General William H. Simpson served as commander of Ninth US Army during the Second World War but remains one of the only American field army commanders from that war without a published biography. Colonel (Retired) Thomas R. Stone, PhD, intended to write a biography of General Simpson after completion of his master’s and doctoral degrees at Rice University, but never completed it, leaving one to wonder why. The author’s search for an answer to this question has yielded a trove of previously lost archival data, a fruitful collaboration, and several insights about the unique nature of the path to historian and practice of history for the current or former US Army officer.

威廉·H·辛普森将军在第二次世界大战期间担任美国第九集团军司令，但他仍然是那场战争中仅有的没有出版传记的美国野战军指挥官之一。上校（已退休）Thomas R. Stone 博士本打算在完成莱斯大学的硕士和博士学位后为辛普森将军撰写传记，但从未完成，令人不解。作者在寻找这个问题的答案的过程中产生了大量以前丢失的档案数据、富有成果的合作以及关于现任或前任美国军官的历史学家和历史实践之路的独特性质的一些见解。