Col. Trevor Dupuy; Military Historian, Author

Retired U.S. Army Col. Trevor Nevitt Dupuy, noted military historian and educator who wrote more than 100 books on all aspects of military affairs, has died.

He was 79.

Dupuy died Monday at his home in Vienna, Va.

Among his books were “Hitler’s Last Gamble,” “The Compact History of the Civil War,” “Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars 1947-74,” and popular multivolume series on the military history of World War I and World War II.

His extensive knowledge of military history and theory, as well as his combat experience in World War II, made Dupuy a respected voice at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and in the media.

Born May 3, 1919, in New York City to a military family, Dupuy spent his childhood in numerous American and European cities.

He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1938, served in World War II from 1943-45 and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel at age 27, the youngest in the Army at that time.

He received numerous combat decorations, including the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and Britain’s Distinguished Service Order, the highest decoration that can be awarded to a foreigner.

Dupuy taught at Harvard University and Ohio State University and was a visiting professor at Rangoon University in Burma.

In the mid-1970s he began to develop his methodology for forecasting battlefield attrition and materiel losses, which eventually became a full-blown computer combat forecast module, the Quantified Judgment Model.

Using the model, Dupuy accurately predicted before the Gulf War that the U.S. and its allies would suffer fewer than 1,800 casualties and that the war would last no longer than 42 days.

He is survived by nine children. Funeral services will be held Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.