Bøger i Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series serien

Independent tank battalions were small, self-contained armored units attached to larger infantry divisions as necessary during World War II. The United States Army believed this would provide infantry the firepower and protection it needed on an ever-changing battlefield. In Buttoned Up, Westin E. Robeson explores the contribution of American armor to the Allied victory in World War II.

The "Mississippi Rifles", so called because they were the first volunteer force in American history to have been issued rifles rather than smoothbore muskets, served in the war against Mexico that followed the annexation of Texas in 1845. In this volume, Richard Bruce Winders skilfully uncovers the contrasting wartime experience of two regiments, the 1st and 2ndMississippi Rifles.

While many individual institutions have had their histories written or their stories told, to date no single book has attempted to explore the full scope of the military school in American history. Cadets on Campus is the first book to cover the origin, history, and culture of the US's military schools.

Combat Talons in Vietnam is a personal account of the first use of C-130s in the Vietnam War. It provides an insider's view of crew training and classified missions for this technologically advanced aircraft. Many covert missions over North Vietnam were successful, but one night, John Gargus, a mission planner, oversaw an operation in which the aircraft--carrying eleven crewmembers--failed to return from a nighttime mission. For thirty years, a search for the missing aircraft remained in progress. In the late 1990s, the Combat Talon veteran community at Hurlburt Field in Florida, still uncertain of the full story, decided to dedicate a memorial to the lost crew. When wartime mission records were declassified, Gargus embarked on a long journey of inquiry, research, and puzzle-solving to reconstruct the events of that mission and the fate of its crew. He discovered that the wreckage of the plane had been found in 1992 and that the remains of the crew were being held in Hawaii. Through numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews, and site visits, Gargus sought to answer the question of why it took so long to find the wreckage and, more importantly, why the special operations command units were left uninformed. By 2000, the remains were relocated to a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery at last providing a measure of closure to family, friends, and comrades.

For more than forty years the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University has dutifully gathered the flesh-and-blood memories of the World War II generation in the state of Texas.Representing a cross-section of Texas' population and a wide range of wartime assignments, these recollections reveal the personal perspectives on many events and figures of World War II. On land, in air, and by sea, in the Pacific and in Europe, they fought for America's future. With the clear ring of authenticity and a surprising immediacy, even after all these years, their stories make a global war personal.

A study of combat preparedness in the Eighth Army from 1949 to the outbreak of hostilities in 1950. It concedes that the US soldiers sent to Korea suffered gaps in their professional preparation, from missing and broken equipment to unevenly trained leaders at every level of command.

Tells the story of General MacArthur's November 1950 attack to the Yalu River, an attack that was repulsed by 200,000 Chinese 'volunteer' infantry.

Combining documentary history and first-person accounts with research and evidence, this text provides details on the Battle of Glorieta, including the precise locations of events and of particular units. It marshals evidence to the conclusion that the battle was a significant Union victory.

Beginning in 1943, US Army leaders mounted a sustained campaign to establish a system of universal military training (UMT) in America. In Every Citizen a Soldier, William A. Taylor illustrates how army leaders failed to adapt their strategy to the political realities of the day and underscores the delicate balance in American democracy between civilian and military control of strategy.

Following their rampage through Southeast Asia and the Pacific in the five months after Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces moved into the Solomon Islands and began building the Guadalcanal airfield. In July 1942, Americans captured the almost completed airfield for their own strategic use.The Japanese Army countered by sending to Guadalcanal a reinforced battalion under the command of Col. Kiyonao Ichiki. Marines wiped out Ichiki's men, who--imbued with "victory fever"--had expected a quick and easy victory.

At the end of the Vietnam War, 2,585 Americans were unaccounted for. In 1992, a joint task force was established to continue the work of recovery, and its members became the first US government representatives to return full-time to Vietnam. Army Lt. Col. Thomas Smith arrived in Hanoi in 2003. This is both a heartfelt memoir and an inside look at his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Hal M. Friedman analyzes the major issues concerning the Pacific Basin that confronted the executive branch departments between 1945 and 1947.

Explores, among other topics, the environmental ravages of trench warfare in World War I, the exploitation of Philippine forests for military purposes from the Spanish colonial period through 1945, and William Tecumseh Sherman's scorched-earth tactics during his 1864-65 March to the Sea.

Provides an account of life of the author's first tour of duty in Vietnam - the blood, fear, camaraderie, and tedium of combat and maneuver. First published in 1987, this book shows an eager young recruit growing before the reader's eyes into a proud but bloodied combat veteran.

Nicknamed ""the truck killer,"" the AC-119K gunship and its counterpart, the AC-119G, were developed in the late 1960s in response to the needs of the US military in Vietnam. This book examines the evolution of these aircraft and their role within Vietnam, military policy, and geopolitical realities.

This work is the story of the Louisiana soldiers who fought at Vicksburg, as told through their letters, diaries, and remembrances. It presents a day-by-day account from the Confederate vantage point. Correspondents describe daily life in the trenches from their individual perspectives.

Yet President Lincoln was wrong. Not deeds alone, but the words of the Civil War, have lived in our national memory, have formed our national character. The voices of the Civil War still stir us, more than a hundred years later. The sounds of battle, the words of high purpose-these still ring clear for us, who have lived through so many battles, so many causes. In the commentary that weaves together the dramatic words on this tape, veteran Civil War historian Frank E. Vandiver suggests that-aside from slavery, which was resolved once for all in the mingled blood and the proclamations--the questions of this brothers' war were the very matter of our national soul: constitutional principles, indissolubility of union, common or divided purpose, common or divided fate. In resounding tones, Vandiver brings alive the stirring words of the great American epic. The Gettysburg Address, Lee's Farewell to His Army, Lincoln's and Davis's inaugurals, letters and memoirs from soldiers in the field, speeches from the great orators of the day-all are gathered here and proclaimed for a new generation, and a people too soon old.

A member of the famed Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, Donald J. Rich went ashore on D-Day at Utah Beach, was wounded in the bloody conflict at Carentan, landed in a flimsy plywood-and-canvas glider on the battlefields of Holland, and survived the grim siege with the "Battling Bastards of Bastogne" during the Battle of the Bulge. Glider Infantryman is his eyewitness account of how he, along with thousands of other young men from farms, small towns, and cities across the United States, came together to answer the call of their nation. It is also a heartfelt tribute to the many thousands who gave their lives in this struggle. Coauthored by Kevin Brooks, the son of Rich's best friend and World War II comrade, Glider Infantryman covers a span of nearly three years; his return home, five months after the war's end, as a toughened bazooka gunner and veteran of five campaigns. Rich's first-person narrative includes vivid coverage of the action, featuring an especially rare account of arriving on a combat landing zone by glider. Detailed, day-to-day depiction of some of the heaviest fighting in Holland follows, including the action at Opheusden, the center of the infamous "Island." Later highlights include the Battle of the Bulge, where Rich recounts his experiences in some of the hottest defensive fighting of the European Theater, including the epic tank battles at Marvie, Champs, and Foy.

. . . a brilliant and exceptionally clear tactical study that offers a point of departure for broader reflections on the nature of contingency and uncertainty in all military operations."" - Foreign Affairs

If the costs of the Vietnam War were great to Americans and staggering to the South Vietnamese, they were even worse for the North. Based on interviews, soldiers' diaries, letters, and government documents, this book provides an account of the war that our opponents fought and the men who fought it.

Written in a readable narrative style that belies the rigorous research behind it, Blood and Treasure tells the story of the Confederacy's ambitious plan to extend a Confederate empire across the American continent.