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A native of New Orleans who graduated from West Point in 1917, General J. Lawton Collins was a division commander and later a corps commander in World War II, US Army chief of staff during the Korean War, and US special representative in Vietnam following the Geneva accords. “General Collins was one of driving forces in our military leadership during World War II and the postwar period. His autobiography, Lightning Joe, is a fascinating and dramatic account of those critical years, as well as a warm, personal story.” — W. Averell Harriman “The route to leadership in combat is long, tedious, competitive and difficult. General Collins’ splendid record indicates that he understood and mastered the challenge. Attaining the highest commands and acquitting himself in magnificent style, Joe Collins added brilliant pages to the already bright history of the United States Army.” — General Mark W. Clark “Lightning Joe is a remarkably interesting book. It is packed with statistics, dates, and places, and certainly will be an essential reference book for anyone interested in World War II in Europe and the years immediately following that war.” — General James M. Gavin “Anyone who has wondered how the small Army officer corps of the 1920s and 1930s was able to produce so many effective and often brilliant commanders in World War II will find an answer in this autobiography of General J. Lawton Collins. General Collins recounts his varied experiences in war and peace with exacting accuracy of fact and in an interesting and lucid manner, which makes his book most valuable reading both for the historian and the lay reader wishing to learn more about what it takes to make a successful modern general.” — General Maxwell D. Taylor “In this autobiography, General J. Lawton Collins exhibits the qualities of mind which won him the reputation as one of the brainiest of American combat commanders: clarity, judiciousness, incisiveness, and realism... a book which should prove valuable to both historian and the general reader... [an] admirable book.” — Ronald Spector, Military Affairs “[H]ere is a soldier-memoirist grappling earnestly to convey the possible benefits of his own tactical experience to future tacticians, as well as to contribute to the historian’s more forthright quest for as true as possible a reconstruction of the past. Collins is a candidly self-critical memoirist... As a memoirist, Collins has met a standard comparable to that of his exercise of command — which is saying a great deal.” — Russell F. Weigley, The Review of Politics “The picture that emerges from [the book]... is that of a man of extraordinary good judgment who as a combat commander was neither rash nor overly cautious, an officer who was at once modest and serenely confident of his skills, one who had no time for military posturing... in sum, here is a sharply written and fast-moving account of the life of a man who was intimately involved in some of the most important happenings and with some of the most important people of the present century. It is a book that will appeal to scholars and to general readers alike.” — John Edward Wiltz, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “J. Lawton Collins was one of the most important and influential American military leaders of the twentieth century... His descriptions of the fighting in France, the Battle of the Bulge, and the ultimate conquest of Germany offer important insights for anyone interested in the Second World War... Lightning Joe is the candid, thoughtful appraisal of world-shaking events by a man considered to be one of the most innovative, aggressive, and effective generals the United States has ever produced.” — Midwest Book Review
In a 1965 letter to Newsweek, French writer and academic Bernard Fall (1926-67) staked a claim as the 'Number One Realist' on the Vietnam War. This is the first book to study the thought of this overlooked figure, one of the most important experts on counterinsurgency warfare in Indochina. Nathaniel L. Moir's intellectual history analyses Fall's formative experiences: his service in the French underground and army during the Second World War; his father's execution by the Germans and his mother's murder in Auschwitz; and his work as a research analyst at the Nuremberg Trials. Moir demonstrates how these critical events shaped Fall's trenchant analysis of Viet Minh-led revolutionary warfare during the French-Indochina War and the early Vietnam War. In the years before conventional American intervention in 1965, Fall argued that--far more than anything in the United States' military arsenal--resolving conflict in Vietnam would require political strength, willpower, integrity and skill. Number One Realist illuminates Fall's study of political reconciliation in Indochina, while showing how his profound, humanitarian critique of war continues to echo in the endless conflicts of the present. It will challenge and change the way we think about the Vietnam War.
This monograph examines General J. Lawton Collins' career and argues that his command style was characterized by technical and tactical competence, the practical ability to lead from the front and sound judgment. This monograph examines these key factors in three subsections. General Collins gained his technical and tactical competence by theoretical preparation as a student and instructor. He first demonstrated the ability to position himself at the critical point on the battlefield as the commander of the 25th Infantry Division during the Guadalcanal Campaign in January 1943. As the commander of the VII Corps during the Allies' Campaign in northwest Europe from 1944 to 1945, he refined this ability. Finally, he developed sound judgment while performing key postings both during the interwar period and during the Second World War. This monograph shows how General J. Lawton Collins' command style translated into action and made him such an effective combat leader.
CMH Pub 50-1-1. Defense Studies Series. Discusses the evolution of the services' racial policies and practices between World War II and 1965 during the period when black servicemen and women were integrated into the Nation's military units.
This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.
Wedged chronologically between World War II and Vietnam, the Korean War—which began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June of 1950—possessed neither the virtuous triumphalism of the former nor the tragic pathos of the latter. Most Americans supported defending South Korea, but there was considerable controversy during the war as to the best means to do so—and the question was at least as exasperating for American army officers as it was for the general public. A longtime historian of American military leadership in the crucible of war, Stephen R. Taaffe takes a close critical look at how the highest ranking field commanders of the Eighth Army acquitted themselves in the first, decisive year in Korea. Because an army is no better than its leadership, his analysis opens a new perspective on the army's performance in Korea, and on the conduct of the war itself. In that first year, the Eighth Army's leadership ran the gamut from impressive to lackluster—a surprising unevenness since so many of the high-ranking officers had been battle-tested in World War II. Taaffe attributes these leadership difficulties to the army's woefully unprepared state at the war's start, army personnel policies, and General Douglas MacArthur's corrosive habit of manipulating his subordinates and pitting them against each other. He explores the personalities at play, their pre-war experiences, the manner of their selection, their accomplishments and failures, and, of course, their individual relationships with each other and MacArthur. By explaining who these field, corps, and division commanders were, Taaffe exposes the army's institutional and organizational problems that contributed to its up-and-down fortunes in Korea in 1950–1951. Providing a better understanding of MacArthur's controversial generalship, Taaffe’s book offers new and invaluable insight into the army's life-and-death struggle in America's least understood conflict.