Major General Holger Nelson Toftoy was born on 31 October 1902, in Marseilles, Illinois. He began his military service as an ROTC cadet at the University of Wisconsin in 1920. During his second year there, he was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy and was graduated in 1926. After taking basic flight training, he transferred to the Coast Artillery and served three years in Hawaii as a battery commander before returning to West Point as an instructor for five years.
In the mid-1930s he was assigned to command the mine defenses of the Pacific approaches of the Panama Canal. In 1938 he was transferred to the Submarine Mine Depot, Fort Monroe, where he served for six years as Chief of the Industrial and the Research and Development Divisions. He directed the design and development of a new type of controlled submarine mine system widely used in World War II.
In 1944, he became Chief of the Army Ordnance Technical Intelligence teams assigned to Europe to seek out and evaluate captured enemy Ordnance weapons and equipment. During this time a series of historic events occurred that have had a profound effect upon the U.S. missile and space programs.
The technical intelligence teams were asked to make a full report on and send home specimens of two of the most spectacular German weapons of the war, the V-1 and V-2 rockets. These weapons were developed by a group of scientists under direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun at Peenemunde. While the search was underway for these rockets an assistant to Toftoy, Major James P. Hamill, made contact with Dr. von Braun and members of the Peenemunde team who had retreated to the Harz Mountains in advance of the Allied armies.
Toftoy knew the U.S. Army was planning to add guided missiles to its weapons program. He first cabled, then went personally to Washington to recommend that the German scientists be brought to the U.S. for interrogation and possible employment. By September 1945, the first group of scientists, including von Braun, had arrived in the U.S. Toftoy was then transferred back to Washington and assigned responsibility for direction of the Army guided missile program.
In 1952, Toftoy was assigned to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, as Director of the Ordnance Missile Laboratories, which was responsible for planning, technical control and supervision of what had become the nation-wide Army guided missile and rocket development program.
Within two years, Redstone Arsenal had become recognized as one of the Army’s most important technical centers, and General Toftoy, first as a Brigadier General, then as Major General in command of Redstone Arsenal, had laid the foundation of today’s huge complex.
During the period of his command, 1952 to August 1958, RSA became responsible for the research and development, procurement and production, storage, maintenance and issue of the entire Army family of missiles and rockets. The products of that formative period have become historic: NIKE AJAX; NIKE HERCULES; HAWK; LACROSSE; HONEST JOHN; LITTLEJOHN; CORPORAL; REDSTONE; SERGEANT; PERSHING; NIKE ZEUS; JUPITER; JUPITER C; EXPLORER; and PIONEER.
