Author Topic: The service of General Norman Cota  (Read 582 times)

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rangerrebew

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The service of General Norman Cota
« on: October 14, 2021, 07:41:33 pm »
The service of General Norman Cota
Norman Cota (right) with Eisenhower during the battle of Hürtgen Forest (Photo: U.S. Army)

Norman Cota (1893-1971) was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His father, George William Cota, was a railroad telegrapher turned merchant; his mother, Jessie Mason, a school teacher born in Croatia. He got his nickname "Dutch" in the early 1910s from his football teammates at Worcester Academy, where he was studying. Cota studied at Worcester for three years, then enrolled at West Point to pursue a military career. He found himself in an illustrious class. Matthew Ridgway, future commanding officer of the 82nd "All American" Airborne Division; Joseph Lawton Collins, one of the few generals who would serve both in the Pacific and Europe, and several other of Cota's classmates would go on to serve as general officers in World War II. "Dutch" also became good friends with Dwight Eisenhower. The class graduated seven weeks ahead of schedule, on April 20, 1917, due to America's entry into World War I.
 

Newly-minted Second Lieutenant Cota's first assignment was with the 22nd Infantry Regiment. The regiment gained a unique distinction less than a month before Cota's graduation as the first American military unit to see action in the Great War. On April 6, 1917, moments after the country's official declaration of war, troops from the 22nd boarded Coast Guard cutters and seized German-owned ships and shipping terminals along the Hudson River in New Jersey and New York Harbor. The seized terminals became part of the New York Port of Embarkation, from where tens of thousands of troops left for Europe; the seized ships served as troop transports.

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