Alfred Gruenther

Alfred Maximilian Gruenther was an American career military officer, Red Cross president, and internationally known bridge expert. At age fiftythree, he became the youngest fourstar general in the U.S. Army history. He succeeded Gen. Matthew Ridgway as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe serving from 1953 to 1956.

Gruenther was born in Platte Center, Nebraska, the son of Mary Mayme Shea, a school teacher, and Maximilian Gruenther, a newspaper editor who published the Platte Center Signal. He attended St. Thomas Academy in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In June 1917, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point and after studying for nineteen months due to the wartime, onNovember 1918, was graduated fourth in a class of 277. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery but after the Armistice he was recalled to West Point to complete his training, and was graduated second time in June 1919.

Source: Wikipedia