Edward G. Miller

Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Ret.)


Lucherberg, Germany, site of a bitter fight by GIs of the 104th Infantry ('Timberwolf')Division in December 1944. This battle is described in Nothing Less Than Full Victory

Selected Works-Books, Journals and Magazines

Nothing Less Than Full Victory
Ed's latest book is a study of organizational transformation. The topic is how the US Army changed from an impotent constabularly to a global force for combat against the Germans during World War II. A set of detailed and exciting small unit action studies back up his contention that materiel abundance does not guarantee success unless effective leadership is on board and trained. The US Army did not simply overwhelm a weakened and nearly beaten German army. GIs and their leaders faced many obstacles and the odds were often against them as they prevailed over one of the best armies in history.

A Dark and Bloody Ground--the Hürtgen Forest and Roer River Dams 1944-1945
Winner of the Forrest C. Pogue Prize from the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans as the best book on the history of the U.S. Army, and a featured selection of the Military Book Club, this is recognized as a standard work on the Army’s WWII experience in Europe. It was a key source for the PBS series "The War" (2007).

"Fighting Blind in Hurtgen Forest"
This article appears in the October 2011 issue of America in World War II magazine.

"Singling"
This article describes intense close combat between troops of the 4th Armored Division's Task Force Abrams and German panzergrenadiers for control of a key town in eastern France in December 1944.

Generating U.S. Combat Power in WWII (Tentative Title)
This work is a chapter-length contribution to "World War II Companion," ed. Thomas W. Zeiler, PhD, scheduled for publication in 2012 by Wiley-Blackwell. Factory to Foxhole will survey the key events involved in the organization, recruiting, training, equipping and deployment of U.S. Navy and Army/Army Air Forces combat forces in World War II.

"All the Wrong Reasons"
All the Wrong Reasons - the US Campaign in the Hurtgen Forest was published in the Summer 2010 issue of World War II Quarterly.

"BFSB 101: A Brief Introduction to the Battlefield Surveillance Brigade" (Armor Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010)
Ed and co-authors LTC (Ret.) Shane E. Lee and Maj. (USMC, Ret.) Michael Thomas give an organizational and operational description of the Army's first unit capable of combining reconnaissance, security and military intelligence discipline collection.

"Tank Battle at Kesternich," with David T. Zabecki, World War II, November 2000
In their first combat action, troops of the 707th Tank Battalion, with soldiers of the 893d Tank Destroyer Battalion, stood between veteran German tankers and hard-bitten infantrymen, and the exhausted and out-numbered GIs of the 28th Infantry Division. These were the climactic hours of the battle for Schmidt, Germany.


Other publications
Ed's other historical articles and book reviews have also appeared in Armor Magazine, Ordnance Magazine and Global War Studies.

Selected Works

Military History
Nothing Less Than Full Victory
Available now from the US Naval Institute Press
A Dark and Bloody Ground--the Hürtgen Forest and Roer River Dams 1944-1945
Before the Battle of the Bulge, there was the Hürtgen Forest.
History/Comment
"Fighting Blind in Hurtgen Forest"
An overview of this brutal fight appears in the October 2011 issue of America in World War II magazine.
Magazine Articles
"Singling"
This article on the WWII tank battle at Singling, France, appears in the September 2011 issue of Armchair General Magazine.
"All the Wrong Reasons"
The chain of decisionmaking that led to the Army's most disastrous WWII campaign appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of World War II Quarterly.
Current Military Operations
"BFSB 101: A Brief Introduction to the Battlefield Surveillance Brigade" (Armor Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010)
Ed's latest work is as co-author of an overview of a new-type Army unit now deployed to combat in Afghanistan and Iraq