Lieutenant General Julian Johnson Ewell (November 5, 1915 – July 27, 2009) was a United States Army officer who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He commanded the 9th Infantry Division and II Field Force in South Vietnam, and attained the rank of lieutenant general. The son of a career Army officer, Ewell graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute and the United States Military Academy.
Commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry in 1939, he volunteered for paratrooper training at the start of World War II. During the war, he commanded 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division. He took part in a parachute jump into Normandy during the D-Day invasion, and continued to take part in combat against the Nazis in Europe. Ewell later commanded the 501st Regiment, which included participation in Operation Market Garden and the defense of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bastogne.
Following the war's end in 1945, Ewell continued his Army career, and his command assignments included the 9th Infantry Regiment in South Korea during the Korean War, Assistant Commandant of Cadets at West Point, Assistant Division Commander of the 8th Infantry Division, and Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff for the Combat Developments Command. During the Vietnam War, Ewell commanded the 9th Infantry Division (1968–1969) and II Field Force (1969–1970). He later served as military advisor to the U.S.-South Vietnamese delegation at the negotiations for the Paris Peace Accords and Chief of Staff of the NATO Southern Command.
Ewell's Vietnam service generated controversy, especially over concerns that his focus on "body counts" as a measure of success led to his subordinates inflating their numbers by counting civilian dead as enemy combatants. The most well-known operation he commanded was Operation Speedy Express. Out of an official enemy "body count" of 11,000, an internal Department of Defense report estimated that there may have been up to 7,000 civilian casualties. This earned him the nickname the "Butcher of the Delta" among soldiers of the 9th Division. Ewell was apparently proud of this nickname and saw nothing wrong with what the soldiers under his command had done. Ewell died in Virginia in 2009, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Early life and start of career
Julian Johnson Ewell was the son of Jammie Morrison (Offutt) Ewell and Colonel George W. Ewell (1879–1972), a career Army officer. He was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma on November 5, 1915, while his father was serving as a Reserve Officer Training Corps instructor at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State University–Stillwater).John Sperry, 9th Infantry Division: Old Reliables, 2000, page 939th Infantry Division, Commander's Profile, Julian Ewell, Octofoil magazine, Volume 1, Number 2 (July–September, 1968), page 27 He was raised in California, Panama, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., and graduated from New Mexico Military Institute in 1932.New Mexico Military Institute, Alumni Who Have Achieved Flag Officer Rank in any of the National Uniformed Military Services, accessed February 1, 2013 He attended Duke UniversityJohn C. McManus, Alamo in the Ardennes, 2007, page 175 before transferring to the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1939. He received his commission as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry, and received paratrooper training at the start of World War II.Spencer C. Tucker, The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, 2011, page 355
Military education General Ewell was a graduate of the United States Army Command and General Staff College (1946), United States Army War College (1952) and National War College (1959).Spencer C. Tucker, The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, page 355
World War II Having advanced to lieutenant colonel during the war, Ewell assumed command of 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division. In June 1944, Ewell parachuted into Normandy and led his men into combat for the first time. Despite being unable to immediately account for a majority of his battalion because so many paratroopers had missed their landing zones, Ewell was still able to regroup and engage the German defenses.George Koskimaki, D-Day with the Screaming Eagles, 2006, pages 153 to 154Joseph Balkoski, Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944, 2006, page 46John C. McManus, The Americans at Normandy, 2005, page 116
On September 17, 1944, Ewell's battalion parachuted into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market GardenMaxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares, 1990, page 91 and Ewell soon moved up to regimental executive officer. With the death of 501st commander Colonel Howard R. Johnson on October 8, Ewell moved up to regimental command.
That winter, he commanded the 501st when the 101st Airborne Division was rushed into the emergency defense of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, and received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic actions.Robert K. Wright, John T. Greenwood, Airborne Forces at War: From Parachute Test Platoon to the 21st Century, 2007, page 75Keith William Nolan, House to House: Playing the Enemy's Game in Saigon, May 1968, 2006, page 151
Korean War Ewell continued his service after World War II. As a colonel in the late 1940s he served as executive officer to General Maxwell Taylor during Taylor's command of U.S. forces in Berlin.Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal, , December 22, 1949 In 1953, he was assigned as commander of the 9th Infantry Regiment in South Korea.Hal Barker, editor, Korean War Project, 1953, page 4Charles R. Shrader, Center of Military History (U S Army), History of Operations Research in the United States Army, Volume 2; Volumes 1961–1973 (2008), page 322
Vietnam War
After the Korean War, Ewell attained the rank of brigadier general, and his assignments included: Assistant Commandant of Cadets at West Point;United States Military Academy, Annual Catalog, 1954, page xiii Executive Assistant to General Taylor during Taylor's assignment as Military Aide to President John F. Kennedy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;Army and Navy Journal Incorporated, Army, Navy, Air Force Journal, Volume 98, Issues 27–52, 1961, page 1316Douglas Kinnard, The Certain Trumpet: Maxwell Taylor & the American Experience in Vietnam, 1991, page 67 Assistant Division Commander of the 8th Infantry Division;Paul Martell, Grace P. Hayes, World Military Leaders, 1974, page 68 Chief of Staff of V Corps in West Germany; and Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff for Combat Developments Command.United States Department of Defense, Commanders Digest, Volumes 2–3 (1966), page 28Army and Navy Journal Incorporated, The Journal of the Armed Forces, Volume 105, Issues 1–26 (1967), page 2
From 1968 to 1969, Ewell commanded the 9th Infantry Division as a major general.Ira Augustus Hunt, The 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam: Unparalleled and Unequaled, 2010, page 16David H. Hackworth, Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, 2003, page 1 During his command, the division carried out Operation Speedy Express, an effort to eliminate Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers with overwhelming force.William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History, 2009, page 198Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam, 1980, page 142
From 1969 to 1970, Ewell commanded II Field Force in Vietnam, receiving promotion to lieutenant general.Brian M. De Toy, Turning Victory Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, 2004, page 156Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, 2007, page 138
After relinquishing command of II Field Force, Ewell was military advisor to the U.S.-South Vietnamese delegation at the negotiations for the Paris Peace Accords.Vinh Truong, Vietnam War: The New Legion, Volume 1, 2010, page 53
Post-Vietnam War From 1972 until his 1973 retirement, Ewell was Chief of Staff of NATO's Allied Forces Southern Europe in Naples, Italy.Association of the United States Army, Army magazine, Volume 22, 1972, page 120U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Military Review, Volume 62, 1982, page 233
Vietnam War controversy Critics have charged Ewell with focusing obsessively on "body counts" during the Vietnam War, causing his subordinates to inflate their numbers in an effort to demonstrate success by counting civilian dead as enemy combatants and committing atrocities.T. Louise Brown, War and Aftermath in Vietnam, 1991, page 191Nick Turse, The Nation, A My Lai a Month, December 1, 2008 David Hackworth, author of Steel my Soldiers' Hearts, was critical of Ewell's performance. Hackworth, who served in the 9th Division during the Vietnam War, wrote that in 1968 and 1969 the division was credited with killing 20,000 enemy, yet recovered only 2,000 weapons, suggesting that the numbers of enemy dead were inflated. John Paul Vann estimated that of those killed in the Delta were, "at least 30 percent were noncombatants".David H. Hackworth, The Horror That Will Never go Away, King Features Syndicate, May 1, 2001 According to Hackworth, Ewell's focus on body counts earned him the nickname the "Butcher of the Delta" from members of the 9th Division.
During Speedy Express, the 9th Division claimed an official enemy body count of 10,899 enemies killed but only 748 weapons captured. A 1972 Inspector General report concluded that "While there appears to be no means of determining the precise number of civilian casualties incurred by US forces during Operation Speedy Express, it would appear that the extent of these casualties was indeed substantial, and that a fairly solid case can be constructed to show that civilian casualties may have amounted to several thousand (between 5,000 and 7,000)."
In a 2008 article in The Nation, reporter Nick Turse, references a VC report released in December 1969, which stated that during the operation between 1 December 1968, and 1 April 1969, the US military "mopped up many areas, slaughtering 3,000 people, mostly old folks, women and children, and destroying thousands of houses, hundreds of hectares of fields and orchards."
In 1974, Ewell and Ira A. Hunt Jr., a major general who had served as Ewell's Chief of Staff in the 9th Division, authored Sharpening the Combat Edge. In their book, Ewell and Hunt argued that the allegations of obsession with the body count were unfounded, and that their effort to inflict maximum damage had "unbrutalized" the war for civilians in South Vietnam.
Ewell and Hunt's views are countered in Nick Turse's book, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.John Tirman, Washington Post, 'Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam' By Nick Turse, January 25, 2013 Turse argues that Ewell's tactics amounted to war crimes and asserts that a coverup of Speedy Express went to the top of American decision-making in Vietnam.Alfred W. McCoy, History News Network, Review of Nick Turse's "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam" , February 22, 2013 Turse argues that most accounts attempt to minimize the viciousness and unethical behavior shown by some American commanders and soldiers in Vietnam.Steve Weinberg, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Book Review: "Kill Anything that Moves," by Nick Turse, January 19, 2013
Awards In addition to the Distinguished Service Cross, General Ewell's awards and decorations included: the Distinguished Service Medal (4); Silver Star (3); Legion of Merit (2); Bronze Star; Purple Heart; Air Medal; and Combat Infantryman Badge. He was also a recipient of several foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honor (Chevalier) from France.Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post, Julian J. Ewell, 93, Dies; Decorated General Led Forces in Vietnam, August 5, 2009