Alexander Archer Vandegrift
Vandegrift, Alexander Archer (1887-1973), a United States Marine Corps officer and commandant of the Corps, 1944-47. He was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the University of Virginia. Vandegrift was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in 1909 and served in Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, and China. In World War II he commanded the First Marine Division in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi campaign in 1942 and the First Marine Amphibious Corps in the landing on Bougainville in 1943. He was made a lieutenant general in 1943 and a general in 1945. He retired in 1948. His memoirs, Once a Marine, were published in 1964.