Harold Benjamin Fiske was born at Salem, Oregon on the 6th of November, 1871, the son of Eugene Rufus Fiske, M.D., and Charlotte Scott Grubbe Fiske. After attendance at Willamette University of Salem, Oregon, he attended and in 1891 graduated from the Bishop Scott Academy of Portland, Oregon. He then taught for two years while awaiting an appointment at West Point, an institution he had wanted to attend for some years. He was appointed to the Academy from Portland in 1893.
General Fiske entered West Point on June 21, 1893 with the Class of 1897, a class which became one of the most distinguished classes to leave the Academy. On that day in June he commenced a military career which developed him into such an expert in training matters that he was considered in the Army of his day to have no peer where training was concerned. Not only was he later made directly responsible for the training of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I, as will be mentioned farther on, but between the wars he trained thousands of younger officers and men who were to plav important roles in World War II.
Graduating on June 11, 1897, General Fiske chose as his branch the Infantry. His standing of twenty-five in a class of sixty-six gave him a wide range of choice, but the smell of the gunpowder of the Spanish-American War was beginning to taint the air, and he chose that branch which he thought would give him the best chance of seeing active service. He never regretted it. The Infantry became one of the great loves of his life, perhaps second only to his beloved wife, and I know of no one, then or now, who knew better the Infantry, its tactics, technique, command and history, from the times of the great captains down, than did General Fiske.
General Fiske’s first assignment was to the 18th Infantry at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and he missed the fighting in Cuba, getting no closer than New Orleans. But on June 14th, 1898, he sailed with his regiment for the Philippines. During the next several years he saw an astonishing amount of fighting and number of campaigns in a period that the average American considers a peaceful one. He fought against the Spaniards at Manilla and participated in its capture on August 13, 1898, and continued to fight and campaign against the insurgents until his return to the States in August of 1901.
May of 1902 saw General Fiske again on his way to the Philippines as a Captain, 28th Infantry. He took up his old job of fighting insurgents until his return to the United States in December 1903. He was off again, this time to Cuba in October 1906 to 1909, participated in the invasion of Vera Cruz in November 1914, and was with General Pershing on the Mexican Border in 1916.
During this busy period General Fiske found time to attend the Army School of the Line at Fort Leavenworth, from which he was an honor graduate, and to graduate from the Army Staff College, as well as to instruct at both schools.
When the first American troops were sailing for France in June, 1917, General Bullard selected the then Major Fiske from a long list of recommended majors to be Brigade Adjutant (equivalent of Brigade Executive today) of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division. Soon after arrival in France he was assigned to the Training Section of the General Headquarters, AEF and in February 1918 became Chief of Section, G-5, Training. He participated in the St. Mihiel operations with the 1st Division, September 11-14, and in the Meuse-Argonne operations with the 79th Division and the 2nd Division in September and October.
General Fiske’s accomplishments as Chief of Section, G-5, AEF, can best be stated in General Pershing’s own words as contained in General Fiske’s citation for the Distinguished Service Medal which General Pershing wrote personally:
January 17, 1919, “for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services. In charge of the training section of the General Staff, this brilliant officer perfected and administered the efficient scheme of instruction through which the American Army in France was thoroughly trained for combat in the shortest possible time. By his great depth of vision, his foresight, and his clear conception of modem tactical training he has enabled our forces to enter each engagement with that preparedness and efficiency that have distinguished the American Army in each battle.”
General Fiske was promoted to Brigadier General, National Army on June 26, 1918 and on October 16, 1918, General Pershing cabled the War Department recommending that he be promoted to Major General. But the end of the war was in sight and reductions rather than promotions were to become the order of the day. General Fiske had to wait 15 years for this deserved promotion.
Returning from France in August of 1919, General Fiske served as Instructor at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, as Chief of the Training Section, War Department General Staff, and in various garrison assignments. Promoted to Brigadier General again in 1922, he successively commanded the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, the 3rd Infantry Brigade, the 4th Coast Artillery District, the Panama Division (a Major General’s command which he held from March of 1931 until the division’s inactivation in 1932) and the Atlantic Sector, Canal Zone. In August of 1933 General Fiske was promoted to Major General and given command of the Panama Department, a command he held until his retirement in 1935.
At his first station, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he met and on April 17th 1898 married Miss Lucy Brookes Keyes, daughter of Lt. Colonel Alexander S. B. Keyes. She was to be his almost constant companion for fifty-six years until her death in 1954. It is difficult for me to write of Mrs. Fiske as I can find no words to describe her wit, her wonderful sense of humor, her judgment, her strength and her kindliness to those about her. In good times as well as in times of disappointment she was unchanging. To have been associated with her as her husband’s aide-de-camp for nearly four years and to have received her counsel and guidance as a young officer, I shall always rate as one of my great privileges. She was ever cheerful and steadfast. A perfect wife for a great officer.
General Fiske himself was more than a great soldier to many of us who knew him. He was almost a legend. I joined him as a very young officer mid-way between the two World Wars. The Army then, as we look back, was not the best Army we have had. General Fiske and a few like him were trying to make it the best and had it not been for them, it might have been a very poor Army indeed. Many of our officers were holding: grades below those they had held ten years or more before. Others, good men, but relatively unskilled, had not been officers at all until past middle age, and were nearing retirement. There seemed comparatively little incentive for hard work. But General Fiske never faltered in attempting to build the kind of Army he knew we would need again some day. By his leadership, his forcefulness, by his example of doing what was right always, he instilled a great pride in his units and made them outstanding. He had no use for the lazy, the unethical or the incompetent. But to those who tried, he gave a loyalty and an example and knowledge which stood them well. Many of those associated closely with him in my day have risen to high rank and I have had many tell me that the teachings of Major General H. B. Fiske have played a great part in their success. He was always a teacher, a trainer, a leader, and to his host of friends, a true and kind friend. The Academy can well say to him, “Well done.”
General Fiske is survived by two daughters, Berenice Fiske of San Diego, California with whom he made his home at the time of his death, and Virginia Fiske Timberman, wife of Major General Thomas S. Timberman, USA-Ret, a granddaughter, Virginia Timberman Callaghan, wife of Major John W. Callaghan, USA, a grandson, Thomas Fiske Timberman, student at Georgetown University, and three great grandchildren.
Besides the Distinguished Service Medal mentioned above, General Fiske’s decorations include: Silver Star; Commander, Legion of Honor (France); Croix de Guerre with Palm (France); Commander, Crown of Italy (Italy); Commander, Crown of Leopold (Belgium).
—John C. Oakes (1928), Lieutenant General, USA