Brehon B. Somervell



Birth name: Brehon Burke Somervell
Nickname(s): "Bill"
Born: 9 May 1892; Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
Died: 13 February 1955 (aged 62); Ocala, Florida, United States
Rank: General
Service number: 0-3665
Unit: Corps of Engineers

Brehon Burke Somervell (9 May 1892 – 13 February 1955) was a general in the United States Army and Commanding General of the Army Service Forces in World War II. As such he was responsible for the U.S. Army's logistics. Following his death, The Washington Post lauded him as "one of the ablest officers the United States Army has produced".

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World War II

Construction Division

In December 1940, Somervell became head of the Construction Division of the Quartermaster Corps, and was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general on 29 January 1941. His immediate concern was the construction of a series of camps—which were scheduled for completion by April 1941—to house the large numbers of draftees who were then entering the Army. Reasoning that time was more important than money, Somervell pushed the project through to completion. By February, he was responsible for a workforce of 485,000 people employed on military construction projects. The job was completed on time but over $100 million over budget. He was also responsible for constructing new facilities to hold stores and munitions, for which $700 million was allocated by December 1940. By December 1941, 375 projects had been completed and 320 were still under way, with a total value of $1.8 billion. He accepted promotion to brigadier general in the Army of the United States on February 14, 1941 with the date of rank of January 29, 1941.


Northwest exposure of the Pentagon's construction underway, 1 July 1942

The best known of these projects was the Pentagon, an enormous office complex to house the War Department's 40,000-person staff together in one building. On the afternoon of Thursday, 17 July 1941, Somervell summoned George Bergstrom and Major Hugh Casey. Bergstrom was a former president of the American Institute of Architects; Casey a Corps of Engineers officer seconded to the Construction Division. The two had previously worked together closely on the design of cantonments. Somervell gave them until 9 a.m. on Monday morning to design the building, which he envisaged as a modern, four-story structure with no elevators on the site of the old Washington Hoover Airport. Over that "very busy weekend", Casey, Bergstrom and their staff roughed out the design for a four-story, five-sided structure with a floor area of 5,100,000 square feet (470,000 m2)—twice that of the Empire State Building. The estimated cost was $35 million. President Roosevelt subsequently moved the site of the building, over Somervell's objections, in order to prevent it being constructed in front of Arlington National Cemetery.


Weekly Staff Conference at United States Army Services of Supply (USASOS) headquarters in June 1942. Major General Brehon B. Somervell is sat at the head of the table.

Somervell still pursued his own designs, making important changes, including the addition of a fifth story. The outbreak of war led to a new urgency, and by May 1942, some 13,000 workers were working around the clock on the building, which was completed in early 1943 at a cost of $63 million, the overrun being caused by the emphasis on speed and the addition of the extra floor. For his work with the Construction Division, Somervell was awarded an oak leaf cluster to his Distinguished Service Medal.

Somervell hoped to become Chief of Engineers but was "not really in the running", being too junior in rank. Instead, the job went to Brigadier General Eugene Reybold, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4 on the War Department General Staff. Somervell's post was abolished on the transfer of the Construction Division to the Corps of Engineers. Reybold, who considered Somervell "a firecracker but ruthless" who "didn't care who he hit", selected Brigadier General Thomas M. Robins to head the new Corps of Engineers Construction Division.

Somervell instead received Reybold's former assignment, with promotion to the temporary rank of major general on January 28, 1942 and was promoted to temporary lieutenant general on March 9, 1942. The posting was unusual because Somervell had never previously served on War Department General Staff. As Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, Somervell pressed for the adoption of a comprehensive Army Supply Program that would set targets and priorities for all Army production. Such a program could be used as the basis for requests for appropriations, for expenditures, and for allocating scarce materials.

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