John C. McManus is an award-winning professor, author, and military historian, and a leading expert on the history of the American combat experience. He is the Curators' Distinguished Professor of U.S. Military History at Missouri University of Science and Technology. His critically acclaimed books on World War II include Deadly Sky, Grunts, The Dead and Those About to Die, and Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943.