James Lawton Collins Jr.

James Lawton Collins Jr. (5 November 1917 – 6 May 2002) was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, a military historian, and a viticulturist. He was the son of Major General James Lawton Collins, nephew of General J. Lawton Collins, who served as Chief of Staff of the Army during the Korean War, and older brother of Apollo 11 astronaut Major General Michael Collins. He led a North Dakota National Guard artillery battalion in Normandy in 1944, and served as the U.S. Army Chief of Military History from 1970 to 1982.

Early life James Lawton Collins Jr. was born in El Paso, Texas, on 5 November 1917, to James Lawton Collins (1882–1963), a U.S. Army officer, and his wife Virginia C. Collins ( Stewart; 1895–1986). He had two younger sisters, Virginia and Agnes, and a younger brother, Michael (1930–2021). Joseph Lawton Collins (1896–1987), who served as Chief of Staff of the Army during the Korean War, was his uncle.

Collins retired from the Army as a brigadier general in 1969, but was recalled to active duty as Chief of Military History. As such, he oversaw the production of a wide range of works on American military history. His works include War in Peacetime: The History and Lessons of Korea (1969), The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972 (1975), Allied Participation in Vietnam (1975), The History of World War II (1979), War in Peace: The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of Postwar Conflict (1985), Israeli Paras (1986), and A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History (2000). He teamed up with British historian David G. Chandler to produce the D-Day Encyclopedia (1994). He was president of the U.S. Commission on Military History and the Council on America's Military Past. He was also a member of the International Commission of Military Historians that investigated the wartime of Kurt Waldheim, former President of Austria and Secretary-General of the United Nations.

He and his wife Yolande de Mauduit Collins, the daughter of Georges, Vicomte de Mauduit, had four children: Corrine, Sharon, Suzanne and James Lawton Collins III. The Brigadier General James L. Collins Book Prize for Military History was named in his honor.