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Asked about the difference between military and civilian life, and the transition that had to be made between the two by many thousands of servicemen, Ambrose fully understood the affection many had for their Army days: ?The biggest thing war does is give young men experiences and friendships that were just critically important to their lives and that they would never have had otherwise,? he once said. ?But basically, war?s just a goddamned waste of time.?
Ambrose, who spent much of his teaching career at the University of New Orleans, founded the D-Day Museum as a way to exhibit the numerous artefacts entrusted to him by the many veterans he interviewed for his books. It began as a project initially meant for the campus, but turned into a $30 million exhibit in a converted warehouse. The museum, which opened on June 6, 2000, recorded nearly 340,000 visits in its first year. He also founded the Eisenhower Centre for American Studies at New Orleans.
Through his writing Ambrose also explored numerous other aspects of American history including the Transcontinental Railroad and the Lewis and Clark expeditions of the American West.
Many historians were jealous of his success, while others refused to take such a popular author seriously. Earlier this year he was engaged in a minor spat when he was forced to defend himself from charges of plagiarism. Although passages in several of his books were credited in footnotes, his mistake had been to fail to put them in quotation marks.
His last project, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian, was an autobiographical tome which in many ways embodied Ambrose?s transformation from left-wing demonstrator to super-patriot. ?I want to tell all the things that are right about America,? he said in May. It is due to be published next month.
Stephen Ambrose was three times married. His first wife was Judith Dorlester. In 1957 he married Betty Stansbury. She died in 1966. Two years later he married Moira Buckley, who survives him, as do their three children. He also had two children by his second wife.
Stephen E. Ambrose, author and historian, was born in Whitewater, Wisconsin, on January 10,1936. He died of lung cancer in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, on October 13, 2002, aged 66.
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