James Willoughby Totten (1912 - 1967)

Born 5 Sep 1912 in Hampton, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 16 Mar 1967 at age 54 in South Hamilton, Wenham, Essex, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

James was born in 1912. James Totten ... He passed away in 1967. ^[1]

James is the son of Col. James and Julia (Walke) Totten.^[2]

JIM TOTTEN WAS BORN at Fort Monroe, Virginia, on 5 September 1912, opening a new generation of an old Artillery family. His great-grandfather James Totten (USMA 1841) was a famous light battery commander in the Civil War. Both his grandfathers, Charles Totten (USMA 1873) and Willoughby Walke (USMA 1883) were Artillery officers. His father James Totten broke the patterning by enlisting for the Philippine campaign. He joined the 31st Volunteer Infantry at 19; he was commissioned at 20; and was mustered out at 21 to accept a Regular commission in the Artillery.

If at any time from his earliest boyhood anyone had ever suggested to Jim Totten that he should not spend his life in the Artillery, Jim would have looked amazed and just shaken his head in a puzzled way. His other love was the water-boating, swimming, fishing; and he later became an excellent horseman.

His days at West Point came and went as naturally as all his days. He stood a bit above the middle of the Class, held a respectable “make,” and won his “A"three years on the swimming team. He also showed a marked interest in the literary and entertainment side of cadet life.

Jim spent his first postgraduate year with the Air Corps acquiring his pilot's wings, and then transferred to the Field Artillery, exactly where he had always intended to be. In 1940, while stationed at Fort Myer, he married another Army junior, Ruth Ellen Patton. It was a wonderfully happy marriage blessed in time with three splendid children (Michael, Beatrice, and James) who brought Jim and Ruth Ellen great joy and pride. At the time of Jim’s death Mike was a captain in the Regular Army, and Jim was a VMI cadet, Army-bound. Jim's first grandchild, Charles, was born on Memorial Day, 1967.

Following their wedding, Jim and Ruth Ellen were a year at Fort Sill, where Jim became a captain. In 1941 they moved to the artillery of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Knox. This was a key change, from the horsey obsolescence of Fort Sill to the dramatic thrust of the Armored Force. In many strenuous exercises and maneuvers, Jim acquired sound knowledge of Armored methods as expounded by Chaffee, Patton, Scott, and the other pioneers of armored combat.

In the vast expansion after Pearl Harbor, Jim soon found himself a lieutenant colonel, and from May 1942 to January 1945 he commanded the 69th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, which he trained and took overseas to North Africa and Italy. In line with a policy of rotating combat-tested officers back to the War Department, Jim was brought home early in 1945 for duty in the Operations Division WDGS, the central command post of the war. But the war was nearly over.

After graduating from Leavenworth in 1947, there followed a delightful 2 years in Panama as Provost Marshal, U.S. Army Caribbean. There was boating and fishing without limit, and Jim’s official conduct was highly praised, while the government of Panama awarded him the Order of Vasco Nunez de Balboa.

After five months at the Armed Forces Staff College in 1950, Jim began another three years of General Staff duty at the Pentagon. Under the DCS for Plans and Research, he was one of a group engaged in developing the “Army Programs.” The big boys wanted everything programmed, but nobody big or small knew how to do it They were still struggling over it long after August 1953 when Jim left to attend the Army War College. Meanwhile, in 1951, he had become a colonel.

In July 1954 Jim became Executive Officer, 3d Infantry Division Artillery, but the Division Commander, Haydon Boatner, soon grabbed him for Chief of Staff, a detail which Jim greatly enjoyed until, in January 1956, he again came due for overseas duty.

Now the family journeyed to Izmir, Turkey, where Jim became DCS Plans and Operations at Headquarters Allied Land Forces Southeast Europe. It was an interesting and stimulating experience, studying tomorrow's wars on the ground where dozens of civilizations had been destroyed and lost to history. Then in June 1958 Jim was ordered to the Pentagon once more, this time to the Joint Staff, as Chief, European Division, J-3.

While enjoying the Christmas holidays of 1960 with his family at their home in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, Jim was notified of his nomination for brigadier general. There followed two delightful assignments. From April 1961 to August 1962 he commanded the 7th Infantry Division Artillery in Korea. It was strictly soldiering, command of troops in the field, and Jim loved every minute of it. Next he was for almost two years Assistant Commandant of the Artillery and Guided Missile School at Fort Sill, the misnamed command position in direct charge of the professional training. The assignment has traditionally denoted preeminence in the field.

On 1 July 1964 Jim was promoted to major general and went to Brazil as Chief of the Joint U.S.-Brazil Military Commission (also MAAG Chief and U.S. Commander). From this point the story is all sadness. Jim and Ruth Ellen threw themselves into their very complicated task with their usual drive, most of the time Jim was feeling decidedly below par, and there were several definite illnesses. We have wondered if he did not conceal his true condition in order to spare his father and mother, both of whom were foiling rapidly at this time. However that may be, his real malady when finally revealed was hopelessly far advanced, and he survived them only a few months.

I never knew anyone to whom the exercise of command came more easily than it did to Jim. He was fortunate in getting a strong foundation of troop duty as a lieutenant and as a battery and battalion commander, but he was in any case a born soldier and a born commander, an officer who soldiered and commanded for the love of it and felt completely rewarded by the response and achievement of his unit. It never occurred to him to think “What’s in it for me?” and he never seemed aware of that weakness in others. He never expressed a mean thought or suggested any action that might have been devious or shady. He did everything so naturally, with such innate sureness, that nothing devious ever had a chance to enter his mind.

Jim Totten died at the South Hamilton home, “Brick Ends,“ on 16 March 1967 and is buried there under a stone from his own fields on which appears, besides his name, only the word invictus.

Sources

1. ↑ First-hand information as remembered by M. Hammond, Tuesday, June 3, 2014. Replace this citation if there is another source.
2. ↑ son Michael's obituary in The Sentinel (Carlisle, PA) on Monday, August 11, 2003

See also:

• "United States Census, 1930", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:C3CG-C3Z : accessed 27 February 2016), James W Totten in entry for James Totten, 1930.
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106707477/james-willoughby-totten