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Okay, so I'm no expert on the US Armed Forces, but chances are, his records were lost, about 80% were lost in a fire.
Now, if my understanding is correct, the 151st machine gun batallion was part of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, at least, this book would suggest so.
The first line relates to an infantry company, not sure what to tell you about that, those are the regular riflemen.
I need to stress that I'm no expert on the US Army, but is what I came up with.
See the description and reviews here. You may want to reach out to the author(s). Good luck!
Looks more like a state militia unit right at the start of the war ( 1859-1860). All that fancy gear was thrown away after the first few battles; including the shoulder scale devices, and the Shako with Tuft. Someone smarter than I am could tell you what the musket is.
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I will partially agree with you that the National Guard since the passage of the Dick Acts are certainly not the militia as the founders intended. The states and Congress gave each other a wink and a nod in 1902 by giving more funding to the states in exchange for more Congressional oversight and rules.
A great history of the 1900-1917 period of transition of the Militia and National Guard can be found in the book, The Great Call Up
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Call-Up-Border-Mexican-Revolution/dp/0806155922
Native American Code Talker in World War II by Ed Gilbert and illustrated by Raffaele Ruggeri, for Osprey Publishing's Warrior series.
Read this Book! YOu will thank me later!
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https://www.amazon.com/First-Across-Rhine-Engineer-Battalion/dp/B007R90GCY
This is a pretty good book: The Battle for Singapore
Off your topic but I’m on a bit of a Pacific War dive myself and just finished this which I think is now one of my favorite WW2 books…great detail and a well told story: Neptune’s Inferno
A quick book suggestion, one of the better books (though older) on US-German naval planning is Holger Herwig's Politics of Frustration. Its a pretty good book and has some really funny anecdotes about German Warplanning versus the US. Such as the plan to invade Puerto Rico, which couldn't have been bothered to even look up the proper spelling of 'Puerto Rico.' Or the plan to sail from Heligoland to New York continuous to reduce the city, except such a trip would have required so much coal that German battleships would have had to stack it in great heaps on the decks of their warships.
Great book.
Some guy wrote a book about it a few years ago. I think it was called History of Courts Martial or something like that.
Edit: found.
Yup! The unit first went into action on Sept. 4th at Cassel ambushing a German convoy for the loss of an enemy staff car and, IIRC, a decently ranking officer. Colonel maybe? However, the unit had tried a few days prior to stir something up with attached French troops and had failed. After Sept 4th the unit fought from the Dunkirk area across the Belgian border, until that was no longer desirable, and around the city of Lille which fell to the Germans in mid-October. According to Samson his unit fought several actions which help delayed the German advance on and siege of the city, and then as it began to fall helped to spirt away some number of importants. He also suggests talks about getting into running MG battles with German troops in several of the small towns in that area. Really the RNAS exploits are pretty interesting.
If you want to read them try picking up a copy of Samson's memoir, because of its age I bet it wouldn't be too hard to find a digital copy either. Its fascinating reading though Samson would after his withdraw from France return to naval aviation, so most of the memoir focuses on that aspect of his later war service.
Jeff Sharra wrote a one off novelization of the events around Chosin called The Frozen Hours.
https://smile.amazon.com/Frozen-Hours-Novel-Korean-War-ebook/dp/B01L5PA6WU/
If you have never read any of his stuff, he (his father started the series with "The Killer Angels" about Gettysburg) takes military historical events and novelizes them, using as much primary source material as he can. Most of his works are series, this one is a free standing work, mainly because he wanted to get it out before all of the participants had passed away.
I've always seen that it was way more than just the America First movement that wanted to stay out of WWII. One statistic I've seen reported was that it was more than 80%. https://prezi.com/igrbgw5ef41y/why-didnt-the-us-want-to-join-ww2/
FWIW the memoir One Soldier’s War is amazing... details the life of a Russian conscript, then infantry radioman, and finally contract soldier in both Chechen wars. Brutal stuff. The audiobook version is great.
I'm reading Harrier 809: Britain's Legendary Jump Jet and the Untold Story of the Falklands War. Highly recommended if you are interesting in this period.
It pointed out that before they left for the Falklands the British Harrier pilots were trained by the French in how to counter the Mirages that had been sold to the Argentinian Air Force.
However the same French trainers had previously trained the Argentinian pilots on how to defeat the Harriers flown by the British.
There is a lot about the preparation and you start to realise the Falklands was a very a damn near run thing.
He wrote a book about his experiences.
Despite being one of only 600 odd people to be awarded the Close Combat Clasp is Gold, his superiors appear to have not thought enough of his leadership abilities to promote him, despite the high casualties that his unit took through the course of the war.
He also was awarded the Navy Cross for being one of two pilots to put bombs onto 2 different Japanese aircraft carriers. Plus he added another hit on the cruiser Mikuma as the Japanese fleet withdrew. Some historians worked with him to publish his story recently (published shortly after he passed away). https://www.amazon.com/Never-Call-Hero-Legendary-Dive-Bomber-ebook/dp/B01NCTJ53H
I'm not sure if this is allowed, and Mods feel free to delete this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Snapshots-Boer-War-Owen-Powell-ebook/dp/B00CTV895Q/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=snapshots+from+the+boer+war&qid=1594934985&sr=8-1
This is a link to the book where that extract is from. if you're interested in my Great-Great Grandfather's story.
If you are interested in Boer war stuff, My Uncle wrote a book around his story. the interesting this is that he illegally took a camera with him when he went to South Africa. so this book has many, photos which are very rare.
Not the most scholarly book and only from the German side there is always "The Caucasus and the oil: The German-Soviet war in the Caucasus, 1942/43" by Wilhelm Tieke. The amazon reviews give a good idea of the books limitations. You should take a look at those and see if the book might be of interest to you.
https://www.amazon.ca/Caucasus-oil-German-Soviet-war-1942/dp/0921991231
Thanks for your help mate.
While he was serving in Greece? I do not. My assumption is whatever advisory unit we sent there. During WWII and campaigns in Europe, he was in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Division (North Africa, Italy, Southern France into Germany). A division is a large element, so I am not sure what his experiences in that might have been that led onto the assignment in Greece.
On a side note, further research online has led me to these:
Dissertation covering U.S. advisory in Greece as part of series of analysis of similar U.S. efforts: https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/47833/15Dec_OLavin_Brian.pdf?sequence=1
This book: https://www.amazon.com/Instilling-Aggressiveness-Advisors-Leadership-1947-1949/dp/1500500186
Although I think I found come criticisms online of the central theme of the book (Theme: Greek military found success because of US advising, Criticism: Greeks largely did that on their own). I cannot find the criticism now. The book seems pretty old- I wonder if one can find it online for free?
Thanks again.
The book with possibly the greatest worldwide and historical influence on "thinking like a tactician" is The Art of War. Written by Sun Tzu in 5th century BC China, it continues to be relevant in warfare, as well as legal and business strategies.
I've had a copy in my desk since high school, at 100 pages long its a very quick read.
The Art of War in the Western World by Archer Jones
Is one of my favorites to recommend to beginners. It covers a basic overview of strategy and arms from the Greek hoplites to WWII. Found it in a library years ago. It's big, but worth the effort.
I think it was called 'The Trench', I have a book written by the director on the same premise after the show was aired in the early 2000s https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trench-Richard-Van-Emden/dp/0593049756 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313725/ I think this is the one :)
The Iraq War is an older book about OIF but is well written and my old BN actually is in there by name for what we did in Basra in 03'. Thunder Run is a good book focused specifically on the 2003 invasion before Iraq turned into an endless quagmire,
It WAS a disaster. The US had intercepted cables from the Japanese warning of an attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7. The Pentagon sent the message out to the Pacific for commanders to be prepared. The HNIC at Pearl decided that he didn't need to put his base on alert because it would stress the men.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Darkness-Memoir-Pacific-War/dp/0316501115
You might try some of the US army manuals or OIs. They won't be very historically oriented, but they'll be great for modern tactics.
One of my professors lent me this book for a project on Frederick the Great (it was a modern Europe survey course). It's decent, although it wasn't be extremely focused on tactics: http://www.amazon.com/The-Harper-Encyclopedia-Military-History/dp/0062700561
I read an excerpt of this for the above mentioned project. It'll be very tactics oriented, but as such might place to much focus on them: http://www.amazon.com/How-Wars-Are-Won-Ancient/dp/1400049482
Hope that helps. If I think of anything else I'll leave another comment.
There is a great part in the book Panzer Commander where Colonel Hans von Luck comes across an AA crew and their gun before a battle. When they refused to set up a defensive anti-tank position he took out his pistol and threatened their lives. They agreed to setup position and were a decisive factor in the battle. It is very likely the battle would have been lost had they not done so. A fine example of the use of AA as AT in an emergency.
Not a memoir, but On Killing by Lt. Col. Grossman is a "landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence" and might be of use to you. It's more psychology than philosophy, but could still certainly lend itself nicely to a philosophy paper.