Marshall and His Generals: U.S. Army Commanders in World War II

There is a characteristic of human nature that I call triumphalism. It is common to many successful people and countries and is the tendency to assume that, because you've scored a victory of some sort, there is no need to question that success. Things change, but you still think that you're cock of the walk. Until one day when you're soundly defeated. That may be one of the reasons the Romans had slaves insult triumphant generals during their victory parades.World War II launched America's triumphalism and it continues unabated. Even as our industrial base shrinks and our elites have abandoned the notion of national service, we still think that we could fight and win World War II again. What we really need is a serious afteraction report which addresses our failures as well as our successes. Failure to do so results in ridiculous books like Thomas Ricks' The Generals, which is taken seriously by people who should know better.A lot of the romantic notions causing triumphalism surround General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff. People tend to deify him. For instance, General Marshall was a great man and a great administrator, but as Joel Davidson demonstrates in The Unsinkable Fleet, his gentlemanly, compromising manner led him to be outmaneuvered by a bureaucratic in-fighter like Admiral King. Combined with a Navy-centric President, the result was a Navy several times too large than was necessary and an Army which, by Marshall's own estimate, was less than half of what it should have been.Stephen Taaffe challenges another great myth of the war: that Marshall's "black book," his list of promising officers whom he promoted to high command produced uniformly great generals. By telling the war, campaign by campaign, from the generals' standpoint, he shows how the war was fought, crippled by rivalries, illnesses and pure incompetence of some generals, balanced by innovation, drive and brilliance on the part of others. In short, Mr. Taaffe reminds us that the war was led, as well as fought, by human beings both at their best and their worst.Mr. Taaffe sums up the personality of virtually every fighting general who led a corps or higher, in short deft passages describing their strengths and weaknesses. He shows how different people react differently to the same stimulus: some corps commanders were at their best when they were micromanaged while others shined only if they were off the leashIn the course of his book, the author demonstrates good and bad examples of leadership, sometimes surprisingly so. He shows how Patton's year in the wilderness after the slapping incident had a positive effect on his leadership and how one of the reasons he was so successful in France was because he made sure that his corps commanders knew that he would back them up if they failed because they were overly aggressive ("I've got your back" is a powerful message to your subordinates). He also shows how Ike shortchanged the Sixth Army Group because its commander, Jake Devers, managed to outmaneuver him bureaucratically on a number of issues..As demonstrated by his account, the author shows that the talented, aggressive commanders were a minority of those chosen and that most of the leaders of the American Army were competent at best, often unimaginative. Some historians have suggested that Marshall had a tendency to promote decent, honorable men who were good students or teachers at the Infantry School. Mr. Taaffe largely supports that idea. If so, what Marshall failed to recognize is that the skills needed for a combat commander are far different than the skills which make someone shine in the classroom.Mr. Taaffe concludes that despite their shortcomings, the generals chosen were the best there were. I disagree and think that John Grigg's analysis was correct, that we could have won the war a year earlier. Marshall never seemed to be concerned about the time factor. Winning the war sooner than later was not his goal, but for myriad reasons, the time factor in war is crucial. Most importantly, as many as half of the Holocaust victims died in the last year of the war. That alone was reason to be more aggressive and to take more chances.But one of the reasons which makes Mr. Taaffe one of our best historians is that, relying exclusively on the material presented in his book, you can intelligently disagree with his analysis. Not many historians are capable of presenting both an argument and the ammunition to challenge that argument in the same book and that is reason enough why this book should be on the bookshelf of all readers with a serious interest in history.

I have always considered Marshall the greatest leader of WWII. This book did a lot to detail that leadership. Eisenhower got better coverage than he deserved. Marshall was gracious enough to overlook the Kay Summersby incident, as well as Patton's slapping episode.MacArthur and Bradley got sufficient coverage and their roles in the war were detailed sufficiently to make one appreciate them.The Navy got thin coverage and the Army Air Corps was almost ignored. There would not have been a D-Day invasion without Air Superiority over the channel. The German submarine threat was defeated as much by airborne anti-submarine warfare as the convoy.Okinawa was given some of the credit it deserved for the severity of the Japanese defense.General Curtis Lemay was not mentioned by name for his roles in the incendary raids against Japan and the dropping of the A-bomb. He Had a bigger role in winning the war than many of the officers whose physical ailment were given more print than Lemay's destruction of 1/3 of tokyo.My main problem with the book is the focus on a bunch of West Point ring knockers to the exclusion of other important contributors to the war. After all, the Air Corps was Army too!Still, the book did what it did well. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in George Marshal who did so much to make the world a better place.

Few general readers have any appreciation on how unprepared our country was prior to WW II. Marshall jump-started the process of both building an army and laying out the armament requirements for that Army.His other achievement was to give the boot to second-rate officers {some of whom were his friends and contemporaries}. He also, in fairness, was willing to give a second chance to general officers--especially those who were pulled from combat commands in Europe. The author gives chapter and verse about the personalities and situations of the general officers, and it is amazing how many had medical problems which, while previously hidden, came to the fore in the stress of combat. I have never seen such detail as the author provides his readers.Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood faced similar challenges when he inherited the Pacific command of US submarine operations during WW II. Lockwood replaced almost every submarine commander he initially encountered, and then proceed toward a solution to the problem of dud torpedoes. The proof of the pudding was in the results Lockwood achieved with new commanders who aggressively patrolled on individual trips which could cover 10,000 miles and thirty days. George Marshall also brought home from Europe the bacon and saved ours.Finally, a bookend to this book under review is Thomas E. Rick's "The Generals" which critiques generals in subsequent US wars who were rarely relieved of command and created mammoth problems for the troops and our country.

Great book. Very interesting.