Diplomacy & Crisis News

Sebastien Roblin

History,

This time Japan was not involved.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The accident was deemed was so shocking the Navy instituted a press blackout, and forbade witnesses from speaking about it.  Only a terse statement on May 25 conceded to “some loss of life” and a few lost ships. The board’s recommendation to discontinue nesting ships together to speed up ammunition loading was dismissed by Navy chief Admiral Chester Nimitz, who argued it was “calculated risk that must be accepted.”

Flames roiled into sky from dozens of burning ships, creating a wall of smoke that crept out into the Pacific Ocean. The thunder of multiple explosions succession shook the Navy Headquarters on Pearl Harbor.

Had Japan somehow pulled off a second, stunning raid on Pearl Harbor in 1944?

In truth the ships and men burning were victims of a horrifying accident born of inadequate safety measures—an incident the Navy kept under wraps for years.

How It Occurred:

In May 1944, a gigantic amphibious landing force began assembling at Pearl Harbor to carry U.S. Marines to capture the strategic Mariana islands from Japan, 3,700 miles away.

By May 21st, at least 29 Landing Ship, Tanks (LSTs) were strung beam-to-beam along six piers on West Loch—the western side branch of pincer-shaped Pearl Harbor.  These long boxy vessels displaced over 4,000 tons and 120 meters long.  The flat keels of the ocean-spanning ships allowed them to disgorge up to a company of tanks or infantry from their bow ramps directly onto a beach.

While roughly half the crew were on shore leave, the remainder rested onboard as the vessels were stuffed full of vehicles, ammunition and fuel. Dozens of barrels of high-octane gasoline were lashed to their decks to supply the vehicles once they were unloaded ashore. 

At 3 PM Army stevedores began unloading 4.2” mortar shells from a smaller Landing Craft Tank (LCT) onto the elevator of LST-353. 

So-called “chemical mortars” were used to deploy smoke rounds and burning white phosphorous shells to mark or obscure targets—as well as 24-pound high explosive rounds carrying eight pounds of TNT filler. But the heavy mortars proved too inaccurate fired firing from the LCTs, leading to their transfer back to LSTs. 

The personnel conscripted for the heavy lifting came from the 29th Chemical Decontamination Unit, a largely African-American unit which untrained in ammunition handling.

No one knows exactly what caused a fireball to erupt on LST-353 at 3:08 PM, because no nearby witnesses survived.

Perhaps one of the stevedores dropped a 4.2” shell. Some suggest sparks from a carelessly tossed cigarette, or from sailors doing spot welding, ignited the fuel vapor wafting from the roughly 80 barrels of gasoline tied next to the elevator.

Just a few soldiers managed to jump into the water before the eighty fuel drums erupted like a volcano, throwing a cloud of burning debris, oil and body parts high into the air which came raining down onto the decks of neighboring LSTs.

Three minutes later, another blast left LST-43 in flames. The oil drums on her deck too exploded, feeding the unfolding chain-reaction.  You can see the apocalyptic scene in this recording.

The oil-soaked water caught fire, and flames spread to the adjoining pier 8. Some inexperienced crews abandoned ship before they were consumed by fire. Others did everything they could to save their vessels, but fires raged around the mooring lines tying the boats to the pier, preventing easy escape. Finally, one of the flaming boats rammed into pier, setting another LST on fire.

Surviving LSTs began frantically sputtering away from the fiery piers, some under their own power and others by the gallant intervention of tugs—eleven of which were damaged in the rescue effort. LCM landing craft crept close to the blaze to spray ships with firehoses. Smaller LCTs trawled for survivors but accidentally ran over several in the smoke.

Finally, a third explosion boiled through the harbor, causing flaming debris to drizzle from the sky over a half-mile away and shaking window panes up to 15 miles distant. 

An errant phosphorous shell landed on Joseph Francis midway through loading 350 tons of ammunition from a depot. Her crew put out the chemical fire before it could cause a massive explosion. The blazing wrecks of LST-43, -179 and -69 then began drifting towards Joseph, but thankfully came to a halt just 500 feet away.

Though a final explosion resounded at 10:30 PM, ships continued to burn for days afterward.

In all, six LSTs sank in fiery ruin and four more were severely damaged. Three smaller LCTs, seventeen Amtrac amphibious landing vehicles, and eight 155-millimieter howitzers were also lost

The Navy officially counted losing 163 personnel and suffering 397 wounded though some accounts. But this number reportedly may not include Army and Marine personnel.  Marine deaths may have ranged between 80 and 300 dead.  61 Army personnel, mostly African Americans, were reported dead or missing.

The Navy’s plans for Operation Forager were too big to be long delayed, even by such disastrous losses. The fleet departed just 24 hours later than intended after hasty repairs, leaving behind wreckage on West Loch that would take months to clear away.

Meanwhile, a promptly convened board of inquiry dismissed the theory of a Japanese submarine attack and zeroed in on the ammunition-handling as the likely cause of the accident. Though criticizing some crews for abandoning ship too readily, no one was held at fault.

The accident was deemed was so shocking the Navy instituted a press blackout, and forbade witnesses from speaking about it.  Only a terse statement on May 25 conceded to “some loss of life” and a few lost ships. The board’s recommendation to discontinue nesting ships together to speed up ammunition loading was dismissed by Navy chief Admiral Chester Nimitz, who argued it was “calculated risk that must be accepted.”

But on July 17, 1944 an explosion that killed 320 in Port Chicago, California again highlighted the Navy’s unsafe ammunition handling practices and tendency to place African Americans in risky ammunition handling jobs they had not been trained for. This accident finally led the Navy to redesign ammunition and require advanced training of ammunition handlers.

At West Loch a huge cleanup effort eventually dredged up all but one of the scorched LSTs and dumped them out into sea, along with the wreckage of Japanese mini-submarine Ha-16, which had participated in the Pearl Harbor attack.

In 1960, classification was lifted and the press finally detailed the incident in 1964. A plaque commemorating those who died was installed in 1995, and two years later a lone survivor’s account, The West Loch Story, was published by William Johnson. 

Today, the corroded prow of LST 480 can still be seen protruding from the waters off West Loch—a solemn reminder of the tragedy that unfolded there 75 years ago.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Wikipedia.

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Warfare History Network

History, Europe

At 5 pm on March 23, along the hazy western bank of the Rhine, British gunners opened up the biggest artillery barrage of the war, and Monty’s Operation Plunder—involving 1.25 million men of his 21st Army Group—was underway.

Here's What You Need To Remember: As Hitler's Third Reich collapsed, its defending armies grew steadily more fanatical - and desparate to stop the Allies at whatever the cost.

January 1945—with World War II in its sixth year—found the Allied armies going on the offensive after the Battle of the Bulge, but they were still west of the Rhine and six weeks behind schedule in their advance toward Germany.

Closing to the Rhine was not easy. Although U.S. and French units of Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers’ Sixth Army Group had reached the western bank around Strasbourg in late 1944, the river proved too difficult to cross. Even if an assault could have been mounted, the Allied forces would have been too far away from the heart of Germany to pose any meaningful threat. The key to eventual victory lay in the central and northern Rhineland, but three factors delayed an advance: the failure of Operation Market Garden, the British-American airborne invasion of Holland, the onset of an extremely wet autumn and harsh winter, and the unexpectedly rapid recovery of the German Army in the wake of recent Allied advances.  

A coordinated Allied campaign proved difficult to achieve. General Omar N. Bradley’s U.S. 12th Army Group was licking its wounds after the almost disastrous Ardennes counteroffensive, and it was clear to Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the British 21st Army Group, that the Americans would not be ready to undertake a major offensive for some time. Despite its vast reserve of manpower, unlike the critically depleted British Army, the U.S. Army had become seriously deficient of infantry replacements. Monty made the first move.

Meanwhile, on January 12, the Soviet Army launched a long-awaited, massive offensive from Warsaw toward the River Oder—and Berlin. This was just in time, thought Montgomery and General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, the Allied supreme commander. By the end of the month, the Russians were only 50 miles from the German capital. While the Americans were recovering, it devolved on the 21st Army Group, still supported by Lt. Gen. William H. “Texas Bill” Simpson’s U.S. Ninth Army, to take over the battle as soon as winter loosened its grip.

Monty and Ike agreed that the next stage should be to break through the Germans’ formidable Siegfried Line and close up to the left bank of the Rhine. The main objective was the historic city of Wesel, on the opposite side of the great river in flat country just north of the Ruhr Valley. It was here that Montgomery had originally sought to seize a bridgehead in September 1944, and common sense still favored it. Accordingly, two well-knit, almost copybook offensives were planned for February 8, 1945: Operation Veritable on the left flank and Operation Grenade on the right, adjacent to the boundary with Bradley’s 12th Army Group.

Monty announced that the 21st Army Group’s task was to “destroy all enemy in the area west of the Rhine from the present forward positions south of Nijmegen (Holland) as far south as the general line Julich-Dusseldorf, as a preliminary to crossing the Rhine and engaging the enemy in mobile war to the north of the Ruhr.” Three armies would be involved in the offensives: the Canadian First, the British Second, and the U.S. Ninth.

Commanding the Canadian force was the distinguished, 57-year-old General Henry D.G. “Harry” Crerar, a World War I artillery veteran and a man of cool judgment and cold nerves. The “ration strength” of his First Army exceeded 470,000 men, and no Canadian had ever led such a large force. The British Second Army was led by the skilled, unassuming Lt. Gen. Sir Miles “Bimbo” Dempsey, a 48-year-old World War I veteran of the Western Front and Iraq who later acquitted himself well in the Dunkirk evacuation, the Western Desert, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. Tall, bald, Texas-born General Simpson, commanding 300,000 men of the U.S. Ninth Army, had served in the Philippine Insurrection, the 1916 Mexico punitive expedition, and on the Western Front in 1918. Eisenhower said of the 56-year-old officer, “If Simpson ever made a mistake as an Army commander, it never came to my attention.”

With 11 divisions and nine independent brigades, the Canadian Army would clear the way in February 1945 up to the town of Xanten; the Ninth Army, with 10 divisions in three corps, would cross the Roer River and move northward to Dusseldorf (Operation Grenade), and the four divisions of the Second Army would attack in the center.

Although he was in customary high spirits about the operation, Montgomery knew that it would be no cakewalk. “I visited the Veritable area today,” he warned Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, on February 6. “The ground is very wet, and roads and tracks are breaking up, and these factors are likely to make progress somewhat slow after the operation is launched.” Besides expected opposition from at least 10 well-entrenched Wehrmacht divisions, the Allied troops would have to face minefields, flooded rivers and terrain, a lack of roads, appalling weather, and tough going in the gloomy, tangled Reichswald and Hochwald forests.

Montgomery won final approval for the great dual assault on the Rhine on February 1, and the preparations were hastily finalized under tight security. Strict blackout regulations were enforced, and a cover story was concocted to convince the enemy that the offensive would be in a northerly direction to liberate Holland, rather than an eastern thrust into Germany. Daytime gatherings of troops were forbidden unless under cover; large concentrations of vehicles, weapons, and ammunition were camouflaged or concealed in farmyards, barns, and haystacks, and rubber dummies of tanks and artillery pieces were positioned along an imaginary battle line where they might attract the attention of enemy patrols. Logistical feats were accomplished speedily as thousands of men, vehicles, and equipment were transported to the forward assembly lines.

The British and Canadian soldiers worked around the clock. Sappers built and improved 100 miles of road using 20,000 tons of stones, 20,000 logs, and 30,000 pickets, and 446 freight trains hauled 250,000 tons of equipment and supplies to the railheads. It was estimated that the ammunition alone—all types, stacked side by side and five feet high—would line the road for 30 miles. Engineers constructed five bridges across the River Maas, using 1,880 tons of equipment. The biggest was a 1,280-foot-long British-designed Bailey bridge. Outside Nijmegen, an airfield was laid in five days for British and Canadian rocket-firing Hawker Typhoons, which would support the offensive.

Meanwhile, a formidable array of armor and specialized vehicles was assembled. It included Churchill, Cromwell, Centaur, Comet, Valentine, and Sherman heavy and medium tanks; Bren gun carriers, jeeps, half-tracks, and armored cars; amphibious Weasel, Buffalo, and DUKW cargo and personnel carriers; and 11 regiments of “Hobart’s Funnies,” Churchills and Shermans fitted with antimine flails, flamethrowers, and bridging equipment. Invented by Maj. Gen. Sir Percy Hobart, these had proved invaluable in the Normandy invasion and the clearing of the flooded Scheldt Estuary by Crerar’s army.

Under the command of the Canadian First Army, the Veritable offensive was to be spearheaded by the seasoned British XXX Corps led by 49-year-old Lt. Gen. Sir Brian G. Horrocks. He returned from leave in England to plunge into preparations for the largest operation he had ever undertaken. A much-wounded veteran of Ypres, Siberia, El Alamein, Tunisia, Normandy, and Belgium, the tall, lithe Horrocks—nicknamed “Jorrocks” by his mentor, Montgomery—was a charismatic officer who led from the front and was regarded as one of the finest corps commanders of the war.

Horrocks regarded Monty’s overall plan for the offensive as “simplicity itself.” The XXX Corps was to attack in a southerly direction from the Nijmegen area with its right on the River Maas and its left on the Rhine. “Forty-eight hours later,” said Horrocks, “our old friends, General Simpson’s U.S. Ninth Army, were to cross the River Roer and advance north to meet us. The German forces would thus be caught in a vise and be faced with the alternatives, either to fight it out west of the Rhine or to withdraw over the Rhine and then be prepared to launch counterattacks when we ourselves subsequently attempted to cross…. In theory, this looked like a comparatively simple operation, but all battles have their problems, and in this case the initial assault would have to smash through a bottleneck well suited to defense and consisting in part of the famous Siegfried Line.”

Horrocks decided to use the maximum force possible and open Operation Veritable with five divisions, from right to left, in line: the 51st Highland, 53rd Welsh, 15th Scottish, and the 2nd and 3rd Canadian, followed by the 43rd Wessex and Maj. Gen. Sir Alan Adair’s proud Guards Armored Division. On the morning of February 4, Horrocks briefed his commanders in the packed cinema in the southern Dutch town of Tilburg. Clad in brown corduroy trousers and a battlefield jacket, the unpretentious general drew a warm response as he crisply outlined the offensive, radiated confidence, and moved from group to group with a friendly and humorous word. Like Montgomery, he made a practice of keeping all ranks informed about operations.

Despite his recurring pain and high fever incurred after being seriously wounded by a German fighter plane in Bizerte two years before, Horrocks was hopeful as the D-day hour neared. But he and General Crerar grew concerned when three days of heavy rain made the roads muddy and slushy. A hard crust of ice that would have ensured the rapid movement of men and armor had thawed, and the roads were sinking.

On February 7, men of the Canadian 1st Scottish Regiment peered across the surrounding fields and were alarmed to see them waterlogged. As a defense measure, the Germans had blasted holes in the Rhine’s winter dikes, and a foot of water now covered the entire area. The flood level reached 30 inches in two hours and was rising at the rate of one foot each hour. Half of the battlefield ahead of Crerar’s army was soon under five feet of water, and the rest of the polderlands bordering the Rhine were a muddy morass. Silent but alarmed, Horrocks listened to reports filtering into his command post. How could 90,000 men and vehicles of his spearhead force be funneled into action through murky water and along roads that were now muddy ruts? But the lines were drawn, and he prayed that this might be the final battle of the long war.

The British and Canadian assault troops waited anxiously on February 7, oiling and loading rifles and machine guns, topping up the fuel levels in tank engines, scribbling letters home, and trying to get some rest. But there was little sleeping that night when the dark sky was rent by great flashes and distant explosions. Aimed at softening up the German defenses, 285 Avro Lancaster heavy bombers of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, led by 10 De Havilland Mosquito pathfinder fighters, thundered overhead. They flattened a number of Rhineland towns that were known to be enemy strongpoints, including Goch, Weeze, Udem, Geldern, and Calcar.

Especially hard hit that night was the beautiful, historic city of Cleve, the gateway to the Rhineland and the key rail and communications center through which the Germans could funnel reinforcements. The Lancasters dropped 1,384 tons of high explosives on Cleve, an inspiration for Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin and the birthplace of King Henry VIII’s meek, homely fourth wife, Anne. Cleve was more devastated than any other German city of its size during the war. Generals Crerar and Horrocks agreed that the RAF raid was tactically necessary to save many Allied lives, but the latter “simply hated the thought of Cleve being ‘taken out.’”

Horrocks recalled later, “It was the most terrible decision I had ever had to take in my life. I felt almost physically sick when I saw the bombers flying overhead on their deadly mission.” He blamed the RAF for dropping high explosives instead of incendiaries, which he had requested, and for reducing Cleve to rubble and huge craters that later held up the Allied advance.

At 5 am on Thursday, February 8, 1945, while Cleve still burned, a massive artillery bombardment paved the way for Operation Veritable. Lined up between 10 and 15 yards apart, 1,400 field and antiaircraft guns of numerous calibers, mortars, medium machine guns, and high-explosive rocket launchers opened up with a deafening roar. It was the heaviest barrage employed so far by the British Army during the European war—greater than anything in Normandy and the historic bombardment at El Alamein on October 23, 1942. More than half a million shells were put down on a seven-mile front.

The Veritable barrage lasted for 21/2hours on that gray, rainy morning as General Horrocks watched and listened from a command post platform that Royal Engineers had built halfway up a large tree. “The noise was unbelievable,” he reported. Below him, the area teemed with armored vehicles, and the air was filled with the roar of engines.

When the artillery barrage stopped, there was an eerie silence as smoke was fired across the XXX Corps front. This was aimed at making the Germans think that the infantry attack had been launched. Enemy gunners who had survived the first bombardment then rushed to their weapons and opened up. British flash spotters zeroed in on the battery positions, and, after 10 minutes of silence, the Allied barrage erupted again, concentrating on the German guns that had been located. In addition to the artillery, each British and Canadian division employed “pepper pot” tactics, with every weapon not used in the assault blasting enemy positions. The effect was so devastating that when Horrocks’ men went forward the German gunners were still crouching in their trenches.

The XXX Corps tanks and infantry advanced against befuddled enemy defenders, and little initial resistance was met. “The enemy had been over-awed by the bombardment,” observed Captain Peter Dryland, adjutant of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. But continual rain had turned the terrain into a quagmire, and the Allied tanks and infantrymen had to struggle through mud. “Our worst enemies that day were mines and mud,” Horrocks reported. “Mud, and still more mud.”

Personnel carriers carrying troops heaved through the mire, and supporting tanks ploughed into the woods. But it was tough going from the start. After the first hour almost every Allied tank had bogged down, and the infantry had to forge ahead on their own. Some tanks simply sank in the mud, others hit mines, and still others were blocked by felled trees or craters gouged by the Allied bombing and artillery barrage. Yet the British and Canadian riflemen and tankers pushed on doggedly.

On the left flank the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division cut the main Nijmegen-Cleve road, and then half of the force turned back to attack and capture the strongly held village of Wyler after a stiff fight. The other half moved to support the 15th Scottish Division advancing on the right, while its 44th Brigade pushed through minefields to breach the northern extension of the concrete and steel Siegfried Line. Meanwhile, on their right men of the tough 53rd Welsh Division disappeared into the dense, gloomy Reichswald, pushing through tangled thickets and along narrow, soggy trails. Farther to the right, the famed 51st Highland Division plunged into the southern part of the Reichswald, east of the River Maas, and encountered strong German opposition.

Conditions worsened for the Allied troops. Flood levels rose steadily, and the only narrow road in the Reichswald available for the advance was soon under several feet of water. The enemy opposition increased, with heavy artillery barrages and the hasty deployment of fresh reserves, including two armored and two parachute divisions. Eventually, a total of 10 divisions—three of them armored—were battling the British and Canadian units. It was a toe-to-toe struggle in rain, sleet, and snow, with numerous hand-to-hand melees and bayonet charges, while casualties mounted alarmingly. But the attack never slackened, and the Tommies and Canucks slogged on staunchly to seize vital German positions.

The Reichswald was a soldier’s battle, influenced chiefly by the battalion commanders. General Horrocks said he was “almost powerless to influence the battle one way or the other, so I spent my days ‘smelling the battlefield.’” He made a habit of visiting brigade and battalion headquarters that were having “a particularly grueling time.

The appalling conditions endured by the Allied soldiers were reminiscent of the Battle of Passchendaele, where more than 300,000 British and Commonwealth troops were killed in 1917, and the Hürtgen Forest, in which several American divisions suffered 33,000 casualties in the autumn of 1944.

The Reichswald-Hochwald struggle was not the sort of campaign General Horrocks wished to command. It had to be fought, but it was grim and painful throughout, with no scope for brilliant tactics or avoidance of heavy losses. As a former infantryman himself, he agonized over the casualty lists, especially when they contained familiar names. Popular with both his officers and other ranks, he regarded the deaths as a great waste and personal loss.

Almost from the start of Operation Veritable, Horrocks’ corps found itself out on a limb. On February 9, the Germans blew up the discharge valves on the River Roer dams, and a wide strip of surging floodwater prevented General Simpson’s powerful U.S. Ninth Army and elements of Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges’ U.S. First Army from crossing for two crucial weeks. Operation Grenade was postponed, but Simpson had the consolation of knowing that once the river had subsided the enemy could never again hold his army in check. Nevertheless, the delay had a damaging effect on Operation Veritable.

Days passed, and the fighting raged in the Reichswald. The 43rd Wessex Division fought its way through the ruins of Cleve, and, after a bitter struggle, the fortified town of Goch was taken by men of the 51st and 15th Scottish Infantry Divisions. Horrocks viewed this as the turning point in the campaign. In the smaller Hochwald, defended by fanatical German paratroopers who gave no quarter, the Canadians fought gallantly to avoid being pushed back and eventually prevailed.

Of all the many obstacles faced by the British and Canadian troops, none were more nerve wracking than the enemy minefields. Major Martin Lindsay was leading the 1st Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders through two feet of mud in an attempt to knock out a German strongpoint astride the Mook-Gennep road when he noticed that his men had grown quiet. There was a sudden explosion, and a company commander 10 yards ahead fell groaning.

Lindsay ordered everyone to stand exactly where they were and shouted for help from mine-prodders and stretcher bearers of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. He looked around and realized that he and his men were in a 50-yard-wide strip of no-man’s land between the German and Canadian positions. Lindsay waited, standing on one leg and not daring to put the other to the ground while the Canadian rescuers carried out the company commander and a stretcher bearer who had trodden on a mine. Each step of the way was gingerly prodded first, and Lindsay followed the other men to safety, planting his feet precisely in the tracks of the Cameron Highlander ahead.

After a week of bitter fighting through its bottleneck, the XXX Corps managed to widen the front so that General Crerar could commit the Canadian 2nd Corps commanded by the gallant, innovative Lt. Gen. Guy Simonds on the northern flank. At 42, Simonds was the youngest general ever to command a Canadian corps in battle. The 2nd Corps now bore the brunt of the assault on the strongly defended Hochwald, with the first major objectives the villages of Calcar and Udem.

It was slow, tough going for the Canadians. High-grade troops of General Heinrich von Luttwitz’s 17th Panzer Corps and General Alfred Schlemm’s First Parachute Army were well concealed and dispersed, and their defense lines were deep. Marshy fields and thick woods favored the enemy, and continual poor weather prevented the Canadians from calling in the rocket-firing Typhoons to deal with enemy strongpoints.

 It took the Canadian infantry six days of harsh fighting to clear the Germans from a small, dark forest near Moyland, blocking the advance to Calcar. About three miles to the southeast, another bloody battle ensued for control of the road linking Calcar with Goch. Although the Canadians soon got astride the road, their hold on it became precarious when the Germans launched fierce counterattacks for two days, including a night thrust supported by tanks. In less than a week, the Canadians had suffered 885 infantry casualties. German losses were higher, and by now Operation Veritable had become increasingly a battle of attrition.

It was a grueling and fluctuating struggle in which the British and Canadian spearhead units, reinforced by the 11th British and 4th Canadian Armored Divisions, gained ground while trying to push through the “Hochwald Gap” and breach the 20-mile-long “Schlieffen Position,” a formidable defense line running from Udem to Geldern. But progress was slow and costly. Besides the abysmal weather and endless mud the Allied soldiers had to face more minefields, antitank ditches, and murderous fire from German panzers, deadly 88mm flak guns, and mortars. The volume of enemy barrages, which included guns fired from across the Rhine, was the heaviest encountered by British troops in the Rhineland.

Yet, against heavy odds in one of the bitterest campaigns of the European war, the gallantry of Crerar’s army and Horrocks’ corps began to pay dividends. British and Canadian troops managed to clear the last enemy units from the Reichswald on February 13 and reach the southern bank of the Rhine, opposite Emmerich, the following day. By February 17, the Canadians reached the Rhine on a 10-mile front. Meanwhile, progress was being made farther south by American units. On February 17-18, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. “Sandy” Patch’s Seventh Army crossed the River Saar and attacked near Saarbrucken, while units of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army breached the Siegfried Line north of Echternach, Luxembourg.

Then, before dawn on February 23, four divisions of General Simpson’s Ninth Army and two from Hodges’ First Army began to cross the River Roer at several sectors near Julich and Duren. A measure of surprise was gained because the floodwaters had not yet fully subsided, giving the German defenders a false sense of security. Simpson’s divisions suffered fewer than 100 casualties on the first day, and by the evening of February 24 his combat engineers had laid 19 bridges, seven of them fit for armor to cross. Because the Canadian First Army had drawn the bulk of the German reserves upon itself, Simpson’s army built up pressure and his armor broke away on the last day of February. His right flank reached the Rhine south of Dusseldorf two days later, and his left flank linked up with the Canadians near Geldern on March 3.

Farther north, with Wesel and its Rhine bridges only 15 miles distant, intense clashes continued between the British-Canadian forces and the Germans, who were fighting more stubbornly than ever to defend their home soil. More fresh enemy troops were deployed and new defenses hurriedly prepared. The odds against survival were still high for the Allied soldiers, especially the infantrymen. Out of 115 men of B Company of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders who had landed in Normandy seven months before, only three were left by February 26, 1945.

But the fighting spirit and discipline of the Allied troops eventually gained the upper hand. There were numerous acts of sacrifice and valor among the British and Canadian infantrymen, gunners, and tankers during the Reichswald-Hochwald campaign, and four Victoria Crosses were awarded, two of them to Canadians.

Platoon Sergeant Aubrey Cosens of the Queen’s Own Rifles distinguished himself while Sherman tanks of the 1st Hussars were trying to overwhelm stubborn German parachute troops in the hamlet of Mooshof, near the Calcar-Udem road, early on the misty morning of February 26. A quiet, tough loner from the northern Ontario backwoods, the 23-year-old Cosens directed tank fire against a farmhouse to break up an enemy attack. Braving a hail of mortar and shellfire, and armed with only a Sten gun, he dashed into the house after a Sherman had rammed it. Cosens killed at least 20 Germans and took as many prisoners, and his actions saved the lives of his men. While on the way to report to his company commander, he was shot in the head by a sniper. He was posthumously awarded Great Britain’s highest decoration for valor.

The second Canadian VC went to acting Major Frederick A. Tilston of the Essex Scottish Regiment for his gallant leadership in an assault on German defenses at the edge of the Hochwald early on the morning of March 1. During fierce fighting, the affable, mild-mannered Ontario College of Pharmacy graduate led his C Company across 500 yards of open ground and through 10 feet of barbed wire to reach two enemy trench lines. Although wounded in the head, Tilston silenced a machine-gun post with a grenade while his men cleared the trenches and then organized defenses against a German counterattack. He crossed bullet-swept ground six times to carry ammunition to a hard-pressed flanking company and received multiple shrapnel wounds in his legs. He refused medical aid. Tilston’s wounds were so severe that both of his legs had to be amputated.

By March 10, 1945, after a month of costly fighting, the Reichswald campaign was completed and the western bank of the Rhine was in Allied hands. The German high command had ordered a withdrawal on March 6, and the last pockets of enemy troops hurried across the river, destroying bridges and ferries behind them.

The toll was high on both sides in Operation Veritable. From February 8 to March 10, the Canadian First Army suffered 15,634 casualties, of whom almost two-thirds were men of the British XXX Corps. Of the 5,414 Canadian losses, almost all were in the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions. German losses were an estimated 22,000, with a further 22,000 taken prisoner.

General Horrocks was deeply disturbed about the “butcher’s bill” in a campaign that was generally overlooked later even by eminent military historians. “This was the grimmest battle in which I took part during the war,” he said. “No one in their senses would choose to fight a winter campaign in the flooded plains and dense pinewoods of Northern Europe, but there was no alternative. We had to clear the western bank of the Rhine if we were to enter Germany in strength and finish off the war.” In a letter to General Crerar, Eisenhower summed up, “Probably no assault in this war has been conducted in more appalling conditions than was this one.”

Later in March 1945, Horrocks and his battered corps were heartened when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited them. With the 51st Highland Division’s massed bagpipes and drums sounding, Horrocks reported, Churchill “was visibly moved as he stood for the first time with his feet firmly planted on the territory of the enemy which he had been fighting for so long.”

Allied forces had closed to the Rhine, but getting across the river, swollen to 1,500 feet wide, was another matter. While Montgomery crushed the last enemy resistance in the Lower Rhineland and secured a springboard for a massive British-American crossing north of the Ruhr, the northern corps of Hodges’ U.S. First Army reached Cologne and wheeled southeast to strike the Germans in the Eifel sector. Patton’s Third Army attacked them frontally, and his freewheeling armor raced to the Rhine near its confluence with the Moselle River. But a dozen bridges between Coblenz and Duisburg were down, and every Allied attempt to seize a crossing was foiled.

Then, on the afternoon of March 7, a task force from Maj. Gen. John W. Leonard’s U.S. 9th Armored Division came upon the big Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, 20 miles northwest of Coblenz. It was intact but set to be blown up within an hour. In one of the most dramatic feats of the war, combat engineers hastily cut the demolition cables while infantrymen raced across. Ten days later, the span collapsed from bomb damage and heavy use, but engineers had laid pontoon bridges, and the advance across the Rhine continued.

Patton’s army seized crossings at Nierstein and Oppenheim, but these and the Remagen operation could never be more than secondary. The Third Army was too far south to have a decisive impact, and the Remagen bridgehead led into the mountainous Westerwald region. The key to breaching the Rhine barrier lay firmly in the north, where Montgomery was marshaling forces for a major crossing.

At 5 pm on March 23, along the hazy western bank of the Rhine, British gunners opened up the biggest artillery barrage of the war, and Monty’s Operation Plunder—involving 1.25 million men of his 21st Army Group—was underway. Buffaloes carrying assault troops of the 153rd and 154th Infantry Brigades lurched into the dark waters and followed taped routes to the far bank. The first men to scramble ashore, around 9 pm, were Highlanders of the legendary Black Watch Regiment. The 51st Highland Division and the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division crossed the river near Rees and Emmerich, while, upstream near Wesel, Lancasters of RAF Bomber Command softened up the way for an assault by Lt. Gen. Sir Neil Ritchie’s British 12th Corps. General Simpson’s U.S. Ninth Army crossed the Rhine between Wesel and Duisburg. Although the initial crossings went smoothly and with only token resistance from German units exhausted and depleted by the actions west of the river, enemy shellfire was heavy and the 51st Highlanders had to repel a fierce counterattack by panzergrenadiers.

Within a few hours, on the sunny morning of March 24, came Operation Varsity, the subsidiary assault of the historic Rhine crossing, and much-needed reinforcements for the Allied troops on the eastern bank. Standing on a hilltop behind Xanten with Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Prime Minister Churchill shouted excitedly, “They’re here!” With a great roar overhead appeared 4,000 transport planes, tugs, and gliders of Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne Corps. In the next 10 minutes, more than 8,000 paratroopers of the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions were dropped.

Meanwhile, working tirelessly and under fire, Monty’s Royal Engineers hastily laid several Bailey and pontoon bridges across the northern Rhine for the continuing Allied buildup. A total of 155 sappers were killed or wounded, and General Horrocks said, “I have always felt that the Rhine crossing was probably the sappers’ finest hour of the whole war.”

British, American, and Canadian troops and equipment were soon flowing steadily over the Rhine, and by the end of March 1945, men of General Jean Lattre de Tassigny’s French First Army had crossed the river. Every Allied army now had troops on the eastern bank, and the end of the war in Europe was only a month away.

This article first appeared at the Warfare History Network and first appeared on TNI last year.

Image: Wikipedia.

Kyle Mizokami

Security, Americas

This is a solid weapon that is easier than trying to assembly your own from separate parts.

Key Point: There are many different AR pistols out there. Here is how this one makes its mark.

The AR-15 rifle, or ArmaLite Rifle-15, was developed by Eugene Stoner as a potential military firearm. The AR-15, first adopted by the U.S. Air Force and later by the rest of the armed forces, is a gas operated, direct impingement firearm that siphons off gunpowder gasses to cycle the weapon. This also has the beneficial side effect of significantly reducing recoil, allowing a rifle shooting a 55-grain cartridge at velocities in excess of 3,000 feet per second to be easily manageable.

Modifications to the AR-15 gas system can also allow for the use of very short barrels, barrels technically shorter than those allowed under the Federal National Firearms Act (NFA). The NFA identifies rifles with barrel lengths shorter than sixteen inches as subject to special regulation, typically involving additional paperwork and a tax stamp. Such “short barrel rifles” are also illegal in many states and municipalities, further complicating their purchase.

A popular workaround to the NFA is the classification of a weapon as a pistol instead of a short barrel rifle. Pistols are not regulated by barrel length. That having been said, pistols do not have buttstocks and are typically not fired from the shoulder. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms however recently declared arm braces on AR-15 “pistols” are in fact legal, even when the “braces” are incidentally capable of firing  (though not comfortably) from the shoulder.

The Ruger AR-556 pistol is one example of an AR pistol made legal by this declaration. The AR-556 has a barrel length of just 10.5 inches and an overall length of 25.3 to 27.9 inches. It is 7.2 inches high. Equipped with a standard buttstock, the “pistol” would be an NFA firearm. Instead, it is equipped with a SBA3 Pistol Stabilizing Brace. The SBA3 wraps around the user’s shooting arm for support during firing. It could also technically be fired from the shoulder like a rifle. Like a regular AR-15, the overall length of the arm brace can be adjusted to increase or decrease the overall length of the weapon, adjusting to the user’s own unique ergonomic profile.

The AR-556 has all of the benefits of any other AR-15 style weapon, including semi-automatic operation, the same method of operation, and the same procedures for clearing a jammed weapon. This makes it easier for an AR-15 rifle owner that also wants a pistol to quickly master the AR-556. Ruger’s pistol also takes the same magazines as the AR-15, including standard capacity 20- and 30-round magazines and 10- or 15-round magazines for gun owners living in states with strong gun control laws. The use of the NATO STANAG magazines is in contrast to Ruger’s older Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles, which use proprietary, relatively expensive Ruger magazines.  

Ruger’s AR pistol has a barrel length of 10.5 inches with a 1 in 8-inch barrel twist. This twist, a compromise between the 1 in 9-inch twist for 55-grain bullets and a 1 in 7-inch twist for 62 grain and larger bullets, is capable of handling practically all weights of .223 Remington/5.56-millimeter rounds. The barrel is shrouded by a free-float handguard that only touches the rest of the rifle at the barrel nut, ensuring that pressure on the handguard will not affect aim of the pistol. The handguard is machined with M-LOK slots for the attachment of aiming lasers, flashlights, and other accessories.

The AR-556 is unique in the world of ARs in being sold without sights. The weapon lacks a red dot sight or even elementary backup iron sights. It does, however, have a full-length Picatinny rail that extends from the rear of the upper receiver to the tip of the barrel. This allows for user installation of optics such as an Aimpoint T-2 micro red dot sight, Sig Sauer Tango 6 1-6x variable power short range telescopic sight, or Magpul MBUS Pro iron sights.  

Ruger’s pistol is finished off with a standard A2 birdcage flash hider common to all basic AR-15s. The 0.5 by 28-inch threads are also industry standard, allowing a wide range of flash hiders, muzzle brakes, compensators, or some combination thereof to be installed by the user at a later date. The AR-556 threads can even support a suppressor or muzzle device that allows a suppressor to be quickly installed and removed.

The AR-556 is one of many so-called AR pistols. Although many owners experienced with the AR platform may choose to build their own pistol from parts, the gas system for shorter barreled weapons can be tricky to optimize, and buying a complete pistol is a time-saving option. For those that want an AR experience in a handgun form, the AR-556 is one firearm to consider.  

Kyle Mizokami is a writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and The Daily Beast. In 2009 he co-founded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Ruger.

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

In their urgent drive to kill the Nazi beast, they had left great swaths of territory in German hands. There were German outposts everywhere over hundreds of miles in Germany itself and in the former German-occupied countries, which seemed to come under no one’s control save that of the local commanders.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Despite the Fuhrer's death in April 1945, isolated pockets of German soldiers continued to fight after the official surrender. Here are some of their stories.

It was said on May 8, 1945, that some of the victors wandered around in a daze. They were puzzled by a strange silence. The guns were no longer firing the permanent barrage, their constant companion, during those last months since they had crossed the Rhine.

Some could not quite believe it was all over. They had longed for an end to the war in Europe for years. “Then suddenly it was upon them all and the impact of the fact was a thing that failed to register–like the death of a loved one,” the historian of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division wrote that year.

On that day in May, a combat engineer sergeant serving with General George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third Army in Austria wrote to his wife, “The war’s over! All we can think about is, thank God, thank God … nobody is going to shoot at me any more. I can’t be killed. I have made it!” Medal of Honor Recipient Audie Murphy, recuperating from his three wounds in Cannes, went out into the crowds celebrating the great victory. “I feel only a vague irritation,” he wrote later. “I want company and I want to be alone. I want to talk and I want to be silent. There is VE Day without, but no peace.”

Pockets of German Resistance Remained

Most of the GIs were not given, however, to philosophizing. They simply got blind drunk instead. It was Tuesday May 8, 1945—Victory in Europe Day. It was all over. The Germans were beaten at last. There was peace again. Were the Germans really beaten? Was there really peace in Europe?

Over the past few weeks, the great Allied armies had swept through Hitler’s vaunted “1,000 Year-Reich,” which had lasted 12 years and five months, occupying everything from great, if shattered, cities to remote intact villages and hamlets. But in their urgent drive to kill the Nazi beast, they had left great swaths of territory in German hands. There were German outposts everywhere over hundreds of miles in Germany itself and in the former German-occupied countries, which seemed to come under no one’s control save that of the local commanders.

In the area of Dessau, where the U.S. and Soviet Armies had failed to link up, the entire German infrastructure still functioned. For nearly two months, the locals ran their own post offices, telephone exchanges, and so on, guarded by a sizeable force of German soldiers, with the Allies totally unaware of the situation. Farther north in the area of the German border, SS troops still held out in the forests around Bad Segeberg. Well dug in, they refused to surrender until the commander of the British 11th Armored Division grew sick of the situation. He was not going to risk any more deaths in his division, which had suffered casualties enough since Normandy. Instead, he ordered the commander of the German 8th Parachute Division to do the job for him. Thus, during the week after the war was officially over, German fought German to the death.

The “Night of the Long Knives” and the Battle of Texel

These were not the only ones. On the Dutch island of Texel, across from the important German naval base of Den Heldern, a full-scale mini war had been under way since the end of April 1945. At that time, the 82nd Infantry Battalion, made up of Russian former prisoners of war from Soviet Georgia under some 400 German officers and noncommissioned officers, had been preparing to fight the Canadians who were advancing into Holland. The ex-POWs believed resistance would mean their death in combat or forced repatriation to Russia where again they might well be put to death as traitors.

Instead of fighting for the Germans, they had mutinied under a broad-shouldered former pilot, Lieutenant Sjalwas Loladze. He argued that if they could take their German superiors by surprise and equip themselves with whatever artillery they could find on the island, they would be able to hold out until Canadian paratroopers dropped on Texel and relieved them.

Thus it was that they carried out their own “night of the long knives” in late April. In one night they slaughtered their German officers and NCOs in their beds, some 250 of them, and took the rest of them prisoner. The battalion commander, a Major Breitner, could not be found in his quarters. That was not surprising. He was in bed with his mistress, a local Dutch girl. Hearing the midnight bursts of firing, Breitner thought the Canadians had landed, but he soon discovered that German weapons were being fired and that his troops had mutinied. At gunpoint, he forced a local fisherman to row him over to Den Heldern and alarmed the authorities there.

The next day, the Battle of Texel commenced. The Germans advanced three battalions, some 3,500 men in all, and they soon forced the Georgians to retreat. Still, the former prisoners refused to surrender. Down to 400 men by May, they continued the bitter struggle in which no quarter was given or expected. When a Georgian was taken prisoner by the Germans, he was stripped of his uniform and shot on the spot. The ex-POWs had an even simpler method. They tied bundles of their prisoners together and attached a single grenade to them. It was bloody, but efficient, they thought. Besides, it saved their dwindling supply of ammunition.

While the Canadians, who now occupied that part of Holland, looked on impotently (or so they said later), the men of the Georgian Battalion and their onetime German masters slaughtered each other ruthlessly. VE Day came and went, and they were still at it.

Farmbacher Holds Out in Lorient

On May 8, another cut off German garrison— that of the great German U-boat base at Lorient on the French coast—was still holding out, ignoring both the Allied order to surrender and that of the last Nazi leader, Admiral Karl Dönitz, to lay down their arms. Back in August 1944, Patton had intended to capture the key naval base, but after his army had suffered great losses at Brest and other Breton ports, he had called off the attack.

Lorient was going to be allowed to wither on the vine. Unfortunately for the Allies, Lorient did not wither. For over a year, its commander, elderly General Wilhelm Fahrmbacher, had fought off attacks by the French and American troops who had surrounded the Lorient after Patton had departed with his Third Army. After winning the Knight’s Cross in Russia, Farmbacher had been put out to pasture at Lorient.

During what amounted to a siege, he had been supplied by U-boat and long-range aircraft, supplementing the garrison’s rations with raids on the French and Americans and penetrating their lines in depth to buy food from the local farmers, who were prepared to deal with the enemy—at a price.

Throughout those long months, Farmbacher had succeeded in maintaining the garrison’s morale with a daily supply of that German staple—bread. Unknown to the troops, however, most of that freshly baked Komissbrot was made from sawdust. Fahrmbacher and his chief quartermaster, who kept the matter strictly secret, had had the local rail track pulled up to get at the wooden sleepers below. Daily and in secrecy, these sleepers were sawed up to make sawdust.

Indeed, one of the first things that the fortress commander insisted upon as soon as he was awakened by his soldier servant and given his cup of acorn coffee was for the quartermaster to report the state of the sawdust. Now, over a week after Germany surrendered, Fahrmbacher summoned his quartermaster and asked, “How many railroad sleepers have we left?” The quartermaster hesitated, and the big general knew instinctively that he was in trouble. Slowly, avoiding the general’s eyes, the quartermaster replied, “One!”

Fahrmbacher knew the situation was hopeless. He could not feed the garrison with a couple of sacks of molding flour and the sawdust provided by one lone wooden sleeper. It was time to surrender.

That afternoon, he sent his last message to Dönitz far away in North Germany at the small coastal town of Murwik. It read, “Wish to sign off with my steadfast and unbeaten men. We remember our sorely tried homeland. Long Live Germany.” Thereupon, he ordered one of his officers to make contact with the French besiegers in order to surrender. A little later, the elderly general found himself serving five years in a Parisian jail for having disfigured French property. His real crime was that he did not know the whereabouts of the French postage stamps that had been overprinted with the word “LORIENT” and used by the garrison. His French interrogator had wanted them for himself, knowing they were rare and would soon be valuable. They were, and they are. Today, each one of those 60-year-old stamps is worth at least $1,000.

Huffmeier’s Stand in the Channel Islands

On the other side of the English Channel were the only possessions of Great Britain to have been occupied by the Germans in World War II. They were the Channel Islands, which the Germans had captured in June 1940. There, the Germans had fortified the three main islands and established a garrison of nearly 20,000 men. As 1944 gave way to 1945, these men, who were down to quarter rations, were calling themselves “Division Kanada” because they thought that was where they would end up as British POWs. They had not reckoned with their commander, the “Madman of the Channel Islands,” as they called 46-year-old Admiral Friedrich Huffmeier, formerly the commander of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst.

Huffmeier, tough, fanatical, and a convinced Nazi, did not care a bit about the wretched state of his starving men. He was determined not only to stick it out to the bitter end, but also to take the war to the enemy. On the same day that the U.S. 9th Armored Division captured the famous bridge across the Rhine at Remagen, a group of Huffmeier’s men raided the little French port of Granville, which only six months before had been Eisenhower’s first headquarters in continental Europe.

There, they caught the French garrison and the U.S. supply companies completely by surprise. They took some 90 GIs prisoner, looted the port, captured two small freighters, and returned to the Channel Islands as heroes. Huffmeier offered them the choice of a reward. Either they could have the Iron Cross or a spoonful of precious strawberry jam! They opted for the strawberry jam. It is not recorded if the Madman of the Channel Islands personally handed them their spoonful of jam for their heroic efforts.

Now in May, with Germany clearly defeated, Huffmeier was already planning another attack on the Americans in France. However, another hard liner, Admiral Friedrich Frisius, who was the commander of the 12,000-strong garrison at Dunkirk farther up the French coast, had beaten him to it. Ever since the British Army had fled Europe in June 1940, Dunkirk had been a thorn in the flesh of the British and later the Americans. For years, the big German guns located at a spot some 20 miles from the white cliffs of Dover, had pounded southwestern England. From Dunkirk the Germans had received the first warning of the great Allied air armada soon to descend upon Holland in September 1944 during Operation Market Garden.

In 1945, Frisius was not content to maintain a passive role, surrounded as Dunkirk now was by the exiled Czech Legion. Code-named Operation Bluecher after the great Prussian general of the Napoleonic Wars, Frisius launched a surprise attack on the Czech positions. The Germans advanced some 10 miles out of their fortified positions at Dunkirk. British engineers at Gravelines, south of Dunkirk, had to blow up the bridge on the River As to prevent them advancing any farther. The date was May 4, 1945, five days after Hitler had committed suicide!

Huffmeier Finally Surrenders

While Admiral Frisius rested on his laurels, not even having a German high command to which he could report his success, Admiral Huffmeier prepared to continue the fight, reasoning that if the Allied victors assumed he might attack again they would not expect him to do so once more at Granville. He did, wiping the port out completely this time. He assembled the fittest of his Division Kanada men, who were now living off boiled potatoes and nettle soup, at the local cinema and told them, “I intend to hold out here with you until the Fatherland has won back the lost ground and final victory is wrested from the enemy. We do not wish, and we cannot allow ourselves, to be shamed by the enemy…as commander of the defenses of the Channel Islands, I will carry out without compromise the mandate given me by the Führer. We stand by him, officers and men of the Fortress of Jersey.”

Then, he explained his plan. A group of volunteers would block the entrance to Granville harbor with a large freighter filled with cement. Next, the port would be looted, its installations destroyed completely, and the volunteers would escape in high-speed Luftwaffe motor launches. The date for the great attack, May 7, was one day after the German generals under the command of the Admiral Dönitz had surrendered to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

The Madman of the Channel Islands was not fated to carry out this last attack in the name of Adolf Hitler, who had been dead for over a week. On May 8, two British warships appeared off the Channel Islands, and the surrender of Huffmeier’s garrison was demanded. Huffmeier would not face the British, but sent a subordinate to discuss terms. The British commander flushed a choleric purple. He told the weedy German naval officer that he had not come to discuss terms but to take the island’s surrender. The German officer pointed to the island’s shore batteries and said, “I’m to tell you that you and your continued presence here will be regarded as an unfriendly act.… Admiral Huffmeir will regard your presence here as a breach of faith and a provocative act.”

Fists clenched, the British commander told the sallow-faced German officer, who was obviously half starved, to “tell Admiral Huffmeier that if he opens fire on us we will hang him tomorrow.”

That same day, Lieutenant Loladze, the commander of the Georgian rebels fighting for their lives in Holland, was trapped by the Germans. He entered a burned-out cottage, perhaps to look for food, when he heard a twig snap behind him. He swung around. Too late. His stomach was ripped apart by a burst of schmeisser fire at close range. His death seemed to symbolize the end of the German resistance in continental Europe. One day later, Admiral Huffmeier agreed through an intermediary to surrender. He was too frightened of his own rebellious troops, who had sworn to kill him, to venture out himself. Later, in brilliant sunshine, the British started landing their troops. After nearly five years of occupation, the only part of the British Isles captured by the Nazis was free at last.

Still, some diehard Nazis, who believed they could continue the fight against the Western Allies despite Germany’s official surrender, continued to resist. Often, they were located in such remote places that the Allies were hardly aware of their presence. All the same, these small bands of tough Germans had played a key role in the secret war that Germany had waged against the West for months, even years.

The Secret Germans of the Arctic Wastes

Daring the winter of 1940-1941 that Britain, and later Russia, had become aware of the presence of some strange Germans newly located in the Arctic wastes. In all, there were 16 teams of radio and weather specialists who transmitted their findings to Berlin so that the German high command could plan its operations against the Russians, the British Arctic convoys and, in the end, the last great counterattack against the Americans in the Ardennes.

For four years, at varying times, Russians, Danes, Norwegians, Britons, Canadians, and finally Americans had sought these secret Germans. It had been a cat-and-mouse game, a small group of highly skilled and tough men on both sides hunting each other through the snow and ice over thousands of miles above the Arctic Circle. Every time the U.S. Coast Guard and the Danish sledge patrols were successful and thought they had finally eradicated the Germans, another radio station would commence broadcasting and they knew they would have to start all over again.

In September 1944, the Germans had sent out perhaps the most important secret team of them all. It was commanded by a Dr. Dege, a meteorologist, who was to set up a weather station on “the island of Nordostland off Spitzbergen,” as he explained later, “nearly 15,000 square kilometers in size and regarded as one of the toughest areas in the whole of the Arctic.”

Landed by U-boat, Dege and his team began to broadcast the raw weather data on which Hitler based his campaign in the Battle of the Bulge.

From mid-October 1944 onward, when they bid farewell to the sun until the following March, they would provide vital weather forecasts that would encourage Hitler to believe he need not worry about Allied aerial attacks in the coming months of December and January at the turn of the year 1945. The Germans called the conditions “Führer Weather,” ideal for the campaign to come—rain and fog and probably heavy snow for the last two weeks of December 1944. On the basis of this information, Hitler ordered the great surprise attack, which would commence on December 16.

On the whole, these “secret Germans” were correct in their estimates. The Battle of the Bulge commenced in that foul weather. As every student of that great battle knows, the conditions changed dramatically on December 22, and Germany’s last bold attempt to change the course of the war ended in defeat.

The German weather experts continued to send their forecasts back to the Reich to the bitter end. They were still at it when, on May 22, 1945, Admiral Dönitz and members of his government were arrested by the British and there was no longer anyone to report to. We do not know the mood of Dr. Dege and his team at that time. Perhaps they decided to continue studying the weather in that remote waste in the interests of science, but their supplies were beginning to run out and it was clear that October would soon bring a long winter with little food and no light. As hardy as they were, Dr. Dege and his men could not stand that. He decided to surrender.

At midnight on September 3, 1945, six years to the day after Britain had gone to war with Germany, Dr. Dege had the dubious honor of being the commander of the last German unit to surrender to the Allies. It was four months after the defeat of Hitler’s Reich. It was said that one of his first questions after the surrender was, “Is the Führer really dead?”

He was resolutely assured that Adolf Hitler was indeed no longer in the land of the living.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network and first appeared on TNI this year.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the “biggest international challenge” since the Second World War, according to the United Nations and has been the focus of the work of the UN’s humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, throughout 2020.

Adam Kleczkowski

Coronavirus,

Predicting exactly how things will play out is difficult, but there are some things we can forecast with a relative degree of confidence.

Vaccines for COVID-19 are now being rolled out, but in some parts of the world, this good news has been tempered by the emergence of new, potentially more infectious strains of the virus. Exactly how the pandemic will evolve has become more uncertain.

Certainly, the next three or so months will be challenging, and a virus-free life is probably some way off. Some things may not return to how they were before.

Predicting exactly how things will play out is difficult, but there are some things we can forecast with a relative degree of confidence. With that in mind, here’s what we can expect from the coming year.

What impact will the new strain have?

There’s currently only limited information about the new viral strain. Although yet to be confirmed, it appears to be more infectious, but not to lead to more severe disease or be able to evade vaccine-derived immunity.

However, the variant suggests the virus is able to produce significant mutations, and further mutations could change the course of the outbreak. Suppressing the pandemic quickly therefore has become an even more urgent task.

Stricter restrictions on behaviour are likely to last well into the new year, and we may need further restrictions to control the virus if it is indeed more infectious.

How long until we see the vaccine’s effects?

Producing enough vaccine doses is a big task – production might hit a bottleneck. Even assuming we can make all we need, immunising people will take many months.

In the UK, GPs are rolling out vaccines, and an average English GP looks after nearly 9,000 people. Assuming GPs work eight hours each day, need 10 minutes to vaccinate someone, and each patient needs two shots, it would take them more than a year to see all their patients. Others, of course, will help with the roll-out, but this shows the size of the task. Delays will be unavoidable.

Additionally, the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine need to be given 21 days apart, with full immunity arriving seven days after the second jab. Other vaccines – such as AstraZeneca’s – require an even longer period between doses. It will take at least a month (if not more) to see the full effect in each vaccinated person.

In countries that relaxed social distancing rules for Christmas, we might see a post-Christmas spike in cases. In this case, vaccines are unlikely to change much initially – the disease will have too much momentum in early 2021. This will also probably be the case in the UK thanks to the new strain of the virus, even though restrictions weren’t lifted for many. Public awareness of the disease’s momentum is needed, to avoid loss of confidence in vaccination.

How will the pandemic unfold?

After people have had COVID-19 (or received a vaccine), they become immune (at least in the short term). Those infected later then increasingly have contact with immune people rather than susceptible ones. Transmission therefore falls and eventually the disease stops spreading – this is known as herd immunity.

The level of immunity across the population needed to stop the virus spreading isn’t precisely known. It’s thought to be between 60% and 80%. We’re currently nowhere near that – meaning billions around the world will need to be vaccinated to stop the virus spreading.

This also relies on vaccines preventing transmission of the virus, which hasn’t yet been proved. If it is, we’ll see a decline in COVID-19 cases, perhaps as early as spring 2021. However, lockdowns and other measures will still be needed to limit transmission while vaccination builds up population immunity – particularly wherever the more infectious strain of the virus has taken hold.

In contrast, if the vaccine only prevents infected individuals from becoming seriously ill, we will be left relying on infections to build up herd immunity. In this scenario, vaccinating the vulnerable would reduce the death rate, but serious illness and long COVID affecting younger people would likely persist.

What’s likely to change?

Vaccines aren’t a silver bullet – some level of precaution will need to be maintained for months. In areas where the highly infectious strain is rampant, high-level restrictions may last until vaccine roll-out has finished. Any changes will come slowly, primarily in the area of care home visits and reopening hospitals for regular treatment.

In time, travel will hopefully become more straightforward, though airlines might start requiring vaccination certificates. Although some countries require vaccination against yellow fever for entry, requiring immunity passports for COVID-19 is likely to prove contentious.

Mask wearing might become a social habit globally as it is now in Asia – for example when somebody is not feeling well or is concerned for their health.

Looking further ahead

Can vaccination lead to eradication of the virus? We don’t yet know how long vaccine-based immunity lasts – and long-term immunity will be key. Fully eradicating the virus will be very difficult and will require a global effort.

While we’ve got close to eradicating polio, smallpox remains the only human disease we’ve fully stamped out, and this took almost 200 years. Measles, for example, although nearly eradicated in many countries, keeps coming back.

Some vaccines, like measles, give nearly lifelong protection, whereas others need to be repeated, like tetanus. If COVID-19 mutates regularly and significantly – and its potential to do so has just been demonstrated – we may need to take new vaccines periodically, like we do for flu. In the long term, we would also need to vaccinate children to maintain herd immunity.

The social and economic effects of the pandemic will probably be long-lasting too. Perhaps life will never return to what it was before. But it is up to us to make it safer by being better prepared for future pandemics.

Adam Kleczkowski, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde

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

Image: Reuters

David Webber

Politics, The Americas

Legislators respond to people and interests they see and hear. Usually that means other politicians, lobbyists and their staffs. Without an attentive public, the public interest loses out.

Amid all the attention on former President Barack Obama’s new book, what may not have shown up in the reviews is mention of a two-page summary that, for legislative scholars like me, includes what may be the shortest and perhaps best description of how legislatures really work, even for political scientists.

Based on his time as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, the brief passage crystallizes the inner workings of the legislative process. As a scholar who has observed and studied state legislatures and Congress for almost 50 years, I know there are hundreds of autobiographies by former members of Congress, former U.S. senators and former state legislators – all of whom offer lessons about what goes on in their respective chambers.

But none is so succinct as Obama’s.

Legions of accounts

One of the first legislative memoirs I read, in about 1972, was “Congress: The Sapless Branch,” written a decade earlier by Joseph Clark, who then represented my home state, Pennsylvania, in the U.S. Senate. I became fascinated with the idea of legislators evaluating their own institutions – and even proposing reforms to make them work better.

Most legislator autobiographies are heavy on personal journeys, describing why and how they ran for office, what happened during the campaign and their legislative successes once elected. These sorts of books include former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri’s 2015 “Plenty Ladylike” and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky’s 2016 “The Long Game.” They pay little attention to the performance of the legislature or the wider political system – though McConnell does note the contrast between politics and reality, the difference between “making a point and making a difference.”

There are exceptions to this. For instance, in Philip J. Rock’s memoir, published after his 2016 death, “Nobody Calls Just to Say Hello,” the longtime Illinois Senate president carefully explains how at least a dozen important decisions came about.

Obama’s experience

In his 750-page book, Obama’s legislative insight comes early, on pages 33 and 34. Obama recounts an early speech opposing tax breaks to corporations using facts and figures that he felt certain were convincing. When he finished, Senate President Pate Philip came over to his desk:

“That was a hell of a speech,” he said, chewing on an unlit cigar. “Made some good points.” Then he added:

“Might have even changed a lot of minds,” he said. “But you didn’t change any votes.” With that he signaled to the presiding officer and watched with satisfaction as the green lights signifying “aye” lit up the board.

Obama went on to describe his view of politics in Springfield as “a series of transactions mostly hidden from view, legislators weighing the competing pressures of various interests with the dispassion of bazaar merchants, all the while keeping a careful eye on the handful of ideological hot buttons – guns, abortion, taxes – that might generate heat from their base.”

Obama explained that it wasn’t that legislators “didn’t know the difference between good and bad policy. It just didn’t matter. What everyone in Springfield understood was that 90 percent of the time voters back home weren’t paying attention. A complicated but worthy compromise, bucking party orthodoxy to support an innovative idea – that could cost you a key endorsement, a big financial backer, a leadership post, or even an election.”

In that passage, Obama describes the central weakness of representative democracy: Nice-looking political institutions don’t work the way they seem, partly because organized special interests keep them that way, and more importantly, because “90 percent of the time voters back home weren’t paying attention.”

Legislators respond to people and interests they see and hear. Usually that means other politicians, lobbyists and their staffs. Without an attentive public, the public interest loses out.

We all know better than we live

His account reinforces a truth I first struggled with in 1981 while interviewing an Indiana legislator for my dissertation. I asked him if he looked for information to better understand legislative proposals. He told me, “I can’t help but think that you think that our problem is that we don’t know what we should be doing here. It’s just like in farming, I already know how to farm better than I farm.”

People already know the facts of how to live healthier, work more effectively and save more money. And politicians largely know how to address what the public actually needs. It is motivation and discipline that are often the obstacles, not a lack of knowledge.

Academic books and articles are useful for understanding pieces of the legislative process. But they, and lawmakers’ own reflections, seldom so clearly reveal – as Obama captures – how legislators understand it.

David Webber, Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Missouri-Columbia

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

Image: Reuters

Richard Douglas

Security, Americas

The Taurus G2S is a handgun that’s easy to carry and is a decent weapon for self-defense.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Part of what makes the G2S so user-friendly is its low recoil and great balance. In part, this is due to its small size and weight, but the overall design of the gun also helps. The finger-rest extension on the magazine allows for a better hold of the gun. When combined with the texturing and functional design of the grip, this results in enhanced recoil management.

If you are a long-time gun owner, you probably had one of Taurus’ Millennium Pro Series as one of your first guns. They’re easy to conceal and have great firepower and accuracy for their size. Given this, it’s no surprise that the PT-111 Millennium G2, also known as the Taurus G2S, stands out as an excellent first-time pistol.

Accuracy

For its size, the G2S is quite accurate. It comes with large, three-dot sights—a fixed front sight and two-dot rear sights that offer the ability to adjust the windage and elevation using the provided safety key/screwdriver. The sights are easy to line up while aiming.

The sights were built to be small to prevent snag. However, this makes them less than ideal for aiming in low-light conditions. For those situations, I recommend getting a red dot sight or a scope to compensate for this. Also, due to the dots being painted on, they are vulnerable to the kinds of caustic substances found in cleaners, so be wary when you are cleaning the gun.

Reliability

The Taurus G2S can fire hundreds of bullets with only factory lubrication without a single hiccup. Suffice to say, its reliability is excellent. The polymer frame of the gun is as sturdy as metal, if not more so.

A unique feature of this gun is its second-strike capability. If the primer fails to ignite, the gun switches to a double-action mode, allowing you to pull the hammer again. This means that failing to detonate once will not impede the use of the weapon, making the G2S invaluable in a dire situation.

Handling

The Taurus Millennium G2 has above-average handling. There is next to no ejection or feeding issues with it, and the textured grip and smooth trigger make it much easier to handle. The trigger guard is small enough to accommodate gloved hands.

Trigger

The Taurus G2S is a gun meant to be used for self-defense, and the trigger is proof of this. There is a lot of bring-up on the trigger of this gun, but, once the trigger is brought up, you don’t have to pull it hard. The trigger press is around six pounds, allowing for the gun to fire easily and accurately. It may not be as good as something like a Walther PPQ, but it’s still a good choice.

Magazine & Reloading

The magazine capacity of the Taurus G2S is twelve, and the magazine supply is two. There is no magazine disconnect safety. The disconnect safety prevents a gun from firing if it doesn’t have the magazine inserted into the magazine well. Without this, the GS2 will fire the remaining cartridge in the chamber without the magazine even being in it.

Unlike some older guns, this gun’s factory magazines are perfectly serviceable. The gun has no ammunition requirements, and it’s easy to take down and clean, even if you are new to using guns.

Length & Weight

Though most would associate the Taurus with larger, cheaper handguns, this gun is a well-crafted, compact polymer handgun. Its barrel is 3.2 inches in length, and its overall length is 6.24 inches. Those who hear that the G2S is a double-stack gun are surprised to find that it’s one of the narrowest ones out there; it’s barely over an inch in width. The G2S weighs twenty-two ounces with an empty magazine. Though it’s too bulky to carry in a pocket, it’s the ideal pistol to carry on a belt.

Recoil Management

Part of what makes the G2S so user-friendly is its low recoil and great balance. In part, this is due to its small size and weight, but the overall design of the gun also helps. The finger-rest extension on the magazine allows for a better hold of the gun. When combined with the texturing and functional design of the grip, this results in enhanced recoil management.

Price

The Taurus G2S usually costs between $320 to $350, though its street price can be as low as $250. Considering all the features above, and comparing it to its competitors, this is a steal. Even other Taurus guns aren’t as inexpensive. You are getting a gun that can compete with any of the other 9 mm pistols on the market at a much better price. This makes the gun a good choice for your first pistol.

My Verdict?

The Taurus G2S is a handgun that’s easy to carry and is a decent weapon for self-defense. Its easy-to-use trigger, good size and weight, comfortable grip texture, and rounded edges all make it an excellent concealed carry weapon. It’s guaranteed to be a bang for your buck.

Richard Douglas is a long time shooter, outdoor enthusiast and technologist. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field. Columnist at The National Interest, Cheaper Than Dirt, Daily Caller and other publications. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Wikipedia.

Kyle Mizokami

Security, Europe

Most German tanks and planes simply do not work.

Key point : It is as if Berlin has given up any serious commitment to its own security. The military is small and underfunded to a shocking degree.

The modern German armed forces, or Bundeswehr, were created just ten years after the end of World War II. Cold war tensions and the presence of Soviet troops in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland made a West German defense force necessary.

The Bundeswehr eventually grew to one of the largest, well-equipped armed forces in the world, boasting twelve combat divisions, hundreds of combat aircraft in the Luftwaffe (German Air Force), and a formidable force of surface ships, submarines, and maritime aircraft in the Bundesmarine (Navy).

The end of the Cold War and withdraw of the Red Army from Eastern Europe was a boon for European security. The National Volksarmee of East Germany and the Bundeswehr merged into a new national army. Inventories of ships, aircraft and armored vehicles were cut by up to seventy five percent, and the German defense budget was cut further. Germany now spends just 1.2% of GDP on defense, far below the NATO recommended 2%.

In the past year numerous articles have arisen demonstrating the Bundeswehr’s lack of readiness. Fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and other vehicles have been grounded due to lack of spare parts, bringing readiness rates below 50%.

Indeed, Germany’s military, while armed with some of the world’s most deadly weapons, faces some tremendous challenges. Below are five weapons platforms that in normal times would be truly deadly, however, face some very basic challenges if ever needed in combat, mostly due to a massive lack of underfunding and other problems.

Eurofighter Typhoon:

In the 1980s, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain teamed up to begin development of the Future European Fighter Aircraft, or FEFA. First flight of what would become the Eurofighter Typhoon was in 1994, and Germany accepted its first Eurofighter in 2003. Budget cuts mean that the Luftwaffe will probably accept its last fighter sooner than anyone thought.

(This is being reposted from 2015 due to the recent NATO Summit)

The Eurofighter is likely the best non fifth-generation fighter in existence. A combination of excellent maneuverability, powerful engines, AESA radar, infra-red search and track sensor and AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles make Eurofighter a tough opponent in the air. Eurofighter’s air to ground capability is growing, and the Luftwaffe’s fighters have the ability to carry unguided bombs, laser guided bombs and Taurus cruise missiles.

Germany was originally buying 180 Eurofighters, but a cancelled purchase in 2014 means only 143 fighters will be acquired. As of October 2014, only 42 of 109 Eurofighters were in flying condition, the rest grounded by lack of spare parts. At the same time, Germany reportedly halved annual flying hours for air crews, fearing that the fuselage would become unstable.

Eurofighter Tornado:

Another fighter developed by a European defense consortium, the Tornado was developed by the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany. Designed to penetrate enemy defenses by going in low and fast, the Tornado was one of the last swing-wing fighter jets. Since the end of the Cold War however, the Tornado forces has suffered from chronic underfunding.

The Luftwaffe eventually acquired both the IDS (Interdiction/Deep Strike) and ECR (Electronic Combat and Reconnaissance) versions of the plane. During the Cold War, Germany’s Tornado attack jets were assigned the mission of bombing Warsaw Pact targets, particularly airfields. In the years since German reunification, Luftwaffe Tornados conducted aerial reconnaissance missions over Kosovo and Afghanistan.

The German Navy and Air Force received a total of 357 Tornado aircraft. Their numbers reduced after the Cold War, Germany plans to keep the remainder in service until 2025 or beyond. Like other German weapon systems the Tornados are underfunded and of August 2014, only 38 of 89 were operational.

Leopard II Main Battle Tank:

Developed in the 1970s by Krauss-Maffei as a replacement for the Leopard I, the Leopard II tank is still one of the best main battle tanks in existence. A logical extension of German postwar tactical doctrine, the Leopard II prioritized speed and firepower, making a highly mobile tank capable of exploiting changes on a fluid European battlefield. First fielded in 1979, the Leopard II is still in service today. Unfortunately, there are way too few of them.

The latest version of the Leopard II, the Leopard IIA7, incorporates a whole slew of upgrades meant to keep the tank viable until the 2030s. The A7 model features a longer barrel version of the same 120mm smoothbore gun, a third generation thermal sights, increased composite armor protection, and an auxiliary power unit to run electronics without having to run the tank engine.

West Germany procured 2,125 Leopard IIs — enough to equip nearly twelve panzer (tank) and panzergrenadier (mechanized infantry) divisions. The end of the Cold War and declining defense budgets caused Germany to shed nearly 90% of its tank force, and today the Bundeswehr has just 225 Leopard II tanks.

G36 Assault Rifle:

In the 1990s, the Bundeswehr replaced the Heckler and Koch G3 battle rifle with the G36 assault rifle. A new design using a lighter, NATO standard 5.56-millimeter bullet, thirty round magazines and integrated optics, the G36 was supposed to increase the firepower of German infantryman while lightening his load. 176,000 rifles were purchased.

After the Bundeswehr began deploying to Afghanistan it was discovered that the G36 was losing accuracy in combat. G36 rifles became inaccurate after sustained firing — a problem that may not have been obvious to a peacetime army. Still, it’s difficult to see how the defect was not noticed sooner.

After admitting the rifle was inaccurate, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced the rifle had “no future” in the Bundeswehr. The German Defense Ministry has just announced the procurement of 600 HK417 assault rifles, to be issued by mid-2016. The HK417 is also built by Heckler and Koch.

Panzergrenadier Battalion 371:

Panzergrenadiers are the Bundeswehr’s mechanized infantry. Germany has nine panzergrenadier battalions—each fields 900 men, roughly fifty infantry fighting vehicles and MILAN and Panzerfaust 3 anti-tank weapons.

Last February, Panzergrenadier Battalion 371, based in Marienburg, was participating in a NATO exercise in Norway. News quickly spread that the battalion, part of NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force, suffered from a shortage of pistols and night vision goggles. A shortage of MG3 machine guns meant broomsticks were painted black and pressed into service to simulate them. A new report states that the situation was even worse: Panzergrenadier Battalion 371 had to borrow 14,371 pieces of equipment from a total of 56 other Bundeswehr units… and it was still short on equipment.

If a high priority NATO tasked unit was short over 14,000 pieces of equipment, it calls into question how deep the rot in the Bundeswehr goes—and Germany’s commitment to the alliance.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and The Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Gun News Daily

Security, World

These are the finest for attacking from a distance.

Key Point: Snipers need good rifles. Here are some that have proven their worth.

Are you on the market for a .308 semi-automatic rifle?  If so, you’ll be glad to hear that there are several high quality choices for you available on the marketplace, which each offer excellent performance, accuracy, durability, and reliability.

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

There are three models that stand out in particular: the Century Arms C308, Ruger SR-762, and the Springfield M1A.

Each of these choices certainly have their pros and cons, but they also each offer unique advantages that we will dive into in-depth with this article.  We’ll also talk about the best benefits of owning a .308 semi-automatic rifle to begin with.

THE BENEFITS OF OWNING A .308 SEMI-AUTOMATIC

A solid case can be made that the .308 semi-automatic rifle is the most versatile centerfire rifle that you can own today.

The reason why is because it can be used for almost any purpose you need a rifle for.  The .308 Winchester is an excellent round for hunting and can bring down almost any North American big game, including deer, elk, and black bear.

And as a semi-automatic with a 20 or so round magazine capacity, a .308 semi-auto will also be a good choice for tactical training and for defending your home and property against multiple attackers.

Granted, the .308 is not the best round for defense inside of your home because it can easily pass through each of the walls of your home and the walls of your neighbors.  A handgun, shotgun, or a rifle in an intermediate caliber such as the 7.62x39mm or 5.56x45mm NATO would be a superior choice for that.

Finally, the .308 Winchester round itself has also gained a reputation for being an accurate long range caliber.  It is now the most popular centerfire rifle caliber for hunting both in the United States and across the world, surpassing the venerable .30-06 Springfield round that previously held that title.

Overall, no rifle is absolutely perfect and there is no one rifle that can do absolutely everything.  Guns are like tools in a toolbox, in that each tool and each gun fulfills a different purpose.

However, some tools can fill more purposes than others and are more versatile in that way, and guns are no exception.  The .308 Winchester is an excellent and highly practical round that fulfills a wide variety of different purposes, and in the form of a semi-automatic with a large magazine capacity it becomes even more versatile.

With a .308 semi-automatic rifle, you can do long distance target shooting, go big game hunting, and defend your home and property against several attackers in an emergency or in a grid down disaster situation.  For these reasons, a .308 semi-automatic rifle definitely belongs in your arsenal.

So which specific makes and models should you consider?  Let’s find out.

THE TOP 3 BEST .308 SEMI-AUTO RIFLES

Since there are so many .308 semi-autos available already, it’s hard to narrow them down to the top three.

THE BUDGET OPTION: CENTURY ARMS C308

Semi-automatic rifles in the .308 caliber tend to be very expensive (as in over a thousand dollars) for a high quality model.  That’s a fact you may be disappointed to hear if you’re someone on a serious budget.

Fortunately, there is one .308 semi-auto that’s made just for people who don’t have a lot of money to spend, and that is the Century Arms C308.  This rifle is routinely available for between $500 to $700.

The C308 is essentially a copy of the HK G3, which is one of the most popular battle rifles in the world and utilizes a delayed blowback system.  In fact, the C308 even uses some surplus parts from the G3!

Using a 5 round or 20 round detachable box magazine (which are widely available and extremely economical at less than ten dollars a mag), the C308 features a forward charging handle and a safety switch that’s right by your thumb while holding the weapon.  Some have found the forward charging handle to be a rather awkward and unergonomic position, but it’s something that you can definitely get used to with lots of practice.

While the G3 design overall isn’t exactly the best choice for precision target shooting, it’s still accurate enough for the average shooter and will easily deliver 2 MOA groups at a hundred yards.  And what the G3/C308 makes up for its slight loss in accuracy is excellent durability and reliability.

An improvement the C308 has over the G3 is a Picatinny rail mounted on the top of the receiver, which makes attaching optics and scopes very easy.

One of the biggest downsides to the C308 is that it comes installed with a plastic lower assembly and trigger guard, in contrast to the metal one that came on the original G3s.  Fortunately, it’s not anything that you can’t swap out with aftermarket or surplus parts.

All in all, the Century Arms C308 is easily the best .308 semi-automatic for those on a budget.  It may not be a top-of-the-line rifle, but for an affordable .308 battle rifle it can’t be beat.

PROS:

• Excellent value for the price

• Durable and reliable

• Picatinny rail makes it easy to install optics

• Magazines are dirt cheap and easy to find

CONS:

• Not the most accurate .308 rifle on the market

• Comes installed with a plastic lower assembly and trigger guard

THE PRAGMATIC OPTION: RUGER SR-762

The AR-10 market has exploded in the last few years, as many people who love the AR platform but desire a larger caliber have turned to it.  Ex-military service members who were issued AR’s and are now looking for a hunting rifle are particularly drawn to the AR-10.

One of the best AR-10s available is the Ruger SR-762. This gun isn’t cheap at around $1,500 to $2,000, but it certainly delivers on quality.

The AR market is huge, and this means that spare magazines, aftermarket parts, and customization options are virtually endless.  It is for this reason that the SR-762, or any other comparable AR-10 for that matter, is perhaps the most practical choice you can make for a .308 semi-auto rifle.

Excellent features that the SR-762 ships with include folding iron sights, a picatinny rail for adding scopes, and a two stage piston system that Ruger claims is the best currently available.

The biggest downside to the SR-762 is the trigger, which is far grittier in comparison to other AR-10 rifles.  Ruger as a whole isn’t exactly known for producing guns with the best triggers either. Fortunately, it’s not anything that you won’t be able to replace on your own.

As a whole though, the SR-762 is a dependable and accurate rifles that does everything an AR-10 should.

PROS:

• Customization options are endless

• Two stage piston system

• Easy to add optics

• Folding iron sights

• Ergonomic rubber grip

CONS:

– Poor trigger

THE CLASSIC OPTION: SPRINGFIELD M1A

This list would simply not be complete without the Springfield M1A, a civilian version of the military M14 rifle that has been in use by the military since the 1950s and is still in service as a DMR (designated marksman’s rifle) today.

The M1A today is available in a wide variety of different options and sizes: the 16.5 inch SOCOM model, 18 inch Scout Squad model, and the 22 inch Standard model.  The 22 inch delivers the best velocity and range, while the shorter models are more nimble and better suited for tight conditions.

When outfitted with a wood stock, the M1A simply looks classy and can’t be beat by another .308 semi-auto in the looks department.  The design, based off of the original M1 Garand, is accurate, reliable, and extremely solid. This is a rifle you could throw off a cliff and it will still shoot.

The biggest downsides to the M1A are the fact that it’s heavy and long, especially if you go with the 22-inch version.  Another downside is the safety is located inside the trigger guard (so you have to put your finger inside the trigger guard to flick it off), which many people don’t like.

Nonetheless, the M1A is a design that has served the United States for many decadesand by the looks of it will continue to do so in the future.  This rifle is equally at home on the shooting range as it is out in inclement field conditions.

PROS:

• Wide variety of customization options

• Very accurate

• Reliable and durable

• Classic looks

CONS:

• Long and Heavy

• Safety is located in the trigger guard

CONCLUSION

There are so many other great .308 semi-auto rifles out there that you should definitely continue your research.  Other examples of makes and models for you to consider include the DS Arms SA58 FAL, the FN Scar 17, or literally any other make and model of AR-10.

But the three specific models that we have discussed in this article will serve you well.  The C308, SR-762, and M1A are each reliable, accurate, and proven designs.  You literally can’t go wrong with any of them whether it be for hunting, target shooting, or defense of your homestead.

This article by Will Ellis originally appeared at Gun News Daily in 2019 and is being republished due to reader's interest.

Image: Reuters.

An electrical engineer from Kuwait is being recognized by the United Nations for her success in raising the environmental importance and economic value of recycling in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Dwight Stirling

Politics, The Americas

The fact that Austin’s extensive military experience is clouding his prospects raises the question of why the seven-year delay exists in the first place.

By all accounts, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Defense Department, is eminently qualified to be secretary of defense. A man who achieved the rank of four-star general and succeeded at every turn during his 40-year career, Austin displayed valor and courage while serving the country for nearly half a century.

Ironically, though, Austin’s lengthy military career has created a sticking point in his confirmation process. The law requires a service member to be out of uniform for at least seven years before assuming the civilian role of secretary of defense.

Austin left the Army just over four years ago, making him technically ineligible for the post. Congress would have to waive the waiting period in order to confirm him, something it has only done twice since 1947, most recently in 2017.

Austin’s nomination is historic. He would be the first African American to lead the nation’s military establishment, a step toward broadening the Pentagon’s largely white male leadership ranks.

Yet the fact that Austin’s extensive military experience is clouding his prospects raises the question of why the seven-year delay exists in the first place.

Civilian control over the military

The formal legal delay dates from the end of World War II, but the concept behind it harks back to the nation’s origins and lies at the heart of the American military tradition.

The Founders had personally experienced an empire’s use of a standing army and therefore viewed large military forces as the hallmark of authoritarianism and an inherent threat to democracy. They believed that generals’ influence over how armies are used must always be subordinate to those officials directly accountable to the people.

Samuel Adams wrote in 1768 that “even when there is a necessity of the military power, within a land, a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and jealous eye over it.” In 1776, the Virginia Declaration of Rights asserted that “in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, civil power.” That document became an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence and, later, a model for the Bill of Rights.

When it came to the Constitution, the Founders specifically prescribed civilian control over the military by assigning the president the role of commander-in-chief while giving Congress the power to set the military’s rules and budget.

In the wake of World War II, Congress worried that the American public had increasingly fallen under the spell of charismatic generals like Douglas MacArthur, buying into the argument that greater autonomy should be given to the heroic captains of battle. As MacArthur saw things, the prerogative of proven warriors should not be checked by civilians who know nothing of war.

Congress disagreed and created the waiting period to limit career military officials’ eligibility to run the newly created Department of Defense. A 10-year gap in service – later shortened to seven years – would allow a general’s “star to fade” to an acceptable level, reducing their influence over the public.

Many defense secretaries have been veterans but not career soldiers – like Chuck Hagel, who had been a soldier in the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968, decades before he led the Pentagon for President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2015. Others have been scholars, politicians and leaders of business or industry, like James Forrestal, appointed the first defense secretary in 1947, who had worked on Wall Street before joining the government.

Their leadership skills and experience were developed at least as much outside the military as within it.

‘A specialized society separate from civilian society’

As a major in the Army National Guard, I am familiar with the mentality of career military officers.

During my nearly 20 years as a military lawyer, I have never heard a senior officer tell a superior he or she couldn’t accomplish a mission. In the mind of a colonel or general, there is literally nothing that cannot be achieved with a well-disciplined group of soldiers, smart tactics and an ample supply of funding and equipment.

This can-do attitude is part of the career officer mentality – but so is a certain intolerance for dissenting opinions. The foundational premise of military management is a unity of command and a single voice of authority. Senior officers typically have little patience for opposing views or consensus-building. Diversity of thought is not celebrated; contrarian views are not welcome.

As the Supreme Court has observed, “the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society.” It is an institution that has “developed laws and traditions of its own during its long history,” a body where, in the end, the “law is that of obedience.”

Might Austin receive the third waiver?

Retired Gen. George Marshall received the first waiver of the waiting period in 1950. Marshall made a candid observation during the nomination process: “As a second lieutenant, I thought we would never get anywhere in the Army unless a soldier was secretary of war. As I grew a little older and served through some of our military history … I came to the fixed conclusion that he should never be a soldier.”

Considered uniquely qualified to oversee U.S. forces in the Korean War, Marshall was eventually confirmed on the condition his tenure would be limited to one year. Congress stated at the time that “no additional appointments of military men to that office shall be approved.”

It took nearly 70 years for the second waiver to be granted, to retired Gen. James Mattis in 2017. His confirmation faced early resistance from senators, especially Democrats, because Mattis had left the Marines just four years earlier. In reluctantly voting to confirm Mattis, Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cautioned that “waiving the law should happen no more than once a generation.”

Austin is now poised to become the third recipient of a waiver. He professes to have acquired a civilian mindset since leaving active duty, but the rationale underlying the waiting period remains as vital and relevant as ever.

“An Army is not a deliberative body,” the Supreme Court once observed.

Giving career members of this body the authority to decide how America’s blood and treasure are spent should be the exception, not the rule.

Dwight Stirling, Lecturer in Law, University of Southern California

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

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Asia

As early as May, Pakistan warned that it might resort to “any weapon” should the Kargil War continue to escalate.

Here's What You Need To Remember: India and Pakistan had been to war three times already, and tensions between the two have remained high.

For years, there was a conceit that no two states with nuclear weapons have ever directly fought each other. That conceit has at times been thin. For example, during the Korean War, Soviet air force regiments battled U.S. jet fighters in support of North Korea. But Washington as much as Moscow refrained from pointing out that thinly-veiled fact, lest it escalate tensions.

But when thousands of Pakistani troops infiltrated across the Line of Control in 1999, separating the Indian and Pakistani-controlled territories, disguised as local insurgents, the pretense proved impossible to maintain before the prying eyes of global media.

Just a year earlier on May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted a series of underground nuclear tests known as Chagai-I. Islamabad’s ascension as a nuclear power was met with jubilation in Pakistani streets and condemnations and sanctions across the globe. Though Pakistan’s rival India had conducted its Smiling Buddha nuclear test in 1974, Chagai came in response to a second India test held just two weeks earlier.

Still, in February 1999 both countries signed the Lahore Declaration expressing a desire to peacefully resolve the long-standing conflict over the mountainous region of Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority and Hindu minority.

However, the Pakistani military’s Joint Staff Headquarters, under General (and soon-to-be prime minister) Pervez Musharraf saw an opportunity to pick off salient Indian territory called the Siachen glacier. As the glacier lay 20,000 feet above sea level, Indian border outposts in the sector were sparsely manned or abandoned. And positions near the town of Kargil could be used to interdict National Highway 1 connecting the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar to the Ladakh provincial capital of Leh.

Thus, even as Islamabad and New Delhi celebrated their apparent peace accord, four battalions of Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry regiment (5th, 6th, 12th and 13th) and two of the Sind Regiment (24th and 27th), as well as commandos from the elite Special Services Group, were infiltrating into the abandoned outposts at the very peaks of the Himalayas, without initially being detected.

The subterfuge could not last forever. Local shepherds first reported seeing the Pakistani infiltrators on May 3. On May 15, a six-man Indian patrol under Lt. Saurabh Kalia sent to investigate the Ladakh mountains was ambushed, captured and apparently tortured before being shot dead.

Within days, the Indian Army discovered that Pakistani forces had seized control of roughly 65 square miles of territory on the Indian side of the Line of Control, with troops dispersed over 132 strongpoints.

New Delhi mobilized 200,000 troops to evict the infiltrators, but the bulk of the fighting was undertaken by the 20,000 soldiers in the 8th Mountain and 3rd Infantry Divisions, supported by nineteen (battalion-sized) artillery regiments.

They faced only 5,000 Pakistani soldiers—but these were dug into fortified hilltops between 8,000 and 18,000 feet above sea level, and armed with infantry support weapons including mortars, machine guns, bazooka-like recoilless rifles, and Stinger and Anza man-portable surface-to-air missiles. 

Because the Line of Control limited the ability of Indian troops to maneuver around Pakistani positions, many of these positions had to be assaulted head-on. Exhaustion, cold, and high-altitude sickness also posed a formidable—and often lethal—obstacle to Indian infantry. 

The Indian Army deployed heavy Bofors FH77 155-millimeter field howitzers into mountain valleys. Designed for indirect fire support, the steep terrain allowed the heavy howitzers to level their gun barrels to deliver rapid direct fire with deadly results. 

Meanwhile, Pakistani forward observers profited from mountain tops to spy on Indian forces moving along the NH1 Highway and call down accurate artillery from batteries across the Line of Control.

Over six weeks, protracted battles raged at places like Tololing and Tiger Hill. The latter’s summit lay 16,700 feet above sea level and could only be attained by scaling up on a climbing rope.

Posturing at Sea, War in the Air

Starting May 20, the Indian Navy also began massive redeployment, with ships, amphibious forces, and reconnaissance aircraft departing on patrols pressuring the Pakistani port of Karachi. In response, the Pakistani Navy disbursed from Karachi and began escorting valuable tanker convoys. Though neither navy saw combat, it was clear they were ready for a lethal struggle—and that India might impose a suffocating blockade if tensions escalated further.

Meanwhile, New Delhi initially remained reluctant to commit offensive airpower for fear of escalation. Instead, Indian Air Force aircraft based at Srinagar flew transport, reconnaissance and electronic warfare missions. This was not without it risks, as a heat-seeking missile struck photo-recon Canberra on May 21, though the pilot managed to return to base.

On May 25, New Delhi authorized limited airstrikes. But initially, attempts to provide air support with unguided bombs dropped by dated MiG-21 fighters and Jaguar and MiG-27 attack jets struggled to land effective strikes. One MiG-27 crashed after an engine flameout; a MiG-21 was downed by a Stinger missile and its pilot apparently executed. Then a Mi-17 helicopter gunship was downed by a barrage of Stingers on May 28.

The air campaign (codenamed Safed Sager) turned a corner on May 30 when India deployed No. 1 and No. 7 squadrons equipped with fourth-generation Mirage 2000 jets into the war. These not only exhibited superior high-altitude performance but had been hastily modified to employ Paveway II laser-guided bomb imported from the United States and Lightening laser targeting pods acquired from Israel. Moreover, the Paveway IIs could be launched outside the effective range of portable anti-aircraft missiles.

These were first precision-guided munitions to be used in combat by the Indian Air Force. Throughout June and early July, Mirages knocked out nine supply depots and command bunkers in a succession of deadly precision strikes, particularly targeting Tiger Hill.

The Pakistani Air Force was never authorized to enter the conflict, but F-16 jets from No. 9 and No. 11 squadron did shadow Indian air operations from across the Line of Control in an effort to unnerve their counterparts.

Clinton’s Diplomatic Overture

Washington had condemned and sanctioned both India and Pakistan’s recent nuclear tests, and its policy was then in a state of flux. During the Cold War, India had maintained cordial relations with the Soviet Union, while the United States overtly supported Pakistan and eventually its close ally China. The end of the Cold War removed much of the rationale for these alignments. 

As early as May, Pakistan warned that it might resort to “any weapon” should the Kargil War continue to escalate. That warning assumed ominous dimensions when U.S. intelligence reported deployment of Pakistani nuclear weapons to prepare for a possible escalation of the war.

Globally, few believed Islamabad’s denials that the heavily-armed troops in Kargil were merely local insurgents. President Bill Clinton first urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw his forces in a phone conservation on June 15. As Pakistani positions near Kargil began to collapse, Sharif flew to Washington on July 4 and agreed to order withdrawal of Pakistani troops. This was largely accomplished, but some refused to return and continued fighting for three more weeks alongside local jihadists.

The Kargil conflict cost the lives of 527 Indian soldiers. After years of denial, Pakistan admitted its armed forces had suffered 453 dead in the border conflict. 

Clinton’s negotiations also set the stage for a dramatic turnaround in U.S.-India relations, with New Delhi becoming an increasingly important international partner of Washington in the next two decades while relations suffered with Pakistan due to its involvement in the War in Afghanistan.

Certainly, the Kargil War was far from the bloodiest ever fought—but it marked a frightening new chapter in the international system as for the first time states with nuclear weapons faced off on a (fortunately limited) battlefield. India and Pakistan could easily have escalated into a wider conflict with cross-border attacks and more air and sea power in play; a scenario in which the risk of using nuclear weapons would have increased substantially.

Twenty years later in 2019, Pakistani and Indian forces again clashed on land and air. Tensions remain acute and both states deployed dozens more nuclear weapons than they did in 1999.

Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article first appeared last December.

The United Nations Secretary-General has called on the security forces in Niger to “make every effort” to protect civilians as they take part in Sunday’s elections. 

Franz-Stefan Gady

History, Europe

"My strongest experience was the War and the destruction of my fatherland, the only one I ever had, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary."

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Radetzky March is an important novel, since it singularly conveys the constrained spirit that some leaders of the Great Powers in Europe must have experienced prior to the First World War—the feeling that the conflict was preordained and that diplomacy merely provided respite from the inevitable clash that would bring down the old world, despite their best efforts.

Joseph Roth’s magnum opus, The Radetzky March, is perhaps one of the greatest novels that emerged out of the carnage of the First World War describing the dying days of Habsburg rule in Central Europe. It is also one of the most melancholy tales ever written in the German language. Roth vividly portrays the decline and death of an empire that has outlived its time by telling the story of the ill-omened Trotta family, whose sad end—like in a Greek tragedy—is preordained.

The fragility of life in general and political institutions in particular is naturally, most acutely felt during times of profound social upheaval. Times of upheaval, however, also offer a unique vantage point for authors to observe change; “The owl of Minerva only takes flight at dusk,” as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel famously stated. Consequently, Roth’s The Radetzky March provides a rare perspective on the old Europe prior and during “the great seminal catastrophe” of the twentieth century.

Joseph Roth was born in 1894 in Brody, modern-day Western Ukraine, which was then part of the easternmost province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. He studied in Vienna, served in the Habsburg army, witnessed the dissolution of the empire, became a writer, moved from Berlin to Paris, and finally succumbed to alcoholism in 1939. Talking about his life, Roth notes: "My strongest experience was the War and the destruction of my fatherland, the only one I ever had, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary."

Legend has it that in 1928, while living in Berlin, a dispirited Roth asked the band at the Hotel Adlon to play the Radetzky March—a march composed by Johann Strauss Senior in 1848 and dedicated to Field Marshal Radetzky in honor of the old soldier’s victory at Custozza—while the Austro-Jewish author was reminiscing about the past. Radetzky was the epitome of Austria’s imperial Heldenzeitalter (heroic age). The poet Franz Grillparzer waxes eloquently about this longest-serving, imperial Austrian officer (who served more than seventy years in total) in his poem, In deinem Lager ist Oesterreich (“In your camp is Austria”). More important to Roth, the old general singularly rekindled and solidified Austria’s neo-absolutist identity around the Habsburg dynasty after the revolutionary years of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1930, Roth, inspired by Austria’s past and no small amount of alcohol, finally got to work on the novel, which he finished in September 1932. However, it was his editor, Gustav Kiepenheuer, who chose the ironic title The Radetzky March—ostensibly compressing the novel’s content in one short phrase, but in reality, turning the meaning of the old march upside down; Roth’s novel was about death and demise, rather than victory and rebirth.

Roth traces the fate of three generations of the Trotta family and their service to the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef. The founder of the dynasty, Joseph, a Slovenian peasant and officer in the Austrian army, saves Franz-Josef’s life during the Battle of Solferino in 1859, a deed for which he is subsequently knighted and awarded nobility. The towering figure of Joseph, the “hero of Solferino” casts a large shadow over his son Franz, who becomes a district captain in Moravia, and Franz’s son Carl Joseph, who is commissioned into the imperial forces, first into a prestigious cavalry regiment and then into an infantry battalion stationed in Galicia. Joseph von Trotta is an impossible role model to follow for both his son and grandson in the already crumbling empire, and from page one of the novel, there is never any doubt of the impending doom of a family so intrinsically linked to the fate of a dying monarch and monarchy.

The relationship between the district captain Trotta and his son, Carl Joseph, is the driving force of the novel and the vehicle Roth uses to paint the kaleidoscopic world of Austria-Hungary stretching from Moravia to Galicia. While still a cadet, Carl Joseph visits his father’s residence in the Moravian district town of W every summer. Every Sunday the military band of a nearby-stationed regiment plays under the balcony of the district captain’s house. Each performance of the band begins with The Radetzky March, invoking in Carl Joseph the desire to go to war and die for the emperor:

It would be best to die for him amid military music, easiest with The Radetzky March. The swift bullets whistled in cadence around Carl Joseph’s ear, his naked saber flashed . . . he sank into the drumming intoxication of the music . . .

The district captain’s house also contains a portrait of the founder of the dynasty, the “hero of Solferino.” Carl Joseph studies it during every summer vacation:

The dead man revealed nothing; the boy learned nothing. From year to year, the portrait seemed to be growing paler and more otherworldly, as if the hero of Solferino were dying once again and a time would come when an empty canvas would stare down upon the descendant even more mutely than the portrait.

In fact, throughout the novel, the Trottas, rather than being alive, appear already dead. They are part of the group of the “living dead”—Habsburg servants cursed to wander the twilight zone between life and death while the empire lingers—yet released from their oath with the demise of the monarchy after which they can finally flee this world, freed from its cares and troubles. Carl Joseph, the district captain, after the death of his faithful servant Jacques, has the foreboding that they both belong to a cursed class of civil servants and soldiers, the traditional pillars of the Austrian monarchy, doomed to collapse once the superstructure is gone.

While the district captain, one of the “old decent men,” dutifully continues his work as a faithful civil servant to the emperor, maintaining “heroic equanimity,” Carl Joseph fails as a soldier in the peacetime army. Acutely sensitive, he feels unable to live up to the impossible ideals of the “hero of Solferino.” He initiates affairs with married women, accumulates gambling debts, is partially responsible for the death of one of his friends in a duel and becomes an alcoholic on the Galician border (“Der Leutnant von Trotta, der bin ich.”—“I am Lieutenant von Trotta,” Roth allegedly proclaimed after he finished the novel). The young Trotta’s principal achievements are the rescue of a faded portrait of the Emperor Franz-Josef from a brothel, which he and his fellow officers frequent, and the bloody suppression of a communist-inspired riot in Galicia, where he is severely wounded by a protester.

In the summer of 1914, during a regimental anniversary ball in the castle of Count Chojnicki, a rich Polish noble, the news arrives that Franz-Ferdinand has been assassinated. A heated discussion immediately breaks out among the different nationalities of the officer corps with some Hungarian officers openly showing their disloyalty to the empire (“We can be glad the bastard is gone!”). It was then that Carl Joseph finally realizes that, “The Fatherland of the Trottas was splintering and crumbling. At home in the Moravian district seat of W, Austria might still exist. Every Sunday Herr Nechwal’s band played The Radetzky March. Austria existed once a week, on Sundays.” Yet otherwise, she was already a corpse.

In one last outburst, Carl Joseph von Trotta seemingly tries to defend his family’s honor: “My grandfather saved the Kaiser’s life. And I, his grandson, will not allow anyone to insult the House of our Supreme Commander in Chief; these gentlemen are behaving scandalously.” Yet even the subsequent funeral march at the ball turned into a farce with drunk musicians playing too fast, guests hopping around and giggling, “each person a mourner behind the corpse of the one in front of him, and at the center of the room, the invisible corpses of the heir apparent and the monarchy.”

Carl Joseph dies ingloriously in the first weeks of the war in Galicia, while trying to fetch water for his troops:

He heard the shots before they were fired and also the opening drum beats of The Radetzky March. He was standing on his father’s house. Then a bullet hit his skull. Warm blood ran from his head to the cool soil of the slope. From below, the Ukrainian peasants in his platoon chorused, ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ Forever Amen! he wanted to say. Those were the only Ruthenian words he knew. But his lips didn’t stir. His mouth gaped. His white teeth shone against the blue autumn sky.

His father, the district captain, died a few days after the death of emperor Franz-Josef in 1916. The physician, Dr. Skowronnek, pronounces the grim diagnosis: “I don’t think either of them could have outlived Austria.”

The fatalism of the protagonists, the living dead, and their dogged belief in the inevitability of the fall of the monarchy is perhaps the most disturbing feature of the novel, considering the millions of dead that the dissolution still required. Yet, it is not a literary invention. Conrad von Hoetzendorf, the highest-ranking officer in the imperial army, gloomily noted already on June 28, 1914: “This will be a forlorn fight, it nevertheless will have to be fought, such an old monarchy and such a glorious army cannot go down ingloriously.” Emperor Franz-Josef echoed Conrad’s sentiment by stating: “If we go down, at least we shall go down with decency!” Even young Austrian Colonel Bosch, commander of the elite 1st Tyrolean Kaiserjaeger was sure of the empire’s demise. Nevertheless, he was determined to observe the end, “not as an uncommitted bystander, but as a resigned combatant who will see the black steamroller, which will obliterate us, approach, but who cannot stop it.” Out of 8 million men mobilized by the empire, more than a million died. The professional officer corps of which Carl Joseph von Trotta was a member had been nearly wiped out by the end of 1914. Yet, as historian Gunther Rothenberg states: “The remarkable thing was that the Habsburg army, shackled by a complicated and unsteady political and social structure, with an inefficient mechanism of coordination and control, had held out for so long.”

The Radetzky March is an important novel, since it singularly conveys the constrained spirit that some leaders of the Great Powers in Europe must have experienced prior to the First World War—the feeling that the conflict was preordained and that diplomacy merely provided respite from the inevitable clash that would bring down the old world, despite their best efforts. The Russian Czar and the German Kaiser were in that sense less perceptive than the Trottas, since the monarchs did believe in victory and by doing so, accelerated their own downfalls. Still—and this is the real tragedy of the novel—while the Trottas did not believe in the success of Austrian arms, they went along with the war just the same, and are, therefore, exemplary of the ‘living dead’ in all the European countries and capitals at that time, who faithfully helped set in motion the all-consuming juggernaut in the summer of 1914. Perhaps, this is also the reason why the question of war guilt still puzzles historians and political scientists: If all are guilty, no one is guilty.

Of course, it is not possible to deny that Joseph Roth, especially when portraying Emperor Franz-Josef, is somewhat glorifying the past of an autocratic empire. Roth, in the late 1930s, actively but unsuccessfully advocated for the reestablishment of the monarchy in Austria. Yet, he also shows the horrors of Austria’s campaign in the East, especially the heinous crimes committed by the Austrian military against Ukrainians suspected of harboring pro-Slavic sympathies in the first weeks of the war:

The Austrian army’s war had begun with court-martials. For days on end genuine and supposed traitors hung from the trees on church squares to terrify the living. Hasty court-martials in villages passed hasty sentences. Secret informers delivered unverifiable reports on peasants, Orthodox priests, teachers, photographers, officials.

Rather than an expression of effete Habsburg nostalgia, Roth, in The Radetzky March, seems to grasp the essence of the Japanese mono no aware—being aware of the transience of all things heightens the appreciation of their beauty. It is this latent beauty prior to the outbreak of the Great War that makes the novel resonate in our modern times. In that sense, Roth’s plaintive narrative of the brief existence of the Trotta family also cautions us to appreciate one’s own time, for it is just as fleeting. And while the monarchy rightfully concluded its hour upon the stage, it is inevitable that future empires and civilizations will share the Dual Monarchy’s Ozymandian passing. This alone should stir our interest in the summer of 1914 and the ill fortune of the Trottas.

Franz-Stefan Gady is a senior fellow at the EastWest Institute, where he was a program associate and founding member of the Worldwide Cybersecurity Initiative. Follow him on Twitter (@HoansSolo). This first appeared in July 2014.

Image: Wikimedia.

Michael Peck

Security, Europe

If you're a sailor on a Russian submarine that sinks in the middle of the ocean, don't expect much sympathy from the Kremlin.

Here's What You Need to Remember: To his credit, the Politburo transcript also shows how alert and incisive was Gorbachev. Leaving aside the concerns about sabotage and incompetence, he asks pertinent questions about the disaster, such as why the explosion occurred and why rescue vessels couldn't save K-219. He wanted to know how toxic gases poisoned the submarine's air, why a tow rope broke, and whether sensitive information on K-219 could be retrieved by the Americans.

If you're a sailor on a Russian submarine that sinks in the middle of the ocean, don't expect much sympathy from the Kremlin.

Judging by the reaction of Soviet leaders to the accidental sinking of a Soviet nuclear missile sub 30 years ago, you'll be lucky if you're not shot by a firing squad.

Just how hard-nosed the Kremlin can be is shown in the transcript of a Politburo meeting on the maritime disaster, published by the National Security Archive.

On October 3, 1986, the Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine K-219, equipped with 16 R-27 nuclear missiles was on patrol in the North Atlantic, about 700 miles off the coast of Bermuda. A seal in the hatch cover of Number 6 missile tube failed, which allowed seawater to leak into the tube and mix with missile fuel (rumors that K-219 collided with a U.S. Navy submarine have been denied by both the U.S. Navy and the K-219's captain).

Seawater combined with missile fuel to produce heat and toxic gases. Despite a crewman venting the tube, an explosion erupted in the silo, ejecting the missile and its warheads into the sea. Five crewmen eventually died, and the boat began to sink. After a Soviet freighter unsuccessfully attempted to tow the submarine home, Captain Second Rank Igor Britanov ordered the crew to abandon ship. K-219 sank 18,000 feet to the ocean bottom, where it broke into two pieces, with several missile hatch covers open and the missiles gone.

That Captain Britanov was charged with negligence is not totally surprising: the U.S. Navy might have done the same. But charging him with sabotage and treason? That is truly remarkable.

"Could it [the accident] have happened due to lack of competence of the crew or because of cowardice?" asks Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during the October 6, 1986 meeting. In other words, Gorbachev wonders whether the crew of a Soviet nuclear submarine, who were entrusted with the capability to start World War III, actually panicked and abandoned their boat without cause.

It's hard to imagine a U.S. President having such a concern about U.S. submarine crews (though they have also been known to make mistakes). Then again, Soviet submarine safety can be gauged by the old Red Navy joke that you can recognize Soviet nuclear submarine sailors because they glow in the dark.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Gorbachev also repeatedly voices suspicion that the K-219's demise was no accident.

"This couldn’t be sabotage?" Gorbachev asks when Soviet Navy chief Vladimir Chernavin reported that the attempted tow of K-219 had failed because too much water had flooded the sub.

"We do not have data to make such a conclusion," Chernavin replies.

At another point, Gorbachev tells the Politburo that "the boat was taken for towing, but the tow cord broke. Again, not clear why? In short, one mystery after another."

Presumably the "sabotage" that worried Soviet leaders would have been performed by Western nations, most likely the United States. If in fact the Soviets had found evidence -- or thought they found evidence -- that the United States had sabotaged a nuclear missile submarine, then Ronald Reagan's nuclear war-fighting strategy might have had its first -- and last -- field test.

Soviet leaders also worried that the Americans would raise the sunken sub to loot code books and secrets, just as the CIA had attempted with the wrecked K-129 in 1974. "It is possible that some items had not been destroyed, because they were confident that the boat would not sink and they would be able to tow it," Minister of Defense Sergey Sokolov told the Soviet leadership.

Beyond seeking details of the disaster, the Politburo also focused on how to spin-doctor the disaster to limit damage to Soviet prestige. Gorbachev noted that President Reagan had thanked the Soviets for notifying the U.S. about the incident. "The Americans even offered their assistance and informed us that their planes will be present in the area of the accident," he noted. "In his conversation with [former Soviet ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly] Dobrynin, Raul [Castro] especially noted the speed of our reaction and said that it has great importance for informing the world public because previously they would learn about such things from American media reports.”

Gorbachev suggests a statement to the Americans, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Soviet TASS news service, and other Communist nations. "In our information we should reiterate that according to the conclusion of the experts, a possibility of a nuclear explosion is ruled out after the boat has sunk. At the same time, we could say that the experts see a possibility of radioactive contamination at great depth after a certain period of time."

To his credit, the Politburo transcript also shows how alert and incisive was Gorbachev. Leaving aside the concerns about sabotage and incompetence, he asks pertinent questions about the disaster, such as why the explosion occurred and why rescue vessels couldn't save K-219. He wanted to know how toxic gases poisoned the submarine's air, why a tow rope broke, and whether sensitive information on K-219 could be retrieved by the Americans.

It's a curiosity and comfort level with detail that probably would have eluded Gorbachev's counterpart Ronald Reagan. But it's also a tragedy that K-219's brave sailors were accused of failing to do their duty.

Michael Peck is a frequent contributor to the National Interest and is a regular writer for many outlets like WarIsBoring. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader's interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Samuel J. Abrams

Politics, Americas

While trust in the federal government is low, trust in one’s neighbors is comparatively high. Therefore, greater specificity is absolutely needed when we talk about generalized trust.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a big story trying to unpack the idea of social trust with the headline of “Why are Americans So Distrustful of Each Other.” The author of the piece argues that social trust in American is declining, relying on data from national surveys like the General Social Survey (GSS) to show “a drop {from} 46 percent in 1972 when it began to 31.5 percent in 2018, and the drop is fairly gradua{l}.” This decline represents a 33-percent drop overall and actually fluctuates quite a bit, but there is a real problem with this data: The idea of trust is never clearly defined. In fact, when more clear measures of trust are considered, the data looks far less grim, and Americans may be far more trusting of others than the Journal suggests.

Social trust is critical for the creation of social capital and strong institutions, so having a society with seemingly such low levels of trust would be very worrisome. The GSS asks, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” But who is this question referring to? Those who live in one’s local residential community? Those who do billing for large corporations? Those who work in the government? This question is so amorphous that it is impossible to develop any real sense of what Americans are evaluating here. We should be careful about taking away too much from the decline.

In fact, the Pew Research Center has asked a similar question about trust: “Which of the following statements comes to closer to your view? In general, most people can be trusted {or} in general, most people cannot be trusted.” These results look quite different. In 2016, Pew found that 43 percent of Americans believed that most people can be trusted — a number 12 points higher than the GSS figure of 31 percent in 2016. Since the rise of the global pandemic, trust has climbed: In the summer of 2020, 58 percent of Americans reported that, in general, most people can be trusted according to Pew; a figure almost twice as high at the most recent data point relied on by the Journal.

When particular groups of people or institutions are considered, the numbers are more clear and reputable. For instance, American trust in the federal government is low and has been steadily declining. As of fall of 2020, Pew found that only 20 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right just about always or most of the time. Compared to the late 1950s and early 1960s, this figure has plummeted from around 70 percent. And over the past three presidencies — through the final years of the George W. Bush administration and the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump — less than 30 percent of Americans trust the federal government just about always or most of the time.

Trust in other areas of American life varies. State and local government, for instance, rate very differently from the national figures. AEI’s Survey on Community and Society (SCS) directly compared the different levels of government and found that, in 2018, 17 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right “just about always or most of the time.” Meanwhile, the state government was higher, at 25 percent, and local government was appreciably higher, at 37 percent — more than twice the number of the federal government and a potent illustration of why specificity matters.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, trust was not as bad as it may appear based on the GSS. AEI’s SCS asked about trust in a number of groups in America, prompting them with “In general, how much do you trust the following groups of people?” and the results are far less negative when smaller — yet hugely important — institutions and groups are considered.

When asked how much they trust the people in their neighborhood, for instance, 70 percent of Americans said that trusted their neighbors “a great deal” (22 percent) or “some” (48 percent). Twenty percent trusted their neighbors “only a little” and 8 percent “not at all.” This is fairly positive news, as an overwhelming majority of Americans reported robust levels of trust in the areas in which they reside. Slightly lower numbers — around 60 percent or so — had such high levels of trust with the people with whom they attended school or work, the local stores where they regularly shopped, and those who were in shared clubs, groups, and associations. The numbers are lower for their churches or places of worship, at 51 percent, and the local news media is lower, at 45 percent. Incidentally, before the recent national protests surrounding the police, 70 percent of Americans trusted the police.

The point here is very simple: Levels of general trust in the nation could be better, but poorly specified conceptions of trust are not helpful when thinking about how to improve our polity. While trust in the federal government is low, trust in one’s neighbors is comparatively high. Therefore, greater specificity is absolutely needed when we talk about generalized trust. The numbers that emerged in multiple surveys from less amorphously defined questions are not nearly as discouraging as the low numbers reported in the Journal, which should be taken with a grain of salt.

This article first appeared on AEIdeas, a publication of the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters.

Kyle Mizokami

Technology,

The .44 Magnum cartridge was invented in the late 1940s and introduced in 1950.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Smith & Wesson 329PD is not a handgun for everyone—but then again, neither is the .44 Magnum caliber. The combination of the two should appeal to shooters with a specific set of requirements, namely an easy to carry large caliber revolver that ideally won’t be fired more than a few times in a row with Magnum cartridges.

One of America’s oldest gun companies has pushed the limits of technological innovation to create the lightest large-caliber revolver on the U.S. market. The Smith & Wesson Model 329PD takes technology the company pioneered for smaller revolvers and ports it to large frame, large caliber revolvers. The result is perhaps the lightest .44 Magnum revolver ever made.

The .44 Magnum cartridge was invented in the late 1940s and introduced in 1950. The big round was based on the .44 Special and featured a significant boost in energy and velocity. The .44 Magnum delivered 767 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle, and at 1,200 feet per second easily broke the supersonic barrier.

One of the first—if not the first—handgun to take advantage of the new cartridge was the Smith & Wesson Model 29. The result was a handgun not only useful for dealing lethal effects against large, dangerous game, it achieved fame as the “Dirty Harry” gun. The Model 29 is not a light firearm, however, weighting 2.69 pounds unloaded and three pounds loaded. This was a pronounced downside for hunters pursuing big game in the backcountry, who were already carrying a large caliber rifle and various equipment.

In the early 2000s, Smith & Wesson enhanced their line of snubnose, or “J-frame” revolvers with a new metal technology called scandium. A rare-earth metal, adding small quantities of scandium to aluminum greatly improved aluminum’s tensile strength. Less than one percent of the weight of the aluminum used in a product is necessary to give the alloy improved strength, so scandium aluminum alloy is virtually the same weight as untreated aluminum. Scandium was used in considerable quantities in early versions of the MiG-29 fighter jet, allowing for a lighter fighter with a higher thrust to weight ratio.

In addition to lightweight, a scandium-aluminum alloy is also corrosion-resistant and has “exceptional high fatigue properties approaching titanium”—all features that would be very useful in a metal handgun. A revolver made of scandium instead of steel was therefore significantly lighter, a desirable feature in a small backup or pocket pistol. Smith & Wesson brought this technology to market with the Model 340PD. The 340PD had a scandium frame and a titanium cylinder, the latter necessary for resisting high chamber pressures.

The result was a dramatic loss in revolver weight. The Smith & Wesson 640, an all-steel J frame hammerless revolver with two-inch barrel, weighs 22.1 ounces. The very similar 340PD, built with scandium and titanium, weighs just 11.8 ounces. The 340PD is significantly more expensive, but a fifty percent reduction in carry weight is an extremely attractive feature for those that carry handguns concealed.

The Model 329PD quickly followed the scandium J-frame revolvers, bringing lightweight metals to the large, “N-frame” revolver family. The 329PD, like the 340PD, features a scandium aluminum frame finished in matte black and titanium cylinder. The 4.1-inch barrel is made of stainless steel for accuracy and long life. The 329PD weighs just 25.2 ounces. The all-steel Model 29, by comparison, weighs 43.8, a savings of more than a pound.

The 329PD is in other respects identical to other Smith & Wesson revolvers. It is a single action/double-action revolver, is approximately the same length as steel revolvers, and comes with both wood and synthetic grips. Tacking on the technology, however, Smith & Wesson provides the 329PD with HI-VIZ fiber optic sights. Like other .44 Magnum revolvers, the pistol can fire both the powerful .44 Magnum round and the weaker .44 Special round.

A handgun’s weight is typically a double-edged sword: while a lighter handgun is typically more comfortable to carry, a heavier handgun absorbs recoil better, sparing the user much of the ensuing kick. This is particularly true in heavier caliber revolvers. The 329PD is an exceptionally light heavy-caliber .44 Magnum revolver. According to reviewer Jeff Quinn, “.44 Special loads were all very comfortable to shoot in the 329PD for extended range sessions, but most of the .44 Magnum loads were brutal after a few shots.”

The Smith & Wesson 329PD is not a handgun for everyone—but then again, neither is the .44 Magnum caliber. The combination of the two should appeal to shooters with a specific set of requirements, namely an easy to carry large caliber revolver that ideally won’t be fired more than a few times in a row with Magnum cartridges.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reddit.

Warfare History Network

History, Americas

As recently as 2009, the remains of soldiers who were interred on the field, their final resting places forgotten, have been rediscovered.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Even though McClellan knew Lee's plans in advance, the Battle of Antietam was drawn-out - and horrific. Some units sustained casualties approaching three-fourths.

During the September 17, 1862 Battle of Antietam, casualties piled almost too high to count. The culmination of the first invasion of the North during the American Civil War by General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, it was the bloodiest single day in the history of the United States and the bloodiest day’s fighting ever in the Western Hemisphere. Due to the massive scale of the losses, the Antietam death toll has always been hard to accurately determine.

The Battle of Antietam’s Three Phases

The Battle of Antietam swirled in three phases from north to south and lasted from early morning until dusk. During the first phase, fighting raged in a 24-acre cornfield and on high ground surrounding the Dunker Church, which belonged to the German Baptist Brethren, a Christian sect that believed in baptism by full immersion and were, therefore, known as “Dunkers.” Casualties were extremely heavy in the Cornfield, with some regiments suffering greater than 70 percent casualties. At midday, the fighting had shifted to a sunken road that formed a natural trench-like defensive position. Confederate troops shot down rank after rank of attacking Union troops from the sunken road, later to be called Bloody Lane, until their position was flanked and the depression became a deathtrap. Confederate bodies were strewn so thickly through Bloody Lane by the end of the day that it was impossible to take a step without touching a corpse.

Late in the afternoon, Union troops finally succeeded in crossing a stone bridge over Antietam Creek and moving up the slope on the stream’s western bank. Although they left scores of dead and wounded in their wake, the Union troops pressed on toward the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, and were poised to trap Lee’s army against the Potomac River. However, the timely arrival of A.P. Hill’s Light Division from Harpers Ferry, 12 miles away, blunted the Union drive and ended the battle.

Night Might Never Come

One veteran of the fighting at the Battle of Antietam remembered that the sun seemed to pause high in the sky and it felt as if night would never come. The ferocity of the battle is reflected in the appalling casualties suffered by both sides. Nearly 23,000 men were killed and wounded, with more than 1,500 Confederate dead and over 2,100 Union soldiers slain. Six generals either died on the field or succumbed to wounds suffered at Antietam, including Union Major Generals Joseph K.F. Mansfield and Israel Richardson and Brigadier General Isaac Rodman, and Confederate Brigadier Generals Lawrence O. Branch, William E. Starke, and George B. Anderson.

Before the dead were buried, photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant James Gibson, employed by the famed Mathew Brady, traveled to the battlefield and recorded a series of images depicting with stark clarity the horror of war. In many of Gardner’s photographs, the dead lay where they fell, their bodies in grotesquely contorted positions, frozen before his lens. Many of the images were displayed in Brady’s New York gallery, and the exhibition was billed as “The Dead of Antietam.” The death studies stunned the public and emphasized that the cost of the war would be substantial.

Buried Hastily in Shallow Graves

So many soldiers of both sides died during the Battle of Antietam; casualties were sometimes buried hastily in shallow graves and never moved to formal cemeteries. As recently as 2009, the remains of soldiers who were interred on the field, their final resting places forgotten, have been rediscovered. Although it is most often impossible to specifically identify the remains, one soldier was determined to have been from a New York regiment that fought in the cornfield. His name will never be known; however, the buttons of his jacket identified his home state. The remains were accorded full military honors and returned to a New York cemetery for burial.

This article first appeared at the Warfare History Network and first appeared on TNI this year.

Image: Wikipedia.