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Book reviews of general interest to the military professional are solicited. Any book listed may be purchased by MCA members from the MCA Bookservice at reduced rates. Length: 300-750 words.
LIGHTNING JOE: An Autobiography. By Gen J. Lawton Collins, USA. (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1979, 462 pp., $20.) MCA member $18.00.
How long since you read a new book by a World War II general? Fifteen years? Thirty? Dwight D. Eisenhower published his memoirs in 1948, Howlin' Mad Smith and Hap Arnold in 1949, Omar Bradley in 1951, Adm Ernest J. King in 1952. Douglas Mac Arthur lagged far behind: his Reminiscences was not published until the year of his death, 1964, the same year A. A. Vandegrift came out with Once a Marine, which was dictated in his blindness to a collaborator.
Comes now "Lightning Joe" Collins-he acquired his nickname from the outfit he commanded in the Pacific in 1942-1943, the 25th or "Tropic Lightning" Division-with what you can safely bet will be the last of its kind. It's a good book, interesting, well written and sincere, a remarkable achievement for a man of 83.
Collins' book is a fat, full-scale autobiography which carries him well beyond World War II into his term (1945-1953) as chief of staff of the U.S. Army and into Indo-China, where he served as President Eisenhower's ambassador for eight months of 1954-1955 as we were only beginning to moisten our tootsies in that quagmire.
New Orleans-born Joseph Lawton Collins, 10th of 11 children of an Irishman who immigrated to the United States at age 15 in 1862, grew up...