A description of General Eisenhower's wartime command, focusing on the general, his staff, and his superiors in London and Washington and contrasting Allied and enemy command organizations.
With the publication of "Riviera to the Rhine", the Center of Military History completes its series of operational histories treating the activities of the U.S. Army's combat forces during World War II. This volume examines the least known of the major units in the European theater, General Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group. Under General Devers' leadership, two armies, the U.S. Seventh Army under General Alexander M. Patch and the First French Army led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, landing on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille in August 1944, cleared the enemy out of southern France and then turned east and joined with army groups under Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and General Omar N. Bradley in the final assault on Germany. In detailing the campaign of these Riviera-based armies, the authors have concentrated on the operational level of war, paying special attention to the problems of joint, combined, and special operations and to the significant roles of logistics, intelligence, and personnel policies in these endeavors. They have also examined in detail deception efforts at the tactical and operational levels, deep battle penetrations, river-crossing efforts, combat in built-up areas, and tactical innovations at the combined arms level.
Discusses the Allied invasion of Normandy, with extensive details about the planning stage, called Operation Overlord, as well as the fighting on Utah and Omaha Beaches.
The armored divisions were the shock force of the US Army's combat formations during the fighting in Northwest Europe in the final year of the war. Of the 16 such divisions formed during the war, all but one served in the European Theater of Operations. This book examines the organizational structure, operational doctrine and combat mission of these divisions from D-Day onwards, describing how doctrines and tactics were changed as the divisions were forced to adapt to the battlefield realities of combat against an experienced foe. The lessons drawn by the armored divisions from the bitter fighting in Northwest Europe from 1944 to 1945 strongly shaped postwar US Army doctrine.
(Includes maps) Recovering rapidly from the shock of German counteroffensives in the Ardennes and Alsace, Allied armies early in January 1945 began an offensive that gradually spread all along the line from the North Sea to Switzerland and continued until the German armies and the German nation were prostrate in defeat. This volume tells the story of that offensive, one which eventually involved more than four and a half million troops, including ninety one divisions, sixty-one of which were American. The focus of the volume is on the role of the American armies - First, Third, Seventh, Ninth, and, to a lesser extent, Fifteenth - which comprised the largest and most powerful military force the United States has ever put in the field. The role of Allied armies - First Canadian, First French, and Second British - is recounted in sufficient detail to put the role of American. armies in perspective, as is the story of tactical air forces in support of the ground troops. This is the ninth volume in a subseries of ten designed to record the history of the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations. One volume, The Riviera to the Rhine, is the final volume to be published.
This book looks at several troop categories based on primary function and analyzes the ratio between these categories to develop a general historical ratio. This ratio is called the Tooth-to-Tail Ratio. McGrath's study finds that this ratio, among types of deployed US forces, has steadily declined since World War II, just as the nature of warfare itself has changed. At the same time, the percentage of deployed forces devoted to logistics functions and to base and life support functions have increased, especially with the advent of the large-scale of use of civilian contractors. This work provides a unique analysis of the size and composition of military forces as found in historical patterns. Extensively illustrated with charts, diagrams, and tables. (Originally published by the Combat Studies Institute Press)