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| Information > Biographies > BRIGADIER GENERAL LAWRENCE MCILROY GUYER |
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BRIGADIER GENERAL LAWRENCE MCILROY GUYER
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Died Jan. 22, 1982.
Lawrence McIlroy Guyer was born in Brookings, S.D., in 1907. The son of an Army officer, he was raised in the service and spent his boyhood at many Army camps and stations, mostly in the old west and in Alaska. He graduated "cum laude", with honors, from Louisville, Ky., Male High School in 1924, and during the next year he briefly attended the University of South Dakota and the University of Louisville, Ky., in preparation for entering West Point. In 1925 he received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Military Academy from the Honorable Maurice Thatcher, 5th District of Kentucky. He graduated in 1929, 61st in a class of 301.
During the first 14 years of his service, General Guyer was an artillery officer in the Coast Artillery Corps. His first assignment was as a battery officer in the 13th Coast Artillery at Fort Barrancas, Fla. Thereafter, between 1930 and 1932, he was a battery officer assigned to the 1st Coast Artillery at Fort Sherman, Canal Zone, and between 1932 and 1935 he was a battery officer in the 62nd Coast Artillery, Anti-Aircraft, at Fort Totten, N.Y. During his latter period he also was on sub-assignment as a camp commander of the Civilian Conservation Corps at Blue Mountain, N.Y.
In 1935 Lieutenant Guyer was ordered to school as a student at the Coast Artillery School, Fort Monroe, Va., from which he graduated in 1936. From 1936 to 1940 he was assigned as an instructor in the Department of English at the U.S. Military Academy. From 1940 to 1941 he was engaged in reactivating the old harbor defenses of Portsmouth, N.H., and in rebuilding the submarine mine and seacoast defenses centered around Fort Constitution.
In late summer of 1941, Captain Guyer took command of a battalion of the 67th Coast Artillery, Anti-Aircraft, located at Schofield Barracks, near Wheeler Field, Hawaii. The battalion was a newly activated, full war-strength unit, but was still awaiting the arrival of guns and fire control equipment from the United States when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The officers and men of the battalion were reassigned as fillers to other units and Guyer, now a temporary major, was assigned to headquarters of the Hawaiian Anti-Aircraft Command, and subsequently to headquarters of the Hawaiian Seacoast Artillery Command where, in 1942 and 1943 he served successively as G-3, acting chief of staff, and artillery officer.
He was promoted in April 1942 to temporary lieutenant colonel and in November 1942 to temporary colonel. During this period Colonel Guyer was responsible for the installation of many Army seacoast gun batteries on Oahu and for the land adaptation and installation of many Navy gun turrets, including the unparalleled installation of the two 14 inch aft turrets of the USS Arizona after their salvage from the sunken vessel in Pearl Harbor. Such activities earned Colonel Guyer the Bronze Star Medal for "meritorious service in connection with military operations against the enemy". The citation stating also that "his qualities of leadership, superior initiative, efficiency and professional knowledge were of inestimable value to his command in completing its mission in the defense of Oahu."
On Nov. 9, 1943 Colonel Guyer was relieved from assignment and further duty in the Central Pacific Area and was assigned to Headquarters Army Air Forces as executive of the Pacific Theater Branch in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Plans, Washington, D.C. In this office Colonel Guyer further served as chief of the Pacific Theater Branch, then acting chief of the Operational Plans Division, then deputy assistant chief of Air Staff Plans.
For these services during the period December 1943 to September 1945 Colonel Guyer was awarded the Legion of Merit. Also during this period, on April 6, 1945, Headquarters Army Air Forces issued Personnel Orders No. 83 by which Colonel Guyer was "granted an honorary inactive rating as aircraft observer, and is authorized to wear the Aircraft Observer aviation badge."
In September 1945 Colonel Guyer was re-assigned from the air staff to the Office of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. Here, until July 1949 he was Air Force member of a joint Army-Navy-Air Force team charged with researching the records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and writing the wartime history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During this same period, on Feb. 2, 1946, Colonel Guyer permanently transferred from the Coast Artillery Corps to the Army Air Corps, in the permanent grade of major and temporary grade of colonel. On April 2, 1948 he was promoted to the permanent grade of colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
From August 1949 to June 1950 Colonel Guyer was a student at the National War College, from which he graduated in 1950. He was then assigned to the faculty of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and in May 1952 he became deputy commandant and director of academic instruction at the Air War College.
In October 1953 Colonel Guyer was reassigned as chief of staff of the Continental Air Command at Mitchel Air Force Base, N.Y. While serving in this capacity he was promoted, on June 27, 1955, to the grade of temporary brigadier general.
In March 1956 General Guyer was reassigned from the Continental Air Command to duty as U.S. Air Force member and chief of staff of the United Nations Military Armistice Commission in Korea. After completion of this duty assignment he became, in September 1956, special assistant to the commander, Far East Air Forces, in Tokyo, Japan. In this capacity General Guyer was responsible for assisting the commander in matters pertaining to command re-organization in the Pacific-Far east areas, and for re-location of headquarters of the Far East Air Forces from Japan to Hawaii.
Effective upon the re-organization of command in the Pacific and Far East, July 1, 1957, General Guyer became chief of staff of the Fifth Air Force. It was while serving in this capacity that he was found to have contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, and he was returned to the United States in September 1957 as a patient at Fitzsimons Army Hospital, Denver, Colo., where, as of August 1958 his full recovery is soon expected.
DECORATIONS AND MEDALS
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star Medal
American Defense Service Medal with star
Army Commendation Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Air Force Longevity Service Award with six stars
UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES
In 1942 as an artillery officer, General Guyer put on a diving helmet and went down into the sunken USS Arizona, in Pearl Harbor, to ascertain if, from an artillery view-point, the two aft 14 inch gun turrets could be removed from the battleship and installed on land. The conclusion was affirmative, and the job was later done. The experience was especially unusual in that few have ever had access to the USS Arizona shortly after its sinking or have seen such eyewitness evidence of the heroism at Pearl Harbor.
From 1945 to 1949 General Guyer was assigned full time duty to researching the records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff preparatory to the writing of the World War II history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Few officers have ever had so unparalleled an opportunity to learn the over-all military and military-political record of the United States participation in World War II.
From April to September 1956 General Guyer was a member of the United Nations Military Armistice Commission in Korea. The seeking to negotiate with the Communists in a military battlefield environment is an experience that falls to the lot of few officers.
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