The Most Famous

MILITARY PERSONNELS from United States

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This page contains a list of the greatest American Military Personnels. The pantheon dataset contains 2,058 Military Personnels, 176 of which were born in United States. This makes United States the birth place of the 2nd most number of Military Personnels.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary American Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous American Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of American Military Personnels.

Photo of Douglas MacArthur

1. Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964)

With an HPI of 74.55, Douglas MacArthur is the most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 81 different languages on wikipedia.

Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army. He served with distinction in World War I; as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1930 to 1935; as Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, from 1942 to 1945 during WWII; as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers overseeing the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951; and as head of the United Nations Command in the Korean War from 1950 to 1951. MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times, and was awarded it for his WWII service in the Philippines. He is one of only five men to rise to the rank of General of the Army, and the only one to hold the rank of Field Marshal in the Philippine Army. MacArthur, the son of Medal of Honor recipient Arthur MacArthur Jr., was raised on Army posts in the Old West. He was valedictorian of the West Texas Military Academy and First Captain at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated first in his class in 1903. During the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. On the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times. From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, where he initiated a series of reforms. His next posting was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny. In 1925, MacArthur became the Army's youngest major general at the age of 45, and in 1930 was appointed Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. He was involved in the controversial expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C., in 1932, and took charge of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1935, MacArthur became the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth of the Philippines. He retired from the Army in 1937, but continued as advisor and was Field Marshal of the Philippine Army from 1936. MacArthur was recalled to active duty in July 1941 as commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. A large portion of his air forces were destroyed on 8 December 1941 in the Japanese attack on Clark Field, and an invasion of the Philippines followed. MacArthur's forces withdrew to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur left nearby Corregidor Island and escaped to Australia, where he became Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area in April. He famously promised that he would return to the Philippines, and for his defense of the islands was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1942. From Australia, he commanded the New Guinea campaign, and in October 1944 returned to the Philippines and led the campaign which liberated the islands. In December 1944, he was promoted to General of the Army. At the end of the war, MacArthur accepted the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945. As the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw the war crimes tribunals and the demilitarization and democratization of the country under its new constitution, introducing women's rights, labor unions, land reform, and civil liberties. In 1948, MacArthur made a brief bid for the Republican Party's nomination in that year's presidential election. During the Korean War, he led the United Nations Command with initial success, but suffered a series of major defeats after China's entry into the war in October 1950. MacArthur was contentiously removed from his command in Korea by President Harry S. Truman in April 1951. He later became chairman of the board of Remington Rand, and died in Washington, D.C., in 1964.

Photo of George S. Patton

2. George S. Patton (1885 - 1945)

With an HPI of 69.85, George S. Patton is the 2nd most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.

George Smith Patton III (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, then the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Born in 1885, Patton attended the Virginia Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more commonly known as the "Patton Saber." He competed in the modern pentathlon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. Patton entered combat during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, the United States' first military action using motor vehicles. He fought in World War I as part of the new United States Tank Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces: he commanded the U.S. tank school in France, then led tanks into combat and was wounded near the end of the war. In the interwar period, Patton became a central figure in the development of the army's armored warfare doctrine, serving in numerous staff positions throughout the country. At the United States' entry into World War II, he commanded the 2nd Armored Division. Patton led U.S. troops into the Mediterranean theater with an invasion of Casablanca during Operation Torch in 1942, and soon established himself as an effective commander by rapidly rehabilitating the demoralized II Corps. He commanded the U.S. Seventh Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was the first Allied commander to reach Messina. There he was embroiled in controversy after he slapped two shell-shocked soldiers, and was temporarily removed from battlefield command. He was assigned a key role in Operation Fortitude, the Allies' military deception campaign for Operation Overlord. At the start of the Western Allied invasion of France, Patton was given command of the Third Army, which conducted a highly successful rapid armored drive across France. Under his decisive leadership, the Third Army took the lead in relieving beleaguered American troops at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, after which his forces drove deep into Nazi Germany by the end of the war. During the Allied occupation of Germany, Patton was named military governor of Bavaria, but was relieved for making aggressive statements towards the Soviet Union and questioning denazification. He commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months. Severely injured in an auto accident, he died in Germany twelve days later, on December 21, 1945. Patton's colorful image, hard-driving personality, and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his controversial public statements. His philosophy of leading from the front, and his ability to inspire troops with attention-getting, vulgarity-laden speeches, such as his famous address to the Third Army, was received favorably by his troops, but much less so by a sharply divided Allied high command. His sending the doomed Task Force Baum to liberate his son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John K. Waters, from a prisoner-of-war camp further damaged his standing with his superiors. His emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action proved effective, and he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. An award-winning biographical film released in 1970, Patton, helped popularize his image.

Photo of Robert E. Lee

3. Robert E. Lee (1807 - 1870)

With an HPI of 69.72, Robert E. Lee is the 3rd most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 78 different languages.

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, toward the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most powerful army, from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as a skilled tactician. A son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. He served across the United States, distinguished himself extensively during the Mexican–American War, and was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He married Mary Anna Custis, great-granddaughter of George Washington's wife Martha. While he opposed slavery from a philosophical perspective, he supported its legality and held hundreds of slaves. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command. During the first year of the Civil War, he served in minor combat operations and as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign following the wounding of Joseph E. Johnston. He succeeded in driving the Union Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan away from the Confederate capital of Richmond during the Seven Days Battles, but he was unable to destroy McClellan's army. Lee then overcame Union forces under John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. His invasion of Maryland that September ended with the inconclusive Battle of Antietam, after which he retreated to Virginia. Lee won two major victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before launching a second invasion of the North in the summer of 1863, where he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac under George Meade. He led his army in the minor and inconclusive Bristoe Campaign that fall before General Ulysses S. Grant took command of Union armies in the spring of 1864. Grant engaged Lee's army in bloody but inconclusive battles at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania before the lengthy Siege of Petersburg, which was followed in April 1865 by the capture of Richmond and the destruction of most of Lee's army, which he finally surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia; as president of the college, he supported reconciliation between the North and South. Lee accepted the termination of slavery provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but opposed racial equality for African Americans. After his death in 1870, Lee became a cultural icon in the South and is largely hailed as one of the Civil War's greatest generals. As commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he fought most of his battles against armies of significantly larger size, and managed to win many of them. Lee built up a collection of talented subordinates, most notably James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and J. E. B. Stuart, who along with Lee were critical to the Confederacy's battlefield success. In spite of his successes, his two major strategic offensives into Union territory both ended in failure. Lee's aggressive and risky tactics, especially at Gettysburg, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism. His legacy, and his views on race and slavery, have been the subject of continuing debate and historical controversy.

Photo of Robert Peary

4. Robert Peary (1856 - 1920)

With an HPI of 68.48, Robert Peary is the 4th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 59 different languages.

Robert Edwin Peary Sr. (; May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was long credited as being the discoverer of the geographic North Pole in April 1909, having led the first expedition to have claimed this achievement, although it is now considered unlikely that he actually reached the Pole. Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, but, following his father's death at a young age, was raised in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. He attended Bowdoin College, then joined the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey as a draftsman. He enlisted in the navy in 1881 as a civil engineer. In 1885, he was made chief of surveying for the Nicaragua Canal, which was never built. He visited the Arctic for the first time in 1886, making an unsuccessful attempt to cross Greenland by dogsled. In the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892, he was much better prepared, and by reaching Independence Fjord in what is now known as Peary Land, he proved conclusively that Greenland was an island. He was one of the first Arctic explorers to study Inuit survival techniques. During an expedition in 1894, he was the first Western explorer to reach the Cape York meteorite and its fragments, which were then taken from the native Inuit population who had relied on it for creating tools. During that expedition, Peary deceived six indigenous individuals, including Minik Wallace, into traveling to America with him by promising they would be able to return with tools, weapons and gifts within the year. This promise was unfulfilled and four of the six Inuit died of illnesses within a few months. On his 1898–1902 expedition, Peary set a new "Farthest North" record by reaching Greenland's northernmost point, Cape Morris Jesup. Peary made two more expeditions to the Arctic, in 1905–1906 and in 1908–1909. During the latter, he claimed to have reached the North Pole. Peary received several learned society awards during his lifetime, and, in 1911, received the Thanks of Congress and was promoted to rear admiral. He served two terms as president of The Explorers Club before retiring in 1911. Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole was widely debated along with a competing claim made by Frederick Cook, but eventually won widespread acceptance. In 1989, British explorer Wally Herbert concluded Peary did not reach the pole, although he may have come within 60 mi (97 km).

Photo of Chester W. Nimitz

5. Chester W. Nimitz (1885 - 1966)

With an HPI of 68.35, Chester W. Nimitz is the 5th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Chester William Nimitz (; February 24, 1885 – February 20, 1966) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. Nimitz was the leading US Navy authority on submarines. Qualified in submarines during his early years, he later oversaw the conversion of these vessels' propulsion from gasoline to diesel, and then later was key in acquiring approval to build the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, whose propulsion system later completely superseded diesel-powered submarines in the US. He also, beginning in 1917, was the Navy's leading developer of underway replenishment techniques, the tool which during the Pacific war would allow the US fleet to operate away from port almost indefinitely. The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Navigation in 1939, Nimitz served as Chief of Naval Operations from 1945 until 1947. He was the United States' last surviving officer who served in the rank of fleet admiral. The USS Nimitz supercarrier, the lead ship of her class, is named after him.

Photo of Paul Tibbets

6. Paul Tibbets (1915 - 2007)

With an HPI of 67.90, Paul Tibbets is the 6th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. (23 February 1915 – 1 November 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the Enola Gay (named after his mother) when it dropped a Little Boy, the first of two atomic bombs used in warfare, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Tibbets enlisted in the United States Army in 1937 and qualified as a pilot in 1938. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he flew anti-submarine patrols over the Atlantic. In February 1942, he became the commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group, which was equipped with the Boeing B-17. In July 1942, the 97th became the first heavy bombardment group to be deployed as part of the Eighth Air Force, and Tibbets became deputy group commander. He flew the lead plane in the first American daylight heavy bomber mission against German-occupied Europe on 17 August 1942, and the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe on 9 October 1942. Tibbets was chosen to fly Major General Mark W. Clark and Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gibraltar. After flying 43 combat missions, he became the assistant for bomber operations on the staff of the Twelfth Air Force. Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943 to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. In September 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 509th Composite Group, which would conduct the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he participated in the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946, and was involved in the development of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet in the early 1950s. He commanded the 308th Bombardment Wing and 6th Air Division in the late 1950s, and was military attaché in India from 1964 to 1966. After leaving the Air Force in 1966, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, serving on the founding board and as its president from 1976 until his retirement in 1987. After the war he received wide publicity, including motion picture portrayals, and became a symbolic figure in the debate over the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Photo of George Armstrong Custer

7. George Armstrong Custer (1839 - 1876)

With an HPI of 66.18, George Armstrong Custer is the 7th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, last in his graduating class of 1861, although he finished 34th out of a starting class of 108 candidates. Nonetheless, Custer achieved a higher military rank than any other U.S. Army officer in his class. Following graduation, he worked closely with future Union Army Generals George B. McClellan and Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his abilities as a cavalry leader. He was promoted in the early American Civil War (1861–1865), to brevet brigadier general of volunteers when only aged 23. Only a few days afterwards, he fought at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in early July 1863, where he commanded the Michigan Brigade. Despite being outnumbered, the new General Custer defeated Confederate States Army cavalry of General J. E. B. Stuart's attack at East Cavalry Field on the crucial third day of the Gettysburg clash. In 1864, Custer served in the Overland Campaign and with Union cavalry commander General Philip Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley campaigns later that summer, defeating Confederate General Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. In the last year of the war of 1865, he destroyed or captured the remainder of Early's forces at the Battle of Waynesboro in Western Virginia. Custer's division blocked the Southern Army of Northern Virginia's final retreat from their fallen capital city of Richmond in early April 1865 and received the first flag of truce from the exhausted Confederates. He was present at the Army of Northern Virginia commanding General Robert E. Lee's surrender ceremony at the McLean House to Union Army General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After the war, Custer was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the standing Regular Army and sent west to fight in the ongoing Indian Wars, mainly against the Lakota / Sioux and other Great Plains native peoples. On June 25, 1876, while leading the Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the southeastern Montana Territory against a coalition of Western Native American tribes, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led of his regiment. This event became known as "Custer's Last Stand". Custer's dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his life and career, and the reaction to his life remains divided, even 150 years later. His mythologized status in American history was partly established through the energetic lobbying of his adoring wife Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer (1842–1933), throughout her long widowhood which spanned six decades longer into the mid-20th century.

Photo of Albert Pike

8. Albert Pike (1809 - 1891)

With an HPI of 65.51, Albert Pike is the 8th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Albert Pike (December 29, 1809 – April 2, 1891) was an American author, poet, orator, editor, lawyer, jurist and Confederate States Army general who served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in exile from 1864 to 1865. He had previously served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding the District of Indian Territory in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. A prominent member of the Freemasons, Pike served as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction from 1859 to 1891.

Photo of Matthew C. Perry

9. Matthew C. Perry (1794 - 1858)

With an HPI of 65.08, Matthew C. Perry is the 9th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a United States Navy officer who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War. He played a leading role in the Perry Expedition that ended Japan's isolationism and the Convention of Kanagawa between Japan and the United States in 1854. Perry was interested in the education of naval officers and assisted in the development of an apprentice system that helped establish the curriculum at the United States Naval Academy. With the advent of the steam engine, he became a leading advocate of modernizing the U.S. Navy and came to be considered "The Father of the Steam Navy" in the United States.

Photo of Omar Bradley

10. Omar Bradley (1893 - 1981)

With an HPI of 64.76, Omar Bradley is the 10th most famous American Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Omar Nelson Bradley (12 February 1893 – 8 April 1981) was a senior officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army. He was the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the U.S. military's policy-making in the Korean War. Born in Randolph County, Missouri, he worked as a boilermaker before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from the academy in 1915 alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of "the class the stars fell on." During World War I, he guarded copper mines in Montana. After the war, he taught at West Point and served in other roles before taking a position at the War Department under General George Marshall. In 1941, he became commander of the United States Army Infantry School. After the U.S. entry into World War II, he oversaw the transformation of the 82nd Infantry Division into the first American airborne division. He received his first front-line command in Operation Torch, serving under General George S. Patton in North Africa. After Patton was reassigned, Bradley commanded II Corps in the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Sicily. He commanded the First United States Army during the Invasion of Normandy. After the breakout from Normandy, he took command of the Twelfth United States Army Group, which ultimately comprised forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a single field commander. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration. He was appointed as Chief of Staff of the United States Army in 1948 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949. In 1950, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, becoming the last of the nine individuals promoted to five-star rank in the United States Armed Forces. He was the senior military commander at the start of the Korean War, and supported President Harry S. Truman's wartime policy of containment. He was instrumental in persuading Truman to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 after MacArthur resisted administration attempts to scale back the war's strategic objectives. Bradley left active duty in 1953 (although remaining on "active retirement" for the next 27 years). He continued to serve in public and business roles until his death in 1981 at age 88.

People

Pantheon has 203 people classified as American military personnels born between 1718 and 1987. Of these 203, 23 (11.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living American military personnels include Wesley Clark, David Petraeus, and Tommy Franks. The most famous deceased American military personnels include Douglas MacArthur, George S. Patton, and Robert E. Lee. As of April 2024, 29 new American military personnels have been added to Pantheon including Carl Brashear, Arleigh Burke, and Melvin Purvis.

Living American Military Personnels

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Deceased American Military Personnels

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Newly Added American Military Personnels (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Military Personnels were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Military Personnels since 1700.