In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World
War II, a strong strain of isolationism existed in Congress and across
the country. The U.S. Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men--unprepared
to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far
East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army
led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that
would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with
Japan in the Pacific.
The story of America's astounding industrial mobilization during World
War II has been told. But what has never been chronicled before Paul
Dickson's The Rise of the G. I. Army, 1940-1941 is the extraordinary
transformation of America's military from a disparate collection of
camps with dilapidated equipment into a well-trained and spirited army
ten times its prior size in little more than eighteen months. From
Franklin Roosevelt's selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of
Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and
unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by
which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which
iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged; Dickson
narrates America's urgent mobilization against a backdrop of political
and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the
increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.
An important addition to American history, The Rise of the G. I. Army,
1940-1941 is essential to our understanding of America's involvement in
World War II.
