Benjamin B. Talley

Benjamin Branche Talley (July 29, 1903 – November 27, 1998) was an American engineer. He was involved in military construction in Alaska before and after World War II, and earned the nickname "the Father of Military Construction in Alaska". He was involved in planning the Normandy landings and Battle of Okinawa during World War II. After the war, Talley led various engineering districts, including the North Atlantic Division, before retiring as a brigadier general in 1956. After retirement, he was involved in civil engineering and oversaw the reconstruction of central Alaska after the Good Friday earthquake.

Early and personal life Talley was born in Greer County, Oklahoma, on July 29, 1903. He graduated from high school in Enid, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma A&M College. Talley graduated from Georgia Tech in 1925 with an electrical engineering degree, and from the Graduate Engineering School of Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1926. He was married three times and survived by a son.

Army service Talley first entered the military as a reserve officer in the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps in the mid-1920s. He joined the United States Army in June 1926. When Talley returned to the United States, he worked to make maps based on aerial photographs for nine years, publishing the textbook Photogrammetry. He also invented a 'portable stereocomparagraph' and lectured at Harvard University. On January 15, 1941 he became area engineer for Army construction in Alaska, supervising the construction of twenty-eight projects totaling around 300 million dollars. He had traveled to Anchorage, through Seward, on January 7. Convinced that the United States was going to enter the World War soon, he ordered construction to continue on projects such as Elmendorf throughout the winter. Talley was in the field for two-thirds of his time, flying over 900 hours in two and a half years. On May 1, 1941, his role was renamed 'officer in charge, Alaska construction', and he became a member of the Alaska Defense Command's staff. He worked to improve the state's shipping capabilities and rehabilitate Anchorage's harbor.

By October 1941 Talley was a colonel. In November he visited John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, in San Francisco to get several projects approved. He arrived back in Alaska on December 6, just a day before the Attack on Pearl Harbor. He oversaw construction of a secret base on Umnak that protected Dutch Harbor from a Japanese attack.

In Europe and to the end of World War II In June 1943 Talley traveled to Europe, where he helped plan the Normandy landings and served as the V Corps' deputy chief of staff.

Under Talley's command, the brigade headquarters returned to England, and embarked for the United States on 23 December 1944. It arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on 30 December. After four weeks leave, it reassembled at Fort Lewis, Washington. Part of the brigade headquarters went by air to Leyte to join the XXIV Corps for the invasion of Okinawawhich Talley helped plan, while the rest traveled directly to Okinawa on the USS Achernar. and was head of the estimates branch of the intelligence division on the Army General Staff from 1949 to 1952, Talley became division engineer of the Mediterranean Division, Nouasseur Air Base in 1955. In the 1980s, he was on a committee advising on the documentary Alaska at War, which premiered in 1986. Talley died on November 27, 1998, in Homer, Alaska, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.