Paul Newgarden

Major General Paul Woolever Newgarden (February 14, 1892 – July 14, 1944) was a senior United States Army officer.

Contents

• Commands
• Important Promotions
• References

He was born on February 24, 1892 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of a United States Army medical officer, Lt. Col. George J. Newgarden, and Margaret Woolever Newgarden.

As a boy he lived on a number of Army posts until his father’s retirement due to physical disability in the line of duty in 1907. He saw the routine of peacetime Army life, its ups and downs, its vicissitudes, at first hand. It was only natural that he should seek an Army career.

He obtained an appointment at large to the United States Military Academy and entered on March 1, 1909 from Washington, D. C. at the age of 17.

As a cadet, he was thoroughly liked and respected. With a sunny disposition, strong in support of his beliefs, loyal to his friends, always courteous and tactful, energetic in class and in sports, he early on showed the basic essential elements for the high degree of leadership which marked him for early selection to command. Some cadet classmates thought that he was by nature a reformer with the idea of continually improving that well established place of learning. The Howitzer of 1913 suggests that he may have missed one or two points of alleged depravity in the system, but that in general he did his honest best to make two blades of grass grow where a path ran before. All through his four years as a cadet he worked industriously in the gym and in every class of athletics that the Academy allowed. He made several squads, baseball, broadsword, indoor meet, hockey, and the Cullum squad, and took an intense interest in marksmanship. These interests were later to pay dividends when he gained important command. While he acquired a number of nicknames, the one that stuck longest was “Pistol Paul”. It is significant that this name so early indicated a talent which he later developed to become a Distinguished Pistol Shot and a member of the Infantry Pistol Team in 1923 which won a national championship from the Marines.

An ardent believer in the Infantry as the backbone of the Army, he first joined the 21st Infantry Regiment at Vancouver Barracks in 1913. Not only did he have regular regimental duty, but was also assigned to at least five training camps on the west coast as an instructor just prior to World War I. He also took time to further other interests of value to an officer. In 1919 he was National Junior Saber Champion. Next he was assigned as a tactical officer at West Point, which prevented him from going overseas in World War I. He modestly characterizes this wartime duty by saying, “They will still tell you how the Corps did its part toward winning the war by keeping their Tacs at home”. He only saw those battlefields when after the war he accompanied a group of early graduates in a trip through France, Germany and Italy.

While at the Infantry School in 1921-1922 he still continued his interest and training in marksmanship. While he did not make the National Rifle Team, he did become a part of that immediate training organization and had his turn at Camp Perry. However, in 1923 he made the Infantry Pistol Team. He served in 1924 with the 27th Infantry Regiment in Hawaii as a Major, and completed this tour in the Islands with a year as Inspector of the Hawaiian Division. Upon his return to the United States, he first completed The Command and General Staff School. He was then assigned to command the Infantry Demonstration Battalion at The Field Artillery School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma from 1927 to 1931. His experience in tactics was rapidly broadening. That early interest in sports which he showed as a cadet again came to the fore. He not only took part in polo, tennis, swimming and hunting, but also taught tennis to the younger generation at Fort Sill, as he had also done in Hawaii. He regarded this assignment and location as a high spot in his career because it was here he met and married Priscilla Quimby of Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts in December 1927.

Following the course at the Army War College, in 1931-1932, he had duty in the Training Section, Office of the Chief of Infantry. All throughout his various assignments he was particularly interested in his classmates and the class as a whole. He undertook and did a fine job as business manager for the class when the Twenty Year book was being published.

By now his ability for higher echelon jobs was well established and he became G-l of the First Army in its initial organization from 1934 to 1936, and later G-3 of the Sixth Corps Area in Chicago. However, his main love was straight duty with troops. In 1940 he organized and trained the 418th Infantry. During this period General George S. Patton said of him on his efficiency report: “Colonel Newgarden is the best regimental commander I know. He is a natural leader. He will go far”. His rise in command was fast.

On January 15, 1942 he was promoted to Brigadier General and commanded combat team A of the 2nd Armored Division.

Shortly thereafter, on June 22, 1942, he was promoted to temporary Major General, and assigned to organize and train the 10th Armored Division at Fort Benning. He was quick to command and, perhaps more importantly because so seldom encountered, he had the moral courage to relieve for incompetence.

General Newgarden said, “We of the 10th Armored Division have chosen to call ourselves ‘Tigers’ because of the tiger’s many soldierly characteristics. Tenth Armored ‘Tigers’ should be able to describe to their friends, as well as be able to impress their enemies, with these tiger qualities. The ‘Tiger’ is primarily a field soldier. He is at home in the field, jungles, or woods. His motto is to ‘Terrify and Destroy’. He is able to carry out his motto because of his marvelous muscular development, smooth coordination, his ability to maneuver and surprise his prey, and when he hits, he hits hard, and shoots straight at the mark with devastating accuracy. No one ever saw a fat ‘Tiger’—he keeps himself in perfect condition—not to mention his coat, which is always clean and neat. The ‘Tiger’ has one weak spot—he hates water, but he can be taught to swim. The ‘Tiger’s’ favorite attack is made in the dark—he has such a good sense of direction, and he has worked so much in the dark, that he never gets lost. The ‘Tiger’ never quits. He is the most ferocious fighter in the animal kingdom. We have 12,000 ‘Tigers’ that will never be licked!”

Official visitors were impressed with the superior results he obtained. Among those visitors were the President, the Army Chief of Staff, and various general officers high in the training organization of the Army as well as distinguished British leaders, including Anthony Eden.

While Major General William H. H. Morris took the "Tigers" into battle, general Newgarden was the first to command and train them, where the 10th Armored Division "Tigers” later played a key role in several engagements during World War II.

He was returning in a military aircraft to his Division Headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia, from an important Armored Force conference at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Learning that one of his junior officers could have a few hours with his family by a rerouting of his plane to land the officer at Chattanooga, Tennessee, the general changed the route accordingly, although ill fortune unexpectedly blanketed the area with a violent storm, resulting in the fatal crash.

He was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit on October 12, 1944, the presentation being made to his widow. The citation reads, “For exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as Commanding General, 10th Armored Division, from its activation 15 July 1942 to his death 15 July 1944”.

General Newgarden was survived by his widow, Priscilla Quimby Newgarden, who lived in Brunswick, Maine; his stepmother Mrs. George J. Newgarden of Washington, D. C. and his brother, Colonel George J. Newgarden, Jr. (U.S. Army, Retired).

The likeness of General Newgarden, as seen above, was drawn in charcoal by T/4 Louis J. Short of the Tiger Division.