James H. Stratton

World War II Stratton was promoted to major in the Corps of Engineers on 1 July 1940 and lieutenant colonel in the Army of the United States (AUS) on 11 December 1941. On 11 December 1941—four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II—he became the Chief of Engineering in the Office of Chief of Engineers, based in the Railroad Retirement Board Building in Washington, D.C. This was the largest of the branches of the Construction Division, which had recently been transferred to the Corps of Engineers from the Quartermaster Corps, with about 1,400 personnel. Stratton started with decentralizing the office. He told his section chiefs that "we have a job for everyone in this branch, either here or in the field. ...I know many of the Quartermaster people particularly are worried. No one will be out in the street." Over the following months the staff was reduced to about 500, largely through transfers to the district offices. An important part of his job was managing wartime shortages of critical materials. Stratton ordered a sweeping review of structural plans, and huge quantities of scarce materials were saved as a result. One of his civilian assistants described Stratton as "an Engineer who was an engineer". He was promoted to colonel (AUS) on 4 July 1942.

On 15 September 1943, Stratton became the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, of the United States Army Services of Supply (SOS) in the European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA), with the rank of brigadier general (AUS) from 28 May 1944. which was the highest vehicle tunnel in the world when it was opened. He retired in January 1967, and moved to Washington, DC.

Stratton's publications included a 1945 article on military airfields that received the American Society of Civil Engineers' Arthur M. Wellington Prize, and he contributed chapters to the Handbook of Applied Hydraulics (1952) and American Civil Engineering Practice (1956). He was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1979, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1981. He was a member of the board of education in Englewood, New Jersey, for seven years, and a member of the Special Curricula Committee that advised the dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Civil and Sanitary Engineering on the structure and content of undergraduate courses. He also served on MIT's board of visitors, which met once a year to advise the department.

Stratton died from congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on 16 March 1984, at the age of 85, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Dates of rank