The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany

United States Army in World War II. The Technical Services.In this, the last volume dealing with the performance of the Corps of Engineers during World War II, the Corps support of the war in the European and North African theaters is recounted in detail. This narrative makes clear the indispensible role of the military engineer at the fighting front and his part in maintaining Allied armies in the field against European Axis powers. American engineers carried the fight to enemy shores by their mastery of amphibious warfare. In building and repairing road and rail nets for the fighting forces, they wrote their own record of achievement. In supporting combat and logistical forces in distant lands, these technicians of war transferred to active theaters many of the construction and administrative functions of the peacetime Corps, so heavily committed to public works at home. The authors of this volume have reduced a highly complex story to a comprehensive yet concise account of American military engineers in the two theaters of operations where the declared main enemy of the war was brought to unconditional surrender. The addition of this account to the official U.S. Army in World War II series closes the last remaining gaps in the history of the technical services in that conflict.DOUGLAS KINNARD, Brigadier General, USA (Ret.), Chief of Military History