- Joined
- Oct 8, 2006
- Messages
- 2,097
Heres a look at a guy dressed for the beach. Omaha Beach. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/06/d_day_combat_historian_s_sketch_of_a_platoon_leader_s_equipment_for_the.html
Early in the war, the Armys historians gathered second-hand battle reports and documents, while largely remaining stateside. But in 1944, General George C. Marshall ordered the group to produce morale-boosting short pamphlets about recently concluded operations, to be read by soldiers wounded in those actions while in recovery.
According to the divisions second Chief Historian, Kent Roberts Greenfield, in early 1944 one of the divisions officers, in the process of writing one of these pamphlets, conducted mass interviews of soldiers who had just fought in the Battle of Kwajalein. The good results of these interviews convinced the Division that historians should be present immediately after combat, to record impressions at their freshest. Sheas attachment to the 29th Infantry in June 1944 seems to have been one result of this policy.
After the end of the war, Greenfield writes, the Historical Division was charged with a huge task: compose the official history of the Armys actions during the conflict. They expanded on the work the division carried out during wartime, and eventually produced a fourteen-volume series,American Forces in Action. http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3AwwIIarchive%20AND%20subject%3A%22American%20forces%20in%20action%20series%22
Early in the war, the Armys historians gathered second-hand battle reports and documents, while largely remaining stateside. But in 1944, General George C. Marshall ordered the group to produce morale-boosting short pamphlets about recently concluded operations, to be read by soldiers wounded in those actions while in recovery.
According to the divisions second Chief Historian, Kent Roberts Greenfield, in early 1944 one of the divisions officers, in the process of writing one of these pamphlets, conducted mass interviews of soldiers who had just fought in the Battle of Kwajalein. The good results of these interviews convinced the Division that historians should be present immediately after combat, to record impressions at their freshest. Sheas attachment to the 29th Infantry in June 1944 seems to have been one result of this policy.
After the end of the war, Greenfield writes, the Historical Division was charged with a huge task: compose the official history of the Armys actions during the conflict. They expanded on the work the division carried out during wartime, and eventually produced a fourteen-volume series,American Forces in Action. http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3AwwIIarchive%20AND%20subject%3A%22American%20forces%20in%20action%20series%22