Gillem, Alvan Cullom Jr.

Gillem, Alvan Cullom Jr., born 08-08-1888, in Tennessee, enlisted in the Regular Army in January 1910 and served as a Private and a Corporal with the 17^th Infantry at Fort McPherson. On 11-02-1911, while still at Fort McPherson, he was appointed as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry. During the Second World War, Gillem was a Major General with the XIII Corps . The XIII Corps fought for 180 days in the European Theater of Operations, fighting from the Netherlands to the Elbe River. The corps officially met with the Soviet troops in Gartow where General Gillem met with Lieutenant General Oslikowski  of the 3^rd Cavalry Corps of the Red Army. Gillem’s son, then colonel, Alvin Cullom Gillem II, a flying fighter,

  flying the British Spitfire and the American P-51 Mustang, was credited with destroying three enemy planes in aerial combat. He would become a Lieutenant General later too. Gillem II died very old age 92, on 03-09-2009 and buried on Arlington. In November 1944, the XIII Corps pierced the Siegfried Line and pushed to the Roer River. On 23-02-1945, the corps routed Third Reich forces in the Cologne Plain and made a dash for the Rhine River on 31 March of that year. General Walter Model committed suicde there In 180 days of combat, the corps had progressed as far as the Elbe River to the vicinity of Tangermunde, bringing it to approximately 50 miles from Berlin, Joseph Goebbels (did you know) was also Gauleiter of Berlin, the closest American forces would come to the enemy capital before VE Day. He was also commanding general of the 3^rd Armoured Division, nicknamed “Spearhead” , nickname “Spearhead” and he was succeeded by General Walton Walker. The first elements of the 3^rd Armored in France saw combat on 29-06-1944, with the division as a whole beginning combat operations on 09-07-1944. During this time, it was under the command of VII Corps, nicknamed “The Jayhawk Corps”  , commander Major General James Lawton Collins and XVIII Airborne Corps , commander Major General Mattew Bunker Ridgway for some time and assigned to the First Army, commander Omar “Brad” Bradley and the 12^th Army Group , commander Bernard Montgomery for the duration of its career. By V-E Day, the Twelfth Army Group was a force that numbered over 1.3 million men. General Gillem later served as assistant to General George Catlett Marshall on a Presidential mission to China, where he became special assistant to the commander of the United States forces in Nanking, commander of the China Service Command in Shanghai.

 Alvan Gillem, died at the old age of 84, on 13-02-1973, in Atlanta, Georgia and is buried with his wife Virginia, L, born Harrison, who died age 68 on 25-10-1964, on the Arlington National Cemetery, Section 6. In Section 6 are also buried the Major General, Commander 44^th Artillery Division,  William Beiderlinden and Major General, worked with Garand on the Development of the machinegun, Guy Drewry.