Military History and Ted Williams

The thought occurred to me that I might want to take a break from military history and read something else. So, at the library, I selected a biography of a famous baseball player, Ted Williams, who played for the Boston Red Sox. Imagine my shock when I opened to the table of contents and found this ...

       Prologue

1     Boston

2     San Diego

3     Minnesota

4     Boston

5     .406

6     World War II

7     Boston 

8     Korea

9     Boston

10   Boston

11   Cooperstown

12   Washington

There it is. Two wars. In a book about the national pastime. I can't get away from it! I'll tell you more about it after I've read the book, but Hall of Famer, Ted Williams took time away from his baseball career twice to serve in the armed forces as a fighter pilot.

Preparing for the Next War

General John R. Galvin

"We in the military often are accused falsely of “preparing to fight not the next war but the last.”  That criticism is not well placed: we are not, for the most part, obtuse enough to fight yesterday’s war—but we might be doing something worse still.  When we think about the possibilities of conflict we tend to invent for ourselves a comfortable vision of war, a theater with battlefields we know, conflict that fits our understanding of strategy and tactics, a combat environment that is consistent and predictable, fightable with the resources we have, one that fits our plans, our assumptions, our hopes, and our preconceived ideas.  We arrange in our minds a war we can comprehend in our own terms, usually with an enemy that looks like us and acts likes us.  This comfortable conceptualization becomes the accepted way of seeing things and, as such, ceases to be an object of further investigation unless it comes under serious challenge as a result of some major event—usually a military disaster."[1]

---

[1] General John R. Galvin, U.S. Army, “Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm,” Parameters, Winter, 1986.

 

In the Interest of Doctrine, and History

Delivering publications in spite of the need ...
for actual doctrine

As one long interested in military history, lately become a student of it, the subject of military doctrine fascinates me.  This happened quite by accident.  In 2007 barely started on a new job as a civilian training specialist, having retired from active duty only a couple years before and working as a contractor since, my former boss called me one day with an offer, should I be inclined, to leave government civil service after just a few months, to become a contractor once again, as a doctrine writer.  To make a short story longer, I accepted the offer and made the move, which took me out of the training side of the TRADOC house—where, counting my service time, I had been working for twenty-five years—and placed me in another world.

Ostensibly, the name of this other world was doctrine development, but I soon discovered that the larger universe which doctrine inhabited at the time was the realm of capability development, every bit as interesting as anything else I had experience in my quarter century’s association with the Army—all of which was in signal, I should add. My first six months in this new world was a struggle just to learn the new vocabulary and a new set of regulations associated with doctrine and capability development and integration.  Not to mention a new way of thinking.  Maybe to say six months is to give the impression that during that phase I mastered all there is to know about these areas.  That certainly was not the case.  Far from it.  Almost six years later I find myself still learning, like I’m starting from scratch sometimes—which is one of the reasons I find doctrine so fascinating.

One of the Army's Lowest Points Ever

From Geoffrey Perret's There's a War To Be Won ...

"The 11,000 men who surrendered on Corregidor were, they soon discovered, not considered prisoners of war by their captors.  Instead, they were treated like a low form of life, on a par with parasites and vermin.  [Japanese Lt. Gen. Masaharu] Homma [commander of the main Japanese invasion force in the Philippines] threatened to murder all of them unless [Army Lt. Gen. Jonathan M.] Wainwright [commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines] ordered subordinate commanders throughout the Philippines to surrender themselves and their men.

"The Japanese put Wainwright in front of a microphone at a Manila radio station.  [Army Chief of Staff, General George C.] Marshall wanted someone who knew Wainwright well to listen in and tell him if the broadcast was genuine or a Japanese hoax.  J. Lawton Collins, recently appointed commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, had served for three years under Wainwright and admired him unreservedly.  Collins listened to the broadcast as Marshall requested.

"There was no doubt about it.  That was Skinny Wainwright, his voice dulled by exhaustion, choking with emotion as he ordered his men to surrender.  That was Skinny Wainwright, with his limp from a bad riding accident, always leaning on a stick when not in the saddle.  That was Skinny Wainwright, humiliated, defeated, heading for captivity and possibly a cruel death.  Collins sat by his radio that balmy evening in Hawaii, his round, boyish face wet with the tears shed for his friend." 

Patton on the Presidential Election of 1932

" ... I am completely disgusted with both political parties.  I cannot imagine two more spineless candidates, and at a time when the country needs backbone for more than brains.  I am glad I don’t vote as I certainly would not dishonor myself by casting one for either of the straw men we have to choose from.”[1]

Practically fits 2012 to a 'T.'

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[1] George S. Patton, quoted in Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 206.

The Latest from Rick Atkinson

The Guns at Last Light, Rick Atkinson's new book covering the last year of the European war, from Normandy to Berlin, will be published in May 2013.  

The Guns Last at Last Light will be the third in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy.  The first two volumes were ...

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944,

Rick Atkinson

Atkinson is also the author of several other books on military history ...     

     In the Company of Soldiers

     The Long Gray Line

     Crusade

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. 

The Hardest School

Said Archidamus, the Spartan King (ca 432, B.C.), "a man who had a reputation for both intelligence and moderation ... 'There is no need to suppose that human beings differ very much one from another: but it is true that the ones who come out on top are the ones who have been trained in the hardest school.'"[1]

---

[1] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Rex Warner (London: Penguin Books, 1954), 82-85.

Who was "Gus" Pagonis?

Part of CENTCOM's area of responsibility

If the name "Gus" Pagonis doesn't ring a bell, you weren't paying attention during the Persian Gulf War.  Pagonis re-wrote the book on U.S. Army logistics during that conflict.

Just how important was logistics during the war? “In the year between August 1990 and August 1991—that is, before, during, and in the wake of the Gulf War—the logisticians of the U.S. Armed Forces in Southwest Asia, in an effort headed by the 22nd Support Command and the 1st and 2nd COSCOMs, planned, moved, and served 122 million meals.”[1] On the basis of just that fact alone, all soldiers would argue that logistics is very important. 

During that same year, while providing all those meals, those same logisticians “pumped more than 1.3 billion gallons of fuel” and drove in support of supply missions “almost 52 million miles” supplying everything from “tanks, planes, and ammunition” to sunscreen.[2] Soldiers, commanders, and everyone else involved in a war effort would surely stipulate that logistics is of the utmost importance in a campaign. 

CENTCOM devoted almost three full pages in its official executive summary of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm to logistics. The report covered such gigantic undertakings as— 

• Theater construction ... "$600M is critical construction projects were accomplished." 

• U.S. vs Host Nation contracting ... "food, fuel, water, transportation, facilities and accomodations" 

• Combat systems materiel readiness ... "operation readiness rates met or exceeded Service standards ... attributed to the Desert Express air line of communications, supply and support agreements with USEUCOM components, equipment reliability, and an exceptional level of effort from maintenance units." 

• Strategic airlift ... "augmentation of USTRANSCOM's organic lift capability by Civil Reserve Air Fleet ... our deployment air flow missions." 

• Army field feeding ... the plan for which is "based on two T-Ration hot meals and one MRE meal daily."[3]

All these things were accomplished by logisticians. 

Pagonis

Lieutenant William G. “Gus” Pagonis, as a two-star general, was the leader of those logisticians, some 40,000 of them, and the "head of the United States Army's 22nd Support Command."[4] General Schwarzkopf called him “the chief of logistics for the ground forces of Desert Shield.”[5] Pagonis was Lt. Gen. John J. Yeosock’s [the ARCENT/3rd Army commander] G-4 logistics officer. “Not only was he responsible for the logistics plan for Desert Storm,” according to Army Sustainment Magazine, “General Schwarzkopf also put him in charge of executing that plan on the ground.”[6] A significant contributing factor to his skill in managing such a huge logistical challenge like supplying the Gulf War was General Pagonis’ experience over previous years planning and executing logistics support of annual REFORGER exercises. 

Why did Pagonis become so famous? Aside from the fact that General Schwarzkopf described his work as “performing miracles,”[7] Pagonis’s fame was due in part, no doubt, because of his genuine approachableness. Affable, of Greek descent, “General Pagonis held daily press briefings during operations and conducted about 2,000 interviews.”[8] He seemingly was everywhere and he talked to everyone. Seldom was he seen without his red, loose-leaf binder. Said Pagonis— 

"During the Gulf War, I directed my planning team to compile a binder, known within the command as the Red Book, which was a complete and constantly updated collection of data outlining the developments of the conflict. Some four inches thick with charts and tables, it contained virtually all of the information I needed to keep abreast of our situation. While I was in transit from one theater location to another, that book was practically joined to me at the hip. General Schwarzkopf (or another general in the field or stateside) would frequently call me on the road or in the air with requests for specific information: how many tanks here, how much fuel there, how quickly can equipment be moved somewhere, and so on. I know that both my subordinates and superiors were regularly impressed with my almost magical grasp of the numbers. No magic was involved-I just studied the information in that binder every chance I could."[9]

His name became a household word as the Gulf War logistics story unfolded on nightly news broadcasts all around the world. 

General Pagonis has written that “the immediate military goal” of the Desert Shield buildup in the Saudi desert was “to discourage the Iraqi Army—which … included more than 100,000 troops in occupied Kuwait—from spilling over the border into Saudi Arabia.”[10] Therefore, the question must be asked, would the buildup have been dramatically different if Saddam had occupied Saudi Arabia? Such hypothetical “what if” questions have always been a part of military history, mainly because in and of themselves they can be quite interesting. One must be careful with hypotheticals, however, because conclusions drawn from them can skew the actual historical account and the solid lessons learned from that factual history. In the unlikely event that Saddam had invaded and occupied a portion of Saudi Arabia—say, the rich Eastern Province with its oil fields, industrial infrastructure, port facilities, and access to the Persian Gulf, the Desert Storm build up would obviously have been different. How different is difficult to say, because a number of possible courses of action present themselves. For example, the U.S. might have driven the Iraqis back over the border with air power. Force projection into the area might have had to utilize ports further away from the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations, Jedda on the Red Sea, or perhaps Bahrain or Qatar. An amphibious assault somewhere between the Kuwait-Saudi border might have interdicted Iraqi lines of communication and isolated Iraqi forces in and around Dammam, Dhahran, Khobar, and that general area—assuming that those locations would have been the aim of an Iraqi thrust into Kuwait. Whatever the situation, at the end of the day, a massive buildup of forces and capabilities would have to have occurred. Having to push Saddam out of Saudi, in addition to kicking him out of Kuwait, would have made the job more difficult, but certainly not impossible. 

______________________________

[1] William G. Pagonis, Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992), 1. 

[2] Ibid., 2. 

[3] United States Central Command. “Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Executive Summary.” 11 July 1991, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB39/document6.pdf (accessed 20 September 2012). 

[4] William G. Pagonis, "Leadership in a Combat Zone" Harvard Business Review 79, no. 11 (December 2001): 107-117. Business Source Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed September 21, 2012). 

[5] H. Norman Schwarzkopf, with Peter Petre, It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 341. 

[6] “Gulf War Logistics Records Donated to the Sustainment Community,” Army Sustainment, PB 700-10-05 Volume 42, Issue 5, September-October 2010, http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/SepOct10/

pagonis_logrecords.html (accessed 22 September 2012). 

[7] Schwarzkopf, 483. 

[8] Ibid. 

[9] Pagonis, “Leadership in a Combat Zone.” 

[10] Pagonis, Moving Mountains, 5

Desert Shield: Defence Against an Invasion that Never Came

Gulf War Commander
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

From August 2, 1990 until January 1991 the coalition forces of Desert Shield were particularly vulnerable to an attack by Saddam toward Riyadh, but such an attack was never inevitable. Nevertheless, there is merit in examining the coalition’s vulnerabilities and how they might have handled such an attack. If the business of history is to understand, sometimes it may help to better understand what happened if one considers what did not happen, in spite of the circumstances, and why events did not play out according to prevailing expectations. 

First, it has generally been accepted that the Iraqi army, at the time of the Persian Gulf War, was the fourth largest army in the world and that, given its size, it must also have been one of the most powerful. The media made much about the size of the Iraqi army in the days immediately following its invasion of Kuwait when it began to become clear that the United States would send forces to the desert to face them. Much was also made of the fact that Saddam Hussein’s army, after its eight-year war with Iran, was a “battle hardened force—and that U.S. forces, by way of comparison, were not. Those reports, along with general media expertise on all things military, played to the fears of the American public, especially those families who might see—or already had seen—loved ones deploy to the region. Since little hard news reached troops in the desert, rumors flourished. Among the most believable of these was that the Iraqi army, having now tasted blood, would continue to march south and invade Saudi territory, probably its wealthy Eastern Province. It was a scenario made all the more believable, not just because it was such a distinct possibility, but also due to the fact that satellite imagery confirmed that eleven Iraqi divisions, mostly armored, were poised along Kuwait’s southern border. That data fed concerns at the highest levels. The sheer weight of numbers was overwhelmingly in favor of the Iraqis. U.S. forces had to come from seven thousand miles away. Even as they began to trickle in, and as Operation Desert Storm kicked into high gear, Iraqi forces maintained a numerical superiority. Their combat power potential was greater than the coalition’s until late September 1990, according to General Schwarzkopf in a postwar interview.[1] "To logical military minds,” wrote one retired major general, describing what many were absolutely certain of, “Saddam's best option seemed to be to continue the attack into Saudi Arabia to seize the airfields, ports, and oil fields [further down the north-south coastal highway]."[2]

If the Iraqi dictator had directed those eleven divisions—and over those initial weeks the number of Iraqi divisions in and around Kuwait steadily increased—to march into Saudi Arabia, what would have been his likeliest aim? Where was the coalition most vulnerable? 

The Role of the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, in the Operation Desert Shield

Question: 

When President Bush drew a line in the sand with the 82nd Airborne Division's deployment to the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, back in August 1990—some thought it a suicidal mission--what would have been the American reaction if Saddam destroyed the first Brigade to arrive in theater? Is that something Cheney and Schwarzkopf could have absorbed as leaders? 

Yours Truly Answers: 

The “line in the sand” was, in the president’s rhetoric, a warning to the Iraqi dictator not to do something he already was not going to do, that is, to invade Saudi Arabia. Still, to back up his words, the president dispatched the 82nd Airborne. 

The lead elements of the 82nd faced the early possibility of doing battle with eleven Iraqi Army divisions arrayed in Kuwait—“five armored; two mechanized; and four infantry. Of these, one armored and one mechanized were positioned opposite the Saudi border.”[1] This was an “insufficient” force with which to invade Saudi Arabia;[2] however, there was for a time a very real possibility that this force, or elements thereof, could have tangled with the first U.S. forces that arrived in theater. Those forces were indeed at significant risk, or so it was believed at the time. 

According to its Facebook page, the 2nd Brigade Combat
Team "Falcons" is the only organization in the US Army
to have served as a Light Infantry, Glider Infantry, and Parachute
Infantry Regiment.

The first U.S. ground forces to arrive in theater were the lead elements of the 82nd’s “division ready brigade,” or DRB, which happened to be the 2nd Airborne Infantry Brigade out of Fort Bragg. The first stick landed at Dhahran on 8 August 1990, seven days after the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, with the remainder deploying over the next four to five days. 

The 2nd Brigade’s mission was to “protect the airfield and ports American forces needed to deploy into Saudi Arabia.”[3] These facilities were located in and around Dhahran, an oil town on the eastern Saudi Arabian shore, close to Dammam’s port facilities and the village of Khobar, about 300 kilometers south of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. The headquarters of the Saudi ARAMCO oil company is in Dhahran. The U.S. Consolate serving “Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Trucial States (Qatar, UAE and Oman)” also located there.[4]

As a DRB, 2nd Brigade was comprised of three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion equipped with 105mm Howitzers, a forward area support team composed of medical, supply and transport units from the Division Support Command, a combat engineer company, and armor company equipped with M551 “antiquated”[5] Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicles, an air defense battery, and a communications platoon. When an infantry brigade assumed the DRB mission, so did its supporting units.”[6]

Left unsaid was the DRB’s other mission—

A Failure of Diplomacy: U.S. Policy Toward Iraq Prior to the Gulf War

Ambassador Glaspie (L) and Saddam Hussein

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Persian Gulf War were consequences of failed United States diplomacy. For almost a decade, from 1980 to 1988, Iraq had been at war with Iran. To a certain extent, the U.S. had aided Saddam Hussein’s government in their conflict with Tehran, Washington’s intent being to deny the Iranians hegemony in the Middle East. The long war placed a severe strain on Iraq’s economy which, with their large standing army, contributed to Iraq’s worsening relations with its neighbors, especially Kuwait. Disputes arose over their shared border, over drilling rights, over crude pricing, and such things. But Iraq’s issues with Kuwait went back much further than that. There had been a crisis in 1961-62 very similar to the 1990 dispute, which had only been quelled by a British show of force. 

There was also a study done in 1979 by Pentagon “conservatives”[1] that warned of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—a scenario very much like what actually occurred in 1990. The study was shelved by the Democrat administration because the 800-pound gorilla in the living room at the time was not Iraq but Iran. It was about that time, in fact, when the American embassy in Tehran was overran by Iranian students and the 444-day hostage drama torpedoed the Carter presidency. The subsequent Iran-Iraq war was seen in Washington as a way to beat down Iran’s designs on the larger Middle East, even if it meant sharing intelligence with Saddam. The Saudis also thought it was a good idea to back the Iraqi regime. By the end of that war, however, old tensions between Iraq and Kuwait resurfaced. A cash-strapped Iraqi government with long-standing designs on its neighbor’s wealth and its access to the sea couldn’t just do nothing. Especially with a 280,000-man army.[2] And the irony of it all was that some of the more prominent “conservative” members of that 1979 study team were serving in the Bush Administration. 

Too much is made, I think, about the role of April Glaspie, the United States Ambassador to Iraq.

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]

---

[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.

Cornelius Ryan on Courage

Cornelius Ryan

"I continue to be constantly amazed by the courage of men in battle," said Cornelius Ryan, "and by their humor in the midst of catastrophe. Ryan, the author of three volumes on World War II, dictated these words as he labored over volume that was perhaps the most famous of the three, A Bridge Too Far, as he himself faced a private battle with cancer at the age of 53.

“There is a desperateness, I suppose, in courage and in wartime humor. I have seldom encountered a soldier who thought he had been courageous and I would tend to discount a man who said he was. I rather think that courage is man’s unplanned positive reaction to what appears to him to be a last-ditch situation. I believe courage is at its peak when one has run out of hope. A soldier figures he has nothing to lose because subconsciously he has arrived at the conclusion that he has no future.”[1]

---

[1] Cornelius Ryan and Kathryn Morgan Ryan, A Private Battle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 307.

Hitler's Strategy by Late 1943

Hitler and the Nazi symbol

As 1944 dawned, Hitler faced this problem: that a successful Soviet offensive in the east would probably cost him the Ukraine and Belorussia—potential areas of German lebensraum, but space that was not essential to the Reich’s existence. A successful U.S.-British invasion in the west, however, could well cost him the Rhine-Ruhr region—the life’s blood of his Army. The former areas were expendable, but not the latter. Therefore, by all means possible, Germany must prevent the western Allies from gaining a foothold on the continent. The Axis’ central problem, therefore, was for the Wehrmacht to throw the invaders back into the sea. The Wehrmacht certainly tried to accomplish this, but obviously failed. Hence the decisiveness of D-Day.

Allied establishment of a second front in Western Europe would spell certain doom for the Third Reich. Hitler knew this. He also knew, as 1944 approached, that an Allied invasion from England was imminent, which is why he sent Rommel to northern France. The Reich’s strategic aim, given that it must soon fight on two fronts, east and west, was “the defeat of one enemy so that all resources could be concentrated against the other and a stalemate achieved.”[1]

The invasion, therefore, must be stopped in its tracks. As early as March 1942, as he withdrew his Luftwaffe from the battle over the skies of Britain, Hitler’s concept of the situation in the west was that “Atlantic coast defenses should be so organized and troops so deployed that any invasion attempt would be smashed before landing or immediately thereafter.”[2] 

On this point, Rommel and Hitler agreed.  “The main battle line,” he said,” must be the beach.”[3]

So at the beginning of 1944, Hitler faced this problem: a successful Soviet offensive in the east would probably cost him the Ukraine and Belorussia—potential German lebensraum, but not essential to the Reich’s existence. A successful U.S.-British invasion in the west could well cost him his Rhine-Ruhr region—the life’s blood of his Army. The former areas were expendable, but not the latter. Therefore, by all means possible, Germany must prevent the western Allies from gaining a foothold on the continent. The Axis’ central problem, therefore, was for the Wehrmacht to throw the invaders back into the sea.

______________________________

[1] David Fraser, Knight’s Cross: A Life of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 453.

[2] Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 36.

[3] Fraser, 455.

Chronology of the Normandy Campaign

6 June 1944	Allied landings in Normandy.
7 June	Bayeux falls.
8 June	U.S. First and British Second Armies link near Port-en-Bessin.
12 June	Omaha and Utah beachheads united.
13 June	British 7th Armored Division checked and repelled at Villers-Bocage. Germans open V-1 flying bomb offensive against Britain.
17 June	Rommel meets Hitler at Margival, near Soissons.
18-21 June	The ‘great storm’ in the Channel.
18 June	U.S. VII Corps reach west coast Cherbourg peninsula at Barneville.
19 June	Americans take Montebourg.
22 June	Russians open their summer offensive against Army Group Center with 146 infantry divisions and 43 tank brigades attacking on a 300-mile front.
25-29 June	British Operation EPSOM southwest of Caen.
26 June	Americans in Cherbourg.
27 June	Resistance in Cherbourg ends.
29 June	Rommel meets Hitler at German Armed Forces High Command in Berchtesgaden.
1 July	General Gyre von Schweppenburg (Panzer Group West) sacked and replaced by General Hans  Eberbach. Americans secure Cap de la Hague.
2 July	Von Rundstedt (OB-West) sacked and replaced by von Kluge.
8 July	British attack Caen, Americans seize La Hay-au-Puits.
10 July	British occupy Caen.
17 July	Rommel wounded and replaced as commander of Army Group B by von Kluge.
18 July	British Operation GOODWOOD east of Caen. Americans take St. Lo.
20 July	Hitler wounded by assassination attempt at his headquarters at Rastenburg (Prussia), abortive conspiracy and its aftermath rocks the Third Reich.
25 July	American Operation COBRA launched west of St. Lo.
30 July	British Operation BLUECOAT launched southeast of Caumont. Americans “turn the corner” at Avranches.
31 July	Russians within 10 miles of Warsaw.  Uprising begins.
1 August	Hodges assumes command of U.S. First Army; Patton’s Third Army activated; Bradley becomes commander of U.S. Twelfth Army Group.
7 August	Germans launch Mortain counter-attack. Canadian Operation TOTALIZE launched towards Falaise.
10 August	TOTALIZE broken off.
12 August	U.S. XV Corps takes Alencon.
14 August	Canadian Operation TRACTABLE launched towards Falaise. DRAGOON landings in southern France.
17 August	Model assumes command of German armies, orders full retreat east from Allied pocket. Falaise falls.
19 August	Polish Armored Division and U.S. 90th Division reach Chambois.
21 August	Falaise Gap closed.
25 August	Paris falls.
1 September	Eisenhower assumes direct command of Allied ground forces. Montgomery promoted to Field Marshal
2 September	U.S. First AND Third Armies ordered to halt by Eisenhower in view of huge fuel and supply problems.
3 September	Brussels falls.
16 September	U.S. First Army units cross the German border near Aachen.
17 September	Operation MARKET-GARDEN launched against Arnhem and the Maas and Waal bridges.

__________________________

Source:  Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 333.

Turning Point(s) of the Second World War

George C. Marshall. Was his appointment as Army 
chief of staff the turning point of World War II?

Fighting the Second World War was an immense operation.  Viewing the war as a single event, one must still be cognizant of its many parts and pieces.  These parts and pieces—the war’s battles and campaigns—were the subplots of the overall war.  Each had its own story, its own unique circumstances and challenges, its own turning points.  Like beauty, the construing of any single one of these as the point upon which the entire outcome of the war turned, depends much upon the eyes of the beholder.

A couple of years ago, historian Laurence Rees framed a question for a list of distinguished historians (he doesn’t say how many), asking each of them, “what was the turning point of World War II?”  What is probably not so surprising is that he got a range of answers.  One gentleman, writes Rees, thought the entire war turned upon the Germans’ victory in France in May of 1940.  His argument was that the French and the British had the advantage in terms of terrain and equipment, that attacking with such a disadvantage the Germans assumed a huge amount of risk, and that the outcome of the battle turned upon the superiority of German leadership.  “If the [Allies] had not performed so appallingly in this one fight,” argues this one historian, “then World War II would have ended by the summer of 1940 in an ignominious defeat for the Germans.”[1]

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was the answer to Rees’s question by two historians, Conrad Crane and Akira Iriye. Crane, a former West Point history professor and current director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, chose Pearl Harbor because that is the point when the conflict became truly a world war.  Mr. Iriye, a Harvard University professor of Japanese descent, chose Pearly Harbor because it “turned out to be such a monumental mistake.”[2]

Six historians, including Robert Dallek and Max Hastings, chose Stalingrad.  "Stalingrad changes everything," said Hastings.  "Once the Germans have been thrown back from Stalingrad, once they've lost that battle, the war was never the same again."[3]  Winston Churchill is said to have exclaimed “we have won!” the minute he learned of what happened at Pearl Harbor.  But another historian, Richard Overy, argued that Stalingrad was “not a turning point necessarily in strategic terms, because a lot more has to be done before the Soviets can be certain of defeating Germany."  But what was made clear there, more than anything else, is that the Germans were vulnerable.[4]

Air Superiority: The Impact of the Allies' Strategic Bombing Campaigns in World War II

Bomber Harris

The Allies’ gaining of air superiority, in each of the major theaters of the war, essentially determined the conflict’s outcome in that theater. Superiority in the air meant two things. First, it meant that the Allies could capitalize on their vast advantage in terms of strategic bombing. Second, because of their advantage in strategic bombing capabilities, they soon achieved significant advantages in terms of battlefield maneuver. Superiority in the air enabled the Allies to mass firepower against the enemy in two domains, on land and from the air. Allied air superiority meant that the enemy was restricted to fighting only, or mainly, in the land domain. 

Virtually ever since the invention of the airplane, aviators have believed that wars could be decided by air power alone. Even today there are many who subscribe to this view, despite much evidence to the contrary, but the opinion was much more widely held during World War II, when air power was just coming into its own. In America, the name of Billy Mitchell attaches itself to many of the early theories touching upon the effectiveness of air power. Essentially, what Mitchell espoused as early as the 1920s was set forth in a concept written by Sir Charles Webster and Dr. Noble Frankland, entitled The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany part of which was cited in B. H. Liddel-Hart’s history of the Second World War— 

“The strategic air offensive is a means of direct attack on the enemy state with the object of depriving it of the means or will to continue the war. It may, in itself, be the instrument of victory or it may be the means by which victory can be won by other forces. It differs from all previous kinds of armed attack in that it alone can be brought to bear immediately, directly, and destructively against the heartland of the enemy Its sphere of activity is, therefore, not only above, but also beyond that of armies or navies.”

Against Germany. “The Army Air Forces (together with Britain’s Bomber Command) blasted German cities into rubble using mainly B-24 and B-17 heavy bomber aircraft, but the war in Europe ended only when Allied armies occupied Germany’s territory.”[1] Strategic bombing—by itself—was never the ‘be all, end all’ solution to the essential military problem of the war, which was to destroy the warfighting capabilities of the Axis nations. 

The Impact of Lessons Learned When Really Learned

World War II Soldier

In 1942, in the war in North Africa, the Americans were stung by a serious defeat at Kasserine Pass. In that defeat, their eyes were opening to the realities of war. They received a further sting from a British general’s biting criticism. General Alexander, the 18th Army Group Commander, called his American allies “soft, green, and quite untrained [lacking] the will to fight. My main anxiety,” he said— 

“is the poor fighting value of the Americans. They simply do not know their job as soldiers and this is the case from the highest to the lowest. Perhaps the weakest link of all is the junior leader, who just does not lead, with the result that their men don’t really fight.”[1]

But even as the U.S. soldier was licking his wounds, something was changing. Ruthlessly, Eisenhower began sacking incompetent commanders. Soldiers who could lead started doing so. The Brits, who had been fighting for almost two years, referred to the Americans’ experience as Kasserine as their “being blooded.” There is a line in Rick Atkinson’s history on the war in North Africa that succinctly describes this change. Atkinson’s line was this, that— 

“a great sorting out was under way: the competent from the incompetent, the courageous from the fearful, the lucky from the unlucky. It would happen faster in the American Army than it had in the British. Alexander was not wholly wrong, but he was wrong.”[2]

“The Battle of Kasserine Pass was humiliating.” That’s how one of General George C. Marshall’s biographers described it.[3] It had the effect, however, of galvanizing the American fighting spirit. Eisenhower himself spoke of “lessons learned,” and of how all his soldiers and commanders were actively “seeking from every possible source methods and means perfecting their own battlefield efficiency,” and of how good a teacher combat had been.[4] Kasserine Pass was to the Atlantic theater what Pearl Harbor had been in the Pacific. It was defeat, it didn’t taste very good, and it made GIs want to do something about it. 

A Primer on Military Doctrine

Doctrine

The blueprint for forces in combat.[1]

Fundamental principles by which the military forces, or elements thereof, guide their actions in support of national objectives.  It is authoritative but requires judgment in application.[2]

It is the “fundamental principles by which the [operational Army] and elements of the generating force that directly support operations guide their actions in support of national objectives.[3]  [Emphasis mine].

“The principles that shape military operations are based on centuries of experience and institutional refinement and are used almost universally.  When codified and applied in training and wartime operations, such principles are called doctrine.  Doctrine (principles) usually applies to operations (by specifying how to conduct campaigns and extended battles) and to tactics (how to conduct a single engagement or series of similar engagements), but not to strategy.  “Strategic doctrine” is an oxymoron since strategy is defined by contingent war aims.”[4]

Principle—a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption.[5]  The 12 principles of war [objective; offensive; mass; economy of force; maneuver; unity of command; security; surprise; simplicity; restraint; perseverance; legitimacy] are defined in JP 3-0, Appx A.

Principles illustrated

“George C. Marshall, whose 1941 war manual served as a model for the 1982 [FM 100-5 Operations], had warned that mobile combat was ‘a cloud of uncertainties, haste, rapid movements, congestion on the roads, strange terrain, lack of ammunition and supplies at the right places at the right moment, failures of communication, terrific tests of endurance, and misunderstandings in direct proportion to the inexperience of the officers.’”[6]  Consistent with the Joint definition of doctrine, General Marshall, in that war manual of his, just listed nine fundamental principles of mobile warfare.

“Tactical doctrine—institutionally recommended ways of fighting used to train individuals and units before they enter combat.”[7]

“A military organization’s doctrine spells out the conceptual framework that determines how the organization will fight.”[8]

Under the Army’s Doctrine 2015 concept, doctrine is defined as the fundamental principles by which military forces or elements thereof guide their actions in support of national objectives.  It is authoritative but requires judgment in application.  Army doctrine includes not only principles, but also tactics and procedures.  Field manuals are defined as a Department of the Army publication that contains principles, tactics, procedures, and other doctrinal information.  It describes how the Army and its organizations conduct and train for those operations. [9]

 "Effective doctrine is current, relevant, well-researched, flexible, understandable, consistent, concise, enduring, and timely … a system of thought.” [10]

“Army doctrine is a systematic body of thought describing how Army forces intend to operate as a member of the joint force in the present and near term, with current force structure and materiel.”  Doctrine “describes how … to think … and what to train.”[11]

If doctrine represents how the Army intends to fight, and history is a record of how its operations were actually conducted, then, for better or worse, history and doctrine are practically mirror images of each other.

 “Write with an understanding of the current fight, but remember, doctrine is not just about today, it’s about posturing us intellectually as a profession for the next fight.” [12]

“Joint doctrine promotes a common perspective from which to plan,

train, and conduct military operations.  It represents what is taught,

believed, and advocated as what is right.”[13]

  

“One of the most persistent trends is the lack of signal corps officers, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and Soldiers who understand their duties and responsibilities. Let’s face it; we as signaleers do not have an established and written doctrine to follow like the infantry or field artillery.” [14]

Perennial problem:  the Army’s implicit or tacit expert knowledge … gained by [Soldiers] in the field [and] in the classroom, is [normally] well ahead of its explicit expert knowledge, which is recorded in doctrine.[15]

Doctrine and Lessons Learned

Early in World War II, the British army’s “most serious problem was failing to develop a coherent combined-arms doctrine based on a thorough study of the last war.”[16]

On the other hand, the Germans developed Leadership and Battle with Combined Arms (1923)—the 1933 version of which became Truppenfuehrung—written by Generals [!] Werner von Fritsch and Ludwig Beck [which] provided [their] doctrine for the coming war.”[17]

General Hans von Seeckt, commander of the German army in the interwar years, on lessons learned:  “It is absolutely necessary to put the experience of the war in a broad light and collect this experience while the impressions won on the battlefield are still fresh and a major portion of the experienced officers are still in leading positions.” [18]

U.S. General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing performed such an analysis which “culminated in the Field Service Regulation of 1923, the army’s basic doctrinal manual [The ADP/ADRP 3-0 of that day], which explains why the U.S. was able to adapt so quickly to the tactical conditions of combat in World War II.”[19]

General William DePuy “personally wrote [!] much of the 1976 version of FM 100-5.”[20]

“The rule of officer training [the same could be said about doctrine] is to reduce the conduct of war to a set of rules and a system of procedures—and thereby to make orderly and rational what is essentially chaotic and instinctive.”[21]

“…extended range of procedures which have as their object the assimilation of almost all of an officer’s professional activities to a corporate standard and common form.”[22]

“ … instantly recognizable and universally comprehensible vocabulary.”[23]

“ … formalized … ‘observations’, ‘conclusions’, and ‘intentions’.[24]

“ … he [the young officer] learns ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ … by reference to simplified manuals …”[25]

The purpose of [doctrine] is to equip the young officer with the ability “to organize his intake of sensations [in battle], to reduce the events of combat to as few and as easily recognizable a set of elements as possible …”[26]

---

[1] Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 252.

[2] JP 1-02.

[3] TR 25-36, Final Draft, 8 July 2011, para. 3-3a(1).

[4] Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millet, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, MA: 2000), 586.

[5] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10^th Ed.

[6] Rick Atkinson, 253.

[7] Murray and Millet, 589.

[8] Murray and Millet, 22.

[9] ATZL-MCK-D memo, Subj: Review of TRADOC Regulation 25-36, The TRADOC Doctrinal Literature Program, dated 31 October 2011.

[10] TR 25-36.

[11] TR 25-36, Final Draft, 8 July 2011.

[12] General Robert W. Cone, Commander, U.S. Army TRADOC Memorandum, subject: Doctrine 2015 Guidance, dated 23 August 2011.

[13] JP 1 Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States.  I am of a mind that we should not distinguish between ‘joint’ and ‘service’ doctrine.  Doctrine is doctrine; if it is a fundamental principle, it is doctrine, no matter who writes it.

[14] JRTC Signal Newsletter, Vol. IV (12-04), 9.

[15] Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Transforming the Army’s Way of Battle: Revising Our Abstract Knowledge,” The Future of the Army Profession, 2^d Ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill), 374.

[16] Murray and Millet, 24.

[17] Murray and Millet, 22.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Murray and Millet, 28.

[20] Robert Scales, Jr., “Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War (Washington: Brassey’s), 13.

[21] John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 20.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 20-21.

[24] Ibid., 21

[25] Ibid., 21

[26] Or officer training, Ibid., 22.