Curious after seeing our top generals directing from the rear… Who was the highest-ranking officer killed in combat in the 20th/21st century?
If anyone wants to answer both (20th and 21st) that would be interesting too.
Not a definite kill, but there was a general that went MIA in WW2. After the invasion of Italy, he just kinda wandered away and was never seen again.
For an actual KIA of an American general, you probably have to go back to the Civil War.
The site below claims there were 5 US Major Generals who died from combat in Vietnam.
Lieutenant General Leslie McNair was the highest-ranking American general killed in action in World War II. He bought it in Normandy, 1944, at the start of Operation Cobra, from friendly fire (d’oh!). Don’t know if anybody higher ranking than that was killed in any other war.
The question of command - in front: always? sometimes? never? - is at the heart of John Keegan’s The Mask of Command. He analyses why generals placed themselves where they did by looking at Alexander, Wellington, Grant and Hitler. Excellent, thought-provoking book.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was shot down over Bougainville in a deliberate assassination. At the time he was C-in-C of the Pacific Fleet. After his death he was promoted to Fleet Admiral.
I believe Lt. Gen. Buckner was killed in combat in Okinawa.
He was killed by Japanese artillery at a command post.
Silly me, I wasn’t even thinking of non-American officers.
I think tomndebb has nailed it with Yamamoto, but it’s also worth mentioning that Aleksandr Samsonov, commander of the Russian Second Army during the battle of Tannenberg in 1914, wandered off into the woods and was later found dead of a gunshot wound. But it is generally believed to have been a suicide, not a battle death.
Although not the highes ranked in WWII, Maj. Gen. Norman Cota was killed by enemy fire in a jeep, deep in Germany near the end of the war.
[nitpick] Yamamoto was not killed as a result of battle action. That was more in the nature of a planned assassination.
Buckner and Cota, and probably some of the Vietnam group were actually conducting battle operations when killed. [/nitpick]
Yeah, it depends how you want to define “in battle.” Generally a flight of P-38s shooting down two G4Ms (and losing a couple of their own in the process) would be considered a battle, but it is certainly true that the P-38s were in that place at that time for the specific purpose of shooting down Yamamoto’s plane.
I thought that was General Rose (CO, 3rd Armored Division).
As a matter of fact, I think that you are right, it was Gen. Maurice Rose. Cota was the Brig. General who landed with the 29th Infantry Division Rangers on Omaha Beach. He is credited by those who were there with walking around from man to man telling them that they just had to get up and get moving off the beach or they would all be killed right there, for nothing.
Here a couple others I could think of off the top of my head:
[ul]
[li]The Soviets lost a Front Commander in Autumn 1941 near Kiev, Colonel-General Kirponos. Colonel-General in a fairly high rank, possibly just below Field Marshal.[/li]
[li]Admiral Lutjens, one of the highest ranking officers in the German Navy, went down with the Bismarck.[/li]
[li]Marshal Balbo, the Italian Governor-General of Libya died when his plane was shot down by an Italian fighter by accident.[/li][/ul]
I would call this an ambush based on field intel. It just happened in the sky rather than on the ground. If someone infiltrated and sniped Yamamoto in his office, that would have been more of an “assasination.” so, ya, it makes sense to me to call this one a battle death.