United States. War Department

The U.S. War Department (now known rather euphemistically as the Department of Defense) put this book together immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor that finally brought the U.S. into World War 2. The War Department evidently assumed that cadets at the U.S. Military Academy (a.k.a. West Point) needed to be brought up to speed about what had been going on in the world over the past 10 years or so. The book contains a chapter apiece about the war up until that time. The Japanese invasion of China and other pre-Pearl Harbor activities in the Pacific get a couple of chapters, and there's a chapter each for the Nazi invasions of Norway, Poland and France, the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic, among others. There will be very little that's new here for folks who are up to speed on their WW2 military history, although the book might serve as a good primer for those who haven't read much on the topic. The writing and explanations are generally clear and straightforward. There's more than a bit of a propaganda element going on here, you won't be surprised to learn. The snafus that were part of the English Army's attempts to help the Norwegians fight off the German invasion and the inept defense of France are both pretty much whitewashed, for example. At any rate, copies of this book were evidently handed out to West Point cadets. It's unclear to me whether there was any further distribution of the book, although if not, the volume does represent a pretty impressive effort all told for such a small (in numbers, anyway) an audience.… (mer)