Mark Clark was a United States Army officer who saw service during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. He was the youngest four-star general in the United States Army during World War II.
Background
Clark was born in Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, but spent much of his youth in Downers Grove, Illinois, while his father, Charles Carr Clark, a career infantry officer in the United States Army, was stationed at Fort Sheridan. His mother, Rebecca "Beckie" Ezekkiels, was the daughter of Romanian Jews, but Mark Clark was baptized Episcopalian while a cadet at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York.
Education
Clark gained an early appointment to the USMA in June 1913 at the age of 17, but lost time from frequent illnesses. Known as "Contraband" by his classmates, because of his ability to smuggle sweets into the barracks, While at West Point, he met and befriended Dwight D. Eisenhower, who lived in the same barracks division and was his company cadet sergeant. Although Eisenhower was two years senior to him, having graduated as part of the West Point class of 1915, the two formed a friendship. Clark graduated from West Point on April 20, 1917, exactly two weeks after the American entry into World War I, and six weeks before schedule, with a class ranking of 110 in a class of 139, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He graduated alongside young men such as Matthew Ridgway, J. Lawton Collins, (both of whom later became U.S. Army Chief of Staff) Ernest N. Harmon, William W. Eagles, Norman Cota, Laurence B. Keiser, Frederick A. Irving, William C. McMahon, Bryant Moore and William K. Harrison.
Career
During World War I he served with the Eleventh Infantry in France, where he was wounded in action. He later was assigned to the general staff of the First Army and also served with the Third Army in Belgium and Germany. In 1940 Clark was appointed instructor at the Army War College, and after the United States entered World War II he was named deputy chief of staff of the Army Ground Forces. In May 1942 he became chief of staff of the Army Ground Forces, having been promoted to brigadier general in April 1941 and major general in April 1942.
Clark was sent to England as commander of United States ground forces in Europe, but in October 1942 he was detailed on a secret mission to North Africa to prepare for Allied landings there. In November, with a promotion to lieutenant general, he commanded the United States forces participating in the invasion of North Africa, and in January 1943 he became commander of the United States Fifth Army, which invaded Italy in September and captured Rome in June 1944. In November he succeeded Field Marshal Harold Alexander as head of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean. In December 1944 Clark was in command of the Fifteenth Army Group, and on Mar. 10, 1945, he was promoted to general. In June, after the capitulation of German forces in Italy, he was appointed commander of United States occupation forces in Austria, and he also represented the United States on the Allied Commission there.
Clark was in command of the Sixth Army, San Francisco, Calif., from 1947 until in 1949 he was made chief of United States Army Field Forces, Fort Monroe, Va. In April 1952, Clark was appointed to succeed General Matthew Ridgway as United Nations supreme commander in Korea, as well as United States commander in the Far East. He directed the last 15 months of operations as well as the protracted truce negotiation that preceded the Korean armistice, which he signed on behalf of the United Nations on July 27, 1953.
General Clark retired from the Army on Oct. 31, 1953. He wrote Calculated Risk (1950), about the Allied campaign in Italy, and From the Danube to the Yalu (1954), war memoirs that include his experience in Korea. He died in Charleston on Apr. 17, 1984.
Connections
Clark married Maurine Doran, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Doran of Muncie, Ind., May 17, 1924. Mrs. Clark died October 5, 1966. Their son was Maj. William Doran Clark, U.S.A. (Ret.), and their daughter Patricia Ann (Mrs. Gordon H. Costing). Later in life he married Mary Dean.