Thomas Henry Stanley was born on 1 March 1899 in Weatherford, Parker County, Texas, the son of Thomas W. and Elizabeth Smith Stanley. To distinguish between the father, Thomas, and son, the family called our Tom, Henry; and in courtesy, we shall call him Henry until his arrival at West Point. The information about the family and Henry’s boyhood was furnished by his eldest sister, Carrie, now Mrs. W. T. George, residing in Cleburne, Texas.
Henry’s father was successively teacher, high school principal, and superintendent of the Weatherford Public Schools. His mother had been a teacher; and both father and mother were interested in music and books. Henry was the youngest of the family having two older sisters. The Stanley home was a very happy one, typical of early Twentieth Century small-town America. Young Henry helped his father care for the family horse and cow and sawed wood for the wood-burning stove. However, Henry early displayed his characteristics of independence, self-sufficiency, and the courage of his convictions. He eschewed the family literary, art, and musical sessions in favor of his friends and games, his dog, roaming the woods, hunting and fishing, and Boy Scout activities. He joined the Methodist Church.
After graduation from high school, Henry’s first ambition was to become a rancher; but his “cowboy” career ended quicldy after he traded his good little pony for a poor horse and when he tired of milking cows and harvesting wheat. From 1916 to 1918, he was a distinguished student at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy from the Texas 12th Congressional District, by Senator James C. Wilson, and entered the Academy on 14 June 1918. From now on, we shall call him Tom.
As a cadet, Tom was quiet and reserved. Without apparent effort, his keen mind kept him in the top of the first sections, and he wore a star for academic excellence. He graduated third in our Class on 14 June 1920 and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers.
After attending the Basic Course of The Engineer School, at the then Camp A. A. Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir), Virginia, Tom was assigned to the 2d Engineers at Camp Travis, Texas. His interest in horses led to his being given command of the Mounted Section of the Headquarters and Service Company. After several months, learning that the 8th Mounted Engineers at Fort Bliss, Texas, was short of officers, he boldly requested and obtained transfer to that battalion. In 1921, Tom attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, with his other Engineer classmates, notably impressing the instructors and professors with his brilliant rationalizations. He graduated in June 1922, with the degree of Civil Engineer. While at Rensselaer, Tom demonstrated his love and ability for fast driving with his Buick roadster.
Next, Tom again enjoyed an assignment with the 8th Engineers and membership on the Engineer Rifle Team. From 1924 to 1928, Tom was Assistant Professor of Military Science and Tactics, first at the Missouri School of Mines, and then at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. He and a fellow faculty member, Olive Louise Normington, from Ionia, Michigan, an instructor in Home Economics, were married on 2 July 1927. They had similar interests and led a close and happy married life. They had no children. Olive returned to her home town of Ionia, Michigan, when Tom went overseas in 1943, and died there 19 December 1954, and was entombed with Tom’s remains in their mausoleum.
From August 1929 to June 1931, Tom was on duty with the Engineer Battalion engaged in the survey of a route for an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua. There occurred another example of his rugged individualism. Returning from a jungle reconnaissance, unaccompanied, he fell, severely cutting his right hand on his machete. He spent the night and the next day alone in the jungle, harassed by mosquitoes, until the search party found him. After several months hospitalization, Tom became District Engineer in Buffalo, New York, for three years and then went on to duty with the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors in Washington, D.C., for four years.
Following attendance at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and an additional year on the Nicaraguan Canal Study at Rock Island, Illinois, Tom was assigned to the 16th Armored Engineer Battalion of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Knox, Kentucky—the birthplace of our modem Armor Arm. Tom commanded the Battalion from 15 August 1941 to May 1942. During the assignment at Fort Knox, Tom was the originator and principal developer of the Treadway Bridge, which was used extensively in Europe in World War II. At that time, the floating ponton bridge equipment in use was inadequate for the newly developed tanks. Major General Lunsford E. Oliver, who was then Armored Force Engineer, and later commanded the 5th Armored Division, credits Tom with conceiving the idea of a bridge of “treadways” from float to float-first using the then standard pontons, and later the newer rubber pontons. Tom also collaborated with the Four-Wheel Drive Truck Company in developing the crane-truck for transporting and handling the treadways. Tom was still an avid and fast automobile driver. General “Bug" Oliver says that Tom’s driving time from Fort Knox to the truck plant in Wisconsin, was shorter than the train time. Tom’s innate modesty and reticence kept him from being accorded the recognition he deserved for the development of the Treadway Bridge.
In today’s vernacular it may be said that Tom "always wanted to be where the action was.” He was in North Africa. He was on the Salerno Beachhead-as an observer, riding a motorcycle. In 1943, Tom was on the Staff of the Commanding Ceneral, Service of Supply, of the Mediterranean Theatre. He literally hounded his boss, almost daily, to be released for a field command.
In December 1943, he was assigned to command the 36th Engineer Combat Regiment. Tom’s Executive Officer says “he was a superb officer in every way. He was not a man who encouraged close personal relationships, and 1 cannot say that there was a close personal friendship between us—but he had my utmost respect.” At Anzio, one of Tom’s Battalion Commanders states that he was taken to task by Colonel Stanley for visiting the front line elements of the Battalion with the words, “I am the only senior officer of this regiment who may go wandering around the front—battalion commanders are too scarce to risk losing in that way.”
On the day and night of 10-11 June 1944, heavy rains caused a rapid rise in the Voltumo River, threatening the stability of the bridges. The VI Corps Engineer Colonel William M. Thomas Jr., and Tom Stanley had inspected a bridge at Tarquinia near Civitavecchia, Italy, and, at about 2:00 a.m., 11 June, were taking a short cut on a dark, narrow trail during heavy rains to inspect another bridge. Tom was leading, driving his jeep—having left his driver in camp to rest. Colonel Thomas and his driver saw ahead of them the lights of Tom's jeep flip from horizontal to vertical. When they reached the scene they found Tom crushed by his jeep.
Thus was added another member to the Long Gray Line. Tom had been decorated with the Legion of Merit with an oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, and posthumously another Purple Heart, and the Honorary Officer of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. The Class of 1920 lost an illustrious member, the Academy a loyal and brilliant son, the Army and the Country an outstanding and courageous officer.
Tom Stanley’s remains were returned to the United States and are entombed in the family mausoleum in Ionia, Michigan.
—Charles G. Holle, Classmate