Forging the Thunderbolt

In less than thirty years, the U.S. Army’s armored force rose from humble beginnings in borrowed tanks in World War I to a thundering crescendo of tactical prowess and lethal power during the liberation of Western Europe in World War II. M. H. Gillie’s classic study recounts this stunning achievement: the bitter internal debates, the technological innovations, the live-or-die battles with German panzers. It is a dramatic look at the men and machines that brought fame to generals like John Pershing, George Patton, and Adna Chaffee and to the Sherman, Grant, and Lee tanks.