Combat ready? : the Eighth U.S. Army on the eve of the Korean War / Thomas E. Hanson
- Author:
- Hanson, Thomas E., 1965-
- Published:
- College Station : Texas A&M University Press, [2010]
- Copyright Date:
- ©2010
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Physical Description:
- xviii, 153 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Series:
- Williams-Ford Texas A&M University military history series ; no. 129
- Contents:
- Introduction -- Postwar or prewar Army? -- The bumpy road from rhetoric to readiness -- The 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division -- The 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division -- The 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division -- The 8th Cavalry Regiment (Infantry), 1st Cavalry Division (Infantry) -- Conclusions.
- Summary:
- "In the decades since the "forgotten war" in Korea, conventional wisdom has held that the Eighth Army consisted largely of poorly trained, undisciplined troops who fled in terror from the onslaught of the Communist forces. Now, military historian Thomas E. Hanson argues that the generalizations regarding these U.S. troops used by historians and fellow soldiers alike are overly simplistic. Combat Ready?, a careful study of combat preparedness in the Eighth Army from 1949 to the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1950, reveals that many of the traditional interpretations do little justice to the tens of thousands of soldiers who worked to make themselves and their army ready for war." "Hanson concedes that the U.S. soldiers sent to Korea in the summer of 1950 suffered from gaps in their professional preparation, from missing and broken equipment. and from unevenly trained leaders at every level of command. Nevertheless, these soldiers expected to defeat the Communist enemy, because they had gained important skills and unit cohesion over the course of the previous twelve months - a year of progressive, focused, and developmental collective training based on the lessons of combat in World War II." "Recognizing the significant externally imposed constraints under which the Eighth Army operated, Hanson asserts, will allow scholars and soldiers finally to discard what Douglas Macarthur called the "pernicious myth" of professional, physical, and moral ineffectiveness that has too often prevented an honest discussion of the Eighth Army's capabilities - and limitations - on the eve of war in 1950."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject(s):
- ISBN:
- 9781603441674 (cloth : alk. paper)
1603441670 (cloth : alk. paper) - Bibliography Note:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
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