Robert McGowan Littlejohn


Robert McGowan Littlejohn was a major general in the United States Army who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1912. He served with the Pancho Villa Expedition and on the Western Front during the First World War, and was Chief Quartermaster for the European Theater of Operations during the Second World War. For this service, he received the Distinguished Service Medal. Upon retirement from the Army in 1946, then President of the United States Harry S. Truman appointed him head of the War Assets Administration.

Early life and First World War

Robert McGowan Littlejohn was born in Jonesville, South Carolina, on 23 October 1890. He attended Clemson Agricultural College for a year, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, on 2 March 1908. He played right tackle on the 1912 Army Cadets football team.
On 12 June 1912, Littlejohn graduated 36th in the West Point class of 1912. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 8th Cavalry Regiment and posted to Fort William McKinley in the Philippines. The 8th Cavalry Regiment returned to the United States in August 1915, and moved to Fort Bliss, Texas. From January to March 1916, it served on the Texas border during the Pancho Villa Expedition. On 1 July 1916, he was promoted to first lieutenant, and posted to the newly-constituted 17th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss as commander of the regiment's machine gun detachment. He was promoted to captain on 15 May 1917. Two days later the regiment moved to Douglas, Arizona, and was involved in strike duty in July and August during the miners' strike in Globe, Arizona. He played polo on the 8th and 17th Cavalry teams.
Littlejohn returned to West Point on 24 August 1917 as an instructor, first in the English department for ten days, then in the Chemistry department, and finally, in March 1918, in the Engineering department. On 5 May 1918, he was posted to the 18th Machine Gun Battalion of the 6th Division at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, with the rank of major from 7 June 1918. He assumed command of the 332nd Machine Gun Battalion at Camp Grant, Illinois, on 11 June. This battalion was part of the 86th Division. On 27 July 1918, he married Mary Lambert from Glastonbury, Connecticut. They had no children.
The 332nd Machine Gun Battalion moved to France in September 1918, where it joined the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front but did not see action before the armistice. In December 1918, he participated in the Occupation of the Rhineland, as commander of a battalion of the 39th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division. On 1 March 1919 he assumed command of the 11th Machine Gun Battalion, the machine gun unit of the same brigade. On 1 May he was posted to the office of Chief Quartermaster of the AEF before returning home in July.

Between the wars

From 28 July 1919 to 1 February 1920, Littlejohn was stationed in Raleigh, North Carolina, as Assistant District Inspector of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. He then went to Charleston, South Carolina, as Assistant Department Adjutant on the staff of the Southeastern Department. He reverted to his substantive rank of captain on 15 March 1920, but was promoted to major again on 1 July. On 1 August he was assigned to the Quartermaster of the Fourth Corps Area which replaced the Southeastern Department and soon moved to Fort McPherson, Georgia.
Littlejohn transferred to the Quartermaster Corps on 20 October. From 11 January to 15 December 1921 he was a student at the Quartermaster Corps Subsistence School in Chicago, Illinois; on graduation, he became the assistant commandant. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from August 1925 to July 1926, and on graduation became an instructor there. He then attended the United States Army War College from August 1929 to July 1930.
After graduation, Littlejohn served on the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C., from 15 August 1930 to 13 June 1934. He then returned to West Point for a second tour of duty, this time as a quartermaster. While there he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 August 1935. This ended on 31 January 1938, and he was sent for a second tour of duty in the Philippines, this time as executive officer of the Quartermaster Depot, and then, from 30 May 1939, as Quartermaster of the Philippine Department. His tour of duty there ended on 20 May 1940, and he returned to the US in June.

Second World War

From June 1940 to May 1942, Littlejohn commanded the Clothing and Equipage Branch in the Office of the Quartermaster General. The division was primarily concerned with procurement, but was accustomed to working closely with the Standardization Branch, which was responsible for design and development. He was promoted to colonel on 16 November 1940 and brigadier general on 30 January 1942.
In May 1942, Littlejohn was appointed Quartermaster General of the European Theater of Operations by the new CG-SOS-ETO Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee, a position he held for the rest of the war, with the rank of major general from 3 November 1943. For his services as Quartermaster General, Littlejohn was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal with a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, and foreign awards that included the British Order of the Bath, French Croix de Guerre and Dutch Order of Orange Nassau. His first Distinguished Service Medal citation read, in part:
His later Oak Leaf Cluster citation noted that he "not only maintained anticipated requirements, but exceeded them". However Littlejohn was severely criticised when winter clothing was not delivered in a timely manner, resulting in thousands of cases of trench foot and frostbite.

Later life

Littlejohn hoped to become the next Quartermaster General, but was passed over in favor of Major General Thomas B. Larkin, a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer that Littlejohn considered a "carpetbagger". Both had served in the ETO in the Services of Supply under Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee beginning in May 1942. Larkin had served as Lee's deputy until he was spun off at the request of Eisenhower to command the SOS in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and so had a wider command experience. Littlejohn retired with a disability discharge on 31 July 1946. President of the United States Harry S. Truman appointed him head of the War Assets Administration, which had the responsibility for the disposal of some $34 billion worth of surplus government property. The job was considered a thankless one, and corruption was a major concern. He instituted a sweeping reorganization of the WAA. In one sale, the WAA sold 20,960 war planes, accepting bids of $6,582,156 for the lot, which had originally cost $3,900,000,000. He left the WAA in 1948.
In retirement, Littlejohn felt that his work was under-appreciated. He disliked the series of monographs written on Quartermaster operations in the ETO by historians at Fort Lee, Virginia, and attacked Roland Ruppenthal's magisterial two-volume Logistic Support of the Armies in the United States Army in World War II series as a slanderous attack on his reputation.
Littlejohn died from cardiorespiratory failure at a nursing home in Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C., on 6 May 1982. His wife had predeceased him on 9 December 1978. They were interred together in Arlington National Cemetery.

Dates of rank