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MacArthur's WW2 promotion proposal

I have a complete copy of Douglas MacArthur's OPMF from St Louis, and the only time he is mentioned for promotion to General of the Armies is the 1955 congressional proposal. Likewise; there is nothing in the other source quoted (Hell to Pay by Giangrecio) for MacArthur's proposed promotion. AlternateWars (talk)— AlternateWars (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. 14:17, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I believe NPRC offers CDs now which is only the official OMPF and does not include the unit type records and follow-on correspondence. Originally, Mc's record was nine boxes for the OMPF with 11 follow-up containers covering the external paperwork. That might be why you are not seeing it on the CD. In any event, if information is disputed we discuss it first on the talk page, and/or add "disputed" tags to the article. Blanket blanking of sections without discussion or consensus is generally frowned upon, especially if its been sourced (the sources can be challenged, of course, or we can find others). -O.R.Comms 20:59, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
As others have been invited it may help if someone defines or at least wikilinks terms such as OPMF (Official Military Personnel File) and NPRC (National Personnel Records Center). Oddly, Wikipedia has very little about the OPMF. I had thought the OPMF was only given to the service member or their next of kin. Is this now public record for Douglas MacArthur? If so, where do you get it? Semi-related is would a proposal for a rank be included in someone's OPMF? --Marc Kupper|talk 16:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
I've removed the dispute notice as the sole person disputing appears to have been a single purpose account which has since ceased editing. -O.R.Comms 18:20, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Six Star General Promotion Package

Here is a very brief summary of the six star promotion package from McA's service record. The package is actually classified as an "artifact", not part of his official OMPF, and technically is listed under the records of the Supreme Allied Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA). I saw it once about 12 years ago - it is a shoebox which contains a tissue paper sketch of a six star general insignia as well as a dossier of yellowed memos, dated from July and August 1945, going back and forth between McA's staff and the office of the Army Chief of Staff. I also interviewed someone who was on McA's staff when this was going on. The sketch was literally drawn by one his aides at some headquarters building in the jungle in New Guinea shortly after McA became a five star. The Army leadership was very much against McA becoming an actual 6 star general and went out of their way to make it very clear that that sketch his aide created meant absolutely nothing.

The shoebox artifact with these things I think now is in Norfolk. McA's service record was declared public about 10 years ago; for a time you had to pay in excess of $1,000 to get a copy then they digitized it to CD> the CD does NOT have the 6 star stuff in it, but does have the 1955 congressional paperwork for the same thing. Now, the operational tactical drafts for Operation Downfall actually do say that a 6 star general would lead the invasion force. That is in fact well sourced from primary documents, I'm sure we can find a few secondary sources which mention it to. I hope that clarifies the origin of this information. -O.R.Comms 19:35, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

@OberRanks: That's excellent. Hopefully a WP:RS historian has found (or will find) the shoebox and document its contents in a way that we can use as a source. All of the contents, including that sketch, should be in the public domain meaning if it can be tracked down someone can post copies of the contents to WP:COMMONS. Do you recall if the focus was "6 star general" or if they also included mention what the title would be such as "General of the Armies of the United States"? --Marc Kupper|talk 19:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

When I was in Norfolk a few years ago to do research at the MacArthur Memorial, I asked them about the six star thing during WWII. None of them had any idea about it. Secondly, WHICH operational tactical drafts for Downfall? There are dozens upon dozens of drafts for Operation MAJESTIC (the name OLYMPIC was reclassed to after a document leak in early August), so it would be kind of helpful if there was a document title to go with it. AlternateWars (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

At the end of the day, we will need a reliable source as it doesn't matter what I saw 12 years ago or what you were told by the Norfolk staff (although, I must admit, that's strange they would tell you that since they have volumes of correspondence there, dating 1945 to 1965, about promoting him to 6 star rank). Anyway, I've made some inquires and I will try to find better sources when I have access to my files on this (I don't right now). There is a magazine article from around 1961 that talks about efforts to promote McA and there is plenty of stuff in the record groups at the National Archives about Operation Downfall that reference a six star commander. The specific record group number and National Archives file ID I'll try to get a hold of the next time I am there. In the meantime, a "disputed" tag might be best if there is contradictory evidence against this material, although so far I haven't read anything here that directly contradicts the primary sources. -O.R.Comms 13:31, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
@OberRanks: for the sake of clarification as it relates to the disputed tag in the article, are we disputing both MacArthur and Bradly, or only MacArthur? If its just MacArthur then we could put the disputed template at the start of his section specifically, but if its both then its best to leave it where it is. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:39, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Bradley did not appear to be an issue. Only the WWII McA part. I will move the dispute note accordingly. -O.R.Comms 16:48, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
The McA Memorial Staff knew about the post-war (1950s-1960s) efforts to get him promoted to Six Star, but they were ??? regarding the supposed 1945 stuff.
I've also looked through George C Marshall's Select Correspondence which is available through digitized microfilm on ProQuest for a side project of mine, and the PROMOTIONS, 1944-AUGUST 1945 folder is 17 pages, and while it does have a 14 SEP 1944 Memo regarding the Five Star rank: (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4-SEP-1944_Memo_CoS_Page_1.jpg) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4-SEP-1944_Memo_CoS_Page_2.jpg) it doesn't have anything re six star rank. Surely Marshall's staff would have told him about the campaign by MacArthur's staff for the rank?
Regarding the National Archives, I live near the DC area, and I also have heavy interests in AFPAC/SWPA HQ stuff for aforementioned project of mine; so...the RG and Archives ARC # would also be of interest to me greatly. AlternateWars (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2016 (UTC) — AlternateWars (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
I just added two references from my old research notes on this subject. As to Marshall, I highly doubt there would be anything official in the military papers of George MarshalL since his dislike of McA was more personal; I think it was in fact him who dubbed Douglas a "primadonna". Maybe in a diary entry, but not official correspondence since I don't know how involved he was in the 6 star effort and he had died before the end of it all in the 1960s. -O.R.Comms 17:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Hell to Pay Reference

Let's start here:

"The proposal for MacArthur's promotion to a new rank was begun on July 23, 1945.[16]"

[16] Refers to:

Giangreco, D. M. (October 2009). Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan. Naval Institute Press.

I own that book in both dead tree and Kindle editions and an extensive search through it for keywords:

  • star
  • rank
  • promotion

reveals nothing in Hell to Pay.

Likewise, a search on the date "July 23" shows only the following hits in the footnotes of Hell To Pay:

  • “Our Casualties,” Yank 2 (July 23, 1943): 11.
  • “They Could Have Been Worse,” Yank 2 (July 23, 1943): 17.

AlternateWars (talk) 21:28, 23 October 2016 (UTC)— AlternateWars (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I've asked others to chime in as I don't have direct access to my notes on this from previous research. The source you mentioned above was a source cited by another source, as I recall, so your research is good to know. -O.R.Comms 22:03, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
In 2007 I wrote "Recently, the original source documents for Pershing, MacArthur and Washington (1976) have been located and all of them agreed on 'General of the Armies of the Unites States'".talk archive I suspect the proposed promotion of MacArthur did happen and it's a matter of nailing down sources and details. Amazon has a Look Inside for Hell to Pay that offers searching and appears to cover 100% of the text. You can hover over the search results to see an expanded view of the context even for those pages that can't be viewed in the Look Inside. Searches for "proposal", "proposed", "July 23", "23 July" and "7/23" found nothing that supports "The proposal for MacArthur's promotion to a new rank was begun on July 23, 1945." I've tagged that with {{Failed verification}}. The sentence contains enough unique information, such as "July 23, 1945" that we should be able to find a supporting source.
I'll get a copy of MacArthur's autobiography, Reminiscences : General of the Army (McGraw-Hill, [1964]) to see if he mentions a promotion effort. I tried searching the congressional record for July 23, 1945 and did not see anything that seemed relevant. It does not say who made the proposal though the sentence after the one in question offers a hint with "The Army draft for the promotion ..." It seems odd to me that this would come from the Army as General of the Armies seems more like a political thing. That following sentence is also bothersome in that it says "renewed proposal". Renewed? Ok, was there a proposal prior to 1945? Maybe this section of the WP article is a mishmash of junk. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:23, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

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OF-11, O-12

The infobox states, without addition qualification, that this is an "OF-11" rank. However the NATO ranks only go up to OF-10 (not up to eleven), and the holders of "six-star" ranks all served before NATO existed. It seems simpler just to remove this entry from the infobox rather than making such an extrapolation. The O-12 officer pay grade listed also seems to be a fanciful extrapolation here.

I will remove these entries from this infobox, and also the equivalent on Admiral of the Navy (United States). --LukeSurl t c 13:26, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Generals and Lieutenant Generals

I think a lot of the info in the American Civil War section is inaccurate. The ranks of General and Lieutenant General were both established in 1866 for Grand and Sherman, respectively. The idea was that the most senior general would hold the rank of General and position of General of the Army, while the second most senior would be Lieutenant General (and of the Army.) When Grant retired, Sherman then "succeeded" to General and Sheridan, the next most senior, became the Lieutenant General. After Sherman, the 2 ranks were "merged" (unclear what that meant), so that Sheridan remained a Lt. General when Sherman retired and he became the most senior. No other Lt. Gen was appointed. After Sheridan retired, he was promoted to full-General in retirement. He was never a full general on active duty. After that, there were no more Generals until Bliss and Pershing, as mentioned, but there were a handful of Lt. Generals, most of whom were the early chiefs-of staff (e.g., Miles, Young, Chaffee) others who were just exceptional by some determination (Schofield, Arthur MacArthur being the last.) But there was only one Lt. Gen at time. This lasted until 1907 when Lt. Gen was abolished, too, and there were no more till Bullard and Liggett. General was re-instated in 1929, but remained a singular rank tied to the Chief of Staff position until WW2. Lt. Generals were restored in 1939. Venqax (talk) 21:21, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

American Civil War

The assertion that the Army did not have a rank of Lt. Gen. in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s is not true. (See above). Sherman and Sheridan both held that rank while Grant and Sherman (respectively) were the Generals of the Army. It too, was a singular rank. Sheridan then remained a Lt Gen through his tenure as senior general of the Army and it was not until he retired that he was promoted to General as a retirement honor. It was Sherman who changed the insignia of General from 4 stars to 2 stars flanking a coat of arms during his tenure. At that same time, Sheridan was a Lt Gen and wore 3 stars. Venqax (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

"Pershing's rank was senior to that of Grant's..."

I'm sure that that is true, but we can't get away with citing a 1915 source for that when Pershing was only promoted in 1919. We need a better one. Richard75 (talk) 18:30, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Also, the bit about Pershing's insignia being 4 gold stars in not substantiated. The perception seems to come from a famous portrait of him, but the color of the stars in that painting were probably the work of the somewhat careless artist, nothing else. There in not much, if any, real evidence to suggest that Pershing's stars were actually gold. In fact, that wouldn't even make sense since in the Army, silver nearly always outranks gold in officers' rank insignia- 2nd vs 1st Lt, Maj. vs. Lt. Col. I think the whole "gold stars myth" has just been perpetuated by repetition, nothing more.Venqax (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Do you have a source to back up this claim? Garuda28 (talk) 18:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Insignia

@Neovu79:@Garuda28: Following the discussion on United States Army officer rank insignia, I decided to have a look at the insignia here. And there seems to be a some of issues.

Firstly, there seems to be conflicting images as to the look of the collar insignia. In the infobox, you will find the File:6 Star.svg, while in the gallery there is File:SixStarGen.jpg. I don't believe that either of these have enough sourcing. Looking at the images File:6 Star.svg would make sense if either of these proposals were chosen, seeing as it is the same layout. However, assuming that File:GenArmiesCrossService.jpg was the chosen design (since all three branches were designed), File:6 Star.svg seems less likely. File:SixStarGen.jpg would make sense since it would follow the overall design and be a natural continuation of General of the Army. Though, by just looking at my "arguments", this is all based on assumptions and not verifiable facts.

As such, I had a look at the previous discussion. This did not help much, as the "evidence" provided is by a user who is known to have fabricated sources and basically boils down to "I have the sources, trust me".

I therefore looked at the sources in the article (Couldn't get most of the diffs to work, just press Next edit):

  • While it might exist, I can't find any online source on "IOH chart shows five- and six-star generals", Army Times (2008), including Army Times itself. Added 2 September 2015 by OberRanks
  • The source: Burke, C.J., "The ambiguous case for six star general", Look Magazine, 15 Jul 1960. Is 100% fake. For one, there was no 15 July 1960 publication. Even if this was a simple typing error, none of the June–July issues, mentions the stated article. Added 3 November 2016 by OberRanks
  • I tried to look at the "Congressional Record 1981, Cong. 97 Sess. 1" sources, by looking at govinfo.gov. However, there are no dates and pages, making it difficult to navigate the 22.642 results. Added 2 September 2015 by OberRanks
  • I have also been unable to verify "Daily Operational Reports, Supreme Allied Commander, National Archives and Records Administration, RG165" at their website. Added 3 November 2016 by OberRanks
  • As well as "Request for Preliminary Designs for a 6 Star General insignia". Added 2 September 2015 by OberRanks

Additionally, the Institute of Heraldry's website, only makes one small mention, without any of the images as show on this page.

If someone can verify the sources, please feel free to do some. As it stands right now, all the sources, concerning the design of the six star collar insignia and everything after 3.1.1. World War II, is unverified and most likely fake. Skjoldbro (talk) 10:29, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll try to dig into it as well this weekend and see if we can find a more definitive source, though I was about to find a PDF version of above-mentioned Congressional Record 1981, Cong. 97 Sess. 1 under the GovInfo.gov Volume 127-Part 8 but I haven't had time to dive into it. Neovu79 (talk) 16:03, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
This is highly problematic. Especially since it seems most of the sources out there get their information from Wikipedia in this case. Garuda28 (talk) 16:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
@Garuda28: and @Skjoldbro: Something I believe is pertinent that I just discovered. I was about to suggest on this talk page about pinging OberRanks to add some input on the images they have upload and that's when I discovered that they were permanently banned 2 years ago Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive991#OberRanks and fabricated sources for fabricating image sources that they have uploaded for the prior 10 years. This leads me to believe that these images were created or uploaded by them and improperly sourced to mislead his peers. Neovu79 (talk) 16:29, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Here was another incident with OberRanks falsifying military uniforms and ranks Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive719#OberRanks and dubious image uploads. Definitely not a good sign an trend. I did a very quick Google "CNTRL+F" of the PDF of the above Cong. 97 Sess. 1 and it only contained one mention of a congressman filing a resolution to promote Washington to the rank of general of the Armies and not about the design of a six-star rank. I suggest we also look into adding these images for deletion, if we can't verify proper sourcing. Neovu79 (talk) 16:49, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
@Neovu79: Yeah, he made both the images, and the additions. The reason I didn't get into the images all too much, is that while File:SixStarGen.jpg does look like something badly done in photoshop, the proposals do look like they are old; colouring and such. Now, this doesn't mean they couldn't have been faked, I just didn't think that they were. Well, more likely hoped – as this would mean all insignia was wrong and would have to be removed. However, seeing as he is the uploader, it is a distinct possibility. Skjoldbro (talk) 16:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I can not find a single mention of it after searching site:.mil on google. I think this is likely a hoax. Which makes me sad - these were really good looking. Garuda28 (talk) 16:58, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Ditto. Not only because I believe images are an integral part of Wikipedia, but also because I created all the vectorised version in good faith, thereby wasting my time and helping in spreading misinformation.
I don’t know the procedure and how to verify it. But it would probably be a good idea to contact the Institute of Heraldry and see if they can verify any of the information.Skjoldbro (talk) 17:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
What's really disheartening is that OberRanks, who "claims" to have been a lieutenant commander in the Navy (if true, makes this even more sad), has compromised the integrity of our edits on this page and now we have to do an extemely through scrubbing of the misinformation and fabrication work. What's more, we've all had a hand in the improvement of this article, which does make us look foolish, but let's not detter us from still assuming WP:goodfaith in others, as they should not be penalized due to one person(s) misdeeds. Neovu79 (talk) 18:46, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
This reminds me of the debate at General of the Air Force two years ago. We used the six star rank here to justify the crest. I’m starting to think that may have been the wrong call. Also, just to show the influence this page has (https://www.amazon.com/CP-SHOULDER-COLLECTORS-PRESIDENT-PROPOSED/dp/B07N84YJLB) Garuda28 (talk) 19:14, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Garuda28:@Neovu79: I remember that debate, hard to say. I’m not sure it can all be attributed to this page, but you’re right, we need to do something about this. What is our plan of attack? Because we have half an article and all insignia which is unverified and will most likely need to be removed. Skjoldbro (talk) 20:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

As a side note: from all the images I have seen and the ones discussed in the ANI, Ober’s issue with images more seemed to be faking ownership and sourcing, rather than the images themselves. So there might still be some truth to them. Skjoldbro (talk) 20:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't know quite where to start. I don't suppose that you've got any contacts at TIOH that you could run this by? That would at least allow us to verify if this is real or not. Garuda28 (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't have any contacts in the TIOH other than the standard contact info from their site. It seems that OberRanks was the original creator of this article under their original Husnock account. It seems this article was created in conjunction with the work they do/did within the Navy, and all the images were provided through their employer, but the images were never publicly released to the general public, most likely due to the Army not considering them official work. This leads me to believe that this entire article is a case of WP:ORIGINAL done by OberRanks. They then provided dubious sources due to it likely being WP:CHALLENGED by others and possibly removed. I'm pretty sure the historical information about Generals Pershing, Washington, and Bradley are verifiable through other means, except for the information about the proposed six-star insignias including the ones in the Gallery section. Also, we will have to deal with the irroneous information on the six-star insignia of the Admiral of the Navy (United States) article as it shares the same contended Congressional Record 1981, Cong. 97 Sess. 1 source about the insignia creation. Neovu79 (talk) 23:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I went ahead a removed some of the information that I could not verify from the provided source. Neovu79 (talk) 00:49, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
The proposed rank section in six star rank is probably the best place for it. We can’t verify it directly, but it seems doubtful that the images were forged and I would hate to lose it all. I’d also recommend scrubbing references to GAS and AN on all of the rank charts since their historic ranks and don’t appear on DoD rank charts, unlike the 5 stars, which are still put on there with frequency and acknowledged by DoD. Garuda28 (talk) 01:26, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
I went through and tagged most of the statements, while also removing all the fake sources. There is clearly a lot work to be done, and some underlying problems with sourcing.
I don't have any contacts either. To ensure that we don't bombard the TIOH, we should probably appoint a contact person who can contact the TIOH. Hopefully, they will be able verify any of the images, or provide any additional information. Skjoldbro (talk) 08:45, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
My god, OberRanks made a huge mess. I spent a good 6 hours cleaning up several articles and I still think I've only been work at the tip of the iceberg. Neovu79 (talk) 09:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

(break)

Hey guys I work at US forces Europe and used to serve for a time at the Institute of Heraldry. I get all the recent cleanup of these six star articles, they needed to happen. I did want to say that the insignia images are all real. IOH has a full file on them. I put them back in this article and General of the Armies. I would suggest anyone interested in further confirmation contact IOH directly. They will also be happy to confirm. "www.aliexpress.com/item/32731392675.html" as well— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:152:4001:4460:91a5:9c1e:4bb2:7ef3 (talk • contribs) 02:52, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Since that image was added via WP:ORIGINAL research, and since it is not easily accessible to WP:VERIFY via WP:THIRDPARTY, it cannot be added. Unpublished work is not considered WP:RELIABLE. We need to be able to add exact references to those images to properly WP:SOURCE them, in order for them to be added. Meaning, we need page number(s), file indexes, author(s), etc, anything that we as go directly to that source to verify it. An email verification from IOH is not a verifiable WP:THIRDPARTY source, for John and Jane user. Neovu79 (talk) 12:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
To our IP friend here from US Forces Europe, who also worked at IOH; would it not be more expeditious to just provide some verifiable info from either the US DoD or the IOH, as opposed to stating we should contact the them? (Or adding links to aliexpress products, for that matter?) - wolf 23:02, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. Trying to contact them and waiting days, possibly weeks, for a reply not a viable solution. An accessible document from the DoD, that is marked with a DoD identification or code number, would be satisfactory, however, this article was once littered with references that when you checked them for verification, they did not contain any mention of the information it was being used to source to, and many of that information was claimed to have been accessible at IOH, which was not easily done. If we can't check it, it's not WP:VERIFIABLE. Also, on a side note, I have a hunch that our unknown IP user is OberRanks, as I remember having a conversation with that user about their background, and they mentioned to me that they worked for U.S. Naval Forces Europe and once did research at IOH. The similarities is too uncanny. Neovu79 (talk) 02:29, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Guys I was just trying to help. I remember the old pictures as being in the IOH file from 1966 when they made the insignia. The new computer generated pictures I have not seen before. I worked at IOH in 2010 but I know they have a contact number and answer people sometimes the same day. I think those old pictures are online somewhere too. I also work in the Army not the Navy, E8 in 7th Army CATC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:152:4001:4460:b8db:6ad9:b10c:1f07 (talk) 15:13, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

No one here is doubting your good intentions of helping, however, those documents are unpublished, and did not contain any reference information. Any online pictures are not reliable because 1) they did not come from the Army and/or from Congress, 2) Searching through hundreds of thousands of Congressional testimonies to see if an Army official publicly acknowledges that these insignias were indeed supposed to be for General of the Armies is out of the question, for this type of project, and 3) if the IOH thought it was important, or significantly pertinent, they would have added the insignia somewhere on their catalog and/or rank insignia pages. The only place to pull up that information is through IOH's internal unpublished files and without any reference information on the documents, it would be seen and considered as WP:ORIGINAL research, which cannot added to Wiki. Neovu79 (talk) 00:43, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Didn't Pershing change from four 'silver' stars to four 'gold' stars, upon promotion to General of the Armies? GoodDay (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I thought that was just some artistic license by the guy that painted this picture. But, there is a whole page of discussion about the gold stars here - wolf 00:11, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Update

@Neovu79 and Garuda28: I have been trying to find more sources on the area, but without a whole lot of luck. So far, I have only been able to find some Congressional Records concerning promotion proposals for MacArthur. I hadn't previously read Public Law 78-482  – via Wikisource. So I was surprised to find that Section 7 states: "Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Act of September 3, 1919 (41 Stat. 283: 10 U.S.C. 671a), or any other law relating to the office of General of the Armies of the United States."

This is all nice a good, however, it makes the whole whether Pershing's rank "fit in" with the new five-star position rather confusing and questionable to say the least. Additionally, the sources used to quote by Henry L. Stimson, make no mention of this... of course. This is coupled with the fact that seemingly half of the article is unverified, makes me think that everything needs to be double and triple verified. Or maybe even reworked from scratch. Skjoldbro (talk) 12:11, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

1945 MacArthur promotion proposal

I spent some time tracing the chronology of the 1945 MacArthur section of this article, and now I have a question.

Chronology of 1945 MacArthur section
  • 20 May 2004: Husnock creates the General of the Armies article.
  • 23 May 2004: Husnock adds a 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal to the General of the Armies article. This is a 1945 proposal to promote MacArthur to six-star rank as supreme commander of the planned invasion of Japan, that was dropped when the invasion was cancelled.
  • 24 May 2004: Asked by The Anome to provide a source for the conjectured six-star insignia, Husnock says, "The documents from General MacArthur's service record, discussing six star rank, are in St. Louis, Missouri. They can be requested under the Freedom of Information but you would have more luck going to College Park, Maryland which has extensive material on both Chester Nimitz and Douglas MacArthur and the proposal for a six star rank during the Second World War."
  • 25 May 2004: Husnock adds a 1945 Nimitz promotion proposal to the General of the Armies article. This is a 1945 proposal to promote Nimitz to the six-star rank of Flag Admiral as naval component commander of the planned invasion of Japan, that was dropped when the invasion was cancelled.
  • 13 Mar 2005: Husnock creates the Flag Admiral article.
  • 8 Apr 2005 Wikipedia:Verifiability becomes official policy.
  • 10 Aug 2006: Husnock adds a source for the 1945 Nimitz promotion proposal to the Flag Admiral article: "United States Naval service record of Chester Nimitz, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri."
  • 4 Nov 2006: Cornellrockey adds a "references needed" tag to the six-star rank section of the General of the Armies article.
  • 6 Dec 2006: Husnock adds sources for the 1945 MacArthur and Nimitz promotion proposals to the General of the Armies article: "Military service record of Douglas MacArthur, Military Personnel Records Center," and "Naval service record of Chester Nimitz, Military Personnel Records Center."
  • 12 Jan 2007: Husnock retires from Wikipedia, after being desysopped following a content dispute. The arbitration case also finds that "Husnock adds back material which had been removed by other editors as unsourced and/or untrue."
  • 6 Apr 2007 Husnock begins using the OberRanks account, linking it to his original account a few months later.
  • 4 Nov 2008: OberRanks requests that the Flag Admiral article be deleted, saying his original source turned out to be a hoax by a college acquaintance who had doctored photocopies of Nimitz' service record to include a Star Trek rank as a joke. The deleting admin commends OberRanks for diligence in following up.
  • 11 Jan 2009: OberRanks removes the 1945 Nimitz promotion proposal from the General of the Armies article, saying that Flag Admiral is a fake rank.
  • 8 Mar 2010: OberRanks greatly expands the 1945 MacArthur section in the General of the Armies article, introducing specific new details: "The proposal for MacArthur's promotion to a new rank was begun on 23 July 1945. The Army draft for the promotion specified three key points regarding the renewed proposal for General of the Armies: 1. The position would clearly be a six star general rank; 2. The rank would be senior to General of the Army; 3. The rank would require a new insignia which incorporated a sixth star into the five-star design of General of the Army." All of these new details are sourced to "Service Record of Douglas MacArthur -- 1945 Promotion Proposal Package -- National Personnel Records Center."
  • 13 Mar 2010: OberRanks adds the 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal to the Operation Downfall article, citing "Service record of Douglas MacArthur, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri" and "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan", D.M. Giangreco, Naval Institute Press (October 2009)." OberRanks also adds the Giangreco reference to the General of the Armies article as the source for the 23 July 1945 date on which the MacArthur promotion proposal began. Neither article cites a specific page in the Giangreco book.
  • 3 May 2010: OberRanks says, "According to his service record, the proposal to promote MacArthur to General of the Armies was dropped on August 18th, 1945 (before the Japanese surrender). The reason that the Army "scrapped the idea" was because there was no longer going to be an Operational Downfall."
  • 20 Jul 2012: Br'er Rabbit cleans up citations in the Operation Downfall article and tags the Giangreco reference as "page needed."
  • 3 Jun 2013: OberRanks says, "I've seen the package, its in a large brown manila folder in box #7 of his nine box record....The 1945 six star general proposal is also mentioned in several auto-biographical texts and was attached as an addendum to the 1955 Congressional proposal package. Authors who have cited the package in his record text I know of first hand are John Keegan - I think Steven Ambrose also wrote of this as well."
  • 5 Jul 2013: OberRanks says that after contacting the Secretary of the Army, the Institute of Heraldry sent a large package containing details about the six-star insignia, including that "the 6 star sketch in MacArthur's record from 1945 is completely unofficial. It was drawn by a member of his staff with no endorsement or recognition. The projected insignia in 1964 resembled the 1945 sketch, but during WWII there was nothing officially recognized."
  • 20 Nov 2015 AlternateWars' first edit is to leave a barnstar on OberRanks talk page, saying, "Very interested in your Six Star Rank stuff; the page has been significantly updated since I last read it; and I'm in the process of ordering Douglas MacArthur's OMPF from St Louis to see exactly what was being done during WWII for DOWNFALL; as I'm in the process of writing a book on it."
  • 23 Oct 2016 AlternateWars' second edit, almost a year later, removes the 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal from the General of the Armies article, saying, "I have a complete copy of Douglas MacArthur's OPMF from St Louis, and the only time he is mentioned for promotion to General of the Armies is the 1955 congressional proposal. Likewise; there is nothing in the other source quoted (Hell to Pay by Giangrecio) for MacArthur's proposed promotion." OberRanks reverts the deletion. When challenged on the Giangreco reference, OberRanks says, "I don't have direct access to my notes on this from previous research. The source you mentioned above was a source cited by another source, as I recall, so your research is good to know."
  • 24 Oct 2016: OberRanks leaves a welcome note on AlternateWars' talk page with a warning to not be tagged as a single-purpose account. "Try to edit several non-controversial articles before taking on the big fish." Marc Kupper also fails to verify the Giangreco reference, and adds a "failed verification" tag to the General of the Armies article. OberRanks leaves a note on Marc Kupper's talk page speculating that AlternateWars is a sockpuppet account. OberRanks states that the 1945 MacArthur promotion package is actually not in his official military file, but in a shoebox that OberRanks saw in 2004, which is probably now located at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk.
  • 31 Oct 2016 AlternateWars states that having visited Norfolk, the MacArthur Memorial staff knew about the post-Korean War proposals but not the 1945 proposal. "When I was in Norfolk a few years ago to do research at the MacArthur Memorial, I asked them about the six star thing during WWII. None of them had any idea about it." OberRanks replies, "At the end of the day, we will need a reliable source as it doesn't matter what I saw 12 years ago or what you were told by the Norfolk staff," and adds a "disputed accuracy" tag to the MacArthur section of the General of the Armies article. AlternateWars offers to visit the National Archives and asks OberRanks for a catalog listing to look up, which OberRanks never supplies.
  • 3 Nov 2016: OberRanks adds two sources for the 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal to the General of the Armies article: "Daily Operational Reports, Supreme Allied Commander - South West Pacific Area; National Archives and Records Administration, RG165 (College Park)" and "Burke, C.J., 'The ambiguous case for six star general', Look Magazine, 15 Jul 1960." (Look Magazine did not publish a 15 Jul 1960 issue, and no article with that title is listed in the 5 Jul 1960 or 19 Jul 1960 issues.) OberRanks then tags all of AlternateRanks' comments as coming from a single-purpose account. AlternateWars leaves a note on OberRanks' talk page asking for contact offline, which OberRanks declines, and AlternateWars then vanishes from Wikipedia for more than a year.
  • 16 Jan 2017: OberRanks removes the "disputed accuracy" tag from the MacArthur section of the General of the Armies article, after "no comment in 3 months from apparent SPA."
  • 5 Dec 2017: Fustos removes the Giangreco reference from the Operation Downfall article, five years after it was tagged as "page needed."
  • 5 Dec 2017: Chris_troutman replaces the Giangreco reference in the Operation Downfall article with a new source: Olson, James C. (2003). Stuart Symington: A Life. p. 408. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) However, this actually refers to one of the post-Korean War MacArthur promotion proposals, since it mentions opposition by "Former President Harry Truman."
  • 4 Sep 2018: OberRanks is banned indefinitely for systematically fabricating sources across a decade of activity. Future Perfect at Sunrise, who conducted the source review, says, "Of all the offline sources added by OberRanks that I have been able to check, not a single one could be confirmed as correct. Some sources simply do not exist at all; the others do not contain the information they were supposed to support."
  • 18 Oct 2019: Garuda28 removes the Giangreco reference and 23 Jul 1945 date from the General of the Armies article, three years after it was tagged as having failed verification.
  • 30 Oct 2020: Skjoldbro removes three references that OberRanks had added to the 1945 MacArthur section of the General of the Armies article in response to AlternateWars, and replaces them with "citation needed" tags, after failing to verify any of them and recalling that OberRanks was banned for fabricating sources.
  • 11 Nov 2020: An IP claiming to work at the Institute of Heraldry removes the 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal from the General of the Armies article, saying "This whole section is completely made up. IOH has nothing about 6 star rank insignia before 1962. This is an urban myth that someone started about ten years ago that has spread around the net. Nobody in 1944 every came up with this except for one story about someone making a tin six star insignia a joke in 1945 which they showed to DM." Thewolfchild reverts the deletion, pending discussion on the article talk page.

Question

Has anyone ever been able to verify anything about the 1945 proposal to promote MacArthur to General of the Armies? I am wondering if OberRanks just made the whole thing up. (I am not talking about the postwar attempts, which are well documented, or anything to do with insignia.)

  • Just on the face of it, if MacArthur really had been up for a six-star promotion in July 1945, there is no way Truman wouldn't have promoted Leahy, Marshall, and King first, to preserve the seniority that had just been established by their five-star promotions a few months earlier (and also because Truman liked them way better than he liked MacArthur). Now there are more six-star officers (Leahy, Marshall, King, MacArthur) than five-star officers (Nimitz, Eisenhower, Arnold). And anyway, who are the five-stars that MacArthur is supposed to need a sixth star to supervise? Just Nimitz? Not the British -- no one ever tried to promote Eisenhower to six stars just because he had Montgomery under his command. Maybe they promote more four-stars to five-stars, but that sort of proposal should show up in the records somewhere if it ever came close to being official. Given that the drama that delayed the five-star promotions in 1944 is rehashed endlessly in the Marshall, King, and Leahy biographical literature, any serious possibility of a six-star promotion in 1945 would also be mentioned there, and it isn't. Nor does it appear in the MacArthur literature, except for the postwar proposals.
  • People may not remember this, but OberRanks actually created the General of the Armies article in his original incarnation of Husnock way back in May 2004. The 1945 MacArthur promotion proposal was one of the first things he added. It was completely unreferenced, since this was before WP:VER became official policy. But almost from the start, OberRanks' General of the Armies article also claimed that in 1945 MacArthur and Nimitz were both up for promotion to six-star rank, with the Navy's six-star rank being called Flag Admiral. OberRanks created a Flag Admiral article in 2005, but nominated it for deletion three years later, claiming he had been fooled by photocopies of Nimitz' service record that had been doctored to include a Star Trek rank. Given the parallels between his MacArthur and Nimitz stories, I question whether the MacArthur proposal was any more real.
  • In March 2010, OberRanks greatly expanded the 1945 MacArthur section to add a number of details including specific dates, which were all sourced to MacArthur's service record at the National Personnel Records Center. Most of the current section derives from this edit. Whenever anyone challenged OberRanks to produce sources for the 1945 proposal, he always referred back to personnel records that were conveniently offline and not digitized. Future Perfect at Sunrise, who conducted the source review that got OberRanks banned, says, "Of all the offline sources added by OberRanks that I have been able to check, not a single one could be confirmed as correct. Some sources simply do not exist at all; the others do not contain the information they were supposed to support."
  • Someone actually called OberRanks' bluff in 2016. A new user named AlternateWars ordered MacArthur's official military personnel file that OberRanks had been citing, and found that the only mention of a promotion proposal was in 1955. OberRanks then claimed that actually it was an unofficial proposal worked up by MacArthur's staff in the field and therefore not part of his official military record, and that a shoebox containing the proof was probably at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk. AlternateWars retorted that having visited Norfolk, the MacArthur Memorial staff knew about the postwar promotion proposals but had never heard of any World War II proposal. AlternateWars offered to go to the National Archives and look up any reference OberRanks could provide. OberRanks then added the three sources that Skjoldbro recently removed, tagged all of AlternateWars' comments as coming from a single-purpose account, and managed to drive AlternateWars off Wikipedia.
  • The only non-OberRanks source for the 1945 MacArthur promotion I have been able to find is the one Chris_troutman added to the Operation Downfall article to replace one of OberRanks' fake references: Olson, James C. (2003). Stuart Symington: A Life. p. 408. But this source actually refers to one of the post-Korean War MacArthur promotion proposals, since it mentions opposition by "Former President Harry Truman."

An IP recently tried to delete the 1945 MacArthur section on the grounds that it was all made up: "This is an urban myth that someone started about ten years ago that has spread around the net." I think the IP is right, and the someone is OberRanks. - Morinao (talk) 06:28, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Incredible job! I have got agree with everything. It is even supported by the sources at Six-star rank in US armed forces (Sources 1–4). I think the quote from (Weintraub, 2007. p. 488) perfectly supports your first point best: "[Some] tried to organize support for honorary six-star rank for the general, but as that would have been a slap at Eisenhower, such legislation had no chance." Seeing this and the previous discussions on the matter, I have gone ahead and removed large sections which seems to be entirely WP:OR. The diff can be found HERE. I have kept some of the CN, as I believe most of them to be verifiable, provided some rewriting. There also seems to be a large overlap between this page and Six-star rank in US armed forces, maybe there is some merit in merging the two pages? Skjoldbro (talk) 09:54, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Minor off-topic query, now answered
@Skjoldbro: just to confirm; did you actually "chase off" an editor? Was he disruptive? By your response, if would seem that you acknowledge this, as good thing no less, or you just missed it. Just curious. - wolf 16:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Thewolfchild: I was trying to say that OberRanks drove off AlternateWars, not Skjoldbro. OberRanks added three junk sources to address AlternateWars' objections, and four years later Skjoldbro removed the three sources after trying and failing to verify them. Sorry if this was unclear. - Morinao (talk) 16:41, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks. - wolf 16:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

There is discussion regarding a possible merge down below at "Merge". fyi - wolf 05:39, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Pershing's four gold stars

Moved to Talk:General of the Armies/Pershing's four gold stars debate. - Morinao (talk) 07:49, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Comment size

@Morinao: - your last two comments here were a huge 22kB, and then a massive 50kb! That's within the WP:SIZERULE of requiring a split to a new page, because people won't bother to read and/or because of loading problems. (Add to that the 20kB+ of content already here and this page is now at 95kB+.) I'm not saying people won't read your comments, but more would read them of they were shorter.
TL;DR - less is more. - wolf 14:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

@Thewolfchild: Thanks for the feedback. I've split the Pershing gold star discussion off to a subpage.
Because of this article's unfortunate history with sources, I have been including longer references than I ordinarily would, and populating the citation templates with quotes tends to blow up the byte count. But the idea is that even if people don't have subscription access to newspapers.com, they can still Google enough of what I quote to verify that the source at least exists and probably says what I claim, even if they can only see snippets. - Morinao (talk) 07:57, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
@Morinao: thanks for the reply. Just wanted to add (and I should've made clear before) that this wasn't a complaint. It's just that unfortunately, when seeing a lengthy post, many users are likely to just skip over it. I see that you've done a lot of research and work toward improving the article, and the more editors that see that, and respond, the better. Thanks for all your hard work. - wolf 08:11, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Merge

Agree with Skjoldbro's notion of merging above, but perhaps do a 3 into 1; this page (General of the Armies) and Admiral of the Navy merged into Six-star ranks in the U.S. armed forces. The latter page is the top-level topic which covers the two service ranks and all three pages are small enough. Together, they would create a comprehensive article with all info in one place while removing any overlap. Thoughts? - wolf 16:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't support merging, as General of the Armies has only every been proposed as a six star rank after its usage and Admiral of the Navy (to the best of my knowledge) has never been proposed outside Wikipedia as a six-star rank. I think it would create too much confusion over the status of these historical ranks. Garuda28 (talk) 16:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Garuda28: But the AN article exists, and whether it would specifically be a "6 star rank" or not may be moot at the moment as the only actual AN who would wear such an insignia is long dead, the rank is senior to the current 5-star FADM rank. Also, there would only be confusion if the merged page were poorly done. If anything, it should help avoid confusion.
Aside from AN though, you didn't address GAS and 6-star rank. This is a proposed 3 into 1, that still leaves a possible a 2 into 1 (that was also proposed by Skjoldbro above). - wolf 16:38, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Thewolfchild: I'm struggling to find any evidence that, outside of a failed navy attempt in the 40s, AN is considered senior to FADM. I really don’t think any merger should occur, since six-star is purely conjecture and so much time was spent purging that from this page. To merge would be, unless I am really misunderstanding, restoring OberRank's false equivalencies. That being said, I think I am missing something huge here. @Skjoldbro:, as the one who originally proposed the merger, but also cleaned up this page, can you help me understand what I'm missing here? Garuda28 (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
But if the Navy made the attempt, failed or not, that exists "outside of Wikipedia". I'm in no way suggesting we re-add any of the content that was inappropriately added by OberRanks and since removed. I'm just pointing out that these three pages do exist, they all are closely related (as they all provide info on a six-star rank) and all three are quite small, and as such, a single page could be more complete and informative while eliminating any confusion. (The whole being greater than the sum of it's parts and whatnot) - wolf 17:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Garuda28: Sorry if I was unclear. I just noticed the large overlap between Six-star and this page. So rather than having two pages with more or less the same info, I thought we'd take the useful info from Six-star and create a redirect to this page. Skjoldbro (talk) 21:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Additional comment; while we know that the ranks of General of the Armies and Admiral of the Navy exist, there is a deal of speculation about actual rank insignia. And if "six-star" has ever been more than just theoretical, at least that theory has existed. While there is discussion, debate even, about the standing of these ranks in the overall hierarchy, we do know that on the United States military seniority list, General Pershing and Admiral Dewey are #2 & #3, respectively. The point is, while these three articles are limited in size and info, they are all closely related. All this leads me to believe that if the three were merged into one page, it would be an improvement. Most of what is on either the GAS or the AN page, should be on the six-star page anywway, meaning needless duplication, especially when given the size of these pages. I'm happy to even do the initial work, (knowing that it could be largely re-written by others after.) Cheers - wolf 23:53, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

@Thewolfchild: I'm actually concerned that seniority list is either made up or not official. OberRanks made most of that page as well. I'm of the opinion that the six-star ranks page should have any pertinent information merged into the General of the Armies page (and whatever can be sourced to Admiral of the Navy as well). I am strongly opposed to merging General of the Armies and Admiral of the Navy into the six-star page as a) They have never been officially designated as six-star grades and b) the armed forces have never established a six-star rank. Their designation as six-star ranks appear to have been, for the most part, made up and perpetuated by OberRanks. @Neovu79:, since you've participated in this clean up as well, what are your thoughts? Garuda28 (talk) 00:25, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Garuda28, a) I see you've made some edits to that page, but you've never raised any concerns about it on the talk page. Have you challenged the veracity of it elsewhere?
b) As for "six star rank", do you contend that it is strictly a Wikipedia contrivance? That the six-star page shouldn't exist and/or there shouldn't be any mention of "six star rank" (US) in any WP article?
c) The point is, since such mention does exist, and currently a page about six-star ranks in the US military, also exists, and at the same time WP does discuss GAS and AN being (possibly) superior to established five-star ranks, then given that there is only the two ranks, for two men, and the info is somewhat limited yet closely related, it only makes sense to centralize this info on a single page, as opposed to having three pages.
d) Given Skjoldbro's latest comment, if we can't merge 3 to 1, then perhaps we can at least merge 3 to 2; keeping GAS an AN, with mention of one on the other where merited (or cross-linked at a minimum). I'd still like to see what other's might have to say. (And on that note; I'm sure this is on Neovu79's watchlist, and he'll contribute if he's interested. It's better that his comments don't appear solicited. - friendly-smiley-wink) - wolf 01:17, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
@Thewolfchild: On A) I only just realized it may have been a possibility two days ago when I stumbled across the seniority page. Per B) Not purely a Wikipedia contrivance, but in terms of associating six-stars with General of the Armies and Admiral of the Navy (in particular) I have strong suspicions that it played a key role, considering most of the pages I've seen on it post-date its inclusion on Wikipedia, and mirror many of the points added by OberRanks. Moreover, there are so few reputable sources on six-star ranks on the internet - I am confident this played a huge role in spreading misinformation. I'm all for merging the pertinent information from the six-star rank page into the GAS/AN pages, but we should not imply that these ranks are officially six-star ranks or senior to the five-star grades without sources that back it up.Garuda28 (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
My general take away from all the information that was found, is that the Navy wanted AN to be senior to FADM and equal to GA. However, Congress did not approve the elevation of the rank, so the conclusion that I drew is that AN is not officially equal to GA nor is it officially senior to FADM. It is mere conjecture from the Navy, who by law, cannot amend its regulations to reestablish the rank, or make it equal to GA. So I would support a merger of Six-star rank into the General of the Armies article as it is the only rank recognized as a six-star. I would prefer that Admiral of the Navy (United States) remain its own article, but since there is very little historical significance of the rank, unlike Commodore (United States), I would be fine with, and would support, merging AN into the Fleet admiral (United States) article under its History subheading, since FADM is the rank that replaced AN. Neovu79 (talk) 06:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I was initially leaning toward merging Six-star rank into the other two articles, but now that I see how General of the Armies turned out, I think there is still space to tell three stories in three articles.

  1. General of the Armies starts in 1799 and ends with Washington's promotion in 1976.
  2. Admiral of the Navy starts in 1899 and ends when the Navy purged it from regulations in 1955.
  3. Six-star rank starts in 1944 and ends with Washington's promotion in 1976.

There will be some overlap and redundancy between articles, but if a reader is really only interested in six-star ranks, they shouldn't have to wade through all the non-six-star stuff about General of the Armies and Admiral of the Navy.

Alternatively, the six-star article could be merged into Highest military ranks, which includes most of the six-star story already. - Morinao (talk) 04:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  • Oppose: I generally dislike merging distinct concepts into a common article, even if we don't have a lot to say about them individually. The Wikidata-Wikipedia integration is based on the idea of one concept one article, and merging multiple concepts into a single article confuses that. I think it is better to have separate articles on separate concepts, and a few of them are rather brief because there is only so much that can be said on that topic, so be it. Mr248 (talk) 05:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
@Mr248: But these are singular, one-off ranks, given as a honor to an officer to make him the most senior in his service. It was also a way to give him additional benefits (extra pay, staff, etc). Each had a distinctive ensigna (if at all), likely never to be used again. There some indication these were six-star ranks, and some indication they were considered equal. There is a great deal of similarity and overlap with these pages. The only "difference in these concepts" is one is US Navy and the other US Army. - wolf 05:49, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Rewrite from scratch

I rewrote the article from scratch, and hopefully resolved most of the issues about sourcing and original research. This completely replaces the previous article, so feel free to revert if you think it's too big a change to make without prior consensus.

Insignia with four gold stars

See also: Talk:General of the Armies/Pershing's four gold stars debate

I omitted the claim that Pershing changed his General of the Armies insignia from four silver stars to four gold stars specifically to distinguish himself from other four-star generals. As argued in excruciating detail on the subpage linked above, I now believe this story was invented on Wikipedia in 2007.

However, since I haven't yet convinced Billmckern (or anyone else, apparently), I won't fight anyone who wants to put it back. I have pretty much said my piece on the subpage, and will leave it to others to make the final call.

If you do include this story, I recommend you insert it between the paragraphs in the Insignia section about Pershing's 1917 insignia and 1937 coronation uniform, and cite Perrenot (2009), which seems to be the original (self-published) source for most articles or books that actually list a reference for this claim (Perrenot, Preston B. (2009). United States Army Grade Insignia Since 1776. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 90. Initially, Pershing opted to keep the four silver stars but as more officers got promoted to the grade of General, the pressure on Pershing to change the grade insignia increased. Pershing did not want to see a five star grade and finally compromised by changing his four stars from silver to gold.). I am not going to do this myself, since the only part of that Perrenot quote for which I could find a pre-2007 source is that Pershing initially opted to keep his four silver stars.

Verifying offline sources

Due to the history of this article with fabricated offline sources, I tried not to cite offline sources in general, with three unavoidable exceptions: Buell's biography of King, Pogue's biography of Marshall, and Wiener's articles about general officer ranks.

Buell and Pogue are the best references for the six-star Admiral of the Navy story, and other attempts to make Marshall a General of the Armies. Both books are still in print and available on Kindle. (Pogue might even be downloadable as PDF chapters -- try Googling: "organizer of victory" 2014/06 site:marshallfoundation.org)

Wiener is the definitive reference on general officer ranks above two stars, and official sources like [1] largely paraphrase his 1945 Infantry Journal articles on the topic. Unfortunately, the Wiener articles can only be found in a large library's hardcopy archives, which are obviously inaccessible during the pandemic. So I have quoted the relevant text being cited in each footnote, hopefully enough for Google to verify that the source at least exists.

Discussion

Unfortunately, I won't have time after this weekend to really maintain or defend this article (only had time now due to pandemic restrictions on holiday activities), so anyone should feel free to revert and revise without consulting me. - Morinao (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

II omitted the claim that Pershing changed his General of the Armies insignia from four silver stars to four gold stars specifically to distinguish himself from other four-star generals. As argued in excruciating detail on the subpage linked above, I now believe this story was invented on Wikipedia in 2007.

While it might be incorrect, shouldn't we attempt to include the misunderstanding of the four gold stars in the article? There are after all multiple sources which states it, and it seems like a widespread claim. Skjoldbro (talk) 09:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. (imho) - wolf 22:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Pershing 5 Star Grade?

The Army IOH assertion that Pershings grade is equivalent to 5 stars is wrong, the public law creating 5 star rank in 1944 specified that Pershing would be considered senior to all those promoted to that rank thus making him the equivalent of 6 stars; furthermore as pointed out in the article on John J. Pershing there was a proposed 6 star rank insignia for him. Since Washington is senior to Pershing he is in fact a 7 star equivalent.2601:149:8100:6CF0:0:0:0:D850 (talk) 13:13, 23 March 2022 (UTC) o.

While I agree with you on a personal level, and would like to see Congress once and for all pass legislation that clarifies the who is what rank (senior to four star), and what each rank is named as, and what insignia/number of stars each rach is designated by, including creation of a formal six-star rank, and have that rank as "General of the Armies" (to include Pershing), and "Admiral of the Navy" (to include Dewey). And then also elevate Washington further to seven-star rank (which is not unheard of), as "Commanding General of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, In Omne Tempus", (or something like that), but it hasn't happened and isn't likely to. All we can do is add content that is supported by reliable sources. Unless you can find a source that states Washington is "in fact a 7 star equivalent", the we can't say that. We have to be wary of WP:SYNTH when using information in the sources we have. - wolf 18:02, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Not a question of having a 'reliable source' its obvious and common sense. Pershing was declared senior to all the 5 star Officers clearly making him a 6 star EQUIVALENT; Washington is senior to Pershing so obviously making him a 7 star equivalent. Doesn't take an act of congress to clarify this and the wiki obsession with sources seems a bit silly given the massive amount of errors and disinformation in its articles.2601:149:8100:6CF0:0:0:0:D850 (talk) 22:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Well, just the same, if you want the article to say Pershing is/was a 6-star general and Washington is/was a 7-star, you need reliable sources to support that, (and for that to happen, it would take an act of congress)... Thems da rulez.

You can try and change that, but honestly you would have an easier time convincing congress to create and pass that law then you would trying to get enough Wikipedians to drop the sourcing policy in favour of content supported only by what's "obvious" and by "common sense", (seriously... creating consensus among editors here can be like herding cats at the best of times). You could always start your own wikia, then write whatever you like about any generals, no pesky sources required. - wolf 23:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Updates to Grant section needed

As of 24 December 2022, the 2023 NDAA has passed, and with it, the authorization for Ulysses S. Grant's promotion to General of the Armies.

Per Section 583, it gives Grant equal rank and precedence to John J. Pershing. Versions of the bill prior to the House-Senate reconciliation have different languages and wording on the Grant promotion, and I believe that these should be reflected in the relevant section of the page including the present version with Grant being placed as equal to Pershing.

Considering I'm still trying to understand how the section and accompanying promotion works (reading it over and over), I believe that any edits I make will be inadvertently misleading and likely go ignored for months as this page is the highest-priority military history Wikipedia article. I hope that editors with a better grasp of reading laws and understanding their meaning can make the relevant additions. SuperWIKI (talk) 16:56, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

What a mess. Somehow Congress has managed to make General of the Armies even more confusing, which is quite an accomplishment.
I updated the article to reflect that Grant's appointment has been authorized, although I don't understand how it will be executed either, now that it is tied to Pershing's 1919 law. But the article shouldn't need to interpret the appointment further until it actually happens, at which point there will hopefully be reliable sources to explain it. It took two years for the Army to execute Washington's promotion after it was authorized in 1976, and Congress has authorized other posthumous promotions that never happened at all (Mitchell, Kimmel, Short).
- Morinao (talk) 09:04, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
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