Hugh Marshall Cole (July 14, 1910 – June 5, 2005) was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...

, best known as the author of ''The Lorraine Campaign'' and ''The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge'', two volumes of the U.S. Army official history of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Born in

Pittsford, Michigan Pittsford is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hillsdale County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population of the CDP was 553 at the 2020 census. The community is located along M-34 on the border between Jeffe ...

, Cole studied as a young man and achieved his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

in 1937 from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. He taught at both

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

until 1942. Cole became a U.S. Army officer in 1942. After serving as the chief of foreign area and language studies for the Army Specialized Training Program, he was assigned as a historical officer on the staff of General

Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a General (United States), general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, Mediterranean Theater ...

's Third Army, with whom he participated in four campaigns in northern Europe. Subsequently, Cole served as the European Theater deputy historian, and then as theater historian in December 1945. After leaving military service, he joined the

Office of the Chief of Military History The United States Army Center of Military History (CMH) is a directorate within the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Institute of Heraldry remains within the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Arm ...

in Washington and supervised the preparation of the official histories of the U.S. Army in northwestern Europe during World War II. His own contributions to these works were ''The Lorraine Campaign'' (1950) and ''The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge'' (1965). Following his work with OCMH, Cole worked as an

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

specialist with the Johns Hopkins University's Operations Research Office and later with the Research Analysis Corporation. During 1976–77, Cole held the Harold K. Johnson Chair of Military History at the Army War College. Cole died on June 5, 2005 of peripheral vascular disease in Alexandria, Virginia.

Education

* B.A., Wheaton College, 1931. * M.A. and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

, 1933, 1937.

References

External links

The Ardennes:Battle of the Bulge online

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Hugh M. 20th-century American historians Historians of the United States United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army officers United States Army historians American male non-fiction writers University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni 1910 births 2005 deaths Wheaton College (Illinois) alumni Macalester College faculty University of Chicago alumni 20th-century American male writers