Jacob Loucks Devers

Born Sept. 8, 1887, in York, Pa, American general (1945).

Devers graduated from West Point in 1909 and served in the artillery and after 1930 in the tank forces. He graduated from the American War College in 1939. From 1939 to 1940, Devers was chief of staff in the Panama Canal Defense Zone, and from 1941 to 1942 he was chief of the armored forces of the USA. In May 1943 he was named commander of US forces in Europe. In 1944 he became deputy supreme Allied commander of the Mediterranean theater of operations. In August 1944, Devers was named commander of the Southern Group of American troops and French troops (in southern France), which later became the 6th Army Group. From 1945 to 1949 he was commander of the ground forces of the USA. He retired in September 1949.