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As we approach or pass three-score years and ten we are bound to record the passing of classmates. It is then we recall to mind the part each has played in our lives. How each has served his country as a part of the team that has kept this nation free and preserved our liberties and also those kindly and thoughtful acts that have made them our dearest friends. It is with these thoughts in mind we record the passing of <em>Ernest Dichmann Peek</em> on April 22nd, 1950 at San Francisco, California.</p>
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Peek was born November 19, 1878 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He attended the local public schools and graduated from High School in 1897. In June of that same year he entered the United States Military Academy and graduated number four in his class, an “Honor Cadet” The succession of honors that he earned at the beginning of his career stamped him as a brilliant student and a tenacious and loyal worker. He steadily advanced toward the top of his class at the Academy from year to year without once lowering his class standing. He took part in athletics and represented his class in yearly contests. In his military work his proficiency and conduct earned for him the rank of Cadet Officer.</p>
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Upon graduation he was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers. His first duty as an officer was at Willets Point where contact with our combat engineers was made. His remarkable physique and fortitude, with which his ancestors and native State had endowed him, fitted him well for duty with troops. His military record shows he served with marked distinction on such duty.</p>
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He was soon to see actual field service for in June 1901 he was sent to the Philippine Islands where he was assigned to the then rebellious Moro District. For a short time his duties were road and wharf construction on the island of Mindanao. His first actual combat service was as Engineer Officer of the Bacalod Expedition. This expedition was led by John J. Pershing, then a Captain of Cavalry, and its execution placed the first laurels on that officer’s record which was never dimmed. The Expedition was through a wild jungle country and against the Moro when he was at the height of his savagery. Peek proved himself more than equal to the task assigned him for he was cited for gallantry in action against the enemy and awarded the Silver Star Medal.</p>
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Upon his return from the Philippines he continued his service with troops at Washington Barracks. D. C., until May 1905, when he was given his first assignment on River and Harbor work, that of constructing Lock and Dam No. 11 on the Kentucky River. In May 1906 he was placed in charge of the improvement and repair of roads and bridges in Yellowstone Park, Wyo., where for nearly two years he was unwittingly preparing himself for the duties he performed with distinction in World War I, those of organizing and maintaining lines of communication.</p>
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After a short tour of duty maintaining; and repairing the fortifications at Fort Monroe, Va., he returned to troops as Adjutant of the Engineer Battalion at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from October 1908 until August 1909. It was while on this duty that he married Ann Ryan in June 1909 at Leavenworth, Kansas, Miss Ryan’s native city.</p>
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From August 1909 to June 1910 he was a student at the Army School of the Line, from which he graduated as a ‘‘Distinguished Graduate”; this qualified him as a student in the Staff Class at Fort Leavenworth from which he graduated In 1911. He again chose duty with troops and served as Commanding Officer of Company “M”, Engineers, at Fort Leavenworth until August 1912. While on this duty he served a few months in Texas where he participated in maneuvers.</p>
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As a Captain of Engineers he was given his first of several most important assignments on River and Harbor duty. From August 1912 to November 1916 he was stationed at Duluth, MN., then the second largest port in the United States, in charge of all improvements in the many harbors of Lake Superior. For a year and a half of this time he also had charge of the St. Paul Engineer Office and the construction of the lock and dam across the Mississippi River between St. Paul and Minneapolis. His performance of these duties was of a very high degree and prompted his detail to the Office of the Chief of Engineers, as an assistant in charge of the River and Harbor Section of that office. He was on this duty when World War I broke and for his part in it he chose troop duty.</p>
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He organized the 21st Engineers and took the regiment to France. He participated as commander of the regiment in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives, in charge of roads and railroads in the combat zone of the First Army. For his services he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the citation for which reads:</p>
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“For exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services. He organized and conducted the operations of “the Standard gauge and Light Railways of the First Army during its active operations, resulting in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient and the recovery of the extensive Meuse Argonne area. Although handicapped by lack of personnel and material, he pushed the enterprise to success. By untiring, painstaking, and energetic efforts in the use of inadequate means at his disposal, he displayed unusual talent for organization and masterful execution”.</p>
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His fine work on the front won for him the assignment as Chief Engineer, First Army, A.E.F., and later as Deputy Director General of Transportation of the entire A.E.F., and also placed his name on the coveted Initial General Staff Corps Eligible List.</p>
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He returned to the United States in June 1919 and served in the Office of the Chief of Engineers until he entered the Army War College in August of that year. He graduated the following June and served as an instructor at the College until assigned, in February 1921, to the Canal Zone as a member of the General Staff in charge of War Plans and Training. While on this duty he bad charge of the Army’s participation in a joint Army-Navy maneuver. His staff work while in the Canal Zone attracted the attention of the War Department and he was assigned to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War and charged with the Supervision of Procurement of all Army Supplies, a newly created and very difficult duty. He held this assignment for nearly four years, when, to coordinate further the Army business methods with those of civilian institutions, he was sent as a student to Babson Institute, a school for training business executives. He graduated from this Institution as an “Honor Student”. Further to perfect himself along business lines he took a six-months post graduate course in the Poore Publishing Company, The United Business Service, The Babson Statistical Organization and the First National Stores.</p>
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In October 1929 he returned to River and Harbor work in New York City, but he was destined soon again to take up duty with troops as a member of the Inspector General’s Department, and was assigned as Corps Area Inspector at Governors Island, N. Y., from 1930 to 1934. He again took up River and Harbor duty at Norfolk, Va. While on this assignment his duties were broadened to include those of Consulting Engineer of W.P.A. activities in New York State, New York City and all the New England States.</p>
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His exceptional efficiency in River and Harbor work was utilized for more than a year, by assigning him as Division Engineer of the North Atlantic Division, then the largest Division of the Corps of Engineers. With station in New York City he had supervision of all River and Harbor work, Flood Control and Flood Prevention in the area from the north shore of Chesapeake Bay to the State of Maine inclusive.</p>
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Peek started his Army career as an officer with troop duty and he was destined to close it in the same field. On July 1, 1937 he was promoted to Brigadier General of the Line and placed in command of the 4th Infantry Brigade and the station of Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyo., then one of the largest posts in the Army. He held this command for nearly three years, when, on April 26, 1940, he was assigned as Chief of Staff of the Ninth Corps Area, a very important position owing to the imminent prospect of a global war. Upon his promotion to Major General on November 7, 1940, he became Commanding General of the Ninth Corps Area, a command which he held until October 1941. At this time, on account of failing health, he was assigned to less strenuous duty at the Presidio of San Francisco, at which station he was retired on October 31st, 1942 because of physical disability; the last member of the Class of 1901 to be placed on the Retired List of the Army.</p>
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In addition to the honors his own government bestowed upon him the French Government awarded him, for services in World War I, the French Certificate of the National Order of the Legion of Honor, Officer, and the French Cross of L’Etoile Noire, Officer. In June 1940 he was presented with the degree of LLD, by the University of Wyoming.</p>
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Upon his retirement he received high praise from General George C. Marshall, then Chief of Staff of the Army, for the splendid service he had rendered during his more than forty-one years as an officer. General Marshall stated in part:</p>
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“Throughout your career you have been conspicuous for the unswerving loyalty with which you have performed every duty. You have shown a high degree of cooperation and you discharged every mission assigned you with a high degree of efficiency”.</p>
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Human kindness was one of Peek’s fine characteristics; it won him many true friends, especially among his classmates. No matter how strenuous his official duties he unselfishly devoted much of his time to furthering class friendships. He fostered and kept alive the <em>Class Bulletin</em>. As Secretary of the Class, the Bulletin he published for more than a year before our twenty-fifth reunion was responsible for the great success of that event. Since that date he issued it periodically until, on account of ill health, he was forced to turn it over to others. This Bulletin has been a remarkable medium in keeping in touch with classmates, graduates and non-graduates, and their families and widows. It has always stressed the human side of those concerned and has become a source of history seldom approached. The living members of 1901 and the widows look forward, eagerly, for issues. We owe much to “Wisey”, as we so affectionately called him, and the name he liked to hear. We of 1901 are proud of his record, for he especially honored the Class by being the first member to receive the Silver Star, and also by holding the highest command in the Regular Army of any of its members.</p>
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Peek was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. In a simple but impressive military ceremony, with seven of his classmates and many devoted friends in attendance. Thus was marked the passing of a devoted husband, a brilliant and courageous officer who had bestowed signal honor upon the United States Military Academy, the Class of 1901, the Corps of Engineers, the Army and his Country.</p>
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<em>—R. M. B., Jr.</em></p>