Maxwell Davenport Taylor (26 August 1901-19 April 1987) was a General in the US Army who served as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1 October 1962 to 1 July 1964, succeeding Lyman Lemnitzer and preceding Earle Wheeler. Taylor was best-known for his command of the US 101st Airborne Division during World War II.
Biography[]
Maxwell Davenport Taylor was born in Keytesville, Missouri on 26 August 1901, and he was raised in Kansas City, where he attended the local polytechnic institute. He graduated fourth in his class from West Point in 1922 and became a lieutenant in the US Army Corps of Engineers, later becoming a French and Spanish instructor at West Point, graduating from the Command and General Staff College in 1935, and becoming a US Army Major in July 1940. He served in the general staff early in World War II, rising to the rank of Brigadier-General in December 1942. Taylor commanded the US 82nd Airborne Division's artillery during combat in Sicily and Italy in 1943, and he became commanding general of the US 101st Airborne Division after his service in the Mediterranean.
101st Airborne Division[]
Taylor in September 1944
Taylor took command of the 101st Airborne Division in England as it was training for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, and he was promoted to Major-General in May 1944. He was the first Allied general officer to land in France on D-Day, jumping with the rest of the 101st. His division assisted in the taking of Carentan, and it fought as regular infantry for the rest of the Normandy campaign. The 101st was pulled out of line in late June, having suffered over 4,600 losses, and it was sent back to England to rest, refit, and absorb reinforcements. Taylor's division would later take part in Operation Market Garden in September 1944, and Anthony McAuliffe temporarily led the 101st as Taylor was attending a staff conference in America; Taylor was absent for the Siege of Bastogne, and he regretted missing his division's "finest hour".
Postwar career[]
Taylor in 1962
From 1945 to 1949, Taylor served as Superintendent of West Point, commander of Allied troops in Berlin from 1949 to 1951, commanded the US Eighth Army during the final combat operations of the Korean War, served as Army Chief of Staff from 1955 to 1959, commanded the 101st Airborne when it was sent in to enforce the admittance of the Little Rock Nine to high school in Arkansas, served as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1962 to 1964, served as ambassador to South Vietnam from 1964 to 1965, and chaired the President's Intelligence Advisory Board from 1968 to 1970. Taylor was known to be a war hawk, the man who encouraged John F. Kennedy to deepen American involvement in the Vietnam War, and a key figure in picking William Westmoreland to command US troops in Vietnam. He retired from the military in 1964, and he died in Washington DC in 1987 at the age of 85.