laststandonzombieisland

80 years ago this week, Gen. Jonathan “Skinny” Mayhew Wainwright IV (USMA 1906) is seen enjoying a cup of Joe in House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s Office, 10 September 1945, after addressing the House and before picking up his MoH. If anyone ever deserved a good cup of coffee at the time, it was Wainwright.

Note Wainwright’s simplified salad bar and four-starred epaulets on his “Sun tans.”

A veteran of the Moro Rebellion with the old 1st Cavalry before they gave up their horses and the Great War– where he fought in the Meuse-Argonne with the 82nd Infantry Division back when they were “legs”– Wainwright was a one-star regular left holding the bag in the Philippines in April 1942 as a newly promoted lieutenant general (temporary) when “Dug Out” Doug was ordered to evac to Australia.

This meant a very hard 1202 days as the highest-ranking American POW in Japanese custody, and, while most of the PI had been liberated before the end of the war, Wainwright, who had been held in Manchuria/Manchukuo, was only freed by the Soviet Red Army on 20 August 1945, a week after the Japanese had signaled they would surrender.

He was soon plucked out of China by a USAAF C-47 and rushed to recently occupied Japan.

Wainwright was present at the Japanese surrender on Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, then accompanied the documents to Washington via air.

He was quickly given a MoH and a fourth star (which was not temporary).

Following a short post-war stint as commander of the Eastern Defense Command in New York and later the Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston, he was moved to the retired list in August 1947 upon reaching the age 64 mandatory top out.

He passed of a stroke in 1953– on September 2nd no less– aged 70, and is buried in Arlington, Section 1, Grave 358-B.