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Cassino Research Underway by Fulbright Scholar
20 July 2010
Professor Glyn Harper, a former Army Education officer and now Director of Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, has taken up a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct military research in the United States.
A Professor of War Studies, he will initially be based at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He is writing, along with fellow New Zealand historian John Tonkin-Covell, a reappraisal of the Battle of Monte Cassino, which will be the subject of his research. The Institute holds a large number of military archives, in particular the papers of George Marshall who was the overall commander of American troops during World War II. Professor Harper expects to find significant information there.
After three months in Virginia he travels to the Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he will search their records for any further information on Cassino.
Professor Harper wrote the biography of Sir Howard Kippenberger for his doctorate, but then moved on to research World War 1 history. He wanted to move back into looking at World War II and was approached by an overseas book publisher to write a new study of the battle of Monte Cassino, a significant battle for New Zealand soldiers. “It was a battle of attrition, there was a huge loss of life, and it was a struggle against insurmountable terrain and other odds.”
The book will not be a chronological account of the campaign, but will look at about a dozen key themes.
“It will look at, for example, the use of air power, the use of terrain, the effectiveness of military intelligence, and whether the (Monte Cassino) monastery needed to be bombed. Other themes could be how effective the Germans were, and the effectiveness of command performance— all the big issues behind the battle.”
A former school teacher, Professor Harper left the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. He has written 17 books, with his latest, Images of War. World War One. A photographic record of New Zealand at war 1914-1918, published in 2008.
In 2012 he plans to publish a book based on letters New Zealand soldiers wrote home from Gallipoli. He expects to have the Cassino book published in about 2013.
Fulbright New Zealand is an exchange programme to encourage mutual understanding between different countries and cultures. Its scholarships fund travel and study in the United States.
This page was last reviewed on 23 July 2010 and is current.
