Notes
397 Notes Courtney Hicks Hodges: A Biographical Sketch 1. Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story (New York: Henry Holt, 1951), 226. 1. The Invasion of France and the Lodgment in Normandy, 2 June–24 July 1944 1. Maj. William C. Sylvan was Courtney Hodges’s senior aide de camp and one of the primary compilers of this First U.S. Army war diary along with Capt. (later Maj.) Francis G. Smith Jr. and Capt. William E. Smith, Hodges’s third aide during the war in Europe. 2. Exercise Brass Hat was the First Army’s code name for its final command post exercise prior to the execution of Operation Neptune, the amphibious assault phase of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France. It included the movement and reestablishment of the First Army’s command post and communications network to its staging location before it loaded and moved to France. See David W. Hogan Jr., A Command Post at War: First Army Headquarters in Europe, 1943–1945 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000), 66. 3. The USS Achernar was the headquarters or First Army command ship for the invasion. The Achernar (AKA-53) was an attack cargo ship of the Andromeda class (AKA-15) launched on 3 December 1943 and commissioned on 31 January 1944. U.S. Naval Historical Division, American Naval Fighting Ships, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959), 7; vol. 4, 1969. 4. Jonas Howard Ingram (15 October 1886–10 September 1952). U.S. Naval Academy, 1907. Ingram was commander of the South Atlantic Force from February 1942 to November 1944, when he was promoted to admiral and assumed command of the Atlantic Fleet, a position he retained until his retirement in April 1947. See Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1996), 250. 5. Alan G. Kirk (30 October 1888–15 October 1963). U.S. Naval Academy, 1909. Kirk was the naval attaché in London from June 1939 to March 1941 and then director of naval intelligence in Washington from March to November 1941, when he took command of a destroyer division operating in the North Atlantic and was promoted to rear admiral. In March 1942 he went to London as chief of staff to Adm. Harold R. Stark, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe. In February 1943 he took over as commander, Amphibious Forces, Atlantic Fleet, and commanded the Central Task Force for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, in July. In February 1944, Kirk became commander of Task Force 122, the Western Naval Task Force, which was responsible for the naval support of the American landings at Omaha and Utah beaches on 6 June 1944. Kirk retired as a full admiral in February 1946. He later served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg (1946–1949), Moscow (1949–1951), and the Republic of China (Taiwan) (1962–1963). See Boatner, Biographical Dictionary, 280. 6. Roger Lowell Putnam (19 December 1893–24 November 1972). Harvard University, 1915. Putnam served in the U.S. Navy during World War I on board the battleship USS Mississippi under then Cdr. Alan G. Kirk. He worked for the Package Machinery Company in Springfield, Massachusetts, as vice president and president from 1921 to 1942. He was elected mayor of Springfield in 1937, 1939, and 1941. At the personal request of Kirk, then a rear admiral, he reentered the U.S. Navy in January 1943 as a lieutenant commander to work with Kirk on special projects associated with the invasion of France and was soon sent to England with him. With Putnam’s work largely accomplished after the successful invasion, at President Roosevelt’s personal request Kirk released Putnam from active duty to assume a position with the Office of Contract Settlement . Putnam returned to Springfield in 1945 and became deeply involved in his company and local business and civic activities. He later served as the director, Economic Stabilization Administration, under President Truman in 1951–1952. As a member of the Lowell family, he was a trustee of the Lowell Observatory (1927–1967). See William Lowell Putnam, A Yankee Image: The Life and Times of Roger Lowell Putnam (West Kennebunk, ME: Phoenix Publishing for the Lowell Observatory, 1991). 7. Oren Root Jr. (13 June 1911–14 January 1995). Princeton, AB, 1933; University of Virginia, LL.B., 1936. Lawyer. Root was a lawyer and principal with various New York City law firms from 1938 to...
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