Book description
" With a foreword by Stephen Ambrose and a preface by Franklin D.
Anderson Forrest Pogue (1912-1996) was undoubtedly one of the greatest
World War II combat historians. Born and educated in Kentucky, he is
perhaps best known for his definitive four-volume biography of General
George C. Marshall. But, as Pogue's War makes clear, he was also a
pioneer in the development of oral history in the twentieth century, as
well as an impressive interviewer with an ability to relate to people at
all levels, from the private in the trenches to the general carrying
four stars. Pogue's War is drawn from Forrest Pogue's handwritten pocket
notebooks, carried with him throughout the war, long regarded as
unreadable because of his often atrocious handwriting. Pogue himself
began expanding the diaries a few short years after the war, with the
intent of eventual publication. At last this work is being published.
Supplemented with carefully deciphered and transcribed selections from
his diaries, the heart of the book is straight from the field. Much of
the material has never before seen print. From D-Day to VE-Day, Pogue
experienced and documented combat on the front lines, describing action
on Omaha Beach, in the Huertgen Forest, and on other infamous fields of
conflict. He not only graphically-yet also often poetically-recounts
the extreme circumstances of battle, but he also notes his fellow
soldiers' innermost thoughts, feelings, opinions, and attitudes about
the cruelty of war. As a trained historian, Pogue describes how he went
about his work and how the Army's history program functioned in the
European Theater of Operations. His entries from his time at the history
headquarters in Paris show the city in the early days after the
liberation in a unique light. Pogue's War has an immediacy that much
official history lacks, and is a remarkable addition to any World War II
bookshelf. Franklin D. Anderson, Forrest Pogue's nephew by marriage, is
a longtime educator. He lives in Princeton, Kentucky.
