William Childs Westmoreland, (born March 26, 1914, Spartanburg county, South Carolina, U.S.—died July 18, 2005, Charleston, South Carolina), U.S. Army officer who commanded U.S. forces in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968.
In 1942 Westmoreland took command of the 34th Field Artillery, a battalion of 155mm towed howitzers. He led that unit during early fighting in Tunisia, where, after a long forced march under adverse weather conditions, it went into battle against elements of Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Westmoreland’s battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its role in preventing a German breakthrough following the American defeat at Kasserine Pass. His next major action came in Sicily, where his battalion supported the 82nd Airborne Division and Westmoreland gained an important patron in Gen. Maxwell Taylor. As the 9th Division moved on to England and then through Normandy and beyond, Westmoreland was promoted to colonel and became division chief of staff. When the war in Vietnam escalated, Westmoreland briefly led the XVIII Airborne Corps, gaining a third star, and then in January 1964 he became deputy to Gen. Paul Harkins, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. In June 1964 Westmoreland replaced Harkins, and he would hold the top post in Vietnam for the next four years. When, in the spring and summer of 1965, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson began sending U.S. ground forces to Vietnam, Westmoreland’s attention turned from advisory matters to the employment of those forces. Time magazine named him its 1965 “Man of the Year.”
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