Pogue was born in Eddyville, Kentucky. His grandparents, Marion Forrest Pogue and Betty Matthews Pogue, were farmers, and the young Pogue spent much of his early life in Frances, Kentucky, where the Pogue family owned a tract of land.[1][2] He attended Murray State College, and received his master's degree from the University of Kentucky, as well as a doctorate from Clark University in 1939. Pogue spent a year at the University of Paris,[3] and was fluent in French.[4] Pogue married Christine Brown Pogue.[5]
Forrest C. Pogue (left) receiving oral history award from Benis M. Frank
Pogue worked at Murray State, teaching history from June 1933 to May 1942.[6] He was a widely sought speaker, averaging around sixty speeches a year. until he was drafted into the Army in 1942 and promoted to sergeant. He was sent to Fort McClellan and received basic training until being reassigned to a historical unit and made responsible for writing a history of the Second United States Army, and in 1944 was sent to England.[7] He was sent to Normandy to interview wounded soldiers.[8] He worked on the project for eleven months, and was present at the Battle of the Bulge. For his work, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Croix de Guerre. He was discharged in October 1945, and hired as a civilian, with the pay of a colonel.[9][3]
The Meaning of Yalta: Big Three Diplomacy and the New Balance of Power. Louisiana State University Press, 1956.
Pogue's War: Diaries of a WWII Combat Historian. University Press of Kentucky, 2001. ISBN0-8131-2216-3
"The Genesis of The Supreme Command: Personal Impressions of Eisenhower the General" in Eisenhower: A Centenary Assessment. Günter Bischof and Stephen E. Ambrose, eds. Louisiana State University Press, 1995. ISBN0807119423
Command Decisions. Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed. Center of Military History, Department of the Army, 1960.
Total War and Cold War. Proceedings of the Conference on Civil-Military Relations (1959, Ohio State University, Columbus). Harry Lewis Coles, ed. Ohio State University Press, 1962.
D-Day: The Normandy Invasion in Retrospect. Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, University Press of Kansas, 1971.
Four-volume authorized biography of General George Marshall, Viking, 1963–87:
George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 1880–1939
George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1943
George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943–1945
