Trevor N . Dupuy Trevor Nevitt Dupuy ( May 3 , 1916 – June 5 , 1995 ) was a Colonel , United States Army , retired , soldier and noted military historian . Early life . Born in New York , the son of noted military historian , R . Ernest Dupuy , Trevor followed in his father ' s footsteps . Military career . Trevor Dupuy attended West Point , graduating in the class of 1938 . During World War II he commanded a U . S . Army artillery battalion , a Chinese artillery group , and an artillery detachment from the British 36th Infantry Division . He was always proud of the fact that he had more combat time in Burma than any other American , and received decorations for service or valour from the U . S . , British , and Chinese governments . After the war Dupuy served in the United States Department of Defense Operations Division from 1945 to 1947 , and as military assistant to the Under Secretary of the Army from 1947 to 1948 . He was a member of the original Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ( SHAPE ) staff in Paris under Generals Dwight D . Eisenhower and Matthew Ridgway from 1950 to 1952 . It is as a military historian and a theorist that Trevor Dupuy would make a lasting mark on the world . He is perhaps best known for his massive book " The Encyclopedia Of Military History " ( co - written , like many of his books , with his father R . Ernest Dupuy ) . Starting from the beginning of history and going up the present day the book tries to cover all the major ( and minor ) military conflicts in world history . Usually each entry ( arranged chronologically and by region ) gives little more than the names of the commanders and ( often ) very rough estimates for the size of the forces involved in the campaigns . Dupuy was not afraid of expressing an opinion and he classified some of his subjects as Great Captains ( such as Alexander the Great , Hannibal , Julius Caesar , Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden , Frederick II of Prussia and Napoleon ) . Like most " Western " reference works it spends far more time dealing with wars in Europe and the United States than the rest of the world , but it does at least try to cover the entire world . The Encyclopedia Of Military History has been revised ( and updated ) several times , most recently in 1993 . It can be found in the reference section of most American libraries . Academic & Research Career . After Dupuy left active service in the Army in 1952 , Harvard University appointed him as a Professor of Military Science and Tactics , where he helped found the Harvard Defense Studies Program ( directed from 1958 to 1971 by Henry Kissinger ) . He left Harvard in 1956 to become director of the program in military studies at The Ohio State University . After retiring from active military duty in 1958 , he served as a visiting professor in the International Relations Program at Rangoon University ( now Yangon University ) in Burma . From 1960 to 1962 Dupuy worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses , a government - funded think tank . In 1962 he formed the first of his research companies dedicated to the study and analysis of armed conflict , the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization ( HERO ) , and served as President and Executive Director until 1983 . From 1967 to 1983 he was also President of T . N . Dupuy Associates Inc . ( TNDA ) , which became the parent organization for HERO . In 1983 , TNDA sold its assets ( including HERO ) to a new corporation he formed called Data Memory Systems , Inc . ( DMSI ) . Trevor was the president and largest stockholder in DMSI . In 1990 , Dupuy resigned from DMSI , sold his stock and reactivated TNDA . In 1992 TNDA was closed out , and he established the non - profit The Dupuy Institute ( TDI ) . Dupuy ' s main contribution to military operation analysis is the assessment method " Quantified Judgment Method " or " QJM " , where the outcome of a battle is predicted using a fairly complicated multiplicative - additive formula in which various factors relating to the strength and firepower of the fighting parties as well as the circumstances are taken into account . Dupuy and his associates adjusted the parameters of his model by using known statistical facts of several recorded battles . Family Life & Death . Dupuy committed suicide by gunshot at his home in Vienna , Virginia on June 5 , 1995 . He had learned three weeks earlier that he had terminal pancreatic cancer . He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery . During his lifetime he wrote or co - wrote more than 50 books . When he died , he had been married 5 times , with his last wife being Zhang Yun . He fathered 9 children - 6 boys and 3 girls .