Among the bitter lessons learned during the costly American seizure of Japanese-occupied Tarawa in November 1943 was the need for ship-based close support in the interval between bombardment and a landing. Using the hull of the LCI (landing craft infantry) as a basis, the Navy devised the Landing Craft Support (Large) (Mark 3), or simply LCS. Entering service in 1944 and combat at Iwo Jima in February 1945, it packed the heaviest armament per ton of any warship, earning the sobriquet “Mighty Midget”. British Commonwealth forces also used it in Borneo, at Tarakan and Balikpapan.  

Of the 130 built, only five were lost—three sunk by Japanese Shinyo suicide motorboats in the Philippines and two falling victim to kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa. After supporting the Okinawa landings, the LCSs were fitted with radar and joined destroyers on picket duty against kamikaze attacks. It was while so engaged that Lieutenant Richard Miles McCool Jr., commander of LCS-122, saw the destroyer William D. Porter mortally stricken on June 10, 1945, by an Aichi D3A2, yet managed to rescue its crew without loss. The next evening two D3As hit LCS-122, but the seriously wounded McCool rallied his men to save their vessel and was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor.   In 1949 the LCS was reclassified the LSSL (landing ship support large), and it continued to serve in Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts in foreign hands until 2007. One of two survivors discovered in Thailand is undergoing restoration to its World War II configuration at the Landing Craft Support Museum [usslcs102.org] in Vallejo, Calif.  

This story appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

historynet magazines

Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world.

subscribe today

The American arsenal of democracy delivered a huge number and variety of bombers during World War II. Among them were Boeing’s B-17 Flying Fortress and B-29 Superfortress; Consolidated’s B-24 Liberator series; North American’s B-25 Mitchell; and Martin’s B-26 Marauder. Excepting the B-29, all flew against every Axis power, from the Pacific and Aleutians to North Africa and Europe. But one latecomer barely got off the bench to play just before the final whistle: Consolidated’s little-known B-32 Dominator. If it’s remembered much at all it might be because of an unfortunate fact: a crewmember aboard a B-32 became the last United States combat fatality of the war.

Consolidated already had become a prominent factor in World War II aviation, producing not only the Army B-24 and Navy PB4Y series, but also the classic PBY Catalina and PB2Y Coronado flying boats. So when the Army Air Forces (AAF) sought another heavy bomber to fight alongside the B-29, it gave the San Diego firm the nod over four other contenders, giving the company the XB-32 order in September 1940. The planned aircraft would use the same 2,200-hp Wright R-3350 engines developed for the B-29 and share the concepts of a pressurized fuselage and remote-controlled gun turrets. The Army inspected the mockups and gave the go-ahead for prototypes in January 1941.

Showing some Liberator influence, the first XB-32 sported the same high-aspect-ratio Davis wing and twin tails. The inboard engines had reversible propellers to shorten the landing distance. However, the B-32’s rounded fuselage was aerodynamically sleeker than the B-24’s slab-sided airframe. Despite its similarity to the “very heavy” B-29, the Consolidated was designated a heavy bomber with an ultimate gross weight of 100,800 pounds versus 133,500 for the Boeing.

Dubbed the Dominator, the prototype XB-32 made its first flight on September 7, 1942, two years after Consolidated signed the contract. It crashed in May 1943, but the second prototype flew in July and the third in November. By then the configuration had seen some changes. It now had more of a “stepped” canopy, and the B-24-type twin tail had transformed into a high single tail similar to that of the Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer.

The program saw more changes as it progressed. Consolidated eliminated the pressurization and replaced the unreliable remote-controlled gun turrets with five manual twin mounts and the original three-blade props gave way to the B-29’s four. During flight tests in October 1944, Colonels Mark E. Bradley and Osmond J. Ritland reported a mixed impression of the aircraft, but noted, “Although the B-32 is a comparatively easy airplane to fly, it is not considered a pleasant airplane because of poor ‘feel,’ noise and vibration, excessive trim change with use of flaps, high landing and takeoff speeds.” They said that the Dominator “will not be a popular airplane with the services.”

Meanwhile, the B-32’s development had overlapped the 1943 merger between Consolidated and Vultee that led to the emergence of a new company, Convair. However, the corporate amalgam exerted little if any influence upon the Dominator program as the bombers began to roll off the production line at the company’s new plant in Fort Worth, Texas. 

In all, the AAF ordered 1,500 Dominators. Convair delivered the first production model in September 1944, but it soon suffered a nose wheel collapse on landing. Other bombers were delivered in November with unit-size introduction in late January 1945. By then it had become clear that the B-29 did not require a backup, so the Army directed that 40 B-32s be delivered as unarmed transition trainers. One detachment received orders to the Philippines for operational evaluation, though it was clear that the Dominator would see little combat. In the U.S. that summer, B-32s averaged a mere three hours flying time per month.

The Pacific-bound Dominators set out on an 8,300-mile global trek in May 1944, leaving Fort Worth for Mather Field, California, then flying on to Hickam Field, Hawaii, and from there to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, Guam in the Marianas, and on to Clark Field, Luzon. There the B-32 crews joined the 386th Bombardment Squadron of 312th Bombardment Group. The group was a Pacific old-timer under Lt. Col. Selmon Wells that had been flying Douglas A-20 Havocs. Just 25, Wells had flown with the group since late 1942 and had a wealth of combat experience.

The Dominator became the designated hitter for the 312th and took on a heavy bombardment role that was quite different from the light attack duties the squadron had been flying with its A-20s. One of the crewmembers making the transition to the Dominator was Staff Sgt. Julius Kossor, who noted in his diary that he was glad to leave the Havocs behind: “really had some close calls these last few missions,” he wrote.

In May the squadron’s commanding officer, Major “Pinky” Wilson, received his orders to return to the States. An original member from the squadron’s inception in October 1942, Wilson had flown 109 missions and amassed 320 hours, one of the group’s most notable records. Captain Ferdinand L. Svore replaced Wilson as new CO. He had arrived in July 1944 and served as squadron and group operations officer before taking command. On May 30, shortly after Svore’s promotion, the squadron ceased Havoc operations to begin B-32 missions. To prepare, ground staff visited the B-24-equipped 43rd Bomb Group to learn heavy bombardment organization and procedures. New personnel “began to trickle in” from the first of June, Kossor noted.

In that period Kossor wrote, “Our A-20s, with their pilots and gunners, were transferred out and assigned to the other three squadrons in the group. New crews, factory representatives and specialists joined the squadron, and preparations were under way to convert the 386th Bomb Squadron (Light) into a very heavy bomb squadron.”

The day before it ended all Havoc missions, the squadron flew the first B-32 raid of the war, an attack north of the Philippine capital of Manila. In a display of unit pride, the squadron report noted, “The outstanding raid of the month, and probably the most notable in this theatre, was the B-32 strike on May 29th. Two of three B-32s assigned to the 386th were sent on a mission to Antatet in the Cagayan Valley. If the Japs below took time to peek out of their foxholes, they must have been amazed to see eighteen 1,000 pounders dropped from only two planes. Bombing from 10,000 feet was excellent. All bombs were 100 percent on the target, scoring direct hits on a house and damaging a large tin-roofed warehouse.

“This, the first B-32 raid in the world, was the forerunner of future operations in the Pacific,” the report concluded, not quite accurately.

After addressing engine problems and deferred maintenance, in June the squadron’s three Dominators flew ten two-plane missions to drop 135 tons of bombs, mostly on Formosa (today Taiwan). Kossor flew his first heavy bomber mission on June 13 in one of two Dominators that struck a Formosa airfield. From the ball turret Kossor had “a perfect view of the target. Three bombs made direct hits on the runway. Others all around the field—no fighter interception and no damage to our two planes.” He judged the Dominator to be “a good fast ship.” 

By the end of June, the squadron, now equipped with three B-32s and a C-47B for miscellaneous duties, had logged ten missions (20 sorties) for 105 combat hours. The combat tests ended in July and other crews began making the transition to the new bomber. Then on July 30 the advance echelon began moving to Okinawa while the rest waited for a fourth B-32 to arrive. The unit diary noted, “All we had was the promise that more were on the way.” And there were: five B-32s headed overseas in July, and nine more in August. Still, that meant there were only 10 to 16 Dominator crews overseas between June and August, versus 1,200 or so B-29 crews.

The squadron properly noted that August 1945 was “an eventful month in world history resulting in a month of impatient waiting” for the 55 officers, 370 enlisted men and nine civilian technicians on the roster. On August 8 the bombers and supporting transports left Clark Field in the Philippines for Okinawa and landed with bombs aboard at Yontan. Shortly afterward the unit moved to nearby Kadena Airfield, already home to three bomb groups and a fighter group. The support staff’s “water echelon” sailed by ship and learned about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan along the way. A squadron officer wrote, “Despite the fact that the war was unofficially over, the 386th carried on a private war with the Empire of Japan.” On August 15 anti-shipping strikes were recalled upon Tokyo’s surrender announcement.

However, the new arrivals still had work to do. On the 16th, reconnaissance missions scouted possible landing fields in Japan for the airborne troops who were due to arrive shortly. One Dominator turned back with engine problems but the other, Hobo Queen II, completed the flight.

On August 17 the 386th launched four photo sorties around Tokyo under the youthful Colonel Wells. During the two hours over Japan the individual bombers were harassed and attacked by flak and Japanese Navy pilots who ignored the surrender announcement that had gone out two days before. Sergeant Kossor said it was the “roughest mission I ever had.” He was flying with Wells, who had told him to leave his ball turret up because it created too much drag when lowered. Then Japanese fighters attacked and Kossor had to scramble to get the turret down. “They attacked us from each wing, and then flew under my ball as they passed,” he noted. “A perfect target, but because I obeyed orders we may have crashed in Tokio. Then we got hit with flak. It was heavy and damn accurate.” Anti-aircraft fire put shrapnel into a wing, but Wells proceeded to Yokosuka where he found the flak was even thicker but experienced little threat from fighters.

That wasn’t the case with two other Dominators. In the Yokosuka area they aborted their photo runs due to cloud cover but conducted shootouts at 20,000 feet. The gunners claimed one fighter destroyed and another damaged before heading seaward with gunfire damage to a wing.

The fourth bomber had an even rougher time. In a 15-minute set-to, several Japanese ganged up on the Dominator from six o’clock. An upper turret gunner set his sights on the closest and watched his tracers sparkle on the green airframe. Obviously stricken and streaming smoke, the assailant dropped into the undercast. But the tail turret failed and the Japanese noticed the weakness. They renewed their attacks from astern although the bomber escaped without serious damage and landed with the others about four hours later. The unit diarist recorded, “Approximately ten fighter planes attacked the formation, resulting in two probables for our side.”

Of greater concern to Far East air forces was what Japanese fighter opposition meant. Presumably the interim agreement made before the formal surrender allowed Allied aircraft full access to Japanese airspace. Did the violent responses indicate a change in Tokyo policy or were the intercepts flown by dissidents who refused to surrender?

The latter proved the case. Years later a prominent Japanese Navy ace, Lieutenant (j.g.) Saburo Sakai, explained his rationale for opposing the B-32 flights. His commanding officer had stated that if any pilots wanted to intercept the Americans, he would look the other way. When the B-32s came into sight that day, Sakai and his fellow pilots decided to attack them. “While Japan did agree to the surrender, we were still a sovereign nation, and every nation has the right to protect itself,” Sakai asserted. He claimed that the Japanese did not know the B-32s’ intentions and that the Americans should have waited before sending more airplanes over Japan. “They should have waited and let things cool down.”

The next day, the squadron flew two more photo sorties over Tokyo. The Dominators flew with extra observers and photographers to verify the situations at major airfields. The planes had completed their routes when crewmen noticed fighters airborne from the Atsugi airfield. “Fourteen Jap fighters engaged our bombers in twenty minutes of aerial combat,” the unit diary noted. “Two enemy planes were shot down and two probably destroyed. Gunners Houston and Smart were the sharpshooters.”

Lieutenant James Klein’s Hobo Queen II held an altitude advantage over Lieutenant John Anderson’s unnamed bomber, which was some 10,000 feet below. Anderson’s tail and top forward gunners put dozens of .50-caliber rounds on target, seeing two dark green fighters gush flames or explode. The nose gunner swapped gunfire with Lieutenant Sadamu Komachi, survivor of the Darwinian winnowing Japanese pilots had experienced since Pearl Harbor. The veteran shot out the Dominator’s port inboard engine, blew the plexiglass off the top rear turret, and damaged the rudder.

During the shootout one of the photographers, Staff Sgt. Joseph Lacharite, received wounds in both legs, so Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione, a young Pennsylvanian on his first B-32 mission, laid him on a cot and took over the first-aid effort. Moments later a 20mm shell exploded in the fuselage, inflicting a massive chest wound on Marchione. Five of his fellow crewmen tried to keep him alive, applying pressure while administering plasma and oxygen.

Attended by his friends, Tony Marchione died at age 19, high over Japan and far from his home in Pennsylvania. The two bombers landed at Kadena that evening, Anderson’s making it on three engines.

Anthony Marchione almost certainly was the last American killed in combat during the Second World War. Historian Stephen Harding wrote a bittersweet account of the young sergeant’s life, death and family in his book, Last to Die. It remains the definitive account of Marchione’s death. “

The War was supposed to be over Aug. 15, but our men are still gettin’ killed,” Kossor griped in his diary. “To us it isn’t over for some time yet. Nobody’s celebratin’ ‘The End’ over here. Because the war is supposed to be over, we do not get combat time for these missions. We got the rotten deal of flyin’ ’em ‘on the house!’” 

Ten days later the unit diary noted, “August 28 was probably the saddest day in the history of the 312th Group.” In two disastrous crashes, 15 officers and men were killed. One plane was taking off when it crashed at the end of the runway. There were no survivors. The other B-32, after completing a recon mission, developed engine trouble and flew to within 175 miles of Okinawa on two engines. Two crewmembers died in the bailout but the rest survived and “spent a pleasant cruise on two destroyers and returned a week later.”

After the signing of the peace treaty on September 2, a bomber from the 386th Squadron departed for the States, representing the first airplane from Fifth Air Force to return from Japan. The unit diarist closed, “So ended the glorious history of the 386th Bomb Squadron; activated three years ago in Savannah as a dive bomb outfit; flew fighter patrols over New Guinea in P-40s; bombed and strafed New Guinea and the Philippines in A-20s; received a Presidential Citation for operations against Formosa; flew the first B-32s in combat and participated in the last aerial combat of World War II.”

The war’s finish also spelled the end to the B-32. The Army Air Forces no longer needed the Dominator. Only 114 had rolled out of the Fort Worth Consolidated-Vultee plant by the time production ceased—a far cry from the 1,500 originally planned. Today not a single B-32 remains. 

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

See more stories

Subscribe now

 

My great-uncle, Captain Everal Anthony Guimond, was a bombardier in the 566th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, Heavy, of the U.S. Army Air Forces. He was killed on D-Day and his military records were destroyed in the 1973 St. Louis Archives fire. What can you tell me about my great-uncle’s service and his unit’s history?

—Laura Guimond, Henderson, Nevada  

The 566th was one of the four original squadrons of the 389th Bombardment Group of the Eighth Air Force, whose B-17 and B-24 bombers famously took the air war to Germany.

Constituted on December 19, 1942, the 389th was activated a week later at Davis-Monthan Air Field in Arizona before moving to Biggs Field, Texas, and Lowry Field, Colorado. Between mid-April and June 1, 1943, the 389th received final flight training at Lowry on the Consolidated B-24 Liberators they would fly throughout the war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt formally reviewed the unit at Lowry during a late-April visit, an event the Rocky Mountain News wrote was “believed to be the sole occasion when a USAAF bomb group was so honored.”

The 389th’s ground echelon left Colorado on June 5 for the Camp Kilmer staging base in New Jersey. Three weeks later the unit joined 17,000 other troops on the Cunard ship RMS Queen Elizabeth to sail to England. Along with the thousands of other Americans servicemen, on board was the famed CBS radio commentator Edward R. Murrow, who gave airmen an idea of what sort of life awaited them at a USAAF air base in England. The unit arrived at their new home base at RAF Hethel, in Norfolk, England, in mid-June. The air echelon left Lowry on June 21, hopscotching across the U.S. before making transatlantic flights to Prestwick, Scotland. The B-24s then convoyed south to join the rest of the 389th at Hethel.

Under the command of Colonel Jack W. Wood, the 389th settled into its new digs. The group’s airmen were soon perplexed when, after having trained in the U.S. for standard high-altitude bombing missions, their training in England suddenly turned exclusively to low-altitude runs. As Lieutenant Andrew Opsata of the 93rd Bomb Group said regarding the Americans’ buzzing of the English countryside, “We terrorized the livestock, and I’m certain that egg and milk production must have taken a precipitous drop.” What the American airmen didn’t know was that they were preparing for the top-secret Operation Tidal Wave, the planned attack on Nazi Germany’s oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania. Since the B-24s couldn’t reach Ploesti from England, on July 1, 1943, the 389th departed to join the 44th and 93rd Bomb Groups of the Ninth Air Force in Benghazi, Libya. Low-level flight training continued there amid the stifling desert heat and a plague of locusts and flies numbering in the millions. Another local troublemaker inspired the 389th to adopt the nickname that would serve them until the end of the war: the Sky Scorpions. From Benghazi, the 389th flew their first missions from July 9-19, attacking Axis airfields on Crete and as well as targets in support of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. The group flew additional missions from Libya against ports and rail yards in Italy and Austria, but the big event was August 1, 1943—the attack on Ploesti.

The mission launched at 4:00 a.m., when 179 B-24s headed north from Benghazi over Corfu and northeast to Romania. The 566th Squadron’s target was Campina, the most distant of the refineries, as their B-24s were the latest models and had the longest range of the air groups. While the refineries took their hits, so too did the attackers. Of the 179 airplanes that took off, 43 planes were shot down, 532 men died, and 110 men survived bail outs to become POWs. Despite these sobering figures, the Ploesti raid succeeded in damaging the refineries and disrupting—temporarily, at least—the German war machine. The Sky Scorpions received a Distinguished Unit Citation for their efforts that day.

The 389th returned to England on August 25 and soon began a 21-month slog to bomb the Germans into submission. Meanwhile, the crews settled into everyday life at Hethel. A joint 389th/RAF rugby team played a full season of matches, and the airmen joined the war-long chorus railing against the Spam, powdered eggs, and chipped beef that seemed omnipresent in the chow lines. On Christmas of 1943, the 389th received a visit from an old friend: Edward R. Murrow dropped by to conduct interviews for his radio report home to the U.S. and ended up having his Christmas meal with Hethel’s enlisted men.

From August 1943 until the end of the war, the group flew hundreds of missions against airfields, marshaling yards, V-1 rocket sites, and numerous other targets in occupied Europe and Germany. In February 1944, the 389th was at the forefront of Big Week, the Allies’ intense bombing campaign against the ball-bearing, engine, and aircraft factories of the German aviation industry. The overall effort was not as successful as at first thought or hoped, but it was another strike in the war of attrition against Germany. But it was a war of attrition for both sides—Allied losses from German fighters and 88mm flak batteries were painfully significant.

Your great-uncle, Captain Everal Guimond, enlisted in the U.S. Army on April 4, 1942, and traveled to England with the rest of the 389th in June1943. A bombardier on Lieutenant Gregory Perron’s crew for 10 missions starting in November 1943, Captain Guimond transferred to a B-24 commanded by Lieutenant William Wambold in February 1944. His first run with the new crew was a bombing mission over Braunschweig, Germany, on February 20, the first day of Big Week. 

On April 1, 1944, USAAF brass raised from 25 to 30 the number of missions required for airmen to complete their tour. A sliding scale was put in place, so your great-uncle’s tour was scheduled to end after 29 missions. As D-Day approached, Captain Guimond’s tally stood at 28. Tragically, his final mission, on D-Day, would have been the last of his tour.

On June 6, the Liberators of the 389th flew numerous bombing missions in support of the Normandy landings. Captain Guimond was assigned to replace the regular bombardier on a B-24J-4 called Shoot Fritz, You’ve Had It under the command of Lieutenant Marcus Courtney. Taking off from Hethel at 2:00 a.m., the airplane, for reasons that were never determined, crashed and exploded 20 minutes later near the village of Trimingham on the Norfolk coast. All ten crewmembers perished.

The 389th continued to punish the German rail system, submarine pens, and shipping yards as the Allied invasion pushed on. The Sky Scorpions flew numerous missions during Operation Market Garden in September 1944—though the weather was so bad during the Battle of the Bulge that the group was unable to provide much material help. In February and March 1945, bombers switched from dropping explosives to airdropping food and other needed supplies to the advancing Allied armies. Their final mission, the last of 321 before the war in Europe ended in May, came over Germany on April 25. The 389th returned to the United States in late May and the unit was deactivated on September 13, 1945.

Everal Anthony Guimond was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Purple Heart, and he is buried in Plot E, Row 5, Grave 16 in England’s Cambridge American Cemetery. Your great-uncle’s service and sacrifice are also remembered at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, where his name is enshrined on the Wall of Remembrance. Captain Guimond’s plaque, number W-99, resides next to those of 4,414 other servicemen who gave their lives on June 6, 1944, day one of the liberation of Europe.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

In his new book Duel in the Deep (Naval Institute Press), author David Sears tells a story that he subtitles “The Hunters, the Hunted, and a High Seas Fight to the Finish.” The central incident is the tale of an outmoded four-stack destroyer, the USS Borie, and its intense fight with the German U-405 on October 31, 1943, a “swashbuckling, no-holds-barred brawl of cannons, machine guns, small arms, and even knives and spent shell casings.” Sears builds up to that that epic struggle by outlining the ebbs and flows of the Battle of the Atlantic, when Germany’s submersible craft attempted to starve Britain into submission and keep the Allies reeling by sinking the ships carrying necessary food and supplies across the Atlantic. In a high-stakes game of technological cat and mouse, both sides attempted to gain the upper hand in the contest with advanced technology and, on the Allied side, intensive codebreaking work.

Sears, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer himself, uses diaries, letters, and contemporary newspaper interviews to bring his story to life. In this interview with World War II editor Tom Huntington, Sears talks about his book.

Monica Mohindra On July 27, 1953, the Korean War ended with an armistice but no official treaty, technically meaning a state of war still exists between the combatant nations. Among the multinational participants in that significant flare-up in the Cold War were nearly 7 million U.S. military service personnel, of whom more than 1 million are still living. The 70th anniversary of the armistice spurred the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project to redouble its efforts to record for posterity the memories of those participants while it still can. Military History recently interviewed Veterans History Project director Monica Mohindra about its collection, the pressure of time and ongoing initiatives to honor veterans of that “Forgotten War” and all other American conflicts.

What is the central mission of the Veterans History Project?

Our mission is to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-person remembrances of U.S. veterans who served from World War I through the more recent conflicts. We want all stories, not just those from the foxhole or the battlefronts, but from all veterans who served the United States in uniform. The idea, developed by Congress in October 2000, was to ensure we would all be able to hear directly from veterans about their lived experience, their service, their sacrifice and what they felt on a human scale about their participation in service and/or conflict.  

Is your recent emphasis on the ‘forgotten’ Korean War mainly due to the anniversary?

Correct. But there is so much to share from the history of the Korean War that is relevant. We’re also marking the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the U.S. military, and researchers have been using our collections to understand, for instance, nurses’ perspectives on what it was like to serve in a desegregated military. Our collection speaks to what it was like prior to and after desegregation.  

To what extent do memories tied to both anniversaries overlap?

One of the real strengths of the Veterans History Project, and of oral history projects in general, is that one can pull generalized opinions from a multiplicity of voices. For example, there’s a story about a veteran named James Allen who “escaped” racially charged Florida to join the military. Serving in Korea in various administrative tasks, he experienced a taste of what life could be like under desegregation. When he returned to the United States, he moved back to Florida, the very place he’d escaped, to help veterans and advance such notions.  

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

See more stories

Subscribe now!

 

You’re the spouse of a Navy veteran. Does that shape your perspective on history overall and the project you’ve taken up?

It absolutely adds another layer to the Veterans History Project and what it means on a human scale. This is personal. My husband’s experience, just like each veteran’s, is unique. He’s not ready to share his story—maybe not with me ever. His father, who also served, is not ready to share his story—maybe not with me, maybe not ever. Both of his grandfathers served. My grandfather served, too. So, I feel a personal imperative to help those veterans who are ready to share their stories.

It’s that seriousness of purpose, to create a private resource for future use, the Veterans History Project offers individuals around the country. We already have more than 115,000 such individual perspectives, and that gives us the opportunity to share the wealth of these collections.  

How does the project handle contributions?

Individuals may want to start by conversing with the veterans in their lives or by finding the collection of a veteran.  

To what use does the project put such memories?

People use the Veterans History Project—often online and sometimes in person here at the Folklife Center Reading Room—for a variety of reasons. More than 70 percent of our materials (letters, photographs, audio and video interviews, etc.) are digitized, and more than 3 million annual visitors come to the website. They’re using our materials for everything from school projects to enlivening curricula. Recently researchers have conducted postdoctoral research on desegregation during the Korean War. The project is also useful for beginning deeper conversations among friends and family members.

In this time of AI [artificial intelligence], the collection is a primary resource from those who had the lived experience. What did they hear? What did they see? How did they keep in touch with loved ones? These are the kind of questions we pose.  

What was unique about the Korean War experience?

Perhaps the extraordinary scope of injuries service members suffered because of the cold. Consider the Borinqueneers [65th U.S. Infantry Regiment], out of Puerto Rico, many of whom had never seen snow. On crossing the seas, they arrived in these extreme conditions, and it’s all so foreign. They received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014, and we are fortunate to have memories from 20 Borinqueneers in our collection.  

Recently, the last American fighter ace of the Korean War died. Are you concerned about the time constraints you face?

Yes. The weight of that actuarial reality was quite heavy on World War I veterans. We had the pleasure to work with Frank Buckles [see “Frank Buckles, 110, Last of the Doughboys,” by David Lauterborn, on HistoryNet.com] several times, and he became sort of an emblem of his cohort, if you will. That was a heavy weight on him, one that he did not shy from.

The burden now is on people like me, you, your readers, to make sure we do sit down with the veterans in our lives. We want people 15 and up to think about doing that.  

What about the memories of U.N. personnel from other nations who served in Korea?

The legislation for the Veterans History Project is very clear. It limits our mission to those who served the U.S. military in uniform. That does include commissioned officers of the U.S. Public Health Service, an often forgotten uniformed service. We cannot accept the collections of Allies who served alongside U.S. troops. However, we do collaborate with other organizations within our sphere. For instance, in cooperation with the Korean Library Association we held an adjunct activity at the Library of Congress, a two-day symposium.  

Do you accept contributions from Gold Star families?

We do. The legislation for the Veterans History Project was amended in 2016 with a new piece of legislation called the Gold Star Families Voices Act. Before that we accepted collections of certain deceased members, including photographs or a journal, diary or unpublished memoir that could capture the first-person perspective.

However, the 2016 legislation put a fine point on a definition for Gold Star families to contribute. Under the Gold Star Family Voices Act, those participating as either interviewers or interviewees must be 18 or older, as one is speaking about a situation that involves trauma. Our definition calls for collections of 10 or more photographs or 20 or more pages of letters or a journal or unpublished memoir. The other way to start a collection is to submit 30 or more minutes of audio or video interviews. This enables us to gain a full perspective of a veterans’ experience, whether they are living or deceased.  

Where can an interested veteran or family member get more information?

There is all sorts of information on our website [loc.gov/vets]. They should also feel free to come to our information center at the Library of Congress [101 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C.], with extended hours on Thursdays until 8 p.m.

This interview appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

historynet magazines

Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world.

subscribe today

As Germany crumbled in fire and rubble in the final months of World War II, Adolf Hitler issued orders for four famous Germans to be held hostage—not living Germans, but dead ones. All of them had died before the war had even started; two, in fact, had died in the 1700s. 

The unlikely quartet of corpses consisted of two Prussian warrior kings—Frederick William I and Frederick the Great—plus the late German Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg and his unassuming wife Gertrud. The bodies would be hauled cross country, transported by sea, dragged up mountains, carted through forests and eventually entrenched in darkness, where bewildered American soldiers accidentally stumbled upon them in April 1945.

Yet the story of the kidnapped corpses did not end there. The U.S. Army would soon discover that the dead could be just as troublesome as the living. 

Kidnapping Hindenburg

In view of Germany’s catastrophic military situation, most logical people would not have seen much point in the Third Reich’s focus on famous corpses. Yet Nazi officials placed uncanny emphasis on the dead. Deaths, funerals and memorial events were used for propaganda from the earliest days of the Nazi regime. The Nazis showed a total lack of respect for dead individuals as well as a perverse interest in human remains. Bodies of famous historical figures were frequently dug up, analyzed, poked at, made into centerpieces for speeches and heaped with swastika wreaths. One of the chief tomb violators was Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, whose minions became expert grave robbers in pursuit of famous bones and artifacts. Hitler and Goebbels became masters of funeral ceremonies, creating spectacles for dead compatriots that were less memorial services than political rallies.

Two famous Germans treated to funerary theatrics were the Hindenburgs. Mustachioed Prussian Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg went down in history as the lackluster second President of the Weimar Republic who appointed Hitler as Germany’s Chancellor and opened the door to one of the darkest chapters in world history. Little could he have known that the “Bohemian corporal” he infamously shook hands with would someday uproot his remains—and those of his late wife, Gertrud, who lay buried at the family estate.

When Hindenburg died, Hitler decided that the old man needed to go out in style—preferably with a boom of propaganda to impress the living. Therefore the deceased Field Marshal—along with Frau Hindenburg, unceremoniously dug up to come along for the ride—was hauled to the Tannenberg Memorial, a gargantuan stone temple in the plains of East Prussia partially designed to commemorate a 1914 battle and mostly designed to make Germans forget that the Teutonic knights had lost the first Battle of Tannenberg centuries earlier in 1410.

The memorial sported no less than eight towers and enough space in the middle for a large crowd and probably several orchestras. In 1934, during a long and elaborate ceremony in which the memorial brimmed with wreaths and glittering uniforms enough to make one’s eyes water, the Hindenburg couple were buried in their very own tower. It was complete with a statue of Hindenburg himself, who had expressly wished to be buried with his wife at home. For the pair to end up entombed in the wilderness of East Prussia was similar to being buried at a frontier outpost like Fort Apache.

The Hindenburgs weren’t the only dignitaries whose last wishes would be ignored. Destined to accompany them in a posthumous adventure were two famous kings of Prussia’s Hohenzollern dynasty—Frederick William I and his son Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great. Both kings had attained fame for extraordinary military achievements. Neither king had intended to keep traveling after death. Frederick the Great left instructions in 1769: “Bury me in Sans Souci [Potsdam]…in a tomb which I have had prepared for myself…” Yet the two royals were not destined to rest in peace.

A Salt Mine…and Red Crayon

As the Allies closed in across Germany in 1945, all four bodies ended up taking a wild ride to avoid being captured by combatants in a conflict they had taken no part in during their lifetimes. On Hitler’s orders, both Hindenburgs were pried out of the tower at the Tannenberg Memorial and shoved onto a ship; it was assumed that the Russians wouldn’t react well upon finding the memorial and realizing the fiercely anti-Russian Field Marshal was stuffed into its walls.

The cruiser Emden hauled the Hindenburg coffins to Berlin, where they were joined by the coffins of the royal Fredericks Senior and Junior. From there, the coffins were packed off cross-country to the rugged mountainous region of Thuringia, where they were intended to remain hidden underground until the time was appropriate for an underground Nazi resistance movement to bring them to the surface.

On April 27, 1945, men of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps shuffled wearily through the formidable Thuringian Forest and set to work clearing out a wickedly deep salt mine near the town of Bernterode. Navigating a network of tunnels stretching on for about 14 miles, they came across not only hidden ammunition reserves but a passageway sealed with rubble. Digging through six feet of debris, they found a secret chamber containing tapestries and valuable paintings. They also discovered four giant coffins staring back at them.

The soldiers were baffled. Thankfully the Germans had seen fit to label the coffins by writing the names of the dead on them in red crayon.

A Delicate Problem

Moving the coffins proved a hellish task. European dignitaries were often buried in sarcophagi forged of metal alloys. This process would seal the body in an airtight vacuum and prevent rapid decomposition, instead prompting a process of natural mummification. Such sarcophagi weren’t intended to be mobile—in fact they were, quite reasonably, built to stay in one place. It took the Americans an hour to get Frederick the Great’s casket, which weighed no less than 1,200 pounds, into an elevator for removal.

The U.S. Army trucked the bodies to a castle at Marburg, where the dead dignitaries were kept under guard in a cellar and stared at by wary soldiers for a year until the U.S. State Department, who classified the corpses as “political personages,” arrived at a decision about what to do with them. Lt. Gen. Lucius Clay, deputy U.S. governor in occupied Germany, was told to bury the dead in a dignified manner and delegated the task to Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section Unit (MFAA), also known as the Monuments Men.

It turned out to be what the Monuments Men considered one of their strangest duties. They found that entombing the dead German dignitaries was almost as complicated as trying to make hotel arrangements for them. To bury these characters required navigating European history, international diplomacy and the wishes of next of kin—who were awkward political personages themselves.

No Room For Dead Militarists

The first version of the plan entailed that the Americans would take the two King Fredericks and their British cousins would relieve them of the Hindenburgs. A little bit of research would be required to decide appropriate locations—which would not become rally spots for any stray Nazis. After the logistics were settled, local German authorities were supposed to do the actual burying. The burials had to be kept secret.

Things went downhill quickly. The British were shocked to learn of the corpse problem and were “quite distressed” by the idea of having to put on a funeral for the infamously warlike Paul von Hindenburg, according to a 1950 article in Life magazine. After consultations in London, the British made it clear that Mr. and Mrs. von Hindenburg were not welcome to even set one skeletal foot in their zone, much less be buried in it. The U.S. Army scouted around for suitable old family castles to bury the two Prussian King Fredericks but inevitably found the properties in the possession of the French. The French, understandably, had no desire to do any favors for the two Hohenzollern kings.

Fourteen months later, the hapless Americans were still the unwilling guardians of four famous dead Germans and hoped to bury them like any other dead people. Debates were held about whether to bury the lot together or separate them. Many churches had been bombed so available real estate for private funeral services was scarce. Castles bustled with billeted troops and jazz orchestras.

The Americans eventually agreed not to split the lot but instead to bury the bunch together in St. Elizabeth’s church in Marburg, an ancient local church down the road from where the bodies were already being kept in a cellar. Before the burials took place, the Monuments Men decided to share the news with living relatives and ask for their approval as a kind gesture.

A Wedding or a Funeral?

The Americans had no trouble contacting the son of the Hindenburg couple, Maj. Gen. Oskar von Hindenburg, but matters got complicated when the proud Prussian signed his military title on a hotel registry and, to his great indignation, was promptly arrested. The Monuments Men secured his release. Unsurprisingly, he was fully supportive of his parents being given a normal funeral after the posthumous misadventures they had endured.  

Things got off to an awkward start with Crown Prince Wilhelm, the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II who had become infamous during the First World War. The Crown Prince, then age 64, was the head of the Hohenzollern family and thus the closest relative of the two King Fredericks. He found himself in the French zone, where the French guarded him peevishly and wouldn’t let him leave their sight. To clear the matter up while maintaining official secrecy, the Monuments Men sent the prince a message telling him that an American officer would come visit to discuss an important family matter, accompanied by the prince’s youngest daughter, Cecilia.

The Crown Prince assumed that the private family matter was something rather intimate when he saw Cecilia appear with U.S. Army Capt. Everett Parker Lesley Jr., known as Bill, of the Monuments Men. When Lesley broached the topic of holding the ceremony in a church, the suspicious father refused to give his permission.

“We are acting under orders from the Secretary of War!” rejoined Lesley. “What on earth has the Secretary of War to do with you marrying Cecilia?” demanded the prince. Lesley, astounded, explained he wasn’t there for marriage but for a funeral. The stern prince was overcome by laughter.

The Last Stop

After some problems digging in the church to clear room for the coffins, and some wandering tomb lids that almost got shipped to the Russian zone, the top-secret funerals were ready to happen. The Monuments Men expected it all to go quietly with nobody the wiser. Family members would attend but nobody else was supposed to know. However, on the day of the private burial ceremony, the Americans were mildly horrified to find about 500 Germans gathered around the church to watch.

The unlikely quartet of German dignitaries were buried together in Marburg, where they remained unobtrusively until the Hohenzollern family plucked their two King Fredericks out in 1952 and hustled them into a family castle. In August 1991, the two kings’ bodies were carted out again—this time they came full circle, returning to the starting point of their adventure at their original resting place in Potsdam. Their (hopefully) final reburial took place with a lavish televised ceremony following German Reunification.

The Hindenburgs remain in Marburg in a dignified but inconspicuous place, as the Monuments Men intended. Locals find the presence of Paul von Hindenburg a little bit awkward—even if the church pastor has expressed sympathy for the deceased’s overlooked wife.  

But, like them or not, nobody can think of a better solution than the Americans did in 1946. Local mayor Thomas Spies told Hessenschau news: “From the city’s viewpoint, there is no reason why Hindenburg should rest here, but of course the man has to be buried someplace.” 

While many aviation museums may display a Boeing B-29 Superfortress or B-17 Flying Fortress or even a Consolidated B-24 Liberator, very few possess a Douglas B-18 (Bolo) bomber. In fact, many aviation enthusiasts have never even heard of, let alone seen, a B-18. There are good reasons for this. Douglas built only 350, and few of those saw active service in World War II. Only six B-18 airframes still exist (and one of those is from a Bolo that crashed in 1941 in Hawaii, where its wreckage remains to this day, exposed to the elements).

The B-18 was based on Douglas’s DC-2 commercial transport and the Army named it the Bolo after the famed curved knife. The prototype made its first flight in April 1935. Manned by a crew of six and with an operational range of 2,100 miles, the twin-engine Bolo could carry up to 4,500 pounds of bombs and had a top speed of 215 mph. Already obsolete by the start of World War II, many B-18s that flew in combat were equipped with magnetic anomaly detectors and used for anti-submarine warfare. 

One B-18A, currently on display at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, Colorado, has undergone a remarkable restoration after a lifetime of literal and metaphorical ups and downs. The aircraft, serial number 39-025, rolled off the Douglas assembly line in 1940, the second-to-last B-18 ever constructed. Delivered to the United States Army Air Corps on February 20 of that year, the Bolo started its operational life as a training airplane at Chanute Field in Illinois. Subsequent stints as a trainer followed in Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Ohio and California. 

In November 1944, 39-025 was removed from the government’s inventory and wound up with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The RFC focused on supporting local economies through loans and the support of banks, but it also became known during and after World War II for its role in handling surplus military aircraft. At one point the RFC owned more than 100,000 aircraft, including thousands of fighters and bombers.  

The B-18 then passed through several civilian hands after the RFC sold it for $3,000, and it became a workhorse for various owners throughout the 1940s, serving as a cargo aircraft, aerial photography platform, agricultural sprayer and forest firefighter. A veterinarian who owned it may have used the airplane to transport animals. The original Wright 1820-53 engines were replaced several times with the same or similar models. The 1950s again saw the airplane change hands repeatedly and it flew as a cargo hauler, magnetic field mapper and sprayer in Oregon, Alaska, Florida and Cuba. 

This particular B-18 is perhaps best known for its (brief) role in Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution in Cuba. In 1958, the U.S. Border Patrol impounded the aircraft in Florida after its then-owner flew it to an abandoned airfield near Fort Lauderdale and loaded it with guns, ammunition and other equipment in packages marked “Fidel.” The border patrol turned the airplane over to U.S. Customs, which eventually returned it to the U.S. Air Force at its request and from 1961 to 1974 it was on display at the Air Force’s museum. After that it received some limited restoration at New Mexico’s Cannon Air Force Base in the late 1970s, and finally made its way to the Lowry Heritage Museum in Colorado in 1988. The aircraft arrived on flatbed trucks in several pieces. Their reassembly officially kicked off the current restoration. 

The venerable airplane required extensive cleaning, since innumerable birds had made it their home over the years. Work continued as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, Lowry Air Force Base shut down and the Lowry Heritage Museum became Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Progress was slow, mostly due to limited funds and other competing restoration efforts. 

The original nose had long since been re- placed with an enclosed fiberglass one, but the restorers wanted to return the aircraft to a configuration that was correct for the 1930s and 1940s. Helpful individuals at McDonnell Douglas provided plans and specifications and the Raytheon corporation offered assistance to create a new nose from scratch. Local expertise in sheet metal working and aircraft fabrication were also critical to the restoration effort. Key restoration team members included Helen “Jaymes” Bond, Tom Thayer, Bob Kohler, Steve Groth, David Tomecek and Mike Smaling, but many more individuals were involved in the project over the years.

The aircraft arrived with a dark green paint scheme, but by the late 1990s and early 2000s it was painted light green with a blue/gray patch on the belly (to mimic wartime camouflage coloring). This paint, and other layers below it, was eventually stripped away to reveal the underlying aluminum skin and rivets, much as the airplane would have appeared when it first rolled off the factory floor.

To give a sense of just how labor intensive the restoration has been, each individual bolt on the wings was removed and cleaned before being put back into place. The engine cowlings that the aircraft arrived with were not original, having been fabricated at Cannon AFB, and have since been removed. Last year the restorers replaced one of the cowlings, using 3D printing to replace the forward three inches with plastic. “We’ve accomplished what we can without correcting some major external items,” says museum curator Chuck Stout. Items that were replaced over the years included the rear cargo door, bomb bay and lower turret.

The B-18, which is officially on loan from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (which has its own B-18 on display), now provides a centerpiece for the museum’s collections. Visitors to the museum will find it impossible not to notice, and be a bit awed by, the B-18 and its shiny aluminum skin. “Our [B-18] has seen a lot in its lifetime,” says Tomecek. “The restoration is a testament to the dedication of Wings Over the Rockies and the Restorations team to a combination of this specific aircraft, the local area and the more unique aspects of its 80-year history.”

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

See more stories

Subscribe now

 

The two frogmen slipped into the dark cold waters of the English Channel and started swimming towards the shore. The sea was lumpy and the pair could feel the current pulling them further east than they wished. The rain was torrential and all they could see was the lighthouse beam as they swam hard for land. They came ashore opposite the village of La Rivière, staggering up the beach at a crouch, relieved that they were screened from the lighthouse’s beam by buildings and trees.

For a few moments Maj. Logan Scott-Bowden and Sgt. Bruce Ogden-Smith recovered their breath in the lee of some groynes. From the buildings above them they could hear revelry. It was the last day of 1943 and the Germans were seeing in the New Year with plenty of beer and song. 

The two Englishmen set off down the beach, heading west for nearly a mile towards the original landing spot. The intelligence briefing had stated the beach was not mined. On this stretch of the Normandy coast the strong tides and shifting sand meant they would not stay in position. The rain was now nearly horizontal, a filthy night but a perfect one for their task.

Checking his map, Scott-Bowden announced that they had reached their place of work. They were to take samples of sand from the beach in an area designated in the shape of the letter ‘W’. The sand was collected by an auger, which, when inserted into the sand and given one half turn, dredged up a core sample. These were collected in twenty 10-inch tubes held in a bandolier worn by one of the men.

Ogden-Smith and Scott-Bowden worked swiftly, moving up and down the beach, taking samples but glancing now and again east to check that no Germans were clearing their groggy heads with a stroll down the beach. With their samples stashed in the bandolier, the pair left the beach and began wading through the breakers. But the wind had picked up and they were flung back into the sea. They tried again but without success. Apprehension began to rise. If they were caught on the beach with their bandolier the game would be up?

A Secretive Special Forces Unit

This was one of the most crucial moments of the war.  Ogden-Smith and Scott-Bowden ran up the beach. With the lighthouse beam to help them, they worked out the wave pattern. On the third attempt they made it through the surf and swam furiously towards the recovery boat. Suddenly Scott-Bowden heard a cry through the wind. Turning, he saw Ogden-Smith waving an arm. “I swam back somewhat alarmed, thinking he had either got cramp or his suit had sprung a leak,” recalled Scott-Bowden. “When I got close, he shouted ‘Happy New Year!’”

Bruce Ogden-Smith and Logan Scott-Bowden belonged to one of the most secretive special forces units in the British army. To those who served it was known by its acronym, COPP, short for Combined Operations Pilotage Parties. 

COPP was the brainchild of Lieutenant-Commander Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott, who had joined the Royal Navy between the wars, partly inspired by tales he’d heard as a young boy from his uncle Henry. He’d served in the First World War and had taken part in the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of 1915, when the Allies had attempted to knock Turkey out of the war by landing on the Gallipoli peninsula. It had been a bloody failure. Thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand troops were slaughtered attempting to establish a beachhead on clifftop ridges well-fortified by Turkish soldiers. Had the British planners been better briefed about the peninsula they might not have risked such an audacious amphibious assault. To Willmott’s dismay, the British military appeared not to have learned their lesson when the Second World War started. The Norwegian campaign in 1940, in which Willmott participated, was hampered by the Royal Navy’s ignorance of the fjords as they attempted to land British troops. 

Beach Surveillance

In early 1941 Willmott was appointed navigation officer for a planned invasion of Rhodes, a strategically important island in the Mediterranean Sea. There was scant intelligence on the approach to the beaches or shoreline itself. Might there be sandbars or rocks just under the water? Were the beaches mined? Were they suitable for vehicles? Were there accessible exit points so soldiers could quickly move inland? Answers to these questions had to be found. 

Willmott requested permission from Rear Adm. Harold Tom Baillie-Grohman, in charge of overall responsibility for planning the assault, to carry out a reconnaissance from a dinghy. It was a time in the war when the British, fighting a lone battle against the Axis forces, were at their most inventive out of necessity.

Small raiding units, dubbed ‘private armies’ were being formed with the encouragement of Prime Minister Winston Churchill: the commandos, the Long Range Desert Group and the Special Boat Section [SBS], the latter commanded by Maj. Roger Courtney, an adventurer before the war who had canoed the length of the White Nile in Africa. Courtney was only too happy to paddle Willmott ashore. Their reconnaissance proved invaluable, revealing perilous aspects of the shoreline that would have hampered any amphibious assault. 

Private Armies?

Not all British senior officers approved of ‘private armies.’ Some regarded these units as unbecoming of the British military and it was another 18 months before Willmott was authorized to raise a naval reconnaissance force. It took the shambles of the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 to convince the British that better reconnaissance was imperative for future operations. Intelligence about the Dieppe coastline had been so poor that the British planners were reduced to studying prewar postcards of the coastline for clues about its topography. Three thousand Canadians and British commandos were killed or captured because of this ignorance, plus three killed in action, five wounded and three POWs of the 50 U.S. Army Rangers that took part while assigned to a commando unit.

Willmott’s unit gathered intelligence for Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of Vichy-controlled French North Africa in November 1942. As a consequence, the following month the force was expanded and officially designated COPP. 

Scott-Bowden was recruited to COPP as Willmott’s second-in-command in May 1943, a few months before Sub-Lt. Jim Booth. Scott-Bowden was a soldier but Booth volunteered from the Royal Navy, where he’d tired of life as a junior officer mine-sweeping in the North Sea. “I’d heard nothing of COPP prior to my arrival,” recalled Booth in a 2017 interview with the author. “But it was soon apparent that I was among a different breed. They were mad, really, but in a nice way. I think for most of us the motivation for volunteering was to do something different.”

New recruits to COPP underwent training at Hayling Island, off the south coast of England near Portsmouth. Willmot was ruthless in weeding out those men he judged to be deficient physically or mentally for his unit. “He was very nice but bloody tough,” said Booth. “During the autumn and winter of 1943, he led us in training every day. He was methodical in our navigational training because he knew the problems caused by poor navigation.” While Booth completed his training, Willmot and Scott-Bowden were told to report to Combined Operations HQ in London in December 1943. 

Invading France

The planning for the invasion of France was underway. A 50-mile stretch of Normandy coast had been identified as a potential beachhead. But there were concerns. “Scientists had anxieties about the beach bearing-capacity of the Plateau de Calvados beaches for the passage of heavy-wheeled vehicles and guns, particularly in the British and Canadian sectors,” said Scott-Bowden. In ancient times there been peat marshes close to the sea. These had been covered with sand over the centuries, but the Allies feared that peat was often accompanied by clay, which could be catastrophic for a large invasion force. 

The Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington wanted a conclusive estimate of how much beach trackway would be required for the invasion force. Ogden-Smith and Scott-Bowden undertook a trial run on Dec. 22, 1943 on a beach in Norfolk, eastern England. It was an opportunity to gain valuable practical experience of using the auger to collect samples. It was also a chance for COPP to prove to sceptical Allied planners that they could do their work undetected by sentries. Having proved their point, the pair sailed to Normandy on New Year’s Eve and the real thing was as fruitful as the dress rehearsal.

“[Lt.] General [Omar N.] Bradley commander in chief of all the American [D-Day assault] forces… having heard that we had examined the British beach [Gold] wanted Omaha Beach—as it came to be known—to be examined too,” remembered Scott-Bowden.

Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach was five miles west of ‘Gold’ beach. Bradley and his planners already knew it posed a formidable challenge to a putative invasion force. The beach was exposed, rising gently to a low sea wall, beyond which was a no-man’s land of marshy grassland. It was overlooked by bluffs, steep in places, which were cut by five valleys, the only exit points for vehicles and all heavily guarded by German concrete bunkers. COPP was instructed to bring back as much intelligence as they could about ‘Omaha’ beach in an operation codenamed Postage Able. Ogden-Smith and Scott-Bowden were again part of the team, accompanied by Willmot. 

However, there was a significant difference to this mission compared to the one undertaken on New Year’s Eve. This time the audacious men would be traveling in an X-craft—a midget submarine that COPP had been conducting training on for several weeks in Loch Striven, a sea loch off the west coast of Scotland.

The X-class, or X-craft submarines were powered by 4-cylinder 42 hp diesel engines of the type used in London double-decker buses, and a 30 hp electric motor. Its maximum surface speed was 6.5 knots (a knot less when submerged). The midget submarines were usually crewed by three: the commander, pilot and engineer. Some also carried a specialist diver/frogman as a fourth member of the crew. “The X-craft were 52 feet long and 5 feet in diameter,” Jim Booth recalled, adding that they could remain at sea for to 10 days. The worst aspect of the midget submarines, certainly for the six-foot Booth, was their size. “The facilities were very cramped,” he remembered. “You had a bunk, cooking facilities, a gluepot for a hot meal, and you could just about stand.”

COPP had two midget submarines—X-20 and X-23—and it was the former that sailed from Portsmouth for Omaha beach on Jan. 17, 1944 under the command of Lt. Ken Hudspeth. It was a joint effort, his pilotage skills and the navigation of Willmot. “To reach the destination precisely, at [low] speed and in the strong cross-rides of Baie de Seine, was a measure of Willmott’s remarkable navigational skill,” commented Hudspeth.

At 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 18, the midget submarine was about 380 yards from the beach. It was nearly high tide. The vessel beached at periscope depth in 8 feet of water on the left-hand sector of ‘Omaha’ beach. Willmott took a couple of bearings to be sure of their position, then turned over the periscope to Scott-Bowden. “I took a quick general view and was astonished to see hundreds of [German] soldiers at work, and how hard they were working,” he recalled. “From our low-level view and pointing slightly up due to the slope of the beach, it was often possible to see under the camouflage netting and so verify the types of [gun] emplacement being constructed.”

Inside the Submersible

That night, Scott-Bowden and Ogden-Smith swam ashore to get a closer look. “We examined the beach with our augers over a wide area as planned,” said Scott-Bowden. The pair had special instructions to investigate the shingle bank at the back of the beach to determine if it might impede the progress of armoured vehicles. “It appeared to have been man-made and was above normal high water,” noted Scott-Bowden. “There were masses of wire immediately behind and a probable minefield. We each took one stone.” The next night the pair carried out another beach reconnaissance.

During daylight on Jan. 20 the midget submarine moved along the coast, observing different areas of the beach through the periscope. Then in the late afternoon they sailed for England. It was another two hours before Hudspeth felt it safe to surface, to the relief of the five men on board (the fifth was the engineer officer). Willmott recorded in his journal that the air was “very bad (none fresh for 11 hours) and everyone showed signs of distress.”

They reached Portsmouth at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 21—after no less than five days inside X-20. Several high-ranking officers were on the quayside to greet them but when the rear hatch was opened “the reception committee took a large step back.” Scott-Bowden didn’t blame them. The stench had been unbearable. A midget submarine was no place for a soldier.

The midget submarine had gathered vital intelligence on what became known as Omaha Beach for the planning for D-Day. Its role in assisting with the invasion of Normandy was not over. A new destination for X-20 was Juno Beach, the middle of the three Anglo-Canadian landing sectors with Gold to the west and Sword to the east. Arriving off the coast on June 4, the submarine acted as a beach marker for the main amphibious assault as they approached on the morning of D-Day.

COPP’s other midget submarine, X-23, was tasked with performing a similar task at Sword beach, the eastern extremity of the invasion task force. The crews of both vessels had been ordered to Portsmouth with their craft at the end of May. “We booked into the wardroom and so we knew it [the invasion] was imminent,” said Jim Booth. “Everything had been done in the greatest secrecy, however, and while we had done a lot of training, we had no clue to the date of the invasion or the location.”

On the morning of June 2, the skipper of X-20, Lt. George Honour, assembled his crew, which comprised Booth, Lt. Geoff Lyne (chief navigator), George Vause (engineer), and First Lt. Jimmy Hodges (diver). The invasion was on, he told them. They would depart in the evening. Their operational orders were to sail the 90 miles to Normandy and then lie on the bottom of the Channel a mile off Sword beach until the early hours of D-Day on June 5. Then they would surface, erect their masts with their lights shining seaward, activate their radio beacons and guide in the invasion fleet. 

Switching on the Beacons

Booth’s job was to climb into a dinghy and erect the masts and switch on the beacons. The operation was codenamed “Gambit,” a word Honour explained to his men was a chess move in which a piece is risked so as to gain advantage later. The men laughed sardonically.

The rest of the day was one of frenetic activity as they loaded the midget submarine with equipment: 2 small CQR anchors, three flashing lamps with batteries, several taut-string measuring reels, two small portable radar beacons, an eighteen-feet-long sounding pole and two telescopic masts of similar length. Twelve additional bottles of oxygen were hauled down the access hatch, to complement the vessel’s built-in cylinders, and three RAF rubber dinghies were also brought on board.

A handful of submachine guns and revolvers (and false identification papers) were stashed inside the sub in the event they were forced to abandon the vessel and make for Nazi-occupied France. At 9:40 p.m., X-20 and X-23 sailed out of Portsmouth and rendezvoused with two naval trawlers that towed them part way across the Channel. 

The submarines slipped their tows at 4:35 a.m. June 3 and headed independently towards their respective beaches. X-23’s orders was to position itself at the point where the amphibious Duplex Drive Sherman [DD-swimming] tanks were to be launched onto Sword Beach. The pressure on the shoulders of Lt. Lynne, the navigator of X-23, was therefore immense: a slight error in position could have appalling ramifications.

The chief pre-occupation of X-23’s skipper, George Honour, was their oxygen supply; to conserve it as best he could he carried out a procedure every five hours of what submariners call “guffing through”—coming to periscope depth and raising the induction mast, then running the engine for a few minutes to draw a fresh supply of air through the boat. This brought obvious risks, particularly as they would lying just off the enemy coastline. 

At 8:30 a.m. June 4 Honour wrote in his log: “Periscope depth, ran to the East. Churches identified and fix obtained.” They had arrived at their position off Sword beach. The churches they could see were those at Ouistreham. Booth peered through the periscope. On the beach was a group Germans playing football. “Poor buggers don’t know what’s going to hit them,” he muttered.

Enough Oxygen?

In less than 24 hours the invasion would be underway—or so they thought. But when they surfaced at 1:00 a.m. Monday June 5 and hoisted their radio mast, they received bad news. “The postponement was sent out in a broadcast,” remembered Booth. “There were several messages and the phrase to let us know invasion was off was ‘Trouble in Scarborough’. [Scarborough is a coastal town in eastern England]. That caused a bit of tension because we didn’t know the length of the postponement and we weren’t sure we would have enough oxygen.” X-23 remained on the surface until 3:00 a.m. June 5. The men enjoyed the stiff wind on their faces and the fresh air in their lungs. 

Reluctantly they climbed back inside their 52-foot submarine, closed the hatch and bottomed. Honour said the lack of oxygen inside the midget submarine left him feeling like he’d drunk “a couple of stiff gins.” He added: “It was murky, damp and otherwise very horrible.” X-23 surfaced at 11:15 p.m. on Monday, June 5. They began their wireless watch. The weather was still foul.

The crew believed the invasion would again be postponed, but the message they received confirmed it was on. They dived once more, then surfaced at 4:45 a.m. on Tuesday June 6. The sea was too rough for Booth to launch his rubber dinghy so instead he rigged up the lights above the submarine. The lights flashed the letter D for Dog for 10 seconds every 40 seconds from 140 minutes before H-hour—the start time of the assault.

“We had a few problems with the boat because it was rocking and rolling,” recalled Booth. “We secured the main one, a green light, and also some red and white lights, and then because it was so cold and miserable out on deck we went down below and put the [tea] kettle on.” The radio beacon had also been activated. There was nothing else to do but have a cup of tea and wait. The tension was as unbearable as the foul air they breathed. Aircraft began bombing the German coastal positions. Soon the guns of the naval armada joined the bombardment. 

Invasion Day

Booth and his comrades went back on deck just as dawn broke on June 6. For several minutes they peered south through the murk, straining to see the armada they knew was coming their way.

“Suddenly we saw them,” recalled Booth. “It was a case of ‘bloody hell, look at that lot’! It was literally ships as far as the eye could see. A very spectacular sight.”

As the invasion fleet loomed into view another danger confronted X-23—being sunk or shelled by one of their own vessels. The commanding officer of the destroyer, HMS Middleton, Lt. Ian Douglas Cox, was standing on his ship’s brige when “a small submarine suddenly loomed out of the faint mist.” He and his lookout assumed it was an enemy vessel. Middleton gave orders for ‘full ahead.” “As we gathered speed to ram her, a figure stood up on the conning tower waving a large White Ensign,” he recalled. “We laughed nervously and sheared away.”

X-23 avoided any further unpleasant encounters and made its way to HMS Largs, the headquarters ship, where it rendezvoused with a naval trawler. A relief crew exchanged places with Booth and his comrades, who gratefully boarded the trawler. The operation had lasted 72 hours—of which 64 had been spent underwater. The men craved fresh air as much as they did sleep. Operation Gambit had indeed been a risk, but above all it had been a success.

The COPP force and the midget “X-craft” submarines were vital to the success of the D-Day landings, anddeserve more credit than has yet been given to them. Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of German-occupied France on the Normandy coast, was the single most complicated human endeavor undertaken before the “computer age,” and its success is due to the incrediblecoordination of all branches of service of the Allied powers.

Popular history and films tend to focus on the June 5–6, 1944 airborne operations and the deadly ordeal the infantry assault troops suffered and endured at bloody Omaha Beach, but the ultimate goal of the operation—establishing a secure Allied foothold on the European continent in the face of fierce German resistance, was only achieved by the total commitment and supreme effort of every single member of all Allied forces taking part—on land, sea and in the air. This article recounts only one of those efforts.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

(Watch an interview with author John C. McManus here.)

Major General Albert Wedemeyer was a difficult man to surprise, but he knew that war often confounded the predictable. Born to German American parents in Nebraska, fluent in the tongue of his ancestors, and one of the U.S. Army’s few graduates of the Kriegsakademie, Germany’s war college, he did not expect to succeed General Joseph Stilwell in China. The news of this had come to Wedemeyer in the form of an urgent message from Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall on the evening of October 27, 1944, just as Wedemeyer drifted off to sleep in his bunk at Kandy on the island of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). At the time, Wedemeyer served as deputy chief of staff to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British commander of South East Asia Command, the polyglot theater that included Burma and India. 

Tall, stately, impeccably groomed and neatly coiffed, Wedemeyer’s pleasing physical appearance accurately suggested a man more at ease in a boardroom than a foxhole. A 1919 West Point graduate with two and a half decades of loyal service, he had no combat experience, little command time, and almost nothing in common with the average soldier. Clever, diplomatic, and adept at under-the-radar self-promotion, Wedemeyer counted himself among George Marshall’s many protégés. He also found an influential sponsor in Lieutenant General Stanley Embick, whose daughter Elizabeth he had married in 1925. Wedemeyer clearly lacked the inspirational characteristics of a frontline commander.

Much more a manager than a leader, Wedemeyer’s understanding of modern combat tended more toward the intellectual than the experiential. But he possessed an incisive strategic mind, one that marked him as an insightful military thinker who was blessed with a strong understanding of geopolitics. On the eve of the war, when Wedemeyer was only an overaged major in the War Plans Division at the Pentagon, an organization his father-in-law had recently commanded, Marshall had chosen him to work on a team to produce a comprehensive plan for mobilization and victory when the United States entered the conflict. Wedemeyer’s significant contributions to this so called “Victory Plan” had circuited his career in a relentlessly upward direction, with a rapid two-year rise from major to major general, and led historical posterity, with his gentle prodding, to afford him a bit too much credit for the plan’s success. For the first two years of the war, Wedemeyer had remained part of the War Plans Division, functioning as a roving planner and consummate military insider, and an intimate participant in high-level conferences from London to Casablanca and Washington, D.C., helping to craft Allied grand strategy. He emerged as one of the army’s leading experts on German military capabilities, a skill set that he expected—incorrectly, as things turned out—would lead him to spend the war in Europe. He argued passionately for a cross-channel invasion of France in 1942 and 1943, butting heads with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who advocated successfully for Mediterranean operations. Wedemeyer’s strategic views were so adamantly opposed to those of Churchill that it was said in high command circles—and Wedemeyer came to believe—the prime minister himself orchestrated his assignment to Mountbatten’s headquarters in October 1943 just to prevent him from having any influence on European grand strategy.

If Wedemeyer was something of a map board and typewriter officer, his appointment to China did make some sense in a theater bereft of U.S. ground combat units and where the American military presence never rose above 60,000 soldiers, over half of whom belonged to the Army Air Forces. The situation called for a strategy-savvy military diplomat, not necessarily a warrior. As Wedemeyer served Mountbatten ably for a year, he had observed China’s many problems and Stilwell’s demise, albeit from a distance. Wedemeyer respected Stilwell’s extensive experience on the ground in China and his obvious expertise about the country and its people. But he could not fathom Stilwell’s inability to get along with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek when the success of his mission, and American strategic aims, so conspicuously depended upon it. Honest and upright, yet prone to small-minded pettiness, Stilwell loved China and its people, but he had grown to detest, in equal measure, Chiang as little more than a third-rate despot and his government as a corrupt, repressive oligarchy with little inclination to fight the Japanese, at least in a manner he thought appropriate. Stilwell’s unvarnished contempt for Chiang finally, in October 1944, exhausted Stilwell’s welcome in China when the Chinese leader demanded his relief after an especially stormy meeting.

These elemental ideas belied the complex realities that actually confronted Wedemeyer when he arrived in China at the end of October. After eight terrible years of war, and the loss of millions of lives, three main power brokers besides the Japanese continued to vie for dominance over a country in which one out of every five people had, at some point, become a refugee. In Japanese-occupied China, the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China under Ching-wei Wang, an ardent follower of the great Chinese nationalist Dr. Sun Yat-sen, saw itself as the best hope to salvage an autonomous China from the ashes of Japanese continental dominance. The Americans and their Chinese allies dismissed this regime as little more than a Japanese puppet (similar to the Allied view of Vichy France). In Yan’an province and nearby portions of northern China, Mao Zedong’s communist shadow government continued to grow in power and influence. Mao now controlled an army of 900,000 soldiers augmented by a similar number of militia and guerrilla fighters. Communist propaganda perpetuated the notion that Mao’s troops were fighting stubbornly and effectively against the Japanese. In reality, they were doing little besides observing mutual back-scratching truces with the Japanese, though communist military formations, by their very existence, did function as an impediment to Japanese influence and expansion in northern China. Instead of fighting, Mao focused on enhancing the political position of his movement and preserving his military strength to fight Chiang and the Nationalists. Both leaders saw the other as the main adversary, far more dangerous than the Japanese and Wang’s so-called puppets; both knew they must one day either destroy or neutralize the other in order to establish real control over China.

Chiang once opined that the Japanese were like a skin disease, the communists like heart disease. Colloquially known as the “Generalissimo” in acknowledgment of his days as the army’s commander in chief, he remained the face of legitimate public government in China, a flawed but respectable, patriotic figure who had managed to preserve the notion of an independent, modern China through nearly a decade of war. He nominally controlled southern and western China. But his armies were hollow, his government was still plagued by corruption and sapped by the disloyalty of all too many local officials who pursued their own personal agendas, often to the point of defying Chiang’s orders or observing backhanded cease-fire arrangements with the Japanese. The hated foreigners remained in control of Manchuria, the entire coastline, major cities such as Canton and Shanghai, and much of the Chinese heartland. Their ongoing Ichi-go offensive, a massive effort that the Japanese had launched in April 1944, now menaced the eastern frontiers of Nationalist-controlled China, placing the key transit point town of Kweilin in danger as well as perhaps even the Generalissimo’s capital city of Chungking 480 miles to the northwest and the Chinese city of Kunming, a vital supply hub and the location of air bases for American Major General Claire Chennault’s Fourteenth Air Force. Newly established B-29 bases at Chengtu, located some 240 miles northwest of Chungking, were probably well beyond the reach of the invaders, but these fields would inevitably become compromised logistically if the Japanese succeeded in taking any of the other objectives.

Wedemeyer received a multipoint directive from the Joint Chiefs stipulating that his “primary mission with respect to Chinese Forces is to advise and assist the Generalissimo in the conduct of military operations against the Japanese.” He would command all American military forces in the country and serve as Chiang’s chief of staff, as Stilwell had done before him. No doubt with an eye on the looming death struggle for power between Chiang and Mao, the chiefs cautioned Wedemeyer not to let his troops become embroiled in Chinese domestic strife “except insofar as necessary to protect United States lives and property.”

Wedemeyer believed that the key to accomplishing his mission hinged on establishing a good relationship with Chiang. Though Wedemeyer lacked Stilwell’s Chinese linguistic skills, he understood many nuances of Chinese culture, especially the notion of saving face. He had served in China with the 15th Infantry Regiment in the early 1930s and of course learned much during his year on Mountbatten’s staff. He had already met Chiang on several occasions, so he simply built upon the existing relationship. Constitutionally even tempered, the tactful Wedemeyer spoke nary a sharp word to the Generalissimo. He unfailingly treated Chiang with courtesy and respect and the Chinese leader responded in kind. The two men got on well. They met nearly every day, often to discuss the long, thoughtful daily memos that Wedemeyer composed for Chiang.

Wedemeyer sympathetically recognized that Chiang was surrounded by a poisonous coterie of scheming family members, political advisers, and generals who usurped his power and often served as a negative influence. In viewing Chiang as an unrepentant advocate of freedom, though, the American seemed not to grasp the repressive nature of the Nationalist government, at least in the eyes of many Chinese who resented the regime’s confiscatory taxation, its heavy-handed conscription, its wasteful neglect of public health, its inflationary currency, and the tyrannical police state run by the odious but fanatically loyal Lieutenant General Dai Li, Chiang’s right-hand man and intelligence chief. Or perhaps Wedemeyer understood all this well, but diplomatically decided that he must overlook the regime’s flaws in pursuit of a greater good.

Without question the new commander’s genial relationship with Chiang defused some of the tension that had accumulated, like clogged arteries, during the Stilwell years. But Wedemeyer, with his bird’s-eye approach to military life, tended erroneously to equate this with success. “[He] is the kind of man who sees only the great picture, strategy on a global scale,” one of his public affairs officers analyzed confidentially, “but he seems utterly incapable of adjusting his grandiose ideas to practicable conditions and facts. This situation is probably the result of being a ‘book soldier’ with little practical experience.” As General Wedemeyer soon discovered, a nicer work environment could not paper over ugly ground-level realities. An in-depth assessment he sent to General Marshall nearly mirrored many of Stilwell’s reports. “They are not organized, equipped, and trained for modern war,” Wedemeyer wrote of the Nationalist government. “Psychologically they are not prepared to cope with the situation because of political intrigue, false pride, and mistrust of leaders’ honesty and motives. Frankly, I think that the Chinese officials surrounding the Generalissimo are actually afraid to report accurately conditions for two reasons, their stupidity and inefficiency are revealed, and further the Generalissimo might order them to take positive action and they are incompetent to issue directives, make plans, and fail completely in obtaining execution by field commanders.”

Chiang’s underfed, overmatched armies reeled under the weight of a new phase of the Ichi-go offensive, launched by the Japanese in response to China-based raids by American B-29 Superfortresses against southern Japan. The Japanese took Kweilin on November 10, 1944. “The Chinese are not fighting,” a dejected Wedemeyer confided to Major General J. Edwin Hull in one gloomy missive. “It is indeed disconcerting to take over under [these]…depressing circumstances.” For several weeks thereafter, it seemed that the enemy might actually capture Kunming and Chungking, a nightmare scenario that would have compromised the American position in China and might well have destroyed the Nationalist government. “It was highly discouraging when even the highly touted divisions which at great effort we have moved by air or motor transport to the Kweilin-Liuchow area also fell back,” Wedemeyer later wrote.

He found himself in crisis mode, wondering if the military situation was so dire that the Allies might have to choose between hanging on to the cities of Chungking or Kunming. To Army Air Forces Major General Larry Kuter, an old friend, he confided his deep concerns in colorful terms. “I feel that the War Department has made me Captain of a Chinese junk whose hull is full of holes, in stormy weather, and on an uncharted course. If I leave the navigator’s room to caulk up the holes, the junk will end up on the reef and if I remain in the navigator’s seat, the junk will sink.” With admirable resolve, Chiang vowed to stay in Chungking and, if necessary, die there. Wedemeyer made it clear to the Generalissimo that he had no such intentions. Secretly, he and his staff prepared evacuation plans to Chengtu and Kunming, the latter of which he viewed as an irreplaceable supply node whose military value far exceeded the threadbare Nationalist capital.

In 1943 Chiang had agreed to send his best troops to fight with Stilwell in northern Burma as part of the American general’s attempt to open a supply line from India, through northern Burma, and into China. During the spring and early summer of 1944, at the dawn of Ichi-go, Chiang understandably chafed at having those troops in Burma while the Japanese threatened to overrun his country. Once again in the late fall he pushed for their return to defend Chinese soil. A supplicating Wedemeyer managed to persuade his old boss Mountbatten to agree to airlift two divisions, the 14th and the 22nd, back to China throughout December. American transport planes managed to move 25,105 soldiers and 1,596 horses and mules, plus weapons and equipment, into western China. Fortunately, the crisis passed, more due to Japanese limitations than the intervention of these divisions. Had the Allies understood more about enemy intentions, they might not have even gone to the trouble of airlifting these troops home. As always seemed to be the case in China, the Japanese could take territory, inflict tactical defeats on Nationalist forces, and unleash untold horrors upon the population. But they seldom possessed the manpower and logistical heft to establish real control over large swaths of territory, especially the farther inland they advanced from their coastal bases. They had no intention, nor really the capability, of pushing for Kunming and Chungking, both of which remained firmly under Allied control.

Promoted to lieutenant general on January 1, 1945, Wedemeyer focused on reforming the Chinese Army, just as Stilwell had before him. “Sometimes I feel like I am living in a world of fantasy, a never never land, but we are going to continue our efforts…despite discouraging experiences along the way,” Wedemeyer confided in a private letter to Hull. For all of Wedemeyer’s famous tact, he laid out the army’s many deficiencies for Chiang in frank terms, especially in relation to the paucity of food for the soldiers and the tyrannical nature of the draft system in which men were forcibly taken into custody, sometimes bound and tied like prisoners. “Conscription comes to the Chinese peasant like famine or flood, only more regularly—every year twice—and claims its victims,” he wrote to Chiang in a detailed memo urging immediate reform. “Famine, flood and drought compare with conscription like chicken-pox with plague.” While poor and illiterate people were brutally forced into service, the educated and the wealthy could evade the draft by hiring a substitute or paying an official. “One can readily see that it was the poor, weak, and those with insufficient money who were forced to defend their more fortunate countrymen against the Japanese invader,” one of Wedemeyer’s staff reports bemoaned.

To improve the treatment, care, training, and effectiveness of the average soldier, and thus the army as a whole, Wedemeyer urged sweeping reforms and reorganization. He proposed the creation of a new fighting force, known as Alpha, comprising between 36 and 39 divisions of 10,000 soldiers apiece, plus supporting troops. They were to be entirely trained, equipped, armed, and advised by the Americans. The plan bore an almost uncanny resemblance to one that Stilwell had proposed, in vain, to the Generalissimo a year and a half earlier. The only major difference was that Stilwell envisioned a 60-division force. Thanks to the Ichi-go scare, and perhaps owing to Wedemeyer’s more nimble diplomacy, Chiang agreed this time. The core of Wedemeyer’s strategy centered around launching an offensive with the Alpha Force in the latter half of 1945 designed to advance to the coast to reclaim the port cities of Hong Kong and Canton. This would achieve the dual objective of opening up another supply route for China and providing staging bases for the invasion of Japan. He spent most of his 1945 time and energy preparing to fulfill this objective.

Chiang’s newfound tractability might well have owed just as much to his looming showdown with the communists as to any other factor. The Generalissimo continued to walk a perilous tightrope. The difficulties of holding together his own government, dependent as it partially was on alliances with corrupt, exploitive local leaders, while also pursuing reforms that inevitably diminished their power, would have challenged the acumen of even the most skilled political practitioner. Nor could Chiang afford to alienate the Americans on whom he depended for crucial Lend-Lease economic and military aid, not to mention the international prestige he received from their political support. For nearly four years, they had helped him stave off the Japanese; in turn he had played a crucial role for the Americans by absorbing, at terrible human cost, substantial Japanese manpower and resources.

As the power of the enemy now receded, and serious conflict with the communists bubbled, Chiang could not afford any deterioration in relations with the Americans, though they continued to prod him to consummate some sort of power sharing agreement with Mao. But Mao had no intention of submitting his troops to Nationalist authority, and Chiang knew that recognizing the political legitimacy of the communists could prove mortal to his own government. Mao and his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) envisioned no real endgame that did not include the triumph of their revolution, inevitably at Chiang’s expense. Chiang well understood, perhaps better than did his allies, that any attempt to share power with such zealots was like trying to divvy up freshly killed meat with a hungry lion—by its nature it tended toward a zero-sum game. Wedemeyer could make all the plans he wanted to hasten the demise of the Japanese in China. But, with each passing day, this mattered less compared to the burgeoning brawl that loomed between the Nationalists and the CCP, a conflict of world historical importance. In truth, neither Wedemeyer nor any other American truly had the power to prevent this civil war, one that ironically grew likelier and nearer as the war’s end finally came into view.  

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

Nazi wives and lovers tended to be mediocre women. They were not especially gifted or brilliant. They were content to be used as tools for their partners’ purposes—and to make the most of their proximity to power. That might surprise you. You might have expected Nazi-advertised attributes like “blonde,” “athletic,” “Nordic,” or “motherhood” to have had something to do with why certain women ended up in relationships with Adolf Hitler and his inner circle.

While it’s true that several top Nazis tended to be partial to blondes, they chose female partners for reasons of exploitation rather than personal admiration. Hitler, for example, scorned marriage and children, instead preying on naive teenage girls he could dominate; one such relationship was with his half-niece Geli Raubal. 

In most cases, the exploitation was mutual. While the Third Reich touted the ideal of “noble” and “simple” housewives, reality shows the women who stood at the prow of the Third Reich were anything but. They were willing to court monstrosity for money and privilege. Some became sadistic: like Brigitte Frank, who wore furs stolen from displaced Jewish women, or Unity Mitford, who toured a Jewish family’s apartment she wanted to confiscate while the owners wept in front of her. 

Nazi propaganda made people forget that attributes like blondeness, athleticism and motherhood are ordinary. In a world where mediocrity became an ideal, women who otherwise stood no chance of success were able to transform themselves into goddesses, thriving in an atmosphere of cruelty, materialism and superficial glamor.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

A night owl’s lament about wanting more sleep became an unexpected hit song in 1918 with lasting popularity. Irving Berlin’s “Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning,” swept across music halls in World War I and was performed all over the U.S. in World War II. 

Perhaps America’s most influential composer, Berlin was born Israel Beilin to a Jewish family in Russia and emigrated to New York City at age 5. He became a singer as a teenager living a hardscrabble existence on the Lower East Side, performing songs and parodies in music halls and nightclubs. Berlin won the hearts of audiences and quickly rose to fame in the city’s “Tin Pan Alley” as a composer and singer. His 1911 hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” sparked a wild craze for what was then seen by older folks as “scandalous” dancing. Berlin was a rising star.

World War I turned Berlin’s world upside down. Drafted into the U.S. Army and packed off to Camp Upton in Yaphank, Long Island in 1918, he was reduced to despair at being dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn. Berlin preferred moonlit streets, crowded clubs and staying up late to write music.

“There were a lot of things about army life I didn’t like, and the thing I didn’t like most of all was reveille. I hated it. I hated it so much I used to lie awake nights thinking about how much I hated it,” he later said. Needing to vent, Berlin expressed himself with a song that was not so much an artistic effort as an ode to drowsy grumpiness. It incorporated reveille into its refrain.

Oh! How I hate to get up in the morning, Oh! How I’d love to remain in bed; For the hardest blow of all, is to hear the bugler call: Youv’e got to get up, You’ve got to get up, You’ve got to get up this morning! 

Someday I’m going to murder the bugler, Someday they’re going to find him dead; I’ll amputate his reveille and step upon it heavily, And spend the rest of my life in bed. 

The song spread like wildfire. It appeared in a 1932 Betty Boop cartoon as well as Berlin’s popular 1942 Broadway show, “This is the Army.” Although Berlin wrote many other hit songs, including “God Bless America,” and received a Congressional Gold Medal for his achievements, his anti-morning ballad is among his most famous.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

As U.S. Army private Tony Vaccaro’s boat sailed for Normandy on D-Day+12 in June 1944, he kept his M-1 rifle at the ready but had a very different tool hidden beneath his coat—his Argus C3 35mm camera. Defying army regulations that forbid combat photography except by Signal Corps personnel, Vaccaro used his camera to take surreptitious pictures of Allied forces in the English Channel. Those were the first of more than 8,000 images he snapped during his 272 days with the 83rd Infantry Division as it battled through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. Vaccaro and his camera became unique witnesses to World War II, capturing intimate moments—sometimes celebratory, other times brutal and raw—that bypassed the military censors and recorded the U.S. Army’s fight east across Europe.

Vaccaro, an Italian American who was raised in Italy but relocated to the U.S. at the outbreak of World War II, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 at age 21. He tried convincing the army to let him join the Signal Corps so he could pursue his passion for photography, but Uncle Sam rejected his request on account of his youth and lack of photography experience. He ended up in the infantry instead. Camera always at the ready, he took it upon himself to chronicle the daily struggles of the soldiers in his unit with an honesty and immediacy that often eluded those in the Signal Corps, whose heavy cameras limited their mobility. Eventually, the army loosened its regulations and allowed Vaccaro to take photographs openly, but made it clear he was a soldier first and a photographer second.

Vaccaro’s images range from happy scenes in liberated French villages to the harsher truths of war. Once, when shying away from an ugly scene, he reminded himself, “Tony, what kind of witness to this war are you? You go back there and take this picture.” Two of his most famous images chronicle the deaths of two men in his unit, both taken in Belgium on January 11, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, Vaccaro became a renowned fashion and celebrity photographer, but his experiences in Europe remained with him. He remembered, years later, “You are in the grip of these nightmares. The faces of the people you’ve killed. They just don’t leave you alone. I’m not the same man.”

Tony Vaccaro died at his New York home at age 100 in December 2022.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

The heavy fighting at the Siege of Delhi during the 1857 Indian Mutiny left the 462 men of Maj. Charles Reid’s Sirmoor Battalion with 327 casualties. Despite the carnage, during the fighting Reid, desperate for replacements and hoping to salvage some of his wounded and return them to duty, went to the battalion hospital to look for volunteers. Every one of the wounded who could walk volunteered to rejoin the fighting. In the spring, the Sirmoors moved against the mutineers holding Delhi, overrunning a strong enemy position, capturing 13 guns, and taking the Badli-ki-Serai ridge six miles west of the city. On June 8, joined by two companies of the 60th Rifles, they occupied a house on the southern end of the ridge known as the Hindu Rao’s House where they were immediately attacked. 

For the next 16 hours, they fought in the heat and swirling smoke before finally repelling the attackers. They held the ridge and the Hindu Rao’s House for the next three months beating off another 25 attacks. When mutineers came out from behind the stone walls where they had taken cover, the Sirmoor Battalion attacked them. By Sept. 20, it was over. The British had blown open Delhi’s Kashmiri Gate and taken the city. 

The Sirmoor Battalion’s 490 men were Gurkhas. By the time the fighting at Badli-ki-Serai ended they were boasting among themselves that the mutineers were offering 10 rupees for the head of a Gurkha, the same price they were paying for an Englishman’s head. Reid wrote in his diary that British authorities who previously had their doubts about the Gurkhas “are now satisfied.”

The Gurkhas have continued to nobly and bravely serve the British Crown until today. Field Marshal William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim who fought alongside them in Burma during World War II called the Gurkha an “ideal infantryman … brave, tough, patient, adaptable, skilled in field-craft, intensely proud of his military record, and unswerving loyalty.” Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener and the hero of British operations in the Sudan called them “some of our bravest” and in his 1930 Gallipoli Diary 1915, Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton, commander in chief of Britain’s Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in World War I wrote that each Gurkha fighter was “worth his full weight in gold at Gallipoli.” 

The Legendary Kukri Knife

Over the past 200 years an estimated 200,000 Gurkha fighters have served in Britain’s colonial conflicts, in both World Wars, in the Falkland Islands, the Middle East, and Afghanistan with 46,000 of them living up to the Gurkha motto: “Better to die than be a coward.” 

These fighters from the mountains of Nepal average about 5 foot 3 inches tall, diminutive by European and American standards, but for centuries the image of charging Gurkhas, waving their kukri knives, and shouting their battle cry of “Aayo Gurkhali” (“The Gurkhas have arrived!”)have emboldened their allies and terrorized their enemies. The kukri alone is terrifying and well known.

These distinctive knives—the Gurkha emblem is two crossed kukris, with a crown above them—have been employed by the Gurkhas for centuries and may have evolved from the Greek kopis, the single-edged curved swords carried by Alexander the Great’s cavalry when it entered northern India in the fourth century bce. Basically a chopping weapon, the kukri is up to 18 inches long, weighs between one and two pounds, and is curved downward with a roughly quarter-inch spine tapering to a point.

The widest portion of the kukri blade is in the front portion of the blade, between the tip and where the downward curvature begins. This “well-forward” blade weighting adds substantial power to the downward thrusting motion, greatly increasing the blade’s penetration when slicing through a target—such as an unlucky enemy soldier! 

Generally, there is a notch in the blade just below the handle that is there for multiple reasons: symbolic; religious; and practical. For one, that simple notch allows blood to drain away, rather than coat the kukri’s handle making it slippery. Military issue kukris typically come with two much-smaller wooden-handled bladed knives contained in their own separate sheaths integrated into the main sheath: a karda utility knife; and a chakmak sharpening tool. The kukri’s handle is usually made of hardwood, but other substances such as buffalo horn, metal, and even ivory have been used. The Gurkha kukri is sheathed in a leather-wrapped wooden scabbard.

Legend has it that once a kukri has been unsheathed it must “taste blood” before it can again be sheathed. In truth, however, the kukri serves both as a weapon and a general utility knife used by the Gurkhas for cooking and various camp tasks. 

All Gurkha fighters are trained in its use for hand-to-hand combat. Stories have circulated for centuries about the kukri’s fierceness and effectiveness including one from a Gurkha unit fighting in North Africa during World War II that reported enemy losses of 10 killed and “ammunition expenditure nil,” a mute acknowledgement of the kukri’s effectiveness.

During the Falklands War in the 1980s, a photograph of a Gurkha sharpening his kukri circulated and was said to have unsettled Argentinians troops to such an extent that members of the 1st Battalion 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles captured several heavily armed Argentine combatants by doing little more than brandishing their kukris.

Military Tribes

There is “no agreement as to who is and who is not a Gurkha,” Byron Farwell wrote in his 1984 book, The Gurkhas. “There are some who would call all Nepalese ‘Gurkhas’ regardless of their origin, tribe, or social class. Others would limit the term to those who live in the hills around the town of Gurkha, some twenty-five miles northwest of Kathmandu.”

What is accepted is that the Gurkha fighters come from the mountains of Nepal (and parts of northeast India) and generally from four of what Great Britain has traditionally called that country’s “military tribes” that inhabit the region: Magars; Gurungs; and to a lesser extent, Limbus and Rais.

Nepal, today a country of about 30 million people, has been settled for at least 2,500 years. Venetian traveler Marco Polo passed through there in the 13th century calling it “wild and mountainous.” It is also the legendary birthplace of Gautama Buddha, born at Lumbini in what is today southern Nepal. Most of the area’s history is filled with war rather than the Buddha’s peace and serenity. It is a history of battle and betrayal; tribes, individuals, and various sections fought for supremacy. It is a martial history.

When Great Britain’s East India Company, formed in 1600 to “exploit” trade with eastern and southeast eastern Asia and India, moved men and supplies into India and Nepal in the early 19th century, Gurkha tribesman from the north harassed them. These skirmishes led to a May 29, 1814, raid by tribesman on three British police stations that killed twenty people including one Englishman and led to the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-1816. The British retaliated with separate invasions of Nepal in 1814, 1815, and 1816. The tribesman repelled the first two expeditions but were defeated in 1816 at Malaom in northeast India.

An Unlikely Alliance

In the process, however, the British had become impressed with the fighting ability of the Nepalese. John Ship of the 87th Foot, who fought them in the 1814 campaign, wrote about the tribesmen that, “I never saw more steadiness or bravery exhibited in my life. Run they would not, and of death they seemed to have no fear though their comrades were falling thick around them, for we were so near that every shot told.” 

Farwell also tells that during the Anglo-Nepalese War “in the middle of a British bombardment a Gurkha came out of the fort [at Kalunga] and approached the British line waving his hands; the first surrender the British thought. A cease-fire was ordered, and he was welcomed into the lines. His lower jaw was shattered and he was happy to be patched up by the surgeons, but this done, he asked permission to return to the fort and continue the fight”—an attitude more appropriate to a soccer game than a war.

India’s Governor General (1813-1823) Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, authorized the establishment of the first Gurkha regiment, the Sirmoor Battalion, in April 1815 under the command of Lt. Frederick Young of the East India Company, who would command the Sirmoor Battalion for the next 28 years. (It first saw action in 1817 during Britain’s 3rd Mahratta War). After the signing of the Treaty of Segauli in 1816, which formally ended the Anglo-Nepalese War, the East India Company began recruiting other Gurkha regiments to serve as British mercenaries. 

The war left both the English and the Gurkhas with an increased respect or each other. The British erected two obelisks at Kalunga, the location of a hill fort Gurkhas had defended in November 1814. One obelisk commended the bravery of the British who had fought there and the other the courage of the fort’s Gurkha defenders. 

Regardless of the reputation the Gurkha fighters had earned, the English still considered them to be “sepoys”—a slightly disparaging term applied to all the native soldiers the Crown employed, and the respect the Gurkhas had earned was a respect qualified with caution.

The Indian Mutiny changed that. The Mutiny, a generalized rebellion of local Indian troops against British rule broke out in 1857 in northern India, spread like a wildfire, and quickly became centered around the city of Delhi, where what has come to be called the Siege of Delhi began in June 1857. It would last for the next four months. During the fighting, the British still distrusted their Gurkha regiments’ loyalty; British commanders often stationed Gurkha troops close to the British artillery so that artillery could be turned against the Gurkhas at any sign of disloyalty. Such an action was never required. By the end of the of the Mutiny in July 1859, Gurkhas had established their loyalty, and British authority, as Reid wrote, had been “satisfied.” 

“The British began to take a serious and studied view of the Gurkhas [and] to regard them as something more than good ‘native infantry,’ but as something special,” Farwell wrote. “In an era when British regiments of the line were filled with society’s rejects and it was felt that fierce discipline was required to keep the men under control, Gurkhas were enthusiastic soldiers requiring little discipline.” 

In one seven-year period, he wrote, only one Gurkha faced a court martial. “No British battalion could make such a boast, and probably such a record could not be duplicated by any battalion in any European or American army,” he wrote. (Meanwhile, the East India Company had deteriorated and after 1834 was little more than the manager of British government of India. It ceased to exist in 1873).

From World War I to Today

Gurkhas fought in the Britain’s colonial wars including the Sikh Wars of 1845-46 and 1848-49, the three Burma Wars of 1824-26, 1852, and 1885, the Afghan wars of 1839-42, 1878-81, and 1919. They also took part in the expedition led by Maj. Francis Younghusband into Tibet in 1903-04.

In World War I, more than 50,000 Gurkhas fought in Gurkha regiments (as well as 16,544 Gurkhas who served in the regular Indian Army), suffered 20,000 casualties and received 2,000 individual awards for bravery, including two Victoria Crosses. (A third VC was won by a British commander of a Gurkha unit). Nothing in their history, David Bolt wrote in his 1967 book Gurkhas, “prepared [the Gurkha force] for the conditions under which it was called upon to fight in Flanders: the sodden chill of a European winter, with its full-scale artillery barrages and acceptance of mass casualties, and the murderous hazard of occupying trenches dug previously by the much taller British soldiers so they could not see over the parapets.” 

British general Sir James Willcocks, who commanded the Indian Corps in France in 1914, pointed out that the Gurkha regiments also fought without hand grenades or mortars, were “exposed to every form of terror, and they could reply only with their valor and their rifles and the two machine-guns per battalion with which they were armed, and yet they did it.” 

They fought at the Loos, where Gurkhas kept fighting to the last man, at Givenchy, and Neuve-Chapelle in France, at Ypres, as well as in Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, and at Gallipoli where Gurkha fighters captured a heavily guarded Turkish position by climbing a 300-foot-high bluff under cover of a bombardment. Gurkha troops served with T.E. Lawrence, the famous Lawrence of Arabia, on the Arabian Peninsula. 

Yet despite their recognized courage and loyalty during these years, it was only in 1911 that Gurkhas became eligible for Britain’s highest military honor, the Victoria Cross. 

Since then, individual Gurkha fighters have won 26 VC’s including the two won during World War I. One of those two VC’s went to 26-year-old Rifleman Kulbir Thapa of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Gurkha Rifles for his rescue of wounded men during the fighting at Fauquissart, France, in September 1915. He found a wounded man behind the first line of German trenches and stayed with him until the next morning when he dragged him through the German barbed wire in what has been called “spitting distance” of German troops.

Leaving him at the Allied lines, Thapa returned and brought in two other wounded, and in full daylight went back yet again to carry out a wounded British soldier. He was the first Gurkha to win a VC. (The first Indian enlisted man to receive a VC was Darwan Singh Negi of the 39th Garhwal Rifles of the Indian Army for his bravery in clearing a trench near Festubert, France). The second Gurkha to win a VC in World War I was Karanbahadur Rana, also of the 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Gurkha Rifles, who won his award at El Kefr, Palestine in 1918 for taking an enemy machine gun while under heavy fire.

The Gurkhas’ reputation as fighters expanded even more during World War II. During that conflict, over 110,000 served in 40 Gurkha battalions in Africa, Italy, Greece, and Southeast Asia. In all 30,000 of them were killed or wounded, and 12 Gurkha fighters won Victoria Crosses including 19-year-old anti-tank gunner Ganju Lama of the 1st Battalion, 7th Gurkha Rifles. Though wounded in the leg and arm and with his wrist broken, he crawled through a Japanese crossfire in Burma (now Myanmar) to destroy two enemy tanks.

The incident occurred only three weeks after Lama had won the British Military Medal, a forerunner of the Military Cross, for taking out a Japanese tank in a similar situation. Sgt. Gaje Ghale of the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles suffered leg, arm, and upper body wounds but still engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Japanese defenders, overran a Japanese position and then repelled a counterattack.

Tul Bahadur Pun, armed with a Bren gun, singlehandedly overran a Japanese position under heavy fire, killing three of its defenders and putting five others to flight. Havildar Manbahadur, was shot in the spleen and slashed in the back of the head by a Japanese officer’s sword, but survived—and walked 60 miles to rejoin his unit and seek medical attention. 

The Royal Gurkha Rifles

In 1947, when Independence was granted to India, 10 Gurkha Regiments existed. Six remained in the Indian Army and four transferred to the British Army, the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles), and the 6th, 7th and 10th Gurkha Rifles. They served in the Falklands, Cyprus, Bosnia, Southeast Asia, and today in the Middle East and Afghanistan. (Under Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, Britain’s Gurkha fighters—like fighters in the French Foreign Legion—are not considered mercenaries but as regular British infantry units receiving regular pay and treatment while serving a stated enlistment period). 

In 1994, these four regiments were merged into one unit, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, as part of the Brigade of Gurkhas of the British Army and Britain’s only Gurkha infantry regiment. 

There are currently about 3,000 fighters in the Gurkha Brigade and competition for any openings is fierce. In 2019, for example, 10,000 young Nepalese signed up to compete for about 500 openings. To be considered, these young Nepalese men—and women beginning in 2020— from the rural and largely impoverished mountains must pass one of the world’s most grueling military selection processes, which includes completing a three-mile, uphill run with a 55-pound pack that must be completed in 45 minutes and doing 70 sit-ups in two minutes. Both men and women applicants face the same qualification test. To apply they must also be at least 5 foot 1 inch tall and weigh at least 110 pounds.

During May of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee year, the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment was responsible for guarding the monarch and Gurkha guards stood at attention at Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace, Windsor Castle, and the Tower of London. Gurkhas also marched in her funeral procession four months later. 

Aayo Gurkhali.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

The Wehrmacht jarred the Allies into action when it introduced gliders to the fight for Belgium in 1940 and Crete in 1941. By 1942, the U.S. had developed its own glider prototype, the Waco CG-4A, to deliver men and materiel to the front or behind enemy lines and supplement the transport aircraft that dropped paratroopers and supplies. The high-wing monoplane, made primarily of fabric and plywood over steel tubing, could carry up to 13 fully equipped troops or an array of heavy machinery—7,500 pounds in total. Ford and several other companies built nearly 14,000 wartime gliders.  The engineless CG-4A had to be tethered and towed to its destination, a job most often performed by Douglas C-47 Skytrains. The gliders saw extensive service in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and during the 1944 campaigns in France and the Netherlands. But it wasn’t a refined system. Once released, pilots in mass operations often had to complete for viable landing spots, and quite a few gliders crashed. One American private recalled the scene on the ground: “We thought it was incoming artillery when they began crashing in, and we began looking for cover.” In theory, the gliders could be retrieved by C-47s via a tail hook and pick-up cord, but this proved difficult in real-life situations, and most CG-4As were abandoned or destroyed after landing. Despite this, after D-Day Allied Supreme Headquarters reported “sober satisfaction” with the gliders’ performance. After the war, most CG-4As were sold for parts. Some, their wings and tails detached, saw second lives as trailer homes or vacation cabins.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

Kilts allowed Scottish warriors increased mobility in battle as they dashed around the Highlands, but these proud traditional tartan garments had one major problem: no pockets. A man without pockets to stash things in is a man in a state of clutter and confusion. This was as true in the Middle Ages as it is today. Yet as early as the 12th century, Highlanders had developed a clever solution in a small all-purpose bag which became known as the sporran. 

The sporran, which is still a part of traditional Scottish menswear, was the ideal travel bag for the Scottish warrior on the go. Worn slung from a belt over the kilt, the sporran could be used to stash knives, food, bullets as soon as they were invented and whatever else an enterprising warrior wanted to take on the road. Early sporrans were made from leather or animal hide. Starting in the late 17th century, sporrans were furnished with metal clasps and gradually came to incorporate more intricate metal designs. 

Ceremonial sporrans were developed for military use in the 18th century. These are made with animal hair and are known as sporran molach. Animal hair used to make them have typically included goat hair, horsehair and rabbit fur. Soldiers’ sporrans feature tassels, which swing when the kilt-wearing trooper is marching. The number of tassels, as well as their placement, weave and colors, are rich in meaning and vary depending on regiment and wearer.

Some officers have had custom sporrans made for them. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders have traditionally worn a tassel arrangement known as the “Swinging Six” style and sporrans made from badger heads. Sometimes fox heads have been used for sporrans as well. A sporran can be worn sideways over the hip or more boldly front and center.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

On Aug. 22, 1945, a Miles Messenger aircraft carrying British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery dropped abruptly from the sky near Oldenburg, Germany as its engine cut out in midair. The plane had no chance of making it to the nearby airfield. It barely managed a crash landing. The pilot and a staff officer traveling in the plane were unharmed. Montgomery’s condition, however, was much more serious. Battered and bruised from the landing, he had also sustained two broken lumbar vertebrae. 

The excruciating pain of a broken back would have been enough to make anyone yell and curse aloud, stop for rest or demand immediate medical treatment—or probably all those things at once. But Montgomery’s thoughts were with the men of the 3rd Canadian Division, who were assembled and waiting for him to present valor medals and address them. He pulled himself together. As he had done so many times before, he buried his sense of self, put on a brave face as the indefatigable “Monty” and went to go see the troops. 

Montgomery was an extraordinarily self-disciplined man, but this quietly agonizing struggle at Oldenburg was one of his most amazing feats of self-control. With a fractured spine, he walked along as he normally would to review the Canadian troops. The lower back injuries he had just sustained would be life-changing and cause him problems for many years; in fact, he would never completely recover. Yet despite the suffering he must have felt walking, Montgomery managed to appear unflinchingly calm as he regarded these men, who had fought for him across Europe, including at the D-Day landings, at Caen, and the Battle of the Scheldt. Footage from the event shows him–albeit slowly, probably in acute physical pain–stepping forward to present a medal to each recipient. He spoke considerately to each man as he pinned their medals on, showing only the faintest trace of a wince. 

And he would have done more for them. He certainly tried. Montgomery was accustomed to make rousing speeches to troops he visited. The Canadians would get nothing less from him—or at least that was what he intended. Monty made his best effort at a speech to the officers, but shortly after he raised his voice to hail their achievements, his crash injuries finally got the best of him. He was forced to break off his speech and return to his headquarters—by plane, as he admitted he could not endure a long bumpy car journey. 

That Aug. 22 has not gone down as a day of distinction compared with anniversaries of Montgomery’s major battles in the annals of World War II history. However, the private battle Montgomery waged with himself that day was one of the finest examples of what made him a great military leader. 

A Global Military Leader

Montgomery’s critics have accused him of being self-serving and incompetent. They have typecast him as a timid, deskbound type of general who was persistently “frightened” of the enemy. Any military successes he made they minimize or attribute to others; any perceived failings or missteps they magnify out of proportion. Not content to assassinate his character as a soldier, his detractors have lampooned his short stature and sharp facial features, his accent, mannerisms, and practically anything else about him they could possibly think of over the course of decades. Montgomery has been savaged on both sides of the pond by an assortment of supercilious British writers and American commentators with a U.S.-biased axe to grind. When Montgomery died in March 1976, The New York Times published an obituary for him. They need not have bothered calling it an obituary. It was an attack on Montgomery: a derogatory satire that danced on his grave, containing inaccuracies and barbs unbecoming of a tribute to a deceased war hero and certainly unbecoming to one who had led all Allied ground forces, including Americans, on D-Day. Yet that is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of misrepresentations of Montgomery. 

Montgomery’s actions as a military leader tell a different story—that of an earnest and hardworking officer who subordinated his own interests to his sense of duty and discipline. His approach to leadership in war demonstrates that his rise to high command was built on real talent that he honed over a lifetime of dedication to his profession. Montgomery was not born into privilege nor did he enjoy any advantages in his career that sped him to the top.

It was by the merits of his deeds that Montgomery rose through the ranks and led armies to victories in battle. The troops he led to victory came from a variety of nations, making Montgomery a truly global military leader. The achievements he made were unprecedented and have not been equaled since. 

The man scorned as “timid” by some military contemporaries and a variety of historians was in fact distinguished for his great physical courage and charisma from an early age. Like many of history’s notable military commanders, Montgomery was indeed short and wiry, yet at the same time was a force to be reckoned with. As a young man, he was an aggressive and successful athlete who excelled at a wide variety of sports. He became a notorious scrapper during his time at the Royal Military College Sandhurst and was nearly expelled for rowdy brawling. As a junior officer he won awards for his skills at bayonet drills and marksmanship. He was first recognized for valor in combat with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), which he earned for leading his men in hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches of World War I. Montgomery’s “conspicuous gallant leading” came early in the war—practically as soon as he could come to grips with an enemy force. On Oct. 13, 1914, then Lt. Montgomery rallied his men to storm German trenches with fixed bayonets, killing enemies and driving them out. 

After routing the enemy, Montgomery was shot by a sniper. The bullet pierced his lung. He fell in the open. A man of his platoon came to help him and managed to plug Montgomery’s wound to stop the bleeding. However, the enemy sniper watching was not finished. The German shot Monty’s rescuer through the head, then continued to aim at Montgomery after the body fell on him. Stuck beneath the body of the man who had saved his life, Montgomery felt the corpse jolt as it took several more bullets intended for him. The German sniper was determined to kill him. Another shot hit Monty in the knee. Yet he survived. His wound was by all accounts judged fatal and his condition was bleak. After he was taken by stretcher bearers to an advanced dressing station, a grave was dug for him. Physicians thought he was a lost cause and prepared for his imminent burial. 

As if defying the laws of nature, Montgomery clung to life. Evacuated to England for surgery and more advanced medical care, he made a full recovery—enough to go back to doing the military exercises he loved and engage in sports such as football and cross-country skiing. However, Montgomery by his own description was left with “half a tummy and one lung,” which caused him to get winded more easily and gave him trouble tolerating cigarette smoke around him. Some critics have treated Monty’s antipathy toward cigarette smoke as him being unnecessarily fussy. That is not the case. Inhaling cigarette smoke was actually a serious health issue for Montgomery. However, he did not form an anti-smoking attitude per say and enjoyed distributing cigarettes to his troops.

The Best Warrior He Could Be

Extremely intelligent and methodical, Montgomery set out to study everything he could about warfare and gain as much experience as possible in a variety of military roles. This flexibility and attention to detail served him well. While Montgomery is often portrayed as a misfit for his single-minded attention to his career, he showed dedication that is truly admirable for a professional soldier. His quest to immerse himself in his work was born of fierce determination to become the best warrior he could be. 

Most of history’s successful military leaders are those who pursue a spartan lifestyle and accustom themselves to discomforts and deprivations. Likewise, it was typical of Montgomery to seek no extra luxuries for himself. Throughout his life, he lived and worked among his troops. In his spare time during World War II, he visited factories to encourage civilian workers on the home front. He took short rest periods when he needed to and then got back to work. He was constantly active and seeking to make himself useful. 

Montgomery has often been mistaken for a Christian Puritan of sorts, an assumption not helped by the fact that he was brought up in an ecclesiastical family (his father was a bishop) and that he was known to quote the Bible during World War II. Yet Montgomery was no saint—and he knew it. He was a soldier’s soldier, who had become one precisely by rejecting the morose Christianity of his upbringing and going against the wishes of his family. He went to music halls as a young man; he bantered, took bets and swore; he sported tattoos and condoned prostitution. He wasn’t against his fellow soldiers indulging their vices, and many times was amused by their repartee about their exploits. But he demanded more from himself to reach his own aims.

“If you can’t command and control yourself, conquer yourself, you won’t be able to do this to other people,” he later said. “That’s the first thing I learned.”

Although Montgomery identified as a Christian, his views were often out of line with what the Church of England considered appropriate. He had a deep sense of faith, but it was a faith he practiced independently. His very public displays of religious piety and Bible quoting diminished in large part after World War II was won, indicating that he had emphasized these things in wartime for the sake of inspiring his men.

Motivating His Troops

One of the keys to Montgomery’s success as a military leader was his ability to motivate his troops. This sounds fairly simple to the uninitiated but takes talent to do. It’s not enough to win over a group of battle-hardened and cynical soldiers by showing up with a smile and making a speech. Soldiers are good judges of character and are not easily charmed by any new CO who comes on the scene. The loyalty of troops must be earned—and earning their respect and allegiance can be difficult, especially when the troops in question have endured immense hardships and losses. This was something that Montgomery understood well.

Because of his own experiences on the frontlines, he knew what it took to motivate men to fight. A winning strategy was not enough. The troops needed to be welded, willingly, into an energetic and effective “fighting machine,” as Monty liked to call it. To do so, Montgomery focused on building the men’s morale. “Morale is a mental rather than a physical quality, a determination to overcome obstacles, and instinct driving a man forward against his own desires,” according to Montgomery, who also wrote that morale consisted of “discipline, self-respect and confidence,” among other qualities. Morale was something he focused a great deal on and which paid dividends in terms of the effect its boost had on forces under his command. 

Taking On Rommel

Perhaps the most dramatic example of the transformative effect of Montgomery’s leadership on a military force occurred when he took command of the British Eighth Army in North Africa in 1942 following its series of defeats by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The British had effectively been chased around in circles in the desert by Rommel to the point that the men were in awe of Rommel while making jokes about their own seemingly futile situation. Montgomery had no patience for it.

Although he was the first to appreciate the ironic humor of fellow British soldiers, he found the general atmosphere of stoic resignation to the nearby German menace unacceptable. After taking command, Montgomery electrified the Eighth Army with his hard-hitting and dynamic presence. Begrimed men who had been shuffling despondently through the desert were suddenly dashing around in a state of high alert, exercising constantly, and being told they were going to “hit Rommel for six” right out of Africa—which they did, true to their new commander’s word and thanks to his good leadership.

Talent at improving morale is not the sum total of Montgomery, although it’s possibly the only thing that faultfinders grudgingly give him credit for. He proved his abilities at organization in managing his staff and was good at delegating tasks to others—skills that other forceful personalities in military history have lacked. 

A Gifted Communicator

He was also a gifted communicator. Some detractors have criticized his forthright manner and at times blunt style of speaking; some have even gone so far as to suggest he had a developmental disorder which stunted his social abilities. This is not only an unkind suggestion but one that is patently false in view of Montgomery’s behavior and achievements. Montgomery was a highly effective communicator with a great deal of international experience. He spoke several different languages—Urdu, Hindustani and French—and had lived and worked among people of various nationalities in many different countries around the globe by the time World War II started. He worked deftly with his staff and junior commanders. He established a network of liaison officers to report back to him about what was going on among various units so that he could keep his “finger on the pulse” of his troops. 

He was well-organized, confident and concise—traits that can be found in many successful high-level executives as well as in efficient military leaders. Not everybody appreciated Montgomery’s conciseness or self-assurance. Like most soldiers, Montgomery could be sharp and gruff sometimes. However, he maintained a professional demeanor. He did not heckle or make abusive jokes about other Allied generals, even when he strongly disagreed with them. He treated his contemporaries with respect—which is more than some of them gave him. 

Positive Command Style

Montgomery was a tough man and formidable commander, but his approach to generalship wasn’t one of boot-stomping bravado. During World War II, a time period when various strongmen were aiming famous frowns and jaw-jutting glares at each other across the globe, Montgomery was the cheerful general. He smiled in most of his pictures and liked to be photographed appearing casual and friendly. If he had been more willing to scowl for the cameras or had posed brandishing a pair of pistols he might have had to endure less derision than posterity has accorded him. But scowling and saber-rattling were not part of Montgomery’s style.

Monty was a man who knew his own strengths and didn’t need to put on a show of them. Instead, he believed in leadership that brought out what was “positive and constructive” in other people. The soldiers and civilians of war-torn Britain had endured much hardship with grim fortitude, and Montgomery sought to uplift their spirits. His goal was to brighten their horizon and encourage them to believe in victory.

In a testament to his fair-mindedness, Montgomery would also attempt to wield a positive influence over the German civilians he oversaw in the British Zone of occupied Germany, writing in a 1945 address to them: “I will help you to eradicate idleness, boredom and fear of the future. Instead, I want to give you an objective, and hope for the future.” 

Imbued with a profound desire to preserve human life whenever possible, he was careful and meticulous in how he deployed his forces. Much is said of Montgomery’s ego, yet had he been more of a show-off and less of a strategist, he would have been more careless with his men’s lives. Although military history enthusiasts may find Montgomery’s methods less glamorous than those of other World War II commanders, the thoughtful approaches he utilized during that war are a testament to his sense of personal responsibility for the lives entrusted to him. “Success is vital,” he wrote, “but battles must be won with the least possible loss of life.”

He was true to those words. Being a butcher or a gambler on the battlefield is something he could never be accused of. He also routinely took measures to relieve his fatigued combat troops with fresh (but well-trained and appropriately chosen) reserves to avoid over-exhausting them. It was not always possible to replenish his manpower but he used opportunities as they came up; he did not leave troops in the lurch nor use them as cannon fodder. 

Visiting U.S. Troops

In response to his genuine concern for their wellbeing—which he manifested by constantly mingling with the regular soldiers and keeping attuned to their circumstances–Montgomery’s troops formed a close bond with him which was evident in battles across North Africa, Italy and Northwest Europe. Although Montgomery has often been accused of British bias and being indifferent to the concerns of Americans, he visited U.S. wounded in hospitals and made a point of personally introducing himself to every American combat unit he would command during the D-Day invasion.

There was not a single U.S. soldier who hit the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 who had not set eyes on Montgomery in person and heard his voice. Montgomery wanted all soldiers he was entrusted to lead into combat to know that he took personal responsibility for them, regardless of nationality.

He was deeply affected by the sacrifices made by all Allied troops in World War II, and despite what some may claim, did not view himself as deserving of personal praise for what he viewed as their victories. His profound feelings of humility in this regard are perhaps best expressed in an address he made to officers from the 51st Highland Division after World War II. “I have never had an opportunity of saying this: during the course of the war it has fallen to my lot to receive from the nations taking part the highest decorations and orders that they can give, and when one wears them, one feels that they were really won by the officers and men,” said Montgomery. “They won them. I may wear them…but you, gentlemen, won them; and I say that straight from the heart.” 

He was reluctant to admit that he had received a hero’s welcome in postwar visits to Australia and New Zealand, instead writing in his memoirs: “I knew that the warmth of the greeting was not meant for me personally but for that which I represented…the bravery and devotion to duty of the men I had commanded.”

Putting Himself Last

Partially as a result of Montgomery’s optimistic approach to wartime publicity, people got to know him as the grinning, peppery character in the beret. He was good at putting on a bold face and meeting the needs of others, even if he was personally exhausted—or had a broken back. There was much more to him than what came across in the various publicity stills and speeches. Montgomery had a quiet sense of dignity. 

True to his ethos of putting duty first and himself last, Montgomery was probably the only Western Allied general who became a homeless veteran after the war. His home and belongings in Portsmouth had been destroyed by Luftwaffe bombing. During the war, he lived in caravans captured from German and Italian forces in Africa—one truck was his sleeping quarters and one was his office. Otherwise, he had nowhere to live. And it is telling that he made no effort to address that situation throughout the conflict. He made no attempt to secure a safe place to live while on leave or purchase any kind of home for himself. He worked. He fought. He was with his troops 100 percent. When he returned to Britain after the war, he lived in his trucks parked at a friend’s property for a period. He ended up purchasing an old mill to renovate as a home, which he furnished with donated materials he received from New Zealand, Canada and Australia, as the British government made minimal efforts to assist him in transitioning into postwar life. 

A Life Of Service

Although he had every right to retire after the war ended, Montgomery continued to dedicate himself to a life of public service. Even during the war he had been an active mentor to junior officers and had been involved in charity efforts. He accumulated an unbroken 50 years (1908-1958) of active military service before retiring. Even afterwards, he continued to be productive in monitoring international and military affairs, and writing books to make his analyses and experiences of use to others. “Individual happiness, cheerful loyal service, giving a helping hand to others, gaining the trust and confidence of those you deal with—it is those things that matter most, to mention only a few,” he wrote.

In a 1953 photograph taken around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, Montgomery appears at the pinnacle of his career, wearing the hallowed robes of the Order of the Garter. Pinned discreetly at the front of his robes—slightly askew and against dress regulations—is a lone valor medal. It is his DSO: the first award he received for his bravery on Oct. 13, 1914, the day he barely escaped a sniper’s malice and was left struggling for life on a deserted battlefield. So many years later, he was alive, well and surrounded by magnificence. But one thing had not changed. He was still that same ordinary soldier. He knew it.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

In the spring of 1940, Nazi officials launched AB-Aktion (Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion, or “Extraordinary Pacification Action”), the second phase of a systematic campaign to eliminate intellectuals, politicians, clergy, and other influential leaders in German-occupied Poland. Those the Nazis targeted were either placed in concentration camps or murdered by paramilitary death squads at secret locations. One series of mass executions took place in a secluded forest near the small village of Palmiry. The dead included Janusz Kusociński—an Olympic hero, decorated soldier, and national icon.

Janusz Tadeusz Kusociński was born on January 15, 1907, in Warsaw. Armed conflict would take a heavy toll on his family, beginning with his oldest brother, Zygmunt, who was killed in France during World War I. Another brother died in the Polish-Bolshevik War in 1920. Young Janusz showed early potential on the football pitch and also excelled at palant, a popular bat-and-ball sport similar to baseball. His athleticism continued to develop after he joined the sports club RKS Sarmata, where he picked up the nickname “Kusy,” but after falling behind in school, his father sent him to the State Secondary School of Horticulture so he could learn a trade as a gardener. 

The chances of Kusociński becoming an Olympian runner, let alone a gold medalist and world record holder, appeared slim. But as fate would have it, after being pulled from the grandstands as a last-minute replacement at a track meet in 1925, the feisty 18-year-old, who stood 5′ 5″ with a modest build, responded with an impressive performance, propelling his club to victory and setting in motion an improbable path to glory. 

Kusy soon attracted the attention of Estonian decathlete Aleksander Klumberg, who had recently been named head coach of Polish national athletics. Klumberg, a bronze medalist at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, recognized the young man’s raw potential and encouraged him to embrace a more rigorous workload involving gymnastics and intense interval training, similar to the training elite Finnish runners of the day employed. The plan worked. Beginning in 1928, Kusociński won the first of 10 Polish titles in events ranging from 800 to 10,000 meters while setting 25 national records. 

Kusociński had to place his running career on hold while he completed two years of compulsory military duty in the Polish Army. As a member of the 36th Legion Infantry Regiment, he achieved the rank of corporal before completing his service in 1930. He then resumed his winning ways, capturing national titles for 800, 1,500, and 5,000 meters and cross country. His grueling training regimen saw him work out twice a day, which he scheduled around his job as a gardener at Łazienki Park, the largest open-air grounds in Warsaw. He understood that unwavering dedication and discipline were vital if he wanted to beat the world’s best athletes. In his biography, he described the austere training he undertook: “Regardless of snow or rain, gale or frost, dressed as warmly as possible, in a few sweaters, I run Lazinki Park.” 

Throughout the 1920s, Finland’s Paavo Nurmi domi-nated middle- and long-distance running, winning nine Olympic gold medals. But his iron grip on the sport had begun to slip, and even Finnish newspapers were now hailing Kusociński as the “Polish Nurmi.” In June 1932, Kusy broke the world record for 3,000 meters with a time of 8:18.8. Less than two weeks later, he shaved 13 seconds off the four-mile all-time best, clocking 19:02.6. Both records had previously belonged to Nurmi. The Warsaw runner then set his sights on representing his country that summer at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles—and a showdown with the “Flying Finns.” 

Some runners effortlessly bound down the track with the grace of a gazelle. Not Kusy. He ran ugly—more like a charging rhino—working hard every step of the way. This contrast set the stage for the Olympic 10,000-meter final, featuring a clash between the Pole and two Finnish runners, Volmari Iso-Hollo and Lasse Virtanen (Nurmi didn’t compete after being disqualified on allegations of violating the amateur code). Adding to the drama, a new pair of track spikes gave Kusociński cuts and blisters on both feet and he ran the last eight laps in excruciating pain. Entering the bell lap, he trailed Iso-Hollo before kicking past his rival on the final curve en route to a new Olympic record. Poland now had its first-ever male Olympic champion. 

His elation, however, was short-lived. The deep lacerations on his feet forced him to withdraw from the 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter events—races in which he was expected to medal. Although disappointed, Kusociński returned home a conquering hero, regaling people with stories of his 10k triumph and how he met Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Tom Mix. Kusy’s own celebrity led to packed stadiums whenever he competed, and his races were often broadcast on the radio. But his relentless drive for success had become a double-edged sword. An innate stubbornness and high pain threshold eventually led to multiple surgeries to repair the degenerative menisci on his knees. While recovering, Kusociński utilized the downtime to explore some new avenues, including coaching, pursuing a degree in physical education, and becoming editor-in-chief of Poland’s oldest daily sports newspaper, Kurier Sportowy.

Lingering injuries prevented him from defending his Olympic title in 1936. Nonetheless, he attended the Games in Berlin as a reporter and technical adviser to the Polish athletics team. At the German capital, which featured the largest Olympiad to date, the world witnessed Adolf Hitler blatantly propagandize his master race ideology. The heroics of American Jessie Owens aside, the home team ruled the podium, hauling in a total of 101 medals. 

In 1939, Kusy made a triumphant return to the track, winning the 10,000-meter event at the Polish championships. He capped the season by breaking the national record twice for 5,000 meters and looked forward to taking another crack at the Olympics the following year, with an eye on the marathon. The Games of the XI Olympiad had been originally awarded to Tokyo, but a confluence of factors, including Japan’s war with China, resulted in Olympic organizers naming Helsinki as the replacement host city. Such details, however, are now a trivial footnote in history. Both the 1940 and 1944 Games were canceled because of World War II—hostilities that were sparked by Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.

Hitler attempted to justify the attack by falsely claiming German forces had acted in self-defense, stemming from “false flag” incidents staged along the Polish border. The deceit included a fake assault on a radio station in Gleiwitz—a ruse involving murder victims dressed in Polish Army uniforms. The Wehrmacht wasted little time before unleashing more than 2,000 tanks supported by massive air cover from the Luftwaffe.

The offensive also introduced a new term to describe the Nazis’ fast-moving tactic: blitzkrieg (“lightning war”). Created in response to Germany’s failures in WWI and the need to overcome trench warfare deadlock, blitzkrieg hinged on the ability to penetrate a weak point in an enemy’s line while launching unprecedented speed of movement on the battlefield. 

The battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired the opening shots of World War II when it unleashed its guns from the port of Danzig (Gdańsk) on the Polish garrison at Westerplatte. German ground forces, spearheaded by 11 Panzer divisions, rolled into Poland on several fronts, closely supported by Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers. Army Group North, under General Fedor von Bock, launched a two-pronged attack with the Third Army advancing south from East Prussia and the Fourth Army pushing east across the Polish Corridor to seize Danzig. Meanwhile, General Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South attacked from southeastern Germany and Slovakia. 

At the outbreak of war, Kusociński attempted to enlist in the army, but his previous surgeries rendered him “category D” (incapable of active military service). Nonetheless, he volunteered with the 360th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, and posted to Czerniakowski (IX) Fort, a section of the outer ring that formed the Twierdza War-szawa (Warsaw Fortress). Built in the late 19th century under Russian Tsarist rule, the large, pentagon-shaped garrison secured the city from the south and featured a deep and wide moat. Kusociński, armed with a heavy machine gun and FB Vis 9mm pistol, commanded a platoon responsible for defending a bridge spanning the Vistula River.

German troops reached the southwestern suburbs of Warsaw by September 8. The undermanned and outgunned Poles managed to repel the initial attack before coming under siege as relentless artillery and aerial bombardment pounded the bustling, cosmopolitan city of 1.3 million. Making matters worse, the Soviet Union entered the war on September 17, having signed a secret pact with Germany to divide Poland in half. The lack of support from Western Allies further exacerbated the hopeless situation.

As enemy troops closed in on the fortress, Kusy was shot in the thigh but refused to leave his post. According to fellow soldier Józef Korolkiewicz, “At some point, Janusz Kusociński’s machine gun jammed. While the servicemen struggled with dismantling and cleaning the seized parts…he leaned out of his position and shot his Vis pistol towards the crawling Germans. A moment later, the machine gun re-launched. Almost simultaneously, Kusociński is wounded again. Despite being injured for the second time, he does not want to leave his position. Both his legs are now injured.”

Warsaw fell on September 28, 1939. For Kusociński’s actions, the Polish government-in-exile awarded him the Cross of Valor, a military citation awarded for “deeds of valor and courage on the field of battle.” He spent several weeks in a hospital, where nurse Zofia Biernacka treated his wounds. Years later, she recalled her encounter with the famous Olympian: “I remember that during dressing changes, looking at his small and slim legs, I wondered how he could achieve such world-class success. I even made a note about it during the dressing. Then I heard the answer: ‘At the stadium, I was driven by ambition and love for my homeland.’”

After recovering, Kusy became involved with the Polish Resistance, joining an underground military organization called “Wolves.” He adopted the pseudonym “Prawdzic” (“True”) and took a job as a waiter in the Pod Cockem, a popular bar that allowed him to pass along critical information. The position also him put under surveillance by the Gestapo, who arrested him on March 28, 1940, in front of the house he shared with his mother and sister. Over the next three months, the Nazi secret police carried out lengthy interrogations marked by routine beatings and torture. Most of the abuse took place at Pawiak Prison, which more or less served as an inner-city concentration camp for political prisoners or anyone considered a threat to the Third Reich. The Nazis used a variety of methods to extract information, such as starvation, dog attacks, and ripping out fingernails. Kusy gave them nothing. 

Mass executions had been taking place in Poland since the start of the German occupation. Although early campaigns specifically targeted Polish leadership from academic, political, and cultural circles, the massacres served as a prelude to genocide throughout Europe that culminated with the Holocaust. Executions during AB-Aktion were usually carried out by SS units and the Ordnungspolizei (“Order Police”). In an effort to maintain secrecy, the Nazis shifted the killings to the Kampinos Forest, located near the village of Palmiry, about 19 miles northwest of Warsaw. There, Nazi officials undertook several precautions to carry out their plans. Forestry crews cut down trees to enlarge a clearing; the Arbeitsdienst (Reich Labor Service) dug graves in the shape of long ditches, assisted by members of Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) who camped nearby; and German police undertook intensive patrolling to secure the area.

Transport trucks departed Pawiak at dawn to give prisoners the impression they were going to another prison or labor camp. Nazi officials reinforced the subterfuge by allowing them to take their documents and luggage. Some victims who saw through the ruse tossed out hastily written letters and personal items from the trucks. Upon arrival at the murder site, the condemned men and women were forced to line up along the edge of the pits, blindfolded. The Nazis shot them with machine guns, then killed anyone still alive with pistols. After filling in the ditches, work crews added a layer of moss and planted pine trees over the graves. 

From 1939 to 1941, the Nazis murdered more than 1,700 Poles in the massacres at Palmiry. Records show that 358 victims, including Kusociński, were murdered in a single operation on June 20-21, 1940. According to eyewitness accounts, Kusociński had been severely beaten and could barely stand. Two other Olympians died with him: sprinter Feliks Żuber and cyclist Tomasz Stankiewicz.

Although the perpetrators went to great lengths to carefully cover up their crimes, the deaths at Palmiry would eventually be exposed. Local residents and Polish forest service workers knew about the executions and had marked the location of the graves. After the war, Poles exhumed hundreds of bodies, including the remains of Kusociński, found with fragments of a striped suit, a comb he received from his sister while in prison, and a figure of St. Anthony. Polish authorities later transformed the area into a war cemetery and established the Palmiry Museum-Memorial Site. Among the long rows of burial plots, Kusy’s gravestone stands tallest.

Those directly involved in the murders were never held responsible, except for SS-Standartenführer Josef Albert Meisinger. Known as the “Butcher of Warsaw,” Meisinger had authorized the killings at Palmiry while serving as commander of the Security Police in the Warsaw District. After the war, Meisinger was tried by Polish authorities and hanged at Mokotów Prison in March 1947.

The legacy of Janusz Kusociński remains a source of immeasurable national pride in Poland. There are several schools, streets, athletic facilities, a Polish Ocean Lines ship, and an airplane of LOT Polish Airlines that have been named after him. In 2009, the Polish government posthumously awarded Kusociński the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta “for outstanding contribution to the independence of the Polish Republic, and for sporting achievements in the field of athletics.”

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

This story is an updated version of one published in the October 1994 issue of Military History.

A battleship Arms race

The Battle of the Philippine Sea, fought on June 19 and 20, 1944, left Japan with the bulk of its navy intact but no longer able to oppose the U.S. Navy on equal terms. More serious than the sinking of three aircraft carriers in that action was the virtual decimation of the airmen and aircraft of Japan’s carrier air groups. Even so, Japan still possessed some of the most powerful surface warships in the world. The question now was whether they could ever venture close enough to engage their American counterparts.

Then, on October 20, U.S. Army troops landed on the island of Leyte. General Douglas MacArthur was fulfilling his vow to the Philippines—and here a widespread maze of islands provided the Japanese fleet with a final opportunity to strike at the advancing Americans.

Devised by Admiral Soemu Toyoda and his Combined Fleet staff, Operation Sho-I “Victory 1”) was typically Japanese in its complexity. Essentially, three forces of battleships, cruisers and destroyers were to converge on the American landing site in Leyte Gulf, engaging and sinking any enemy ships on their way to shell the beachhead. The “First Diversionary Attack Force”—in reality, the main force—commanded by Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita, would come from the north, through San Bernardino Strait. Joining it from the south, via Surigao Strait, would be two smaller surface forces commanded by Vice Adms. Kiyohide Shima and Shoji Nishimura.

The fast aircraft carriers of Admiral William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet were to be lured away by a fourth Japanese force, commanded by Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa and including the carriers Zuikaku, Zuiho, Chitose and Chiyoda, steaming off the northern Philippines. With only 118 aircraft between them, Ozawa’s carriers were not expected to achieve much, other than to lure Halsey’s Third Fleet away from Leyte, but its task was essentially sacrificial in nature. If the decoy planned worked, the American naval forces left around Leyte Gulf might be sufficiently weakened to be crushed between the two prongs of surface warships.

Speculation about the practicality of Toyoda’s strategy has been debated ever since, but one factor, more than any others, make its innate futility clear. The U.S. Army had already landed and secured a beachhead on Leyte days before the naval operation was launched. Toyoda and his senior officers knew this, but to them it was beside the point. Unable to countenance watching Japan go down in defeat and surrender its high seas fleet the way the Germans had in 1919 and the Italians in 1943, Toyoda was willing to sacrifice his entire navy just to emblazon in history that it went down fighting.

Even by those parameters, Sho-I got off to a poor start. At midnight on October 23, Kurita’s main force was ambushed in. the narrow Palawan passage by two American submarines. Darter sank Kurita’s flagship, the heavy cruiser Atago, and badly damaged its sister ship, Takao, while Dace sank the cruiser Maya. Darter subsequently ran aground and had to be abandoned. Kurita transferred his flag to the giant battleship Yamato, but it had to be unsettling to lose three of his most powerful ships before even reaching the projected combat zone.

No turning back

On October 24, the U.S. Third Fleet’s alerted carriers launched their planes to go after Kurita’s ships, at the same time fighting off an attack by Vice Adm. Shigeru Fukudome’s Second Air Fleet, joined by most of Ozawa’s aircraft. The Americans lost one light carrier, Princeton, while Yamato’s sister, the battleship Musashi, sank after being hit by 15 torpedoes and 16 bombs. Off to the northeast Ozawa’s carriers, now down to a hopeless 29 aircraft, had still gone completely unnoticed.

Shaken, Kurita turned back, but at 6:15 p.m. he received a message from Admiral Toyoda in Japan: “With confidence in heavenly guidance the combined force will attack.” In essence, it was a chiding reminder to Kurita that retreat was not an option. He turned his force eastward again, unaware that his slim chances of success had taken an arbitrary turn for the better.

Just after 4 p.m., it seems, a scouting Curtiss SB2C Helldiver had spotted Ozawa’s force and reported it to Halsey. Convinced that Kurita’s beating in the Sibuyan Sea had eliminated him as a threat, Halsey took all three of his available carrier task groups and steamed north for Ozawa’s carriers—leaving the San Bernardino Strait almost completely unprotected.

What remained adjacent to the beachhead was the naval force delegated to provide direct support for MacArthur’s amphibious operations, the Seventh Fleet under Vice Adm. Thomas Cassin Kincaid. While it lacked any fleet carriers, the Seventh Fleet had 18 small escort carriers led by Rear Am. Thomas L. Sprague’s Task Group 77.4. Its main punch, however, was a sextet of dated but still powerful battleships, commanded by experienced admirals who knew how to make the most of them.

While Kurita vacillated to the north, two smaller approached Leyte Gulf from the south. The first and most powerful of them was Nishimura’s “Force C,” comprised of the World War I-vintage battleships Yamashiro and Fuso, heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyers Michishio, Asagumo, Yamagumo and Shigure. “Number Two Striking Force,” as the other unit was called, was commanded by Shima and consisted of the heavy cruisers Nachi and Ashigawa, light cruiser Abukuma and destroyers Shiranuhi, Kasumi, Ushio and Akebono.

A modern samurai?

In theory the two groups were to go up Surigao Strait and supplement the tremendous firepower of Kurita’s “Force A.” Several factors, however, would prevent their uniting. First, Nishimura was directly under Kurita’s command, whereas Shima, coming down from the Formosa, was answerable to another superior, Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa. Although given vague orders to “support and cooperate” with Nishimura, Shima made no serious attempt to join him, choosing instead to follow him at a distance of 30 to 50 miles. 

There were serious temperamental differences between the two admirals, though both were too professional for their mutual loathing to have any real bearing on their failure to combine their forces. Both had grave doubts as to their chances of success—Shima approached the mission with caution and expressed his misgivings; Nishimura was more the more reckless, rushing ahead to either victory or a fighting death worthy of a samurai. On a more practical level, Nishimura was anxious to reach Leyte Gulf before dawn, because he was convinced that his chances of outfighting his adversaries would be better at night—a forlorn hope, since by late 1943 the Americans had much-improved radar capability. 

Nishimura’s Force C was first spotted in the Sulu Sea by aircraft from carriers Enterprise and Franklin at 9:05 a.m. on October 24. The planes attacked at 9:18, scoring a bomb hit on Fuso’s fantail that destroyed its floatplanes, while another bomb knocked out the destroyer Shigure’s forward gun turret. Neither ship was slowed, however. At 11:55 a bomber from the U.S. Army’s Fifth Air Force found and reported Shima’s force. Admiral Kincaid now knew the enemy’s strength and his probable course. He delegated the job of dealing with the southern threat to the commander of his Fire Support Unit South, Rear Adm. Jesse E. Oldendorf. Flying his pennant aboard the heavy cruiser Louisville, Oldendorf had three battleships, Pennsylvania, California and Tennessee, at his disposal; they were joined by three more “big boys” from Rear Adm. George L. Weyler’s Fire Support Unit North, Mississippi, Maryland and West Virginia.

Under normal circumstances, Oldendorf’s battle group could pulverize both Japanese formations, but his ships had used up most of their ammunition during the shore bombardment. Oldendorf could not afford an extravagant display of firepower—not if he wished to avoid seeing his mighty battlewagons sunk by Nishimura’s antiques simply because they had no shells left. To make every shot count, he would need accurate information on the enemy’s route up Surigao Strait.

The vital role of intelligence-gathering was assigned to the Seventh Fleet’s patrol torpedo (PT) boats, under the overall command of Commander Selman S. Bowling. That night Bowling’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Robert A. Leeson, gathered the 39 boats then available, organized them into 13 three-boat sections, led them south through Mindanao Strait and dispersed them across the northern end of Surigao Strait.

The prospect of action was music to the ears of the PT boat crews. Their primary mission, however, was to lie low and report whatever they saw coming. As night fell they, rather than aircraft, became the eyes of the Seventh Fleet.        The weather deteriorated, with frequent rain squalls affecting visibility, by at 10:46 p.m. a section of PT boats lying off Bohol Island picked up something on their radars. Instead of immediately reporting their discovery, however, the PT boats advanced at 24 knots to attack. They were three miles from their intended targets—still beyond torpedo range—when Shigure, survivor of numerous night actions in the Solomon Islands, sighted them. Suddenly, the crack of big guns rent the night and the Battle of Surigao Strait was on.

The battle begins

With shells splashing all around them, the PT boats made smoke and zigzagged as they tried to close on the enemy. Suddenly Shigure’s searchlight fell on PT-152 and in seconds a Japanese shell set the craft afire and killed one of its gunners. PT-152’s skipper, Lieutenant junior grade Joseph Eddin, steered away, as did his two consorts. One of the latter, PT-130, was also hit, a round passing through it without exploding, but knocking out its radio. Once contact was broken off, PT-130 sped over to the next section of PT boats and relayed its contact report to PT-127, which radioed it to the PT- oat tender Wachaspreague. The news reached Oldendorf aboard the cruiser Louisville at 12:26 a.m. 

Meanwhile, more of the PT boats converged on the Japanese, engaging them with their 40mm cannons as well as their torpedoes. PT-151 and PT-146 each fired a torpedo at the heavy cruiser Mogami, but both missed. They and PT-190 then fled, pursued by destroyer Yamagumo.

Satisfied with the way things were going thus far, Nishimura reported to Kurita and Shima that he expected to pass Panoan Island at 1:30 and enter Leyte Gulf. “Several torpedo boats sighted,” he said, “but enemy situation otherwise unknown.”

At 2:05, as Nishimura’s force passed Camiguin Point and turned due north, Leeson’s flagship, PT-134, tried to attack but was driven off by intense gunfire. PT-490 tried to attack a destroyer at 2:07 but was hit. One of PT-493’s torpedoes hung on the rack and as it made smoke to cover PT-490’s retirement, it took three 4.7mm shells, possibly from battleship Yamashiro’s secondary battery; the hits killed two men and wounded five others, including its captain, Lt. jg Richard W. Brown, and his executive officer (XO). One of the shells also punched a hole in its hull, but Petty Officer Albert W. Brunelle, described by a shipmate as a “slight sissified-looking boy whom no one expected to be of any use in combat,” stuffed his like jacket in the hole and kept PT-493 afloat just long enough for the crew to run it onto the rocks off Panaon Island. (After wading ashore Brown and his crew were picked up the next morning by PT-491, but the high tide cast PT-493 adrift and it sank in deep water. Brunelle was later awarded the Navy Cross.)     

While the PT boats were faring poorly in their efforts to damage Nishimura’s ships, Oldendorf was deploying his force across the northern end of Surigao Strait in battle formation. On the right flank, off the coast of Leyte Island itself, lay destroyer squadron (Desron) 39 led by Captain Kenmore M. McManes aboard Hutchins, and included Bache, Daly, Beale,Killen and the Australian destroyer Arunta. Backing them up were three cruisers, the American Phoenix and Boise and the Australian Shropshire, along with three more U.S. destroyers, Clayton, Thorne and Welles. In the center was Captain Roland M. Smoot’s Desron 56, comprised of flagship Newcome, Richard P. Leary and Albert W. Grant. Immediately to his north was Destroyer Division (Desdiv) 112 under Captain Thomas F. Conley Jr. on Robinson and including Halford and Bryant. To the south were destroyers Heywood L. Edwards, Leutze and Bennion. Farther south, athwart the passage, was Captain Jesse G. Coward’s Desron 54, made up of his flagship Remey plus Melvin, McGowan, McDermut (flagship of Desdiv 108’s Commander Richard H. Phillips) and Monssen. Also waiting in the first American line, due north of Hibuson Island, lay Oldendorf’s flagship Louisville, along with heavy cruisers Portland and Minneapolis and the light cruisers Denver and Columbia. North of them were the destroyers Aulick, Cony and Sigourney. Last but by no means least, forming the backfield, were Oldendorf’s heavy hitters, the battleships Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Maryland and West Virginia.

american torpedoes honing in

The last PT boat attack ended at 2:13 a.m. off Sumilon Island. For the loss of three men dead and 20 wounded, the boats had scored no hits, but they had accomplished their primary mission—pinpointing and reporting the Japanese movement. At 2:25, Lieutenant Carl T. Gleason’s PT-327 spotted the enemy 10 miles away and reported the contact to Captain Coward. He in turn ordered Gleason to clear his PT-boat section out of the way, so that they destroyers could engage the enemy. At 3 a.m. Nishimura’s destroyer vanguard ran into Desron 54 and the main event was on. By 3:01, Coward’s “tin cans” had launched 27 torpedoes and begun a zigzagging retirement. Japanese searchlights pierced the night and shells straddled the Americans, but the shoreline blurred the more primitive radar of the Japanese, and no solid hits were scored.

At 3:09 McDermut and Monssen launched 20 more torpedoes from the west. The Japanese fired at those tormentors, too, but again their shells only managed to straddle the American destroyers. Then the American torpedoes began to strike home. One of Melvin’s “fish” ploughed into battleship Fuso’s No.1 turret and another struck it astern, flooding a boiler room and starting a fire. Even with its speed lowered to 12 knots, it developed a starboard list, and at 3:20 it turned south, doing 10 knots. Massive flooding continued and at 3:45 the ungainly battlewagon went down by the bow. Only about 10 of its 1,630 crewmen survived. Their testimony that their ship sank in one piece, not blown in two as per earlier claims, was confirmed decades later when Fuso’s still-intact remains were discovered.

As the torpedoes from Desdiv 108 commander Phillips’ two ships came at him, Nishimura made a half-hearted evasive turn that allowed his flagship to escape Fuso’s fate. One torpedo struck Yamashiro but failed to slow it down. His destroyers were less fortunate. Soon after taking a hit, Yamagumo blew up and sank. A second torpedo left Michishio dead in the water and another blew Asagumo’s bows off. All three hits came from McDermut in the most successful torpedo spread launched by a U.S. Navy destroyer. At 3:30 Nishimura signaled Kurita and Shima: “Enemy torpedo boats and destroyers on both sides of northern entrance to Surigao Strait. Two of our destroyers torpedoed and drifting. Yamashiro hit by one torpedo but fit for battle.” He then single-mindedly pressed on—straight into the waiting clutches of Desron 24.

Again, the Allies attacked in groups of three, Hutchins leading Daly and Bache to loose 15 torpedoes. Farther up the strait, Australian Commander Alfred E. Buchanan of Arunta led Killen and Beale for the second attack—bringing his trio into a closer, more effective range before sending a total of 14 torpedoes at Nishimura.   

Recognizing Yamashiro’s distinctive silhouette, Commander Howard G. Corey of the destroyer Killen ordered his torpedoes set to run at a shallower-than-usual depth, 22 feet, before launching his spread. Four of them detonated under the old battlewagon’s keel, breaking its back. While 5-inch shells pelted his crippled flagship, Nishimura issued a general order: “You are to proceed and attack all ships.” At that point, only heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyer Shigure were in any condition to do any proceeding or attacking, but they dutifully steamed on. Somehow Yamashiro’s crew managed to get their ship underway too, plodding on at 15 knots.

Having failed to score any torpedo hits, McManes of Desron 24 circled around Nishimura’s heavies and encountered the crippled destroyers Michishio and Asagumo, which he engaged with gunfire until Rear Adm. Russell S. Berkey, commanding the right flank of Allied cruisers aboard Phoenix, ordered Desron 24 to clear the area because the American battle line was about to commence firing. As his “tin cans” turned northward, McManes’ flagship Hutchins fired its last four torpedoes at Asagumo. They missed it but struck the drifting Michishio, which blew up and sank at 3:58.

Meanwhile, Nishimura’s dwindling Force C ran into Captain Smoot’s Desron 56, the central element of which attacked in two sections (Robinson, Halford and Bryant, followed by Heywood L. Edwards, Leutze and Bennion. After they launched their torpedoes and retired, Smoot, aboard Newcomb, led Richard P. Leary and Albert W. Grant against the enemy formation while the Japanese were turning from a northerly to a westerly course. Following their gun flashes, Smoot led his destroyers on a parallel course to the right of the Japanese and at 4:05 he fired torpedoes at a range of 6,300 yards. 

Smoot then had to retire—via one of two unhealthy escape routes. If he went northward, directly away from the Japanese, he would run afoul of the American battle line. Continuing west could take him clear of the American line of fire, but he would still be under enemy fire. Newcomb’s skipper, Commander Lawrence B. Cooke, recommended the northward option and Smoot concurred. As Newcomb and Leary turned north, a flurry of shells, Japanese and American, descended on them—Oldendorf’s “big boys” had finally entered the fight.

Standing rearmost in Oldendorf’s line, Admiral Weyler’s battleships had picked up what remained of the Nishimura’s force on their Mark 8 radars at 3:23. The range was 33,000 yards and Weyler held fire. At 3:31, when the Japanese came within 15,600 yards of his cruisers, Oldendorf signaled them to commence firing. Weyler’s battle line, then 22,800 yards from their targets, joined in two minutes later.

grant Falls

Yamashiro’s speed was down to 12 knots when Nishimura ran straight into the fiery, Wagnerian climax he seemed to have been seeking. At 3:52, as a deluge of heavy caliber shells fell on and around his flagship, he sent a final, pathetic message ordering Fuso—which, unknown to him, lay far behind, sinking—to join him at top speed.

Of the six American battleships, only one, Mississippi, had not been temporarily sunk or damaged in the Japanese carrier strike on Pearl Harbor, but their moment of revenge did not amount to much of a contest. West Virginia, leading the line, sent the most shells at its target—93 16-inch armor-piercing rounds. Tennessee, which had participated in 11 operations between its resurrection after Pearl and this action, fired 69 14-inch shells, while her sister, California, fired 63. The other three battlewagons, equipped with the older Mark 3 radar sets, had more trouble. Maryland’s resourceful gun crews ranged in on the splashes from the others and sent six salvoes—a total of 48 16-inch shells—at the Japanese. Pearl veteran Pennsylvania, unable to get a fix on a target, did not fire a shot. 

The U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) off the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington, July 2, 1944, following reconstruction (Naval History and Heritage Command).

Yamashiro, in contrast, had no fire control radar and was shooting at the only targets its crew could see—the destroyers and cruisers. None of its 14-inch shells came near Weyler’s battleships, nor did they even score any hits on a cruiser. Only one Allied ship felt its dying wrath: the unlucky destroyer Albert W. Grant.

As the third ship in Smoot’s Desron 56 column, Grant had launched half of its torpedo complement at 4:03. Then, at 4:07, it took a shell hit. Just as it was about to turn north, more shells struck it. Realizing his ship might be sunk, Grant’s skipper, Commander Terrell A. Nisewaner, ordered all its torpedoes loosed at the enemy.

Still the shells came—a total of seven 4.7-inchers from the flailing Yamashiro’s secondary battery and 11 6-inchers from the American cruiser Denver. A hit on the 40mm gun mount ignited ammunition and started a fire. An explosion on the starboard boat davit killed the ship’s doctor, Lieutenant Charles Akin Mathieu, along with five radiomen and almost the entire amidships repair party. All lights, telephone communications, radars and radios were put out of commission. Resorting to a blinker gun, Nisewaner signaled: “WE ARE DEAD IN THE WATER TOW NEEDED.” 

Within the stricken destroyer, First Class Pharmacist’s Mate W.H. Swain Jr. improvised a first-aid dressing station in the head and took on the tasks of physician and surgeon. The chief commissary steward, L.M. Holmes, set up a similar medical station in the wardroom, while sonarman J.C. O’Neill Jr. administered morphine and first aid to grievously wounded shipmates. On Holmes’ wardroom table, Radioman First Class William M. Selleck, who had had both of his legs blown off, uttered last words that none of his shipmates would ever forget: “There’s nothing you can do for me, fellows. Go ahead and do something for those others.”

A warrior’s death

Meanwhile, at 4:09, news of Grant’s situation reached Oldendorf’s flagship and word was relayed to the heavy warships to cease fire. Somehow, Grant stayed afloat. Somehow so did Yamashiro, which even managed to raise 15 knots as it turned hard left and retired southward. Ten minutes later, however, the cumulative punishment of shells and torpedoes caught up with the old dreadnought and Yamashiro capsized, taking all but a few of its crew with it. If Shoji Nishimura could not achieve victory, he gained the other alternative—a warrior’s death. 

Cruiser Mogami showed even greater endurance than Yamashiro. Set on fire by an avalanche of 5-inch shells from McManes’ destroyers, it turned south, made smoke and loosed a spread of torpedoes at 4:01. A minute later, an 8-inch salvo from Portland killed Mogami’s captain, his XO and all other officers on the bridge, while also hitting the engines and fireroom and bringing the ship to a dead halt.

At 4:13 Richard P. Leary reported torpedoes passing close by. Admiral Weyler, lying 11,000 yards north of the destroyer, prudently turned away, avoiding Mogami’s last deadly volley, but also taking his battleships out of the fight. Making the most of that reprieve, Mogami’s engineers managed to get it underway again, and it retired southward, joined by Shigure. Meanwhile. Passing through a rain squall, Admiral Shima’s Number Two Striking Force was ambushed at 3:15 off Panaon Island by PT-134, but its torpedoes missed.

At 3:20 Shima ordered a starboard turn so that one of his destroyers could stay clear of Panaon and raised speed to 26 knots. As he did so, however, the destroyer was spotted by Lt. jg Isodore M. Kovar and the crew of PT-137, who launched a torpedo at it. PT-137’s “fish” missed its intended target but, as luck would have it, ran right into the light cruiser Abukuma instead. Badly damaged with 30 crewmen dead and its speed reduced to 10 knots, Abukuma had to drop out of formation. For scoring the most notable success of the PT boats that night, Kovar was awarded the Navy Cross.

At 4:10, as Shima headed north at 28 knots with his two remaining cruisers and four destroyers, he encountered what seemed to be two battleships ablaze in the night—more likely the dying destroyers Asagumo and Michishio. At 4:24, having picked up two southbound ships on his radar screen, he ordered his cruisers to launch torpedoes; they fired erratic spreads of eight apiece. That done, Shima made a quick evaluation based on what little information he had. He recalled his destroyers, which had steamed ahead but still could “see” nothing beyond the smoke laid earlier by the American destroyers. He then sent out a radio dispatch to all Japanese units in the vicinity: “This force has concluded its attack and is retiring from the battle area to plan subsequent action.”

die trying

Just then Mogami emerged from the fog. Nachi’s Captain Enpei Kanooka ordered a change in course to 110 degrees, but he had underestimated Mogami’s speed (he thought it was virtually dead in the water) and the two cruisers collided at 4:30. 

Its stern damaged, Shima’s flagship slowed to 18 knots. That settled matters for Shima—he ordered his column to retire, joined by the battered Mogami and Shigure, both miraculously able to keep up in spite of their own damage. At 4:55, Lieutenant Gleason’s PT boats tried to pick off Shigure, but it fought them off, scoring a slightly damaging hit on PT-321.

At the northern end of the strait, Oldendorf learned of the Japanese withdrawal and commenced pursuit. As his flagship, Louisville, headed down the middle of the passageway, he ordered his flank ships to move south and sent a message to Admiral Kincaid: “Enemy cruisers and destroyers are retiring. Strongly recommend an air attack.” 

Not all of Oldendorf’s destroyers took part in the chase. Claxton found about 150 Japanese in the water off Bugho Point and lowered a motor whaleboat. Despite an officer who urged his men to avoid capture, three survivors were recovered, including a warrant officer who spoke English and confirmed that his ship, Yamashiro, had gone down. At 5:15, Newcomb and Leary went to assist Albert W. Grant, Newcomb putting its medical officer and two corpsmen aboard the crippled destroyer. At 5:20 Oldendorf’s ships caught up with the slow moving Mogami. Louisville, Portland and Denver immediately engaged it. Several direct hits rekindled Mogami’s fires and Odendorf moved on to seek other prey. Mogami was not quite finished, however, as Lt. jg Harley A. Thronson of PT-491 discovered at 6 a.m., when he found it limping south at 6 knots and tried to trail it—only to come under 8-inch fire that caused his boat to “leap right into the air.” Two torpedoes from PT-491 missed the cruiser, while PT-137 was driven off by its secondary guns. Mogami was not only still full of fight, but had sped up, Kovar reported, to 12 or 14 knots.

Another bellicose cripple was Asagumo, as proved when Cony and Sigourney caught up with it. Those destroyers were having a lively exchange of shellfire when cruisers Denver and Columbia arrived and settled the dispute with their 6-inch guns. A battle-scarred veteran of Java and Guadalcanal, Asagumo died game—its after turret spat defiance even when its decks were awash, and its gunners got off their last parting shot just as its stern went under at 7:21.

an unpredictable retreat

Before any further Japanese units would be overtaken, Oldendorf learned of a shocking new development. Advancing unhindered by Halsey’s Third Fleeet—which was pursuing Ozawa’s decoy carriers—Kurita’s main force had rounded San Bernardino Strait and was engaging the escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts of Carrier Task Unit 77.4.3 (also known as Taffy 3) off Samar Island. Cancelling his pursuit of Shima and recalling all ships involved, Oldendorf and the weary sailors under his command prepared to oppose the new, more serious threat. But then the Battle of Leyte Gulf took one more unexpected turn.

In one of naval history’s epic fighting retreats, Taffy 3 managed to fatally cripple three Japanese heavy cruisers, Suzuya, Chokai and Chikuma, at the cost of the escort carrier Gambier Bay, destroyers Hoel and Johnston and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts. Their desperate courage and sacrifice should have done no more than slow Kurita’s advance, but a series of factors had undermined the Japanese admiral’s faith in his own impending victory. Just the day before, he had lost his original flagship and later had seen one of his most powerful battleships, Musashi, sunk by enemy aircraft. The fight now being put up by Taffy 3’s ships and planes caused him to exaggerate their size to fleet, rather than escort, proportions—a perception rendered no better by the fact that his replacement flagship, battleship Yamato, was driven out of the chase in the process of dodging a spread of destroyer torpedoes and was out of touch with the action thereafter. At 9:11 he ordered his ships to break off contact and to “rendezvous, my course north, speed 20.”

Kurita wanted to regroup, assess damage and decide whether to resume his drive into Leyte Gulf. While he was mulling over the matter, at 10:18 he received a radio dispatch from the destroyer Shigure updating him on the situation in Surigao Strait: “All ships except Shigure went down under gunfire and torpedo attack.” That not entirely precise message, together with Shima’s earlier report that he was retiring from the strait and a succession of messages picked up from the Americans, convinced Kurita that powerful naval units were converging on Leyte Gulf. Realizing that if he stormed into Leyte Gulf his force would end up trapped therein, Kurita decided to withdraw at 12:36 p.m.

The loss of more Japanese ships—including all four of Ozawa’s carriers off Cape Engano—was just the anticlimax to a battle already won by the Americans. And worse was still to come. On the morning of October 25, while the Battle of Leyte Gulf was being decided off Samar, aircraft from Rear Admiral Thomas Sprague’s escort carriers were searching for Shima’s retiring force and 17 Eastern Aircraft TMF-1 Avengers finally found it west of the Surigao Peninsula. At 9:10 they attacked the hapless Mogami and left it dead in the water once more—for the last time. Destroyer Akebono evacuated the cruiser’s gallant crew and sent it to the bottom with a torpedo at 12:30 p.m.

At 3 p.m. Shima’s force was subjected to another air attack in the Mindanao Sea, but got through it with only light damage to the destroyer Shiranuhi. Abukuma, its speed down to 9 knots, was in more serious trouble. Shima ordered destroyer Ushio to escort it to Datipan Harbor in Mindanao. Abukuma was still there at 10:06 on the morning of October 26, when the harbor was attacked by 44 North American B-25 Mitchells and Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the Fifth and Thirteenth air forces, operating from Noemfoor and Biak. They scored several hits on their secondary target and started fires that reached Abukuma’s torpedo room. The explosion that followed blew a large hole in the light cruiser, which sank southwest of Negros Island at 12:42.

Shima’s flagship, Nachi, became a last, belated fatality of the Battle of Surigao Strait. Taking shelter in Manila Bay, it was attacked and sunk there on November 5 by Avengers and Helldivers from the carrier Lexington.

“never give a sucker a chance”

In retrospect, it is easy to dismiss Surigao Strait as a relatively minor element of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf. Its principal place in history has been a sentimental one—the fight in which the resurrected “ghosts of Pearl Harbor” returned to haunt the Japanese, as well as the last time a line of battleships would ever “cross the T” on an approaching enemy.

Even had they combined, the two Japanese units that entered the strait were outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. Although their crews performed with outstanding courage and ingenuity, the only competent judgment displayed by their commanders was Shima’s decision to withdraw. Their one chance had been the possibility that their American opponents would commit a major error. But aside from Denver’s and Columbia’s ill-chosen bombardment of Albert W. Grant, neither Jesse Oldendorf nor his subordinates made any serious mistakes that night. The overall performance of his destroyer units was brilliant, almost depriving the big-gun ships any targets. With the added benefit of superior intelligence, courtesy of his PT boats and radar, Oldendorf knew he would win and devoted himself to achieving that victory with minimal casualties. As he put it shortly after the battle: “My theory was that of the old-tie gambler: Never give a sucker a chance. If my opponent is foolish enough to come at me with an inferior force, I’m certainly not going to give him an even break.”

The result was truly a lopsided victory—two Japanese battleships, a cruiser and three destroyers sunk, along with thousands of Japanese casualties, all at the price of one PT boat, 39 American sailors and airmen killed, and 114 wounded. Nishimura and Shima may not have represented the greatest threat to the beachhead at Leyte, but their elimination was significant enough to the invading U.S. Army troops, who they would otherwise have been bombarding. It may be argued, too, that the greatest contribution that Surigao Strait made to the victory at Leyte Gulf was its effect on the uncertain mind of Admiral Kurita off Samar. 

For further reading: Leyte Gulf, by Mark E. Stille, Bryan Cooper’s PT Boats, Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol.XII, Leyte; and Theodore Roscoe’s Tin Cans.                                                                                                                               

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery is the most maligned general who served in World War II. Historians have labeled him arrogant and insufferable, heaping fuel onto the fire of their scorn by accusing him of military incompetence. A particular phrase attributed to Winston Churchill about him—one that has become trite due to its thoughtless repetition—refers to Montgomery as being “in defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable.” Those cavalier words are often used—unjustly—to sum up Montgomery’s entire legacy. 

Bernard Montgomery was, in fact, a brave and self-sacrificing man who deserves far more respect than most historians seem willing to give him. Montgomery could fairly be described as cocky, but the majority of history’s great battlefield commanders are. It is necessary for a good general to possess a certain combination of boldness, confidence and aggressiveness to be an effective leader in battle. A shrinking violet makes a poor general.

Not a Narcissist

One of the most common charges leveled at Montgomery is that he was a narcissist. He was definitely not. Nor was he a “psychopath,” as some on the Internet have disgracefully called him. A narcissist is a toxic, self-centered person; a psychopath is dishonest and callously shows no empathy for others.

That was not Monty. I actually think it is difficult to find a top World War II general who was more selfless in his actions or who showed more personal empathy for his troops than Montgomery. He devoted himself heart and soul to the Allied cause without seeking personal comfort or respite—despite the fact that he had lost his home and all of his worldly belongings to German bombing. He did not flinch from the fight nor try to make things easier for himself. He threw himself into battles wholeheartedly and projected that cheerful swagger, which many people continue to mistake for hubris, for the very deliberate purposes of rallying his troops against German forces and to combat Nazi propaganda.

His hands-on and compassionate care for the men of the British Eighth Army restored their waning energy and transformed them into a close-knit and effective fighting force he aptly referred to as a “family.”

Montgomery’s care for his men and rejuvenation of the Eighth Army’s morale—accomplished with genuine compassion and personal attention to others’ basic human needs—is something that neither a narcissist nor a psychopath could ever have achieved, and is an accomplishment that even his fiercest critics have not been able to dispute.

Honest despite Criticism

Bernard Montgomery did not have an easy life, and his courage in admitting to his imperfections and the difficulties he faced made him the target of much derision. It would have been easier for a public figure of his fame—especially in socially self-conscious Britain—to fabricate a happy childhood and be “more agreeable” altogether. Indeed Monty faced pressure from relatives to “keep up appearances.”

Yet Montgomery did not care about appearing awkward. He publicly rejected and criticized his Christian fundamentalist mother, with whom he cut ties. He candidly disagreed with other Allied commanders on matters of strategy during World War II; this was not backbiting, but divergences of opinion he aired openly and which he overcame with firm soldierly obedience. He was frank in his memoirs, yet tempered his criticisms with great magnanimity and fairness, and did not descend, as did several of his military contemporaries, to personal attacks.

Being true to and open about his beliefs was one of Monty’s greatest virtues.

Montgomery’s willingness to be disagreeable, to stand against the tide of public opinion and peer pressure, made him many enemies. It also makes him a true example of courage of conviction, and a model worth following.

Independent Yet Loyal

Montgomery was a strong, wild horse of a man who wouldn’t let anybody control him. If he truly believed in something, he wore his heart on his sleeve.

This sense of fierce independence commonly rears its head among the great Scots-Irish fighters of Northern Ireland, a region often called Ulster. Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne became a Special Forces legend because of that spirit. Field Marshal Alan Brooke was known to glare rebelliously back at Prime Minister Winston Churchill when inner principle demanded it.

“Stiff-necked Ulstermen,” grumbled Churchill of Brooke’s occasional cussedness, adding that “there’s no one worse to deal with than that!” However it is the individual greatness of these men—not only their great fearlessness and independence, but also their great and profound loyalty—that made all the difference to attaining victory.

Behind all the hype around the supposed intolerableness of Montgomery is the story of a simple and dedicated soldier who suffered and sacrificed much, complained little, and utterly spent all for the good of others. He was a warmhearted and brilliant man who never stopped trying to make a positive difference for his country, his troops and the world at large. His memory deserves to be honored.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

Some years ago, the notable American literary and cultural scholar Paul Fussell wrote an essay for the New Yorker called “My War,” in which he outlined his experiences as a junior infantry officer fighting through the Northwest Europe campaign in late 1944 and into 1945. Like most men unfortunate enough to find themselves in the frontline infantry, his experiences were brutally tough and scarred him for life, both mentally and physically. Fussell was wounded on March 15, 1945, in woods near Ingwiller in Alsace, when German shells pummelled his F Company and shrapnel hit him in the legs and back. In his time at the front, he’d repeatedly risked his life, seen men shot and blown to pieces, and witnessed unspeakable levels of violence and slaughter, but at least he had known that he was helping to liberate Europe. Yet, despite the sacrifices made by his company and regiment, he later discovered that the attack in which he was wounded was not mentioned at all in Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s magisterial History of the Second World War, nor was his 103rd Infantry Division named in any capacity at any point in the book.

Reading Fussell’s essay made me think of the very skewed way in which we look at the war, viewing it mostly through the prism of the major ink spots that very rarely seem to meet on the blotting paper of history. We hear about Pearl Harbor, Midway, disjointed exploits of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, then D-Day, the Bulge, and perhaps Iwo Jima. Or, if you’re a Brit like me, you might care to throw in Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and El Alamein. Of course, these events are decisive ones—the points at which the progress of the war lurched forward dramatically—and so, after all the fighting was over, people wrote books about these moments, then made movies, and because these proved so popular, more books were written about them, and more documentaries made, and then perhaps a TV series. A kind of vicious circle had been created. We all now know about the 101st Airborne Division thanks to Band of Brothers, but who has ever heard of the 11th Airborne Division? Do they deserve to be forgotten just because they operated—brilliantly and bravely—in the Philippines rather than in the hedgerows of Normandy? [Editor’s note: One person who has not forgotten the 11th Airborne is James M. Fenelon.]

I’m guilty of this blinkered view as much as the next man. After all, I’ve written and made TV programs about D-Day and Normandy, as well as the Battle of Britain. Maybe, though, change is in the air. Perhaps historians have finally exhausted the narrative of D-Day or the Dam Busters raid after all this time, and it might just be that there’s no longer anything especially fresh to say about the U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific. I’ve been recording a World War II podcast for the past four years called We Have Ways of Making You Talk, and we’ve now amassed more than 600 episodes—certainly enough to take us well beyond the “Ds,” as my co-presenter, Al Murray, calls Dunkirk and D-Day. We’ve discovered there really is an appetite to learn more, and it’s been fascinating to record podcasts, write essays such as these, and now, start to write books too, about those more overlooked episodes of the war. For example, we’ll be recording an episode soon on General Joseph Swing and the 11th Airborne (with James Fenelon as our guest), while I’ve recently finished a book about the Italian campaign in 1943. It covers Salerno, the Volturno, and San Pietro, but also Ortona, that terrible battle between the Canadians and the Germans on the other side of Italy, known as the “Stalingrad of the Adriatic.” Whoever knew? I can tell you this: it’s one of the most brutal episodes of the war I’ve ever written about. I’ve become quite obsessed about it.

I’m also determined to do my bit for the late, great Paul Fussell, too, because around the corner is a project I’m calling Endgame, about the war in Northwest Europe after Normandy, and I’ve vowed to make sure the exploits of the heroic 103rd Infantry get their deserved write-up. The time has come, 80 years on, for the forgotten heroes to get their voices heard.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!