Description:
Lieutenant Colonel Howard Kirkpatrick Alberts, Rutgers College Class of 1943, was born in Washington, DC, and raised in Franklin Park, New Jersey, a rural farming community. His father, a French immigrant, had enlisted in the US Army in 1902 and served through World War I in motor transport. Alberts attended New Brunswick High School before enrolling at Rutgers, where he majored in physics, participated in ROTC, served as a company commander and captained the Rifle Team. He earned a commission in 1943 and initially entered the US Army, attending Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, before resigning to accept a US Marine Corps commission.
At Marine Corps Schools in Quantico, Virginia, Alberts excelled academically and remained as an instructor in infantry tactics, training both newly commissioned officers and combat veterans from Guadalcanal. He later completed sea school in San Diego and joined the Marine detachment aboard the heavy cruiser USS Fall River (CA‑131), serving in the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. He participated in Operation CROSSROADS at Bikini Atoll in 1946, witnessing both atomic test detonations while stationed aboard the flagship assigned to oversee the target fleet.
After additional training at MIT in electrical engineering, Alberts served with an antiaircraft artillery battalion at Camp Lejeune and participated in Arctic maneuvers in Newfoundland and Labrador. During the Korean War, he commanded a company transferred from the 2nd Marine Division to the 1st Marine Division, joining the 1st Marine Regiment in the Inchon landing. He fought through Inchon, Kimpo Airfield and Seoul, and later served as a communications officer with the 5th Marines during operations from Wonsan through the Chosin Reservoir campaign, coordinating field communications.
In later assignments, Alberts specialized in communications, electronics and signals intelligence, serving at Quantico, Headquarters Marine Corps, and in joint intelligence roles. During the Vietnam War, he worked in Saigon with MACV, traveling extensively across the country and contributing to intelligence planning and interception efforts. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after more than two decades of service and continued technical work in defense-related research.