Lieutenant General Henry Spiese Aurand (April 21, 1894June 18, 1980) was a United States Army career officer. He was a veteran of the Mexican Expedition and World War II. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Aurand was ranked 20th in the class of 1915, known as "the class the stars fell on" because no fewer than 59 of the 164 members of the class who graduated became generals. His classmates included Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, both of whom later achieved five-star rank. He was commissioned in the Coast Artillery Corps, but later transferred to the Ordnance Department.
He served on the Mexican border during the Pancho Villa Expedition, was an assistant to the officer in charge of the design and construction of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and was at the Sandy Hook Proving Ground from 1917 to 1919. Between the wars Aurand attended Ordnance School at the Watertown Arsenal in 1921–1922, the Army Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 1927–1928, the Army War College in 1930–1931, and the Army Industrial College in 1939–1940. He served in the Philippines from 1925 to 1927, and on the faculty of the Ordnance School at Watertown Arsenal from 1929 to 1930. From 1933 to 1937, he was an instructor in logistics at the Army War College.
During World War II Aurand was the Director of Defense Aid, the program that sent Lend Lease materials to the Allies. He became the Chief of the International Division, Army Service Forces in 1942 and later that year the secretary of the Combined Production and Resources Board. In September 1942 he became the Commanding General of the Sixth Service Command, based in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944, Aurand was assigned as the Assistant Chief Ordnance Officer, European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) and Communications Zone (COMZ). He become the Commanding General, Normandy Base Section, in December 1944. In May 1945, he went to the China Theater as the Commanding General, United States Army Services of Supply there.
Aurand returned to the United States as the Commanding General of the Sixth Service Command, and he was commander of the Africa-Middle East Theater in 1946. In June 1946, he became the last Director of Research and Development, War Department. In 1948, he became the Director of Logistics, Department of the Army. His final assignment was as Commanding General, United States Army, Pacific, a position he held until his retirement in 1952.
Early life Henry Spiese Aurand was born in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, on April 21, 1894, the only child of Peter Augustus Aurand, a conductor on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and his wife Annie Speise. When he was eleven years old, the family moved from Tamaqua to Shamokin, Pennsylvania. He attended Shamokin Area High School, where he played violin in the school orchestra, captained the debating team, and edited the school literary magazine. His ambition was to go to Pennsylvania State College and become a civil engineer, but he sat the examination for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and received a nomination as an alternative. When the principal candidate failed the physical examination, Aurand wrote to his United States Congressman, John Geiser McHenry, declining the nomination. McHenry replied that he had already been declined twice, and would not take no for an answer. After a family discussion, it was decided that Aurand would go to West Point, serve the minimum four years, and then complete postgraduate engineer training at Pennsylvania State College.
Aurand entered West Point on June 14, 1911, becoming a member of the class of 1915, which became known as "the class the stars fell on" because no less than 59 of the 164 members of the class who graduated became generals. His classmates included Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. West Point cadets chose which of the five combat arms of the Army (infantry, cavalry, field artillery, coast artillery or engineers) they would join with each nominating in order of class rank, limited only by the quotas set by each arm. Aurand was ranked twentieth in the class, which was high enough to have a completely free choice. Most of the highest-ranking cadets (and indeed all those ranked above Aurand) chose to join the engineers, but Aurand chose the Coast Artillery, in the hope of eventually transferring to the Ordnance Department and becoming a mechanical engineer. He graduated and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery on June 12, 1915.
World War I Aurand's first posting was to the 169th Company at Fort Monroe, Virginia, from September 11, 1915, to April 15, 1916. He then went to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, but on June 2 was sent to El Paso, Texas, where he was in charge of civilian truck companies supporting the Pancho Villa Expedition in Mexico. He was promoted to first lieutenant on July 1. While there, he married Margaret John (Peggy) Decker, the sister of a fellow officer, in San Antonio, Texas, on July 13, 1916. Her father, Davis Evan Decker, was a Texas state senator and judge; her grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth Morrow, was the oldest daughter of Sam Houston. They had two children: Evan Peter Aurand, who graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1938, and eventually rose to the rank of vice admiral; and Henry (Hank) Spiese Aurand Jr., who graduated from West Point with the class of 1944.
From October 3, 1916, to November 1, 1917, Aurand was a student officer at the Ordnance School at the Sandy Hook Proving Ground. He was promoted to captain on July 25, 1917. His first assignment with the Ordnance Department was an assistant to the officer in charge of the design and construction of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Major William R. King. He was promoted to major in the Ordnance Department on January 14, 1918. He returned to the Sandy Hook Proving Ground, where he spent the rest of World War I working with civilian scientists on the development of flashless propellant.
Between the wars After the war ended, Aurand returned to Fort Monroe on April 7, 1919, as the ordnance officer at the Coast Artillery Training Center. On March 21, 1920, he reported to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as Assistant Ordnance Officer of the Southern Department. He reverted to his substantive rank of captain on May 17. Two days later he became the Adjutant and Disbursing Officer at the San Antonio Arsenal. His wife Peggy left him, and divorced him. He formally transferred to the Ordnance Department on July 1, 1920, with the rank of major, but reverted to captain again on November 4, 1922.
From September 10, 1921, to November 6, 1922, Aurand was a student officer at the Ordnance School at the Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts, and took a summer course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He differed with the senior instructor at the Watertown Arsenal, arguing that ordnance officers should be trained in field repairs, leaving the complex tasks to civilians. As a result, he received an adverse efficiency report that rated him as being deficient in military bearing, neatness, tact and judgement, and recommended that he be given field service assignments only. This ended any prospect of his being given a mechanical engineering position. In November he remarried Peggy; their son Peter was a ring bearer at the wedding. On November 6, 1922, Aurand became the Ordnance Officer for the V Corps Area at Fort Hayes, Ohio. In this role he supervised the training of National Guard units from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, and in November 1923 he prepared mobilization plans for the Corps Area.
Promoted to major in the Ordnance Department for the third time on January 8, 1924, Aurand went to Washington, D.C., on August 18, as a staff officer in the office of the Chief of Field Service in the Ordnance Department. His next assignment was as Ordnance Officer of the Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays. It commander, Colonel Stanley D. Embick, recognized his ability and made him his G-4, the staff officer responsible for logistics. He told Aurand that this was where his true talent lay and he should forget about engineering. On Embick's recommendation, Aurand attended the Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after which he returned to Fort Hayes as the G-4 of the V Corps Area from June 27, 1928, to August 16, 1930. In November 1929, Peggy divorced him a second time.
From August 17, 1930, to June 30, 1931, Aurand was one of the two Ordnance Department officers to attend the Army War College that academic year. He produced a study of Germany's mobilization during World War I, and one of the British Zeebrugge Raid. He returned to Washington, D.C., where he worked on a special study. He then produced a new ordnance field manual. He was critical of the Army's mobilization policies, and advocated replacement of horse-drawn transport with motor vehicles. This was followed by duty at the Watertown Arsenal, Raritan Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground.
With the help of his West Point classmate Eisenhower, who was now the aide-de-camp to the Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, Aurand secured an appointment to the War College faculty. On February 2, 1933, he married Elizabeth (Betty) Steele from Shamokin, Pennsylvania. They had a daughter, Linda. At the War College he taught a course on "Supply and Transportation in the Theatre of Operations". He was critical of the make up of the faculty, which he felt contained too many men from the combat arms. Of the seven most important posts—the commandant (Major General Malin Craig), assistant commandant and five directors—five were from the cavalry arm. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1936. This was followed by a tour of duty at the Picatinny Arsenal from June 28, 1937, to September 6, 1939, when he left to attend the Army Industrial College.
At the Army Industrial College, Aurand had assisted in the production and development of an industrial mobilization plan, but he had been critical of the process. He argued that the notion of defining grand strategy (ends), determining how to pursue it (ways), and then deciding what resources can be applied (means), had the process backwards: the means should be determined first, and realistic ways and ends derived from them. He believed that logistics was the decisive factor in modern warfare, and rejected the cautious assumption that the public would not countenance the creation of the machinery for industrial mobilization in peacetime. He submitted an article to the Army Ordnance journal in which he attacked the Ordnance Department's approach to ammunition design. While the editor liked the article, the Office of the Chief of Ordnance deemed it too controversial, and refused permission for its publication.
World War II United States