Rudder biography unveiled
While working a part-time job in the Texas General Land Office and attending the University of Texas at Austin, Thomas M. Hatfield was intrigued and a bit intimidated by his boss, James Earl Rudder.
Thursday, more than 50 years after their initial encounters, against the backdrop of an 11-story complex named for Rudder and a larger-than-life statue of the famed World War II general and former president of Texas A&M, Hatfield unveiled his book Rudder: From Leader to Legend.
The ceremony, attended by a few dozen that included every member of the Texas A&M Board of Regents, A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin and two of Rudder's children, came a full month ahead of the scheduled release of the book on April 21.
April 21 also marks Muster, an Aggie tradition that began in 1922 as a day to remember all Aggies who died in the previous year.
Rudder's children -- James Earl Rudder, Jr., who goes by Bud, and sister Linda Williams -- received their copies Thursday and hadn't had a chance to take a look at the book, described by Hatfield as a biography that "includes the worst and best that [he] learned about Earl Rudder."
"But I can hardly wait to read it," Williams said. "Particularly with Daddy, there was a lot about the war he never shared with us -- it just wasn't something he talked about. So I'm really excited about it."
Rudder was born in Eden, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M in 1932.
Upon graduation he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve and called into active duty in 1941.
He led the 2nd Ranger Battalion during the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. The battalion, under his leadership, scaled 100-foot cliffs at Point du Hoc. He also later took leadership of the 109th Infantry regiment, a group which played a key role in driving back the German counter-offensive in the Battle of the Bulge.
Rudder was wounded twice in enemy raids.
Research for the book led Hatfield across Texas and into France, Britain and Germany, to battlefields he'd visited before, and some he hadn't.
"It wasn't deja vu, it was like I was seeing things the way he saw them," he said. "Almost like I exchanged places with him -- like I had been there before."
Rudder returned home in 1945, and from 1955 until 1958 he served as Texas Land Commissioner, in a building that now bears his name in the Texas Capitol.
In 1959 he was named the president of the university, a position he held until his death in 1970. For five years he served as both president and chancellor of the university system.
During his tenure, the university admitted its first women and African-American students and membership in the Corps of Cadets became optional.
Rudder has also been honored in the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.
Both Bud and Linda said they hope to have the 500-page biography finished before their 14-day trip with the author this June back to the battlefields where their father commanded battalions of soldiers.
"He pitched it to us as walking in the footsteps of Gen. Earl Rudder," Bud Rudder said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime trip, I just hope I can get through the other books Tom has recommended to me before then, too."
