Taking Command: General J. Lawton Collins From Guadalcanal to Utah Beach and Victory in Europe

by H. Paul Jeffers

"The crux of the fighting was the place I headed for." -General J. Lawton Collins

Known as "the GI's general" and "Lightning Joe," General J. Lawton Collins played no less than a global part in the Allied victory of World War II.

Here, for the first time, is the story of an American hero and patriot- a man who earned the admiration of the grunts with whom he shared foxholes and the respect of the highest-ranking generals. Collins was a true leader of men with his iron-clad devotion to duty, his genuine concern for those under his command, and his seemingly unending drive to defend his nation against all enemies-no matter where the fight took him...

Genres: Biography, World War II, History

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2009

About the author

H. Paul Jeffers was an established military historian and author of seventy books. He worked as an editor and producer at ABC, CBS and NBC, and is the only person to have been news director of both of New York City's all-news radio stations. He taught journalism at New York University, Syracuse University, and Boston University.

Reviews

[William DuFour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A interesting book on a General who shoud have become better known to future generations. As an impressive climb in rank from LTC TO LTG in a short period of time. Not to mention serving in two theaters of war; the Pacific and the ETO.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, informative, wide-ranging; a fast read. Very detailed descriptions of fighting by VII Corps that beg for maps.

[Harold · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s can be considered an introduction into the life and career of General Collins. But the way it was written and the convoluting of sequences and events have much left to be desired and is a disservice to his life.

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfinished, really awful, greatly in need of an editor. I could have done as well in middle school. It seems the author found a variety of sources dealing with some elements of Gen. Collins' life and career, and stapled them together without analysis or connections. I quit reading halfway through, when I found myself using a pencil to mark up the margins. This was $7 wasted at the Half-Price Books store.

While just starting it, I found a small number of easily correctable errors that should have been caught. Dates and identifications for Marine units were consistently wrong for the Guadalcanal operation. The entire New Georgia campaign, which Collins is supposed to have done well in, is disposed of in less than a paragraph. This is not encouraging, as I push on into Collins' activities in the European Theater.

- Whole paragraphs of extraneous information that do nothing but wander off tangents.
- Pages of detail spent on elements that have little or nothing to do with Gen. Collins or his activities, while other elements of his actions are nearly ignored (see: New Georgia campaign, January counterattack, Aachen battle).
- No analysis of the general's decisions or effectiveness.
- Thoroughly convoluted sentence structure.
- Zero maps.

This is another author who is either ignorant or contemptuous of the conventions of denoting military units and formations. 3rd Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Division, but III Corps and Third Army. This author continually uses the last style for all units and formations.

The worst omission had to be at the bottom of p.171. The page is spent setting up VII Corps' counterattack late in the Battle of the Ardennes,set for Dec. 31, 1944. The very last sentence reads, "Monty fixed the time of attack at 8:30am." Now what do you think you might find on the next page? If you think it might be a description of the actions of the VII Corps on December 31, you would be wrong. Page 172 is blank, and page 173 starts Chapter Eleven, "Counterattack." Again, might this chapter and page be about the counterattack? No. The first two paragraphs go on about the inactivity of the Corps front once they'd settled down in Germany, and Collins' reminiscences about the Battle. Nine paragraphs into the chapter, we find an American attack launched on Feb. 22. There is nothing whatsoever about the 25 days of fighting that the VII Corps did before being withdrawn from the Battle of the Ardennes.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A biography of US Armry General "Lighting Joe" Collins who was only one of three generals to serve in both the Pacific and European theaters during World War II. It gives good background on other key American officers and mentions some units that he was associated with but is mainly a people book. I would have liked to have seen the American divisions included in the index.

[Relstuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author did a public service reminding people about the service of General Collins. I do agree with others who have commented this could have been better had it been better edited. I should like to read General Collins' autobiography if I run across a copy at some point.