Fort Bragg – Throckmorton Library Visit II

Fort Bragg – Throckmorton Library Visit II

Fort Bragg – Throckmorton Library Visit II

Fort Lesley J McNair to Fort Bragg!

It was only a few months ago when John Michael delivered a briefing about Fort Myer – Images of America – Fort Myer.  Based on the outstanding turnout for the first event, he was asked to return for a second time to present about Fort Lesley J. McNair … the third-oldest active US Army post.  Especially of interest was:

• The Defense of Washington DC
• The significant contribution during the Civil War
• The tragic explosion and loss of life when it was known as Washington Arsenal
• The location where the Lincoln assassination conspirators were
  • incarcerated,
  • tried, and
  • hanged
• (Mary Surratt was the first female hanged by the Federal government)
• National Defense University
• National War College

The Washington Arsenal Explosion:

Civil War Disaster in the Capital 

Paperback

by Brian Bergin (Author), Erin Bergin Voorheis (Editor), Michael R. Ph.D. Fritsch (Afterword), Steve Hammond (Foreword)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In 1864, residents of Washington, D.C., mourned together at the largest funeral the district had ever seen. In the midst of the Civil War, the poor Irish neighborhood of the Island lost twenty-one mothers, sisters, and daughters. On June 17, dangerous working conditions and a series of unfortunate events led to the deadly explosion of a Federal arsenal at Fort McNair, where the young women made cartridges to assist the war effort. In the wake of the horrific event, a monument was erected at Congressional Cemetery to honor those who were lost. Author Brian Bergin similarly memorializes these women through his book, detailing the poor working conditions, the investigation into the avoidable events leading to the tragedy, and the reaction of a community already battered by the Civil War.

An Identity Crisis or What’s in a Name?

Fort Lesley J McNair over time had seven different names to accommodate the role that the installation played during that time. It wasn’t until 1948 that the current name was agreed upon to honor the commander of ground forces during World War II, LTG Lesley J. McNair.  He established a new doctrine in training soldiers and it was implemented first on the post that currently bears his name.  He met a tragic end to his life when he and others on the ground were subject to bombing by friendly fire in Operation Cobra.

McNair was later posthumously promoted from LTG to GEN.

General Lesley J. McNair:

Unsung Architect of the U. S. Army

(Modern War Studies (Hardcover))

ABOUT THE BOOK:

George C. Marshall once called him “the brains of the army.” And yet General Lesley J. McNair (1883-1944), a man so instrumental to America’s military preparedness and Army modernization, remains little known today, his papers purportedly lost, destroyed by his wife in her grief at his death in Normandy. This book, the product of an abiding interest and painstaking research, restores the general Army Magazine calls one of “Marshall’s forgotten men” to his rightful place in American military history. Because McNair contributed so substantially to America’s war preparedness, this first complete account of his extensive and varied career also leads to a reevaluation of U.S. Army effectiveness during WWII.

Born halfway between the Civil War and the dawn of the twentieth century, Lesley McNair–“Whitey” by his classmates for his blond hair–graduated 11th of 124 in West Point’s class of 1904 and rose slowly through the ranks like all officers in the early twentieth century. He was 31 when World War I erupted, 34 and a junior officer when American troops prepared to join the fight. It was during this time, and in the interwar period that followed the end of World War I, that McNair’s considerable influence on Army doctrine and training, equipment development, unit organization, and combined arms fighting methods developed. By looking at the whole of McNair’s career–not just his service in WWII as chief of staff, General Headquarters, 1940-1942, and then as commander, Army Ground Forces, 1942-1944–Calhoun reassesses the evolution and extent of that influence during the war, as well as McNair’s, and the Army’s, wartime performance. This in-depth study tracks the significantly positive impact of McNair’s efforts in several critical areas: advanced officer education; modernization, military innovation, and technological development; the field-testing of doctrine; streamlining and pooling of assets for necessary efficiency; arduous and realistic combat training; combined arms tactics; and an increasingly mechanized and mobile force.

Because McNair served primarily in staff roles throughout his career and did not command combat formations during WWII, his contribution has never received the attention given to more public–and publicized–military exploits. In its detail and scope, this first full military biography reveals the unique and valuable perspective McNair’s generalship offers for the serious student of military history and leadership.

John Michael Brings Fort Lesley J McNair to Fort Bragg

Fort Bragg – Home to 82d Airborne Division

In its early days, the post began as Camp Bragg on Sept. 4, 1918, as an artillery training center. Home of the AIRBORNE, the 82d Division with its associated battalions are the major residents of Fort Bragg.  The XVIIIth Airborne Corps and Special Forces Command are also garrisoned on the post.

Strike and Hold:

A Memoir of the 82nd Airborne

in World War II 

Hardcover – July 1, 2000

by T Moffatt Burriss

This fast-moving memoir of T. Moffatt Burriss shows his extraordinary role as a platoon leader and company commander with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Europe and North Africa during World War II. He saw a great deal of combat on Sicily, at Salerno, on Anzio Beach, in Holland during Operation Market Garden, and during the drive into Germany. This book portrays World War II as seen vividly through the eyes of the young American citizen-soldier.

Fort Bragg – Home to US Army Special Forces

Derived from the basis of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II,  the Regiment has evolved into the most elite forces in the United States military.  Recognized by a visit in 1961 by President John F Kennedy at McKellar’s Pond behind McKellar’s Lodge on Fort Bragg.  It was the first time that JFK saw them outfitted with their “Green Berets”.  The meeting was a backchannel event arranged by then BG William P. Yarborough and his classmate from West Point,  MG Chester V. Clifton, who was Kennedy’s military aide.

Getting approval for the beret, presidential approval that is, was the visible outcome of the historic event, but the most important was the increased allocation of funds to evolve the Special Forces into what they have become – “the elite force of the military – The Silent Professionals”

The Quiet Professional:

Major Richard J. Meadows

of the U.S. Army Special Forces

(American Warrior Series) Paperback

by Alan Hoe (Author), Peter J. Schoomaker USA (Ret.) (Foreword)

About the Book:

Major Richard J. “Dick” Meadows is renowned in military circles as a key figure in the development of the U.S. Army Special Operations. A highly decorated war veteran of the engagements in Korea and Vietnam, Meadows was instrumental in the founding of the U.S. Delta Force and hostage rescue force. Although he officially retired in 1977, Meadows could never leave the army behind, and he went undercover in the clandestine operations to free American hostages from Iran in 1980.

The Quiet Professional: Major Richard J. Meadows of the U.S. Army Special Forces is the only biography of this exemplary soldier’s life. Military historian Alan Hoe offers unique insight into Meadows, having served alongside him in 1960. The Quiet Professional is an insider’s account that gives a human face to U.S. military strategy during the cold war. Major Meadows often claimed that he never achieved anything significant; The Quiet Professional proves otherwise, showcasing one of the great military minds of twentieth-century America.

OSS

Wild Bill Donovan:

The Spymaster

Who Created the OSS

and Modern American Espionage 

Paperback

by Douglas Waller (Author)

About the Book:

“Entertaining history…Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history” (The New York Times Book Review).

He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, “Wild Bill” Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency) and the father of today’s CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan’s relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage.

Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in the OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another.

Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan’s intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.

BUY THE BOOK

OVER 200 HISTORICAL IMAGES, MAPS & ILLUSTRATIONS

The book, Images of America – Fort Lesley J. McNair contains over two hundred historical photographs, images, and illustrations that chronicle the two hundred plus years of history among the acres of this US Army Post.

The book “Images of America – Fort Lesley J McNair”  is “a walk down memory lane” as one reader called it after he turned the last page.  Go beyond