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Charles Sweeny

Charles Michael Sweeny (January 26, 1882 – February 28, 1963) was a U.S. Army officer, an international war hero and America’s most celebrated soldier of fortune. He fought in three Latin American revolts, both World War I and II, and four major regional conflicts between the world wars. His 32 military medals included France’s Legion of Honor (twice raised in rank) and Croix de Guerre (seven times), and Great Britain’s Military Cross. A close friend of Ernest Hemingway, he served as a real-life role model for the famed novelist’s fictional manly heroes.

Early life and education

Sweeny was born January 26, 1882, in San Francisco, California, to Charles and Emeline (O’Neil) Sweeny. Through luck, skill and raw nerve, the father rose from the son of poor Irish immigrants to amass one of the great fortunes of the Gilded Age from silver mines in Idaho.

Young Sweeny entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1900 as a member of the class of 1904. He was kicked out of West Point in 1901, readmitted in 1902, and kicked out again in 1903, according to official records in the U.S. Military Academy Archives.

Career

After West Point, his father sent him to Mexico to scout mining sites. Instead, Sweeny joined a revolt against Mexico’s dictator and saw combat for the first time. He loved it. After Mexico, he took part in an invasion of Venezuela as part of “The Asphalt Wars.” He was captured and escaped a firing squad only through an audacious bluff. He next joined a revolt against the dictator of Nicaragua, and once again he narrowly escaped with his life.

When World War I erupted, Sweeny led a contingent of American volunteers into the French Foreign Legion and over the next three years he became the first American to become an officer in the legion and the first American to win France’s highest honor for valor in that war. When America entered the war, he led a U.S. Army battalion in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Sweeny was a brigadier general in the Polish-Soviet War, a military advisor to Ataturk in the Greco-Turkish War, the commander of a flying squadron in Morocco’s Rif War, an advisor to the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War and a French intelligence agent.

When World War II began, Sweeny dodged FBI agents and U.S. neutrality laws to recruit American pilots to fight for France. When France fell, he left his wife and children behind in France in order to help his pilots escape to England. Some were killed; some were captured; and some escaped to form the R.A.F.’s Eagle Squadron with Sweeny as group captain.

After Pearl Harbor, he hatched a plan with “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS to create a guerrilla force of local tribesmen to fight the Nazis in North Africa. President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the plan but the State Department shot it down. A similar plan for Yugoslavia met a similar fate.

Resigned to being an armchair combatant, Sweeny wrote a book telling how to win the war (Moment of Truth, A Realistic Examination of Our War Situation. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943). He also authored pamphlets that criticized Roosevelt for meddling in war plans (Ring In Our Nose, unpublished manuscript, 1943), blamed him for Pearl Harbor (Pearl Harbor. Privately printed [Arrow Press], 1944), defended Marshal Philippe Petain, the Vichy leader tried for treason (Petain. Privately printed [Arrow Press], 1943), and criticized post-war Allied plans (Britain Bids for World Power. Privately Printed [Arrow Press], 1948).

Sweeny died February 28, 1963, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

Reference

Roberts, Charley and Charles P. Hess, Charles Sweeny, the Man Who Inspired Hemingway, McFarland & Co., 2017. ISBN: 978-1-4766-6994-6

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