Stephen Graham
2013-02-28 01:07:00 UTC
Stephen R. Taaffe, _Marshall and His Generals: U.S. Army Commanders in
World War II_, Kansas, 2011.
Taaffe's recent scholarship has been on the problem of higher command in
the US armed forces. I first ran across him in his two volumes touching
on the American Civil War, _Command the Army of the Potmac_ and
_Commanding Lincoln's Navy_. This one focuses on the corps, army, army
group and theater commanders in the active theaters with substantial US
Army presence. He doesn't deal with Stilwell, Sultan or Wedemeyer in the
CBI. Nor does he deal much with the British and French commanders. A
little more compare and contrast would be interesting.
What comes through is that the hard level to find commanders for was at
corps level. In part that was due to the number of slots at that level -
around twenty-five - but also due to the nature of the duties expected:
primarily direct management of combat operations with relatively little
logistical responsibility. Taaffe makes the point that corps commanders
were relieved for performance issues, whereas army commanders were not.
A moderate amount of time and criticism is spent on the somewhat
strained relationship between Eisenhower and Devers.
Taaffe does briefly discuss ranking of the various commanders, both by
their superiors, primarily Eisenhower and Bradley, and in his
estimation. For corps command, Taaffe points out Collins and Truscott
and is relatively critical of the Pacific corps commanders other than
Eichelberger. At the army level, he cites Patton in Europe and
Eichelberger in the Pacific, though he notes that Eichelberger had an
easier set of tasks than Krueger. What was interesting to me was a note
in the middle of the book that singled out William Simpson of the Ninth
Army as the "best all-around army commander".
If you're interested in the general topic, the book is worth your time.
It's particularly interesting for me in the areas that are less covered
generally - the Pacific operations and Sixth Army Group in Europe.
World War II_, Kansas, 2011.
Taaffe's recent scholarship has been on the problem of higher command in
the US armed forces. I first ran across him in his two volumes touching
on the American Civil War, _Command the Army of the Potmac_ and
_Commanding Lincoln's Navy_. This one focuses on the corps, army, army
group and theater commanders in the active theaters with substantial US
Army presence. He doesn't deal with Stilwell, Sultan or Wedemeyer in the
CBI. Nor does he deal much with the British and French commanders. A
little more compare and contrast would be interesting.
What comes through is that the hard level to find commanders for was at
corps level. In part that was due to the number of slots at that level -
around twenty-five - but also due to the nature of the duties expected:
primarily direct management of combat operations with relatively little
logistical responsibility. Taaffe makes the point that corps commanders
were relieved for performance issues, whereas army commanders were not.
A moderate amount of time and criticism is spent on the somewhat
strained relationship between Eisenhower and Devers.
Taaffe does briefly discuss ranking of the various commanders, both by
their superiors, primarily Eisenhower and Bradley, and in his
estimation. For corps command, Taaffe points out Collins and Truscott
and is relatively critical of the Pacific corps commanders other than
Eichelberger. At the army level, he cites Patton in Europe and
Eichelberger in the Pacific, though he notes that Eichelberger had an
easier set of tasks than Krueger. What was interesting to me was a note
in the middle of the book that singled out William Simpson of the Ninth
Army as the "best all-around army commander".
If you're interested in the general topic, the book is worth your time.
It's particularly interesting for me in the areas that are less covered
generally - the Pacific operations and Sixth Army Group in Europe.