Littlejohn, Robert McGowan, born on 23-10-1890 in Jonesville, South Caroline, one and a half year after Adolf Hitler, attended Clemson Agricultural College for a year before entering the United States Military Academy
in 1908. His student days at “the Point” left an indelible stamp and he made close ties and associations that were to last a lifetime. As a student, Littlejohn was best known for his athletic prowess. Strong, barrel-chested and determined. He quickly made his reputation as a hard-hitting tackle on the football team and a championship wrestler. Following graduation in 1912, Robert was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Cavalry and served three years with the 8th Cavalry
in the Philippines, then 1 1/2 years with the 17th Cavalry
out of Fort Bliss, Texas
, patrolling the Mexican border during the Punitive Expedition.
A punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a political entity or any group of people outside the borders of the punishing state or union. It is usually undertaken in response to perceived disobedient or morally wrong behavior by miscreants, as revenge or corrective action, or to apply strong diplomatic pressure without a formal declaration of war (e.g. surgical strike). In the 19th century, punitive expeditions were used more commonly as pretexts for colonial adventures that resulted in annexations, regime changes or changes in policies of the affected state to favour one or more colonial powers.
Captain Littlejohn returned to his Alma mater as an instructor in 1917, just three months after the U.S. declared war on Germany. He switched from Cavalry to Infantry in Spring 1918, was promoted to major and eventually took command of the 332rd Machine Gun Battalion at Camp Wadsworth, New York. On 27-07-1918, Robert married Mary Lambert from Glastonbury, Connecticut. They had no children.
The 332nd Machine Gun Battalion moved to France in September 1918, where it joined the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) on the Western Front but did not see action before the armistice. In December 1918, he participated in the Occupation of the Rhineland, as commander of a battalion of the 39th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division. On 01-03-1919 he assumed command of the 11th Machine Gun Battalion,
the machine gun unit of the same brigade. On 1 May he was posted to the office of Chief Quartermaster of the AEF before returning home in July 1919.
From 28-07-1919 to 01-02-1920, Littlejohn was stationed in Raleigh, North Carolina, as Assistant District Inspector of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He then went to Charleston, South Carolina, as Assistant Department Adjutant on the staff of the Southeastern Department. He reverted to his substantive rank of Captain on 15-03-1920, but was promoted to Major again on 1 July. On 1 August he was assigned to the Quartermaster of the Fourth Corps Area which replaced the Southeastern Department and soon moved to Fort McPherson, Georgia.
Littlejohn transferred to the Quartermaster Corps on 20-10-1921. From 11 January to 15-12-1921 Robert was a student at the Quartermaster Corps Subsistence School in Chicago; on graduation, he became the assistant commandant. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from August 1925 to July 1926, and on graduation became an instructor there. He then attended the United States Army War College from August 1929 to July 1930.
After graduation, Littlejohn served on the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C., from 15-08-1930 to 13-06-1934. He then returned to West Point for a second tour of duty, this time as a quartermaster. While there he was promoted to Leutenant Colonel on 01-08-1935. This ended on 31-08-1938, and he was sent for a second tour of duty in the Philippines, this time as executive officer of the Quartermaster Depot, and then, from 30-05-1939, as Quartermaster of the Philippine Department. His tour of duty there ended on 20-05-1940, and he returned to the US in June.
With the fall of France in 1940, Littlejohn was recalled to Washington to head the Clothing and Equipment Division, Office of the Quartermaster General. There he demonstrated some of the traits that would become his trademark later on: namely, an overwhelming impatience with bureaucratic red tape and a willingness to side-step “niggling regulations” and get out on a legal limb, if need be, to get the job done. By now, too, he had acquired as much logistical knowledge and firsthand experience as any Quartermaster officer in the Army-and he knew it. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Littlejohn yearned to get out from behind a desk and take on a field command. As he later explained: “My personal ambition was always to be Chief Quartermaster in a combat theater in a major war. After two years in the Office of the Quartermaster General at Buzzard’s Point, pushing papers and being harassed, I decided it was time to break loose.
From June 1940 to May 1942, Littlejohn commanded the Clothing and Equipage Branch in the Office of the Quartermaster General. The division was primarily concerned with procurement, but was accustomed to working closely with the Standardization Branch, which was responsible for design and development. He was promoted to Colonel on 16-11-1940 and Brigadier General on 30-01-1942.
It will be my policy to hide nothing. Every successful businessman does make mistakes, admits them, profits from them, does not repeat them.
Robert Littlejohn,
In May 1942, Littlejohn was appointed Quartermaster General of the European Theater of Operations (ETO) by the new CG-SOS-ETO Lieutenant General John Clifford Hodges Lee,
a position he held for the rest of the war, with the rank of Major General from 03-11-1943. For his services as Quartermaster General, Littlejohn was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal with a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, and foreign awards that included the British Order of the Bath,
French Croix de Guerre
and Dutch Order of Orange Nassau.
His first Distinguished Service Medal citation read, in part:
General Littlejohn displayed marked aggressiveness, exceptional organizing ability, and a superior quality of leadership in rapidly establishing a quartermaster service throughout the theater which met and solved the many unexpected and seemingly insurmountable problems of supply. By his broad experience, foresight and splendid ability which was largely instrumental under his leadership in solving many complex questions in organization and supply of the African Task Force. His untiring efforts and devotion to duty in this connection contributed markedly to the successful landing of this force in North Africa on 08-11-1942.
His later Oak Leaf Cluster citation noted that he “not only maintained anticipated requirements, but exceeded them”. However Littlejohn was severely criticised when winter clothing was not delivered in a timely manner, resulting in thousands of cases of trench foot and frostbite.
It was early May 1942 and Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, a fellow West Pointer, had just come to Washington as a newly promoted Brigadier General, fresh from the Carolina maneuvers. Littlejohn explained the situation to Ike over a lunch at the Federal Reserve cafeteria, and asked if there was anything he could do. A week later he received a call about becoming Theater Quartermaster.
After a successful landing on D-Day, a stalled drive inland and failure to capture port facilities right away meant that Quartermaster supply soldiers had to continue bringing material in over the beach: sort, store and distribute it along a fairly narrow and dangerous front. If Littlejohn felt good about the initial landing, he was none the less surprisedby the effects of strenuous fighting in the Normandy hedgerows. By September the Allies were required to deliver to forward areas no less than 20.000 tons of supplies daily. As the lines stretched further and further from Cherbourg,
the inevitable shortages began to be felt-with crippling effect. Whether it could have been otherwise is debatable. As for Georg Smith Patton , his and Littlejohn’s respect for each other was complete.
Old friends from way back, Littlejohn served as a pallbearer at Patton’s funeral.
His device was, “Good logistics alone can’t win a war. Bad logistics alone can lose.” Robert Liitlejohn retired from the Army in 1956, after which President Harry Shipp Truman
appointed him War Assets Administrator. In retirement, Littlejohn felt that his work was under-appreciated. He disliked the series of monographs written on Quartermaster operations in the ETO by historians at Fort Lee, Virginia, and attacked Roland Ruppenthal’s magisterial two-volume Logistic Support of the Armies (1953 and 1959) in the United States Army in World War II series as a slanderous attack on his reputation
Death and burial ground of Littlejohn, Robert McGowan.
Robert Littlejohn died of a heart attack, on 06-05-1982, 91 years old, in Washington D.C.Robert is buried with his wife Mary, born Lambert, who died age 82, on 09-12-1978, on the Arlington National Cemetery, Section 2.


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Carma Poppo
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