Harold H. Dunwoody

Harold Halsey Dunwoody (9 January 1919 – 16 September 2015) was a United States Army brigadier general who served as the commanding officer of the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. Army's second-highest decoration for valor for his valorous actions in the Korean War. He commanded troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, enabling him to be one of the very small number who ever was entitled to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge with two Stars, denoting active combat in three wars. He was also father of the first female four-star general, Ann E. Dunwoody.

Early life

Harold Halsey Dunwoody was born on January 9, 1919, in Paris, France. His parents were Halsey Dunwoody, a West Point class of 1905 graduate and Silver Star recipients of the World War I, and Doris Dunwoody (née Slater).

Military career

In June 1939, he entered the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, graduating in June 1943 in the Western Europe campaign. After he was wounded in the leg during the Battle of the Bulge, he was able to escape from a disabled German tank on the Siegfried Line, in the region of Alsace-Lorraine, on the French-German border.

After the war, he was promoted to major, and a temporary rank of lieutenant colonel in September 1949 before reverting to the rank of major. He took part in the Korean War and served here for eighth months. From August to September 1951, he commanded the 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.

Dunwoody's Distinguished Service Cross citation reads:

In 1957 he was appointed an operations and training officer at Headquarters, 7th Army, Stuttgart, Germany. He was promoted to colonel in 1960. One year later, he graduated the National War College. From 1961 to 1964, he served as an senior officer in the Department of the Army and later served as Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Study Group, from 1964 to 1967. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1967 and served as an senior officer in the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and United States European Command from 1968 to 1970.

From May to July 1971, he participated in the Vietnam War, as commanding general, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division of the XXIV Corps at the Quảng Trị province, which withdrew from Vietnam in August 1971 and returned to Fort Carson, Colorado. He retired in 1973, with the rank of brigadier general.

Later life and death

In 1946 he married Elizabeth Hoshier Dunwoody (1924–2006), a graduate of Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in home economics. They had four daughters and two sons: Susan, Anne, Jacqueline, Katherine (d. 1957), Harold, William. The eldest daughter, Susan (née Schoeck), became the third woman to become an Army helicopter pilot; her husband, James, was an Air Force colonel; their daughter, Jennifer, became a fighter pilot and flew missions to Afghanistan. Son: Harold Dunwoody Jr., West Point graduate (1970), first lieutenant. Daughter: Ann Dunwoody - general, the first woman in US military history to achieve the rank of four-star general.

He died on September 6, 2015, at the age of 96 in Englewood, Florida. He was buried with full military honors at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Randolph, next to his wife. He was honored in the United States Congress.

Awards and decorations