Lieutenant General Henry Spiese Aurand (April 21, 1894June 18, 1980) was a United States Army career officer. He was a veteran of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Aurand was ranked 20th in the class of 1915, known as "the class the stars fell on" because no fewer than 59 of the 164 members of the class who graduated became generals. His classmates included Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, both of whom later achieved five-star rank. He was commissioned in the Coast Artillery Corps, but later transferred to the Ordnance Department.
During World War I he served on the Mexican border during the Pancho Villa Expedition, was an assistant to the officer in charge of the design and construction of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and was at the Sandy Hook Proving Ground from 1917 to 1919. Between the wars Aurand attended Ordnance School at the Watertown Arsenal in 1921–1922, the Army Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 1927–1928, the Army War College in 1930–1931, and the Army Industrial College in 1939–1940. He served in the Philippines from 1925 to 1927, and on the faculty of the Ordnance School at Watertown Arsenal from 1929 to 1930. From 1933 to 1937, he was an instructor in logistics at the Army War College.
During World War II Aurand was the Director of Defense Aid, the program that sent Lend Lease materials to the Allies. He became the Chief of the International Division, Army Service Forces in 1942 and later that year the secretary of the Combined Production and Resources Board. In September 1942 he became the Commanding General of the Sixth Service Command, based in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944, Aurand was assigned as the Assistant Chief Ordnance Officer, European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) and Communications Zone (COMZ). He become the Commanding General, Normandy Base Section, in December 1944. In May 1945, he went to the China Theater as the Commanding General, United States Army Services of Supply there.
Aurand returned to the United States as the Commanding General of the Sixth Service Command, and he was commander of the Africa-Middle East Theater in 1946. In June 1946, he became the last Director of Research and Development, War Department. In 1948, he became the Director of Logistics, Department of the Army. His final assignment was as Commanding General, United States Army, Pacific, a position he held until his retirement in 1952.
Early life
Henry Spiese Aurand was born in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, on April 21, 1894, the only child of Peter Augustus Aurand, a conductor on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and his wife Annie Speise. When he was eleven years old, the family moved from Tamaqua to Shamokin, Pennsylvania. He attended Shamokin Area High School, where he played violin in the school orchestra, captained the debating team, and edited the school literary magazine. His ambition was to go to Pennsylvania State College and become a civil engineer, but he sat the examination for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and received a nomination as an alternative. When the principal candidate failed the physical examination, Aurand wrote to his United States Congressman, John Geiser McHenry, declining the nomination. McHenry replied that he had already been declined twice, and would not take no for an answer. After a family discussion, it was decided that Aurand would go to West Point, serve the minimum four years, and then complete postgraduate engineer training at Pennsylvania State College.
Aurand entered West Point on June 14, 1911, becoming a member of the class of 1915, which became known as "the class the stars fell on" because no less than 59 of the 164 members of the class who graduated became generals. His classmates included Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. West Point cadets chose which of the five combat arms of the Army (infantry, cavalry, field artillery, coast artillery or engineers) they would join with each nominating in order of class rank, limited only by the quotas set by each arm. Aurand was ranked twentieth in the class, which was high enough to have a completely free choice. Most of the highest-ranking cadets (and indeed all those ranked above Aurand) chose to join the engineers, but Aurand chose the Coast Artillery, in the hope of eventually transferring to the Ordnance Department and becoming a mechanical engineer. He graduated and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery on June 12, 1915.