Dates

• Existence: 1888 - 1966

Biographical History

John S. Wood (1888-1966) was an American army officer and writer on military history and strategy, particularly relating to field artillery.

Citation:

John Shirley Wood Papers, 1917-1967

Tiger Jack, 1979: page opposite title page (Major General John S. Wood) page 14 (General John Shirley Wood)

Artillery in the offensive, 1922: title page (translated by J.S. Wood)

Gen. John S. Wood, in Chronscope, 1952: title frame (General John S. Wood, former Chief of Mission of the International Refugee Organization)

Syracuse University Libraries Finding Aids, via WWW, June 12, 2014 (John Shirley Wood Papers; Major General John Shirley Wood (1888-1966) was an American army officer and writer on military history and strategy, particularly relating to field artillery; born January 11, 1888 at Monticello, Arkansas, John Shirley Wood was the son of Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Carroll D. Wood and Reola (Thompson) Wood; he received his B.S. from the University of Arkansas in 1907 and graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1912; in 1924 he attended the Command and General Staff School, and in 1931 the Ecole de Guerre in Paris; he served at West Point as football coach, instructor in chemistry, and Commandant of Cadets; he was also head of the military departments at Culver Military Academy and the University of Wisconsin; General Wood commanded various field artillery units including the Division Artillery of the 1st Division and of the 2d Armored Division; his staff duties included service as Executive Officer (XO) of the Hawaiian Field Artillery Brigade, as a division staff officer of the 3rd Division in France (1918), as Chief of Staff of the Third Army (1939-1940), and as Chief of Staff of the 1st Armored Corps (1941); as a general officer he held a combat command of the 5th Armored Division; from 1942 to 1944 he commanded the 4th Armored Division, leading it in the advance from Normandy across France into Germany; from 1945 until his retirement from the Army in 1946, he was in command of the Replacement Training Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky; after his retirement from the Army, General Wood served as Chief of Mission for the International Refugee Organization in Austria (1947-1952), Chief of Mission for the United Nations Reconstruction Administration in Tokyo, Korea, and Geneva (1952-1953), and Civil Defense Director for Reno, Nevada (1957-1958); during the years prior to World War II, General Wood's reviews and digests of French, German, Italian, and Spanish military literature appeared in a number of military journals; General Wood died on July 2, 1966 in Reno, Nevada, and is buried at West Point Cemetery in West Point, New York)

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