Whitfield Jack

George Whitfield Jack, Jr., known as Whitfield Jack or Whit Jack (July 10, 1906 – April 23, 1989),^[1] was a United States Army colonel in World War II, a major general of the United States Army Reserve, and a prominent attorney in his native Shreveport, Louisiana.

Jack's father, George W. Jack, a native of Natchitoches, Louisiana, was from 1917 to 1924 a judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana; his brother, Wellborn Jack, was from 1940 to 1964 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.^[2] In World War II, Jack was a G-2 Intelligence Officer on the staff of General Matthew B. Ridgway.^[3] From 1952 to 1960, he was the commander of the 75th Infantry Division of the United States Army Reserve.

Background

Jack graduated from the former Shreveport High School, prior to the opening of C. E. Byrd High School, and attended Centenary College in Shreveport, at which he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. In 1928, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He received a bachelor's degree and an Army commission as a second lieutenant. He then spent one year in the 9th Infantry Regiment at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He resigned from the Army to attend Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. He left Yale for his father's alma mater, the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans so that he could take courses needed for admission later to the Louisiana bar. He then returned to Yale for his third and final year and procured the Bachelor of Laws degree in 1932.^[4]

Career

Admitted to the bar by the Louisiana Supreme Court, Jack practiced from 1932 until his retirement in 1979. During his early years, his brother, Wellborn Jack, was his law partner. His last legal partnership was Booth, Lockard, Jack, Pleasant, and Lesage; the latter partner, Joe LeSage, was a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1968 to 1972. From 1929, except for a brief period as a Louisiana National Guardsman, Jack held a commission in either the regular Army or the Army Reserve until his military retirement in 1966.^[4]

Jack's grandfather, Colonel William H. Jack, was a soldier and lawyer; an uncle, Robert Foster, was a career Army officer. In November 1940, following in their pariths, Jack was named a captain and then a company commander, major, and lieutenant colonel in the redesigned 82nd Airborne Division. He became a battalion commander when the 82nd was dispatched to North Africa in 1943 as part of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He parachuted into Italy in the campaign to "soften up" the Fascist resistance. He also fought in Sicily, England, and the Normandy Campaign,^[4] in which he had been part of the glider assault that preceded the main invasion.^[1]

After Normandy, General Ridgway assumed command of the XVIII Airborne Corps, which moved into the European Theater of Operations. By then a colonel, Jack fought in the Battle of the Bulge and proceeded to the North Sea. In April 1945, Ridgway selected Jack to deliver under a flag of truce an ultimatum of surrender to the German Field Marshal Walter Model, whose army was trapped in the Ruhr Valley. Ridgway compared Model's situation to that of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee in 1865, when Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant. Unlike Lee, Model refused to surrender out of personal honor but instead discharged his troops and made then civilian prisoners of war and refugees before he took his own life. Jack returned to bring to General Ridgway Model's reply of refusal.^[1]

Jack received the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star Medal, the European Theatre of Operations Medal with six campaign stars, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Belgium War Cross with palms. In January 1946, Jack left active Army duty and returned to Shreveport to resume his law practice and serve in the Army Reserve. In April 1948, he was promoted to U.S. Army brigadier general. Thereafter, he was the division commander of the 95th Infantry Division Reserve over the three-state area of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. He was then named division commander of the 75th Infantry Division. In May 1955, Jack was promoted to his terminal position of major general. Two years later, he assumed command of the 75th Maneuver Area Command with headquarters in Houston and a component group in Shreveport. Jack was affiliated with the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.^[4]

One of Jack's clients was the Shreveport pastor Jimmy Gid Tharpe, Sr. (1930-2008), of the Baptist Tabernacle, an Independent Baptist congregation. Tharpe retained Jack to appear before the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was investigating its sale of church bonds. A government administrator in Fort Worth, Texas, had told Tharpe that the church had two weeks before it must declare bankruptcy, but Jack's trip quickly resolved the matter.^[5]

In March 1936, Jack wed the former Frances Rand of Alexandria, Louisiana, a daughter of Dr. Paul King Rand, Sr. (born 1888), and the former Ellen Blythe White (1890-1972).^[6] Whitfield and Frances Rand had three sons, Whitfield, Jr. (born 1937), technically Whitfield, III, a jewelry manufacturer in Key West, Florida; Rand F. Jack (born c. 1940), a Princeton and Yale Law School graduate and a college professor in Bellingham, Washington, and Robert Blythe Jack (born c. 1943), an attorney in Palo Alto, California. In 1977, three years after the death of Frances, ^[4] Jack married Betty Ann Collins Montgomery (1930-2010), formerly known as Betty Sims.^[7]

Jack was a long-term member of St. Marks Episcopal Church in Shreveport. He died in the spring of 1989 and is interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.^[4]

References