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General John Henry Parker aka "Gatling Gun Parker" (September 9, 1866 – October 14, 1942) was a brigadier general in the United States Army.〔''(Veteran Tributes: John H. Parker )'', retrieved 2 May 2012〕 He is best known for his role as the commander of the Gatling Gun Detachment of the U.S. Army's V Corps in Cuba during the Santiago campaign in the Spanish–American War.〔 ==Early career== John Henry Parker was born and raised in the small town of Sedalia, Missouri.〔〔Thompson, Goldianne (Guyer), ''Biography of the Guyers'', Denver, CO: Monitor Publications (1968), p. 33〕 Nominated by his congressman to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, he graduated in 1892, and was assigned in June, 1892 as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 13th Infantry Regiment.〔〔〔; three volumes; volume not identitified〕 Known as "Blackie" to his fellow officers, Parker was tasked with the charge of training soldiers of the Machine Gun Detachment in the use of their weapons.〔Roark, Albert E., "Doctor Gatling's Gun," ''Arizona and the West: Journal of the Southwest'', No. 4 (Winter 1962), pp. 309–324〕 In the 1890s, duty with the machine gun detachment was regarded as of little value by most Army officers, and the detachment was frequently used as a dumping ground for men deemed unsuitable or undisciplined by their commanders.〔 Nevertheless, Parker successfully carried out his assignment, and was promoted to 1st Lieutenant on June 11, 1892.〔 At the time, all of the Army's artillery and ammunition supplies were transported by draft animals (usually, horses). It was becoming evident to many army commanders, both in the United States and abroad, that draft animals—the sole source of transport away from railroad tracks—were highly vulnerable to modern artillery fire at ranges under 1,500 yards, especially when contained in slow-moving trains of horse-drawn carriages and heavy wagons. The inability of army ground forces to bring gunnery and ammunition trains closer than 1,500 yards to an opponent with modern artillery support effectively prevented the short-ranged American black powder cannon of the day from providing any effective counterbattery fire to advancing infantry. In 1897, after considering the issue, Lt. Parker submitted a paper to the Army General Staff in which he advocated the use of highly mobile machine gun detachments. These machine gun detachments would be equipped with portable machine guns capable of being dismantled and transported to the front, together with sufficient supplies of ammunition and spare parts carried in highly mobile carriages and wagons. Parker visualized the detachments as independent from the slow-moving artillery and ammunition trains, constantly redeploying to avoid being targeted by enemy artillery, while using terrain masking to provide cover for the men and their transport animals. As self-contained, mobile units, the machine gun detachments could be used by a commander to provide effective covering fire for the artillery trains until they could get within effective range of the enemy lines.〔 Unfortunately, Parker's treatise was ignored by the Army, though he continued to advocate the use of the machine gun in an offensive role. In September 1897 Parker was assigned to the Infantry and Cavalry School as a student officer, where he graduated in April 1898.〔 That same month he was assigned as a First Lieutenant of Infantry to the 25th Infantry Regiment. He joined the 25th IR at Tampa, Florida, where it was fitting out for an amphibious assault in Cuba.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Henry Parker (general)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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