Diplomacy & Crisis News

Sebastien Roblin

History, Americas

In fact, the incident caused a scare for the warship that had FDR on board.

Key Point: Several things went wrong over several days with these ships. In the end, one of them would actually be lost.

Patriotic action movies would have you believe military units regularly perform like well-oiled fighting machines. But sometimes reality is closer to Bill Murray’s Stripes.

Such at least was the case of the William D. Porter, whose mishaps were famously immortalized in an article by Kit Bonner.

Named after a swashbuckling Union Civil War captain, the Porter was one of 175 Fletcher-class destroyers built during World War II. Destroyers, dubbed "tin cans" because of their lack of armor, were relatively small but fast warships often tasked with protecting convoys and larger warships. Fletcher-class destroyers boasted ten torpedo tubes, depth charge projectors, and five radar-guided 5” dual-purpose guns allowing them to ably combat aircraft, submarines and surface warships.

The “Willy D’s” shakedown cruise in the summer of 1943 proceeded uneventfully under Lt. Commander Wilfred Walter. That November, she was then assigned to a secret task force charged with escorting President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the battleship USS Iowa to conferences in Cairo and Tehran.

FDR was accompanied by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and the chiefs of the Army, Army Air Force and Navy (Admiral Ernest King). Their meetings with Churchill, Chiang Kai-Shek and Stalin would shape the postwar geopolitical order.

German U-Boats were then exacting a terrifying toll from U.S. convoys in the Atlantic, so the taskforce had to maintain strict radio silence to keep the Kriegsmarine in the dark.

As Porter slipped from her quay in Norfolk, Virginia on November 12, things immediately began to go wrong. Her crew failed to properly raise the anchor, which went rattling across the deck of a neighboring destroyer, tearing away railings and lifeboats.

The following day, Iowa, Porter and two other ships were underway in the Atlantic when an underwater explosion shattered the calm. The taskforce began evasive maneuvers in response to the apparent submarine attack.

But Porter then signaled it was a false alarm: one of her depth charges had accidentally rolled off deck and detonated—because nobody had secured the charge’s safety.

Then a violent wave slammed into the destroyer, sweeping a man overboard, who was tragically never rescued, and flooding one of her boilers. The Porter fell behind and broke radio silence to update the Iowa on her repairs—eliciting an irate message from Admiral King.

Then on November 14, Roosevelt—who had been Secretary of the Navy during World War I—asked to observe an air defense drill. Balloons were released, and gunners on the Iowa and Porter began blasting them out of sky.

Captain Wilfred decided to follow up with a torpedo drill, in which the Porter practiced mock attacks on the Iowa—with the torpedoes’ primer charges removed.

Two mock torpedo launches went smoothly. But upon the third firing command at 2:36 PM, a 24-foot-long Mark 15 torpedo lept from the Porter and surged towards the Iowa.

Torpedoes were tricky to land on target and often unreliable—but just one or two lucky hits sometimes sank even huge battleships and carriers.

The torpedo needed only a few minutes to traverse the 6,000 yards separating the Porter from the Iowa. But Wilfred, reluctant to break radio silence again, insisted on conveying the disastrous news using a signal lamp.

Unfortunately, the signalman garbled the messages twice. Finally, Wilfred radioed “Lion, lion! Turn right!” (“Lion” was Iowa’s codename.) When the Iowa’s operator responded in confusion, the captain clarified “Torpedo in the water!”

Iowa turned hard to port and accelerated to flank speed. Though the 825 pounds of HBX explosive in the torpedo might leave the Iowa at the bottom of the sea in a few minutes given a lucky hit, Roosevelt instructed the Secret Servicemen pushing his wheelchair to position him with a view. The former Navy Secretary wanted to see the action.

Finally at 2:40, the torpedo struck the Iowa’s wake and detonated a safe distance away.

The taskforce’s commander had had enough. He ordered the Porter to report to Bermuda. There, the Navy held an inquiry to evaluate why exactly things had gone so spectacularly wrong. Gross incompetence? A plot to kill Roosevelt?

Eventually, Chief Torpedoman Lawton Dawson admitted to having forgotten to remove the primer from the torpedo. The inexperienced seaman was sentenced to fourteen years hard labor, but Roosevelt intervened to wave his sentence.

As FDR was a Democrat, legend has it Navy ships henceforth greeted the Porter with “Don’t shoot! We’re Republicans!”

But Porter’s misadventures were far from over. On December 29 she arrived at Dutch Harbor, Alaska for her new assignment. While partying on New Year’s Day, a drunk sailor discharged one of her 5” guns, sending a 55-pound shell arcing into the backyard of the base’s commandant, who was hosting a holiday party—leaving his flower garden the worse for wear.

Over the next eight months, the Porter’s crew undertook uneventful anti-submarine patrols and raided the Japanese Kuril islands. Then in November, she joined the fighting at Leyte Gulf, where her gunners shot down at least three aircraft.

In 1945, as U.S. troops engaged in a bloody invasion of Okinawa, Porter was assigned first to cover the landing, then to serve as an air defense picket. In one month, she expended 233 tons of 5” shells bombarding shore positions and blasting six more aircraft out of the sky.

But outrageous misfortune revisited the destroyer a final time on June 10. At 8:15 AM a D3A1 ‘Val’ dive bomber plunged towards Porter in a kamikaze attack. As Porter’s guns roared, the obsolete aircraft smashed into the water beside her.

But the Val’s momentum carried it underneath the Porter, before the explosives packed inside it detonated. The eruption raised the 2,500-ton destroyer out of the water. The impact as she smacked back down ruptured steam lines, causing fires to break out. 

For three hours the Porter’s crew attempted to save the listing destroyer (photo here) before the order to abandon ship was given.

But the unluckiest ship in the Navy had one good turn left: every single member of her crew escaped with his life.

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 originally appeared in August 2019 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Si « Le Monde diplomatique » a beaucoup changé depuis soixante ans, ce rationalisme tranquille, cette espérance progressiste, ce refus de hurler avec les loups demeurent son invariant. / France, Culture, Économie, Finance, Idées, Internet, Médias, Mutation, Politique, Presse, A propos du « Diplo », (...) / France, Culture, Économie, Finance, Idées, Internet, Médias, Mutation, Politique, Presse, A propos du « Diplo », Crise économique, Indépendance - 2014/10

Kris Osborn

Drones,

Drones can do so much and cost little that they are now a critical part of the U.S. maritime services new strategy for the 2020s and beyond. 

By keeping an eye on enemy movements, beaming back real-time video of combat developments, and sustaining a persistent, electronic “eye” in the sky, wartime drones increasingly offer what many war planners consider a decisive margin of difference and defining element of modern conflict. While this may, to a very large extent, be considered somewhat self-evident, what is significant is the staggering pace at which U.S. Maritime forces are adding unmanned systems to its surface, undersea and aerial fleet. 

This is so much the case that a new Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard warfare strategy, called “Advantage at Sea .. Prevailing With Integrated All Domain Naval Power,” says “our unmanned campaign plan will synchronize our efforts to field a multi-domain portfolio of shore-launched and sea-launched unmanned platforms with urgency.”

The strategy goes on to specifically cite drones as, among other things, adding the capability to “monitor, record, and report instances of coercive behavior. They will also add the capability for scouting, targeting, communications, and battle damage assessment.” 

Part of why drones are receiving so much attention and tactical emphasis is because they no longer merely offer a kind of “point-to-point” connectivity between a forward “node” and command and control system but increasingly network with one another and other larger and small combat platforms in near real-time. 

A Drone Future

“Our networks, battle management aids, and data infrastructure will connect with other joint networks. Combining many informational inputs into a common, actionable operational picture will enable our forces to act more quickly and effectively than our competitors,” the strategy writes. 

For example, the strategy document explains that networked unmanned systems can, among other things, provide warnings of major power rivals’ military preparations and operations while “naval forces—including submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and unmanned systems—gather intelligence from a variety of sources.” 

Tactically speaking, it is not an exaggeration to say that unmanned systems are fast re-shaping the character of war, opening up a new era of land, air, surface and undersea data sharing, massively multiplying the points of view and overall intelligence picture for combat commanders. In effect, they reinforce, sustain and increasingly enable an emerging warfare tactical reality that information itself is a weapon of war as sharing targeting data between submarines, surface ships or carrier-launched fighter jets in minutes if not seconds completely transforms the sensor-to-shooter timeline, a factor which could easily be seen as something quite likely to determine the outcome in war. 

They also of course add longer endurance as an undersea or surface drone, for instance, would not have to return to port or a host ship as a specific “shift” to return sailors and marines. Some undersea drones, for instance, can maintain an uninterrupted operational presence for up to a month without needing to return to the launching point. This phenomenon is also true, to varying extents, with surface drones as well such as mine-sweepers, attack drones, or even large unmanned command and control ships. The Navy is now in various stages of fast-tracking new large, medium and small surface, undersea and aerial drones to the fleet, some of which are expected to be operational in a matter of just several years, if not months. 

Finally, it may seem almost too obvious to mention that perhaps the greatest advantage afforded by drones in combat is … lives. Removing the need for manned boats subject sailors and marines to closer-in enemy fire. Stand-off distances, enabled by command and control networking, allow humans to make decisions about attacks, intelligence or other tactical nuances while much safer from enemy attack. 

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

Kris Osborn

Advantage at Sea,

A new U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps maritime warfare strategy outline a significant and tactically impactful plan for “crisis response” in the event of major warfare.

A new U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps maritime warfare strategy outline a significant and tactically impactful plan for “crisis response” in the event of major warfare. The plan has many substantial details, including deterrence missions, stability operations, offensive strikes, and specific maritime combat strategies. 

A New Maritime Strategy for the 2020s and Beyond

The strategy, called “Advantage at Sea .. Prevailing With Integrated All Domain Naval Power,” incorporates Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard mission options, multi-service operational coordination, and what could be called a new mixture of interwoven variables. Some of these nuances include a modern emphasis upon expeditionary warfare, forward deployments, and rapid response in the event of war. 

Interestingly and not surprisingly, much of the Navy strategy is simply to be “already on-scene” in the event of war, an approach which of course sheds light upon the service’s consistent requests from Combatant Commanders for more forward-deployed assets in vital areas of the globe. 

“The Naval Service offers flexible options to respond to crises, manage escalation, and preserve decision space for national leaders. Because naval forces are globally maneuverable and persistently operate forward, we are often already on-scene at the onset of a crisis,” the strategy writes.  

Why It Matters

Simply put, this concept helps explain why the Navy is so often conducting training operations and security patrols in key areas such as the Pacific and Black Sea, among others. A powerful, heavily armed presence with major power-projection capability, prevents war, as the thinking goes. 

“Operating our naval forces far forward—in harm’s way and in contested environments— raises the risks for rivals considering the path of escalation and prevents crisis from escalating into war. Navy and Marine Corps forces demonstrate visible combat readiness, support deterrence, and missile defense,” the strategy writes. 

Along with its major Naval focus, the strategy also places a high premium upon Marine Corps ship-to-shore amphibious attack possibilities to function as a deterrence force ready to attack if necessary. It is also no surprise, and tactically significant, that the strategy places a crucial premium upon Coast Guard missions. 

“Coast Guard forces provide additional tools for crisis management through capabilities that can de-escalate maritime standoffs nonlethally. Crisis operations require an accurate understanding of the operating environment,” the strategy states. 

Not only does the Coast Guard support international Naval security operations but also of course performs a major homeland defense role. This function only continues to take on greater urgency as defending the homeland is by no means restricted to preventing piracy, terrorism, and drug trafficking. These things are crucial, yet now also greatly compounded or added to by the reality that potential adversaries are quickly gaining more and more long-range weapons and attack platforms increasingly capable of striking the U.S. homeland. 

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

Zachary Keck

Security, World

Alliances in international politics are at best a necessary evil.

Here's What You Need to Remember: France, America’s oldest ally, was constantly at odds with the United States during the Cold War, criticized America as a hyperpower in the decade after it and led global opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Similarly, the U.S.-Japanese alliance may be the foundation of America’s alliance system in Asia.

An old truism recommends keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. But how to tell the two apart?

Alliances in international politics are at best a necessary evil, somewhat analogous to government in liberal political philosophy. For a regional hegemon with global interests, like the United States, allies are particularly indispensable, given Washington’s need to project power globally.

That fact is cold comfort for the diplomats and military officers tasked with maintaining them, as even the best allies are a never-ending source of migraines and anguish. Many would contend that America has no greater friend than Israel. And yet, Israel is a counterintelligence nightmare with a habit of announcing settlement expansions at particularly inopportune times for U.S. officials.

It is hardly an anomaly in this regard. France, America’s oldest ally, was constantly at odds with the United States during the Cold War, criticized America as a hyperpower in the decade after it and led global opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Similarly, the U.S.-Japanese alliance may be the foundation of America’s alliance system in Asia. Still, despite initially welcoming his election, U.S. officials have been dismayed by Japanese premier Shinzo Abe's historical analysis and field trips to the Yasukuni Shrine.

No U.S. ally is perfect. But five alliances of convenience in particular stand out. (Note: the list is not limited to formal treaty allies.)

1. Imperial Japan

As most Japanese celebrated the success of Pearl Harbor, the architect of the attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, reflected ominously, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."

If only U.S. officials had demonstrated such prescience nearly a century before when they sent Commodore Matthew Perry to forcibly open up the hyperisolationist country. Although Perry was successful in his immediate objective, the United States ultimately got more than it bargained for in the exchange.

After shedding their initial reluctance, Japanese leaders embraced modernization with a fervor nearly unparalleled in human history. Underlying this drive was a desire to transform Japan into a great power so that it could never again be bullied by Western powers.

Although the bilateral relationship was never free of tension, particularly over China and immigration issues, the United States initially found much to like in an increasingly powerful Japan. For example, Tokyo joined American and European powers in helping to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China. Even before then, Theodore Roosevelt used a rising Japan as a check against Russian power in Asia. Japan was also valuable in commandeering Germany’s Pacific holdings during WWI. Following the war, and despite continued tensions, Japan and the United States signed a number of important agreements at the Washington Conference of 1922.

Of course, all of this was more than outweighed by what followed, as tensions over China and Asia greatly intensified. This ultimately culminated in the attack on Pearl Harbor that killed over 2,000 Americans and wounded more than a thousand others. Imperial Japan followed up the surprise attack by conquering much of the Asia-Pacific, including the U.S.-controlled Philippines. It would rule over these territories with barbaric savagery.

Removing Japan from these lands—which fell primarily to the United States—proved no easy task. Imperial Japanese soldiers surrendered at appallingly low rates. According to some sources, only one to three percent of Japanese forces surrendered throughout the war, and only one third of these troops actually wanted to surrender (the rest were too sick or wounded to commit suicide or continue fighting.) As a result, most estimates suggest that America’s casualty rate in the Pacific theater was about three and a half times larger than in Europe.

2. The Soviet Union

A case could be made that the Soviet Union was actually one of America's best allies to date. After all, while the United States has struggled to get even the most marginal military contributions from its NATO allies, the Soviet Union tied down about 70 percent of Nazi forces during WWII and accounted for around 75 percent of German military casualties.

Nonetheless, no list would be complete without the Soviet Union. Even FDR, one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of the alliance, compared partnering with the Soviet Union to holding hands with the devil.

To begin with, as large as the Soviet Union’s contribution to the allied victory was, Moscow hardly offered up this support enthusiastically. To the contrary, Stalin had originally allied with Germany in the hope that France and England would bear the burden of defeating Hitler. It was only when the Führer invaded the Soviet Union that Stalin joined the fight against the hated fascists. Even still, throughout the war, Stalin constantly (and understandably) demanded the United States and England open up a second European front immediately to relieve the Red Army. FDR and Churchill (just as understandably) demurred until the Red Army was on its way to Berlin.

In other words, the Soviet Union made its enormous contribution to the war effort only because it had no choice. Moscow also extracted a heavy price (at least in America’s eyes) for its role during the war by swallowing up most of Eastern and Central Europe. This set the stage for a global rivalry between the two superpowers that lasted almost half a century. Talk about buyer’s remorse!

3. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq

If Saddam Hussein wasn’t quite the monster that Stalin or Hitler was, it wasn’t for lack of ambition. During his quarter century in power, Hussein ruled with a brutality uninhibited by moral conscience. His ruthlessness extended beyond Iraq’s borders, as he frequently invaded unsuspecting neighbors. And when it came to using chemical weapons, Saddam did not distinguish between internal and external enemies.

It was therefore fitting that after taking power, Saddam continued to ally with the Soviet Union and have no relations with the United States. Even after the Iran-Iraq War first began, the United States adopted a policy of strict neutrality in a conflict pitting two countries in which it maintained no diplomatic relations against one another.

Ultimately, however, America’s disdain for revolutionary Iran—still fresh from the hostage crisis—allowed the Iraqi strongman to curry favor with Washington. When, in the spring of 1982, Iranian forces threatened to overrun Basra, the Reagan administration paved the way for supporting Saddam by removing Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The following year, the U.S. president issued a classified National Security Decision Directive that pledged to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing the conflict. Soon thereafter, Iraq and the United States restored diplomatic relations during a trip to Washington by Iraqi foreign minister (and Saddam’s right-hand man) Tariq Aziz, which included meetings with President Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz.

Even before that time, in 1982, the United States had begun to furnish Iraq with various kinds of assistance to bolster its war effort. This support would only grow more expansive throughout the war. As one senior official at the time later recounted:

The United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.

This included “strategic operational military” intelligence on Iranian troop positions, which the Iraqi army used to greatly enhance the effectiveness of its chemical weapon attacks, as well as “cluster bombs and anti-armor penetrators,” which CIA Director William Casey termed “force-multipliers.”

Of course, the United States would come to regret this cooperation nearly immediately after the war ended, when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. Although the United States and its allies scored a decisive victory against Iraqi forces in the first Gulf War, Saddam would continue to haunt U.S. officials through the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Even the Clinton administration called Saddam and like-minded dictators ”the greatest security threat we face.” And, of course, the decision to remove Saddam proved beyond costly for the United States (to say nothing of Iraq and the greater region). It was therefore something of an understatement when the former deputy U.S. ambassador to Iraq later conceded of cooperating with Saddam: “History will demonstrate that this was a miscalculation."

4. Pakistan

To defeat Hitler in WWII, FDR was willing to hold hands with the devil. To combat Al Qaeda after 9/11, the United States literally partnered with the “ally from hell.”

Truth be told, America’s relationship with Pakistan long predated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fact, the United States was one of the first countries to formally recognize and establish ties with Pakistan in the late 1940s, and Washington made Islamabad an integral part of both its Central and Southeast Asia Treaty Organizations the following decade.

This longevity should not obscure the fact that the bilateral relationship has at best been a dysfunctional marriage.

Even in the brief moments when Pakistan has been valuable to the United States, it has undercut its case with serious transgressions. For example, during the 1970s, Pakistan helped facilitate America’s rapprochement with China while simultaneously committing genocide against the Bengalis in what was then Eastern Pakistan. Similarly, during the 1980s, Pakistan was instrumental in helping the United States and its allies funnel aid to the Afghan Mujahideen resisting the Soviet occupation of their country. At the same time, Islamabad used this support to force Washington to tacitly accept Pakistan’s burgeoning nuclear-weapons program.

But Pakistan’s duplicity reached unimaginable heights in the years after 9/11. On the one hand, when faced with an offer it couldn’t refuse immediately after the attacks, Pakistan signed on to the Global War on Terrorism. For this effort, Islamabad was compensated handsomely, receiving upwards of $25 billion in U.S. aid from 2002 to 2012.

On the other hand, Pakistan has continued to provide massive support for Afghan insurgent groups fighting Kabul, and has hosted most of Al Qaeda’s leaders. Most egregiously, after years of Pakistani officials constantly denying he was even in the country, Osama bin Laden was found living comfortably alongside the country’s military elite.

Nothing captures the sheer dysfunction of America’s relationship with Pakistan better than the fact that those closest—and most supportive of it—have subsequently become its fiercest critics. For example, as Pakistan’s U.S. Ambassador, Husain Haqqani was the strongest advocate for a “real alliance” (instead of a transactional one) between the United States and Pakistan. “If anybody can carry it off, it’s him,” then-chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, quipped in 2008—a sentiment Haqqani probably would have wholeheartedly agreed with at the time. Only a few short years later, however, Haqqani wrote a scathing book entitled, Magnificent Delusions, in which he condemned U.S.-Pakistani relations and urged the two sides to adopt the type of transactional relationship he had long tried to transcend.

Similarly, Admiral Michael Mullen spent much of his tenure as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, trying to cultivate better relations with Pakistan. According to his own count, Mullen met with his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, more than twenty-four times over a four-year span. Nonetheless, during his final testimony before Congress, a defeated Mullen conceded that the Haqqani Network is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence service, and that Islamabad "use[s] violent extremism as an instrument of policy.”

5. The Shah of Iran

When Iranians took to the streets in 1978, most cited the Shah’s alleged status as a pawn of the United States as one of their main grievances against him. By that time, it was probably more accurate to describe America as the Shah’s pawn.

To be sure, the United States did help place the Shah in power on two separate occasions. Nonetheless, if the Shah felt any gratitude for this, he certainly didn’t show it. As early as the JFK administration—only a few short years after a U.S.-backed coup had restored him to the throne—the Shah was enraged when Washington urged him to improve on human rights. As William Polk, who was serving on the policy planning staff at the time, later recounted:

My colleagues and I mildly encouraged the Shah to spread the benefits of Iran's growing revenues more equitably among the people, to curtail the rush toward militarization, and to open the government to political processes. The Shah was furious. In one of our meetings, he told me that he had identified me as the principal enemy of his regime. He set out to do precisely the opposite of what my colleagues and I had recommended.

The Shah only became more brazen as the United States grew increasingly dependent on him to “stabilize” the Middle East following the Vietnam War. Particularly notable during this time period was the Shah’s treachery in the Israeli-Iranian-American operation to aid Iraq’s Kurds in their ongoing rebellion against Baghdad. The United States initially only played a bit role in what was then largely an Israeli-Iranian affair. However, as Trita Parsi has explained, “during President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's visit to Tehran in May 1972, the Shah convinced the United States to take on a much larger role in what up to then had been a largely Israeli-Iranian operation.” The CIA and the State Department opposed this action, warning the White House that the Shah would ultimately betray the Kurds. While accurate, both agencies failed to warn that the Iranian monarch would also betray the United States.

But this is exactly what happened in March 1975 when the Shah and Saddam Hussein signed the Algiers Accord, which settled many outstanding border issues in Iran’s favor. Immediately afterward, the Shah cut off all support for the Kurds (including allowing the United States and Israel to use Iranian territory to provide assistance.) The United States and Israel were infuriated. As Parsi notes:

The agreement took Israel and the United States by complete surprise. The Shah neither consulted nor informed his Israeli and American allies about the negotiations with the Iraqis, nor did he indicate that the collaboration with the Kurds was in jeopardy.

In truth, the United States should not have been the least bit surprised by the Shah’s complete disregard of U.S. interests in the Kurdish operation. After all, he had acted far more egregiously in manipulating oil prices, particularly in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

To be clear, the Shah, a quiet ally of Israel and adversary of the Arabs, did not participate in the oil embargo over the war. In fact, seizing upon higher prices, Iran actually upped its production in the immediate aftermath to capitalize on the higher prices (In October 1973, OPEC had raised the price of oil by over 70 percent, from $3.01 to $5.11 a barrel).

These higher prices were not enough to fund the Shah’s grandiose visions for Iran. In addressing the OPEC meeting in Tehran that December, the Shah urged the oil-producing nations to push the price of crude even higher, promising that “I shall defend our action before the entire world.” With the Shah’s encouragement, OPEC agreed to more than double the price of oil from $5.11 to $11.65. Over a twelve-month period, oil prices had risen an incredible 470 percent, which proved extremely lucrative for Iran and other Persian Gulf countries. As Andrew Scott Cooper notes of the year, “the economic wealth of OPEC members had [sky]rocketed by the then-astronomical sum of $112 billion—an amount that represented the largest single transfer of wealth in history.” Iran’s GDP alone was projected to grow by 50 percent!

Of course, the Shah’s move was catastrophic for Western economies, including the United States’, where law and order began to break down. Time magazine reported in January 1974:

in New York City, motorists fought with fists and knives among themselves and with policemen assigned to keep order around jammed stations. In Phoenix, pump jockeys began packing pistols — for self-protection, they explained.

In hindsight, they should have packed more heat; in Albany, NY, a man toting a hand grenade demanded all the gas he could transport.

Increasingly desperate among the growing chaos, President Nixon appealed directly to his old friend the Shah. His pleas fell on deaf ears, as the Shah flat out ignored Nixon’s request. Instead, the Shah went on 60 Minutes to deny that the United States was experiencing oil shortages at all, insisting instead that the United States was importing “more oil than any time in the past."

Worse still, he admonished: “The industrial world will have to realize that the era of their terrific progress and even more terrific income and wealth based on cheap oil is finished.”

“They will have to find new sources of energy, tighten their belts,” the Shah continued. “If you want to live as well now you’ll have to work for it. Even all the children of well-to-do parents who have plenty to eat, have cars, and run around as terrorists throwing bombs here and there—they will have to work, too.”

With friends like the Shah, who needs enemies?

Zachary Keck is the former managing editor of the National Interest. You can find him on Twitter: @ZacharyKeck. This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Reuters.

Warfare History Network

History, Americas

These kind of first-person accounts are invauable.

Key point: As more members of the Greatest Generation pass away, many of their memories of World War II are passing with them. Here is how one Veteran's son found the diary he kept during World War II.

Suppose you found a magic door that opened onto some of the most crucial battles fought in the Pacific during World War II?

That’s the kind of door I stumbled upon in February 2010 when my 91-year-old father, Edward James Reynolds, died and left behind a diary that recounts nearly every day he spent as a radar man on the aircraft carrier Yorktown during World War II.

As I opened and read through this remarkable little gem, all kinds of questions surfaced. First, how did this book survive in such perfect condition? The guy served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, for cryin’ out loud, where salt water, humidity, and rain were constants. And how did he manage to not miss a single day? We’re talking about approximately 545 days of entries, and they come from places as far flung as the Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois, Virginia Beach, Central America, Pearl Harbor, New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, San Francisco, and sweet home Chicago at 1814 South Komensky Avenue.

And could this really be my father saying something like: “Arrived Pearl Harbor in afternoon. Impressed by Navy Band playing ‘Aloha’ as we pulled up to docks. Country beautiful. Women situation acute—125 men to every woman.”

Questions and curiosities aside, by the time I got to the part where my father laid eyes on the shiny new aircraft carrier that was about to propel him into harm’s way in the boundless blue, I was hooked. The diary became my way of experiencing the war vicariously. Gradually it dawned on me that his story belongs to everyone who benefited from his service in the Navy. If he and some 16 million other Americans had not stepped up to the plate the way they did, our lives would be profoundly different, and not in a positive way. So it is only fitting that the story of Ed Reynolds be shared, and shared as widely as possible.

What makes his story so compelling is that it turns the impersonal into the intensely personal. We all know from reading history books that Allied assaults on Japanese island strongholds in the Pacific—the Marshall Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Marianas—were the beginning of the end for Japan in World War II. But what if we could be right beside a sailor from Chicago during these assaults? What if we could share his homesickness, his delight in new places, his fear of the ever-present danger that dive bombers and submarines and kamikazes represented, his pride in America’s military might and the rightness of its cause?

What if, through our Chicago sailor, we caught a glimpse of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; of a ship’s captain who was the first Native American to graduate from the Naval Academy; of Pearl Harbor; of Pacific atolls and the natives inhabiting them? All of this is ours to share in Ed’s diary.

“Assigned to Yorkie”

He begins in February 1943, when he writes that he is on leave from the Great Lakes Naval Training Base and has “nine heavenly days in Chicago.” A few days later, he leaves Great Lakes bound for Virginia Beach. “Lump in throat,” he tells us. “Will miss Chicago.” He leaves behind a 19-year-old neighborhood girl named Mary Ellen Murphy, who will surface repeatedly in the pages of his diary. Of all the reasons Ed looks forward to returning home after his Navy service, Mary tops the list.

Ed arrives in Virginia Beach March 13, 1943, and is bivouacked in the historic Cavalier Hotel. “Impressed by hotel’s beauty,” he notes. And well he might have been. Built in 1927, it was a masterpiece of architecture, sophisticated ambience, and gorgeous ocean views. So how did he wind up in such splendid digs? Because the U.S. Navy commandeered the Cavalier Hotel as a radar training school. Stables were cleaned and used as living quarters for some of the sailors, while in the swimming pool area the water was drained and the bottom of the swimming pool was used as a classroom. Imagine the Navy walking into Chicago’s Palmer House or New York’s Waldorf Astoria one day and saying, “We’ll be moving in now. And on your way out, drain that pool, will you? We may need it for something.”

By April 5, Ed finds himself five miles up the road at Camp Allen. “Assigned to Yorkie,” he notes. “Glad it’s a big ship, you don’t get so sick.”

This is Ed’s first reference to the USS Yorktown, the Essex-class aircraft carrier named to commemorate the first aircraft carrier Yorktown that was lost in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway.

“It was nearly the length of three football fields,” he always used to tell us when we were kids, and sure enough, the Yorktown was 820 feet long. I should say is 820 feet long—it is now docked at Patriot’s Point near Charleston, South Carolina. Its crew numbered 380 officers, 3,088 enlisted personnel, and 90 planes. It was commissioned on April 15, 1943, as Ed duly notes in his diary. Shortly after the commissioning ceremony, Ed and about 3,400 of his newfound comrades introduced this historic ship to sea.

Arrival in Hawaii

A “shakedown” cruise to Trinidad included beer parties on the beach financed by the 20th Century Fox Studios. June 17 has the Yorktown back at the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia. The same evening, Ed departs on leave for “four days of happiness” back in the old Chicago neighborhood. Unfortunately, he returns from Chicago to the Yorktown six and a half hours “over leave,” which leads to this June 22-23 entry: “Spent these days ‘over the side,’ airgun in hand, scraping the bottom of the ship. Miserable duty.”

By July 7, with the Yorktown on its way to Pearl Harbor by way of the Panama Canal, Ed notes, “Scout planes spotted two subs.” The next day his entry talks about three “cans”––Navy slang for destroyers. These are the Dashiell, the McKee, and the Terry, and they show the way, writes Ed, “through sub-infested & squall-swept waters.” He also notes that he spent some time on July 8 in the pilot house, which causes him to observe that “the capt. is some character.” It’s worth noting that the captain he refers to is “Jocko” Clark, or Admiral Joseph J. Clark. Born in Oklahoma and a member of the Cherokee tribe, he was the first Native American to come through the U.S. Naval Academy.

While in the vicinity of the Panama Canal, Ed notes sighting Costa Rica and El Salvador. Once through the Canal and sailing west through the Pacific, he writes that the coast of Mexico is 200 miles away. “Issuing steel helmets & gas masks,” he notes. By now, thoughts of home are never far away. “Beautiful moonlit night. Flight deck would be wonderful spot for a dance. Heard ship’s orchestra practice—wow, are they solid.” And the next day: “All afternoon on flight deck gazing out over the water, thinking of home.” And a few days later: “Realization I’m a long way from Komensky Ave. When will I get to see Chicago again? No mail. Just plain lonesome tonight.”

Throughout the loneliness and homesickness, one thing that clearly appeals to him is the thought of being in Hawaii. Remember, he has never been farther from 18th and Komensky than Fox Lake, Illinois. So imagine his sense of anticipation when he writes: “Hawaii just 300 m dead ahead. Swaying palms, make way for E.J.”

When the Yorktown does reach Hawaii, it’s still four nights before E.J. gets up close and personal with those swaying palms. “Wish I could go ashore & just wander around on that mountain range to the West,” he writes. Keep in mind that he’s never seen a palm tree in his life at this point. In the meantime, he rubs shoulders with none other than Chester W. Nimitz, the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. “Anticipating tomorrow’s visit to Honolulu. Up in Radar Plot working tracking problem when Adm. Nimitz came through on inspection tour. Com. of Pac. Fleet is a nice old boy.” He then adds: “Boxed in evening, ran into a stiff left.”

Eventually Ed does get to see Honolulu, and he enjoys it a lot, especially Waikiki Beach, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, an aquarium and bird collection, tennis, bowling for a nickel a lane, and pool. On August 21 he writes, “Liberty with Small & Furlow. Ping-pong & pool at U.S.O. It’s surprising how much food 3 guys can eat.” By August 22 it’s anchors aweigh from Pearl Harbor. “Rendezvous with task force,” he writes. “18 ships strong headed for Jap. held Marcus Islands.”

“Dog Day”

From here on, the diary entries grow ominous, to say the least. On August 30, he writes: “Exec’s message on eve of attack: ‘Tomorrow morning we will commence to launch attacks on Marcus which will be repeated again & again until all Japanese in the vicinity have been destroyed.’ ”

On August 31, which Ed calls “Dog Day,” war enters the lives of both Ed and the Yorktown: “Reveille 0200. We attack in 6 waves. First planes leave Yorkie 0420. First contact 0600. Japs report they’re under air attack at 0620. Many fires. Sampan strafed, left in flames. Radio installations knocked out. 35% of Marcus destroyed. Yorkie lost 2 F6F’s & 1 T.B.F. & 5 men. We were put into two emergency turns of 60 degrees because of sub. contacts. Our guns manned all day. Didn’t fire a shot. Underway for Pearl at 1800.”

Why the Yorktown makes such a sudden detour from battle—its very first battle—is never made clear. But for the next 14 days, all diary entries describe the Yorktown’s passage back to Pearl Harbor, from there to San Francisco, then back to Pearl again, and then off to attack Wake Island. While not so interesting from the military historian’s point of view, this 14-day period is filled with unique glimpses into what it meant to be a sailor on board an aircraft carrier in the middle of World War II. Again, it is fascinating to read one man’s observations, reactions, and inner thoughts juxtaposed against the drumbeat of all-impersonal history:

“Just a little closer to that 2 wks. accumulation of mail at Pearl Harbor.

“Whipped out a few letters. Sack time.

“Sun bath on flight deck. Saw a bird—land not too far distant now. “Pearl” & promise of liberty tomorrow—good duty. Night trials for pilots.

“Moored at Pearl. Welcoming band played ‘Aloha.’ Nice. Watched school of fish frolicking off the starboard side as we moored.

“Turkey dinner. Received 16 letters. Swell day aboard.

“Underway for Frisco at 1430. Essex leading the way. Abandon destroyer escort 75 m. out.

“Just us & Essex. Hauling ass unescorted.

“Moored starboard side just aft of Lexington at 1600. Nice to be back at Pearl. Kid struck by prop in hangar deck.

“All morning sunbath on flight deck. Wonderful this weather.

“Day closer to Dog Day at ‘Wake.’”

You can only shake your head and wonder what happened to the poor guy who got struck by a prop in the hangar deck.

Eventually Wake Island is in range. Ed writes on October 4, 1943, “2 Bogey contacts. Impending danger sign. Marine shining up dog tags.” Which is the danger sign, the Bogeys or the Marine polishing his dog tags? But the attack on Wake goes well: “0610 report says attack a complete surprise. Cruisers shelled Wake. Yorktown loss: 3 planes, 2 men. Jap loss: 17 planes on the ground left burning, 13 shot out of the sky.”

The attack continues on October 6: “Sent in our bombers from Midway. More strikes from task force. Loss for the day: 6 planes, men. Capt. says to crew, ‘Congratulations, best day Yorkie has ever had.’ ”

Probably not so good for the men who lost their lives.

“The Perfect Liberty”

From Wake it’s back to Pearl and some liberty that includes bicycling in the hills above Honolulu. His descriptions of liberty are priceless little snippets of relaxation and release from the stresses of war. First, there were 18 holes of golf at Waialae Country club with Snapper, Small, and Gus followed by a “swell” meal. “The perfect liberty,” writes Ed. Three days later, eight of them are back on the golf course, and this time some photos are shot. “Four rolls of pictures, including 2 shots of me in shower wearing nothing more than my newly acquired suntan.”

But it’s back to war by November 10. “Meeting of our unit discloses the seriousness of this mission,” Ed writes. “Our new Exec Mr. Briggs warned us in Radar Plot against doping off now that we are approaching the Japs’ sector searches. Exec says they know we’re coming & not to expect a song & dance affair as was experienced at Marcus & Wake.” And the next day: “Out to raise hell in the Gilbert Islands.”

Unfortunately, the hot, humid weather raises hell with Ed’s skin: “Sure hope the sick-bay-prescribed cal-o-mine lotion will in some way reduce the heat rash I have spread over even the least talked-about parts of my anatomy.” Apparently his heat-induced skin rashes cause him to take a less than official approach to garb one day. “Captain had no patience at all with my non-regulation apparel up at Pilot House Sunday night. ‘Out, out!’ Yes, I went out, but fast.”

An Ordinary Man at War

The passage below is presented without editorial interruption because I think its immediacy and intensity best shine through that way. This is what it’s like for an ordinary man to be at war. We’ll circle back at the end for some explication, a term most often used by literary critics who tease out the elusive meanings of poetry. I find the term “explication” appropriate in talking about Ed’s diary, too, because it reads a little like an epic poem, with Mary cast as the patient Penelope and Ed as the wandering and war-tossed Ulysses. One definition I will provide up front: GQ stands for General Quarters, which means be alert for battle conditions.

“November 17: Word was passed forequarters this morning to ‘pray the dead.’ The ceremonies were for 23-year-old N. Carolinian P.M. Second Class Rayford, who died of a heart attack last night. With the entire crew standing at attention on the flight deck, he was committed to the deep as the flag-clad canvas bag was slipped over the Starboard Side Forward to the gun salute of the Marines.

“We are now in the approach area, in waters subject to submarine & air attack. Squared away my preserver, gas mask, & flash clothing up in radar plot.

“November 18: Haulin ass for our operation point at Southern tip of Marshalls, where it will be our job to cruise up & down in the slot between Marshalls & Gilberts, protecting operations to our south.

“November 19, Dog Day: GQ 0420. Launch first of 9 strikes. Hit Makin, Jaluit, Milli, & Tarawa. Very little resistance encountered.

“November 20: Continued attack on islands. Land 6 divisions of Marines & tanks on Tarawa. Considerable resistance. Soldiers establish beach head on Makin. Jaluit attack destroyed 13 sea planes, 1 AK & 2 boats. Planes, though well strafed, did not burn. When AK was left, decks were awash. Report at 1320 that Adm. Turner’s outfit to the south of us is under attack by several Bettys.

“November 21, D+2: GQ 0315 because of four Bogey contacts on radar. One bogey passed within 8 m of the cloud-secluded, slow-moving Yorkie—we’re cut down to 12 knots to reduce wakes. Broke radio silence for short transmission by Commander in Chief of our task force, Capt. Hedington: ‘Bogeys on the way.’ Thanks to the good Man above for no night attack.

“Radio dispatch: ‘In an attack at dusk last evening, the Independence was ‘tin fished’ when attacked by 15 Bettys.’ They came in low and were not detected by Radar. We splashed one Betty 52 miles astern of us on single-vector perfect interception by Lt. Stover. Periscope sighted by USS Cowpens at 1304. It’s wide awake we’ll be at dusk tonight. No mass today, don’t seem like Sunday.

“November 23, D+4: 1030 Bogey contact at 330 Deg. 90 M.I. Fighters vectored out by Lexington Interception at 45 Mi. We splash 15 of 20 Zeros. Our own loss: three planes—only one as a result of engagement. No men lost. Picked up 5 [from] Liscome Bay. Fighters Lost. Just at dusk. She was operating somewhere South of us. We landed 3 of the F4Fs, & the fourth attempted landing resulted in an awful crash & fire that cost 5 men their lives while injuring 3.

“November 24, D+5: Burial services for our 5 lost shipmates in morning. “Baldy” reports Liscome Bay was lost yesterday as the result of either a torpedo or an explosion. I knew “Whitey” Kaskman, he used to pour the “Joe” in the aftermess hall where I often ate.

“GQ alert at 1240. Just when I was eating chow, large Bogey at 90 m. Interception by Lexington’s fighters at 55 m. Bogeys stacked & in two layers Ag 23 & 27. Our fighters at Ag 25. Splashed 9 Zeros, 1 Betty. Chased 2 Bettys, 1 Zero. Raid dispersed. Our loss: 1 fighter shot down in flames by 3 Zeroes.

And now for that explication: “Tin fish” is a torpedo. As for “splashed,” it means shot down. “Bogey,” of course, is an enemy aircraft whose specific type or class has not been identified. Bogeys were very much on the mind of Radarman Third Class Ed Reynolds because a chief responsibility of the radarmen was to know where enemy aircraft were at all times.

Makin, Jaluit, Milli, and Tarawa are all islands in the Gilbert or Marshall chains. Tarawa was an atoll with a garrison commanded by Kaigun Shosho Keiji Shibasaki, who had boasted before the invasion, “It would take one million men one hundred years” to conquer Tarawa.

Shibasaki was slightly off on his 100 years boast; it took only 72 hours. But when Ed reports that the Marine invasion of Tarawa met with “considerable resistance,” it was some kind of understatement. After 72 hours of intense fighting, some 6,000 men died, and 1,667 of them were Americans, mostly Marines. Back in the States after the battle, protests mounted when the casualties were reported. Writing after the war, when Marine General Holland M. Smith was asked if Tarawa was worth it, he didn’t mince words. “My answer is unqualified: No. From the very beginning the decision of the Joint Chiefs to seize Tarawa was a mistake.”

Regarding the term “Bettys,” it’s an Allied code name for one of the many Japanese war planes that had to be dealt with. The Betty is one of several dive bombers that the Japanese air force brought to the table. Zeros, the advanced carrier-launched fighter planes developed by Mitsubishi for the Japanese Air Force during the war, were “Zekes.” Other names included “Nell” (an attack bomber), “Kate” (a carrier-launched attack bomber), and “Dave” (reconnaissance seaplane).

The Sinking of the Liscombe Bay

The explication most helpful in appreciating what Ed experienced regards the sinking of the Liscome Bay, an escort carrier capable of carrying 28 planes. It was sunk by a Japanese submarine torpedo and went down in an explosion so intense that flesh and debris were showered onto the battleship USS New Mexico, a mile away. One sailor on the destroyer USS Hoel described the incident this way: “It didn’t look like a ship at all. We thought it was an ammunition dump. She just went whoom—an orange ball of flame.” She went down in 23 minutes, and with her went 644 officers and men. U.S. ships in the area did manage to save 272 of her crew.

Armed with this information, it would appear that when Ed writes “Picked up 5 Liscombe Bay. Fighters Lost. Just at dusk,” he means that at dusk the Yorktown radarmen picked up five planes trying to find their way to a Liscome Bay that was already at the bottom of the ocean. Of the five planes, four made safe landings on the Yorktown, but one crashed, killing five and injuring three. Ed mourns the loss of  “Whitey” Kaskman, who appears to be one of the five Yorktown men who lost their lives in the crash on the flight deck.

Attack on Kwajalein

With three major battles under her belt, the Yorktown now moves toward its next target: the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall chain. Located 2,100 miles southwest of Honolulu, Kwajalein is the world’s largest coral atoll as measured by area of enclosed water. Heavily fortified and a key piece of the Japanese perimeter of defense, Kwajalein was used as an outlying base for submarines and surface warships.

November 25 brings Thanksgiving and a “wonderful turkey dinner,” writes Ed. “Thanksgiving, & quite a bit to be thankful for.” On midnight watch two days later, he worries about collisions and “closely formed task forces almost running into one another.” The heat bothers him, so he sleeps on the flight deck instead of his bunk. A day later, he wonders about the rumor of transfers, which gets him to thinking about home. “How about Komensky Ave.—will I see it soon?”

Captain Jocko Clark, on the other hand, is more focused on the task at hand. “Message from Capt. says be prepared to fight our way both to and from Kwajalein.” And then my favorite moment in the entire diary: “While up on flight deck tonight playing host to a moonlit starry night, I thought, well, all that wonderful arrangement up there is something this crazy war hasn’t changed.”

The attack on Kwajalein commences December 4, and once again I think Ed’s entry says all that needs to be said:

“December 4: 1st launch 0615 against Kwajalein from 111 mi. out. Shot down 1 Dave, 1 Betty. 15-17 strafed on ground left burning. 8 hits on ships. 6 AK left in flames. Our loss 2 fighters, 1 pilot. Lexington shot down 3 Jap torpedo planes while attempting runs on her. At 1300, four Jap torpedo planes sighted by lookouts coming in low over the San Francisco & into our port bow. Frisco got one, we done in 2. The 2nd one was so damned close you could almost feel the warmth of its flames. One got away. Our gunfire gave the Frisco an awful pasting. 1 dead, 6 wounded as a result. Damn Japs were strafing too as they came in.

“Wotje Island strike almost abandoned to supply additional fighters to repel torpedo attack. Wotje strike got 3 Bettys, 2 Zekes; hangars & oil stores left in flames. Oil slick near large cargo vessel subjected to near miss. Jap snooper reports our position. GQ alert at 1900. Bogies all over the place, looks like a hell of a night. Clear moonlit night & that doesn’t help matters. Smoked a fag given me by radioman “Red.” Constant stream of sandwiches & drinks for the officers. Don’t that fry my ass. Bogeys all disband at 2230. They formed again to start new attack at 2315. They can see us but we can’t see them damn it all. We fire spasmodically when they get in close, just can’t connect. Lexington got one in starboard quarter at 2330. Lexington still able to turn over 18 knots. Steering gear out. Lexington will be guided in by a Can. Those 5-inchers really make a racket.”

Recreation on the Yorktown

With Kwajalein in her rear view mirror—for the time being—the Yorktown heads back to Pearl Harbor. Movies onboard during this time include Granny Get Your Gun and The Kid Glove Killer. The latter, says Ed, is “cool.” Back in Pearl, the days include tennis and ping-pong tournaments and the movie The Human Comedy (“What a movie,” says Ed).

When rumors of a possible return to the States surface, he writes, “Maybe it will be Fox Lake in the Springtime for E.J.” He was crazy about the Chain of Lakes just north and west of Chicago, where his mother had a cottage on Fox Lake. Christmas comes and goes. “Takes a hell of a lot more than good chow & a Christmas tree to make a Christmas,” Ed notes.

On January 15 the Yorktown is underway at 12:45 pm, headed back to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. All of this activity, it should be noted, was part of the United States’ strategy known as “island hopping.” Admiral Chester W. Nimitz executed this strategy in the central Pacific, while General Douglas McArthur, commander of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific, took responsibility for the South Pacific. The idea was to establish a line of island bases close enough to Japan so that American bombers could launch from these islands and reach the Japanese mainland.

Despite the grimness of this task and the number of lives it cost, life onboard the Yorktown wasn’t without its lighter moments. Ed writes of the long-standing naval ceremony that takes place when the ship crosses the Equator and the “pollywogs” (sailors who have not previously crossed the Equator) become “shellbacks” (fit subjects of King Neptune). It’s basically a bunch of good-natured hazing. Ed is one of the sailors who makes the transition from pollywog to shellback.

“January 21: The pollywogs began to play this afternoon on the flight deck. All one guy had on was a large diaper. That boy in pink panties & brassiere sure looked good. How about those poor jerks dressed in those warm fur-lined high-altitude clothes. Lt. Coms. Lambert & Earnshaw sure looked silly dressed in divers gear. And the fighter pilots ran down the deck strafing with beans. Capt. Clark’s usually stern face was lit up with an ear-to-ear smile as he watched the show from the bridge.

“January 22: We all have one thing very much in common tonight & that is a very sore butt, as the result of initiation into the “shellbacks.” Nice to have become a shellback without having my hair dug out in spots or being rolled in the garbage box.”

As he does throughout his time in the Pacific, especially when near the Equator, Ed rails about the heat: “I’d give a hell of a lot for a nonperspiring night’s sleep at that Komensky Ave. shack.”

Majuro lagoon

From January 29 to February 4, 1944, the Yorktown and its planes return to Kwajalein, while other U.S. task forces attack the islands of Roi, Eniwetok, and Wotje, all in the Marshall Islands. In the battle of Kwjalein, 7,870 of 8,000 Japanese soldiers died, while American losses were 372.

By February 4, the Yorktown is anchored in the lagoon of a gorgeous tropical atoll called Majuro. Ed describes it as “tiny islets of coral, with coconut palms & grass shacks. Sure would love to go ashore & browse. Supposed to be 900 natives housed on this U-shaped atoll.” A day later he writes, “A peaceful day in a sleepy lagoon. Mail, wonderful mail. Cool, quiet—nice.” More mail arrives on February 6, and Ed attends Mass with Dan Murphy, the brother of Mary who waits back home.

All Ed’s entries while in Majuro are peaceful, almost idyllic. “Don’t those natives go like hell in an outrigger canoe with sail. Temperature ideal, breeze constant. It’s nice out here.” But he is also constantly aware that this is only one of those calms before a storm: “What a tremendous amount of power sitting around out here. Five big flat-tops, one right next to the other & about a mile apart. Enterprise, us, Essex, Intrepid, & Bunker Hill.”

On February 9 he writes of a “dip in the lovely blue waters of Majuro.” But again, he knows this island paradise is only a brief respite: “How long are we going to stay in this place? If our next objective is Truk, maybe the peace & quiet of Majuro should be appreciated.” He also makes it clear that even island paradises have their downsides: “Major engagement with jellyfish while swimming in 33 fathoms of Majuro blue.”

On February 11 he notes that it is the Yorktown’s last day in the lagoon. After lights-out, he has what he calls an “after it’s over session with Furlow & Weeg.” I would imagine such sessions were a constant source of comfort to countless servicemen who were able to find refuge from the stress and mayhem of war by sitting down next to a comrade and saying, “Here’s what I’m going to do when this thing is over.” Sadly, plenty of servicemen—on both sides of the conflict—never made it to the days when the war was over.

Combat Stress on the Yorktown

Leaving Majuro lagoon at 9:30 am on February 12, Ed learns it is indeed the well-fortified island of Truk in the Caroline Islands that the Yorktown will tackle next. A major Japanese logistical base, it was something like the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s Pearl Harbor. “Sounds like a very daring operation,” he notes. “Rough sea. Focksle [sic] awash. This damn heat & continued perspiring has me full of heat rash again.” But he is thankful for small—or not so small—favors: “No bogeys.”

On February 16 he reports, “Our score for the day: shot down in the air 25 planes, on the ground 8 planes, 4 probable. Many hits on our cruisers, destroyers, & cargo ships.” He also says a friend named Smoky was down in a life raft but that a submarine had a fix on his position. “Hope he was picked up,” says Ed. The tail gunner of a badly shot up Yorktown bomber is not so lucky, however, and dies aboard the ship. Ed’s summary: “Long, bogey-crammed day.”

February 18 brings this entry: “Hauling ass from Truk.” The Yorktown’s next target is the island of Saipan in the Marianas chain, where a bomb drops 100 feet off the starboard bow. “It was exactly the kind of day you read about but not the kind you ever expect to actually experience. Planes falling on all sides of our group. Coming in just one or two at a time, they were just duck soup for our gunners. Can’t understand their strategy, if you can call it that.”

February 25 has the Yorktown headed back to Majuro, and it appears that the constant stress of battle is beginning to take its toll: “Our gang could sure use some leave. Not a day goes by anymore when we don’t have a serious argument or near fight. We’re all getting touchy, irritable, & less tolerant. Variety is the spice of life & there’s damn little seasoning we get.”

Four days later, still in Majuro: “Still sitting, waiting, and wondering about our next move.” But the good news is that “beach parties” are being arranged for small groups at a time, and on March 3 it’s Ed’s turn. He and a fellow named “Crotch” have a great day. “Swimming, we see beautifully formed & colored coral. Pabst in cans, sandwiches—really swell. Wandered from one island to the next. Signs of where the Japs were dug in—and then dug out.” 

On March 8 at 8:00 am, the Yorktown is underway once again, this time headed for Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides archipelago. A military supply base, naval harbor, and airfield, Espiritu Santo is generally known as the inspiration for James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, which in turn was the source for the Broadway classic South Pacific. Some new pollywogs are given the shellback treatment as the ship crosses the Equator on March 11.

Ed’s introspective side surfaces in a Sunday entry: “Every evidence that the sea is observing the Sabbath, judging from its very calm surface.” But he’s a little miffed to hear about the “revelation” that 90 percent of the shells available for use by the Yorktown’s five-inch guns were duds. “What a hell of a lot of protection we wouldn’t have had had we needed it at Saipan,” he writes.

They “drop hook” (anchor) in Espiritu Santo on March 13, and he is not happy about how hot it is: “Every indication that impetigo, ring worm, & the variety of heat rashes we have onboard will really thrive out here.” But there is good news, too: “107 sacks of mail. Wonderful stuff.”

Beach parties resume at Espiritu Santo, and he sees a USO show featuring Ray Milland and Mary Elliot. He also happily reports that the dud shells for the five-inchers are unloaded. He sees Girl Crazy and notes it stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. He also describes some of the local marine life: “Strange companions off bow. Large turtle, with two sandsharks depending on him for shade. Large schools of fish raising hell with minnows.”

“Sunset Bogeys”

Scuttlebutt says that the next target for the Yorktown is the Caroline Islands, and as other task forces join his, he’s impressed by the combined firepower they bring: “95 to 105 ships in all, what a powerhouse, including Bunker Hill, Enterprise, Hornet, Lexington, & us.”

But it’s not the Caroline Islands––it’s the island of Palau they’re headed for. Some good news, too, for our Chicago sailor: “Ridgeway says this is the last operation and then Majuro & Frisco & finally Chicago—wonderful Chicago.”

By March 29, the attack on Palau is underway, and Ed notes that the Japanese dive bombers are flying so low that radar contact is difficult to fix. He also notes, “I’m counting on that ‘operating under a spiritual umbrella’ that Father Farrell referred to. We’ll need ‘his’ protection tonight.” Later that day, after concerns about “sunset Bogeys,” he writes: “Escaped unscathed—good old ‘umbrella.’”

On March 31, the Lexington radar crew picks up a sampan in the predawn hours. “Investigation with a searchlight revealed Jap insignia. Sunk same. Made wonderful glow on horizon.” He also reports on the fate of a life raft of U.S. airmen whose plane has gone down. “A Zeke strafing survivors in a life raft was chased & splashed by two of our V.F.s. Life raft survivors unscathed.”

One more note, and a sad one at that, before the Yorktown leaves Palau. There are still about 100 American servicemen listed as missing in action there.

“No Saturday. Passed Time Zone, Gained a day.”

The Yorktown next launches its planes against the island of Woleai in the Carolines on April 1 from 140 miles out. Encountering “no fighter opposition,” the ship then heads back to Majuro. “Scuttlebutt says Majuro, Pearl, then Frisco—oh, how I hope it’s good dope,” says Ed.

On April 7, after a basketball game on the hangar deck, Ed writes sympathetically about the fate of his friends whose girls back home have not been true. “Bogie got news his Arline is getting married. That makes Ward, Geres, Nelson & the Bogie who all belong to the brush-off club.” More bad news comes on Easter Sunday, April 9, when it becomes clear that the aforementioned “dope” was not so good after all: “At Majuro. 0645 Mass. Loading ammunition—that settles the States deal.”

 

Ed and crew are still in Majuro on April 12 when he gets called from a football session on the flight deck to take his Radarman Second Class test. He is clearly getting more than anxious to get back home, and his April 13 entry shows that he has grown skeptical of any news suggesting that home is a possibility anytime soon. “Pow-wow. ‘Ridge’ says we’re covering the invasion of Hollandia in New Guinea. ‘Frisco after this one,’ says Ridge. I don’t find that line funny anymore.”

A day or so later is one of those entries that’s fascinating because it demonstrates how meticulous Ed was when it came to entries in his diary. Between his Friday, April 14 entry and his Sunday, April 16 entry he writes: “No Saturday. Passed time zone, gained a day.” It’s as if he knew someone would be reading his observations one day in the future, so he wants to make sure that whoever that someone is, they won’t be able to accuse him of missing a Saturday entry.

With the Yorktown en route to Hollandia, we learn that “Pinkie” is in sickbay with South Pacific “complection,” whatever that is, and “Dewdrop” is also in sickbay with impetigo. “Nothing to do & lots of time to do it in,” writes Ed. “Too damned routine. Take me back to that Komensky Ave. shack.”

When the Yorktown reaches New Guinea, they hit Wakde Island rather than Hollandia. Ed explains: “Got word the Japs had more planes there.”

April 22 brings a rather cryptic entry describing the crash of a Yorktown torpedo bomber: “Pre-dawn launch T.B.F. 10 crashed N. Orleans on takeoff. Fouled up. Radar antennaes, killed plane crew & 1 N.O. sailor & injured one N.O. sailor, when bombs exploded.” A little research on the USS New Orleans, a heavy cruiser, tells us that this is what happened: “On 22 April a disabled Yorktown plane flew into New Orleans’ mainmast, hitting gun mounts as it fell into the sea. The ship was sprayed with gas as the plane exploded on hitting the water; one crewmember was lost, another badly hurt.”

The April 22 entry also includes a reference to General McArthur: “Army (under direction of Gen. ‘Mac,’ who was upon the bridge of a cruiser) made landings at Humbolt Bay supported by our air group.”

Strikes on Truk continued through April 30, and an entry on that day reminds us that submarines from both sides of the conflict were ever present. “Sub. made daring rescue of 8 of our pilots down in life rafts near targets. Screen destroyers picked up surfaced enemy sub. Ganged up with planes to knock the hell out of it. Oil slick, underwater explosion, & telltale flotsam confirmed sinking.”

“Thinking of Mary an Awful Lot”

By May 1 it’s back to Majuro “with a stopover for a few strikes at Ponape,” writes Ed, adding, “Finally got that second stripe.” Home is really beckoning by now: “More of that stuff about our trip to Pearl & then those Golden Gates—nice dreaming. Wait for me Mary—ironical & true.” But there’s still no guarantee about heading home. “Opinion now divided as to whether it will be Frisco or a change of squadrons at Pearl & then ‘just one more raid.’ ”

Ed also spends more time worrying about his Mary back home. “Lost pen upon focsle [sic] last night while crapped out up there—damn it. Lost the Mary-sent bracelet, now the pen. Say, maybe by this time I’ve lost the donor of these gifts as well.”

When the Yorktown reaches Pearl Harbor, initial scuttlebutt has the ship executing “just one more” mission before heading for the mainland. But some continue to believe there won’t be another mission, that home is around the corner.

“The poor dopes,” writes Ed. “I don’t think I’ll ever believe another word given to me while I’m in this outfit. From now on, ‘I’m from Missouri.’” His skepticism, it turns out, is well founded. He winds up getting assigned as radar school instructor for six months at Catlin Park Military Complex in Pearl Harbor. But there are some good things: “This fresh milk sure is wonderful stuff. Yorktown, I don’t think I’ll miss you very much.” And later, “Burk & I spent the evening admiring a beautiful horizon to the Northeast. Gave me kind of a nice homey feeling. Life out on the blue just doesn’t compare with shore duty.”

Ed manages to collide with another player in a baseball game on June 9, which results in a “metal clip in chin.” He has the clip removed June 12, he tells us, and he adds this poignant detail as well: “This old fart Stokes that sleeps above me sure makes a racket with his combined farting, snoring, and grinding his teeth.” On a slightly more romantic note, he adds: “Thinking of Mary an awful lot.”

On June 15, Ed goes aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. He notes: “Strange how a smile developed on my face as my feet struck the rather familiar hangar deck of the Intrepid. I guess you do develop a certain amount of sentimentalness after making one your home for 14 months.”

Another kind of “sentimentalness” is also constantly referred to: “Seeing guys and gals together sure makes me think in terms of Komensky Ave.” And then there’s this: “At Catlin & liking it. Time passes so swiftly I seldom have time to keep up this little book of memories.”

A few days after Ed’s July 12 entry about seeing the Bob Hope show at Maluhia, he runs out of space in his diary. So he starts a new one, nearly identical in appearance as the first but this time a softcover version. Needless to say, he does not miss a day. The original ends July 14. The new one begins July 15. Big news on July 17: “Word that Burke, Reynolds, Dekart, Marqus, Brandt to make homeward trek come Aug. 1st. Wonderful—ah, yes, wonderful. Thinking lots these days in terms of Komensky Ave. & Mary.”

He notes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt comes through Catlin on July 27, but it hardly registers: “As Aug. 1st comes closer, I can think of nothing but home.” Not that he won’t miss the beauty of Hawaii: “I’ll miss the soft air, the gardenia scent when passing the lei vendor in front of the Moana Hotel. I’ll miss the purple red sunsets, wonderful cool evenings. It has been nice.”

By August 3, Ed is on a troop transport ship pulling out of Honolulu bound for San Francisco. Onboard with him are a number of wounded sailors, soldiers, Marines, and civilians. Their presence reminds him of how fortunate he has been. “Surely do thank the good Man above whenever I see that sailor without the chin or the Marine without legs—or hell, any number of the many casualties we’re taking Stateside.” The next day his entry is a little less spiritual: “Invested in one of the many crap games on board—fine investment.”

After spending August 8 in San Francisco, Ed boards the Union Pacific’s Challenger for a three-day ride to Chicago. “Chicagee, stand by,” he writes on August 10. Next day: “This vehicle just can’t go fast enough to please me. Neighboring soldiers still have enough quarts to go around.” Finally, on Saturday August 12, the entry he’s been aching to make: “Arrived C. & N.W. station 11:20 am. Taxi ride home. Home wonderful home.”

Once back at 18th and Komensky, he makes an August 13 entry. I must confess, considering all he has been through, the dangers he has survived, and the promising young lives he’s seen snuffed, I fight back tears every time I read it: “Raced Ann all the way to Finbarrs. Strangely enough we arrived on time for 12 o’clock Mass. Father McKenney, Marty, the Brusts—oh hell but it’s swell just saying hellos to guys & gals you haven’t seen for awhile.”

Returning Home After 538 Entries

And that’s it. After 538 days of entries, the next page and all the pages after it are perfectly blank. There were no more diary entries for Ed. I guess he was too busy living.

Ed stayed in the Navy for another 14 months, training radar operators at Great Lakes Naval Base back in Illinois, the very place where his military odyssey began. His discharge papers tell us he exited the Navy on October 1, 1945.

As for Ed and Mary, they were joined in matrimony on May 22, 1948. The wedding was at St. Finbarr’s, not far from that Komensky Ave. shack about which Ed had fantasized while at sea. Ed and Mary had seven children and nine grandchildren, and Ed lived to see one great grandson.

Careerwise, Ed returned to the Cicero, Illinois-based Western Electric Company where he had worked for two years prior to his service in the Navy. By the time he retired from that telephone manufacturing monopoly, he had 43 years under his belt. In the 1950s, Ed and family moved to the town of Lombard in Chicago’s western suburbs. It remained his home until he died at the age of 91. It remains Mary’s home today.

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

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Reuters.

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

In the 2000s, development proceeded for a DDG-1000 destroyer integrating every next-generation technology then conceivable.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Even the destroyer’s stealthy hull did not offer a clear advantage if it had to escort—or required an escort from—un-stealthy warships. And keeping a class of just three vessels operational meant very high overheads expenses in training and sustainment per individual ship. Thus, many analysts speculate the Zumwalt’s operational career could prove short-lived.

In January 2019, the Navy will commission its second hi-tech Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer, the USS Michael Monsoor. The third and last, USS Lyndon B. Johnson was launched this December 2018 and will be commissioned in 2022.

Traditionally, warships are tailored to perform specific missions. But the cutting-edge Zumwalt has been a ship in search of a mission, especially since procurement of hyper-expensive ammunition for its primary weapon system was canceled. Years and billions of dollars later, the Navy may finally have found one.

In the post-Cold War 1990s, the U.S Navy lacked peer competitors on the high seas, so it conceived its next-generation surface combatants for engaging coastal targets. As the Navy phased out its last battleship, it decided its next destroyer should mount long-range guns that could to provide more cost-efficient naval gunfire support than launching million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missiles.

In the 2000s, development proceeded for a DDG-1000 destroyer integrating every next-generation technology then conceivable. The Navy promised Congress a larger destroyer requiring only 95 crew instead of 300 thanks to automation, with adequate space and power-generation capacity to deploy railguns and laser weapons. The new warships would be stealthier to avoid enemy attacks and pack rapid-firing 6-inch guns with a range of 115 miles for the sustained bombardment of land targets. Thirty-two DDG-1000s were to succeed the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

The lead ship USS Zumwalt took shape sporting a futuristic-looking tumblehome hull—wider below the waterline than above—helping reduce the 190-meter long vessel’s radar cross-section to that of a small fishing boat. The ship’s induction motors generated a whopping 58 megawatts of electricity while cruising, enough to power the entire 17,630-ton ship thanks to an Integrated Power System. The electrically-driven motors and chilled exhaust also reduce the destroyer’s infrared and acoustic signature. The vessel’s new Total Ship Computing Environment networked all the destroyer’s systems, making them accessible from any console throughout the vessel.

In addition to rapid-firing 6” guns, the Zumwalt had eighty Mark 57 missile vertical-launch cells dispersed across her bow and stern to minimize secondary explosions. These could target and launch Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, ASROC anti-submarine rockets, or quad-packs of Evolved Sea Sparrow medium-range air-defense missiles. The Zumwalt’s spacious landing pad and hangar could accommodate up to three MQ-8B helicopter drones or two MH-60R helicopters, which can carry Hellfire anti-tank missiles or torpedoes. The destroyers also boast a capable dual-bandwidth sonar for hunting submarines, but lack the torpedo armament found in Arleigh Burkes.

The destroyer’s crew of one-hundred-and-fifty—plus a twenty-eight-person air detachment—exceeded by over 50 percent the originally promised number, but remained half that of an Arleigh-Burke destroyer. However, some analysts fear the super-trim crew complement leaves too little redundancy should the vessels sustain battle damage.

Indeed, by 2008, the Navy was no longer highly concerned with bombarding militarily weaker countries. Rather, it contemplated the challenge posed by China’s rapidly expanding surface and submarine fleets, and the proliferation of deadly anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles.

Worse, the Zumwalt’s Advanced Gun System didn’t even work that well, with two-thirds the forecast range (around 70 miles). Furthermore, its rocket-boosted LRLAP GPS-guided shells cost $800,000 dollars each—nearly as expensive as more precise, longer-range and harder-hitting cruise missiles. The Navy finally canceled the insanely expensive munitions, leaving the Zumwalt with two huge guns it can’t fire.

Downsizing and Downgrades:        

Despite the well-known difficulties of developing next-generation military systems, the Zumwalt had been sold to Congress based on unrealistic minimum-cost estimates. Eventually, program costs exceeded the budget by 50 percent, triggering an automatic cancelation according to the Nunn—McCurdy Act.

Already by 2008, the Navy sought to ditch building more than two Zumwalts in favor of procuring Arleigh Burke Flight III destroyers with ballistic-missile defense capabilities. Maine Senator Susan Collins nonetheless wrangled a third destroyer to keep her state’s Bath Iron Works shipyard in business.

Each Zumwalt now costs $4.5 billion—in addition to the $10 billion spent on development. Like the troubled F-35 and Littoral Combat Ship, the Zumwalt’s spiraling costs were due to the Navy’s ambition to integrate completely new technologies still being concurrently developed. The final design was not even stabilized by the time construction began in 2009. The hybrid electrical system has proven especially challenging to integrate, leading the Zumwalt to break down while crossing the Panama Canal in November 2016.

Nearly decade after she was laid down, a 2018 Government Accountability Office report stated only five of the Zumwalt’s twelve key technologies was “mature.” Farcically, the ships were even officially “delivered” without combat systems. The lead ship, commissioned in 2012, won’t be ready for operational deployment until 2021.

The need to curb runaway costs led to crippling downgrades. Instead of fitting combining a powerful SPY-4 volume search radar with a SPY-3 hi-resolution targeting radar, the Navy ditched the former and rejigged the SPY-3 to handle volume-search as well. This saved $80 million per ship but significantly degraded air-search capabilities.

However, the Zumwalt currently only has Evolved Sea Sparrow air defense missiles with a range of thirty miles—adequate only for local coverage at best. Though the Zumwalt’s missile cells are compatible with longer-range Standard Missiles, those depend on the Aegis Combat System for guidance, which the Zumwalt lacks. And the Zumwalt’s last-ditch Close-In Weapon Systems were downgraded from 57-millimeter to much less capable 30-millimeter cannons.

Even the destroyer’s radar cross-section has been degraded to cut costs, with the adoption of cheaper steel for the deckhouse and the incorporation of non-flush sensor and communication masts.

Ship-Hunting Stealth Destroyers?:

What were merely three DDG-1000s good for, despite their nifty stealth features and propulsion? The advanced destroyers lacked ammunition for their guns, anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine torpedoes, and long-range area-air defense missiles. Furthermore, the Zumwalt had fewer cells to pack land-attack missiles than Arleigh-Burke destroyers (96), Ticonderoga-class cruisers (122), or Ohio-class cruise-missile submarines (144)—all of which were cheaper, and the last of which is stealthier.

Even the destroyer’s stealthy hull did not offer a clear advantage if it had to escort—or required an escort from—un-stealthy warships. And keeping a class of just three vessels operational meant very high overheads expenses in training and sustainment per individual ship. Thus, many analysts speculate the Zumwalt’s operational career could prove short-lived.

The Zumwalt needed a new mission—even if that meant tweaking its capabilities at an additional cost. Finally, in December 2017 the Navy announced the class would specialize in “surface strike”, i.e. hunting down other ships.

The destroyers will be modified to fire new Maritime Tomahawk Block IV subsonic anti-ship missiles and SM-6 active-radar-homing missile. The latter can provide longer-range air defense missile (up to 150 miles) and has a secondary ground or naval attack capability. Compared to the Tomahawk, the SM-6 has a much smaller 140-pound warhead, but its maximum speed of Mach 3.5 makes it much harder to intercept. Eventually, cheaper ammunition may be developed for the presently-useless guns, or they may be swapped out for additional missile launch cells or even future railguns or directed-energy weapons.

This surface warfare role may best leverage the Zumwalt’s stealth capabilities, allowing it to range ahead of the fleet and penetrate “anti-access” zones threatened by long-range anti-ship missiles. It could creep closer to enemy warships before launching its own missiles, giving adversaries little time to react.

The Navy is also working on networking sensors between its submarines, surface warships, helicopters, patrol planes and attack jets through “Cooperative Engagement” technology. Thus one strategy could see distant “spotter” generating targeting data using active radar, then transmitting it to a sensor-ghosting Zumwalt to perform the strike.

The cost of the current upgrades is reportedly $90 million—a sum which may prove worthwhile if it helps recoup some value after the $22 billion sunk into the ambitious but failed ship concept.

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 piece was originally featured in December 2018 and is being republished due to reader's interest. 

Media: Wikimedia Commons.

James Holmes

History, Americas

The famous admiral could have either helped Hawaii be more prepared or else would have made the situation more dire.

Key point: Commanders have difficult choices to make and they also come with different personalities. How much of a difference did it make who was calling the shots before and during the fateful surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?

Would World War II have taken a different course had Admiral Chester W. Nimitz been in charge at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese hammer blow fell? Almost assuredly. History may have followed a more positive trajectory had U.S. forces on Oahu been prepared for an aerial assault. Or it may have turned out worse—perhaps far, far worse.

That’s because individual leadership matters. It matters a great deal whether a Nimitz or an Admiral Husband Kimmel superintends grand endeavors such as naval warfare and postwar peacemaking.

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

Believe it or not, the claim that individuals count fuels an age-old argument within the ivory tower. Seventy years ago T. S. Eliot heralded the study of Greek history and political life because it deals with compact city-states for the most part. Writes Eliot, the classics have to do with “a small area, with men rather than masses, and with the human passions of individuals rather than with those vast impersonal forces which in our modern society are a necessary convenience of thought, and the study of which tends to obscure the study of human beings.”

The ancients accented the human factor—which helps explain their lasting allure. We see people like ourselves living in unfamiliar times and combating what often look like unendurable stresses. Perchance we learn from antiquity. Now, vast impersonal forces—geography, economics, demographics, and on and on—exist. And they’re important beyond a doubt. That’s why the masters of politics and strategy are so vehement about acquaintanceship with the surroundings. Florentine philosopher-statesman Niccolò Machiavelli, to name one, deems conforming to the times—and adapting to keep up with them—a cornerstone of republican or princely rule.

Sovereigns who fall out of tune with the times expose themselves to dire peril. You seldom read this in these pixels, but Karl Marx may have said it best: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Vast impersonal forces may try to sweep us along to our destiny, and they certainly bound and constrain our actions. Yet we need not yield to them in full. We get a say.

Who accomplishes most while working within the boundaries imposed by impersonal forces is the best leader.

Whether Kimmel or Nimitz was commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, then, is no idle question. Nor is it a flight of fancy. As biographer E. B. Potter recalls, Nimitz was offered CINCPAC early in 1941, after President Franklin Roosevelt deposed Admiral James O. Richardson from the post. Yet Nimitz turned it down. He was serving in a plum job at the time as the overseer of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation. Accepting, furthermore, would have vaulted him over candidates senior to him. He refused the appointment to avoid embittering long-serving officers with their sense of entitlement.

Such are the vagaries of flag-officer promotions.

To derive value from this foray into alt-history, consider how U.S. naval history may have changed had Chester Nimitz accepted appointment as CINCPAC in early 1941, as he well could have done, and how history may have changed after the Japanese attack. In effect that means subtracting Kimmel’s contributions, virtues, and vices from history leading up to December 7 and postulating what Nimitz would have added to the mix. And it means speculating about whether Nimitz would have been cashiered—and pilloried—the way Kimmel was after Japan struck. If he was, another CINCPAC would have taken his place—perhaps prosecuting operations under a different philosophy heading into 1942. Kimmel himself might have gotten the nod.

Let’s extrapolate from what we know. A few things stand out from studying Nimitz’s life. To name one, he had a bit of Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit in his temperament, namely a bias against impulsive action. (The Rabbit famously upbraided Alice: “Don’t just do something, stand there!”) As historian Samuel Morison recalls, Nimitz was “a fortunate appointment” when he took over the Pacific Fleet after Pearl Harbor. He was “calm in demeanor,” and “had the prudence to wait through a lean period; to do nothing rash for the sake of doing something.” At the same time, says Morison, he displayed “the courage to take necessary risks, and the wisdom to select, from a variety of intelligence and opinions, the correct strategy to defeat Japan.”

So Nimitz was calm, prudent, and cautious, and he listened to and heeded counsel from others. Kimmel disregarded disturbing information such as indications that the Imperial Japanese Navy had improvised shallow-water torpedoes able to run within Pearl Harbor; rejected deploying torpedo nets to guard battleships’ sides; and took lightly the (admittedly vague) “war warning” that issued forth from Washington on November 27, instructing Pacific commanders to “execute an appropriate defensive deployment” as a precursor to war. The idea that Nimitz would have done the same beggars the imagination.

In all likelihood, then, U.S. naval forces would have been better prepared to defend themselves on December 7 than they were under Kimmel’s stewardship. If they were—if they put up a spirited fight and avoided massive losses of life and ships—then the hypothetical CINCPAC Nimitz may have escaped the fate that befell CINCPAC Kimmel in real life. He may have kept his job once the political uproar over the attack subsided. History may have unfolded more or less as it did. Things may even have gone better for America than they did, with a greater fraction of the fleet preserved for action, and with continuity of leadership in Honolulu.

Heavy surface combatants could have joined the 1942 carrier raids on Japanese-held Pacific islands—distracting the IJN from its conquests in Southeast Asia, cutting Japan’s navy down to size, and readying the American armada for a transpacific counteroffensive.

Suppose not, though. Perhaps Congress and the American people would have gone on the hunt for senior leaders’ scalps no matter the circumstances. If so, Nimitz may have gotten the Kimmel treatment, expelled from his post. Someone else would have shown up to take charge of the Pacific Fleet late in December 1941. Suppose Kimmel got the call, and the two historical figures in effect traded places. How would the Pacific War have unfolded had CINCPAC Kimmel made and executed strategy in 1942?

Edward Miller, the historian of War Plan Orange, does not play what-if, but he does hint that Kimmel would have been a disaster had he wielded command from 1942 on. Miller notes that Kimmel had a pedestrian understanding of naval strategy coupled with an insatiable lust for a Pacific Trafalgar. He was the archetypal battleship officer, moreover, exhibiting little appreciation for carrier aviation except as an auxiliary to the surface battle fleet. Aircraft carriers were for surveillance and targeting in his view, while battlewagons remained the chief repository of combat power.

Miller ascribes Kimmel’s failures in real life to his desire to be America’s Lord Horatio Nelson, an officer who swept enemies from the sea in epic battles. Yet he was out of step with the times, unsuited to the coming air age at sea. Machiavelli would nod knowingly. In all likelihood his tenure at CINCPAC would have been a short one—even if untainted by disaster at Pearl Harbor. A glory hound with an average understanding of trends in naval warfare would be prone to underperform as naval supremo.

To be fair to both of these officers, Machiavelli disparages individuals’ capacity to change, the Nimitzes as well as the Kimmels. They cannot master their natures, contends the Florentine scribe. In fact, he declares that republics have to change out people to change direction. They have to find new blood suited to new times.

Machiavelli may take his critique too far, but it is fair that it takes a jolt to goad individuals into change. What we know of Chester Nimitz’s wartime leadership comes from after the jolt administered to the U.S. Navy by Pearl Harbor. He wouldn’t have benefited from that catalyst as our hypothetical prewar CINCPAC, and thus he may not have showed the same sterling qualities he showed after garnering the job in real life. Contrariwise, it is conceivable that Pearl Harbor would have stunned Husband Kimmel into new flexibility of character. Seeing the fleet on which your heroic vision of yourself depends wounded gravely will do that for you.

Even so—even if Kimmel found new sobriety in the wake of the Japanese onslaught—it’s doubtful he would have overcome what Miller terms his “mundane” gift for strategy in a few short weeks. Nor would the IJN have transformed Kimmel into a master of naval aviation, even by dint of their aerial onslaught. Changing your temperament, however hard, is easier than reinventing your intellectual capacity and education on the fly. There’s little sign Kimmel was the rare individual who could pull it off.

So it seems we should be grateful that history took the pathway it did—that Nimitz turned down a beguiling job offer in early 1941 only to accept it in late 1941 under the press of events. Unlikely bedfellows Eliot, Machiavelli, and Marx might agree: Providence favors fools, drunkards, and the USA.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy, published this week. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Kyle Mizokami

Security, World

Which one would you choose?

Key point: Smaller weapons are good for concealed carry or for close-in situations. Here are some of the most famous and reliable 9mms.

The 9mm Luger, invented before the Great War, is one of the longest serving gun calibers in history. Introduced in 1901, it has served in virtually every conflict since then up until today. From World War I’s German army to the British army fighting ISIS in Syria, the Luger round has served militaries for over a century. Despite its age, the 9mm is more dangerous than ever before, due to innovations in ammunition lethality that squeeze greater performance out of the bullet.

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

Adequately powerful and compact, the 9mm Luger round received newfound popularity in the 1980s when the so-called “Wonder Nine” pistols upended the dominance of revolvers and large caliber handguns on the U.S. market. It is the standard handgun caliber for NATO members, with many armies on their second or third generation 9mm pistol, and was recently re-adopted by the U.S. Army for its new issue M17 Modular Handgun System. The 9mm Luger round will be around for many more years. Here are five of the best guns the round is used in.

Glock G19

The Glock 19 was one of the first Glock variants produced. Released in 1988, it was basically the same handgun albeit with a shorter barrel and grip. This reduced the magazine capacity from seventeen rounds to fifteen, but also produced a pistol that was easier to conceal. Today, it is generally acknowledged among handgun enthusiasts as the best Glock model for all-around use. The Glock 19 has been adopted by the U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Army Rangers and a modified version competed for the U.S. Army’s Modular Handgun System competition.

The Glock 19 has an overall length of 7.36 inches and a barrel length of 4.01 inches. It is a double-action pistol, meaning that after a round is chambered the pistol only requires pulling the trigger to set the firing pin and fire. Subsequent shots will also only require a single trigger pull. This eliminates the need to cock the hammer prior to firing but does introduce a slightly longer trigger pull. The basic Glock design incorporates three safeties, including a firing pin and drop safety, as well as a trigger safety. It does not have an external manual safety mechanism.

Sig P226

The Sig P226 was originally developed from Sig Sauer’s P210 pistol as a replacement for the long-serving .45 ACP 1911A1 handgun. The resulting pistol failed to win the contract, which went to the Beretta M9 instead. Although the U.S. Navy also picked up the Beretta, early problems with metal quality resulted in cracked slides among pistols with high round counts. SEALs, who experienced defect-related accidents, turned to the Sig P226 instead, calling it the Mark 11. Adoption by U.S. police forces further raised the P226’s profile.

The P226 is an all metal handgun with a metal frame. It has a fifteen-round magazine, an overall length of 7.72 inches, and a barrel length of 4.11 inches. Loaded, the gun has a weight of 2.28 pounds. Like the Glock 19 the P226 is also a double action pistol, although it also has a single action mode allowing the pistol to be manually cocked. It also features a decocking lever to lower the hammer without pulling the trigger.

Heckler & Koch VP9

One of the newest 9mm Luger handguns is the Heckler & Koch VP9. Introduced in 2014, the VP9 is like the rest of the handguns on this list a high capacity, twin-stack handgun with a steel slide and polymer frame. The VP9 carries up to fifteen rounds—as many as a Glock 19. This German-designed pistol has dimensions similar to the G19 and P226 and uses a cold hammer forged barrel for increased accuracy and barrel life.

Unlike older pistols that utilize a hammer, the VP9 is a striker-fired pistol. Striker-fired pistols use a spring-loaded firing pin that is partially cocked by pulling back and releasing the slide. Pulling the trigger completes the cocking action and releases the firing pin. As a result, striker fired pistols are immune to any accidental discharge that does not involve pulling the trigger—such as dropping the handgun on a hard surface.

A new feature—increasingly common in handguns—of the VP9 is the ability to tailor the pistol’s grip to a wide variety of hand sizes. Each pistol comes complete with a number of removable backstraps and grip panels to reduce or enlarge grip width, with a total of twenty-seven different size configurations available for small to large hands.

Smith & Wesson M&P

The Smith & Wesson M&P (Military and Police) was first introduced in 2005 and as a hybrid of two previous guns, the Sigma and the SW99. Like the rest of the guns on this list, it has polymer frame and steel slide, a large internal magazine (seventeen rounds) and a striker-fired operating system. The M&P has aggressive good looks, with serrations on the slide to promote a better grip, and a built-in Picatinny rail under the barrel for mounting lights and laser pointers.

Smith & Wesson claims that the M&P’s low bore axis reduces muzzle rise and allows the shooter to get back on target faster. In many respects it is similar to the Glock 17—including magazine size—but one reviewer has pointed out that it is slightly larger and heavier. The M&P also features a loaded-chamber indicator which tilts upward when a round is in the chamber, ambidextrous controls and four interchangeable palm swell inserts of different sizes to accommodate different hand types.

Springfield XD

Originally developed in Croatia as the HS2000, the Springfield XD (“Extreme Duty”) handgun has enjoyed considerable success in the United States. The XD externally resembles a Glock, from nearby Austria, though is somewhat blockier in appearance. The standard service model features a four-inch barrel—par for the course on this list—and a double-stack magazine that holds up to sixteen rounds of 9mm Luger ammunition.

The Springfield XD combines a number of older and newer features from other guns on this list to create a fairly unique and impressive package. The XD has a grip safety like the one on the Colt 1911A1 handgun, that prevents the gun from being discharged unless gripped properly. It also features a trigger safety, like the Glock, a drop safety that prevents the striker from being released, and a loaded chamber indicator like the Smith & Wesson M&P. A flip of a lever allows the pistol to be quickly field stripped for cleaning.

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 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.

Caleb Larson

Security, Americas

Their Ripsaw M5 is an unmanned, multi-mission Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) that has gone through several prototypes and is currently in its fifth-generation.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Change is coming for ground troops, and if the technical hurdles inherent to all-electric vehicle technology—namely range and recharge times—can be overcome, robot combat vehicles could become the silent killers of the future.

Textron Systems is the aerospace and defense manufacturing firm responsible for developing a wide range of vehicles and weapon systems including the U.S. Navy’s Landing Craft Air Cushions. The company is also a contender for the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon competition and has been developing yet another interesting platform.

Their Ripsaw M5 is an unmanned, multi-mission Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) that has gone through several prototypes and is currently in its fifth-generation. Textron currently manufactures the Ripsaw in two variants, a 7.5 ton light variant, as well as a larger 10.5 medium variant. Both the light and medium variants can be equipped with conventional diesel engines, or with a hybrid electric drivetrain.

Textron touts the Ripsaw as a multi-mission, multi-domain platform, capable of performing a variety of missions, including breaching/mine clearing, reconnaissance and surveillance, as well as direct-action missions. To those ends, it can be equipped with a heavy machine gun remote weapon station, a turret for a medium caliber cannon, or anti-aircraft missiles. Armor, suspension, and drivetrain are modular, and can be customized to mission requirements.

Textron is working in tandem with the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center, a research and development command that calls itself the Army’s “scientific and technological foundation” that conducts “world-leading research, development, engineering and analysis.”

Though the Army has been tinkering with the Ripsaw for over a decade, Textron is slated to deliver a new, all-electric variant called the Ripsaw M5-E sometime in 2021, Jane’s reported. The M5-E test platform will ship as a flat-top, lacking a remote weapon station or turret in order to allow the Army to test integrating different weapon systems.

All-electric vehicles have typically struggled to match the ranges of combustion engines, and recharge times are slower than a tank refill—both of which Textron would have to address to make the M5-E a serious competitor to its diesel and hybrid counterparts.

All-Electric, All the Time

The American Textron isn’t the only company charging forward in developing unmanned, all-electric systems. South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem, builder of a number of the Republic of Korea’s land combat systems, including their K1 and K2 main battle tanks, also has something similar to Textron’s Ripsaw in the works.

Their Multipurpose Unmanned Ground Vehicle is also an all-electric design, albeit much smaller at up to 2 tons when fully equipped. According to Jane’s the MUGV’s mission profile will probably be smaller than that of the Ripsaw, supporting ground troops via casualty evacuation and ammunition resupply, though Hyundai artwork show’s the MUGV equipped with what appears to be a medium machine gun. Interestingly, the MUGV’s battery is said to be water-cooled, and sports punctureless, airless tires.

Postscript

Change is coming for ground troops, and if the technical hurdles inherent to all-electric vehicle technology—namely range and recharge times—can be overcome, robot combat vehicles could become the silent killers of the future.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Wikipedia.

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.

The United Nations is commemorating the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness on Sunday, underscoring the need to learn lessons from the coronavirus pandemic, and urging greater investments in preparedness, to confront future health emergencies.

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.