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“A concise account of the extraordinary careers of the five men who had perhaps the greatest impact on the US military of the late twentieth century.” —Andrew Wiest, author of The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam Formally titled “General of the Army,” the five-star general is the highest possible rank awarded in the U.S. Army in modern times and has been awarded to only five men in the nation’s history: George C. Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry H. Arnold, and Omar N. Bradley. In addition to their rank, these distinguished soldiers all shared the experience of serving or studying at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they gained the knowledge...
When the United States entered World War II, it took more than industrial might to transform its tiny army—smaller than even Portugal's—into an overseas fighting force of more than eight and a half million. Peter Schifferle contends that the determination of American army officers to be prepared for the next big war was an essential component in America's ultimate triumph over its adversaries. Crucial to that preparation were the army schools at Fort Leavenworth. Interwar Army officers, haunted by the bloodshed of World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive, fully expected to return to Europe to conclude the "unfinished business" of that conflict, and they prepared well. Schifferle examines fo...
When one thinks of influential World War II military figures, five-star generals such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley instantly come to mind. As important as these central figures were to the Second World War, the conflict produced equally effective lower-profile leaders whose influence had an undeniable impact. Among these leaders are William Simpson, commander of the US Ninth Army, and James Moore, his chief of staff. Working in tandem, the pair helmed a unit that gained recognition as "uncommonly normal," an affectionate designation driven by their steadfast professionalism in all endeavors. It was their unobtrusive leadership style that relegated these career military men to the...
George C. Marshall once called him "the brains of the army." And yet General Lesley J. McNair (1883-1944), a man so instrumental to America's military preparedness and Army modernization, remains little known today, his papers purportedly lost, destroyed by his wife in her grief at his death in Normandy. This book, the product of an abiding interest and painstaking research, restores the general Army Magazine calls one of "Marshall's forgotten men" to his rightful place in American military history. Because McNair contributed so substantially to America's war preparedness, this first complete account of his extensive and varied career also leads to a reevaluation of U.S. Army effectiveness d...
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The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of the troops in South East Asia. Over two million personnel served in the Indian Army - and India provided the base for supplies for the Middle Eastern and South East Asian theatres. This monograph is a modern historical interpretation of the Indian Army as a holistic organisation during the Second World War. It will look at training in India - charting how the Indian Army developed a more comprehensive training structure than any other Commonwealth country. This was achieved through both the disse...
Muth examines the different paths the United States Army and the German Armed Forces traveled to select, educate, and promote their officers in the crucial time before World War II. He demonstrates that the military education system in Germany represented an organized effort where each school provided the stepping stone for the next. But in the US, there existed no communication about teaching contents among the various schools.
The way an army thinks about and understands warfare has a tremendous impact on its organization, training, and operations. The central ideas of that understanding form a nation's way of warfare that influences decisions on and off the battlefield. From the disasters of the War of 1812, Winfield Scott ensured that America adopted a series of ideas formed in the crucible of the Wars of the French Revolution and epitomized by Napoleon. Reflecting American cultural changes, these French ideas dominated American warfare on the battlefields of the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. America remained committed to these ideas until cultural pressures and the successes of German Blitzkrieg from 1939 - 1940 led George C. Marshall to orchestrate the adoption of a different understanding of warfare. Michael A. Bonura examines concrete battlefield tactics, army regulations, and theoretical works on war as they were presented in American army education manuals, professional journals, and the popular press, to demonstrate that as a cultural construction, warfare and ways of warfare can be transnational and influence other nations.