Happy Birthday John -- I Wish

John H. Edinger, Jr., 1940-2010
(Photo: John H. "Jack" Edinger, III)

John would have been seventy-three years old today. I tried to always send him a card. His birthday follows so closely behind Christmas and New Years that it kind of sneaked up on me and I had to rush to find a card. As often as not, if memory serves, my card was late. 

Along with the card I also generally bought him a book. Books were about the only kind of gift from me that he appreciated. It was a challenge to find one that he had not already read or knew about. Memorable are the occasions when I got him one that he really enjoyed. He would tell me all about it, many times over the breakfast table at some greasy spoon, in Mount Airy where he lived or else here in Augusta. Whenever Connie and I visited him and Mom—or whenever the two of them visited us—John and I always went out for breakfast. It seems we did just about all our talking over sausage and eggs, grits on some mornings and hash browns on others, sometimes a little bacon, or a stack of pancakes, and gallons and gallons of coffee. 

What Can Never Be Recaptured

“History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect.  We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only.”[1]

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[1] C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent, cited in Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 7.

Ike on U.S. Strategy in Europe in the Second World War

Speaking as General Eisenhower on the U.S. military strategy in Europe in World War II ---

General Eisenhower

The first problem we were faced with in World War II, once we were officially in the war, was that it was a war in two widely separated theaters.  We were fighting both in Europe and in the Pacific.  Obviously, would could not fight in both places equally well at the same time.  We settled, however, almost immediately upon a “Europe-first” strategy, devoting the preponderance of our efforts in that theater while trying to use our remaining resources in such a way as to gain time and prevent further decay of our situation in the Pacific.

However, before we would really establish ourselves in the European theater, there was the problem of mobilizing a fighting force and figuring out where best to insert that force into the fight.  Working with our British allies, who shortly after our entry into the war felt themselves unready to embark upon a cross channel invasion of the continent straight into the enemies teeth, we worked out a way —operation TORCH — to help them push the Germans out of French and British territorial possessions on the continent of North Africa.  This required amphibious landings in Morocco and Algiers and a linking up with our British allies in Tunisia and a vast pincer movement against Rommel’s forces.  The operation took much longer and was far more costly than we would have liked, but it gave us tremendous battlefield experience and helped us reset our corps- and division-level leadership prior to undertaking further operations against the European mainland.

Why General Dwight Eisenhower was not Relieved After the Debacle at Kasserine Pass

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

On the face of it, the sacking of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the wake of the stunning Allied defeat at Kasserine Pass seemed certain, but he was not relieved. Though a strong case could have been made for his immediate dismissal, the issue of whether he should stay or go was never raised. Cooler heads prevailed. Career-wise, the man who would go on to earn five stars and become the nation’s 34th president lived to fight another day.

It is customary when armies are routed upon the field of battle that their commanders—assuming their failure to obtain the honor of their death in combat—are fired, sacked, relieved, replaced. Already in World War II the Army and Navy had seen this custom followed. Rear Admiral H. E. Kimmel and General Walter Short, both commanders in the Pacific, had been forced into retirement, as a consequence of their failures related to the Japanese surprise attack upon the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The chief of naval operations, Admiral Harold Stark had for the very same reasons been denied a theater command. The debacle for U.S. and British forces at Kasserine Pass and the subsequent maintenance of its responsible commander, General Eisenhower as theater commander represents an interesting deviation from this custom. After Kasserine, Eisenhower would rise, Phoenix-like, to become the Supreme Allied Commander, earn a fifth star, and later become president of the United States.

Kasserine Pass

Kasserine Pass, Tunisia, North Africa

It was the most inauspicious of starts for the eventual victor of World War II.

The Allied defeat at Kasserine pass was marked by “fundamental flaws in doctrine, command, and organization.”  That is, the forces under Eisenhower’s command at the time, British units possibly excepted, were in no wise prepared for war.  They lacked soundness in understanding fundamental principles that should have guided them in their execution of operations necessary to carry out national objectives.  They lacked fitness in their commanders, especially the type of fitness for command that is developed either in battle or through tough, realistic training.  They were not optimally organized—especially at echelons above brigade—for coalition warfare in an austere environment at the forward end of supply lines that stretched across the Atlantic Ocean, into the Mediterranean, and extended half-way across the northern shores of Africa.

In its doctrine, the Americans had not determined how best to employ their National Guard units.  Throwing in a mix of NG units with the 34^th Infantry Division, they put a force on the field that was “ignorant of field manuals, unable to reconnoiter properly, and generally deficient in basic and small-unit training.  Many … arrived in Tunisia not knowing how to use the weapons they were supplied (notably bazookas and mines), how to secure their flanks, procedures for identifying friend and foe, or how to fight at night.”  Budiansky  notes that, given their performance at Kasserine, apparently “the book on tank doctrine [had been] thrown out the window.” [1]

A component of its deficient doctrine was American ignorance of how to form itself in mechanized warfare.  Compounding its overall weakness as a fighting force, its commanders sent armored units into the fight piecemeal instead of massing them.  The result was that these units were destroyed in detail.  Though this mistake was corrected and never made again during the war, it was a disaster for the Allied side at Kasserine.

Eisenhower

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the theater commander, had been promoted by General Marshall above many who actually outranked him.  He had never before commanded forces in combat and his inexperience showed.  Nevertheless, he is to be credited for assessing the Kasserine fiasco for what it was and making appropriate changes—quickly.  He relieved Brigadier General Raymond McQuillin and replaced the overcautious General Lloyd R. Fredendall his opposite type, Major General George S. Patton as II Corps' commander.  Though Budiansky doesn’t mention it, Omar Bradley was also tapped by Eisenhower to assume higher command in the wake of Kasserine.

That such an overwhelming defeat did not spell doom for the Allied effort in the overall war was owed much to the German inability to capitalize on its victory.  There was considerable disorganization within the German high command.  Rommel was never reinforced to the extent necessary to maintain any advantage in the North African theater.  Moreover, he was weakened by illness and had to evacuate himself from the theater shortly after the battle in order to seek proper treatment.  Without his leadership, the Axis war machine sputtered.

The failure of the Nazis to take full advantage of their victory at Kasserine gave the Allies what they so desperately needed—time to learn from their mistakes and to make those changes in doctrine, organization, and leadership that were essential to the success the Allied forces would obtain as the war waxed on.

The Germans failed to exploit their victory because they were essentially beaten--in the North African theater. That, I think, is the intent of the article, that in spite of having the tar kicked out of them, the Allies had actually turned a corner at Kasserine. Some of that is 20/20 hindsight, but some is legit. The Germans' morale was ebbing. Berlin was ignoring Rommel's requests for reinforcements and was giving him much less than he was asking for in terms of supplies. Rommel, himself was not in good health. All these negatives were a drag upon German leadership. At Kasserine, they were like an athletic team that had pushed itself beyond its limits with a lot of time still left on the clock. And time was what the Allies used to their advantage.

Notes.

1.  Stephen Budiansky , “Triumph at Kasserine Pass,” Historynet.com (March 30, 2011), http://
www.historynet.com/triumph-at-kasserine-pass.htm (accessed November 20, 2011).