Abstract
James A. Van Fleet believed that units possessing the will to win would always emerge victorious from any battle. From July 1951 to the end of his tenure as Eighth Army’s commander in Korea in February 1953, he would find that his mission of holding the line until an armistice made it difficult to maintain a will to win among U.S. Army infantrymen. Also working against him were factors arising from the Army’s manpower crisis and the tactical problems facing his infantrymen on the battlefield. Under these conditions Van Fleet was unable to keep these units “fit, ready, and eager to fight.”
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Cite this article
William M. Donnelly, “A Damn Hard Job: James A. Van Fleet and the Combat Effectiveness of U.S. Army Infantry, July 1951–February 1953,” The Journal of Military History 82, no. 1 (January 2018): 147–179.