This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Sgt Ryan Mahana (Alcatraz)
to remember
Marine Gen Allen H Turnage.
If you knew or served with this Marine and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Farmville
Date of Passing Oct 22, 1971
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
General Allen Hal Turnage, who earned the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal while leading the 3d Marine Division on Bougainville and Guam in World War II, died 22 October 1971. General Turnage had retired from active duty on 1 January 1948, and was advanced to four-star rank on retirement by reason of having been specially commended for heroism in combat.
General Turnage was born 3 January 1891, in Farmville, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina before entering the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant on 17 November 1913. Following instruction for 17 months at the Marine Officers' School, Norfolk, Virginia, he joined the First Brigade in Haiti in 1915 and participated in expeditions against hostile Cacos in Northern Haiti, then was assigned to duty with the Haitian Constabulary until August 1918.
Almost immediately, he was sent to France where he served as Commanding Officer, Machine Gun Battalion, 5th Marine Brigade. Following World War I, he was an instructor at the Marine Officers' School, Quantico; served with the Gendarmerie d'Haiti again from 1922 to 1925; and completed the Field Officers' Course at Quantico. Later, between two tours of duty at Headquarters Marine Corps, he was assigned sea duty on the staff of Battleship Divisions Four and Three.
In 1935, General Turnage was appointed Director of the Marine Officers' Basic School at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, following which he served with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, as Battalion Commander and Regimental Executive Officer, respectively. Ordered overseas in 1939, he served as Commanding Officer of Marine Forces in North China, and Commanding Officer of the Marine Detachment, American Embassy, Peiping. He returned to Headquarters Marine Corps in April 1941, and was serving as Director of the Division of Plans and Policies when World War II broke out.
In June 1942, the general was ordered to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to take command of the Base and its Training Center which included organization and training of two Regimental Combat Teams for the 3d Marine Division. That October, he joined the newly-formed 3d Marine Division as Assistant Division Commander, becoming Commanding General on Guadalcanal in September 1943. He then led the Division in the landing at Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, 1943, and in the recapture of Guam, 1944.
After two years with the 3d Division, in September 1944 General Turnage was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps as Director of Personnel, and, later, as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. In May 1946, his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. His final assignment was as Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific.
In addition to the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Medal, his decorations and medals include: the Legion of Merit, Presidential Unit Citation, Guam, 1944; Navy Unit Commendation with two bronze stars, Bougainville, 1943, Guam, 1944; Haitian Campaign Medal, Haiti, 1915; Expeditionary Medal, Haiti, 1915-1917 and 1922-1924; Victory Medal with France Clasp and Maltese Cross, France, 1918; Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal, Nicaragua 1932; China Service Medal, China, 1939; American Defense Service Medal with Base Clasp, China, 1939-1941; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three bronze stars; American Campaign Medal; World War II Victory Medal; Haitian Distinguished Service Medal, Haiti, 1925; Nicaraguan Medal of Distinction with Diploma; Dominican Order of Military Merit, Class Two with White Insignia, Dominican Republic, 1930.
World War I
From Month/Year
April / 1917
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Description The United States of America declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917. The U.S. was an independent power and did not officially join the Allies. It closely cooperated with them militarily but acted alone in diplomacy. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material and money, starting in 1917. American soldiers under General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived in large numbers on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. They played a major role until victory was achieved on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to Great Britain and the other Allied powers. During the war, the U.S mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 110,000 deaths, including 43,000 due to the influenza pandemic. The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. military. After a slow start in mobilising the economy and labour force, by spring 1918 the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict. Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world,[citation needed] although there was substantial public opposition to United States entry into the war.
Although the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, it did not initially declare war on the other Central Powers, a state of affairs that Woodrow Wilson described as an "embarrassing obstacle" in his State of the Union speech.[26] Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 17, 1917, but never made declarations of war against the other Central Powers, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire or the various Co-belligerents allied with the central powers, thus the United States remained uninvolved in the military campaigns in central, eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The United States as late as 1917 maintained only a small army, smaller than thirteen of the nations and empires already active in the war. After the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917, it drafted 2.8 million men into military service. By the summer of 1918 about a million U.S. soldiers had arrived in France, about half of whom eventually saw front-line service; by the Armistice of November 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were arriving in France daily. In 1917 Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. In the end Germany miscalculated the United States' influence on the outcome of the conflict, believing it would be many more months before U.S. troops would arrive and overestimating the effectiveness of U-boats in slowing the American buildup.
The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not to waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to serve as mere reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to fight in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Séchault.
Impact of US forces on the war
On the battlefields of France in spring 1918, the war-weary Allied armies enthusiastically welcomed the fresh American troops. They arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, at a time when the Germans were unable to replace their losses. After British Empire, French and Portuguese forces had defeated and turned back the powerful final German offensive (Spring Offensive of March to July, 1918), the Americans played a role in the Allied final offensive (Hundred Days Offensive of August to November). However, many American commanders used the same flawed tactics which the British, French, Germans and others had abandoned early in the war, and so many American offensives were not particularly effective. Pershing continued to commit troops to these full- frontal attacks, resulting in high casualties against experienced veteran German and Austrian-Hungarian units. Nevertheless, the infusion of new and fresh U.S. troops greatly strengthened the Allies' strategic position and boosted morale. The Allies achieved victory over Germany on November 11, 1918 after German morale had collapsed both at home and on the battlefield.
