Everyone who knew Harry Malony associates his name with good stories and a way of enlivening everyday living. To us, his children (a son and three stepdaughters), it was an endearing trait then, and is carried into our living now.
A native of Dundee, New York, General Malony was graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the Class of 1912. Upon graduation he proceeded to his first station in the Panama Canal Zone where he was a member of the 10th United States Infantry, the first regiment to be stationed there. He married Fanny Lockett, daughter of Colonel James Lockett, United States Cavalry, while stationed there.
His next station was on the Texas border during the troublesome days of Villa and Caranza. There he was to become an expert on machine guns and automatic weapons, and with Hatcher and Wilhelm, was co-author of a volume entitled "Machine Guns.” From there he was detailed for duty in the Experimental Department of Springfield Armory as an instructor in the school held there prior to World War I.
In 1917 he was detached and became the first armament officer ever designated for air service in France and headed the armament section until the end of the war, when he was returned to Washington as flu assistant to the Chief of Ordnance, and head of the manufacturing division of automatic arms and aircraft armament.
Following a five year tour at Fort Sill, where their son James was bom, he went to Fort Leavenworth where Fanny died in 1925. In 1928 Harry married Dorothy Fitch Thurman, widow of Allen G. Thurman, Class of 1913, thus acquiring three daughters.
Educationwise, he was a student at Yale University for one year preceding West Point, a graduate of the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, the General Staff School at Leavenworth, and the Army War College, in which institution he was an instructor from 1937 to 1941. He was also an instructor as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Oklahoma from 1931 to 1935.
In 1940 he was appointed a member of the Greenslade Devers Board to select bases in the British overseas possessions as a result of the 50 Destroyer deal and later was one of three members of the President’s Mission to negotiate the United States occupancy of those bases. These United States bases were established in Newfoundland, Bermuda, Antigua, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and in the Bahamas.
Upon conclusion of these negotiations in wartime London, he returned to the United States and as a brigadier general was made Assistant Chief of War Plans. He then went to General Headquarters as Deputy Chief of Staff, and then to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. At his own request he was given the 94th Division to train and was one of the few division commanders to organize, train and fight his division until the end of the war. This division was repeatedly cited for accomplishment in combat, especially in the capture of the Saar-Mosell Triangle and the penetration of the Siegfried Switch Line, the crossing of the Saar River, and the capture of Ludwigshaven.
At the conclusion of World War II, he was sent to London as the United States representative on the London Munitions Board From this detail he was named by President Truman to be a United States observer of the first Greek elections to be held in twelve war years. There he commanded an international force (United States, French, and British) with his headquarters in Athens.
Upon return to the States, he was made head of the Military History Division of the Army at the Pentagon and retired from that duty, and the Army, in 1949.
After his retirement he served as deputy to Admiral Chester Nimitz who was made Director of the Kashmir Plebicitc under the supervision of the United Nations to determine the accession of Kashmir to India or Pakistan.
Since retirement, General and Mrs. Malony summered on their hillside in Canaan, New Hampshire, and wintered on their hillside at 1020 26th Street South in Arlington, Virginia, where Mrs. Malony still resides. This pattern has been colored with many adventuresome side trips both "world-seeing and family-seeing.”
His decorations included two Distinguished Service Medals, one in each World War, five campaign medals, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Legion d'Honneur, and the Croix de Guerre (French), the Ordre d’Etoile Noire and the Croix de Guerre (Belgian).
Source: West Point Association of Graduates