Withers A. Burress

Lieutenant General Withers Alexander Burress (November 24, 1894 – June 13, 1977) was United States Army officer who was a graduate and commandant of the Virginia Military Institute as well as a career U.S. Army officer and combat commander in World War I and World War II.

Early life and military career

Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1894, Burress attended and graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1914. On November 30, 1916, he was commissioned a second lieutenant into the Infantry Branch of the United States Army. The American entry into World War I on April 6, 1917 saw him posted to the 23rd Infantry Regiment, which later became part of the newly created 2nd Infantry Division.

He saw combat on the Western Front with the regiment as a regimental operations officer, serving in nearly all of the division's major engagements. On November 2, 1919, a year after the war ended on November 11, 1918, he returned to the United States with the permanent rank of captain.

Between the wars

He attended the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the U.S. Army War College at Washington Barracks in Washington, D.C.

From 1935 to 1940, Burress was a professor of military science and served as commandant of the Virginia Military Institute. In 1940, he was assigned to the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C.

World War II

In 1941, with the outbreak of World War II, Burress had returned to Fort Benning as Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School. In early 1942, he assigned to the Puerto Rican Department. He was given command of the 100th Infantry Division upon its mobilization at Fort Jackson, South Carolina in November 1942.

Burress continued in his command, taking the division to France in October 1944. As part of the Seventh Army's VI Corps, the division went into combat in the Vosges Mountains of northeastern France then through the Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central European campaigns until November, 1945, making Burress one of eleven generals to command one of the U.S. Army's 90 divisions from mobilization to the end of the war. On September 22, 1945, he was promoted to command of the VI Corps then served as Inspector General for European Command [EURCOM].

Postwar

In May 1947, he was one of three commanders of the United States Constabulary, the post-war occupation police force in West Germany. In 1949, he returned to EURCOM as its intelligence director, then later took command of VII Corps. He then was the Commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School.

In 1952, his final posting was as commander of the First Army at Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York City, New York. In November 1954, he retired from the U.S. Army after 38 years of active duty. That same month, on November 19, 1954, he received a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes down Broadway in Manhattan, New York.

He died in an Arlington, Virginia nursing home on June 13, 1977, aged 82.