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.

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No, technically, it’s not over, though overt hostilities stopped 70 years ago.  

On June 25, 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea), sparking the first hot conflict of the Cold War—a proxy war between China and the Soviet Union in support of the north, and the United States and its United Nations allies in the south. Crossing the 38th parallel, the DPRK’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) pushed ROK and U.S. forces south, trapping them behind the 140-mile Pusan Perimeter. In response, the U.N. sent troops, 21 nations ultimately contributing to the effort.  

Assuming command of U.N. forces, General Douglas MacArthur turned the tide with Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing of troops at Inchon, southwest of Seoul. Reinforced U.N. forces also broke out of the Pusan Perimeter, pushing the KPA back across the 38th parallel. Coalition forces then invaded North Korea, aiming to reunify the Korean Peninsula, with leading elements reaching the Yalu River border with China.  

At that imminent threat, Chinese troops poured into North Korea and launched a series of offensives against ROK and U.N. forces. The fighting was fierce as combatant forces seesawed back and forth. Notable battles included those on the Chosin Reservoir and the Chongchon River. Eventually, the front lines stabilized along the 38th parallel and a long stalemate ensued, though where fighting broke out, such as the three Battles of the Hook, it proved especially bitter.  

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Peace talks began in July 1951, but disagreement over the repatriation of POWs led to protracted negotiations. The conflict dragged on, claiming the lives of as many as 5 million civilians and military personnel, until the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. Tensions remain.  

In the mid to late 1960s a series of incidents threatened the armistice, including armed clashes along the DMZ separating north and south, the attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung Hee (amid the January 1968 Blue House Raid), the capture of the U.S. spy ship Pueblo that same month and North Korea’s 1969 shootdown of a U.S. Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing 31 crewmen.  

North Korea has become increasingly isolated on the world stage, particularly in the wake of the Cold War. In 1994 President Bill Clinton, on receiving intel that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons, weighed bombing its nuclear reactor at Nyongbyon. In 2002, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush included North Korea in his “axis of evil” list of states sponsoring terrorism. In June 2019 Donald Trump tried a different tack, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he stepped into the DMZ to shake hands with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Despite such overtures, Kim has recently stepped up the rhetoric and since resumed the missile tests.    

Lessons

Beware short-term commitments: The United States occupied South Korea at war’s end in 1945 and withdrew three years later, leaving South Korea weak and ill prepared to resist a North Korean invasion, once again necessitating military intervention.

Ignore intelligence at your own peril: In October 1950 MacArthur dismissed information regarding Chinese troop movements and assured Washington that Beijing would not intervene.
Chinese troops crossed the Yalu on the 19th and attacked on the 25th.

Sometimes divorce is inevitable: Today South Korea is a thriving, modern republic, while North Korea remains a communist backwater. Reconciliation seems unlikely.

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

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In December 2012, in the Laghman Province of eastern Afghanistan, Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team 6 burst into a one-room building occupied by armed Taliban fighters and their hostage, an American physician. The first man into the room, Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas D. Checque, had been killed. On entering, Byers engaged and killed two Taliban, disabled a third and shielded the hostage with his own body as the rest of the SEAL team poured into the room, lighting it up with muzzle flashes. The hostage emerged unharmed.  

For his actions Byers became the sixth Navy SEAL awarded a Medal of Honor. (As of 2022 seven SEALs have received MOHs.) Checque, 28, was awarded a posthumous Navy Cross.  

Born in Toledo, Ohio, and raised in Grand Rapids, Byers joined the Navy in 1998. First serving as a corpsman, he completed SEAL training in 2003 and deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan prior to 2012.  

That December 5 American aid worker Dr. Dilip Joseph and two Afghan colleagues were returning to Kabul after having visited a rural health center when Taliban fighters kidnapped them. Separating Joseph from his companions, his captors demanded $300,000 for the doctor’s release. Three days later SEAL Team 6 and Afghan commandos came calling.  

Dropped by helicopter into the Qarghahi District of Laghman Province, the team hiked through the mountains for more than four hours to reach the building in which Joseph was being held. As the doctor recalled in his 2014 memoir Kidnapped by the Taliban, he’d spent a restless night and was trying to go back to sleep.  

“The last thing I expected,” he wrote, “was for the world to explode.”  

Just after midnight on December 9, as the rescue team approached the target compound, a sentry spotted them. Point man Checque shot the sentry and charged the building with Byers and teammates on his heels. Layered blankets shrouded the door to the building. As Byers worked to tear them down, Checque pushed through into the room and immediately was shot.

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Byers followed. Spotting a Taliban aiming an AK-47 at him, the chief shot the man. Through his night-vision goggles Byers spotted another figure scrambling toward a rifle in a corner of the room. Diving atop the man, the chief straddled him while he got his bearings. Just then Joseph cried out in English. After killing the enemy fighter pinned beneath him, Byers leaped atop Joseph and shielded the doctor from gunfire. Sensing another figure coming at him from the side, Byers, while keeping Joseph secured safely beneath him, grabbed his assailant by the throat and held him against a wall until a teammate could address the threat.  

“Unable to fire any effective rounds into the enemy,” read a Navy account of the action, “Chief Byers was able to restrain the combatant enough to enable his teammates to fire precision shots, eliminating the final threat within the room.”  

In a television interview Byers recalled the firefight “took a minute or a minute and a half.” In that brief span the SEALs killed five Taliban and freed the hostage.  

The team moved Joseph to a helicopter landing area while Byers, a certified paramedic, turned his attention to Checque, who’d been shot in the head. It was too late. The chief and others continued to perform CPR on him during the flight to Bagram Airfield, but on arrival the petty officer was declared dead.  

Byers later referred to Checque as “the hero of the operation.”

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

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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.  

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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.

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On the first day of the Allied offensive on the Somme River of northern France in July 1916 the British suffered 57,470 battle casualties, making it the bloodiest single day in that nation’s military history. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, realized he must change tactics. Thus, he gave orders that all the newfangled tanks that had reached the Western Front be employed in a subsequent assault on German-held French villages dubbed the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. A dozen Allied infantry divisions and all 49 available tanks attacked the German front line that September 15. The tanks psychologically shattered the Germans, instilling in them a fear they termed “Panzer Angst” and prompting many to flee. Those who held their ground found that their most potent weapons—artillery shrapnel and machine guns—were useless against the lumbering armored beasts. In the first three days of fighting the British captured more than a mile of German-held territory.

Thanks for the British success was due in part to an unlikely early proponent of armored mechanized warfare—Winston Churchill.

That summer Churchill’s service as commander of the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers had come to an end. He’d been serving on the Western Front for the past six months after having taken a break from politics. The reason for that break was his undeniable link to the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. As first lord of the Admiralty, Churchill had been among the chief advocates for opening another front in the Dardanelles. In the wake of the sub-
sequent military fiasco, Churchill temporarily left politics and resumed his previous commission as a British army officer. What he witnessed in the trenches refocused his attention on a technological innovation he’d championed in the Admiralty—an armored vehicle that could break the stalemate on the Western Front.

Winston Churchill’s service to Great Britain as a cigar-chomping, no-nonsense prime minister during World War II has been the subject of countless books, articles and films. Less well known is his service as a British army officer after his graduation from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. As a young cavalry officer he saw active duty in the far reaches of the empire, including Cuba, India and the Sudan. After having served some five years, he resigned his commission to pursue politics and was elected a member of Parliament in the House of Commons. While Churchill served primarily as a politician for the rest of his life, he never abandoned his interest or involvement in military matters.

In 1911, after a decade in public office, Churchill was appointed first lord of the Admiralty by Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith. Winston had always expressed a keen interest in naval matters, as a member of Parliament often pushing for increases in defense spending for the Royal Navy. As first lord he pushed for higher pay for naval staff, ramped up production of submarines and beefed up the nascent Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Churchill encouraged the navy to determine how aircraft might be used for military purposes, coined the term “seaplane” amid debate in the House of Commons and ordered 100 of the latter for naval use. His advancements were timely. Three years into his appointment as first lord Britain entered World War I.

With the onset of war Churchill grew increasingly obsessed with the Middle Eastern theater. Hoping to relieve Ottoman pressure on Allied Russia in the Caucasus, he proposed a combined naval expedition against Turkish gun emplacements in the Dardanelles. Churchill hoped a successful outcome there might enable the Allies to seize the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), force Turkey out of the war and allow British naval forces to transit the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea. Churchill anticipated that Romania, a neutral nation bordering the Black Sea that harbored hostility for its Austro-Hungarian neighbor, would ultimately allow Allied troops to use its territory to open a southern front against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Allied representatives signed off on Churchill’s ambitious plan, and in February 1915 an Anglo-French fleet dubbed the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force sailed to commence a naval bombardment of Turkish defenses in the Dardanelles. On March 18 the Allied fleet, comprising 18 battleships and an assortment of cruisers and destroyers, launched its main attack against Turkish defenses at the narrowest point of the Dardanelles, where the straits between Asia and Europe are only a mile wide. The British first ordered civilian-crewed minesweepers into the straits, which soon retreated under significant artillery fire from Ottoman shore emplacements, leaving the minefields largely intact. At the outset of the attack the French battleship Bouvet struck a mine, capsized and sank within minutes; just 75 of its crew of more than 700 survived. The British battlecruiser Inflexible and pre-dreadnought battleship Irresistible also struck mines. Inflexible was severely damaged and compelled to withdraw. Irresistible was lost, though most of its crew was rescued. Sent to Irresistible’s aid, the battleship Ocean was damaged by shellfire and then struck a mine, sinking soon after its crew abandoned ship. Also damaged by shellfire, the French battleships Suffren and Gaulois had to withdraw. With his combined fleet bloodied, Rear Adm. John de Robeck, the British commander, ordered a withdrawal.

Churchill and others in favor of opening a southern front remained determined. If the Turkish emplacements could not be silenced by naval gunfire, then a ground invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula would serve the purpose. The planned assault called for Allied forces to conduct amphibious landings and then attack the Ottoman forts from the landward side. Initiated on April 25, the landings targeted several beaches on the peninsula. The Allied assault was conducted primarily by British and Commonwealth soldiers, including Australian and New Zealand troops, but also included a French contingent.

Organized on short notice, the amphibious assault suffered from a dearth of intelligence regarding enemy defenses and lacked accurate maps. Seeking to overcome both shortfalls, planners turned to seaplanes from No. 3 Squadron of Churchill’s vaunted RNAS. Unopposed by the small Ottoman air force during the preparation phase, the squadron initially provided aerial reconnaissance. Once the invasion was under way, the planes conducted photographic reconnaissance, observed naval gunfire and reported on Turkish troop movements. The squadron also conducted a handful of bombing raids in support of Allied ground troops.

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One handicap Allied planners were unable to overcome was the fact Ottoman forces held the high ground in the interior beyond the beachheads. The Turks knew their own geography and had modern artillery and machine guns provided by their German allies. The campaign devolved into a stalemate, with the Allies unable to break out from the beachheads, and the Turks unable to overrun them. A rare Allied highlight of the campaign was that Churchill’s Royal Navy was able to interdict most enemy merchant shipping seeking to resupply Ottoman forces in Gallipoli. That alone might have ultimately forced Turkey to sue for peace. But the Allied situation at Gallipoli soon devolved after Bulgaria joined the Central Powers. In early October 1915 the latter opened a land route through Bulgaria, connecting Germany and the Ottoman empire and enabling the Germans to rearm the Turks with modern heavy artillery capable of devastating the Allied positions. Germany also supplied Turkey with the latest aircraft and experienced crews.

‘Darth’ Tanker

Actually harking back in appearance to medieval Japanese samurai armor, this 1916-issue leather British tanker’s helmet with mask was designed to protect its wearer from head injury. When leather proved too flimsy, British tankers switched back to the steel Brodie helmet.

Seeing no realistic way to turn the situation to their favor, the British Cabinet made the difficult decision to evacuate in early December 1915. While Churchill hadn’t been the sole proponent of the disastrous campaign, he’d been among its most vocal, thus many ministers of Parliament held him personally responsible. The following May the prime minister agreed under parliamentary pressure to form an all-party coalition government on the condition Churchill be removed from his Cabinet position.

Unceremoniously booted from his appointment as first lord of the Admiralty, Churchill took a break from politics and resumed frontline service as an army officer. In January 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers. After training, the battalion deployed to a sector of the Belgian front. For more than three months they experienced continual shelling and sniping while preparing to meet the expected German spring offensive. As the Germans were focused on taking Verdun, Churchill’s sector remained relatively quiet. In May the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers were absorbed into the 15th Division. Churchill didn’t seek a new command in the division, instead securing permission to leave active duty and return to politics. But his military contributions were far from over, and the seeds of an earlier endeavor were about to bear fruit.

In 1914, when the war slipped into stalemated trench warfare, First Lord Churchill had fished about for solutions and came to believe an armored motorized vehicle of some sort was the answer. Seeking ownership of the technology on behalf of the Admiralty, he’d labeled such futuristic armored vehicles “landships.” Eventually conceding the technology was more appropriately an army initiative, Churchill transferred £70,000 (more than $8 million in today’s dollars) from the navy to the army to develop what became known as the tank.

The man most often credited with having invented the tank is Lt. Col. Ernest D. Swinton. Appointed at the outset of the war by Secretary of State for War Horatio Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener, as the official British war correspondent on the Western Front, Swinton moved back and forth between France and England and to and from the front lines. Witnessing the death, destruction and deadlock of trench warfare, he initially conceived an armored variant of the American-made Holt caterpillar tractor. While Kitchener proved lukewarm over Swinton’s armored tractor, it resonated with First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill, who in February 1915 ordered formation of an exploratory Landship Committee, tasked with developing the technology.

Under Churchill’s ministry oversight were naval air squadrons based in Dunkirk, France. Perpetually at risk of enemy attack, the squadrons were ably defended by armored car squadrons. Thus, Churchill recognized the importance of and need for armored forces. He kept abreast of developments as the Landship Committee experimented with armored vehicle designs. The initial versions were essentially wheeled automobiles with bolted-on armor. However, it soon became clear wheeled variants could neither traverse trenches nor function properly in mud. Churchill’s Admiralty experimented with attaching bridging equipment to such vehicles, but the results proved disappointing. Swinton’s Holt caterpillar tractor proved far more promising. Offering greater grip and more weight-bearing surface, the tracked vehicle was just the ticket for crossing the no-man’s-land between trenches.

On June 30, 1915, Churchill arranged a demonstration of a prototype tractor’s ability to cross barbed-wire entanglements. A manufacturing company working on the project eventually produced the Killen-Strait armored tractor. Capped with the superstructure from a Delaunay-Belleville armored car, its tracks comprised an unbroken series of steel links connected by steel pinions. Churchill and David Lloyd George, then head of the Ministry of Munitions, were present for tests of the Killen-Strait. The promising results prompted Lloyd George to assume the responsibility for producing a steady supply of landships once the Royal Navy settled on a satisfactory design. For his part, Churchill was a total believer, convinced the new machine would enable Allied forces to readily traverse the muddy, shell-pocked landscape of the Western Front and smash enemy defenses.

Meanwhile, Swinton managed to persuade the newly formed Inventions Committee in the House of Commons to fund development of a small landship. He drew up target specifications for the new machine, including a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour on flat ground, the ability to perform a sharp turn at top speed, reversing capability, the ability to climb a 5-foot earthen bank and the ability to cross an 8-foot gap. Additionally, the vehicle was to accommodate 10 crewmen and be armed with two machine guns and a 2-pounder cannon. Though the landship was no longer under the purview of the Admiralty, Churchill went out of his way to write Asquith in praise of Swinton’s developments.

Under Swinton’s oversight, the prototype landship, nicknamed “Little Willie” had 12-foot-long track frames, weighed 16 tons and could carry a crew of three at a top speed of just over 2 miles per hour. Its speed over rough terrain, however, dropped considerably. Moreover, it was unable to traverse trenches more than a few feet wide. But while the initial trials proved disappointing, Swinton remained convinced a modified version would prove a breakthrough weapon.

Its manufacturers immediately began work on an improved tank. The resulting Mark I, nicknamed “Mother,” was twice as long as “Little Willie,” keeping the center of gravity low and helping its treads grip the ground. Sponsons were fitted to the sides to accommodate two 6-pounder naval guns. During initial trials in January 1916 the tank crossed a 9-foot-wide trench with a parapet more than 6 feet high.

With that, Swinton decided it was time to demonstrate the new tank to Britain’s leading political and military figures. Thus, on February 2, under conditions of utmost secrecy, Secretary of State for War Kitchener, Minister of Munitions Lloyd George and Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald McKenna gathered with other key personnel to see the Mark I in action. Lord Kitchener remained unimpressed and skeptical of the tank’s potential contribution toward victory. Fortunately for the Allies, Lloyd George and McKenna, the two with oversight of the government purse strings, did recognize the Mark I’s potential and by April had placed orders for 150 tanks. Churchill was ecstatic.

Foreshadowing the German Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg tactics, Churchill believed the army should wait to field the Mark I until factories had rolled out 1,000 tanks and then employ the shock value of a combined armor assault to win a great battle. Though Field Marshal Haig harbored doubts about the value of tanks, the British Expeditionary Force commander did order all available Mark Is to assist during that summer’s Somme Offensive. Unfortunately for their advocates, many of the tanks broke down, and the British army was unable to hold on to its gains.

Truth be told, the tank’s debut was not as great a success as the British press reported it to be. Of the 59 tanks that had arrived in France, only 49 were in good working order. Of those, 17 broke down en route to their line of departure for the attack. It must be noted that Swinton had cautioned commanders to carefully choose fighting ground that corresponded with the tank’s powers and limitations. Had they followed his recommendations, the initial results would have been better. Regardless, the sight of the tanks created panic and had a profound effect on the morale of the German army.

For his part, Colonel John Frederick Charles “J.F.C.” Fuller, chief of the British Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps (later Tank Corps), was convinced his machines could win the war and persuaded Haig to ask the government for another 1,000 tanks. Churchill, who by then had returned home as a politician, did everything he could to endorse Haig’s request.

Meanwhile, Fuller and others refined tank operating procedures, and just over a year later, during the Cambrai Offensive, Haig ordered a massed tank attack at Artois. Launched at dawn on Nov. 20, 1917, without preparatory bombardment, the attack wholly surprised the Germans. Employing more than 400 tanks, elements of the British Third Army gained up to 5 miles that first day, an incredible amount of territory to be captured so rapidly on the stalemated Western Front. Churchill’s belief in the tank as a combat multiplier had been validated. The British army remembered his tireless efforts, and at the outset of World War II it named its primary infantry tank, the Mk IV, the Churchill.

Retired U.S. Marine Colonel John Miles writes and lectures on a range of historical topics. For further reading he recommends Thoughts and Adventures, by Winston S. Churchill; A Company of Tanks, by William Henry Lowe Watson; and Eyewitness and the Origin of the Tanks, by Ernest D. Swinton.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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The admiral was livid. José Prudencio Padilla, commander of the Gran Colombian fleet, read the surrender demand from his rival Spanish commander and glared at the officer who had delivered it. The rage in Padilla’s eyes told the messenger that, white flag or not, he would be lucky to survive the next few minutes. Frigate Lieutenant Pablo Llánez wisely kept his mouth shut. Padilla’s assembled staff officers did likewise. Padilla considered shredding the document and shooting the messenger. Instead, he sat down at a small table and began to write.

The Spanish commander who so enraged Padilla, Captain Ángel Laborde y Navarro, had written a message both saccharine and condescending. It concluded with an offer to transport the admiral and his men to territory controlled by Gran Colombia, provided he capitulate and turn over all his vessels and arms. Otherwise, Laborde would come for him. In his reply the admiral told the captain not to bother, for Padilla would come for Laborde. On July 24, 1823, the opposing commanders and their fleets did meet in a brackish strait leading to Lake Maracaibo in what today is the Republic of Venezuela.

Padilla may have assumed the condescending tone in Laborde’s demand stemmed at least in part from the captain’s personal disdain for the admiral. Padilla, after all, was not an Iberian Spaniard, nor even a Creole. Padilla was a pardo, a mulatto of Creole and African ancestry.

Born on March 17, 1774, in La Guajira, a coastal department in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada, José Prudencio Padilla was the son of Andrés Padilla, a humble boatwright, and wife Lucía, a woman of African descent. At age 14 José went to sea with the Spanish navy, rising from cabin boy to boatswain. Captured by the British at the Oct. 21, 1805, Battle of Trafalgar, Padilla spent three years as a prisoner before being released to Spain. On his return home to New Granada he offered his services to the viceroyalty, a predecessor to Simón Bolívar’s visionary Gran Colombia, which included present-day Colombia, Venezuela, mainland Ecuador and Panama, as well as parts of Peru, Brazil and Guyana. By 1811 the young naval officer had joined El Libertador Bolívar’s Spanish American wars of independence. The latter’s vocal opposition to slavery in the emergent republics was doubtless a factor in Padilla’s decision.

In action off Tolú, Colombia, in 1814 Padilla, in command of a small vessel, captured a better-armed royalist corvette and its crew of 170. For his participation in subsequent naval battles, including actions off Venezuela at Los Frailes Archipelago in May 1816 and Carúpano a month later, Padilla was promoted to captain of a frigate. His stock with Bolívar continued to rise with each successive victory. Promoted to brigadier general in 1823, Padilla was given command of the Third Department of what would become the Gran Colombian navy. At the time Bolívar’s patriot forces were on the cusp of victory over royalists in the Venezuelan War of Independence.

Padilla’s royalist adversary, Ángel Laborde y Navarro, was everything the self-made patriot admiral was not. Born into nobility in Cádiz, Spain, on Aug. 2, 1772, Laborde had station, influence and wealth. He was studious and learned, having completed his formal education and begun his naval career as a midshipman by age 19. He saw extensive service during the 1807–14 Peninsular War, first with the Spanish-allied French and then against them when Napoléon installed brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, and Spaniards rose against his rule. Laborde later made two extended cruises to the Philippines, all the while steadily advancing in rank. In short, he was a highly educated professional sailor.

On June 24, 1821, Bolívar scored a decisive victory over royalists at the Battle of Carabobo. Believing the Spanish threat in Venezuela to be over and independence secure, he turned his attention to the south, leaving his native land in the hands of subordinates. But the remnants of the royalist army continued to fight, using both conventional and guerrilla tactics. In September 1822 Spanish forces under Francisco Tomás Morales, captain general of Venezuela, recaptured the port city of Maracaibo (capital of the present-day state of Zulia), on the western shore of the strait leading into the namesake lake. Recognizing the threat the Spanish occupation represented, patriot Generals José Antonio Paez, Rafael Urdaneta and Mariano Montilla marched their armies against Maracaibo but were driven back.

Lake Maracaibo is a tidal bay, or lagoon, connected to the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea beyond by a strait some 30 miles long and scarcely 3 miles wide at its broadest. At 99 miles long and 67 miles wide, the lake itself is slightly more than half the size of Lake Erie, with a maximum depth of 150 feet. Some 135 rivers flow into Lake Maracaibo, which is freshwater in the south and increasingly brackish to the north. While the waters of the lake are generally still, the current through the strait is swift and turbulent.

On the east side of the narrow channel linking the strait and the Gulf of Venezuela is a peninsula, or bar, on which sits Castillo San Carlos de la Barra, a fortress built to control entry into the lake and protect Maracaibo against pirates. Ironically, in 1666 French buccaneers briefly captured Castillo San Carlos, and three years later Welsh privateer Henry Morgan and his men also seized the fortress preparatory to a raid on the port cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar.

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Maracaibo’s strategic importance was immense. All goods from the Andes and Colombia had to pass through the port. Any ship entering the strait from the sea would have to pass under the guns of Castillo San Carlos.

Control of the lake provided the Spanish with a beachhead, allowing the reestablishment of a military presence and resupply of their forces. Their position also flanked Bolívar’s forces, which Morales had pushed inland. If the Spanish could defeat the Gran Colombian armada, Venezuelan independence would be lost yet again. Were Padilla to prevail, however, he could deny Spanish-occupied Maracaibo reinforcements and resupply. Morales’ army would wither on the vine. Whoever commanded the strait controlled the lake and the fate of nascent Venezuela.

Padilla and General Montilla, the commander of patriot land forces, devised a plan to coordinate their efforts and prompt a maritime showdown, thus neutralizing royalist land forces. First, Montilla would attack Maracaibo and lure Morales away from the lake. With Spanish troops thus engaged, the strait would be lightly defended, allowing Padilla’s squadron to enter.

The subsequent battle for Lake Maracaibo was not a single cataclysmic clash but a series of fights—the patriot assault of Maracaibo, the seizure of Castillo San Carlos and its guns, a series of naval skirmishes and the final, decisive engagement.

On March 15, 1823, Padilla sailed north from Cartagena, Colombia, with his small fleet, arriving within sight of Castillo San Carlos on April 5. For several weeks the patriot fleet bided its time in the gulf as the admiral and his staff dithered and debated how best to proceed. Then came word that made their decision for them—Laborde’s Spanish fleet was preparing sail west to Maracaibo’s relief from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. By then Morales was campaigning against Montilla’s patriot army some 50 miles away and had left Castillo San Carlos woefully underdefended. Padilla resolved to force the bar.

On May 8 the patriot fleet weighed anchor and headed south on a favorable wind. Despite their excellent luck in finding the channel open, four of Padilla’s largest vessels ran aground, shellfire from the fortress making short work of one of them. To refloat the other three, Padilla ordered their ballast and cannons thrown overboard.

While his ploy worked, Padilla realized the ships would be useless without armament. Perhaps taking a page from Captain Morgan, the admiral decided to raid ashore and strip both the port and the castillo of their guns for use on his ships. After sweeping up a Spanish squadron Morales had tasked with defending the lake, the patriot fleet arrived off Maracaibo on June 16. After a daylong bombardment to little effect, Padilla landed a force of 250 infantry and 50 dragoons who fought street by street and house to house until capturing the town and forcing the capitulation of Castillo San Carlos.

Returning to Maracaibo with a 2,500-man Spanish army on June 19—three days too late—Morales found the city looted by Gran Colombian forces and the castillo stripped of its guns and ammunition. After placing some of his own artillery in the fort, there was little for him to do but wait for Laborde.

Meanwhile, having rearmed his fleet with the captured guns, Padilla set about refitting and repairing his ships and training their motley crews for the coming fight.

More than a month had passed since word of Laborde’s imminent departure from Puerto Cabello. His delay was a credit to an unlikely foe. On May 1 a nine-ship Gran Colombian squadron under Commodore John Daniel Danels, an American citizen and Baltimore native, attacked Laborde’s fleet as it left port.

Forming a battle line, the patriot ships traded shots with the royalist fleet at pistol range for two hours. But Danels’ squadron was no match for Laborde’s superior fleet. The patriots lost 60 dead and wounded and 300 captured, including Danels, while the Spanish suffered only 17 wounded. Regardless, the engagement forced Laborde to divert his ships north to Curaçao to refit and repair the damage inflicted by Danels’ stubborn squadron.

Completing repairs in late June, Laborde set out from Curacao on July 4 with a frigate, three corvettes, a brig and some two dozen smaller vessels. Ten days later the Spanish fleet sailed past the guns of Castillo San Carlos into the strait off Maracaibo. En route a windstorm had damaged the rigging of several ships. Laborde would have preferred to make the necessary repairs, but heated exchanges with Morales forced his hand. It was better, the noble-born captain reasoned, to engage one’s enemy at a disadvantage than to be dishonored by claims of cowardice. On July 17 he sent the surrender demand that so enraged Padilla.

On July 22 Laborde, anticipating contact with the Gran Colombian fleet, formed a line of battle to protect Spanish ships stranded in the shallow waters of the strait. A patriot scouting party did appear but was easily repulsed.

The next day the Gran Colombian fleet suddenly hove into view and closed with the anchored Spanish fleet. A firefight ensued. The patriot ships briefly paralleled the royalist line before turning away and disengaging. Padilla was not yet ready for battle.

Sources differ on the relative strength of the combatant forces, those favoring the Gran Colombian side claiming the Spanish had the more powerful fleet, and vice versa. By most accounts the royalist ships outnumbered those of the patriots by 2-to-1. Sources also differ on the quality of the ships and their crews. Not surprising, Colombian and Venezuelan sources insist the Spanish fleet was far superior, while Spanish sources suggest Laborde’s fleet was in disrepair and manned by shopkeepers, merchants, fishermen and others with no training or experience in naval combat.

Anticipating Padilla would return the next day and believing the damage to some of his ships would make maneuver difficult if not impossible, Laborde ordered his fleet to remain at anchor off the western shore of the strait near Bella Vista, north of Maracaibo, forming a floating fortress. Most of Padilla’s squadron retired to Los Puertos de Altagracia, off the eastern shore of the strait, opposite Bella Vista, while a smaller force anchored farther north.

At dawn on July 24 Padilla ordered his captains to his flagship, the brig Independiente, and gave them final instructions. Not content with that, the admiral visited every ship in the fleet to personally encourage their respective crews.

While Padilla and Montilla had been able to find common ground in the face of a common enemy, Laborde and Morales had not. On several occasions the pair arranged to meet and form a plan, but each time Morales found some excuse to send a junior officer in his stead, thus insulting Laborde. Morales also demanded a decisive naval action despite Laborde’s advice to the contrary. Finally, though Laborde had resolved to assert his position regarding all matters naval, he ultimately swallowed his reservations and committed his fleet. He was simply unwilling to buck Morales, who as captain general of Venezuela was the representative of the Spanish Crown.

That morning Laborde instructed his gunners to carefully target their Gran Colombian counterparts. In the end, it mattered little. With no room or plans to maneuver, the Spanish could only wait for Padilla to make the first move.

Finally, at midafternoon on a favorable wind, Padilla ordered the patriot squadron to attack the royalist fleet head-on. Around 3 p.m. the Gran Colombian ships slipped in among the stationary Spanish vessels so closely that the bowsprits of several ships snapped off at contact. In the ferocious, close-quarters combat that followed, the Gran Colombian ships either destroyed or captured all the Spanish vessels but for three schooners that cut their anchor cables and fled for the shelter of the castillo. Laborde was aboard one of the schooners. Padilla had lost 44 men killed and 119 wounded to Laborde’s 473 killed and wounded and 437 captured. On August 20 Morales evacuated Maracaibo.

The Battle of Lake Maracaibo benefited the cause of Venezuelan independence more than Bolívar could have imagined. Without a fleet to resupply the Spanish forces at Maracaibo, Morales had no option but to capitulate, surrender all warships and installations, and retire to Cuba. Moreover, given the Gran Colombians’ decisive defeat of the Spanish at Lake Maracaibo, international recognition of Venezuela followed. Later that year both the United States and Britain recognized the republic. Not until 1845 did the Spanish government acknowledge Venezuelan independence.

Ironically, the results of the battle had opposite effects on the careers of the winning and losing commanders.

Despite his defeat, Laborde retained the confidence of the Spanish Crown and went on to a distinguished career. It helped that Captain General Morales admitted his error and agreed the captain had justly sought to protect his remaining assets and avoid pitched battle. Laborde served in positions of ever-increasing responsibility. Promoted to brigadier in 1825, he spent the next few years fighting pirates and supporting expeditions tasked with suppressing rebellions in Mexico and other parts of the decaying viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1832, by royal decree, he was appointed minister of the Spanish navy. By the time of his death in Havana from cholera that April the once-disgraced Laborde was much admired. Transported home to Cádiz, his remains were interred in the Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors of San Fernando.

Padilla, whose brilliant victory at Maracaibo assured Venezuelan independence, didn’t fare so well.

Racism had always hounded the dark-skinned admiral, who in his lifetime never received due regard from the largely Creole society he served. He also became enmeshed in the politics of the time, staunchly advocating the rights of the pardos. Despite safeguards in Gran Colombia’s republican constitution of 1821, Bolívar became increasingly authoritarian. Naively, Padilla took sides against his onetime champion in favor of Francisco de Paula Santander, Bolívar’s vice president, who actively solicited the support of the pardos. But the latter had no interest in alienating El Libertador. In 1828 Bolívar declared himself dictator, abolished the office of vice president, crushed the incipient rebellion and had Padilla arrested on a pretext. That September supporters of Santander hatched a plot to assassinate Bolívar, free Padilla and declare the latter their leader. During its botched execution the rebels murdered Padilla’s jailer, a cousin to the father of South American independence.

Though no evidence surfaced that Padilla had conspired to assassinate Bolívar or even knew of the plot, authorities sentenced the hero of Lake Maracaibo to death. He was executed by firing squad on the morning of October 2.

Despite being the ringleader of the rebellion, Santander, a Creole, was ultimately pardoned and exiled. Bolívar had to walk a thin line. Like most Creoles, he feared a revolution by pardos, yet he needed their support. After all, the rank and file of his army largely comprised pardos and Indians. Yet, perhaps calculating he needed the support of Creoles and their wealth more than the fealty of the pardos, Bolívar refused to pardon Padilla. Still, his execution must have bothered El Libertador, who had repeatedly stated his belief in the equality of all men. Indeed, he later expressed regret over the incident and his treatment of Padilla.

A few years after Padilla’s death the Colombian government formally recognized the disgraced admiral as a hero of the revolution and the founder of its navy. In 2000 the government in Caracas also declared Padilla a hero and symbolically interred him in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. Thus in death he finally achieved a measure of respect from those for whom he had fought.

Jerome Long is a former instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officers’ Course who taught classes on such topics as military intelligence, operational warfare and military history. For further reading he recommends The Venezuelan Navy in the War of Independence, by Hadelis Jiménez López, and Latin America’s Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899, by Robert L. Scheina.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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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.                                                                                                                               

For two nights have waited on quayside lying on ground, finally in shattered steel box numbed by noise of bombing. I was sleeping fitfully, almost despairing, woken every few minutes by the Scumbarda battery blazing away to keep Jerry awake, and reflected I was living worse than a tramp, absolutely filthy. Unbathed for eight days, clothes not off, ditto, gradually losing all gear, and no home—choice either crowded, dusty, smoky, overcrowded tunnel on hill or overcrowded Iti [Italian] naval headquarters, where Itis having nothing else to do but rush in and out, although bombers miles away. Then wake with start to find a destroyer alongside, and troops slid down chute, scrambled down ladders, ammo dumped ashore. “Well done, arrival of these troops should make all the difference.”

Such were the candid, if dismal, impressions of Leonard Marsland Gander, the only Allied war correspondent on the Greek island of Leros during a five-day battle for its control, as recorded in his notebook on Nov. 15, 1943. Whomever Gander quoted regarding the landing of British reinforcements was overly optimistic. They would make no difference whatsoever.

Leros is one of 15 main islands among 150 smaller ones that constitute the Dodecanese archipelago in the southeastern Aegean Sea, which in the fall of 1943 was the unlikely setting for a series of air-sea landings by German forces. Two months later defending British troops were subjected to a humiliating defeat, with some islands remaining under German occupation until war’s end in Europe. The story of their capture is illustrative of history echoing as seemingly no one in authority listened.

The Dodecanese, populated mainly by residents of Greek extraction, fell under Ottoman rule in the 16th century. The islands then came under Italian administration in the wake of the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–12. In the early stages of World War II Il Duce Benito Mussolini joined forces with German Führer Adolf Hitler, the latter seemingly unstoppable in his occupation of neighboring countries. By the spring of 1943, however, the Axis was faltering. The Soviets had stemmed the German advance into Russia, and that May Axis forces surrendered in North Africa. Soon after, the Allies landed in Sicily and on the Italian mainland, and American-led forces began pushing north toward occupied Europe. In July the Italian populace turned against Mussolini, replacing him with Maresciallo Pietro Badoglio. An armistice followed in September.

Having anticipated events, Hitler initiated Fall Achse (Operation Axis) to forcibly disarm Italian forces and assume control of the territory they held.

Given the upheaval, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered it an opportune time to open a new front in the eastern Mediterranean. He and others felt such a move would add to the mounting pressure against Germany and might even encourage Turkey to join the Allies. It was a strategy fraught with impediments and considered by many—Britain’s American allies in particular—a waste of time and resources. Churchill was undeterred.

Paramount to his plan was the seizure of Rhodes with its critical airfields. Italian co-operation was essential. Accordingly, a military mission was tasked with preparing the way for the main assault. Commandos of the British army’s Special Boat Section (SBS) would spearhead the occupation of other islands. Churchill approved the plan on September 9. “This is a time to play high,” he wrote. “Improvise and dare.”

Unfortunately for the British, their invasion plans were pre-empted that very day when the 7,500-strong Sturm-Division Rhodos turned on their erstwhile allies and wasted little time in taking control of Rhodes. In so doing the Germans captured some 40,000 Italians, thus quashing British hopes of significant Italian assistance in the Dodecanese. Nevertheless, there was optimism in the British camp they might still occupy and retain some of the lesser islands. Kos, Samos and Leros were duly secured and garrisoned, primarily by troops of the newly re-formed 234 Infantry Brigade, the battalions of which had arrived in the Middle East after having endured the 1940–42 siege of Malta. Also manning some of the island outposts were detachments of the SBS and the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). Already on Kos were 3,500-plus cooperative Italians, including the majority of two infantry battalions.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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Of the British-occupied islands only Kos was suitable as an airbase. Soon arriving on-island were Supermarine Spitfire VBs of No. 7 Squadron of the South African Air Force and No. 74 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, with some 500 ground support personnel. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by army and RAF gunners equipped with 40 mm Bofors and 20 mm Hispanos, respectively. The British also garrisoned the island with 700 soldiers—mainly of 1st Battalion, the Durham Light Infantry—to counter any German landing attempts. Troops were dispersed between the main airfield at Antimachia and in and around the town of Kos. On the eve of battle some 100 troops of the RAF Regiment arrived as reinforcements.

In mid-September 1943 the Germans in central Italy were forced to pull back in the wake of the successful Allied landing at Salerno. But the situation in the southeastern Aegean was altogether different.

On September 23 Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, commanding 22 Infanterie-Division, received orders to seize Kos and Leros. Müller made Kos his first objective, targeting it with a combined sea and airborne assault code-named Unternehmen Eisbär (Operation Polar Bear). At his disposal were transport ships and landing craft, air transports, bombers and all-important fighter cover. Additional landing forces included Luftwaffe paratroopers and paratroopers and other units drawn from the special forces Division Brandenburg.

At 0500 hours on October 3 Müller launched Eisbär, the first wave of assault troops coming ashore at Marmari beach in northern Kos. Further landings followed along the rugged southeast coast. Shortly after 0700 hours the Brandenburg paratroopers dropped in on southwest Kos. The Germans rapidly pushed toward their objectives, overrunning each in turn and arriving on the outskirts of town by dusk. That night demoralized remnants of the British garrison withdrew south to high ground. All that remained for the Germans the next day was a mopping-up operation. For the Italians it represented the latest in a series of defeats. But for the British it was a disaster, for without Kos there was no longer any possibility of providing crucial air support for those islands still in British hands.

The Germans next turned their attention to Leros. On September 26 Luftwaffe aircraft began targeting key installations and shipping at Portolago (present-day Lakki). The commander of the British 234 Brigade, Maj. Gen. Francis Gerard Russell Brittorous, had previously commanded the 8th (Ardwick) Battalion of the Manchester Regiment (Territorial Army) in Malta. Known for his punctilious observance of parade ground discipline, “Ben” Brittorous was an unpopular officer. On one occasion, as he rode in his jeep past a number of LRDG men on a break from training, he harangued them for having failed to salute him. According to one present, the general was apoplectic. “So you think yourselves tough, do you?” Brittorous hollered. “I’ll bloody well give you something to be tough about!”

Shortly afterward Captain John Olivey and 48 other LRDG troops left Leros in a pair of Italian speedboats with orders to occupy the tiny German-held island of Levitha, little more than 20 miles to the southwest. It was an ill-conceived and hastily conducted operation, launched without reconnaissance or preparation. Five LRDG men were killed during the failed assault, while most of the remainder were captured. Only Olivey, a fellow officer and five others made it back to Leros.

Eventually, a senior officer was sent on a pretext to British headquarters in Cairo to report on the relationship between Brittorous and subordinates, and on November 5 Brigadier Robert “Dolly” Tilney arrived on Leros as the new fortress commander.

POW Tag

Emblematic of the failed 1943 Allied campaign to seize the Italian-held Dodecanese islands in the wake of Italy’s signing of an armistice is the above German-issued POW identification tag. Most Allied prisoners spent the duration of the war in camps in Germany.

By then there was a substantial British presence on the island, including 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers (the Faughs); Company B of 2nd Battalion, Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment (the remainder of which was on Samos); 4th Battalion, Royal East Kent Regiment (the Buffs); and 1st Battalion, King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), plus artillery and supporting sub-units and detachments of the LRDG and SBS. The British garrison comprised some 3,000 troops of all ranks.

The Italian garrison numbered some 5,500, including an infantry battalion, two heavy machine-gun companies and part of a maritime reconnaissance squadron.

Müller’s assault on Leros, code-named Unternehmen Taifun (Operation Typhoon), commenced early on November 12. The assault force was split into three. The initial wave comprised four seaborne Kampfgruppen (combat groups) and a Luftwaffe parachute battalion. A second wave stood by with anti-aircraft and artillery units and heavy infantry weapons. Additional troops and Brandenburg paratroopers were held in reserve near Athens. (On November 13 the Brandenburg Fallschirmjägerkompanie would conduct its third operational jump within six weeks.)

It had been Müller’s intention to land each group simultaneously and seize control of central Leros before its garrison could react. But unforeseen circumstances and a determined resistance meant only certain elements of the invasion force made it ashore, and not all of them at their intended points. At around 1430 hours on the 12th German bombers and cannon-armed floatplanes escorted inland more than three-dozen Junkers Ju 52/3m transports carrying Kampfgruppe Kühne. Hauptmann Martin Kühne’s 470 paratroopers immediately established themselves in and around the central drop zone between Gourna and Alinda bays. In the north infantrymen led by Major Sylvester von Saldern quickly achieved their objectives and held, albeit temporarily, the high ground on and around the dominating Clidi feature to within 500 yards of the coast at Alinda Bay. Having established themselves in central Leros, the Germans had effectively divided the island in two.

Fighting continued for five days, each side losing and retaking ground in a series of seesaw actions. Meanwhile, the British ferried in additional Royal West Kents from Samos, and the Germans also brought in reinforcements. Despite their superior numbers, the British were greatly disadvantaged without air cover, while the Germans had Junkers Ju 87D-3 Stuka dive-bombers on call from dawn till dusk.

Both sides suffered from inadequate signaling equipment. The Germans sought to overcome that issue by adhering to their original plan, whereas the British seemed unable to cope, constantly having to adapt to the changing situation, using runners to try to maintain contact. Invariably, messages got through too late, if at all. Officers received conflicting and confusing orders, and men were flung into the attack, sometimes with little or no idea of their objectives. British communications eventually broke down altogether, and with it evaporated what remained of command and control.

On the morning of November 16, with the Germans on the verge of overrunning brigade headquarters on Mount Meraviglia, Tilney withdrew with his staff, hoping merely to shift his command post south to Lakki.

At 0825 hours the Germans intercepted a signal from fortress headquarters to general headquarters in Cairo. It advised the situation was critical; German forces supported by Stukas and machine-gun fire were reinforcing the Leros peninsula, and defensive positions on Meraviglia had been neutralized, leaving British troops demoralized and facing a hopeless situation. The message was translated, duplicated in leaflet form and airdropped over German positions with additional words of encouragement from Müller: “Now, let’s finish them off!”

But Meraviglia’s defending troops managed to stem the German advance, encouraging Tilney to return and try to restore order from chaos. It was hopeless. That afternoon a renewed German effort resulted in the capture of Tilney and staff. Elsewhere, British soldiers unaware of developments felt they held the upper hand, an opinion shared by many of those opposing them. The brigadier, however, concluded further resistance was futile and, to avoid further unnecessary bloodshed, called for an end to the fighting.

Samos, the final obstacle to Germany’s conquest of the Aegean, was abandoned by the British and fell without a fight on November 22.

Müller reported German casualties during the battles for Kos and Leros as 1,168 dead, wounded and missing, though actual figures are probably higher. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe also incurred considerable material losses during the two-month period of operations.

Allied losses tallied more than 5,000 army personnel (most of whom were captured), 500 naval personnel killed or missing and further losses among aircrews. The Germans had sunk three Allied submarines, 15 ships and various other craft, and damaged at least 10 other vessels. The Allies also lost more than 100 aircraft, including 11 American planes, with 28 more damaged.

The Italians suffered most of all. Of nearly 4,000 mainly Italian prisoners of war aboard the German-operated transports Gaetano Donizetti and Sinfra, some 3,400 went down when both ships were sunk that fall in separate Allied actions. Many more were lost while in transit outside Aegean waters.

In the end the Dodecanese mattered little, if at all, in the bigger picture. Anticipating the inevitable backlash from critics, Churchill recommended the foreign secretary adopt an evasive policy when the matter was raised in Parliament: “Not advisable to reflect in detail on such questions as to why the lessons of Crete in 1941 had not been learned.”

On November 20 the Cairo-based Egyptian Mail headlined events in Russia. Four days earlier, before Tilney’s surrender on Leros, correspondent Gander had been evacuated.His report on the island’s capture made P. 2 of the Mail.

Anthony Rogers is the author of several books about wartime events in and around the Mediterranean, including Churchill’s Folly and Swastika Over the Aegean. For further reading he recommends War in the Aegean: The Campaign for the Eastern Mediterranean in WWII, by Peter C. Smith and Edwin R. Walker.

The Loss of Oria

A tragic irony of the Italian armistice is that so many of the nation’s captured and surrendered troops failed to make it home alive. More Italians perished while in transit to destinations in the Reich than died fighting in the Dodecanese.

On Feb. 11, 1944, German guards on Rhodes crammed more than 4,100 Italian prisoners aboard the commandeered Norwegian steamship Oria for passage to Piraeus, Greece. A victim of rough seas and, it is suspected, poor navigation, Oria ran aground the next day off Patroklos,
an island in the Saronic Gulf some 25 miles southeast of Piraeus. The ship foundered, taking with it nearly all the passengers and crew. The Kriegsmarine initially reported that only the ship’s captain and 14 Germans had been saved. Later estimates suggest 21 Italians also survived the sinking, which ranks among the worst maritime disasters in modern history. —A.R.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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It had taken two battles, near constant artillery bombardment and massive airpower, but the combined forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and Soviet Union were finally poised to take the key Mujahideen logistics base at Zhawar on a relatively cool April 19, 1986. The Mujahideen had masterfully utilized local topography to carve out their base of operations against the communist DRA and its Soviet backers, and Zhawar had become a key strategic objective as both sides fought for control of Afghanistan amid the 1979–89 Soviet-Afghan War.

By 1979 widespread rebellion had engulfed broad swaths of Afghanistan, countered by a commensurate increase in Russian intervention on behalf of the pro-Soviet government. DRA General Secretary Hafizullah Amin’s grip on the country was on the verge of collapse. His primary control mechanism, the Afghan army, was a mere shell of what it once was, having dropped from a high of around 100,000 troops to less than half through desertions and internal combat operations. The Soviets, by contrast, had more than 8,000 troops and 1,500 advisers on the ground, with tens of thousands more poised for intervention in order to prevent the collapse of Amin’s administration. The time had come for the Russians to take control of the situation and, in their minds, stabilize the country.

Direct Soviet intervention began that Christmas Day when the 40th Army and supporting air units crossed into Afghanistan. Two days later the Russians landed more than four divisions at Afghan airports. In the capital city of Kabul their assault troops engaged in especially fierce fighting with troops loyal to Amin. Though suffering heavy casualties, the Soviets eliminated the guards at the outlying Tajbeg Palace before executing Amin, all of his male family members and members of his inner circle. By day’s end they’d installed their chosen puppet, Babrak Karmal, as DRA general secretary.

The invasion, the toppling of Amin (who, though not exactly beloved by Afghans, was still their leader), the installation of a puppet ruler and the presence of a Soviet occupation force was too much for many of the fiercely independent Afghans. Within months the Mujahideen joined forces with thousands of Afghan army deserters to take up fierce armed resistance throughout the country, especially in rural locales. A panicked Karmal beseeched the Soviets for more military assistance, which promptly flooded into the country, raising the Soviet troop count to 105,000 in short order. The long, bitterly contested struggle for Afghanistan ensued.

Fast forward five years. By 1985 the Mujahideen enjoyed widespread support from rural Afghans, while the puppet government and its Soviet backers held sway in the major cities. The Mujahideen put their efforts into hit-and-run attacks on Soviet and DRA convoys, supply lines and communications, while the Russians sought to deprive the rebels of their logistics, supplies and food by ruthlessly bombing and destroying villages, food stores, crops and even animal herds. The Soviet dictum was to “kill the fish by draining off the water.”

To counter such efforts the Mujahideen established a nationwide network of supply bases and depots to serve as logistical hubs for their operations. Among the more hotly contested such sites was Zhawar. On the central-eastern border a scant 15 miles from the Mujahideen’s supply hub at Miran Shah, Pakistan, Zhawar became a primary center for rebel operations and a major thorn in the side of the Soviets and DRA. Literally blasted and carved from the base of Sodyaki Ghar mountain, the base comprised 41 caves linked by 11 major tunnels extending up to 500 yards underground. The extensive facility included a hotel (used by visiting Western journalists), a mosque, a weapons depot, a medical station, a radio hub and a garage housing, among other vehicles, two captured Soviet T-55 tanks.

Zhawar served as a supply base for area Islamic Party (HIK) groups, and its garrison policed checkpoints along the border to identify and prevent infiltration by KHAD (Afghan intelligence) and KGB agents. Commanded by provincial Mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, it was garrisoned by the 500-strong Zhawar Regiment and outfitted with, in addition to the pair of T-55s, a Soviet D-30 122 mm howitzer, several Chinese BM-12 ML 102 mm multiple rocket launchers and an assortment of machine guns and small arms. Deployed on the surrounding high ground was an air defense company equipped with five ZPU-1 and four ZPU-2 14.5 mm anti-aircraft guns.

This substantial logistics hub handled more than 20 percent of the supplies powering the Mujahideen war effort, thus it represented a valuable asset for the rebels and a prime target for the DRA and Soviets. In September 1985 the latter moved to take out the base in what became known as the First Battle of Zhawar.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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That fall the DRA 12th Infantry Division, along with elements of the 37th and 38th Commando brigades, moved out from Gardez and took a circular route to Khost to avoid the Mujahideen-controlled direct route through the Khost-Gardez (aka Sata-Kandow) pass. Joining up with the 25th Infantry Division at Khost, the column coalesced into a composite force (due to strength deficiencies). In early September the DRA infantry, under the command of Lt. Gen. Shahnawaz Tani, with supporting artillery fire and targeted air strikes, struck rebel positions northeast of Zhawar at a place called Bori. As Haqqani and most of Zhawar’s top commanders and field officers were away on hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and thus unprepared for such a strike, Bori quickly fell to the DRA, who pushed on toward Zhawar.

On learning of the fall of Bori, the Mujahideen deployed an 80-man blocking force along the eastern slope of Moghulgai Ghar, which formed the eastern perimeter of Zhawar. The DRA force arrived outside the base under cover of darkness, only to be immediately engaged by defenders and lose two armored personnel carriers and four other trucks. The dispirited DRA force ultimately withdrew to Khost, allowing the Mujahideen to reclaim Bori.

The DRA force next attacked and captured the town of Lezhi, killing its Mujahideen commander. That same day, September 4, Haqqani and other high-ranking rebels returned to Zhawar and took command of the situation. While the Mujahideen from Lezhi withdrew south, a force of 20 rebels deployed to block Manay Kandow pass.

Manay Kandow was a natural fortified position, with high peaks and a thick rock slab cap that could shelter up to a couple dozen troops from shelling and air strikes. The Mujahideen had also dug defense and communications trenches with clear views of the exposed Tani plain below. The DRA presumptively launched its infantry straight at the Mujahideen positions, only to be turned back by withering fire. Making no progress against the entrenched Mujahideen, the DRA called in massive air strikes and artillery bombardments and then sent in the infantry once again. It repeated this cycle for 10 straight days with no gains before calling on its Russian allies for heavier, sustained air bombardments. Under the continuous pounding of Soviet air strikes, fearful the cave would collapse on them, the Mujahideen finally pulled out on September 14, allowing the DRA to move in and occupy the high ground.

That tactical gain in turn allowed the DRA to refocus its air strikes and bombardments against Zhawar while its infantry moved through the pass. The Mujahideen rear guard contested the crossing as well as they could, but they lacked the numbers and necessary firepower and slowly gave way. Eventually the DRA pushed through and gained the high ground of Tor Kamar, little more than a half mile from Zhawar. Assuming victory was at hand, the DRA carelessly grouped its forces on the high ground in preparation for the final push.

A surprise was in store for them, as the supposedly cowed Mujahideen counterattacked, its two captured T-55s emerging from their subterranean garage to open fire on the grouped government ranks. Moving from position to position, the tanks sent soldiers flying and stunned their officers, who had no idea the Mujahideen had any heavy weapons, let alone tanks. The ravaged DRA forces fled in panic, the Mujahideen throwing up blocking positions wherever possible to continue hammering them at every step.

After 42 days of fighting and the loss of a helicopter and untold numbers of government troops (statistics vary, but casualties were presumed to have been heavy), General Tani ordered a nighttime withdrawal of his men. Faulty to nonexistent intelligence on the part of the DRA had cost it the battle, as the lack of a properly prepared defense nearly had for the rebels. It proved a tactical victory for the Mujahideen, at the expense of 106 killed and more than 300 wounded. More important, it reaffirmed their control of the country and perceived invincibility in the hinterlands. But the DRA would try again in a few short months, this time with direct and substantial Soviet assistance.

In February 1986 Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev announced the signing of an agreement with the Afghan government for the planned withdrawal of Soviet troops, while simultaneously strengthening the DRA ranks in order for it to assume the leading combat role. Meanwhile, the Soviet High Command urged the DRA Ministry of Defense to take the fight to the Mujahideen and destroy the base at Zhawar.

The DRA committed 54 battalions (nearly all understrength), artillery and air support to the operation. The 7th, 8th, 14th and 25th infantry divisions, the 38th Commando Brigade and the 666th Air Assault Regiment—close to 12,000 troops—would constitute the DRA army tasked with taking Zhawar. This time the Afghans would be operating with the direct Soviet assistance of more than 2,000 troops from the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 191st Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment. The operation was led by Lt. Gen. Nabi Azimi, with Soviet Maj. Gen. V.G. Trofimenko serving as his combat advisor. On February 28 DRA and Soviet forces moved out of their staging grounds at Gardez toward Zhawar.

After nearly a month of painstakingly slow progress hampered by wet snow, driving rain and shelling by the Mujahideen, the DRA force made its way into the Khost valley in preparation for the offensive on Zhawar. The initial assault began at around midnight on April 2 with a two-hour artillery barrage, followed by an airborne insertion of elements of the 38th Commando Brigade via six Mil Mi-8 transport helicopters in conjunction with an attack by the 7th and 14th infantry divisions in the east and the 8th and 25th infantry divisions in the west.

The airborne insertion itself was a disaster, as it was discovered around 3 a.m. that paratroopers had overshot their objective and ended up a few miles inside Pakistan, where they were soon surrounded and captured. Regardless, Azimi ploughed ahead with the main assault. After an initial strike against Mujahideen positions by Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft, 15 transport helicopters inserted the remaining units of the 38th Brigade across seven landing zones. Next came the infantry attack, meant to link up with the already destroyed air assault forces. In their absence, intense fighting soon raged at every landing zone, and Mujahideen troops took out helicopter after helicopter. To quell their accurate fire, field officers called in Soviet jets to bomb and strafe rebel positions, against which the latter’s defenses proved largely ineffective.

The Mujahideen remained undeterred. Led by Haqqani, who with dozens of other rebels had managed to escape a collapsed cave, more than 700 Mujahideen emerged from concealment to attack the landing zones, overrunning four of them. The timely arrival of rebel reinforcements from the Pakistani border caught the DRA forces in a tactical vise, leading to the capture of more than 500 commandos of the 38th Brigade by day’s end.

After three days of combat, counting both casualties and men captured, the 38th Brigade had been effectively destroyed, as had two dozen of its 32 transport helicopters. The conduct of the operation had proven so abysmal that the Soviets were compelled to assume direct command, tasking General of the Army Valentin Ivanovich Varennikov with turning things around.

The Soviet general immediately buttressed available forces, bringing in three additional DRA regiments, a DRA spetsnaz (special forces) battalion and six Soviet battalions before resuming the offensive. During the 12 days Verennikov was granted to prepare his assault, Soviet/DRA artillery and air strikes continued around the clock. With the launch of the renewed effort on the morning of April 17, the artillery and air units stepped up the intensity of their fire support. DRA infantry then hit the Mujahideen from both east and west. After several staggered assaults and a tactical adjustment—in which Afghan government troops moved to high ground under cover of darkness and assaulted without a preemptive artillery strike—the Mujahideen faltered and withdrew from the heights of strategically important Dawri Gar.

Several events had transpired to turn the tide for the DRA troops and their Soviet backers. First, during the fight for Dawri Gar and that of greater Lezhi a critical Mujahideen unit had suddenly and unexpectedly withdrawn without having fired a shot. Around the same time an air strike had wounded Haqqani. But as that news was relayed down the line, a rumor spread he’d been killed. Word their popular leader was dead was enough to prompt the discouraged rebels to evacuate Zhawar. Emerging with the two captured T-55s, a rear guard held off the enemy long enough for the main body to flee into the mountains. Amid the hasty pullout the Mujahideen left behind most of their equipment and supplies, while they abandoned the tanks in the foothills. After months of expended blood, sweat, toil and munitions, DRA and Soviet forces finally claimed Zhawar at noon on April 19.

They wouldn’t remain long, as intelligence indicated that Mujahideen along the Pakistani border were already mobilizing multiple rocket launchers in preparation for a counterattack. Time being short, the occupiers were given but four hours to destroy the complex—far from enough time to do an adequate job. Communist sappers detonated several hundred antitank mines in the primary caves, doing what little damage they could, before pulling out before dark.

The Second Battle of Zhawar had proved both a short-lived and costly victory for the DRA and its Soviet backers. In addition to their presumed heavy casualties, more than 500 of their men had been captured, and they’d lost two dozen helicopters and two attack jets. By comparison the Mujahideen had lost 281 killed and some 350 wounded. Adding insult to injury, the minute DRA and Soviet forces abandoned Zhawar, the Mujahideen moved right back in to repair the damage, improve defenses and bring the base back up to operational status within weeks. The reconstituted rebels subsequently filtered back into the region, reclaiming all areas previously taken by DRA and Soviet troops.

The collective Battles of Zhawar were to have been a showcase for the Afghan government, an opportunity for it to establish its legitimacy as the governing body of its fractured nation. Instead, its poor handling of the offensives cost it dearly in manpower and materiel. The fiasco also put the Soviets in a lose-lose position even as they prepared to transition out of the country. While Russian firepower had given the DRA the edge it needed to capture Zhawar, Afghan intelligence had failed to properly assess enemy defenses and strengths, to its own detriment.

To be fair, the Mujahideen were also wracked with intelligence failures. Their spies had failed to identify the DRA-Soviet buildup for the second battle. Then, at the height of combat, Haqqani’s rumored death exposed weaknesses in the rebel command-and-control structure, costing the Mujahideen their supply base, albeit only briefly.

In the end, the seesaw struggle for Zhawar accomplished little, though the battles did reaffirm for the Afghan people and the international community that the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, or any such puppet government, could not defeat the Mujahideen without the direct military intervention of its backers. The Soviet Union could have taken that lesson from history. Instead, they learned by hard experience. By then the communist superpower had had enough of the “graveyard of empires.”

Michigan-based Michael G. Stroud is a frequent contributor to military history publications and websites in both the United States and Britain. For further reading he recommends The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, by Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester W. Grau, and The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost, by the Russian General Staff, edited and translated by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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Like it or not, war can sometimes be a fashion statement. Among the multivarious uniforms that distinguish one unit from another, senior officers may indulge in the privilege of distinguishing themselves with individual touches—to be identifiable to their own troops, though hopefully not to the enemy. History records Hannibal Barca going to battle dressed as a common soldier, less conspicuous to his Roman enemies but still recognizable to his men. During the Napoléonic wars the namesake French emperor, Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and British Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, favored the casual route, confident they’d be recognized by the right people when it counted. For every such low profile, however, there were extroverts who, aided by singular flourishes, went the distance to be unmistakable to all.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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For New France—Louis XV’s colonial dominion in North America—1759 had been a disaster, a year marred by crushing losses to British-led forces amid the French and Indian War, a sideshow of the broader Seven Years’ War. To the west, Fort Niagara was taken after a 20-day siege, cutting communications to Illinois Country, Louisiana and the western Great Lakes. In the central Champlain Valley, threatened by an advancing Anglo-American force under General Jeffery Amherst—commander-in-chief of the British army in North America—the French had blown up Forts Carillon and Saint-Frédéric and retreated north to Île aux Noix, in the midst and near the headwaters of the Richelieu River. Without doubt, however, the crowning blow came with the British conquest of Quebec, which effectively blocked the St. Lawrence River, severing Canada’s communications with France. By early 1760 the French dominion had shrunk to a tenuous strip along the banks of the St. Lawrence from Trois-Rivières in the east to Lake Ontario in the west. Almost everything from men to materials was wanting, food was short, and the populace was exhausted.

“The winding up of the last campaign,” reflected New France Governor General Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, “reduced the colony to the most critical circumstances and most melancholy condition.”

In April 1760, hoping to reestablish the lifeline to France, Vaudreuil tasked General François Gaston de Lévis—the latter of whom had assumed command of the army after Lt. Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm’s death the previous fall at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham—with recovering Quebec. Lévis managed to defeat Brig. Gen. James Murray’s army at Sainte-Foy on April 28, but he was unable to keep the British from retreating within the city walls. The French commander laid siege to Quebec, but with only a handful of heavy guns and little in the way of powder, he was forced to withdraw when British warships sailed upriver a few weeks later.

With Quebec once again secure, British focus shifted back to Montreal, the last enemy stronghold in New France. As in the past, the forthcoming campaign called for a three-pronged attack. Murray, with 4,000 men, would move up the St. Lawrence from Quebec, while Amherst would lead some 10,000 men across Lake Ontario and down the St. Lawrence against Montreal from the west. The third prong of the campaign comprised 3,400 Anglo-American troops under recently promoted Brig. Gen. William Haviland. In a continuation of British efforts in the Champlain Valley, Haviland was directed to capture the French stronghold at Île aux Noix and then advance on the Richelieu River forts and Montreal from the south. As the plan called for all three prongs to arrive simultaneously at Montreal, Amherst’s army, which had more moving parts and much farther to travel, was given a six-week head start. The other two armies would wait until mid-August before setting out.

Haviland’s men, encamped at Crown Point, overlooking a narrows on the west shore of Lake Champlain, spent the summer buttressing Fort Amherst, stockpiling supplies and constructing a flotilla of small boats for transporting troops. While such tasks proved challenging, the general was more concerned about the caliber of troops assigned to his command. He’d been given two senior British infantry regiments, the 17th and his own 27th, augmented with four companies of the 1st (Royals) and a detachment of Royal Artillery. The rest of his men, however, were colonials drawn from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, the latter including Rangers under Major Robert Rogers. Haviland shook his head at the allocations. He had dealt with such militia troops during a stint as commander of Fort Edward and typically found them wanting, especially Rogers and his band of frontier hooligans. At least naval support was not at issue. Supplementing a pair of British warships—the 18-gun brigantine Duke of Cumberland and the 16-gun sloop Boscawen—were three French xebecs captured the previous fall. Joining them in Haviland’s flotilla was the 84-foot radeau Ligonier, carrying six 24-pounder cannons, and three smaller radeaux built to carry the field artillery.

Meanwhile, at Île aux Noix, the late Montcalm’s chief of staff, Colonel Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, faced far more dire concerns. Named for its dense growth of walnut trees, Île aux Noix (Nut Island) sat in the middle of the Richelieu River a dozen miles south (upstream) of the French garrison at Fort Saint-Jean. The island is a little over three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. The channel west of Île aux Noix is the wider of the two but too shallow for heavy vessels, which must take the narrower eastern channel when passing the island. While the French could certainly contest northbound (downstream) navigation on the Richelieu at this point, the island itself was simply too large to be effectively defended by Bougainville’s garrison of 1,500 French regulars and militia. An even more serious drawback loomed in Bougainville’s reckoning. Although Île aux Noix’s eastern and western shorelines were swampy, they were not impassible, and as summer wore on, the shore facing the more navigable eastern channel tended to dry out. Thus, the garrison faced the very real possibility of being outflanked and cut off from their supply lines to Fort Saint-Jean before the enemy even positioned a cannon.

To address these issues, Bougainville reinforced wooden booms blocking the upstream entrance to either channel and positioned a battery of guns to cover the eastern boom. He then stationed his ships near the outlet of the Rivière du Sud, just downstream of Île aux Noix, to prevent being outflanked to the east. The French squadron comprised the 10-gun schooner Vigilante, an armed sailing barge, four small gunboats mounting 9-pounder guns on their prows and two row galleys. The latter vessels had been recently constructed at Saint-Jean. The larger of the galleys, Diable, carried 60 oars and was armed with a pair of 18-pounders in the prow and another in the stern, while the smaller galley was indifferently armed and spent most of its time shuttling between Île aux Noix and Fort Saint-Jean.

While Bougainville was short on manpower, by August his hardworking troops had crisscrossed Île aux Noix with fortifications, with a particular focus on the southern end of the island, where an initial attack was likely to fall. A zigzagging, 18-foot-wide U-shaped ditch backed by an earthen rampart and parapet protected that vulnerable shoreline. Enclosing these entrenchments to the north was a curtain wall with a pair of hornworks at either end. Behind it a second line of defensive works spanned the island, tracing its slight elevations. Though the defenders completed an impressive amount of work in a short period of time, few felt it would be enough.

On August 11 Haviland set sail north up Lake Champlain from Crown Point, his 3,400 men crammed aboard 80 whaleboats, 330 bateaux and four radeaux. A storm sweeping down the valley sank a few of the smaller boats, but by the morning of the 16th the rest of the flotilla had entered the Richelieu, halting above Point Margot, some 100 yards shy of the southern tip of Île aux Noix, to land an advance guard under Lt. Col. John Darby on the river’s east bank. An hour later Darby gave the all-clear signal. Haviland then sent the warships and a few of the artillery radeaux to fire on the island and commenced landing operations. By nightfall 3,000 men were ashore on the east bank of the Richelieu, and the French had yet to fire a single shot.

Having heard no reply from the enemy, Haviland suspended landing operations and at dawn dispatched a handful of men in a small artillery radeau to determine whether the island had been abandoned. Haviland’s men halted their work and watched from shore as the boxlike vessel crawled toward the island. When the radeau had approached to within a few hundred yards of the French fortifications, its men slowly swung the boat to starboard and fired several rounds. All was quiet as smoke from the vessel’s swivel gun drifted over the water. The radeau then tacked about. But when the vessel showed its stern to the island, waiting French cannons finally came into action. The first shot went wide, but the second, from a 12-pounder, struck the radeau’s quarterdeck, tossing its captain and four others about like bowling pins before plowing down the length of the vessel and coming to a stop. The radeau drifted for a few moments while men scrambled back to their places. The British crew then exchanged a few shots with the enemy before moving out of range. Haviland had his answer and ordered his troops to continue unloading the artillery.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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Haviland’s army spent the next few days slowly moving down the swampy east bank of the river. Crews cut a road for the fieldpieces, while others built firing platforms and erected palisades. On the night of August 18 the general sent a number of Rangers forward to sever the boom in the eastern channel, but French gunners repelled them with loads of grapeshot. The French were less successful when it came to halting enemy activity along the east bank of the Richelieu, though it was only 250 yards away. Many of the colonial troops were happily surprised at the enemy’s inaccurate fire, given the range and the all-to-thin veil of trees providing the only cover.

After watching his artillerymen’s poor showing, Bougainville wrote in disgust to Lévis that there was “no gunner here who knows how to aim.” As frustrating as that proved, the French commander soon faced bigger problems. His greatest concern was that the enemy would land on the island in force and overwhelm his position. To forestall this, he dispatched troops to the northern end of the island, where such an attempt might succeed. Bougainville’s secondary concern was the enemy mortar batteries being erected across the channel. As his fortifications were simple fieldworks, with no bombproof shelters to protect French troops or munitions, such enemy guns posed a real threat to his exposed position.

Raft of Guns

Among the 414 ships in Haviland’s British flotilla were four ungainly vessels known as radeaux (French for “rafts”). Designed as floating gun batteries with which to transport and bring artillery to bear on targets ashore, they were tortoiselike in appearance and sailing performance.

By the afternoon of August 23 Haviland’s men had completed three batteries. The first comprised six 24-pounders, the second three 12-pounders and ten 5½- inch mortars, and the third two 13-inch mortars and two 10-inch mortars. At 4 o’clock a signal gun sounded and, in keeping with the formalities of the age, the sound of fife and drums carried from one end of the British line to the other. For nearly 10 minutes the martial music filled the air, finally ending with the echoed command to fire. The batteries responded with five quick salvos against the island, “beating down all before them,” according to one observer. As the fire from shore slowed to a steady pace, Duke of Cumberland approached the island and added its guns to the onslaught. Initially the French remained silent, saving their ammunition. But as evening wore on, a few guns came into action, firing the occasional mortar round or cannon ball across the channel. Haviland exploited the distraction of the barrage to send several parties out to cut the eastern boom, but the alert French chased off each in turn with grapeshot and musketry.

At dawn Haviland again ordered all his guns into action. A low-hanging mist and the occasional rain shower proved no hindrance to what became most intense artillery duel of the siege, leaving one provincial soldier with the impression that “the Heavens and Earth was [sic] coming together.” That pronouncement seemed to come true later in the day when a French round struck the British bomb battery magazine, triggering a thunderous explosion that shook the ground and brought firing on either side to a standstill. Undeterred, Haviland soon sent work parties forward to prepare a two-gun battery near the eastern end of the boom. That effort drew a hail of French grapeshot and ball, inflicting more than a dozen casualties on the British, but it was the onset of heavy rains and not enemy fire that brought the work to a halt for the evening.

The still of that cloudy night was broken only by the occasional discharge of a cannon and shots from excited sentries. But in the predawn darkness of August 25 Colonel Darby’s grenadiers, light infantry and Rangers were on the move, trudging their way along the swampy east bank of the Richelieu, dragging behind them a pair of 12-pounder cannons and a pair of 5½-inch howitzers. It was a humid morning, which only magnified the backbreaking work of manhandling several tons of iron through the mud and between clusters of trees. Yet, by midmorning Darby’s men had reached their destination—a point of land just south of the mouth of the Rivière du Sud. Anchored across from them, just downstream of the island, were three French vessels. As Bougainville had feared, Haviland had ordered Darby to destroy the French squadron in order to cut the island’s communications with Fort Saint-Jean and clear the way for British ships once the boom had been cut.

At 10 o’clock Darby’s guns opened fire, catching the French ships wholly by surprise. Diable’s captain immediately ordered the galley’s anchor cable cut so its crew could row the ship to safety. But Darby’s men were quick to find the range, and the next few shots crashed into Diable, killing its commander and throwing its crew into confusion. Meanwhile, men aboard the two smaller French ships, which were being splattered by grapeshot and slowly drifting under a northwest wind toward the British battery, either went over the side or surrendered. As Diable ran aground on the east bank of the Richelieu, Darby turned his attention to Vigilante, which had been moored a few hundred yards farther north. Captain Joseph Payant dit Saint-Onge, easily the most experienced mariner in the squadron, had slipped his anchor at the start of the engagement and raised sail in an attempt to run downriver, but the prevailing wind had pushed Vigilante toward the river’s east bank, and soon it, too, ran aground, on a peninsula north of the Rivière du Sud. The sailing barge that accompanied Vigilante met a similar fate. But while the barge crew had no recourse, Vigilante carried oars and with a little luck might still be freed.

Darby, however, had no intention of allowing his quarry to escape. He ordered Rogers to cross the Rivière du Sud to the north while he and his men, having boarded Diable, pushed the vessel back out into the channel. Once across the shallow Rivière du Sud, Rogers and his men directed volleys of musketry against the grounded French vessels. A few bold Rangers armed with tomahawks swam out to and boarded the nearly deserted sailing barge without opposition. Vigilante’s crew, however, put up a fight, its gunners firing their 4-pounders at the Rangers while others attempted push the vessel off the shore with their oars. They raised a triumphant shout as Vigilante began to move, but when Diable, flying a British flag, hove into view with its two 18-pounders trained on his schooner, Saint-Onge weighed the odds and wisely struck his colors.

Sour Grapes

As Haviland’s Rangers sought to force passage down the deeper eastern channel past Île aux Noix, French gunners chased them off with loads of grapeshot, small-caliber round shot bound in canvas and fired from a cannon. The effect was akin to a large shotgun.

For Bougainville the action was a fatal blow. The defense of Île aux Noix had hinged on naval control of the river below the island. With its loss and the lifeline to Saint-Jean effectively cut, the island’s defenders could at best only pin down a portion of the British army while the enemy fleet circumvented the island and advanced downriver toward Montreal. When brought before Darby shortly after his capture, Saint-Onge congratulated the colonel and wished him “the joy of the country,” knowing full well the British capture of the French fleet had unlocked the defenses of Île aux Noix.

He could not have been more right. The next day Bougainville and his officers resolved to abandon the island and fall back on Montreal. Given the rapid progress of the siege to the east, the west bank of the Richelieu remained the only possible escape route. Put in charge of a small rear guard, a lieutenant by the name of Le Borgne was ordered to conceal the retreat of the main French body for as long as possible by continuing to work the island’s guns. At 10 that evening, while Le Borgne’s men exchanged sporadic fire with the British, the French boats began crossing the western channel, and by midnight the bulk of the French garrison was ashore, trudging through the marshy woods toward Montreal and the closing days of the French regime in North America.

A number of French deserters entered the British camp in the early morning hours of August 27 and informed Haviland the garrison had fled out the back door. This was confirmed when Le Borgne lowered the French flag at dawn, ending the siege. Haviland took 113 prisoners and found 54 guns, a large supply of shot and a sizable number of small arms on the island. Both sides had suffered only a few dozen casualties in the siege, and Haviland’s apprehensions about his colonial troops had proved unfounded. They had distinguished themselves as pioneers, and even Rogers and his wild band of Rangers had contributed to the victory. More important, the boom blocking the eastern channel could be removed. Haviland’s force resumed its advance on Montreal the next day.

On September 7 the British brigadier general’s column arrived on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal. Amherst’s army was already encamped on the island to the west of the city, while Murray’s men waited on the eastern end of the island. The timing was impressive. Three British armies that had started from different sides of the French colony had converged on Montreal within 24 hours of one another. No miracle would save New France. Though General Lévis wished to continue fighting, Governor General Vaudreuil wisely surrendered the next morning, bringing the last of four successive French and Indian wars to an end and presaging the turnover of Canada to the British.

Michael G. Laramie is the author of seven books on colonial America and the American Civil War. His most recent work, The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley, will be released this fall. For further reading he recommends The Fortifications of Île aux Noix, by André Charbonneau; The Great War for the Empire: The Victorious Years, 1758–1760, by Lawrence Henry Gipson; and Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone, by James Johnstone.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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The War of 1812 was a hard-fought oddity that formally ended as a tie on Christmas Eve 1814, despite Andrew Jackson’s decisive, reputation-making victory 15 days later at New Orleans. The war witnessed the humiliating burning of Washington by the British, as well as the near miraculous salvation of Baltimore, memorialized in the verses of Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner,” the United States’ future national anthem. But the war’s most sustained fighting played out in three successive, highly contested and largely overshadowed campaigns along the U.S.-Canadian border and major waterways, including the Great Lakes—from Detroit in the west to Plattsburgh, on Lake Champlain, in the east.

A tempting target for the land-hungry new republic, British North America (largely comprising the present-day Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec) was the subject of repeated American invasion attempts, the last being the 1814 Niagara campaign. Scarcely a half century earlier the British themselves had invaded north to pluck the region from the French. This latest U.S. attempt to supplant the British was largely decided by the outcome of the Battle of Lundy’s Lane, fought that July 25 near that iconic North American cataract Niagara Falls.

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The capture of British North America would represent a powerful bargaining chip in the ongoing war, thus on July 3, 1814, the Americans again invaded, crossing the Niagara River between Lakes Erie and Ontario. After initial successes at Fort Erie and the Battle of Chippawa, American Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown bivouacked his nearly 2,800 men with eight cannons at Queenston, just downstream of the falls, before withdrawing upstream on July 24 to Chippawa to consolidate his forces and supply line. Meanwhile, British Maj. Gen. Phineas Riall, with a mixed force of about 2,200 British and 850 Canadian Regulars supported by 500 or more militia and Indian allies, advanced along Lundy’s Lane, a portage road crossing the farm of the namesake refugee Loyalist from Pennsylvania. It afforded an excellent tactical position, skirting a rise with commanding views and flanked on the east by the river. Riall led from the center of his line, where he deployed his ordnance—two 24-pounders, two 6-pounders and one 5.5-inch howitzer, plus 12-pounder Congreve rockets of the Royal Marines.

The next morning, July 25, Lt. Gen. Gordon Drummond, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, arrived to take command of British and Canadian forces. Meanwhile, Brown again advanced north. Riall ordered a withdrawal, but Drummond countermanded his order. Around 6 p.m. the American vanguard arrived on the field, and Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott immediately sent his Regulars against the British center. Though Riall’s artillery gave them a beating, one of Scott’s regiments managed to flank the British left, forcing a retreat and capturing Riall, who’d been wounded. Drummond realigned his troops to meet the threat, but he left his artillery exposed. Though dusk was approaching and Scott had suffered heavy casualties, Brown pressed the attack with the recently arrived main force of two brigades. With the British distracted by action on their right, the Americans captured the British guns and drove the enemy off the rise. Farther down the line Brown’s men also forced back the British and Canadian forces.

As the Americans consolidated the high ground and brought up their own artillery, Drummond—who, like Riall, had been wounded—resolved to recapture his guns. Fresh frontal assaults against the position were repelled with heavy losses on both sides. In the dark and confusion Scott led a charge against the British center, taking heavy fire and being himself wounded. Fighting lasted well into the night, but eventually the badly mauled opponents broke off. By then Brown, too, had been wounded. With water and ammunition running low, he ordered a withdrawal uncontested by the exhausted enemy.

Though tactically a draw, the battle represented a British strategic victory, as Brown withdrew across the border, ending the American invasion of Canada. It cost the British and Canadians 84 killed, 559 wounded, 169 captured and 55 missing, while the Americans tallied 171 killed, 572 wounded and 117 missing or captured. Brown and Scott recovered from their wounds, each in turn becoming the commanding general of the U.S. Army, the latter distinguishing himself in the Mexican War in 1847 and originating the famed Anaconda Plan to strangle the Confederacy in 1861. Drummond and Riall also recovered, ultimately departing for Britain and the Caribbean, respectively. The war itself ended largely status quo, while the three participant nations engaged in no further hostilities, later banding together as allies in two world wars and a cold war through present.

Today the City of Niagara Falls Museum offers walking tours of the battlefield, which is preserved as a national historic site. It centers on Drummond Hill Cemetery, in which many of the dead of both sides rest.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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When World War I settled into static trench warfare, even the most advanced armored cars were effectively immobilized by the Western Front’s combination of muddy terrain, trenches, barbed wire, heavy machine guns and artillery.

To meet such challenges, in February 1915 British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill formed a Landship Committee tasked with designing an armored vehicle capable of mastering mud, bridging an 8-foot gap, climbing a 5-foot earthwork and other specifications outlined by British army Lt. Col. Ernest Swinton. Under the guidance of mechanical engineer Major Walter Wilson of the Royal Naval Air Service and agricultural engineer Sir William Tritton, the committee purchased twin “creeping grip” track assemblies from the Bullock Tractor Co. of Chicago, Ill., and fitted them beneath a boxlike crew compartment of riveted steel plates. Powering the vehicle was a Daimler-Knight 6-cylinder, 105 hp tractor engine provided by Tritton’s Foster & Co., of Lincoln, England. On discovering the Bullock tracks were too small to accommodate the vehicle’s weight, Tritton designed longer, wider tracks. He also added twin rear wheels to facilitate steering. A proposed round turret packing a 2-pounder Vickers gun was never installed.

Officially known as the No.1 Lincoln Machine or Tritton Machine, the prototype landship was nicknamed “Little Willie” (a derisive name then applied to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia). When not undergoing testing, it was kept under the strictest wraps, a backstory claiming it was a new mobile “water tank.” The abbreviated tank reference became universal for Little Willie’s descendants.

Little Willie was found to be top-heavy, but by that time a better design was in development, with a rhomboid-shaped track running above and below the superstructure and 6-pounder guns in sponsons on either side. Nicknamed “Mother,” the improved variant was further refined into the Mark I tank, which first saw combat at the Somme on Sept. 15, 1916. Today the tank’s forebear, Little Willie, is in the collection of the Tank Museum in Bovington, England.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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The 1806–07 War of the Fourth Coalition, which pitted France against an alliance led by Prussia and Russia, climaxed in the Prussian burg of Friedland (present-day Pravdinsk, Russia). It was there the French field-tested doctrines that would dominate artillery tactics for the next 130 years.

On June 13, 1807, Napoléon sent some 15,000 troops of his reserve corps under Marshal Jean Lannes north to invest the port of Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad), on the Baltic Coast. Moving to intercept him were 65,000 Russians led by Count Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen, a German in the Russian service. That night Bennigsen detached 46,000 troops to cross the Alle (Lyna) River on pontoon bridges to engage the small French force at Friedland. Though outnumbered 3-to-1, Lannes managed to hold his position for nine hours.

Just before noon Napoléon arrived with the main body of the Grande Armée. Marshal Michel Ney, commanding the VI Corps and the French right wing, was tasked with securing Friedland and the Alle River bridges in order to cut off the Russians’ escape routes. Around 1 p.m. two dozen guns at Posthenen, behind the center of the French line, signaled the main attack. With that, the French center and left wing advanced slowly, while Ney’s two divisions pressed on to the village of Sortlack, coming under Russian artillery fire from across the river.

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At that crucial moment Brig. Gen. Alexandre-Antoine Sénarmont, commanding the artillery of a reserve corps at the center of the French line, obtained permission to move up independently and test his theories on the use of massed artillery. Gathering 20 six-pounders, four 4-pounders and six 5.5-inch howitzers, he divided them into two 15-gun batteries supported by an infantry battalion and four dragoon regiments. He then advanced each battery in turn in 500-yard increments. Approaching to within 60 paces of the enemy, Sénarmont had his guns loaded with canister shot and crushed one infantry attack after another. The distraction enabled Ney to seize Friedland. As the beaten Russians fled back across the pontoon bridges, Sénarmont redirected his guns and destroyed the spans.

Sensing victory, Napoléon ordered his center and left wings to hasten their advance. General Andrey Ivanovich Gorchakov, commanding the opposing Russian center and right, tried to fend them off, but Ney and Lannes soon had his troops pinned against the river, where many drowned or were skewered on French bayonets. Survivors surged across a fortuitously discovered ford on the Alle. Only nightfall and French cavalry General Emmanuel de Grouchy’s unwillingness to pursue them in the dark spared the Russians from annihilation.

As it was, the Russians suffered 20,000 casualties, while French losses totaled 8,000. Among those killed were four of Sénarmont’s officers and 62 of his gunners, but his men alone had accounted for some 4,000 Russians.

Königsberg fell the next day, and a month later Napoléon and Tsar Alexander I signed the Treaty of Tilsit, ending the war.

Lessons:

Know thine enemy. Bennigsen later claimed he’d believed Lannes’ corps was isolated, and he hadn’t expected French reinforcements to march the same distance in 12 hours his own force had taken 24 to cover. Given his previous encounters with Napoléon, he should have known better.

Nothing beats real-world testing. Sénarmont’s innovative use of leapfrogging artillery and concentrated targeting proved decisive. Had he not asked permission, the result may have been different.

Follow through. Though the French all but won the war at Friedland, Grouchy’s reluctance to pursue his fleeing enemy meant the Russians lived to fight another, well, few days.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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The pages of the great Roman historians—Livy, Tacitus, Sallust—are replete with stories of the triumphs and foibles of the commanders of the legions. But seldom are common soldiers mentioned by name. Spurius Ligustinus is an exception. A legionary of the Roman Republic, Ligustinus served in five major wars and several smaller campaigns during his 32-year military career (200–168 bc). Over the years he received an extraordinary six Civic Crowns—the Roman equivalent of a Medal of Honor—conferred for having saved the lives of fellow citizens in battle. He also received 34 armillae and torques, gold or silver armbands and neck rings awarded to recognize other acts of valor in battle.

Five times during his career Ligustinus held the rank of primus pilus, or first centurion, of a legion. Centurions were the junior and mid-ranking officers of the Roman armies. Unlike senior legates and tribunes, who mostly came from higher social orders, centurions generally came from the plebeian general populace and rose through the ranks. The centurion commanded a sub-unit called a century, which by Ligustinus’ day had been reduced from 100 to around 80 men.

As they led their troops by example from the front, centurions experienced high casualty rates. Transverse horse-hair crests atop their helmets made them easy to identify in battle. The primus pilus commanded the first century of a legion’s rightmost cohort. He was the ninth senior ranking officer in a legion, directly behind the commanding legate, the six military tribunes and the camp prefect. The primus pilus was the only centurion who sat in the legion’s war councils.

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Ligustinus was born into a poor family of Sabine origin. Enlisting in the Roman army in 200 bc, he served in the Second Macedonian War (200–197 bc). By his third year of service he’d been promoted to the centurion ranks. He next fought against the Lusitanians (194 bc) in Hispania (the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula), where he first attained the rank of primus pilus. He subsequently served in the Aetolian War (191–189 bc), in Greece, and the First Celtiberian War (181–179 bc), in Hispania.

By the outset of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 bc) Ligustinus was over age 50, living on a half acre of land and had eight children. When the Senate authorized the raising of two additional legions to send to Macedonia, Ligustinus volunteered once again, as did more veteran centurions than there were available slots. Twenty-three former first centurions, including Ligustinus, were assigned to the ranks. They protested the demotion and appealed to the tribunes of the plebs. During the subsequent public hearing Ligustinus requested and was granted permission to address the assembly.

“As long as anyone who is enrolling armies considers me fit for service,” said Ligustinus, according to Livy, “I will never beg off. Of what rank the military tribunes think me worthy is for them to decide; I shall see to it that no one in the army surpasses me in bravery.” He then told his fellow protesting first centurions to “think every post honorable in which you will be defending the state.”

When Ligustinus finished speaking, Consul Publius Licinius Crassus brought him before the Senate, whose members gave the centurion a vote of thanks for his past service. The military tribunes then appointed Ligustinus primus pilus of the 1st Legion, his fifth assignment in that rank. Withdrawing their protests, the other former first centurions accepted assignments in the ranks—though many, no doubt, moved up quickly.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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With her book The Hello Girls and a follow-up documentary film, historian, commentator and author Elizabeth Cobbs set out to recognize the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps’ Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. Members of the unit, many of whom worked Stateside as switchboard operators, maintained communications on the Western Front under spartan and sometimes hazardous conditions. Despite having served in uniform, however, the Hello Girls were denied veteran status. Though Congress remedied that in 1977, many of them had died by then. Recently lawmakers introduced legislation to formally honor the unit with the Congressional Gold Medal, presented for distinguished achievements that have had a major impact on American his-tory and culture. Past recipients include notable American warriors and military units. Cobbs recently spoke with Military History about her book and why the Hello Girls are deserving of recognition.

Who were the ‘Hello Girls’?

They were a group of 223 young women—some in their teens, most in their 20s and a few “old women” in their 30s—who volunteered at the request of the U.S. Army to go to France and run the telephone system. This was a daring thing. Most soldiers hadn’t even gone yet. These women were in logistics. The Army needed telephone operators over there before the majority of doughboys. They had to facilitate what was happening at the front, to get supplies, to get troops shipped here and there. Some served as long as two years. These women fielded 26 million calls for the Army in France. A handful traveled with General [John J.] Pershing during the big battles of Meuse-Argonne and Saint-Mihiel. Others served at the headquarters of the American First Army, which was close to the front but not in the war zone. They came from all over—from Washington state, down to Louisiana, up to Maine, even Canada. There were some French-Canadian women who volunteered and served with the U.S. Army.

Many served close to or on the front lines. Were any killed or wounded?

None were killed in action, but some did suffer permanent injuries, mostly from tuberculosis, which was common in northern France. Two died from the influenza pandemic, one on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918.

The conditions of World War I were pretty difficult, especially related to the weather these women had to endure in fairly exposed accommodations. Some were under bombardment. Some were in buildings where artillery concussions blew out windows. Once, they were told to evacuate but wouldn’t leave until the soldiers had. These women worked around the clock, especially the supervisors. Chief Operator Grace Banker, who led the first unit, recorded in her diary at the start of an offensive, “I slept two hours today.” They were handling incredibly complex logistical problems near the front lines. They got no breaks; they worked seven days a week, 12-hour shifts for several months during the worst part of the American war effort. It was extremely stressful. Some were close enough to the front lines that their switchboards shook during bombardments.

Of course, these women crossed the ocean to get to Europe in the first place. This was a time when troopships were being sunk. All of these women knew about this, and they were constantly told to use their lifejackets as pillows and wear all of their clothes to bed in case they were torpedoed. It was scary.

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What kind of training did they receive?

They went through a very strict recruitment and training. They had to be bilingual in French and English, and many washed out because of that. In fact, 7,600 women applied for the first 100 positions. Many were cut for language reasons, others because they weren’t fast enough on the phone. Once selected, they were vetted extremely carefully, sometimes three and four times, by Army intelligence. These women were literally handling national secrets in the wires they connected. One woman was even pulled off a ship at the last minute, though she turned out to not be the German spy they feared she was.

Once selected, they were trained by AT&T [American Telephone and Telegraph] on the phone system. After that they were sent to New York City, where they were drilled and learned to salute on the rooftop of AT&T headquarters. Once they went to France, the women who were sent toward the front were trained in the use of gas masks and pistols. They wore uniforms and had dog tags; otherwise, they risked being executed as spies if captured. They were told again and again that their uniforms and dog tags were their protection as soldiers of the U.S. Army.

Many were bilingual. How important was that skill?

The first group of 100 female volunteers were all required to be absolutely fluent in French and English. They had these super strict tests, where they had to simultaneously translate and operate a telephone exchange, record everything correctly and communicate accurately under pressure. It’s hard for us to appreciate today how nerve-racking that could be. They were getting hundreds of calls an hour, all of them critically important, truly a matter of life and death. These women felt a great deal of responsibility. They were connecting all kinds of calls, such as between commanders and combat units in the field. There were times when they were even talking with French combat troops. The Army set up its own PBX [private branch exchange] telephone system for communications to and from the front. However, the women often had to connect with French lines and French toll operators. Back then, a toll call would be passed from operator to operator to operator. This was a problem for the American doughboys, who generally did not parlez-vous. Pershing realized he couldn’t get a call to go anywhere, so that’s when they realized they needed people who could do the job and communicate with the Allies at the same time.

Why were women selected as operators?

The Army found it took men 60 seconds on average to connect calls that women connected in 10 seconds. In wartime that was the difference between life and death—for an individual and sometimes for whole battalions. Women were adept at using this technology and had the ability to do it much faster and more reliably than men. They were tested on being able to place calls in two languages, write and convey messages, make life-and-death connections in an instant, all while maintaining their composure and decorum.

Banker received the Distinguished Service Medal. What did she do to earn such recognition?

Chief operator for the Signal Corps, Banker was a remarkable person who was devoted to the American cause during World War I. She led the first female contingent under very challenging and difficult circumstances. At one point she developed a severe allergic rash. A doctor told her she needed to have it taken care of, but she said she didn’t have time. There’s a photo of her in which she looked absolutely terrible. Grace served under the extraordinarily demanding conditions of the Battles of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne and was recognized for courageous service. In World War I the U.S. Army awarded only 18 Distinguished Service Medals to Signal Corps officers, of whom 16,000 were eligible. All the honorees were listed by rank. She was listed as “Miss,” because she was a [single] woman.

Why did the War Department deny the ‘Hello Girls’ veteran status?

Their commanding officers begged and pleaded with the War Department to recognize these women who had served alongside them, some in very dire circumstances. Around 11,000 women served with the Navy and Marines during World War I, and every one of them got military benefits, including hospitalization for disabilities. They all served at home in the United States. Only the Army sent women across the ocean into harm’s way, and then denied them veteran status. It was so upsetting and maddening for these women. They were told it would lessen the importance of the meaning of “veteran” if they were to grant women this honor. The Army decided early in the war these women would be contract employees. However, they neither told the vast majority of women, nor gave them any to sign. In fact, women took the same soldier’s oath everybody else did. They wore uniforms but were unaware there was a distinction. Many of the women were flabbergasted when they arrived home and found out they weren’t veterans.

Congress finally recognized them as veterans in 1977. How did that come about?

Their recognition came on the same legislation as the WASPs [Women Airforce Service Pilots], introduced by Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had also been a service pilot in World War II and couldn’t believe that women he’d served with, many who wore the same uniform as him, were not being given veteran benefits. At that time the women of World War I came forward and said, “What about us?” The legislation then covered both groups.

Why award the Hello Girls the Congressional Gold Medal after so many decades?

Because it’s a story that was lost. I’ve met so many women in the Army who’ve said they had no idea this is where their story began. Women today represent 15 percent of the armed forces. It’s a very brave act for any woman to join an organization in which she is going to be in the distinct minority and going against gender expectations. It’s important to say we value female veterans as much as we value male veterans. The Congressional Gold Medal would help all Americans better appreciate the women in our armed services. It would help us recognize that what the Hello Girls did was not only physically courageous, but morally courageous—challenging every social convention at the time in order to help our country. It took a very special person to do that. They performed a heroic service.

This interview appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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On Friday the 13th of August 1948 U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Sterling P. Bettinger tried to land his Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport at Berlin’s Tempelhof Field. Aboard was a VIP passenger—Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, the new director of operations for the seven-week-old Berlin Airlift. Unfortunately, recalled Tunner in his memoir Over the Hump, “at that moment everything was going completely to hell in Berlin. The ceiling had suddenly fallen in on Tempelhof. The clouds dropped to the tops of the apartment buildings surrounding the field, and then they suddenly gave way in a cloudburst that obscured the runway from the tower. The radar could not penetrate the sheets of rain.” One aircraft crashed; another blew out its tires braking to avoid the crash.

Bettinger joined a cluster of pilots circling over Tempelhof, waiting as ground controllers tried to sort out the mess. “The pilots filled the air with chatter, calling in constantly in near panic to find out what was going on,” Tunner recalled. “On the ground a traffic jam was building up as planes came off the unloading line…but were refused permission to take off for fear of collision with the planes milling around overhead. ‘This is a hell of a way to run a railroad,’ I snarled.”

Two months earlier the Cold War had heated up dramatically. Unhappy with plans by the Western Allies (France, Britain and the United States) to create a federal government uniting the portions of Germany they occupied, the Soviet Union in retaliation blockaded the American, British and French occupation sectors in isolated West Berlin. On June 19 the Russians blocked automotive and rail passenger service between western Germany and Berlin. On the 24th they halted all barge and rail freight shipments, cutting the primary supply and commerce links for more than 2 million Berliners. The only means left to the Western Allies to sustain the city was by air transport. “Members of the Soviet military administration in Germany celebrated when the blockade began,” wrote U.S. Air Force historian Roger Miller. “None had doubts that the blockade would succeed.” Major General Lucius Clay, military governor of the American occupied zone of Germany, recalled the Russians were “confident that it would be physically impossible for the Western Allies to maintain their position in Berlin.” The chaos Tunner and Bettinger encountered at Tempelhof seemed to validate Soviet confidence the airlift would fail.

A year later, though, it was the Western Allies who were celebrating. Between June 26, 1948, and Sept. 30, 1949, Allied transport planes completed 277,569 cargo flights, carrying 2,325,509 tons of supplies, into West Berlin. West Berliners had suffered a great deal, but they had endured, and the Western Allies’ position in the divided city had remained strong. On May 12, 1949, the Russians threw in the towel and reopened land and water access to the western sectors—without receiving any concessions regarding the formation of a West German government. (The airlift continued through September to build up emergency supply stocks in Berlin.) The airlift achieved what many thought was impossible: fulfilling the critical needs of a modern city’s population solely through air transport. Allied determination and organization had won the West’s first major victory in the Cold War.

On June 28, four days after the blockade began, the U.S. Departments of State and Defense briefed President Harry S. Truman on the situation. Miller, in his book To Save a City, notes the president quickly quashed any idea of withdrawal. “Abandoning Berlin, [Truman] affirmed, was beyond discussion,” Miller wrote. “The United States was in Berlin by agreement, and the Soviets had no right to push its forces out.”

British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin agreed. A former truck driver and union official, Bevin was the opposite of the stereotypical sophisticated English diplomat. Bevin had displayed his less-than-genteel manner at the July 1946 Paris Peace Conference. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had hurled insults at the British during the meetings and continued the badgering at dinner one night. “Bevin exploded in rage,” wrote Giles Milton in his book Checkmate in Berlin. State Department official Charles Bohlen recalled Bevin “rose to his feet, his hands knotted into fists, and started toward Molotov, saying, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I ’ave.’ For one glorious moment it looked as if the foreign minister of Great Britain and the foreign minister of the Soviet Union were about to come to blows.” (Security intervened, defused the situation and spoiled the moment.) When the Soviets blockaded Berlin, Bevin demanded the Western Allies stand firm. Milton quotes him as saying he “did not want withdrawal to be contemplated in any quarter.” Ordered to stay in Berlin, the American and British military had to figure out how to maintain their position there.

Hardly any Western officials thought an airlift could satisfy Berlin’s needs for an extended period. “Rather it was a stopgap measure,” Miller wrote, “an expedient that enabled Western leaders to buy the time…to negotiate without either the need to give in at some point to Soviet pressure or to escalate the situation beyond control.”

A 1945 agreement between the wartime Allies established six corridors for aircraft travel to and from Berlin—three from the Soviet occupation zone, two from the British and one from the American. The Russians, loath to provoke armed conflict, didn’t contest the three western corridors. Anyway, they thought the airlift would fail. Before the blockade Berlin imported approximately 12,000 tons of supplies a day. American, British and French occupation officials calculated that West Berlin’s population, Western Allied personnel and their families would require a minimum of 4,500 tons daily to survive, while at most Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force transport aircraft in Europe could carry 1,000 tons a day. West Berlin was not wholly sealed off from the outside world. It still received supplies from the Soviet zone, but not nearly enough to survive.

Clay added his voice to Truman’s and Bevin’s, arguing forcefully for the West to do whatever necessary to stay in Berlin. On June 25 Clay warned Army leadership that the West’s credibility in Germany could be mortally wounded if they abandoned the western sectors. “Thousands of Germans have courageously expressed their opposition to Communism,” he told them. “We must not destroy their confidence by any indication of departure from Berlin.”

During World War II Clay had established a reputation in the Pentagon as a logistical and managerial wizard. When supplies for Allied forces in Europe had backed up in the freshly liberated port at Cherbourg, Clay unsnarled the mess. That gravitas helped Clay convince others the Western Allies could supply all of Berlin’s needs by air. In late July he advised Washington that if it sent larger cargo aircraft, and many more of them, the U.S. and British aircrews could fly enough missions each day to keep West Berlin alive. Air Force leadership had serious doubts, as satisfying Clay’s wishes would leave it with few cargo aircraft for its growing list of missions worldwide. Regardless, Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenburg affirmed that if Washington committed itself fully to the mission, Berlin could be supplied by air. Truman gave the go-ahead, and Clay got his resources.

The Americans and British had actually been airlifting cargo into West Berlin since April. That month the Soviets had imposed restrictions on Western Allied rail travel to West Germany. Considering it an omen of traffic disruptions to come, the Western Allies started stockpiling food and coal in West Berlin. Some of those supplies came by air in an operation dubbed the “Little Lift.” When the Soviet blockade started in June, U.S. and British cargo planes ramped up that air operation. But the primary cargo airframe in the European theater was the Douglas C-47 Skytrain. Most were World War II leftovers, some still bearing their black-and-white D-Day invasion stripes. At most the twin-engine C-47 could carry little more than 3 tons.

The four-engine C-54 Skymaster, on the other hand, could carry more than 13 tons of cargo. Thus, the Air Force started deploying C-54 squadrons from bases around the world to western Germany. (The Navy also provided two squadrons.) Many flew to Germany with only hours’ notice. Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen, a C-54 pilot deployed from Alabama, recalled landing in Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt with a contingent of Skymaster pilots and crewmen. Within two hours one of those crews was flying a plane to Berlin. Eventually, 225 C-54s were assigned to the airlift.

The airlift received new leadership—Tunner, who arrived in Germany on July 28. He would command the Combined Airlift Task Force (CALTF), an ad-hoc combined command that would coordinate and direct U.S. and British airlift operations. He’d already earned the nickname “Tonnage Tunner” for having led U.S. airlift operations over the Himalayas (the “Hump”) into China during World War II. Renowned as an air transport expert, he helped create the Army Air Forces Ferrying Command. He’d been watching the early stages of the Berlin Airlift from Washington. When Truman resolved to intensify the effort, Tunner got his chance.

The early days of the airlift were dramatic. Newspapers and news broadcasts ran stories of pilots rushing out to cargo aircraft parked haphazardly around their airfields and zooming off with them into the German skies. To readers and viewers worldwide it looked inspiring and dramatic. Yet to Tunner it reeked of inefficiency. (Halvorsen described the early days as a “real cowboy” operation.) “The actual operation of a successful airlift is about as glamorous as drops of water on stone,” said Tunner, in Over the Hump:

There’s no frenzy, no flap, just the inexorable process of getting the job done. In a successful airlift you don’t see planes parked all over the place; they’re either in the air, on loading or unloading ramps, or being worked on. You don’t see personnel milling around; flying crews are either flying or resting up so that they can fly again tomorrow. Ground crews are either working on their assigned planes or resting up so that they can work on them again tomorrow.

“Under Tunner,” wrote Miller, “the monotony of repetition replaced the romance of flying.” Tunner set out to organize the airlift in exacting detail and refine it into a smooth, efficient operation.

In the first few months of the airlift chaos was not uncommon in the skies directly over Berlin. Aircraft from eight different airfields in Germany converged on just two in Berlin—Tempelhof, in the American sector, and RAF Gatow, in the British sector. When poor weather or problems on the ground made it difficult to land, planes would end up “stacked,” circling at different altitudes as they waited. Tunner ended up in one of those stacks over Tempelhof, in cloudy weather and heavy rains, on that “Black Friday” August 13 flight to Berlin. “A huge, confusing, milling mass of aircraft circled in a stack from 3,000 to 12,000 feet,” wrote Miller, “in danger of collision or of drifting out of the corridors completely.”

Tunner radioed Tempelhof tower: “This is 5549, Tunner talking, and you better listen. Send every plane in the stack back to its home base.” Afterward, Tunner implemented new landing procedures for the Berlin airfields. If an aircraft missed its landing approach, it wouldn’t circle and try again; it would return to western Germany. Such was a far safer and more efficient way to manage landing operations. Air traffic controllers were no longer tasked with inserting stray aircraft back into the landing pattern; they could focus instead on managing a steady stream of incoming planes. “In the same 90 minutes it took to bring in nine aircraft stacked over Berlin,” Miller wrote, “the airlift could land 30 C-54s carrying 300 tons using the straight-in approach and landing at three-minute intervals.”

Airlift controllers closely managed the ways planes flew in the corridors. They used time spacing to separate the aircraft, usually in three- to six-minute intervals. Aircraft announced the times they passed key radio beacons. Each aircraft crew knew the tail numbers of the three aircraft in front of and behind them. When they heard an aircraft announce its position, they would adjust their speed or heading to keep their proper place in the airflow. Any plane that lost radio communications or couldn’t keep its place in the flow had standing orders to fly home.

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Pilots flew by instrument flight rules, even if the weather was good. Traffic in the corridors was one-way. The British used six airfields, and all sent their aircraft to Berlin through the northern airlift corridor, which originated north of Hamburg. The Americans flew from bases at Rhein-Main and Wiesbaden through the southern corridor. All aircraft returned to western Germany through the central corridor, which emptied near Hannover.

Tunner realized he couldn’t increase tonnage by adding more aircraft to the airlift. Washington had only so many planes to send, and the traffic patterns in the air corridors and parking aprons at the airfields were already full. So, he looked for other ways to maximize cargo throughput. The northern corridor was shorter than the southern, so planes that used it could fly more round trips per day. The American C-54s could carry more cargo than the C-47s and other aircraft the British were using, so Tunner stationed some American squadrons in the British zone. The USAF stripped unnecessary equipment (such as the LORAN long-range navigation systems) out of the C-54s to enable them to carry more cargo.

The more time a plane spent on the ground, the less cargo it could carry to Berlin. CALTF planners examined every step in the loading/unloading process, looking for ways to cut time, increase safety margins and improve overall performance. Logistics planners realized that if multiple pieces of equipment were used to load aircraft, that added time to the loading process (and increased chances an errant forklift could damage a plane). CALTF switched to putting a plane’s cargo load on just one truck. The truck driver would shadow the Follow Me jeep that guided a newly landed plane to its parking spot. As the crew shut down its engines, German workers would jump from the truck, ready to load the plane for its return trip to Berlin. In Berlin aircrews were told to stay by their aircraft during loading/unloading, instead of going inside for coffee. Mobile canteens, manned by pretty Fräuleins, carried refreshments out to the flight line. After pilots informed Tunner their planes flew sluggishly when carrying coal, CALTF personnel weighed the coal bags. They found that overzealous German workers were packing as much coal in the bags as they could—more than the bags were supposed to hold—resulting in overloaded planes.

Airlift Medal

Authorized by Congress on July 20, 1949, the Medal for Humane Action recognized any service member who performed at least 120 days of duty in direct support of the Berlin Airlift. It depicts a Douglas C-54 Skymaster over a wheat wreath and the coat of arms of Berlin.

The French weren’t part of the CALTF operation. They had few cargo aircraft, and Allied planners were concerned French-speaking pilots might have problems communicating with British and American air traffic controllers. The French did contribute one memorable episode to the airlift story, though. To improve the flow of cargo into Berlin, the Western Allies in November 1948 opened a third airfield, Tegel, in the French occupation zone. Partially obstructing its runway was a broadcast tower used by Soviet-controlled Berliner Rundfunk (Radio Berlin). The French formally asked the Soviets to move the tower, at Allied expense, but were refused. Then one morning that December General Jean Ganeval, the French commandant in Berlin, summoned to his office American personnel working on the airfield. Some minutes into the meeting they heard an explosion outdoors. The Americans rushed to the window of Ganeval’s office in time to watch the tower collapse to the ground. According to several accounts, Ganeval turned to the shocked Americans and said simply, “You will have no more trouble with the tower.” When the angry Soviets asked Ganeval how he could have done something like that, the French commandant reportedly replied, “With dynamite.”

The Berlin Blockade ultimately backfired on the Soviets. It increased support in the American, British and French occupation zones for the planned West German government. “American intelligence analysts reported widespread demoralization and membership loss among Communists in all parts of [Germany],” note Army historians Donald A. Carter and William Stivers. “The Soviet coercive measures against Berlin strengthened the Western position in Germany as a whole.” Alarmed Western European nations became more interested in collective security initiatives, an interest that led to the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April 1949.

The airlift, by contrast, proved a public relations bonanza for the Western Allies. In April 1949, on Easter Sunday, the airlift staged a one-day transport blitz during which 1,398 flights carried in 12,941 tons of cargo—the same amount West Berlin had received daily by rail, road and water during peacetime. “I hope that the Communists, who have spent so much time insulting us, will realize that we really aren’t such a soft democracy,” crowed Brig. Gen. Frank L. Howley, the U.S. commandant in Berlin, after the blockade ended. The airlift also improved German-American relations. American newsreels praised West Berliners for their determination to endure the blockade. German children played “airlift” with toy planes. Halvorsen gained headline acclaim as the “Candy Bomber,” dropping candy from handkerchief parachutes to crowds of grateful West Berlin children.

Clay retaliated against the Soviets with his own blockade of raw materials and finished goods that eastern Germany desperately needed from western Germany. For instance, Germany’s best source for coking coal, critical in steel production, were the mines of the Ruhr, in the British occupation zone. Meanwhile, the economy of the Soviet occupation zone, still struggling after World War II, was losing many of its own resources and products to the Russians for their own use. “The eastern zone economy suffered grievously from the counterblockade,” Carter and Stivers wrote. By February Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, succumbing to a public relations nightmare of his own doing, had signaled American diplomats he was keen to end the crisis.

Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis called the Berlin Airlift “the first clear Soviet defeat in the Cold War.” In hot wars nations inflict defeat on one another using soldiers, armor, airpower and high explosives. The Cold War was a different kind of war, so it’s fitting that its first major victory was won not through violence, but by persistence and excellence in effort. “I don’t have much of a natural sense of rhythm,” Tunner wrote in his memoir. “I’m certainly no threat to Fred Astaire, and a drumstick to me is something that grows on a chicken. But when it comes to airlifts, I want rhythm.” The Americans and British achieved rhythm in the skies over Berlin. They created an airborne conveyor belt that kept a city alive, helped transform the Germans and Americans from wartime enemies into peacetime friends, united Western Europe and inspired freedom-loving people across the globe.

Don Smith is a retired U.S. Army Reserve officer with degrees in history and intelli-gence studies. He’s worked as a defense contractor with various Defense Department agencies for more than 30 years. For further reading he recommends To Save a City, by Roger Miller; Checkmate in Berlin, by Giles Milton; and The City Becomes a Symbol, by William Stivers and Donald A. Carter.

The Irrepressible ‘Candy Bomber’

Gail Halvorsen joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and trained on fight-ers with the Royal Air Force. Reassigned to military transport service, Halvorsen remained in the service at war’s end. He was flying Douglas C-74 Globemasters and C-54 Skymasters out of Mobile, Ala., when word came in June 1948 that the Soviet Union had blockaded West Berlin. During the 15-month airlift (Operation Vittles), American and British pilots delivered more than 2.3 million tons of supplies to the city. But it was Halvorsen’s decision to airdrop candy to children (Operation Little Vittles) that clinched an ideological battle and earned him the lasting affection of a free West Berlin. The beloved “Candy Bomber” died at age 101 on Feb. 16, 2022.

In 2009 Military History editor David Lauterborn was fortunate enough to interview Halvorsen. Following is an excerpt of their conversation, available in full online at Historynet.com/candy-bomber-gail-halvorsen.

What prompted you to start dropping candy?

At the end of the [Tempelhof] runway, in an open space between the bombed-out buildings and barbed wire, kids were watching the air-planes coming in over the rooftops. They came right up to the barbed wire and spoke to me in English: “Don’t give up on us. If we lose our freedom, we’ll never get it back.” American-style freedom was their dream. Hitler’s past and Stalin’s future was their nightmare. I just flipped. Got so interested, I forgot what time it was.

I looked at my watch and said, “Holy cow, I gotta go! Goodbye. Don’t worry.” I took three steps. Then I realized—these kids had me stopped dead in my tracks for over an hour, and not one of 30 had put out their hand. They were so grateful for flour, to be free, that they wouldn’t be beggars for something extravagant. This was stronger than overt gratitude—this was silent gratitude. How can I reward these kids?

I went back to the fence and pulled out my two sticks of Wrigley’s Doublemint, broke them in half and passed the four pieces through the barbed wire….I told them, “Come back here tomorrow, and when I come in to land, I’ll drop enough gum for all of you.”

One asked, “How do we know what airplane you’re in?”

“I’ll wiggle the wings.”

“Vas ist viggle?” he asked.

How did you work it?

My copilot and engineer gave me their candy rations—big double handfuls of Hershey, Mounds and Baby Ruth bars and Wrigley’s gum. It was heavy, and I thought, Boy, put that in a bundle and hit ’em in the head going 110 miles an hour, it’ll make the wrong impression. So, I made three handkerchief parachutes and tied strings tight around the candy. The next day I came in over the field, and there were those kids in that open space. I wiggled the wings, and they just blew up—I can still see their arms. The crew chief threw the rolled-up parachutes out the flare chute behind the pilot seat.

As your efforts grew in scope, did anyone notice?

[One day] an officer met the airplane and said, “The colonel wants to see you right now.” So I went in, and he says, “Whatcha doing, Halvorsen?”

“Flying like mad, sir.”

“I’m not stupid. What else you been doing?” And he pulled out a newspaper with a big article and a photograph of my plane and the tail number. So I told him. He understood, and airlift commander General William Tunner said, “Keep doing it!”

What kept you going?

Without hope the soul dies. And that was so appropriate for the day. In our own neighborhoods people have lost hope, lost function because they have no outside source of inspiration. The airlift was a symbol that we were going to be there—service before self.

Operation Little Vittles dropped more than 21 tons of candy during the airlift. How does that total strike you?

All from two sticks of gum in 1948—unbelievable!

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

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It was 1760, in the midst of the Seven Years’ War, and 16-year-old Cornet Patrick Ferguson was having the time of his life. He and another young officer were on horseback a few miles out in front of the British army when they ran afoul of a party of French-allied German hussars. Deciding it prudent to retire, they turned and spurred their mounts. As his horse jumped a ditch, Ferguson dropped one of his pistols. The naive lad, thinking it improper for an officer to return to camp without all his weapons, recrossed the ditch in the face of the pursuing enemy and dismounted to recover his pistol. The hussars, perhaps surmising a British dragoon wouldn’t be so foolhardy unless he had spotted friendly reinforcements, halted in their tracks. They looked on warily as Ferguson remounted, jumped his horse back over the ditch and joined his companion. The fortunate young men regained the British camp undisturbed.

Though Ferguson seemed to lead a charmed life in uniform, such reckless behavior in action would one day catch up to him.

Patrick Ferguson was born in on June 4, 1744, in Pitfour, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a titled and well-connected lawyer. The Fergusons had a long tradition of military service, and from childhood Patrick resolved to pursue a career in the army. Accordingly, when the boy reached the tender age of 12, his father sent him to a military academy in London. At that time in European history a gentleman desiring to be an officer in the military could purchase his commission from a regimental commander. From there he might earn merit-based promotions, but he could also purchase ranks in turn. Ferguson’s father purchased his son’s first commission, as a cornet in the 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons (aka “Royal Scots Greys”), when Patrick was just 14. Dragoons were mounted infantry, who rode horses into battle and then fought on foot. In 1760 Ferguson’s regiment deployed to continental Europe, where he got his first taste of combat in Flanders and Germany and lived to tell of his close encounter with hussars.

In 1768, though Ferguson had cut his teeth with eight years of service, his father again purchased a commission for him, as a company commander in the 70th (Glasgow Lowland) Regiment of Foot, then serving in the West Indies. Late that year Captain Ferguson sailed to join his company in Tobago. Attuned to the well-being of his men, he had them take advantage of the tropical climate and grow vegetables as a supplement to their usual provisions of salted beef. While there, however, Ferguson himself contracted what was probably extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Related tubercular arthritis racked his knees with pain for the remainder of his life. After a brief stopover in the North American colonies, Ferguson returned to Britain in 1774.

By then it was clear that unrest with oppressive taxation and domineering British governance was approaching a breaking point in the American colonies. When British officers spoke among themselves, one oft-discussed point of concern was the colonials’ possession of precision hunting rifles—not in terms of numbers of weapons, which was not great, but because in the hands of skilled marksmen they were deadly at long range. In the event of war, of course, British officers would be the favored targets of such sharpshooters.

The standard long arm in the British military of the era was the “Brown Bess” muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock musket, though it was notoriously inaccurate. An 1841 Royal Engineers test of the Brown Bess (in service from 1722 till 1838) recorded hits on man-sized targets at 150 yards only 75 percent of the time. Beyond that range the musket failed to hit even larger targets. Its point-blank range—the distance at which a round remains on a horizontal line of flight—was just 75 yards.

The rifle, while more accurate, also had its drawbacks. Foremost was its slow reload time. While an adept soldier with a musket could fire some three to five rounds a minute, with a rifle he might manage only one or two shots a minute. Most rifles also had no means of attaching a bayonet, at a time when bayonet charges often proved decisive.

In set-piece battles of the day opposing armies lined up opposite one another, approached within effective range, fired by volley, then reloaded and repeated. Given the unlikelihood of scoring a hit, the line infantry drilled to reload as fast as possible and put more lead in the air, improving their odds. This madness continued until one side or the other appeared vulnerable, at which point the side sensing an advantage would launch a bayonet charge to finish the fight. Thus muskets, given their rate of fire and the ability to mount a bayonet, remained the long arm of choice for the rank and file. Realizing the limitations of his weapon, each soldier generally aimed at an enemy formation and hoped to hit someone, anyone. But soldiers tasked with reconnaissance and surveillance, such as the German Jägers, preferred rifles. Tasked with observing and reporting on the enemy from a distance, they required a weapon with long-range accuracy. God help them were they in bayonet range.

On his return to Britain in 1774 Captain Ferguson resolved to develop a faster-loading service rifle than those in use. If he could do so, it would eliminate the hidebound British military’s primary reasons for retaining the wildly inaccurate smoothbore. European gunmakers started experimenting with rifling as early as 1498, originally applying grooves to the insides of barrels in order to collect fouling. The black powder propellant of the era left a tremendous amount of residue, about 80 percent of the powder in each charge remaining behind to foul the weapon. Stabilizing the bullet was a happy and unexpected side effect of adding the rifling. If Ferguson could conceive of a faster action and add a bayonet lug to his new rifle, all the better. After searching for technological advancements and examining a range of existing weapons, he settled on a breechloader.

Breech-loading rifles had been in regular use for decades prior to Ferguson’s interest. What he did do was use his force of will, coupled with his family connections as minor nobility, to oblige senior military officers to listen to his proposals. Using family money, the captain contracted with the head armorer at the Tower of London to design a breechloader according to his specifications. After a period of trial and error, the Ferguson rifle was born. It centered on an innovative screw breech. With a working model in hand the inventor again wielded his political connections to arrange a demonstration for Lord George Townshend, master general of the Ordnance, and senior British officers. After winning them over, Ferguson was invited to Windsor Castle to demonstrate the rifle before King George III himself.

During his tests Ferguson was able to fire between four and six shots a minute and hit the bull’s-eye consistently at 200 yards. He was also able to reload his breechloader from the prone position, an impossibility for musketeers, as they had to at least kneel to pour powder down the barrel and manipulate a ramrod to force a ball down the muzzle. Ferguson simply rotated the trigger guard to open the screw breech and poured in powder, all from the ground. In a further demonstration of his rifle’s merits, he doused the loaded breech with water. In the black powder era a soggy charge wouldn’t fire—hence the expression, “Keep your powder dry.” To remove a wet charge from a musket, its owner had to thread a steel screw on the end of his ramrod, drive it down the barrel until it hit the ball, twist the screw into the soft lead, pull out the ball, dump the wet powder and then reload. The tedious process required the assistance of another person, to either hold the musket or manipulate the ramrod. In the midst of combat such fumbling might well prove fatal. Ferguson was able to screw open his breech, tap out the damp charge, add dry powder and screw it closed, again while remaining prone.

Duly impressed, his superiors placed an order for 100 Ferguson rifles and assigned the captain command of a light infantry unit, to be armed with his breechloader and employed in the American colonies, by then in open rebellion against the Crown. The men in his command would be volunteers, drawn from the assorted regiments already serving in the colonies.

While Ferguson prepared to ship overseas, a complication arose. As the Industrial Revolution remained in its earliest stages, Britain lacked factories able to mass produce firearms. Each weapon had to be produced individually by a gunsmith. Furthermore, fabricating the lands and grooves inside a rifle barrel was labor intensive, taking far longer to complete than the smoothbore barrel of a musket. Even with multiple gunsmiths working to create Ferguson’s rifles, there were nowhere enough to complete the 100 ordered weapons before he embarked.

In the end only 67 of Ferguson’s rifles were ready by the time he left in March 1777 to join Maj. Gen. Sir William Howe’s army in North America. On arrival the captain traveled among the various regiments to demonstrate the rifle and recruit 100 soldiers for his command. Finally, he began training his enlistees how to operate as light infantrymen armed with rifles. Due to the shortage of his namesake gun, Ferguson had to arm the remainder of his troops with traditional muzzle-loading rifles already in use; the remaining 33 Ferguson guns shipped from Britain that June. When he deemed his men ready, Ferguson was assigned to Hessian Lt. Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen’s command, then in New York.

The Ferguson rifle was about to get its trial by fire.

On Sept. 11, 1777, during the British campaign to capture Philadelphia—then capital of and largest city in the nascent United States—Howe’s British army met General George Washington’s Continental Army near Chadds Ford, Penn. The subsequent Battle of Brandywine was the second longest single-day battle of the war, with continuous fighting lasting 11 brutal hours. More troops fought at Brandywine than at any other battle in the North American theater of the war. Marching in the vanguard, Ferguson’s rifle corps was tasked with screening the main British army, so American forces couldn’t get a clear picture of Howe’s plans. The resulting British victory enabled Howe to capture Philadelphia two weeks later, prompting the Continental Congress to flee, first to Lancaster and then York, Pa.

Although his rifle corps performed its tasks admirably at Brandywine, Ferguson had been struck by a musket ball that shattered his right elbow, a wound that sidelined him from active duty for some months as he recovered. All things considered, he was fortunate. In the days before orthopedic trauma care, a wound such as he’d received would often lead to amputation, or at least medical retirement from the military. Ferguson refused to have his arm amputated, and he quite literally wouldn’t surrender his officer’s sword. Since the shattered elbow cost him full use of his arm, the right-handed major taught himself to wield his saber left-handed. It was such single-minded dedication and dogged determination that earned Ferguson the nickname “Bulldog.”

Brandywine was uniquely linked to Ferguson for another incident—one that proved among the most remarkable and enduring stories (or perhaps legends) of the war.

While he and his men were engaged in screening duties far in advance of British lines, Ferguson observed two American officers conducting a similar reconnaissance of the British. One was mounted on a bay horse and wore an especially large bicorne hat. The officers appeared unconcerned, as they remained well out of musket range. They were not out of rifle range, however, and Ferguson ordered three of his men to prepare to fire. Harboring reservations, Ferguson thought it advantageous to try and capture the American officers. Thus, he stepped into the open and called for them to ride toward him and surrender, or he would have his men shoot. At that, the Continentals simply turned their horses to ride away. Being out of musket range, they didn’t even feel it necessary to spur their mounts beyond a walk. Before Ferguson could give the order to fire, he again had second thoughts. The American officers posed no immediate threat to the British, and it certainly wouldn’t be sporting to have them shot in the back, so he had his riflemen stand down.

Later that day, when Ferguson was at the field hospital getting treated for his elbow wound, he struck up a conversation with a British surgeon who had also treated several wounded American officers. From details the surgeon gleaned from the wounded captives it seemed the two officers Ferguson had spared were none other than General Washington and an aide-de-camp. Lieutenant John P. de Lancey, Ferguson’s second-in-command, who had seen Washington before the war, later suggested the enemy officer in the cocked hat had been Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski, the Polish volunteer credited as the “father of American cavalry.” Whether it was Pulaski or Washington, and Ferguson had missed his chance to end the war on the spot, he later wrote that he didn’t regret his decision.

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While the Bulldog was recovering from his injury and mourning the death of his father back in Britain, the British were formulating a new strategy for their campaign in North America. The first few years of the war had primarily been fought in New England and mid-Atlantic colonies, and though the British had won most of the battles, they had yet to deliver a knockout blow. Meanwhile, the populace back home had grown increasingly weary of sending off their sons and spending their tax money to fight a seemingly endless war. Thus, in late 1778 Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton launched a campaign in the South, hoping to spark an uprising of Loyalists, colonists born in North America but remaining loyal to the Crown. Were that successful, Clinton hoped to force the Americans to capitulate. The campaign began auspiciously enough with the capture of Savannah, Ga., that December 29, which the British successfully defended in October 1779. The day after Christmas Clinton and his second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis, left Knyphausen to garrison New York City and sailed for Savannah with a substantial army.

Having recuperated enough by then to return to active duty, Ferguson was commissioned a major in the 70th Regiment of Foot and embarked with the expedition. In the absence of its dynamic founder, however, Ferguson’s rifle corps had disbanded, its men returning to their original regiments, their rifles either put in storage or parceled out to other units. The major returned to service without a command to lead.

Regardless, his superiors recognized Ferguson’s leadership ability, and Cornwallis gave him command of a battalion of provincial Loyalist militia. In that capacity Major Ferguson would participate in the largest all-American battle of the war.

From Savannah the British army marched north to Charleston, S.C., which Clinton captured on May 12, 1780, after a six-week siege. He then returned to New York, tasking Cornwallis with subjugating the Carolinas. By summer Cornwallis had pushed north to Charlotte, N.C., and was concerned about protecting his flank. The threat he envisaged came from “Overmountain Men,” hardscrabble frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the leading edge of the Appalachian Range. Cornwallis assigned Ferguson’s battalion to counter the threat posed by the Patriot riflemen. The stage was set for the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Resolving that the best defense was a good offense, Ferguson departed Charlotte for the Appalachian reaches. According to American sources, en route Ferguson captured a Patriot and had the man relay a message to the “Backwater Men,” as the British called their foes west of the Blue Ridge. They were to lay down their arms in surrender, Ferguson warned, or the British would burn their farms and villages and hang their leaders. Whether those were truly Ferguson’s words or shrewd Patriot propaganda is unknown. As the message wasn’t written down, it cannot be proved or disproved. Regardless, at word of the threat the Overmountain Men mustered a superior force to repulse Ferguson’s militia. On September 30 Patriot deserters brought word of the onrushing American force. Ferguson gave the order to fall back on Cornwallis’ main army at Charlotte. He made it as far as Kings Mountain, straddling the border of North and South Carolina some 30 miles west of Charlotte.

On Oct. 7, 1780, an advance party of 900 Overmountain Men on horseback surrounded Kings Mountain and attacked Ferguson’s command. Though caught by surprise and soon in desperate straits, the major rode back and forth among threatened points, repeatedly leading his men in bayonet attacks to repel the determined frontiersmen, who fought independently by detachment. Despite being severely wounded and having multiple horses shot from under him, Ferguson continued to fight and animate his men by example. Toward the end of the battle his second-in-command earnestly recommended the major surrender. Ferguson refused and in short order received a fatal rifle shot to the chest. Survivors later counted seven bullet wounds on his body. It was an abrupt end to a promising military career at age 36. In a battle that lasted just over an hour, 290 of Ferguson’s Loyalists were killed, 163 wounded and 668 captured, while the Patriots suffered 28 killed and 60 wounded. In its wake Cornwallis abandoned his ambitions in North Carolina and withdrew south.

Patrick Ferguson was buried on the spot along with a female companion named “Virginia Sal,” who was possibly his mistress. Their shared grave was marked by a stone cairn that still stands in present-day Kings Mountain National Military Park.

Retired U.S. Marine Colonel John Miles writes and delivers lectures on a range of historical topics. For further reading he recommends Every Insult and Indignity: The Life, Genius and Legacy of Major Patrick Ferguson, by Ricky Roberts and Bryan Brown; Biographical Sketch: Or, Memoir of Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ferguson, by Adam Ferguson; The Philadelphia Campaign: Vol. 1: Brandywine and the Fall of Philadelphia, by Thomas J. McGuire; and Kings Mountain and Its Heroes, by Lyman C. Draper.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

historynet magazines

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The ragged force of 250 French Canadian, Abenaki, Huron and Mohawk warriors hunkered down in the snowy underbrush just before midnight on Feb. 28, 1704. They wrapped their blanket coats and furs tightly about themselves and kept careful watch for any signs their presence had been detected. The men had arrived at a frozen meadow just north of the village of Deerfield, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, after an arduous journey of more than 300 miles on snowshoes from Chambly, Quebec. Although they surely smelled the wood fires burning in nearby hearths, the warriors could only huddle together for warmth—campfires would risk the all-important advantage of surprise. They chewed on the last of the dried pemmican and corn to ease the gnawing in their bellies. If everything went according to plan, they would all soon eat their fill from the kitchens of New Englanders.

While some warriors quietly chanted tribal war songs, others, particularly the French Canadians and their Roman Catholic Mohawk and Huron allies, whispered Christian prayers for the success of their raid against the heretic English Protestants. For the French and some warriors the expedition was a religious crusade, encouraged by Roman Catholic priests in New France. For the Mohawks the raid also offered the promise of captives to be adopted into their clans. For some of the Abenakis the attack would serve as vengeance against the English for having been evicted from their lands. All warriors looked forward to the rewards of plunder and the wealth the sale of captives could bring.

In the predawn darkness Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, the expedition’s French Canadian commander, quickly dispatched scouts to observe the sleeping hamlet. The 35-year-old Hertel was the son of renowned bush fighter Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière. The younger Hertel was no stranger to frontier partisan warfare, having accompanied his father on raids against the English settlements of Salmon Falls and Casco, in what today is Maine, and Schenectady, N.Y. But this was his first command.

Philippe de Rigaud, the Marquis de Vaudreuil and governor general of New France, had ordered the raid deep into New England. His instructions were in keeping with directives from the court of Louis XIV to conduct offensive actions that would strike terror into the English and deter their territorial expansion in North America. The expedition had the secondary goal of drawing northern tribes into the broader struggle between the European powers by binding them to the French through plunder, captives and bloodshed. On a more personal level, Hertel hoped a successful outcome would finally convince the Crown to approve his family’s petition for nobility, a request previously denied due to his father’s lack of wealth. As he waited in the darkness, however, Hertel must have been singularly focused on ensuring the war chiefs of the various tribes, as well as his French Canadian subordinates, clearly understood the plan of attack.

Ensconced within Deerfield’s stockade walls, the Rev. John Williams lay in bed beside his wife, Eunice. He had likely read Bible passages to his seven children as they gathered around the blazing stone hearth after dinner. Perhaps the Williams’ slaves, Frank and Parthena, and the pair of militiamen quartered in the house had joined them by the fire until it was time for bed.

They and their fellow townspeople slept soundly. True, back in October two settlers working in the fields outside the village had been captured by marauding warriors, stoking fear. But such risk was part of the price Deerfield’s 270 inhabitants were willing to pay for fertile farmland on the western fringes of Massachusetts. Months had passed with no attacks.

Not to say townspeople were complacent. Reasonable precautions could reduce the risk of French and Indian attack, and the Rev. Williams and other prominent leaders had petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature for protection. Indeed, it was in the best interest of Massachusetts, as well as Connecticut, to defend Deerfield and other frontier settlements rather than do battle with raiders in the streets of Boston or Hartford. The Legislature duly dispatched soldiers to Deerfield and approved a tax abatement so the town could repair the crumbling wooden stockade that enclosed the heart of the village. Connecticut also sent troops.

Periodic reports about a large force of French and Indians assembling near Montreal had reached Deerfield as early as the summer of 1703, but there had been scant enemy activity, other than the autumn marauders. Subsequent reports generated fresh anxiety, but the rumored threats never materialized, and Massachusetts and Connecticut had ultimately withdrawn their forces. Finally, the leaves turned crimson and gold, temperatures dropped and the snow fell.

By the morning of February 29 a 3-foot-deep blanket of snow lay on the ground, further lulling townspeople into a sense of security. Surely such deep snow would impede the progress of any attacking force, or at least slow them to the point the alarm could be sounded in plenty of time to establish a solid defense. Furthermore, 20 militiamen had arrived just four days ago. So, the townspeople slept on.

Two hours before dawn Lieutenant Hertel listened with eagerness to the hushed reports of his scouts. Snow had drifted up against the 10-foot-high northern wall of the Deerfield stockade. Nimble men on snowshoes should be able to scamper up over the wall and drop down into the village. Once inside, the advance party could open the gates for the attacking force.

Hertel ordered his men to advance to concealed positions just outside the stockade. Rather than approach en masse, small squads rushed forward for short distances to mimic the sound of wind gusts. Once the entire force was in position, they awaited their opportunity to strike. The only complication was a lone militiaman on night watch, keeping a listless patrol inside the stockade.

The militiamen had undoubtedly taken turns at watch, patrolling the perimeter through the long winter’s night, trudging through the snow and lugging their heavy muskets up and down the watchtower ladders. Like most colonial militiamen, they were probably poor, unskilled young men offered up by neighboring towns to fill the militia levy.

Perhaps they assumed no raiding party of any size could advance quickly and quietly through the deep snow. Perhaps they thought the reinforced palisade would thwart any invaders from entering the village. Perhaps, like the sleeping townspeople, they were wrong.

Lieutenant Hertel squinted in the predawn gloom as he scanned the north side of the stockade. Suddenly, a gap opened amid the timbers, and he cautiously led his force forward through the north gate of the stockade. The first phase of his plan had gone perfectly. Several chosen men had silently crept up the snowdrifts against the north wall and dropped down into the village. Undetected, they had swung open the gate’s heavy doors for their waiting comrades.

The next phase, a standard procedure for French-led raids, was to array small squads around each house. Once all squads were positioned, the attacks would commence simultaneously, thus attaining total surprise, minimizing resistance and limiting one’s own casualties.

But something went wrong. While Hertel’s raiders were still pouring through the north gate, a musket shot rang out, probably fired by the late-reacting sentry. Chaos erupted as mixed bands of French, Mohawks, Abenakis and Hurons fanned out through the sleeping village.

The Rev. Williams leaped from his bed at the commotion and hurriedly retrieved and cocked his flintlock pistol. As a clutch of warriors burst into his bedroom, he pointed its muzzle at the leading Abenaki and pulled the trigger. The resulting harmless click of a misfire probably saved the reverend’s life. Had Williams shot the Abenaki, follow-on warriors would almost certainly have slain him on the spot. Things were bad enough.

His assailants overpowered the reverend and bound his hands. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the house warriors murdered his 6-year-old son, John, and smashed 6-week-old Jerusha’s head against a doorway, killing her. Parthena, the Williams’ female slave, was also killed, likely defending the children.

One of the militiaman quartered in the house, garrison commander Lieutenant John Stoddard, jumped from an upstairs window, the deep snow breaking his fall. Clad only in his nightshirt and a cloak, he bound his feet with strips of cloth and ran through the snow to raise the alarm in the village of Hatfield, nearly 12 miles away.

The remaining occupants of the house—Eunice Williams, her surviving five children, Frank the slave and the other militiaman—were ordered to dress and ready themselves for the northbound trek into captivity.

Gunshots, war whoops and screams resounded through the village lanes and in homes where residents had quietly slumbered just moments before. Lieutenant Hertel must have been exasperated as he watched his plans evaporate into mayhem. All hope of command and control was gone.

Several townspeople, particularly those in the southern end of the village, fled in the direction of the nearby towns of Hatfield and Hadley. Some managed to shelter south of the village in the garrison house of Captain Jonathan Wells. Others burrowed into cellars and likely nooks to evade the attackers. Several of those in hiding survived the raid. Other unfortunates burned alive when their houses were set afire.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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The raiders spread death and destruction throughout the village, indiscriminately killing babies and young children who would prove a burden to them on the return march to New France. They set torch to all structures in the village and slaughtered as many cows and sheep as they could while plundering food stocks and portable items of any value.

Entire families were rounded up and herded into the meetinghouse, which served as a holding area for captives. The raiders captured 112 residents of Deerfield and killed 50 others during the attack. But not all villagers were slain or taken without a fight.

Sergeant Benoni Stebbins had escaped from Indian captivity as a young man and resolved never to be captured again. Built for defense, the inner and outer walls of his house were filled with “nogging”—unfired bricks certain to stop musket balls. At the first sounds of the attack Stebbins had rushed to secure his home, which sheltered seven men, five women and several children. The well-armed defenders were determined to hold out as long as possible.

Hertel sent wave after wave of attackers in a costly effort to either overwhelm Stebbins’ outpost or set it afire. It would have proved smarter to bypass it. A Huron chief, an Abenaki captain and Ensign François-Marie Margane de Batilly were among the raiders killed or mortally wounded during the assaults. Hertel himself was wounded while leading one of the attacks, though the wound didn’t appear serious. At one point the French offered the defenders terms of surrender, but Stebbins would have none of it. After a firefight of more than two and a half hours, the raiders finally broke off the attack, but only after they’d wounded one of the women and a militiaman and killed the valiant Sergeant Stebbins.

As the first rays of dawn shone through the thick smoke, small groups of attackers made their way back toward the meadow where they had gathered the night before. Their progress was slowed by the plunder they carried and the bound prisoners who stumbled through the snow, choking on acrid smoke and their bitter tears. Behind them lay the blood trails of slain villagers and butchered farm animals, as well as the smoldering remains of their homes and everything they owned.

Lieutenant Hertel, anticipating counterattackers would not be far behind, sternly ordered his men to hurry. The chastened raiders in turn brandished hatchets and threatened their weeping captives to pick up their pace or face a quick death. Not all raiders heeded their commander’s warnings, however. Some lagged behind in the greedy search for further plunder or drunken bloodlust as they searched the ruins for more victims.

By early morning a force of armed New Englanders, alerted to the attack on Deerfield, rode to its relief from villages to the south. The force gained strength along the way, adding to their number soldiers who had taken refuge in Captain Wells’ fortified home. Other militiamen who’d fled the attack joined the group of 30-odd avenging New Englanders as they approached the charred village and engaged in a chaotic running fight with the last of the straggling raiders. Faced with the fury of the enraged militiamen, the attackers dropped their plunder and fled north.

Hertel knew from experience the New Englanders would follow. He also realized that his force, strung out and burdened by captives and plunder, would never be able to outrun pursuers hellbent on vengeance. But the experienced officer also understood that emotionally charged counterattackers were likely to act in haste, without proper reconnaissance. So, he rallied 30 reliable men and concealed them along a riverbank with clear fields of fire.

The New England relief force, having chased the last of the raiders out of the village, soon gained a true understanding of the wanton carnage resulting from the attack. Giving vent to anger and rage, some militiamen threw aside their coats and cumbersome equipment and ran in pursuit of the French and their allied warriors. Cooler heads, like Captain Wells, tried to establish command and control, but to no avail.

As the infuriated New Englanders ran headlong toward the river, Hertel sprang his trap. The concealed raiders opened fire, killing nine counterattackers and wounding many more. Though the raiders also suffered casualties, they succeeded in driving the New Englanders back behind the Deerfield stockade.

By nightfall the next day nearly 250 soldiers and armed citizens from western Massachusetts and Connecticut had gathered amid the smoking rubble of Deerfield. Though many were anxious to begin the pursuit of the French and Indian raiders, their leaders convened a war council. As they weighed the merits of various courses of action, the weather warmed and rain began to fall. Those with prior military experience realized the deep slush would slow progress to a crawl. Their plodding approach would in turn alert the raiders, who would probably massacre their captives. In the end, wiser voices prevailed, and the counterattack was called off.

The New Englanders returned to their homes harboring grief and hatred while the raiders and their captives slogged north through the snow.

The long and torturous journey to New France was marked by atrocities, including the drunken murder of Frank, the Williams’ slave, and the heartless killing of Eunice Williams, who was unable to keep pace because she’d recently given birth. A few Englishmen escaped, but warriors killed all those who fell behind. Of the original 112 captives, 89 survived the trek. Firsthand accounts also record small acts of humanity, like the strong words and actions of Huron warrior Thaovenhosen as he implored fellow tribesmen to spare captives from torture and mutilation.

On his triumphant return Lieutenant Hertel received widespread praise for the success of the Deerfield raid. While he led other raids and held additional commands, nothing compared to the devastating impact of the 1704 attack. Hertel was eventually promoted to captain, founded and served as commandant of Fort Dauphin (present-day Englishtown, Nova Scotia) and was decorated with the prestigious Ordre de Saint-Louis. The Hertel family finally received its patent of nobility in 1716.

The fate of the surviving Deerfield captives varied considerably once they reached Montreal and environs. Two men were worked and starved to death by their Abenaki captors. Most townspeople, however, were ransomed by French Canadian citizens, who treated them with compassion and humanity. Though not compelled by force to remain in New France, those who did stay were strongly encouraged to embrace Roman Catholicism. Some captives were adopted as full members of warriors’ tribes. Of the captives who survived the trek, some 60 eventually returned to New England. Many others married and began families, choosing to remain in New France the rest of their lives.

The Rev. Williams and four of his children were among those who returned home, in 1706. By then his 10-year-old daughter, Eunice, had been adopted by the Mohawks. She later married a Mohawk and bore their children in New France. Though she visited her New England relatives on several occasions, she and her growing family made their home in Kahnawake, a Mohawk community on the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal.

Such happy endings aside, the Deerfield raid had been an act of terrorism, intended to strike fear into a target population through brutal violence, indiscriminate destruction and random victimization of noncombatants. Like many such terrorist acts, the raid was successful in the short term, as the fear of further French and Indian attacks discouraged English settlement in northern New England, if only temporarily. The raid also prompted overreaction against New England tribes as the English launched their own savage, punitive raids.

In the end, however, the policy of terrorism initiated by the French Crown only served to inflame England and her colonists and prompt acts of retribution, like the sorrowful expulsion of French Canadians from Acadia a half century later. Ultimately, the bitter harvest reaped at Deerfield contributed to the final defeat of New France in the 1754–63 French and Indian War.

Retired Brig. Gen. P.G. Smith, a former commander of the Massachusetts Army National Guard, teaches counter-terrorism strategy at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass. For further reading he recommends Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield and Captive Histories: English, French and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid, both by Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, as well as The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America, by John Demos.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

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The earliest depictions of war served one purpose: to emphasize the invincible might of the leaders who commissioned them. A stroke of accuracy might be useful toward establishing credibility, but only so long as it served the warlord’s purposes. Pharaoh Ramses II, for example, employed what amounted to a private propaganda bureau to back up his claims to godhood. Witness Egyptian depictions of his 1274 bc victory at Kadesh. His Hittite opponents commemorated it as their victory, though in reality it ended in an inconclusive standoff. Over the subsequent millennia war artists have wrestled with the matter of balancing accuracy and the lionization of their subject, who was very often the supporting patron.

However effective a depiction of battle may be in its own time, posterity often brings out the nitpickers. Often even the most well-meaning attempts at accuracy miss something. Just as often errors, accidental or deliberate, can be glaring. In any case, the advocates of historicity have their own leg to stand on in their conviction that a true act of valor can and should stand on its own merits.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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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.

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