How The Army Wrote WWII: The Green Books
Sinews of War
Why should you care about this relatively obscure historical collection? In this moment of bureaucratic destruction and distrust of government work, the Army’s past efforts to memorialize its role within the American War is an homage to public service quality. And insofar as the war drove the creation and development of advanced federal operations, it offers the vision of how restoration can be achieved.
The project of pulling together the entirety of the Army’s contributions to WWII into their historical narratives was itself as monumental an undertaking as the war had been. How the service would fulfill its mandate over decades of work makes the “Green Books,” the obvious and affectionate moniker for the series, a work of heroic imagination in history. Covering global operations over several years and hundreds of units and organizations and millions of tons of goods, the collection and individual volumes deliver both scope and detail while road-mapping the archival material. These are the standards of government work that can be achieved. As the Erna Risch review includes her two works in the series on the Quartermaster Corps, a brief introduction to the whole within which her volumes sit is due.
Writing War
Matching their subject, we must first come to terms with the scope of the project. Even limited to the Army, in toto the series tells the meta story of the US in WWII, covering the enormity of a global industrial war. What it covers of the conflict is generously expansive – and does well to go to the roots in the economy in several of the reviews. This is not your usual guns and bugles institutional history. Was this the significant civilian academic influence within the Army’s historical community at work? Perhaps. Beyond the logistics topics covered in the dozen or so books noted below, there are works on geographical, branch, topic, and periodic focus across both theatres. From Anzio to Burma to Normandy to Morocco, from 1941 to postwar Germany and Japan. Tanks in every terrain, artillery everywhere, from the War Department to the Squad, the collection captures the breadths and depths of WWII.
Then there is the detail within each book. Mother of God, if only as the best narrative roadmap of the archival material for WWII, these works are gold. And in this evidentiary detail, we are provided amazing unique images of the war effort. For me, at that granular level, they provided an encyclopedic review of important technical points. My favorite is the Division Slice, the term for the standard total personnel count for a division in war, counting for the purposes of supply not just the division’s manpower but all of those soldiers who supported the division. This understanding was important to correctly plan the logistics for the division in operation – if you weren’t accounting for the needs of the maintenance personnel, then the maneuver element would not function. For an exemplar of detail at the highest levels, look at the TOC from Global Logistics and Strategy, it is really quite a thing.
Further, the quality of the work is to be admired. Considering they represented only a first iteration at a evidentiary narrative, they are lucid and useful. Taking the two written by Risch as exemplary, the collection produced is well written. Even as they are institutionalized, even as they followed formats, conventions, and remits, they have pleasant readability. This from Ross and Romanus is positively Foresterian as a contemplation of a quotidian character in momentous circumstances (The QMC versus Germany, page 11):
Possibly this discussion of the requirements, duties, and procedures of overseas quartermasters has overemphasized administrative detail. Familiarity with administration was by no means enough for a quartermaster to bring to his job. A knowledge of combat organization and tactics, and particularly the logistical implications of changes in tactics, was also required, especially at higher levels. This was something that could hardly be inculcated by Quartermaster schooling alone. A good quartermaster was also a soldier, for no one else could have the insight necessary to provide satisfactory support for soldiers in combat. The operations he was called upon to support were military operations, and despite some resemblances to procedures employed in the world of business, their nature and purpose were quite different.
Finally, and most importantly, the works – as well as much of the rest of the Army’s Center of Military History collection – is available online and to download. Free. I have included links to the full publication list, the critical logistics volumes of the Green Books, and, in shuddering delight, the ‘encyclopedia’ of the WWII series. No, really, they put in the time and effort to collect the titles and descriptions in one place for your convenience. These were conscientious institutional historians.
For what they intended - a first, rough compilation of the institution at war - the Army’s project exceeded what could have been expected of service history. They are obviously not devoid of errors or flaws, but in needing to capture a wide universe, that would never be their full measure. My singular complaint is that they make the absence of a Blue Book collection on the Navy in WWII painfully obvious. But in all, the Green Books are a mighty body of work that represents well both the Americans in WWII and the Army’s historical commitment. They are tributes to the achievements of citizens in public service in a global crisis, and for that deserve a moment of your attention.
Relevant Links
Find the entire CMH collection here.
There is a Reader’s Guide for the complete collection of WWII publications here.
Logistics in WWII: Final Report of the Army Service Forces here.
Leighton and Coakley’s two volumes on Global Logistics and Strategy here.
Ruppenthal’s two volumes on Logistics Support of The Armies here.
Industrialists In Olive Drab: The Emergency Operation of Private Industrial Facilities by The War Department During World War II here.
Big picture of the land force’s arsenal with The Army and Economic Mobilization here.
The four volumes on the Quartermaster Corps, on Germany, Japan, and Risch’s two on the operation of the function here.