The Corps of Engineers: The War against Germany

In this book the Army Corps of Engineers' support of the war in the European and North African theaters is recounted in detail. This narrative makes clear the indispensable 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 war was brought to unconditional surrender.

Alfred M. Beck received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Georgetown University. He has held several research and supervisory positions in the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the Historical Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers. Abe Bortz received his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1951. After working for twelve years for the Historical Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, he has served since 1963 as the historian of the Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of Social Security Sources in Federal Records. Charles W. Lynch received his M.A. degree from the University of West Virginia in 1948. He worked for the Historical Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, from 1951 to 1963 before transferring to the U.S. Army Matériel Command, the predecessor of the U.S. Army Matériel Development and Readiness Command. He retired from the federal service in 1980. Lida Mayo was a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman's College. She served as a historian at the Military Air Transport Service from 1946 to 1950 and from 1950 to 1962 at the Office of the Chief of Ordnance, where she was the chief historian until that office merged with the Office, Chief of Military History, the predecessor of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. She is the author of The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront and coauthor of The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, both in the U.S. Army in World War II series. Her commercially published works include Henry Clay, Rustics in Rebellion, Bloody Buna, and a number of journal articles. She retired from federal service in 1971 and died in 1978. Ralph F. Weld received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1938. He worked as a historian with the Historical Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, from 1951 to 1958, when he retired from the federal service. He continued to serve the Historical Division on short assignments until 1964. He is the author of Brooklyn Is America and was on the editorial staff of the Columbia Encyclopedia.