Marshall Project Vault

Partly for my own convenience and partly for anyone else who might be interested in the scope and type of material included in the personal papers of a U.S. Army Chief of Staff, I’ve started an ongoing list of interesting topics encountered while processing boxes in the GCM collection.

This list is far from exhaustive, containing only the things I felt merited inclusion or bookmarking for future reference.

Box	Folder	Tags	Subject
90	20	CBI, CKS	Memos to Chiang Kai Shek, urging him to disband the Chinese Student Volunteer Divisions, 1945.
90	21	CBI, ACW	Marshall suggests the possible transfer of ETO U.S. officers to China to assist Wedemeyer; Wedemeyer warns that the job would be far different (and almost certainly more difficult) than anything they ever experienced in the Pacific/ETO/Med. W expresses his skepticism of their ability to seamlessly integrate into the existing command hierarchy, and outlines different ways the U.S. had helped Chinese coalition partners in advisory, partner integration, and enabling roles.
90	21	ACW	Marshall congratulates ACW and tells him that Supreme Command in China is probably the hardest job in the entire U.S. Army.
90	21	ACW, HSA	According to Wedemeyer, General Henry S. Aurand, CG, USASOS, China had the “most difficult task in the China Theater.”
90	26	GAW	On the career and passing of General George A. White, National Guard commander in the Pacific Northwest. White died from dysentery/illness in Clackamas, Oregon in 1941, age 61, almost at the age of retirement. In a touching note, White’s wife thanks Marshall for a note he wrote White shortly before his death, telling him how Marshall’s vote of confidence meant to her late husband.
90	27	PDX, HOME	A series of documents on the development of Portland International Airport (PDX) which started as a WPA project, was used as an Army Air Corps Base in 1941, and built up to dovetail the emergence of commercial and civilian aviation with military preparedness in the Pacific Northwest.
90	27	ARW	Fascinating correspondence with Arthur R. Wilson, WPA administrator, WWI veteran, logistician, liaison with Truman Committee, sent to SWPA as Chief Quartermaster to broker Lend Lease deal with Australia, then sent to North Africa with Western Task Force in TORCH. Remains as CG, Atlantic and Mediterranean Base Sections, NATOUSA, becomes Chief of Staff for Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army in Europe. VP of TWA after the war until 1947, then VP, Industrial Products Trading Company.
90	28	XMAS	A beautiful Christmas card showcasing Anglo-American coalition warfare from ARW to GCM.
90	35	ETO	One of the crazier correspondence chains I’ve ever seen. Marshall utilizes his War Department connections to determine the condition and case of Norma W. Dorliac, a mother of one of his close acquaintances, Marcella D. Woerheide. Eisenhower’s aides find Dorliac in poor condition, widowed, and swimming in debt after the Wehrmacht seized most of her possessions. Marshall later travels to France to meet her in pereson during a visit to Ike’s HQ. Shows the amount of effort and expense Marshall expended (among his MANY responsibilities) to get ONE person our of war-torn France/how much he cared for his close acquaintances.
90	44	GCM	A conversation with ex-Secretary of War Henry H. Woodring where Woodring tells Marshall not to burn out. Marshall replies, telling him ways he tries to unwind. Arise at 5:30; ride at 6 every day, about eight miles. Office at 7:45. Lunch at home, 7 minutes away. Off work around 5-5:30. “We practically never go out in the evening. I think we have been to two dinners in the last two months. I do not let the telephone reach me unless it is a call from the White House or the Secretary, and I do not allow anyone else to intrude on our evenings because inevitably they talk shop. Mrs. Marshall and I frequently go canoeing on the Potomac, where I get in about an hour of good paddling up-stream, then we drift back, eat our supper, and get home about 9:30. Or we go to a pleasant movie theater in one of the small communities beyond Fort Myer where we are unknown and there are always vacant seats and a place to park your car. Or we stay home and read. This phase of our existence is rather hard and restrictive on Mrs. Marshall, but I find it essential to my own activities and unless I get to bed early, generally about nine o’clock, I am mentally too slow on the following day to focus on the wide variety of problems that reach me every hour. Even with your long experience here I do not believe you can visualize the complexities of affairs at the present time.”
80	34+	TOR	From Folder 34 onward, EXCELLENT docs on TORCH prep, August 1942 forward. Mostly correspondence between GCM and FDR.
90?	?	TOR	An excerpted article from The American Machinist entitled “No Time to Coast,” December 1942. Per Marshall, “It is an excellent statement, forthrightly expressed, of a fact which Americans seem reluctant to absorb. Possibly our North African operation may bring the truth home more clearly. There, despite the most favorable conditions, the public is learning that problems of supply and movement of troops, of preparing proper air bases and completing the other preliminaries to a full-scale offensive, require not days, but weeks.”
91	6	ZAN	Marshall bans the showing of Zanuck’s biopic of Woodrow Wilson to American troops in 1944-45. Overly-politicized message as end of war approaches. Fascinating.
91		ZAN	Letterhead from the Society for the Prevention of World War III, 1944. Darryl Zanuck a member.
83	1	ER	Detailed summary of Eddie Rickenbacker’s harrowing ordeal in the Pacific.
83	2	ER, HCA	The story of Hans Christian Adamson (nice name), Rickenbacker’s aide, post-war writer who suffered a heart attack and worked on the high school speaking circuit promoting the U.S. Army.
83	13	TOR	Marshall refers to the North African venture as “our first Allied effort on a large scale.”
83	16	LA	The War Dept. tries to make sense of a revolutionary coup in Bolivia with possible implications that it was partially spurned on by a hardliner conservative American military attache, Col. Marion D. Hardesty. Interestingly, he was also an embalmer, sending bodies back to the U.S. their “near and dear” wanted shipped. Hardesty was later acquitted, if I’m not mistaken.
83	19-20	ROL	Charles S. “Chief” Roller, Jr. writes Marshall beginning in 1939 to tell him about the untimely death of his son (“We’d been planning to have him in this one”). He says there has always been a Roller in America’s wars; offers to enlist as an older man in his son’s stead. “I am writing you as a very personal friend so you can file it away and when some day comes that you want an old Rock of Gibraltar to pull out a few chestnuts for you, wire me and I will be there on the first air plane.” Some real Lieutenant Dan stuff; or like Mulan in generational reverse. Later, in 1941, Roller tells Marshall he should run for President, gets a stiff rejoinder from Marshall. (Flattery does no good for him or the nation, just need to get on with the job, don’t even tell your wife what you think on the matter, etc.)
83	26	SSD	An account of the Special Services Division of the War Department, which provided entertainment for troops around the globe. Incredible statistical detail.
83	28	HW	Excerpts from letter from USO actress Helen Waren. She comments on poor living conditions, military rapes, demoralization, drunkenness, displaced Jewish refugees, racism, genocide, German death camps, an exceptionally detailed report on late-war conditions. Marshall’s WD investigates. Later messages clarify that Waren was a bit of a troublemaker.
83	40-41	JS; FDR	On the precarity of coalitions at war. Correspondence between Josef Stalin, George C. Marshall, and FDR show the dissolution of the Grand Alliance happening in real time (April 1945). Stalin accuses the Allies of negotiationg a separate secret peace with the Germans in Italy, thus shifting German divisions back on to the Soviet front. Allies reply that they are winning through overwhelming air power and disruption of enemy LOC, not secret negotiations; that, and Ike was able to crush the enemy West of the Rhine. They begin to discuss the eventual split of Germany.
83	44	KS	On the hidden drama behind the appointment of Kay Summersby (Ike’s British driver, aide) as a First Lieutenant in the WACs.
86	8	LA	Some notes on the Chapultepec Conference, or the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, regional collective self-defense pacts among 19 Latin American countries and the United States.
86	10	GCM	Marshall talks about having his workday cut in half by doctors so he can maintain sharpness and health; mentions the gold-plated typewriter given him by the Overseas Press Club as an incentive to write his memoirs. That typewriter is on display at the GCMF in Lexington, Virginia. Very cool.
86	10	ES	Marshall urges Stettenius to refrain from working after suffering a heart attack, not knowing that his old friend would die of a blod clot within a few months.
86	13	STIL	Marshall appreciates Joseph Stilwell’s report of activities in the CBI, saying it will have “more than ordinary value to the War Department and future historians” but will have to remain classified for a long time to come. See Stilwell’s Command Problems Green Book, 530 pgs. documenting his time in command written using such papers.
86	16	STIM	Henry L. Stimson’s words of advice upon Marshall’s appointment as Secretary of State: Difficult relaitons with the press; bombshells across his desk every four hours; a bit more chaotic than the War Department, not as loyal of a staff, territorial divisions. “The variety and unpredictability of these bombshells are greater than anything we experienced during the [Great] War in the War Department.”
86	25	PAC	Troop strengths and battle casualties of selected islands in the Pacific during the war. Fantastic detailed breakdown showing how many men actually committed to Pacific battles, and relative losses.
86	26	HOME	A letter to the widow of Major Dudley Stickler, killed on Bataan. She was trying her best secure clerical work while raising her two young children, and Marshall offered to help in any way he could. Illustrative of his character.
86	46	HOME	General Walter C. Sweeney asking to be of service to Marshall during the war in 1943. Retired. One of many of his generation.
86	49	NA, TOR	Great quote on coalition warfare in North Africa: “There is little that we in Washington can do except to pick the right man for the job and back him up with every resource at our disposal. Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton have done a grand job. Above all, General Eisenhower’s control and coordination of the troops of three nations in simultaneous ground, air, and naval operations constitutes the great contribution to the Allied war effort to date.” Marshall to Herbert B. Swope, May 10, 1943, doc. 677.
81	1	PER, FDR	Letters from General John J. Pershing (AEF) to FDR complaining of reports that Marshall would assume tactical command in Europe after D-Day. Such reports he found “deeply distressing.” Rationale: “We are engaged in a global war of which the end is still far distant, and for the wise strategical guidance of which we need our most accomplished officer as Chief of Staff. I voice the consensus of informed military opinion in saying that officer is General Marshall. To transfer him to a tactical command in a limited area, no matter how seemingly important, is to deprive ourselves of the benefit of his outstanding strategical ability and experience. I know of no one at all comparable to replace him as Chief of Staff.” (September 16, 1943)
81	4	WBS; FR, MED	A memo on the equipping of French divisions in the Mediterranean, with comments from Walter B. Smith, Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff. Smith mentions Ike’s need to use French divisions to relieve British Corps on the left of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy. Eleven divisions need to be formed, but that leaves too little for supply needs. Recommends only eight be formed. Bulk of equipment already transferred to North Africa.
81	4	SOM, CBI, CHEN	A great summary of the logistical problems impeding air cargo transport over the hump into China to assist Claire Chennault’s Air Force. Authored by Brehon B. Somervell, SOS.
81	6	BID	Correspondence regarding son of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. (inspiration for the Disney film The Happiest Millionaire), who was attached to Ike’s staff and commissioned after being a member of the State Department. He supervised underground intel efforts, and allied reconstruction after the war.
81	8	ITA	A summary estimate of the Italian campaign, January 28, 1944.
81	9	JEH, TEH	An eye-opening report from J. Edgar Hoover on the infiltration of the Tehran Conference by German agents (potentially sent by Himmler to assassinate Allied leaders?). See Operation Long Jump.
81	15	CM	Cool summary of 22 court martial cases for violations of air regulations by members of the U.S. Army Air Force. Cases resulted in death, injury, or the destruction of property.
81	15	FDR, DDE, FR	FDR forcibly tells Marshall to reiterate to Ike his stance on French post-war leadership ahead of D-Day. Basically, FDR could care less if de Gaulle leads as long as he is democratically elected! No funny business.
81	16	WSC, McN	Churchill wants the same typewriter typescript used in a letter from McNarney to himself. A fun one for typewriter fans. Marshall, on FDR’s behalf, has two Electromatic (IBM) 04 Executive hand-delivered to 10 Downing Street.
81	16	MAV, PH, FDR, FLAG	Maury Maverick suggests that the flag flying over the U.S. Capitol during Pearl Harbor be flown over Axis capitals liberated by the Allies (Rome, Paris, Tokyo) as a symbolic gesture. FDR endorses the idea. He sends the flag with Seargeant Farr to Ike, with Churchill’s typewriters (see above).
81	16	TYP, FE	Marshall speaks of the operational difficulties caused by the lack of a treatment for scrub typhus in the Far East.
81	18	JLD, ITA	A fascinating document from General Jacob L. Devers praising the American tanks, weapons, and equipment turned out by the Ordnance Department being used in the Italian Campaign, May 1944.
81	21	WSC, DDAY, FR, ALEX, ITA	Churchill discusses the Italian campaign after Normandy, with withdrawal of divisions to fight in France, Alexander’s efforts to maintain the operational initiative, use of ad hoc anti-aircraft units and representative of Empire fluid forces, talks about Eighth and Fifth Army driving up the peninsula.
81	23	CKS, STIL, CBI	An INCREDIBLE DOCUMENT on Stilwell’s dismissal from the CBI because CKS refused to elevate him to supreme command over Chinese AND American forces. Document basically says Stilwell is not a team player, lacks the temperament and inter-allied spirit to succeed in a combined position, and cannot be trusted with combined decision making. CKS agrees to unify the command, BUT REFUSES STILWELL. Stands up to President Roosevelt. September 25, 1944.
81	24	CBI, STIL, LEA	Memo from Leahy. More on JCS’ feelings toward China situation and Stilwell’s relief
81	25	STIL, CBI, CKS, FDR, BUR	A damning indictment of Stilwell’s command decisions in the northern Burma campaign by CKS. Penned while the Nationalist lose all of eastern China during Operation Ichigo. Hurley tells FDR that he is confronted with a “choice between CKS and Stilwell. CKS has agreed to every request, every suggestion made by you except the Stilwell appointment.”
81	25	FDR, STIL, CBI	FDR discussing CKS’ top three candidates to replace Joseph Stilwell in the CBI.
81	26	JD, USSR, LL	Interesting message from John Deane in Moscow on Russian attitudes toward the US, their lack of reciprocity as an ally, and the need to revisit Lend Lease policies in light of new operational developments. Every request, Deane claims, is scrutinzed by the Russians. “Gratitude cannot be banked in the Soviet Union. Each transaction is complete in itself without regard for past favors. The party of the second part is either a shrewd trader to be admired or a sucker to be despised.” Concessions reached from the Soviets have not been worth the candle,” he says. US military mission files were “bulging with letters to the Soviets and devoid of letters from them. We are in the position of being at the same time the givers and the supplicants. This is neither dignified nor healthy for U.S. prestige.” Little, it seems, changed in the war’s aftermath.
81	26	CKS, ACW, CBI	Wedemeyer vents about the difficulty of prevailing over CKS in appointing suitable Chinese generals for an upcoming operation. He talks about measures taken to improve Chinese-American coordination, including assigning American advisors to Chinese staff sections. “Language difficulties and the face-saving reluctance of Chinese Generals to accept advice of Americans junior to them add to our problems, but I am doing all possible to build up mutual respect and confidence in cooperative and friendly atmosphere.”
81	27	CKS, CBI, ACW	Marshall relates a message from Wedemeyer on recent conferences with CKS. “The Generalissimo is striving to conduct the war from Chungking. The management of affairs of State in itself would require a Disraeli, Churchill, and Machiavelli all combined in one. The Gissimo will not decentralize power to subordinates.”
81	28	FDR, WW1, ITA	Draft of a 1945 Congressional speech comparing the operational situation in 1918 with 1945. Supreme commander; allies pulling together. FDR corrects misapprehension over Italian campaign–they’re doing their part, not a “forgotten front.” Statistics on American ground forces by 1945.
81	39	JCS	Marshall and the JCS estimate manpower requirements going into 1945. Critical shortages of replacements. Calls for 900,000 more men by June 30.
81	31	STIM, FDR	Summary of soldiers on list for promotion to full general in 1945.
81	32	DDE, GER	An incredible report from Eisenhower (likely SHAEF staff) forecasting the collapse of Germany, predicting it won’t hold out much longer than May 1, 1945. This is in early April.
81	51	POW	A riveting POW experience. Captain P.A. Teel escapes the Germans to find the Russians, with whom he and another POW spend 45 days. Offers a candid view of Russian attitudes.
111	11	GCM, STAT	Eye-opening statistic: When Marshall became acting Army CoS, the Army in the continental U.S. had just 110,000 people total. By early 1942, it had 140,000 officers alone. See p. 4 of address to Reserve Officers Association of US on Jan. 9, 1942, doc. 11.
111	15	GCM, STAT	Another one: When Marshall became CoS, active Army had 175,000 men and 12,000 officers in the entire force. By May 1942, there were almost as many officers as former soldiers, growing 300,000 men in four weeks alone in 1942. By end of 1942, there would be nearly 4.2 million in the ranks. Dramatic growth and expansion.
111		TOR, UC, UN	Marshall’s comments on Unity of Command delivered in a speech on the subject of the “United Nations” two days after TORCH. So good I’ve published a fuller excerpt here on my blog.
111	23-4	GCM, TOR, LOG, UNITY	Marshall “off the record” remarks to Governors in Columbus, Ohio. Remarks on the logistical, strategic, and operational difficulties of establishing second front, concerns over shipbuilding and landing-craft availability. “Now we have succeeded in this war starting with our entry of the war in Decemer 1941, in organizing a basis for securing unity of action. We don’t talk about it, ladies and gentlemen we do it.” Love that.
111	30	DILL, YALE, GCM	Marshall’s address during the award ceremony for Field Marshal Sir John Dill’s Howland Prize Award at Yale University, February 16, 1944. He spoke to the importance of Anglo-American cooperation and allied harmony during the war.
111	50-51	GCM, APS	Marshall’s address to the Academy of Political Science, delivered on November 10, 1942. He includes a fascinating tidbit: “I was told the other day that we were dropping an average of 6 tons of bombs a minute day and night and have since been informed that this rate has been considerably increased.” I can’t imagine how those figures increased by late 1944, 1945. He also speaks of the TORCH precedent for Unified Command–“An American Expeditionary Force, soldiers, sailors, and aviators, supported by the British Fleet, by British flyers and by a British Army, all controlled by an American Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower. They are served by a combined staff of British Army and Navy senior to General Eisenhower, men of great distinction and long experience, have, with complete loyalty, subordinated themselves to his leadership…I go into detail because this should not be a secret. It will be the most depressing news to our enemies. It is the declaration of their doom.”
111	62	GCM, HIST	Comments on the importance of history. He talks about how Americans inveigh against war, deplore it, but after fighting one, when annual budgets, politics, and other exigencies come into play, we abandon all lessons from the past war almost immediately. He reviews his experience with the seriously unprepared US 1st Infantry Division going overseas to fight in France in 1917. He talks about the miraculous passage of Selective Service months before Pearl Harbor by almost a single vote, the way the Army almost “vanished” in the interwar era due to budget cuts and more, and how the policies of 1920-1939 directly bore on the struggles of the U.S. Army in its first campaigns in North Africa and New Guinea. “The full impact of the war comes more to me, I think, in some respects than it does to anyone in this country. The daily casualty lists are mine. They arrive in a constant stream, a swelling stream, and I can’t get away from them. When you feel, as I do, that they might have been avoided, it is a terrible thing to contemplate. And when you know what can happen again if some definite, practical preventive action is not taken, that all this endless horror and colossal waste may be repeated, it is even more tragic. If we had done the things that might have been done, if we had heeded the lessons of history, I think we could have been spared the greater part of our losses.” (P. 6)
111	73	GCM, KOR	A discussion of the problems in Korea with postwar occupation, assistance, etc. He labels it an “extraordinary” situation with US soldiers attempting to bring order out of chaos.
111	81	GCM, NAT	Remarks on the Brussels treaty and North Atlantic Treaties and more.
111	84	DUTY	Great quote from a TV shoot: “One of the lessons is all-important–that if men have died for America from a sense of duty, we who live and have inherited a reward have also inherited a responsibility. We have our duty to America too, to keep this nation strong, and upright, and courageous in the defense of liberties which make life sweet.”
111	86	GCM, UN	In this memorial day speech, Marshall speaks to the imperfect utility of the United Nations as it existed in 1950. It was, he argues, of symbolic value –inclusive of enemies–a means of preserving the precarious balance of power in the postwar world.