Diplomacy & Crisis News

Suresh Mahalingam, Adam Taylor

Society,

Not all vaccines currently being developed to prevent COVID-19 will be successful. Safety issues or a lack of protection will halt some. So, a broad portfolio of vaccine approaches and technologies is progressing through human trials is reassuring. 

The World Health Organisation lists about 180 COVID-19 vaccines being developed around the world.

Each vaccine aims to use a slightly different approach to prepare your immune system to recognise and fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

However, we can group these technologies into five main types. Some technology is tried and trusted. Some technology has never before been used in a commercial vaccine for humans.

As we outline in our recent paper, each technology has its pros and cons.

1. DNA/RNA-based

DNA and RNA vaccines use fragments of genetic material made in the lab. These fragments code for a part of the virus (such as its spike protein). After the vaccine is injected, your body uses instructions in the DNA/RNA to make copies of this virus part (or antigen). Your body recognises these and mounts an immune response, ready to protect you the next time you encounter the virus.

Pros

• these vaccines can be quickly designed based on genetic sequencing alone

• they can be easily manufactured, meaning they can potentially be produced cheaply

• the DNA/RNA fragments do not cause COVID-19.

Cons

• there are no approved DNA/RNA vaccines for medical use in humans, hence their alternative name: next-generation vaccines. So they are likely to face considerable regulatory hurdles before being approved for use

• as they only allow a fragment of the virus to be made, they may prompt a poor protective immune response, meaning multiple boosters may be needed

• there’s a theoretical probability vaccine DNA can integrate into your genome.

The speed at which these vaccines can be designed, needing only the genetic sequence of the virus, is why these vaccines were among the first to enter clinical trials.

An RNA vaccine, mRNA-1273, being developed by Moderna and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, advanced to clinical testing just two months after the virus was sequenced.

2. Virus vectors

These vaccines use a virus, often weakened and incapable of causing disease itself, to deliver a virus antigen into the body. The virus’ ability to infect cells, express large amount of antigen and in turn trigger a strong immune response make these vaccines promising.

Examples of viruses used as vectors include vaccinia virus (used in the first ever vaccine, against smallpox) and adenovirus (a common cold virus).

Pros

• highly specific delivery of antigens to target cells and high expression of antigen after vaccination

• often a single dose is enough to stimulate long-term protection.

Cons

• people may have existing levels of immune protection to the virus vector, reducing the effectiveness of the vaccine. In other words, the body raises an immune response to the vector rather than to the antigen

• low-scale production of some virus-vectored vaccines means they are less cost-effective.

One high-profile example is the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine AZD1222 (formerly known as ChAdOx1), one of the two vaccines the Australian government wishes to use should phase 3 clinical trials prove successful. This vaccine is based on a modified chimpanzee adenovirus.

Read more: The Oxford deal is welcome, but remember the vaccine hasn't been proven to work yet

Two adenovirus based COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for early or limited use internationally. These were developed by the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences with CanSino Biologics and the Gamaleya Research Institute, part of Russia’s health ministry.

Read more: Russian coronavirus vaccine results have been published – here's what they reveal

3. Inactivated

Inactivated vaccines are a tried and trusted method of vaccination. It’s the technology used in the vaccine against poliovirus and in some types of flu vaccines. Inactivated vaccines contain viruses treated with heat, chemicals, or radiation so they cannot replicate, but can still trigger an immune response.

Pros

• a known technology, generally considered safe

• can be used in people with weakened immune systems.

Cons

• low immunogenicity, so requires multiple boosters.

The Chinese government has granted emergency approval for limited use of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech.

 

4. Live-attenuated virus

Live-attenuated vaccines are among the most successful existing vaccine strategies, already used to protect against measles and polio. These contain virus weakened in the lab. The virus is still viable (live) but cannot cause disease. After vaccination, the viruses in these vaccines grow and replicate, stimulating an excellent immune response.

Pros

• strong protection as vaccine mimics the natural infection process

• cost effective for large-scale manufacturing with a familiar regulatory approval pathway

• single immunisation without needing extra molecules (adjuvants) to stimulate the immune system.

Cons

• very rare potential to revert to a disease-causing state

• limited use in people with weakened immune systems due to potential safety concerns

• can require cold storage, which may limit potential for distribution.

Several live-attenuated COVID-19 vaccine candidates are currently in preclinical trials.

Our group, at Griffith University, has partnered with vaccine manufacturer Indian Immunologicals Ltd to develop a live-attenuated COVID-19 vaccine.

Read more: Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

5. Protein subunit

Subunit vaccines do not contain live components of the virus, but are made from purified pieces of the virus (protein antigens) that trigger an immune response. Again, this is an existing technology, used for instance in hepatitis B vaccines.

Pros

• with no live components, subunit vaccines are generally thought to be safe

• can be used in people with weakened immune systems and other vulnerable populations.

Cons

• the protein antigens that best elicit an immune response must be investigated in detail

• can stimulate an insufficient immune response meaning that protection is likely to require multiple boosters or for the vaccine to be given with an immune system stimulant.

The University of Queensland has developed a protein subunit vaccine for COVID-19 that is being combined with an immune stimulant made by CSL. It is another one of the vaccines Australia wishes to use, should phase 3 clinical trials prove successful.

Read more: Putting our money on two COVID vaccines is better than one: why Australia's latest vaccine deal makes sense

In a nutshell

Not all vaccines currently being developed to prevent COVID-19 will be successful. Safety issues or a lack of protection will halt some.

So, a broad portfolio of vaccine approaches and technologies is progressing through human trials is reassuring. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket.

Ultimately, it is likely we’ll need a repertoire of COVID-19 vaccines to offer widespread protection. Different vaccine formulations will ensure vaccination is safe and effective for all members of society, including infants, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.

Read more: 5 ways our immune responses to COVID vaccines are unique

Suresh Mahalingam, Principal Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University and Adam Taylor, Early Career Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Michelle O'Shea, Daryl Adair, Hazel Maxwell, Megan Stronach

Sports, World

While the IOC advocates for political neutrality, the Olympics are inherently contested terrain — a celebration of athleticism and, by virtue of national teams, a stage for geopolitical triumphs and tensions.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has long tried to insulate itself from politics in society, but wider issues have always been a part of sport - including the Olympics.

Sometimes political statements have been subtle and accommodated by the IOC, such as Cathy Freeman’s victory lap at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, with the Aboriginal and Australian flags draped on her shoulders — a symbol of hope for reconciliation.

The Olympics have, of course, also been subject to more confronting actions: Nazi salutes at the 1936 Berlin Games, political boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Games and a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Games.

While the IOC advocates for political neutrality, the Olympics are inherently contested terrain — a celebration of athleticism and, by virtue of national teams, a stage for geopolitical triumphs and tensions.

Athletes are obviously individuals and, increasingly, many are seeking a voice on matters that transcend sport, such as racism and sexism. Last month, athletes used their collective power to bring every US professional league to a standstill for a day to protest the police shooting of a Black man.

In this new era of political activism, the IOC is being provoked to reevaluate its staunchly apolitical stance. Just how the movement will allow activism — in what forms and what types — remains a big question.

Proposed guidelines on political expression

At the centre of the debate is Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which purports to “protect the neutrality of sport and the Olympic Games”, stating

no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in the Olympic areas.

Protests and demonstrations are therefore forbidden at all Olympic venues and ceremonies.

As athlete activism has become more visible in recent years, the IOC sought to revise its guidelines around protests for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Read more: Sit on hands or take a stand: why athletes have always been political players

This followed several medal podium protests by athletes outside the games, including Australian swimmer Mack Horton refusing to stand beside China’s Sun Yang at the world championships.

The new guidelines are intended to set parameters for what is allowed and what isn’t. Olympic athletes are entitled to “express their opinions”, but not during competitions or at the Olympic Village, medal ceremonies and other official ceremonies. This is allowed elsewhere: press conferences, team meetings and social media.

So, on the face of it, athletes have more liberties: their use of social media, for example, is less constrained than in the past.

No clear line in the sand

As ever, though, the devil is in the detail. The new guidelines also outline what constitutes unacceptable dissent: displaying political messaging (such as signs or armbands), gestures of a political nature (hand gestures or kneeling) and refusing to follow ceremony protocol.

From the perspective of the IOC, there is a clear demarcation between what constitutes a protest and expressing one’s views.

But athletes have been left confused — and continue to feel constrained by the new rules. For example, the rule would seem to allow an athlete to express support for Black Lives Matter at a press conference — but not wear a BLM t-shirt. Is one considered an expression of solidarity against racism, the other a political protest?

And what if athletes kneel or raise a fist during a medal ceremony — a very common form of protest in sports today? The IOC is asserting that actions like these will be punished.

Frustratingly, the revised guidelines are not only imprecise, the penalties arising from breaches are vague - to be decided on a “case-by-case basis as necessary”.

Of course, one must also consider the flip side. Freedom to speak on a global stage may also mean athletes advocating for causes that do not align with themes the IOC endorses, such as racial or gender equality.

As Chelsey Gotell, chairperson of the International Paralympic Committee’s athletes’ council, put it,

We all know that athlete protests at the games is something of a Pandora’s box. The last thing we want to do is create a free-for-all at the games where [Paralympic] athletes are free to protest on any subject they like, including ones the wider world will find repulsive.

Punishing or removing athletes who speak up

Perhaps not surprisingly, the revised guidelines have received a mixed reaction from athletes. Global Athlete, an alliance advocating for athletes’ rights, claims Rule 50 breaches article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference.

Taking this cue, Canadian human rights lawyer and Olympian Nikki Dryden argues bans on protest constitute an unreasonable denial of freedoms, which should be vigorously resisted.

US Olympians have been especially outspoken, saying in a letter

The IOC … cannot continue on the path of punishing or removing athletes who speak up for what they believe in, especially when those beliefs exemplify the goals of Olympism.

In a slight departure from that view, an Australian Olympic Committee survey of athletes revealed most agreed with barring protests from competition and the podium, but there was an appetite for political expression beyond that.

The Olympics as a force for positive change

The IOC Athletes’ Commission is now consulting with athletes globally on different ways Olympians can express themselves in a “dignified way”, with a recommendation on Rule 50 expected in early 2021.

Whatever the IOC decides, one thing is clear: the “athlete voice” is more potent than ever. The recent athlete support for Black Lives Matter is a case in point. Sport should be aligned with causes like the fight against racism.

The Olympics — like sport generally — can also be a place where advocacy actually leads to positive change.

For example, under Saudi Arabian law, women were once not permitted to participate at the Olympics. However, the IOC pressured the Saudi Olympic Committee to send female athletes to the Olympics, and in 2012 its ban on women competitors was lifted.

We only need to think back to Freeman’s victory lap at the 2000 Sydney Olympics as an example of the power of the Olympic stage to make a positive statement. Without this type of wider community engagement, sport has limited meaning. Freeman gave premium value to that Olympic moment — and other athletes can, too.

Michelle O'Shea, Senior Lecturer Management, Western Sydney University; Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney; Hazel Maxwell, Senior Lecturer - Health, University of Tasmania, and Megan Stronach, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

The burning of the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos has exposed the EU’s short-sighted, inhumane, and ineffective approach to asylum.

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

Scandinavian volunteers took part in Nazi Germany’s 1942 summer offensive against the Soviets—and paid a heavy price at the Demyansk Pocket.

On the surface, it may seem odd that men of conquered nations would eagerly sign up to fight for their masters, but that is exactly what happened in Scandinavia in the 1940s.

Although a small number of Scandinavians served in the German armed forces before 1940, it was not until after the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 that Waffen-SS recruiting offices were opened in Copenhagen and Oslo.

This was a result of Himmler’s order to establish a Waffen-SS unit composed of volunteers from the two countries and the Netherlands: SS Wiking—which was to be filled by what was referred to as “Germanic recruits.”

The plan called for one regiment of Germans, one regiment of Dutch (Westland), one regiment of Scandinavians (Nordland), and a Finnish battalion. However, recruitment was not a roaring success as only 3,000 Scandinavians, including Finns, signed up.

The Germans tried again in 1941, hoping that the war between the Soviet Union and Finland would spur the recruitment effort. However, now the Danes and Norwegians were organized in national legions—the Norwegian Legion (DNL) and Frikorps Danmark.

The German attack on the Soviet Union, and Finland’s participation in that attack, made potential volunteers of right-wing nationalist groups who were not National Socialists and had, up to then, been skeptical. Anti-communism became the dominant recruitment theme. Potential recruits were encouraged to enlist in a war described as a crusade to protect Europe against Bolshevism. Furthermore, physical requirements for volunteers diminished in subsequent years as the war on the Eastern Front resulted in heavy casualties.

Many nationalities served in Germany’s elite Waffen-SS during World War II, including Scandinavians, and particularly Danes. The recruitment of foreigners was designed to overcome the strict limits imposed on the growth of the Waffen-SS by the Wehrmacht, which had established a virtual monopoly on recruiting in Germany. This forced the Waffen-SS to look outside Germany for manpower.

Prior to 1940 there were only a few volunteers, but after the invasions of Norway and Denmark in the spring of 1940, their numbers increased considerably. The Scandinavians in German service were primarily Norwegians and Danes although there was also a smattering of Swedes and one battalion of Finns.

There is general agreement in the sources that over 20,000 Norwegians and Danes joined the Waffen-SS during the war. These break down to around 13,000 Danes, 7,000 Norwegians, 1,500 Finns, and a few hundred Swedes. Of approximately 13,000 Danish citizens who volunteered for German armed service during World War II, some 7,000 were accepted.

The vast majority—around 12,000—volunteered for the Waffen-SS, and that organization admitted around 6,000. In looking at the number of Danes, it should be remembered that the size of the prewar Danish Army was only 6,600. The Finns spent most of their time in SS Division Wiking but were withdrawn to Finland in 1943. The Swedes served for the most part in Army Group North’s sector.

At any one time, about 3,000 Scandinavians served at the front and acquitted themselves well. The SS Division Nordland, for example, won the fifth highest number of Knight’s Crosses of all the Waffen-SS divisions. However, the Scandinavian volunteers never reached the large numbers envisioned by SS chief Heinrich Himmler.

The greatest number of Danes served in three different formations: Frikorps Danmark (Danish Legion), SS Division Wiking, and, after the disbandment of the so-called legions in 1943, the SS Division Nordland. Approximately 1,500 Danish volunteers came from the German minority in southern Jutland, and they served mainly in SS Division Totenkopf and to some extent in that division’s infamous 1st SS Brigade.

The first group of Danish volunteers was deployed in the summer of 1941 when SS Division Wiking participated in the attack on the Soviet Union; only a few hundred Danes served in this division at any one time. The majority of them were transferred to SS Division Nordland after two years of serving in Wiking; most Danish volunteers were still undergoing training in Frikorps Danmark when Wiking fought in the Ukraine.

Frikorps Danmark was created on June 25, 1941, within a few days following the German invasion of the Soviet Union. About 500 volunteers signed up in the first couple of weeks, but the unit grew to about 1,000-1,200 in the following months. The creation of the Frikorps was accepted by the Danish government and the Danish Army, and officers who wished to serve in the Frikorps were given a leave to do so from the Danish Army. Both the government and the army sent representatives to the departure ceremony of the Frikorps as the troops left Denmark and marched off to war.

Many of the Scandinavian volunteers were veterans from the Finnish Winter War against the Soviets or had seen service in the Norwegian and Danish Armies; similar legions were recruited in the Netherlands and Flanders and were organized in cooperation with SS headquarters in Berlin and the various national Nazi parties.

This arrangement with the various Nazi parties in occupied Europe served to underline the national character of the legions and gave them some autonomy by appointing officers from within their ranks rather than Germans. It was also designed to foster the anti-communist theme and counter the belief in the occupied countries that the volunteers were composed only of people who were pro-German. However, recruits continued to come mainly from Nazi circles in the occupied countries.

The legions never reached full regimental strength in the early years. Their training and equipment were not the best, they had no armor, and there was a shortage of heavy weapons.

In early 1942, the Norwegian Legion (Den Norske Legion) was sent to the siege lines around Oranienburg and Leningrad, where they spent a frustrating 18 months slugging it out with the Russians in almost World War I-like conditions as their strength dwindled and reinforcements dried up. The Danes faced equally dismal or worse conditions when they were sent into the Demyansk Salient to reinforce the SS Totenkopf Division in the summer of 1942.

Some of the general histories of World War II on the Eastern Front make only brief reference to the epic struggle that took place over the Demyansk Salient during the spring and summer of 1942. Consequently, the reader will find it useful to learn what this struggle was all about and how it factored into the strategic plans of both the Soviets and Germans.

At times Demyansk is described as a salient extending eastward from the main German defensive lines, and at other times, when totally encircled, as a pocket. Depending on the situation, it will be referred to here as one or the other.

While the role of the Danish Waffen-SS was, in many respects, minor in the overall scope of the conflict on the Eastern Front, it resulted in the worst single bloodletting suffered by Danish volunteers in Word War II. Since little has been written in English about the Scandinavian volunteers in the Waffen-SS, here is a summary that attempts to fill that void.

The Strategic Setting

The primary purpose of the Soviet winter offensive that began in December 1941 was to eliminate the German threat to Moscow posed by Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center. The Soviet success in the battle for Moscow delivered a serious blow to the mantle of German invincibility and caused Stalin and the Soviet High Command (Stavka) to become overly optimistic and ambitious. The result was that Stavka extended the offensive the whole length of the Eastern Front—from northern Finland in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The hoped-for results were the destruction of Army Group Center, the relief of Leningrad, and driving the Germans out of the Crimea and the Donets Basin.

In retrospect it is obvious that Soviet objectives were too ambitious. While the battle for Moscow had been a serious setback for the Germans, they were by no means as shattered and exhausted as the Soviets seem to have assumed. By attacking everywhere, the Soviets diluted their efforts. Also, by extending the conflict through the spring thaw, they created a condition favoring the defenders.

This allowed the Germans to mount an extraordinary defense in a climate characterized by bitter cold and deep snow—conditions for which the German soldiers were neither prepared nor equipped. The Soviets also suffered; a look at the casualty figures tells the story. The Soviets suffered a staggering 620,000 killed between January and March 1942 while, at the same time, the German death toll was roughly 136,000.

This ratio remains essentially the same when total casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) are considered. Furthermore, the Soviet mobility, operational effectiveness, and supply apparatus were not yet capable of supporting these massive offensives over extended distances. In his memoirs Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov notes angrily, “If you consider our losses and what results were achieved, it will be clear that it was a Pyrrhic victory.”

The Soviet strategy of wearing the Germans down did not work, and, in return for huge losses, the Soviets gained little territory and were faced with having to rebuild their weakened forces before an expected German summer offensive, which the Soviets assumed would have Moscow as its main objective. When the Germans struck with the main effort in the south, they found the Soviet military in a precarious posture similar to that of the previous year. This was to a large extent the result of the widely dispersed Soviet efforts in the winter and spring.

Army Group North’s Southern Sector and Demyansk

On both sides of the boundary between Army Groups Center and North, the Russians had managed to drive deep into the German front. At one point it appeared that they would be able to encircle the Ninth Army and the Third Panzer Army. This possible calamity was averted, however, and Feldmarschall Günther von Kluge, commanding Army Group Center after Bock was relieved in early 1942, was even able to push the Soviets back in some areas.

The Russians did control a huge bulge extending into German lines around Toropets, in the northern part of Army Group Center’s sector. The northern part of the bulge actually extended into Army Group North’s sector as well, from Kholm in the southwest to Demyansk, a city located approximately 100 miles south of Leningrad, in the northeast.

Army Group North, commanded by Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, consisted of two armies, the Eighteenth under General Georg von Küchler and the Sixteenth under General Ernst Busch. The Eighteenth Army was in the north, around Leningrad, and its front extended south as far as the northern shore of Lake Ilmen. Busch’s Sixteenth held the southern part of the army group’s sector from Lake Ilmen to a point near the town of Kholm.

The Soviets hurled nine armies against Army Group North in their winter offensive, trying to break the siege of Leningrad and push the German front away from Moscow by levering it away from the strategic Valday Hills. It was even hoped that Küchler’s and Busch’s armies could be encircled and destroyed.

Sixteenth Army tied into the LIX Corps of Army Group Center in the vicinity of Kholm. Its front was long because it incorporated a large salient extending toward the Valday Hills and ran northeastward from Kholm, then east past the city of Demyansk, and then back in a west-northwest direction to the city of Staraya Russa, south of Lake Ilmen.

During the German drive to the east in 1941, II Corps of the Sixteenth Army, under Lt. Gen. Walter Graf Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt, had captured Demyansk, reached the strategically important Valday Hills, and cut the railway line between Moscow and Leningrad. But here the corps became stuck. They held out in these forward positions throughout the early winter, although the Soviets gave this salient, sticking out like a finger eastward for over 60 miles from the main German line of resistance, special attention.

The elongated salient was important to both the Germans and the Soviets, and for much the same reasons. Hitler and the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) viewed the salient as an ideal jumping-off point for a possible resumed offensive against Moscow. Stavka was well aware of this, and the salient took on added importance in its calculations as the Soviets misread the enemy intentions in the expected German offensive: Stavka referred to the Demyansk Salient as a dagger pointed at Moscow.

The salient also posed a serious flank threat against the gigantic bulge the Soviets had driven into Army Group Center in the Toropets-Velikiye Luki area. If the Germans could mount a southward offensive from the Demyansk Salient in conjunction with a northward offensive by Army Group Center, a large pocket of Soviet forces would be encircled.

While the Germans were aware of the opportunities presented by the Toropets bulge and the overextension of their enemy, they were unable to do anything about it. The German armies were bled white in the offensive of 1941 and the subsequent Soviet winter offensive. The bloodletting could not be offset by replacements that were slow in arriving, and there were virtually no reserves. The observations of General Gotthard Heinrici, commander of the Ninth Army, show how drastic the personnel situation was. He reported that his battalions were down to about 70 men in strength, with an average of seven light and heavy machine guns each.

Because of its importance to both sides, the Demyansk Salient became one of the most hotly contested areas of the Eastern Front, and both sides fought over it bitterly. Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt, commanding II Corps assigned to the Sixteenth Army, was given the mission of defending the Demyansk Salient. He was a 54-year-old aristocrat who had entered the German Army in 1907 and had distinguished himself as a corps commander in the French Campaign of 1940.

When the Soviet offensive began in Army Group North’s sector in January 1942, Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt’s II Corps had three divisions: the 12th Infantry Division from Mecklenburg, the 32nd Infantry Division from Pomerania and Prussia, and the 123rd Infantry Division from Brandenburg. These divisions from northern Germany had taken part in the German invasion of Russia in 1941, and, as a result of the eastward drive and subsequent fighting, they were, as other German units, well below their authorized strength.

In addition, the men were fighting in summer uniforms with the temperature at times falling to below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, virtually immobilizing both men and machinery. While frontline troops were given additional clothing by rear area personnel, it was of little help since those personnel also had only summer uniforms.

The Soviet Northwest Front was commanded by Lt. Gen. Pavel Kurochkin. Its mission was to encircle the northern flank of the Sixteenth Army—a goal to be accomplished by two large drives by troops from both the Northwest Front and the Kalinin Front.

Three armies made up the northern drive. The 11th Army, under Lt. Gen. V.I. Morosov, attacked in the Lake Ilmen area; the 34th Army, under Maj. Gen. Nikolai Bersarin, concentrated on the Valday Hills area; and the 1st Shock Army.

The southern drive was made up of the 53rd Army, under Maj. Gen. Aleksandr Ksenofontov, the 22nd Army under Lt. Gen. V.A. Yashkevich, and the 3rd Shock Army. These units were to make the breakthrough to Kholm and constituted the southern force that was to encircle Demyansk. These attacks were supported by large-scale partisan activities in the German rear, particularly in the Staraya Russa area.

The attack in the north was initiated on January 7, 1942, by the 11th Soviet Army, elements of the 1st Shock Army, and two Guards Rifle Corps (1st and 2nd) released from Stavka’s strategic reserve. Two days later the 3rd Shock Army from the Kalinin Front, along with the 53rd and 22nd Armies, attacked westward against Kholm and Lake Seeliger on the boundary between Army Group Center and Army Group North. A successful breakthrough in this area would leave the Soviets in a position to drive into the rear areas of both German army groups.

The German X Corps, commanded by General Christian Hansen, on II Corps’ left flank, was also driven back by relentless Soviet pressure. The X Corps, like II Corps, had three divisions, and these all ended up in the Demyansk Salient. These were the 30th Infantry Division from Schleswig-Holstein under General Kurt von Tippelskirch, the 290th Infantry Division from Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein under General Theodor Freiherr von Wrede, and the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division under the ruthless SS Obergrupenführer (equivalent to General der Infanterie) Theodor Eicke, who had once been in charge of all concentration camp guards.

The Soviets infiltrated between the strongpoints of the 290th Infantry Division and the 30th Infantry Division on the night of 7/8 January. Dawn on the 8th found strong Soviet infantry and tank formations already behind the 290th Infantry Division, and Soviet transport gliders also brought in troops and tanks onto frozen Lake Ilmen.

These infantry and tank forces crossed the ice and reached the junction of the Lovati, Redya, and Polisti Rivers, 25 miles to the rear of the 290th Division. A total of 19 Soviet infantry divisions, nine brigades, and several independent ski and tank battalions were meanwhile attacking the fronts of X and II Corps.

The main effort of the 11th Soviet Army was against the front of the 290th Division near Tutilovo. To the north, the Germans mounted a desperate defense but were overrun in vicious fighting. The right flank of the division held for another day, and then it collapsed. Withdrawing to the west to avoid encirclement, the 290th ran into fierce battles around various towns and strongpoints on its way.

The 1st and 2nd Soviet Guards Corps drove southward behind the 290th Infantry Division. The 2nd Guards attacked Parfino while the 1st Guards attacked toward Salueje; Soviet ski troops were approaching Staraya Russa. The Germans scraped together a motley array of rear area troops to try and hold them back while the 51st Infantry Regiment of the 18th Motorized Infantry Division was brought in from Simsk in an effort to stabilize the situation.

But the 290th Division became encircled and could only be supplied by air after January 25. The division repulsed a total of 146 enemy attacks between January 8 and February 13, the day it, with superhuman effort, finally was able to break out of the encirclement.

The II Corps front was also collapsing. The Soviets placed the main effort of their offensive on the boundary between Army Groups North and Center. Here they attacked on January 9 after a two-hour artillery preparation. Six rifle divisions along with several tank and ski battalions attacked on either side of Ostaskhov on Lake Seeliger.

The 53rd Army and elements of the 22nd Army and 3rd Shock Army smashed into and virtually annihilated two regiments of the 123rd Infantry Division, creating a large gap through which Soviet troops poured.

The 34th Soviet Army, reinforced by two Soviet airborne brigades, was meanwhile pressing against the salient from the east. By January 12, General Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt had received permission to withdraw the easternmost part of his front.

When Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt was appointed commander of all German forces in the pocket, X Corps commander Hansen, minus his divisions, was transferred to Staraya Russa to command German forces in this area.

The salient held by the Germans around Demyansk looked like a “misplaced thumb” on the map, in the words of U.S. Army historian Earl F. Ziemke. The pocket was threatened from the east by the Soviet 34th Army while the base of the salient was threatened by the First Shock Army from the north and the Third Shock Army and the 53rd Army from the south.

Operationally, OKH thought, the pocket performed two services: it kept Russian troops tied down, and it might be used as one arm of an encircling operation against the Toropets bulge, but the question was whether anything of the sort was intended or could be executed. If not, Feldmarschall Ritter von Leeb maintained, the pocket was valueless.

Leeb was greatly concerned about the situation on his front and called Führer Headquarters on January 12, proposing that his armies be withdrawn behind the Lovati River. Not surprisingly, Hitler immediately turned down the proposal. Leeb thereupon flew to East Prussia to personally argue his case; Hitler again refused. Leeb then requested to be relieved of his command, and Hitler agreed. General Georg Karl Friedrich Wilhelm von Küchler was given command of the army group; his place as commander of the Eighteenth Army was taken by General Georg Lindemann.

By mid-January the southern front of the Sixteenth Army had ceased to exist. The battered 123rd Infantry Division was reduced to defending strongpoints in the vicinity of Molvotisyn, and the division’s 415th and 416th Infantry Regiments were separated from the rest of the front. In 10 days of vicious fighting these two regiments made their way through enemy lines and back to their own front. When they arrived, their combined strength was a mere 900 men.

The 32nd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Wilhelm Bohnstedt) and the 123rd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Erwin Rauch) from Brandenburg managed eventually to construct a temporary southern front—a front 118 miles wide. However, the combined strength of the two divisions had fallen drastically to about 12,000 men.

The Russians could not fully exploit their initial successes because isolated German units formed strongpoints in villages that were bypassed by the initial Soviet assaults, and follow-on Russian units had to divert forces to try to overcome them. Some of the strongpoints fell, while others held out for weeks. The desperate resistance by these strongpoints helped to stabilize the front.

However, the situation became critical as II Corps was in danger of being encircled. Fresh Soviet divisions poured into the 56-mile-wide gap in the south, forcing Bohn-
stedt’s and Rauch’s divisions to fall back. A message from II Corps to the Sixteenth Army stated that they would withdraw behind the Lovati River as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The answer, from OKH, was short and curt: Demyansk was to be defended to the last man.

The II Corps withdrew all battalions that were under the control of SS Obergruppenführer Eicke and hastily transported them to the Salueje area to block the western front where these combat groups occupied a baseline in case the Soviets cut the salient near its base. They managed to do this just in time since the troops of the 34th Soviet Army and the 1st Guards Corps met on February 8 near Rambushevo on the Lovati River. The Demyansk Salient had become the Demyansk Pocket, containing approximately 100,000 German troops ready to be slaughtered.

By January 23 the city of Kholm, about 56 miles southwest of Demyansk, was encircled by the 3rd Shock Army. The Germans’ 81st Silesian Infantry Division had just arrived in Army Group Center’s sector and was immediately sent north toward Kholm. The troops had no winter clothing or winter equipment, but they repulsed the attack of four Soviet divisions in minus 46-degree cold. Although this action disrupted the attack of the 4th Shock Army, the situation remained critical.

Kholm served to break the force of the Soviet flood. If the Germans lost this city, the Soviets would be able to drive into the rear of both Army Group Center and the Sixteenth Army. Maj. Gen. Theodor Scherer, commander of the lightly armed 281st Security Division, was appointed commandant of Fortress Kholm. He scraped together whatever troops he could lay his hands on, which eventually numbered about 5,000.

Contact between the troops in Kholm and their neighbors was lost at the end of January. Kholm, like Demyansk, had become a pocket that could only be supplied by air.

The six divisions available to Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt in the Demyansk Pocket were disposed as follows: The 12th Mecklenburg and the 32nd Pomeranian Infantry Divisions were located east and south of Demyansk, while the remnants of the 123rd Division were fighting in the southwest part of the pocket. The two infantry divisions from northern Germany—30th and 290th—defended north of Demyansk, while part of the SS Totenkopf Division [under SS Standartenführer (colonel) Max Simon] was in the northeast. The combat groups under Eicke held positions in the west. The size of the pocket was 1.865 square miles, the length of the front that had to be defended was about 186 miles, and the distance across the pocket was some 30-45 miles.

In his first order of the day after the pocket was formed, Brockdorff-Ahlenfeldt defiantly stated, “There are 96,000 of us. The German soldier is superior to the Russian; this has been proven. So, let the difficult times come; we are ready.”

Unlike the earlier pocket at Sukhinichi, Hitler refused to abandon either Kholm or Demyansk. After being assured by the Luftwaffe that the reinforced 1st Air Fleet could deliver the required 240-265 tons of daily supplies to the two pockets, Hitler ordered that the pockets be defended until relieved.

Successful Resupply

On February 18, the OKH ordered the redeployment of the air transport command out of the Smolensk area and into Luftflotte 1’s area of operation—an operation that used almost all of the Luftwaffe’s transport capability, as well as elements of its bomber force. Since the Demyansk Pocket contained two usable airfields at Demyansk and Peski, the supply effort involved both airdrop and air-landing (glider) operations.

The weather improved in the middle of February, but there was still considerable snow on the ground. Supply operations were generally successful, due primarily to the weakness of the Soviet air forces in the area.

The Luftwaffe flew 33,086 sorties until the Demyansk Pocket was evacuated in March 1943. The two pockets—Demyansk and Kholm—received 59,000 tons of supplies by both ground and air. A total of 31,000 replacement troops were brought in and 36,000 wounded evacuated. But the cost to the Luftwaffe was significant. It not only lost 265 aircraft, but the loss of 387 experienced airmen was even more serious. For their part, the Soviet Air Force reportedly lost 408 aircraft, including 243 fighters.

Author Werner Haupt incorrectly writes that this was the first air bridge in history, while Paul Carell notes that in 14,500 missions—apparently when the pocket was encircled—the Ju-52 transport planes of the Luftwaffe established the first airlift in history; other writers have made similar incorrect statements. In the 1940 German invasion of Norway, an air bridge was established from Germany and Denmark to Norway. Five hundred eighty-two transport aircraft flew 13,018 sorties and brought in 29,280 troops and 2,376 tons of supplies. In addition, smaller air bridge operations took place from Oslo to the other isolated landing sites on the long Norwegian coast.

But the success of the Luftwaffe in bringing in supplies and replacements in Russia, as well as evacuating casualties, convinced Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring that they could conduct effective airlift operations in other places on the Eastern Front. Later, when the Sixth German Army was encircled at Stalingrad, Göring proposed that it be supplied by air. He and Hitler theorized that the outcome would be similar to Demyansk and Kholm since the Sixth Army was in fighting condition.

They went on to posit that with the Luftwaffe supplying the army, the Soviets would expand their strength to contain the encirclement and this would allow the time needed by the German forces to regroup and counterattack.

However, the conditions under which the two operations (Demyansk and Stalingrad) had to be conducted differed greatly. While a single corps with about six understrength divisions was encircled in Demyansk, a heavily reinforced army was trapped in Stalingrad. Whereas the Demyansk and Kholm Pockets together needed around 265 tons of supplies by air each day, the Sixth Army required an estimated daily supply of 800 tons, which had to be delivered over much greater distances. The Stalingrad airlift also faced much better organized Soviet air forces.

By the winter of 1942-1943, then, the German air transport forces had already suffered heavy losses, and the distances to good airfields with maintenance and repair facilities were much greater. The Luftwaffe simply lacked the resources needed to supply Stalingrad.

The Last Stand

Ernst Busch’s Sixteenth Army began planning to break into the Demyansk Pocket from the west after Hitler’s refusal to allow a withdrawal behind the Lovati River. A group was formed under the command of General Walther Kurt von Seydlitz-Kurzback, the commander of the 12th Infantry Division. (This was the same Seydlitz who was captured at Stalingrad and became a key figure in a Soviet-sponsored anti-Nazi faction.)

Seydlitz’s group was substantial and included two infantry divisions, two light infantry divisions, a motorized infantry division, a security regiment, a panzer regiment, a Luftwaffe field regiment, and various construction units, assault gun batteries, and air defense battalions. The plan called for a simultaneous westward attack by forces in the pocket; it was hoped that the two attacks would link up on the Lovati River.

Group Seydlitz-Kurzback and the attackers from within the pocket reached the Lovati River near the destroyed village of Rambushevo on April 21, 1942. The men of the SS Totenkopf Division and the spearhead of Group Seydlitz-Kurzback were still separated by a 1,000-foot-wide swollen and turbulent river.

As soon as bridges were built, a corridor existed again between the main German front of Sixteenth Army from Staraya Russa to Kholm and the divisions in the Demyansk area. The Demyansk Pocket had again become the Demyansk Salient, as the corridor barred to the Soviets the way across the land bridge between Lakes Ilmen and Seelinger.

The Rambuschevo Corridor was worryingly narrow in the beginning, though, and the Germans set out to widen it. There was a serious danger that the Soviets could cut the salient off at its base. That would have annulled the fighting for the corridor, which had cost the Germans 3,335 killed and over 10,000 wounded.

The Russians, increasingly anxious to wipe out the Demyansk Salient, made a number of desperate assaults on the thin Rambuschevo Corridor; Obergruppenfüher Eicke had the primary responsibility for keeping the corridor open. The Germans were fighting desperately in subzero temperatures and in three feet of snow to prevent the Russians from severing the connection to Staraya Russa and the rest of Army Group North.

The influential Eicke demanded reinforcements to keep his forces alive, but there were none available from either the Sixteenth Army or Army Group North. OKH, in looking around for available forces, decided to send Frikorps Danmark into the salient.

Frikorps Danmark at Demyansk

Frikorps Danmark was located in Posen-Treskau where its Danish commander, the charismatic Danish/Russian aristocrat Christian von Schalburg, was training his organization, which had been plagued by internal dissent, and had transformed it into a solid and well-trained reinforced battalion after integrating 10 German officer instructors with combat experience into key posts to stiffen the unit. But, as with its sister formation, the DNL, the majority of the Frikorps commanders were Scandinavian, not German.

Frikorps Danmark had three infantry companies and one heavy weapons company. The latter consisted of two platoons of 75mm infantry guns, one platoon of 50mm antitank guns, and a combat engineer platoon, all at full strength. Most of the troops lacked combat experience, but the majority of the officers and noncommissioned officers had some, either from the Finnish Winter War, from service in the Wiking Division, or against the Germans in 1940. Although the unit was at full strength, it had only seven heavy-caliber weapons.

Frikorps Danmark was declared combat ready in May 1942. In the early days the volunteer legions were considered second rate compared to German units and were judged unsuited for anything but static warfare and antipartisan fighting—a fact that goes a long way to explain their lack of heavy-caliber weapons.

This perception was about to change. After receiving its deployment order, the Frikorps was flown into the Demyansk Salient from Heilingenbeil near Köningsberg on May 8, 1942. Historian Claus Bundgård Christensen and others have written that 1,200 Danes were flown into the pocket, but other sources mention a lower number. Christensen may have meant the total number in Frikorps Danmark or included a number of Danes already serving in the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division.

The Danes were attached to Eicke’s SS Totenkopf Division and immediately thrown into the fighting where they took up positions along the Robja River with the mission of keeping the Russians from expanding a bridgehead they had in the area of Ssutoki. The Soviets were on the far bank but had managed to get some troops over to the German-occupied side where they formed a small bridgehead. If they could expand the bridgehead and ferry across some tanks, the Reds would be in a position to launch a full-scale attack that would spell trouble for the hard-pressed defenders of the Rambushevo Corridor.

The Danish commander Schalburg knew that the Soviet bridgehead had to be destroyed. He ordered Johannes Just Nielsen, a veteran of the Winter War and considered one of the best officers in the Frikorps, to carry out an attack on the small bridgehead on the night of May 27/28. Nielsen divided his force into two groups that approached the Soviets from different directions. The attackers managed to get close to the Russians in the darkness without being detected, and Nielsen threw a grenade into the enemy positions as a signal to start the attack.

The Danes rushed the Russian trenches and, although the Reds had a considerable superiority in numbers, the shock of the sudden attack threw them into a panic. Some were killed while the survivors jumped into the river and swam for safety.

While the operation was a complete success, the Russians on the far bank opened up with mortars and artillery. One barrage killed Nielsen, who fell into the river and disappeared. Instead of occupying and remaining in the Russian positions, the Danes made the mistake of withdrawing to their own lines.

Nielsen’s death at Ssutoki was only the first blow to the Frikorps leadership. A few days after Nielsen’s death, the Soviets attacked across the river and reestablished their old bridgehead. The earlier withdrawal now forced the Danes to make another, more costly, attack on June 2, 1942, to try to eliminate the Russian bridgehead. The element of surprise did not work a second time as the Soviets knew the Danes were coming; they blanketed the area with artillery and mortar fire while the Frikorps was still in its assembly areas.

Schalburg went forward to encourage his men and get the attack going, but he was badly wounded when his leg was shattered as he stepped on a mine. His men tried to bring him back, but another Soviet barrage instantly killed him and the two men trying to carry him to safety.

Despite the heavy enemy fire, Alfred Jonstrup, another veteran from the Winter War, managed to recover his commander’s body. The Soviet indirect fire and the loss of the Frikorps commander brought the Danish attack to a standstill despite merciless fighting that resulted in 21 Danes killed and another 58 wounded. The Soviets held their bridgehead.

Schalburg’s body was brought back to Denmark, where he was given a hero’s funeral with full military honors. He became a martyr for the Danish Nazis, and his example encouraged a fresh wave of volunteers for the Frikorps, which needed new reinforcements badly as a result of the continuous fighting at Demyansk.

A friend of Schalburg from Finnish Winter War days, SS Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Knud Börge Martinsen took temporary command of Frikorps Danmark and stabilized the situation over the next few days while the Danes waited for a new commander to be appointed.

The new commander, who was appointed by the Germans within a week, was an aristocrat named Hans Albert von Lettow-Vorbeck, who had served in SS-Division Wiking and had been on his way to take command of SS-Legion Flanders when he was diverted to Demyansk.

In the meantime, parts of the SS Totenkopf Division were preparing to launch an operation code named Danebrog to secure the area up to the Pola River and establish a defensible line. The Frikorps had an important role in this operation: the capture of the town of Bolschoje Dubowizy.

Von Lettow-Vorbeck arrived on June 10 and was briefed on the operation scheduled for the next morning. The Danes made a frontal assault on the town at dawn, supported by German artillery, but had to struggle through flooded meadows and swamps before reaching their objective. The Danes entered Dubowizy in the face of bitter enemy resistance and started clearing the town house by house, but their attack was interrupted by a strong Russian counterattack. Two Frikorps company commanders, Boyd Hansen and Alfred Nielsen, were killed in the battle.

By 11 am on June 11, the Russians were on the verge of surrounding the 1st Company, commanded by Per Sörensen, a former officer in the prewar Danish Army and one of the original cadres in Frikorps Danmark. Sörensen eventually rose to head the Danish Waffen-SS before he and many other Danes and Norwegians died in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.

Lettow-Vorbeck decided to move to the front and personally order Sörensen to withdraw before the unit was encircled, but he was killed in a burst of Soviet machine-gun fire. Losing its second commander in a little more than a week had a serious impact on the Frikorps, and, not surprisingly, the Danish attack faltered and collapsed. The Soviets remained in control of Dubowizy. The Danes had 25 of their men killed in the fight for the town in addition to over 100 killed and wounded in the fighting at Ssutoki and the Pola River.

Obersturmbannführer Martinsen again took command of the Frikorps. This time the Germans did not appoint a new commander from the outside but confirmed Martinsen as the commander for the rest of the Frikorps’ existence. Martinsen survived the war but was tried and executed in Denmark for having murdered a fellow Danish SS officer whom he accused of having an affair with his wife.

In early July 1942, the depleted Danes defended a long front between Biakowo and Vassilievschtshina as the Soviets launched repeated attacks against their lines with the objective of cutting the Rambushevo Corridor, which was the only overland connection existing between Demyansk and the main German lines.

July 16, 1942, started out as a quiet day. The Danish soldiers at the front were waiting for a hot meal to be brought forward from the field kitchens behind the lines, but before the food could be delivered or consumed the Danes were subjected to an exceptionally heavy Russian artillery barrage that lasted for over an hour.

In typical fashion, masses of Soviet infantry then rushed toward the Danish defensive positions as soon as the shelling stopped. The Danes, stunned by the heavy barrage, fought back, but they quickly lost contact with the German unit on their right flank and were in imminent danger of being overrun.

Every man in the rear area—cooks, clerks, engineers, and communicators—was sent forward to try to stop the Soviet attack; Luftwaffe Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers were also called in to provide support. Sörensen’s 1st Company was again in the thick of things but was soon decimated and down to only 40 men from its earlier complement of 200. Sörensen called Martinsen and told him that his men would probably not be able to withstand another Soviet assault but that they would not abandon their trenches no matter what happened.

The fighting continued throughout the night. An entire Soviet infantry battalion supported by tanks drove directly into the remaining positions of the 1st Company. The Russians poured into the Danish trenches, resulting in several hours of hand-to-hand fighting as the combatants tried to kill each other with knives, grenades, and entrenching tools. The Russians finally gave up trying to overrun the Danes and withdrew after midnight. They had sustained heavy losses and simply did not have the power to capture the Danish defensive line. The Danes, too, were badly battered.

However, the battle was not yet over as the Russians brought in fresh reinforcements and the Germans also provided reinforcements in the morning in the form of two Jäger battalions—the 28th Jäger Battalion from Silesia and a battalion from the 38th Jäger Regiment. These two units attacked along the road in an attempt to link up with their comrades near Vassilievschtshina. The Russians repulsed the attack and threw the Germans back with heavy losses.

The Soviets attacked again the following morning with waves of fresh infantry supported by numerous T-34 tanks and fighter-bombers. As with the Norwegian Legion, the Danes had no armor or assault guns of their own and had to rely on the few antitank weapons and infantry guns in their heavy weapons company. For the most part they were rather helpless against the T-34s and could only crouch in their trenches as casualties mounted.

Incredibly, despite their losses, the Danes and the German Jägers managed to repel the Russians and stabilize the front line over the next few days. By July 21 the crisis was over. Stavka now appears to have concluded that the main German summer offensive was in the south and not against Moscow as in 1941 and began to withdraw forces from the northern front already in June after reportedly suffering 89,000 killed.

It is not surprising that the Frikorps casualties were heavy. Over 300 Danes were dead by early August, and only about 150 of the original force that was thrown into the fighting at Demyansk remained in the line in the form of two weak companies. The Frikorps had become combat ineffective, and in early August the decision was made to withdraw it for rest, refit, and to receive replacements.

The accomplishment of the Danes had not gone unnoticed, and General Walther von Bockdorff-Ahlefeldt wrote and thanked them for their courage: “Since the 8th of May the Danmark Legion has been positioned in the fortress. True to your oath, and mindful of the heroic death of your first commander, SS-Sturmbannführer Christian von Schalburg, you, the officers and men of the Legion, have always shown the greatest bravery and readiness to make sacrifices, as well as exhibiting exemplary toughness and endurance.

“Your comrades of the Army and Waffen-SS are proud of being able to fight shoulder to shoulder with you in the truest armed brotherhood. I thank you for your loyalty and bravery.”

After this endorsement, the Danes were withdrawn to Latvia at the beginning of August before heading home to Denmark for a homecoming parade through Copenhagen and three weeks of leave. The Frikorps had been in combat for three months without a break, and in that time they had lost two commanders, a sizable number of junior officers and NCOs, and hundreds of men.

According to the latest source on the subject, they had flown into the pocket with a fighting strength of 24 officers, 80 NCOs, and 598 men back on May 8. Only 10 officers, 28 NCOs, and 171 men were able to take part in the Copenhagen homecoming parade. Some of those who were missing from the parade were wounded and still in hospitals. There is no doubt, however, that the Frikorps was decimated in the Demyansk Pocket.

They had acquitted themselves well. The SS Totenkopf’s Order of the Day on August 3, 1942, credited them with killing 1,376 Russians and capturing 103 others along with over 600 heavy weapons. While this recognition was gratifying, it did little to raise the morale of the survivors, who were heckled and mocked by some of the anti-German crowd watching them march through Copenhagen.

Postscript for the Demyansk Pocket

The Demyansk Pocket was a source of constant concern for Army Group North. In a personal letter on September 14, 1942, Küchler attempted to persuade OKH that continuing to hold the pocket was useless. The II Corps, he wrote, had been fighting under adverse conditions since the previous winter. He worried about what might happen as winter was again approaching, and he desperately needed divisions in the salient to form reserves for both the Sixteenth Army and the army group.

General Franz Halder, OKH’s Chief of Staff, answered a week later. He recognized that the army group would gain 12 divisions by abandoning Demyansk but pointed out to Küchler that such a withdrawal would also free 26 Russian infantry divisions and seven tank brigades. In any case, it was all academic since Hitler’s Haltenbefehl (hold order) remained unchanged.

The Russians continued to attack the corridor linking the pocket to the main German defensive lines. The whole pocket was under continuous attack from November 1942 and, by mid-January 1943, the fighting had drained off the last army group reserves. General Kurt Zeitzler, the new OKH Chief of Staff, told Küchler on January 19, 1943, that he intended to raise the issue of evacuating the Demyansk Pocket with Hitler.

Army Group North had just suffered a serious setback south of Lake Ladoga, and Zeitzler and Küchler agreed that the principal reason for the setback was the shortage of troops; the only way to avoid similar mishaps in the future was to create reserves by giving up the Demyansk Pocket. To both officers it was a foregone conclusion that Hitler would adamantly resist such a proposal.

However, on the night of January 31, 1943, after a weeklong debate, Hitler finally accepted Zeitzler’s arguments. The earlier setback around Leningrad may have influenced Hitler’s change of mind since he was anxiously trying to keep Finland in the war and this involved holding around Leningrad.

OKH informed Küchler that it had been very difficult to get this decision and asked Küchler to withdraw quickly before Hitler changed his mind, but a quick withdrawal risked losing the vast quantities of equipment and supplies brought into the pocket over the past 13 months. Küchler decided to conduct a slow withdrawal that began on February 20, after three weeks preparation. He then collapsed the pocket in stages, completing the last on March 18, 1943.

Postscript for the Danish SS

After a month’s leave in Denmark, the Frikorps returned to the front in November 1941. It was originally intended that it join the 1st SS Brigade in Byelorussia, a unit infamous for its indiscriminate killing of civilians in areas associated with Soviet partisans. However, the deteriorating situation on the Eastern Front caused both the 1st SS Brigade and the Frikorps to be sent to the front at the Russian town of Nevel, some 250 miles west of Moscow. By the spring of 1943 the Frikorps had suffered so many combat losses that it was down to just over 630 men. It was withdrawn from the front line.

In the summer of 1943 the Danes from the Frikorps and SS Division Wiking were united in the new 24th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment Danmark of SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. Most Norwegians who had served in Wiking and other units were likewise united—in May, before the Danes joined them—into the 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment Norge and also in SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The third regiment was SS Panzergrenadier Regiment Nederland.

At the end of August 1943, most of the 3rd SS Panzerkorps, to which SS Division Nordland was assigned, was moved to Croatia to take part in antipartisan warfare. In December 1943, the unit was again moved north to the Oranienbaum Pocket southwest of Leningrad.

From there the division participated in the German retreat to Estonia and later to the Courland Pocket in Latvia. In January 1945, it was evacuated from Courland to Pomerania and, the next month, participated in the Sonnenwende Offensive before retreating to the Oder River north of Berlin. Already heavily decimated, SS Division Nordland retreated toward Berlin.

The remnants of Norge and Danmark, in a mixed battle group, fought in Berlin in late April and May 1945 alongside volunteers from the rest of Europe. The group was obliterated in the fighting for the German capital.

Most writers hold that about 2,000 Danes lost their lives on the Eastern Front. As a comparison, a recent book by Eirik Veum identifies 877 Norwegians who were killed on the Eastern Front. This number includes 21 frontline female nurses. But both the numbers for Danes and Norwegians are open to question. For example, a controversial memorial recently erected in Denmark—in central Jutland between the cities of Randers and Viborg—asserts that 4,000 Danish lives were lost on the Eastern Front.

Despite having authorized the Danes to serve in the Waffen-SS, the Danish government on June 1, 1945, a month after the war, adopted retroactive laws criminalizing various forms of collaboration and made armed service for Germany punishable. About 3,300 former soldiers were sentenced under this new law and served an average of two years in prison.

This article first appeared at the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikipedia.

 

Richard Douglas

Security,

Can it keep up with the competition?

If you are searching for the best starter scope on the market, then look no further. UTG is aiming to prove great scopes can be affordable, and I’ve found that the UTG 3-12X44 30mm Compact Scope is a shining example. Let’s take a closer look at why.

Glass Clarity and Reticle 

I wasn't expecting much from this budget scope but the glass is pretty good. It’s as clear as you can get for the price. The reticle is the neat part I like on this scope. It’s a simple mil-dot crosshair but has more dots on the crosshairs. This gives you more aimpoints and thus…more accuracy. The reticle uses Illumination Enhancing (EI) Technology. This gives you 36 different color settings for your reticle! The color settings make adapting to new environments a breeze.

Plus, it’s super helpful for the colorblind. Although the crosshairs have EI Tech and more precise dots, I have noticed the crosshairs can be a bit thick. This is just a minor flaw in an overall great reticle. If you’re looking for a higher-end optic, I’d check out my 243 optic guide.

Eye Relief 

The UTG 30mm Compact sits back at a comfortable 3 to 3.4 inches. This makes it a good fit for AR platforms as well as hunting rifles. Simple and to the point.

Durability 

When it comes to my optics, I want them to work no matter what. Rain and bumps don’t bother this water and shockproof scope. It’s also built with Smart Spherical Structure (SSS), making it steady and reliable. It’ll take the abuse from break barrel airguns to large caliber rifles.

I don’t know about you but I like clean, scratch-free glass. And that is why I am a fan of the flip-up lens caps that come with the scope. This reliability all comes at a heavy cost… literally heavy. The UTG Compact Scope weighs in at about 2 lbs. This isn’t ideal for hunters or anyone that is shooting on the go.

Elevation and Windage Turrets 

I have found that the turrets are crisp and precise with their 1/4 MOA adjustments. Although they don’t have caps, they lock and are resettable. I was able to make a few quick changes and the turrets were solid. Whenever I mounted the UTG on my .223 rifle, I had no problems zeroing in. And it also held zero after firing tens of rounds through it.

Parallax & Magnification 

With 3-12 magnification, I have plenty of power to reach out to 200 yards. The parallax is adjusted with a Side Wheel Adjustment System (SWAT). This crisp turret adjusts parallax from 10 yards to infinity. Adjustable zoom and parallax makes this scope even more adaptable to its environment.

Mounting and Rings 

I am surprised that this cost-effective scope comes with rings. They can fit onto picatinny or weaver rails, giving you lots of options. These rings also have quick release. You can just twist 2 latches and pop the scope off quick and easy.

My Verdict? 

The UTG Compact Scope is absolutely worth it. On top of being reliable and precise, it’s friendly to your wallet and backed by a lifetime warranty.

The weight is a bit much and the crosshairs are a little thick. Despite this, I still say this scope is excellent for the price point and performance.

Richard Douglas is a firearms expert and educator. His work has appeared in large publications like The Armory Life, Daily Caller, American Shooting Journal, and more. In his free time, he reviews optics on his Scopes Field blog.

Image: Richard Douglas 

Stratfor Worldview

Health, Middle East

The coronavirus has surged enough that previous restrictions have been reinstated for three weeks.

The Israeli Cabinet has ordered a national three-week lockdown starting Sept. 18 in an attempt to regain control over surging COVID-19 cases. The new strict three-week lockdown will bar Israelis from traveling more than 500 meters from their home except for essentials, closing schools and limiting the private sector. The lockdown will begin at 2 p.m., just as the country begins to observe Rosh Hashanah. The Israeli Health Ministry said it plans to lift the lockdown when the country's daily case rate drops below 1,000 a day. More than 4,000 cases were reported Sept. 15, with some hospitals and clinics indicating they might soon be overwhelmed should trends continue. 

The trajectory of Israel's COVID-19 caseload suggests that its post-spring lockdown normalization strategy moved too quickly, resulting in increased social contact that precipitated spiking infection rates by early July. As of mid-May, Israel had brought new daily cases down to fewer than 20 after a strict lockdown in April. Having succeeded in controlling the virus' spread, Israel quickly began to normalize its economy and society, going so far as to reopen schools without restrictions and allowing Israelis back into bars and restaurants.

-By late June, the lifted restrictions had caused virus rates to spike again. With over 1,000 cases recorded July 1, the government began to roll back normalization, closing schools, limiting restaurant access and shuttering bars by mid-July. 

Six months into the pandemic, the Israeli public is deeply wary of social distancing restrictions. A resumption of stringent restrictions will test the viability of the unity government put together to overcome internal political paralysis, and leave Israel in even worse economic shape.

-The previous lockdown sparked protests from ultra-Orthodox communities who felt targeted. Already, some ultra-Orthodox are protesting the new orders because they fall on the High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah. Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman, part of the United Torah Judaism party that holds together the unity government, has resigned over the lockdown. 

-Israel's gross domestic product declined 28.7 percent in Q2 2020, a historic decline, during its monthlong strict lockdown. A second lockdown may lead to a repeat of those numbers.

The lockdown will have lessons for other countries now facing new outbreaks considering potential restrictions, especially as most countries now face similarly resistant publics that don't favor a return to the springtime lockdowns. Other countries that are also politically polarized will see if Israel's unity government can survive a second lockdown, gauging their own political risk by comparing their domestic situations to Israel's dynamic parliamentary system. 

-Israel's school reopening experience helped inform debates about school reopenings in the United States and Europe, as Israeli health data pointed to schools as a key vector for infection. 

-Israel's spring lockdown was largely successful in curbing the spread, but it also faced lower infection rates when it began. The new lockdown will come during a new all-time peak in cases.

-The unity government has been plagued by rumors of collapse, most recently over the budget. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to find a way to avoid handing power over to his rival, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, under the terms of their deal in 2021.

Israel's Second Lockdown to Stop COVID-19 Will Test the Government is republished with the permission of Stratfor Worldview, a geopolitical forecasting and intelligence publication from RANE, the Risk Assistance Network + Exchange. As the world's leading geopolitical intelligence platform, Stratfor Worldview brings global events into valuable perspective, empowering businesses, governments and individuals to more confidently navigate their way through an increasingly complex international environment. Stratfor is a RANE (Risk Assistance Network + Exchange) company.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Security, Americas

Perhaps new missions and a lot of upgrades will make the LCS an actually formidable warship.

Key point: The LCS originally was a boondoggle that had many problems. However, it looks like over time and with fixes the platform is finally maturing.

The U.S. Navy is adding more Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) to the fleet to further strengthen its submarine-hunting capabilities. The LCS are also being equipped with upgraded weapons for countermine, surface warfare and surveillance missions needed for major, great power warfare. 

The Navy has now commissioned its 22nd Littoral Combat Ship, the USS St. Louis, as part of a broader move to further strengthen the warfare technologies of the surface fleet. 

“St. Louis is the 22nd LCS to be delivered to the Navy, and the tenth of the Freedom-variant to join the fleet,” a Navy statement said. 

Plans for the ship have evolved over the years as it was initially conceived of as purely a shallow-draft ship intended for coastal or littoral regions. With the advent of a great-power warfare competition era, Navy strategists have reconfigured the mission scope for the ship and armed it with over-the-horizon missiles and emerging submarine and mine hunting systems. 

The ship’s shallow draft allows it to hunt submarines, mines and enemy targets in areas not deep enough for deeper draft ships. This enables coastal patrol and reconnaissance missions as well as a close-in mine-hunting ability. 

As part of this mission set, the LCS is increasingly being engineered with surface and undersea drones to hunt mines, conduct surveillance and lower submarine-hunting sonar into the water. 

“When the USS St. Louis is paired with world’s most advanced maritime helicopter, the MH-60R, it will have a robust anti-submarine mission capability,” the Navy report says. 

The ship’s forty-knot speed, advanced submarine hunting technology and additional weapons are variables expected to greatly improve the ship’s ability to perform deep-water missions.

Several years ago, some observers, critics and members of Congress made the argument that the ship was not survivable enough for major-power, “blue-water” warfare, inspiring a Pentagon effort to reduce the fleet of planned LCS ships and engineer a new, more heavily armed Frigate ship. 

However, despite some of these movements, the Navy has continued to pursue its fleet of emerging LCS ships and worked to preserve and evolve its combat efficacy. These efforts have included arming the ship with deck-launched Hellfire missiles and integrating longer-range strike missiles into the ship. 

The Navy has made particular efforts, in fact, to integrate Hellfire technology, sensors and fire control with other assets woven into the LCS. Not only could an MH-60R offer a laser spot for the ship-launched weapon, but the helicopter can fire Hellfire missiles itself.

A ship-launched variant, however, would need to further integrate with ship-based layered defense technologies to optimize its attack options against enemy aircraft and ships, particularly in a maritime combat environment potentially more difficult for helicopters to operate in. 

This would include engineering the ship to operate as part of a broader ship-wide technical system connecting things like variable-depth sonar, deck guns, vertical take-off drones such as the Fire Scout and small boat mission capabilities such as eleven-meter Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs). The Surface Warfare Mission Package also includes the Gun Mission Module, containing 30mm guns, Navy statements say. As part of this, the LCS is equipped with a 57mm gun, .50-cal Machine Guns and a defensive interceptor missile called SeaRAM.

Kris Osborn is defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. This first appeared in 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

Security, Americas

The risks are real.

Children in general aren’t likely to die from the novel coronavirus, but the mortality risk is still relatively high for children and teens from minority groups, according to a new report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the 190,000 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, only 121, or 0.08 percent, were reported in those under twenty-one. The most updated CDC report has revealed that roughly 380 children, teenagers, and young adults aged up to twenty-four have died from the virus.

The researchers noted that among the 6.5 million coronavirus cases in the country, 391,814 infections were identified to be individuals under twenty-one. Although those under twenty-one make up 26 percent of the population, they’re responsible for only 8 percent of all reported cases.

Ethnic and racial minority groups were found to be disproportionately affected. Forty-four percent of the 121 who have died from the virus were Hispanic, 29 percent were Black, 4 percent were American Indian/Alaska Natives, and 4 percent were Asian-American or Pacific Islander.

These groups represent 41 percent of the U.S. population under age twenty-one, but they account for about 75 percent of all fatalities in that age range. White children made up 14 percent of the deaths.

“Infants, children, adolescents, and young adults, particularly those from racial and ethnic minority groups at higher risk, those with underlying medical conditions, and their caregivers, need clear, consistent, and developmentally, linguistically, and culturally appropriate COVID-19 prevention messages,” the researchers wrote.

About 75 percent of the deaths were discovered to be in children who had at least one underlying health condition, and 45 percent of them had two or more. The most frequently reported health conditions were chronic lung disease, obesity, and cardiovascular, neurological, and developmental conditions.

“Although infants, children, and adolescents are more likely to have milder COVID-19 illness than are adults, complications, including MIS-C and respiratory failure, do occur in these populations. Persons infected with or exposed to SARS-CoV-2 should be followed closely so that clinical deterioration can be detected early,” the researchers wrote.

MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, is a condition in which different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, and gastrointestinal organs, according to the CDC.

Recently released data has revealed that more than 500,000 children in the United States have already tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the pandemic started, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

That number seems to be trending upward, as 70,630 new child cases were registered from August 20 through September 3—a 16-percent increase over the span of two weeks.

Now more than eight months into the pandemic, there are roughly thirty million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, including at least 943,000 related deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.

Sean Mirski

Security,

It won't be so easy.

Here's What You Need To Remember: It is worth recognizing that even the most effective blockade would not completely interdict Chinese trade, because even under ideal conditions, China would still be able to acquire the vital goods and resources courtesy of the inescapable laws of supply and demand. The more effectively the United States established a regional embargo, the higher the profit margins on selling imports to China. Even if all of China’s neighbors agreed to embargo, the United States would still have to resign itself to rampant smuggling at the substate level.

The mounting challenge presented by China’s military modernization has led the United States to review existing military strategies and to conceptualize new ones, as illustrated by the ongoing debate over AirSea Battle (ASB), a new concept of operations put forward by the Department of Defense. But in the universe of possible strategies, the idea of a naval blockade deserves greater scrutiny. By prosecuting a naval blockade, the United States would leverage China’s intense dependence on foreign trade—particularly oil—to debilitate the Chinese state. A carefully organized blockade could thus serve as a powerful instrument of American military power that contributes to overcoming the pressing challenge of China’s formidable anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) system. A blockade could also be easily paired with alternate military strategies, including those based on ASB.

In the context of a Sino-American war, the United States could try to take China’s greatest national strength—its export-oriented, booming economic-growth model—and transform it into a major military weakness. To do so, the United States would implement a naval blockade of China that attempted to choke off most of China’s maritime trade. Under the right conditions, the United States might be able to secure victory by debilitating China’s economy severely enough to bring it to the negotiating table.

Yet until recently, a blockade strategy was largely overlooked, perhaps because economic warfare strategies seem inherently misguided given the close commercial ties between China and the United States. But if a serious conflict between the two nations erupted, then their immediate security interests would quickly override their trade interdependence and wreak enormous economic damage on both sides, regardless of whether a blockade were employed.

Even if a blockade is never executed, its viability would still impact American and Chinese policies for deterrence reasons. The United States’ regional strategy is predicated on the belief that a favorable military balance deters attempts to change the status quo by force, thus reassuring allies and upholding strategic stability. The viability of a blockade influences this calculus, and can accordingly affect American and Chinese actions—both military and nonmilitary—that are based on perceptions of it. If a naval blockade is a feasible strategy, it strengthens the American system of deterrence and dilutes any potential attempts by China to coerce the United States or its allies. Moreover, if a blockade’s viability can be clearly enunciated, it would also enhance crisis stability and dampen the prospects of escalation due to misunderstandings—on either side—about the regional balance of power. In short, as Elbridge Colby put it: “the old saw remains true, that the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it.”

While a blockade is not a priori impossible or irrelevant in any situation, it is also not a ready tool in the American arsenal and would be feasible mainly within certain boundaries. Most importantly, many commentators miss the fact that a blockade is a context-dependent strategy, one that crucially depends on the regional environment.

The Strategic Context

A blockade would not be employed lightly by the United States, given its significant potential costs. Accordingly, Washington would likely only consider employing a blockade in a protracted conflict over vital interests; anything less would simply fail a basic cost-benefit analysis.

More importantly, though, a blockade strategy would depend on the cooperation of several third parties in the region. After all, China’s trade is borne on the seas largely as a result of economic considerations rather than physical limitations; if China were blockaded, it would turn to the countries on its borders for help.

While many of its neighbors would be unable to make a strategic difference because of their rugged geography or their small size, three could prove vital: India, Japan, and Russia. The latter two would be important in helping the United States by cutting off China’s trade routes in its south and east, respectively, through implementing national embargoes on China and pressuring their smaller neighbors to do the same. Without their cooperation, the United States’ task would become much more difficult.

The last of the three neighbors—Russia—would be the lynchpin of a successful blockade, and could tip the balance of a blockade in favor of either China or the United States. On the one hand, Russia is remarkably well-positioned to alleviate the blockade’s effects on China. Russian trade would be immune to American interdiction, since Russia’s nuclear arsenal and significant conventional assets preclude any serious American attempts at military coercion. But on the other hand, China’s northern neighbor could also sound the death knell for China’s ability to resist a blockade. On the political level, Moscow continues to exert sway over the decisions made in the capitals of China’s Central Asian neighbors and could convince them to refuse Chinese entreaties to act as transit states. It could also guarantee that China’s two neighboring oil producers would no longer supply it with petroleum.

Accordingly, for the United States to implement a strategically effective blockade of China, it would strive to build a “minimum coalition” with India, Japan, and Russia. If all three states made common cause with the American blockade, then China would be placed in both an economic and a political stranglehold. If not, however, a blockade strategy would regionalize a Sino-American war in a way that would be fundamentally unfavorable to American interests.

Such a minimum coalition could only arise in one way: on the heels of an assertive Chinese push for regional hegemony that precipitates local support for a drastic American response. Short of anything but an aggressive China, collective embargo action will be deterred by the potential consequences of a blockade, not least of which is the possibility of a larger regional conflict with China. The four states are unlikely to coalesce together around an implicit containment policy until each feels that its national interests may be threatened by China in the future.

While such a possibility may appear distant at present, the United States, Japan, India and Russia all fear that Beijing might someday conclude that it must use force in order to protect its interests and to resolve its security dilemma on favorable terms. All four powers have increasingly hedged their bets against this possibility. If China’s power and influence in Asia continues to increase, then the bonds between all four states will strengthen, not out of any conviction about China’s belligerent intentions, but rather because of a profound uncertainty as to their future disposition.

The Central Operational Challenge

Even assuming that the United States can rally the necessary coalition together, it would squarely face an operational challenge that bedevils all modern-day blockade strategies.

Operationally, blockades are characterized by their distance from the coast of the blockaded state, and they come in two forms: close and distant. A close blockade is typically enforced by stationing a cordon of warships off an enemy’s shores to search all incoming or outgoing merchant ships and to impound those carrying contraband. Over the last century and a half, though, close blockades have become increasingly dangerous as belligerents developed the technology to project power from their coasts. In response, blockading powers have turned to distant blockades. A distant blockade avoids the military hazards of being located near the enemy’s shores by stationing itself at a distance, albeit still astride the enemy’s sea lanes, and it then chokes off the enemy’s trade in a similar manner to the close blockade.

Neither a close nor a distant blockade of China alone would be successful thanks to the constraints imposed by military requirements and the nature of maritime commerce. On the one hand, a conventional close blockade would be severely complicated by the United States’ desire to minimize the military risk to American warships. As American forces came closer to China, they would increasingly place themselves within range of China’s A2/AD complex, possibly limiting their operational freedom and resulting in heavy losses. American forces could avoid the perils of China’s A2/AD system by implementing a close blockade enforced by submarines, long-range air power, and mines; but by so doing, the blockade would also lose much of its ability to differentiate between neutral and enemy commerce.

On the other hand, the logic behind conventional distant blockades has similarly been undermined by the exigencies of modern commerce. Today’s cargoes of raw materials and merchandise can be sold and re-sold many times in the course of a voyage, so the ultimate ownership and destination of a ship’s cargo is often unknowable until the moment it docks. Although the United States might be able to set up a conventional distant blockade that quarantined all Chinese-owned or -flagged vessels, China could still simply buy neutral vessels’ cargoes after they had passed through the blockade, defeating its entire purpose.

The Solution: A Two-Ring Blockade

To remedy the infirmities of the two blockades, the United States would take the best of both worlds and implement a “two-ring” blockade made up of two concentric rings around China’s shores.

The heart of the two-ring blockade would be its “inner ring,” which would be an unconventional close blockade primarily aimed at neutralizing vessels bound for China without having to board them first. This ring would establish an exclusion zone around China’s coast—an area that is declared off-limits to commercial shipping, and enforced by a “sink-on-sight” policy—through the use of attack submarines, long-distance airpower, and mines. Unlike other military assets, these three capabilities could operate with relative impunity within the range of China’s A2/AD complex by taking advantage of China’s feeble anti-submarine warfare capabilities and attenuated mine-countermeasure forces. While this trifecta of military assets would not guarantee total impassibility, the exclusion zone could still achieve the blockade’s aims because the fulcrum of the United States’ campaign would be grounded in deterrence rather than in force. As soon as American forces conspicuously sank several large merchant vessels, the majority of other shipping would be deterred from trying to run the blockade and much of the regular flow of China’s maritime commerce would quickly dry up.

But while submarines, long-distance airpower and mines could effectively enforce an exclusion zone as part of the inner ring blockade, they are all blunt instruments that can neither tell the difference between a ship carrying Chinese cargo and one carrying Japanese cargo, nor stop, board, and search suspicious vessels. As a result, an inner ring blockade on its own would likely spawn considerable political problems as the United States unintentionally destroyed neutral vessels, and Washington could face further political consequences from the exclusion zone’s inability to allow medical care and basic necessities through to China.

To combat these political consequences, the United States would implement a second, “outer ring” that would allow greater selectivity in applying force while also acting as a winnowing device. In contrast to the inner ring, the outer ring would be comprised largely of warships focused on both differentiating between different regional commerce with greater precision and adding a non-lethal component to the inner ring’s neutralization efforts. The outer ring would not be a prerequisite for the blockade’s operational success—although it would greatly help—but it would be vital in guaranteeing its strategic viability.

The outer ring would be positioned at the periphery of China’s near seas—outside the range of its A2/AD complex—and would be concentrated around key passageways in Southeast and East Asia, including the Straits of Malacca. The United States would establish blockade checkpoints at those passageways (like Malacca) that are most important to international shipping, while the smaller passageways would be closed off to international shipping completely.

At the outer ring’s checkpoints, the United States would need to set up and streamline a rigorous inspection regime. If the United States discovered that a vessel was destined for, owned by, or registered in China, then it could impound it.

The United States could also implement a system similar to the British navicert system in World War II, which would give the United States a fairly accurate spatial map of the positions and trajectories of all commercial vessels in the region. The United States would then integrate the navicert spatial map with the inner ring’s firepower to exert deadly force against blockade runners while also decreasing the rate of accidental sinkings—especially of humanitarian vessels. While an imperfect process, the navicert system would nevertheless substantially raise the risks of deviation for vessels to the point where running the blockade was so sufficiently perilous that it was no longer attempted, except by the most risk-loving vessels. Perhaps more importantly, though, it would help mollify the political repercussions that would flow from the inner ring blockade’s non-discriminatory and lethal neutralizations.

A Blockade’s Consequences

Although the consequences of a blockade would be exceedingly complex, manifold, and interdependent, a blockade would likely prove to be a cogent instrument of exhaustion as part of the United States’ overall campaign.

In the first place, however, it is worth recognizing that even the most effective blockade would not completely interdict Chinese trade, because even under ideal conditions, China would still be able to acquire the vital goods and resources courtesy of the inescapable laws of supply and demand. The more effectively the United States established a regional embargo, the higher the profit margins on selling imports to China. Even if all of China’s neighbors agreed to embargo, the United States would still have to resign itself to rampant smuggling at the substate level.

A blockade would also not be able to directly debilitate the Chinese military. Simply put, China could use its reserves and stockpiles, along with a limited degree of imports and domestic production, to fuel its military machine for the length of the conflict.

Therefore, the real value of a blockade would be its ability to exact an incredibly high financial toll on Beijing. In particular, a blockade would send the Chinese economy into a tailspin by hitting three distinct pressure points: China’s dual dependency on both intermediate and raw material imports and its low levels of domestic innovation. China has structured much of its export-oriented economy around the importation of intermediate goods, a phenomenon particularly evident in its high-technology sectors. This vulnerability is further compounded by its incredible dependence on raw materials (including oil) and foreign innovation as the basis of its production processes.

Because a blockade targets all three areas, it would exact a staggering cost. Of course, China might discover ways as time passed to substitute for its inability to trade and it might rebuild its economy from the ground up, but an ongoing conflict could nevertheless impose a devastating rate of economic attrition that exceeds Beijing’s compensating abilities.

Conclusion

The context, conduct, and consequences of an American blockade of China would be deeply embedded in the mire of global politics. To overcome the blockade’s various challenges successfully, the United States and its allies would have to carefully balance the strategic repercussions of their actions with their contribution to the efficacy of the overall blockade. In almost any context, this trade-off would be extremely difficult politically, and would require a high degree of flexibility and innovation on the United States’ part. The exact trade-offs would be made with a variety of considerations in mind, above all the value of the American interests implicated in the conflict.

Nevertheless, despite considerable challenges, a naval blockade is both operationally and strategically possible, albeit only within certain limits. Even against a maximally effective blockade, China would be able to meet its military needs indefinitely, and it could survive on its strategic petroleum reserves, stockpiles, and massive foreign-exchange reserves for an extended period of time. As a result, the effectiveness of a blockade would turn on its ability to impose debilitating economic costs on China.

If the United States were able to assemble its minimum coalition of India, Japan and Russia—a task that would hinge on China’s aggressive behavior—then China’s rate of economic exhaustion would sharply accelerate even as the United States gained the political support it would need to continue a blockading strategy indefinitely. In this context, while the United States would not be able to use Beijing’s dependence on maritime trade to defeat China decisively in one short blow, it would still be able to help sap Chinese strength until Beijing eventually submitted.

This article first appeared in October 2014.

Image: Flickr.

David Axe

Security, Asia

Could all of their missiles take out America's warships from a distance?

Key point: Beijing is working to mirror U.S. capabilties. But China also likes to rely on its own domestically-made long-range anti-ship missiles.

The Chinese navy’s new guided-missile cruisers can launch land-attack cruise missiles, the Chinese navy confirmed.

That capability places the Type 055 cruisers in the same class as the U.S. Navy’s own large surface combatants.

While experts long have suspected that the Type 055s would carry land-attack missiles, the weapons-fit remained unconfirmed until the Chinese navy announced it on social media in late December 2019.

 This first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

The state-owned Global Times newspaper first reported the social-media announcement.

“Introducing the vast and complicated arsenal at its disposal, the [People’s Liberation Army] Navy said on China's Twitter-like social platform Sina Weibo that the service operates not only vessels, but also submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles with strategic missile submarines and long-range land-attack cruise missiles with 10,000-ton-class guided-missile destroyer,” Global Times reported.

The Type 055 is the only 10,000-ton-displacement destroyer or cruiser in service in the Asia-Pacific region. The Chinese navy commissioned the first Type 055, Nanchang, in April 2019. Seven more Type 055s are under construction, fitting out or awaiting trials.

The Type 055 packs 112 vertical-launch missile cells plus 130-millimeter guns and space for two helicopters. Its weapons-loadout reportedly includes HHQ-9 surface-to-air missiles and YJ-18 and CJ-10 cruise missiles.

The YJ-18 has a range of around 300 miles. The CJ-10, a copy of Russia’s Kh-55, reportedly can travel as far as 800 miles. It’s unclear which of the cruise missiles the navy considers to be the land-attack weapon. It’s possible both possess land-attack capability.

With a full suite of anti-air, anti-ship and land-attack weapons, the Type-055 possesses roughly the same capabilities as an American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Ticonderoga-class cruiser or Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer.

The Chinese fleet reportedly intends to assign the Type 055s to its newly-forming carrier battle groups. The Chinese navy has two carriers in commission, Liaoning and Shandong. A third, larger carrier is under construction and a fourth reportedly is in the planning stage.

If the Chinese fleet follows the American model of force-generation, it could assign a single Type 055 to each carrier battle group. The cruiser would function as the air-defense commander for the group, coordinating air- and missile-defense on behalf of the carrier and other escort ships.

But the Chinese navy reportedly plans to pause carrier-construction after the fourth vessel, leaving it with at most four carrier battle groups by the late 2020s. The remaining four Type 055s that aren’t in carrier groups could function as the lead vessels in powerful surface action groups.

It’s worth noting that while China is growing its force of land-attack-capable large warships, the U.S. Navy actually has proposed to reduce its own force of similar vessels. Despite a legal requirement to grow to 350 ships, the U.S. Navy has proposed to slow ship construction and also accelerate decommissionings after 2020, potentially shrinking the front-line fleet from 290 ships in 2019 to as few as 287 in 2025.

The cuts to new production would include several of the latest Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Four Ticonderoga-class cruisers would leave the fleet years earlier than the Navy originally planned on. The budget-driven cuts are likely to face stiff opposition in Congress, which ultimately decides the shape and size of the fleet.

Of course, the Chinese fleet doesn’t just compete with the American fleet. It also faces off against the navies of America’s Pacific allies. “Type 055 also has been compared to other warships deployed in the region, notably South Korea’s Sejong the Great class and Japan’s Atago class and its newly launched Maya subclass,” South China Morning Post reported. “Both the Sejong- and Atago-class destroyers have full displacements of around [8,500 tons] and Aegis combat systems, with the Sejong the Great class boasting a 128-cell [vertical launch system].”

“But analysts said they believe Type 055 surpasses the Korean and Japanese vessels in size, radar system performance, missile capacity and multifunctionality,” South China Morning Post claimed.

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

Americans from the 30th Infantry Division took a heavy toll on German panzers at a French crossroads near Mortain during World War II.

A column of German Mark V Panther tanks advanced through a thick fog north of the French town of Mortain, blindly firing their machine guns. Suddenly, the lead panzer took a hit from an unseen American antitank round, penetrating the frontal armor and stopping it. A tank retriever approached the smoking tank only to come under fire. Then, crews of three tanks dismounted and gathered to discuss options. As they spoke, an American bazooka man fired a round into the group, killing some and scattering the rest. The bazooka man then dispatched two of the three stationary tanks. The 1st SS Panzer Division’s attack ground to a halt. What was supposed to be Adolf Hitler’s master stroke to cut off the American drive across France met an unexpected powerful resistance from the men of the American 30th Infantry Division—the “Old Hickory” division.

The German attack successfully encircled Mortain on August 7, 1944, but resistance at places like the crossroads town of St. Barthelemy bled the Germans dry. Some 700 Old Hickory Americans of Lt. Col. Robert Ernest Frankland’s 1st Battalion, 117th Infantry Regiment, and 200 more of the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, armed with rifles, machine guns, bazookas, and four M5 three-inch antitank guns, exacted a heavy toll on the panzers.

The Germans tried again. This time the 2nd Panzer Division joined the 1st SS in a two-pronged attack, but the Americans managed to knock out one of the lead tanks with a single shot. As the German infantry attacked, an American bazooka man kept his cool, throwing away his faulty bazooka and finding another to dispatch a tank. The Germans, however, wiped out 100 men and flanked the position, entering St. Barthelmy.

Most of the Americans pulled back north of the town and continued to fight. Lt. Col. Robert E. Frankland, the battalion commander, used his .45 pistol to shoot a German commander standing in a turret hatch. He then jumped onto the tank and shot down into it, killing the entire crew. South of St. Barthelmy, two anti-tank gun teams knocked out two more Panthers, one only 50 yards away. A late arriving gun team was able to knock out one German tank before being overrun by supporting infantry. The Germans then knocked out two of the Americans’ antitank guns, scoring a direct hit on one. The two remaining guns destroyed two more tanks before one was captured and the other withdrawn. Before the firing ended, two bazooka men dispatched two more tanks.

The Germans took the crossroads but at a terrible price. The American bazooka men and antitank gun teams had destroyed at least 13 German tanks. When American relief troops reached the area seven days later they discovered a panzer graveyard. It’s where part of Hitler’s grand offensive died.

This article first appeared at the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikipedia.

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

Trooper Lud Labutka of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, fought his way through Normandy, Holland, and the Battle of the Bulge.

Key Point: "I would never jump from an airplane again, unless somebody called me a chicken."

In an effort to calm his nerves just before he jumped into Normandy on D-Day, Lud Labutka thought it might be a good idea to accept the drink being offered from the paratrooper sitting across from him on their C-47 transport as it crossed the English Channel. It didn’t matter to him at the time whether it came from a bottle of blended Scotch or from a bottle of after-shave lotion. Labutka was simply looking for a little kick to help him get over the anxiety he felt about jumping from an airplane into Nazi-occupied Europe.

“There was a guy on our plane named Albert Jones,” Labutka says. “He looked over at me and said, ‘Lud, do you want a drink?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Do you want a drink?’ I still didn’t think he had anything to drink until he pulled out a big bottle of Aqua Velva. I said, ‘You’re crazy!’ He opened it and sucked down a drink. I said to him, ‘Jones, if you’re crazy, I’m crazy, too.’ This was 20 minutes before we jumped! So I took a big drink. When I jumped into Normandy, I was heaving. I was puking on the Germans. That stuff made me sick.”

History has failed to record whether Labutka’s stomach contents had any effect on enemy troops; what is certain, however, is that never again would he consider drinking after-shave for a quick buzz, just as jumping from an airplane had never crossed his mind in 1939 when he joined the Pennsylvania National Guard as a 17-year-old high school graduate. Even to this day, more than 60 years after the war, a fear of heights has kept his feet planted on the ground.

“I wouldn’t even go on the Ferris wheel at a fair,” he says. “I still haven’t been on one. I’m afraid of heights.”

If that is the case, then how does this retired factory worker from Ford City, Pennsylvania, explain his wartime experience as a Screaming Eagle with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, duty that not only took him into the night skies of France but also into Holland during Operation Market-Garden? It is because someone, at some point, questioned whether he had the intestinal fortitude to jump from an airplane. In other words, it was the result of a dare.

From Fort Benning to England

“In 1942 the Army was taking transfers into the Air Cadets,” Labutka says. “We were kids, just 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds. Somebody mentioned Airborne and I said, ‘Airborne? Are you crazy? I’m not going to jump out of an airplane.’ So somebody called me chicken. That’s all it took. I was going. We all figured that we’d make a difference, so three of us—Rich Dinger, Joe Miklos, and myself—went to see the first sergeant of our National Guard company and told him to transfer us to the Airborne.”

Labutka entered training on October 19, 1942, at Fort Benning, Georgia, where troops were hooked onto guide wires and slid to the ground from 40-foot towers. “Scary” training is what he calls it. This progressed to actual jumps from an airplane, five of which were required to qualify for Airborne duty.

“The first time I was up in an airplane I jumped. Back then we packed our own parachutes. At that time they were round, really huge things. Then, after jump school, riggers packed them. Every time I jumped I always wondered if the riggers had placed that little rubber band where it was supposed to be. It held the end of the parachute to the static line.”

Labutka left Benning for the rigors of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the new home of the 101st, where its men trained by making more practice jumps, often in front of such dignitaries as Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. They also endured 25-mile forced marches without canteens, running the last mile back to camp in cadence.

“At first during these marches, the route took us through a creek and some of us didn’t mind scooping up a handful of water to drink. But after about three days of this our sergeant caught on and we were punished. We were made to do push-ups.”

Labutka was assigned to the division’s 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (referred to as the “Five-O-Two”), 2nd Battalion, Company E, 1st Platoon, which left for Europe on September 5, 1943, in a convoy from Camp Shanks, New York, aboard an aging British transport. The ship encountered engine trouble six days out, left the group, and put in at the small Newfoundland harbor of St. John’s, where repairs were made. But as the ship headed to sea once again, it scraped bottom, forcing it back to port. Arrangements were then made for the troops to make their Atlantic crossing on the SS Ericsson, which left in another convoy and arrived at Liverpool on October 19. It took Labutka 44 days to reach England on a voyage usually made in a week.

“The convoy we joined contained Company C of my old National Guard outfit,” he says. “By then they were the 28th Division. I didn’t know it at the time, but I went overseas with my old buddies from Company C of the National Guard.”

Once on British soil, men of the 502 lived in tent cities at Denford Lodge near Hungerford where they made more practice jumps in preparation for their assigned role on D-Day. Since the division had no battle history up to that point and its men were an untested force, it seemed to the other GIs stationed in England that these so-called “Screaming Eagles” were a group of overpaid and overly cocky servicemen. They appeared more famous for their fancy jump boots than for anything else. All of that changed, however, when they jumped from their C-47 transports in the predawn darkness of Normandy, fulfilling what General William C. Lee, the division’s first commanding general, described as their “rendezvous with destiny.”
Four objectives were assigned the 101st in Operation Overlord, the invasion of the European continent: The paratroopers were first to secure the roadway leading from Utah Beach where the U.S. 4th Division was to land; second, they were to eliminate a battery of large German guns that threatened that beach; third, they were to establish contact with the 4th Division as it headed inland; and fourth, with those missions accomplished, they were to attack and occupy the French town of Carentan, an important road junction leading to the Cotentin Peninsula and the port of Cherbourg. Labutka’s 2nd Battalion was part of the force charged with eliminating the four-gun battery of 122mm howitzers at St. Martin de Varreville, two kilometers west of Utah Beach. General Omar Bradley, U.S. ground commander, called the guns a danger to the invasion forces and insisted they be eliminated.

Another anticipated danger for the D-Day invaders, this one limited to Airborne troops only, was the ability to recognize friend or foe in the Normandy darkness. Brig. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, who had assumed command of the 101st in March 1944, solved this dilemma by introducing one of the most ingenious tools used in the invasion: the cricket. Basically a kid’s toy, similar to those sold in five-and-tens at the time, it proved extremely helpful for paratroopers to identify one another in the dark. The toy clicked when the tab on its back was pressed and released. One push asked, “Who’s there?” Two presses in reply meant “Friend.” A last-minute idea of Taylor’s, the crickets arrived about four days before the invasion.

The Jump Into Normandy

By late May the 101st was moved into new tent cities near the airfields from which the men would fly to assault German positions in France. On June 5 at about 5:30 PM, they ate their last preinvasion meal, consisting of pork chops and mashed potatoes, and returned to their assembly areas to take on their gear. Labutka says it included an M-1 rifle with eight or 10 clips of ammunition, six grenades, two canteens, two parachutes, flares, a medical kit, compass, and enough C-rations for three days. All told, their equipment weighed about 70 pounds. As evening drew on, Labutka’s platoon leader, 1st Lt. Wallace C. Strobel, called his men away from their packing for some last-minute instructions. As they gathered outside their tents, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied supreme commander, paid them a visit. A photograph was taken of this encounter and it became one of the most famous of the invasion. In it, Eisenhower is standing on the left talking to Strobel. The two are shown in an apparent conversation about the invasion. When asked years later about what was said, Strobel, who died in 1999, recalled that, in part, it went like this: “Where are you from, lieutenant?” Eisenhower asked. “Michigan, sir,” replied Strobel. “Michigan, eh?” Eisenhower commented. “Good fishing in that country.”

Labutka, standing behind several other men and unseen in the photo, says he never heard the conversation.

“We heard earlier that Ike might come by and wish us luck,” he says. “But I have no idea what he said to Lieutenant Strobel. I wasn’t close enough. Believe me, if I had known they were going to take a picture, I would have gotten my mug in it somehow.”

The men entered their C-47s at around 9 PM through the aircraft’s rear door, which stayed open for the entire flight. They moved in single file with the first man headed to the front of the plane. The 16 paratroopers took their seats, located on both sides of the aircraft, facing one another. Along the ceiling of the plane’s compartment stretched the static lines to which their parachutes were hooked just prior to the jump. The pilots were told to fly in a “V” formation of three planes each at an altitude of 500 feet to avoid German radar detection over the English Channel. Once they crossed the coast of France, the planes were to climb to 1,500 feet and then descend to 400 feet for the jump. Pilots were instructed not to veer from their assigned flight paths. The distance to their drop zone was 136 miles, and it took about an hour to reach it.

“We knew that it was about a hundred miles from where we were in England to where we were going,” Labutka says. “We were told to take out these guns. They didn’t tell us why, just that we had to take them out.”

The flight was uneventful until they reached the French coast and German guns began firing. Since Labutka and others of 2nd Battalion were in some of the first planes of the assault, they reached France relatively unscathed.

“Once we got over Cherbourg you could see the enemy shooting at us,” Labutka says. “It looked like the tracer bullets were coming out of a barrel. We could hear them hitting the wings going ‘knick, knick, knick.’ I was scared.” That was when Labutka took the healthy swallow of Aqua Velva. With his stomach now churning, the C-47, piloted by men of the 438th Troop Carrier Group, neared its drop point and a red light flashed, telling the paratroopers that their jump time was near. It was shortly after midnight when a sergeant yelled, “Stand up and hook up!” Moments later a green light flashed and Labutka was the sixth or seventh man to leave the plane.

“The sergeant hit the first guy on the ass and said, ‘Go!’ We were lined up tight, right against each other,” Labutka explains. “We were taught to count, ‘One thousand, two thousand’ when we jumped. If we got to the third count and the ’chute didn’t open, we were to pull the reserve parachute. That one was on our belly. The only thing I remember thinking when I jumped was, ‘I hope I land.’”

He did land, near the town of St. Marie du Mont just north of Carentan and south of the guns his battalion was ordered to destroy. “I landed in a farm courtyard, all brick and all fenced in, right beside a hay wagon,” he says.

“The machine gunner landed in one corner of the courtyard. His name was Dempsey, from Rome, Georgia. In the other corner was Golembeski, the assistant machine gunner, from Pennsylvania. They both came over to me and said, ‘Lud, what are we going to do?’ Here, both of them were Pfcs and I was just a private, their ammo carrier, and they’re asking me what to do! So I said to find a door so we could get out of this courtyard. The night was very dark. We found a door, or a gate, and went out and bumped into a guy here and a guy there until there were six of us. We walked around, snuck around, crawled around. We didn’t meet anybody else. None of us fired a shot. Finally, when it was just getting light, about 5:30, we were walking around this hedgerow and saw a road.

“We crouched down because we heard people walking and talking,” Labutka continues. “These guys with me said, ‘Lud!’ And I said, ‘Shhhh!’ I had my clicker and when the noise got near I went ‘click-click’ with the cricket. Boy, the nicest sound that I ever heard came back: ‘click-click, click-click.’ So we jumped out on the road. I’d say there were about 60 people there including a lieutenant colonel, a lieutenant, and a couple of sergeants, and we joined them.”

Others in the drop were not so lucky, particularly those who came after the first wave. As the surprised Germans grasped the scope of the situation, these later planes received heavy doses of antiaircraft fire. Some pilots took evasive action, broke formation, and went off course. Paratroopers were scattered around the countryside. Many landed in swamps, rivers, and flooded fields. Others found themselves stuck in trees or in the middle of minefields. Some planes took direct hits and crash-landed or burst into flames before impact. Because of the ground fire and confusion, the drop zone resembled a rectangle of about 25 miles by 15 miles. Scattered troops sought each other throughout the day and into the next.

Taking Out the German Guns

The gun emplacements at Varreville did not pose a problem when Labutka saw them on June 6. They had been destroyed by Allied bombings just prior to D-Day and were void of German troops. It was there that Labutka met his battalion commander, Colonel Steve Chappuis, whose drop put him close to the guns.

“I’m glad we had the Air Corps,” states Labutka. “They knocked out a bunch of German guns. When I saw Colonel Chappuis, he was sitting cross-legged on this cement curb. He said, ‘Well, it looks like the Air Force took care of the guns.’”

With that threat neutralized, the gathered troops of 2nd Battalion moved toward the road leading south from Utah Beach. Securing it was the primary responsibility of Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole’s 3rd Battalion. By 1 PM on D-Day, Cole and his men had made contact with elements of the U.S. 4th Division coming inland from the beach, and the paratroopers found their numbers increasing. Throughout June 6-7, those scattered in the drop linked up into larger fighting groups. The massed paratroopers set their sights to the south and the division’s final objective, the town of Carentan.

“I don’t think we really got together with any sizable force until about a day and a half after we landed,” Labutka says, estimating that they then numbered about two regiments strong. “None of us had gotten any sleep, unless we slept standing up. It’s hard to believe, but we did sleep standing up.”

Carentan was a high-priority target assigned to the 101st because its main highway and railroad connected Cherbourg to St. Lô, and ultimately Paris. If American forces did not take the town, it could be used as a corridor for a counterattack against Utah Beach. Army intelligence estimated the size of the German garrison there at a battalion. As it turned out, the enemy was apparently more plentiful and extremely stubborn. The division’s route of attack was down a causeway that ran through flooded fields and swamps. Labutka remembers that paratroopers called it “Purple Heart Lane,” for obvious reasons. The 502’s 3rd Battalion was assigned the lead.

“The first time I really heard gunfire was going toward Carentan. The Germans had machine guns pointed right down this road going into the town. There were four bridges we had to cross and swamps were on both sides of us. As we fought our way down the road we had to run this way, run that way, run this way, kind of zigzag our way down it.”

It was here that Labutka first experienced the effects of the German 88mm gun, one of the most devastating artillery pieces used by either side during the war. He also encountered two Airborne buddies from home, and both were wounded.

“Once we started down this road I met Joe Miklos,” Labutka says. “He got hit from a bomb burst. There was shrapnel in his leg, and he was going back. After we crossed the second bridge, who do I see but Rich Dinger with a patch on his shoulder. He was hit pretty bad. He said, ‘Lud, don’t go down there. It’s hell down there.’ I said, ‘Dick, I have to. My company’s going down there.’ Dinger was eventually shipped home. Farther down the road I came across this poor soldier who was hit right above his ear. I could see the matter leaking out. He tried to talk to me. He wanted morphine. I asked him if he’d had any but he couldn’t answer. He was gone. He must have been from the 3rd Battalion, Dinger’s outfit, because they went in ahead of us.”

The German 88s were finally silenced, but not before the road’s second bridge was shattered to pieces. This kept supplies from being brought in and the wounded taken out. It also prevented any possibility of retreat. Regardless, the paratroopers advanced, crossed the third bridge, and ran into their stiffest resistance on the other side of the fourth bridge. It was a heavily defended farmhouse about 150 yards away. With Colonel Cole and men of 3rd Battalion still in the lead, intense fire from German machine guns, mortars, and artillery pinned them to the ground for an hour. Knowing his men were low on ammunition, Cole ordered an attack with fixed bayonets and personally led the charge over open ground, eventually flushing the enemy from their positions. A bridgehead was gained across the Douve River, and Cole earned the Medal of Honor, the division’s first award in Normandy. He would be killed by a sniper’s bullet in Holland just months later.
“That Cole was a soldier,” Labutka offers. “I know Miklos didn’t like him much because he was too hard on the men. But he was a soldier through and through.”

While division engineers worked to make bridge No. 2 passable, the badly depleted 3rd Battalion was replaced on the front by 2nd Battalion. More fierce fighting ensued. At one point the Germans counterattacked and some Americans thought the order was given for them to withdraw. It had not been, and reversing their rearward momentum was a challenge.
The American line held, but a final German attack neared success once again until a five-minute barrage from division artillery stopped it. Afterward, the fighting diminished as glider troops from east of Carentan joined the fight.

“After that we got to the edge of this hedgerow and the guys in front of us must have had luck because the Germans backed off,” Labutka recalls. “We were involved in a lot of hedgerow fighting, a heck of a lot of it.”

The hedgerows in Normandy were an obstacle underestimated by the Allies. For centuries farmers had fenced their small fields with solid walls of dirt, often four feet high, and topped them with hedges whose tangled roots bound each row into a natural fortification. They were created to prevent erosion, but the Germans used them for lines of defense and counterattack. Many little battles were fought around the hedgerows. When attacking Americans approached one row, they found a strong force of defenders behind it and properly emplaced machine guns at both ends. If the enemy were dislodged or fell back, German troops behind another hedgerow went into action with mortars or artillery.

“Finally, we got in a line across this last hedgerow and went into Carentan. That’s when I saw dead Germans stacked like cordwood. Honest to God! We were shooting blind into the town, and when we got there, their bodies were stacked up just like logs. The Germans themselves must have stacked them that way. Somebody did.”

On June 12, Carentan was declared clear of the enemy, and the town was occupied. The final job for the 101st in Normandy was to maintain positions at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula. As June turned into July this area proved relatively quiet, manned largely by Allied patrols and inhabited mainly by wandering cows. “It was about a month after the landing before we had a chance to get off the line,” says Labutka. “We had no change of clothes and no showers during that time, but afterward we were eating steak. We’d kill a cow and cook it over a fire. We had steak for breakfast and steak for dinner.”

“The Wrong Plan at the Wrong Time in the Wrong Place”

The 101st was relieved after 33 days of continuous combat, and moved by trucks to an area behind Utah Beach on July 10. The division history records that in little more than a month of combat, the 101st suffered 4,670 casualties. According to E Company historian Emmanuel Allain of Normandy, France, Labutka’s company of the 502 lost only three men during that time: one officer and two NCOs were killed in action.

The paratroopers were taken to England by landing craft from July 11-13 and returned to their old quarters north of London. At least one month of back pay awaited them, and leaves were approved. Labutka says most of the men who were given passes went to London to celebrate. “I went to London for booze and women. Don’t forget,” he says, “I was just a kid.”

The division was replenished and took part in further training over the next two months. More Airborne missions were proposed, but each time they were canceled due to the rapid Allied advance in France. But the good life in England didn’t last, as the 101st was slated to take part in a plan to liberate Holland and advance quickly into the Ruhr, the industrial heart of Germany. Dubbed Operation Market-Garden and developed by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, it called for Airborne forces (the Market phase) to drop behind German lines and secure a hundred-mile corridor as British armored forces (the Garden phase) came up from Belgium to capture vital bridges over the lower Rhine River.

Strategically the plan failed. Eisenhower had been reluctant at first to support the mission, but eventually he relented. Bradley called it “the wrong plan at the wrong time in the wrong place.”

The three parachute regiments of the 101st had separate assignments in Holland. The 502 was charged with securing its landing zone near Eindhoven, capturing a bridge over the Dommel River, and attacking the village of Best to protect the lower section of the British thrust. The paratroopers were loaded with the same amount of equipment as in Normandy, and the September 17 daylight drop into Holland was picture perfect.

“It was nothing like Normandy; it went off like a practice jump. There was no opposition.” The only obstacle Labutka encountered in the jump was barbed wire, which gave him a cut above his right knee. The scar it caused has remained with him. “They wanted to give me a Purple Heart, but I turned them down. Why should I accept a medal for a scratch when guys around me were getting killed?”

While the paratroopers had an uneventful flight from England and an easy drop, it was different for the division’s glider troops. Of the 70 gliders that took part, only about 50 made it to Holland intact. Some landed far behind German lines, some were hit by flak, and some were crashed upon landing by obstacles planted in the fields.

“The Germans had sticks, trees actually, buried in the ground every 10 feet, which ripped those gliders apart,” Labutka says. “Some of them contained jeeps and cannon and when they hit the poles there was equipment all over the place.”

Capturing Best

With the landing zone secured and the Dommel River crossed, the march on the bridge that crossed the Wilhelmina Canal at Best commenced. Just as intelligence reports of enemy troop strength at Carentan were in error, so it was there. The Germans who defended the area were thought to be of poor quality, and Allied planners anticipated that a platoon could handle the mission. When enemy defenses stiffened, a company was sent to help. Later, both 2nd and 3rd Battalions joined the attack. At one point, 2nd attacked with three companies in line across an open wheat field and took serious losses from artillery, mortars, and machine guns.

“Some of the guys near me were bunched up,” Labutka explains. “I even yelled at them to scatter. You’re never supposed to get close to the next guy. That’s what they taught us— don’t bunch up because that’s what the enemy is looking for. Then a mortar shell hit three of them. One guy was hit right in his lap. Another one of them was dying. He had me recite the Act of Contrition to him. He died right there in my arms.”

Another fatality was Colonel Cole of 3rd Battalion. After calling for air support, friendly fire began taking its toll on American troops, so Cole decided to place orange panels in front of the line to benefit Allied pilots. While he was doing so, an enemy sniper killed him with a shot to his temple. Cole died never knowing that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor for leading the bayonet charge at Carentan. When the battle for Best ended, nearly half of the 101st had been involved, along with a column of British tanks. The area had been defended by about a thousand enemy troops.

“We captured about 200 German soldiers at Best, kids and old men,” Labutka says. “They just threw down their guns. Two guys with bazookas were taking them back to the rear when somebody said, ‘OK, we’re moving.’ So I was walking behind this machine gunner and he threw his machine gun over his shoulder and must have pulled the trigger. There was one shell in it and it hit my helmet, put a nick in it, and boy did I hit the ground. I gave him hell. I said, ‘You’re supposed to clear your gun.’ He said, ‘I thought I did.’”

Moving Up the Ranks

After the fall of Best, the 502 was ordered to hold defensive positions in the area. Company E lost 18 men killed in action in the operation, 12 of whom had been with the outfit when they jumped into Normandy.

“Up to this time I was still a private,” Labutka says. “But shortly after Best I went, on one order, from private to Pfc to corporal to sergeant to staff sergeant to tech sergeant. Three up and two down. That’s how many guys got wounded or killed. In one order I went from private to platoon sergeant. I had 47 guys under me—three rifle squads and a mortar squad. That’s when I was issued a Thompson submachine gun.

“This one time in Holland,” he continues, “I was looking through my field glasses and saw Germans about a hundred yards away. They were squatted, with their pants down, so I radioed over to my mortar sergeant, Earl Rodd, and asked, ‘Do you see that?’ He said, ‘How about me going back and laying a couple of shells in there?’ I said, ‘That’s just what I want you to do when I let you know there are more Germans.’ So he went back and I was on the radio with him and about five or six more of them came down. I said, ‘Earl, lay a couple in there now.’ He did. They were all tree bursts, hitting these big fir trees. Those Germans scattered all over. You should have seen them run with their pants halfway up. I laughed. I think it was the first time I laughed like that since I’d gotten over there.”

It was also in Holland that Labutka had a chance encounter with the division’s artillery commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, who later gained fame with his “Nuts” response to a German surrender order at Bastogne. After their Holland jump, the paratroopers were told to take off their jump boots and wear regular-issue combat boots so the Germans could not identify them as Airborne if they were captured.

“One day, this was also after Best, General McAuliffe, accompanied by my platoon leader, Bill Parks, was checking our company area. Lieutenant Parks called me over and General

McAuliffe said, ‘How are your men eating, sergeant?’ And we had just passed third platoon, and they had a pig on a spit. I said, ‘We’re eating well, sir.’ He said, ‘So I guess you are.’ And then he asked me, ‘How do you like your combat boots?’ I said, ‘I hate them, sir.’ He said, ‘You do know why we can’t wear jump boots?’ I said, ‘Sure, the enemy will know we’re paratroopers.’ He said, ‘That’s right, sergeant.’”

Whether German forces would have treated Airborne troops any differently from the regular infantry if they were captured, Labutka is not sure. But the switch of boots would be repeated again when the division was sent to Bastogne.

Breakthrough in the Ardennes

Since the main objective of Market-Garden, an advance into the Ruhr, never materialized, the operation failed. However, the Allies did drive 65 miles through German lines, crossed two major rivers, seized airfield sites, and created a buffer to protect the port of Antwerp. By mid-November, after 72 days of combat, the 101st was moved to its base at Camp Mourmelon, a one-time airfield in France, where paratroopers received passes to Paris, enjoyed good food and champagne, and experienced frequent USO performances.

“Bob Hope came one time. But that wasn’t my cup of tea. I never went to a movie or saw a show,” smiles Labutka. “I was busy drinking and playing poker. I had to be the unluckiest poker player in the world. Maybe I drank too much when I played. But what else was there to do? There were no women around.”

Once again the good times were about to end as German forces opened their last offensive in Western Europe through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. Their attack, launched on December 16, 1944, rolled through the sparsely held line of either inexperienced or battle-weary American troops. The 101st was soon in the center of the action during what has come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

“I was AWOL in Paris when they attacked,” Labutka says. “I had a pass, but it was overextended. You see, me and my first sergeant were close. He gave me a pass whenever I wanted one. All I had to do was sign somebody’s name to it and show it to the bus driver. He didn’t know one lieutenant from another. It was easy. So me and a buddy were in Paris. I think we’d been there four days and were planning to visit the Folies Bérgère, the famous nightclub. But before we got there we stopped at this little outside café drinking gin and orange juice. We never got to the nightclub because somebody rolled us. It was probably one of the girls we met.

“So without any money we went back to Rainbow Corner. This was a place in Paris where all the GIs went. A lieutenant came by and said, ‘Sergeant, I got bad news for you. Be at Rainbow Corner at 5 o’clock tomorrow morning.’ I asked, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘Breakthrough.’ There were about two truck-loads of guys from our outfit in Paris and we went back to Mourmelon.”

The surprise German attack easily knifed through the American lines. Poor visibility grounded Allied planes, and over the next three days the situation worsened for the Americans. One option for Eisenhower was to commit his reserve units, one of which was the 101st. With its division commander in the United States and assistant commander in England, the job fell to General McAuliffe to lead the paratroopers into battle. But this time they did not drop from the air. They went on trucks and arrived in Bastogne, a key Belgian crossroads town, on December 19. This was the southern sector of the German thrust guarded in part by the tired U.S. 28th Division, which had been sent to that area for rest. The division had seen action since just after the Normandy landings, and more recently had been involved in the desperate fighting in the Hürtgen Forest. The 28th also contained men from Labutka’s hometown National Guard unit. As the Germans advanced, the 28th fell back and the 101st moved in.

“Going into Bastogne I was in charge of two trucks,” recalls Labutka. “That’s when I heard that the National Guard from Pennsylvania was there. I knew guys in Company D from Butler, and naturally I knew guys in Company C from Ford City. So here they were, the 28th Division, coming out of Bastogne while we were going in. One of the guys I knew I did see coming out, Pete Rhodes from Company C.”

Once in Bastogne, the 101st immediately set up a defensive perimeter in all four directions around the town, a radius of about 16 miles. The paratroopers were surrounded by German forces, and Labutka found himself on the northwest side of Bastogne during the worst winter in years, as nighttime temperatures frequently dropped below zero. When men touched a gun barrel, their skin stuck to it. Snow was as constant as the American patrols probing the German lines.

“We didn’t go too far out on patrols,” he recalls. “They just wanted to see how far [away] the Germans were. This one time we were on patrol and my radio operator, Jimmy Agnostis, was behind me. I was up the field a way, and I stopped because I thought I saw some German troops about 200 yards away. Then I heard this ‘pow-pow’ from behind me and damn if I wasn’t hit in my helmet again! I said, ‘Jimmy, you SOB! That’s twice I almost got killed with our own guns!’ He said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’”

“The Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne”

The Germans underestimated American resolve to defend the town, and overestimated their own ability to take it. Four Germans approached U.S. lines south of Bastogne on December 22. One of them carried a white flag, and another held a message that proposed the Americans, since they were surrounded, should surrender. If the offer was rejected, the note promised that Bastogne would be destroyed by heavy guns. When the ultimatum reached McAuliffe, his first reaction was “Nuts.” That answer was eventually delivered, but the German envoy did not understand its meaning. The American officer in charge said through a translator: “If you don’t understand what ‘Nuts’ means in plain English, it’s the same as ‘Go to hell!’”

The German bulge in the American lines was reaching its high-water mark when the offensive began to run low on supplies and meet stiffer Allied resistance. By December 24, Hitler was said to be so incensed that such a small town could be such a big thorn in the German drive that he ordered Bastogne annihilated.

“The Germans did bring in tanks and shot 88s into our third platoon,” Labutka says. “They got hammered. For the most part, my platoon was in reserve. That’s why I didn’t get into contact with German tanks. But our third platoon from E Company took it bad.” E Company losses were 11 KIA, three of whom had jumped with the company on D-Day.

As Christmas Day neared, the visibility cleared enough for Allied planes, at times flying 250 sorties a day, to drop supplies to the beleaguered paratroopers who were now running low on everything. Most air drops reached American hands, although some landed too far away. Labutka remembers celebrating the holiday with an ice cream-like concoction made by putting snow in a canteen cup and adding lemonade powder from dropped C-rations.

“When those skies brightened and I heard those planes coming over to give us ammunition, food, everything we needed,” he says, “I thought that was the nicest Christmas present I ever got.”

A U.S. armored division finally arrived from the south on December 26 and pushed its way into Bastogne a few days later. This corridor was eventually widened, and on January 18, 1945, the 101st was poised to exit the town it had called home for a month.

“We marched out of Bastogne and got on trucks. Outside of town, somebody had put up this big sign: The Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne.”

A Stay in the House of Eva Braun

Now on trucks once again, the division was sent to Luxembourg and later to the Alsace region of France. Stationed there until mid-February, the paratroopers saw little action. Afterward, they returned by train to their camp at Mourmelon where, on March 16, the 101st became the first division in history to receive the Distinguished Unit Citation (now called the Presidential Unit Citation) as an entire division. General Taylor also addressed the men in Mourmelon, telling them that when the war in Europe was over the division would probably be sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. It did not go over well.

“He said that, if possible, we were going to Japan and finish off the Japs,” Labutka remembers. “We weren’t in the mood for that. Do you know what he heard? From the rear ranks: ‘Boo!’ Then louder: ‘Boo!’ Then finally from the entire division: ‘Boo!’ Can you imagine what that sounded like from a whole division?”

American forces by this time were well east of the Rhine River, and the 101st was ordered to Düsseldorf and then to southern Germany and finally to Bavaria, where Allied leaders expected diehard Nazis to put up their last fight. The division’s final assignment of the war was to capture Berchtesgaden where Hitler had maintained his mountain home. That was accomplished on May 5, and two days later radio reports told that the Germans had agreed to unconditional surrender. The next day it became official, and the war was over.

“We were billeted in a nice house in Kempton, just outside Berchtesgaden,” Labutka says. “At the time, people who owned the house could put their valuables in a room or on the third floor and lock it up. The house I was in belonged to Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress. It had lots of big rooms, high ceilings, but little furniture because it was all locked up. So somebody from my platoon broke into one of the rooms and took a bunch of stuff, mostly jewelry. We had a meeting with the company commander the next day, and he said, ‘We’ll give you guys ’til Reveille to put everything back. If not, there’s going to be repercussions.’

“At 5:30 the next morning, nothing was returned. So the next day they made us go on a 25-mile forced march with a full pack—rifle, blanket, no water. They said we were going to do that every day until everything was put back. That night, after our march, the guys who took the jewelry put it all back. Three or four guys were involved. We knew who they were, and everybody wanted to beat them up. And they would have been beaten up if it had gone on any longer.”

“As a Unit We Never Lost a skirmish”

Labutka left Europe from the southern French port of Marseilles on September 6, 1945, and arrived Stateside eight days later. He was discharged on September 21.

“I wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it over again,” he says. “And you couldn’t give me a million dollars not to have gone through it. I’m glad I went through it. I was lucky. The Lord took care of me because I’m still here. But I know one thing. I would never jump from an airplane again, unless somebody called me a chicken.”

Perhaps the most fitting tribute a soldier can receive comes from the men who served with him. “Lud was a leader even before he became our platoon sergeant,” offers Tony Diarchangelo of suburban Philadelphia, who served in Labutka’s platoon through Normandy, Holland, and Bastogne. “He was one hell of a soldier, a great soldier, always calm, cool, and collected. As a unit we never lost a skirmish.”

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Warfare History Network

History,

Hitler wasn't the Royal Navy's only target.

Key Point: Britain sank numberous Japanese warships.

During World War II, after the Royal Navy’s traumatic departure from the Pacific Ocean in early 1942, the 4th Submarine Flotilla and its depot ship, the HMS Adamant, operated with the Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee––a large, natural harbor located on the coast of Sri Lanka in the heart of the Indian Ocean. Dutch submarines joined them and were placed under British operational control after the fall of the Dutch East Indies to the Japanese.

The number of boats making up British submarine operations in the Pacific remained small, sometimes no more than four at any one time, until after the Italian surrender in September 1943 when reinforcements began to be deployed to the Indian Ocean. By late 1944 a maximum of 40 submarines were active with the Eastern Fleet. However, the length of individual boat deployment was limited by the fact that they could not be refitted in India and had to return to Britain for major repairs.

During all of 1944 through January 1945, three British subs were sunk and one severely damaged by enemy action in the Indian Ocean. In September 1944 British submarines commenced combat patrols in the Pacific under the command of Vice Admiral Thomas. C. Kinkaid, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Since British subs were smaller and had less endurance than American boats, they were considered more suitable for inshore operations in the Southwest Pacific. By this stage of the war the force had grown to three flotillas: the 2nd, 4th, and 8th. The last moved to Fremantle, Australia, and comprised six “S” and three “T’ class vessels. The former operated in the Java Sea, the latter in the Sea of China.

The “S “ class had a speed of 10 nautical knots and a range of up to 7,000 miles and carried enough supplies on board to allow it to remain at sea for 30 days. “T” class subs, having roughly the same performance capability as the latest American submarines, could cover 12,000 miles and stay at sea for 50 days.

American subs had been based at Fremantle since 1942, and the 8th Flotilla had to fit in with the established American routines and practices. This was greatly facilitated when the U.S. Navy made available to their British counterparts Fremantle’s repair facilities as well as two U.S. Navy submarine tenders.

The 8th Flotilla’s day-to-day activities were controlled by the Commander Submarines U.S. Seventh Fleet, Rear Admiral J. Fife, who was headquartered at Perth. In April 1945, he moved his command post along with the 8th Flotilla to Subic Bay in the Philippines; the 8th Flotilla was replaced at Fremantle by the 4th Flotilla. At Subic Bay the Americans did all they could to share their repair facilities with the British submariners.

On April 1, 1945, the 2nd and 8th Submarine Flotillas were transferred to the administrative control of the British Pacific Fleet, although they still came under the operational control of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Rather more than half the days on patrol were spent on passage, and by mid-1945 there were few Japanese targets to intercept.

British submarines were capable of operating a “wolf pack,” or coordinated patrol by two or more submarines working together. In this way they achieved success against low-speed targets. During this time, they sank 13 vessels, of which six were warships, in the Java and Flores Seas.

One of these victims was the heavy cruiser Ashigara, the last major Japanese warship to be sunk by a submarine in World War II. She was sunk by HMS Trenchant, which had sailed on patrol to Pulo Tengol in May 1945. Five of eight aimed torpedoes from the British sub fired at 4,000 yards found their mark, and the Japanese vessel sank 30 minutes after the attack. She had been carrying a large number of soldiers from Java intended to reinforce the Japanese garrison at Singapore; most of them went down with the ship.

In addition to looking for enemy shipping to sink, a number of submarines carried out special operations. These included landing clandestine parties on islands involved in intelligence work and resupplying or recovering them.

The sphere where submarines interfaced most closely with the British Pacific Fleet’s surface task forces was in the provision of air and sea rescue to retrieve downed Allied pilots. These boats normally operated near enemy-held coasts, and the proximity to Japanese territory posed grave danger to them.

A typical example of this type of sub operation was the 55-day patrol (the longest for a British submarine during World War II) of the Tantalus,part of the 8th Flotilla. From early January to late February 1945, she prowled the South China Sea looking for downed Allied pilots. Although she was never called upon to rescue any ditched airmen, her travels took her across the paths of several enemy luggers, lighters, and a tug boat, which she destroyed using gunfire.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Stratfor Worldview

Security, Europe

The Arctic is heating up as an area of great power competition and Moscow is way ahead with the highest number of icebreakers.

Russia's surge of Arctic activity reflects the economic significance of the region and the impact of shifting climate patterns that now offer the prospect of an extended Russia maritime frontier. Russia has rebuilt and expanded its Cold War-era security architecture along its Arctic frontier, significantly increased natural gas production from its operations on the Yamal Peninsula, and laid out a 15-year plan to improve land-, air- and sea-based infrastructure connecting the Northern Sea Route to northern Russia and farther south. The thawing Russian coastline is both a strategic opportunity and challenge, one that may fundamentally reshape Russia's relations with its European and Asian neighbors, and with the United States. 

Enclosed Geography

One of the core tenets of geopolitics is the significance of geography in setting the stage for foreign and domestic policy. As American geopolitician Nicholas Spykman noted in his 1942 America's Strategy in World Politics, "Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent." Geography's importance is often altered by technology, from canals and railroads to new critical minerals or changing energy sources. But rarely does geography itself change enough to alter the constraints and compulsions on states, at least not in a short time frame or outside localized events or disasters. The warming of the Arctic, however, is changing the core realities of Russia's geography, and it is happening at a pace that allows and compels a Russian response. 

A key characteristic of geography that has shaped Russia over the centuries has been its lack of riverine connectivity. Unlike Europe or the United States, Russia's rivers rarely served to link agricultural zones and population centers, or connect the interior to the coasts. Rather, the major river drainage systems empty into the landlocked Caspian; into the constrained Black and Baltic seas; and most of all, into the iced-over Arctic Ocean. This constraint also offered a measure of security: Russia historically has proven incredibly resilient to invasion, particularly by sea. This river drainage system was one of the primary characteristics of Russia that led British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder initially to identify the Russian region as the geographical pivot of history, and later to identify it as the Eurasian heartland.

Russia's rivers and population density.

Russia long sought to break out of its continental heartland, pushing for sea access on the Pacific, seeking to expand its frontiers in the Baltic, and pressing south toward India and the Middle East (the latter being the subject of the so-called Great Game between Britain and Russia.) The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 made the weakness of Russia's limited maritime access manifest. Japan defeated the Russian Pacific fleet based in northern China, and it took Russia's Baltic Fleet — unable to reach East Asia via the Arctic Sea — some seven months to sail around the world only to meet defeat in the Tsushima Strait. 

Arctic Opportunities 

That inaccessibility is changing rapidly. Coastal navigation along the Northern Sea Route now starts earlier in the year, lasts longer and is even reaching the point that several passages have little need for icebreakers. Moscow's response has been to increase investment in both resource extraction and infrastructure development and to rebuild its Cold-War era military positions along the Arctic coast, updating with new equipment and technology. This year, Moscow established a special security council commission on the Arctic, and Russia produced a 15-year plan for Arctic development.

Russia has some 24,000 kilometers of Arctic coastline, compared to less than 20,000 kilometers of total U.S. oceanic coastline. The Russian Arctic accounts for more than 10 percent of national GDP, some 90 percent of Russian natural gas production and is a major contributor of strategic minerals, including nickel and palladium. An early sign of the potential future value of Russian Arctic ports came in the early years of World War II, when the allies supplied Russia through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The rest of the Northern Sea Route, however, remained unusable, and played little role in Russia's support of anti-Japanese fighters in the Far East, nor in the final days of the war when Russia declared war on Japan. 

Today's changing climate is allowing not only greater access to the Russian Arctic frontier, but more reliable transportation of key commodities out of the Arctic. Already, Russian LNG from the Arctic has shipped to as far away as India, and this year saw the first tanker shipment of Russian Arctic oil to China. Russia has plans to develop large ports at each end of the Northern Sea Route for both containers and commodities, allowing ice-class vessels to move more frequently within Arctic waters and shifting cargos to traditional vessels for the rest of the journey to Europe or Asia. 

China has shown strong interest in using the Russian Arctic seaways, and has been a major funder and consumer of Russian Arctic natural gas production. Japan and South Korea have also shown interest in the Northern Sea Route and Russian resources, and Russian and Finnish companies are cooperating on a possible undersea fiber cable through the Russian Arctic connecting Northern Europe to Japan. An opening Arctic provides opportunities for resource extraction, transportation and communications connectivity, and provides Russia with a shorter maritime route between its east and west coasts, the Northern Sea Route serving in that sense as a greatly extended Panama Canal. 

Arctic Challenges

This international interest may also prove a challenge to Russia. China is funding Russian Arctic resource extraction, but it is also carrying out its own energy exploration in Arctic waters, and is exploring ways to bypass the Northern Sea Route, or at least the requirements Russia puts on its use. China's reach into the Arctic matches a push through Central Asia and one through the Indian Ocean, all parts of the Belt and Road Initiative, and together wrapping around Russia and its traditional areas of influence, forcing an eventual Russian response. The opening Arctic seas have spurred Russia to restrengthen its Arctic defenses, but this has reawakened the United States and Europe to the strategic challenges of the same region, and seen renewed defense activity and repositioning of forces to match.

What once served as a largely impenetrable wall of ice protecting Russia's back is now an opening avenue exposing a long Russian coastline with little infrastructure and few population centers. Russia's Arctic coastline is largely empty. The government is offering incentives to increase migration to the region, to start businesses and develop infrastructure, but even with the melting sea ice, the area remains inhospitable and difficult territory. Changing permafrost patterns and poor quality construction and maintenance of Soviet-era infrastructure are adding to the cost of future development.

Most Russian Arctic development is in the west along the Kola Peninsula and at the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas, where the Ob River empties into the Kara Sea. There are also mineral developments in the Arctic areas of Krasnoyarsk Krai and The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as well as plans for expanded port infrastructure on the Chukchi Peninsula at the eastern end of the Northern Sea Route. The nearly 2 million people in Russian Arctic territories may be the largest Arctic national population, but this is far shy of what it would take to develop a truly connected and robust region capable of sustaining a broad economic base or supplying the manpower and presence necessary to ensure security along the long opening coastline.

What to Watch

For Russia, then, the opening Arctic provides both opportunity and risk. For much of Russia's history, the country has been oriented south, looking to spread its influence and at times its borders to warmer seas. The Arctic was a shield, even during the Cold War when the polar route was the shortest for strategic aircraft and nuclear missiles. An open Arctic coastline increases foreign activity along Russia's north, and draws increasing interest from Asian nations seeking resources and routes. Russia's FSB has already raised concerns that foreign actors are trying to use Arctic native populations in Russia to undermine Russian strategic security, and the government has established a new review of foreign investment and economic activity in the Arctic to ensure Russian national interests. 

New Russian naval development will need to take regular Arctic operations into consideration, not merely through the construction of more than a dozen new icebreakers, but from the design of ships themselves. The longer coastline and increased maritime traffic require a robust observation and communications infrastructure, linked into territorial defense and search and rescue. Russian aviation is expanding Arctic operations, from plans to add heavy drones to maintain surveillance to additional fighter aircraft, and even experiments once again as the Soviets did during the Cold War era with establishing temporary airfields on ice to ensure expanded operational capabilities. Russia is also modifying existing weapons systems and designing new ones for Arctic conditions. 

Arctic infrastructure, resource extraction, transit safety and national security all require expenditure, and while the Arctic is a critical component of Russia's GDP, it does not provide the needed resources to fund the rising infrastructure and development needs. Yet for Moscow, Arctic development isn't an option, it is increasingly a necessity. The Russians may have a head start in rebuilding Arctic defense structures and in deploying and building icebreakers, but they are also dealing with a 24,000-kilometer coastline that now needs securing. In the global naval race, Russia remains far behind the United States and China. Russia's Arctic development is a new priority for Moscow, adding to its existing long land borders, its troubled relations along its former Soviet European frontier, its expanded activity in the Middle East and North Africa, and in the face of a rising China. As we look over the next decade, the shift in Russian geography will play a significant role in how Russia reassesses its international relations and its national priorities.

Russia's Emerging Arctic Maritime Frontier is republished with the permission of Stratfor Worldview, a geopolitical forecasting and intelligence publication from RANE, the Risk Assistance Network + Exchange. As the world's leading geopolitical intelligence platform, Stratfor Worldview brings global events into valuable perspective, empowering businesses, governments and individuals to more confidently navigate their way through an increasingly complex international environment. Stratfor is a RANE (Risk Assistance Network + Exchange) company.

Image: Reuters.

Charlie Gao

Security, Asia

America has beat submarines in two world wars. But how does that experience translate into modern warfare?

Key point: Newer and better weapons will allow the Navy to locate and destroy submarines. However, submarines have gotten better too.

With things heating up in the South China Sea (SCS), much attention has been paid to the ships and submarines that could potentially square off against each other in the region. This ignores a key asset of most navies that is already on the “front lines” and shaping military interactions—Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA). Skillful use of these aircraft may determine how an engagement plays out, or it could prevent one from happening in the first place.

MPA have been around almost as long as combat aircraft. Navies quickly realized the potential of aircraft when it came to patrolling the sea, as they could move far more quickly than boats and had the significant advantage of altitude.

But modern MPA use advanced sensors to detect to see far more than what can be seen with the naked eye—Magnetic Anomaly Detectors (MADs) can detect underwater submarines, and radar systems are used to detect ships that might just be specks on the horizon. Infrared/thermographic cameras allow MPA to identify vessels even at night.

MPA can also deploy sonobuoys, floating sensors that either detect noises or send out pings to find submarines. ELINT sensors can detect the radar emissions of enemy MPA or ships. All of these sensors means that MPA are incredibly useful in peacetime as well as wartime.

One way they could deter potential escalation is through detecting potential violations of EEZ or civilian ships in contested waters ahead of time through the use of radar and infrared. Since modern MPA have all-weather detection capability, they can watch for fishing vessels day and night, and give a navy an advanced warning of such violations so they can be headed off before a more violent encounter up close.

MPA also can provide critical information in tracking enemy submarine posture. While this is a more intensive and not “guaranteed” way to track submarines—as the battle between submarine stealth and submarine detection is ongoing—determining the patrol routes and positions of enemy submarines is critical information. Such intelligence may allow nations to avoid potential losses to convoy raiding (if it occurs) and set up anti-submarine warfare plans before the event of war.

In their traditional role in the detection of surface ships, MPA are critically important in the SCS region. Due to the relatively short distances between islands, MPA flying out of Japan or Taiwan could potentially track the movement of ships from base to base in China.

Basic MPA surveillance radars like the Seaspray 5000 have publicized ranges of around 200 nm. The more advanced AN/APS-115 and AN/APS-137D(V)5s mounted on Japan, and Taiwan's P-3C MPA undoubtedly have better performance. Even with a 200 nm range, an MPA flying over the East China Sea could easily track ships moving south along China's coast.

This could yield significant strategic intelligence on the development and deployment of Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). In addition, the ELINT suite onboard these aircraft could provide insight into the capabilities of Chinese radars.

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However, MPA still face considerable limitations from the human component. Crews get tired and need to be rotated out, and MPA—like other aircraft—are expensive to fly and operate. Therefore, the future will see navies using UAVs to accomplish the MPA mission, assisting manned MPA and also surveying without them independently.

The U.S. Navy has already made significant steps in this direction with the acquisition of MQ-4C Triton UAVs, which can augment the P-8A in surveillance and patrols. As multiple UAVs can accompany a single manned aircraft, the amount of area patrolled can increase drastically with the integration of UAS, bringing even more benefits.

Most militaries in the region appear to have recognized the importance of MPA in securing their maritime borders. While not in the SCS, Japan's Defense Forces have one of the best MPA fleets, the star of which is their purpose-built Kawasaki P-1, which boasts advanced sensors and even artificial intelligence to reduce the crew workload.

Taiwan is also no slouch, acquiring twelve American P-3C Orions MPA in 2017. Other militaries in the region (such as Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines) field lighter MPA, mostly converted civilian light propeller planes as opposed to heavier purpose-built aircraft. While these converted aircraft are sufficient for tracking surface ships, purpose-built aircraft are far superior for tracking submarines, due to features like the extended tail on the P-3C, which houses the magnetic anomaly detector.

China's premier MPA is the Y-8Q, which is a rough analog to the P-3C in function. Like the P-3C it has a distinctive tail boom for detecting submarines, and a powerful surface search radar in a radome under the cockpit.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues. This first appeared in 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Huan Zhu

Technology, The Americas

WeChat does present some risks, but banning it nationwide is overkill. As I explain below, a more targeted approach, such as banning the app on work phones of defense department employees, like the Australian government did, or even for all government workers, is more reasonable.

WeChat is an internet application owned by Chinese tech company Tencent. It may not sound familiar to most Americans, but it is a tool widely used in China and among Chinese communities world‐​wide. It is a one‐​stop‐​shop that combines payment services, social media, messaging platforms, and news outlets. This app is now facing a ban in the United States.

Last month, President Trump issued an executive order related to WeChat, under which “any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” would be banned. The rationale was that WeChat “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” The order itself lacks details on how exactly a ban would work, and the Department of Commerce is expected to issue implementing rules by September 20. The scope of the regulation could range from banning the app from smartphone app stores, to banning all U.S. firms, even ones located outside of the U.S., from dealing with WeChat. The ban would affect both individual users of the app and businesses who rely on it.

WeChat does present some risks, but banning it nationwide is overkill. As I explain below, a more targeted approach, such as banning the app on work phones of defense department employees, like the Australian government did, or even for all government workers, is more reasonable.

As noted, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the executive order. With regard to individuals in particular, it is unclear what “transactions” would be covered. If the ban is intended to take the application off the various mobile marketplaces, it will seriously disrupt person‐​to‐​person communications that have been crucial for the 19 million active WeChat users who live in the United States. For some of these users, WeChat is their main channel of keeping in touch and a primary source of information; for others, the app is one of the tools they use to make money and earn a living.

The inability to use WeChat in the United States could spook many potential Chinese students and visitors, resulting in a likely drop in school enrollment and tourism revenues. Chinese students contribute approximately $15 billion to the U.S. economy every year, and Chinese tourists contribute $36 billion. The number of Chinese students and tourists was already declining due to deteriorating U.S.-China relations and the COVID-19 pandemic. The WeChat ban, which makes the United States less attractive to Chinese visitors than other countries who allow the app, can only exacerbate this trend.

In addition, the ban could go well beyond personal access to the app and extend to associated business activities. The President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai has noted that all American companies, regardless of their location, could be barred from any transactions related to the WeChat application. Because WeChat is so deeply embedded in the Chinese people’s daily life and has become a platform for a wide range of activities, a ban on transactions related to WeChat would include sales, promotions, payments and other business activities. For instance, Starbucks and McDonald’s use the application as a marketing and sales platform. Filmmakers use WeChat to promote their movies and make ticket sales. Walmart and many other venders use the app to sell products. In fact, the app accounts for as much as 30% of all Walmart sales in China. A WeChat ban could cost corporate users significant revenues.

A ban could also result in a 30% decline of iPhone sales. Many Chinese netizens have said that if they have to choose between iPhone and WeChat, they will ditch their iPhones in a heartbeat.

According to a survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, nine out of ten companies forecast that the ban would have a negative impact on their business in China, with nearly half of them predicting a loss of revenue because of the ban. Furthermore, a WeChat ban could add more fuel to the already tense relations between the United States and China, making it more difficult for businesses to operate. So far, 86% of companies have reported a negative impact on their business with China as a result of the growing tensions. The situation will only get worse with a WeChat ban.

Clearly, the WeChat ban comes with huge costs, but are their offsetting benefits? How big a security risk is WeChat, and would a ban mitigate this risk? With an increasingly hostile geopolitical rivalry brewing, the U.S. government needs to look carefully at the cyber practices coming out of China. The Executive Order indicates that the ban will protect user data from the Chinese government and fight against China’s “disinformation campaigns.” Will they do so?

Despite a lack of direct evidence on this point, there have been concerns that WeChat would share data with the Chinese government. If the administration is concerned about this with average citizens (as opposed to military personnel or other government employees, where special considerations apply), instead of banning the app, it could simply warn consumers of such risks and let the them choose whether to use the application. Individuals should have the freedom to decide the level of risk they are willing to take with regard to their personal information. It’s worth noting that the issues related to consumer data are much broader than WeChat. The Chinese government has other ways, such as through web tracking and datasets available on the Dark Web, to obtain users’ information. A better way to protect consumer data, from not only the Chinese government but all governments, is to establish more general domestic and international rules on data protection and hold countries and companies accountable for violating these rules.

The Executive Order also highlighted that a ban of the WeChat application will help to mitigate “disinformation campaigns.” As with user data, if the administration is concerned about campaign meddling, it is a much larger problem than WeChat and is happening on other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and through other means such as hacking. Focusing on only one application is insufficient and could distract from other campaigns coming from other countries.

When foreign government try to collect data on American citizens and non‐​citizens living in America, for the purpose of manipulating them for political or other reasons, it is a serious issue. The U.S. government needs to get a handle on this problem immediately. In the case of WeChat, however, any national security benefits of a total ban are outweighed by the disruptions to people’s personal lives and the potential economic losses for individuals and businesses that would likely materialize in the presence of a ban. There are real concerns related to WeChat, but more targeted actions like the Australians have taken make more sense. A total ban on WeChat simply goes too far.

This article was first published by the Cato Institute.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

SS Colonel Joachim Peiper was a ruthlessly efficient officer who drove his armored spearhead toward the River Meuse as rapidly as possible.

Key Point: The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's last major offensive on the Western Front.

During the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle America has ever fought, Hitler chose the Sixth Panzer Army for the German juggernaut’s most important role. The decisive spearhead was given to a combat group commanded by a young lieutenant colonel named Joachim Peiper. The planning for the Ardennes offensive of 1944 was conducted with such secrecy that Peiper did not receive his formal mission briefing until two days before the assault.

The offensive was Hitler’s last desperate gamble in the West. His plan was to overrun lightly defended portions of the Allied line in the Ardennes Forest and drive across the River Meuse all the way to the Belgian port of Antwerp. The capture of the major port would effectively split the Allied armies in the West in two while disrupting supply and troop movements. The Western Allies might be compelled to sue for peace.

Although Peiper had over 100 tanks under his command, two pieces of disturbing news were brought to his attention. First, the route Hitler selected for him was, Peiper said, “not for tanks, but for bicycles.” Second, he would have to rely on capturing American gasoline along the way to help meet the demands of his thirsty Panzer IV, Panther, and Tiger tanks. Peiper’s corps commander SS Lieutenant General Hermann Priess reassured him, “If you get to the Meuse with one damned tank, Joachim, you’ll have done your job!”

Peiper’s Blitz and the Malmedy Massacre

When the offensive began on Saturday, December 16, 1944, Peiper’s tanks were delayed by the onrush of traffic and a minefield the Germans had laid down in retreat months earlier. It was not until Sunday that Peiper’s task force reached the town of Honsfeld, Belgium. There it surprised an array of American forces from the 394th Infantry Regiment and 32nd Calvary Squadron to the 801st and 612th Tank Destroyer Battalions. Four German tanks were knocked out, but Peiper captured 15 U.S. tank destroyers and 50 reconnaissance vehicles.

The Americans who were not killed or captured were forced into a desperate retreat. Hearing about an American fuel dump in Büllingen, Peiper proceeded there. The town was quickly overrun, and several Americans from the 2nd Infantry Division’s Quartermaster Company and a recon platoon of the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion were captured. Peiper’s task force also seized about 50,000 gallons of gasoline and forced the American prisoners to refuel the German tanks at gunpoint.

When Peiper’s task force arrived south of Malmedy at the crossroads hamlet of Baugnez, it encountered American trucks from Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. When the German column opened fire, the Americans abandoned their vehicles in panic. As the men began to surrender, Peiper passed by in his command vehicle. Moving westward, he neared the town of Ligneuville, where General Edward Timberlake and his staff were about ready to enjoy a hot lunch at the Hôtel du Moulin. It was the headquarters for the U.S. 49th Antiaircraft Artillery Brigade, which protected Liege from V1 buzz bomb attacks. General Timberlake and his men were so surprised by the speed of Peiper’s advance that they narrowly escaped capture.

Meanwhile, at Baugnez American prisoners were being assembled in a field near the Café Bodarwé. Lieuteant Raphael Schumacker remembered escaping from the Germans with two other Americans. He heard either two pistol or rifle shots followed by machine-gun fire. The two men attempting to escape with him were killed along with many other unarmed prisoners. The SS troopers, according to sworn statements from 21 American survivors, then stepped through the bodies lying in the snow, stopping to shoot those who showed any signs of life. At least 86 Americans were killed and 25 wounded in what became known as the Malmedy Massacre.

After the war, Peiper said, “I recognize that after the battle of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Köln thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such, I swear it, I could not always keep it under control.”

Roadblocks Near the Ambléve River

By Sunday evening, Peiper was near Stavelot. He was confident of reaching the River Meuse the following day. General Courtney Hodges, commander of the U.S. First Army, had good reason to be concerned. Peiper’s advancing task force was about 18 kilometers southwest of the Hotel Britannique in Spa, which served as his headquarters. Between Spa and Stavelot lay two major Allied supply depots containing one of the greatest concentrations of gasoline on the Continent. Depots No. 2 and No. 3 contained more than three million gallons of motor fuel, enough to power Peiper’s panzers all the way to Antwerp.

A task force led by Major Paul Solis was sent to Stavelot to assist Captain Lloyd Sheetz of the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion in establishing roadblocks near the Ambléve River. By 3:45 am on Monday, December 18, elements of the 526th Armored Infantry and 825th Tank Destroyer Battalions had passed near the fuel depots and arrived in Stavelot.

Captain Charles Mitchell, commander of the 526th Armored Infantry Battalion, remembers, “Major Solis, Captain Sheetz, Lieutenant Doherty, and I proceeded by jeep to Captain Sheetz’s command post near the bridge crossing the Ambléve River. We discussed the situation, and Major Solis ordered my company to defend the bridge…. I was not informed, nor was I aware that the bridge was supposed to have been mined for detonation.” Company C of the 202nd Engineers had quit guarding it before midnight.

Engaging Peiper’s Panzergrenadiers

At 4:30 am on Monday, Mitchell ordered his 2nd and 3rd Platoons to proceed in their half-tracks across the Ambléve River bridge. The 2nd Platoon, under Lieutenant Harry Willyard, made its way up a hill on a road called the Vieux Chateau and established a roadblock and listening post. The men radioed Captain Mitchell with news of troop movement and the noise of armored vehicles. He then ordered them to return toward the bridge. On the way the men encountered some of Peiper’s panzergrenadiers.

John Sankey, an enlisted man with the 2nd Platoon, recalled, “There was Germans standing at the buildings firing machine guns at each half-track as they went by.” Two half-tracks from the 2nd Platoon were lost, but Willyard managed to lead the rest back across the bridge.

Lieutenant Doherty, commanding the 1st Platoon of A Company’s 825th Tank Destroyer Battalion, sent two gun squads commanded by Sergeants Jack Armstrong and Jonas Whaley with their half-tracks across the bridge. James Hammons, who served under Whaley wrote, “Sergeant Armstrong’s unit was first up the hill and we followed…. In just a few minutes as we reached the top, a flare went up from a trip wire and the Germans opened up with fire power. Our own troops back across the river began to shoot and we were caught in the crossfire. We tried to retreat but the Germans had pulled a tank or an ‘88 in a curve and began to shoot, hitting Sergeant Armstrong’s unit, setting it on fire. We were behind them and trapped so we had to leave our unit for cover. I was handed a 30 caliber M.G. from the pedestal mount and four of us took shelter inside a tin shed. Momentarily, the German infantry came in droves and we ran into a house and upstairs by a window. The only weapon we had was the machine gun and a carbine with the barrel filled with mud. Naturally, we had to hold our fire as we were outnumbered by the Germans. We watched as they used a burp gun to kill Sergeant Armstrong and part of his crew, trying to get out of the burning unit.”

Anthony Calvanese was shot in the left thigh while jumping from the half-track. Fellow squad member Bernard Gallagher was shot and fell on top of him. “He was huge,” remembered Calvanese. “I had to struggle to get out.” Calvanese dashed into the nearest building and propped his leg up on a chair to dress his wound. Outside he saw flames coming from his squad’s half-track.

Calvanese would never forget what he saw next. “There was a German officer, he had a long trench coat on … he’s got a gun. He’s pointing it directly at me.” The German fired his Luger, hitting Calvanese in the left ankle.

In desperation, Calvanese looked for an escape. “I tried to go out the side window, I couldn’t; there was a machine gun nest there. I didn’t have a hand grenade or nothing. There was nothing I could do. So I jumped out the back window into a courtyard. I tried to get into the building down below. There were these elderly people, they wouldn’t let me in. They were telling me to get away from there. I could understand that.”

Calvanese was unable to put any weight on his left leg now and began to crawl for his life. “And along came this fellow, Marcel Ozer. He told me to follow him, which I did. I crawled in back of him all the way to the dairy, where they were using it as a shelter for the civilians.” The Belgians tended to his wounds, hiding him from the Germans.

Swimming Under the Ice

Enlisted men William Kenny, Jim Landgren, and Steve Howell from A Company, 526th Armored Infantry Battalion had crossed the Ambléve River to set up a machine-gun emplacement. “We heard a lot of rifle fire and machine-gun fire,” remembers Kenny. “So we realized real quick that we were in a bad spot. We were between our fellows and the Germans up behind us on the hill.” The trio made their way to the bank of the Ambléve River where Landgren decided to go one direction, Kenny and Howell the other.

To escape the German threat, they were going to have to cross the river. Howell did not take to this idea so well. Kenny remembered, “I said, ‘What’s the matter,’ and he said, ‘I can’t swim.’ Holy gee-wiz, so can you imagine under fire like this giving instructions on how to swim.” The river was frozen about a half-inch thick. “We broke through into the water and swam as far as we could, holding our breath under the ice until our air exhausted. We had to come up and break the ice again to get up to the surface, to get air again.”

Kenny and Howell reunited with their battalion. Jim Landgren, who had taken the alternate route, failed to return to friendly lines and was hidden by a Belgian family and later captured.

Peiper’s Assault on the Bridge

In downtown Stavelot things were heating up for the rest of its defenders. “The Germans have a way of scaring you to death before they kill you,” remembered Captain Mitchell. In the wake of a terrifying rocket and mortar assault, Peiper’s infantry force began to charge toward the Ambléve River bridge. “I told the machine gun squads to wait till they got close over on [our] side of the bridge and then open up on them. Then here comes the troops across the bridge. So we could handle that, with the machine guns and my men. We stopped that, right then, and they retreated back across the bridge.”

At about 8 am, Peiper’s tanks began their assault. “I listened and I heard a big rumble and I heard them tanks coming down. I knew we could not handle the tanks!” said Mitchell.

Two 76mm antitank guns under Lieutenant Doherty were moved into position to fire on the German tanks. Sergeant Martin Hauser, commanding one of the gun squads, remembered, “When them tanks started coming down off the hill they scared the hell out of everybody. Seeing them great big monsters, we did the best we could to put them out of business.”

From across the river, Hauser’s squad aimed its gun at the tracks of the enemy tanks, disabling two of them. “And the guys got out of the tanks. We could see them. They jumped up on the roofs of the buildings over there. So we just started peppering the building, started cutting the building down,” he recalled.

Cutting Down Buildings

Lou Celentano, who commanded the other gun squad, remembered, “We decided to cut down more of the buildings because they seemed to be hiding behind them. We really tore those buildings down. The .50-caliber [mounted on the half-track] did a heck of a job and we were shooting some 3-inch rounds into it and finally cleared it enough so that we started seeing the turrets. Eventually we got so that we had demolished the homes completely and we were able to see the tanks themselves, the entire tanks. So we concentrated on knocking out either the turret or the tracks. The tracks were the best first shot and fortunately we had two great gunners. My gunner was Corporal Roy Ables and Hauser’s was Corporal Paul Lenzo. We managed to stop the first and the last tanks almost immediately…. The second tank was the one that started turning its turret toward us. And I don’t know who hit the turret but he was within a few feet of being able to hit one of us when the turret was stopped and he fired, he actually fired. One shot went completely over our heads…. If he had been able to lower his gun he would have gotten me. I’m almost sure of that. When I say me I’m talking about my crew. But he wasn’t able to get off another shot and that’s when the turret opened up and a man started to climb out.

Celentano continued, “There was smoke coming out of it … out of the hatch…. And by now that’s when [Ben] Bodziner was on the [half-track’s .50-caliber] gun, and unfortunately he froze. It was extremely cold and he had taken off his gloves. His fingers were on the trigger, but he couldn’t move them. And I went up and hit him on the hands to try and wake him up. And one shot went flying. I say one shot because I don’t remember whether there was anything following up on it. And it hit the man coming out of the tank. It hit him square in the center of his forehead.”

With a pair of binoculars, Celentano saw the German fall from the tank. The antitank gun crews continued to load and fire the 76mm shells. Celentano remembered, “We were firing rapid fire and needed a constant supply of shells. The ammo truck was quite a distance from us and the shells we used had to be carried for quite some distance and it was here that a comic relief was added to the horrible scenario of the moment. Lives were being lost and buildings were falling to the ground. While I was giving firing directions to my crew and worrying about the tanks coming down the hill to battle us, yelling above the roar of our fire, out of the corner of my eye I saw a sight that could have been shot in a keystone [Keystone Cops] comedy film. Our ammo was being delivered to us by Jol Torre at 4 feet, 9 inches tall, and his closest friend from their first day in the 825th TD, Alex Aleskavitch. Picture about a 6 foot box weighing at least 80 pounds being carried by a 6-plus footer trying to come down to match a less than 5 footer’s level. This was Hollywood comedy, but I didn’t stop to laugh…. I have no idea how many [shells were fired] but I know there was an awful lot of brass laying on that ground afterwards.”

Four Tanks Disabled

The shelling took its toll on the German column as witnessed by Karl Wortmann, who commanded a flakpanzer self-propelled antiaircraft vehicle in 10th Company’s Panzer Regiment 1. “It had cost us several panzers and wounded, but the bridge over the Ambléve was open,” he remembered. A Panther tank commanded by Eugene Zimmermann of the 1st SS Panzer Company had been selected by Peiper to lead the attack through Stavelot. In his briefing he was told an American antitank gun would contest his advance.

“Noticing a tank approaching the bridge, I alerted Sergeant Smith of the antitank squad,” recalled Mitchell. “We watched as it slowly crossed the bridge,” he said. “Just as it left the bridge, my antitank gun fired, but unfortunately caused no damage.” Three more shots were fired at the German Panther with no effect before it overran the crew’s position.

Although the Panther had an excellent combination of speed, armor, and firepower, it was the Tiger that gained the reputation as the most feared tank on the battlefield during World War II. As the enemy armor rolled into Stavelot, a Tiger tank turned on the Avenue Ferdinand Nicolay, where Sergeant Martin Hauser’s gun crew was positioned.

“At first I couldn’t see him go across the bridge but I could hear him coming,” remembers Hauser, “and the first thing I see when he came around the building was that big 88 sticking out there. Then they turned and faced us and we were standing there. We were on one end of the street and they were on the other end and they start firing with their machine guns and that’s when we cut loose with a couple of rounds of our ammunition off our 3-inch gun and we hit him up in the turret.”

Nearby, Lieutenant Doherty and his driver escaped from their jeep just before it was set ablaze by the Tiger’s machine guns. Hauser remembers, “I had my half-track right behind his jeep and if they would have shot in there with an 88 they would have got both of them.”

The massive Tiger backed into a building, sending bricks crashing down upon it, and Hauser witnessed the enemy crew exiting the disabled tank. Hauser and Celentano were awarded the Bronze Star for knocking out or disabling four German tanks. As reported in the newspaper Stars and Stripes, Doherty’s platoon sergeant, Vestor Lowe, remarked, “Hitler would be damned unhappy if he knew that the two guns which caused so much trouble were commanded by an Italian and a German— Celentano and Hauser.”

Allied Air Support

Peiper’s column continued passing through Stavelot. “My troops did their best as they fought street by street,” recalled Mitchell. Some of the men from his 3rd Platoon withdrew north on the Francorchamps road toward fuel depot No. 3, the smaller of the two depots in the region holding 1,115,000 gallons of 80-octane gasoline. Evacuation of the fuel had already begun. Fearing that German forces were going to seize the fuel, Belgian guards and men from the 3rd Platoon of Mitchell’s company set a section of the depot on fire. Peiper knew nothing of these depots, and as 124,000 gallons of fuel were going up in flames his main column was advancing toward the crucial bridges of Trois Ponts, where the Ambléve meets the Salm River.

As Peiper’s task force lunged for the crossings at Trois Ponts, Company C, 51st Combat Engineer Battalion detonated charges on the key bridges, sending them crashing into the Ambléve and Salm Rivers below. With the favored route now denied, Peiper’s main column detoured northwest to the town of La Gleize and then southwest into the village of Cheneux. With clearing weather, Allied fighter-bombers took to the skies, and as U.S. Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and British Hawker Typhoons struck the German task force, Peiper took cover in an old concrete bunker.

The Germans returned fire with their four-barreled Wirbelwind 20mm antiaircraft guns that were mounted on type IV tank chassis. One P-47 was shot down and eight others damaged. About eight vehicles were hit during the air attack, but the major loss for Peiper was precious time.

The Allied air attack delayed the German advance, providing time for A Company, 291st Engineers to prepare charges on the Neufmoulin bridge. As the lead Panther approached the bridge over the Lienne River, it was blown in their faces. With no other bridges in the vicinity capable of handling the weight of heavy German tanks, Peiper was forced back toward La Gleize. His fuel was critically low, and a number of his tanks ran out of gas. Belgian observers reported 125 German vehicles including 30 tanks passing through the town of Rahier. Peiper spent the night resting in the Chateau Froidcour just east of Stoumont.

“Those So and So’s are German Royal Tigers”

Throughout the night of December 18, men from the 119th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion settled into Stoumont. James Pendleton of Headquarters Company recalled, “We just parked our vehicles in the street, went in the buildings, and laid down. We had been on the road for two days and most of two nights. And along about … two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by … Lieutenant Goodman…. He came up and nudged me with his foot and he said, ‘Jim you hear that noise out there?’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, I do. Why don’t those so and so’s lay down and go to sleep?’ And he said, ‘Those so and so’s are German Royal Tigers….’”

Lieutenant Walter J. Goodman ordered Pendleton and two machine gunners from I Company to prepare a roadblock with antitank mines. Staff Sergeant Walter Kos, 1st Platoon, I Company, received orders from Captain George D. Rehkoph, “There’s somebody out there running around with a lot of tanks and I want you to find them.”

Kos and four others traveled by jeep to the area east of Stoumont. The driver stayed behind while the others proceeded through a wooded area on foot until they came upon the enemy from a concealed position. “They were washing up, eating, making a fire, and changing their clothes,” remembers Kos. “There were 30 … tanks there.” Kos reported the findings to his company commander, who relayed them up the chain of command.

The previous night Robert Hall and two others with Headquarters Company had been ordered by Lieutenant Goodman to set up an observation post on a hilltop overlooking the east side of Stoumont. They found a small farm house, and Hall remembered, “We tried to get a little sleep and then at the break of dawn we look out and here comes the whole German Army, tanks and soldiers…. I ran down into Stoumont and I couldn’t go any further because they were coming right at us. So I went into this house and went down to the cellar. There was  20 to 25 of us soldiers there. I knew they were coming now, so I went to the cellar window and looked out and I could see about 10 feet away an infantry soldier with his rifle.”

Hall, who had received a Silver Star while serving in Normandy, looked around for some place to take cover. Without no other option, Hall and the others surrendered.

A Silver Star For Sergeant Kos

Meanwhile, Sergeant Kos and the men were ordered to stall the enemy’s advance into Stoumont. The lieutenant in charge abandoned the platoon. “He had it planned, I think, to get the hell out,” said Kos. “He knew that place was hot and I did too. We were in front for a delaying action.” Over the radio Kos remembered Captain Rehkopf informing him, “Don’t forget now, you’re in charge…. If you get out of this, I’ll make sure you have your own platoon.”

For the actions that followed, Kos would be decorated with a Silver Star, undergo five back surgeries, and receive decades of psychiatric treatment.

When German tanks approached the 3rd Platoon’s position, Kos helped direct the fire of two Sherman tanks from C Company, 743rd Tank Battalion. He gave the signal as soon as the lead German tank was about to come around a corner.

“So the two Shermans fired at the lead tank, knocked the track off of it and damaged the turret,” said Kos. Gallantly moving through a murderous hail of machine-gun, small-arms, and tank fire, Kos continued directing fire that destroyed two enemy half-tracks. The heroic action delayed the enemy long enough for a new defensive line to be established.

When an advancing enemy tank rammed its own disabled tank off the road, Kos’s position was jeopardized. He recalled, “That’s when they started coming after us. We were fighting them house to house and then I got separated from the other guys.”

Kos ducked into one of the houses and went upstairs. “I could see the tank and six Germans, six SS guys coming down the road,” he said. “I knew that if I shot a couple of them, which I could of, that they were going to get me anyway.” When one of the SS troopers came to the front door of the house, Kos decided to escape out the back window of the second floor. The SS trooper threw a grenade into the room, and as Kos opened the window the blast sent him flying to the ground below.

Kos landed on his back hard, but with adrenaline masking the pain he ran into a nearby house. Inside about a dozen men from 3rd Platoon were hiding from the enemy. As the German tank approached, the men decided to run for it. Kos remembers. “The guys started crossing the road. The Germans were picking them off left and right. They wanted to escape. They heard about … the massacre at Malmedy. So they figured they didn’t want to get shot…. But they had that road zeroed in, I told them don’t go, don’t cross that road…. So they start crossing it. Jeez! They were getting shot and we tried to pull them back in. They were wounded. We couldn’t, because as soon as you went out there, hell … they were shooting and their Tiger was coming down.”

The German tank stopped outside the house and an SS trooper called out in German, “You’re surrounded.”

Kos remembered, “We knew what the hell that meant—put your hands on your head—so we came out. They lined us up and they start marching us to the rear and they were kicking us, gave us all a whack. As they were marching us up the German troops start coming in. Everybody took a whack at us, oh with the guns and every damn thing, my neck, my back.”

“Well, I’ll Give Up”

As German tanks in Peiper’s column forced their way through the streets of Stoumont, James Pendleton of Headquarters Company placed his allotted antitank mines in the path of the oncoming enemy. He saw a German tank run over one of the mines and burst into flames.

“I had two I Company machine gunners with me,” Pendleton said. “I had a guy from Hagerstown, Maryland, by the name of Red Aldrich and also a guy from Memphis, Tennessee … we called him Memphis, that’s the only nickname I knew him by.”

When the Germans opened their hatches in an attempt to escape the burning tank, Aldrich and Memphis “took care of them as they crawled out….” With the onslaught of German tanks and infantry pouring into Stoumont, the men were soon forced to take cover in a storeroom with a large front window.

“A German tank rolled up and stuck the barrel of the 88 through the glass front,” recalled Pendleton. “And a guy raised the turret and a German said, he had on a G.I. uniform, ‘You give up, or you want me to blast you.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll give up.’ And the jeep was parked at a side door. So we had to come out the side door anyway and the jeep was sitting there idling. And I told the guys, I said, ‘I’ll drive it. You guys ride it.’ The two guys that were with me, Aldrich and Garrison, they filed in the back of the jeep and I jumped in the driver’s side.”

Pendleton sped off in a desperate attempt to put as much distance between the jeep and the German tank as possible. He recalled, “Well this tank, he backed out and he started shooting point-blank, 88 shells at us. And I got down the road about 50 feet and there sat a German half-track with twin mounted 20s on it. And as I passed him, he shot down on the side of me and I pulled the jeep from second gear down to high gear and that time the shell hit my right arm.”

The antiaircraft shell took off about four inches of the radius and ulna bones near the elbow of Pendleton’s forearm. The jeep lost control as it neared a curve in the road and flipped over, throwing its occupants through the air. Aldrich and Memphis scrambled to their feet and managed to take cover behind some bushes.

Pendleton’s Escape

“It was humanly impossible to get out of the situation I was in after I was shot,” said Pendleton. “I said, ‘Lord if you won’t save my body, save my soul,’ and that gave me courage…. Well, I get on my feet and there was a building next door and I ran in that door. The room was full of Germans…. And a big red-headed German stuck a burp gun in my face and I grabbed it with my left hand and shoved it away and he either fired it empty or it jammed. I don’t know which and when it quit I sailed out the door again. But the street was moving with tracers. You could see it, just like sheet metal moving down the street. Anyhow there was a wireman nearby by the name of Joe Duval. He was from Indiana and he stopped just a second and cut my sleeve off and tied a tourniquet on me and on he went. I stood there and I was getting weak. There was no place to go.”

German vehicles and infantry continued through Stoumont. Pendleton leaned against a building to rest and gazed at the street corner where his jeep had overturned. Aldrich and Memphis were nowhere to be seen. Then from around the corner a Sherman tank appeared and fired its gun. The Sherman withdrew and then reappeared to fire again. It continued this strategy for some time, and finally Pendleton was able to attract the tank crew’s attention by leaping out in the middle of the street.

Pendleton yelled, “Come and get me, I’m an American!” The tank fired and then withdrew again. When it returned one of the tankers yelled from an open hatch, “We can’t get you in, but we can get you on the left side of the road if you could ride the barrel out. When I rev it three times you’ll know I’m coming all the way.”

The tank continued to maneuver from around the corner. Upon hearing the Sherman’s engine rev three times, Pendleton moved to the location as instructed, and when the tank reappeared the barrel was positioned for him to grab.

“I hooked my left arm and grabbed a hold of my belt and he rode me back around the curve,” says Pendleton. “I was suspended in the air on the opposite side of the road from where the Germans were. They sandblasted the tank…. They shot all the paint off of it.” With exhaustion setting in, Pendleton’s grip around the barrel loosened, and he fell to the ground, nearly being crushed by the tank that had just saved his life. The 119th Infantry Regiment’s 3rd Battalion suffered 267 casualties defending Stoumont. Most of the 152 left behind to cover the battalion’s withdrawal were captured.

2,226,000 Gallons of Gasoline

Peiper sent a small probing force west past the hamlet of Targnon until three of the leading Panthers were destroyed. By Tuesday, December 19, his task force had advanced over 100 kilometers, farther than any other German unit. However, supply shortages, particularly fuel, were becoming critical. “We began to realize,” he said, “that we had insufficient gasoline to cross the bridge west of Stoumont.”

In an ironic twist of fate, that very afternoon one of Peiper’s reconnaissance groups probing a secondary road from La Gleize to Spa had narrowly missed 2,226,000 gallons of gasoline. To prevent fuel depot No. 2 from falling into German hands, a minefield had hastily been laid and Headquarters Company of the U.S. 9th Armored Group had been ordered to provide a radio security net for the First Army.

When radio net officer 1st Lt. Walter R. Butts heard enemy activity in the area he requested additional support. The 110th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion sent in two 90mm antiaircraft guns and four M-51 quadruple .50-caliber machine guns. Peiper’s reconnaissance group of two armored cars, two trucks, and two self-propelled 88mm guns reached a point about a mile north of Cour, near the southern edge of the minefield. Two Germans got out of the leading armored car and walked to the minefield.

An American opened up with a .50-caliber machine gun, and the Germans immediately returned fire, killing the gunner. Then all the machine guns opened up while other Americans let loose with small arms fire.

“Jerry must have thought he hit a regiment,” Butts said. “I don’t know how much damage we did; we made a hell of a lot of noise. After 10 minutes, the [German] column pulled out….”

“We Got the Daylights Kicked Out of Us”

By Wednesday, December 20, Peiper faced his enemy on three fronts. Throughout the day and into the night the main concentration of his forces, spread through Stoumont, Cheneux, and La Gleize, fought off elements of the U.S. 30th Infantry, 82nd Airborne, and 3rd Armored Divisions. Three separate task forces from the 3rd Armored Division’s Combat Command B were involved. Task Force Lovelady was given the important job of cutting off the Stavelot-Stoumont road to prevent supplies from getting to Peiper. Task Force Jordan made a thrust toward Stoumont and was beaten back when two American tanks leading the column were knocked out.

Task Force McGeorge attempted to advance into the northeastern outskirts of La Gleize. Charles Ley, a loader in a Sherman tank with I Company of the 33rd Armor Regiment recalled, “We were at the crest of the hill … waiting for our armored infantry to come up…. It was so foggy down below, you couldn’t see anything…. All of a sudden the Lieutenant gets on the horn and says, ‘Okay fellows button up, prepare to fight…. We got up to the corner and the road turned to the right leading into the town. Our lead tank got hit and knocked out and that was the end of our push up that hill.”

When the fog lifted for a short time a German knocked out another Sherman commanded by Lieutenant Wanamaker. When the Sherman advance toward La Gleize stalled, the infantry continued. “We got the daylights kicked out of us, boy we ran into an ambush,” remembers Robert Kauffman who served in D Company, 36th Armored Infantry Battalion. Under the cover of darkness, the men crossed a small narrow bridge and then made their way up a hill.

Kauffman recalled, “We had just crossed over a brook, and when we heard the bolt of a machine gun being put into the firing position everybody hit the ground. All of a sudden there was firing all over the place, and they were dropping grenades in on us. Fortunately, the machine gun had been preset to fire on the bridge and that’s where the fire was going, the bridge that we had crossed. We were all, of course, flattened out, and then they were yelling at us to surrender. That becomes very disconcerting when the enemy starts yelling at you, and word was passed up the line that we should pull back. One of our guys crawled in the wrong direction, and he was captured. I don’t know why he did that, but anyway we had to cross this little stream and there was a barbed wire fence that went … parallel with the stream. It was too low to go under it, too high to go over it. So the guy that was behind me became impatient, and he literally pushed me over the barbed wire across to the other side of the brook.”

With intense fire still coming from the Germans, Kauffman began to crawl down the hill. “I was passing guys lying there, and I was sure they were dead,” said Kauffman. When he was out of the trajectory of fire, he got up. “Finally there was another guy and I ; we made it down the hill, but we couldn’t use the bridge to get out of there. We had to ford the stream that the bridge ran over, and this is December you know so it was pretty chilly water. I seen a lot of the guys come through the stream, but I don’t know how many got off the hill.”

Major Hal McCown’s Encounter With Joachim Peiper

Fighting on three sides, Peiper’s task force was considerably weakened. By Thursday, December 21, Peiper consolidated his forces to the more easily defendable hilltop village of La Gleize. Task Force McGeorge continued to press an attack on the village, making little headway. To avoid the tragedy of forcing Sherman tanks into La Gleize, where the heavy German tanks waited, the Americans relied on artillery. An intense artillery barrage blanketed the town as Peiper established his command center in the cellar of a large house.

Major Hal McCown, the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 119th Infantry Regiment, had been taken prisoner. He met with Peiper in his command and later wrote, “I have met few men who impressed me in as short a span of time as did this German officer…. He was completely confident of Germany’s ability to whip the Allies. He spoke of [SS Reichsführer Heinrich] Himmler’s new reserve army at quite some length, saying that it contained so many new divisions, both armored and otherwise, that our G-2s would wonder where they all came from. He did his best to find out from me of the success the V-1 and V-2 were having and told me that more secret weapons like those would be unloosed…. The German Air Force, he said, would now come forth with many new types and which although inferior in number to the Allies would be superior in quality and would suffice their needs to cover their breakthrough in Belgium and Holland and later to the French coast.”

At 5 am on Friday, December 22, following a six-hour meeting with Peiper, Major McCown was taken to a cellar with four other American officers. He vividly remembered, “All that day American artillery pounded the town incessantly, even the guard detachment—consisting of 5 Germans—came down into our cellar with us, which was heavily overcrowding the tiny room. In the afternoon a 105 shell made a direct hit on the wall of our cellar, throwing the German sitting beside me half-way across the room. A hole approximately 2½ feet in diameter was knocked in the wall. Lieutenant Henley and Lieutenant Youmans of my regiment helped pull the German out from under the rubble and got him on the floor of the undamaged part of the cellar. Within a few minutes another shell landed a few feet outside the hole in the cellar wall, and shrapnel and stone flew through the room. Lieutenant Henley was killed instantly, and three Germans were wounded. One of the Germans died within about 30 minutes. We administered first aid as well as we could. For several hours then the shelling continued without appreciable letup, and the dead and wounded together with those who were unhurt were cramped close together in the unharmed half of the small cellar.”

Late in the afternoon, parties of American enlisted men came to the cellar and removed the dead and wounded; the litter bearers told me that German casualties had been heavy throughout the town.

The Offensive Runs Out of Fuel

The Germans engineered the most powerful tanks of World War II, but without the fuel to run them they were useless. Between 2 and 3 am on Sunday, December 24, Peiper and about 800 of his unwounded men walked out of La Gleize. Most of the vehicles they left behind were out of fuel.

On Christmas Day, elements of the 740th Tank Battalion recovered an unwrapped gift, a Tiger II left behind by the 3rd Company of Peiper’s 501st SS Heavy Tank Battalion. It was shipped to the United States and examined at Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The tank was later displayed at the Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and now rests in a warehouse at Fort Benning, Georgia.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Lionel P. Fatton

Security, Asia

Only America can stop it from occurring.

Stuck between an assertive China, a nuclearizing North Korea, and an increasingly unreliable United States, Japan is mulling the acquisition of strike capabilities. Its upcoming missile defense policy could destabilize East Asia. The United States must act.

While Americans are absorbed by the battle against coronavirus, street protests, violence, and the presidential campaign, the rest of the world is moving fast. In Japan, where Yoshihide Suga replaced Shinzo Abe as prime minister following the latter’s abrupt resignation, an upcoming revision of its missile defense policy raises the prospect of regional tensions, destabilization, and ultimately, conflict. Washington should pay close attention to this development and respond appropriately, or face long-lasting and serious consequences for its interests in the Asia-Pacific.

Since 1951 and the conclusion of the Mutual Security Treaty, Japan has relied on the alliance with the United States for security. By 1960 and the revision of the original treaty, Japanese parliament resolutions and government decisions had enshrined the principle of “exclusively defense-oriented policy.” The spear and shield alliance structure was born: the United States would use bases in Japan to protect its ally and project military power globally, while Japan would provide host nation support and focus on defending its own territory.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, missile threats from North Korea and China rose to prominence. Japan faced the menace through the alliance. The country strove to build a missile defense system made of land-based and sea-based interceptors. The United States, in addition to helping Japan in its endeavor, maintained the offensive capabilities necessary to punish other countries for potential attacks on its ally. Deterrence was guaranteed by the combination of the Japanese shield and American spear.

Japan’s geostrategic situation has deteriorated significantly over the past few years. China has grown increasingly assertive and North Korea has continued to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals. Japan initially focused on reinforcing its shield against missile threats. In late 2017, a year marked by tensions between the United States and North Korea, Tokyo decided to introduce a new missile defense asset, the Aegis Ashore. In June of this year, however, the Japanese government suspended its deployment due to cost issues and safety concerns for local communities. This reversal triggered renewed debates about Japan’s missile defense policy, decisionmakers being aware that the current missile shield is inadequate to protect the country.

Although the option of strengthening the missile defense system further is still on the table, including through the construction of ships exclusively dedicated to this mission, an alternative is gaining momentum: the acquisition of strike capabilities. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed in August to consider the “possession of the ability to intercept ballistic and other missiles even in the territory of an opponent.” And outgoing Prime Minister Abe, while not mentioning offensive capabilities, declared a few days ago that a new missile defense policy would be unveiled by the end of the year. Tokyo may not content itself with a shield anymore, it may want its own spear.

If Japan takes this path, the consequences for the stability of East Asia will be far-reaching. Given historical and political animosities between Japan and its neighbors, the acquisition of strike capabilities would raise tensions and the prospect of a regional arms race, with China in particular. Commenting on the possible introduction of ships solely dedicated to missile defense, China Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said this “could trigger an arms race of missiles” and result in “regional peace and security [being] severely undermined.” One can only speculate about Beijing’s reaction to Tokyo’s purchase of offensive capabilities, but it is unlikely to be benign.

Another effect of Japan’s potential acquisition of strike capabilities concerns alliance dynamics with the United States. If the asymmetric spear and shield structure puts part of the burden of Japanese defense on the United States, leading President Donald Trump to describe the alliance as “unfair,” it also provides Washington with substantial control over Tokyo’s security policy and behavior, especially when it comes to offensive operations. From the American viewpoint, this reduces the risk of Japan acting recklessly. In case Japan obtains the capacity to autonomously attack an opponent’s territory, Washington’s ability to restrain Tokyo in its tense relations with neighboring countries will decline, raising the specter of entrapment.

The prospect of entrapment is even higher when one takes into account that wielding the spear demands expertise and experience. To forestall attacks or provocations with offensive capabilities does not only imply know-how in terms of military assets’ deployment, readiness and use, it also requires sending clear and timely signals to the intended audience about acceptable behaviors and redlines. This necessitates seamless cooperation at the highest level between the government, the ministry of defense and the ministry of foreign affairs. Japan has had no experience in handling offensive capabilities since 1945, and state institutions are still plagued by balkanization. Given the tense regional environment, the possibility of uncontrolled escalation cannot be ruled out.

What should the United States do? To answer, one needs to recognize that Tokyo’s intention to acquire strike capabilities for missile defense is puzzling because, within the alliance framework, the United States already contributes to the defense of Japan with such assets. Then, one ought to admit that this potential duplication of American forces would largely be explained by the fact that the United States is not the reliable ally it used to be.

Although structural factors dating back to the George W. Bush and Barack Obama eras enter the picture, Trump’s unpredictable and transactional diplomacy has pushed alliance uncertainty to new heights. His withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January 2017 as the first major decision of his presidency raised doubts about the United States’ engagement in the Asia-Pacific. The threat of tariffs on Japanese car imports to force Japan into a trade deal in late 2019, which arguably ran against Article II of the alliance, triggered distrust and resentment in Tokyo. And Mr. Trump’s alleged request for a fivefold increase in Japan’s host nation support gives Tokyo the impression that American soldiers are mere mercenaries, and thus that Japanese and American strategic interests diverge. When asked by The New York Times what would be his reaction if allies refused to share the burden of American troops’ presence on their territories, Trump replied: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”

Washington has little control over the Chinese and North Korean components of Japan’s security equation. It can and should, however, reassure Japan about its security commitments. While  Suga’s decision to pick a novice defense minister in the person of Nobuo Kishi, Shinzo Abe’s younger brother, may indicate a low priority for security issues, American decision-makers have until the end of the year to make sure the new Japanese missile defense policy does not take the wrong path. The time is running out; urgent action is needed. Otherwise, the United States could wake up from the presidential election with another Asian headache.

Lionel P. Fatton is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Webster University Geneva. His research interests include international and security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific, China-Japan-U.S. relations and Japan’s defense policy. His latest book, Japan’s Awakening: Moving toward an Autonomous Security Policy, was published in 2019.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Security, Americas

Thanks to the Air Force.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Despite this widespread belief that the B-21 is a revolutionary stealth platform, perhaps the greatest margin of difference with the new bomber is in its onboard computing, mission systems, avionics and internal technical configuration. Not only will the platform draw upon advanced artificial intelligence and information processing, but its data management systems are said by senior Air Force weapons developers to incorporate never-before-seen technologies.

Will the new B-21 stealth bomber effectively carry and release weapons? Will its next-generation stealth technology keep its infrared (IR) signature low and help it evade complex air defenses? Will its structure, airframe and flight envelope hold up as expected? What about its mission systems and onboard avionics? 

These questions encompass the focus of U.S. Air Force testers now laying the groundwork and conducting simulations in anticipation of the first flight of what many regard as the greatest stealth platform ever to exist, the new B-21. 

Sometime next year, the new bomber will take off for the first time from Edwards Air Force Base, California, at the U.S. Air Force Test Center.

“With a program like the B-21 we are doing firsts. We are exceptional risk managers. We live for doing firsts, so our team will figure out a way to manage that first flight,” Major General Christopher Azzano, Commander, Air Force Test Center, told The National Interest in an interview. 

While the first flight will likely just be a short trip to test the basic structure of the airframe and the aircraft’s flight envelope, the flight will begin an elaborate process of preparing the bomber for war. 

“These systems are so complex. There will be basic airframe evaluations, proof or expansion of the flight envelope and assessments of all of the mission systems that need to be proved out. With every aircraft we have to feel confident that we meet our design specifications,” Azzano said. 

Moving forward, other assessments will include tests of the landing gear, additional structural dynamics such as the load on the airframe and onboard avionics. 

Azzano emphasized that he would discuss the general procedural aspects of the test program, explaining the details regarding key elements of technological development were being addressed by other senior Air Force weapons developers. Citing the work of the B-21 Special Program Office, Azzano made a point not to elaborate upon weapons specifics, technologies or other nuances of the aircraft’s developmental trajectory.

Naturally, for the B-21 many are placing special emphasis upon computational thermodynamics and assessments of the IR signature. The aircraft is reported to be the stealthiest ever to exist, and while many technical details regarding its composition are likely not available for security reasons, images of the airframe indicate what could easily be called an unprecedented demonstration of advanced stealth technology. 

For example, not only is the blended wing-body even more horizontal and gradually sloped than its predecessor the B-2, but its fuselage also appears to have a more gradual incline. Moreover, perhaps of greatest significance, there do not appear to be any external exhaust structures. All of these changes in the plane’s shape will help to reduce its radar signature and keep the bomber stealthy.

Furthermore, in addition to having a buried engine and IR suppressants, the aircraft may contain unprecedented innovations in the areas of heat management, heat emission and temperature control. The lower the difference in temperature between an aircraft and its surrounding atmosphere, the less detectable it is. 

Despite this widespread belief that the B-21 is a revolutionary stealth platform, perhaps the greatest margin of difference with the new bomber is in its onboard computing, mission systems, avionics and internal technical configuration. Not only will the platform draw upon advanced artificial intelligence and information processing, but its data management systems are said by senior Air Force weapons developers to incorporate never-before-seen technologies. Such a scenario could bring new levels of in-flight, intelligence-driven re-targeting, threat identification and sensor fidelity. 

The technical elements of the aircraft are also intended to support and further key Air Force strategic and tactical aims, such as the current move to improve “networking” and information sharing across the force. Azzano emphasized this, explaining that major platforms like the B-21 will no longer merely function as attack-combat platforms, but also operate as essential “nodes” throughout a meshed, interwoven cross-domain warfare data-sharing network. 

Azzano also said that advanced computing can really help pave the way for advanced testing, given that so much of the modeling, designs and internal systems are able to be replicated by computers.

“We are doing a lot of modeling and simulation so that the first time we take the aircraft airborne, we have done our due diligence,” Azzano said.

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Wikimedia.

Asaf Romirowsky

Security, Middle East

How can the United States make progress beyond the Arab states normalizing ties with Israel?

Against the backdrop of normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and more recently Bahrain, are continued condemnations by Palestinian leaders. Palestinian president Abbas called the moves a “stab in the back,” “despicable,” and a “betrayal.” Even so, rumors regarding Saudi normalization continue to circulate.

Momentum is palpable. How then to move forward with an “outside in” strategy for Palestinian-Israeli peace? Keeping pressure on Palestinian leaders while finding new means to address Palestinian needs is key.

First should be new emphasis on high-level U.S. diplomacy in Europe and the Middle East aimed at convincing donors to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the internationally funded welfare agency for Palestinians, to rechannel funds away from the organization and towards targeted education, social service, health, and development programs aimed at the Palestinians. UNRWA remains a mainstay of Palestinian rejectionism, characterized by advocacy for the “right of return.” Perhaps as important, UNRWA is a European fetish.

For better and for worse, the only person capable of doing this is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Only Kushner has the president’s full trust and understands his uniquely transactional mindset. And in contrast to the post-war decades of seeing the Palestinian issue as an isolated issue with unique importance, the Trump Administration sees it as merely one of many, tied to broader questions of peace, economic development, and a reduced American security footprint.

Tying changes in governmental funding for UNRWA (and for politicized NGOs that Europeans fund) to other issues of concern to European and Middle Eastern states is simple politics. This approach will be more successful than inertia-bound funding for UNRWA and the search for a perfect solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A second area for the administration combines foreign and domestic policy: the continued draining of the Washington “swamp,” which among other things has impeded Israeli-Palestinian peace. For example, for decades the U.S. Consul in East Jerusalem acted as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinians, undercutting broader U.S. policy. This politicized position has been eliminated. The longer term “Arabist” mindset within the State Department also contributed to mixed messages being spread regarding U.S. policy throughout the Arab world. Parallel attitudes immersed in intellectual and bureaucratic inertia have prevented long-overdue rethinking about NATO and other issues.

As was seen from the outside, the “Deep State”—the permanent foreign policy, intelligence and security apparatuses—resisted Trump’s policy changes. This was done mostly covertly, as State Department representatives refused to implement changes in policy, sometimes criminally, as the “Russiagate” scandal has shown.

Identifying, reassigning, firing, and otherwise changing the culture of these immense establishments is critical for American democratic accountability as well as for the execution of policy by the executive branch. The Palestinian issue is no exception.

But a critical complement to “draining the swamp” in Washington is draining the swamp in New York. Beyond UNRWA, Americans should be shocked at the extent to which the United Nations (to which the United States contributes approximately $10 billion) is uniquely dedicated to the Palestinian cause. In addition to the $1.4 billion UNRWA budget (to which the United States no longer contributes), the UN claims to spend another $400 million of the “State of Palestine.” This is approximately twice as much as it spends on Mozambique—a country with a population of 29.5 million.

It is unclear whether this figure includes funds spent by the UN on its vast internal Palestinian support infrastructure. This includes the General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs’ Division for Palestinian Rights, the unique database called the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” the “Quartet,” the countless reports, conferences, newsletters, and bulletins, or funds spent by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Security Council, the Human Rights Council (with its Special Rapporteur), or the Economic and Social Council, and their “civil society partners,” most of which support the Israel boycott movement.

Needless to say, no other cause receives even remotely this much money or institutional devotion from the UN. American policy should zero out contributions that are used by the UN to prolong the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a fight aimed at subverting Israel’s legitimacy as a state, promoting the Palestinian narrative of their martyrdom at the hands of Israel, and the international community’s putative responsibility to support them until their perfect solution is achieved.

It is a telling sign—of either desperation or overconfidence, certainly born of hope that the Democrats will retake the White House—that UNRWA is undertaking joint events with a leading U.S. boycott organization, American Muslims for Palestine. Former Vice President Joe Biden has promised to restore at least $350 million in UNRWA funding, as well as increasing funding to many other UN programs, including rejoining the World Health Organization. And while Biden himself has been firmly opposed to the Israel boycott movement, his campaign has reached out vigorously to anti-Israel activists.

The “outside-in” approach of defying conventional wisdom, taking chances, and demanding risk-taking and concessions on the part of allies like Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain, has paid significant dividends. Furthering that cause by defunding and redefining dysfunctional institutions both at home and internationally, getting U.S. aid directly to those in need, and creating a sense of urgency about opportunities that may be lost, should be expanded regardless of who occupies in the White House in 2021.

Alex Joffe is a Ginsburg-Milstein Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Asaf Romirowsky is executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. Both are senior nonresident scholars at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Image: Reuters.