Geoffrey Keyes

Geoffrey Keyes (October 30, 1888 – September 17, 1967) was a highly decorated senior United States Army officer who served with distinction in Sicily and Italy during World War II.

Among his fellow graduates were Charles H. Corlett, William R. Schmidt, Carlos Brewer, Robert L. Spragins, Alexander Patch, Louis A. Craig, Henry Balding Lewis, Lunsford E. Oliver, and Willis D. Crittenberger.

His classmates there included Matthew Ridgway, Mark W. Clark, Edward H. Brooks, and Walter Bedell Smith, all of whom would rise to high rank in the years to follow.

In January 1942, a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the subsequent German declaration of war on the United States, on December 11, Keyes, promoted to the one-star general officer rank of brigadier general on January 15,[3] assumed command of Combat Command 'B' (CCB) of the 3rd Armored Division.

Advancing 125 miles in five days, through difficult mountainous terrain, the corps captured most of Western Sicily, including Palermo, the Sicilian capital, along with some 53,000 Axis soldiers, mainly Italians, along with nearly 600 vehicles, in exchange for less than 300 casualties.

The corps then settled down for garrison duties and the administration of western Sicily until it was disbanded on August 20, three days after the end of the campaign.

Clark, who was eight years younger than Keyes, had been a fellow student at the United States Army War College in the late 1930s.

At West Point in 1913
General Sir Bernard Montgomery shakes hands with Lieutenant General George S. Patton at an airport at Palermo , Sicily, July 28, 1943. Major General Geoffrey Keyes, deputy commander of Patton's Seventh Army, is stood to the far left of the picture.
From left to right: Major General Geoffrey Keyes, British Major General Angus Lyell Collier and French General Alphonse Juin in Pompeii , pictured here between 1943 and 1945