Laurence B. Keiser

Major General Laurence B. "Dutch" Keiser (1895–1969) was an American general who served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

Early life
Laurence Bolton Keiser was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1895. He graduated from West Point along with J. Lawton Collins, Matthew B. Ridgway, and Mark W. Clark in 1917.

Military career
Dispatched to France with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, Keiser was appointed to command of a battalion in the 5th Division. He was awarded the Silver Star for actions on the Western Front.

Keiser had an uneventful peacetime career and he was a colonel when the U.S. went into World War II. He served for a time as VI Corps chief of staff during the Italian campaign, and at the conclusion of World War II, he was a brigadier general and the chief of staff of the Fourth Army, which was based in the continental United States. With his former VI Corps and Fourth Army commander, Major General John P. Lucas, he spent part of the postwar period in China with the United States Military Advisory Group to the Nationalist Chinese Government.

Korea
In November 1948, Keiser was made assistant divisional commander of the 2nd Infantry Division. In February 1950, his former West Point classmate Joe Collins gave him command of the division, together with a promotion to major general. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the 2nd Division was the first United States army unit to arrive in Korea from mainland United States.

From August to September, the division disembarked at Pusan and moved to the Naktong Bulge to assist the 24th Infantry Division, which was then struggling to restore its front line following the crossing of the Naktong River by the North Korean 4th Division.

When the North Koreans launched the Great Naktong Offensive, four divisions faced the 2nd. Some units of the 2nd Infantry Division did not perform well on first contact with the enemy, and Keiser displayed lack of knowledge of his division's situation when he was confronted by Lieutenant General Walton Walker, the commander of the Eighth Army. Keiser was already considered by some officers to be slightly too old for an outstanding division commander.

The 2nd Division was involved in the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, pushing north west towards Kunsan, together with the 25th Infantry Division. The division would advance well into North Korea, close to the border with Manchuria.

In late November 1950, a large Chinese force crossed over the Yalu River and launched a surprise attack on the United Nations forces in what was to be known as the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River. The 2nd Division had been advancing on the right flank of IX Corps, which was then pushing to the Yalu River, and was positioned north of Kunu-ri, with the 25th Infantry Division on its left flank. In a swift week long attack, the Chinese threatened to envelop the Eighth Army, with the 2nd Division exposed on the right and bearing the brunt of the enveloping movement. The 25th Division was able to withdraw to Anju, but Keiser was unable to obtain permission from Major General John B. Coulter to follow. The 2nd Division was eventually cut off and forced to fight its way through the Chinese to safety at Sunchon.

Following the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, during which 2nd Division suffered crippling losses of approximately 4,000 men, Keiser met with Major General Leven C. Allen, the chief of staff of the Eighth Army, in Seoul. He was relieved of his command and replaced with Major General Robert B. McClure, supposedly for medical reasons, although he felt he was being made a scapegoat for the reverses suffered by the United Nations following the Chinese intervention in the war.

Returning to the United States in February, 1951, he assumed command of the 5th Infantry Division at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation (IGMR) an infantry basic training camp in Pennsylvania near Hershey and Harrisburg. [Public Information Office, IGMR, 1951]

Later life
On October 20, 1969, Major General Laurence B. "Dutch" Keiser died in San Francisco, California. He is buried at West Point.