WWII History - October 2015

WW

II HISTORY OCTOBER 2015 V

olume 14, N

o. 6

MARINES VS. ARMY

Brutal Fighton SaipanHEARTBREAK CROSSROADS

Prelude to theBattle of the BulgeFighting Nazis in WarsawDoomed Defense of Bataan

ITALY’S MANNED TORPEDOES, NAZI KILLING SQUADS, HUNTING U-BOATS, BOOK & GAME REVIEWS, AND MORE!

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WWII HISTORY

4 WWII HISTORY OCTOBER 2015

Contents

Features32 Defending Bataan

American forces defending the Bataan Peninsula waged a determined resistanceduring the Philippines Campaign of 1941-1942.By Arnold Blumberg

40 The 2nd Infantry Division at Heartbreak CrossroadsThe Roer River dams of western Germany posed a serious threat to projected Alliedoperations into the Ruhr industrial region.By Cleve C. Barkley

50 The War Between the SmithsTwo commanding generals, one with the U.S. Marine Corps and the other with theArmy, were embroiled in a command controversy that began during the joint effort to capture Saipan.By David H. Lippman

58 Uprising!A Warsaw freedom fighter battles Nazi occupiers.By Yanek Mieczkowski

64 Subhunters Over the BayThe combined efforts fo RAF Coastal Command, the U.S. Army Air Forces, and theU.S. Navy defeated German U-boats in the disputed Bay of Biscay. By Patrick J. Chaisson

RETAILER: DISPLAY UNTIL NOVEMBER 2

MARINES VS. ARMY

Brutal Fighton SaipanHEARTBREAK CROSSROADS

Prelude to theBattle of the BulgeFighting Nazis in WarsawDoomed Defense of Bataan

ITALY’S MANNED TORPEDOES, NAZI KILLING SQUADS, HUNTING U-BOATS, BOOK & GAME REVIEWS, AND MORE!

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Columns06 EditorialOperation Magic Carpet brought Alliedfighting men and women home from the battlefields of Europe and Asia.

08 OrdnanceNumerous nations developed manned sub-mersibles to attack enemy shipping duringWorld War II and achieved some notablesuccesses.

14 ProfilesAdmiral Sir Max Horton of the Royal Navywas himself a submarine veteran.

22 InsightAfter seven decades, a helmet liner lost inWorld War II was returned to a soldier’s family.

26 Top SecretThe Nazi Einsatzgruppen began the war’smost closely guarded operation, the annihilation of the Jews.

72 BooksBritish and Polish paratroopers fought a des-perate battle for control of the road leadingto Arnhem during Operation Market-Garden.

78 Simulation GamingWorld War II meets trading card games, while the Company of Hereos series takes the British forces out for one more tour.

Cover: Private Joe Vegaof the 29th Infantry Divi-sion looks out for Japan-ese snipers from a fox-hole on Saipan.

See story page 50.

Photograph: NationalArchives

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Editor ialOperation Magic Carpet brought Alliedfighting men and women home from thebattlefields of Europe and Asia.

WHEN WORLD WAR II IN EUR OPE C AME TO AN END , GENERAL D WIGHT D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, published a victory message to thetroops. With eloquent brevity, he noted the accomplishments of the troops under his commandand offered advice for the future and the return for the majority of the men and women in uni-form to civilian life.

Eisenhower wrote, “The route you have traveled through hundreds of miles is marked by thegraves of former comrades. Each of the fallen died as a member of the team to which you belong,bound together by a common love of liberty and a refusal to submit to enslavement. Our com-mon problems of the immediate and distant future can be best solved in the same conceptions ofcooperation and devotion to the cause of human freedom as have made this Expeditionary Forcesuch a mighty engine of righteous destruction.

“Let us have no part in the profitless quarrels in which other men will inevitably engage as towhat country, what service, won the European war. Every man, every woman, of every nationhere represented has served according to his or her ability, and the efforts of each have contributedto this outcome. This we shall remember—and in doing so we shall be revering each honored graveand be sending comfort to the loved ones of comrades who could not live to see this day.”

While World War II had yet to end in the Pacific—Japan would fight on until the end ofAugust—many American soldiers read the commander’s stirring words on the decks of ships thatwere taking them home. More than 16 million Americans were in the military, and half that num-ber had been deployed overseas. Within weeks of the surrender of Nazi Germany an impressivesealift was underway.

Operation Magic Carpet, the code name given to the massive effort to bring Allied fighting menand women home from battlefields around the world, began in June 1945. However, by V-E Dayit had been in the making for some time. Under the auspices of the War Shipping Administration,the program had been in development since 1943 as planners grasped the enormity of the taskthat would confront them once victory was won.

From an American standpoint, Operation Magic Carpet eventually involved approximately370 ships of all kinds, from aircraft carriers to battleships, destroyers, attack transports, and evenpassenger ships. The British liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, painted in wartime drabgray camouflage, were packed with returning service personnel on more than one trans-Atlanticvoyage. Warships were converted to temporary troop transports with bunks stacked up to fivetiers high on aircraft carrier hangar decks to accommodate the returning soldiers.

In September 1945, the Pacific phase of Operation Magic Carpet began with the U.S. Navy’sTask Force 11 under the command of Admiral Forrest Sherman sailing from Tokyo Bay. The bat-tleships Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Idaho, along with two aircraft carriersand a destroyer squadron, made a stop at Okinawa and took on troops of the U.S. Tenth Armyfor the voyage across the Pacific.

At its peak in December 1945, almost 700,000 Allied military personnel were embarked fortheir return home. An average of 435,000 troops per month were transported during the 14-month duration of Operation Magic Carpet, and the aircraft carrier Saratoga set a record with29,204 repatriated, more than any other single ship involved in the effort. The British aircraft car-rier HMS Glory made three Magic Carpet voyages, the longest of these from the city of Manilain the Philippines to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

At the same time, former German and Italian prisoners of war were repatriated to war-ravagedEurope. Approximately half a million were returned home from POW camps in North America.

The Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen who won the victory in World War II returned hometo a different world. Winning the war was one thing. Winning the peace would prove an ardu-ous task as well.

Michael E. Haskew

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ON A DARK NIGHT IN SEPTEMBER 1941, MOVING AT PERISCOPE DEPTH, ANItalian submarine edged into Gibraltar Bay near the British harbor. Quietly, six men wearing rub-ber suits with breathing gear scrambled on to the submarine’s deck and mounted three 22-footlong torpedo-like vessels, two men per vessel. The three craft slid from the submarine, floated tothe surface, and began silently moving into the bay.

Fifty yards from their targets, they submerged.“You see your target ship outlined against the sky,” one of the six men later wrote. “You take

a compass bearing, flood the diving tank, and the water closes over your head. It is cold and darkand silent.”

Now submerged, the man to the front of each torpedo, the pilot, maneuvered his vessel throughthe harbor and beneath a British ship where he stopped the motor. While he held the submersiblein place, the second man attached two clamps to the keel of the British ship above him and ran aline between them. He then clambered over the pilot to the warhead on the front of the torpedo,attached that to the line, and clambered back.

The pilots detached the warheads, the torpedoes bucking slightly, started their motors, andslipped out from under the British ships.

“Now,” the Italian sailor wrote, “you can think of escape.”Two and a half hours later, the mines exploded, breaking the backs of the tanker Denbydale,

the cargo ship Durham, and the storage tanker Fiona Shell.The Gibraltar raid was one of the earliest uses in World War II of a weapon that would become

known as a “manned torpedo.” These were small craft, usually submersible, carrying one or twomen who rode on the outside of the vehicle, either astride it like a horse or in small compart-ments. The vessels usually had a detachable warhead and were used for surveillance and surrep-titious attacks on enemy shipping.

Invented and deployed by the Italians, who had used a similar weapon to sink two ships in WorldWar I, these manned torpedoes were used in 1941 to attack shipping in Valletta, Malta, and

I By Chuck Lyons I

Italy’s Daredevil Torpedo RidersNumerous nations developed manned submersibles to attack enemy shipping during World War II and achieved some notable successes.

Alexandria, Egypt, as well as at Gibraltar.Other combatants soon followed the Italianlead, developing their own versions of themanned submarine.

These were simple weapons, cheap and easyto mass produce, and during the war they wereeventually used by a number of countriesbesides Italy, including Great Britain, Germany,and Japan among the major powers and suchother participants as Yugoslavia and Egypt.

Submersible vehicles may have been used formilitary purposes as early as the 4th century BC,when, legend has it, Alexander the Great usedone for reconnaissance. The Middle Ages gavebirth to numerous designs for exploratory andmilitary submersibles, most of which werenever built.

The idea of using a small submarine tosneak up on a larger ship and plant explosivesto sink it has been around since at least theRevolutionary War. In 1775, Connecticut-born David Bushnell developed the Turtle, ahand-powered submersible using a hand-pow-ered drill and a ship’s auger to attach explo-sives to a ship. The Turtle was used unsuc-cessfully to attack British ships in New York


OrdnanceAKG Images

This post-World War II cinematic recreation of the Italian manned

torpedoes in action was said to be referencing the attack on British shipping

in the port of Gibraltar in 1943.

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in 1776 and was finally sunk.In 1909, British naval officer and designer

Godfrey Herbert developed what was probablythe first actual manned submarine, for which hereceived a patent. But the British War Officerejected use of the vessel in World War I.

It was then left to the Italian Navy to furtherdevelop the idea.

In November 1918, Italian naval officer Raf-faele Rossetti and another man, wearing div-ing suits but without any breathing apparatus,rode a primitive manned torpedo Rossetti hadhelped develop into an Austro-Hungarian navalbase at Pola on the Adriatic Sea. Using mag-netic mines they were able to sink the Austrianbattleship Viribus Unitis and a freighter. Butsince they had no underwater breathing gear,they had to keep their heads above water andwere taken prisoner.

In 1938, the Italian First Fleet Assault Vehi-cles unit was formed as a result of the researchand development efforts of Major Teseo Tesei,aided by Major Elios Toschi, who took Ros-setti’s 1918 idea and improved it with the addi-tion of a breathing apparatus that allowed thetorpedo and the men attached to it to submergeand remain underwater. Tesei’s vehicle, offi-cially named Siluro a lenta corsa (SLC), waslater nicknamed the Maiale (pig) because of thesteering difficulties it presented.

It was this vessel that was used in the Gibral-tar raid, although Tesei had been killed on July26, 1941, while attacking Malta on an SLC.

At about the same time, a similar idea wascoming to the fore in Poland.

In early 1939, as Hitler threatened, a publicappeal was made for Poles willing to sacrificetheir lives for their country by becoming “liv-ing torpedoes.” It is unclear, however, whethersuch a program had actually been developed orwas simply being envisioned. It is also unclear

how these volunteers were to be used, if at all.It is possible some sort of manned torpedo wasbeing planned, but how it would be used wasnever made public.

The early Italian vessels were electrically pro-pelled and had a maximum speed of three knotsand a range of up to 10 miles. Most of thesevessels and others developed during World WarII had hydroplanes at the rear, side hydroplanesin front, and a control panel. There were typi-cally four flotation tanks, two to the front andtwo aft, which were flooded or blown empty toadjust buoyancy and attitude as is done on asubmarine. The early vessels were equippedwith a compass. In some later versions, riders’seats were enclosed, and even domed cockpitswere added. Most manned torpedo operationswere conducted at night and during the newmoon to reduce the risk of detection.

Shortly after the September 1941 Gibraltarraid, the Italian Navy began work on a scut-tled tanker, the Oterra, in the harbor of Alge-ciras, Spain, within sight of Gibraltar. Tellingthe Spanish guards who were in place that theywished to clean the ship’s trimming tanks andto ensure the Oterra’s neutrality, the Italianspumped out the ship’s front, raising the bow,and then cut a hinged door and a watertightcompartment there.

After the “cleaning” was complete, the bowwas settled back into the water with the doorand the watertight compartment below thewaves. Telling the Spanish they were moving inboiler tubes to “overhaul the ship’s engines to beready for victory,” the Italians then loaded sev-eral 22-foot manned torpedoes aboard theOterra.

Beginning in early December 1942, the Ital-ians launched several manned torpedo attackson Allied shipping from the Oterra, usually inopen anchorages. In the first of those attacks,

Licio Visintini, who had organized the humantorpedo crews, was killed by the British, whowere in the habit of firing explosive charges intoGibraltar harbor each night. One of thosecharges caught Visintini and his partner. Theirbodies were found in the harbor two weeks later.

Around the same time, the Italians usedmanned torpedoes to attack shipping in theeastern Mediterranean, particularly in the har-bor of Alexandria, Egypt, where on December19, 1941, manned torpedoes put the 31,000-ton British battleships Valiant and Queen Eliz-abeth out of action.

By late 1942, the British had developed theirown manned torpedoes, which were calledchariots. The two British versions were 20 feetand 30 feet long, capable of speeds of 2.5 and4.5 knots, and each carried two men. Theywere capable of deployments of 5 and 51/2

hours, respectively.In October of that year, two of these new

chariots were carried into Norwegian watersaboard a fishing boat to take part in the pro-posed Operation Title attack on the 42,000-tonGerman battleship Tirpitz. The two chariotswere lost in a storm, however, and the opera-tion was called off.

In January 1943, five chariots were launchednear Palermo, Sicily. One was knocked out ofaction almost immediately when a big wavewashed over it, causing it to lose its limpetmines and the gear used to attach the warheadto a ship; another of the manned torpedoes wasalso damaged. The remaining three chariotswere able to continue into Palermo harbor,where they sank the Italian cruiser Ulpio Tra-iano and badly damaged the converted linerViminale.

All the chariots were lost in the raid throughequipment malfunction, human error, or inten-tional scuttling. One British submarine was also


Thule Italy

LEFT: The Italian manned torpedoes used during World War II were nicknamed ‘Maiala,’ or ‘Pig’ because of the challenges they presented in handling and steering. RIGHT: The crampedcockpit of an Italian manned torpedo reveals a few dials and the tiny steering wheel that the driver literally wrestled in order to steer the vessel.

Wikimedia Commons


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lost. One charioteer was killed in the attack,and seven others were captured. Two were res-cued by the British submarine Unruffled. Twoof the captured men later escaped from guardsin Rome and hid in the Vatican until the Amer-icans liberated the city in 1944. Two otherslater escaped from guards in Libya, found aBritish Army unit, and returned to England.

That same month, two British chariots weredeployed to Tripoli in North Africa and used tohelp prevent blockading ships from being sunkat the harbor mouth.

The most successful British chariot opera-tion, however, came in October 1943, whentwo Type 2 chariots were launched from a sub-marine in the Japanese-occupied harbor ofPhuket, Siam, and were able to sink two Japan-ese ships. British chariots were also successfullyused to survey the seabed along Normandy’scoast in preparation for the D-Day landings.

By 1944, the German Navy had its own tor-pedo-like vehicles.

The first German version, the Neger, was aone-man vehicle that carried a torpedo below

its hull. It had a range of 48 nautical miles atfour knots. The pilot sat in a covered cockpitwith air provided and navigated with a wristcompass. He aimed the torpedo by lining up anaiming spike on the vessel’s nose with a gradu-ated scale on the dome.

The Neger was not submersible, and waterwashing over the dome made visibilityextremely poor and aiming difficult, however.The torpedo was released with a lever in thecockpit, and the Neger often and unintention-ally became a suicide weapon when the torpedofailed to properly release.

A later German manned torpedo, theMarder, contained a nose tank, allowing it tosubmerge. Its maximum diving depth was 82feet. It carried a crew of two men and had twotorpedoes below its hull.

These German torpedoes were used mainlyalong the Normandy beaches at the time ofOperation Overlord.

During the night of July 5, 1944, a force of24 Neger boats attacked the Allied invasionfleet off the coast of Normandy, sinking the

British minesweepers Magic and Cato. Fifteenof the Neger vessels were lost in the attack.Then on the night of July 7, another 21 Negerboats launched a second attack, heavily dam-aging the Polish light cruiser Dragon, whichwas later scuttled, and sinking anotherminesweeper, HMS Pylades.

A German midshipman named K.H. Potthastis credited with sinking the Dragon. Potthastlater said that he saw several warships in quar-ter-line formation crossing his path and steeredto attack the rear ship, which seemed largerthan the others. At a distance of 300 yards, Pot-thast pulled the torpedo firing lever and turnedto escape. His torpedo struck the Dragon withsuch force, however, that it almost almosthurled his Neger out of the water.

“A sheet of flame shot upward from thestricken ship,” Potthast said. “Almost at onceI was enveloped in thick smoke, and I lost allsense of direction. When the smoke cleared Isaw that the warship’s stern had been blownaway.”

Potthast managed to regain control of hisNeger and left the area.

After more than six hours in the crampedcockpit, however, he dozed off. In the morninglight, a British corvette attacked. Potthast, suf-fering from an arm wound, managed to get outof the Neger and was taken aboard thecorvette. He was later flown to a British hospi-tal, where he was interrogated but refused togive up any information.

In the end, the interrogators told Potthastthat he was solely responsible for sinking the5,000-ton Dragon.

As one historian wrote, “All this cheered up[Potthast], who felt that his arduous traininghad not been wasted after all.”

During the fighting in Western Europe andalong the French coast, the Royal Navydestroyer Isis was also crippled while at anchorin the mouth of the Seine River. A Germanmanned torpedo was believed responsible.

On August 2, 1944, another 58 Negerhuman torpedoes and 22 Linsen boats (similarto PT boats) were launched against Allied ship-ping off Normandy. One Royal Navy destroyerescort, HMS Quorn, was sunk by a mannedtorpedo. The survivors spent up to eight hoursin the water before being rescued. Four officersand 126 ratings died. Forty-one of the Negersand all 22 Linsen boats were lost.

The Imperial Japanese Navy used similarmanned submersible craft. The Kaiten (Turn toHeaven) was, unlike the Allied and Germansubmersibles, a suicide vehicle. Although 10types of Kaiten were developed, only two wereproduced. Type 1 was 48 feet long and armed


SERVOMOTORS OPERATE RUDDER& DIVING PLANES

WARHEAD

DIVINGPLANECONTROL

BALLAST TANKS

DRIVE MOTOR

DIVING PLANES

RUDDER

BATTERIES

CONTRA-ROTATINGPROPELLERS

AMMETER

DEPTH GUAGE

COMPRESSEDAIR TANK

AIR GUAGE

RUDDER CONTROL

Wikimedia Commons

Having been on the receiving end of attacks by themanned torpedoes, the British adapted the Italian designfor a manned torpedo of their own. Dubbed the ‘Chariot,’the simple craft carried a sizable warhead and was actual-ly sent into action against the Axis, actually sinking anItalian cruiser.

Imperial War Museum

Two Royal Navy sailors wearing full diving suits sit atop their Chariot manned torpedo during training exercises.


with a 3,400-pound warhead. It was capableof a range of 85,300 yards and a speed of 30knots. The Type 2 Kaiten was slightly longerand capable of 40 knots while carrying thesame warhead. It had a hydrogen-peroxidepowerplant.

The final designed version was 54 feet longand carried a warhead containing 3,000pounds of high explosives. It was capable, itsdevelopers said, of sinking any warship afloat.

That at least was the “prophecy and hope,” asone historian wrote, but the reality was quitedifferent.

Only the Type 1 Kaiten, which was basicallya modification of the oxygen-propelled LongLance torpedo, was ever used in combat. Thesewould separate from their host submarines andspeed in the direction fed into their gyroscopes.Once within range, a Kaiten would surface asthe pilot checked his range and bearing via

periscope and made any necessary adjustments.He would then submerge, arm the warhead,and plow into the side of the targeted ship. Inthe beginning, the pilot could abandon the vehi-cle before collision and escape, but few did. Inlater versions, the pilot was locked into theKaiten cockpit. In action, the Kaiten was oper-ated by one man, but larger training modelscould carry two or even four men.


Both: U.S. Navy

Continued on page 76

LEFT: A Japanese suicide torpedo, or Kaiten, is launched from the deck of a cruiser into the rough waters of the Pacific Ocean. RIGHT: The fleet oiler USS Mississinewa burns furiouslyafter a successful attack by Kaiten against the U.S. anchorage at Ulithi Atoll in November 1944.


BRITISH PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL, WHO RODE IN A CAVALRYcharge in the Sudan in 1898, escaped from the Boers in 1899 and served for six months as a troopleader in the Western Front trenches in 1915-1916, remarked during World War II, “The only thingthat ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”

The former First Lord of the Admiralty had good reason to be alarmed. Shippinglosses from German U-boats had brought his country to within three weeks of star-vation in 1917, and two and a half decades later history was repeating itself with avengeance. When German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz intensified his offensive againstAllied shipping in the North Atlantic late in the spring of 1942, losses rose alarmingly.

The Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy, aided staunchly by units of the RoyalCanadian Navy and the U.S. Navy, were engaged in a desperate struggle in which noquarter was given. Dönitz, a former submariner himself, ordered his U-boat com-manders, “No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing crews of ships sunk....Be harsh, bearing in mind that the enemy takes no regard of women and children inhis bombing attacks on German cities.”

I By Michael D. Hull I

The Man Who Led the Charge Against the U-boats Admiral Sir Max Horton of the Royal

Navy was himself a submarine veteran.

The dour, poker-faced admiral, who had hatedthe British since his capture in the Mediterraneanin the last year of World War I, concentrated his1942 offensive in the “Black Pit” area south ofGreenland, where the underwater predatorswere out of reach of Allied air attacks. Picketlines of U-boats were stationed on both sides,enabling them to attack convoys sailing betweenNewfoundland and Ireland. Sinkings by Dönitz’sboats mounted, reaching a peak of 117 Alliedships totaling 700,000 tons in November 1942.

Yet all was not lost. When Churchill, Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt, and their militarystaffs met at Casablanca in January 1943, it hadbeen decided to make the defeat of the U-boatsa priority objective. “U-boat warfare takes thefirst place in our thoughts,” stressed Churchill.

The Casablanca talks led to a convoy confer-ence that March at which it was agreed to poolall antisubmarine resources and also for newlyformed U.S. escort carrier groups to be stationedin the mid-Atlantic. Allied scientists, meanwhile,had been busy developing improved antisubma-rine weapons and detection equipment to betterdefend the convoys. This included a microwaveradar system that the enemy could not penetrateand a “huff-duff” high-frequency radio direc-tion finder to breach U-boat communications.Escort destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and armedtrawlers were fitted with antisubmarine mortarbombs called hedgehogs, and the British intro-duced “squid” mortars, which fired depthcharges that were thrown ahead of the ship. Andmore escort vessels became available.

Admiral Dönitz, meanwhile, was reaching theconclusion that there were to be no more “happytimes” for his fearsome fleet. Sinkings of U-boatsmounted, and 40 were destroyed in the firstquarter of 1943. Dönitz now also had to con-tend with an equally ruthless foe, a fellow sub-marine veteran and underwater warfare pioneerwho would emerge as one of the crucial figuresin the Allied victory in the Atlantic. He was 59-year-old Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton.

On November 17, 1942, Horton had suc-

TOP: A depth charge sendsa plume of water skywardas it detonates off the fan-tail of a destroyer in theAtlantic Ocean. RIGHT:Royal Navy Admiral Sir

Max Horton, a veteran ofsubmarine action during

World War I, led the fightagainst Nazi U-boats dur-ing the critical World WarII Battle of the Atlantic.


ProfilesNational Archives

Imperial War Museum

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ceeded Admiral Sir Percy Noble as commanderin chief of the critical Western Approaches Com-mand, responsible for the day-to-day conduct ofthe battle against U-boats in the Atlantic. Dur-ing his 20 months at the helm of the WesternApproaches before being appointed head of theBritish Naval Mission in Washington, Noble haddone much to improve antisubmarine measuresand kept up the morale of escort and aircraftcrews with a close, personal touch. He was acharming and charismatic officer—but lackingin aggressive drive.

The complex Horton was a sharp contrast tohis predecessor. While Noble was a quiet-spo-ken naval gentleman, the rough-hewn Hortonregularly challenged authority and refused tosuffer fools gladly. A stern taskmaster who hadgained a reputation in the Navy as a bully and a“pirate,” he was to prove well chosen for thepost. He drove his new command hard from thestart, fraying the nerves of subordinates andmaking his firm grip felt by every ship’s com-pany. Admiral Sir Peter Gretton, a distinguishedescort group commander, observed that Hortonwas “ruthless in weeding out the weak andreplacing them by high-caliber officers.”

His chief of staff called Horton “a very greatman possessing a dual personality, having on theone hand charm and kindness of heart notalways realized, and on the other hand hardnesswhich could at times be terrifying even to thetoughest of men.” Another officer reported thatHorton “had more personal charm than anyman I have ever met, but he could be unbeliev-ably cruel to those who fell by the wayside.”

Born in 1883 into a military family and the sonof a wealthy stockbroker, Max Horton enteredthe Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon,as an officer cadet on September 15, 1898. At theHMS Britannia training school there, he becamea cadet captain, outstanding sportsman, and mid-

dleweight boxing champion. But he had a wildstreak, chafing at authority, being insubordinate,and causing trouble in the mess. His command-ing officer’s report in October 1907 cited Hor-ton’s intelligence and “excellent” leadership qual-ities but noted that he used bad language and wasa “desperate” motorcycle rider.

Horton chose the newly formed submarineservice as a career because it was the least stuffyand hidebound branch of the Navy. It offeredcommand at a young age and some freedomfrom authority and ceremonial ritual. Workingclosely and relying on each other’s technical andprofessional competence, officers and menenjoyed a special relationship. A submarine com-mander at sea or under it was independent, andthe lone wolf aspect appealed to Horton.

By the outbreak of World War I early inAugust 1914, Horton was already a lieutenantcommander and in charge of one of the first fewBritish ocean-going submarines, the 800-tonHMS E-9. He and a handful of other skipperssoon distinguished themselves in action despitethe fact that the diesel-powered British sub-marines, unlike U-boats, were plagued by con-stant mechanical troubles and a shortage ofspare parts. On September 13, the E-9 pene-trated the Heligoland Bight and sank the agingGerman light cruiser Hela with two torpedoesfrom a range of about 600 yards. A few dayslater, the E-9 sank the German destroyer S-116in enemy waters. On returning to his base atHarwich, Horton flew the skull-and-crossbonespirate flag, establishing a tradition in the RoyalNavy’s submarine service.

While patrolling off the Ems River in north-western Germany on October 6, 1914, the E-9torpedoed and sank the enemy destroyer S-126.Horton was awarded the Distinguished ServiceOrder and recommended for early promotion. InDecember 1914, the E-9 and two other British

submarines were deployed to the frigid BalticSea, where they wreaked havoc on German ship-ping. Horton sank a number of vessels there,including a destroyer, four merchantmen, and acollier, and seriously damaged the cruiser PrinzAdalbert. Because of his bold actions, the enemycalled the area “Horton’s Sea” and put a price onhis head.

Horton operated in the North Sea from Jan-uary 1916 onward and emerged from WorldWar I as the British submarine commander mostfeared by the Germans. He was given commandof the Baltic Submarine Flotilla early in 1919. ARussian request for him to be appointed thesenior naval officer in the Baltic was opposed bythe Second Sea Lord, who said, “I understandCommander Horton is something of a pirate andnot at all fitted for the position of SNO in theBaltic.” But the audacious submariner wasawarded a bar to his DSO and promoted to cap-tain in June 1920 at the age of 37.

After commanding the light cruiser HMSConquest and the 29,150-ton battleship Reso-lution during the 1920s, Horton was promotedto rear admiral in October 1932. He flew hisflag aboard the 30,600-ton Queen Elizabeth-class battleship Malaya for three years and thenled the First Cruiser Squadron, flying his flagaboard the 9,830-ton HMS London. Given therank of vice admiral in 1937, he then com-manded the Reserve Fleet. He was credited withmobilizing the fleet by the time war came.

At the outbreak of World War II, Admiral Hor-ton was placed in command of the Royal Navy’sNorthern Patrol, which enforced the distant mar-itime blockade of Germany in the waters betweenOrkney, Shetland, and the Faeroes. When theAdmiralty decided to revitalize the submarine ser-vice, Horton was called to take charge in Janu-ary 1940. Drawing on his World War I experi-ences, he displayed strategic intuition, achieved a


National Archives National ArchivesImperial War Museum

Max Horton (left), photographed during World War I.Admiral Karl Dönitz (right), also a veteran of World WarI, commanded the U-boat force that posed a serious threatto Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. LEFT: Crew-men aboard the German submarine U-203 return to thesafety of a French port following a successful wartimecruise. During its brief career, the crew of U-203 sank 21Allied merchant ships but was hunted down and sunk in1943 by British Fairey Swordfish torpedo planes workingin conjunction with the destroyer HMS Pathfinder.


W-Bradford B-17 FP Oct2015.qxp_FP 7/16/15 4:36 PM Page 1

close relationship with Coastal Command, andwas a tireless leader. Horton reached four-staradmiral status in January 1941.

Horton’s appointment to lead WesternApproaches was a well-timed and inspiredstroke, and he brought new earnestness to thecommand. Admiral Noble had laid fine ground-work and made the command run smoothly, buthis dynamic successor swiftly instituted improve-ments and was a more relentless match forDönitz and his U-boat scourge.

Horton understood the workings of the mindsof Dönitz and his commanders. Captain StephenW. Roskill, the eminent gunnery expert andRoyal Navy historian, said of Horton, “With hisknowledge and insight, his ruthless determina-tion and driving energy, he was without doubtthe right man to pit against Dönitz.” The Ger-man admiral eventually dubbed him “my ownpersonal adversary-in-chief.” Horton’s grasp ofthe essentials was immediate, and on his first dayin office he picked up where Noble had left off.

Able to reap much of what his predecessorhad laboriously sown, Horton took over at acritical time when the insecurity of the NorthAtlantic threatened the Allied war effort, partic-ularly the planned liberation of northwesternEurope, and demanded the undivided attentionof senior naval officers and officials in London

and Washington. Swiftly and tirelessly, Horton strove to provide

increased protection for the convoys carryingmen, arms, and matériel from America andCanada to the British Isles. He demanded morelong-range aircraft support, including B-24 Lib-erator bombers, Coastal Command Short Sun-derland flying boats, and Royal Air Force

Bomber Command Handley Page Halifaxbombers. He rushed through advances inweaponry, such as rockets for carrier planes, andassigned special rescue trawlers to convoys,which eventually saved the lives of thousands ofAllied seamen.

Most importantly, Horton ordered a seriesof changes in the operation of convoy escorts


National Archives

Crewmen aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer watch the waters of the Atlantic Ocean brew up with the detona-tion of a depth charge. This photograph was taken while the Spencer was defending a trans-Atlantic convoy, visible inthe background, against a German U-boat attack.


while sinkings by U-boats were still “the realdanger.” He boldly reduced all convoy escortgroups by one vessel to allow the creation offive support groups able to hit back at the U-boats in the mid-Atlantic. Horton reasonedthat the U-boats, accustomed to being attackedfrom the direction of a convoy, would bethrown off balance when the support groupscame in attacking from all quarters.

The groups each comprised six to eightdestroyers, frigates, or corvettes, occasionally aBritish or American escort carrier, and MAC-ships, converted tankers and grain ships eachcarrying three or four Fairey Swordfish torpedo

bombers. Based in Newfoundland and Iceland,the support group vessels had no escort dutiesbut were used to hunt U-boats and rush to theaid of convoys under attack. The supportgroups, said Churchill, were “to act like cavalrydivisions.... This I had longed to see.”

Horton was a training fanatic, so he set aboutensuring that sailors and seamen operating inthe Western Approaches were fully able andmotivated to cope with the rigors of antisubma-rine warfare. An escort commander reported,“He drove and drove and drove at training,shore training at their bases, sea training, sea andair training all the time, even when with the con-

voys.” Horton established the North AtlanticTactical Training School in Liverpool, where,according to Sir Robert Atkinson, his brilliantleadership turned out “a highly trained force.”

Horton also set up a “school of battle” atthe Northern Ireland seaport of Larne in earlyFebruary 1943. Centered around HMS Phil-ante, a converted luxury yacht, and two sub-marines, the school’s aim was to “exerciseescort vessels in the art of sinking U-boats.”The school, observed Admiral Gretton, was “athoroughly practical affair and of great value.”Horton took a keen interest in the school’sprogress and went to sea in the Philante forimportant tactical experiments.

Horton displayed remarkable strategic sensein the disposition of his forces, and his supportgroups made persistent and successful counter-attacks against Dönitz’s wolf packs. The tidebegan to turn in the bitter Atlantic struggle. InApril 1943, Dönitz’s crews sank 328,000 tonsof shipping, half the preceding month’s total, and14 U-boats were destroyed, seven by escorts andseven by aircraft. For each three merchant shipslost, a German submarine was destroyed. Admi-ral Horton sent a message to WesternApproaches naval and air units in which heobserved, “The tide of the battle has beenchecked; the enemy is showing signs of strain.”


National Archives

After their U-boat quarry has sustained damage from an effective depth charge attack and risen to the surface, crewmenof the Spencer pick up survivors before the stricken submarine plunges to the bottom of the Atlantic.


The showdown commenced on April 28,when a slow-moving, westbound convoy code-named ONS-5 was ambushed in the NorthAtlantic by several wolf packs. Escorted by adestroyer, a frigate, and four corvettes, the 42merchantmen were zigzagging through stormsand fog when 51 U-boats closed in. Some of theescorts had to withdraw for refueling, but twoescort-hunter groups sped to the aid of the con-voy. At intervals when the foul weather permit-ted, Allied planes flew in to strafe the U-boats orforce them down. When the battle ended onMay 6, a dozen Allied ships had been sunk, butalso seven enemy submarines. The attack onONS-5 was the biggest of the Atlantic war, withthe heaviest losses.

Four other convoys against which Dönitz dis-patched wolf packs that climactic month com-pleted their crossings unscathed, although six U-boats were sunk in vain attacks. During the nextthree weeks, 12 Allied convoys traversed theBlack Pit with the loss of only five vessels, whilethe escort groups and patrol bombers sank 13 ofAdmiral Dönitz’s U-boats. A number of otherswere severely damaged. Losses of 30 percent thatMay represented a rate that his U-boat com-mand could no longer tolerate, and even the highmorale of his well-trained, seasoned crews wasseriously shaken.

The German losses were brought sharply homefor Dönitz when he learned that his 20-year-oldyounger son, Sub-Lieutenant Peter Dönitz, andall his comrades had perished in the sinking of U-954. Adding to the admiral’s woes, meanwhile,was the fact that more of his boats were beingsunk by B-24s, Sunderlands, and Vickers Welling-tons of RAF Coastal Command along the west-ern coast of France and in the Bay of Biscay. Bythat time, life at sea for the U-boat sailors wasalmost unbearably arduous and perilous.

Dönitz reported to Hitler, “We are facing thegreatest crisis in submarine warfare, since theenemy, by means of new location devices, makesfighting impossible and is causing us heavylosses.” Dönitz said later, “In the submarine war,there had been plenty of setbacks and crises ...but we had always overcome them because thefighting efficiency of the U-boat arm hadremained steady. Now, however, the situationhad changed. Radar, and particularly radar loca-tion by aircraft, had to all practical purposesrobbed the U-boats of their power to fight on thesurface. Wolf-pack operations against convoys inthe North Atlantic ... were no longer possible.”

Concluding reluctantly, “We had lost the Bat-tle of the Atlantic,” Dönitz ordered his sub-marines on May 24 to withdraw from the NorthAtlantic to an area southwest of the Azores.Admiral Horton was able to triumphantly signal


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his escorts, “In the last two months, the Battle ofthe Atlantic has undergone a decisive change inour favor. All escort groups, support groups,escort carriers and their machines, as well as theaircraft from the various air commands, havecontributed to this great success. The climax ofthe battle has been surmounted.”

After June 1943, the U-boats never againposed a threat to Britain’s lifeline, upon whichdepended the massive Allied invasion of Nor-mandy a year later. New destroyers and otherpurpose-built escort vessels entered service inincreasing numbers, and merchant shipping con-struction was finally outstripping losses.Although U-boats were still being built at a ratethat kept pace with sinkings, the new crewslacked the training and experience of their pre-decessors.

Dönitz would not yield and renewed his offen-sive in September-October 1943. But he wasfighting a losing battle. Out of 2,468 Allied mer-chant ships that sailed in 64 North Atlantic con-voys during that period, only nine were lost.Twenty-five U-boats were destroyed. This causedDönitz to stop deploying his boats in largegroups.

When Britain made an agreement with Portu-gal and took over two air bases in the Azoresearly in October, Allied planes were able to cover

the whole North Atlantic, and worse losses befellthe U-boat fleet. In the first three months of1944, only three merchantmen were sunk out ofthe 3,360 that crossed in 105 convoys, and 36U-boats were sent to the bottom. Dönitz can-celled all further operations against convoys andtold Hitler that there could be no renewal with-out new types of U-boats, better defensive equip-ment, and air reconnaissance.

After almost five years of severe hardships andterrible losses in lives, ships, and matériel, theAllies won the crucial Battle of the Atlantic. With-out that victory, Operation Overlord could nothave been mounted on June 6, 1944. A few U-boats remained in action, nevertheless, until theend of the European war. On May 7, 1945, theday on which the unconditional German surren-der was signed, two merchant ships were sunkoff the Firth of Forth in Scotland by U-2336.

No man did as much to ensure Allied victoryin the unforgiving Atlantic as Admiral Max Hor-ton. Shrewd, intelligent, and energetic, he madesound decisions that swiftly bore fruit at themost critical time of the war. He refused to tol-erate inefficiency and did not shrink from oppos-ing Churchill or the RAF while fighting forscarce resources. His abrasive personality wonhim few friends in the press or among senior offi-cers in the Royal Navy, but his zeal and dedica-

tion brought wide respect.Fleet Admiral Sir Andrew B. “ABC” Cun-

ningham, the famed commander of the Mediter-ranean Fleet, First Sea Lord, and naval adviser toChurchill, said of him, “Horton I have a greatadmiration for, although I do not think his judg-ment is always sound. His main fault, in myopinion, is that he sets everyone by their ears andis inclined to bully his immediate juniors. He is,however, full of energy.... He loved power, andused it mercilessly, taking upon himself the man-tle of the strong man apart. He was not of thetype who could reprimand an officer on thequarterdeck and afterwards enjoy a glass of ginwith him in the wardroom.... He framed his pol-icy on the survival of the fittest, and was sparingwith his praise.”

Besides the DSO and bar, Admiral Horton wasawarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Orderof the Bath for his outstanding service. At hisown request, he was placed on the retired list inAugust 1945 so as to facilitate the promotion ofyounger officers. He traveled in France and otherparts of Europe after the war and died at the ageof 67 on July 30, 1951.

Michael D. Hull is a frequent contributor toWWII History. He resides in Enfield, Connecticut.



FIRST LIEUTENANT WILLIAM PARKS OF THE 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION LEFT Asnow-camouflaged helmet liner behind when the storied Screaming Eagles moved out followingthe American victory in the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945.

Seventy years later, the rare World War II relic is stateside with the paratrooper’sdaughter, Patricia Parks Blaine, an education professor at West Kentucky Com-munity and Technical College in Paducah. There is no doubt that the liner belongedto her dad, who died in 1993 at age 78. “PARKS WILLIAM” is scratched inside.

“When I saw the etched name, I said to myself, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s his!’” Blaineremembered. “I recognized his writing.”

Blaine and the liner have been united thanks to retired Dallas attorney Joe Cza-jkowski, who got it last November from Charles Sibille, a Belgian friend. Sibille askedCzajkowski to try to return the relic to Parks or to somebody in the soldier’s family.

Czajkowski flew home to Texas determined to track down “PARKS WILLIAM”or a relative, a task that seemed daunting. He confessed he did not know where tostart his search. “Do I contact the Department of Defense? Do I contact the Veter-ans’ Administration?” he thought.

Then it dawned on him: surf the net.He sat down at his computer and Googled “William Parks” and “Battle of the

Bulge.” Czajkowski immediately got the hit he was seeking, a link to a story in aPaducah publication about a college-sponsored World War II tour Blaine led inMay 2014. “It took me maybe 15 seconds to find Pat,” he said with a grin.

At Bastogne, Blaine had found where her dad and his fellow soldiers were dugin on a hillside. The tour bus driver made a special trip past the site. Blaine had noidea that a few months later she would have the liner Lieutenant Parks may haveworn under his steel pot at Bastogne.

I By Berry Craig I

The Wayward HelmetLiner After seven decades, a helmet liner lost in

World War II was returned to a soldier’s family.

Meanwhile, her new friend Czajkowski alsodiscovered a photo of Parks on the 101st Air-borne Division Association’s website. Hecopied the image and e-mailed it to Blaine alongwith a note explaining that he had her father’shelmet liner. Blaine and her husband, Linford,were skeptical at first, but subsequent emailsfrom Czajkowski included photos of the linerwith Parks’ name clearly visible.

The lieutenant led the First Platoon in EasyCompany of the 502nd Parachute InfantryRegiment. The regiment was part of the

approximately 12,000-man 101stAirborne Division contingent atthe Battle of the Bulge, the largestand bloodiest battle the U.S.Army ever fought.

On July 1, 1941, the 502nd,dubbed the “Five-oh-deuce,” wasactivated as a parachute infantrybattalion. In August 1942, the502nd became the 101st Air-borne’s first organic parachuteinfantry regiment, according toArmy records.

The Battle of the Bulge beganearly on December 16, 1944,when approximately 200,000German troops supported bytanks and other armored vehiclessprang a surprise attack out ofthe snowy Ardennes, the rough,hilly, and thickly timbered regionwhere Belgium, Luxembourg,

TOP: Soldiers of the 101stAirborne Division patrol

the perimeter of thebesieged town of

Bastogne, Belgium, duringthe Battle of the Bulge.

ABOVE: Lieutenant William Parks of the 101stAirborne Division lost his

helmet liner as his unit moved out.


InsightNational Archives

Patrica Parks Blaine

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and France converge. Before the 82nd and101st Airborne Divisions arrived as reinforce-ments, only about 83,000 Americans stoodbetween the Nazis and victory.

Supported by artillery and advancing on a60-mile front, German infantry and armorshoved a deep salient in the American lines.Because General Dwight D. Eisenhower, theSupreme Allied Commander, had thrown somany troops into November offensives northand south of the Ardennes, his reserves con-sisted only of the 82nd and 101st AirborneDivisions.

The 101st was resting and refitting at CampMourmelon, France, near Reims, when the menreceived orders to head to the front. Poorweather prevented a parachute drop; the para-troopers would travel in trucks. The “Scream-ing Eagles” departed, undaunted by cold rainand sleet. Speed was of the essence. After darkthe trucks proceeded with their headlights on,risky business in a combat zone.

The division was bound for Bastogne a littleover 100 miles to the east. “For the para-troopers packed in the trucks, Bastogne wasjust a rear area town housing a corps head-quarters where they would probably get theirorders,” wrote author Peter Elstob. “Nonecould have guessed that it was a name that wasabout to become part of their division’s andtheir country’s history.”

Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, the 101stcommander, would miss out on that history. Hewas stateside at a Washington staff conference.Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the division’sartillery commander, found himself acting com-mander of the 101st Airborne Division as thetroops raced toward Bastogne. McAuliffe couldnever have conceived in his wildest imaginingsthat someday his children’s children would visitthis small town in southern Belgium to stand inthe Grand Place, which would then be named“Place McAuliffe.”

The entire division was in Bastogne by themorning of December 19. Parks and the 502ndwere deployed north and northwest of Bas-togne. Soon, the Germans encircled the ancientmarket town that was the road and railroadhub of the Ardennes.

“It was kind of like a doughnut,” Parksremembered. “The Germans were the dough-nut. We were the hole.”

Parks also said his men showed considerableYankee ingenuity while fighting the Nazis in win-ter weather. Many of the enemy soldiers worewhite suits for camouflage in the deep snow. TheAmericans had only GI olive drab uniforms.Parks said they devised their own camouflage bytaking off their white longjohns and wearing

them on the outside of their clothing.Besides the paratroopers, another 10,800 or

so GIs also hung on in Bastogne, includingCombat Command B of the 10th ArmoredDivision. They were an assortment of rear areasoldiers plus artillery, combat engineer, andtank destroyer outfits.

The enemy expected to quickly wipe out Bas-togne’s beleaguered defenders or force them togive up. The Germans outnumbered the GIsabout five to one, according to some sources.On the American side, heavy winter clothing,food, ammunition, medical supplies and justabout everything else the GIs needed to holdthe town were in short supply.

On December 22, the Germans demandedthe Americans surrender or face “total annihi-lation.” McAuliffe famously replied, “Nuts.”Four days later, 4th Armored Division Shermantanks from Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.’s sto-ried Third Army broke through the Germanlines to relieve Bastogne.

The weather also helped the Americans turnthe tide. The U.S. Army Air Forces and BritishRoyal Air Force had almost total air superior-ity over the Western Front, but dense fog andthick clouds over the Ardennes had kept theAllied air forces grounded. No sooner did thefog dissipate and the skies clear than lumberingC-47 transport planes showered Bastogne’sdefenders with supplies while speedy P-47Thunderbolt fighter bombers pounded the Ger-mans with bombs, rockets, and .50-calibermachine-gun bullets.

Even so, bloody fighting continued in theBulge into mid-January. But before the monthwas out, U.S. forces had erased German incur-sion and were preparing to strike at Germanyitself.

On January 18, 1945, VIII Corps relieved the101st in Bastogne. The division departed with

a receipt from the corps command thatacknowledged: “Received from the 101st Air-borne Division, the town of Bastogne, Luxem-bourg Province, Belgium. Condition: Used butserviceable.”

The 101st Airborne’s courageous role indefending Bastogne earned the division a Dis-tinguished Unit Citation (now a PresidentialUnit Citation). It was said to be the first time inArmy history that a whole division had receivedthe award.

The successful defense of Bastogne was thekey to German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge.The Screaming Eagles’ do-or-die stand earnedthem the nickname “The Battered Bastards ofBastogne.” Both sides were battered. About75,000 Americans were killed, wounded, cap-tured, or listed as missing. German casualtiestotaled as many as 100,000, according to offi-cial U.S. Army sources.

Parks’ helmet liner started on its almost7,000-mile journey to Kentucky last Novem-ber when Joe and his wife, Mary Pat, visitedCharles and his wife, Anne, in Saint-Prex,Switzerland. The Sibilles also maintain a homein Brussels, the Belgian capital. “I was a lawyerfor Exxon, and Charles was at one time alawyer for our affiliate in Belgium,” Cza-jkowski explained.

“Regrettably I have very limited informationto provide regarding the helmet’s history,”Sibille later explained in an email he asked Cza-jkowski to forward to Blaine. The olive-greenliner, which fit inside a steel helmet, is inremarkably good condition. Most of the clothwebbing is intact, as is much of the white paintor whitewash that was daubed on it to providebetter concealment in snow.

Sibille said that in the unusually cold andsnowy winter of 1944-1945, his father was ayoung lawyer practicing in Ouffet, Belgium,about 50 miles northwest of Bastogne. “Iremember my dad saying that American troopsstayed in the village during and after the Battleof the Bulge. He also mentioned that he and mymother gave hospitality to American officersduring that period.”

Sibille suggested that Parks may have beenquartered in his parents’ home and perhaps for-got to take the liner when he and his men left.Sibille was glad the liner remained behind. Herecalled that as children he, his brothers, andtheir friends enjoyed reenacting World War IIbattles using relics, including the helmet liner,and a steel German helmet.

“I remember vividly that we often quarreledand generally ended up tossing the dice todecide who was going to wear the Americanhelmet because the game was always ending



“Parks William” is visibly etched inside the helmet linerthat Parks lost during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.Parks died in 1993, but the lost artifact was eventuallypresented to his family.


with the Americans crushing the Germans!” hesaid in the email.

Sibille remembered that after their parentsdied the children sold the family home. “Whileclearing up the attic I rediscovered the helmetand decided to take it to my house as a sou-venir of our war games during my childhood.”

Sibille said he did not notice Parks’ nameuntil shortly before he gave the liner to Cza-jkowski, whose 96-year-old father, retiredArmy Lt. Col. Anthony F. Czajkowski, is alsoa Battle of the Bulge veteran. Like Parks, whoretired as a major, he earned a Bronze Star forbravery in battle during World War II.

In the email, Sibille said that when he spot-ted Parks’ name, he felt his “mission was toreturn the helmet to its former owner or hisheir(s).” Sabille added, “Your being the son ofa WW2 veteran who took part in the effort offreeing Belgium from the Nazis, I believe youare the ideal person to present the helmet to Lt.Parks’ daughter.

“Please tell Lt. Parks’ daughter how gratefulthe Sibille family is for what the United Statesdid during World War II. Without the courageand sacrifices of these young men, we wouldstill be part of Germany! Tell her also howdelighted I am of this happy ending.”

The Czajkowskis presented the liner to Blaineand her husband, an Army veteran of the Viet-nam War, in an impromptu January ceremonyat the Paducah hotel where the Texans stayedduring their trip from Dallas. The festivitiesincluded champagne, Belgian chocolates, and World War II big band music playing from

Czajkowski’s iPhone.He had Blaine unveil the liner, which was

inside a glass case he had built to protect therelic. The liner is at home with the Blaines, wholive near Bandana, a small farming communitynear Paducah.

Lieutenant Parks, from Cristopher, Illinois,joined the Army around 1940 after serving inthe Depression-era Civilian ConservationCorps. He also fought in the Korean War, hisdaughter said.

Parks came to Paducah in 1955 to help orga-nize a local Army reserve unit. “It was his lastassignment before he retired,” Blaine said.

Parks made combat jumps into Normandyon D-Day, June 6, 1944, and in Holland on Sep-tember 17, 1944, during Operation Market-Garden. The college-sponsored trip includedstops in Normandy.

“He told me that when he jumped at Nor-mandy it looked like the world was coming toan end,” said Linford Parks, who is retired.“There were fires everywhere. The Germanswere shooting at the planes. Antiaircraft shellswere exploding everywhere.

“I asked him if he was reluctant to come outof the plane in Holland knowing what had hap-pened in Normandy,” Parks concluded. “Hesaid, ‘Hell no! The damn plane was on fire[from German antiaircraft guns].’ He said thepilots jumped, too, and they made infantrymenout of them.”

A first-time contributor to WWII History, BerryCraig resides in Mayfield, Kentucky.



Lieutenant William Parks’ daughter, Patricia Parks Blaine, points to her father’s name etched on the inside of a helmetliner lost during World War II. Dallas, Texas, attorney Joe Czajkowski (right) worked tirelessly to track down the familyof the former 101st Airborne officer and bring the helmet liner home.


THE WIDE-SCALE MURDER OF JEWS BY NAZI GERMANY BEGAN IN POLAND INSeptember 1939, protested only by German Army Generals Johannes Blaskowitz and Georg Kuchler.

Indeed, in some cases the Army even aided the Death’s Head units of the SS in the Polish campaignby killing Jews under the thin guise that they were, in fact, enemy partisans operating behind the Ger-man lines. This stratagem would be vastly expanded when the Soviet Union was invaded on June 22,1941, the rule being, “Where there is a Jew, there is a partisan; where there is a partisan, there is a Jew.”

In the Soviet Union, the killing escalated as SS General Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA (ReichSecurity Main Office), established, organized, and dispatched to the Baltic Republics and WesternRussia six major units attached to the German Army for the specific purpose of killing what hetermed “hostile elements,” above all, the Jews.

These so-called Einsatzgruppen (Special Task Forces) were commanded in the field by young, moti-vated, highly educated soldiers who in civilian life were lawyers, and their ranks consisted of mem-bers of Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, or SD), the overall General SS, the Nazi Party’sStorm Troopers(SA), the German State Regular Police, and later combat troops from the Waffen SSDeath’s Head and Wiking Divisions.

Immediately after the war and for many decades thereafter, various German veterans’ organizationsfalsely denied that the combat arm of the SS had anything at all to do with atrocities known to havebeen carried out by their organizational cousins in the dreaded Einsatzgruppen.

Mobilized initially during the 1939 Polish Campaign, the major heinous activities perpetrated bythe Einsatzgruppen occurred during 1941-1942 with the outright murder of hundredsof thousands of Soviet Jews in both Russia and Ukraine.

Working closely with the local police and the native non-Jewish populations, the Ger-man Order Police jointly served as the primary moving force of the Nazi Final Solu-tion of the Jewish Question in Europe prior to the establishment of the more infamousdeath camp extermination combines.

And that was not all, either. Besides Jews, and often assisted directly by the localpolice of the invaded territories, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen murdered gypsies, homo-

I By Blaine Taylor I

The Killing SquadThe Nazi Einsatzgruppen began the war’s most closelyguarded operation, the annihilation of the Jews.

sexuals, and Communist Party officials.Together, the locals and their invaders rounded

up entire populations of occupied towns, exe-cuting them by shooting and then throwing theirbodies into pits that served as mass graves.

Tiring of this time-consuming, costly, and emo-tionally draining effort, the killers soon deployedgas vans, sealed truck passenger compartmentsinto which the vehicles’ fumes were diverted, tokill their prisoners while in transit from one spotto another.

Originally, Heydrich organized his Einsatz-gruppen into six units that would eventuallyencompass some 20,000 men and women. Eachunit included Waffen SS, motorcycle riders,administrators, SD personnel, criminal police,state police, auxiliary police, regular police,female secretaries and clerks, interpreters, andteletype and radio operators. These units were, ineffect, completely mobile, and self-contained.

In addition, at a time when the regular GermanArmy was only partially mobilized in June 1941,with much of its field artillery still being horsedrawn, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, leader ofthe SS, ensured that his individual killing unitswere fully mobile with a complement of 180trucks each. The troops themselves were wellarmed with either rifles or automatic weapons.

Himmler and Heydrich, actingon the direct orders of GermanChancellor Adolf Hitler verballyand Reich Marshal HermannGöring in writing in July 1941,fully intended to kill not only Jews,but also 25 to 30 million Slavs allthe way to the far-off Ural Moun-

A mother clutches her childnear Ivangorod, Ukraine asa German soldier takes aim

at close range. The rifles of additional German

soldiers, members of the Einsatzgruppen executionsquads, are visible at left.


Top Secret

All: National Archives

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W-Macromark FP Oct2015.qxp_FP 7/23/15 8:01 AM Page 1

tains in Soviet Asia. This would clear the vastgrassland steppes for future German colonization.

At first, during June-July 1941, the SS mem-bers themselves were not fully and closelyinvolved in the killings, instead encouraging thelocal populations of the invaded territories to killtheir own Jews in alleged spontaneous uprisingsthat they both aided and abetted.

Indeed, to further enflame these locals the Ger-mans opened up all the communist jails and dis-

played the dead left behind by the retreating RedArmy political commissars, blaming these grislykillings on the Jews.

But even as they were actively encouraging thesedomestic killings and also participating in them,the SS nonetheless nervously approached theirgory tasks. One SS man remembered, “We all saidto one another, ‘What on earth would happen ifwe lost the war and had to pay for all this?’”

This was precisely the problem that General

Blaskowitz had identified in German-occupiedPoland in the fall of 1939 and that Himmlerencountered as well. As the direct result of thebrutal mass killings, moral depravity was spread-ing through the SS like an epidemic.

It was, therefore, all well and good for Himm-ler to boast, “If Hitler were to say I should shootmy mother, I’d do it, and be proud of his confi-dence!”—as long as Himmler was not the manactually pulling the trigger, that is.

By all accounts, Himmler was, first, last, andalways, a desk murderer who ordered other peo-ple to do the dirty work. The same was also trueof both Heydrich and his own deputy, SS Lt. Col.Adolf Eichmann.

The anecdote is told that when Himmler firstwitnessed an actual Einsatzgruppen massacre inthe East, he got sick and vomited on the spot. Insimilar fashion, his Einsatzgruppen commanderswere losing their minds and being relieved ofduty, while the men who actually performed theshootings were becoming alcoholics and experi-encing emotional distress.

At one such action on September 15, 1941,fully 12,000 people were formed by the policeinto marching columns and sent down a streettoward a local airport, with the small childrenand elderly being trucked. Upon reaching the air-field, all the prisoners were duly marched across


In a chilling photo that provides documented evidence of Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front during World War II, Ger-man soldiers fire into a pit as they execute Russian civilians.


an open meadow about 50 yards to an open pit.They were then murdered with automaticweapons. The killing lasted a full day, after whichboth water and quicklime were splashed over thebodies, causing the dead and the still livingamong them to boil.

On a single day, September 22, 1941, the Ein-satzgruppen slaughtered 10,000 people in onesuch action. One of their commanders, ArturNebe, later renowned as an executed plotter inthe July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate theFührer, wanted to herd Russian mental patientsinto a building and blow it up with dynamite.

Justifying this technique to relieve his hard-pressed men from having to shoot incurablyinsane patients, Nebe had a subordinate chemistset up a reinforced concrete machine-gun postrigged with dynamite. With the patients trappedtherein, the dynamite would be detonated.

The result proved to be far more demoralizingthan Nebe had envisioned, with both cementblocks and blasted body parts raining down onthe Nazi killers, arms and legs landing in treesand then having to be retrieved to hide the evi-dence of this foul deed.

Nebe was also the first to experiment with themobile gas vans. This was done not to kill morehumanely, but rather as a means of making thekilling more bearable for the executioners.

Because pure carbon monoxide was found to betoo expensive to use in this way, Nebe decided toexperiment with the vehicles’ own automobileexhaust fumes instead. These, in turn, led to thestationary and ever larger death camp chambersbeginning in mid-1942, where the killing tookplace on an overwhelming scale until late 1944.

Even though the crematoria and gas chambersof the Nazi death camps have come to be grimlyiconic of the Holocaust, they were, according tosome sources, exceptional, and not the standardkilling method.

If Slavs are counted among the victims of theHolocaust along with Jews and gypsies, then


One of the most highly publicized Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front during World War II was the mass murder ofapproximately 30,000 Jews in the ravine of Babi Yar in Russia.


shooting accounted for far more deaths than gas.The van gassing began late in 1941, and thecamps became operational afterward.

The men of the Einsatzgruppen obeyed theirdire orders willingly, if uneasily, for no judgeslooked over their shoulders, at least not duringthe war. They were also told that they acted onthe direct orders of their Führer, the Supreme Jus-tice of the German State, making them “judge,jury, and executioner” all rolled into one.

The German Armed Forces, when not directlyinvolved, simply looked away.

One infamous Special Task Force commander,Friedrich Jeckeln, invented the “packing” methodof killing, wherein the intended victims were fun-neled in groups of 50 by troop gauntlets shoutingat and beating them along the way to their deaths.For instance, at Babi Yar in Russia the pits weremanned by such packers, who placed the peopleto be killed on top of those who already had beenmurdered. Once so positioned, they were shot inthe back of the head, in what the Germans calledthe Genuckschuss. When one shooter fired a fullclip, he was given a break by another, and so on.

On January 20, 1942, Heydrich and Eichmannconvened their infamous top secret meeting at avilla at Wannsee outside Berlin to take the FinalSolution of the Jewish Question to its next logi-cal level, the railway deportation of all Jews by

train “to the East” and their extermination in gaschambers. This process commenced in earnest inmid-1942, when Heydrich himself was assassi-nated in Prague by the Czechs.

The first such camp was at Auschwitz-Birke-nau in Upper Silesia, followed by three more ineastern Poland, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.Extermination at Belzec started on March 17,1942. In time, the other SS death campsincluded Chelmno and Majdanek, for a totalof six major facilities.

The notorious prussic acid insecticide ZyklonB crystallized gas was used only at Auschwitz,while reportedly Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzecused engine-produced carbon monoxide exhaustfumes. Majdanek used both Zyklon B and purebottled carbon monoxide.

Himmler toured Auschwitz on July 17-18,1942, the month after Heydrich died, andwatched a Zyklon B demonstration staged espe-cially for him. The camp commandant, RudolfHoess, noted later of Himmler that “He justlooked on in total silence.”

The following February, Hoess’ aides notedthat the priggish Himmler seemed to enjoy see-ing women tortured. At a special demonstrationfor him at Sobibor, 300 young Jewish womenwere sent on what was euphemisticall called “theroad to heaven” from Camp 2 into the gas cham-

ber. Reportedly, the dour Himmler enjoyed wineand cigarettes with his staff aides afterward.

The catastrophic defeat and surrender of theGerman Sixth Army at Stalingrad in early 1943put all Nazi plans for colonization of the Easton hold, but the murder of the Jews continuedunabated.

However, that same year it was felt prudent todisband the Einsatzgruppen and take steps tocover up what had been done. One who did notadvocate this reversal of policy was Hitler, and inJune 1943 the continued killing of the Jewsbecame a more important political war than win-ning the military conflict it had engendered.

Hitler and Himmler committed suicide a fewweeks apart, leaving behind their bloody min-ions to pay for the deeds of the Einsatzgruppenand others.

The military government of the United Statesin occupied West Germany brought to trial 24former commanders and officers of the Einsatz-gruppen in the ninth of 12 overall war crimes tri-als held at Nuremberg.

The case of Otto Ohlendorf et al. was heard bya panel of three judges from September 15, 1947,to April 10, 1948, with American Justice MichaelA. Musmanno of Philadelphia presiding.

Amazingly, at first there was no such trialplanned for the criminals of the notorious Ein-



stazgruppen, but this changed with the discov-ery of a single set of its reports that survived thewar. It was found on the fourth floor among twotons of other documents at Gestapo headquartersin Berlin in September 1945.

It took prosecutors more than a year to sortthrough the literally thousands of such papersthat had fallen into the hands of the Allies withthe total collapse of Nazi Germany.

At the first of the trials, the International Mil-itary Tribunal of 1945-1946 in Nuremberg,Ohlendorf had let slip in open court testimonythat his own Einsatzgruppen D had murdered90,000 people. It was not until much later,though, that the fuller and much grimmer over-all picture emerged via the newly found docu-ments, the Nazis’ records of their deeds.

The 24 accused included Ohelndorf, HeinzJost, Erich Naumann, Otto Rasch, Edwin Schulz,Franz Six, Paul Blobel, Walter Blume, MartinDandberger, Willy Seibert, Eugen Steimle, ErnstBilberstein, Werner Braune, Walter Hansch, Gus-tav Nosske, Adolf Ott, Eduard Strauch, EmilHaussmann, Woldemar Klingelhofer, LotharFendler, Waldemar von Radetsky, Heinz Schu-bert, and Matthias Graf.

Only four of the accused were hanged in1951, including Ohlendorf. Despite being thesole American prosecution witness in other tri-

als, he was eventually executed after manyappeals to superior courts in the United Stateshad been denied.

One who was not hanged was the Austrian SSGeneral Odilo Globocnik, an Eichmann cronyand a former Nazi Gauleiter of Vienna, whofounded four death camps in Poland: Belzec, Sobi-bor, Treblinka, and Majdanek. He died a myste-rious death either by suicide, partisans, or analleged Jewish death squad in May or June 1945.

SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski wasresponsible for antipartisan warfare on the East-ern Front during the war and boasted in writing,“There isn’t a Jew left in Estonia!” He also testi-fied for the Allied prosecution at Nuremberg anddied at Munich-Harlaching on March 8, 1972,long after most of his fellow co-conspirators. SSGeneral Curt von Gottberg succeeded Bach-Zelewski and committed suicide.

SS General Friedrich Jeckeln was hanged atRiga. Eduard Strauch was named SD comman-der of central Russia in 1942 and diagnosed asinsane in 1947.

SS Police General Otto Waldmann became SSLeader and Police Leader for Hungary and trans-ferred to police duties in southern Europe, whileCarl Zenner became SS and Police Leader forWhite Ruthenia in May 1942. They were given,respectively, a five-year sentence in 1945 and a

15-year prison term in 1961.SS and Police Leader Heinz Reinefarth put

down the Warthe, Poland, uprising, and in 1965was elected mayor of Westerland-Sylt. That sameyear, Otto Winkelmann, former director of theOrder Police Head Office and later SS and PoliceLeader in occupied Hungary, retired as a fullypensioned policeman.

SS General Kurt Daluege was both head of theGerman Order Police and Acting Reich Protec-tor succeeding Heydrich at Prague until illnessforced his early retirement in 1943. After the war,Daluege was returned to Prague and hanged bythe Czechs.

The notorious Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger was headof the infamous Special Battalion Dirlewangerduring 1942-1944 and was killed while a captivein 1945.

Amazingly, few of the remaining guilty perpe-trators were either indicted or convicted, muchless confined or hanged for their nefarious crimesagainst humanity.

Conversely, Artur Nebe was reportedly a “bro-ken” man by November 1941, writing, “I’velooked after so many criminals, and now I’vebecome one myself.”

Towson, Maryland, freelancer Blaine Taylor isthe author of several books on World War II.



Defending BATAAN

AMERICAN FORCES DEFENDING THE BATAAN PENINSULA WAGED A DETERMINED RESISTANCE DURING

THE PHILIPPINES CAMPAIGN OF 1941-1942.BY ARNOLD BLUMBERG

An American light tank of the U.S. Army’s 194th TankBattalion overruns a Japan-ese antitank gun position ata roadblock on the Philippineisland of Luzon. The 194thand 192nd Tank Battalionsprovided firepower that theJapanese could not match;however, the Japanese forceswere tactically superior andmanaged to capture theBataan Peninsula and theisland of Corregidor to complete their conquest ofthe Philippines in 1942.


W-Oct15 Bataan_Layout 1 7/31/15 10:19 AM

In 1941, the Philippine Islands, 7,000 in number, anAmerican-controlled mandate, formed a natural bar-rier between Japan and the rich resources of East andSoutheast Asia. Capture of the islands was crucial toJapan’s efforts to control the Southwest Pacific, seizethe oilrich Dutch East Indies, and protect its South-east Asia flank.

Japanese strategy called for roughly simultaneousattacks on Malaya, Thailand, American-held Guamand Wake Islands, Singapore, the Philippines, andHawaii. Although the air strike on Pearl Harbor onDecember 7, 1941, was designed to destroy theAmerican Pacific Fleet stationed there, the otherambitious operations that commenced that day weremeant to serve as preludes to full-scale invasion andpermanent occupation.

The well-coordinated Japanese campaign, spreadacross great reaches of the Pacific Ocean, progressedwith astonishing speed. The small U.S. garrisons onGuam and Wake surrendered on December 10 and22, respectively. Four days after Wake Island wasconquered, the British in Hong Kong capitulated to

the Japanese attackers. Singapore, the supposedlyimpregnable British bastion on the Malay Peninsula,fell on February 15, 1942, to the Japanese 25thArmy. Following lightning amphibious landings bythe Imperial 15th Army in Thailand and Burma,Japanese troops pushed to the northwest, threaten-ing India. The Dutch East Indies soon fell to theJapanese 16th Army.

Only in the Philippines, where the first elements ofthe Japanese 14th Army came ashore on December10, did the combined U.S.-Filipino units mount aprolonged resistance, holding out for five monthswith grim determination and scoring some small butnotable victories over their opponents.

The defense of the Philippines against Japaneseaggression had become problematic by 1941. By Jan-uary of that year, Japan controlled much of the sur-rounding territory. Formosa, just to the north, hadbeen under Japanese control since 1895. The islandsto the east formed part of the land mandated to Tokyoafter World War I. To the west Japanese troops occu-pied eastern China, and in 1941 they occupied French

OCTOBER 2015 WWII HISTORYNational Guard

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Indochina. Only the Dutch East Indies to thesouth remained in Western hands.

Although the United States had maintainedmilitary forces in the islands since 1898, thePhilippines were unprepared for hostilities withJapan. There are several reasons for this situa-tion. First, the Washington Naval Treaty of1922 traded a limitation upon Japanese war-ship construction for the abandonment of anynew fortification of U.S. possessions in thePacific. For the Philippines, this meant that onlythe islands near the entrance to Manila Baywere well protected. Second, with indepen-dence due to be granted to the islands in 1946,the defense of the Philippines fell almost solelyon the Philippine government, whose resourceswere limited.

In April 1941, the United States military hadrecently updated War Plan Orange-3, a basisfor response to Japanese aggression, which lim-ited the defense of the Philippines to ManilaBay and important adjacent areas. War PlanOrange mandated that if attacked by Japan theU.S. Army garrison would withdraw to theBataan Peninsula. Plan Orange did not envi-sion a subsequent relief effort for the Americanforces holed up in Bataan. The administrationof President Franklin D. Roosevelt had decidedthat in the event of a new world war it wouldfollow a “defeat Germany first” global strat-egy, and as a result the Philippines would haveto be sacrificed.

The Philippine government passed a defensemeasure in 1935 intended to create a regular

army numbering 10,000 men with a reserveforce of 400,000 troops. After his stint as U.S.Army Chief of Staff, General DouglasMacArthur came to Manila in 1937 to trainand organize the Philippine defense establish-ment, christened the United States Forces, FarEast (USAFFE). His attempt to do so wasseverely hampered by a miniscule defense bud-get and a chronic lack of weapons, especiallyartillery, transport, and communications equip-ment. Language differences between the vari-ous elements of Philippine society prevented theeffective creation of cohesive military units ofany size. Further, the lack of any militaryschools in the islands stymied the attempt toform a cadre of commissioned and noncom-missioned officers able to lead the nascentPhilippine Army.

Supporting the 120,000 Philippine Armypersonnel were 10,000 regular troops of theU.S. Army stationed in the islands. These con-sisted of several American infantry regiments,two tank battalions, and the Philippine Scouts.The latter were made up of 12,000 Filipinomilitary professional enlisted men led by Amer-ican officers.

The United States rushed the best aircraft ithad to the islands. They included 107 Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters and 35 Boeing B-17 Fly-ing Fortress bombers. These were designated theFar Eastern Air Force under Maj. Gen. Lewis H.Brereton. A woefully inadequate antiaircraftdefense system left American airpower in thePhilippines vulnerable to enemy air attack.

In early December 1941, MacArthur orga-nized his forces into four separate commands.The Northern Luzon Force, under Maj. Gen.Jonathan M. Wainwright, defended the likelyamphibious invasion areas with four PhilippineArmy infantry divisions and some independentinfantry battalions and artillery units. It wasalso responsible for the Bataan Peninsula. TheSouth Luzon Force under Brig. Gen. George M.Parker, Jr., was assigned the zone east and southof Manila with two Philippine Infantry divi-sions and several artillery batteries. TheVisayan-Mindanao Force under Brig. Gen.William F. Sharpe was composed of two Philip-pine Army infantry divisions. Acting as a gen-eral reserve was the regular U.S. Army’s10,200-man Philippine Division. The Far EastAir Force was positioned just north of Manilaunder the direct command of MacArthur. Fourartillery regiments, understrength with anti-quated pieces, guarded Manila Bay. With thisforce, McArthur hoped to defend the main


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© Scherl / SZ Photo / The Image Works

Soldiers of an American artillery unit take up defensive positions on the Bataan Peninsula during the defenseof the Philippines against Japanese invaders in the spring of 1942.

The opposing commanders, General DouglasMacArthur (left) and General Masaharu Homma ofthe Japanese 14th Army, waged a bitter campaignfor control of the Philippines in 1942.


Philippine islands by defeating any enemyattack at the landing beaches.

Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma com-manded the Japanese 14th Army. In additionto his 30,000 combat veterans of the 16th and48th Infantry Divisions, he had 60,000 groundand 13,000 air service support troops, alongwith two tank battalions, two regiments andone battalion of artillery, three engineer regi-ments, and five antiaircraft battalions. Morethan 500 planes from the 5th Air Force basedon Formosa supported the Japanese groundforces, along with the Japanese Navy’s 3rd Fleetand 11th Naval Air Fleet.

The Japanese invasion plan foresaw their airforce eliminating its American counterpart onthe first day of the operation. Elements of theJapanese Army would then land in the Lin-gayen Gulf north of Manila and to the south ofthe Philippine capital at Lamon Bay. Bothforces would then converge on Manila, wherethe decisive battle for the islands would befought. Homma was given 50 days to conquerLuzon; after that time half his command wouldbe withdrawn to other combat areas in South-east Asia.

From December 8-10, devastating air attackson the Philippine islands of Luzon and Min-danao gave the Japanese air superiority overtheir opponents, allowing them to make diver-sionary amphibious landings in northern Luzonon December 10. The U.S. Asiatic Fleet with-drew from Philippine waters soon after the airstrikes. With American air and naval power inthe islands neutralized in the first hours of thewar, the USAFFE scheme to defend the entirePhilippines went off the rails. Now the area’ssole defenders would be the ground forces, cutoff from resupply, reinforcements, or escape.

On December 10, the Japanese made diver-sionary landings along the coast of northernLuzon. The next move came in the south whenelements of the Japanese 16th Infantry Divisionlanded in southern Luzon followed by anassault on Mindanao on the 19th. The mainattack commenced on December 22 as infantryof the 16th and 48th Divisions waded ashore atLuzon’s Lingayen Gulf supported by 100 tanks.Wainwright’s poorly trained and equipped 11thand 71st Philippine Infantry Divisions couldneither repel nor pin the enemy on the beaches.On the 24th, elements of the Japanese 16thDivision landed at Lamon Bay against GeneralParker’s dispersed corps and drove north to linkup with their comrades from Lingayen Gulfheading south.

Realizing that the USAFFE defense plan hadfailed, on December 26 MacArthur notified hissubordinate commanders that Plan Orange 3,

the prewar plan to defend only the BataanPeninsula and the island of Corregidor for sixmonths until relief came, was being reactivated.To execute Plan Orange, Wainwright’s NorthLuzon Force was charged with holding backthe main enemy assault and keeping the road toBataan open for use by Parker’s South LuzonForce. To achieve this, Wainwright deployedhis combat units in a series of defensive lines.

Under Wainwright’s and Parker’s guidancethe American and Philippine withdrawal toBataan proceeded quickly and in relativelygood order considering the chaotic situation. Aparticularly precarious phase of the operationoccurred when the commands connected nearthe town of San Fernando. Both forces had tomove along a single narrow road to reach theBataan Peninsula. Although the Japanese failed

to take advantage of their complete air superi-ority by interdicting this chokepoint in theenemy’s route of retreat, Wainwright, alarmedat the slow progress of South Luzon Force’swithdrawal, ordered a stand to be made at SanFernando. The tenacity of elements of thePhilippine 21st Infantry Division allowed theAmericans and Filipinos to hold this defensiveposition until December 30.

MacArthur’s rush to Bataan forced hisretreating units to leave most of their suppliesand equipment behind. At that point, the seri-ous consequences of the shifts in USAFFEdefense plans became clear. To ensureMacArthur’s original design to defend theentire Philippine island chain, supplies from themain depots at Bataan and Corregidor hadbeen dispersed to the North and South Luzon

35OCTOBER 2015 WWII HISTORY

Map © 2015 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

The Japanese 14th Army pushed the American and Filipino defenders of the Philippine Islands into the confinesof the Bataan Peninsula on Luzon and the small island of Corregidor in Manila Bay, forcing their surrender inMay 1942.


command areas. Now with truck transport inshort supply, congested roads, and limited time,the resupply of the magazines in Bataan andCorregidor proved impossible. The resultingserious lack of food, ammunition, weapons,and medical supplies would prove to be criticalfactors in the upcoming fight for Bataan.

Under the circumstances, the Americans andtheir Filipino allies did a remarkable job with-drawing to the Bataan Peninsula. However, theJapanese mandate to take Manila was moreresponsible for the defenders reaching Bataanthan was their military prowess. Following

Tokyo’s order to make the Philippine capital hisprimary goal, General Homma on December 27rejected the suggestion from his chief of staffthat the enemy was fleeing to Bataan to make alast stand and that Japanese air assets should beswitched to make a sustained effort to slow theAmericans retreat to Bataan, allowing Japaneseground forces time to intercept them before theycould enter the peninsula in strength.

Homma wanted to heed his subordinate’sadvice but could not due to his superior’s ordersto make the capture of Manila the top priorityof the campaign. As a result, he directed no sub-

stantial ground and air forces then attackingManila to attempt to slow the American with-drawal to Bataan.

On January 2, 1942, Manila fell to the 14thArmy. Three days later Homma received arebuke from Imperial Japanese Army Head-quarters stating that the enemy army in Bataancould not be ignored and that Homma shouldhave destroyed it while at the same time takingManila. What the Japanese belatedly discov-ered was that the bottled-up enemy army onBataan and Corregidor effectively blockedJapanese use of Manila Bay. As a result, the


The Provisional Tank Group, includ-ing the 192nd and 194th Tank Battalions with 108 M3 Stuart lighttanks under Brig. Gen. James R. N.Weaver, was in the Philippinesprior to the Japanese invasion.These armored formations hadengaged the Japanese invaderssince December, losing 36 tanksduring the fighting. They continuedto perform well in the fight forBataan.

The American tankers first fightin the vicinity of Bataan occurredon January 22, 1942, when aforce of three Stuarts accompanied

by some Philippine Scouts set outon patrol on the West Road, southof the town of Mauban, which hadbeen cut off by a Japanese road-block. Soon one of the tanksdestroyed an enemy antitank posi-tion with its 37mm gun andmachine-gun fire. A quarter of amile further on, two of the tankswere disabled by Japanese minesand had to be towed to safety bythe remaining Stuart.

On the night of January 23, thetank group covered the withdrawal of the main American-Filipino armyto a new defensive position

between Bagac and Orion, withthe 192nd Tank Battalion coveringthe movement on the east flank andthe 194th Tank Battalion doing thesame in the center and west. Dur-ing the night of the 25th aroundMount Natib, Company D, 192ndTank Battalion blunted the Japan-ese pursuit and covered the retreatof friendly infantry from the area,firing blindly but effectively at theadvancing enemy. By sunup onJanuary 26, the Provisional TankGroup was safely behind theBagac-Orion defensive line.

Responding to the enemy land-

ing at Quinauan Point on February2,three tanks of Companies A andC attacked the enemy position fivetimes, losing one armored fightingvehicle but failing to evict theJapanese from their positions.Finally, on February 4, in conjunc-tion with some Philippine Scoutinfantry, five tanks from the 192ndTank Battalion helped crush Japan-ese resistance at Quinauan Point.On February 9, American armorhelped break up the Japanesedefenses at Anyasan Point.

During the collapse of the Bagac-Orion line on April 6, 1942, the

ullstein bild / The Granger Collection, New York

ABOVE: In this photo taken in January 1942, a Japanese Type 97 Chi-Ha light tank fires at American and Filipino positions in a grove of palm trees. The Type 97 tankwas inferior to contemporary American designs; however, these tanks were still effective against troop concentrations and contributed to the Japanese conquest of thePhilippines. OPPOSITE: Soldiers of the Japanese 14th Army peer warily down a dirt road during their advance along the Bataan Peninsula.

AMERICAN TANKS SCORED SOME SMALL BUT NOTABLE VICTORIES DURING THE DEFENSE OF BATAAN.


Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippineswould have to continue the fight for the islands.

The American plan to defend the 30-miledeep, 15-mile wide, and heavily forested BataanPeninsula called for the manning of an initialdefensive line extending across the peninsulafrom Mauban in the west to Mabatang in theeast. Wainwright’s newly designated I Corpsheld the eastern sector with the 1st, 31st, and91st Philippine Infantry Divisions, the 26thPhilippine Scouts Cavalry Regiment, and a bat-tery of 75mm guns. General Park’s SouthernLuzon Force, now called II Corps, held thewestern zone with the 11th, 21st, 41st, and 51stPhilippine Infantry Divisions. The U.S.-Filipinoreserve consisted of the Philippine InfantryDivision. Each American corps fielded—onpaper—30,000 men.

Mount Natib, a 4,222-foot-high promontoryin the center of the American line, served as theboundary between 1st and II Corps. The U.S.commands anchored their flanks on the lowerslopes of the mountain, but since they consid-ered the rugged terrain around Mount Natib tobe impassable, they did not extend their lines upthe mountain slopes. As a result, a considerablegap existed in the center of the defensive line.

As the American-Filipino forces completedtheir withdrawal onto the Bataan Peninsula inthe first week of January 1942, MacArthurfeared that the placement of his troops would bedisturbed by a rapid Japanese pursuit. He neednot have been concerned; the enemy allowed theAmericans time to organize their Bataandefenses while they shifted units around.

In early January 1942, Japanese ImperialHeadquarters took Homma’s experienced 48thInfantry Division from him, sending it to theDutch East Indies. In its place the 14th Army

received the 65th Brigade, 6,600 men strong,made up of recalled reservists, lightly armed,poorly trained, and suitable only for garrisonwork. This unit provided the mass of the Japan-ese attacking force in Bataan between Januaryand March 1942, suffering terrible losses in theprocess. Although the brigade heroically did itsduty, its limited training, aging members, andpoor equipment prevented 14th Army fromachieving victory in Bataan much earlier thanpossible if a more cohesive and experiencedcombat unit had carried the burden of the fightduring the same period.

Finally, on the night of January 9, the Japan-

ese initiated their first determined attacksagainst the American positions defending theBataan Peninsula with an initial artillery bar-rage against the American II Corps, followed byassaults by two infantry regiments supported bytanks and artillery. After rapidly moving for-ward, the soldiers of Nippon were brought to ahalt primarily by enemy artillery fire.

The storm of lead that stymied the Japaneseadvance came from American-Filipino 75mmguns placed on the main defensive line andbacked up by powerful, well-concealed155mm howitzers to the rear. The Americanpieces held the high ground and thus had ter-


Provisional Tank Group fought inthe I Corps sector. Acting as rearguard, seven M3s of Company C,194th Tank Battalion, destroyedtwo Japanese tanks advancingtoward their position and causedother enemy armored vehicles toscatter. For the next several days,the tankers did their best to escortto friendly infantry to safety. OnApril 8 and 9, all tank crews wereordered to destroy their vehicles inanticipation of a general surrenderorder. Despite the attempt todestroy the tanks, the Japanese

were able to put 11 Stuarts, one ofwhich was used in the attack onCorregidor, back into operatingcondition.

After the final American surren-der took place on April 9, sometank soldiers tried to reach Corregi-dor and some faded in to the jun-gle to carry on guerrilla activities.The majority of the tankers voluntar-ily went in to Japanese custody.Two-thirds of the Provisional TankGroup’s enlisted personnel diedduring at the hands of the Japan-ese during the next three years.

National Archives

Getty

The commander of an American M3 Stuart light tank sits atop the turret nearthe breech of the tank’s main 37mm cannon during training in the Philippines inNovember 1941.

W-Oct15 Bataan_Layout 1 7/31/15 12:16 PM

rific observation, while the Japanese, on lowerterrain, had great difficulty spotting enemy gunpositions even from the air due to the thickjungle vegetation.

The Japanese artillery effort was hobbled bythe small number of pieces brought to the bat-tle for Bataan, poor artillery doctrine, and alack of accurate maps of the battle zone. Dur-ing January 1942, the 14th Army drove theAmerican-Filipino defenders from the Mauban-Mabatang Line with little help from theartillery. American-Philippine artillery fire com-pletely dominated the battlefield right up to thewithdrawal to the next American-Philippinedefensive line.

Eight days of intense fighting raged along theAmerican-Filipino front, especially near theJapanese salient in the line at Abucay Haciendathree miles east of Mount Natib. During thistime the Japanese probed to the west, hittingthe Philippine 41st Division, and then fartherwest, striking the 51st Division where theyrouted one of that formation’s regiments andwere poised to rupture the entire Americanposition. At the very moment of their apparentbreakthrough, however, they were rocked by avicious counterattack from the best troops thedefenders had, the 31st “All American”Infantry Regiment and the Philippine Scout45th Infantry Regiment, all regulars. The com-

bat at Abucay Hacienda was a rifleman’s fight.The Japanese finally won the battle when

they concentrated their attacks against the ICorps on the western margin of the peninsula.On that front, only a single road near the seaserved as a supply route for the defenders.Using their skill at small unit infiltration overdifficult ground, the Japanese were able to severthe road, beating off repeated Filipino attemptsto reopen the avenue.

With his reserves committed to shoring up IICorps’ front, MacArthur had no choice but toorder I Corps to retreat to the south. FirstCorps had to abandon much of its artillery dueto lack of transportation during this retrogrademovement. With its left now open to attack, IICorps soon followed suit. The general retreat ofthe Allied forces commenced on January 22.Starting off well, by the 24th it had fallen intototal confusion caused by the poor training ofthe average Filipino soldier, the need to moveon narrow jungle roads at night, and the con-stant fear of Japanese attack.

Fortunately, the Japanese failed to noticetheir enemy’s maneuver south and did little tohinder it. When they finally set out to pursuetheir prey, they were held back by U.S. lighttanks and artillery carried on half-tracks. Bythe 26th, a new American-Philippine defensiveline stretching 4,500 yards ran from Bagac,

resting on the shore of the South China Sea,east to Orion on the eastern margin of thepeninsula.

Frustrated by the resistance his 14th Armywas encountering taking the Bataan Peninsula,General Homma ordered Maj. Gen. NaokiKimura, commander of the Japanese 16thInfantry Division, to mount an amphibiousattack on the west coast to cut the West Road,the only American-Filipino north-south supplyartery on the peninsula’s west coast, 10 milesbehind the enemy front line. Capturing thisroute would sever all American I Corps combatunits from their supply sources to the south.Kimura selected the 2nd Battalion, 20thInfantry Regiment under Lt. Col. NariyoshiTsunehiro to make the watery end run.

Defending the target area was the Bataan Ser-vice Command under the 71st PhilippineInfantry Division’s Brig. Gen. Clyde A. Selleck.Selleck had only a mixed bag of U.S. Marines,airmen, Philippine Constabulary (Filipinopolicemen turned into infantry), and four 6-inch naval guns to defend the lower third of thepeninsula—40 miles of rugged terrain. In theweeks before the Japanese stepped ashore in hisarea, Selleck’s men were able to string barbedwire, man observation posts, and cut crudetrails toward probable landing sites.

The 900 men of Tsunehiro’s 2nd Battalion set


SZ Photo / The Image Works


out on their mission on the night of January 22,1942. Throughout the night, initial attempts toland at their predetermined location, CaiboboPoint, met with failure due to the machine-gunfire of American airmen of the 17th PursuitSquadron fighting as infantry, as well as anAllied 75mm artillery battery. Forgoing a land-ing at Caibobo Point, the Japanese sailed on andlanded 600 men at Quinauan Point, where theycame ashore unopposed. A second group of 300Japanese soldiers landed simultaneously 11miles south of Caibobo Point at Longosk-awayan Point near Mount Pucot, only 1,000yards from the West Road.

During the night, American PT-34 (patroltorpedo boat) sank two empty Japanese trooptransport barges heading north from the Japan-ese landing sites.

During the next several days, American andFilipino beach defenders discovered the loca-tion of the two Japanese incursions. Althoughnot trained well enough as foot soldiers to dis-lodge the invaders, the ad hoc American andPhilippine defenders were able to contain theJapanese beachheads. The Japanese tried toreinforce the landing parties, but the attemptswere made piecemeal and proved ineffectual.One company with artillery missed itsintended landing zone, coming ashore atSilaiim Point, where it was quickly blockadedby the Americans.

On February 1, the balance of Kimura’s bat-talion (500 men) in 12 barges made the run toQuinauan Point. Not far from their destinationthe Japanese flotilla was spotted and attackedby four American P-40 fighters, losing fivebarges to the planes. Soon the Japanese weretargeted by 155mm and 75mm guns andPhilippine Scout machine-gun positions fartherdown the coast that raked the barges’ decks andkilled scores of Japanese soldiers.

As the night progressed, PT-32 engaged aJapanese minelayer with torpedoes, forcing it towithdraw. Shortly after midnight what was leftof Kimura’s force sailed to Silaiim Point.

It took the Americans two weeks usinginfantry, tanks, and artillery to dislodge theJapanese toeholds. The Imperial Army’sattempt to cut off I Corps proved a costly fail-ure with the loss of 1,400 men. American andFilipino casualties amounted to 750, withabout a third of those killed.

In late January and early February, the Japan-ese launched new attacks on II Corps. Theseefforts were costly failures. The Japanese madeseveral amphibious landings along the westcoast behind I Corps’ front, resulting in thecomplete destruction of the landing forces.

In mid-February, a lull settled over the penin-

sula. Since January the Japanese had lost morethan 7,000 battle casualties and another 12,000men to disease. Their attack formations hadbeen reduced to the equivalent of three infantrybattalions. In addition, Homma had severe sup-ply problems. For its part, the American-Fil-ipino army was increasingly affected by mal-nutrition and disease, both factors causing thesoldiers to lose so much of their physicalstrength that their ability to fight was seriouslyimpaired.

Through February and March, MacArthur’sforces did what they could to prepare for arenewed enemy offensive by digging new defen-sive positions and reorganizing their units. Onthe Japanese side, reinforcements flowed ontoBataan. Among them were the 4th and 21stInfantry Divisions with 4,000 men each. Most

important was the arrival of heavy artillery,including 96 150mm and 240mm cannons.

By late March, the Japanese had launched pre-liminary attacks to capture the enemy outpostline. On April 3, their main assault went in on anarrow front with six infantry regiments of the4th Division and 65th Brigade supported by onetank regiment against II Corps’ left flank. Aheavy artillery barrage preceded the groundforces, pulverizing the defenders’ forward andrear trench lines, wire obstacles, communica-tions, command posts, and artillery positions.Filipino counterbattery fire was sporadic due to

the intensity of the bombardment and the pres-ence of Japanese airpower. Within 36 hours, IICorps was broken. Soon afterward, with its leftflank in the air, I Corps also fled south.

Despite a counterattack by American forceson April 6, as well as stiff resistance by the U.S.31st Regiment and Philippine Scouts, theJapanese juggernaut rolled south, pushing therouted American-Filipino forces before it. See-ing all was lost and wanting to save as manyof his men from death and injury as he could,Maj. Gen. Edward P. King, Jr., commander ofall U.S. and Filipino troops on Bataan, surren-dered on April 9.

On May 5, after losing over half their 2,000-man assault force, the Japanese secured a land-ing on the fortress island of Corregidor. Rein-forced by tanks and artillery, they beat off four

American counterattacks, finally causing Gen-eral Wainwright to surrender the post the nextday. After 93 days of siege, the defense ofBataan ended. With its fall, 12,000 U.S. and64,000 Filipino prisoners of war fell into Japan-ese hands. The infamous Bataan Death Marchand three years of cruel captivity awaited them.By June 9, 1942, all organized resistance to theJapanese in the Philippines ceased.

Arnold Blumberg is an attorney with the Mary-land state government and resides with his wifein Baltimore County, Maryland.


National Archives

ABOVE: Under a flag of truce, American officers are led by their Japanese captors to conclude surrender termson the Bataan Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur was evacuated from the Philippines, and GeneralJonathan M. Wainwright surrendered American and Filipino troops to the Japanese. OPPOSITE: Armed to theteeth and carrying extra ammunition, Japanese soldiers come ashore on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japaneseattempted to quicken their pace of conquest via amphibious landings; however, these offensive moves metwith fierce resistance.


Technical Sergeant Clyde Dugan flattened asanother string of mortar shells ravaged the bar-ren field. Pristine snow vomited fire and steel aschunks of frozen earth rocketed skyward thenplunged to pelt his shoulders or clatter loudlyon his helmet. Elsewhere someone screamed.

At the same time, a stream of neon tracersflashed overhead as machine-gun bulletssparked and rattled through the tangle of snag-ging wire in which he lay. Pausing briefly,Dugan summoned his courage then once again

inched forward, wriggling beneath the sharp-tined obstacle as he led his squad toward thesource of the terrifying tracers—a row of pill-boxes that dominated the snowy plain.

After penetrating 40 yards of prickly wire,Dugan bellied into a narrow, mud-slickedtrench. His squad, now reduced to eight, tum-bled in behind him. Of the entire 9th InfantryRegiment, Dugan’s small command was theonly one that even came close to reaching theenemy’s fortifications. The others, three fullbattalions, remained stalled 100 yards to therear where they bled white amid the impedingwire. It was December 13, 1944. The place wasWahlerscheid Crossroads, Germany.

In September 1944, the Allies were approach-ing the very threshold of Germany. Allied plan-ning prior to D-Day called for a swift drivethrough the northern Cologne plain to deliver acrippling blow to the Ruhr, the industrial heartof Germany, and then a thrust to Berlin. How-ever, after breaking the Normandy stalemate thatsummer followed by the madcap dash acrossFrance, the spearheading armored divisions lit-erally ran out of gas. While the Allied tanksawaited fuel, the Germans regrouped and closedranks behind their vaunted West Wall defenses,also known as the Siegfried Line, where theybraced for the final assault.

By October, enough fuel, provisions, andammunition had been stockpiled to continue


The Roer River dams of westernGermany posed a serious threat to projected Allied operations intothe enemy’s industrial region.

BY CLEVE C. BARKLEY

The 2nd Infantry Division at Heartbreak Crossroads

W-Oct15 Heartbreak Crossroads_Layout 1 7/31/15 10:41 AM

41OCTOBER 2015 WWII HISTORYAll: National Archives

Moving toward their objective of the Wahlerscheid Crossroads five milesto the north, soldiersof the U.S. 2ndInfantry Division movecautiously through theKrinkelter Woods, aportion of the denseMonschau Forest. Thisphoto was taken onDecember 13, 1944,the day their assaulton the crossroadsbegan.

W-Oct15 Heartbreak Crossroads_Layout 1 7/31/15 10:41 AM

the relentless drive into Germany. Althoughseven Allied armies were deployed from theNorth Sea to Switzerland, the shortest route tovictory remained in the north where the NinthU.S. Army had reached the western bank of theRoer River by December. While these forcesmarshaled for the inevitable river crossing, ele-ments of First U.S. Army had become enmeshedin the hotly contested Hürtgen Forest, south ofthe city of Aachen. Hidden deep within the for-est was a series of dams that controlled the cur-rent of the north-flowing Roer.

Initially, these dams received scant attentionsince it was believed that the enemy would notdeny the Rhenish cities the power generated bytheir hydroelectric plants, but as strategistsstudied the terrain to the north they eventuallyconcluded that if the dams remained under Ger-man control they would be capable of releasingdevastating floodwaters, isolating any forcecrossing the Roer and subjecting it to piecemealdestruction. The largest were the Urft andSchwammenauel Dams, situated betweenGemund and Schmidt in the heart of the Hürt-gen. Combined, these two restrained 123,000acre-feet of water, enough to inundate a 1,500-foot-wide swath of the northern lowlands with

three feet of water. Before a river crossing couldbe attempted, the dams had to be neutralized.

With the hope of producing breaches in thedams, several airstrikes were authorized in earlyDecember, but they proved ineffectual. As aresult it was determined that they should becaptured by overland assault. To achieve this,Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow, commander ofthe U.S. V Corps, directed the newly arrived78th Infantry Division to strike seven miles dueeast from the vicinity of Lammersdorf, Ger-many, to reach the Schwammenauel Dam,while 11 miles to the southeast Maj. Gen. Wal-ter M. Robertson’s veteran 2nd Infantry Divi-sion would make a simultaneous attack north-ward from the Belgian border village ofRocherath to secure the Urft Dam.

Both units would be forced to crack theSiegfried Line before gaining good roads totheir objectives. Stressing the importance ofRobertson’s task, General Gerow had allocatedseven battalions of corps artillery to supplementthe division’s four artillery battalions. In all,some 120 field pieces ranging from 105mm to240mm would be on call. In addition, threebattalions of the 99th Infantry Division wouldlaunch supporting attacks to protect the 2nd

Division’s right flank. The attack was sched-uled for 8:30 AM, December 13, 1944.

Relinquishing its sector of the Ardennes“Ghost Front” near St. Vith, Belgium, to thegreen 106th Infantry Division on December 10,the 2nd Division motored 15 miles north toCamp Elsenborn, near Rocherath. ColonelChester J. Hirschfelder’s 9th Infantry Regimenthad been selected to spearhead the division’sattack. The 9th, dubbed the “Manchu” Regi-ment after its role in the Chinese Boxer Rebel-lion of 1900, was an old Army formation withan unblemished war record. The Manchus weretasked with driving north through the under-belly of the Monschau Forest to take and holda vital German crossroads called Wahlerscheid,four miles beyond Rocherath. Defended by ele-ments of the 991st Regiment of Colonel Wil-helm Viebig’s 277th Volksgrenadier Division,Wahlerscheid was not a village but simply aforester’s lodge and customs house situated at atriangular road junction near the German-Bel-gian frontier. Once Wahlerscheid was secured,the 38th Infantry would make the main effort,swinging east-northeast to gain the open coun-try at Dreiborn and then on to the Urft Dam.

From the outset, General Robertson had seri-ous misgivings about his mission. Not only washis division to attack through terrain chillinglysimilar to that of the doggedly defended Hürt-gen Forest, but the troops would also have onlyone road for resupply and evacuation of thewounded. The first concern was allayed byensuring that the men carried sufficient ammu-nition and rations to sustain them over a 24-hour period without replenishment. The road,however, was a bigger headache. Known to berife with roadblocks and mines, this solitaryroute would remain a tenuous link to Robert-son’s forward units until the crossroads wassecured and his forces had broken free of therestrictive forest. If severed by enemy counter-attacks, the attacking battalions could easily becut off and annihilated—a scenario that wouldnag him for the duration of the operation.

At daybreak on December 13, the 9thInfantry jumped off from its forward assemblyarea 2,000 yards north of Rocherath andentered the dismal forest. To preserve the ele-ment of surprise, there was no preliminaryartillery barrage, and the attack proceeded intotal silence. Avoiding the heavily mined road,Lt. Col. William D. McKinley’s 1st Battaliontrudged to the left through shin-deep snow,while Lt. Col. Walter M. Higgins, Jr.’s 2nd Bat-talion did the same on the right. The 3rd Bat-talion trailed as reserve. Dense fog and wind-driven snow restricted vision to 200 yards. Stepby step, each soldier was forced to push aside


Map © 2015 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

W-Oct15 Heartbreak Crossroads_Layout 1 8/5/15 4:32 PM

heavy branches of the close-knit fir trees, trig-gering icy avalanches that plopped ungra-ciously onto helmets and shoulders or sliddown raw red necks. As the morning pro-gressed, a slight thaw melted the snow of theupper branches, initiating a constant drizzle.Before long, all were thoroughly soaked.

Initially, opposition was nonexistent. Attimes the leading scouts encountered Germanpatrols, but apparently the enemy regarded theincursion as routine patrol activity that meritedlittle more than a few discouraging mortarrounds. At one point, elements of Company Hsurprised a pair of Wehrmacht soldiers whoseemed bewildered by the sudden appearanceof the Americans. Immediately, one threw uphis arms, but the other pulled a grenade andheld it to his neck until it detonated. The solecaptive later confessed that they were deserters,and his comrade feared that the Americanswere German soldiers dispatched to retrievethem. Not willing to face the consequences, thedesperate soul chose suicide.

At 11:15 AM, the scouts signaled, “Halt!”and slipped to their knees. Before them a broadclearing, perhaps 200 yards deep, had beenhacked from the forest and bristled with a seaof ice-encrusted barbed wire—double apronand concertina—six to 10 rows deep. Furtherscrutiny revealed that deep ditches had beenexcavated to prevent armored attacks whileother natural ravines were piled high with coilsof concertina wire. At the far end of this daunt-ing obstacle wisps of smoke snaked above thetreetops, indicating that the position was indeedoccupied.

It was a frightening sight for the scouts, buthad they known what else lay in store they mayhave blanched white. Hidden beneath the snowand interspersed amid the wire were hundredsof sinister land mines—the nasty Schu minesdesigned to cripple any who disturbed themand the dreaded S mines, dubbed Bouncing Bet-ties by the GIs because when they were trippedthey sprang to waist level before exploding,flinging hundreds of lethal ball bearings inevery direction. Also lying beneath the snowwas a web of tripwires capable of triggeringseveral mines simultaneously.

Even worse, 24 mutually supporting pill-boxes and bunkers glowered from the distanttreeline, each constructed of steel-reinforcedconcrete six to eight feet thick. Some were nomore than 20 to 30 yards apart and so wellcamouflaged that they were undetectable.Zigzagging communications trenches linkedone to the next, while additional trenches pro-vided shelter for supporting mortar andmachine-gun crews. Four pillboxes and six

bunkers were clustered around the crossroadsitself, supplemented by the forester’s lodge andcustoms house, both formidable fortresses.Adding depth to the defenses, the Germans pos-sessed four batteries of artillery, all preregis-tered, to join the mortars and machine guns tocreate the perfect killing field. It was Germandefensive doctrine at its best.

Packs were dropped in anticipation of immi-nent action. The American officers still believedthat the enemy remained ignorant of the divi-

sion’s presence and ordered an immediateattack. Higgins’ 2nd Battalion, which was firstto arrive, went straight in while McKinley’s 1stBattalion, still struggling through dense forest,pressed forward on the left. Lt. Col. William F.Kernan’s 3rd Battalion hunkered in the woodsas regimental reserve.

By then visibility had increased to 500 yards,and with the fog’s dissipation so vanished the

chance of a veiled approach. No sooner had theleading squads emerged from the forest than thefar treeline erupted with the chilling rip of MG-42 machine guns. Bullets lacerated the ranks at1,200 rounds per minute. Within moments Ger-man mortar shells commenced their deadlypromenade, erupting among the prostrate sol-diers with uncanny accuracy. In one 12-mansquad of Company G, eight were killed outrightwhile four bullets shattered another’s arm. Theenemy had been waiting all along.

The Americans realized that the element ofsurprise had been lost, and the supportingartillery went into action. Six thousand yards tothe rear, the big American guns belched fire andsteel, but lacking proper registration did littleappreciable harm. Even so, shells fell in suchquantity that the enemy fire tapered offmomentarily, giving heart to the assault com-panies, which again surged forward.


ABOVE: A pair of American soldiers from the 38th Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division smile for the cam-era but work quickly to prepare a bazooka position as they lie in wait to defend ground around the embat-tled Wahlerscheid Crossroads. OPPOSITE: Elements of the 2nd Infantry Division waged a bitter fight forcontrol of Heartbreak Crossroads but were eventually ordered to retire to defensive positions, giving uptheir hard-won gains.

Throughout the night incoming artillery ravaged theforest canopy. Explosions cracked like thunderclaps as fireballs blossomed high overhead, flinging torrentsof shrapnel on the hapless, cowering men.


In the 2nd Battalion sector, Captain HomerG. Ross’s Company E attacked on the left whileCaptain James A. Force’s Company Gadvanced on the right, but both were stoppedcold by impenetrable masses of barbed wire.Desperate to break through, soldiers thrustBangalore torpedoes beneath the obstructions,but the fuses were damp and would not ignite.By then the enemy had recovered from theshocking bombardment, and again bullets clat-tered amid the wire.

One platoon of Company E wormed throughfive aprons of barbed wire before becomingpinned down by concentrated mortar andmachine-gun fire. Further movement set offantipersonnel mines or drew the wrath of addi-tional weapons. Casualties soared. Unable tomove forward or back, the survivors did notescape until dark.

Meanwhile, another E Company platoonbellied onto a slight elevation which offeredgood observation of the enemy line. Acknowl-edging its value, Captain Ross grabbed tworadio men, scrambled to its crest, and beganrelaying coordinates of identified pillboxes tothe supporting artillery until a deluge of highexplosives rendered their position untenable.

While Company E was being slaughtered inthe open, Captain Force’s Company G tried totake advantage of scrubby, undulating terrainon the right, but tangles of barbed wire barredthe way. In some ditches the concertina waspiled six feet high. Again Bangalores wererequested but failed to ignite. By then automaticweapons fire was sweeping the front with dev-astating effect, while mortar rounds crashedwith regularity. Although the attack had hardlybegun, it was evident that such head-on tacticswere suicidal.

Noting that Higgins’ men were helplesslyimpaled on the wire, Colonel Hirschfelderordered his reserves into action. At 3 PM, Lt.Col. Kernan’s 3rd Battalion swung through thewoods to 2nd Battalion’s right, intending toflank the troublesome pillboxes. Captain JackA. Garvey’s Company K probed forward onthe battalion’s left while Captain Bruce C.Cagle’s Company L pushed through on theright with Captain William J. Ray’s CompanyI trailing as reserve.

Using the forest as cover, the leading elementsgot to within 75 yards of the enemy’s line beforeanother series of undetected pillboxes tookthem under fire. Immediately, the two leadingscouts were down. More gunfire raked the line.Within minutes mortar shells came plungingdown, followed by heavier artillery that torethrough the treetops at an alarming rate. Byevening, Kernan’s flanking maneuver had

ground to a halt. Ordered to hold in place, hismen pulled shovels from scabbards to hack atthe frozen soil.

As daylight waned a mournful wail waftedfrom 50 yards in front of Company K. Heed-ing the plea, a medic worked his way forwardonly to be dropped by a sniper, even though hisuniform was clearly marked with giant redcrosses on his chest, back, and helmet. A secondmedic homed in on the wretched sobbing, butagain a solitary shot rang out, killing him.Eventually the whimpering tapered and thenceased altogether, leaving his ashen-faced com-rades to resume their solemn excavations.

An hour and a half after Higgins’ battalionhad commenced its noon assault, Lt. Col.McKinley’s 1st Battalion had finally brokenthrough the forest on the regiment’s left, 600yards southwest of the junction. An interdict-ing road separated them from a vast wastelandof snow-capped underbrush extending 500yards, and beyond that lay multiple tiers ofenemy defenses. Seeing no alternative to afrontal attack, McKinley ordered his battalionforward.

Captain Louis C. Ernst’s Company C pushedacross the road under galling fire. Immediately,one man set off a mine, followed by another. Inshort order 10 men were down, victims of crip-pling Schu mines or Bouncing Betties.Minesweepers from the Ammunition and Pio-neer Platoon were summoned. Covered by rifle-men, the sweepers painstakingly cleared a lane400 yards beyond the road. The infantry filteredforward in preparation for the main assault butwere checked by intense mortar and machine-gun fire. Forward observers called for support-

ing artillery, but the shells fell far and wide. By 3:30 PM lanes had been cleared well into

no-man’s land, but twilight was fast approach-ing and further operations were halted. Justbefore dark a fierce mortar barrage ravaged thebattalion’s right flank, followed by a half-hearted counterattack. For 45 minutes grenadesthumped and rifles barked before the line wasstabilized and order restored.

As darkness approached, ColonelHirschfelder realized he was facing a catastro-phe. As a precaution, he stripped Company Ifrom Kernan’s command and pulled it backbehind 2nd Battalion to serve as regimentalreserve while the other assault units dug in forthe night. Some were barely 100 yards from themenacing pillboxes.

Unknown to the American command struc-ture, there was one remarkable achievementthat day. It was during the chaotic battles onthe 2nd Battalion front that Technical SergeantDugan, leading nine men of 3rd Platoon, Com-pany G, had managed to wriggle beneath 40yards of barbed wire to gain the enemy’s trenchsystem, losing one man killed during theirapproach.

Once within enemy lines, Dugan monitoreda pair of pillboxes that sat at either end of thezigzagging trench and continued to flay theplain with intermittent machine-gun fire. As heconsidered his options, the German rear guardsuddenly noticed that several more GIs wereslithering through the wire. When a string oftracers flitted over the infiltrators’ heads,Dugan called for covering fire until all fourtumbled, exhausted, into the trench. Led bySergeants James Dunn and Adam Rivera of 1st



Platoon, these men had been dispatched to sup-port Dugan’s forlorn hope. Armed with wirecutters, they had managed to clear a four-foot-wide swath all the way to the enemy line, hav-ing lost two men wounded while doing so.

Now 13 GIs crowded the narrow trench. Nosooner had Dugan commenced explaining thesituation to Dunn and Rivera than a flurry ofbullets cracked past their faces. Startled, GIsspun just in time to repel a group of Germansthat had sallied from the pillbox to their right.In the confusion Dugan’s men dragged a captiveinto their trench just as contact was broken. Infaltering English, the stuttering German assuredDugan that if released he could convince theothers to surrender. After weighing the odds,Dugan reluctantly set him free.

The squad formed an all-around defense andwaited. Time dragged. Suddenly, movement inthe connecting trench indicated that perhapsthe gambit would produce dividends. Just asDugan cautioned his men to prepare to acceptprisoners, the muzzle of a machine gun pokedaround the trench corner, followed by a coalscuttle helmet. Dugan took aim and fired. Thegunner dropped. Hollering a warning, Duganclambered up the parapet and commenced trig-gering round after round into the body-chokedtrench, killing one more German. The enemyscrambled for cover.

Within moments a second German patroljoined the action from the nearby woods, fol-lowed by another and yet another. Assailedfrom three sides, Dugan’s squad fought likedemons. When the BAR (Browning AutomaticRifle) gunner fell, Pfc. Bento Roposa retrievedthe weapon and released one rattling burst afteranother until a bullet punctured his stomach.Enraged, Roposa regripped his weapon andcontinued his furious fusillade. Then a grenadeplopped in and exploded. Fragments rippedthrough Roposa’s arm, but the scrappy soldiercontinued to lay down accurate fire until loss ofblood caused him to pass out, but not before hedropped one more German who was creepingtoward his position.

After five hours of continuous action,Dugan’s beleaguered command finally with-drew under cover of darkness, dragging twowounded comrades with them; two deadremained behind. Except for Dugan’s patrol,no others had gotten even close to the enemy’sworks.

Meanwhile, back at Hirschfelder’s commandpost staff officers studied maps and patrolreports to no avail. The tangles of barbed wireremained a vexing obstacle. Heavy concentra-tions of mortar and artillery fire combined withinterlocking machine-gun fire thwarted every

attempt to break through, and Kernan’s flank-ing maneuver had stalled. Although Americanartillery had cleared some of the foliage that-masked several pillboxes, many othersremained undetectable. It was decided toresume the assault against the German posi-tions in the morning at 8:30.

Throughout the night incoming artillery rav-aged the forest canopy. Explosions cracked likethunderclaps as fireballs blossomed high over-head, flinging torrents of shrapnel on the hap-less, cowering men. Splintered branches fol-lowed every burst, and sometimes entire treessnapped and crashed to the forest floor.Although cooks had prepared a hot meal, itcould not be served due to the heavy shelling.

As the evening progressed, the temperatureplunged. Curled in shallow foxholes, soldiersalready drenched from the strenuous march

through the dripping forest draped soddenblankets over shivering shoulders as theyattempted fitful sleep. Those of the assault com-panies, having dropped packs prior to theirattack, lacked blankets and suffered accord-ingly. By morning everyone’s clothing hadfrozen stiff.

At first light on December 14, the Americanartillery resumed its fierce cannonade withsome batteries focused on destroying knownpillboxes while others concentrated on break-ing up the wire entanglements to aid theinfantry. After 15 minutes, the guns shifted to

harass the enemy’s lines of communicationwhile the infantry prepared for action.

Upon receiving his attack orders, Lt. Col.McKinley decided elements of Captain John B.Cornwell’s Company B and a detail from theAmmunition and Pioneer Platoon would con-tinue to cut wire and remove mines to createlanes of attack. Once this was accomplished,the balance of his battalion would pushthrough in column to assault the pillboxesguarding the crossroads.

An experienced commander, McKinleyregarded his assignment with reservations. Herealized that even if successful his battalionwould be subject to counterattacks from theeast, north, and west. Nonetheless, he orderedhis companies forward.

Cornwell’s men pushed off on schedule. Inrapid succession, eight men were killed or

wounded while gapping the wire, but by noonsufficient penetration had been made to allowthe final assault to proceed. Covering fire ham-mered pillboxes while a heavy smokescreenmasked the approach of 1st Lt. Robert Kauth’sCompany A as it passed through Cornwell’sline. Kauth’s men advanced 150 yards throughmurderous mortar and machine-gun fire beforestumbling on another belt of concertina. Againforward observers called for covering fire aswire-gapping teams wriggled beneath a blizzardof German steel. Realizing little headway wasbeing made against such savage resistance,


ABOVE: Operating a British-made QF 25-pounder field gun, American artillerymen of the 2nd Infantry Divisionprepare to fire in support of attempts to secure the Wahlerscheid Crossroads from the Germans. The truck atthe right appears to hold their gear. OPPOSITE: Keeping a sharp watch for enemy troop movement, two sol-diers of the 2nd Infantry Division man a forward position along a ridge in Belgium. The soldier in the fore-ground is wearing winter camouflage that he appears to have put together on his own with bedsheets orlarge pieces of canvas.


McKinley recalled his troops at midafternoon. While McKinley’s men wallowed in the

frozen hell on the left, the 2nd and 3rd Bat-talions resumed their attacks on the right.Directing the battle from a ditch a mere 500yards from the nearest pillbox, Lt. Col. Hig-gins already had problems. Earlier a numberof short rounds of the preliminary barragehad smashed a platoon of Company E, sodisrupting organization that Captain Ross’sentire command was unable to participatein the forthcoming assault. As a stopgapmeasure Higgins wrenched a platoon from1st Lt. Fred J. Arnold’s Company F andshoved it between two platoons of CompanyG, which was slated to make the 2nd Bat-talion’s main effort. The balance of Com-pany F would follow as battalion reserve.

Company G, now under the command of1st Lt. John M. Jacques, jumped off in the faceof withering fire, pushed up a shallow, tree-studded draw in an effort to reach the nearestpillboxes, but soon encountered another rat’snest of prickly wire. Demolition men crept for-ward, this time dragging dry Bangalores, andblew a gap wide enough to accommodate theleading squad. Bodies stacked one upon theother as machine guns dropped the first fourmen to enter, while a fifth was killed after trip-ping a mine.

Disheartened, the others sought refuge in theshallow defile while frantic pleas went out forsupporting artillery. Shortly after 1 PM, explo-sions rippled all across the front, but terrainvariables hindered proper registration. Afteran hour of futile readjustments, the battalionwas ordered to withdraw. By then the enemy’spreregistered mortars and artillery were wreak-ing havoc in a draw now teeming with wickedtree bursts.

Simultaneous to Higgins’ attack, Lt. Col.Kernan’s 3rd Battalion resumed operations onthe regiment’s right but was also stopped by acombination of massed wire, mines, and intensegunfire emanating from several mutually sup-porting pillboxes. Still hoping to outflank theGerman defenses, Kernan decided to send onecompany looping through the zone of theneighboring 395th Infantry, which was makinga supporting attack on the division’s right.

Using Company K as a base of fire, BruceCagle’s Company L set out on its circuitousroute with three bazooka teams attached.While passing through a sparsely forestedregion they chanced upon a slight depressionthat ran almost under the nose of the eastern-most pillbox. Believing that this indentationwould provide a degree of security, Caglelaunched his attack.

By ones and twos, soldiers sprinted towardthe dubious shelter of the swale. The enemyopened fire. Shrapnel toppled six men whilemachine guns accounted for 14 others. Severalintrepid GIs managed to press beyond theembankment but were soon driven back. As thevolume of incoming fire intensified, the situa-tion seemed doubtful. By 1 PM, Kernan, too,felt compelled to call off his attack.

Having been beaten at every turn, regimen-tal command ordered a general withdrawal at2 PM. At twilight the 2nd Battalion fell back afull 500 yards to take positions in the woodsbehind the battalion command post still hun-kered in its muddy trough at the fringe of theclearing, while 50 unfortunates of Company Eremained exposed in the glacial plain to manforward outposts. Kernan’s 3rd Battaliondeployed behind 2nd Battalion to resume its

role as regimental reserve. Waiting until dark,McKinley’s 1st Battalion broke contact with theGermans and withdrew under the protectionof a covering barrage to reclaim its originalposition southwest of the road junction.

Again sequestered in the forest, soldierssought refuge from the inevitable tree bursts,while others, the first of many to be afflictedwith respiratory ailments or frozen feet, beganthe painful trek to the rear. By then, the divi-sional engineers had finally cleared the solitarysupply route of obstacles and mines, permittingthe arrival of ammunition, blankets, and a wel-come hot meal. In the meantime, a pair of self-propelled 155mm guns from Battery C, 987thField Artillery maneuvered to within 3,000yards of the junction and began pasting pill-boxes with armor-piercing shells. Although atotal of 176 rounds were expended, it was later


German prisoners of the 164th and 183rd Infantry Regiments are herded into the forester’s lodge near theWahlerscheid Crossroads on February 2, 1945. These U.S. troops from the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Divi-sion have taken charge of the German captives and will soon herd them to transport toward prison camps.

On command, the Americans sprang into action. Sheerpandemonium supplanted false tranquility as suppressivefire raked pillbox embrasures or thudded savagely into the surrounding entrenchments. Beehive charges rippedopen the fortifications’ rear doors.


discovered that the massive structures sufferedonly superficial damage.

Meanwhile, battalion and regimental staffsstruggled to find a solution to their dilemma.Earlier, General Robertson had admonishedColonel Hirschfelder for not conducting morethorough reconnaissance before resuming hisattacks. In light of this, patrols were dispatchedto probe for fissures in the seemingly impreg-nable defenses, while arrangements were madefor a tactical airstrike in the morning. Notingthat Hirschfelder’s exhausted regiment was onthe brink of collapse, Robertson orderedColonel Francis H. Boos to ready his 38th Reg-iment to take up the attack. After two days ofbrutal assaults, the division had not gained asingle foot.

By daybreak on December 15, the situationremained stagnant. The scheduled airstrike wascancelled due to heavy fog, resulting in a tem-porary suspension of offensive operations. Inlieu of the aerial bombardment, 11 battalionsof artillery unleashed hell on earth, ripping upwire and collapsing earthen trenches whileother shells battered the massive bunkers andconcrete pillboxes.

At about 10 AM, something totally unex-pected occurred. Although German small armsfire continued to harry the front, all incomingartillery ceased. This was a most perplexing,

albeit welcome, turn of events. What was notknown was that the 277th Volksgrenadier Divi-sion was being relieved by the poorly trained326th Volksgrenadier Division so that the for-mer could participate in Hitler’s upcoming win-ter offensive in the Ardennes Forest, whichbecame known as the Battle of the Bulge. Asthe various Wehrmacht units exchanged posi-tions, their heavy guns fell silent.

There was one more glimmer of hope thatday. While inspecting Company G, Lt. Col.Higgins was finally informed of the singularpenetration made by Sergeant Dugan’s patrol.This noteworthy event had not been relayed upthe chain of command due to the confusionexperienced when the company commander,Captain Force, had been wounded and evacu-ated. Sensing an opportunity, Higgins decidedto capitalize on this unexpected boon. If theGerman artillery and mortars remained silent,Higgins planned on dispatching a reinforcedpatrol through the gap under cover of darknessto report the enemy’s disposition via sound-powered phone. If feasible, his battalion wouldthen filter forward to surprise and eliminate thestubborn pillbox line while Kernan’s 3rd Bat-talion pushed on to cut the Wahlerscheid-Drei-born highway before assaulting the actualcrossroads.

American artillery would continue to satu-

rate the entire area to restrict enemy activitywhile these maneuvers proceeded. Believing hisplan had a reasonable chance of success, Hig-gins presented it to Colonel Hirschfelder, whoin turn took it to General Robertson, who gavehis consent. It was a long shot but a gambleworth taking.

At 8 PM, Higgins summoned Sergeant Dunnto his command post, believing that since Dunnhad been a member of the original foray hewould be able to retrace his route to the enemytrenches. However, by then Dunn was in suchpoor physical condition that it was decided tosend Sergeant Rivera, another original patrolmember, in his stead.

Flickering explosions illuminated the front asRivera’s 11-man team slithered into no-man’s-land. Colonel Higgins waited with bated breathas time ticked by ... 20 minutes ... then 30. Stillno word. Finally, 45 minutes after Rivera’sdeparture a soft whistle pulsed through thephone line. Anxious, Higgins monitored thereport and it was not good. The patrol, confusedby the maze of barbed wire, was inexorably lostin the darkness. The men could not find theroute. Frustrated, Higgins ordered the entirepatrol to return by following its phone line.Meanwhile, Sergeant Dunn was recalled andasked if he felt up to the challenge. Althoughexhausted, Dunn agreed. By then Rivera’s patrol


On the afternoon of December 14, 1944, soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division hug thesnowy ground on the side of a ditch. The 9thInfantry was heavily engaged during the battle forthe Wahlerscheid Crossroads, which the soldiers ofthe 2nd Division nicknamed Heartbreak Crossroads.


was bellying into the American lines.Guiding on Rivera’s phone line, Dunn’s party

departed at 9 PM. Within 30 minutes Dunn wasrelaying good news. They were safely in theenemy’s trench and were preparing to investi-gate the first pillbox. Not a shot had been fired.Higgins was practically giddy at the prospectof success. Fifteen minutes later Dunn wasagain blowing into the mouthpiece: “The Ger-mans don’t seem to be alert. We have sur-rounded one of the pillboxes. No opposition.”Higgins was ecstatic.

Immediately, Higgins began feeding his bat-talion through the gap. Traveling single file, 1stLt. Fred J. Arnold’s Company F slipped forwardfollowing a strip of white engineering tape strungby a platoon of Company G, which was postedalong the route to act as guides. Upon enteringthe trench system, Arnold’s men deployed to theleft of the breach. Captain Ross’s depleted Com-pany E came next, accompanied by Lt. Col. Hig-gins, and built up along a firebreak to the right.The balance of Company G assumed the role ofbattalion reserve. By midnight the 2nd Battalionhad achieved a 300-yard bridgehead without theenemy’s knowledge.

While Sergeant Dunn’s men kept vigil on thefirst pillbox, Higgins joined Company F, nowhunkered in the trench before the second pillboxto Dunn’s left. Gambling on the enemy’s appar-

ent ignorance of the Americans’ presence, Hig-gins stealthily clambered onto the roof of the sec-ond pillbox to direct Arnold’s men in surround-ing it. Two more platoons eased farther downthe line to cover the next two pillboxes. With hisbattalion poised for action, Higgins’ radio crack-led: “Bring up the 3rd Battalion.”

By 1 AM, Kernan’s battalion was slipping for-ward. Upon reaching Higgins’ position, the twocommanders decided that 2nd Battalion wouldclear out the pillboxes in the immediate areawhile Kernan would pass through Company Eto push 400 yards deeper, utilizing the firebreakthat angled northwest behind the pillbox line tocut the Wahlerscheid-Dreiborn road. Fromthere he would march west to reduce the forti-fications guarding the actual junction.

No sooner had Kernan’s battalion clearedCompany E’s perimeter than Higgins gave thecommand to attack. A fusillade of .30-caliberbullets powdered the concrete framing the nar-row firing slits of the first pillbox in CompanyF’s area. Other rounds hammered the iron aper-ture guarding the rear entrance as an assaultteam bolted forward to place a beehive chargeagainst the steel door. Before the ringing blastfaded, GIs rushed forward to fling grenadesthrough the smoldering entrance or blast theinterior with bazooka rockets.

“Kamerad! Wir nicht schiesen!” the Ameri-

cans shouted, hoping to coax any survivors intocapitulation, “Surrender! We won’t shoot!”However, after three days of suffering in thefreezing, bullet-swept plain, the men of the 9thInfantry were in no mood for clemency. AnyGermans who did not emerge with their handsclasped over their heads were killed outright.In this manner the platoons of Company Fleapfrogged from one pillbox to the next, elim-inating each in turn.

By daylight two previously unidentified pill-boxes loomed 500 yards to the battalion’s right.Immediately, a platoon of Company F was dis-patched to knock them out. While advancingthrough scrub and pines the platoon was coun-terattacked by 17 Germans. In the ensuing gun-fight the Americans suffered one wounded, whilefour Germans were killed, four wounded, andfour more taken prisoner. The remaining fiveescaped unharmed. By 9:30 AM, the 2nd Battal-ion had neutralized seven pillboxes. A half hourlater its entire sector was in American hands.

While Higgins’ men battled for control of thefirst tier of pillboxes, Kernan’s battalion navi-gated the dimly lit firebreak, intent on gainingthe east-west Dreiborn road. En route, the lead-ing squad startled several sentries guarding aconcealed bunker, initiating a brief but chaoticfirefight before the outpost was overwhelmedand the infiltration resumed. Shortly afterward,



the point element stepped onto the highway.Wahlerscheid junction now lay but a short hikeaway.

In the darkness, Captain Garvey’s CompanyK slipped past the first five pillboxes encoun-tered as well as the fortified customs house todeploy before yet another pillbox situated atthe triangular crossroads. At the same time, 1stLt. Melvin S. Goldstein’s Company L closed inon two of the five bypassed pillboxes whileCaptain Ray’s Company I surrounded theremaining three to the east.

As the men readied for the assault, a deep-throated rumbling resonated from the easternhorizon, now shimmering with splashes of pinkand red. It was precisely 5:30 AM, December16, 1944. Although they did not know it, theywere witnessing the opening blows of Hitler’sdesperate winter offensive—the Battle of theBulge. The men of the 2nd Infantry Divisionhunkered in the frozen landscape beforeWahlerscheid junction believed that the violentexhibition was merely a reaction to the RoerDams attack and had no bearing on the diretask presently before them.

At Wahlerscheid the disorganized soldiers ofthe newly arrived 326th Volksgrenadier Divi-sion remained blissfully ignorant of the stormthat was about to engulf them. Many were fastasleep in their bunkers believing that the Amer-icans were still stalled before the barbed wire,hundreds of yards to their south.

On command, the Americans sprang intoaction. Sheer pandemonium supplanted falsetranquility as suppressive fire raked pillboxembrasures or thudded savagely into the sur-rounding entrenchments. Beehive chargesripped open the fortifications’ rear doors.Grenades were tossed in. Kernan’s battle-wearysoldiers possessed the same foul temperamentas those of Higgins’ 2nd Battalion, and anyGermans who refused to surrender werequickly eliminated.

Captain Garvey’s men jumped the pillboxbefore them, and by 6:45 AM had the situationunder control. Meanwhile, Goldstein’s Com-pany L successfully assaulted its assigned pill-boxes, then moved on to the nearby customshouse where 2nd and 3rd Platoons formed aprotective arc as 1st Platoon rushed the build-ing at the break of dawn. The startled defend-ers, many still groggy with sleep, were takencompletely by surprise, and within minutes 77befuddled Wehrmacht soldiers filed from thebuilding with fingers interlaced above fieldcaps. Not one American was injured.

While Goldstein’s men gathered their pris-oners, Company K continued westward to asecondary road junction, which was secured by

8 AM. Meanwhile, Company I had seized thethree easternmost of the five bypassed pill-boxes, then crossed the highway to assault twomore, farther north. By 9:30 AM, the 3rd Bat-talion had secured the crossroads.

The enemy line was clearly crumbling. Uponreceiving word of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions’breakthrough, Lt. Col. McKinley’s 1st Battalionwas ordered forward at first light. Company B,now led by 1st Lt. John L. Milesnick, moved outover ground that had previously been fiercelycontested. Much to their delight, incoming firewas surprisingly light. Creeping forward, theymanaged to cut additional lanes through the wireat a cost of only four casualties, one from smallarms fire and the others from mines. Once insidethe entrenchments, they blew up one pillbox,which paved the way to the Wahlerscheid junc-tion. The enemy’s ability to resist had beengreatly reduced by the confusion following thetroop exchange of the previous day.

By 10:15 AM, McKinley’s battalion hadlinked with the 3rd Battalion at Wahlerscheid,where the entire regiment dug in. By then, twobattalions of the 38th Infantry were alreadytrudging through the forests flanking the Drei-born road to continue the drive toward theRoer River dams. After four days of sufferingthrough shot, shell, and inclement weather, theManchu Regiment had taken one of the mostheavily defended sectors of the Siegfried Line,netting 24 pillboxes, bunkers, and fortifiedpositions. But the cost had been high. All three

battalions had been reduced to half strength,with battle- and weather-related casualtiesmore or less equally divided.

At dusk the battalions surrounding Wahler-scheid received varied amounts of artillery andmortar fire while repelling several spiritedcounterattacks, but the Manchus refused toyield. However, their conquest was to be apyrrhic victory.

Alarming reports flashed from the south.“Heavy enemy bombardment pounding theentire Ardennes sector; numerous penetrationsby strong infantry and armored forces all acrossthe front.” Chaos and mayhem gripped the sol-diers manning the thinly held “Ghost Front.”The Battle of the Bulge was upon them.

General Gerow was gravely concerned overthese unsettling developments. Elements ofRobertson’s 2nd Division were seven miles deepin enemy territory with only one poor road astheir main supply route. If this road were cut,Robertson’s nagging premonition at the outsetof the operation could prove prophetic. Twoentire regiments could be isolated anddestroyed. Fearing the worst, Gerow requestedan immediate withdrawal of his attackingforces. Initially, Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges,First Army commander, refused, believing theenemy was merely launching spoiling attacksin response to the Roer River dams offensive,but in time he too realized the gravity of the sit-uation and grudgingly gave his consent.

In the dimming light of December 17, the2nd Infantry Division disengaged and com-menced a piecemeal withdrawal under fireacross a crumbling front to assume defensivepositions at its jump-off point of Rocherath,Belgium. In the following days, these menwould fight one of the pivotal actions of WorldWar II as they denied General Josef “Sepp”Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army access to three ofits five assigned routes toward the port city ofAntwerp, Belgium.

In the dreary twilight of December 17, 1944,the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division werein a foul mood as they trudged past the bat-tered fortifications of Wahlerscheid. Beingforced to relinquish their hard-won gains with-out a fight was a bitter pill to swallow, andafterward the men who wore the Indian Headshoulder patch would refer to the battle-scarredjunction as “Heartbreak Crossroads.”

Cleve C. Barkley writes from his home inLoraine, Illinois, with a focus on military his-tory. He is the author of In Death’s DarkShadow: A Soldier’s Story, which chronicles hisfather’s service as an infantryman in the Euro-pean Theater.


ABOVE: Several days after the fighting at theWahlerscheid Crossroads has ended, an engineer ofthe 2nd Infantry Division plants a mine. The GIswere preparing strong defenses as the Battle of theBulge raged nearby. OPPOSITE: The shattered cross-roads at Wahlerscheid, shown on February 13,1945, after it was recaptured from the Germans,will forever be known as Heartbreak Crossroads tothe soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division.


The ferocious battle for the island of Saipan in the Mar-ianas was won by U.S. Marines and U.S. Army troopsthat defeated the Japanese during 39 days of heavy fight-ing from June 15 through July 9, 1944.

The death struggle for Saipan was followed by anotherferocious battle between the Army and the Marine Corpswhen the top Marine general on the island, Lt. Gen. Hol-land M. Smith, relieved the top Army general, Maj. Gen.Ralph Smith, of his job as commanding officer of the 27thInfantry Division. Holland Smith fired Ralph Smith inthe middle of the fighting. The abrupt dismissal set offfireworks at flag rank and in the media while generatinga controversy that persists to this day.

At the center of the dispute was Ralph Smith, who ledthe 27th Infantry, a New York National Guard outfit,with many of its men drawn from the state’s farming andmountain country along with others from New YorkCity’s tough neighborhoods. Ironically, Ralph Smith wasnot a New Yorker. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in1893, and attended Colorado State College. He enlisted

in the Colorado National Guard in 1916, was commis-sioned second lieutenant, and was promoted straight-away to first lieutenant. Taught to fly by Orville Wright,Ralph Smith gained the 13th pilot’s license in the historyof the United States, signed by Wright himself.

Ralph Smith graduated from Officers Training Schoolat Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1917, and served on theMexican border with the 35th Infantry Regiment. Hewas sent to France with the 16th Infantry Regiment, partof the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. He saw a lot ofaction, including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, earninga Purple Heart and a Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster.

On returning home, Ralph Smith served in the usualpeacetime Army roles including adjutant of the 2ndInfantry Brigade in Kentucky, French instructor at WestPoint, training and instructing at the Infantry School, andattending the Command and General Staff School at FortLeavenworth in 1927-1928. Next up was a tour at thePresidio in San Francisco, then a return to the Commandand General Staff School as an instructor. He graduated


ABOVE LEFT: General Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith (left) of the U.S. Marine Corps relieved General Ralph Smith of the U.S. Armyon Saipan and created a firestorm of controversy. ABOVE RIGHT: After being relieved of command of the 27th Infantry Division, Gen-eral Ralph Smith and other senior Army officers engaged in a bitter war of words with General Holland M. Smith and the U.S. Marinecommand establishment. RIGHT: The Marine in the foreground of this image is struck by shrapnel from an exploding mortar round dur-ing the savage contest for control of the island of Saipan in the Marianas. The photographer who captured this image flinched as hesnapped the photo, blurring the image. Doctrinal differences between the Marine Corps and Army units operating on Saipan led Gen-eral “Howlin’ Mad” Smith to believe the Army troops were moving much slower than his Marines.

THE WAR BETWEEN THE SMITHS

W-Oct15 War of the Smiths_Layout 1 7/30/15 4:53 PM

51OCTOBER 2015 WWII HISTORYAll: National Archives

Two commanding generals, one with the U.S. Marine Corps and the other with the Army, were embroiled in a command controversy that began during the joint effort to capture Saipan.

BY DAVID H. LIPPMAN


from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle,Pennsylvania, in 1935, and was then chosen tostudy at the prestigious École de Guerre inFrance.

In 1937, Ralph Smith returned to the UnitedStates. He was promoted to colonel in 1938,serving as Chief of the Operations Branch, Mil-itary Intelligence Division of the War Depart-ment General Staff. By 1940, he was Chief ofthe Plans and Training Branch of the G-2 Divi-sion. The following year, Ralph Smith receivedhis brigadier general’s star. All who knew himregarded Ralph Smith as gentle man and a gen-tleman.

In early 1942, the 27th Infantry Division wasmoved from New York to Hawaii to defend theislands against Japanese attack. The 27th had aproud tradition—one of its units was the 165thInfantry Regiment, which in its World War Iincarnation had been the legendary “Fighting69th” Infantry Regiment commanded by “WildBill” Donovan in the Argonne. Ralph Smith wasgiven command of this division.

Ralph Smith’s chief antagonist was a ferociousAlabaman, born in 1882. Holland McTyeire“Howlin’ Mad” Smith was the son of a promi-nent Alabama politician. While attending theAlabama Polytechnic Institute, a military schoolin Auburn, Holland Smith read about Napoleonand decided to become a career officer. He grad-uated from the Alabama Polytechnic Instituteand then went to law school at the University ofAlabama, where he was a better sprinter thanscholar but still gained a law degree and wasadmitted to the bar.

When Holland Smith sought an Army com-mission, he went to Washington to plead hiscase to his congressman, but the Army turned

him down. Some historians suggest that mayhave given him a lifelong dislike of the Army.A congressman then suggested Holland Smithtry his luck with the Marines.

“What are the Marines?” Holland Smithasked in all candor, and he found out on March29, 1905, when he was commissioned as a sec-ond lieutenant in the Corps. He was soon nick-named “Howlin’ Mad,” a play on his nameand initials, and went to France with the 8thMarine Regiment in 1917. He earned a Croixde Guerre with Palm in combat. Between thewars, he became one of the Marines’ pioneersof amphibious warfare.

In March 1937, Colonel Holland Smithbecame director of operations and training atMarine Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In

September 1939, he gained general’s stars andcommand of the 1st Marine Brigade. This wasdoubled in size under his leadership andbecame the 1st Marine Division. In June 1941,Holland Smith took command of the Amphibi-ous Force, Atlantic Fleet.

A short, heavy-set man with a moustache,round, thin glasses, a hard face, and cigar, Hol-land Smith resembled an elderly businesstycoon, not a poster general. Aged 60, hisappearance and girth troubled a medical board,which found him physically unfit for combatservice due to a diagnosis of severe diabetes.The diagnosis proved to be a mistake, and Hol-land Smith headed to the West Coast to leadamphibious training as the Marines preparedfor Guadalcanal.

There, Holland Smith trained Leathernecksfor their impending ordeal and Army troops forthe Aleutian campaign. While his duties werevital, Smith, like most line officers, frettedabout not getting into combat and beseechedAdmiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chiefof the Pacific Fleet, for a battle role. Nimitzgave Holland Smith the post of CommandingGeneral, Fleet Marine Force Pacific, and Hol-land Smith took up his duties on September 5,1943.

Holland Smith headed the invasion ofTarawa in the Gilberts and its nearby islandsof Makin and Abemama in November 1943,and under his command was Ralph Smith’s27th Infantry Division. The two Smiths firstclashed during the assault on Makin.

On November 20, the 27th Division’s 165thInfantry Regiment, under Colonel GardinerConroy, assaulted Makin and faced fiercedefenders. On D+2, Holland Smith went ashoreto check on the battle. He found the corpse ofColonel Conroy lying in an open area. Conroy,walking erect on the beach on D-day, had beenshot between the eyes by a Japanese sniper, andthe body had not been retrieved.

Holland Smith was angered that the colonel’sbody had lain for two days “in full sight of hun-dreds of men,” a detriment to morale. Worse,when Conroy had been killed the Army troopshad withdrawn tanks, mortars, and machineguns without firing a shot. The 27th Division’sapparent lack of aggressiveness, poor training,and weak discipline irritated the fierce HollandSmith. He later wrote, “Had Ralph Smith beena Marine I would have relieved him on thespot.” He also called the 27th’s capture of theisland “infuriatingly slow.”

Meanwhile, the Marine landings on Tarawawere more successful despite suffering heavycasualties, burnishing the tactics and reputationof the Leathernecks and their tough-talking


Colonel Gardiner Conroy (left), commander of the165th Infantry Regiment at Makin, was killed inaction during the early fighting. General Sanford Jar-man (right) was placed in command of the 27thInfantry Division after Ralph Smith was fired. Jar-man found it difficult to work with senior Marinecommanders, just as Ralph Smith had. TOP: Soldiersof the U.S. Army’s 2nd Battalion, 165th InfantryRegiment, 27th Infantry Division wade ashore onMakin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943.

All: National Archives


commander.The Smiths were united again for an

amphibious assault on Eniwetok in February1944, and once again Holland Smith wasunhappy with Ralph Smith’s performance.

On March 15, 1944, Holland Smith becamethe Marine Corps’s second three-star generalwith command of the V Amphibious Corps.With great reluctance, he accepted the 27thInfantry into his command for the invasion ofSaipan.

When the 27th Infantry came ashore onSaipan, the actual landing was close to farce.The GIs landed by night, their landing craftmoving through waters jammed with Navy ves-sels. Holland Smith’s corps staff did not tell theNavy that the Army was coming ashore.

Communications broke down, and Navyofficers yelled through loud-hailers at the Armyofficers demanding to know who these peoplewere and where they were going while pointmachine guns at them. The infantry officers hadto wheedle and beg to get their men ashore.Once aground, the men of the 165th InfantryRegiment were exhausted and seasick beforethey even met the Japanese. The 105th InfantryRegiment lacked its vehicles, rations, andammunition.

But Ralph Smith did his best, getting the 27thoff the beach and into battle, headed for MountTopotchau. A former Fort Benning infantryinstructor, Ralph Smith used the tried-and-trueBenning methods to approach the mountain:probe until enemy strongpoints wereunmasked, hit them with accurate artillery fire,and use patrols to find ways to outflank themain positions. Frontal assaults up valleys wereonly acceptable in an emergency.

Ralph Smith’s methodical probing irritatedHolland Smith, who favored the aggressive vio-lence and direct action that was the Marinehallmark. Personalities as well as tactical meth-ods were now clashing on the rocky island. TheArmy made little progress.

On June 24, after consulting with his superi-ors, Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner andVice Admiral Raymond Spruance, HollandSmith relieved Ralph Smith, sending a captainfrom the Adjutant General’s Corps with theofficial order, typed up on V Amphibious Corpsstationery, and the additional proviso thatRalph Smith and a single aide must leaveSaipan by dawn on the 25th. Maj. Gen. Sander-ford Jarman, who was to command the Armybase on Saipan once the island was secure,would take over the 27th Infantry Division.

Ralph Smith offered to stay to help with thetransition, but that offer was refused. At 5:17AM on June 25, Ralph Smith and his aide

boarded a Navy patrol plane and started wing-ing back to Eniwetok, a 10-hour flight, ulti-mately headed for Hawaii.

Holland Smith later wrote, “Relieving RalphSmith was one of the most disagreeable tasks Ihave ever been forced to perform,” adding thathe personally liked the man and considered him“professionally knowledgeable.”

But at the time, Holland Smith told Timemagazine war correspondent and futureMarine historian Robert Sherrod, “Ralph

Smith’s my friend, but good God, I’ve got aduty to my country. I’ve lost 7,000 Marines.Can I afford to lose back what they havegained? To let my Marines die in vain? I knowI’m sticking my neck out—the National Guardwill try to chop it off—but my conscience isclear. I did my duty. When Ralph Smith issuedan order to hold after I told him to attack, I hadno other choice than to relieve him.”

Holland Smith was right about the oncomingstorm. When Ralph Smith arrived in Hawaii,


ABOVE: On June 15, 1944, landing craft filled with U.S. Marines churn toward the beaches of Saipan, astrategically vital island in the Marianas that would eventually serve as a forward base for long-range B-29Superfortress bombers raiding the home islands of Japan. BELOW: From the cover of a shell hole, U.S. Marines throw grenades across the shattered landscape of Saipantoward Japanese positions. The stubborn Japanese defense of Saipan resulted in a bloody 39-day campaign tocapture the island, and the differing combat doctrines of Marine and Army troops compounded the discordamong the highest echelons of the American command.

Both: National Archives


he reported to Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson,the senior Army commander in the Pacific, andRichardson was outraged. He told Ralph Smithto take as much time as necessary to prepare areport on everything that had happened onSaipan. On July 11, Ralph Smith produced a34-page document with annexes and copies ofhis communications with Holland Smith. Acopy went to Nimitz.

Ralph Smith urged Richardson, “No Army

combat troops should ever again be permittedto serve under the command of Marine Lieu-tenant General Holland M. Smith.”

While Ralph Smith and his officers typed uptheir report, the ranking Army officers onSaipan vented their considerable displeasureover the relief and Holland Smith’s commandto Richardson as well. Maj. Gen. George W.Griner, who took over the 27th Infantry Divi-sion from Jarman on June 26, told Richardson

how he had quarreled so bitterly with HollandSmith that he came away from Saipan with the“firm conviction that [Holland Smith] is soprejudiced against the Army that no Army Divi-sion under his command alongside of MarineDivisions can expect that their deeds willreceive fair and honest evaluation.”

Meanwhile, Richardson ordered Lt. Gen.Simon B. Buckner, son of a Confederate CivilWar hero and victor of the Aleutian Campaign,to head a five-general board to examine the cir-cumstances of Ralph Smith’s relief.

While the gravelly Buckner and his boardstudied the files, Richardson flew to Saipan inhis capacity as commander of all U.S. Armyforces in the Pacific Ocean Areas. First hebucked up the 27th Division’s morale by stag-ing a review and presenting decorations forvalor—without the knowledge or consent ofHolland Smith, who was angry at this breachof military etiquette and infringement on hisauthority as Corps commander.

Next, Richardson berated Holland Smith,barking, “I want you to know that you cannotpush the Army around the way you have beendoing; you and your Corps commanders aren’tas well qualified to lead large bodies of troopsas general officers in the Army, yet you dare toremove one of my generals. You Marines arenothing but a bunch of beach runners anyway.What do you know about land warfare?”

Faced with this verbal barrage, the normallyvolatile Holland Smith held his temper, butafter the conversation he stormed off toTurner’s flagship and vented his frustration.

Turner did the next round of exploding,questioning Richardson’s right to exercise anycommand functions in the battle area and evento visit Saipan. Richardson coolly said that hehad permission from Nimitz to visit Saipan,and Turner angrily demanded the proof.Richardson went over Turner’s head to Spru-ance, who gave Richardson a “what do youexpect from Turner” shrug.

Spruance and Turner complained to Nimitzabout Richardson’s visit and verbal attack onHolland Smith.

The Buckner Board reviewed the increasinglyugly mess, and arrived at four conclusions:

(1) Holland Smith had full authority torelieve Ralph Smith.

(2) The orders effecting the change of com-mand were properly issued.

(3) Holland Smith “was not fully informedregarding conditions in the zone of the 27thInfantry Division” when he asked for RalphSmith’s relief.

(4) The relief of Ralph Smith “was not justi-fied by the facts.”


ABOVE: Three soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division take temporary cover from Japanese fire on Saipan.Their vantage point is a rock wall on high ground that overlooks cane fields. The terrain on Saipan contributedto the deliberate progress of the Army troops on the island. BELOW: His bayonet fixed to his M1 Garand rifle,a soldier of the 27th Infantry Division peers from cover on the island of Saipan.



The board faulted the V Amphibious Corpscommand for not realizing that the 27th Divi-sion was facing much tougher opposition thanthe Corps anticipated, and the division’s lackof aggressiveness was due to Japanese defenses,not sluggish Army leadership. The BucknerBoard noted that the Marine Corps headquar-ters team and staff work were enormouslysloppy and asserted that the senior Marineleadership had not been anywhere near the27th Division’s sector and simply did not knowwhat the Army had been up against on MountTapotchau.

The Army had a point. Saipan was the firsttime in its 150-year history that the U.S. MarineCorps had fought a corps-level action, andwhile the Leathernecks were fierce fighters andprofessional warriors they simply lacked theexperience needed at that level of combat oper-ations.

The Navy and Marine Corps reacted withpredictable irritation. Holland Smith wrote toNimitz that the Buckner Board’s conclusionswere unwarranted, adding, “I was and am con-vinced that the 27th Division was not accom-plishing even the combat results to be expectedfrom an organization which had had adequateopportunity for training.”

Turner chimed in, resenting the board’simplied criticism in “pressing Lt. Gen. HollandM. Smith ... to expedite the conquest of Saipanso as to free the fleet for another operation.” Headded that Holland Smith’s relief order was not“based on either personal or service prejudiceor jealousy.”

Richardson added his own harsh words inhis report to Army Chief of Staff GeneralGeorge C. Marshall, writing, “I feel it is myduty to make of record my urgent and consid-ered recommendation that no Army combattroops ever again be permitted to serve underthe command of Marine Lieutenant GeneralHolland Smith. So far as the employment ofArmy troops are concerned, he is prejudiced,petty, and unstable. He has demonstrated anapparent lack of understanding of the accep-tance of Army doctrines for the tactical employ-ment of larger units.”

Jarman agreed, saying, “It is my earnest rec-ommendation that in future operations of anykind where the Army and the Marine Corps areemployed that under no circumstances shouldany Army divisions be incorporated into theMarine Corps. Their basic concepts of combatare far removed from that of the Army.”

The Buckner Board findings went next toWashington for review by Marshall and hisAssistant Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Thomas T.Handy. They believed that while Holland Smith

had some cause to complain about the 27thDivision’s lack of aggressiveness, “HollandSmith’s fitness for this command is open toquestion” because of his deep-seated prejudiceagainst the Army and that “bad blood haddeveloped between the Marines and the Armyon Saipan” to such a degree that it endangeredfuture operations in the theater.

Handy advised that the two Smiths beordered out of the Pacific but added, “While Ido not believe we should make definite recom-mendation to the Navy for the relief of Hol-land Smith, I think that positive action shouldbe taken to get Ralph Smith out of the area.His presence undoubtedly tends to aggravate abad situation between the Services.”

The Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Joseph T.McNarney, examined the Buckner Board reportand concluded that Holland Smith’s VAmphibious Corps staff work was belowacceptable standards; there was reasonablygood tactical direction on the part of RalphSmith, but the division had poor leadershipamong its regimental and battalion comman-ders, a hesitance to bypass snipers “with a ten-dency to alibi because of lack of reserves tomop up,” poor march discipline, and lack ofreconnaissance.

On November 22, 1944, Marshall gave hisviews to the Navy’s top seadog, Admiral ErnestJ. King, expressing concern that “relationshipsbetween the Marines and the Army forces onSaipan had deteriorated beyond mere healthyrivalry.”

Marshall urged that he and King send iden-tical telegrams to Richardson and Nimitz to“take suitable steps to promptly eradicate anytendency toward ... disharmony among thecomponents of our forces.” He also suggestedanother investigation into the Saipan affair toprevent its recurrence.

King wrote back to say that the BucknerBoard findings were unilateral and suspect,contained intemperate attacks on the personalcharacter and professional competence of Hol-land Smith, and he could not concur in any fur-ther investigations in which Richardson was aparty because that officer had done enoughdamage by his “investigational activities dur-ing his visit to Saipan” and by convening theBuckner Board. That ended any further officialaction on the controversy.

Unfortunately, now the controversy movedinto the public arena. The Saipan battle washuge news in the United States, particularly theghastly Japanese mass suicides on Marpi Point,which had been well-documented by film, pho-tograph, and reporter accounts. The Americanpublic was shocked by how the island’s Japan-ese civilians chose suicide over surrender andthe heavy U.S. casualty toll. The command con-troversy was raw meat for American pressbarons.

William Randolph Hearst’s empire openedthe ink barrage. The aging reactionary titanwas a major public supporter of the flamboy-ant and dramatic General Douglas MacArthur,who commanded the Southwest Pacific The-


General Robert Richardson, senior commander of U.S. Army troops in the Pacific Theater, addresses staff offi-cers of the 27th Infantry Division during his visit to Saipan after the relief of General Ralph Smith from com-mand. Richardson did not consult Marine General Smith prior to visiting Saipan, and the Marine commandestablishment considered Richardson’s tour of the island a serious breach of military protocol.

National Archives


ater. Hearst took advantage of Saipan’s highcasualty lists and Ralph Smith’s firing todenounce the Navy, Marine Corps, and theirleadership.

In his flagship newspaper, the San FranciscoExaminer, Hearst editorialized that Army com-manders used subtle, intelligent tactics whilethe Marines were one dimensional. “Allegedlyexcessive loss of life attributed to Marine Corpsimpetuosity of attack has brought a breakbetween Marine and Army commanders in thePacific,” Hearst wrote.

In another one of his major papers, the NewYork Journal-American, Hearst wrote, “Amer-icans are shocked at the casualties on Saipanfollowing already heavy losses by Marine com-manders on Tarawa and Kwajalein.” Hearstaccused Holland Smith of firing his Army sub-ordinate when Ralph Smith protested “recklessand needless waste of American lives.”

Hearst had a simple solution to the contro-versy. Put Douglas MacArthur in supreme com-mand of the entire Pacific Theater from theAleutians to New Guinea. Putting MacArthurin command of everything was Hearst’s answerto most controversies—in 1948 and 1952 hewould back the general for the presidency—butit fueled increasing debate.

The Navy had its partisans in the press war,however. Most notable of these was CharlesHenry Luce, the publisher of Time and Lifemagazines. Luce’s admiration dated back to hisyouth as the child of American missionaries inChina at the beginning of the 20th century.There, the Navy and Marines had burnishedtheir reputation by protecting American com-mercial interests and citizens from the ravagesof Chinese bandits, civil war, and later the Sino-Japanese conflict.

Luce also had a reporter assigned to HollandSmith. Robert Sherrod was close to the fieryMarine general and went ashore with theMarines on the first day of the Saipan invasion,staying with them through the entire grim bat-tle. Sherrod wrote highly accurate stories aboutLeatherneck courage and enthusiasm. Certainlythe Marines had fought well and victoriously,and they made good copy.

But Sherrod never visited the Army units, andhe overplayed the Marines’ disgust at the 27thDivision’s perceived failures. He wrote thatwhile the Marines made great gains againsttough Japanese resistance, entire Army battal-ions were pinned down for hours by a singleJapanese gun position or sniper.

On September 18, 1944, Time magazinepublished an article by Sherrod supporting Hol-land Smith, which described the 27th Divisionas being commanded by an incompetent. Sher-

rod wrote that the 27th’s GIs “froze in theirfoxholes” and had to be rescued by the Leath-ernecks. Sherrod added, “When field com-manders hesitate to remove subordinates forfear of interservice contention, battles and liveswill be needlessly lost.”

Historian Geoffrey Perret wrote decades laterthat the humiliating article devastated the menof the 27th, and the division never recoveredits toughness from the journalistic blow.

The debate raged on in the media and in pub-lic conversation, which annoyed Marshall,King, and General Henry “Hap” Arnold, headof the U.S. Army Air Forces, who were nowwishing the entire affair would simply go away.They were more concerned with the next cam-paigns, in the Palau Islands, New Guinea, andthe Philippines, than in refereeing the “WarBetween the Smiths.” It was time to end thewhole affair.

Ralph Smith was given Maj. Gen. George

Griner’s old command in Hawaii, the 98thInfantry Division, when Griner took over the27th. This switch of division commanders wasonly temporary, though, as Marshall wantedthe two Smiths separated for life.

Ultimately, Ralph Smith’s fluent knowledgeof French saved his career. He was assigned asmilitary attaché to General Charles de Gaulle’sFree French government, which had installeditself in Paris. Ralph Smith arrived just in timefor the closing guns of the Battle of the Bulgeand the opening guns of Operation Nordwind,Hitler’s offensive in Alsace against the U.S. Sev-enth and French First Armies. The two-prongedGerman drive was threatening to cut off Stras-bourg, and the Americans wanted to withdrawfrom the city.

Unfortunately, Strasbourg’s possession was amajor issue for de Gaulle. He was determinednot to yield once more a city that had beenannexed to Germany in 1870 to the Huns. Gen-


BELOW: Believing horrific tales of American atrocities fabricated by Japanese military propagandists, Japanesecivilians commit suicide by flinging themselves and their children from the cliffs at Marpi Point on the island ofSaipan. Unable to intervene, U.S. Marines watch helplessly as the civilians end their lives by drowning orfalling on the rocks below. OPPOSITE: After he was relieved of command of the 27th Infantry Division onSaipan, General Ralph Smith was transferred to the European Theater, where he served with distinction as aliaison officer to Free French commander General Charles de Gaulle. In this photo, Smith attends a 1946 cere-mony in the village of Ste. Mere-Eglise, France, honoring soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, who para-chuted into the area on D-Day.

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eral Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Com-mander Allied Expeditionary Force, threatenedto cut off supplies to de Gaulle’s troops if theydid not withdraw. De Gaulle was obstinate.With the two Allies shouting at each other,quiet diplomacy was needed to resolve the sit-uation, and Ralph Smith provided it. He con-vinced the French that American and Frenchtroops would fight to hold the city. Both Stras-bourg and French honor were saved, a gooddeal of it through Ralph Smith’s efforts.

Holland Smith got a different reward. Withsix Marine divisions in the Pacific now, alongwith 28 artillery battalions, 12 Amtrac battal-ions, and four Marine air wings, the Marinesnow had an army rather than a corps in thefield and needed a Marine headquarters toadminister this force.

Holland Smith was named head of FleetMarine Force, Pacific, which was a mixed bless-ing for the fiery warrior. While he oversaw theentire Marine war effort in the Pacific, he didnot actually command Leathernecks in battle.Nor did he command Army troops again.

The invasion of Iwo Jima was purely a Navy-Marine show, and both services suffered heavycasualties while gaining the island and glory,but when the Marines were assigned for theinvasions of Okinawa and Kyushu they cameunder Army command.

At Okinawa, the higher formation was theU.S. Tenth Army under General Buckner. Iron-ically, Buckner was killed late in the battle, andMarine Lt. Gen. Roy Geiger, who commandedthe III Amphibious Corps, took temporarycharge of the Tenth Army from June 18 to June23 while General Joseph Stilwell flew in fromthe United States to assume command. Geigerthus became the only Marine officer to com-mand a U.S. Army in the field.

In the planning for Operation Olympic, theinvasion of Kyushu, and Operation Coronet,the invasion of Honshu, the Marines were tocome under the U.S. Sixth Army and GeneralWalter Krueger in Olympic and General RobertEichelberger’s U.S. Eighth Army in Coronet.Both invasions were forestalled by the atomicbombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whichhastened Japan’s surrender.

But the controversy continued after the war,if not in the halls of high command, in the pub-lic eye. Holland Smith retired from the MarineCorps with his fourth star in May 1946, hav-ing served in the Corps for 41 years. Hepromptly wrote his memoirs, which were seri-alized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1948,and in book form in 1949 with the title Coraland Brass. In his memoirs, Holland Smithdefended his decision to fire Ralph Smith and

blasted the 27th Infantry Division for its per-ceived weaknesses.

The 27th Infantry Division’s official histo-rian, Captain Edmund G. Love, wrote a rebut-tal for the Saturday Evening Post as well, andanother one for the division’s history, publishedby the Infantry Journal. Love defended RalphSmith and his GI buddies.

The official Army and Marine Corps histori-ans also weighed in on the controversy. The1960 Army history, Campaign in the Marianas,by Philip A. Crowl, straddled the fence. Crowlsaid that Holland Smith’s orders were neverclear, the division did fight hesitantly, and didnot advance. Crowl concluded, “No matterwhat the extenuating circumstances were—andthere are several—the conclusion seemsinescapable that Holland Smith had reason tobe disappointed with the performance of the27th Infantry Division on the two days in ques-tion. Whether the action he took to remedy thesituation was a wise one, however, was doubtful.Certainly the relief of Ralph Smith appears tohave done nothing to speed the capture of DeathValley. Six more days of bitter fighting remainedbefore that object was to be achieved.”

The Marine history was written in 1966 byHenry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and EdwinT. Turndbladh and titled Central Pacific Drive.

The Leatherneck historians wrote: “TheSmith against Smith controversy was caused byfailure of the 27th Infantry Division to pene-trate the defenses of Death Valley. HollandSmith had told the division commanding gen-eral that operations in the area had to bespeeded up. Ralph Smith, who was thoroughly

familiar with the tactical situation, informedJarman of his own annoyance with the slowprogress of his unit. He told the island com-mander that he intended to press the attack, buthe postponed making the changes in commandwhich, according to Jarman, he intimatedmight be necessary. The NTLF (NorthernTroops and Landing Force) commander (Hol-land Smith), after stating that the objective hadto be taken, saw that no significant progresshad been made on 24 June and promptlyreplaced the officer responsible for the conductof the Army division. The Army Smith offeredhis subordinates another chance, but theMarine Smith did immediately what he felt wasnecessary, without regard for the controversyhe knew would follow.”

Ultimately, Ralph Smith probably had thelast word. After retiring from the Corps, Hol-land Smith lived in La Jolla, California, pursu-ing his hobby of gardening until his death atage 84 in 1967. He is buried in Fort RosecransNational Cemetery in San Diego.

Ralph Smith, however, became Chief of Mis-sion for CARE (Cooperation for Assistance andRelief Everywhere) in France, retiring from theArmy in 1948. After that, he was a fellow at theHoover Institution on War, Revolution, andPeace, in California, and lived until 1998, dyingat the age of 104. At his death, he was the old-est surviving general officer in the U.S. Armyand had outlasted all of his critics.

David Lippman, a frequent contributor toWWII History, writes on a variety of topics.He resides in Newark, New Jersey.


National Archives


“THIS MISSION IS SUICIDAL,” thought BogdanMieczkowski. In the autumn of 1944, the 19-year-oldPolish resistance fighter battled in the Warsaw Upris-ing. Poles, although outnumbered and outgunned,rebelled against Nazi Germans who overran westernPoland and seized the capital city. Mieczkowski’s unitnow mounted an offensive to allow trapped comradesto escape from Warsaw’s Old Town section, where aNazi counteroffensive pinned them down. With justeight soldiers and armed only with hand grenades,Mieczkowski thought they risked slaughter.

Two Polish engineers placed dynamite next to a wallseparating them from the Germans and then ran acrossthe street. An explosion blasted a hole in the wall, emit-

ting an enormous dust cloud, and Mieczkowski andthe others scurried through the opening. As they ran,a German machine gun opened fire. Mieczkowski felthis right arm jerk violently, and brick shards struck hisupper thigh as bullets ripped out pieces of the wall,turning them into projectiles. “I hit the ground andlooked at my hand. Instead of my right thumb, a flapof skin was hanging in its place,” Mieczkowski said.He had to continue fighting—only now he was bleed-ing profusely, his right thumb sliced off and leg piercedby shrapnel. World War II, which had devastated hisfamily and the life he knew, was becoming deadlierevery minute.

Before the war began, Mieczkowski was enjoying


ABOVE: Bogdan Mieczkowski posed in his Polish Army uniformfor a photographer in London in1946. TOP: During the suppressionof the Warsaw Uprising in theautumn of 1944, German soldiers,an officer among them, watchbuildings burn to the ground. The Poles fought bravely, but the German assault was brutal. Some Poles, however, successfullyescaped the killing zone.

UPRIS

W-Oct15 Warsaw Uprising_Layout 1 7/31/15 10:45 AM

his teenage years in Bydgoszcz, a city of150,000 in northwestern Poland. He had olderand younger brothers, Zbigniew and Janusz,and their mother Aniela was a devout Catholicwho read voraciously and loved to play thefamily’s grand piano. The family patriarch,Tadeusz, had gone to America to study engi-neering at Chicago’s Armour Institute. Afterearning his degree in 1915, Tadeusz returnedto Poland and parlayed his U.S. education intobusiness success, co-owning a thriving con-struction company that had two brick-makingplants in Bydgoszcz, plus other factories andstorage depots nearby.

Tadeusz’s success as an industrialist allowedthe family to live in comfort. They owned alarge, five-bedroom house, employed a cookand domestic servant, and had two cars, includ-ing an American-built Willys Overland. Thefamily vacationed along the Baltic Sea duringsummers and took winter retreats in theCarpathian Mountains, where Tadeusz owneda small hotel.

On September 1, 1939, distant explosions sig-naled an end to this idyllic lifestyle. On that day,Bogdan was at his dentist’s office. From faraway came rumbling, like thunder. Although hedidn’t know it, those sounds marked the start of

World War II. Also unaware of what the boomsmeant, the dentist arranged another appoint-ment with Mieczkowski. Neither of them wouldkeep it. (Mieczkowski later learned that theGestapo arrested and tortured his dentist, releas-ing him to die within just two weeks.)

The significance of those sounds soonbecame clear. Just nine days earlier, on August23, 1939, Germany and Russia had signed anonaggression pact. The treaty removed Ger-man Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s worry about aconflict with the Soviet Union and allowed thetwo nations to forge a secret agreement todivide Poland. On September 1, Germany

59AUGUST 2015 WWII HISTORYNational Archives

A WARSAW FREEDOM FIGHTER BATTLES NAZI OCCUPIERS.BY YANEK MIECZKOWSKISING!

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smashed through the country, and two dayslater, Britain declared war on Germany. Becauselarger, hostile countries traditionally borderedPoland, invasions and annexations so bedev-iled its past that one aphorism said that Poland“had no history, just neighbors.” As if to provethat adage true, on September 17 the SovietUnion invaded and occupied the country’s east-ern half. This new aggression doomed Poland,which was attacked by Germany to the Westand the USSR to the East; in effect, the countryhad been stabbed both front and back.

For millions of Poles, World War II meantinjury, death, and destruction of the lives theyonce knew. So it was for the Mieczkowskis. TheNazis overran Bydgoszcz, killing especially

upper-class citizens, and Tadeusz was a promi-nent target. For safety, the family fled the city intheir Willys Overland, abandoning everythingelse they owned. The threat of German strafingwas everywhere, and as they traveled they sawburning houses, dead livestock, and soon, bod-ies. The family reached Kobryn, whereTadeusz’s sister lived, a city that seemed peace-ful, giving the sense that there was no war. Butthe illusion soon ended. After two days, countyofficials decided to evacuate families on a bus.With gasoline now scarce, the Mieczkowskis lefttheir car and joined the exodus.

At a roadblock, a civilian dressed in blackand wearing a red armband boarded the bus.

He told the driver to proceed to Brest, wherethe bus stopped at a jailhouse. Two Soviet tanksstood in front—a brutal reminder that theywere now in the Soviet-occupied zone ofPoland. Once inside the jail, Mieczkowski andhis family saw more black-clad civilians, allwearing red armbands. They were processing along line of Polish policemen, whom the Sovi-ets singled out for harsh treatment—likely,forced labor in the Gulag—because they repre-sented Polish authority, which they were abol-ishing. On the second floor, the Mieczkowskisjoined other civilians and spent the night, sleep-ing on the bare floor. In the morning, Bogdancould hear the cries of men being tortured, andhe saw a police officer’s wife hastily shredding

his uniform to protect his identity and preventhim from being beaten; her husband hid undera blanket, fearing discovery.

The Mieczkowski family got lucky. Tadueszand Aniela were middle-aged parents with threeteenage boys, and their captors released them.The next step was to keep moving. The familyfeared deportation to Siberia if they stayed inBrest and, moreover, conditions there were intol-erable: food was in short supply, people were dis-placed (many sleeping in the railroad station),and more arrests were taking place. Theydecided to brave German and Soviet borderguards and go to Warsaw, a metropolis wherethey could seek refuge with one of Aniela’s rela-

tives and blend with its more than million resi-dents. Arriving in late November 1939, Bogdanand his family began a transient existence.

Amid tumultuous change, Mieczkowski hadto refocus his priorities and adapt. Whereasmost teenagers worry about school, he lost the1939-1940 academic year and still had twoyears of junior high plus all of high school tocomplete. The Germans wanted to prevent Polesfrom studying beyond the elementary level, butPolish teachers convinced them that an educatedPolish work force would redound to the ThirdReich’s glory. In this way, trade schools stayedopen, and Mieczkowski completed junior high.High school was trickier. Warsaw Poles devisedan underground educational system in whichsmall groups of students and teachers—num-bering just a half dozen so as not to arouse sus-picion—met furtively, usually at the apartmentof a teacher or student. This secret schoolingallowed Mieczkowski to finish his secondaryeducation, earning no diploma but gleaningenough knowledge that he hoped to enter a uni-versity when the war ended.

Earning money was even more important.Stripped of his construction empire, Tadeuszpawned family watches and jewelry andbecame a partner in a second-hand store. Heused an alias to remain incognito, and to dis-guise his appearance, he grew a beard and useddifferent glasses. Bogdan worked in a deliverybusiness, shoe-making plant, toy manufactur-ing facility, and agricultural seed factory, andhe rolled cigarettes for pay. The earningsbrought only subsistence living, and the familyate meat just once or twice a year. Like hisfather, Bogdan learned to blend into the envi-ronment to avoid attracting attention. Herecalled, “I did not wear any signs that mightinspire curiosity—no rings, no military-stylecavalry boots, no prewar high school uniform,nothing to indicate that I was anything but apoor, undernourished boy.”

He also joined the resistance movement,helping to distribute an underground newspa-per, wholesaled by a married couple whoowned a small Warsaw grocery store. This wasdangerous: had the Germans caught him car-rying the newspaper, the result would have beentorture and death. Two months afterMieczkowski began courier work, he waswalking to the store to pick up his load of con-traband papers when he noticed the place wasshuttered, marked with a piece of paper carry-ing a German eagle and swastika. He brisklywalked past the storefront, pretending to beoblivious but surmising that the couple hadbeen caught and executed.

Although it offered hope and tested the Poles’


Authorʼs Collection

Photographed during happier times, the Mieczkowski family is shown on vacation during the mid-1930s inRabka, a resort town in southern Poland where they owned a villa. From left are Aniela, Janusz, Bogdan,Tadeusz, and Zbigniew.

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will to survive, resistance carried perils—as dideveryday life. The brutality of the Germanoccupation helped to explain why Poland hadthe highest casualty rate of any European coun-try during World War II. The Germans viewedPoles as one of mankind’s lowest groups, a sub-human race like Gypsies and Jews, and theyheld Polish life in dim regard. “To be a Pole wasalmost—but not quite—the most unfortunatething a person could be in World War II,” his-torian James Stokesbury has commented. InWarsaw, Nazi snipers picked off men, women,and children, and Germans also snatched Polesfrom the streets, torturing and killing them orsending them to concentration camps. Anielahosted a couple from Bydgoszcz who alsosought shelter in Warsaw, and one evening thehusband decided to stroll outside just beforethe night curfew began. He never returned. Inthis way, the Nazis instilled fear among thePoles, patrolling the city and abducting resi-dents. Once, a German patrol stopped Bogdanon a street. An officer frisked him and removeda wad of papers. Luckily, they were letters hewas delivering to a German agricultural office,and the officer let him go.

Stout-hearted Poles kept up the resistance.The Polish AK (Armja Krajowa, or HomeArmy) began with a small nucleus but eventu-ally totaled 40,000 soldiers, which includedabout 4,000 women. It took direction from theLondon-based Polish government-in-exile andthroughout the war funneled information onGerman military activities to the Allies andengaged in anti-Nazi sabotage, including anestimated 27,000 attacks on railroads. MostAK fighters were amateurs with no militarytraining or warfare experience and came fromall walks of life. Like Mieczkowski, many wereyoung students who had little to offer butcourage, love of country, and a will to fight.They also took crash courses in warfare. AfterFrance fell to the Germans in the summer of1940, Mieczkowski attended resistance meet-ings. Like any gathering under the occupation,these conclaves were small, and attendees stud-ied military tactics and learned how to operatepistols, grenades, and flamethrowers, usuallyby reviewing diagrams since they lacked thereal thing. Once the Uprising began, Poles reliedon captured German arms, Allied supplies, andhomemade guns and grenades. Initially, though,like many AK members, Mieczkowski had noweapons, not even a knife.

But the goal was ambitious—to rise up andrepulse the Nazi occupiers. On August 1, 1944,word came that the resistance would begin, withaction to start at 5 PM. The Soviet leadershipencouraged the Poles to rebel, and Moscow

radio broadcast the start date to coordinate theattack. In the strange alchemy of war, Sovietsand Poles had become uneasy partners in fight-ing a common enemy after June 1941, whenGermany invaded the USSR. For the Poles, theSoviets appeared the lesser of two evils, eventhough their invasion of Poland’s eastern halfhad been savage. Poles still mistrusted the Sovi-ets—and with good reason. In 1943, the Krem-lin severed relations with London’s Polish government-in-exile after it demanded an inves-tigation of the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre, inwhich Russians executed 10,000 Polish Armyofficers, dumping their bodies in a mass grave in

eastern Poland. Given their experiences withsuch treachery and violence, Poles were deter-mined to avoid Soviet control of their countryafter the war. It was vital, then, for Poles to over-throw the Germans and establish a free gov-ernment, instead of handing the USSR anopportunity to control the country after the war.At the very least, Poles expected their rewardfor the Uprising would be a strong bargainingposition over their nation’s future. But theyexpected Soviet help to repel the Germans and,indeed, needed it.

One of Mieczkowski’s first assignments dur-ing the Uprising was to prevent attacks from


National Archives

ABOVE: Polish captives, their hands in the air, are obviously apprehensive as German soldiers search them forweapons and contraband. The Germans were constantly wary of attacks by Polish guerrillas. BELOW: ThePoles were frequent targets of German brutality during World War II; however, the occupiers saved theirmost horrific actions for the Jews. In this poignant photo, furniture taken from a Jewish home is burned in thestreet in the town of Myslenice.


tanks, the Nazis’ prime weapon, which they usedto demolish buildings and ram through AK bar-ricades. For weapons, he had two gasoline-filledbottles with wicks—the famous “Molotov cock-tails.” He commanded four fighters in a detach-ment charged with defending an entrance gate toa building. Mieczkowski tried unsuccessfully tostart a nearby car, and he and his men began topush it inside the gate so that they could siphonits gasoline to use in Molotov cocktails. Just asthey nudged the car into position, a German tankappeared down the street, swiveling its turret intheir direction. Mieczkowski and the others raninto the building.

The car exploded. The tank’s round hit itsquare-on, the impact sending metal fragmentsflying everywhere. Inside the building, one com-rade gestured that Mieczkowski’s jacket hadblood stains. “I could not believe I waswounded because I had not felt anything,” hesaid, “but the blood convinced me.” He relin-quished his command of the unit and soughthelp at his company’s first aid post, wherenurses cleaned and bandaged his wounds (adecade later, in 1955, a chiropractor foundshrapnel still embedded in his cheek).

Mieczkowski had more close calls. At onepoint, he led a detachment that defended thesecond floor of a building, while the Germansoccupied the ground level. After throwinggrenades downstairs, he peeked down the stair-well. Seeing nothing but hearing noises, heretreated toward an apartment. Just then, theGermans unleashed a flamethrower attack, and

a surge of fire enveloped the staircase.Mieczkowski’s company withdrew to an adja-cent building by using a hole in the wall con-necting the two structures. Moments after hisunit fled, the first building collapsed; the Ger-mans had used a Goliath, a small tank packedwith explosives and steered by a wire from anearby tank. By seconds, Mieczkowski and hismen had avoided annihilation.

The Uprising’s first days went auspiciouslyfor the Poles, who caught the Germans offguard and gained control of 60 percent of War-saw. But the Nazis counterattacked, forcingthem to relinquish their gains. In early Septem-ber 1944, the Polish command decided to aban-don the Old Town section of Warsaw, thenreceiving a vicious pounding from Germaninfantry and Stuka dive bombers. At this timeMieczkowski, trying to help fellow resistancefighters flee from Old Town, embarked on theill-fated mission where he lost his right thumband absorbed shrapnel in his thigh.

After getting shot, Mieczkowski limped backthrough the dynamited wall, crossed the street,and went to a first aid station. There, a nursebandaged his thumb and dressed his leg. Insearing pain, he walked to a makeshift hospi-tal, located in the basement of a nearby build-ing, where a surgeon stitched his cuts and triedto even out his thumb bone. Doctors operatedunder horrendous conditions, with minimalmedicine and often working with flashlights or candles. This hospital was dark andcrowded, and anguished groans filled the air;

Mieczkowski left almost immediately. Dayslater, in a jarring reminder of Nazi air power, aGerman bomb destroyed the hospital.

Just two weeks after losing his thumb, on thenight of September 18, 1944, Mieczkowski fellasleep in the basement of his apartment build-ing, an edifice darkened by the lack of electric-ity. A bomb blast jolted him awake, and min-utes later his younger brother rushed into hiscellar room. Their mother, he cried, had justbeen killed. “I got up as fast as I could, crossedthe courtyard and went down to the basementon the other side,” Mieczkowski remembered.“My mother lay on the floor in a pool of blood.She and another woman had been standing atthe entrance to the basement, probably enjoy-ing some clean night air, when the bomb struck.Shrapnel entered her back and pierced herheart.” Both women died instantly. Friends car-ried Aniela’s body to the building’s first floor,where Mieczkowski tenderly cleaned her faceof blood. Her front showed no wounds, butshrapnel had gouged a deep hole in her back.Although he and his brother sobbed for mostof the night, near dawn they finally fell asleep.

The next day, Mieczkowski and his brothersmade a simple casket out of untreated boardsand lowered it into the earth. Aniela died at age49—“in great physical shape, active and car-ing, the focus of our family,” Mieczkowskirecalled. For the next year he felt numb, “let-ting life pass by without much sense of personalinvolvement,” he said. “The abortive Uprisingadded to my feeling of separation from reality.”

The Uprising soldiered on valiantly butvainly, with the Nazis tightening their noosearound Warsaw. Withering under bombs andground artillery, Warsaw became a shell of thecity it was just weeks earlier, as Germans pul-verized a quarter of its buildings, adding to thedestruction they had already wrought duringthe 1939 invasion and the 1943 Ghetto Upris-ing. For the third time during the war, the cityfound itself the nexus of conflict, and this com-bat was the deadliest, with fighting taking placefrom building to building at point-blank range.

On October 2, 1944, the Poles surrendered.The Uprising had lasted 63 days. The marvelwas that it stretched that long, because itinvolved ragtag fighters, armed with onlycourage and crude weapons, confronting oneof the world’s strongest military machines. Alltold, 200,000 Polish civilians and 15,000 resis-tance fighters perished during the Uprising.

By willful neglect and obstruction, Soviet Pre-mier Josef Stalin helped to doom the Uprising.Until almost the end, he refused permission forU.S. and British planes to use Soviet bases andappeared to wait deliberately on the sidelines as


National Archives

Members of Anna Company of the Gustaw Battalion, Home Army soldiers Henryk Ozarek “Henio” (left),holding a Vis pistol, and Tadeusz Przybyszewski “Roma” (right), firing a Błyskawica submachine gun, battlethe hated Germans on Kredytowa-Królewska Street in Warsaw. This photo was taken on October 3, 1944.


the Uprising faltered. The Soviet air force heldback, with the result that German bombersunleashed merciless attacks on Warsaw. Whileresistance fighters knew they faced long odds,they expected Soviet aid, especially since theUSSR encouraged the Uprising. Mieczkowskirecalled that the Uprising began when the AKheard Soviet guns across the Vistula River, thewaterway bisecting Warsaw. But those soundsproved a false harbinger. “We counted on Sovietforces crossing the Vistula and expelling theGermans,” Mieczkowski said, yet that helpnever came. As historian Thomas Fleming haswritten, “The Russian army suddenly developeda strange paralysis. It sat on the east bank of theVistula for two months and allowed the non-communist Poles to be slaughtered by the infu-riated Germans in horrific street fighting.”Stalin’s actions fueled speculation that the Sovi-ets, while ostensibly supporting the Poles,wanted the Germans to crush them, allowingcasualties to mount on both sides and clearingthe way for Soviet domination of postwarPoland.

In an unusual show of leniency, the Germanssent resistance fighters to POW camps scatteredthroughout Germany rather than exiling orexecuting them. Mieczkowski waited in amakeshift hospital, housed in a former girls’school. Within two weeks, horse-drawn wag-ons took him and other patients to a railroadstation, where they boarded freight cars boundfor POW camps. Aboard Mieczkowski’s darkcar, the embers of resistance still glowed, asjaunty Polish prisoners plied their Germanguard with enough vodka to make him drunk.Then, as the nighttime train slipped through theWarsaw suburbs, some passengers bailed out.Mieczkowski’s injuries prevented him frommaking the jump; he stayed aboard.

The train traveled two days and stopped atZeithein, a POW camp where all the passen-gers disembarked. The Germans processedthem, making Mieczkowski and others formalprisoners of war, many of them taking whatbecame their only showers for the next severalmonths. Now, the fight was for survival. Wordspread among the prisoners that next to thecamp were buried 50,000 Soviets, most ofwhom had starved to death, a grisly sign oftheir future. The prisoners received only a smalldaily food ration, which comprised two slicesof something resembling bread, with the con-sistency of soft clay. Though it was barely edi-ble, each prisoner had to guard his ration care-fully because of potential theft. Meanwhile,Mieczkowski’s thumb wound throbbed withpain, and he learned to adjust to eating, writ-ing, and performing other tasks with a stump

where his right thumb used to be. POW life proved peripatetic. In December

1944, the Germans marched Mieczkowski andother prisoners to Stallag Müelberg. After justtwo nights, they sent him by railroad to Bergen-Belsen, a POW camp holding about 500 Polishofficers, located next to the infamous concen-tration camp of the same name. After twoweeks, they moved him again, this time to anew camp called Fallingbostel, and then dayslater to the Grossborn camp, located in north-ern Poland. The colder climate made daily pris-

oner counts torture, as everyone stood outsidefor long periods in sparse clothing, withoutjackets. This stay lasted only a few nights, afterwhich the Germans marched the prisoners to anew camp. It was a bitter January, and duringthe two-month journey Mieczkowski foughtnumbness and frostbite while trudging in thesnow or riding in cold freight cars. Eventually,he got to his final POW camp—his seventh—Sandbostel, located between Hamburg and Bre-men, Germany. There, Swiss Red Cross repre-sentatives distributed care packages from theUnited States and Canada, which braced upwavering spirits; the American parcels wereespecially coveted because they contained cig-arettes, which prisoners used for barter. Amaz-ingly, Mieczkowski even got a parcel from aPolish acquaintance that contained onions hehad requested, thinking the vitamin-rich veg-

etable would stave off beri-beri. Despite the new lease on life, the camp’s con-

ditions were crowded and harsh, and the foodwas just bread and what Mieczkowski describedas “a stinking soup.” Residents were emaciatedand exhausted, and some staggered about dis-oriented. As days passed, any sense of time ebbedaway, and Mieczkowski spent hours in the topbunk of a three-tiered bed, his feet painful fromfrostbite and his muscles wasting away.

By April 1945, Mieczkowski had been inSandbostel for one month, and to the West hebegan to hear distant gunfire, especially atnight, drawing closer as the weeks passed. Soonhe detected the roar of tank engines. The Britishwere coming—and with them, freedom. OnMay 2, Mieczkowski spotted soldiers clad inbrown darting from tree to tree in the neigh-boring forest. It was a sweet sight: these wereadvancing British troops, preparing to liberatethe prisoners. Realizing their impending fate,the Germans fled; at one point, a military vehi-cle carrying Nazi officers sped away from thecamp, and soon word spread that all Germanshad evacuated the premises.

When it came, freedom seemed almost anti-climactic, especially because the British hadadvanced at a glacial pace and worked slowlyeven after arriving. For what seemed an eter-nity, Scottish bagpipers walked around thecamp, playing tunes but making prisoners—starving and aching to be released—impatient.The British detained all the prisoners, delousingthem with DDT and attempting to establish anidentification process. But the freedom wasreal: after a few days, Mieczkowski andanother former prisoner took a long, limpingwalk, exploring the countryside, observing aBritish jeep damaged by a road mine and thebody of a prisoner killed by an antipersonnelmine—caveats to be careful where to tread.

On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe ended,but for patriotic Poles, the struggle was unfin-ished. Hopes of a new Poland kindled theirdesire to return home and build an independentnation, free of Soviet rule. (Suffering a newsblackout, most of them knew nothing of theFebruary 1945 Yalta Conference, during whichPresident Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minis-ter Winston Churchill swallowed Stalin’spledges to hold free elections in Poland—promises he never kept.) Thus Mieczkowskilunged at the chance to join the Polish II Corpsto liberate Poland. After military training inItaly, he sailed to England, where the Polish IICorps had relocated. But by then, the war wastruly finished, and Poland’s fate was clear. Stalinclutched the country in his steely grip, and the


National Archives

Residents of Warsaw hurriedly fill sandbags to erecta barricade on Moniuszki Street in August 1944.The Warsaw Uprising was heroic but futile as theGermans crushed the resistance with overwhelmingfirepower.




Sub Hunters Over the Bay

The combined efforts of RAF Coastal Command, the U.S. Army Air Forces, and the U.S. Navy defeated German U-boats in the disputed Bay of Biscay.BY PATRICK J. CHAISSON

“Am over enemy submarine in position ...”Cut off in mid-transmission, this contact

report came from a U.S. Navy patrol bomberoperating over the Atlantic Ocean some 95miles north of Cape Peñas, Spain, at 0316hours on November 12, 1943. Repeatedattempts to restore radio communications withthe Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator, nicknamedCalvert n’ Coke, all went unanswered. Con-trollers finally listed the aircraft as overdue—presumed missing.

When Air Sea Rescue planes reached the Lib-erator’s last reported position, no evidence ofthe bomber or its 10-man crew could be spot-ted. Searchers did discover two fresh oil slicks—

one large and one small—five miles apart. Afight to the death had occurred there, but itwould take years for investigators to learn thetruth about this fateful nighttime encounter.

The mysterious disappearance of Calvert n’Coke marked just one incident in the three-yearBay Offensive, fought between Allied antisub-marine forces and the U-boats of Admiral KarlDönitz’ Kriegsmarine during World War II.From June 1941 until August 1944, thousandsof airmen and sailors patrolled the Bay of Bis-cay, an Atlantic gulf along the coast of Franceand Spain. Most of these sub hunters woreBritish Commonwealth uniforms, but severalgroups of American aviators also played an

important role in this campaign.Ugly interservice rivalries, however, almost

grounded the effort before it began. Senior offi-cers in the U.S. Navy and Army Air Forces,deeply suspicious of each other and at oddsover even the most minor matters of doctrineand tactics, seriously undermined the nation’santisubmarine effort. Hard-pressed Britishcommanders stood by helplessly while theirAmerican counterparts quarreled and postured.In the meantime, long-range strike aircraftpledged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt tojoin the Bay Patrol instead sat parked on U.S.runways.

Following the fall of France in 1940, German

W-Oct15 Sub Hunters_Layout 1 7/31/15 12:15 PM


submarine forces started operating from basesalong the Biscayan coast. As the war intensi-fied, upward of 100 U-boats sailed to and frommassive concrete-roofed pens at Brest, Lorient,St. Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bordeaux everymonth. These undersea predators proved extra-ordinarily difficult to defeat and by 1941 weresinking a large percentage of the war matériel,fuel, and food that Great Britain needed to stayin the war.

Something had to be done about Germany’sU-boats, and soon. Air Chief Marshal Sir PhilipJoubert, in charge of the Royal Air Force (RAF)Coastal Command, put his OperationalResearch Section (ORS) to work on the prob-

lem. The ORS consisted of British scientists andmathematicians charged with advising opera-tional commanders on technological solutions.Already, ORS’s out-of-the-box thinkers couldclaim credit for developing a reliable magneticdetonator fitted to aerial depth charges and amore effective camouflage pattern for low-fly-ing patrol aircraft. Their work on increasingthe lethality of air-delivered antisubmarinemunitions through improved explosive fillerand shallower detonation settings had, by themiddle of 1941, begun to pay dividends inangry North Atlantic waters.

Noting that a large percentage of U-boatstransited the 300- by 120-mile Bay of Biscay en

ABOVE: This photo was snapped by a crewmanaboard the Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator nick-named Tidewater Tillie as the bomber pressedhome its attack against a German U-boat in theBay of Biscay. The crew dropped depth chargesand forced the submarine to the surface beforefinishing it off. BELOW: Painted in a camouflagescheme to blend in with sky and sea, the Consoli-dated PB4Y-1 Liberator Calvert n’ Coke wasphotographed from an accompanying aircraftnear the end of a 12-hour flight over the Bay ofBiscay hunting for German U-boats. The Libera-tors had sufficient range to patrol the extensivearea and return to their bases in England.

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route to or returning from their patrol areas,Coastal Command analysts recommendedlaunching an air campaign to catch them asthey moved across this narrow sea corridor.Enemy submarines surfaced often to chargetheir batteries; it was while on top that theseU-boats were most vulnerable to attack.

Air Marshal Joubert’s staff further observedthat air patrols need not destroy subs to suc-cessfully combat them. The mere presence ofAllied planes overhead would cause a prudentU-boat commander to crash dive immediately.Constantly submerging to avoid patrolbombers slowed a boat’s progress across theBay (surfaced, a Mark VIIC U-boat could make17 knots while its top speed submerged aver-aged only 7.3 knots), thus markedly reducing

its overall operating range.The Bay of Biscay, then, was where Allied

airmen would most likely find a regular con-centration of German submarines. Air MarshallSir John Slessor, who replaced Joubert as aircommander of Coastal Command in February1943, described it as “the trunk of the AtlanticU-boat menace, the roots being in the Biscayports and the branches spreading far and wideto the North Atlantic convoys, to theCaribbean, to the eastern seaboard of NorthAmerica, and to the sea lanes where the fastermerchant ships sail without escort.”

Coastal Command’s No. 19 Group, flyingfrom bases along England’s southwestern tip,took on the task of chipping away at that trunk.First, they needed proper tools for the job. Due

to the distances involved (Cape Finisterre onthe bay’s southernmost point measured 800 airmiles from British airfields in Cornwall), long-range aircraft were essential. Patrol planes alsoneeded to carry an adequate payload of 250-pound depth charges and fly fast enough tocatch a surfaced U-boat before it could dive.

Multi-engined bombers, therefore, answeredNo. 19 Group’s requirements. Unfortunately,the Wellington, Whitley, and Halifax aircraftmost suited for Coastal Command’s BiscayOffensive were also greatly sought after by RAFBomber Command and its influential com-mander, Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber”Harris. Joubert’s Coastal Command faredpoorly in obtaining the necessary number ofheavy bombers for antisubmarine work.

Flying boats like the Short Sunderland andAmerican-designed Consolidated PBY Catalinapossessed the necessary range, but their bulkand poor maneuverability limited these patrolplanes’ utility against fast-diving U-boats.Coastal Command employed both typesthroughout the war with some success; how-ever, another bomber then coming off U.S.assembly lines seemed a perfect fit for No. 19Group’s Bay Offensive.

This aircraft was the Consolidated B-24 Lib-erator. Designed as a high-altitude strategicbomber, the Liberator’s impressive range,speed, and ordnance-carrying capacity also dis-tinguished it as an ideal antisubmarine weaponssystem. In 1941 it represented the cutting edgeof warplane technology; consequently, air

chiefs everywhere wanted the Liberator fortheir own missions or theater of operations.

General Henry “Hap” Arnold, commandingthe U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), was theman responsible for allocating land-based air-craft production. Arnold had an unenviableposition—until American industry fully mobi-lized for the war there were never enough Lib-erators being built to satisfy global demand forthese versatile bombers. And behind his ami-able public façade, Hap Arnold kept a secretagenda regarding the Liberator.

For years, Arnold had been seeking to forman air force independent from the U.S. Army.The approaching conflict presented him with aunique opportunity to demonstrate how such astrategic bomber command could destroy theenemy’s industrial means to fight, thus deci-sively affecting the war’s outcome. To accom-plish this mission Hap Arnold needed bombers,and plenty of them.

The first few Liberators sent to Great Britainthrough Lend-Lease went immediately to RAFBomber Command. Only in late 1941 didCoastal Command receive a small allotment,which it immediately modified into very long-range (VLR) patrol aircraft. By this time U-boats were wreaking havoc on Allied merchantshipping, especially within a region called theMid-Atlantic Air Gap, an area unreachable byland-based planes. One 12-plane squadron ofVLR Liberators, each boasting a remarkable1,150-mile patrol radius, soon began coveringthat gap.

But it soon became clear to the British thatHap Arnold was not about to offer up largenumbers of Liberator aircraft despite an urgentneed for them over the Eastern Atlantic. Afterthe United States entered World War II, Arnoldsaw as his priority the need to build up theAmerican strategic bomber force. Other users,such as the RAF and U.S. Navy, would have towait until Liberator production capacity grewto meet their demands.

The trickle of Consolidated Liberators flow-ing into Great Britain was paralleled by anexchange of British technological innovationwith their American allies. One such device thatgreatly affected future operations in the Bay ofBiscay was Air-Surface-Vessel (ASV) radar. In1940, scientists at Oxford’s Clarendon Labo-ratories invented a microwave radio transmit-ter far superior to the long wave radar set thenin use by British patrol planes and warships.Their “cavity magnetron” produced a 9.7 cen-timeter radio wave—a focused, high-resolutionbeam that, when mounted on an aircraft,proved highly effective at detecting surfacedsubmarines. As British manufacturers then


Both: Imperial War Museum


lacked the capacity to mass produce thismicrowave radar, Prime Minister WinstonChurchill agreed to share the technology withAmerican engineers.

Called the Mark III by the British and theSCR-517 by American aviators, this new radarwent into large-scale production by mid-1942.It came as a nasty surprise to the U-boat fleetas German warning receivers, calibrated forlong-wave radar, could not detect its emissions.It took the Kriegsmarine two years and dozensof submarines lost before it fielded an effectivecountermeasure.

The Allies shared other sub-hunting innova-tions as well. The British Leigh Light, namedfor its inventor, a Coastal Command squadronleader, enabled Allied patrol planes to illumi-nate and attack U-boats at night. American-made radio altimeters proved crucial for main-taining a safe altitude over water duringconditions of low visibility. Long-range navi-gation aids produced by both Allies assisted air-crews in accurately plotting their position overthe vast Atlantic Ocean.

More top-secret antisubmarine devices indevelopment included the Magnetic AnomalyDetector (MAD), which recorded variations inthe Earth’s gravitational field caused by a sub-merged U-boat. An air-dropped sonar sensorcalled the sonobuoy showed great promise, asdid an acoustic homing torpedo nicknamedZombie. But the sub hunters’ most effectivetechnological breakthrough was also the mosthighly classified: ULTRA, the decryption ofGerman military signal ciphers.

Thanks to ULTRA, Allied codebreakerscould read nearly every order that AdmiralDönitz gave to his U-boat commanders. Con-sequently, Coastal Command knew whenenemy submarine traffic in the Bay of Biscaywas likely to increase. Further, a chain of radioreceivers called Huff-Duff (which stood forHigh Frequency Direction Finding, or HF/DF)helped triangulate a U-boat’s location to withina few miles whenever it broke radio silence toreport in or request orders.

Initially, production delays and reliabilityissues limited the effectiveness of these newweapons. By June 1942, only five VickersWellington bombers had been fitted with LeighLights, and British-built Mark III centimetricradar would not appear until March of the fol-lowing year. Worse still, Air Chief Marshal Jou-bert’s Bay Offensive was in danger of collaps-ing due to an inadequate number of long-range,radar-equipped patrol bombers. In 1941, RAFCoastal Command warplanes managed to sinkjust one U-boat in the Bay of Biscay. By the endof 1942, that number climbed to a mere seven

submarines killed for thousands of flight hoursspent patrolling the bay.

If Coastal Command did not yet possess suit-able sub-hunting aircraft, there was an organi-zation that did. The USAAF AntisubmarineCommand began to receive in the autumn of1942 factory-new B-24D Liberator bombersspecially equipped to combat U-boats. Fittedwith SCR-517 ASV radar, radio altimeters, andlong-range navigational equipment, these air-craft were badly needed to reenergize Air Mar-shal Joubert’s Bay Patrol. It would, however,take British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’spersonal intervention to get them into the fight.

Writing to Harry Hopkins, President Roo-sevelt’s personal emissary, Churchill asked fora force of USAAF Liberators equipped withmicrowave radar to work with Coastal Com-mand against U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.Roosevelt deferred the question to GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower, then commandingAllied forces in North Africa. Ike agreed toChurchill’s request with one caveat: that hereserved the authority to transfer USAAF anti-submarine aircraft from England to Mediter-ranean bases at any time. Starting on Novem-ber 6, 1942, U.S.-marked sub-hunter B-24sstarted winging their way across the Atlantic

Ocean toward Great Britain.Just getting there proved no easy task. While

the first three Liberators crossed without inci-dent, ferocious winter storms battered anotherflight of six planes so badly that five of themhad to turn back. One B-24 disappeared with-out a trace, while the remaining four regroupedto make an arduous but safer journey along theSouth America-Africa-England route. ByNovember 27, the 1st Antisubmarine (A/S)Squadron occupied its new home, RAF StationSt. Eval in Cornwall. Its sister unit, the 2nd A/SSquadron, would arrive in early January.

Conditions at St. Eval proved less than ideal.First, no one knew the Americans were coming.Living and working conditions were Spartan;wartime RAF rations of brussels sprouts andcabbage were described by one USAAF airmanas “unbelievably bad,” while gloomy Englishweather made staying warm a constant struggle.Compounding matters, St. Eval’s ramps andparking areas were already clogged by threesquadrons of Coastal Command bombers aswell as other RAF aircraft. No hangars existedfor maintenance, so mechanics had to work out-side. Darkness came early, as did winter windsthat numbed the ground crews struggling to keeptheir planes operational.


ABOVE: An excellent innovation deployed with sub-hunting aircraft that patrolled the Bay of Biscay, the LeighLight was used to illuminate German U-boats on the surface and facilitate the speed of attacks. In this photo aRoyal Air Force ground crewman cleans the plexiglass cover of a Leigh Light that has been installed under thewing of a Consolidated Liberator bomber. OPPOSITE: Royal Air Force armorers load 250-pound Mark VIIIdepth charges aboard a Consolidated Liberator Mark VA bomber of RAF Coastal Command. This aircraft isfrom No. 53 Squadron based at St. Eval.


Equally challenging was St. Eval’s distancefrom U.S. supply depots. Couriers drove all dayto reach the nearest USAAF warehouse, whichmay or may not have had on hand the requiredreplacement part. The newly arrived sub-hunteroutfits also lacked trained radar repair special-ists, postal clerks, and other administrative staffnecessary to keep a flying squadron runningsmoothly. Eighth Air Force lent the A/S unitssome 66 support personnel until their ownground echelons landed in mid-January.

The 1st and 2nd Antisubmarine Squadronsquickly adapted to Coastal Command’s tacticsand procedures. The Americans learned theywould operate under No. 19 Group, flying mis-sions of 10 to 11 hours in duration out to theBay of Biscay and back. Veteran British air-crews advised the novice sub hunters on howbest to approach a wily U-boat, using low cloudcover or the sun to avoid observation. The RAFalso warned their USAAF colleagues about adangerous new threat, long-range Junkers Ju-88 fighters that had been spotted over the bayrecently.

After a brief settling-in period, USAAF Lib-erators began flying operational patrols onNovember 16. The Americans’ first attack ona U-boat took place on December 29, whenCaptain Douglas Northrop dropped 12 250-pound depth charges on a rapidly submergingsub. That vessel escaped unscathed fromNorthrop’s strike, as did another U-boatattacked by Lieutenant Walter Thorne’s B-24two days later. In both cases, the U-boats weredetected by ASV radar but managed to crashdive under a barrage of aerial explosives.

January was spent readying the 2nd A/SSquadron for combat. Also that month the 1stAntisubmarine Group (Provisional) was orga-nized with Lt. Col. Jack Roberts (formerly ofthe 1st A/S Squadron) taking command. Thegroup received administrative support from theUSAAF’s England-based VIII Bomber Com-mand but took operational direction from RAFCoastal Command’s No. 19 Group.

Coastal Command had big plans for theAmerican sub hunters. From February 6-15,1943, the Liberators participated with otherNo. 19 Group warplanes in Operation Gon-dola, a high-density patrol over the Biscayanapproaches. Intelligence suggested that duringthis period the Bay of Biscay would be filledwith as many as 40 U-boats, all unprepared forthe long-legged B-24s and their powerful newradar. Ranging far out into the bay, these U.S.Liberators were likely to surprise the enemy inareas they previously believed were safe fromair attack.

This new tactic paid off immediately. On

February 6, 1st Lt. David Sands caught a U-boat on the surface but overshot the target inhis excitement and missed. Sands then made asecond pass but managed to drop only twodepth charges due to jammed bomb racks.Three days later, another B-24 piloted by 1stLt. Emmett Hunto dove on a submarine toolate. Hunto’s ordnance detonated behind therapidly submerging boat, which survivedunscathed.

February 10 saw several attacks made by 2ndA/S bombers. First Lieutenant John Kraybillpressed in three times on a sub despite heavyantiaircraft fire, only to be frustrated by mal-functioning bomb racks. Lieutenant WilliamSanford’s Liberator, nicknamed TidewaterTillie, enjoyed better luck. Catching an unwaryU-boat off the Spanish coast later that samemorning, Sanford dropped nine 250-pounddepth charges on it in three passes. The Ger-man submarine was last seen settling by itsstern, followed shortly by a large dome-shapedbubble of air rising to the surface. Admiraltyofficials scored the boat as “probably sunk,”later upgraded to a confirmed kill after ULTRAintercepted German reports indicating U-519had disappeared in that region without a trace.

The USAAF received its first credited sinkingof the campaign.

Recent research indicates that LieutenantSanford’s crew actually struck U-752 on its wayhome from operations in the North Atlantic,inflicting minor damage. The fate of U-519remains unexplained.

Operation Gondola showed what radar-equipped antisubmarine aircraft could do whenemployed in a maximum effort saturation cam-paign. During this 10-day surge Allied patrolplanes logged 2,260 hours over the bay, result-ing in 18 sightings and seven attacks. Ameri-can B-24s accounted for 72 percent of all U-boat detections and 57 percent of attacks made,with Sanford’s strike on February 10 markingGondola’s one credited kill.

Coastal Command’s newly appointed com-mander, Air Marshal John Slessor, appreciatedwhat these capable U.S.-crewed Liberatorscould do. Therefore, he was shocked when inMarch the 1st A/S Group unexpectedly pulledout of St. Eval. For their part, USAAF com-manders understood that the sub hunters’ timein England would be temporary—they deter-mined the U-boat threat in North Africa tookpriority over Coastal Command’s requirementsand transferred their most combat-tested A/Soutfit to Morocco in response.

This abrupt reassignment deprived Slessor ofa powerful asset just as his spring offensives,codenamed Enclose and Derange, were gainingmomentum. No. 19 Group would have to carryon solely with British and Commonwealth airunits, now receiving new Leigh-Light Welling-tons and four-engined Handley Page Halifaxbombers equipped with centimetric Mark IIIradar sets. In March a squadron of British-marked antisubmarine Liberators also beganflying out of St. Eval.

The coming of spring brought both milder


National Archives


American Lt. Col. Jack Roberts (left) commanded the1st Antisubmarine Group, assigned to Royal AirForce Coastal Command No. 19 Group, while ColonelHoward Moore (right) commanded the 479th Group.


weather to the North Atlantic and a corre-sponding increase in Allied convoy activity. AsAdmiral Dönitz’ submarines sortied out tostrike those convoys, so did Air MarshalSlessor’s maritime patrol aircraft scramble tomeet them over the Bay of Biscay’s constrictedwaters. British bombers sank one boat inMarch, two more during April, and an impres-sive seven subs caught transiting the bay duringthe height of operations in May.

John Slessor derived great pride from theresults of his Biscay Offensive, yet the energeticair marshal could not help but wonder howmany more U-boats might have been sunk if afew American patrol bomber squadrons had“joined the party.” In June, Slessor traveled toWashington seeking a renewed U.S. commit-ment to his summer bay campaign, calledOperation Musketry. He arrived to witness along-simmering dispute over control of anti-submarine aircraft finally boil over between thechiefs of the U.S. Navy and Army Air Forces.

General Arnold and the Navy’s commanderin chief, Admiral Ernest King, distrusted oneanother intensely. These two officers createdand maintained a poisonous jurisdictional dis-pute regarding the employment of antisubma-rine aircraft, a quarrel that extended back tothe dark days following Pearl Harbor. Whilethe U.S. Navy was responsible for protectingAmerican coastal waterways, the only long-range aircraft then available for patrol and con-voy escort duties belonged to the USAAF. InMarch 1942, Arnold agreed to temporarilyplace Army antisubmarine planes under navalcontrol, at least until the Navy could obtain itsown sub hunters. Yet neither Arnold nor Kingwas happy with this arrangement.

The brilliant, irascible King saw Arnold’sincreasing involvement in antisubmarine war-fare as a grab for power, an attempt by theUSAAF to intrude on what was traditionally aNavy mission. Hap Arnold feared the Navy’sinterest in obtaining long-range Liberators wasmerely a cover for involving itself in strategicbombing operations, which he viewed as theArmy Air Forces’ purview. For months the twochiefs danced like boxers around this issue,each spitefully rejecting any attempt at improv-ing antisubmarine organization or cooperation.

Opposing tactical doctrines provoked moreill feelings between the two services. Naval pol-icy dictated that patrol planes closely guardmerchant convoys, while USAAF guidelinesprescribed a more free-ranging, offensive-minded air operation. King scoffed at theArmy’s methodology, likening it to searchingfor a needle in a haystack. He further arguedthat by sticking to the convoys patrol planes

would be more likely to find the U-boats stalk-ing them.

On the other hand, naval district comman-ders kept USAAF sub-hunting aircraft out oper-ating over their districts long after German U-boats had moved into more productive waters.Flexibility, the greatest advantage of aerial anti-submarine warfare, remained an unexploitedasset so long as patrol bombers were prohibitedfrom following their U-boat prey across sea dis-trict boundaries.

The two sides may never have reached agree-ment if it were not for a new factory being builtin Renton, Washington. In 1942, Boeing Air-craft raised this structure to make the Navy’sPBB-1 Sea Ranger patrol plane. General Arnoldthought it would be better served manufactur-ing B-29 Superfortress bombers for the USAAF,and in exchange for the Renton facility offeredthe Navy a percentage of future Liberator deliv-eries. This deal meant the Navy would finallyobtain a land-based patrol aircraft while theArmy got its Superfortress plant.

The Navy took another step toward accept-ing full control of the American antisubmarineeffort when, on May 10, 1943, Admiral Kingstood up the Tenth Fleet. It was a paper fleet,wholly without ships or airplanes, but one thatrepresented King’s determination to finallydefeat the U-boat peril. Tenth Fleet had as itscharter the mission of directing and coordinat-ing all Navy sub-hunter activities worldwide.Curiously, in all of Tenth Fleet’s organizationalcharts there was no mention of the U.S. Army

Air Force’s Antisubmarine Command or its 286aircraft.

What happened next surprised no one. In aJune conference held between Arnold andsenior naval officials, an arrangement wasmade in which the Army would turn over itsantisubmarine-equipped B-24s in exchange foran equal number of unmodified Liberatorsoriginally allocated to the Navy. Admiral Kingformalized the pact, writing to Army Chief ofStaff General George Marshall on June 14,“The Navy will be prepared to take over allantisubmarine air operations by 1 September1943.”

This horse trade did not signal an immediateend to USAAF sub-hunter activities. While inWashington, Air Marshal Slessor had per-suaded King to release the Army’s 479th Anti-submarine Group for duty over the bay. Fourfull squadrons of B-24s (the 4th, 6th, 19th, and22nd A/S) were set to arrive at St. Eval startingin mid-July, while Navy Liberators (PB4Y-1s innaval parlance) would follow along as soon astheir crews could be trained.

The American planes deployed just as Oper-ation Musketry reached its operationalcrescendo. Much had changed since the firstUSAAF antisubmarine squadrons in Englandpulled up stakes four months earlier. AdmiralDönitz’ U-boats were now traveling surfacedin groups during daylight hours and slugging itout with Allied bombers thanks to new quad-barrel 20mm antiaircraft cannons hastilymounted to their conning towers. Even more


National Archives

ABOVE: A German U-boat founders under the repeated hammering of depth charges and bombs dropped froma pair of Royal Air Force Short Sunderland flying boats in the Bay of Biscay. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: A Consoli-dated PBY Catalina flying boat practices low level bombing off the coast of England. Although the Catalinawas a superb attack aircraft and doubled as a fine air-sea rescue plane, it lacked the range for long-distancepatrols, and RAF Coastal Command retained these aircraft close to their bases.


dangerous was the air threat—swarms of Ju-88 heavy fighters prowling the bay in search ofunwary patrol planes. German gunfire com-pounded the normal hazards of weather,fatigue, and mechanical malfunction faced byall Allied sub hunters.

At least the situation at St. Eval hadimproved. Learning from past mistakes,Colonel Howard Moore’s 479th Groupdeployed with adequate maintenance, admin-istrative, and logistics support. In August, theAmericans moved to RAF Station Dunkeswell,100 miles down the road in Devonshire. Thisnewly constructed base, dubbed MudvilleHeights by the airmen living there, wouldremain the hub of U.S. antisubmarine activityfor the rest of the war.

Operational patrols commenced on July 13,and soon thereafter the 479th scored its first U-boat kill. On July 20, 1st Lt. Charles Gallmeier’sbomber surprised the surfaced U-558, deliver-ing seven depth charges close aboard. The Ger-man vessel fought back, though, its well-aimedantiaircraft fire wounding one of Gallmeier’sgunners as well as disabling an engine. A BritishHalifax then finished off the U-boat, which wentdown with all 43 hands.

Team tactics resulted in another kill on July28, when B-24s piloted by Major StephenMcElroy (commanding officer of the 4th A/SSquadron) and 1st Lt. Arthur Hammer joineda British Liberator to fight U-404 in an epic six-hour battle. The hard-fighting submarine dam-aged all three sub hunters before succumbing to

a barrage of 27 depth charges. The July Massacre ended for USAAF flight

crews five days later when Captain JosephHamilton’s B-24 helped Canadian pilots sinkU-706 about 400 miles west of the St. Nazairesub pens. On August 2, Dönitz pulled the plugon his disastrous fight-back tactics. Hereafter,German submarines would hug the Spanishcoast—where ASV radar proved less effective—surfacing only to recharge their batteries andthen only at night. The Kriegsmarine alsogreatly restricted submarine operations, pre-serving its fleet while new wonder weaponswere fielded—weapons that could change thecourse of the war.

Coastal Command’s summer Bay Offensiveresulted in 26 U-boats killed by air betweenApril and August 1943. Seventeen more hadbeen damaged, significantly degrading the Ger-man Navy’s offensive capability. The U-boatswere all but defeated, or so said Prime Minis-ter Churchill when he boasted the Kriegsma-rine had not sunk a single Allied merchant shipon North Atlantic convoy routes between May1 and September 15, 1943. No. 19 Group con-tributed to this victory by whittling away at theBiscayan “trunk” with aggressive, coordinatedattacks on enemy submarines.

Sub-hunter aircraft continued to prowl thebay throughout August and September, but bythen Dönitz’s remaining U-boats rarely ven-tured from their pens. Instead, patrol bombercrews faced increasing numbers of Luftwaffeheavy fighters—cannon-armed Ju-88s operat-

ing in packs. The USAAF’s first clash with themoccurred on July 26, when a Liberator com-manded by Lieutenant S.M. Grider encoun-tered nine fighters over the bay. Thinkingquickly, Grider escaped undamaged by duck-ing into some low-hanging clouds.

The Americans’ luck would not last. OnAugust 8, marauding Ju-88s shot down Cap-tain R.L. Thomas’ bomber, killing all aboard.Ten days later they pounced on another B-24,this one with the luckless Grider aboard ascheck pilot. Grider and his aircraft comman-der, Lieutenant Charles Moore, managed tosuccessfully ditch their stricken plane, no sim-ple task given the Liberator’s propensity forbreaking apart upon hitting the water. Six sur-vivors were rescued by a British warship afterspending four days bobbing around the bay onlife rafts.

Altogether, the 479th A/S Group lost four B-24s to enemy fighters during 16 recorded air-to-air encounters. American gunners claimed fiveGerman warplanes in return, demonstratingthat these battles were not always one sided.Yet the USAAF’s ungainly patrol bombers madeexcellent targets for prowling Ju-88s despiteCoastal Command’s efforts to provide escortcoverage.

Into this hazardous operational environmententered a new group of aviators when onAugust 17 the first PB4Y-1 Liberators of U.S.Navy Bomber Squadron 103 (VB-103) toucheddown at St. Eval. After several weeks spentfamiliarizing themselves with Coastal Com-mand procedures, the Navy crews moved toDunkeswell where they relieved the soon-to-bedisbanded USAAF sub-hunter squadrons. BySeptember 5, the PB4Y-1s of VB-105 beganarriving, with VB-110 closing on the UnitedKingdom starting on September 24.

They were commanded by Captain (laterCommodore) William Hamilton of Fleet AirWing Seven (FAW-7), who located his head-quarters in nearby Plymouth. The Navy com-menced operations on August 30, and byNovember 1 had taken over all patrol dutiesfrom the Army. Most USAAF antisubmarinecrews received new combat assignments with theEighth Air Force while their specialized B-24swere repossessed by Navy flying squadrons.

Although experienced at overwater naviga-tion from previous assignments, these naval avi-ators soon discovered the Bay of Biscay heldmany unique perils. On September 2, skulkingJu-88s shot down a Liberator commanded byLieutenant Kenneth Wickstrom; no aircrewsurvived. Two days later, a dozen German fight-ers mauled Lieutenant James Alexander’sPB4Y-1 off the Iberian Peninsula. Alexander


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Forced to the surface by depth charges, a German U-boat takes evasive action off the coast of Portugal inAugust 1943. The Consolidated B-24 Liberator that is mounting the attack is under the command of pilotWilliam Pomeroy.


somehow managed to ditch his bullet-riddenplane, enabling the 11 men aboard to escapeinto rubber dinghies. Rescued by Spanish fish-ermen some 36 hours later, they eventuallyreturned to duty.

There were few U-boats left for FAW-7’sflight crews to hunt. Husbanding most of itssubmarines for the coming cross-Channel inva-sion, the Kriegsmarine started to fit them witha revolutionary new defensive technology. TheSchnorkel (German slang for “nose”) alloweda U-boat to operate submerged while still tak-ing in air from above, thus theoretically elimi-nating the need for it to surface altogether.Allied commanders worried how their hun-dreds of aircraft and thousands of aviatorswould find submarines no longer visible onASV radar systems.

Navy sub hunters also introduced some newweaponry to the Bay Patrol. Their Liberatorsnow carried sonobuoys, air-delivered sonartransmitters able to detect U-boats movingunder water. Once the sub’s location wasmarked, PB4Y-1 crews could then drop a Zom-bie, also known as the Mk 24 acoustic homingtorpedo, on their unsuspecting prey.

Furthermore, the “MADCATS” of VP-63operated their Magnetic Anomaly Detector-equipped PBY Catalinas over the Biscayan gulffor a time. Airmen used this apparatus to iden-tify the gravitational disturbance caused by asubmerged metal object like a U-boat and then

dropped depth charges on the contact. TheirPBYs proved easy pickings for Luftwaffe fight-ers, though, and the MADCATS soon moved tothe Mediterranean’s calmer waters where theirspecialized gear worked more effectively.

Liberators of FAW-7 joined Commonwealthaircraft in an all-day encounter with U-996 onNovember 10. Caught on the surface by twoWellington bombers, this resilient U-boat thenwithstood attacks by three U.S. Navy PB4Y-1sbefore a Czech-manned Liberator disabled itwith rocket fire. Unable to dive, U-996’s crewfinally scuttled its sub two miles off the Span-ish coast.

As mentioned previously, the last flight ofCalvert n’ Coke took place on November 12,1943, when that VB-103 Liberator failed toreturn from a night patrol mission. Naval offi-cials listed all 10 members of Lieutenant RalphBrownell’s crew as missing in action but did notsolve the mystery of their unexplained disap-pearance until after the war ended. Investiga-tors examining captured German war diariesdiscovered the airmen had, in fact, sunk U-508on that lonely patch of ocean before meetingtheir doom.

In December, all three patrol squadrons tookpart in an unusual battle against German sur-face ships, catching the blockade runnersOsorno and Alsterufer as they traversed thebay bound for Asian waters. Heavily escortedby German destroyers, the two raiders traded

blows with Coastal Command aircraft forthree days starting on Christmas Eve 1943.Punished by relentless depth charge, bomb,machine-gun, and rocket attacks from dozensof Allied warplanes, neither vessel made it toport. One VB-110 PB4Y-1, commanded byLieutenant W. Parish, was shot down whilemaking a low-level strike against the Alsteruferon December 26.

These moments of excitement notwithstand-ing, most missions over the bay passed unevent-fully. “The chief enemy of the patrol plane pilotis boredom,” recalled VB-105’s Owen Windall.“Boredom begets inattention, then indifference.Hundreds of hours are spent at sea with noth-ing to look at but an endless expanse of wavesand sky.” Other hazards included miserablewinter weather, which contributed to the loss ofseveral FAW-7 Liberators. Most of all, crew-men feared ice—if enough of it accumulated on

the wings of their heavily loaded PB4Y-1s theywould fall out of the sky without warning.

The first American U-boat kill utilizing Zom-bie munitions occurred on January 28, 1944,when a VB-103 Liberator nicknamed TheBloody Miracle caught U-271 on the surfacewest of Ireland. Lieutenant George Enloe andcrew put six depth charges across the sub’sbeam and followed up with a lethal homingtorpedo after they observed the vessel crashdive beneath them. Strike photos revealed firstevidence of a Schnorkel, troubling news for theAllies then preparing to invade Normandy.

For D-Day, Coastal Command, now led byRAF Air Chief Marshal Sholto Douglas,planned to seal off all approaches to the Eng-lish Channel with saturation air patrols. Theaptly named Operation Cork would, if suc-cessful, prevent Dönitz’ U-boats from gettinganywhere near the Allied fleet by creating an“unclimbable fence” of air antisubmarineforces for them to face.

Reinforced for Normandy with 25squadrons, No. 19 Group began flying Cork


ABOVE: A crowd of onlookers has gathered with its accompanying trucks and staff cars to watch the approachof an overdue Consolidated B-24 Liberator at an airbase in England. The B-24 proved an excellent aircraft inthe anti-submarine role and was also one of the primary aircraft deployed during the Allied strategic bombingcampaign against Nazi Germany. RIGHT: Three Allied crewmen, believed to be from a B-24 bomber piloted byLieutenant Charles Moore, wave to rescue aircraft from their rafts in the open Atlantic. Their B-24 was shotdown by a German Ju-88 over the Bay of Biscay.




BRITISH AIRBORNE TROOPS WERE LANDING NEAR ARNHEM, HOLLAND, ON THEmorning of September 17, 1944. Despite the fact that elements of two veteran SS panzer divisionswere reconstituting in the area, the Germans were taken much by surprise.

Initial reports of the landings were confusing and often misleading; leaders needed to see thesituation clearly in order to react. Local garrison commander Maj. Gen. Friedrich Kussin wasone of those officers. He decided to see for himself, taking an aide, Max Kostler, and his dri-ver, Josef Willeke. At about 5:15 PM, he arrived at a subordinate’s command post along the

Utrechtseweg, the main road leading from Arnhem through Oosterbeek tothe British landing zones. That officer, a Sturmbahnführer Krafft, warnedKussin he should return along an alternate route; the road was not secure.Kussin chose to disregard that advice and raced off the way they had come.

Farther down the Utrechtseweg, British platoon comman-der Lieutenant James Cleminson led his men down a narrowportion of the road, sacrificing security for speed in the rush toget to the bridge across the Neder Rhine River. Suddenly, aGerman staff car drove right into their midst! The British para-

troopers opened fire on it with Bren and Sten guns, hosing it with bullets until itlooked like a sieve. Inside, General Kussin managed to draw his pistol before beinghit in the chest, neck, and head. Kostler was covered in his leader’s blood and brainsas he too died. Willeke tried in vain to grab his rifle, but he was dead within sec-onds as well.

The British soldiers pulled the bodies out of the car and realized they had killed

I By Christopher Miskimon I

War Came Home to theStreets ofArnhem

British and Polish paratroopers fought a desperate battle for con-trol of the road leading to Arnhemduring Operation Market-Garden.

a high-ranking officer, but it was even betterthan they could realize. Kussin was in charge ofthe bridge defenses while the SS panzer unitswere tasked with areas to either side of the Arn-hem Bridge. For now, there was no one to directthe troops around the bridge against the para-troopers moving to seize it.

The Battle of Arnhem was full of such smallstories. Small groups of British paratroopersused daring and surprise to grab their objec-tives while German troops hastily deployed tomeet them. Dutch civilians, trapped in the mid-dle, watched with hope as German soldiersretreated in some areas along the Utrechtsewegto be replaced by British soldiers. Later thesehopes would turn to despair as the Germansretook the area, killing or forcing out those theDutch saw as their liberators. Focusing on justthe Utrechtseweg road, author Robert Kershawhas shown the effect of war on a single street ina single critical battle in his new book A Streetin Arnhem: The Agony of Occupation andLiberation (Casemate Publishing, Havertown,PA, 2015, 304pp., maps, photographs, notes,bibliography, index, $32.95, hardcover).

The struggle of the British paratroopers atArnhem is well known and often documentedin books and film. What sets this book apart isits focus. The author has narrowed the focusdown to a single street, albeit a critical one con-necting the Arnhem Bridge area to the Britishlanding zones. Holding this road wasabsolutely essential for the British if their troopsand supplies were to get through from thoselanding zones to the forces defending thebridge. By map it was a distance of nearly sixmiles, far from ideal for a lightly equipped air-borne unit. Still they may have yet succeeded ifnot for the SS panzer divisions sent to the areato refit after the fighting in Normandy. Theseunits were at relatively low strength but con-sisted of many veterans who knew their busi-ness and had fought paratroopers before. OneGerman unit had enough MG-42 machine gunsto equip every soldier since they had picked upso many during the retreat from Normandy.

The result was a catastrophe.The two sides battled back andforth across the Utrechtseweg,and the Germans succeeded inkeeping the British from reinforc-ing the small group at the bridgeuntil it was too late. The areaalong the road suffered heavilyfrom the fighting, especially theartillery fire. This was an equaldisaster for the Dutch civilians,

German General FriedrichKussin’s driver, Josef

Willeke, lies dead besideKussin’s staff car after anambush by British para-troopers at Arnhem who

took this photograph.Kussin’s body was alsophotographed by theBritish, lying on the

opposite side of the car


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who had seen little of the war until then. The author is a former member of the British

Army’s elite Parachute Regiment; his expertiseon and understanding of airborne operationsare evident in this book. While he mentions theactions of the various generals overseeing thebattle, the focus is rightly given to the accountsof the fighting soldiers who struggled along theUtrechtseweg. The writing is clear and gives agood impression of the confusion and desper-ation of the fighting. The inclusion of the Dutchcivilians’ experiences further rounds out thebook.

Hitler’s Warrior: The Lifeand Wars of SS ColonelJochen Peiper (Danny S.Parker, Da Capo Press,New York, 2015, 441pp.,maps, photographs,notes, index, $29.99,hardcover)

Jochen Peiper is infamous even for a Nazi.While not a member of the inner circle that sur-rounded Hitler, Peiper was an ardent nationalsocialist who volunteered for service in the Waf-fen-SS at a young age. He became HeinrichHimmler’s adjutant and served in this capacityuntil well after the war began. When he finallywent into combat he served with the 1st SSPanzer Division. On the Eastern Front hequickly developed a reputation for brutality.

In time he gained the attention of Hitler andwas given a major role in the Ardennes Offen-sive in December 1944, forever known as theBattle of the Bulge. There he became foreverinfamous for the Malmedy Massacre, a mur-derous execution of 84 American prisoners ofwar. Peiper was tried and convicted for his rolein the incident but was released in 1956. Nowfree, Peiper moved to eastern France where helived quietly until being discovered in 1976.Unknown assailants attacked his home andPeiper was killed and his house burned.

This new biography looks at Peiper’s con-troversial life and his complicated personality.It is all too easy to simply write off any enthu-siastic Nazi as a demented madman; it satisfiesthe ego and requires little thought for theauthor or reader. Instead, Mr. Parker has delvedinto Peiper’s complexities in a way that encour-ages the reader to consider such evil and its per-petrators more carefully. Interviews with manyof Peiper’s contemporaries add a nice depth tothe book.

Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the RaidThat Avenged Pearl Harbor (James M. Scott,W.W. Norton, New York, 2015, 640pp., maps,

illustrations, notes bibliog-raphy, index, $35.00, hard-cover)

The Doolittle Raid wasAmerica’s first counterat-tack of World War II. Com-ing just four months afterPearl Harbor, this raidinvolved launching Army

North American B-25 Mitchell bombers fromthe flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hor-net in a surprise attack on mainland Japan.There were great challenges to completing thistop secret attack, but in the end it was pulledoff through the courage of Doolittle and hisaircrews. The raid itself did little real damagebut was a great morale booster for the Amer-ican people. Conversely, it was a serious shockto the Japanese, who did not expect their coun-try to be attacked directly. There was a pricelittle known in the United States, however. Per-haps a quarter million Chinese were killed inretaliation.

This well researched book is a comprehensiveaccount of the Doolittle Raid, which covers theentire mission from conception to the aftermath.The author’s storytelling brings the reader backto the drama of this daring mission.

The Spearheaders: A Per-sonal History of Darby’sRangers (James Altieri,Naval Institute Press,Annapolis, MD, 2014,318pp., photographs,$24.95, softcover)

In early 1942 there werefew ways for the United

States to strike at Nazi Germany. There was norealistic chance of an invasion of Europe thatyear, and America was months away frominvading North Africa. The British were havingsome luck with their commando units, con-ducting various raids whenever the opportunityarose. American General Lucian Truscottdecided to raise a commando unit for the U.S.Army. That force became the 1st Ranger Bat-talion, and its commander, Major William O.Darby, was an excellent leader, so much so theunit soon became known as “Darby’s Rangers.”

The Rangers soon proved their worth as anelite light infantry force, taking on missionsregular units would be hard pressed to accom-plish. A small detachment went with the Cana-dians at Dieppe, and then the unit fought inNorth Africa, Sicily, and Italy including Anzio.In that final locale the Rangers were commit-ted to an attack at Cisterna, which effectivelydestroyed the unit. Nevertheless, the Rangers’



accomplishments were such that their legendrefused to die. The present-day U.S. ArmyRangers can trace their lineage straight toDarby and his troops.

The author entered the Rangers as a privateand ended the war as a company commanderin the 4th Battalion. This account of his time inthe Rangers was originally published in 1960and has been reprinted due to its unvarnishedlook at an outfit that still captures the imagi-nation in books, television, and film decadeslater. The writing is clear and simple, makingthe book a pleasure to read.

Hitler’s Swedes: A History of the Swedish Vol-unteers in the Waffen-SS (Lars T. Larsson, Case-

mate Publishers, Haver-town, PA, 2015, 336pp.,maps, photographs, appen-dix, bibliography, index,$69.95, hardcover)The Waffen-SS had entireunits comprised of foreignvolunteers during World

War II. The nations these volunteers came fromwere mostly occupied territories the Nazis over-ran during the early years of the conflict. Oftenthese volunteers were attracted to the Nazi ide-ology, their apparent strength, or a simpledesire to fight communism, which was seen asa major threat to Europe in the period leadingup to the war. Since the Nazis were the only


New and NoteworthyWall, Watchtower and Pencil Stub: Writing During World War II (John R. Carpenter,Yucca Publishing, 2014, $24.95, hardcover) This is a review of how writers did theirwork during the war. It examines how their work influenced American culture dur-ing and after the conflict.

In Defense of Freedom: Stories of Courage and Sacrifice of WorldWar II Army Air Forces Flyers (Wolfgang W.E. Samuel, University Press of Mississippi,2015, $29.95, softcover) This book features 28 stories of different pilots and aircrews.Each is a unique tale of courage and endurance.

American Warlords: How Roosevelt’s High Command Led America toVictory in World War II (Jonathan W. Jordan, NAL Caliber, 2015,$28.95, hardcover) President Roosevelt had to direct, influence, and

at times manipulate his subordinates toward the goal of victory. This book reveals howhe did so despite rivalries and competing agendas.

No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog and Their Extraordinary Storyof Courage and Survival in WWII (Robert Weintraub, Little, Brown and Company,2015, $28.00 hardcover) RAF Airman Frank Williams was captured and placed in aPOW camp. There he met Judy, a purebred pointer who helped him stay alive andsane during his captivity.

The Third Reich in History and Memory (Richard J. Evans, Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2015, $29.95, hardcover) The Nazis left a haunting

legacy that humanity has struggled to deal with since 1945. Presented in this volumeare a number of essays discussing the effect of Nazism and how our perception of ithas changed over the decades.

Hollow Heroes: An Unvarnished Look at the Wartime Careers ofChurchill, Montgomery and Mountbatten (Michael Arnold, Casemate Publishing, 2015,$34.95, hardcover) This book seeks to show these three British leaders as less thantheir popular reputations would indicate. The author argues they were all subject to fitsof ego, jealousy, and self-preservation.

Airborne: The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company (Ian Gard-ner, Osprey Publishing, 2015, $25.95, hardcover) Ed Shames is the

last surviving officer from Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame. This is his accountof the war as he saw it.

US Standard-Type Battleships 1941-45 (1): Nevada, Pennsylvania andNew Mexico Classes (Mark Stille, Osprey Publishing, 2015, $17.95,softcover) These older battleships played an important role during the war despite theirage. They provided gunfire support during amphibious operations and a few evensaw ship versus ship action.

Stump!by Larry Allen Lindsey

“In STUMP! Larry Allen Lindsey beautifully recounts the late Lee Kelley’spowerful World War II stories. STUMP!

is a moving tribute to our ‘greatest generation.’”

—Former US Senator Bill Bradley

“STUMP! captures the real life experiences of a true American

World War II hero-Lee Kelley, Navy frogman. If you like Navy SpecialWarfare action STUMP! will keep

you on the edge of your seat.”—Jeffrey B. Crane, Commander, USN (Ret.)

Motivated by the sneak attack onPearl Harbor, champion swimmer

Lee “Stump” Kelley is hell bent on becominga Marine...He becomes a frogman instead.

After blowing up under water obstructions allover the Pacific, at Tacloban he loses the firstof his best friends in a gruesome explosion. A

month later he loses the second in a freak encounter with a giant hammerhead sharkat Manila Bay. Moving on to Okinawa withwhat’s left of his frogman team, he suffersserious burns during the largest kamikaze

attack of the war. At Guam a three staradmiral asks his opinion on a prospectivelanding site for the invasion of Japan. As

always, Stump tells it like it is. “Admiral...trying to march into Tokyo will cost a million

American lives. And one of those lives isgonna be mine.”

A retired naval officer and Vietnam veteran,Lindsey was stationed overseas in Spain, Guam,

and Okinawa, and served tours of duty withboth the Seabees and the Marines.

VISIT HIS WEBSITE AT

www.LarryAllenLindsey.com


force in Europe fighting the Soviets, it madesense to some to join their efforts.

Sweden was a neutral nation, so men want-ing to join the Nazi cause usually had to maketheir way to an occupied country and then vol-unteer. Once there many were incorporatedinto frontline formations such as the Wiking,Nord, and Nordland Divisions. These volun-teers served throughout the war and shared inthe Nazi defeat in 1945.

The subject of foreign volunteers in the SScan be sensitive even today. It is no mark ofpride for any nation to say some of its youngmen ran off to fight for such an evil cause. Theauthor confronts this by telling the stories ofindividual Swedes, including why they chose tovolunteer, what they experienced during theirservice to the Third Reich, and how the warended for them.

Aachen: The U.S. Army’sBattle for Charlemagne’sCity in World War II(Robert W. Baumer, Stack-pole Books, Mechanics-burg, PA, 2015, 410pp.,maps, photographs, notes,bibliography, index,$29.95, hardcover)

The Battle of Aachen was a critical momentin the European campaign during World WarII. It was the first German city the Americansapproached as well as an important culturalicon for the German people; Aachen had beenthe capital of Charlemagne’s empire centuriesbefore. The loss of the city would be a heavyblow to German morale, so Hitler ordered itdefended to the last man and cartridge. Fornearly two months combat raged around andfinally in Aachen as the U.S. Army slowlyground the defenders into submission.

The battle for this ancient city is told throughthe words and accounts of various participantsfrom both sides. Extensive use is made of con-temporary battle reports, and the author effec-tively combines them into a narrative that iseasy to follow and engaging.

The Battle of Britain: 75th Anniversary Edition(Kate Moore, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK,2015, 200pp., maps, photographs, appendices,bibliography, index, $14.95, softcover)

World War II isreplete with turn-ing points, criticalbattles, and pivotalmoments when thecourse of the warchanged, often due

to the actions of a few people who succeeded bythe thinnest of margins. The Battle of Britainqualifies as such an event. The war would haveprogressed differently had Nazi Germany beenable to successfully invade England in 1940-41.That fact that they were unable to completetheir plans was due to heroic efforts and greatsacrifices by a mere handful of pilots, aircrew,and support personnel of the Royal Air Force.These men and women held off the Nazionslaught long enough for the United Kingdomto prepare for the war’s continuation andfought hard enough to convince the Nazis theisland could not be invaded with a reasonablechance of success, enough so that Germanattention subsequently turned eastward.

This book is a well done photo essay of thiscritical time in British history. The publisherpartnered with the Imperial War Museum,using its vast collections to produce an excellentpopular history. The illustrations tell the storyeffectively, and the accompanying text roundsout the book with additional detail, giving thereader a look at one of England’s darkest yetproudest moments.

Tigers in the Ardennes:The 501st Heavy SS TankBattalion in the Battle ofthe Bulge (Gregory A.Walden, Schiffer Publish-ing Ltd. Atglen, PA, 2015,maps, photographs, notes,bibliography, index,$35.00, hardcover)

Only a relative few Tiger tanks were built,but they spark intense interest even decadeslater. Grouped into a small number of heavytank battalions in both the Army and SS, theywere used wherever their firepower wasneeded. In the Ardennes Offensive, the 501stSS Heavy Tank Battalion was the heavy tankunit of the 1st SS Panzer Corps. It was expectedto help punch through the thin Americandefenses and gain a victory, which would hope-fully split the Western Allies. The tanks wereamong the toughest, most powerful of the war,but they suffered from reliability problems andpoor mobility. The crews were brave, but at thislate stage of the war many lacked experience.

Both German and American veterans wereinterviewed for this book. The author, a formertank officer, analyzes the terrain of theArdennes and expertly describes the challengesthe Ardennes presented to a Tiger battalion.Detailed maps accompany the text to show theexact route the 501st took during the battle.The book has many photographs, a number ofthem never before published.


By late 1944, many of the Japanese sub-marines that were still operational were con-verted to carry Kaiten; some submarines couldcarry up to six. Kaiten pilots were all volun-teers aged 18 to 20. Despite the hundreds ofKaiten launched and the many Japanese menwho died in them, they are credited with caus-ing little damage to Allied shipping. A pack ofeight Kaiten did penetrate the Ulithi anchoragein the Caroline Islands on November 20, 1944,and sink the fleet oiler USS Mississinewa,spilling 400,000 gallons of aviation fuel andkilling 63 men. All eight Kaiten pilots were lostin the attack, and the submarine I-37, whichhad launched the Kaiten, was sunk by thedestroyers USS Conklin and USS McCoyReynolds off the Philippine island of Leyte.

On January 9, 1945, four Kaiten again struckthe Carolines, damaging the Liberty Ship SS Pon-tus H. Ross. Again, the submarine that launchedthem, I-47, was sunk by the destroyer Con-klin. Kaiten were also credited with sinking aninfantry landing craft, LCI 600, with the loss ofthree men, and the destroyer escort USS Under-hill on July 24, 1945, with the loss of 112 men.

The Underhill was escorting a convoy of sup-ply and troop ships 200 to 300 miles northeastof Cape Engaño in the Philippines when shecame under attack. After lookouts spotted twoKaiten on the surface, the Underhill rammedthe vessel to port and was herself rammed bythe other Kaiten. Both Kaiten pilots detonatedtheir charges, one of which exploded thedestroyer escort’s boilers, tearing her in half.

“I got topside and [was] standing on thequarterdeck,” a 19-year-old survivor of theattack said. “I didn’t know what had happened,but saw [our] bow floating by on the starboardside with probably 10 or 12 feet sticking out ofthe water. There were dead and seriouslyinjured scattered over the ship.”

The idea of manned torpedoes persisted afterthe war. British chariots were used to clearmines and wrecks in harbors, and Argentinadeveloped manned torpedoes and special mini-submarines in the 1950s, the latter with torpe-does attached beneath them. During the 1960s,at least two manned torpedo-like vessels weremanufactured in the United States and Britainfor sport diving.

Today, similar vehicles are said to be in useby U.S. Navy SEALs.

Author Chuck Lyons has contributed to WWIIHistory on a variety of topics. He resides inRochester, New York.

O r d n a n c eContinued from page 13



Polish II Corps was demobilized. Mieczkowski again had to readjust his pri-

orities. In England, he passed competitiveexams to enter the University of London, earn-ing a bachelor’s degree in 1950. He had littledesire to repair to Poland under Communistrule, and his mother’s death further soured himon returning. “Going back would have beendangerous folly,” he said. “I concluded that Iwas a permanent émigré, a person without acountry.” His Polish friends felt similarly andemigrated to Australia, Canada, and the UnitedStates. (Bogdan’s older brother, Zbigniew, wentto Canada, but Tadeusz and Janusz stayed inPoland.) America became Mieczkowski’sdream destination, and in December 1950, hisentry visa approved, he boarded the RMS Fran-conia ocean liner headed for New York. Hemoved to Chicago, whose large Polish popula-tion made him feel at home, and soon enrolledin graduate school at the University of Illinois,where he earned a doctorate in economics in1955. Eventually, he landed work at a Polishresearch institute in New York City.

In a sense, New York allowed the war tocome full circle for Mieczkowski. There he metSeiko Kawakami, a native of Hokkaido, Japan,who came to the United States to study at BereaCollege and found a job at a Japanese bankbranch in Manhattan. During the war,Kawakami worked at a factory near her home-town of Otaru, making chemical gas masks outof seaweed. (World War II had a profoundimpact on her family, too: her 17-year-old sis-ter Yasuko died of tuberculosis during the war,and her older brother Suguru joined the Japan-ese navy and learned to fly Mitsubishi Zerofighters, training as a kamikaze pilot.) As WorldWar II receded into memory, two people whoexperienced that epochal conflict while oceansapart met in New York City—the crossroadsof the world—and later married. Both becamecollege professors, but the war that shaped theiryouth carved indelible memories. ForMieczkowski, the fight for Poland’s freedomcarried a high cost, leaving him wounded andhis family broken and destitute. Freedom camenot just when he escaped a German POWcamp. It came across the globe, in a new coun-try and its promise of a new life.

Yanek Mieczkowski is the author of Eisen-hower’s Sputnik Moment: The Race for Spaceand World Prestige and Gerald Ford and theChallenges of the 1970s. He is professor of his-tory at Dowling College in New York.

U p r i s i n g !Continued from page 63

missions on June 5. Navy Liberators, tem-porarily augmented by detachments fromGibraltar-based VB-114, were assigned topatrol a region off the Cherbourg Peninsula.The pace was intense. Directed to cover indi-vidual sectors of ocean twice an hour, eachsquadron generated seven missions per daycompared to two or three flown previously.

Forty-three of Admiral Dönitz’ Biscay-basedU-boats sortied against the invasion fleet in theweeks following D-Day. They failed miserably.By June 23, Coastal Command planes hadkilled nine U-boats and damaged 11 more.Unable to move without being detected, thesurviving non-Schnorkel-equipped submarinescould only cower helplessly on the ocean floor.Just five vessels fitted with this new breathingdevice managed to make it past the escortscreen, torpedoing three warships and fivefreighters before being driven off by Britishdestroyers.

Thanks to Coastal Command, Allied forceswere largely free to cross the English Channelwithout fear of U-boat attacks. In August, whatremained of Germany’s submarine fleet inFrance transited the Bay of Biscay one final timeas American ground troops approached theirbases. The three-year Bay Offensive concludedvictoriously for the Allies.

This triumph came with a heavy cost. Dur-ing their time in England, USAAF antisubma-rine squadrons lost 12 planes and 102 men dueto enemy action, accidents, or causes unknown.Navy patrol bomber losses over the bayamounted to 16 aircraft and 157 crewmen. Inreturn, American sub hunters received creditfor sinking 13 U-boats from February 1943 tothe end of Biscayan operations 18 months later.

United States antisubmarine aircraft playedan unsung but vital role in this campaign.American technology and manufacturingcapacity, including long-range Liberatorbombers and the Zombie acoustic homing tor-pedo, contributed a significant amount of strik-ing power to the Bay Patrol. Yet victory wasultimately measured by the determination,fighting spirit, and sacrifice demonstrated bythousands of Allied airmen. These aviatorsproved themselves to be the deciding factor inthis deadly cat-and-mouse game foughtbetween Coastal Command and German U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.

Patrick J. Chaisson is a retired U.S. Army offi-cer and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.He writes from his home in Scotia, New York.

S u b H u n t e r sContinued from page 71



Simulation Gaming BY JOSEPH LUSTER

WORLD WAR II: TCGPUBLISHER FROZENSHARD • DEVELOPER FROZEN SHARDSYSTEM iOS, ANDROID, BROWSERS • AVAILABLE NOW

It might seem strange to imagine collectible cards based on the events of WorldWar II. The funny thing is, I’m sure they exist, encased in plastic in a few col-lectors’ binders across the world, each touting unique facts and feats performedby the historical figure on the front. World War II: TCG (Trading Card Game)doesn’t feature those kinds of cards, but it does have a bunch of customizabledecks full of infantries, vehicles, modifiers, and other ways of taking on oppo-nents in both player-vs.-computer and player-vs.-player modes.

For the most part, its simplified take on card-battling games works, blend-ing nicely with an easy-to-understand interface and straightforward rules. Theopening tutorial guides you through a few short skirmishes, holding yourhand gently as it teaches you the ropes of how to play cards in each turn,how to use other cards to power up and modify those in play, and how touse acquired points to promote cards, strengthening both their attack anddefense and keeping them in the fight longer. The ultimate goal is to use yourcards to whittle away at your opponent’s hit points while protecting your own,with the first to reach zero getting the bitter taste of defeat.

For someone like myself who’s not terribly good at, or even much inter-ested in, trading card games, World War II: TCG ended up being surpris-ingly likable. The presentation is hit or miss—sound, for instance, plays asmall part in the dynamics but can be turned off with no real loss to the expe-rience—but mostly gets the job done smoothly enough. Cards can be exam-ined to get a better idea of which one would be appropriate for a particu-lar play, but the simpler battles can typically be won by being aggressiveand coming out strong with cards that will, ideally, overpower the ones yourenemy puts on the field.

World War II: TCG features five factions—Germans, Americans, Russians,Japanese, and British—with more to be added in the future. User-createddecks aren’t restricted by factions, though, so you can go wild and concen-trate on putting the best cards in your deck regardless of their allegiance.While it’s nice that there aren’t too many restrictions on deck-building, thereare special features that make cards of the same faction work well in tan-dem, so it’s worth keeping that in mind when putting your cards together.On the other hand, if building a deck sounds like a total drag to you, youcan always go in with a prebuilt deck, which should at least get you throughthe single-player stuff without too much trouble.

Player versus Player is another story entirely. World War II: TCG is relativelyyoung, so you can find some competition that’s still dabbling or just gettingstarted, much like yourself. This will likely change as regular players get moretime in with the game, so the versus play will definitely only get tougher fromhere on out. It does help that it’s cross-platform, though, as you’re more likely

WORLD WAR II MEETS TRADING CARD GAMES, WHILE THE COMPANY OFHEROES SERIES TAKES THE BRITISH FORCES OUT FOR ONE MORE TOUR.

to find casual opponents giving it a go from a service like Facebook.Like many free-to-play games, you’ll only get as much out of World War

II: TCG as you’re willing to put in, be that time or money. I’m not really onefor giving into the constantl -appearing advertisements that beg the playerto plunk down a few real-world dollars for in-game rewards, but it makesenough sense for a game like this that it isn’t too egregious. Unfortunately,this also means I didn’t get to test out a few of the game’s features, namelythe micro-transaction system in question. You can still earn unlockable itemsthrough normal play, though, it’s just going to take a lot longer than it wouldif you decided to pay upfront for the goods.

At the moment, World War II: TCG has more than 220 unique cards,with plans to release new booster packs with 5 to 10 new cards each month.If you enjoy trading card games but aren’t too hardcore about them, you’llfind World War II: TCG to be a nice little diversion for a while. It’s a bit sim-ple for anyone who dips into the deeper end of the genre, though. Ultimately,a game like this is going to live or die based on the ongoing support fromdeveloper FrozenShard. If they keep the updates coming and it maintains astrong enough player base to fuel solid PvP competition, it could blossom intosomething greater in the coming months.

U P C O M I N G B A T T L E S

COMPANY OF HEROES 2: THE BRITISH FORCESPUBLISHER SEGA • DEVELOPER RELIC ENTERTAINMENTSYSTEM PC • AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2015

Sega and Relic Entertainment are getting ready to expandthe Company of Heroes series once more with Company ofHeroes 2: The British Forces. Due out on PC worldwide thisSeptember, the third standalone expansion pack has Relicfocusing once again on the multiplayer mode. The armies ofGreat Britain take center stage along with 15 different unittypes, six commanders, and eight new maps recreating his-

torically accurate locations from the European Theater of World War II. Players will be able to choose between two separate branches in the tech

tree: The Hammer and The Anvil. The former is all about aggression andextreme offensive maneuvering, while the latter puts emphasis on heavily for-tified defenses. Other features include visual enhancements, unit adjustment,and faction rebalancing. Don’t worry if you don’t have a copy of the coretitle, because despite being a new add-on, Company of Heroes 2: The BritishForces won’t require an installed copy of the original.

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