Walter M. Robertson

Major General Walter Melville Robertson (June 15, 1888 – November 22, 1954) was a senior United States Army officer. During World War II he received the second highest American military award, Distinguished Service Cross, for his leadership of the 2nd Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

Early military service

Walter Melville Robertson was born on June 15, 1888, in Nelson County, Virginia, as the son of William Walter Robertson and his wife Mary Fannie (néé Pettit). He completed the Central State Normal School in Edmond, Oklahoma, in summer of 1907, then a preparatory school and subsequently enrolled the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, where he took a special work in engineering. In May 1908, Robertson interrupted his studies, when received an appointment to the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York.

Upon his graduation, three days before his twenty-fourth birthday, Robertson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Infantry and ordered to Hawaii, where he joined the 1st Infantry Regiment at Schofield Barracks. He served with that unit until mid-1915, when he was ordered to the Presidio of San Francisco for service with the 24th Infantry Regiment.

After he assumed command, he led division during the four-month intensive training in winter warfare at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and embarked for England in October 1943. Robertson then led his division during another period of training in Northern Ireland and Wales and finally deployed to France on Omaha Beach on D-Day plus 1 (June 7, 1944) near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer.

Life after the War In June, 1945, Major General Robertson was transferred to the XV Corps, where he replaced his West Point classmate, Lieutenant General Wade H. Haislip, as a corps commander. He served with the XV Corps as the part of Occupation forces in Austria and then in Germany. In March 1946, XV Corps was inactivated and Robertson was appointed Head of the US Delegation Allied Control Commission for Bulgaria. In this capacity, he led the U.S. team, which participated in the making of recommendations for Bulgaria as the defeated Axis country. Robertson stayed there until September 1947 and received a second Army Distinguished Service Medal for his service in this capacity, the citation for which reads:'

Quote|The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Major General Walter Melville Robertson (ASN: 0-3378), United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility as U.S. Delegate to the Allied Control Commission for Bulgaria, from March 1946 to September 1947.

While in this position, Robertson was responsible for the administration of air raid shelters and gas masks, preparation of disaster relief plans, evacuation plans or Civil Defense drills. He held that office during the early years of the Cold War and Robertson's main task was to prepare the people of California for the possible atomic bomb attacks.

In October 1954, Robertson was accepted to the Letterman Army Hospital for a minor operation, and it was discovered that he had a serious abdominal condition, for which he submitted to an operation on November 9. Unfortunately post-operative complications followed and Robertson died on November 22, 1954, at the age of 66.