Colonel in the Armored Divisions: A Memoir, 1941-1945

In late 1944, Colonel Triplet reached the European theater, where he headed the Army's Seventh Armored Division Combat Commands, advancing through Belgium and across Germany to the Baltic by V-E day. Triplet subsequently wrote extensive memoirs, which found their way to the archives of the U.S. Military History Institute at Carlisle, Pa. After Triplet's death, these writings were found by Ferrell, Professor Emeritus of history at Indiana University, who has done a skillful job of preparing them for publication here. The book follows last year's Ferrell-edited volume covering Triplet's WWI service as a teenage enlistee, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir of World War I, 1917-1918 (Forecasts, Aug. 7, 2000). Triplet was assigned stateside for much of his second conflict , contributing to equipment development, to logistics with an ill-fated division and to troop training before heading to Europe. His appraisals of the wartime armored units and personnel are frank and realistic rather than flattering. He comes across as an exceptionally earnest, talented, admittedly headstrong soldier and an honest reporter. His attitudes on some matters risk offense by today's standards (not feeling compassion for POWs, for example), but the legacy of this memoir lies in the detailed, unusually conscientious expression of the individual officer's perspective which is to say., this book is mostly for buffs and scholars. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar. 20)