Lee, John Clifford Hodges.

24-09-2023

Lee, John Clifford Hodges, born 01-08-1887, in Junction City, Kansas,   the son of Charles Fenelon Lee and John Clifford born Hodges.Johne had two siblings: an older sister, Katherine, and a younger sister, Josephine. Known as Clifford Lee during his teenage years, he graduated from Junction City High School in 1905, ranked second in his class. His high school success enabled him to compete in 1904 for a 1905 appointment to the United States Military Academy from Representative US Congressman.Charles Frederick Scott

without having to take the qualifying exam. He was selected as the first alternate, and planned to attend the Colorado School of Mines, but received the West Point appointment after the first choice resigned. Lee graduated 12th in the class of 1909. His classmates included Jacob Loucks “Jamie”. Devers, who was ranked 39th, and George Smith Patton Jr “Old Blood and Guts”. , who was 46th. The top 15 ranking members of the class accepted commissions in the United States Army Corps of Engineers, into which Lee was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 11-06-1909.

Promoted to first lieutenant on 27-02-1912, Lee became an instructor for the Ohio National Guard, then returned to the 3d Battalion at Fort Leavenworth. In September and October 1912, he was aide de camp to the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson. here with General Dwght David “Ike” Eisenhower. When the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Major General Leonard Wood, asked Lee what assignment he would like next, he requested return to his battalion, which was being deployed to Texas City, Texas on the Mexican Border, where there were security concerns as a result of the Mexican Revolution.

In October 1913, Lee and the 3d Engineer Battalion departed for the Western Pacific. He conducted topographical survey work on Guam from 23-10-1913 to 30-07-1914, and then in the Philippines, where he was Senior Topographical Inspector with the Philippine Department from December 1914 to October 1915. He commanded the Northern District on Luzon from December 1914 to June 1915, and the Cagayan District from July to September 1915. He returned to the United States in November 1915, and was assigned to the Wheeling District in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was responsible for the completion of the No. 14 Dam on the Ohio River. Lee was promoted to captain on 03-06-1916. For his thesis, he submitted the Manual for Topographers he had written in the Philippines.

In Wheeling, Lee met and married Sarah Ann Row. Reverend Robert Edward Lee Strider, Sr ., who later became the Bishop of the West Virginia, conducted the ceremony at St. Matthew’s Church in Wheeling on 24 September 1917.[8] The couple’s only child, John Clifford Hodges Lee, Jr., was born on 12 July 1918 and would likewise become a career Army officer, serving in World War II and various domestic assignments, ending his career as Colonel leading the Office of Appalachian Studies, and dying in 1975.

 

 

 

 

 

 Lee gives a speech. Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the army’s first African-American general sits behind him.

 

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