John Hodge came from a military background, and served as the commander of the U.S. Third Army from September 1950 to May 1952.
His military service included serving as Captain, US Army, 1920-1935; Major, US Army, 1935-1940; Lieutenant Colonel, 1940-1941; Chief of Staff, VII Corps, 1941-1942; Commanding General, XXIV Corps, 1944-1948; Commanding General, Third Army, 1950-1952; Chief of Army Field Forces, 1952-1953.
John Reed Hodge was born in Golconda, Illinois, on June 12, 1893. He attended Southern Illinois Teachers College and the University of Illinois. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant out of OCS into the Infantry Reserve in 1917.
He served during World War I in France and Luxembourg from 1918 to 1919. After the War he returned to the states as a professor of military science at the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College.
In 1926 he graduated from the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and went overseas for service in the Pacific.
During World War II Hodge was a Lieutenant Colonel with the VII Corps, and in 1942 he was made a temporary Brigadier General on Guadalcanal. He participated in the assault on Okinawa in July 1945.
In September of 1945 Hodge served concurrently as the Commanding General of the XXIV Corps, and also as the Commander of American Forces in Korea. He remained in this position until 1948 when the Republic of Korea was established. From 1948-50 Hodge returned to the U.S. as the Commanding General of the V Corps in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He served from late 1950 to early 1952 as the Commanding General for the U.S. Third Army.
In June of 1953 he retired from active duty and he died in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 1963.
