The HERO Library

The first research library that I was aware of that was broken up and scattered was Trevor Dupuy’s library that was kept at HERO/DMSI (HERO was a division of DMSI at this stage).

One has to talk corporate structure here for a moment. HERO (Historical Evaluation Research Organization) had been established and built up by Trevor Dupuy. In an attempt to expand the business, he created a company called DMSI (Data Memory Systems Incorporated) of which he was just one of the owners (although with about 40% of the stock). In 1987-1989 period, the U.S. defense spending reached it peaked as did DMSI, which had 25 employees. With Glasnost, Perestroika, the Warsaw Pact dissolving and finally the Soviet Union collapsing in 1991, the defense budget collapsed. In the resulting collapse, so to did DMSI. With the business crashing, Trevor Dupuy having a falling out with the other management and quit his own company.

DMSI/HERO had an extensive library and an extensive collection of research files, dating back to its founding in 1962. They even had share library privileges with the Library of Congress due to some unique material in the HERO library. The library took up a large room and there were file cabinets full of research files.

This library was broken up. First, Trevor Dupuy took the report file he kept in his office with him. This was the entire collection of 120+ reports written by HERO. Those eventually ended up at TDI (The Dupuy Institute). The library remained at DMSI, except for those books that the Dupuy family took from the library, which I gather was considerable. These are still in the hands of the Dupuy family. Then DMSI went out of business around 1993, and the remaining files and library were scattered. The employees were invited to take what they wanted out of the files. After that, one employee decided to rescue the files that he thought were important and moved them to his barn in rural Virginia. These included most (but not all) of the Ardennes files and Grace Hayes files (the original VP of research at HERO). A few years later, we arranged with that ex-employee to reclaim the files and he graciously brought them to our office from his barn. After we blew the dust, dirt, hay and mouse droppings from them, we then refiled them at TDI. The files taken by other employees were not recovered. Most of the remaining library was taken by a principal at the company and moved to his basement. They were used for his business for a while. Eventually, he needed to clean his basement and the “HERO Library” ceased to exist.

We were able to save most of the critical files, meaning the reports, most of the Ardennes files and the Grace Hayes files. The rest was lost, which was a shame, although not overwhelmingly critical. Still, the process got my attention and this is potentially a problem with any private company. Unless someone goes through some extra-ordinary process to preserve the files and libraries of their work, then when a private company collapses (which most do at some point), those files are lost. I am aware of several other cases like this.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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