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https://www.historynet.com/blog-roll-long-haired-1860s-radicals.htm
The Blog Roll: Those Long-Haired (18)60s Radicals
The Blog Roll: Those Long-Haired (18)60s Radicals Louisa was 15 when the “revolution” began and her enthusiasm was undimmed when she wrote her memoirs 60 years later. She recalled the spectacle: houses illuminated with candles, bells ringing, tar barrels burning, flags waving. Most of all, she remembered the people. “I can never forget how those men used to look standing on some impromptu platform,” she wrote, “with the wild light of the bonfires on their faces, and their hair which men wore longer in those days, blown back from their faces by the wind, or the energy of their own movements.” Their vitality still thrilled her: “Such light in their eyes! So much hope and so much courage.” These stirring scenes might evoke a campus protest in 1968, but they took place in South Carolina in December 1860, during the revolution for Southern independence. Louisa McCord Smythe was the daughter of writer and lawyer David J. McCord and Louisa McCord, an accomplished author, fierce proslavery theorist, and ardent secessionist. Smythe’s recollection reminds us that secession was especially popular among younger Southern whites. It demonstrates that although it was a defensive, reactionary move, it also inspired hope among those who saw the Confederacy as what historian Michael T. Bernath has called a “moment of possibility”—an opportunity to effect a strikingly diverse variety of changes, from improving women’s education to rolling back democracy by imposing property requirements for suffrage. It also exemplifies a neglected visual emblem of secessionist sentiments: long hair. Trimmed, wavy hair was fashionable for white men in late antebellum America, so those with longer locks stood out. Not all were fire-eating disunionists, of course, but during and after the 1860-61 secession crisis, particularly in cities along the troubled Union–Confederate border, long hair marked the class, section, and ideology associated with secession. From Virginia to Arkansas, secessionists—many in their 20s and 30s—sent a political message just as powerful as that of a century later. In the 1960s, long hair signaled a provocative, bodily challenge to behavioral norms and political elites. In the 1860s, secessionists’ long hair made a comparably defiant statement, albeit on behalf of preserving, not subverting, the South’s peculiar social and political hierarchies. Unionists and secessionists alike identified long-haired men as members of the “chivalry”: the vehemently proslavery Southern elite. The image became a stereotype familiar to reporters, law enforcement officers, and anyone parsing regional differences. Northerners regularly associated long hair with Southerners, especially those of elevated rank and extreme politics. In his autobiography, Bostonian Charles Francis Adams Jr. recalled that Lucius Q.C. Lamar, a fierce secessionist congressman from Mississippi, “looked the Southern college professor—lank, tall, bearded, long-haired, and large-featured.” A newspaper correspondent covering Abraham Lincoln’s March 1861 inauguration described the audience as a massive crowd of “old and young, of male and female,” with “but few Southerners, judging from the lack of long haired men in the crowd.” A wartime passenger on an Ohio River steamboat looked askance at a “very Southern looking young man with long hair, and an extensive display of very suspicious looking jewelry,” who was denouncing Lincoln as a racial egalitarian. To a Union prisoner of war, Confederates in Charleston were “long haired secession devils.” Perhaps no one epitomized the secessionist image better than Virginian politician and newspaper editor Roger A. Pryor, who traveled to South Carolina to press for an attack on Fort Sumter in hopes that this would propel his own state out of the Union. Contemporaries regarded the long-haired and heavily armed firebrand as “the very embodiment of Southern chivalry.” Dapper Dan Man: The hairstyle of Rebel journalist, diplomat, and soldier Roger Pryor was not as defiant as some, but it still advertised his sympathies. (Library of Congress) Authors used the long-haired secessionist image to spice their narratives or vent their anger, but for Union spies on the border, identifying friends and foes was deadly serious. Albert D. Richardson, a New York Tribune correspondent who was captured and then escaped from a Confederate prison camp, read Kentuckians’ loyalties in their appearance. The “sinewy, long-limbed mountaineers” passing through Louisville were likely traveling to Indiana to enlist in the Union Army, while the “pale, long-haired young men” heading the other direction were Confederate recruits. Hairstyles even offered vital clues to Allan Pinkerton, the famous detective who uncovered a plot to assassinate President-elect Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore en route to Washington in early 1861. Pinkerton recalled that Barnum’s Hotel was the “favorite resort” of Baltimore’s Southern sympathizers, and he identified them by their hair. During the evenings, “the corridors and parlors would be thronged by the tall, lank forms of the long-haired gentlemen who represented the aristocracy of the slaveholding interests.” Pinkerton believed that the plot’s mastermind was hotel barber Cypriano Ferrandini, who allegedly had said that the “hireling Lincoln shall never, never be President,” and declared his readiness to die “for the rights of the South…” Pinkerton depicted Ferrandini as “a fitting representative of so desperate a cause,” complete with “his sallow face…and his long hair brushed fiercely back from his low forehead.” From flappers’ bobbed hair to the forced haircuts inflicted at Indian boarding schools, hairstyles are closely tied to our identities and our ideals. After the Civil War, secessionists’ hairstyles were largely forgotten, though they are echoed in the Southern outlaw image which, like other recent long-haired figures, emerged in the 1960s. Ironically, the style of the chivalry was reborn among the rural working class. Michael E. Woods is associate professor of history at Marshall University. He is the author of Bleeding Kansas: Slavery, Sectionalism, and Civil War on the Missouri–Kansas Border (Routledge, 2016) and Emotional and Sectional Conflict in the Antebellum United States (Cambridge University Press, 2014). This post originally appeared on July 31, 2018, in Muster, the blog of the Journal of the Civil War Era.
0491ed7dddd93479adba0cc6de980347
https://www.historynet.com/blood-bath-at-going-snake-the-cherokee-courtroom-shootout.htm
Blood Bath at Going Snake: The Cherokee Courtroom Shootout
Blood Bath at Going Snake: The Cherokee Courtroom Shootout Zeke Proctor had nothing against Aunt Polly Beck Hildebrand. They were related, in fact, and Zeke didn’t want to kill her at all. Fact was, Zeke was after her man, Jim Kesterson, and Polly just got in the way of one of Zeke’s bullets. Kesterson made it to cover, but Polly was beyond help. No doubt Zeke, or Ezekial, saw the whole thing as an accident, but the Beck family felt otherwise. Family loyalties ran very deep in the Cherokee Nation. It followed that if you killed somebody from another family, you could usually count on smelling powder smoke yourself before much time passed. So it was with Zeke Proctor. His lack of murderous intent didn’t mollify a whole passel of tough, straight-shooting Becks. The Beck family was determined to see Zeke dead. Either the duly appointed authorities would kill him legally or the family would handle it themselves. Zeke Proctor killed Polly Beck in 1872 at the so-called Hildebrand Mill, in what is now Delaware County, Okla., on Flint Creek, just a little west of Siloam Springs, Ark. There had been some sort of mill on the site since about 1845, when Thomas Beck bought a share in it, and it was a first-class operation for its time. The millstones had come all the way from France to Fort Gibson in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), and then by oxcart to Flint Creek. In those days the Cherokee Nation was split into political subdivisions called districts, and the mill lay in Going Snake District. The area was named for a much-respected full-blood chief who had come up the Trail of Tears from Georgia back in the 1830s. He was called Eenah-tah-tah-oo, which means ‘a snake crawling along.’ That mellifluous name lost quite a lot in translation, which could come no closer than ‘Going Snake.’ Polly was the widow of Steve Hildebrand (sometimes seen as Hilderbrand), who had owned a share in the mill. After Steve was killed in the Civil War, Polly ran the mill with Kesterson, who was either her fourth husband or her lover, depending on which account you read. The reason for Zeke’s anger at Jim Kesterson is lost in the mists of time. One story says Kesterson was married to Zeke’s sister, Susan, and had left her and her children destitute (and in fact Kesterson had once been married to Susan Proctor). In this tale, Zeke moved his sister and her children in with another sister, then rode up to the mill to avenge Kesterson’s neglect of his family. In another version, Kesterson had started the whole thing by accusing Zeke of stealing stock. Still another story says Zeke may have gone to the mill in his capacity as deputy sheriff — which office he actually held at one time or another. His mission was to direct Polly to control her farm animals, which had been straying into other people’s fields. Most of the old-timers at least agree that the Kesterson-Proctor fight had something to do with stock. Some Proctors espoused the abandoned wife story. And another pioneer thought Polly ‘was the cause of Proctor being put out as sheriff of the Going Snake District just before this happened and he was angry at her.’ One variation on the tale says Zeke prepared for his meeting with Kesterson by tanking up on frontier neck oil. He then galloped off to the mill and found Polly and Kesterson outside. Shouting ‘I’m going to kill me a white man!’ Zeke dismounted and went for his revolvers. Whatever the actual reason for Proctor’s visit, both men got angry enough to go for their guns. Proctor was quicker on the draw than Kesterson, but Polly Beck Hildebrand threw herself between the two antagonists and stopped a bullet in the chest. Kesterson ran for his life as Proctor drilled two more slugs through his coat, and the fat was in the fire. Although one story says Proctor hid out for months after the shooting, it seems most likely that he immediately turned himself in to Going Snake Sheriff Jack Wright. The shooting occurred on about February 13, 1872, and the political maneuvering began almost immediately. If the Becks were numerous and influential, so were the Proctors. Both families had taken leading parts in Cherokee government. The two families had been close once, too, but the Civil War had changed some of that friendship. The Becks had supported the Confederacy by and large, while some Proctors, Zeke included, had fought for the Union. Zeke, men said, had fought in many battles, but had only received one minor wound. The situation was also complicated by the fact that Zeke was a Keetoowah, and the Becks were not. The Keetoowah Society stood for preservation of tribal tradition; the term means full-blood, old-time Cherokee, or something similar. The Keetoowahs believed deeply in preservation of the old ways against encroachment by white men, who were now settling in large numbers on Cherokee land in Indian Territory. The Keetoowahs generally had supported Cherokee Chief John Ross in defending the Union. And the Keetoowahs stuck together, swearing, among other things, not to testify against each other. The Keetoowahs also stood for Cherokee separateness and Cherokee sovereignty. They believed the Cherokee Nation ought to have control over its own lands and its own affairs, and especially objected to the trial of Cherokees for crimes committed against whites. When the U.S. District Court at Fort Smith later asserted its right to try Zeke Proctor, the Keetoowahs would oppose that assertion and rally tightly around the accused. Exactly what kind of man Zeke Proctor was is hard to say today. A reliable man who knew him described Zeke, who was born on July 4, 1831, in Georgia, as’stoic…reserved…rather tall and straight as an arrow.’ He was husky, about 5 feet 7, and his straight black hair hung down below shoulder level. He favored a broad-brimmed black hat, and often appeared in a fancy beaded buckskin vest. ‘He had keen black eyes which could look with stern reproval from their depths, or with a smile that would illuminate his whole face,’ one contemporary noted. Clearly an imposing figure, Proctor was often called a bad Indian, a gunfighter and a general wastrel, but nobody knows now just how much of that reputation was really deserved. Some of his contemporaries described Zeke as intelligent and peaceful, a man who loved children and got along with people who got along with him. He spoke English, as well as his native Cherokee. Like so many other men of his time, Proctor was superstitious. When a thunderstorm threatened, he would split a chunk of firewood with his ax, then point both log and ax toward the storm, a practice supposed to divide and detour the thunder and lightning. He also was careful to leave milk for the fairies outside his barn each night. One tale pretty well illustrates the ‘good man-bad man’ image that followed Proctor most of his life. It seems that Zeke, full of booze, was riding past a house in which a young girl was playing the piano. Charmed, Zeke halted and listened. When the music stopped, he rushed into the house, put his pistols on the piano, and said simply, ‘Play!’ He got the rest of his concert. Proctor himself told his grandson that he had killed repeatedly, and admitted that at least one shooting was just plain murder. It happened, he said, when he met a young Indian near the Illinois River. The youngster was carrying a jug of white lightning, and Proctor asked him for a drink. The boy refused, and Proctor, thirsty and displeased, simply shot him, took his jug and buried him. Other old-timers in the Cherokee Nation remembered Proctor as an ‘outlaw,’ or at least wild and unpredictable, especially when full of prime coffin varnish. One pioneer recalled that Proctor and other ‘wanted men’ loafed on the streets of Tahlequah until they got word that marshals were in the area, a warning passed from the Arkansas border by a kind of gunshot telegraph. At least in his youth, Proctor did indeed have a distinct fondness for strong spirits and roistering, and for shooting up saloons in Cincinnati, Ark., his favorite watering hole. He apparently kept his welcome warm in Cincinnati by returning to pay the damages after the fog of booze had worn away. Proctor family legend relates that Zeke killed a pair of brothers called Jaybird early in his life. His own son later said that Zeke killed as many as 25 men over the years, including several deputy U.S. marshals, and was acquitted of murder on 16 occasions. Another old-timer put Zeke’s tally at 21 corpses and attributed Zeke’s longevity in part to wearing a steel breastplate under his clothing. Maybe so, but 25 killings — or even 21 — seems a gross exaggeration. The pre-Civil War records of the federal court in Van Buren, Ark., were destroyed in a fire. Nevertheless, there is said to be no record of any murder prosecution of Zeke Proctor in either the Fort Smith district court or in the Cherokee tribal courts. Men also said that Zeke harbored at his farm an assortment of outlaws — including Belle Starr — but with all that he still managed to become a farmer of some substance. By 1890 he owned three farms, 10 structures of various kinds, a large stock of produce and a sizable collection of domestic animals. In addition to his thriving farms, he seems to have maintained more than one wife, but in those days polygamy was neither unusual nor unlawful in the Cherokee Nation. Proctor’s granddaughter later said that Zeke had been ‘on the scout’ for most of his life, starting with the Jaybird killings. Certainly Proctor was a fine woodsman and an excellent shot, with a well-developed instinct for danger. He was always heavily armed with a pair of revolvers; in later years, these were reportedly pearl-handled .45s. He also carried, according to his son, a seven-shot Spencer rifle. And, as one witness said, he ‘could both see and hear to a superlative degree as almost his entire life was lived dodging real or imaginary enemies.’ Proctor never sat with his back to a door, and he would sidle along a town street so that his back was turned toward the buildings. Whatever way he used when he came to town, he left by another route. The clash between Proctors and Becks, between Keetoowah beliefs and white man’s law, was further aggravated by a jurisdictional dispute between Indian and U.S. courts. Zeke Proctor was unquestionably Cherokee. Although his father, William, had been a white man, his mother was a full blood, and Zeke followed the Keetowah ways. Kesterson was white, but Aunt Polly Beck had been half Cherokee, and so Kesterson, as her husband, was considered an adopted Cherokee. At first blush, it appeared to be a clear case for tribal jurisdiction. After all, the United States-Cherokee treaty seemed pretty specific: ‘…the judicial tribunals of the [Cherokee] nation shall be allowed to retain exclusive jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases, arising within their country, in which members of the nation, by nativity or adoption, shall be the only parties, or where the cause of action shall arise in the Cherokee Nation except as otherwise provided in this treaty.’ The Cherokee court accordingly took jurisdiction, although the Becks, afraid of the Keetoowah Society’s influence, wanted the federal court in Fort Smith to intervene on grounds that Kesterson was white. There were some vexing complications right from the beginning. For one thing, Zeke was related to just about everybody, including Lewis Downing, the tribal chief. Zeke’s mother had been a Downing. It was very hard to find a prosecutor who was unrelated to the Proctors. The regular judge, Jim Walker, also turned out to be related to the Proctors — to both sides, for that matter — and was duly disqualified. So was Judge T.B. Wolfe, and for the same reasons. At last Chief Downing appointed Blackhaw Sixkiller as judge, and Sixkiller quickly set about getting the murder case to trial, naming a date in March 1872. The first short session ended in recess when Beck’s lawyer, J.A. Scales, asked the chief to remove Sixkiller on an assortment of charges. Chief Downing temporarily suspended Sixkiller, then called an emergency meeting of the tribal council. The council quickly decided that the charges against Sixkiller were without merit — ‘trumped up,’ they said — and the trial was back on, this time set for April 15. Everybody was expecting trouble, so the case was set to be heard in the Whitmire schoolhouse, rather than Going Snake Courthouse. The school building, near what is now Christie, Okla., was farther away from Beck country than the court was. Besides, the school was built of logs, had only one door — on its west side — and had fewer windows than the courthouse did. It was therefore easier to defend in case of trouble. And trouble there would be. Because the Proctor family was large and well connected, and because Zeke was a prominent Keetoowah, the Beck family was not sure that their notion of proper justice would be done at the Whitmire schoolhouse. And so on April 11, Jim Kesterson and a party of Becks rode into Fort Smith to hedge their bets. There, they swore out a federal warrant for Zeke’s arrest. They also got warrants for seven other men, including two Walkingsticks, a couple of Sixkillers and the entire jury. Most accounts say they got warrants for the defense counsel and Judge Sixkiller as well. In spite of the treaty, the U.S. commissioner in Fort Smith issued the warrants, based on the proposition that the United States had jurisdiction over offenses against white people, and Kesterson, adopted Cherokee or not, was white. The warrants were then passed on to a couple of luckless deputy marshals for service. These unfortunate lawmen also received the curious instruction that they were to arrest everybody named in the warrants only if Zeke were acquitted. In case of conviction, however, they were not to serve the warrants at all. It was a recipe for trouble. And so came the day of trial. The makeshift courthouse was jammed with people, many of them Proctor partisans armed to the teeth — including, one account says, the defendant himself. Outside stood a dense crowd of Cherokees, eager to hear the proceedings…or to be available in case of trouble. Among them were a number of Beck partisans, also armed, wearing twigs of wild plum blossoms in their hats as a sort of badge. Inside, Judge Sixkiller sat at a little wood table facing the single door. Just to his left was Joe Starr, the court clerk, and Proctor’s lawyer, Mose Alberty, sat on the judge’s right. Zeke sat next to Alberty, and close to Zeke stood Tom Walkingstick, one of his guards. At about 11 a.m. on April 15, not long after proceedings had begun and prosecutor Johnson Spake was arguing some procedural matter, trouble appeared. It came in the form of a federal posse, which included some of the toughest of the Becks and their supporters. Out in front were Deputy U.S. Marshals J.G. Peavy and J.G. Owens, both well respected and well liked in Indian Territory. Owens had ordered his possemen to stay out of the schoolhouse turned courthouse, and to remain outside until the verdict was reached. Unfortunately, Owens quickly lost control. The possemen dismounted, formed a rough column of twos and pushed through the crowd toward the door. Other armed Beck partisans joined them from the crowd waiting outside. Nobody doubted they meant business, for they were cocking their weapons as they came. In the lead was Surry (‘White Sut’) Beck, cradling his double-barreled shotgun. Inside the schoolhouse, juror George Blackwood saw the grim-faced posse coming. ‘Look out!’ he shouted. ‘Look out! They’re coming to get Zeke Proctor!’ Near the doorway, White Sut shoved aside one of the Indian lighthorsemen, or policemen, and stormed into the building. Inevitably somebody, probably White Sut, fired a shot, and then all hell broke loose. White Sut pulled down on Zeke with his shotgun, but Johnson Proctor, Zeke’s brother, grabbed Sut’s weapon and took one barrel full in the chest. Johnson, mortally hurt, still hung on to the shotgun, forcing the second shot down toward the floor. Zeke was hit in the foot by a couple of buckshot, but his brother had saved his life. Zeke’s defense counsel, Mose Alberty, never had a chance. He was sitting at the clerk’s table or judge’s desk, apparently reading some document, when he was hit with two shotgun rounds and went down dying. Another version of the fight had White Sut getting close enough to press the muzzle of his weapon ‘right against Zeke Proctor’s breast. ‘Now, old man,’ he crowed, ‘I have got you.” But he didn’t. Johnson clung to the shotgun, and other Proctor partisans grabbed for their weapons. White Sut then murdered Johnson Proctor, according to one old-timer, who added, ‘He hated to have to shoot him, but he had to, to get him loose from the gun; so he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot him dead.’ As gunfire roared in the log schoolhouse, men began to fall on both sides. Nobody knows how many men Zeke Proctor shot, but he produced a weapon from somewhere, most likely a revolver, and the range was point-blank. He probably took shelter in a convenient chimney corner, which gave him at least a little cover. Another old-timer said later that Zeke snatched a Winchester ‘out of the hands of the guard nearest him,’ which probably would have been Tom Walkingstick. This version is a little doubtful, if only because the same witness quite incorrectly said that the verdict had been handed down before the Beck party rushed the building, and that Zeke hid out in Mexico for the next four years. Another witness to the fight, a youngster at the time, said Zeke killed’six or seven men.’ Since a lot of people were banging away simultaneously, that seems a large bag even for Zeke Proctor, and indeed, the young witness’ opportunity to see what happened may have been considerably limited by the dictates of his good sense: ‘I fell down under a bench and stayed there when it happened,’ he said, ‘and they thought he had killed me too.’ At the door, Sam Beck stepped in front of White Sut, and somebody cut him down. Then White Sut dropped, and more and more men fell in agony as weapons roared in and outside the building. The Beck faction quickly realized they were badly outgunned. They scattered then, those who could still stand, and the firing and the shouting died away. As the smoke blew away, the ground was littered with bodies. Four corpses lay in a welter of blood just inside the schoolhouse door. Three more bodies sprawled silent just outside. A few paces away was another corpse, a badly wounded man lay moaning behind the building, and still another was dying in a nearby clump of bushes. Judge Sixkiller took two buckshot in the wrist, and lawyer Alberty lay dead near Johnson Proctor — both of them elderly and unarmed. One juror had a hole in his shoulder, and several others also had wounds, most of them minor. Close by, in Mrs. Whitmire’s house, Deputy U.S. Marshal Owens was dying, gasping that he had tried his best to hold back the Becks. The Becks had taken terrible casualties. Black Sut, Samuel and William Beck were dead or dying. So were William Hicks, Jim Ward, George Selvidge (or Selvage) and Riley Woods. White Sut Beck was terribly hurt — although he would survive — and Isaac Vann had a bad elbow wound. In addition to Johnson Proctor, the Proctors lost Andrew Palone, a Civil War veteran of the Pea Ridge fight, variously described as either killed or wounded. Various others, both partisans and bystanders, had suffered more or less minor injuries. Zeke’s only wound was the buckshot from White Sut’s weapon, and Zeke could still fight and ride. Having fought, he now rode. Widow Whitmire got her teenage boys to hitch the family mules to a wagon and began to collect the dead, the dying and the wounded. The bodies of those killed were conveniently arranged on the Whitmire front porch so their kinfolk could easily collect them. The wounded were gently carried inside, to be cared for by Mrs. Whitmire and others. Next day, the 16th, the jury reconvened at Captain Arch Scraper’s nearby house to finish the job. Scraper, who was foreman of the jury, found he still headed a complete panel, counting a new juror appointed to replace a member too badly hurt to continue. Zeke Proctor was there, too, announcing that he would not give up his right to be present at his own trial, wounds and all. The jury deliberated long enough to acquit Zeke. They then intelligently departed in some haste, on the sound theory that Fort Smith would send more marshals, or more Becks would appear, and whoever came would be angry men. James Huckleberry, the U.S. marshal, was indeed an unhappy man. No doubt angry over the death of a fine officer, he accused Sixkiller of obstructing justice, even of deliberately holding court where the marshal’s posse could best be resisted. He sent a 21-man posse down to Going Snake, but by the time the lawmen arrived on the 17th nearly everybody had scattered. Jury foreman Scraper, who had not fired a shot, was one of the unlucky ones who was arrested and taken to Fort Smith. But he was eventually released. The deputy marshal in command, Charles F. Robinson, was an intelligent officer, who wisely decided not to launch a fruitless pursuit into the hills and thickets of the district. Robinson had brought along two doctors, Julian Fields and C.F. Pierce, who did what they could for those wounded in the courtroom shootout. Eleven men were beyond help. Zeke Proctor was long gone in any case. Escorted by a strong group of perhaps 50 heavily armed Keetoowahs, he was headed for the toughest and most inaccessible parts of the Cherokee lands. Digging out him and his escort would be bloody work, and probably fruitless, and Robinson decided he hadn’t lost anything out there in the backcountry. Judge Sixkiller had also departed for the tall timber, as had most of the jurors. Robinson rode back to Tahlequah, the Cherokee capital, where he lodged a formal demand for the delivery of Proctor and a long list of other Cherokees. Chief Downing naturally declined to honor the demand — even if he could have. Instead, he contacted the Cherokee delegation to Washington, D.C., asking that they lobby for the return of complete internal sovereignty to the Cherokee Nation. In spite of Robinson’s intelligent decision not to pursue Zeke Proctor, it would take time for all the bad blood to die away. For a while afterward, great tension existed between the Cherokees and anybody who was or looked like a deputy marshal. One thing was clear: No marshal, no matter how efficient or courageous, was going to catch the elusive Proctor. He was something of a hero to most Cherokees, a symbol of tribal resistance to the increasing encroachment of white government from the East. Inevitably, Zeke was indicted for murder in the death of Deputy Marshal Owens, charged with some 20 others, including the judge and jury. In the verbose, tedious legal language of the age, the indictment recited how Zeke, with ‘a certain pistol then and there loaded and charged with gunpowder and twenty leaden bullets…then and there feloniously and willfully and of his malice aforethought did shoot and discharge; and that…with the leaden bullets aforesaid out of the pistol aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder shot and sent forth as aforesaid Jacob Owens in and upon the left side of him….’ On and on went the indictment, which included allegations of aiding and abetting murder against a whole host of other Cherokees. Meanwhile, Cherokee leaders indicted White Sut Beck and several of his friends for the murder of Johnson Proctor. The Cherokee delegation’s patient lobbying in Washington finally bore fruit, and President Ulysses S. Grant granted complete federal amnesty to Zeke Proctor and his Keetoowah supporters. The Proctor family said later that for years Zeke displayed on the wall of his house the document that granted him that amnesty. He is known, with some justification, as the only individual with whom the United States ever concluded a formal treaty. The federal indictment was at last dismissed toward the end of 1873. Apparently Zeke and a small army of supporters rode into Fort Smith and were actually present when the U.S. attorney entered a nolle prosequi in the case. The indictment against White Sut Beck was also dismissed, and in February 1874, the Cherokee National Council passed a general amnesty. And so peace of a kind returned to Going Snake District — but there was no peace between Zeke Proctor and White Sut Beck. For many years each man watched his backtrail, kept his weapons close, wondered what lay hidden in the woods up ahead. Each man was carefully watched over by his kinfolk, and there was no real truce. In later years, Zeke Proctor remained something of a Cherokee hero. Some Cherokees even believed that he had some sort of divine protection, and some thought that this aura would protect them also, if they stayed close to Zeke. Most probably, Proctor’s survival was actually due to his ceaseless vigilance, and maybe also to the fact, as rumor had it, that he habitually wore an iron cuirass underneath his coat. In any case, Zeke Proctor became the Cherokee senator from Going Snake District in 1877 and was elected sheriff in 1894. Perhaps his greatest service, ironically, began in the fall of 1891, when he was appointed a deputy U.S. marshal, riding with, among others, the tough, indefatigable Heck Bruner. Marshaling must have agreed with Proctor, who knew every trail and hideout in Indian Territory; he renewed his marshal’s contract in February 1895. Zeke Proctor, 76, died at home in February 1907, not of hot lead or cold steel, but of pneumonia. He still lies in the Proctor family plot in the Johnson cemetery, five miles west of Siloam Springs. His monument is the tallest in the cemetery, and that is as it should be. Respectable in his old age, Proctor had never entirely forsaken the old ways. His last words, his granddaughter said, were, ‘Feed the boys good.’ He meant the outlaw Wickliffe brothers, then lying low in Zeke’s barn. But before Zeke died, and long years after the rains had washed away the clotted blood outside the Whitmire schoolhouse, White Sut Beck and Zeke Proctor finally met. One version of the story says they met by accident; another says the meeting was arranged by mutual friends. Even the year of the meeting is not certain: It may have been in the late ’80s, or as late as 1903. In any case, they met in the land office at Tahlequah, and after all the years stood face to face at last, two old and mortal enemies. Finally, White Sut Beck spoke. To Proctor he said: ‘We’re too old to fight. But I’m game and I know you are too. I’ll walk away if you will.’ And then, without more, the two tough, proud old men turned and left the land office by different ways. The feud was over, without formality, without fanfare, without speeches. Nobody had backed down; nobody had won; nobody had lost. Which was how it should have ended. This article was written by Robert Barr Smith and originally appeared in the June 2004 issue of Wild West. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Wild West magazine today!
cb59048426805fc7436d4d04d3e6da16
https://www.historynet.com/blue-gray-perfect-southern-soldier.htm
Blue and Gray: Perfect Southern Soldier
Blue and Gray: Perfect Southern Soldier Stonewall’s death confirmed his spot in the Rebel pantheon. “Stonewall” Jackson inspirited the Confederate people on many occasions. He played a major role in celebrated victories while exhibiting the audacious generalship his fellow citizens craved. His 1862 Valley Campaign catapulted him to unrivaled fame in the Confederacy (R.E. Lee would surpass him late in 1862 or early in 1863). He followed up his success in the Valley with a march around John Pope’s army in August 1862, the capture of Harpers Ferry in September 1862 and the famous march on May 2, 1863, beyond Joseph Hooker’s exposed right flank at Chancellorsville. All these accomplishments were offensive in nature and fit the model of what most Confederates considered superior military leadership. Jackson’s boldness and insistence on inflicting the greatest possible damage to the enemy, together with his well-known Christian piety, made him a perfect soldier for the Confederate people. The 1862 Valley Campaign illustrates Jackson’s impact on Southern morale. Timing and command style meant everything in terms of why this operation, modest by Civil War standards, resonated so powerfully. Between May 8 and June 9, when Jackson’s campaign unfolded, Confederate fortunes reached a critical low point. The Federals had captured New Orleans and Nashville, won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and Shiloh, secured southern Missouri with a success at Pea Ridge, blunted a quixotic Confederate offensive in the far west at Glorieta Pass, and placed a 100,000-man army at the vital rail center of Corinth, Miss. In the Eastern Theater, CSS Virginia had been scuttled and the largest Union army approached Richmond, the fall of which likely would end the war. The Confederate people hungered for good news from the battlefield. Jackson supplied it with five small engagements that loomed large because of when they came and how they were achieved. Through rapid movement, daring and aggressiveness, “Old Jack” triumphed at McDowell (May 8), Front Royal (May 23), First Winchester (May 25), Cross Keys (June 8) and Port Republic (June 9). As a quintet, those clashes scarcely added up to one real battle, but Jackson had taken the war to the enemy when all other Confederate generals seemed to be retreating and suffering defeats. Had Richmond fallen during the ensuing Seven Days’ Campaign, the Valley operations would be an insignificant footnote in Civil War military history. But the Confederate capital did not fall, and Jackson’s victories, which raised hopes in the hearts of countless Southerners, assumed almost mythical status. Four quotations underscore how news from the Valley hit the Confederate home front. The Charleston Daily Courier offered a breathless, and inaccurate, accounting on June 18, inviting “attention to the following summary of the achievements of Gen. Thos. J. Jackson, (‘Stonewall’). With a handful of citizen soldiers… he has, in little more than sixty days, marched over five hundred miles, fought about twelve battles— five of which were pitched battles— defeated four generals—routed four armies—captured millions of dollars worth of stores, &c., and killed, wounded and secured as prisoners, almost as many of the enemy as he had soldiers under his command! These are startling assertions, but they are literally true!” Judith McGuire, a refugee living in Richmond, expressed feelings typical of many Confederates upon learning of events at Cross Keys and Port Republic. “General Jackson is performing prodigies of valor in the Valley,” she observed on the evening of June 9, adding, “he has met the forces of [John] Fremont and [James] Shields, and whipped them in detail.” Three days later, McGuire juxtaposed Jackson’s campaign with failed operations in the West. “We are more successful in Virginia than elsewhere,” she observed, adding that the “whole Mississippi River, except Vicksburg and its environs, is now in the hands of the enemy, and….Memphis has fallen!” The Richmond [Daily] Dispatch, on June 11, 1862, suggested that aggressive maneuvering and fighting by “glorious ‘Stonewall’ in the Valley cannot fail to raise a high old panic among the functionaries of Washington….The result of these splendid victories is too evident to need comment; and it is therefore unnecessary to urge that immediate reinforcements be sent to Jackson, that he may be able to follow up the advantages already gained.” From eastern North Carolina on June 11, diarist Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston noted that “Jackson has gained another victory in the Valley of Va. He has beaten Shields & holds Fremont in check, who fears to attack him singly.” Edmondston then got to the heart of why so many Confederates loved Jackson: “He is the only one of our generals who gives the enemy no rest, no time to entrench themselves.” In contrast, she deprecated the efforts of Joseph E. Johnston and Lee, his successor, outside the capital. “Matters before Richmond look gloomy to us out siders,” she wrote sadly. “McClellan advances, entrenching as he comes. Why do we allow it?” The reputation for coldblooded effectiveness won in the Valley clung to Jackson for the rest of the war. It pervaded accounts of his activities and showed clearly in reporting about the rear-guard action at Shepherdstown, Va., on September 19-20, 1862. An aftershock to Antietam, this fight claimed more than 650 Union and Confederate casualties and compelled a Federal retreat across the Potomac. The Confederate press described it as a bloody Union defeat, a theme picked up by civilians. “On the 19th a division of the enemy crossed over to Shepherdstown,” wrote a woman in Fredericksburg, Va., with typical hyperbole. “Jackson captured or killed the whole of them. The Potomac was damned up with their bodies.” A second diarist estimated that “Ten thousand Yankees crossed at Shepherdstown, but unfortunately for them, they found the glorious Stonewall there….we succeeded in driving a good many of them into the Potomac….The account of the Yankee slaughter is fearful.” Neither his questionable performances at the Seven Days’ and Fredericksburg nor a striking absence of tactical skill even in his victories diminished Jackson’s reputation among Confederates. He was their Stonewall, purposeful, destructive to the enemy and Lee’s right arm. Death in the wake of Chancellorsville cemented Jackson’s place as the second most important figure in the Confederate pantheon. Originally published in the December 2012 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
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https://www.historynet.com/boeing-b-52-stratosaurus.htm
The B-52 Is So Old It’s Nicknamed Stratosaurus
The B-52 Is So Old It’s Nicknamed Stratosaurus Were it not for a 32-year-old U.S. Air Force colonel who happened to be an MIT-degreed engineer, the B-52 Stratofortress would have been a Tupolev Tu-95 Bear lookalike—a big, sweptwing bomber with four massive turboprops driving eight contrarotating propellers. That was the configuration Boeing’s engineers had settled on when they proposed to build the B-52. They pitched it to Colonel Pete Warden during an October 1948 meeting at a hotel in Dayton, Ohio, near the development and testing center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “Get rid of those props or your proposal will be rejected,” Warden said, in what was in fact an overstepping of his authority. But Warden was a fan of turbojets and realized that despite fuel consumption problems and low power output numbers, jets were the future. He knew Pratt & Whitney was developing the J57 turbojet, which would change aviation history by powering both the Stratofortress and, as the civil JT3D, the 707. It was a remarkable engine. Pratt had been excluded from jet engine development during World War II, since their piston radials were crucial to the war effort, but they had done enough fiddling on their own to come up with the 10,000-hp T45 turboprop, designed to be easily convertible into a pure jet. That conversion resulted in the J57/JT3D, one of the great turbojet engines of all time. Adding a fan to the J57 produced the TF-33, the low-bypass engine that ushered in the age of the fanjet. The ancient TF-33 would become the B-52H’s engine, today powering the only Stratofortresses that are still flying. During a weekend thrash, the Boeing engineers reconfigured their proposal. Presented to the Air Force on Monday, the design featured eight turbojets paired in pods hung beneath swept wings. The proposal was buttressed by a silver-painted balsa model carved by Boeing chief aerodynamicist George Schairer. “We didn’t know what George was up to,” one of the engineers later said. “While we were running the numbers all weekend, George was off in a corner whittling away on his damn model.” Only Boeing’s second jet powered design, the YB-52 combined 1940s and ‘50s technology. (©Boeing) The B-52 first flew in April 1952, followed seven months later by the Soviet Tu-95. Both bombers are still in service, but the B-52 is currently scheduled to remain an active part of the U.S. Air Force inventory until 2050. No doubt at least one will continue to fly until April 15, 2052, if only on a ceremonial basis, to potentially make it the first aircraft, military or civil, to stay in active service for a full century. Don’t count out the Bear. The Tu-95 is currently scheduled to remain in service until at least 2040, and if the Russians can find the spare parts to extend that, we have a horse race. At one point, the Air Force began to doubt there was a need for the long-range, high-altitude B-52 bomber. Perhaps the Stratofortress should be developed purely as a reconnaissance airplane—an RB-52—leaving the offensive missions to Boeing’s never-built B-47Z Super Stratojet or a proposed sweptwing, eight-jet version of the Convair B-36. As it turned out, Boeing built 27 RB-52s, but they were basically just B-52Bs with bomb-bay fittings to accept a pressurized recon pod filled with electronics and a pair of lonely operators. Few would ever be flown with recon pods. All 35 B-52Cs were also pod-capable. Development of the B-52 was a high-risk endeavor. Though the airplane was based in part on the roughly concurrent B-47 medium bomber, it was still an all-new airframe with an all-new engine, its operation dependent in large part on Boeing’s all-new flying-boom aerial refueling system. Yet incredibly Boeing, using 1940s and early ’50s technology and in only its second attempt to actually produce a jet, ended up designing one that nobody has yet been able to beat except in terms of largely useless speed and equally pointless stealth. Not the B-58 Hustler, the XB-70 Valkyrie, the FB-111, the B-1 or the B-2B. All are either out of business or soon will be, while the BUFF (“Big Ugly Fat F—er,” as it’s commonly known to its crews) soldiers on. Curtis LeMay famously said of the B-58 Hustler, “It’s a great airplane, if you’re going to war with Canada.” So how did Boeing do it? By building a remarkably light yet simple and durable airframe with an enormous volume of internal space, allowing for continual upgrades through creative electronics, ordnance and equipment improvements. The B-52 began life carrying relatively primitive, high-maintenance, vacuum-tube navigation and bomb-aiming equipment. Some initially flew with no electronics at all, since the equipment was largely useless. Today, the BUFF carries the most sophisticated, computerized, 21st-century military gear available. A fatal flaw of early B-52s—A through D models—was the airplane’s four big alternators. They were driven by turbines spun by engine bleed air and were inside the fuselage, directly under a fuel tank. Relief valves were supposed to vent overpressure in the bleed-air supply, but when they failed the alternators would overspeed and grenade, sending shrapnel into the fuel tank. Three BUFFs exploded in flight before this was corrected by installing straightforward shaft-drive alternators directly on the engines. The B-52 proved to be a supremely capable conventional bomber. This B-52D displays auxiliary fuel tanks and external pylons loaded with additional bombs. (U.S. Air Force) The B-52 was designed with a minimal rudder and small elevators, perhaps to prevent overstressing a somewhat delicate airframe (the bomber is limited to +2 Gs). The rudder constitutes just 10 percent of the vertical tail’s total area. Its ability to counter a crosswind is limited, thus the BUFF’s castering bicycle main gear: The airplane needs to be landed in a crab in a crosswind. Steerable through 20 degrees to each side, the gear angle is set during the approach. It works just fine, steering down the centerline while the fuselage is pointed at hangar row. B-52 pilots need to get used to landing while looking out the side windows. Another B-52 “unusual attitude” is its takeoff performance. The BUFF’s wing is mounted at an eight-degree angle of incidence, in order to place the fuselage at a dead-level attitude during high-altitude nuclear drops—the type’s original mission. This also obviates the need for rotation on takeoff, which would be difficult with so much low-to-the-ground fuselage aft of the rear main landing gear. When a B-52’s up-canted wing generates enough lift for takeoff, the airplane simply levitates, initially climbing out with a slight nose-down attitude. This is the source, perhaps, of the claim that a B-52 doesn’t take off, it scares the earth away. Landings are made equally flat and flare-free. With its huge Fowler flaps deployed, a B-52’s attitude on approach is virtually the same as in cruise. Elevator power didn’t become a problem until the B-52G and H went to wet wings rather than fuel cells. The new TF-33 engines spooled up rapidly enough that a firm push on all eight power levers, particularly on takeoff with partial fuel, sloshed the fuel load aft and there wasn’t enough elevator power to counteract the resultant nose-up pitch. The horizontal stabilizers were trimmable—the first to be used on an aircraft of this size—but several B-52s were lost to this flaw when pilots forgot to countertrim in advance against the pitch-up. The B-52 turned out to be supremely capable in a role for which it was never intended: as a conventional bomber able to drop dumb bombs from high level or low. If not for that capability, the Stratofortress might have gone out of business by the mid-1960s, by which time the Soviets had developed anti-aircraft defenses—surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), interceptors, radar and other sensors—that made penetration of its borders by an enormous, unstealthy, subsonic bomber a fool’s errand. As a result, the B-52 went to war for the first time against a tiny Southeast Asian country most Americans had never heard of, dropping World War II–style iron bombs on Vietnam and evoking comparisons to killing gnats with a sledgehammer. (B-52s have since seen action over the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.) The BUFF’s combat debut in June 1965 was as awkward, ineffective and snakebit as that of any American airplane ever. Thirty B-52Fs took off from Guam in 10 three-aircraft cells on the first raid of Operation Arc Light. Twenty-six actually flew the mission, two of which collided while holding for aerial refueling, with the loss of both aircraft and their crews, and a third was lost when it was unable to find its tanker. The Viet Cong knew they were coming and had left for parts unknown. Strategic Air Command was furious, for Curtis LeMay’s air force felt the BUFFs belonged to them, and not the USAF. SAC had seen its B-52s modified to carry cruise missiles, most notably the 5-ton, air-breathing Hound Dog, and this kept them in the role of nuclear deterrent. To use “their” airplane for what was considered close air support was ludicrous, some believed. What a strange role reversal: Tactical F-105 and F-4 fighter-bombers were attacking Hanoi on strategic missions while the world’s finest strategic bomber was flying tactical missions. Many B-52 strikes over Vietnam were considered matchstick missions, good for nothing but converting jungles to splinters. Still, the North Vietnamese who did find themselves under a rain of 500- and 750-pound bombs found the experience to be terrifying. Each B-52 could carry up to 108 bombs, most of them internally but a substantial portion hung from the two underwing pylons. Each mission was on the one hand stunningly expensive—typically costing $20 million to mount—yet on the other performed by machines so completely amortized that the B-52 is one of the all-time weaponry bargains. Today, the B-52 is much like a used car that runs perfectly but is worthless for resale: reliable, cheap, efficient, familiar to both its drivers and maintainers, and with lots of spare parts available. The B-52’s most prominent missions over Vietnam were part of Operation Linebacker II, when the bombers were unleashed for 11 days in December 1972 to crush Hanoi and the seaport of Haiphong. The devastation they wrought convinced the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiating table. Though the North ultimately won the war, at least the negotiations brought America’s POWs home and gave the politicians an excuse to withdraw and abandon South Viet­nam to fight on its own. ©John Batchelor/All Rights Reserved Resistance to employing B-52s over Vietnam was initially based on the feeling that having a Stratofort shot down by the primitive North Vietnamese would be a PR disaster. By the time Linebacker II was over, the Air Force had lost 15 to SAMs (though the North Vietnamese claimed at least one fell victim to a MiG-21). Today, Northrop Grumman B-2s suffer a similar problem. Valued at roughly $2 billion apiece, the USAF’s 20 stealthy Spirits are simply too expensive to risk in operations against any enemy with sophisticated air defenses. The last of the B-2Bs will be retired by 2030…and the crews that deliver them to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base boneyard may ride home in B-52s. Which is why some call the B-52 the Stratosaurus. There have been B-52 models ranging from A to H, with plans currently being considered for a B-52J. (The Air Force doesn’t use the letter I, since it can be confused with the numeral 1.) But basically, there are two generations of Stratofortresses: the tall-tail B-52A through F, and the bobtail “Super BUFF” G and H, with a vertical fin a good eight feet shorter, in part as a weight-saving measure. The tall tail also reportedly caused induced turbulence at very low altitudes and reduced stability at high altitudes. While other manufacturers were working on high-tech B-52 successors, Boeing refined the Stratofort to create the G model, armed with two Hound Dogs. Cruise missiles were an important addition to the B-52’s ordnance. Mounted on big external pylons under the wings, they allowed the bomber to stand off and launch its weapons from beyond the reach of SAMs and high-altitude Soviet interceptors—the weapons that had slammed the door on the BUFF’s access to Soviet airspace. The Hound Dogs could also be fired up for takeoff assist, temporarily turning the B-52 into a 10-engine bomber. Their fuel supply could then be topped off from the BUFF’s own tanks. Remarkably, the G model had both a lower empty weight and substantially higher takeoff weight—488,000 pounds, which is not even the most a B-52 can lift but simply the load limit of its landing gear and associated bulkheads. Following in the propwash of the Boeing B-29 that toted Chuck Yeager and Glamorous Glennis to altitude for their Mach 1 dash, the B-52 enjoyed a storied half-century career as a mothership, carrying and launching a variety of experimental aircraft. Best known of these heavy lifters was NASA’s NB-52B “Balls Eight,” so nicknamed for its tail number, 52-008. Balls Eight and sister ship “The High and Mighty One” were modified to carry the North American X-15 rocket plane on a pylon outboard of the right wing root and also dropped a variety of other manned and unmanned lifting bodies and rockets. Today all the early B-52s are gone, boneyarded or crushed for scrap, save for those sent to museums. No B-52Gs are flying either. They were all sacrificed to the provisions of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which called for the scrapping of the entire B-52G fleet. This was done at Davis-Monthan, with the Gs clearly guillotined into pieces so that the destruction could be verified by Soviet satellites. All that remains are 76 B-52Hs. At 240 tons apiece, they are the heaviest bombers of any air force ever to go into production. They have also carried the greatest-ever weapons load over the greatest range, and when a hypersonic cruise missile is finally ready for production, the H will carry it. A B-52H has already launched several scramjet-engine Boeing X-51A Waveriders, at least one of which achieved Mach 5. The B-52 was the last American bomber to carry guns—four .50-caliber tail guns, succeeded by a multi-barrel 20mm Vulcan cannon in the B-52H. The Vulcans were removed from all of the Hs during the early 1990s. The tail guns had a limited cone of fire, but BUFF gunners supposedly shot down five MiG-21s over North Vietnam, though only two claims were ultimately confirmed. Proposals to re-engine the B-52 stretch back to the late 1970s, when Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and GE suggested replacing its eight turbojets with four more powerful and fuel-efficient RB-211s, PW2000s or CF34s. The Air Force discounted the fuel-efficiency argument, saying that jet fuel was cheap enough that the cost was irrelevant. They forgot to allow for the fact that by the time a gallon of JP-4 is flowing out of a tanker’s boom, it has cost 15 times its original expense to get it there. Re-engining a Boeing airliner is relatively easy: Find a carrier that wants Rolls, GE or Pratt engines; do the necessary engineering; flight test and you’re good to go. The military poses an entirely different problem: By the time you have convinced Congress to fund the re-engining of a bomber and then jumped through the required bureaucratic hoops, the engine you’re finally bolting in place is already two generations old. And bolting far more powerful engines onto a B-52 is not a trivial matter. Losing an individually podded, 60,000-pound-thrust outboard engine on takeoff would require far greater control authority than a Stratofortress’ vertical tail could currently provide, for one thing. For another, ground-clearance issues would have to be dealt with, as would the added stresses imposed on the wings. Although Strategic Air Command originally envisioned the B-52 as a strictly nuclear bomber, its operational weaponry ranged from iron bombs to cruise missiles like this conventional AGM-86C being loaded on a B-52H during Operation Allied Force in 1999. (U.S. Air Force) America’s B-1s and B-2s are boutique bombers: expensive and limited in number. They are undeniably faster and far stealthier than the BUFF, but the B-52 can carry more weapons and is much cheaper and more reliable to operate. The Stratoforts are funded through 2050, at which point they will be anachronisms as baffling as seeing Lafayette Escadrille Spads on a flight line chocked next to F-22s and F-35s today. The B-52’s secret is its flexibility. It has always managed to find a role to play no matter how many times the script is rewritten, whether as a nuclear deterrent, carpet bomber, cruise-missile platform, low-level penetrator, smart-bomb dispenser, close air supporter, Terror of the Taliban or, soon, an arsenal aircraft. And it can still carry nukes. B-52s are like tanks: They do their best work where neither speed nor stealth is required. Once the fast movers establish air superiority, the B-52 can do its job quite comfortably. The B-52J arsenal aircraft will be a high-capacity magazine, a “missile caddy,” for its companion F-22s and F-35s. In order to stay stealthy, those fighters won’t be able to carry external ordnance. The J, however, will have external stores galore, and will use them to blast a path through enemy defenses for the attack aircraft to follow. The arsenal aircraft will also be able to use those fighters as forward sensors and targeting nodes, so it can do the attacking itself. The big bomber’s enormous internal capacity will allow it to carry a war room’s worth of moving maps, next-generation avionics and a full suite of radar-jamming electronics plus digital datalinks to all other aircraft in its strike package. It’ll also be loaded with Mach 4, fire-and-forget AMRAAMs (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles), making it in effect an offensively and defensively armed AWACS (airborne warning and control system). In the words of ex-B-52 command pilot and Aviation History contributing editor Walter Boyne, the B-52 is “the single most important aerial weapon ever developed by any air force….Never in the history of modern warfare has a major element of national defense been so long-lived.” (Boyne wrote this when the B-52 was a mere 39 years old, not even middle-aged yet.) It is also one of the very few American weapons that has never been provided to any ally. The BUFF, neither ugly nor fat, will forever stand amid the pantheon of truly great aircraft, its vast wings sheltering the Wright Flyer, DC-3, Spitfire and a few other all-time classics. None, however, will outlive it. Contributing editor Stephan Wilkinson recommends for further reading: Boeing B-52: A Documentary History, by Walter J. Boyne; B-52 Stratofortress, by Robert F. Dorr and Lindsay Peacock; B-52 Stratofortress, by Bill Yenne; and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, by Peter E. Davies and Tony Thornborough. This feature originally appeared in the January 2019 issue of Aviation History. Subscribe here!
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https://www.historynet.com/bofors-40mm-l60-anti-aircraft-gun-armed-forces-worldwide-cheered-this-pom-pom-replacement.htm
Bofors 40mm L/60 Anti-aircraft Gun: Armed Forces Worldwide Cheered This Pom-Pom Replacement
Bofors 40mm L/60 Anti-aircraft Gun: Armed Forces Worldwide Cheered This Pom-Pom Replacement During World War II the Dutch-designed Bofors became the mainstay of anti-aircraft defense aboard U.S. Navy warships. (Illustration by Gregory Proch) Having purchased Vickers 2-pounder pom-pom guns for its ships in 1922, the Swedish navy asked its own native Bofors for a more capable anti-aircraft weapon. In 1928 the weapons firm responded with a smaller version of a 57mm semiautomatic gun it had developed to engage torpedo boats. The gun entered production in late 1933 as the Akan M/32, known internationally as the 40mm L/60. International orders and licensing requests flooded in. The Royal Netherlands Navy was first to install the anti-aircraft gun, aboard its light cruiser De Ruyter. In April 1935 Bofors introduced a towable carriage, leading to orders from the Belgian, Polish and Norwegian armies. In 1937 the British adopted a Bofors fitted with a flash hider as the QF (quick-firing) 40mm Mark I. The improved QF Mark III became the standard British light anti-aircraft weapon, 2,100 being built in Britain, Canada and Australia by the end of World War II. In the United States, Chrysler Corp. produced 60,000 guns and 120,000 barrels during the war. Emplaced on Dutch-designed Hazemeyer twin mounts, the Bofors became a mainstay of anti-aircraft defense aboard U.S. Navy warships. The Army mounted twin Bofors on its M-24 tank chassis, dubbing the new weapon the M19 gun motor carriage. Although Bofors later developed a lighter, higher-velocity AA weapon (the 40mm L/70), L/60s remain in use by armed forces worldwide.
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https://www.historynet.com/bohemian-catastrophe.htm?epik=dj0yJnU9alFPemRrLTNlNEpnTmhzMmUtaWk1czQyam5LVThXWFImbj1sdkhVeEktRXRMOW5PNU5ycWVTQXN3Jm09MyZ0PUFBQUFBRjNGWDB3
Bohemian Catastrophe
Bohemian Catastrophe Sparked by a revolt in Bohemia, the Thirty Years’ War should have ended on a mountaintop near Prague in 1620, yet it dragged on another 28 years In 1618, on the cusp of the scientific revolution in Europe, both astronomy and astrology were respected scholarly pursuits, and the stars foretold war. That spring Johannes Kepler, astronomer and astrologer to the Holy Roman court, predicted, “May will not pass without difficulty.” Sure enough, on the 23rd of that month in the Bohemian capital of Prague a mob of disaffected Protestant lords seized two regents of their king and Holy Roman emperor-elect, the devoutly Catholic Ferdinand II, and pitched them out a third-floor window of Prague Castle, their secretary after them. Yet when the would-be killers looked to the ground, they found that all three men were not only alive but also relatively unharmed. From this “Second Defenestration of Prague” Catholics across Europe would proclaim the Virgin Mary had rescued her servants; Protestants, on the other hand, would insist the trio had simply landed in a manure pile. What mattered most was that royal couriers quickly covered the 150 miles to the imperial capital in Vienna to spread the alarm: Bohemia, the richest kingdom in the Holy Roman empire, was in open revolt. Two centuries after Bohemian priest Jan Hus first questioned the doctrines of the Catholic Church, the Reformation had riven the empire into rival coalitions: the Catholic League and the Protestant Union. The Spanish Habsburgs—whose pike- and harquebus-armed infantry formations, the tercios, had dominated European battlefields for a century—supported their Catholic cousins in Austria. The Protestant Dutch—whose new musketeer-oriented battalions were having some success against the Spanish in Flanders—empathized with their fellow rebels. The rest of the Continent duly chose up sides, setting the stage for the first of the great pan-European conflicts. “Believe me,” wrote a Dutch agent to an envoy of the Protestant Union, “the Bohemian war will decide the fates of all of us.” For long months warring imperial and rebel armies marched to and fro between Vienna and Prague. Imperial commander Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Bucquoy, was too cautious to wrest a decisive victory; Protestant commander Count Heinrich Matthias von Thurn, primary instigator of the Bohemian Revolt, too impulsive. So their soldiers fought, besieged cities, razed villages and laid waste the countryside, but nothing was decided. Then Holy Roman Emperor Matthias died, and Ferdinand took the throne, doubling down on his efforts to quash the revolt. The entrenched Bohemians instead invited young Frederick V of the Palatinate to rule the kingdom. “If it should be true that the Bohemians have in mind to set aside Ferdinand and to choose instead a counter-king,” wrote the horrified elector of Cologne, “then one would have to make oneself ready for a 20-, 30- and 40-year war, for the Spaniards and the House of Austria would rather put into play everything that they possess in this world than give up Bohemia.” In November 1619 the Bohemians elected Frederick. War it would be. Frederick V had troops—German, Austrian, Hungarian and Dutch mercenaries—but he lacked money to pay them. He also needed a more effective commander. Over Thurn he promoted Prince Christian I of Anhalt-Bernburg, who reorganized the army into Dutch-style battalions. Ferdinand, on the other hand, had confidence in Bucquoy as commander, but he lacked soldiers. In return for a claim to Frederick’s Palatinate lands, Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria agreed to bring in the army of the Catholic League under veteran commander Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly. A pious “monk in the garb of a general,” Tilly had spent the better part of two decades fighting the Dutch on Spain’s behalf, then the Turks for the Habsburgs, rising to field marshal along the way. He was familiar with the battalion concept but preferred the tercio. Ferdinand ceded field command to Maximilian, meaning of course Tilly. The Catholic forces—Germans, Spaniards, Tilly’s fellow Belgian Walloons, Italians, Irish and Poles—were imbued with a Crusader zeal and named their dozen biggest cannons after the Twelve Apostles. Four Capuchin monks and 11 Jesuit priests accompanied the column, led by Maximilian’s confessor, Friar Dominicus à Jesu Maria, superior general of the Discalced Carmelite order. By the fall of 1620 their combined forces had pushed Anhalt out of Austria. Bucquoy wished to give chase, but Maximilian and Tilly favored marching on Prague and ending the war. Winter was coming on, and several soldiers had already frozen to death overnight. “Hungarian fever”—typhus or cholera—was rife in the imperial camp. Food was so scarce that Maximilian himself was down to eating black bread, while Tilly reportedly stole an apple from a Dominican friar on the march. In late October Anhalt blocked their way at Rackonitz (present-day Rakovník), a road junction two days’ march west of the capital. The Protestants had dug in on a wooded slope halfway up a mountain and could not be driven from it. Complicating matters for the Catholics, Bucquoy took a musket shot to the groin while skirmishing and retired to his coach to recover. For more than a week the opposing armies did little more than glare at one another. Taking advantage of a morning mist on November 5, Tilly slipped away. Skirting around the mountain, he led the imperial and Bavarian armies on a beeline for Prague. Anhalt again had to force-march his men to get ahead of them. Harassed by Bucquoy’s Polish Cossacks, he arrived an hour after midnight on Sunday the 8th at Bílá Hora, or White Mountain, a 1,250-foot chalk ridge a few miles west of the capital. At its foot the Scharka, a marshy creek crossable only by one small bridge, barred the Catholics’ approach. Atop the steeper north ascent at the heart of a walled game reserve stood the Star Palace, a stout hunting villa in the shape of a six-pointed star—a natural fortress. “If we had fallen from Heaven into formation,” Thurn told Anhalt, “we could not have found a better spot.” The Protestants numbered some 23,000, evenly split between cavalry and infantry. Anhalt spread his battalions two deep across the 1½-mile crest of the ridge: Thurn on the left, Count Georg Friedrich von Hohenlohe in the center and Count Heinrich von Schlick on the right. Colonel Kaspar Kornis’ 5,000 Hungarian and Transylvanian hussars lined up in reserve and backed two regiments under Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar in the Star Palace. Anhalt still held out hope the Catholics would decline to assault the mountain. “I was well aware that the Count Bucquoy, who was an experienced and wise captain, would never advise to start battle under such circumstances,” he recalled. “This made me quite sure I was able to hope for ultimate victory.” Given his commander’s assurances, Frederick rode off to Prague to visit his queen and raise cash to pay his mutinous mercenaries. Tilly and Bucquoy fielded almost 25,000 men, including 6,000 horsemen, 40 percent of whom were heavy cuirassiers. Despite their manpower advantage Bucquoy, painfully recalling the difficulty of driving the Protestants off high ground, favored bypassing them again. Tilly overrode him. “Whoever wants to fight the enemy in open battle can do this in no other way than by turning his face toward him and exposing himself to the danger of his shots.” Another propitious morning fog covered Maximilian’s army as Tilly filed it over the Scharka bridge. The Bavarians arrived disorganized, unsupported and alone at the foot of White Mountain. From atop the ridge the rebels saw the chance to destroy half the Catholic forces before the rest could even join battle. Moravian Colonel Hans von Stubenvoll sought Anhalt’s permission for his cavalry to charge. “Attack, attack—you always attack!” Hohenlohe snapped in ire. “It cannot be done by attacking. We thank God that we hold this position.” Anhalt agreed. “The enemy coming so fast,” he reasoned, “had to have lost order and was going to find us standing firm, in good order, our chiefs in agreement and ready to fight them.” His officers continued to bicker. “The day is lost,” Stubenvoll muttered. But in the end they obeyed Anhalt’s orders, permitting the Bavarian tercios to square up and move left, making room for Bucquoy’s imperials to cross the Scharka and come up beside them. Their disposition gave Tilly, who faced the fortified Star Palace, the steeper slope to climb, but still Bucquoy dithered. At that moment Friar Dominicus stormed into the imperial camp in high histrionics, waving an icon of the Madonna from which, he cried out, Protestants had gouged the eyes of Mary. He exhorted the men to trust God and walk boldly into battle. “The chaplains were hearing confessions most zealously,” declared Father Henry Fitzsimon, a Jesuit ministering to Bucquoy’s Irish troops. “Many of the bravest soldiers were saying their beads and kissing their crucifixes.” To distinguish one another in battle, the Catholics tied strips of white cloth around their arms and hats. At a quarter past noon all 12 “apostles” fired at once, signaling the advance. On the right, the imperial side, the German regiment of General Rudolf von Tiefenbach, a Protestant in the Catholic service, and that of Colonel Hans Philipp von Breuner led the way, the Walloons of Spanish Colonel Don Guillermo Verdugo on their right flank. The tercios started up the slope, pikes bristling and matchlock musket muzzles spitting flame. Walloon cuirassiers and harquebusiers rode ahead to soften up the rebel lines. Thurn could have stood his ground, using his musketeers to rake the cavalry and Anhalt’s cannon to plow furrows in the tightly packed enemy squares. Instead, he sent 1,000 German and Bohemian cavalrymen thundering down the hill. Rather than charge headlong into each other, however, the opposing cavalrymen performed the caracole—front ranks firing, then wheeling back around to reload as the next rank moved up. It sacrificed the momentum of an all-out charge for firepower, but in this initial exchange the Protestants triumphed, driving back the imperials. So Thurn raised the wager with his infantry, ordering the 1,300 men of his regiment downslope. The mercenaries in their thin battalion formation looked on Verdugo’s pike square—3,000 men of the Walloon tercio, Flanders veterans all—and realized they weren’t being paid enough. “As soon as the enemy arrived at about 300 to 400 paces from Count Thurn’s infantry,” Anhalt recalled in disgust, “our soldiers started to shoot without order or sense and, even against express orders, shot in the air and immediately started to flee, seemingly in the grip of fear.” To finish them off, von Tiefenbach waved forward the German cavalry of Colonel Count Ferdinand Helfried von Meggau. The count was killed, but his riders brushed aside Thurn’s cavalry and charged after the fleeing Bohemians, capturing two flags and an entire company of infantry while driving the rest before them. “Everybody was fleeing,” Anhalt observed. At that critical juncture Anhalt’s son, 21-year-old Prince Christian II, at the ready with two cavalry squadrons behind Schlick in the second rank, informed veteran Lt. Col. Wolf von Löben it was time to attack. Their 700 German and Bohemian horsemen carried wheellock pistols and harquebuses, though only a few wore armor. At von Löben’s suggestion, Christian ordered his men not to fire until the colonel himself triggered the first shot. Facing them, Captain Don Felipe de Areyzaga, whose Spanish cuirassiers formed the imperial left wing, had the same idea. One observer recalled the opposing regiments held fire “so long it seemed as if they were good friends.” Suddenly von Löben’s shot rang out, and both sides unleashed a point-blank blast of ball and smoke, and what the pistol had begun, the sword finished. The rebels hammered back the Spaniards. Christian’s riders were eager to follow and finish them off, but von Löben reined them in, biding his time. His tercio unable to move under cavalry threat, von Tiefenbach ordered four squadrons of German harquebusiers to sweep the enemy out of the way. Before they could act, however, Christian’s troopers resumed their attack, plunging through the imperial riders into the infantry. They killed 40 of von Tiefenbach’s regiment and 150 of von Breuner’s, including all his officers, and captured three standards and von Breuner himself. The imperial advance ground to a halt. To the north Tilly’s Bavarians were still slogging up the steep side of the ridge. Again came the chance to defeat half the Catholic army before the other half engaged. Maximilian and the wounded Bucquoy commanded from the count’s coach down in the valley. Indecision was no longer an option. “Some cowards informed the Duke and Bucquoy that their men were giving way,” Fitzsimon recalled. “Both got on horseback. Though Bucquoy’s wound pained him…he wanted to show his soldiers that he did not intend to retreat.” The Catholic commanders unleashed the Cossacks, who circled Anhalt’s left flank and charged into his hussars. “The Poles, howling like wolves, were hurled on the flying Hungarians,” recalled Fitzsimon. Clinching the reins in their teeth and swinging a saber in each hand, the Cossacks drove the hussars from field. Leading the Bavarians from the front, Tilly kept an eye on the melee to his right. Noting the confusion between the Catholic armies, he sent five squadrons of cavalry crashing into Christian’s flank. Catching the prince’s preoccupied horsemen by surprise, the Bavarians captured a rebel flag and wounded von Löben. “Our left wing lost a standard, but de [Areyzaga] restored it to the ranks,” Fitzsimon recalled. “His horse fell under him, he jumped on another and, rushing on the enemy, got back the flag. He took four standards and wounded the young Prince of Anhalt in the right arm.” Shot in the armpit, Christian tumbled from the saddle and was taken alive by Verdugo’s Walloons. At that the Bohemian counterattack collapsed. Bucquoy, leading three regiments of cavalry with 300 of Colonel Carlo Spinelli’s Neapolitan musketeers, chased them back upslope and recovered von Breuner. Meanwhile, Verdugo overran the battery on the rebel left. “Among all other things,” a contemporary German report noted, “the greatest praise belonged to Wilhelm Verdugo.…He had, with his Walloons, opposed them with cavalry, taken the prince of Anhalt prisoner, captured a standard with his own hands, seized the first three artillery pieces of the Bohemians and then turned to face them directly, bringing the entire Bohemian army into disarray.” It was no boast. Verdugo’s square continued to roll up Hohenlohe’s left, ultimately forcing the latter to flee. The panicked Dutch battalion, instructed to train its guns toward the front, turned a few against an approaching tercio on its flank. On the rebel right the Bavarians, despite having taken stiff casualties from the guns mounted before the Star Palace, were about to achieve the crest of the ridge. Lieutenant Colonel Baron Georg von Hofkirchen’s rebel Austrian cavalry rode to meet them, but instead of charging in, his horsemen merely pirouetted through another caracole, firing and retreating. “One of our worst mistakes,” Anhalt wrote in an after-action report, “was that most of our cavalry would not engage properly. The proper way, which I often explained to them, was to reject the bad habit of caracoling when facing the enemy.…I want to stress this point strongly here, so that this custom of charging without properly engaging is avoided like the plague.” Hofkirchen’s hesitation did open the door for von Stubenvoll to do as he had wanted all along—to lead his cavalry in a decisive charge against the Bavarians, who were “stopped and pushed back,” Anhalt noted approvingly. Seeing the Bavarian attack falter, Friar Dominicus reportedly mounted a loose horse and galloped across the battlefield waving the disfigured icon of the Madonna. Legend has it rays of divine light shot from the Virgin Mother’s gouged eyes, blinding the Protestants, who scattered in terror. In any case, the Bavarians did rally and return up the hill. Hofkirchen soon fell, fatally wounded. Even the stalwart Stubenvoll retreated. (After the battle he joined the imperial service, and for years he and Hohenlohe fought a war of public letters, each blaming the other for defeat.) “It was now impossible to stop the troops,” Anhalt admitted. “I didn’t dare to remain, but withdrew toward the main road that goes toward Prague.” Verdugo’s Walloons, having marched the length of the ridge, enveloped Schlick at the Star Palace. Verdugo and Schlick had spent three years together in Italy, fighting for Spain against the French. Schlick’s loyalties had changed, but not his courage. His Moravians, their backs literally to the walls of the palace, made a desperate stand. There was no escape. At the end the fighting was man to man, Schlick leading, sword in hand. An eyewitness recalled bodies piled 10 and 12 deep. Protestant German historian Julius Krebs reverently referred to that southeastern recess of the Star Palace as “the grave of Bohemian independence.” Inside the palace in incoming musket ball ricocheted off Duke Johann of Saxe-Weimar’s cuirass and tore off his helmet. His Germans and the remainder of Kornis’ Hussars were soon seeking the exits. The Battle of White Mountain had lasted about two hours. In the tangled vineyards behind the mountain Cossacks rode down fleeing Hungarians, hundreds of whom leaped into the Vltava River, only to drown in the freezing water. The Protestants lost some 4,000 men; the Catholics, about 800, mostly from the Tiefenbach-Breuner tercio. In Prague Frederick had finished lunch when the first fleeing Protestant troops arrived. He was about to set off for White Mountain when Anhalt, Hohenlohe and Thurn met him at the city gate. All fled in haste, Frederick leaving behind his crown. For the rest of his short life he was mocked as the “Winter King” for the brevity of his reign. Frederick V and his family were just finishing lunch in Prague when told of the crushing defeat of Protestant forces at White Mountain. (CCI/Bridgeman Images) The Catholic victory was complete. With the Bohemian Revolt crushed, its army scattered and leaderless, Prague capitulated without a shot fired. The war should have ended then and there. In early 1621, however, the punitive Ferdinand convened a “blood court,” which soon rounded up 82 rebel leaders. On May 23, 1621, the third anniversary of the Defenestration, the emperor signed death warrants for 28 of them. One committed suicide in prison. On June 21 in Prague’s Old Town Square the executioner hanged three and decapitated the rest, including the corpse of the one who had killed himself. Ferdinand had a dozen of their heads, two hands and the tongue of one unfortunate mounted atop the city gates. He then oversaw the confiscation of rebel lands and ordered Protestants to either convert or go into exile. A pro-Vienna Catholic aristocracy took over. The European balance of power teetered. England, Sweden, France and Denmark in turn entered the war. Ever-larger armies marched back and forth over the empire, which soldiers again stripped, razed, looted and burned. Three quarters of the Bohemian people lost their lives to war, famine and plague. In July 1648, despite ongoing peace negotiations, a Swedish army laid siege to Prague. That October the Swedes seized the castle and were fighting to cross the river into the Old City when word arrived the warring nations had signed the Peace of Westphalia. The last battle of the Thirty Years’ War ended a half-mile from the palace window where it started and a few miles from White Mountain, the site of that hard-fought battle 28 years earlier. MH Author-historian Don Hollway published his first professional article, about the Battle of Hastings, in the August 1992 issue of Military History. For further reading he recommends The Thirty Years’ War: A Sourcebook, by Peter H. Wilson; Thirty Years’ War: A Documentary History, edited and translated by Tryntje Helfferich; and Battles of the Thirty Years’ War: From White Mountain to Nordlingen, 1618–1635, by William P. Guthrie.
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Book Review: Airmen of Arnhem
Book Review: Airmen of Arnhem Airmen of Arnhem: The Heavy Lift Crews of Operation “Market,” by Martin W. Bowman, Pen & Sword Books, Philadelphia, Pa., and Barnsley, U.K., 2020, $42.95 Much has been written about the heroism of Allied airborne troops during Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated September 1944 attempt to shorten World War II by capturing the German-held bridges across the Rhine River in the Netherlands. Indeed, the operation even inspired a major motion picture, A Bridge Too Far (1977). Far less has been recorded about the ordeal of the airmen who repeatedly risked their lives to supply those troops. Flying low and slow in unarmed transport planes over the course of nine days, they faced enemy fighters and intense flak to support their comrades on the ground. A large number were shot down, while many others returned wounded, their aircraft seriously damaged. Author Martin Bowman recounts the extremely hasty preparations for Market Garden, the only large-scale airborne operation of the war for which there was no specific training or rehearsal. The Allies proceeded with the operation, he adds, despite knowing there were insufficient transport aircraft to simultaneously support three airborne divisions. The bulk of Bowman’s narrative is in the words of those who participated. In one poignant passage the pilot of a Royal Air Force de Havilland Mosquito relates his mission to knock out the main German telephone exchange in Arnhem on the morning of the airborne assault. He recalls his shock at flying over a yard filled with Tiger tanks that were not supposed to be there and realizing he had no chance to warn the airborne troops already on their way. Airmen of Arnhem is invaluable to anyone interested in wartime transport operations or the ill-fated campaign in general. —Robert Guttman This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Audacious Missions of World War II
Book Review: Audacious Missions of World War II Audacious Missions of World War II: Daring Acts of Bravery Revealed Through Letters and Documents From the Time, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, U.K., 2020, $35 While war mostly entails long periods of waiting, there are those who prefer to take action regardless of how dangerous or uncertain of success their efforts may be. The course of World War II was determined not only by the outcomes of great military campaigns, but also by the results of carefully planned and meticulously executed special missions. Such operations required extreme courage, determination and endurance, and participants often did not survive. Audacious Missions of World War II recounts 22 of the most notable special operations, each driven by considerations of high-level strategy and arguably impacting the course of the war. Osprey editors derived the text from records and documents in the British National Archives at Kew. Each mission falls under one of five categories: “Combined Operations” (i.e., commando raids), “Special Operations Executive Missions,” “Royal Navy Missions,” “Royal Air Force Missions” and “Special Missions.” The operations took place in hot spots around the world, from Norway to India, and involved everything from coordinating the movements of various armies to kidnapping a German general from Crete and delivering him to Allied headquarters in Alexandria. Only one operation described was never attempted—Foxley, a proposed late-war sniper mission to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Audacious Missions is a fascinating read, particularly for those interested in the history of clandestine warfare. —Robert Guttman
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Book Review: Battle for Skyline Ridge
Book Review: Battle for Skyline Ridge Battle for Skyline Ridge: The CIA Secret War in Laos, by James E. Parker Jr., Casemate Publishers, Havertown, Pa., 2019, $32.95 The Central Intelligence Agency’s proxy war in Laos amid the Vietnam War is a relatively untapped topic. Combining boots-on-the-ground accounts and diligent research, author, Vietnam veteran and former agency operative James Parker examines the CIA’s leading role in the fight in northern Laos against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), a campaign waged largely on mountainous terrain, notably Skyline Ridge. The resulting book is a gripping account of the conflict from its inauspicious beginning to the climactic repulsion of the NVA. Focusing on the NVA’s attempts to take the area known as the Plain of Jars and the hub city of Long Tieng, Parker conveys the mayhem that was daily life in the region at the time. He details the actions of the CIA from top-level decisions on the training and deployment of Thai irregulars to the acts of case officers in the field. An eclectic group of Americans, these officers had wide-ranging responsibilities. In addition to staying alive, they were expected to support Laotian soldiers, direct U.S. Air Force bomb runs and handle such logistical tasks as managing the supply of food and materiel. Parker’s greatest strength is his firsthand knowledge of the subject matter. Interspersed throughout the narrative are incidents the author personally witnessed, thus contributing a weight of authority and giving the reader a sense of being there in a way few military histories are capable of matching. A minor complaint is the level of detail he includes, which at times may confuse a reader less familiar with military jargon or the technical aspects of an operation. That scarcely detracts from this valuable contribution to the history of the proxy war in Laos, the Vietnam War and the broader Cold War. —Chris Booth This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Battlefields of Texas (by Bill Groneman) : WW
Book Review: Battlefields of Texas (by Bill Groneman) : WW Battlefields of Texas, by Bill Groneman, Republic of Texas Press (an imprint of Wordware Publishing), Plano, Texas, 1998, $18.95 softcover. The Alamo is the big one, of course, and that famous battlefield is author Bill Groneman’s specialty (Death of a Legend: The Myth and Mystery Surrounding the Death of Davy Crockett, a 1999 release, is his fifth Alamo-related book). But there are many more battles to consider and remember when it comes to Texas. San Jacinto followed on the heels of the Alamo and not only was a stunning victory for the Texas army but also became, as Groneman notes, “the fulcrum point upon which a vast area of North America turned.” Some 30 years later, the Battle of Dove Creek was considerably less satisfying. “The battle did nothing but incite the Kickapoos to vengeful raids against Texas after they crossed into Mexico,” Groneman writes. “The raids continued for eight years. It was also a useless waste of life for both sides.” Groneman covers 68 battles in chronological order, and not all of them involve Texans’ defending their homeland. For instance, the first battle listed is Cañon de Ugalde. That conflict on January 9, 1790, pitted the Spanish Royalist army, aided by Comanches, against the Lipan Apaches and occurred in present-day Uvalde County about 50 miles west of San Antonio. Eight other battles from “Spanish/Mexican Texas” are included, as well as battles during the Texas Revolution, the Repubic of Texas period and the Civil War years. For each battle, Groneman provides information about the opponents, the casualties, the outcome, the location and the Texas historical markers involved. The format should appeal especially to those military history buffs who plan to travel across Texas. The author admits that his battle list is not all-inclusive but says he hopes it will “renew an interest in some of the less-remembered conflicts in Texas’s past.” Battlefields of Texas includes some photographs, as well as maps and artwork produced by Rod Timanus. When you pick up the book, one thing soon becomes clear: Texas has had more than its share of violence over the years. “It is difficult to think of another state within the United States which has been fought over so jealously as Texas,” Groneman says. Well, some of us might think of Virginia first, but it certainly is not a point worth fighting over. Louis Hart
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Book Review: Becoming Hitler
Book Review: Becoming Hitler Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi, by Thomas Weber, Basic Books, New York, 2017, $35 When and where did Adolf Hitler change from moody loner into messianic Führer? Some scholars maintain the transformative events occurred either during his childhood in Bavaria or during his World War I service on the Western Front. In this intensively researched account author Thomas Weber, a history professor at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen, claims the crossover came between 1918 and 1924 in Munich. Were Hitler elsewhere, Weber argues, he would not have become a Nazi. After Germany’s surrender Hitler traveled to Munich and joined a battalion supporting the newly proclaimed Bavarian Soviet Republic, which had seized power in November 1918. He served it until nationalist Freikorps units overthrew it in May 1919, whereupon Hitler switched sides. In reaction to the victory over the communists, the city became a haven for right-wing political groups from across German-speaking Europe. That September Hitler joined the tiny German Workers’ Party, whose nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-communist and anti-Semitic views appealed to him. His magnetism and oratorical skill quickly made him its leading figure. In 1920 its name changed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and membership swelled. In 1923 Hitler organized the Beer Hall Putsch, and while the attempted coup flopped, his subsequent trial for treason spread his fame. During the year he spent in prison, he wrote his ideological treatise, Mein Kampf, and resolved that his party would seek power through democratic means. Weber works hard to explain Hitler’s often divergent and bizarre views. As a young man he was a fervent German nationalist. He was also anti-Semitic, but it was the prevailing, socially accepted variety of anti-Semitism; he remained on friendly terms with many Jews right through his war years. By 1921, however, his speeches described a worldwide Jewish cabal that ruled Europe, America and even Soviet Russia. Many early Nazi sympathizers considered such views extreme, but Hitler’s explanation resonated with audiences, providing a satisfying excuse for Germany’s defeat. Repeated enough times, it became accepted “fact.” That Aryans were the “master race” had been a widespread and only mildly controversial belief for a century. Anthropologists grew skeptical, but the Holocaust, not science, delivered the kiss of death. Weber never gets inside Hitler’s head, but he speculates well, delivering a satisfying, nuts-and-bolts account of the six-year span during which an obscure ex-soldier became a demagogue the German establishment should have taken more seriously. —Mike Oppenheim
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Book Review: All Behind You, Winston
Book Review: All Behind You, Winston All Behind You, Winston: Churchill’s Great Coalition, 1940–45, by Roger Hermiston, Aurum Press, London, 2017, $29.99 On the back dust jacket of this important volume, eight mostly elderly, bald and paunchy men in business suits stare glumly at the camera. These gloomy gents are British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and members of his cabinet in 1940, a year after the outbreak of World War II. Missing a chance at ironic juxtaposition, the publisher failed to include a group photo of their mostly younger and thinner Nazi German counterparts. The latter also commanded a larger, better-equipped military whose soldiers (if not airmen and sailors) were arguably the world’s best at that point in history. Yet after nearly two years of failing to defeat the forces led by these frumpy old men, the Aryan elites proceeded to commit collective suicide over the following three years. Historians have hardly ignored Churchill’s wartime leadership, but journalist Hermiston delivers one of the best and most complete accounts. He relates the fighting only as background to the work of “all the talents” who assisted the pugnacious Churchill, often restrained him, performed brilliantly in areas that didn’t interest him and then largely faded from Britain’s collective memory. American readers may recognize a few names. Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee lacked the charisma of his boss but more than made up for it in good sense. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden remained faithful despite Churchill’s oft-repeated preference for dealing one on one with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Almost no one remembers Frederick Marquis, Lord Woolton, a wealthy magnate who served as wartime minister of food. Yet while Britons hated rationing and the dreary diet, Woolton himself proved universally popular, cheerfully pouring out propaganda and cooking advice while working to keep prices low and distribution fair. In contrast, few loved Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, a sort of free-range minister and press flack à la William Randolph Hearst whose fierce energy offended other cabinet members and may or may not have furthered the war effort. Churchill’s cabinet included everyone from pugnacious socialist union leader Ernest Bevan to hidebound aristocrats more conservative than the prime minister himself. Their quarrels and bitter rivalries were every bit as bad as those of Adolf Hitler’s high officials, yet they functioned far more efficiently. Hermiston’s book is excellent history and an oddly feel-good story. Overmatched by Nazi Germany and ultimately impoverished by the war, Britain survived without sacrificing its democratic values, thanks to the resilience of its people and the tireless work of its talented leaders, only one of whom was named Churchill. —Mike Oppenheim
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Book Review: Billy the Kid, A Reader’s Guide
Book Review: Billy the Kid, A Reader’s Guide Billy the Kid: A Reader’s Guide, by Richard W. Etulain, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2020, $34.95 In 242 pages Dick Etulain can’t possibly guide readers to all the written and filmed works about Billy the Kid. But he certainly covers the essential ones, not only listing but also assessing some 80 books, 85 essays, 35 novels, 75 newspaper articles and 25 films about a man who ranks right up there with Lt. Col. George Custer and outlaw Jesse James as most written-about Old West character. He points out the historical contributions made on paper and on-screen but also the factual inaccuracies. It all starts with the 1882 book The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, written by Pat Garrett (with significant help from ghostwriter Ash Upson) less than a year after the death of Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. “The early chapters seem a mix of dime-novel sensation, journalistic hyperbole and false facts,” writes Etulain. “Very little of that beginning section can be proven, but leading Kid specialists are divided on the worth of the second half of the book, rumored to come from Garrett.” Etulain calls Robert M. Utley’s “smoothly written and rigorously researched” 1989 biography Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life the leading account of the Kid’s life. His top mark when it comes to historical novels about the Southwest outlaw goes to the 2016 Ron Hansen offering, The Kid, for its “careful, inviting combination of historical accuracy, skillful scene setting and plausible interpretation of Billy.” On the big screen Etulain says Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles, “remains the strongest of the Billy films, revealing and convincingly dramatizing the persisting legends of a bifurcated Billy.” He suggests that despite its historical inaccuracies (for instance, Billy was right-handed), The Left Handed Gun (1958), with Paul Newman as the Kid, was most likely the best Billy the Kid film released before 1960. For more on the subject Etulain recommends Johnny D. Boggs’ 2013 book Billy the Kid on Film, 1911–2012. —Editor This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (by Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich): CWT
Book Review: Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (by Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich): CWT Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla, by Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 800-732-3669, 192 pages, $24.95. Americans like to think of their Civil War as a gentlemen’s disagreement, remarkably free from the barbarity and senseless killing that characterized revolutions in other parts of the world. Such a naive interpretation supports the comforting but distorted view of the American Civil War as a conflict between brothers, kindred spirits torn apart by blundering politicians. If anything, Northerners and Southerners saw each other as two distinct and antagonistic races by 1861. Any lingering spirit of a shared Americanism vanished as soon as the first Union soldier touched Southern soil. Reconciliation came long after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, when the nation participated in the highly nationalistic Spanish American War. Postwar images of Confederate and Union veterans shaking hands made for a sentimental conclusion to Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary (with the appropriate folksy music playing in the background), but those images obscure the vengeful spirit that motivated both sides to commit heinous war crimes. Of late, historians have made a concerted effort to strip away the romantic veneer of the Civil War. In Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla, Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich fit into this recent trend to resurrect the “real war.” They offer a gritty, brutally realistic portrait of William Anderson, the ruffians who followed him, and their seemingly wanton acts of destruction and murder in Missouri and Kansas. Anderson learned the bloody trade of bushwhacking under the notorious William Clarke Quantrill. He probably would have remained a shadowy, secondary figure in the partisan wars of Missouri if Federal authorities had not arrested two of his sisters as Confederate spies. In the summer of 1863, the sisters were incarcerated in Kansas City when the prison collapsed, crushing one of them. The other was disfigured and crippled for life. As an act of revenge, on October 21, Anderson attacked Unionist Lawrence, Kansas, with some 450 guerrillas under Quantrill. They killed at least 150 unarmed men and boys. Anderson slaughtered 14 people, more than any of the other guerrilla leaders. The tragic death of Anderson’s sister and the subsequent destruction of Lawrence, Castel and Goodrich argue, marked the emergence of the legendary “Bloody Bill” Anderson. From that moment forward, he ruthlessly hunted down and murdered Northern soldiers and Union sympathizers. He responded to every plea of mercy with a bullet. Killing enemy soldiers, the authors argue, “became an end in itself, one driven by a bloodlust so strong that sometimes Anderson would foam at the mouth and sob because he could not continue pumping bullets into still more blue-uniformed victims.” Despite the stylistic excesses of this passage, which suggests that Anderson was truly a rabid Confederate, Castel and Goodrich have correctly pinpointed the origin of “Bloody Bill’s” rage. Unfortunately, Castel and Goodrich’s emphasis on revenge results in a one-dimensional portrait of Anderson. He resembles a serial killer, more than a soldier. They do not see the complex motivations behind his savagery and how his actions fit within the context of the unorganized conflict between Unionist and secessionist partisans who fought for control of Missouri. Although no one could deny that Anderson was a cold-blooded murderer, his violent acts reflect a consistent and unmistakable pattern of support for slavery and the Confederacy. As the authors admit, Anderson and his fellow bushwhackers had strong family ties to slaveholding families from Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Before the war, they equated free-soilism in Kansas with abolitionism. Anderson’s hatred of anything that smacked of abolitionism influenced his wartime thinking. In almost every instance he purposefully attacked Federal soldiers or Unionists. Lustful rage did not prevent him from carefully selecting his targets. He did not strike indiscriminately. In an 1864 raid on Glasgow, Missouri, for instance, Anderson captured and tortured a Union man because he had freed all of his slaves. After Anderson nearly beat the man to death, he bitterly remarked: “Yes, you damned old coon, you have set all your negroes free.” To argue that Anderson always acted from higher political purposes would be a ridiculous claim, but not all of his violent acts were mindless. A more balanced view of Anderson is needed, one that would have required the authors to carefully distinguish between military, political, and criminal acts. Shortly after the Lawrence massacre, Anderson left Quantrill. He then launched his own campaign against Missouri Unionists during the summer of 1864. The most notorious incident occurred at Centralia on September 27, when he slaughtered and mutilated some 150 soldiers, including some 25 unarmed men who were dragged off a train and executed along the tracks. Later that fall, Anderson’s men served as scouts for Confederate Generals Sterling Price and Joseph O. Shelby. The Federals ambushed his men on October 24, and Anderson fell while charging the enemy. He died instantly, not in some tortuous execution like most of his victims. His death was celebrated by his enemies, who exhibited a photo of his dead body. Castel and Goodrich deserve high praise for offering an honest portrait of partisan warfare in Missouri and Kansas. But in the end, their overall interpretation of “Bloody Bill” Anderson falls short. While fighting for the Confederacy, Anderson could act like a criminal, a military officer, or a political leader. Like many other bushwhackers and partisan leaders who roamed the mountains of eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and northern Georgia, Anderson should not be viewed simply as a bandit or villain. Despite their barbarous conduct, men like “Bloody Bill” fought for a community and a way of life that was inextricably tied to ideology and politics. Peter S. CarmichaelWestern Carolina University
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Book Review: Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath (Gary W. Gallagher) : ACW
Book Review: Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath (Gary W. Gallagher) : ACW Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath, edited by Gary W. Gallagher, University of North CarolinaPress, Chapel Hill, N.C., $29.95. Mention the Battle of Chancellorsville to a group of Civil War buffs and a kaleidoscopic series of images will immediately flash through their minds: Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory, the mortal wounding of Stonewall Jackson, and the disastrous mistakes of Union General Joseph Hooker. Only those who have studied the battle in depth will have visions of such topics as Maj. Gen. Jubal Early’s rear-guard action at Salem’s Church or the court-martial of Confederate Colonel Emory F. Best. Yet those are exactly the types of topics that are explored in Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath. The third volume in the Military Campaigns of the Civil War series contains essays from eight prominent Civil War historians on the battle that marked the beginning of the end of “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s brief yet eventful stint as commander of the Army of the Potomac. This volume meets the high standards set by the previously published volumes in this series. A good mix of such noted historians as Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr., Robert K. Krick and John J. Hennessy has produced an insightful look at some of the lesser-known facets of the battle. While the essays included are excellent, this book is not for those who are looking for a casual history of the Chancellorsville campaign. If you do not already know your way around the battle, the essays may prove a trifle obscure. But don’t let that discourage you. If you are not already knowledgeable about Chancellorsville, first pick up a copy of one of the several excellent general histories of the battle, then take the enjoyable plunge into Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath. It will be time and effort well spent. By B. Keith Toney
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Book Review: Churchill
Book Review: Churchill Churchill: Warrior—How a Military Life Guided Winston’s Finest Hours, by Brian Lavery, Casemate Publishers, Oxford, U.K., 2017, $32.95 In the introduction to his new biography naval historian Brian Lavery carves a slot in the library of Churchill studies for this new volume on the great man’s military career: “It is not intended as a history of the Second World War, or even of Churchill’s role in it,” he writes, “but as a demonstration of how his past experiences affected his conduct and decision, and how much his personal opinions and interventions affected policy.” Actually, what Lavery does best is track Britain’s military development through the half-century prior to World War II, a process that often centered on Churchill. Lavery gives life to the arguments and compromises behind some of the most consequential military decisions of the last century, folding together crisp narration with quotes from British leaders. After a quick gloss on Churchill’s school days, Lavery shows how the young cavalry officer capitalized on his story of capture and dramatic escape in the Second Boer War to land a seat in Parliament and become first lord of the Admiralty during the crucial three years before World War I. Forever the enthusiastic student, Churchill took flying lessons and studied submarines while steering the Royal Navy away from coal toward oil-fired super-dreadnaughts. Undaunted by inter-service rivalries, he showed amazing foresight by funneling money from the navy to develop the British army tank, which helped break the Western Front stalemate. Churchill’s biggest setback came with another improvised effort to crack that stalemate. After the British fleet failed to pass through the Dardanelles, and troops died by the thousands in the amphibious landings at Gallipoli, he was forced out of the Admiralty. Grieving and depressed, he entered the trenches as a colonel and enjoyed night raids wriggling through no-man’s-land before returning to politics. Churchill’s regrets led to improvements, and his interwar advocacy for carefully planned combined operations under one supreme commander helped set conditions for the successful 1944 landings at Normandy. Lavery relates Churchill’s story amid a cascade of historical digressions—uniform decorations, gun sizes, relative speeds of new aircraft—that sometimes distract from his goal of shedding insight into the prime minister’s military mind. While the book will appeal to historians and laymen seeking deeper knowledge of Churchill’s military environment, readers interested in a fuller biography of the man should look elsewhere. —Paul X. Rutz
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Book Review: Crucible of Hell
Book Review: Crucible of Hell Crucible of Hell: The Heroism and Tragedy of Okinawa, 1945, by Saul David, Hachette Books, New York, 2020, $30 Iceberg, the operation to capture Okinawa, some 340 miles off the Japanese mainland, was among the largest, most grueling amphibious assaults in history, stretching 82 blood-soaked days, during which 12,520 Americans were killed and 36,627 were wounded. Author Saul David pays due attention to Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., the operational commander. He also shines a light on the frontline soldier. Among those in the initial landings on April 1, 1945, was William Manchester, a Marine who turned 23 that day and thought his chances of seeing another birthday were slight. He reached the beach and survived to write the Pacific War memoir Goodbye Darkness. By April 4 some 100,000 Americans were safely ashore, thanks to a masterly deception plan that had convinced the Japanese the main invasion force would land elsewhere. Two days later, in the first serious reaction, 345 kamikazes and a similar number of escorts struck the invasion fleet, sinking or badly damaging 26 ships. The next day waves of U.S. planes attacked the battleship Yamato en route to Okinawa. At a cost of 10 planes and a dozen men the Americans sank their target; only 269 of Yamato’s crew of 2,767 survived. Still, the Japanese ashore held firm in deeply dug defensive positions from which only the infantry could dig them out. Those who survived the crucible recall positions with names like Hacksaw Ridge, Awacha Pocket, Half Moon Hill and Sugar Loaf as “all hell rolled into one.” David uses personal accounts from both American and Japanese sources to relate the battle, waged against a fanatical enemy who in the last resort often committed suicide. By the end the Japanese had lost as many as 110,000 soldiers and perhaps a third of the island’s population—an estimated 120,000 civilians—many of whom killed themselves after first having slain their children and elderly relatives. In a tragic footnote, on June 18 Buckner made another visit to the front lines and was mortally wounded by an enemy shell, making him the highest-ranking U.S. officer killed in action in World War II. That very day effective Japanese resistance on Okinawa ended. A month later in New Mexico came the first detonation of an atomic bomb, followed by those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese surrender came within days, almost certainly averting a repeat of Okinawa many times greater on the Japanese mainland. Read this superb book to learn why. —David Saunders This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
Book Review: Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 Fred Anderson has written as good a history of the Seven Years’ War in North America, commonly called the French and Indian War, as one can find. At some 835 pages excluding the index, it is not, however, for the light reader. Much of the previously published work on this extended conflict has focused on the relationship between this war and the one that followed a dozen years later, the American War for Independence. For Anderson, however, the struggle between Great Britain and France in North America can be studied as an event worthy of examination in its own right–regardless of what came after. His evaluation of the Seven Years’ War as the greatest conflict of the eighteenth century is fairly well justified. The book brings to mind a quote from a fine historian, Theodore Ropp, who said, “You choose the ending of a story as you select that story’s beginning.” Anderson’s observation is that many who describe the American Revolution begin the tale at the end of the Seven Years’ War, in 1763. He states that the more fruitful start date should be 1754, when relations between the American colonists and the British government were still relatively amicable. The seeds of revolt were sown during the Seven Years’ War, hence its vital importance to the American nation. Knopf has done its usual magic, providing a handsome, well-illustrated book that contains excellent maps. The author has included a section of contemporary drawings and artwork with American landscapes that serves to give the reader an idea of how North America appeared, or was perceived to appear, to the participants in the war. Battles and campaigns are well explained by Anderson but not at the expense of political decision making and diplomacy. The author, who is a professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder, provides his readers with descriptions of cultural and personal characteristics that had an impact on the outcome of the war as well. Finally, Anderson extends the book’s reach beyond war’s end to picture and evaluate the aftermath of the conflict including the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, and Indian troubles. That allows him to discuss some of the more contentious issues between Americans and London as well as depict how militarily overextended Britain had become in gaining the vast territories she had won during the war. This is a fine book, one likely to become the definitive history of the North American theater during the Seven Years’ War.
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Book Review: Crusaders
Book Review: Crusaders Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands, by Dan Jones, Penguin Books, N.Y., 2019, $30 In 1095 Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos appealed to Pope Urban II for aid against the attacking Muslim Turks. Present-day scholars, British historian Dan Jones among them, still struggle to make sense of what followed, but there’s no doubt Alexios succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. His first taste of the Crusade fervor that swept Europe was the arrival at Constantinople in 1096 of thousands of soldiers and pilgrims, followers of the monk Peter the Hermit. Alexios quickly ferried them across the Bosporus, where they marched into Turkish territory to mostly end up dead or enslaved. That fiasco was dubbed the People’s Crusade. Far more effective were the organized armies of the First Crusade, which after three years of bloody, atrocity-ridden fighting managed to capture Jerusalem in 1099 and then mostly returned home. Alexios rejoiced, having recovered most of the Anatolian Peninsula. But four small Crusader states had difficulty fighting off surrounding Muslim nations, which were as divided and quarrelsome as Europe but ultimately got their act together. The armies of the Second Crusade (1147–50) failed to reconquer Edessa, the first of the four Crusader states to fall. Then, in 1187 Muslim forces under Saladin recaptured Jerusalem, thus prompting the Third Crusade (1189–92), led in part by Richard I, the “Lionheart” of England, who regained some territory but not Jerusalem. The armies of the Fourth Crusade (1202–04) sacked Constantinople. The forces of the Fifth Crusade (1217–21) failed before Jerusalem and then invaded Egypt, with disastrous consequences. During the Sixth Crusade (1228–29) the Christians recovered Jerusalem. Preoccupied with domestic issues, the local sultan agreed to a 10-year truce with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in exchange for the city and much surrounding territory. Muslims retook the city in 1244. At the outset of the Seventh Crusade (1248–54) French King Louis IX landed in Egypt (then ruling the Holy Land) and suffered a catastrophic defeat, in which he was captured and later ransomed. A glutton for punishment, Louis led the Eighth Crusade in 1270 but died from dysentery soon after landing, his diseased army returning home with little to show for their efforts. Two years later an army under future King Edward I of England launched the Ninth Crusade (1271–72), invading the Holy Land, winning a few victories and then departing. It was the last Crusade to reach Palestine, though a few abortive attempts followed. The last Christian fortress city, Acre, fell in 1291. Crusades also raged within Europe then and in later centuries, and Jones recounts many waged with purely secular intent against the pope’s political opponents. Jones writes rousing history, though readers may weary of the accounts of atrocity-ridden bloodshed. Present-day scholars tend to paint the Crusaders as the bad guys, but Jones turns up plenty of Muslim dishonor and cruelty. Medieval religion, no less than medieval warfare, was not for the faint of heart. —Mike Oppenheim This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Dorwart’s History of the ONI
Book Review: Dorwart’s History of the ONI Dorwart’s History of the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1865–1945, by Jeffrey M. Dorwart, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md., 2019, $62 Established in 1882, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the oldest intelligence agency in the United States. Based on exhaustive research into government archives, personal memoirs and oral interviews, this updated volume presents an in-depth history of the ONI through 1945 by an author widely recognized as the authority on the subject. As with invention, the ONI arose out of necessity. At the close of the American Civil War the United States possessed one of history’s most powerful navies. Due to the national preoccupation with commercial enterprise and westward expansion, however, the Navy fell into neglect and by 1881 had slipped to 13th place in the world. Proponents lobbied for a modernization program, but first the Navy needed to study foreign technical and tactical developments. That was the ONI’s initial function. As author Jeffrey Dorwart explains in his History of the Office of Naval Intelligence, with the expansion of the fleet came a corresponding increase in the ONI’s scope. During World War I its duties included the security of domestic naval installations and manufacturing facilities, counterintelligence, cryptology, personnel security, censorship, psychological warfare and even domestic investigation. By the end of World War II, Dorwart notes, the ONI had more personnel working within the U.S. than without. There’s far more to the story, of course, but 1945 is where this volume ends. —Robert Guttman This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Enemies and Neighbors
Book Review: Enemies and Neighbors Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917–2017, by Ian Black, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2017, $30 Britain’s celebrated 1917 Balfour Declaration promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, adding, “Nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” Veteran British journalist Black writes a lively and insightful, albeit mostly discouraging, history of the subsequent Palestinian-Jewish conflict that will satisfy the general reader. Beginning in the late 19th century, despite official Ottoman policy banning foreigners from purchasing land in Palestine, Zionist immigrants managed to buy farmland from absentee landowners and ultimately eject those cultivating the land. Easily bribable Turkish officials handled any objections, though protests steadily worsened under Britain’s mandate after World War I. With the rise of Nazism, Western observers mostly sympathized with Jewish immigrants and adopted the Zionist position that Palestinians should accommodate them. After World War II the harassed British turned over the problem to the United Nations, but fighting erupted even before they left. The better-organized Jewish forces conquered most of Palestine by the time of the May 1948 declaration of the modern-day state of Israel. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were evicted during the fighting. While Israeli officials insisted they had left voluntarily or on evacuation orders from their own leaders, later Israeli historians and wartime memoirs reveal discomfiting evidence of officially encouraged mass expulsions. Although surrounded by hostile Arab states, Israel’s superb armed forces repelled successive invasions in 1956, 1967 and 1973. Its 1967 victory in the Six-Day War exhilarated Israelis, spurring the conviction “Greater Israel” was their promised ancient homeland. Nearly 1 million Palestinians resided within the conquered territories, and they have proved a millstone. Light seemed to dawn with the 1993–95 Oslo Accords, when the Palestine Liberation Organization acknowledged Israel’s right to exist, and Israel agreed to limited self-government in the occupied territories. After a few years of modest progress, however, increasing violence rendered Oslo a dead letter. Palestinians fail to realize how much terrorist attacks inflame Israeli national sentiment. Jews fail to realize how two generations of dispossession and harassment have poisoned the Palestinians’ outlook. Israel’s military continues to respond to attacks and protests. Arguably, that policy hasn’t worked as a deterrent, but it will continue, as most Israelis approve of it. No peace talks have occurred since 2014. Black’s obligatory how-to-fix-it epilogue provides little hope—a fitting conclusion to his expertly written history. —Mike Oppenheim
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Book Review – Forever Forward: K-9 Operations in Vietnam, by Michael Lemish
Book Review – Forever Forward: K-9 Operations in Vietnam, by Michael Lemish Their tours of duty would last about as long as they could still stand, and then they very rarely got to go home. Some 4,000 military working dogs served faithfully alongside their American masters, frequently engaging the enemy and ultimately credited with averting an estimated 10,000 American casualties. Military dog historian Michael Lemish’s latest book, Forever Forward: K-9 Operations in Vietnam, offers a comprehensive examination of dogs in that conflict. Lemish has served as the official historian of the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association and is a longtime advocate for the recognition of Vietnam’s working dogs. He has also authored War Dogs: Canines in Combat and War Dogs: A History of Loyalty and Heroism. While his latest work is focused on just Vietnam, Lemish gives readers a short course on the history of war dogs and, for those less familiar with the conflict, a tight overview of how the United States got into Vietnam. While Forever Forward has somewhat of a textbook feel and uses only black and white photography, Lemish’s writing is crisp, and the many stories intertwined with the encyclopedic details are filled with warmth and emotion. Even though the photos are not in color, they still paint a vivid picture of the affection and bonds that were forged between dogs and handlers in the combat zone. But playing on the deep history of the man and canine kinship is not the point for Lemish. Rather, it is the recognition of the important role these animals played on a daily basis, be it working as scouts, trackers, detectors or sentries, that the author so well conveys. Even for those familiar with dogs in general and military dogs in particular, Lemish brings little-known facets to light. Likewise, he takes readers into the lives, and sometimes minds, of the men whose partners had four legs. They were pretty much the same as all the others who wore a uniform and found themselves in Vietnam: “Some volunteered and had a background in working with dogs. Others already walking point found the opportunity to learn the dog handler trade with on-the-job-training.” And Lemish writes, “For the most part, dog handlers cut across racial lines, came from blue-collar families, and were comprised of men who never had a legitimate chance for a deferment.” What most handlers came to realize, in an organization dependent on hardware to do its job, their dogs were relegated by the military establishment simply as equipment. The reality was, this “equipment” was not an inanimate tool that came with an operator’s manual, but rather a living, thinking creature that felt pain “and often shared the same happiness as his master.” When human lives are torn asunder in war, can, or should, a dog be venerated as a “hero?” Even the hard-hearted will find it hard to deny that honorific in light of some of the documented cases Lemish describes, perhaps none as much as the story of a German Shepherd named Nemo and his four-legged comrades at Ton Son Nhut on December 4, 1966. While Nemo survived a bullet that took out an eye before exiting through his mouth, Rebel, Cubby and Toby, along with handler George Bevich, died fending off Viet Cong sappers, effectively giving the base defenders enough warning and time to beat them back. Nemo was the first sentry dog to be officially retired from active duty in Vietnam. While Gareth Crocker’s new novel, Finding Jack, gets rave reviews for its tale of a Vietnam War dog handler’s attempt to rescue his yellow Lab, which he has been ordered to leave behind, Lemish’s exhaustive work shines a spotlight on the true stories of dogs in the Vietnam War. But the novel’s portrayal of mutual affection and dedication is not fiction. As Lemish writes: “Many dogs carried the same name, even looked the same, but each was an individual in their own right. Whether it was a particular bark or wag of their tail, their eyes would always carry the same message to their masters—one of honesty and supreme trust.” Shiffer Military History, 2010
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Book Review: The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn
Book Review: The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution, by Robert P. Watson, Da Capo Press, Boston, Mass., 2017, $28 One of the less savory aspects of the American Revolutionary War was Britain’s shameful treatment of American prisoners of war. Far more POWs died in British captivity in New York than were killed in battle during the war. Beaten, starved and ill-clothed prisoners were packed into overcrowded churches, sugar houses and superannuated warships. Their experiences equaled or exceeded the worst abuses endured by their counterparts in Andersonville, the Black Hole of Calcutta, the Japanese POW camps or the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. And yet their story has been forgotten to the point of becoming barely a footnote in history. Of all the Revolutionary War POW compounds the worst were the prison hulks anchored in Wallabout Bay on the East River, site of the present-day Brooklyn Navy Yard. Stripping the armament, equipment and rigging from old warships to transform the hulls into floating prisons was nothing new in the 1770s. Indeed, the British used such floating prisons in their own country well into the 19th century, as attested by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations. Of those East River prison hulks the worst and most notorious was the former 60-gun warship HMS Jersey. Although the British didn’t keep exact records, an estimated 11,500 prisoners reportedly perished on that one ship. Drawing from extensive research into 18th century records, as well as harrowing personal accounts of those who survived the ordeal, Robert Watson has produced a colorfully written, fast-paced book comparable to Pierre Boulle’s The Bridge Over the River Kwai as a chronicle of endurance under the most severe conditions imposed on men by their wartime captors. —Robert Guttman
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Book Review: Gibraltar
Book Review: Gibraltar Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History, by Roy and Lesley Adkins, Viking, New York, 2018, $30 It may surprise students of American history to learn that one of the most strategically important campaigns of the Revolutionary War was conducted on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean—in fact, in the Mediterranean Sea. British authors and archaeologists Roy and Lesley Adkins relate the story of that extraordinary campaign in their book. Linked to Spain from the 15th century, Gibraltar first came under British control during the 1701–13 War of the Spanish Succession, when fear of French King Louis XIV induced much of Europe to forcibly oppose transfer of the Spanish throne to a member of the French royal House of Bourbon. In 1704 an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain nine years later in exchange for its withdrawal from the conflict. Desire to regain control of the port factored into Spain’s military and diplomatic strategies for the remainder of that century. After more than seven decades of failed efforts the Spanish government thought it finally saw its chance when rebellion broke out in Britain’s North American colonies. Hoping to humble their long-standing rival, the Bourbon monarchies of Spain and France allied with the rebels. The opportunistic motivations behind their support for American independence became manifest when the Bourbon allies placed Gibraltar under siege in 1779. But their plans to exploit a distracted Britain backfired. Yes, the siege crippled the Crown’s war efforts in North America, but the men, supplies, money and ships Britain was forced to divert to the Mediterranean only assured its victory in the three-and-a-half-year siege. When the dust settled in 1783, the American colonies were independent, Gibraltar remained part of the British empire, the French government was bankrupt and Spain’s decline as a world power continued unabated. The authors provide superb context regarding the siege, drawing on firsthand accounts and touching on military innovations developed during the protracted campaign. Just as fascinating is their analysis of its political aftermath, during which many Britons almost certainly wondered whether their government had allowed 13 colonies to become independent merely to retain a single port. —James Baresel
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Book Review: Glory in Their Spirit By Sandra M. Bolzenius
Book Review: Glory in Their Spirit By Sandra M. Bolzenius ON THE MORNING OF MARCH 9, 1945, 54 black enlistees in the Women’s Army Corps stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, reported to their barracks instead of their duty stations at Lovell Hospital South, where they worked as orderlies. For months, the women’s complaints to superiors about racism and unfair treatment had gone unheard. Unlike white WACs, black WACs had been relegated to permanent cleaning duties. This discrimination led to resentment among the women, who decided to take action. The day before, Private Anna Morrison had warned her fellow black WACs that “if we don’t try to get something better now, we never will get it.” They went on strike the next day and soon had the attention of their commanding officers, who promised to address their concerns. But as the strike entered its second day, nothing was done. Instead, the women were ordered to return to duty or else face a court-martial. Driven by fear, many returned to their stations. But the strike’s main leaders, Privates Morrison, Mary Green, Johnnie Murphy, and Alice Young, refused. Responded Murphy when told to obey: “I would take death before I would go back to work.” Ten days later, the four were taken to trial. In Glory in Their Spirit, historian and army specialist Sandra M. Bolzenius reveals the tensions surrounding the military regarding race and sex during World War II. She writes that while the war required the service of women and blacks, much of the public saw them as unfit for military service, and that the army “did not have an adequate template, military or civilian, to guide it in its dealings with African American women.” The black WACs at Fort Devens, therefore, saw the strike as “their best option in a system that failed to adequately recognize them as members of the armed forces.” On March 20, after just two days of testimony, the four women were found guilty and sentenced to one year of imprisonment and hard labor. But thanks to the efforts of civil rights leaders, the black press, and allies in Congress, the army overturned their convictions. The women returned to duty in an army that remained segregated until 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order integrating all U.S. forces. An enlightening read, Glory in Their Spirit examines a little-known history of the war. While not much changed in the immediate aftermath of the trial, the Fort Devens strike serves as a reminder of the important role of World War II in the nation’s struggle toward social justice. —Charissa Threat is an associate professor of history at Chapman University.
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Book Review: Grunt
Book Review: Grunt Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2016, $26.95 Author Roach always seems to light on unexpectedly fascinating topics. Among her previous offerings are fascinating and highly readable books on corpses and their uses, digestion, life in outer space and the scientific aspects of afterlife. While not pure history, Grunt has its historical moments and offers the reader a rich and diverse menu of facts, stuff you never imagined you’d care about but soon find absorbing. Take the military work uniforms commonly referred to as fatigues. In the past they were often too hot in summer and too cold in winter. No more. At a complex of U.S. Army laboratories outside Natick, Mass., researchers design and test cutting-edge military technology, including fabrics for all kinds of applications. Among the products they’ve developed is a textile that balloons away from the body when it burns, giving its wearer valuable seconds to stop, drop and roll. Refinement continues, since the fabric tears easily and doesn’t handle moisture well. Of course everything has a downside, which is the challenge in engineering. Roach spoke with experts in the field and watched tests in progress to get inside the subject and reveal the science behind it. For example, a proficient military force doesn’t just give its soldiers weapons and teach them tactics; it also equips them with, for example, the best boots for particular climes and tasks, the best food (researchers have developed a sandwich with a three-year shelf life), the best sniper clothing (no zippers, which reflect light) and on and on. Roach even talked her way aboard submarines to ask questions and take notes. Not given to shyness, she describes current medical techniques used to repair groin injuries and observed one of the first-ever penis transplant operations. One chapter bears the subtitle “Diarrhea as a threat to national security.” Another centers on shark repellent. The author covers just about every contingency one might face in combat and how to address each in turn. Roach does so in her characteristic bright, quick, witty style, loaded with facts and rich with actual people. This is a wonderful book. —Anthony Brandt
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Book Review: Guibert
Book Review: Guibert Guibert: Father of Napoléon’s Grande Armée, by Jonathan Abel, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2016, $34.95 Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743–90), a premier military theorist of France’s pre-revolutionary ancien régime, is the subject of this first biography in English. Written by a scholar of French Revolutionary and Napoléonic military history, the book (Vol. 57 of UOP’s Campaigns and Commanders series) also provides a useful historiographical overview of relevant French-language scholarship. Guibert, a junior officer present at several defeats in Germany during the Seven Years’ War, was passionately committed to French military reform. His widely read and well-received Essai générale de tactique (1772) advocated the first systematic doctrine for the French army, which included the removal of then widespread aspects of noble privilege, installation of a central command, financial reform and a flexible, mixed system (l’ordre mixte) of marching and fighting—a then controversial fusion of the existing French l’ordre profound, emphasizing shock, and Prussian-inspired l’ordre mince, based on overwhelming firepower. Abel presents Guibert as a rare military theorist, who was also a social and literary figure. He made the circuit of elite Parisian salons, was appointed to the prestigious French Academy and also served two contentious stints in government (1775–77, 1787–89), his reforms ultimately being enacted as the 1791 Reglement (Regulations). These remained in force until the 1830s and laid the foundations of the French Revolutionary and Napoléonic armies that dominated Europe until their final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Abel thoughtfully concludes the Reglement resulted from a long evolution, not a sudden revolution, as military innovations in France reflected those in society. The book provides an enumerated list of illustrations, including maps and figures, though it suffers from a lack of photos or portraits. Despite a few obvious errors—for instance, war was declared in 1756 and not 1757, and the celebrated campaigns of Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, took place in the 17th rather than the 16th century—Guibert’s volume is highly recommended for Napoléonic scholars and enthusiasts, as well as general readers. —William John Shepherd
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Book Review: Hannibal’s Oath
Book Review: Hannibal’s Oath Hannibal’s Oath: The Life and Wars of Rome’s Greatest Enemy, by John Prevas, Da Capo Press, Boston, Mass., 2017, $28 In the preface of Hannibal’s Oath author John Prevas explains that his intent in writing this volume was to produce a readable and engaging biography of Hannibal for the lay person. “Mine is not a book for scholars, it is a book for general readers interested in history and adventure,” he writes. “It is something to be read and enjoyed, not studied.” Fair enough, for he has produced a well-written, adventurous account of Hannibal’s life that will certainly entertain general readers. The book offers a list of dramatis personae to help such readers follow the plot, the chapters are short and the bibliography is adequate, though neither comprehensive nor up to date. The author lectures on the classics and as such relies heavily on the “original sources” of Livy and Polybius to construct his narrative. Alas, too much so. Almost none of the bibliographic entries that could have helped the author render a more accurate account of events appear in the footnotes. Thus he repeats errors and gaps found in those original texts. That said, the audience Prevas seeks to reach will likely be forgiving. As Aristotle reportedly once cautioned, “Do not ask of a thing what it cannot give.” The stated purpose of Hannibal’s Oath is to interest general readers in the life story of one of military history’s most important commanders, as well as to entertain them. Prevas keeps his promise. —Richard A. Gabriel
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Book Review: He Rode With Butch and Sundance, by Mark T. Smokov
Book Review: He Rode With Butch and Sundance, by Mark T. Smokov He Rode With Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan, by Mark T. Smokov, University of North Texas Press, Denton, 2012, $29.95 Opening his biography of the outlaw known as Kid Curry, Mark Smokov writes, “Harvey Logan…has generally been portrayed as a cold-blooded killer, without any compassion or conscience, possessed of limited intelligence.” The author then proceeds to shatter that myth with mesmerizing detail in this definitive biography of a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, aka the Wild Bunch. Born in Iowa in 1867, Curry came of age in Kansas City, Mo., and ultimately moved with an older brother to cowboy in Montana Territory. There Curry killed a neighboring rancher and fled, turning to rustling and, eventually, robbing banks and trains. Smokov argues that Curry wasn’t just a member of the Wild Bunch’s “Train Robbers’ Syndicate” but its head, adding that no solid evidence even links Butch Cassidy to any train robbery. Finally, he argues persuasively that Curry indeed was killed after a train robbery outside Parachute, Colo., in 1904. He Rode With Butch and Sundance is one of the most revealing offerings to Hole-in-the-Wall Gang history published in years. Johnny D. Boggs
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Book Review: Hitler’s Great Gamble
Book Review: Hitler’s Great Gamble Hitler’s Great Gamble: A New Look at German Strategy, Operation Barbarossa and the Axis Defeat in World War II, by James Ellman, Stackpole Books, Guilford, Conn., 2019, $34.95 What if Napoléon had B-17 Flying Fortresses at his disposal? What if Columbus had submarines? Counterfactual history has a deservedly gnarly reputation in scholarly quarters for its simple absurdity. That said, approached cautiously and analytically, such consideration of what Winston Churchill referred to as the “terrible ifs” of history can, in fact, be both illuminating and valuable. Twenty years ago a New York publisher released What If? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. Among other essays, Victor Davis Hanson proposed a Persian victory at Salamis, and Stephen Ambrose envisaged D-Day’s ultimate failure. Eminent military historians considering “what if” questions that provide insight into what did happen provide a brilliant illustration of meaningful counterfactual history. Hitler’s Great Gamble falls into this category. Investment banker-cum-historian James Ellman contemplates the outcome of Operation Barbarossa had Adolf Hitler been a better diplomat. Specifically, the author argues that if Japan, already occupying the Korean peninsula, had turned north toward the Soviet Union, and Finland had participated in the assault on Leningrad, Barbarossa had the potential to actually succeed. Implicit is that the war was lost before it started, as a consequence of diplomatic failure. In this vein Ellman definitely overplays his hand, dismissing everyone from William L. Shirer to Sir Ian Kershaw as dunderheads for suggesting otherwise. It is problematic to suggest that Hitler, possessed of a growing sense of invincibility, had the potential to be an honest broker and candid partner. Or that imperial Japan was interested in German war aims or grand strategy. Still, Ellman’s unique if eccentric thesis does offer insight into why Barbarossa was Hitler’s best option. Had the Führer been a better diplomat, he would never have found himself in the tenuous position where such a “great gamble” was his best option. —Bob Gordon This article was published in the March 2020 issue of Military History.
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Book Review: Hitler’s Soldiers-The German Army in the Third Reich
Book Review: Hitler’s Soldiers-The German Army in the Third Reich Hitler’s Soldiers The German Army in the Third Reich By Ben H. Shepherd. 639 pp. Yale University Press, 2016. $35. The German army had its ups and downs during World War II, winning a series of dramatic early victories and then suffering a parade of catastrophic defeats until the final collapse of 1945. Its historical reputation has followed the same pattern. Most military writers loved it in the immediate postwar years. They admired its innovative adoption of mechanized warfare, its intricate interplay between tank formations and air power, and its daring operational maneuvers. Starting in the 1990s, however, that reputation began to tarnish. As new records became available, especially from the now-defunct Soviet Union, the focus shifted away from the German army’s operational excellence and toward the criminal nature of the war it waged. The army used to get a pass on Hitler’s horrors, while the more fanatical Waffen-SS got the blame. But no serious person can still believe that the German army had “clean hands” in World War II. The evidence against it is simply overwhelming. These two schools—operational excellence and criminality—often talk past one another, however, and that is the very reason why Hitler’s Soldiers is such a rich and satisfying book. Ben H. Shepherd is an exponent of both trends. He spends much of the book describing the army’s “astounding record of military success.” Before we ask why the German army lost, he notes, we “need to ask how it won, so repeatedly and spectacularly, in the early years of the war,” and then remained in the field later, under blows that would have crumpled many other armies. However, Shepherd also narrates the nastier aspects of the German war. His previous books have dealt with anti-partisan warfare and he is an expert on all facets: the army’s brutal occupation policies, its smash-and-grab economic practices, and the plastic nature of the term “anti-partisan,” which gave the men in the field carte blanche to kill anyone they wished, as long as the dead showed up in the official reports as “bandits” or “terrorists.” When we think of the Holocaust, our minds usually turn to Auschwitz, but millions of Jews perished in the German army’s aggressive anti-partisan campaigns, even though the victims never grabbed a gun or lifted a finger against their German occupiers. The key to understanding both viewpoints of the German army at war, Shepherd argues, is Nazi ideology and propaganda. From the high commanders down to the typical “ground-pounder,” German soldiers really did believe in the Führer’s “world-historical mission” to redeem Germany. They believed in Nazi racial theories, crackpot notions that saw some races as born to rule and others as innately inferior or lazy or evil. They really did believe that Germany stood under attack by an “international Jewish conspiracy” and that the stakes were nothing less than victory or death. The men might not have all been “ideological fanatics,” but they were “permeated” with Nazi ideology, Shepherd argues, and these attitudes help to explain why the army stayed in the field so tenaciously, and why it killed civilians so viciously. Shepherd notes the paradox, however. The more fanatically the German army fought—whether holding on senselessly in a war long lost or carrying out ever more mind-numbing atrocities—the more determined its enemies became to destroy it utterly, along with Germany itself. “Thus did the German army’s moral failure and military failure reinforce one another,” he writes in conclusion. Of all the guides that modern armies use in war, the maps and charts and aerial reconnaissance photos, the moral compass remains the most indispensable.  —Robert M. Citino is the Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum’s Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. This review was originally published in the January/February 2017 issue of World War II magazine. Subscribe here.
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Book Review: Hoover’s Secret War Against Axis Spies
Book Review: Hoover’s Secret War Against Axis Spies HOOVER’S SECRET WAR AGAINST AXIS SPIES FBI Counterespionage during World War II By Raymond J. Batvinis. 312 pp. Kansas, 2014. $34.95. DOUBLE AGENT The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring By Peter Duffy. 338 pp. Scribner, 2014. $28. Hoover’s Secret War Against Axis Spies is a monumental book, breaking new ground in the field of secret intelligence. In it, Raymond J. Batvinis, a 25-year FBI veteran with a PhD in American history, chronicles the Bureau’s struggle to become America’s leading intelligence service from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and beyond. Batvinis runs the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, but is no cheerleader for the FBI. He is a sharp-eyed chronicler who doesn’t shy away from honestly depicting the organization he works to promote. Hoover’s principal enemies in this period were ostensibly his allies. The British foreign intelligence service, MI6, dispatched William Stephenson to New York in 1940 with orders to draw America into the war in Europe. He was a boon companion to William Donovan, chief advocate for an American spy program. British intelligence entranced Donovan; the Americans had never run a foreign intelligence service worthy of the name, and needed guidance. Under British tutelage, Donovan founded the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. When in July 1941 Donovan won FDR’s blessing to become national intelligence coordinator, Stephenson cabled MI6: “…how relieved I am…that our man is in a position of such importance.” Hoover was furious: he wanted to run a worldwide intelligence service himself. Hoover distrusted Stephenson and despised Donovan, not without reason. MI6 officers in Washington occasionally behaved reprehensibly. One, seemingly only for mischief, sent word to the Abwehr, Hitler’s military intelligence service, that the House foreign affairs committee chairman had been recruited as a German agent of influence. British intelligence officer Guy Liddell, later deputy director of MI5, created détente between Washington and London by instituting cooperation. Hoover sent a liaison officer to London and gained access to Ultra, the British program that decrypted German military communications. The British also schooled the FBI in their Double-Cross System, an exemplar of the use of double agents in strategic deception. This education led to the FBI snookering the Germans through five Abwehr defectors, a sideshow unknown until Batvinis discovered it. In 1941, one of the Germans showed the FBI his instructions to obtain intelligence on the “shattering of atoms” and the military uses of uranium. Two others confirmed that the Germans were trying to build an atom bomb. This persuaded American scientists—and the President—to proceed with the Manhattan Project: a rare instance of intelligence rerouting history. The FBI used a classic double-cross to determine what the German high command was thinking. When the Abwehr sent urgent requests for intelligence on American aircraft production, deliveries of warplanes to Britain, chemical-warfare manuals, and vessels’ movements—information which would have gone to agents working undercover at American factories and aboard ship—the queries instead went directly to the FBI, where agents replying in Morse code mimicked their German cohort’s individually distinct keying techniques. The key to that operation was William Sebold, who defected from the Abwehr to the FBI in New York in 1940. Sebold is the hero of Double Agent, by the talented Peter Duffy. Though Sebold’s story is in part a twice-told tale, Double Agent is excellent entertainment. Sebold convinced the FBI of his bona fides when he took off his wristwatch, opened the back, and withdrew five tiny images, including one demanding information about the Norden bombsight, then one of the war’s most closely guarded secrets. At the time microphotography was unknown in the United States. Aided immeasurably by the Abwehr’s lack of skill, the FBI used Sebold and the short wave communiqués to roll up a ring of 33 German spies. The Bureau was able to dupe the Abwehr until D-Day, a triumph of deception, and testimony to Abwehr incompetence. Successes in counterintelligence were rarely so smashing in 20th-century espionage. Counterintelligence opened Hoover’s eyes to a new world. Thanks to Ray Batvinis, we now know what Hoover saw. I strongly suspect Batvinis will write a third book, covering the early years of the Cold War. When complete, that body of work should stand alongside Rick Atkinson’s Liberation trilogy as an essential source for anyone interested in America’s soldiers and spies. —Tim Weiner, a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize recipient, has written exten sively about American intelligence. He is the author of Enemies: A History of the FBI. Originally published in the December 2014 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
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Book Review: Ian Fleming’s Inspiration
Book Review: Ian Fleming’s Inspiration Ian Fleming’s Inspiration: The Truth Behind the Books, by Edward Abel Smith, Pen & Sword, Yorkshire and Philadelphia, 2020, $34.95 In his first book, Active Goodness (2017), author Edward Smith studied efforts to save Czechoslovakian Holocaust refugees. The author’s second book is an attempt to place the popular James Bond spy films, and the books that inspired them, in the context of creator Ian Fleming’s life, with a special emphasis on his World War II career in British naval intelligence. When Fleming was 5 years old, his father was killed in World War I. Growing up with a domineering mother led the moody youngster to live life in the fast lane with fine dining, excessive drinking, fancy cars and loose women. After working as a journalist in Soviet Russia for Reuters and as a stockbroker in London, Fleming found his true calling as a spymaster in World War II. He formed and led No. 30 Commando/ 30 Assault Unit, a select team of spies and saboteurs who participated in many operations through war’s end in Germany in 1945, including the invasion of North Africa in 1942 and D-Day in 1944. Smith argues that Bond, Fleming’s postwar literary superspy, reflected aspects of the author’s personality, combined with traits of his soldiers, who experienced the action he craved. Other stock Bond characters, such as his cranky boss M, was an amalgam of intelligence chiefs Colin Gubbins and John Godfrey. Smith reveals Fleming’s life experiences in each Bond story. For example, the Russian defector with the secret code machine in From Russia With Love is based on wartime efforts to break the German Enigma code, while something as silly as an angry mistress throwing an octopus into Fleming’s bedroom at his Jamaica estate, Goldeneye, influenced Octopussy. Generally well written, Fleming’s Inspiration was poorly edited and is riddled with errors ranging from the mundane to the profound. There remain typos, but these are overshadowed by far more egregious errors, including a note that Fleming’s mistress Muriel Wright was killed in the first V-1 rocket attack on London in June 1944, when in fact she died during a conventional air raid that March; a reference to Clarissa (née Spencer-Churchill) Eden as Winston’s daughter when she was his niece; and the rather amazing allegation that Fleming and Churchill each had an affair with Cara Delevingne, who wasn’t born until 1992! Smith almost certainly meant Cara’s aunt, Doris (née Delevingne) Castlerosse, who was romantically linked with Churchill’s son Randolph. —William John Shepherd This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy : ACW
Book Review: James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy : ACW James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy, edited by R.L. DiNardo and Albert A. Nofi, Combined Publishing, Conshohocken, Pa., 1998, $27.95. When former Confederate general James Longstreet died in 1904, there was no great outpouring of grief throughout the South he had served during four years of bloody warfare. His former comrades, men who had served under and beside him, did not write flowery expressions of loss and admiration for the general; windows were not draped in black, nor did a movement arise to immortalize the man whom Robert E. Lee called his “old war horse” with some statue in a place of honor. The death of the man who had been Lee’s second-in-command and fought in practically every major battle from Manassas to Appomattox went largely unnoticed by the same people for whom he had fought during the Civil War. Why did the passing of a man who had played so prominent a role in the war meet with such apparent apathy? This and other questions about Longstreet are considered in James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy. Springing from a series of lectures delivered during a conference on Longstreet sponsored by the New York Military Affairs Symposium, this collection of six essays deals with such far-ranging topics as how political and social connections influenced Longstreet’s pre­Civil War career to a look at the anti-Longstreet faction that evolved after the death of Robert E. Lee in 1870. As Longstreet’s military record is reviewed and compared to those of a number of his contemporaries, a very different picture of the general emerges than the one that led to his less-than-favorable place in Southern history. To be sure, Longstreet provided ample ammunition for his critics. He was a man of strong convictions and was not always overly diplomatic in his comments about former comrades, including the revered Lee. Still, it is incredible to think that for 94 years after his death not a single statue or memorial was raised to the memory of a man who once had been a household name and who was, for four years at least, a respected figure throughout the South. Nofi writes in the introduction that this collection is by no means the final word on the subject. This is a fair statement, as a couple of the essays are a bit general in content, leaving the reader wanting more specifics. Still, this does not diminish the worth of the compilation, but rather points to the fact that there is room for future research. There is no question that the essays are pro-Longstreet. This is not to suggest that facts are bent to present the general in a more favorable light. It should be noted, however, that devotees of the Jubal Early/Robert Krick school of thought regarding Longstreet will find little to warm their hearts. But rather than apologize for the slant of the material, the essayists simply take the approach that after more than 90 years of slander and, in some cases, outright lies, Longstreet deserves the chance to be judged on the basis of his historical record alone. To borrow the motto of the General James Longstreet Memorial Fund, “It’s about time” the general was afforded this courtesy. The authors of the essays have generously donated all their royalties and proceeds from the book to be shared by the Longstreet Memorial Fund and the New York Military Affairs Symposium. This contributes to making James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy a worthwhile investment. B. Keith Toney
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Book Review: January Moon
Book Review: January Moon January Moon: The Northern Cheyenne Breakout From Fort Robinson, 1878–1879, by Jerome A. Greene, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2020, $29.95 Jerome A. Greene, retired research historian for the National Park Service and author of numerous books involving American Indians and the U.S. military, reexamines the desperate, ultimately tragic attempt by Chief Dull Knife’s Northern Cheyenne to escape their imprisonment at Fort Robinson, Neb. By the end of the 1876–77 Great Sioux War the Army had driven the Northern Cheyennes south to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). In that hostile environment they began to sicken and die from such epidemic diseases as malaria or from starvation. In 1878 Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf resolved to lead 300 of their tribe out of their government-designated reservation and return to their northern homelands. Greene describes in detail that valiant effort and the battles they fought with the soldiers that tried to force them back, notably a string of successes that highlighted Little Wolf’s natural ability as a commander. As they neared their goal, the chiefs split forces. Dull Knife’s band soon surrendered to the Army and followed the road to Fort Robinson to await the government’s judgment. Its decision, rendered in early days of 1879, was an order to trek back to their reservation in Indian Territory. Lacking proper winter clothing, Dull Knife and his people saw no option other than to attempt a breakout. On the night of January 9, after a desperate struggle against the garrison, the Indians managed to get as far as Antelope Creek, where the bluecoats annihilated anywhere from 32 to 64 of them. Eleven escaped to join Little Wolf’s band; 78 others were recaptured. Eleven Army troopers and one Indian scout were also killed. Four years after the uneven battle Assistant Surgeon Carlos Cavallo sold Cheyenne skulls and other remains he’d found at Antelope Creek to the Smithsonian Institution. The events leading up to the bloodbath at Fort Robinson inspired legendary director John Ford’s Western Cheyenne Autumn. Involving as it did 150 Cheyenne men, women and children armed with 12 rifles, three revolvers and miscellaneous knives, one cannot help but question the magnitude of the threat they posed to the fully equipped U.S. cavalry and infantry who mowed them down. One might also ask about the hatred underlying that sense of menace. The author, however, suggests it was not the behavior of lower-ranking Army officers that brought on disaster but the strict orders they received from their superiors in Washington, D.C. What those authorities wanted above of all else was permanent confinement of the independent bands of hunters and warriors on American soil. January Moon makes an excellent addition to military history, albeit one tainted with deep sorrow. —Thomas Zacharis This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Killing Season
Book Review: The Killing Season The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965–66, by Geoffrey B. Robinson, Princeton University Press, N.J., 2018, $35 Although one of the most horrifying episodes of the 20th century, the 1965–66 genocide of upward of a half-million Indonesians by that island nation’s army and associated death squads remains largely overlooked in comparison to similar atrocities—perhaps due to the victims’ communist ties. Geoffrey Robinson draws on recently declassified documents, firsthand interviews and a trove of primary resources to relate the catalysts, events and players behind the killings. The author fingers the Indonesian army for organizing the genocide. “It was the army,” he writes, “whose territorial and paracommando units took the lead in conducting cleansing campaigns in which members of the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party] and its affiliates were detained, beaten and killed.” Robinson also divvies out varying degrees of blame on others, including local militia units and such foreign intelligence services as the CIA, which minimally supplied funds and communications equipment that facilitated the killings. That said, he does place the genocide in historical context, acknowledging the impact the Cold War and the specter of ever-encroaching communism played in formulating U.S. leaders’ decisions. The result is an important book one hopes will spark broader discussion of the killings and perhaps break down barriers to reconciliation among survivors of the genocide and their countrymen. —Christopher Booth
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Book Review: My Lai
Book Review: My Lai My Lai: Vietnam, 1968 and the Descent Into Darkness, by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017, $34.95 The massacre of several hundred Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers at My Lai on March 16, 1968, was a war crime. When the story broke, many Americans refused to believe it. But the truth eventually emerged during the courts-martial of platoon leader 2nd Lt. William Calley, company commander Captain Ernest Medina and brigade commander Colonel Oran Henderson. Medina was ultimately acquitted of war crimes, and Henderson was acquitted on charges of having covered up and failed to properly investigate the allegations. Only Calley was convicted of murder, although a federal judge quickly commuted his sentence. Thus, while almost no one today denies the massacre happened, many continue to believe Calley was made a scapegoat for the entire incident. Jones’ volume is a meticulous and detailed review of what happened in My Lai, the subsequent investigations and the courts-martial. His analysis is brutally frank yet fair, objective and balanced. He relates the combat stress soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, were under in the weeks before the attack on the village, yet he affirms the massacre was still cold-blooded murder. Jones also details the moral heroism displayed by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. and his two helicopter door gunners, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, as they tried to stop the carnage. Knowledgeable readers’ only complaint will be that Jones makes several factual errors, albeit on peripheral points that in no way detract from the main story. For example, he says that during the Tet Offensive U.S. Marines finally regained control of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, when, in fact, MPs from the 716th Military Police Battalion deserve much of the credit. In another passage he repeats the oft-quoted canard that Audie Murphy “received more awards than any other American soldier in World War II.” The author correctly concludes that the cause of the My Lai massacre was a failure in leadership from the division level down to platoon level, but especially between company commander Medina and platoon leader Calley. Some of the most distinguished soldiers of the Vietnam War concurred with that conclusion. Among them, Colonel David Hackworth, who bluntly said, “Calley should have been lined up against the wall and shot—the guy’s a murderer.” Every graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, ROTC and OCS should be required to read this book before pinning on the gold bars. —David T. Zabecki
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Book Review: The Locomotive of War
Book Review: The Locomotive of War The Locomotive of War: Money, Empire, Power and Guilt, by Peter Clarke, Bloomsbury Press, London, 2017, $30 War, Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky once observed, is the locomotive of history. British scholar Peter Clarke explores that premise, as well as the moralistic idiosyncrasies of Anglo-American warmaking in the early 20th century, in this provocative new book. A former professor of modern history at Cambridge University, the author paints a vivid portrait of the principal statesmen and prominent thinkers—David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, John Maynard Keynes, Woodrow Wilson, et al.—responsible for Allied decision-making during World War I. Occasionally unsparing, these intimate personal sketches place some of the more curious decisions of the war in context. Wilson’s initial response to the sinking of the civilian luxury liner Lusitania in May 1915, the reader learns, may have been influenced by his budding romance with a wealthy widow. Inspired by the moral traditions of enlightened interventionism, meanwhile, British liberals like Lloyd George declared war on Germany in August 1914 for invading Belgium and violating that nation’s neutrality. Similarly Wilson spoke of selflessly fighting to secure “peace and safety to all nations” when the United States finally entered the war in April 1917. Lloyd George and Wilson, moreover, sought to hold Germany legally and morally culpable for the war during the peace negotiations in Paris in 1919 and adamantly insisted on reparations for the aggrieved Allies. French politicians, on the other hand, cared little for “national rights of self-determination” and other Anglo-American pieties, demanding instead that Germany agree to retributive indemnities and the return of Alsace and Lorraine. Allied policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic, however, were soon made aware of the transformative economic consequences of the Great War. Britain, Clarke notes, began the conflict as the world’s premier creditor nation and the center of global finance; by 1918, however, the British war effort was sustained largely by loans procured from the United States. Nor did the strains of war collapse the economies of the advanced capitalist countries, as Trotsky had prophesied. In fact, from 1914 to 1918 the economy of the United States grew an astounding 24 percent, while the cash-strapped British also posted significant gains. Shifting seamlessly from the palatial Hall of Mirrors at Versailles to the bloodstained beaches of Gallipoli, The Locomotive of War is a richly engaging tale of morals, money and war. —Warren Wilkins
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Book Review: Master of Deception
Book Review: Master of Deception Master of Deception: The Wartime Adventures of Peter Fleming, by Alan Ogden, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2019, $27 As a schoolboy I happened across a 1933 copy of Peter Fleming’s Brazilian Adventure. I discovered Peter was a sibling of Ian Fleming, who like his younger brother played a major role in British naval intelligence operations during World War II. In addition to his trek across Brazil, Fleming made two epic journeys to the Far East and recalled them in what became best-selling books. At the outbreak of the war he was appointed to the short-lived Military Intelligence Department One (Research) and was later a founding member of the Special Operations Executive. Among his early tasks was to prepare a guerrilla force to harass the Germans should they land in Britain. Weapons he considered included bows and arrows tipped with poison, the effects of which Fleming had seen on his Amazonian travels. In January 1941 Fleming was sent to the Middle East to sift captured Italian troops for anti-fascists with whom he might form a free Italian force. He then did demolition work in Greece while evading the Germans. With the British reeling from Japanese advances in Southeast Asia, Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell called for Fleming to join him in India and conduct military intelligence, a posting in which he could dream up schemes to deceive the Japanese. In one such scheme a car reportedly carrying the general “plunged into a ditch” close to the Burmese front lines. On inspection of the wreck the Japanese discovered Wavell’s briefcase, replete with notes about vast phantom British forces stationed in India. Other deceptions followed, but Fleming longed to be on the front lines and often slipped away to see things for himself. In a letter home he told one of his sons he was having a lovely time living in the woods and battling the Japanese. At war’s end Fleming received a paltry Order of the British Empire, hardly an appropriate reward for the services chronicled here. —David Saunders
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Book Review: Normandy ’44
Book Review: Normandy ’44 Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France, by James Holland, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2019, $35 This account of the Normandy campaign by seasoned military historian James Holland provides an insightful and anecdote-filled chronicle of a popular chapter of World War II history. In describing the elaborate preparations leading up to the Allied invasion of Normandy, Holland reminds readers the D-Day operation was vastly more complex than all previous amphibious operations. However, he refuses to approach June 6 as a cliff-hanger, pointing out the Allies had a tolerably easy time at three of the five beaches. The Canadians at Juno Beach ran into difficulties. While historians emphasize the bloody stalemate on Omaha Beach, it took the Americans less than a day to overcome the beachhead’s defenses. Despite being outnumbered and hampered by Adolf Hitler’s interference in command structures, the Wehrmacht put up a strong resistance and made use of Normandy’s dense hedgerows for seven weeks of stubborn defense before collapsing to the massive influx of Allied men and material. Holland isn’t shy about expressing his opinions, evaluating Allied generals more favorably and German generals less so. He argues the Germans’ contemptuous dismissals of American and British troops as unimaginative and cumbersome in battle was not wrong but irrelevant, as firepower and superior resources proved key to success in the Normandy campaign and the broader war.
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Book Review: A Passing Fury
Book Review: A Passing Fury A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II, by A.T. Williams, Random House UK, London, 2017, $18.95 Among the serious issues facing the Allies in the wake of World War II was the question of how best to deal with atrocities committed by the Nazi regime—specifically how to pursue retribution without making martyrs of their defeated foes. A Passing Fury addresses that search for justice—by the Allies (from an almost exclusively British perspective) and decades later by British author-researcher A.T. Williams. As he relates, however, justice was difficult to achieve. Inexperienced and underqualified investigative teams posed an initial problem, and the obstacles only mounted, as the public will to pursue and pay for war-crime prosecutions waned with time, while the media often seemed more interested in the spectacle of the trials. When the Nazi atrocities first came to light, the public outcry for justice was universal, but the process soon bogged down in disputes among the Allies regarding just how to try war criminals. Eventually, argues Williams, the scale of the undertaking—the thousands of concentration camp guards and members of SS units to be prosecuted—overwhelmed legal authorities and sapped the will of all involved. The prosecutorial system slowed and then stopped altogether. Williams of course mentions Nuremberg—the highest-profile series of trials, which helped set the tone for those that followed. But he also delves into lesser-known proceedings, including those for defendants affiliated with the camps at Neuengamme, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. Throughout the retelling Williams weaves his own experiences while researching the book, describing, for example, his visit to a concentration camp amid an account of the trial of personnel from the same camp. The result is a cohesive narrative that blends past with present, providing an absorbing, if not particularly encouraging, look into the search for justice at war’s end. —David Harris
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Book Review: Pershing’s Lieutenants
Book Review: Pershing’s Lieutenants Pershing’s Lieutenants: American Military Leadership in World War I, edited by David T. Zabecki and Douglas V. Mastriano, Osprey Publishing, New York, 2020, $35 The Army with which the United States entered World War I was not the U.S. Army of today, nor even the Army with which the country went to war in 1941. In May 1917 the Army commanded by Gen. John J. Pershing had only 210,000 troops and ranked 17th in the world, behind that of Portugal. Yet by war’s end in November 1918 the Army had grown to more than 3.7 million men, some 2 million of whom Pershing had led to Allied victory in a war more than 3,000 miles from home—an unprecedented historic feat. Needless to say, the general could not have done it without some extraordinarily talented help. Pershing’s Lieutenants recounts the achievements and occasional failures of key officers who helped create and lead the AEF, many of whose stories have hitherto been overshadowed by that of their celebrated commander. Those officers included no fewer than five future chiefs of staff of the Army and two Marine Corps commandants. Pershing’s Lieutenants also profiles a number of his senior staff officers, as well as commanders of individual armies, corps and divisions, with a chapter devoted to each. The book includes a number of “regimental” and “specialist officers” of lesser rank who rose to prominence during the war or in later careers. Among them are Billy Mitchell (chief of the U.S. Army Air Service), George Patton (a significant leader in Pershing’s tank corps) and William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan (commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment, who later established the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence organization that became the Central Intelligence Agency). Other standouts include Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the president’s son, who became a noted general in World War II) and artillery Capt. Harry S. Truman (future 33rd president of the United States). Tapping the talents of many experts in the field, Pershing’s Lieutenants is a valuable resource for those interested in the U.S. contribution to victory in World War I. —Robert Guttman This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: Praetorian
Book Review: Praetorian Praetorian: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard, by Guy de la Bédoyère, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2017, $35 A history of the Roman Praetorian Guard from its beginning through its disbanding by Constantine, this volume centers on the unit’s formation, role, structure, conditions, deployment, leadership and, most important, the part it played within the larger context of Rome’s imperial history. Augustus formed the Praetorian Guard in 27 BC following his victory against Mark Antony at Actium. During the Roman civil wars personal bodyguards were common among rival commanders, who justly feared assassination by enemies—and even their own troops if things went badly. Augustus’ guard was relatively small—some dozen cohorts (4,800 men), about the size of a single legion. Only a few cohorts were stationed in Rome itself, the rest being dispersed throughout Italy. Under Tiberius the guard expanded to 15,000 men, almost all of whom were stationed at a separate base in Rome. Not unlike Adolf Hitler’s Sturmabteilung or Josef Stalin’s Soviet secret police, the guard ultimately posed a threat to the ruler himself and over the next three centuries often played a role in removing and installing new emperors The Praetorian Guard is without doubt an important subject for an ancient historian, but it is one fraught with difficulty. The greatest problem is that evidence for the guard’s activities makes only erratic appearances in the ancient sources, usually as passing commentaries to the sources’ larger narratives—the lives of the emperors themselves. For long periods, from 98 to 180 for example, the sources make no mention at all of the guard. During only a few periods is the information sufficient. Bédoyère’s command of the general narrative of Roman history, however, allows him to assemble what information there is on the stronger framework of events concerning the emperors themselves. The author admits the evidence is complex and incomplete, suggesting readers also examine the two other major works on the guard (The Praetorian Guard, by Boris Rankov, and Roman Guardsman, 62 BC–AD 324, by Ross Cowan). If not for the lay reader, this book is valuable for students of all things Roman, filling gaps in our knowledge of a pivotal institution in Roman history. —Richard A. Gabriel
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Book Review: Russia’s Iron General
Book Review: Russia’s Iron General Russia’s Iron General: The Life of Aleksei A. Brusilov 1853–1926, by Jamie H. Cockfield, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2019, $120 Jamie Cockfield’s biography Russia’s Iron General sheds new light on Alexei Alekseyevich Brusilov, whom the author ranks among the most brilliant Allied generals of World War I and one of only two truly great Russian military commanders of the modern era—the other being 18th century Marshal Alexander Suvorov. Like Suvorov, Brusilov believed that military success largely stemmed from thorough preparation and exhaustive training. In addition, despite being a product of the 19th century cavalry, Brusilov was an advocate for the adoption of new technologies and the implementation of combined operations. He was also rare among Russian officers in that he cared about the welfare of his soldiers. Brusilov spearheaded the 1916 Russian offensive that devastated the Austro-Hungarian army in the greatest Allied victory of that year. In grand strategic terms the author explains how that success had far-reaching effects on the entire course of the war. Austria-Hungary abandoned its offensive in Italy to make up for the severe losses inflicted by the Russians, from which its army never fully recovered. Hitherto-neutral Romania was encouraged to enter the war on the Allied side. Austro-Hungary was compelled to invite a Turkish corps to shore up its faltering lines, at the expense of the Ottoman empire’s own embattled forces. In addition, the Germans were compelled to redeploy large numbers of troops east to assist the weakened Austro-Hungarians, costing them any chance of winning the Battle of Verdun and fatally weakening their strength all along the Western Front. Ironically, Brusilov’s masterstroke came too late to alter the conflict’s course for Russia itself. Russia’s Iron General offers a provocative new assessment of one of the most underappreciated commanders of World War I, as well as a fascinating view of the Russian army during the late tsarist era. —Robert Guttman
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Book Review: Russia’s Last Gasp
Book Review: Russia’s Last Gasp Russia’s Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17, Prit Buttar, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, U.K., 2016, $30 Observers often complain that World War I histories concentrate on the Western Front to the exclusion of fighting elsewhere. Such big-name scholars as John Keegan, Norman Stone and Dominic Lieven have answered the call, but their efforts pale in comparison to those of British amateur historian Prit Buttar. Russia’s Last Gasp is the third of his exhaustively researched and lucidly written four-volume series on the Eastern Front, which spans nearly 2,000 pages. The two fronts differed not in the nature of combat (trench warfare was also standard in the East) but in infrastructure, described as primitive at best in the East. Buttar does not quarrel with the description of the Russian soldier in 1914 as poorly trained, pitifully undersupplied and badly led. By 1916, however, industry was making reasonable quantities of weapons; supply had improved from disastrous to barely adequate; and many senior generals had achieved basic competence. The German army was better, but the Russians were no longer pushovers. Buttar focuses much of his narrative on the fairly well known Brusilov Offensive, launched in June 1916 to relieve pressure on France and then defend Verdun. An imaginative strategist, Aleksey Brusilov rejected the traditional prolonged artillery barrage and general advance against defenders who knew what was coming. Concealing preparations, he began with a short, targeted barrage and sent his best units against the weak points of an Austro-Hungarian army far less formidable than that of Germany. The first weeks recorded impressive advances and a haul of prisoners. This surprised Russia’s high command no less than the enemy. Both sides knew what they had to do, but as usual the Germans worked faster, sending forces and hectoring Austria to transfer units back from Italy. Beset by repeated delays, the wider Russian offensive fell back on traditional tactics and was the usual bloody failure. Brusilov received some reinforcements but his targeted offensive petered out in the fall. Perhaps its sole accomplishment was to persuade Romania to enter the war on Russia’s side, but German forces quickly crushed the former. Buffs of the Eastern Front will devour Buttar’s nuts-and-bolts account of the fighting. While observing the academic tradition of listing every commander and unit name in an operation, the author breaks it up with vivid anecdotes and astute observations. —Mike Oppenheim
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Book Review: Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
Book Review: Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, by Louis Kraft, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2020, $34.95 Louis Kraft has written many articles for Wild West and other publications, as well as seven books, including the 2011 biography Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road From Sand Creek. One of his favorite figures on the Western frontier remains Wynkoop, the Army officer who among other things tried to bring about peace before the Nov. 29, 1864, tragedy in Colorado Territory known as the Sand Creek massacre. Wynkoop receives plenty more attention in Kraft’s most ambitious work to date, but the focus of this well-researched book is on the destruction of the way of life of the Cheyennes (Tsitsistas) and Arapahos (Hinono’eino), who took a major hit when Colonel John Chivington attacked and destroyed the village of Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle at Sand Creek. Though Chivington called the engagement a battle, he resigned from the Army three months later and was condemned for what one Army judge called “a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter.” Black Kettle, a chief who wanted peace, survived Sand Creek but was killed when Lt. Col. George Custer attacked his village on the Washita in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) on Nov. 27, 1868. In the aftermath Custer managed to avoid further bloodshed when he held back his soldiers and convinced Cheyenne Chief Stone Forehead to surrender after a dramatic standoff (detailed in Kraft’s October 1998 Wild West article “Confrontation on the Sweetwater”). “More likely his decision not to attack—his shining moment on the plains—mimicked Chivington’s,” Kraft notes, “in that he held the power to release two armies on a people, two armies that craved blood, but chose not to butcher children, women and men.” There was more fighting up north, but Chief Tall Bull was killed at Summit Springs in July 1869, and the next month the Southern Cheyennes and Southern Arapahos were settled on the reservation at El Reno in Indian Territory. “Only a few Southern Tsitsista and Hinono’eino leaders survived the deliberate destruction of their people’s freedom and were herded onto their reservation in Indian Territory that none of them wanted,” the author writes. “In a little more than two decades these once-proud people—the rulers of the central plains—had lost everything and had been reduced to paupers and prisoners in a foreign land.” Among the characters in Kraft’s well-crafted history are the prominent Indian leaders Black Kettle, Stone Forehead, Tall Bull, Bull Bear, Little Raven and Little Robe, as well as such mixed-bloods as the sons of William Bent and Edmund Guerrier. The author does not neglect the whites involved in this often-sad story. Colorado Territory Governor John Evans, who took a harsh stance against the Indians he thought were threatening Denver, comes across as misguided but not as bad as sometimes portrayed. Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers, a staunch defender of the anti-Indian vision of Chivington and Evans, might be considered a “villain” in Kraft’s narrative, which is far more than simply another retelling of the horrific tragedy at Sand Creek. —Editor This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Second World Wars
Book Review: The Second World Wars The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, by Victor Davis Hanson, Basic Books, New York, 2017, $35 Historians have analyzed and written about World War II in exhaustive detail since the last days of the war itself, all the while debating its root causes and exact starting date. In his latest work, noted military historian Victor Davis Hanson provides an utterly original account of what he terms the “first true global conflict.” Some 60 million people perished during World War II. What began in 1939 as a classical European war had expanded by 1941 into a global conflict, which in turn morphed into total war. Hanson examines the land, sea and air battles across the theaters of war, but the book really shines in his chapters on ideas and people. Hanson argues that the Treaty of Versailles—whose reportedly harsh terms historians have long blamed for the rise of Adolf Hitler and subsequent outbreak of World War II—was not harsh enough. Indeed, it was mild in comparison to the terms Germany had imposed on France in 1871 and on the Soviet Union in 1918. Humiliating perhaps, but not emasculating. Through laxity on the part of the Allies, by 1936 Germany’s military had almost rebounded to full strength. The terms of the armistice had allowed the defeated but not deterred nation to act on its desire for Lebensraum (“living space”). Hanson lays out the origins of the war—what prompted German aggression; why Great Britain and France initially sought to accommodate the Nazis through diplomacy and deterrence; and, finally, why the Allies ultimately abandoned diplomacy and chose to fight. He argues that World War II was a preventable conflict, that tens of millions of people need not have perished just to confirm the fascist powers were in fact far weaker than the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain—a conclusion he lays at the feet of “British appeasement, American isolationism and Russian collaboration.” No idealist, Hanson also acknowledges postwar calm will forever remain a temporary phenomenon. To quote General George Patton: “Nobody can prevent another war. There will be wars as long as our great-great-grandchildren live. The only thing we can do is to produce a longer peace phase between wars.” That is one of the few sentiments Hanson could not have expressed any better.
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Book Review: Sevastopol’s Wars
Book Review: Sevastopol’s Wars Sevastopol’s Wars: Crimea From Potemkin to Putin, by Mungo Melvin, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2017, $38 When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the world was shocked. Yet it wasn’t the first time. Catherine the Great had annexed the strategic peninsula on the north end of the Black Sea in 1783, immediately following her conquest of the khanate of the Crimean Tatars. In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred Crimea from Russian to Ukrainian authority. It was little more than an administrative procedure, however, as the republic remained within the monolithic USSR. Within a half-century the Soviet Union was no more, and since its dissolution the republics of Russia and Ukraine had been at odds over Crimean autonomy, particularly control of its port city of Sevastopol, historic headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation, it should not have come as a surprise to anyone. All indicators in Russia’s 200-plus-year history in the region pointed to such a move. Retired British Maj. Gen. Mungo Melvin relates that history admirably in Sevastopol’s Wars. Crimea is one of the most fought-over pieces of ground in recent history. Almost immediately after conquering the peninsula in 1783, the Russians started building the fortress city of Sevastopol, siting it at the head of a magnificent bay that would become home port to a Russian naval squadron. In 1854–55 the city fell to a 349-day siege by British and French forces, ultimately forcing Russia to sue for peace and end the Crimean War. In 1905 disaffected sailors aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin staged their infamous mutiny just days after it sortied from Sevastopol. The Germans briefly occupied Sevastopol after defeating the Russians in 1918. Almost immediately thereafter Red and White forces battled for control of the city during the Russian Civil War. In 1941–42 German and Romanian forces under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein conquered Crimea and took Sevastopol after a 247-day siege. The Red Army retook the ruins of the destroyed town in May 1944. Designated a Soviet Hero City of the Great Patriotic War, Sevastopol also became one of only three Federal Cities—along with Moscow and St. Petersburg—directly administered from Moscow. There was no way Russia would ever give up Sevastopol or the Black Sea Fleet, which numbers 40 surface warships and six submarines. Russia and Ukraine sparred over those strategic prizes for 23 years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, until the 2013 internal crisis in Ukraine gave Putin the pretext he needed to resolve the problem—at least for the time being. By putting Putin and his actions in context, Melvin is in no way defending the Russian president. Rather, the author clearly traces Sevastopol’s direct geostrategic arc from the days of Catherine the Great’s military commander, Grigory Potemkin, to Putin. It is a story well worth understanding. —David T. Zabecki
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Book Review: Silver
Book Review: Silver Silver: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis, by Mihir Bose, Fonthill Media, Oxford, U.K., 2017, $40 According to Indian-born biographer Bose, Bhagat Ram Talwar (code name “Silver”), a Hindu born in 1908 in the predominately Muslim North-West Frontier Province, was the most remarkable secret agent of World War II. A prewar participant in the Red Shirt movement in opposition to the British Raj, Talwar was jailed several times by the British. In February 1941 Talwar, posing as a Muslim named Rahmat Khan, helped smuggle Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose (no relation to the author) from Peshawar across the border into Afghanistan and on to Kabul. After many fraught weeks the Italian ambassador in Kabul arranged for Bose to continue first to Moscow, then on to a sympathetic Nazi Germany. The ambassador also managed to recruit Talwar as an Axis spy. On a return visit to Kabul that spring Talwar made contact with Nazi agents. By late July, however, in the wake of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he began spying for the Russians, who knew all about his German connections, though Talwar’s Nazi handlers never learned of his switch to double agent. In March 1942 the weekly British intelligence summary from Kabul reported Talwar as “a clever and suspicious character.” Approaching the British that June, the Russians offered to exchange intelligence they’d gleaned in the region and to share the services of one of their go-to spies—namely Talwar. At that point in the war the Indian agent was ostensibly serving Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain, the latter of whom gave him the code name Silver. On a dozen treks to Kabul by foot he provided his Nazi handlers with bogus intelligence reports, compiled under the watchful eye of Peter Fleming, head of British military deception operations in Southeast Asia and older brother of writer Ian Fleming of James Bond fame. Germany paid Talwar well for his “services” and even awarded him the Iron Cross. At war’s end the British also rewarded the agent handsomely, and he reportedly lived a quiet existence in Uttar Pradesh until his death in 1983 at age 75. A tangled web, but just how much Silver’s work contributed to the Allied victory is difficult to assess. For the time being, anyway, he will remain in the shadows, as the author lamentably failed to provide an index. —David Saunders
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Book Review: Small Boats and Daring Men
Book Review: Small Boats and Daring Men Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare and the Early American Navy, by Benjamin Armstrong, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2019, $34.95 Covert operations often prove crucial toward weakening enemy resistance, while also serving to boost morale in the ranks and sway public opinion. We tend to think of such secretive surgical strikes as the domain of elite U.S. Navy SEALs or Army Green Berets. But truth is, various American fighting forces have carried out similar missions since the birth of the republic. In this first-of-its-kind historical study author Benjamin Armstrong—an assistant professor of war studies and naval history at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.—details early naval operations that set the precedent for future clandestine maneuvers. Armstrong has edited two books on naval warfare and written numerous articles on naval history and national security. Drawing on original operational reports and sailors’ memoirs and diaries, the author here crafts a riveting account of how the nascent U.S. Navy stared down seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve success. The narrative focuses on several key episodes in American naval history, from John Paul Jones’ bold 1778 assault on Whitehaven, England, during the American Revolution, to Stephen Decatur’s 1803 burning of the frigate USS Philadelphia and the Marines’ 1805 assault on “the shores of Tripoli” during the First Barbary War, to naval engagements on the Great Lakes and in the Atlantic Ocean during the War of 1812, as well as other actions in the Caribbean and Sumatra. Armstrong provides a detailed and readable analysis of the operations, linking them to current tactics and operations as the United States pursues its ongoing global war on terror. Small Boats and Daring Men is one of those rare books that combines scholarly discourse with exciting storytelling as it relates the birth of American sea power by military leaders short on resources but long on ingenuity. —Dave Kindy
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Book Review: Stonewall Jackson: A History of the Confederate Navy (Raimondo Luraghi) : ACW
Book Review: Stonewall Jackson: A History of the Confederate Navy (Raimondo Luraghi) : ACW Outgunned and outsupplied, the fledgling Confederate Navy used technological ingenuity to level the playing field. By Kenneth P. Czech When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the Confederate states were determined to protect their seacoasts and inland waterways. However, they lacked an adequate naval force with which to do so. To compound the problem, the Southerners were arrayed against one of the most powerful navies in the world. Matching the Federals ship for ship was an impossibility. The South would have to rely on ingenuity, determination and courage. The onus of creating a force capable of fighting the Northern squadrons fell upon Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. Mallory recognized immediately the shortcomings of the newly seceded states. The South lacked the industrial plants, resources and skilled workmen that were so abundant in the North. The few experienced naval officers and sailors had, for the most part, been channeled to the army. Mallory was forced to turn to less orthodox ideas and methods to combat Federal oceangoing and riverine flotillas. Ships could be purchased from British and French dockyards, but having warships built abroad required an extended time frame–a luxury the South did not enjoy as Northern gunboats and frigates began blockading the coasts. What was needed, in Mallory’s mind, was a technological innovation that could tip the scales in the Confederates’ favor. Breakthroughs in the fields of armored ships, powerful naval guns, submarines and torpedo warfare for a time seemed to give the Rebels the edge they needed. The ensuing David-and-Goliath fight between South and North on inland rivers and the high seas is richly detailed in Raimondo Luraghi’s A History of the Confederate Navy (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md., $39.95). Facing an uphill battle, Mallory built ironclad ships as a means of destroying Union wooden frigates. The construction of CSS Virginia from the burned hulk of the abandoned steam frigate Merrimack has been well-documented. Not only did the new Confederate “monster” sink the wooden Union warships Cumberland and Constitution, she subsequently ruined Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s planned timetable and attack route on the James River. The North, of course, successfully countered with its own ironclad, Monitor. Mallory hoped ironclads like Virginia would be the ultimate weapon to disrupt and destroy the Union blockade. The race to build ironclads, however, was one the South could not win. As author Luraghi, a professor of history at the University of Genoa, points out, the South lacked the shipyards, foundries and expert workmen to commit to such a grandiose task. Because of a shortage of iron, railroad rails had to be substituted, rolled at inadequately manned and machined tool shops. Armor and naval guns were often found along railroad sidings, dumped by the army when they needed to use engines and flatcars. Yet, despite these problems, makeshift Confederate naval yards managed to produce such fearsome ironclads as Arkansas and Tennessee. Too many other vessels, in various stages of construction, had to be destroyed as advancing Federal troops threatened their capture. While Mallory continued to search for the ultimate weapon with which to destroy the coastal blockade, Confederate naval men were developing a variety of secondary weapons, including submarines, torpedo boats and mines. As Luraghi notes, the South might have been better served by committing its limited time and resources to creating a larger fleet of such auxiliary vessels. The submarine Hunley, though flawed, sank the Union warship Housatonic. Torpedo boats like David attacked under the cover of darkness and sank or damaged a number of Union warships. Mines (called torpedoes in the Civil War) sank or disabled at least 50 Federal ships. More important, they effectively screened several Confederate ports, thereby preventing Union amphibious operations. Among the more colorful and widely studied elements of the Confederate Navy are the efforts of commerce-destroying cruisers. Florida and, most notably, Alabama succeeded in sinking and capturing millions of dollars worth of Federal shipping on the high seas. Intrigue and espionage surrounded such ships since they were built in foreign waters as commercial vessels, then transformed into raiders once they reached international zones. Building commerce raiders in England and France was a test of Southern subterfuge versus Federal diligence in holding foreign governments to existing neutrality laws. Curiously, Luraghi provides copious details concerning Florida and Alabama yet pays scant attention to Shenandoah, one of the most successful of the Confederacy’s high-seas cruisers. The Confederate Navy was doomed from its infancy. Lacking funds, manpower and an adequate industrial base, it managed, somehow, to stymie Federal efforts in a number of locations. But bravery, ingenuity and innovation could not compete for long against the powerful Union industrial complex. The scintillating actions of Virginia, Hunley and Florida were not enough to outweigh Yankee tonnage, firepower and numbers. Federal naval experts quickly responded to Confederate inventiveness by designing their own series of ironclads (complete with steam-powered turrets), anti-torpedo nets and shallow-draft, armored gunboats. Luraghi’s work, encompassing 30 years of research, supplants earlier efforts by Thomas Scharf in terms of examining overall Confederate naval strategy and the effects of the South’s inadequate industrial complex on its waterborne efforts. Luraghi adequately details the collision between Federal and Confederate fleets, but his real strength lies in his analysis of Confederate ambitions and frailties. The author’s meticulous annotations and splendid bibliography are also valuable. A History of the Confederate Navy is sure to be the benchmark of Southern naval history for years to come.
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Book Review: The Struggle for Sea Power
Book Review: The Struggle for Sea Power The Struggle for Sea Power: A Naval History of the American Revolution, by Sam Willis, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2016, $35 Historians risk conceptualizing naval power in the American Revolution as a sort of deus ex machina, with fleets appearing at the right side of the map and then disappearing just as mysteriously until the next round. Sam Willis capably fills this gap with a history that both expands to a global scale and zooms to a “barnacular” level of detail. Willis notes that while historians have catalogued many individual elements of naval combat during the conflict, “no attempt has yet been made to unite or combine these many themes into a comprehensive naval history of the war.” He starts by emphasizing the ways in which naval conflict in North America was interlocked with combat—or the mere specter of it—in such distant theaters as the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. He stresses the consequentiality of naval operations within the North American theater in occasionally revelatory ways, with ample attention to combat on rivers and lakes. To give two examples, it was the seemingly puny Pennsylvania Navy’s control of the Delaware that enabled success at Trenton and Princeton, while General John Burgoyne’s turn away from his formidable naval forces on Lake George doomed the British at Saratoga. Among Willis’ emphases is the particular difficulty of maintaining and operating fleets anywhere, given the attendant risks of tides, storms and pestilence, but especially at the month’s remove from home North American operations entailed. Multiple conflicts turned on simple discrepancies of knowledge of local tides and sandbars—more often, though not always, to the benefit of Americans. Their misplaced faith in the Charleston Harbor sandbar, for instance, proved no protection from a British fleet well aware of how to sail over it. The largest U.S. naval effort during the war, the perhaps deliberately forgotten Penobscot Expedition of 1779, was an utter disaster, but individual American ships soon showed great promise. Even the most famous naval engagement of the war is often misunderstood, Willis stresses. French strategic efforts to bring naval and land strength to bear in one theater while British fleets were occupied elsewhere finally succeeded at Yorktown, and yet this was not the ironclad trap of popular imagination. Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis had strong prospects for escape and a substantial fleet still at anchor; he chose not to try. —Anthony Paletta
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Book Review: Tales of the Oregon Country
Book Review: Tales of the Oregon Country Tales of the Oregon Country, by Carole Nielson, Nielson Publishing, Shady Grove, Ore., 2019, $15 plus shipping (email nubertr@aol.com for ordering information) While growing up in southern Oregon, Carole Nielson heard plenty of old-timers’ tales and was hooked. In adulthood she researched local history, revealing her findings in short, well-written articles, many of which appeared in Wild West over a 20-year period (1993–2013). Of the dozen stories that appear in Tales, her first book, seven of them were first published in this magazine. Her Oregon subjects are varied—a monstrous male grizzly named Old Reelfoot; Takelma (or Rogue River) Indian Umpaqua Joe; early settler Joe Beeson, who spoke up for the rights of area Indians; Indian fighter Benjamin Wright; Gin Lin, a Chinese immigrant who found gold; courageous pioneer Mary Ann Harris; and the three DeAutremont brothers (Roy, Ray and Hugh), who decided to hold up a train in 1923 with deadly results. The handful of other stories are equally compelling, dealing with marvelous mountain man Joe Meek; the challenged 1846 Applegate wagon train; Chief John (aka Elk Killer); frontier bride Carissa Birdseye; and Huckleberry Alice, who became a legendary “picker” on Huckleberry Mountain (10 miles southwest of Crater Lake). As you read through the narrative, two things become abundantly clear—Oregon had its share of frontier drama, and Nielson provides a satisfying taste of it. —Editor
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Book Review: Texas Ranger Lee Hall
Book Review: Texas Ranger Lee Hall Texas Ranger Lee Hall: From the Red River to the Rio Grande, by Chuck Parsons, University of North Texas Press, Denton, 2020, $29.95 It took a set of rugged individuals to establish the Texas Rangers in Western legend, and in recent years historians have plucked out many such individuals for special attention. Jesse Lee Hall is not the first of those to have been meticulously researched and written up by author Chuck Lyons, but he might rate among the most adventurous, though he spent only four years (1876–80) as a Texas Ranger. Those years were anything but dull. Succeeding the dying Captain Leander H. McNelly, Hall upheld the “Ranger ideal” McNelly espoused. Though he was not directly involved in any epic shoot-’em-ups, the men he led brought in such hard cases as King Fisher, John Wesley Hardin, Sam Bass and seven key members of the Sutton faction, effectively ending the bloody Sutton-Taylor Feud. Parsons reveals it was love and a lady’s ultimatum that prompted the Ranger to quit the force. However, Hall ultimately proved one of those restless characters who just couldn’t settle for a settled life with wife Bessie. His craving for adventure later led him to chase horse thieves, serve as an agent for the Comanches and Kiowas at Anadarko, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), command soldiers of the 1st U.S. Infantry Regiment in the Philippines (after having failed to be accepted into Colonel Theodore Roosevelt’s Cuba-bound Rough Riders) and guard gold shipments in Mexico with the Sultana Rangers. —Jon Guttman
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Book Review: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse
Book Review: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse The Battle of Guilford Courthouse: A Most Desperate Engagement, by John R. Maass, The History Press, Charleston, S.C., 2020, $32.99 A historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military History, John R. Maass is the author of several books focusing on the American Revolution, including The Road to Yorktown (2015) and Horatio Gates and the Battle of Camden (2001). His latest book studies the crucial but little-known 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse, N.C., which put the battered British army on the rocky road to ultimate defeat and ignominious surrender at Yorktown. Beginning with their 1778 capture of Savannah, Ga., British forces and their Loyalist allies had been largely successful. By the end of 1780 they occupied Charleston and key points throughout Georgia and South Carolina, having routed an American army led by Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates at Camden, S.C. Though the British suffered reverses in the backcountry at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, S.C., that did not prevent the aggressive British commander, Lt. Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis, from invading North Carolina. Despite logistical challenges, the British took Charlotte. By the end of February most of the rebellious colony was under their thumb. The outcome at Guilford Courthouse changed all of that. There American Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, employing tactics similar to those used by Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan at Cowpens, deployed his army of 4,500 men, largely militia, in three lines. Cornwallis attacked head on with his smaller, more professional 2,100-man army. Though the latter managed to repel the ably led Americans, Greene knocked out a quarter of Cornwallis’ men, slowing his momentum. News of the battle was received poorly in London, one Parliamentarian wag wryly exclaiming, “Another such victory would ruin the British army!” Lacking additional Loyalist recruits, Cornwallis was unable to pursue his enemy and forced to retreat, ultimately back to Virginia. Greene, on the other hand, kept his army in the field and was able to resupply. “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again,” he said in defiance. By May 1781 most of North and South Carolina were back under American control. Containing a select bibliography, detailed endnotes, an extensive index, and contemporary and modern maps, as well as engravings and black-and-white autographs strategically interspersed throughout the text, The Battle of Guilford Courthouse is thoroughly researched, engagingly written and highly recommended. —William John Shepherd This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Death Row All Stars, by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss
Book Review: The Death Row All Stars, by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption and Murder, by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss, TwoDot, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Conn., 2014, $16.95 It was only a four-game season for the team of baseball-playing inmates at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins during the summer of 1911, but the Death Row All Stars went undefeated and mostly behaved in a professional and gentlemanly manner. This was at a time (1910–19) when, as the authors point out in their introduction, “many players associated with the professional clubs had reputations as hooligans and ruffians or worse.” The players were also known as Alston’s All Stars, after Felix Alston, the new baseball-loving warden, who founded the team in May 1911. In the first team photo, the players wear their inmate numbers on the left-hand pockets of their shirts. It wasn’t until 1916 that the Cleveland Indians became the first major-league team to wear numbers on their uniforms (on the left sleeves). In another photo, taken after their first wins, the ball-playing convicts have lost the numbers and look sharp in matching uniforms and caps. In the midst of these criminal offenders sits team mascot Felix Vern Alston Jr., the warden’s son. Two of the players, first baseman Eugene Rowan and catcher James Powell, were black at a time when only white players were allowed in the major and minor leagues. The Death Row All Stars were not all condemned men, but they were all convicted criminals, and the star player had been given the death penalty for murder. After the team’s first game on July 18—an 11–1 thumping of the Wyoming Supply Co. Juniors ball club—The Washington Post reported under the headline SLAYER SCORES HOME RUNS: “Joseph Seng, right fielder for the Alstons, is under sentence to be hanged. Seng made two home runs hit over the penitentiary wall. One of his hits cleared the bases, bringing in three others and scoring himself.” Team captain George Saban, who did not play because he was missing two fingers on each hand, had also been convicted of murder. The shortstop had been convicted of manslaughter, several players had been convicted of rape, a couple for grand larceny and so on. Alston had a storied career in law enforcement before he became warden, but at his new job he met with plenty of criticism from the likes of former warden Otto Gramm and U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren. For one thing, Alston often conferred with pal Saban on the baseball field and let the murderer have nearly free rein off the field (including entering Rawlins saloons to bet on the All Stars’ games using money given to him by the friendly warden). Saban was hardly alone in the illegal gambling game; some state officials might have been wagering on the team. The dramatic crux of the story isn’t in the baseball games themselves but in the challenges presented to the warden’s baseball club by Gramm, Warren and arrogant prisoner Lorenzo Paseo, who was no fan of the national pastime and threatened to kill the warden and Seng. There was also the matter of Seng’s death sentence. The authors write, “[Many prisoners] believed that the only thing standing in the way of the immediate execution of the star ballplayer was his success on the baseball field.” If true, then playing ball was literally a matter of life and death for the slugger. It was a season to remember for Seng, Saban and the other members of Alston’s All Stars, but the last inning came too soon. When the All Stars disbanded in 1911, that marked the end of official baseball games at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. “By the time the 1912 baseball season rolled around,” the authors note, “Warden Alston’s thoughts were more on keeping order at the facility than playing the game.” Readers will think of that short 1911 season at the Wyoming pen long after they finish this book. The writing/research team of Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian has fielded a winner. —Editor
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Book Review: The Fighters
Book Review: The Fighters The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, by C.J. Chivers, Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y., 2018, $28 Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist C.J. Chivers has crafted a masterpiece of military history in The Fighters. This powerful book details the lives of six individuals who served in the United States’ two most recent wars and the price they paid to serve their country. The book is not for the squeamish. Though it is not overly gory, it paints a powerful picture of the horrors of combat and the toll it takes on those who go into harm’s way. The author knows well of this experience; before becoming a war correspondent for The New York Times, he was a Marine and served in Operation Desert Storm. Chivers sums up his purpose for writing in the preface: All of them had personally grueling wartime experiences. Most of them suffered wounds—physical, psychological, moral or all three. Together, their journeys hold part of the sum of American foreign policy in our time. With care and candor he traces the life path of each veteran, from his childhood and reasons for joining the military to his combat experience and its impact on his life. The Fighters is a brutally honest examination of what war does to the soul and brings into sharp focus the necessity of being absolutely sure of the purpose, goals, strategies and end results before asking citizen soldiers to stand on the front line to defend American interests. —Dave Kindy
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Book Review: The Folly and the Glory
Book Review: The Folly and the Glory The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia and Political Warfare—1945–2020, by Tim Weiner, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2020, $29.99 Didn’t we beat the Russians in 1989? Apparently not, argues Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Tim Weiner, who seeks to make the case that we scored a knockdown but became so preoccupied celebrating our victory that they pulled themselves together and resumed their position as a dangerous rival. Despite its rhetoric, the author notes, it appears the Soviet Union did not aim to conquer the world, while the Cold War will go down in history as a military standoff that avoided nuclear Armageddon largely by luck. Except for an occasional war, the United States followed a policy of pressure, maneuver and diplomacy known as containment—the “political warfare” of the book’s title. It worked. Weiner concedes that the Soviet Union’s efforts to match U.S. military spending did contribute to its collapse, but he gives equal weight to its failed command economy, widespread corruption and the morass in Afghanistan. With its collapse, exhilarated American pundits proclaimed freedom was on the march, and experts descended on Russia to advise on their transition to a free market, free elections and democracy. Politically, matters did not go well. The rising Russian oligarchy, humiliated at the loss of their Eastern European satellites and much of their empire, looked with horror on Germany’s unification and made it clear that expanding NATO farther east, including to former Soviet satellites, would enrage them. We did it anyway. The transfer to a free market also went poorly. For many Russians, “democracy” equates to the terrible 1990s, when they endured a depression far worse than that of the 1930s. Most want no part of such an economy. In 2000 Vladimir Putin succeeded the ineffectual Boris Yeltsin as president with the aim of making Russia respected again, and Weiner argues he has succeeded. His annexation of Crimea and attack on Ukraine were almost universally lauded at home. With an economy the size of Italy’s, Putin cannot match the United States’ military reach, but he has become a player in the Middle East and meddles in American politics with a seemingly unstoppable cyberwarfare offensive. Elected on a platform similar to that of Putin, Donald J. Trump’s efforts remain a work in progress. However, Weiner bluntly contends that the president’s seeming admiration of Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un augurs a steady retreat of democracy in favor of authoritarian governments around the world. Putinism, the author says, is Stalinism lite, China has prospered spectacularly, and jingoistic parties flourish in most Western democracies. Weiner makes a riveting if bleak argument that the United States mishandled the collapse of Soviet-style communism, and now we’re reaping the consequences. —Mike Oppenheim This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Fortress by Alexander Watson
Book Review: The Fortress by Alexander Watson The Fortress: The Siege of Przemysl and the Making of Europe’s Bloodlands, by Alexander Watson, Basic Books, New York, 2020, $32 Within the context of World War I the Eastern Front is often the “forgotten front.” Much has been written about the horrors of the Western Front, where German, French, British and eventually American infantrymen withstood artillery bombardments, poison gas and charges over the top straight into the mechanized teeth of modern machine guns. On the Eastern Front the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria) fought a more mobile war against Russia and its smaller allies Serbia, Romania and Greece. Unlike in France, the Central Powers won in the East, forcing the new Bolshevik government to sign the punitive 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk—a pact ultimately undone by the Entente peacemakers. The short-lived victory came at a horrific cost. British historian Alexander Watson’s The Fortress focuses on one of the Eastern Front’s most brutal showdowns. Between 1914 and 1915 at the Galician city of Przemysl thousands of Austro-Hungarian troops defended a massive fort complex against the Russian juggernaut. At one point Russia’s greatest general of the war, Aleksei Brusilov, tried and failed to take the city. That fact is all the more impressive because the majority of the men who defended the fortress were older reservists drawn from all corners of the multiethnic empire. (The author also notes their Russian foes included Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish troopers in tsarist uniforms.) While the period Austrian press deemed the defenders of Przemysl heroes, Watson mostly uses the term “hero” sarcastically, pointing out that Austro-Hungarian troops stuck inside the fortress included incompetent officers, brutal Hungarian infantrymen, lecherous blowhards and masses of famished old men. That said, they did manage to pull off Herculean feats of resistance against a larger and better-equipped army. Indeed, the narrative shows that the widely mocked Austro-Hungarian fighting man was as tough as his peers. The central point of The Fortress is a dark one—the siege displayed the first signs of ethnic-cleansing campaigns to come. Habsburg troops arrested and killed 4,000 Ukrainian citizens because their loyalty was suspect, while the Russians arrested, killed or deported thousands of Galician Jews for the same reason. The siege of Przemysl was the opening act of bloodletting in Eastern Europe’s blood-soaked 20th century. —Benjamin Welton
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Book Review: The Frontiersmen Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight
Book Review: The Frontiersmen Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight The Frontiersmen Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight: The Army vs. the Pioneers, 1815–1845, by Gregory Michno, Caxton Press, Caldwell, Idaho, 2020, $18.95 Traditional frontier heroes have no place in this book by Wild West special contributor Gregory Michno, an independent researcher who has long written about Western history, in particular the Indian wars. His February 2020 article “Half Horse, Half Gator and All Hogwash,” in which Michno asserts David Crockett and Daniel Boone epitomize the myth of the heroic frontiersmen, created more than its share of controversy. Those two fellows, viewed as American heroes in most circles, get their due (or “undue”) in this book. Michno is intent on deglamorizing, if not disparaging, the frontiersmen who operated (and sometimes ran amok) usually east of the Mississippi River but also in designated Indian lands to the west from the end of the War of 1812 to the start of the Mexican War. While the author’s research should impress anyone, many readers won’t like or appreciate the distasteful facts and contemporary quotes he presents, not to mention his pull-no-punches commentary. Even readers who find merit in his arguments will be disturbed by what they read. In short, Michno wants to turn American exceptionalism on its head and expose the widespread racism, bigotry and xenophobia he contends plagued the frontier in the first half of the 19th century. The author makes no bones about it, stating in the introduction his concentration on the negative. “A prime reason,” he writes, “is because the contrary positive image is the one fully incorporated into the American myth. Thus, to swing the pendulum back toward the middle, the unflattering and scandalous need exposure. For debunking to have value, however, it needs to do more than replace one prejudice with another—it needs to drive out the fallacious beliefs.” For example, Michno posits, many Americans believe the Army’s main purpose on the frontier was to protect settlers and emigrants. In the time period covered here, though, the Army, more than anything else, was trying to regulate white encroachment against the persons and property of Indians. In fact, he contends, the Army was often at odds with the many dishonest and greedy contractors, land speculators and other citizens who magnified the danger of Indian attack or property losses to Indians. What’s more, Regular Army officers were finding out that, as Michno puts it, “Militia and volunteers were not worth the cost of the gunpowder to blow them to smithereens.” He provides many examples of citizen armies at their worst, pointing out how their willingness to do battle stemmed largely from frontiersmen’s greed for land and loot. For instance, in the 1820s U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines wrote that white Georgians trespassing on Indian lands were “certain to produce acts of violence upon the persons or property of unoffending Indians, whom we are bound to protect.” The story of Indian removal (Cherokees, Creeks, Trail of Tears, etc.) from the South is well known, but Michno reminds us some Southerners wanted the Indians to stay in order to cheat and rob them and sell them liquor. In the end, though, nearly as many Indians would migrate west (often on foot) as white settlers did in their iconic covered wagons on the Oregon Trail. “The Indian migration was fully as encompassing and extraordinary as the later white migration,” Michno writes. “And the Indian exodus was fraught with more menace from thieving whites than the Oregon Trail emigrants were at risk from the Western tribes.” The Frontiersmen Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight won’t sit well with any reader proud to be an American or about anything his or her ancestors might have done to make America great. “If the 18th century emphasized progress of the human race, the 19th century emphasized distinction of the races and inequalities,” Michno writes in a section fittingly entitled “Civilizing the White Frontier.” Among the few heroes of the time, he notes, were the officer corps, “a comparative bastion of integrity, civility, discretion and fairness.” But present-day Americans, he argues, should be reading actual history instead of believing “Hollywood history.” It may not be as entertaining, of course, but Michno hopes it will lead more of us to challenge our “origin myth of self-glorification.” —Editor This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Gettysburg Nobody Knows (edited by Gabor S. Boritt) : ACW
Book Review: The Gettysburg Nobody Knows (edited by Gabor S. Boritt) : ACW The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, edited by Gabor S. Boritt, Oxford University Press, New York, $27.50. No battle in American history was more pivotal than Gettysburg. It is, without a doubt, the best-known engagement of the Civil War–and probably of all American history. It is certainly the most studied battle Americans ever fought. And yet, for all its prominence, the Battle of Gettysburg still engenders heated debate. Did J.E.B. Stuart’s absence really leave Robert E. Lee blind? Should Richard Ewell have attacked Cemetery Hill? Was Joshua Chamberlain really the hero of Little Round Top? How close did the Confederates come to winning at Gettysburg? And if they had won, how would Civil War history have been affected? In his latest work, The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, Gabor Boritt, director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, has invited nine leading Civil War authorities to shed new light on the greatest battle in American history. Following the example of Richard Nelson Current’s acclaimed history The Lincoln Nobody Knows, the contributors focus on the unknown and the controversial. Emory Thomas, a biographer of both Stuart and Lee, finds that although Stuart’s cavalry provided no Intelligence to the Confederate army for several key days, Lee knew from other sources the location of the Army of the Potomac and thus was able to concentrate his army before Union General George Gordon Meade arrived in strength on the battlefield. Readers are also treated to a fresh account by Carol Reardon of the most celebrated 40 minutes in American military history–Pickett’s Charge–watching the encounter from the rarely considered perspective of the Union soldiers being attacked. The Gettysburg Nobody Knows also contains careful analyses of Ewell’s actions–or inactions–in failing to attack Cemetery Hill, a failure that many blame for the Confederates’ loss of the battle, and Union General Daniel Sickles’ error in repositioning his troops in a vulnerable salient on the second day of the battle. Ewell is exonerated by author Harry P. Pfanz, while Sickles is blamed by Kent Gramm for causing more Union casualties than were necessary. Included is a stirring account by Gramm of the moment when Union General Winfield Scott Hancock ordered the 1st Minnesota Regiment to “take those colors,” sending the Minne-sotans into a desperate struggle that would help save the day for the Union. Well over a century has gone by since the guns fell silent at Gettysburg. Yet millions of tourists still make the pilgrimage to Gettysburg each year to see for themselves the places where thousands of young Americans, Northern and Southern, died on three furious summer days. The essays contained in The Gettysburg Nobody Knows help to explain why the battle still has such an ineffable hold on the nation’s hearts and minds. Cowan Brew
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Book Review: The Greatest of all Leathernecks
Book Review: The Greatest of all Leathernecks The Greatest of All Leathernecks: John Archer Lejeune and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps, by Joseph Arthur Simon, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2019, $44.95 “Seems every time there’s a war, the men in my family join the Marines.” Forty years before actor John Agar (himself a World War II Army Air Corps veteran, albeit as a stateside phys-ed instructor) spoke that line in the classic 1950 war film Sands of Iwo Jima such a sentiment would have implied a tradition of service in a minor support branch of the Navy, one whose very existence was precarious. The Marines’ transformation into an elite force, and John Archer Lejeune’s pre-eminent role in it, is the story Joseph Arthur Simon relates in The Greatest of All Leathernecks. When Lejeune was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1890, advances in technology and naval professionalism had rendered obsolete the Marines’ original functions—to enforce naval discipline and supplement the firepower of smoothbore artillery. Minor conflicts during Lejeune’s first 15 years of service allowed the Leathernecks to prove their value in amphibious assaults and the control of naval bases, while Lejeune himself demonstrated a level of professionalism that led to steady promotion and advanced studies at the Army War College. A stellar performance there assured his rapid rise to the top—command of the 4th Marine Brigade in the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, then of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Division, of which the brigade was a part. Upon his 1920 appointment as its commandant Lejeune set about elevating the Marine Corps into a pillar of the U.S. armed forces. Training infantry to the highest standards and massively increasing advanced studies for officers was just the beginning. There were such new branches of warfare as aviation to be embraced. Incentives and benefits were introduced to attract high-caliber recruits into the enlisted ranks. And Lejeune determined that Marine Corps strategists would be the first in history to engage in thorough and ongoing scientific and operational studies of modern amphibious operations. The Greatest of All Leathernecks is not, for the most part, the story of battles and campaigns. It is, rather, a fascinating, highly readable and very well-researched account of the training, planning and seemingly mundane matters that combined to produce one of the greatest fighting forces in history. —James Baresel
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Book Review: The Imperial Russian Army
Book Review: The Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War and Revolution, 1856–1917, by Roger R. Reese, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, 2019, $45 It is well known that Russia fell under communist control as a consequence of World War I. Less well understood are the reasons. Author Roger Reese examines the history, campaigns and structure of the imperial army and shows how fractured relations between its officer corps and rank and file proved decisive in its collapse. Members of Russia’s noble families dominated the officer corps of the imperial army. Many were dilettantes who looked down on more recently ennobled officers. While by upbringing and training Russian officers emphasized personal heroism and leading from the front, they also demanded unthinking obedience from men they often literally pummeled into submission. Considering themselves servants of the tsar, the officers harbored an all-or-nothing commitment to Mother Russia. Many of their enlisted men had no such level of commitment. Thus the imperial army went into the war internally divided. As Russia’s war fortunes sank and civil strife rocked the home front, the consequences were predictable. Faced with dissension in the ranks, old guard Russian officers’ devotion to the monarchy and harsh efforts to restore control alienated all but committed tsarists while undermining moderate coalitions that might have held communism at bay. For those interested in the organization, training, internal workings and culture of military forces or in the way a nation’s military can influence its political history, Reese’s book is a fascinating read. —James Baresel This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Settlers’ War, by Gregory Michno
Book Review: The Settlers’ War, by Gregory Michno The Settlers’ War: The Struggle for the Texas Frontier in the 1860s, by Gregory Michno, Caxton Press, Caldwell, Idaho, 2011, $24.95 When someone mentions the Indian wars, most of us think of soldiers attacking Indian villages in winter, Plains warriors overwhelming certain groups of cavalrymen, or the U.S. Army in pursuit of elusive “hostiles.” In Texas things were different. There was savagery and heroism as elsewhere, of course, but most of the violent clashes involved Indians and settlers (Anglos and Hispanics) rather than Indians and soldiers or, for that matter, Texas Rangers. “In Texas,” writes author Gregory Michno in the introduction to this fine 448-page contribution to his string of Indian wars books, “the noncombatants bore the brunt of the warfare, losing far more than the soldiers who were supposedly there to protect them….Soldiers and Rangers were largely ineffective.” The raiding, killing and thefts in Texas were overwhelming, especially during the 1860s. Michno gives readers more than a taste of the often nasty life-and-death struggle on the Lone Star State’s frontier, using as his primary source the Indian Depredation Claims in the National Archives. Michno found more than 2,200 depredation claims, some detailed, some not, about 1,200 of which dated from the 1860s, which the author calls “the bloodiest decade of the Western Indian wars.” It was mostly the Comanches and Kiowas who made Texas such a dangerous place for farmers and ranchers. Michno points out that Comanches limited their raids in New Mexico—where residents had lots of sheep the Indians did not want and few horses—and concentrated on Texas and Old Mexico. “By 1860,” writes Michno, “it appeared that the Kiowas and Comanches were as deeply involved in the ‘stock business’ as the horsemen and cattlemen.” These raiders had little interest in signing treaties, unless done to allow time to build up their forces or receive gifts from the whites. According to Michno, some Indians did honor their treaties with the Confederate States and that “probably the greatest number of raids on Texas soil occurred in 1866,” the year after the Civil War ended. Things did change in Texas in the 1870s, Michno says, when the settlers’ war became a soldiers’ war, but not until after “likely the most sustained and destructive assault that Native Americans ever made on a pioneer population.” What changed was that fewer Comanches and Kiowas mounted raids, due mostly to disease and starvation rather than warfare. The author opines that “the number of soldiers doesn’t make any significant difference in a guerrilla war,” a lesson the United States is still learning today. —Editor
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Book Review: The Splendid and the Vile
Book Review: The Splendid and the Vile The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz, by Erik Larson, Crown, New York, 2020, $32 Erik Larson, author of the best-selling historical novels Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City, relates the heroic saga of Winston Churchill’s Britain during the Nazi Blitz. Stretching from May 1940 to May 1941 in German accounting, the Blitz coincided with Churchill’s first year as wartime prime minister, when Britain stood alone in resisting Adolf Hitler. Churchill remains the subject of endless study, Larson notes, due to a clarity of heroic leadership lacking in politicians from most any other place or time. His circle of family, friends, civil servants and military men are also of interest in this fast-paced narrative of elegant prose. A key character is John “Jock” Colville, Churchill’s private secretary. His diaries are a vital source for writers and historians. Larson’s contribution differs by mining the Colville diaries and other contemporary sources for both the mundane and the obscure to build a deeper portrait of daily life amid those turbulent times. The book title derives from Colville’s description of the beauty of searchlights and explosions lighting up the night sky (splendid) contrasted against the resulting death and destruction on the ground below (vile). Throughout the narrative the author deftly weaves known interactions the prime minister had with other wartime souls. In one poignant passage we meet the young boy who, when Churchill asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, replied, “Alive.” Larson also presents the confident Churchill of familiar lore, the man who believed he was “walking with destiny” when objective appraisals labeled his task hopeless. Yet we also see the beleaguered leader, pensive as he admits all he has to offer the “poor people” of Britain is death and devastation. As the bombs kept falling and the death toll mounted, however, the British pilots above and the people below rallied to their indomitable leader. Despite suffering some 50,000 dead, they resisted until a frustrated Hitler turned eastward and unleashed his army on the Soviet Union. Churchill was perhaps never more eloquent as when describing Hitler as this “monstrous abortion of hatred and defeat.” —William John Shepherd This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Three-Cornered War
Book Review: The Three-Cornered War The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, by Megan Kate Nelson, Scribner, New York, 2020, $28 Megan Kate Nelson focuses on Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley’s invasion of New Mexico Territory and the Civil War–era campaigns against the Apaches and Navajos—a “three-cornered war,” as one soldier called it, involving Yankee and Rebel soldiers as well as American Indians. These subjects have been well-chronicled: Mangas Coloradas and Cochise in Edwin R. Sweeney’s Mangas Coloradas: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches (1998) and Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief (1991); Glorieta Pass in Don E. Alberts’ The Battle of Glorieta: Union Victory in the West (1998); the Apache wars in Paul Andrew Hutton’s The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History (2016); and the Navajo campaigns in Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West (2006). But Nelson combines the topics into one easy-to-read volume that provides good information about the fighting in the Southwest as well as such individuals as Mangas Coloradas, the celebrated Apache leader; John R. Baylor, a Texas legislator who established the Confederate Territory of Arizona; Union officer James Henry Carleton, who campaigned against Navajos and Apaches; Juanita, a Navajo weaver who resisted Union actions against her people; and Bill Davidson, who fought for the Confederacy in New Mexico. Nelson’s smooth narrative style brings the characters to life and makes the story easily accessible for casual readers, while her intensive research should please serious history buffs. —Johnny D. Boggs This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Union Must Stand: The Civil War Diary of John Quincy Adams Campbell, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry (edited by Mark Grimsley and Todd D. Miller): ACW
Book Review: The Union Must Stand: The Civil War Diary of John Quincy Adams Campbell, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry (edited by Mark Grimsley and Todd D. Miller): ACW The Union Must Stand: The Civil War Diary of John Quincy Adams Campbell, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, edited by Mark Grimsley and Todd D. Miller, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2000, $38. The outpouring of Civil War-era diaries and memoirs continues unabated. Fueled by the historiographical trend in recent years of examining the common Civil War soldier and his world in depth, the publication of these inner thoughts and memories of Rebs and Yanks has humanized the war in a variety of ways. The quality of these writings is as varied as their settings and circumstances. Some, however, do stand out as first-rate contributions to our insatiable desire to peer into the minds and hearts of the men on the firing lines and to follow the ups and downs of camp and civilian life during the war. An example of the latter is The Union Must Stand: The Civil War Diary of John Quincy Adams Campbell, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry (University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2000, $38), edited by Mark Grimsley and Todd D. Miller. Campbell had a journalistic background. Perhaps as a result, the Iowan’s accounts of his wartime experiences in the Western theater with the 5th Iowa are colorful and insightful as well as thought provoking. His writings provide a good test case for the theses of historians Gerald Linderman, Bell Wiley and James McPherson, among others, as Campbell at times made rather profound observations on the complex social and political threads that permeated the war’s causes and effects. Campbell saw slavery as the chief villain that had caused and perpetuated the war. He had little sympathy for the Southern civilians, considered personal honor a necessity for being a successful soldier and had strong views supporting the remaking of the Southern economy and society as punishment for those who supported the rebellion. Campbell also railed against rampant drunkenness in the Army and criticized Union soldiers who solicited black prostitutes as a disgrace to their race. Thus Campbell, despite the piety he displayed as he looked askance at slaveholders, demonstrated his own racial prejudices. This kind of racial dichotomy, deploring slavery on the one hand while voicing racism on the other, is typical of many Union memoirs. A sampling of Campbell’s comments reveals the depth of his writings. Regarding his unit’s participation in the Battle of Iuka, Campbell observed: “Our loss is great but our honor is safe. I cannot particularize instances of daring, or bravery, for all did well.” Of his personal experience at the September 19, 1862, battle, especially his reaction to the carnage, Campbell said: “I felt no emotion nor sorrow–there was a strange, unaccountable lack of feeling with me that followed me through the entire action. Out of a battle and in a battle, I find myself two different beings.” Campbell’s own trials by fire made him most unforgiving of war opponents in the North. “When I hear of traitors boldly proclaiming their hostility to our government in the legislative halls of the North–and when I hear so many privates in our army express a desire to have the war closed on any terms, my faith in the American people is much shaken,” he wrote. “But the contest must be continued and directed by the true patriots of the land.” The Iowan voiced particular disgust for Southerners who allegedly harbored guerrillas. He seemed to regret the destruction wrought by Union soldiers on Southern civilians, but noted “guerrilla warfare must be stopped.” When Abraham Lincoln was re-elected president in 1864, Campbell trumpeted: “The day for conciliation is passed. The day for subjugation is at hand. In my judgement, the victory of November 8th, is the greatest victory of the war.” These comments underscore the observations of editor Grimsley in the book’s introduction: “What made Campbell’s diary so striking? First, his entries were regular, fleshed out when events warranted, and extremely lucid. Second, he noticed a great deal–the antics of his fellow soldiers, the attitudes and behavior of Southern civilians (both white and black), the rhythms of camp life and the strange out-of-body sensations of battle. But perhaps most important for historians and readers, Campbell had well-articulated opinions about what it all meant. We know a great deal about what Civil War soldiers did. Campbell’s diary tells us much about why they did it. Campbell’s memoir, then, does not merely take the reader on a guns-and-trumpets tour of the Western theater battles in which he participated–including Island No. 10, Iuka, Corinth, Grant’s final Vicksburg campaign and siege and the Chattanooga campaign. His battlefield reflections are vivid, to be sure, but it is his contemplations of the war–what brought it about, the interactions of human beings caught up in it and the cruelties, divisiveness and long-range ramifications of it–that single him out as an outstanding chronicler of the war. As a bonus, the editors have appended to Campbell’s memoir a group of letters he wrote to his hometown newspaper, the Ripley Bee. The missives have something of the flavor of reports by war correspondents–colorful and somewhat shallow–but they no doubt intrigued readers back home who were eager for news from the front. In the absence of in-depth analysis, Campbell’s writing talents enable him to spin entertaining anecdotes about the people and the places he encounters. His continual derogatory remarks about all things Southern no doubt earned him great admiration from the folks back home. In a newspaper letter dated January 19, 1863, Campbell did get serious in making pointed comments about slavery: “I do not intend to deny that the slaves are well fed and well clothed–that they are happy–that they love slavery–nor will I deny that they love their masters. Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don’t. But do they desire to be free? I answer emphatically, they do. Nothing but the innate love of liberty in man could have caused the wide spread desire for freedom that is manifested among the slaves wherever our army goes.” Later in the same letter, Campbell pointedly editorializes, “The South will succeed in her rebellion and establish slavery on a National basis or the North will whip them and slavery die.” In his view that was the Southern position, and, no doubt, his own. In summary, this is one of the best published works of the Civil War memoir genre. John Quincy Adams Campbell reminds us in his remarkable writing that generalizations about the soldiers in that war are risky propositions at best. The patriotic Iowan left behind a wonderfully rich take on the conflict. Historians and buffs alike will find this volume entertaining, fascinating and instructive. Michael B. Ballard Mississippi State University
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Book Review: The War for the Seas
Book Review: The War for the Seas The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II, by Evan Mawdsley, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2019, $32.50 Across the history of human conflict most wars comprise dozens of land battles and few sea battles. While following a chronology of engagements on land will generally inform you regarding the overall course of a war, following a chronology of maritime battles won’t, especially not in World War II. Naval battles were rare in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, yet even in the Pacific maritime clashes alone can’t explain the broader conflict. The gaps in that narrative are of vital importance, and Evan Mawdsley does an excellent job of filling them in. The “fleet in being,” or mere threat of naval force—a phantom hovering around the edge of most historical naval strategy—applies to the Kriegsmarine early in the war, less so in the Mediterranean, where Mawdsley’s account shines. That theater seldom grabs headlines due to its dearth of consequential battles; the raids at Taranto and Alexandria were more important than any ship-to-ship combat. Yet the war of maneuver was intricate and important in a domain where the strength of Italy’s Regia Marina and Germany’s Luftwaffe and the dispersion of the Royal Navy across the globe made for several risky years. The Regia Marina largely squandered its prospects, or hewed closely to port for lack of oil, but such knowledge wouldn’t have proved reassuring in 1941. The other deficiency in even the best histories is that ships tend to appear as if by magic. Mawdsley keeps close track of the broader, shifting disposition of naval resources, a concern especially important for Britain. A mighty fleet grows a bit less formidable when covering five oceans. In the second half of 1942 there were no Royal Navy battleships or carriers in the eastern Mediterranean, having been moved to the Indian Ocean to support the invasion of Madagascar. Consider HMS Exeter’s journey, engaged with the Graf Spee in South America’s Rio de la Plata in 1939, then sunk half a world away in the 1942 Second Battle of the Java Sea. Mawdsley also addresses other overlooked elements: the French navy’s future after the Dakar and Mers El Kébir attacks, or the course of naval combat in the Baltic, featuring the Soviet withdrawal from Tallinn at the loss of more than 50 ships and 15,000 dead. “Maritime” is an apt word in the subtitle, given Mawdsley’s close attention to troop and supply shipping. The author also tersely synthesizes multiple national technological evolutions (or their absence), of paramount importance in a conflict where the right projectile from virtually any sort of craft could cripple the mightiest of ships. Danger and opportunity, supply chains and research— Mawdsley skillfully combines all this and more in an invaluable volume. —Anthony Paletta   This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306-­1328 (Colm McNamee) : MH
Book Review: The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306-­1328 (Colm McNamee) : MH The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306-­1328, by Colm McNamee, Tuckwell Press, Scotland, 1997, $17.95. This new interpretation of the Scottish War of Independence grew out of author Colm McNamee’s dissertation for the University of Oxford on the social and economic impact of the Scottish incursions into the north of England, especially after their stunning victory at Bannockburn in 1314. McNamee revised and expanded his work to encompass the wider scope of the war, including Scotland, Ireland and the maritime world of the North Sea. McNamee tries, with some success, to use a dispassionate approach that places people and events in their proper historical context. His impressive bibliography includes primary sources such as contemporary chronicles and account books. The author raises some interesting issues. Among them is the persistence of the deposed Balliol faction in opposing the Bruce monarchy. He also comments on the Scots’ lack of engineering resources; such resources would have enabled them to capture cities such as York or Dublin to use as bargaining chips. The author does not neglect the role of Flemish and Baltic traders and pirates who greatly assisted the Scottish war effort. McNamee argues that Edward Bruce’s intervention in Ireland would have been much more effective had he appealed to King Edward II’s disaffected Anglo-Irish barons instead of promoting an impractical pan-Celtic alliance of Scots, Irish and Welsh against their English neighbors. He also examines the sometimes adversarial relationship between Robert the Bruce and his brother Edward. Primarily a thematic study with some meager attempts at providing a narrative thread, The Wars of the Bruces is a valuable adjunct to the existing historiography and a credible corrective to some of the Bruce panegyrists. However, it does not supersede great narrative histories such as Evan Barron’s The Scottish War of Independence (1914, 1997), Thomas Costain’s The Three Edwards (1958), nor Ronald McNair Scott’s masterful biography, Robert the Bruce, King of Scots (1982, 1996). William John Shepherd
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Book Review: The West of Billy the Kid (by Frederick Nolan) : WW
Book Review: The West of Billy the Kid (by Frederick Nolan) : WW The West of Billy the Kid, by Frederick Nolan, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1998, $39.95. The task facing a biographer of Billy the Kid is to strip away the myth surrounding the young and reckless man. “The real Billy, a boy growing up on a harsh frontier, had been lost beneath a mountain of stereotypes–the psychopathic killer, the gunfighter, the romantic outlaw–an infinitely malleable icon for each succeeding generation,” historian Frederick Nolan writes in the preface of The West of Billy the Kid. But strip away he does. Nolan’s book is a comprehensive study of the Kid, his companions and his enemies, as well as the struggles, corruption and violence in New Mexico Territory before, after and during the Lincoln County War. Equally impressive is the collection of more than 210 photographs and maps, many published for the first time. The West of Billy the Kid isn’t just a photo gallery, nor is it only a companion piece to Nolan’s The Lincoln County War: A Documentary History, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press. Nolan’s new book can stand alone, an all-encompassing, well-documented history. Nolan tracks down Billy the Kid from his birth, although the date, the year and even the place (New York, Missouri and Indiana are what Nolan calls the “three main contenders”) are not known for sure, to his stays in Wichita, Santa Fe, Silver City, Arizona Territory, and of course Lincoln County, to his death in 1881 at the hands of Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. No Brushy Bill Roberts theories here, folks. All of the principals, as well as many of the secondary characters, of the Lincoln County War and its aftermath are featured. A few clichés sometimes get in the way of the narrative, but Nolan knows his stuff, having devoted nearly 40 years to researching the Kid and the fight in Lincoln County that put him in the national spotlight. Johnny D. Boggs
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Book Review: The Whites Want Every Thing
Book Review: The Whites Want Every Thing The Whites Want Every Thing: Indian-Mormon Relations, 1847–1877 (Vol. 16 of Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier), edited by Will Bagley, The Arthur H. Clark Co., Norman, Okla., 2019, $55 Simplified accounts of the American West in the mid-19th century tend to depict Mormon settlers as sympathetic allies of the Utes, Shoshones and other American Indians with whom they shared the Great Basin. Aside from the obvious fact that both Mormons and Indians faced a challenge when it came to dealing with other white settlers and the U.S. Army soldiers who backed them up, as early as 1828 Joseph Smith Jr. gave Indians a central role in his Book of Mormon. He said they were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, errant Jews he called “Lamanites” who were waiting to be restored “to the knowledge of Jesus Christ” (of Latter-Day Saints), thus fulfilling biblical prophecy. A closer look into the way history really unfolded reveals things were not that simple. Persecuted as they so often were, Mormons in the East had little time to go proselytizing among the tribes. Those who settled in and around what would become Utah tried to coexist with their neighbors, but that did not always go as hoped during the inevitable conflicts over arable land and water, which made up less than 4 percent of the territory. Indeed, some of the wars fought between the Mormon arrival in 1847 and the death of Brigham Young in 1877 pitted Mormons against Indians rather than the two in uneasy alliance against the bluecoats. The Whites Want Every Thing is the final volume in a series of books about the Mormon frontier experience and, in the opinion of editor Will Bagley, “the most difficult of all the 16 volumes of the Kingdom of the West series to compile.” White officials of the era transcribed much of the documented material of the Indian viewpoint, leaving open the question of whether they honestly reflect the thoughts of the speaker or the transcriber. Bagley, an award-winning author and diligent editor, is a self-professed Mormon and confesses the imbalance between his upbringing against the American Indian experience. Nevertheless, he did his level best to gather all available firsthand material to allow participants from either side speak their piece regarding this troubled 30-year period in the Great Basin and, in so doing, has derived fresh answers to the question, When the lion goes among the lambs, who is the lion, and who are the lambs? —Jon Guttman
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Book Review: Thunder in the West
Book Review: Thunder in the West Thunder in the West: The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid, by Richard W. Etulain, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2020, $29.95 A professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico who began writing and researching about Billy the Kid in the 1980s, Dick Etulain has produced two books this year about the most famous and most controversial outlaw in New Mexico Territory. Thunder in the West covers “The Life” in Part I and “The Legends” in Part II, while his companion work, Billy the Kid: A Reader’s Guide, provides readers (as well as film watchers) with the essential on-paper and on-screen portrayals of the Kid. In Thunder in the West the author notes that most of the writings about the Kid portrayed him as a violent desperado, until Walter Nobles Burns’ sympathetic 1926 biography The Saga of Billy the Kid, after which more positive accounts showed up. Etulain takes the middle ground, describing the “bifurcated Billy,” one who was part rash desperado and part loyal hero. He, of course, is not the first author to present such a balanced approach; see in particular Frederick Nolan’s The West of Billy the Kid (1998) and Robert M. Utley’s Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (1989). What Etulain adds to the mix is a thorough examination of the “multiple legends that have taken root, sprouted, flowered and matured in the nearly 140 years since his death in 1881.” The author insists he isn’t waffling when it comes to his view of Billy, but that “complexity, not the simplicity of villain or hero, is central to a more probing view of the Kid.” The chapter “Billy From 1995 to the Present” shows that interest in the outlaw remains strong not only among fans of the Wild West but also with the general public. Along with providing kudos to authors Nolan and Utley, Etulain sings the praises of other contributors to the story of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War such as Jerry (Richard) Weddle (Antrim Is My Stepfather’s Name: The Boyhood of Billy the Kid, 1993), Kathleen Chamberlain (In the Shadow of Billy the Kid: Susan McSween and the Lincoln County War, 2013) and Mark Lee Gardner (To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, 2010). He also questions the approaches of the prolific Gale Cooper, who despite extensive research rejects the notion of a bifurcated Billy (insisting he is a major hero), and W.C. Jameson, who believes Garrett did not kill the outlaw and that the real Billy the Kid is “Brushy Bill” Roberts. Thunder in the West has no footnotes, but at the end the author provides an “Essay on Sources.” Also consider his other valuable volume, Billy the Kid: A Reader’s Guide. —Editor This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Book Review: True Grit
Book Review: True Grit True Grit: A 50-Year Tribute, by the Ridgway Western Heritage Society, Ridgway, Colo., 2019, $20 plus shipping (for information on obtaining a copy, email the Ouray County Ranch History Museum at ocrhm.museum@gmail.com; the book is also available on the museum website) “Wow! If I had known that, I’d have put that patch on 35 years earlier!” So quipped John Wayne when accepting the Academy Award for his performance as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in the 1969 film version of the Charles Portis novel True Grit. It was Wayne’s first Oscar. He had accepted the award in the past for director John Ford and fellow actor Gary Cooper. But despite having starred in 131 films to that date, been among the top box office draws for three decades and achieved iconic status as a Western actor, he’d been slighted by the “Academy.” It was certainly political, as the conservative was hardly shy about expressing his opinions. It was also personal. But in the end it didn’t matter a damn, as “Duke” might have put it, because he cared more about the people watching, not those judging. The warmth he shared with fans is one aspect that comes across loud and clear in this 50th anniversary retrospective of True Grit, filmed largely in and around Ridgway, Colo. A labor of love by the Ridgway Western Heritage Society, the book is a wide-format compendium of photographs and firsthand accounts from the set and on location, including period articles from local newspapers that lend a very personal touch. Alongside quotes from author Portis and Wayne’s costars Kim Darby (Mattie Ross) and Glen Campbell (Texas Ranger La Boeuf) are remembrances from doubles, stunt performers, sign painters, security guards and locals fortunate enough to have been chosen as extras. (Ridgway itself was a stand-in for Fort Smith, home to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, under the real-life Isaac “Hanging Judge” Parker.) Ridgway resident Phil Martinez was 14 in 1969. His father worked as a part-time deputy, assigned to escort Wayne and entourage around town. Out of gratitude the actor invited young Phil and a friend to lunch with him every afternoon—provided they bring a different classmate each day. “He loved everybody,” Martinez recalls, “He gave everybody a slice of the mustard.” Montrose policeman Warren Waterman also provided security for the cast and crew, and he once asked Wayne if fans ever bothered him. “No,” came the answer, “people are what put me where I am at today. I owe it to them.” The longest section of the book highlights the actor’s life and career and provides a rundown of Wayne-Ford film collaborations. Other chapters relate Colorado’s ongoing flirtation with the film industry, review the 2010 remake of True Grit and direct readers to locations and buildings used in the original. Movie buffs will appreciate the closing references, including a list of productions shot in western Colorado and a complete John Wayne filmography. —Dave Lauterborn
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https://www.historynet.com/book-review-undersea-warriors.htm
Book Review: Undersea Warriors
Book Review: Undersea Warriors Undersea Warriors: The Untold History of the Royal Navy’s “Secret Service,” by Iain Ballantyne, Pegasus Books, New York, 2019, $35 Many historians date the end of the Cold War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany 30 years ago. To this day, however, many military operations carried on during that fraught and dangerous era remain shrouded in secrecy. Undersea Warriors lifts at least a corner of the veil regarding the role played by Britain’s Royal Navy submarine service. While not as numerous as their U.S. Navy co-belligerents, British submarines nevertheless were kept very busy during the Cold War. Undersea Warriors explores in detail the little-reported exploits of British intelligence and ballistic missile submariners during the Cold War through the experiences of four commanders at the sharp end of such operations, whom author Iain Ballantyne writes possessed “steely courage and technical competence, not forgetting an ability to think fast—and to come up with solutions to problems that only a nonconformist mind could find.” Much of the material in the book was previously classified. A prolific author of books and articles on naval matters, Ballantyne has extensive firsthand knowledge of his subject. He also has a facility for rendering nonfiction into a narrative as brisk and readable as a novel. In fact, some of the events recounted in his book may have inspired novels. Part action-adventure and part spy thriller, Undersea Warriors blends the writing approaches of C.S. Forester and John le Carré to reveal a world of which few outsiders have been aware. —Robert Guttman
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https://www.historynet.com/book-review-uniforms-of-the-republic-of-texas-and-the-men-who-wore-them-1836-1848-by-bruce-marshall-mh.htm
Book Review: Uniforms of the Republic of Texas and the Men Who Wore Them, 1836-1848 (by Bruce Marshall) : MH
Book Review: Uniforms of the Republic of Texas and the Men Who Wore Them, 1836-1848 (by Bruce Marshall) : MH Uniforms of the Republic of Texas and the Men Who Wore Them, 1836-1848, by Bruce Marshall, Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, Pa., 1999, $19.95. Were the armed forces of Texas outfitted in coonskin caps, buckskin and homespun and equipped with long Kentucky squirrel rifles, as in a John Wayne movie? The answer is an emphatic no, according to award-winning author-artist Bruce Marshall. As illustrated in his book Uniforms of the Republic of Texas, members of the republic’s army, navy, marine corps and even some ranger and militia units were smartly uniformed and equipped with the latest weaponry. Marshall provides enough documentation to satisfy any skeptic, but the highlight of the book is 26 meticulously detailed color plates by the author, showing both dress and field uniforms, weapons, accouterments, flags and insignia. The high point for Texas’ military came under its second president, Mirabeau B. Lamar, who wanted the republic to become an empire. Under his administration the republic had more uniforms than soldiers. Uniforms of the Republic of Texas also contains a year-by-year history of the triumphs and tragedies of Texas’ turbulent decade of independence, providing a useful guide not only for aficionados of unusual uniforms but also for historians curious about origins of the Texas mystique. Rob Jones
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https://www.historynet.com/book-review-wrecked-lives-and-lost-souls.htm
Book Review: Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls
Book Review: Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls: Joe Lynch Davis and the Last of the Oklahoma Outlaws, by Jerry Thompson, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2019, $24.95 Jerry Thompson, regents professor of history at Texas A&M University and the author of many books on the history of the West, wrote a stirring story about the bloody if often overlooked Porum Range War in the October 2019 issue of Wild West. The war was triggered in east central Oklahoma by pervasive rustling and efforts by the local Anti-Horse Thief Association (AHTA) to stop the principal perpetrators—the Davis Gang. The Davis brothers—Cicero, Sam, Jack and Bob—were mixed-blood Cherokees who came to what was then Indian Territory in the 1880s and became among the biggest ranchers. Their way of life included gathering cattle from what they perceived as the open range, which angered the farmers and smaller ranchers who owned some of those cattle. Things heated up in May 1911 after Bob Davis killed Muskogee County Deputy Sheriff Jim Work, the AHTA putting a price on Bob’s head. Three weeks later 19-year-old Joe Lynch Davis (Jack’s son) and friend Samuel “Pony” Starr battled a posse in a ferocious 10-minute gunfight in which 14 men were shot, eight mortally wounded or killed outright. Joe Davis survived the range war, which Thompson says left more than 30 men dead and many farms and ranches in ruin. Joe would jump bail and flee to Arizona, take an alias and rob trains and banks before authorities finally nabbed him in 1916 and sent him to the penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., for 14 years. As the center of so much lawlessness, Davis was worth profiling in a book. Thompson had one other big reason for tackling the project—the mixed-blood outlaw was the grandfather he never knew. The author only learned about Davis’ criminal activities and other shocking family history after his mother died in 1982, and he discovered a shoebox full of letters and cards in an old dresser. Busy teaching and writing other things, Thompson finally set out on the trail of grandfather Davis in 2000. The result of the historian’s painstaking detective work is this fascinating book about a man who truly was one of the last of the old Oklahoma outlaws, and who to the end—Joe Lynch Davis died at age 86 on July 15, 1979—refused to talk about his outlaw past or time spent at Leavenworth. As dramatic as Joe’s involvement in the Porum Range War was, the drama that followed in his life at least matched that. “Davis [at age 24] had established a record unsurpassed perhaps in the criminal annals of Oklahoma or any other state,” writes Thompson. “Within three months he had been arrested four times on four different felony charges, on warrants out of four different jurisdictions, and each time he was released.” The author contends Davis was no typical hard case living on the edge of society. His uncles were wealthy ranchers and, according to the author, “In the socioeconomic and political order of eastern Oklahoma during the Progressive Era, his banditry was not so much an example of lower-class social resistance but more about protecting wealth and power.” The bottom line was that Joe Davis robbed railroads and banks “as much for the thrill as for the money.” —Editor This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.
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Brazen Beards of the Civil War
Brazen Beards of the Civil War Fashion trends come and go, but Civil War beards are forever. Previous Next We’ll start with a classic and a fan favorite––Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. It takes a lot of confidence to rock that look AND nearly ruin the Army of the Potomac. (Library of Congress) There’s nothing “little” about Maj. Gen. Carter Littlepage Stevenson’s sideburns. I’m sorry, it was right there. (Library of Congress) Whatever Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield is lacking on the top, he more than makes up for on the bottom. (Library of Congress) Who doesn’t want to grow and cultivate facial hair that resembles a dagger? Col. Percy Wyndham sure didn’t shy away from hair that could have alternatively been used as a weapon. (National Archives) Gen. George Crook’s look can only be described as “fork in the road” chic. (Library of Congress) Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Augur is the poor man’s Crook. (Library of Congress) Brvt. Maj. Gen. John Haskell King may or may not have been the most confidant man in the world. (Library of Congress) The salty sea air was key to creating then-LCDR Stephen Luce’s naturally tousled beachy waves. (Library of Congress)
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https://www.historynet.com/brenden-w-rensink-people-of-the-borderlands.htm
Brenden W. Rensink: People of the Borderlands
Brenden W. Rensink: People of the Borderlands North American tribal people have dealt with the complex issue of cross-border migration since the mid-19th century, negotiating boundaries set by treaties between the United States and Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. The Yaquis of northern Sonora crossed into what became Arizona in search of freedom from persecution as well as economic opportunity. When Mexican policy and practice enslaved and deported the Yaquis from their home regions, many crossed into the United States as refugees. On the northern border Crees crossed from Canada into U.S. territories, particularly Montana. They established camps but retained their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, repeatedly crossing the border, which they referred to as the Medicine Line. After the 1885 North-West Rebellion, their desire to be in the United States took on new meaning, as they also sought refuge. In his Spur Award–winning Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands author Brenden W. Rensink delves deep into the stories of the Yaquis, Crees and Chippewas, who ventured to the United States to improve their lives, as well as those Indians who crossed borders to escape military pursuit in the United States—notably the followers of Geronimo and other Apaches in the south, and the Lakotas who followed Sitting Bull and the Nez Perces who went with White Bird to Canada. What motivated the Yaquis to enter the United States/Arizona? That depends on when. Yaquis come into what would become Arizona as far back as the 1700s. In the mid- to late-1800s many crossed north as a much-desired work force, applying their expertise in mining, railroad and irrigation construction. Finally, in the late-1800s and early 1900s a wave of Yaqui political refugees fled north to seek refuge from a state-sponsored campaign of extermination, enslavement and deportation to the Yucatán. Were the Yaquis fleeing persecution or seeking prosperity? Sonora had long been a landscape of violence and many Yaquis were simultaneously pushed by violence and pulled by economic opportunity across the line. In the latter stages, however, the push of violence motivated many who had weathered previous periods of violence to flee. ‘American newspapers depicted Yaquis as savage, indomitable, and perpetually troublesome. This caused trouble for them in Arizona. Even with such negative coverage, however, many reports often expressed awe at their fierce independence’ How did Arizonans generally regard Yaqui refugees of the early 1900s? Mixed and complicated. They were prized as skilled laborers by many industries and highly sought after. At the same time, however, continual violence in Sonora between their compatriots and the Mexican state cast a continual shadow of suspicion over them. A third complicating factor is that they did gain sympathy when American media picked up on the extermination, deportation and enslavement occurring in Mexico. What is unclear is if this sympathy was more driven by altruistic desires to provide them sanctuary or by the opportunity for Americans to cast judgment on Mexico for malfeasance. The irony of America wagging its finger at Mexico for doing many of the things the nation had done itself mere years earlier was not lost on some observers. How did the attitude and perception of the Yaquis compare with the feelings and actions related to African Americans in the US? Americans regularly viewed Yaquis as just a different group of “Mexicans.” Many Mexicans had Indigenous heritage, but Americans failed to understand the unique nature of Yaqui independence and opposition to Mexico in Sonora. When grouped with Mexicans, they faced the same prejudice Americans expressed towards other Mexican and Latin American communities. The comparison to the treatment of African Americans is less direct. What effect did newspaper and other reports have on the Yaquis? It had a significant impact. During periods of warfare in Sonora (often involving Yaquis), American newspapers depicted them as savage, indomitable, and perpetually troublesome. This caused trouble for Yaquis in Arizona. Even with such negative coverage, however, many reports often expressed awe at their fierce independence. This again may have been motivated by an unspoken desire by some Americans to disparage Mexico, and praising their “uncivilized” Yaqui adversaries certainly demeaned them. Later, after the threat of deportation waned in the mid-1900s, Yaquis rose in prominence as newspapers reported on their Easter celebrations – making them something of a cultural phenomenon and tourist attraction. Later generations built on this goodwill while organizing politically and seeking white allies in the state. In 1909 Harper’s Weekly reported the “tragedy of the Yaquis is perhaps without a parallel in American history.” Was that an exaggeration? This is a perfect example of America deflecting guilt for its own mistreatment of native peoples by highlighting Mexico’s mistreatment of Yaquis. There may have been some sincerity in this and other similar reports, but it could also serve a political purpose. In 1909 the United States was fresh off the Spanish-American War, newly active in global affairs and carefully trying to differentiate itself from European empires—something many Americans were uncomfortable with being compared to. Highlighting the flaws of other nations served the purpose of elevating America above the fray. How did Cree border crossings compare with those of the Yaquis? Interestingly, Cree migrations compare closely with Yaqui examples. Crees had long histories in what would become the United States (even predating American settlement) and were welcomed as an economic force early on (fur trade) but later turned away. Both groups faced different receptions, depending on surrounding circumstances. Did the Yaquis or Crees make any treaties with the U.S. government? None. By the mid-1800s, when the United States was attempting to settle and populate Montana and Arizona with white Americans, the government was not accepting any more Indian wards than they already had. The origins of the Crees and Yaquis made for an easy out—simply label them as “foreign,” declare they did not belong and demand they leave. ‘The government was not accepting any more Indian wards than they already had. The origins of the Crees and Yaquis made for an easy out — simply label them as “foreign,” declare they did not belong and demand they leave’ How were Crees perceived amid the unique circumstances of the fur trade era? Lewis and Clark wrote about them positively and guessed they could be used by American fur trade networks. This changed when the fur trade collapsed and Montana was organized as a territory soon thereafter. Interested in attracting white settlement, investment, and industry, Montana Territory had no interest in uncontrolled, non-treaty, non-reservation confined Indians —especially if they were viewed to rightfully be wards of Canada. As whites settled on lands Crees had frequented for decades, subsequent tension, violence, cattle thieving and other negative interactions further soured Montanan views of Crees. What role did Little Bear play in the Riel Uprising? In the years just prior Little Bear had been in Montana with various bands under the leadership of his father Big Bear, among others. By 1885 they had returned to Canada, signed a treaty and settled on a reserve. During the Riel Rebellion, or Northwest Rebellion, a massacre of whites took place at Frog Lake and Big Bear’s Crees were present. The best survey of sources attests that Big Bear desperately tried to avert violence, but some of his young braves did not listen. With the army in pursuit, Big Bear told his son Little Bear to take followers south to Montana. “Across the line there shall be liberty for you,” he told his son. Big Bear remained himself to distract the pursuing troops. After the uprising how did the Crees deal with their refugee status?  When Little Bear’s bands crossed the border and presented themselves at Fort Assiniboine, the commanding officers were ready to force them back across the line. However, word was received from Washington, DC, that they were being granted political asylum and would be allowed to stay. However, with that protection, little else was provided. They were left to wander, struggle, and starve. What was John J. Pershing’s role in removal of the Crees from Montana?  In 1896, eleven years after Little Bear’s Crees had been allowed to stay (while being subsequently ignored), the United States appropriated $5,000 to round them up and deport them. From Fort Assiniboine, Pershing commanded the 10th Cavalry regiment of African American “Buffalo Soldiers” in the deportation effort. Hundreds were deported, including many American-born Crees, Chippewas, Métis, and others. How did Montana newspapers cover the issue? Much of the Montana press was elated. After a decade of complaining and campaigning to have the federal government get rid of the Crees, they finally had. When the majority of the Crees immediately returned back to Montana, many were incensed. A prime exception was the Great Falls Tribune, which had long been sympathetic to the Cree plight. They cried foul at the deportation, citing Crees’ amnesty and right to remain in the United States. Can you compare how the Crees in Montana were treated with how Sitting Bull and his Lakota followers and White Bird and his Nez Perce followers were treated after they crossed the border and spent years in Canada? The key difference in these examples is that the United States had existing treaties with Lakota and Nez Perce peoples. They were viewed as domestic Indians, and the U.S. government actively tried to get Canada to deport them back. Viewing Crees as foreign, there was no desire to have them under U.S. jurisdiction. Why did it take so long for the Yaquis to receive reservation lands as compared with the Crees?  Ironically, Yaquis longer saga for federal tribal recognition (1978) versus Crees (1916) has a lot to do with their relatively greater success integrating themselves into the labor markets that Arizona desperately needed to build itself. This relative economic success allowed them to form communities and some stability, although plagued by the uncertainty of potential deportation, not owning land, etc. Crees, on the other hand, did not have many desirable labor skills, so they wandered. Crees were forced to live in city garbage dumps, migrate continually in search of work or support, and this made them more conspicuous and easier targets of Montanan prejudice. In a cruel and ironic twist, their 1916 securing of recognition and reservation lands to settle came because many Montanans were tired of seeing their poverty at the door. In Arizona, Yaqui struggles and problems were less visible because they were not a wandering people. What other groups found themselves in the similar position of crossing either the northern or southern border as refugees into the U.S.?  There were other Native peoples crossing the borders, including the Chippewas with whom Crees were granted a reservation as a newly minted joint tribe. However, others were not entering the United States as “refugees,” not even those associated Chippewas. Some Natives had sought asylum in Canada or Mexico by leaving the United States, but Yaquis and Crees are unique in crossing into the United States for that purpose. Do any groups today face scrutiny over border crossings? Yaquis, Crees, and Chippewas maintain relations with family and cultural communities in Canada and Mexico and are working hard to strengthen those ties. This has become more difficult post-9/11. Peoples like the Toronto O’Odham or Akwesasne Mohawks are directly bisected by the border. This complicates the maintenance of family, culture, and religion with related communities who live just miles away, across the international border. In the Pacific Northwest, there is an increasing amount of cross-border collaboration with Salish-speaking peoples. Other groups, like the Blackfeet who have associated communities on Canadian reserves do likewise. ‘Yaquis, Crees, and Chippewas maintain relations with family and cultural communities in Canada and Mexico and are working hard to strengthen those ties’ What research challenges did you face?  One of the biggest challenges was finding archival sources. For other American Indian groups, records are organized neatly at the National Archives in RG 75—not so for Crees or Yaquis. For the pre-recognition period I was researching they were not considered “American” Indians. So, it took a lot of digging and finding relevant records tucked away in unexpected placed. Many published works that did mention them, did so only in a footnote. It is shocking how much our archival systems, and by extension, existing research is defined by national narratives. When Crees and Yaquis crossed borders, they fell out of the Canadian and Mexican archives and national stories and were not successfully integrated into the United States archives and historiographies into which they should have entered. This made research a challenge, to say the least. What new subject are you researching/writing about? I am wrapping up a collection of essays on the 21st century modern West, to be published by the University of Nebraska Press (likely in 2021). I have also begun research on a cultural and environmental history of Western wilderness landscapes and the types of experiences peoples have come to them to have. My work helping run the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, managing and editing the Intermountain Histories digital public history project, and hosting and producing the Writing Westward Podcast keep me plenty busy! Anything else to share? You can link to the companion website, where I have posted additional sources and topics. WW
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https://www.historynet.com/brian-urquhart-one-of-the-few-to-protest-operation-market-garden-dies-at-101.htm
Brian Urquhart, One of the Few To Protest Operation Market Garden, Dies at 101
Brian Urquhart, One of the Few To Protest Operation Market Garden, Dies at 101 “The worst way to make an argument is by reason and good information,” Sir Brian Urquhart, the British diplomat instrumental in the earliest days of the United Nations, told the New York Times in 1982. “You must appeal to people’s emotions and to their fears of being made to look ridiculous. I also learned that if you happen, by some chance, to get something right, you become extremely unpopular.” Such was the then-25-year old’s experience in the lead-up to Operation Market Garden — the disastrous Allied attempt to liberate the Netherlands in September 1944. As a chief intelligence officer within the British Army, Urquhart was one of the few who warned that the plan was flawed. The calamitous operation caused more than 17,000 Allied forces to be killed or wounded, and it was this fact that continued to haunt Urquhart until his death this past Saturday at his home in Tyringham, Massachusetts. He was 101. Planned by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Operation Market Garden was an unprecedented airborne assault behind enemy lines. The intent was to seize several strategic bridges along the Rhine, but Urquhart openly “worried that the British command had grossly underestimated the Germans’ strength and ordered an air reconnaissance mission that revealed the presence of two Panzer divisions near the Allies’ drop-off point,” writes the Washington Post. On September 15, 1944, two days before the attack occurred, Urquhart — who had been roundly dismissed by his British superior, Lt. Gen. Frederick A.M. “Boy” Browning — because of his adamance, was forced to take leave by Col. Austin Eagger, a medical officer who cited Urquhart as suffering from “hysteria” and “nervous exhaustion.” If Urquhart refused to take leave, he was told he would be arrested and court-martialed. In his subsequent memoir, A Life in Peace and War, Urquhart wrote: It was, of course, inconceivable that the opinion of one person, a young and inexperienced officer at that, could change a vast military plan approved by the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Britain, and all the top military brass, but it seemed to me that I could have gone about it more effectively. I believed then, as most conceited young people do, that a strong rational argument will carry the day if sufficiently well supported by substantiated facts. This, of course, is nonsense…. The Arnhem tragedy had a deep and permanent effect on my attitude to life. Before it, I had been trusting and relatively optimistic, with a self-confidence that was sometimes excessive. After it, I doubted everything, tended to distrust my own as well as other people’s judgment, and became deeply skeptical about the behavior of leaders. I never again could quite be convinced that a great enterprise would go as planned or turn out well, or that wisdom and principle were a match for vanity and ambition. The failed operation was later chronicled in Cornelius Ryan’s best-seller, A Bridge Too Far and Richard Attenborough’s subsequent 1977 film adaptation. Urquhart’s character was renamed “Major Fuller” in the Attenborough film to avoid confusion with the British general Roy Urquhart, the commander of the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Discharged as a major in 1945, Urquhart was further cemented in history through his work with the then-newly formed U.N. Deeply affected by the events of Market Garden and later, as a witness to the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Urquhart became a seminal leader for peacekeeping operations around the world. Motivated by “idealism of a very practical kind” coupled with a keen intellect, Urquhart “worked as a principal adviser to five UN secretaries-general, directed 13 peacekeeping operations, recruited 10,000 troops from 23 countries, and instituted peacekeeping as one of the core tenets of the Organization,” writes U.N. News. The U.N. official also possessed a wry, understated sense of humor, once quipping to reporters in 1961 — “Better beaten than eaten” — mere moments after surviving a bloody attack by Congolese secessionists in Elisabethville. These qualities continued to serve him well throughout his extraordinary life. Born in Bridport, England, on February 28, 1919, Urquhart was one of two sons of Murray and Bertha Urquhart, neé Rendall. Murray, dubbed by Urquhart as “the century’s least successful painter,” abandoned the family when Urquhart was just seven-years-old. His mother, a teacher at Badminton School in Bristol, enrolled the young Urquhart there. He was the only boy among 200 girls. He later graduated from Westminster School in London in 1937 and enrolled at Oxford University before his studies were cut short at the onset of World War II. Perhaps the U.N. official’s greatest legacy, which was not spelled out in the U.N. charter, was the practice of deploying neutral, unarmed or lightly armed soldiers to crisis zones around the world. The now familiar and distinctive powder blue helmets of U.N. troops was the brainchild of Urquhart. Instrumental in the creation of peacekeeping forces, Urquhart once slyly remarked that the “Blue Helmets,” as the soldiers were known, were “an army without an enemy — only difficult clients.”
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https://www.historynet.com/buffalo-soldiers-1866-1951.htm
Buffalo Soldiers: The U.S. Army’s famed African-American fighters
Buffalo Soldiers: The U.S. Army’s famed African-American fighters African-Americans have fought in the United States’ wars since the Revolution, and during the Civil War they comprised over 10 percent of Union Army troops and 16 percent of Union Navy Sailors. Yet the first peacetime African-American U.S. Regular Army units were not created until 1866. That year, as part of a U.S. Army reorganization following the Civil War, Congress created six Regular Army regiments of African-American Soldiers: 9th and 10th cavalry regiments; and 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st infantry regiments. In 1869, the four infantry regiments were consolidated into two units and redesignated 24th and 25th infantry regiments. In the racially segregated U.S. Army (until 1948), these units of black troops were primarily commanded by white officers. Beginning around 1880, African-American officers were also assigned to Buffalo Soldier units. The nickname Buffalo Soldiers originated during the regiments’ initial service in the Frontier Army in campaigns against Native American tribes. Likely, the title was first bestowed upon 10th Cavalry troopers as a term of respect by Cheyenne warriors in early 1867. Eventually, however, the name Buffalo Soldiers was extended to denote all troops in the four African-American cavalry and infantry regiments. Although Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, Mexican Punitive Expedition, World War II and the Korean War, they are most closely associated with their extensive service throughout the Western frontier in the Indian Wars. They operated over vast areas of the Great Plains and the Southwest, from northern Montana to the Mexican border, and they campaigned against Indian tribes mounting the fiercest resistance against the U.S. Army, including the Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Ute and Apache. Combat during the Indian Wars typically consisted of sharp, small unit engagements in which courage and initiative were the keys to success. It is therefore a tribute to the Buffalo Soldiers’ bravery, tactical skill and fighting prowess that 13 enlisted Soldiers and six officers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions in Indian Wars battles. Notable U.S. Army officers who led Buffalo Soldiers included Benjamin H. Grierson; Ranald S. Mackenzie; John J. Pershing; Henry O. Flipper, the first African-American graduate of West Point; and Charles Young, the third African-American graduate of West Point and the first African-American promoted to the rank of colonel. Today, the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Regiment and 9th and 10th cavalry regiments are still active duty organizations. While Soldiers of all races now serve in these units, they proudly claim the regiments’ famous Buffalo Soldier heritage. Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, “Armchair General” Editor in Chief Originally published in the May 2014 issue of Armchair General.
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https://www.historynet.com/building-a-mig-killer-f-4b-phantom-ii.htm
Building a MiG-Killer F-4B Phantom II
Building a MiG-Killer F-4B Phantom II Phantom “phans” can be a picky bunch when it comes to the myriad nuances among the many versions and upgrades that the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II underwent following its first flight in 1958. Hasegawa’s range of F-4 kits makes even the most detail-oriented modeler happy. First released in the 1980s, its line of Phantoms have remained among the best kits of the type in 1/48th scale. Hasegawa’s F-4B can be built into a fine replica OOB (out of the box), but the popularity of the F-4 means there are plenty of aftermarket detail kits to add to the build. Begin with the cockpit. The kit has nice raised detail for the modeler with a keen eye and a steady hand. There are also two five-piece ejection seats and two detailed pilot figures. For this Phantom, a pair of resin Martin-Baker ejection seats from True Details and an interior metal set from the Czech company Eduard will add detail. Pay particular attention to the rear seat. In the U.S. Navy, the cockpit for the RIO (radar intercept officer) doesn’t have flight controls, so the control stick and throttle aren’t there. Find some quiet time for clipping, bending and cementing all the metal details in place. While the cockpit tub is drying, it’s time to tackle some of the smaller subassemblies. Put together the landing gear, paint the hydraulic struts for the speed brakes and assemble the centerline external fuel tank. It’s also a good time to tackle the weapons. A set of aftermarket resin Martin-Baker ejection seats and a detailed etched metal cockpit interior set give the Phantom’s cockpit extra detail. This Phantom was armed with three radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrows and two AIM-9B Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. Paint the missiles white. The Sparrows have a light grey nose cone. Give the Sidewinders a black seeker head and add a drop of clear gloss to mimic the lens. Two Bobs Decals makes a decal sheet specifically for these kinds of missiles (48-086), helping to give each weapon some visual authenticity. Cement the AIM-9s to the two missile rails that will be attached to one of the inboard wing pylons (G-5 or G-6) and a single Sparrow to the other. Set the completed assemblies aside. With the cockpit complete, glue it to the right side of the fuselage and bring the two valves together. Assemble the top and bottom halves of the wing and attach them to the completed fuselage. It’s a nice snug fit, so there’s very little filling and sanding to get those seams just right. Assemble the engine intakes, but save the two “splitter plates” (D-27 and 28), just forward of the intakes, for later. Fill and sand where needed. Over time the F-4 upgrades added bulges, bumps and antennas to the airframe. For this early F-4B a couple of those bumps will need to be removed. Using a craft knife, remove the two sensor bumps on the top edge of the vertical stabilizer and sand to shape. Likewise, there are two sensors under each intake that should be removed. With the bulk of the Phantom complete, it’s time for some paint. The camouflage scheme for Navy aircraft of the time called for white undersides, including the insides of the wheel wells. The upper surfaces are painted light gull gray (FS36440). It technically has a matt finish but you’ll need to use a clear gloss before adding decals. Moveable surfaces—rudder, flaps and horizontal stabilizers (but not the ailerons)—are white on both top and bottom. Add a black matt anti-glare area from the cockpit forward to the radar nose cone, which is painted an overall gloss black. With most of the painting complete, it’s time to add the set of markings that will bring this “MiG killer” to life. Add a clear gloss coat to the interior of the wheel wells and speed brakes, using a dark wash to pick out the detail and give these areas a well-worn look. Carrier aircraft spent a lot of time exposed to the weather. Refer to photos from the time and add some daily grime to the underside of the jet. The lower section of the rear of the airplane is a metallic, titanium color, as are the inner part of the horizontal stabilizers. Check your resources and the instructions for the correct areas to mask off. Attach the horizontal stabilizers once they’re finished, making sure to have the correct anhedral that is part of the Phantom’s signature silhouette. The Hasegawa F-4 kits have a nice level of detail, but the afterburners are inaccurate. Eduard comes to the rescue again with a beautiful set of “burner cans” designed for this F-4B kit. Assemble the pair, painting them a dark titanium color and use a black wash to make the fine resin detail pop. A mix of dark and white pastels can simulate the heat marks inside the afterburner created by the 17,900 pounds of thrust delivered by each of the General Electric J79 engines. Slide the pieces in and cement in place. The kit comes with two types of canopies. One is a single piece affair, the other comes as four separate pieces, designed to be posed open, showing off all that hard work inside the two cockpits. Mask off the canopy pieces, paint and set them aside. With the camouflage complete, give the model a coat of clear gloss and get to the decals. Furball’s Bravo MiG Killers, Part 2 has markings for both jets involved in the June 17, 1965, engagement described in the cover story of the July 2020 Aviation History. The story is told through the experiences of Lieutenant Dave Batson and his RIO, Lt. Cmdr. Rob Doremus. The pair would ultimately down two North Vietnamese MiG-17s that day. Batson and Doremus’ Phantom was armed with three AIM-7 Sparrow radar guided missiles and a pair of AIM-9B Sidewinders. Carefully begin cutting out and applying the decals. Batson’s and Doremus’ names do not appear on the canopy rails of the jet they flew that day, which was assigned to Commander Lou Page and Lieutenant J.C. Smith, the crew flying the other F-4B involved in the engagement. It is not uncommon to fly a mission in a fighter that has someone else’s name on the canopy rail. Detailed artwork included with this set of markings ensures an accurate result. The Furball decals go on easily and with a gentle setting solution look great. Seal the decals with a clear coat and set aside to dry. Don’t forget the tiny MiG-17 silhouette on the splitter plate in front of the engine intake! Add a modest amount of weathering, especially to the underside and rear of the jet. The GE J79 engines were notorious for their telltale smoke trail, so add a dark chalk pastel color to the rear of the engine’s exhaust where soot would collect, baked against the metal by the hot afterburner. Attach the landing gear, the slightly opened speed brakes and the centerline external fuel tank. Add the two inner wing pylons (G-5 and 6) with the weapons completed earlier—Sidewinders on the left and the pylon with the single Sparrow on the right. The other two AIM-7 Sparrows should rest in two recessed areas under the fuselage. There are four stations designed specifically for that type of missile; be sure to cement the pair of Sparrows into the two forward spots. Finally, add the clear canopies painted earlier. The flat pane of glass on the forward section actually has a light blue tint. You can get this effect by using a blue highlighter marker on the inside of the clear plastic piece to create the translucent color. Two small hydraulic struts (D-13) hold the canopies open at the same angle. Remember to add the gunsight from the Eduard detail set. Your Phantom is ready to be next in line for the catapult and another sortie in search of more MiGs! Read How Navy Aircrews Scored the First MiG Kills Over Vietnam from the July 2020 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here!
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Building an Airfix 1/48th-Scale Messerschmitt Bf 109E
Building an Airfix 1/48th-Scale Messerschmitt Bf 109E Every hero needs a nemesis. For that dynamic duo of the Battle of Britain—the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane—the Messerschmitt Me-109E (our preferred designation) filled that role perfectly. The angular lines of the Luftwaffe’s frontline fighter give it a naturally aggressive look opposite the smooth curves of its rivals. Airfix has had a Messerschmitt in its catalog since the late 1960s, but its 2011 release of a Battle of Britain–era Me-109E was its first in 1/48th scale. The kit was engineered to be built in a number of different versions. Cockpit detail is good, including an option to show off the Messerschmitt’s Daimler-Benz DB601A engine. It’s a popular airplane in any scale, and today the modeler has a number of great options to add even more detail. The Eduard photoetched metal detail set (no. 49525) was designed specifically for the Airfix kit and is a great choice to spruce up the model. Starting with the cockpit, follow the instructions and file down the interior cockpit walls. The replacement metal pieces fit well on the fuselage sides. Do the same with the control panel, sanding off the raised portion and attaching the new control panel with super glue. New rudder pedals, seatbelts and harness are carefully attached the same way. Set aside the finished cockpit. On September 5, 1940, two British soldiers keep an eye on a Messerschmitt Me-109E-4 in which Oberleutnant Franz von Werra crash-landed near Marden in Kent, England—the subject of our modeling column. (HistoryNet Archives) Once the cockpit has properly dried, paint the interior a medium slate grey. Bring the fuselage halves together along with the cockpit, taking care to align the control panel and the rear cockpit deck. The completed fuselage only needs a little filler and some sanding. The instructions call for adding the propeller at this time. Assemble the parts, but it’s best to save attaching the prop for later. Next, assemble the wing. Use the Eduard set to add detail to the inside of the wheel wells. Flaps, ailerons and leading-edge slats are provided as separate pieces. The option to “drop the flaps” and assemble them in an extended position will help give the finished model the natural look of an aircraft at rest waiting on its next sortie. Bring the wing and fuselage assemblies together. Add the two radiators under the wing and it’s time to start painting. During the early days of the Battle of Britain, German aircraft were painted in a three-toned camouflage. The underside of the fighter is painted a light blue (RLM 65 in Luftwaffe parlance). The blue color extends nearly all the way up the fuselage sides. Follow the color artwork included in the kit. The upper surfaces are painted in an angular geometric pattern of dark green and a grayish-green color (RLM 71 and RLM 02, respectively). This particular Messerschmitt also had the wingtips and rudder painted white, with the engine cowling painted an off-white color. Once the masking and painting is complete, add an overall clear varnish to prepare the model for its livery. The markings for this fighter belong to Luftwaffe ace Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, who is perhaps best known not for his numerous aerial victories but for his dramatic escape after being shot down and captured on September 5, 1940. The talented fighter pilot was reportedly the only Axis pilot to escape captivity and return to duty. The kit decals look great and are easy to work with. A bit of a setting solution allows the markings to settle nicely into panel lines and surface detail. Another coat of clear flat helps seal the decals and it’s time to move on to the next step. Carefully mask the clear canopy, paint it and set aside. Attach the landing gear and it’s finally time to add the prop. Move on to the smaller parts first, but be careful with the small counterbalances underneath each aileron as well as the pitot tube. These last pieces are very delicate. Attach the three-piece canopy using white glue or a cement designed not to damage clear parts. The center section of the canopy is hinged on the right. Pose it open to show off all the detail in the cockpit. A final bit of weathering, exhaust staining, some grime on the landing gear and Franz von Werra’s Me-109E looks much the way it did on the morning of his last Battle of Britain sortie and the beginning of his grand escape.
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Building a Better Navy Jet
Building a Better Navy Jet Faced with an air superiority gap versus Air Force jets in the late 1940s and early ’50s, the U.S. Navy embarked on an ambitious aircraft development program that produced one of the world’s best all-around fighters. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, especially in aviation history. An extraordinary example occurred near Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California, during the early 1950s: While performing flight testing from an aircraft carrier, the catapult bridle—a device that connected the airplane to the catapult shuttle—had jammed the nose gear strut of a Chance Vought F7U-3 Cutlass, so that the gear would neither fully retract nor extend. Repeated efforts by the pilot to shake the bridle loose proved futile. Because attempting to land on the jammed nose strut was deemed unsafe, the pilot of the Cutlass was directed to fly over the base, point the aircraft out to sea and eject. Minutes later, after a successful ejection and seat separation, a crash crewman riding in a truck watched the pilot make a safe parachute landing in a nearby field. The crewman jumped out of the truck and ran up to the pilot. Pointing overhead, he exclaimed, “Your buddy’s still up there!” Giving the man a confused look, the pilot said, “Buddy? I don’t have a buddy up there.” But looking up, following the man’s finger, he saw it—his Cutlass—descending and turning back toward where the two men stood. Both were frozen in place as they watched the jet continue to circle and lose altitude. Coming in lower, the unpiloted F7U-3 missed colliding with the central cupola of the famous Del Coronado Hotel by scant feet, then moments later neatly landed on Imperial Beach. Damage was so slight that the aircraft was later repaired and returned to service. When jet aircraft began making their appearance during World War II, officials at the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics weren’t completely sure they could be safely operated from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Development trials carried out in 1946-47 with the McDonnell FD/FH-1 Phantom and the North American FJ-1 Fury demonstrated that carrier-based jet operations were practical. In terms of performance, however, no truly combat-capable jet fighter emerged until Grumman F9F Panthers and McDonnell F2H Banshees began reaching operational units in 1949 and 1950. Even though these new jets were considerably faster than the prop-driven planes they replaced, they still didn’t measure up to sweptwing, land-based jets (e.g., the F-86 and MiG-15) entering service at the same time. The deficit in naval air superiority was never more apparent than during the Korean War, when Navy and Marine Corps aircraft were forced to either avoid airspace within the range of marauding MiGs or rely upon protection from U.S. Air Force F-86s. The need to close the air superiority gap confronted the Bureau of Aeronautics with highly complex problems. At a minimum, any new carrier-based fighter needed to be fast enough to engage enemy aircraft traveling at transonic speeds (more than 600 mph at 40,000 feet) and, in due course, supersonic speeds (more than 660 mph at 40,000 feet). The Navy fighters should be equipped with radar for night and all-weather operations, and had to be capable of operating from carrier decks ranging in length from 820 feet (Essex class) to 900 feet (Midway class). Modifications that would improve the carrier fleet’s ability to handle higher-performance jets (i.e., angled decks, steam catapults, etc.) were still years away, and the Navy’s hoped-for “super-carrier” program was abruptly canceled in 1949 as a cost-cutting measure. In fact, no carrier built specifically to handle jets would join the fleet until the mid-1950s. Undeterred, the Bureau of Aeronautics and its partners in industry met this challenge by generating 11 different fighter designs between 1948 and 1958: eight under new type designations (F7U, F4D, F3H, F10F, F11F, F8U, F5D and F4H) and three more as subvariants of existing types (F9F-6, 7 and 8; F2H-3 and 4; and FJ-2, 3, 4 and 4B). All 11 reached flying prototype status, and remarkably all but two actually achieved operational carrier service, albeit short-lived in some instances. A comparison chart identifying each one in chronological sequence appears on P. 60. F7U Cutlass The mass of aeronautical test and research data captured from Germany at the end of World War II had a sweeping impact on military aircraft developments in the United States. Designed to meet a mid-1945 naval requirement for a 600-mph carrier fighter, Chance Vought’s F7U Cutlass owed much of its unique configuration to data on tailless aircraft acquired from the German Arado company. The data suggested that elimination of the horizontal tail would avoid the extreme nose-down forces experienced by conventional airplanes at speeds above Mach 0.75. The twin-engine XF7U-1, which first flew in September 1948, featured a low-aspect-ratio wing swept to 38 degrees with vertical tail surfaces mounted on the wings at midspan. Roll and pitch control was combined in “ailevators” (i.e., elevons) located on the trailing edges of the outboard wing panels. For slow flight, during takeoff and approach, the wing included large full-span leading edge slats, but no flaps. Powered by two Westinghouse J34 engines, the three XF7U-1s were followed by 14 F7U-1 production models. After lengthy trials, the F7U-1 was deemed generally unsuitable for carrier operations due to poor pilot visibility during landing approach (caused by the very high angle of attack needed at low airspeeds), poor wave-off characteristics and arresting hook problems. The similar F7U-2 was canceled, but the improved F7U-3 flew in December 1951 with more powerful Westinghouse J46 engines and a totally redesigned nose that housed a radar and fire-control system for all-weather operations. Other enhancements included wing pylons for either external fuel tanks or air-to-ground ordnance. Standard air-to-air armament consisted of four 20mm cannons. Beam-riding Sparrow missiles were added in the -3M version. The Navy ordered 180 F7U-3s, followed by 98 missile-carrying F7U-3Ms, the last delivered in 1955. F7U-3s and -3Ms served with 10 fleet fighter squadrons between 1954 and 1957, some of which were redesignated as attack squadrons. Though it turned out to be a maneuverable and stable weapons platform, the subsonic Cutlass was plagued by the need for excessive maintenance as well as a high accident rate, and by the mid1950s it was obsolete compared to newer supersonic designs reaching advanced stages of development. F4D Skyray Another product of captured German research, Messerschmitt this time, the Douglas F4D Skyray emerged from a 1947 design competition for a delta-wing naval fighter. The delta configuration was seen as a means to produce a plane optimized for high rate of climb yet fast enough to intercept enemy aircraft before they reached their targets. Early on, however, the Douglas team abandoned the pure delta-wing approach in favor of a tailless planform with swept wings of extremely low aspect ratio. In a related program, the Navy was sponsoring development of the J40 power plant by Westinghouse, a 10-stage axial-flow turbojet with which it planned to power the Skyray and at least two other fighter projects on the drawing boards. When the J40 program fell seriously behind schedule, the XF4D-1 made its initial flight in January 1951 with an Allison J35 engine. Problems with the J40 led to a complete abandonment of the program, and in March 1953 a decision was made to equip the Skyray with the more reliable Pratt & Whitney J57. Although the first J57-equipped F4D-1 flew in June 1954, extended acceptance trials delayed production models from reaching operational units until April 1956, eight years after the aircraft was first ordered. Deliveries to Navy and Marine fighter units continued through December 1958, when production terminated after 420 F4D-1s had been built. The Skyray was the first Navy fighter capable of exceeding Mach 1 in level fight, and in 1958 set the climb-to-height record, reaching 15,000 meters (49,212 feet) in 2 minutes 36 seconds. It was also the first naval fighter to serve as part of Air Defense Command, which had responsibility for protecting the continental United States from attack. F4D-1s were armed with four 20mm cannons, 24 2.75-inch unguided rockets and two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, or they could carry up to 4,000 pounds of air-to-ground ordnance on wing racks. The last examples left active service in early 1964. F3H Demon The Demon was originally conceived in response to a mid-1948 Navy requirement for a carrier-based day fighter that would be comparable in all respects to contemporary land-based fighters (specifically the Air Force’s North American F-86A, which by that time had been tested and ordered into production). After beating out 11 competitors, McDonnell was issued a contract to build two XF3H-1 prototypes in September 1949. The F3H utilized a conventional planform with wing and tail surfaces swept to 45 degrees, and like the Skyray was to be powered by a single Westinghouse J40 turbojet. While the prototypes were still under construction, the bureau added the requirement that production Demons be designed with all-weather capability as F3H-1Ns. In what turned out to be a costly mistake, the F3H-1N was ordered into production even before the first XF3H-1 flew in August 1951. The J40-equipped F3H-1Ns were not only seriously underpowered, but the engine proved to be so unreliable that all 56 aircraft were ultimately grounded. Rather then cancel the entire program, a decision was made in 1953 to substitute the Allison J71 engine (basically an upgraded J35). The first J71-powered F3H-2N flew in April 1955, and deliveries to squadrons began in early 1956. The -2s appeared in three subvariants: F3H-2Ns, armed with four 20mm cannons and two infrared Sidewinders; F3H-3Ms, additionally armed with beam-riding Sparrows; and F3H-2s, optimized as strike fighters to carry up to 6,000 pounds of ordnance. Total F3H production stopped in early 1960 after 519 had been built, and the last examples were withdrawn from operational service in September 1964. The Demon, in its final variants, was basically a good weapons platform, but because of an overlong gestation period it was unavoidably overtaken by the F8U and F4H. F9F Cougar In late 1950, the appearance of the MiG-15 in Korea, combined with delays in existing Navy fighter programs, prompted bureau officials to press for development of a sweptwing derivative of the Grumman Panther. The XF9F-6 was essentially an F9F-5 fuselage adapted to a wing and horizontal tail both swept to 35 degrees. The fuselage was extended 2 feet in the middle to permit greater internal fuel (in lieu of tip tanks), and an uprated Pratt & Whitney J48 engine increased thrust by 1,000 pounds. Work proceeded rapidly, and the first Cougar prototype was flying by September 1951. In testing, the XF9F-6 proved to be 100 mph faster than the Panther, and after initial stability problems were solved by the addition of an all-flying stabilizer and spoilers, the Cougar showed above-average carrier handling characteristics. Cougars were ordered into production as the F9F-6 (J48) and F9F-7 (identical except for the Allison J33) and began reaching squadron service in November 1952. First flown in December 1953, the F9F-8 had a fuselage stretch of 8 inches for more fuel and a 15- square-foot addition to wings that produced a noticeable saw-tooth leading edge. F9F-8s were later retrofitted with nose-mounted refueling probes and were capable of carrying Sidewinder missiles. The F9F-8B was fitted with a low altitude bombing system (LABS) so that it could operate in a strike fighter role. By the mid-1950s, the Cougar was the most numerous fighter in the naval inventory, but its service life was comparatively brief: It was phased out of frontline squadrons by 1959. Cougars continued to serve in Navy and Marine reserve units until the mid-1960s. FJ Fury In early 1951, the circumstances that gave rise to the Cougar also led bureau officials to seek development of a navalized version of North American’s excellent F-86 Sabre. Right after the project was initiated, the Navy issued a contract for 300 airplanes as the FJ-2, and the first prototype, basically a J47-powered F-86E with catapult points and a V-frame arrestor hook, flew in December 1951. Production FJ-2s had other refinements such as folding wings, lengthened nose wheel strut, four 20mm cannons, no dihedral in the horizontal tail, a modified canopy and stronger landing gear. When the Korean War ended, production was cut back to 200 planes. Unlike the competing F9F-6, FJ-2s revealed poor carrier handling traits and from 1954 to 1957 served only with six land-based Marine squadrons. Work on the follow-on FJ-3 began in mid-1952, and the first example flew in July 1952. The -3 came with a more powerful Wright J65 engine, an enlarged nose intake and wing modifications that improved carrier handling qualities. Delivery to fleet squadrons began in September 1954, and the type ultimately equipped 19 Navy and four Marine squadrons. The last batch of 80 aircraft was delivered as Sidewinder-carrying FJ-3Ms, with production ending in August 1956. Like that of its Cougar stablemate, the service life of the FJ-3 was short, with all examples withdrawn from operational squadrons by 1960. Though still in the Fury series, the FJ-4 of 1954 was essentially a completely new airframe. A new fuselage contour allowed 50 percent greater fuel capacity, and a new thin-section wing (similar to the F-100’s) incorporated leading edge droops coupled to the trailing edge flaps for slow speed control. Armament included four 20mm cannons and four Sidewinder missiles. The prototype FJ-4 flew in October 1954, and production models began to reach operational units in 1955, ultimately equipping one Navy and three Marine fighter squadrons. The FJ-4B was a dedicated ground attack version, flying for the first time in December 1956. In addition to a stiffened wing and a low-altitude bombing system for tactical nuclear weapons, the -4B could also carry up to five Bullpup air-to-ground missiles and had air-to-air refueling capability. After FJ-4Bs were issued to nine Navy and three Marine attack squadrons, production ceased in May 1958. The phase-out of FJ-4s and -4Bs began in 1959, and all had been withdrawn by the end of 1962. F2H-3 Banshee The unexpected setbacks in the F7U, F4D and F3H programs in 1950-51 induced bureau officials to ask McDonnell to develop an all-weather version of its twin-engine, straight-wing Banshee. The F2H-3, introducing a longer fuselage, more wing area, redesigned tail surfaces and an APQ-41 radar system, flew in early 1952 and entered service later that same year. The F2H-3 was followed in 1953 by the F2H-4, which had a better radar system and slightly uprated J34 engines. Both types equipped 12 Navy and two Marine squadrons, forming the fleet’s all-weather fighter capability until replaced by Skyrays and Demons during the mid- to late 1950s. The last examples were withdrawn from frontline service in 1959, and a small number served with Navy and Marine reserve squadrons until 1961. F10F Jaguar The variable-sweep Grumman Jaguar represented an interesting attempt to develop a fighter with good handling characteristics in either high or low airspeed ranges. Based on experimental data amassed in the 1940s, Grumman conceived a jet fighter design with wings that could move fore and aft from 13.5 to 42.5 degrees. Like the contemporary Skyray and Demon, Grumman’s project was planned around a single J40 engine. The Navy, encouraged by the design work, placed an initial order for a prototype and 30 preproduction models. When it made its first flight in May 1952, however, the XF10F-1 had materialized as a large (33,000 pounds loaded), highly complex aircraft with poor flying characteristics. The Navy canceled its order, but the prototype was flown for several years at Edwards Air Force Base to evaluate the properties of variable-geometry flight. F11F Tiger The Tiger began in 1952 as a company-funded effort by Grumman to explore the possibilities of applying area rule and a thinner wing section in order to obtain supersonic performance from the Cougar. Though designated the XF9F-9, the design that evolved in the spring of 1953 bore no resemblance to the previous F9F series: a slim fuselage designed in accordance with area rule, with lateral intakes moved well forward; narrow-chord, shoulder-mounted wings that featured full-span slats and flaps and spoilers for roll control; main landing gear that retracted flush into the fuselage; and a low-mounted, all-flying stabilizer. Power came from an afterburning Wright J65 engine. Armament consisted of four 20mm cannons and four Sidewinder infrared missiles. The first prototype flew in July 1954 before an afterburning engine was available but nevertheless achieved Mach 0.9 on the first flight. Once they were fitted with afterburners, prototypes easily exceeded Mach 1 in level flight. The Navy ordered the Tiger into production under the new designation F11F-1, but protracted carrier evaluations and resulting modifications delayed their entry into service until early 1957. Production ceased in January 1959 with the delivery of the 199th aircraft. F11F-1s equipped seven Navy fighter squadrons until 1961, when they were withdrawn from frontline service and used as jet transition trainers until mid-1967. Despite their brief service, however, from 1957 to 1969 Navy Tigers became familiar to thousands of spectators when they were used by the Blue Angels flight demonstration team. In an effort to get more life out of the design, Grumman initiated a project in 1955 to equip the Tiger with the General Electric J79. The resulting F11F-1F, or Super Tiger, flew in May 1956, and during testing in 1957 achieved a maximum speed of Mach 2.04 (1,320 mph) and climbed to an altitude of 80,250 feet. By that time, however, the F8U was already entering service and the multirole F4H was in advanced stages of design. As a result, the smaller, mission-limited F11F-1F was not ordered. F8U Crusader In the fall of 1952, the Bureau of Aeronautics circulated a new requirement for an air superiority fighter that could climb to 25,000 feet in one minute and accelerate to an intercept speed of Mach 1.2. In May 1953, after considering 21 proposals from eight different manufacturers, the bureau selected Vought’s entry, designated the XF8U-1, as the winner. Designed around the Pratt & Whitney J57 engine (14,500 pounds static thrust in afterburner), the XF8U-1’s most outstanding feature was a variable-incidence wing in which the entire center section could be raised in flight to increase angle of incidence by 7 percent during takeoffs and landings. In addition, while in the raised position, wing camber was increased by full span leading edge droops and ailerons that automatically lowered to 25 degrees. It had a long area-rule fuselage, and the cockpit was placed well forward behind a nose that housed a firecontrol radar and incorporated a chin-type air intake below the radome. Armament consisted of four 20mm cannons, two Sidewinder missiles and 32 2.75-inch unguided rockets in a retractable pack. The Navy ordered three prototypes in mid- 1953, and the first XF8U-1 flew in March 1955. Testing revealed the need for very few changes. Production F8U-1s began reaching operational units in March 1957 and equipped nine Navy and Marine fighter squadrons by the end of the year. Between 1957 and 1962, Crusaders were produced in four more versions: The F8U-1E had an improved fire-control radar; the F8U-2 featured an uprated J57 engine, ventral strakes on the tail to enhance highspeed stability and the ability to carry two additional Sidewinders; the F8U-2N included improved radar and avionics for better all-weather capability and an approach power compensator (a computer stabilization system that controlled airspeeds during carrier approaches); and the F8U-2NE, the first version with substantial air-to-ground capability, introduced an all-new search and fire-control radar and infrared scanner, an avionics package for Bullpup air-to-ground missiles contained in a hump on the wing center section, plus provision to carry eight Zuni unguided air-to-ground missiles and 4,000 pounds of bombs on external racks. In mid-1962, under a new designation system, the F8U became the F-8 (the F8U-1 became the F-8A; the F8U-1E became the F-8B; the F8U-2 became the F-8C; the F8U-2N became the F-8D; and the F8U-2NE became the F-8E). To extend the Crusader’s service life, 89 F-8Ds were remanufactured as the F-8H, 136 F-8Es as the F-8J, 87 F-8Cs as the F-8K, and 61 F-8Bs as the F-8L. F-8s served with distinction throughout the Vietnam War, and the last example was withdrawn from active service in 1976. In 1956, although Crusader production was already underway, Vought began planning a Mach 2 successor to be powered by the Pratt & Whitney J75 engine. The resulting XF8U-3, although it bore a superficial resemblance to the F8U-1, was in effect a complete redesign. The first prototype, flying in mid-1958, was followed by two more prototypes. However, despite impressive performance (Mach 2.21, combat ceiling of 60,000 feet), the XF8U-3 was canceled in late-1958 in favor of the two-place F4H-1. F5D Skylancer The XF5D-1 started life as the XF4D-2N in 1953; the only characteristics it actually shared with the Skyray were its tailless planform and J57 power plant. The XF5D’s 8-foot-longer fuselage was designed in accordance with area rule, and the wing section was considerably thinner. When the first Skylancer prototype flew in April 1956, it logged a 35 percent increase in performance over the F4D-1, but offered no important advantage over the F8U-1, which by that time was in full production. Two prototypes and two service-test F5Ds were ultimately built and used in various military test programs during the 1960s, one serving with NASA until 1970. F4H Phantom II In late 1953, after McDonnell’s proposal for a twin-J65-powered F3H lost out to Vought’s XF8U-1, the Navy encouraged the company to rework the design into an all-weather attack aircraft, the XAH-1. But soon after McDonnell submitted its attack proposal in mid-1954, the Navy revised its requirements again, this time for a two-seat, allweather interceptor armed only with missiles. Authorized as the YF4H-1, the mockup was completed in November 1955, and shortly thereafter a decision was made to drop the J65s in favor of bigger General Electric J79s, which had the power to give the plane Mach 2 performance. However, wind tunnel testing subsequently indicated that the YF4H’s planned aerodynamic configuration would be unstable at high speeds and therefore Mach limited. To correct the problem, the horizontal stabilizer was given 23 degrees anhedral and the outer wing panels 12 degrees dihedral plus saw-tooth leading edges, which produced a look that would characterize the design. The YF4H featured other innovations such as “blown” flaps and slats, which used engine bleed air to keep the airflow attached to the wing at high angles of attack, and combination “flaperons”/spoilers for roll control. The first YF4H-1 flew in May 1958, and initial flight trials were completed by the end of the year, after which the YF4H (later named Phantom II) was declared winner of the Mach 2 fighter competition and ordered into full production. Forty-five development aircraft were built as the F4H-1F, and subsequent production aircraft were manufactured as the F4H-1. With the 19th development aircraft, the cockpit was elevated and the canopy enlarged, and a bigger, more bulbous radome was added to the nose. Carrier suitability tests commenced in early 1960, and the type began reaching transitional training units in early 1961, followed by deliveries to operational squadrons in mid-1961. In 1962 the F4H-1F became the F-4A and the F4H-1 became the F-4B. By 1966, 29 Navy and Marine squadrons were flying F-4Bs. That same year, the F-4B was succeeded in production by the F-4J, which featured improved avionics and radar, more powerful engines and larger wheels to permit an increase in landing weight. Navy and Marine Phantoms were introduced to combat in 1965 over Vietnam and served widely in both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations until American participation in the conflict ended in 1972. In the early 1970s, 228 F-4Bs were upgraded as F-4Ns, which entailed a number of electronic enhancements and structural strengthening to extend service life; and in an analogous program instituted during the mid-1970s, 264 F-4Js became F-4Ss with new avionics and major structural improvements. The last F-4Ns and F-4Ss were retired from active Navy service during 1985-86, and from the last Marine squadron in 1992. Persistence Pays Off The sheer determination of the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics and American aircraft manufacturers during the 1950s finally paid off. By 1960, their efforts had not only closed the air superiority gap with the U.S. Air Force, but in the F8U and F4H had produced arguably two of the best all-around fighters in the world. This was verified in the early 1960s when, confronted with the likelihood of conducting conventional (nonnuclear) air combat operations in remote areas of the world like Southeast Asia, naval aviation was better prepared than the Air Force, which had, during the same timeframe, accumulated more than 5,000 fast but generally mission-limited Century Series fighters. The final confirmation came in early 1962: The Department of Defense informed the Air Force top brass that their next-generation fighter would be a Navy design—the McDonnell F4H-1. E.R. Johnson is a U.S. Navy veteran, a past president of the Arkansas Aviation Historical Society and a major in the Arkansas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. For further reading, he recommends: United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, by Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, and The History of U.S. Naval Air Power, edited by Robert L. Lawson. Originally published in the January 2008 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
46fe3dd843e49d1ae3335f694489d9a4
https://www.historynet.com/building-wop-mays-sopwith-camel.htm
Building “Wop” May’s Sopwith Camel
Building “Wop” May’s Sopwith Camel The Czech model company Eduard is known for its very particular attention to detail. Like its etched metal detail sets, the company’s models are known for their crisp molding and superb accuracy. Eduard’s 1/48th-scale Sopwith Camel is no exception. Released in a number of guises, this kit includes the markings for Canadian Captain Roy Brown, credited by some as the pilot who shot down Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary “Red Baron.” Richthofen’s quarry in the April 21, 1918, encounter was Brown’s squadron mate, young Lieutenant Wilfred May, known by his childhood nickname, “Wop.” The kit includes a small etched metal set, but Eduard also has a more elaborate version available (FE432) that adds extra interest. With an abundance of small, delicate parts, this kit requires the rapt attention of an experienced modeler. Eduard's etched detail set, FE432 can give the model a little extra boost. Start with the cockpit, painting the floor and the inside walls of the fuselage a light brown wood color. The wicker pilot’s seat can be replicated with decals included in the kit or, as in this case, the etched metal detail set, along with seatbelts and shoulder harness. The main fuel tank just behind the seat is an aluminum color. The instrument panel is wood with black instruments. The decals included in the kit have individual faces that look great with the help of some decal setting solution. Next, assemble the rotary engine. Paint the cylinders aluminum and add the wiring harness from the detail set. Paint the wires black and attach the finished engine assembly to the firewall, also painted aluminum. Finally bring everything together to complete the fuselage. Cement the floor of the cockpit to the lower wing and attach it to the fuselage. Ailerons are supplied as separate pieces. Cement these parts to the wing with a bit of a droop for a more natural look. At this point you can begin adding color to this classic World War I fighter. Brown and May flew in No. 209 Squadron of Britain’s Royal Flying Corps (merged with the Royal Naval Air Service and renamed the Royal Air Force on April 1, 1918). The squadron’s Sopwith Camels sported a red cowling and a dark wood color over the cockpit area. The rest of the fuselage and the wings should be painted a light tan on the undersides and a dark olive green on the upper surfaces of both wings. Give the entire model a coat of clear gloss to get it ready for decals. Before adding the upper wing is the time to use a bit of white dry transfer lettering for Lt. May's nickname that appears just below and forward of the cockpit. For this aircraft, the traditional red, white and blue roundels appear in all six positions: the top of the upper wing, bottom of the lower wing and either side of the fuselage. Additional squadron markings are made up of three white stripes, one forward of the fuselage roundel and two behind it. Wop May had his nickname, written in white, on the left side of the cockpit and “Lucy” written on the right. To reproduce the names, white dry-transfer lettering is a perfect choice. Each letter is burnished in place. Once complete, a coat of clear flat will seal the decals and markings in place. Now it’s time to attach the upper wing, an important part of the build that requires a lot of patience. Four individual struts hold up the wing and another four support the center section attached to the fuselage. Super glue permits a shorter setting time, but these parts can still be tricky to work with. Take…your…time. One approach is to carefully measure and cut two cubes of Styrofoam to act as spacers between the wings. This can also help keep the wing’s struts in the right position. Once the upper wing is attached, set the airplane aside to dry thoroughly. Paint the horizontal stabilizer the same color as the wings and attach the parts to the tail. Paint the forward part of the vertical stabilizer red and use the decal for the striped markings on the rudder. Next carefully attach the landing gear assembly. The struts are painted the standard dark olive green with the wheel covers in red. The tires should be a dark gray “rubber” color. Give the model another overall clear flat coat and the Camel is ready for the next step, rigging. The maze of cables and wires crisscrossed between the two wings of these early aircraft can look daunting. There are a number of different ways that modelers tackle this stage of the build. EZ Line by Berkshire Junction, based in Massachusetts, is a popular solution—the polymer thread is easy to use and will stretch and return to shape when it’s bumped. Old-school modelers will remember the fine art of stretching plastic sprue to create a thin thread, cut to length and glued in place. Reference material is key. Take the time to study and make a plan. Start with the struts in the center near the cockpit and work out. One of the most important things to remember is when to walk away and let things dry. Patience is the key to success. While taking a break from stretching hot sprue, examine the prop. The simplest route is to paint the propeller a wood tan with an aluminum hub. Take a little extra time and try using a couple different shades of brown along the length of the propeller blades. To create a more realistic, laminated look, work in layers. Painting, spraying a gloss coat and adding another layer of paint until the propeller has just the right look. With the last control cable in place, attach the prop and Wop May’s Camel, the one that got away, can take its place on your display shelf next to the Baron’s red Fokker Dr.I triplane. P.S.: Feel free to toss that .45 on the turntable and turn up the 1966 hit by the Royal Guardsmen.
aa733b4e154abf3c4a57a93f1b7e5c7f
https://www.historynet.com/burnside-was-betrayed-by-blundering-underlings-at-fredericksburg.htm
Blundering Underlings Betrayed Burnside at Fredericksburg
Blundering Underlings Betrayed Burnside at Fredericksburg Plenty of blame to go around for the defeat that cost the Union army 13,000 casualties To the casual observer, the Battle of Fredericksburg was a terrible blunder for the Union Army of the Potomac, in particular the daylong attacks on Marye’s Heights: 30,000 troops repeatedly sent 900 yards across an open field, uphill, against Confederate infantry hunkered down behind a formidable stone wall and supported by nearly 50 artillery pieces perched on the heights behind them. By the end of the fighting on December 13, 1862, the Federals had suffered nearly 13,000 casualties, the Confederates fewer than 5,000. History blames Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside for the Federal fiasco at Fredericksburg. In fact, he had many reasons to believe he would succeed. (Battlefield.org) It’s easy to cast blame on Union commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, to decry the loss as a tragic debacle that should have been avoided at all costs. But to dismiss Burnside as a blunderer is to make a blunder. The outcome of the Battle of Fredericksburg was anything but an inevitable fiasco-waiting-to-happen. Going in, Burnside had many legitimate reasons to believe he could win. To better understand Burnside’s mindset, flash back to September 17, 1862, when the two armies clashed along Antietam Creek in the single bloodiest day of the war. After the battle, Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee slipped his Army of Northern Virginia back across the Potomac River and to the safety of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan decided not to give chase. Mathew Brady photo of the meeting between President Lincoln and General McClellan Oct. 3, 1862, after Antietam. Lincoln had issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and was pressing McClellan to pursue Lee’s army into Virginia. (Ohio History Connection) Frustrated by McClellan’s inaction, President Abraham Lincoln urged his commander onward, but to no avail—and Lincoln could do nothing about it. The midterm elections were coming up, and things already looked grim for his Republican Party. By disciplining McClellan, a popular Democrat, Lincoln would only make his political situation worse. But the day after the elections, on November 7, Lincoln sacked McClellan and appointed Burnside in his place. Burnside came to command knowing that his predecessor was fired for not doing anything. As a result, he knew he had to do something or risk McClellan’s fate. Not only did Burnside have to act, he also had to do so quickly. It was already mid-November, and winter would soon settle in. Once the weather turned, conducting a campaign would be next to impossible. It would not be enough, however, to march around and rattle his army’s sabers in a show of force. Burnside had to win. Because of the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in areas of the United States still in rebellion. Of course, the only way to enforce the proclamation and garner public support would be through battlefield victory—otherwise, the president’s lofty plan would be little more than a paper tiger. General-in-Chief Henry Halleck pressured Burnside to fight for political reasons. So Burnside had to do something, he had to do it quickly, and he had to succeed. Washington’s fervor for battle was so intense that Lincoln’s general-in-chief, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, said it was better for Burnside “to fight a battle now, even if he is to lose it.” Rather than follow the Confederates southwest into the Shenandoah Valley, Burnside devised a plan to slip his 118,000 men southeast to Fredericksburg, where he could cross the Rappahannock River, make a quick dash to Richmond, capture the Confederate capital, and, he hoped, end the war. If nothing else, threatening Richmond would draw Lee into battle. Fredericksburg, a city with a wartime population of just more than 5,000, lay directly between the capitals of Richmond and Washington, D.C. The city was a key component to Burnside’s plan because it had a major railroad and a river; Burnside could use both to supply his army. Fredericksburg also boasted two major roads to the Confederate capital: the Telegraph Road and the Bowling Green Road. Burnside knew the bridges in Fredericksburg had been burned during a Federal occupation of the city the previous summer. So, well in advance of his move, he asked the War Department to send bridging materials that he could use to span the river. On November 15, Burnside launched his plan, successfully moving his army to Fredericksburg by November 19. Due to circumstances beyond Burnside’s control, though, the bridging materials had not yet arrived. Poor communication between the War Department and the engineers in charge of the bridging left the materials backed up along a route that stretched from Washington, D.C., to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. That breakdown in communication would cost Burnside and his army dearly. When Lee discovered what Burnside was up to, he quickly moved to intercept the Federals. With part of the Confederate army settled around Culpeper, Va., and part of it still in the Shenandoah Valley, Lee ordered the two wings to concentrate. He moved his First Corps, under Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, into the hills behind Fredericksburg—including the area known as Marye’s Heights. These 40,000 men were in a perfect blocking position. The other half of Lee’s army—the 38,000 men in Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s Second Corps—stretched out some 25 miles toward the south to cover all other possible river crossings. Until Burnside showed his hand, Lee had to prepare for all contingencies. A quick strike was now out of the question for Burnside because he’d lost the element of surprise—but he still needed to do something. As he considered his alternatives, Burnside looked downriver. There, the Rappahannock was wider, it was affected by the ocean’s tides, and the road network on the opposite bank wasn’t especially conducive for moving his large army. Alternatively, if the army moved upriver it would have to cross not only the Rappahannock but also its main tributary, the Rapidan. Meanwhile, Lee could simply shift his army to the northwest to meet Burnside, and then the Union army would face two contested river crossings instead of one. Going in that direction would also move the Union army away from its supply lines. In short, neither direction looked promising. At least if he crossed at Fredericksburg, Burnside could use the city to shield the army’s movements, giving his men a degree of protection. So, of the options available to him, Fredericksburg offered the best chance for success. “I think now that the enemy will be more surprised by a crossing immediately in our front than in any other part of the river,” Burnside wired Lincoln. Burnside planned to build pontoon bridges at the north and south ends of town, along with two pontoon bridges about a mile below town (eventually there would be three bridges at that southernmost location). His army would cross at all three places, but Burnside planned to launch his main attack against the south end of the Confederate line, at an area known as Prospect Hill, where the high ground wasn’t as formidable as it was directly behind the city. To prevent the Confederates from reinforcing the southern part of their line, though, Burnside intended to launch an attack against the northern end of the Confederate position to hold those potential reinforcements in place. He hoped one assault or the other would achieve a breakthrough that would flush Lee’s army from its position and open the southward road toward Richmond. Burnside set his plan into motion on December 11. The engineers had difficulty building their pontoon bridges because of Mississippi riflemen ensconced in the city. After artillery bombardment failed to dislodge the Mississippians, Union commanders sent several regiments across the river in boats to establish a bridgehead. It would become the first amphibious landing under fire in American history. Lithograph showing fighting in the streets of Fredericksburg, Dec. 13, 1862 (Library of Congress) Troops from New York and Michigan established the foothold, and from there, the Union regiments fanned out. Street fighting ensued. Losses were heavy on both sides. The 20th Massachusetts, known as the “Harvard Regiment,” lost 163 of 307 engaged. The house-to-house battle lasted more than 3½ hours before the Mississippians were driven back to the main Confederate line. They had held off the Union advance for an entire day, buying crucial time for Lee to concentrate his men. The Union engineers finished their bridges, but the bulk of the Union army would not cross the river until December 12. Frustrated by the delay, Federal soldiers took out their anger by sacking the city of Fredericksburg. Their commander, meanwhile, frittered away December 12, supervising the advance of his army in and around the city and tweaking his plan. This delay may have been Burnside’s decisive mistake. Remember, his plan called for an attack on the southern end of the Confederate line—the very section of the line that was weakest, stretched out 25 miles to the south. However, once Burnside tipped his hand by crossing in Fredericksburg, Lee sent word to Jackson to concentrate his Second Corps. Burnside’s wasted December 12 gave Jackson the valuable time he needed to consolidate his position at Prospect Hill. Burnside intended to launch his attack against Prospect Hill in the predawn hours of December 13 with 60,000 men. Although Burnside cut the orders on the night of December 12, Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin, commanding the army’s Left Grand Division on the southern end of the field, didn’t get them until 7:45 a.m.—35 minutes after dawn. To make matters worse, Burnside’s orders were vague, saying, “You will send out at once a division at least…taking care to keep it well supported and its line of retreat open.” Although the written orders flummoxed Franklin, who didn’t quite know how to interpret them even though he and Burnside had gone over the plan the previous evening, he failed to ask Burnside for clarification. After the Army of the Potomac lost the element of surprise at Fredericksburg, left wing commander Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin compounded the failure by neglecting to reinforce Maj. Gen. George Meade’s men at the southern end of the Union line. (American Battlefield Trust) Meanwhile, Burnside, unaware that his plan was already unraveling, sent word at about 10 a.m. to Maj. Gen. Edwin V. “Bull” Sumner, commander of the Right Grand Division, to begin the assault at the north end of the line in front of an area known as Marye’s Heights, a ridge that crested about 900 yards beyond the western edge of the city. Despite the uphill slope Union soldiers would have to cross, Union commanders saw an advantage to the terrain: The wide-open space contained very few obstructions, which would allow the advancing soldiers to build up momentum for their attack. The plan called for a lightning-fast strike out of the city, across the open plain, and against the Confederate infantry position—a sunken road that ran behind a stone wall some 30 yards below the crest of the hill, held by 2,000 troops from Georgia, under Brig. Gen. Thomas R.R. Cobb. The Confederate pickets out in the field would be so startled by the fast attack that they would turn tail and run back to the line, acting as human shields for the advancing Union soldiers hot on their heels. The chest-high wall looked imposing, although a portion of it was hidden from Union view because it held up a dirt embankment. Even so, Federals saw a potential advantage to attacking the wall. After all, at Antietam, the Confederates had used a sunken road as a fortified rifle pit, from which they were able to generate a withering fire—but once the Union soldiers broke through, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Confederates had no safe route of retreat. Here in Fredericksburg, the situation would be much the same. If Union forces could breach the stone wall, Confederates could try to retreat, but the only route available would be up the slippery exposed slope behind them or down the Telegraph Road toward Franklin’s force. In addition, if Union troops could breach the wall, it would give them safety from the artillery fire that would surely rain down from the top of Marye’s Heights. First Corps artillery chief Colonel E. Porter Alexander had nearly 50 guns posted along the top of the heights. “Sir, a chicken could not live on that field when we open on it,” he boasted to his commander, General Longstreet, referring to the expanse the Yankees would have to cross. But if those Yankees got close enough to the stone wall, the Confederate artillerymen wouldn’t be able to depress their barrels enough to fire on them. Confederate infantrymen from Brig. Gen. Thomas R.R. Cobb’s and Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s units put up a withering fire from behind the stone wall at the base of Marye’s Heights. (British Library Collection) By 11:45 a.m., the first Union troops, under Brig. Gen. William H. French, stepped out of the city toward Marye’s Heights. The 4,500 men in his three brigades immediately came under artillery fire from Alexander’s batteries. “We could see our shells, bursting in their ranks, making great gaps,” said one of the artillerists. A Union soldier said that “it seemed we were moving in the crater of a volcano.” Still, the Union soldiers came on, even as the cannons tore them to pieces. A millrace cut across the field. Fifteen feet wide and five feet deep, the ditch diverted water from the Rappahannock. Union engineers had blocked off the millrace and tried to drain it, but nearly three feet of water still stood at the bottom. The troops clambered through, then tried to get back into formation before continuing their advance, the artillery ripping into them the entire time. Another factor the Federals hadn’t considered was the weather. On December 13, the temperature rose to 56 degrees—but several days previously, it had snowed. The subsequent warm weather melted the snow, making the ground wet and spongy and slippery. The smooth-soled boots of the soldiers made footing on the muddy ground even slipperier and the advance more difficult. When the lead elements of French’s attack neared the stone wall, the Confederate infantry opened on them, halting the advance. “[O]ur men were never subjected to a more devouring fire,” one Union soldier said. All three brigades in French’s division met the same fate as they tried to brave the “furious storm of shot, shell, and shrapnel.” Nearly a quarter of French’s soldiers would end up as casualties. Survivors took cover in a shallow swale, a dip in the ground about 200 yards downhill of the stone wall. Still, the Union soldiers came on. At about noon, after French’s attack fizzled, Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s 5,000 men were sent in to face the storm of lead coming from the stone wall. Maj. Gen. William H. French led the first Union troops against Marye’s Heights. Nearly a third of the men in his three brigades would end up casualties. (American Battlefield Trust) Among Hancock’s men was the Irish Brigade, one of the more famed units to fight at Fredericksburg. Of the 1,200 Irishmen who advanced against the wall, only 256 would survive the assault to answer roll call the next morning. (After the battle, as stragglers and the wounded returned, the brigade’s ranks would increase to just more than 600.) Overall, Hancock’s division suffered 2,000 casualties. By 1 p.m., Brig. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard’s division, with its 3,500 men, was sent against the stone wall. Brigadier General Samuel Sturgis with 4,475 men of the 9th Corps was sent to support Howard. They suffered 610 and 1,011 casualties, respectively. Overall, the Union army was suffering a staggering average of 1,000 casualties an hour. By 3 p.m., Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin’s division, with its 6,000 men, was sent into action. Instead of making the stone wall his objective, Griffin sent his men in piecemeal to relieve Sturgis’ embattled troops. When Griffin finally did decide to attack the wall, he lacked the strength to do it. By the end of the day, his division suffered nearly 1,000 casualties. By this time, on the Confederate side, nearly 3,000 reinforcements had been sent to the Sunken Road to support the 2,000 infantrymen who had started the battle. To get into position, reinforcements had to descend from Marye’s Heights down a steep embankment that exposed them to Union fire. Most of the Confederate casualties suffered during the fighting would occur on that hillside. For instance, the 8th South Carolina, stationed atop Marye’s Heights, incurred 31 casualties in the battle—28 of them on the top of the hill and on the hillside as they advanced down to the Sunken Road; on the road itself, they sustained only three. From the Union perspective, it might have looked as though their advances were having an impact. Why else would Confederates send in reinforcements if not because they were feeling the pressure? A Currier and Ives lithograph of the relentless but futile charges by Union troops up Marye’s Heights. In fact, Confederate soldiers were putting so much lead in the air that they were running out of ammunition. To alleviate the problem, Longstreet shifted entire brigades onto the road: Fresh soldiers meant fresh supplies of ammunition. “[I]f you put every man on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line,” Longstreet boasted. The Confederate firepower behind the wall was made even more terrible by the efficiency of the infantrymen. Some units lined up four to six ranks deep, with the man in front firing and then going to the back of the line to reload while the second person stepped up to fire. When he did, he went to the back of the line while the third man stepped up, and so on. Thus the Confederates were able to create a conveyer belt–like effect. Other units put their best marksmen in the front; they would fire, pass their empty muskets to the back while someone passed them a loaded one, which they would fire and again trade for a loaded one. In this way, “[t]he small arms made one continual noise without a moment’s cessation,” a Confederate infantryman said. Another Confederate marksman stated he was black and blue from his right elbow all the way to his right hip for the next two weeks because he fired so many rounds that day. Meanwhile, at the far end of the field near Prospect Hill, Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade—who would eventually command the Union army at the Battle of Gettysburg—finally achieved success. At about 1 p.m., Meade’s Pennsylvania Reserves broke through the Confederate line. However, they were 8,000 men trying to drive through 38,000 Confederates stacked four divisions deep. Meade’s men held for a while, but the Confederates began to push them back. Meade, confident he could exploit the breakthrough if supported, desperately called for reinforcements. No one came, so Meade rode back himself to look for help. He even verbally assaulted another general who had not marched to his aid. But it was all to no avail. Meade’s commander, Franklin, had decided his soldiers had had enough and called off the attack. Yet he didn’t tell Burnside. And so, Burnside continued to send troops into the meat grinder in front of the stone wall to support an attack at the far end of the field that was not happening. Burnside was able to see Marye’s Heights from Sumner’s headquarters at Chatham Manor, a large house directly across from the action on the far bank of the Rappahannock; he could not see Prospect Hill, though, obscured by trees, smoke, and distance. The Rappahannock, however, amplified the echoing effect of the sound waves from the battle. As a result, Burnside could hear constant gunfire, but he couldn’t pinpoint the direction from which it was coming. From his perspective, it sounded as if everything at the far end of the field was carrying on as ordered. Poor communications complicated matters. Although the Union army had strung miles of telegraph line, not everyone trusted the new system, so officers frequently sent couriers, who took a great deal of time to travel from one end of the line to the other. Eventually, Burnside learned that Franklin had called off the attack and ordered him to resume his offensive, to “advance his whole line.” Franklin, who was as overcautious as his old mentor, McClellan, said he’d see what he could do—but then did nothing. And again, he did not tell Burnside. A Mathew Brady portrait of Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, whose men succeeded in pushing back Stonewall Jackson’s force at Prospect Hill. Meade called desperately for reinforcements, but William Franklin had called off the attack and left Meade hanging. Burnside, however, expecting that his orders were being carried out, continued to throw soldiers at the stone wall to keep those Confederates from reinforcing the far end of their line. And so, what had originally been intended only as a diversion took on a terrible life of its own. By the end of the day, seven waves of Union soldiers would crash against the stone wall and be swept away—18 Federal brigades containing some 30,000 men. Beside French, Hancock, Howard, Sturgis, and Griffin, Brig. Gen. Andrew Humphreys and Brig. Gen. George Washington Getty sent in attacks. Humphreys’ 4,500 Pennsylvanians attacked with a series of bayonet charges. Survivors of previous Union attacks clung to the pantlegs of the advancing men. “Don’t go forward, it is useless, you will be killed,” one of them pleaded as he lay prostrate behind the swale. For a plan that called for a fast bayonet charge, having fellow soldiers grabbing at the legs of the advancing men tended to be counterproductive. Still, Humphreys’ men claimed they made it to within 12 paces of the wall. Peter Allabach, a colonel under Humphreys, stated, “My boys made it closer to the gates of hell that day than anyone else on the battlefield.” Subsequent charges got to within 30–45 yards of the stone wall before being repulsed by “a sheet of flames.” Humphreys lost more than 1,000 men in less than 45 minutes. Getty’s attack came at the end of the day, just after sunset. His men advanced through “(a) perfect storm of bullets, boys; a perfect storm!” according to one Connecticut colonel. One of Getty’s brigades, under Colonel Rush C. Hawkins, got within 80 yards of the stone wall by sneaking under the cover of darkness up an unfinished railroad cut. In their excitement, the men let out a yell as they neared the wall, giving away their position. “If they had not started with a cheer,” admitted E.P. Alexander, “I don’t think that I, at least, would have known they were coming; for I could not see them.” But thanks to the giveaway, Alexander’s men loaded up with canister, and the volley that ensued shredded Hawkins’ advance. Brig. Gen. Andrew Humphrey’s men made the final charge against Marye’s Heights. Again and again, wounded men would grab their pant legs and beg them not to try to advance. Their momentum spent, the men fell back and General Burnside called off the attack. So ended the fighting on December 13. More than 8,000 Union casualties lay in front of Marye’s Heights. The Confederates had suffered just about 1,000—an 8-to-1 ratio. Nearly one-third of the attacking force became casualties, yet not a single federal soldier touched the stone wall or made it into the Sunken Road. Meanwhile, at Prospect Hill, which had clearly held Burnside’s best chance for victory, the Union army suffered 4,500 casualties, the Confederates just more than 4,000. The next morning, Burnside still believed he could achieve victory at Fredericksburg. He convened a council of war with his subordinates and announced that he would personally lead his former troops, the 9th Corps, into battle. Burnside believed that the personal loyalty those soldiers felt toward him would inspire them to follow him anywhere, including across the upward sloping plain toward the stone wall. Burnside, however, was the only one who felt that way. After doing a personal inspection and talking to several officers, “I found the feeling to be rather against an attack…” he said, “in fact, it was decidedly against it.” Ultimately, a teary-eyed Burnside called off his plan. Therefore, December 14 passed with Confederate soldiers behind the stone wall trading pot shots with Union soldiers trapped behind the swale. Lee tried to goad Burnside into another attack, but the Union commander balked, so the Confederates simply fortified their position further. December 15 would pass much the same way, and when December 15 waned into December 16, Burnside withdrew his army under the cover of darkness. Lee, who was usually aggressive, knew this was one victory he could not follow up. He understood that if he counterattacked across the same fields the Union army had just crossed, he would have the tables turned against him. The Federals had 147 cannon placed across the river on Chatham and Stafford Heights, and a large number of Union infantry had not yet been engaged. Frustrated, Lee could only watch the Federal army slip away to safety. On the night of December 13-14, the Northern Lights had appeared—a rare occurrence that far south. They shone overhead for more than an hour. Union soldiers saw the lights as God’s way of commemorating the brave sacrifice of their fallen comrades. Confederates, on the other hand, said that “the heavens were hanging out banners and streamers and setting off fireworks in honor of our victory.” But the Battle of Fredericksburg was no magnificent victory for the Confederates, and Lee knew it. At one point, he had watched from a hilltop as the spectacle unfolded below him and had said, “It is a good thing war is so terrible; we should grow too fond of it.” Lee knew what an awful price Burnside’s army had paid in defeat. The Army of the Potomac had suffered nearly 13,000 casualties, with around 8,000 of them on the ground in front of the stone wall. The Confederates, by comparison, suffered fewer than 5,000 casualties, most of them at the far end of the field near Prospect Hill where Meade achieved his breakthrough. Those lopsided numbers might suggest a terrible blunder on the part of Ambrose Burnside. However, while his generalship would ultimately prove to be unspectacular, at Fredericksburg Burnside was as much a victim of circumstances, sloppy communication, and poor generalship by his subordinates as he was a victim of his own mediocrity. Burnside had come to Fredericksburg with many reasons to think he could find victory there. Instead what he found was, as Lee said, war so terrible.
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https://www.historynet.com/but-for-a-horse.htm
But For a Horse
But For a Horse The Battle of Westport and, Indeed, the War Out West May Well Have Been Decided by a Stolen Gray Mare It was a chilly fall morning in western Missouri, and George Thoman was a decidedly unhappy man. Rebel soldiers operating near Thoman’s residence in Westport had stolen his horse during the night, and the immigrant farmer from the Franco-German province of Alsace wasn’t going to let the matter rest. Little did Thoman realize he was about to play a critical role in what would be the largest battle fought west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War. That missing horse not only helped turn the battle’s outcome, for all intents it put an end to Southern hopes in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. In 1856, Thoman left Alsace for a new life in America, making his way to Jackson County, Mo., with an opportunity to farm a plot of land just south of Brush Creek, a small stream running east from the Kansas border to the Big Blue River, a tributary of the Missouri River. Thoman, however, soon found it impossible to ignore the increasingly troubled state of affairs along the Missouri–Kansas border, which made engaging in meaningful economic activity in the western Missouri countryside problematic. By the fall of 1864, Thoman and his family had relocated to the home of a friend in nearby Westport, his decision to do so undoubtedly influenced by Union Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing’s General Orders No. 11, which mandated the relocation of potential Confederate-leaning residents from the countryside to more settled points in western Missouri. Wake-Up Call: In this painting by Samuel Reader of the 2nd Kansas Militia, Union skirmishers contest an attack at the October 22 Battle of the Big Blue. Reader was captured during the fighting but later escaped. (Kansas State Historical Society) Westport was a jumping-off point for those heading west on the Santa Fe and Oregon trails and, therefore, was at the peak of its prosperity when the fractious slavery debate in the region turned violent in the 1850s. Sizable Union and Confederate armies happened to be operating around Westport in October 1864. Inevitably those armies would clash. Show Me State Showdown: Westport foes Alfred Pleasonton, head of the Union Department of the Missouri’s Provisional Cavalry Division, and Sterling Price of the Army of Missouri (below). Pleasonton spent several days pursuing Price across the state. (Library of Congress) Major General Sterling Price commanded the Confederate force, the Army of Missouri. A former governor of the Show Me State, Price led victories at Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in 1861 that elevated his stature among pro-Confederate Missourians beyond what his abilities merited. Unfortunately for the South, by the time Price’s command entered Jackson County in October 1864, the limits of what it and its commander were capable of were quite evident. To be sure, in the time since Price and his men had crossed the border from Arkansas into southeast Missouri on September 19, they did manage to cover an impressive distance in the course of a whirlwind campaign—highlighted by engagements at places such as Pilot Knob, Glasgow, and Boonville. Yet, for all the noise produced by Price’s activities, there was precious little proof they had done much to shake the grip Federal authorities enjoyed on the state. What Price and his men were undeniably capable of was bringing the hard hand of war to those they deemed insufficiently sympathetic to the Southern cause. That would unfortunately include George Thoman. During the 1850s, a major influx of European settlers into Missouri became a significant source of friction within the state. Many of these newcomers were influenced by the liberal ideals of the European revolutions of 1848-49. That, combined with their sheer numbers, aroused great anxiety in Missouri, especially among the conservative slaveholding elite that had traditionally dominated the state’s politics and economy. Further exacerbating tensions was the fact that Missouri’s German population provided the manpower behind the May 1861 coup led by Union Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyons that overthrew Missouri’s duly elected—but proslavery—government. Sterling Price of the Army of Missouri (The American Civil War Museum) Price had long hoped he could drive the state’s provisional government from power or at least pose a serious menace to St. Louis, the lifeblood city on the Mississippi River. By October 1864, however, those were essentially just dreams and his command’s operations had degenerated into little more than a looting expedition. Moreover, by that point Federal authorities had directed Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis to assemble what would be called the Army of the Border to defend Kansas, and had ordered Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans—in charge in St. Louis—to dispatch a force, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, to chase Price as he ventured along the Missouri River toward Kansas. As a consequence, on October 22, Price found himself in a decidedly challenging position. Curtis’ command was in his front, and the gap between it and Pleasonton’s was rapidly diminishing. Furthermore, the general’s ability to move with the expediency the situation required was seriously hampered by some 600 wagons laden with property that had been liberated from various Missourians. Price was fortunate that day to claim a tactical success when he defeated elements of Curtis’ command at Byram’s Ford, a Union-defended crossing point of the Big Blue River. Aware that Pleasonton’s force was on Price’s heels and could be expected at the Big Blue the next day, Curtis’ response to the setback was to place the Army of the Border in good position “within the lines of field works that inclosed Kansas City” and leave a small force at Westport. Westport was at the peak of its prosperity when the slavery debate in the region turned violent Curtis’ actions, though, left considerable real estate exposed to the depredations of Price’s Confederates on October 22. However sensible the decision might have been from a military standpoint, it proved quite unfortunate for George Thoman, as soldiers likely from Price’s command found their way to his residence that night. After the intruders made off with hams and tableware, Thoman became frazzled by their interest in his gray mare, which was about to give birth. Thoman’s vehement, heavily accented objections proved unavailing. Anyone pondering the military situation as the sun rose over Brush Creek on October 23 could be forgiven for believing the stealing of a single horse and the distress it caused its owner were of little consequence. During the night, Price decided he and the 8,000–9,000 men still with his command would fight. If he could somehow take advantage of his possession of interior lines to win a victory, it might reverse the perception of his raid as a waste of time and effort. This would be the best scenario, though admittedly a long shot. War on the Doorstep: Before the war, Westport’s Harris House Hotel provided lodging for those using the Santa Fe Trail. Children of the hotel’s owner, Jack Harris, reportedly watched the battle from the top floor. (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library) At the least, Price thought his men could put up enough of a fight to provide sufficient space and time for the wagon train to get away from danger. Thus, Price decided to post Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s Division at Byram’s Ford to fend off Pleasonton. His other two divisions, under Brig. Gen. Joseph O. Shelby and Maj. Gen. James Fagan, would advance north from positions south of Brush Creek and attack whatever elements of Curtis’ command might be found. For his part, by 3 a.m. on October 23, Curtis was confident his force of about 15,000 men was in good position to move against Price’s command. “My purpose,” he informed Pleasonton, “[is to] attack…the enemy at daylight.” Under the direction of division commander Maj. Gen. James Blunt, Colonel Charles Jennison’s and Colonel James H. Ford’s brigades, supported by Colonel Charles W. Blair’s, would advance from Westport to Brush Creek, which was “skirted by a dense forest some two miles wide.” After crossing the creek, Blunt’s men were to continue their push south through the timber following a road that passed the house of John Wornall, a mile and a half south of the stream, and attack any Confederates they might find on the open prairie. On the Union right, a brigade commanded by Colonel Thomas Moonlight would advance to a position from which it could defend Kansas along the road that marked the border with Missouri, while menacing the western flank of any enemy force Blunt might encounter. If Pleasonton could quickly defeat Marmaduke at Byram’s Ford and Blunt do the same to the Rebels south of Brush Creek, a victory putting the very existence of Price’s army in jeopardy was a distinct possibility. The morning of October 23, however, would be a frustrating one for the Army of the Border. At daylight, Jennison’s and Ford’s commands were ready for action and their commanders promptly ordered them across Brush Creek, breaking the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and then up the heights on the south side. With skirmishers leading the way through the mist that covered the prairie, Blunt’s 1,500 or so men continued their advance south. At that point, though, Shelby’s and James Fagan’s divisions were moving north from their camps near the Wornall House to see what they could do. Shelby later proclaimed it was a day “clear, cold, and full of promise.” When the two sides made contact north of Wornall’s home, it became clear rather quickly that the Rebels had more effectively massed their forces. After about an hour of fighting, in which “clouds of dense and sable smoke…draped the scene,” Jennison’s and Ford’s commands were pushed back to the cover of the timber along Brush Creek. Moonlight, meanwhile, fell back toward Shawnee Mission. Blunt’s men did force the Confederates to expend so much ammunition, though, that Shelby couldn’t press his advantage. Thus, as the Federals crossed back to the north side of Brush Creek, Shelby and Fagan were content simply to take up a defensive position on the high ground overlooking the creek and push skirmishers forward into the timber south of the creek. The Swamp Fox M. Jeff Thompson (Duke University Library) Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson led Jo Shelby’s famed “Iron Brigade” at Westport. A transplanted Virginian, Thompson, born Meriweather Jeff, moved to western Missouri as a 21-year old in 1847. After working as a railroad surveyor and engineer in St. Joseph, he turned to politics and served as the city’s mayor (1857-60). As the nation drifted into civil war in the spring of 1861, he was appointed colonel and then brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard (MSG). Although this border state’s population was split on slavery and secession, pro-South politicians controlled the state government. At the war’s outset, Thompson was assigned defense of waterlogged, marshy southeastern Missouri, earning the nickname “The Swamp Fox of the Confederacy.” A Confederate sidewheel ram was named in his honor. Despite early Confederate victories at Wilson’s Creek and Lexington, the Federals soon gained control of Missouri. Following a loss at Fredericktown in October 1861, Thompson fled into northern Arkansas. He led ironclad rams in Confederate riverine forces and participated in John Marmaduke’s famed 1863 raid into Missouri. Captured later that year, Thompson was exchanged for a Union general in early 1864. He commanded the Iron Brigade for the first time during Price’s Raid in 1864. Thompson unsuccessfully petitioned Richmond for a Confederate commission and ended up retaining his MSG generalship throughout the conflict. Moving to New Orleans after the war, he worked as an engineer draining Louisiana swamps until 1876 when, terminally ill with tuberculosis, he returned to St. Joseph. He died there that September. –Jerry Morelock As this was going on, Curtis made his way to the roof of the Harris House Hotel in Westport to get a sense of the morning’s fighting. He learned the enemy had skirmishers in the timber south of Brush Creek and could see beyond “rebel lines deployed in endless lines on the open prairie.” With his men along the creek exchanging what Jennison described as “a desultory fire” with the Confederates, the redoubtable Federal commander ordered reinforcements forward and directed Blunt to make vigorous use of his artillery. Then, as Blair’s brigade advanced to the front line, Curtis decided to take a more hands-on approach. Accompanied by the six guns of Captain James H. Dodge’s 9th Wisconsin Battery—which since April had spent most its time protecting wagon trains along the Santa Fe Trail—he made his way personally to Brush Creek. Although Price had established army headquarters east of the Wornall House in order to keep an eye on the fighting at both Brush Creek and Byram’s Ford, he spent the night with Shelby’s and Fagan’s commands near that home. Price later declared he was “in full view of Generals Fagan and Shelby” during the fighting, but he clearly had little direct influence on the outcome of the battle along Brush Creek. The same could not be said of Curtis. (Map Graphics © DFL Group 2018) In any case, despite the arrival of Blair’s brigade and Curtis’ personal presence at Brush Creek, things looked promising for the Army of Missouri about 11 a.m. All attacks by the Federals proved to be exercises in futility. As his beaten men once again fell back to the woods along Brush Creek, it must have seemed to Curtis that whatever hopes existed of a Federal victory that day rested on Pleasonton’s shoulders. Difference-Makers: Westport was the crown jewel of Union Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis’ accomplished military career. His decision to heed advice from local farmer George Thoman (below) during the victory would be prudent. (Library Of Congress) But there was little evidence Pleasonton’s 5,500-man command was faring much better. By 11 a.m. the Federals had fought their way across the Big Blue, only to find Marmaduke occupying a strong position on a rock ledge overlooking an open meadow. Not until noon could Pleasonton get enough men into the fight to get the upper hand on Marmaduke, with Lt. Col. Frederick Benteen’s brigade driving the Rebels from what they called “Bloody Hill.” As Marmaduke’s men fell back, Pleasonton ordered his troopers to pursue. By the time the Confederates reached Harrisonville Road, the Army of Missouri seemed in serious trouble. A Union victory was now quite possible, but the extent of that victory would depend on whether Curtis could find a solution to the problem he faced along Brush Creek. Regardless of the sounds of battle filling the air that morning, it was insufficient to blunt Thoman’s determination to locate and reclaim possession of his stolen mare. By 11 a.m., his search had brought him close to the Union lines and the desperate Curtis. In interviewing Thoman, the Federal commander learned that a few hundred yards west of Wornall Road a stream flowed into Brush Creek from the south and west that cut a defile into the heights upon which the enemy was posted. According to Thoman, this defile—known as Swan Creek—could be used to maneuver behind the Confederates undetected. Curtis wasted no time. He promptly assembled a force composed of Dodge’s gunners and his own personal escort and, guided by Thoman, was soon following the new route. (Curtis owed his most notable military accomplishment of the war to that point, the victory at Pea Ridge in March 1862, largely to the superiority of his artillery, which undoubtedly shaped his thinking as he put together this force.) Meanwhile, under Blunt’s direction, the Federals at Brush Creek once again ventured forward to test the enemy line—though given the way the past few hours had played out, those in the ranks could certainly have been forgiven for wondering why their commanders expected a better result than previous efforts. Local farmer George Thoman (Courtesy Of Battle Of Westport Visitor Center And Museum) As Thoman had promised, by following the Swan Creek defile, Curtis and his force made their way undetected to a point just south and west of the home occupied by famed Western Indian agent and fur trader William Bent. With his force now to the left and rear of the Confederates’ Brush Creek line, Curtis had Dodge fire his guns upon Shelby’s and Fagan’s commands. This, as well as a renewed push by Blunt, was too much. The Rebels fell back about a half-mile to the south, to a new line along a lane running west from the Wornall House to the Bent House. Price, alerted that his wagon train was in danger, told Shelby and Fagan to hold on as long as they could. Curtis pushed his artillery forward, with 30 pieces soon in action. “Both armies were now in full view of each other on the open prairie,” a Union officer later declared, “presenting one of the most magnificent spectacles in nature.” Curtis’ army then advanced, forcing a valiant but ultimately fruitless response from the Confederates. The weight of Federal power proved too great. Realizing they had no chance to hold out, Shelby and Fagan called for a retreat. As their lines began to crack, a unit of Arkansas cavalry was ordered to make a charge on a Colorado battery whose fire had been taking an especially heavy toll on the Confederate position. That prompted Jennison to personally lead Captain Curtis Johnson’s company of the 15th Kansas in a countercharge. A ferocious melee ensued. The Federals emerged victorious, helped by the arrival of two squadrons of Colorado cavalry. “Both armies were now in full view…presenting one of the most magnificent spectacles in nature” Nevertheless, Shelby managed to establish a new line in the vicinity of the Wornall House. It did not hold for long, however. With Pleasonton pressing west to and beyond the Harrisonville Road and threatening the right and rear of the army, the Confederate commanders decided the only option was to send reinforcements from their fight with Curtis to Marmaduke’s aid. A fierce engagement with Pleasonton’s cavalry at the Thomas Mockbee Farm ended with a Confederate retreat, but critical time had been bought for Price’s beleaguered army to escape. A brief stand by Shelby’s cavalry also failed, and the rout was complete. As night fell October 23, Curtis, Pleasonton, and their men could take great satisfaction in their efforts that day. Though Price did get his wagon train away, the broken remnants of the Confederate army retreating south left no doubt the Union army had pulled off a truly decisive victory. Sadly, whether George Thoman’s contribution to the Union effort resulted in reunion with his missing horse has been lost to history. Ethan S. Rafuse is Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.
da43f690ba3f5b5d8c7b3adc1dd59e73
https://www.historynet.com/butlerofbritain.htm
Fiery War Painter: Lady Butler of Britain
Fiery War Painter: Lady Butler of Britain From her earliest years, Elizabeth Southerden Thompson admired soldiers. A talented artist, she devoted her career to depicting battle scenes and men of war. Her skill at military artwork was so impressive that she became a sensation in Victorian Britain—when a female military artist was a phenomenon. “My own reading of war … is that it calls forth the noblest and the basest impulses of human nature,” she later wrote in a 1922 autobiography. Born in 1846, the attractive and energetic young Elizabeth, nicknamed “Mimi,” was a rarity during an era when most women artists painted flowers and landscapes. “I stuffed my sketchbooks with British volunteers in every conceivable uniform, each corps dressed after its own taste,” she wrote. Scenes from her early sketchbooks depict soldiers in a variety of situations—drinking, smoking, marching, shooting, and charging on horseback. Self-portrait of war painter Lady Butler, 1869 “I gave sketches to nearly all my fellow students—fights round standards, cavalry charges, thundering guns,” she wrote of her early days in art school. Her interest in war and battles baffled many. There was no military tradition on either side of her family. Her devout mother, horrified by war, disapproved and wished her daughter to pursue a career in religious art. However, Mimi was immovable in her resolve. The determined young lady repeatedly sent drawings of soldiers to the Illustrated London News. Although her sketches were rejected for publication, she pursued her interests. At a time when other respectable British women dabbled in delicate watercolors, Mimi produced violent and realistic battle scenes of cavalry and artillery. Watching an army corps engage in a mock battle, she described the soldiers as having “a rather savage look which I much enjoyed.” In her autobiography, she often described soldiers as “splendid” and “gallant” and wrote of her enthusiasm for listening to veterans’ war stories. Invited to lunch in an army field mess hall, she remarked: “The lunch at the Welsh Fusiliers’ mess in a tent I thought very nice.” An early sketch of a cavalryman by young Elizabeth "Mimi" Thompson, later Lady Butler The 26-year-old Mimi unexpectedly skyrocketed to fame when her 1874 painting “The Roll Call,” depicting war-weary troops after the Battle of Inkerman, was put on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Onlookers were astonished by the gritty realism of the painting and especially by the fact that a woman created it. The painting, coveted by many, was bought by Queen Victoria. Mimi subsequently became famous, which she found difficult. She was criticized in the newspapers. However, her work was in demand. Hundreds of British soldiers and officers were eager to model for her. This resulted in the creation of many of her greatest masterpieces. Mimi depicted scenes from the Napoleonic Wars, 19th century wars and eventually World War I. Mimi’s fame also brought her future husband—a rugged infantryman named Sir William Butler. Butler was a rowdy Irishman who served with distinction in the Canadian Red River Expedition and in sub-Saharan Africa. Newly promoted to major, he was bedridden in England’s Netley Hospital recovering from a severe fever he caught on the frontlines when his sister read him newspapers to alleviate his boredom. Hearing of Mimi the feisty war painter, Butler was impressed. “As paper after paper spoke of me and of my work, he said one day to his sister, in utter fun under his slowly reviving spirits, ‘I wonder if Miss Thompson would marry me?’” Mimi recalled in her memoirs. “Two years after that he met me for the first time, and yet another year was to go by before the Fates said ‘Now!’” Following her marriage, Mimi became known as Lady Butler. She went through great lengths to recreate battle scenes. She used real soldiers as models and occasionally policemen. Mimi asked models to fire guns for her to so she could recreate realistic gun smoke. Once she also asked cavalrymen to charge at her. “I was favored with a charge, two troopers riding full tilt at me and pulling up within two yards of where I stood, covering me with sawdust,” she wrote. “I stood it bravely the second time, but the first I got out of the way.” One of her famous works was her 1875 mural, “The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras,” depicting events from the 1815 battle described in a military history book she read. The painting proved popular when unveiled. She wrote in her diary on May 3, 1875: “A dense, surging multitude before my picture. The whole place was crowded so that before ‘Quatre Bras’ the jammed people numbered in dozens and the picture was most completely and satisfactorily rendered invisible … It was chaos ….They clashed in front of that canvas and, in struggling to wriggle out, lunged right against it.” Other notable works by Lady “Mimi” Butler include “The Defence of Rorke’s Drift” (1880) and “Scotland Forever!” (1881). She also sketched a variety of soldiers in action from different countries, including an Egyptian camel corps charge and Italian Bersaglieri troopers marching to trumpets. Lady Butler’s paintings were unique in depicting suffering and the individuality of soldiers in addition to their heroism. She emphasized tragedy with triumph. “I hope my military pictures will have moral and artistic qualities not generally thought necessary to military genre,” she wrote in her diary. Lady Butler’s 1882 painting, “Floreat Etona!” depicts an officer trying to encourage a friend before being killed at the Battle of Laing’s Nek, 1881 One of Lady Butler’s most moving works was her 1882 painting “Floreat Etona!”, which depicts the heroism of a British officer immediately before his death at the Battle of Laing’s Nek in the Boer War. Lieutenant Robert Elwes, an alumnus of Eton College, shouted his university motto to inspire a former schoolmate during battle. Elwes was killed by gunfire minutes later. Through her Irish Catholic husband, Lady Butler became increasingly aware of hardships faced by people in Ireland and attempted to use her art to advocate for the Irish cause in Britain. As a result, she fell into disfavor with British imperialists who formerly admired her paintings. Persistent, Lady Butler continued to pursue her interests and paint military scenes until her death in 1933. She remains one of the most notable British military artists in history.
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https://www.historynet.com/calico-cake.htm
Calico & Cake: Mosby’s Rangers Had a Raucous Fourth of July in 1864
Calico & Cake: Mosby’s Rangers Had a Raucous Fourth of July in 1864 Things weren’t shaping up for a joyful Fourth of July in 1864, at least for the Union war effort. The presidential election loomed four months in the future and Lincoln’s reelection appeared to be very much in doubt, and Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederate force was nearing the Potomac River, poised for a third Confederate incursion into Maryland. Dark times seemed to be on the North’s horizon. Lieutenant Colonel John Singleton Mosby’s Rangers had already provided many dark times for the Union soldiers guarding Northern Virginia and the approaches to Washington, D.C., since they dashed onto the scene in early 1863. Throughout his 27 months of operating in the area, Mosby clung to the belief that his success should not be measured “by the number of prisoners and material of war from the enemy, but by the heavy detail it has already compelled him to make.” In other words, by diverting thousands of troops to guard against his escapades. In order to continue increasing the “heavy detail” of the enemy’s forces, and force the Union to move around troops, Mosby often picked soft targets—lightly defended camps and outposts—to aid the Confederate cause. A sketch of Federal soldiers working on the B&O Railroad at Point of Rocks, Md. A canal boat, such as Flying Cloud, heads upriver toward Harpers Ferry, Lock 28 and Paton Island are just out of sight, around the bend. The ruined bridge over the Potomac River can be seen at left. (Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society) In this regard, Mosby hoped to aid Early’s northern thrust. On July 2, 1864, as Early neared Harpers Ferry, Mosby and Sergeant Fount Beattie, one of Mosby’s oldest comrades, learned from a member of Early’s staff about the general’s progress and his intentions to threaten Washington, D.C. Immediately, Mosby settled on Point of Rocks along the Potomac River as his target. By striking north of the river, the partisan commander believed he could disrupt Union supply routes, divert Federal reinforcements moving against Early’s column, and cause fear and confusion among the local Union commanders. By noon on July 3, 250 Rangers had left the comfort of their safehouses to assemble at Upperville, Va., for the raid. The command brought a 12-pounder Napoleon cannon with them. Rumors had coursed through the ranks that the Rangers might cross the Potomac, and despite being on the warpath, Mosby’s Rangers marched in a jolly mood. They prepared to “picnic” on the Fourth of July from captured enemy food and supplies. Each of the men joining the raid fixed a “large sack” to their saddles to fill with captured enemy goods. Once formed, the command departed Upperville and marched toward the river. Sergeant Fount Beattie (HN Archives)Deception and secrecy were keys to the Rangers’ operations. They traveled along the backroads of Loudoun County to avoid detection. If they encountered civilians, Mosby ordered the men to say that they were scouts in advance of Lt. Gen.  James Longstreet’s Corps, which would soon be in the Loudoun Valley following in their footsteps. Mosby sought to sow as much uncertainty among the Federal high command as possible. By the late morning of July 4, Mosby’s men reined up their horses on the south bank of the Potomac River opposite Berlin, Md. (modern-day Brunswick). Then a turn to the right sent them downriver toward their objective: Point of Rocks. When within a few miles of the town, Mosby halted his command and went forward to reconnoiter the Federal positions. From his perch on the Potomac’s south shore, Mosby could easily see infrastructure features that made Point of Rocks important to regional Federal operations. Both the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal passed through the town and continued 12 miles west to Harpers Ferry. Through his binoculars, Mosby spied the enemy defenses—an earthen fort overlooking the depot. The town’s garrison included 250 men from the 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade and the Loudoun Rangers. Whether or not Mosby knew of the Loudoun Rangers’ presence in the town at this point is uncertain. If he did, he no doubt let his own men know of it, for they held a deep disdain for the “renegade Loudouners.” Satisfied with the information he had, Mosby rode back to his command to prepare them for action. The Rangers jumped into their saddles and continued down the Potomac River’s Virginia shore. They stopped at a ford off the western end of Paton’s Island, a strip of land that bisected the river channel about one mile upstream, or west, from Point of Rocks. Mosby ordered his gun unlimbered and dispatched Company D to remain behind with it. While the gun crew wheeled their weapon into position, about two dozen Rangers dismounted and headed to the ford. Armed with carbines, they soon engaged the Federal pickets on the island itself. Simultaneously, the Napoleon opened fire. The combined pressure scattered the Union skirmishers off Paton’s Island and onto the towpath of the C&O Canal, scrambling downstream for the safety of the fort at Point of Rocks. (The Rangers subsequently dubbed their gun “Potomac.”) Mosby sits at the center of a group of his Rangers, mostly young men recruited from the shaded area in the map below. (Virginia Museum of History and Culture) With the crossing open, Mosby’s other three companies plunged into the river and onto Maryland soil. They charged unopposed down the towpath on the heels of their prey. Along the canal, the Confederate partisans encountered the canal boat Flying Cloud carrying a host of Treasury Department clerks on a pleasure cruise to Harpers Ferry. They were on their return trip when Mosby’s men caught them. The boat provided a target for the cannon across the river but three successive shots missed. The Flying Cloud floated into Lock 28, where panic seized the clerks as their boat stopped in the lock. Many fled for safety. Quickly, the Confederates scavenged the boat and took bottles of liquor, cigars, and other treats the clerks packed for their trip before they torched the Flying Cloud. Tasting success, the Rangers continued their charge down the towpath to Point of Rocks itself. The Union withdrawal into the Point of Rocks fortifications was just as hasty, though some brave members of the garrison kept their heads on square enough to remove the planking from the bridge that spanned the canal bed. When Mosby’s command reached the empty span, they became bogged down under enemy fire with nowhere to go. The Rangers saw a nearby wooden building, the provost marshal’s office, as a solution to their problem, and they began tearing it down. Bullets zipped through the air as a few Rangers struggled to repair the bridge’s flooring. Seeking to inspire his men, Lt. Harry Hatcher, whom Mosby affectionately called “the bravest of the brave,” tightroped his way across the remaining bridge timbers and into the abandoned Union camp. Still under a hot fire from the Federal fortifications, Hatcher grabbed an American flag left behind in the camp. Seeing his example, Captain Dolly Richards ordered his men to dismount and force a crossing in Hatcher-like style. Only a trickle of Rangers made it across the span before it was ultimately repaired. Then, the remaining horsemen dashed across the bridge and into the Federal encampment and fort. This impetuous charge drove the Union garrison away from Point of Rocks. The bark of the “Potomac” across the river ended the brief action when it targeted a train chugging down the tracks of the B&O Railroad from Harpers Ferry to Point of Rocks. The engineer quickly got the message and steamed back to safety. Mosby’s men, flushed with victory in which the command suffered no casualties, leapt from their mounts and into the Point of Rocks stores. They grabbed anything they could find, including clothing—men’s and women’s—and candy. John Dutton, a Virginia Unionist who operated a store in Point of Rocks, lost approximately $7,000 worth of stock. Mosby’s men cleaned out Sam Gover’s store—the third such time that happened to Gover since the commencement of the war. John Scott, an early postwar chronicler of Mosby’s Rangers, wrote of the sight of Mosby’s men after they recrossed the Potomac River into Virginia. They were “bedecked in a very grotesque and original manner with their captured goods. As they passed along the road, some arrayed in crinoline, some wearing bonnets, and all disguised with some incongruous and fantastic article of apparel, they looked like a company of masqueraders.” Ranger John Alexander, who sulked with candy, his only booty of the raid, thought the joyous column “looked for all the world like a parade of Fantastics.” He could not help but wonder “how far the captured groceries, of the wet variety, contributed to the grotesque appearance” of his comrades. Mosby’s Rangers forever after remembered the July 4, 1864, raid on Point of Rocks as the Great Calico Raid because of the cloth and clothing they took. One of the Rangers’ greatest discoveries was a masterpiece of culinary creations. The story could not be told better than from the words of Ranger John Marshall Crawford. “Passing through the burning camps, the boys, after collecting what relics they wanted, pushed on back to town. Such an exciting and laughable scene few have ever witnessed or enjoyed. They had secured a huge pound-cake, which had been prepared by some ladies, who were to give the officers of the garrison an entertainment that evening. The history of the cake is as follows: The officers of the garrison had signified to some of their lady friends their desire and intention of celebrating the Fourth of July in a becoming manner, so their lady friends went to work and prepared a monster cake for the occasion. This cake was moulded in the form of a spread eagle, the mould being made in Boston, and measured twenty-five feet from the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail. It was a complete eagle in all its parts. It had glass eyes, talons, &c., &c., and in the baking of it, which occupied three days and nights, it was burnt (intentionally I presume), so that it looked like a real eagle. But the most remarkable thing about it was, that inside of it there was some machinery that every time one of the boys thrust his sabre into the eagle to cut off a piece, the bird would scream. What their idea was in inserting this instrument into this spreadeagle cake, I have never been able to learn or conceive. I inquired diligently of the residents of the place, but they would give us no satisfaction. Colonel Mosby would have brought it across the river, and sent it to Richmond; but the enemy had destroyed all the boats, so the boys concluded to take it to pieces; which, being done, it was with great difficulty got across the river in the evening by means of a raft. A six-horse team belonging to Mr. S. was pressed into service, the cake put into it, and started for Fauquier County. A guard of five men accompanied the wagon. While in camp on Goose Creek, the second night they were out, the guard got drunk on ‘blockade,’ and all of them lay down and went to sleep. The driver being a strong Union man, and having conceived the idea he would be made a hero, if he could save what was left of the great American bird, availed himself of the opportunity, and drove his load in the night to a Mr. _____’s farm, in Loudoun County, situated on Goose Creek. Securing four of Mr. _____’s most reliable colored servants, he secreted his precious load in one of those safe places which abound on that stream, and which are known only by those patriotic and loyal colored men, and started back with his team. Sunrise next morning, found him in the bosom of his family, on the banks of the classic Potomac. This Union driver kept the part he had played a profound secret, until General _____, occupied the valley, when he divulged his secret to him. On General _____’s retreat from Washington, a portion of his wagon-train and eight hundred prisoners crossed the Blue Ridge mountains at Ashby’s Gap. This portion of his army was pursued by General Durfea [Duffié], with two thousand five hundred cavalry. After occupying the Gap three days, [Duffié] fell back to Snickersville, where General Wright was encamped with a division of the Union army. On their march to Wright, they passed by Mr. _____’s house, and found these colored Union citizens, who conducted them to the spot where the treasure was hid, and carried it off with them. But the fates seemed opposed to having the remnants of the bird ever reaching the shores of Maryland again. Notwithstanding its long captivity, it retained signs of life still; and as it approached the soil on which the stars and stripes had never ceased to wave, these symptoms of vitality increased. An escort was sent with it; while crossing the Shenandoah River at Rock Ford, the wagon upset, and the load was precipitated into the river. By an eye-witness of the scene, I was told that it was beyond description. Suffice it to say, the greatest confusion prevailed. Every one wanted his own plan adopted to save the bird, and before any one that the men suggested could be adopted, to their utmost dismay and horror the bird gave one shriek, and then sunk; to rise no more. I never learned whether or not it was recovered; the presumption is that it was not.” Aside from this absurd but impressive cake and the captured supplies that Mosby’s men netted during their July 4 raid, the attack against Point of Rocks did have implications for Early’s campaign into Maryland. As Mosby struck Point of Rocks, Early’s command approached Harpers Ferry. Before Mosby’s men cut the telegraph wires in Point of Rocks, the operator there reported the enemy “in force.” This dire news reached army Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck in Washington. Wild rumors and inflated accounts of the size of the Confederate force moving north spread quickly. Halleck gathered 2,800 dismounted cavalrymen from Washington’s defenses and ordered them “to force [their] way to Harper’s Ferry.” That very same day, Halleck requested reinforcements for the Washington defenses from Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Not all of this was Mosby’s doing. But the cavalryman, who used fear as his ally, heightened the sense of dread percolating in Washington by the news of Early’s northward column. The Great Calico Raid serves as a perfect example of what Mosby’s partisan command did well during the Civil War: disrupt enemy communications, divert troops from threatened sectors, achieve a quick victory, and have a great story to go along with all of it. Kevin Pawlak is a historic site manager for Prince William County’s Historic Preservation Division and an Antietam Battlefield Guide. He is the author or co-author of three books, including To Hazard All: A Guide to the Maryland Campaign, 1862.
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California Artist Rick Hill: King of the Hill
California Artist Rick Hill: King of the Hill An Arapaho keeps vigil for “Distant Enemies.” Held where California coastal breezes wash up and over live oaks and black sage atop canyon walls that sweep down to the pounding surf of the Pacific Ocean, the Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach has showcased juried art each summer since 1932. The panoply of mixed-media works, sculptures, pastels, drawings, serigraphs, photographs, ceramics, jewelry, fiber arts, etched and stained glass, handcrafted furniture and even scrimshaw represents only half of an event that draws as many as 225,000 people. The other half is the Pageant of the Masters, a presentation of tableau vivant (living art). In a rigorous two-phase process, hundreds of local artists competed to show and sell their works at the 2019 festival. Only 140 made the cut, many after repeated entries over the years. Among the chosen few was first-timer Rick Hill, who creates Western and wildlife sculptures and paints oils out of his Orange County home studio. “I don’t take this honor lightly,” he says. Born and raised on the shores of Lake Erie, Pa., he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1976 and in the early 1980s moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a graphic designer at Hughes Aircraft for 27 years. In the late 1990s Hill took a structural design class and wound up creating his first sculpture. “I stumbled on my inner self and walked out of the class a changed individual,” he recalls. Hill plans on creating a 10-foot bronze figure of Kizh heroine Toypurina, depicted here in a bust by the artist. Some 20 years later his body of work includes a menagerie of sculpted elks, wolves, beavers, bears, birds, horses and cattle. Cowboys also cast shadows across his studio. His bronze Chasin’ Strays, for example, hints at the challenges hands faced when working cattle on the open range. The bronzes that resonate the most with Hill, however, are those he renders of American Indians, such works as Bear Hunter (Arikara), Distant Enemies (Arapaho), Trade Blanket and Seneca Warrior (Iroquois). The artist recently collaborated with members of the Kizh Nation (aka Gabrieleño Indians, historically associated with Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in Los Angeles County). Hill plans to create a 10-foot bronze tribute to a young Kizh female shaman named Toypurina, who in 1785 led a revolt against the Spanish soldiers and padres at San Gabriel. The Spanish governor of California ultimately banished Toypurina from the mission, and she died in exile at age 39 on May 22, 1799, at Mission San Juan Bautista (in present-day San Benito County), where she rests in an unmarked grave. Over the past two decades Hill has participated in Arizona’s select Sedona Arts Festival, Prescott Art & Crafts Festival and Scottsdale Arts Festival, while his works have appeared at the Upstairs Gallery in Carefree, Ariz., and Rinconart Studio in Placerville, Calif. Encouraged by his warm reception at the Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach, he plans to show his oils for the first time next year, hopefully at the festival itself, but certainly at Art-A-Fair, across Laguna Canyon Road from the festival grounds. WW A cowboy rounds up wandering steers in “Chasin’ Strays.”
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Camp Shanks: Last Stop, U.S.A.
Camp Shanks: Last Stop, U.S.A. As the war effort ramped up to full speed, U.S. Army planners turned 2,000 acres of quiet New York farmland into the busiest military embarkation camp in the world. IN THE DARKEST HOURS of many nights from April 1943 to May 1945, people living on the outskirts of Orangeburg, New York, awoke to the heavy footfalls of soldiers on their final march on American soil. Division by division—from the 6th Armored to the 101st Airborne—nearly 1.3 million uniformed men and women filed from the Camp Shanks staging area to railcars and ferries that would transport them 30 miles south to ocean liners waiting at the mouth of the Hudson River. The soldiers, among them three-quarters of the Americans who would invade France on D-Day, marched by clapboard buildings where the army had ensured their equipment and personal affairs were in order. They passed stages where the likes of Ethel Merman and Judy Garland had offered them Broadway diversions and rainbow daydreams during their fleeting stay. Those departing by ferry skirted a silk mill in the village of Piermont that spent its days churning out ribbons for medals to be pinned to the chests of men who had preceded them across the Atlantic. A mile-long wooden pier took the soldiers through head-high wetland reeds to a ferry slip in the deepest part of the Hudson. Neatly dressed Red Cross volunteers offered donuts and paper cups of steaming coffee, while local boys who had sneaked out to check muskrat traps hid in the shadows and watched boots that would storm Normandy and defend Bastogne stamp out final cigarettes. When their commanding officers issued the order, each soldier hefted a bulging duffle bag, climbed up the gangplank, and set off to war. IT WAS AN EARLY September afternoon in 1942 when Major Drew Eberson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers motored north from New Jersey into New York amid the first hints of fall colors on a new assignment. Before departing the United States for either theater of its evolving war, every soldier underwent final inspection and processing at one of several army ports located in coastal cities like Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Hampton Roads, Virginia. The army tapped its New York Port of Embarkation, consisting of Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton and New Jersey’s Camp Kilmer, as the primary departure point for troops bound for Europe and North Africa. Some 150,000 U.S. soldiers had already crossed the Atlantic. Expecting to send hundreds of thousands more in the coming months, the army dispatched Eberson to scout a location for a new staging area that would double the capacity of the New York Port of Embarkation, making it the largest in the world. Twenty miles north of Manhattan, Eberson pulled to the side of Western Highway to survey the hamlet of Orangeburg, population 500. Established by Dutch farmers through trade with the Tappan band of Algonquin Indians in 1686, the area was dominated by rolling fields of cabbage, tomatoes, and corn. Orangeburg checked every one of Eberson’s boxes. The farmland and sparse population meant minimal demolition and displacements. The Erie Railroad and the West Shore line of the New York Central crossed tracks here and could support troop movements. With a little dredging and construction of a pier, the Hudson River, fewer than two miles east, could provide ferry access to New York Harbor. On September 25, Eberson gathered 130-some nervous local landowners in a school auditorium to break the news: under the authority of the War Powers Act, the Army Service Forces would be purchasing their properties above market price. The acquired parcels totaled 1,365 acres. The army would lease an additional 675 acres of state land to round out what would be called Camp Shanks in honor of Major General David C. Shanks, who directed the New York Port of Embarkation during World War I. The Corps of Engineers’ plan would create a base a mile wide—from Western Highway to Rockland State Hospital, a psychiatric facility that would lend the army medical wards—and two-and-a-half long, stretching into the hamlets of Blauvelt to the north and Tappan to the south. Residents had two weeks to vacate. Major Drew Eberson (above, in driver’s seat) was tasked with finding a location for a vast new army staging base. Camp Shanks (below) was soon under construction in rural Orangeburg, N.Y. IT WOULD COST just shy of $45 million to transform Orangeburg into a camp that could accommodate a staff of 5,500 permanent military personnel and some 40,000 transient soldiers at any given time. The army contracted Cauldwell-Wingate Company to put up the post’s 2,500 buildings and Poirier McLane Corporation to develop the area’s first sewer system and other supporting infrastructure. With the army expecting to process outbound troops through Shanks by spring of 1943, the companies put more than 17,000 local draftsmen, carpenters, mechanics, and general laborers on the job. One of the first on payroll was Leonard Hunt, a salesman from nearby Nyack who, on his first day in late September, bulldozed row after row of cabbages ripe for harvest. Construction crews persevered through an unusually cold winter—temperatures dropped to a record -26 degrees—and the first staff members reported for duty at the half-finished camp on January 4, 1943. The army took great care to protect information about troop movements. Although locals were well aware of Camp Shanks, its name and purpose would be concealed from outside media. One of the first acts of the camp’s commanding officer, Colonel Kenna G. Eastham, was to establish a biweekly newspaper that would meet the information and entertainment needs of both permanent and passing soldiers. The Palisades was staffed by a team of experienced prewar news editors and reporters, along with cartoonist Bill Wenzel, whose voluptuous female characters earned much of the credit for the four-page tabloid’s readership and launched his three-decade career as a prolific pinup artist. While the military staff settled in, the army advertised for some 1,500 civilian workers to augment the motor pool and run post exchanges for about $250 a month. Eighteen-year-old Ruth Beard Stoughton of Tappan gladly quit her split-shift job as an operator at Bell Telephone to hock 3-cent candy bars at the PXs, where she enjoyed more than her share of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Fully staffed and with construction nearly complete, Camp Shanks welcomed its first deploying troops on April 17. WHEN ARMY DIVISIONS training in camps around the country received orders to embark from New York for Europe or North Africa, their entire complement loaded in train cars bound for Camp Shanks or Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. Orders were secret, and troops seldom knew which camp they were headed to. Stoughton’s brother, Paul Russell Beard, had an advantage. A field artillery forward observer with the Third Army, the staff sergeant fell asleep shortly after his unit departed its Maryland training center. He awoke just in time to spot Skinner’s Bar on Oak Tree Road in Tappan, a few blocks from his family’s Italianate home, and knew he was destined for Shanks. Troops rarely stayed in Orangeburg for more than a week. The Camp Shanks experience began with quick medical and dental exams, a review of vaccination records, and administration of missing shots. Soldiers tested their gas masks in one of three tear gas chambers and practiced abandon–ship drills—climbing down vertical cargo nets into simulated rowboats to prepare them for potential trouble during the Atlantic crossing. The latter activity made a lasting impression on Tula Civeta LaValley, whose Women’s Army Corps (WAC) unit passed through Shanks in the spring of 1943. “If I ever had to do that [at sea], I’m sure I would have stayed on the ship!” she reflected years later. Shoulder patches and other unit-identifying insignia were removed from uniforms in case the transports should fall into enemy hands. There were lectures on mail censorship, insurance benefits, and legal matters. During one particularly somber talk, an instructor lightened the mood by calling Army Air Forces sergeant Ralph Scott from the audience to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” to a young woman who was employed in an adjacent office. “I could see the grins on my men who were enjoying my embarrassment, and all I wanted about then was to be someplace else,” Scott recalled. Each soldier would depart equipped for battle. Quartermasters ensured every infantryman had a fully functioning M1 rifle with bayonet, as well as a helmet, cartridge belt, and field pack with required contents—raincoat, shelter-half tent and poles, canteen, toiletries, mess kit, first aid pack, entrenching tool, and more. Any item found wanting was repaired or replaced before the soldier shipped out. In Shanks’s busiest month, October 1944, the Quartermaster Corps issued 646,000 pieces of new equipment. Hundreds of soldiers prepare to test their gas masks outside Camp Shanks’s three tear gas chambers. WHILE MOST UNITS were cleared for deployment just two days after arriving in camp, they typically had to wait another four to five days for their transatlantic voyage. As a staging area, Shanks lacked the training facilities the army traditionally used to keep soldiers busy, so top brass sought other means to prevent idle soldiers from brooding over the perils awaiting them across the pond. The war department had created Special Services, a recreation and entertainment unit, in July 1940 to maintain troop morale. No base had a finer office than Camp Shanks. Permanently assigned musicians, composers, and comedians staged nightly performances, while boxing greats like reigning world heavyweight titleholder Sergeant Joe Louis refereed amateur matches and fought exhibition rounds. Drawing on talent within Shanks’s permanent staff, the office organized a 28-piece orchestra and fielded a baseball team that held the Chicago Cubs to a 5-2 victory and a basketball squad that took on the Harlem Globetrotters. “They beat the hell out of us,” remembered Herbert Walden of Shanks’s 22nd Medical Detachment. In the camp’s first six months, 44,000 troops swam in the pool and 122,000 enjoyed prerelease films in one of the six movie theaters. Special Services had the dual job of attracting visiting talent to Camp Shanks. Vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood stars jumped at the chance to entertain outgoing troops on the camp’s four main stages, including the “Shanksmobile,” a wheeled platform modeled after a Mississippi showboat. Soldiers roared at the antics of Jimmy Durante and Mickey Rooney and cheered for queens of screen and stage like Myrna Loy and Helen Hayes. In 1944, Camp Shanks was the proving ground for a playful musical satire of army life meant to boost morale across the globe. Hundreds of Shanks staffers responded to the casting call for About Face, whose authors included Army Air Forces private Frank Loesser, the Broadway composer serving in Special Services who would pen Guys and Dolls after the war. Designed for easy production at overseas bases, the script featured short comedic sketches and catchy tunes written in registers the average untrained G.I. voice could manage. Accompaniment could be as sparse as a piano, or as robust as a full orchestra. Suggested props and costumes were simple and easily sourced; a soldier could become Abraham Lincoln with just a bathrobe, a string tie, and a crepe paper-and-tape beard. About Face, which opened in the camp’s filled-to-capacity Victory Hall on May 26, 1944, was an instant hit. The audience howled at numbers like “Gee, but It’s Great to Be in the Army,” which facetiously celebrated soldiers’ newfound housekeeping and laundry skills with lines like: “When I get back to civilian life, I’m gonna make someone a hell of a wife.” In April 1945, a pinstriped Frank Sinatra chatted up members of Shanks’s two WAC detachments, then broadcast a live radio show before an audience of men about to ship out as replacements. “The GIs reacted to Frankie as though they were wearing bobby-sox instead of battle-boots,” The Palisades reported.   Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (left) and former light-heavyweight champion Melio Bettina, both stationed at Camp Shanks, spar for the camera. SOLDIERS WHO TIRED of the base amenities could venture off with a 12-hour pass. The surrounding communities welcomed them at four USO clubs. Each offered complimentary food and the friendship of young civilian hostesses, who were recommended by clergymen and trained in the proper wardrobe and etiquette for providing G-rated company to soldiers on the brink of deployment. In Tappan, local volunteers swept the cobwebs out of the Dutch Reformed Church’s old manse barn to create a dance floor that could hold 600 people. On any given day, soldiers could try Ping-Pong, finger-painting, or cigarette bingo. Guides offered historical walking tours of the neighborhood where George Washington had briefly camped the Continental Army in 1780. The Camp Shanks-area USOs were noted for going above and beyond. On March 3, 1945, the Nyack club bused 150 Japanese American women from New York to join a dessert-and-dance party for soldiers deploying as replacements for the all–Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion, whose members would be awarded eight Medals of Honor for their service in Europe. Outside the USOs, soldiers filled the barstools of many local watering holes. Herb Walden recalled that Bill Larkin’s tavern, just off base from the hospital, was a particular favorite. “The big parking lot had more fights in it than the whole history of Madison Square Garden,” he said. For 45 cents, soldiers could hop a bus to the Big Apple for a taste of the nightclub scene. The 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment preferred the tiki-themed Hurricane Club. First Lieutenant Wallace Strobel’s only vivid memory of his short stay at Camp Shanks was the night a friend arranged for him and three G.I. buddies to see a Hurricane show called Early to Bed, then paint Park Avenue red with four of the act’s female stars. The USO provided numerous diversions for soldiers on the eve of deployment. A local church barn was converted into a dance hall for up to 600 people. CITY LIGHTS AND charming ladies provided temporary distractions for the waiting soldier, but little could numb the nerves once a unit was placed on alert status with fewer than 12 hours to departure. Restricted to base, soldiers chalked passenger list numbers on their helmets and duffle bags and often reclined on their wool-blanketed bunks to draft one last stateside letter. Many sent any remaining U.S. currency off to their families—one Shanks postal clerk recollected writing upward of 600 money orders a day—or made final PX purchases. Ruth Stoughton was filling soda orders one late December afternoon when she noticed a soldier staring into the distance as he leaned against a jukebox playing “White Christmas.” “He looked so sad and lonely,” she remembered. “Every time I hear that song I still think of that guy.” Troops moved out quickly and secretly. During Paul Beard’s brief time at Camp Shanks, he made a nightly habit of sneaking out the gate, where his sister was waiting to give him a lift to the family home on Oak Tree Road. “I went up one night to get him and he was gone,” Stoughton recalled. To protect against possible enemy air observation, soldiers typically left Camp Shanks in the dark. Divisions would muster an hour before departure and shed their helmets for a chaplain’s final blessing. While some left by ferry, the majority departed by train from the southeast corner of the post. The march took them right past the WAC barracks. Women would often pull overcoats over their pajamas and gather roadside to wave goodbye, the occasional low wolf whistle punctuating the steady beat of combat boots on pavement. An entire battalion could be loaded on a train and gone in just four minutes. On Camp Shanks’s busiest day in October 1944, 27,626 men—nearly two whole divisions—departed its gates. In the upper reaches of New York Harbor, soldiers loaded onto transatlantic transports. For some, these were the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, ocean liners that could carry upward of 16,000 passengers and outpace German U-boats. Arriving in England or Scotland, each unit would transfer to a staging area and await the start of its war. Duffle bags in tow, soldiers board a train south to waiting transport ships. IN JANUARY 1945, traffic began flowing the other direction. Thirteen hundred American soldiers were pulled off the front lines for a month-long furlough and arrived at Camp Shanks for in-processing. With the tide of the war turning, civilian media were welcomed through the gates for the first time to share the story of battle-hardened men guzzling milk, lingering under hot showers, and making teary-eyed phone calls home. Outbound troop shipments dropped dramatically in March 1945 and had stopped altogether by Germany’s surrender on May 7. The Shanks Quartermaster Corps, which had supervised the departure of nearly 1.3 million U.S. soldiers, celebrated V-E Day in the basement of its headquarters. “Rank was tossed out the window and much fluid was tossed down the hatch,” according to an informal unit history. Returning soldiers flooded into Camp Shanks. Within 24 hours of arrival, they were on trains to reception stations near their hometowns. This included 45,000 men who shipped directly from Europe to the Piermont Pier. Marching up the dock, they were greeted by masses of cheering locals, many holding signs asking for any news of their loved ones. The SS Marine Fox delivered the 10th Mountain Division’s 85th Infantry Regiment on sunny August 11, 1945, two days after the second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The camp was abuzz with hopes of a war-ending Japanese surrender. The men celebrated with a steak dinner and a post-amphitheater show in which actress Betty Grable, who had starred in many soldiers’ pinup dreams, welcomed them home in person. When the 38th Field Artillery arrived at Camp Shanks, the Battery C clerk opened his duffle bag to reveal unconventional luggage—a 12-year-old Polish boy named Joseph Peremba. The orphan was laboring on a farm in Germany when Battery C made him an honorary ammunition carrier. It took the Supreme Court and Congress years to straighten out Peremba’s legal status, but he was eventually adopted into the clerk’s Oklahoma family. By early 1945, Camp Shanks began welcoming home troops, many of whom sailed directly up the Hudson before disembarking at the camp pier. CAMP SHANKS’S final assignment was staging nearly 290,000 German and Italian prisoners of war returning home. The War Department planned to convert the camp into a national cemetery upon decommissioning in July 1946, but Columbia University proposed an alternative. To alleviate an acute housing shortage, barracks were repurposed into 1,100 apartment units that veterans enrolled in New York colleges could rent for as little as $29 a month. Most Shanks Village families lived on a meager $120 monthly stipend. Resourceful residents developed grocery cooperatives, babysitting pools, and other communal approaches to living that drew Life magazine, curious politicians, and anthropologist Margaret Mead to visit the village before its 1956 closure. Many veterans of Camp Shanks and Shanks Village settled permanently in the Orangeburg area, aiding its transformation into a New York City bedroom community. Shanks buildings were torn down or sold off, and in 1958 the new Palisades Interstate Parkway bisected the former grounds, offering commuters a quick route south to the city. Today the only surviving traces of the staging area dubbed “Last Stop USA” are a few officers’ homes, a flagpole, and the pier that saw thousands off to war. âœ¯ After the war, Camp Shanks transformed into Shanks Village, a cooperative community with affordable housing for veterans and their families. This article was published in the August 2020 issue of World War II.
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https://www.historynet.com/capital-cannons.htm
How Capital Cannons Protected the Endangered District of Columbia
How Capital Cannons Protected the Endangered District of Columbia To protect Washington from menacing Southerners, Maj. John Barnard built a network of forts and gun emplacements. It was only tested once. Although it was the Union capital, Washington, D.C., was in essence a Southern city. It also wasn’t well-protected, with Fort Washington in Southern Maryland its lone creditable citidel. By war’s end, Washington was one of the world’s most heavily fortified cities. Loretta Neumann, president of the Alliance to Preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington (www.dccivilwarforts.org), works to keep the history of those forts alive. Explain the defensive plan put in place. By the end of the war, there was a 37-mile circle around D.C., with 68 forts, 93 batteries, 807 mounted cannons, 13 miles of rifle trenches, and 32 miles of military roads. Unlike Fort Washington, which was built of brick, the Civil War defenses of Washington were earthworks, usually surrounded by a dry moat, with emplacements for cannons and underground magazines where weapons and gunpowder could be stored. They were built on high ground, which gave them a strategic advantage over enemy troops. They were designed by  then-Major John G. Barnard, a West Point-educated Army engineer, who played a significant role in constructing defenses of American supply lines in the Mexican War and succeeded Robert E. Lee as superintendent of West Point. An unidentified heavy artillery regiment at Fort Totten, about three miles north of the Capitol near Silver Spring, Maryland. (Library of Congress) What kinds of artillery pieces were installed at the forts? The artillery at the forts varied and changed over time. When the forts were first built, they were mounted with large, old siege artillery, including 32-pounder seacoast guns, and various light artillery, including 12-pounder howitzers at Fort Marcy. Parrott rifles of varying sizes were mounted in 1862-63. Fort Stevens was armed with 30-pounder Parrott rifles. Battery Rodgers was armed with 200-pounder Parrott rifles. Rodgers and Fort Foote were armed with 15-inch Rodman guns, the largest guns in the capital defenses. The forts were also armed with coehorn mortars of various sizes. How much of a deterrent were the forts? The forts were well-placed at spots that commanded major roads. The units assigned to man them drilled constantly. The heavy artillery regiments, or “heavies,” as they were called, did not see much action until Ulysses S. Grant laid siege to Petersburg, Va., in the summer of1864. High casualties in the Overland Campaign prompted Grant to redeploy the heavies from Washington to the front lines as infantry. They were replaced in the Washington forts by inexperienced recruits and convalescents from Army hospitals. What happened then? Grant’s order to strip the Washington forts of veteran soldiers was a factor in Robert E. Lee’s decision in June 1864 to send Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Second Corps through the Shenandoah Valley to invade Maryland and take the war to the gates of Washington. After defeating Union Maj. Gen. David Hunter’s army at Lynchburg, Early led about 15,000 troops north to Harpers Ferry, W.Va. where they were held back for a few days by Union troops and then crossed the Potomac at Shepherdstown.  On July 9, at Monocacy Junction, just south of Frederick, Md., Early faced Union Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace and his 3,200 troops from the Middle Department in Baltimore. Wallace was also joined at the last moment by the Third Division of the VI Corps,  led by  Maj. Gen. James B. Ricketts, whose men hurried north by steamboat and train from Petersburg. The outnumbered Union forces were beaten back, but succeeded in delaying Early by a day. On July 10, 10,000 Confederates marched down Rockville Pike towards Washington, about 15 miles away, to what is now Georgia Avenue NW. Exhausted by the heat and fighting, the Rebels straggled into Leesborough (now Wheaton), Silver Spring, Takoma Park, and what became the Walter Reed Army Medical Center north of Fort Stevens, just inside the northern edge of the District of Columbia. Early decided to delay his attack until July 12. A preserved gun emplacement at Fort Stevens in Northwest Washington’s Rock Creek Park. (Photo by Melissa A. Winn) Explain the Battle of Fort Stevens. Union guns began firing July 11 after the skeleton crews at Forts Stevens, Totten, Slocum, DeRussy, and Reno were joined by civilians, led by Quartermaster Gen. Montgomery Meigs. Meanwhile, more VI Corps troops arrived, and when Early’s troops advanced on Fort Stevens the next day, they ran into veteran artillerymen firing the big guns at full speed. President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln visited Fort Stevens on both days of fighting. On July 12, a sharpshooter wounded a surgeon standing next to Lincoln, who was conspicuous in his stovepipe hat ashe stood on the parapet. An Army officer supposed yelled “Get down, you fool!” Early realized that the forts were now impregnable and his exhausted army retreated back to the Shenandoah Valley. The capital was safe. What happened to the forts after the war? Most were dismantled and either returned to their owners, sold, or saved by the government for future needs as forts. The land on which Fort Stevens was built had been taken from a free black woman, Elizabeth (“Aunt Betty”) Thomas; the land was returned to her after the war.  Twenty-three forts remain—18 under the management of the National Park Service, and five owned by local governments in Virginia and Maryland. Remnants of some are also privately owned. What does the Alliance to Preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington do to preserve and interpret the remainders of the fort system? The Alliance was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2008. Our initial role was preservation of these sites, which are so important to both national and local history. Many were eroding due to weather, growth of exotic species, and human activities. As a result of our advocacy, NPS assigned a program manager, whose responsibility was to coordinate activities related to the defenses. Today, however, there is only a  tiny staff to manage all these sites—Kym Elder, the program manager;  Steve Phan, historian and ranger; plus a ranger who has been assigned temporarily due to the absence of Ranger Kenya Finley.We feel that interpretation of the sites and educational outreach to the public is essential to our mission. We give talks to schools, libraries, and community associations, and we offer at least one bus tour of the sites every year. And every year we help the NPS plan and implement the annual commemoration of the Battle of Fort Stevens, held on a Saturday nearest the original battle. (Next year it will be held on June 11, 2020).  We tell the story of the Civil War Defenses of Washington, the Battle of Fort Stevens and much more. Reenactors (both military and civilian), speakers, musicians, exhibitors and others bring to life that whole period of history. What plans does the alliance have for the future? We hope to see legislation enacted to designate the Civil War Defenses of Washington as a National Historical Park. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents Washington, D.C., in the House of Representatives, has introduced such a bill, HR 3725. We strongly support the legislation as a way to add more protection and resources for the defenses,and we welcome a chance to testify at congressional hearings. An abbreviated version of this interview appeared in the January 2020 issue of America’s Civil War.
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https://www.historynet.com/capital-defense-washington-dc-in-the-civil-war.htm
Capital Defense – Washington, D.C., in the Civil War
Capital Defense – Washington, D.C., in the Civil War When the first inklings emerged early in 1861 that a fighting war pitting North versus South would soon break out, the residents of Washington, D.C.—at least those whose sympathies were with the Union—began to feel more than a little threatened. Though it was a haven for freed blacks, the District of Columbia also was the home of slave-owning whites and had the ambience of a Southern city, sitting below the Mason-Dixon line and surrounded by the slave-owning states of Maryland and Virginia. The city’s only defensive fortification was Fort Washington, built in 1809 well south of the city on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. Worse, only a handful of friendly troops were stationed nearby, and many of them defected to the Confederate side. By springtime, Confederate flags flying in Northern Virginia could be seen across the Potomac from the city’s higher elevations. In short, the Union capital was ripe for an invasion by the Confederates, and it wasn’t long before official Washington took notice. In February, Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, the Union Army commander, ordered Army Regulars into the city. By the end of April, some 11,000 Union troops had arrived to protect Washington. They set up makeshift camps in nearly every available space, including the Treasury Building, the Patent Office, City Hall, the Navy Yard and even inside the Capitol building. Many of those troops were put to work in late May building a series of forts and interconnected rifle pits and trenches. An impetus for accelerating the work on this network of defensive forts came late in July, following the unexpected and disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia. That shocking loss, just 30 miles southwest of Washington, raised new fears in the capital about an impending Confederate invasion. The defeat at Bull Run “left no longer room to doubt” the need for “a chain of fortifications” around Washington, reflected General John Gross Barnard, who was soon appointed the Army of the Potomac’s chief engineer. “With our army too demoralized and too weak in numbers to act effectually in the open field against the invading enemy, nothing but the protection of defensive works could give any degree of security.” The man chosen to oversee the building of the defensive works was Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan—West Point Class of 1846, Mexican War hero and the former chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad. McClellan took over as commander of the Army of the Potomac on July 27, just after First Bull Run. He immediately stepped up the fort and fortification-building effort. McClellan gave the job of overseeing construction to Barnard, who had fought at Bull Run. “The chaos of Washington inspired McClellan to an almost frenzied activity,” Margaret Leech wrote in Reveille In Washington, her 1942 Pulitzer Prize–winning portrait of the city during the Civil War. “Convinced that the city was about to be attacked by an overwhelming force, he spent twelve and fourteen hours a day on horseback, and worked at his desk until early morning.” While the 34-year-old general worked feverishly to process the thousands of volunteers for the Union Army, Barnard took over day-to-day supervision of construction of the forts. It continued at a frantic pace all summer. The Massachusetts-born Barnard, West Point Class of 1833, had specialized in building garrisons and fortifications during his 28-year Army career. Among other things, he had helped build defenses in New York City, New Orleans and Pensacola, as well as in Tampico, Mexico, during the Mexican War in 1846. The effort in Washington first involved confiscating the land for the forts and their extensive fields of fire (as far, in some cases, as two miles), and then tearing down buildings and clearing large swaths of forests and farmland—without compensating property owners. “On both sides of the river, the farmers were ruined,” Leech noted. “Not only were their orchards and vegetable gardens trampled and their fields filled with tents, but the very face of the land was changed, as its soil was shifted into high mounds and deep ditches.” Possession of the land, Barnard later said, was taken “with little or no reference to the rights of the owners or the occupants of the lands—the stern law of ‘military necessity’ and the magnitude of the public interests involved in the security of the nation’s capital being paramount to every other consideration.” The “injuries thus inflicted upon the citizens living along the lines, in the destruction and use of private property, were in the aggregate very considerable, and there were probably individual cases of extreme hardship; but, however much these evils might be deplored, they could not be avoided.” One case in point: Fort Stevens, the northernmost fort and one of the most formidable, which, when finished, guarded the entrance to Washington at the 7th Street Pike (now Georgia Avenue), the main thoroughfare into the city from the north. Fort Stevens was built in a section of Northwest Washington where the city’s first free blacks had settled in the 1820s. Known then as Vinegar Hill—and today as Brightwood—the section was home to many black landowners, most of whom were women, and many of whom operated small subsistence farms. To build and later expand the fort, the government requisitioned land owned by Emory Methodist Church—which still stands on Georgia Avenue—as well as property owned by Elizabeth Thomas, a free black woman. According to the then 40-year-old Thomas, known as “Aunt Betty,” the Army confiscated her house and tore it down without her permission—and without compensating her. “The soldiers camped here at this time were mostly German,” Thomas later said. “I could not understand them, not even the officers, but when they began taking out my furniture and tearing down our house, I understood.” Hours later, she said, she was sitting under a sycamore tree “with what furniture I had left around me. I was crying, as was my six-months’ old child, which I had in my arms, when a tall, slender man, dressed in black, came up and said to me, ‘It is hard, but you shall reap a great reward.’” That tall, slender man, Thomas said, “was President Lincoln, and had he lived I know the claim for my losses would have been paid.” Whether the Lincoln story is true, Thomas never received her compensation but lived at Fort Stevens until she died in 1917. Fort Stevens originally was named Fort Massachusetts by the men of the 37th Massachusetts Regiment, who began building it in October 1861. The fort was enlarged in 1862 and 1863, primarily by the men of the 11th Vermont Regiment, and its name changed on April 1, 1863, to honor Maj. Gen. Isaac Ingalls Stevens of the 79th New York Highlanders. The Massachusetts-born Stevens, West Point Class of 1839, was a former governor of the territory of Washington and a two-term (1857-1861) member of Congress. He died on September 1, 1862, at the Battle of Chantilly in Virginia—a bloody engagement, fought in a severe thunderstorm, in which Union General Philip Kearney also perished. When completed, Fort Stevens included several structures and featured a vast, 375-yard perimeter overlooking mostly open terrain. Rifle trenches surrounded the front of the three-sided fort. Inside were 19 artillery pieces, including 10 24-pound cannons. The complex also included a stockade, a blockhouse, barracks and officers’ quarters, as well as two bomb-proof magazines for storing ordnance. Many of the other forts were two- or three-sided earthen structures called lunettes, based on 17th-century French field forts. Bigger strongholds such as Forts Stevens and Reno, which Barnard called “field forts,” also contained artillery emplacements, wooden blockhouses, infantry parapets, stockades and what were called “defensive barracks.” The forts varied in size, according to Barnard, “from Forts Runyon, Lyon and Marcy, of which the perimeters are 1,500, 937, and 736 yards, down to Forts Bennett, Haggerty and Saratoga, &c., with perimeters of 146, 128, and 154 yards.” Most were “inclosed works of earth,” Barnard said. They were built on hills and high ground, and all were connected by rifle pits and trenches, along with barricades across the bridges of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. Thousands of Union troops and hired laborers did the work. By the end of 1861, Barnard reported, the “aggregate perimeter” of all the works stretched nearly nine miles. The forts were armed with 480 pieces of artillery, including 24- and 32-pound howitzers, 24-pound siege guns, Parrott guns and lighter caliber guns mounted on field carriages. By the end of 1862, 53 forts and 22 artillery batteries encircled virtually the entire city, from the northwest banks of the Potomac River all the way around to the river’s shoreline opposite Alexandria, Va. Barnard built forts on the Virginia side of the Potomac as well, stretching from Fort Marcy in the west to Alexandria in the southeast. By spring 1864, the defenses of Washington were complete. They consisted of a formidable, interconnected, 37-mile-long string of 68 forts and nearly 100 open artillery batteries and blockhouses, linked by some 20 miles of contiguous rifle pits and trenches. “From a few isolated works covering bridges or commanding a few especially important points,” the troops and laborers “developed a connected system of fortification by which every prominent point, at intervals of 800 to 1,000 yards, was occupied by an inclosed field-fort,” Barnard later wrote. “Every important approach or depression of ground, unseen from the forts,” could be “swept by a battery [of] field-guns, and the whole [was] connected by rifle-trenches, which were in fact lines of infantry parapet, furnishing emplacement for two ranks of men and affording covered communication along the line.” Roads “were opened wherever necessary, so that troops and artillery could be moved rapidly from one point of the immense periphery to another, or under cover, from point to point along the line.” Rumors flew throughout the war of pending attacks on Washington. Worries were strongest in the forts in Northwest Washington and on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The main concern was an attack or raid by the famed Confederate guerrilla leader Lt. Col. John Singleton Mosby, “the Gray Ghost,” whose men conducted hit-and-run operations throughout Northern Virginia. Mosby began operating on his own in Northern Virginia on January 2, 1863, when Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart granted him the authority to form an independent ranger operation. Mosby’s Rangers, which became Company A, 43rd Battalion, Partisan Rangers on June 10, 1863, lived in their own or in sympathetic families’ houses, and scattered after each engagement. They furnished their own horses, food, weapons and uniforms. Mosby’s harassing guerrilla activities took him into Fairfax County, Va., about 15 miles from Washington. But Mosby never made a move on the city’s forts. Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early did, however, and he made more than just a move. In July 1864, Early came within a hairbreadth of invading Washington with a corps of battle-tested, lean and hungry troops. By summer 1864, Washington’s physical defenses were, metaphorically speaking, rock solid. But there was a big problem: a severe shortage of personnel to man the forts. When they were designed, Barnard thought the number of troops required to garrison the forts would be at least 23,000, probably more. But in July 1864, Washington was virtually bereft of able-bodied Union soldiers; nearly all of them had been sent to the Army of the Potomac, which had laid siege to Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in Richmond and Petersburg. The exact figure is unknown, but an educated guess would be that the forts were manned by perhaps 10,000 men, many of whom were Veteran Reserve Corps—convalescing wounded Union soldiers not well enough to go back to the front lines. Army Chief of Staff Henry “Old Brains” Halleck had sent Barnard’s aide-de-camp, Lt. Col. Barton Alexander, to inspect the forts along the Potomac River on July 5—the day Early’s men had crossed that same river into Maryland some 60 miles north, from Shepherdstown in West Virginia. Alexander, an engineer, found one lieutenant and 63 Veteran Reserve Corps men defending Washington at Chain Bridge, the northernmost entry point over the Potomac into the city. Only one man, a Private Spink of the 147th Ohio National Guard, manned the artillery batteries on the Washington side of the bridge. Acting Ordnance Sergeant Spink, Alexander reported, “knows nothing about ordnance or artillery. In fact, no one at the bridge knows how to load the guns.” Spink’s job, he said, was cleaning the guns, “airing” the ammunition and sweeping the platform. New York Herald war correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader, who arrived in Washington on July 11 and toured the defenses, had a similar assessment. “The armament was insufficient, the ordnance supplies limited, and all of [the forts] were so weakly manned as to make any protracted resistance impossible,” he wrote in his memoir. n the morning of July 10, Early roused his troops from farms at Monocacy Junction, four miles south of Frederick, Md. Early had defeated Union Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace the day before at Monocacy, and on blisteringly hot July 11, Early led his men along the Georgetown Pike (now Route 355) on a straight line toward Washington. The going was slow because of the punishing heat and the exhaustion the men felt from having been on the march since June 13—after Lee had ordered Early to go to the Shenandoah Valley, boot out the Union troops, move into Maryland and “threaten” Washington. Early bivouacked July 10 in and around the cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg, about 10 miles outside Washington. When word arrived that Early had defeated Wallace just 45 miles west and was heading for the nation’s capital, Union commanders scrambled to put together a force of volunteers to defend the city as panic gripped its inhabitants. Halleck urgently called for more volunteers. “We are greatly in need of privates,” Halleck said. “Any one volunteering in that capacity will be thankfully received.” On the night of July 10, “the motliest crowd of soldiers I ever saw,” one soldier recalled, was organized primarily to man Forts Reno and Stevens, the two largest forts guarding the northwest quadrant of the city. The crew included, among others, quartermaster employees, staffers from the War, Navy and State departments, and convalescents from military hospitals. Or, in the words of another Union soldier, a collection of “counter jumpers, clerks in the War Office, hospital rats and stragglers.” At 6:20 the next morning, Early’s men began moving from Rockville and Gaithersburg. Early himself arrived at the gates of Fort Stevens shortly after noon and found the defenses of Washington were “but feebly manned.” But Grant was reluctant to send troops away from Richmond and Petersburg. He had not given in until the late afternoon of July 9, after word came of the defeat at Monocacy. At 8:45 p.m. on July 9, Halleck had ordered two divisions of the VI Corps (the rest had gone to Monocacy) to get to Washington from outside Richmond. The ships carrying the men made it to the old 6th Street Wharf in Washington at noon on the 11th—just as Early was first contemplating Fort Stevens and an attack on the “feebly manned” fort and city. But Early informed Lee three days later, “the men were almost completely exhausted and not in a condition to make an attack.” By the time Early believed his men were ready, it was too late. The VI Corps men had arrived at Fort Stevens, rendering any prospect of a successful assault remote at best. Early decided not invade to Washington, but he stuck around for two days to cause other kinds of trouble. His men engaged Union forces outside Fort Stevens and Fort Reno in 48 intermittent hours of skirmishing and artillery duels July 11 and 12 that caused some 300 Union casualties and an equal, if not larger, number on the Confederate side. By dawn on July 13, Early had taken his troops back across the Potomac River into Virginia. The Union forces did not give chase. The defenses of Washington were not breached. And there would be no more Confederate attempts to attack the city for the rest of the war. n Marc Leepson’s most recent book is Desperate Engagement: AA History of the Battle of Monocacy and Early’s move on Washington, D.C. America’s Civil War would like to thank Wally Owen of the Fort Ward
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https://www.historynet.com/caproni-flying-barrel.htm
Caproni Flying Barrel
Caproni Flying Barrel Luigi Stipa claimed his ‘intubed propeller’ was the ancestor of the jet engine. Even in an era when aircraft designers experimented with every conceivable shape and size, the prototype designed by Italian engineer Luigi Stipa and built by the Caproni company in 1932 stood apart. In place of a conventional fuselage, the airplane, known as the Caproni Stipa, consisted of a short, wide, hollow tube through which the propeller wash was directed. Today some consider the Stipa the ugliest airplane ever built. Others simply regard it as an aerodynamic freak, a sort of man-made bumblebee. There are others, however, who see in this bizarre Italian contraption the direct predecessor of the turbofan engines used on today’s commercial and military jets. Born in 1900, Luigi Stipa interrupted his education to serve in the Italian army’s Bersaglieri Corps during World War I. He later earned degrees in civil, hydraulic and aeronautical engineering. Working for the Air Ministry, Stipa eventually became general inspector of the Air Force Engineering Division. Stipa began to formulate a new theory on how to make aircraft more efficient. As a hydraulic engineer, he knew that the velocity of a fluid increased as the diameter of the tube through which it passed narrowed. Called Bernoulli’s principle, the relationship between the velocity and the pipe diameter was a well-understood axiom of fluid dynamics by the 1920s. Applying Bernoulli’s principle to airflow, Stipa believed he could increase the efficiency of an aircraft’s engine by directing the prop wash through a venturi tube. Stipa called his concept an “intubed propeller.” After years of crunching numbers and testing models in a wind tunnel, Stipa thought he had arrived at the optimum shapes for the prop and the tube, as well as the ideal propeller rpm and proximity between the prop and the leading edge of the tube. As it turned out, the optimum shape for the tube’s inner surface proved to be almost exactly the same as that of an airfoil. Within the barrel-like fuselage was a 120-hp de Havilland engine … and the propeller. (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) Stipa published his findings in the Rivista Aeronautica (Aeronautical Review), along with his design for a small single-engine test bed aircraft. He then petitioned the Air Ministry to have the prototype built and flown. Despite the radical nature of Stipa’s design, at that time the Fascist government was actively encouraging technological development, particularly in aviation, to showcase Italian achievement. In 1932 the Air Ministry contracted the Caproni Aviation Corporation to construct the prototype. Count Gianni Caproni di Taliedo had designed and built the first Italian airplane in 1910. Never afraid to push the envelope of aircraft development, early in 1914 he built the world’s first single-seat, tractor-engine fighter plane to be armed with a forward-firing machine gun. Once Italy entered World War I in May 1915, Caproni turned his attention to producing a successful series of giant aircraft. After the war Caproni continued to create big multiwing planes, peaking with the Ca.60, an eight-engine, nine-winged airliner (see “Crazy Capronis,” July 2008 issue), as well as a full range of less ambitious designs. Clearly no one in Italy was more qualified than Caproni to build Luigi Stipa’s radical new prototype. The Caproni Stipa must have been a startling sight when it was first flown on October 7, 1932, by Caproni test pilot Domenico Antonini. The fuselage consisted of a short, fat tube. Two tandem cockpits were located in a hump on its back. Its power plant, a single 120-hp de Havilland Gypsy III, was mounted in a nacelle suspended inside the center of the tube, with the prop located at the tube’s leading edge. Since the prop was the same diameter as the tubular fuselage, the plane squatted on a relatively low landing gear. An elliptical-shaped set of wings was mounted at mid position on the fuselage, with the main spars passing through the tube and the engine nacelle. A relatively small rudder and elevators were attached to the trailing edge of the tube, directly in the propeller’s slipstream. Capping off the plane’s outlandish appearance was its light blue and cream color scheme, similar to ones used on racing planes of the day. Constructed mainly of wood, the Caproni Stipa was an oddly proportioned aircraft that has sometimes been compared with the Gee Bee racers. It had a wingspan of 46 feet 10 inches and was 9 feet 10 inches high, but was only 19 feet 3 inches long. Its takeoff weight was 1,764 pounds, and it had a top speed of 81 mph. Flight-testing confirmed that the intubed propeller did, in fact, increase the engine’s efficiency. In addition, it was found that the airfoil shape of the tube’s interior contributed lift. As a result, the Stipa demonstrated a better rate of climb than conventional aircraft with similar power and wing loading, as well as a very slow landing speed of 42 mph. It also proved to be noticeably quieter than similarly powered conventional aircraft. Yes, it actually flew—with Domenico Antonini at the controls—on October 7, 1932. (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) Stipa believed placing the control surfaces within the slipstream would aid controllability, and his creation does seem to have exhibited docile handling. But evidence indicates the rudder and elevators had to be enlarged, suggesting the designer overestimated their degree of effectiveness. The biggest drawback to Stipa’s intubed propeller was that it produced a great deal of aerodynamic drag. In fact it became evident that, in a reasonably sized single-engine aircraft, the drag would negate almost all of the configuration’s benefits. It should be remembered, however, that the Caproni Stipa was never meant to be anything more than a test bed. Luigi Stipa seems to have intended to use his intubed propeller design not for small, single-engine planes but for large, multiengine flying wings. He produced a number of such designs, some with as many as six engines, none of which was ever built. After initial testing, the prototype was turned over to the Italian air force, which conducted its own test program. Although the results were of great academic interest, no further development was undertaken. The fact that the Air Ministry didn’t embrace Stipa’s theories didn’t stop the Italians from publicizing them as propaganda. Stipa patented his intubed propeller design in Germany and the United States, and his work was published in both of those countries as well as France and Britain. In the U.S. Stipa’s work was studied by NACA (the predecessor of NASA). The French were interested enough to commission the development of a night bomber with intubed propellers based on Stipa’s design 203. Pro duced by ANFMureaux, the BN.4 night bomber would have carried a crew of four and been equipped with a retractable landing gear and two power-operated gun turrets. The plane was to have had a wingspan of 59 feet, a top speed of 233 mph, a range of 1,242 miles and a ceiling of 33,136 feet. The nationalization and reorganization of France’s aircraft industry in 1936 killed the project before a prototype was built. Stipa later claimed the Germans stole his patented ideas when they developed their V-1 flying bomb, although the pulsejet engine actually bears little relationship to his intubed propeller. The mysterious Heinkel “T” fighter design of 1940, however, bears a strong resemblance to some of Stipa’s designs. Although little is known about the Heinkel T beyond a few drawings, it is said to have been designed for an engine developed by Viktor Schauberger, the Austrian crackpot inventor regarded as the originator of the flying saucer. In 1934 German engineer Ludwig Kort pat ented a design for a ducted fan that used principles similar to those developed by Stipa. Known as the “Kort nozzle,” this ducted fan system is still used today. Although the Italians made no further efforts to develop Stipa’s intubed propeller, a far more advanced derivative was flown in 1940. The Caproni-Campini N.1 used a conventional radial engine to power a variable-pitch ducted fan compressor buried in the fuselage. Additional fuel was then added to the compressed air and burned in a combustion chamber in the tail. The N.1 was never efficient enough to be practical, but it did give the Italians bragging rights to having flown the first plane equipped with an afterburner. Luigi Stipa died in 1992, embittered at not being recognized as the true inventor of the jet engine. The story of the Caproni Stipa would have ended long ago were it not for the efforts of Lynette Zuccoli and Aerotec Queensland in Australia. They built a 3/5th-scale replica of the original Caproni Stipa that has flown at least twice. The Australian Stipa has since reportedly been retired to static display. Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
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https://www.historynet.com/cease-fire-jefferson-davis-lost-slaves.htm
Cease Fire: How Jefferson Davis Lost His Slaves
Cease Fire: How Jefferson Davis Lost His Slaves Pictures really do speak louder than words. In response to those who persistently maintain that the Emancipation Proclamation freed no actual slaves, here is irrefutable pictorial evidence to the contrary. This deceptively ordinary-looking on-the-spot sketch by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper artist Frederick B. Schell bears a modest title: “Arrival at Chickasaw Bayou of Jeff. Davis [sic] Negroes, from his plantation on the Mississippi below Vicksburg.” Now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society, the drawing in fact shows no mere “arrival.” Rather, it dramatically demonstrates the actual impact of Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation—in this extraordinary case, on his Confederate counterpart’s own property, at his own plantation. Like the Declaration of Independence, to which it is often compared, the Emancipation Proclamation required the force of arms to make good on its liberating promise. It freed no slaves by words alone, but its words authorized action. After January 1, 1863, wherever they marched into Confederate territory, Union troops alerted enslaved people that they were legally free under the terms of the president’s order. Many already understood. Quite often, slaves took the initiative, freeing themselves as Union forces approached. One such incident involved human property owned by no less a symbol of the slaveholding aristocracy than Jefferson Davis. Davis remained an unrepentant advocate of slavery as a humane condition designed to protect inferior races (and of course put them to use for “superior” ones). As he put it, “we recognize the negro as God and God’s Book…our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude.” Davis was prepared to defend slavery to the last. When he learned Lincoln had endorsed African-American recruitment under the terms of his proclamation, the Confederate president issued this chilling decree: “That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the respective authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States”— in other words, to be sold back into slavery. As early as 1862, Davis had begun receiving news in Richmond about the slaves he had left behind to work his Mississippi plantation, Brierfield, after he assumed leadership of the Confederacy. When General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces began menacing Vicksburg, only a few miles from Davis’ property, some of the Brierfield slaves were emboldened to rob the main house and flee. Now, as Vicksburg reeled under Grant’s relentless siege in midsummer 1863, Union troops attacked the Davis plantation directly. They spared the Davis mansion, but 137 slaves escaped, and more soon followed. When Davis’ “people” found their way to the safety of Union lines, sketch artist Schell was on hand to record the scene. On August 8, 1863, Leslie’s published a woodcut adaptation of his sketch along with a brief account of what had occurred, under the headline “The Slaves of Jefferson Davis coming on to the Camp at Vicksburg.” The article noted the “curious and instructive” incident “seemed in itself the doom of slavery.” By the time the engraving appeared, Vicksburg had fallen, and most readers overlooked the seemingly minor incidents that had preceded its surrender. The published woodcut, retitled Arrival at Chickasaw bayou of the Negro slaves of Jefferson Davis, from his plantation on the Mississippi, offered a scene of breathtaking historic meaning: freedom cast wide, even to the doorstep of the slave republic’s own chief executive. But in the aftermath of the twin Northern triumphs at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, no one took much notice of this extraordinary pictorial confirmation of slavery’s impending doom and emancipation’s growing power. True to his beliefs to the end, Jefferson Davis clung to his faith in slavery. When he ran perilously short of funds in the early weeks of 1865, his final year in office, he responded in character. He disposed of “property” to raise much-needed cash, selling three horses for $7,330—and two slaves for $1,612. Only when Union troops closed in on Richmond a few weeks later did the beleaguered president finally decide to abandon a lifetime of racist convictions and propose enlisting black troops to fight for Confederate survival in return for their freedom. But by then such gestures held little meaning, and may have contributed to another enduring big lie: that African Americans in fact served in uniform in the Confederate armed forces. Davis’ own slaves at Brierfield had signaled two years earlier that their liberty was already fairly won—and permanent. If African Americans volunteered at all after 1863, it was to fight in the U.S. Colored Troops or its spinoff units—not for the Confederacy, but against it. As Frederick Douglass put it, “the musket—the United States musket, with its bayonet of steel—is better than all mere parchment guarantees of liberty.” Jefferson Davis discovered that for himself. So much attention has been focused lately on the long-neglected 13th Amendment to the Constitution—thanks largely, of course, to Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln—that modern Americans are suddenly in danger of losing appreciation for the revolutionary document that preceded it. Inadvertently, the belated acknowledgment of the crucial importance of constitutional change has sadly reignited the old canard that the proclamation was insufficient, illegal and ineffective. Jeff Davis would have argued otherwise. The state of Mississippi, home to Brierfield and its scores of slaves, may have contributed to these stubborn myths by waiting to ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery—until 1995. This past winter the state further admitted with understandable embarrassment that it had neglected thereafter to file the required paperwork to make ratification official. Thus, technically speaking, Davis’ slaves were not truly recognized as legally free in the state where they once resided until 2013. Jefferson Davis learned 150 years earlier that the Emancipation Proclamation made such details irrelevant. It did all the work necessary to end slavery for the president of the Confederacy. This column traditionally makes its point in a thousand words. But Frederick Schell’s picture is worth many more. Harold Holzer based this column on his forthcoming book, The Civil War in 50 Objects (Viking). Originally published in the July 2013 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
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https://www.historynet.com/chaco-war-1932-1935-battle-barrens.htm
The Chaco War 1932-1935: Battle in the Barrens
The Chaco War 1932-1935: Battle in the Barrens Bolivia’s obscure war with Paraguay showcased the modern weapons and tactics that would become so familiar in the upcoming world war. From 1932 to 1935 Bolivia and Paraguay were locked in a savage struggle that produced the bloodiest but least-known conventional war in the Americas in the 20th century. Officially, it was a war for an arid waste- land that may have had oil beneath it. In reality, it was a war about national pride and identity. And in that sense and others, it was a harbinger of the world war that engulfed the planet just a few short years later. The surprisingly modern conflict involved airplanes, tanks, flamethrowers, and motor transport. It featured strategic bombing and the first (and last) cross-border armored assault in the Americas. Russian and French officers advised the smaller Paraguayan army; a German general and other German officers who had served in World War I commanded the Bolivians. As for tactics, the Chaco War offers a study in leadership, both brilliant and utterly disastrous. The Paraguayan commander, José Felix Estigarribia, was one of the best generals ever to command forces in the Americas; the Bolivian commander, Hans Kundt, was one of the worst. Yet in the end, Germany, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Great Britain, and the United States paid little heed to this, the deadliest South American clash of the last century. The Chaco War was long in coming. Ever since losing their ocean coast- line to Chile in the War of the Pacific in 1879 –1883, Bolivians had dreamed of acquiring their own port to provide access to the world. With little chance to defeat the Chileans and regain their former territory, the Bolivians looked to the east and the Río Paraguay, which, although far inland, was deep and flowed into the Río de la Plata and finally the Atlantic Ocean. The river ran through the Chaco, an arid and virtually unpopulated region with few natural resources smack in the middle of the South American continent. Its few settlements had been established under Paraguayan authority and most of the Chaco was acknowledged as coming under Paraguayan jurisdiction. In the first decades of the century, the Paraguayans offered the Bolivians a solution to their lack of ocean access: the use of a port on the Río Paraguay. The Bolivians, however, still smarting after their loss generations earlier, would accept nothing less than total ownership of a port and the region connecting it to Bolivia. To support their entitlement to the Chaco, they dredged up claims from the Spanish colonial era that placed the Chaco under the Viceroyalty of Peru. The Paraguayans based their title to the Chaco on 16th-century Spanish charters issued by the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata. The argument about who really owned the Chaco simmered for decades, but was brought to a flashpoint by the discovery of oil at the westernmost extremity of the Chaco, near the Bolivian border. For Bolivia’s leaders, possession of a river port and exploitation of a potential oil boom became an obsession that overrode all common sense. For the Paraguayans, the claim to the Chaco was rooted deeply in their sense of nationhood. Brazil and Argentina had taken a third of Paraguay’s territory in the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870). Losing another huge chunk of territory would have reduced Paraguay to little more than a third of the land that it had held at the time of independence from Spain in 1811 and Paraguay’s very sovereignty as a nation would have been in question. At the heart of the conflict was an area still unexplored as late as the 1930s. The Gran Chaco, roughly 100,000 square miles in size, was bordered by the unnavigable Río Pilcomayo and Argentina on the south, and by the Río Paraguay and the fertile region of central Paraguay in the east. The Chaco is rimmed by the Andean lowlands of Bolivia in the west, and in the north and northwest by jungle regions of Bolivia and Brazil. Thick brush and quebracho trees cover the region. Quebracho wood, reputed to be the hardest wood in the world and rich in the tannin used for tanning leather, was one of the few exploitable resources of the Chaco. Clusters of Paraguayan settlers logged quebracho trees and had built several short, narrowgauge railways into the region to haul the logs out. These small logging railroads—particularly the railway that started at Puerto Casado and stretched 100 miles into the Chaco—would assume great strategic importance in the war. The region had only a few settlements near the few sources of water. For most of the year the Chaco is hot, dry, and home to an impressive variety of poisonous snakes. During the brief rainy season the few roads—dusty tracks for most of the year— are turned into impassable quagmires. By any reckoning, it was a highly inhospitable region in which to fight a war. Through the 1920s, both nations prepared for a war that both sides considered inevitable. For Paraguay it was brave, even foolhardy, to resist the Bolivian demands. In 1930 Bolivia had a population of three million people to Paraguay’s 900,000. Bolivia was rich in tin, silver, and oil, and its economy was several times larger than Paraguay’s, which was almost completely agricultural and driven by exporting cotton, palm oil, beef, and leather. As Bolivia and Paraguay built up their armed forces, Bolivia had the deeper coffers. In 1926 it contracted with Vickers, the British armaments firm, to provide hundreds of heavy and light machine guns, more than 100 artillery pieces, vast quantities of ammunition, and even some tanks. Vickers also produced some of the top fighter aircraft of the era, so the Bolivians acquired Vickers Vespa and Type 143 fighters. By 1932 Bolivia had an exceptionally well-armed regular army of 6,000 men backed up by another 30,000 reserves. It had a modern air force of 40 planes including the Vickers fighters and some French bombers. The Bolivians even had a small tank corps equipped with the latest Vickers Carden-Loyd tanks. The Paraguayans strained their national economy to the limit in the 1920s, attempting to buy enough weapons to oppose the military juggernaut the Bolivians were building. They bought Mauser rifles from Spain, Madsen light machine guns from Denmark, and Browning heavy machine guns from the United States. Since the French sent a large military mission to train the Paraguayans in the 1920s, much of the Paraguayan equipment was acquired from France. In the 1920s the Paraguayans bought 32 75mm and 105mm field pieces from the French Schneider & Co. The Paraguayan air force, about half the size of Bolivia’s, was equipped with French Potez 25A.2 light bombers and Wibault 73C.1 fighters. But with very limited resources, Paraguayans had to pinch every penny. So the Paraguayan army kept its artillery procurement small and instead bought 81mm Stokes mortars, which were cheap. Paraguay’s small industrial sector could easily manufacture the mortar ammunition. Although inferior in armaments, the Paraguayans worked much harder to prepare their army for the coming clash than did the Bolivian army’s garrison force. The syllabus of the Paraguayan officer academy was overhauled, with emphasis on studying the lessons of World War I. An NCO academy was created to ensure competent lower-level leadership. By 1931 Paraguay had 4,000 regular soldiers under arms and was ready to mobilize 16,000 more. The dominant military figure in Bolivia in the two decades before the Chaco War was a German officer, Hans Kundt. Kundt was commissioned in 1888 and served on the Prussian General Staff before coming to Bolivia in 1911 as the chief of a German military training mission. He fell in love with the country and developed a reputation among the Bolivians as a superb administrator. Recalled to Germany at the outbreak of World War I, Kundt served on the eastern front as a brigade commander and corps chief of staff, and retired from the German army after the war as a major general. His adopted country then invited Kundt back, offering him the position of army chief of staff and war minister with the rank of full general. Kundt eagerly accepted the post and directed Bolivia’s rearmament program in the 1920s as he prepared to occupy the Chaco. Kundt was an imposing man with a gruff manner. He was also a competent trainer who was concerned with the well-being of his soldiers. His weaknesses, however, outnumbered his strengths. During World War I, he had earned a reputation as a thoroughly mediocre tactician, preferring frontal assaults in most combat situations. He considered himself something of a military genius compared with the Bolivian officers, whose advice he routinely ignored. Rather than trust his Bolivian officers, he preferred to micromanage the army. Despite his general staff background, he had little interest in strategy. Although most Bolivian leaders believed that a war in the Chaco was inevitable, Kundt never visited the region or made any attempt to study the terrain. He concluded that a war with Paraguay would be an unopposed march into the region and peaceful occupation—so what need was there to plan? In fact, as the war began Kundt was in exile for supporting a coup attempt by one of the Bolivian factions. But such was his popularity that he was called back when the war took a turn for the worse for the Bolivians. Paraguay’s military commander was a dramatic contrast to Kundt. José Felix Estigarribia, who commanded Paraguay’s forces in the Chaco in 1932, was 19 years younger than Kundt. He came from a modest farm family and had studied agriculture. But upon graduation he changed his career ambitions and joined the army as a lieutenant of infantry. Clearly intelligent, he was groomed for rapid advancement and sent to study at the Chilean military academy, then regarded as the best military school in South America. A diminutive, quiet man, Estigarribia had a reputation as a serious student of modern warfare. From 1924 to 1927 he studied at the French army’s war college, L’École Supérieure de Guerre, in Paris. In 1928 he was appointed as chief of staff of Paraguay’s army but was soon dismissed when he disagreed with the government’s strategy to defend the Chaco. Yet as war looked increasingly inevitable, the government decided it needed Estigarribia and appointed him commander in the Chaco in 1931. Characteristically, he then did something the Bolivians had not done: he traveled throughout the region and carefully studied the terrain. By June 1932, Bolivia had 6,000 troops in the Chaco, most of its regular army. The I Army Corps with 4,000 Bolivian soldiers was stationed in the southwestern part of the Chaco, and an- other 2,000 troops were organized into two di- visions in the northeast of the Chaco. Although the Bolivian government had not clearly decided upon war, Col. Enrique Peñaranda, commander of the Bolivian forces in the Chaco, decided to force the issue by seizing key terrain as the first step of a systematic takeover of the whole region. In June a Bolivian detachment took over a small Paraguayan outpost on Lake Pitiantuta. The next month Paraguayan troops retook the post after a small skirmish. The Bolivians then countered by attacking and taking the villages of Corrales and Toledo on July 27 and 28. Three Bolivian regiments, supported by fighter and bomber aircraft, then attacked the Paraguayan fort at Boquerón, which fell at the end of July after heavy fighting. What had begun as a series of nearly bloodless skirmishes escalated into a full-scale war. Forced into action by Colonel Peñaranda’s offensive, the Bolivian government bowed to the inevitable and mobilized its reserves, sending another 6,000 reinforcements to the Chaco. General Kundt was still in exile at the time and would take no part in the first four months of the burgeoning war. The Paraguayans countered the Bolivian offensive by mobilizing their regulars and reserves and deploying an army corps of 8,000 men to the settlement of Isla Poí. A further 1,500 men organized defensive positions at Nanawa in the southeast Chaco. The Paraguayan 3rd Division, with 3,000 men and eight field pieces, moved into position on the upper Río Paraguay. In August a further 3,000 reinforcements were dispatched from Asunción. The Bolivian strategy, if one could call it that, had blithely assumed that Paraguay would not fight for the Chaco; their forces outnumbered the Paraguayans and were far better equipped. So the Bolivian plan simply called for an unopposed advance of Bolivian arms to the Río Paraguay. When this assumption proved false, the Bolivians were confronted with a serious strategic problem: a long and tenuous supply line running back to their main base in Bolivia. Troops were mobilized in the mountain heartland of Bolivia and transported by train most of the way to the main Bolivian base, the city of Villa Montes in the Bolivian lowlands. Horses, traditionally the main transportation of both the Bolivian and Paraguayan armies, played almost no role in this war, as they quickly sickened and died from the heat of the Chaco and the lack of fodder. Both armies learned that motor vehicles were the only reliable way of moving through the region. But the Bolivians only had enough trucks to get their most vital supplies forward; there was no space in them to carry soldiers. So the Bolivian infantrymen marched from Villa Montes 200 to 300 miles through the choking dust and heat of the arid wilderness to get to the front. The Bolivians, used to a cool mountain climate, suffered terribly on the weekslong march and were often exhausted and sick when they arrived in the battle zone. While Paraguay was at a significant disadvantage in troop numbers and armament, its logistics were much more favorable. Like the Bolivians, the Paraguayans suffered from a shortage of trucks, but they had river and rail transportation available, so their relative dearth of trucks had little impact. The Para guayans could move troops from the capital of Asunción by steamer up the Río Paraguay to the river port at Puerto Casado and from there take the narrow-gauge railroad, built to haul quebracho logs, into the Chaco. The Paraguayans had built their main base at Isla Poí, which lay only 18 miles from the end of the train line; unlike the Bolivians, the Paraguayan reinforcements arrived at the front fresh and rested. At the start of September, Estigarribia was ready to carry out his battle plan. He concentrated his I Corps and sent it to cut off and then seize the thousand-man Bolivian garrison at Boquerón. When the first Paraguayan attack on September 9 failed, Estigarribia laid siege to the garrison. Then the Paraguayans quietly infiltrated forces deep into the Chaco to interdict any attempts to relieve the garrison at Boquerón. Soon after the initial Paraguayan attack, a whole column of trucks bearing the Bolivian 13th Infantry Regiment sent to relieve Boquerón fell into a trap and was shot to pieces. There would be no relief for the embattled Bolivians. Although the Bolivians had far more equipment and troops, the Paraguayans proved to be quick learners and they developed a host of tricks to counter Bolivia’s advantages. For example, Bolivia had the better air force and held air superiority throughout the war. The Bolivians’ capacity to put re con naissance aircraft all over the front ought to have given them a decisive advantage. But the Paraguayans became masters of camouflage. To surprise the Bolivians, the Paraguayan engineers built their roads and trails through the thick brush of the Chaco. The Paraguayans didn’t make their trails straight, choosing routes that allowed them to weave higher branches of nearby trees together, shielding the trails from aerial reconnaissance. The Paraguayan camouflage was so effective that many of their large troop movements went unnoticed. Meanwhile, at Boquerón the situation worsened for the Bolivian defenders. To keep the garrison supplied, the Bolivian air force dropped ammunition, food, medical supplies, and water into the fort. The Paraguayans countered by ringing Boquerón with heavy machine guns. Ground fire forced the Bolivian aircraft to drop their supplies from high altitude—and most of them were blown into the Paraguayan lines. The Bolivian high command had no idea that the resupply effort had failed and that their soldiers at Boquerón were in desperate straits, with little water, food, or ammunition. They were completely surprised when the Boquerón garrison surrendered on September 29. This defeat at the hands of the outnumbered and poorly equipped Paraguayans gave the Bolivian high command and political leaders a shock from which they would not quickly recover. Conversely, the victory gave a huge boost to Paraguayan morale, demonstrating that they could defeat a superior enemy with good leadership and tactics. After Boquerón, both sides needed to rest and reorganize. The Bolivians reinforced their army in the Chaco and recalled General Kundt from exile in Berlin to be commander in chief of their forces. There was public rejoicing in La Paz when the decision was announced. Bolivia’s most popular military figure was expected to pull the army together and quickly defeat the Paraguayans. After all, how could Paraguay counter a man who had fought in the Great War in Europe? Upon his triumphal return to La Paz in December 1932, Kundt issued orders for a major offensive in the southern part of the Chaco. Kundt and the Bolivian leaders believed that if they occupied the southern part of the Chaco, they would threaten the enemy capital at Asunción and Paraguay would soon capitulate. In December 1932, the Bolivian 8th Division launched an attack, driving the Paraguayan forward lines back to just south of a road junction known as Kilometer 7. The strategic point for the control of the southern Chaco was a small fortified settlement at Nanawa. Kundt predicted that one grand thrust to break the Paraguayan forces and take Nanawa would decide the war. Detailed plans were issued for a Bolivian attack to take place in January 1933. With their much smaller army and paucity of artillery and airplanes, the Paraguayans were at a clear disadvantage. But Estigarribia had two secret weapons. The first was the outstanding Paraguayan intelligence service. The Paraguayans had some very good spies in La Paz and the Bolivians had been careless about guarding their war plans. Estigarribia soon knew all the details of the Bolivian offensive. Indeed, throughout the war the Para guayans were very well informed about their enemies’ intentions. Paraguay’s other secret weapon was a group of former Russian imperial officers that had settled in Paraguay in the early 1920s after being forced into exile from their homeland. The most notable of the more than 40 White Russians who volunteered to serve their new country was Gen. Ivan Beliaev, who had settled in Paraguay in 1923 and had taught engineering at the Paraguayan military academy. Beliaev and other former czarist officers designed a series of connecting fortifications around the settlement of Nanawa. In the heart of South America, they created a defense system equal to anything seen in World War I. The core of the Paraguayan defense was a series of earthwork strongpoints, each with artillery and machine guns protected by bunkers built of logs and topped with layers of earth. The strongpoints were carefully camouflaged and sited for interlocking fire, and mines were laid on the most practical approaches. In January 1933, Kundt unleashed a series of attacks against these Paraguayan defenses. Kundt was convinced that his plan was a masterstroke. “We will finish the war in three months,” he announced to his officers, “and all of you will soon be in La Paz, and I will return to Berlin where, in April, I have an engagement to attend to.” But Kundt’s frontal assault tactics were no more successful than similar attacks on entrenched positions in the world war, and the Bolivian attack fell to pieces under Paraguayan machine gun fire. Facing his German adversary for the first time, Estigarribia coolly responded to every Bolivian move. When heavy rains made the roads to Nanawa impassible and some of the Paraguayan units ran short of ammunition, Estigarribia mobilized his modest air assets—bombers, fighters, and transports— to fly ammunition into a rough airstrip at Nanawa. The improvised airlift allowed the Paraguayans to hold their positions. By early February it was clear even to Kundt that his assault had failed. The conflict settled into a period of frustrating static warfare. In the meantime, Kundt began preparations for an even grander offensive. This time Bolivia would break the Paraguayan army at Nanawa by employing all of its advantages in weaponry. First, the attack would be preceded by a massive artillery barrage. Then, the Bolivian air force would find and destroy the Paraguayan artillery. To neutralize machine guns, the Bolivians would send in tanks, accompanied by teams with flamethrowers. Kundt expected the Paraguayans to be overawed and quail before the Bolivian weapons. By late June 1933 most of the Bolivian army was in position for a frontal assault on the Paraguayan positions at Nanawa. On July 4, the Bolivians began to move forward under the cover of a massive artillery barrage. But the Paraguayan positions had been substantially strengthened since the battles earlier in the year, and Bolivian artillery failed to do much damage to the Para guayan bunkers. The Para – guayan guns and mortars had been well camouflaged, and the Bolivian air force was unable to find and destroy them. Now Paraguay’s reliance upon the simple and inexpensive 81mm Stokes mortars instead of heavy artillery, a choice forced upon them by their poverty, proved to be an advantage. In the Nanawa campaign, the Stokes mortars were more effective and lethal in the heavy brush of the Chaco than the Bolivians’ heavy guns. As in January, the Bolivian attack soon bogged down under the Paraguayan machine gun and mortar fire. To keep up the momentum of the attack, Kundt unleashed his small tank force to break open the Paraguayan defenses. But Estigarribia’s spies had told him about the Bolivian armor, and the Paraguayan commander had placed some of his 75mm guns in the front line to serve as antitank guns. He had also issued the Paraguayan machine gunners armor-piercing ammunition. Although it could not penetrate the main tank armor, it could pierce the lightly armored engine compartments and disable the tanks. The thick brush of the Chaco, which allowed little visibility, also made for poor tank country. Two Vickers heavy tanks soon broke down and another was knocked out by a direct hit from a carefully hidden 75mm gun. The heavy tanks were repaired and sent back in. Then the Paraguayans concentrated their armor-piercing machine gun fire on the Vickers’ view slits. With nearly every crewman wounded, the tanks soon retreated. George Landen, a British army officer observing the Bolivians, laconically noted that they “relied to a great extent on their modern arms…and have been somewhat disillusioned.” Frustrated by the strong resistance, Kundt remained true to form and simply ordered more frontal assaults. Nanawa surely won its reputation as the Verdun of the Chaco. For the next two days the Bolivians threw wave after wave of attackers at the Paraguayan strongpoints. They made some small gains but the main strongpoint held firm. After three days of intensive battle, more than 2,000 Bolivians had been killed, while the Paraguayans had lost only 149 dead and 400 wounded. Faced with another failure at Nanawa, Kundt directed his forces to carry out a series of attacks at Toledo, now back in Paraguayan hands. There again the Bolivians faced tough defensive positions designed by the White Russian officers and the Bolivian frontal attacks were again repulsed—with heavy losses. After Nanawa, both forces did some repositioning and a series of small battles ensued. Surprisingly, Kundt remained optimistic. “Actually there exists no possibility of defeat,” Kundt declared to the Bolivian cabinet. “The recent reverses…have been exaggerated.” While Estigarribia had proven successful at defensive warfare, he constantly looked for a means to take the offensive against the Bolivians. Since he had been outgunned and outnumbered throughout the war, he would have to pick the moment and plan carefully to exploit any Bolivian weaknesses. Luckily for him, in addition to his White Russian officers, Estigarribia also had some first-rate senior Paraguayan commanders who aggressively carried out his plans. The best of Estigarribia’s subordinates was Rafael Franco, who had been dismissed from the army before the war for political reasons. At the start of the war he was recalled to the army, promoted to major, and given command of a regiment. By the summer of 1933, he was a colonel in command of the 1st Division. Franco’s long-range patrols found some gaps in the Bolivian lines at Alihuatá and on July 12, he launched a surprise attack that quickly penetrated enemy lines and cut the Bolivian 4th Division to pieces, forcing it into headlong retreat. The Bolivian government continued to have faith in the prowess of its German general, but the Bolivian commanders at the front now had grave doubts. His handling of the battle at Nanawa (and the losses at Alihuatá) had left the Bolivian forces demoralized. There was no question of the valor of the Bolivian infantrymen who stormed into the attack, again and again. But they did so only to be slaughtered, and even their superior weaponry had not turned the battle in Bolivia’s favor. The problem, clearly, was at the top. Col. Bernardino Bilbao Rioja, commander of the Bolivian air force, summed up the view of many senior officers: “Kundt might have been an adequate lieutenant, but he lacked all the qualities necessary for commanding large units in combat.” At this point in the war, a full mobilization and the employment of Bolivia’s superior wealth and manpower might have overwhelmed the hard-pressed Paraguayans. But Kundt, trying to curry favor with the government, minimized the setbacks and he refused to call for more troops and equipment. The Paraguayans had been counting on Kundt to stay in character, and they were not disappointed. In the 1920s Estigarribia and his staff had made a careful study of their most likely opponent. When Kundt’s return was announced, Estigarribia offered his assessment of the German at a staff conference, saying that Bolivia’s top commander was “self-confident and tenacious” and his style of command “left no room for his subordinates to exercise their initiative.” Estigarribia noted that Kundt’s record in World War I showed “he was a fervent devotee of the offensive at all costs.” The Paraguayans now saw a chance to use another of Kundt’s flaws to their advantage. He was known to order his commanders to never yield ground. This meant that if the Paraguayans could cut off a part of the Bolivian force, Kundt would not likely allow them the chance to retreat and save themselves. Estigarribia now looked to return to the offensive. Colonel Franco’s defeat of the Bolivian 4th Division was a good start. Estigarribia, like his opponent, believed that too much time spent on the defensive was “bad for the soldier’s fighting spirit.” But Estigarribia had also learned from his opponent that frontal assaults did not work either, so he waited for a chance to outflank and cut off a large part of the Bolivian force. In December 1933, his opportunity came. A month earlier, after several weeks of skirmishing, Para – guayan air and ground patrols spotted some large gaps in the Bolivian lines near Campo Via in the Central Chaco. For two weeks Estigarribia quietly concentrated his forces. On December 3 the Paraguayans unleashed an attack through one of the gaps in the Bolivian front his patrols had found. The attack was a complete surprise and in short order the Bolivian 4th and 9th divisions were caught in a classic double envelopment. General Kundt reacted slowly to the developing crisis. When the Paraguayans began their attack, Bolivian reconnaissance pilots brought several reports that accurately identified the Paraguayan strength and unit movements. But Kundt had a low opinion of airmen and rejected these reports, calling them “alarmist.” Some of the Bolivian unit commanders also saw the danger from the Paraguayan offensive and requested permission to shorten their lines, which were overextended and now vulnerable. Kundt rejected the idea that the Paraguayans could operate on a broad front and strike deep enough to surround his divisions. Convinced that the Paraguayan offensive was nothing more than a raid, Kundt strictly forbade his commanders to cede any ground and all but accused his senior officers of cowardice for even suggesting that the Bolivian forces pull back in threatened sectors. Thanks to him, what might have been a limited Bolivian defeat turned into a national catastrophe. Estigarribia knew that he could rely on the aggressive Colonel Franco to effectively carry out a key maneuver of the battle. On December 7, Franco initiated an attack that again took the Bolivians by surprise. His division quickly pushed ahead to cut the main Bolivian supply lines. Only when the Paraguayans had closed the trap and cut off two Bolivian divisions did Kundt try to salvage the situation. On December 10, the Bolivians finally tried to break through to the trapped corps, but their counterattack was badly coordinated. Bolivian air units, supporting their ground forces, were so poorly informed of the attack plans that they dropped as many bombs on their own troops as on the Paraguayans. The final, desperate attempt to save the surrounded soldiers failed, and on December 11 the two Bolivian divisions surrendered. This was Bolivia’s greatest disaster of the war. More than 2,600 Bolivian soldiers had been killed, and another 7,500 were taken prisoner. At one stroke, a major part of Bolivia’s frontline forces was destroyed. Only 1,500 men had escaped from the pocket. As the Bolivian army fled in headlong retreat, President Daniel Salamanca finally removed Kundt as commander in chief. He promoted Col. Enrique Peñaranda, whose actions had precipitated the war, to brigadier general and made him commander in the Chaco. For the Paraguayans, the victory at Campo Via turned the war around. In addition to thousands of prisoners, they captured 8,000 rifles, 536 machine guns, 25 mortars, and 20 artillery pieces, a large quantity of ammunition, and dozens of motor vehicles. The war booty was a godsend for a poor nation like Paraguay, which now could replace much of its lost and worn-out equipment, and could even equip new units being sent to the front. With this bounty, Estigarribia could maintain an offensive. But Paraguay’s president, Eusebio Ayala, ordered Estigarribia to stop pursuing the beaten Bolivians. Ayala was convinced that the victory at Campo Via had broken Bolivia’s will and that the time for a negotiated settlement had come. Against Estigarribia’s advice, Ayala ordered a truce. Once the Paraguayans stopped their pursuit of the retreating Bolivians, however, the Bolivian cabinet regained its nerve. Despite the disaster, Bolivia could still field more men and guns than Paraguay. Now that Kundt had left, some of the senior Bolivian officers figured they could still win the war. Both sides used the truce to reorganize their forces and bring up supplies. After a few weeks, the fighting resumed. The Paraguayans faced increasingly long logistics lines as they slowly drove the Bolivians back. Finally, the Bolivians managed to piece together a sound defensive line. In May 1934 Col. Bernardino Bilbao Rioja, the former air force chief who now assumed command of a corps, prepared a trap for the advancing Paraguayan 8th Division. Near the settlement of Cañada Strongest, the Bolivians caught the Paraguayan division in a surprise flank attack and surrounded it. Although the Paraguayans were taken by surprise, Estigarribia reacted swiftly, ordering his forces to fight their way out. Most of the 8th Division broke out of the trap in good order, but the Paraguayans lost 500 dead and 1,500 prisoners in the process. It was Bolivia’s greatest victory of the war and Bilbao Rioja, who had long been ignored and disparaged by Kundt, had proven himself to be Bolivia’s best field commander. After that setback the Paraguayans continued their advance, albeit more cautiously. In July the Paraguayan offensive was stopped at Picuiba. Still, Estigarribia looked for a way to keep the initiative and maneuver his troops to gain an advantage. He finally found his chance at El Carmen in November 1934 when his surprise flank attacks surrounded the Bolivian reserve corps. Such carefully prepared envelopment operations—ironically, the province of such Prussian-trained commanders as Kundt— had become Estigarribia’s trademark, and this time it worked to perfection. Two thousand Bolivian troops were killed and 4,000 prisoners were taken. Only 2,000 Bolivian troops fought their way out of the pocket to safety. The El Carmen disaster created a fresh crisis for the Bolivian government. President Salamanca was furious at the incompetence of senior commanders who had allowed their materially and numerically stronger force to suffer such defeats. Of his officers he said, “I have given them everything they asked for. But I could not give them brains.” A group of senior officers led by Gen. Enrique Peñaranda, believing that they might be relieved of command, struck preemptively and mobilized the La Paz garrison as they confronted the president. They forced Salamanca to resign the presidency in a quiet coup. On his way out, Salamanca facetiously congratulated his top general, pointing out that the operation to remove him had been Peñaranda’s only successful military operation to date. Estigarribia’s victory at El Carmen allowed him to pursue the Bolivians, and by early 1935 the Bolivian army had fallen back inside the Bolivian border to its base at Villa Montes, near the Andean foothills. Col. Bilbao Rioja was put in charge of organizing the defense of Villa Montes, the vital logistics center of the Bolivian army. The Paraguayans crossed the Río Parapiti in April 1935 but in a series of savage counterattacks, the Bolivians threw the Paraguayans back across the river. Bilbao Rioja had again saved the Bolivian army from disaster. By this point Bolivia had given up on any idea that it could conquer the Chaco by force. For their part, the Paraguayan troops were stretched to their limit. Both sides were suffering from attrition and exhaustion and a negotiated settlement was the only sensible solution. On June 14, 1935, exactly three years after the war began, Generals Peñaranda and Estigarribia signed an armistice ending the war. Subsequent negotiations recognized Paraguay’s claim to virtually all of the Chaco, although in a compromise, Bolivia gained a corridor to the Río Paraguay and a port. The casualty numbers give an idea of the true scale of the conflict. Bolivia, with three million people, mobilized 210,000 men. Of these approximately 60,000 were killed, and 23,250 were taken prisoner. Paraguay, with a population of 900,000, mobilized 150,000 men, lost 31,500 dead and missing, and another 2,500 taken prisoner. In comparing these losses to the total population, only a few nations at war in the 20th century suffered a higher percentage of loss. The Chaco War was, in many respects, a very modern war. Late-model tanks had been used, both sides had relied primarily upon motor transportation, and close air support was a major feature in many battles. Both sides even set up extremely efficient systems to evacuate their wounded and sick from the front lines by air, thereby saving the lives of thousands of soldiers. Yet, surprisingly, this war that featured modern weapons and large-scale maneuvers was hardly noticed by the major powers. Assuming that there was nothing to be learned from small South American countries, none of the major powers—Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Japan—sent official observers. American staff colleges and military journals ignored the war completely. In Europe and even the United States, press coverage of the Chaco War was minimal and the few stories that came out were sensationalized and inaccurate. Sadly, the Western powers missed an opportunity to learn some useful lessons for the world war soon to come. They might have learned, for instance, that superior equipment and resources do not guarantee victory. Throughout the Chaco War the Paraguayans were outgunned and outnumbered, often by a factor of two to one. Yet the Paraguayans still managed to win most of the battles. The keys to victory lay in better training, better tactics, better planning, and, most of all, superior leadership at all levels. Despite Bolivia’s superior forces, the Paraguayans had the better leaders in commanders such as Estigarribia, Franco, and Beliaev— and that, in the end, spelled victory for Paraguay. Originally published in the Summer 2009 issue of Military History Quarterly. To subscribe, click here.
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https://www.historynet.com/champion-johnson-county-war.htm
Champion of the Johnson County War
Champion of the Johnson County War During the April 9, 1892, siege of Wyoming’s KC Ranch, Nate Champion put up a mighty one-man stand, even prompting one of his enemies to call him ‘a he-man with plenty of guts’. Wyoming in early April can be brutal, and the small army of more than 50 wealthy cattlemen and their hired killers had ridden all night and much of the previous day through numbing cold and blinding snow. Nearly all the gunmen were from Texas, and they were as ill equipped for the weather as they were well equipped for a fight. “I thought I’d freeze to death,” one of those 1892 Johnson County War participants later recalled. “My Texas blood was too thin for a Wyoming… winter.” They’d been supplied with new Colt revolvers and Winchester repeaters and promised $5 per day, plus $50 for every “rustler” they killed. Their employers, a handful of whom rode with them on this incursion into Johnson County, were all luminaries of Cheyenne’s exclusive Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA), and they’d put together a death list of small ranchers, cow thieves and other interfering citizens. First on their list was Nathan D. “Nate” Champion, unofficial leader of the local small ranchers. Champion had come up the trail from Texas 13 years earlier and had earned a reputation as a skilled and dependable cowboy and roundup boss. When he began to build a modest herd of his own, however, the WSGA declared him a rustler and proscribed him for death. This snowy expedition was not the large cattle owners’ first attempt at eliminating the charismatic Champion. Five months earlier a few of the association’s hired killers, led by deputy U.S. marshal and accused dry-gulcher Frank Canton, had tried to murder him in his bed —only to be driven off by Nate Champion’s quick and accurate response (see “Pioneers and Settlers,” P. 22). This time the cattlemen were determined to finish the job. In a pre-dawn drizzle on April 9, the shivering column stopped in the brush near Champion’s cabin on the KC Ranch. The low-roofed, four-room structure sat in an open pasture, just south of the Middle Fork Powder River. After scouting the area, the hired guns surrounded the cabin, cutting off all avenues of escape. Some men occupied the log stable 75 yards northeast of the cabin, others took the riverbank north and northwest of the cabin and west of a bridge on the road to Buffalo, and a handful of the best shots hid in a ravine some 100 yards south of the cabin. Four men occupied the cabin: Champion and his partner, a husky young cowhand named Nick Ray, and two trappers —old Bill Jones and William Walker— who’d spent the night. As the sun rose, Jones left the cabin to draw water for breakfast. Some twodozen rifles were trained on him, and as he passed the stable, waiting gunmen silently captured him. When the old man didn’t return, young Walker went out to investigate; he, too, was taken. Under intense questioning, the trappers said that only Champion and Ray, whose name was also on the list, were inside. After some discussion, the gunmen decided that the honor of firing the first shot would go to 17-year-old Starl Tucker, a nasty piece of work who called himself the “Texas Kid.” George Tucker, a respected Texas lawman and fellow member of the group, referred to his kid brother as “mean, and always wanting to kill someone.” When Ray left the cabin, Starl Tucker immediately shot him down. Ray was able to stagger to his feet, at which point, according to George Tucker, they “all began to shoot at him.” Ray fell again and began to crawl back toward the cabin as bullets struck into and around him. Champion suddenly appeared in the open doorway, firing his Winchester at the stable as fast as he could jack the lever to provide cover for his wounded partner. He coolly reloaded, fired again and then, to everyone’s amazement, ran outside, grabbed Ray and hauled him over the high front step into the cabin. Starl Tucker shouted, “By God, he may be a rustler, but he is also a he-man with plenty of guts!” No one disagreed—and with that began one of the most dramatic one-man stands in the history of the West. By the end of that dreary spring day Nate Champion had single-handedly foiled the plans of the nation’s most powerful cattle barons—plans supported by Wyoming’s governor and both senators, the U.S. Army and the president of the United States. Some of the men who surrounded the KC cabin that April day had in earlier times worked alongside Champion, hired him as wagon boss, trusted him with their herds. The turn of events that now had them firing at their former friend had been years in coming. In the mid 1880s Wyoming had endured two consecutive, brutal winters and summers that had killed off some 80 percent of the stock, reduced grazing land dramatically and left the cattle barons in a panic. The men who in the 1870s had brought in the big herds and carved out cattle empires now watched their dream of endless prosperity die. When the fall roundup was over, they laid off half of the working cowboys, sending them packing instead of welcoming them to winter at their old spreads. Meanwhile, settlers were building homes on government land the cattlemen had assumed was theirs by right of occupation. Some cowboys, either out of work or looking to build small spreads of their own, also filed claims on the public land. If the barons were unhappy about the influx of settlers, they were apoplectic over the small ranchers’ practice of branding mavericks to grow their small herds. The practice of “mavericking” had drifted up the trail from Texas with the early herds. To many the unbranded cattle were public property, available to the first man with a long rope and a hot iron. To the WSGA barons, however, there was no question who owned the stock. In 1884 the association pushed through legislation called the Maverick Law, which stated that mavericks could only be sold at auction to members of the WSGA. The association further stipulated that cattle belonging to outfits with “rustlers’ brands and… stray brands for which there are no known owners” would be confiscated and auctioned as mavericks. It went on to blacklist any cowboys who had the temerity to run their own cattle, barring them from the WSGA roundup. If a nonmember cowboy branded a single maverick, he was labeled a rustler. With no room to maneuver, some cowboys simply gave up; others defied the association and continued to grow their own small outfits. Still others did elect to supplement their herds by stealing the cattle of their wealthy neighbors. In 1888 Champion was working as wagon boss for one of the big outfits, and he and his foreman hired on four men who had been blacklisted by the association. They did this knowing it could cost them their jobs, and it did. Ultimately, Champion put together his own small herd of some 140 cattle, and in so doing was branded a rustler by his former employer. In the four years that followed, the barons lynched a settler couple for their water rights and ambushed two small ranchers. When the law proved impotent, the member ranchers of the WSGA knew they could get away with murder. The association members decided to do away with all those who opposed their control in one fell swoop; they would invade Johnson County—that part of Wyoming they saw as the most resistant—and simply kill everyone they declared an enemy. To accomplish this, they sent for Texans who had no scruples about pulling a trigger for money. Their action was clearly illegal. According to the state constitution, “[No] armed body…shall ever be brought into this state for the suppression of domestic violence.” Acting Governor Amos Barber, Wyoming’s second governor after it joined the Union in 1890, effectively eliminated this consideration by simply ordering the Wyoming National Guard not to interfere. He also induced his friend Dr. Charles Penrose to accompany the invasion force as surgeon. The barons assembled a war chest in excess of $100,000 to arm and equip the expedition. And in April 1892, with the support of both senators, various U.S. marshals, mayors and judges, Governor Barber and ex-Territorial Governor George W. Baxter, and with the army neutralized, they got under way. First by special train from Cheyenne to Casper, and then by wagons and horses toward Johnson County and the target city of Buffalo, they undertook the unthinkable: an armed invasion of a free county of the United States. Death list in hand, their first stop was Nate Champion’s KC Ranch. Trapped in the KC cabin, Champion didn’t lack for firepower; he had Ray’s and the trappers’ weapons, as well as his own .45 Colt and Winchester carbine. But he realized the gravity of his situation; his partner lay dying, and he was beset by an unknown number of attackers who clearly weren’t interested in letting him surrender. Then, remarkably, he took up a pencil and a small tally book and began to log the day’s events: Me and Nick Ray was getting breakfast when the attack took place. Two men here with us—Bill Jones and another man. The old man went after water and did not come back. His friend went out to see what was the matter, and he did not come back. Nick started out, and I told him to look out, that I thought there was someone at the stable and would not let them come back. Champion knew from the severity of his partner’s wounds that Ray’s condition was hopeless: “Nick is shot but not dead yet. He is awful sick. I must go and wait on him.” As he wrote, his attackers fired continuously at the cabin, and from time to time he returned their fire. His shooting was accurate. One of the gunmen later recalled: “If a man was exposed for a second, a bullet quickly whistled in his direction from the shattered window frame of the house.” The day passed slowly for Champion. “It is now about two hours since the first shot,” he wrote. “Nick is still alive.” He was now well aware of the extent of the operation outside his cabin. “They are still shooting and are all around the house. Boys, there is bullets coming in like hail. Them fellows is in such shape I can’t get at them. They are shooting from the stable and river and back of the house.” Nick Ray didn’t linger long. In a short while Champion wrote: “Nick is dead. He died about 9 o’clock.” Meanwhile, the men down at the stable stripped and split some of the corral poles and built a fire for warmth. Champion, seeing the smoke, mistakenly assumed they had fired the building. Fire was the one thing against which he had no defense, and taking stock of his situation, he matter-of-factly wrote, “I don’t think they intend to let me get away this time.” The invaders had indeed grown frustrated with their failure to kill this lone defender. They held a council of war and decided to burn him out, sending four of their number to a nearby ranch for a wagonload of hay. There was a lull in the shooting, and Champion continued his journal: It is now about noon. There is someone at the stable yet; they are throwing a rope out at the door and drawing it back. I guess it is to draw me out. I wish that duck would get out further so I could get a shot at him. Boys, I don’t know what they have done with them two fellows that staid [sic] here last night. And then, with his partner lying dead nearby and an army of men seeking his own death, for the first and only time during this terrifying day Champion expressed his fear: Boys, I feel pretty lonesome just now. I wish there was someone here with me so we could watch all sides at once. Around midafternoon a wagon and outrider appeared on the road, heading north toward the bridge. The attackers were caught off guard, as local rancher O.H. “Jack” Flagg and his 17-year-old stepson drew closer. Flagg, considered by the invaders “the most notorious rustler in the county,” figured prominently on the death list, but the Texans didn’t know him by sight. Some of them finally opened fire when Flagg and stepson thundered over the bridge toward Buffalo, and seven gave chase briefly before returning to the siege. Flagg’s stepson cut the wagon traces to free one of the draft horses (the other had been wounded), and the two men rode off to raise the alarm. The invaders had lost the crucial element of surprise. Nate Champion knew Flagg well as a friend and sometime wagon boss but didn’t recognize him at that distance. From his limited vantage point, he saw only the beginning of the attack on the wagon: It was about 3 o’clock now. There was a man in a buckboard and one on horseback just passed. They fired on them as they went by, I don’t know if they killed them or not. I have seen lots of men come out on horses on the other side of the river and take after them. I shot at the men in the stable just now. Don’t know if I got any or not. I must go and look out again. Champion had no illusions about how the day would end. These men wouldn’t move on while he remained alive. Rescue seemed impossible. Even if the two men on the bridge had managed to reach Buffalo, it was several hours and a good 60 miles each way before help could arrive. There was nothing he could do except postpone the inevitable. He had come to take comfort in the simple act of putting his thoughts and observations on paper: It don’t look as if there is much show of my getting away. I see 12 or 15 men. …I hope they did not catch them fellows that run over the bridge toward Smith’s. They are shooting at the house now. If I had a pair of glasses, I believe I would know some of those men. He would indeed. Although the Texas gunmen were mostly strangers to him, he’d have recognized the handful of association cattlemen who had blacklisted him from their roundup and labeled him a rustler. And Frank Canton, co-leader of the bunch, the sometime lawman, sometime outlaw who had lost his rifle while trying to ambush Champion months earlier. It was Canton’s own prized model 1886 .38-56 Winchester that Champion now used to fire back at him (see “Guns of the West,” P. 66). The firing outside picked up. “They are coming back,” Nate hastily wrote. “I’ve got to look out.” Around 4 p.m., during another brief lull in the shooting, Nate heard the sound he’d been dreading: Well, they have just got through shelling the house like hail. I heard them splitting wood. I guess they are going to fire the house tonight. I think I will make a break when night comes, if I am alive. But his attackers had no intention of waiting for nightfall. With Flagg’s abandoned wagon the frustrated attackers now had the means to accomplish through flame what thousands of rounds and many wasted hours had failed to achieve. The men at the stable fashioned the wagon into a massive rolling torch, filled with alternating layers of hay and pitch pine posts from the corral. Five men pushed it across the 75 yards of open ground while riflemen fired methodically at the windows to keep Champion down. With sinking heart, Nate wrote: “Shooting again. I think they will fire the house this time.” The invaders rammed the wagon up against the cabin and set it alight. In a short time the roof caught, and soon the milled pine logs of the squat four-room cabin were ablaze. Smoke poured from the cracks and windows. As nearly five dozen men prepared to cut down their quarry, Champion hastily made his final entry: “The house is all fired. Goodbye, boys, if I never see you again.” For the last time in his life, the cowboy signed his name—“Nathan D. Champion”— and tucked the little journal into his vest pocket. With the cabin filling with smoke, Champion crawled to the storage dugout off the kitchen, the only part of the small log building not ablaze. The cold drizzle had turned to snow, and the wind was carrying the dark smoke toward the ravine some 100 yards to the south; it was in that direction he’d make his run. It was the best of the bad choices, but at least the smoke afforded some cover. As the roof collapsed, he slipped his Colt into his waistband, levered a round into the Winchester’s chamber and—to the accompanying cries of “There he goes!”— bolted from the burning cabin. Sprinting through the smoke in his stocking feet as round after round struck all around him, Champion remained miraculously untouched. He ran into the mouth of the sheltering ravine—and straight into the rifle muzzles of two of the six Texas gunmen hidden there since early morning. Champion brought up his carbine and triggered one round, which went wild as a slug tore into his left arm, smashing the elbow. As the rifle fell from his hand, another slug caught him flush in the chest, staggering him backward as more men came on the run. Hit by 10 rounds in all, he was dead before he hit the ground. Someone took Champion’s .45 from his waistband. Frank Canton unceremoniously stepped up, reclaimed his own carbine and delivered a grudging tribute: “He came out fighting and died game.” A reporter who had accompanied the expedition was given the little journal —now bloodstained and holed by a bullet—and ordered to place a crudely lettered placard on Champion’s chest. It read, CATTLE THIEVES, BEWARE! The KC siege was over; the invaders slowly walked away, leaving Nate Champion’s body, rough sign pinned to his vest, to the softly falling snow. He had made them earn their $5-a-day wage and $50-a-head bounty, wounding three of them and keeping the others at bay for several hours. And by giving the citizens of Buffalo time to mount an armed resistance to the cattle barons and their hired killers, he had stopped the Johnson County Invasion dead in its tracks. Having lost a crucial day— and the element of surprise —the hired guns resumed their march from the KC toward Buffalo, 60 miles to the north. Cold and exhausted, the leaders were bickering when the men arrived at the TA Ranch, some 14 miles south of town. The alarm had been sounded in Buffalo, and a well-armed force of angry townsmen was riding out to meet them. Alerted to its approach, the invaders decided to hole up at the TA, where they fortified the house and barn, dug defensive trenches and erected breastworks. Suddenly, the boot was on the other foot. The Buffalo contingent, led by Sheriff William G. “Red” Angus, sought help from the local troops, but the Wyoming National Guard had orders from Governor Barber, himself a WSGA member, not to assist the townspeople. Undeterred, Angus marched his citizen army to the TA, where they surrounded the buildings, took up positions and settled in for a siege. Within two days the force had swelled to 300 men. By now the citizens had found the bullet-riddled body of Nick Champion and the charred trunk that had been Nick Ray, and they were in a killing frame of mind. A local blacksmith constructed what accounts alternately referred to as a “go-devil” or “ark of safety,” comprising two Studebaker wagons capped by a log breastwork wide enough to shield more than a dozen men. Meanwhile, morale among the besieged invaders was low and sinking further. The townspeople prepared their assault, rolling the go-devil to within 200 feet of the TA barn, but that’s as far as it would ever go. In a scene reminiscent of early Westerns, 107 cavalrymen— under direct orders from U.S. President Benjamin Harrison—rode in on April 13 and ordered the immediate cessation of hostilities. This time, however, they were rescuing the bad guys. The invaders were allowed to come out under a flag of truce and surrender to the military—a serious breach of civil law. During the course of their “incarceration”—first at Fort McKinney, near Buffalo, then at Fort D.A. Russell, in Cheyenne—they were feted by the governor and the cattle barons, given commemorative rings, allowed to tear up the local whorehouse and saloons and treated more as conquering heroes than murdering felons. Some of the barons gave each other silver loving cups, bearing such inscriptions as, IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF UNTIRING DEVOTION ON OUR BEHALF DURING THE TRYING TIME OF THE WYOMING INVASION OF 1892. On Friday, April 15—nearly a week after the siege at the KC cabin—Buffalo held funerals for Nate Champion and Nick Ray. The next day a coroner’s jury declared the deaths of the two men premeditated murder (see sidebar at left) and named several of the invaders, including Frank Canton, as the killers. It was hoped and assumed by many in and around Johnson County that the invaders and the arrogant cattle barons who had hired them would face a rope. However, the WSGA was not about to let that happen. The association bigwigs brought to bear their considerable political influence; not only would the assassins not hang, Johnson County would bankrupt itself in the attempt. Gradually, the Texans slipped away and went home, but not before they were paid their $150-per-month wages, plus the $100 bounties for the lives of Champion and Ray. The barons returned to their estates, unimpeded by due process. Sadly, infuriatingly, no one was ever convicted or punished for these killings, or for the earlier hangings of Ella “Cattle Kate” Watson, Jim Averill or rancher Tom Waggoner, or for the bushwhack murders of Orley E. “Ranger” Jones and John A. Tisdale. Everyone knew who had committed the crimes; no one could prove it. Many invaders in the short Johnson County War, including Frank Canton, went on to long careers in law enforcement and put the whole affair behind them. Not surprising, a number of the Texas gunmen met violent ends. George Tucker later admitted: “We were in Wyoming as paid assassins of the big ranchers. We were brought there to murder men in violation of the law. Let no one mislead you by saying that we had the law on our side—we had the politics and the money, but not the law. We were not convicted of our crimes because we had the politics and the money with us.” And how much bloodier their crimes would have been had it not been for Nate Champion’s desperate, heroic stand. Ron Soodalter is a regular columnist for America’s Civil War and has written for otherWeider History Group publications. He is the co-author of The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today (2009). Suggested for further reading: Wyoming Range War: The Infamous Invasion of Johnson County, by John W. Davis; The Johnson County War, by Bill O’Neal; and A Review of the Cattle Business in Johnson County, Wyoming, Since 1882; and the Causes That Led to the Recent Invasion, by Oscar Hite “Jack” Flagg. Originally published in the April 2011 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
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https://www.historynet.com/charles-de-gaulle-wartime-leader-of-france.htm
Charles de Gaulle: Wartime Leader of France
Charles de Gaulle: Wartime Leader of France The turmoil of World War II made heroes and household names of many in the military, most of whom were already in positions of military power and whose decisions and actions shaped their countries’ military policies and directions. Charles de Gaulle, however, held a position of relative obscurity within his military. That is, until the Germans invaded his homeland in May of 1940. In his youth, de Gaulle was interested, above all else, in the fate of France, whether as a subject of history or as it affected his stake in public life. Born in Lille in 1890 and growing up in Paris, he was the son of a traditionalist father and a mother who, in his memoirs, de Gaulle described as having ‘uncompromising passion for her country, equal to her religious piety.’ He joined the army in 1909 and, as then required, served in the ranks for one year. In 1910 he entered the military academy at Saint-Cyr. His first assignment to the 33rd Infantry Regiment brought him in contact with a Colonel Henri Pétain. Pétain would later rise to the rank of marshal of the army and become the savior of France at Verdun during World War I. De Gaulle credited Pétain with teaching him the art of command. During World War I de Gaulle learned firsthand the harsh reality of combat. He was wounded three times and spent the last 32 months of the war as a prisoner. Between the wars, de Gaulle participated in a brief campaign in Poland and served as a history instructor at Saint-Cyr. It was here that he gained a reputation as a military writer and tactical theorist. In one of his published works, The Army of the Future, he set forth his theory on the need for a mechanized army and the future of tank warfare. Although many of his theories were ridiculed by the older military establishment, he was eventually detailed to the Secretariat Général de la Défence Nationale, the military advisory staff of the French premier. That assignment gave de Gaulle an insight into the workings of his government and cultivated his cynicism for France’s political system. It was here also that he began to formulate what would later become his political doctrine. France was no different from the other participants in the Great War in her desire to prevent any such event from happening again. The killing fields had bled her of her youth and vitality. The depression of the 1930s had affected her people as it had the rest of the world. The strong leadership required to aid in recovery did not exist. In fact, under her parliamentary system, France had 14 governments formed between 1932 and 1937. Social welfare became the priority of her people and government. During those same years, across the demilitarized zone of the Rhine, her neighbor again began to rise to dominance. Adolf Hitler had brought Germany out of the Depression with a strong economic program and had secretly begun the rearming of her military. France was not oblivious to her neighbor’s recovery but felt the Treaty of Versailles would contain Germany’s energies. Preoccupied with her social woes, France did little to modernize or expand her army. To appease military alarmists, a series of fortifications called the Maginot Line was built at a great cost as insurance against aggression from the east. De Gaulle, witnessing the modernization of the German military, became a vocal advocate of developing motorized armored divisions. He argued that for a fraction of what the Maginot Line was costing, France could equip and field several armored divisions. His appeals fell, for the most part, on deaf ears. He did find an open mind in Paul Reynaud, a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Reynaud also saw the need for modernizing the French forces but was unable to persuade other members of the government to support his views. By the time Reynaud succeeded Edouard Daladier as head of state in March of 1940, it was too late to prevent the coming tragedy. Thus, in May 1940, when the German juggernaut turned west and rumbled toward France, the French military found itself totally unprepared. The Maginot Line was bypassed, leaving France’s vaunted line of defense totally useless. Too late to be effective, de Gaulle was given command of the 4th Armored Division on May 11 and was told by the commander of the northeast front, General Alphonse Georges, ‘Here is your chance to act.’ Despite the fact that the division was newly formed and inexperienced, de Gaulle mounted a counterattack, only to be quickly brushed aside by the German advance. Regrouping two days later, he attempted to renew his attack and actually penetrated the German line, but was ordered to desist as his division was needed elsewhere. Reynaud rewarded his efforts by appointing de Gaulle undersecretary for war. In his new capacity, de Gaulle was confronted with the desperation and indecision of the French leaders. Reynaud dispatched de Gaulle to England with a plea to send more British forces and aircraft. However, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was already resigned to the fact that France would fall. He assured de Gaulle he would do what he could but explained that Britain was ill-prepared for war and could not send more assistance to the French at the expense of his own country’s defense. Arriving back in France, de Gaulle found the government packing up and preparing to flee Paris in the face of the German advance. The general staff was leaning toward Marshal Pétain’s call to capitulate. De Gaulle attempted to persuade Reynaud to relieve General Maxime Weygand, the French supreme commander, in favor of a commander who was more determined to fight. Reynaud finally consented, but a few hours later de Gaulle discovered that Reynaud had changed his mind and that he, too, was now leaning toward an armistice. Churchill made a quick visit, and during subsequent meetings between the two governments he displayed sympathy but made no commitments. Government and military meetings held after Churchill’s departure convinced de Gaulle that the French leaders were going to capitulate. De Gaulle himself grudgingly recognized the futility of saving metropolitan France and began to advocate moving to the French colonies of North Africa or consolidating in the Breton region to carry on the fight. Premier Reynaud again sent de Gaulle to England in an effort to procure transportation for the evacuation. He carried with him the message that if France were unable to hold onto the continent of Europe, she would continue the fight in North Africa. The British reception, while courteous, was negative and left de Gaulle with an empty feeling that France’s allies were deserting her. De Gaulle also realized there was not going to be any ‘Breton Redoubt’ or stand in Africa. Upon his return, a tired but determined de Gaulle formally informed Reynaud of his decision to leave for Britain to carry on the fight. Reynaud gave de Gaulle 100,000 francs from secret funds, the purpose of which is not recorded. The next day de Gaulle departed for England, ‘carrying, in this small airplane,’ Churchill wrote, ‘the honor of France.’ Many critics of de Gaulle claimed he was a traitor. The Vichy government even condemned him to death in absentia. De Gaulle considered all who served the Vichy government to be the true traitors. His arrogance was legendary among the Allies, and he claimed to all who would listen that he was the only true French government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt often remarked, ‘Sometimes he thinks he’s Joan of Arc and sometimes he thinks he’s Clemenceau.’ Churchill tolerated and soothed his ego while de Gaulle was a guest of the British government. De Gaulle was tolerated partly because he was the only Frenchman at the time who would have even a remote chance of influencing the French partisans when their assistance would be needed and partly because the British government sympathized with his plight. In his memoirs De Gaulle painted a picture of a French population betrayed by her leaders and begging for his leadership. In reality, many patriotic Frenchmen did not have the opportunities he enjoyed. He was given use of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) for his Fighting France propaganda broadcasts to the mainland, as well as Allied assistance in providing transportation and equipment for his followers. In the beginning, the majority of French patriotic groups and partisans did not support de Gaulle despite his early claims. De Gaulle demanded the Allies treat him and his followers as full partners, to include weapons and command of troops. His pique at being left out of the Allied invasion of French North Africa and subsequent invitation to assist General Henri Giraud in forming a committee to oversee the French colonies led to a rebuke by Churchill. Upon arriving in Algiers, de Gaulle was insulted by the security measures that were taken, including sequestering him in a requisitioned villa surrounded by barbed wire. He let his dissatisfaction be known to Churchill, who burst out, ‘This is an occupied country!’ He reluctantly joined Giraud in forming a governing committee under the guidelines set forth by the Allies. De Gaulle despised Giraud and his people for their previous allegiance to the Vichy government and quickly phased them out of the committee, gaining complete control for himself. He informed the Allies that the North African colonies were sovereign French and that they were welcome as long as they continued to support him and his mission to free France. In reality, de Gaulle had little to back up such a claim. He controlled no military. The French military units still obeyed Giraud and fought alongside the Allies throughout the African campaign. The Allies also provided the food and material required to sustain the colonies. Churchill wrote: ‘I resented his arrogant demeanor. Here he was, a refugee, an exile from his own country under sentence of death, in a position entirely dependent on the goodwill of the British government, and also now of the United States. The Germans had conquered his country. He had no real foothold anywhere. Never mind; he defied all.’ De Gaulle believed that if he had been included in the planning of the invasion of North Africa less bloodshed would have resulted. He was not included in the invasion scheme because the Americans were counting on the French Africans’ support and weak opposition from the Vichy government. De Gaulle was considered a traitor by both groups, and French cooperation was not possible with his involvement. De Gaulle did little to endear himself to these groups. He shed French blood in his disastrous attempt to take the port of Dakar in October 1940, accusing the Vichy government of ‘misusing the courage and discipline of those who were in subjection to them.’ In his attempt to get out from under the thumb of the Allies and establish Free French territory, de Gaulle mounted a series of small campaigns to liberate French Equatoria, causing many casualties with very little strategic results. His decision to fight his own countrymen instead of the Germans did little to dispel the Vichy claim that de Gaulle was a traitor. It was not until the Vichy government began outright collaboration with its German masters that his countrymen began to look to de Gaulle for leadership. Throughout the war, de Gaulle made demands of the Allies in the name of France, most of which were ignored. When it became evident that the liberation of Paris was possible, de Gaulle informed General Dwight D. Eisenhower that if Eisenhower failed to order the taking of Paris, de Gaulle would order French General Philippe LeClerc and the 2nd French Armored Division, attached to American General Courtney Hodges’ command at Argentan, to take Paris. Eisenhower’s plan was to bypass Paris in favor of a move eastward, and he refused to detach LeClerc to de Gaulle. Only after learning that the Germans occupying Paris had orders to destroy the city did Eisenhower issue the order for LeClerc to proceed to Paris in the interest of preventing a political crisis. In late afternoon on August 25, 1944, General Charles de Gaulle arrived in Paris to the cheers of thousands. Only one thing marred his triumphant return. The surrender document, which was to be signed by the defeated German general and LeClerc, had been altered to include the signatures of the French resistance leaders as well as one notable Communist leader. De Gaulle was enraged and chastised LeClerc for allowing it to happen. Forget the fact the Communists and resistance fighters had carried on the war at home while de Gaulle consolidated his power elsewhere; de Gaulle was not going to share in the power he so greatly cherished. Although a French general, de Gaulle was never given command of an Allied army, French or otherwise. His early reputation as a tactician and theorist was never put to the test on any large scale. He built a power base for the eventual establishment of a French government and tried to procure for France the status of a full-fledged equal among the victorious Allies right up to the end of the war. His treatment by the Allies, especially the snubbing by the United States, embittered de Gaulle. Although France shared in the occupation of a divided Germany, de Gaulle was not invited to the Big Three conferences at Potsdam and Yalta. His desire for France to return to its former glory and power became an obsession. In 1944, de Gaulle’s provisional government took over liberated France. Ineffectual, its primary accomplishment was the building of morale. He resigned in 1946 over a dispute as to what the composition of the new government should be. De Gaulle wanted a strong presidency not answerable to the elected general assembly. A push for a stronger general assembly won out. He attempted a comeback in 1947 but was never able to achieve the majority he needed, and after a six-year struggle he retired. In 1958, with widening economic problems and a bitter dispute over Algerian independence, France once again called on de Gaulle to lead. Appointed as the premier, he was given great authority, and history has credited him with improving the economy and solving the Algerian crisis. In reality, de Gaulle’s eye was fixed on foreign affairs. The economic revival was actually the result of the efforts of the previous ruling party and the overall strengthening of European economies. His vision of France returning as a world power never came to fruition. One by one, the African colonies he fought so hard to keep during the war sought and obtained independence. De Gaulle’s attempt to hold onto a crumbling empire led France into a long and costly conflict in Southeast Asia, a conflict his country could ill afford. Snubbed by the other European nations in his campaign to place France as the leader of the European community, de Gaulle steered France toward independence from its neighbors in the 1960s. He resigned in 1969 after a referendum designed to give him greater constitutional power was defeated. He died the following year. This article was written by Patrick Johnson and originally appeared in the November1993 issue of World War II magazine. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today!
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https://www.historynet.com/charlie-holloway-secret-vietnam-mission.htm
The Day We Lost Charlie: a Secret Mission and a Sudden Death
The Day We Lost Charlie: a Secret Mission and a Sudden Death On Dec. 21, 1962, the last in a formation of 15 “Flying Bananas,” the nickname for H-21 Shawnee troop transport helicopters, taxied into position at 2:55 p.m. for their scheduled 3 p.m. departure. The 15 helicopters lined up on the Pleiku airstrip in South Vietnam were quite a sight. In a standard 18-aircraft helicopter company, a troop lift involving 10 aircraft was considered normal and 12 was borderline for helicopter availability. A mission with a 15-aircraft request was extraordinary. The 15 helicopters of 81st Transportation Company, in which I served as a captain and 2nd Platoon leader, would join the 8th Transportation Company the next day on a mission to deliver hundreds of South Vietnamese soldiers to a jungle battlefield. This mission would also deliver an awful blow to both helicopter units. The 81st Transportation Company had arrived in Vietnam early in October 1962 and was assigned to Pleiku in the Central Highlands after gaining experience in mountain flights while stationed in Hawaii. The five H-21 companies in Vietnam had a total of 90 aircraft. Each was in high demand for air transport missions required to support South Vietnamese troops and the increasing number of American advisers. Capt. Thomas R. Messick, right, with his back closest to the camera during a group meeting on Dec. 11 / Courtesy photo Sometime around Dec. 12, our company had received a warning order—an alert to prepare men and equipment for a mission that would be explained more fully later—from Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, in charge of all U.S. forces in South Vietnam. MACV demanded a total of 30 H-21s from the 81st and 8th Transportation companies. At that point in the war, it would be the largest troop lift conducted in Vietnam. The warning order, classified “Secret” (only for those who “need to know”), stipulated that the 81st would be responsible for coordination and logistics. The 81st also would lead the mission. The briefing date, time and place were “to be announced.” The order for 15 aircraft from each company was a tough one to fill. The H-21 was a difficult helicopter to maintain. An estimated 11 hours of maintenance was required for every hour of flight. Thus, we immediately prioritized our flight schedule and reduced our missions to “essential flights only.” The mission demands meant that every available pilot would have to fly—including the company commander, executive officer and even the operations officer, who despised the H-21 and flew as seldom as possible. The one pilot who should not have been flying was Chief Warrant Officer Charles Edward “Charlie” Holloway. He had arrived in Pleiku the previous week. Although Holloway was experienced in flying cargo helicopters, that experience had been in the single-rotor H-34 Choctaw, not the two-rotor H-21 Shawnee. The mechanics of flying single-rotor and tandem-rotor helicopters are so dissimilar that Holloway needed more transition training to master the H-21—something that should have been done before he left the States. Charlie Holloway In Vietnam, Holloway received just two hours of touch-and-go landings as his transition training because he arrived at the 81st Transportation Company during the “essential flights only” order. Under normal circumstances, Holloway’s meager experience with the H-21 would have barred him from flying a combat troop lift. Yet these were not “normal circumstances,” and Holloway would fly. Midafternoon on Dec. 19 the company clerk told me to report to the commander’s office. When I arrived, the 81st’s commanding officer, Maj. George W. Aldridge, was in a conference with the executive and operations officers. I was waved in, directed to take a seat and handed the MACV warning order of Dec. 12. Aldridge said the time and place for the mission briefing had been received. He wanted me, as the designated mission leader, to attend the briefing, which would be conducted in Nha Trang, about a one-hour flight from Pleiku. Early the next morning, wearing my last set of starched fatigues, I climbed into the back of our company-assigned L-19 Bird Dog—a spotter plane normally used for reconnaissance and directing airstrikes—and flew to Nha Trang, a coastal city in central South Vietnam. I arrived early at the briefing building, and the lieutenant colonel in charge was making final preparations in a large conference room. After about 10 minutes or so, four high-ranking South Vietnamese officers and two American bird colonels entered. They seated themselves in leather upholstered armchairs aligned in the front row. I sat to the side in a metal folding chair but also in the front row. Gen. Paul D. Harkins, center left / Getty Images The briefing officer explained that three infantry battalions from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were to be airlifted to three landing zones north of Tuy Hoa, a small fishing village above Nha Trang. Thirty helicopters would carry one ARVN battalion per lift. The first lift would transport the South Vietnamese to a known Viet Cong compound. The second and third lifts would land troops at sites where they were to establish blocking areas to the north and west. Airstrikes usually pummeled an area around the landing zone to shock the enemy, inflict casualties and make it safer for the helicopters to land. However, this time there would be no advance airstrikes, the lieutenant colonel said, because the strikes would alert the VC to our arrival and give them a chance to escape into the jungle. Without thinking, I jumped to my feet and interrupted the briefer. Explaining that I was the designated flight leader, I bluntly stated: “Not airstriking the landing zones is a bad idea.” Immediately, a booming voice from the back of the room said: “Sit down, captain. The decision’s been made.” That voice came from a man I hadn’t known was in the room—MACV commander Gen. Paul D. Harkins. I made one last attempt to get my point across. “Sir, it’s a bad decision and could get people killed!” Then I seated myself as ordered. I fully expected to be upbraided by the general or one of his minions after the briefing, but nothing was ever said. Returning to Pleiku, I briefed Maj. Aldridge. I told him MACV planned to land all 30 aircraft together even though I suggested that three flights of 10 aircraft landing two minutes apart would be more manageable in the landing zones. I found it interesting that over the past two months all requests for troop lifts had come through ARVN headquarters in Kontum, but for this mission MACV was running the show and South Vietnam just furnished the troops. Aldridge wanted all flight crews briefed before dinner and asked if I could be ready. “I’ll be ready,” I replied. At 4:30, in the mess hall, I briefed the H-21 crews as the lieutenant colonel had briefed me at Nha Trang. Predictably, my comrades raised concerns about the questionable decision to not launch airstrikes in the landing zones. H-21 Flying Bananas at an airfield in February 1962. / Getty Images The next morning, Dec. 21, 1st Platoon leader Capt. Don Coggins and I assigned crews to aircraft tail numbers. As we paired pilots, we made sure each helicopter had one of our strongest pilots. Holloway was assigned to fly with Chief Warrant Officer Dan Gressang, among our more experienced pilots. I would fly with Warrant Officer Ernie Bustamente, on temporary duty from Korea. He was a good pilot but had only limited experience in the H-21. At exactly 3 p.m., 15 H-21s lifted off from the Pleiku airstrip and flew to Qui Nhon, an hour to the east, where we would join the 8th Helicopter Company. Hardly anyone was left in our company’s area at Pleiku because all the pilots and crew chiefs were in the air, along with 15 volunteer door gunners, extra maintenance personnel and our medical section. The first sergeant had to stay behind as the ranking man in the company area. He was not happy about it. We would bunk that night with the 8th Transportation Company. Approximately 10 minutes out, I called Qui Nhon tower, requesting landing instructions for 15 aircraft. The tower cleared us to land to the north but wanted confirmation that there were indeed 15 helicopters. Such a large grouping of H-21s in a single flight came as a surprise. We closed our formation, which was at least a half-mile long, and on final approach slowly reduced altitude and airspeed as we flew the entire length of the runway. All aircraft touched down at the same time, and the tower complimented us for putting on a good show. We taxied to the ramp and held a 10-minute crew briefing on the next day’s schedule: breakfast at 6 a.m., preflight 7 a.m., start engines 7:50 a.m., taxi for takeoff 8:10 a.m. “See you in the morning,” I said after the briefing, and went into Qui Nhon. The city had good seafood restaurants, so many of us took the rare opportunity to have a lobster dinner, drink some beer and see old friends from the 8th Transportation Company, where some in the 81st had served previously. Early in the morning of Dec. 22 the ramp was full of crews preparing for the flight to Tuy Hoa. Bustamente checked our aircraft while I coordinated with the 8th’s flight leader. We would be the Alpha and Bravo flights for the mission to Tuy Hoa, the 81st being Alpha. At exactly 7:50 a.m., we saw exhaust flames as the ramp full of H-21s started their Wright R-1820 Cyclone engines. Suddenly there was an ear-piercing scream. It sent chills up our spines and caused crews to freeze in place. The scream lasted maybe four or five seconds and then dead silence. We soon learned that a relatively new pilot with the 8th suddenly remembered he had not checked the flight controls for freedom of movement, something only done before the engine is started. With an engine running, raising the pitch causes it to overspeed at extremely high RPM—hence the loud scream. The error destroyed the H-21’s engine. Our group was reduced to 29 Flying Bananas. At 8:10 a.m., Alpha began taxiing for the hour-and-10-minute flight to Tuy Hoa. Bravo would be just minutes behind. The morning was crystal clear as the sun rose over the South China Sea. Our flight along the coast gave us a beautiful view of Vietnam. Upon arrival at Tuy Hoa, we were surprised to find a 4,000-foot paved runway about 5 miles from the coast. We could see the mountains to the north, where we would be dropping off troops in less than two hours. They appeared to be about 20 miles away. Alpha flight landed on the south side of the east-west runway, facing east. Bravo landed on the north side, also facing east. Three South Vietnamese battalions, maybe more, were already at the airfield. Fuel truck crews topped off the helicopters. If everything went well, we would make three lifts without refueling. Vietnamese troops in an H-21 "Flying Banana" helicopter / AP photo The first lift was scheduled for 11 a.m. The Flying Banana could hold about 20 Vietnamese troops, but we had decided on just 11 per aircraft to keep the weight down on the first lift when we had full fuel loads. However, we were now one aircraft short and saw more South Vietnamese troops than expected. We increased the load to 12. The generally smaller size of Vietnamese soldiers compared with most Americans enabled us to add the extra man and still stay several hundred pounds under maximum takeoff weight. As we reduced weight by burning off fuel, we could increase the number on lifts two and three, if necessary. To make more room, we removed most of the seats so the troops would sit on the floorboards, which also helped them board and disembark faster. Engine start time was 10:50 a.m. I was disappointed the Bird Dog pilot did not land and brief us on the size and shape of the landing zones—always-standard procedure on prior lifts. Alpha and Bravo flights lifted off precisely on schedule. At the last minute, an American adviser and a New York Times reporter climbed aboard our aircraft and took two of the four seats not removed. Having two extra passengers put us at max takeoff weight. H-21s in formation over the Mekong Delta, 1962 / Getty Images After taking off in a loose, staggered right formation, we climbed at about 70 mph to 2,500 feet and headed north toward the mountains. I made radio contact with the Bird Dog pilot, who would give us direction and distance to the landing zone. When the trail aircraft advised me the flight was formed, we increased to about 90 mph, the best speed for close formation flying. As we approached the mountains, the terrain rose toward us. We were soon flying at treetop level, which is not a good time to be looking down at a map, so we relied on the Bird Dog pilot. He let us know when we were about 10 miles away and told us our course was good. At about 6 miles, he suggested a slight right turn of 5 degrees, and at 3 miles we were straight on course. I began reducing airspeed at 2 miles from the landing zone but was careful not to slow so much that aircraft in back would have to hover. At treetop level and flying slightly uphill, I couldn’t see the landing zone. Even at slow air speed, I was concerned we might overfly. Suddenly there it was—and damn, plenty wide but not deep, which means you don’t have much depth in which to cut your speed as you descend. An instant decision had to be made. I announced, “We’re landing!” The first three aircraft landed without issues. The next two overflew the zone. All remaining helicopters landed without difficulty because the landing zone farther to the right was both wide and deep. As the H-21s prepared to land, the crew chief and door gunner opened fire with .30-caliber Browning machine guns. Shots came back at us, and I heard the cries of other crews: “We’re taking heavy fire. I’ve got wounded on board. Let’s get out of here!” I transmitted: “When you’re unloaded get out! We’ll form up in the air!” It didn’t make sense to sit empty and be shot at just to leave as a group. Bustamente and I were still unloading our troops. Although we were first to land, we were slow departing. Some South Vietnamese soldiers refused to get off. The New York Times reporter was on the floor shaking badly. The American adviser just left him cowering there. When we finally departed, we were lagging well behind the bulk of the flight. The two aircraft that overflew the landing zone were now on final approach. I advised them not to land. As they passed the landing zone, they said all aircraft were out and the ground was littered with the dead and wounded. South Vietnamese soldiers move out from a landing zone in search of Viet Cong 1962 / Getty Images As Gressang and Holloway were accelerating after lifting off, a bullet hit Holloway on the right side of his forehead. His locked seat harness kept him from falling forward onto the controls, but the weight of Holloway’s feet on the pedals meant Gressang had to struggle to keep the aircraft straight. The crew chief got Holloway off the pedals and removed his helmet. Holloway was unconscious, with his head slumped to the right, filling that side of the cockpit with blood. As Gressang flew, the crew chief applied a pressure bandage on Holloway’s forehead but had little success in slowing the bleeding. All helicopters returned to the Tuy Hoa airstrip except one that had lost oil pressure and struggled with an overheated engine, forcing a landing about 2½ miles from the airfield. A trailing H-21 picked up the crew and machine guns. Other aircraft reported light to severe damage, including a helicopter with holes in the fuel tank. Some had dead or wounded troops onboard. We needed to shut down and evaluate the situation. Our company medical officer, Dr. George W. Inghram, and his team were standing by when Gressang landed. The medical team lifted Holloway from his seat and transferred him to a Huey helicopter for a flight to the Army hospital in Nha Trang. Holloway died en route. When the first lift was completed, 22 aircraft had been hit, ranging from a single bullet hole to 100 or more. On the next lift we could only fly 17 aircraft, but we each added two additional troops. We lifted off with apprehension 20 minutes later and followed the same flight routine, except this time the site was visible well in advance of the landing zone. On a short final approach our crew chief and door gunner opened fire. Thankfully, there was no return fire. After discharging our troops we departed as a flight, feeling a great deal of relief. We landed at Tuy Hoa and loaded the third lift of troops plus two additional soldiers, then followed the same procedure as lifts one and two. Lift three went smoothly and was uneventful. In all, we airlifted about 860 soldiers. When our helicopters got back to Tuy Hoa after the third lift, we were low on fuel. Trucks immediately began refueling all flyable aircraft. When two helicopters from the same unit were fueled and determined to be airworthy, they departed for either Pleiku or Qui Nhon. Five H-21s were not flyable without extensive repair. It took two days to get them out of Tuy Hoa. Two aircraft had their rotor blades removed, were placed on flatbed trucks and driven to Qui Nhon. We never saw them again. Holloway’s aircraft had sustained at least 40 hits. It was cleaned as best as possible and released to Pleiku. Another H-21 had 103 hits, but remarkably no vital components were struck, although there were dead and wounded inside. Even more extraordinary, only three crew members from both H-21 companies had more than minor injuries. To describe what had happened as “a shock” would be a tremendous understatement. On previous missions, we received only a few enemy rounds, which mostly hit the tail sections. We figured those came from South Vietnamese troops we had just landed—maybe they were intentional, maybe not. Until the Tuy Hoa mission, we had not fully realized that we were no longer training for war but were now in a war—where you can get killed. We all had a feeling of numbness after Holloway’s death. For a week we walked around with grim faces, not many laughs and few smiles. Gressang was especially quiet and kept to himself. However, we stayed busy flying support missions and working hard, the best medicine for a recovery from grief. Eventually even Gressang returned to his normal cheerful disposition. Yet I have to wonder, would we have grieved harder if Holloway had been with us more than a week and we had known him better? Gressang, right, was Holloway's co-pilot. Getting to Know Charlie Holloway Charles Edward Holloway, born March 2, 1931, was 31 when he died on Dec. 22, 1962. Holloway lived in De Leon Springs, Florida. He enlisted in the Army and went to flight school. He and his wife, Olive, had five children. Holloway was the 22nd combat death in Vietnam and the fourth Army aviator killed by hostile fire. On July 4, 1963, in a ceremony at the Pleiku airstrip, headquarters of the 52nd Aviation Battalion, the airstrip was named Holloway Field. Later, the surrounding base was named Camp Holloway. It’s been nearly 60 years since the events of Tuy Hoa, and while I have often thought about that mission, it has occupied my mind more and more the past few years. Maybe I’m writing about Tuy Hoa to answer questions that remain in my own mind. Did the decision to not pre-strike the landing zone really catch the VC by surprise? Or had they already known we were coming and decided to attack us there? Our experience in Vietnam would prove time and again that keeping combat operations secret was nearly impossible. Then there is the question of my split-second decision to land versus circling to land. Would the VC have left the area while we circled? Or would that have just given them more time to prepare? We’ll never know, but I do know that if they had more time to prepare, a bad situation could have been far worse. Finally, as flight leader, had I done my job properly? I take some comfort in feeling I did it to the best of my ability. V Thomas R. Messick, a retired major, served for 28 years as an Army aviator, including two tours in Vietnam. Later he retired as manager of flight operations and chief helicopter pilot for General Electric Co. He lives in Prescott, Arizona. This article appeared in the October 2020 issue of Vietnam magazine. For more stories from Vietnam magazine, subscribe here and visit us on Facebook:
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https://www.historynet.com/charmed-life-of-captain-eddie-rickenbacker-january-99-aviation-history-feature.htm
Charmed Life of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker
Charmed Life of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker When America’s WWI Ace of Aces Edward Rickenbacker became president of Eastern Air Lines, he said: ‘I will always keep in mind that I am in the greatest business in the world… and I can serve humanity more completely in my line of endeavor than in any other.’ He was called America’s Ace of Aces during World War I, the highest scorer of American aerial victories over the Germans. He could just as easily have been labeled the “luckiest man alive,” however, since he survived–by his own count–135 brushes with death during his exciting lifetime. Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was born in Columbus, Ohio, on October 8, 1890. The son of Swiss immigrants, he was the third of eight children. His parents christened him Edward Rickenbacher, but he later added Vernon as a middle name “because it sounded classy” and changed the spelling of his last name to Rickenbacker so it would be less Germanic. He answered mostly to “Rick” but would be best known during later years as “Captain Eddie.” His father was a day laborer, and life was not easy for a lad who spoke with an accent that reflected his parents’ household language. Young Rickenbacker was admittedly a bad boy who smoked at age 5 and headed a group of mischievous youngsters known as the Horsehead Gang, but he was imbued with family values by frequent applications of a switch to his posterior by his strict father. One of his father’s axioms that he followed all his life was never to procrastinate. At age 8, he had his first brush with death when he led his gang down a slide in a steel cart into a deep gravel pit. The cart flipped over on him and laid his leg open to the bone. He quit school at 12 when his father died in a construction accident, and he became the major family breadwinner for his mother and four younger siblings. He said in his memoirs, “That day I turned from a harum-scarum youngster into a young man serious beyond my age.” He sold newspapers, peddled eggs and goat’s milk, then worked in a glassmaking factory. Seeking more income, he worked successively in a foundry, a brewery, a shoe factory and a monument works, where he carved and polished his father’s tombstone. Engines became young Rickenbacker’s passion, and he found a job that changed his life in 1906 when he went to work for Lee Frayer, a race car driver and head of the Frayer-Miller Automobile Co. Frayer liked the scrawny, scrappy lad and let him ride in major races as his mechanic. Rick later went to work as a salesman for the Columbus Buggy Co., which was then making Firestone-Columbus automobiles. He joined automobile designer Fred Duesenberg in 1912 and struck out on his own as a race car driver. He soon established a reputation as a daring driver and won some races–but not without numerous accidents and narrow escapes. After each crash he telegraphed his mother, telling her not to worry. Although Rickenbacker set a world speed record of 134 mph at Daytona in 1914, he was never able to win the big prize at Indianapolis. While preparing for the Vanderbilt Cup Race in California in November 1916, he had his first ride in an aircraft–flown by Glenn Martin, who was beginning his own career as a pilot and aircraft manufacturer. Rickenbacker had a lifelong fear of heights, but he had not been apprehensive during the flight. When America entered the war in 1917, Rickenbacker volunteered despite the fact that he was making a reported $40,000 a year at the time. He wanted to learn to fly, but at 27 he was overage for flight training and had no college degree. However, because of his fame as a race car driver, he was sworn in as a sergeant and sailed for Europe as a chauffeur. Contrary to legend, he was not assigned to General John J. Pershing but did wangle an assignment driving Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell’s flashy twin-six Packard. He pestered Mitchell until he was permitted to apply for flight training, claiming to be 25, the age limit for pilot trainees. After only 17 days as a student pilot, Rick graduated, was commissioned a lieutenant and assigned to the 94th Aero Squadron, under Major John Huffer, based at Gengoult Aerodome near Toul, France. Equipped with Nieuport 28s, it was the first American-trained fighter squadron to draw blood, when 1st Lt. Douglas Campbell and 2nd Lt. Alan Winslow brought down a Pfalz D.IIIa and an Albatros D.Va on April 14, 1918. Rickenbacker was not accepted by the other squadron members–mostly Ivy League college graduates–at first. They considered him a country bumpkin without any social graces. In fact, he was described by one Yale graduate as “a lemon on an orange tree” who tended “to throw his weight around the wrong way.” Rickenbacker was happier tinkering with engines than socializing. Older than all the others, he was conservative in his flying and had to work to overcome a dislike for aerobatics. When he first arrived at the squadron he was coached by Major Raoul Lufbery, the training officer, but he soon developed his own aerial fighting techniques. He shared credit with Captain James Norman Hall for his first victory on April 29, 1918. He scored his first solo conquest on May 7, but it was not confirmed until after the war, when Hall–who had been shot down and taken prisoner in the same fight–reported the death of Lieutenant Wilhelm Scheerer of his captors’ unit, Royal Wurtemburg Jagdstaffel (Fighter Squadron) 64. As Rickenbacker’s string of victories grew, so did the respect of his squadron mates. Rickenbacker’s technique was to approach his intended victims carefully, closer than others dared, before firing his guns. He had several hair-raising experiences when his guns unexpectedly jammed. He barely managed to nurse his Nieuport in for a safe landing on May 17, when the cloth ripped off its upper wing. But his luck held, and when he became an ace, his exploits–some wildly exaggerated by reporters–made headlines in the States. During interviews, he admitted he experienced fear during his encounters with the Germans but “only after it was all over.” Rickenbacker scored his sixth victory on May 30, but on July 10 he began to suffer from sharp pains in his right ear. In Paris, the problem was diagnosed as a severe abscess, which had to be lanced and treated. He returned to the 94th on July 31 and got back into his stride on September 14, when he downed a Fokker D.VII. At the Foucaucourt Aerodrome, France, November 1918. Showing off for the camera in front of Rickenbacker's Spad XIII (left to right) 1LT J. H. Eastman, Capt James Meissner, 1LT Eddie Rickenbacker, 1LT Reed Chambers, and 1LT T. C. Taylor. (National Archives) On September 25, Rickenbacker was given command of the 94th, and on that same day he volunteered for a solo patrol. He spotted a flight of five Fokkers and two Halberstadt CL.IIs near Billy, France, and dived into them. Firing as he went through the formation, he shot one of each type down. His aggressive actions that day earned him the French Croix de Guerre and the coveted U.S. Medal of Honor, though the latter was not awarded until 12 years later. By October 1, Rickenbacker’s score stood at 12 and he had been promoted to the rank of captain. He was the most successful U.S. Air Service fighter pilot alive, and the press dubbed him “America’s Ace of Aces.” He disliked that title, however, because he felt “the honor carried the curse of death.” Three others had held that title before him–Lufbery, David Putnam and Frank Luke–and all had died. Rickenbacker was flying with greater confidence since the 94th had replaced its Nieuport 28s with more rugged Spad 13s in mid-July 1918. He had several close calls and crash landings. He barely made it back from one battle with a fuselage full of bullet holes, half a propeller and a scorched streak on his helmet where an enemy bullet had nearly found its mark. During October 1918, Rickenbacker scored 14 victories for what he and World War I historians have always claimed made a total of 26. In the 1960s the U.S. Air Force fractionalized his shared victories, reducing his total to 24.33, including four balloons. He flew a total of 300 combat hours, more than any other American pilot, and survived 134 aerial encounters with the enemy. “So many close calls renewed my thankfulness to the Power above, which had seen fit to preserve me,” he wrote in his memoirs. The kid from Columbus came home a national hero, but he had been humbled by the experience, unlike some who gloried in the brief fame they had won. He had no illusions about the durability of being a national hero, saying, “I knew it would be easy to go from hero to zero.” Although he was wined and dined from coast to coast and received many offers to endorse commercial products, he refused them all. When a motion picture producer offered him $100,000 to act in unspecified roles, he declined, although he was by then broke from supporting his family. When Rickenbacker left active duty, he was promoted to major. But he said, “I felt that my rank of captain was earned and deserved,” and he used that title proudly the rest of his life. Although he wanted to get into some aspect of aviation, he found that the industry was not really ready for him. He believed in its future and made speeches forecasting its unlimited potential. His second career choice was automobile manufacturing. With three well-known automobile executives from the EMF Company–Barney Everitt, William Metzger and Walter E. Flanders–as backers, Rickenbacker became vice president and director of sales for the Rickenbacker Motor Company. The initial Rickenbacker designs, the first cars to have four-wheel brakes, rolled off the assembly line in Detroit in 1922. He traveled around the country in a German Junkers, attempting to set up nationwide dealerships. However, a recession in 1925 and vicious competition led to the company’s downfall. Rickenbacker resigned, thinking that might help the company, but it went bankrupt two years later. Now 35, Rickenbacker found himself a quarter of a million dollars in debt but refused to declare personal bankruptcy. He vowed to pay off every penny of debt–and did eventually, “through hard work and some fortunate business deals.” In November 1927 Rickenbacker was offered financing by a friend to buy the majority of the common stock of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He served as the speedway’s president until after World War II, a job that was not time-consuming and allowed him to look for other means of income to repay his debts. He started a comic strip called Ace Drummond that ran in 135 newspapers and published a book titled Fighting the Flying Circus, both based on his World War I experiences. All this was not enough activity or income for the hyperactive Rickenbacker, however, and he was also appointed head of sales by General Motors for La Salle and Cadillac autos. Meanwhile, he continued to give speeches promoting aviation and was involved in several crashes as a passenger during his flights around the country, miraculously escaping each time without injury. On one occasion the plane he was in hit a house, and the end of a two-by-four missed his head by two inches. Rickenbacker was still so well-known that he always attracted crowds as a speaker. He is credited with helping to persuade the city fathers of 25 cities to develop airports, including one in the nation’s capital. In 1926 he got his first experience in commercial aviation when he and several associates formed Florida Airways. When that venture folded, Rickenbacker was appointed vice president of General Aviation Corporation (formerly Fokker), followed in 1933 by vice president of North American Aviation and general manager of its subsidiary, Eastern Air Transport. Rickenbacker made national headlines again when President Franklin D. Roosevelt canceled the commercial airlines’ air mail contracts in February 1934 and announced that the Army Air Corps would take over those routes. To show that the airlines were better qualified to fly the mail, Rickenbacker–with Jack Frye, vice president of TWA, and a contingent of journalists–flew coast-to-coast in the one and only Douglas DC-1, granddaddy of all “Gooney Birds,” in 13 hours and two minutes, a transcontinental record for commercial planes. It was a public protest against what Rickenbacker bitterly denounced as “legalized murder,” since three Army pilots had died trying to get to their assigned stations. The Air Mail Act of 1934 was passed after several more Army pilots were killed because they were untrained in instrument flying and their aircraft were inadequately equipped. The legislation changed the structure of U.S. civil aviation, establishing the Civil Aviation Authority, which was granted control over airports, air navigation aids, air mail and radio communications. Under the terms of the act, General Motors had to divest itself of most of its aviation holdings, but it was permitted to retain General Aviation Corporation and a reorganized Eastern Air Transport, with its name changed to Eastern Air Lines. When Rickenbacker was named Eastern’s general manager, he wanted to make the airline independent of government subsidy. He began to build the airline by improving salaries, working conditions, maintenance and passenger service, and making stock options available to employees. A modest profit ($38,000) in 1935 proved the worth of the changes he had instituted. Ten new 14-passenger DC-2s, the beginning of “The Great Silver Fleet,” were ordered to replace Stinsons, Condors, Curtiss Kingbirds and Pitcairn Mailwings. Rickenbacker co-piloted the first DC-2, Florida Flyer, on a record-setting flight from Los Angeles to Miami on November 8, 1934. Eastern at the end of 1934 was setting the pace for air transportation by flying passengers, mail and express on eight-hour nighttime schedules between New York and Miami and nine-hour schedules between Chicago and Miami to make connections with Pan American’s system to South America and the Caribbean. In April 1938, Rickenbacker and several associates bought the airline for $3.5 million and he became its president and general manager. He promptly sat down and wrote a paper titled “My Constitution,” which outlined 12 personal and business principles that would guide him in leading the airline. One of them was indicative of his work ethic: “I will always keep in mind that I am in the greatest business in the world, as well as working for the greatest company in the world, and I can serve humanity more completely in my line of endeavor than in any other.” May 17, 1937. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker christen The flagship of Eastern Air Lines to inaugurate the companies new route from New York to Washington, DC. (Library of Congress) A weather reporting and analysis system was inaugurated, and radio communications were improved. A reduction in fares brought an immediate increase in passenger traffic. The company became a bonded carrier, the first airline in the world to take such an action. It meant that goods entering the U.S. by air or surface craft could be transported by Eastern under bond for delivery to any city having a custom house. As Rickenbacker saw it, Eastern was the first airline to operate as a free-enterprise company–without government subsidy; for many years, it was the only one. In 1937, it was also the first airline to receive an award from the National Safety Council, after having operated for seven consecutive years (1930­1936) and flying more than 141 million passenger miles without a passenger fatality. However, that record ended in August 1937 with a fatal DC-2 crash at Daytona Beach. On February 26, 1941, Rickenbacker’s personal luck nearly ran out. He was aboard a DC-3 equipped as a sleeper that smashed into trees on an approach to Atlanta; 11 passengers and the two pilots died. For days Rickenbacker, badly injured, hovered between life and death, and it took nearly a year before he could get back to work. Some said that it was only Rickenbacker’s cantankerous nature that pulled him through a difficult recovery. Afterward he slumped a little and walked with a slight limp. In the journey from fighter ace to airline president, Rickenbacker’s personality turned away some would-be admirers who found it hard to accept his brusqueness and caustic way of “chewing out” subordinates–in private or before several hundred people. Rickenbacker could never get used to the idea of women working for an airline, especially as stewardesses. He preferred to hire male stewards because he believed they were less likely to leave the company soon after being trained. He worked a seven-day week himself, demanded that his employees work on Saturdays, and was a fanatic about punctuality and a penny-pincher when it came to company expenses. (He had to personally approve any expenditure over $50.) But many of his associates thought his toughness was a sham and tried not to take his scathing comments too much to heart. He was always able to make instant, no-nonsense decisions, and he was fair and loyal to his employees, despite his acidic manner. Most important, he got results. He set his own annual salary at $50,000 in 1938, and it never changed over the next 25 years–despite the fact that he built the airline into one of the nation’s four largest carriers during that time. Rickenbacker continually expounded on the old-fashioned values, especially thrift. (He always put out the lights in unoccupied offices he found in his frequent prowlings around the airline’s headquarters.) He started a company newspaper–Great Silver Fleet News–which carried his personal advice about living and working. One issue had this wise counsel under the heading, “Captain Eddie Says”: “If you cannot afford it, do without it. If you cannot pay cash for it, wait until you can; but do not in any circumstances permit yourself to mortgage your future and that of your family through time payment plans or other devices.” Subsequent editions sermonized: “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift,” and “None of us here is doing so much work that he cannot do more.” By the end of 1941, Eastern was serving 40 cities with 40 DC-3s. There were also three Stinson Reliants used for instrument training and a Kellett autogiro that flew the mail on an experimental basis from Philadelphia’s main post office to the Camden, N.J., airport. The advent of World War II drastically changed all the commercial airlines. Eastern had to give up half its fleet to the military services and took on the task of military cargo airlift, flying Curtiss C-46s to South America and across the South Atlantic to Africa. With the government dictating what the airlines did, Rickenbacker was only able to stand by and see that Eastern held up its end. In September 1942 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson asked Rickenbacker to visit England as a non-military observer, to evaluate equipment and personnel because of his “clear and sympathetic understanding of human problems in military aviation.” Rick asked for a salary of only a dollar a year and paid his own expenses. He was offered a commission as a brigadier general but refused it. The offer was upped to major general and again he refused. He wanted to be able to criticize whatever he found wrong without restraint. When Rickenbacker returned to the States that October, Stimson immediately sent him to the Pacific on a similar inspection mission, which included taking a memorized, verbal message to General Douglas MacArthur from President Roosevelt. He was en route in a Boeing B-17 from Honolulu to Canton Island when the pilot got lost and had to ditch after running out of fuel. One of the eight men aboard was seriously injured during the ditching. The men retrieved three rafts, some survival rations and fishing kits from the sinking bomber, then roped rafts together to provide a larger target for search planes. The next 22 days became a classic survival saga. Rickenbacker, dressed in his trademark gray fedora hat and business suit, took command of the situation, although a civilian. Such a strong-willed, independent thinker would not let military rank prevent him from stating what he thought and what decisions should be made. No one knew where to look for them when they were overdue at Canton Island. They nearly starved and had only a few oranges for liquid until they caught some rainwater during squalls. Rickenbacker took charge of doling out the oranges and water in equal shares each day. Rickenbacker’s felt hat was used to catch the water, which was wrung out into a bucket from soaked articles of clothing. The salt water quickly corroded the weapons that several had carried from the plane, so they would not fire when a few birds appeared overhead. Fish lines netted a shark, which tasted so bad no one could keep it down. But they also managed to catch smaller fish, which they divided into equal portions. Sharks were their constant companions, continually scraping against the bottom of the rafts. Sunburn was another serious threat. As the days dragged monotonously on and no search planes appeared, Rickenbacker cajoled, insulted and angered everyone in an attempt to keep their hopes alive. One man tried to commit suicide to make room for the others, but Rickenbacker, accusing him of being a coward, hauled him back in. When all seemed hopeless, a sea swallow (similar to a sea gull) landed on Rick’s hat and he caught it. He twisted its neck, de-feathered it and cut the body into equal shares; the intestines were used for bait. As far as Rickenbacker was concerned, the incident was proof that they would soon be rescued and should not lose faith. He was convinced that God had a purpose in keeping them alive and insisted that prayers be said each night. One man did die, however, and his body was allowed to float away from the raft as the others recited the Lord’s Prayer. They all steadily weakened as time went on, and bitter arguments ensued with Rickenbacker as the focus of harsh remarks. But the airline executive believed that he must not admit defeat, and he used sarcasm and ridicule to keep the others from giving up. He later learned that several of the other survivors had sworn an oath that they would continue living just for the pleasure of burying him at sea. After the second week afloat, there were several frustrating days when search planes flew nearby but failed to see them. It was decided after some wrangling that the three rafts would be allowed to drift apart–in the hope that at least one might be seen. After three weeks, a search plane saw one of the rafts and the men were promptly picked up; another raft drifted to an uninhabited island, where the occupants were found by a missionary who had a radio. Rickenbacker’s raft was located by a Navy Catalina flying boat, and once more Captain Eddie became front-page news. He had lost 60 pounds, had a bad sunburn and salt water ulcers, and was barely alive, but the famous Rickenbacker luck had held. The Boston Globe captioned his picture as “The Great Indestructible.” Although he was weakened by the ordeal and could have come home immediately to a hero’s welcome, Rickenbacker continued on his mission to see General MacArthur and visit some bases in the war zone. Upon his return, he briefed Secretary Stimson and made extensive recommendations about survival equipment that should be adopted on a priority basis. Among them was a rubber sheet to protect raft occupants from the sun, as well as catch water. Another was the development of small seawater distilling kits. Both items eventually became standard equipment aboard lifeboats and aircraft life rafts. Rescued along with six other crewmembers, after a 24 day ordeal at sea Rickenbacker is lifted from a PBY Catalina. (National Archives) Rickenbacker continued to serve the war effort by speaking at bond rallies and touring defense plants, and in mid-1943 was sent on a three-month, 55,000-mile trip to Russia and China via American war bases in Africa “and any other areas he may deem necessary for such purposes as he will explain in person.” The mission included checking what the Russians were doing with American equipment under the Lend-Lease agreement. He was allowed a rare view of Russian ground and air equipment and returned with valuable intelligence information. Meanwhile, a wave of affection for Captain Eddie had led to his being touted by some as a candidate for president against Roosevelt, with whom he had strongly disagreed on many occasions. He was honored, he said, but “I couldn’t possibly win. I’m too controversial.” When it appeared that victory in World War II was on the horizon in late 1944, the airlines began to return to normal operations. Rickenbacker encouraged Eastern’s expansion and placed orders for Lockheed Constellations and Douglas DC-4s. Those were followed by Martin 404s and Lockheed Electras. The Cold War began with the Berlin Airlift, followed by the Korean War, which forced more changes upon the airlines. The introduction of jets to airline operations in the late 1950s caused serious adjustment problems. Rickenbacker resisted the changeover to some extent. He later recalled, “To keep up with the Joneses, we had to replace perfectly good piston-powered and turboprop airliners with the expensive new jets.” He preferred that the other airlines be first to take the risk of breaking them in. Rickenbacker did not like the way the government interfered with private enterprise and believed it leaned toward more and more bureaucracy and control. He battled the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) about routes and fares and resisted what the competition was making him adopt against his better judgment. For example, he thought the other airlines were wrong in serving hot meals and labeling them “free.” Since the CAB was subsidizing his competitors, he reasoned, the costs came from the taxpayers. He predicted that passengers would eventually have to pay for liquor, which they do today. And Eastern finally had to give in and hire female flight attendants. In 1953, Rickenbacker moved up to chairman of the board but remained general manager. In his memoirs, he proudly stated that in his 25 years as head of Eastern” “We were never in red ink, we always showed a profit, we never took a nickel of the taxpayers’ money in subsidy, and we paid our stockholders reasonable dividends over the years, the first domestic airline to do so. During the postwar years, when all the other lines were in red ink and were running to the Civil Aeronautics Board for more routes and more of the taxpayers’ money in subsidies, the Board would point to Eastern Air Lines as a profitable company and suggest that the other airlines emulate our example.” When a new Eastern president was appointed, Rickenbacker found it difficult to let go of the reins. The company began a slow downhill slide as competition got tougher and Rickenbacker refused to give up the power in the company he had held for so many years. One of the noteworthy innovations during this period, however, was the Eastern Air-Shuttle between Washington and New York. It began on April 30, 1961, with Lockheed Constellations and operated 20 round trips per day, flying empty or full, with no reservations required. Rickenbacker reluctantly retired from Eastern on the last day of 1963 at age 73. He bought a small ranch near Hunt, Texas, but it proved to be too remote, especially for his wife, Adelaide. After five years, they donated the ranch to the Boy Scouts, lived in New York City for a while, and then moved to Coral Gables, Fla. Rickenbacker suffered a stroke in October 1972, but his famous luck held once more, and he recovered enough to visit Switzerland. He died there of pneumonia on July 23, 1973. Captain Eddie’s eulogy was delivered in Miami by General James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle; his ashes were buried beside his mother in the Columbus, Ohio, family plot. Four jet fighters flew overhead during the ceremony. One turned on its afterburners and zoomed up and out of sight in the traditional Air Force “missing man” salute to a brother pilot. In an obituary published in a national magazine, William F. Rickenbacker, one of Captain Eddie’s two sons, wrote: “Among his robust certainties were his faith in God, his unswerving patriotism, his acceptance of life’s hazards and pains, and his trust in persistent hard work. No scorn could match the scorn he had for men who settled for half-measures, uttered half-truths, straddled the issues, or admitted the idea of failure or defeat. If he had a motto, it must have been the phrase I’ve heard a thousand times: ‘I’ll fight like a wildcat!'” C.V. Glines is a contributing editor and a frequent contributor to Aviation History. For additional reading, he recommends: Rickenbacker, by Edward V. Rickenbacker; Rickenbacker’s Luck: An American Life, by Finis Farr; and From the Captain to the Colonel, by Robert J. Serling. This feature originally appeared in the January 1999 issue of Aviation History. Click here to subscribe today!
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China’s Tank in the Vietnam War
China’s Tank in the Vietnam War One of the more exotic North Vietnamese Army tanks to crash through the gates of Saigon’s Presidential Palace on April 30, 1975, was similar to the Soviet-built PT-76 amphibious light tank, but with a rounder turret and a larger gun. This latecomer to the Vietnam War did not arrive from the Soviet Union, however. It came from the People’s Republic of China. China had acquired some PT-76s in the 1950s, but its continuing tensions with the exiled Republic of China on Taiwan led to the need for an amphibious light tank with better performance and armament for landing operations. The first design, designated the Type 60, was unsatisfactory, particularly because its engine overheated. A second prototype, while better, still experienced problems during its first tests in 1959. Those problems were addressed in the course of further development, and after testing in river, lake and sea environments, the tank was approved for production as the Type 63 in April 1963. It soon entered service with China’s army. That tank did not serve long, however, before it was superseded on the production line by the Type 63-1, replacing the original 240-horsepower, six-cylinder diesel engine with a 402-horsepower, 12-cylinder 12150-L-2 diesel. The Type 63-1 proved its worth in China in 1966, when some of them crossed the Qiongzhou Strait between the mainland and Hainan Island. Armed with an 85 mm cannon, the Type 63 offered more firepower and greater mobility than the PT-76, although its armor provided little protection against more than light machine gun fire or shrapnel. It entered North Vietnamese service late in the war but in time for the final offensive of 1975, when the NVA was finally starting to make effective use of the lessons in armored tactics its crews had learned at heavy cost during the stymied spring offensive of  1972. After the fall of Saigon and unification of North and South Vietnam, the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam would have another occasion to use its Type 63s in combat—in 1979, against Chinese invaders, whose equipment also included Type 63 tanks. In 1997 the Chinese introduced an upgraded model with a 105 mm gun, the Type 63A, which remains in their arsenal today. This article appeared in Vietnam magazine’s December 2019 issue.