Kentucky Marine: Major General Logan Feland and the Making of the Modern USMC

Prologue

1 Prologue The Marine Corps general from Kentucky sat down at his desk and typed. He was sixty-one years old, brown-haired, blue-eyed, and, standing at five feet ten inches tall and weighing 160 pounds, had remained in fighting trim. On the one hand, Logan Feland was a “Marine’s Marine”: tattooed, much decorated for bravery and leadership in World War I, a drinker, a smoker, and occasionally a cusser. He epitomized what the Marines called a “bushwhacker,” a veteran of several expeditions overseas. On the other hand, he was an MIT graduate, an admittedly intelligent man who had married a well-respected and refined soprano. He was comfortable in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., high society, dining with politicians , statesmen, and millionaires. He had recently commanded the Marine Corps in Nicaragua, where he had been described as “a powerful man.” A Nicaraguan caricature had portrayed the general with sharp features , a pointed nose, bushy eyebrows, and closed eyes.1 The date was August 22, 1930. Nearing the end of a distinguished Marine Corps career spanning three decades, the general poured out his heart in lamentation. He had recently been informed that he would not achieve his goal of becoming Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. In a letter to his World War I commander and mentor James Harbord, the Kentucky Marine bitterly wrote: “I cannot help feeling deeply humiliated because it is true that I have been cast aside for one of the most worthless men we have ever had in the Corps. All of us know that. However, I am probably better off as it is, although I could have accomplished some good in Washington.”2 The general had much to be proud of. Having entered the Marine Corps at the turn of the twentieth century, he had campaigned around 2 KENTUCKY MARINE the world, far from his birthplace in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He had proved his bravery during World War I in the most savage battle in the history of the Marine Corps: Belleau Wood. The Kentucky Marine had risen to become one of the Corps’s highest-ranked and best-regarded officers . Unfortunately, he was also approaching mandatory retirement age and had hoped to be named Commandant before ending his military career. With his combination of field command and administrative experience , Logan Feland seemed a viable candidate for the Commandant’s position when the legendary Major General John Archer Lejeune announced his retirement in 1929. At that time, however, Major General Wendell “Buck” Neville trumped his claim to the slot. Having served under Neville during World War I, Feland recognized the worthiness of the appointment . Unfortunately, Neville died only a year later, and jockeying for the Commandant’s position began again. In 1930 Feland and three other officers , including his archrival Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, vied to become Commandant. Both Feland and Butler were disappointed when the secretary of the navy appointed his former Naval Academy classmate , Brigadier General Ben Fuller, to succeed Neville. Hence Feland’s August 1930 lament that he had been passed over in favor of a less worthy officer. Despite his bitter disappointment, the general sent the new Commandant a congratulatory telegram. This book is the story of that Kentucky Marine: Major General Logan Feland, USMC. Until now, his story remained largely untold, despite the fact that Feland was well known throughout Kentucky, the United States, and internationally in the 1920s. Since his death in 1936, however, Feland had been relegated to the “dustbin of history.” Much of the reason for this lack of attention rests in the man himself . Compared with his rival, Butler, Feland was a quiet figure. Butler, the son of a congressman and a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, was often the public face of Marine Corps publicity efforts in the 1920s. Feland kept a somewhat lower public profile, even though he was one of the Marine Corps’s most highly decorated officers in World War I and, along with his wife, Katherine, consistently appeared in the social pages of the Washington Post. While Butler boosted public attention for the Marine Corps during the 1920s, Feland served in important command and administrative jobs that were at the heart of the postwar development of the Marine Corps. Prologue 3 In 1927 Commandant Lejeune faced a tough decision. When increasing agitation in Nicaragua and China required him to send Marine Brigades abroad...