Brig. Gen, Janies Glore
Southport Man World Traveler
By EUGENE FALLON
A Southport resident who has
completed a career in the U. S.
Army, and who is now engaged in
a series of missions for the U. S.
State Department, leaves next
week for his second visit to Bur
ma within a period of six months.
That would be Brigadier Gen
eral James Glore, who divides his
time between being an active and
useful citizen of his adopted
home community and an a con
sultant in transportation whose
counsel and advice has been
sought by many countries.
It is a good thing for America
that the day of the professional
soldier is not done. If it can be
dangerous work, it must be un
dertaken at all costs. Brigadier
General James Glore, U. S. A.,
Retired, may be classified as a
professional soldier. But what do
old soldiers do when the time
comes to lay by uniform and
command ?
Some putter in a garden as far
removed from military posts as
they can find. A fellow named
Eisenhower bought a farm hard
by the scene of the bloodiest bat
tle ever fought on American soil.
Globetrotting General Glore first
saw Southport in 1953. That was
one campaign he lost. Unlike
Caesar, he came, he saw, and
he was conquered. When he re
tired from the Regular Army on
March 31, 1956, he returned to
Southport with wife and daugh
ter, and renovated a home on
the very banks of the Cape Fear
River.
What is there about a slow
paced river town in Carolina that
drew this soldier like a magnet?
"Well,” said Gen. Glore, “there’s
no great mystery about it at all.
I like the ocean; love the South,
made my peace with peace years
ago, and. here we are.” It was
that simple. Or was it? Let us
examine James Glore.
He was born in Boone County,
Kentucky, in 1900. When he was
still a shaver his father moved
the family, but not far. Just
across the Ohio River, to Cincin
nati. Clue number one: James
Glore grew up in a river town.
And his is a Southern heritage.
Now we come to the next
phase, the one that counts; the
one that was not merely a phase,
but a career.
James Glore was not yet seven
teen in 1917. He was attending
At Earth’s Equator
* * ^ *'i
Brig. Gen. James Glore is shown standing beside
a marker in Somalia at the equator. This picture was
taken when the Southport man was in the Northeast
ern African country where he was inspecting the
nearby port of Kisimayer.
Cincinnati’s Woodward High
School, but he couldn’t seem to
concentrate on his books. He was
a conscientious youth, and this
worried him greatly. One day in
late March of the same year the
answer came to him suddenly.
There was a war going on over
in Europe. Even a child could tell
that it would only be a matter of
time before America became in
volved in the fateful action.
James Glore threw down his
books, walked a few blocks, en
tered a public building, and came
out a soldier. The adventurous
boy had told a fabrication.
Claimed to be 18 years old.
Only a few days later America
was at war. They sent James
Glore to Montgomery, Ala., and
to Fort Sheridan. Since he had
played trumpet in the high school
band, they made him a bugler
in the army.
“It wasn’t a bad deal,” recalls
Gen. Glore.
Glore was attached to the
147th Regiment, the 37th Division
A. E. F. Besides his bugle he now
carried small arms and he had
a horse! Had several horses in
fact. The mortality rate was as
bad on horses as it was on young
men. But the bugler seemed to
bear a charmed life. Within four
months Bugler Glore saw action
on as many sectors of the West
ern front. No bullet or shell car
ried his name, and came the won
derful day when a troopship pull
ed into New York harbor, in
March, 1919, carrying James
Glore back from the wars.
He was still a private, but he
was alive! Unlike 90 percent of
the A. E. F., James Glore had
not had enough of soldiering, and
after a couple of months at home
he re-enlisted in the U. S. Army.
This time it was in the Signal
Corps, which at that time con
tained the Army’s air arm. They
sent him to Kelly Field, Texas,
minus his bugle. He remained in
the Signal Corps until late in
1923, before transferring to
Panama in the Canal Zone. By
this time he was a lieutenant. He
returned to Ohio in 1925, and left
the Army for almost a year,
holding a reserve commission in
the Ohio National Guard. Glore
returned to duty in the Regular
Army in October of 1940 as Lt.
Colonel. His first assignment was
Camp Shelby. Miss. This proved
to be a convenient jumping off
place for the much discussed—
and cussed—Louisiana maneuvers.
But one suspects that Lt. Colonel
Glore did not pick up as many
chig'g'ers as some soldiers engaged
in those gigantic war games since
he was regimental executive of
ficer in the bayous.
Lt. Colonel Glore was at Camp
Shelby when the Japs mounted
their sneak attack on Pearl Har
bor. It was war again. Profession
al soldiers suddenly grew tre
mendously popular in the United
States, but Col. Glore didn’t bask
long in this clime. The spring of
1942 found him at Tonga Tabu,
near the Fiji Islands. A resume
of the stops Col. Glore made in
the Pacific Theatre of War would
be too long and exhausting to
chronicle here. Suffice to say he
spent three and one-half years
in that immense and sweltering
wasteland where American and
British troops suffered and died
to displant the sons of Emperor
Hirohito—although that wasn’t
what the GI’s called them, exact
ly
While in the Southwest Pacific,
Glore had risen to full colonel.
He was infantry, although he says
he was on “logistical assign
ments” for the greater part. Men
tion should be made of a place
called Spiritu Santo, in the New
Hebrides, however; for in that
lesser paradise Col. Glore served
as deputy chief of staff for port
operations and construction. This
has a bearing on what was to
come later.
The displaced Kentuckian land
ed at blessed San Francisco in
October of 1945. After a couple
months rest the colonel was back
on the job, at a desk in Wash
ington, D. C.
In July of the following year,
James Glore was selected for
commission in the Regular Army
and was appointed in the Trans
portation Corps. New York knew
him next, where he ran research
and development organization
until March of 1949. On to
Alaska, he returned to Washing
ton February 1, 1951. The Ko
rean War was on, and it was a
war, regardless of what the man
from Missouri called it. They died
there as dead as any at Verdun
or Guadalcanal.
On the 28th December that
same year, Col. Glore married
Dorothy Clare Reece, from Terre
Haute, Indiana. The couple met
in D. C. The colonel was by then
Chief of Transportation for Ma
terial and Facilities.
A daughter, Clare Margaret,
was born to the couple on Sep
tember 22, 1952, in Washington.
In 1954 Colonel Glore was pro
moted to Brig. General, and his
cup was filled to overflowing.
In the meantime the Army
officer had visited Southport in
1953; coming down to inspect
construction at Sunny Point. In
October of 1955, when the Army
Terminal at Sunny Point was ac
tivated, Brig. General Glore re
turned to Brunswick. This time
he brought along his wife and
daughter, and they remained a
full week. Long enouch for the
soldier to purchase some choice
riverside property at Southport.
“We had made up our minds,”
says Glore, "that when the time
came to retire, we would retire
somewhere between the Cape
Fear River and Charleston, S. C.
Southport won, hands down.”
Phase number two rapidly ap
proaches. On the last day of
March, 1956, Brigadier General
James Glore retired from active
duty with the army. The long
march was over at last, or so
James Glore thought.
But it is hard to untrain a
soldier so before Southport, came
a civilian stint in Philadelphia,
as vice president of the Northern
Metal Company in that city. Two
years passed before the Glores
returned to Southport, and even
then they wouldn’t let him stay
retired. Or maybe he didn’t want
to go into pasture. Anyway he
flung himself into community life
with the methodical energy which
had lifted him from a bugler to
a general in the best army in
all the world.
In an amazingly short time
the untiring ex-soldier became,
among other things, chairman of
the Brunswick County chapter of
the American Cancer Society; and
a very active chairman he prov
ed to be—putting that organiza
tion on a permanent basils. He
became a member of the board of
directors of the Southport Devel
opment Corporation. He has serv
ed as a member of the N. C.
delegation to the National Rivers
and Harbors Congress. He is
chairman of the joint committee
for the improvement of the Cape
Fear River; an organization
which has been active and suc
cessful in gaining approval for
the deepening of the river chan
nel. He is an indefatigable civic
worker and few natives of South
port have worked harder than
this retired army officer to make
the pleasant town a still better
place in which to live. The Glores
are members of Trinity Methodist
Church at Southport, which in
stitution James Glore serves as a
member of the board of stew
ards.
There's only one fly in the
ointment. Men like General Glore
are few and far between; not
enough of them to go around.
And the U. S. State Department
discovered they needed him. It
needed his know-how, that knowl
edge gained under gunfire and in
desperate situations and places.
Transportation is the life-blood of
industry, of work, of progress.
Gen. Glore knew this subject,
whether it was roads, rail or
waterways.
And so the retired general ac
cepted the call, like a good sol
dier, and has served intermittent
short terms for the government
in transportation activities all
over the world. Such places as
Burma, the Sudan, Pakistan,
French West Africa and the Ivory
Coast. In Europe he has aided
Yugoslavia; in Latin America, he
has helped commerce in Chile.
| In the last country named,
| Glore was preceded by a terrible
natural phenomenon, the worst
horror known to living things,
an earthquake. The strata of
rock underlying the mightiest
mountain range in the world, the
South American Andes, faulted
under its dreadful burden; the
earth shuddered and the moun
tains moved. Great fissures open
ed. It seemed the globe staggered
on its axis. And the State De
partment sent General James
Glore down as a Minuteman; a
trouble-shooter in a tortured land.
No Man's land in France, 1918,
shaken by the big guns as a
mastiff shakes a toy poodle, re
sembled a formal English garden
alongside the desolation of some
sections of quake-riddled Chile
when Glore arrived. One man
could not untangle the dreadful
mess. One man—or ten thousand
-—could not dig out roads, direct
laying of new rails; re-assemble
docks and quays overnight. But
the Southport citizen told them
how to do it; pointed out short
cuts back to near-normalcy. And
the shocked Chileans took fresh
courage from this sturdy man
with the cool eyes and the still
black hair, and went to work
with a will.
Ana today General Glore silent
ly packs his bags once more.
Early in April he goes gack to
Burma with the blessings of the
State Department. He’s been so
many places he is now making
a second tour. It’s a small world.
Waterfront
m.~J& \
muiv vv Vy ivaii LIU/
writings of Bill Sharpe for ma
terial for this column. In the
March 17 edition of The State
magazine in his “From Murphy
To Manteo” column he wrote
about the efforts that are being
made to get ferry service across
the Cape Fear River at Southport.
Here is what he had to say:
“Once more, Brunswick feels
sure it is going to get ferry serv
ice across the Cape Fear, from
Ft. Fisher to Southport. It has
thought so before and been dis
appointed. Once the General As
sembly passed a bill directing the
highway department to inaugu
rate service, but the supreme
court invalidated the law. But
now, after a new hearing and
with perhaps a more sympathetic
administration, Southporters feel
it is “in the bag.”
“To outsiders, especially vaca
tionists, this means they can drive
to Wilmington, on out to Carolina
Beach, down the strand past Wil
mington Beach and Kure Beach,
on to Ft. Fisher, and then board
And if James Glore is welcomed
with open arms in those faroff
places, he is doubly welcome at
Southport. Aside from and beyond
his sterling worth, this globetrot
ter conferred upon a Carolina
rivertown, the supreme compli
ment of bypassing all other places
in favor of ending his days here
on the edge of the placid sea.
Read The Want Ads
SHOP AT
ARRINGTON'S
Southport, N. C.
a wwopu iui a ^ivaoaut uiot,
ing at the old county seat of
Brunswick. Then they can drive
on up to old Brunswick town,
Orton, and thence to TJ. S. 17,
making a circular trip out of
what once was a dead-end. Or
the trip can be reversed.
“It will add another novelty to
our travel map, to be enjoyed
both by homefolks and the thou
sands of out-of-staters who come
to this region. It gives Brunswick
1 a chance, too, to tap the heavy
North-South traffic on U. S. 17,
and pull them on through Orton
and Southport, and give them a
pleasant seaside route on into
Wilmington. It is a good deal, and
we hope nothing happens to once
more disappoint its sponsors.”
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