Sharpen Your Bayonets: A Biography of Lieutenant General John Wilson “Iron Mike” O’Daniel, Commander, 3rd Infantry Division in World War II

Introduction

The 3rd US Infantry Division has already been engaged for several hours, exactly since January 22nd, 9:30 pm. It is O’Daniel himself who fixed this moment. For this warrior with a face carved with an axe, whose facial features reveal an unusual dynamism, will and energy, and who has made his Division a tool of exceptional value, this hour is particularly evocative: at the same minute indeed, one year earlier, the Third ID US (3rd Infantry Division) landed at Nettuno, south of Anzio. We have come a long way. The ice, the wind, the perpetual cold does not remind us of the Mediterranean Sea. But the fighting ardor is the same. This is how Maréchal Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Commander of the 1st French Army in World War II, remembers Major General John Wilson Iron Mike O’Daniel, the commander of the American division spearheading the attack of de Lattre’s 2nd French Corps for the final reduction of the Colmar Pocket in Alsace in January 1945. With these words de Lattre paints an evocative picture of not just the moment of the attack, but perfectly sums up Iron Mike.

One of the United States Army’s great combat division commanders in World War II, Iron Mike O’Daniel’s Army career spanned the Mexican Border Crisis in 1916 to our nation’s early involvement in Indochina and Vietnam. He was a well-known and highly respected senior officer whose counsel was valued by President Eisenhower. I am of the opinion as a young officer he became a disciple of the Attaque à outrance (attack to excess) propounded by GEN Pershing which held the victor would be the side with the strongest will, courage, and dash/energy (élan), and that every attack must therefore be pushed to the limit. He observed that dictum in World War I and held to it the remainder of his career. It fit his aggressive personality perfectly.

However, with the nation’s postwar historical focus on the north-west European campaigns of Bradley’s and Montgomery’s Army Groups and the annual commemoration of the Normandy Landings, units and commanders in the other Army Group fighting in Europe, namely the 6th, under General Jacob L. Devers which fought in Southern France in August 1944, have been relegated to a sideshow. This is unfortunate as the units, commanders, and soldiers of the 6th Army Group’s 7th Army, commanded by LTG Alexander M. Patch, Jr., include three of the U.S. Army’s most combat-experienced and decorated Infantry divisions of the war—O’Daniel’s 3rd, the 36th and 45th Infantry Divisions grouped under LTG Lucian K. Truscott Jr’s VI Corps—and numerous heroes, including the 3rd Infantry Division’s 15th Infantry Regiment’s LT Audie Murphy.

Why a biography on O’Daniel now, more than 75 years after his World War II exploits, and 65 years after he retired from the Army having begun to build the South Vietnamese Army? I find O’Daniel to be a fascinating character and inspirational leader. I would also like to introduce O’Daniel to a wider audience, beyond the several mentions, most always positive, in various published World War II histories such as in Martin Blumenson’s Anzio: The Gamble that Failed, When Clark appointed Truscott as Lucas’s deputy and told him he would eventually get the corps, Truscott’s assistant commander, Brigadier General John W. O’Daniel took over the 3rd Division. Tough, uncompromising, and aggressive, ‘Iron Mike’ O’Daniel became universally respected. What was his path in the Army? What formed his leadership personality? For whom did he work and who helped him, if anyone did, to reach division command? Not a Theater, Army Group, Army, or Corps Commander in World War II, he is in that second tier of commanders who rate mentions, but so far have had few biographies written on them.

A biography is not about the author, but the author is always guided by his own background and training as he undertakes the research and sets himself to the actual task of writing. As such, every biography reflects the author’s priorities on what questions are asked and answered and what may or not be important in the painting of a man’s character and place in history. This is very much the case here, as I am so far the first and only person to approach a full-length biography of Iron Mike.

I am a retired U.S. Army infantry officer who served for 31 years in infantry units and on higher staffs. My early years in the Army were spent learning the deadly trade of the Infantry Rifle Platoon Leader—boiled down in the final analysis in to how to accomplish my combat mission with minimal losses in my unit while inflicting the maximum losses upon the enemy. As I rose in the profession of arms, I exercised responsibility over more men, but with the same focus, as an Infantry Company Commander. I served on a battalion staff and brigade staff, informed, and formed by my experience as a small unit Infantry leader. I learned what to expect of myself, of my soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and my leaders. I had the great good fortune over my career to serve under some of the best leaders our Army had during the Cold War. As a professional, I adhered to the philosophy that professionals read and learn from history. The lessons I learned from my own service, from observing my commanders and my peers, and from extensive reading of military history and military thought are the guideposts which I have used in looking at Iron Mike—through the lens of someone who might have served under, with, or in command of him. This is what drives this biography, my own quest to understand O’Daniel as a leader: what his influences were, who his role models were, and if he had any. In short, who was he and how did he come to be Iron Mike?

Iron Mike died in 1975. I picked up the torch to write his biography 35 years afterwards. I was fortunate to meet and speak with several veterans who had served under him, mostly World War II men, who in their old age still had vivid memories of him. Numerous 3rd Infantry Division men had published their own memoirs, and Iron Mike always rated a mention of some sort in almost all of them.

Iron Mike donated his military papers to the U.S. Army’s Military History Institute which has become the Army Heritage and Education Center, so I had access to those papers he saved and thought important. His granddaughter shared what memories she had of him, and some priceless family pictures. I was able to obtain copies of his military personnel records, a true Godsend. But, the biographer’s Holy Grail, an unpublished memoir, though rumored to have existed, has not come to light. With the subject long dead, the opportunity to simply ask the man why, who, when, where, and how are not there. What answers I have found have been mined from mountains of materials. There are likely other mountains out there I never thought to explore for information on Iron Mike, and others I could not get to. I may have missed a vein of gold or silver in the mountains I did mine, but I believe there have been sufficient raw materials to draw a good picture of the man and commander, if not to answer every possible question I would have liked to ask.

O’Daniel’s story is also the story of the United States Army in the first half of the 20th century. The Army went through tremendous changes in his time, and many of the men who served with him have their names recorded in the history books covering our nation’s wars of the 20th century. The Army has its foundations in the interpersonal relationships between its members based on trust in one another’s professional competence, integrity, and loyalty to the Army and nation. The Army’s small officer corps which carried the Army in the 1920s and 1930s was in many ways a small club, with its own cliques, renegades, iconoclasts, corporation men, etc. In researching Iron Mike, I saw many connections, tendrils connecting these men of import, interest, or influence. Some had direct impact, and some only had tangential connections, but their stories add to Mike’s and the Army’s story, and I have included some of them in this biography.

This book includes a lot of pictures. I like pictures and have always found most history books and biographies have too few of them. This book includes a great many first-person accounts, letters, etc., not condensed or edited. I believe in most cases it is best to let those persons’ words convey the message, adding context as required. After all, it was their experience and their insights at the time which matter, not mine.

Mike’s career is representative of the careers Army officers who served in World War I as company grade officers and stayed in the Army through the lean years had. O’Daniel was known as a doer—given any task he got it done, and to high standard. The Army of the 1920s and 1930s placed a premium on attendance at, and superior performance in, its professional schools. O’Daniel, attended the necessary schools on time, but his academic performance was average at best, precluding his attending the prestigious Army War College, a critical step towards promotion to general officer. Yet, he came to command the Army’s premier combat Infantry Division before many of his more academically accomplished peers brought their mobilized divisions to Europe. He did so by being a consummate practitioner of his trade, not a theorist.

The first sparks of my interest in the 3rd Infantry Division’s history came when I, a young, recently commissioned Second Lieutenant of Infantry, with a year of Army schooling at Fort Benning behind me which had followed four years at the Military Academy, reported to my first Army unit, the 2nd Battalion, 15th Infantry in Wildflecken, Germany. The battalion was a subordinate unit of the 3rd Infantry Division then headquartered in Wuerzburg. One item I was required to purchase was a green and red braided cord to be worn on my Class A and Dress Blue uniforms with the French name of fourragère. It looked quite nice but could be a pain in the neck when it sometimes would get caught on something and almost rip the attaching button from the uniform. Every soldier in the 3rd Infantry Division was required to wear it.

The Army has many badges, ribbons, and other accoutrements with which to decorate its soldiers’ uniforms, each with their own special meaning and significance. It becomes a part of the soldier’s toolkit as a professional to be able to instantly read another soldier’s uniform and learn much of that soldier’s military service. This item, the fourragère, signifies the second award of the French Croix de Guerre to the 3rd Infantry Division in its history. The first was awarded in World War I. The first award is an actual medal. After being in the 3rd Infantry Division for a while and in between various field exercises, gunnery densities, alerts, inspections, training opportunities, I managed to squeeze in a little reading on the Division’s history and learned the Division was awarded the fourragère by the French government (General Charles de Gaulle) for its outstanding combat performance in the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in Alsace, France 22 January to 7 February 1945. I further learned for most of that two-week period the Division had served under French command. The Division was one of a few American divisions so recognized by France in World War II.

Another uniform item we wore on our Class A and Dress Blue uniforms was a blue ribbon mounted in a brass frame and was worn over the right pocket, where unit awards are worn. This is the Presidential Unit Citation and is awarded to units for combat actions which would be recognized with the nation’s second highest individual award for valor—the Distinguished Service Cross. In my battalion, our ribbon had several bronze oak leaf clusters mounted on it. This meant the battalion itself had received these citations. One of them was for the Battle of the Colmar Pocket, and it derived from the 3rd Infantry Division’s, along with all its attachments during the battle, having been awarded the citation. The Division is one of the few to receive the citation for the entire unit with all attachments.

As previously stated, every soldier assigned to the Division was authorized and required to wear the fourragère and at least one Presidential Unit Citation while with the Division. Once he was reassigned, he could no longer wear these decorations. Only soldiers who served with the 3rd Infantry Division during the periods for which these decorations were awarded would have been allowed to wear them the remainder of their military careers. This means only those men serving for the period of the Battle of the Colmar Pocket, 15 days, had the privilege of being able to wear them the remainder of their service.

Satisfied with these historical tidbits, and busy learning my trade, I moved on and served a total of three and a half years in the Army’s best division before returning to the United States for further training and subsequent assignment at Fort Knox. That is a story for another day, and another book.

I became interested in O’Daniel himself when I returned to the 3rd Infantry Division in 1993, where I served, as a major, on the Division staff as the G-5 of the 3rd Infantry Division in Wuerzburg. My duties included civil–military relations and representing the Division Commander, Major General L.D. Holder, at commemorative activities in Germany and France. This was the period of the 50th anniversary commemorations of the Division’s exploits in France and Germany and there were numerous events at which I had the honor of representing my commander and the Division. The first of these was the 1994 commemoration of the Division’s landings in the Bays of St.Tropez and Cavalaire-sur-Mer on 15 August. General Holder would participate in the event, and I was responsible for the coordination of his trip there and everything that would happen on the ground. It was a wonderful experience, and I was deeply touched by the admiration and gratitude the citizens in Provence showed towards the U.S. Army and the 3rd Infantry Division for their liberating them from Nazi occupation.

Shortly thereafter, having returned to Wuerzburg and continuing our duties, the Division hosted three busloads of World War II veterans and their families as they visited France and Germany as part of a reunion tour. We met so many great veterans, many of whom had served with some of the Division’s famous soldiers from World War II such as Audie Murphy. There was even a Medal of Honor recipient in the group, Master Sergeant, retired, Wilburn K. Ross. Many of these men spoke with deep respect and admiration of their two Division Commanders—Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., who commanded the Division in Sicily, in Italy, and at Anzio; and John Wilson O’Daniel, who took over at Anzio and commanded the Division for the rest of the war. No one called him General John Wilson O’Daniel; they all called him Iron Mike! That really struck me, and I determined to learn more about Iron Mike.

The year progressed and preparations were ongoing for commemorations of the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in Alsace, in the city of Colmar itself as well as in the numerous villages around it on the Alsatian Plain. The Division received an invitation in the fall of 1994 from the Mayor of Jebsheim, a small village of 1,000 persons which had seen a ferocious week of combat in January 1945 involving both U.S. and French soldiers, to participate in a ceremony to mark the village’s designation by the U.S. Department of Defense as an official World War II Commemorative Community which included the presentation of the appropriately titled flag. My wife Monika and I represented the commander and the Division. This small village had no hotel, so the Mayor, Mr. Jean-Jacques Ritzenthaler, and his wife, Alice, put us up in their home, a 17th-century Alsatian farmhouse with attached barn, courtyard, and milking facility for their 70 milk cows! Mayor Ritzenthaler had been a German soldier in World War II (conscripted, or a Malgré-nous—Alsatians forced to serve in the German armed forces and as most Alsatians of his generation, spoke Alsatian German. My wife and I both speak German. We hit if off immediately. Jean-Jacques loved to tell stories, and he had many of them, and we loved to listen to him. Although he had been serving on the Eastern Front during the time of the Colmar Pocket battle, Mutti Alice was a young girl and was severely wounded by shrapnel during the fighting. We learned a great deal from them about the Battle of the Colmar Pocket.

We returned for the village’s liberation ceremony in January 1995. The Regimental Commander, his staff, a color guard, and an honors company of the 1st Regiment Chasseurs Parachutiste (1st RCP), the French unit which had fought at Jebsheim, were present. The Division sent a color guard and a bugler for the ceremony, which lasted two hours in sub-freezing temperatures as the names of all the village’s citizens who had died during the fighting and the name of soldiers who had fallen were read (over 200). It was a deeply moving ceremony and I was honored to deliver remarks in General Holder’s name. In preparing the comments I conducted detailed research on the battle and learned even more about Iron Mike’s combat leadership. We later attended the impressive liberation ceremony in Colmar on 2 February 1995 in which U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman and the Deputy Commander of U.S. European Command, LTG Richard Keller (previous commander of the 3rd Infantry Division) participated. We were proud to represent the great 3rd Infantry Division once again.

The 3rd Infantry Division left Germany in April 1996. The relationships built since 1958 were severed. However, we believed it was important to keep the link between the Division and the communities in Alsace alive. For the following 25 years, whenever we could, we returned to Alsace to join our French allies and friends in commemorating the battle and the liberation of the various communities. We did this on our time and our own dime, traveling from wherever I was assigned, either from the United States, England, or Northern Germany over the years to ensure the Division’s patch was seen at as many ceremonies as possible. Throughout this period, we would meet veterans and survivors from the war who would share their stories with us. We worked with the Museum of the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in Turckheim to better tell the 3ID’s story. We learned more and more about Iron Mike and his great Division. We were fortunate to represent the 3rd Infantry Division at the 75th anniversary commemoration on 2 February 2020, shortly before COVID-19 put a hold on such activities.

In 2004, we expanded our activities to include Southern France, traveling there to mark the 60th anniversary of the Division’s landings on the beaches of the French Riviera. We learned more about the Division’s operations there and how Iron Mike’s aggressive leadership contributed to the 7th Army’s rapid success. We established the Marne Trail, asking communities liberated by the Division to honor the 3ID with plaques so anyone passing through would learn about the great 3ID. We received great support from the Mayor of St. Tropez, Dr. Jean-Pierre Tuveri, and many other mayors and heads of patriotic associations. Traveling west and then north along the famous Route National 7, pretty much the 3ID’s route in August 1944, we met mayors, historians, and dedicated reenactors who knew in detail the battles which took place in around their communities. These included famous cities such as Aix-en-Provence, Salon-de-Provence, and Montèlimar, and many small villages and towns.

In 2008, we undertook a great project to honor the 3rd Infantry Division’s liberation of Berchtesgaden, Germany, and the Obersalzberg by placing a commemorative tablet on the site of Hitler’s former residential compound, now a luxury hotel. We met more great historians, such as Florian Beierl, who helped us form a detailed picture of the Division’s achievement in Berchtesgaden and reinforced our impressions of Iron Mike. We worked with the city of Salzburg, Austria and its outstanding mayor, Heinz Schaden, in 2010 to reestablish the 3ID’s reputation as the city’s liberators—the 42nd Infantry Division had spent a long time there on occupation duty after the 3ID departed, and most Salzburgers only knew the 42nd ID had been there. We learned from and received excellent support from great Salzburg historians such as Professor Gernod Fuchs and COL Dr. Kurt Mitterer.

We conducted a seminar in Northern Virginia on Operation Dragoon and the Southern France campaign with 23 WII veterans in attendance in August 2009 for the 65th anniversary of the operation, including a commemorative ceremony in the Memorial Amphitheater of Arlington National Cemetery to honor these great veterans of the Forgotten D-Day, perpetually overshadowed by the Allied assault in Normandy. We incorporated name historians to speak on the operation and subsequent campaign, including the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s Chief, Dr. Jeffrey Clark, who co-authored the Army’s official history of the Southern France campaign, From the Riviera to the Rhine. We continued to organize such seminars annually in August or September, and the following year we began to host an annual Battle of the Colmar Pocket seminar in December. We continued to meet veterans and interchange with other historians on the Division’s history and on Iron Mike. It is in this 2008–2010 period in which I resolved, after much research and reading on the 3rd Infantry Division’s campaigns in France, Germany, and Austria in support of all these activities, to write a biography of Iron Mike. We had been telling much of his World War II story through our activities, but aside from knowing he had received a Distinguished Service Cross in World War I, had commanded a Corps in Korea, and had been in Indochina at the beginning of greater American involvement there in 1953, I knew little. With the benefit of German and French sources accumulated over the years of our involvement there I felt confident I could paint an accurate picture of him in World War II. But what had brought him to that point? This is what I wish to explain. Where and why did the Army assign him to the various positions it did after World War II? What did he do after he retired from the Army? Who was he strongly associated with during these years if anyone? Did he have protégés who achieved high rank and high positions of responsibility in the Army? These questions and more are what I hope to answer with this biography.

As to the title of the book Sharpen Your Bayonets!—That battle cry was Iron Mike’s catchphrase. He used it all the time as he worked tirelessly to fire up his troops even in the most miserable conditions. And before every attack, he would speak to the men of his division and in every formation of whichever size unit he addressed, he always told them he would meet them on the objective, and he always did.

CHAPTER 1

Early Days

My service to my country has brought me a full measure of satisfaction that cannot be measured in terms of monetary reward or advancement in rank, but nothing can compare to my thrill when I was promoted to Corporal!

LTG MIKE O’DANIEL IN 1952 LOOKING BACK ON HIS EARLY MILITARY DAYS AND HIS SERVICE ON THE MEXICAN BORDER IN 1916

Sadly, there is little written on O’Daniel’s early life, and no writings from O’Daniel himself on his early life have been located. He was born in Oxford, Pennsylvania on 15 February 1894.

His father, Amos H. O’Daniel, owned a 160-acre farm on the outskirts of Newark, Delaware and was in the dairy business. His mother, Nora P. Wilson O’Daniel, died in 1910 when he was 15. He and his younger brother, James Allison (Al) O’Daniel, moved to live with their grandmother, Mrs. Rebecca A. Wilson, and aunts, Etta and Nell Wilson, in Newark, Delaware. Amos remarried in 1913 but Mike had already started college and Al was finishing high school in Newark. It appears Mike’s parents were Methodists. Iron Mike lists his religion on his military personnel forms as Episcopalian, but I have found no indication Iron Mike O’Daniel was particularly religious. Amos O’Daniel’s parents were Anne Elizabeth Scarborough and John O’Daniel, who was apparently Iron Mike’s namesake.

One of Amos’ brothers was a medical doctor, Dr. Andrew Allison O’Daniel, who served as an Army surgeon at Camp A.A. Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County), Virginia during World War I. He donated his estate in Paoli, Pennsylvania to the government in World War I, which was used by the USMC as Camp Fuller.

Mike’s mother, Nora P. Wilson, was the daughter of James A. Wilson and Rebecca A. Grier Wilson of neighboring Newark. The Wilsons ran the Washington Hotel in Newark for many years. The 1880 census shows James as a hotel keeper and indicates his father was born in Scotland and mother in Pennsylvania. James Wilson died in 1908 and Rebecca in 1920.

Pirate Pitcher Vic Willis baseball card. (Wikipedia Commons)

His Aunt, Etta J. Wilson, was a highly respected and beloved teacher in Newark. An elementary school there is named after her. She may have tried but it does not appear Mike was an exceptionally enthusiastic or adept student! The school recently (2019) won best school in the state of Delaware. Another Aunt, Nellie Wilson, taught music, played organ and piano, and gave recitals in Newark as well as playing accompaniment for church services.

The hotel no longer exists but in its time was quite well known. A former Pittsburgh Pirate player, Vic Willis, bought the hotel after he retired from baseball in 1910 and ran it until he died in 1947. He grew up in Newark and won the 1909 World Series with the Pirates. In 1910, Willis played for Newark’s semi-pro team, and it is more than likely Mike and Al saw him play and perhaps even spoke with him about baseball. Willis was elected to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1995 and was the last pitcher to pitch a no-hitter in the 19th century!

From this sparse family information one can surmise the boys grew up in comfortable circumstances, certainly not poor. Research has not produced any information on how Mike related to his father, especially after his father remarried. The Newark Post reported on social events in Newark and reported several visits by Amos to the boys and Rebecca Wilson on holidays and other special days. Spending a good portion of his teenage years with his grandmother and two aunts must have had an impact on Mike’s character. From newspaper reports all three ladies appear to have been remarkable women.

Iron Mike and his brother Al were close. Small in stature but big in drive, he played baseball (he was a catcher) and football (he played quarterback) in high school and college. His freshman, sophomore, and junior years he played on the Newark baseball team in the Penn-Mar league in the summer. For the 1915 season he only had a .121 batting average, but almost every time he reached base, he ended up successfully stealing another base—clearly an aggressive base runner. His brother Al was on the same team and had a .241 batting average! In both sports it is interesting to note the positions he played were the primary leadership positions on the team. As a catcher, he would have to know the batter, call the pitch, and have the infield and outfield players properly emplaced for the batters’ tendencies and who and how many runners were on base. This would have involved advance observation and analysis of opposing teams. As the quarterback, he would call the plays, and would have to read the defense.

As a sophomore, he was the backup at quarterback, usually playing several series in the 3rd and 4th quarters. He was also the placekicker. The small Delaware team, from a student body of only 500 students, had a successful season that year, losing only one game. The starting quarterback, Michael J. Fidance, a senior, apparently was an excellent and multi-talented athlete. His junior year Mike continued as the backup quarterback and the Newark Post assessed him as the team’s best passer. He would have been the likely starter as a senior. He lettered in baseball and football his sophomore and junior years at Delaware College, later, University.

1910 Oxford, PA High School Football Team, O’Daniel front row, left. (Pennsylvania State Archives, Samuel W. Ochs Collection of Glass Plate Negatives. Reference Group MG-218-5-8, Box 2, BB 29, Item 21)

Some sources record he received the nickname Mike playing football in high school in Oxford although he was always addressed as Wilson in Newark Post reporting on the college’s football games. He was president of his sophomore class at Delaware. He and Al were members of Sigma Nu fraternity and frequently went to dances sponsored by various fraternities at the college and by organizations in the town.

In December 1914, in a freshman versus sophomore athletic contest Mike boxed in the middleweight fight at 129 pounds, having to withdraw after the second round due to a dislocated thumb. Clearly, he was a tough kid, and like many physically smaller boys appears to have compensated for his lack of size with an aggressive attitude.

While at the University of Delaware, O’Daniel was a cadet Sergeant in Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and served in the Delaware Organized Militia, later to become a National Guard unit, in which he enlisted in April 1914. His unit, E Company of the 1st Battalion, Delaware Infantry, was quite active and Mike was active within it. The unit was federalized in 1916 and in June, shortly after the end of the school year, was sent to the Mexican Border in Deming, New Mexico. National Guard units from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico had been called into service on 8 May 1916. With congressional approval of the National Defense Act on 3 June 1916, National Guard units from the remainder of the states and the District of Columbia were also called for duty on the border. In mid-June President Wilson called out 110,000 National Guard for border service. None of the National Guard troops would cross the border into Mexico but were used instead as a show of force.

Delaware football team 1915. O’Daniel is to the left of the player with the D jersey. (Brynn Spiegel)

O’Daniel’s entry from the Delaware 1917 Yearbook. (Marie Godfrey)

This deployment to the Mexican Border prevented O’Daniel from playing in the summer baseball league back in Delaware and his senior year football season where he would most likely have been starting quarterback for the Delaware team.

While at Deming he was promoted to Corporal and then Sergeant and served as company supply sergeant. His younger brother was a private in the same company. It does not appear his unit did much more than camp on the border waiting for something to happen. The company did not return to Newark until January 1917, causing Mike to miss the entire first half of his senior year. Mike may have enjoyed the area while serving on the Mexican border as he would later be assigned to nearby Nogales, Arizona after returning from World War I in 1919. It is possible he requested that assignment.

One of Mike’s friends at The University of Delaware and in the National Guard was Harvey Chaplain Bounds, who was senior to Mike, Class of 1915. They ended up serving as Sergeants together in the Mexican Border Expedition and would attend Officer Training Camp at Fort Myer, VA together in 1917. They would both serve in the 5th Division in World War I. Harvey Bounds did not stay in the Army after World War I, but went on to become one of the United States’ foremost authorities on postage stamps. Incongruous as it seems, Iron Mike collected stamps. He assuredly picked up that hobby from his friend Harvey Bounds!

After his border service he returned to the University of Delaware and left school in May 1917 having majored in Agriculture. He had missed the first half of his senior year, failing to complete the necessary course work for graduation. In his application for the Officer Training Camp at Fort Myer he wrote that he had three and a half years in college.

Sergeant O’Daniel in New Mexico. (Mrs Jean Keith Derickson. Charles Wesley Keith, Sr. photo collection)

E Company, Delaware National Guard on parade at Deming, New Mexico.

In an article in Delaware History magazine written by John A. Monroe, Monroe