Robert S. Beightler

Who was Robert S. Beightler?

Robert Sprague Beightler was an American military officer and Ohio political insider, engineer, and business owner. In the military, he reached the rank of major general, and served as military Governor of Okinawa, War Department General Staff, and as commander of the 37th Infantry Division, the only National Guard General to lead his troops through training and into battle during World War Two. In political activities in Ohio, he served as head of the Ohio State Highway Department, President of the Army Personnel Board, Executive Director and board member of the Ohio Turnpike Commission.

Beightler was the only World War II National Guard general to have commanded his division for the length of the war. In addition to being one of only eleven generals who commanded their divisions for the entire war and the longest serving of these eleven, Beightler was appointed to the Regular Army in 1946 as one of only two National Guard major generals to receive such an appointment at that time.