Guadalcanal: The first offensive (United States Army in World War II. The war in the Pacific)
by Harry L. Coles, Albert K. Weinberg
Category: History

A documentary history with brief narrative introductions illustrating the evolution of civil affairs policy and practice in the Mediterranean and European theaters. Most important of all, in World War II soldiers became governors in a much broader sense than ever before—so much more than was foreseen that the Army's specialized training proved scant preparation for perhaps the most important phase of their role. They became not merely the administrators of civilian life for the Army's immediate needs but at the same time the executors and at times even, by force of circumstances, the proposers of national and international political policy. This broader role arose from the fact that in World War II the Allies strove to realize from the very beginning of occupation political aims that had usually not been implemented during war or, if during war at all, not until active hostilities had ended. Thus, in enemy countries civil affairs officials were immediately to extirpate totalitarian governmental and economic systems, in liberated countries they were as soon as possible to aid in restoring indigenous systems and authorities, and in both types of countries they were to make an all-out effort to effect gradual transition toward the envisaged postwar national and international order.