George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory 1943-1945 (GCM #3)

George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory 1943-1945 (GCM #3)

By Forrest C. Pogue

Hardcover Cloth 683 pages. Condition Very Good Dust Jacket Good. Reprint edition later printing 1986. Attractive cream colored boards with tan buckram 1/8 spine shows off this Clean, tight, square copy with no marks, highlights or bookplates. Book shows some shelf wear; chips, bumped corners, stains to covers. An unclipped dust jacket (featuring amateur repairs with scotch tape) shows remainders of price tag and considerable shelf wear - a tears, scrapes, stains, scratches, wrinkles and chips. Not an ex-library, book club or remainder copy.

From the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 and the Allied decision to sift to the offensive in all theaters of the Second World War, to the surrender of Germany in May 1945 - the span of this enthralling third volume in the official biography of George C. Marshall - the Allies and the Axis troops fought flat out. It was during this period that the indomitable Army Chief of Staff's shrewd skills as an administrator, concerned commander, and strategist gained him growing recognition and trust from Roosevelt and Churchill, and unparalleled respect from Congress and the country; if Hitler had been the one to foment the blasts of chaos, it was General of the army Marshall who kept the calm eye of hurricane centered on his Pentagon desk. To see the war from his vantage point is to gain fresh perspective, whether on the profound differences with our British allies, on the MacArthur-Nimitz feud in the Pacific, on the machinations at Yalta, or on the astounding build-up of American might. Such is Forrest Pogue's skill, however, that we never lose flesh-and-blood man, who so often surprises us with the warmth and irony behind the legendary facade of frost and integrity.

In Marshall's war service, Dr. Pogue notes, we can find "the perfect blend of soldier and civilian": as the pre-eminent figure on the military scene both at home and abroad, he provided the link between the military establishment and the American people; though he insisted on hard discipline and high respect for leadership among his troops, he never forgot that the ultimate cost of victory lay in the loss of men's lives. Like everyone else, Marshall had to cope with the tragedy and the trivia of war, from visiting the fresh Italian grave of a fallen stepson to fighting off the commissioning of unqualified pals of the White House - though when it came to making combat decisions in Europe, he held onto a purely non-political tack.

Few men valued more than George C. Marshall the maintenance of the individual spirit and the need for each soldier to know his job well and understand its importance to those at home, and few have been as notably successful in naming field commanders. Churchill was never more perceptive than when he cabled just before V-E Day to salute Marshall as the "true organizer of victory."

Forrest Carlisle Pogue Jr. was an official United States Army historian during World War II. He was a proponent of oral history techniques, and collected many oral histories from the war under the direction of chief Army historian S. L. A. Marshall. He also served for many years as the Executive Director of the George C. Marshall Foundation as well as Director of the Marshall Library.