It is understandable, given the pandemic, that this month’s remembrances of the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany were relatively subdued. World leaders are rightly preoccupied with trying to ensure their citizens’ well-being in the present, balancing public health concerns with the need to sustain their nation’s economies.
Even so, it is surprising that almost no mention was made of the important link between the last great pandemic and America’s leadership in World War II in the person of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who deftly handled a Spanish flu outbreak at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
It was Eisenhower who solemnly cabled his superiors on the Combined Chiefs of Staff: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945,” thereby announcing Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces. Responding to Eisenhower’s cable, Army chief of staff Gen. George Marshall wrote to “Ike”: “You have commanded with outstanding success the most powerful military force that has ever been assembled. … You have made history for the good of all mankind, and you have stood for all we hope for and admire in an officer of the United States Army.”
Eisenhower’s eventual triumphs leading millions of men in the fight for civilization, however, were anything but predetermined. Ike had been an undistinguished cadet at West Point, finishing 61st out of 162 in academics and 125th in discipline in the class of 1915. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, it expanded from a peacetime strength of 98,000 men to 3.7 million. Although he repeatedly petitioned for combat duty, Eisenhower demonstrated a talent for teaching and proved such an efficient organizer that the War Department decided instead to send him to Camp Colt at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to command the newly created Tank Corps’ first stateside training facility. (His future friend and colleague George Patton had created the American Expeditionary Force’s tank school in France.)
Eisenhower arrived on March 24, 1918, and by mid-July, had 10,000 men and 600 officers under his command. Despite initially not even possessing any tanks, Eisenhower transformed the old battlefield into a first-class training camp and was cited by the Army’s inspector general for leading an “excellent” command.
Yet, perhaps his greatest challenge came in September with the arrival of 124 new soldiers from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, to train as machine gunners in the Tank Corps. Several of the men got off the train feeling ill but were misdiagnosed and assigned to training companies. It wasn’t until several days later that they were sent to the camp hospital and properly diagnosed as suffering from Spanish influenza.
Although it is too soon to know the full extent of the suffering to be wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish flu killed an estimated 20 million to 100 million people worldwide, more than the Great War itself, including an estimated 548,000 people in the U.S. The frequent movement of troops from post to post helped spread the virus, which took a heavy toll on the stateside training camps.
Eisenhower (who was only a 27-year-old major at the time) called the problem “a nightmare.” Although a sense of fear pervaded Camp Colt, Eisenhower remained steady and rose to the occasion. Working closely with the camp surgeon, Lt. Col. Thomas Scott, he began isolating symptomatic soldiers in segregated areas of the camp. Floors were scrubbed daily with a solution of Lysol and kerosene; on sunny days, the tents were opened, and all bedding was aired in the sun. On Eisenhower’s orders, all soldiers in the camp received a daily medical exam and required a medical pass to go into Gettysburg. Even then, to prevent the virus’s spread to the civilians in town, Eisenhower ordered an early form of social distancing. He forbade soldiers from attending church services in Gettysburg, ordered local restaurants not to serve soldiers, and posted military police throughout the town to enforce a rule prohibiting more than four soldiers in a shop at a time.
Additionally, Eisenhower led by example. When Scott wanted to test the utility of anti-septic sprays in fighting the virus’s spread, Eisenhower allowed the surgeon to experiment on him and his headquarters staff. The spray was “intensely pungent and strong,” Eisenhower recalled, and “On application, I felt as if the top of my head was going off.” Yet he insisted upon continuing this treatment twice a day, and consequently, not a single person in the headquarters got sick.
Thanks to Eisenhower’s decisive actions, Camp Colt was practically free of influenza by Oct. 24. Although the Spanish flu eventually combined with pneumonia to kill more than 52,000 U.S. service members in 1918 (only slightly fewer than the 53,402 Americans killed in combat that year) and infected more than one-third of the U.S. Army, Camp Colt only suffered 427 hospitalizations and 175 fatalities. Eisenhower’s actions were so effective that the War Department ordered him to send 30 members of his medical staff to installations to train their personnel.
Eisenhower was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1918, only the second member of the legendary West Point Class of 1915 to attain that rank in World War I. For his service at Camp Colt, his superior would recommend him for the Distinguished Service Medal, the Army’s highest peacetime decoration, and praised him as “one of the most efficient young officers I have known,” noting he performed duties normally assigned to brigadier generals “under trying conditions in a highly credible manner.”
Ironically, despite these commendations, Eisenhower believed that missing service on the Western Front meant the prospects for his professional career “were none too bright. I saw myself in the years ahead putting on weight in a meaningless chair-bound assignment, shuffling papers and filling out forms.” And to be sure, Ike would endure both professional and personal triumphs and tragedies during the interwar era. But his leadership at Camp Colt during the influenza pandemic would be the first demonstration of his potential as a commander.
More relevantly, perhaps, although measures designed to combat an outbreak in a limited geographical area among a population subject to military discipline may not be applicable to the trade-offs our civilian policymakers face today, Eisenhower’s leadership by example, close coordination with doctors, and good results are still inspiring today.
Benjamin Runkle is the author of Generals in the Making: How Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Their Peers Became the Commanders Who Won World War II (Stackpole Books, 2019). He is a senior policy fellow with Artis International and an adjunct lecturer with the Johns Hopkins University’s Global Security Studies program.
