The collection includes copies of the Soviet military theory journal Voennaia Mysl', an authoritative journal published with the authority of the Soviet General Staff. Established in 1937, the journal was classified 'For Generals, Admirals, and Officers Only' from 1947-1989.
The collection is a microfilmed copy of an official history published by the Office of the Chief, Military History General Reference Branch, US Army. Designed as an introductory volume to a general intelligence series for US Service School curriculum, all material consists of documents relating to Allied intelligence activities in the Far East, 1942-1950.
Harry S Truman was born in Lamar, Barton County, Missouri, 8 May 1884. From 1906 to 1917 he operated the family farm near Grandview, Missouri. During World War One he served as 1st Lt, Battery F, and Capt, Battery D, 129 Field Artillery, 35 Div, US Army, and served in the Battles of St Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne, Aug- Nov 1918. He was discharged with the rank of Maj. In 1922, Truman sought the Democratic nomination as county judge, thus beginning a ten-year judicial career. In 1934, Truman became a candidate for the US Senate, won the election, and took office in Jan 1935. Re-elected in 1940, Truman headed the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, a senate committee which investigated fraud in recent US military procurement policies. In 1944, leaders of the Democratic Party replaced Vice President Henry A Wallace with Truman as the party's vice presidential nominee on the 1944 election ticket alongside President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Upon Roosevelt's death on 12 Apr 1945, Truman became President of the United States. Unfamiliar with recent foreign policy developments, Truman initially retained all of his predecessor's cabinet appointees, including US Secretary of State Edward R Stettinius, Jr. Shortly thereafter, Truman's foreign policy developed as he announced preparations to continue for the detonation of an atomic test device in New Mexico on 16 Jul 1945, and attended the conference at Potsdam, Germany, with Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, which would shape post-war Europe. In Aug 1945 he ordered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and accepted the surrender of all Japanese forces in the Far East. In the post-war years and throughout the Korean War, Truman espoused a foreign policy designed to allay the Cold War. In 1947, he announced what became known as the 'Truman Doctrine', which stated that the United States would support any nation threatened by Soviet-sponsored communism, and signed the presidential order creating the US foreign intelligence organisation, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Also announced in 1947 was the European Recovery Plan, or 'Marshall Plan', named after Gen George Catlett Marshall, US Secretary of State, which would see appropriations of US funds to support the European economies until 1952. Under Truman, the US and its allies organised in Apr 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1950, Truman committed US armed forces to the Korean War. After an initial period of public support, however, criticism quickly grew over US involvement in the region. The intervention of the People's Republic of China and the recall of Gen Douglas MacArthur, brought to the Truman administration additional pressures to alter its foreign policy direction. In 1952, Truman refused to seek re-election for President of the United States and left Washington for Independence, Missouri, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He died on 26 Dec 1972. Starting in 1961, the Harry S Truman Library's Oral History programme began to conduct interviews with some of the men and women who had made contact with Harry S Truman during his professional career. Interview subjects ranged in their professional experience, and included US armed forces personnel, international leaders, and political advisers and associates. All of the interviews were transcribed and made available in transcript form, ranging in length from fewer than 10 to over 1,000 pages.
The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) was a US intelligence agency employed by Gen Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief, US Forces, Far East Command, and Maj Gen Charles A Willoughby, commander US G-2 Intelligence Section, during the American campaign against the Japanese in World War Two. Although established specifically to translate seized Japanese materials and provide interpreters for interrogations of prisoners, ATIS' mission also included analysis of Japanese military objectives and capabilities and political and psychological interpretations of Japanese military and civilian activities. ATIS was created by Allied General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area (GHQ SWPA), on 19 Sep 1942 and was inter-service in character and function. Established as a centralised intelligence section in SWPA in response to the urgent need for timely, accurate intelligence on Japanese objectives and tactics, ATIS' was to translate and analyse seized Japanese military documents and interrogate Japanese prisoners of war. During the course of the war, ATIS moved its base each time GHQ SWPA moved, from Melbourne, Australia, to Hollandia, New Guinea, and then to Leyte Island and Manila, Philippines. ATIS advance units followed the earliest combat forces in each action throughout the drive towards Japan and as the scope of its intelligence operations expanded so did its staff. At its inception, ATIS consisted of a small contingent of officers and enlisted men, but by the end of the war, ATIS personnel numbered 250 officers and 1,700 enlisted staff members, which included dozens of Japanese-Americans. ATIS' transition from a wartime Allied, inter-service Section in SWPA to an Occupation Service within Supreme Command, Allied Powers (SCAP) began on 28 Aug 1945, when the various combined Allied Land, Naval, and Air Commands were dissolved by US General Order No 41. The need to assess the Japanese military as part of a larger effort to understand Japanese society, however, resulted in a reprieve for ATIS. It continued to perform its former function until it was officially disbanded on 30 April 1946.
In 1943 US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an Executive Order requiring the various departments and special agencies of government to prepare histories of their activities. US Army Ground Forces therefore organised a historical program that required a historian for each army and part-time historical officials in units down to special battalions. Along with these efforts, the US Army Historical Section began to co-ordinate efforts to collect historical material abroad. These efforts were strengthened by US Army Chief of Staff Gen George Catlett Marshall's desire to have studies prepared on lessons learned from current campaigns. The Historical Section, G-2 Division, thus deployed combat historians to interview combat soldiers in order to fill gaps left by official US Army reports. By 1944, the Historical Section selected a small group of historians to go from the US War Department, Washington, DC, to Great Britain in time to be briefed on the plans for the proposed Allied invasion of North-West Europe. The most extensive effort to collect historical material in World War Two was made during and following Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of the Normandy coast, France, 6 Jun 1944. It is from this material that the editors of this collection have drawn their text. Before the conclusion of Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, US Gen Dwight David Eisenhower's drive from Normandy to Germany and Czechoslovakia, the US Army had five Information and Historical Sections at the five American armies, 1 Army, 3 Army, 7 Army, 9 Army, and 15 Army. By the end of the war, approximately seventy combat historians were engaged in collecting interviews and writing combat narratives. Although field interviews could not be taped, material was often gathered near the place and time of a significant action. Many of the combat interviews of World War Two were conducted in foxholes, cellars, or bomb shelters and recorded manually. Also, it should be noted that all the combat historians who conducted the interviews during World War Two were themselves in military service and familiar with the nature of unit training and weaponry.
Senior officer oral histories were the central component of the ongoing oral history programme conducted by the US Army Military History Institute (USAMHI). Directed by the Chief, Oral History Branch, USAMHI, the objective of the programme was to interview senior US Army officers. Created in 1970 at the behest of Gen William Childs Westmoreland, then Chief of Staff, US Army, the programme was initiated to produce interviews that would serve the needs of historians as well as professional soldiers interested in leadership techniques. Interviewers were drawn from the US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and were selected for their interests, education, and career patterns and the interviews were recorded on audio tape and then transcribed. Transcripts were then edited for continuity, readability, and accuracy.
The Korean War suggested to US Army senior personnel the need to gather systematically information on the activities of major American military units. The value of historical accounts had been demonstrated during World War Two, when US Army historians followed the progress of American soldiers by conducting extensive interviews and compiling records of combat actions. While conducting interviews and collecting related materials for historical purposes, US Army investigators during World War Two also compiled combat information in After-Action Reports designed for immediate war-time use. When the Korean War began, the Assistant Chiefs of Staff, US Department of the Army, were responsible for recording and transmitting 'lessons learned' within respective spheres, while the US Army Historical Detachments were allowed to create a detailed record that could be used after the conflict to write official histories. Eventually eight US Army Historical Detachments were organised and committed to Korean between 15 Feb and 22 Jul 1951. Early operations of the Historical Detachments lacked centralised planning, however. Originally, a central organisation was improvised by activating US 8 Army Historical Service Detachment (Provisional). Personnel for this unit were drawn from other detachments in Korea, while the historical officers who conducted the interviews were drawn from the Reserves. The Provisional Detachment was eventually superceded by the first US Army Historical Detachment Headquarters. Despite the suddenness of the Korean conflict and the and the logistical problems caused by the rapidly changing military situation, the Historical Detachments were able to reconstruct many major battlefield operations through interviews, supplemented with recourse to conventional documentary sources.
From 1945 to 1991, the Soviet Union represented the primary target for the United States intelligence community. Recruiting agents in the Soviet bloc was the primary task of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations. Meanwhile, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other technical collection agencies devised and deployed ground stations, aircraft, and satellites with the principal purpose of collecting intelligence to guide US decision makers in dealing with the Soviet Union and to assist the US military prepare for a possible war. Much of the product of those activities was reflected in the huge number of analytical documents produced by the CIA and other intelligence production units over the course of the Cold War. The key production organisations included the CIA (and its predecessor the Central Intelligence Group), the US State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Defense Intelligence Agency (from 1961), and the analytical units of the armed services. The collective focus of the US intelligence community on the Soviet Union was in five areas: foreign policy, military forces and policy, the economy, science and technology, and the domestic situation. Intelligence production in these areas came in a variety of forms. The best known were National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and Special National Intelligence Estimates (SNIEs). NIEs were regularly scheduled products that covered a number of subjects, the majority of which concerned military matters. SNIEs were commissioned in reaction to specific events or the emergence of specific concerns. As with the NIEs they were co-ordinated among the representatives of the intelligence agencies who served on the Intelligence Advisory Committee (until 1958), the United States Intelligence Board (until 1976), and the National Foreign Intelligence Board. NIEs and SNIEs attempted to estimate how events would develop. Other products, including Interagency Intelligence Memoranda (IIM) have also contributed intelligence based on highly technical matters. In addition to the production of national intelligence documents, each of the intelligence organisations produced studies which were not co- ordinated with other agencies. Thus, the Central Intelligence Group (1946-1948) and then the CIA produced an immense number of intelligence assessments and reports within various offices of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence. Similarly, the Defense Intelligence Agency produced thousands of studies concerning Soviet matters, including studies of military doctrine, nuclear targeting policy, specific weapons, command, control and communications, and force deployment. Meanwhile, US State Department reports primarily included Soviet foreign policy and economic matters. At the armed service level, Soviet-related intelligence studies focused both on general military developments as well as technical studies of Soviet weapons systems. The former studies were conducted by organisations including the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Army Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center, and the Air Force Intelligence Agency. Organisations including the Naval Intelligence Support Center and the Air Force Technology Division concentrated on issues of design, operation and capabilities of tanks, submarines, and aerospace vehicles.
Born in Karvinna, Teschen, Austrian Silesia, 1904; education included the Schiller-Gymnasium, Teschen, Oberrealschule, Kaschau, and the Imperial Military College; enrolled as a Cadet, Ludovika Military Academy, Budapest, Hungary [1924]; conscripted into Czechoslovakian Army [1927]; service as a Reserve Officer in an artillery regiment, Kosice and Mukacevo, Slovakia [1927-1930]; Lt, 1930; served in the International Brigades, Spanish Civil War, Spain, 1936-1939; Capt, 1936; Maj, 1938; commanded artillery battalion, Battle of the Ebro, 1939; served in World War Two, 1939-1945; evacuated from France to UK with Czech Legion, 1940; appointed Capt in the British Army [1940]; service with the Czechoslovak Independent Bde Group, 1940-1941; joined Free French forces as a Maj, 1941; served on personal staff of Free French Brig Gen Charles de Gaulle, and in the Troisième Bureau, assisting in the development for the planned invasion of Normandy, France, 1941-1944; author and military strategist, 1941-1992; awarded French Légion d'Honneur, 1944; Assistant to the Czech Military Mission, and adviser on central European affairs to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), 1945; awarded US Medal of Freedom, 1946; Czechoslovakian Military Attaché, Paris, France, and Brussels, Belgium, 1946-1947; joined French Army, 1948; Lecturer in Tactics, Instituto de Altos Estudos Militares, Caxias, Portugal, 1950-1955; awarded Order of the Portuguese Empire [1955]; died, 1992. Publications: Blitzkrieg (Faber and Faber, London, 1941); Paratroops. The history, organisation and tactical use of airborne formations (Faber and Faber, London, 1943); Is bombing decisive? (Allen and Unwin, London, 1943); Blitzkrieg. Étude sur la tactique allemande de 1937 à 1943 (Harmondsworth, New York, USA, 1944); War between continents, with François Pierre Edmond (Faber and Faber, London, 1948); Les erreurs stratégiques de Hitler (Payot, Paris, France, 1945); Secret forces. The technique of underground movements (Faber and Faber, London, 1950); Unconditional surrender. The roots of World War III (Faber and Faber, London, 1952); Danubian Federation. A study of past mistakes and future possibilities in a vital region of Europe (published by author, printed by Kenion Press, Slough, Berkshire, 1953); Donauföderation (Forschungsinstitut für Fragen and Donausraumes, Salzburg, Austria, 1953); Atomic weapons and armies (Faber and Faber, London, 1955); Tactique de la guerre atomique (Payot, Paris, France, 1955); La faillite de la stratégie atomique (Presses de la Cité, Paris, France, 1958); The failure of atomic strategy and a new proposal for the defence of the West (Faber and Faber, London, 1959); Kapitulation ihne Krieg (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1965); Die Zukunft der Bundeswehr (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1967); Rüstungswettlauf (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1972); Vom Kriegsbild (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1976); Bis 2000 (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1979); Moskaus indirekte Strategie: Erfolge und Niederlage (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1983); Das Ende der Gegenwart (Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, West Germany, 1991).
Served with Royal Tank Regt and 23 Armoured Bde; tested TOG heavy tanks for Tank Design Department, Farnborough, [1940-1945].
Born in 1908; educated at Liverpool College and Oxford University; worked for his father's firm of solicitors, 1935; joined Supplementary Reserve of Officers, Irish Guards, 1936; joined 1 Bn, Irish Guards, 1939-1942, and served in Norway; transferred to special services No 4 Commando, 1942; took part in Dieppe Raid, Aug 1942; Lt Col, 1943; Commanding Officer, No 6 Commando, North Africa, 1943; Brig, 1944; commanded 1 Special Service Bde (later 1 Commando Bde), North West Europe, 1944-1945; accepted the surrender of FM Erhard Milch at Neustadt, May 1945; retired from Army, 1945; commanded 125 Infantry Bde, Territorial Army, 1947-1951; died in 1980
Born, 1866; educated at the Gymnasium, Old Aberdeen, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; commissioned into the Royal Artillery, 1885; service with 1/Q Battery (renumbered 38 Battery in 1889), Royal Field Artillery, Trimulgherri, India, 1885-1889; service with D Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1889-1891; service with C Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, Meerut, India, 1891-1895; Capt, 1895; service with 2 Company, Southern Division, Royal Garrison Artillery, Malta, 1895-1896; Battery Capt, 37 Battery, Royal Field Artillery, Hilsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, 1896-1897; service in the Sudan, 1898; Battle of Omdurman, Sudan, Sep 1898; graduated from Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, 1899; served in Second Boer War, South Africa, 1899-1902; Maj, 1900; Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, South Africa, 1900-1902; Brevet Lt Col, 1902; awarded DSO, 1902; Deputy Quartermaster General (Intelligence) and General Staff Officer 2, Army Headquarters, 1903-1907; Brevet Col, 1905; Officer Commanding, 59 Battery, Royal Field Artillery, Brighton, Sussex, 1907-1908; General Staff Officer 2, North Midland Div, Territorial Force, Northern Command, Lichfield, Staffordshire, 1908-1909; Col, 1909; General Staff Officer 1, 6 Div, Irish Command, Cork, 1909-1913; awarded CB, 1912; Brig Gen, Royal Artillery, 4 Div, Eastern Command, Woolwich, 1913-1914; served in World War One, 1914-1918; Brig Gen, Royal Artillery, 4 Div, BEF (British Expeditionary Force), France, 1914-1915; Brig Gen, General Staff, 3 Corps, BEF (British Expeditionary Force), France, 1915; Maj Gen, 1915; Maj Gen, General Staff, 2 Army, BEF, Western Front, 1915; General Officer Commanding 27 Div, BEF, France, and Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Macedonia, 1915; temporary Lt Gen, 1915; General Officer Commanding 16 Corps, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Salonika, 1915-1916; General Officer Commanding-in-Chief British Salonika Force and British Army of the Black Sea, 1916-1920; Lt Gen, 1917; created KCB, 1918; temporary Gen, 1918-1920; Col Commandant, Royal Artillery, 1918-1948; created KCMG, 1919; created GCMG, 1919; Gen, 1920; Lieutenant of the Tower of London, 1920-1923; Freeman of the City of Aberdeen, 1921; General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Command, 1923-1926; Aide de Camp General to HM King George V, 1923-1927; Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 1926-1933; created GCB, 1927; FM, 1928; Master Gunner, St James's Park, 1929-1946; retired, 1933; created 1st Baron Milne of Salonika and Rubislaw, County Aberdeen, 1933; Governor and Constable of the Tower of London, 1933-1938; served in World War Two, 1939-1945; service in the Home Guard and Civil Defence, 1940-1944; Col Commandant, Pioneer Corps, 1940-1945; military correspondent for The Sunday Chronicle, 1941-1944; died, 1948.
Born 1934; educated, Brighton and Hove Grammar School; Sandhurst, [1952]; Royal Signals; 2 Lt, 1954; Winter Warfare Course, Norway, 1955; Canal Zone, Egypt, 1956; Lt, 1956; Cyprus, 1956-1958; School of Signals, Catterick, 1959; Signal Officer, Sultan's Armed Forces, Muscat, 1960-1961; Instructor, School of Signals, Catterick, 1962-1964; Competitive Entry, Staff College, Camberley, 1965; Capt, Herford, Germany, 1966-1968; Squadron Commander, Barnard Castle, Co Durham, 1968-1970; Maj in charge of Signals Wing, Sandhurst, 1970-1971; National Defence College, Latimer, Buckinghamshire, 1971-1972; Lt Col, Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, 1972-1974; Officer Commanding 9 Signals Regt, Cyprus, 1974-1976; Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, 1976-1978; Col and Chief Instructor, School of Signals, Blandford, Dorset, 1978-1982; Director of Signals Operations, Ministry of Defence, 1982-1984; retired from Army, 1984; Cabinet Office, Whitehall, 1985-1993; retired from Cabinet Office, 1993, died 1998.
Lt Col Ferdinand Otto Miksche, 11 Apr 1904-23 Dec 1992, was a soldier and a diplomat, an expert in central European politics, a military strategist, and a prolific writer on military affairs. Miksche's reputation as a military theorist flourished with the publication of Blitzkrieg (Faber and Faber, London, 1941) and Is bombing decisive? (Allen and Unwin, London, 1943). In London, he was a staff officer with Gen Charles André Joseph Marie De Gaulle's Free French forces and a regular military commentator for the London Times. His book Is bombing decisive?, or Contra Seversky as it was known in the United States, attracted attention in Britain and the United States due to its condemnation of the air power theories of Russian-American author Maj Alexander Prokofiev Seversky.
Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, garrisoned by the British Army, was the scene of a lengthy siege by the Turkish Army during World War One. The British troops eventually surrendered in Apr 1916 following the failure of several relief attempts.
In Sept 1939, the Haganah, the clandestine Jewish military force in Palestine, began to publish its Hebrew military journal, Maarachot. With Israeli independence in 1948 the journal eventually became a recognised and authoritative vehicle for the transmission of military theory. In its first issue, Capt Basil Henry Liddell Hart wrote an article entitled, 'Rapid Training of Recruits', thus marking the start of an intellectual relationship that lasted until Liddell Hart's death in 1970.
Letter, written in Afrikaans, by A J Tapper, during the Siege of Ladysmith, Second Boer War, 1899-1900, and acquired by Sgt Dodderidge, who served with the Rifle Bde during the Second Boer War
The Survey of India was created in 1767 to map the territory covered by the British East India Company. From the 1880s onwards it produced maps of land further west in the Middle East, covering Persia (Iran), Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Arabia (Gulf States). Revised maps of Mesopotamia were produced for the Allied military campaign, World War One, with some uncharted regions left blank.
In Apr 1941 the Department of the Air Member for Training, Air Ministry, began publication of training memoranda in the form of a monthly magazine entitled Tee Emm. The publication was produced throughout World War Two until its final issue in Mar 1946
During World War Two, the War Office published a series of instructional booklets for British Army personnel which detailed German Army field service uniforms, insignia, armour, weaponry, and tactics. The publications were designed for instructional purposes, and often included comparative studies of Allied and German weaponry and tactics as well as analyses of successful German operations
Geoffrey Francis Andrew Best: born 1928, educated at St Paul's School, London, Trinity College Cambridge (MA, PhD); served in Royal Army Education Corps, 1946-1947; Choate Fellow, Harvard University, 1954-55; Fellow of Trinity Hall, and Asst Lecturer, Cambridge University, 1955-1961; Lecturer, Edinburgh University, 1961-1966; Prof. of History, Edinburgh University, 1966-1974; Prof. of History, University of Sussex, 1974-1985; Senior Associate Member, St Anthony's College, Oxford, 1988-date
The Strategic Bombing Survey was established in the US War Department as a civilian activity, 3 Nov 1944, pursuant to Presidential directive, 9 Sep 1944. During its existence it studied the effects of Allied aerial attacks on Germany and German-occupied Europe (European Survey) and on Japan (Pacific Survey), to establish a basis for evaluating the importance and potential of air power as an instrument of military strategy and for planning the future development of the armed forces. It was abolished in 8 Oct 1947, with discontinuance of operations.
No information at present.
Created as a monthly leisure magazine for East Africa Command personnel from all three services, Jambo was published by the Directorate of Education and Welfare Headquarters, East Africa Command, Kenya
On 29 Apr 1901, the Committee on Military Education was appointed to consider and report what changes, if any, were desirable in the system of training and educating candidates for the British Army at public schools and universities, and in the relationship between these bodies and the military authorities, so as to ensure a supply of better trained candidates for the British Army. The committee investigated whether it was desirable to maintain the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and the Royal Military College at Woolwich and, if so, whether the system of administration and education at these institutions was satisfactory. It also studied whether the instruction at these institutions should be purely military and technical, or whether it should embrace general scholarly education as well. In addition, the committee investigated whether officer candidates who entered the Army though the militia compared favourably with those trained at Sandhurst and Woolwich. The committee first met on 2 May 1901. From 9 May 1901 to 12 Dec 1901, it held 41 sittings and interviewed 73 witnesses, including high ranking officers. Its findings were presented in two volumes to the Secretary of State for War in 1902, and subsequently published for public consumption.