"Cranking up a fine war is the account of a young soldier's personal journey through World War II and of the shared experiences of all the soldiers who made their way from boot camp to the battlefields of Europe on the path of victory"--Page 4 of cover

Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee wore six stars on his helmet, three in front and three in back--an unusual affectation. He was a stickler for discipline and a legendary military figure whom servicemen and historians loved to hate. Yet Lee was an intensely religious person and an advocate of opportunity for African Americans in the era of Jim Crow, setting him apart from the conservative officer corps at this time. Lee was also responsible for supplying the Allied armies in Europe during World War II from D-Day through Germany's surrender. In this long-overdue biography of the brilliant and eccentric commander, Hank H. Cox paints a vivid picture of this enormous logistical task and the man who made it all happen. The General Who Wore Six Stars delves into the perplexing details of how Lee let his idiosyncrasies get the better of him. This "pompous little son-of-a-bitch," as some historians have called him, who was "only interested in self-advertisement," famously moved his headquarters to Paris, where during the height of the American Army supply crisis, twenty-nine thousand of his Service of Supply troops shacked up in the finest hotels and, due to sheer numbers, created an enormous black market. Yet, Cox argues, Lee's strategical genius throughout the war has been underappreciated not only by his contemporaries but also by World War II historians. The General Who Wore Six Stars provides a timely reassessment of this intriguing individual.

"Throughout its history, the United States has fought its major wars by mobilizing large numbers of citizen-soldiers. While the small, peacetime, regular army provided trained leadership and a framework for growth, the citizen-soldier, from the minuteman of the American Revolution to Civil War volunteers and the draftees of World War II, have successfully prosecuted the nation's major wars. But the Army, and the nation, have never fully resolved the myriad problems surrounding the mobilization and employment of reserve troops. National Guard divisions in World War II suffered from neglect during the interwar period and Great Depression, and regular Army commanders often replaced or relieved National Guard officers, which generated lingering resentment. At the same time, draftees from across the nation diluted the regional affiliations of many units, with a corresponding effect on morale and esprit de corps. Chris Rein's study of one division, recruited from the Gulf South and employed in the Southwest Pacific Theater in 1944 and 1945, highlights the challenges of reserve mobilization, training, and the combat deployment of National Guard units. His account demonstrates the still-strong connections between the local communities that hosted and supported National Guard companies before the war, even after an influx of new personnel nationalized the units and they shipped overseas. The 31st Division, reorganized after combat deployment in World War I, consisted primarily of infantry regiments from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and, until 1942, Louisiana. Mobilized for federal service in late 1940, the division participated in the critical Louisiana and Carolina Maneuvers in 1941, but then languished for the next two years as a training organization, though it provided trained cadres and replacements for other divisions the Army deployed to Europe and the Pacific. In 1944, the division finally shipped overseas, enduring the brutal conditions in the Southwest Pacific, but successfully conducting landings on the New Guinea coast in support of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's "island hopping" campaign directed at liberating the Philippines. After a change in leadership, on the second day of the amphibious assault on Morotai, the division supported the liberation of Mindanao, the southernmost major island in the archipelago, before redeploying for demobilization at the end of 1945. Rein's study traces the division's decades of duty from the interwar period, when it contended with a series of devastating natural disasters, through its mobilization and combat deployment. However, within the 31st Division's story, there are several significant issues that remain highly relevant for reserve deployment today. The first centers on the issue of World War II-era National Guard leadership. The Army implemented a "purge" of overage and less competent National Guard division commanders in order to replace them with younger officers of the regular Army. Maj. Gen. John C. Persons, a pre-war Birmingham resident and Alabama National Guard officer, commanded the division throughout the peacetime mobilization and training and the first operation in New Guinea, only to be summarily fired on the second day of the Morotai landings, an action not adequately explained in the existing literature. The second issue concerns the Army's "nationalization" of regional units. While this policy has the benefit of spreading any casualties across the nation, rather than duplicate the horrific losses of the "Bedford Boys" of the 29th Infantry Division that devastated one small Virginia community, it also erodes regional identity and esprit de corps. This work is a case study of the strength and weaknesses of units with a regional identity and explores the connections with the home front once that identity erodes. It also examines the Dixie Division's operational and strategic evolution, but just as importantly details drawn from soldiers' correspondence and oral histories to show how their exposure to a larger world, including service alongside African-American and Filipino units, changed their views on race and post-war society"--

“A must-read book that explores a vital pre-war effort [with] deep research and gripping writing.” —Washington Times In The rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941, Paul Dickson tells the dramatic story of how the American Army was mobilized from scattered outposts two years before Pearl Harbor into the disciplined and mobile fighting force that helped win World War II. In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, America had strong isolationist leanings. The US Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific. Dickson chronicles this transformation from Franklin Roosevelt’s selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged. The narrative unfolds against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.

In the winter of 1944–1945, Hitler sought to divide Allied forces in the heavily forested Ardennes region of Luxembourg and Belgium. He deployed more than 400,000 troops in one of the last major German offensives of the war, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge, in a desperate attempt to regain the strategic initiative in the West. Hitler’s effort failed for a variety of reasons, but many historians assert that Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army was ultimately responsible for securing Allied victory. Although Patton has assumed a larger-than-life reputation for his leadership in the years since World War II, scholars have paid little attention to his generalship in the Ardennes following the relief of Bastogne. In Advance and Destroy, Captain John Nelson Rickard explores the commander’s operational performance during the entire Ardennes campaign, through his “estimate of the situation,” the U.S. Army’s doctrinal approach to problem-solving. Patton’s day-by-day situational understanding of the Battle of the Bulge, as revealed through ULTRA intelligence and the influence of the other Allied generals on his decision-making, gives readers an in-depth, critical analysis of Patton’s overall effectiveness, measured in terms of mission accomplishment, his ability to gain and hold ground, and a cost-benefit analysis of his operations relative to the lives of his soldiers. The work not only debunks myths about one of America’s most controversial generals but provides new insights into his renowned military skill and colorful personality.

The debut of CRANK! stunned the science fiction world with its disregard for obsolete notions of genre fiction, instead insisting on highly individual and imaginative fiction of literary distinction. This book presents the best from CRANK!. Voted One of the Top Ten Original Works of 1998. "If Asimov's SF and Analog are the meat and potatoes of short fiction in this field, Crank! was its Heimlich maneuver. The more we think about it, the more sense it makes that The Best of CRANK! shoved aside top-selling books from this year's most popular authors to claim a space on our Reader's Top Ten list. The only mystery is why it didn't place higher."--The SF Site Reader's Choice Awards At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

An RAF veteran presents an in-depth study of one of the Cold War’s most effective fighter, defense, and reconnaissance planes. The McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom was a true multi-role combat aircraft. Introduced into the Royal Air Force in 1968, it was employed in ground attack, air reconnaissance and air defense roles. Even after the arrival of the Jaguar in the early 1970s, it continued to play a significant role in air defense. In its heyday, the Phantom was Britain’s principal Cold War fighter. There were seven UK-based squadrons, two Germany-based squadrons, and a further Squadron deployed to the Falkland Islands. Phantom in the Cold War focuses on the aircraft’s role as an air defense fighter, exploring its contribution to the Second Allied Tactical Air Force at RAF Wildenrath during the Cold War. Author David Gledhill, who flew the Phantom operationally, also recounts the thrills, challenges, and consequences of operating this temperamental jet at extreme low-level over the West German countryside, preparing for a war which everyone hoped would never happen.