Hatch is also a well-known marathon runner. From 1904 through 1922 he runs more than 45 marathons with a score of victories including the Chicago Marathon in 1909 and the Yonkers Marathon in 1911, competing as a member of the Illinois State Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). In 1910, he finishes in 5th place in the Yonkers Marathon, competing as a member of the Chicago Irish American Athletic Club.
Hatch never fails to finish a marathon. He is a six-time (1906, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1914, and 1915) winner of the Missouri Athletic Club‘s All Western Marathon in St. Louis including the 1908 marathon that qualifies him for the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. He competes in the marathon in two Olympics, placing 8th in 1904 at St. Louis and 14th in 1908 in London. He wins a silver medal in the 1904 Olympics Four-Mile team event.
On January 8, 1909, Hatch finishes third behind Matthew Maloney and James Crowley in an indoor marathon before 5,000 “wildly cheering” spectators held within the second Madison Square Garden with a time of 3:03:29.4. Maloney is reported to have set a new indoor record for the event (2:54:45.4).
On November 27, 1909, Hatch finishes sixth in the third edition of the Yonkers Marathon with a time of 3:00:24. In July of the same year, he wins a 100-mile race in Chicago, Illinois.
In March 1912, Hatch is one of “twenty of the best distance runners in the middle west” scheduled to participate in a 20-mile indoor marathon at Riverview Rink in Chicago. He also qualifies for the 1912 Summer Olympics but does not compete. He places in the top 10 in the Boston Marathon several times with a second-placed finish in 1917. He finishes third in the Boston Marathon in 1915 and 1916. In October 1916, he sets a record in the 96-mile Milwaukee to Chicago Run, completing the race in 14 hours, 50 minutes and 30 seconds.
Hatch serves as a U.S. Army messenger in World War I and is decorated for “extraordinary heroism” under fire near Brieulles, France, October 11, 1918. He is awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross as well as the French Croix de Guerre. After World War I, he returns to run two more Boston Marathons before retiring from marathon running. He is a letter carrier in River Forest, Illinois, from 1923 to 1953, retiring at age 70. He and Gertrude Morris are married in 1921 and have three children, Herbert, and twin girls June and Jane.
Hatch dies in Maywood, Illinois, on October 17, 1966. He is buried at the Chapel Hills Gardens West Cemetery, Oak Brook Terrace, Illinois.
Of Irish descent, Donovan is born in Buffalo, New York, to first generation immigrants Anna Letitia “Tish” Donovan (née Lennon) of Ulster and Timothy P. Donovan of County Cork. His grandfather, Timothy O’Donovan, Sr., is from the town of Skibbereen, and marries Mary Mahoney, who belongs to a propertied family of substantial means who disapprove of him. They move first to Canada and then to New York, where their son Timothy, Jr., Donovan’s father, attempts to engage in a political career but with little success.
William attend St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and Niagara University before starring on the football team at Columbia University, where he earns the nickname “Wild Bill”, which remains with him for the rest of his life. He graduates from Columbia in 1905. He then attends and graduates from Columbia Law School, after which he becomes an influential Wall Street lawyer.
In 1912, Donovan forms and leads a troop of cavalry of the New York National Guard, which is mobilized in 1916 and serves on the U.S.-Mexico border during the American government’s campaign against Pancho Villa.
During World War I, Major Donovan organizes and leads the 1st battalion of the 165th Regiment of the 42nd Division. For his service near Landres-et-St. Georges, France, on October 14-15, 1918, he receives the Medal of Honor. By the end of the war, he receives a promotion to colonel, as well as the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart.
Donovan serves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York from 1922 to 1924. Due to his energetic enforcement of Prohibition in the United States, there are a number of threats to assassinate him and to dynamite his home, but he is not deterred. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge names Donovan to the United States Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as a deputy assistant to Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. Donovan runs unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of New York (1922) and for Governor of New York (1932) as a Republican.
During the years between the world wars, Donovan earns the attention and friendship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although the two men were from opposing political parties, they were very similar in personality. In 1940 and 1941, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, where he is urged by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Roosevelt to gauge Britain’s ability to withstand Germany’s aggression. During these trips Donovan meets with key officials in the British war effort, including Winston Churchill and the directors of Britain’s intelligence services. Donovan returns to the U.S. confident of Britain’s chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British.
On July 11, 1941, Donovan is named Coordinator of Information (COI) where he is to oversee America’s foreign intelligence organizations which, at the time are fragmented and isolated from each other. He is plagued over the course of the next year with jurisdictional battles as few of the leaders in the intelligence community are willing to part with any of their power. Nevertheless, Donovan begins to lay the groundwork for a centralized intelligence program.
In 1942, the COI becomes the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Donovan is returned to active duty in the U.S. Army. He is promoted to brigadier general in March 1943 and to major general in November 1944. Under his leadership the OSS eventually conducts successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia. By 1943, relations with the British are becoming increasingly strained, partly due to British concerns that OSS operations are sometimes regarded as ill-disciplined and irresponsibly managed. MI6 chief Stewart Menzies is extremely hostile towards the idea of OSS operations anywhere in the British Empire and categorically forbids them to operate within the U.K.
After the end of World War II and the death of President Roosevelt in early April 1945, Donovan’s political position is substantially weakened as he finds himself opposed by President Harry S. Truman, J. Edgar Hoover, and others. Truman disbands the OSS in September 1945 and Donovan returns to civilian life. Several departments of the OSS survive the dissolution and, less than two years later, the Central Intelligence Agency is founded.
Donovan does not have an official role in the newly formed CIA, but he is instrumental in its formation. His opinions meet strong opposition from the State, War, and Navy Departments, as well as J. Edgar Hoover. President Truman is also unenthusiastic about some of Donovan’s arguments, but he prevails, and they are reflected in the National Security Act of 1947 and the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949.
After the end of the war ended, Donovan returns to his lifelong role as a lawyer and serves as special assistant to chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in Germany. On August 3, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appoints Donovan Ambassador to Thailand, and he serves in that capacity from September 4, 1953, until his resignation on August 21, 1954.
Donovan dies from complications of vascular dementia on February 8, 1959, at the age of 76, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower remarks, “What a man! We have lost the last hero.”
seamus dubhghaill 