The National Interest

Caleb Larson

Artificial Intelligence,

The artificial intelligence piloting program is rapidly gaining experience and could fly alongside manned pilots in the not-so-distant future.

The artificial intelligence pilot is steadily gaining experience and expanding the number of drones it can fly.

The United States Air Force successfully conducted an unmanned test flight of a General Atomics Avenger drone—controlled not by a pilot on the ground, but rather by the Skyborg autonomy core system. The flight came several months after the Skyborg technology flew a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako drone, and marked the second kind of aircraft that the autonomous piloting program is able to fly.

“This type of operational experimentation enables the Air Force to raise the bar on new capabilities, made possible by emerging technologies,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Dale White explained in an Air Force press release about the recent flight. “And this flight is a key milestone in achieving that goal.”

The Air Force Skyborg effort is in essence a complex artificial intelligence system that hopes to eventually allow low-cost, unmanned aerial platforms to fly in tandem with manned fighters. Having an autonomous, intelligent plane in the air alongside other Air Force platforms is of obvious benefit: by flying ahead of manned airplanes, unmanned and expendable airframes can be placed in high-risk airspace to fly scout and reconnaissance sorties to evaluate potential threats—or even, in theory, to pull the trigger on enemy aircraft or ground installations.

The Skyborg program however would like to take unmanned flight a step further. Rather than flying just one or several autonomous airplanes, the Air Force hopes that Skyborg could enable larger swarms of unmanned aircraft to fly in coordinated teams rather than just solo multiplying their combat effectiveness.

The General Atomics Avenger drone is one  of the company’s most advanced—and though company material on the drone does not state it explicitly—is thought to incorporate some radar-mitigating stealth features into its airframe. The Avenger utilizes a serpentine air intake duct intended to hide the engine's compressor blades from enemy radar and reduce potential radar return. In addition, the Avenger’s fuselage appears to be contoured in a stealthy fashion, and incorporates rectangular exhaust nozzles which are useful for preserving rearward stealth.

Air Force material on Skyborg is careful to state that Skyborg-flown unmanned systems would compliment rather than replace manned pilots, but will “provide them [pilots] with key data to support rapid, informed decisions.” In this way, Skyborg could “provide manned teammates with greater situational awareness and survivability during combat missions.”

“Flying the Skyborg ACS on platforms from two different manufacturers demonstrates the portability of the Government-owned autonomy core, unlocking future multi-mission capabilities for the Joint Force,” Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, Commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Skyborg Technology Executive Officer explained.

So while the Air Force Skyborg autonomy core system is still in its infancy, the artificial intelligence piloting program is rapidly gaining experience, and could fly alongside manned pilots in the not-so-distant future.

Caleb Larson is a defense writer with the National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

Trevor Filseth

Child Tax Credit,

Traditionally, the Child Tax Credit has been a rebate on a family’s taxes, deducted from their final balance when the family files their taxes in April. In previous years, the payment has been $2000 per child per year. However, as part of his COVID-19 relief plan, President Biden increased the payments.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The parents’ spending choices illuminate one of the strongest arguments in favor of a larger Child Tax Credit: parents tend to spend their credit money in ways that cause the money to return quickly to the economy, stimulating it and creating more total added value.

One of Biden’s most significant accomplishments from his first 100 days in office was the passage of the March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. The $1.9 trillion legislation provided for, among other programs, the third round of stimulus payments, which sent out $1400 to all eligible American adults and their dependents. The payments were credited with keeping roughly 16 million American adults out of poverty, and according to one survey, roughly 90 percent of Americans saw a noticeable financial benefit after receiving theirs.

Biden has attempted to replicate the success of the stimulus checks through his expansion of the Child Tax Credit, enacted under the same plan. Traditionally, the Child Tax Credit has been a rebate on a family’s taxes, deducted from their final balance when the family files their taxes in April. In previous years, the payment has been $2000 per child per year. However, as part of his COVID-19 relief plan, President Biden increased the payments to $3000 per year – with an extra $600 per year for children under the age of six, who are typically more expensive for families to pay for. The objective of the measure is to offset some of the costs of raising children, as parents have struggled financially during the pandemic.

The American Rescue Plan Act also called for the novel measure of sending out half of the tax credit payments in advance throughout the year. The first one is scheduled to be mailed on July 15 by the IRS. Observers have therefore compared the Child Tax Credit payments to small, monthly stimulus checks, targeted towards families. (The upper-income limit for the full credit is $75,000 per year for single parents or $150,000 per year for couples. In a perfect world, this would weed out parents who do not need the money, although in practice this means-testing does not always work.)

A simple fact often lost in the discussion, has been the human element and the needs of individual parents. Parents interviewed by USA Today were asked what they intended to spend the extra cash on; their responses were mostly mundane items, such as grocery bills, rent, and car repairs, although some parents expressed interest in recreational activities such as vacationing that they had gone without for the duration of the pandemic.

The parents’ spending choices illuminate one of the strongest arguments in favor of a larger Child Tax Credit: parents tend to spend their credit money in ways that cause the money to return quickly to the economy, stimulating it and creating more total added value. The objective of any “stimulus” payment is to increase cash flow, and one of the concerns that stimulus opponents had was that the money given out was not actually being immediately spent. For parents receiving the advance payments of the tax credit, however, this does not seem to be a problem.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for The National Interest.

Image: Flickr

Warfare History Network

Security,

Outside of England, at least 46 nations adopted the SMLE in its various guises, according to one estimate.

Key Point: Outside of England, at least 46 nations adopted the SMLE in its various guises, according to one estimate. India and Pakistan continue to use thousands of SMLEs, though they are no longer frontline weapons. Some Afghan fighters prefer the Lee-Enfield for its superior range compared to the AK-47.

(This first appeared several months ago.)

A small party of about 40 German soldiers had infiltrated the Australian lines around the besieged town of Tobruk, Libya, during the night of April 13, 1941. They began setting up a half dozen machine guns, several mortars, and even a pair of small infantry guns laboriously dragged through the desert sands. It was a foothold the Germans could use to expand into the perimeter and capture the town. They began firing at the nearest Australian unit, B Company of the 2-17 Infantry Battalion. The Aussies replied with rifles and machine guns, but it was tough going. A party consisting of Lieutenant Austin  Mackell and five privates, along with Corporal John Hurst Edmondson, decided to mount a counterattack to drive the Germans back.

The men clutched their bayoneted Lee-Enfield Rifles tightly and moved into the darkness, attacking the enemy fiercely despite the machinegun fire thrown at them. Edmondson was hit twice but continued on, killing one enemy with his bayonet. Nearby, Mackell fought as well, but soon he was in dire need of help. His bayonet broke and the stock of his Lee-Enfield was shattered while fighting the Germans, at least three of whom were now attacking the young officer. Edmondson waded into the fray without hesitation, shooting or bayoneting all of them with his rifle. During the action he was mortally wounded. His comrades, saved by his actions, carried him back to their own lines, where he died four hours later. The Germans were defeated and the line was restored. Edmondson’s feat of bravery was the talk of Tobruk afterward and he would be the first Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross in World War II.

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The Lee-Enfield rifle is one of the most widely used bolt-action military rifles in the world, surpassed only by the Model 1898 Mauser and its derivatives in sheer numbers. Entering service at the dawn of the 20th century, it is still seeing active use well into the present century. It is the iconic rifle of the British Empire and it is still seen everywhere the Empire went, from Europe to remote regions in Africa and Asia. Soldiers in Afghanistan today are still being fired upon with the same Lee- Enfields British troops carried over the top in World War I.

The Lee-Enfield had its origins in the late 19th century, when repeating rifles firing full-powered cartridges were coming to the fore. Its direct predecessor was the Lee-Metford, a similar bolt-action design that brought the British military a state-of-the-art weapon comparable to the latest Mausers. The rifle used a magazine and bolt system developed by American inventor James Lee. Approximately 13,000 were built in 1889 and distributed to the army for field testing. A gradual series of product improvements led to an upgraded model being standardized in 1892, but the rifle still suffered from a few weaknesses such as barrel wear and

poor sights. After testing, further refinements were made to the weapon, resulting in the Lee-Enfield Mark I in 1895. The name combined James Lee’s design with the Royal Small Arms Factory’s location at Enfield Lock, Middlesex. Thus the name of the famous rifle was established, even though further refinement continued over the following decade.

The standardization of the Lee-Enfield into its most long-serving form took a number of years and is a reflection of the state of rifle development in the early 20th century. At the time there was considerable discussion about the use of rifles versus carbines, the rifle being a full-length weapon with a barrel length of 30 inches or more for use by infantry. Carbines were intended for cavalry use and had shorter barrels for more convenient use on horseback, with lengths of 16 inches to 22 inches being common. Full-length rifles had the advantage of greater accuracy at long ranges. Most designs of the period had sights graduated for distances of 2,000 yards or more, but some critics felt that was too far for any sort of accurate fire and recommended a shorter rifle, which would save production material and lighten the soldier’s burden. Opponents of this view felt the rifle could be effective at long distances using volley fire and loathed any decrease in accuracy.

Eventually the argument for a shorter rifle prevailed, particularly as even a shorter rifle’s barrel was still capable of greater accuracy than the average conscript could achieve. In this era many armies were slowly transitioning to large forces of conscripts who would transition into the reserves for long periods after a few years of active service. Although Great Britain’s army was still a relatively small professional force optimized for securing a far-flung empire, it still took the new lessons to heart and set about perfecting its rifle design.

The result was the Short Magazine Lee- Enfield No. 1 Mk. III, standardized in 1907 and often abbreviated as the SMLE. The soldiers who carried it soon modified this acronym into the nickname “Smelly,” which bore no relation to their opinion of the weapon. As adopted, the rifle weighed just under 8 3⁄4 pounds with a barrel length of 25.2 inches. It had a detachable magazine that held 10 cartridges of .303-caliber ammunition, though in practice the magazine was most often reloaded using stripper clips rather than swapped out for a new one. A magazine cut-off device could be used to block the firer from loading fresh rounds from the magazine. This was thought to allow a more controlled rate of fire by making the shooter load a single cartridge at a time. The contents of the magazine could then be saved for heavy combat requiring a higher rate of fire or when ordered by a superior.

The Lee-Enfield’s sights were graduated to more than 1,000 yards. Originally, an unusual long-range sight was also added to the left side of the rifle’s stock for use in extended-distance volley firing. During World War I this volley sight, along with the magazine cut-off, would be deleted to simplify production. The bolt action was simple; in practice the user would chamber a fresh round by rotating the bolt handle upward and then drawing the bolt backward. This would eject a fired cartridge case. Pushing the bolt forward strips a new cartridge out of the magazine and pushes it into the chamber. Pushing the bolt handle down locks the bolt into place so the rifle can be fired. Critics state that the bolt design of the Lee-Enfield is weaker than the German Mauser’s. Although there is some truth in the assertion, it only comes into play with extremely high-powered cartridges such as those used to hunt large game. In practice, using standard military ammunition, the SMLE’s bolt is strong enough to handle the load.

Upon entering service, the Lee-Enfield went through a round of criticism, not unusual for a new weapon in any age. Shooting was a serious sport in England at the time and pundits criticized the Lee-Enfield for problems with accuracy, recoil, and weight. As expected, some took issue with the shorter barrel, claiming it was responsible for the accuracy issues. Most of the complaints came from expert riflemen, armorers, and similar experts. The average soldier seemed to have few such qualms, however, and the weapon soon gained an increasingly good reputation among them. For service use, it was robust, reliable, and effective. Its bolt action was quick and smooth, allowing a soldier to make fast followup shots. Its 10-shot magazine had twice the capacity of its contemporaries, enabling small units to lay down an impressive rate of fire and keep it up longer.

The first major test for the design came with World War I in August 1914. The British Army was small at the time, about 247,000 strong and fully half that number went to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Shooting skills had been emphasized after marksmanship problems were noted during the Boer War over a decade earlier, so the average English soldier was highly skilled with a rifle. It was not unusual for a soldier to achieve 25 aimed shots or more per minute. This came in handy during the first months of the war, when armies on the Western Front still maneuvered into battle, before the stalemate of the trenches trapped men below ground for four long years.

Private Frank Richards of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers used the Lee-Enfield in the First Battle of Ypres in the autumn of 1914. His unit was advancing by platoons across open fields when they took rifle fire from a wooded area 600 yards ahead. The platoon went into a prone firing position and opened fire with their Lee- Enfields. Soon a group of Germans began advancing toward the British, who poured fire into them. Richards recalled “We had our rifles resting on the bank … and it was impossible to miss at that distance. We had downed half a dozen men before they realized what was happening; then they commenced to jump back into the trench … but we bowled them over like rabbits…. We had expended our magazines, which held ten rounds—there wasn’t a live enemy to be seen and the whole affair had lasted half a minute.”

In the German Army the First Ypres became known as the “Massacre of the Innocents” due to the 25,000 student volunteers who fell to British musketry during the fighting. The amount of fire British units could produce was so heavy German General Alexander von Kluck reportedly believed his opponents were armed completely with machine guns. In fact, British battalions had only two apiece and were often short even that paltry number. Casualties were made worse by the close order troops often used when advancing early in the war.

By 1915 the days of mobile columns were over and the armies settled into trench systems that extended hundreds of miles. British casualties were heavy, which diluted the army’s overall skill level as quickly trained replacements took over for the now lost regulars. Still, a few skilled marksmen remained, appearing from their trenches to take snap-shots at the enemy before ducking back down. A Canadian, Private Henry Norwest, was famed for his quick-shooting skills. He was a Metis Indian who was noted for his ability to rise, aim, fire, and reload before aiming and firing again in less than two seconds. Over time he is known to have killed at least 115 enemy troops before a sniper felled him in August 1918. Such shooting became harder as more German snipers were equipped with telescopic sights for their weapons. The SMLE saw its own sniper version as well, known as the No. 1 W (T).

Conditions in the trenches were hard on rifles and the SMLE was no exception. Mud could clog the action or the barrel. As a countermeasure, soldiers would plug the barrel with a cork or place a sock over the muzzle. A canvas breech cover was produced that could be clipped over the bolt and receiver to protect it from dirt and the elements. Keeping a weapon clean was a true challenge in the filthy conditions of trench warfare; soldiers could be charged with an offense for having a rusty or dirty rifle so maintenance took an even larger part of an infantryman’s time. The Lee-Enfield was a quality weapon with close tolerances in manufacturing, so extra care had to be taken, but if care was given the rifle stayed in action. Rifles with worn-out barrels were used to launch rifle grenades.

The disadvantage of having such a well-made weapon came on the production end. Only 108,000 rifles were made annually before the war began, not enough to equip the British Empire’s forces once the war was underway. Great increases were made once the conflict started; for example, from August to December 1914 approximately 120,000 SMLEs left the production line. This still was not enough so older Lee-Metfords were used for training and other designs were adopted as substitute standard weapons, in particular the P-14 Enfield made in the United States and called the No.3 Mark I in British service. Rifles were even ordered from as far away as Japan. SMLE production continued to increase. In 1917 more than 1.2 million rifles left the factory and more than 1 million in 1918.

After the war the SMLE again became the standard for the army with the substitute designs being placed in storage. While development between the wars did occur in semi-automatic weapons and new cartridges, scarcity of funds and abundance of rifles and leftover ammunition meant the Lee-Enfield served on in the hands of Imperial troops around the world. The biggest advancement was in redesigning the rifle to simplify production in the event of another war. The barrel was made slightly heavier to improve accuracy, and the sights were reconfigured and the muzzle was changed so that the barrel protruded slightly and was fitted with a new spike bayonet instead of the long blade-type from the previous conflict.

The improved SMLE was designated the No. 4 Mark I. It was approved for service just as World War II began. Initially, many soldiers did not take to the new rifle, preferring their old No.1 Mark IIIs. Despite this, more than 4.2 million No.4s were made by the end of World War II. Only about 10 percent of them were made at Enfield while the rest were made at the various factories set up around the Empire to increase production. The Australians continued to make the older Mark at their Lithgow Arsenal, having never adopted the No. 4. The Ishapore Rifle Factory in India also turned out the No. 1. The newer Mark was made in Canada at the Long Branch Factory near Toronto and in the United States by the Savage Arms Company. The American-produced rifles were stamped “U.S. Property” to help justify their distribution through the Lend-Lease program. The SMLE had truly become a worldwide rifle.

Most of the combatants started World War II using rifles very similar to those they used to fight the previous conflict, and often they were the same designs. A few semiautomatic rifles made their appearance early in the fighting, such as the American M1 and Soviet SVT-40. As the war continued, other nations, such as Germany, put forth their own new designs, including the first true assault rifle, the STG- 44. Nevertheless, most of the war’s riflemen still carried bolt-action weapons and the SMLE still outshone them all. The days of volley fire and rows of men in trenches were gone, but the Lee- Enfield’s smooth action and 10-round magazine still allowed Commonwealth soldiers to put out effective fire.

The SMLE No. 4 was also used to create variants, including a sniper model, the No.4 (T). It was a respectable long-range shooter, with good accuracy well past 600 yards. More than 24,000 were made and the design survived in British service into the 1970s and beyond. Two soldiers of the Cambridge Regiment, named Arthur and Packham, used their sniper SMLEs while hunting for a German sniper who had shot a British officer. For three days they stalked their opponent with no luck. But near the end of the third day Arthur spotted a wisp of smoke rising from some cover. The enemy marksman was having a cigarette. While Arthur spotted, Packham slowly slipped his rifle through their camouflage net. He took careful aim but could not get a good shot at the German. Now they knew the sniper’s hiding place, so they returned before dawn the next day and got ready. Shortly after 6 AM a German appeared. Just his head and shoulders were silhouetted in an opening in the vegetation. It was enough. Packham fired and was rewarded with a view of the enemy sniper’s rifle flying into the air as he collapsed.

The other major variant was the No. 5 Mk. 1, popularly known as the Jungle Carbine. It had a shorter barrel with a flash hider and cut down stock. It was lighter and handier but its recoil was harsh, which made it unpopular with the troops. Most were issued to troops in the Far East though the British 6th Airborne used them in Europe at the war’s end.

After the war ended the British Army retired the remaining No. 1s and retained the No.4 as its primary rifle. While the service experimented with a replacement, its soldiers took the SMLE into action again in Korea. In April 1951 the Gloucestershire Regiment’s 1st Battalion had to defend Hill 235 against several days of determined attacks by Chinese troops. Their Vickers machine guns ripped apart the enemy formations while the riflemen fired their SMLEs until the rifles were too hot to hold any longer. When that happened they picked up cool weapons from the dead and wounded. Sometimes a single bullet would fell two of three Chinese, so tightly packed together were the attacking regiments. The British eventually had to withdraw but they left behind some 10,000 enemy casualties.

Outside of England, at least 46 nations adopted the SMLE in its various guises, according to one estimate. India and Pakistan continue to use thousands of SMLEs, though they are no longer frontline weapons. Some Afghan fighters prefer the Lee-Enfield for its superior range compared to the AK-47. They still show up across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Even the Canadians still give them to rural northern militiamen known as the Canadian Rangers.

The British Empire created a rifle that has endured for more than a century. It is said the sun never set on the British Empire. Unlike the days of empire, the sun still has not set on the life of the SMLE for soldiers still carry it into combat in Asia and Africa. It shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon.

This article by Lee Miskimon originally appeared on Warfare History Network.

Image: Flickr. 

Warfare History Network

Security,

As the Allied offensive continued into Germany itself, the chemical mortar battalions moved forward.

Key Point: While the mortar units were a valuable asset, they were not without their problems.

In the last days of March 1945, a soldier named Carl Getzel sat on a hill outside the city of Aschaffenburg and watched as it was slowly destroyed. The young private was part of the American 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Division. His unit was tasked to take this town but it had been hard going; the German troops inside the city were putting up a determined defense.

At echelons far above Carl, the decision was made to bombard the city. Artillery and air strikes pounded the once-beautiful town, but from his vantage he saw the a third, little known weapon wreak its own havoc. Not far behind him sat Company C, 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, equipped with the M2 4.2-inch mortar. Bombs from the mortars flew overhead to land in the city. As he watched, the projectiles crashed into buildings, bringing several down. It was an awesome display of firepower; Company C would fire 1,519 rounds of ammunition into Aschaffenburg during the last three days of March alone.

The Making of the Chemical Mortar

Although this account describes the 4.2-inch mortar (commonly nicknamed the “four-deuce”) as a close support weapon for frontline troops, the weapon was originally conceived for delivering poison gas and smoke munitions. Development of the M2 began after World War I as an attempt to improve the British-designed Stokes-Brandt 4-inch mortar. Since the intent was to utilize the new mortar solely for chemical weapons (smoke being considered a chemical weapon of sorts), the weapon came under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service. That branch wanted a weapon that had a longer range and was more mobile than the Stokes design. In addition, it wanted a weapon that had the normal advantages of a mortar: high rate of fire, the ability to deliver firepower quickly and to go into action in a short time.

Mortars are smaller and lighter than cannon of comparable caliber and fire at a high angle, their rounds arcing high into the air and coming down at a nearly vertical angle to the ground. This enables mortars to fire at targets in defilade, hidden behind objects such as buildings or hills that would mask artillery fire. Mortar ammunition, technically called “bombs,” is not subjected to the same pressures as artillery shells so it can be made with thinner walls and of cheaper metals, enabling it to carry higher payloads of explosives or chemicals. The primary disadvantage of a mortar is its relatively short range.

Initial experiments conducted after World War I used leftover Stokes weapons and munitions, but these trials resulted in the improved 4.2-inch model’s appearance by 1924, under the tutelage of Captain Lewis McBride. Like many of the weapons destined to play a part in World War II, the M2 suffered from the curtailed defense budgets of the 1920s and 1930s. Only a few of the mortars were produced, and they remained largely experimental with trials continuing essentially up to the war’s beginning.

One set of experiments beginning in 1934 involved creating a high-explosive round despite the M2 being earmarked as a chemical weapon delivery system. While no one at the time wanted to give up the M2’s primary role of launching gas and smoke, it would prove a fortuitous decision, making it a true dual-purpose weapon when war arrived years later.

Despite this extensive testing and planning, the four-deuce almost did not survive to see combat. In 1935, the War Department stopped all production of the weapon and later designated

the smaller 81mm mortar as standard issue for chemical battalions. The 81mm was an excellent light weapon for the infantry, but for the chemical branch it was considered much less capable. It was not until war clouds were looming close that the 4.2-inch was resurrected after a meeting between General George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff, and the commander of the Chemical Branch.

The M2’s potential as a close support weapon was obvious, and the chemical branch immediately began campaigning to adopt the high-explosive ammunition; while smoke munitions were of obvious use, the war thus far had seen no use of poison gas. It would be a waste of resources to relegate the mortar to screening missions only, and soldiers in the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) saw it as a way to increase the role their branch would play in the war.

This would not be the last bureaucratic stumbling block for the M2. When the CWS presented the case for the mortar to the Army ground forces, it recommended the Field Artillery Board test the weapon first. Should the artillery approve the M2, it would be used as a substitute for the 105mm howitzer in theaters where that weapon was not in use.

Since there were few places the 105 did not go, it would be the death knell for the mortar. The services of Supply Branch supported the CWS, citing the mortar’s higher firepower, lighter weight, and lower manpower requirements for crews as reasons to adopt it alongside cannon. In the end, opposition simply died out, and high-explosive ammunition for the M2 was approved on March 19, 1943. The four-deuce was going to war.

The mortar that had been the center of such controversy had a caliber of 4.2 inches or 107mm. It was a conventional design in that it was muzzle loaded; the crew dropped rounds into the tube from the muzzle. The bomb would slide down the barrel, and its end would strike a firing pin that would detonate the propellant, sending the round back up the tube and on its way.

Unlike most mortars, the M2 had a rifled barrel to impart a spin to its projectile, increasing accuracy. The weapon was composed of three parts—the 175 pound baseplate that sat on the ground and absorbed the recoil of firing, a barrel 40.1 inches long, and the standard. This piece is connected to the baseplate by two connecting rods and has a single vertical piece that houses the elevating mechanism. The mortar is also equipped with an optical sight that lines up on aiming stakes similar to artillery. The entire assembly weighs 330 pounds.

The weapon could traverse seven degrees to the left or right, and elevation was between 45 and 60 degrees. Up to 20 rounds per minute could be fired for short periods, though this was often exceeded in combat. Minimum range was 600 yards. Maximum range, initially just over 2,000 yards, was improved by war’s end to 4,500 yards, again commonly exceeded in action. High-explosive bombs weighed in at about 25 pounds, while smoke rounds were heavier at 32 pounds. In practice the weapons were often called “chemical mortars” since they were only used by the CWS.

The early chemical mortar units varied in size from company to regiment. Standardization was soon introduced with the battalion as the standard unit, though a few separate companies did see service in the Pacific theater. Battalions had four companies, each with two platoons. A platoon was further divided into two sections, each with three mortars, totaling 12 weapons per company and 48 per battalion. By mid-1942, six battalions existed: the 2nd, 3rd, and 81st through 84th. Four more were created by mid-1943, the 85th through 88th.

Combat Debut in Italy

The baptism of fire for the M2 came with the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky. Four battalions—2nd, 3rd, 83rd, and 84th—were chosen to go ashore. There were two weaknesses. Only two companies of the 3rd Battalion had received amphibious training, and only the 2nd had conducted training alongside infantry units. Time limitations before the landing meant little work could be done to correct the problems.

Nevertheless, the mortar units went ashore and quickly proved their worth. When the Rangers fought at Gela, the 83rd supported them, helping repulse enemy tank and infantry attacks. The 2nd Battalion finished off a disabled German armored vehicle that was firing on American troops, firing eight rounds that all landed in an area only 15 yards in diameter with one round going right into the open top of the vehicle. The mortarmen also laid large smokescreens to screen friendly movements, in one case keeping the screen up for nearly 14 hours. Unit commanders were generally very positive about the effectiveness of the chemical mortar support, smoke, and high explosive, one even calling it “the most effective single weapon used in support of infantry.”

Still, as with any weapon new to combat use, some shortcomings were noted. Users wanted a longer range. At this point the M5A1 propellant gave a maximum range of 3,200 yards (the 4,500-yard M6 propellant was not yet available). The sight was also criticized as having too small a traverse and lacking illumination for night firing. Using typical G.I. ingenuity, Americans adapted captured Italian 81mm mortar sights, which proved to be a better piece of equipment.

After Sicily, chemical mortar battalions went on to serve at Salerno, Anzio, and throughout the Italian campaign. One battalion, the 83rd, became known as the “Artillery of the Rangers,” beginning its relationship with Colonel William Darby’s Ranger force at Gela on Sicily. The Rangers had no organic heavy weapons, and the M2’s firepower was a welcome addition. During the first two weeks of the Salerno campaign, C and D Companies alone fired more than 14,000 rounds. When the Rangers seized Chuinzi Pass and Mount Saint Angelo, they faced heavy counterattacks from German forces. The fighting became so desperate that mortarmen had to take their place on the line as infantry. Many targets were engaged up to 2,000 yards beyond the four-deuce’s range. The strain of such hard usage caused large numbers of breakages in mortar parts.

Still, the mission was accomplished and Colonel Darby later said the mortar battalion was instrumental in the success. In November, when the Rangers were fighting on the Winter Line, Company B supported them against a German counterattack with over 3,700 rounds. So many rounds were fired so quickly that one of the firing pins in an M2 fused from the heat. In return, German counterbattery fire destroyed two of the company’s ammunition dumps, sending more than 1,000 mortar bombs up in smoke.

When the Rangers went to Anzio in January 1944, the 83rd was still with them. Two companies, A and B, went ashore in the second wave, carried by DUKW amphibious vehicles. Their first fire mission was against an enemy 88mm gun that was shelling the beachhead, and fire from Company B drove it away. Darby ordered the mortars that had already landed to simply start firing in the direction of the Germans, saying, “I want the bastards to know I have something heavy, so they will start digging in. That will give me a chance to maneuver.”

As the Rangers moved inland, the mortarmen went with them although the soft ground played havoc with the weapons themselves, causing more breakages. When Darby’s Rangers made their ill-fated attack upon Cisterna, their “personal artillery” fired for them, trying in vain to cover their withdrawal from the Germans, who had encircled the embattled Americans. Only a handful of Darby’s men avoided death or capture.

While the mortar units were not likewise trapped, tragedy did strike them when the LST (landing ship, tank) carrying Companies C and D to Anzio struck a mine and sank. Even worse, many of the survivors were picked up by another vessel that itself struck a mine and sank with no survivors. The sad episode cost the lives of 293 soldiers; both companies were returned to Naples for replacements and reorganization before joining their battalion at Anzio in April.

The 84th Battalion also landed at Anzio and did its share, firing both high-explosive and smoke missions during the dreadful slugging match that became the battle for the beachhead. It fired over 50,000 rounds during the fighting through May 1944. Other chemical mortar units saw similar action throughout the Italian campaign, including the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion that took part in the fighting around Monte Cassino.

The M2 in Western Europe

When American forces landed in Western Europe, chemical mortars, having proven their worth, went with them. There was a shortage of trained units available, however, so only four battalions—the 81st, 86th, 87th and 92nd—were in theater for the Normandy invasion. The 81st landed on Omaha Beach with the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, while the 87th landed at Utah Beach with the 4th Division.

Once off the beaches, the mortarmen found themselves in the bocage country, fighting hedgerow to hedgerow with their comrades in the infantry. Casualties were heavy among the forward observer parties, and unit officers each took turns in that role. The chaotic nature of hedgerow fighting often meant the mortar crews had to fight as infantry and defend themselves when German troops infiltrated American positions or when the confusion of battle simply left a gap in the line.

When Operation Cobra, the Allied breakout from Normandy, began, Companies A and B of the 92nd were firing missions to support the 30th Division, itself poised to advance. A massive bombardment by Allied bombers took place to further soften German defenses. In a tragic miscalculation, some of the bombers dropped their payloads over American lines. Both mortar companies were hit with over 200 bombs falling in their battalion area. Beyond the 28 casualties the mortarmen suffered, General Lesley McNair, the Army ground forces commander, had come to France to observe the offensive and was in a position in front of A Company. He, too, fell to the errant barrage.

On August 15, 1944, Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, began. Two chemical mortar companies were selected to undergo glider training and land with the airborne forces taking part in the assault. These were D Company of the 83rd Battalion and A Company of the 2nd. They landed on the afternoon of D-day near Leluc, France. The next morning they fired concentrations against the town of Le Muy and supported the paratroopers during their missions afterward, Company A remaining with the airborne troops until mid-September.

As the Allied offensive continued into Germany itself, the chemical mortar battalions moved forward. At Aachen the 92nd fired an intense barrage to break up German wire barriers and then began a rolling barrage a mere 150 yards ahead of advancing infantry. When Third Army launched its assault on the fortress city of Metz, the M2’s fire proved ineffective against concrete bastions, but its ability to lay smoke provided much needed concealment during the frustrating and difficult attacks. Chemical mortar battalions served right up to the end of the fighting in Europe.

Problems With the M2

While the mortar units were a valuable asset, they were not without their problems. As the war continued, finding replacements for dead and wounded mortarmen became critical. Many new officers lacked thorough training, and enlisted men were scraped up wherever they could be found. Even when properly trained soldiers arrived, the replacement system often sent them anywhere but where they were most needed.

Another problem was the reliability of the M2 itself. Parts such as elevating screws and springs were breaking far too often, leaving units short of weapons. The screws seemed to be breaking because units were firing their mortars beyond maximum range, putting the weapons into unusual firing positions or using additional propellant. The springs, however, were criticized as being poorly made. If the spring did not work right, it placed added stress on all the other components of the weapon. Spare parts quickly became scarce.

The baseplate was also subjected to scrutiny, and an improved model, larger and heavier than the original, was produced in theater at a steel mill in Belgium. Another partial solution was to attach additional maintenance personnel to the battalions.

A third issue to arise was with the ammunition. Bombs were exploding either in the tubes or just after exiting upon firing. Suspect ammunition was impounded, but the problem continued to occur. Faulty fuses were the culprit, and artillery fuses were substituted.

The M2 in the Pacific

In the Pacific, the 82nd Chemical Mortar Battalion first saw action in New Georgia in September 1943. It went on to fight at Bougainville, where captured Japanese documents stressed to their own artillery to concentrate fire on mortar units whenever possible.

More mortar battalions and companies saw action in the Philippines. The weapons were even used to seal cave entrances, entombing Japanese defenders who refused to surrender. Similar to Europe, problems were encountered with the fuses, especially in the wet, humid conditions of the Pacific. At times ammunition shortages were the biggest handicap.

An innovative use of the M2 was as a fire support weapon for amphibious landings. This gave troops assaulting beaches a weapon to fill the gap between the time shore bombardment stopped and artillery was in place ashore. Mounted on LCIs (landing craft, infantry), the chemical mortars first saw action at Peleliu. The LCIs each mounted three mortars that fired forward over the bow. They would accompany the assault waves toward shore, firing preplanned bombardment on the beach and inland just ahead of the troops. Their fire proved so effective that the original group of four LCI(M)s (the M standing for mortar) was expanded to 60 boats by the end of the war. Many of these took part in the invasions of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

Though originally intended to fire only gas and smoke rounds, the four-deuce proved itself a valuable close-support weapon with the firepower of an artillery piece. It was so useful that a succeeding design, the M30, served the U.S. Army into the 1990s in the battalion mortar platoons of armored and mechanized units before being replaced by a 120mm weapon. The M2 helped prove the utility of the large- caliber mortar.

Originally Published December 31, 2018.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons. 

Caleb Larson

Iran, Middle East

Much of Iran’s ground (and air!) equipment is quite old, and some of it a strange combination of Russian main guns and other parts mated hulls the guns were never intended for.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Raad-1 is a classic example of Iranian weapon platforms—a strange mixture of legacy equipment repackaged and spun as “Iranian.”

The Iranian arms industry is a mashup of vintage American systems, legacy Soviet equipment, and a smattering of Chinese and North Korean imports. Much of Iran’s ground (and air!) equipment is quite old, and some of it a strange combination of Russian main guns and other parts mated hulls the guns were never intended for. The Raad-1 is just such a system.

The Raad-1 is a mixture of Soviet and domestic Iranian equipment. For a turret, the Raad-1 has a 2S1 Gvozdika turret mated to an Iranian Boragh armored personnel carrier hull. Though the exact specifications of the Raad-1 are hard to determine with certainty, a good estimate of its capabilities can be inferred by looking at what is known about the domestic hull and foreign turret.

2S1 Gvozdika

The Gvozdika is a 122 millimeter self-propelled howitzer that was originally fielded in the early 1970s. Interestingly for a self-propelled howitzer, it’s amphibious. The Gvozdika had decent range for its time, firing a standard high-explosive projectile 15+ kilometers, or over 9 miles. This range could be extended with rocket-assisted projectiles out to nearly 30 kilometers, or 13+ miles.

Boragh

Now things get confusing. The Boragh is believed by some to be an improved Iranian version of the Chinese Type 86 APC—which is itself a copy of the Soviet BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle. In addition to this convoluted pedigree, the Boragh may even use road wheels from the American M113 APC. It’s thoroughly confusing.

There are several Boragh variants that differ slightly, but generally fall into an anti-tank role, anti-aircraft, armored personnel carrier, or a mortar carrier. As I previously wrote, the anti-tank capability is ensured by the Toophan missile, a high-quality reverse-engineered copy of the American TOW missile.

The Boragh is equipped with a diesel engine that has a respectable 330 horsepower output, giving it good on and off-road capabilities. It has enough internal volume to carry 8 fully equipped troops in addition to three crew members.

Raad-1

The Raad-1 fuses these two very different technologies into one platform that apparently works. The crew of four (loader, gunner, driver, and commander) have access to the interior via the rear. Modest rolled steel armor protects the crew, though only from small arms and artillery shell splinters.

The Raad-1’s engine is housed in the front of the hull, giving the crew a slightly better amount of protection than if they rode in a forward configuration. The turret is mated to the hull near the rear, above the crew compartment. 

Judging by the Gvozdika, the Raad-1 probably has a similar maximum firing range of 15-plus kilometers or so, though the Raad-1 may suffer from reduced range and mobility, thanks to insufficiently wide tracks that may sink in soft or loose soil.

Either way, the Raad-1 is a classic example of Iranian weapon platforms—a strange mixture of legacy equipment repackaged and spun as “Iranian.”

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image, Reuters.

Warfare History Network

World War II, Americas

After about two minutes of machine-gun and cannon fire, men began popping out of hatches and jumping into the sea.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The intelligence materials taken from U-505 allowed Allied Naval Intelligence to read U-boat signals as fast as the Germans themselves, which helped them in their already successful war against Admiral Dönitz and his submarine fleet. All the elaborate grids and tables the Kriegsmarine had been using to track Allied shipping were now used against the U-boats.

“Frenchy to Blue Jay—I have a possible sound contact,” squawked from USS Guadalcanal’s bridge intercom at 1110 hours. It meant that “Frenchy,” codename for the Destroyer Escort USS Chatelain, had located something during a sonar sweep.

But Captain Daniel V. Gallery, commander of the escort carrier Guadalcanal (BlueJay) was not going to get excited, at least not yet. The sound contact could be a whale, a layer of cold water, or any number of other things. On the other hand, a “possible” was always treated like the real thing until found out to be otherwise.

“Left full rudder,” Captain Gallery ordered. “Engines ahead full speed.” He also sent two other destroyer escorts (DE) in to assist Chatelain, put two of Guadalcanal’s Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters over the sound contact, and “got the hell out of there at top speed.” Gallery knew that an aircraft carrier, even a small escort carrier, would only be in the way if the contact turned out to be a U-boat. “A carrier smack on the scene of a sound contact is like an old lady in the middle of a bar room brawl!” he once remarked. “She’d better move fast and leave room for the boys who have work to do.”

Captain Gallery knew about these things from experience. On his last cruise, Gallery and his hunter-killer group had sunk two U-boats, U-68 and U-515, within the space of 12 hours. He was well versed on how German submarine commanders behaved. This trip had begun on May 15, 1944, when Gallery departed Norfolk, Virginia, aboard Guadalcanal with five destroyer escorts: Chatelain, Pillsbury, Pope, Flaherty, and Jenks. His orders were to take his U-boat hunting group, officially known as Task Group 22.3, out into the Atlantic to look for more enemy submarines.

This time, though, Captain Gallery had something different in mind. During the last cruise, U-515 surfaced right in the middle of the task group. The escorting destroyer escorts hit the U-boat with every caliber gun they had, from five-inch to .50-caliber machine guns, before the boat sank. This gave Gallery an idea. “Suppose we hadn’t been so bloody minded about sinking her,” he thought. Before leaving Norfolk, Gallery assembled the captains of all the escort ships in his group and told them that they would try to capture a submarine, if possible, on this cruise.

If a U-boat came to the surface, as U-515 had done, everyone was to assume that the captain had come up to save the lives of the crew. Instead of sinking it, the destroyer escorts would open up with .50-caliber machine guns. This would keep the crew away from the U-boat’s deck guns and would also “encourage them to get the hell off that U-boat.” After the crew had abandoned the submarine, a boarding party would be sent over to disarm any booby traps, close all scuttling valves, do everything possible to keep the boat afloat, and rig it for towing back to the United States.

From the expression on their faces, Captain Gallery could see that some of the destroyer escort captains thought he must be crazy. Everyone present kept their mouths shut. They all organized boarding parties as ordered and waited to see what might happen.

Throughout the month of May, the possibility of capturing a U-boat remained a moot point. Captain Gallery’s hunter-killer group looked for submarines in the vicinity of the Cape Verde Islands, but could not find a thing. The results were “unproductive,” Gallery wrote with disgust in his report. Naval Intelligence sent word that a submarine was within 300 miles of the group, and Guadalcanal picked up radio transmissions on the U-boat frequency, but there had been no contacts. By May 30, the ships were all nearing the safe limit of their fuel. Gallery had no choice but to leave the area and head for Casablanca to refuel.

The task group started for Casablanca but kept a lookout for submarines along with way. On the night of June 2, radar contacts were reported about 50 miles east of the group’s position. Encouraged by these reports, Captain Gallery decided to spend another day on the search, even though it meant stretching his fuel.

When the Chatelain reported a possible sound contact at 1110 hours on June 4, Gallery gave the order to investigate the contact. As Guadalcanal left the area, Pillsbury and Jenks rushed over to help Chatelain. Chatelain’s captain fired a salvo of 20 hedgehogs, small, forward-firing depth bombs, and missed the target—if there was a target. At 1116 hours, all doubts ended abruptly. The pilots of the two Wildcat fighters positively identified a submarine running below the surface and advised Chatelain to reverse course toward it. The fighter pilots also fired bursts of machine-gun fire to indicate the submarine’s position.

The captain of the Chatelain followed the pilot’s advice and, aided by the machine-gun fire of the two planes, fired a full pattern of shallow-set depth charges. From the bridge of his flagship, Captain Gallery felt the deck underneath him rock as the depth charges exploded and a dozen geysers sprouted into the air. A minute later, after the explosions subsided, one of the fighter pilots shouted, “You’ve struck oil, Frenchy, sub is surfacing!” As personnel from every ship in the group looked on, the U-boat broke the surface 700 yards from Chatelain. Captain Gallery could see white water pouring from the submarine’s deck and conning tower. He had his quarry.

The reaction of the destroyer escorts was to start shooting as soon as soon as the boat came up. No one knew for certain whether the U-boat captain had come up to surrender or to fire a spread of torpedoes. Gunners aboard Chatelain, Pillsbury, and Jenks opened fire with a murderous barrage of .50-caliber machine-gun fire along with 20mm and 40mm shells. Larger caliber guns also began shooting but missed their target. The circling Wildcats came down to strafe.

"I Want to Capture That Bastard if Possible."

Shortly after coming to the surface, the U-boat began to circle to the right, making it look as though she was maneuvering to bring her torpedo tubes to bear. After about two minutes of machine-gun and cannon fire, men began popping out of hatches and jumping into the sea. It was obvious that the submarine had no intention of fighting it out with the group and was getting ready to surrender. Captain Gallery did not want the gunners to sink his prize. He broadcast to the escort ships, “I want to capture that bastard if possible.”

The submarine that Captain Gallery’s task group brought to the surface was U-505, commanded by 40-year-old Oberleutnant Harald Lange. U-505 was a Type IX-C submarine, commissioned at Hamburg on August 26, 1941. It was also the unluckiest boat in the Atlantic force. In fact, U-505 was the Typhoid Mary of Admiral Karl Dönitz’s entire U-boat fleet. Since its commissioning day, the submarine seemed to have developed the knack for having things go wrong.

Actually, U-505’s career had begun on a bright note. In November 1942, just after setting out on her first war patrol, she sank a 7,200-ton British freighter, and she eventually sank a total of eight Allied ships during her operational lifetime. Just two days after sinking her first freighter, however, she attacked another ship with four torpedoes—all four missed and her target got away. This was only the beginning of her bad luck. On the afternoon of November 10, she was depth-bombed by twin-engined aircraft and badly damaged. The captain managed to bring her back to France, but U-505spent the next seven months in the repair dock.

Her luck did not improve during her second cruise. Under the command of 24-year-old Peter Zschech, U-505 left Lorient on June 30, 1943, but had come out of the repair dock too soon and was not yet ready for the open sea, forcing a return to Lorient.

Captain Zschech set sail once again on July 3, but three days later the submarine was attacked by three British destroyers off Cape Finisterre. U-505 survived the attack but once again returned to Lorient for major repairs. Her next attempt at a war patrol came in September 1943, when U-505departed Lorient for the Atlantic shipping lanes. Two days out, one of her diesels locked up. The crew managed to repair the engine, but the main trim pump broke down three days later. Because no spare parts were on board for the pump, Captain Zschech had no choice but to return to Lorient on September 30.

The next cruise was probably the worst of all. With Captain Zschech on board, U-505 sailed for the Caribbean in October 1943. On October 9, the submarine was detected by unidentified Allied warships and attacked with depth charges. During the depth charge barrage, Zschech committed suicide with a handgun. The strain of the attack and the frustration of his failure as captain of U-505 had finally taken their toll. The executive officer assumed command and, as his first duty, buried Zschech at sea. U-505 returned to Lorient on November 7, damaged and without a commanding officer.

Oberleutnant Lange was assigned as U-505’s captain in December. U-boat command hoped that an older and steadier commander might help settle the crew after Captain Zschech’s suicide. Shortly after leaving port, the submarine picked up survivors from a German torpedo boat, T-25, and returned to France. Although this patrol was not nearly the fiasco of the previous cruise, it was still another aborted start. The crew was becoming highly frustrated with aborted war patrols, depth charges, and repair docks.

Captain Lange did not take U-505 to sea again until March 16, 1944. He patrolled the western coast of Africa for Allied shipping but never even spotted a single ship. “The hex is still with us,” a crewman complained. Actually, U-505’s failure to find Allied shipping had nothing to do with luck, bad or otherwise. Allied naval intelligence had been tracking the submarine through her radio transmissions and had diverted all shipping away from her.

At the end of May, Lange decided to return to Lorient—yet another unsuccessful patrol. The boat was low on fuel, the crew was frustrated and in low spirits, and nothing at all had been accomplished in nearly two and a half months. Lange did not know it, but Allied codebreakers were fully aware that he was returning to France and also had a good idea of the course he was taking. Intelligence passed this information along to Captain Gallery and his hunter-killer group. It was U-505 that Guadalcanal was picking up on the U-boat radio frequency.

Captain Lange had no idea that his boat was in danger until the morning of June 4, when the noise bearings of Gallery’s approaching destroyer escorts were picked up. He brought the submarine up to periscope depth and saw what he identified as three “destroyers,” along with another ship that might be an aircraft carrier. Although he ordered an immediate crash dive, the U-boat was convulsed by five explosions before it had the chance to reach a safe depth.

“Water broke in,” Lange reported. “Light and all electrical machinery went off and the rudders jammed.” The Chatelain’s depth charge salvo had found its target. “Not knowing the whole damage or why they continued bombing me,” Lange curiously noted in his report, as though he thought that shooting at his U-boat was bad sportsmanship, “I gave the order to bring the boat to the surface by [com]pressed air.”

As soon as the boat surfaced, Captain Lange was up on the bridge. He saw four U.S. Navy vessels around him, “shooting at my boat with calibre and anti-aircraft [.50-caliber machine gun and 40mm cannon.]” The nearest destroyer escort hit the conning tower, wounding Lange in his legs and also killing his chief officer. Lange ordered a turn to starboard, swinging away from the enemy and giving the American gunners less of a target to shoot at. He also ordered the boat scuttled.

At 1126 hours, 16 minutes after the first possible sound contact, Captain Gallery ordered the task group to cease fire. Immediately afterward, he sent an order over his flagship’s intercom that had not been heard on an American warship since the War of 1812: “Away all boarding parties!”

The first ship to react was the Pillsbury. Her boarding party, led by Lieutenant (j.g.) Albert David, climbed into the ship’s whaleboat and started off for the German submarine, which was still circling to starboard at five or six knots. The event reminded Captain Gallery of a scene from Moby Dick, with a boarding party chasing a U-boat instead of harpooners chasing a whale. It did not take very long for the crew to cut inside the submarine’s circle, overtake the boat, and jump on deck.

Now that they were actually on board the submarine, Lieutenant David and two other men had to take control of it. The only German they saw was dead, lying face down alongside the conning tower hatch. With David in the lead, the three men climbed through the hatch, went down the ladder, and jumped into the control room. No one was absolutely certain if any Germans were still on board or not. Luckily for the small boarding party, the compartment was deserted and silent. The only sounds came from the machinery that kept the U-boat moving in its slow circle.

Even if the Boat Sank, Saving the Enigma Machines Would Have Made Everything the Group had Done Well Worth the Effort.

It seemed as though the boat was about to sink. The submarine was about 10 degrees down by the stern and seemed to be settling deeper with each passing minute. So, the three men concentrated on saving the secret code books and the boat’s Enigma enciphering machines. They grabbed every secret document they could get their hands on and passed them up through the hatch and onto the bridge. Even if the boat sank, just saving the Enigma machines and the code books would have made everything the group had done so far well worth the effort.

Captain Gallery, however, was not satisfied with just the secret books and code machines. He wanted to save the submarine as well. Because Guadalcanal was no longer in danger from a torpedo attack, Gallery brought the carrier close enough to the U-boat to send a whaleboat with a 10-man boarding party to help David and his men. A wave sent Guadalcanal’s whaleboat crashing onto U-505’s forward deck, which thoroughly frightened the three men aboard the submarine. They had no idea that another boarding party had been sent.

The leader of the 10-man party was Commander Earl Trosino, an engineering officer and an expert on ships’ pipes and fittings. Before the war, Commander Trosino had been a chief engineer aboard Sun Oil (Sunoco) tankers. Although he had never been aboard a submarine, Trosino managed to solve a major problem within the first few minutes. An open seacock was allowing tons of water to pour into the U-boat, adding to the difficulty of keeping her afloat. Its cover was found nearby and was simply screwed back into place.

When Lieutenant David and his men began looking for booby traps, they found 13 demolition charges and disarmed them. Trosino made certain that all the valves were closed and did his best to keep the boat from sinking. He sent word to Captain Gallery that the U-boat would sink unless it was towed.

The captain of the Pillsbury attempted to come alongside the still-circling German submarine, pass a salvage pump over, and take the boat in tow. During the maneuver, one of the submarine’s diving planes punched a hole in the Pillsbury’s hull, flooding her engine room and forcing the ship to retire and repair the damage. After Pillsbury left the scene, Guadalcanal took over. Commander Trosino and his men attached their end of Guadalcanal’s cable to U-505’s bow, and the carrier began to pull.

On the evening of June 4, Captain Gallery set out for Dakar, the nearest friendly port, with U-505 in tow. He had to leave the damaged Pillsbury behind, with the Pope standing by. Captain Gallery had two problems to worry about. He was informed that the fuel situation was now critical. The task group could not have reached Casablanca even if Gallery wanted to. There was not enough fuel to make the trip.

The second problem was that U-505’s rudders were still turned to starboard. Commander Trosino reported that he had put the rudder amidships, but he had only succeeded in moving the boat’s electric rudder indicator. The indicator showed that the rudders were amidships, but they were actually still hard right. The only possible way of moving them was to use the boat’s manual steering mechanism, which was situated in the after torpedo room. Since the boat was already well down by the stern, adding the weight of a couple of men in that compartment would only make a bad situation worse. Also, Trosino reported that the aft torpedo room was flooded and that its hatch was booby-trapped.

Gallery said that he had been itching to get aboard the U-boat. The booby-trapped hatch gave him the excuse he needed. He was an ordnance school graduate and “knew as much about fuses and circuitry as anyone on board.” So, he designated himself officer in charge of booby traps and, along with Commander Trosino and four helpers, took a boat over to U-505 to investigate.

As he made his way into the submarine through the conning tower hatch, which was almost awash, Gallery began to have second thoughts about leaving Guadalcanal. The air stunk, the boat seemed on the verge of sinking by the stern, and the trip “through the control room, diesel engine room and after motor room seemed endless,” he recalled.

Finally, the party arrived at the hatch leading to the aft torpedo room. Trosino shone his light on an open fuse box and said, “There she is, Cap’n.” This was the booby trap. By the look of the box and all the wires coming out of it, it seemed to be a very cleverly devised demolition charge. To open the hatch to the torpedo room, the fuse box first had to be closed. Closing the lid might possibly close a circuit to an explosive device, which would destroy the U-boat and everyone in it.

Gallery did not believe such a connection would be made. He took a close look at the wiring and could not find anything suspicious. It seemed to him that the crew had abandoned the submarine too quickly—before they had the chance to set any charges. He thought the fuse box was harmless. As everyone held their breath, he slowly closed the cover. Nothing happened.

As soon as they opened the hatch to the torpedo room, the four men discovered that the compartment was dry. Commander Trosino had been wrong about that as well. The men entered the compartment, manhandled the steering gear to put the rudders amidships, and left as quickly as possible. The trip back to the control room was an uphill walk. As he climbed back to the bridge, Captain Gallery thought, “The fresh salt air sure smelt [sic] mighty sweet.”

Now that the U-boat was no longer turning to starboard, the next step was to pump the boat dry and bring her up to an even keel. “Junior,” as Guadalcanal’s crew now called U-505, was still half submerged, which made the boat a lot more difficult to tow. In fact, the sea was actually breaking over the conning tower hatch. When Gallery climbed through the hatch into the control room, he had to close the hatch behind him to keep from flooding the compartment.

Trosino had an idea for re-charging the U-boat’s storage batteries, even though Gallery would not let him run the diesel engines. Gallery was afraid that someone would turn the wrong valve and sink the boat. Trosino disconnected the clutch on the diesels and requested that Gallery tow the U-boat at 10 knots—quite a high speed for a tow. The forward speed turned the submarine’s propellers, which also turned the armatures of the electric motors, which, in turn, charged the batteries. With the batteries fully charged, there was enough electric current to run the boat’s pumps. The boat was pumped dry and brought up to full surface trim. U-505 was finally out of danger.

During the night, CINCLANT (Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet) sent orders to Captain Gallery. He was not to attempt taking U-505 to Dakar. Although Dakar was the nearest port, it was also full of German spies who would report the U-boat capture to Berlin. Instead, he was to take his prize to Bermuda. To assist with the long trip, the fleet tug Abnaki and the oiler Kennebeck were diverted from an Africa-bound convoy to join Gallery’s task group.

Admiral King Threatened to Have Gallery Court-Martialed for Bringing U-505 in as a Prize.

Gallery rendezvoused with the two ships in the mid-Atlantic. Ships of the group refueled from Kennebeck, while Abnaki took over towing duties from Guadalcanal. On June 9, the group formed a screen around Abnaki and U-505 and headed for Bermuda, still 2,500 miles away.

All prisoners from U-505 were safely aboard Guadalcanal; 59 German sailors out of a complement of 60, including officers and Captain Lange. Gallery decided to visit Lange in the carrier’s sick bay. He described the German captain as “a big, angular man of about 35,” who looked more like a preacher than a U-boat skipper. Lange’s leg wounds had been treated, and he was sitting up in his bunk. Gallery introduced himself as the captain of the ship and told Lange, “We have your U-boat in tow.”

Lange blinked at Gallery and shouted, “No!” Because of his wounds, he had spent all of his time below decks after being rescued, and refused to believe that his orders to scuttle the submarine had not been carried out. He would not accept the fact that U-505 was still afloat and had been captured until Gallery sent a crew member over to the U-boat to retrieve family pictures from Lange’s cabin.

Seeing his personal photographs convinced him. He told Gallery in perfect English, “I will be punished for this.” After the war, Lange wrote Gallery a letter informing him that he had landed a good job on the Hamburg docks. Apparently, his gloomy prediction did not come true.

While the remaining ships of Guadalcanal’s group escorted the Abnaki and U-505 to Bermuda, the Jenks had been sent ahead at maximum speed with the U-boat’s Enigma machines and 10 sacks of code books and secret documents, which weighed about 1,100 pounds. When news of the U-boat’s capture reached Washington, it was greeted with anything but elation. The main fear was that German intelligence would find out that one of their submarines had fallen into Allied hands and that they would immediately change all the Enigma codes. If that happened, all Allied codebreakers would be plunged into darkness for many weeks. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, the bad-tempered chief of naval operations, was furious with Captain Gallery for jeopardizing Allied naval intelligence and their control of Enigma. He threatened to have Gallery court-martialed for bringing U-505 in as a prize.

Fortunately, no word ever reached German intelligence. Gallery told all hands attached to the task group that nothing must be said about what happened during the cruise, and amazingly the men did as they were told. The public did not find out about U-505 until after the war. Also, the Allied landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944, two days after the submarine was captured, pushed most other thoughts out of the minds of German intelligence. Berlin officially listed U-505 as sunk and made only routine changes in the naval codes.

The intelligence materials taken from U-505 allowed Allied Naval Intelligence to read U-boat signals as fast as the Germans themselves, which helped them in their already successful war against Admiral Dönitz and his submarine fleet. All the elaborate grids and tables the Kriegsmarine had been using to track Allied shipping were now used against the U-boats. Far from being the disaster feared by Admiral King, Gallery’s decision to take U-505 intact turned out to be an enormous advantage for Allied codebreakers.

On June 19, 1944, just over two weeks after Lieutenant David and his crew made their way into U-505’s control room, Gallery’s task group arrived in Bermuda. A huge U.S. flag flew above a much smaller German naval ensign on the U-boat’s flagstaff. The 59 prisoners were turned over to the commandant of the naval base. They were, in turn, kept in an isolated camp until the war ended. Absolutely no chances were being taken that might jeopardize the secrecy of U-505’s capture, including mixing the submarine’s crew with other German prisoners.

The U-boat was also turned over to the base commander, who issued a receipt: “One Nazi U-boat, U-505, complete with spare parts.” When the boat was inspected, a 14th demolition charge was found—in place and still very much alive.

For his part in the operation, Lieutenant Albert David was awarded the Medal of Honor. The two men who went down the U-boat’s conning tower hatch with him, Radioman Stenley E. Wdowiak and Torpedoman Arthur W. Kinspel, were given the Navy Cross. Captain Gallery did not receive a decoration, although he did get the Distinguished Service Medal for his work in antisubmarine warfare.

Gallery took very little credit for the success of the operation. He attributed it to thorough planning, helped along by a lot of good luck. As an afterthought, he added, “Maybe our daily morning prayers had something to do with it.”

David Alan Johnson has written extensively on World War II for more than 20 years. His book The Battle of Britain: The American Factor was well received in both the United Kingdom and the United States. He is currently working on a book about Anglo-American relations since Colonial times.

This article by David Alan Johnson originally appeared on the Warfare History Network. This piece was originally featured in 2016 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Warfare History Network

Holocaust,

Pure evil. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: U.S. soldiers would realize with horror the full extent of what they were fighting and why Hitler had to go. They would never forget what misery they saw.

After leading his U.S. 3rd Armored “Spearhead” Division on the longest, one-day, enemy-opposed mechanized advance in American history, Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose was killed in action on March 30, 1945, one of 30 flag officers who fell in World War II, and the only armored division commander ever lost in combat.

However, the march of the 3rd Armored Division did not end with the death of its commander or before its men confronted the full meaning of Nazism. Like other fighting divisions, the various units within 3rd Armored prepared after-action reports for April 1945 that document military operations, including liberations, but the official records, archival sources, personal memoirs, photos, etc., vary considerably concerning discovery of the atrocities and the actual places where the horror was perpetrated.

As one example, the 82nd Airborne Division final after-action report (AAR) contains a single paragraph in the Military Government section about “the discovery of a concentration camp at WOBBELIN” and the medical and humanitarian efforts undertaken, including a forced reburial of victims by the local population, a virtual constant in American AARs. In the case of the 3rd Armored Division, the recollections of individual soldiers, unit AARs, and the semi-official history, Spearhead in the West, offer a more detailed description of the liberation of a notorious concentration camp as part of military operations in the last days of the war in Germany—less than two weeks after Maurice Rose, the highest ranking Jewish American officer in the U.S. Army, was cut down in combat in the act of surrendering.

KZ (Konzentrationslager, i.e., Concentration Camp) Dora-Mittelbau was built in central Germany near the town of Nordhausen, by which name the entire camp complex is now commonly, but erroneously, known. The blandly named Mittelbau (translation, “central construction”) camp was initially established as a sub-camp of KZ Buchenwald, when the SS sent a detail of 120 slaves to expand a large underground Wehrmacht fuel depot to produce V-2 ballistic missiles after the existing production sites became the target of Allied bombers. When the main V-2 effort shifted from Peenemunde to Mittelbau, the site became an independent concentration camp in late October 1944, eventually encompassing more than 40 subcamps of its own, spread out over the immediate area. The first inmates, who built the facilities, were initially kept underground in the dark, unventilated tunnels, referred to as “Dora” in official documents of “Mittelbau GmbH,” the business unit set up by Armaments Minister Albert Speer’s vast empire, which oversaw the production site. The main factory area inside the tunnels was often referred to as Mittelwerk (“middle works.”) The SS ran all the camps, provided the slave labor at very reasonable negotiated rates, and the supply was constantly “replenished.”

Brutalized in miserable conditions, with minimal food, sanitation, heating, or light, the condemned slaves slept on wood racks, four levels high. The daily ration consisted of four ounces of black bread and a liter of potato soup—the former more sawdust than flour, and the latter diluted foul water without nourishment—which only stoked the constant hunger and dysentery. Industrial-level noise from moving and operating heavy manufacturing equipment and blasting though rock never ceased, and the air was befouled by noxious and deadly gases from explosives, fuel, and toxic metal dust. Vermin of all kinds and diseases long thought eradicated, such as tuberculosis, typhus, and pneumonia, flourished. The daily death rate during early construction and the last few months of the war soared, and the used-up slaves were “selected,” temporarily warehoused near the rail tracks, and shipped to KZ Mauthausen and other places for extermination.

Once full V-2 production began in the autumn of 1944, the Mittelbau complex held about 20,000 slaves, most working on outdoor construction, and about 6,000 in the tunnels. Dora-Mittelwerk produced 600-700 missiles per month on average, short of the monthly goal of 900 but nevertheless a significant achievement, especially after the Luftwaffe commandeered 40 percent of tunnel capacity for Junkers aircraft engine assembly. The enterprise was a model of efficiency, earning official commendations for the top managers, engineers, and SS staff, several of whom, including the last commandant, were prominent Auschwitz veterans.

The first V-2 rockets struck London on September 8, 1944, with the final launches on March 27, 1945. In the nearly seven months of attacks more than 3,000 warheads hit Allied cities, including Antwerp, Liege, and Paris. The ballistic missiles targeting London, most of which were produced in the Dora tunnels, killed about 2,500 civilians, injuring more than 6,000. During its existence as an underground, state-of-the-art, slave-based multi-facility manufacturing site—the final evolution of the SS master-slave economic system—more than 20,000 people from all over Europe were murdered or died from starvation, disease, or random executions at KZ Dora-Mittelbau, a labor cost of seven to eight slaves per V-2 rocket, which would kill or wound three to five civilians.

In early April 1945, as the Allies approached, consistent with Reich policy to leave no evidence of the mass murder behind, the SS began evacuations of the Dora-Mittelbau inmates north to KZ Bergen-Belsen, a mass collection point for the surviving prisoners of the crumbling Nazi empire. Thousands were murdered before and during the death marches, and by the time American forces arrived at Nordhausen few living prisoners remained. The 3rd Armored Division first entered the camp complex at an accidentally bombed and ruined barracks overflowing with corpses, called the Boelcke Kaserne.

Brigadier General Truman E. Boudinot, one-time champion Army free balloon racer and veteran tank commander of Combat Command B (CCB), one of two brigade-sized striking forces of the 3rd Armored “Spearhead” Division, had been driving his men hard for weeks. Starting with the breakout from the Remagen Bridge in early March 1945, the division spearheaded VII Corps, First Army, the southern pincer of 12th Army Group’s tightening grip on the industrial Ruhr region where the remnants of several German armies were trapped. When 3rd Armored met the tanks of the northern pincer, the U.S. Ninth Army led by the 2nd Armored “Hell on Wheels” Division, on April 1, 1945, the escape route slammed shut on the greatest encirclement battle in American history, with more than 350,000 prisoners bagged and German Army Group B destroyed. Field Marshal Walter Model, known as “Hitler’s Fireman” and the longtime battlefield opponent of Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, killed himself rather than surrender. Although the bloodletting would continue without pause until 3rd Armored reached the town of Dessau on the Elbe, the original mission of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s SHAEF was essentially complete. The industrial heart and war-making capability of the Third Reich, and its armed forces in the West, had been destroyed.

A week and a half after closing the Ruhr Pocket, General Boudinot was attacking into the Harz Mountains, where the high command believed strong German forces were gathering. Early on April 11, 1945, he received orders to take the town of Nordhausen. The rest of 3rd Armored, now commanded by Brig. Gen. Doyle O. Hickey, would continue the attack toward the mountains. The two task forces of CCB were built around Colonel John C. Welborn’s 33rd Armored Regiment and Lt. Col. William B. Lovelady’s 3rd Battalion and were moving abreast on two easterly routes. Lovelady entered the town near the railroad tracks and marked it on his map as a Luftwaffe base. He reported a large prison-type compound and requested more infantry support from Maj. Gen. “Terrible” Terry Allen’s 104th “Timberwolf” Infantry Division, which was attached to VII Corps and moving to the north.

The main Mittelbau camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence and watchtowers. A large roll call area, where prisoners were assembled and counted several times a day, was located just west of the main entrance. The SS guard quarters lay farther east, outside the wire, where resistance was scattered, disorganized, and brief. No elements from the German Eleventh Army were encountered. Northeast of the main camp, from which the slaves were marched to work at 0400 and 1600 hours for 12-hour shifts of hard labor every day, camouflaged entrances led to the underground factory manufacturing Hitler’s “weapons of retaliation” (Vergeltungswaffen), the 40-foot-high V-2 ballistic missile packing 1,600 pounds of high explosive and the V-1 early-generation cruise missile (known as the flying bomb or “doodlebug”). The capture of Dora and the V-2 assembly plant at Kleinbodungen were major strategic prizes for Allied air technical intelligence officers looking for missile and aircraft materials and personnel. Even as the war in Europe ended, each of the Western Allies and the Soviets were competing for technological advantages in the next, and colder, struggle to come.

At the deepest level of the underground complex ran two enormous shafts, dug 600 feet into a limestone ridge, each more than a mile long, more than 50 feet high, and housing a full assembly line, one for V-1s, the other for V-2s. Dozens of 500-foot-long cross-tunnels linking the main shafts were filled with machine tools and bomb-making material at various stages of production. German engineers had already begun experiments on a secret V-3 antiaircraft missile system. That program and the V-2 assembly plant and storage facilities claimed the most able-bodied of the slaves, mostly Reich political prisoners under the Nebel und Nacht edict, Polish and Soviet prisoners of war, a small number of specially selected Jews, and forced laborers from the conquered countries who dug the tunnels and were then worked to death on the production lines.

Scattered inventory, and especially German scientists, were immediately secured and put under guard. Tons of documents and as many as 100 intact V-2s were crated and shipped back to the United States. Secrecy under the code name Operation Paperclip descended on Dora-Mittelbau with the birth of the American missile and, eventually, space programs, which would be run by some of the murderous Nazi masters of the tunnels. First among the known war criminals was SS Major Werner von Braun, who was a full and willing partner in all the camp’s operations and atrocities. The American intelligence officers and government officials knew who their new partners were.  Von Braun’s deputy, Helmut Gottrup, was captured by the Soviets and became a hero of their space program.

So terrible was the magnitude of what General Boudinot saw that day that he ordered the headquarters company photographers and MPs, as well as the newsmen, to gather evidence. The dead were left where they lay. A brief film called The Liberation of Nordhausen and later film compilations showing the camp and shot by the division and corps cameramen are still powerful testimony. Even for veterans of the most gruesome armored combat, men used to violent death and the human wreckage and casual brutality of the battlefield, the conditions they encountered left them shaking with rage, some openly weeping. As they progressed through the place, the troops eventually discovered more than 5,000 bodies in the partially destroyed barracks, lying about or stacked for burning at the crematory located in the north of the main camp. The very few alive lay scattered among the mass of corpses, as described in the division official history: “Emaciated, ragged shapes whose fever-bright eyes waited passively, even in the same beds with their dead and dying comrades, too weak to move. Over all the area clung the terrible odor of decomposition and, like a dirge of forlorn hope, the combined cries of these unfortunates rose and fell in weak undulations. It was a fabric of moans and whimpers, of delirium and outright madness. Here and there a single shape tottered about, walking slowly, like a man dreaming.”

To the starving and half-crazed inmates, the arrival of the soldiers and vehicles bearing the white star was a miracle from God. Men barely able to move kissed the filthy boots of the soldiers, murmuring their prayers of thanksgiving in a Babel of languages. One group of hysterically happy liberated souls attempted to hoist Lieutenant Herbert Gontard onto their shoulders. Although he was a slim young man, the weakened laborers could not lift him off the ground. Sergeant Ragene Farris, a medic in the 329th Medical Battalion, saw “rows upon rows of skin-covered skeletons … men lay as they had starved, discolored, and lying in indescribable human filth. Their striped coats and prison numbers hung to their frames as a last token or symbol of those who enslaved and killed them…. I noticed one girl. I would say she was about seventeen years old. She lay where she had fallen, gangrened and naked. I choked up, couldn’t quite understand how and why anyone could do these things…. We went downstairs into a filth indescribable, accompanied by a horrible dead-rot stench…. One hunched down French boy was huddled up against a dead comrade, as if to keep warm…. It was like stepping into the Dark Ages to walk into one of these cellar-cells and seek out the living.”

Medics removed 250 starvation cases immediately and hastily set up emergency hospitals. Less severe cases of all sorts were treated on site, but for many there was no hope. Major Martin L. Sherman, a doctor in the 3rd Armored’s 45th Medical Battalion, estimated that even with immediate assistance no more than half the starvation patients would survive. General Hickey, teeth tightly clenched on his ever-present pipe and accompanied by his corps commander, Maj. Gen. J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins, toured the barracks. Collins was sick to his stomach and ordered Colonel Dell B. Hardin, his G-5 officer (civil affairs and military government) to round up all the male citizens of Nordhausen, the most prominent in the front, and force them into the camp.

That night Collins wrote to his wife, “We had the Burgomeister [sic] set aside a plot of ground overlooking the town, and these people were required to dig graves and carry every one of the dead up the hill and bury them. The local officials disclaimed any knowledge of the camp, which was, of course, tommyrot. We are going to require them to erect a monument in this cemetery as a memorial to these dead.”

Troops who liberated the camp, especially Colonel Lovelady’s men who saw the Boelcke Kaserne, were infuriated when the local citizens insisted that they knew nothing of the atrocities. Private Harold Kennedy, one of Terry Allen’s foot soldiers, saw the camp a few hours after liberation and could not believe the German civilians. “They always said, ‘Well, we didn’t know.’ And I’d say, ‘You could smell it, couldn’t you?’” Lou “Louch” Baczewski, a Task Force Lovelady Sherman tank driver, describing decades later what he saw and smelled at the ruined barracks to his grandson, was overcome several times by the telling, rubbing his forehead, repeating over and over, “It was a bad sight. It was a bad sight. It was something terrible.”

Still angry about the murder of General Rose just days before, the 3rd Armored needed no urging to get back into the fight and were in a “savage mood” as they went into the final battles. Several captured German scientists were publicly beaten for benefit of the cameras, and unconfirmed reports circulated that few prisoners were taken in the days immediately following the camp’s liberation. After pausing for several hours to refuel, reload, and grab some rest, the VII Corps advance resumed early on April 12, 1945, the 3rd Armored Division Forward HQ entering Sangerhausen, 22 miles to the east, by midday. The Ruhr Pocket battle was eventually renamed the Rose Pocket to honor the fallen 3rd Armored commander. The war—and the killing—went on for another day. But not at KZ Dora-Mittelbau.

At a veterans’ reunion to research the biography of Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose, a man came up to the author and introduced himself as Michael Kane, son of Lt. Col. Matthew Kane, commander of Task Force Kane, 32nd Armored Regiment. Hero. Michael’s mother had recently told him that his father, a traditional and tough Texas West Pointer who passed away when the boy was 10, had helped liberate the concentration camp at Nordhausen. She was concerned that revisionists were already claiming that the Holocaust had never happened. He was struck by her concern—she had never mentioned it or showed any interest—in truth he thought her conventionally, and passively, anti-Semitic. But now, facing death, she wanted her son to know his father’s direct role as a “liberator.” Michael was so engaged by the experience that he went to the reunion to prepare for a trip to Germany to commemorate the liberation of Nordhausen and to see the camp for himself. He wanted to tell the story.

On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the last of the six SS extermination camps (Vernichtungslager), all on Polish soil, as well as many other horrible places in Germany. During the final six weeks of the war in Europe, American and British units liberated many of the main concentration camps as well as the network of sub-camps, slave labor, brothels, prison camps, and a dizzying array of other terrible facilities. Popular history has concentrated on a few notorious names, especially the first camps discovered, like Dachau and Buchenwald, but recent scholarship establishes that the Nazi system encompassed more than 40,000 separate installations with a death toll far beyond the latest generally accepted numbers.

Liberation was not limited to places of persecution, and a few days after taking Dora-Mittelbau the 3rd Armored Division freed 450 British POWs at Polleben, some having been captured at such early battles as Dunkirk, Norway, and Crete. The British 11th Armoured “Black Bull” Division liberated KZ Bergen-Belsen, burning that name in the British consciousness along with the image of bulldozers pushing thousands of emaciated corpses into a ditch.

On April 12, 1945, Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower and Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton went to KZ Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald and the first to be liberated by Patton’s Third Army, to see for themselves. Bradley recalled the moment in his first memoir. “Eisenhower’s face whitened into a mask. Patton walked over to a corner and sickened. I was too revolted to speak.” They saw the evil they had defeated on the battlefield. As testimony, the surviving work of the U.S. and British cameramen created exactly the images that the generals and newsmen wanted and that mankind still needs to see, especially when Holocaust denial and ignorance is growing in the United States. Even more chilling, in the lands where the crimes happened, some groups celebrate the murderers with parades, statues, and dishonored flags.

The Center of Military History of the United States Army, advised by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, has credited 36 U.S. World War II Divisions—24th Infantry, 10th Armored, and 2nd Airborne—as “liberators,” and their flags, adorned with campaign streamers, stand in honor at the museum in Washington, D.C.

Author Steve Ossad has recently written a biography of General Omar Bradley published through the University of Missouri Press. He resides in New York City.

This first appeared at Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

David Axe

Hitler,

Hitler did time behind bars. But even his jailers didn't understand what he was capable of. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Through Hitler’s arrest to his trial and sentencing, the Bavarian government had demonstrated that it was equally fearful of Hitler’s rising influence and sympathetic to his philosophy of racial bigotry.

On April 1, 1924, 34-year-old Adolf Hitler — a socially awkward painter and former soldier from Austria — arrived at Landsberg prison in Bavaria to serve a five-year sentence for organizing a failed coup that got 18 men killed, including four policemen.

Hitler stepped into Landsberg as the occasionally self-doubting head of a tiny, impoverished and amateurish anti-semitic political movement — the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. He would walk out nine months later a more self-assured figure steadily gaining prominence and power.

And arguably more importantly, Hitler left prison as the author of Mein Kampf, a two-volume memoir and political screed that, in the words of biographer Volker Ullrich, “connected [Hitler’s] biography and his political program.”

In doing so, Mein Kampf — published between July and December 1925 — did the initial work of creating a cult of personality around its author and subject. Hitler was the Nazi Party. And Landsberg was his, and Nazism’s, laboratory.

There is no shortage of books about Hitler. But Ullrich’s new biography Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, recently translated from German to English, stands out for its thorough research and aversion to myth-making. “The global entertainment industry has long since appropriated and transformed Hitler into a sensationalist, pop-cultural icon of horror,” Ullrich writes.

Equally troubling, studies of Hitler tend to skew toward one of two extremes — structuralism and intentionalism. That is, did larger political and cultural forces create Hitler the leader? Or did Hitler create himself?

Ullrich’s mission, he writes, is “bringing it all together and synthesizing it.” This balance is evident as Ullrich explores Hitler’s time in Landsberg. “Imprisonment only encouraged Hitler’s belief in himself and his historic mission.”

Helpfully for the budding dictator, Bavarian authorities had imprisoned Hitler and his fellow coup plotters — most notably, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s future deputy — together. Hitler’s “fellow inmates, first and foremost Hess, did everything they could to strengthen his conviction.”

The Austrian and his imprisoned compatriots met daily for lunch. “Hitler’s fellow inmates would wait, standing silently behind their chairs, for the cry, ‘Attention!’ The Fuehrer would then walk, accompanied by his inner circle, through the rows of his faithful followers and sit down at the top end of the table.”

Hitler gave a little speech. “Sieg heil!” his followers cried.

Landsberg was eminently comfortable for Hitler — more comfortable, in fact, than many of the shabby apartments and boarding houses young Hitler had lived in for most of his adult life.

This was no accident. Through Hitler’s arrest to his trial and sentencing, the Bavarian government had demonstrated that it was equally fearful of Hitler’s rising influence and sympathetic to his philosophy of racial bigotry. “I know you,” one of Hitler’s prison guards told him. “I’m a National Socialist, too.”

“Hitler enjoyed a wide variety of privileges,” according to Ullrich. “His ‘cell’ was a large, airy, comfortably furnished room with an expansive view. In addition to the hearty food cooked by the prison kitchen, Hitler constantly received care packages; his quarters reminded some visitors of a ‘delicatessen.’”

Hitler’s abortive putsch — and his commensurate prison sentence — demonstrated to the German populace that Hitler was “a man who not only talked, but acted in critical situations — and who was willing to take great personal risks.”

And for Hitler, being in prison eased the stress of daily living, allowed him plenty of time to visit with supporters — up to five per day — and afforded him the leisure and focus to write Mein Kampf, which he tapped out “hunt-and-peck” style on a typewriter that prison officials gave him.

And so Hitler relaxed, ate, honed his leadership and oratory skills, worked on his book — and behaved himself. In sharp contrast to the seditious behavior that had landed him in Landsberg, while in prison Hitler was a perfect angel. “Hitler scrupulously avoided any conflict with prison authorities.”

Behaving wasn’t just Hitler’s way of maintaining his prison privileges. Playing nice also represented a key philosophical turn for Hitler. Where before the aspiring strongman had aspired to overthrow the state, now Hitler wanted to gain control of the state … by way of the state’s own mechanisms.

“It was while imprisoned in Landsberg, Hitler recollected in February 1942, that he ‘became convinced that violence would not work since the state is too established and has all the weapons in its possession,’” Ullrich writes.

Hitler lived by that conviction. Released early from prison in December 1924, Hitler reorganized his National Socialist party, promoted his book and cultivated a mass audience that, amid economic stress and global political tensions, was becoming more and more sympathetic to anti-semitic rhetoric.

In 1932, Hitler ran for president and lost. But with Hitler’s leadership, the Nazis won the largest bloc of seats in parliament. Pres. Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor. A year later, Nazi legislators passed a law that paved the way for Hitler to eventually gain dictatorial powers.

Hitler wasted no time leading his country into a genocidal war. An entirely accommodating prison term had prepared him.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here. 

Image: Wikipedia.

(This article first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.)

Charlie Gao

Russia, Europe

During the majority of the Cold War, the swing-wing Su-17 (known as the Su-22 for export) formed the bulk of strike and CAS aircraft for Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Su-17 saw significant service in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It served in many roles during that conflict, including reconnaissance, strike, and minelaying. Combat experience in this conflict led to the fitting of chaff and flare dispensers and additional armor to the aircraft.

For many military watchers, the Sukhoi name is synonymous with the clean flowing lines of the Su-27, Su-30, and Su-35 series of Flanker aircraft or the squat and stubby Su-25 ground attack aircraft. However, during the majority of the Cold War, the swing-wing Su-17 (known as the Su-22 for export) formed the bulk of strike and CAS aircraft for Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces.

Some of these aircraft still fly today in the service of former Soviet allies. The aircraft has seen extensive service in the Syrian Civil War. But how does it stack up to North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighter-bombers of the same era?

The Su-17 was first developed as a follow on to the earlier Su-7B fighter-bomber. The Su-7B was the Soviet Union’s first jet-powered tactical bomber, coming on the heels of the Il-10 piston-powered aircraft.

However, as the Su-7B was an adaptation of the Su-7 fighter, it suffered from insufficient bomb load. When engines were upgraded to handle a higher bomb load, the Su-7B’s takeoff run became too long for most frontal airfields.

The need for heavy bomb loads and short takeoff runs was a problem for many Soviet aircraft of the era. TsAGI, one of the chief aerodynamic research institutes of the Soviet Union came up with two solutions: the addition of disposable rocket or jet thrusters or the use of a variable geometry-wing.

While the Soviets produced some disposable rockets for special purposes, the variable-wing was considered the better solution after some testing. In the mid-1960s, three Soviet aircraft would be accepted into service with the variable-wing: the MiG-23 fighter, the Su-24 strike bomber, and the Su-17 fighter-bomber.

The swing-wing American F-111 entered service around the same time, but in payload, speed, and size it was far larger than the Su-17 and even the Su-24.

Rather, the French/British SEPECAT Jaguar can be seen as the closest NATO analog to the Su-17, although it is a fixed-wing aircraft, not a swing-wing aircraft. Both aircraft can carry around 4000 kilograms of munitions and are single-engine aircraft with similar top speeds.

Both aircraft received precision-guided munition capability around the same time. However, the Su-17 received this capability in two variants, first with the Su-17M3 in 1981 and then with the Su-17M4. The Su-17M3 and M4 featured the “Klen” laser rangefinder and target designator. It was a fairly rudimentary system without a display. Aiming was conducted via a HUD reticle which the pilot pointed at a target. The system would then “lock on” and track the target with a targeting laser.

To contrast, the French Jaguars received the ATLIS targeting pod, a first-generation targeting pod with a laser designator. This integrated with a display in the cockpit so the pilot could “aim” the laser at a target through the display, slewing it on gimbals inside the targeting pod instead of pointing the entire aircraft at the target.

However, the Su-17 featured more hardpoints than the Jaguar. The Su-17 featured two dedicated hardpoints for R-60 air-to-air missiles, in contrast to the Jaguar which shared hardpoints between air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance. A Su-17 could carry a full bomb load as well as two air-to-air missiles for self-defense, in contrast to the Jaguar which would have to lose some air-to-ground ordnance to carry air-to-air missiles.

The Su-17 saw significant service in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It served in many roles during that conflict, including reconnaissance, strike, and minelaying. Combat experience in this conflict led to the fitting of chaff and flare dispensers and additional armor to the aircraft.

Su-17s left Russian service alongside their MiG-23BN and MiG-27 counterparts during defense reforms during the 1990s and 2000s as single-engine aircraft were not considered survivable enough for air-to-ground combat. In the role as a close air support aircraft, the double-engined squat Su-25 replaces it. In the role as a faster strike aircraft, the Su-34 replaced the Su-17.

Charlie Gao studied Political and Computer Science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national security issues.

Image: Wikipedia

Charlie Gao

Icebreakers, arctic

Russia and China are investing more and more money into the Arctic capabilities of their militaries, including icebreakers.

Here's What You Need to Know: Resupply to such bases requires a large icebreaker fleet. If the United States or Canada wishes to operate additional bases up north to match Russia’s presence, the icebreaker fleet will likely need expansion to match the upkeep.

Recently, the state of the U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet has been making waves in Washington, DC. Republicans have suggested diverting funding from the Coast Guard’s initiative to acquire a new heavy icebreaker to the border wall.

This comes at a time where Russia and China are investing more and more money into the Arctic capabilities of their militaries, including icebreakers. But what is Russia’s overall Arctic strategy? How do icebreakers fit into that picture and enable them to project power into the Arctic, and what do they stand to gain?

The current state of the relative size of icebreaker fleets is best summed up in one diagram put out by the U.S. Coast Guard Office of Waterways and Ocean Policy. There are some key points to be seen here. Only the United States and Russia operate “heavy” icebreakers, indicated in black. Those icebreakers have the highest amount of power available to them, allowing them to operate in the thickest ice sheets.

Of those heavy icebreakers, America only has one operational. Russia, on the other hand, has two operational with four more in refit. Once refits are complete, Russian heavy icebreakers will outnumber the American ones 3:1, providing Russia with better capability to run operations in heavy ice packs.

America’s only heavy icebreaker, the USCGC Polar Star is also often tasked to support international and U.S. operations on the South Pole. During these operations, the Polar Star ran into multiple operational difficulties due to its age: the USCGC Polar Star first entered service in the 1970s.

Russia’s fleet of heavy icebreakers are significantly younger than the American ships, entering service in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Russia also fields a far larger fleet of light and medium icebreakers, although these cannot handle thicker ice and mostly are used to keep trading lanes open to northern ports such as Arkhangelsk.

In addition to its already formidable fleet, Russia is planning to build some even bigger icebreakers. The “Leader”-class (LK-110Ya/Pr. 10510) of icebreakers is expected to weigh somewhere around 71,000 tons, which would make it by far the heaviest icebreaker in the world. To compare, the USCGC Polar Star weighs only around 10,000 tons.

The “Leader” would be powered by 110 MW nuclear power plant (hence the 110 in the designation) and be charged with being one of many ships keeping the North Sea route open.

While the “Leader” class is still only on paper at the moment, Russia is nearly done with the “Arktika”-class (LK-60Ya/Pr. 22220) of heavy nuclear icebreakers. These ships also are massive, weighing in at around 33,000 tons. The new Arktika-class ships are expected to undergo sea trials at the end of 2019.

Nominally, the purpose of these ships is to maintain and develop the Northern Sea Route as a cheaper alternative to going around India and through the Suez Canal. This is very important by itself as it gives Russia control over a major sea route that is becoming more accessible as a result of climate change. If Russia wants to reap the benefits of this route, it must invest money in ships to keep it open.

The Russian government has delegated control over this sea route to Rosatom, the state corporation which is overseeing the development and operation of the new and current nuclear-powered icebreakers. As such, Rosatom will grant foreign ships the right to traverse this route.

However, the Northern Sea Route isn’t the only part of Russian Arctic policy. Russian outlets have framed the “growing militarization of the Arctic” as an important issue, and the Russian military is definitely doing their part on that front, reopening many Arctic bases.

The exact purposes of these bases appear to be mostly to sit on Russian resource claims in the region, but according to a Reuters article, the movement of surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles to these remote Arctic bases gives them a strong Area Denial/Anti-Access Capability.

Resupply to such bases requires a large icebreaker fleet. If the United States or Canada wishes to operate additional bases up north to match Russia’s presence, the icebreaker fleet will likely need expansion to match the upkeep.

From this, we can see that the lower numbers of American icebreakers aren’t as serious of a strategic flaw as the numbers alone may suggest. Russia has far more missions for their icebreakers, so it needs more of them. However, the U.S. icebreaker fleet still needs increased numbers to accomplish the tasks it needs to do. Hence, having one heavy icebreaker shared between all polar missions in the Arctic and Antarctic is a big stretch on the U.S. Coast Guard’s fleet.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in August 2018.

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

U.S. Air Force, Global

Clausewitz felt little need to prove that armies should exist, Corbett that navies should ply the oceans, or Mao that guerrillas and other irregular fighters should bestride the field. Where is the expert on air?

Here's What You Need to Remember:  Aviators need a common vocabulary and understanding of the wild blue to debate how best to configure air forces and deploy them for tactical, operational, and strategic gain. Without that foundation partisans of contending schools of thought about air warfare tend to fling volleys of assertions and counter-assertions at one another.

Students and practitioners of air power desperately need a theorist with the stature of a Carl von Clausewitz, Julian S. Corbett, or Mao Zedong—masters of ground, sea, and irregular warfare, respectively. Aviators need a common vocabulary and understanding of the wild blue to debate how best to configure air forces and deploy them for tactical, operational, and strategic gain. Without that foundation partisans of contending schools of thought about air warfare tend to fling volleys of assertions and counter-assertions at one another. Few have sufficient firepower to convince.

Exhibit A: over at Military.com Oriana Pawlyk reports that U.S. Air Force “light-attack” experiments “appear to have lost steam as other priorities have come to the fore.” The service has convened fly-offs of inexpensive propeller- and jet-driven aircraft optimal for “close air support,” meaning airborne bombardment of hostile ground forces. On-call support to armies isn’t an orphan mission for the air force, precisely, but it does tend to rank below glamour missions such as air superiority and strategic bombing in the service’s pecking order.

Which has things backward—as a sage of air power would likely teach. Air forces exist to fight for control of embattled airspace precisely so they can support ground forces and execute other worthwhile missions in friendly skies. Air combat confers the luxury to execute humdrum functions.

Humble aircraft can perform ground-attack duty, which is probably why it excites little passion among air-force magnates. Fighters and bombers captivate them instead. Warbirds assigned to close air support may sortie out hunting for targets of opportunity, or they may loiter aloft awaiting calls for fire from ground-pounders below. Aerial fire support weakens hostile armies and hampers their maneuvers on the battlefield while protecting friendly troops, lending them a firepower advantage, or correcting a firepower mismatch so that few soldiers can stand against many. U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine aviators have spent the bulk of their time since September 11 rendering fire support in theaters from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria.

Not every such mission demands an aging A-10 Warthog, a flying tank built around a massive Gatling gun, or a pricey fighter/attack jet like an F-16 Falcon or F-35 Lighting II. Hence the recent experiments. Light aircraft could render similar assistance in uncontested or lightly contested airspace, and at far lower cost. The light-attack experiments’ overseers have designated the turboprop-driven Textron Aviation AT-6 Wolverine and the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano the prime candidates for the support mission—assuming the service embraces the concept of light attack.

This debate is a curious one. It has raged across commentary pages over the past couple of years, but neither proponents nor detractors of the concept situate it in the context of a larger air campaign—of what air forces exist to do, in other words. Everyone seems to assume close air support must take place in isolation, as though ground-attack planes must confront, withstand, or evade ground fire or hostile air forces all by themselves, with no help from the rest of the air fleet. Advocates stress that light aircraft are small, nimble, and evasive while critics point to the proliferation of advanced surface-to-air missiles to formerly safe theaters and intimate that light attack aircraft would surely perish from ground fire.

Partisans on both sides, then, seem to agree tacitly that attack planes must shift for themselves. They take a wholly passive view. But what sane air commander would expose close-air-support aircraft and crews thus? None, I hope. Commanders would allocate air-superiority aircraft to furnish cover, helping attack planes sporting little capacity for self-defense do their job in a tolerably safe tactical environment. If the area hasn’t yet been made safe for close air support, then the air force as a whole still has work to do. Ground-attack planes shouldn’t be sent forth unguarded.

The interdependence among the components of an air force has gotten lost in the debate over light attack, not to mention quarrels over the proper mix of stealth and non-stealthy aircraft in the inventory, methods for integrating unmanned vehicles alongside manned planes, and on and on. A robust aviation theory would illumine these exchanges of point and counterpoint. It would explain how the segments of an air arm work together for combined effect, and in the process it could help collapse the silos separating communities within the U.S. Air Force. In short, air-power theory would offer a point of departure—enriching future deliberations about force design, tactics, and operations.

A century into the air age, few would dispute the importance of aviation to military operations. And yet at the Naval War College our main text on air power remains the Italian general Giulio Douhet’s Command of the Air. Douhet’s treatise dates to 1921. While it remains the best available guide to air-power theory a century hence, few would rank Command of the Air alongside timeless works like Clausewitz’s On War, Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, or Mao’s On Protracted War.

Chronological age isn’t the problem with Douhet’s writings. Age is good. We read far older works with our students each term when sojourning through martial history and theory. The trouble is that Douhet wrote too soon, when military aviation remained in its infancy. Think about it. Only in 1903 did Orville and Wilbur Wright take to the skies above Kitty Hawk, NC, ushering in the era of heavier-than-air flight. The first military aircraft, another brainchild of the Wright brothers, debuted in 1909. Command of the Air thus debuted a mere eyeblink into the age of military aviation.

This is no slight to Douhet. Somebody has to be first to say something meaningful about a new topic, and all honor to those with the courage to do it. But twelve years supplies too little history to plumb. A century on we should temper our enthusiasm for findings about air warfare distilled from the First Balkan War (1912-1913) and World War I (1914-1918), when rudimentary planes first dueled one another and ground forces. That’s far too sparse a storehouse of data to yield insights of enduring value.

Do a thought experiment. Military thinkers would lampoon the idea that some scribe could have written the definitive treatise about land warfare within a few years after cavemen first lobbed stones at one another, or about naval warfare in the seventh century B.C., after triremes from Corinth and Corcyra collided in history’s first recorded sea battle. The notion that Douhet uttered the final word about air power is likewise laughable.

This is doubly true because Command of the Air is less a work of strategic theory than a manifesto on behalf of an independent air force. Douhet sought bureaucratic goals as much as he sought to enlighten airmen about the nature of their profession. In short, Douhet had baggage to tote that didn’t encumber fellow theorists. Clausewitz felt little need to prove that armies should exist, Corbett that navies should ply the oceans, or Mao that guerrillas and other irregular fighters should bestride the field. These seers could get on with explicating strategy. To my mind this element of special pleading sets Douhet’s writings apart from—and on a lower plane than—rival classics.

Until some writer does pen an authoritative treatise about air power, though, why not conscript sea-power theory as a substitute? The analogy between water and sky is inexact but serviceable. Julian Corbett delineated the phases of sea combat, and he broke down navies into their constituent parts while explaining how those parts should interact with one another. First, naval commanders could dispute enemy “command of the sea” if they headed the weaker force. They could balk the stronger foe by various stratagems while building up sufficient strength to seize the offensive. Once strong enough, second, they could venture a fleet battle. Depending on the scale of their victory, they would wrest partial or complete, temporary or permanent control of important waters from the antagonist. “Permanent general control” of the sea constituted the gold standard for Corbett.

And third, they could harvest the fruits of maritime command after winning it. The victor could guarantee friendly use of the sea lanes, bar seaways to antagonists, land troops on foreign shores, or otherwise project power inland from offshore. In so doing naval forces would help win the war on land—which, Corbett hastened to assure readers, is where wars are won. After all, people live on dry land. It only makes sense that great matters of state are decided through terrestrial combat.

To accomplish all this Corbett urged fleet designers to partition the navy into “capital ships” fit to battle hostile heavy ships; “cruisers” that were light and cheap enough to build in bulk to police seas scoured of enemy ships; and “flotilla” craft that might or might not be armed and, like cruisers, could be constructed in large numbers to perform the routine administrative errands all sea services must perform. Striking a balance among these ship types was central to fleet design.

Corbett divined a hierarchy among the elements of the navy. Military forces exist to fight, don’t they? That would imply that capital ships, the fleet’s heavy hitters, embody the navy’s purposes. Wrong, says the English theorist. Capital ships may be the fleet’s chief repository of combat power, and they may exude sex appeal because they are big and impressive, but he insisted they’re support ships! Defeating the enemy fleet, he says, is merely an enabler for all good things that follow. Cruisers patrol the sea and project power, exercising command, while flotilla vessels carry out mundane functions. These ships—not ships of the line, the glamour ships—are the ones that perform the “special work” that constitutes the true purpose of naval strategy. Capital ships are merely their guardians.

Now substitute air for sea, aircraft for ship, air force for navy. Teleporting Corbett’s ideas skyward reveals that air forces contest and confound enemy air superiority when weaker, fight for air superiority or supremacy when able, and reap the benefits of aerial command once it has been won. Lending close air support to ground forces is something air forces that attain superiority or supremacy do. It ranks among the true purposes of air power, much as bombarding foreign shores from the sea represents one of the true purposes of sea power. Fighter aircraft vie for aerial command and thus equate to capital ships of the sky. By Corbett’s logic they are the protectors of aircraft that exploit command of the air—including the ground-attack contingent, the aerial counterpart to cruisers or flotilla ships.

Here’s the rub, though. Like command of the sea, command of the air may be incomplete, impermanent, or both. A defeated foe may still have options. Its air force may have been driven off yet escape destruction to fight again another day. The vanquished could rebuild. They could find allies boasting strong air forces of their own. Thus the fighter community’s work is never done. Ground-attack planes could find themselves in trouble from hostile aircraft or ground fire. At that point fighters must resume their all-important support function, succoring their vulnerable brethren and thence the army. They resume the struggle for air supremacy just as a navy’s battle fleet may find itself forced to renew the fight against a rejuvenated enemy fleet.

Close air support in embattled skies most closely resembles a close naval blockade of coasts that bristle with gun batteries and may harbor fugitive enemy ships intent on breaking the blockade or denying the triumphant fleet the harvest of victory at sea. Naval commanders wouldn’t withdraw the battle fleet from such a scene even after trouncing the enemy in action. They would instruct the fleet to remain vigilant in case cruisers and flotilla craft needed protection afresh. Similarly, air commanders ought not assume they are entitled to permanent, absolute air supremacy by virtue of a victorious air battle. Instead they should choreograph operations so fighter forces are positioned to defend aircraft performing their special work. In other words, they must manage the symbiosis among the components of the air force.

Bottom line, the elements of air forces are interdependent just as capital ships, cruisers, and flotilla craft prowling the sea are interdependent. To circle back to where we started, the U.S. Air Force should evaluate candidates for the light-attack mission as part of a larger flying force—not as aircraft that must fight or die bereft of support from fellow airmen. Surveying them in a vacuum begets an abstract, artificial, and misleading way of thinking about air power—as would be immediately apparent to aviators steeped in air-power theory.

We can—and must—do better. Will the Corbett of air power please step forward?

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

U.S. Navy, East Asia

If a coastal state like China or Russia asserts outsized claims to jurisdiction over offshore waters and no one challenges those claims, its claims—even though unlawful—have a way of calcifying into international custom over time.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Fortunately, Washington and likeminded capitals seem to have alighted on such a strategy. U.S. Pacific Command boss Admiral Phil Davidson recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that allies will join future freedom-of-navigation deployments. The more flags fly in contested expanses the better.

The question is a hardy perennial among those who hold forth about maritime strategy in Asia: are “freedom of navigation” operations enough? Are periodic cruises through waters where a coastal state claims rights and prerogatives beyond those codified by treaty enough to safeguard maritime freedom?

Answer: freedom-of-navigation operations are necessary but not sufficient guarantors of “freedom of the sea,” the nearly limitless liberty to use the sea for mercantile and military pursuits, and of the liberal system of seagoing trade and commerce it underwrites.

Freedom-of-navigation operations are necessary for legal reasons. As retired Royal Navy admiral Chris Parry likes to say, navigational freedoms are something like the “right of way” in English common law. They endure as long as seafarers use them. The right of way permits citizens to traipse across private property along certain pathways provided people actually exercise that right. If no one does, the right of way has a way of lapsing over time. Ownership reverts to the land’s holder in full.

Use it or lose it.

Similarly, if a coastal state like China or Russia asserts outsized claims to jurisdiction over offshore waters and no one challenges those claims, its claims—even though unlawful—have a way of calcifying into international custom over time. International law is a system of customary law as much as it is a system of written treaties and agreements. If navies and merchant fleets fail to exercise their rights under the law of the sea to their fullest, compliance with the coastal state’s demands could begin to look like consent to those demands. Acquiescence could become the reigning custom—and if so freedom of the sea will have been abridged in the waters at issue.

Hence the necessity to defy extralegal claims early and often.

Freedom-of-navigation cruises are insufficient for military and diplomatic reasons. These are come-and-go operations whereas a broad swathe of the seafaring world should go to contested waters and stay in order to make a statement that resonates regarding freedom of the sea.

Think about it. What does an American warship accomplish when it passes by a Chinese-held rock in the South China Sea—in 2016 an international tribunal ruled that none of the Spratly or Paracel islands qualifies as an island in a legal sense—and leaves? It exercises the right of way codified by the law of the sea. That’s good.

But in all likelihood a Chinese warship will have shadowed it, will have instructed it to leave, and may have harassed it during its transit. The fact that U.S. Navy vessels do come and go lends credence to a diplomatic narrative issuing from Beijing. The tale goes something like this: Americans broke into our territorial waters and we chased them off. Chinese spokesmen essay a sort of diplomatic alchemy. They try to portray demonstrating on behalf of freedom of the sea into cutting and running from an embattled zone. If a critical mass of influential audiences buys the Chinese line, it becomes reality in their minds until and unless debunked.

How to deflate China’s narrative? Rather than put in the occasional fleeting appearance, friends of navigational freedom should show up in disputed waters such as the South China Sea, and they should stay. Constancy should be their watchword.

Fortunately, Washington and likeminded capitals seem to have alighted on such a strategy. U.S. Pacific Command boss Admiral Phil Davidson recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that allies will join future freedom-of-navigation deployments. The more flags fly in contested expanses the better.

That’s why recent news out of allied capitals is so heartening. For instance, Tokyo dispatched one of its “helicopter destroyers,” or light aircraft carriers—the pride of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force—to operate alongside U.S. Navy units in the South China Sea. In so doing Japan’s political leadership stated that it will not buckle under Chinese pressure anywhere around the Asian rim.

Europeans have gotten into the act. London dispatched a Royal Navy amphibious transport to the region last fall to put in appearance near Chinese rocks, and last month a Royal Navy frigate joined U.S. Navy ships in Southeast Asia for several days of combined operations. Great Britain even intends to open a military base in the South China Sea—punctuating its return to seaways “east of Suez” decades after decolonization. A base would anchor the British and allied presence in the region—helping naval forces go there and remain.

European aircraft carriers will soon join the mix. Paris has announced that the nuclear-powered flattop Charles de Gaulle, fresh from its midlife overhaul, will journey to the South China Sea this year. Britain’s first supercarrier, Queen Elizabeth, will follow this year or next—and a U.S. Marine Corps squadron flying F-35 stealth fighters will join her air arm. London has bruited about the idea of creating an Anglo-French carrier force—helping Europeans maintain a constant and formidable presence in waters claimed by China. Paris isn’t quite there yet, politically speaking, but even talking about pooling naval resources constitutes progress.

And if the allies sustain their on-scene naval presence for a long time? Beijing will find it increasingly tough to convince others its navy has chased off ships that never leave. Its parable of Chinese power and allied weakness will no longer pass the giggle test.

Turn to strategic theory in closing. Admiral J. C. Wylie describes control of somewhere or something as the purpose of military strategy, and he depicts the “man on the scene with a gun”—the soldier—as the final arbiter of control. The soldier appears on the scene and stays, outgunning local resistance. He embodies control of dry land. He is control, says Wylie.

Teleporting Wylie’s logic seaward, naval forces on the scene that boast serious firepower are the saltwater counterparts to the soldier. If they mount a standing presence, forces flying not just American but Asian and European flags can belie China’s efforts to impose control as well as its self-boosterism. Its creeping encroachment on freedom of the sea could stall as the seafaring world rallies.

Is success in this armed conversation a foregone conclusion? Hardly. The outcome of strategic competition never is. But an enduring, multinational show of power and resolve might prove sufficient to curb the China challenge.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.

This piece appeared earlier and is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Michael Peck

Security, Middle East

And what makes that question more difficult to answer than one might imagine?

Here's What You Need to Remember: Critics have questioned the accuracy of the IDF’s Iron Dome statistics during the 2014 Gaza conflict. But with four Israeli civilians dead (though one was hit by an anti-tank missile fired directly from Gaza), even Israelis are expressing doubts about the system.

Israel’s Iron Dome is more than a missile defense system. It’s practically an icon, a symbol of how technological creativity can enable one rocket to knock another rocket out of the sky.

But did the system fail earlier this month? And what does this mean for the U.S. military’s planned buy of Iron Dome?

Any thoughts of an invulnerable missile shield evaporated when Hamas fired six-hundred-and-ninety rockets and mortar shells from Gaza into Israel earlier this month. Out of that six-hundred-and-ninety total, ninety never managed to cross into Israel, according to Israeli figures. Iron Dome intercepted two-hundred-and-forty, of which the Israel Defense Forces claim an 86 percent kill rate, with thirty-five rockets landing in populated areas.

Critics have questioned the accuracy of the IDF’s Iron Dome statistics during the 2014 Gaza conflict. But with four Israeli civilians dead (though one was hit by an anti-tank missile fired directly from Gaza), even Israelis are expressing doubts about the system.

Hamas says it deliberately fired enormous numbers of rockets at a specific target zone to saturate Iron Dome. Some Israeli experts agree that it is difficult to defend against massed salvoes with short flight times when fired from launchers situated a few miles away in Gaza. Israel has ten Iron Dome batteries of three launchers each, firing ten-foot-long Tamir interceptors that cost about $100,000 apiece. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed force in Lebanon, has an estimated 130,000 rockets.

However, assessing the effectiveness of Iron Dome isn’t easy. For example, the software is supposed to calculate whether a rocket will land in a populated area or empty terrain: interceptors will hit the former while ignoring the latter. So, if a Hamas rocket landed on Israel, was it because Iron Dome failed to intercept it, or Iron Dome chose to ignore it because it didn’t pose a threat?

Ted Postol, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a longtime critic of Israeli and American missile defense, said Youtube video of Iron Dome interceptions showed the system isn’t working. To hit and destroy the warhead, rather than the missile fuselage, an Iron Dome interceptor must strike a rocket head-on, according to Postol. The video that shows contrails from interceptors doing U-turns, or diving down on their target, indicates that the interceptor did not destroy the warhead.

Postol dismissed the IDF’s claim of an 86 percent interception rate. “5 to 10 percent is more likely,” he said. “It’s not Iron Dome. It’s Iron Sieve.”

The latest performance of Iron Dome, first deployed in 2011 and used extensively against Hamas rockets in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, will interest the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines are considering whether to purchase Iron Dome to defend against rocket attacks. Iron Dome has also been mentioned as a possibility for the U.S. Army.

But the most important question is what Iron Dome’s latest combat record means for strategic missile defense. Hamas’s saturation tactics illustrate the problems faced with stopping ICBMs from Russia, China or even North Korea: an attacker can overwhelm ballistic missile defenses by firing enough missiles and warheads, or at least enough warheads plus decoys to confuse the defense system.

But James Acton, a missile defense expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says not to read too much into Gaza when it comes to U.S. strategic missile defense. Without knowing whether Iron Dome deliberately avoided intercepting some Hamas rockets, or tried but failed to intercept them, it’s hard to judge the effectiveness of the system. “To be clear, I do think homeland missile defense is vulnerable to saturation,” Acton told the National Interest. “I’m just not sure this is a good example of that.”

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This article was first published in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

China, South China Sea

China is asserting rulemaking authority in Asian waters and skies. No arrangement a la the Black Sea compact is on offer in Southeast Asia. Nor is there much reason to think Beijing would accept one were it offered.

Here's What You Need to Remember: There hasn’t been a collision yet—quite—but there have been close calls. Should non-military ships block the path of an American warship and a crash ensue, the optics—photos of a hulking destroyer mowing down a civilian vessel—would favor Chinese efforts to brand the U.S. Navy as overbearing, blundering, or both. The truth would take a backseat to messaging.

What would happen should a U.S. Navy warship collide with a Chinese vessel while demonstrating on behalf of freedom of the sea?

This hasn’t been a trivial or hypothetical question since at least April 2001, when a Chinese fighter jet hotdogging near a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane slammed into the American aircraft, kindling a diplomatic crisis between the Chinese Communist Party leadership and the newly installed administration of President George W. Bush. This aerial encounter furnished advance warning of what might happen on the surface below.

Last weekend the question took on new urgency. On Sunday morning a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 052C destroyer cut across the bow of the destroyer USS Decatur as Decatur made a close pass by Gaven Reef in the South China Sea. Estimates vary, but it appears the PLAN ship passed somewhere within 45 feet and 45 yards of its American counterpart—compelling the Decatur bridge crew to maneuver to avoid collision. The imagery is striking. Whatever the actual range, terming this conduct “unsafe and unprofessional”—in the U.S. Pacific Command’s anodyne phrasing—understates how close the vessels came to disaster.

Most such incidents involve the rules of the maritime road: who gets to steam and fly where, and what may seafarers and aviators do along their way? Think of the encounter off Gaven Reef as an exchange of point and counterpoint in an armed conversation about who makes the rules governing the use of sea and sky and who obeys them. And the point of this conversation isn’t merely to impress Chinese and American audiences. It’s to make an impression on foreign audiences able to influence the outcome of the U.S.-China struggle over freedom of the sea.

Audiences such as Vietnam and the Philippines, stakeholders in the maritime disputes roiling the region. Such as Australia and India, friends that incline to stand beside a resolute America but might stand aside should Beijing successfully brand Washington as vacillating and untrustworthy. And such as France and Great Britain, extraregional players whose governments are increasingly vocal about the common and whose navies increasingly share the burden of upholding nautical liberty. Europeans are speaking up—and showing up in embattled waters to back their words with steel.

China calls its opinion-shaping enterprise the “three warfares” and prosecutes it through legal, psychological, and media means on a 24/7/365 basis. Three-warfares efforts have a passive-aggressive cast to them: Beijing tries to depict itself as a put-upon Asian power facing a domineering United States and as a masterful defender of Chinese sovereignty and dignity vis-à-vis a hapless U.S. Navy. It flirts with doublethink.

This armed conversation evokes French soldier and counterinsurgency theorist David Galula’s dichotomy between incumbent governments and insurgent groups trying to overthrow them. Galula observes that the challenger is free to say anything to discredit the government and attract popular support, while the incumbent has a reputation to worry about along with a track record for judging whether its deeds match its words. Insurgent leaders harbor few qualms about propagating fake news if it advances the political narrative, while the government tries to get its facts straight before putting out an official version of events.

Insurgents typically get their message out first—and make the all-important first impression. China plays the part of the insurgents Galula describes, whereas the United States is the overseer of the system of maritime freedom. Washington is commonly a latecomer to propaganda battles. It has to set false first impressions straight—and that’s a hard thing to do. Now it’s worth looking at some past near misses and their diplomatic repercussions in order to peer ahead. Some basic questions to ask: what type of craft were involved, under what circumstances did the encounter take place, and who played the propaganda and blame games better? Such factors determine the victor.

The likeliest collision scenario would involve a U.S. Navy warship and a Chinese fishing boat or China Coast Guard cutter. Beijing uses fishing craft crewed by maritime militiamen and backed by cutters as the vanguard of its strategy in the South China Sea and East China Sea. It floods the zone with them to the tune of thousands of fishing craft. Trawlers ply their trade in expanses where China asserts sovereign rights to natural resources. China Coast Guard white hulls dash to the rescue if a rival navy or coast guard challenges the fishing fleet’s presence.

This is the paramilitary fleet that harassed the U.S. survey ship Impeccable in 2009 and has faced off against Philippine and Vietnamese maritime forces. There hasn’t been a collision yet—quite—but there have been close calls. Should non-military ships block the path of an American warship and a crash ensue, the optics—photos of a hulking destroyer mowing down a civilian vessel—would favor Chinese efforts to brand the U.S. Navy as overbearing, blundering, or both. The truth would take a backseat to messaging.

This week’s events also dredge up memories of the Cold War for those of us sufficiently, ahem, seasoned to remember that twilight conflict. Thirty years ago last February the cruiser Yorktown and destroyer Caron skirted through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea. Their goal was the same as Decatur’s: to exercise the right of “innocent passage” through coastal seaways and thereby rebut Soviet claims to special prerogatives that contradict the law of the sea. The Soviet Navy frigate Bezzavetnyy converged with Yorktown at a shallow angle and struck the cruiser a glancing blow on her port quarter to telegraph Moscow’s displeasure.

It might seem as though the Reagan administration was picking a needless fight, but there’s a logic impelling U.S. demonstrations. It goes something like this: give those who exceed their legal mandate an inch—for instance, by acquiescing in the common demand for advance notice or permission before passing through territorial waters—and you encourage foes of maritime freedom to take a mile. Or in parlance currently in vogue, you allow “salami slicing” in hopes of amity. Fail to stand against small transgressions and you create the incentive to attempt new and more extravagant transgressions. Soon predators have devoured the salami.

The Black Sea bumping incident amounted to little as diplomatic fracases go. In part that’s because the setting differed markedly from the Western Pacific today. The U.S. task force cruised along mainland Soviet shores where no one disputed Moscow’s sovereignty. This was not contested turf like China’s South China islands—ground wrested from China’s neighbors or manufactured wholesale. That muted tempers. So did the slight damage to Yorktown. Nor was there any loss of life. There was little to fire a public outcry in either capital.

But more importantly, the Soviet Union was a superpower in terminal decay by 1988. The West had come to fear Soviet weakness more than Soviet might. Washington wanted to avoid doing anything that might collapse the regime in Moscow or encourage hardliners to attempt a coup (as they did in 1991). In effect the contenders struck a gentleman’s agreement: Moscow went silent about its excessive claims while the U.S. Navy executed no further overt challenges. Both sides got most of what they wanted.

By contrast, China is a power on the rise. It is asserting rulemaking authority in Asian waters and skies. No arrangement a la the Black Sea compact is on offer in Southeast Asia. Nor is there much reason to think Beijing would accept one were it offered. Quite the reverse. China is serious about making itself the suzerain of maritime Asia and is striving to lock in its status.

The pattern of Chinese actions magnifies the prospect for an actual catastrophe. The Decatur incident wasn’t the first in the genre. In 2013 a PLAN amphibious transport cut in front of the cruiser USS Cowpens to block Cowpens out of the vicinity of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, then plying the South China Sea. But the Chinese “gator” kept a relatively safe distance during that encounter. Think about what would ensue if a PLAN warship again cut across a U.S. Navy ship’s bow, if the American ship plunged into it, and if heavy damage and casualties resulted. This is the brave new world into which China is ushering the region.

The furor following such a pile-up would probably conjure up the EP-3 affair more than the Black Sea bumping incident. Death and loss of pricey hardware concentrate minds. The 2001 collision cost the Chinese airman his life and the PLA Air Force a warplane, inflaming passions within China. Beijing sought to recoup its dignity by demanding an apology from Washington, as though the lumbering propeller-driven U.S. plane had somehow rammed the nimble fighter. It ultimately wrung something out of the Bush administration that it could depict as contrition.

But China held a trump card in that showdown that it probably wouldn’t hold after a collision at sea, namely possession of the American craft and its crew. The stricken EP-3 landed on Hainan Island, bestowing leverage on Beijing. The parallel between 2001 and today is inexact at best—above and beyond the differences separating an aviation from a seaborne incident. Still, it’s fair to forecast that China would reprise its efforts to define what had transpired, fitting events to its preexisting tale about American aggression and Chinese ascendancy. And it would again seek to extract some confession of U.S. culpability. Such measures conform to Beijing’s three-warfares playbook.

But deeper-seated cultural factors may also be at work. The late Alan Wachman, a China hand at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, likened the EP-3 uproar to imperial China’s demand for a “kowtow” from the British Empire. In 1793 officials representing China’s Qing Dynasty insisted that a visiting British embassy headed by Lord Macartney make such a gesture of subservience to China as a condition of opening trade. Dynastic officials demanded a kowtow; Macartney protested that the British crown was the Qing emperor’s sovereign equal. Neither party bent. Irreconcilable differences set them on the pathway to eventual conflict.

Rival conceptions of world order could likewise shape the aftermath of a future high-seas collision—as Henry Kissinger might prophesy judging from his book World Order. Basic worldviews that clash amid impassioned circumstances and diplomatic one-upsmanship make for mercurial interactions.

In fact, it’s fair to prophesy that such an imbroglio would outdo past confrontations by most measures. The stakes would be high as each contender painted the other as a dastardly aggressor. Publicity would glare on the contestants—limiting their political freedom of maneuver. Beijing and Washington would stake out intractable positions, Black Sea-type formulas for deescalating the impasse would elude them, and options would narrow. It’s anyone’s guess what trajectory such a controversy would take.

Strategists are forever conducting wargames to project how armed conflicts might unfold. As they should. They could do worse than simulate a high-seas collision and its diplomatic fallout as part of their gaming repertoire. Better to think ahead now than improvise later under hothouse conditions.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.

This first appeared in 2018.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

World War II, Europe

Of all the German surface warships, the British feared Bismarck the most.

Here's What You Need to Remember: A 15-inch shell from Bismarck hit the bridge of Prince of Wales. Although it did not explode, it killed several key personnel, and for a short period disrupted command of the ship.

The British Admiralty Board of Enquiry into the loss of the battlecruiser HMS Hood, presided over by Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, concluded, “The sinking of Hood was due to a hit from Bismarck’s 15-inch shell in or adjacent to Hood’s 4-inch or 15-inch magazines, causing them to explode and wreck the after part of the ship.”

Director of Naval Construction Sir Stanley Goodall, however, found this conclusion unsatisfactory and in his report pointed out the explosion was observed near the mainmast 65 feet further forward from the aft magazines. A second board of enquiry was convened under Rear Admiral H.T.C Walker. Even given eyewitness accounts that described fires on deck, that board still found a hit by Bismarck being the likely cause, although finishing with, “The probability is that the 4-inch magazines exploded first.”

Taking on the Feared Bismarck

In May 1941, Admiral Sir John C. Tovey, commander of the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, was ordered to attack the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen that had just been spotted in the Denmark Strait. Tovey’s fleet consisted of two new battleships, King George V and Prince of Wales, the battlecruisers Hood and Repulse, and the aircraft carrier Victorious, plus many additional cruisers and destroyers. Also hurrying north to join him was the older battleship Rodney, mounting nine 16-inch guns, the largest caliber in the fleet.

Of all the German surface warships, the British feared Bismarck the most. Her size, speed, and firepower made her a definite threat to Allied shipping in the Atlantic, and it was imperative that she be neutralized.

On May 21, 1941, Hood and Prince of Wales left Scapa Flow with six destroyers under the command of Admiral Lancelot Holland flying his flag in Hood, their mission to provide heavy support to the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk covering the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland––one of the likely routes the German naval squadron would take to reach the North Atlantic. The rest of the fleet was gathering to cover the area between Iceland and the Orkney Islands.

Early on the evening May 23, Suffolk made contact with the enemy ships, quickly turning away toward the coast of Iceland and into a fog bank. Suffolk immediately transmitted a sighting report to the Admiralty and then came around astern of the German ships to shadow them on radar.

Norfolk came up as well, a little too boldly, for Bismarck opened fire on her; like Suffolk, she raced for the fog bank. The blast from Bismarck’s 15-inch guns disabled her own forward radar, and overall German commander Admiral Gunther Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to take the lead.

The Germans had picked up the sighting report from Suffolk and advised their own high command. Lütjens was shocked their presence had been discovered so easily and had little intelligence on what his two warships might face.

The Dwindling British Advantage

As the two forces moved toward each other, Holland had a marked two-to-one superiority in firepower. However, this was offset by the age of the Hood (commissioned in 1920) and the newness (commissioned in January 1941) and lack of combat readiness of Prince of Wales, which was still having trouble with her main armament.

Holland soon realized he was in a favorable position to bring the enemy to action that evening, sailing northwesterly toward the Denmark Strait with the enemy on a southwesterly course. He hoped to catch the Germans just before sunset at around 2 am at 65 degrees north latitude. He also hoped to cross the German squadron’s “T,” which would give him a great advantage. “Crossing the T” is a tactic in naval warfare in which a line of warships crosses in front of a line of enemy ships, allowing them to bring all their guns to bear while receiving fire from only the forward guns of the enemy.

During the evening of May 23, the forces converged. Suffolk continued to shadow and update the Admiralty, Holland on Hood, and Tovey on King George V.

Around midnight, Suffolk lost contact because her radar was blinded by a snowstorm the German ships had entered. Holland waited an hour but, hearing no news, turned more northerly in case the enemy turned south. He could not afford a German breakout into the North Atlantic. At 2 am, still with no news, he turned southwesterly hoping to cut off the enemy before total darkness.

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About an hour later, Suffolk regained radar contact and discovered the German ships were still on their original course. Holland must have cursed his luck, for his maneuvering had lost time and space, and the opportunity to cross the T was gone; this would prove critical in the coming battle.

Failing to Concentrate Fire on the Bismarck

Not wanting a night engagement, Holland brought his ships onto a course to intercept the German squadron at first light, keeping up a good speed but in the heavy seas dropping the escorting destroyers astern. By dawn, the destroyers were an hour behind.

Lookouts scanned the horizon for a glimpse of their quarry. At 5:37 am the two ships were spotted to the northwest, 30,000 yards (17 miles) away. The heavy guns could fire that far but the chance of a hit was remote; they needed to reduce the range to 25,000 yards or less––and quickly.

Prinz Eugen had already picked up the sound of ships with her underwater detection gear at some 20 miles to the southeast. At about the same time as the British lookouts spotted them, the Germans spotted smoke on the horizon. Lütjens believed that these were likely more cruisers, and he was under orders to avoid contact with British warships. He turned to starboard and headed almost due west, confident that he could outrun them.

Holland was soon aware the enemy had turned away, but he had to maintain his intercept course. Turning toward them would merely put his ships behind the Germans and make it a chase.

By 5:50 am, the range was down to 26,000 yards, and Holland would soon give the order to open fire. He was fully aware of Hood’s vulnerability to plunging fire at long range and wanted to pass through the critical zone as fast as possible. Therefore, he compromised by turning 20 degrees to starboard on a new course of 300 degrees toward the enemy. This would close with the enemy faster but make it impossible for the rear turrets of the British ships to bear on the Germans.

At 5:52 am, Holland designated the lead ship as the target and gave the order to open fire. This caused Captain John Leach of Prince of Wales a few anxious moments, for he was convinced that the rear ship was Bismarck, posing the greater threat. He ignored the orders from Holland and concentrated on Bismarck.

In seconds, huge columns of water erupted around Prinz Eugen, followed seconds later around Bismarck. Lütjens now had no doubt about what he faced. However, the British angle of approach still made identification difficult.

Marking the fall of shots, the British ships fired another salvo still firing at different targets. Leach had not informed Holland of his opinion and later had not been informed by his own gunners that Prince of Wales was firing at the second ship.

The Hood is Struck

The range was down to 24,000 yards when Lütjens ordered his ships to turn 65 degrees to port toward the British on a new course of 200 degrees and directed his ships to open fire as soon as they had turned. Lütjens was now on course to cross the British T and would be able to employ all his ships’ heavy guns.

Prinz Eugen opened fire first at 5:53 am, concentrating on the lead British ship, Hood, with her fast-firing 8-inch guns at four salvos per minute; she was firing high-explosive, not armor-piercing shells. After a few ranging salvos, Prinz Eugen hit Hood, her shells starting a large fire amidships among the ammunition lockers of the 4-inch antiaircraft guns, as well as ammunition for the unrifled projectile launchers used for defense against aircraft. Attempts to put out the fire were frustrated by the exploding ammunition.

Both British ships were still firing but at different targets. As yet, Bismarck had not opened fire. By now the range was down to 22,000 yards. After turning, Bismarck opened fire on Hood at 5:55 am with all eight 15-inch guns. Her first salvo fell close to Hood. At last Hood’s gunners realized they had been firing at the wrong ship. About this time, Holland ordered another 20 degree turn to port. This turn still would not allow the British ships to use their rear turrets.

At 5:59 am, Holland ordered another 20-degree turn to port, which would finally allow his ships to bring their full armament to bear. The range was now down to 18,000 yards. Bismarck fired three salvos in rapid succession about 30 seconds apart. The first, the fourth in total, again straddled Hood, but the fifth hit with devastating effect at about 6 am.

For the sailors aboard Hood, their worst nightmares were about to come true.

Explosion on the Hood

Ted Briggs had joined Hood as a signal boy on March 7, 1938, at just 15 years of age. Three years later he was an ordinary signalman on Hood’s compass platform, manning the voice pipe to the flag deck.

During the battle, Hood’s X Turret fired for the first time, but Y Turret was silent. Seconds later, Briggs saw a blinding flash sweep around the outside of the compass platform. However, he said there “was not a terrific explosion at all regards noise.” He felt the ship “jar” and begin listing to port. The “jar” was the ship breaking in two. The list got worse, and the men began leaving his area. By the time Briggs climbed down the ladder to the admiral’s bridge, the icy sea was already around his legs.

Eighteen-year-old Midshipman William Dundas had the duty of watching Prince of Wales to make sure she was keeping station; he was not far from Ted Briggs on the compass platform. He remembered bodies falling past his position from the higher spotting positions––the result, he felt, of Bismarck’s shells hitting without exploding. He recalled a mass of brown smoke just before the list to port began. Dundas escaped by kicking out a window on the starboard side of the compass platform. Even so, he was dragged under the water by the sinking ship but miraculously regained the surface.

Twenty-year-old Able Seaman Robert Tilburn was stationed at Hood’s aft-port 4-inch antiaircraft gun and witnessed the fire started by Prinz Eugen’s shells. The heat of the blaze made fire fighting impossible as the flames were being fanned by Hood’s 28-knot speed. Then he said, “The ship shook like mad” and began listing to port. Tilburn got onto the forecastle but was washed over the side by a great wave.

At the second board of enquiry, Tilburn told the admirals, “The Bismarck hit us. There was no doubt about that. She hit us at least three times before the final blow.”

Briggs, Dundas, and Tilburn were the only survivors from Hood; her 1,415 other crewmen were lost. But there were other witnesses, such as Lieutenant Esmond Knight. Aboard Prince of Walesobserving Hood, he remembered thinking, “It would be a most tremendous explosion, but I don’t remember hearing an explosion at all.” Chief Petty Officer French, also on Prince of Wales, said that the middle of the Hood’s boat deck appeared to rise before the mainmast.

Leading Sick-Berth Attendant Sam Wood, also on Prince of Wales, observed, “I was watching the orange flashes coming from Bismarck, so naturally I was on the starboard side. The leading seaman who was with me said, ‘Christ, look how close the firing is getting to Hood.’ As I looked out, suddenly Hood exploded. She was one pall of black smoke. Then she disappeared into a big orange flash and a huge pall of smoke which blacked us out…. The bows pointed out of the smoke, just the bows, tilted up, and then this whole apparition slid out of sight, all in slow motion, just slid away.” Within three minutes Hood was gone.

What Destroyed the Hood?

So what did happen to Hood? Were the boards of enquiry right that a 15-inch shell from Bismarck had hit close to her 4-inch and/or 15-inch magazines, causing an explosion that wrecked the after part of the ship?

What evidence we have would seem to shed some doubt on this. First, Hood was about 17,000 yards from Bismarck by 6 am. By that time, the heavy shells from both sides were travelling on a fairly low trajectory. As the range decreased, the guns would have been progressively depressed. Therefore, any hit would have been more likely to strike the belt. Hood’s belt armor was 12-inches thick and superior to any ship in the fleet; it was also inclined at 12 degrees.

It is still possible a shell could have hit the deck with its thin armor of three inches, but not with the plunging effect Holland had feared at long range. The shell likely fell at a rather oblique angle, which would make penetration of four decks to the main magazine under X Turret unlikely.

Also, it was witnessed aboard Hood and Prince of Wales that Bismarck’s 15-inch shells were likely defective, that most failed to explode.

Could there have been some sort of cordite flash explosion similar to those that destroyed three British battle cruisers during the battle of Jutland in May 1916?

This again seems highly unlikely as Hood’s shell-handling rooms were situated well below the X and Y Turrets’ magazine and the engine room thanks to lessons learned from that tragic Jutland episode. Also at Jutland, all three battlecruisers were destroyed by massive explosions, and there was none audible on Hood. One question about the magazine theory is why Y Turret did not fire like X had. Was something already happening there?

Then there is the fire started by Prinz Eugen’s 8-inch shells. Captain Leach of Prince of Wales described the fire as “a vast blowlamp.” The fire consumed much combustible material on the deck and upper superstructure, but the two- and three-inch deck armor and forecastle armor prevented this fire from penetrating below. The ventilation systems were fitted with gas-tight flaps and, at action stations, all should have been closed. Thus, it is fairly certain that the deck fires could not have resulted in Hood breaking in two or could even have contributed to this significantly.

The second board of enquiry did look at the possibility of Hood’s own above-deck torpedoes causing her to sink. Sir Stanley Goodall, who had supervised Hood’s design, believed an enemy shell could have detonated the torpedo warheads in their  tubes.

Four 21-inch MK IV torpedoes were kept in tubes, two on either side of the mainmast, and four reloads were nearby in a three-inch armored box. These torpedoes were certainly capable of breaking Hood’s back and could have been set off either by a direct hit from an enemy shell or by an intense fire. the TNT in the warheads would ignite at around 250 degrees Fahrenheit and explode at around 280 degrees. Again, however, there was no explosion. It is worth noting that similar torpedo tubes on the battlecruisers Repulse and Renown were later removed.

Was there some sort of underwater penetration? This seems even more unlikely. Hood was outside torpedo range of the German ships. One of Bismarck’s 15-inch shells could have penetrated the side and exploded in or near Hood’s shell-handling rooms––again unlikely without evidence of a massive explosion.

A Lucky Shot

The final theory or possibility is that Prinz Eugen’s 8-inch guns, firing at over half their maximum range, would have been falling on the target at a much steeper trajectory than Bismarck’s 15-inch guns and that one of her high-explosive 8-inch shells might have gone down Hood’s after funnel. If this did happen, it would have been just before Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to shift her fire to Prince of Wales, about the time Hood was engulfed.

The wire cage that covered the top of the funnel would not stop a shell and would be unlikely to explode it. The next obstacle on a shell’s journey would have been a steel grating positioned in vents at the level of the lower deck to protect the boiler room. If an 8-inch shell exploded here, it would have detonated in the boiler room. A high-explosive shell bursting in one of the boiler rooms or nearby might have resulted in an enormous buildup of pressure, resulting in an explosion inside the ship. The line of least resistance to this would have been up through Hood’s thin decks, not through the heavily armored sides or bottom.

Was this the result, a muffled explosion within the ship only heard below decks, the flash seen above decks near the mainmast with the propellers still turning driving the rear into the severely weakened midsection and breaking Hood in two parts? Could it have been a fatal combination of two of these theories?

In July 2001, the wreck of the Hood was found 9,334 feet below the surface of the  Denmark Straight. She lies in three sections  with the bow on its side, the mid section upside down, and the stern speared into the seabed. In 2013, the wreck was more fully explored with a remote-control vehicle. The exploration appears to confirm a massive explosion had taken place in the magazine feeding Y Turret and breaking the back of the ship. However, it remains a mystery, given the low trajectory of any shell, how one could have passed through four decks and the magazine armor. It must have been a lucky shot, indeed.

Prince of Wales Escapes

After the loss of the Hood, the battle continued. Prince of Wales was about 1,000 yards astern of Hood. Seeing the flagship explode, Captain Leach ordered a hard turn to starboard to avoid the wreckage. Hood was engulfed in smoke, but the stern was still above the water. The forward section still had some momentum but was listing to port and sinking rapidly. After clearing the wreckage, Leach swung Prince of Wales back onto 260 degrees, bringing his full broadside to bear.

The turn of Prince of Wales disrupted the gunners on Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, but they soon found the range again. With the range down to 15,000 yards, the fire from both sides was finding its mark.

A 15-inch shell from Bismarck hit the bridge of Prince of Wales. Although it did not explode, it killed several key personnel, and for a short period disrupted command of the ship. Direction was transferred to the aft position. She was also hit by an 8-inch shell from Prinz Eugen, knocking out fire control of several 5.25-inch guns, and two more hits caused minor flooding. At 6:03 am, Bismarck passed the port beam of Prinz Eugen, causing that ship to temporarily cease fire. The heavy cruiser had turned away because of suspected torpedoes.

Leach did not close the range. Prince of Wales had managed to hit Bismarck three times, although no explosions had been observed. Bismarck struck back, hitting the starboard crane of Prince of Wales, causing much splinter damage. Another shell hit amidships below the rear funnel under the waterline but failed to explode. It did cause some flooding and required the ship to counter flood to maintain trim.

Leach felt his ship was taking heavy damage––it had been hit four times by Bismarck and three times by Prinz Eugen. His own ship’s main armament was still not working properly, and his crew lacked the experience to adjust for this. Believing his ship might suffer serious damage, Leach ordered Prince of Wales to withdraw behind a smoke screen at 6:05. Also, Bismarck had completed passing Prinz Eugen so that ship’s guns would soon be back in action. Whether this influenced Leach is unknown.

Admiral Lütjens was surprised to see Prince of Wales turn away, but he dismissed calls from some of his men to pursue the British ship. It was doubtful they would be able to catch her. Also, Bismarckherself had been hit. Two shells had caused minor damage. However, one 14-inch shell had struck below the waterline causing some flooding and reduction in speed. Worse, some fuel tanks had been ruptured causing the loss of several hundred tons of precious fuel oil.

Lütjens soon realized he could not continue with the mission to attack British convoys due to the loss of fuel. Prinz Eugen was therefore detached to proceed with raiding while Bismarck turned back. The battleship headed for the nearest port with a drydock big enough to take Bismarck, at St. Nazaire, France.

Sinking the Bismarck

On May 26, a British aircraft spotted the battleship and radioed her position to other warships in the area. A force of 15 Fairey Swordfish torpedo planes from the carrier Ark Royal converged on Lütjens’ ship, and one torpedo damaged Bismarck’s rudder so badly that all the giant ship could do was sail helplessly in a circle.

Like a pack of lions, the chasing British battleships Rodney and King George V caught and engaged Bismarck at a range of 16,000 yards. The German gunners’ return fire was ineffective, and the helpless Bismarck was torn apart. At 10:40 am on May 27, 1941, the German battleship sank some 300 nautical miles west of Ushant, France. Only 110 of her crew of 2,222 survived the sinking. Admiral Lütjens went down with the ship.

This article By Mark Simmons originally appeared on Warfare History Network. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Trevor Filseth

Afghanistan, Asia

The base will be left in the hands of the Afghan Security Forces; a formal handover ceremony for the base is scheduled to take place on Saturday.

Bagram Air Base, which served as the focal point of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan for nearly twenty years, saw the departure of its last American troops on Friday.

According to AP, two U.S. officials anonymously confirmed that the base had been handed over to the Afghan government. However, they also underlined that the highest-ranked U.S. commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Austin Miller, “retain[ed] all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces.”

Bagram, an enormous fortified military base roughly 40 miles north of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city, hosted more than 100,000 U.S. troops at various times during the “troop surge” of 2009-2010.

Since then, U.S. forces have precipitously decreased in strength; at the beginning of the year, roughly 3,000 U.S. troops remained in the country.

In April, President Joe Biden made the decision to fully withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan; In televised remarks, he stated that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn by September 11, the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. In conjunction with the U.S. withdrawal, an estimated 7,000 NATO troops from a handful of European nations are also being pulled out; Deutsche Welle reported on June 29 that all German troops in Afghanistan, following Germany’s twenty-year mission in the country, had departed.

It has been speculated in recent months that the final withdrawal of all U.S. troops would be set to conclude in July. A string of military victories by the Taliban has prompted calls for delay, but some sources continue to indicate that a full withdrawal in the coming days or weeks is likely. The troop withdrawal, however, will include an exception for an estimated 650 soldiers, who will be left behind to guard the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul.

Another ongoing point of contention delaying a full withdrawal is the future protection of Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul’s main civilian airport, which is currently divided between U.S. and Turkish troops.

The airfield at Bagram has a rich history, intertwined with the modern history of Afghanistan. The airfield was constructed by the Soviet Union in the 1950s; during that country’s ten-year war in Afghanistan, Bagram served as a major logistics hub for the Soviet Army.

Following Moscow’s withdrawal and the ensuing civil war, Bagram fell into ruins again. After the 2001 U.S. invasion, the base was rebuilt, with new airstrips, blast walls, and modern accommodations for resident troops. The base will be left in the hands of the Afghan Security Forces; a formal handover ceremony for the base is scheduled to take place on Saturday.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for The National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Iran, Middle East

What good does it do to feign accountability over Raisi but offer impunity and financial access to a regime that has employed and promoted men like Raisi to the heights of political power

Men of the cloth are no strangers to the levers of power in Iran, especially the office of the presidency. Ebrahim Raisi, the sixty-year-old mid-ranking cleric who is now president-elect, or better put, president-select, will be the first in the history of the Islamic Republic to make the lateral move from the judiciary, which he led since 2019, to the presidency. He will also be the first Iranian president under U.S. sanctions.

But that could soon change, especially if what Iranian officials are saying about sanctions relief, having been agreed upon by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s inner circle, of which Raisi is one, holds true. Should past become prologue, then there are legitimate concerns about the United States potentially removing Raisi from its sanctions lists amid talks to resurrect the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Raisi, a failed presidential contender in 2017, has held various positions in Iran’s legal system for most of his life. Prior to becoming chief justice, Raisi served for three years as the head of a major parastatal organization fronting as a charity but functioning as a veritable slush fund for the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

But it was in the late 1980s that Raisi cemented his revolutionary bona fides in what is now termed the “1988 prison massacre.” At the age of twenty-eight, Raisi was one of four judges implementing two Fatwas by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, against political prisoners. The result was the killing of an estimated 5,000 inmates already serving lesser sentences. Their killing was not only grotesque and immoral, it was extrajudicial, even by the Islamic Republic’s standards.

Yet, when the Trump administration’s Treasury Department designated Raisi in 2019, they did so because he had been elevated by Khamenei to chief justice. Under the relatively new Executive Order 13867, the United States retains broad authority to target the Supreme Leader’s office and network of appointees. While the Treasury Department’s press release explicitly mentioned Raisi’s abuses, he was not designated under relevant human rights authorities at the time. 

Human rights organizations have been busy ringing the alarm bell about what a Raisi presidency could mean and are calling for an investigation into his past. But there are new, equally important sanctions-related concerns stemming from both the latest game of musical chairs in Tehran and nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

The Biden administration is reportedly seeking to capitalize on the current lame-duck period of outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to return to the JCPOA before Raisi and his new assumedly hardline cabinet come into office this August. Already, the Biden administration is taking an expansive view of sanctions relief and even hinted at a willingness to remove non-nuclear sanctions under the auspices of some being “inconsistent with the deal.” Nonetheless, challenges remain.

This is where Executive Order 13867 comes in. Not only have Iranian officials called for lifting all nuclear and non-nuclear sanctions, but they have also purportedly sought the termination of this entire executive order. Reports indicate that the Biden administration is considering this request. Yet revoking the order curbs Washington’s ability to hold to account those closest to, or supported by, Iran’s most powerful person. It would also render Raisi, a major rights violator, sanctions-free.

Retaining the order would signal to other aggressive and repressive powers like Russia, China, and North Korea that the United States can align strategic and moral considerations in its foreign policy. Removing it would frame U.S. strategy and values as something that can be pitted against one other to the benefit of America’s authoritarian adversaries.

We’ve seen this movie before.

When the JCPOA went into effect in January 2016, the United States removed a tranche of persons and entities from its sanctions list and enabled non-U.S. trade with select firms to include a 90-plus billion-dollar empire of companies tied to Iran’s supreme leader. The holding company, which is known by its English-language acronym, EIKO, established its early fortunes “on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians,” according to a Reuters investigation. EIKO was initially designated by the Treasury Department in 2013 for working “on behalf of the Iranian Government” as well as working “in various sectors of the Iranian economy and around the world, generating billions of dollars in profits for the Iranian regime each year.”

Notably, there was no credible justification for offering EIKO sanctions relief under the auspices of the JCPOA other than the desire to covet goodwill with Khamenei to see the deal through. Fast forward to 2021 and the Biden administration risks making the same mistake of believing that in order to engage in nuclear diplomacy with Iran they must first cater to Tehran’s top kleptocrat.

There is no doubt that Washington has sufficient anti-corruption and human rights laws in place—such as Global Magnitsky Act authorities—to redesignate Raisi for his crimes in the face of such a concession. However, analysts revealed that Washington’s rhetoric on redesignating Raisi has been, at best, confusing, given its emphasis on punishing future, rather than past, egregious rights violations. 

Still, sanctions proponents must be careful what they wish for. Redesignating Raisi in exchange for losing Executive Order 13867 and paying in sanctions relief for the waning JCPOA would be missing the forest through the trees and a political shield to facilitate JCPOA reentry. After all, what good does it do to feign accountability over Raisi but offer impunity and financial access to a regime that has employed and promoted men like Raisi to the heights of political power?

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where he focuses on Iranian political and security issues.

Image: Reuters.

Warfare History Network

Security, Asia

General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower termed the victory “a brilliant example of strategic leadership,” while General Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz called it “one of the most, if not the most, significant military operations in history.”

Key Point:  “Geographically, South Korea is a ruggedly mountainous peninsula that juts out toward Japan from the Manchurian mainland between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. An uneven north-south corridor cuts through the rough heart of the country below the 38th Parallel, and there are highways and rail links on both the eastern and western coastal plains.”

Late in the evening of June 25, 1950 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson was at his Maryland farmhouse reading when a call arrived to inform him of a serious situation in the Far East. He telephoned President Harry S Truman at the latter’s Independence, Mo. home that same Saturday evening and told HST, “Mr. President … the North Koreans are attacking across the 38th Parallel.”

Harry S. Truman Responds To The Korean Crisis

The next day, President Truman returned to Washington aboard his aircraft Independence for an emergency meeting of the top-level Security Council at Blair House, his temporary residence while the White House was undergoing renovation.

The President heard and approved a triad of recommendations, namely, first, to evacuate all American civilian dependents from the South Korean capital of Seoul; second, to air-drop supplies to the embattled Republic of Korea (ROK) forces under attack; and third, to move the U.S. fleet based at Cavite in the Philippines to Korea. Another caveat was that there would be no Nationalist Chinese forces sent from Formosa to fight in South Korea.

Meanwhile, far away from the nation’s capital in Allied-occupied Japan, America’s Supreme Commander there—five-star General of the Army Douglas MacArthur—picked up the telephone by his bedside in the American Embassy in Tokyo. He, too, was told that the North Koreans had struck in great strength.

North Koreans Had Formidable Soviet Tanks

Long familiar with all the countries of Asia, MacArthur thus described Korea in his 1964 memoirs, Reminiscences: “Geographically, South Korea is a ruggedly mountainous peninsula that juts out toward Japan from the Manchurian mainland between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. An uneven north-south corridor cuts through the rough heart of the country below the 38th Parallel, and there are highways and rail links on both the eastern and western coastal plains.” He knew that the existing ROK forces were very weak: four divisions along the Parallel and, although well trained, “organized as a constabulary force, not troops of the line. They had only light weapons, no air or naval forces, and were lacking in tanks, artillery, and many other essentials. The decision to equip and organize them in this way had been made by the [U.S.] State Department.” As for their North Korean People’s Army opponents, they, MacArthur knew, had “a powerful striking army, fully equipped with heavy weapons, including the latest model of Soviet tanks,” the vaunted T-34 that had shattered the German Wehrmacht.

The mathematical equation of the rival forces on the ground was both simple and deadly: 100,000 ROKs versus 200,000 NKPAs—plus no modern weapons for the defenders as opposed to all modern weapons for the attackers. The method of the North Korean steamroller-like advance was also quite basic: Swing left and then right of their opponents’ lines in broad, flanking movements, so well practiced by British line infantry regiments during the entirety of the Napoleonic Wars of the previous century, and then plunge through any opened gap in the enemy center.

”Timidity Breeds Conflict, And Courage Often Prevents”

Disdaining President Truman’s term for Korea as a “police action,” his man in Tokyo privately thought, “Now was the time to recognize what the history of the world has taught from the beginning of time: that timidity breeds conflict, and courage often prevents.” Right from the start, therefore, the general misread the mettle of his commander-in-chief, just as the latter did him.

Nevertheless, in these early hours and days of dire emergency, the man in Washington turned to the man in Tokyo: “I was directed to use the Navy and the Air Force to assist South Korean defenses … also to isolate the Nationalist-held island of Formosa from the Chinese mainland. The U.S. 7th Fleet was turned over to my operational control.”

The British Asiatic Fleet was also placed under his command and, with his historic corncob pipe clenched between his teeth, MacArthur flew out of Haneda Airport aboard his old wartime plane the Bataan to take a first-hand, on-the-ground look at the fighting in Korea.

MacArthur Arrives To Witness A Tragic Scene

Upon arrival, he came almost immediately under enemy fire. He commandeered a jeep. “Seoul was already in enemy hands,” he later wrote. “It was a tragic scene. I watched for an hour the disaster I had inherited. In that brief interval on that blood-soaked hill, I formulated my plans. They were desperate plans, indeed, but I could see no other way except to accept a defeat which would include not only Korea, but all of Continental Asia.”

How could that have been, this instant of genius in the midst of overwhelming catastrophe and seemingly hopeless rout? Asserted his later compatriot and eventual successor, Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway in 1986, “He was truly one of the great captains of warfare.” Like Napoleon who would nap on a battlefield by his horse as deadly cannonballs would claim the lives of lesser mortals, Douglas MacArthur was lofty and serene in his genius, utterly convinced in his purpose, and absolutely determined that he would see all his plans through to completion or die in the process.

Formulating a Battle Plan

Clear-eyed and alert despite his 71 years, with thinning hair but no gray, MacArthur set about his plans. On July 23 he cabled to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon the basic tenets of his plan, to be called Operation Chromite. “Operation planned mid-September is amphibious landing of two division corps in rear of enemy lines [150 miles behind NKPA lines, far to the north of the Pusan Perimeter fighting where General Walton Walker’s 8th Army was fighting for its life and what little Korean territory remained to it] for purpose of enveloping and destroying enemy forces in conjunction with attack from south by 8th Army.…”

Ironically, unlike other U.S. Army generals of the day (like Omar Bradley, who stated openly that seaborne landings were obsolete), MacArthur was a distinct rarity—an army leader who firmly believed in amphibious operations, based on his own previous wartime experiences in the Pacific against the Japanese Army, working hand-in-glove with the U.S. Navy. Moreover, unlike Truman, Bradley, and former U.S. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson (who was fired the day before Inchon was launched, and replaced by General Marshall), MacArthur was not against the Marine Corps. Indeed, having first planned to use the army’s lst Cavalry Division as his projected lead assault unit of what was to be called the X Corps, he changed his mind and asked for—and got—the 1st Marine Division instead.

Tide And Terrain Make Water Landing Extremely Hazardous

Secretary Johnson had even gone so far as to assert that “the Navy is on its way out.… There’s no reason for having a Navy and a Marine Corps,” feeling instead that the new U.S. Air Force could take over both services’ functions. At Inchon, MacArthur used navy ships, Marine aerial Corsairs and Marine and army troops jointly, in a superb example of inter-service cooperation.

In late August, in the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo, America’s “proconsul for Japan” listened politely to all the arguments against Operation Chromite, and the dire prophecies of doom that it would fail ignominiously. The obstacles were formidable, indeed. MacArthur later wrote: “A naval briefing staff argued that two elements—tide and terrain—made a landing at Inchon extremely hazardous. They referred to Navy hydrographic studies which listed the average rise and fall of tides at Inchon at 20.7 feet—one of ‘the greatest in the world.’ On the tentative target date for the invasion, the rise and fall would be more than 30 feet because of the position of the moon.

“When Inchon’s tides were at full ebb, the mud banks that had accumulated over the centuries from the Yellow Sea jutted from the shore in some places as far as two miles out into the harbor, and during ebb and flow these tides raced through ‘Flying Fish Channel,’ the best approach to the port, at speeds up to six knots. Even under the most favorable conditions, ‘Flying Fish Channel’ was narrow and winding. Not only did it make a perfect location for enemy mines, but also any ship sunk at a particularly vulnerable point could block the channel to all other ships.

The Invasion Plan Would Rise Or Fall With the Tide

“On the target date, the Navy experts went on, the first high tide would occur at 6:59 am, and the afternoon high tide would be at 7:19 pm, a full 35 minutes after sunset. Within two hours after high tide most of the assault craft would be wallowing in the ooze of Inchon’s mud banks, sitting ducks for Communist shore batteries until the next tide came in to float them again.

“In effect, the amphibious forces would have only about two hours in the morning for the complex job of reducing or effectively neutralizing Wolmi-Do, the 350-foot-high, heavily-fortified island which commands the harbor and which is connected with the mainland by a long causeway. …

“Assuming that this could be done, the afternoon’s high tide and approaching darkness would allow only 2 1/2 hours for the troops to land, secure a beachhead for the night, and bring up all the supplies essential to enable [the] forces to withstand counterattacks until morning. The landing craft, after putting the first assault waves ashore, would be helpless on the mud banks until the morning tide.”

A City With Every Conceivable Handicap

And then there came the icing on the cake. “Beyond all this,” MacArthur recalled, “the Navy summed up [that] the assault landings would have to be made right in the heart of the city itself, where every structure provided a potential strong point of enemy resistance. Reviewing the Navy’s presentation, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Sherman concluded by saying, ‘If every possible geographical and naval handicap were listed—Inchon has ’em all!’”

Army Chief of Staff General Joseph Collins believed that, even if the landings were a success, MacArthur would not be able to retake Seoul, and might even suffer a complete defeat at the hands of the NKPA in the embattled capital’s suburbs. The specter of an Asian Dunkirk thus loomed, with MacArthur in no doubt that he must first defend Japan, and only then Korea.

And what about the Japanese Home Islands? Might they not be attacked by their traditional enemy, the Russian bear, while MacArthur was tied down in Korea? And what, too, of the Red Chinese? Might they not also sweep down from the north and crush the X Corps like a paper cup and then go on to do the same to the 8th Army in the Pusan Perimeter? The risks that MacArthur was running were enormous.

The Impossible Serves To Surprise

Now it was MacArthur’s turn to answer his critics at the Dai Ichi military summit conference. “The bulk of the Reds,” he recalled saying, “are committed around Walker’s defense perimeter. The enemy, I am convinced, has failed to prepare Inchon properly for defense. The very arguments you have made as to the impracticabilities involved will tend to ensure for me the element of surprise, for the enemy commander will reason that no one would be so brash as to make such an attempt.

“Surprise is the most vital element for success in war. As an example, the Marquis de Montcalm believed in 1759 that it was impossible for an armed force to scale the precipitous river banks south of the then walled city of Quebec, and therefore concentrated his formidable defenses along the more vulnerable banks north of the city. But Gen. James Wolfe and a small force did, indeed, come up the St. Lawrence River and scale those heights.

“On the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe won a stunning victory that was made possible almost entirely by surprise. Thus, he captured Quebec and in effect ended the French and Indian War. Like Montcalm, the North Koreans would regard an Inchon landing as impossible. Like Wolfe, I could take them by surprise.”

MacArthur Makes a Convincing Case

Turning to the assembled sailors, he intoned, “The Navy’s objections as to tides, hydrography, terrain and physical handicaps are indeed substantial and pertinent, but they are not insuperable. My confidence in the Navy is complete, and in fact I seem to have more confidence in the Navy than the Navy has in itself! The Navy’s rich experience in staging the numerous amphibious landings under my command in the Pacific during the late war, frequently under somewhat similar difficulties, leaves me with little doubt on that score.”

Gen. Collins had proposed another landing at the west coast port of Kunsan instead, thus canceling MacArthur’s prized Inchon plan, but the latter was having none of it: “It would be largely ineffective and indecisive … an attempted envelopment that would not envelop. It would not sever or destroy the enemy’s supply lines or distribution center.… Better no flank movement than one such as this!”

After his conclusion, Admiral Sherman rose and said, “Thank you. A great voice in a great cause.” As for the dangers of going up Flying Fish Channel, Admiral Sherman snorted, “I wouldn’t hesitate to take a ship up there!” leading MacArthur to exclaim, “Spoken like a Farragut!”

A 45,000-To-One Shot

When MacArthur had earlier stated, “If we find we can’t make it, we will withdraw,” Admiral James T. Doyle retorted, “No, General, we don’t know how to do that. Once we start ashore, we’ll keep going.” Later, Admiral Doyle would recall the overall scene thus: “If MacArthur had gone on the stage, you never would have heard of John Barrymore!”

In his final remarks, MacArthur was even more firm: “We must strike hard and deep! For a five-dollar ante, I have an opportunity to win $50,000, and that is what I am going to do.” Indeed, almost no one except those on MacArthur’s immediate staff liked or backed the plan. General Ridgeway called it a 45,000-to-one shot.

Only three dates were possible for the attempted landing because of the moon: September 15, October 11, and November 3; characteristically, MacArthur chose the first, even though when President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved Operation Chromite, there were only a mere 17 days to D-Day. Yet another problem was security—or the total lack of it—as South Korean President Syngman Rhee, General Walker, the American news media (which kept silent at MacArthur’s request), and even Red spies in Japan all knew of it and, later, an NKPA officer correctly predicted the landing in an official dispatch that was found after the battle.

Troops Are Called In To Mount Up

Like Tsarist Marshal Mikhail Kutusov in Russia against the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, MacArthur’s basic strategy in these weeks was to buy time with space (the shrinking Pusan Perimenter) so as to build up his independent strike force and then smash the enemy in the rear at the time and place of his choosing, just as he had against the then-victorious Japanese Army in New Guinea in 1942.

To facilitate this, there was an unheard-of mobilization of troops and ships within Japan and the “mounting up” of Marines from all over the world, including American embassies, the U.S. Navy fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Marine Corps Reserve called up by the President to flesh out the needed muscle of MacArthur’s invasion armada. In the meantime, the beleaguered troops within the Pusan Perimeter kept buying the time needed in order for Chromite’s blow to assemble itself.

Chromite’s keys were simple: Land and secure the initial beachhead on the morning tide, land again in the evening with army troops and then, with the Marines, wage the land battle to defeat the surprised NKPA, cross the Han River, take Kimpo Airfield and then Seoul. After that, Walker would break out of the perimeter, link up with X Corps and drive the NKPA back to their frontier—and later beyond it.

An Unparalleled Leap In Mobilization

The Marine “mounting out” or build-up from scratch, especially, was impressive, with the lst Marine Division rising in strength from 7,789 men in June when the North Korean invasion commenced, to 26,000 men by D-Day, Sept. 15, an unparalleled leap in mobilization, to use the term used by Lt. Gen. Lem Shepherd.

Marine Reserves flooded in from posts around the world and homes across the country. During four frantic days, August l to 5, nine thousand officers and men reported for duty. Lamented a Pentagon planner, “The only thing left between us and an emergency in Europe are the School Troops at Quantico [Virginia].”

North Koreans Begin to Fortify

The NKPA, too, were strengthening their forces and positions, however, particularly on Wolmi-Do Island astride Flying Fish Channel, the literal key to the overall success of Operation Chromite. Notes Robert Leckie, “Little Wolmi-Do guarded all the approaches to the inner harbor. It was well fortified. More, Wolmi rose 351 feet above water and was the highest point of land in the Inchon area. Its guns could strike at Marines attempting to storm the port’s seawalls to the north and south. Wolmi would have to be captured to secure the flanks of both landings, but before it could, Wolmi would have to be subjected to several days of bombardment by air and sea, and this, of course, would forfeit that advantage of surprise so necessary to MacArthur’s plan,” thus making the island fortress seemingly the very nemesis at the heart of Chromite’s hoped-for success.

As what was now being called “Operation Common Knowledge” proceeded, the later problem of the port of Inchon itself came into sharper focus as well. The Marines were concerned that they would be landing under fire directly into a city of 250,000 people where warehouses and buildings were fortified. In addition, once the port was taken, the Marines would have to regroup and prepare for the expected NKPA counterattack that might well drive them back into the water with heavy losses, much as had happened during the Canadian raid on Dieppe in Nazi-occupied France in 1942.

The Top Priority: Retaking Seoul

Surviving this, they would have to cross the wide and swift Han River before they could reach Seoul, the coveted prize. Not only the South Korean capital, Seoul was also the linchpin of the country’s telephone, telegraph, rail-way, and highway networks.

And what of the defenders? In Seoul there was the 10,000-man 18th Rifle Division, reinforced by the Seoul City Regiment, an infantry unit 3,600 strong. There was also the hated 36th Battalion, 111th Security Regiment, plus an antiaircraft defense force unit armed with Russian 85mm guns, 37mm automatic cannon, and 12.7mm machine guns, and air force personnel numbering in the thousands.

At Inchon was a garrison of two thousand new conscripts and two harbor defense batteries of four 76mm guns, each manned by two hundred gunners. In addition, Russian land mines were being laid, trenches and emplacements dug, and weapons and ammunition arriving. There were plans to mine the harbor, but the work had not begun.

Espionage Helped Provide a Guiding Light

Kimpo Airfield, too, was an extremely worthwhile military objective. Located to the north of the Inchon-Seoul axis, it lay a mile inland along the left bank of the Han River, downstream—or northwest—of Seoul. It was the best airfield in Korea, serving the two million inhabitants of Seoul as well as the port of Inchon.

Espionage played a significant part in the planning stages from the Navy side. Recalled Ridgway, “The first step in Operation Chromite was to scout the harbor islands which commanded the straitened Channel. A young Navy lieutenant, Eugene Clark, was put ashore near Inchon on Sept. lst and worked two weeks, largely under cover of darkness, to locate gun emplacements and to measure the height of the seawall. So successful were his efforts that he actually turned on a light in a lighthouse to guide the first assault ships into Inchon harbor before dawn on Sept. 15th.”

Even MacArthur saw the light on the way in to shore on the morning of the 15th: “I noticed a flash—a light that winked on and off across the water. The channel navigation lights were on. We were taking the enemy by surprise. The lights were not even turned off.” (Apparently, he never learned of Lieutenant Clark’s daring mission.) “I went to my cabin and turned in,” he concluded.

Weather Takes A Turn For Worse

“All I fear is nature,” asserted Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Inchon invasion, too, was threatened by the sea and wind in the form of Typhoon Kezia, a 125-mile-an-hour storm that seemed destined to arrive precisely on time with Chromite’s Joint Task Force 7 invasion fleet in the Korean Strait. Naval planners nervously recalled the disastrous storm that had occurred during the invasion of Okinawa in the spring of 1945, and wondered if history might be repeating itself. MacArthur boarded his flagship the Mt. McKinley on the 12th. The vessel and its mates at sea were buffeted by howling winds and high seas when the storm suddenly veered north from the east coast of Japan on the 13th. But the worst of the terrible storm narrowly missed the invasion fleet.

As the countdown for Chromite approached, two diversionary bombardments took place by air to the south at Kunsan and to the north at Chinammpo, with the battleship USS Missouri blasting Samchok on the east coast right across from the real target, Inchon. Next came Wolmi-Do; beginning on Sept. 10 Marine Corsairs set most of its buildings afire.

Enemy Gets Ample Warning Of Invasion

By the 13th, the cat seemed to be out of the bag in the enemy camp: an intercepted Communist dispatch to Pyongyang read: “Ten enemy vessels are approaching Inchon. Many aircraft are bombing Wolmi-Do. There is every indication the enemy will perform a landing. All units under my command are directed to be ready for combat; all units will be stationed in their given positions so that they may throw back enemy forces when they attempt their landing operation.”

At last, 71,339 officers and men of the U.S. Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and ROK Marines were ready in their 47 landing craft to prove MacArthur either a seer or a reckless gambler who had bet on the wrong horse. According to one source, “Precisely at 0630, the U.S. Marines swept in from the Yellow Sea to face 40,000 North Korean troops.”

What would be the outcome—tremendous victory or ignominious defeat? In the event, the Battle of Inchon is most notable for two things: What didn’t happen that very well might have, and for the “about as planned” outcome that Douglas MacArthur had envisioned on that hill in South Korea just a short time before.

Did MacArthur Call It Right?

The initial landing force of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, lst Marine Divsion clambered ashore from their landing craft and scaled the sea wall, securing Wolmi-Do Island in a mere—and historic—45 minutes. Stated Ridgway, “The action opened at dawn with a heavy bombardment by American destroyers, whose skippers gallantly steamed up the channel under the very muzzles of enemy cannons, and by British and American cruisers. The first task was to neutralize Wolmi-Do, the little island that sat right athwart the channel, with all channel traffic within point-blank range of its guns.

“The island, however, was not nearly so strongly fortified as had been feared [MacArthur had been right in this assessment] and its guns were quickly silenced by the naval bombardment. Marine Corsair planes strafed the island beaches … and the Marines stormed ashore, scattering the dazed defenders.… Artillery was positioned on the island then to support the assault upon the seawall.”

Continues Ridgway: “In places, the Marines used ladders to scale the wall, which stood four feet above the prows of the Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs). Elsewhere the LSTs simply rammed holes in the wall, or Marines opened holes with dynamite, through which the assault troops poured.… By dark the advance elements … were securely dug in on their beachhead ready to repel counterattacks,” which never came, so complete and total was the surprise victory.

A Smug General Rolls Back Over To Sleep

And what of the man whose military genius had foreseen all this from the start? Aboard the Mt. McKinley, two NKPA MiG fighters were seen at 5:40 am beginning an attack on a cruiser to the front, leading General Courtney Whitney to alert MacArthur in his cabin of the danger. MacArthur simply said. “Wake me up again, Court, if they attack this ship,” rolled over and went to sleep.

After the bombardment began, he went to breakfast and then up on deck, commenting above the roar of the guns, “Just like Lingayen Gulf,” meaning his invasion of the Philippines in 1945. Later, Marine General Shepherd would recall, “His staff was grouped around him. He was seated in the admiral’s chair with his old Bataan cap with its tarnished gold braid [that Truman would mock a month to the day later] and a leather jacket on. Photographers were busily engaged in taking pictures of the General, while he continued to watch the naval gunfire—paying no attention to his admirers.”

“More People Than That Get Killed In Traffic Every Day!”

As the Marines had stormed ashore, elderly Korean civilians had gathered to watch them in awe, admiration, and relief at being liberated from their northern oppressors. The NKPAs also admired the Leathernecks, calling them “yellow legs” because of their distinctive leggings. Indeed, President Truman’s personal observer throughout the battle, National Guard Maj. Gen. Frank E. Lowe, also admired the men his boss had derisively called “The Navy’s police force,” leading the amphibious commander General Oliver P. Smith later to write, “As to personal danger, his claim was that the safest place in Korea was with a platoon of Marines.”

Back on the Mt. McKinley, MacArthur was told that there were 45 enemy POWs on Wolmi-Do, with U.S. losses being put at about six dead and 15-20 wounded, leading him to comment, “More people than that get killed in traffic every day!”

The landings were divided into a trio of Beaches: Green to take Wolmi-Do, and Red and Blue to seize Inchon proper, with the former to the north of the causeway linking Wolmi-Do to the port and the latter to the south of it.

Taking Of Red Beach a Sight To Behold

The main battle assault was at Red Beach. In the words of one Marine company commander, Captain Frank I. Fenton, “It really looked dangerous.… There was a finger pier and causeway that extended out from Red Beach which reminded us of Tarawa, and, if machineguns were on the finger pier and causeway, we were going to have a tough time making the last 200 yards to the beach.”

At 5:24 pm the Marines went in, and Herald-Tribune reporter Marguerite Higgins described the scene: “A rocket hit a round oil tower and big, ugly smoke rings billowed up. The dockside buildings were brilliant with flames. Through the haze it looked as if the whole city was burning.… The strange sunset, combined with the crimson haze of the flaming docks, was so spectacular that a movie audience would have considered it overdone.” Cemetery Hill was taken, and Miss Higgins came in with the fifth wave onto Red Beach.

“We were relentlessly pinned down by rifle and automatic weapon fire coming down on us from another rise on the right [Observatory Hill]. Capt. Fenton’s men took it, and the CO himself had a rather unusual experience, as related by the late Marine Col. Robert Debs Heinl, Jr, whose seminal work Victory at High Tide: The Inchon-Seoul Campaign, is without doubt the very best study in print on MacArthur’s Cannae: “Outside his command post on the hill., Capt. Fenton stood poised to relieve himself by the light of a star shell. As he did so, the hole at his feet came alive and a frightened Communist soldier, armed with burp gun and grenades, sprang out and cried for mercy. Momentarily transfixed, Fenton shouted for his runner, who disarmed the drenched captive.”

The Indomitable “Chesty” Puller

Now came the taking of Blue Beach, and the re-emergence of one of the Marine Corps’ greatest all-time combat heroes: Colonel Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller, 52. “Fierce and utterly fearless,” wrote Colonel Heinl, “entitled to almost as many battle stars as the regiment he commanded. Winner of two Navy Crosses before World War II, and of two more during the war, Puller was one of the great fighting soldiers of American history. … Puller’s mission was to land south of Inchon and seize a beachhead covering the main approach to the city proper, from which the regiment could advance directly on [a fortress called] Yongdungpo and Seoul.

During one rather gloomy G-2 report, he cut his own intelligence officer short: “We’ll find out what’s on the beach when we get there. There’s not necessarily a gun in every hole! There’s too much goddamned pessimism in this regiment. Most times, professional soldiers have to wait 25 years or more for a war, but here we are, with only five years’ wait for this one.… We’re going to work at our trade for a little while. We live by the sword and, if necessary, we’re ready to die by the sword. Good luck! I’ll see you ashore.”

Notes his biographer, Burke Davis, Puller’s first wave went in at 5:30 pm. “Puller went to his objective at Blue Beach with the third wave, in a twilight hastened by the smoke pall, and climbed a 15-foot sea wall on one of the scaling ladders improvised on the ship en route. It occurred to him that the Corps had not used ladders since [the storming of] Chapultepec [in the 1848 Mexican War].

Leaflets Dropped To Discourage Enemy Into Surrender

“He sat on the wall,” wrote Davis, “briefly watching the enemy in his front.” He settled his men in for the night, and launched his renewed attack inland the next day, Sept. 16 as planned, at dawn. “By 9 a.m., Puller had driven 4,000 yards against machinegun and mortar fire.” To the north, the fighting was sharper, with a counterattack by six Russian-made tanks against which the Americans launched aircraft. But the advance inland continued, the Marines taking care that none of their dead or wounded remained on the battlefield but were carried to the rear.

MacArthur—ever the military public relations man—had devised yet another masterstroke that paid off, a leaflet dropped some two hundred miles to the southeast, on the Red troops fighting at the Pusan Perimeter.

It read: “UNITED NATIONS FORCES HAVE LANDED AT INCHON. Officers and men of North Korea, powerful UN forces have landed at Inchon and are advancing rapidly. You can see from this map how hopeless your situation has become. Your supply lines cannot reach you, nor can you withdraw to the North. The odds against you are tremendous. Fifty-three of the 59 countries in the UN are opposing you. You are outnumbered in equipment, manpower and firepower. Come over to the UN side and you will get good food and prompt medical care.”

Onto Kimpo Airfield After Inchon Falls

With nine American tanks on Wolmi-Do, three with flame-throwers, three with bulldozer blades, success was in the air. MacArthur took great satisfaction when he saw the Stars and Stripes flying overhead. Six NKPAs forced their officer to strip naked and then surrender, others jumped into the water and tried to swim to Inchon, and yet still others fought to the death in their holes in the ground.

The overall casualties at Wolmi-Do were 20 Marines wounded, with about 120 North Koreans killed and another 180 captured. MacArthur’s great gamble was looking good. After the fall of Inchon came that of Kimpo Airfield on the 17th—D-Day plus two. Two hundred NKPAs with five tanks were wiped out by the Marines in a battle six miles southeast of Inchon.

“Attack, push and pursue without cease,” had asserted French Marshal Maurice de Saxe, and now his 20th-century counterpart—MacArthur—came ashore to do precisely that, landing on the 17th and setting out in a jeep convoy to find the hero of the hour, Chesty Puller. But the tough Marine sent back the message: “If he wants to see me, have him come up in the front lines. I’ll be waiting for him.” MacArthur did so, and awarded Puller the Silver Star on the spot. Puller said, “Thanks very much for the Star, General. Now, if you want to know where those sons of bitches are, they’re right over the next ridge!”

Propaganda From Moscow Paints A Different Picture Of Invasion

The Marines had first fought in Korea in 1871, and first taken Seoul in 1894. Now—after taking fortress Yongdungpo and crossing the Han River, they took it a second time, on Sept. 26, but it wasn’t completely cleared of enemy resistance, after tough street-by-street, house-to-house fighting, until the 28th.

Indeed, the Soviet newspaper Pravda likened the battle for Seoul to the epic struggle at Stalingrad against the Germans in 1942-43: “Cement, streetcar rails, beams and stones are being used to build barricades in the streets, and workers are joining soldiers in the defense. The situation is very serious. Pillboxes and tank points dot the scene. Every home must be defended as a fortress. There is firing from behind every stone.

“When a soldier is killed, his gun continues to fire. It is picked up by a worker, tradesman or office worker. … Gen. MacArthur landed the most arrant criminals at Inchon, gathered from the ends of the earth. He sends British and New Zealand adventure-seekers ahead of his own executioners, letting them drag Yankee chestnuts from the fire. American bandits are shooting every Seoul inhabitant taken prisoner.”

A Huge Number Of North Koreans Taken Prisoner

That was on the 23rd. The day before, the NKPA troops had begun surrendering, as Colonel Heinl points out: “They started coming in in numbers, all carrying their burp guns. We stripped every one as he came in—pretty hard trying to get trousers off over leggings … (which the North Koreans, like their Marine captors, also wore). Indeed, in the two weeks after Inchon, MacArthur’s forces captured a stunning 130,000 North Koreans, just as predicted.

States Leckie, “By mid-September, the 70,000 combat troops opposing Gen. Walker’s combat force of 140,000 men [in the Pusan Perimeter] were served by perhaps 50% of the tanks and heavy weapons they needed. MacArthur’s estimate of what happened to an army at the end of a long supply line was proven correct, and his faith in what happened to it when it was put to rout was borne out with grim exactitude during the last 10 days of September.

All Escape Routes In United Nations’ Hands

“By the end of the month, the North Korean Army was shattered and fleeing north with little semblance of order. Some of the enemy’s 13 divisions simply disappeared. Their men were spread all over the South Korean countryside in disorganized and demoralized small parties. All of the escape routes were in United Nations hands, the sea was hostile to them and the sky roared with the motors of planes that spat death at them or showered them with firebombs.

“The roads, rice paddies and ditches of South Korea became littered with abandoned enemy tanks, guns and vehicles. Wholesale surrenders became commonplace.”

It was at this point and this juncture only—in the heady, warm glow of total victory by UN arms—that arose the idea of the unification of the two Koreas by force, especially espoused by President Rhee, who crowed, on Sept. 30, “What is the 38th Parallel?… It is non-existent. I am going all the way to the Yalu, and the United Nations can’t stop me.”

The Extent Of North Korean Atrocities Become Apparent

On Sept. 29, MacArthur and President Rhee wept together over the liberation of Seoul, as the General and the assemblage recited The Lord’s Prayer in gratitude for the UN victory, and the President blurted out through his tears, “We admire you. We love you as the savior of our race!” He would be overthrown in 1960.

The South Korean people had welcomed the incoming Marines with open arms, and had even brought out their small cooking stoves so that their liberators could warm their cold rations before eating. It soon became apparent why, as Communist atrocities began surfacing. Murdered American POWs also cropped up in ever-increasing incidents as UN forces advanced north into enemy territory.

The reckoning of the battle was also accomplished on Sept. 30, as—in the words of Colonel Heinl—“The X Corps War Diary rounded out the number of enemy killed at 14,000, his prisoners in hand, 7,000. These figures are about as correct as any that will ever be arrived at. Some 50 Russian tanks were destroyed, 47 by Marine ground or air. … The Marine division alone destroyed or took 23 120mm mortars, two 76mm self-propelled guns, eight 76mm guns, 19 45mm antitank guns, 59 14.5mm antitank rifles, 56 heavy machineguns, and 7,543 rifles.”

"The Trinity Of Victory”

General MacArthur was not solely responsible for the great deed done in the campaign, Colonel Heinl concluded. He must be given credit for what Heinl calls “a masterpiece,” but he was responsible for the conception of Operation Chromite, not its command execution. For that the laurels must properly go to “the trinity of victory:” Admiral Struble, the overall commander of all forces afloat; Rear Admiral Doyle, the amphibious force commander; and General Oliver P. Smith, the landing force CO.

“Every great campaign spawns its statistics,” lamented Heinl. “To defeat the 30-40,000 defenders which the [NKPA] threw piecemeal against X Corps, 71,339 soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and ROK troops landed at Inchon and bore their part in the battle. The cost of this victory to the United States was 536 killed in action or died of wounds, 2,550 wounded, and 65 missing in action. Among the Services, Marines, on the ground and in the air, paid the highest price.”

Adds Ridgway: “The measure of the role the ground forces played in Korea may be judged from the fact that, of the total U.S. battle casualties for the entire conflict, the Army and Marines accounted for 97%.… [But it] certainly may be said that the gallant airmen and sailors who contributed so much to the effort are nowhere more highly honored than in the hearts of the doughboys and Marines who fought the ground battles.”

Reassertion That America Was a Maritime Power

Overall, Heinl asserts, “Inchon underscored … that America is a maritime power, that her weapon is the trident, and her strategy that of the oceans. Only through the sure and practiced exercise of sea power could this awkward war in a remote place have been turned upside down in a matter of days.”

He also makes this very astute observation: “Civil wars, Communist wars, and Asian wars are unhappily noted for their ferocity. The Korean War was all three … Not only did the NKPA cause the ruin of Seoul, but they stripped it systematically (as they did Inchon) of all usable industrial machinery and even office furniture, conducting such removals until the very last moment.”

Like Army man Ridgway, Marine Heinl notes, too, that Inchon was a joint inter-service victory, and quotes the words that are inscribed on the monument that stands today at Green Beach on Wolmi-Do and is still honored each year on Sept. 15 by the South Koreans (who “do not forget”):

Red Chinese Enter The Korean War

“The victory was not won by any one nation or any one branch of the military service. … The Inchon-Seoul operation was conducted jointly by the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.” The ROK forces, this writer feels, should be added to the inscription.

The victory had long-term effects that are still felt today, Heinl felt: “It revindicated amphibious assault (and, more fundamentally, maritime strategy) as a modern technique of war. In so doing, it almost unquestionably averted the abolition of the U.S. Marine Corps and naval aviation.”

The war went on, even though many thought it was won (on Oct. 30, 1950, one U.S. newspaper prematurely avowed that “Hard-Hitting UN Forces Wind Up War”). Less than a month later, Red Chinese Marshal Lin Piao launched his massive attack across the Yalu River from Manchuria into North Korea. “Two Chinese Army Groups—the Fourth, operating against Walker, the Third, against Almond [commanding the X Corps]—attacked with overwhelming force,” wrote MacArthur. “It was an entirely new war.”

Still, that was in the future, and even in the light of subsequent events, nothing can be taken from the bold stroke that both the enemy believed impossible of attempt and completely fulfilled its goal and prediction of cutting enemy supplies and reinforcements while at the same time putting him in a vise between two fighting forces.

Inchon Invasion Receives Wide Praise

General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower termed the victory “a brilliant example of strategic leadership,” while General Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz called it “one of the most, if not the most, significant military operations in history.”

It was left to U.S. Navy Admiral “Bull” Halsey to say of the attack: “Characteristic and magnificent. The Inchon landing is the most masterly and audacious strategic stroke in all history.” In 1964, author David Rees in his work Korea: The Limited War, termed Inchon “A 20th Century Cannae, ever to be studied.”

And yet back in those bleak and desolate days of the summer of 1951, MacArthur himself was the first to realize that, in German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s words, “If I fail… everybody will be after my blood.” On the very eve of the landings he noted, “I alone was responsible for tomorrow, and if I failed, the dreadful results would rest on Judgment Day against my soul.”

Originally Published October 3, 2018.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Robert A. Manning, James Przystup

geopolitics, Asia

The Quad is positioned to be an informal but resilient mechanism, a force multiplier, to address regional security and political issues, though necessarily still improvisational.

Is Asian multilateralism being stealthily redefined? The Biden administration has placed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (known as the Quad), a revitalized grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India at the center of its Indo-Pacific strategy.

This represents a potential paradigm shift, from ceremonial, process-centered multilateral institutions [e.g.; ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defense Minister’s Meeting (ADMM) and the East Asian Summit (EAS)] to a functional, results-oriented problem-solving institution, reflected in the Quad’s pragmatic humanitarian disaster relief origins. The United States has broken the eggs and is now trying to figure out how best to make an omelet.

In a region of staid, ritualized, bureaucratically inert multilateral institutions, this shift to functional collective action is transformational. It is based on a simple principle: form follows function. Who sits at the table, is based on being willing and able to bring something to the table. The Six-Party talks on North Korea and the 5+1 Iran nuclear talks were examples of this approach. Yet the Quad is a source of apprehension to other Asian partners not included, especially ASEAN and South Korea. Many are wondering, what are the pieces and how do they fit together?

To understand the logic of the Quad it is important to understand its origins. The Quad began as an ad hoc relief effort for the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia. The four democratic maritime nations, with very capable navies, led global relief efforts. Other actors—including China (which sent a MASH medical ship)—also participated. The point here is that it was a spontaneous problem-solving effort.

Indeed, since the 1990s, in most crisis situations, from the 1998 Asian Financial crisis, through the 2004 Tsunami, 2006 East Timor independence in 2006, the 2007 avian-flu epidemic, and the 2008 Myanmar cyclone, Asia’s formal institutions have played virtually no role. Instead, it has been ad hoc regional coalitions, often U.S.-led that have stepped to mobilize collective responses. The Quad is the latest example of that legacy. To be sure, it has its limits: Neither Asia’s institutions nor ad hoc coalitions have been able to respond to the current coup and crisis in Myanmar, for example. 

Evolution of the Quad 

The success of the Quad led to an effort to revive it in 2007, but an early emphasis on joint military exercises drew protests from China, India was reluctant, and the Rudd government in Australia then pulled the plug on the Quad. In the intervening years between 2007 and the advent of the Trump administration, China’s use of economic and military coercion to change the status quo raised concerns of governments across the Indo-Pacific region. The Trump administration, seizing on the opportunity China provided, revived the Quad, raising it from working-level meetings to Foreign Minister-level talks.

The Biden administration, however, has elevated the Quad to yet a new level, holding a virtual leaders meeting that focused on responding to the coronavirus crisis. The meeting also laid a foundation for wider cooperation, with a leader’s statement that declared the support of all four parties for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” and a “rules-based international order based in international law.” Commenting on the summit statement, which does not mention China, but which is animating the Quad, Peter Jennings, the director of Australia’s Security Policy Institute, wrote “Nice job, Beijing.” Now the Biden administration is planning to hold a live Quad Summit in Washington this fall. During the upcoming summit, the administration intends to pursue cooperation on a range of other issues including high-quality physical and digital infrastructure, supply chain security and digital/information technology issues. 

The Quad is now positioned to be an informal but resilient mechanism, a force multiplier, to address regional security and political issues, though necessarily still improvisational. But it remains unclear how the Quad relates to the region’s formal institutional architecture. It should give pause for reflection with regard to the value of other institutions and a recalibration of the role and utility of their parade of annual meetings.

There are a number of ideas for how to connect the Quad with other like-minded nations and institutions. Evan Feigenbaum has argued that the Quad should become “a group of first movers on an array of specific functional challenges.” To do this, he proposed that the Quad be the core of “a rotating set of problem-solving coalitions in the Indo-Pacific.”

Thus, based on the principle of “form follows function—the Quad, reverting to its origins, would, on an issue-by-issue basis, pull together nations of the willing and able, based on the capacity to bring something to the table. For example, on maritime problems, the Quad might invite and support maritime ASEAN states such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines to discuss a common position and/or to take a specific set of actions. Or, for example, the Quad might decide to enhance maritime domain awareness and capacity building. When it comes to supply chain security, the Quad might invite South Korea and Singapore, both major technology hubs. On that basis, it is conceivable they might invite China if there were specific issues on which China’s interests were congruent with the Quad. 

But this a la carte approach still needs to define a relationship with key existing institutions, and individual Quad members have all endorsed the concept of “ASEAN centrality,” boilerplate in every statement after regional meetings. However, as the Quad’s existence and ASEAN’s tepid and unsuccessful response to the coup in Myanmar have underscored, the meaning and functionality of its centrality is not obvious.

ASEAN has succeeded in creating a sub-regional Southeast Asian identity and political culture, but it has yet to modernize its 1967 charter. That charter calls for consensus. But as China dominates Cambodia, it effectively has a veto. If ASEAN instead adopted super-majority decisionmaking it—as a collective group with a population of 650 million and a roughly $3 trillion economy—would be able to punch more at its weight, and could as a bloc inter-act with the Quad and China. 

The Quad could serve to rationalize the alphabet soup of Asian multilateral fora. The current overlapping array of ARF, ADMM+, EAS, etc. arose at the end of the Cold War when many in Asia feared a U.S. retreat was coming. As ASEAN was unthreatening to all major powers, its call for region-wide political/security dialogues to keep all engaged was well received, and ASEAN has played a significant role in Indo-Pacific diplomatic networking. 

But over the past quarter-century, other than providing annual ‘jaw-jaw’ sessions and venues for diplomats to conduct bilateral meetings, these institutions have had little impact on Asian security. By any measure, the Indo-Pacific region is less secure, more contested and anxious than any time since these institutions were created.

The Quad appears to be in the right place at the right time, as evidenced in the results of its virtual summit in March: providing vaccines, as well as launching climate and technology working groups. Its staying power will depend on its ability to continue to address the region’s problems and mesh with other regional institutions. For example, on the persistent Chinese military activities in the disputed South China Sea over disputed islets, the Quad could work with maritime ASEAN states like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines to reshape static efforts to create a binding code of conduct and risk-reduction measures to avoid incidental clashes that could escalate. The Quad could endorse the 2016 International Court of Justice ruling that China claims have no legal basis and/or draft risk reduction measures to apply to the Western Pacific.

The “Quad+” could then take such initiatives to the East Asian Summit for regional endorsement or perhaps assign issues to the ARF or other regional bodies to negotiate details and report back to the EAS. The EAS is inclusive, and meeting at the head-of-state level could function to ratify functional, issue-specific cooperation. There are, of course, various permutations. But the Quad is well-positioned to catalyze a more cogent and effective approach to regional cooperation and a means to counter-balance and perhaps even cooperate with China. In short, it adds a new dimension to Indo-Pacific diplomacy. 

Robert A. Manning is a senior fellow of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council and its Foresight, Strategy and Risks Initiative. He served as a senior counselor to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 2001 to 2004, as a member of the US Department of State Policy Planning Staff from 2004 to 2008, and on the National Intelligence Council (NIC) Strategic Futures Group, 2008-12. Follow him on Twitter @Rmanning4 

James Przystup is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies. Previously, he has served as Deputy Director of the Presidential Commission on U.S.-Japan Relations 1993-1995, the Senior Member for Asia on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff 1987-1991, Director of Regional Security Strategies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense 1991-1993 and Director of The Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation 1993-98. The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not reflect those of the National Defense University or the Department of Defense. 

Image: Reuters