Mark Wayne Clark

Clark, Mark Wayne 

Born May 1, 1896, at Madison Barracks, N.Y.; American general (1945).

Clark graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1917, fought in World War I, and served on the American general staff. Appointed commander of the American ground troops in Europe in July 1942, he was sent on a secret mission to establish contacts with the French command in North Africa on the eve of the Allied landing and succeeded in signing an agreement with the French admiral J. Darlan on Nov. 22, 1942. Clark then commanded the American Fifth Army in North Africa and Italy from January 1943 to December 1944, the Fifteenth Army Group in Italy from December 1944 until the end of the war, and the American troops in Austria from 1945 to 1947. In 1952–53 he commanded the UN troops in Korea during the American aggression. Clark was president of The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, from 1954 to 1965.