Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Arming the nation for war : mobilization, supply, and the American war effort in World War II / Robert P. Patterson ; edited by Brian Waddell ; with a foreword by Robert M. Morgenthau.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Publication details: Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, (c)2014.Edition: First editionDescription: 1 online resource (xlv, 311 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9781621900825
Other title:
  • Mobilization, supply, and the American war effort in World War II
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • D769 .A765 2014
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
Contents:
A nation without arms -- The slow beginning -- Airplanes take five years -- A changing nation -- Altitudinal goals -- An offensive begins -- Alaska, Australia, the Persian Gulf -- Assault in force -- The end in Europe -- Concentration east -- Epilogue: industry, science, war, and the future.
Subject: A decorated World War I veteran, Federal Judge Robert P. Patterson knew all too well the needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was thus dismayed by America's lack of military preparedness when a second great war engulfed Europe in 1939--40. With the international crisis worsening, Patterson even resumed military training--as a forty-nine-yearold private--before being named assistant secretary of war in July 1940. That appointment set the stage for Patterson's central role in the country's massive mobilization and supply effort which helped the Allies win World War II. In Arming the Nation for War, a previously unpublished account long buried among the late author's papers and originally marked confidential, Patterson describes the vast challenges the United States faced as it had to equip, in a desperately short time, a fighting force capable of confronting a formidable enemy. Brimming with data and detail, the book also abounds with deep insights into the myriad problems encountered on the domestic mobilization front--including the sometimes divergent interests of wartime planners and industrial leaders--along with the logistical difficulties of supplying far-flung theaters of war with everything from ships, planes, and tanks to food and medicine. Determined to remind his contemporaries of how narrow the Allied margin of victory was and that the war's lessons not be forgotten, Patterson clearly intended the manuscript (which he wrote between 1945 and '47, when he was President Truman's secretary of war) to contribute to the postwar debates on the future of the military establishment. That passage of the National Security Act of 1947, to which Patterson was a key contributor, answered many of his concerns may explain why he never published the book during his lifetime. A unique document offering an insider's view of a watershed historical moment, Patterson's text is complemented by editor Brian Waddell's extensive introduction and notes. In addition, Robert M. Morgenthau, former Manhattan district attorney and a protégé of Patterson's for four years prior to the latter's death in a 1952 plane crash, offers a heartfelt remembrance of a man the New York Herald-Tribune called "an example of the public-spirited citizen." Brian Waddell, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, is the author of The War Against the New Deal: World War II and American Democracy and Toward the National Security State: Civil-Military Relations during World War II.
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number URL Status Date due Barcode
Online Book (LOGIN USING YOUR MY CIU LOGIN AND PASSWORD) Online Book (LOGIN USING YOUR MY CIU LOGIN AND PASSWORD) G. Allen Fleece Library ONLINE Non-fiction D769.2 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Link to resource Available ocn893485118

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction: Robert Porter Patterson and World War II -- A nation without arms -- The slow beginning -- Airplanes take five years -- A changing nation -- Altitudinal goals -- An offensive begins -- Alaska, Australia, the Persian Gulf -- Assault in force -- The end in Europe -- Concentration east -- Epilogue: industry, science, war, and the future.

A decorated World War I veteran, Federal Judge Robert P. Patterson knew all too well the needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was thus dismayed by America's lack of military preparedness when a second great war engulfed Europe in 1939--40. With the international crisis worsening, Patterson even resumed military training--as a forty-nine-yearold private--before being named assistant secretary of war in July 1940. That appointment set the stage for Patterson's central role in the country's massive mobilization and supply effort which helped the Allies win World War II. In Arming the Nation for War, a previously unpublished account long buried among the late author's papers and originally marked confidential, Patterson describes the vast challenges the United States faced as it had to equip, in a desperately short time, a fighting force capable of confronting a formidable enemy. Brimming with data and detail, the book also abounds with deep insights into the myriad problems encountered on the domestic mobilization front--including the sometimes divergent interests of wartime planners and industrial leaders--along with the logistical difficulties of supplying far-flung theaters of war with everything from ships, planes, and tanks to food and medicine. Determined to remind his contemporaries of how narrow the Allied margin of victory was and that the war's lessons not be forgotten, Patterson clearly intended the manuscript (which he wrote between 1945 and '47, when he was President Truman's secretary of war) to contribute to the postwar debates on the future of the military establishment. That passage of the National Security Act of 1947, to which Patterson was a key contributor, answered many of his concerns may explain why he never published the book during his lifetime. A unique document offering an insider's view of a watershed historical moment, Patterson's text is complemented by editor Brian Waddell's extensive introduction and notes. In addition, Robert M. Morgenthau, former Manhattan district attorney and a protégé of Patterson's for four years prior to the latter's death in a 1952 plane crash, offers a heartfelt remembrance of a man the New York Herald-Tribune called "an example of the public-spirited citizen." Brian Waddell, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, is the author of The War Against the New Deal: World War II and American Democracy and Toward the National Security State: Civil-Military Relations during World War II.

COPYRIGHT NOT covered - Click this link to request copyright permission:

https://lib.ciu.edu/copyright-request-form

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.