Word: holcombe
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When the Marines' square-faced, bespectacled Lieut. General Thomas Holcomb, 64, retires on New Year's Day as commandant of the Corps, he will become a full general, the first in the 168-year-old history of the Marines...
...passed several years ago authorizes officers decorated in World War I for services beyond the call of duty to go up one grade upon retirement. Veteran Tommy Holcomb commanded a Marine battalion in World War I, was under fire at St. Mihiel, Soissons, the Argonne. Lieut. Colonel Holcomb came out strewn with ribbons...
While the oldtimers boasted of the accomplishment, and because the Marine Corps had grown to a size never reached before (its top in World War I: 75,000), Tommy Holcomb had become the first Commandant and the first Marine to wear the three stars of a lieutenant general...
...first time. It had all brands of field artillery, its own supply service, all the spare parts. It had put women into uniform and turned them into snappy soldiers, had broken the tradition of 167 years and taken Negro recruits. They had been made good Marines. Methodical, determined Tommy Holcomb had seen to that...
...outfit's top men met, there was no need for explanations for General Hoicomb's retirement. He was still in good physical shape, could still do his day's stint in the field. But he had reached the retirement age of 64 last August. Tommy Holcomb had always insisted that Commandants should walk, not be wheeled out of office. Only the insistence of the Commander in Chief had kept him on the job beyond the legal limit...