Military History May 2021 by HistoryNet

Athenian Disaster Tiger of Malaya Close Call in Korea Ranger Massacre Horns of Hattin Canadian VC Hero HISTORYNET.com

S ’ Y N A M GER R A F O O T E G RID ELPED H S P O O R T N A IC FRESH AMER ’S LAST WWI PUSH DOOM BERLIN

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MAY 2021

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Jackpot! Hoard of 1881-S Morgan Silver Dollars Found & Secured Mintage accounts for only 1.94% of all Morgan Silver Dollars Struck!

In 1859, Nevada’s Comstock Lode was discovered, and soon its rich silver ore made its way across the nation, including to the respected San Francisco Mint—the U.S. Mint branch known by collectors as the source of some of the finest U.S. coins ever struck. That includes the 1881 Morgan Silver Dollar, which exhibits crisp details, blazing luster, and the iconic “S” mint mark of the San Francisco Mint. Now you have the chance to add these historic, 90% pure U.S. silver coins to your collection!

Here’s the breakdown: in 1881, just 4.25% of the total Morgan series was struck. Less than half of those coins came from San Francisco. In the end, the 1881-S Morgan Silver Dollar accounts for just 1.94% of the entire series—and that’s before the mass meltings that have left so few coins for collectors to secure. And we can expect that even fewer of the survivors are of collector grade...

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 Sealed in protective holder  1881-S accounts for just 1.94% of all Morgans Struck

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Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS)! Grading service varies. The condition of these coins are as though they were struck yesterday, despite being minted 140 years ago to circulate in commerce! And yet they have survived with a quality level of eye appeal that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

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1881-S Date

The Morgan Silver Dollar was struck from 1878 to 1904, and again in 1921. In the 100 years since, most of these beautiful U.S. Silver Dollars have been worn out or melted down for their silver. It’s estimated that as little as 15% of all Morgans struck exist today in any condition. Even fewer come from this particular mintage.

 Historic Morgan Silver Dollars  Minted in San Francisco  1881 date  140 years old  26.73 grams of 90% fine silver  Hefty 38.1 mm diameter  Certified collector Mint State-63

The Morgan Silver Dollar is the most popular and iconic vintage U.S. coin. They were the Silver Dollars of the Wild West, going on countless untold adventures in dusty saddlebags across the nation. Finding a hoard of Morgans doesn’t happen often—and when it does, it’s a big deal. So when we came across a recent hoard of 549 Morgan Silver Dollars—all struck at the San Francisco Mint in 1881—it was like hitting the jackpot!

Morgans from the San Francisco Mint

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Coins are graded on a 70-point scale, with a 70 representing perfection. Through hard work and diligence, the collector who first assembled this hoard managed to find 1881-S Morgans graded as quality Mint State-63 (MS63) condition by the world’s two leading third-party grading services, Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) or

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MAY 2021

Letters 6 News 8

Features

A Ridge too Far A 1918 German offensive in France gained significant ground before morphing into a logistical nightmare. By David T. Zabecki

Rogers’ Remnant In 1759 British Maj. Robert Rogers and his vaunted rangers raided deep into Abenaki tribal territory—but fewer than half would make it back alive. By Ron Soodalter

Departments

Interview Guy Prestia A Witness to War

Valor Engineering Victory

2 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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Reviews 70 War Games 78 Captured! 80

The massive 415 bc Athenian invasion of Syracuse ended in a merciless Sicilian vendetta. By Justin D. Lyons

The U.S. Army’s famed 1st Infantry Division has been second to none for more than a century of war. By Jon Guttman

An Italian Misadventure

Translating for the ‘Tiger’ In late 1945 a young Marine participated in a precedentsetting war crimes trial. By Suzanne Pool-Camp

The Big Red One

Push Came to Shove Outnumbered at Chipyong-ni, a lone U.N. regimental combat team turned the tide in Korea. By Daniel Ramos

What We Learned From... The Battle of Hattin, 1187

Hardware Type 89 Heavy Grenade Discharger

On the cover: Troops go over the top during the Allied response to Operation Blücher, the Germans’ last-ditch offensive in 1918. (Canadian War Museum; inset: Imperial War Museums)

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3/10/21 11:02 AM

MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

Join the discussion at militaryhistory.com

Justice From the Yardarms In 1842 the commander of the brig USS Somers hanged a midshipman and two sailors for having plotted a mutiny—but had they? By Paul X. Rutz IN THE ARCHIV E S :

A Fate Worse Than Surrender When Fort William Henry fell in 1757, French-allied Indians weren’t about to grant the British safe passage By Ron Soodalter

Interview In his book Culture in the Third Reich historian Moritz Föllmer examines how the Nazi regime manipulated German society Tools In 1941 Italian sailors slipped three

manned torpedos into the British-held port of Alexandria, Egypt, with devastating results

MAY 2021 VOL. 38, NO. 1

STEPHEN HARDING EDITOR DAVID LAUTERBORN MANAGING EDITOR ZITA BALLINGER FLETCHER SENIOR EDITOR JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR ALEX GRIFFITH PHOTO EDITOR C O R P O R AT E ROB WILKINS Director of Partnership Marketing TOM GRIFFITHS Corporate Development GRAYDON SHEINBERG Corporate Development SHAWN BYERS VP Audience Development JAMIE ELLIOTT Production Director ADVERTISING MORTON GREENBERG SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING MEDIA PEOPLE / NANCY FORMAN 212.779.7172 ext. 224 nforman@mediapeople.com © 2021 HISTORYNET, LLC

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3/12/21 10:20 AM

Letters

Ted Williams I have an interesting postscript to John Miles’ article on the famous ballplayer [“‘The Thumper’ Goes to War”]. As a boy I would watch Ted Williams in awe when the Red Sox stopped in Charleston, S.C., to play an exhibition game against the local team on their way north after spring training. In early August 1953 I was a patient in what is now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, having graduated a month before from the U.S. Naval Academy. Williams was admitted as a patient and assigned the room next to mine. (He had developed an ear infection in Korea and couldn’t fly anymore.) Early on he ate in the officers’ dining room but was bothered by people, so he started having meals sent to his room. I was still confined to bed, so he would bring his food tray into my room, and we would talk while we ate. Every morning a contingent

of doctors, including the commander of the hospital, would gather outside his door and ask how he was. He would reply that he was fine and tell them to treat him the same as any other patient. One day I missed him and thought he had been discharged. But when I turned on the TV that night to watch the MLB All-Star Game in Chicago, he was there and was introduced as the war hero he was. The next morning he was back. A few weeks later I had recuperated enough to move around and decided to play golf on the hospital course to help regain my strength. He saw me in the hall and asked where I was going. I told him, and he asked if he could join me. We played nine holes, and he was good at it. We both left the hospital shortly after that. Incidentally, Shirley Temple Black was also a patient in the hospital at that time,

Your March article on Ted Williams was very interesting. Ted also flew alongside Jerry Coleman, who played baseball with the New York Ya n k e e s . C o l e m a n w a s named rookie of the year [in 1949] and flew combat missions in both World War II and Korea. He eventually became a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. Thomas J. Keeley Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas

Somers ‘Mutiny’? [Re. “Justice From the Yardarms,” by Paul X. Rutz, March 2021] on the infamous Somers Mutiny, which was never, in fact, a “mutiny” at all: Somers was a training ship, not unlike the one on which I used to sail during the summer sea terms at the State University of New York Maritime College. Unfortunately, Somers was not very suitable for that purpose, being too small, too crowded and having too few supervisory officers to maintain order. The ship was so overcrowded that they did not have a “brig” in which to secure prisoners, instead tying them up in the open on the quarterdeck, in full view of the ship’s company, a circumstance that did nothing to improve discipline or morale. At the time of Cmdr. [Alexander Slidell] Mackenzie’s court-martial

the main issue was not so much whether the [three] culprits had been guilty or not, but whether Mackenzie really had no choice but to hang them, or whether he should have brought them into port for trial and disciplinary action. Nobody cared about the fate of the two enlisted seamen, but Midshipman [Philip] Spencer was not only the son of a very prominent government official, but also only a high school–aged kid. A large portion of the 19th century public thought hanging a schoolboy was carrying discipline too far. One major result was the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., for the future training of Navy midshipmen, rather than training them aboard active warships as apprentice officers. It is worth noting that a son of Commander Mackenzie, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, became an Army officer with a reputation for extreme personal bravery, being wounded no less than seven times. It has been alleged Ranald Mackenzie’s recklessness may have been impelled, at least in part, by a desire to live down his father’s disgrace in the infamous Somers affair. Robert Guttman Tappan, N.Y. Send letters via e-mail to militaryhistory@historynet.com or to Editor, Military History HISTORYNET 901 N. Glebe Road, 5th Floor Arlington, VA 22203 Please include name, address and phone number

SPORTING NEWS (GETTY IMAGES)

giving birth to one of her children. She was married to a commander in the Navy. Cmdr. Robert H. Knight U.S. Navy (Ret.) Charleston, S.C.

6 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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News By Dave Kindy

problematic to serve on posts named for men who both supported slavery and seceded from the Union. The commission will also consider renaming four U.S. Navy ships—the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (named for the 1863 Confederate victory), the survey ship USNS Maury (named for oceanographer Cmdr. Matthew Fontaine Maury, who in 1861 resigned from the U.S. Navy to join the Confederate navy) and the carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS John Stennis (named for Southern Democrat politicians who, though strong proponents of the military, were avowed segregationists). Serving on the commission are three retired generals, a retired admiral, a former drill sergeant turned businessman, a civilian defense policy expert, a Georgia congressman and the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. They are to present their findings to Congress by October 2022, and the Pentagon must implement any changes by Jan. 1, 2024.

‘I am now considered such a monster that I hesitate to darken with my shadow the doors of those I love best, lest I should bring upon them misfortune’ —Robert E. Lee, in a postwar letter 8 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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FROM TOP: OFFICE OF VIRGINIA GOVERNOR RALPH NORTHAM; U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE; HERMANN HISTORICA AUCTIONS

A congressionally authorized commission created by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act will review U.S. Department of Defense assets named for Civil War–era Confederate figures with the stated goal of renaming them. The action comes on the heels of a 2017 review by the U.S. Army Center for Military History. That agency found the War Department had traditionally allotted naming rights to regional commanders. Its review cited 1917 criteria, likely driven by conscription needs, that advocated naming bases for figures with local appeal and allowed for Confederate names in Southern states. The bases under review are Fort Rucker, Alabama; Forts Benning and Gordon, Georgia; Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Hood, Texas; and Forts A.P. Hill, Lee and Pickett, Virginia. Though naming privileges were intended as an act of reconciliation, honoring Confederates doesn’t sit well with current soldiers, many of whom find it

JONAS N. JORDAN, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

COMMISSION TO REVIEW CONFEDERATE BASE NAMES

Established in 1918, Fort Bragg, N.C., was named for West Point graduate Braxton Bragg, who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Harry Beal, 90, First Navy SEAL Harry Beal, the first man to join the Navy SEALs, died on Jan. 26, 2021. After enlisting in the Navy in 1948, he served with the Underwater Demolition Teams. With the formation of SEAL Team Two at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, in Virginia Beach, Va., on Jan. 1, 1962, Beal

WAR RECORD

LEE STATUE BROUGHT HOME TO VIRGINIA

April 414 bc

Amid the 431–404 bc Peloponnesian War an invading army from Athens begins building a siege wall around the rival citystate of Syracuse. The Sicilian Expedition (P. 48) ends in disastrous defeat, prompting the collapse of the Athenian democracy.

FROM TOP: OFFICE OF VIRGINIA GOVERNOR RALPH NORTHAM; U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE; HERMANN HISTORICA AUCTIONS

JONAS N. JORDAN, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

April 1945

was first to sign the roster. On Feb. 20, 1962, the frogman famously pulled astronaut John Glenn from Friendship 7 after the space capsule splashed down in the North Atlantic.

WWI Exhibit Tracks Artifacts On exhibit at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., “Why Keep That?” tracks 16 objects in its collection from the moment each was donated until it was put on display—or not. Among the highlights is the “Barometer of Feelings,” a time line of one woman’s recollections, featuring wartime dance cards, receipts, tickets, coupons and posters.

A bronze of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee recently removed from the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol has found a new home in the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond. In a statement announcing the statue’s recall state lawmakers cited its divisive nature, adding, “There is no reason his statue should be one of the two representing Virginia in the U.S. Capitol.” Curatorial director Andrew Talkov said placement of Lee’s statue at the Capitol “tells us a lot about the society that we were in 1909,” while its removal “tells us just as much about the people and the time and the place that we live in.” Replacing it in the Capitol will be a statue of teen civil rights activist Barbara Johns. In 1898, amid the Spanish-American War in Cuba, Pvt. Thomas Kelly risked his life to rescue wounded soldiers while under heavy fire, actions for which he received the Medal of Honor. Last year his decoration (at right) went up for auction in Germany. After representatives from the forthcoming National Medal of Honor Museum, in Arlington, Texas, raised objections, the auction house proposed to sell the medal directly to the museum, until learning such a transfer would be illegal. A new bill proposed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would amend the U.S. law that prevented its return. The LEGACY Act would enable the defense secretary to initiate the repatriation of Medals of Honor, as long as the medal is destined for a museum, educational institution or the service branch that made the original award.

MEDALS OF HONOR BELONG STATESIDE

Having retreated from Manila in the face of U.S. landings in the Philippines, Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita (P. 40) rallies his forces in northern Luzon. Following a postwar trial the general hangs on Feb. 23, 1946, for atrocities troops under his command had committed, thus establishing the “Yamashita standard” of command responsibility.

May 22, 1952

Gen. Matthew Ridgway speaks to a joint session of Congress about the Battle of Chipyong-ni (P. 62), the “Gettysburg of the Korean War.” In February 1951 surrounded U.S. and French forces stopped a major Chinese offensive near the village east of Seoul, turning the tide of the war back in the U.N. coalition’s favor.

May 27, 1918

At 2 a.m. the Germans begin a massive artillery bombardment of the Chemin des Dames ridge in France to open Operation Blücher (P. 22), aka the Third Battle of the Aisne. By early June they had pushed to within 45 miles of Paris before grinding to a halt due to shortfalls in logistics and manpower.

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3/10/21 11:53 AM

News Honoring the Real Star of the Monuments Men Portrayed by George Clooney under a pseudonym in the 2014 film The Monuments Men, George Stout is finally getting his due in a new documentary. “Stout Hearted: George Stout and the Guardians of Art” chronicles the life of the Iowa native who led the Monuments Men, an Allied organization that during World War II recovered 5 million pieces of artwork and cultural items stolen by the Nazis. The film is available through the video-on-demand Heritage Broadcasting Service [heritagetac.org].

Talk about military surplus! Over the next five years the Army Museum Enterprise—tasked with capturing, preserving, displaying and presenting the material culture and heritage of the U.S. Army—will give away duplicate and excess artifacts from its 580,000-item collection to other museums, veterans organizations, national parks, and state and local governments. AME will draw the items from the museums and archives it operates in the United States, Germany and South Korea. “Releasing surplus artifacts is a great way to help other institutions tell the Army story while allowing the Army to better care for the essential artifacts that document the history of the U.S. Army from 1775 to present,” said Stefan Rohal, AME’s historic materiel division chief. “It makes us better stewards of those artifacts.” Everything from mess kits to tanks will be made available to eligible organizations registered with the General Services Administration. While museums and veterans groups will likely snap up most of the surplus items, the general public may get the chance to acquire remaining items, though not uniforms and nothing that requires demilitarization or includes hazardous material. AME supplies artifacts for all 46 Army museums, including the centerpiece National Museum of the United States Army, at Fort Belvoir, Va., which tells the story of the service branch and honors the accomplishments, sacrifices and commitment of American soldiers. Opened to the public on Veterans Day 2020, the museum remains temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Guns and tanks and planes are nothing unless there is a solid spirit, a solid heart and great productiveness behind it’ —Dwight David Eisenhower

Thanks for the Memories, Bob War is no joke, but Bob Hope garnered plenty of welcome laughter during the 57 USO tours he made between 1941 and 1991. Through September 5 at the NewYork Historical Society

Museum and Library in Manhattan the companion exhibitions So Ready for Laughter and The Gift of Laughter detail the legendary performer’s wartime efforts to lift service members’ spirits both at home and abroad.

ABOVE LEFT: U.S. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY; RIGHT: EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

ARMY TO DOLE OUT SURPLUS ARTIFACTS

Among the items museums and other organizations may receive are uniforms, gear and possibly some decommissioned weapons.

10 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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3/10/21 1:15 PM

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News War has been defined as long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. So how do soldiers while away the tedium? Some turn to art. On display through November 14 at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, “Soldier/Artist: Trench Art in World War II” features 150 works made by soldiers in the field from such discards and waste as spent artillery shells and rifle rounds.

Travel the Road to Freedom The American Battlefield Trust and Civil War Trails have partnered to present the Road to

Freedom smartphone app [battlefields.org/ visit/mobile-apps/ road-to-freedom-tourguide], highlighting the black experience during the Civil War. The curated digital tour encompasses 88 sites in Virginia, a key battleground state and vital corridor on the Underground Railroad. It relates the stories of largely forgotten soldiers, slaves, educators and politicians who staged rebellions, fought for freedom, and were born and buried in the midst of conflict.

ABT: SAVING HALLOWED GROUND FOR 22 YEARS

HERO’S HONORS

Armies have long recognized those exemplary individuals willing to lay down their lives for their fellows. Following are a few such men.

Comforting Chaplain

Stones River National Battlefield, Tenn. The American Battlefield Trust has done it again. In 2020, for the 22nd consecutive year, the nonprofit acquired more than 1,000 acres of historic grounds. Working closely with landowners and preservation partners, the trust closed 28 transactions at 22 battlefields in 10 states, safeguarding some 1,127 acres. Coming off that impressive benchmark, O. James Lighthizer, president emeritus of the trust, has received the National Humanities Medal. Leading the ABT from its 1999 founding through 2020, he oversaw the preservation of more than 53,000 acres of battlefields for future generations of Americans.

CHAT WITH A WWII CAMP LIBERATOR For decades to come, long after the last member of the Greatest Generation has died, visitors to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans will be able to query an American soldier who helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp. The new interactive exhibition “Dimensions in Testimony: Liberator Alan Moskin” enables one to engage in simulated conversation with former Staff Sgt. Moskin, who on May 4, 1945, as a member of the 71st Infantry Division, rescued survivors from Gunskirchen, part of the sprawling Mauthausen concentration camp network in Austria. Over four days interviewers asked the 94-year-old veteran more than 1,000 questions about his wartime experiences. Appearing on a large digital display, the virtual Moskin will thus be able to “answer” almost any query in real time. “In 20, 30, 40 years from now they’ll be able to show me, and I’ll have answers to their questions,” he said in a recent interview.

When the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk on July 30, 1945, after having delivered components of the Little Boy atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, Navy chaplain Lt. Thomas Conway spent three days swimming between groups of some 900 surviving shipmates to pray, inspire, baptize and offer last rites before he too succumbed. Just 316 men lived to be rescued. The Navy recently awarded Conway a posthumous Navy Cross.

No Greater Love

On Nov. 4, 2016, 5th Special Forces Group Staff Sgt. Jimmy Moriarty was killed as he ran to the aid of fellow Green Berets under attack by a gunman at Jordan’s King Faisal Air Base. His sacrifice enabled a fellow soldier to stop the gunman. In 2021 the Army awarded Moriarty a posthumous Silver Star.

By the Rockets’ Red Glare

Amid a rocket attack against Camp Taji, Iraq, on March 11, 2020, U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Rick Johnson disregarded his own safety to aid the wounded and search for survivors, receiving both the Air Force Commendation Medal and a Bronze Star in a 2020 ceremony.

FROM TOP: ZACHARY FRANK (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST; STAFF SGT. JULIO OLIVENCIA JR, U.S. AIR NATIONAL GUARD

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Interview A Witness to War By Dave Kindy

Where did the war take you? My outfit was in combat for 511 days. The 45th Division was a Western unit that started in the National Guard with men from Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. As they moved east during training, they started adding others to the division. I joined in

What do you remember about your time in Sicily? We were in bivouac outside of Palermo, and we could see down into the town. There was this street with one big building—a hotel. A Stuka dive bomber attacked the hotel, but he was too quick when he released the bomb. It went into the road and made a big crater. Well, the next morning we found out that in that hotel were Bob Hope and his troupe, including singer Frances Langford and guitar player Tony Romano. They were there to put on a USO show for us, which we saw a few days later. They didn’t have to be there. They came over to entertain us. I remember seeing actor George Raft, comedian Joe E. Brown and former heavyweight boxing champ Primo Carnera, who put on an exhibition. How did the landings on mainland Italy differ? At Anzio we had a 30-mile beachhead. We tried to dig foxholes in the ground, and it was all water, so we had to work up to the railroads and bridges. Then we were in the caves near Anzio, where a lot of our battles were fought. We [were shelled by] German artillery and took heavy casualties. Roy Zuber was my assistant gunner. He got shot by a sniper and lost an eye. The artillery shelling was so severe, we couldn’t get him to a field hospital for three days. I got to see Roy later at a rest camp.

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BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES)

Eight decades ago Guy Prestia helped battle fascist Italy and Germany in World War II. Today the 98-year-old veteran visits schools near his hometown of Ellwood City, Pa., some 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, to detail his experiences as a soldier in the U.S. Army’s 45th Infantry Division. Prestia served as a sergeant in Company E of the 157th Regiment under Capt. Felix L. Sparks, subject of The Liberator, an Alex Kershaw book and adapted Netflix series. Prestia and his “Thunderbird Division” comrades fought in Italy and from southern France across Europe to the dreaded Dachau concentration camp. Though COVID-19 has curbed his schedule, Prestia remains on a mission to relate the sacrifices the Greatest Generation made to preserve liberty.

May 1943 before shipping overseas. We landed in Sicily during Operation Husky. I carried a Browning automatic rifle. It was heavy, weighing 21 pounds, and when you put your finger on the trigger, you got rid of those 20 rounds in 2½ seconds.

RANDY GLASS STUDIO

Guy Prestia

What prompted you to share your wartime experiences? I began in 2001 when my granddaughter Chelsea was in the sixth grade. Her teacher said something about the war, and she said, “My grandpa was in World War II! He even has an Iron Cross from a German soldier.” A few days later the teacher called me and asked if I would speak to the children. Once I did that, somebody put my name in the newspaper, and I got calls from different schools. I always save time for the kids to ask questions. I learned a lesson early on, though. There was a little girl who asked me, “How did you feel the first time you killed an enemy soldier?” That hit me real hard. I just said, “It made me sick. Next question.” From then on I would have the kids write their questions down on a piece of paper so I could screen them. There are things that are just too graphic. You can’t blame the children. They are just curious. I have a lot of artifacts I bring: medals, photographs and my uniform, even though I can’t wear it anymore. I lay them out for the kids to see. I show them the Iron Cross and the Presidential Unit Citation my unit got at Anzio. I also have letters and cards from my company commander, Felix Sparks. I even show them my French Legion of Honor, which I got last year.

On V-E Day members of the 45th Infantry Division—Guy Prestia’s unit—wave American flags in Nuremberg, Germany.

BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES)

RANDY GLASS STUDIO

I laughed because he had one brown eye and one blue eye. They didn’t have the right size in brown, so they gave him a blue one. They did fix it when he got back to the States. What do you recall about the Thunderbird Division? Felix Sparks became our company commander at Salerno in Italy. He was good, and he cared for his men. He wasn’t with us very long before he got wounded. He took shrapnel in his liver and went to the hospital but came back in a few weeks. Then he got wounded a second time but came back again. We thought, “Boy, this guy is like a cat with nine lives. You can’t knock him out!” There were a lot of Indians and Mexican-Americans in the 45th Division. One of my best friends was Jesús Valles. He couldn’t read or write English, so I had to read and write his letters for him. Some of our Indians were from the East. You’ve heard of Van Barfoot, who won the Medal of Honor? I wasn’t far from him that day! He was a Choctaw

from Mississippi. I kept in contact with him long after the war.

one with Crestwood Preparatory College in Canada.

What was it like to liberate Dachau? Dachau was a bad place. We were not prepared for anything like that. We liberated the camp on April 29, 1945. We found these railroad cars. I think there were 39 of them. From a distance they looked like they were filled with logs, but as we got closer, we saw they were emaciated bodies. There were more than 2,000 dead. It was horrible.

What’s your primary message to students? We were overseas for a long time. We wondered, Why are we here? We finally determined, after liberating Dachau, we were there to set people free. I also tell them about how war changes your compassion. At the beginning you only think about yourself. That changes pretty quickly. Once you get into battle, and you see people getting hurt and killed, you get compassion. You treat them the way you want to be treated. That’s probably the biggest change in a person because of war. You never forget the things you went through. But I was never at the point where it bothered me. I heard about others who would wake up in the night and remember the bad things from the war. I never had those experiences. I did dream about what happened, but it didn’t upset me. Some people lived that the rest of their lives. MH

How has COVID affected your school visits? I follow the guidelines of the experts in the medical profession. I’m held pretty tight to that, because my daughter worked at a hospital, so she’s pretty strict with that stuff. They have a vaccine now, so I’m hopeful I can get back soon. I’ve also spoken at other places, like the Rotary Club and Slippery Rock University. Lately, because of the virus, I’ve been speaking online. I even did

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Valor Engineering Victory In early October, having broken the German line at the Canal du Nord, the CEF pressed north of Cambrai as a British pincer movement to the south sought to encircle the city to avoid a bitter street fight. On the night of October 8–9 Mitchell was ordered to take a patrol and reconnoiter, demine where necessary and secure crossings of the Canal de l’Escaut into Escaudoeuvres. The main force would follow at dawn. The withdrawing Germans had already destroyed the first bridge over the canal. Mitchell’s team managed to cut wires to explosives beneath the second span. While the main bridge into town also remained standing, enemy engineers had mined it for demolition. Approaching the span with three men, Mitchell posted a sentry at either end and clambered beneath the roadway Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Dec. 11, with a sergeant. The fleeing Germans Coulson Norman Mitchell 1889, Coulson Norman Mitchell graduated had left ladders and scaffolding in place, Canadian Army from the University of Manitoba in 1912 with enabling the pair to quickly sever elecVictoria Cross a degree in engineering before embarking on trical leads to the mines. When counterFrance a bicycle tour of England and Scotland with attacking Germans threatened the east Oct. 8–9, 1918 his father. On his return to Canada the young end of the bridge, Mitchell joined the man accepted a position as a construction sole sentry to fight off the assault. He engineer and in 1913 helped right a railside grain elevator on the east side then returned beneath the span to disof Winnipeg when subsidence threatened to topple it. The skills he learned arm the remaining charges. The sergeant and sentry received on the job would prove invaluable in the forthcoming war. Mitchell enlisted as a sapper in the Canadian Engineers on Nov. 10, 1914. Distinguished Conduct Medals, while Brothers Stanley and Gladstone also enlisted—the former dying of appendicitis Mitchell was given the Victoria Cross. before leaving Canada, the latter being invalided home with a gunshot wound “It was entirely due to his valor and in late 1917. In June 1915 Coulson (“Mike” to family and friends) arrived in decisive action,” read the citation, “that England with the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), and two months later he this important bridge across the canal sailed for France. He was soon sent to Alveringem, Belgium, with the Canadian was saved from destruction.” Mitchell survived the war without Overseas Railway Construction Corps, attached to the Belgian army as a tunneler involved in mining and countermining operations. On his return to England a scratch. Following demobilization that fall Mitchell was promoted to sergeant, and by the spring of 1916 he’d risen in Ottawa on May 2, 1919, he resumed to lieutenant. He returned to France that summer and in December was awarded work in Winnipeg and in 1922 married the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry amid countermining operations. Gertrude Hazel Bishop. Four years later In the spring of 1918 Mitchell was promoted to captain and soon assigned the couple moved to Montreal. During to the 4th Canadian Engineers Battalion, supporting the 2nd Canadian Infantry World War II Mitchell served as a Royal Division. That August 8 the final Allied offensive (the “Hundred Days”) opened Canadian Engineers trainer both at with the Battle of Amiens. As the static Western Front was suddenly set in home and overseas. Retiring from the motion, mining proved impractical. Given their expertise with explosives, service as a lieutenant colonel, Mitchell tunnelers like Mitchell were repurposed, sent forward to decommission German returned to Montreal, where he died at age 78 on Nov. 17, 1978. MH demolition charges ahead of the CEF advance.

LEFT: AUCKLAND MUSEUM; RIGHT: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

By Bob Gordon

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A Scottish Hero? The Somers Mutiny Ted Williams at War Israel’s Close Call Riding a Torpedo Cedar Creek, 1864

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This man taught thousands of U.S. Army Rangers how to fight dirty in World War II.

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What We Learned From... The Battle of Hattin, 1187 By Chuck Lyons

n July 2, 1187, the hottest time of year in the Holy Land, King Guy of Jerusalem ordered his 20,000-strong army into the desert from Sepphoris—a defensible position in the central Levant with good grazing and water—toward the besieged Christian stronghold of Tiberias, 15 miles east on the Sea of Galilee. As an act of faith, they bore a relic of the “True Cross” before them. The relic did nothing to ensure their victory. As Guy left Sepphoris behind, his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, had mounted archers loose arrows at the Crusader van and rear. Throughout the morning heavily-armored Christian knights and infantrymen armed with relatively slow-firing crossbows suffered under withering Muslim fire. Guy’s casualties were heavy, and the harassed rear echelon, where the vaunted Knights Templar and Hospitaller rode, nearly lost contact with the main body. Finally, the Crusaders reached the springs at Turan, some 6 miles from Sepphoris. Rather than spend the night there, however, Guy resumed the march, hoping to cover the remaining 9 miles to Tiberias by nightfall. In doing so, he ignored his not only Crusader history, but also his own. In 1182 a Muslimharassed Frankish army in the region had advanced only 8 miles in one day, while in 1183 Guy himself had managed only 6 miles in a similar situation. “Satan incited Guy to do what ran counter to his purpose,” Saladin later wrote. As Guy left Turan, Saladin again unleashed his skirmishers, bringing the Christian rearguard to a standstill and forcing the Crusaders to encamp on the waterless plain near the village of Maskana. The Muslim commander then had camel caravans bring up water and tens of thousands of arrows, while his men burned brush upwind of the Crusader camp in order to choke out the encamped enemy. Guy gambled his men could make the dash to Tiberias.

Lessons: Pay attention to logistics and environment. By twice denying his men ready access to water, Guy all but defeated himself. Leading his fully armored knights into the desert at the hottest time of year was an additional mistake—it would have been wiser to wait for cooler weather. Take care of your men. Guy dispirited his desperate troops to the point they panicked and ran into certain defeat. Be flexible. Failing to adapt to Saladin’s tactics, Guy relied on the all-out charge of his heavily armored mounted knights, a tactic known to be ineffective against the highly mobile Muslim cavalry. MH

CHRISTOPHEL FINE ART (GETTY IMAGES)

Captured after their defeat at Hattin, King Guy of Jerusalem and surviving Crusader knights are paraded before Saladin.

In the morning Saladin tightened the noose, cutting off Guy’s escape route and advancing his own army in a crescent formation. Saladin then had his archers rain arrows on the Christian army, while his cavalry darted in to bait the struggling Crusaders. As panic spread through Guy’s ranks, parched infantrymen broke for the Sea of Galilee, which appeared tantalizingly close. Saladin’s men decimated them and drove the survivors back against the Horns of Hattin, twin volcanic peaks along the line of march. Guy and his knights sought to block the Muslim cavalry and led several European-style charges. But lacking infantry protection, their horses fell easy prey to Muslim archers. Once dismounted, the all-butimmobilized knights were overrun by Saladin’s army and killed or captured. Hattin was a major defeat for the Crusaders. Their leaders and about 150 knights were captured. Guy himself was held a year before being released.

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TODAY IN HISTORY JULY 17, 1918 TSAR NICHOLAS II OF RUSSIA AND HIS FAMILY WERE EXECUTED. YEARS LATER, CONSPIRACY THEORIES EMERGED, AND IMPOSTORS BEGAN TO SURFACE. AN EASTERN EUROPEAN WOMAN NAMED ANNA ANDERSON CLAIMED TO BE GRAND DUCHESS ANASTASIA ROMANOV, SPARED DEATH IN 1918 BY A SYMPATHETIC GUARD. TEN YEARS AFTER HER DEATH IN 1994, DNA TESTING CONCLUDED SHE WAS NOT ANASTASIA BUT A MISSING POLISH FACTORY WORKER. For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

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Hardware Type 89 Heavy Grenade Discharger By Jon Guttman Illustration by Gregory Proch

When operated by its usual three-man crew, the Japanese Type 89 50 mm heavy grenade discharger could fire up to 25 high-explosive, smoke or incendiary rounds per minute.

The mortar’s curved baseplate allowed its crew to set it on the ground, atop a log or against the base of a tree at a 45-degree angle. Its spring-loaded and lanyard-operated firing pin mechanism also made it possible to brace the mortar against a wall or tree trunk and fire horizontally. Japanese manuals noted the weapon was carried strapped to the leg above the knee—not fired from it. Believing the latter to be true, the Allies dubbed the Type 89 the “knee mortar,” a misnomer that came back to haunt (i.e., seriously injure) anyone thus trying out captured specimens. Japan produced some 120,000 Type 89 tekidanto. Its army assigned the average 3,843-man infantry regiment 108 such weapons, roughly one for every 36 troops. Accurate at up to 131 yards (120 meters), the knee mortar inspired fear and respect among Allied riflemen hearing its distinctive “pop” in the midst of combat. MH

MAINICHI SHIMBUN

oon after introducing hand grenades to its army, Japan sought a means of extending the weapon’s range, both with rifle grenades and specialized projectors—essentially small mortars. The goal was to provide troops in confined urban, trench or jungle warfare with backup firepower. This led to the development in 1921 of the smoothbore Type 10 50 mm grenade discharger and its rifled 1929 successor, the Type 89 heavy grenade discharger, or hachikyu-shiki ju-tekidanto. The Type 89 fired either the Type 91 fragmentation grenade, a versatile round that could also be thrown or fired from a spigot projector, or the Type 89 50 mm shell, which detonated on contact. The latter round came in high-explosive, smoke and incendiary versions. Although the Type 89 could be operated singly, the typical crew comprised three men, enabling it to achieve a fire rate of 25 rounds per minute. The grenade had a propellant base and a time fuze that ignited in flight, providing a seven- to eight-second delay.

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1 1. Base cap 2. Sear to cocking lug 3. Barrel, containing firing pin 4. Elevating knob 5. Range scale for mortar shell 6. Trigger 7. S pring and dust protector sleeve 8. Baseplate 9. Range scale for grenade

6 9 7

Specifications Weight: 10 pounds 6 ounces Length: 24 inches Barrel length: 10 inches Bore: 50 mm Effective range:

131 yards (120 meters)

Maximum range:

732 yards (670 meters)

MAINICHI SHIMBUN

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A RIDGE T

A German feint over the Chemin des Dames in May 1918 gained more ground than expected before devolving into a logistical nightmare By David T. Zabecki

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TOO FAR German troops move toward the front as others enjoying a brief respite look on. The gains made during the Third Battle of the Aisne were purely tactical, resulting in no operational or strategic advantages.

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Days after Operation Georgette ended, Ludendorff ordered Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht to prepare his namesake army group for Operation Hagen, which Ludendorff envisioned as a renewal of Georgette on a far larger scale. If Hagen could push the BEF off the Continent, Ludendorff was certain the French would collapse, despite the influx of Americans.

In fact, Allied forces in Flanders were stronger than Ludendorff anticipated. In response to the recent German offensives French Gen. Ferdinand Foch, the newly appointed supreme Allied commander, had moved considerable numbers of French reinforcements north of the Somme River. The Germans would have to draw off those reserves before hoping to re-engage the BEF. Thus Luden-

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y May 1918 the Germans no longer had any possible chance of winning World War I militarily. Two great German offensives against the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in Flanders—operations Michael (March 21–April 5), and Georgette (April 9–29)—had captured huge swaths of terrain and inflicted 367,000 casualties on the Allies. Yet the German gains were purely tactical, resulting in no operational or strategic advantages. The German operational situation had in fact worsened, as they were left holding two very large and vulnerable salients opposite the British. The German strategic situation was worse still. The two offensives had cost them 326,000 casualties, but unlike the Allies they could not make up for the losses. Meanwhile, fresh—albeit inexperienced—American troops continued to arrive in France in large numbers. The Germans had no realistic alternative but to shift to the defensive and work toward a negotiated end to the war. But Gen. Erich Ludendorff—who with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg wielded what amounted to supreme control of Germany’s military forces—could not bring himself to accept a negotiated settlement, especially since the British would insist Germany relinquish control of the Belgian coast, which both sides knew was vital to controlling the English Channel. Moreover, the stunning tactical successes achieved during Michael and Georgette only convinced Ludendorff he could force an Allied collapse with just one or two more hard pushes. He resolved to aim those pushes primarily at the BEF in Flanders.

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TOP AND BOTTOM: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (2); MIDDLE: PRINT COLLECTOR (GETTY IMAGES)

As in their previous offensives, the Germans weighted their attack heavily with artillery, massing 5,263 guns against the Allies’ 1,422.

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dorff conceived a large-scale diversionary attack in Champagne, south of Saint-Quentin and west of Reims, designed to look like an attack on Paris. Ludendorff reasoned the French would pull all their reserve divisions out of Flanders to establish a blocking force to cover their capital. On April 18 Ludendorff ordered German Crown Prince Wilhelm’s army group to start planning and preparation for Operation Blücher. Wilhelm’s forces were to sweep toward Paris over the Chemin des Dames ridge, advance a dozen or so miles to the south, cross the Vesle River and take the high ground on the far bank. Once the French reserve divisions started moving south to protect Paris, the Germans would shift rapidly back north and launch Hagen. Spearheading Blücher was the German Seventh Army, under Col. Gen. Max von Boehn, which struck south with 29 divisions across a 43-mile front, from Chauny on the Oise River east to Loivre on the Aisne-Marne Canal, north-northwest of Reims. As in their previous two spring offensives, the Germans weighted the attack heavily with artillery, with gunnery expert Col. Georg Bruchmüller again in charge of fire planning. The Germans massed 5,263 guns against 1,422 French and British guns. The resulting 3.7-to-1 ratio was the highest artillery superiority the Germans achieved in any Western Front battle. Up until a few days before the battle Foch believed the Germans would renew their offensive in the north. Meanwhile, the French defense in the Champagne sector centered on holding the Chemin des Dames ridge, with the Ailette River to its immediate north. The French had recaptured this dominant feature from the Germans during the April–May 1917 Nivelle Offensive. Facing the main German attack was Gen. Denis Auguste Duchêne’s weak French Sixth Army, with 11 infantry divisions in the front line and five in reserve. The force included British Lt. Gen. Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon’s IX Corps, which had been severely battered during the Germans’ spring offensives. Having sustained more than 42,000 casualties in Flanders, IX Corps had been transferred south to reconstitute in a supposedly quiet sector. Sixth Army was deployed as follows: On the left French XXX Corps held the line from Pontoise-lès-Noyon east to Vauxaillon; in the center French XI Corps stretched east to Craonnelle (just west of Craonne); and on the right British IX Corps covered the line east to Loivre. Farther right still was the French 45th Division, to the northwest of Reims. The French XI Army Corps, under Gen. Louis de Maud’huy, held a 23-mile sector. Deployed west to east in the first line, between the crest of the Chemin des Dames and the Ailette, were the 61st, 21st and 22nd divisions. Behind them the 74th, 39th and 157th divisions, respectively, held the main defensive Green Line, which ran

Top: Despite the obsolescence of their primary weapon, the lance, German dragoons proved adept at exploiting breaks in the Allied line. Middle: French troops overlook German positions from a trench dug atop a smoke-shrouded, shell-blasted ridgeline. Above: German infantrymen cross a canal on May 27, the first day of the battle.

roughly behind the Aisne River. The British IX Corps line, held by the 50th (Northumbrian), 8th and 21st divisions, ran from Bouconville-Vauclair (near Craonne) to Berméricourt (near Loivre). From the heights of the Chemin des Dames ridge the British line dropped in a southeast-

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Erich Ludendorff Crown Prince Wilhelm

Denis Auguste Duchêne

Philippe Pétain

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LEFT: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; RIGHT: MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY; BELOW: PANTHER MEDIA GMBH (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Ferdinand Foch

The German artillery opened up at 2 a.m. on May 27, taking the Allies by surprise. Though Bruchmüller’s masterful preparatory barrage lasted less than three hours, German gunners managed to damage or destroy most Allied forward positions, communications trenches, command posts and batteries. The fire effect was especially devastating, as Duchêne had ignored French army commander Gen. Philippe Pétain’s instructions to adopt a defense in depth. When Pétain tried to force compliance with his orders, Foch backed Duchêne, who had been his chief of staff when Foch commanded XX Corps in 1914. The Sixth Army commander also rashly rejected similar warnings from his British commanders, who had had recent firsthand experience with Bruchmüller’s bombardments, dismissing his Allied subordinates with an arrogant, “J’ai dit” (“I have spoken”). Refusing to yield an inch of French soil without a fight, Duchêne foolishly packed his forces into the front lines, making them sitting ducks for Bruchmüller’s guns. The German artillery fired 3 million rounds on the first day of Blücher. Crossing the line of departure at 4:40 a.m., 20 minutes before dawn, the German infantry advanced, preceded by a double creeping barrage. Attacking uphill along the northern base of the Chemin des Dames, they secured the eastern end of the ridge within two hours. The initial German blow fell on the French 22nd and 21st Divisions, which faced eight German divisions, while seven German divisions attacked the three British divisions in the first line. Around 7:30 a.m. British IX Corps committed its reserve 25th Division. Within four hours of the start of the infantry assault the lead German units crossed the Aisne, 4½ miles south of the crest of the Chemin des Dames. They pushed the British 50th and 8th Divisions back across the river and enveloped the 21st Division on its right flank. In the French XI Corps sector the Germans hammered back the 22nd and 21st Divisions, while the 61st Division on the left held on for the time being. The effect was to push the right wing of French XI Corps to the southwest and away from British IX Corps, opening a gap in the Allied center. At 11:15 a.m. Duchêne ordered XI Corps to withdraw to the Green Line—but the position had not been pre-

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NATIONAAL ARCHIEF; BUNDESARCHIV; PHOTO 12 (GETTY IMAGES); COLLECTION GREGOIRE (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); BUNDESARCHIV

erly direction to Berry-au-Bac, where it crossed the Aisne and then paralleled the Aisne-Marne Canal toward Reims. The 25th Division remained in corps reserve, while a fifth British division, the 19th (Western), waited farther back near Châlons-sur-Vesle in army-level reserve. The mission of IX Corps and the French 45th Division to its right was to hold the Plateau de Californie, the eastern buttress of the Chemin des Dames. The Germans considered the plateau and the ground around Craonne the key terrain in their initial attack. The sector straddled the boundary between the French 22nd and British 50th divisions.

Above left: Members of Britain’s Worcestershire Regiment fire at advancing Germans from the south bank of the Aisne River. Above: The Chemin des Dames was already littered with remains of the dead from earlier battles.

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outflank them from the left. By 6 p.m. the Germans had pushed IX Corps south of the river, centered on Jonchery. The German penetration to that point was nearly 15 miles deep and 42 miles wide at its base. Although Ludendorff had reached his geographic objective far more quickly than planned, there were no indicators yet that any significant numbers of French reserve units were moving out of Flanders. Ludendorff had to make a decision. As he had done in Michael and Georgette, he abandoned the original plan and sought to exploit local tactical success. Without clearly identifying new operational objectives, he ordered the Seventh Army to continue pushing south. In support he redeployed from Flanders assault divisions he had been husbanding for Hagen. By that point nine Allied divisions, including four In 1916 the German army British, had been nearly destroyed. Recog- began replacing the boiledleather, spiked Pickelhaube nizing it was no longer possible to re-estab- with a steel helmet intended lish a line along the Vesle and counterattack to provide better protection from there, Pétain at 11 p.m. redirected the against shell splinters and Allied main effort against the German flanks, grenade fragments. Several with particular emphasis on holding the versions appeared during World War I, while improved Montagne de Reims, the high ground im- variants saw World War II mediately south of the namesake city. duty with Nazi forces. On May 29 the French center collapsed, and the Germans pushed the British left wing back to the southeast. The British 19th Division arrived in sector that day, and by noon the next day the surviving elements of the 21st, 8th, 50th and 25th divisions regrouped under the 19th. The Germans captured Soissons on the 29th and Fère-en-Tardenois, on the Ourcq River, the following

pared for defense. Using infiltration tactics they had mastered during Michael and Georgette, the adMAY 27–JUNE 6, 1918 vancing Landser moved so fast the French and British were forced to abandon their artillery on the north bank of the Aisne. The attackers ALLIED CASUALTIES captured some 45,000 prisoners FRENCH SIXTH ARMY, BRITISH IX CORPS, and 650 guns as they surged forU.S. 2ND AND 3RD DIVISIONS ward. British IX Corps lost most of its artillery. The Allies also failed to blow several key bridges over GERMAN the Aisne, further facilitating the CASUALTIES German advance. Hamilton-GorFIRST AND SEVENTH ARMIES don had received permission to blow the bridges in his sector at 12:30 p.m. Fortunately, he had already done so on his own initiative. By 8 p.m. the Germans had pushed the French 22nd Division and the 157th Division behind it south of the Vesle. The German lead elements then crossed the river, having advanced 13 miles, exceeding the operational objective. It marked the largest single-day advance on the Western Front during the war. The French 22nd, 21st, 61st and 157th divisions had lost more than a third of their guns. On May 28 the Germans pushed the French 22nd and 157th divisions still farther southwest, widening the gap between them and the British 25th Division to almost 10 miles. The British 19th Division, under Maj. Gen. George Jeffreys, was ordered forward. Still seriously understrength from the beating it had received that spring, the division fielded only about 9,000 troops. By day’s end the 25th Division had been badly mauled, while only remnants of the 50th, 8th and 21st divisions survived. IX Corps was ordered to hold the line of the Vesle, but as the British had almost no artillery, the Germans were able to repeatedly

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LEFT: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; RIGHT: MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY; BELOW: PANTHER MEDIA GMBH (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NATIONAAL ARCHIEF; BUNDESARCHIV; PHOTO 12 (GETTY IMAGES); COLLECTION GREGOIRE (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); BUNDESARCHIV

Third Battle of the Aisne

Stahlhelm

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Operation Blücher General Erich Ludendorff, quartermaster general of the German General Staff, initially planned Operation Blücher, or the Third Battle of the Aisne, as a feint toward Paris. By drawing Allied reserves south out of Flanders, as anticipated, he hoped to solidify Germany’s hold on the Continent and the English Channel coast before the Americans arrived on the battlefield in force. As the German Seventh Army gained ever more ground, however, the operation morphed into an all-out drive on the French capital, one that would stretch German logistics and manpower to their limits. The linchpin to the offensive was control of the Chemin des Dames ridge, along the Aisne River, and the rail lines stretching between Compiègne in the west and Reims in the east. By the first day the Germans had swept beyond the ridge some 13 miles to the Vesle River in the largest single-day advance on the Western Front. Over the next 10 days they advanced to Château-Thierry, within 45 miles of Paris. But there they ran into the fresh troops of the U.S. 2nd and 3rd divisions, and as the Allies remained in control of the rail hubs, the operation was doomed to failure. MH

Paris Within Reach

Though the French capital wasn’t Ludendorff’s initial objective, the German center drove to within 45 miles of Paris over the course of the 11-day offensive. But the British had held at Reims, while American doughboys stopped the German thrust cold at Château-Thierry. Close, but no champagne.

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German Seventh Army

To make a convincing feint, Ludendorff sent 29 divisions of the Seventh Army across a 43-mile front stretching from Chauny, on the Oise River, east to Loivre, on the Aisne-Marne Canal north of Reims. Artillery expert Georg Bruchmüller fielded 5,263 guns against 1,422 French and British guns.

Making Tracks

Despite the lightning German advance in turn across the Aisne, Vesle, Ardre and Ourcq rivers and the seizure of rail lines in that sector, the Allies remained in control of Compiègne and Reims. Without access to those vital rail hubs the German offensive proved logistically impossible.

Montagne de Reims The ‘Rock of the Marne’

Waiting for the German Seventh Army along the Marne at Château-Thierry were Ludendorff’s worst nightmare—fresh American troops of the 2nd and 3rd divisions. In three days of fighting the doughboys of the 3rd repulsed all attempts to cross the river. The “Rock of the Marne” held.

Having ceded 13 miles of ground to the Germans in just the first day of the offensive, French Gen. Philippe Pétain redirected his forces against the German flanks. He was especially intent on holding the Montagne de Reims. Had the Allies lost that key high ground, they would have lost the rail hub.

DISTANCE: Château-Thierry to Paris, 45 miles/72 km MAPS BY STEVE WALKOWIAK/SWMAPS.COM

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Tactical Takeaways

piègne in the west. Those key junctions controlled access to the only major rail line into the Blücher salient. Without access to that line, German logistics would soon become problematic. By morning on June 1 the Germans had forced the left wing of the British 19th Division south of the Ardre River,

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SEAN GALLUP (GETTY IMAGES, 2)

Top: German soldiers pose outside a supply and accommodation cave captured from French forces during the June attacks toward Reims. Above: French Saint-Chamond tanks advance through a ruined village during the response to the initial German attack.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (2)

day. As the Germans advanced to within a few miles of the Marne, Allied resistance seemed to disintegrate. Pétain committed Artillery Is Useful. his 16 available reserve divisions with little The vast number of effect. Then, doing just what Ludendorff guns employed by the had originally anticipated, Pétain requested Germans—whether the transfer of Allied reserves in Flanders to against point targets his personal control. Foch, however, recogor in rolling barrages— helped the attackers nized Blücher as an operational dead-end. shape the battlespace Unlike Michael or Georgette, it would have to their advantage. to culminate before reaching any significant A Win May Not Matter. objective. Thus he declined Pétain’s request As Germany learned, for the time being. while tactical victories are important, they On May 30 French XI Corps, which had don’t necessarily been continually pushed to the southwest, result in final victory. was south of Soissons. At 11:45 a.m. Foch Take, But Then Hold. finally decided to commit part of his strateThere is little strategic gic reserve, the Tenth Army, of four divisions, value in spending lives and treasure to take which at that point was behind the BEF, territory you don’t north of the Somme. That still left the BEF have the necessary in Flanders supported by the French Army forces to hold. Detachment of the North, with nine divisions. Pètain asked for those forces too, but Foch refused. Although the German lead elements reached the north bank of the Marne at Château-Thierry on June 1, the German drive faltered on the shoulders of the huge salient. Thus far the Allies had managed to hold on to the important rail centers of Reims in the east and Com-

though the British still held both banks below Bligny. Defending tenaciously, the 19th that day blocked the German advance up the Ardre, the main approach to the Montagne de Reims. Had the Germans taken that key piece of high ground south of Reims, the city would have fallen. Had that happened, the Germans would have been able to open up a major rail line into their huge salient. Among the reinforcements Foch did feed to Pétain were the U.S. 2nd and 3rd divisions. In three days of fighting around Château-Thierry, beginning on June 1, the Americans repulsed repeated German attempts to cross the river, earning the title “Rock of the Marne” the 3rd Division still carries. The Germans’ worst nightmare had come to pass: The Americans were making their presence felt on the Western Front far sooner than anticipated. Finally, on June 6, Crown Prince Wilhelm’s army group halted Blücher and ordered the Seventh Army to dig in. Although Paris had never been their real objective, the Germans were within 45 miles of the French capital. While the situation for the Allies appeared desperate, the Germans were in no position to exploit their advantage. They lacked the combat power, mobility or logistics to reach Paris, even if they had wanted to.

SEAN GALLUP (GETTY IMAGES, 2)

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (2)

Over 11 days of fighting the Allies had suffered upward of 127,000 casualties. The Germans had lost fewer men, some 105,000, but all they had to show for it was another huge salient to defend. Worse, lines of communication into the Blücher salient were poor and incapable of supporting the logistics flow necessary to maintain the troops defending it. Worse still, Ludendorff had squandered 13 of the 26 Hagen attack divisions in Blücher, and those divisions had to be reconstituted. Before he could even think of trying to launch Hagen, Ludendorff would have to wrest control of the Compiègne–Reims rail line by seizing the hub at either end. That imperative drove the fourth and fifth of Ludendorff’s 1918 offensives, Operations Gneisenau (June 9–13) and Marneschutz-Reims (July 15–18). With the failure of those operations the Germans were forced to scrub Hagen, and on July 18 the Allies launched a massive counterattack into the Germans’ overextended Blücher salient, opening the Second Battle of the Marne. What was left of the British IX Corps units transferred back to Flanders between June 19 and 30. IX Corps’ casualties from Blücher came to 1,298 officers and 27,405 other ranks. The remnants of the 8th and 25th divisions had been reduced to two composite battalions, and the survivors of the 50th and 21st divisions were grouped into two composite brigades. Although an outstanding German tactical success, Operation Blücher (the Third Battle of the Aisne) not only denied Ludendorff further success in Flanders but also set the conditions for the Allies’ decisive operational-level victory on the Marne, giving them an over-

extended salient to attack, one thinly defended by exhausted and inadequately supplied troops. Had Reims fallen, the operational situation in early June 1918 would have looked much different. By preventing the Germans from capturing the key high ground of the Montagne de Reims, the remnants of British IX Corps fighting under its 19th Division probably prevented Reims and its The dangerous task of vital rail center from falling into German disarming and removing unexploded ordnance hands. In the process the Germans lost from France’s world war their last viable operational possibility for battlefields falls largely any sort of battlefield victory—or even a to members of the Debattlefield stalemate—in 1918. Its failure partment de Deminage to take Reims proved the final nail in Ger- (literally “mine clearance”). Every year memmany’s strategic coffin. If the Germans’ bers of the agency are failure to take Amiens in March was their killed in the line of duty. World War I strategic equivalent of Stalingrad, then their failure to take Reims was their Kursk. MH

Deadly Work

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David T. Zabecki is Historynet’s chief military historian. For further reading he recommends his own The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918, as well as The Nineteenth Division, 1914–1918, by Everard Wyrall.

Unexploded ordnance— such as these artillery shells—still litters many of France’s World War I battlefields, a deadly legacy of the titanic struggle that engulfed the country’s eastern half from 1914 to ’18.

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ROGERS’ REMNANT In 1759 British Maj. Robert Rogers and his vaunted rangers raided deep into Abenaki territory—but fewer than half would make it back alive By Ron Soodalter

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Robert Rogers (at left) confers with a Mohican scout while his men skirmish with pursuers after the successful raid on St. Francis.

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While the Abenakis owned and used firearms, when in close-quarters combat they relied on such traditional weapons as this club of leather-girded wood and antler.

n the predawn darkness of Oct. 4, 1759, a detachment of British Maj. Robert Rogers’ Rangers—a mix of provincials and battle-hardened regulars—silently surrounded the sleeping Abenaki Indian village of St. Francis. They had wended their tortuous way north through nearly 100 miles of French-held wilderness and were about to rain fury on its slumbering inhabitants. Three weeks earlier Maj. Gen. Lord Jeffery Amherst, commander in chief of British forces in North America, had defined the mission in deceptively simple terms:

The savagery exhibited by both sides during the 1754– 63 French and Indian War reflected a style of fighting hitherto unknown to the British. The niceties of “civilized” warfare had little place in the trackless North American wilderness, occupied by indigenous peoples who had no use for interlopers’ concepts of proper combat. The French had earlier adapted to their unforgiving surroundings, establishing provincial ranging companies and forming Indian alliances. Ultimately, Amherst saw the value of colonial rangers—homegrown guerrilla fighters among whom quarter was neither sought

‘Take your revenge, but ...it is my orders that no women or children are killed or hurt’ nor expected. Scalping was practiced by both Indians and Anglos. New Englander Robert Rogers’ company was the most widely known of the British ranging units, and the one most feared by the enemy. A natural leader, Rogers was Amherst’s go-to field officer for both scouting and punitive missions.

By September 1759 Amherst’s forces were stalled at the southern end of Lake Champlain, in the recently built fort at Crown Point. There he sat, building ships and awaiting word of Maj. Gen. James Wolfe’s progress in capturing the French stronghold of Quebec City before moving his army north. Communication between the generals was practically impossible, given the more than 200 miles of enemy-held wilderness that lay between the two armies. On August 8 Amherst sent young Capt. Quinton Kennedy on a dual mission: to deliver dispatches to Quebec City and return with Wolfe’s response; and to persuade the Abenakis, one of France’s most effective and feared tribal allies, to sign a peace treaty with Britain. Things did not go as planned, however, as the Abenakis took the captain and his party captive. By that point both the British and the colonials had had more than enough of the Abenakis. Since the late 1600s their warriors had sallied forth from their Quebec village of St. Francis—known to the French as SaintFrançois-du-Lac and to the villagers themselves as Odanak (“coming home”)—and raided New England’s Anglo settlements with devastating effect, killing or capturing hundreds. The Abenakis had recently played a significant role in destroying Fort William Henry, during which they’d emptied the graves of several soldiers. “My brother Capt. Richard Rogers died with the smallpox a

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The mission would enhance the already legendary status of Rogers’ Rangers in the colonies and abroad. It would also cement the unit’s reputation among the French and their Indian allies for unbridled ferocity.

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TOP: CITY OF MONTREAL RECORDS MANAGEMENT & ARCHIVES; LEFT: BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; RIGHT: MEAD ART MUSEUM, AMHERST COLLEGE (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES)

You are this night to set out with the detachment as ordered yesterday, viz. of 200 men…and proceed to Misisquey [sic] Bay, from whence you will march and attack the enemy’s settlements on the south side of the river St. Lawrence in such a manner as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the enemy.…Remember the barbarities that have been committed by the enemy’s Indian scoundrels.…Take your revenge, but don’t forget that tho’ those villains have dastardly and promiscuously murdered the women and children of all ages, it is my orders that no women or children are killed or hurt.

few days before this fort was besieged,” Rogers noted in his journal, “but such was the cruelty and rage of the enemy after their conquest that they dug him out of his grave and scalped him.” The ranger leader thus had a personal as well as a professional score to settle with the Abenakis.

TOP: CITY OF MONTREAL RECORDS MANAGEMENT & ARCHIVES; LEFT: BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; RIGHT: MEAD ART MUSEUM, AMHERST COLLEGE (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES)

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Amherst was furious on learning of Kennedy’s capture. Rogers exploited his commander’s dark mood to press his long-anticipated plan for the destruction of St. Francis. Amherst had his own agenda. Sending Rogers deep into hostile territory on a punitive expedition would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy and divert French attention from the activities of Brig. Gen. Thomas Gage, whom Amherst expected to attack Montreal. The village lay deep in the heart of enemy territory. Simply getting there and back was a daunting proposition. Rogers would have to be highly selective in his choice of manpower. He assembled the toughest men available. Not all were Rangers; attrition from battle losses and desertion had taken a steep toll. Rogers amended the roster with provincial soldiers and seasoned British regulars. He also enlisted some 25 members of the Stockbridge tribe, Mohicans from western Massachusetts. Rogers conducted a rigid inspection to ensure each individual had sufficient rations and, as autumn was approaching, warm clothing. He allotted each man two pairs of moccasins and a pair of leggings. Then the major checked their weapons. Each ranger was equipped with a flintlock musket, a powder horn, 60 rounds of ammunition and a hatchet. Many also carried hunting knives and bayonets. Amherst handed Rogers his orders on September 13, just two days after having received word of Kennedy’s capture. They kept the objective to themselves. Bitter experience had shown that deserters often carried sensitive intelligence to the enemy. Amherst also spread misinformation. “It was put into public orders that I was to march a different way,” Rogers recalled, “at the same time I had private instructions to proceed directly to St. Francis.” That very night Rogers and some 200 men boarded 17 whaleboats and rowed north on Lake Champlain in the darkness. Rogers had earlier composed a manual he titled 28 Rules of Ranging, and Rule 24 specified that in just such a nocturnal operation each vessel should remain in strict visual contact with the ones before and behind it. Getting separated was least among Rogers’ challenges. A French fleet patrolled the lake, each ship capable of demolishing his vulnerable whaleboat flotilla. They first had to negotiate a series of narrows. To ensure they weren’t spotted, Rogers beached his vessels to await nights of fog or total darkness. Almost immediately the company suffered a string of disasters. First, a keg of black powder exploded, badly

Robert Rogers

Lord Jeffery Amherst

The homeland of the Algonquian-speaking Abenakis (top) included what is now northern New England, Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes.

injuring several men. Then a number of the party fell ill, including more than half of the Indian contingent, likely due to an epidemic that had recently swept Crown Point. Rogers tasked a contingent of their healthier comrades with escorting the injured and sick back to the fort. Only days into his mission he had lost 41 men, including one of his captains. Continuing to row at night and hide by day, the rangers managed to thread the narrows undetected. “We happily escaped their snares,” Rogers wrote. No sooner had they reached the main body of the lake, however, when fierce autumn storms struck, roiling the waters and soaking the unprotected party. Days ashore were little better. Telltale fires were forbidden, affording the company no opportu-

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Q U EB EC QUEBEC CITY

CANADA ST. LAWRENCE RIVER

ST. FRANCIS RAID

CONNECTICUT RIVER ST. FRANCIS RIVER

MONTREAL

MAINE LAKE CHAMPLAIN

CROWN POINT

N.Y.

MISSISQUOI BAY

MILES 0

V.T. N.H.

Rogers’ route through the spruce bog had discouraged pursuit, thus throwing the French off the scent. Further, Bourlamaque wrongly guessed the raiders were targeting

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: EVERETT COLLECTION, INC (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (2); FRANCIS BACK

PRESENT-DAY BORDERS

nity to warm or dry themselves. Finally, in a drenching rain 10 days after setting out, the men beached their boats at Missisquoi Bay. Rogers ordered the vessels and a month’s cache of provisions hidden in the brush, to await their return. Leaving two Stockbridge warriors to guard the cache, Rogers’ company then struck north afoot. They faced a perilous journey. Unknown to Amherst, Wolfe had captured Quebec on September 13—the very day the rangers had set out from Crown Point. But the bulk of the French army had escaped, moving south to prepare for Amherst’s inevitable advance. Thus the woods and shore around Lake Champlain teemed with French patrols seeking signs of a British incursion. They soon discovered Rogers’ whaleboats, destroying most and hauling away the rest. Informed that a large British raiding party was in the vicinity, French Gen. François-Charles de Bourlamaque reasoned it was moving toward either St. Francis or the neighboring village of Yamaska. He dispatched 300 partisans and Indians after the interlopers and stationed another 400 near the lakeside cache. They were not yet aware the quarry was their longtime nemesis Rogers. To evade French patrols, Rogers led his men on a circuitous route, which added considerable distance to their trek and took them through miles of foot-deep, mosquito-infested spruce bog. Progress was painfully slow. At night they cut saplings and laid them branch to branch to provide sleeping palettes above the water. Within days the two Indian scouts Rogers had left at the lake caught up to the party with the news their boats had been discovered and half of the French detachment was on their trail. “This unlucky circumstance (it may well be supposed) put us into some consternation,” Rogers wrote with understatement in his journal. The major considered his options. Their boats gone, a waterborne retreat down Lake Champlain was out. Well behind enemy lines without hope of support, the rangers would stand little chance fighting their French pursuers. After conferring with his officers, Rogers resolved to push on, fulfill his mission and then withdraw as best he could to a stockaded garrison on the Connecticut River known simply as Fort No. 4. He ordered an officer and six men to return to Crown Point, update Amherst and request provisions be left for them in a glen at the mouth of the Wells River, some 70 miles up the Connecticut from the stockade. The messengers made it to Crown Point without incident, whereupon Amherst sent a dispatch to No. 4, ordering men and supplies upriver to the rendezvous point. Meanwhile, Rogers’ party pushed farther into enemy territory.

LOOK AND LEARN (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

British troops scale the heights to Quebec City before the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham, to which Rogers’ raid on St. Francis was a footnote.

Yamaska, 10 miles southwest of St. Francis, and sent pursuers there. After slogging through the mire for nine miserable days, Rogers’ party emerged on dry land along the St. Francis River. Finally, on the evening of October 3, 22 days after having left Crown Point, the rangers caught sight of the Indian village. By then illness, exposure and exhaustion had whittled down the party to 142 men. In 1940 Metro-Goldwyn Mayer released Northwest St. Francis comprised a dozen Passage, based on the or so board-and-timber houses 1937 novel by Kenneth centered around a church (French Roberts. Starring Spencer missionaries had converted the Tracy, Robert Young and Abenakis to Catholicism). GranaWalter Brennan, the film presented a sympathetic ries and barns dotted the outand highly romanticized skirts. It sat atop a 60-foot bluff account of the rangers’ raid against the Abenakis. along the river, with well-worn paths leading down to put-in points for canoes. On reconnoitering, Rogers’ Stockbridge scouts discovered the villagers were holding a dance. According to Abenaki oral tradition, one of the scouts surreptitiously entered St. Francis to warn residents of the present danger. While some heeded the warning and hid in the woods, others remained in the village, refusing to believe any British force could have penetrated so far north into their territory. Some chroniclers claim all the Abenaki warriors were out pursuing Rogers’ raiding party. Others insist that no able-bodied man, knowing a force of British raiders was in the vicinity, would have left his home and family unprotected. It is logical to assume at least some warriors remained in the village. Rogers divided his men into three groups, covering the right, left and center of the village. Men were assigned to each house, with Rogers’ best marksmen positioned to shoot any would-be escapees. According to one of the British regulars, “We were to fire the town at once and kill everyone without mercy.” “At half an hour before sunrise,” Rogers recorded, “I surprised the town when they were all fast asleep.” At the report of a rifle the slaughter began. Rogers’ men shot or tomahawked residents still in their beds or struggling to rise. Tribal tradition has it some villagers held out in the large council house that had hosted the previous night’s dance; if so, they were quickly subdued. Several Abenakis ran down the path toward the canoes. “About 40 of my people pursued them,” Rogers recorded, “who destroyed such as attempted to make their escape that way and sunk both them and their boats.” The attack ended soon after it began, the surprise complete. Of Rogers’ party, one Stockbridge scout had been

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: EVERETT COLLECTION, INC (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (2); FRANCIS BACK

LOOK AND LEARN (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

Rogers Reels

Top: In 1949 artist and military uniform expert Herbert Knötel rendered examples of the summer and winter clothing worn by Rogers’ Rangers. Above: French-allied Canadian militiamen wore very similar attire.

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‘From the time of the raid on, the Abenakis ceased to be a threat to the New England frontier’ tries, looting silver candlesticks and reliquaries, and making off with the bell. Rogers then ordered the village put to the torch. “The fire consumed many of the Indians who had concealed themselves in the cellars and lofts of their houses,” Rogers noted. “We found in the town hanging on poles over their doors, etc., about 600 scalps, mostly English.” He failed to mention the scalps his own

frenzied men had harvested from the recently slain. For the return march the rangers stuffed their pockets and packs with dried corn, the only available provision. His victory complete, Rogers realized he must withdraw as swiftly as possible. There would be no mercy once the attack was discovered.

Informed by a captive that some 300 French and Abenakis were only 4 miles downriver, Rogers immediately set out for Fort No. 4, his prisoners and freed captives in tow. As grueling as the northbound trek had been, it paled in comparison to the hardships and horrors that awaited Rogers and his men. The rangers were more than 200 uncharted miles from No. 4, the weather was growing increasingly colder and stormy, and the forest proved nearly devoid of game. Eight days into the march, to facilitate hunting and foraging, Rogers split his force into small parties. He directed each to rendezvous as planned at the mouth of the Wells River. French partisans and vengeful Abenakis overtook two such parties. According to a French officer, the pursuers “massacred some 40 and carried off 10 prisoners to their village, where one of them fell a

killed, Capt. Amos Ogden was badly wounded, and six others were slightly injured. The Rangers captured 20 Abenaki women and children. Retaining as hostages the chief’s wife, two boys and three girls, Rogers let the rest go free. He also liberated five captives—three rangers, a German girl and a provincial soldier. The raiders then turned their attention to the village itself. They first desecrated the church, destroying tapes-

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TOP: MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONS, QUEBEC; BELOW: NORMAN EGGERT (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Over three weeks Rogers and some 200 men rowed 17 whaleboats north up Lake Champlain and then marched overland to the Abenaki village of St. Francis.

TOP: MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONS, QUEBEC; BELOW: NORMAN EGGERT (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

victim to the fury of the women.” By then the enemy realized it was the notorious Rogers they were pursuing. For the survivors starvation was an immediate concern. The corn soon gave out, reducing the men to eating their belts, moccasins, bullet pouches, candle stubs, broiled powder horns and flesh from the scalps they had taken. A contemporary historian interviewed the survivors of Lt. George Campbell’s party, the more desperate of whom “attempted to eat their own excrements.” That wasn’t the worst of it. Three weeks into the march, the historian wrote, Campbell’s party discovered the scalped and mutilated remains of several former comrades, on which “they fell like cannibals and devoured part of them raw, their impatience being too great to wait for the kindling of a fire.” Having sated themselves, they carried off the remains, one Ranger stuffing three partially eaten heads into his pack. According to Campbell, the Stockbridge scouts killed the Abenaki chief’s captive wife and doled out her flesh, though Rogers claimed in an after-action report to have delivered his prisoners safely to No. 4. Through it all, Rogers maintained order and kept his men moving. The survivors finally arrived at the rendezvous, only to find that the officer in charge of the rescue party had turned back for No. 4 just hours before the rangers’ arrival, taking the supplies with him. “Our distress,” Rogers succinctly wrote, “was truly inexpressible.” The major directed his men to sustain themselves on acorns, lily roots and whatever small game they could kill. Meanwhile, he fashioned a raft of dry pine trunks and, using hewn saplings as paddles, embarked downriver with two rangers and a captive Indian boy. He vowed to return as soon as possible. Two days downriver a set of falls forced Rogers and crew to abandon their raft and march past the cascade. Lacking the strength to fell trees, they burned down several to lash together another raft. On October 31, at the end of their strength, they staggered into No. 4. Forty-eight days had passed since the rangers had marched out of Crown Point. Rogers immediately dispatched a canoe laden with supplies upriver to his men. After resting two days, he accompanied a follow-on party of supply canoes. Over the next several days exhausted survivors straggled in to the fort, singly and in small clusters. At least 49 rangers had perished in the southward flight, succumbing to starvation, exposure and nightmarish enemy retribution. But Rogers had completed his mission—St. Francis lay in smoldering ruins.

How effective was the St. Francis Raid? Chroniclers are divided regarding the butcher’s bill. While Rogers reported having slain “at least 200 Indians,” Burt G. Loescher, in his multivolume work on Rogers’ Rangers, estimates the number to be between 65 and 140. Contemporary French accounts claim a total closer to 30. (A Jesuit priest who visited the village in the aftermath

Top: A plaque in the Abenaki reserve of Odanak, Quebec, memorializes those killed in Rogers’ attack. Above: Reconstructed in 1960, Fort No. 4, in presentday Charlestown, N.H., was where Rogers and the surviving rangers headed.

found the bodies of 10 men and 22 women and children amid the smoldering ruins.) Casualty numbers aside, it was the long-term effects of the raid that most interested Lord Jeffery Amherst, and in this he would be well satisfied. For the first time in recorded history Abenaki territory had been breached and their very homes and families destroyed by an enemy who had no hesitation in using the Indians’ own methods of fighting. The marauding days of the French-allied tribe were over. “From the time of the raid on,” concludes Rogers historian Timothy J. Todish, “the Abenakis ceased to be a threat to the New England frontier.” MH Ron Soodalter is a frequent contributor to Military History and the author of Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader. For further reading he recommends White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and Vengeance in Colonial America, by Stephen Brumwell; War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier, by John F. Ross; and The Annotated and Illustrated Journals of Maj. Robert Rogers, edited by Timothy J. Todish.

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TRANSLATING FOR THE ‘TIGER’

In 1945 a young Marine with an aptitude for languages landed in the midst of a war crimes trial with international ramifications By Suzanne Pool-Camp

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British and Commonwealth troops raise their hands in surrender after the 1942 fall of Singapore, a victory engineered by the “Tiger of Malaya,” Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita.

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Presented to Yamashita by Emperor Hirohito, this sword was surrendered by the general to U.S. Maj. Clifford Freeland on Sept. 2, 1945.

Tomoyuki Yamashita

of converging paths of education and experience. Born in Los Angeles on Dec. 26, 1918, Harry Douglas Pratt was fascinated by languages from an early age. After graduating as a French major from UCLA in 1940, he applied to the Marine Corps and was accepted for officer training at Quantico, Va. On completion of the course he was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the 2nd Marine Division in San Diego. On Sunday, December 7, Pratt was on weekend leave in Los Angeles when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He raced back to San Diego to find his regiment under orders to deploy to Wake Island. “By the time enough shipping was found, Wake was gone,” Pratt recalled. Instead, the regiment sailed to American Samoa in early January 1942 on three converted Matson luxury passenger liners, with all the comforts of nice beds and good food—“a great way to start a war,” he said with a laugh. In response to an urgent need for interrogators and translators, Capt. Ferdinand Bishop was directed to start a Japanese language course in Samoa. French major Pratt volunteered to become “a full-time student” for the next six months. The shanty amid a stand of palms that served as Bishop’s schoolhouse belied the intensity of the course

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LEFT: U.S. MARINE CORPS (NATIONAL ARCHIVES); RIGHT: BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES)

Pratt’s presence in the Manila courtroom was the result

PREVIOUS SPREAD: MONDADORI PORTFOLIO (GETTY IMAGES); THIS PAGE, TOP: PAMPLIN COLLECTION; BOTTOM: NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

rriving for his arraignment at the U.S. High Commissioner’s Residence in Manila, Philippines, on Oct. 8, 1945, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita looked solemn but self-confident in his mustard-green field uniform decorated with a general officer’s lapel insignia and four rows of ribbons. Completing his ensemble were brightly polished boots with gold spurs. Though the general stood only 5 feet 7 inches, one of his appointed American defense attorneys described him as “a large man for a Japanese.… His neck was thick and bull-like, and the back of his neck and head ran in almost a vertical line from the white shirt collar which was turned over his tunic collar.” Also present in court was U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Harry D. Pratt, the general’s appointed translator. Pratt later recalled Yamashita’s “distinguished appearance” as he stood before a military commission of five U.S. general officers to hear the charges against him. “He made no angry attacks and gave answers in a clear voice.” Less than a month had passed since Yamashita’s arrest, on Sept. 2, 1945. Presiding officer Maj. Gen. Russel Burton Reynolds read aloud the indictment holding Yamashita responsible for all “brutal atrocities and other high crimes” committed between Oct. 9, 1944 and Sept. 2, 1945, by troops under his command in Manila and elsewhere in the Philippines. After the charge was read in Japanese, Yamashita firmly replied in that language, “Not guilty.” The arraignment ended within minutes, and the general was returned to his cell in New Bilibid Prison, 15 miles south of Manila. His trial, which opened on October 29, set a precedent in international law as well as in American military and constitutional law. At his side throughout the proceeding was Pratt, who was somewhat surprised to find himself involved in the historic event. At just 26 years old and with only a few years of Japanese language study behind him, the young Marine had been assigned at short notice as the general’s chief interpreter.

LEFT: U.S. MARINE CORPS (NATIONAL ARCHIVES); RIGHT: BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES)

PREVIOUS SPREAD: MONDADORI PORTFOLIO (GETTY IMAGES); THIS PAGE, TOP: PAMPLIN COLLECTION; BOTTOM: NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

—of the 16 Marines who began the study, only the recently promoted Capt. Pratt and seven enlisted men completed it. Shortly before the 1st and 2nd Marine divisions invaded Guadalcanal on August 7, Pratt was assigned as an assistant intelligence officer to the 8th Marine Regiment, which was sent to reinforce Guadalcanal in early November. Pratt recalled it as “an unopposed landing, except for Japanese bombing attacks.” As the regiment moved into heavy jungle along the Matanikau River, however, “there was plenty of incoming fire.” Thanks to his language skills, Pratt was soon transferred out of the line to 1st Marine Division headquarters, to assist in interrogating Japanese prisoners of war. Although few Japanese soldiers surrendered on Guadalcanal, among the POWs were downed aviators and survivors of sunken ships. Extracting information from them wasn’t too difficult, Pratt recalled. “We simply told them we were sending information about their capture to the International Red Cross, which would inform the Japanese government. Inevitably they would respond, ‘Don’t do that; we’ll tell you what you want to know.’ They knew that if information about their capture reached Japan, their families would be disgraced forever.” Japanese service members considered surrender a humiliation worse than death. On Jan. 31, 1943, the 8th Marines shipped out from Guadalcanal to refit in Wellington, New Zealand. Pratt’s assignment on the voyage south was to supervise 30 Japanese POWs. “My group of six interpreters provided all the communications between the ship and the POWs,” he said. “Upon arrival in Wellington we accompanied them to a camp in the hills above the city and worked with the New Zealand staff until they felt comfortable handling the Japanese.” The next island operation took Pratt to Tarawa atoll, where he went ashore at Betio on November 21, the second day of the grueling four-day battle. As the tide was out, the landing craft dropped him and his fellow Marines

Above left: American prisoners of war sit under Japanese guard before the start of the Bataan Death March. Yamashita evaded responsibility for the march but not the subsequent maltreatment of Allied POWs (above).

some 500 yards from the beach. Shouldering his M1 carbine, Pratt balanced a box of Japanese dictionaries atop his helmet. As the men waded in, they came under enemy fire. Shrapnel struck Pratt in the left leg, but he managed to make it ashore. The Marines suffered 1,009 killed and 2,101 wounded on Tarawa. Nearly all of the 4,800-plus defenders were killed. Of the 146 prisoners taken, only 17 were Japanese. The rest were conscripted Korean laborers.

In the wake of battle Pratt escorted the Korean POWs from Tarawa to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There he reported to the Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas, to translate captured documents. In July 1944 Pratt and close friend Lt. Elmer Stone were assigned to the Navy School of Oriental Languages at the University of Colorado in Boulder, which offered immersion lessons in

Yamashita’s trial set precedents in international law and U.S. military and constitutional law reading, translating and conversation. Classes ran from Monday through Friday with exams on Saturday mornings. On Saturday nights Capt. Bill Croyle and his wife hosted gatherings with “splendid jazz”—though Pratt sometimes skipped the fun to memorize his kanji (Japanese written characters). After graduating in July 1945, Pratt returned to the Pacific to work for the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service (ATIS) at Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s G-2 (Intelli-

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gence) Section in Manila. There Pratt and other graduates of the Boulder language school, as well as hundreds of Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans), translated enemy documents, field manuals and the personal papers of captured Japanese. ATIS troops also interrogated POWs and wrote propaganda leaflets urging the enemy to surrender. The day after the formal Japanese capitulation aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2 Pratt was

FROM TOP: U.S. ARMY, ASAHI SHIMBUN PREMIUM (GETTY IMAGES, 2); OPPOSITE, TOP LEFT: CARL MYDANS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION (GETTY IMAGES); TOP RIGHT: U.S. MARINE CORPS HISTORY DIVISION; BOTTOM: INTERFOTO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Unlike the formal 1942 capitulation of British and Commonwealth forces in Singapore (top), Yamashita’s surrender three years later was comparatively routine.

assigned to ATIS headquarters in Tokyo. Within a month, however, he was suddenly transferred back to Manila to serve as chief interpreter for the newly formed U.S. military commission. In his role as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers MacArthur had exonerated Emperor Hirohito and his family members, but he was determined to arrest and indict those members of the Japanese military who had committed wartime atrocities in the Philippines. The military commission convened by MacArthur comprised five U.S. Army generals, none of whom were attorneys. While those on the commission might not have been aware of legal precedent, MacArthur and his prosecutors in the Manila trial knew the case against Yamashita was novel. Never before had a military commander faced charges of “command responsibility” for crimes committed by his troops without the commander’s orders or approval. The argument presented by Yamashita’s defense team focused on whether he had been in communication with, and in control of, those who had committed the atrocities. Pratt and the six Army lawyers assigned to defend Yamashita had only days to interview him before his October 8 arraignment. Going into his private interview with the accused, the young interpreter was nervous. “Like all of us who went through the Pacific operations, there was no ‘love lost’ for the Japanese,” Pratt recalled. “However, my experience at Boulder clearly showed the necessity of treating these officers with the respect their position deserved.” On entering a small room annexed to the New Bilibid Prison chapel, Pratt exchanged greetings with the uniformed Yamashita and his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Akira Muto. “The 59-year-old Yamashita was rather relaxed, while Muto was more reserved and formal,” Pratt said. Both openly discussed the fighting in Manila and denied all charges. “Yamashita had decided that the defense of Manila was impossible and took his forces north towards Baguio, in northern Luzon, leaving the city under the control of the navy, which committed terrible atrocities.” Yet he claimed he “knew nothing about this and could have done very little had he known, because he had no contact with the city.” As the only available field-grade officer with the necessary combat experience and language skills, Pratt was an ideal choice for Yamashita’s interpreter. His responsibilities included all interpretation for the accused on behalf of both the defense and the prosecution. Pratt delegated most of the legwork to the Nisei, while ensuring they employed correct military terminology and properly addressed senior Japanese officers. Interpreters were also needed to translate three dialects of Filipino, three of Chinese and one of Spanish for testifying witnesses. In general Pratt found the Nisei highly competent, though limited in their knowledge of combat operations

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Harry Pratt

in the Pacific and military terminology concerning weapons and Japanese army usage. “I felt that my job was to ensure that the questions put to the accused were a correct rendition of the English used by the U.S. and Philippine officers of the prosecution,” he said. Also attending Yamashita was his own personal interpreter—Masakatsu Hamamoto, a Harvard-educated Japanese army colonel. Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, facing trial next for his role in the infamous Bataan Death March, spoke English and said he understood the testimony. Both the defense and prosecution had their own translators. However, the accuracy of the interpreters came into question. According to a New York reporter covering the proceeding, Hamamoto grimaced whenever questions were improperly worded or Yamashita’s answers were incorrectly translated. It was Pratt’s responsibility to resolve any such uncertainties. The trial lasted more than a month, running from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with an hour lunch break, every day except Sunday. Over that time the prosecution preDeveloped from the earlier Arisaka Type 38 6.5x50 mm bolt-action rifle, the 7.7x58 mm Type 99 (pictured below with its detachable bayonet) saw widespread use with Japanese forces in World War II.

Surrounded by members of his personal protective detail, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur surveys Manila before entering in 1945.

sented 402 exhibits—photographs, motion-picture footage, newspaper accounts of atrocities, etc.—and called some 280 witnesses to testify. Pratt and his team of translators listened to testimony from hundreds of people attesting to murder, rape, torture and other outrages committed by Japanese military personnel against Filipino civilians and Allied POWs. The defense team fought back at every cross-examination and argued repeatedly that not a shred of evidence proved Yamashita either ordered any of the atrocities or had any knowledge of them. When the general took the stand, he explained that after mid-November 1944 all communication ceased between his headquarters on Luzon and his troops in the Visayan Islands and on Mindanao, while the pressure of U.S. artillery attacks repeatedly forced him to move his headquarters higher into the mountains. Pratt insisted the defense team did “a hell of a job,” despite facing such disadvantages as the admissibility of hearsay evidence. The interpreter himself believed Yamashita had not been informed of the brutality of Japanese units in Manila. “Command responsibility may be

Arisaka Type 99

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Pratt (at far right) stands beside Yamashita on Dec. 7, 1945, as the Japanese general is sentenced to death for atrocities committed by troops under his command.

What Is ‘Command Responsibility’?

At 2 p.m. on Dec. 7, 1945—four years to the day from the Pearl Harbor attack—attorneys, interpreters, journalists, cameramen and radio broadcasters filled the Manila

courtroom to hear the commission’s verdict. Flash bulbs popped and newsreel cameras hummed as MPs led Yamashita to the front of the room. He was directed to stand before Maj. Gen. Reynolds, who was seated behind a row of microphones at a long wooden table with his fellow commissioners. Pratt stepped to Yamashita’s side to translate the sentence. It took several minutes for Reynolds to read the complete charge for violation of the “laws of war,” a summation of the presentations by the prosecution and the defense, and the commission’s own finding that a commander “may be held responsible, even criminally liable, for the lawless acts of his troops, depending upon their nature and the circumstances surrounding them.”

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IAIN MASTERTON (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

a valid charge when you’re capable of exercising that command,” he said. “In Yamashita’s situation…I find it of dubious validity.” However, Pratt did question the general’s previous actions in Malaya and Singapore, where he’d earned the sobriquet “Tiger of Malaya.” Given the lingering bitterness over his swift victories there and in the Philippines, Yamashita was undoubtedly guilty in the eyes of most Allies and Filipinos even before the trial began.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

According to Gary D. Solis—a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, former law professor at the U.S. Military Academy and author of the 2010 book The Law of Armed Conflict— the term refers to “the criminal liability a commander bears for illegal orders that he or she issues,” even though subordinates actually committed the crimes. One of the first such indictments for criminal liability targeted Kaiser Wilhelm II, defeated emperor of Germany after World War I; but at war’s end he fled to the neutral Netherlands, beyond the jurisdiction of an Allied tribunal. The 1945 trial of Tomoyuki Yamashita marked the first time a commander was indicted and convicted for his troops’ criminal actions under the rationale he must have known and yet failed to control or prevent their actions. Since then international law has sought to clarify what level of knowledge is required for conviction. The 1977 addition of Article 86(2) of the Geneva Convention states that superiors are not absolved of responsibility if proven “they knew or had information” of subordinates’ criminal actions yet failed to act. —S.P.C.

IAIN MASTERTON (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Reynolds then paused to allow Yamashita to make a statement, read in English by Hamamoto. In it the general swore before his Creator he was “innocent of the charges” made against him. Reynolds then read the verdict, which Pratt translated aloud into Japanese: “Accordingly, upon secret written ballot, two-thirds or more of the members concurring, the commission finds you guilty as charged and sentences you to death by hanging.” A moment of silence swept the courtroom. Yamashita remained calm and expressionless. “He was very stoic throughout,” the interpreter recalled. “I believe he knew all along what the sentence would be.” While Pratt’s job was complete, Yamashita’s defense team filed an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution until the court could agree to hear the case. On December 20 the justices scheduled an oral argument, held on Jan. 7, 1946. Unfortunately for Yamashita, on February 4 the court upheld his conviction, though Associate Justices Frank Murphy and Wiley Blount Rutledge wrote vigorous dissenting opinions. Essentially, Murphy said there was no legal precedent in international law permitting a military commission to find a commander liable for any actions of his troops. “No one in a position of command,” he argued, “can escape those implications. Indeed, the fate of some future president of the United States and his chiefs of staff and military advisers may well have been sealed by this decision.” Rutledge likewise deemed the trial “unprecedented” in legal history. In contrast to the joyous crowds dancing in the streets of Manila over the news of Yamashita’s death sentence, more than 86,000 people in Japan signed a petition pleading with MacArthur to commute the sentence or at least allow the condemned general an honorable death by hara-kiri. Perhaps surprising, some Japanese POWs were infuriated by Yamashita’s unwavering denial of responsibility, one reflecting, “Since he knows he can’t get off anyway, you’d think he could act more like a general and take responsibility for the crimes of his subordinates.”

Yamashita is among 2.5 million Japanese commemorated in Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine (above), though his body is interred in that city’s Tama Reien Cemetery.

that this law of command responsibility might well be charged against our own commanders under circumstances beyond their control.” After the war Pratt served in headquarters at Marine Corps Station Quantico as G-2 (chief of intelligence) and was later transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo as the naval attaché. He retired from the Marine Corps

Yamashita bowed his head to the noose and seconds later dropped through the trap

On Feb. 23, 1946, Yamashita was stripped of his uniform

as a colonel in 1963. Over the next several decades he pursued a successful business career, first as a vice president with Pepsi Cola in the Far East and later with Royal Crown Cola in Manila. Along the way Pratt found time to marry twice and help raise six daughters. On retirement he built a house in Sonoma, Calif., where he and wife Grace led an active social life. Harry Pratt died on Nov. 6, 2015, and was buried at the Sonoma Veterans’ Cemetery with full military honors—a Marine to the end. MH

and decorations, dressed in worn U.S. Army fatigues and led from his tent to a wooden gallows at the Los Baños prison camp, 35 miles south of Manila. After making a final statement, he climbed the 13 steps to the scaffold, prayed in Japanese for Hirohito, bowed his head to the noose and seconds later dropped through the trap. Years after the trial Pratt reflected on the resulting “Yamashita standard,” which holds that a commander has a duty to be aware of, and is always responsible for, the actions of his troops. “It was a fascinating experience, but it was also one which I found, as a career officer, to be very worrisome,” he later wrote. “War crimes trials are a function of the victors. I could then and still find

Suzanne Pool-Camp is a freelance writer based in Fredericksburg, Va. She and husband Col. Richard Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), interviewed Col. Harry Pratt in 2014. The co-author of Who Financed Hitler (1978), she has a juris doctor degree from Salmon P. Chase College of Law. For further reading she recommends Yamashita’s Ghost: War Crimes, MacArthur’s Justice and Command Accountability, by Allan A. Ryan; Deciphering the Rising Sun: Navy and Marine Corps Codebreakers, Translators and Interpreters in the Pacific War, by Roger Dingman; and Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita and the Battle of Manila, by James M. Scott.

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AN ITALIAN MISADVENTURE When Athens sent a massive invasion fleet against Syracuse, it could not have anticipated the merciless Sicilian vendetta that followed By Justin D. Lyons

Instead of achieving a decisive victory over the city-state of Syracuse, Athens’ 415–413 bc Sicilian expedition led to the invaders’ near total destruction.

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thens invaded Sicily in 415 bc with soaring hopes and bold—albeit ill-defined—ambitions. Two years later the tattered remnant of its army was in full retreat, desperately seeking respite from the enemy it had intended to conquer. Bloodied, fearful, starving and plagued by continual assaults that thinned their ranks and destroyed their morale, the exhausted troops fled onward. There was no longer any thought of victory—only escape. Harried by enemy cavalry, the Athenians sought refuge in the southern part of the island. With ebbing strength, few provisions and little water, they rushed to the Assinarus River, both to quench their desperate thirst and in hopes of crossing it to safety. There they found death rather than deliverance. All order was lost as they reached the river. Plunging into the water, many struggled to be first across, while others drank greedily. Little did they know their crafty enemy lay in wait on the opposite bank. Attacked from the front and behind, scores died on the points of javelins or entangled themselves hopelessly with the baggage, stumbled and drowned. Surging down both banks, the enemy butchered many others with swords, fouling the water with gore even as desperate fellow Athenians continued to drink. The most glorious Hellenic expedition undertaken during the 431–404 bc Peloponnesian War perished there in bloody mud. Its generals were executed. Any who escaped the slaughter were condemned to toil and misery in Sicilian stone quarries or sold into slavery. The disaster was so devastating and so complete that Athens could scarcely believe it had happened.

To fully understand the reckless daring of Athens’ inva- lation, size and wealth. Regardless, the ecclesia voted

Left: The members of the ecclesia voted to invade Syracuse. At the time of the Sicilian expedition that enemy city-state rivaled mighty Athens (below) in size, population and wealth.

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JEAN-CLAUDE GOLVIN (ACTES SUD); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

to send a fleet west across the Ionian Sea. Nicias, the statesman-general and treaty namesake, warned his fellow Athenians against taking such an unnecessary risk. After all, the peace was precarious, and Athens’ many enemies stood ready to exploit any division of forces. It was better to secure the possessions they had, Nicias argued, before grasping for more. Yet the statesmen were unmoved. Instead, they fell under the sway of the imperialist upstart Alcibiades. Hungry for glory and ambitious for power, he magnified the potential rewards and downplayed the risks of the expedition. Nicias’ pleas grew more desperate after the ecclesia, against his will, appointed him a commander of the venture. Aware that blame for a defeat would fall on him, he elaborated further on the dangers and requested untold numbers of men, ships and materiel, PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEFT AND RIGHT: BRITISH MUSEUM (2); CENTER: ARTOKOLORO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); THIS PAGE, LEFT: STAPLETON COLLECTION (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); RIGHT: NEUE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH

sion of Sicily, one must examine it in context, assessing its risks, murky motivations, dubious goals and problematic execution. The backdrop to the Athenian invasion of Sicily is the Peloponnesian War. Six years into an armistice with Sparta, which had suspended open hostilities, the ecclesia —the Athenian assembly—ratified the decision to undertake the expedition. The Peace of Nicias was meant to last a half century, its signatories having sworn to uphold it. Yet the underlying causes of the war remained unresolved, and the respective parties never did strictly observe the agreement. Experience suggested conflict would likely erupt again. In retrospect, it seemed foolhardy to undertake to conquer Syracuse, a city-state that rivaled Athens in popu-

JEAN-CLAUDE GOLVIN (ACTES SUD); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEFT AND RIGHT: BRITISH MUSEUM (2); CENTER: ARTOKOLORO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); THIS PAGE, LEFT: STAPLETON COLLECTION (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); RIGHT: NEUE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH

Fifth century bc Syracuse was a sprawling metropolis of 250,000 people, its economy based on agriculture and maritime trade.

hoping to deter the others and convince them of the impossibility of the mission. Yet his speech had the opposite effect. Those advocating war took his warnings as sound advice and voted to supply Nicias with all the men and materiel he had proposed. Thus an expedition of moderate size and limited liability bloated into vast force, the loss of which would be an unprecedented catastrophe. The justifications for this enormous undertaking were lacking. It was true the allied Sicilian cities of Segesta and Leontini had appealed to Athens for protection against the threat of absorption by the larger, ethnically Dorian city-state of Syracuse. The ecclesia claimed the treaty bound them to come to their allies’ aid, yet the sincerity of such motivation seems dubious. Athens surely hoped to benefit from its military investment; Sicily, particularly Syracuse, held fair promise of plunder and would represent a valuable addition to Athenian possessions. The Athenian historian and general Thucydides confirms profit was Athens’ true motivation. Of course, the allied Sicilian envoys were not so indelicate as to speak openly of plunder. Instead, they stressed their fall would further enable the Syracusans to one day assist the Peloponnesians in destroying Athens. War hawks in the ecclesia floated more immediate versions of this distant scenario: A pre-emptive attack on Syracuse would deny the Peloponnesians both a military ally and Sicilian grain. But it wasn’t a defensive mind-

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set that drove Athens. It thought more of acquiring such advantages than of denying them to others. Further, Sicily was not the limit of Athenian ambition. Imperialist statesmen desired the conquest of Italy and North Africa, and indeed the rule of the whole Hellenic world. Further muddling the invasion plans was the ecclesia’s decision to place it under tripartite command, with Nicias, Lamachus and Alcibiades sharing joint control. The statesmen likely believed that three such different commanders—the conservative and cautious Nicias, the reliable veteran Lamachus and the eccentric firebrand Alcibiades—would balance one another’s strengths and weaknesses to better ensure success. In the end, however, the conflicting strategic purposes and divided command only undermined the tactical

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The fleet that sailed from the Piraeus was grand. One hundred thirty-four triremes carried 5,100 Athenian and allied hoplites, 480 archers, 700 slingers, 120 other light troops and 30 horsemen and their mounts. Carrying

Alcibiades considered it disgraceful to depart without accomplishing anything food and supplies were 30 cargo ships, with 100 small vessels to attend them. While the fleet looked impressive in its home harbor, its sufficiency when measured against the foe had yet to be determined. The Athenian fleet skirted more than 800 miles of the Ionian coast without losses or delays. When it reached the southern Italian port of Rhegium, the three commanders met to discuss how to proceed. Of course there was division of opinion. Discouraged by lack of local support, Nicias recommended settling the quarrel between

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AZOOR PHOTO COLLECTION (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); LEEMAGE (GETTY IMAGES); BRITISH MUSEUM; BELOW: DE AGOSTINI (GETTY IMAGES)

coherence of the invasion of Sicily, spelling doom for most of the officers and men tasked with carrying out the dangerous mission.

Segesta and the Syracusan-backed forces, then sailing by the coastal cities to impress locals with the might of the Athenian fleet. That done, the ships should sail for home. Such a timid course was anathema to Alcibiades, whose reputation and ambitions were closely bound with the expedition. He had wanted a war and considered it disgraceful to depart without accomplishing anything of importance. He proposed dispatching heralds to entice more Sicilians to revolt against Syracusan hegemony, thus making allies who could provide the expedition with grain and reinforcements. An alliance with Messana (present-day Messina), with its favorable location and excellent harbor, was particularly desirable. The old warrior Lamachus thought both plans foolish. This was the moment of greatest opportunity, he argued. While Syracuse remained unaware of the fleet’s presence, the Athenians should sail directly to the city and attack. The result would terrify the Syracusans and perhaps shock them into surrendering. After failing to persuade the others, however, Lamachus backed Alcibiades, and the decisive moment was lost. Alcibiades did not receive the warm reception he’d anticipated at Messana, and the Athenians spent the rest of the season in a largely fruitless attempt to secure allies in Sicily, managing only to force their way into Catana and establish a base of operations there. Beyond a reconnoiter of the harbor at Syracuse and sack of the inconsequential city of Hycarra, the Athenians accomplished little before winter descended. But something of great importance

FALKENSTEINFOTO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Harried by enemy cavalry, the Athenians found themselves pinned against the Assinarus River. With no escape, they died in droves.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AZOOR PHOTO COLLECTION (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); LEEMAGE (GETTY IMAGES); BRITISH MUSEUM; BELOW: DE AGOSTINI (GETTY IMAGES)

FALKENSTEINFOTO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

to the fate of the invasion and the larger war did occur: The ecclesia recalled Alcibiades to Athens on allegations of sacrilege and oligarchic conspiracy. The state trireme Salaminia soon arrived to escort him to trial. But Alcibiades, suspecting an unfavorable outcome, jumped ship in Italy. Soon returning to Greece, he turned traitor, helping the Spartans plot against his native Athens. Meanwhile, Nicias and Lamachus discovered they lacked sufficient cavalry for victory in Sicily. Any force sent out to forage or plunder faced harassment by hundreds of enemy horsemen and the risk of being cut off and destroyed. Absent the protection afforded by mounted troops, the hinterlands were inaccessible to invaders afoot. Catana had become a snare rather than a stepping stone, the Athenians more like the besieged than the invaders. They would come to grips with Syracuse, but an overland march was too risky. They resorted to subterfuge. By spreading misinformation, the Athenians tricked Syracuse into deploying its forces overland toward Catana in hopes of dislodging or destroying the invaders. As the Syracusans approached the city, however, the Athenians sailed by night down the coast unopposed, landing and establishing a camp on the shore of the Great Harbor, south of Syracuse, before its defenders could return. Battle was joined the next day. While the Athenians easily routed the inexperienced Syracusan infantry, they were unable to press their advantage for fear of the enemy cavalry. As the Athenians could hardly pass the winter on the beach so near Syracuse, they sailed back north to Catana. Pinning their hopes on receiving requested money and cavalry from Athens, there they waited, wasting months, while the Syracusans revamped their command structure and fortified their city. Athenian reinforcements (comprising some 250 horsemen and 30 mounted archers) arrived in the spring, bringing with them the funds to secure 400 more mounts and riders from their Sicilian allies. With their bolstered cavalry, the invaders finally had sufficient protection to extend their fortifications, forage and meet the enemy on open ground. Lamachus must have rejoiced. At last the Athenians could prosecute the war they should have launched immediately on arrival. But the Athenians were not alone in receiving reinforcements. The Syracusans had notified Sparta of Athens’ vulnerability. Further prompted by the rebel Alcibiades, the Spartans declared the Peace of Nicias broken. They resolved to send a Peloponnesian fleet to aid the Sicilians and prepared to invade Attica.

In the summer of 414 BC the Athenians seized the heights of the Epipolae—a cliff and raised plateau north of Syracuse—their first step in an effort to choke off the city from the surrounding countryside. They began the circumvallation by building a round fort dubbed the Circle, which would anchor walls being built northward to the sea and

Thucydides

Nicias

Alcibiades

southward toward the Great Harbor. The tide of war seemed finally to have shifted in the Athenians’ favor. Fearing enclosure, the Syracusans began building a counter wall outward from the city to cut the Athenian lines. Thus began a strange war of walls in which each side sought to outbuild the other while mounting skirmishes and raids to disrupt the other’s efforts. The Athenians won the first contest and demolished the Syracusans’ counter wall. The defenders immediately set to work on another, this one supported by an adjacent trench. While the Athenians also took these fortifications with a swift, determined assault, it came at a high cost. Lamachus was killed. With his death the last embers of initiative and military expertise in the Athenian command perished. Nicias, timid by comparison, was left in sole control. Reports of the approaching Pelopon- Struck in Syracuse in the 5th century bc, this coin nesian fleet under the Spartan commander depicts Arethusa, patron Gylippus failed to spur Nicias sufficiently goddess of the city-state. to complete the circumvallation. Though In mythology she fled the Athenian line in the north remained beneath the sea from short of the sea, he dawdled, and the win- Greece to emerge as a fountain in Syracuse. If dow of opportunity closed. The Pelopon- a goddess chose Sicily, nesians’ arrival drastically altered the perhaps the Athenians situation, robbing Nicias of both his psycho- should have taken heed. logical and numerical advantages. Landing at Himera, Gylippus marched overland with 700 sailors and marines, 1,000 hoplites, and 1,000 allied Sicilian light troops and cavalry. He arrived at the critical moment, as the wall was so near completion the Syracusans had contemplated surrender. The Spartan’s appearance breathed new life and hope into the defenders. Battle raged on the heights as the Athenians strove to complete

Sea Goddess

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Thucydides’ account ends with a sorrowful reflection: ‘Few out of many returned home’ Harbor. Meanwhile, Syracuse had been outfitting and training its own fleet. The combined Spartan-Syracusan naval force posed an existential threat to the deteriorating Athenian navy, its ships waterlogged and its allied crews deserting. Gylippus successfully recruited his own allies across the island, pressing them for any reinforcements that could be spared in order to hammer victory home.

When Demosthenes arrived in Sicily in the summer of 413 bc, the Athenian situation had not improved. Frustrated on the Epipolae, Nicias had moved his base of operations to Plemmyrium, at the south entrance to the Great Harbor, where he’d built three forts. He’d also transitioned to a naval strategy, planning to take to the offensive

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STAPLETON COLLECTION (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES)

their works while the defenders sought to disrupt them, raising yet another counter wall. After a number of hardfought clashes, the Syracusans built past the Athenian line, delivering the city from the danger of encirclement. Athens had lost the war of walls. Nicias’ position was grim. Eluding the Athenian fleet, the Peloponnesian ships had sailed safely into the Great

As Syracusan hopes soared, Athenian morale plummeted, and their indecisive commander became even more cautious and despondent. That winter Nicias dispatched a letter to Athens expounding the difficulties in Sicily. The situation was so critical, he argued, the ecclesia must either recall the fleet or massively reinforce it. Citing a kidney ailment, he also asked to be relieved of command. Athens responded with convulsive energy. Nicias would not be relieved, but he would be reinforced by an auxiliary fleet under Demosthenes. Pouring reinforcements into Sicily, the Athenians had within two years committed more than half of their military assets—almost 45,000 men and 216 ships—to this one campaign. When the final reinforcements arrived, the Spartans were encamped just 13 miles from their walls, and the Athenians’ tributepaying allies were on the verge of revolt. Athens was straddling a thin line between daring and madness. DE LUAN (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

When Syracusans moved to seal the mouth of the Great Harbor with moored boats, the Athenians prepared their ships for a breakout.

STAPLETON COLLECTION (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES)

DE LUAN (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

in the harbor. But the Athenian ships had not fared well against the Corinthian and Syracusan fleets. The Syracusans relentlessly attacked by land and sea, thwarting the Athenians on the heights and taking the forts at Plemmyrium, which housed most of the fleet’s supplies. Resolving not to succumb to Nicias’ lethargy and lose the momentum of his arrival, Demosthenes launched an immediate attack on the Syracusan counter wall. When the assault failed, Demosthenes, driven by the pressure of the moment, decided to attack the Syracusan fortifications on the Epipolae by night. Hampered by darkness, unfamiliar terrain and confusion, the attack turned into a disaster. Though the audacious commander had struck swiftly with all the power at his disposal, his efforts fell short. Demoralized by his failure, Demosthenes recommended withdrawing the invasion force, astutely concluding its military strength would be better used at home than in a hopeless struggle to subdue Sicily. Yet now it was Nicias—evidently more concerned for his own reputation than about military results—who adamantly opposed departure. Not eager to return home bearing responsibility for a wartime disaster, he preferred death at the hands of the enemy than by a judicial sentence in Athens. Arguing Syracuse could not bear the strain of the siege much longer, he persuaded Demosthenes to remain. But as enemy reinforcements continued to flood into Syracuse, Nicias at last agreed to sail away. At that critical juncture, a sudden lunar eclipse convinced the superstitious Nicias to delay another 27 days. Determined not to let the Athenians slip the noose, the Syracusans began to seal the mouth of the harbor with moored boats. Observing their efforts, the Athenians prepared every ship they had left for a breakout attempt. To motivate his men, Nicias appealed alternately to their patriotism, self-interest, glory, pride, wives, children and gods—as if trying to conjure a spell that would bring success. The respective fleets joined battle with great zeal. With little room to maneuver, the harbor became a tangled mass of colliding ships whose crews and marines fought across the decks almost as if they were on land. Ultimately, the Athenian fleet was routed. Waiting anxiously ashore, the Athenian army watched as trireme after trireme slipped beneath the debris-strewn surface. Surrendering to panic and despair, surviving crews grounded their ships and fled into camp. The Athenians’ only hope lay in an overland retreat, but again there was a delay. Duped by misinformation from the enemy not to march by night, lest they be ambushed, the Athenians spent another day ashore packing up what could be carried. The Syracusans used the time to occupy strategic points along the possible escape routes. On the third day after the naval battle the Athenian army departed. Leaving bodies unburied and ignoring pleas from the sick and wounded to be taken along, the 40,000-strong army marched out thinking only of survival.

Of the Athenians who escaped death in Sicily, many were condemned to toil in stone quarries or sold into slavery.

By the time Nicias encamped on high ground to muster the Athenian army’s remaining strength for the next stage of their grueling march from Syracuse, Demosthenes and the 6,000 men of the rearguard had already surrendered. When informed, Nicias offered his enemies a handsome bribe if they would allow the remainder of his forces to proceed unharmed. The Syracusans met the proposal with howls of derision and showers of missiles. The watchful enemy thwarted Nicias’ subsequent attempt to escape in darkness, and the Athenians passed another unpleasant night with no provisions or water to ease their weariness. The next day they pushed on. They would not escape. Thucydides’ account of the Athenian invasion of Sicily ends with a sorrowful reflection: “Few out of many returned home.” MH

Tactical Takeaways Curb Your Ambition. Eager to acquire more territory and greater glory, Athens ignored the very real dangers of invading Sicily and ended up losing the campaign and its army. No Divided Command. By appointing three leaders of equal rank and authority, the Athenians ensured only a campaign sown with confusion, doubt and conflicting goals. Retreat Is Hell. While withdrawal under fire is often necessary, it is rarely preferable and comes at a terrible cost.

Justin D. Lyons is an associate professor of history and government at Ohio’s Cedarville University and a frequent contributor to Military History. For further reading he recommends History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides; A War Like No Other, by Victor Davis Hanson; and The Peloponnesian War, by Donald Kagan.

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Division y r t n fa In t s 1 e Th one for n o t d n o c e s n e has be y of war r u t n e c a n a h t more n By Jon Guttma

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Soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division, supported by a Bradley fighting vehicle of the 82nd Airborne Division, return fire near Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 8, 2003. Two were killed and one wounded that day when an improvised explosive device wrecked a Bradley.

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n June 8, 1917, two months after the United States entered World War I, the 16th, 18th, 26th and 28th Infantry regiments, the 5th, 6th and 7th Artillery regiments, and the 1st Engineer Regiment were organized into the 1st Division and rushed to France. On May 28, 1918, the “Big Red One” gave the American Expeditionary Force its first battlefield success when it seized and held Cantigny, followed by victories at Soissons, Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. In 1940 the Army reorganized from “square” to “triangular” divisions, each controlling only three regiments—in the 1st Infantry Division’s case, the 16th, 18th and 26th. When the United States entered World War II, the 1st ID trained for amphibious warfare, which it put into play when landing in North Africa on Nov. 8, 1942, Sicily on July 10, 1943, and on Omaha Beach, Normandy, on June 6, 1944. The division fought in such memorable battles as Kasserine Pass, El Guettar, Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest before celebrating V-E Day in Czechoslovakia. By war’s end 16 members of the 1st ID had received the Medal of Honor. During the 1950–53 Korean War the division faced down Soviet forces in Germany. But it saw battle in Vietnam (1965–70), numbering its commander, Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware, among those killed in action when his helicopter was shot down on Sept. 13, 1968. After seeing the Cold War to its end, the Big Red One participated in the Gulf War (1990–91), helped keep the peace on and off in the Balkans (1996–2003) and has fought in the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Having served with distinction in all but one major war in the past century, the 1st ID stands ready for whatever the next century may bring.. MH

A Members of the 1st Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment settle into their trenches at Gypse Hill, Meurthe-et-Moselle on Nov. 19, 1917. Ahead lay bloody victories at Cantigny, Soissons, Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. B Company E, 16th Infantry, lands on the Fox Green sector of Omaha Beach, Normandy, on June 6, 1944—a day that would cost the company two-thirds killed or wounded. C Two 1st Division troops survey the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany, after it collapsed on March 17, 1945— not before the Americans had secured the far side of the Rhine. D Tech Sgt. William E. Thomas and Pfc. Joseph Jackson of the 33rd Field Artillery Battalion, supporting the 1st ID at Remagen on March 10, 1945, show off some of their “Easter Eggs for Hitler.”

PREVIOUS SPREAD: PAULA BRONSTEIN (GETTY IMAGES); A: 1ST INFANTRY DIVISION MUSEUM; INSET: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; B: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; C: BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES); D: PICTORIAL PRESS LTD. (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

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THE BIG RED ONE

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E E Lt. Don Burchell burns a hut in a Viet Cong training camp in the Lai Khe region of South Vietnam on Nov. 15, 1965. F Carrying both his weapon and boxes of ammunition, an M-60 machine gunner participates in a running fight between the 1st ID and the Viet Cong 273rd Regiment 25 miles east of Saigon in May 1967. G Troops of the 1st ID occupy a mortar position in War Zone C while B-52s bomb enemy positions in nearby Cambodia during Operation Attleboro on Nov. 20, 1966. H Troops of the Big Red One encounter an Iraqi civilian while securing Samarra, 125 miles north of Baghdad, on Nov. 13, 2004. I Staff Sgt. John Gregory leads a dismounted patrol of 1st ID troops through Adhamiya, Iraq, on April 10, 2007.

E: BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES); F: KIM KI SAM (ASSOCIATED PRESS); G: JOHN NANCE (ASSOCIATED PRESS); H: MEHDI FEDOUACH (GETTY); I: SGT. JEFFREY ALEXANDER (U.S. ARMY)

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E: BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES); F: KIM KI SAM (ASSOCIATED PRESS); G: JOHN NANCE (ASSOCIATED PRESS); H: MEHDI FEDOUACH (GETTY); I: SGT. JEFFREY ALEXANDER (U.S. ARMY)

THE BIG RED ONE

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PUSH CAME TO SHOVE At Chipyong-ni an outnumbered regimental combat team turned the tide of the Korean War By Daniel Ramos

Soldiers of the 23rd Regimental Combat Team fire on Chinese troops at Chipyong-ni, halting their progress in South Korea.

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Thirty-five miles east of Seoul, Chipyong-ni straddled an important crossroads controlling movement through the Han River Valley, a vital transportation corridor on the central Korean peninsula. The deserted village lay along a single-track railroad stretching from Wonju, 20 miles southeast of Chipyong-ni, to Seoul. If it fell, the entire Eighth Army front would be in a dire position.

Recognizing control of Chipyong-ni was the linchpin to stopping the Chinese advance, Ridgway ordered the 23rd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division to hold it at all costs. Leading the unit was Col. Paul L. Freeman Jr., a Philippine-born West Point graduate who had served in the China-Burma-India theater in World War II and had spirited his regiment

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TOP: ROCK ISLAND AUCTION; BELOW: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; BOTTOM: CARL MYDANS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION (GETTY IMAGES, 2)

mid the bitter winter of 1950 there was little reason to be optimistic about the outcome of the Korean War. By late December American-led United Nations troops were two months into a demoralizing fullscale retreat. In late October the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) had crossed the Yalu River to join the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) in a massive offensive against U.N. Command forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Relentless assaults by Chinese troops during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir, in North Korea’s mountainous far north, particularly devastated the coalition troops. By the outset of 1951 the PVA had pushed U.N. forces back across the 38th parallel. Given their vast numerical superiority, the Chinese seemed unstoppable as they pushed south. On January 7 PVA and KPA troops captured the South Korean capital of Seoul for the second time. The situation became so dire that Allied brass made contingency plans to withdraw all U.N. forces to the Pusan Perimeter, site of the close-run battle the previous September. In mid-January, however, the Chinese offensive ground to a halt due to increasingly heavy losses and overstretched supply lines. The U.S. Eighth Army, under newly arrived Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, reached the Han River south of Seoul on February 9 after a series of successful offensive attacks aptly code-named Operation Thunderbolt. To thwart further advances by communist forces east of Seoul, he established a defensive line between Chipyong-ni and Wonju. It was do or die for the U.N. coalition.

PREVIOUS SPREAD: FIRST VICTORY BY JAMES DIETZ, JAMESDIETZ.COM: THIS PAGE: JOHN DOMINIS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION (GETTY IMAGES)

South Korean infantrymen pass a dead Chinese soldier during a hasty counterattack in early February 1951— about the time the 23rd RCT was moving into Chipyong-ni.

TOP: ROCK ISLAND AUCTION; BELOW: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; BOTTOM: CARL MYDANS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION (GETTY IMAGES, 2)

PREVIOUS SPREAD: FIRST VICTORY BY JAMES DIETZ, JAMESDIETZ.COM: THIS PAGE: JOHN DOMINIS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION (GETTY IMAGES)

North Korean troops were provided only the bare basics in uniforms and weapons, such as the standard-issue field cap at left and the Type 50 7.62x25 mm submachine gun above, a licensed Chinese copy of the Soviet PPSh-41.

through the retreat from Kunu-ri in November. The 23rd RCT had just come off a hard-fought victory against the Chinese at the February 1 Battle of the Twin Tunnels. Despite having been reduced to 75 percent combat effectiveness, the battered unit moved 3 miles across rough terrain through snow and ice into Chipyong-ni on February 3. Attached to the unit were the 1st Ranger Company, the 37th Field Artillery Battalion, elements of the 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, several tanks, mobile antiaircraft guns and a company of combat engineers. Joining the Americans was the coalition’s French Battalion, led by Lt. Col. Raoul Magrin-Vernerey. Better known by his nom de guerre, Ralph Monclar, he was a battle-tested veteran of the French Foreign Legion and World War II general who had accepted a demotion in order to lead the battalion. Freeman commanded a force of 4,500 men in all. While eight prominent hills around Chipyong-ni offered excellent defensive positions, the tactically savvy Freeman realized his limited force could not adequately cover the 12-mile ridgeline. Instead, he made the seemingly counterintuitive decision to concentrate his men within a tight perimeter on the low-lying terrain surrounding the village. Freeman knew, however, the PVA’s lack of air superiority and long-range heavy artillery would disadvantage the enemy on higher ground. Moreover, his meticulous selection and organization of tight defensive positions made the perimeter virtually impregnable—as long as air resupply remained possible.

On February 11 the Chinese launched their Fourth Phase Offensive, striking the U.S. X Corps at Wonju and Hoengsong and forcing two divisions to withdraw under heavy pressure. Realizing his position was exposed and under threat of encirclement, Freeman requested permission to withdraw 15 miles south to Yoju. His request was

approved by division and corps commanders but adamantly refused by Ridgway, who resolved to hold Chipyong-ni and would support the 23rd RCT even if he had to send the entire Eighth Army. Freeman also had the backing of his men. “When Col. Freeman said at Chipyong, ‘We’re surrounded, but we’ll stay here and fight it out,’ we supported him with enthusiasm,” recalled Capt. Bickford Sawyer of Company E. “There was never a doubt in our minds. We knew we were going to succeed.” Chinese troops soon cut off both main roads to the village, isolating the 23rd RCT some 20 miles beyond friendly lines. Determined to hold out, Freeman strengthened his defenses in preparation for the inevitable siege. On the afternoon of February 13 several Chinese regiments amassed around Chipyong-ni. American artillery and airpower held them at bay for the moment. As darkness settled over the valley, temperatures dropped to near freezing. Finally, at 10 p.m. the American and French positions began taking intense mortar, artillery and smallarms fire from three sides. The 1st Battalion, manning the northern perimeter, bore the brunt of the initial barrage.

Matthew Ridgway

Ralph Monclar

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Round-the-clock, on-call fire support by the 37th and 503rd Field Artillery battalions was key to the defense of Chipyong-ni.

Each succeeding wave, stronger than the preceding one, was being thrown at Company G at about 10-minute intervals.…Company G men were being killed and wounded by intense machine-gun and mortar fire, creating gaps in the line of foxholes on the MLR [main line of resistance]. The infantrymen fought like demons. They could see each wave in the light of illuminating flares, coming closer and closer, and knew that eventually certain death awaited them, but they never faltered. They remained at their guns, shooting grimly until the bitter end. With the coming of daylight the Chinese knew they would be exposed to strikes by American aircraft. In those predawn hours the PVA carried out one last major assault against 3rd Battalion in the east, but the defenders managed to beat them back with a deadly combination of artillery, mortar and small-arms fire. At 7:30 a.m. Chinese buglers sounded the call to withdraw. That night

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FOTOSEARCH (GETTY IMAGES); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

In the days before moving into Chipyong-ni the 23rd RCT had repeatedly engaged the Chinese, winning the hard-fought Battle of the Twin Tunnels on Feb. 1, 1951.

FROM TOP: KEYSTONE-FRANCE, BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES, 2); CARL MYDANS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION

China’s October 1950 intervention in the war led to the capture of many U.S. troops and triggered a large-scale U.N. retreat.

Especially hard hit were the men of Company C, tasked with defending Route 24, the main road into Chipyongni. Around midnight the crisp air resounded with the deafening clamor of bugles, whistles, bells and battle cries as wave after wave of Chinese charged the northern perimeter, quickly followed by equally fierce attacks on 2nd Battalion, in the south, and Monclar’s French Battalion, in the west. The fighting was intense but brief as the enemy probed the defenses around the village. At 1 a.m. on the 14th they renewed their assault from the north, but 1st Battalion managed to hold its ground, forcing the Chinese to dig in after an hour of heavy fighting. The defenders found no reprieve, as the enemy continued to probe the perimeter, hurling themselves into the fight with total disregard for their lives. On the eastern perimeter 3rd Battalion’s Company K fought off several mass frontal assaults, inflicting horrific losses on the enemy. The fighting in that sector became so intense that coalition ambulances could not get through to evacuate the wounded. At 2 a.m. on the western perimeter determined French defenders occupying Hill 345 beat back waves of Chinese infantry surging uphill. In the storied encounter French legionnaires responded with a frenzied bayonet charge to the accompaniment of a hand-cranked siren that sent the attackers fleeing in fear and confusion. At one point sustained attacks up north forced Company C to withdraw, but rallying U.S. troops quickly launched a counterattack and regained all lost positions. In the south 2nd Battalion’s Company G came under heavy attack for some 90 minutes and by 4 a.m. was in danger of being overrun. American tanks arrived in time to provide decisive armored support. An after-action report summarized the company’s desperate position:

Their U.S.-made M2 Browning 50-caliber machine gun and .45 ACP Thompson submachine guns at the ready, troops of Monclar’s French Battalion man the line outside Chipyong-ni.

NORTH KOREA

PACIFIC OCEAN 38TH PARALLEL

In the light of day on the 14th the constant presence of

FOTOSEARCH (GETTY IMAGES); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

FROM TOP: KEYSTONE-FRANCE, BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES, 2); CARL MYDANS/LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION

the U.N. garrison had suffered some 100 casualties. Freeman himself had been struck in the leg by shrapnel from an enemy mortar, but he refused evacuation. He’d remain in the fight alongside his men.

U.S. aircraft forced the Chinese into hiding. The American and French troops used the opportunity to rebuild defenses, reposition artillery and call in airdrops for resupply. Farther south the U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment, under Col. Marcel G. Crombez, organized a relief force to break through to Chipyong-ni. Task Force Crombez managed to cross the Han River and approach within 8 miles of the garrison before running up against increasingly heavy resistance. Fighting its way toward Chipyongni from the southeast, the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade also bogged down in the face of enemy resistance. The 23rd RCT would have to hold on a while longer. The attacks picked up in intensity. That evening Chinese mortars and artillery rained down shells on the besieged garrison. At 8:30 p.m. the bombardment lifted as massed Chinese infantry launched savage attacks all

BATTLE OF CHIPYONG-NI YELLOW SEA

MILES 0

HOENGSONG

SEOUL HAN RIVER

SOUTH KOREA

WONJU

ENLARGED AREA

along the line, particularly against 2nd and 3rd Battalions. Chinese soldiers again breached the perimeter, this time in an eastern sector held by Company I, 3rd Battalion. And again the Americans quickly recovered the position, as Company I launched a close-quarters counterattack supported by Companies L and M. The Chinese launched two major assaults against Company K, but the eastern perimeter held firm. By 1:30 a.m. on the 15th the Americans and French were experiencing critical shortages in ammunition as pressure

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U.N. troops look on as artillery rains white phosphorous shells on enemy positions in the open.

4,500 52

25,000

4,946+

We were ready to open defensive fire against the sons of Chinese rice farmers climbing up to meet us when a ground-support plane came over the ridge from behind and dropped a belly tank of napalm on the

ascending army, a gelatinous river of horror burning all in its path. Some of us tried to fire at the human torches to end the pain: useless. At 4:30 p.m. the exhausted but victorious men of Company B could see tanks approaching from the south, signaling the arrival of Task Force Crombez. An hour later the relief column rolled into Chipyongni as Chinese troops fled from the field under heavy fire from aircraft and 23rd RCT artillery.

Tactical Takeaways Anticipate the Worst. Having driven the invading North Koreans all the way to the Yalu River, U.N. commanders should have been prepared for China’s onslaught. Experience Counts. Freeman and Monclar —and many of the men under them— were battle-tested veterans of World War II and put their skills to good use at Chipyong-ni. Combined Arms Win. The U.N. mix of infantry, artillery, armor and airpower trumped China’s manpower.

At Chipyong-ni 4,500 men had fought off elements of five Chinese divisions estimated to number some 25,000 troops. Coalition forces recorded just 52 killed, 259 wounded and 42 missing. The U.N. troops counted 4,946 enemy dead around the perimeter— exceeding the entire strength of the 23rd RCT. The victory galvanized the Army, restoring the morale and fighting spirit of the Americans, while shattering the

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ABOVE: UNDERWOOD ARCHIVES (GETTY IMAGES); RIGHT: PAK CHIN U. (2ND INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY)

continued to mount all along their perimeter. An hour later Chinese infantry broke through Company G to the south. The 1st Ranger Company, along with elements of Company F and the remnants of Company G, launched a desperate counterattack but UNITED NATIONS TROOPS were gradually driven back in vicious handUNITED STATES, FRANCE to-hand fighting. The 23rd RCT committed Company B and its last remaining reserve platoon to the counterattack, but intense KILLED enemy fire pinned down the Americans. 259 WOUNDED, 42 MISSING It was the defenders’ darkest moment. As dawn broke on February 15, however, U.S. aircraft once again took to the skies, CHINESE TROOPS relentlessly attacking the exposed communist forces and delivering precious supplies to the beleaguered garrison. At 2 p.m. the KILLED 2,000 WOUNDED, 79 CAPTURED defenders called in napalm strikes on the entrenched Chinese, buying enough time for Company B to recapture all lost positions. Second Lt. Robert Evans shared a grim recollection of the carnage:

INTERIM ARCHIVES (GETTY IMAGES)

Battle of Chipyong-ni

ABOVE: UNDERWOOD ARCHIVES (GETTY IMAGES); RIGHT: PAK CHIN U. (2ND INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY)

INTERIM ARCHIVES (GETTY IMAGES)

With Chipyong-ni secure, U.S. troops advance with the support of M4 Sherman tanks. Right: ROK Army Lt. Gen. Eui Cheol Yoon lays a wreath at the base of the Chipyong-ni Combat Monument on the 70th anniversary of the battle.

communist offensive. Chipyong-ni represented the highwater mark of China’s incursion into Korea. Over the following weeks U.N. forces advanced north, recapturing Seoul on March 14th and pushing communist forces back across the 38th parallel, the starting line of the war a year earlier. For their heroism the 23rd RCT and its attached units were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation (present-day Presidential Unit Citation). Freeman received the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership at the Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-ni. His innovative tactical strategy lives on as a prototype for defense while encircled and outnumbered. MH Daniel Ramos is a researcher and freelance writer on military topics who works for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. For further reading he recommends Leadership in the Crucible: The Korean War Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-ni, by Kenneth E. Hamburger, and Crossroads in Korea: The Historic Siege of Chipyong-ni by T.R. Fehrenbach.

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Reviews

Apache leaders Geronimo and Nana parley with Brig. Gen. George Crook (in pith helmet) and other officers in Sonora, Mexico, in 1886.

“With My Face to My Bitter Foes”: Nana’s War, 1880–1881, by Robert N. Watt, Helion & Co., Warwick, U.K., 2019, $49.95

Robert Watt’s masterly work deals with the struggle by Chihenne Apaches for the return of their reservation at Ojo Caliente, N.M. Following the death of their revered leader Victorio, the Apaches were led by Nana, described as a “scarred and wrinkled little Apache” in his mid-70s. Despite his age, he harried the U.S. Army and covered at least 1,500 miles in July and August 1881. In late June 1881 Nana’s Raid—one of the most spectacular forays of the Apache Wars— began with a flurry of attacks to the south of El Paso, Texas, that killed surveyors, railway and stagecoach passengers, and teamsters. The body of one teamster, named Hayes, was discovered with its right arm severed—having admired his courage, the Apache wanted to inherit his skill and bravery. However, the Apache had no shortage of bravery. It is difficult to determine how many warriors accompanied Nana on his six-week

foray, as they traveled in small groups, often raiding independently. Likewise, previous authors have overstated the number of 9th U.S. Cavalry troops and Apache scouts engaged in pursuing Nana and his warriors. In his detailed reappraisal Watt suggests no more than 67 scouts and 340 cavalrymen were engaged, with perhaps no more than 50 participating in any single engagement. One of the author’s reasons for writing his trilogy was to highlight sophisticated strategies and tactics used by Apaches, led first by Victorio and then Nana, who between September 1879 and August 1881 defeated most U.S. and Mexican forces sent against them. The Apaches also temporarily crippled the 9th Cavalry by targeting its horses and mules. Watt concludes by evaluating the campaign and lessons learned from the small wars of the 19th century. —David Saunders

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY

Apache Wars

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12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon, by Jamie Holmes, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020, $28 In 12 Seconds of Silence Jamie Holmes chronicles how the little-known proximity fuze played a vital role toward the Allied victory in World War II. In his preface the author succinctly describes the fuze:

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY

Known as the world’s first ‘smart’ weapon, the proximity fuze was a 5-pound marvel of engineering, industry and can-do spirit. The gadget, screwed into the tip of an antiaircraft shell, had a brain. It was able to sense nearby aircraft by sending out a radio signal and then listening for the signal to bounce back off the airplane. If it did, the fuze would trigger the high explosives in the shell, unleashing a lethal barrage of shrapnel. The reason the fuze proved so crucial was that until its introduction British and American anti-aircraft guns had been egregiously inefficient against Axis aircraft and German V-1 unmanned aerial bombs. Pearl Harbor and Nazi air raids on Britain had offered appalling proof. Before the United States’ December 1941 entry into World War II two American scientists and colleagues, engineer Vannevar Bush and physicist Merle Tuve, realized the nation had better start mobilizing on the science and technology fronts in the likely event it entered the

conflict. Thus in 1940 Bush persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to approve the National Defense Research Committee (soon supplanted by the Office of Scientific Research and Development), while Tuve convinced Bush to establish a special unit within the office named Section T, for its supervisor. Among the latter’s objectives was the creation of a viable proximity fuze. It was a grueling assignment. The final device contained 500 parts, each of which had to withstand high temperatures and g-forces. Section T itself had to overcome resistance by military Luddites. The team faced many other complications. In late 1942 the government distributed the new fuzes to the Navy in the Pacific, and they soon proved their worth protecting American ships from Japanese airplanes. Then came another challenge. In June 1944 the Germans commenced V-1 attacks on London. Antiaircraft

batteries lacked the new proximity fuzes, and RAF fighters could do little to stop the “buzz bombs,” which decimated the British capital. In July, however, the British

obtained Section T’s fuzes and by September the V-1 assaults were “effectively over.” During the 1944 Battle of the Bulge fuzes adapted for artillery inflicted devastating casualties on German infantrymen, no lesser a figure than Gen. George Patton asserting the fuzes “won the Battle of the Bulge for us.” Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, also contained a proximity fuze. Holmes finally brings to light the “lost tale” of the little fuze that could. —Howard Schneider Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins and WWII Heroes, by Tim Brady, Citadel, New York, 2021, $26 In May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands. Despite the ever-present threat of retaliation, many Dutch did whatever was necessary to undermine the occupation. Resistance efforts ranged from the distribution of illegal publications and concealment of Jews to the assassination of traitors and collaborators. In Three Ordinary Girls author Brady relates the activities of Haarlem resistance fighters Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen. Raised in suburban families with communist leanings and witness to Nazi atrocities, the young women joined the Dutch resistance as teens and eventually became highly effective scouts, couriers and assassins. As Brady notes, their outwardly innocent appearance, quick wits, daring and re-

Recommended

Fighting for Spain

By Alexander Clifford This book examines the International Brigades, foreigners who fought for the Republican government during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War. The author focuses on their performance as frontline combat units, tracing the course of each major battle in which they fought and showing their drastic transformation over time, from untrained militia in 1936, to tested shock troops in 1937, to a weakened shadow in 1938.

War Bows

By Mike Loades This fascinating study examines four of the world’s best-known types of war bow: the medieval longbow; various composite bows of the East; the mechanical crossbow; and the asymmetric yumi of the samurai. The author draws on his expertise with historical weapons and experience as an archer to detail the technology behind each bow, explain what it’s like to shoot each type and assess each bow’s role and effectiveness in battle.

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Reviews Recommended

sourcefulness enabled Schaft and the Oversteegens to become the principal eyes and ears of the Haarlem Council of Resistance. The author also details the difficulty of establishing resistance groups in Holland, the tragic capture and death of Schaft, the postwar lives of

Thousands of Heroes Have Arisen By Sukwinder Singh Bassi Soldiers’ letters form the core of this tale of Sikh warriors during World War I. Sikhs made up 20 percent of the British army and fought in every arena of the conflict, yet they remain largely forgotten. The book relates Sikh philosophy and the warrior tradition, as well as the hard conditions they faced.

Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars

By Kevin F. Kiley Illustrated with line drawings and contemporary plates, this book examines Napoléon Bonaparte’s artillery and that of his enemies. The book covers artillery placement, range and calibers and examines its impact on battles. Kiley bases his observations on years of research drawn from official reports and eyewitness accounts.

the Oversteegen sisters and their struggle to gain government recognition of all three women’s sacrifices. Three Ordinary Girls is a poignant account of heroic young women who demonstrated idealism, patriotism and courage in the face of constant danger. The book is also a reminder of the hazard of underestimating one’s enemies and the bravery that springs from the most unlikely sources. —S.L. Hoffman Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against a Fascist State in Iraq and the Levant, 1941, by John Broich, Abrams Press, New York, 2019, $35 John Broich, a professor of British imperial history at

Case Western Reserve University and the author of Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade (2017), explores Britain’s desperate 1941 campaign to defend the vital Suez Canal and crucial oil supplies from pro-fascist regimes in Iraq and Syria. Subject to the political unrest and military conflict fomented by Axis powers Germany and Italy, Broich argues that Suez and its 2,000-mile surrounding sphere, a literal ring of fire, was the center of the world battle between democratic and anti-democratic forces. Inhabitants of the Middle East, mainly Muslims but especially Arabs, were forced to either back their British colonial overlord or, strange as it may seem, gamble on a better future from the Axis. The author focuses on an array of remarkable individuals cobbled together from many lands into a British-led makeshift force determined to turn back this dire threat. The book recounts the pro-fascist coup in Iraq led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, which ousted the pro-British government and besieged the Royal Air Force base at Habbaniya. The British mounted a successful counterattack using outnumbered yet determined forces, including many Arab and Indian elements. The Britishled army, which included thousands of Australians and Free French, invaded Syria, removing the Vichy French regime that facilitated Axis logistical support to Iraq. Broich skillfully weaves the accounts of such

notable participants as British officer John Masters (author of the classic The Road Past Mandalay), RAF pilot (and future children’s book author) Roald Dahl and American adventurer Jack Hasey (who served in the Free French Foreign Legion), while also studying the crucial role played by an obscure Arab interpreter and intelligence operator known only as “Reading.” Blood, Oil and the Axis boasts extensive endnotes, excellent maps, well-chosen photographs and a useful list of characters. It is a generally well-written “boots on the ground” narrative. That said, it suffers a lack of perspective from political leaders such as Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, which would have resulted in a more integrated and coherent examination. In addition, while the 2003 invasion of Iraq is never mentioned in the text, chapter headings

are implicitly critical of that conflict, unnecessarily marring what is an otherwise creditable World War II campaign history. —William John Shepherd

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Mussolini’s War: Fascist Italy From Triumph to Collapse, 1935–1943, by John Gooch, Pegasus Books, N.Y., 2020, $35 Most recent histories of relatively disadvantaged wartime combatants contain mildly revisionist tones, unearthing silver linings of competence or giving at least some praise. It doesn’t bode well for fascist Italy that early in his excellent history John Gooch notes, “Some of the best guns at the [Italian] army’s disposal were Skoda 75 mm and 100 mm howitzers captured from the Austrians”— in the previous world war. Benito Mussolini’s hubris was encouraged by early successes against comparatively feeble opponents in Ethiopia and Spain. Another world war was not needed to strain Italian capabilities. By the time of its ill-advised entry into the war Italy was overly reliant on imports and utterly unprepared for such intensive conflict. Indeed, it had only a few months’ supply of vital war materiel, and the government had made no real efforts to optimize production. Anti-aircraft defenses were poor, harbor defenses bad (see the Taranto Raid). Militarily, very little was good. Carlo Favagrossa, the Italian undersecretary of war production, estimated Italy would be able to fight a yearlong war—but not until 1949. Such advice failed to resonate in war councils. “One of Mussolini’s techniques when chairing these

meetings,” Gooch writes, “was to address specific issues for which he had an answer and ignore those for which he did not.”

pation never materialized: Lacking oil to fight the Allies, they certainly hadn’t enough to contest the Nazis. —Anthony Paletta Churchill’s Admiral in Two World Wars: Admiral of the Fleet Lord Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover, by Jim Crossley, Pen & Sword Maritime, Barnsley, U.K., 2020, $49.95

Mussolini instead chose to fritter away his units in as many theaters as possible. Gooch recounts Italian anti-partisan operations in Yugoslavia, noting their warm accord with the Chetniks. In a rare feat of logistical competence, Italian units in Russia were initially better equipped for winter than their German peers, thanks to recent encounters with the frigid mountain climate in Greece. Even the Regia Marina, an Italian force of quality and consequence, was squandered through a lack of defense in port, catastrophic failure to coordinate with airpower and a continual shortage of oil. Merchant ships bound for North Africa often embarked with tanks a quarter to half full. It’s impossible not to breathe a sigh of relief at Italy’s exit from the war in 1943. But Gooch reflects with bitter irony why Italian resistance to German occu-

A superb seaman, inspiring leader and fearless fighter, Roger Keyes was born on Oct. 4, 1872, in India. He joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in July 1885, his early service including three years in Africa combating Arabs involved in the slave trade. He deployed next to China where, during the Boxer Rebellion, he was promoted commander at age 28, years ahead of his contemporaries. Keyes was responsible for submarine operations in the North Sea during the first months of World War I, never squandering an opportunity to strike at the enemy. In February 1915 superiors tapped Keyes to force the Dardanelles and drive Turkey out of the war. The March 18 attack proved disastrous, minefields claiming three battleships and damaging others, and the British abandoned the operation, though Keyes would have gladly returned the following day and likely forced a passage. Keyes’ wartime career culminated in January 1918 as vice admiral of the Dover Patrol, where he proved him-

self a master of narrow-seas warfare, being best remembered for the raids on Ostend and Zeebrugge with a view to disrupting German submarine operations. Having been elected a member of Parliament in 1934, he took a prominent role in the debate that led to the resignation of waffling Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. When the British commandos formed in June 1940, Keyes was appointed first director of Combined Operations.

It was not the happiest of times. Then approaching 70, the fire-breathing admiral seemed blocked at every turn until finally, at Winston Churchill’s request, he resigned in October 1941. Following a July 1944 visit to the Normandy landing beaches, Keyes traveled to the United States and then Australia to make a series of broadcasts. While there he was invited by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to witness the assault on Leyte Island in the Philippines. Much weakened by his arduous journeys, Keyes died on Boxing Day 1945

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Reviews Recommended

Roman Soldier Operations Manual By Simon Forty While author Forty provides historical context for the rise of the Roman empire, its borders and wars, his focus is the everyday experience of legionnaires. The text touches on gear, clothing, weapons and insignia, life on campaign, logistics, religion, medicine, recreation and forms of military punishment, as well as the legion’s signature formations and battle tactics.

Harley-Davidson WLA

By Robert S. Kim The WLA, introduced in 1942 for the U.S. Army’s mechanized cavalry, became the leading American motorcycle of World War II. Britain, Australia, France and China used the “Liberator” and its variants, as did the Soviet Red Army’s motorcycle battalions and reconnaissance units. This book shares the WLA’s manufacturing hist-ory and stories of individuals who rode it to war.

and was buried in Dover beside those killed in the great Zeebrugge raid. As his friend Churchill said in a contemporary broadcast, “We have lost one of the great sailors of the Royal Navy.” —David Saunders

Written by an Italian and based on hitherto-unavailable sources, “Vincere!” describes how the Italians “did not hesitate to employ all the resources available” against

“Vincere!”: The Italian Royal Army’s Counterinsurgency Operations in Africa, 1922–1940, by Federica Saini Fasanotti, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md., 2020, $44 The title of Fasanotti’s book, “Vincere!” (“to win” in Italian), is meant to be ironic, as her narrative chronicles the difficulties the Italian army experienced countering insurgent resistance in Libya and Ethiopia during the early 20th century. In the late 19th century the recently unified Italian state tried to emulate its European neighbors by establishing an overseas empire. After failing in Ethiopia in 1896, the Italians tried again elsewhere in 1911. This time they succeeded in expelling the Ottoman Turks from Libya. The Italians believed that by displacing the old regime they had achieved “victory.” They were proven wrong. The Libyans may have disliked the old regime, but they disliked the new order more. The Italians encountered a similar situation after their second invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. In both instances the result for the Italian army was a protracted type of warfare for which a term—“counterinsurgency” —would eventually be coined in the 1960s.

insurgents, including airpower and poison gas drops. Within are valuable lessons in how a counterinsurgency should, and should not, be carried out. —Robert Guttman The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of Dunkirk, by Ghee Bowman, The History Press, Cheltenham, U.K., 2020, $34.95 This intriguing if overlooked story begins on May 29, 1940, when 300 Indian soldiers under Maj. Mohammed Akbar Khan, a World War I veteran, were evacuated from Dunkirk. Survivors of the 25th Animal Transport Company of the Indian Army Service Corps, they were part of Force K6 (aka the Indian Contingent), who together with their mules had reached France from India in December 1939. More than 1,000 other troops from Force K6, in-

cluding the staff and patients of the Indian General Hospital, would evacuate by ship from western France. At least 10 successfully escaped from German captivity— first Jemadar Jehan Dad, who on reaching Britain via Spain and Gibraltar was presented with an MBE by King George for his exploits. Others included Buland Khan and Shah Zaman, whom French resistance operators helped escape to Britain. Those of the Indian Contingent successfully evacuated in 1940 were distributed among garrisons across Britain, none more remarkable than those on Steep Holm, a onetime smugglers’ haunt in the Bristol Channel, strategically placed to defend the sea-lanes to Avonmouth and Cardiff. Ten men and a dozen mules provided transport up the steep cliff track to the garrison, which delighted in the curried mutton provided by the Indians. Subhas Chandra Bose, the bespectacled Bengali nationalist who urged armed struggle and civil disobedience as a means of ending British rule in India, had arrived in Berlin in 1941 and begun to recruit dissidents from among the Indian POWs. Perhaps as many as 30 men of the 22nd Company joined the Indian Legion. Ghee Bowman’s first book, The Indian Contingent is the culmination of five years of research. It is fortunate for readers he has chosen a facet of World War II that has been almost wholly forgotten, at least in the Western world. —David Saunders

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USMC Ret. Master Gunnery Sergeant Bob Verell takes a moment to honor those commemorated on the replica Vietnam Memorial Wall. Photo by Thomas Wells

From Normandy to the Bulge: The First Division’s Race Across Europe

SEPTEMBER 5-16, 2021 Visit the places where the 1st Infantry Division made history, leading the way to Allied success in WWII.

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in partnership with Academic Travel Abroad

2/22/21 2:35 PM

@fdmuseum | #FDMuseum

For an itinerary, travel details and pricing, or to reserve your place, please visit FDMuseum.org/footsteps or call Academic Travel Abroad at 1-877-298-9677.

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Please note that the First Division Museum offers this travel experience as a way to engage our audience and does not benefit financially from this trip.

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Hallowed Ground Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina

n March 15, 1781, American and British forces fought the largest battle in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War at Guilford Courthouse, N.C. While the British held the field at day’s end, they’d suffered irreplaceable casualties that contributed to their ultimate defeat at Yorktown, Va., that October. Patriot field commander Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, a trusted friend and subordinate of commander in chief George Washington, referred to the battle as “long, obstinate and bloody.” But he’d paved the way for American independence. When France formally allied with the rebelling colonies in 1778, Britain was compelled to defend vital trade and strategic sites in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean and thus had fewer resources to commit to North America. Its resulting “Southern strategy” aimed to reinforce Regular VA. troops with Loyalist recruits and reclaim the profitable plantation GUILFORD GREENSBORO colonies. If successful, the growCOURTHOUSE NATIONAL MILITARY PARK NORTH ing army would advance from CAROLINA the Carolinas into Virginia, then continue northward to extinS.C. guish the rebellion. British commander in chief Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton directed the capture of Savannah, Ga., in December 1778 and personally took Charleston, S.C., in May 1780, capturing most of its 5,000-plus American defenders under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln. Returning to his base in New York City, Clinton left command of British forces in the South to Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis, who garrisoned Georgia and South Carolina. While Lord Cornwallis won a crushing victory at the Battle of Camden in August 1780, disease and guerrilla attacks on British supply lines and outposts stymied progress toward the Southern strategy. In October 1780 Patriot militia destroyed a Loyalist force at Kings Mountain, further hindering British recruiting efforts and leaving Cornwallis vulnerable to threats from the backcountry. That same month Greene was appointed commander of American forces in the South. Against convention he split his forces,

sending a detachment under Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan farther west into the Carolina backcountry. In January 1781 Morgan won a stunning victory at Cowpens, S.C., over a largely Loyalist force spearheaded by the veteran British Legion under the fearsome Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. In its aftermath Cornwallis faced increasing difficulties with supply and reinforcement. On March 15 he finally caught up to Greene’s strategically retreating army at Guilford Courthouse, N.C., within present-day Greensboro. Greene deployed his 4,500 men in three lines. The first and second lines, respectively, comprised militia from North Carolina and Virginia and were intended to inhibit the British advance until the final line of Continental Regulars could deliver the decisive blow. Advancing up either side of the Great Salisbury Road, Cornwallis’ 1,900 men attacked at 1:30 p.m. As instructed, the North Carolinians fired twice before retreating. The Virginia militia put up a stiffer resistance. Spearheaded by the Foot Guards and Highlanders, the British ranks broke through but then lost cohesion as they approached the line of Continental troops. The Virginia and Maryland Regulars and Lt. Col. William Washington’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons initially held off the British infantry. But the arrival of Cornwallis’ reserves coupled with devastating British artillery fire, which raked men on both sides, prompted Greene to prudently withdraw. It was a Pyrrhic victory for Cornwallis. With some 100 men killed, 400 wounded and 25 missing, he’d lost nearly a quarter of his army. Parliament was not fooled when the general reported his “victory,” Whig Party leader Charles James Fox quipped, “Another such victory would ruin the British army!” Greene’s casualties were hardly light—some 85 killed, 275 wounded and upward of 900 missing. But the Americans could replenish their losses. The British could not. Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington to refit. Meanwhile, Greene cleared South Carolina of remaining British troops. Cornwallis then shifted operations to Virginia, ultimately leading to his surrender at Yorktown and war’s end. In 1882 Judge David Schenck secured the battlefield for future donation as a memorial site, and his bequest forms the heart of the present-day 220-acre Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, established in 1917. MH

TOP: DON TROIANI (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); JASON O. WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

By William John Shepherd

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TOP: DON TROIANI (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); JASON O. WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Top: Lt. Col. William Washington's 3rd Continental Light Dragoons sweep down on the British at Guilford Courthouse. A statue of Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene anchors the present-day military park.

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War Games 2

Tired of Winning Can you match each of the following commanders to the ill-fated campaign with which he is associated?

6 5

1. King James IV of Scotland 2. Hatazo Adachi 3. Kitbuqa 4. Oreste Baratieri 5. Mikhail Tukhachevsky

7 8

6. John Burgoyne 7. Ian Hamilton 8. Marcus Licinius Crassus 9. James Wilkinson 10. Emperor Julian

____ A. Warsaw, 1920 ____ B. Ethiopia, 1896 ____ C. Persia, 363

____ D. Upper Mesopotamia, 53 bc

The Latest in World War I Tech, May 1918

____ E. New Guinea, 1942–45

Can you ID these “state-of-the-art” weapons used at Chemin des Dames?

____ F. Galilee, 1260

____ A. Bréguet 14 B.2

____ F. Renault FT-17

____ G. Saint Lawrence River, 1813–14

____ B. A7V

____ G. 37 mm modèle 1916 TRP

____ H. Saratoga, 1777

____ C. 10 cm K 17

____ H. Fokker D.VII

____ I. Gallipoli, 1915–16

____ D. Schneider CA 1

____ I. Saint-Chamond

____ J. Northumberland, 1513

____ E. Salmson 2 A.2

____ J. Halberstadt CL.IV Answers: A6, B4, C1, D8, E10, F9, G2, H3, I5, J7

Answers: A5, B4, C10, D8, E2, F3, G9, H6, I7, J1

78 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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MARKA (GETTY IMAGES)

LEFT: DEA/BIBLEOTECA AMBROSIANA (GETTY IMAGES); 1: U.S. MARINE CORPS ARCHIVES; 2, 6, 9, 10: NATIONAL ARCHIVES (4); 3: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; 4: BUNDESARCHIV; 5: EVERETT COLLECTION INC (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); 7: U.S. AIR FORCE MUSEUM; 8: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS

Oreste Baratieri

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Bersaglieri 1. Which ancient Greek light infantry skirmished with enemy formations using slings, arrows or javelins? A. Peltasts B. Velites C. Hoplites D. Psiloi 2. What component of medieval English armies wore one shoe for better maneuvering on the battlefield? A. Scots pikemen B. Welsh archers C. Yeomen D. Slingers 3. Which of these Napoléonic regiments was not trained in marksmanship? A. Chasseurs á pied B. Jägers C. Grenadiers D. Rifles 4. Which specialized Italian light infantrymen distinguished themselves during World War I? A. Alpini B. Arditi C. Bersaglieri D. All of the above

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THE LAST JAPANESE HOW MANY TIMES SOLDIER HAS THEFROM DESIGN WORLD OF THE WAR U.S.IIFLAG SURRENDERED CHANGED? IN THIS YEAR 27, 31, 36 or 40?

MARKA (GETTY IMAGES)

- 1945 - 1947 - 1950 MIHP-210500-003 University of Mississippi Press.indd 1 - 1974 5. Which special American force For more,search visitDAILY QUIZ distinguished itself in the For more,

Philippines during World War II? A. Alamo Scouts B. Merrill’s Marauders C. The Devil’s Brigade D. Darby’s Rangers

MIHP-210500-GAMES.indd 79

Answers: D, B, C, D, A

Light Fighting

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ANSWER: 1974. PRIVATE TERUO NAKAMURA, A TAIWANESE NATIONAL,27. ENLISTED IN THE JAPANESE ARMY IN 1943. ANSWER: THE CURRENT DESIGN HAS BEEN IN HE HELD OUT ON 1960 MORTAI IN INDONESIA HE WAS CAPTURED PLACE SINCE WHEN THE FLAGUNTIL WAS MODIFIED IN DECEMBER 1974. EARLIER THAT YEAR, HIRO ONODA, WHO TO INCLUDE HAWAII, THE 50th STATE. HELD OUT IN THE PHILLIPINES, FINALLY SURRENDERED.

3/10/21 11:47 AM

Happy Homecoming Present at New York Harbor to welcome troops returning from Europe aboard the troopship USS Monticello in April 1945, German-born American actress and singer Marlene Dietrich gets a leg up from GIs obviously pleased to be back in the States.

IRVING HABERMAN/IH IMAGES (GETTY IMAGES)

Captured!

80 MILITARY HISTORY MAY 2021

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