Self-preservation and military measures to insure the territory of the United States against violation by foreign powers - the subject of this book - ceased to be of serious concern to the United States Government and nation during the nineteenth century. In World War I, the Americans concentrated on the offensive. In World War II, as the authors of this book remark in their Preface, we passed to the offensive so soon and with such force after the United States became engaged that the military provisions for defense have been obscured from view.

This book is one of a number in the present series that describe what happened to the U.S. Army in World War II as the result of two prevailing circumstances. One was that the War Department had a vital interest and a leading role in maintaining the production of supplies needed to win the war. The other was that, once organized for war, the War Department and the Army comprised an administrative machine incomparably more efficient for getting things done than any other at the disposal of the President. In both connections Army officers found themselves drawn into the realm of industrial...