Category Archives: History

December 5, 2009 · 03:25

The Paradox of Conflicting Doctrine: The US Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945

The Paradox

The paradox of the American Army’s training in speed and mobility and the strategic tradition of U.S. Grant influenced the final campaign in Germany just as they had the campaign in France. This is one of the Russell Weigley in Eisenhower’s Lieutenants asserts that the American strategic tradition of U.S. Grant emphasized direct confrontation and defeat of the enemy’s major forces. He asserts the development of this tradition by officers assigned to the Leavenworth schools was influenced by the Civil War and World War One and the Army’s experience as a frontier constabulary force. He develops this theory alongside his discussion of the formation of the highly mobile and less powerful forces that the Army would deploy in World War Two and how this paradoxical combination of doctrine and force determined by conflicting legacies “put the army at cross purposes with itself…as it began to prepare for European War.”[i]

Crossing the Siegfried Line

The dogma of the Leavenworth School emphasized that “victory in large-scale war depends on a strategy of direct confrontation with the enemy’s main forces in order to destroy them.”[ii] This was not in itself different than the thought of contemporary European armies influenced by Clausewitz; but the Americans differed from the Europeans “in the extent to which they expected overwhelming power alone, without subtleties of maneuver, to achieve the objective.”[iii] The tradition developed from an emphasis on Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign in Virginia which understood that Grant had “defeated the armies of the Confederacy through head on assault by overwhelming strength to destroy them, so that in any future great war the United States would seek the destruction of the enemy armed forces by similar means.”[iv] It is perplexing that the Army failed to truly appreciate William Tecumseh Sherman’s use of strategic maneuver on the offense with the goal of destroying the enemy’s army. The fact that the Army failed to incorporate those lessons into its strategic thought, even as it built forces that were better suited to Sherman’s campaign is one of the contradictions of American military thought.[v]

Grant’s tradition was put into practice by Pershing in World War One to the extent that he could influence allied strategy, with mixed results.[vi] The reduction of the St Michel Salient and Meuse-Argonne offensive, though aided by German withdraws and achieved with high casualties, helped convince the Germans that the war was lost.[vii] “Only in late 1918 did the veteran American divisions show the same degree of tactical skill as their Allied and German counterparts, and the lessons came by bloody experience.”[viii] Pershing’s campaigns were bloody, but they came at a when maneuver had again become part of the war, and at the point where the Germans were beginning to collapse. George Marshall warned about “generalizing about modern warfare from their 1918 experiences against a German army already stumbling into exhaustion.”[ix] Yet for “the American military, the First World War confirmed the doctrines of concentration and of fighting for complete victory, and out of the battlefields of Europe came the foundations of strategic faith….”[x] Weigley notes that: “In strategy, most American soldiers believed, the modern mass army left frontal assault as the only recourse.”[xi]

While Grant’s tradition remained a dominant feature of American strategic thought, the Army was becoming a mobile army whose divisions were to be “tough and lean.”[xii] General Leslie McNair reorganized the structure of the infantry division and later that of the armored divisions. The heavy “square” infantry division of the First World War was reorganized with three infantry regiments and supporting elements and was characterized by its mobility than its sustained combat power. McNair reorganized the armored divisions into lighter, though extremely flexible organizations built around the “Combat Command” and the tank was viewed as viewed as an instrument of exploitation, not a means to defeat enemy armor. The result was an army formed “upon the principle of mobility and its lack of sustained combat power…did not serve it so well when it faced resolute and skillful enemies in strong defensive positions….”[xiii]

The new divisional structures were both mobile and flexible but in the context of the European campaign were wanting in sustained combat power. Peter Mansoor comments that divisions “literally fought themselves out in constant operations.”[xiv] At the same time he takes issue with Weigley on the staying power of U.S. divisions commenting on the efficiency of the American individual replacement system.[xv] A U.S. Army study commented that in direct assaults against a emplaced enemy that “heavy casualties in such operations were more than the triangular division could sustain, with the result that the entire division was often rendered combat ineffective….”[xvi] McNair’s reorganization ignored General Chaffee’s 1941 admonition that armor must be organized into corps and employed in mass using not “hundreds but thousands of tanks…” calling the failure to train and organize “an adequate number of command echelons and corps troops to ensure proper employment and timely supply for these larger armored formations in active operation is indefensible.”[xvii]

To further complicate the American situation, the application of Grant’s tradition failed to take into account the principle of mass or concentration, which was vital to the success of a strategy of direct confrontation. The theory demanded that the Americans have enough troops divisions to keep up pressure everywhere. Grant had such power at his disposal, Eisenhower did not. The thought that “if the United States applied its superior power everywhere it must be able to rupture the defenses somewhere,”[xviii] was dominant. But to be successful it required overwhelming superiority in numbers and firepower. This strategy was in conflict with the Army that the Americans built to pursue the war, and in conflict with one of the more influential prewar American thesis on the subject, Infantry in Battle. This treatise stated:

“Generalship consists at being stronger at the decisive point-having three men there to attack one. If we attempt to spread out so as to be strong everywhere, we shall end up being weak everywhere. To have real main effort-and every attack and attack unit should have one- we must be prepared to risk extreme weakness elsewhere.”[xix]

It was an army designed for Sherman’s campaigns in Georgia and the Carolina’s, not Grant’s Virginia campaign. It was best suited to campaigns of strategic maneuver and concentration rather than frontal assaults along a broad front. Its organization called for this and this fact was recognized before the war.[xx] Weigley notes that the “paradoxical commitment to a power drive strategy of head-on assault in an army shaped for mobility further contributed to the prolonging of the war by undermining the possible uses of mobility itself.”[xxi]

The theory of Grant, espoused by the Leavenworth school is fine there are sufficient forces to make it work. General McNair and Army planners initially planned for an Army of over 200 divisions. Such an army would have been able to execute the strategy without the problems experienced by the Allies in 1944 and 1945. Unfortunately the American Army was afflicted by the War Department’s decision in 1943 to limit the Army to 90 divisions.[xxii] The limitation on the number of divisions ensured that it would be “difficult or impossible once the battle of France was launched to rotate them out of line for rest or refitting.”[xxiii] This became a key consideration of allied planning by late 1944 because once the existing divisions were deployed to Europe or the Pacific there were no more to replace them. Drastic measures were taken to increase the number of infantry troops by speeding up the movement of the last available divisions to Europe and by combing troops out of the COMMZ and from the Army Air Force.[xxiv] Training programs were put in place to train tank crews and junior officers. Yet, these programs did not begin to put significant numbers of replacements into the line until March 1945.[xxv] Mansoor, a critic of Weigley, agrees with him on many points and notes that the “90 division gamble was a decision that cost the lives of numerous servicemen-primarily infantry replacements-in Europe in 1944 and 1945.”[xxvi] The decision to limit the number of divisions forced Eisenhower into a position where he frequently faced an equivalent number of German divisions to those that he could employ. This would be the case in at the beginning of 1945 despite the steady erosion of the German forces arrayed before him.

Leadership, Strategy and Tactics and the Performance of the Army

The Germans Employed the Jagdtiger in Small Numbers Against the American Onslaught

After the Bulge the Allies began their push to the Rhine. Eisenhower “interpreted the Ardennes as confirming the necessity for his broad front strategy, particularly in closing up to the Rhine all the way to Switzerland.”[xxvii] Hastings notes that the Wehrmacht “retained psychological dominance on the battlefield,”[xxviii] and that “Allied commanders remained fearful about exposing their flanks in attack, even when the Germans no longer possessed the resources or mobility to intervene with conviction.”[xxix] In many places GIs and their British counterparts in Montgomery’s 21^st Army Group failed to take the initiative and often the Allied commanders “expressed dismay about the lack of aggression shown by their troops.”[xxx] Gavin noted in his diary that: “With better troops, I see no reason why we could not run all over them…Our American army means well and tries hard, but….it is untrained and inefficient… certainly our infantry lacks courage and élan.”[xxxi] Despite this the Allied armies, in particular the Americans, made headway and in many places when well led performed admirably.

The Eifel

Following the reduction of the Bulge Eisenhower allowed Bradley to begin to break the West Wall in the Eifel. After the attack began Eisenhower stopped Bradley short of a breakthrough in order to shift weight of the offensive to Montgomery in the north ordering 12^th Army Group to revert to the defensive. Yet, Eisenhower allowed Bradley a “measure of freedom for limited attacks,”[xxxii] and Patton termed his “operations in the Eifel an “aggressive defense.””[xxxiii] The campaign was primary conducted against oddments of a number of Volksgrenadier divisions of 7^th Army.

First Army was diverted on February 1^st after making good progress in the Eifel to safeguard the right flank of 9^th Army by capturing the Roer dams. Hastings notes that a “more flexible and imaginative commander-or one unconstrained by the demands of inter-allied relations-would have allowed Hodges forces to keep going to the river and delayed Montgomery for the necessary few days.”[xxxiv] However Bradley felt that Eisenhower “had little choice but to accede to Montgomery’s demand.”[xxxv] Bradley allowed 3^rd Army to continue “probing attacks,” and 3^rd Army advanced across the Eifel breaking through the West Wall at Prüm and Bitburg. For the first time the enemy showed “cracks in the admirable cohesion and discipline of the German army.”[xxxvi] Aggressive units of Patton’s 3^rd Army were rewarded with dramatic advances. 4^th Armored Division in “one bound covered 25 miles, taking 5,000 prisoners and killing several hundred Germans for the loss of 111 of its own men,”[xxxvii] and 10^th Armored took Trier on 14 March. Patton called the campaign “a long hard fought fight with many river crossings, much bad weather, and a great deal of luck.”[xxxviii] Despite this there were problems in some formations. Hastings recounts how a platoon leader in a VII Corps unit told his commander during a crossing of the Sauer River that “These men have had it sir! They won’t budge for me or anybody else….”[xxxix]The G-3 of 6^th Armored division noted that “some of our divisions are too sensitive to their flanks…the result of this is timidity…”[xl]

The Roer Dams, Grenade and Lumberjack

1^st Army supported 9^th Army by capturing the Roer river dams in preparation of Grenade. The inexperienced 78^th Division was able to secure the dams with help from the veteran 9^th Division, though not before the Germans had destroyed the release valves to “flood the Roer valley for about two weeks.”[xli] This delayed the start of Grenade but the Americans finally captured a prize that had eluded them the previous fall. The one truly notable aspect of this campaign was the continued erratic leadership of Hodges. Gavin called it “impatient” and it nearly cost the Commanding General of 78^th division his command. Bradley’s aide, Major Hanson remarked that Hodges “was near exhaustion.”[xlii]

9^th Army’s attack was conducted in concert with Operation Veritable of 2^nd Canadian Army. The plan was that the two armies would clear the area west of the Rhine destroying as much of the enemy as possible in preparation for the crossing of the river. As such 9^th Army remained under the operational control of Montgomery’s 21^st Army Group. 9^th Army crossed the Roer, hampered by the high waters and German resistance but captured Düren and München-Gladbach and closed up to the Rhine. The “rapid build-up enabled Simpson to maintain intense pressure and on the last Day of February his armor broke away.”[xliii] 9^th Army met up with the Canadians eliminated elements of the German Army that remained west of the river. 9^th Army took over 30,000 prisoners and killed an estimated 6,000, but substantial numbers were evacuated by skillful German commanders.[xliv] The greatest disappointment was that Grenade failed to capture any bridges over the Rhine. Montgomery turned down Simpson’s request to make a fast crossing of the Rhine at Urdingen, where there were few German troops.[xlv]

South of 9^th Army the 1^st and 3^rd Armies launched Operation Lumberjack to attempt to envelope the German forces west of the Rhine in its sector in similar fashion to Grenade-Veritable. Facing weak German forces 1^st Army made good progress capturing Cologne on March 5^th. 3^rd Army’s advance was exceptional. Its plan to cut off the Germans on the west bank worked almost to perfection despite poor roads, snow and the opposition of the 2^nd Panzer Division.[xlvi] General Gaffney’s 4^th Armored division, drove 40 air miles, captured 5,000 prisoners killed another 700 Germans, capturing much equipment with the loss of only 29 men killed.[xlvii] Bradley called the division’s performance “the most insolent armored blitz of the Western war.”[xlviii] Patton’s armor covered “56 miles in three days to reach the Rhine near its confluence with the Moselle.”[xlix] For the first time “senior officers and headquarters fell into the American bag,”[l] including the command post of LXVI Corps and the commander of LIII Corps. In these operations the bold use of maneuver and concentration by Simpson, Hodges and especially Patton exploited the natural strengths of their formations to achieve their objectives.

Remagen

Remagen Bridge

1^st Army’s swift advance and the chaos wreaked by Patton’s army led to the only instance in the campaign where the Allies captured a bridge over the Rhine intact. The Ludendorff railway bridge at Remagen remained and on 7 March 9^th Armored division detached a task force from CCB to take the bridge before it could be blown. This force surprised the Germans and reached Remagen by 1300. General Hoge, hero of St. Vith, arrived quickly and ordered the capture the bridge as quickly as possible.[li] Hoge ignored orders to divert most of his troops to another crossing of the Ahr River and without orders “threw the rest of his armored infantry across the Rhine….”[lii] “In spite of the threat of the bridge being blown by the fleeing Germans, bold action by American infantry and engineers captured the bridge and established a bridgehead over the Rhine by 1630. III Corps ordered 9^th Armored division to “exploit the opportunity,”[liii] and “within 24 hours they had 8,000 men across.”[liv] Hodges exploited the opportunity and pushed the 9^th, 78^th and 99^th divisions across the river where they continued to enlarge the bridgehead while fighting off fierce German counter-attacks. By 24 March 1^st Army had “three corps, six infantry divisions, and three armored divisions across the Rhine River.”[lv] The best German formations “arrived piecemeal and spent themselves in the same way, mustering only limited, scattered counterattacks instead of any major blow.”[lvi]

The Remagen crossing was not welcomed by all and restrictions were placed on 1^st Army as it enlarged the bridgehead. Carlo D’ Este saw Remagen as “typical of the lack of connection between SHAEF and its subordinate elements.”[lvii] “Pinky” Bull, the SHAEF G-3 was at Bradley’s headquarters when the Bradley was informed of the crossing. Bull told Bradley that the Remagen crossing “just doesn’t fit in with the plan.”[lviii] Bradley recalled telling Bull: “What the hell do you want us to do,” I asked him, “pull back and blow it up?”[lix] During the next few days however “Bull’s unbending skepticism infected Eisenhower himself.”[lx] And by March 9^th Bull informed Bradley that Eisenhower “did not want the Remagen bridgehead expanded beyond the ability of five divisions to defend it.”[lxi] The decision to favor Montgomery’s crossing of the Rhine by detaching divisions from 12^th Army Group to support it caused consternation among Bradley and his commanders who feared that Montgomery would “use most of the divisions on the Western Front, British and American, for an attack on the Rhine plains…and the First and Third Armies be left out on a limb.”[lxii] Liddell-Hart noted that the order was “all the more resented because the U.S. Ninth Army…four days earlier, had been stopped by Montgomery from trying to cross the river immediately, as its commander, Simpson, desired and urged.”[lxiii]

Patton’s 3rd Army Crossed the Rhine on the Fly at Oppenheim

Remagen’s aftermath showed Eisenhower’s continued commitment to the broad front, to closing up to the Rhine along its entire length, and his inordinate fear of German counter-stokes. He remained “fearful that, as long as some German forces survived on the Western side of the Rhine, the potential existed for another potential unpleasant surprise, a counter-attack across an exposed American flank.”[lxiv] The facts belied the situation and Model, commander of Army Group B “had not only given up on trying to eliminate the American bridgehead at Remagen but had covertly begun ordering large elements of Army Group B to evacuate the Rhine and cross the river.”[lxv] This decision resulted “in a lost opportunity to have established a larger bridgehead across the Rhine.”[lxvi] It was another example of Eisenhower’s failure to exploit opportunity when it presented itself and of a desire more to not lose the war than to win it. Despite this “Remagen bridge was one of the great sagas of the war and an example of inspired leadership.”[lxvii] Wilmont called it “a brilliant coup,”[lxviii] a thought echoed by Liddell-Hart.[lxix] The German response to rush numerous units to contain the bridgehead made the Allies task when they crossed the Rhine at other points “much easier than they had anticipated.”[lxx]

Patton’s Saar-Palatinate Campaign

Patton’s 3^rd Army attacked the Saar-Palatinate in concert with the 7^th Army with the intent of assailing the West Wall from the rear and trapping the remnant of the German Seventh Army and the German First Army. 7^th Army assaulted the West Wall while Patton’s army began its assault on 13 March with the XII and XX Corps attacking into scattered German resistance. With the infantry making the breakthrough both corps unleashed their armored divisions in an exploitation role. Patton’s attack was so successful that he was allowed to adjust his assault to carry it into 7^th Army’s zone to encircle the collapsing German Army. In an unusual command and control move Devers of the 6^th Army Group gave Patch and Patton “the authority to communicate directly with each other, bypassing their different army group headquarters.”[lxxi] Large scale surrenders began to take place for the first time, including that of 3 Volksgrenadier divisions and the remnants of 2^nd Panzer division.[lxxii]

US Soldier Standing Watch over Disabled Jagdtiger

Patton was urged on by Bradley, who warned him about “the danger of losing his divisions to Montgomery if he did not secure a Rhine crossing.”[lxxiii] Patton got his engineers and bridging equipment up quickly and Bradley ordered him to “take the Rhine on the run.”[lxxiv] On March 19^th alone the Third Army overran more than 950 square miles of territory.”[lxxv] Third Army “cleaned up the west bank of the Rhine all the way south to Worms and Speyer; Third and Seventh Armies claimed well over 100,000 German prisoners in the victory.”[lxxvi] On the 22^nd Third Army launched the 5^th Infantry division across the Rhine at Nierstein and Oppenheim, surprising the Germans and beating Montgomery across the Rhine. Patton called Bradley: “Brad, for God’s sake tell the world we’re across…I want the world to know that Third Army made it before Monty.”[lxxvii] Weigley notes in this campaign “the American army’s sharpening instinct for the jugular,” and that it was a model “of not only how to gain ground of not only how to gain ground but to destroy enemy forces.”[lxxviii]

Plunder

9^th Army and Allied Airborne forces participated in 21^st Army Group’s grand set-piece crossing of the Rhine on 23 March. The attack had been prepared for weeks by Montgomery and more resembled an amphibious operation than a river crossing. The attack employed 25 divisions supported by 3,000 guns with maximum air support and naval amphibious units. Opposing the Army group were “five weak and exhausted German divisions”[lxxix] of 1^st Parachute Army. The assault cost 9^th Army thirty casualties. Montgomery also employed the American 17^th and 6^th British Airborne divisions in Operation Varsity which was the largest single day airborne operation of the war. Over 21,000 paratroops were dropped or air-landed in gliders into the face of heavy flak. Numerous troop transport planes and gliders were lost. The operation was of doubtful utility, ground forces were already well on their way to the objective the paratroops were landed on and the operation had a heavy cost, 17^th Airborne took “some 1500 casualties, including 159 killed.” And 6^th Airborne lost another 1400.[lxxx]

The Ruhr Pocket and the Decision to Stop on the Elbe

The last major operation in the West following the breakouts from the bridgeheads over the Rhine was the encirclement and reduction of the Ruhr pocket. This operation involved the 9^th Army and 1^st Army. The 3^rd Army continued its operations east and south toward Nurnberg. Bradley, his blood stirred by the large numbers of prisoners taken in the Saar, Palatinate and Rhineland now became addicted by the completion of envelopments and he told his staff as “he shifted Hodges’ direction toward a meeting with Simpson encircling the Ruhr: “I’ve got bags on my mind.””[lxxxi] The Army Group completed the encirclement and reduced the pocket by April 18^th. Two Army commanders, Von Zangen of 15^th Army and Harpe of 5^th Panzer Army as well as 25 other Generals and Admirals were caught in the American net. Vaunted formations such as Panzer Lehr and 116^th Panzer were among the 317,000 German prisoners taken by the Army Group. XVII Corps alone captured 160,000 prisoners.[lxxxii] Field Marshal Model, the commander of Army Group B took his own life on the 21^st. The one setback during the battle was during the spirited advance of the 3^rd Armored division to Paderborn a task force ran into a Kampfgrüppe of King Tigers manned by Waffen SS Panzer training students stopped them with heavy losses.[lxxxiii] To make matters worse the 3^rd Armored Division Commanding General, Maurice Rose was killed when his jeep encountered Tigers and a jittery German Panzertroop shot him when he removed his pistol attempting to surrender.[lxxxiv]

Despite the great number of prisoners taken and the elimination of the bulk of the Wehrmacht in the West the battle detracted from what had been hereto the overriding goal of the campaign, the capture of Berlin.[lxxxv] The reasons for this were twofold. At the Army Group level Bradley was determined to engage as many of his troops as possible so they would not be sucked into any offensive commanded by Montgomery who continued to clamor for control of American troops to make the final drive for Berlin. Eisenhower supported Bradley’s decision as he believed “that the Western Allies no longer had much chance of capturing “the main prize,” Berlin, anyway.”[lxxxvi] Weigley suggests that a better purpose for the troops that Bradley used to reduce the Ruhr pocket would have been to us them to aid 9^th Army’s drive toward Berlin which was already closing on the Elbe. With the reuniting of the 1^st and 9^th Armies Bradley was poised to begin his drive to Berlin with the largest field command in American history.[lxxxvii]

US Vehicles Driving Towards Kassel

The second reason was that Eisenhower had made a decision based on political and tactical considerations to shift the focus of the Allied effort from Berlin to Dresden and Leipzig yet not completely ruling out an advance toward Berlin.[lxxxviii] Attempts by 9^th Army to drive toward Berlin were frustrated by unexpected German resistance to its bridgeheads over the Elbe. On the 15^th of April Simpson flew to Bradley’s headquarters to propose an attack on Berlin. Bradley called Eisenhower who on hearing Bradley’s estimate of 100,000 casualties to take the city elected not to continue the attack towards Berlin.[lxxxix] Eisenhower had now concluded “that the National Redoubt was now over more importance than Berlin,”[xc] and directed Patton and Devers to secure it. Patton and Simpson were both incredulous at the decision and felt that it was “a terrible mistake.” Patton felt 9^th Army could take Berlin in 48 hours.[xci] In a similar vein Patton’s move into Czechoslovakia was halted before Prague.

Overage German Recruits Captured by US Forces

Eisenhower’s decision was political and tactical and was supported by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff;[xcii] Berlin would be in the Soviet zone even if he took it. Hastings sates the decision was “surely the correct one” noting that nothing could change the post-war settlement.[xciii] Murray and Millett agree.[xciv]Others such as J.F.C. Fuller felt that the political decisions had turned the fruits of victory “into the apples of Sodom, which turned to ashes as soon as they were plucked,”[xcv] leaving Eastern and Central Europe under the control of the Soviets. D’ Este notes that no matter what was decided that Eisenhower’s “hands were already tied by the agreement of the Big Three agreement over the division of occupied Germany.”[xcvi] In the end there may have been a political advantage to taking Berlin before the Soviets, but as Hastings notes: “It is hard to see how this could have been prevented, given the Western Allies sluggish conduct of the war.”[xcvii] This was the fault of both the British and Americans and this was in fact as much a part of the final settlement in Europe as any decision made in the final weeks of the war.

In retrospect one can see the historical consequences of Eisenhower’s decision, but how much that decision was influenced by the way the American Army’s organization and conduct for war is seldom mentioned. Perhaps had Eisenhower had the 200 plus divisions envisioned by the Victory plan, or had he been bolder and abandoned the broad front strategy inherited from Grant, history might be different today. There are always results. One should not devise strategies for the conduct of war that do not match up with the forces that you plan to employ. Organization, training and equipment must be designed for the type of war one intends to fight and are just as important as a grand strategy. This was the lesson of the American involvement in the European campaign. The American Army succeed in spite of the restraints that its leadership and saddled it with. The final campaign in Germany showed that at least parts of it had learned the hard lessons of war and could conduct a highly successful campaign.

Handshake on the Elbe: US and Red Army Troops Meeting

[i] Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1981. p.2.

[ii] Ibid. p.728

[iii] Ibid. p.4.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] See Weigley’s article American Strategy, in Peter Paret’s Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Paret, Peter, editor. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1986 pp.434-436.

[vi] See Keene, Jennifer D. Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America. The John’s Hopkins University Press. Baltimore,MD. 2001. pp.42-44. Keene notes the results of the AEF’s training and Pershing’s organization and employment of the Army in WWI. The similarities to the American experience in WWII are startling. A comment of George Marshall after the war that: “Officers leading their men into battle, abandoned tactical maneuvering in favor of “steamroller operations” that forced men to keep going until exhaustion stopped them…” reminds one of the Huertgen Forrest. Likewise a similar situation arose in regard to training. Other comments are that the infantry was not well trained and that “many troops resisted advancing without artillery support….”

[vii] Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918. Arnold a Member of the Hodder Headline Group, London England 1998. p.424.

[viii] Millett, Allen R. and Maslowski, Peter. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. The Free Press, New York 1984. p.349.

[ix] Ibid. Weigley. p.25

[x] Matloff, Maurice Allied Strategy in Europe in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Paret, Peter, editor. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1986 p.696.

[xi] Ibid. Weigley. p.5

[xii] Ibid. Weigley. p.23

[xiii] Ibid. p.728

[xiv] Mansoor, Peter R. The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divsions 1941-1945. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KS. 1999 p.31.

[xv] Ibid. pp.253-254. Mansoor is the only historian that I have ever seen defend this system. Even Stephan Ambrose who generally leads the cheering section for the American Army in WWII condemned the system, which Mansoor admits in his account.

[xvi] Gabel, Christopher R. The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview September-December 1944. U.S. Army Command and Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth KS 1985. pp.34-35.

[xvii] Chaffee, Adna R. Mechanization in the Army, Statement to Congress, April 1941. p.19. Combined Arms Research Library, Digital Library http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/contentdm/home.htm

[xviii] Ibid. p.6.

[xix] _________Infantry in Battle 2^nd Edition The Infantry Journal Incorporated, Washington DC 1939. p.68

[xx] See Chaffee and Infantry in Battle. Likewise this was echoed in S.L.A. Marshall’s book Armies on Wheels, William and Morrow Company, New York, NY 1941.

[xxi] Ibid. p.729.

[xxii] Ibid. p.14

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid. p.662-663. Initially, 21,000 troops were taken from the COMMZ and 10,000 were directed to be transferred from the AAF. Additionally 2,253 black troops were formed into 37 platoons and distributed among the divisions of 12^th and 6^th Army Groups.

[xxv] Ibid. p.664. The efforts were successful and by April there was a surplus of 50,000 infantry soldiers beyond reported shortages, despite the fact that no more American or British divisions were available for deployment to the continent.

[xxvi] Ibid. Mansoor,

[xxvii] Ibid. Weigley. p.578

[xxviii] Hastings, Max. Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 Alfred A Knopf, New York NY 2004 p.340.

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Ibid. Hastings. p.340

[xxxi] Ibid. p.341

[xxxii] Ibid. Weigley. p.583

[xxxiii] Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 1951. p.501

[xxxiv] Ibid. Hastings. p.348

[xxxv] Ibid. Bradley. p.497

[xxxvi] Ibid. p.589.

[xxxvii] Ibid. Hastings. p.348.

[xxxviii] Patton, George S. War as I Knew It Originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company NY 1947, Bantam Paperback Edition, Bantam Books, New York, NY 1980 p.242

[xxxix] Ibid. Hastings. p.345

[xl] Ibid.

[xli] Ibid. Weigley. p.603

[xlii] Ibid. p.602

[xliii] Wilmont, Chester. The Struggle for Europe Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, NY 1952 p.673

[xliv] Ibid. p.616

[xlv] Ibid. Hastings. p.365

[xlvi] Ibid. Weigley. p.621

[xlvii] Ibid.

[xlviii] Ibid. Bradley. p.509

[xlix] Ibid. Wilmont. p.674

[l] Ibid. Weigley. p.622.

[li] Ibid. 627

[lii] Ibid. Hastings. p.365

[liii] Ibid.

[liv] Murray, Williamson and Millett, Allan R. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts and London England, 2000 p.478

[lv] Ibid. Mansoor. P.244.

[lvi] Ibid. Weigley. p.632

[lvii] D’Este, Carlo. Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life Owl Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 2002. p.681

[lviii] Ibid. p.682

[lix] Ibid. Bradley. p.511

[lx] Ibid. Weigley. p.629.

[lxi] Ibid.

[lxii] Ibid. Wilmont. p.676

[lxiii] Liddell Hart, B.H. The History of the Second World War G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York NY 1970. p.678.

[lxiv] Ibid. Hastings. p.366.

[lxv] Newton, Steven H. Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model, Hitler’s Favorite General. DeCapo Press, Cambridge MA 2005. p.351.

[lxvi] Ibid. D’Este. Eisenhower p.682

[lxvii] Ibid. By this D’Este is obviously not referring to Bull and Eisenhower.

[lxviii] Ibid. Wilmont. p.677.

[lxix] Ibid. Liddell-Hart. p.677

[lxx] Warlimont, Walter. Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-1945 translated by R.H. Barry. Presidio Press, San Francisco, CA 1964. p. 506.

[lxxi] Ibid. Weigly. p.635.

[lxxii] Ibid. p.638

[lxxiii] Ibid. Wilmont. p.678.

[lxxiv] Ibid.

[lxxv] D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. Harper Collins Publishers New York, 1995 p.711

[lxxvi] Ibid. Murray and Millet. p.479.

[lxxvii] Ibid. D’Este Eisenhower p.683

[lxxviii] Ibid. Weigley. p.639

[lxxix] Ibid. Liddell-Hart. p.678.

[lxxx] Ibid. Hastings. p.369.

[lxxxi] Ibid. Weigley. p.673.

[lxxxii] Ibid. p.680

[lxxxiii] Ibid. Hastings. p.377.

[lxxxiv] Ibid. p.675.

[lxxxv] Ibid. Weigley. p.674.

[lxxxvi] Ibid. p.684.

[lxxxvii] Ibid.

[lxxxviii] Ibid. p.688.

[lxxxix] Ibid. pp.698-699. Weigley believes that neither Eisenhower nor Bradley wanted to continue to Berlin; Bradley for the reason that Montgomery would steal the credit and Eisenhower because it was a “prestige objective” that would remain in the Soviet zone no matter who captured it.

[xc] Ibid. Wilmont. p.690.

[xci] Ibid. D’Este Patton. P.721

[xcii] Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle The Fawcett Popular Library, New York NY.1966. p.240.

[xciii] Ibid. Hastings. p.425

[xciv] Ibid. Murray and Millett. P.480

[xcv] Fuller, J.F.C. The Conduct of War 1789-1961 DaCapo Press edition, San Francisco, CA 1992. p.296.

[xcvi] Ibid. D’Este. Eisenhower. P.694.

[xcvii] Ibid. Hastings. p.512.

Bibliography

Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 1951.

Chaffee, Adna R. Mechanization in the Army, Statement to Congress, April 1941. Combined Arms Research Library, Digital Library http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/contentdm/home.htm

D’Este, Carlo. Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life Owl Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 2002.

D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. Harper Collins Publishers New York, 1995

Fuller, J.F.C. The Conduct of War 1789-1961 DaCapo Press edition, San Francisco, CA 1992.

Gabel, Christopher R. The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview September-December 1944. U.S. Army Command and Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth KS 1985.

Hastings, Max. Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 Alfred A Knopf, New York NY

Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918. Arnold a Member of the Hodder Headline Group, London England 1998

Keene, Jennifer D. Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America. The John’s Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, MD. 2001.

Liddell Hart, B.H. The History of the Second World War G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York NY 1970

Mansoor, Peter R. The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divsions 1941-1945. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KS. 1999

Millett, Allen R. and Maslowski, Peter. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. The Free Press, New York 1984

Murray, Williamson and Millett, Allan R. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts and London England, 2000

Newton, Steven H. Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model, Hitler’s Favorite General. DeCapo Press, Cambridge MA 2005

Paret, Peter, editor. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1986

Patton, George S. War as I Knew It Originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company NY 1947, Bantam Paperback Edition, Bantam Books, New York, NY 1980

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle The Fawcett Popular Library, New York NY.1966

Warlimont, Walter. Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-1945 translated by R.H. Barry. Presidio Press, San Francisco, CA 1964

Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1981.

Wilmont, Chester. The Struggle for Europe Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, NY 1952

_________Infantry in Battle 2^nd Edition The Infantry Journal Incorporated, Washington DC 1939

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Tagged as 116th panzer division, 12th army group, 17th airborne division, 1st army, 2nd canadian army, 2nd panzer division, 3rd army, 4th armored division, 5th infantry division, 6th armored division, 6th army group, 78th infantry division, 78th infantry divsion, 99th infantry division, 9th armored division, 9th army, 9th infantry division, ahr river, alexander patch, army group b, berlin, bernard montgomery, british 6th airborne division, clausewitz, courtney hodges, eifel campaign, eisenhower, elbe river, Field Marshal Model, general gaffney, general john pershing, George Patton, german 15th army, german 1st army, german 7th army, infantry in battle, jacob devers, jagdtiger, leavenworth school, maurice rose, moselle river, muese argonne campaign, national redoubt, nierstein, OB West, omar bradley, operation grenade, operation lumberjack, operation varsity, operation veritable, oppenheim, panzer lehr division, remagen bridge, rhine river, ruhr pocket, russell weigley, saar-palatine campaign, shaef, st michael salient, us 7th army, US Grant, victory plan, west wall, William T Sherman

December 3, 2009 · 00:52

The Afghan War 2009-2012: Lessons from Algeria 1954-1960 A Review of “A Savage War of Peace

“A Savage War of Peace.” By Alistair Horne. The New York Review of Books, 1977, 1987, 1996, 2006. Maps. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. 608 pp.

Foreign Legion in Algeria

In light of the developing situation in Afghanistan and the plan to apply the counterinsurgency techniques of clear and hold, or “the oil slick” in that country it is wise to look at other instances of this type of warfare before criticizing those about to implement the strategy. Of course when doing this the best place to look is history, especially where the strategy worked, at least until the DeGaulle government abandoned the nearly complete military success achieved by French forces in Algeria triggering a national crisis.

Alistair Horne’s “A Savage War of Peace” is a most needed addition for anyone seriously interested in studying the dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare; especially political and military leaders of a western nation occupying a Moslem country. Horne’s work is important and one of the few in English that cover this subject. The two other books in English to cover the subject, albeit only on part of the campaign is Paul Aussaresses’ controversial memoir “The Battle of the Casbah” and Ted Morgan’s memoir “My Battle of Algiers” though useful suffer from the fact that they are limited in scope to the events the individuals experienced while serving as French Army officers in Algeria. In both the author’s personal biases are readily in evidence and by the fact that they were written many years after the events in question. Since those books are heavily dependent on the author’s memories.

Paratroops of the First Colonial Paratroop Regiment in Algeria

Horne is not limited by these factors. Horne is a historian who served as a British Army officer assigned to the MI5 in the Middle East and later as a foreign correspondent for the Daily Mail who has written a trilogy of excellent works on the Franco-German wars: The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-1871, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 and To Lose a Battle: France 1940. As such his account is as close to being objective as any could be in the case of writing this particular history.

Horne approaches the subject from the perspective of the broader issues that France and the Fourth Republic were facing in 1954, economic, military and psychological recovery from the Second World War, the loss of colonies, defeat in Indochina culminating in the Dien Bien Phu debacle. Such is important when examining a military campaign as the latter do not take place in isolation of other events in the life of a nation. When the history of the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are written they will have to take into account many other factors apart from the military operations.

Horne tackles the complex issues of the Algerian war in a multifaceted manner looking not only at the military issues, but the political and social issues faced by the French, the European Pied-Noir Algerians and the Algerian natives, both Berber and Arab alike. Horne also looks at the conflict in the broader context of the Cold War, the emergence of the Non-Aligned nation movement and the rise of Arab nationalism, skillfully weaving the actions of these movements and key individuals such as Egypt’s Nasser, Khrushchev of the Soviet Union and the most influential, and President Jacques de Gaulle into the story of the Algerian conflict. Unlike other writers Horne had access to many of the individuals involved, including leaders from each rebel faction, the Pied-Noir and the French government and military. Included in those he interviewed is Algerian President Boumedienne who had commanded rebels during the conflict and was instrumental in Algeria’s independence as well as Jacque Soustelle who had been Governor General from 1955 through 1956. These sources as well as numerous others help give his narrative a depth and subtlety lacking in the first hand English language memoirs and accounts.

Terrorism by FLN Militias and Sympathizers Caused Great Problems for the French

Horne begins his account with the story of the aborted revolt and massacre at Setif on May 8^th, VE Day, 1945 and the attempt by the French government to reassert its control over Algeria. Of particular interest in this section is Horne’s analysis of the mistake of the Pied Noirs and the French government in not offering a settlement to the Algerian separatists under magnanimous terms due to the scale of the victory they had won following the Setif uprising and their security forces “decapitation” of the leadership of the various Algerian nationalist factions. He compares the victory to that of the Israelis in the 1967 War and the political reaction of the Pied Noir to the Israelis, who instead of negotiating a settlement that could have long term effects advantageous to them from a position of strength determined to humiliate and subjugate their foe.[1] If the US military is able to reverse the situation in Afghanistan the United States and the Afghan government will need to be magnanimous to a defeated foe in order to prevent yet another repetition of another Al Qaida and Taliban resurgence.

French Paratroops Going House to House in Algiers

In examining the period before the actual outbreak of the war in 1954 Horne looks at the missed opportunities of the French to prevent it. He also examines the development of the Algerian independence movement, especially the senior leaders of the movement; many of whom had served in the French Army during the Second World War with distinction. His portrayal of the conflicts within the independence movement, show that this was not a monolithic movement, but that each faction had its own goals which often were in conflict with other groups. This is also the case in Afghanistan where a disparate number of ethnic, political, criminal, nationalist and terrorist groups who often are at war with each other. Likewise, Horne’s treatment of the Pied Noir and certain parts of the French leadership examine how they too were divided at some points in regard to the ultimate plan for the relationship of Algeria to France.

Horne makes much of political mistakes and machinations of French leaders that culminated in the end of the Fourth Republic and subsequent impact on de Gaulle when he became president in June 1958. Some mistakes that Horne explores are those committed in the immediate wake of Setif. He also examines mistakes during the revolt; such as not taking it seriously, to individuals in the National Assembly impeding the efforts of Soustelle to effect reforms and compromise between hard line factions in the Pied Noir and Moslem communities.[2] Likewise he notes how the draconian treatment of Algerian Moslems by the French Army in the early phases of the counter-insurgency effort, including the assignment of “collective responsibility” to punish communities for the actions of individuals helped alienate the populace and strengthen the insurgency. Such was the case in the first part of the Iraq occupation and helped inspire that insurgency. One member of Soustelle’s cabinet noted: “the cycle of repression getting ever tougher, and the rebellion ever stronger, will ruin all your efforts of pacification.”[3]

Besides political mistakes Horne examines issues in military tactics that seem to plague counterinsurgency efforts to the present time. He describes the early application of heavy conventional forces in an attempt to defeat the insurgency. Horne discusses unsuccessful efforts in 1954-1955 and how they not only did not destroy the insurgency but how the insurgency spread in response to the efforts. The question: “Did ‘pacification’, for instance mean trying to regain the confidence of the inhabitants; or did it mean crushing the rebellion by whatever means available?”[4] This question is still asked today by soldiers fighting insurgencies and often the latter is counseled by those who still think along the lines of the conventional tactics of the Cold War and World War Two, which many conservative pundits are enamored with. Horne also discusses the successful tactics of commando units used by General Challe to effectively combat the insurgency.[5]

Horne examines the attitudes of the French Army which in a sense fought the war for itself. Armies that have fought many campaigns together often have a sense of comradeship that transcends even the loyalty that they have to their nation. It is the understanding of a “Band of Brothers” and can be found throughout history. When the histories of Iraq and Afghanistan are written they will certainly include the fact that many soldiers, Marines and Sailors engaged in actual combat operations fought for the men and women with whom they served more than for anything else.

The French Army felt little affinity for the Pied Noir who they often saw as only interested in their interest at the expense of the campaign. Likewise the Army, felt little more than contempt for the French government which they felt had betrayed them. General Lorillot noted “They made fools of us in Indo-China…they screwed in Tunisia…We are being screwed in Morocco. But they will never screw us in Algeria. I swear to you. Let this be known in Paris.”[6] Instead attitudes of not losing, stopping the humiliations were animated by the feeling of anti-communism in French ranks, especially in the Elite Parachute, Foreign Legion, Commando and Colonials (Marines). The novel The Centurions and voiced the feelings of one Paratroop commander “We want to halt the decadence of the West and the march of Communism.”[7]

Horne provides a narrative analysis of the military campaigns within the Algerian War. In particular he describes the successes of units designed to live among and better the lives of the Algerians and the SAS,[8] He describes the building of the border wall to keep weapons out of rebel hands. He describes the “success” of units which specialized in torture,[9] which turned out to be helpful in the short run but which ultimately damaged the fabric of the Army. Horne notes the effects of torture on soldiers who participated and how it negatively affected support of the war in France and internationally.[10] The use of torture in Algeria has parallels with Iraq. Horne notes: “one has to take into account all those factors…horror at the atrocities of the F.L.N., a determination not to lose yet another campaign, and the generally brutalizing effect of so cruel and protracted war.”[11]

The most powerful part of the narrative is the drama when French President de Gaulle was faced with the revolts of 1959. At this time the Pied Noir militias, dissatisfied with potential political settlements went to the barricades in Algiers and other major cities, assisted in some cases by Army units. These forces again revolted against his attempts to mediate a settlement and were followed by the General’s revolt of April 1961 which nearly became a military coup in France itself. President de Gaulle’s role in bringing these revolts to an end, without the collapse of the government or a civil war was miraculous. Though his actions undercut the military success of the Army in Algeria which had virtually eliminated the insurgency his foresight in recognizing that France had a future not dependant on Algeria remaining French was exceptional. The actions of de Gaulle should be studied by those who closely link their country’s future to holding a foreign country, even one that is considered an integral part of the mother country, as Algeria was to France.

Horne’s book is as timely as it was when first published, maybe more so with the current escalation in Afghanistan. Along with works by David Galula “Pacification In Algeria 1956-1958, Bernard Fall “Street Without Joy” and “Hell in a Very Small Place,” Andrew Krepinevich’s “The Army in Vietnam,” Brian McAllister Linn’s “The Philippine War: 1899-1902” and Ben Shepherd’s “War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans” Horne’s work is vital reading for military and political leaders fighting counter-insurgency operations. Unfortunately many militaries are often enamored by high tech innovation are not often receptive to the decidedly human factors and strategies necessary to fight insurgencies until they experience frustration and failure attempting to use conventional forces and tactics to win a counter-insurgency campaign. Effective intelligence, efforts to win the hearts and minds of the populace by protecting them, knowledge of public affairs and the effect of media on operations are all key elements of a proper counter-insurgency campaign are covered by Horne. Horne’s work reminds us that these conflicts are not won by the forces with the greatest firepower or most modern weapons. This is something that the United States and its NATO and other Allies in Afghanistan should never forget.

[1] Horne, Alistair. A Savage War f Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. The New York Review of Books, New York, NY 1977, 1987, 1996 2006. p.69

[2] Ibid. pp. 113-114

[3] Ibid. p.115 Some would later compare the attitudes of the French Army to those of the Nazis. In one point of his narrative Horne notes the attitude of an officer who saw nothing wrong with the tactics used by the Nazis in the Second World War.

[4] Ibid. p.112. Another question noted is something that seems to be commonplace in the Iraq War ““Limited Repression” did not always make the clearest sense to a patrol of young soldiers caught in a vicious ambush.” When one reads Horne’s accounts one sometimes almost feels that he is writing about the current American experience in Iraq.

[5] Ibid. pp. 334-335

[6] Ibid. pp.175-176

[7] Ibid. p.176

[8] The SAS Section Administrative Specialise first set up by Soustelle. These units had great success but also suffered heavy losses as their efforts were recognized as having a positive effect by the FLN and other Algerian rebel groups.

[9] Such as the 11^th Shock Regiment

[10] See pp. 195-207.

[11] Ibid. p.198.

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Tagged as a savage war of peace, afghanistan, algeria, alistair horne, bernard fall, charles de gualle, cold war, counterinsurgency, david galula, foreign legion, iraq, Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958 and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, pied noir, street without joy, The Battle of the Casbah, the siege ofdien bien phu: hell in a very small place

November 29, 2009 · 22:33

Lessons in Coalition Warfare: Admiral Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet

The genesis and strategy of British Royal Navy’s participation in the Pacific in 1945 is a little studied aspect of the Pacific campaign. Prior to 1945 the participation of the Royal Navy in the Pacific ended at the Battle of the Java Sea. After that the Royal Navy operated in the Indian Ocean in support of British operations in Burma and against German surface raiders. Michael Coles in “Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet: The Conference at Quebec, 1944 (Octagon) published in The Journal of Military History January 2001, 65, 1 Research Library pp. 105-129 provides a good analysis of the Allied decision to allow the Royal Navy a role in the Pacific and the objections of Admiral Ernest King to the proposal.

The renewal of the Royal Navy’s Pacific role began at the 1944 Octagon Conference where the Allied Joint Staff made the decision to bring the Royal Navy back to the Pacific. Admiral Ernest King was the only dissenter in the question of Royal Navy operations in the Pacific. The strategic aspects of this decision are seldom addressed by most who chronicle the Pacific war.[i] William Kimball in “Forged in War: Roosevelt Churchill and the Second World War” never mentions the naval strategy discussed at the Octagon conference. Samuel Elliott Morison in “The Two-Ocean War” described the decision for the Royal Navy to enter the Pacific as “important” and outlines King’s opposition to it without addressing strategic considerations.[ii] John Costello in “The Pacific War” described how Churchill insisted on the Royal Navy being committed to operations against Japan and how Roosevelt’s agreed to “to avoid a bitter clash.”[iii] Likewise Williamson Murray and Allen R. Millett in “War to Be Won” note that one of the goals of Octagon was “to determine the level and nature of British in the air-naval war in the Pacific.” However they do so as do the others without addressing the naval strategy.[iv] Max Hastings mentions Octagon in “Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945” again without specific reference to naval strategy. However later in the book later discusses the Royal Navy’s limitations in ships, manning, logistics and operational art as it entered the Pacific campaign.[v] Other writers chronicle British operations in the Pacific but usually focus in the gallantry and determination of the Royal Navy and not its weaknesses.[vi]

Coles’ article is invaluable to understand the decision in relation to the political, military and economic considerations which influenced both King’s opposition to the deployment and the performance of the British fleet in the Pacific. Coles analyzes tensions between King and the other participants at Octagon. He judges King to be more realistic and informed regarding Royal Navy capabilities and more importantly its limitations than British leaders especially Churchill.[vii]

King was surprised at Roosevelt’s decision to accept Churchill’s offer of the Royal Navy without prior discussion by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Coles notes that King may have kept silent at subsequent meetings of the Combined Chiefs, because he either assumed that his positions were logical and apparent to all or that he believed that Churchill was lying about his navy’s capabilities. Of course it was politically impossible for King to suggest such.[viii]

King’s realism on the subject was a directly related to the political tensions between American and British visions for the outcome of the Pacific war, and the pressing strategic considerations necessitated by Japanese offensives in Burma and China. The British goal of re-establishing colonial rule in Southeast Asia was a major bone of contention. Many Americans believed that the British goals were “aimed primarily at the resurgence of British political and economic ascendancy in South East Asia and restoration of British prestige.”[ix] Yet the US wanted to defeat Japan’s formidable Army in Asia without the sacrifice of large numbers of American troops or material which necessitated British participation.[x] The introduction of large numbers of American troops on the Asian continent was impossible due to the lineation of the US Army to 90 divisions, most of which were engaged in Europe. Likewise US domestic issues regarding war production and the Navy’s share of it in relations to changing wartime conditions was a major concern for King. King and the Navy argued for high naval production while others including George Marshall were beginning to question it, especially if the British could provide “make substantial Naval forces available in the Pacific.”[xi]

American Lend Lease aid to Britain was another issue. Roosevelt calculated that the US needed Britain to be active in post-war Europe, this required significant post war aid. Roosevelt viewed “vigorous participation” by the Royal Navy as a means to gain congressional support in spite of the fact that Britain could no longer play a global military role without US support.[xii] One of the problems faced in the Pacific was how British mandated modifications to weapons systems supplied by the United States caused problems in production and caused shortages in key weapons systems, especially naval aircraft. Coles’ notes how King had problems with this and wondered if supplying the Royal Navy’s Pacific operations “represented the most effective use of American industrial capacity.[xiii] However King did not chose to argue this point at the conference, once again demurring to President Roosevelt.

The most compelling factor discussed by Coles was the operational and logistic problems related to the deployment, supply and operation of the Royal Navy. There were a number of problems that the Royal Navy faced as it deployed to the Pacific. First among them was the fact that the Royal Navy was in large part short-legged and cold water Navy. Its ships were designed mainly for service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and ill-suited for the Pacific. The Royal Navy did not have the operational experience of the Americans in regard to Fast Carrier Task Forces, especially coordination of refueling and resupply operations or coordination of air group operations. Admiral Philip Vian insisted that “Before joining the Americans…we needed to be adept at using a great many more aircraft at a time, and for longer periods.”[xiv] Max Hastings’ noted that the Royal Navy was “overstretched and war weary”[xv] and Coles goes to great lengths to illustrate British weakness while analyzing tensions in the British-American relationship particularly the shift in the relationship as the Americans took the leading role.

King had the foresight to recognize that the British contribution would be more of a liability than help.[xvi] The principal Royal Navy purpose in the Pacific was political, not military and Coles asks if it helped or hindered “the achievement of the respective nations’ policy objectives.” Coles does not believe that it helped; that in fact the Royal Navy would not have been able to continue had the war continued. He quoted a British liaison officer who wrote that the Royal Navy would have “been unable to continue operations because of lack of logistic support.”[xvii] Coles calls the Royal Navy’s effort in the Pacific an “expensive instrument of failed policy” and that Admiral King seemed to have recognized this better than others, arguing that King’s opinions were not based on simple personal prejudice.[xviii]

Coles uses an excellent mix of primary and secondary sources including diaries, operational reports, histories and journal articles from American and British sources to document his work providing ample references throughout his article. His work is important in recognizing the importance strategy plays in making political decisions in coalition warfare. Likewise he places value on individuals such as King who are able to recognize the strategic aims and limitations in coalition warfare by various partners.

Though the Royal Navy’s participation in the Pacific War was a relatively insignificant in terms of its overall role in the war it provides lessons for our time. Coalition warfare requires that members of the coalition be able to function our time we can see a similar situation where many of the NATO forces in Afghanistan are dependent on the US for most of their operational and logistic support. It also requires that the members of the coalition have a firm grip on the overall strategy and understand the capabilities and limitations of each. In Afghanistan the United States faces a situation where it needs capable alliance partners. It does not have the force capacity to go it alone and political support for additional troops has weakened in congress and in the public. It is a somewhat similar situation to the Second World War where the United States needed significant British participation in the Asian ground war to ensure that the United States would not have to make major commitments to on the Asian mainland. Likewise it was needed to get congressional support for post war aid to Britain. Likewise George Marshall and others wondered if the British could provide significant naval support which would alleviate the need for high naval production which they questioned. Strategy and the desired end state must be central to how coalitions fight wars.

[i] See Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan. The Free Press and Division of MacMillan, Inc. New York, NY 1985. Spector nowhere mentions the British Navy in his history of the campaign and in his short reference to Octagon he does not mention the debate over the Royal Navy’s inclusion in the campaign. p.419

[ii] Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Boston MA 1963. pp. Morrison does also mention some of the specific actions of Royal Navy in the Pacific. Pp.423-424.

[iii] Costello, John. The Pacific War: 1941-1945 Quill Publishers, New York, NY 1981. p.495.

[iv] Murray, Williamson and Millett, Allan R. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War. The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2000. pp.484-485.

[v] Hastings, Max. Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945. Alfred A Knopf, New York, NY 2008. Originally published in Great Britain as Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, Harper Press, London, 2007. p.112-113 and 400-402.

[vi] “Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet: The Conference at Quebec, 1944 (Octagon). By Michael Coles. Published in The Journal of Military History January 2001, 65, 1 Research Library. p.127

[vii] Ibid. pp.111-112

[viii] Ibid. p.111

[ix] Ibid. p.113

[x] Ibid. p.114

[xi] Ibid. p.117

[xii] Ibid. p.118

[xiii] Ibid. p.120 Coles describes several instances where the “Anglicized” systems delayed deliveries and lengthened transportation to operational British units. Modifications included flight helmets, radios and aircraft modifications. He also discusses how ineffectively the British used the large number of Escort Carriers provided by the US.

[xiv] Ibid. p.123

[xv] Hastings. p.400

[xvi] Coles. p.127. This is something that Morison does with utmost deference to the British.

[xvii] Ibid. p.128

[xviii] Ibid. p.129

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Tagged as admiral philip vian, afghanistan, allen millett, coalition warfare, ernest king, franklin roosevelt, george marshall, max hastings, michael coles, nato, octagon conference, Royal Navy, samuel elliott morrison, williamson murray, winston churchill, world war ii

November 28, 2009 · 02:17

Can Anybody Spare a DIME: A Short Primer on Early Axis Success and How the Allies Won the Second World War

Hitler and Mussolini, the Axis Leaders Never Developed a Grand Strategy

All modern war is predicated on the full potential of a nation or alliance to fight a war. This includes what is known in today’s parlance the DIME, or the Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military and Economic factors of national power. During the war the Axis powers almost exclusively fixated on the military dimension, especially at the operational and tactical level never coordinating a national or alliance grand strategy. On the other hand the Allies were successful in doing so despite competing national interests of the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States.

Early German Success in France Changed the Face of Warfare

The Germans and Japanese were victorious in the early years of the World War Two due to their application of the most modern forms of warfare and ability to exploit weaknesses in their opponents. For the Germans this entailed the use of the “Blitzkrieg” or lightening war which used the combined arms team of tanks, artillery, and mechanized infantry with close air support coordinated by commanders in mobile command posts who were able to adapt to tactical considerations on the ground and exploit enemy’s weaknesses. This involved the classic forms of applied mass, speed and firepower to overwhelm enemy defenses at critical points and the encouragement of initiative by commanders, the Auftragstaktik. Led by men such as Heinz Guderian, Erich Von Manstein and Erwin Rommel to name but a few, the German commanders overcame allied opposition as well as the occasional hesitancy of their own senior leaders to defeat Allied forces throughout Europe. The blitzkrieg involved risk, but the Germans for the most part, with key exceptions such as at Dunkirk during the French campaign took risks and exploited weaknesses in Allied political goals, military coordination and operational art. The Allies were hampered by weak political leadership, an aversion to risk, an outmoded strategy and poor coordination of a force which outnumbered the Germans and included more tanks than the Germans could field. The German armaments were not necessarily superior to the Allies, but were better used for the most part.

German skill at the operational level was exemplified in Poland, France and the Low Countries, a daring Norwegian operation, which could be described as one of the first joint operations in military history, the Balkans and North Africa as well as the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa. Each of these operations had flaws, the most glaring being at the strategic level and lack of a Grand Strategy. The operations also exposed weaknesses in logistics and limits to what the mechanized and tactical air forces could do when stretched too far, North Africa and Russia as cases in point. The Germans would always be outnumbered and fighting a multi-front war because of their limited naval capability, both in surface units and U-Boats, as well as the lack of a strategic air capability which kept them from eliminating Britain from the war. Hitler’s desire for German domination in Europe excluded a true coalition effort to make allies with powers in Europe such as Vichy France which shared an aversion to the British especially after the attack of the British Navy on the French fleet in North Africa. Likewise Germany’s alliance with Mussolini’s Italy was more of a strategic liability than a true partner. Hitler’s aversion to the Soviet State prevented any more than a brief cooperation with the USSR which was ended by the German invasion of the USSR. The Germans also failed in their war strategy by not going to a total war effort until 1943 after the ascension of Albert Speer as the Armaments Minister. Thus German forces had to fight war “on the cheap” so to speak for the first part of the war, especially in North Africa and in Russia. In Russia the vast expanse of the front forced the Germans to thin out their forces to dangerous levels and whose pathetic road and rail network limited the already limited ability of the Wehrmacht to supply its forces as they advanced deep into Russia.

Admiral Yamamoto One of the Few Japanese Leaders to Understand what the Japanese Faced in Going to War with the United States

In the Pacific the Japanese used fast carrier task forces and naval air power coupled with superior surface warfare groups of fast battleships, cruisers and destroyers operating in conjunction with land based Army and Naval air units to isolate and destroy allied naval forces and outposts throughout the Pacific. The Japanese exploited their superiority to conduct their own form of blitzkrieg.

Despite Inflicting Crushing Defeats on the Allies in late 1941 and early 1942 the Japanese period of Conquest would be Short Lived

At the same time the Japanese, even more so than the Germans lacked the ability to fight a long war; something that the best and most realistic of the Japanese strategists, Admiral Yamamoto understood and warned his government about before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Likewise they like the Germans failed to develop a cohesive Grand Strategy in their war effort. Competing priorities and inter-service rivalries between the Army and the Navy over resources, manufacturing priorities and war aims crippled Japanese efforts. Despite this the Japanese used superior tactical application of forces, exploited Allied command and control weaknesses, numerical and qualitative superiority over dispersed and often obsolete Allied forces. The Allies in the opening phase of the war were often led by officers who had little respect for the Japanese and underestimated the Japanese skill at the tactical and operational level of warfare as well as the individual Japanese soldier and sailor, with tragic results.

USS Pope Being Blown out of the Water at the Battle of the Java Sea

The Japanese were constrained by limited resources and intense competition between the Army and Navy for those resources as well as a long term war in China which drew off the larger part of the Japanese Army and Army Air Forces. The Japanese effort stalled after they lost much of their carrier fleet and experienced naval aviators at Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign. The Americans, who assumed the mantle of the Pacific Theater after the initial Japanese success and weakness of British and Dutch forces in the Pacific and demands of the war in Europe began an aggressive defense and opened an offensive against the Japanese long before the Japanese believed that they would at Guadalcanal.

At the heart of the early German and Japanese success lay their superior application of the techniques and weapons of modern warfare on the land, sea and air against opponents who were initially ill-prepared to meet their onslaught. They both had glaring weaknesses but their weaknesses in the early years of the war were masked by Allied ineptitude at all levels, tactical, operational and strategic. Thus they were successful and at times wildly so, but in their success lay the seeds of their defeat.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill overcame Significant Conflicts of Interest to Build a Grand Strategy

The defeat of the Axis powers was in large part a combination of superior Allied strategy at the “grand strategy” level and lack of a corresponding Axis Grand Strategy; as well as the Axis powers inherent weaknesses in natural resources, manpower and industrial capabilities to fight multi-front wars, coupled with poor transportation and logistics capabilities for distant operations.

The US Navy Breaking of the Japanese Naval and Diplomatic Codes as well as the Cracking of the German Ultra Code and Capture of the Enigma Machine Greatly Enhanced Allied Intelligence

The cracking of Japanese Naval and diplomatic codes and the capture of the German Enigma code machine and code books aided Allied strategic planning, none or the Axis intelligence services rose to the challenges of the war. The Allied victory and Axis defeat was in fact a combination of what is called the DIME, the Diplomatic Intelligence Military and Economic factors which caused the Axis defeat. While it is in part due to Allied strategy, Axis deficiencies in each of these areas played a part in their ultimate defeat.

Massive US Industrial Capacity Drove the Allied War Effort

On the Grand Strategic level there was no comparison. The Allies, even factoring in often conflicting national goals were able to coordinate a strategy to first defeat Germany and then Japan. The Americans, British and Russians began such cooperation even prior to the American entry into the war through the Lend Lease, followed by the British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff, which helped coordinate often disparate British and American strategies in Europe and Asia. Murray and Millett assert and I agree with the thesis that the British and Americans “came closest to designing a global strategy that accommodated their war aims.” (War to Be Won p.584) While close coordination with the Russians was illusory at best, the Western Allies were able to help keep the Russians in war the by helping to supply them (War to Be Won p.388), and on occasion launching operations which assisted the Russians, such as the invasion of Italy. The Italian invasion, though the pipe dream of Churchill to crack the “soft underbelly” of Europe was a key factor in the German decision to quit the Kursk offensive and redeploy Panzer Divisions, including SS formations to Italy and the West. This weakened the Germans in the face of the Russian counter offensive following Kursk which aided Russian success. The Axis powers knew no such coordinated strategic thinking.

Poor Italian Technology, Training and Organization Made them More of a Burden to Germany than a Help

The Japanese, Germans and Italians ran separate wars based on their perceived national considerations at times which often ran contrary to the common needs of their coalition. Italian actions in the Mediterranean caused a diversion in German efforts at key times, such as in Greece where the Germans had to save the Italians and delay the opening of Operation Barbarossa. Italian incompetence forced the Germans to commit forces to North Africa, Greece, the Balkans and Italy upon its collapse which could have been used to great effect in Europe or Russia. The Japanese and Germans never coordinated their efforts to defeat either the western Allies or the Soviets. The lack of a coherent Grand Strategy on the part of the Axis powers, especially in the early part of the war when Allied fortunes were at lowest ebb, was every bit as much a part of their ultimate defeat as was a coordinated or “superior” Allied strategy.

The lack of a coordinated Axis Grand Strategy was reflected in the way each fought its war, the Japanese were hindered by lack of natural resources, especially those most important in maintaining a war economy, fuels, metals, rubber and even foodstuffs for which they were dependant on foreign suppliers such as the United States. They were also hindered by a war in China which consumed troops and supplies without a corresponding benefit. (See Barnhart’s “Japan Prepares for Total War and Toland’s “Rising Sun.) Their inability to produce the machines of war in sufficient numbers to replace losses due to combat operations and their failure to keep up with advances in technology negated their initial success and superiority at sea and in the air.

US Naval Forces Would Dominate the Pacific

The Germans failed to mobilize their economy to a total war footing until after Stalingrad and the accession of Albert Speer to head Reich war production. They also attempted to fight a multi-front war and were dependant on weak and unenthusiastic satellite states such as Romania and Hungary to hold what they deemed to be less important areas in order free up German units. Likewise the Germans had not adequately prepared for the war at sea with sufficient surface, naval air or U-boat strength to win the battle of the Atlantic, nor had the Luftwaffe developed a strategic bombing capability with long range fighter escorts to win the Battle of Britain. German industrial efforts, even the great strides made after Speer took over war production were unable to keep pace with the massive production of the Americans and the Soviet Union. The Red Army ground the Wehrmacht to dust on the Steppes of Russia, a key factor in that helped the American and British successfully invade Western Europe.

B-17s Over Europe

The preponderance of western Air, Naval, war production and natural resources enabled them to field Fleets, Armies and Air Forces which were unmatched in size or technical sophistication for their time in history. The Japanese and the Germans had no way to win by 1944, short of developing and deploying Atomic weapons and delivery systems before the Americans and British did could defeat. Murray and Millett note this in regard to Germany which had the Wehrmacht held out longer would have been the first target of the Atomic bombs. (War to Be Won p.483)

Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima, It could Have Been Berlin Instead

In summary the Axis powers were defeated by their own weaknesses in the diplomatic, intelligence, military and economic arenas as much as they were by superior Allied strategy. This in no way negates the superior way in which the Allies marshaled their resources and coordinated a coherent Grand Strategy. But even so the Allies by were running out of troops by the end of the European war. Russian formations while still formidable were operating at greatly diminished strength by the end of the war and their losses “carried political and social consequences that were to burden the Soviet Union to its demise.” (War to Be Won p.483) The British were bled dry and unable to keep up with losses suffered after Normandy. The Americans too suffered from a shortage of manpower, particularly in Army infantry forces, and had limited their Army to a mere 90 divisions of all types to fight a world war. They had diverted manpower to the Army Air Corps, Naval and Marine Corps leaving the Army chronically short infantry. The Americans were forced into emergency drafts of troops from the Air Corps and other ancillary formations and support units to fill out infantry formations during the winter of 1944-45. (See Russell Weigley’s book Eisenhower’s Lieutenants.” and Max Hasting’s “Armageddon” for a good treatment of the manpower situation in 1944-45) This is one point were the Americans took a risk that almost backfired on them and could have cost them victory.

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Tagged as admiral yamamoto, adolf hitler, Albert Speer, auftragstaktik, Barbarossa., blitzkrieg, erich von manstein, franklin roosevelt, general heinz guderian, germany and the axis powers, imperial japan, italian campaign, josef stalin, kursk, mussolini, nazi germany, normandy, pearl harbor, soviet union, the DIME, united states, vichy france, winston churchill, world war ii

November 27, 2009 · 01:01

The Transitional Carriers: USS Ranger CV-4 and USS Wasp CV-7

Note: This is the second in a series of articles on US Aircraft Carriers. The first article “The First Aircraft Carriers Part One: The First American Flattops- Langley, Lexington and Saratoga” can be found at this link: https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/the-first-aircraft-carriers-part-one-the-first-american-flattops-langley-lexington-and-saratoga/

I expect to write a follow up article on the Yorktown class, followed by one on the World War II Essex class and Independence class carriers. At some point I might tackle the post war modernizations, modifications and careers of the Essex class.

Following the success of the Langley, Lexington and Saratoga the Navy began to design aircraft carriers from the keel up. The Japanese had already done so when they commissioned the IJN Hosho in 1922. Hosho displaced 10,000 tons was 579 feet long full load carried 26 aircraft at a top speed of 25 knots. Hosho would serve in a secondary role in the Second World War, surviving the war with minor damage.

Hosho as Built

The British commissioned the HMS Hermes in 1923. She was slightly larger than Hosho at 12,900 tons and 598 feet long and capable of carrying 15-20 aircraft. She had a maximum speed of 25 knots. She was sunk by Admiral Nagumo’s carrier strike force off Ceylon on 23 January 1941. Both of these ships served in fleet support and training roles much of their careers being smaller and less capable of operating more modern aircraft developed in the late 1920s and 1930s.

HMS Hermes

The United States Navy was late compared to the Japanese and British ion designing carriers from the keel up, however when it did they were larger, faster and carried a far larger number of aircraft than the Hosho or Hermes.

Ranger at Hampton Roads 1942: Note the Funnel Arrangement

The Ranger was commissioned on June 4^th 1934 and displaced 14,500 tons, was 769 feet long and had a maximum speed of 29.25 knots. She carried 86 aircraft, over four times more than Hermes and three times that of Hosho. She was not initially equipped with a catapult though one would be added later with a more advanced one being retrofitted in 1944. She had a unique funnel arrangement having 6 small funnels located aft along both sides of the flight deck. These could be repositioned out so as not to interfere with aircraft operations.

Ranger Launching F4F-3 Wildcat off French North Africa November 1942

She had a small island structure. This was not a particularly satisfactory design and would not be repeated in the fleet carriers which followed but would be used on the Independence class Light Fleet Carriers (CVL) and all Escort Carriers (CVE). Ranger would operate with the Pacific Fleet in the 1930s before returning to the Atlantic in early 1939. She would participate in Neutrality Patrols to protect US Shipping and missions to transfer US Army Air Corps aircraft across the Atlantic. After the US entry into the war would participate in the Allied landings in French North Africa, Operation Torch launching 496 sorties against Vichy French ships, airfields and ground targets. She remained in the Atlantic in 1943 conducting patrols, transporting Army Air Corps aircraft across the Atlantic and operating with the British Home Fleet conducting raids against German ships and installations at Bodo Norway. Following these operations she would be refitted and sent to the Pacific to serve as an advanced training carrier for pilots and air crew being trained for combat duty. She would decommission in October 1946 and sold for scrap in 1947.

Wasp at Hampton Roads, May 1942

She was not used in a combat role in the Pacific as she was determined to be too small and too slow and having very limited armor protection. However her design was such that it could be refined for future classes of carriers including better armor protection, expanded anti-aircraft capabilities and better command and control facilities.

The second of these transitional carriers was the USS Wasp; CV-7 was built as a replacement under the Washington Treaty for the Langley and her displacement was limited to 14,700 tons. Laid down in 1936 and commissioned in April 1940 she benefitted from experience with the Ranger and though roughly the same displacement as Ranger and only marginally faster. Wasp was only 688 feet long as compared to Ranger, but had better protection and a more efficient design that was similar to the larger Yorktown class ships. She carried over 80 aircraft and was equipped with 2 flight deck and two hanger deck catapults. Wasp’s career was short but action filled. During 1940 through early 1942 she remained in the Atlantic conducting training, Neutrality patrols, shadowing Vichy French warships in the Caribbean, transporting badly needed British Spitfires to the besieged island of Malta and operating with the British Home Fleet against the Germans.

Wasp Loading Spitfires for Malta

With the shortage of carriers in the Pacific due to the loss of Lexington and damage to Saratoga Wasp was transferred to the Pacific where her air group received new aircraft prior to sailing to the South Pacific to take part in the invasion of Guadalcanal in August 1942. Her air group acquitted itself well in action against the Japanese in the initial operations and she would remain in the area of operations. On September Wasp was escorting troop transports carrying the 7^th Marine Regiment to Guadalcanal. As she recovered aircraft she was hit by 2 torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-19. I-19 had executed one of the most successful attacks by a Japanese submarine on US Naval Forces during the war, sinking Wasp, damaging the Battleship North Carolina and the destroyer O’Brien which later sank while sailing to the United States for permanent repairs. At about 1420 the powerful 24” “Long Lance” torpedoes hit the Wasp in the vicinity of her ammunition magazine and aircraft gasoline tanks. The fires rapidly spread throughout the ship igniting ready ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns. Despite damage control efforts the fires spread and large secondary explosions wracked the ship forcing her abandonment at 1520. With the ship abandoned she was sunk by the USS Lansdowne going down at 2100 with the loss of 196 of her crew.

Wasp Burning and Sinking

Though small and short lived the Wasp was a successful design incorporating a folding T-shaped deck edge elevator which was a predecessor of the much larger ones found on modern US Aircraft Carriers. The Ranger despite her limitations was far more capable than other countries early designs and served well in the Atlantic and as a training platform.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, Navy Ships, world war two in europe, world war two in the pacific

Tagged as f4f wildcat, hms hermes, i-19 submarine, ijn hosho, neutrality patrol, uss north carolina, uss o'brien, uss ranger, uss wasp

November 22, 2009 · 21:56

The Impact of Technology on the Organization, Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War

Introduction

World War II saw some of most rapid technological advances impacting military forces in history. The advances in technology impacted the organization and tactics of major power military forces, especially those of the United States, Germany, the Soviet Union and Great Britain. These advances combined to revolutionize the way wars were fought and military forces have been organized to the current day.

Heinz Guderian’s Theories of Mechanized and Combined Arms Warfare and His Organizational Genius Revolutionized Land Warfare

The technical developments and their relationship to military organization and tactical applications began in the years following World War I as various writers began to analyze that war and formulate ways not to repeat the grist mill of trench warfare that dominated it. The writers looked at tactical innovations, new technology and enunciated ways that technology and tactics could be combined with organizational changes to revolutionize the ways that wars were fought. Chief among these writers were General Fuller and Captain B.H. Liddell Hart in Britain, Colonel Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel in Germany. Airpower theories were dominated by the strategic bombing theories of Italy’s Guido Douhet and tactical air theories of American Marine General Roy Geiger as well as the pioneers of tactical air support in the Luftwaffe. In the United States General George C. Marshall helped initiate doctrinal changes that would change the way that the U.S. Army would fight.

Among the common elements found in the works of these men was the necessity to apply technology to overcome the pitfalls that all of the armies which fought in the First World War found themselves.

The Mechanization of Ground Forces

Mass Speed and Firepower: The Germans Would Pioneer the New Style of Warfare

There were a number of major technological advances between the wars and during the war that helped change the nature of warfare. One of the earliest was the mechanization of armies which began toward the end of the First World War and continued between the wars to varying degrees in each country. All the major armies experimented with mechanized forces to one degree or another. In Britain these got the earliest start with some formations being 100% mechanized by the early 1930s. France was more circumspect about mechanization only slowly converting forces as they were focused on a defensive strategy based on the Maginot Line. Many in the German high command resisted Guderian and other innovators regarding the mechanization of the Wehrmacht as well as the development of the Panzerwaffe.

The Soviet Union Would Turn the Tables on the Germans using their own Tactics

The Soviet Union had a large number of mechanized and armored formations prior to the war though they were not proficient in their use and had not developed doctrine to match the forces that they controlled. The Untied States also resisted efforts to mechanize its Army but seeing the results of the German Blitzkrieg quickly overcame years of resistance to become an Army that save for 2 Cavalry Divisions was 100% mechanized. The development of Airborne formations added the possibility of vertical envelopment to ground operations. These developments impacted nearly every campaign in Europe and North Africa and to a much lesser degree the Pacific theater. German performance in the early Polish, French, North African and Balkan Campaigns as well as the initial foray into the Soviet Union were all successful due to the proficiency of their combined mechanized, Panzer and tactical air forces. The Soviets would develop and become very effective at this type of warfare on a much large scale than the Germans could have imagined beginning with the Stalingrad counteroffensive and especially in the destruction of the German Army Group Center in the summer of 1944.

Though Using Lighter Armored Forces the Americans Would become Proficient in the New Type of Warfare by the Summer of 1944

The Americans became proficient at mobile operations during the war, especially during the “dash across France” and the breakout in the Saar-Palatine campaign in 1945, but many times uninventive commanders squandered the advantage and allowed themselves to be sucked into battles of attrition that their forces were not made for.

Communications

A key development that accompanied and accentuated the mechanization of ground forces were advances in tactical wireless communications which made it possible for commanders to keep up with fast moving formations and react in near real time to changing tactical situations. The Germans were the first to become very proficient in this as they not only developed communications for ground forces but also for coordination between tactical air forces and ground forces. This made the German Blitzkrieg the first example of modern air-ground combat cooperation. The Americans, British and Soviets would follow suit but it was the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe that pioneered the communications revolution. As the war went on communications capabilities increased and armies became more dependent on tactical and long range wireless communications. The dependency of military forces on communications networks became a major factor in operational planning and the success of the Allies in breaking Japanese and German codes gave them an advantage in anticipating German or Japanese moves.

Armor, Firepower and Mobility: The Tank Comes into its Own

World War Two Saw Tanks become Deadly Instruments of Modern Warfare

Mechanization was a major factor in the war and the most decisive component of the mechanization of ground forces was the development of the tank as well as specialized formations which employed tanks in close cooperation with other arms, such as mechanized infantry and artillery. The development of such forces really began with the British but the best example of this was the German Panzer Division. The Panzer Division was a totally mechanized and integrated force of all arms which was employed in mass and capable like all German units to be task organized into Kampfgruppen to optimize tactical flexibility. British Armored Divisions were tank heavy and infantry light which made them far less flexible organizations. Soviet Armored forces were slow to develop but they became masters of large level operational maneuver using mechanized and tactical air forces to a deadly effect against the Wehrmacht. The Americans delivered a light and flexible armored formation and became very proficient in combined arms warfare though the divisional structure often proved too light and not as resilient as German formations. It was in this environment that the tank truly came into its own to dominate the battlefield in a way that many could not have imagined prior to the war. Firepower, protection and mobility advantages gained through technological advances increased the lethality and survivability of the tank and forced each side to develop better ways of neutralizing tanks through more powerful anti-tank guns, sabot rounds and shaped charges.

Tactical and Strategic Air developments

The Americans and the British Would Develop the Concept of Strategic Bombing against Germany

With the technical revolution came revolution in the skies both at the strategic and tactical levels. Modern bombers with good navigational gear guided by radar and assisted by modern bombsites such as the Norden developed by the United States would wreak havoc on industrial and civilian centers. Advances in aircraft technology saw fast and more lethal aircraft being fielded by all powers as the war progressed and while Jet propulsion developed during the war would doom piston powered aircraft as first line assets.

The P-47 Thunderbolt Would Serve as both a Long Range Bomber Escort and as Seen Here as an Excellent Ground Attack Aircraft

Tactical air developments would be led by the Germans but as the war went on the Allies developed sophisticate tactical air forces that dominated battlefields when the weather permitted. The Germans pioneered the use of ballistic missiles as well as the cruise missile while the United States and Britain developed the Atomic Bomb. Specialized types of tactics and organizations were developed for strategic, tactical and naval air forces. At the strategic level there were the dueling schools of precision versus area bombing while at the tactical level the developments were as much predicated on air-ground communications as they were the aircraft flown. Specialized aircraft were developed or modified as tank-killers while fighter forces became more specialized to into interceptors, bomber escorts and night fighters.

The Obselecent Junkers JU-87 found New Life on the Eastern Front as a Tank Killer armed with 2 37mm FLAK cannon

The influence of air assets, especially at the tactical level would become more pronounced as the war went on. Allied air superiority ensured that the landings in France and the breakout in Normandy succeeded and tactical air dominance by US Navy and Marine air forces in the Pacific aided ground operations as well as sea battles.

Amphibious Warfare developments

The US Navy and Marine Corps Would Perfect Amphibious Operations in the Pacific

Technology came to the fore in amphibious operations with the development of specialized landing craft, beach clearing equipment and naval gunfire support. This effort was led by the United States with the most advanced force being the Marines. The combined use of air, land, sea and naval air forces to include the use of Aircraft Carriers revolutionized how the campaign in the Pacific would be fought to a conclusion long before anyone thought that it could be.

General Naval Developments

At sea ship design advanced new and better classes of warships as technologic advances in radar, sonar, gunnery systems, torpedo and ant-aircraft technology made warships far more formidable than those built only years before the war. This was nowhere more apparent than in submarine development especially that of Germany’s U-boat arm with the development of streamlined hulls and “schnorkel” technology. The use of U-Boats and later American submarines in the Pacific into “Wolf Packs” increased the lethality of submarine forces to a near decisive state in the war. Naval tactics were influenced by the use of air and surface search radar as well as sonar.

US Fast Carrier Task Forces Would Dominate the Pacific War and Naval Warfare to the Present Day

The development of the US Navy into the dominant Naval Power of the next 65 years was built upon the success of the Navy in the Second World War. The largest and some of the bloodiest sea battles in history were fought in the Pacific with decisive results in that theater of operations. Operationally the major Navies all were influenced to one degree or another by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Summary and Conclusion

The course of World War Two was determined by the strategic and operational theories developed in the inter-war years. These were applied correctly by some powers and not by others. The use technological advances and more effective organizational structure developed in the inter-war years and refined by the experience of war impacted the war on land, at sea and in the air in every theater of war. The use of combined arms and joint operations revolutionized the manner in which wars would be fought. If the technology, theory and force structure had not come together when it did the war might have been fought much as the First World War. Instead warfare became faster and more lethal than ever and would lead to even more advances in the years to come.

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Tagged as aircraft carriers, alfred thayer mahan, amphibious warfare, Army Group Center, b h liddel hart, blitzkrieg, communications, erwin rommel, fast carrier task forces, general fuller, general heinz guderian, george c marshall, german kampfgruppen, guido douhet, maginot line, norden bombsight, normandy landings, panzer division development, panzerwaffe, roy geiger, saar-palatine campaign, soviet union, stalingrad, u-boats, us army, US Navy, usmc, wehrmacht, wolfpacks, world war ii

November 22, 2009 · 01:44

Book Review: Identity and War, the Lessons of King Philip’s War

This is a book review of Jill Lepore’s book “The Name of War: The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York NY. 1999

King Philip

The thesis of Jill Lepore’s book “In the Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” is that King Philip’s War helped lay the foundation of American identity. Lepore postulates that the history of the war and the war itself cannot be separated especially in regard to the identity of the participants. This is of particular interest in how the participants record the history of the war and how it influences their perception of themselves and their enemies.

War and how it is recorded in history can define a people. Examples of this can be seen throughout history. For instance the history and identity of Serbia cannot be separated from the battle of Kosovo in 1389 . There are countless other examples of how war shapes the identity of people and nations. One of the defining moments in the early history of Colonial America was King Philip’s War which lasted from July 1675 through August 1676.

Lepore maintains that King Philip’s War defined the ways in which the colonists and Indians shaped their views of themselves and each other, not just at the time of the war but in succeeding generations. She takes an approach unlike a lot of histories of war. Instead of simply analyzing battles Lepore looks at how war cultivates language and the questions that war provokes.

The most pressing to Lepore is “how do people reconcile themselves to war’s worst cruelties.”[i] She notes her own view of war in her introduction: “War is a contagion, the universal perversion. War is politics by other means, at best barbarism, a mean contemptible thing.”[ii] She says that her interest in war was drawn on the media coverage of the Persian Gulf War and her question of “how war could be represented without pictures.”[iii] This of course demonstrates how she views the nature of war and how she interprets it.

Lepore examines the literature of “King Philip’s War” beginning with the death of the leader of Wampanoag Indian King Philip in June 1675. She examines the war from both sides inasmuch as that only one side had access to the means to record that history. Through the writings of the colonists she examines the brutal nature of King Philip’s War which “in proportion to population… inflicted greater casualties than any other war in American history.”[iv]

This is not a campaign history. Instead Lepore selects incidents and battles of the war and looks at them through the eyes of the people that recorded them. Lepore notes that “the central claim of this book is that wounds and words-the injuries and their interpretation- cannot be separated, that acts of war generate acts of narration, and that both types of acts are often joined in a common purpose: defining the geographical, political, cultural, and sometimes racial and national boundaries between peoples.”[v]

Lepore’s account is a literary and philosophical study of the nature of war and not a military history. Her understanding of the totality of this war and its effect through the years is noted by others such as Russell Weigley.[vi] She asks a poignant question that should be noted by any practitioner of war or military theorist: “If war is, at least in part, a contest for meaning, can it ever be a fair fight when only one side has access to those perfect instruments of empire, pens, paper, and printing presses?”[vii]

Lepore studies the literature of the war published by the colonists. In particular she discusses the competing histories published by Increase Mather and William Hubbard, both pastors in New England and the writings of other colonists, especially those of Nathanial Saltonstall and Mary Rowlandson. For Lepore the importance of the writing of these people is connected to the identity of the peoples involved, both the English colonists and the Native Americans.[viii] Lepore’s premise is that the writings of the colonists “proved pivotal to their victory, a victory that drew new firmer boundaries between English and Indian people, between English and Indian land, and what it meant to be “English” and what it meant to be “Indian.””[ix] This is still a critical question. She notes how King Philip’s War influenced later events such as the American Revolution and the deportation of the Cherokee nation in the 1820s.

For Lepore the formation of the identity of both the colonists and the indigenous people is the key theme of this war, and for that matter most wars.

Lepore depicts this in her prologue and the account of the torture of a Narragansett Indian by Mohegans Indians while the English watch. The question that she raises and that she will ask again is “If they are to think of themselves as different from “these Heathen” whom they condemn for their “barbarous Cruelty,” how then can they consent to such treatment of a Narragansett before their very eyes? “Their enemy is killed, yet they do not have to kill him. They are allowed to witness torture, yet they not need inflict it.”[x]

Yet for the colonists such behavior risked their identity as Christians and Englishmen which was what they believed that they fought for in the first place. Lepore notes Mather’s 1674 sermon The Day of Trouble is Near which emphasized the theme of decay and confusion present at the time.[xi]

Lepore notes the effect of literacy on both the colonists and Indians. She begins with the murder of John Sassamon a bi-lingual Indian as the seminal event which set the stage for the war. She then examines Sassamon’s relationship to the English and Christianity and his relationship with King Philip. In Lepore’s account Sassamon was a victim of both his faith and literacy.

Lepore provides a good study of early missionary attempts to “bring the Gospel” to the Indians by translating the Bible and devotional texts from English to Massachusett[xii] and how that missionary activity converted many Indians including Sassamon. Lepore notes that: “in a sense literacy killed John Sassamon. And herein lies one of the fundamental paradoxes of the waging and writing of King Philip’s War: The cultural tensions that caused the war – the Indians becoming Anglicized and English becoming Indianized- meant that literate Indians like John Sassamon who were those most likely to record their version of events of the war, were among its first casualties.” [xiii]

Lepore’s depiction of the cruelties of war in chapters three and four is a study in contrasts. Again this comes back to a question of identity for the colonists. They saw themselves as different from the “uncivilized Indians” even the Christian Indians. This was because the colonists believed that Indians did not value English understanding of identity which was connected to property and its improvement, houses, land and farm field’s cattle and possessions. When the Indians destroyed English property it was a blow at their very identity as Englishmen. The tension between these tow opposite points of view remains a fixture of American life.

Religion played a major role in the conflict. Lepore notes that “the colonists’ sense of predestination…, their natural affinity with the land, and their cultural proclivity to conflate property with identity, all combined to produce this oneness of bodies and land.”[xiv] The English did not view the Indians as having the same values because they did not have the same understanding of land and property, and thus they saw them as savage. For example she discusses how the colonists view of how “the Algonquians’’ perceived nomadism, their failure to “improve” the land, formed the basis for the English land claims….”[xv] In other words the English Colonists believed that if the Indians were want to improve the land upon which they dwelt than they did not deserve to remain on it.

Lepore discusses the metaphor of “nakedness” in relation to the loss of property and identity.[xvi] She notes how the Indians seemed to have understood the importance of land and property to the English. She cites a note left by a Nipmuck Indian at Medfield “we hauve nothing but our lives to loose but thou hast many fair houses cattell & much good things.”[xvii] She notes that the note offered an analysis missed by all the English accounts of the war.[xviii]

Likewise Lepore notes how religion informed both the colonists and Indians who both looked for supernatural messages in the natural world. The English colonists, primarily Puritan Calvinists believed that the devastation of the war on them at the beginning of the war was “God punishing them for their sins, not the least of them their failure to convert the Indians to Christianity.”[xix] The English settlers were influenced by their Calvinist theology and believed that the Indians both “served the devil” but were also “the instruments of God.”[xx] The Indians also had a spiritual element to their conduct of the war and the clash of these beliefs gave the war a religious dimension especially for the Colonists a dimension that would pervade American perceptions of many of the wars which followed.

Another theme of Lepore in how the war shaped identity is in the context of the bondage experienced by the English captives of the Indians during the war that of and of the Indians following the war. She uses the stories of Mary Rowlandson and Christian Indian James Printer to illustrate her thesis.

Rowlandson’s story is the account of her capture, captivity and release by the Indians following the attack on Lancaster, Massachusetts in February 1676. Lepore calls the importance of Rowlandson’s account The Sovereignty and Goodness of God and how it shaped the colonial and later American understanding of the war by “the nearly complete veil it has unwittingly placed over the experiences of bondage endured by Algonquian Indians during King Philip’s War.”[xxi] Lepore writes that for Rowlandson and Printer that the story was one of redemption and return to English society, Rowlandson through her book, Printer through bringing back scalps of other Indians as a demonstration of his loyalty to the Colonists.[xxii]

Another point raised by Lepore here is the enslavement and deportation of the Algonquians by the Colonists following the war. A key to the thinking of the colonists is elaborated by Lepore: “In the end, the colonists’ evaluation of Indian sovereignty was merely an extension of their thinking about Indian possession: Indians were only sovereign enough to give their sovereignty away.”[xxiii]

This again comes back to Lepore’s thesis of identity. She states that the “colonists moved toward (but never fully embraced) in their writing about King Philip’s War was the idea that Indians were not, in fact truly human, or else humans of such a vastly different race as to be considered essentially, and biologically inferior to Europeans.”[xxiv] She argues that King Philip’s war was a defining moment where “Algonquian political and cultural autonomy was lost and where the English moved one step closer to the worldview that would create, a century and a half later, the Indian removal policy of Andrew Jackson.”[xxv]

Lepore’s final section deals with memory and identity. She illustrates this by noting how the Reverend Nathan Fiske in 1775 equated the British to the Indians of King Philip’s War; and the play Metamora written in 1829 about King Philip and the war. Both Fiske and the latter play had an impact.

Fiske’s sermon helped light the fires of American independence movement, something that which Lepore notes for the Indians was “not a gain but a loss of liberty.”[xxvi] The play Metamora opened the day Andrew Jackson declared his policy of Indian removal. It was the most popular American play of its era. Lepore says that when you “peel back all the layers …what remains is a struggle for American and Indian identity. Through plays like Metamora, white Americans came to define themselves in relation to an imagined Indian past.”[xxvii]

Overall Lepore’s treatment of King Philip’s War is a good treatment of how wars affect people and their relationships with those whom they war against. Using Lepore’s thesis of the war, the history of war and how they shape the identities of peoples and nations’ one could conceivably analyze other conflicts from this perspective.

Since this is the premise of why Lepore began her study of King Philip’s War it is worthy of further discussion. Such studies could be undertaken in the Balkans, Kurdistan, Palestine, Iraq or Syria as well as other regions where the impact of war is thoroughly ingrained in the minds, hearts and imaginations of the parties involved. From this perspective one wonders what future generations of Americans and Moslems will write of the current conflicts that the United States is engaged in.

Another aspect of Lepore’s examination study is religion in the perception and interpretation of war. In this case it is the impact of the colonists Calvinism and its relationship to other English theologies of its day as well as other Calvinistic understanding of war of that era that matters.

This is very important. The more recent English colonists prior to King Philip’s War had in many cases experienced the brutality of English Civil War and the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in which they dominated the English political landscape. Thus for many of these colonists a return of the Crown and Anglicanism would drive them to seeking independence for the colonies.

Many of the soldiers among them would certainly recall the brutality of the civil war and the invasion of Ireland. The soldier’s views of the Irish were similar to the views of the colonists of the Indians, something that Lepore only mentions in passing. As such the experience of the more recent colonists and the soldiers added a dimension of brutality that was not as prevalent before the hostilities.

Likewise Lepore mentions little of Roger Williams’ beliefs and his relations to the Puritans whom he fled to found Rhode Island in 1631 on the principle of religious freedom. Her treatment of Williams does not include his respect for the Indians and view that “perhaps their religion was acceptable in the eyes of God as was Christianity.”[xxviii] Despite this her treatment of King Philip’s War is worthwhile reading because it brings up the question of identity which seems to drive war and those who write of it to the present day.

The question that Lepore forces us to ask is how past wars shape our conduct in and interpretation of ongoing wars. The Colonists would see their conflict with the Indians as one of life and death, one of their very survival as a people and as such they were willing at times to commit atrocities against Indian threats, real and imagined. More recently the American understanding of the war against Japan was conducted in a similar vein with many of the same overtones. Likewise the framing of the current war by some as a war of survival against the threat of Islam raises similar issues. Thus Lepore’s study is valuable in examining how some view the current war on terror as well as a means to look at other wars in our nation’s history through a different lens, not simply through the eyes of battles, military forces, strategy and tactics but through the participants identity and who the war is both shaped and recorded by both sides. Even if one does not accept her conclusions or her admitted biases the book can allow us to reexamine our own views of our past and how they shape our present view of war, conflict and identity as a people.

[i] Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York NY. 1999 p.xxi

[ii] Ibid. p.x

[iii] Ibid. p.xxi

[iv] Ibid. p.xi. Additionally, Allen R. Millet and Peter Maslowski in For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America The Free Press, NYew York, NY 1984 note that “the colonists did not enjoy an “Age of Limited Warfare” like that which prevailed in Europe from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. To the colonists (and to the Indians) war was a matter of survival. Consequently, at the very time European nations strove to restrain war’s destructiveness, the colonists waged it with ruthless ferocity, purposefully striking at noncombatants and enemy property.” p.18

[v] Ibid. p.x

[vi] Weigley writes in “The American Way of War: A Study of United States Military Strategy and Policy, Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 1973 that “In King Philip’s War of 1675-76, the Indians came fearfully close to obliterating the New England settlements. When the colonists rallied to save themselves, they saw to it that their victory was complete enough to extinguish the Indians as a military force throughout the southern and eastern parts of New England…” and that he “logic of a contest for survival was always implicit in the Indian wars, as it never was in the eighteenth-century wars …”p.19 Weigley notes how this would impact future American Wars beginning with the War against France and later the American Revolution in that “their success demanded the complete elimination of British power from all of North America, just as they had demanded and won the complete elimination of French power.” p.20

[vii] Ibid. p.xxi

[viii] Ibid. Lepore. p.x

[ix] Ibid. p.xiii

[x] Ibid. Lepore. p.4-5

[xi] Ibid. p.6. Lepore notes a theme that will be later picked up by many in American history. The idea that they were visible saints for all of Europe to see is a precursor to the idea of the United States as “A city set on a hill.”

[xii] See Leopre pp.33-39

[xiii] Ibid. p.25-26

[xiv] Ibid. p.82

[xv] Ibid. p.76

[xvi] Ibid. p.79

[xvii] Ibid. p.94

[xviii] Ibid. pp.95-96. Lepore notes that the English interpreted Algonquian assaults and taunts as “expressions of mindless savagery rather than calculated assaults on the English way of life.” And the refusal of the English to “place Indian “cruelties” within the broader context of Algonquian culture, instead labeling them “barbarous” violations of English ideas of just conduct in war….”

[xix] Ibid. p.99

[xx] Ibid. p.102 Lepore does not dwell on this but this observation is entirely consistent with Calvinist theology which drew heavily on the Old Testament imagery of Israel and its relations with its neighbors. The Old Testament prophets often spoke in terms of the enemies of Israel being used by God to punish Israel for its sin and disobedience to God.

[xxi] Ibid. p.126

[xxii] Ibid. p.147-148

[xxiii] Ibid. p.165

[xxiv] Ibid. p.167

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid. p.189 ff. Lepore chronicles the losses of Freedom in the various states to the different tribes of New England.

[xxvii] Ibid.p.193

[xxviii] Gonzalez, Justo. The History of Christianity, Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day Harper and Row Publishers, San Francisco CA. 1985 p.225

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Tagged as algonquian deportation, algonquian indians, american revolution, battle of kosovo 1389, calvinism, cromwell's invasion of ireland, english civil war, in the name of war king philip's war and the origins of american identity, increase mather, indian removal policy of andrew jackson, james printer, jill lepore, john sassamon, king philip's war, mary rowlandson, metamora, mohegan indians, narragansett indians, nathan fiske, nipmuck indians, oliver cromwell, puritans, rhode island colony, roger williams, russell weigley, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, understanding of identity, wampanoag indians, william hubbard

November 17, 2009 · 01:47

Wacht am Rhein: The Battle of the Bulge

The Decision

Adolf Hitler gathered with the Chiefs of Oberkommando des Wehrmacht on September 16^th 1944 at his “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters in East Prussia. The situation was critical; he had recently survived an assassination attempt by Army officers led by Colonel Klaus Von Staufenberg at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia. When the assassination attempt took place the German situation in Normandy was critical. The Americans broke out of the Bocage at St. Lo and spread out across Brittany and the interior of France with Patton’s 3^rd Army leading the way. Even as his commanders in the West pleaded for permission to withdraw to the Seine Hitler forbade withdraw and ordered a counter attack at Mortain to try to close the gap in the German line and isolate American forces. When the German offensive failed the German front collapsed. 40,000 troops, hundreds of tanks and thousands of vehicles were eliminated when the Americans and Canadians closed the Falaise pocket. Despite this cadres of decimated divisions including SS Panzer, Army Panzer and elite Paratroops made their way out of Normandy. With the Germans in full retreat the Allies advanced to the border of the Reich itself. On the Eastern Front as well disaster threatened when the Red Army launched an offensive which annihilated Army Group Center and advanced to the border of Poland before outrunning supply lines and stalling on the Vistula.

Tiger II Advancing in the Ardennes

Since Normandy Hitler had wanted to counter attack but had neither the forces nor the opportunity to strike the Allied armies. As the Allied offensive ground to a halt due to combat losses, lack of supplies and stiffening German resistance Hitler maintained a close eye on the situation in the West. He believed that despite their success that the Americans and British alliance was weak and that a decisive blow could cause one or both to drop out of the war. During a briefing an officer noted the events of the day on the Western Front including a minor counterattack by kampfgrüppen of the 2^nd SS Panzer and the 2^nd Panzer Divisions which had made minor gains in the Ardennes, Hitler rose from his seat ““Stop!” He exclaimed. “I have come to a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counterattack….Out of the Ardennes, with the objective Antwerp.””[i]

Thus began the planning for the last great German offensive of WWII. Hitler “believed that sufficient damage could be inflicted to fracture the Anglo-American alliance, buy time to strike anew against the Soviets, and allow his swelling arsenal of V-weapons to change the course of the war.”[ii] It was a course of born of desperation, even admitted by Hitler in his briefings to assembled commanders in the week prior to the offensive, one officer noted his remarks: “Gentlemen, if our breakthrough via Liege to Antwerp is not successful, we will be approaching an end to the war which will be extremely bloody. Time is not working for us, but against us. This is really the last opportunity to turn the war in our favor.”[iii]

US Soldiers manhandling a 57mm Anti-Tank Gun into Position

Despite shortages of men and equipment, continuous Allied assaults and over the objections of General Guderian who argued to reinforce the Eastern Front[iv], the OKW staff secretly developed detailed plans. The planning was so secretive that the “Commander in Chief West and the other senior commanders destined to carry out the attack were not informed.”[v] The plans were submitted to Hitler on October 9^th [vi] and presented to Field Marshalls Von Rundstedt and Model at the End of October. General Hasso Von Manteuffel, commander of 5th Panzer Army commented that: “The plan for the Ardennes offensive…drawn up completely by O.K.W. and sent to us as a cut and dried “Führer order.”[vii] Likewise Model and Von Rundstedt objected to the scope of the attack. Von Rundstedt stated: “I was staggered…It was obvious to me that the available forces were way too small for such an extremely ambitious plan. Model took the same view of it as I did….”[viii] Model reportedly said to General Hans Krebs: “This plan hasn’t got a damned leg to stand on.”[ix] And “you can tell your Führer from me, that Model won’t have any part of it.”[x] Sepp Dietrich, the old SS fighter and commander of 6^th Panzer Army expressed similar sentiments.[xi] Despite the objections by so many senior commanders Hitler scorned Model’s attempt to float a less ambitious plan to reduce the Allied salient at Aachen. Likewise Von Rundstedt’s desire to remain of the defense and wait for the Allies to attack using the armored forces to launch against any breakthrough was rejected.[xii] Hitler’s mind was set and the preparations moved forward. The plan was complete down to the timing of the artillery bombardment and axes of advance, and “endorsed in the Führer’s own handwriting “not to be altered.””[xiii] Such a plan flew in the face of the well established doctrine of the Auftragstaktik which gave commanders at all levels the freedom of action to develop the battle as the situation allowed and opportunities arose.

SS General Sepp Dietrich Commander of the 6th SS Panzer Army

The Germans who the Allies presumed to be at the brink of collapse made a miraculous recovery following their ghastly losses in Normandy. Kampfgrüppen and remnants of divisions bled the Americans White at the Huertgen Forrest and blunted the British attempt to leapfrog the Northern Rhine at Arnhem decimating the British First Airborne division and causing heavy casualties among other British and American units. The German 15^th Army avoided disaster when the British failed to close their escape route from Walchern island allowing 60,000 troops and much equipment to escape. The Germans re-formed and reorganized the front. They pulled back many units of the 5^th and 6^th Panzer Armies for re-fitting and diverted nearly all tank, armored fighting vehicle and artillery production to the West at the expense of the Eastern Front. The Germans called up 17 year olds and transferred young fit personnel from the Navy and Luftwaffe to the Army and Waffen SS. Here they were trained by experienced NCOs and officers and brought into veteran units alongside hardened veterans who showed taught them the lessons of 5 years of war.[xiv] However the rapid influx of new personnel meant that they could not be assimilated as quickly as needed and thus many were not as well trained as they might have been with more time.[xv] Many infantry and Parachute units had received inexperienced officers, taken from garrison duty to fill key positions a problem that would show up during the offensive.[xvi]

Panzer IV Ausf H of an SS Panzer Divsion in the Bulge

The Germans were aided by the caution displayed by the Allies throughout the campaign in France which allowed the Germans to reconstitute formations around veteran headquarters staffs.[xvii] The Germans built up the 5^th and 6^th Panzer Armies as the Schwerpunkt of the offensive giving them the lion’s share of reinforcements and pulling them out of the line during the fall battles along the Seigfried line and in the Alsace and Lorraine. The plan was for the two Panzer armies and 7^th Army to punch through the Ardennes, cross the Meuse, drive across Belgium, capture Antwerp and severe the link between the British and the Americans.

The spearhead of the assault was 6^th Panzer Army Commanded by SS General Sepp Dietrich. It was composed of 1^st and 2^nd SS Panzer Corps and Army’s LXVII Corps. The 6^th SS Panzer Army included some of the best formations available to the German Army at this late stage of the war including the 1^st SS Panzer Division, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, the 2^nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, the 9^th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and the12^thSS Panzer Division Hitler Jügend. It’s ranks were filled out by the 3^rd Parachute Division, the 501^st SS Heavy Tank Battalion (attached to 1^st SS), the 3^rd Panzer Grenadier Division and the 12^th, 246^th, 272^nd, 277^thand 326^th Volksgrenadier or Infantry divisions. The 6^th Panzer Army would be the northern thrust of the offensive and its ultimate objective was Antwerp. The 6th Panzer Army would be aided by a hastily organized parachute battalion under Colonel Von Der Heydte[xviii] and the 150^th Panzer Brigade under SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny which included teams of American dialect speaking soldiers in American uniforms and equipment that were to spread confusion and panic in American rear areas.[xix]

Bradley, Eisenhower and Patton at Bastogne

To the south was the 5^th Panzer Army commanded by General Hasso Von Manteuffel. The 5^th Panzer Army was to advance alongside of the 6^th Panzer Army with Brussels as its objective. Composed of the XLVII and LVIII Panzer Corps and LXVI Corps the major subordinate commands included the best of the Army Panzer divisions including the 2^nd Panzer, Panzer Lehr, 9^th and the16^th Panzer division. It also had the elite Führer Begleit Brigade composed of troops from Panzer Corps Grossdeutschland and commanded by Otto Remer who had help crush the coup against Hitler in July. The 5^th Panzer Army also included the 18^th, 26^th, 62^nd, 560^th and later the 167^th Volksgrenadier divisions.

The south flank was guarded by 7^th Army commanded by General Erich Brandenburger composed of LIII, LXXX and LXXXV Corps. It included the Führer Grenadier Brigade and later the 15^th Panzergrenadier division. It was the weakest of the three armies but eventually included 6Volksgrenadier divisions of varying quality and strength[xx] and the veteran 5^th Parachute division.[xxi] However with only 4 divisions at the start of the offensive the 7th Army was the equivalent of a reinforced corps.

While this force seemed formidable it had a number of weaknesses beginning with tank strength. The 1^st and 12^th SS Panzer divisions were only at approximately half their established tank strengths and faced severe shortages in other vehicles.[xxii] 2^nd SS and 9^th SS of II SS Panzer Corps reported similar shortages.[xxiii]The shortage of other motorized vehicles, even in Panzer divisions was acute. “Even the best equipped divisions had no more than 80 percent of the vehicles called for under their tables of equipment, and one Panzergrenadier division had sixty different types of motor vehicles, a logistician’s nightmare.[xxiv] Panzer Lehr was so short in armored half tracks that only one battalion of its Panzer Grenadiers could be transported in them while others had to use “trucks or bicycles.”[xxv]

Limitations on equipment as well as fuel were not the only challenges that the Germans faced. The US V Corps launched an attack on the Roer River Dams just before the offensive making it necessary for the Germans to divert 6^th SS Panzer Army infantry divisions and Jagdpanzer units to be used by 6^th SS Panzer Army. One regiment of 3^rd Parachute Division and over half of a second division could not take part in the initial 6^th Panzer Army attack. Likewise some Jagdpanzer and Sturmgeschutzen units did not arrive until three days after the offensive began.[xxvi]

Allied Response: Before the Battle

While the German commanders sought to implement Hitler’s plan Allied commanders looked only to completing the destruction of Germany not believing the Germans capable of any major operation. The Allied commanders with the exception of Patton did not believe the Germans capable of any more than local counter attacks. Patton’s 3^rd Army G-2 Colonel Koch was the only intelligence officer to credit the Germans with the ability to attack.[xxvii] Most allied commanders and intelligence officers discounted the German ability to recover from disastrous losses, something that they should have learned in Holland or learned from the Soviet experiences on the Eastern front. Bradley noted in his memoirs hat “I had greatly underestimated the enemy’s offensive capabilities.”[xxviii] Carlo D’Este noted that “there was another basic reason why the Allies were about to be caught with their pants down: “Everyone at SHAEF was thinking offensively, about what they could do to the enemy, and never about what the enemy might do to them.””[xxix] This mindset was amazing due to the amount of intelligence from Ultra and reports from frontline units that major German forces were no longer in the line.[xxx] Additionally nearly all commentators note that American units in the Ardennes did not conduct aggressive patrols to keep the enemy off balance and obtain intelligence.[xxxi] One describes the efforts of 106^th Division as “lackadaisical” and notes that enemy before the offensive was not the Germans but the cold.[xxxii] Max Hastings noted that: “the Allies’ failure to anticipate Hitler’s assault was the most notorious intelligence disaster of the war.”[xxxiii]

The Allies also were in the midst of a manpower crisis. Eisenhower did not have enough divisions to establish a clear manpower advantage as “there were not enough Anglo-American divisions, or enough replacements for casualties in the existing divisions.”[xxxiv] No more American Infantry divisions were available as the Army had been capped at 90 divisions and infantry replacements were in short supply. This shortage meant that Eisenhower could not pull divisions out of line to rest and refit. He could only transfer divisions such as the 4^th and 28^th Infantry divisions to the relative quiet of the Ardennes. He had no ability to “create a strategic reserve unless he abandoned the broad front strategy.”[xxxv] The Germans knew of the allied weakness and believed that they could achieve local superiority even if they did not believe they could reach Antwerp. Model believed that “he was sure that he would reach the Meuse in strength before the Americans could move sufficient reserves to halt his armies or even head them off.”[xxxvi]

American Response: The Breakthrough

The German assault began on December 16^th. Some breakthroughs were made especially in the vicinity of the Losheim Gap and the Schnee Eifel by the southern elements of 6^th Panzer Army and Manteuffel’s 5^th Panzer Army. However the Germans could not break through around Monschau and Elsenborn Ridge held by the inexperienced but well trained 99^th Infantry division and elements of the veteran 2^nd “Indianhead” Division. In the far south near Diekirch the 4^th Infantry Division held stubbornly against the attacks of 7^th Army’s Volksgrenadiers. The Germans achieved their greatest success at Losheim where SS Colonel Josef Peiper and his 1^st SS Panzer Regiment had driven off the US 14^th Cavalry Group and penetrated 6 miles into the American front. 5^th Panzer Army made several breakthroughs and isolated two regiments of newly arrived 106^th Infantry Division in the Schnee Eifel. Manteufel also pressed the 28^th Division hard along the Clerf River, Skyline Ridge and Clairvaux. Yet at ‘no point on that first day did the Germans gain all of their objectives.”[xxxvii] The credit goes to US units that stubbornly held on, but also to the poor performance of many German infantry units. German commanders were frustrated by their infantry’s failure even as the panzers broke through the American lines. Manteuffel noted his infantry was “incapable of carrying out the attack with the necessary violence.”[xxxviii]

US Airborne Commanders James Gavin (R) and Matthew Ridgeway (L)

The initial Allied command response to the attack by senior commanders varied. Bradley believed it was a spoiling attack “to try and force a shift of Patton’s troops from the Saar offensive back to the Ardennes.”[xxxix] Courtney Hodges of 1^st Army agreed with Bradley and refused to allow General Gerow, commander of V Corps to call off 2^nd Infantry Division’s attack against the Roer dams on the 16^th in order to face the German offensive.[xl] Gerow was one of the first American commanders to recognize the scope of the German attack but Hodges, perhaps the least competent senior American commander in Europe failed to heed Gerow’s advice. Soon after making this decision Hodges “panicked” and evacuated his headquarters at Spa fearing that it would be overrun by the advancing Germans.[xli] Eisenhower when informed of the news realized that something major was occurring and ordered the 7^th Armored Division from the 9^th Army and 10^th Armored Division from 3^rd Army into the Ardennes. On the 17^th he made other dispositions and released the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions from SHAEF reserve at Rheims to the Ardennes under the command of XVIII Airborne Corps.[xlii] However during this short amount of time Mantueffel’s panzers had advanced 20 miles.

SS Panzer Troops of Kampfgruppe Knittel on the advance. Photo has often been identified for decades in books and other publications as Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Peiper the commanding officer of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment and Kampfgruppe Peiper. This has been refuted by recent study. Peiper is pictured below.

At the command level Eisenhower made a controversial, but correct decsion to divide the command of the Bulge placing on a temporary basis all forces in the northern sector under Montgomery and leaving those to the south under Bradley. Montgomery according to one commentary initially “had been astonishingly tactful in handing his American subordinates.”[xliii] However he quickly made himself obnoxious to many American commanders.[xliv] Following the battle Montgomery made the situation worse by claiming to have saved the Americans and giving credit to British units which scarcely engaged during the battle.[xlv] Eisenhower also ordered Patton to launch a counter-attack along the southern flank of the German advance. However Patton was already working on such an eventuality and promised to be able to launch a counterattack with three divisions by the 22^nd.[xlvi] Bradley praised Patton highly in his memoirs noting: “Patton’s brilliant shift of 3^rd Army from its bridgehead in the Saar to the snow-covered Ardennes front became one of the most astonishing feats of generalship of our campaign in the West.”[xlvii]

American Response: the Shoulder’s Hold

The 99^th Division’s position was precarious, its right flank was subject to being turned and it was suffering severely at the hands of 12 SS Panzer and several Volksgrenadier divisions. Gerow reinforced the 99^th with elements of the 2^nd Infantry division even before he had the final authorization to end its attack. The two divisions stubbornly held Elsenborn Ridge and the villages of Rockerath, Krinkelt and Büllingen. By the 20^th the 9^th and 1^st Infantry divisions arrived to strengthen the defense and lengthen the line to prevent it from being rolled up by the Germans. The stubborn resistance of the Americans and arrival of reinforcements meant line was proof “against anything Sepp Dietrich might hurl against it”[xlviii] By the 23^rd Dietrich and 6^th SS Panzer Army conceded defeat at Elsenborn and “turned its offensive attentions to other sectors.”[xlix] German commanders like General Priess the commander of 1^st SS Panzer Corps believed that terrain and road network in this sector was unfavorable to the German offensive and had proposed moving the attack further south.[l] The Panzers could not deploy properly and the German infantry was not up to the task of driving the Americans out of their positions before the reinforcements arrived.

In the south the 4^th Infantry Division held the line though heavily pressed by Brandenburger’s 7^th Army. The division was reinforced by elements of both 9^th and 10^th Armored divisions on the 17^th and generally held its line along the Sauer River around Echternach “largely because the left flank of the enemy assault lacked the power-and particularly the armor-of the thrust farther north.”[li]

Turning Point: The Destruction of Kampfgruppe Peiper

While V Corps fought the 6^th Panzer Army to a standstill, to the south 1^st SS Panzer Division led by Kampfgrüppe Peiper split the seam between V Corps and VIII Corps. The Kampfgrüppe moved west leaving a brutal path of destruction in its wake, including massacres of American POWs and Belgian civilians.[lii] However its advance was marked with difficulty. On the night of the 17^th it failed to take Stavelot. After clearing the American defenders from the town after a hard fight on the 19^th it failed to capture a major American fuel dump a few miles beyond the town. When the Germans approached the American commander ordered his troops to pour 124,000 gallons down the road leading to the dump and set it on fire, depriving the Germans of badly needed fuel.[liii] Combat Engineers from the 291^st Engineer Battalion blew a key bridge across the Ambleve at Trois Ponts and another bridge across the Lienne Creek which left the Germans bottled up in the Ambleve River valley. This bought time for the 30^th Infantry Division to set up positions barring Peiper from the Meuse. The 30^th would be joined by Combat Command B of 3^rd Armored Division and elements of 82^nd Airborne. These units eventually forced Peiper to abandon his equipment and extricate some 800 troops by foot by the 23^rd after a hard fight with the Americans who had barred his every effort to break through to the Meuse.

Turning Point: The Crossroads: St Vith & Bastogne

The battle rapidly became focused on key roads and junctions, in particular St. Vith in the north and Bastogne in the south. At St. Vith the 7^th Armored Division under General Hasbrouck, who Chester Wilmont calls one of the “great men of the Ardennes”[liv] completed a fifty mile road march from Aachen to St. Vith. On his arrival he deployed his combat commands around the town which was the key to the road network in the north and also to the only rail line running west through the Ardennes.[lv] Hasbrouck gathered in Colonel Hoge’s Combat Command B of 9^th Armored Division and the 424^th Infantry Regiment of the 106^th Division into his defensive scheme as well as the survivors of the 112^th Infantry Regiment of the 28^th Infantry Division which had escaped the German onslaught after holding as long as possible along the Clerf River and Skyline Drive.[lvi] With these units Hasbrouck conducted “an eight-day stand that was as critical and courageous, as the defense of Bastogne.”[lvii] After holding the Germans at St. Vith the units were withdrawn to another defensive position along the Salm and Ourthe Rivers and the village of Viesalm. This was done at the behest of Montgomery and General Ridgeway of XVII Airborne Corps whose 82^nd Airborne had moved into that area on the 19^th. The arrival of the 82^nd greatly assisted Hasbrouck’s force holding St. Vith whose defenders had lost an estimated 5000 casualties.[lviii]

The stand at St. Vith confined the “confined the Sixth Panzer Army’s penetration to a chokingly narrow corridor.”[lix] It also posed a problem for German command and control which because it was out of the 6^th Panzer Army’s area of operations Dietrich was unable to lend his weight into the fight. “Hitler himself had strictly prohibited deviations from the zonal boundaries”[lx] which left the fight for St. Vith in the hands of 5^th Panzer Army who felt the impact of the stand as the Americans “also choked off one of the Fifth Panzer Army’s best routes to Bastogne, almost nullifying the significance of the captured road junction at Houffalize.”[lxi]

To the south of St. Vith lay Bastogne, another key road junction needed by 5^th Panzer Army for its advance. On the night of the18^th Panzer Lehr division came within two miles of the town before being checked by resistance by units of the 10^th Armored division, remnants of 28^th Division and misdirection by “friendly” Belgian guides onto a muddy path that helped halt their advance.[lxii] This gave the 101^st Airborne just enough time to get to the town and prevent its capture. The siege of Bastogne and its defense by the 101^st elements of 9^th and 10^th Armored Divisions and 28^th Division became an epic stand against Manteuffel’s Panzers which had surged around the town. Wilmont comments that “had the Germans won the race for Bastogne, Manteuffel’s armor would have had a clear run to Dinant and Namur on December 19^th and 20^th” [lxiii] when there were only scattered American units between them and the Meuse. Manteuffel b bypassed Bastonge after the failure to capture it and masked it with 26^th Volksgrenadier Division and a regiment of Panzer Lehr. The remainder of Panzer Lehr and the 2^nd Panzer Division moved to the west. [lxiv] The garrison endured numerous attacks and on the 22^nd one of the most celebrated incidents of the war took place when Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe responded to a demand for the surrender of the town with the reply; “Nuts.” The town would continue to hold until relieved by 3^rd Army on the afternoon of December 26^th.[lxv]

Allied Response: The Counterattack

The Allied counterattack began with 3^rd Army in the south on 21 December. Patton’s initially proposed to attack toward the base of the Bulge in order to cut off the largest number of Germans possible. Eisenhower dictated an attack further west with the goal of relieving Bastogne. Eisenhower wanted to delay the attack to concentrate combat power while Patton wanted to attack sooner in order to ensure surprise. Patton got his way but attacked on a wide front. The attack lost its impetus and bogged down into a slugging match with 7^th Army’s infantry and paratroops along the southern flank. [lxvi] Patton’s failure to concentrate his forc forces for the advance to the north diminished his combat power.[lxvii] While Patton attacked from the south the 1^st Army dealt with the advanced spearhead of 2^nd Panzer Division which had reached the town of Celles and ran out of gas just four miles from Dinant and the Meuse. The 84^th Infantry Division stopped the 116^th Panzer division from being able to effect a relief of the 2^nd Panzer the US 2^nd Armored Division and allied fighter bombers chopped up the virtually immobile 2^nd Panzer division completing that task by the 26^th.[lxviii]

To the north Montgomery launched a cautious counterattack which slowly and methodically took back lost ground but allowed many Germans to escape. While Montgomery moved south Patton faced heavy German resistance from elements of 5^th Panzer Army, reinforced by 1^st SS Panzer Corps and 7^th Army. The rupture in the American front was not repaired until 17 January when the American forces met at Houffalize.[lxix] Bradley took over for Montgomery and the Americans pushed the Germans slowly back across the Clerf River by the 23^rd.The advance was hampered by tough German resistance and terrible weather which forced much of the attack to be made by dismounted troops as the roads had completely frozen over.[lxx]

The Allied counter attack has been criticized for allowing too many Germans to escape what could have been a major encirclement. Patton recognized the incompleteness of the victory in the Ardennes stating: ““We want to catch as many Germans as possible, but he is pulling out.” The “but” clause, the note of regret, the awareness of the imperfection of his victories typified Patton.””[lxxi] Patton in his memoirs notes: “In making the attack we were wholly ignorant of what was ahead of us, but we were determined to strike through to Bastogne.”[lxxii] Max Hastings simply said: “the Allies were content with success.”[lxxiii] Murray and Millett place blame on Bradley and Hodges for choosing “merely to drive the enemy out of the Ardennes rather than destroy him.”[lxxiv]

Analysis: Could Wacht Am Rhein Have Worked?

Could Wacht am Rhein worked? If much was different, yes. If the German had been stronger in tanks and vehicles and had adequate stocks of fuel; if their infantry was better trained, and had the Americans not resisted so stubbornly it might have at least got to the Meuse. Perhaps if the the bad weather held keeping Allied air forces away from the Germans, or had St. Vith and Bastogne been taken by the 18^th or 19^th, they might have reached the Meuse. Had the Germans executed their plan and coordinated their assault better[lxxv] in the 6^th Panzer Army sector and had the 7^th Army enough strength to conduct offensive operations in depth and secure the left flank the attack might have succeeded. Because the Americans held the shoulders and road junctions, Manteuffel’s 5^th Panzer Army, the only force besides the regimental sized Kampfgrüppe Peiper to actually threaten the Meuse was forced to advance while attempting to take Bastogne and defeat 3^rd Army’s counterattack. Whether they could have made Antwerp is another matter. Nearly all German commanders felt the offensive could not take Antwerp but did believe that they could inflict a defeat on the Allies and destroy a significant amount of allied combat power.

The German offense was a desperate gamble. Too few divisions, scant supplies of petrol, formations that had recently been rebuilt and not given enough time to train to the standard needed for offensive operations coupled with Hitler’s insistence on an unalterable plan kept them from success. At the same time the Allies were weak in troops as Eisenhower had no strategic reserve save the two American Airborne Divisions. All reinforcements to the threatened sector had to come from the flanks and by the middle of the battle the 9^th Army was drawn down to two divisions. Russell Weigley notes the constraints imposed by the 90 division Army, and of the limited stocks of artillery ammunition.[lxxvi] If the Germans had more forces they might have inflicted a significant defeat on the Allies had they been able to reinforce their success in depth. Despite this they still inflicted punishing losses on the Americans though suffering greatly themselves. Hastings notes that the real beneficiaries of the Ardennes offensive were the Russians.[lxxvii] It is unlikely that the offensive could have ever achieved Hitler’s goals of taking Antwerp and fracturing the British-American alliance.

A Note About other Parts of the Campaign in France

The Riviera and Rhone

The campaign in south France was strategically wise although opposed by the British to the last minute because they felt it would take away from Overlord.[lxxviii] Though delayed the campaign was well executed by 7^th Army, particularly Lt. General Lucian Truscott’s VI Corps of 3 American divisions. Truscott believed “destroying the enemy army was the goal”[lxxix] managed the battle well and skillfully maneuvered his small forces against Blaskowitz’s 19^th Army inflicting heavy losses, though some German commanders noted the caution of American infantry in the attack.[lxxx] Only Blaskowitz’s tactical skills and the weakness of the American force prevented the Germans from disaster. The seizure of Marseilles and Toulon provided the allies with sorely needed ports that were invaluable to sustain the campaign.[lxxxi]

The Lorraine Campaign

Patton attacked in the Lorraine with the goal of crossing the Moselle and attempting to break into Germany. He doing so he ran into some of the strongest German forces on the front and bogged down in the poor terrain and mud of the region.[lxxxii] Patton was delayed in making his assault due to his place “at the far end of the logistics queue.”[lxxxiii] German forces skillfully defended the ancient fortress of city Metz forcing the Americans into a protracted campaign to clear the area with the last strongpoint surrendering on 13 December. Patton is criticized for his failure to concentrate his forces[lxxxiv] but American tactics were less to blame than the weather, German resistance and shortages of infantry.[lxxxv] In some cases American infantry units performed admirably, particularly 80^th Division’s assault on the Falkenburg Stellung.[lxxxvi]Liddell Hart criticized the Allies for failing to attack through the then weakly defended Ardennes, commenting: “By taking what appeared to be the easier paths into Germany the Allies met greater difficulties.”[lxxxvii]

The Huertgen Forrest

The Huertgen Forrest was the worst managed American fight Western European campaign. [lxxxviii] General Courtney Hodges leadership was poor.[lxxxix] In the Huertgen he fed division after division into a battle that made no strategic sense. American infantry performed poorly and took extremely heavy casualties leaving four divisions shattered.[xc] Poor American tactics demonstrated by attacking into a forest in poor weather without concentration negated all of Hodges’ advantages in tanks, artillery and airpower. The forest contained no significant German forces capable of threatening any American advance[xci] and its gain offered little advantage.[xcii] Hastings noted that the gains the only saving grace was that it made it easier for the northern shoulder of the Bulge to hold[xciii] General Model and his subordinates expertly handled their handful of excellent but weary divisions in this battle using terrain, weather and prepared defensive positions to contest nearly every yard of the Forrest.[xciv]

Conclusions

The lessons of the Bulge and the other campaigns on the German-French border are many and can be gleaned from Allied and German mistakes. On the Allied side the most glaring mistakes were assumptions prior to the German attack that the Germans were incapable of any serious offensive and ignoring the fact that the Germans had attacked through the Ardennes in 1940. Likewise the self limitation of the American Army to 90 divisions for world-wide service meant that there were no more divisions in the pipeline and that worn out divisions would have to be reinforced with inexperienced troops while in the front line which ensured a lack of cohesiveness in many divisions, especially the infantry. Allied intelligence failures as well as their reliance of forces much smaller than they should have had for such a campaign ensured that they would suffer heavy losses in the Bulge while poor planning and execution by Hodges wasted many good troops in a senseless battle. The Germans were hamstrung by Hitler’s fantasy that the Western Allies could be forced out of the war or the Alliance split by a defeat in the Ardennes. Likewise German forces, even those so quickly reconstituted were often short troops, tanks and vehicles. German commanders were forced by Hitler’s rigid insistence on not altering the plan to not be as flexible as they might have been in earlier offensives to adjust according to the situation on the ground.

[i] Dupay, Trevor N. Hitler’s Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge December 1944-January 1945Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY 1994 p.2.

[ii] Hastings, Max. Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 Alfred A Knopf, New York NY 2004 p.197.

[iii] Reynolds, Michael. Sons of the Reich: II SS Panzer Corps; Normandy, Arnhem, Ardennes, and on the Eastern Front. Casemate Publishing, Havertown PA 2002 p.186

[iv] Ibid. p.198

[v] Warlimont, Walter. Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-1945 translated by R.H. Barry. Presidio Press, San Francisco, CA 1964. p. 480

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Liddell Hart, B.H. The German Generals Talk. Originally published 1948, Quill Publishers Edition, New York 1979 p.274.

[viii] Liddell Hart, B.H. The History of the Second World War G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York NY 1970. p.646.

[ix] MacDonald, Charles B. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge William Morrow and Company, New York, NY 1985 p.35.

[x] [x] Newton, Steven H. Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model, Hitler’s Favorite General.DeCapo Press, Cambridge MA 2005. p.329

[xi] Ibid. Hastings p.198. Hastings quotes Dietrich: “All Hitler wants me to do is cross a river, capture Brussels, then go on and take Antwerp. And all this at the worst time of year through the Ardennes when the snow is waist-deep and there isn’t enough room to deploy four tanks abreast let alone armored divisions. When it doesn’t get light until eight and it’s dark again by four and with re-formed divisions made up chiefly of kids and sick old men-and at Christmas.”

[xii] Ibid. Liddell-Hart The German Generals Talk p.276

[xiii] Wilmont, Chester. The Struggle for Europe Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, NY 1952 p.576

[xiv] Ibid. p.557.

[xv] Ibid. Hastings. p.199. Hastings notes that Manteuffel said: “It was not that his soldiers now lacked determination of drive; what they lacked were weapons and equipment of every sort. Von Manteuffel also considered the German infantry ill trained.”

[xvi] Ibid. Dupay.p.47 Dupay notes that in 3^rd Parachute Division that most of the regimental commanders had no combat experience.

[xvii] Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1981 p.432. Weigley speaks of Allied caution and predictable strategy, caution in logistical planning which did not allow the Allies to provide the fuel needs for a rapid drive into Germany and caution of operational commanders.

[xviii] Liddell Hart discusses the issue of paratroops at length in discussions with Manteuffel and General Kurt Student. At the time of the operation there were very few jump trained paratroops available for the operation as most of the 6 organized Parachute Divisions were committed to battle as infantry during the 1944 battles in the East, Italy and in the West. German Generals Talk pp.282-285. Although Liddell Hart makes note of the employment of these troops and talked with Model and student about why they were not used to seize bridges and other critical terrain featured ahead of the Panzers instead of the use as a blocking force, I have found no one who questioned why the Germans did not use small glider detachments for the same purpose. The Germans had demonstrated with Skorzeny when they rescued Mussolini from his mountain prison that they still retained this capability. The use of the SS Paratroop battalion which could have been assigned to Skorzeny as a glider borne force could have been decisive in capturing the key bridges and terrain ahead of 6^th Panzer Army.

[xix] Skorzeny’s operation was Operation Greif designed to sow confusion in the Allied Ranks. His brigade numbered about 3500 men and had a good number of captured US vehicles including some tanks and tank-destroyers on hand to confuse American units that they came in contact with.

[xx] Ibid. Hastings. p. 199. Hastings quotes the Adjutant of 18^th Volksgrenadier Division who “felt confident of his unit’s officers, but not of the men “some were very inexperienced and paid the price.” MacDonald notes that the division had many Navy and Air Force replacements but was at full strength. p.646.

[xxi] See MacDonland pp. 644-655 for a detailed commentary on the German Order of Battle.

[xxii] Reynolds, Michael. Men of Steel: 1^st SS Panzer Corps; The Ardennes and Eastern Front 1944-1945 Sarpendon Publishers, Rockville Center NY, 1999. pp.36-37. Reynolds notes that the 1^st SS Panzer Regiment only had 36 Panthers and 34 Mark IV Panzers to begin the operation (excluding the attached 501^st SS Heavy Tank Battalion). He also notes that many of the tank crew replacements had no more than 6 weeks of military training and some of the tank crews had never been in a tank. Similar problems were found in all the Panzer Divisions. Severe shortages of armored half tracks, reconnaissance vehicles and other vehicles meant that Panzer Grenadier and Motorized battalions lacked the lift needed and some went on foot or on bicycles.

[xxiii] Ibid. Reynolds. Sons of the Reich. P.183

[xxiv] Ibid. MacDonald. p.44.

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid. Dupay pp. 27-28.

[xxvii] Ibid. MacDonald. p.52. MacDonald notes that Koch warned that the Germans were not finished, that “his withdraw, though continuing has not been a rout or mass collapse.” He calls Koch a “lone voice” in the Allied intelligence world.

[xxviii] Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 1951. p.459. Weigley makes some poignant calling Bradley’s comments “contradictory” and states that: “his apologia is hardly a model of coherence. (p.461)

[xxix] D’Este, Carlo. Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life Owl Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York NY 2002. p.638

[xxx] Dupay and others talk about this in detail. See Dupay pp. 35-44.

[xxxi] Ibid. p.38.

[xxxii] Ibid. Hastings. p.201

[xxxiii] Ibid. Hastings. p.199

[xxxiv] Ibid. Weigley. p.464

[xxxv] Ibid.

[xxxvi] Ibid. Wilmont. P.581.

[xxxvii] Ibid. p.583

[xxxviii] Ibid. Hastings. p.223

[xxxix] Ibid. Weigley. P.457

[xl] Ibid. p.471

[xli] Ibid. Hastings. pp.205-206

[xlii] Ibid. Wilmont. pp.583-584

[xliii] Murray, Williamson and Millett, Allan R. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts and London England, 2000 p.470 The authors must base their conclusion on the fact that Montgomery who mentioned to Eisenhower that Hodges might have to be relieved, did not do so and by the next day told Eisenhower that the action was not needed. A few other American commanders in the north were favorable to Montgomery but this appears to be a minority view.

[xliv] Ibid. Weigley. pp.504-506. Weigley and Wilmont both note the comment of a British Staff Officer the Montgomery “strode into Hodges HQ like Christ come to cleanse the temple.” (Wilmont p.592)

[xlv] Ibid. Hastings. pp.230-232. Hastings is especially critical of Montgomery. Weigley, equally critical notes regarding the January 7^th press conference, Montgomery’s “inability to be self critical at any point.” p.566.

[xlvi] Ibid. Weigley. p.500.

[xlvii] Ibid. Bradley. p.472 Other commentators differ in their view of Patton’s movement. Wilmont notes that Patton had no “equal in the on the Allied side in the rapid deployment of troops. (p.589) Weigley urges readers that “it should be kept in appropriate perspective; it was not a unique stroke of genius.” And he compares it to Guderians disengagement with Panzer Group 4 and 90 degree change of direction and assault against the Kiev pocket in the 1941 Russian campaign (p.500) Hastings notes that “Patton had shown himself skilled in driving his forces into action and gaining credit for their successes. But he proved less effective in managing a tough, tight battle on the southern flank.” (p.230) Regardless of the perspective and criticism Patton’s movement was unequaled by any Allied commander in the war and had he not moved so quickly the 101^st Airborne might not have held Bastogne. Admittedly his attack north was dispersed along a wide front but part of the blame for this must be assigned to Eisenhower who dictated the attack toward the west vice the base of the Bulge where Patton desired to make it. A note I would make is that being a cavalryman Patton thought like one and when faced with the tight battles in close quarters was not at his best. Similar comparisons could be made to J.E.B. Stuart at Chancellorsville when he had to take command of Jackson’s Corps.

[xlviii] Ibid. Weigley. p.475

[xlix] Ibid. p.474

[l] Ibid. Reynolds Men of Steel pp.51-52.

[li] Ibid. Weigley. p.470

[lii] The worst of these took place at the village of Malmedy where Battery B 285^th Field Artillery Observation Battalion of 7^th Armored Division was captured and about 150 soldiers were rounded up and machined gunned in a field with survivors killed with pistol shots in the head.

[liii] Ibid. Weigley. pp.478-479.

[liv] Ibid. Wilmont. p.584

[lv] Ibid. Weigley. p.487

[lvi] Ibid. Weigley. pp.486-487

[lvii] Ibid. Hastings. p.215. Hastings gives most of the credit to Brigadier General Bruce Clarke of CCB 7^th Armored Division for the stand.

[lviii] Ibid. MacDonald. 481-487. MacDonald notes that following the war that the commanders of the units involved “would be grateful to Field Marshal Montgomery for getting them out of what they saw as a deathtrap for their commands. (p.487)

[lix] Ibid. Weigley. p.487

[lx] Ibid.

[lxi] Ibid.

[lxii] Ibid. Hastings. p.217 Also MacDonald. p.289 who talks of the confused situation east of Bastogne both for the Americans and Germans.

[lxiii] Ibid. Wilmont. p.598

[lxiv] Ibid. Liddel Hart. The German Generals Talk. p.288

[lxv] The defense of Bastogne would continue until after the 1^st of January as Hitler renewed the attempts to secure the town in order to push on to the Meuse. Other German formations including units of 1^st SS Panzer Corps shifted south from their original attack would make determined efforts to dislodge the stubborn American defenders.

[lxvi] Ibid. Weigley. pp.500-501. Bradley gives Patton more credit than later commentators. Wilmont notes that the Germans though “amazed at the speed with which Patton had disengaged from the Saar and wheeled them northward…they received due warning of his movement by monitoring the radio net which controlled American traffic, and they were braced to meet his assault. (p.599).

[lxvii] Ibid. Weigely. Pp.520-521

[lxviii] Ibid. pp.535-537

[lxix] Ibid. pp. 558-561

[lxx] Ibid. pp.563-564

[lxxi] Ibid. p.566.

[lxxii] Patton, George S. War as I Knew It Originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company NY 1947, Bantam Paperback Edition, Bantam Books, New York, NY 1980 p.364

[lxxiii] Ibid. Hastings. p.230

[lxxiv] Ibid. Murray and Millett p.471.

[lxxv] Hastings notes that “Tactically, the Ardennes was one of the worst-conducted German battles of the war, perhaps reflecting that none of the generals giving the orders saw any prospect of success. (p.236)

[lxxvi] Ibid. Weigley. pp.567-572

[lxxvii] Ibid. Hastings. p.236-237. Hastings believes that the employment of the 5^th and 6^th Panzer Armies in the East “made the task of Zhukov and his colleagues much harder.”

[lxxviii] Ibid. Weigley. p.236. I find it interesting that neither Hastings nor Liddell Hart mention the Riviera and Rhone campaign.

[lxxix] Ibid. Weigley. p.236

[lxxx] Giziowski, Richard. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz Hippocrene Books Inc. New York NY, 1997. p.328

[lxxxi] Ibid. Weigley comments on how much the overall supply situation was aided by the operation and capture of the ports and notes that the pace of the Cobra breakout had created a crisis in supply and “without the southern French ports the crisis would have been insurmountable.” (p.237)

[lxxxii] Ibid. p.397. Weigley notes: “The immobilizing mud and the enemy’s recalcitrant resistance had fragmented the battle into affairs of squads, platoons, companies and battalions….and Patton’s juniors more than he controlled the course of action, to the extent that control was possible.”

[lxxxiii] Ibid. p.384

[lxxxiv] Ibid. p.390 Weigley states: “The American disinclination to concentrate power was rarely more apparent.” comparing the frontages of 1^st, 9^th and 3^rd Armies and notes that Patton attacked along his entire front.”

[lxxxv] Ibid. Weigley. pp.400-401. Weigley spends a fair amount of time on American infantry shortages in 3^rd Army.

[lxxxvi] Ibid. Weigly. P.400. Weigley notes a German General Wellm attributed part of that victory to the “prowess of the American infantry.”

[lxxxvii] Ibid. Liddell Hart. The History of the Second World War p.560

[lxxxviii] Hastings and Weigley both note how many American division and regimental commanders were relieved of command for their failures in the Huertgen.

[lxxxix] Ibid. Hastings. p.179. Hastings notes that “instead of recognizing the folly of attacking on terrain that suited the Germans so well, Courtney Hodges reinforced failure.”

[xc] Ibid. Weigley. p.420. Weigley notes the high numbers of ballet and non battle casualties in the 4^th, 8^th, 9^th and 28^th Divisions as well as CCR of 5^th Armored and 2^nd Ranger Battalion.

[xci] Ibid. Hastings. p.275. Hastings notes that defending 275^th Division “were poor grade troops who-like the garrison of Aachen posed no plausible threat to the flanks of an American advance to the Roer.”

[xcii] Weigley compares the battle in its effect on the American army to Grants “destruction of the Confederate army in the Wilderness-Spotsylvania-Cold Harbor campaign expended many proud old Union army formations…” (p.438)

[xciii] Ibid. Hastings. p.215

[xciv] Ibid. Newton. p.324

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November 14, 2009 · 23:59

A Christian Defense of the Rights of Moslems and Others in a Democracy (or Constitutional Republic)

Martin Niemöller was a war hero. He had served on U-Boats during the First World War and commanded a U-Boat in 1918 sinking a number of ships. After the war he resigned his commission in the Navy in opposition to the Weimar Republic and briefly was a commander in a local Freikorps unit. His book Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel (From U-boat to Pulpit) traced his journey from the Navy to the pastorate. He became a Pastor and as a Christian opposed what he believed to be the evils of Godless Communism and Socialism. This placed him in the very conservative camp in the years of the Weimar Republic and he rose in the ranks of the United Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. Active in conservative politics, Niemöller initially support the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. However, he quickly soured on Hitler due to his insistence on the state taking precedence over the Church. Niemöller was typical of many Germans of his era and harbored ant-Semitic sentiments that he only completely abandoned his anti-Semitic views until after he was imprisoned. He would spend 8 years as a prisoner of the Nazis a period hat he said changed him including his views about Jews, Communists and Socialists. Niemöller was one of the founding members of the Pfarrernotbund (Pastor’s Emergency Federation) and later the Confessing Church. He was tried and imprisoned in concentration camps due to his now outspoken criticism of the Hitler regime.

Herman Maas was another Evangelical Pastor. Unlike Niemöller, Maas was a active participant in the ecumenical movement, built bridges to the Jewish community and defended the rights of Jews as German citizens. He received a fair amount of criticism for his attendance of Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert’s funeral. Ebert was both a Socialist and avowed atheist. Maas too was active in the Pfarrernotbund and the Confessing church, and unlike Niemöller maintained his opposition to anti-Semitism and the Nazi policies against the Jews. He would help draft the Barmen declaration. He too would be imprisoned and survive the war. Maas was the first non-Jewish German to be officially invited to the newly formed state of Israel in 1950. In July 1964 Yad Vashem recognized the Maas as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer a young Pastor and theologian would also step up to oppose the Nazis and offer support for the Jews. He helped draft the Bethel Confession which among other things rejected “every attempt to establish a visible theocracy on earth by the church as a infraction in the order of secular authority. This makes the gospel into a law. The church cannot protect or sustain life on earth. This remains the office of secular authority.” He also helped draft the Barmen declaration which opposed and condemned Nazi Christianity. Bonhoeffer would eventually along with members of his family take an active role in the anti-Nazi resistance as a double agent for Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr. For this he would be executed after his final sermon in the concentration camp at Flossenburg just a month prior to the end of the war. Another opponent of the Nazis in the Confessing Church was Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth. Barth went into exile as a Swiss citizen but remained active in the criticism of the Nazi regime.

Bishop Galen of Münster and Father and others including Father Rupert Meyer in Munich who opposed Hitler in the early 1920s would also oppose the Nazi policies toward the Church and the Jews. They would also end up in concentrations camps with some dying at the hands of the Nazis.

All these men took risks to defend the Jews who were religious minority group that had been traditionally discriminated against in Germany. They opposed the Nazi policies which were widely supported by much of the German populace making them unpopular in their own churches as among the traditionally conservative supporters of the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. The Jews were not simply discriminated against as a racial or religious group but also identified with the political left, especially the Social Democrats, Independent Socialists, Communists and the Spartacists. Since the Independent Socialists, Communists and Spartacists were all involved in attempts to create a Soviet state during the early tumultuous years of Weimar and been involved in many acts of violence against traditional German institutions and the state, they were viewed by Hitler and others as part of the Bolshevik-Jewish threat to Germany. Karl Liebnicht and Rosa Luxembourg were among the high profile leaders of this movement in Germany and both were Jewish. The fact that many in the leadership of the Bolshevik movement in the Soviet Union were Jewish added fuel to the fire that the Nazis stoked in Germany. Hitler and the Nazis played on the historic, but muted prejudice against German Jews who in many cases were more secular and German than religious and had assimilated well in Germany. Hitler’s rhetoric as well as that of other Nazis and Nazi publications helped identify the Jews as part of the “Stab in the back” myth that was commonly used by the German right to explain the defeat in the First World War. Thus they were painted as a political and social threat to Germany.

When Hitler took power persecution of the Jews began in earnest. Jews were along with Communists, Trade Unions and Socialists enemies of the state. They were banned from the military, civil service and other government employment, professional associations and forced to wear a gold Star of David on their clothing. Their property was seized, many were abused by SA men acting as deputized auxiliary police and many times their businesses, Synagogues and homes were vandalized, burned or seized by the state. Many would be forced to flee in order not to be sent to ghettos and concentration camps. Even those leaving only escaped with the minimum of their possessions as the Nazi regime extorted anything of value from them as they left Germany. This was all done because Hitler and those like him portrayed the Jews as not only an inferior race, but enemies of the state and the German people.

Today we face a similar movement in conservative circles in the United States. This time it is not the Jews, but Moslems who are the targets of xenophobic rage by many influential members of the “conservative” media, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and numerous others. Their popularity in voicing support for “Christian morale values” such as being against abortion has ingratiated them with conservative Christians. It is so bad that that many “conservative” Christians cannot differentiate between their vitriolic and un-Christian rage against Moslems, Democrats or anyone else portrayed by the big media talkers as the enemy that they have forgotten the Gospel and become simply an appendage to Republican or “conservative” politicians. It is not uncommon to see Christians on the web or on the call in talk radio programs identify lock stock and barrel with Limbaugh and others identifying the crass materialism and social Darwinism of “pure” Capitalism and the anti-Christian policy of pre-emptive war. That may seem harsh, but many of these people in the “Conservative Bible project” seek to re-translate the Bible into their own political, social and economic policies even seeking to change or minimize any Scripture that might be equated with the “Social Gospel.” Unfortunately many Christians and others have jumped in on the anti-Moslem and anti-immigrant crusades launched by those on the far right.

These men and women have found new grist in the wake of the traitorous terrorism of the disaffected and possibly psychotic Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood where he killed 13 and wound 30 Soldiers and military civilians. Why Hasan was allowed to continue to serve after numerous reports of his Anti-American and pro-Jihadist is the question that needs to be investigated. However the reaction of some is to treat all Muslims as suspect in a collective manner. This is troubling. I have posted just a few of the comments by various “conservatives” some who are Christians to demonstrate the point.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is demanding that Moslems be removed from the military or other security related positions in government. His position is that until we can prove which Moslems are not going to commit acts of terrorism that we should ban them from the military. His comments are here:

“It it is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday’s massacre is living proof. And yesterday’s incident is not the first fragging incident involving a Muslim taking out his fellow U.S. soldiers. Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we’ll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you’re right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms. This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism.”

Pat Robertson of the 700 Club and Regent University said:

“Islam is a violent–I was going to say religion–but it’s not a religion. It’s a political system. It’s a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination.”

“They talk about infidels and all this. But the truth is, that’s what the game is. You’re dealing with not a religion. You’re dealing with a political system. And I think you should treat it as such and treat it’s adherents as such. As we would members of the Communist party and members of some Fascist group.”

Dave Gaubatz, author of Muslim Mafia said:

“Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a ‘backlash’ against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders.” The post was redacted later by the website that it was on to change “backlash against the Muslim community” to “backlash against the Muslim Brotherhood.” I guess the website realized that the use of the term community went a bit far.

Brigitte Gabriel of the American Congress for Truth told students at the Joint Forces Staff College in response to the question “Should we resist Muslims who want to seek political office in this nation?”

“Absolutely. If a Muslim who has — who is — a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day — this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America.”

Tell that to the Moslem Soldiers and Marines who have given their lives for this country and their fellow warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those include: U. S. Army Corporal Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, U.S. Army Specialist Rasheed Sahib who was accidently shot to death by a fellow soldier in Iraq, U.S. Army Major James Ahearn, killed by a bomb in Iraq, Army Captain Humayun Khan, who lured a suicide car bomb away from the men in his charge, saving their lives but giving up his own, Army Spc. Rasheed Sahib, an American Muslim from Guyana, Army Spc. Omead Razani, a son of Iranian immigrants or Marine Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, who was killed in a helicopter crash, and sadly many more.

Popular Talk Radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck made this comment back in December 2006:

“I’m telling you, with God as my witness… human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.”

Timothy Rollins of the American Partisan suggests in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings:

“While the dust is still settling and everything starts getting sorted out with the usual deflections away from the truth that this administration is notorious for doing, there is no better time than now to improve the safety of our military, and this can best be done by enacting the Great Muslim Purge from our military and other national security apparatuses. These people need to be removed from every security post, even to be completely removed from all levels of government employment, be it federal, state, county, city or other municipality. This applies especially to universities. To keep them employed in these positions places our food, water, and other essential services at unacceptable risk.”

Of course there is Doug Giles an unabashed “Christian” columnist for Townhall.com using scripture to justify torture making this delightfully Christian comment in one of his columns about the practice of water boarding: “Please note: If Christ wasn’t cool with irrigating irate Islamicists for facts, I must admit, I would still have to green light our boys getting data from enemy combatants 007 style. Stick a fire hose up their tailpipe and turn it on full blast. I don’t care. I’m not as holy as most of you super saints or as evolved as some of you progressive atheists purport to be. Security beats spirituality in this scenario, as far as I’m concerned.”

This is so similar to the Nurnberg Laws and the Aryan Paragraph issued by the Nazis that it is scary. Likewise the threats to American Moslems of placing them “behind razor wire” as we did to American Japanese citizens in World War II are chilling. I wonder how Christians would react if an atheist or someone on the political left suggested all conservative Christians or members of pro-Life groups be imprisoned for the actions of Christians or pro-Life movement members like Scott Roeder or Eric Rudolph who killed to stop abortion or Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church?

This new found militancy has swept up the “Christian right” and others since 9-11 and has reached proportions that I could never have imagined. After my tour in Iraq I realized that much of what these people were saying was not Christian at all and when taken to their logical conclusion would be a police state in which anyone who opposed them would be persecuted. In Iraq I met many good Moslems fighting on our side against jihadists and terrorists many of whom have great respect and appreciation of the Christian faith and are more tolerant to Christians than many Christians are to Moslems. These men put their families at risk to side with us to try to free Iraq from Al Qaida terror. Almost all had lost family and friends to extremists.

As for the suggestions or demands that all Moslems be investigated and removed from the military these people insist that such action is necessary in the name of “security” and “protecting the Constitution.” All Moslems, even those who are loyal American citizens as well as those from Iraq and other nations who fight and die alongside Americans are placed on the same level as the fanatics and terrorists. I question the motivations of the leaders of the movement but believe that most of the Christian conservatives have been caught up in the anger and the emotion of the times versus being true believers in what these men say. That being said, you don’t have to be a true believer to be a willing accomplice in actions that first are not Christian and second trample on the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

I could keep citing examples but if someone can show me where this is condoned in the Gospels I would like to know. The fact is that Christians are to place God first and defend the rights of others, even non-believers. This is found not only in Scripture but runs through the Christian tradition across the denominational spectrum unfortunately there are Americans such as Marine Reservist Jasen Bruce have gone “terrorist hunting” and misidentifying a Greek Orthodox Priest as a Jihadist attacking him because of he didn’t speak English. http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1050707.ece Admittedly people like Bruce are idiots, but it doesn’t take much to push some people over the edge.

The fact that so many people are suggesting such actions against American Moslems is troubling on a number of levels especially when those doing so claim to be Christians. First is that it is the Church, or member’s thereof adopting a non-Christian worldview and attempting to use the state to enact legislation and laws against minority groups that they oppose, in this case the Moslems. The fact that we live in a secular state, something that many of our Nation’s founding Fathers intended it to be, especially in regard to religion being mandated by the state is a point lost on many of these people. Many Christians have completely embraced the mythology of the United States being a “Christian Nation.” With some even regarding the Constitution as a God inspired document. For a more detailed critique of the Christian Nation mythology see Jared Holloway’s article on his Saepe Nihil Cogitamus website: http://jzholloway.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/did-the-founding-fathers-usa-found-the-nation-as-a-christian-nation/

Thankfully there are some, including the daughters of one of the men killed by Major Hasan who said on CBS The Early Show Kerry Cahill said:

“You can’t blanket a whole group of people. There’s extremists in every religion, and there’s extremists all over the world…when this man was obviously ill, I think.” Her sister Keely Vanacker said, “The death of our father or any of these victims shouldn’t be an excuse or a reason to begin to hate an entire group of people.”

There are also leaders of the Religious Right who have taken a stand against such action, Reverend Rob Schenck, President of the National Clergy Council, comments in regard to the Moslem prayer vigil in Washington D.C. earlier this year: “With over 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, it is important that Christians have an open dialogue with the Islamic community. The church must never be timid in reaching out to peoples and groups with differing beliefs and traditions. Too much is at stake for future generations not to begin this historic conversation. This is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.”

And the Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition states:

“The heart of Christ is to reach out and build bridges to all peoples regardless of what their faith traditions or beliefs might be. Several years ago the Christian Defense Coalition began reaching out to the Muslim world which resulted in a prayer delegation going to Baghdad to pray for the nation of Iraq and Prime Minister Maliki. Since then we have had many conversations and discussions with Islamic leaders in Washington, D.C. and around the world. This news conference gives us another chance to dialogue and share with our Islamic neighbors. It also gives us the platform to celebrate the greatness of America where everyone is allowed to practice their faith tradition in the public square free from government interference of harassment. The prayer vigil on the lawn of the Capitol this Friday highlights that timeless truth. Since 9/11, the church should not run from Muslims in America but begin reaching out with God’s love.”

What the good people who suggesting these punitive actions against American Moslems do is dangerous, not just for Moslems and other minorities but for them. American and English law is based on legal precedence. Once something has been determined to be legal, or constitutional it is considered by the law to be settled law. This is a point made by Chief Justice Roberts regarding Roe v. Wade at his confirmation hearings. If Christians want to use the law against Moslems or for that matter any other minority be it religious or political they tread on very dangerous ground. Not only do they make a mockery of the Gospel command to love our neighbors, care for the foreigners among us and to be a witness to non-Christians support policies or laws that if enacted could and very well would be used against them by their opponents. Law is all about precedent and if such laws were enacted and upheld by the courts they would be settled law that could be used against anyone. What these dear brothers and sisters fail to realize is that such laws can be turned against them if the state should ever decided based on the statements of actions of some that the Christian community is a threat to state security of the public welfare. With the actions of some radical Christians who have committed murder and violence against political, social and religious opponents it would not be hard for the government to label whole churches as enemies of the state. The law is a two edged sword and those who want to use it to have the state enforce their religious, social, ideological or political beliefs on others need to remember what comes around goes around.

The Confessing church understood this and many were imprisoned, exiled or killed for this belief. The founding fathers of this country understood this too, that is why there is the Constitution protection of Religion in the First Amendment. This was put in because Virginia Baptists who had been persecuted by Anglicans lobbied James Madison for the amendment in the Bill of Rights threatening to withdraw their support for his candidacy if he did not. Niemöller would discover the depths of his earlier folly in prison telling one interviewer after the war:

“I find myself wondering about that too. I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true that Hitler betrayed me. I had an audience with him, as a representative of the Protestant Church, shortly before he became Chancellor, in 1932. Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the Church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews, assuring me as follows: ‘There will be restrictions against the Jews, but there will be no ghettos, no pogroms, in Germany. I really believed given the widespread anti-Semitism in Germany, at that time—that Jews should avoid aspiring to Government positions or seats in the Reichstag. There were many Jews, especially among the Zionists, who took a similar stand. Hitler’s assurance satisfied me at the time. On the other hand, I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

It is easy for well meaning people Niemöller to be bought with promises of support by politicians and media types who speak the words they want to hear in difficult times. So today I suggest the formation of an ecumenical Pastor’s Emergency League which will not be bought by the empty and godless promises of hate mongers on the right or the left. Such a group of men and women spanning the breadth of the Christian tradition and others that see the danger of extremism of all types is becoming necessary. Such a step is becoming necessary due to the militancy of the Christian right as well as the militancy of atheist groups who lobby against all public religious expression by any religion. Such a League would respect the various creeds and statements of faith of each member’s denomination. The movement o the right has set a dangerous course fraught with perils that they do not comprehend. Just allow those that they believe are oppressing or persecuting them now to be empowered with the precedent of laws discriminating against specific religious groups against the Christians that supported them in the first place. It will be a bitter poison indeed when that happens to them later if American Moslems were to be targets by such laws.

We have entered a dangerous phase of American history. These movements have the potential not only to oppress law-abiding and patriotic American Moslems and to crush the religious freedoms of all in this county. Suggesting that American citizens, including those who serve the county in the military or government of entire religious or ethnic groups be targeted for punitive action on the basis of extremists and fanatics like Major Hasan sets a precedent that is chilling.

Niemöller would say it well in this poem:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Peace,

Padres Steve+

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Filed under History, iraq,afghanistan, Military, philosophy, Religion

Tagged as 1st ammendment, abwehr, admiral canaris, adolf hitler, al qaida, american congress for truth, american family association, Aryan paragraph, barmen declaration, bethel confession, bill of rights, bishop galen, brigitte gabriel, bryan fischer, chief justice roberts, christian defense coalition, christian nation, christian right, confessing church, conservative bible project, constitution, dave gaubatz, dietrich bonhoffer, doug giles, eric rudolph, father rupert meyer, flossenberg concentration camp, fort hood shootings, fred phelps, friedrich ebert, german anti-semitism, glenn beck, hermann maas, independant socialists, internment camps, james madison, japanese internment camps, jared holloway, jasen bruce, jewish bolshevek, jihadists, karl barth, karl liebnicht, major malik nidal hasan, martin niemoller, muslim mafia, muslims in u.s. military, national clergy council, nazi germany, nurnburg laws, pastor's emergency league, pat robertson, patrick j mahoney, pfarrernotbund, rob schenk, roe v. wade, rosa luxembourg, rush limbaugh, saepe nihil cognitamus, scott roeder, sean hannity, social darwinism, social democrats, stab in the back myth, terrorism, the american partisan, timothy rollins, townhall.com, virginia baptists, weimar republic, yad vashem righteous among the nations

November 9, 2009 · 23:58

Happy 234th Birthday Marines…Semper Fidelis My Friends

PK pics 350

Tun Tavern

On November 10^th 1775 the Continental Marine Corps was founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. In the 234 years since that day the Marines have led the way. The litany of battles and heroes is long. From their first action at Nassau in the Bahamas the Marines at sea, ashore and in the air have distinguished themselves as one of the most elite military organizations in history.

Me with Deputy Commandant at Belleau Wood 2004

I have had the privilege of serving with the Marines three different times in my Navy Chaplain career. I have been assigned to the 2^nd Marine Division where I served with the 2^nd Combat Engineer Battalion, the 1^st Battalion 8^th Marines, the 3^rd Battalion 8^th Marines and Headquarters Battalion 2^nd Marine Division. I has honored to serve with some great Marines there, Lieutenant Colonel T.D. Anderson and Dave Ottignon at 2^nd CEB, Lieutenant Colonel DeRoches at 1/8, Lieutenant Colonel Lou Rochelle at 3/8 and Brigadier General Richard Lake at Headquarters Battalion. These men and the many hundreds of Marines that I served with in the division helped imprint the ethos of the Marine Corps in me. While with 3/8 I was able to deploy to the Far East Okinawa, Japan and Korea including the DMZ. I was at Headquarters Battalion on 9-11-2001 and will not forget that day as I saw the planes crash into the Trade Center at the French Creek Gym and saw Marines shift to a war footing in minutes. No one does this better than the Marines.

general pace and me General Peter Pace and I at the 2002 Battle of Hue City Memorial

I was assigned to the USS HUE CITY CG-66, the only ship named after a Viet Nam battle, the Battle of Hue City and I was privileged to get to know many of the heroes of that battle, some of whom I still remain in contact with today. Happy Birthday to my friends Limey, Barney and General Pace! Thank you and all of the gallant Marines who fought at Hue City.

gitmo birthday ball Marine Corps Birthday Guantanamo Bay Cuba 2005 L-R Sergeant Major Davis, Judy, Me, Colonel Rogers and Debbie Rogers

After my tour on the HUE CITY I was assigned to the Marine Security Force Battalion and was honored to serve with Colonel Mike Paulovich who I regard as one of the finest officers that I have served with in my career, Colonel Dan Rogers and Sergeant Major Kim Davis. With Security Force Battalion I was able to serve with Marines in nearly every place and clime. From Japan, to the Middle East, Scotland, France and the fence line at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. One of my most memorable Marine Corps Birthday celebrations was at Gitmo, where we toasted Country and Corps “300 yards from 4000 Cubans trained to kill me.” (Thank you Colonel Jessup) I was also able to visit Belleau Wood with our Marines for the 2004 Memorial Day ceremony. During this time I became more acculturated in the Corps, I graduated from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and earned my Fleet Marine Force Officer Qualification, the pin which I wear proudly on my Navy Uniform.

promotion to LCDR Most Memorable Promotion: Swearing the Oath of Office before Colonel Rogers on being promoted to Lieutenant Commander at Marine Security Force Battalion

Within 10 months of leaving Security Forces I was back serving with Marines in combat. I served with the Marine and Army advisers serving with the 1^st and 7^th Iraqi Divisions the Second Border Brigade, Port of Entry Police, Highway Patrol and Police in Al Anbar Province. These were awesome men who served as advisers, diplomats and trainers to make the two divisions the best and most reliable in the Iraqi Army. I celebrated the Marine Corps Birthday with the 7^th Division Advisors at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi in 2007. I will never forget these men who served in isolated detachments throughout the province helping the Iraqis so that they could regain control of their country. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Kuehn, Lieutenant Colonel Stefan Bien, Colonel Scott Cottrell and Brigadier General John Broadmeadow are men that I will always admire and respect.

175 With Marine Advisers to 3rd Bn 3rd Brigade 7th Iraqi Division 2007 near Syrian Border

The Marines currently serve in harm’s way world-wide defending us, protecting the innocent and battle the enemies of freedom. I end this post with General John LeJeune’s message to the Corps which is read on every Marine Corps Birthday.

260 Marine Corps Birthday Camp Blue Diamond 2007

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of the Continental Congress. Since that date, many thousand men have borne the name Marine. In memory of them, it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the Birthday of our Corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our Corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world’s history. During 90 of the 146 years of it’s existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the nations foes. From the battle of Trenton to the Argonne. Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home. Generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our Corps Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term Marine has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the Corps. With it we also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our Corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as “Soldiers of the Sea” since the founding of the Corps.

Semper Fidelis

Padre Steve+

Category Archives: History

The Paradox of Conflicting Doctrine: The US Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945

The Afghan War 2009-2012: Lessons from Algeria 1954-1960 A Review of “A Savage War of Peace

Lessons in Coalition Warfare: Admiral Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet

Can Anybody Spare a DIME: A Short Primer on Early Axis Success and How the Allies Won the Second World War

The Transitional Carriers: USS Ranger CV-4 and USS Wasp CV-7

The Impact of Technology on the Organization, Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War

Book Review: Identity and War, the Lessons of King Philip’s War

Wacht am Rhein: The Battle of the Bulge

Happy 234th Birthday Marines…Semper Fidelis My Friends

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