Forging the Anglo-American Alliance
The British and American Armies, 1917-1941

The joint British and US campaigns in the European theater of operations during World War II rank among the most impressive examples of coalition warfare in history. In just eighteen months, the US and British armies integrated their planning, intelligence, and command structures more thoroughly than any previous alliance. How did these two armies come together so quickly? In Forging the Anglo-American Alliance, Tyler Bamford answers these questions by presenting the first history of the two armies' relations from 1917 to 1941. Forging the Anglo-American Alliance examines why the armies of these two nations chose to view each other as their closest strategic partner instead of their greatest potential threat and illustrates the legacy that World War I had on the attitudes of the US and British armies toward one another and alliance warfare. Using untapped archival sources, official reports, and officers' personal papers, Bamford presents an important and engaging new analysis of how this partnership grew out of the experiences and initiative of British and US Army officers and attaches during World War I and the two decades that followed.