Arming the Nation for War (eBook)

Mobilization, Supply, and the American War Effort in World War II

Robert P. Patterson (Autor)

Brian Waddell (Herausgeber)

Robert Morgenthau (Urheber)

eBook Download: PDF

2014 | 1
360 Seiten
University of Tennessee Press (Verlag)
978-1-62190-082-5 (ISBN)

Infos

A decorated World War I veteran, Federal Judge Robert P. Patterson knew all too well the needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was thus dismayed by America's lack of military preparedness when a second great war engulfed Europe in 193940. With the international crisis worsening, Patterson even resumed military trainingas a forty-nine-year-old privatebefore being named assistant secretary of war in July 1940. That appointment set the stage for Patterson's central role in the country's massive mobilization and supply effort, which helped the Allies win World War II. In Arming the Nation for War, a previously unpublished account long buried among the late author's papers and originally marked confidential, Patterson describes the vast challenges the United States faced as it had to equip, in a desperately short time, a fighting force capable of confronting a formidable enemy. Brimming with data and detail, the book also abounds with deep insights into the myriad problems encountered on the domestic mobilization frontincluding the sometimes divergent interests of wartime planners and industrial leadersalong with the logistical difficulties of supplying far-flung theaters of war with everything from ships, planes, and tanks to food and medicine. Determined to remind his contemporaries of how narrow the Allied margin of victory was and that the war's lessons not be forgotten, Patterson clearly intended the manuscript (which he wrote between 1945 and '47, when he was President Truman's secretary of war) to contribute to the postwar debates on the future of the military establishment. The fact that passage of the National Security Act of 1947, to which Patterson was a key contributor, answered many of his concerns may explain why he never published the book during his lifetime. A unique document offering an insider's view of a watershed historical moment, Patterson's text is complemented by editor Brian Waddell's extensive introduction and notes. In addition, Robert M. Morgenthau, former Manhattan district attorney and a protege of Patterson's for four years prior to the latter's death in a 1952 plane crash, offers a heartfelt remembrance of a man the New York Herald-Tribune called ';an example of the public-spirited citizen.'

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.10.2014
• Reihe/Serie: Legacies of War
• Zusatzinfo: 13 photos
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Schlagworte: Air Force • allies • Armed Forces • Army • austin wadsworth act • bernard m. baruch • Brehon B. Somervell • Churchill • Dwight D. Eisenhower • George C. Marshall • Harry S. Truman • Henry H. Arnold • James Forrestal • legacies of war • lend-lease act • margin of victory • Operation Overlord • Operation Torch • Preparedness • Roosevelt • william knudsen • WWII
• ISBN-10: 1-62190-082-7 / 1621900827
• ISBN-13: 978-1-62190-082-5 / 9781621900825