William Hood Simpson

General William Hood Simpson (18 May 1888 – 15 August 1980) was a senior United States Army officer who served with distinction in both World War I and World War II. He is best known for being the commanding general of the Ninth United States Army in northwest Europe during World War II.

A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he was ranked 101st out of 103 in the class of 1909, Simpson served in the Philippines, where he participated in suppression of the Moro Rebellion, and in Mexico with the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916. During World War I he saw active service in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front on the staff of the 33rd Division, for which he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Citation Star. Between the wars he served on staff postings, attended the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, and commanded the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.

During World War II he commanded the 9th Infantry Regiment and was the assistant division commander of the 2nd Infantry Division. In succession he commanded the 35th and the 30th Infantry Divisions, the XII Corps, and the Fourth Army. In May 1944, with the three-star rank of lieutenant general, he assumed command of the Ninth Army. Simpson led the Ninth Army in the assault on Brest in September 1944, and the advance to the Roer River in November. During the Battle of the Bulge in December, Simpson's Ninth Army came under command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group. After the battle was over in early 1945, the Ninth Army remained with Montgomery's 21st Army Group for Operation Grenade, the advance to the Rhine, and Operation Plunder, its crossing. On 1 April the Ninth Army made contact with the First Army, making a complete encirclement of the Ruhr, and on 11 April, it reached the Elbe.

After the war ended, Simpson commanded the Second United States Army, and served in the Office of the Chief of Staff. He retired from the army in 1946. In retirement, he lived and worked in the San Antonio, Texas, area. He was a member of the board of directors of the Alamo National Bank, and succeeded General Walter Krueger as a member of the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce of San Antonio. He died in the Brooke Army Medical Center on 15 August 1980, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

William Hood Simpson was born on 18 May 1888, at Weatherford, Texas, the son of Edward J. Simpson, a rancher, and his wife Elizabeth née Hood, the daughter of Judge A. J. Hood, a prominent lawyer. His father and uncle had fought with the Confederate Army under Nathan Bedford Forrest in the American Civil War. He lived in Weatherford until he was five or six years old, when the family moved to Hood's ranch near Aledo, Texas. He did not start school until he was eight years old, when he started riding a horse several miles each day to the local school in Aledo. He attended Hughey Turner Training School, a college-preparatory school, where he played high school football, but did not graduate.

Simpson decided to pursue a military career and attend the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. He was friends with Fritz G. Lanham, the son of Samuel Lanham, the Governor of Texas (and a former law partner of Judge Hood). Through Lanham he was able to secure an appointment from his local Congressman, Oscar W. Gillespie. Competition was not fierce; only one other boy applied. As Simpson's academic credits were insufficient to qualify for automatic admission, Simpson had to sit an entrance examination at Fort Sam Houston in May 1905. A physical examination was conducted while he was there. He passed both, and was accepted into the class of 1909.

On 14 June 1905, a month after he turned 17, Simpson entered West Point. Amongst his cadet friends, he was known as "Greaser" because he was from Texas. He found the curriculum difficult, and by the end of his first year, he stood 116th in a class that now numbered 120; 29 members of the class had dropped out. He was poor at mathematics, but excelled at equitation, and by the end of his second year his standing had risen to 107th out of 108, then to 100th out of 107 by the end of his third. When eight cadets, two of whom were from the class of 1909, were found guilty of hazing and suspended, it fell to Simpson, as a cadet captain, to escort them from the academy grounds. Simpson graduated on 11 June 1909, ranked 101st out of 103 in his class, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant of Infantry. Fellow members of his class included Jacob L. Devers (39th), George S. Patton (46th), and Robert L. Eichelberger (68th), all of whom eventually reached four-star rank, and John C. H. Lee (12th), and Delos C. Emmons (61st), who reached three-star rank.

Simpson's first assignment was with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, which was stationed at Fort Lincoln, North Dakota. He acquired the nickname "Big Simp" because there was another officer in the regiment with the same surname. Because Simpson was over 6 feet (180 cm) tall, he became "Big Simp" and the other officer became "Little Simp". Soon after he joined in the regiment on 11 September 1909, it received orders to deploy to the Philippines. He embarked from San Francisco on 5 January 1910. He went to the island of Mindanao in the Philippines and participated in suppression of the Moro Rebellion. He returned to the United States with his regiment, arriving at the Presidio of San Francisco on 10 July 1912. The regiment moved to El Paso, Texas, between 24 April and 1 May 1914. Promoted to first lieutenant on 1 July 1916, he commanded Companies C and K in the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916. On 24 February 1917, he became aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Bell Jr., the commander of the El Paso Military District.