Lucas, John Porter (1890-1949)

U.S. Army. Via ibiblio.org

John P. Lucas was born in West Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1911 as a cavalryman. He served in the Philippines and played a key role in repelling the attack by Pancho Villa on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916. He subsequently served with the Punitive Expedition. He was seriously wounded on the Western Front during the First World War. He taught military science at the University of Michigan; became an artillerist; and graduated from the Command and General Staff School in June 1924 and from the Army War College in June 1932.

Promoted to brigadier general in 1940, Lucas began the war as commander of 3 Division at Fort Lewis, Washington. However, he saw no combat in the Pacific. He is best known to history as the commander of the failed Allied landing at Anzio, just south of Rome. He has been criticized for failing to seize the Alban Hills early in the operation, but there is some reason to believe that, had he done so, his entire corps would have been wiped out by the unexpectedly strong German forces in the area. Anzio was largely an intelligence failure coupled to a failure to appreciate how rapidly the Germans could react.

Relieved in the wake of Anzio, Lucas returned to the United States to command 4 Army in Texas. He served with the advisory group to Chiang Kai-shek from June 1946-January 1948.

Service record

References

Dupuy et al. (1992)

Generals.dk (accessed 2008-5-16)

Pettibone (2006)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2008, 2012 by Kent G. Budge. Index

What's new

Comment on this article