A Tenacity of Purpose

Our book “Old Breed General” published February 2022, catapults readers into the storm of WWII in 1942, where Rupertus and the 1st Marine Division face the Japanese in a ferocious war in the Pacific alongside the US Navy, Army, and our Allies.*

Though we flashback to Rupertus’s early life, this tale is not confined to the battlefields alone, as you will read in the book.

My original manuscript called Tenacity of Purpose (not published) covered his whole life.

Perhaps readers don’t want all that chronological data. But….

Many readers told me they wanted to know more about General Rupertus.

Therefore, this information I will be posting will be a companion guide for family and those curious readers.

With my personal insight. 

I plan to break it into four parts. For those who would like to know about his experience pre WWII, and what road he took from an enlisted man to become a Major General in the Marine Corps during WWII, this is the story.

Part I: Family Roots to the end of WWI

Part II: Haiti to Peking

Part III: Shanghai to the 1st Marine Division 

Part IIII: Pearl Harbor to the Pacific in WWII

How did this all get started?

It actually began with our Mom, Gail Bennett Rupertus.

Yes! I learned our Mom began this journey into the past after our father died of cancer in 1991, but never finished it because was diagnosed with ALS in 1999 (At age 58!), and died of ALS in 2004.

Flashback to 1998.

As former Marine, author, and revered historian Colonel Joseph H. Alexander (now deceased) penned in response to our mother’s inquiry regarding a Lou Reda Production on the Pacific and Peleliu on April 16, 1998:

“Any general or admiral who commands in a great battle becomes, thereby, a public figure, subject to the evaluation by future historians. In the battles of World War II, legendary commanders like MacArthur, Patton, Montgomery, and Halsey each had their decisions reviewed and critiqued, often in less favorable terms. That’s history. I respect the man as I do any commander in a tough spot. He certainly had the much more difficult task of fighting that battle (Peleliu) than I have had in analyzing it a half-century later. Please let me suggest an alternate course for you; the field of military biography is crying for fresh accounts of World War II Marine commanders. Why don’t you undertake the story of the life and service of General Rupertus, a distinguished Marine about whom little is known?”

I wish we had a chance to meet you Col. Alexander.

After our parents died, my sisters and I were left with trunks full of military history from two Marines; our Grandfather and his son Patrick Hill Rupertus (our father). 

There was no talk of doing anything with it other than …

We agreed our Grandfather’s life would make a great movie someday.

This journey  took flight again in 2016 when Don Brown, a lawyer and former Navy JAG officer, stumbled upon our grandfather, General William H. Rupertus, during his research for “The Last Fighter Pilot.”

Like many others, Don saw the potential for a book that would honor our grandfather’s memory, serving not only our family and the Marine Corps but also contributing to the historical record.

He told me I should write it “before it was too late.” 

Yes, time flies. Don’t let the drift set in.

There emerged a purpose—a chance to weave a narrative from what we had in those trunks and family files.

Silence creates a problem

Why did it take us so long to pick up where Mom left off?

The prospect of such a project was daunting, overshadowed by being married with kids, jobs and the loss of those family legends.

But, it was time to get off my ass, as our Dad would say.

I soon learned the silence surrounding our grandfather and other veterans perpetuated a troubling void, leaving their stories untold, and their experiences shrouded in mystery.

With many lessons learned- lost to time. And too often, authors and historians leaned on hearsay, unwittingly perpetuating the void and inaccuracies.

#Mojo.

It was time for us to seize this unique opportunity and add facts to the narrative and contribute to history.

We began this when Old Breed General was published in 2022 (with Don as my co-author)…. twenty-four years after our mother was given this challenge by Col. Alexander!

Discovering our Grandfather

When I started down this path, we knew very little about our Grandfather. Or, what all the military and family memorabilia in those trunks and our home library might have meant to him.

We were aware that he had reached the two-star rank of major general in World War II, was the author of the legendary Rifleman’s Creed that many a Marine has since committed to memory, and also been featured in movies and videos. 

I knew he lost his first family, married our young grandmother Alice Hill Rupertus aka “Sleepy,” and welcomed a son—our father.

We also knew he had served as a leader in the 1st Marine Division, had been at Guadalcanal and someplace called New Britain, and, as he would put it,“Bloody Peleliu.” I knew he died when my father was young, and that a naval destroyer, the USS Rupertus, was named in his honor. That was it. 

What was the in-between—mainly, who was he? What sort of man, in other words, existed beyond the Marine Corps legend?

I hadn’t considered how massive this undertaking would be, knowing he died of a heart attack in 1945, and all of his friends and our family who knew him were also gone.

Hunker Down

By hunkering down and grabbing this mission like a bulldog, and not letting go, we’ve made progress!

After 80 years of carrying those trunks, uniforms, flight jackets, Marine Corps swords, guns, knives and medals, books and years of research gathering, joint work, Old Breed General, and an exciting book tour, I’m thrilled at our accomplishments.

We now know so much more than we started back in 2016. We could sit down and talk to our grandparents for hours.

Once you learn about your family’s experience during two world wars -it’s hard to leave behind.

And you pray we will never have another world war. 

I hope you’ll enjoy learning more about this travel into the past as much as my sisters, Don, the readers and I have.

*Rupertus was a commander of the 1st Marine Division in WWII. 

There were a total of Six Marine Divisions in WWII. USMC EDU