, for I was told I was the Theatre Historian, and was assigned a cubbyhole in an attic with one secretary. I felt like the little king with no kingdom. It was slow work building up a section when everyone’s thoughts were centered on tactics and logistics.</p>
<p>
But my spirits soon received a welcome lift. The British had asked General J.C.H. Lee for someone who could speak on American means and methods to students at officers’ schools throughout the kingdom, and he selected me. I was especially gratified when I was asked to make return appearances at Sandhurst and Oxford. Then I was selected to be co-chairman (with an Englishman) of the British-American Dining Club, a project aimed at cementing cordial relations between the officers of the two countries. Later, I was given a most important detail as sole representative from the U.S. Army to the British-American Liaison Board. This board had many important, unpublicized functions, not the least of which was anticipating frictions which might develop in the scope of soldier and civilian activities. I reported directly to our ambassador, who was kind enough to give me letters of commendation when I left for France. I also received warm, regretful letters from every British officer with whom I had served.</p>
<p>
Can’t a dead man brag a little?</p>
<p>
Here the account becomes screwier. I was in the field at Rheims, when I received a call from General Lee. “Bill,” he said, “you’ve got to get in here and save the show.” And that was all. I didn’t even know there was a show, let alone how to save it. But I hastened to the Theatre L’Empire in Paris, where I witnessed a crude attempt at staging something that was supposed to “improve military behavior.” I had 11 days to make repairs.</p>
<p>
I cut tape, replaced actors, rewrote script, directed, and generally made over the acts. I worked around the clock, and after the last performance, I was taken to the hospital, still not knowing the effects of my labors.</p>
<p>
A week later General Lee led his staff into my sickroom and pinned a Bronze Star on my seedy dressing gown. “I wish I might give you a higher one,” he said, “but this is all I’m allowed.” He then told me that the show had improved the deportment of the command at least 50 per cent.</p>
<p>
When I got back to the States, I was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Order of the British Empire, and the Croix de Guerre with Palm.</p>
<p>
At age 69 I wrote a biographical novel,<em> My Heart Remembers</em>. The first publisher to whom it was sent accepted it and gave me an advance royalty.</p>
<p>
In December 1951 I received my finest Christmas present: the president of Dickinson College wrote that the Board of Trustees had voted to confer on me the degree of Doctor of Literature at my 50th Reunion. Up to then I had looked down my nose at honorary degrees, but right then the gold tassel and three stripes became very important.</p>
<p>
I had finished this odd chronicle and properly laid it to rest, when suddenly, at age 81, my <em>MacArthur Close-Up</em> is published with enthusiastic reactions.</p>
<p>
Editor’s Note: Mrs. William A. (Rose) Ganoe, the Colonel’s widow, adds that in the years after the above was written, Col. Ganoe was working on the follow-up manuscript to his<em> MacArthur Close-Up</em>. It would have covered the period when General MacArthur was in Australia. Col. Ganoe felt that that was a time of high accomplishment, a phase of the MacArthur career that needed to be recorded. Ill health prevented him from completing the project.</p>
<p>
In addition to his widow who lives in Sarasota, Col. Ganoe is survived by four daughters: Mrs. Richard Jones of Amherst, N.H.; Mrs. Mary Ganoe Silsby of Bradenton, Florida; Mrs. Rebecca Nussdorfer of Lexington, Mass; and Mrs. Honora Closz of Yellow Springs, Ohio.</p>
<p>
Interment was planned for June 1967 at the West Point Cemetery.</p>
<p>
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