Fishkill, New York was arguably the fulcrum of espionage efforts by Patriots in the American Revolution. Fishkill is where Founding Father John Jay coordinated counterintelligence efforts around undercover agent Enoch Crosby. Crosby’s successful efforts to infiltrate Loyalist militia networks during the war inspired the first best-selling novel in U.S. history, The Spy, by James Fenimore Cooper, published in 1821. Cooper had gleaned the exploits of Crosby from his handler, Jay, over many dinners and created a composite spy character named Harvey Birch. Crosby eventually published his own memoirs several years later, The Spy Unmasked, though unfortunately the sales of his original accounts paled in comparison to Cooper’s smash novel. 

What is largely unknown even today is the existence of the site of an invisible ink laboratory located in what is now East Fishkill. Operated by John Jay’s brother, Sir James Jay, it produced the unique, magical ink that Gen. George Washington heavily relied on for use by many of his spies. This included not only both the Culper Spy Ring of Major Benjamin Tallmadge and the Dayton Spy Ring of Col. Elias Dayton of Elizabeth, New Jersey, but also some very sensitive correspondence of diplomat Silas Deane of Wethersfield, Connecticut and Elias Boudinot of Elizabeth, New Jersey. 

Washington’s Secret Lab

The first of 32 letters involving Gen. Washington, the spymaster, and James Jay (including 10 between Washington and Jay) is an introductory letter about the invisible ink between these two Founding Fathers—to Washington from John Jay:

Fish Kill 19th Novr 1778

Sir

This will be delivered by my Brother, [James] who will communicate & explain to your Excellency a mode of Correspondence, which may be of use, provided proper agents can be obtained. I have experienced its Efficacy by a three Years Trial. We shall remain absolutely silent on the Subject. I have the Honor to be with the highest Esteem & Respect Your Excellency’s most obedient Servant

John Jay

James Jay (1732-1815) was a physician and amateur chemist, who studied and practiced medicine in Great Britain from the 1750s until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. James was knighted by King George III in 1763 for his efforts in raising money for King’s (Columbia) College of New York as well as Ben Franklin’s projected college, now the University of Pennsylvania. James was described as “haughty, proud, overbearing, supercilious, pedantic, vain, and ambitious” as well as being a notorious over-charger; eventually his medical practice “became entirely confined among his own relations.” His writings included a pamphlet written in 1772, Reflections and Observations on the Gout. James developed his invisible ink in 1775 and used it throughout the war in correspondence with his brother, John. He never disclosed the chemistry of the ink.

The Problem With INk

Invisible ink letters were already being composed using any liquid that dried to a clear color. The liquid also needed to be slightly acidic such as milk, lemon, lime or grapefruit juice as well as vinegar. When it was heated by fire, it would redevelop and allow for reading of the intended content. This reaction was able to happen because the heat weakened the fibers in the paper, thereby turning the ink brown and visible. 

James’s invisible ink, however, was unique. The skilled chemist was able to create an ink that would not react to heat. This would prove to be the bane of British leadership in New York which was headed by Gen. Sir Henry Clinton and his intelligence officers, Maj. Henry Beckwith and Major John André.

By April of 1779, the Culper Ring had possession of Jay’s invisible ink and developer, as evidenced by the fact that Abraham Woodhull, aka Culper, wrote on April 12th to Tallmadge that he had received a vial of the invisible stain. 

Washington soon after informed Boudinot he could share James Jay’s secret concoction in a May 3, 1779 letter: “It is in my power, I believe, to procure a liquid which nothing but a counter liquor (rubbed over the paper afterwards) can make legible—Fire which will bring lime juice, milk & other things of this kind to light, has no effect on it.” 

The recipe for this special ink centered around gallotannic acid. This is found in the galls of many species of oak trees. As Washington indicated to Boudinot, anyone wish-ing to develop any letter written in Jay’s invisible ink had to have the counterpart liquid, or developer, also known as the reagent.

Summer 1779 proved to be an important turning point in secret correspondence in the American Revolution. Unbeknownst to Washington, his favorite battlefield commander, Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold, had just begun correspondence with Maj. Andre in May, the month after his wedding to the fetching Peggy Shippen, daughter of a prominent Tory family. Also, that summer the British intercepted a letter of June 21st from Caleb Brewster to Tallmadge, revealing that Anna “Nancy” Strong, wife of Justice Selah Strong, was part of the Culper Ring.

Improving Secrecy

Another hapless event happened on July 3. Tallmadge was embarrassed to report by letter to Washington that he had lost his horse, some guineas and some important papers in a British surprise attack on his camp during the early morning of July 2. Washington replied to his case officer of the Culper Ring: “I have just received your letter of the 3d—the loss of your papers was certainly a most unlucky accident—and shows how dangerous it is to keep papers of any consequence at an advanced post—I beg you will take care to guard against the like in future—If you will send me a trusty person I will replace the guineas.” 

As if all this was not enough, on July 5, a letter from Woodhull in Setauket, Long Island advised his childhood friend Tallmadge that he was under suspicion and therefore could no longer go into the British army camp in New York City. He further informed of his plan to move from the city back to Setauket, adding, “I shall endeavor to establish a confidential friend [Robert Townsend] to step into my place if agreeable direct in your next and forward the ink.”

Over the next several weeks, both Washington and Tallmadge scrambled to improve the tradecraft and the secrecy of the Culper Ring. Two letters on the same day, July 25, attest to these mutual efforts. Washington wrote to Tallmadge from West Point: “All the white Ink I now have (indeed all that there is any prospect of getting soon) is sent in Phial No. I. by Colo. [Samuel] Webb. the liquid in No. 2 is the Counterpart which renders the other visible by wetting the paper with a fine brush after the first has been used & is dry—You will send these to C——r Junr as soon as possible & I beg that no mention may ever be made of your having received such liquids from me or any one else—In all cases & at all times this prudence & circumspection is necessary but it is indispensably so now as I am informed that Govr Tryon has a preparation of the same kind, or something similar to it which may lead to a detection if it is ever known that a matter of this sort has passed from me.” 

Making the Laboratory

That same day, a letter from Tallmadge to Washington demonstrates Tallmadge’s rushed efforts to create his famous code book, which is actually only four pages. The letter was written from Ridgefield, Conn., and enclosed the codes of numbers and words to correspond with the Culper spy ring. The intent was to have a reference guide for key players in the Culper espionage efforts that would not identify the participants to anyone who might intercept a letter. This way, despite interception and decoding, the opposition would still not know key individuals referred to by code names.

By spring 1780, the volume of letters between Washington and James Jay increased, as Washington had suddenly run out of the invisible ink in April. Washington wrote to Jay, who was with his brother John in Fishkill, in a bit of panic on April 9: “The liquid with which you were so obliging as to furnish me for the purpose of private correspondence is exhausted; and as I have found it very useful, I take the liberty to request you will favour me with a further supply. I have still a sufficiency of the materials for the counterpart on hand. Should you not have by you the necessary ingredients, if they are to be procured at any of the Hospitals within your reach, I would wish you to apply for them in my name. I hope you will excuse the trouble I give you on this occasion….P.S. If you should not be able to prepare the liquid in time for the bearer to bring, & will be so good as to commit it to the care of Colo. Hay he will forward it to me.”

James Jay replied to Washington on April 13, “I have the honor of yours of the 9th instant and I do myself the pleasure to send you the medicine you desire, in a little box, which I hope you will receive with this letter. I wish I could furnish you with a greater quantity, because I am afraid you may be too sparing of the little you will receive…This little however is all that remains of what I brought with me from Europe—I have now the principal ingredients for the composition by me, & the rest may be procured: but the misfortune is, that I have no place where a little apparatus may be erected for preparing it…” 

The letter goes on about his need for an appropriate laboratory to reproduce the ingredients. Jay concluded: “I shall soon have the satisfaction of sending you such a supply that you may not only use it freely yourself, but even spare a little to a friend, if necessary, without the apprehension of future want.” 

Washington’s Favorite Ink

Washington was delighted to receive more of Jay’s ink by special courier. It would be interesting to know who was entrusted with such a special, sensitive duty. A likely candidate would have been one of Tallmadge’s colleagues in Col. Elisha Sheldon’s Second Continental Light Dragoons, an elite cavalry unit in which Tallmadge was an officer.

In a letter to Jay, Washington expressed his improved state of affairs—and also his support for having an invisible ink laboratory constructed for Jay. Instead of being obvious about the content in question, Washington cloaked his wording to Jay: “I have had the pleasure of receiving your favours of the 13th & 20th of April. The Box of Medicine mentioned in the former came safe to hand, and was the more acceptable, as I had entirely expended the first parcel with which you had been kind enough to furnish me. I have directed Colo. Hay to assist you in erecting a small Elaboratory from which I hope you will derive improvement and amusement, and the public some advantages.” 

Washington then wrote to Lt. Col. Udny Hay, deputy quartermaster general, who was located at Fishkill because of the town’s supply depot for the Continental Army and patriot militia. He informed Hay that Jay asked for a day or two to build a small “Elaboratory, as he purposes making some experiments which may be of public utility and has already furnished me with some Chymical preparations from which I have derived considerable advantages I think it proper to gratify him.” 

Untraceable

Following a year and a half of “on again, off again” secret correspondence, Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold and Maj. John André met on the shoreline in the woods south of West Point on Sept. 22, 1780. On that same fateful day in 1776, Capt. Nathan Hale had been hanged as a spy by the British in Manhattan. Several days earlier, on Sept. 19, James Jay wrote the last of any existing letters between himself and Washington before war’s end. He apologized for not supplying the “medicine” sooner due to financial constraints. It was evident from the letter and its warm closing that Jay held Washington in high esteem. Years later, in 1784 Jay wrote to Washington, asking him to validate his secret service, which he did. This letter was penned from London, where he lived out the rest of his life.

The invisible ink and Tallmadge’s code book proved largely effective. None of the agents or couriers, nor Tallmadge the case officer, were positively identified or captured by the British. Details of the efforts of James Jay and the Culper Ring did not come to light until the 1930s research of Long Island historian Morton Pennypacker. The team effort of Washington as spymaster, coupled with the many brave agents and couriers (as well as Tallmadge), blended with a talented chemist in James Jay to become a formidable force against the mighty British military. They used ingenuity and creativity in their quest for freedom and independence from the British global empire.

The location of Jay’s secret laboratory is adjacent to the temporary home of John Jay which was the 1740 Judge Theodorus Van Wyck House, located in the Wiccopee hamlet of what is now East Fishkill. This was for many years on the property of today’s large IBM campus. The lab was lost to history sometime after the war, while the Van Wyck House was unfortunately demolished by IBM in the 1970s.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

For the Union Army of the Potomac and its commander, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, the early winter of 1862-63 proved extremely taxing. First, they suffered through the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg, fought on Dec. 13. After the army retired back across the Rappahannock River, regimental musters revealed a staggering loss of 12,653 casualties. Nothing had been gained. It had all been for naught. Army morale plummeted, and desertions soared, eventually reaching 200 per day. Tens of thousands of men were listed as “not present”: thousands of others were sick due to inadequate food and the army’s abysmally filthy camps.

Then came Burnside’s infamous “Mud March.” In an attempt to flank the opposing Army of Northern Virginia out of its positions behind the Rappahannock, Burnside ordered an upriver movement via Banks’ Ford. It began on Jan. 20, but that night, the heavens opened up. In the following two-day deluge, small streams became raging torrents. Roads turned into muck-filled quagmires choked with stalled wagons, pontoons, artillery pieces, and hundreds of buried horses and mules. Drenched, freezing, exhausted—feeling as if the very fates were against them—the rank and file dragged themselves back to their encampments at Falmouth. Everyone realized the army was dispirited; many believed it was “all played out.” For the Army of the Potomac, the early winter of 1862-63 was indeed the Valley Forge of the Civil War.

Enter the army’s next head, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Most often remembered as the bombastic commander who lost the subsequent Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1-4), despite outnumbering his opponent two to one, Hooker, nonetheless, possessed admirable administrative and organizational skills. And what’s little remembered is that—in the three months leading up to Chancellorsville—he did a fantastic job restoring the army’s morale and preparing it for the upcoming campaign. Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan built the Army of the Potomac, but Maj. Gen. Hooker rehabilitated it.

“The Handsome Captain”

Born in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1814—the grandson of a Continental Army captain—Hooker graduated from West Point in 1837. Commissioned 2nd Lt. in the 1st U.S. Artillery, he first served brief stints in Florida, on the frontier, and as adjutant at his alma mater. During the Mexican-American War (1846-48), Hooker proved an able and courageous staff officer, winning three brevet promotions. It was in Mexico, too, that the well-proportioned six-foot-tall officer first became known as a ladies’ man: the señoritas there nicknamed him the “handsome captain.” 

In California after the war, Hooker served briefly as assistant adjutant general of the Army’s Pacific Division, then, following a leave of absence, resigned his commission to work the land. Unsuccessful as a farmer, he moved to Oregon, where he held the position of superintendent of the territory’s military roads for two years. The last years of the 1850s found Hooker serving as a colonel in the California State Militia. When the Civil War exploded onto center stage in 1861, he raised a regiment of Union volunteers to bring east but was extremely disappointed to learn that California units weren’t eligible for such service. He was determined to travel east and renew his affiliation with the Army, but high living had reduced him to poverty. Thankfully, his friends—among them a San Francisco tavernkeeper—staked him $1,000 and sent him off by steamboat.

In Washington, Hooker presented his credentials to President Abraham Lincoln and 75-year-old Winfield Scott, the Army’s commanding general. But there was a snag. At the termination of the war with Mexico, Hooker had testified in defense of an officer Scott had charged with disloyalty. This had angered Scott, and unfortunately, Scott still remembered. Forced to cool his heels in the War Department anterooms, Hooker nonetheless witnessed the First Battle of Bull Run as a civilian.

Soon thereafter, in an audience with Lincoln, Hooker first complained that, evidently, the Army didn’t want him back. Then he boldly asserted: “I was at Bull Run, the other day, Mr. President, and it is no vanity or boasting in me to say that I am a damned sight better General than you, Sir, had on that field!”

Made a brigadier general on Aug. 3, 1861, his commission backdated to May 17; he was first posted to the fortifications northeast of Washington City, where he drilled his regiments rigorously. In October, Brig. Gen. Hooker was put in charge of a 10,000-man division and charged with defending the lower Potomac River. This exceedingly dull duty involved primarily the interdiction of illicit mail and trade. 

The following year, in mid-March, Hooker’s division was assigned to the III Corps of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Landing on the Virginia Peninsula in April, Hooker’s men dug in opposite the Confederate position at Yorktown.

During the subsequent Peninsula Campaign, Hooker, now a major general, frequently displayed his aggressive and boastful nature—rashly attacking the superior forces of the enemy rearguard at the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, for example, and later confidently messaging McClellan that he could hold his position in front of Richmond “against 100,000 men.”

Fighting Joe

It was during the Peninsula Campaign that Hooker received his enduring nickname. The standard tale was that a New York newspaper’s compositor accidentally set a telegraphed headline reading “Fighting—Joe Hooker” (meaning it was a continuation of a previous piece) as “Fighting Joe Hooker.” That story now appears apocryphal—several historians have searched archives in vain for said headline. “A reasonable conclusion,” wrote biographer Walter H. Hebert, “is that in some spontaneous manner it was applied to Hooker after Williamsburg.” Perhaps surprisingly, Joseph Hooker was mortified by the name, saying that people would think him “a highwayman or bandit.” (And, to debunk another nickname associated with Hooker: There’s no truth to the story that ladies of the night became known as “hookers” because so many swarmed around Fighting Joe’s encampments. The first known use of “hooker” for prostitute dates to 1845, 16 years before he became a public figure.)

Hooker fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 29-30), and when the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River into Maryland—Lee’s first invasion of the North—Lincoln and a few of his Cabinet officers considered appointing him to command the Army of the Potomac. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair ended the discussion, however, with the blunt condemnation that Hooker was “too great a friend of John Barleycorn.”

At the beginning of the Maryland Campaign, Hooker was put in charge of the army’s V Corps, a sizeable 15,000-man force. Soon redesignated as the I Corps of Gen. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, Hooker’s command fought at Turner’s Gap (on Sept.14) and the Battle of Antietam three days later. There, during the desperate fighting in the Miller cornfield, Fighting Joe’s divisions were shattered, the general himself receiving an incapacitating wound to the foot. While convalescing, he was visited by numerous government officials, including President Abraham Lincoln. Hearing rumors that he was again being considered for army command, Hooker—never shy about self-promotion—pressed his case by attacking McClellan’s generalship.

Lincoln’s Choice

Instead, of course, Lincoln replaced McClellan with Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, an 1847 West Point graduate with a somewhat checkered battlefield résumé. Taking over in November 1862, Burnside reorganized the Army of the Potomac into four massive “grand divisions,” each comprising two army corps as well as attached artillery and cavalry. Hooker’s Center Grand Division, totaling about 40,000 men, contained Maj. Gen. George Stoneman’s III Corps and the V Corps under Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield.

During the catastrophic Battle of Fredericksburg, Fighting Joe’s Center Grand Division was at first held in reserve, then sent in piecemeal. One of his divisions suffered twenty-five percent casualties in a useless assault against Marye’s Heights (quite possibly the Civil War’s strongest defensive position). On Dec. 13, the Confederates at Marye’s Heights—infantry sheltered behind a stonewall along the base of the rise, dug-in artillery on top—easily annihilated fourteen separate Federal attacks. Seven thousand Union casualties were needlessly lost on this part of the battlefield.

Angered over Burnside’s mishandling of the army, Hooker attacked him unsparingly, telling the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, for example, that the strength of the Confederate position had been well-known beforehand. There had been no excuse for the bloodletting at Marye’s Heights. Burnside, exasperated by Hooker’s numerous machinations—his denunciations, his flagrant self-promotion, and his call for a dictatorship to save the republic—drafted for Lincoln’s signature an extraordinary document, General Order No. 8.18. It stated in part: “General Joseph Hooker… having been guilty of unjust and unnecessary criticisms of the actions of his superior officers… and having… endeavored to create distrust in the minds of officers who have associated with him, and having… made reports and statements which were calculated to create false impressions… is hereby dismissed from the service of the United States as a man unfit to hold an important commission. …” Additionally, two major generals and five brigadiers, accused of similar military indiscretions, were also to be relieved from duty.

In Washington, Burnside presented General Order No. 8, along with his resignation, to the much-beleaguered Abraham Lincoln, asking him to either approve the order or accept his stepping down. Lincoln replied that he needed time to consult with his advisers. During those deliberations, several officers were considered for the Army of the Potomac’s top slot (although all agreed that Burnside was out). In the end—and despite the strenuous objections of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and General in Chief Henry Halleck—Lincoln chose Fighting Joe.  

On Jan. 25, 1863, news of Hooker’s appointment reached the Army of the Potomac, where it was fairly well received by the rank and file. They saw him as a fighting general. And, thanks to their fondness for Fighting Joe, they were more than willing to overlook his infighting, intemperance, and reportedly low moral character. Many in the army’s highest ranks, however, were not so sanguine. Two of the army’s grand division commanders—major generals Edwin V. Sumner and William B. Franklin—refused to serve under Hooker and were summarily banished from the Army of the Potomac. Burnside was given a leave of absence.

Fresh Veggies

Soon thereafter, Hooker received the famous Jan. 26 letter from President Lincoln. It opened with a listing of the general’s positive qualities—his bravery, his confidence, his ambition. Then the president admonished Hooker for thwarting Burnside at every turn. Next followed an incredible passage: “I have heard, in such way as to believe it,” Honest Abe had written, “of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course, it was not for this but in spite of it that I have given you the command. Only those Generals who gain successes, can set up Dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.” The president then promised the government’s utmost support.

On Jan. 28, after a face-to-face with Lincoln in the White House, Hooker returned to his army’s headquarters at Falmouth, just across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg, to take command. But, as noted above, the Army of the Potomac was in a deplorable state, both physically and mentally. In letters to their families and hometown newspapers, the soldiers grumbled, detailing their woes. One feared they were “fast approaching a mob.” Another, advocating the army’s breakup, wrote that they “may as well abandon this part of Virginia’s bloody soil.”

Despite the task’s enormity, the 48-year-old Joseph Hooker dove into his new responsibilities with a passion. First, he needed a right-hand man, a chief of staff. In General Order No. 2, dated Jan. 29, Hooker appointed Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield. (His first choice for the position, Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, was still under suspicion thanks to his bungling of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861.)

Although not a West Pointer, New Yorker Butterfield—best known as the supposed composer of “Taps”—had risen quickly through the ranks and was part of Hooker’s inner circle, having led the V Corps in Hooker’s Center Grand Division. He possessed solid organizational skills. Retained as chief of artillery was Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt (although he was unfortunately limited to administrative responsibilities). The other staff appointments were adjutants and aides-de-camp from Hooker’s earlier commands.

Early on, Hooker tackled the problem most dear to the men in the ranks—food. Rations for an encamped army were supposed to include fresh vegetables, “desiccated” (or dried) vegetables—derisively called “desecrated” by the soldiers—hardtack, salt pork, and coffee. But much of this good food was being sold for cash by the regimental commissaries to people outside the army. The hungry foot soldiers—even some officers—simply went without. To counteract this profiteering, Hooker ordered that henceforth the men would receive fresh vegetables twice and dried legumes once per week.

Additionally, the new commander ordered the erection of camp bakeries, mandating that his soldiers be issued soft bread, or flour, at least four times a week. Commissary officers who failed to comply were required to file a written explanation. Thanks to this new system of accountability, the men quickly noticed an improvement in both the quality and quantity of their rations. “Whatever they thought of Hooker’s other qualities,” wrote historian Bell Wiley, “soldiers highly approved his competency as a provider.”

Teaching the Men To Bathe?

Orders were also issued to improve the vast camps around Falmouth. When first laid out in early winter, little thought had been given to proper sanitation. The foul odors that emanated from the countless log-and-canvas huts are best left undescribed. Now headquarters required the men to bury their garbage every day and dig drainage ditches around every cabin. Latrines were relocated farther from the company streets. Blankets and bedding were to be aired daily, and the canvas roofs removed often so that the sun, and fresh air, might enter. Unimprovable campsites were abandoned. Attention was also paid to the men’s personal hygiene: They were ordered to cut their hair short, bathe twice a week, and change their underclothing at least once every seven days.

Cleaning up brought about quick and noticeable changes. The army’s medical director, Maj. Jonathan Lettermen, reported that in February, cases of potentially fatal diarrhea dropped 32 percent. Cases of typhoid fever—which had run rampant through the filthy encampments—were down twenty-eight percent. By April, scurvy was almost eliminated. Under Letterman’s direction, army hospitals were aired out and renovated. New hospitals were built. Drunken surgeons were discharged. The ill and the slightly wounded were quickly patched up and returned to the ranks.

As the men’s health improved, Fighting Joe took steps to keep them occupied. A hectic daily regime of drills and inspections was reinstituted. Company, regimental, and brigade officers studied the manuals by candlelight and put their men through the complicated battlefield evolutions the following day. Of course, the men at first complained—one called the drilling “constant and severe”—but they quickly began to take pride in their improved capabilities. The Falmouth drill fields now witnessed large-scale reviews like those once staged by McClellan.

During these special ceremonies, Fighting Joe Hooker would smile approvingly as the infantrymen marched past him in columns of companies—the men in clean uniforms, their rifled muskets bright. “I believe that the army was never in better condition … than it is now,” noted one Bay Stater, “very different from what it was a month ago.”

Hooker went after the horrendous desertion problem with a carrot-and-stick approach. More than anything else, the soldiers wanted to visit their families back home. Now came a new system—the carrot—under which each company was allowed one ten-day furlough at a time. Additionally, President Lincoln issued an order granting amnesty to absentees who returned to the Army of the Potomac by April. Then there was the stick—programs designed to make desertion difficult and more dangerous. Up to this time, homefolks frequently assisted desertion by simply shipping civilian duds to their soldier boys. Now army-bound packages were under the purview of the provost marshals, and none was allowed past without certification from the shipping agent that it was clothing-free.  

Under orders from Hooker, the Army of the Potomac now began stringently enforcing army regulations. Groups of soldiers claiming to be telegraph-repair details needed passes, as did wagons headed north to Washington. Each military unit was ordered to name and physically describe every member who was absent without leave. The outlying picket lines were greatly reinforced—the pickets themselves now ordered to shoot individuals refusing to halt when challenged. Men caught deserting were executed in front of their comrades.

Cheerful Spirits in Camp

Formerly called a “mob,” the Army of the Potomac—thanks to Fighting Joe’s improvements—once again resembled an army. “[C]heerfulness, good order, and military discipline,” wrote one soldier, “at once took the place of grumbling, depression, and want of confidence.” One new development that didn’t sit well with the rank and file, however, was the banishing of liquor from the camps. (And naturally, the officers were excluded from this regulation.) Now the regimental sutlers witnessed booming sales of such items as canned “brandied peaches.” At Washington, bridge guards started seizing five hundred dollars’ worth of alcoholic beverages each and every day.

The most significant structural change to the Army of the Potomac under Hooker was the breaking up of Burnside’s “grand division” formations (of two infantry corps each). As noted above, two of the four grand division heads, major generals Sumner and Franklin, had already departed. (Hooker himself had been another.) The fourth, Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, took leave of the army at this time due to poor health (and dissatisfaction). Now, army headquarters would issue orders directly to seven infantry corps commanders. (The eighth infantry corps, Burnside’s old IX Corps, still fiercely loyal to “Old Burn,” was ordered away under the command of Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, whom Hooker considered a bad influence.)

While historians have called this reordering detrimental to the army’s success—after all, in 1864, the Army of the Potomac would be reorganized into fewer, larger formations—Hooker’s reasoning at the time appears sound. Based on his Fredericksburg experience, Fighting Joe called the grand divisions cumbersome, predicting that the upcoming campaign would prove “adverse to the movement and operations of heavy columns.” Grand divisions also added another layer to the army’s military hierarchy—meaning orders took longer to filter down to the frontlines.

Four of the army’s infantry corps were given new leaders: Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles—another Hooker crony—assumed command of the III Corps; the V Corps head became Maj. Gen. George G. Meade; Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was transferred from the exiting IX Corps to lead the VI Corps; and Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard eventually took command of the XI Corps. Four new division heads and nineteen new brigade commanders were appointed. Several of these new leaders were controversial, but nobody could deny that Hooker was breathing new life into the Army of the Potomac.

A huge improvement was now made to the cavalry arm. Under previous commanders, the much-maligned Federal horsemen had been frittered away in inappreciable detachments. Outpost duty, dispatch delivery, and the escorting of general officers had been their lot. Consolidated, they now became a powerful Cavalry Corps under the command of Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. Comprising three divisions of two brigades each, supported by a brigade-sized reserve, this force of over 11,000 proved more than equal to the much-vaunted Confederate cavalrymen at the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9. “From the day of its reorganization under Hooker,” noted an appreciative dragoon, “the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac commenced a new life.”

Expanding on an idea first concocted by Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny (who’d had his soldiers wear squares of red cloth), Chief of Staff Butterfield devised a corps badge system that proved immensely popular. Each corps was assigned a unique emblem—a circle, trefoil, diamond, Maltese cross, St. Andrew’s cross, crescent, or star—that the men attached to their caps. Following the colors of the Stars and Stripes, a corps’ first division wore badges in red, the second division white, and the third blue. The system fostered corps pride and was later invaluable for identifying units in combat.

Joseph Hooker’s leadership transformed the Army of the Potomac. Greatly appreciative, the enlisted personnel began cheering him whenever he rode by on his white charger. As one soldier remembered years later: “Ah! the furloughs and vegetables he gave! How he did understand the road to the soldier’s heart! How he made out of defeated, discouraged, and demoralized men a cheerful, plucky, and defiant army, ready to follow him everywhere!”

President Lincoln’s letter of Jan. 26, 1863 had concluded with a brief warning: “Beware of rashness,” Old Abe had written, “but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.” To Lincoln’s great dismay, however, Fighting Joe went forward and gave the nation the Battle of Chancellorsville, the worst defeat ever suffered by the Army of the Potomac. “My God! My God!” moaned the chief executive, his ashen face filled with sorrow and dread. “What will the country say?”

Under Arrest!

The country had plenty to say—especially when the losses, over 17,000, began to sink in. The New York Herald, for example, worrying about the battle’s “fearful consequences,” blasted Lincoln and his advisers for their “ruinous policy of underrating the enemy. …” And Washington was abuzz with wild rumors: Lee had destroyed Hooker’s army and was advancing on the capital; Fighting Joe was under arrest; McClellan would return to command. 

Abraham Lincoln, however, decided to keep Hooker in charge. But when General Lee launched his second invasion of the North and Hooker got into a squabble with the War Department over the status of the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Lincoln replaced him with Maj. Gen. George Meade on June 28 (only three days before the commencement of the Battle of Gettysburg).

Despite the career black mark that was Chancellorsville, Hooker was sent west to Chattanooga, Tennessee, in command of the Army of the Potomac’s XI and XII Corps. There he performed admirably at Lookout Mountain on Nov. 24, 1863. The two eastern corps were combined in April 1864 as the XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, and subsequently, under Hooker’s leadership, participated in the Atlanta Campaign. Passed over for promotion, Hooker submitted his resignation to army head Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on August 27. “I will not object,” was Sherman’s reaction. “He is not indispensable to our success.”

Hooker sat out the rest of the war in Cincinnati, Ohio, in charge of the army’s Northern Department (which comprised the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan). The boredom of this duty—securing the Ohio River and the northern frontier—Fighting Joe alleviated by making speeches and wooing Olivia Groesbeck of Cincinnati, whom he married once the fighting was over. Hooker led Lincoln’s funeral procession in Springfield, Illinois, on May 4, 1865, and was greatly heartened that same year when the report of the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War exonerated him for the devastating defeat at Chancellorsville.

After the war, he oversaw two of the Army’s large administrative districts: the Department of the East and the Department of the Lakes. Retiring on Oct. 15, 1868, he spent his last decade traveling, attending reunions, and threatening to publish his memoirs. Joseph Hooker—the pompous, hard-drinking officer whose leadership, in only three months, completely revitalized the Army of the Potomac—died suddenly on Oct. 31, 1879. He was buried in Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

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

A Secretive Special Forces Unit

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

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

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

Beach Surveillance

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

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

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

Private Armies?

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

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

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

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

Invading France

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

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

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

Omaha Beach

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

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

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

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

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

Inside the Submersible

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

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

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

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

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

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

Switching on the Beacons

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enough Oxygen?

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

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

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

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

Invasion Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

The Legendary Kukri Knife

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Military Tribes

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

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

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

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

An Unlikely Alliance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From World War I to Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Royal Gurkha Rifles

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

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

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

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

Aayo Gurkhali.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

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

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

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

A Global Military Leader

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Best Warrior He Could Be

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

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

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

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

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

Motivating His Troops

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

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

Taking On Rommel

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

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

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

A Gifted Communicator

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

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

Positive Command Style

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

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

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

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

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

Visiting U.S. Troops

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

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

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

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

Putting Himself Last

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

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

A Life Of Service

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

Judas Maccabeus (190-160 bce)

The third of five sons born to Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, priest (cohen) of Modein—the others being Eleazar, Simon, John and Jonathan—the man more widely known by his Greek name was known in Hebrew as Yehuda HaMakab, or Judah the Hammer. Judas was a cohen in his own right and would have remained so had his Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (“God Manifest”), not sought to promote homogeneity in his multi-ethnic kingdom by imposing Hellenic culture and religion on all his subjects in 168 bce. That included installing images of Hellenic gods in the Second Temple of Jerusalem, provoking a revolt by Mattathias, his sons and other Jewish pietists. 

During this war for control over Judea, Judas came to the fore. After winning a string of victories, he led his makeshift army into Jerusalem on the 25th day in the Hebrew month of Kislev (approximately December), 164 bce. In the course of cleansing the Temple, tradition has it that there was only enough oil to light it for a single day, but it burned through eight nights until more oil was found. 

The fighting was far from over, however. Eleazar was killed in 161 and at Elasa in 160. Judas was outgeneraled by Bacchides and died fighting. His burial ended with a quotation from King David’s lament to King Saul: “How the mighty have fallen!” Jonathan and Simon subsequently died, leaving John the last Maccabee standing by 142 bce, when Judea finally won autonomy within the Seleucid kingdom and independence in 141.

Narses (c.ad 478-568)

The exact dates of Narses’ birth and death are uncertain, as is how he came to be castrated. What is known is that he was a Romanized Armenian who served as steward, chief treasurer and grand chamber of the court to the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. 

He played a vital role in putting down the Nika riots on 532, but there is no evidence of military training leading to Justinian’s ordering him in 538 to Italy, where Count Flavius Belisarius, after having conquered the Vandals in North Africa in 533, was trying to wrest the Western Roman Empire from the Ostrogoths. Although Narses demonstrated a surprising grasp of command, he and Belisarius did not trust one another and Justinian recalled Narses. Working with minimal resources, Belisarius conduced a brilliant defense of Rome in 538, but in 541 Justinian, suspecting his loyalty, reassigned him to fight the Sassanians in Mesopotamia. Narses took Belisarius’ place in Italy and by June 551 was the supreme commander at age 73 with a string of victories. In 554 the undersized eunuch was feted to the first Triumph held in Rome in 150 years—and the last. On Nov. 14, 565, Justinian died and the new emperor, Justin II, recalled Narses to Constantinople in 567. Some accounts claim he died enroute in April 568, but others describe his death in peaceful retirement in 574 at what might have been age 96—itself an achievement in the treacherous cauldron of Byzantine politics. 

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227)

Born to a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, Temujin was eight when his father died. Certainly he would have learned the standard Mongol mounted warrior repertoire, but his accomplishments had gone far beyond that by 1206, when a kurultai of his peers elected him their first khagan, under the name of Genghis Khan. Among the most intriguing mysteries surrounding his rise to power is how he learned, hands-on, to forge alliances, turn an unwieldy collection of steppe warriors into a vast, well-disciplined army capable of conquering continents and, while he was at it, create a political entity of unprecedented scope to administer his holdings, complete with a codified legal system—all conceived virtually from scratch.

Although the victims of his ruthless expansion of empire have been estimated as high as 17 million—one-fifth the earth’s population at the time—Genghis Khan conquered the largest contiguous land mass in history and laid the foundation for a meritocracy allowing universal religious tolerance, which in times of peace connected the western world by pan-Eurasian trade. All this was without precedent in the Mongol world, but it lasted a quarter of a millennium. Is it any wonder that, however controversial he is elsewhere, Genghis Khan is still at the top of Mongolia’s hierarchy of national heroes?

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559-1632)

Born in the Brabant in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly attended Jesuit school in Cologne, but at age 15 enlisted as a soldier in the Spanish army against the Dutch in the Eighty Years War. In 1600 he served in a mercenary unit with the Holy Roman Empire fighting Ottoman forces in Hungary and Transylvania. It was not uncommon for professional soldiers to learn hands-on as they rose in the ranks in the 17th century, but Tilly was exceptional in that he ascended from private to field marshal in just five years. In 1610 Duke Maximilian I gave him command of the Catholic League. 

When the Thirty Years War broke out in Bohemia in 1618, Tilly’s victory at White Mountain in 1620 knocked Bohemia out of the conflict at almost the beginning. As other Protestant countries rose against the Empire, Tilly defeated each in turn, seeming to be invincible.

Tilly’s career began to tarnish when King Gustavus II Adolphus put the Thirty Years War through a new phase with his innovatively mobile Swedish army. After a 20-day siege, on May 20, 1631 Tilly’s forces stormed Magdeburg and for the first time he lost control over his troops, who butchered 20,000 of the city’s 25,000 population. On Sept. 17, Tilly confronted Gustavus at Breitenfeld and was convincingly outmaneuvered and beaten, suffering 27,000 casualties. Tilly scored a modest victory at Bamberg on March 9, 1632, but at Rain am Lech on April 15 he was struck in the thigh by an arquebus round and died of osteomyelitis in Ingolstadt on the 30th.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

When the English Civil War broke out, its most famous—and notorious—figure was known among the merchant community and had been a member of Parliament for his home county of Huntingdon in 1628-29 and 1640-42. His only military experience had been raising a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire for the Parliamentarians, which arrived too late to participate in the opening battle at Edgehill on Oct. 23, 1642. Oliver Cromwell proved avid at learning from experience, most notably at Gainesborough on July 23, 1643, at which point he was a colonel. He was involved in redeveloping the Parliamentary forces into a “New Model Army,” which proved its worth in the pivotal battles of Marston Moor in July 1644 and Naseby on June 14, 1645. By 1652 Cromwell’s subsequent campaigns in Scotland and Ireland sealed his place among Britain’s most successful generals. If appraised by his own standard, however—“warts and all”—he is also remembered as a regicide (he was the third of 59 to sign King Charles I’s death warrant), the revolutionary who dissolved Parliament and made himself “Lord Protector,” i.e. dictator, and one of those oppressors the Irish still love to hate.

Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)

Born in Warwick, Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene was running a mill when the American Revolution broke out, but he was an avid reader with—despite being a Quaker—a fascination with military science. That and his advocating the break with Britain led to his being expelled from his congregation, although he still regarded himself as a Quaker. When the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred, Greene’s only contribution was to form a militia unit, the Kentish Guard. On June 14, 1775 Greene met Maj. Gen. George Washington, the new commander of the Continental Army, in Boston, and the two became close friends. Serving as quartermaster-general, Greene distinguished himself in combat at Brandywine Creek, Valley Forge and Monmouth Court House. On Dec. 2, 1780 Washington sent Greene to Charlotte, N.C., where he reorganized the beaten Continental forces in the southern colonies and set out to retake them from British Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ army. Greene choreographed an artful campaign of fighting retreats, climaxing at Guilford Court House, N.C., on March 15, 1781. Although Cornwallis ended up holding the ground and technically winning the battle, the 633 casualties he suffered compelled him to disengage and retire to Virginia. While Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown, Greene took the offensive, driving the last British in the South from Charleston, S.C. on Dec. 14, 1782. Before his death of heatstroke in Georgia on June 19, 1786, Greene summed up how he wore Cornwallis down: “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.”

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803)

The son of an educated slave on French-owned Saint-Domingue, François-Dominique Toussaint got some education of his own from Jesuit contacts while serving as a livestock handler, herder, coachman and steward until 1776, when he attained freedom. A slave revolt broke out between oppressed blacks and their white and mulatto overseers in August 1791. By 1793 he was leading rebels in a self-developed guerrilla force and had adopted the surname “Louverture” (“opening”). Later that year he and his followers helped a newly-Republican France fight off Spanish and British forces and was encouraged to learn that the French National Assembly ended slavery in May 1794. Over the following years Louverture displayed a remarkable grasp of civil leadership, restoring the economy in 1795 and overrunning Spanish San Domingo in January 1801, declaring the liberation of its white, black and mulatto population. In January 1802, however, Sainte-Domingue was invaded by a French army led by Maj. Gen. Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc, brother-in-law of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, with orders to reinstate slavery on the island. Overwhelmed and losing followers, Louverture agreed to lay down his arms in May and retire to his plantation. Instead, Bonaparte ordered his arrest. He died in Fort-de-Joux in the Jura Mountains on April 7, 1803. 

Bonaparte’s treachery backfired. Leclerc died of yellow fever in November 1802. On May 18, 1803 Bonaparte made some quick cash for his European operations by approving American President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, effectively writing off his ambitions in the New World. On Jan. 1, 1804 one of Louverture’s disciples, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, declared himself governor-general of Haiti, the world’s first black republic. 

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie (1762-1806)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie was the issue of Alexandre Davy, Marquis de la Pailleterie, a minor French noble plantation owner in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and one of his slaves, Marie-Céssette Dumas (whose surname Thomas-Alexandre adopted). The boy accompanied his father to France, where he could be free and get an education. In 1786, however, he enlisted in the French army’s 5th Dragoon Regiment (Queen). When the French Revolution broke out, he found numerous opportunities to show his military talents. On June 2, 1792 he was promoted to corporal, but over the next few years he was commissioned a lieutenant, then rose to lieutenant colonel and, in July 1793–the first person of African descent in history to attain the rank of brigadier general. Although not the most gifted strategist, he was exceptionally strong and reveled in leading by example. Among others, Dumas commanded the Army of the West in 1796 and the Army of Italy in 1796. On March 25, 1797, during a fighting retreat from Brixen and Botzen in the Tyrol, Dumas held the Brixen bridge against an Austrian cavalry squadron singlehanded. From 1798 to 1799 he served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army of the Orient. 

Retiring in 1802, Dumas died of stomach cancer in 1806. Undoubtedly his lifetime of adventure inspired his son, Alexandre Dumas Sr., to write adventure novels, such as The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo. His grandson, Alexandre Dumas Jr. also became an esteemed novelist and playwright, best known for La Dame aux Camélias.

Benjamin H. Grierson (1826-1911)

One of the iconic names in American Civil War cavalry had no military training and was afraid of horses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 8, 1826, Benjamin Henry Grierson was nearly kicked to death by a horse at age eight and distrusted the beasts ever since. Educated in Ohio, he became a music teacher and shopkeeper in Illinois when war broke out and joined the U.S. Army at Cairo on May 8, 1861, as a volunteer aide to Brig. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. On Oct. 24, however, Grierson was assigned to the 6th Illinois Cavalry and on March 26, 1862 his men elected him colonel.

Mastering his horse problem, Grierson led his troopers on raids and skirmishes throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. This climaxed with a diversionary raid in which Grierson led 1,700 troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments from La Grange, Tenn. on April 17, 1863 600 miles to Baton Rouge, La. on May 2. A step ahead of Confederate pursuers, Grierson’s raiders inflicted 100 casualties, took 500 prisoners, captured 3,000 arms and destroyed 50 to 60 railroad and telegraph lines. Of greatest strategic importance, the raid diverted a division’s worth of Confederate soldiers while Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s forces slipped south of the Mississippi fortress of Vicksburg, leading to its July 4 surrender. After the war, Grierson decided to make a career of Army service, spending most on the frontier, his commands including the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Colored). On April 5, 1890 he was given a rare promotion to brigadier general in the Regular Army, shortly before retiring on July 8 of that year. 

Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013)

The son of a well-to-do farmer who died in a French prison, Vo Nguyen Giap attended a Catholic lycée in Hue, joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1931, gained a law degree in 1938 and worked as a history teacher while self-studying military history. In May 1940 he met Ho Chi Minh in China, where he learned tactics and strategy as practiced by Mao Zedong. By the end of World War II Giap was Minister of Defense for the communist-nationalist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). 

Between 1946 and 1954 Giap blended guerrilla and conventional warfare, winning some campaigns and suffering some stinging defeats but learning from experience. His decisive victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 shocked the Western powers, as did his success in wearing down U.S. forces between 1965 and 1973. Giap viewed himself as more soldier than politician, which may explain his being sidelined by North Vietnamese General Secretary Le Duan, whose “big battle” strategy prevailed over Giap’s during the 1968 Tet and 1972 Easter offensives, resulting in bloody tactical defeats. In the end, the PAVN prevailed over the American-backed Saigon government in 1975. In 1978 Giap oversaw an invasion of Kampuchea that toppled Pol Pot’s radical Maoist Khmer Rouge government. When the Chinese retaliated with a punitive expedition into Vietnam on Feb. 12, 1979, the PAVN’s stout defense convinced the invaders to withdraw on March 16. 

Although Vo Nguyen Giap is widely touted as one of the military geniuses of his century, much of his self-taught strategy and tactics could only have worked in Indochina’s unique conditions in the second half of the 20th century.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

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

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

Not a Narcissist

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

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

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

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

Honest despite Criticism

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

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

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

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

Independent Yet Loyal

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

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

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

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

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke should have been on leave in Paris, enjoying a well-earned break from the nearly constant combat he’d been in since the D-Day breakout in late-July launched the Allied sweep across France led by the tank unit he then commanded—Combat Command A (CCA), 4th Armored Division. When that Allied “Blitzkrieg in Reverse” brought the European war’s front line to Germany’s doorstep that autumn, however, Clarke had been promoted to Brig. Gen. and given command of CCB, 7th Armored Division—a troubled outfit Clarke had quickly whipped into shape. 

But, instead of relaxing in Paris, at 2:30 p.m., Dec. 17, 1944, Clarke was on the top floor room of a school in St. Vith, Belgium, a town controlling a vitally important crossroads in the northern sector of the Ardennes Forest region of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Standing alongside Maj. Gen. Alan W. Jones, the beleaguered and overwhelmed commander of U.S. 106th Infantry Division defending this sector of the Allied front line, the men used binoculars to observe swarms of German infantrymen backed by panzers approaching the town’s eastern outskirts.

These were lead elements of the massive German Ardennes Offensive—soon to be called The Battle of the Bulge. The vital St. Vith crossroads sat squarely in the path of the German main attack. After a few tense minutes, Jones turned to Clarke and said, “You take command, Clarke. I’ll give you all I have…I’ve lost a division quicker than any division commander in the U.S. Army.”

If the vital crossroads and transportation network at St. Vith was going to be held and the German advance delayed or stopped, it was up to Bruce Clarke do it.

A Dire Situation

Jones’ dire assessment of “losing his division” was unfortunately on target. When the German offensive began at 5:30 a.m., Dec.16, 1944, the 16,000 infantrymen of his untested 106th Division had held their assigned 22-mile-wide front-line sector—including the Schnee Eifel high ground east of St. Vith which included part of the German Siegfried Line (West Wall) defenses—for only four days.

Soon, two of Jones’ three infantry regiments (422nd and 423rd) were surrounded and cut off by the rapidly advancing Germans. The cut-off regiments surrendered Dec. 19 in the largest surrender of American troops in the European Theater.  Clarke’s situation when he took command of St. Vith’s defense looked equally dire. Ordered to the Ardennes early that morning, Clarke’s CCB had traveled 80 miles south over frozen roads, the last few miles pushing their way east through roads clogged with U.S. units fleeing west.

Only a portion of Clarke’s tankers and armored infantrymen had reached St. Vith by late afternoon Dec. 17. If you were Bruce C. Clarke facing that desperate situation, what would you do? Here are your most likely courses of action:

1. Fortress St. Vith 

With overwhelming German numbers of troops and tanks pouring off of the Schnee Eifel and threatening to engulf St. Vith as your unit barely trickles into the town, establishing a fortified perimeter which can be strengthened by more of your units as they slowly arrive could turn the town into an island of resistance, thereby blocking the Germans from capturing the crossroads. However, this would mean that your defenders would inevitably be surrounded and cut-off. Unbeknownst to you at the time, this is the exactly the defense the 101st Airborne would adopt at Bastogne, further south.

2. Mobile defense 

Divide the entire area around St. Vith into “defensive zones/sectors,” within which you would create teams of tanks-infantry to carry out an active mobile defense, trading space for time, when necessary, but if necessary, giving up terrain and fixed defensive positions in order to prolong your defense of the St. Vith overall area as long as possible.

By controlling the overall area, you would deny the Germans free, unfettered use of the vital crossroads, thereby delaying the enemy offensive’s main attack as long as possible.This is the tactic you successfully used in winning the September 1944 Battle of Arracourt, France, the largest American tank battle of the war prior to the Battle of the Bulge. 

3. Withdraw west 

With the inevitably impending surrender of the 106th’s two full infantry regiments on the Schnee Eifel, there seems no reasonable chance your much smaller Combat Command (brigade equivalent) can possibly stop the German main attack and deny them full use of the St. Vith road network.

Moreover, you know that the remainder of 7th Armored Division (CCA and CC Reserve) under your division commander, Brig. Gen. Robert Hasbrouck, is forming on the west bank of the Salm River obstacle. Therefore, the tactically prudent decision is for you to withdraw your CCB west behind the Salm River while you still can, adding your combat command’s strength to Brig. Gen. Hasbrouck’s gathering force for the presumed planned Allied counterattack. 

What is your decision, General Clarke?

Even before Allied intelligence soon confirmed it, Clarke’s combat experience convinced him this thrust toward St. Vith was the German main attack—it overlapped and paralleled the Ardennes’ “classic invasion route,” the Losheim Gap. Since the “impenetrability” of the rugged Ardennes region was primarily due to its primitive road network, whoever controlled the roads and crossroads controlled the Ardennes. Therefore, holding—or, more importantly, controlling the area surrounding—the few but vital road networks would delay, likely fatally, any rapid German advance through the Ardennes.

Moreover, Clarke’s stunning September 1944 victory at Arracourt in which his brilliant mobile defense of that area by his outnumbered combat command defeated two panzer brigades and major elements of two panzer divisions (Clarke lost 55 tanks/tank destroyers; Germans lost over 200 panzers/assault guns) gave him a virtual “blueprint for victory” at this similar combat scenario at St. Vith. Clarke wisely chose Option 2, Mobile Defense.

Outcome

From Dec. 17 through Dec. 23, Clarke’s CCB, 7th Armored Division conducted a brilliant mobile defense of St. Vith and the surrounding area, delaying Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army for a critical week during the Battle of the Bulge. Although Clarke relinquished the town of St. Vith on Dec. 21, his unit controlled the overall area until Dec. 23 when it was ordered to withdraw behind the Salm River. Historian Russell Weigley judged that “more than any other of the many defensive stands in the Ardennes…it was the battle of St. Vith that bought the time required by Allied generalship to recapture control of the [Bulge] battle.” 

Although the heroic Siege of Bastogne (Dec. 20-26, 1944) is the most remembered of the Battle of the Bulge engagements, the 101st paratroopers successfully defended the besieged town against the Germans’ supporting attack; Clarke’s defense of St. Vith blunted and fatally delayed the enemy main attack. Later, Clarke summed up what it took to persevere and win at St. Vith: “The job of a commander in a battle when attacked by an overwhelming force is to prevent the confusion from becoming disorganized, and to eliminate command and staff inertia so that the reaction to crises can be swift and effective.”

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

As an instrument of war, the flail was a handheld, two-piece, jointed weapon, consisting of a wooden handle of varying length (up to 5-6 feet long) and a shorter, perhaps 1–2-feet long, heavy impact rod serving as a “striking-head” which was attached to the handle by a flexible rope, leather strap or chain links, allowing it to swing freely up and down and in a full circle.

By making a sweeping, downward blow with the flail’s handle, the weapon’s wielder greatly increased the impact energy of his blow through the increased energy generated by the centripetal force of the free-swinging “striking-head,” thereby inflicting a more powerful blow on the target. Some flail wielders even increased the lethality of their flail’s striking-head by replacing the rod with a longer-chain-linked, spiked head, orb-shaped ball, creating the Kettenmorgenstern (chain morning star).

Peasant farmers just trying to survive medieval combat added spikes and metal studs, considering any lethal enhancement a battlefield “plus” if it helped them get through a battle alive.

Flail weapons are best classified as “peasant levy’ weapons” since they evolved from the flail grain thresher, an agricultural tool typically used by farmers to separate grain from their husks (dating from ancient Roman times) through heavy beating, and therefore one of the commonly-available farming tools that peasant levies who were involuntarily conscripted into military service had readily available.

Other such peasant farming/foresting tools that could be quickly converted into military use when peasants were called up included axes, billhooks, knives, adzes and heavy mallets. Certainly, at least by the 15th century—as Czech Hussite peasant infantry who fought with flails demonstrate—flails were in use and there are accounts confirming its use through the 17th century.

Variations of the flail weapon were developed in widespread world regions. In medieval Russia and East Asia, steppe warriors wielded kisten, flails with smooth metal or bone balls attached to the haft by rope or a leather strap. Similar, flail-like, hand-wielded impact weapons were developed by the Chinese (nunchakus, three-section-staff, and the knotted-rope knout) and the Koreans (pyeongong). Yet, the most famous flail-pattern weapon may never have been part of the Medieval armored knight’s weapons array.

Today, the most popular and well-known image of the flail weapon—perpetuated by modern-era novels and films—is of fully-armored Medieval knights (literally) “flailing” away in knight-to-knight combat, bashing at each other brandishing short-hafted “morning star” flails sporting long-chain-linked, spiked balls.

Yet, today’s medieval armored knight combat historians are at odds as to whether such weapons even existed. Contemporary paintings depict such weapons, and post-medieval examples do exist, but many historians doubt if these were more than conceptual imaginings. Indeed, a short-handled, long-chained “morning star” flail, in practical use, could have been more dangerous to the flail weapon’s wielder than to the weapon’s target!

Certainly, the flail was used in medieval combat, but the version depicted in 19th century and later romantic “knighthood” novels and films was likely never used in knightly combat.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

This fantastic and detailed study reveals the origins of ancient Rome’s most iconic weapon: the gladius. Based on first-class research, this is a story of historical evolution—not only of a weapon, but of tactics, armor and indeed of Roman civilization.

Although we are all familiar with the Roman Empire ruled by powerful Caesars, the authors have chosen to take us much farther back in time to what might be called the infancy of Rome’s armies.

This debut volume focuses on the ancient monarchial and consular periods of Rome, painting a clear picture of how Roman armies developed into mighty fighting forces. Among the many fascinating topics discussed are types of insignia, how weapons were worn, and archaic fighting techniques in duels as well as in pitched battles.

The authors delve into ancient sources and archaeological artifacts to bring history to life. Many clear and detailed diagrams make the material both visually interesting and richer in an educational sense.

This book is highly recommended to anyone wishing to get a firmer grasp on the history of ancient Rome or the classical world.

The Roman Gladius and the Ancient Fighting Techniques

Volume I – Monarchy and Consular Age
by Fabrizio Casprini & Marco Saliola, Frontline Books, 2023

get it on amazon

If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.

When the Second World War in Europe ended in May 1945, the United States military had custody of a staggering number of enemy prisoners of war: 4.3 million total worldwide, with more than 400,000 held in prison camps inside the domestic United States. German personnel represented the single largest group of prisoners. However not every soldier in German uniform who fell into American hands—whether through capture, surrender, or exchange of custody with another ally—was actually a German citizen.

Between 1939 and 1945, tens of thousands of Frenchmen, Poles, Dutchmen, and Norwegians wound up in German uniform, either voluntarily or through coercion. Nearly a million Soviet citizens, ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and Cossacks had served in the German military for a myriad of reasons, plus many more millions of captured Soviet soldiers held as prisoners of the Germans were now in American or British hands; it was they who would represent one of the thorniest problems among the former allies in the war’s aftermath.

Forced Repatriation?

Prisoner of war issues during WWII were at least notionally governed by the 1929 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, but the conduct of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union demonstrated all too clearly the limitations of international conventions and laws of war. The Soviet Union was not a signatory to the 1929 Convention; Japan signed it but never ratified it; Germany was a full signatory. The legal distinction between them was largely irrelevant, because those three nations were categorically guilty of the worst treatment of prisoners of war of any belligerents during that conflict.

As many as 3 million Soviet soldiers died in German captivity. Japanese treatment of captured Allied soldiers was infamously brutal, with a death rate estimated at 27.1 percent among prisoners of Western armies (the mortality rate for American POWs in Japanese hands was more than 30 percent). Japanese treatment of Chinese prisoners was even worse, with a nearly 100 percent death rate—only 56 Chinese prisoners were officially recorded as being released from Japanese custody at the end of the war, for the grim reason that Imperial Japanese forces killed most Chinese prisoners outright. The Soviets, at the end of the war, held as many as 3,060,000 German POWs. How many of those men died in captivity is debated, but of the 1.3 million German military personnel listed as missing in action, the vast majority of them are assumed to have died as Soviet prisoners. More than 50,000 Japanese POWs perished in Soviet prison work camps after the war was over.

The end of the conflict precipitated one of the most controversial episodes related to international conventions on prisoners of war: the question of forced repatriation. 

The 1929 Convention stipulated that “repatriation of prisoners shall be effected as soon as possible after the conclusion of peace.” What it did not account for, or at least did not anticipate, was how a nation should handle prisoners of war who did not want to return to their nation of origin. 

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviets insisted that all Soviet citizens held as prisoners of war by the Germans or liberated from German custody by the Western Allies were to be repatriated without exception. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Soviet government announced a policy that labeled all its soldiers who fell into enemy hands—whether by capture or surrender—as traitors. Order 270 issued August 16 that year, explicitly stated that Soviet soldiers’ only option was to fight to the last. To be taken prisoner, especially if one was a commander or political commissar, would be equated with desertion and defection to the Nazis. Stalin supposedly said, “There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors.” With that attitude in mind, Soviet insistence on repatriation of their captured soldiers did not sound particularly benevolent.

More than 800,000 Soviet soldiers had in fact changed sides once in German hands for a variety of reasons. After the grim years of the Great Terror of the 1930s and Stalin’s purge of the Red Army before the war, there was no shortage of Soviet citizens in the military who loved the Motherland but genuinely hated Stalin and the repressive USSR government. Stalin was especially unpopular among Ukrainians, Cossacks, and other ethnic groups who had suffered in the years following the Bolshevik victory in the 1917-1923 Russian Civil War.

Some senior Red Army officers, such as Lt. Gen. Andrey Vlasov, seem to have become turncoats for self-serving reasons, but led thousands of rank-and-file soldiers into peril. Other Soviet soldiers in German custody, faced with near-certain slow death by starvation and slave labor in prisoner of war camps, chose what seemed to be the lesser of two evils and signed on for what they were told would be labor battalions in German service, only to find out too late that they were deployed as frontline combat formations or as guards in Nazi death camps. 

A Promise at Yalta

The problem was that when the Soviets at Yalta extracted the promise from their British and American counterparts to repatriate all Soviet citizens, there was no consensus as to who fit that definition. The Soviets insisted that persons from the Baltic States and eastern Poland, annexed by the USSR in 1939-1940, were Soviet citizens, but neither the U.S. nor Great Britain recognized that claim. Nor had the Allies anticipated the problem of what to do with Soviet prisoners who did not want to return. The 1929 Convention made no provision for that situation, and it did not specifically allow a detaining power to grant asylum to prisoners in its control who asked to not be returned to their country of origin. 

As the war drew to its close, British and American officials, in both the civilian governments and military command structures, were confronted by this question: did the uniform a soldier wore determine the nation to which he should be repatriated? If a Soviet citizen fought in a German uniform and was captured as a German soldier, did the Geneva Convention say he was a member of the German armed forces and protected by that service as a prisoner of war, or was he a Soviet combatant who should be returned to his country of origin?

Legal specialists in the British Foreign Office argued “it was the uniform that determined a soldier’s allegiance and no government had the right to ‘look behind the uniform’ of any POW.” Part of the thinking behind that decision was a desire to avoid reprisals against British and American prisoners still in German control.

Unfortunately, they also had to worry about the risk their countrymen then in German POW camps faced from their own ally, the USSR. As Soviet forces advanced in the east and began overrunning German prison camps containing American and British prisoners, Britain and the U.S. wanted to do nothing that might cause the Soviets to delay the repatriation of those men. Previous Soviet behavior had repeatedly demonstrated this was no idle concern. Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, told Churchill, “It is most important that they [British POWs] should be well cared for and returned as soon as possible. For this we must rely to a great extent upon Soviet goodwill and if we make difficulty over returning to them their own nationals I am sure it will reflect adversely upon their willingness to help in restoring to us our own prisoners.”

Even so, some of the language coming out of the Foreign Office in London was starkly coldhearted. As one Foreign Office official stated in an official memo, “This is purely a question for the Soviet authorities and does not concern His Majesty’s Government. In due course all those with whom the Soviet authorities desire to deal must be handed over to them, and we are not concerned with the fact that they may be shot or otherwise more harshly dealt with than they might be under English law.” This attitude did not sit well with many British military officers, but it became the policy of repatriations as the war ground to a halt.

“A Battle of Discourtesy”

The same debate caused problems between civilian and military leaders on the American side. In early 1945 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of good faith cooperation from his Soviet counterparts on POW negotiations—the Soviets demanded much but conceded nothing. It eventually got so bad that Eisenhower suggested to the Chief of the U.S. Military Mission to the USSR in the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Maj. Gen. John R. Deane, that he should simply stop cooperating with the Soviets until they proved more willing to collaborate as allies should. Deane said this would be pointless; there was absolutely no chance, he said, of “winning a battle of discourtesy with Soviet officials.” 

Statesmen in Washington also grumbled about the push to give into Soviet demands on the repatriation issue. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson vehemently opposed the idea of “turning over German prisoners of Russian origin to the Russians.” He put it bluntly: “First thing you know we will be responsible for a big killing by the Russians. … Let the Russians catch their own Russians.” The U.S. Attorney General agreed on grounds of legal precedent. “I gravely question the legal basis or authority for surrendering the objecting individuals to representatives of the Soviet Government….Even if these men should be technically traitors to their own government, I think the time-honored rule of asylum should be applied.”

But like the British, the Americans were most concerned about the fate of their own POWs who fell into Soviet control, which overrode all other issues. Edward Stettinius, the U.S. Secretary of State, expressed this clearly in a communique in February 1945 when he wrote, “The consensus here is that it would be unwise to include questions relative to the protection of the Geneva convention and to Soviet citizens in the U.S. in an agreement which deals primarily with the exchange of prisoners liberated by the Allied armies as they march into Germany… we believe there will be serious delays in the release of our prisoners of war unless we reach prompt agreement on this question.” By “agreement” he meant capitulating to Soviet demands, but there seemed no simple solution.

The Soviets knew very well their British and American allies were vulnerable on this point, and they kept the pressure on in a manner that was nothing less than outright coercion. That January, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle glumly told Stimson, “the Russians have already threatened to refuse to turn over to us American prisoners of war whom they may get possession of in German internment camps.” That threat was very much in plain view when Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Repatriation Agreement with Stalin at Yalta the next month.

Asylum Would not be granted

By the end of February nearly 370,000 Soviet POWs were in the custody of British and U.S. forces in Western Europe, and a great many of those were taken while wearing the uniforms of the German military. In accordance with the Geneva Convention, Allied command had at first issued orders that forced repatriation would only apply to POWs and Displaced Persons (DPs) who identified themselves as Soviet citizens. That arrangement did not last long.

On May 23, representatives of the Soviet High Command and Supreme Headquarters Allied European Forces signed the Leipzig Agreement, which specified that, “All former prisoners of war and citizens of the USSR liberated by the Allied Forces and all former prisoners of war and citizens of Allied Nations liberated by the Red Army will be delivered through the Army lines to the corresponding Army Command of each side.” The operative word was “all.” Washington passed instructions on to its military commanders in Europe that they were to hand all Soviet citizens over to the custody of the Red Army “regardless of their individual wishes.”

Asylum would not be granted, not even for persons whose status all but guaranteed that they would be executed as traitors when they were returned to Soviet control. Mass repatriations followed, and by the end of September 1945, 2,034,000 former prisoners identified as Soviet citizens were given over to the Red Army, sometimes by use of military force.

Nothing in the 1929 Geneva Convention provided for the forced repatriation of prisoners who did not want to return to their government’s control, so the American and British decision to comply with Soviet insistence on the matter was not compelled by law or treaty obligation. It was, instead, an unpopular course of action driven by the need to protect their own soldiers from an ally whose brutality was in some cases nearly as bad as that of their common enemy. 

Refusal to Release Prisoners

By citing the 1929 Geneva Convention in its insistence that Britain and the U.S. had to repatriate all Soviet prisoners whether they wanted to return or not, the USSR’s position was duplicitous in the extreme. The Soviets had refused to join the Convention themselves, but that did not prevent them, during the Yalta negotiations, from pointing to Article 75 with its requirement that “repatriation of prisoners shall be effected with the least possible delay after the conclusion of peace.”

The diametric contrast between the wording of that article and what the Soviets themselves did in practice was absolutely appalling. The Soviet Union kept nearly 1.5 million German prisoners of war as forced labor for an entire decade after the war ended. The last of them were not repatriated until 1955. “Fragmented archival sources,” as historian Susan Grunewald says, “imply that the Soviets primarily held onto German POWs out of economic necessity caused by the war’s destruction.” As many as 560,000 Japanese prisoners were held by the Soviets until 1950 under the same excuse. The USSR used those men to rebuild a national infrastructure damaged by the war, but such practice was directly contrary to the spirit, if not the actual letter, of the very international convention that the Soviets cited when it suited their purposes.

Soviet refusal to release their prisoners after the end of WWII directly influenced the drafting of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 when it replaced the 1929 Convention. Article 118 (Release and Repatriation) begins with the sentence, “Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.” At that time, there was still no end in sight to Soviet delaying tactics.

The 1960 Commentary on the Convention discusses Article 118 in refreshingly simple language: “This is one of the most important Articles in the Convention and is intended to remedy very unsatisfactory situations. As a result of the changed conditions of modern warfare, the belligerents have on two occasions, and without expressly violating the provisions of the existing Conventions [of 1929], been able to keep millions of prisoners of war in captivity for no good reason. In our opinion, it was contrary to the spirit of the Conventions to prolong war captivity in this way.” It then explains in detail that the Geneva Convention (III) is interpreted to mean that forced repatriation is unacceptable, and that a Detaining Power has the right to grant asylum to prisoners it holds in any situation “where the repatriation of a prisoner of war would be manifestly contrary to the general principles of international law for the protection of the human being.” 

Both interpretations exist today precisely because of the long shadow cast by Soviet policies on the repatriation of prisoners at the end of the Second World War.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

The Battle of Midway in June 1942 is undoubtedly one of World War II’s most famous naval engagements, yet a pivotal aspect of it is often overlooked: submarine warfare. Thus argues author Mark W. Allen in his book, “Midway Submerged: American and Japanese Submarine Operations at the Battle of Midway, May–June 1942.”

Allen shares a wealth of information that will likely give readers generally familiar with the battle a different perspective on its key events. He paints a clear picture of the state of submarine warfare and doctrine in both the U.S. and Japan before the Battle of Midway to provide context for the ensuing clash.

In doing so, Allen dishes out plenty of criticism for both sides, advancing the theories that the U.S. Navy prioritized stealth and caution over daring maneuvers and that Japanese naval doctrine was fundamentally deficient. In particular, he contends that the Imperial Japanese Navy performed poorly at antisubmarine warfare and was hobbled by an elitist attitude that saw submarines as “auxiliaries to the battle fleet.” The consequence was that Japanese submarines were oriented toward engaging the enemy and paid less attention to protecting their own merchant shipping.

The U.S., by contrast, developed sophisticated means of protecting merchant ships from attacks. However, the author argues that many U.S. Navy submarine commanders were unprepared for the “psychological and physical burdens” of wartime duty. These struggles caused them to withdraw to positions on bridges or in conning towers rather than mix with their crews. With this information in mind, Allen examines the factors that led to the battle’s outcome.

The book is geared less toward average readers and more toward those who have a foundation of preexisting knowledge of not only the battle’s events but also its historiography. Naval history enthusiasts and military historians who enjoy taking deeper dives into the backgrounds of well-known battles, particularly concerning tactics and leadership, will appreciate this read. The book is enriched with well-captioned photos, diagrams, and very detailed appendices, which makes it an excellent reference work. Its focus on undersea warfare adds a more well-rounded dimension to the history of Midway. Recommended.

In his Life of Julius Caesar ancient biographer Plutarch describes Caesar’s Gallic campaigns as a beginning for the conqueror—the first and greatest step on his path to power and immortal fame. The subjugation of Gaul showed him superior to Rome’s greatest military commanders. His mettle was tested and proved in nearly 10 years of successful operations in difficult terrain, navigating shifting alliances and counter-alliances, confronting and conciliating savage enemies and perfidious allies, and producing victory repeatedly through determination, imagination, and audacity. He fought more battles and killed more enemies than any of his predecessors. Through battle and siege, he subdued nations, slaying a million men and capturing a million more, bringing vast territory under Rome’s control.

But Gaul was not an end in itself. Although the stage of Caesar’s exploits was beyond the Alps, his audience was Rome. Military service had long been requisite for Roman political office. Successful military command was a potent aid in attaining the highest positions. In the late Republic, it increasingly became the means of acquiring extra-constitutional authority as the sword became the arbiter of power. 

A Political Opportunity

Caesar was already involved in this game when he entered Gaul in 58 BCE. Two years before he had formed a political alliance with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus, called the First Triumvirate, that allowed them to control the entire Roman political system. Caesar knew the arrangement could not last forever. He had to prepare for the inevitable showdown. He needed the opportunity to increase his fame and influence as well as cultivate the intense personal loyalty of his troops that would allow him to challenge Pompey. Gaul was his training ground. 

To maximize the political benefits of his exploits in Gaul, Caesar wrote his own account. Just as he used the war in Gaul to gain the power and influence necessary to bend Roman politics to his will, he used his narrative to enhance his reputation toward the same end. The Gallic War, based on his notes, diaries, dispatches, memoranda, and reports to the Senate embellished with added content and literary flourish, highlights Caesar’s abilities and achievements. While many historians suspect it was exaggerated for the author’s benefit and is propagandistic rather than strictly historical, it is our primary source for the conflict.

Caesar’s account famously begins by describing Gaul as divided into three parts inhabited by the Belgae, the Aquitani, and the Gauls. This simple mental map becomes far more complicated as the annual campaigns are narrated. The work ultimately mentions more than 100 tribes Caesar must defeat or pacify. This ethnic diversity overlays a challenging topography marked by rivers, swamps, mountains, and vast, trackless forests magnifying the difficulties of logistics and maneuver—and punctuated by nearly unassailable strongholds.

From a Roman perspective, Gaul was tribal, atavistic, chaotic, and dangerous.

Its specter of fear haunted for centuries after the Gauls sacked Rome in 390 BCE. Already in control of Cisalpine Gaul, the area of Italy north of the River Po, Rome added Transalpine Gaul as a province in the second century BCE. This territory was often called Provincia Nostra or simply “the Province,” whence derives the name for the modern French region Provence. These territories and peoples were heavily influenced by Roman culture and involved in trade with Rome, imbibing the benefits of its civilization. This Romanization was reflected in the name Gallia Togata (toga-wearing Gaul). The farther one traveled, the weaker this Roman influence became. The Romans called these untamed lands Gallia Comata (long-haired Gaul), evoking the wild, freedom-loving character of their inhabitants. 

As part of the Triumvirate’s division of political spoils, Caesar was appointed proconsul of the provinces of Illyricum as well as Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul in 58 BCE. Before him stretched a vast field of opportunity, and he meant to make the most of it. The years that followed were marked by numerous successful campaigns and a constant stream of victories enhacing Caesar’s reputation.

Gaul became an endless gift to Caesar. The restless stirrings of Gallic tribes against Roman domination ensured constant conflict, yet the Gauls’ disunity and inability to put common interest over local loyalties meant that Caesar could deal with them in a largely piecemeal fashion. 

But eventually, Caesar’s successes would forge a new enemy—spurring a leader to arise among the Gauls capable of forging a unity among the tribes not realized before. This leader’s name was Vercingetorix. He would confront Caesar with his greatest challenges yet.

A New Enemy

If Gaul seemed tranquil in the beginning of 52 BCE, it was only the calm before another breaking storm. Beneath the snow-laden trees and in the recesses of shadowed hills, secret meetings were held to commiserate about the misfortunes of Gaul and call for a united effort to drive the Romans out. The moment seemed favorable. Not only had Caesar withdrawn beyond the Alps, as he habitually did in winter to be closer to events in Rome, rumor alleged that he was tangled in political turmoil that would prevent him from joining the troops he had left to garrison Gaul. Solemn oaths were sworn and swords were sharpened. 

The first stroke fell upon Cenabum, where Roman traders were massacred, and their goods looted. Like embers carried by swift winds, the news spread quickly. Vercingetorix, the newly-proclaimed king of the Averni, seized the moment to forge the necessary unity among the tribes. Calling upon all to uphold the oaths they had sworn, he combined exhortation and severity to forge an army with which to oppose Rome and over-awe the tribes who hesitated. By common consent, he was given supreme military command. 

Receiving word of these events, Caesar hurried to Transalpine Gaul only to confront an immediate difficulty. The Province was under threat, but the bulk of his forces were still in winter quarters, far to the north. If he called them south, they would be harried all the way, yet to march to them was equally dangerous. Using surprise, misdirection, and maneuver, he forced the enemy to shift position and was able to unite his entire field army under his command. 

But Vercingetorix was a wily general who understood his enemy’s challenges as well as his own. The keys to controlling territory in Gaul were the fortified towns called oppida, which could function as anchors of strength and supply or as hostages to force an opponent’s hand. He besieged Gorgobina, a chief center of the Boii who, along with the Aedui, were allied with Rome. This forced Caesar to choose between two undesirable alternatives: conveying weakness to allies and surrendering the initiative or moving before spring and risking major problems of transport and supply. Caesar chose to march. 

New Rules of War?

Caesar’s decision worked toward solving both problems at once. He quickly took three villages rich with supply and caused Vercingetorix to abandon the siege. Recovering the initiative, Caesar marched toward the hostile town of Avaricum, the most important stronghold of the Bituriges, hoping its capture would subdue the surrounding territory. But the old rules would no longer necessarily apply. 

Vercingetorix had a new kind of war in mind. Convening a council, he presented a strategic vision to the Gauls that would require patience, forbearance, and self-sacrifice in the national cause. He outlined an asymmetric strategy that would avoid direct assault, focusing instead on strangling Roman forces by preventing them from foraging and gathering supplies. Victory would be won by attrition.

The advantages in such a war fell to the Gauls, who were operating in their own territory. There were no ripe harvests in the early season to sustain large infantry forces, which meant the Romans would have to go looking. An abundance of Gallic cavalry would enable them to isolate and destroy the foraging parties. To maximize the effects of this strategy, he called for scorched earth. Villages, towns, farm buildings, food, supplies—anything they could not carry with them was to be destroyed before the enemy could take possession. The Romans would have to travel farther in search of food, increasing their vulnerability. 

Preparing For a Siege

Flames sprang up in all directions. Such a strategy was not easy to carry out because it called for the destruction of one’s own. The Bituriges begged the others to spare Avaricum, the finest city in Gaul. It was eminently defensible, they argued, as it was surrounded almost completely by a river and a swamp. The sturdy walls fostered hope that the Romans could not take it by force of arms. Vercingetorix argued against this exception, but the tide of sympathy was against him. Nonetheless, he would not commit his field army.

The townspeople would be left on their own. After all, if Avaricum fell, it would only vindicate his tactics. Caesar began preparations for a siege while Vercingetorix watched from a distance.

With his options limited because of difficult terrain, Caesar began constructing an earth ramp and two siege towers. The threatening presence of the Gallic field army lurked in the hinterlands, ambushing foraging parties. Shortage of food, cold temperatures, and steady rains added discomfort to an already arduous task. Moreover, the Gallic defenders were both energetic and inventive. They undermined the siege ramp by digging tunnels, raised the height of their walls and towers, made frequent sallies to set fire to the siege works, and cast heavy stones on the working legionaries. 

Despite these challenges, the Romans completed the ramp in 25 days.

The Gauls made one last great effort to forestall the storming of the town. They launched sorties and hurled incendiaries onto the siege towers and ramp. But Caesar had foreseen the danger. Although it was the middle of the night, Caesar’s policy of stationing two legions outside the fortified camp and remaining near the construction site himself enabled him to react quickly and decisively. The fires were put out and the enemy pushed back.

Caesar Changes His Plan

Seeing that they could not hold out, the Gauls resolved to abandon the town. They hoped to escape to the camp of Vercingetorix during the night. As they prepared to flee, the women, fearing they and the children could not escape, begged the men not to leave them to the enemy. When the women’s pleas were ignored, they began calling out and gesturing to the Romans. This put the Romans on the alert. The escape plan had to be abandoned.

The next day the blow fell. The siege towers rolled forward, and the Romans poured onto the wall. The defense collapsed in panic. The Romans, desiring revenge for the massacre at Cenabum, made no distinctions of age or sex and gave no quarter. Of 40,000 inhabitants, hardly 800 escaped. Vercingetorix showed himself equal to the moment, using the disaster to reinforce his strategy, win over the remaining Gallic nations, and increase his army.

Caesar was also making use of events. Having captured a large amount of grain and other supplies, he refreshed and restored his army for a spring campaign. But his difficulties stretched beyond the battlefield. Envoys of the Aedui arrived to urgently request his help in resolving an internal dispute over the leadership of their nation. Reluctant to postpone the campaign, the potential consequences of civil strife within so important an allied people could be devastating. Caesar altered his plans. Settling the dispute according to their national laws, he sought to restore their unity and remind them of their allegiance to him. 

Ordering a levy of 10,000 infantry and all available cavalry, he then marched in search of Vercingetorix. Caesar knew that a war of constant maneuver and attrition did not favor him. He had to destroy the Gallic field army. As a means of provoking decisive conflict, he marched into the lands of the Averni themselves, targeting Gergovia, their capital. Vercingetorix was compelled to shadow him.

For days the two armies marched and camped within sight of each other on opposite banks of the Elaver River. Gergovia was strongly situated on a very high hill, with the elevated ridge in front of the town thickly covered by the camp of the enemy. Undaunted, Caesar first built a large, fortified camp. He then seized and fortified a lower hill, stationing two legions there and joining the camps by parallel trenches. The Gauls watched the methodical industriousness of the Romans with uneasy eyes. 

Traitors In Their Midst

Vercingetorix had other weapons to wield than those visible upon the field. He made use of bribery and collusion. Leaders of the Aedui turned against their Roman allies. One of them was the commander of the infantry force Caesar had called to his aid; this man employed lies and fearmongering to convince his men to attack the Romans. Caesar managed to restore the loyalty of the troops without battle and received the deepest apologies from Aedui envoys.

However, the episode made the Roman leader increasingly uneasy about traitors in his midst and the prospect of being surrounded by a larger Gallic uprising. He began considering how to withdraw his army from Gergovia to more favorable ground—without giving the impression he was fearful.  

An opportunity presented itself when, in response to Caesar’s misdirection, the bulk of the enemy force was employed fortifying a western approach to the town, leaving their camp virtually empty. A swift, stealthy attack delivered the camp into his hands. This is apparently all he intended. The retreat was sounded. But many of Caesar’s troops did not hear the signal. Carried away by hopes of swift victory, they assaulted the town itself. An alarm caused the bulk of the Gallic forces to rush back through the town to engage the Romans at the wall.

As their numbers increased, they gained the advantage. The Romans were driven off with heavy losses. When they rallied on the plain to face their pursuers, the Gauls would not engage, nor could they be tempted to do so for the next two days. Such restraint indicated that the message of Vercingetorix was having an effect.  

Caesar’s failure to take Gergovia increased Vercingetorix’s reputation and further loosened Caesar’s hold upon his allies. The unrepentant “traitors” among the Aedui looted and burned a key supply cache at Noviodunum. Refusing to take an embarrassing and backward strategic step, Caesar did not withdraw into Transalpine Gaul. Instead, he went on the offensive, surprising the enemy with quick movement and risky river crossings to seize what he needed. Knowing he could not expect relief forces from the south, he hired Germanic horsemen from across the Rhine to supplement his forces.

A Gamble Worth Taking?

Over the next few months, Vercingetorix collected a considerable force, increasing the threat to the Province and drawing Caesar closer. His marked superiority in cavalry convinced Vercingetorix that the opportunity for a decisive attack was at hand. But his aim was still a strike against Roman logistics rather than a general engagement. Dismissing the ability of the Germanic cavalry to stop them, he convinced the other Gauls that by attacking the Romans while they were burdened by their baggage and strung out in column on the march, they could severely weaken them. Yet Vercingetorix underestimated Roman cohesion and discipline. 

Caesar adroitly managed both to secure his baggage train and to inflict heavy damage on the enemy. Reeling back, Vercingetorix withdrew into the nearby oppidum of Alesia. This move seems a departure from Vercingetorix’s previous strategy. He had now allowed himself to be pinned down and be subjected to Roman siege warfare, at which they excelled. On the other hand, sending his cavalry away on the mission of recruiting a massive relief army can be seen as the capture of a unique opportunity. If they could hold out, Caesar would be crushed between two forces. It was perhaps a gamble worth taking. But the price of failure would be high.

Settling in for the siege, Caesar built a system of fortifications of extraordinary size and complexity. His fortifications enclosed the defenders within Alesia (circumvallation) and guarded against assault from without (contravallation). An initial trench 20 feet wide was dug on the plain to discourage attacks on the working parties. Behind this obstacle two more trenches were dug and filled with water diverted from the river that flowed across the plain. Behind these ditches, a wall of earth and rubble was raised, crowned with a palisade, reinforced with parapets and battlements, and guarded by towers that served as firing platforms for catapults.

Mechanized Artillery

But the 11-mile circuit stretched his lines thin, particularly during the construction phase. Thus Caesar added a system of hidden obstacles and traps in front of the walls and trenches so that the fortifications could be defended by smaller numbers. Triple rows of sharpened wooden stakes covered pits. Barbed iron spikes would not only cause casualties but slow any assault so that the Romans could concentrate force against it. Caesar had an identical line of fortifications built facing the other direction to guard against the relieving army.

After an initial unsuccessful attack when the relief army arrived, the Gauls spent the next day preparing to assault the Roman fortifications. They constructed wicker screens to cover the trenches, grappling hooks to pull down the parapets, and ladders to scale the palisade. In the middle of the night, they raised a mighty shout to signal those besieged in the town and launched their attack.

Hearing the clamor, Vercingetorix led his forces out to attack the Roman interior lines. His hopes must have been high, but the shouts of his rescuers quickly turned to screams of pain. As they rushed forward in the darkness, iron spikes pierced their feet. Sharpened stakes impaled them as they fell into the hidden pits.

While the Gauls launched an initial barrage of missiles to drive the Romans off the parapets, they came under the murderous fire of Roman mechanical artillery firing stone shot and heavy bolts. Even without precise aim in the darkness, these did great damage to the massed ranks of the attackers. By the time Vercingetorix’s forces had negotiated the first trench, the attack had failed. 

Repelled twice with heavy losses, the Gauls considered what to do. Because of the difficult terrain, Caesar’s fortifications were not completely uniform. The Gauls saw an opportunity in a gap to the north of the town created by a hill too large and steep to be encompassed by siege lines. The gap was guarded by a Roman camp holding two legions, but it was on unfavorable ground and constituted a weak point. The Gauls secretly dispatched a force of 60,000 men. A stealthy night march put them behind the hill before dawn, where they waited until the appointed hour. Gallic forces on the plain gathered to divert Roman attention. The assault was launched around mid-day. 

The Crucial Moment

From his vantage point in Alesia, Vercingetorix saw these movements and prepared to launch his own supportive assault from within the lines. But his was not the only eye surveying the field. Caesar had set his own camp on the high ground south of the town for a clear view of the scene. The Romans were now under assault in multiple locations and from two directions.

This was the crucial moment. The struggle in the north was particularly bitter. Exhausted legionaries were in danger of being overrun by relentless and determined Gauls. Caesar dispatched six cohorts to plug the gap while riding out to encourage the troops holding the line on the plain, his purple cloak announcing his presence to friend and foe alike. His personal intervention turned the tide. The line held. But the battle could still be lost. Calling upon four cohorts and available cavalry, Caesar rushed toward the crisis point.

Seeing their commander’s approach, the Romans resisted with renewed energy. Desperate to break through before Caesar’s arrival, the Gauls attacked wildly. But Caesar had divided his cavalry. One half rode with him; the other half he had sent to circle around and attack the enemy from behind. When the Gauls became aware of this second force, they broke and turned to flee. Most were run down and slaughtered. Vercingetorix’s plan was a near stroke–but the Gauls had lost. Those inside withdrew back into Alesia. Those outside fled from their camps and dispersed to their various nations.

Caesar’s victory was decisive. The 74 enemy military standards brought to him testified to the magnitude of his success. Several key enemy leaders were killed or captured. Vercingetorix surrendered himself to the conqueror in order to preserve what remained of his people—held captive in Rome for five years, he was ritually garroted in 46 BCE during Caesar’s much-delayed “triumph” ceremony in the Roman capital. Alesia marked the end of general, organized resistance to Rome. Though Gaul was not yet completely subdued, it was effectively conquered.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

The stealthy nature of submarine warfare brought with it a dicey redefinition of what constitute war crimes. In Sea Wolves, Tony Matthews focuses on what he calls “four of the most dangerous submarine commanders of the Second World War.

Japanese captains Hajime Nakagawa and Tatsunosuke Ariizume and German Heinz Eck went past sinking their prey to machine gun life rafts and even took civilian crew aboard for the sole purpose of obtaining intelligence and then torturing and killing them.

The fourth, Alexander Marinesko, captain of the Soviet submarine S-13, sunk the converted liner Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 and killed nearly 10,000 crew and passengers, the greatest loss of life at sea in history—and followed that by sinking Steuben, with almost 5,000.

Aided by the bitter memories of the few survivors, Matthews devotes most detail to the victims, while noting that only one of his four villains could truly be said to have been brought to justice.

In the case of his one Allied killer, however, his description of the circumstances behind Wilhelm Gustloff’s tragic end do not argue convincingly for condemning Marinesko, who could not have known how many children and civilian refugees were mixed in with Nazi political and military personnel being evacuated before the oncoming Soviet army that night.

From the evidence the author presents, one is led to wonder whether such an accusation would have been leveled at an American submarine skipper torpedoing a Japanese transport.

SEA WOLVES

Savage Submarine Commanders of WW2
by Tony Matthews, Pen & Sword Maritime, 2023

If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.

get it on amazon

In December 1232 a.d., a single arrow changed the course of history. Loosed by a Buddhist monk, the missile struck down the leader of the second Mongol invasion of Korea. His death precipitated a lifting of the siege of Cheoin and subsequent Mongol withdrawal from Goryeo. Yet they wouldn’t be gone for long. The extended nightmare that characterized Mongol attempts to subdue the Korean kingdom was destined to continue for a generation.

The geopolitical environment of Northeast Asia in the early 13th century would be recognizable to us today. Multiple, militarized states in a relatively compact area shared diplomatic, military, and trade relations. However, the identity of the regional powerhouses at the time is different from our modern construct.  

China was divided. In 1127 a confederation of Jurchen tribes had seized control of northern China, later known as Manchuria. To their south, the Jurchen faced what remained of the Chinese Song Dynasty, known today as the Southern Song. The Jurchen proclaimed the establishment of a “Great Jin” Dynasty. Fighting with the Chinese continued until a line of unassailable fortified Song cities along the Huai River forced a stalemate. This resulted in a cessation of Jin-Song hostilities in 1138 and the formalization of a new border. 

Genghis Khan On the Rise

The war between the Jurchen and the Chinese couldn’t have come at a worse time. In 1206, far to their north, an aggressive and ambitious Mongol chieftain was declared Khagan, Emperor of the Mongols. Genghis Khan—whose name meant “Universal Ruler”—wasted no time in turning the energy of the newly-unified Mongol and allied steppe tribes toward external foes. 

Genghis Khan launched his invasion of the Jin Empire in 1211 and, by 1215, he’d taken the capital at Zhongdu (modern Beijing). Distracted by events further to the west, Genghis Khan left a force to keep the pressure on the Jin while he himself marched off to destroy the Qara Khitai (in central Asia north of the Indian subcontinent) in 1217. He then smashed the prosperous Khwarezmid Empire (a Muslim empire that included present-day Iran, Afghanistan and central Asia) in 1221.

Genghis Khan died in August 1227, leaving a massive empire in the hands of his very capable third son, Ogedai, who was formally recognized as khan in 1229. When Ogedai led an army back to Jin lands the following year, his veteran troops made short work of the remaining resistance. Aizong, the last Jin emperor, hanged himself to avoid capture, ending that dynasty in 1234. Having toppled the Jin Empire, the conquerors would soon turn their attention to the Song. 

Throughout this tumultuous period the Korean kingdom of Goryeo bided its time. Goryeo had been founded through military conquest in 918. A hereditary military aristocracy held significant, if declining, influence at court. Martial clout reached its peak in 1170 when the military usurped the king’s authority. The aristocracy established a dictatorship that would last a hundred years, ruling in the king’s name but holding near-absolute power.

Swords and Scholars

In keeping with the nature of its founding, Goryeo maintained the greatest military capability of any Korean polity until the 20th Century. Goryeo troops were, at the beginning of the 13th Century, highly trained, well-equipped, battle-hardened, and well-led by the military aristocracy.

The sword arm of Goryeo was augmented by a rising class of Confucian scholars who provided sage advice to the royal family and a well-educated pool of wily diplomats. This scholarly class found itself increasingly at odds with the established military aristocracy and dictatorship, though powerless to resist the dictator’s private army. The intellectuals waited patiently for an opportunity to challenge what they saw as an illegitimate usurpation of the throne.

Fissures aside, the Goryeo court wielded its key elements—the quill and the sword—with admirable dexterity. The kingdom exhibited phenomenal ability to rapidly concentrate and project coercive power. This approach facilitated a multi-pronged expedition against the Jurchen in 1107, which seized massive tracts of land from the semi-nomadic tribes. This campaign set the conditions for a pledge by the Jurchen Wanyan tribe—the same tribe that would establish the Jin Dynasty eight years later—not to encroach upon Goryeo territory.

The annals show Goryeo’s leaders recognized the Mongol storm on the horizon. A number of factors made it seem like a distant problem at first. Korean kingdoms had long fended off mounted Jurchen incursions along the border, launching their own attacks north when timing and local advantage were favorable. To the Goryeo the Mongols were nothing more than another group of barbarians on horseback.

Yet it was the handling of the Khitan Liao incursions of the 11th Century wherein the Goryeo playbook for dealing with the Mongols would be written. Throughout the course of three invasions in 993, 1010, and 1018, Goryeo’s armies fought viciously until conditions rendered further resistance undesirable.  The king would then sue for peace—ensuring any terms included the withdrawal of the invading force—buying time to reorganize for the next campaign before resuming the conflict. 

The best example of this Goryeo sword-and-quill tactic, an admirable early synthesis of military and diplomatic efforts, led to the Battle of Guiju during the third Khitan invasion in 1019, and the annihilation of a 100,000-strong Khitan army in the mountains of modern North Korea. Goryeo would employ this same strategy, with notable success, against the Mongols.

Korea, an Unlikely Contender

Given what we know of the Mongol conquests, it might appear unbelievable that the tiny Kingdom of Goryeo would even consider resisting. The khan’s armies subdued China, Khwarezm, and Persia before invading Russia and Eastern Europe. Goryeo, however, was fiercely protective of its independence and had successfully defended itself against innumerable invasions, generally punching well above its weight class.

Goryeo’s leaders long understood their greatest advantage lay in the peninsula’s geography. Broad rivers guarded the northern border. Fortified mountain ranges separated by disease-infested valleys loomed over the route to the capital at Kaeseong. That rugged terrain had swallowed up invading armies throughout Korea’s long history. There was no reason for King Gojong to think it wouldn’t continue to do so.

Regardless of the strength of the kingdom’s defenses—both natural and man-made—the court closely monitored burgeoning Mongol power. Goryeo also extended efforts to maintain an amicable relationship with the Mongols—Koreans and Mongols even joined forces in 1219 to destroy a pillaging army of Khitans which had crossed Goryeo’s northern border.

In 1224 the inevitable occurred. A Mongol envoy arrived at the Goryeo court in Kaeseong and demanded tribute. Goryeo’s military dictator at the time, Choe Woo, refused. The emissary departed. While enroute home, the envoy was killed by bandits. The Mongols labeled the unfortunate event treacherous, and it became a pretext for invasion. It was Goryeo’s turn to face the all-conquering armies of the Great Khan.

The Korean Peninsula is only about 760 kilometers (450 miles) from the Yalu River to Busan (formerly known as Pusan). Given that the Mongols were at that time fighting successfully as far away as the Persian Gulf and Russia, one might expect the subjugation of such a small nation to be simple. That turned out not to be the case. 

The First Invasion

The first invasion took place in August 1231 under the command of the Mongol general Saritai. This force crossed the Yalu and quickly moved south, overrunning the border town of Uiju. The Mongols then took the city of Anju but failed to breach the walls of Kuju, despite numerous attempts. Already tiring of siege warfare, Saritai bypassed the strongpoint, marching hard to the south and seizing the capital of Kaeseong. Goryeo sued for peace and accepted the installment of 72 Mongol administrative officials. Saritai, no doubt reveling in the accomplishment of his mission, turned the army north and in short order departed the kingdom.

In 1232, Choe Woo fortified Ganghwa Island, west of modern-day Seoul, stocked it with ample provisions, and ordered the construction of all the facilities required by a fully functioning royal court. The dictator then evacuated the entire Goryeo government to Ganghwa, eliciting instant suspicion among the Mongol administrators. With that move—taking advantage of Mongol maritime weakness—Choe set the conditions for a stubborn resistance.

Choe instructed the people to take refuge in the many fortresses scattered throughout the countryside. Once the population was safe, he had the Mongol administrators killed. When word reached Saritai, he turned his army southward again and began the second invasion of Goryeo in June 1232.

Saritai failed in a half-hearted attempt to reach Ganghwa Island—less than a mile off-shore—and commenced the siege of Cheoin near modern Yongin. It was there that the monk Kim Yun-hu, chosen by the locals to lead their defense, struck down Saritai with an arrow in December. His death caused the Mongol army to withdraw from Goryeo, ending the second invasion.

In July 1235, the Mongols returned. Frustrated by Goryeo’s willingness to retreat within city walls and high mountain fortresses, the invaders settled upon an age-old strategy: scorched earth. If the inhabitants wouldn’t defend their lands, they’d lose them. The new plan involved massive, roving bands of Mongol cavalry, burning and pillaging their way well south of the Han River.

On the rare occasion when the Mongols took a fortified site, they massacred the inhabitants. Yet civilian resistance remained strong behind stout fortifications. The Mongols suffered several setbacks as Korean forces trapped and annihilated isolated groups of marauders.

The Mongols Retreat

After years of wanton destruction punctuated by sporadic military engagement, Choe sued for peace in 1238. The Mongol demands included a requirement for the Goryeo court to return to Kaeseong and for a prince to be sent to the khan to live as hostage. Instead, Choe fooled the Mongols by sending an unrelated member of the royal family—an act which, discovered years later, enraged the invaders.

By 1247, the Mongols realized that the endless excuses Goryeo offered as to why the government had yet to return to Kaeseong were just that: excuses. Choe was not about to place the court back within striking range of Mongol forces. This led to a fourth invasion that July, carried out in much the same way as the previous one. 

The people fled to local fortifications and once again took up arms while the Mongols burned anything and everything they found, killing or enslaving those hapless enough to be caught outside the walls. This time, neither cities nor fortresses were successfully taken, and the campaign ended in 1249 after Mongol emperor Guyuk Khan, Ogedei’s eldest son, had passed away in April 1248, causing the army to return home.

With Mongke Khan’s ascension to leadership, the Mongols renewed their demands upon Goryeo in 1251. Receiving the by now familiar excuses, the Mongols invaded a fifth time in July 1253, ravaging the empty countryside. This time, however, Goryeo had lost its most intractable advocate for resisting the invaders. Choe Woo had abruptly died of an unspecified disease in December 1249, handing dictatorial powers to his son, Choe Hang.

Compared to his father, Choe Hang held much less control over the royal family, as the annals make clear King Gojong himself met with Mongol envoys to arrange a cease-fire in early 1254. The king agreed—once again—to move his court back to the mainland.

By summer that same year, the Mongols learned that not only were multiple high-ranking officials still resident on Gangwha, but that the king’s stepson hostage wasn’t even from the royal line. There were also rampant rumors that Goryeo officers who’d cooperated in any way with the Mongols had been executed. For the Mongols this was the last straw. They set out in July 1254 to punish Goryeo.

Famine

After so many years of constant warfare and pervasive destruction, famine gripped the kingdom. The people were reaching their breaking point. Civilians surrendered to the invaders in ever increasing numbers. This latest incursion introduced the most widespread havoc to date and resulted in more than 200,000 people taken as slaves. The Mongol army marched their captives north, ending the sixth invasion that December with no political resolution at all.

Growing frustrated with the situation, the Mongols again switched tactics. By this time they’d abducted a large number of Goryeo subjects and, in the same manner employed elsewhere, set out to find those with useful skill sets. Thus, in 1255 the Mongols launched seaborne raids along the coast in ships built by captured Korean craftsmen.

Intent upon taking Gangwha from the sea, intervention at the Mongol court by a Goryeo diplomat, Kim Su-gang, convinced Mongke Khan to cease the effort and recall his army. This ended the seventh invasion in June 1256 but, again, without any permanent resolution.

A much debated eighth invasion in 1257, played out almost the same way, with an impending assault on Gangwha interrupted by diplomacy and the khan’s recall of Mongol forces. However, Choe Hang died in May 1257, passing the mantle of dictatorship to his son, Choe Ui. The 25-year-old dictator held even less power than his father over the Goryeo monarch. Most decision-making appears to have been pried from his inexperienced hands.

In response to renewed hostilities in 1258, the king’s civil advisers—slowly gaining the upper hand over the military aristocracy—recommended sending the crown prince to the Mongols as a hostage, per the invading commander’s request. Unsatisfied with waiting for King Gojong to make his decision, the Mongols took Sinui and Changnin islands off the southwestern coast, their first amphibious successes. Still, a strong Goryeo fleet prevented the Mongols from making a proper run at Gangwha. Mongol coastal operations ceased with word that Mongke Khan had once more recalled the army. Goryeo diplomacy had once again purchased more time. The king’s Confucian advisers were intent to make the most of it.

A coup against the Choe family the next year resulted in the death of Choe Ui just two years into his dictatorship. This left Goryeo’s royal family with more authority than it had held in many years. Heeding the scholars’ advice, the king struck a peace treaty with the Mongols.

But time was not on Gojong’s side. He passed away in 1259, succeeded by his son Weonjong. Despite treaty obligations, it would be 11 years before the redoubtable fortifications protecting Gangwha Island would be torn down and the court returned to Kaeseong. Following the coup, the private army that had kept the Choe family in power for nearly 60 years fled the capital. Its leaders attempted to create their own state along the southern coast, unwilling to the very end to submit to Mongol rule. This elite force—fueled by an unquenchable need to resist Mongol domination—managed to hold out against repeated attacks for another 14 years. Their last stand took place on Jeju Island in 1273, where they were finally crushed—ironically, by a combined Goryeo-Mongol force.

Political Independence

Goryeo maintained its political independence, a true rarity among those peoples who dared to defy the will of the Great Khan. The terms of the treaty were relatively lenient—reflecting that the Mongols had been worn down after dispatching so many armies down the troublesome peninsula. However, Goryeo was required to pay an annual tribute and the king was forced to marry a Mongol princess, tying the royal families together. In this way, Goryeo received the status of a Mongol ally. The kingdom’s henceforth Confucian-trained rulers would take their alliance obligations seriously.

The first and most important reason for the difficulty the Mongols experienced in Korea was the geography of the peninsula. That preceding Korean dynasties and kingdoms had fortified every advantageous height or narrow defile from the Yalu River to the southern coast only magnified those natural defenses.

Topography didn’t turn out to be quite the obstacle to the Mongols that it had been for so many invading armies throughout history. This is most likely due to the speed with which Mongol forces pressed their advance. An army passing through at the speed of horses spends far less time in malaria-infested lowlands than one moving at the speed of infantry, thereby reducing its vulnerability. Whatever the cause, the annals fail to mention Mongol losses from disease and related attrition inflicted upon other historical invaders.

On the other hand, Goryeo fortresses, often constructed high above the surrounding lands and incorporating natural defenses, proved difficult for the Mongols to access, much less assault. Even with professional siege engineers brought from distant lands, siege equipment had to be hauled or pushed up steep slopes, under withering bow fire, just to reach the fortress walls. This was never easy. Many Mongol warriors lost their lives in fruitless sieges like the one at Sangju where 50 percent of the besiegers were reportedly slain before the siege was lifted.

The evacuation of the court to Gangwha proved genius. It removed a vulnerable pressure point as effectively as if the government had fled to the Moon. The Mongol inability to assault that small island, so tantalizingly close to the mainland, highlights a very real gap in an otherwise profoundly dominant military organization.

The Mongol difficulty in storming the mountain fortresses, or even reaching Goryeo’s offshore strongholds, helps explain why from the third invasion (1235) onward the steppe armies generally refrained from siege activities, concentrating instead on starving out an entire nation. The invaders would eventually try their hands at amphibious warfare, but that capability would never be something the Mongols would bring to maturity, relying instead upon the navies of subjects and allies.

The Goryeo armed forces at the beginning of the Mongol invasions consisted of a large, centrally controlled army augmented by private armies made up of highly skilled professional soldiers under the command of the military aristocracy. These conventional forces, however, could not stand up to the Mongols in a set piece battle. No shame there, of course, as they found themselves in good company with armies as far away as China, Persia, and Poland.

Goryeo’s unique solution to the problem of losing field battles against the Mongols was to quit fighting those engagements. Both the central army and the private ones broke down into smaller, more maneuverable, “patrols” scattered across the kingdom. This distributed approach sought to stiffen local civilian resistance and, wherever possible, ambush separated or unwary Mongol bands. The approach proved successful for Goryeo. It helps explain why the most victorious military organization to that point in history found it so hard to decisively crush the tiny Korean state.

With the destruction of the military aristocracy, the inhabitants of Korean settlements came to understand they had to defend themselves—though their king would assist when and where he could. This development underpins the rapid rise and incredible effectiveness of Joseon Era guerrilla armies, which sprang into action following the Japanese invasion of 1592. Simply put, the populace was by then well-armed and conditioned to join the fight, a mindset borne out of necessity during the protracted Mongol assault on their homeland.

Diplomacy and War

Finally, Goryeo’s well-coordinated use of alternating diplomacy and warfare served it well. It provided breathing space when necessary and extended the resistance of an army and people that should have—from the Mongol perspective—quit fighting long before. This appears to have been an approach the invaders either didn’t truly understand or to which they couldn’t adapt. In the end, however, the Mongol solution proved every bit as Machiavellian as the diplomatic-military sword wielded by Goryeo. If the kingdom refused to come out and defend its fields, the Mongols determined there would be no fields, and thus, no food. Over time, this brutal, protracted assault on the citizenry was a war-winning strategy. In the end, Goryeo survived the Mongol tempest. Peace returned to the peninsula and the Pax Mongolia allowed reconstruction of the damage done. 

As well, when the last anti-Mongol forces were snuffed out in 1273, the scholarly class of bureaucrats found they had once and for all established dominion over the military aristocracy. From this point on, for better or worse, Korean kingdoms would be dominated by Confucian scholars.

Goryeo took to its new role in the order of Northeast Asia with gusto, obeying Kublai Khan’s command to facilitate the Mongol invasion of Japan. This led to a pair of attempts in 1274 and 1281, both of which failed in part due to the arrival of typhoons which scattered the first fleet and wrecked much of the second. By 1389, with pirates preying on the kingdom’s coastal communities, Goryeo executed a successful amphibious raid on Tsushima Island, burning several hundred pirate vessels and freeing more than 100 Koreans held captive there.These expeditions were, however, the last gasp of Goryeo’s military power.

The strength of the Korean military aristocracy was broken on the battlefield by the Mongols and at court by Confucian scholars. Those tough-as-nails military families—representing the traditional martial vitality of the Korean people—would be missed in future conflicts. The succeeding Kingdom of Joseon would pay dearly for their political emasculation.

Most importantly, the Kingdom of Goryeo—and the Korean people—survived a 40-year war of resistance against the fearsome Mongols. This was a result that several, much larger and stronger empires had failed to achieve and remains a point of national pride for Koreans today.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

In February 1943 the Waffen-SS came to Yefremovka, Ukraine, a tiny, ethnic Cossack village west of Kharkov in the USSR’s Ukrainian SSR. Specifically, the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) descended upon the unprotected and totally defenseless village—then a Soviet collective farm. When the LSSAH left hours later, nearly 1,000 old men, women and children from that village and hundreds of others rounded up from surrounding hamlets had been brutally murdered, including more than 100 civilians who had been herded into Yefremovka’s small local Orthodox church.

Trapped inside the church, they were horrifically and mercilessly burned to death. Two of the few survivors of this massacre—a mother (my wife’s grandmother) and her 8-year-old daughter (my future mother-in-law)—survived only because a Wehrmacht (German Army, not SS) transport driver warned them to hide in an underground root cellar while—risking his own life had his humanitarian act been discovered—he deliberately parked his truck over the cellar entrance to conceal them during the massacre. This disgusting mass slaughter was exactly the manner in which Hitler’s vaunted Waffen-SS consistently fought World War II.

Killers, Not Soldiers

From the very beginning of the war, these cold-blooded killers, masquerading as soldiers in uniform, murdered their way through combat on the war’s Eastern and Western fronts, starting with the May 28, 1940 Wormhoudt Massacre in France during which the LSSAH forced 87 British and French POWs—captured while serving as rearguard to the heroic Dunkirk evacuation—into a barn, then tossed hand grenades inside slaughtering 81 and wounding 6 of the helpless POWs. Countless other examples of Waffen-SS war crimes abound throughout the whole war.

Indeed, shortly after the Normandy invasion, from June 7–17, 1944, the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitlerjugend) murdered 158 Canadian POWs. The Waffen-SS’s most notorious war crime atrocity was the infamous Dec. 17, 1944 “Malmedy Massacre” at Baugnez Crossroads, Belgium where LSSAH’s Kampfgruppe Peiper brutally executed 84 unarmed POWs, primarily G.I.s of the 7th US Armored Division’s 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion.

A few US soldiers survived and escaped the slaughter. When I interviewed one of the massacre’s several survivors four decades later, he somewhat ashamedly, but understandably admitted, “Even today, I don’t like Germans very much.”

The same day as the Malmedy Massacre, Hitler’s Waffen-SS proved to be “equal opportunity murderers” with another massacre of U.S. POWs not far away. The LSSAH perpetrated the “Wereth Massacre,” the beating, torture and execution of 11 Black soldiers in two batteries of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion near Wereth, Belgium.

These horrific atrocities are only some examples of the Waffen-SS’s numerous war crimes, which happened throughout the duration of the war from start to finish—especially on the Eastern Front where their fanatical embrace of Hitler’s racial lunacy classified “Slavs” and Jews as “subhumans” who the Waffen-SS routinely murdered.

Misguided “Fan Base”

Yet perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the Waffen-SS’s story is that, starting a few decades after World War II, an admiring, fawning “Waffen-SS fan base” has emerged, mainly amongst younger military history buffs in the U.S. and the UK who celebrate the widely-acknowledged tactical/operational expertise and genuine military prowess of the Waffen-SS, but who stubbornly ignore the disgusting record of war crimes of these “killers in uniform”.

Having no “skin in the game” as the World War II generation did, these Waffen-SS “fans” admire them chiefly because the Waffen-SS had “cool” camouflage uniforms and innovative tanks and small-arms weapons. Sad and sorry reasons to celebrate and admire war criminals.

Waffen-SS vs. Soviet INfantry

UK-based author Chris McNab’s mission in writing another meticulously-researched, expertly-written, and highly informative book in Osprey Publishing’s excellent “Combat” series is not to detail the endless examples of the homicidal Waffen-SS’s countless war crimes—his job in this dual examination and insightful analysis of two opposing combat formations is to compare and contrast, within the context of the Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov battles of 1942–43, the composition, arms, equipment/weapons/tactics, training and combat records of both opponents, and to present and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each combatant formation.

As usual, McNab—a regular author for MHQ—does an outstanding job in accomplishing that mission in only
80 pages.

BOOK TITLE GOES HERE

Book subtitle or blurb goes here.
by Chris McNab, Osprey Publishing, 2023

get it on amazon

If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.

Of course, McNab brings out the contrasting ideological motivations and inspirations of the elite Waffen-SS units and the standard Soviet rifleman—the USSR’s version of what in the U.S. could be called the typical “G.I.”—particularly pointing out that while each member of the Waffen-SS swore an oath to Adolf Hitler personally, his Red Army counterpart pledged to “my last breath to be faithful to the people, to the Soviet Motherland, and the Workers-Peasants’ Government [aka The Soviet Union].”

Waffen-SS fighters fought for Hitler, waging a racially fueled war of aggression and conquest, while Red Army soldiers fought to defend their homeland against a ruthless enemy invader murdering his way across their nation.

How the Tables Turned

McNab’s expert analysis clearly reveals that in the beginning of the Eastern Front clash between the two combatants the more tactically skilled and better-trained, ideologically-motivated Waffen-SS volunteers held the early advantage over their mostly conscripted Soviet riflemen opponents defending their country, families and homes.

However as the war dragged on, Red Army soldiers and, importantly, their commanders and leaders at all levels—most of them fortunate survivors of Stalin’s disastrous Red Army purge of 1936–1941 but inadequately prepared for warfare in June 1941—learned valuable lessons in fighting, commandership and the tactical-operational art.

Arguably, the eventual Red Army victory in May 1945 over Hitler’s legions as the Soviets snuffed out the last vestiges of Nazi resistance in the rubble of Hitler’s capital, Berlin, might be attributed to a triumph of Soviet “mass” (overwhelming numbers of troops and weapons) over a more skilled but greatly outnumbered German opponent—as Stalin famously said, “Quantity [mass] has a quality all its own.”

Yet Red Army commanders had learned via blood and sacrifice from 1941–1945 how to fight and above all how to win against Hitler’s best. The Waffen-SS, clearly, were ruthless killers, but they inarguably were excellent teachers.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived at the Quebec Conference (code-name QUADRANT) in August 1943, he had a special guest with him. He was a small intense, rather odd-looking man, as Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, commander of the United States Army Air Forces, recalled: “You took one look at that face, like the face of a pale Indian chieftain, topping the uniform still smelling of jungle and sweat and war and you thought ‘Hell, this man is serious’.”

Brig. Orde Wingate had spent the first two months of 1943 in the Burma jungle, leading a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese that achieved little in terms of material damage: a few bridges blown, some railway lines cut and a few dozen enemy soldiers killed. The real significance of what Wingate and his 3,000 Chindits had achieved was psychological: they had attacked the vaunted Japanese army in its own territory.

The exploits of the British Special Forces unit were splashed across American newspapers, with the Ogden Standard-Examiner calling it “one of the greatest epics of the war” and the Waterloo Daily Courier hailing Wingate for his innovation in using aircraft for resupply. “Cuttingan army off from its base and penetrating deep into enemy territory is an exceedingly dangerous maneuver,” said the paper. “But the ability to summon supplies by radio and receive them from the air makes such a maneuver more feasible. It may be that the Wingate expedition in Burma is only the forerunner of a new kind of warfare.”

Going Behind Enemy Lines

Churchill took the 40-year-old Wingate to the Quebec Conference for exactly that reason: to show to his American allies that a new kind of warfare had been launched in Burma, what Wingate called “Long Range Penetration.” The brigadier addressed the American delegation on Aug. 17, and told them in his conclusion that “long range groups should be used as an essential part of the plan of conquest to create a situation leading to the advance of our main forces.”

The next day Wingate had an audience with Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR was so impressed that he authorized the deployment of American ground troops in Burma for the first time.

The official telegram of authorization from Washington was sent Aug. 31 to Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell. In February 1942 Stilwell had been posted to Burma as head of a small U.S. military mission to help train the Chinese army. It had not gone well. Stilwell and his men had been forced to flee the advancing Japanese on foot, trekking 140 miles north to India. In 1943 he was back in the China Burma India Theater, in charge of Northern Combat Area Command. Stilwell’s instructions were to recruit a total of 2,830 officers and men, all of whom had to be volunteers and “of a high state of physical ruggedness.” The force—codenamed “Galahad”—needed to be ready for combat deployment in February 1944: “Only 3,000, but the entering wedge,” Stilwell wrote in his diary on September 2. “Can we use them! And how!” Stilwell’s triumphalism was short-lived. On learning that Galahad would be under the command of Wingate–a man he considered (as others did), “an exhibitionist”—he raged: “That is enough to discourage Christ.”

On New Year’s Day 1944 General Order Number One redesignated Galahad the 5307th Composite Regiment (Provisional). As one of their officers quipped: “Where’d they ever get such a number? It sounds like a street address in Los Angeles.” That wasn’t the only change afoot. 

Working with Chinese Allies

The 3,000 Americans had arrived in India by troopship from San Francisco at the end of October 1943. They established a base at Camp Deogarh and that autumn they had been driven hard by their two commanding officers, Lt-Cols. Francis Brink and Charles N. Hunter. They had also benefited from instruction from Wingate’s Chindits, who were camped nearby and training for a second operation behind the lines in Burma.

“The Chindits were really tough guys, they put us through our paces,” recalled Bernard Martin, one of the American volunteers. “We went on these long marches with 50lbs on our back, and sometimes in the middle of the night they would start firing their weapons shouting ‘we’re the enemy, we’re the enemy!’. We had to react. They taught us well.”

Stilwell meanwhile was preoccupied with planning an offensive against the Japanese in Burma. On Dec. 18 Chiang Kai‐shek, China’s Generalissimo, agreed to allow him to command the 22nd and 38th Chinese divisions in the imminent invasion, the first time an American would lead Chinese soldiers into battle.

It was a three-pronged invasion. The Chinese Y [Yoke] Force would push into north-east Burma, and the British IV Corps would attack from the West across the Chindwin River. The third thrust would come from Stilwell’s two Chinese divisions, attacking down the middle. Stilwell’s force would be up against the elite Japanese 18th Division under the command of Lt. Gen. Shinichi Tanaka.

The offensive was launched on Dec. 24, 1943. The fighting was intense. In the first week Stilwell’s two Chinese Divisions lost 750 men killed or wounded, but they pushed back the Japanese. Emboldened by his initial gains, Stilwell demanded of Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command, that the 3,000 Americans of Galahad be placed under his direct command. Mountbatten gave Stilwell his wish at the Delhi Conference on Dec. 31.

New Leaders

Stilwell wasted no time in stamping his mark on his new force. As well as changing its name, he also changed its command, dismissing Brink and demoting Hunter to the second-in-command. The new C.O was announced on Jan. 4: 40-year-old Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill. It was a contentious decision, not least because Merrill was not physically robust, and Stilwell knew it. Merrill had been part of his military mission to Burma in 1942 and had collapsed with heart trouble during the retreat to India. Hunter was a combat soldier and his own man; Merrill was neither. What he was, however, was a yes-man, which was why Stilwell wanted him in command of the 5307th.

The news of Hunter’s demotion disappointed the men. “It had been our hope all along that Hunter would be the man who would be anointed to command us and carry us into combat,” reflected Lt. Sam Wilson, at 20 the youngest of the 5307th’s officers. “He put the unit together, trained the unit, got us into fighting fettle, and then we became a political football between the British…and Stilwell.”

Hunter and Merrill had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. in 1929; that was about all they had in common. Hunter, born in Oneida, New York, in 1906, was a sinewy man with a temperament to match his tough physique. A contemporary described him as: “Very muscular with no excess fat. His athletic appearance and firm facial features created an aura of authority.” Hunter joined an infantry regiment on leaving West Point and served three years in the Philippines and two and a half in Panama, two postings where he gained valuable jungle training. In 1942 he was appointed Chief of the Rifles and Weapons Platoon Group of the Weapons Sections at Fort Benning, a frustrating role for a man who craved a combat posting. Hunter’s opportunity came with the formation of Galahad. “I had been selected from all other volunteer lieutenant colonels because of my extensive tropical jungle experience,” he recalled.

Merrill, in contrast, was a frail child who grew into a frail young man. He was accepted into West Point on the sixth attempt after the Academy finally agreed to overlook his poor eyesight. His peers at West Point nicknamed him “Pee-Wee” and mocked him in his yearbook entry. “We refuse to make predictions as to Pee-Wee’s future, for it is ever changing,” it ran. “First of all, his goal was to be a lawyer, then a politician, and last a soldier. Even this is slightly uncertain.” Merrill was never cut out to be a combat soldier. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1932 with a Bachelor of Science in military engineering and in 1938 he was sent to Tokyo as the Military Attaché. He then joined Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff in the Philippines and was appointed to a similar role under Stilwell when he arrived in Burma in March 1942.

But what Merrill lacked in physical strength he made up for in mental agility. Lt. Sam Wilson regarded his new C.O as “brilliant, innovative and probably a better strategic thinker than Hunter.” 

Birth of the “Marauder” legend

On Jan. 20, 1944 a posse of American war correspondents were invited to watch the 5307th undergo some training exercises at their Deogarh camp. Frank Hewlett of United Press described them as “the roughest, toughest bunch of infantrymen the U. S. army has ever put together.” His colleague from Life magazine, James Shepley, was just as taken. There was a hitch, however, and that was the name. The 5307th didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. As Merrill gave the correspondents a lift in his jeep to the Betwa River to see how mules carried their supplies across water, Shepley had an idea: why not call the unit “Merrill’s Marauders”?

A week later the Marauders had been reduced through the rigors of training to a strength of 2,600 and began the 1200 mile move east to Assam, in northeast India just across the border with Burma. Eight hundred tons of supplies had already made the journey, including radio equipment, medical supplies, crew-served weapons and 400 mules. These animals were a recommendation from the Chindits, who had found them tough and hardy on their first operation in Burma. Capable of carrying 200 lbs of equipment each, the mules’ biggest advantage over horses was that they ate the bamboo leaves in Burma whereas a horse required a larger amount of daily fodder. A few Marauders had been given a crash course in how to handle the animal from “Mule-skinners” of the 31st QM Pack Troop.

The Marauders didn’t linger long in Assam. Late in the evening of Feb. 7 the 1st Battalion was the first of the three Marauder battalions to hit the trail toward Burma. The men were wearing a dark green cotton herringbone twill uniform and either calf-high rubber-soled canvas boots or standard combat shoes for footwear, some with and others without canvas gaiters. Their backpacks contained essential equipment such as mess gear, blanket, poncho, spare socks and boxed, dried food combat rations.

In the vanguard of the 1st Battalion column was Lt. Sam Wilson’s Intelligence & Reconnaissance platoon (I&R). Each battalion had an I&R platoon, whose job it was to blaze a trail, reconnoitering the dense jungle for the signs of the enemy and also for good bivouac sites and suitable areas for air drops. The men chosen for these platoons had to have initiative, endurance and awareness. Few Marauders possessed these qualities in more abundance than a 25-year-old sergeant from California called Clarence Branscomb, a veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign. Over the course of 11 brutal days in January 1943 the 6 ft Branscomb had shown himself a superb exponent of jungle warfare. “I enjoyed fighting,” he reflected. 

Marching Into Burma

The Marauders marched across the Indian border into Burma and bivouacked at Shingbiyang on Feb. 18, enjoying what would be their last proper hot meal for months. Fifteen miles southeast was Stilwell’s HQ at Ningam Sakan, and it was there that Merrill received his orders for the forthcoming operation.

The Chinese 22nd and 38th divisions were slowly but steadily pushing the Japanese back from the Hukawng Valley. A pivotal role was being played by the Chinese 1st Provisional Tank Group under the command of Col. Rothwell H. Brown. They were driving south along the Kamaing Road toward Maingkwan, the main Japanese base in the valley. In front of a map at his HQ, Stilwell pointed to the village of Walawbum, 15 miles south of Maingkwan, and told Merrill this would be the site of their attack. The Chinese would launch a frontal assault on Walawbum, while the Marauders would cut their way through the jungle, and hit the enemy on their eastern (right) flank. Before setting off, the Marauders received a resupply by air. The C-47 transport aircraft of the First and Second Carrier Units dropped containers from a height of 400ft or less which were suspended from color-coded parachutes: blue for ammunition, white for rations, and green for medical supplies.

The honor of leading the Marauders as they deployed fell once more to Wilson’s 1st Battalion I&R platoon, which headed south on the morning of Feb. 24 to reconnoiter the villages to the east. The I&R platoons of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, under the command of Lts. William Grissom and Logan Weston, set out a few hours later on the same trail before turning south and seeking out the enemy’s flank. 

A Savage Environment

The terrain in northern Burma was savage: hills carpeted in forest and jungle, and rivers that were wide and powerful. The nights could be cold, giving way to a dawn mist and then intense heat as the sun climbed. The ground was thick with rotting vegetation and the air was damp and humid. The environment was a breeding ground for disease and abundant in menacing wildlife such as tigers, snakes and the creature the Marauders would come to hate most of all: the leech. Leeches, remembered Capt. Fred Lyons, were these “horrifying grayish-brown parasites that bury their heads in your veins and suck till they are bloated several times larger than normal size with your blood.” They were about an inch in length and would suck the blood from victims until dropping off on their own accord. They got everywhere: ears, noses and even testicles. 

For Wilson and most men in his I&R platoon, Burma was an overwhelming sensory overload. They had never encountered such an inhospitable environment, nor had they ever met the enemy face to face. Wilson did not have the arrogance of youth, however, and readily tapped into the experience of his veteran sergeant Clarence Branscomb, who told him the average Japanese soldier was “tough, capable and skillful.” 

Wilson didn’t have long to wait for his introduction to the enemy. “We were moving along a trail parallel to a river when we came to a kind of open glade,” he recalled. “I saw some horses by the river so I walked toward them. About halfway across the Japanese hiding along the river bank opened up on me. Shot my canteen off my belt and riddled my pack. I fell to the ground stunned.” Wilson recovered his senses and saw a Japanese mount one of the horses. “I opened my full-bore carbine on him and hit him with the first round but kept pumping rounds into him as he was sliding off the horse. Then a grenade came sailing through the air.”

Wilson flicked away the grenade. It exploded in the long grass but the force of the blast knocked him cold for a few seconds. He regained consciousness and saw a Japanese “running at me with his bayonet.” Wilson raised his weapon, squeezed the trigger and heard the click of an empty magazine. “Back to my left rear, maybe 30 or 40 yards away, Sgt.  Clarence Branscomb stood up and hit the charging [Japanese] in the chest with three quick rounds,” remembered Wilson. “He practically fell on top of me.”

Race To The River

The Marauders met the Japanese in force for the first time on March 4. The previous evening Lt. Logan Weston had led the 3rd Battalion’s I&R platoon across the Numpyek river with orders from Lt-Col. Charles Beach, the battalion commander, to protect their north flank as they advanced toward Walawbum. Weston and his men were now effectively isolated from the rest of the 3rd battalion deep inside Japanese territory, and the enemy was aware of their presence. 

Gen. Tanaka, commander of the 18th Division, ordered the bulk of the 55th and 56th Infantry regiments to move south and “destroy” the Americans threatening their flank. At daylight on March 4 the Japanese approached Weston’s platoon bivouacked close to a swamp. Weston let them advance and then gave the order to fire. “The enemy soldiers hit the ground and fanned out, crawling closer and shooting ferociously,” said Weston. “They chattered among themselves, some seemed to be giving orders.”

Weston called over his Nisei (a Japanese word meaning Second Generation American) interpreter, 23-year-old Henry Gosho from Seattle, one of 14 Japanese-Americans who had volunteered for the Marauders. In between the mortar shells and small arms fire, Gosho heard the orders shouted by the Japanese officer and translated them for Weston. They were attempting to encircle the Americans. Forewarned, Weston began withdrawing his platoon across the Numpyek but not before his radioman had sent a message to the 3rd battalion dug in on the other side of the river, requesting suppressing mortar fire.

It was now a race to get over the river. The Americans jumped into the water and began wading across, urged on by Weston who stood in the middle of the Numpyek counting his men as they passed. Two had been badly wounded and were being carried on litters constructed from combat jackets and bamboo poles. It took time to get them into the water. The shrieks of the pursuing Japanese got closer. Then a 3rd Battalion platoon under the command of Lt. Victor Weingartner appeared on the far bank and opened fire. PFC Norman Janis, an Oglala Sioux and one of the sharpest shots in the outfit, spotted a Japanese crew setting up a Nambu Type 92 7.7mm machine gun. Janis raised his M1 Garand rifle. “He squatted down behind the gun so I shot for his head,” remembered Janis, who did not miss. “Another one got in his place, I hit him, got him out of the road.” Seven Japanese soldiers tried to pull the the Nambu’s trigger, but Janis killed them all.

Weston and his men got safely across to the eastern bank but the Japanese would not give up the chase. “They just kept coming across and we kept shooting at them,” said Weingartner.

The Japanese launched a fresh assault across the Numpyek early on March 6. It was repulsed with more heavy losses for the attackers; they came again in the afternoon with the same result. “I respected the Japanese very much, or the soldiers I did,” reflected Bernard Martin, a radioman with the 3rd Battalion. “They weren’t afraid. But they had poor commanders. The Japanese always launched frontal attacks. On several occasions they could have outflanked us but their commanders were stupid. On this occasion this officer appeared in shiny boots and pressed pants, waving his sword, and leading a charge across the river.”

“We’re The Marauders!”

The officer was killed along with an estimated 800 of his men in the two days of contacts with the Marauders. American casualties amounted to eight dead and 37 wounded. “Gen. Stilwell has sent a message that he is pleased,” Merrill informed his senior officers at a staff conference on the evening of March 7. “Between us and the Chinese, we have forced the Japanese to withdraw farther in the last three days than they have in the last three months of fighting.”

It was during the fight at the Numpyek River, recalled Martin, that the “Merrill’s Marauders” moniker was adopted by the men. “It was Lt. Col. Beach who told us that the newspapers were calling us Merrill’s Marauders,” he said. “We liked that name…when we were screaming abuse at the [Japanese] across the river we started yelling, ‘We’re the Marauders”.’ 

The man himself, Merrill, was beginning to feel the strain. He had been lightly admonished by Stilwell for not exploiting the casualties inflicting on the Japanese by the 3rd battalion and allowing them to withdraw south. 

The Chinese pursued the Japanese into the Mogaung Valley down the main trail while the Marauders swung east through the jungle to attack them in the rear. Hunter led a mixed force of the 2nd and 3rd battalions to block the enemy retreat when the Chinese launched their assault. They clashed with the Japanese at first light on March 24 between the Kamaing Road and the east bank of the Mogaung River. The first Japanese banzai attack came just after 7:30am and the sixteenth and last was in mid-afternoon. “I had bodies piled up so high in front of my machine guns that I had to get out and kick the bodies out of the way so we could fire our machine guns,” remembered Lt. Phil Piazza. Just before 4:00pm a flight of P-51 fighters attacked the Japanese positions, the cue for the 2nd Battalion to withdraw across the Mogaung. They had lost two men, the Japanese around 200. 

Hunter wanted only a temporary withdrawal before counter-attacking his weakened enemy. He radioed Merrill and requested permission to advance south with the 3rd Battalion and capture the lightly-held town of Kamaing. “I was disappointed when instead of getting permission to attack I was told to withdraw,” said Hunter. “This golden opportunity should have been seized and exploited with all resources available.”

To Capture An Airfield

Merrill was a sick man by now, and on March 28 he suffered a heart attack at his HQ in the hilltop village of Nhpum Ga. He was evacuated by air. Hunter assumed command. He led the Marauders for the next six weeks, two of which entailed the besiegement of the 2nd Battalion in Nphum Ga.

When the siege was lifted on April 9, Easter Sunday, all three battalions of the Marauders were exhausted. The final tally for holding Nhpum Ga revealed it had cost the Americans 52 dead and 163 wounded (the Japanese lost 400 men) but by now many of the Marauders were riddled with disease. By April 16, more than 100 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion had been flown out suffering from amoebic dysentery, malnutrition, skin diseases and fevers. For the 1,600 Marauders who remained, there were fresh uniforms, their first mail in two months and the chance to lie in the sun doing nothing. Above all, there was the knowledge that their mission in Burma was over, as they’d been promised by Merrill weeks earlier. 

Stilwell had other ideas. He saw an opportunity to capture the airfield at Myitkyina from the Japanese. This would deny their fighter planes a base from which to attack American cargo aircraft flying over the Himalayas “Hump” to resupply China from India. It would have to be a surprise attack if it were to succeed. He ordered Hunter to lead his men on a 70-mile march up and through the 6,100-ft Naura Myket Pass, which was unguarded by the Japanese because they considered it impassable.

Hunter set out at the head of the 6000-strong Myitkyina Task Force (which also comprised two Chinese infantry regiments) on April 28. “Raining,” wrote Staff Sgt. James McGuire in his diary. “6:30am started hiking, went up 2600 ft, really a tough climb. We have 6000 ft mt to go over and it’s really raining and muddy. Bivouacked at village, water scarce. The path is a 20% incline.” That first day set the pattern for what radioman Bernard Martin described as “a trail of sadness.” It took the Marauders and their Chinese allies nearly three weeks to reach the airstrip at Myitkyina during which time they lost men to combat, disease and exhaustion.

On the evening of May 16, Hunter ordered Wilson’s I&R platoon to recce the airfield. Wilson was too sick with amoebic dysentery to lead the mission so Sgt. Clarence Branscomb selected two men and they set out for the airfield. The intelligence they brought back was described by Hunter as “remarkable” and the next morning he launched a successful assault on Myitkyina airfield.

Broken Promises

Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the capture of Myitkyina “a brilliant feat of arms,” and Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, issued an Order of the Day addressed to Stilwell in which he declared the seizure “a most outstanding success…the crossing of the 6,100-foot Naura Myket Pass is a feat which will live in military history. Please convey my personal congratulations and thanks to all ranks.” 

But Stilwell didn’t. Nor did he keep his promise that the Marauders would be evacuated as soon as the airstrip had been captured. Bitterness grew among the Americans, as did the casualty list as more Marauders succumbed to sickness. When they were finally relieved on Aug. 3, few remained of the 2,600 who had marched into Burma six months earlier: 93 had been killed in combat, 30 had died of disease and 301 were wounded or missing. An additional 1,970 Marauders had been hospitalized with sickness. It was claimed only two men from the original 3,000 volunteers went through the whole Burmese campaign untouched by sickness. Master Sgt. Joe Doyer was one and Charles Hunter the other.

Hunter had objected to Stilwell about the broken promises and their general mistreatment—criticism that ultimately harmed his career. He died in 1978 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, largely overlooked by the American public compared to Frank Merrill, whose name is forever associated with the Marauders. Only the men themselves knew the truth. “He got the credit for the thing, got his name in it, but he never did anything,” said Clarence Branscomb of Merrill in 2013. “Hunter was doing the job at Mitch [Myitkyina] that Merrill should have been doing.”

Wilson was more charitable toward Merrill, but shared Branscomb’s view of Hunter. “An excellent tactician, an absolutely super troop leader,” he reflected. “A better name for the outfit would probably have been Hunter’s Harbingers or Hunter’s Hawks, or something like that rather than Merrill’s Marauders. But as you know, history doesn’t always work like that.”  

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!