KENNETH CLAIBORNE ROYALL was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on 24 July 1894; graduated from the University of North Carolina, 1914; was admitted to the North Carolina bar, 1916; attended Harvard University Law School and received his degree, 1917; married Margaret Best, 1917; served in France as a second lieutenant in the 317th Army Field Artillery, 1918�1919; was commissioned a captain in the North Carolina National Guard and organized a Field Artillery battery, 1921; resumed the practice of law in Raleigh and Goldsboro, North Carolina; served in the state senate, 1927; was president of the North Carolina Bar Association, 1929�1930; was a presidential elector, 1940; was commissioned a colonel, 1942, and appointed chief of the legal section, fiscal division, Headquarters, Services of Supply (later Army Service Forces); received presidential appointment to defend before the Supreme Court the German saboteurs who entered the United States clandestinely; was promoted to brigadier general and appointed deputy fiscal director of Army Service Forces; was special assistant to the Secretary of War, April�November 1945; served as Under Secretary of War, 9 November 1945�18 July 1947; served as the last Secretary of War, 19 July�17 September 1947; supervised the separation of the Department of the Air Force from the Department of the Army; became first Secretary of the Army when National Defense Act of 1947 took effect, 17 September 1947�27 April 1949; was the last Army secretary to hold the cabinet status, which was henceforth assigned to the Secretary of Defense; returned to the practice of law in New York City; was a delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention, 1964; died in Durham, North Carolina, on 25 May 1971.

Kenneth Royall