General Elliot Thorpe Collection (Mss. Gr. 154)

Biographical note

A native of Westerly, Rhode Island, General Elliott R. Thorpe's (1897-1989) military career encompassed two world wars, the reconstruction of Japan, and a tour of duty in post-war Thailand. He stood guard in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles when the World War I treaty was signed on June 28, 1919. In 1945 he was on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur. He may have been one of the last living survivors of both ceremonies. While these were momentous and singular events, General Thorpe's unheeded warning about the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941 was arguably his most memorable moment. Serving as a military attaché in Dutch-controlled Java (Netherlands Indies) in 1941 when the Dutch broke a Japanese diplomatic code, Thorpe was informed that intercepted messages referred to planned Japanese attacks on Hawaii, the Philippines and Thailand. He immediately cabled the information to Washington, but this warning was ignored. A week later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

In 1943 then-Col. Thorpe was knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands for his work as American Liaison in the Netherlands Indies. In 1945, Thorpe was promoted to Brigadier General. Gen. Thorpe was honored in 1949 with the title of Knight Commander in the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand for his work as military attaché of the American Embassy in Bankok. Brigadier General Thorpe retired in 1949 after serving 32 years in the US Army.

Elliott Thorpe attended Rhode Island State College for one year as a mechanical engineering student before entering the U.S. Army in 1916. Even though he did not graduate from the College, he always considered himself an alumnus and was very supportive of efforts to build an adequate campus student activity center. The post-war campus burgeoned and extra space for the students was added for the campus by using numerous Quonset huts. One of these huts also served as the student activity center. He supported a fundraising effort for the construction of a War Memorial Student Union by donating his veteran's bonus check. He also served as guest speaker at a benefit dinner held on October 27, 1950 at the Sheraton-Biltmore Hotel in Providence. The War Memorial Student Union was built in 1950 largely through fund raising efforts spearheaded by Gen. Thorpe and other alumni.

In 1946, the General presented the College with a Japanese temple gong which was meant to be displayed in the Union. The gong disappeared shortly after its receipt. While efforts were made to recover the gong, it was never found. Photographs and typescript translations of the gong's inscriptions are all that remain. (see Carl Woodward Papers, MSG# 1). Thorpe also donated a ceremonial sword surrendered to him by Maj. Gen. Yoshio Nasu of the Imperial Japanese Army on the occasion of the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri. In 1969, Gen. Thorpe presented an autographed copy of his memoir East Wind Rain to the University. Both the sword and the book are presently kept in the Special Collections Reading Room.

On June 11, 1951, General Elliott Thorpe received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters during the institution's first commencement as the University of Rhode Island. In 1952, Gen. Thorpe was the endorsed Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. He abruptly withdrew because of an investigation by the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps questioning his loyalty. He indignantly felt that the investigation had been politically motivated. The investigation had been a misunderstanding resulting from a 1951 speech addressing the Rhode Island Turkey Growers and Poultry Growers Association in which he criticized the shortage of food growing areas in Japan and the corruption in the nationalistic Chinese regime of Chiang Kai-shek. He also called for "a greater respect for freedom of speech in America as long as it is not subversive." (Westerly Sun, August 21, 1952). After a public outcry, the Army quickly cleared the General and apologized for the unwarranted investigation.

He and then-President Carl Woodward (1941-1951) were close friends (see Carl Woodward Papers, MSG# 1). They continued to maintain a close correspondence when Thorpe retired to Sarasota, Florida, in 1960. During his retirement, he served as commissioner with the Whitfield Volunteer Fire Department. Gen. Thorpe continued to be in demand as a speaker and was sought for interviews by historians and journalists for his first-hand account of post war Japan. Shortly before his death, Thorpe was interviewed for the 1989 BBC production of Sacrifice at Pearl Harbour. Most recently, Gen. Thorpe was quoted in John W. Dower's 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.

He died in 1989 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C.