Paul McDonald Robinett

Paul McDonald Robinett

BRIG. GEN. PAUL M. ROBINETT, Commander of Combat Command B, 1st Armored Division, on reconnaissance, Maknassy valley
Nickname(s)
  • Robbie
Born (1893-12-19)December 19, 1893
Mountain Grove, Missouri
Died February 5, 1975(1975-02-05) (aged 81)
Buried at

Hillcrest Cemetery

Mountain Grove Wright County Missouri, USA Plot: SE 1st 43-6

Service/branch Cavalry of the United States of America
Years of service 1917–1946
Rank Brigadier General
Commands held
Battles/wars
Awards
Other work
Paul McDonald Robinett
Education
Height 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m)
Political party Republican
Notes

Paul McDonald Robinett (1893-1975) was a cavalry and armor officer (Brigadier General) of the U.S. Army. He spent much of his career as a staff officer, and commanded an armored regiment and combined arms combat command in combat during the Tunisian campaign of World War II.

Biography

Robinett hailed from Missouri's Ozark foothills, scion of Ozark pioneers. After high school, he worked a summer in the Kansas harvest fields before enrolling in the University of Missouri, where he completed his B.S. (1917) in Agriculture. Since the U.S. had entered World War I, he tried to enlist but was rejected as underweight. After beginning a graduate fellowship at Iowa State, he again tried to enlist, unsuccessfully.

But he was accepted for officer training, subsequently commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the 1st Cavalry. During World War I, First Cavalry served along the border with Mexico; during this time, he was promoted to 1st lieutenant. He was graduated from the Cavalry School Troop Commander's course at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1922, and taught Machine Gunnery and animal transportation there 1922;–1923. He was a special student at the University of Paris in 1925, attended the French cavalry school at Saumur, and observed French maneuvers near Strasbourg. He was General Malin Craig's aide-de-camp 1927–1932, serving in Panama Canal Zone and San Francisco. Captain Paul McD. Robinett, Cavalry, completed the Command and General Staff School's two-year course and graduated June 15, 1934.[7] He attended the U.S. Army War College. He served in the War Department's General Staff 1937–1941.[1][3][5] He was Assistant Chief of Staff for intelligence under both Lesley J. McNair (from June 26, 1941) and George C. Marshall.[3][5][8] President F. D. Roosevelt nominated him for promotion to Colonel on November 20, 1942.[9]

His personal credo was: "Always do whatever you can to keep your superior from making a mistake." He was a crack shot with a pistol and expert rider. Only one soldier of the 3rd Infantry ever collected on his offer of a dollar to any soldier who could out shoot him. He was an accomplished horseman, a member of the U.S. Army equestrian team, and competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.[3][5]

During the Tunisian Campaign of World War II he commanded the 13th Armored Regiment, “Task Force Green,”[10][11] and 1st Armored Division's Combat Command B. After the American defeat at the battle of Kasserine Pass, his CCB and 1st Infantry Division repulsed a German advance west on Highway 13 toward Tebessa.[12]

General Robinett and CCB were to lead 1st Armored Division's assault from Mateur toward Bizerte at first light on Thursday morning, May 6, 1943. The day before, as Robinett was returning to CCB, the confidence of the new division commander General Harmon in Robinett diminished so much he determined to relieve him. Harmon raced after Robinett to relieve him. He caught up just after a German artillery shell had shredded Robinett's left leg. General Robinett's war was over; he had already ceded command to Colonel Clarence C. Benson.[13][14]

He commanded the Armored School at Fort Knox, Kentucky until he retired at the end of the war.[3][5][8]

The 1940 census listed him as a resident of the Kennedy-Warren Apartment Building in Washington, D.C..[15][15] and later the Army Navy Club, Washington, D.C. In 1941, then Lt Col Robinett was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of General Craig's wife.[16]

Brigadier General Robinett was a Missouri delegate at the 1948 Republican National Convention, and served on the resolution committee's foreign affairs subcommittee.[6]

After the Korean War, BGen Robinett complained that American military succumbed to a "natural tendency" to develop quickly capabilities to counter an enemy, rather than those to defeat and destroy him. U.S. defense developed equipment and tactics weighted too much on defensive implements. In particular, the tanks were to be used chiefly to support infantry and an insufficient number of armored divisions - more mobile and more offensive. He recalled the blitzkrieg of World War II and the North Korea's tank invasion of the South.[17][18][19]

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 McElderry, Michael J.; Cooney, Charles (2012). "Paul M. Robinett Papers: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. p. 3. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
  2. ↑ Bill (July 19, 2009). "Paul McDonald Robinett". U.S. Army armor officer. Find a Grave. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Atkinson, Rick (2002). An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. The Liberation Trilogy. 1 (First ed.). Henry Holt and Company. p. 222. ISBN 0-8050-6288-2. LCCN 2002024130. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
  4. ↑ "Paul M. Robinett 1956 - US & Canada Competition Humanities - U.S. History". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 2014-06-14.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Canan, Colonel Howard V. "PAUL M. ROBINETT PAPERS" (PDF). Lexington, Virginia: GEORGE C. MARSHALL RESEARCH LIBRARY. pp. 3–5. Retrieved 2014-06-27. |chapter= ignored (help)
  6. 1 2 Lawrence, W.H. (June 18, 1948). "SKIRMISHES MARK TALKS ON PLATFORM: Southern Republicans Demand and Get Places on Civil Rights Subcommittee". New York Times. New York, N.Y. p. 6. Retrieved 2014-07-13. via ProQuest
  7. ↑ Heintzelman, Major General Stuart (November 9, 1934). "Annual Report for The Command and General Staff School year 1933-1934" (PDF). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: The Command and General Staff School. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
  8. 1 2 "Robinett, Paul McDonald (1893-1975), Scrapbooks, 1897-1974" (PDF). State Historical Society of Missouri. Retrieved 2014-06-14. Correspondence, clippings, writings, speeches and notes pertaining to Brigadier General Robinett of Mountain Grove, Missouri, who, with his brother Frank, compiled material on his army career.
  9. ↑ "Halsey Named Full Admiral By Roosevelt". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. November 21, 1942. p. 2. ProQuest document ID 15150125. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  10. ↑ Howe, George F. (1950). "Chapter XI The First Day's Operations Against Oran". In Kent Roberts Greenfield, General Editor. Mediterranean Theater of Operations - Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D. C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. Retrieved 2014-07-08.
  11. ↑ Howe, George F. (1950). "XII The Seizure of Oran". In Kent Roberts Greenfield, General Editor. Mediterranean Theater of Operations - Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D. C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. pp. 215 et seq. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
  12. ↑ Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn. pp. 358, 379–382.
  13. ↑ Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn. pp. 483, 511–513.
  14. ↑ "13th Armor". The Campaign for the National Museum of the United States Army. Retrieved 2014-07-14.
  15. 1 2 "Paul McDonald Robinett in the 1940 Census". Retrieved 2014-06-26.
  16. ↑ "Gen. Craig's Wife Dies Here at 61". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. May 28, 1941. p. 27. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  17. ↑ Baldwin, Hanson W. "What Kind of Defense in the Atomic Age?: The difficult search goes on for a magic key to the riddle of security in this era of technological change and world uncertainty. Defense in the Atomic Age". New York Times. p. SM7. ISSN 0362-4331. ProQuest document ID 112825666. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  18. ↑ Norris, John G. (April 20, 1953). "Tank Officers Launch Attack On Army 'Infantry Thinking'". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. p. 1. ProQuest document ID 152568319. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  19. ↑ Baldwin, Hanson W. (April 17, 1953). "Dispute Over Armor -- II: Specialists in All Countries Believe Tank Must Meet Challenge of New Weapons". New York Times. New York, N.Y. p. 2. ProQuest document ID 112823345. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  20. ↑ "Reserves Hailed By Gen. Robinett". The Washington Post and Times Herald. February 1, 1957. p. C9. ProQuest document ID 148957329. Retrieved 2014-07-13.

Further reading

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