Trevor N. Dupuy


Trevor Nevitt Dupuy was a colonel in the United States Army and a noted military historian.

Early life

Born in Staten Island, New York, the son of accomplished illustrator and artist, Laura Nevitt Dupuy, and noted military historian, R. Ernest Dupuy, Trevor Dupuy followed in his father's footsteps.

Military career

Trevor Dupuy attended West Point, graduating in the class of 1938. During World War II he commanded a U.S. Army artillery battalion, a Chinese artillery group, and an artillery detachment from the British 36th Infantry Division. He was always proud of the fact that he had more combat time in Burma than any other American, and received decorations for service or valour from the U.S., British, and Chinese governments. After the war Dupuy served in the United States Department of Defense Operations Division from 1945 to 1947, and as military assistant to the Under Secretary of the Army from 1947 to 1948. He was a member of the original Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe staff in Paris under Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Matthew Ridgway from 1950 to 1952.
It is as a military historian and a theorist that Trevor Dupuy would make a lasting mark on the world. He is perhaps best known for his massive book The Encyclopedia Of Military History. Starting from the beginning of history and going up the present day the book tries to cover all the major military conflicts in world history. Usually each entry gives little more than the names of the commanders and very rough estimates for the size of the forces involved in the campaigns. Dupuy was not afraid of expressing an opinion and he classified some of his subjects as Great Captains. The book focuses mainly on the American and Western European experiences but offers some coverage of other regions of the world. The Encyclopedia Of Military History has been revised several times, most recently in 1993. It can be found in the reference section of most American libraries.

Academic and research career

After Dupuy left active service in the Army in 1952, Harvard University appointed him as a Professor of Military Science and Tactics, where he helped found the Harvard Defense Studies Program. He left Harvard in 1956 to become director of the program in military studies at The Ohio State University. After retiring from active military duty in 1958, he served as a visiting professor in the International Relations Program at Rangoon University in Burma. From 1960 to 1962 Dupuy worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses, a government-funded think tank.
In 1962 he formed the first of his research companies dedicated to the study and analysis of armed conflict, the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization, and served as President and Executive Director until 1983. From 1967 to 1983 he was also President of T. N. Dupuy Associates Inc., which became the parent organization for HERO. In 1983, TNDA sold its assets to a new corporation he formed called Data Memory Systems, Inc.. Trevor was the president and largest stockholder in DMSI. In 1990, Dupuy resigned from DMSI, sold his stock and reactivated TNDA. In 1992 TNDA was closed out, and he established the non-profit The Dupuy Institute.
Dupuy's main contribution to military operation analysis is the assessment method Quantified Judgment Method or QJM, where the outcome of a battle is predicted using a fairly complicated multiplicative-additive formula in which various factors relating to the strength and firepower of the fighting parties as well as the circumstances are taken into account. Dupuy and his associates adjusted the parameters of his model by using known statistical facts of several recorded battles.

Family life and death

Dupuy committed suicide by gunshot at his home in Vienna, Virginia on June 5, 1995; he had learned three weeks earlier that he had terminal pancreatic cancer. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. During his lifetime he wrote or co-wrote more than 50 books.
When he died, he had been married five times. He fathered nine children – six boys and three girls.

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