Terry Allen Was Too Good at His Job – Marshall Fired Him for It
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Inside the command post, Major General Terry Allen was briefing his staff for the next attack. His voice still carried that slight whistle, the souvenir of a German bullet that had torn through his mouth in 1918. Outside, the Sicilian sun beat down on the ruins of Trina. The town had finally fallen the day before after 5 days of the most savage fighting American troops had experienced since the First World War.
Some rifle companies had been reduced to 17 men. Allan did not know that his career was about to end. A staff officer walked in, sorted through the mailbag, and found the message from Second Corps headquarters. He read it. Then he walked over to Allan and handed it to him without a word. Allan looked at the paper. He nodded.
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He said a few words in an undertone. And then he continued with his briefing, tears streaming down his face. It was August 7th, 1943. The most successful combat division commander in the United States Army had just been relieved of command. Two days later, Time magazine would hit news stands with Allen’s face on the cover, praising him as America’s finest fighting general.
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The timing was not accidental, it was cruel. Here is what makes this story so strange. Omar Bradley, who ordered the relief, called Allen not fit to command, but Bradley also wrote that no one excelled Terry Allen in the leadership of troops. Dwight Eisenhower said it was a terrible injustice to hint that Allen was relieved for inefficiency.
George Patton, who concurred in the decision, privately called Allen one of the best division commanders he had ever seen. And George Marshall, the man who ran the entire American war effort, responded to the relief by giving Allen another division within weeks. That division would fight 195 consecutive days across Europe without losing a single battle, capturing over 51,000 German prisoners.
So, what actually happened? Why did the army fire its best fighter? And what does it tell us about the difference between being a good general and being the kind of general your superiors want you to be? This is the story of terrible Terry Allen. Terry de La Mesa. Allan was born on April 1st, 1888 at Fort Douglas in Utah territory.
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His father was Colonel Samuel Edward Allen, a conventional artillery officer who would serve 42 years in uniform. His mother was Consuel Alvarez Deamea, the daughter of a Spanish physician who had fought at Gettysburg with the Union Army’s Gabaldi Guard. Unlike most American generals of his generation, Allan was raised Catholic and he would pray before every battle for the plan of operations to work with the least losses to his division.
Growing up on frontier army posts shaped him in ways that would matter later. As he told the journalist AJ Leeing, he learned to ride, smoke, chew, cuss, and fight at the earliest possible age. But more importantly, he spent his childhood among enlisted men rather than officers children. His biographer, Gerald Aster, wrote that even then, Allan held no rigid distinctions.
favoring neither those who commanded nor those who followed. This instinct, this refusal to see a wall between officers and soldiers would define his leadership. It would also infuriate his superiors. If you finding this valuable, subscribing genuinely helps. It tells the algorithm this kind of deep research is worth showing to more people. Now, back to Allen.
West Point was a disaster. Allan stuttered. He failed mathematics. He accumulated what the academy called numerous demerits due to a cavalier attitude toward strict disciplinary rules. In 1911, West Point dismissed him. His military career appeared to be over before it began. But Allan was not the kind of man who accepted defeat.
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He enrolled at Catholic University, earned his degree, and then did something remarkable. He passed the Army’s competitive officers examination, one of the most difficult tests in the military. In November 1912, he received his commission as a second lieutenant of cavalry just 5 months after his former West Point classmates.
I think this matters because it tells us something essential about Allen’s character. He was not a natural fit for institutional life. He did not thrive in classrooms or on parade grounds, but he refused to quit. And when given an alternative path, he found a way through. The First World War made his reputation.
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Desperate to reach France, Allan talked his way into an infantry command course the day before graduation. When the commonant did not recognize him, Allan simply said, “I am Allan. Why don’t you?” He got his certificate and a promotion to temporary major. At the Muse Argon offensive in October 1918, a German bullet tore through his mouth, knocking out mullers on both sides and leaving him with a permanent whistle in his voice when he became excited.
Friends noticed something strange. The wound cured his stutter. He earned the Silver Star for gallantry near Ankerville, France on October 24th, 1918. Between the wars, Allan built a reputation as the army’s most unconventional officer. He competed in the 1920 Olympics, winning a bronze medal in polo. He won a 300-m cowboy versus cavalryman horse race across Texas.
And he graduated near the bottom of his command and general staff school class, finishing 221st out of 241 students. Eisenhower, for comparison, finished first. Here is where the story takes an unexpected turn. Lieutenant Colonel George Marshall was serving as assistant director at the infantry school. Most instructors saw Allen as a mediocre student with discipline problems.
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Marshall saw something different. He rated Allen as outstanding as a leader who could do anything with men and officers, though unprepossessing in appearance and apparently casual in manner. Marshall predicted that Allen was qualified as of now as commanding officer of a regiment and in wartime a division.
In 1940, with war approaching, Marshall made his move. He jumped Allen over 900 senior officers to promote him to brigadier general. Marshall’s aid, Merryill Pasco, later recalled that Terry Allen, nobody wanted to give a star to, and the general insisted on it. This was Marshall’s gamble.
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He was betting on a fighter, not a manager. He was choosing combat effectiveness over institutional conformity. And he was willing to stake his own reputation on it. Marshall did worry about one thing. In the midst of overseeing America’s entry into global war, he took time to write Allen personally about reports that Allan had been drinking.
I do not mean you were appearing under the influence of liquor, Marshall wrote, but I do mean drinking in the daytime. Yet Marshall left Alan in command. I believe this tells us something important about Marshall’s judgment. He could see Allen’s flaws clearly. The drinking, the casual attitude toward regulations, the inability to play the political game.
But he could also see what Allen could do that other generals could not. And in war, that mattered more. And then it got worse. Or rather, it got real. Allen took command of the first infantry division on June 19th, 1942. The big red one was the oldest division in the army, and it knew it.
Allen’s assistant division commander was Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the former president’s 55-year-old son. Roosevelt had severe arthritis and walked with a cane. Army doctors would have pulled him from combat duty if they had known about his heart condition. [clears throat] He told no one.
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Together, Allan and Roosevelt forged an unconventional command team. Omar Bradley would later write that had Allan been assigned a rockjaw disciplinarian as assistant division commander, Terry could probably have gotten away forever. But Roosevelt was too much like Terry Allen. The first division landed in North Africa in November 1942 as part of Operation Torch.
The initial combat was against Vichi French forces and it went reasonably well. Then came the Germans. Karine Pass in February 1943 was America’s introduction to the Vermacht. It was a blood bath. The Americans lost nearly 300 tanks and over 6,000 men killed, wounded, or captured. But the first division was not at Kazarene. Allan had kept his men training, drilling, preparing.
He knew what was coming. His moment came at Elgatar on March 23rd, 1943. At 0600 hours, 50 tanks of the German 10th Panzer Division emerged from the pass east of Elgatar. Behind them came infantry and armored cars. This was a full-scale German counterattack led by veterans who had been humiliating Allied forces across North Africa for two years.
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German armor and infantry quickly overran American frontline positions. Within hours, Panzers had penetrated to within two mi of Allen’s headquarters. Staff officers suggested relocating the command post to safer ground. Allen’s response became legend. I will like hell pull out, he said.
And I will shoot the first bastard who does. The first battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment bore the brunt of the attack. American minefields halted eight German tanks. The 6001st tank destroyer battalion engaged German armor with M3 halftrack tank destroyers. They lost 21 of their 31 vehicles, but they were credited with destroying 30 German tanks and inflicting 200 infantry casualties.
When the Germans reformed for a second attack at 4:45 in the afternoon, Brigadier General Clif Andress and his artillery were ready. They had already established range during the morning fight. The second German assault walked into a killing ground. By nightfall, between 30 and 37 German tanks had been destroyed or disabled.
This was the first clear American victory against the German army in the Second World War. Irwin Raml himself wrote that he was forced to the conclusion that the enemy had grown too strong for our attack to be maintained. He withdrew. Allen’s afteraction report was characteristically blunt. On the whole, our losses have been comparatively minor compared to the accomplishments of the division.
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Most of our infantry rifle companies are now down to one rifle platoon. He was not complaining. He was stating facts. Here is the part the official histories gloss over. Elgatar was not just a tactical victory. It was a psychological turning point. American soldiers had been told they could not stand against German armor. At Casarine, that seemed true.
At Elgatar, the big red one proved it was false. For the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Patton specifically demanded Allen’s division. I want those sons of he told Eisenhower. I will not go without them. Patton correctly anticipated that the landing at Gella would be the most difficult assault of the entire operation. He was right.
On July 10th and 11th, the first division faced seven determined German counterattacks. The Herman Guring division threw 46 Panzer 3es and 32 Panzer 4s at the beaches. Supporting them were 17 Tiger tanks from the 215th Panzer Battalion. These were the heaviest tanks in the German arsenal, and American soldiers had never faced them before.
German armor reached within 1,000 yards of the W’s edge. If they broke through, they would push the Americans into the sea. American artillery men of the 32nd Field Artillery Battalion wheeled their guns into direct fire positions along the sand dunes. Naval gunfire from USS Boisey and USS Savannah, 36-in guns between them, plus HMS Abbercrombie with two 15-in guns, devastated the counterattack. The beach had held.
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The division then fought its way inland toward Trroina. General John Lucas called the Battle of Troya the toughest battle Americans have fought since the First World War. I believe he was right. From July 31st to August 6th, Allen’s men assaulted the hilltop town that anchored the German Etna line. The 15th Panza Grenadier Division held prepared positions with clear fields of fire.
Every American advance took place under direct observation. There was no cover, no surprise, no easy approach. After 3 days, the division had gained only a few hundred yards. The Germans had reinforced with their best troops. By August 5th, one company on Monte Bazilio mustered only 17 men fit for duty.
Private James Ree maintained mortar fire until he was nearly out of ammunition. Then he advanced alone to knock out a German machine gun with his last three rounds. He was killed. He was awarded aostumous medal of honor. The Germans withdrew on the night of August 5th. The Battle of Trina cost the First Infantry Division over 1500 casualties.
Some units lost more than half their strength. And the next day, Terry Allen was relieved. What happened next should have ended Bradley’s career, not Allen’s. The relief order arrived in a mailbag. While Allan briefed his staff for the next attack, a staff officer discovered the telegram from Second Corps headquarters.
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According to the Warfare History Network, one officer took the paper in and wordlessly handed it to the general. Allan looked at it, nodded, said a few words and undertone, and then continued with his briefing with tears in his eyes. Artillery commander Clif Andress witnessed the aftermath. Terry read the thing, said nothing for a while, and then burst into tears like a high, strong school girl.
It came as a terrible shock. Allan later told an aid bitterly that he had been Shanghi. Who actually made the decision remains disputed to this day. Bradley claimed full responsibility in his memoir, A Soldier’s Story. Responsibility for the relief of Terry Allen was mine and mine alone, he wrote. Patton merely concurred.
But Patton’s diary entry from July 31st, 1943 tells a different story. I got Ike’s permission to relieve both Allen and Roosevelt, Patton wrote. I telegraphed Allen’s and Roosevelt’s relief to Bradley. Recent scholarship suggests the relief was planned by Eisenhower and Patton before the Sicilian campaign even began.
Allan was marked for removal before Trina, before Gala, possibly before he even landed in Sicily. Bradley’s stated reasons centered on discipline. In his later memoir, A general’s life, he wrote that under Allen, the first division had become increasingly temperamental, disdainful of both regulations and senior commands.
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It thought itself exempted from the need for discipline by virtue of its months on the line. The second battle of Orin loomed large in Bradley’s thinking. After Tunisia, when rear echelon troops closed their clubs to combat soldiers, the First Division ran a muk. There was brawling, looting of wine shops, and outraged complaints from local mayors.
Eisenhower was so furious that he ordered Bradley to expel the First Division from the city. I think this explains part of Bradley’s animosity, but only part. Here is where Bradley’s own words contradict his verdict. In the same memoir where he called Allen not fit to command, Bradley also wrote that none excelled the unpredictable Terry Allen in the leadership of troops.
And at the very moment Bradley was planning Allen’s removal, he wrote an extraordinarily laudatory efficiency report praising Allen’s wellplanned, well executed attacks. The fundamental clash was philosophical. Bradley believed discipline was foundational. He wrote that Terry’s own career as an army rebel had long ago disproved the maxim that discipline makes a good soldier.
Having broken the mold himself, he saw no need to apply it to his troops. Allan saw things differently. His division did not salute in combat zones because snipers targeted officers identified that way. When Eisenhower criticized the practice, Patton defended Allen. I told him he was mistaken, Patton recorded, and that anyhow no one whips a dog before putting him into a fight.
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Allen’s assessment of Bradley was blunt. He called him a phony Abraham Lincoln. I believe both men were partly right and partly wrong. Allan did allow discipline to slip. The second battle of Orin was real and it was a problem. But Bradley’s solution, relieving the most effective combat commander in the American army, was like treating a broken arm by amputating the leg. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
was relieved alongside Allen. Roosevelt had to go with Allen, Bradley wrote, for he too had sinned by loving the division too much. Roosevelt’s first World War record was distinguished. He had commanded a battalion of the 26th Infantry at Swason, where he was gassed and shot in the leg. Between the wars, he chaired American Express and served as governor of Puerto Rico and Governor General of the Philippines.
By 1943, he was 56 years old with severe arthritis and a fibrillating heart condition he kept secret from Army doctors. After the relief, Roosevelt repeatedly petitioned for combat command. “If you ask me, I will swim in with a 105 strapped to my back,” he told Bradley. Anything at all, just help me get out of this rat’s nest down here.
” Bradley assigned Roosevelt to the Green Fourth Infantry Division for D-Day. At Utah Beach on June 6th, 1944, Roosevelt was the oldest man and highest ranking officer in the first wave. He was armed only with a pistol and his cane. When Landingcraft drifted more than a mile south of the target, confusion threatened to paralyze the assault.
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Roosevelt walked the beach as though he was taking a stroll at his Oyster Bay home, one officer recalled. He reconoited the causeways, assessed the situation, and issued his famous order. We will start the war from right here. His Medal of Honor citation describes how he repeatedly led groups from the beach over the seaw wall and established them inland.
Bradley called it the bravest thing he had ever seen. 36 days later, Roosevelt died of a heart attack in his tent. On that day, unknown to him, Bradley had selected him for promotion to major general in command of the 90th Infantry Division. Eisenhower had approved. Roosevelt died without knowing.
He was buried at Normandy beside his brother Quentyn who had been killed as a fighter pilot in 1918. They remain there today. Now, [snorts] here is where this story becomes something more than a tragedy. George Marshall’s response to Bradley’s judgment was swift and decisive. On October 15th, 1943, barely two months after the relief, Allen received command of the 104th Infantry Division, the Timberwolves.
Allan transformed them into something unprecedented. The first United States Army division specifically trained for night fighting. His men trained 30 to 35 hours per week in nighttime operations. That was three to four times army requirements. His famous refrain was drilled into every soldier until they could recite it in their sleep.
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Find them, fix them, fight them, take the high ground, inflict maximum damage to the enemy with minimum casualties to ourselves. Night attack, night attack, night attack. Contrary to Bradley’s criticism, Allen imposed strict discipline on the 104th. He ordered that he would not tolerate Maldans, his term for Slavvenly troops, referencing Bill Maldin’s famous cartoon characters Willie and Joe.
An officer who served under both Allen and his predecessor, noted the contrast. Cook was theory. Allen was nuts and bolts. The 104th entered combat on October 23rd, 1944. They fought continuously for 195 days until VE Day. Their record was extraordinary. They captured 51,727 German prisoners. They suffered between 1294 and 1445 killed in action.
They earned two medals of honor, 14 distinguished service crosses and 642 silver stars. They were the first American outfit to link up with the Red Army near Pretch in late April 1945. They liberated the Nordous and Dora Middlebow concentration camp on April 11th, 1945. Canadian general GG Simons wrote that once the Timberwolves got their teeth into the BC, they showed great dash.
When they again meet the Bosch, all hell cannot stop the Timberwolves. After the 104th captured Cologne in March 1945, Bradley visited Allen at 12th Army Group headquarters. The same Bradley who had called Allen unfit to command now had something different to say. Terry, I’m pleasantly surprised to see these young timberwolves of yours already ranked along with the first and the ninth as the finest assault divisions in the ETO.
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Allan’s reply cut deep. Brad, the first and the ninth are in damned fast company. I think about what that moment must have felt like for both men. Bradley had fired Allen for being undisiplined, for being too close to his troops, for winning the wrong way. And now Allen’s second division was being praised as equal to the best in Europe. The vindication was complete.
What do the historians say about whether Bradley was justified? The relief of Terry Allen has generated what historian Carlo Deste calls a plethora of theories with confusing sources when trying to assign blame. The consensus among serious military historians is that Allen was punished for being too successful, too independent, and too different from Omar Bradley.
Thomas Ricks in his book, The Generals, uses Allen as a key example of the Second World War accountability system. My jaw dropped, Rick said in an interview. I was thinking, “My god, I’m coming out of Iraq where we have mediocre generals all over the place and nobody gets fired.” And yet, we fired in the Second World War, one of the most effective combat division commanders we had.
Rick Atinson describes Allen and Roosevelt as his favorite characters from an army at dawn who depart during the fighting in Sicily as victims of Omar Bradley’s distaste for flamboyance. Russell Wgley and Eisenhower’s lieutenants noted that there had never been any question about Allen’s competence as a trainer, organizer, and inspirational battle captain.
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Eisenhower himself provided the most definitive judgment in his personal papers. It is a terrible injustice to General Allen to hint that he was relieved for inefficiency. The answer to this one is that I will be glad to have General Allen again as a division commander. British General Sir Harold Alexander, the senior Allied commander in the Mediterranean, called Allan the best division leader he’d seen in either World War.
I want to be fair to Bradley here. His decision to relieve Allen was not insane, even if I believe it was wrong. Allan did have discipline problems. The first division did act as though it was above the rules. And there is a legitimate military argument that even the best combat commander becomes a liability if his troops will not follow orders from anyone else.
But here is what I keep coming back to. Bradley relieved Allan the day after Trina. Not after a defeat, not after a failure, after a victory, after the bloodiest and most difficult battle American troops had fought since 1918. The message this sent was unmistakable. You can win every battle, capture every objective, destroy the enemy at every turn, and still be fired for doing it the wrong way.
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Major General Clarence Huner replaced Allen. He was bitterly resented at first, according to an Army War College study, and made himself as unpopular as Allen had been popular. A strict disciplinarian, Huner found nearly 2,000 soldiers who could not pass rifle qualifications. He imposed close order drills, uniform standards, and mandatory saluting.
Gradually, through his personal ability, sound training methods, insistence on professionalism, and his calm, determined manner, he earned the confidence and respect of the division, the study concluded. To complement its great fighting spirit, the first division under Hubner developed renewed pride. The first infantry division led the assault on Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944.
They suffered over 30% casualties in the first waves. Veterans experience proved crucial. The division captured Aan, the first major German city taken by American forces. They fought through the Herkin forest. They helped contain the bulge. They crossed the Rine at Raagan. They linked with the Soviets at the Elba.
Both Allen and Hubner were completely successful leaders, the army study concluded. But the manner and techniques by which they each achieved great leadership were completely different. I think this is true as far as it goes. Honer was a fine general. The first division performed superbly under his command, but it is worth asking whether the division would have performed any worse if Allen had stayed.
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The evidence suggests not. Terry Allen retired from the army on August 31st, 1946. He worked as an insurance representative in El Paso, Texas, a quiet end for a man who had spent his life in combat. His son, Lieutenant Colonel Terry Deamea Allen Jr., followed him into the army. He served in Vietnam with the First Infantry Division, his father’s old command.
On October 17th, 1967, he was killed in action while commanding a battalion. The senior Allen’s health declined very quickly after the death of his son. He died September 12th, 1969 at age 81. He was buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery alongside his son. The Army later established the General Terry Dea Mesa Allen Award at West Point.
It is presented annually to the cadet with the highest rating in military science. This is an ironic honor for a man who was dismissed from the academy for failing military science. Ernie Pile wrote the epitap that matters most. Major General Terry Allen was one of my favorite people, partly because he did not give a damn for hell or high water, partly because he was more colorful than most, and partly because he was the only general outside the air forces I could call by his first name.
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If there was one thing in the world Allen lived and breathed for, it was to fight. The man Bradley called not fit to command compiled one of the most successful combat records of any American general in any war. He was relieved not for failure but for succeeding on his own terms.