Author:
Dickson, Paul, author.
Edition Statement:First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
ImprintNew York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.
Descriptionxvi, 432 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Note:A Rude Awakening -- The Tree Army to the Rescue -- A "Phoney" War Abroad and a Mock War at Home -- For the Want of a Nail -- "Your Number Came Up": The 1940 Peacetime Draft -- Assembling the New Army: "The Blind Leading the Blind" -- The Battle of Tennessee and the "Yoo-Hoo" Incident -- "Over the Hill in October": Treason, Sabotage, and the Vote -- Stagecraft: The Extraordinary Preparations for the War in Louisiana -- The Battle of the Bayous -- Promotion and Purge -- The Carolinas: The Final Scrimmage -- December 7, 1941 -- "Little Libya," Irish Maneuvers, and Operation Torch -- Victory Laps: V-E, V-J, and- Later- the Double V.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-368) and index.
Note:"In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland initiating World War II, a strong strain of isolationism existed in the United States, and the US Army ranked 17th in the world, behind Portugal-totally 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 landed in North Africa, and then led the campaign that defeated Nazi Germany; and American armed forces were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific. The story of America's astounding industrial mobilization during World War II has been told. But what has never been chronicled before Paul Dickson's The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941 is the extraordinary transformation of America's military from a disparate collection of camps with obsolete weapons into a well-trained and spirited army ten times its prior size in little more than a year. From Franklin D. Roosevelt's selection of George C. Marshall as Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented military maneuvers in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas in 1941-by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Patton, Stillwell, and Bradley emerged-Dickson narrates America's urgent mobilization against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the threat of a two-ocean war on the horizon. An important addition to American history, The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941 is essential to our understanding of America's involvement in World War II."-- Provided by publisher.
