Arthur F Gorham

Early Life and Family

Gorham was born in Brooklyn, New York to James Allison Gorham, Sr. (September 13, 1890 – February 9, 1972) and Louise Fox Gorham (April 1885 – July 4, 1966). His older brother was James Allison Gorham, Jr. (November 26, 1911 – May 15, 2005). Gorham's parents were second generation Americans and were both of Scottish descent. The Gorhams moved from Brooklyn to Bellevue, Ohio in July 1917. James, Sr. owned a successful dry goods business.

While awaiting transportation from Governors Island in New York to his first assignment after graduating from West Point, Gorham renewed a previous acquaintance with Corrine "Colonel" Bennett (later Clarke) (October 21, 1917 – October 20, 2001). They had met for the first time a few years earlier at an army football game. Bennett was then a senior at the University of Wichita where she was president of the Pi Beta Phi Sorority (then called the Sorosis Sorority), captain of the rifle team and had held titles in both golf and tennis. The two were married on June 21, 1939 in Wichita, Kansas. The couple had one child, Bruce Bennett Gorham Clarke (born January 26, 1943 at Ft. Benning, GA). Clarke followed in his father's footsteps graduating from West Point, serving in an airborne unit, fighting in Vietnam at Khe Sanh and commanding at every level from a platoon to a brigade.

Education

Gorham was educated in Bellevue, Ohio first at the Ellis School and he later graduated from Bellevue High School in 1932. During high school, he played in the band for four years, was secretary of the junior and senior classes, earned two varsity letters in football and two more in track and served on the high school newspaper, the Blazer, for four years. He was also a member of the National Honor Society.

After his high school graduation, having not secured a sought-after appointment to West Point, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for a year where he played football winning his "numeral." During this time he pledged the Ohio Alpha Chapter of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. Gorham left Miami when he received the principal Congressional appointment to West Point from Rep. William L. Fiesinger. After taking the West Point substantiating examination in February 1934 he spent time at Stanton Preparatory Academy in Cornwall, New York.

On July 2, 1934 Gorham joined the Class of 1938 at West Point. While at West Point, Gorham was known for pipe smoking, surviving academics and maintaining a famously clean M1 rifle. To his classmates, he was known for his easy-going way and love of jazz. He played football for two years winning two monograms as an end on the Army "B" team and earned a marksmanship medal—one shot short of winning an "expert" badge he refused to wear the award mailing it home to his parents instead. During his four years he was an acting corporal, acting sergeant, sergeant, acting company supply officer, and, in his fourth year, wore three chevrons as the lieutenant for Company B. Gorham graduated in the middle of his class and received a commission as an Infantry officer. Gorham's graduation was front page news in his native Bellevue. At the time, he was just the second graduate of Central High School to graduate from a service academy. Admiral John Greenslade was previously the school's sole graduate.

Early Career and Leadership Style

After less than two years with the 30th Infantry in San Francisco, Gorham moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. In November 1941 he graduated from the newly created Airborne School receiving a "Certificate of Proficiency" signed by then Major Robert Sink and, more importantly, a set of silver jump wings. A month later, he completed the School's demolition and sabotage course. It was at this point in his short career that he began to stand out. As one of the early airborne qualified officers, he gained more rank and responsibility as the United States began to form parachute regiments and later airborne divisions.

In 1941 he volunteered to organize the first group of paratroopers on skis. So in February 1942 then-Captain Gorham took his B Company, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment to Alta, Utah, where the United States was testing the concept of dropping paratroopers into the Alps behind the Germans and having them ski down to attack and harass their lines of communication. During this period Gorham is credited with having made the first parachute jump from over 10,000 feet. As was his leadership style, before Gorham would let anyone else jump he first made a solo jump to test whether it was safe. On that first jump, he was soon followed by LT Robert Ellis, SGT Roy Taylor and SGT W.P. Walsh. The troopers trained hard, but falling on skis was different than falling when landing in a parachute jump. There were many legs and ankles injured. Despite much favorable press, the project was eventually abandoned and the troopers were spread out to the newly forming parachute units.

In a 1989 article in Assembly, the magazine of the U.S. Military Academy's Association of Graduates, his son Bruce B.G. Clarke described Gorham's leadership style:

In researching the paraskiers I found Art Gorham described as “soft spoken.” Elsewhere he is described as "Hard-nose" Gorham because of his strictness and insistence on discipline within his battalion. Brigadier General Walt Winton has written: “he exemplified the good commander, demonstrating leadership, concern, initiative, and intelligence. One example of his leadership was his joining then Colonel Gavin and a few others in experimental free fall jumps. The normal static line jump was quite exciting enough for most. Art had an abiding concern for his subordinates. When the regiment made PCS [permanent change of station] moves to Camp Mackall and then to Fort Bragg, Colonel and Mrs. Gorham threw open their quarters on post to shelter others.

The article goes on to report this observation by General Winton:

Our radio call signs in that era were assigned rather whimsically, probably by the regimental communications officer, and Art's call sign was Hard-nose. Some of Art's subordinates do not believe that the emphasis on the call sign does justice to a great leader and a fine gentlemen.

In the summer of 1942 the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was activated in the tarpaper shack Frying Pan area of Fort Benning, overlooking Lawson Army Airfield. Gorham, then a major, was assigned as commander of the 1st Battalion. There was no time lost in getting a hard training schedule started.

In Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assault into Fortress Europe, July 1943 (page 53), Ed Ruggero writes:

Like Gavin, Gorham also spoke quietly. In spite of his youth, he had an almost fatherly demeanor. He shared the hardships and he treated the men with respect from the privates up...he had a genuine concern for their welfare. This didn’t mean the men of the First Battalion were coddled, in fact, it often meant the opposite. Gorham and the other airborne commanders believed the best thing for the men – the thing that came as close as anything could to guaranteeing they would make it home—was hard training.”

Gorham was promoted to lieutenant colonel on December 26, 1942 just shy of his 28th birthday. At the time of his promotion, he was one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army.

Operation Husky: The Invasion of Sicily

On the night of July 9, 1943, the Paratroopers of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment loaded aircraft and departed the coast of North Africa for the island of Sicily. The 1st Battalion, under the command of the 28-year-old Gorham spearheaded the first regimental-sized airborne assault. Winds were high as they jumped in the early morning hours of July 10 and the Paratroopers were scattered across and well beyond their drop zones. Assembling in little groups of Paratroopers, the men began to wreak havoc among the German and Italian defenders of Sicily.

In the combat that followed, Gorham positioned himself and the few dozen stragglers he found on the high ground near Comico airfield. On July 11, when approximately ten German tanks and a battalion of infantry began to assault their position, and all of his men were lying as low as possible, Gorham was on his feet, dodging incoming fire and moving around the position, bucking up his outnumbered men. When one of the bazooka teams was killed, Gorham sprang for the weapon, loaded it himself, and went after one of the tanks. He hit the tank’s vulnerable side which set the tank on fire. Gorham then moved from point to point firing at the eye-slit of tanks, shouting encouragement to the men and directing their fire until the counterattack was beaten off. For his actions on July 11, 1943 Gorham was awarded the nation's second highest award for bravery, the Distinguished Service Cross.

The next day, July 12, Gorham and his little group of paratroopers came face to face with another German tank near Niscemi, Sicily. William B. Breuer in Drop Zone Sicily describes the action: Gorham “grabbed a rocket launcher and edged his way within range of a menacing Tiger Tank which had continued to roll forward. Gorham, out in the open and in full view of enemy tankers, kneeled to take aim at the tank. Gunners in the Tiger spotted the parachute leader and fired an 88mm shell at Gorham at point blank range. Gorham, hardnosed to the end, fell over dead." The citation for the Distinguished Service Cross he was awarded for his actions reports: “Lieutenant Colonel Gorham personally manned a rocket launcher and destroyed one tank. While attempting to destroy another with hand grenades and a rifle, Lieutenant Colonel Gorham was killed.” This second description is consistent with the reports relayed to Gorham's family by Chicago Tribune reporter John Hall Thompson in December 1943.

Gorham's death was first reported by Bill Ryder in a March of Time radio broadcast on August 19, 1943. "One of the outstanding examples of heroism was Lt. Col. Arthur Gorham whose unit was attacked by tanks. When one of his bazooka teams was wiped out by an approaching tank, he manned the weapon himself and got the tank single-handed before being killed himself by another tank on their flank."

There is some confusion about the actual date of Gorham's death. Army records list his date of death as July 11, 1941. His second Distinguished Service Cross citation lists the date as July 14, 1943. This is the date listed on Gorham's headstone. In Phil Nordyke's Four Stars of Valor, page 425, he explains: "Colonel's Gorham's death is listed in Army records as July 11, 1941. Both Captain Edwin Sayre, in his monograph written in 1947, and Dean McCandless, who was with Gorham when he was killed, state that Gorham was in fact killed during action that took place on July 12, 1943. McCandless states that he found Gorham's CP (command post) on the morning of July 11 and was put on outpost duty by Gorham that evening. He states that the next morning Gorham recalled him and they moved to Hill 41, where Gorham was killed."

For his actions on Sicily, Gorham was awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses. He was one of only five members of the 82nd Airborne during World War II to be twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The other four were General James M. Gavin, General Matthew B. Ridgway, Major General Reuben Henry Tucker III and Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin H. Vandervoort. Gorham was also posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman Badge and a combat star to his jump wings.

In August 1948, Gorham's remains were returned to the United States. He was interred in Bellevue, Ohio in a family plot.

Tributes and memorials

In a letter to the Gorham family, General Jim Gavin credited Gorham and his Paratroopers with much of Operation Husky's success: "Most of the combat success of the regiment in Sicily was due to Art and the men of his command." In his book, On to Berlin (page 47), General Gavin wrote "Colonel Gorham and his small group of troopers and the lieutenants from the 3rd Battalion, 504th, accomplished all of the missions assigned to the entire regimental combat team. It was a remarkable performance, and I know of nothing like it that occurred at any time later in the war...His death was a great loss to the division."

General Matthew Ridgway, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, probably put this in the best perspective when he wrote to Gorham's widow: "The action which resulted in his death was typical of his inspiring leadership, for it was he that personally instilled the spirit of the attack at a time that those around him were thinking only of defense, and in person led the attack, which succeeded. His indomitable spirit acknowledged no odds.”