"US Army Uniforms of the Korean War" by Stanton

[Woodard]

Shelby Staton's book (US Army uniforms of the Korean War) is probably the best place to start. Talks a lot about the scales of issue, and how uniforms were distributed. Keep in mind that the UN command was pretty much all on the same sheet of music, and US army, USMC, Commonwealth troops mostly got the same winter gear, even if summer uniforms were different. Osprey books are OK, but lack serious detail, since they usually try to cover too much.

[John Abshire]

Did he make a Marine book, or did he just do army stuff?

[Woodard]

He sticks to Army, but he writes (?wrote) books about WW2, Korea, Cold war, and Vietnam.

[ringneck]

Stanton got busted by the fake vet hunters from "Stolen Valor" and curtialed his writing severely. Actually he wasn't a fake vet, he just grossly misrepresented what he did do.

BL

[Glen K]

Stanton got busted by the fake vet hunters from "Stolen Valor" and curtialed his writing severely.

Yea, which is really too bad, because those four uniform books are by far the best available. He might have been exaggerating about his military career, but that doesn't mean his scholarship isn't top-notch. I'm really hoping his next book takes us from 1973-1991....

But, yes, the Korea book focuses almost exclusively on Army, but as Woodard said it's the only "real" book out there on the subject. IMO even the usually good "G.I. Series" Korean War volume isn't that great.

[Woodard]

I read up on Mr. Stanton in Stolen Valor today. The Author hints that he shouldn't be trusted without questioning his scholarship, and also charges that Mr. Stanton kept large quantities of US. Govt documents at his house. Obviously the book included many personal attacks against him, has anyone ever found any discrepancies in his work?

[Glen K]

That's the thing: his scholarship seems almost untouchable. While I've heard/read several times about criticisms concerning his (mis)representations about his time in service, I've never heard anyone call anything in his books seriously into question. Lots of 'experts' out there can tell you that the US produced 4,325 of item X with a stitch count of Y and they were made out of Z, but I've never seen anyone else who looks in such consistent detail of uniform/equipment evolution, development, issue (as to unit, time of year, theatre, etc etc), and how the different uniforms fit together in the general scheme of US Army patterns of wear. I could go on and on. I mean, if the Stolen Valor people want to say "distrust his scholarship", maybe they should give a reason or an example rather than just dismissing it.

I'd never heard the "kept gov't documents at his house" thing, though... that's a bit puzzling. Did he steal one-of-a-kind reports from NATICK? Did he stuff classified Library of Congress documents down his pants? Was he a secret agent for the CIA? I'm being snide, of course, but that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. I mean, if you have your old W2s, tax files, a passport, etc in your house then YOU are "keeping government documents".

Bottom line, I haven't seen anything from anyone that has seriously challenged Stanton's scholarship or his conclusions.

[ringneck]

From what I was told he was a clerk in Vietnam and accumulated all kinds of military documents. He then created a new service record where he was a highly decorated Green Beret.

BradLaGrange

[Woodard]

In addition to uniform and orbat stuff, He wrote a lot of stuff about MACV-SOG. "Stolen Valor" states that he kept large amounts of documents at his house, and implies that he never returned them. I'll grab it at work tomorrow to get the whole quote. If he kept things that other researchers should have had access to, then that could be a problem. Most of it concerned weird stuff, MACV-SOG records that were limited to a few copies, large amounts of peoples personal info. He served as a clerk in a unit that trained People to go into Special Ops, and fabricated a bunch of combat stuff for himself.

[foxholetom]

Interesting, I'd heard the story about Shelby Stanton several times, but I didn't know what the big "whistle blower" was in the whole affair.

If you're really interested in the veracity of his work, he has very good bibliographies in his books.

Now, the version of the story I've heard is that while he was writing his these books, he kept original records from the National Archives so that no one else could publish the material he'd used. Personally, this is a moot point, since most uniform books work almost exclusively off photographic evidence and hardly ever use the sort of hard data Stanton uses.

[foxholetom]

Oh, just in case you've skipped over buying it, Stanton's "U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War: 1948-1973" has some good info not covered as in depth in the Korea book. Gives better info on the dates for the utilities, AND, at the back has full barracks display layouts for the Korean War/1950s era.

[JBH]

And Amazon has used copies starting at $15 plus about $4 shipping which the majority of these are listed as brand new. The new ones directly from Amazon are right at $20.

[foxholetom]

Check on e-bay, I saw a copy go for $0.99.

[JBH]

foxholetom said:

Check on e-bay, I saw a copy go for $0.99.

That's till I bid on it ! Then everyone & their brother goes crazy bidding on it ;D. Well, that's my luck .

[foxholetom]

You know what's crazier? Years and years ago I picked up a small Europa book on Vietnam uniforms, by Kevin Lyles. $20 book. Now I'm looking at half.com and people have it listed for up to $300. What...the...**** people? Just wait for a new printing! I'm very tempted to sell my copy, but naw.

[tar00]

foxholetom said:

Oh, just in case you've skipped over buying it, Stanton's "U.S. Army Uniforms of the Cold War: 1948-1973" has some good info not covered as in depth in the Korea book. Gives better info on the dates for the utilities, AND, at the back has full barracks display layouts for the Korean War/1950s era.

Great book. The pictures really shed a lot of light on the way guys modified their HBTs and wore insignia. I learned a lot.