This is the official history published by the U.S. Army's Center of Military History. The volumes produced in the United States Army in World War II series represent one of the most ambitious historical writing projects ever conducted. Popularly known as the "Green Books," the series itself constitutes but a fraction of the historical material available on World War II. A broad foundation of records and recollections, carefully documented and annotated in the footnotes of each volume, supports the entire series.

The Green Books of the United States Army in World War II constitute the official history of the U.S. Army. The series was published by the Government Printing Office, and individual volumes are still available from that agency. While the other services do not have anything directly comparable to the Green Books, each has produced or sponsored a service history which covers World War II.

The Navy's semiofficial history of the war was written under an arrangement with Samuel Eliot Morison, at the time professor of history at Harvard University. His History of Naval Operations in World War II, published by Boston's Little, Brown and Company in fifteen volumes, is based primarily on official records. The activities of the Air Force are covered in The Army Air Forces in World War II, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The multi-volume series was originally published by the University of Chicago Press and is now available through the Government Printing Office. A five-volume History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II has also been published by the Government Printing Office.