I owe thanks to many people for their help with this biography of Jacob Devers. First, as always, I thank my wife Jane, who worked diligently with me during our research trips to various archives and proofread every chapter. The impetus for this work came from Hal Nelson, Layne Van Arsdale, Andy Morris, Bill Stofft, and Rick Atkinson, who first suggested that I write a biography of Devers during a staff ride in Alsace. Hal, Layne, and Andy read every chapter and provided suggestions and insights.
Hal and Janet Nelson helped immensely during our research trips to the Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. General Nelson served as my research assistant at the MHI and at the York County Heritage Trust archive in York, Pennsylvania. The MHI staff, including Dr. Con Crane, Colonel Matt Dawson, and Richard Baker, made my many trips there very productive. Marty Andresen deserves special recognition for his volunteer work. Harry and Lynne Dolton facilitated our research trips to the National Archives in Washington, and Harry gave me the benefit of his clear understanding of strategy.
The staff and volunteers at the York County Heritage Trust, especially director Lila Fourham-Shaull, were of tremendous help. The Devers and Griess Papers are housed in that archive, giving researchers access to hundreds of boxes of material from Jacob Devers’s life. Tim Nenninger, of the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, provided access to World War II documents and gave me sound advice and encouragement. Frank Shirer, chief archivist at the army’s Center for Military History, and Robert Dalessandro, its director, gave me access to Devers’s personnel file at the National Archives facility in St. Louis, Missouri. Eric Voelz copied the 3.75-inch-thick file and sent it to me.
The staff of the U.S. Military Academy library, special collections, and archive guided me through the Patch and Devers Papers and Devers’s cadet records. Al Aimone, Suzanne Christoff, and Susan Lintelman were of special help. Lance Betros, former head of the Department of History, shared his insights into the history of the Academy during Devers’s years there as a cadet and a member of the staff and faculty. Jim and Lois Johnson facilitated our research trips to West Point, and Jim provided sage advice as always.
I especially want to thank Roger Cirillo, director of publications for the Association of the United States Army, for arranging support for some of my research and providing a number of useful books and sources. Roger was instrumental in getting this book to publication.
I also owe special thanks to Bonnie Benn Stratton Hamstreet and her husband Roger for their insights into the lives of Jacob, Georgie, and Dorothy Devers. Bonnie first met Devers in 1945, when her mother Dorothy went to work for him. Dorothy was a close friend of both Georgie and Jake Devers and became Devers’s second wife.
This biography has been greatly improved by the work of copyeditor Linda Lotz. I am incredibly appreciative of her thorough and well-informed review and her suggestions for corrections. Allison Webster, the acquisitions editor at the University Press of Kentucky, skillfully guided me through the sometimes daunting process of getting a book published. Her patience, clarity, and professionalism made this a pleasant experience.
Finally, thanks to Brigadier General Thomas Griess, researchers like me have access to transcripts of the interviews he conducted with General Devers, his family, and many of the people who knew him. Without these oral histories and documents, I could not have written this comprehensive biography. Tom Griess, then a colonel, was working on the Devers project when I met him in 1977. He was head of the History Department at the Military Academy when I arrived to teach European history. Griess conducted extensive research into Devers’s life and service at the National Archives, the Center for Military History, and other archives. He worked closely with the York County Heritage Trust and deposited most of his research materials there. In the end, Griess completed just one chapter of his own planned biography of Devers before serious matters at the Academy absorbed his full attention. Griess also made it possible for me to complete my doctorate in history and always encouraged my interest in research and writing. I and hundreds of other army officers owe him so much.
All these people helped me with this work, and I deeply appreciate it. Any mistakes in the book, however, are mine.