Clement A. Trott , or “The Baron” as we affectionately knew him, came to us from Milwaukee. His decisive and somewhat imperious manner, plus Teutonic ancestry, early gave him the name that endured all his life, as did his jaunty, positive ways. His father, born in Germany, was one of the town’s substantial citizens and believed in hard work, not only for himself but for his children. Accordingly, the boy carried before breakfast, summer and winter, a five mile paper route, besides doing the many household chores that boys then had to do. Lake Michigan and sailboats furnished his recreation. In school he did good and careful work, passing with flying colors the West Point entrance examinations, although the appointment was unexpected and came to him only a few days before the tests. Probably he had the least chance of any man in the Class to prepare for the examinations. He may not have been the youngest man to take the examinations that year, but once in the Academy, he was the youngest man in the Class, destined to be the last retired for age forty-six years later. In an Army career youth is an advantage, but not so at the Academy. There, the two or three years more schooling of the elders of the class not only give them real scholastic advantage, but make easier the re-adjustment to a Spartan existence, undreamed of by boys straight from civil life. As for the Baron, proud, impulsive and volatile, prone to speak out when silence might have been wiser, he may well have had more problems of adjustment than most of us. But he had one great advantage in that from the very beginning he liked the military and appreciated far sooner than did most of us the opportunity and great good fortune entailed in a West Point appointment. He was one of the few who always maintained that his cadet days were thoroughly happy.

Academically, his good mind, superb health and application kept him on easy street. To the military side of the course he applied himself just as he did to the academic, and discipline was no problem to him. From his yearling year on he was a cadet officer. Never an athlete, he took the greatest interest in athletics, beginning then a habit that he kept up all his life—that of keeping accurate records of Academy sports. His major interest was baseball, and in 1906, when he came back to the Academy as an instructor in Law, he was promptly made graduate manager of the cadet team and did a notable job in bringing it from the depths to the heights of the collegiate baseball world. It was he who brought to the Point the celebrated Sammy Strang, one of the best baseball coaches of the era.

As an Army officer, he soon became known as one who knew his business and always attended to it. Never sick and seemingly never tired, he was ever on the job, seeming to care seriously for little other than his family and his profession, although later in life he developed into a very good golfer. Never neutral, placid or uninterested, he was a man of strong feelings, rebellious against injustice and delighted by good work wherever found. No one was quicker than he to “take up arms against a sea of troubles”, or go to the assistance of the down-trodden.

His graduation was into the old Indian-fighting Army, then, after a final burst of glory in the Spanish-American War, on its way out. His service as a company officer of Infantry in the eighteen years that intervened between graduation and our entrance into the First World War was for the large part in the remote and comfortless Infantry stations of those days. On his list were Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and the Philippines. To all of them went the wife of his youth, Leah Wright, whom he married soon after graduation, and whose unusual beauty, grace and wisdom endeared her to all of the Class who knew her. In a full half-century of happiness they were separated only when the Baron was with Pershing on the Punitive Expedition into Mexico and in France. But not all the stations were remote, for the list of that period includes Fort Sheridan, Plattsburg, the University of Illinois and Leavenworth. After the course in the school at Leavenworth, in which he attained distinction as an Honor Graduate, he remained there as instructor in tactics. A great reader with the gift of intense application, he was already well grounded in tactics when he went to Leavenworth.

His first duty in World War I was as an instructor in the Fort Sheridan Officer Training Camps. After that and service at Camp Sherman, Ohio, as a Lieutenant Colonel of Infantry in a National Army division, he was ordered in December 1917 to France as an observer with the British Army, later, following duty as student-offlcer and instructor at the staff school at Langres, he went to the 83rd Division and then to the 5th, remaining with this latter organization until the end of the war. For this service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for “Exceptionally distinguished and meritorious service as Chief of Staff”. Furthermore he was included at the end of the war on the so-called “Initial General Staff List”, in reality a roll of honor of those who had most distinguished themselves in the war on either staff or command duty. From this list of officers the first post-war class of the Army War College was largely drawn and Trott was one of its members. In the conferences his wide and accurate information was notable, for he had served not only at the British front but in every major American operation. His other war medals included the French Legion of Honor (Officer) and the Silver Star for bravery.

After the War College course and prior to his promotion to Brigadier General in 1935, he served in the office of the Chief of Infantry, was an instructor of the Organized Reserve and thrice a regimental commander. One of his commands was the important CCC district in northern New England, concerned with the construction there of monumental flood control works. On each and every one of these jobs he was highly commended by his superiors and the harder they were to please, the more they seemed to like his work. Of one of his regimental commands the Inspector said: “The order, neatness and cleanliness that prevail are unusual and distinctive. For this, Colonel Trott is primarily responsible”. Of another of his commands the Division Commander wrote: “... his regiment came out first in all inspections” Of his third regimental command the Brigade Commander, a relentless and exacting officer not given to compliments, wrote high praise and added to it this penetrating comment: “In my opinion, Colonel Trott does not get full credit for his exceptional capacity and value to the Service, except from those who discover and understand his great diffidence”. In this he put his finger on what few outside the Class ever knew, which was that in spite of his courage, real ability and cock-sure manner he was underneath an extremely shy and sensitive man, enormously depressed by criticism and embarrassed by praise. His youthful defense at the Point was an attitude of gruffness, impatience and reserve, remnants of which clung to him always, retarding, as the Brigade Commander acutely observed, his career. The Baron never pretended, never put himself forward and had absolutely no “show-window”. What he got was strictly on his merit. As a Brigadier he commanded brigades at Fort Douglas, Utah; Boston, Massachusetts; Hawaii and Fort Meade; the 6th Division at Fort Lewis, Washington, and the 5th Corps Area at Columbus, Ohio. In April 1941 he was promoted to the grade of Major General, but old age caught him the same year and in the month of Pearl Harbor and our entrance into World War II he was retired, bringing up, as he said, the rear guard of the Class of 99!

In retirement—in winter in Geneva, Illinois, and in summer at a Minnesota lake—he pursued his reading and his interest in athletics, played golf and did the customary chores of a householder, being fortunate in retaining almost until the hour of his sudden and unexpected death on April 14, 1950, his accustomed health and vigor. To “the Baroness”, as we have affectionately known her over the years, go the deep sympathy and warm regards of the Class of 99.

—C. D. H.