Brigadier General Dwight Frederick Johns (16 May 1894 – 8 November 1977) was an American soldier and
general in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his service in the
South West Pacific Area during
World War II, where he headed the Advance Base and the Combined Operations Service Command during the
Kokoda Track campaign and the
Battle of Buna-Gona. He later commanded the Advance Base at Lae and Finschhafen, and the Engineer School at
Fort Belvoir. After the war he headed the Pacific Engineer Division, where he was responsible for a number of important flood control and irrigation projects.
Education and early life
Dwight Frederick Johns was born in
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...
on 16 May 1894. He entered the
United States Military Academy at West Point as an appointee from Illinois in 1912 and graduated sixth in the class of 1916. He was commissioned as a
second lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
in the
United States Army Corps of Engineers in June 1916.
His fellow graduates included future
general officer
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
s such as
Fay B. Prickett
Fay B. Prickett (April 29, 1893 - December 18, 1982) was a career officer in the United States Army. A veteran of the Pancho Villa Expedition, World War I, and World War II, he was most notable for his Second World War command of the 75th Infant ...
,
Stanley Eric Reinhart
Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart (September 15, 1893 – June 4, 1975) was a senior United States Army officer of the United States Army. He figured prominently in World War II as commander of the 65th Infantry Division.
Early life and mili ...
,
Otto F. Lange,
Raymond G. Moses,
Calvin DeWitt Jr.
Calvin DeWitt Jr. (August 25, 1894 – January 10, 1989) was a brigadier general in the United States Army. He received the Army Distinguished Service Medal. During World War II, DeWitt commanded the Boston Port of Embarkation from 1943 to 1945. ...
,
Joseph M. Tully
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
,
Wilhelm D. Styer
Wilhelm Delp Styer (22 July 1893 – 26 February 1975) was a lieutenant general in the United States Army during World War II. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point with the class of 1916, he was commissioned into the ...
,
Robert Neyland,
William R. Woodward,
Thomas D. Finley
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the Ap ...
,
Robert B. McBride,
Horace L. McBride
Lieutenant General Horace Logan McBride (June 29, 1894 – November 14, 1962) was a senior United States Army officer who fought during both World War I and World War II. He commanded American forces in the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge), the Rhi ...
and
William M. Hoge
General William Morris Hoge (January 13, 1894 – October 29, 1979) was a United States Army officer who fought in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, with a military career spanning nearly forty years.
Early life and military career
...
.
World War I
Johns initially served at the United States Military Academy as an instructor in the Department of Tactics but in July 1916 he was posted to the 1st Battalion of Mounted Engineers on the Mexican Border. He served with the
Pancho Villa Expedition from November 1916 to February 1917, when the 8th Engineers returned to
El Paso, Texas. Johns was promoted to
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in May 1917 and
major
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
in May 1918. He commanded the 8th Engineers from April to August 1918.
Returning to the United States Military Academy in August 1918, he became an instructor in Drawing from August to December 1918, and in
Tactics from November to December 1918. From December 1918 to mid-1919 he was an instructor in Mathematics.
Between the wars
Like most officers in the aftermath of World War I, Johns was reduced in rank to his substantive rank of captain in August 1919,
but was promoted to major again in February 1921. In June 1921 he entered the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in June 1922 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in civil engineering. He then became Assistant District Engineer of the
Detroit River and Harbour District. In 1924 he was posted to the 11th Engineers, based in the
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terr ...
. He returned to the United States in 1927 to take up an appointment in the Office of the
Chief of Engineers.
From 1931 to 1933 he was a student at the
Command and General Staff College at
Fort Leavenworth. After graduating, he became District Engineer at
St Paul, Minnesota. On 1 July 1937, he was promoted to
lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
. He attended the
U.S. Army War College from 1937 to 1938, then became at instructor at the Command and General Staff College.
World War II
In 1940 Johns became commanding officer of the 21st Engineers.
The 21st Engineers were assigned the task of investigating techniques for the rapid construction of air bases. As such, Johns was involved in the development of a number of new construction techniques, most notably the use of
Marston Mat.
His expertise in airbase construction led to Johns being sent to the
South West Pacific as Chief Engineer, American Forces in
Java. Departing Washington, D.C. by air on 14 January 1942, Johns arrived in
Surabaya
Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...
nine days later. His first mission was to provide airfield facilities on Java for 2,000 aircraft. Tapping into the vast resources of labour available in one of the world's most densely populated regions, Johns set about readying the required airfields. However, Java
was captured by the Japanese before the aircraft arrived.
Johns reached Australia on 28 February 1942 and became Chief Engineer, United States Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA), with the rank of
brigadier general.
As such, Johns represented the US Army on the Allied Works Council, the body controlling and coordinating all construction activities in Australia. With the arrival in Australia of
General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...
, Brigadier General
Hugh John Casey, who had accompanied MacArthur from the Philippines, became Chief Engineer at General Headquarters (GHQ),
South West Pacific Area (SWPA). Johns, who was in an earlier class at West Point than Casey, remained Chief of Engineers, USAFIA until 25 May 1942, when he became Chief of Staff of US Army
Services of Supply (USASOS).
When the
Kokoda Track campaign became mired in logistical difficulties, MacArthur and
General Sir
Thomas Blamey agreed to establish a Combined Operations Service Command (COSC) under
New Guinea Force to co-ordinate logistical activities in
Papua-New Guinea. Johns was designated commander of both COSC and the Advance Base, New Guinea on 8 October 1942. He was given an Australian deputy,
Brigadier Victor Secombe
Lieutenant General Victor Clarence Secombe, (9 January 1897 – 3 February 1962) was a general officer of the Australian Army. He served in the First and Second World Wars.
Born in Glen Wills near Omeo, Victoria, Secombe graduated from the Roy ...
, a
Royal Australian Engineers officer. All Australian and American logistical units were placed under COSC but Johns chose to exercise command of the Australian units through Secombe. They built an organization that "was a radical departure from that which the Australian Army considered normal administrative procedure, but was adequately to meet the novel demands of a campaign in a country lacking roads and railways, in which all transport had to be by sea or air, and in which often the administrative or base areas coincided with the operational areas." Johns later wrote that:
Johns impressed Australian officers with his sensitive handling of inter-Allied issues, his co-operative nature, and his ability to get the job done.
Lieutenant General Edmund Herring, who came to regard Johns as a close friend, later described Johns and Secombe as "born co-operators." One of Johns' most important decisions involved the construction of a new deep-water berth for
Liberty ships at Tatana Island. This involved building a causeway out to the island. The project would double the capacity of the port of
Port Moresby, but to build it Johns had to divert the African-American 96th Engineers from work on the airfields around Port Moresby, raising fears from airmen like Brigadier General
Ennis Whitehead that the airfields would not be ready for all-weather operations by the time that the rainy season arrived. Rains in late October did indeed close three airfields but the causeway opened on 30 October and the wharf accepted its first ship on 3 November.
Johns relinquished his roles in
Papua and resumed his former post at USASOS in March 1943, being replaced by Brigadier General
Hanford MacNider
Lieutenant General Hanford MacNider (October 2, 1889 – February 18, 1968) was a senior officer of the United States Army who fought in both world wars. He also served as a diplomat, the Assistant Secretary of War of the United States from 192 ...
. In turn, he replaced MacNider as GHQ Coordinator,
Milne Bay
Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, south-eastern Papua New Guinea. More than long and over wide, Milne Bay is a sheltered deep-water harbor accessible via Ward Hunt Strait. It is surrounded by the heavily wooded Stirling Range to t ...
in October 1943. As such, he was responsible for all logistical activities at what was now the major US base in Papua-New Guinea. On 15 December 1943, he became Coordinator, Finschhafen. Finschhafen was destined to become the new hub of US activity in Papua-New Guinea; but an enormous amount of work was required to get the base ready for action. For his service in New Guinea, Johns was awarded the
Distinguished Service Medal Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) is a high award of a nation.
Examples include:
*Distinguished Service Medal (Australia) (established 1991), awarded to personnel of the Australian Defence Force for distinguished leadership in action
* Distinguishe ...
.
In 1944, Johns became commandant of the Engineer School at
Fort Belvoir.
The wartime Engineer School was responsible for the training of officers. Some were engineers in civilian life who were trained as officers; other were officers transferred from other arms who were given training in engineering subjects. The Officer Candidate School (OCS) prepared enlisted men for commissioning as officers. There had been strong criticism of the content of training courses from SWPA, where it was the norm for machinery to be operated around the clock and for engineer officers to supervise all manner of construction tasks. The commanders there felt that the training courses taught by the Engineer School were concentrating too much on leadership in combat, and not enough on technical matters, such the operation and maintenance of construction equipment. Johns reformed the curriculum, but by this time it was too late for the changes to have much effect in the overseas theaters of operations. For his work at Fort Belvoir, Johns was awarded the
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...
.
Later life
Johns was Assistant
Chief of Engineers for Military Operations from June 1945 to March 1947. He reverted to his permanent rank of
colonel in March 1946.
In June 1947 Johns became commander of the Pacific Engineer Division, based in San Francisco, responsible for the southern half of the Pacific coast. As such he was involved with a number of important construction projects, including the
Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel
The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel (also known as Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel or SRDWSC) is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in West Sacramento, California, to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It was ...
, the
Folsom Dam, the
Isabella Dam
Isabella Dam is an embankment dam located in the Kern River Valley, about halfway down the Kern River course, between the towns of Kernville and Lake Isabella in Kern County, California.
Isabella Dam serves agricultural, hydroelectric, and fl ...
, the
Pine Flat Lake, and the
Merced River
The Merced River (), in the central part of the U.S. state of California, is a -long tributary of the San Joaquin River flowing from the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada into the San Joaquin Valley. It is most well known for its swift and st ...
projects. Johns retired from the army as a brigadier general on 31 December 1949. In retirement, Johns was awarded the Gold Medal from the
Society of American Military Engineers in 1950, and served as its president in 1953. Johns maintained the wartime friendships he had made, and with his wife Laura he entertained Australian general Sir
Edmund Herring in their home in
Piedmont, California in 1967.
Johns died on 8 November 1977.
Notes
References
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External links
Generals of World War II
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johns, Dwight
American military engineers
United States Army personnel of World War I
MIT School of Engineering alumni
People from Rockford, Illinois
Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)
Recipients of the Legion of Merit
United States Army Command and General Staff College alumni
United States Army generals
United States Military Academy alumni
1894 births
1977 deaths
United States Army War College alumni
Engineers from Illinois
20th-century American engineers
United States Army generals of World War II
United States Army Corps of Engineers personnel
Military personnel from Illinois