You Can't Get Much Closer Than This: Combat with Company H, 317th Infantry Regiment, 80th Division

You Can't Get Much Closer Than This: Combat with Company H, 317th Infantry Regiment, 80th Division by A.Z. Adkins, Jr. and Andrew Z. Adkins, III (2005) is a first hand story of an 81mm mortar section leader who fought his way across France, Belgium, and into Germany. Adkins kept a journal of his daily experiences which was the basis for this book.

Adkins was a cadet at The Citadel when WWII started. He graduated in 1943 and immediately went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning. He would miss D-Day, but landed on Normandy about 2 months later.

My Rating: Very Good (****). A self report by a participate who kept a journal during the war so the experiences were freshly recorded and not dulled by a lapse of time.

Some interesting themes or strategies that the offer wrote about include:

• Training. ".. there were too many officer candidates ... the fact that the Army had too many second lieutenants made matters worse, because they could run you into the ground and weed out those who couldn't make it." (p. 6)

Was this the smartest thing to do? Some claim the weeding out process for officers and also enlisted men (since the draft board immediately rejected many candidates after physicals and basic training did another weeding out) made the US Military comparable with the well-trained German and Japanese military. However, the number of front line officers quickly became a problem when a severe shortage occurred as casualties occurred. Would it have been a better strategy to have soldiers repeat a program rather than flunk out? That way, a pipeline of trained personnel would have been available.

"There were now only two of the original thirty-seven line officers left in my battalion. The others had been killed or wounded." (p. 92)

• Weapon Logistics. "The 81mm mortar ... weighed about 135 pounds, and it was usually carried by two men. ... There were two types of rounds used in the mortar: a high explosive (HE) round, weighing between seven and ten pounds was used to destroy enemy antitank guns, automatic weapons, mortars, and personnel; and a smoke round to screen the movement of troops during an attack." (p. 9)
• First line supervisors: Non-coms. "I learned quickly that a good Sergeant is worth his weight in gold." (p. 10)

  "... we had some good sergeants as platoon leaders, and a good sergeant is worth two lieutenants any day in the week." (p. 162)

• Learning from those before you. "We invited officers from one of the nearby hospitals to visit with us and tell us about the types of fighting men we would soon come up against." (p. 12)
• Poor leadership. "Colonel Murray was relieved as our battalion CO and Maj. Jim Hayes, the regimental S-2, was made our new battalion CO. It seems that Regiment had been dissatisfied with the way Colonel Murray had been running his battalion. I wondered how they came to that conclusion. I had never seen any of them while the fighting was going on. Colonel Don Cameron, our regimental CO, was also relieved. Over his vigorous protest to attack an objective with his depleted regiment, he had the guts to tell the commanding general, 'What in the hell do you want me to take it with? My bare hands?'" (p. 66)

  "While we were at the CP, the S-3 had the balls to report to Regiment that everything was okay in Sivry when he had just heard a minute before from Crone that the ammunition was almost gone." (p. 85)

  "I'll never know why we were ordered to take that damn town. What possible benefit could we have derived from taking Sivry, without also taking the strategic and commanding Mt. Toulon and Mt. St. Jean? I guess when you're looking at maps from a comfortable position several safe miles to the rear, things look entirely different." (p. 91)

  "The men hadn't been too impressed with Major Hayes. Sure, he was a West Pointer ... The way both of those attacks had been ordered was not only useless, but foolish. That left a bad taste in the men's mouths. Then too, Major Hayes sported the Silver Star for 'personally leading his troops during an attack on Sivry.' ... The men couldn't quite understand that." (p. 108)

  "Hayes was trying to impress the gentleman from Division. After the artillery had fired, he reported over the phone to Regiment that the rounds had been effective. The gentleman from Division eyed Major Hayes. 'What the hell do you mean the artillery fire was effective?' he asked. The major just stared back. 'Were you at the target? How do you know whether the rounds were effective--or not?' It did my heart good to see the West Pointer try and wriggle out of that one." (p. 160)

  "I thought it was better to leave the mortars in position; I could observe from the attacking companies and when we had gotten out far enough, then I could move the guns forward. I wanted to do that because I knew it would be almost impossible for my own men to carry that heavy equipment over such terrain. The colonel overruled my suggestion. None of us liked the attack plan, but there was little we could do about it." (p. 134)

  "When Max started out he ran into some Kraut tanks and armored cars. A number of his men were hurt and couldn't move without help. ... Jerry Sheehan called Regiment and asked for tanks. Regiment told him there were no Kraut tanks in our area. About that time the Kraut tanks threw in a few rounds. Regiment still wouldn't believe there were tanks in our area! I often wondered why those so-called staff members never came up to see for themselves when the going was a little rough." (p. 141) "The refusal pissed off Sheehan, who then asked for a fifteen-minute artillery preparation before his men went in. He was denied artillery with the excuse that his troops 'were too close to the objective and our artillery fire would fall on them.' I wondered why some people didn't come up and look for themselves instead of looking at a damn map!" (p. 144)

  "General Patton had done well for himself in choosing a CP. His headquarters was in a palace with long wide corridors and spacious rooms." (p. 166) Yet Patton's MPs would not let soldiers from the front line walk around in Luxembourg City for rest and relaxation without helmets and helmet liners.

  "[The regimental CO] was sitting in his jeep behind a house. ... I thought to myself, 'You old bastard, these men of yours have walked all the way from Utah Beach, and the walk wasn't easy, but you're too damn lazy to walk a mile to let them see that you're at least interested in what they are doing.'" (p. 192)

  "One of my mortar jeeps came speeding down the road with six men in it. The regimental CO barked, 'Didn't you know know there was an order out saying that only five men were to ride in a jeep?' 'Yes, Sir,' I replied, 'but we need those mortars up fast.' 'That makes no difference,' the CO snorted. 'Don't you ever let me catch you with more than five men on a jeep again.' 'Yes, Sir.' I said, thinking, Why is it that we never saw your sorry ass back in the Ardennes or the Moselle River, when it was so cold? You could really chew butt the way we were violating uniform regulations, wearing anything we could lay our hands on, while trying to keep from freezing to death." (p. 206)

• Diversified staff. "Every American outfit has someone who can speak German (or any other language that needed to be spoken)." (p. 83)

• Maintain law and order. "We were given the mission of maintaining law and order in the city [Weimar]. ... Company H was given the mission of patrolling the town with its machine gun jeeps. ... Looters were breaking into stores and taking food and clothing. German civilians were helping themselves. It's funny how Krauts will rob their brothers. We had a hard job trying to stop them." (p. 200)

  "Our destination was Burglesan, a farm town composed of about twelve buildings, three fourths of which were barns. Our job was to maintain law and order and patrol the place. The war was about over now, but we did not know just when it would fold up completely." (p. 207)

  "[I] was given the mission of furnishing 24-hour motorized patrols with radios throughout the city [Nuremberg]. ...Our job was to maintain law and order, enforce military law, prevent looting, and continue our training." (p. 208)

Some interesting items the author wrote about included:

• "... the townspeople of Martincourt [France] ... with tear-stained eyes, they lined either side of the road and sang the French national anthem, L'Marseille, as we moved on." (p. 20)
• In Alsace-Lorraine: "The people were different here than they had been in Normandy. ... Here they more or less took us for granted and were very cool toward us." (pp. 33-34)
• "The prisoners he had captured were perfect specimens of manhood. They were SS troops--all hand-picked men. ... We tried to get them to tell us how many German troops were to our front, but they wouldn't say anything, not even when we ground burning cigarette butts into their necks." (p. 50)
• "A German medic came out of the hedgerow. In addition to a red cross on his helmet, he had a white apron with a red cross on it tied around his body. Our boys let him get to his wounded. Instead of treating him, the bastard reached in his aid bag, drew out a grenade, and hurled it at us! Two of our men were hit; one of them was a medic. The rifleman next to me drilled the Kraut medic several times, making sure he didn't treat any more wounded." (p. 60)
• "... a Kraut came out into the orchard across the railroad tracks with a white flag. ...The Kraut just stood there. Quite a number of Company F's men moved into the orchard to close in on the town. Without warning, the Krauts started cutting loose on Company F with machine guns, burp guns, and rifles. The son of a bitch with the white flag ran for cover." (p. 71)
• "The artillery observer was really enjoying himself. Every time a barrage would land he slapped his leg and said, 'Hitler, count your children.'" (p. 87)
• During the Battle of the Bulge: "The engineers helped us with our holes. We'd shoot a couple of rifle rounds into the frozen ground, then use explosives to get down into the earth." (p. 120)
• "Kad and I tried our French on the Luxembourgers. They were very nice to us. They considered it an honor to have American soldiers stay in their homes." (p. 145)
• "She told me that she thought she would be raped and that her mother and father, who were also there, would be murdered. That's what Hitler had taught the German youth about the Americans." (p. 174)
• "On the way up we could not decide between ourselves whether we would be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross or the Medal of Honor for capturing such a high-ranking officer. ... the major called his interpreter. ... The sergeant [interpreter] was laughing so hard he was wiping tears from his eyes. 'This is the chief of the fire department!'" (p. 187)
• "They also took a few prisoners who told us that they had wanted to surrender, but their officers had shot several men who had tried to do so." (pp. 187-188)
• "A woman up the street came running out of her house frantically pointed to her cellar. ... A Kraut was hiding there. The boys killed him. I guess the woman was afraid she'd be shot if she was caught harboring an enemy soldier. If so, she was right; we would have." (p. 193)
• "Part of a squad from Company E had been caught in a house sitting out in the open. The circumstance was a bad one, and they had the choice of surrendering or being killed. They chose to surrender and came out with their hands up. Three of them had Lugers strapped to their belts; they had taken them from Kraut prisoners captured a few days earlier. Their SS captors didn't even question them. Instead, they put a bullet through each of their heads. ...These SS were part of the Hermann Goring Division. They were mean customers to deal with. We hadn't taken many SS prisoners, but we decided from now on that no SS troops would be taken alive." (p. 195)
• "Lt. Mike Damkowitch ran into snipers and a Kraut killed one of his sergeants. The German ran out of ammunition and came out with his hands up. He took about two steps and had enough lead in him to make him weigh a ton. That was the dirtiest thing a Kraut could do: kill your men until he ran out of ammunition and then come out with a grin like it was all in fun and try to give himself up." (pp. 205-206)
• "The civilians stopped us and told us that there was an SS trooper dressed in civilian clothes who was threatening to kill the civilians if they didn't fight the Americans. We found him cowering in a house. He wasn't so tough when there was someone there who could kick his ass." (p. 217)
• "Fifteen thousand of them [Buchenwald inmates] had overpowered their SS guards at Buchenwald. They had taken their weapons and spread out to find and kill Krauts--particularly SS. Major Williams was a little skeptical. About that time, one of Company G's scouts brought up an SS soldier he had caught in the woods. The major pointed to the Kraut and told the Russians, 'Him SS.' One of the Russians said, 'Give him to me.' Then he kicked the SS man and told him to start running. The Russian took aim and let him have it. Before he had covered twenty yards he had more holes in him than a sieve." (pp. 197-198)
• "Two of them [Russian concentration camp escapees] were infantry lieutenants who had been captured at Stalingrad. They wanted to stay with us and fight with the Americans until we met up with the Russians. When we got to Weimar, the major put them into GI uniforms. They were happy to take care of any SS troops for us. And they did." (p. 198)

  This contradicts the position of the author of "Behind Hitler's Lines" that paratrooper Joe Beyrle was the only soldier to fight for both the Russians and Americans on the Eastern and Western fronts.

Shadow Divers

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson (2004) provides a thrilling account of the effort of numerous deep sea divers to solve a mystery about a recently discovered German WWII submarine off the coast of New Jersey. While the book discusses the dangers, competition, and excitement involved in deep sea diving, the real focus is on researching facts about German submarines and their orders, both of which allowed the divers to determine which submarine they discovered. The story provides excellent insight into the last mission of the submarine as well as the crew and overall challenge and dangers of being a member of a sub crew during the last years of WWII.

John Chatterton and Richie Kohler were the two lead divers and researchers who finally determined the U-boat's true identity. They first found the sub in 1991 in 230 feet of water sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey (roughly the Breille area). Since I live not too far from that area, I was particularly interested in the story about their effort to identify the U-boat. Diving at that dangerous depth required only elite divers to participate in the effort, and a few lost their lives in the hunt to find the sub's identity.

The U-boat was a real mystery with no historian nor government official able to provide an answer or even a logical conclusion. No German submarines were ever reported sunk within 150 miles of this location, and German records contain no accounts of U-boats being lost in New Jersey waters. Kohler said it all: "I gotta say, this is a mystery like you read in a book. A German U-boat comes to our doorstep in New Jersey. It explodes and sinks with maybe sixty guys onboard, and no one--no government or navy or professor or historian--has a clue that it's even here." (p. 185)

Chatterton and Kohler were, in reality, WWII archaeologists, investigating an artifact and trying to determine its existence. They consulted shipwreck chronicles, U-boat histories, WWII naval records, the National Archives, visited a captured U-boat on display in Chicago, and went to Germany to interview experts and veterans. Identifying the U-boat was not the main goal, but providing closure for the drowned sailors and possibly their ancestors was most important. Additionally, the finding of the sunken sub raised the question of how it sank. There were records of encounters with subs off New Jersey and possibly one of those led to the sinking of the sub.

My rating: Excellent (*****). A well-written book. Just fascinating with suspense and intrigue.

Some interesting facts provided by the author include:

• Between 1939 and 1945, Germany assembled a force of 1,176 U-boats. 757 were either sunk, captured, or damaged beyond repair in home ports or bases. That left 859 U-boats that left base for the frontline. 648 of those were sunk or captured while operating at sea, leaving a loss rate of more than 75 percent. (pp. 54-55) "In October 1940, at the peak of what German submariners called the 'Happy Time," U-boats sank sixty-six ships while losing only one of their own. ... Five months later, just a few U-boats had sunk nearly six hundred ships in American waters at a cost of just six of their own, the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Navy." (p. 235) "By the war's end, more than thirty thousand U-boat men out of a force of about fifty-five thousand had been killed--a death rate of almost 55 percent. No branch of a modern nation's armed forces had ever sustained such casualties and kept fighting." (p. 234)
• A U-boat veteran suggested they "Search the boots. If you can find boots on the wreck, look inside them. ... they all wrote their names inside their boots so no one else would wear them. They hated when other guys wore their boots. And they put their watches and jewelry in their boots, too, and some of that stuff also had their names." (pp. 142-143)
• "According to Chatterton's research, torpedo-tube hatches--the circular doors that swung closed after a torpedo had been loaded into its firing chamber--contained on their faces a tag bearing the U-boat's number. ...With any luck, the tags would reveal the wreck's identity." (p. 198) The tags were supposed to be made of resilient brass, but an elderly U-boat veteran in South Carolina told them that brass had become scarce and tags had been made of leftover materials that could not survive long in the marine environment. (p. 207)
• "U-boat men splashed cologne on themselves to battle the body odor inevitable on the hundred-day patrols in broiling boats in which showers were unavailable." (p. 167)
• A man who was based out of Lakehurst, NJ, claimed to have sunk a U-boat with a depth charge from a blimp in 1942. Blimps had been a formidable force in keeping U-boats submerged and in escorting ships along the eastern seaboard. At one point, during WWII, more than fifteen hundred pilots had manned blimps carrying sophisticated antisubmarine technology. A case of a blimp fighting with surfaced U-boat existed, with the blimp shot out of the air and the sub being damaged. (p. 150)
• The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) claimed it sank two U-boats but never received credit for them. The CAP were a group of civilian pilots organized in 1941 by NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to fly small privately owned airplanes to help defend coastal shipping. They hunted U-boats with a pair of minibombs jur-rigged under the plane's wings. Over the course of the war, the CAP had detected more than 150 subs and had dropped depth charges on several of them. The CAP believed the US Navy did not want to credit civilians with sinking any U-boats so they never received credit. The Navy believed it would have terrified the public to think that average civilians were needed to fight the U-boats and that the U-boats were coming so close to our shores. (pp. 151-152)
• "As the divers studied further, they recognized that the current assessment by German naval historian Axel Niestle--that U-879 had been sunk off Cape Hatteras--was correct. But the lesson was stark and by now familiar: written history was fallible. Sloppy and erroneous assessments had been rushed into the official record, only to be presumed accurate by historians, who then published elegant reference works echoing the mistakes. ... Along the way, each marveled at how easy it was to get an incomplete picture of the world if one relied solely on experts, and how important it would be to further rely on oneself." (p. 229)
• "Time and again during their research, they had been astonished to discover that historians had been mistaken, books fallible, experts wrong." (p. 287)
• "Scientists joined the war effort from U.S. laboratories and universities. One of their most potent weapons was radar. Even in total darkness or a violent storm, radar-equipped airplanes and ships could detect a surfaced submarine at great distances. ...they suddenly found themselves pounced upon by Allied aircraft that seemed to appear in the sky as if by magic." (p. 236)
• "An Allied ship that suspected there was submerged U-boat in its vicinity could use sonar--the broadcast of sound waves--to sniff it out. Once sonar echoed off the submarine's metallic form, a U-boat was tagged for death" (p. 236).

Click Here to buy "Shadow Divers"

Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor

Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett (2000) answers the question of whether FDR pushed the Japanese into attacking the US and if FDR knew in advance of their plans to attack Pearl Harbor. Stinnett's research is extensive and he supports his conclusions with corroborating facts from different US sources as well as Japanese sources. His research spanned twenty years and access to previously classified documents through the Freedom of Information Act. The physical evidence is extensive enough to draw the conclusion that FDR intentionally implemented a step by step policy to incite the Japanese into war, and that FDR expected the attack since he was kept informed of their plans which were learned from Japanese communication transmissions deciphered from codes that were broken.

Roosevelt's intent and strategy began when he removed Admiral James Richardson from command of the Navy. Richardson was not afraid to stand up to Roosevelt and by doing so he ended his naval career. Roosevelt divided the naval command into a two ocean navy, creating an Atlantic and Pacific Fleet. He appointed Admiral Husband Kimmel to head the Pacific Fleet and he became the scapegoat who received the brunt of the blame for not being prepared for the Japanese surprise attack.

Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, head of the Far East Office of Naval Intelligence, proposed an eight point plan to incite a Japanese attack on Hawaii in October of 1940. Roosevelt embraced the plan and enacted it, point by point. Roosevelt was in favor of joining Great Britain to fight the Nazis and also to prevent the aggressive expansion of Japan throughout Asia. However, he felt the only way for the American public to support joining another European War was if a clear act of war was enacted upon the US.

The act of war had to be severe enough to create a furor among Americans. Therefore, Roosevelt believed it would be necessary to sacrifice some lives by not being prepared for such an attack. He went to great steps to keep the commanders at Pearl Harbor in the dark so they could not repel the attack and that enough damage was done to the US fleet to create an undeniable response of the public for revenge. The US had broken the Japanese codes for communication, so every move made was known and provided directly to FDR. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise, just a well-kept secret to promote FDR's agenda to enter WWII to save the world from Germany and Japan. FDR promised an isolationist America in his campaign for his third term that he would keep the US out of the war. He didn't want to renege on that promise voluntarily, but he would be justified if an overt act of war was taken against the US.

There were 2,476 people killed in the Japanese attacks of December 11, 1941. 1,104 sailors were killed on the Arizona, accounting for almost 1/2 of the deaths. FDR needed a Japanese attack that would rally the country, and "Remember Pearl Harbor" would not have been a battle cry if the island were better defended. I think FDR did not expect a lucky bomber to sink the Arizona and cause so many deaths, but even with the Arizona, the number was not too severe especially when considering the number of people that would die in the coming years.

My rating: Very Good (****). A scholarly, thoroughly researched book by a WWII Navy veteran. The nature of the topic requires excruciating detail by the author. The reader must wade through the detail to capture the overall essence of the findings and conclusion.

The author provides about 400 pages of detailed facts which support his position. The following are some interesting points presented:

• "Roosevelt had carefully selected and placed naval officers in key fleet-command positions who would not obstruct his provocation policies." (p. 11)
• "By late July 1941, [Pacific fleet commander Admiral Kimmel] had been cut off completely from the communications intelligence generated in Washington." (p. 38)
• "... intercepts and the corresponding radio logs of Station H are powerful evidence of American foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Americans do not know these records exist--all were excluded from the many investigations that took place from 1941 to 1946 and the congressional probe of 1995." (p. 45)
• During President Roosevelt's fourth-term campaign in 1944, Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey learned of the [deceit] and saw in it the political means to defeat Roosevelt. He reasoned, if the White House was reading Japanese messages leading up to the attack, why were our forces in the Pacific caught so woefully unprepared? In the autumn of 1944, Dewey planned a series of stump speeches charging Roosevelt with advance knowledge of Japan's plan to attack Pearl Harbor. Dewey's proof was the intercepted Japanese messages. ... General George Marshall, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewy to call off the code controversy. 'American lives are at peril,' Marshall aptly warned." (p. 77)
• There had been an intentional cover-up of the facts. "But the most astonishing disclosure on Hart's typewritten message is a handwritten margin note which directs that the dispatch be removed from Navy files and a dummy message substituted in its place." (p. 80)
• Roosevelt allowed Japanese spy Tadashi Morimura "to operate freely throughout 1941. ... Morimura was able to supply Admiral Yamamoto with highly accurate bombing charts of Pearl Harbor and other US Army and Navy targets on Oahu." (p. 85)
• "Attorney General Janet Reno has refused to declassify secret FBI files on the matter, citing FOIA rules that prohibit disclosing national defense secrets." (pp. 86-87)
• "Two dozen FBI and Navy documents dated before the attack link Morimura with espionage in Hawaii. According to these documents, senior American intelligence officials, including the President, knew of Morimura's espionage at the Honolulu consulate. His reports clearly pointed to Pearl Harbor as a prime target of Japanese military planners." (p. 95)
• "Neither [General] Short nor Kimmel received the cables [about the impending Japanese threat] until after the December 7 attack. According to the evidence, it was not a bureaucratic snafu that delayed the cables getting into American hands but Washington deceit--and the Hawaiian commanders, their sailors and troops, and the civilians of Honolulu were the victims." (p. 107)
• Information was kept from Kimmel and Short to "ensure an uncontested overt Japanese act of war." (p. 108)
• Lieutenant Commander Joseph Rochefort, who commanded the Navy's Mid-Pacific Radio Intelligence Network, stated in his Oral History "that the carnage at Pearl Harbor on December 7 was a cheap price to pay for the unification of America. His unity observations parallels that of his close friend Arthur McCollum and suggests that Rochefort was aware of or approved of McCollum's eight-action plan that called for America to create 'ado' and provoke Japan into committing an overt act of war against the United States." (p. 117)
• "'War with the United States may come with dramatic and dangerous suddenness' was the closing sentence of a lengthy report sent by [Ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew] to Secretary of State Cordell Hull the next day [November 6, 1941]. Grew cautioned that in the event diplomatic conversations failed, the United States should not underestimate Japan's obvious preparations for war. He felt that the risk and danger of war was very great and was increasing." (p. 143) "On November 17, he again predicted a sudden military or naval action by Japan's armed forces. Grew was specific. He was referring not to China but to other areas available to Japan for a surprise attack." (p. 144)
• "When White House military officials learned Kimmel's warships were in the area of what turned out to be the intended Japanese launch site, they issued directives that caused Kimmel to quickly order the Pacific Fleet out of the North Pacific and back to its anchorages in Pearl Harbor." (p. 145) "An open sea engagement between Japan's carrier force and the Pacific Fleet would have been far less effective at establishing American outrage. Japan could claim that its right to sail the open seas had been deliberately challenged by American warships if Kimmel attacked first." (p. 151)
• "On orders from Washington [on December 5th], Kimmel left his oldest vessels inside Pearl Harbor and sent twenty-one modern warships, including his two aircraft carriers, west toward Wake and Midway." (p. 152) "With the departure of the Lexington and Enterprise groups, the warships remaining in Pearl Harbor were mostly 27-year-old relics of World War I." (p. 154)
• "Beginning with the cancellation of Kimmel's exercise, and continuing through the final days before the attack, conclusive cryptographic evidence indicates that FDR shared McCollum's intentions and left the Pacific Fleet in harm's way." (p. 155)
• Army Chief of Staff George Marshall said on November 15 in a secret briefing to the press "The United States is on the brink of war with the Japanese. ...We know what they know and they don't know we know it." He predicted war would break out the first ten days of December. Yet Marshall did not communicate that message to General Short or Admiral Kimmel. (pp. 157-158)
• "Overwhelming evidence proves that Yamamoto, as well as the commanders of the Task Force warships, broke radio silence and that their ships were located by American communication intelligence units." (p. 162)
• "In the two weeks prior to the attack, Roosevelt's access to Japanese naval intercepts is documented by a series of radio intelligence bulletins, called monographs, that were prepared by McCollum." (p. 167)
• Kimmel followed orders which "handcuffed the Pacific Fleet. ... But because he followed these orders Kimmel would later take the blame for Pearl Harbor." (p. 173)
• "General Short placed full trust in his 'old friend of forty years,' General Marshall. Admiral Kimmel did the same. Kimmel had been friends with his boss, Admiral Harold Stark, since their Naval Academy days. But after the successful Japanese raid on December 7, Marshall would go on to be lauded for his direction of World War II in his role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kimmel and Short would be fired." (p. 176)
• Secretary of War Henry Stimson recorded in his diary: "In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people, it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this, so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors." (p. 179)
• "By December 4, a paper trail of Japanese intercepts had found its way to the White House. Japan's diplomatic messages, Japanese navy communications, and RDF bearings locating Japanese warships heading toward American territory in the Western, North, and Central Pacific were all in the pipeline and available to Roosevelt." (p. 182)
• General MacArthur, in the Philippines, received copies of the intelligence reports that showed the radio activity of the advancing Japanese fleet. (p. 185)
• "After November 26, the reports detailing the Japanese military advance on Hawaii were excised from the Presidential monographs." (p. 188)
• John Toland's book Infamy, published in 1982, quoted Lieutenant Robert Ogg's statement that radio direction finder bearings placed Japanese warships north of Hawaii from November 30 to December 4. "Ogg's statements were challenged by prominent historians, who cited Japanese claims that the Pearl Harbor warships were on radio silence and could not possibly have been intercepted by Americans. ...But he assured skeptics that confirmation could be found in the records of the Navy's intercept station at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. ...But no one looked." However, research by the author found "compelling evidence for Ogg's assertions. ...This vital information obtained by the five units was logged in official Navy reports and forwarded to Washington, but was withheld from Admiral Kimmel and the Pacific Fleet." (pp. 194-195)

  I find it remarkable that the "prominent historians" had the nerve to condemn Ogg for presenting a view different that what they believed. These historians did not even attempt to find factual evidence to either disprove or confirm Ogg's claim. Yet they had the audacity to claim he was not telling the truth. Obviously, the historians were not as prominent as they believed they are. This is an example of academics who never go beyond searching through a bunch of books and simply repeat written items and take them for truth. When a participant who was there offers a different story, he is attacked without proper research being conducted.

• "In his oral history, Joseph Rochefort said that none of his officers or operators were fooled by Japanese radio deception: 'It is awfully difficult to deceive a trained counter-communications intelligence organization, awfully difficult." (p. 202)

• "Radio was the only means to return the First Air Fleet to its tight formation" which was driven off course by the typhoon-force winds, scattering tankers and warships. (p. 205) "The information that Kimmel needed was available--so available, in fact, that it often appears as though the Japanese had made few efforts to conceal it. As we now know, Lieutenant Commanders Joseph Rochefort and Edwin Layton could have provided that indication, but they did not do so. Their failure allowed Japan's First Air Fleet to make its surprise attack and then to escape to Japan." (p. 203)

• There appeared to be a deliberate cover up after the war. "We examined the Fourteenth Naval District Communication Summaries and found that those summaries had indeed been cut off from the bottom of the pages. We have no idea why this was done, but it appears that the documents were entered into evidence during 1945 and 46 in this manner." "So began the myth of the radio silence of the Japanese carrier force. It is a myth that has endured for over fifty years and that continues to baffle historians." (p. 208)
• General Marshall was involved in a cover up about his involvement in the deceit. "... a later attempt to distance Pearl Harbor investigators from Marshall and the 1:00 P.M. deadline and involves coercion of a US Army colonel to alter his testimony. It even reaches to post-surrender Germany in 1945 when that colonel, Rufus Bratton, was flagged down on the Berlin Autobahn and persuaded to 'modify' evidence against Marshall." (p. 228)
• Marshall successfully relayed the alert to MacArthur in Manila, but failed to do so to General Short in Hawaii. (p. 235)
• "The key evidence of what really happened began to be concealed as early as December 11, 1941, only four days after the attack. The first step in the clean-up came from Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, the Navy's Director of Communications. He instituted the fifty-four-year censorship policy that consigned the pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese military and diplomatic intercepts and the relevant directives to Navy vaults. 'Destroy all notes or anything in writing,' Noyes told a group of his subordinates on December 11." (p. 255)

• "As heinous as it seems to families and veterans of World War II, of which the author is one, the Pearl Harbor attack was, from the White House perspective, something that had to be endured in order to stop a greater evil" (p. 259)

• "The real shame is on the stewards of government who have kept the truth under lock for fifty years." (p. 259)

• "After years of denial, the truth is clear: we knew." (p. 263)

Click Here to buy "Day of Deceit"

Behind Hitler's Lines: The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II

Behind Hitler's Lines: The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II by Thomas H. Taylor (2002) is about the wartime experience of paratrooper Joseph Beyrle of the 101st. Beyrle parachuted into Normandy twice before the invasion, carrying gold for the French Resistance. He parachuted again on D-Day, but eventually was captured. He was reported killed in action since the Germans stole his dog tags and placed them on a dead soldier's body. He spent time in a POW camp, escaping twice only to be recaptured. The brutal treatment he received by the Germans was quite different than the Geneva Conventions specified. Eventually he escaped again and headed toward the advancing Russian troops. Upon reaching the Russians, he insisted on joining a Russian tank brigade. He was injured during a Luftwaffe attack during the advance toward Berlin and had to return to Russia to make his way to the US embassy in Moscow where he was suspected of being a Nazi assassin. Joe Beyrle was "the only vet on either side to have fought against the Germans on both the Western and Eastern Fronts" (p. 281).

Parallel to Beyrle's story, the author follows the action of the 101st throughout the war. This book is a good companion to Band of Brothers since both cover much of the same campaign. The author is a Viet Nam veteran and former member of the 101st. His father was General Maxwell Taylor, commanding officer of the 101st during World War II. Therefore, some of his report of the story may be biased from the perspective of hearing about the war from a general.

My Rating: Very Good (****). A fascinating story. The book was well-written and quite readable.

Some interesting items stated in the book include:

• A member of the French resistance said to Joe: "We are called the resistance, but our countrymen's resistance is weakening. There has been too much time for them to adjust to life under the Germans. Too many of us are adjusting to it." (p. 51) And that "Churchill sacrificed the French-speaking Canadians in a cold-blooded experiment [at Dieppe]" (p. 52).
• While getting ready for D-Day, "Unauthorized weapons proliferated because officers were taking along plenty of extra firepower themselves." (p. 66) These included everything from German burp guns, sawed-off shot guns, six-shooters, and .45's.
• "The [air sickness] pills were so strong that a medical investigation revealed some troopers were half asleep when shot by the Germans." (p. 73)
• "The Gestapo's extensive experience with torture as a means of extracting worthwhile information had proven that insufferable pain was most often counterproductive; that is, that the victim would say anything for relief, whether truth or lies, and the two were nearly impossible to distinguish even by subsequent interrogation." (p. 119)
• The Germans paraded the POWs through the streets of Paris. "French collaborators took up a chorus of hisses and jeers, then began to throw garbage at POWs shuffling by, some of whom were so hungry they caught and ate it. ... He had crossed the ocean to rid France of [the Germans], but there were the French spitting on him." (p. 140-141)
• During Operation Market-Garden, the Dutch impressed the 101st. As soon as they landed, "the Dutch underground surfaced like dragon's teeth." (p. 185) The Dutch steered the 101st around German strong points, and pointed out the number of Germans hidden at each of their positions. "Aided immeasurably by the Dutch, within fifteen minutes the Currahees destroyed both 88s, killed thirteen Germans, [and] captured forty-one" (p. 186). When mortars were falling near a squad, "Suddenly men with orange armbands tackled [them] and covered them with their bodies." Their explanation was that the 101st was fighting the Germans, and protecting them was the best way to help get rid of the Germans. (p. 187) "The Luftwaffe had slipped through, to kill thousands of civilians in a raid of terror and retaliation for Dutch joy." (p. 189)

  The cooperation of the Dutch underground and the 101st willingness to use them, was a stark difference than the British 1st Airborne that landed further inland to take Arnhem Bridge. They refused the Dutch help, and were severely beaten as a result. With incorrect radio frequencies, they could not communicate, however, the Dutch underground had no problem communicating through the civilian telephone system that was still working. That alone, besides the intelligence regarding German troops, would have made the First Airborne and the British tanks trying to reach them more successful.

• After being released the former 101st POWs were being "served chow in April 1945 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, by German POWs, some of whom had SS tattoos. The result was an international melee in which several Germans were killed with steak knives and cafeteria trays." Apparently, some soldiers went back for seconds and the Germans refused to serve them, starting the confrontation. (p. 190-13 and p. 340)
• "If ten thousand Russians starved to death at Stalag III-C, it wasn't because there was nothing to eat but because the Krauts wouldn't feed them." (p. 202)
• "I read that right after the war the U.S. government asked Hollywood to reconstruct the Germans. Please don't make any more movies about nasty Nazis; don't always make the Germans the villains. We need American public opinion to support the new Germany as an ally against the USSR." (p. 202)
• "Colonel Harper of the 327th in his after-action report: 'All we commanders at Bastogne could do was put our men on what we considered the critical ground. When that was done the battle was delivered into their hands. Whether we were to win, even survive, was then up to the individual soldier. ... He stayed, and froze, where he was put and often died rather than give an inch." (p. 241)
• After the breakthrough to Bastogne by Patton, "General Taylor received the situation report from McAuliffe. 'Sir, we're ready to attack' was the first sentence." Eisenhower ordered an attack and Patton was eager for it, but the only division near was the 101st which was at less that 50% strength and those soldiers were completely worn from the siege. They "needed relief and rest. What they got instead was fighting so vicious and unremitting that they would look back on the siege as their easier days in the Bulge." (p. 246).

  This was poor use of 101st. An immediate attack accomplished little since the snow was so deep and without proper winter equipment (such as snow shoes and winter clothing), their advance was limited. Also, the good weather now allowed resupply and the troops could have fully been reequipped. They even could have been replaced by fresh troops. Better air support could have been coordinated and a later attack would have been more successful. Yet, because McAuliffe and Taylor wanted to look good with Eisenhower (who was safe in the rear and didn't understand what troops went through in extended combat), they further pushed the 101st.

• "As secrets of World War II have come out, one was that Stalin told the Allies that if they wanted their own POWs back, they'd have to turn over Vlasov's army (Russians who volunteered to fight on the Western front rather than starve in POW camps), which had surrendered in the west. Eisenhower acquiesced in what must have been his most terrible choice." (p. 302) Eisenhower showed a lack of courage to send these POWs to their death. Even if it took months, Eisenhower should not have relented although he did have good reason. "No more than one in ten POWs of the Russians ever got back to Germany, and that wasn't until the 1950s." (p. 327) However, it should be noted the Russian hatred of the Germans was much different than their relationship with their Allies. Possibly, the failure of the US to call Stalin's bluff on the return of the US POWs was ingrained in Stalin's head and became part of his bold strategy in Cold War when opposing the US by aiding Communists in Korea, Cuba, and Viet Nam.

Click Here to buy "Behind Hitler's Lines"

A Short History of World War II

A Short History of World War II by James Stokesbury (2001) provides, as its title suggests, a succinct history of World War II. It begins with the prologue to the war, and then covers the war in three subsequent sections: the expansion, the allied organization and confrontation, and the road to victory.

My Rating: Good (***). The book is well-suited as a text in a history class, or a simple refresher of World War II. It provides a good overview, and as the title states, a short history. The book reads well and the author does a good job of narrowing volumes of World War II history into one book that can be read in a reasonable time frame.

Interesting strategies or themes raised by the author include:

Aggressively conducting one's duties will raise conflict if counter positions are not exercised.

• "For practical purposes, however, World War I and II can be considered part of one large struggle--the struggle of united Germany to claim its place as the dominant power on the European continent" (p. 15).
• "France was well on the way to becoming a second-class power. The official view was that as long as Germany could be kept down, France would retain her primacy. The French therefore became the most obstinate supporters of the status quo as enacted a Versailles." (p. 22)
• "... the French and British taxpayer chose to support governments whose policies led to military weakness rather than strength. Of course, it was not the fault of the civilian politicians if the money they did allocate to their military advisers and experts was misspent, as it generally was." (p. 32)
• "Hitler had assessed Great Britain and France as weak; they were not disposed to challenge his reassertion of German power. Mussolini followed suit." (p. 47)
• There was little difference between the duties and responsibilities of Hitler and Chamberlain (Britain) and Daladier (France). Hitler's over assertion of Germany's status combined with their under assertion of France and Britain's caused the war (see The Origins of the Second World War by A. Taylor). (p. 54)
• In response to Germany's 1939 invasion of allied Poland, "... why did Britain and France not strike quickly and hard? ... They could, and should, have easily defeated Germany, and the Second World War would never have gotten off the ground. ... Facing the German frontier [the French] had eighty-five divisions. ... Against them the Germans had eight weak regular divisions. ... The French had 3,200 tanks; the Germans had none... The French and British together had 1,700 aircraft, the Germans had almost none." (pp. 75-76)

Strong leadership will beat weak leadership, even with fewer resources.

• "[MacArthur] was reluctant to act when the news of Pearl Harbor came in. His air force people urged an immediate attack on Japanese bases on Formosa, well within range" (p. 208).
• "It was not so much that the Americans were caught napping as that they were psychologically unprepared for what was happening." (p. 209)
• "The Japanese general Homma was actually inferior in numbers to the Americans and Filipinos" (p. 210)
• "[MacArthur] left on March 12, he and his family and staff going south on PT-boats, then flying to Australia. Many of the troops, though they accepted the logic of it all, felt bitterly betrayed, and MacArthur's famous 'I shall return' had a hollow ring to those who were not allowed to leave." (p. 211)

Interesting facts or positions raised by the author include:

• The French felt that Britain failed to support them in stopping the German invasion of France and that "Britain was willing to fight to the last Frenchman." (p. 99).
• Churchill was afraid the French navy would fall into German hands. The British "sank the battleship Bretagne and the new battle cruiser Kunkerque and several destroyers. They killed 1,300 French sailors and wounded another 350." (p. 104)
• "When the first German Army units entered the Ukraine, they were greeted as liberators by the local inhabitants. ...[They] were treated to girls throwing flowers and men breaking out the wine bottles for them. ...Within weeks in the rear areas, the Jew-hunters and the political squads were at work, rounding up, exterminating, robbing, raping, and killing. Soon there were no more pretty girls by the side of the road throwing flowers; there were only bitter men throwing Molotov cocktails. The Master Race found that even it could not afford gratuitously to alienate several millions of people. ...Germany not only bled to death in Russia, she also made enemies of millions who might have bled for her." (pp. 156-157)
• "De Gaulle was the prickliest of allies, Roosevelt thoroughly disliked and distrusted him and did his best to cut him off" (p. 183)
• "Roosevelt therefore sprung [the idea of unconditional surrender] on a press conference, and the somewhat surprised Churcill quickly backed it." (p. 185) Some say this lengthened the war since it encouraged the Germans to fight to the bitter end. Also conditions were provided for Japan, or else they refused to surrender.
• The British mounted a major raid on the port of Dieppe in August of 1942 with a force of 7,000 men which included 5,000 Canadians. It was a disaster with only 2,000 of the 5,000 Canadians escaping back to Britain. "It was a costly way to prove the Allies could not invade Europe in the immediate future, and the Canadians, who had been asking for action for two years, still have bitter memories of the way they got it." (p. 224)
• "There is an old proverb that Russia has two unbeatable commanders: Generals January and February." (p. 232)
• "Fighters had not been able to provide cover for the bombers all the way to the target. Ironically, the answer had existed long before the problem. The American Curtiss F11C-2, a short-lived fighter with the U.S. Navy in the mid-thirties, and the German Heinkel He51, a biplane fighter that served in the Spanish Civil War, had both been fitted with auxiliary gas tanks slung under the belly." (pp. 283-284)
• "Hitler once remarked disgustedly, 'The Italians never lose a war; no matter what happens, they always end up on the winning side." (p. 292)
• "It was Rommel who made the now famous remark that the first day of the invasion would be 'the longest day,' and he believed that if the battle were not fought and won in the first day, it would not be won at all." (p. 313)
• "Many of the plotters [to kill Hitler] ended up hanging from meat hooks by wire nooses, strangling while movie cameras recorded their death agonies for the delectation of Hitler and his chosen circle." (p. 320)
• General Bradley failed to close the "Falaise gap" which would have trapped the retreating German army in France. He was afraid of friendly fire with the Canadians coming from the north, and thought the gap was closing on its own. (p. 322)
• "As long as they could, the Allies had stalled off de Gaulle's return to France, but when he finally got over the Channel, he immediately announced the establishment of a legal government, and began acting as if he were running the country." (p. 322)
• "[The Canadians] were handed the unhappy task of clearing the Channel ports as the Allies pushed north, a job that cost them such high casualties as to cause a crisis at home in Canada over the issue of conscription for overseas service." (p. 324)
• "Peleliu: it cost the highest casualty rate--nearly 40 percent--of any amphibious assault in American history." (p. 341)
• "For the first two years of the war the Americans were plagued by faulty torpedoes that more often than not failed to detonate when they hit a target. ...It was late in 1943 before the faults were finally remedied" (p. 365).
• "One of the great ironies of the American war effort was the way it was borne disproportionately by a relatively few people. ... only a limited number of people saw combat. Those who did saw probably far too much of it. ...For the vast majority of Americans it was a good war... People were more mobile and more prosperous than ever before." (p. 380)

Some inconsistencies presented by the author include:

• The author contradicts himself regarding the Italian invasion of Greece. First, he states the British had to send troops to bail out the Greeks and that this would cost the British and eventually the United States, many months of fighting and many hard knocks (p. 141). Then he states "The Greeks fought; moreover, they won." He added "Through the winter of 1940-1941, the Greeks slowly pushed the Italians back through the mountains of the Greco-Albanian Frontier."

  The British decided to send in their troops to guard a possible German invasion. The Greeks did not want the British troops on their soil since they felt that would incite Hitler to attack. They were right. The Germans sent their armour into Greece and beat the British in every engagement. The British soon abandoned their Ally, Greece, and were evacuated by the Royal Navy. This is where they suffered their losses, when their own Navy could not protect the troop ships from attacks by the Luftwaffe. "...about 12,000 men and substantial amounts of equipment, almost all the casualties coming during the evacuation when ships were sunk and machine-gunned unremittingly by the Luftwaffe." (p. 144) This is further evidence that the British did not put up much resistance against the Germans in Greece, or their casualties would have been on land in the front lines, not when escaping on their Navy's ships. The author does add "In the end, Greece was not materially helped, and there are those who claim she would have been better off-or at least no worse off-without the British intervention." (p. 145)

• The author again makes an error on the impact of the German invasion of Greece. He states it was not a factor in delaying the German attack of Russia (p. 146). This is a totally illogical argument since it is a fact that the Greek campaign cost the German's time from other campaigns and it also diverted their armour and troops. Anyone with a basic understanding of project management, can understand that the Greek invasion was a predecessor of the invasion of Russia, and therefore in the critical path. It caused a day for day slip. The Russian front was so vast, the resources used in Greece was critical for being available to the start of war with Russia, and that is what caused the delay which made the German's fight into a brutal winter which would cause their defeat.
• The author states "The Americans knew something was going to happen. They had broken several of the Japanese codes" (p. 169) However, the author keeps with the standard surprise attack position regarding Pearl Harbor, and does not even suggest the conspiracy theory regarding FDR knowing in advance of the attack (because of the broken naval codes), but allowing it to occur to force the American public (who were most isolationists because of their experience in WWI) to fight the expansionist polices of the Japanese and Germans. It should be noted that FDR was also reelected to a third term by promising to keep the US out of the war.
• The author stated (also see the Leadership topic) that the troops understood and accepted the logic of MacArthur's running from the battle, but felt bitterly betrayed (p. 211). How do you feel betrayed, yet agree with someones action? That is impossible and illogical. The reason many US officers were admired is that they led by example (see Band of Brothers for an excellent example). MacArthur led by running from the battle. No wonder the troops were discouraged and quick to surrender even though they outnumbered the enemy. What is even more remarkable, is strength is from a defensive position. The attacker often needs four times the troops to overcome the enemy who is dug-in and well-positioned. The author fails to suggest the fallibility of MacArthur as a commander and counter the myth of his leadership based on the facts.
• The author states in the North Africa campaign, General Montgomery beat Rommel. "El Alamein was one of the great turning points of the war, fairly won and exploited to the full." (p. 223) This completely contradicts what the author previously states: "The British and Commonwealth troops, about 200,000 strong, outnumbered the Germans and Italians in men and tanks by two to one; they enjoyed complete air superiority." (p. 222) "Montgomery did have one startling advantage enjoyed by his predecessors: he had a copy of Rommel's operation order. The Germans were still unaware that the British code-breakers were reading their signals." (p. 221) Additionally, the author does not give much emphasis on Rommel's supply problems as a factor in his defeat when he was almost abandoned by the Germans without adequate supplies and reinforcements needed to win.

Click here to buy "A Short History of World War II"

Pegasus Bridge

Pegasus Bridge by Stephen Ambrose (1985) tells the story of what may have been the first action on D-Day. A company of British commandos landing by glider to take a bridge right after midnight on June 5 to the morning of June 6, 1944. Ambrose relied primarily on interviews from survivors to piece together the story since few written accounts exist.

My Rating: Very Good (****). Ambrose is a very engaging historian who can recite history as an interesting story, almost like a novel. Unfortunately, Ambrose has been criticized for failure to adequately cite references for passages used from other books. Ambrose tells a great story about the British commandos success.

Themes or strategies presented in the book were:

• Empowering the commanding officer to design an effective training program and of making the detailed plan for the operation. (p. 67)
• To ensure success, the plan was repeated, repeated, and repeated. Repetition of the plan was boring, but always provided something overlooked. (p. 78)
• Cross-training was implemented. "All three platoon leaders gone, and in less than ten minutes! Fortunately, the sergeants were thoroughly familiar with the various tasks and could take over" (p. 104).
• Major Howard insisted he put the Gammon Bombs on the glider, but they weren't there. The pilot said Howard pitched them to lighten the load before takeoff, but he claims another platoon stole them. (pp. 110-111)

  Howard obviously made this excuse after the fact. During D-Day, he sent the pilot back to the glider to find the Gammon Bombs. If he was a thorough officer, an inventory of all supplies would be made as loading occurred. It is inconceivable that a critical weapon needed to combat tanks would not be loaded, whether by error or intentionally. This was probably an example of an officer who had more responsibility than he could handle, and therefore made the crucial error of leaving the bombs without remembering doing it. Without the bombs, they were severely limited in their ability to fight a tank attack. In a self-report, such as the facts presented in this book to the author, the weight of the story told by the commanding officer certainly is treated as a primary source. Self-serving statements are hard to contradict when only a few of participants are available for interviews and there is a lack of documentation from that time.

• Misuse of human resources. "It is indeed a mystery why the War Office squandered D Company. It was an asset of priceless value" (p. 159). "D Company had fallen from its D-Day strength of 181 down to 40." (p. 163) The War Office left D Company on the front line after their success at Pegasus Bridge. Slowly, they lost almost their whole Company as casualties in action that was more like trench warfare in WWI and not good use of their special skills. The Company should have been pulled from the front line and used again in a commando role.

Some interesting facts or items presented in the book included:

• "... a favorite expression in the German Army ... 'The night is the friend of no man.'" (p. 50) The British intentionally trained in the dark so they would have a different opinion than the Germans.
• "Monty's parting remark was quiet but moving. 'Get as many of the chaps back as you can." (p. 84) It was quite understanding that Montgomery and the British were worried about losses. Their involvement in the war was longer than the USA's and they did not want to take risks which may result in high casualties. Montgomery should have said 'No matter what you have to do, take the bridge' instead of giving a word of caution as his final remark. This may provide a revealing insight into Montgomery's failure to aggressively attack Caen and later during the Market Garden campaign.
• The British only had one Piat with two bombs for it. Sergeant Thornton placed himself about 30 yards from the intersection and the Piat had a range of about fifty yards. "The Piat actually is a load of rubbish" (p. 117) and was an inferior anti-tank weapon, but Thornton was right on target, destroying the tank. "Sergeant Thornton had pulled off the single most important shot of D-Day, because the Germans badly needed that road." After seeing the first tank destroyed, the Germans assumed the British were using heavier anti-tank guns and the remaining tanks retreated.

Thornton later participated in Operation Market Garden with the 1st Airborne Division and fought with Colonel John Frost's 2nd Battalion at Arnhem Bridge, being captured when Montgomery's reinforcements failed to arrive.



Click here to buy "Pegasus Bridge"

Forever A Soldier: Unforgettable Stories of Wartime Service

Forever A Soldier: Unforgettable Stories of Wartime Service by Tom Wiener (2005) is a collection of 41 war stories as told by veterans of several wars. The stories were selected out of 35,000 individual stories as part of the Veterans History Project.

My Rating: Good (***). The numerous points that follow show the quality of some of the selections. However, in general, oral histories are problematic. They provide the self-report by the participant, and express his or her first hand view of history. However, often, an individual's memory is affected by time or simply by the narrow view they may have had of events. This often differs with reality. The perfect example is Dick Winters' (Band of Brothers) comments regarding events told to the author (Stephen Ambrose) by various soldiers which were totally inaccurate. Winters, who wrote the after-action reports, was most familiar with the events and corrected the misconceptions. I question the author's choice of some of the stories, since out of 35,000 stories, I think more relevant choices could have been made to present the 41 most compelling oral histories in a book.

Strategies and themes presented in the readings include:

• Leadership Lacking: At Pearl Harbor, the damaged battleship West Virginia was filled with water that almost filled the officers' quarters. The Annapolis graduates asked sailors from the Tennessee, moored next to it, to retrieve their swords that they graduated with. (p. 11) Why didn't the officers go get their swords themselves? Sailors, doing the officers a favor, were later thought to be stealing items from the quarters and an armed guard had to be posted.
  

With the 18th Field Artillery, John Sudyk's lieutenant volunteered Sudyk and a few others to ambush tanks with a bazooka which was as dangerous as a suicide mission. The lieutenant watched from 200 yards away. The lieutenant received a commendation while Sudyk and his fellow soldiers received nothing. (p. 28)

In Viet Nam, Ken Rodgers "characterized the military leadership he saw there as weak. The messages the enlisted men got were mixed and contradictory. Some leaders were more gung-ho than others; they demanded a spit-and-polish approach that Rodgers thought didn't make sense in the jungle. There was little camaraderie among officers ... We treated everybody over there as the enemy, and not everybody was... I could never ever tell anybody to do some of the things we had to do to survive over there..." When preparation began for Desert Storm, everything seemed well organized and thought out. "It was a piece of cake from what I had seen in the past. "(pp. 44-47)

The Germans had the superior defensive position in the Hurtgen Forest, but the Americans were told to attack. The battle became "a killing field for both sides ... We lost so many troops in there, we often wondered why we tried to advance in an area like that." (p. 30)

During Viet Nam, Head Nurse Frances Liberty and her staff used a hose to wash off casualties. A high ranking woman officer from Washington was visiting and said "Oh my, do you have to use a hose." Liberty responded "Well now, you go back to Washington and sit behind your nice desk, and when you think of something you tell us." (p. 132)

"In Korea, when another officer came down hard on a recruit just arrived in camp who had accidentally fired his weapon--the captain wanted him court-martialed--Lieutenant Bertran Wallace came to the recruit's defense. Shortly after that, he was relieved of duty and sent back to the States." (p. 164)

After losing 832 sailors from being bombed off Okinawa, the Franklin returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs. Harold Lippard gave up "making a career out of the Navy ... [because] a new ensign came in and just tore things up and Lippard didn't want to deal with the political repercussions." (p. 187)

Marine sharpshooter Giles McCoy, on the island of Pelelieu, "almost got court-martialed a couple of times, once for not shooting two Japanese boys. They weren't any more than ten or twelve years old." (p. 189)

One of the most obvious examples of a lack of leadership was exhibited by General MacArthur. Yet historians almost universally fail to cite this most egregious act. First, he withdrew and "set up his headquarters on Corregidor ... [and] On March 11, MacArthur and his staff abandoned Corregidor for Australia to assume command of the Allied Forces in that area." (p. 264)

MacArthur failed miserably as a commander. His troops were poorly trained and equipped. He was unable to stem the advances of the Japanese even though, as the evading force, they were very susceptible to extremely high casualties from a dug-in defensive army. MacArthur failed to create such a defense which would have strained the Japanese supply lines and allowed time for the US to resupply the troops. The effort to resupply was abandoned because it did not look like the defense would succeed. MacArthur also could have placed his troops in the jungles and mountainous regions were they could have effectively fought a guerrilla war with the aid the locals. His troops saw first hand his lack of commitment to stopping the Japanese when he ran from the mainland to safety on the fortress of Corregidor. And when that looked bleak, he kept to form and sneaked away on a PT boat under the cover of darkness, like a meek night creature avoiding its carnivorous predator. MacArthur should have been demoted and placed stateside for the remainder of the war. His subsequent "accomplishments" were also questionable, since they were at very high cost of life, and any other commander could have achieved the same results, and probably with less losses and better overall results. A real leader would never abandon his troops and also never leave a second in command to face the music.

In Viet Nam, Denton Crocker with the 173rd Airborne found that "The officer types were mainly decent in their technical duties but over 50 percent are not intelligent enough, or perhaps I should say ambitious enough, to comprehend the political and deeper military aspects of the conflict. As for the NCOs, "many of whom are tops, I believe if it were not for them the unit could not function, and they have my real respect." (p. 311) A persistent theme, throughout all conflicts is that the quality of NCOs is far greater than the officers, and the success of the army is the result of their ability. Since that is obviously true, can anyone tell me why there is such a disparity in compensation between NCOs and officers. Also, why are officers needed to command if have not throughout history succeeded in their role which had to be taken over by the NCOs.


• Innovating: "the artillerymen invented a way to warm up their sleeping quarters. They took some unused powder charges, tossed them into their sleeping hole, lit a match, and Whoosh! We get a nice warm hole to sleep in." (p. 30)

  "...money [was] to be made on POWs. Every Kraut had a very good Swiss or German watch, which was usually grabbed... and thousands of dollars were made by POW guards" (p. 73).

  Nurse Frances Liberty found supplies were not adequate in Korea so "she used the bulky flight jacket like a shoplifter to conceal armloads of supplies" (p. 130)



• Flawed Policy: "The Division could still do its job and fight but would not willingly accept the casualty rate that it once could. When things got too tough or hopeless, there were ways, learned from bitter experience, to slow things down and reduce casualties. The cycle was typical of just about every division that fought in Europe in World War II and was a result of the American practice of keeping a division in the line and on the attack continuously even though it no longer had enough riflemen left to do any effective fighting." (p. 68)

  "More than thirty years after participating in the [Viet Nam] war, the typically blunt McCain was still expressing frustration at the way it was waged from the air" (p. 234)

  "The only bad thing about the infantry is you know you're going to be there until you're wounded and/or you get killed." (p. 285)

• Flawed Equipment: In Viet Nam, Phil Randazzo "couldn't depend on his M16 because it would jam on him, but that his machine gun was another matter. Those guns could really do a lot of talking." (p. 78)

  During Operation Iraqi Freedom, combat medic Wendy Taines' "biggest frustration was not having the equipment to deal with the various injuries they saw, especially those afflicting burn victims." (p. 139)
  

Some interesting points documented in the stories:

• "'...when we [101st Airborne, 506th Regiment] first approached Landsberg, you could smell it. ... [we] saw those poor, godforsaken human beings and the shape that they were in, they were walking skeletons.' The US soldiers went into town, rousted out all the old men, women, and children, and made them dig three common graves in which to put all the corpses. .. I believed everything now that I had heard in the past about the German atrocities. They did it, and they were responsible for it. How one human being can do that to another one, I don't have the answer.'" (pp. 15-16)
• Regarding a POW camp near Munich, "'The smell is what lingers with you.' Sudyk couldn't believe the German citizens when they said they didn't know what was going on." (p. 31)
• Sudyk served as an interpreter in Patton's entourage, and knowing Patton was a spit-and-polish guy, Sudyk had a local citizen put about ten coats of lacquer on his helmet. Sudyk allowed a trio of German nurses through his checkpoint so they didn't have to surrender to the Russian army. (p. 31)
• For a week or two several German shells were duds, saving many casualties. This was attributed to slave labor factory-workers sabotaging the fuses, as would later be documented in the book and movie Schindler's List. "Some Jewish factory worker probably saved my life." (p. 32)
• Arriving in Korea with the First Cavalry, Ball wondered "why he saw in the streets thousands of men younger than us who weren't fighting for their own country." "After his year of constant fear and primitive living conditions, Bud Ball found that people here didn't care about the war, that many Americans he talked to barely knew that he and his buddies were risking their lives in Korea." (pp. 53-55)
• Infantry in WWII were called Doughboys or Dogfaces. "They were not called GIs, an insulting term to a combat soldier. ...the only GI soldiers were those in the states that hung around service clubs, appeared in Hollywood movies, or had cushy rear area jobs." (p. 69)
• Charles Rembsburg, during WWII, noted "After seeing so much of France and observing its people of all walks of life, I can readily see why she fell. The nation itself is rotten to the core" (p. 87).
• Eugene Curtin, during WWI, found that whenever they took a new town, "everyone from the very old and bent women to the small kids saluted an officer when he passed, and when they were asked about it they said if they did not salute the German officers they were beaten or otherwise punished." (p. 117)
• During Operation Iraqi Freedom, "With liquor impossible to find, some of the men started drinking gasoline from trucks for the alcohol content." (p. 140)
• The 442nd Regimental Combat Team which was supposedly an all-Nisei (Japanese-American) outfit, "even selected men who were only one-eighth Japanese" (p. 169).
• Omaha Beach veteran, Johann Kasten "lauded the film Saving Private Ryan for recreating an accurate picture of that day's bloody mess. The first fifteen minutes [of that film] were so real that I was seriously affected for three days. Today, for the life of me, I still don't remember how we made it up the cliffs." (p. 226)
• In WWI, "The Frogs were the instructors and they were in no more hurry about flying than they were about anything else, so progress was slow." (p. 253)
• B-17 Navigator Milton Stern, parachuting from his damaged plane in Holland, "was fortunate that the first people he encountered when he hit the ground were not only Dutch citizens but Dutch citizens willing to risk their lives to help him." (p. 273) Stern was eventually turned in by a secret Nazi collaborator, but the Dutch figured out who it was and "That man was hung at the end of the war." (p. 274) While a POW, he watched as "14 of my Belgian friends were shot, one at a time, by a firing squad" for refusing to reveal information about the underground resistance (p. 276).

Click here to buy "Forever A Soldier: Unforgettable Stories of Wartime Service"

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning (1998) describes how the Germans organized and carried out the destruction of the widespread Jewish population in the smaller cities and towns throughout Poland. In a period of eleven months, about the remaining 75% of the Jewish population was eliminated by a short, intense wave of mass murder.

My Rating: Good (***). A well researched and scholarly book, providing insight into the enactment of the "final solution" by Nazi Germany.

The author sought the answer on how this was achieved by researching the post-war legal prosecution of the Reserve Police Battalion 101. The prosecution was carried out by the State Prosecutor in Hamburg. The proceeding show how ordinary men in a reserve police battalion were used to effectively carry out the extermination of the Jewish population in their area of authority. "They were middle-aged family men of working- and lower-middle-class background from the city of Hamburg. Considered too old to be of use to the German army, they had been drafted instead into the Order Police. Most were raw recruits with no previous experience in German occupied territory. ... the orders came from the highest authorities. ...The male Jews of working age were to be separated and taken to a work camp. The remaining Jews--the women, children, and elderly--were to be shot on the spot by the battalion. Having explained what awaited his men, [the commander] then made an extraordinary offer: if any of the older men among them did not feel up to the task that lay before him, he could step out." (pp. 1-2)

Many Germans were anxious to join the Order Police since they avoided serving in the regular army and could avoid the Eastern Front fighting the Russians. As the German advances were made, an occupation force was needed so the Order Police were used. The Order Police also recruited and supervised native police in the area of occupation. Poland was not the first place the Order Police were used for the extermination of the Jews. In 1942, in the Pinsk region of Russia, the Order Police were involved in extensive killing of Jews. "There was a tendency to assign the actual shooting duties to [native populations of auxiliary] units, in order to shift the psychological burden from the German police to their collaborators. This psychological burden was serious even to Bach-Zelewski himself. ...the SS leader was suffering especially from visions in connection with the shootings of Jews that he himself had led, and from other difficult experiences" (pp. 24-25).

"... one comes away from the story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 with great unease. This story of ordinary men is not the story of all men. The reserve policemen faced choices, and most of them committed terrible deeds. But those who killed cannot be absolved by the notion that anyone in the same situation would have done as they did. For even among them, some refused to kill and others stopped killing. Human responsibility is ultimately an individual affair." (p. 188)

Click Here to buy "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland"

D-Day June 6,1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II

D-Day June 6,1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose focuses on the D-Day invasion of German occupied France during World War II. The book starts the night before the landing with British airborne troops trying to take Pegasus bridge, covers the complete D-Day invasion in detail, and concludes at midnight of June 6th. It also covers the build-up in the United Kingdom of the invasion forces, including the logistical challenges. The book focuses a great deal on Omaha and Normandy beaches which were crucial to the success of the invasion, although it also covers to a lesser degree the Canadian and British contributions to D-Day. The author's attention to detail, narrative style of writing, and use of extensive eye-witness accounts (including Germans) for the basis of the book provide a very good picture of the challenges, heroism, and destruction of D-Day. The eyewitness accounts, especially those on Omaha Beach are quite riveting.

Ambrose is able to provide fresh facts about the battle through his interviews, even though the battle ended fifty years before the book was written. This seems to be the excellent contribution the author makes with this book.The author chooses to emphasize bravery, courage, and luck that all played a part in the invasion.

My Rating: Very Good (****). Ambrose writes well, like a novelist. Unfortunately, Ambrose's plagiarism which was widely publicized regarding some of his works, raises a question about the thoroughness of his research and how much of his writing is a paraphrase of someone else's work. In his defense, he has cited all of the works in question, with the argument being whether or not he should have used quotes for a paraphrase.

Ambrose’s research for this book found the story that became the source of the movie “Saving Private Ryan.”

Strategies:

1. Lead by example. Do as I do, not as I say. This is an attribute completely missing in today's business world where executives have a double standard for themselves and the rank and file. It is also true in the military as many examples are shown in other book review on this site where military leader in recent times (Iraq and Afghanistan) had a double standard than in WWII where officers had more honor. Most were also citizen soldiers, and had no intention of remaining in the military so they were not trying to rise to higher ranks over the bodies of others.

• Lt. Den Brotheridge led his platoon of British Paratroopers in the first ground combat of the day to take a bridge. He killed the first German of the day and seconds later became the first soldier killed on the ground.

• Lt. Robert Mason Mathias, E Company, 508th Parachute Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, was at the door of the C-47 transport plane ready to be the first to jump from the plane when a flak burst wounded him, knocking him off his feet. He struggled to his feet, raised his right arm and said 'Follow me' and jumped. He died from his wounds before he hit the ground (and probably could have survived with immediate first aid from the plane crew if had not jumped).

• Brig. General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., son of the late president, at age 56 with a bad heart, had to obtain special permission to go ashore on Utah with one of the first waves. His heart would not last the day.

• Assistant commander of the 29th Division, Brig. General Norman Cota went over the seawall at Omaha Beach "giving encouragement, directions, and orders to those about him, personally supervising the placing of a BAR, and brought fire to bear on some of the enemy positions on the bluff that faced them. Finding a belt of barbed wire inside the seawall, General Cota personally supervised placing a bangalore torpedo for blowing the wire and was one of the first three men to go through the wire. Six mortar shells fell into the immediate area. They killed three men and wound two others, but Cota was unharmed." (pp. 339-340)

2. Many individuals, not the senior officers, were the key to success. Each in a small way made a difference in winning or losing the war. It was not a battle of strategy played out by high ranking officers, but it was a battle won in the water, sand, trenches, and brush by the individual soldiers who often acted on their own, without orders. "I don't see how the credit can go to anyone other than the company-grade officers and senior NCOs who led the way. It is good to be reminded that there are such men, that there always have been and always will be." Sgt. John Ellery of the 16th Regiment (p. 359)
   

   The destroyers, seeing the troops pinned down on the beach may have saved the day. "This destroyer action against shore batteries ... afforded the troops the only artillery support they had during most of D-Day." (p. 388)

3. Successful logistics are the key to successful operations. The Allies had two advantages for successfully invading a country over a body of water: first, the Higgins boats; and second, the C-47 Dakota cargo plane. D-Day, Operation Overlord, was first a logistical operation, and then combat. "In one night and day, 175,000 fighting men and their equipment, including 50,000 vehicles of all types ... carried or supported by 5,333 ships and craft of all types and almost 11,000 airplanes." (pp. 24-25)

"Eisenhower said: '[Higgins] is the man who won the war for us. ...If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different." (p. 45) The Germans inability to invade Great Britain was their failure to have an adequate transport vessel in which to conduct the invasion. If they had one before the US entered the war, they probably would have succeeded in conquering all of Europe. "By the end of the war, Higgins Industries had produced over 20,000 LCVPs." (p. 46)

The Dakotas "were the most dependable, most rugged, best designed airplane ever built." (p. 47) They were used for the paratroopers and almost any logistical need. The combat plane that did the most to upset the German logistical support of their troops "was the B-26 Marauder, developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company. A medium bomber, it flew at low altitudes and could be extremely accurate, so it was the principal attacker of the railroad bridges and rail yards." (pp. 98-99)

4. Quality troops will make up for lack of experience. "... there was a vast difference between American draftees and their German counterparts. ...One-third of the men called to service were rejected after physical examinations, making the average draftee brighter, healthier, and better educated than the average American. ...These were the best-educated enlisted men of any army in history." (p. 48)
5. Teamwork was critical. Eisenhower may have learned from his experience as a staff officer during WWI that teamwork and a central leadership was critical to the success of the war. WWI showed fractional division among the Allies even though there was an overall commander of the effort. "Eisenhower's emphasis on teamwork, his never flagging insistence on working together" was his greatest attribute. (p. 66)
6. Clear-cut command was necessary. Eisenhower threatened to resign if he did not receive clear-cut overall command of all forces. "Thanks to the clear-cut command authority, a single-minded clarity of purpose pervaded Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)" (p. 69)
7. Training, training, training. Eisenhower stated "'From now on I am going to make it a fixed rule that no unit from the time it reaches this theater until this war is won will ever stop training.' As supreme commander, he enforced that rule." (p. 130) "Eisenhower spend a great deal of his time in the field, inspecting, watching training exercises." (p. 135)
8. Everyone needed to carry the supplies that could possibly be needed. The biggest failure of the Allied senior officers was their inability to realize they were limiting the ability of the first waves of the invasion force by bogging them down with uncessary equipment to complete their assigned task (take the beach area). It is astonishing that Eisenhower or any other commanding officer did not challenge the load the first wave soldiers were carrying. They were sent to their death, in particular, at Omaha Beach, because they drowned or were too water logged and weighed down to move fast enough.
   

   The first waves did not need backpacks and hundreds of pounds of equipment. Some soldiers almost carried their body weight in equipment. Those that were landed in water over their head found it difficult to stay afloat, some with even two Mae West life jackets. All they needed was enough ammunition to get them through six hours of combat--to take the beach and the accompanying bluff. They should have been sent ashore with 1/4 the load they had, and they could have been more effective in reaching the seawall. "'Our life expectancy was about zero,' Pvt. John MacPHee declared. 'We were burdened down with too much weight. We were just pack mules.'" (p. 347)
   

   Additionally, nobody in the first wave was assigned the duty to clear the hill on the beach. The first troops to make through the defenses kept moving to the assigned objectives on the mainland while Germans in the defenses kept firing at the arriving American troops. This opposition could have easily been terminated if the first troops were told to clear and secure the hill since the defense fortifications were constructed to survive a frontal attack, but they were very vulnable to flanking attacks and from behind (which troops could have done by doubling back once they reached the top of the hill).
   

Some opinions expressed about the participants:

• "[The Germans] found it remarkable that the British would abandon a pursuit to brew up their tea, and even more remarkable that British troops would surrender when their ammunition ran low, when their fuel ran out, or when they were encircled." (p. 50)
• "One reason for the shortcomings of the World War II British army was inferior weaponry." (p. 50)
• "...pacifism had eaten into the souls of British youth after the catastrophes of the Somme, Flanders, and elsewhere in World War I." (p. 50)
• "[British] contempt for all things American ... and the assumed superiority of British techniques, methods, tactics, and leadership" (p. 51).
• "[The British] always get other people to do the fighting for them, the Australians, the Canadians, the New Zealanders, the South Africans. They are very clever people these English." Field Marshall Rommel (p. 127)

Click here to buy "D-Day June 6, 1944: Climactic Battle of WWII"

Home Front USA: America During World War II

Home Front USA: America During World War II by Allan M. Winkler (2000) discusses, as its title suggests, the American home front during WWII. It includes four chapters covering The Arsenal of Democracy (the mobilization of the country for war), American Society at War, Outsiders and Ethnic Groups, and The Politics of War. The author thoroughly researched the topic, and supports topics and positions with references.

My Rating: Good (***)

Strategies Identified:

1. Eliminate risk to obtain results. The Government assumed all risk to ensure that industry would design and produce the war materials needed. A cost-plus-a-fixed system was put in place. Shipbuilder Henry Kaiser reduced the time to build a ship from 355 days in 1941 to 56 days, and even built a ship in 14 days.
2. Centralization and concentration produce better production capabilities. Large firms have labor pools, assembly lines, research staffs, and priority access to production material since they purchase large quantities. After two months of the war, there were 200,000 fewer employers, over 1/2 million small businesses failed, and 300,000 retailers closed. Large firms became larger. 100 companies accounted for 70% of the nation's defense production.
3. Deficit spending will take a stalled economy and spur it into improvement (Keynesian economic theory). The stalled post depression economy was rescued by defense spending which brought prosperity. A year after Pearl Harbor, the US economy was producing more than all its enemies combined.
4. Use the media and patriotism to allow ownership to reap profits at the expense of the workers. 87% of the public had a low opinion of the United Mine Workers. Unions were forced to strike (which was illegal during the war) for fair wage increases and appeared to be anti-troops by impeding war production.
5. Find ways to attach products to distribution channels. Robert Woodruff, head of Coca-Cola, convinced the army and navy that Coke was an essential drink for the troops and therefore succeeded in placing it wherever soldiers were deployed. This eventually led to the international demand for the product. Philip Wrigley did the same, by adding a stick of gum to every K ration package and using his own plants to pack the containers.
6. Propaganda gains support for the government's priorities. The US "conveyed its wartime goals through an organized propaganda program ... that focused on securing support both at home and abroad." (p. 32)

Buy "Home Front USA: America During WWII"