This monograph analyzes Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr.’s service as de facto theater Army commander to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz from August 1943 to June 1945. It focuses on the theater-strategic level when Richardson led US Army Forces in Central Pacific Area and US Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas. This study highlights the context of Richardson’s operating environment beginning with prewar plans, the realities of early wartime defeats, and the state of joint operating procedures. It assesses Richardson’s accomplishments in exercising Landpower in the Pacific, across the entire range of today’s Army war-fighting and Joint functions and discusses the implications of posturing for large-scale combat operations in competition, crisis, and conflict. These assessments are relevant to US Army Pacific today in its four current roles of Theater Joint Force Land Component Command, Combined Joint Task Force, Combined Joint Force Land Component Command, and Army Service Component Command.
Photo credits: Image description: “Tarawa, South Pacific, 1943” on Wikimedia Commons Painting by: Sergeant Tom Lovell, US Marine Corps Source: Marines Corps Combat Art Collection Website:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tarawa,_South_Pacific,_1943_by_Sergeant_Tom_Lovell.jpg License: Available under the Creative Commons CC0 License Modifications: An AI upscaler was used to increase the size of the image and improve its quality.