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The Journal of Military History 68.1 (2004) 292-293



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Major General Maurice Rose: World War II's Greatest Forgotten Commander. By Steven L. Ossad and Don R. Marsh. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-87833-308-8. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Notes. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxiv, 436. $27.95.

As distinguished historian Martin Blumenson notes in his Foreword, Steven Ossad and veteran Don Marsh have written a biography of General Maurice Rose, the famed American armor commander, "with sensitivity and skill" (p. xii). Rose was raised in Denver, the son of a Jewish businessman (and later rabbi). After serving in World War I, he decided to make a career in the Army and gained distinction in World War II by commanding Combat Command A of the 2nd Armored Division in Sicily and in Normandy, and then serving as Commanding General of the 3rd "Spearhead" Armored Division after the breakout. [End Page 292]

Rose was a taciturn and aloof commander, and wore Pattonesque riding breeches and boots, but his subordinates and superiors recognized his abilities and aggressiveness. The 2nd and 3rd were the most powerful U.S. armored divisions, although this was because they retained the tank-heavy regimental organization while later divisions had been reorganized into more balanced battalion units. This led to routinely attaching an infantry regiment for operations but also to detaching combat commands, and, in the Ardennes, Rose was frustrated for several critical days when less than a third of his division was under his control.

Across the Rhine, Rose's division led the VII Corps drive to encircle the Ruhr, and it was near Paderborn that the General was shot down by a German tank commander (of the 507th Königstiger Battalion) in the darkness of 30 March 1945. After exhaustive research, including deductions from the autopsy report and despite inconsistencies, the authors conclude that Rose had dropped his pistol belt and was raising his hands in surrender a second time when he was gunned down. While the Army's investigation concluded that Rose was killed in the confusion of battle, the authors argue "The shooting was unprovoked, deliberate . . . murder" (p. 344).

Rose was hailed as a hero, especially by the Jewish community of Denver, and a subsequent fund-raising campaign there resulted in building the General Rose Memorial Hospital—marred briefly by a dispute about Rose's religious preference. Despite his background, and perhaps sensing possible career discrimination, Rose always listed himself as a Protestant. His first wife was a Mormon, his second an Episcopalian, and religion was not of particular importance to him. He is interred in the U.S. Military Cemetery at Margraten, The Netherlands, under a Latin cross.

Ossad and Marsh have written a discerning work, though some hyperbole creeps in, as, for example, writing that the second Battle of Mons (September 1944) "echoes the fabled victory of Hannibal over the Romans at Cannae" (p. xviii), and the book's subtitle "World War II's Greatest Forgotten Commander" might surprise most students of that conflict. Rose's personality is a bit sketchy, if only because of a paucity of written materials. He was killed before he might have drawn conclusions about armored warfare, though Appendix III gives his views about the inadequacies of the M4 and M5 tanks. Nonetheless, Maurice Rose's operations themselves demonstrate the abilities of this aggressive armor commander. This biography gives a fuller sense of the man himself.



A. Harding Ganz
Ohio State University at Newark
Newark, Ohio

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