Blackshear M. Bryan

Blackshear M. Bryan
General Blackshear M. Bryan
Born	(1900-02-08)February 8, 1900 Alexandria, Louisiana
Died	March 2, 1977(1977-03-02) (aged 77) Silver Spring, Maryland
Place of burial	West Point Cemetery
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1922–1960
Rank	Lieutenant general
Commands held	24th Infantry Division XVI Corps I Corps United States Military Academy U.S. Army, Pacific First United States Army
Battles/wars	World War II Korean War Cold War
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal Order of the British Empire Air Medal in Korea
Other work	President, Nassau Community College

Lieutenant General Blackshear Morrison Bryan (February 8, 1900 – March 2, 1977) was a United States Army general who served during the Second World War and Korean War.

Bryan was born in Alexandria, Louisiana on February 8, 1900. He was attending Virginia Military Institute when he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1918. Because of World War I, two classes were graduated from the academy in 1922. Bryan was with the portion of the Class of 1923 that graduated after accelerated course of studies in three years, receiving a commission as a second Lieutenant of artillery.

After graduation from West Point, Bryan took artillery officer training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He returned to West Point to serve as an assistant Army football coach during the 1925 and 1926 seasons. Bryan was also an instructor there in 1928–29 and 1933–34. He was promoted became a lieutenant in 1927 and captain in 1935. In 1940 he was promoted to major and graduated from the Army War College, then at Washington Barracks (Fort Lesley J. McNair) in Washington, D.C., before the school was closed for the duration of World War II.

At the outbreak of World War II, Bryan was chief of the Policy Section for the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C. where he was promoted to Lieutenant colonel. In 1942 he was promoted to colonel and assigned as Chief of the Aliens Division for the Provost Marshal General's Office. With his promotion to general and a 1943 reorganization, he headed the Prisoner of War Division with charge over Japanese internment and prisoner of war camps throughout the United States. In July 1945, Bryan became Provost Marshal General and transitioned an agency whose lifespan rarely exceeded beyond the end of combat hostilities into a post-war organization with charge over Army military investigations, the military police and the Army's military police school.

In 1948, he transferred to Panama Canal Zone, serving as chief of staff under General Matthew Ridgway who headed a newly established unified multi-service command structure, the Caribbean Command, the predecessor to U.S. Southern Command, replacing the Army's World War II Caribbean Defense Command.