William M. Hoge

William M. Hoge grew up in Lexington, Missouri, where his father, William McGuffey Hoge, served as principal and superintendent at Wentworth Military Academy. After graduating from Wentworth in 1912, he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1916, then was commissioned into the Engineer Branch of the United States Army and commanded a company of the 7th Engineer Regiment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from 1917 to 1918.

During World War I, Hoge received the Distinguished Service Cross personally from General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, for heroic action under fire as a battalion commander during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

During the interwar years, Hoge graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

Hoge directed one of the great engineering feats of World War II, the construction of the 1,519-mile (2,450 km) ALCAN Highway in nine months. Later, in Europe, he commanded the Provisional Engineer Special Brigade Group attached directly to V Corps (United States) in the assault on Omaha Beach. One of his key men who worked under him from Alaska to England, Colonel Benjamin B. Talley, directed the planning-specifics of the invasion, using maps, air studies, even tourist photos and postcards culled from the British people to learn the topography, and designate which units would assault which sectors of the two United States beaches. Talley went ashore at Omaha in the third wave to direct Engineer operations and immediately begin to receive men by the thousands and supplies by the ton over the beach from the Communications Zone, the supply and service-forces arm of the European Theater of Operations. Hoge later directed Combat Command B of the 9th Armored Division, in its heroic actions in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, and in its celebrated capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen. By war's end, Hoge was the Commanding General of the 4th Armored Division.

During the Korean War, at the request of General Matthew Ridgway, the Eighth United States Army commander, Hoge commanded the IX Corps. Hoge achieved his senior command in the army as Commander-in-Chief of United States Army Europe. Hoge was promoted to major general in May 1945, lieutenant general in June 1951, and full general on October 23, 1953.

Hoge retired from active duty in January 1955 to his hometown of Lexington, Missouri, then turned to the private sector as Chairman of the Board of Interlake Steel. Hoge moved to his son's farm in Kansas in October 1975 and he died suddenly on October 29, 1979 at Munson Army Hospital, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In the 1969 film The Bridge at Remagen, the character of Brigadier General Shinner (played by E. G. Marshall) was based on Hoge.

Hoge Barracks, the transient housing operation at Fort Leavenworth, is named in his honor.

• Hoge, William Morris, General (1894–1979)
• William M. Hoge at Find a Grave