Sublime

In November 1943, Rear Admiral John Hall took command of the 11th Amphibious Force and assumed the responsibility for depositing the Army’s Fifth Corps on the landing site designated as Omaha Beach—nothing less than the most important operation in American history.

Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, Eisenhower’s new commander, was an amalgam of Fox Conner and Kenyon Joyce—a military intellectual who relished leading troops in the field. Universally regarded as “a soldier’s soldier,” Krueger was a combat infantryman at heart. He was also widely respected as one of the Army’s best educated and most perceptive o

when the United States entered World War II, US Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall dismissed three-quarters of division and corps commanders and five hundred colonels during the course of the four-year conflict.8 However, by the time President Johnson was the commander in chief, the careful promotion system of Secretary of Defense Rober

The legacy of this quintessential man-behind-the-scenes indeed endures. As Black Jack Pershing’s chief of operations and Dwight Eisenhower’s mentor, Fox Conner left an unmistakable imprint upon his nation’s military history. Were they alive today, Pershing and Eisenhower, as well as George Marshall and George Patton—all titans of 20th-century Ameri

He also had to contend with a grave gunpowder shortage. At first he was told that he had 308 barrels of powder, only to learn from Brigadier General John Sullivan that the actual number was 36, a risible nine rounds per man. When he conveyed this stunning news to Washington, Sullivan recalled, the general “did not utter a word for half an hour.”25