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DUTY. HONOR, COUNTRY governed the thoughts, words, and actions of James Roy Newman Weaver his whole life long and underlie anything that can be written of him here.</p>
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Jim went to the Philippine jungle upon graduation. After the hostile Moros were quieted, he came back to Fremont, Ohio, to marry Mary Pontius whom he had known since earliest school days and to whom he had been engaged since furlough summer. She returned to the Philippines with him and gave him a daughter while he was building the road from Lanao to the sea, and then a son, in Manila, where he had brought the last United States troops from Mindanao.</p>
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All three, beloved wife of 55 years, daughter, and son (Colonel, Class of 1936, retired) were nearby when he died quietly after a happy, active day. The host of friends who attended his final services and otherwise paid tribute to him attest to the character and strength for which he was known throughout a varied military career and a happy civilian service to follow.</p>
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Jim became known to many West Pointers in two tours of duty as an instructor there. The first was during World War I and kept him from going overseas despite his best efforts to do so. After that war, he took 57 new officers, his “Pickles,” to the battle areas. He returned to the Academy in 1920 to become assistant professor tn history and English for four classes.</p>
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Many officers will recall his familiar figure, not only in the classrooms, but hiking the hills, riding his own mount, canoeing, and ice skating. They will remember him as unfailingly pleasant, his clear blue eyes alert and interested in all about him. A good Infantryman, he hiked and rode for pleasure. On one of his several tours at Benning he became Master of the Hunt He carried his youthful, athletic, and military bearing to his last day.</p>
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There will be Artillerymen who will remember his abilities as an instructor from his tour at Fort Sill from 1926 to 1930, teaching coordination with the Infantry at the Field Artillery School.</p>
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Before he became a general officer, his duty with troops included the 8th Infantry in the Philippines, the 9th Infantry on the Mexican border in 1915, the 5th Infantry in Maine from 1930 to 1932, and then, in quick succession at Benning, command of the 66th Infantry (light tanks), the 68th Armored Regiment, and the 2d Armored Brigade from 1938 to 1941.</p>
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Of course, there were intervening schools-Benning, Leavenworth, the Army War College, and special schools. In 1937 he went from Wax Department G4 to the infant Tank School at Benning. He was one of the nine senior officers volunteering for this assignment and helped to restore Armor to its World War I eminence, prior to and during World War II.</p>
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Jim was programmed to carry a major portion of this restoration. He was groomed for a major command in the intervening Armor assignments. In October 1941, he departed on three days notice, under sealed orders, to the Philippines to command the Armor there. He arrived 18 days before Pearl Harbor. Most of the tanks being sent to equip his major force were stopped en route when the attack on Luzon occurred.</p>
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MacArthur gave him his star, and Jim assumed forceful command. He brought the tanks, fighting, down the length of Luzon, executed a remarkable rear guard action opposing every amphibious landing with Armor, then took part in the heroic defense of Bataan.</p>
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His own heroism is readily seen in two of his citations. For the Distinguished Service Cross in 1942:</p>
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For extraordinary heroism in action in the vicinity of Quinauan Point, Bataan, Philippine Islands, on 2 February 1942. During repeated attacks by his tank unit of strongly held enemy positions, Brigadier General Weaver maintained advance observation and command posts well forward of our Infantry front lines, and, fully exposed to heavy enemy mortar and machine gun fire, in order to more effectively observe and direct his tank operations. During the action, this valiant officer was at times within 30 yards of hostile infantry lines; and on one occasion was required to fire his pistol at an enemy soldier armed with an automatic rifle within 20 yards of his position. Brigadier General Weaver’s strong and intelligent leadership, as well as his vivid example of courage and devotion to duty which inspired the personnel of his command to intense effort, were significant factors in determining the outstanding success of the entire operation.</p>
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Then for the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945: Brigadier General James R. N. Weaver rendered exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service to the government in a position of great responsibility from November, 1941, to August, 1945. As Commander of the Provisional Tank Group and Advisor on Mechanized Warfare to the Commander in Chief, United States Army Forces in the Far East at the outbreak of the war, he served with great distinction in the defense of Luzon against the Japanese invasion forces. Directing his tanks with outstanding tactical ability, he opposed the hostile lands in Lingayen Gulf and materially delayed the subsequent enemy drive down the central plain. On Bataan Peninsula he skillfully employed his units in repeatedly destroying enemy salients as well as crushing attempted enemy amphibious landings on the west coast. Reported missing in action after the fall of the Philippines in May, 1942, General Weaver was a prisoner of the Japanese Government in Formosa and later at Camp Hoten, Mukden, Manchuria where he was liberated in 1945. By his indomitable spirit and dynamic leadership against overwhelming odds, General Weaver played a notable part in the gallant defense of the Philippine Islands. While a prisoner of war, he bore with heroic fortitude the savage indignities and privations to which he was subjected by his Japanese captors and thereby upheld the highest tradition of the United States Army.</p>
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Jim, who had “missed action” in World War I, also earned a very personal Silver Star for gallantry in action and then a Bronze Star Medal. His Provisional Tank Group, United States Forces in the Far East, was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation with two Oak Leaf Clusters.</p>
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The War Department announced on 17 April 1942 that he had been on Bataan Peninsula when that battlefield fell to the Japanese on 9 April, it was believed he was in the hands of the enemy. In January, 1943, it was announced that he was held prisoner at Karenko Camp on Formosa,</p>
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He had first been with a group of general officers at Camp O'Donnell in the Philippines. As our forces advanced, they were taken successively to Tarlac, Philippine Islands, Formosa, Kyushu, Korea, and Manchuria. The heart-warming stories about “Gentleman Jim” in those desolate prison camps are legend. Molly Weaver wrote every letter the Red Cross and Adjutant General would allow. Jim shared this presentation of home and family, including a new granddaughter, with his less fortunate campmates.</p>
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He was the arbiter who bound them together. He led the refusal of American, British, and Dutch officers to work for the Japanese, and for this maintenance of dignity was beaten over the head. He was chosen to divide the slender ration into equal parts. When he climbed a tree for buds to add to the weak soup, he was punished by being beaten across his shins with bamboo. The wounds ulcerated, but his campmates refused to agree wfith the Japanese doctor that he was dying, and weak as they were, carried him to an airplane, to a different camp, and to smuggled sulpha shared with him by a British brigadier, saving his legs and his life for further adventure. Life was an adventure in Jim Weaver's eyes.</p>
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At war's end he returned to his favorite post. Fort Benning, then went successively to be the Commanding General at Fort Ord, Camp Beale in California, and to the Presidio of San Francisco. He was quietly watchful and had no difficulty absorbing and adjusting to the new Army born of war. When his 60th birthday arrived, Jim was in command of the Presidio of San Francisco and Special Troops, Sixth Army. He and Molly, both, had strong ties to Ohio and to Georgia for retirement</p>
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In Ohio, Jim had been a hero ever since he had been president and valedictorian of the Fremont High School class of 1906. He was remembered as the ace cub reporter of the <em>Fremont News-Messenger</em> and attended Oberlin in Ohio for a year before his appointment to the Military Academy. He is still remembered as the young officer in dress blues marrying the daughter of distinguished Doctor Pontius. Still later, in World War II, one of his National Guard tank companies had gone to the Philippines from Port Clinton, Ohio.</p>
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As for Georgia, there were the land and streams of the Benning reservation and all its associations and memories. Then there were the folk of Columbus who had been good to his girls during the war.</p>
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Still in California he found his classmates: Bagby, Cole, Ladd. Lockwood, Nichols, and Shekerjian, retired and living on the San Francisco Peninsula. His special friend, “Rapp” Brush, was specifically, in Menlo Park. During his last active duty he had learned to love the city. He had worked to save the Presidio from the real estate lobbies that eyed it and fought, successfully, to have the modem general hospital built at Letterman there to strengthen the military tenure. Innately a “goer and a doer” he loved the music, theatre, the intellect, and the vitality of the city and knew that these resources were also at Stanford, ten minutes from nearby Menlo Park. Jim and Molly built on six-tenths of an acre in Menlo Park in the spring of 1948.</p>
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It was clearly predictable that Jim would savor life in retirement as he had “on active duty." There was no perceptible slackening of his activity and interests. He served the civilian community for years: on the San Mateo County Red Cross Board, as an honored member of the Air Defense Team in the Ground Observer Corps during the Korean conflict, as senior citizen advisor to the county school board, and as counselor to youngsters learning to shoot at the police pistol range. He made new friends and was active as a churchman and in other neighborhood matters. Sponsored by Edgar E. Robinson of Stanford he enjoyed 16 years of active membership in the Commonwealth Club of California.</p>
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Yet even day of his civil life he wrote letters. He wrote thousands upon thousands of letters to help, console, or cheer the survivors or the surviving families of his provisional tank group. He wrote to the many associates who had come to rely on his counsel and judgment his force and continuing interest. He still found time to write to those he loved including godchildren and namesakes. He turned regularly to his good garden and a military standard of maintenance of what he had.</p>
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Jim's house was not exactly the ‘"house on a hill with trees and a view of the sea, where he could fly his flag" that he had in mind. But it had a view of the hills, magnificent trees, was near the bay, had no leash law for his dog, and he flew his flag from a branch of one of his trees every day he was home. In this house, Jim and Molly gave their care, love, and interest to another array of people: to their son, his wife, and two daughters, as they came and went; to Jim's mother until she died; to their daughter and her friends: since 1950 to their elder granddaughter whose husband was away doing national service in Alaska: and to their great-granddaughter.</p>
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Jim, with Molly, also travelled during retirement. They went to Japan in the spring of 1950, to West Point for 45th and 50th Reunions, to Alaska, up or down the coast each spring for gatherings of the Wainwright Travellers, to the Ahwahnee at Yosemite each fall for their anniversary. Their great-grandson, Robert James, was born on their 54 th anniversary when they were there. In his last month he laid plans to drive across the country to West Point’s fall Homecoming.</p>
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Jim started the Peninsula 1911 class luncheons in 1948. He and Molly went up to the Nichols in Belvedere for the August meeting the week before he died.</p>
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Jim was Christ’s faithful soldier and servant to his life’s end. We know that he has gone to even greater strength and service, and he will live in our memory and our love.</p>
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<em>-Harold Nichok, 1911, James R. Weaver, 1936, Marian Weaver</em><br />
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