4 Aug 01

Kasserine in northwestern Tunisia, North Africa, February 1943

The tedious world peace that followed the "War to end all Wars" lasted barely more than twenty years! As was the foolish habit of the United States, the moment World War I ended, the US military establishment was allowed to atrophy. Numbers of regular troops dwindled. Training was de-emphasized. Critical skills were forgotten. Equipment deteriorated and rapidly became obsolete. And, with the stock market crash of 1929, Americans had better things to worry about than the latest squabble in Europe.

There was a core of forward-thinking and dedicated warriors, like George Patton, who were interested in training and equipping for the next war, but they constituted a tiny minority. Most officers were content to think only about the last war, or not to think about war at all!

When America finally entered World War II, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941, the British had already been holding out on their own against Hitler's Germany since September of 1939. Hitler had overrun the Lowlands, Poland, Norway, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and France and had cowed Czechoslovakia and Austria into submission. Spain avoided outright annexation, but was a willing collaborator, as was Switzerland. Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and Greece were also threatened into submission. Italy joined the war on Germany's side. Rapidly moving German mechanized forces blunted and then surrounded a lightly armed and floundering British Expeditionary force in May of 1940. British soldiers barely escaped with their lives at Dunkirk Beach in France but lost all their equipment and were effectively finished as a fighting force. An exuberant Hitler was already making plans for an amphibious assault on Britain itself (Operation "Sea Lion") as well as a massive land assault on Stalin's Russia (Operation "Barbarossa").

The War's first turning point, the "Battle of Britain," took place between in the summer of 1940 and the summer of 1941, not on the ground, but in the air. Hitler, through his Air Force Chief, Hermann Goering, made the foolish decision of concentrating on British population centers instead of military installations, particularly airfields and radar sites. This discontinuity provided the British Air Force with the opportunity to successively repair and regroup and then spring back to successfully repel German aircraft. Hitler's lack of a four-engine, heavy bomber would also prove a fatal shortcoming. His fleet of small, two-engine Junkers and Heinkel bombers lacked the range, durability, and payload capacity necessary to turn the tide in his favor. The tide, in fact, turned against him.

Owing to a grievous loss of German aircrews and aircraft at the hands of British pilots, Operation Sea Lion was postponed, first for several weeks, then for several months, and, by May of 1941, indefinitely. That same month, Germany's vaunted battleship, Bismarck, was sunk by British naval forces. Thereafter, its sister ship, Tirpitz, never ventured out of its port in Norway. Operation Barbarossa got off to a fast start in June of 1941. However, what should have been a campaign of liberation from Communism turned into an embittered struggle of Russians against Germans, owing to Hitler's irrational policy of wantonly slaughtering Russian civilians by the millions! Ultimately, an early and severe winter along with determined and brilliant resistance engineered by Russia's own military genius, General Georgi Zhukov, caused Operation Barbarossa to bog down and stall by year's end. Like Napoleon before him, Hitler was surly not defeated, but was no longer on a roll. He was now reluctantly compelled to engage in a struggle of indefinite duration.

Americans were eager to punish Japan as 1942 began, but Roosevelt was persuaded by Churchill that a "Europe first" strategy was the only one that made sense, and it did make a lot of sense- for Churchill. The British were bracing for an amphibious invasion (which, as it turns out, never happened). Churchill needed a distraction to divide Hitler's attention. He calculated that he could use Americans for just such a purpose! Invading Europe directly with green, American troops was deemed unlikely to succeed, as the British had so unpleasantly discovered with the Dunkirk disaster. So, French North Africa was selected as the site for the War's first major allied offensive, not because that is where the enemy was, but because that was where the enemy wasn't! American forces were not ready for an opposed landing.

As a side effect, MacArthur and his entire command in the Philippines were abandoned by Roosevelt. They, all except for MacArthur himself (who escaped in a PT boat), were eventually captured and forced to endure brutal captivity under Japanese invasion forces. A significant number did not survive the Bataan Death March and subsequent years of captivity. The British Colony of Singapore and the entire Malay Peninsula suffered a similar fate. MacArthur, although arguably the most significant military intellect of the Twentieth Century, was unpopular, both in and out of military circles. He was regarded as overbearing and politically ambitious, and was thus feared by numerous politicians. Many, including Roosevelt, viewed the Philippine situation as an opportunity to get rid of this dangerous political rival.

In the hectic months of 1942, the US Army was hurriedly expanded from half a million, of which most were part time reservists and guardsmen, to what would eventually total over eleven million! Training was abbreviated, inadequate, and haphazard. Obsolete equipment, like Stewart Tanks, were hastily taken out of storage and pressed into service. Thus, when American troops landed in North Africa in November of 1942, few under the rank of colonel had been in active service more than a few months, and fewer yet had ever seen active combat. Lt General Eisenhower was selected by President Roosevelt as Supreme Allied Commander, because he was a meticulous planner. However, Eisenhower himself had been a mere Lt Colonel at late as 1939, had never commanded a unit larger than a battalion, and had never been involved in any kind of active combat. MacArthur referred to Eisenhower as, "the best clerk I ever had."

As noted, Churchill's main aim in opening a new front in North Africa was to take Hitler's attention away from England. The Allies also wanted to put forces in the vicinity of Tunisia, thus threatening Rommel's supply line, which came across the Mediterranean from Italy, and also sandwiching Rommel's remaining forces between Montgomery and the Americans. Finally, they wanted to eventually establish bomber bases in North Africa which could be used to attack German oil fields at Ploesti in Rumania and ultimately pave the way for an Allied invasion of southern Europe. Churchill was confident that French forces in the area would throw in with the Allies.

When they tried to move east, from Libya into Egypt, in September of 1940, Italian forces were badly mauled by the British. German forces, under Erwin Rommel, were then sent to North Africa to salvage the hash the Italians had made of things. Rommel was dazzling! Over the next year, his "Afrika Corps" garnered the grudging respect of the British who floundered until the arrival of General Bernard Montgomery. Montgomery galvanized his troops, and, on the forth of November 1942, decisively defeated Rommel's forces at an obscure railroad crossing in Egypt called El Alamein.

Roosevelt wanted to land Allied troops directly in Tunisia, but American admirals warned of the danger of entering the Axis-controlled Mediterranean with capitol ships. Britain had already lost one aircraft carrier to German U-boats in the Mediterranean. Ultimately, the admirals agreed to sail as far east as Algiers, but no further. American invasion forces would have to land at Algiers and then march overland east to Tunisia. In addition, the march would have to be quick in order to beat both the Germans (who would head west for Tunisia from Lybia the moment they heard about the landing) and the winter rains.

The three American commanders in charge of the operation (under Eisenhower) were George Patton, Charles Ryder, and Lloyd Fredenhall. The British contingent was under the command of Kenneth Anderson. The landings on the eighth of November 1942 were met with only light and uninspired resistance from French troops. Within two days, they surrendered and opted for the Allied cause. Churchill had been right about the French! With Montgomery's victory at El Alamein only four days earlier, air superiority restored over England, and the entire German eastern front not only at a standstill at Stalingrad but now surrounded by Zhukov, the war seemed all but over. As in World War I, the Americans arrive, and the Germans, seeing that their position is untenable, throw in the towel.

Unhappily, the Germans weren't quite ready to give it up! After El Alamein, Rommel was thought to be on the ropes. Not so! His troops were beat up, but they had months of experience fighting together in the desert and still constituted a formidable fighting force. In fact, Hitler placed such importance on North Africa and on preserving Rommel's reputation, that he rushed to the Africa Corps additional troops and three copies of the new "Tiger" tank, hot off the assembly line. The Tiger was huge and sported an 88mm main gun. The Allies had nothing like it and had little that could deter it.

In three weeks of pushing eastward, the Allied landing force was within twelve miles of the City of Tunis, having encountered no resistance along the way. The campaign seemed all but over. According to Montgomery, Rommel's forces were still way east in Egypt. However, Rommel had secretly raced to Tunis and was waiting there for the Allied advance. In a surprise move on the first of December, led by his Tiger tanks, he attacked Anderson. Within a few hours, Anderson had lost fifty-five tanks and a great deal of his infantry. Stunned by a successful attack from an army that wasn't even supposed to be there, Anderson retreated west with what was left of his command. He was reinforced by American armored units, but they faired no better! The old Stewart tanks and even the more recent Sherman tanks were no match for the Tigers. In fact, they were outmatched by virtually all German tanks. Anderson ordered a counterattack at the end of the month, but it failed too.

In Algiers, Eisenhower was surprised and worried. He decided to separate nationalities. The American contingent was all placed under Fredenhall. Fredenhall promptly announced that we would set up his headquarters in Algiers also, 120 miles to the rear! Combat engineers, who were desperately needed elsewhere, were commandeered in order to build Fredenhall a headquarters bunker to rival the Pyramids! To him, the only relevance German forces had was that they threatened him personally. One ensconced within his bunker, Fredenhall was never seen outside it again. Meanwhile, Eisenhower's most experienced armored unit commander, Patton, was consigned to a desk in Morocco.

Rommel relentlessly pushed west. Fredenhall tried to orchestrate the entire defense from his bunker. He never once personally visited any of his units. Peering at outdated maps, he switched units around continuously with little regard to distances, chains of command, supply problems, or nationalities. On the ground, it was a hash! Perturbed, Eisenhower finally visited Fredenhall's famous bunker on the twelfth of February. There he found Fredenhall and his staff nonchalantly basking about as if they were on vacation! Fredenhall dismissed Eisenhower's concerns, insisting he had everything under control. Eisenhower later conceded that he should have fired Fredenhall on the spot. However, he was reluctant to issue unpleasant orders to officers who had, until recently, outranked him- always a hazard with armies which have been rapidly thrown together. Patton wrote privately, "I cannot see what Fredenhall did to justify his existence."

During a raging sandstorm in the early hours of the fourteenth of February, Rommel made his move against the Americans near Sidi Bou Zid. No one expected an attack to be launched in the middle of a sandstorm! Once again, his forces appeared out of nowhere. American armor units responded by advancing. Employing obsolete tactics, American officers arrayed their tanks the same way cavalry horses used to be arrayed, in a "V" formation. This exposed their lightly armored sides to Rommel's tanks and antitank guns which were cleverly concealed in gullies and bushes. Suddenly, the flanks erupted in fire. Most of the American tanks were destroyed within the first few minutes. Survivors ran for their lives, trying to say ahead of German infantry. By nightfall over a hundred American armored vehicles had been destroyed. Units everywhere were in disorganized retreat.

Eisenhower sent General Ernest Harmon to "assist" Fredenhall. When he arrived, he saw that most of Fredenhall's staff had already fled. Fredenhall said to Harmon, "The party is yours," and promptly fled himself!

Eisenhower ordered Americans to make a stand at the railroad pass at Kasserine. Fighting was fierce, but again, inferior American and British tanks were destroyed by the score! Only massed artillery slowed and eventually stopped the German advance. Not wanting to be victimized by over extension and counterattacks, Rommel called off the offensive.

American losses were heavy. Nearly nine hundred vehicles were destroyed, of which 350 were tanks. Ten thousand casualties. Such was "the Butcher's Bill" for the American Army's "shake down" cruise!

The Allies subsequently regrouped and completely restructured. Eisenhower stayed in charge. Fredenhall and Anderson were sent home in disgrace. Neither would ever command troops again. Patton replaced Fredenhall and, with a vengeance, set about mending his command. He sent home deadweight NCOs and officers "by the boatload!"

Thereafter, the Allies turned it around and steadily closed in on the Germans. With his supplies choked off, Rommel could not hold out. The last Axis forces in northern Africa surrendered in May of 1943, six months after the Allied landing. Rommel himself had already returned to Germany.

Lessons:

>Once again, "high moral," when it has no legitimate foundation and is based on little more than flowery speeches, will spontaneously disintegrate when the first shots are fired.

>Shiny new equipment always looks great in the showroom. The truth is discovered when it is actually used. In warfare, the price of deficient, obsolete, an untested equipment is always paid in blood.

>Likewise, numbers of armed men is meaningless. Training, organization, equipment, and inspiration are far more important. Going to war with poorly trained, poorly led, and poorly equipped troops is always a recipe for disaster, regardless of their numbers. Hastily thrown-together armies, no matter their size, rarely hold up when put to the test.

>Doing the unexpected perpetually catches the enemy by surprise

>Commanders who try to "lead" from the rear seldom inspire confidence.

>With politicians, politics ALWAYS comes first!

/John

6 Aug 01

"The best way to win a war is by reputation"

This is from a friend in the Midwest:

"This evening I was driving slowly in a residential neighborhood the next town over, looking for a street and residence address. A pickup truck going at high speed pulled right behind me, and the two male occupants started blowing their horn and shaking their fists out the window.

I pulled to the curb in order to let them pass. They roared around me but then screeched to a halt directly in front of me, swerving sideways and blocking both lanes. I stopped and then watched the red-faced driver jump out and walk back toward my car, shaking his fists in a threatening manner and yelling incoherently.

I stayed in my car but drew my pistol and held it in both hands high enough so that he could see it through the windshield. I then shook my head while looking at him, as if to say, "No No!"

I have never in my life seen anyone turn around so fast! He was back in his truck, and both were gone in a flash. I continued on to my destination, shaken but unmolested."

Lesson: Carrying a concealed pistol all the time seems like such an inconvenience- until one has an experience like the forgoing. An assault was terminated, and an imprudent no-good learned an important lesson. He'll live another day!

/John