Edwin F. Harding - Later Commands

Later Commands

MacArthur had initially promised Harding a new assignment elsewhere in the Southwest Pacific, but Harding was recalled to the United States a few weeks later. In 1943, he was made Commander of the Mobile Force in the Panama Canal Zone, and in 1944 Commander of the Antilles Department in the Caribbean, an unimportant assignment comprising 20 forts, camps and fields in the lesser islands from Cuba, Haiti, Costa Rica to Aruba, and portions of northern South America. In 1945, he was made Director of the Historical Division at the War Department for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There he oversaw the planning of the Army's comprehensive history of World War II. He submitted a plan on December 18, 1945, in which he estimated that the full historical series would contain about 120 volumes, although only 101 of them were described.

Harding retired after 37 years of military service in 1946.