HISTORY - Paper Answers

HISTORY

Write a double spaced, 10-12 page argumentative essay on

How successful has the US military been at learning from history since 1945?

*The essay will include documentation in the form of endnotes or footnotes (but not in-text citations)

* + 2 pages Outline and 1 page Annotated Bibliography (see Annex E in the PDF)

RUBRIC: –

A: 100-90% Written work demonstrates mastery of the continuum of competition, conflict, and war by analyzing the historical context of large scale combat operations through battles, campaigns, operational variables, mission variables, key leader decisions, or tenets of key theorists. Furthermore, the written work reaches conclusions that transcend the block material. Essay is concise, adheres to the style guide, exhibits appropriate tone, and has no spelling or grammar errors. The writer uses appropriate and sufficient historical evidence with correct documentation. Thesis is clear and unambiguous.

Please need A+ in this essay, and please NO PLAGIARISM, and need the citation to be clear and I have access to all references.

THANKS, AND GOOD LUCK.

Department
of
Military History
Command and General Staff College
Fort Leavenworth, KS

H400

The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Advanced Operations Course

AY 2021 – 2022

Syllabus and Book of Readings
Contains Advance Sheets and Readings

H400: The American Way of War
and its Challenges: 1940-2010

Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC)
Advanced Operations Course
CGSC AY 2021–22

DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY HISTORY
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
FORT LEAVENWORTH, KS 66027-2301

December 2021

This publication contains copyrighted material and may not be reproduced without permission.

Front Cover Photo: U.S. Marines (Official Marine Corps Photo) (http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Home_Page.htm);
Photographer TSGT. Dave Mcleod: Combined Military Service Digital, Photographic Files,
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6481484; https://media.defense.gov/2013/Aug/26/2001975960/-1/-1/0/790729-V-TJV98-
551 ; Army Signal Corps photographer LT. Stephen E. Korpanty; restored by Adam Cuerden Naval Historical Center Photo
# SC 213700, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nara-
series/sc-series/SC-200000/SC-213700.html

http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Home_Page.htm

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6481484

https://media.defense.gov/2013/Aug/26/2001975960/-1/-1/0/790729-V-TJV98-551

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Adam_Cuerden

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nara-series/sc-series/SC-200000/SC-213700.html

ii
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
AY 2021–22
Contents
Preface ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vi
H400 Block
Block Advance Sheet ……………………………………………………………………………………………… H400BAS-1
Appendix A, Assessment Plan …………………………………………………………………………………. H400BAS-9
Appendix A-1, Assessing Student Performance …………………………………………………………. H400BAS-14
Appendix A-2, Assessing Student Performance …………………………………………………………. H400BAS-16
CGSC Form 1009W, Assessing Writing (Outline) ……………………………………………….. H400BAS-17
CGSC Form 1009W, Assessing Writing (Argumentative Essay Rubric) …………………. H400BAS-19
CGSC Form 1009C, Assessing Contribution to Learning ……………………………………… H400BAS-21
Appendix B: H400 Lesson Titles …………………………………………………………………………….. H400BAS-22
Appendix C: Blended Learning Instructions ……………………………………………………………… H400BAS-23
H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in WWII
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H401AS-24
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H401AS-30
H401RB, Mobilization ……………………………………………………………………………………………. H401RB-32
Center of Military History
H401RC, The 90-Division Gamble ………………………………………………………………………….. H401RC-40
Maurice Matloff
H401RD, The Color Plans, 1919-1938 ……………………………………………………………………… H401RD-52
Louis Morton
H401RE, Force Structure, Mobilization, and American Strategy for Global
Coalition War ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. H401RE-58
Michael D. Pearlman
H401ORA, AWPD-1: Munitions Requirements of the Army Air Forces ………………………. H401ORA-71
U.S. War Department
H401ORB, Resource Mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and
Germany, 1938-1945 ………………………………………………………………………………………… H401ORB-75
Mark Harrison
H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines and the Tyranny of Distance (Guadalcanal)
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H402AS-93
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H402AS-99
H402RA, First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal ………………………………. H402RA-101
Henry I. Shaw
H402RB, Asymmetric Warfare at Sea: The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal, 1942-1943 ….. H402RB-130
Thomas G. Mahnken
H402ORA, Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal …………………………………………………. H402ORA-150
Raizo Tanaka
H402ORB, Guadalcanal: Neither Side Would Quit ……………………………………………………. H402ORB-173
Thomas B. Buell

iii
H402ORC, Tactical Planning in the Imperial Japanese Navy ………………………………………. H402ORC-179
Minoru Genda
H402ORD, An Unhandsome Quitting ………………………………………………………………………. H402ORD-185
Merrill B. Twining

H403: LSCO/MDO: Airpower Theory, Doctrine, and Practice
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H403AS-192
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H403AS-199

H404: LSCO/MDO: Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H404AS-203
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H404AS-209
H404RA, The Strategic Tradition of U.S. Grant ………………………………………………………… H404RA-211
Russell Weigley
H404RC, Northern France: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II ……………………… H404RC-218
David W. Hogan, Jr.
H404ORB, The Autumn of 1944: Boldness is Not Enough …………………………………………. H404ORB-239
Ronald Andidora
H404ORC, The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944 ……………. H404ORC-247
Christopher R. Gabel

H405: Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H405AS-273
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H405AS-280
H405RA, How to Build the Wrong Army …………………………………………………………………. H405RA-283
David F. Melcher and John C. Siemer
H405RB, The Development of the American Theory of Limited War, 1945-63 …………….. H405RB-293
Michael W. Cannon
H405ORB, The Sources of Soviet Conduct by X ……………………………………………………….. H405ORB-316
George F. Kennan

H406: The Chinese Way of War
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H406AS-326
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H406AS-334
H406RA, The Art of War. ………………………………………………………………………………………. H406RA-341
Sun Tzu (Lionel Giles Translation)
H406RB, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Excerpts). ………………………………. H406RB-365
Mao Tse-tung

H407: Limited War and LSCO: Korea 1950-1953
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H407AS-381
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H407AS-388
H407RB, New Roots, Korea 1950-1951 …………………………………………………………………… H407RB-392
Carter Malkasian

H408: Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H408AS-408
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H408AS-415
H408RA, Conduct of the Vietnam War: Strategic Factors, 1965-1968………………………….. H408RA-418
Douglas Pike

iv
H408RB, Westmoreland was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the
Vietnam War …………………………………………………………………………………………………… H408RB-431
Dale Andrade

H409: The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnamization
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H409AS-459
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H409AS-466
H409RA, The 1968 Tet Offensive: Turning Point in the Vietnam War …………………………. H409RA-468
James H. Willbanks
H409RB, Vietnamization: An Incomplete Exit Strategy ……………………………………………… H409RB-475
James H. Willbanks
H409RC, Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam………………………………………………… H409RC-497
David H. Petraeus
H409ORA, Complex Urban Operations: The Battle for Hue, 1968 ………………………………. H409ORA-510
Louis DiMarco
H409ORB, Command Chronology for Period 1 Feb 1968 to 29 Feb 1968 …………………….. H409ORB-522
U.S. Marine Corps, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines
H409ORC, The Tet Offensive and the News Media …………………………………………………… H409ORC-529
William M. Hammond

H410: Re-forging the Broken Sword: The U.S. Army 1972-1990
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H410AS-540
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H410AS-548
H410RA, The Collapse of the Armed Forces …………………………………………………………….. H410RA-550
Robert D. Heinl, Jr.
H410RD, Fighting Outnumbered: the Impact of the Yom Kippur War
on the U.S. Army ……………………………………………………………………………………………… H410RD-563
Saul Bronfeld

H411: DESERT STORM and the American Way of War
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H411AS-586
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H411AS-594
H411RA, War in the Persian Gulf: Operation DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM,
August 1990-March 1991 (Excerpt) ……………………………………………………………………. H411RA-596
Richard Stewart
H411RB, Lucky War: Third Army in DESERT STORM (Excerpts) ………………………………… H411RB-620
Richard M. Swain
H411RC, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Excerpts) ……………………….. H411RC-633
Keith L. Shimko
H411RD, Unhappy Warrior, Part I and Part II …………………………………………………………… H411RD-643
Rick Atkinson
H411RE, Military Doctrine: Lessons from the 1991 Gulf War and Russian
Military Doctrine ……………………………………………………………………………………………… H411RE-660
Stuart Kaufman
H411ORA, The Ghost of Omdurman ……………………………………………………………………….. H411ORA-676
Daniel P. Bolger
H411ORB, Deployment, Staging, and Logistics in Operations DESERT SHIELD and
DESERT STORM (Excerpt) ………………………………………………………………………………….. H411ORB-685
Richard Stewart
H411ORC, The Uses of Military Power (Speech) ………………………………………………………. H411ORC-693
Caspar W. Weinberger, Secretary of Defense

v
H411ORD, Air Power and Warfare: A Century of Theory and History…………………………. H411ORD-700
Tami Biddle
H411ORF, VII Corps Commander’s Intent for Operation DESERT STORM ……………………. H411ORF-706
LTG Frederick Franks

H412: Iraq and Beyond: Change and Continuity of Warfare
Advance Sheet ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. H412AS-707
Chronology …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… H412AS-713
H412RA, Conclusions: Lessons of the Iraq War ………………………………………………………… H412RA-715
Chief of Staff of the Army’s Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Study Group 2013-2018
H412RF, Lost in Translation: The American Way of War …………………………………………… H412RF-737
Rose Lopez Keravuori
H412ORA, From Invasion to Insurgency ………………………………………………………………….. H412ORA-744
Chief of Staff of the Army’s Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Study Group 2013-2018
H412ORB, Echoes of Failure: Vietnam, Iraq, and the American Strategy
in Afghanistan …………………………………………………………………………………………………. H412ORB-748
Nathan A. Jennings

Annexes:
Annex A: Concise DMH Style Guide ……………………………………………………………………….. Annex A-751
Annex B: Documentation Guide ………………………………………………………………………………. Annex B-756
Annex C: Tips for Writing History Essays ………………………………………………………………… Annex C-758
Annex D: The Argumentative Essay ………………………………………………………………………… Annex D-760
Annex E: Creating a Sentence Outline ……………………………………………………………………… Annex E-761
Annex F: Simplified Basic Battle Analysis Methodology …………………………………………… Annex F-765

Note on page numbering methodology: In addition to the regular numeric sequencing of all pages
throughout this book, found after the hyphen, all pages have alpha character content identifiers preceding
the hyphen. Only readings published in this book of readings have the sequencing. Readings that are links
only are viewed by selecting the link found in the Advance Sheet’s Study Requirements.

AS — Advance Sheet
R — Required Reading, followed by alpha sequence letter within a given lesson
OR — Optional Reading, followed by alpha sequence letter within a given lesson

vi
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Preface
Experience is the foundation of all learning. The personal experience gained progressing through your
career plays a large role in shaping your professionalism. The sharing of experiences among students in
the classroom is an important and invaluable facet of the US Army Command and General Staff Officer
Course (CGSOC), adding benefit from the hard-won wisdom and practical knowledge accrued by
individuals who have seen and done things—others who have not, glean from their valuable experience.
But the benefits of shared experience are not limited to the students in your staff group. We have at our
disposal an enormous wealth of experience, extending back thousands of years, acquired by your
predecessors in the profession of arms. This collective experience encompasses every type of military
activity and reaches every corner of the globe. This treasury of knowledge is ours for the trouble of
opening a book.
The history component of the CGSOC curriculum focuses on one particular area of the military
experience—the problem of coping with change. Although there is considerable debate as to what the
military of the future will be like, it is generally conceded that the military profession is currently
undergoing significant change. It is the goal of the Department of Military History (DMH) to provide
historical insights and analytical tools that will assist each and every student in dealing with that change.
H400 focuses on evolution of warfare and doctrine from 1940 to the present. Our focus is not so much on
historical events as it is on the factors involved in military change. At the conclusion of this block, you
will have gained new perspectives on how military institutions adapt to a changing world.
RICHARD S. FAULKNER, PhD
H400 Block Author
Department of Military History
Richard.S.Faulkner.civ@army.mil
(913) 684-4128
GATES M. BROWN, PhD
Curriculum Developer
Department of Military History
SEAN N. KALIC, PhD
Curriculum Coordinator
Department of Military History
Sean.N.Kalic.civ@army.mil
(913) 684-2073
DAVID G. COTTER, PhD
Director
Department of Military History
Gates.M.Brown2.civ@army.mil
(913) 684-4110

mailto:Richard.S.Faulkner.civ@army.mil

mailto:Sean.N.Kalic.civ@army.mil

H400

Block Advance Sheet

AY 2021–22

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-1 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010

Block Advance Sheet

1. SCOPE

In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as one of the world’s two great superpowers
and the only nation with nuclear weapons. The war forced the nation to project and sustain power
globally while also serving as the “arsenal of democracy” by providing weapons, food, and other
resources for all of the other Allied powers. The nation’s global standing, strengths, capabilities and
geographic location have led historians, such as Russell Wiegley and Colin Gray, to argue that the
United States has developed its own “American Way of War”—a “default” setting for waging its
conflicts. From 1941 onward, the U.S. certainly fought in a manner befitting a wealthy and
technologically advanced nation. However, if there is an overarching “American Way of War,” it has
struggled at times to parlay its strengths into clear victories in the limited wars that the U.S. has
fought since 1945.

H400, the military history portion of AOC, explores the historical precedents to the current operating
environment. It asks whether a particularly “American Way of War” has emerged, and how our
opponents have sought to counter U.S. strengths to prevent us from achieving our political goals.
Your examination of the challenges that the nation has faced in waging wars from World War II and
onward is intended to hone your professional judgement for the remainder of your careers. H100
introduced the relationship between history, theory, and doctrine, demonstrating that doctrine never
springs fully formed from nothingness, but instead is informed by analysis of the past. H400 builds
upon this foundation. For example, the campaigns in World War II (1939-1945), particularly the
global force projection operations in the Pacific against the Japanese and the liberation of Northwest
Europe from the Nazis, form an important precedent for current thinking on U.S. operations.

To gain benefit from these lessons, try to immerse yourself into what the commander and staff knew
at the time. Understand the limitations and strengths of the organization and equipment, and see what
options were actually feasible, acceptable, and suitable. You may find that the options available were
quite limited, and the decision made was the best of a number of bad choices. It is all too easy to
identify where historic leaders made mistakes when using hindsight. Strive to place yourself into the
contingent position of the historical commander or staff—discover what they knew, and understand
their decisions were made with imperfect knowledge of the enemy and under time constraints.
Reflecting upon this constitutes the true value of these lessons.

The H400 course aims to produce officers who can understand war, the spectrum of conflict, and the
complexity of the operational environment (history, culture, ethics, and geography). The block also
helps to develop practical minded, critical, and creative thinkers who can apply solutions to so-called
“wicked” operational problems in volatile and ambiguous environments. Finally, the H400 course
enhances an officer’s ability to communicate with clarity and precision in both written and oral forms.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-2 August 2021
GOALS

H400, The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010, supports the CGSOC (Command
and General Staff Officer Course) AOC goal to give field grade officers the skills to use, analyze, and
value history as a tool to aid professional judgment. H400 provides a forum to integrate all disciplines
associated with the CGSOC curriculum. Students will have the opportunity to assess and analyze the
emergence of an American way of war, strategy, tactics, logistics, leadership, operational art,
combined arms, and ethical considerations associated with the profession of arms. H400 demonstrates
how insights derived through the study of military history contribute to an overall staff college
education. Critical reasoning sharpens military judgment and problem-solving skills.

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

TLO-AOC-1
Action: Examine how commanders drive the operations process using the framework of understand,
visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess (UVDDLA).
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
Prerequisite Learning objectives: TLO-CC-2, TLO-CC-3, TLO-CC-4, ELO-CC-7.1, ELO-CC-7.2,
ELO-CC-7.8. Note: Direct is included in TLO 2 and Lead is included in TLO 11.
TLO Standards (ELOs): Examination of the UVDDLA framework includes:
1. Demonstrate how commanders and staffs gain understanding of an operational environment.
2. Produce products that enable the commander to visualize the endstate of a tactical operation.
3. Examine the commander’s inputs to the operations process that describe tactical operations
and information requirements.
4. Examine the processes commanders and staffs use to assess ongoing operations.
5. Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale
combat operations.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-1.6
Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale
combat operations.
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products and H400 historical readings.
ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes:
1. Examine historical battles and campaigns.
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

TLO-AOC-3
Action: Examine how staff conduct the operations process using the framework of plan, prepare,
and execute.*
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-3 August 2021
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
Prerequisite Learning objectives: TLO-CC-3, TLO-CC-4, ELO-CC-7.1, ELO-CC-7.2, ELO-CC-
7.8. *Note: Assess Operations is addressed in ELO 1.5.
TLO Standards (ELOs): The investigation of UVDDLA includes:
1. Use the military decision-making process (MDMP) to plan a tactical operation.
2. Examine the types of rehearsals the US Army uses to prepare to conduct an operation.
3. Execute simulated operations using planning products.
4. Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer
in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

TLO-AOC-5
Action: Examine how the joint force and US Army sets an operational area for large scale combat
operations.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint multinational environment—and given a
tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products.
Prerequisite Learning objectives: TLO-CC-5, TLO-CC-11
TLO Standards (ELOs): The examination of setting an operational area for LSCO includes:
1. Develop a concept to set an operational area for LSCO.
2. Produce a course of action to move a division from a tactical assembly area into their area of
operations (AO). (See TLO 6.3)
3. Examine how special operations forces integrate into large scale combat operations (LSCO).
4. Analyze the historical context of operational readiness.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-4 August 2021
1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness.
2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO.
3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater.
4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context.
5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of
20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

TLO-AOC-8
Action: Assess the historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on
today’s operational environment.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
TLO Standards (ELOs): The analysis of the American Way of War includes-
1. Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
2. Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945.
3. Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam,
Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI
FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding
of today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.2
Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our
understanding of today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-5 August 2021
1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War
II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it
influences our understanding of today’s operational environment.
4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of
potential contemporary competitors.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

TLO-AOC-9
Action: Incorporate effective communication skills.
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
Prerequisite Learning objectives: TLO-CC-10
TLO Standards (ELOs): Communication includes –
1. Write effectively
2. Speak effectively
3. Listen effectively
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

ELO-AOC-9.1
Action: Write effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Write effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Proper grammar and correct spelling
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

ELO-AOC-9.2
Action: Speak effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation
6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience
7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-6 August 2021
ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes:
1. Listens, reads, and watches intently.
2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others.
3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying
attention.
4. Reflects on new information before expressing views.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

PLO Attributes Supported:
1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information.
1b. Comprehend context of the situation.
1c. Create meaning from information and data.
1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas.
1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms.
1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments.
1g. Apply critical and creative thinking.
2a. Apply ethics, norms, and laws of the profession.
2d. Meet organizational-level challenges.
2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life-
long learners.
3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war.
3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition.
3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power.
3d. Understand the generation of military power through force management.
3e. Understand the relationship of the military instrument of power to the other instruments of
national power
4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment.
4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks.
4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other
competitive forces.
4d. Identify and evaluate potential threats, opportunities, and risks.
5e. Consider risk and resource limitations inherent in planning.
6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions.
6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context.
6c. Integrate and synchronize the Army warfighting functions with joint, multinational
capabilities, with other instruments of national power.

Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported:
1. Irregular Warfare
3. The Return of Great Power Competition
5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century
8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations

3. BLOCK ASSESSMENT PLAN

Assessment of performance in H400 includes the history grade covering the entire military history in
AOC. The following table summarizes graded requirements for H400, with specific grading
requirements and criteria in Appendix A: Assessment Plan.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-7 August 2021
Assessment Table

* Assignment is due by COB.

4. ISSUE MATERIAL

See individual lesson advance sheets.

a. Advance Issue:

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022

b. Online/E-books (CARL access required):

Bailey, Beth. America’s Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 2009, 37-65. [28 pages]
E-Book: https://auls.insigniails.com/Library/ItemDetail?l=0013&i=1509906&ti=0

Glover, Jonathan, “Bombing,” in Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, 69-88.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=3421050 [20 pages]

Gray, Colin. “The American Way of War: Critique and Implications.” In Rethinking the
Principles of War, edited by Anthony D. McIvor, 13-39. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
Press, 2005. [27 pages]
E-Book: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363

Murray, Williamson A., and Allan R. Millett. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1218093

c. Student Purchase:

Millett, Allan R. “Assault from the Sea.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Graded
Requirement Due

Length

Grade
Weight
Outline and
Annotated
Bibliography
7 February 2022*
2 Pages with
1 Page
Bibliography
Pass/Fail
Argumentative
Outside-Class Essay 7 March 2022* 10-12 Pages 60%

Contribution to
Learning
(Class Participation)

Daily N/A 40%

https://auls.insigniails.com/Library/ItemDetail?l=0013&i=1509906&ti=0

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3421050

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1218093

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-8 August 2021
Paret, Peter, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986.

d. Available at Combined Arms Research Library (CARL):

Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Parker, Geoffrey, ed. The Cambridge History of Warfare. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. OR Parker, Geoffrey, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

5. ADDITIONAL BLOCK REQUIREMENTS

Reading: This block covers the development of warfare between 1940 and 2010. Read chapter 17,
“The Post-War World” in the Cambridge History of Warfare, p. 362-412 before the first class of the
H400 block.

WiFi is available. This block is twelve lessons of two hours each, using a seminar configuration in a
classroom equipped with a computer and video projection equipment. It is not suited to compression
into a short time frame. Because of extensive preparation requirements for each lesson, students
normally have at least several days between lessons.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-9 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010

Block Advance Sheet

Appendix A
Assessment Plan

1. GENERAL

Graded requirements for military history instruction measure the ability to express oneself orally and
in writing while demonstrating the ability to use historical perspective in making an argument.
Graded requirements for the H400 Block follow the assessment plan below:

Graded Sentence Outline P/F
Argumentative Essay 60%
Contribution to Learning
(Class Participation) 40%
TOTAL 100%

2. GRADING SYSTEM

Blind Grading: Based on the standard practice of universities such as Yale, DMH will use blind
grading in AOC. As such, assignments submitted to instructors will have the title page as the last
page of the assignment. Hence, all previous pages of the assignment should be devoid of student
identification and contain only a page number. This allows for the instructor to assess the assignment
without knowing the author, until the assessment has been completed.

The Department of Military History (DMH) awards letter grades based on how well the student
achieves block learning objectives as reflected in written work (essays) and contribution to learning
(class participation/discussions). Instructors assign letter grades based on the following guidelines:

A-Level Work

 A-level work: Represents the complete integration of critical reasoning, creative thinking, and
evaluative skills as the student achieves block learning objectives. The student is fluent in the
logic of block content. There is abundant evidence of this integration in both individual and group
activities and products.

Specifically, in H400:

 Essays: Written work signifies an essay that is persuasive, demonstrates mastery of the material,
and reaches conclusions that transcend the block material. Essay is concise, adheres to the style
guide, exhibits appropriate tone, and has no spelling or grammar errors. The writer uses
appropriate and sufficient evidence with correct documentation.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-10 August 2021

 Contribution to Learning (Class Participation): There is significant contribution to class
learning and analysis that goes beyond the assigned readings and instructor facilitation. The
student exhibits a reasoned and pertinent view or opinion within the context of the topic.

B-Level Work

 B-level work: Represents the consistent application of critical reasoning skills as the student
achieves block learning objectives. The student is competent in the application of block content.
There is frequent evidence of this application in both individual and group activities and products.

Specifically, in H400:

 Essays: Written work signifies an essay that demonstrates command of the block material. There
are some minor deficiencies in organization, style, tone, spelling, and/or grammar. There are
some minor deficiencies in use of evidence or documentation. Work shows some incongruence in
developing a basic thesis.

 Contribution to Learning (Class Participation): Contribution to learning signifies that the
student usually provides ideas that contribute to staff group learning during classroom discussion.
The student achieves the standards of the learning objective with some minor deficiencies. The
student shows a good understanding of the topic and related previous materials.

C-Level Work

 C-level work: Represents comprehension of block content, but the student is inconsistent in
application. The student achieves most, but not all, block learning objectives as evidenced by
both individual and group activities and products.

Specifically, in H400:

 Essays: Written work signifies an essay inadequately addressing some of the requirements or
demonstrating marginal comprehension of material. There are some major deficiencies in
organization, style, tone, spelling, and/or grammar. There are some major deficiencies in use of
evidence or documentation and major challenges in developing a central thesis.

 Contribution to Learning (Class Participation): Contribution to learning signifies that the
student sometimes provides useful ideas when participating in the classroom discussion. The
student achieves the standards of the learning objective with some major deficiencies. The student
shows a good understanding of parts of the topic and related previous materials.

U-Level Work

 U-level work: Represents a consistent failure to achieve block learning objectives. The student
rarely, or minimally, demonstrates comprehension of block content and is not competent in its
application.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-11 August 2021
Specifically, in H400:

 Outlines: Outlines are pass/fail. If an outline is a fail, or if no outline is submitted, then the
instructor will decrement the argumentative essay grade by ten (10) points. Instructors have the
authority to allow a “redo” to bring a failing outline up to passing standards.

 Essays: Written work signifies an essay inadequately addressing most of the requirements or
demonstrating little comprehension of the material. There are many major deficiencies in
organization, style, tone, spelling, and/or grammar. There are some major deficiencies both in use
of evidence and documentation.

 Contribution to Learning (Class Participation): Contribution to learning signifies that the
student rarely provides useful ideas when participating in the class or may not participate at all.
The student fails to achieve the standards of the learning objectives. The student’s understanding
of the topic or related previous materials is not apparent.

3. WRITING REQUIREMENTS

There are two (2) writing submissions required for a grade in the H400 course. The assignments
are:

a. Sentence Outline

Write a double-spaced, one to two-page outline covering your approach and answer to the
argumentative essay topic question, including the thesis, major points, and supporting
points of evidence. You must also submit a one-page annotated bibliography of sources that
you plan to consult for the paper. The outline is due by COB on 7 February 2022. Paragraph
“c” below lists the topic for this essay. The graded requirement will be a sentence outline of no
more than two double-spaced pages in length. The outline will include an attention step, thesis
statement, major points of evidence, and conclusion. This requirement is pass/fail. See Annex E
for instructions on creating a sentence outline and annotated bibliography. Your instructor will
return your outline with comments on how to improve your argument and evaluate the sources.
You must attach this to your argumentative essay when you turn in that requirement. Failure to
complete a passing outline will result in the essay grade being reduced ten (10) points (a full letter
grade).

b. Argumentative Essay

Write a double spaced, 10-12 page argumentative essay on the topic in section “c” below.
For those officers that have applied for and been granted authorization to opt-out of the
CGSOC MOS program, and with SGA and team leader approval, the requirement is a
double spaced-3-5 page argumentative essay on the topic in section “c” below. Regardless of
page length, all essays are due by COB 7 March 2022.

The essay will include documentation in the form of endnotes or footnotes (but not in-text
citations). See Annex A for endnote and footnote formats.

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-12 August 2021
You are expected to research and develop your topic throughout the length of the H400
block. The expectation is graduate level work and developing an argument supported by
evidence. Use of the library to research your topic is encouraged.

Attach the graded outline with your instructor’s comments to your submitted essay. Keep
in mind that while you may discuss the implications of the essay topic for today’s military,
this is a history paper, not just an opinion piece. You will be assessed on your ability to
analyze and use history as a tool for informing professional judgment.

The argumentative essay will conform to the writing standards found in the annexes of the
H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings.

If you fail to turn in your H400 essay on the due date assigned, you will lose ten (10) points
(a full letter grade) for each day the assignment is late.

c. Argumentative Essay Topic Question:

1. How well suited was the American Way of War for fighting the limited wars that the nation
has fought since 1945? What are the implications of your answer for today’s military
professionals?

2. Despite the United States’ economic, technological and military advantages, why did it have
an uneven record of victory since 1941? What are the implications of your answer for today’s
military professionals?

3. How successful has the US military been at learning from history since 1945?

4. ASSISTANCE

a. Your written essay must constitute your own thoughts, ideas, and work effort. You are
encouraged to discuss the essay topic with colleagues, faculty, and friends before you begin
writing. Once the process of composing begins, you may seek advice on matters of style,
grammar, and other mechanics. You may not seek outside assistance in matters of argumentation,
organization, interpretation, or historical content. Furthermore, if you incorporate material that
you wrote for another academic assignment or course, or that you previously published, cite it
appropriately. A failure to cite the source appropriately is an act of self-plagiarism and is grounds
for disciplinary action.

b. You may use spell checkers and grammar checkers. You may ask another individual to proofread
your essay for spelling and grammar. However, you must acknowledge these resources and all
outside assistance, whether human or automated, in the endnotes or footnotes as appropriate.

c. The college offers a writing tutorial program for student self-improvement. Grammar and
composition handbooks are available in the bookstore and at the Combined Arms Research
Library (CARL).

d. The purpose of the longer, 10-12-page paper, is to improve writing, using skills developed in
H100, C171, and other blocks of CGSOC curriculum. As such, DMH instructors can review your
draft paper on the argument, use of evidence, and logic of the argument. Instructors will not
proofread or comment on grammar on the drafts. Students can bring the paper to review multiple
times at the instructor’s discretion, but will not review the drafts within one week of the final due

H400 Block Advance Sheet H400BAS-13 August 2021
date. All copies of drafts, as well as all copies of outlines, must be attached to the final product
for turn-in, whether in hard copy or through Blackboard.

5. APPEAL POLICY

a. You may appeal a written assignment grade of “C” or “U.” Any appeal must be made in
accordance with CGSS Policy Memorandum No. 3, CGSS Policy on Late Submissions,
Resubmissions, Timely Feedback, and Student Appeal of Substandard Academic Assessment and
CGSC Bulletin No. 903, Academic Performance, Graduation, and Awards Policies and
Procedures (dated January 2018). The appeal packet should include a clean copy of your written
assignment for this block of instruction.

b. Contribution to learning (class participation) grades are not subject to appeal. Work out with your
instructor any concerns with assessment of contribution to learning. The best way to ensure an
accurate and fair contribution to learning grade is to master the reading assignments and
contribute meaningfully in each class session.

6. REMEDIATION

Any student receiving a final grade of “U” in this block of instruction will be given the opportunity to
remediate that grade, in accordance with CGSC Bulletin No. 903, Academic Performance,
Graduation, and Awards Policies and Procedures (dated January 2018). The remediating student will
be given a proctored, open-book essay exam, with questions derived from the block learning
objectives and lesson advance sheets. Questions will not be revealed in advance of the exam. A panel
of three DMH instructors will grade the remediation essay exam. The director of DMH will, upon
advice from the faculty panel, assign the remediation grade.

7. STUDENT ABSENCES

Students who miss classes for any reason remain responsible for all written assignments. Contribution
to learning (class participation) grades will be based upon those classes for which the student was
present. Students who obtain permission to miss class prior to the absence (staff ride, exchange visit,
maternity/paternity leave, etc.) will make up the classes missed by preparing a one-page, double-
spaced summary of the assigned readings for each class missed. (This requirement will involve
roughly one paragraph per assigned reading.) This is an ungraded go/no-go requirement that must be
completed before the student will receive a passing grade for the block.

8. CONTRIBUTION TO LEARNING

The majority of DMH instruction involves guided discussion led by the instructor. Your grade is
based on the idea that you and your classmates will prepare for and actively contribute in class
activities, and that your insights will contribute to the learning accomplished by your fellow students.
Instructors will provide you with periodic feedback on your performance. See CGSC Forms 1009 (c
or w).

H400 Assessment Appendix H400BAS-14 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010

Appendix A-1
Assessing Student Performance

Assessment: Contribution to Learning

H400 Assessment Appendix H400BAS-15 August 2021
As the assessment pyramids above suggest, the baseline for a passing grade in either contribution
to learning or essay is for the student to demonstrate command of the material. This material
includes not only the assigned readings but also insights developed during class discussion. The
box below each of the pyramids contains bullets to help the assessor recognize “command of the
material.”

Beyond this basic proficiency, students receiving higher grades in either contribution to learning
or on the essay should demonstrate two qualitative traits: sound critical reasoning and a capacity
for original analysis. The boxes to each side of the pyramids contain bullets to help the assessor
recognize critical reasoning and original analysis.

As a rule, the student who demonstrates a reasonable command of the material and who can
communicate it in a logical, analytical manner should receive a grade in the “B” range. Students
in the “A” range should demonstrate advanced critical reasoning skills and/or develop analytical
frameworks that are original to the student. See the block advance sheet in the student syllabus
and book of readings for a more detailed explanation of what each letter grade entails in terms of
specific student performance.

The assessor should always bear in mind, however, that history is an interpretive discipline.
Student assessment relies heavily upon the judgment of the assessor. It is entirely possible, for
example, that a student who demonstrates a thorough and comprehensive mastery of the material,
and who communicates articulately, elegantly, and persuasively, receives an “A” even in the
absence of any profound original thought. Conversely, the student who generates volumes of
original thought might not receive an “A” if that thought is not founded upon historical evidence
or if communication skills are marginal. Reserve the better grades for students who demonstrate
“informed judgment” rather than “opinion.”

The distribution of grades varies, naturally, with every group of students. As a rough guide,
experience in the resident course suggests that approximately one-half of students earn “As” and
most of the remainder “Bs,” with a scattering of “Cs” and an occasional “U.” It would be quite
unusual if all (or even most) students in a given class were to receive “As.”

H400 Assessment Appendix H400BAS-16 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010

Appendix A-2
Assessing Student Performance

CGSC Form 1009W: Assessing Writing
H400: Outline

CGSC Form 1009W: Assessing Writing
H400: Argumentative Essay Rubric

CGSC Form 1009C: Assessing Contribution to Learning
H400

CGSC Form 1009W – Outline © USACGSC
H400BAS-17
Assessing Writing
STUDENT NAME: STAFF GROUP: DATE:
COURSE TITLE: H400 ASSIGNMENT: Outline
INSTRUCTOR: DEPARTMENT: Military History
Requirement: Effective writing at CGSC is understood in a single rapid reading and is generally free of errors.

Standard: Writing demonstrates proficiency in—
1. Substance,
2. Style,
3. Organization and
4. Correctness.
Overall Assessment:
97+: A+ 96.99-94: A 93.99-90: A- 89.99-87: B+ 86.99-80: B 79.99-78: C+ 77.99-70:C <70: U Total: Instructor Comments Cognitive Level Attained (Higher levels include characteristics of lower levels) Elements of Thought Universal Intellectual Standards EVALUATION (Judging or weighing by building and using criteria and standards) -Clarity -Accuracy -Precision -Relevance -Depth -Breadth -Logic -Significance -Fairness SYNTHESIS (Integrating parts into a new whole) ANALYSIS (Breaking material down into component parts to determine structures and relationships) APPLICATION (Use of knowledge to solve problems) COMPREHENSION (Understanding of the material) KNOWLEDGE (Recall of specific information) CGSC Form 1009W – Outline © USACGSC H400BAS-18 Instructions: Write a double-spaced one to two-page outline that includes the thesis, major points, supporting points of evidence, and a one-page annotated bibliography of sources for the argumentative essay topic question. The outline is due by COB on 7 February 2022. Use this outline in constructing the block essay. Specific topics are identified in the H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings (see Annex E on how to create a sentence outline). Student Assessment Faculty Assessment Exceptional Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Substance Points Content Points Thesis is clear and concise. Content is fully compliant with the assigned requirement and the needs of the reader; everything is accurate; level of detail is suited to the needs of the assigned requirement and reader. Explanations and descriptions of content are clear and precise. Quantitative information is relevant and accurate, expressed with appropriate examples, and well integrated into the text. Thesis is not clear. Small omissions or inadequacies in content, but adequately covers the written requirement and needs of the reader. Some minor inaccuracies, but primarily accurate. May occasionally include irrelevant details or omit important details. Explanations and descriptions are almost always clear and precise. Quantitative information is accurate, and related to the text. No thesis. Information (facts, assumptions, concepts/theories) are not accurate, and/or content is irrelevant, missing, or misrepresented, and/or insufficient detail, and/or inaccurate or ineffective management of quantitative information. Analysis/Problem-Solving/Conclusions Attains highest cognitive level that is appropriate to the assignment. Insightful, original analysis; conclusions superbly supported by evidence clearly explained; consideration of ethical/legal issues when relevant; consideration of alternative points of view or counter-evidence is fully addressed. Attains an adequate cognitive level appropriate to the assignment. Thorough analysis, though perhaps not as insightful or original as it could be; conclusions adequately supported by evidence clearly explained; legal/ethical issues addressed but may be superficially treated; alternative points of view or counter-evidence, but may not be fully addressed. Remains at a low cognitive level. Analysis superficial; little or no relation between conclusions and evidence; ethical/legal issues ignored; fails to address alternative points of view or counter evidence. Points Style Points Words are precise; language is concise and without wordiness; writer’s tone is appropriate to the audience and purpose; sentences track clearly even to the rapid reader; transitions lead smoothly from one idea to the next. Active voice predominates. Sources, as relevant, are appropriately cited. Some language is imprecise but generally understandable. Style is adequate but lacks polish and directness. The language is awkward, hard to read. The reader must backtrack to understand the writer’s meaning, or the reader cannot understand the meaning. Language is extremely wordy; or primarily in passive voice, or inappropriate in tone. Citation of sources is missing or inaccurate. Points Organization Points Points are clear and logically arranged so as to develop the content and analysis most productively for the audience. Points are clear. In general, points establish a logical line of reasoning. Points are not clear or the sequence of points is illogical or inadequate to the needs of the task or audience. Points Correctness Points Few if any departures from the published standard (grammar, punctuation and usage). A few departures from the published standard (grammar, punctuation and usage), but not enough to confuse or distract the reader. Departures from the published standard (grammar, punctuation and usage) significantly confuse or distract the reader. Total Points Student: Staff Group: Date: Instructor: Assignment: Overall Grade: A: 100-90% Written work demonstrates mastery of the continuum of competition, conflict, and war by analyzing the historical context of large scale combat operations through battles, campaigns, operational variables, mission variables, key leader decisions, or tenets of key theorists. Furthermore, the written work reaches conclusions that transcend the block material. Essay is concise, adheres to the style guide, exhibits appropriate tone, and has no spelling or grammar errors. The writer uses appropriate and sufficient historical evidence with correct documentation. Thesis is clear and unambiguous. B: 80-89% Written work demonstrates basic knowledge of the continuum of competition, conflict, and war by analyzing the historical context of large scale combat operations through battles, campaigns, operational variables, mission variables, key leader decisions, or tenets of key theorists. There are some minor deficiencies in organization, style, tone, spelling, or grammar. There are some minor deficiencies in use of historical evidence or documentation. Thesis is present but lacks clarity. C: 70-79% Written work demonstrates poor comprehension of continuum of competition, conflict, and war and has inadequate historical context analysis of large scale combat operations through battles, campaigns, operational variables, mission variables, key leader decisions, or tenets of key theorists. There are major deficiencies in organization, style, tone, spelling, and grammar. There are major deficiencies in use of historical evidence, documentation, and argumentation in developing a central thesis. U: 69% or Below Written work demonstrates little to no comprehension of the continuum of competition, conflict, and war or historical context of large scale combat operations through battles, campaigns, operational variables, mission variables, key leader decisions, or tenets of key theorists. There are significant deficiencies in organization, style, tone, spelling, and grammar that affect the argument. There are significant deficiencies both in use of evidence and documentation. Feedback to Student: Assessing Writing CGSC Form 1009W H400BAS-19 @USACGSC H400 Argumentative Essay Rubric Thesis Substance Organization Style and Correctness A: 100% - 90% Articulates a clear and original position on the assignment’s central issues. Sharply focused on the central issue. Fully addresses the question. Factually correct. Addresses nuances of argument. Draws from appropriate sources. Shows the complexity of the subject. Organization is clear, logical, and progressive, making explicit the reasoning and relationship of ideas. Paragraphs contain clear topic sentences and focus on a single idea. Paragraphs are progressive within the context of the argument. Understandable in a single rapid reading and free of errors in grammar, mechanics, and usage. Shows additional resources from across the curriculum and are properly cited. B: 80% - 89% Articulates a position on the central issues raised by the assignment. Thesis identifies main point but lacks clarity. Addresses the question in most aspects. Factually correct in most instances but contains a few errors. Addresses nuances of argument but makes some overall generalizations or self-evident statements that need further explanation. Draws from course sources in order to develop argument. Is mostly clear, logical, and progressive, with the relationship among ideas mostly clear. Paragraphs may contain a topic sentence and focus on more than a single idea. Paragraphs are awkward in progression within the context of the argument. Generally understandable in a single rapid reading. Some problems in grammar, mechanics, or usage. Generally correct documentation of sources. C: 70% - 79% Thesis does not identify a main point and fails to address the question clearly. Numerous factually incorrect statements. Generalizes and oversimplifies the argument. Lacks evidence and makes unsupported assertions. Lacks clarity, logic, and progression, with the relationship among ideas unclear. Paragraphs do not contain clear topic sentence and focus on a more than one idea. Paragraphs are not progressive within the context of the argument. Hard to understand in a single rapid reading. Significant problems in grammar, mechanics, or usage. Lacks documentation of sources. U: 69% or Below There is no thesis. Factually incorrect in most areas. Gross oversimplification of argument. Lacks evidence and makes unsupported assertions. Lacks nearly all clarity, logic, or progression in development of argument. Paragraphs have no topic sentence and lack logical focus. Paragraphs are not progressive and disconnected to the overall context of the argument. Hard to understand in a single rapid reading. Significant problems in grammar, mechanics, or usage. Little or no documentation of sources. Assessing Writing CGSC Form 1009W H400BAS-20 @USACGSC CGSC Form 1009C - Contribution to Learning © USACGSC H400BAS-21 Assessing Contribution to Learning STUDENT NAME: STAFF GROUP: DATE: COURSE TITLE: H400 ASSIGNMENT: Contribution to Learning INSTRUCTOR: DEPARTMENT: Military History Contribution to Learning Standards: Communicates ideas effectively, demonstrating critical thinking that contributes to group learning. Overall Grade 97+: A+ 96.99 - 94: A 93.99 - 90: A- 89.99 - 87: B+ 86.99 - 80: B 79.99 - 78: C+ 77.99 - 70: C <70: U Total: Critical Thinking Assessment Usually Sometimes Never Comments often responded to or built logically on those of others. Helped the group keep a line of reasoning going. Questions and comments were thought-provoking and relevant. Not hesitant to state an alternate, creative, and/or controversial position. Supported positions and comments with evidence indicating critical reasoning, modes of analysis, synthesis, and judgment. Did not make random, superficial, or off topic comments that distracted the group from the on-going discussion. Tied thoughts to previous instruction or other writings and information about the topic at hand. Questions and comments made the group think about alternative positions. Communicated clearly and concisely. Respectfully challenged others to provide evidence or support for their position. Approached the discussion or problem in a creative manner. Approached the discussion in a thoughtful, reasoned manner. Comments were precise, and accurate. Comments demonstrated breadth and depth of understanding. Logic was sound. Comments demonstrated depth of analysis. Asked tough questions that challenged deeply held beliefs. Showed tolerance toward opposing beliefs, ideas or opinions. Encouraged peers not to dismiss out of hand the opinions and ideas of others. Instructor Comments: Cognitive Level Attained (Higher levels include characteristics of lower levels) Elements of Thought Universal Intellectual Standards EVALUATION (Judging or weighing by building and using criteria and standards) -Clarity -Accuracy -Precision -Relevance -Depth -Breadth -Logic -Significance -Fairness SYNTHESIS (Integrating parts into a new whole) ANALYSIS (Breaking material down into component parts to determine structures and relationships) APPLICATION (Use of knowledge to solve problems) COMPREHENSION (Understanding of the material) KNOWLEDGE (Recall of specific information) H400 Appendix B H400BAS-22 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 H400 Block Advance Sheet Appendix B: Lessons Lesson Number Lesson Title Lesson Hours H401 The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in WWII 2 H402 LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines and the Tyranny of Distance (Guadalcanal) Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) 2 H403 LSCO/MDO: Airpower Theory, Doctrine, and Practice 2 H404 LSCO/MDO: Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe 2 H405 Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age 2 H406 The Chinese Way of War 2 H407 Limited War and LSCO: Korea 1950-1953 2 H408 Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare 2 H409 The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnamization 2 H410 Re-forging the Broken Sword: The U.S. Army 1972-1990 2 H411 DESERT STORM and the American Way of War 2 H412 Iraq and Beyond: Change and Continuity of Warfare 2 H400 Appendix C H400BAS-23 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Appendix C Blended Learning Instructions 1. General Instructions a. Refer to the H400 Lesson Plans (AY22). b. Objective is to replicate as best as possible the learning environment, interactive experience, and quality of instruction that has characterized past instruction in the Department of Military History. c. The primary form of instruction will take place in virtual classrooms via Blackboard Collaborate. d. Instructors may use additional tools at their discretion, including but neither required nor limited to: videos, PowerPoint, and Blackboard discussion threads. [Note: All images and videos should be copyright approved or of public domain in case of distribution by any means.] 2. Homework Assignment a. Refer to the H400 Lesson Plans (AY22) for homework assignments. b. Required, optional, and supplemental reading assignments remain unchanged for a blended learning environment. 3. Lesson Timeline a. Refer to the H400 Lesson Plans (AY22) for lesson timelines. b. CE, P&P, GNI, and Apply recommendations remain unchanged for a blended learning environment. c. NOTE: Those instructors who consider participation in Blackboard discussion threads in assessing contribution to learning grades, should reduce Blackboard Collaborate session times to maintain the standard two-hours of contact time per class. 4. Conduct of Lesson a. Refer to the H400 Lesson Plans (AY22) for the conduct of lessons. b. Guidance for conducting the lessons remain unchanged for a blended learning environment. Lesson H401 The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II AY 2021–22 H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-24 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H401 The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Richard S. Faulkner 1. SCOPE This two-hour lesson builds on the historical and strategic context established in H100. It asks the question of whether there is an American Way of War, and gives you one definition by strategist Colin Gray to build on those given in the block stagesetter by Brian M. Lynn and Antulio J. Echevarria. The concept of an American Way of War and the responses by potential opponents is a theme that will continue across all the lessons of H400. H401 covers the concept of power projection (in its largest possible sense), and the costs of doing that across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Part of the American Way of War as discussed by strategist Colin Gray centers on this very issue—that America fights “large scale” with “logistical excellence,” due to the unique geography of the United States as a continental island that fights its modern war overseas.1 The material here, thus, focuses on mobilization on the one hand, and then movement of mobilized personnel and equipment, primarily via interoceanic shipping. Later lessons will offer an opportunity to look at the challenges of the anti- access conditions in place during World War II, which will likely also challenge any major American effort against a peer competitor today of the kind discussed in your Common Core instruction. However, after the victory, over three oceans and three continents (Europe, Africa, and Asia), in 1945, the scale of American de-mobilization was almost as breathtaking as the scale of its mobilization to fight the Axis. Although not quite as drastic as had been seen after World War I, the totality of victory, or the perception of the totality of victory, over the Axis ironically led to a more total de-mobilization than might otherwise have been the case had Germany, Italy, and Japan not been so utterly defeated. This post WWII world will be studied in depth throughout H400, and the other factor to be considered in the post-war world seemed to be the game-changing advent of atomic weapons. We will examine this later in the block, which seemed to presage less of a need for large conventional military forces in the post-1945 world.2 As a final thought, bring an open mind to class and resolve to challenge the assumptions and assertions made in the block. Gray’s definition of the American Way of War is not the only definition out there, nor is there universal agreement that there even is an American way of war. Be ready to jump into the debate. The well-researched insights of fellow students are valuable for professional development and as take-aways from the H400 block. 1. See Colin Gray, “The American Way of War,” in Rethinking the Principles of War, ed. Anthony D. McIvor (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005): 30-33. 2. See MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2025 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6, 13; and Lawrence Freedman, “The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986): 735-738. H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-25 August 2021 2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess (UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US Army sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s operational environment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as listed in the H400 Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are: ELO-AOC-1.6 Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale combat operations. Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products and H400 historical readings. ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes: 1. Examine historical battles and campaigns. 2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context. 3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action. 4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-5.4 Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness. Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products. ELO Standards: The analysis includes: 1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness. 2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO. 3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater. 4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context. 5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of 20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-8.1 Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-26 August 2021 ELO-AOC-8.2 Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.3 Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. 4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential contemporary competitors. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-9.1 Action: Write effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Write effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Proper grammar and correct spelling Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.2 Action: Speak effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation 6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-27 August 2021 7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.3 Action: Listen effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes: 1. Listens, reads, and watches intently. 2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others. 3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention. 4. Reflects on new information before expressing views. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis PLO Attributes Supported: 1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information. 1b. Comprehend context of the situation. 1c. Create meaning from information and data. 1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas. 1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms. 1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments. 1g. Apply critical and creative thinking. 2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life- long learners. 3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war. 3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition. 3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power. 3d. Understand the generation of military power through force management. 4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment. 4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks. 4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other competitive forces. 5e. Consider risk and resource limitations inherent in planning. 6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions. 6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context. Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported: 3. The Return of Great Power Competition 5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century 8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations 3. ISSUE MATERIAL a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022. b. During Class: None. WiFi is available. 4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT a. Study Requirements: H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-28 August 2021 (1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in full text in the H400 Book of Readings): Required: H401RA Gray, Colin. “The American Way of War: Critique and Implications.” In Rethinking the Principles of War, edited by Anthony D. McIvor, 13-39. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005. [27 pages] E-Book: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363 H401RB Center of Military History. “Mobilization.” Excerpt from WWII Commemorative Brochure. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1995. H401RC Matloff, Maurice. “The 90-Division Gamble.” Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, United States Army in World War II, 365-381. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1990. [17 pages] H401RD Morton, Louis. “The Color Plans, 1919-1938.” In The Legacy of American Naval Power: Reinvigorating Maritime Strategic Thought, edited by Paul Westermeyer, 34-43. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps History Division, 2019. [10 pages] H401RE Pearlman, Michael D. “Force Structure, Mobilization, and American Strategy for Global Coalition War.” In C610 Advance Book, 170-182. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General staff College, 1996. [12 pages] Review (As needed) from the M101 Stagesetter: M101RA_SS, Echevarria II, Antulio J. Toward an American Way of War. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004. [21 pages] M101RC_SS, Linn, Brian M. “The American Way of War Revisited,” Journal of Military History, No. 66 (April 2002). https://doi-org.lumen.cgsccarl.com/10.2307/3093069 Optional: H401ORA U.S. War Department. AWPD-1: Munitions Requirements of the Army Air Forces. DECLASSIFIED, IAW, EO12958. Washington, D.C., August 12, 1941. [PRIMARY SOURCE] [4 pages] H401ORB Harrison, Mark. “Resources Mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945,” Economic History Review, 41:2 (1988): 171-192. [21 pages] Further Professional Development: Further Professional Development: McIvor, Anthony D., Editor. Rethinking the Principles of War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005. Coakley, Robert W. and Richard M. Leighton. U.S Army in World War II (“Green Books” series): The War Department: Global Logistics and Strategy, 1943-1945. Washington, D.C. Center of Military History, 1968. Pogue, Forrest C. The European Theater of Operations: The Supreme Command. Washington, D.C. Center of Military History, 1954. Watson, Mark S. The War Department: Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations. Washington, D.C. Center of Military History, 1950. Resident Course Elective Alignment: A627, World War II in the East: Barbarossa to Berlin; A659, Modern Naval Theory and Campaigns https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363 https://doi-org.lumen.cgsccarl.com/10.2307/3093069 H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-29 August 2021 (2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class: 1. What are the main characteristics of Colin Gray’s definition of an American Way of War? What are the strengths? 2. What was War Plan Orange? How did it shape planning for global power projection in World War II? 3. Why does Matloff characterize the decision to only train and deploy 90 U.S. Army combat divisions for World War II as a “gamble?” 4. What might have been the result if the U.S. had instead mobilized 150 divisions? What were the factors that contributed to the decision to go with the smaller number? 5. What was the role of shipping and its defense in shaping victory for the Allies in World War II? 6. According to Pearlman, what were the major factors affecting resource allocation in waging global coalition warfare? What is his argument about the expectations of military strategists vis-à-vis “definitive guidance?” b. Bring to Class: H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022 5. ASSESSMENT See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A. H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-30 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H401 The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II Chronology 4 June 1920 The National Defense Act of 4 June 1920 charged the assistant secretary of war with planning for industrial mobilization and responsibility for the War Department's procurement. June 1922 Army and Navy Munitions Board created to deconflict competition for resources. 1920s and 1930s Joint Army and Navy Board developed a series of color-coded war plans. By 1939, the other plans were officially withdrawn in favor of five Rainbow Plans developed to meet the threat of a two-ocean war against multiple enemies. Mid-1930s Army staff began to prepare a series of protective mobilization plans, focusing on Army role, as well as industrial resources and capabilities. 29 June 1936 U.S. Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, which also included creation of a Maritime Commission to coordinate with Navy in time of war. June 1940 France fell—French Atlantic ports became available for forward basing of German submarines. January – March 1941 Secret “ABC-1” talks in Washington between British and American senior military officers. “Europe First” strategy was agreed to, in principle, based on “Plan Dog” memorandum of the U.S. Navy. 11 March 1941 FDR signed Lend-Lease Act as a means around the Neutrality Act in providing aid to Great Britain, at war with Germany. 7 December 1941 United States entered war after Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor; the chief of naval operations, with Roosevelt’s consent, released the following message: EXECUTE AGAINST JAPAN UNRESTRICTED AIR AND SUBMARINE WARFARE. 11 December 1941 Germany declared war on the United States. November 1942 Allies invaded North Africa in Operation TORCH. 1943 Height of the Battle of the Atlantic: The tide turned in favor of the Allies. 1944 Unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan by U.S. submarines cut Japan’s sea lines of communications with its overseas empire. H401 Advance Sheet H401AS-31 August 2021 May 1945 Germany surrendered to Allied powers. September 1945 Empire of Japan surrendered to Allied powers aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. 1947 National Security Act of 1947 passed, creating Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an independent new Department of the Air Force. U.S. adopted a strategy based on massive retaliation using atomic weapons. 29 August 1949 Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. 01 October 1949 Chinese Civil War ended with triumph of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and formation of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Fall 1949 Revolt of the Admirals: Secretary of the Navy resigned; and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Louis Denfield (a submariner), is fired for opposing new Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson’s policies. June 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea. Center of Military History. “Mobilization.” Excerpt from WWII Commemorative Brochure. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1995. H401RB-32 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in WWII Reading H401RB “Mobilization” Excerpt from WWII Commemorative Brochure The Protective Mobilization Plans While the industrial mobilization plans dealt with broad national aspects of planning, the Army staff prepared a series of protective mobilization plans that began to appear in the mid-1930s. Each concentrated directly on the Army’s role in a possible conflict. They addressed the size and composition of an initial defensive force and its support. Although starting with more sophisticated assumptions that took into account industrial resources and capabilities, these plans were essentially descendants of the plans and procurement studies of the 1920s. The protective mobilization plans bridged two gaps. They sought to mesh production schedules and the early needs of the Army to bring together the rates of troop and materiel mobilization. In addition, they provided for a small and well-equipped emergency force, called the initial protective force, to provide security during general mobilization. Basically, this force of 400,000 consisted of the then available Regular Army and National Guard. Overall, the 1939 version was sound enough to become the permanent basis for mobilization. The plan provided for training, incorporating the location, size, and schedule for establishing training centers; outlined detailed unit and individual training programs; and provided for the production of manuals and associated training material. It established a point of departure, a system for mobilization of the men and equipment already available. Like the industrial plan of the same year, the protective plan stepped back from the M-day assumption and began to see mobilization as a process that should begin well before the United States became involved in a war. The plan neglected the important area of construction of adequate troop housing and other facilities, but otherwise it was a succinct, coherent proposal based on realistic assumptions. Political variables that mobilization planners could not control and may not have understood were still significant. The soundest plan was useless if the country was not prepared to accept it. Although Japan, Italy, and Germany actively pursued policies of imperial expansion in 1939-40, domestic realities in the United States included a public largely alienated from participation in world affairs. The twenty years since the end of the Great War had seen the breakdown of an international system based on the League of Nations and arms limitation agreements. The resultant American disillusionment with international affairs expressed itself in strong isolationist and pacifist sentiments. Although President Roosevelt neither shared nor pandered to this viewpoint, he understood the strength of the isolationist position. With one eye on his upcoming reelection bid in 1940, he acted carefully. Some of his New Deal supporters, notably labor leaders, feared that a preparedness drive centered on a powerful War Resources Administration would undermine much recent social legislation. So, rather than begin a massive central rearmament effort, he launched a limited preparedness campaign H401RB-33 at the start of 1939, with his emphasis on increasing the striking power of the Army Air Corps. The Army, in turn, used the opportunity of the air buildup and the $575 million appropriation for a more balanced expansion. Momentum picked up after the German invasion of Poland in September and the outbreak of a general European war. Proclaiming a limited national emergency, Roosevelt authorized an increase to 227,000 for the Regular Army and to 235,000 for the National Guard. Despite abandonment of the industrial mobilization plan, the start of mobilization could be discerned by the end of 1939. The president was moving in a way unforeseen by the planners of the 1930s, with no superagency atop a network of coordinating and integrating machinery. Roosevelt did agree on an alternate structure, accepting Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson’s proposal to set up a War Resources Board to advise the Munitions Board on economic mobilization policies, survey materials and facilities, plan for price controls, and study special issues, such as the production of synthetic rubber. The board was six weeks old when a hostile public reaction, based on the lack of labor or farm representatives, convinced the president to abandon it. The U.S. mobilization pace picked up in the wake of German military successes in the spring of 1940. This phase, usually called the defense period, represented a transitional stage similar to the one envisioned by the abandoned industrial mobilization plan. In May 1940, Roosevelt called for 50,000 new aircraft and a supplemental defense appropriation. He also set up an Office of Emergency Management in his executive office to coordinate the effort, and he revived the Advisory Commission of National Defense to assess problems of mobilizing resources and to prepare comprehensive plans for various stages of mobilization. But the commission itself did not last the year, and its successor, the Office of Production Management, was also soon abolished. The political climate was still not receptive to a full- scale industrial mobilization. Although full-scale mobilization remained politically impossible, the government started the financial transition from parsimony to abundance. Appropriations came faster than the Army could absorb them, over $8 billion in 1940 and $26 billion in 1941, dwarfing the half billion dollars that had been allotted for expansion early in 1939. By the time of Pearl Harbor, Congress had spent more for Army procurement than it had for the Army and the Navy during all of World War I. While the industrial mobilization plan indirectly influenced rearmament, the protective mobilization plan had a more direct impact. The latter plan prevented some of the foundering that had taken place in April 1917 by providing the basis for the Army’s initial expansion. The Army still saw its role as protecting the United States and the Western Hemisphere from hostile European forces rather than participating in global coalition warfare, an assumption that limited and impeded planning. But the protective mobilization plan at least gave the Army a starting point in preparing for a hemispheric defense mission. The gradual and somewhat experimental path of mobilizing the economy during 1940 went contrary to public expectations. M-day continued to exist in the popular mind; and few understood that mobilization was, in fact, already under way. Mobilization was essentially an evolving situation, in which the United States was not formally at war and was reacting to the spread of conflict by moving from one set of expansion goals to another. Although the president had taken control of mobilization, the Army still had a central role in shaping it. The Army was the single most important claimant on productive resources and manpower, so its needs largely determined the nature and extent of the process. Both industrial mobilization and procurement started with the formulation of requirements by the Army. Once the Army knew the kinds and quantities of materiel it needed, facilities, materials, manpower, energy, and other resources could be brought to bear on production. Beyond the need for an authoritative Army shopping list lay a web of relationships H401RB-34 between troop mobilization, which depended on the available supplies, equipment, and facilities; materiel requirements; and the availability of industrial capacity and raw materials that limited the scale and pace of mobilization. In 1940 and early 1941, with the Army still assuming that it would be charged mainly with hemispheric defense and not enough known about the capacity of industry, meaningful decisions were beyond the ability of the War Department and the General Staff. The Munitions Program The munitions program of June 1940, the clearest practical manifestation of the defense period represented an effort to estimate and cope with the anticipated expansion of the force. Its goals included the procurement by October 1941 of all items needed to equip and maintain an army of 1.2 million, including the Air Corps, and creation of production facilities to support an army of over four million. Directed by the Army and Navy Munitions Board, this program set up a priorities system, apportioned industrial capacity between the services, cleared foreign contracts for munitions production in the United States, and compiled military needs for strategic raw materials. Procurement districts, arsenals, depots, and other establishments were activated and expanded. The $6 billion that was allotted was only half of the War Department’s request, but it was almost as much as the nation had spent on the department between 1922 and 1940 and a major turning point in the rehabilitation of the Army. In terms of the production of the materiel needed for any expansion of the Army, the start of the munitions program constituted M-day. However, the concept was not invoked at the time. Passage of selective service legislation awaited the return of Congress in the autumn. In fact, the first peacetime draft in the nation’s history became law in September, one month after the president federalized the National Guard. There was little point in announcing an M-day for materiel and then waiting three months to announce another for manpower. Those who thought about the sequence, though, knew that if the two aspects of mobilization had to be separate, materiel should come first. Even though the sequence was correct, the needs of the force of 1.5 million that was assembled by June 1941 were largely unmet. As had so often happened in the past, troops were being mobilized before equipment was available. Although the idea of a central agency to manage mobilization never really took hold before the United States declared war, a network of agencies, activities, and controls was emerging to manage war production. Some were necessary because of the technical and engineering difficulties inherent in the mass production of novel and complex military items. Others were needed to allocate and manage resources, the scarcity of which complicated and frustrated production. The concept of civilian control also remained. While the government foundered in its search for effective centralized control that accommodated political realities, the War Department itself did somewhat better. Henry L. Stimson had taken over the department at the start of the defense period and brought Robert P. Patterson with him. In December 1940 Congress had agreed to Stimson’s request for transferring to the War Department authority over certain service aspects of industrial mobilization and procurement and allowing him to appoint Patterson undersecretary to supervise these tasks. Previously an assistant secretary had responded to the congressional mandate in section 5a of the National Defense Act of 1920. Now, as the Army’s chief mobilization and procurement planner, Patterson operated directly under the secretary, unifying management of the department. The Army, whose interwar planning had assumed strong civil control of mobilization, had been unprepared for the lack of centralization. Patterson thus filled what amounted to an administrative vacuum in this effort. He proved to be an excellent choice. H401RB-35 Construction Patterson concentrated on creating the productive facilities that were essential to increasing output as well as on procurement itself. In the summer of 1941 he brought Michael J. Madigan, a canny millionaire construction engineer, to his office as special assistant to deal with construction. Mobilization severely strained extant facilities for housing, training, and supplying the troops. Just as important were construction and expansion in conjunction with industry of factories to produce supplies and equipment for the expanding Army. Madigan and Patterson agreed that this system was too slow and complex. Construction for production and for troops had been divided between the Corps of Engineers and the Quartermaster Corps after the engineers took over Air Corps construction from the overburdened quartermasters late in 1940. Early in December 1941, Stimson agreed to their proposal to make the Corps of Engineers responsible for all military construction. Then they took their nine-page memorandum to the president, who jotted “OK FDR” in the margin. And so, a multibillion dollar mobilization issue was settled, and construction, a pacing factor for both production and troops, was in the hands of the engineers. There was more to this problem than finding a capable construction agent. Troop construction ultimately mushroomed into a $7.5 billion program, but the lack of industrial facilities constituted a greater barrier to mobilization during the defense period. The Depression had created much idle but largely obsolete industrial capacity. With demand low, there had been no incentives to modernize. The government had to encourage industrial expansion before its armed forces were engaged. “To have delayed the construction of such facilities until the United States was actually involved in battle,” R. Elberton Smith observed in his book on industrial mobilization, “might have lost the war before it began.” The Roosevelt administration thus encouraged private expansion of facilities for war production, first through accelerated depreciation, then by government financing. Private construction companies did most of the actual building, while other private contractors then received management fees to operate the plants. The majority of factories producing ordnance were built this way. Lend-lease, a program started in September 1941 to provide materiel for those nations already at war with the Axis, also helped stimulate production. From the beginning, the Allies expected that the primary contribution of the United States would be its industrial capacity. The imperatives of this support program required careful balancing of the manpower needs of industry and the military. The Soviet Union, reeling under the German invasion of June 1941, was especially desperate. A calculated risk, lend-lease ultimately delayed mobilization by reducing, for example, the number of aircraft available to the U.S. Army Air Corps; the program slowed training. Later foreign munitions aid also became a problem to other Army elements. In the short run, however, lend-lease helped generate the demand that activated assembly lines. The policy of encouraging recipients to use standard American military equipment helped assure that factories produced the right items and enabled planners to divert these supplies to American use when needed. The Victory Program In 1941 the munitions program of the defense phase evolved into the “victory program.” At first, increases in the force for the protective mobilization plan and the procurement of the equipment to meet this expansion were made piecemeal. But the desperate need for a coherent plan became plain as the Army went through eight separate expenditure programs between August 1940 and June 1942. Each expansion required the supply services to prepare tentative lists of their needs. Their accumulated statements were reviewed, revised, and presented to Congress as the basis for a budget request. After Congress appropriated the money, the Army staff officer responsible for logistics, known as the G-4, H401RB-36 approved each expenditure program, usually with minor modification. A total of nearly $34 billion was spent in this way. From early in 1941, Maj. Gen. James H. Burns of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War advocated studies that would determine total demands of the war on American productivity. At the president’s direction, the War Plans Division of the General Staff undertook this effort for the Army, working with the Navy staff, using appropriate assumptions of probable friends and enemies and conceivable theaters of operations. The resultant plan, developed mainly by Maj. Albert C. Wedemeyer, rested on a calculation of the number of troops who would be available and the strategic assumption that the major effort would be in Europe, with 1 July 1943 set as the date at which maximum strength would be reached. On this basis, the Army G-4 determined the materiel needs of the service, including weapons, vehicles, uniforms, and thousands of other articles needed to equip and maintain the force. The production requirements of the plan, merged with the Navy’s needs, became known as the victory program. This name indicated a definitive shift from the focus on hemispheric defense to defeating a potential enemy. The defense phase was over, and the munitions program was obsolete. The cost of the new program was staggering, as much as $150 billion, and only the attack on Pearl Harbor made it palatable. In December 1941 the United States formally declared war in Asia against Japan and in Europe against Germany and Italy. By that time, the Army had benefited enormously from peacetime mobilization. It had one-third more people than called for by the protective mobilization plan eight months after a declaration of war. Still, a massive effort was needed to meet the production goals announced by the president in January 1942, including 60,000 airplanes in 1942 and 125,000 more in 1943 and 120,000 tanks in the same period. Meanwhile, the Army was expanding. Passage of the Selective Service and Training Act in September 1940 showed that the United States was ready to match its mobilization materiel with manpower, even in an election year. The Army reached its intended strength of 1.5 million midway through 1941 and had thirty-four divisions and a host of supporting units in training by autumn. Lags in cantonment construction forced the War Department to slow enlistments and delayed the federalization of the National Guard. Just after Pearl Harbor, Congress amended the draft law, lengthening the term of service from one year to the duration plus six months and extending registration to all males between 18 and 65, with those between 20 and 45 eligible for the draft. All the while, final goals for recruitment became interim goals. By the end of 1942, the Army’s strength was at 5.4 million, including 700,000 black Americans, most of whom served in segregated support units. Wartime Management Nineteen forty-two was the year of industrial mobilization and the greatest expansion of productive facilities. The War Production Board was established to take control of this process. Creation of a political consensus in support of war was no longer an issue after Pearl Harbor, and the new office had the authority to enforce its policies through granting priorities and allocating resources. The board reflected in many ways, the industrial mobilization plan’s concept of a War Resources Administration. It had tremendous powers to include providing general direction of the procurement and production program, determining the policies of federal departments and agencies with influence on war production and procurement, and administering the granting of priorities and allocating vital materials and production facilities. At the same time, Patterson’s office centralized Army mobilization efforts in the War Department, with William Knudsen of General Motors commissioned a lieutenant general and assigned to the office of the undersecretary as director of production. At last, with the United States officially at war, H401RB-37 it began to develop the kind of organization that had worked in World War I and had been recommended in the industrial mobilization plan. From this time on, the Army and Navy Munitions Board declined in importance, and a new organization emerged within the Army to manage procurement. A command called Services of Supply was set up in March 1942 under Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell. For the rest of the year, industrial mobilization to meet the Army’s needs was his principal concern. General George C. Marshall, the chief of staff, looked to Somervell as his adviser on supply, and Somervell provided the link between the mobilization and production functions of Patterson’s office and the G-4 requirements and supply distribution responsibilities. One of the most adept empire builders in the modern history of the Army, Somervell merged the staffs of the undersecretary’s office and the G-4 into one operating agency, the Directorate of Procurement and Distribution, and attached it to his office. His organization was renamed Army Service Forces in March 1943. Somervell controlled a vast logistical system. His authority ranged over six technical services, eight administrative services, nine corps areas, six ports of embarkation, and nine general depots. Formerly, all of these components of the Army supply system had reported directly to the chief of staff. Together, under Army Service Forces, this network bought, stored and distributed the Army’s equipment and supplies. The program involved over 600,000 prime contractors and an untold numbers of subcontractors and had a price tag of over $68 billion. The Army Supply Program provided the blueprint for this huge procurement effort. First published in April 1942, the plan was reissued periodically during the war. Each edition contained revised long-range estimates of military needs for all items of supply, honed by teams that studied and updated replacement factors in light of operational experience. The supply program lists were translated into terms of raw materials, skilled labor, and productive capacity. With this plan in hand the War Production Board adjusted the allocation of priorities to balance strategic plans with resources and manage possible shortages. In Army Service Forces, the Corps of Engineers played an important part in the mobilization process. One of the six technical services under Somervell’s command the corps had a construction program of unprecedented size and scope. So much of mobilization—production of small arms ammunition and the myriad other items in the Army Supply Program, assembly of vehicles and airplanes, and training and housing for the millions of soldiers who were filling the ranks—hinged on engineer construction that it was a pacing factor for the entire effort. The program included factories, camps, and other facilities for troops; the Manhattan District’s atomic bomb project; construction of the Pentagon; and even a few major civil works projects that were continued through the war. The bill came to over $15 billion. Real estate costs and maintenance added another $3 billion. At the very top of this effort was the War Production Board. It, too, could claim major accomplishments. Under Chairman Donald Nelson, the board inherited from the Army and Navy Munitions Board a system of voluntary priority classifications. Nelson instituted a Production Requirements Plan, through which his board bypassed the armed services and allocated materials directly to producers. In November 1942, this plan was superseded by the Controlled Materials Plan, modeled on the British experience and adopted at the urging of Ferdinand Eberstadt, chairman of the Army and Navy Munitions Board. This plan rationed the three most important industrial materials—steel, copper, and aluminum. Quarterly allocations based on productive capacity assured recipients of obtaining the allotted materials on schedule. The plan did not bring strong central control to the entire war economy, but it did bring order to production while avoiding overregulation. It recognized that production, like mobilization as a whole, had pacing factors and put the management emphasis there. H401RB-38 Despite the success of the Critical Materials Plan, President Roosevelt changed the management of mobilization in May 1943. The new Office of War Mobilization under James F. Byrnes had broader authority, extending to manpower as well as to all functions formerly carried out by Nelson. So Byrnes brought together management of the two main categories of mobilization. Because of his broad powers, Byrnes became known as the “assistant president.” The merger at the top of manpower and materiel mobilization was important. By 1943, the Army staff knew that the manpower barrel had a bottom. The pool of reserve manpower represented by millions of unemployed workers had been absorbed labor was becoming scarce, and Roosevelt set a ceiling of 8.2 million on the strength of the armed forces. Mobilization was essentially over, having evolved from its gradual beginnings in 1940, speeding up in 1941, expanding dramatically in 1942, and reaching its peak in production in 1943. For the rest of the way, it was essential for General Marshall and his staff to balance strategy and manpower with sustained high production. Manpower shortages did cause problems late in the war. By 1944, the scarcity was felt nationwide. The Army curtailed some specialized training programs to provide troops where they were most urgently needed and expanded the use of limited service personnel and women for noncombat duty. Despite the problems, the number of soldiers in the Army did not actually peak until May 1945, the month during which the war against Germany ended. By then, the Army’s strength was over 8 million. By mid-1945, production had long ago reached its zenith. Already in 1944 the War Department had looked at demobilization. War still raged in Europe and the Pacific, with the United States bringing to bear an expanding economy while the British neared exhaustion. American planners grasped the need to look beyond the expansion to the aftermath. The Army Industrial College, which had closed just after Pearl Harbor, was back in business, trying to meet the demand for training in contract termination and settlement procedures. After the war, it continued to study the nation’s experience with economic mobilization. The Achievement Despite all of the problems associated with mobilization during World War II, the achievement was remarkable. Exploiting the happy conjunction of circumstances offered by idle resources, the protection provided by its insular position, and the heroic resistance of its Allies, the United States developed produced and delivered a flood of equipment and supplies for its own and Allied troops. The country showed a preeminent capability for what R. Elberton Smith characterized as “technological warfare on a global scale” and furnished the Allies with decisive economic and industrial power. This accomplishment, nowhere clearer than in the amazingly successful Manhattan Project, was planned and carried out in a way that accomplished wartime objectives with minimum hardship and dislocation. Sometimes execution of this effort was messy, with overlapping agencies and construction and supply lagging behind recruitment, but the World War II experience in the development and use of American industrial capacity may well be remembered as the classic case of economic mobilization, running the gamut from planning, through the buildup, to full-scale war production, and finally, demobilization. Further Readings All areas of mobilization for World War II are well covered in official publications of the Army. On issues related to military manpower, see Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945 (1955). Civilian labor is covered in The Army and Industrial Manpower, by Byron Fairchild and Jonathan Grossman (1959). R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (1959), covers resource allocation, contracting, and procurement, while Lenore Fine and Jesse A. Remington, Construction in the United States (1972), deal with building of troop facilities and industrial capacity. Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air H401RB-39 Forces (1964), by I. B. Holley, Jr., provides separate treatment of purchasing and production for the air arm. CMH Pub 72-32 Matloff, Maurice. “The 90-Division Gamble,” Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, United States Army in World War II. 365- 381. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1990. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0458 E H401RC-40 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in WWII Reading H401RC The 90-Division Gamble by Maurice Matloff Of all the calculated risks taken by General George C. Marshall in World War II none was bolder than the decision in mid-war to maintain the U.S. Army's ground combat strength at ninety divisions. Students of warfare will long debate whether the decision was as wise as it was courageous, as foresighted as it was successful. The decision to limit the Army, ratified in May 1944 on the eve of OVERLORD, was a compound of necessity and choice. A variety of influences played a part in it-national policy, Allied strategy, air power, American technology, the balance between American war economy and manpower, logistical and operational requirements, the needs of Allies and sister services, and General Marshall's faith in the fighting qualities of the American soldier. The decision came at the end of a long series of steps going back to the pre-Pearl Harbor days when American planners had first begun to be concerned about the problem of determining the size and shape of the Army needed for global and coalition warfare.1 In the beginning the military had shared the traditional confidence of the nation at large that there would be sufficient resources and strength to meet the needs of war. Early estimates, in late 1941 and in 1942, of the "cutting edge"-in divisions-needed to win the war were high. In the Victory Program of the fall of 1941, the War Department projected an Army with a peak strength of 213 divisions. The Victory Program was premised on a strategic policy of offensive operations in Europe and on the assumption that the Soviet Army might collapse and the United States and Great Britain might have to defeat the huge armies of Germany unaided.2 Throughout most of 1942 the common assumption in the War Department was that it would ultimately be necessary to support at least two hundred divisions.3 The Washington Army Staff recognized the parallel need of building a far-reaching, heavy-fisted air arm. The blueprint for that expansion, embodied in the 273-air-group program approved in September 1942, was to remain the Army Air Forces guide in World War II. By the end of 1942, despite the turning of the tide of war, General Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, and his advisers were uneasy. They had seen their plan for an early cross-Channel operation-ROUNDUP- scuttled in favor of TORCH (invasion of northwest Africa) and divisions that they had hoped to concentrate in the United Kingdom skimmed off to meet the requirements of the northwest African and Pacific campaigns. This trend reinforced sober second thoughts they were beginning to have about the American manpower problem. To continue what appeared to them to be essentially a policy of drift in Allied strategy raised grave issues about mobilizing and deploying U.S. forces. Supporting a war of attrition and peripheral action, in place of concentrated effort, raised serious problems about the size and kind of Army the United States should and could maintain. H401RC-41 At the same time the conviction was growing that it was becoming both necessary and possible to plan on a more realistic, long-range basis for mobilizing the manpower-and resources-needed to win the war. The transition to the initiative in northwest Africa and in the Pacific appeared to present the opportunity as well as the compulsion to define with greater certainty the main outlines of subsequent operations and to make more dependable estimates of how many trained and equipped units would be required. To establish a proper manpower balance for the United States in wartime was as difficult as it was important. Out of some 25,000,000 Americans physically fit for military service, the absolute ceiling on the number that could be utilized for active duty was estimated to be between fifteen and sixteen million.4 On the surface, it was hard to understand, given this pool of manpower, why there should be any manpower problem at all. Why, if Germany could maintain a military establishment of 9,835,000 or 10.9 percent of its population and Britain could support 3,885,000 or 8.2, did American manpower officials insist in late 1942 that 10,500,000 or only 7.8 percent would be the maximum force that the country could sustain without incurring serious dislocation to the American economy?5 The problem as well as the answer stemmed basically from the fact that the Allies had from the beginning accepted the proposition that the single greatest tangible asset the United States brought to the coalition in World War II was the productive capacity of its industry. From the very beginning, American manpower calculations were closely correlated with the needs of war industry. The Army had therefore to compete for manpower not only with the needs of the other services but also with the prior claims of industry. Cutting too deeply into the industrial manpower of the country in order to furnish men for the Army and Navy might interfere seriously with arming U.S. troops and those of the Allies for the successful conduct of the war. Furthermore, the United States was fighting a global conflict. To service its lines of communications extending around the world required large numbers of men, and great numbers of troops were constantly in transit to and from the theaters. The problem for the Army was not only how much should it receive as its share of the manpower pool but also how to divide that share most effectively to meet the diverse demands made upon it. The progress of the war on the Russian front and the prospective air bombardment over the European continent still left uncertain, at the end of 1942, the Army's ultimate size as well as the number of combat divisions necessary to win the war. It was also still difficult to predict with exactitude the casualty rates to be expected or the reserve strength that would be needed. Postponement of the plan to launch a major cross-Channel operation in 1943 made the need of mobilizing a large U.S. ground army less immediate. Instead, greater emphasis was placed on first developing U.S. air power. Given this and anticipated limitations in shipping, it appeared at the end of 1942 that the projected deployment of a huge air force overseas by the end of 1944 would definitely restrict the number of divisions that could be sent overseas by that time. It was clearly undesirable to withdraw men from industry and agriculture too long before they could actually be employed in military operations. Allowing a year to train a division, the mobilization of much more than a hundred divisions by the end of 1943 appeared to be premature. In late 1942, moreover, materiel procurement plans for the armed services for 1943, particularly for the Army ground program, were revised downward by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in response to a War Production Board recommendation. All these limiting factors pointed to the need for scaling down previous long-range calculations, as well as for effecting economies in manpower within the Army.6 The process of reducing earlier long-range estimates, begun on the War Department and joint planning levels toward the end of 1942, was clearly reflected in the approved Army troop basis for 1943, circulated by G-3 in January of that year.7 This troop basis set the mobilization program for 1943 at 100 divisions. It called for a total Army strength of 8,208,000, a figure previously approved by the President. H401RC-42 This troop basis marked the turning point in War Department and joint Army-Navy calculations. At last these estimates were approaching the ultimate ceiling strengths of the Army. Efforts to formulate troop bases for 1944 and beyond that were being made at the same time pointed to the need for drastic reductions of earlier estimates.8 The planners were working from the old assumption of the late 1941 and early 1942 period that the USSR might be defeated by the Germans, thus forcing on the Allies a far greater and more costly ground effort. Since the effects of the planned bomber offensive from the United Kingdom were also unknown, the planners had had to take its possible failure into consideration. Viewing both of these factors pessimistically, it was inevitable the planners should produce high estimates envisaging a very large ground force. They calculated that it would be far easier to decrease an over-expanded Army than it would be to build up an inadequate one, especially since it took a year to train a division for combat. Add to their dilemma the uncertainties of shipping and production and the lack of firm strategic decisions to guide them and it was small wonder that the planners were overshooting the mark. The JCS, on the other hand, faced with criticism of their use of manpower, had realized that the planners' figures would not be accepted and had turned the manpower problem over to their senior advisers. The Joint Strategic Survey Committee concluded that the Joint Planners had gone astray in trying to match Allied forces, division for division, with the enemy. They held that proper consideration had been given neither to the relative efficiency of forces nor to prospective Allied air superiority and the effect of the bomber offensive on German morale and war effort. They recognized that shipping would determine the amount of force that could be applied, and they believed that Allied superiority in production would also be a controlling factor and should be exploited in every possible way.9 In line with this more optimistic outlook, the Army planners suggested that the most realistic approach to the manpower problem would be to agree upon the maximum number of men that could be inducted into the armed services without impairing the development of U.S. war production capacity. This number would represent the final troop basis, and strategy would be devised in accord with that figure.10 Since the President in September 1942 had approved an Army of 8,208,000 for 1943, 8,208,000 appeared to be the logical figure with which to work.11 In January 1943, G-3 warned that the 8,208,000-man Army might approach the limit of manpower available and that adjustments from within would have to be made to secure the kind of Army needed to win the war.12 Faced with the prospects of a declining manpower reserve and an improving strategic situation, the Army reviewed its employment of men in the continental United States. Early in January Marshall set up the War Department Manpower Board, with Maj. Gen. Lorenzo D. Gasser as its president, to make specific recommendations for reducing the forces assigned to the zone of the interior.13 In consonance with this economy drive, Marshall approved-in February-a new Army troop basis that called for an enlisted strength of 7,500,000 and between 120 and 125 divisions, for June 1944. The over- all goal for 1943 of 8,208,000, which included officers, was retained on the ground that such a force would be necessary to take advantage of any favorable opportunities that might come to pass.14 Defense of these requirements before the Senate and against such critics as Herbert Hoover was made slightly more difficult by the unofficial opposition of certain Navy officers.15 In early February five investigations on the subject of manpower were going on in the Senate and one in the House. The position of the Army in the face of this Congressional probing rested upon the heavy preponderance of divisions at the disposal of the enemy and the possible disaster that might ensue if the size of the Army was reduced and the disparity in combat divisions increased.16 The War Department correctly gauged the reaction of Congress. Maj. Gen. Alexander D. Surles, director of the War Department Bureau of Public Relations, put it succinctly: "Despite all talk, Congress isn't sure, and members will not risk their political necks by H401RC-43 taking a position where they might be charged with sabotaging the war effort. They will talk, but they won't act."17 Nevertheless, in order to fortify its own thinking and planning on mobilization, the Army decided that it should also conduct an investigation. In accord with the earnest efforts of the Chief of Staff to trim Army requirements, the Operations Division in February designated a special committee, headed by Col. William W. Bessell, Jr., to recommend changes in the current military program indicated by shifting strategic conditions. The main question the committee was to investigate was the efficacy of building up foreign forces-such as the Free French-as opposed to arming U.S. troops, and the comparative effects of these alternatives on the American manpower situation and on Allied efficiency in prosecuting the war.18 This was a rephrasing of the thorny problem-how far to go in aiding Allies-which the Army planners had faced from the very beginning and were to continue to face. The Bessell committee survey revealed that little could be gained by increasing the volume of international aid to the Allies at the expense of the development of U.S. forces. Equipping the manpower of nations, other than the Soviet Union and Great Britain, with arms and munitions would not substantially increase the total amount of effective manpower that could be placed in combat, nor would it put troops into combat more quickly than would the current program for preparing American troops for active service overseas.19 In late April the committee scaled down its estimates of the ultimate strength from 185 to 155 divisions and accepted an 8,200,000-man total as the planning ceiling figure-the "maximum strength" for the Army imposed by manpower limitations. It recommended that the U.S. Army, and especially the Air Forces, be developed to the maximum strength practicable within the estimated limitations on armed forces and be deployed as quickly as possible.20 The committee concluded that the time had definitely come for long-term programming to guide the war machine developing in the United States. Since adequate training for a division required a year, mobilization and production had to be planned well in advance. Mobilization and production had, therefore, to be linked to national policy and strategic planning. The basic strategy of the United States was still sound and should be adhered to, and "any tendency to disperse our forces to other than the main effort [should] be avoided." What was required, the committee decided, was a broad and long-range strategic plan for the defeat of the enemies of the United States whereby requirements might be balanced against means and resources and then translated into a realistic military program. In this connection, the committee warned that the American public wearied quickly of war and would not countenance any slow process of attrition.21 In April the need for careful manpower budgeting was further emphasized. The War Manpower Commission, informing the armed services that approximately 1,500,000 men could be furnished to them in 1944, stated that this figure would be close to the limit of those that could be withdrawn from the manpower pool without jeopardizing war production, transportation, and essential civilian services. The Army estimated that by vigorous economy it would be able to save about 485,000 men during the remainder of 1943. Since the Army-Navy requirements for replacements alone would run about 971,000 for 1944, there should be a cushion of about one million men to fill the need for new units and to meet emergencies. At this time the War Manpower Commission estimated 11,300,000 men, and the Joint Staff Planners 10,900,000, as the number that could be kept in uniform indefinitely. The JPS went so far as to recommend no increase in the Army for 1944 over the approved 1943 Army Troop Basis goals-8,200,000 total strength and 100 divisions (though the latter was already a somewhat dubious figure).22 As the TRIDENT (Washington) Conference between the Americans and the British approached its close in late May 1943, a deepening realization that careful examination of troop strength and its employment was a "must" led the Army to attempt a correlation between the military program and the requirements imposed by the conference decisions. At this point General Marshall and his assistants took H401RC-44 what proved to be an important step in calculating the wartime Army troop basis. A Committee on the Revision of the Military Program was appointed in the War Department General Staff to study that program carefully in an effort to revise it downward. This committee, composed of two Operations Division officers, Col. Ray T. Maddocks and Lt. Col. Marshall S. Carter, and Col. Edwin W. Chamberlain, G-3, was to examine the threat of over-mobilization and "to investigate the possibility of decreasing the total number of ground divisions required in our troop basis."23 It was anticipated that the findings of the committee would serve as a guide to determining the ultimate strength of the Army and the subsequent mobilization rates. Early in June 1943 the committee (informally called the Maddocks Committee since Colonel Maddocks was the steering member) issued its general report.24 Its studies confirmed the need for reducing the number of divisions-a view that had been gaining increasing support since the end of 1942. The strategic basis for this conclusion was in part the demonstration by the Soviet armies of their ability to check the German advance. Another significant factor brightening the strategic picture was the improving prospect of gaining air superiority over the Continent. These developments finally made obsolete the initial Victory Program estimates of 1941. The committee made three basic recommendations. First, it proposed the reduction of the strength of the Army authorized for 1943 from 8,248,000 to 7,657,000.25 Second, it called for modification of the current troop basis to provide a balanced force built around eighty-eight divisions, the number already activated. The twelve additional divisions scheduled for activation during the remainder of 1943 were to be deleted from the 1943 program. Third, it recommended that the ultimate size of the Army and of the major units in it (air and ground) should be decided at the end of the summer. The ultimate size of the Army was largely to depend on the course of Soviet-German fighting and the effectiveness of the combined British-American bomber offensive in Europe. If the outcome of the fighting on the Soviet front and of the combined bomber offensive was favorable, the committee believed that an ultimate strength of one hundred divisions would be necessary to win the war. To defeat Germany would require between 60 and 70 divisions, and from 30 to 40 divisions would be needed for operations against Japan and for a strategic reserve. After the downfall of Germany, additional divisions could be transferred from Europe to defeat Japan.26 In mid-June 1943 General Marshall and the Secretary of War approved the committee's general report.27 The Chief of Staff informed the press that the activation of twelve additional divisions would be deferred until 1944. Lest this news lead the American public to overconfidence and a relaxation of the war effort, and obversely, lest the enemy conclude that the reduction signified that the United States was unable to fulfill its mobilization schedule, he requested that the information be kept in confidence.28 On 1 July 1943 the War Department circulated a new, approved troop basis for 1943. In accord with the committee's recommendations, it provided for 88 divisions and an Army strength of about 7,700,000. Two provisional light divisions, which were also authorized, soon were given permanent status. As a result, the new troop basis for 1943 envisaged a 90-division Army. Reduction of the early 1943 Troop Basis of 8,208,000 to 7,700,000 men, approved by the President in November, was accomplished by the more or less general acceptance of the 90-division limit as the "cutting edge" necessary to win the war. Within this limit the character of the cutting edge changed considerably. There was a definite trend toward increasing infantry and airborne divisions during 1943 since strategic and tactical demands as well as the need to save shipping space favored the use of forces that were not so heavily armed or so completely motorized. As a result, a decrease in the rate of activation of armored divisions was ordered and motorized infantry divisions were reconverted to standard infantry divisions. At the end of 1942 there had been 52 infantry, 2 cavalry, 14 armored, 2 airborne, and 4 motorized divisions in the Army-74 in all. One year later there were 90 divisions in existence-67 infantry, H401RC-45 2 cavalry, 16 armored, and 5 airborne. The 16 new divisions activated during 1943 represented less than half the number of divisions-38-activated in 1942. Accumulation of activated and trained divisions in the United States began to mount during 1943 because of the imbalances in shipping and the strain on port capacities and in the absence of final strategic decisions.29 Training camps were crowded and it was difficult to activate additional divisions-only 13 divisions moved overseas during the year as compared with 17 in 1942. This left 60 divisions in various stages of readiness scattered throughout the United States. Many, however, were neither at full strength nor fully equipped, since replacements often had to be drawn from the newer divisions and the outfitting of French divisions in northwest Africa had produced shortages in equipment.30 When in late 1943 new demands for manpower were made to operate the B-29's, to provide for the rotation program, and to keep the Army Specialized Training Program going on a reduced basis, any possibility of organizing another fifteen divisions in 1944, as had been planned in mid-1943 and approved in the Victory Program Troop Basis of October 1943, appeared doomed.31 With the activation of a new division in August 1943, the 90-division program was fulfilled. Henceforth, problems of reserves and narrow margins of safety became nightmares to disturb the planners' dreams. The question whether 90 divisions would be enough was to plague the War Department down to the end of the war.32 In early 1944 the requirements in troops for the cross-Channel attack (OVERLORD) accentuated certain Army-wide manpower pinches and made the planners take another serious look at the Army troop basis. During the Cairo-Tehran Conference, the Joint Logistics Committee had estimated that there would be a serious shortage of service troops during 1944 for the war against Japan, and also a shortage of men for the B-29 program. The committee suggested that the Army troop basis be revised to anticipate these shortages and that the United States take a calculated risk and eliminate the fifteen infantry divisions that were to be set up in 1944. This would leave the Army with 90 divisions-43 for the war in Europe, 7 for North Africa, 22 for the Pacific, and 18 for the continental reserve. If necessary, service troops could be organized from the eighteen reserve divisions.33 A report of the Operations Division's Strategy Section in late December 1943 substantiated this estimate that 90 divisions would be enough to win the war, although it allocated 58 divisions for Europe and North Africa, 25 for the Pacific, and kept only 7 in the reserve. The Strategy Section recognized the possibility that the Army might not be able to activate the additional fifteen divisions and remain within the 7,700,000-man ceiling adopted in November. The economy program had released some 212,000 men for reassignment during 1943, but Selective Service had fallen behind in its inductions, and the War Department was 200,000 men short of its 7,700,000 goal. On top of this, the rotation program approved in December would require 60,000 men during 1944, and the Air Forces had requested 130,000 men for its B-29 program. Even if Selective Service were to meet its quotas in 1944 and make up the 200,000-man deficit, there would be a cushion of only 22,000 men left over from the 212,000 recovered from the economy program. Besides, the Strategy Section concluded, there were no firm requirements for the fifteen additional infantry divisions.34 The activation of the fifteen divisions was deferred, but the continuing scarcity of service troops led Marshall to call a conference of theater G-4's in Washington in late January to consider the problem. Writing personally to several theater commanders he requested their aid in effecting any economies possible and recommended a number of expedients to relieve the deficiency in service troops.35 The Army was trying desperately to stay within the 7,700,000 ceiling and to meet needs from within by rigid economy and adjustment. Discussing the whole Army personnel problem frankly with the Joint Chiefs in early February Marshall pointed out that the ground forces were short about 87,000-97,000 troops and were forced to take men from other divisions to fill up those going overseas. Economies had produced a saving of 100,000 men but the need of manpower for the B-29 program had eaten this up. H401RC-46 Now there was a deficiency of 100,000 service troops for OVERLORD, the invasion of southern France (ANVIL), and western Pacific operations, and a large number of tactical units were being used to help in the housekeeping of training establishments in the United States in order to release service forces for overseas duty. The need for service personnel often resulted in abbreviated training periods and less efficient troops. Marshall estimated that replacements and rotation fillers, added to induction shortages and ground force and service deficiencies, made the present deficit between 340,000 and 400,000 men.36 Marshall decided that the time had come for drastic action. The Army, he concluded, could not justify, in the face of such personnel shortages, the Army Specialized Training Program that had been set up to educate some of its more intelligent men in colleges. On 10 February, he cut back this program to 30,000 men, releasing 120,000 for distribution, mainly to ground and service forces. Later in the month he was able to secure Presidential pressure on the War Manpower Commission and the Selective Service to review occupational deferments and to provide the forces required by the armed services.37 By spring, most of the induction backlog had been made up. Easing the manpower situation still left the haunting question whether there would be enough strategic reserve in the Army troop basis to ensure the defeat of Germany once the troops were ashore in France. Of all the calculated risks taken by Marshall and his staff in preparing for invasion of the Continent, the greatest was the decision to hold to the 90-division troop basis. Even on the eve of OVERLORD, there were uneasy doubts in high Washington military circles about the gamble. On 10 May Secretary Stimson, long an advocate of a bold cross-Channel move, raised the issue with General Marshall. Stimson wrote: I have always felt that our contribution to the war should include so far as possible an overwhelming appearance of national strength when we actually get into the critical battle. By this I mean not merely strength on the battle front but in reserve. It has been our fate in two world wars to come in as the final force after the other combatant nations had long been engaged. Our men have thus come to the field untested, even when well trained, to fight against veteran enemies. Such conditions make the appearance and possession of overwhelming strength on our part important both tactically and psychologically.38 Stimson feared this might not be the case on the Continent in 1944. Against the estimated fifty-six German divisions that were to defend France, the United States would have barely more than an equal number available for the offensive by the end of the summer. The average age of the men in the American divisions was now rather high, and the Army would need a large number of replacements. Army calculations, both in the European theater and in the United States, seemed to Stimson "to shave the line of sufficiency rather narrowly instead of aiming at massive abundance." When all the OVERLORD divisions had left the United States, there would remain in the United States only fourteen uncommitted divisions. These would constitute practically the only reserve for operations in France. The British could offer no such reserve to assist the United States. As a result, the Germans would not get a picture of overwhelming strength opposing them. Furthermore, the estimated German reserve of eleven divisions was almost as large as the American reserve. The German Army was better fed than in 1918, when German morale did not break. All of this led Stimson to fear that a stalemate might develop in November when climatic conditions on the Continent would reduce the power to maneuver. Even the advantageous factors of intensified air bombardment of Germany and the Soviet advance might not be enough to ensure complete victory. The Russians, he observed, were still a long way from Germany. "Furthermore, the Russians are already reaching boundary lines where they conceivably might stop with their grand strategic objective of national defense satisfied by the eviction of the invader and the gaining back of all they had lost, plus the Baltic states." To forestall a stalemate, Stimson asked Marshall, should not new manpower legislation be sought from Congress before the elections in November? Should not new divisions be activated now by the War Department? H401RC-47 On 16 May, just three weeks before OVERLORD was launched, General Marshall replied. He agreed that everything possible must be done to prevent a stalemate from developing in the fall, but he disagreed with Stimson's analysis and conclusions. Marshall wrote Stimson, “We are about to invade the Continent and have staked our success on our air superiority, on Soviet numerical preponderance, and on the high quality of our ground combat units.”39 Exploiting these advantages, Marshall hoped, would convince the Germans of the futility of fighting for a stalemate. He felt "the air arm should be our most effective weapon in bringing home to the German people and the German Army the futility of continued resistance." As a result of recent conversations between Averell Harriman and Stalin, he also believed the Russians would not break off their current efforts until Germany was defeated. Emphasizing that the Army was relying on the qualitative rather than the quantitative superiority of its ground force units, he declared, "Our equipment, high standard of training, and freshness should give us a superiority which the enemy cannot meet and which we could not achieve by resorting to a matching of numerical strength." Marshall pointed also to the advantages of the replacement system designed to keep American divisions in the line at full strength, the preponderance of artillery, and the employment of air superiority in close tactical support. Even on a strictly numerical basis, Marshall thought that the American divisions would eventually compare very favorably with the German forces. Shipping and other logistical factors would limit the build-up in Europe to about 4 divisions a month, but even at that rate, by April 1945 the 59 divisions available to the United States could be utilized. Adding some 21 British divisions, and an additional 10 to 15 U.S. and French divisions that could be made available for employment in France if a defensive position were assured in Italy, the Western Powers would have some 95 divisions to employ against the estimated 56 German divisions. The most troublesome factor, he informed Stimson, would be the comparatively slow rate of American build-up-a direct product of purely logistical limitations. That factor, above all others, might result in slowing down Allied operations, since the Germans, if they felt free to transfer divisions from other fronts, could deploy their forces more rapidly than the Americans could build up theirs. If, however, all current plans failed and a stalemate did occur in November, then Marshall felt new major strategic decisions would be required. A few additional divisions would probably not be enough to break the impasse. If new divisions and supporting units were now created, furthermore, "emasculating drafts" on existing divisions would result and present plans for their deployment would be upset. Thus, he reasoned, no far-reaching changes should be made in the Army troop basis until the outcome of the initial stages of the invasion was clear. "Considering the matter from all angles and with the realization of the hazards involved," Marshall concluded, "I believe that at the present time no increase should be made in the over-all strength of the Army, except as may prove to be necessary to provide replacements." Beyond "prudent" advance staff planning for increasing the troop basis, which he had ordered the War Department General Staff to undertake, Marshall was willing to stand pat. Clearly, he looked upon the Allied divisions in the Mediterranean as part of the strategic reserve for the invasion of the Continent. He was anxious to make what he regarded the surplus American and French divisions in Italy available to support the main effort in France, as earlier he had been to extract seven British and American divisions from the Mediterranean for OVERLORD. Behind the calmly reasoned and formal language of Marshall's reply to Stimson lay one of the boldest calculations of the war.40 How great a calculated risk was being taken was further emphasized by the concomitant willingness of General Marshall and his staff to allocate military manpower for the B-29 program against Japan, instead of investing in more divisions. The remainder of the story belongs to the annals of accomplishment. The strenuous efforts of General Marshall and his staff from early in the war to conserve the precious stock of American military strength H401RC-48 for the desired cross-Channel operation paid off. To support OVERLORD and its follow-up operations, the Army funneled forces into the United Kingdom and later into continental Europe in ever-increasing numbers during the first three quarters of 1944. Actually, more divisions were sent overseas in the first nine months of 1944-the bulk of them going to the European theater-than had been shipped overseas during the previous two years of war. By the end of September 1944, 40 divisions were located in Europe with 4 en route, as against 21 in the Pacific.41 In the air, the preponderance lay ever more heavily in favor of Europe-149 groups were allocated to that struggle as opposed to 57 groups on the other side of the world. With the bulk of the Army's combat strength overseas deployed against the Reich, and with most of the divisions still in the United States slated to go to the European theater, the Chief of Staff and his planners could consider their original concept of "beat Germany first" well on the way toward accomplishment. Although there were still over three and a half million men left in the continental United States at the end of September, there were only some 24 combat divisions remaining. Most of these were to be sent to Europe eventually, but the Army planners had hoped to maintain some of the 24 divisions as a strategic reserve to cope with any unforeseen emergencies. The estimated size of the reserve ranged from 5 to 15 divisions, but no definite decision had ever been made by the Chief of Staff. With Germany supposedly on its last legs, there seemed little need for concern on this score. But there is a postscript to this story that deserves careful reflection. When the crisis caused by the Ardennes breakthrough of December 1944 denuded the United States of all the remaining divisions and left the strategic reserve a memory, the possibility of having raised too few divisions rose again to cause War Department planners from Stimson on down some anxious moments.42 Because of the unexpected developments in Europe, not one division was sent to the Pacific after August 1944. By V-J Day all eighty-nine active divisions were deployed overseas and all but two had seen combat.43 Fortunately the crisis of late 1944 was the last unpleasant surprise. If another had come the divisional cupboard would have been bare. Certain by-products and implications of the decision also deserve serious consideration by postwar students. The decision was a striking illustration of acceptance by Army leaders of the fact that there were limits to their slice of the American manpower pie. The 90-division troop basis represented their attempt to provide a realistic meeting ground of three fundamentals of modern warfare-strategy, production, and manpower. It represented the relatively small, if compact, ground combat force that the country that was also serving as the "arsenal of democracy" found it could provide for a global coalition war without unduly straining the war economy and standard of living of the American people. In the postwar debate over strategy, critics who have characterized the American case for concentration and power-drives as "narrow" and "rigid" have uniformly overlooked the impact of manpower ceilings on that case. It is doubtful that the United States could have succeeded with its 90-division ground combat force had not the ground forces of the Russians and other allies held and fought well. It is also doubtful that the United States could have succeeded with the size and kind of ground cutting edge it produced had not it also turned out an effective, heavy-fisted, long air arm. The self-denying limit on cutting edge of Army ground forces in favor of air force expansion undoubtedly spurred further the growing movement for air force autonomy. It will long be a question whether the photo-finish in World War II reflected an uncommonly lucky gamble or a surprisingly accurate forecast. But few would deny that, in their performance on the field of battle in the critical campaigns of 1944-45, the hitherto still largely untested divisions of the U.S. Army, so largely a product of General Marshall's own faith and struggles, vindicated the bold calculation in Washington. H401RC-49 Notes 1 The subject of this study is treated more fully in connection with mid-war strategic planning in Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959). In addition to the works listed in the notes, published sources that provide helpful bibliographical leads or background are: Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1948); "The Army Re-Shaped," in Kent Roberts Greenfield, The Historian and the Army (New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 1954); and Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War (Washington, 1946). 2 Accounts of the Victory Program planning are contained in (1) Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, 1950), Ch. XI; (2) Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post:The Operations Division (Washington, 1951), Ch. IV; and (3) Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941-1942 (Washington, 1953), pp. 58-62, 350-52, all in UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. 3 In September G-3 reached its peak estimate of about 350 divisions needed to win the war. Memo, G-3 for CofS, 15 Sep 42, sub: Mobilization Plans, War Department G-3 files (WDGCT) 320 (9-15-42). The projected number of divisions grew in 1942, partly because estimated requirements for defeating Japan were superimposed on the original estimates for defeating Germany. 4 Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1945, to the Secretary of War, p. 101. 5 (1) OPD Brief, title: Notes ... 43d Mtg JPS, 28 Oct 42, filed with JPS 57/6 in Operations Division (OPD) files, ABC 370.01 (7-25-42), 2. (2) Memo, Brig Gen Idwal H. Edwards for Lt Gen Joseph T. McNarney, 4 Feb 43, sub: Troop Basis, 1943, War Department Chief of Staff of the Army files, WDCSA 320.2, Sec. III (1942-43). 6 For a discussion of the late 1942 factors influencing Army troop basis calculations see Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington 1947), pp. 214-17. 7 Memo, G-3 for CG AGF and CG SOS, 25 Jan 43, sub: Troop Unit Basis, 1943, WDGCT 320.2 General (1-25-43). 8 The Victory Program of late 1941 had assumed a total of 10,199,101 men for the Army alone by June 1944, and as late as November 1942 the Joint Planners were estimating that 10,572,000 men would be needed for the Army by December 1944. 9 JCS 154/1, 24 Dec 42, title: Troop Basis for All Services for 1944 and Beyond. JCS approved this study at their forty-eighth meeting on 29 December 1942. 10 OPD Brief, title: Notes ... 48th Mtg JCS, 29 Dec 42, with JCS 154/1 in ABC 370.01 (7-25-42), 2. 11 Memo, Admiral William D. Leahy for the President, 30 Sep 42, with JPS 57/D in ABC 370.01 (7 25 42), 2. 12 Memo, Edwards for CGs AAF, AGF, ASF, 29 Jan 43, sub: Reduction in Training Establishments and Other Zone of Interior Activities, WDCSA 320.2 Sec. III (1942-43). 13 (1) Ltr, Marshall to McNarney, 10 Jan 43, and (2) Memo, Gasser for CofS, 11 Feb 43, sub: Missions and Functions of the War Dept Manpower Board and Methods of Procedure, both in WDCSA 334 War Dept Manpower Board. 14 (1) Memo, Brig Gen Patrick II. Tansey and Lt Col Marshall S. Carter for Maj. Gen Thomas T. Handy, 3 Feb 43, sub: Troop Basis Planning, and (2) Memo. Edwards for ACofS, G-1, G-4, OPD, and CGs SOS, AAF, AGF, 25 Feb 43, sub: Troop Basis Planning, both in OPD 320.2, 673. 15 (1) Final Draft of a Text Prepared for Mr. Green of the Senate Military Affairs Committee by SOS with OPD and G-3 Co-operation, 16 Feb 43, title: Size of the Army, OPD 320.2, 678. (2) Memo, Marshall for SW, 5 Feb 43, sub: Manpower, and (3) Ltr, Stimson to Knox, 12 Feb 43, WDCSA 320 SS. (4) Address by Stimson, 9 Mar 43, title: The Size of the Army, OPD 320.2, 678. H401RC-50 16 (1) Min, Gen Council Mtg, 1 Feb 43, OPD 334.8 Gen Council, II. (2) Memo North for Handy, 14 Feb 43, OPD Files, Book 7, Exec 8. 17 Min, Gen Council Mtg, 8 Mar 43, OPD 334.8 Gen Council, II. 18 Memo, Handy for Bessell, et al., 26 Feb 43, sub: Current Military Program, ABC 400 (2-20-43). 19 Rpt by Special Army Committee, 15 Mar 43, title: Survey of Current Military Program, ABC 400 (2-20 43). 20 Rpt by Special Army Committee (Rev.), 28 Apr 43, ABC 400 (2-20-43). 21 Ibid. 22 JPS 57/8, 26 Apr 43, title: Troop Bases for All Services for 1944 and Beyond. 23 Memo, McNarney for Maddocks, Chamberlain, and Carter, 24 May 43, sub: Revision of Current Military Program, filed with Tab G with Rpt by Special Army Committee, 15 Mar 43, in ABC 400 (2-20- 43). 24 Interim Rpt by Special Army Committee, 1 Jun 43, title: Revision of Current Military Program, submitted with Memo, Maddocks, Chamberlain, and Carter for CofS, 1 Jun 43, sub: Revision of Current Military Program, ABC 400 (2-20-43). 25 Forty thousand nurses had been added to the 8,208,000 figure. 26 Interim Rpt by the Special Army Committee, 1 Jun 43, title: Revision of Current Military Program, ABC 400 (2-20-43). In June 1943, soon after the completion of its work, the Maddocks Committee was dissolved. For the committee's studies and recommendations, see especially papers filed in OPD 320.2 and in ABC 400 (2-20-43). 27 Interim Report by the Special Army Committee, 1 June 1943, title: Revision of Current Military Program, filed in ABC 400 (2-20-43) contains General Marshall's recommendations. An attached "Brief" of the report, 7 June 1943, bears the note: "This paper has the approval of the Secretary of War. 6/15/43. G.C.M." 28 Ch. VII (prepared by Maj William P. Moody) in Sec. IIC, "Mobilization, Procurement and Allocation of Manpower," in JCS MS, History of World War II. 29 Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955), Chs. XXV and XXVI. 30 Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley, Organization of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 220-21. 31 (1) Ibid., pp. 231-32. (2) Victory Program Troop Basis, 26 Oct 43, Tab Deployment of Divisions, in Condensed Information Book, 6 Nov 43, Gen Handy's copy, Exec 6, OPD Files. This document bears the typed notation Approved-By Order the Secretary of War-Joseph T. McNarney, Deputy Chief of Staff." 32 (1) John J. McCloy, "In Defense of the Army Mind," in Harper's Magazine (April, 1947), Vol. 194, pp. 341-44. (2) Interv with Brig Gen Frank N. Roberts, 29 Mar 51. (3) Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 476. 33 JCS 581/3, 4 Dec 43, title: Specific Operations for the Defeat of Japan. 34 (1) SS 199, 21 Dec 43, title: U.S. Divisions and Aircraft Required To Win the War, and (2) SS 203, 24 Dec 43, title: Summary of Current Situation With Regard to the 15-Division Proposal, both in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers, Nos. 196-213 (7 Jan 43). 35 (1) Msg, Marshall to Harmon, 27 Jan 44, CM-OUT 10668. (2) Ltr, Marshall to Devers, 27 Jan 44, no sub, WDCSA 320.2, 4. 36 Min, 144th Mtg JCS, 1 Feb 44. 37 (1) Memo, Marshall for SW, 10 Feb 44, no sub; (2) Memo, G.C.M. [Marshall] for McNarney, 18 Feb 44, no sub; and (3) Memo, Marshall for the President, 22 Feb 44, no sub, all in WDCSA 320.2, 19. 38 Memo, Stimson for Marshall, 10 May 44, sub: Our Military Reserves, Paper 42, OPD Files, Item 57, Exec 10. 39 Memo, Marshall for SW, 16 May 44, sub: Increase in the Strength of the Army Secretary of War Files, Staff. 40 See McCloy, "In Defense of the Army Mind," Harper's Magazine (April, 1947). 41 Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, Ch. XXIII and App. D. H401RC-51 42 (1) Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 476. (2) McCloy, "In Defense of the Army Mind," Harper's Magazine (April, 1947), p. 342. 43 The 2d Cavalry Division had been inactivated in North Africa, giving a final total of 89. The 13th Airborne Division stationed in Europe and the 98th Infantry Division stationed in Hawaii failed to get into action. Morton, Louis. “The Color Plans, 1919-1938,” In The Legacy of American Naval Power: Reinvigorating Maritime Strategic Thought, edited by Paul Westermeyer, 34-43. Quantico, VA: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2019. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0460 E H401RD-52 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II Reading H401RD The Color Plans, 1919-1938 by Louis Morton American strategical planning in the period immediately following World War I was largely conditioned by the postwar political system and by the wide popular reaction against war. The Versailles Treaty, the Washington [Naval Conference] treaties of 1921-22, and the League of Nations (to which Germany was admitted in 1925) gave promise to the war-weary peoples of the world of an international order in which war would be forever banished. That promise seemed to many to have been fulfilled in 1928 when representatives from most of the nations in the world met at Paris to sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.1 Though the United States was not a member of the league, American policy was closely and consciously designed to support the actions of the league in its efforts to further world peace. During these years of disillusion with war, isolationism, and congressional economy, military planning in the United States was largely theoretical. Germany had just been defeated and stripped of military power. Russia was preoccupied with internal problems and, though Communism was recognized as a menace, the Bolshevik regime was in no position to engage in military adventures. Neither France nor Italy had sufficient naval force to attempt any major operation [in, sic] the Western Hemisphere and had no reason to do so in any case. Of all the powers in Europe, only Great Britain was theoretically in a position to engage the United States in war with any prospect of success. The British had extensive holdings in the Western Hemisphere from which to launch attacks on American territory and they had enough dreadnoughts and battle cruisers to obtain naval supremacy in the Atlantic. But the possibility of a contest with Britain was extremely remote, for there was no sentiment for war on either side of the Atlantic. In the Pacific and Far East, the situation was different. Between Japan and the United States, there were a number of unresolved differences and a reservoir of misunderstanding and ill will that made the possibility of conflict much more likely in that area than in Atlantic. Moreover, Japan's position had been greatly strengthened as a result of the war and the treaties that followed. In the view of the planners, the most probable enemy in the foreseeable future was Japan. Thus, U.S. strategic thought in the years from 1919 to 1938 was largely concentrated on the problems presented by a conflict arising out of Japanese aggression against American interests or territory in the Far East. The preparation of strategic war plans involving joint (i.e. Army and Navy) forces—and for all practical purposes this mean [sic] the plans prepared by the American staff—was the responsibility of the Joint Board, predecessor of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reorganized in 1919 to correct defects that had become apparent since establishment in 1903, the board consisted of six members. The Army Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations, their deputies, and the chiefs of the War Plans Divisions of each H401RD-53 of the services. To it came all matters that required cooperation between the two services, either by referral or on the initiative of the board itself. It had no executive functions or command authority and until 1939 reported to the War and Navy Secretaries. Its recommendations were purely advisory, and became effective only upon approval by both Secretaries, and, in some cases, by the President himself. The most notable improvement of the 1919 reorganization was the formation of a Joint Planning Committee to assist the board. Consisting of eight officers, four each from the War Plans Division of the Army and of the Navy, this committee performed the detailed investigation and study required for policy decisions, preparation of war plans, and all other matters involving joint actions of the Army and Navy. It was, in effect, a working group for the Joint Board and made its reports and recommendations directly to that body. The problems considered by the Joint Board after World War I varied widely, but the development of joint war plans constituted, as it had from 1903 to 1913, the major work of the board, with most attention being given to a possible war with Japan—called ORANGE in accordance with the system in effect between 1904 and 1939 of designating war plans by colors, each color corresponding to a specific situation or nation. The mandate to Japan of the German islands in the Central Pacific had given that nation numerous bases astride the U.S. Fleet's line of communication and made American defense of the Philippines in the event of war with Japan virtually impossible. Moreover, in the Five Power Naval Treaty of 1922, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy had promised not to fortify their Far Eastern possessions in return for a pledge by the Japanese to restrain themselves similarly. By this agreement Japan was virtually assured that the Philippines, Guam, and Hong Kong would not become formidable fortresses threatening the home islands. And although Japan had to accept British and American superiority in capital ships at the Washington Conference of 1922, its naval position in the Pacific improved greatly as a result. In the years that followed, while the United States scrapped ships and Japan built them, the strength of the U.S. Fleet relative to that of Japan so declined that it is doubtful if during the 1920's and 1930's it could have met the later on equal terms in the western Pacific. H401RD-54 The first postwar plan for war in the Pacific, developed between 1921 and 1924, reviewed America's unfavorable strategic position and recognized Japan as the probable enemy. The strategic concept adopted by the planners in the event of hostilities was to fight "an offensive war, primarily naval" with the objective of establishing "at the earliest date American sea power in the western Pacific in strength superior to that of Japan." To do this the United States would require a base in that area capable of serving the entire U.S. Fleet. Since the only base west of Pearl Harbor large enough for this purpose was in Manila Bay, it would be essential, said the planners, to hold the bay in case of war and be ready to rush reinforcements, under naval protection, to the Philippines in time to prevent their capture. To the Army fell the vital task of holding the base in Manila Bay until the arrival of the Fleet, but the major role in any war with Japan would be played by the Navy, for success in the Final analysis depended on sea power. War Plan ORANGE made no provision for a landing on the Japanese home islands. Japan was to be defeated by "isolation and harassment," by the disruption of its vital sea communications, and by "offensive sea and air operations against her naval forces and economic life." Presumably it would not be necessary to invade Japan. But the planners recognized that if they could not bring Japan to her knees by these means they would have to take "such further action as may be required to win the war."2 For about fifteen years, the strategic concepts embodied in the ORANGE Plan formed the basis for most American war planning. Variations of the plan were prepared and discussed at length. Every conceivable situation that might involve the United States in a war with Japan, including a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor, was carefully considered and appropriate measures of defense were adopted. At least half a dozen times between 1924 and 1938, the plan was revised, sometimes in response to military changes and sometimes as a result of Congressional sentiment, or because of the international situation. Each time, all the implementing plans had to be changed. The Army and Navy had their separate ORANGE plans, based on the joint plans and complete with concentration tables, mobilization schedules, and the like. In addition U.S. forces in the Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, and other overseas bases had their joint and service plans, as did the defense sectors and continental commands within the United States. Rarely have plans for a war been so comprehensive and detailed, so complete on every echelon, and so long in preparation. But the United States never fought this war, for [War Plan] ORANGE was based on a situation that never came to pass. The ORANGE war envisaged by the planners was a war between the United States and Japan alone. Neither side, it was assumed, would have allies or attack the territory of a third power. It was a war that was to be fought entirely in the Pacific, with the decisive action to take place in the waters off the Asiatic coast. These assumptions by the military strategists of the Army and Navy were entirely justified by the international situation and reflected a reasonable estimate of the most probable threat to American interests, an estimate that was shared by most responsible officials during these years. But the planners did not, indeed could not ignore other possibilities, no matter how remote. Thus, during the same years in which they labored on ORANGE, the joint planners considered a variety of other contingencies that might require the use of American military forces. Among the most serious, though one of the most unlikely, of these was a war with Great Britain alone (RED) which in the planners' estimate could conceivably arise from commercial rivalry between the two nations, or with Great Britain and Japan (RED-ORANGE). The latter contingency was conceded by all to present the gravest threat to American security, one that would require a full-scale mobilization and the greatest military effort. In their study of these two contingencies the military planners came to grips with strategic problems quite different from those presented by ORANGE. A war with Japan would be primarily a naval war fought in the Pacific. So far as anyone could foresee, there would be no requirement for large ground armies. There was a possibility, of course, that Japan would attack the Panama Canal, Hawaii, and even H401RD-55 the west coast, but no real danger that Japan could seize and occupy any of these places. In the unlikely event of a conflict between Great Britain and the United States, there was a real possibility of invasion of the United States as well as attacks against the Canal and American interests in the Caribbean and Latin American. In such a war, the major threat clearly would lie in the Atlantic. Plans developed to meet the remote danger of a RED war, in contrast to ORANGE, called for the immediate dispatch of the bulk of the U.S. Fleet to the Atlantic and large-scale ground operation to deprive the enemy of bases in the Western Hemisphere. As in ORANGE, it was assumed that neither side would have Allies among the great powers of Europe and Asia, and no plans were made for an invasion of the enemy's homeland by an American expeditionary force. This was to be a limited war in which the United States would adopt a strategic defensive with the object of frustrating the enemy's assumed objective in opening hostilities. The problems presented by a RED-ORANGE coalition, though highly theoretical, were more complicated. Here the American strategists had to face all the possibilities of an ORANGE and a RED war-seizure of American possessions in the western Pacific, violation of the Monroe Doctrine, attacks on the Panama Canal, Hawaii, and other places, and, finally, the invasion of the United States itself. Basically the problem was to prepare for a war in both oceans against the two great naval powers, Great Britain and Japan. As the planners viewed this problem, the strategic choices open to the United States were limited. Certainly the United States did not have the naval strength to conduct offensive operations simultaneously in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; she must adopt a strategic defensive on both fronts or else assume the strategic offensive in one theater while standing on the defensive in the other. The recommended solution to this problem—and it was only a recommended solution, for no joint war plan was ever adopted—was "to concentrate on obtaining a favorable decision" in the Atlantic and to stand on the defensive in the Pacific with minimum forces. This was based on the assumption that since the Atlantic enemy was the stronger and since the vital areas of the United States were located in the northeast, the main effort of the hostile coalition would be made there. For this reason, the initial effort of the United States, the planners argued, should be in the Atlantic. A strategic offensive-defensive in a two-front war, American strategists recognized, entailed serious disadvantages. It gave the hostile coalition freedom of action to attack at points of its own choosing, compelled the United States to be prepared to meet attacks practically everywhere, exposed all U.S. overseas possessions to capture, and imposed on the American people a restraint inconsistent with their traditions and spirit. Also, it involved serious and humiliating defeats in the Pacific during the first phase of the war and the almost certain loss of outlying possessions in that region. But the strategic offensive-defensive had definite advantages. It enabled the United States to conduct operations in close proximity to its home bases and to force the enemy to fight at great distance from his own home bases at the end of a long line of communications. Moreover, the forces raised in the process of producing a favorable decision in the Atlantic would give the United States such a superiority over Japan that the Japanese might well negotiate rather than fight the United States alone. "It is not unreasonable to hope," the planners observed, "that the situation at the end of the struggle with RED may be such as to induce ORANGE to yield rather than face a war carried to the Western Pacific."3 This plan for a RED-ORANGE war was admittedly unrealistic in terms of the international situation during the 1920's and 1930's. The military planners knew this as well and better than most and often noted this fact in the draft plans they wrote.4 But as a strategic exercise, it was of great value, for it forced the military planners to consider seriously the problems presented by a war in which the United States would have to fight simultaneously in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In an era when most war planning H401RD-56 was focused on the Pacific and where Japan seemed the most likely enemy, this experience may have seemed irrelevant. But it was to prove immensely useful in the plans developed for World War II. By late 1937, the assumptions that had given to ORANGE planning its prime importance during the past decade and a half had become of doubtful validity. International events had created a situation that made it increasingly unlikely that a war between the United States and Japan could be limited to these two nations. Germany, Italy, and Japan had joined hands in the Anti-Comintern Pact, and threats or direct acts of aggression were the order of the day in Europe and Asia.5 Great Britain and France, still suffering from the prolonged economic crisis of the early 1930's and weakened by domestic conflicts, remained passive in the face of this threat, seeking to avert armed conflict by a policy of appeasement. In the light of these developments, the Joint Board directed its planners to re-examine the ORANGE plan. In its view, the existing plan was now "unsound in general" and "wholly inapplicable to present conditions." The planners were to develop a new plan which should provide, the board specified, for an initial "position of readiness" along the West Coast and the strategic triangle formed by Alaska, Hawaii, and Panama. In addition, the planners were to make "exploratory studies and estimates" of the various courses of action to be followed after the position of readiness had been assumed. Clearly implied in these instructions was the injunction to consider the possibility that the United States might become involved in a European conflict while engaged in offensive operations in the Pacific.6 In less than two weeks, the Joint Planning Committee reported its inability to reach an agreement. The Army members, viewing the uncertain situation in Europe, were reluctant to underwrite offensive operations in the Pacific beyond those essential to the security of the strategic triangle and the west coast. With the European Axis in mind, they pointed out that political considerations might require limited action and purely defensive operations in the Pacific. To uncover vital areas in the Western Hemisphere for an offensive in the far Pacific seemed to the Army planners foolhardy indeed. Thus, their plan provided for purely defensive operations after the assumption by U.S. forces of a portion of readiness. To the Army planners, the primary problem was to determine the kind of war the United States should fight. Should the situation dictate operations designed only for the defense of the United States or of the Western Hemisphere, then the war in the Pacific might well take on a limited character. It was impossible to determine in advance just what the situation would be, whether the United States would be involved with one or more of the Axis Powers, or even what forces would be available. It might well be, declared the Army planners, that national policy and public opinion would neither require nor support a plan for offensive operations in the Pacific. The Navy members of the Joint Planning Committee argued that American strategy could not be limited to a purely defensive position in readiness but must aim at the defeat of the enemy. Once war began, production must be quickly increased to provide the means required both for the security of the continental United States and for offensive operations in the Pacific. Should the European Axis give aid to the enemy, the naval planners assumed, with Great Britain clearly in mind, that the United States would have allies who would provide the assistance needed by the U.S. Fleet to maintain naval superiority over Japan." The character, amount, and location of allied assistance," they hastened to add, "cannot be predicted."7 The separate reports submitted by the Army and Navy members of the Joint Planning Committee put the choice between the opposing strategies squarely up to the Joint Board. The board avoided the choice by issuing new instructions to the planners on 7 December 1937. The new plan, it specified, should have as its basic objective the defeat of Japan and should provide for "an initial temporary position in readiness" for the Pacific coast and the strategic triangle. This last was to be the Army's job; the Navy's H401RD-57 task would consist of "offensive operations against ORANGE armed forces and the interruption of ORANGE vital sea communications."8 Even under these revised instructions, the planners were unable to agree on the best way to meet an Axis threat. Faced with another split report, the Joint Board turned over the task of working out a compromise to the Deputy Chief of Staff and the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations. These two, after a month of discussion, finally came up with a new ORANGE plan on 18 February 1938. This plan maintained the traditional offensive strategy in the Pacific, but it also took into account the danger of a simultaneous conflict in the Atlantic—the first time this possibility was recognized in ORANGE planning. On the outbreak of a war with Japan, the United States would first assume a position in readiness and make preparations for the offensive against Japan. It would then be ready to meet any unexpected development that might arise, including an attack in the Atlantic. If none did, the Navy would then proceed to take the offensive against Japan with operations directed initially against the mandated islands and extending progressively westward across the Pacific. These operations combined with economic pressure (blockade) would, it was believed, result in the defeat of Japan and a settlement that would assure the peace and safeguard American interests in the Far East.9 Notes 1 The Kellogg-Briand Pact was formally known as General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy. 2 Joint Army-Navy Basic War Plan ORANGE, 1924, Joint Board (JB) 325, Ser. 228. After numerous drafts, the plan was completed and approved by the Joint Board and the Secretary of the Navy in August 1924 and by the Secretary of War the following month. The Preliminary Estimates of the Situation, Joint War Plan ORANGE, and other relevant studies are filed in War Plans Division (WPD) 368; JB 325, Ser 207; JB 305, Sers. 208 and 209; General Board 425, Ser 1136. 3 Proposed Joint Estimate and Plan-RED-ORANGE, prepared in WPD (Army) and approved by Chief of Staff, 3 June 1930, as basis for joint plan, G-3 Obsolete Plans, Reg. Doc. 245-C. Additional material on RED-ORANGE may be found in same file 245-A through F and in WPD 3202. No joint plan was ever approved. 4 In 1923, the Army draft of RED-ORANGE started with the statement, "Under existing conditions a coalition of RED and ORANGE is unlikely," and twelve years later the Director of Naval Intelligence, commenting on another draft plan, stated that a RED-ORANGE combination was "highly improbable" in the next decade, if at all. Army Draft RED-ORANGE, 1923, Reg. Doc. 245-F; Ltr. Director ONI to Director WPD, 27 Jun 35, sub: Jt Estimate of Situation, RED-ORANGE, copy in WPD 3202. By 1935, planning for such a war had virtually ended. 5 The Anti-Comintern Pact was originally made in 1936 between Germany and Japan and then between Italy, Germany and Japan in 1937 to combat against Communist International but also specifically the Soviet Union. 6 Memos, JB for JPC, 10 Nov 37, sub: Joint Basic War Plan ORANGE, JB 325, Ser. 617, and Col. S. D. Embick for WPD, 3 Nov 37, same sub. AG 225. 7 Army and Navy Members JPC to JB, 28 and 30 November 1937, sub: Joint Basic War Plan ORANGE, JB 325, Ser. 617. The Army plan is in appendix A, the Navy’s in appendix B. See also, Col W.J. Krueger, draft memo, sub: Some thoughts on Joint War Plans, 22 November 1937, AG 225. 8 JB to JPC, directive sub: Joint Basic War Plan ORANGE, 7 December 1937, JB 325, Ser. 618. 9 Joint Basic War Plan ORANGE, 21 February 1938, JB 325, Ser. 618. The plan was approved by the secretary of the Navy on 26 February and the secretary of War two days later. Pearlman, Michael D. “Force Structure, Mobilization, and American Strategy for Global Coalition War,” in C610 Advance Book. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College, 1996: 170-182. [12 pages] CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0461 E H401RE-58 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II Reading H401RE Force Structure, Mobilization, and American Strategy for Global Coalition War by Michael D. Pearlman Public Opinion, Intervention, and a Mission for the Army Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the defense policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration reflected the mood of most Americans: they would risk aid to Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, but did not want an active combat role in World War II. In mid-1941, public opinion polls, 57 to 67 percent of the respondents, said that it was more important to see Germany and Japan defeated than to remain at peace, and 83 percent believed that American involvement was inevitable. At the same time, only one-third said that they favored a declaration of hostilities. As Admiral Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, told a subordinate back in February: “the difficulty is that the entire country is in a dozen minds about the war.”1 With public support so weak and unstable in the period before Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt's policy was not to have a policy, at least as far as Webster's Dictionary defines that term: "a definite course or method of action . . . to guide and determine present and future decisions." As a result, the high command of America's armed forces never felt they knew the president's strategy for national defense. Was it intervention or deterrence? Was it military aid to the Allies, hemispheric defense, or unconditional surrender by the enemy? Without an answer to the question: "Where should we fight the war, and for what objective?" the military services complained that they could not mobilize, field, and train an appropriate military force. Out of frustration for the lack of direction of towards a "definite objective and plans,” Admiral Stark and General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, jointly devised their own long-range strategy, subsequently known as the “Plan Dog” Memorandum. Among other things, it proposed “rapid increase of Army strength” (later defined as 217 divisions) and the concentration of resources on the European theater: the United States “should direct [its] efforts towards a strong offensive in the Atlantic as an ally of the British,” but it should “do little more in the Pacific than remain on a strict defensive” along an Alaska to Hawaii to Panama perimeter. The British chiefs of staff strongly agreed with this geographical priority in subsequent talks with their American counterparts, who already had sent the document to the White House a few days after the 1940 election to prod guidance from the president, now that he supposedly had more political freedom to act.2 The president would not approve the memorandum, but neither would he reject or offer alternatives to it. Aside from continuing assistance to England, Roosevelt’s belated response was trite and noncommittal: “our military course must be very conservative until our strength developed.” Then what? Admiral Stark wished to know. “To some of my very pointed questions, which all of us would like to have answered, I get a smile or a please don’t ask me that.” The result was a case of continuous confusion. We have “a more or less nebulous national policy,” the head of Army war plans wrote General Marshall in July 1941. “I do not profess to understand the precise military objective of our Army,” said the head of ground forces H401RE-59 training the day before Pearl Harbor. The secretary of war said in late 1940 that tracking Roosevelt’s ideas was like “chasing a vagrant beam of sunshine around the room.”3 Aside from leaving the final decision for war up to the Axis, Roosevelt did have a rather vague plan of operation. Before Pearl Harbor, he tried to coax America to aid Britain, Russia, and China by depicting a war fought on the cheap. In the 1920s and 30s, when Americans said that World War I had been folly, they invariably thought of trench warfare on the Western Front, not naval or aerial operations. In Roosevelt’s most prominent antiwar pronouncement, delivered three months before the 1936 election, the president told the electorate: “I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud.” Now, beginning in late 1937, Roosevelt described capital-intensive methods of applying military power in “a modern way.” Large ships and heavy bombers would wreck the enemies’ economy; thus no need for national mobilization to fight their armies on the ground. Because Japan depended on sea lines of communications, Roosevelt supposed that America could deter it from aggression or bring it “to her knees within a year” by blockade: “a comparatively simple task [for] the Navy.” America could also exploit what the chief of naval operations called Japan’s “unholy fear of bombing,” incendiaries launched on “inflammable cities” built with paper and wood.4 Unlike the president, most of the American people were skeptical that the war could be won from the sea and the sky. Sixty-five percent told one public poll in September 1941 that if America declared belligerency, it would have to send a ground force to Europe. It was this “tremendous fear of another A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Force] with its heavy losses,” on leading interventionist wrote the White House in November, that kept public sentiment stuck at the stage where some 30 percent, at best, approved a declaration of war. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, opinion polls stated that although a majority would declare war if Britain were losing, only 47 percent favored sending a large Army to Europe, even if Germany could be defeated no other way. As the President told his secretary of war, the Army’s own “assumption that we must invade and crush Germany” would elicit “a very bad reaction.”5 At Pearl Harbor, the Japanese answered on basic question that had mystified the U.S. Army and the president of the United States: how would America ever enter the war? That issue was now settled, but military strategy still lacked firm form and direction. Dwight Eisenhower, then the director of Army war plans, noted in his journal on January 1942: “The struggle to secure adoption by all concerned a common concept of strategical objectives is wearing me down.” The uncertainty was probably inevitable as long as the enemy had the initiative. Then, in May and June 1942, the U.S. Navy stopped Japan’s advance at Midway and the Coral Sea. Army strategists seized this opportunity to stop what they called “unremunerative scatterization,” “periphery-pecking,” feeding “suction pumps,” plugging “urgent ratholes,” and “giving our stuff in driblets all over the world.” “At long last,” Eisenhower wrote that spring, “if we can agree on major purposes and objectives, our efforts will begin to fall in line and we won’t just be thrashing around in the dark.”6 The Army would soon propose a cross-Channel operation that would concentrate troops in England to invade northwest France in 1942, 1943 at the latest. It made this recommendation for several reasons, not the least was the fact that it was an actual strategy; i.e., a policy that gave the Army what its planning staffs called “a target on which to fix [their] sights” and “a definite and consistent long-range strategic concept of operations.” Without a “clear course of action” to coordinate military efforts across America and around the globe, the Army warned that “future planning will be haphazard and at random”—as it had been before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As the head of Army logistics, Brehon Sommervell, continued to complain in 1942 that “those responsible for various phases of supply are forced to make their own uncoordinated assumptions and guesses . . . [about] the placing of orders, production, and delivery.”7 H401RE-60 For somewhat different reasons than the Army, Roosevelt was also worried about requisitions, production, and delivery. Pearl Harbor did not immediately discredit the closest thing he had to a strategic concept, his lend-lease-air power-sea power strategy. On 3 January 1942, the president wrote the secretary of war that in the final analysis, victory depended on “our overwhelming mastery in the munitions of war.” America’s Allies, he continued, were already “extended to the utmost” and therefore could not arm their own forces. This clearly implied that “our own fighting forces” would have no special claim on American production. On 14 January, consistent with these guidelines, Roosevelt presented George Marshall with a proposal removing the military chiefs from the direct allocation of munitions, henceforth in the hands of Roosevelt, Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and their closest civilian assistants—in Roosevelt’s case, Harry Hopkins, a strong proponent of lend-lease to the Allies. Then and there, Marshall threatened to do what he later called “a very reprehensible thing,” especially for “a military official”; he said he would resign on the grounds that he and the Army could not plan and conduct military operations if they could not control military resources. It may not be too melodramatic to say that the size and mission of U.S. ground forces in World War II hung in the balance before Roosevelt made what he called “a preliminary agreement [to] try it out [Marshall’s] way.”8 As a military strategist, the president of the United States had a great deal in common with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, particularly his statements that “this is not a war of vast armies, firing immense masses of shells at one another.” Both men preferred “a massive preponderance in the air” to a large force on the ground. They placed great hopes, as Churchill told Roosevelt, in “affecting German production and German morale by ever more severe and more accurate bombing of their cities.” They also were averse to long-range planning. “Freedom of action” was one of Roosevelt’s favorite phrases; across JCS memos, he scribbled “no closed minds.” Churchill, being a man of letters, said the same thing with a flourish. “In swiftly changing and indefinable situations, we assign a large importance to opportunism and improvisation, seeking to live and conquer in accordance with the unfolding event.”9 The British Versus the American Army Way of War Like Churchill, the senior leadership of the British Army was hoping to take advantage of a fortuitous event. It remembered its frightful casualties during attrition battles waged in World War I—the Somme, Passchendale, etc. they also remembered their own surprise in August and October 1918, when English tanks and planes spearheaded attacks that captured up to 65,000 German soldiers and 700 heavy artillery guns. In World War II, the English wanted to make the first major battle of the cross-Channel operation a replica of their last battles in World War I. Then, according to a British joint intelligence prediction, “collapse may, as in 1918, ensue with a startling rapidity.”10 For that to happen, British strategy in 1941 maintained that Allied air forces and naval blockades should first produce “great misery” in Germany’s civilian population. Concurrently, covert agents would stimulate resistance movements from Norway to Greece (“set Europe ablaze,” as Churchill put it). Allied armies should mobilize their best soldiers to engage second-rate German units in a secondary theater “where only comparatively small forces can be brought into action”—for example, North Africa. “If we could achieve [this] series of successes even though these might be comparatively small in extent, it seemed fairly certain,” to the British chiefs of staff, that “a point would be reached at which Germany would suddenly crack.” Then—and only then—should the Allies mount a cross-channel invasion. Under this strategy, “there would not be needed vast armies on the continent such as were required in World War I. Small forces, chiefly armored, with their power of hard hitting, would be able to quickly win a decisive victory.”11 The American Army’s senior officers also wanted a quick and decisive victory against Germany (who did not) and, remembering World War I, also thought that it could come suddenly, without expectation. Nonetheless, they and their staffs called British strategy “groping for panaceas.” Americans had their own H401RE-61 memories of the fall of 1918, when they attacked what were said to be low-quality and exhausted German divisions in an undermanned sector. Despite the U.S. Army’s initial nine-to-one advantage, it still suffered 122,000 casualties prying the enemy out of their machine-gun nests and pill boxes. In World War II, men who fought the Germans in the Meuse-Argonne offensive—Marshall, Lesley McNair, and Brehon Sommervell, the chiefs of Army, ground, and service forces, respectively—said that “to expect their [the German and Japanese] collapse for internal causes is idle, wishful thinking”; no realistic way to win the war. “Our troops must meet the Germans and the Japanese on the battlefield and in such numbers as to deliver telling and decisive blows.” Then and only then, the enemy might collapse.12 Obviously, American and British Army officers had very different military doctrines. (“In so many things,” George Marshall said after the war, “we just didn’t understand them and they certainly didn’t understand us.”) It is no surprise that Winston Churchill sided with the British; so did Franklin Roosevelt before mid-1943. At best, he was profoundly ambivalent about the Army’s proposal to invade the Content in 1942 with “whatever personnel and equipment is actually available at the time.” George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower needed Soviet soldiers to tie down Germans in the East if the U.S. Army was ever to assault enemy beachheads in France and play a major role in the European theater. The alternative was that this war would be won by some variant of the air power-sea power-lend-lease strategy, something for which the Army never had much faith. Ground forces, with relatively minor responsibilities against Germany, would inevitably be sucked into the Pacific at the expense of Europe First: the global strategy to which the Army subscribed. Like his senior officers and strategists, Roosevelt was also anxious to open “a second front to compel the withdrawal of German air forces and ground forces from Russia.” However, his military motives were a bit different. FDR needed a Soviet survival if his lend-lease strategy was to have any feasibility at all. Somebody had to bell the German cat. Even those Britons who predicted a sudden collapse of Germany said that the collapse would only occur after a futile “winter campaign in Russia.”13 Roosevelt needed the Soviet Union. He also wanted a tactical victory before the 1942 Congressional elections, as he later admitted to Eisenhower. Unfortunately, FDR’s political agenda was incompatible with Eisenhower’s plan to launch five or six Anglo-American divisions in an operation that was “sacrificial” (Marshall later called it “suicidal”) and strictly designed “to keep 8,000,000 Russians in the war.” On the eve of Pearl Harbor, the War Department predicted “unduly heavy losses” the first time Americans fought the Germans. Now, in July 1942, Eisenhower gave the invasion “about 1 [chance] in 5” to establish a beachhead and then hold on by its fingertips. Even if this operation had performed its function by diverting twenty-five German divisions to northwest France its high cost would have shocked the complacent U.S. public, which still did not realize, in George Marshall’s words, that they were in “a stern, tough war.”14 Roosevelt may have had good political reasons to discard the Army’s plan to invade Europe. He also had good political reasons to avoid the appearance that he was rejecting professional military advice. He therefore did it in a deft and indirect manner by getting his friend Winston Churchill to say “no” instead of him. Both men wanted to retain firm control of their nation’s war effort, and both were under great criticism in 1942. Roosevelt had been surprised at Pearl Harbor and had lost the Philippines. The prime minister’s military plans had failed in Norway, Singapore, Greece, and Crete, not to mention Gallipoli in World War I. Then, the day after Eisenhower told the JCS that ground forces could hold a beachhead on the European continent, just as “Tobruk had been held,” Tobruk (the last British strongpoint in Libya) fell to the Germans on 21 June.15 The fall of Tobruk, according to American newspaper reporters in London, created a “supreme political crisis” for Churchill, already in a state of emotional depression and physical exhaustion because of the string of prior defeats. His opponents in Parliament, demanding a vote of no confidence, said that the prime minister “wins debate after debate and loses battle after battle. The country is beginning to say H401RE-62 that he fights debates like a war and the war like a debate.” True or not, Churchill’s direction of the British war effort had been under continuous criticism since March 1942, when barely 35 percent of the public said that they approved the government’s conduct of the war. Churchill could not survive another military disaster like Tobruk. Churchill knew it, Roosevelt knew it (and constantly worried about it), and if Churchill might have overlooked it, Roosevelt was there to remind him. Through confidential messengers, Lord Louis Mountbatten and Harry Hopkins, FDR referred to the cross-Channel operation as a “sacrifice landing,” a so-called causal remark that deeply disturbed the prime minister. The president also said that he “inclined to support continuing the campaign in the Middle East.” Consequently, Roosevelt knew what was on Churchill’s mind when he sent Hopkins, George Marshall, and Admiral Ernest King, the new chief of naval operations, to London in July to get the prime minister’s agreement to launch an Anglo-American invasion (at least three-fifths British) across the English Channel that fall. One doubts whether Roosevelt was shocked when Churchill vetoed the proposal in favor of an Anglo- American operation in North Africa. In private meetings and confidential letters, the prime minister had repeatedly told the president that “no responsible British military authority” thought the cross-channel plan had “any chance of success.”16 One doubts Admiral King was disappointed. At Guadalcanal, he was about to create what he called “an active fighting constituency in the Pacific with a rightful call on American resources before the Allies undertook major operations against Germany.” The U.S. Army, on the other hand, was hardly benign. Eisenhower called the decision not to invade France “the blackest day in history.” George Patton, about to lead forces ashore at Morocco, agreed that “the operation is bad and is mostly political.” The secretary of war, Henry Stimson, called it the “wildest kind of diversionary debauch” from something important, that is the Continent. An English undersecretary for foreign affairs visited the War Department in August and reported back to London that he Army was “violently jealous” of Churchill, who allegedly was “dominating and bamboozling the president.” American generals were as friendly to the British “as they would be to the German General Staff if they sat round a table with them.” Stimson, however, knew better than to put all the blame on the British. Churchill, he recorded in his secret diary, had adopted the plan to invade North Africa “knowing full well, I am sure, that it was the President’s great secret baby.”17 The U.S. Army landed in North Africa on 8 November 1942, three months after the Navy upset the Europe First strategy by landing Marines at Guadalcanal. Then, at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Allies decided to occupy Sicily largely to open the entire Mediterranean for new operations. After that, at the Trident Conference in May, they subsequently decided to invade Italy after the occupation of Sicily. Admiral King supported this policy, partly because delay in the cross-Channel operation further enhanced the stature of the Pacific theater, the Navy’s primary concern and the recipient of half of America’s military resources despite the nominal policy of Europe First. The Air Force also approved another Mediterranean campaign because it wanted bases in Italy to bomb south and east Germany, as well as Russian oil fields and refineries. However, to the U.S. Army, this plan meant more delay in confronting the Wehrmacht and in the basic formulation of a strategic concept by which America would fight World War II. The Army had complained about improvisation since November 1940, and their aggravation did not mellow with age. In July 1943, General John Hull, head of the European section of the War Plans Division, wrote Thomas Handy, the division chief: “Until a firm decision is made” about long-term allied strategy, “we are in an indefensible position wherever a question is raised concerning the dispatch of troops to various theaters” around the world. More to the point was the complaint of Eisenhower’s chief of staff in the European theater. Walter Bedell Smith, already nursing an aching ulcer, later confessed to Handy that “this uncertainty and these changes . . . is enough to drive a man insane.”18 The consensus of U.S. Army strategists for a cross-Channel operation began to crack under the strain. They began to accept the Mediterranean strategy in order to get a definitive strategy at all. In July 1943, two colonels in the War Plans Division advised their immediate superiors that because Roosevelt and Churchill had adopted “a time-consuming strategy of pecking at the periphery of Europe,” the Army must H401RE-63 accept the fact that an invasion of northwest Europe would not be “the opening wedge for decisive defeat of the German armies.” Any cross-Channel operation would actually be the “final, as opposed to the decisive, action—decisive action having already taken place in the air over Europe, on the ground in Russia, and at sea,” (which just happened to be Roosevelt’s original strategy). That same month, their boss, John Hull, wrote his boss, Tom Handy, that “although from the very beginning of this war, I have felt that the logical plan for the defeat of Germany was to strike at her across the Channel, our commitments to the Mediterranean” have created their own momentum (which just happened to be what Winston Churchill had foreseen). “We should now reverse our decision, “Hull concluded, and make “an all-out effort in the Mediterranean.” Handy, by August had absorbed these suggestions and was recommending to the JCS that if the British continued to refuse to support a cross-Channel invasion, the U.S. Army must accept “the Mediterranean alternative.” Even Handy’s boss, George Marshall, now urged his JCS colleagues that if Roosevelt and Churchill endorsed more operations in Southern Europe, “the decision be made firm in order that definite plans could be made with reasonable expectation of their being carried out.” Marshall, no doubt, was reflecting the latest world from Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt’s “leg man” to the armed forces and chairman of the JCS, that “we may not mount Overlord,” the code name for the invasion of France.19 Roosevelt and D-Day: Up with the Russians, Down with the British Just as the U.S. Army was beginning to accept, with deep regrets, the Mediterranean strategy, the U.S. president was finally accepting the need to mount the cross-Channel operation. When FDR met with the service secretaries and JCS on 10 august 1943, the before the Quadrant (or Quebec) Conference with the British, he “astonished and delighted” the secretary of war with his definite commitment to Overlord. Exactly why Roosevelt changed his mind must remain hypothetical. He rarely explained himself to his wife, let alone the armed forces. (“My dear Mr. Gunther,” she told one journalist “the President never ‘thinks’! He decides.”) Nonetheless, at least two determining factors appear highly probable in his decision: the failure of the combined bomber offensive in 1943 and fear that the Soviet Union would leave the war in 1944.20 Despite all Roosevelt’s hopes in 1941 to win the war by strategic bombing, by mid-1943, the bomber had been deflated from the winning weapon to one more system in the total Allied arsenal—not much more valuable than tanks or artillery. Four months after the Casablanca Conference announced the bombing campaign against Germany, the Allied political and military high command met in Washington in May to assess its preliminary results. The bad news was that a protracted air supremacy campaign would have to be waged before effective bombing could ever be conducted. “If the German fighters are materially increased in number, it is quite conceivable that they could make our daylight bombing unprofitable and perhaps our night bombing too.” The next six months confirmed the most pessimistic predictions made at a time when Air Force doctrine held that 5 percent losses were barely acceptable. In August, 30 percent of the heavy bombers raiding Ploesti were hit and crashed, each crash losing a ten- man crew. In October, another 214 were shot down, mainly over Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Worst of all, on end seemed in sight. The Allied prediction in November was that the German fighter command would expand 56 percent by mid-1944.21 There was a silver lining to the attrition in the sky. The U.S. Army Air Force had planned to win air superiority over the battlefield, previously owned by the Luftwaffe, by bombing aircraft factories deep in Germany, the highest priority targets in early 1944. They actually won the air war by forcing German production to switch from dive-bombers to short-range fighters dedicated to urban air defense. In subsequent battles over their cities, Germany lost 1,000 planes from December 1943 to April 1944. This was advantageous to the Allies but certainly not decisive since all these material losses were replaced, and then some. (German industry peaked at 25,000 planes manufactured in the latter half of 1944). The decisive number was the loss of some 2,500 pilots, the men who tried to intercept the Allied bombers H401RE-64 escorted by long-range fighters. The latter were the hunters; the former were the “bait,” as bomber crews (suffering the bulk of Air Force casualties) came to describe their role in the war. George Marshall, using far less abrasive language, had predicted this occurrence in mid-1943: “One of our primary objectives [is] to force the Luftwaffe into the air where we can get at it and destroy it.” By June 1944, when the Allies would launch the greatest combined operation in military history (Normandy in the West; Bagration in the East), they had killed most of the German aces, had tactical air supremacy over the battlefield, and a virtual monopoly over the beaches. Soldiers are never so vulnerable as when packed in troop transports or landing craft. On D-Day, it seemed to one British sailor that “the Luftwaffe is obviously smashed.” It conducted only 250 sorties the entire day, just 22 against Allied shipping. Meanwhile, the Allied air forces conducted almost 15,000 sorties of their own. As Eisenhower told American troops before the invasion: “If you see a plane, don’t worry. It’s one of ours.”22 In the air war over Germany, the enemy lost more than control of the sky over the English Channel; it diverted some 30 percent of its heavy guns, 20 percent of its ammunition, 50 percent of its electronics production, and 2 million men to antiaircraft artillery around its cities. Because Germany reduced its force-to-space ratio of men and firepower on the battlefield, it had to leave gaps on the front line or strip itself of reserves, leaving more maneuver room for the Allies no matter what option it chose. In 1944, the great year of the Russian and Anglo-American offensive, the Allies would need tactical air supremacy to offset the inherent advantage the defense had on the ground, especially in places like Normandy, where thick hedgerows and abundant vegetation favored pre-positioned German infantry. The loss of control of the sky in late 1943, according to one senior Allied air commander, indicated that Hitler would have “to accept very serious military handicaps.” The sticking point would then be whether the grand alliance could hold itself together through1944. When the U.S. pledged to invade France at the Tehran Conference in December 1943, that major problem was largely resolved. Roosevelt then told his son, Elliot, a bomber pilot: “Nobody can see how—with a really concerted drive from all sides—the Nazis can hold out much over nine months after we hit ‘em.”23 A firm military alliance with Russia had been Roosevelt’s objective even before he became an active belligerent. In 1941, the president overruled his own Army’s resistance to lend or lease their scarce equipment to keep the Red Army in the war against Hitler. After that, he refused to agree to accept a Japanese empire in North Asia, lest the Imperial Army, with access to America oil and scrap metal, tie down Soviet forces along the Manchurian border when Roosevelt wanted to free them to fight Hitler in Europe. Thirteen months after Pearl Harbor (largely the result of that policy stance), Roosevelt announced his requirement of unconditional surrender, partly to assure Stalin that America would not make a separate peace with Germany. Later, in 1943, he feared that Stalin might take that option himself. American intelligence agencies, which had broken Japan’s diplomatic code, were well aware that in late 1942, Russia had proposed —but Germany rejected—a Japanese-suggested settlement status quo ante bellum. This resurrection of the Stalin-Hitler nonaggression pact (1939) would have enabled Germany to concentrate on Japan’s major enemy, the United States. By mid-1943, Stalin’s bargaining position enhanced dramatically on the battlefield, suggesting that Hitler might request the settlement he previously refused. From July through September, from Kursk to Kiev, Axis armies lost approximately 1,400,000 soldiers, 3,000 tanks, 5,000 planes, and 25,000 field guns along a 650-mile front. Shortly thereafter, Western capitals were rife with rumors about a separate peace in Eastern Europe. Harry Hopkins, convinced Russia could fight one more year before reaching utter exhaustion, suggested this in print two months before the Tehran Conference: “If we lose her, I do not believe for a moment that we will lose the war, but I would change my prediction about the time of victory.”24 When Germany invaded the Soviet Union back in June 1941, the consensus of America's military experts was that Russia would last three more months. Roosevelt, then hoping for a lend-lease way to win the war, sought and received second opinions from civilians in the State Department who supported his inclination to extend military aid to Stalin. The Army, which would have to forego resources for itself, H401RE-65 only agreed initially to token transfers of equipment, surplus ammunition, and machineguns. As for combat aircraft, George Marshall protested on 29 August that "we have been too generous, to our disadvantage." Then, the Red Army changed Marshall's mind for the duration of the war by fighting more effectively than any expert had predicted. In late September, Marshall testified to Congress in favor of extending lend-lease to the Soviet Union: "Whatever we do to keep the Russian Army in the field aggressively resisting the Germans is to our great advantage." By February 1942, the war plans division of the Army, besides endorsing a landing in France, was saying that the United States must "keep Russia in the war by direct aid through lend-lease."25 The Army always knew that lend-lease abroad meant fewer divisions for a new A.E.F. This was part of the compromise implicitly struck with the president. U.S. ground forces would play a far greater role than Roosevelt originally envisioned in 1941, but it would be a far smaller force than the Army foresaw in its "victory plan" that September, when it predicted it would need at least 215 divisions to win the war. The country eventually mobilized 90, while concurrently providing its allies with equipment and supplies equivalent to raising 2,000 infantry or 555 armored divisions. By September 1942, the U.S. Army fully accepted this deficit in division strength, even agreeing to forego inductions, which would limit labor for industrial production. 26 America would mobilize a smaller segment (7.8 percent) of its population than any other power in World War II. Small size, according to General Marshall on the eve of the Invasion of France, would be compensated for by "our air superiority, [and] Soviet numerical preponderance." He therefore opposed the State Department's proposition to withhold military aid in order to restrain Soviet expansion. He also vetoed the proposal of the chief of his war plans division to retain "equipment to create the conditions and forces required for establishing a second front. Victory in the war will be meaningless," General Tom Handy wrote him, "unless we also win the peace. We must be strong enough militarily at the peace table to cause our demands to be respected" by the Russians. In World War I, General John J. Pershing had raised similar points about America's position vis-a-vis its Allies to get Woodrow Wilson to oppose amalgamation with the armies of Britain and France. In 1944, Pershing's disciple, George Marshall, wrote to President Roosevelt that "lend-lease is our trump card in dealing with [the] U.S.S.R. and its control is possibly the most effective means we have to keep the Soviets on the offensive in connection with our invasion of France.” [Italics mine.]27 U.S. Army strategists had invested an enormous amount of time, effort, and prestige in the cross-Channel operation, which the British persisted in calling "a nebulous 2nd front." Until the Army established a secure lodgement in Normandy, its commanders naturally worried far more that the Soviets would not attack and pin down Germans than they worried about the balance of power in postwar Europe. In late June, when the West was still pinned down and might be pushed off the Continent if Germany committed its strategic reserves, Berlin had more immediate problems to face. After laborious planning and detailed preparation by the Red Army, 1,250,000 soldiers, 6,000 planes, 30,000 heavy guns, and 5,000 tanks tore a 250 mile gap in German lines. In twelve days, twenty-five German divisions (some 300,000 soldiers) effectively vanished: "a greater catastrophe than Stalingrad," said its headquarters staff. After the breakout in August 1944, new pressures arose on the JCS to minimize any inter-ally conflicts that could delay the defeat of Germany. After all, the United States still had a war in the Pacific and "with reference to [the) clean-up of the Asiatic mainland, our objective should be to get the Russians to deal with the Japs in Manchuria (and Korea if necessary)." JCS position papers as late as May and June 1945 continued to state that "the maintenance of the unity of the Allies in the prosecution of the war must remain the cardinal and overriding objective of our politico-military policy with Russia." When it came to "big military matters," such as killing German soldiers and taking pressure off American ground forces, especially during the Normandy campaign, the Soviets were certainly reliable, which is more than Anglo- Americans often said about each other.28 H401RE-66 In retrospect, Winston Churchill would admit that the “mass-production style of [military] thought was formidable" at Normandy. Before June, the chief of the British Imperial Staff thought far less of George Marshall's attempt to ensure a massive cross-Channel invasion by "imposing a rigid straight- jacket on Mediterranean operations." ("Our American friends have no strategic outlook." They "imagine that this war can be run by a series of legal contracts based on false concepts of what may prevail six months ahead.") The British found the U.S. Army position particularly disconcerting in late 1943, when "the results of the Russian offensive [after Kursk] are at present incalculable and may produce a rapid German disintegration such as happened at the end of the last war." On grounds the odds were "even money" that Germany would not last through the winter if given no time to recover, Churchill and his senior army commanders renewed their old arguments against reducing resources for on-going operations in the Mediterranean theater. Americans, for their part, thought events on the Eastern Front gave the West an opportunity to prepare a truly powerful blow across the English Channel—just what Stalin wanted since 1942. George Marshall would say about the British that "we just didn't understand them and they certainly didn't understand us." As for military obligations with the Russians, especially in mid-1944, he and Henry Stimson said that "the Soviet government kept their word" and "carried out agreements to the day.”29 The American-Soviet Alliance and the Resurrection of Europe First Tehran, D-Day, and Bagration signified a weakening of the Anglo-American connection vis-a- vis the American-Soviet partnership that won the war in Europe. "It [was] quite obvious" to the secretary of the treasury in early 1944 "that the President is very much impressed with Stalin and not quite so much impressed as he has been with Churchill." London, although displeased with this occurrence, still had a consolation. The British, while delaying a cross-Channel invasion, cursed the American tendency to send half its resources to the Pacific, a very secondary theater, at least for Englishmen. Normandy and the follow-up battles for France, Belgium, and Germany made the original Anglo-American plan for Europe First a military fact. After August 1944 until victory in Europe, not one more U.S. Army division went to the Pacific, despite the campaign in Okinawa and the Philippines—the largest land operations the United States conducted in Asia during World War II. By September 1944, three-fourths of the Army's air groups and two-thirds of its divisions were fighting in the European theater, whereas half were there in 1943. To be sure, thanks to two years of Mediterranean operations, the meaning of Europe First had changed, at least for the United States. It was not what it had been in 1940: to hold an Alaska-Hawaii-Panama perimeter, win in Europe, then (and only then) take the offense in the Pacific with V-J following V-E day by two to three years. In 1942, the United States began a two ocean, simultaneous offensive that changed the dynamics of the global conflict. Europe First then meant beat Germany before beating Japan but minimize the gap between their respective surrenders and end the world war with the bang-bang finish that occurred in 1945.30 Summary: Is the Past Prologue? Army officers, having great responsibility for human life and national well-being, tend to study history for lessons to be learned. Historians, responsible for virtually nothing, are skeptical that history repeats itself. This writer, however, will venture to predict that the major factors discussed in this essay are bound to reappear. The Army will ask for definitive guidance from political figures who will not give it because they are more concerned with flexibility for themselves than clarity for the military. Nonetheless, there is a saving grace in these circumstances. If men cannot predict the course of war, should they give definitive guidance? Perhaps Franklin Roosevelt's ambiguity was profound; perhaps not? H401RE-67 Notes 1 For the results of the public opinion polls, see Theodore Wilson, The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Pacentia Bay, 1941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 232; Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 302; "The Fortune Surveys," Fortune Magazine, 24 (January-December: 1941), passim; Richard W. Steele, "Preparing the Public for War: Efforts to Establish a National Propaganda Agency," American Historical Review 75 (October 1970):1640. Admiral Stark to Admiral Kimmel, 25 February 1941, quoted in T. B. Kittredge, "United States Defense Policy and Strategy, 1941," U.S. News and World Report, 3 December 1954, 59. 2 Admiral Harold Stark to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, 4 November 1940, quoted and the issue discussed in Mark Lowenthal, Leadership And Indecision: American War Planning and Policy Process, 1937-1942 (New York: Garland Press, 1989), 408-14, 424-26; Stark to Knox,' 12 September 1940, in Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946), 14:959; Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, DC Historical Division U.S. Army, 1950), 118-23. 3 Stark (ca. July 1941), quoted in Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Flee Admiral Ernest J. King (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), 139. Brigadier General Leonard Gerow then the director of the bureau of war plans, 16 July 1941, quoted in Watson, Chief of Staff Prewar Plans, 124, 341; Lieutenant General Leslie McNair, quoted in E. J. Kahn, Jr., McNair, Educator of an Army, (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal, 1945), 26; Henry Stimson (18 December 1940), quoted in Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesmen (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 14. 4 Roosevelt (mid-December 1937), quoted and cited in Jeffrey S. Underwood, The Wings' Democracy: The Influence of Air Power on the Roosevelt Administration, 1933-1941 (College Station: Texas University Press, 1991), 100; Secret Diary of Ickes, 2:274-77; Admiral Harold Stark, January and February 1941, quoted in Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 103. 5 Gallup, Gallup Poll, 281, 294; Paul Douglas, quoted in Dallek, FDR and Foreign Policy, 310, Douglas described his interventionist activities in In the Fullness of Time: The Memoirs of H. Douglas (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971), 82-83, 104-5; public opinion mid-November 1941, cited in Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 311; Roosevelt's conversation with Henry Stimson, 25 September 1941, quoted in Mark Stoler, The Politics of the Second Front: American Military Planning and Diplomacy in Coalition Warfare, 1941-1943 (Westport Greenwood, 1977), 12. 6 Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers 1948), 397. For the quotations from Ike, Thomas Handy, GCM, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson; see Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare (Washington, DC: Office of Chief of Military History, 1953-59), 2:12-13, 21, 74, and Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 135. 7 Colonel Ray Maddocks, Army Joint U.S. Strategic Planning Committee, December 1942, quoted in Ray Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (Washington, DC: Office of Chief of Military History, 1951), 173-74; Eisenhower, January 1942, quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 2: 12; joint military staff and war plans officers, quoted in Cline (above), 152-54; Colonel Claude B. Ferenbaugh (April 1943), quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 2:69; Lieutenant General Brehon Somervell (January 1942), as cited in Richard Leighton and Robert W. Oakley, Global Logistics and Strategy (Washington, DC: Chief of Military History, 1955-68), 1:200. 8 Leighton and Coakley, Logistics and Strategy, 1:198, 251; George McJimsey, Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 200-208; H401RE-68 Marshall quoted in Forrest Pogue, George C. Marshall (New York: Viking Press, 1963-87) 2:461, footnote 33; Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 132- 33. 9 Churchill (ca. 10 February 1941), quoted and issue discussed in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 260-62; WSC to FDR, 7 December 1940 and 16 December 1941, Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) 1: 107, 296- 97; Roosevelt, quoted in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 862, and in Leighton and Oakley, Global Strategy and Logistics, 2:62; Churchill, The Second World War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948-53), 3:673. The syntax of the last sentence was slightly modified. 10 For a discussion of the British and the American military experience in the final battle of World War I, see the previous chapter of this book. The quote from the British Joint Intelligence Committee (June 1942) is in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1:237. 11 Churchill to FDR, 7 December 1940, Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1:103; Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 142-45, 150, 352-53; "Meeting of Combined Chiefs of Staff," 16 January 1943, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS: 587, and Atlantic Conference (ca. 11 August 1941) quoted in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 358. 12 Marshall, 9 June 1943, briefing reporters as described in Glen C. H. Perry, "Dear Bart": Washington Views of World War II (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 175; the quotations, in sequence, are from Army war plans staff papers (ca. August 1941), as cited in Stoler, Politics of Second Front, 10; McNair, chief of Army ground forces (1 January 1944), as cited in Kahn, McNair, 6; and Sommervell (25 March 1943), quoted in Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1:698. For the Army's experience in World War I, see David Trask, The AEF and Coalition War making {Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 120-23, 133, 140. 13 Marshall, 15 January 1957, in Larry T. Bland, George C. Marshall: Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest c. Pogue (Lexington, VA: Marshall Research Foundation, 1991), 1289; hereafter called GCM: Interviews; Eisenhower (April 1942), FDR (May 1942), British intelligence estimate (June 1942): all quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare; 1:192, 221-22, 237. 14 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden city, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 195. For Marshall's remark (17 May 1943) and Eisenhower's (20 June 1942), see Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1:238 and 2:131; Gen. Leslie McNair, head of ground forces training, 25-28 November 1941, quoted in Pogue, Marshall, 2:164-165; Eisenhower Journal, 17 July 1942, Alfred D. Chandler, ed., The Papers of Dwight Eisenhower (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970-90), 1:390-91; GCM to General Surles, 26 August 1942, Larry T. Bland, ed., The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1984-), 3:322. 15 Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, Minerva, 1989), 134-40; Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1:239-40. 16 For Churchill's physical and political health, see Brian Loring Villa, Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 51-57; and Gilbert, Road to Victory, 131, 138; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 314-15, 582, 601-2; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service In Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), 423; Stoler, Politics of Second Front, 44; Churchill to FDR, 8 July 1942, in Francis L. Lowenheim, ed., et al., Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York: Dutton, 1975), 222. 17 King, n.d., quoted in Kenneth J. Hagen, This People's Navy, The Making of American Sea Power (New York: Free Press, 1991), 315; Eisenhower quoted in Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 29-30; Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972-74), 2:81-82; Stimson, quoted in Lowenheim, ed., Roosevelt and Churchill, 221; Richard Law (August 1942), quoted in Lowenthal, Leadership and Indecision, 1010; H401RE-69 Stimson Diary, 21 June 1942, quoted in Henry Stimson and McGeorge· Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), 425. 18 Martin Blumenson, "A Deaf Ear Clausewitz: Allied Operational Objectives in World War II," Parameters 22 (Summer 1993):17-20; Weinberg, World at Arms, 591, 599, 662, 774; Hull (17 July 1943) and Bedell Smith (17 March 1943) and Bedell Smith (17 March 1944): both quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 2:205-6, 422. 19 Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! (New York: Henry Holt, 1958), 238-39; Colonels Bissel and Lindsey (25 July 1943), John Hull (16 August 1943), George Marshall (15 August 1943): all quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 2:165-66, 220, 223; Bissel and Lindsey (25 July 1943) and Leahy (26 July 1943), both quoted in Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 2:178-79. 20 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 438-39; Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 644. 21 C.B.O. Plan, 14 May 1943, as quoted in Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 1939-1945 (London: Government Printing Office, 1961), 2:23-24; Kenneth P. Werrell, "The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: The Costs and Accomplishments,” Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 705; Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces, 2:678-706, 849-50; Webster and Frankland (above), 2:45-46. 22 The Germans produced 150 short-range fighters in 1940, 1,200 in 1944; see Lord Arthur Tedder, Air Power in War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1949), 103; for figures on total production, see Wayne A. Silkett, "Air War in Europe," Parameters 25 (Autumn 1995): 119; for priority targets, losses of experienced Luftwaffe pilots, tactical air supremacy, and recognition that bombers were "bait," see Stephen L. McFarland and Wesley Phillips Newton, To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942-1944 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 123, 208-14, and Williamson Murray, Luftwaffe (Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company, 1985), 182, 214, 228; Marshall, 9 June 1943, quoted in Perry, "Dear Bart," 176; for a riveting description by a German of what it meant to lose tactical air superiority on the Eastern Front, see Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier (Great Britain: Sphere, 1978), 310-11; for the air monopoly at Normandy and the quote from a British sailor, see Max Hasting, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 40-43, 81, 122, and Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces, 3:58, 190-95. 23 R. J. Overy, The Air War: 1939-1945 (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 121-22; Deputy Chief of British Air :;:Haff, 27 September 1943, quoted in F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 3:295; Roosevelt, As He Saw It, 194. It is a military rule of thumb that the tactical offense needs three times as many soldiers as the defense at the point of contact on the battlefield. Military theorist Basil Liddell Hart held that if the defense has an adequate force-to-space ratio (which is substantially lower in modem, mobile warfare), the offense may need up to ten times as much combat power as the defense. Hence, the Allies, as well as the Germans, gained a decided advantage on the ground when they used substantial (often about one-third) of their assets on strategic bombing or air defense; see Liddell Hart, "The Ratio of Troops to Space," Military Review 39 (April 1960): esp. 8-14. 24 Waldo Heinrichs, Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 141, 148, 174; Vojtech Mastny, Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941-1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) 74-84; Weinberg, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Union (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984), 253-55. (Some people dispute the accuracy of Soviet military history of World War II. I can only repeat what an American expert has told me (and other experts have supported): "Soviet publications could not lie to the West without lying to themselves, and Russians take World War II too seriously, as a laboratory for national defense, to do that.") Hopkins, "We Can Win in 1945," 100. H401RE-70 25 Marvin D. Berstein and Francis L. Loewenheim, "Aid to Russia: The First Year," in Stein, ed., American Civil-Military Decisions, 101, 115, 146; WPD (28 February 1942), quoted in Cline, Washington Command Post, 149. 26 Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 2:110, 116; the lend-lease statistics are from H. P. Willmott, The Great Crusade (New York: Free Press, 1989), 293; Maurice Matloff, ''The 90- Division Gamble," Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1984), 367-69; Alan S. Milward, War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979), 216. 27 Marshall (16 May 1994), quoted in Matloff, "90-Division Gamble," 378; Stoler, Politics of Second Front, 158; General Thomas Handy (3 March 1943) and Marshall (31 March 1944), quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning in Coalition Warfare, 2:282, 497. 28 British General Alan Brooke, 1 November 1943, quoted In Weinberg, World at Arms, 1079; "JCS Meeting with President," 18 June 1945, in U.S. Department of Defense, The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Military Plans 1941-1945 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1955), 78-79; Operation “Bagration” described and German command headquarters quoted in Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941-1945 (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1984 (originally 1964), 860-65; Joint Strategic Survey Committee of JCS (5 April 1945), quoted and the minimal change in the military's policy towards Russia after V-E Day discussed in Diane S. Clemens, "Averell Harriman, John Deane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 'Reversal of Cooperation' with the Soviet Union in April 1945," International History Review 14 (May 1992): 280, 298-99, 300-303; GCM: Interviews, 20 November 1956, 574. 29 Churchill, Second World War, 5:426; 'British military briefing book for Tehran Conference and:" Alan Brooke quoted in Weinberg, World at Arms, 625, 1073; and Piers Mackesy, "Document: Overlord and the Mediterranean Strategy," War in History 3 (January 1996):103-5; for Churchill's comment about "even money," 1 December 1943, see C. L. Sulzberger, Seven Continents and Forty Years: A Concentration of Memoirs (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 40; GCM: Interviews, 15 January 1957 and 15 November 1956, 289, 342; Secretary of War, Stimson, 23 April 1945, quoted in Clemens, "Harriman, Deane, JCS, and 'Reversal of Cooperation' with Soviet Union," 280. 30 Diary of Henry Morgenthau (no day) January and 7 April 1944, as cited in Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 276; for the American demand to shorten the time gap between V-J and V-E Day, see Cline, Washington Command Post, 334-41. U.S. War Department. AWPD-1: Munitions Requirements of the Army Air Forces. DECLASSIFIED, IAW, EO12958. Washington, D.C., (August 12, 1941). CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0455 E H401ORA-71 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II Reading H401ORA AWPD-1: Munitions Requirements of the Army Air Forces H401ORA-72 H401ORA-73 H401ORA-74 Harrison, Mark. “Resource mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945,” in Economic History Review, 41:2, 1988: 171-192. [21 pages] CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0456 E H401ORB-75 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H401: The Rise of the American Way of War: Global Strategy and Mobilization in World War II Reading H401ORB Resource Mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945 by Mark Harrison In 1946 Raymond Goldsmith (formerly head of the economics and planning division of the U.S. War Production Board) published an estimated balance sheet of war production of the major belligerent powers of World War II. His results are shown in Table 1. Goldsmith commented: The cold figures . . . probably tell the story of this war in its essentials as well as extended discussion or more elaborate pictures: the initial disadvantage of the Western Allies; the surprising stand of the U.S.S.R.; the rapid improvement in the United Nations’ position in 1943; their decisive superiority over Nazi Germany in 1944; and the rapid collapse of Japan once the theater of war was restricted to the Pacific. They back to the full the thesis, dear to the economist’s ear, that whatever may have saved the United Nations from defeat in the earlier stages of the conflict, what won the war for them in the end was their ability to produce more, and vastly more, munitions than the Axis.1 Table 1. Volume of combat munitions production of the major belligerents, 1935-44 (annual expenditure in $ billion, U.S. 1944 munitions prices) 1935-9 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 U.S.A. 0.3 1.5 4.5 20 38 42 Canada 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 1.5 U.K. 0.5 3.5 6.5 9 11 11 U.S.S.R. 1.6 5 8.5 11.5 14 16 Germany 2.4 6 6 8.5 13.5 17 Japan 0.4 1 2 3 4.5 6 Note: Figures for 1935-9 are given as cumulative expenditure in the source, annual average expenditure in this table. Source: Goldsmith, “Power of victory”, p. 75. (For explanation of Goldsmith’s sources and methods, and for discussion of reliability of his estimate of Soviet munitions output, please apply to the author for appendix A.) Granted the superior potential for war production of the Allied nations over their enemies, what factors enabled this potential superiority to be realized in the different economies under combat conditions? More than 40 years after the event, a fully comprehensive answer to this question has not yet been compiled. Early interest in the comparative economic history of World War II faded soon after the war. Since 1946, by tradition, comparative discussion of the war economies has been largely limited to the German, British, and U.S. records.2 In contrast, Soviet experience has suffered neglect.3 The main reason is that official release of significant detail relating to the Soviet war effort was delayed for many years after the war.4 Thus, H401ORB-76 when British and American historians were researching the histories of the British, American, German, and Japanese war economies in the late 1940s and early 1950s, relevant Soviet materials were still on the secret list. When they began to appear in the 1960s and 1970s, historians of other countries had perhaps already lost interest. How may the effectiveness of the Soviet economic war effort be compared with that of her main allies and principal adversary? In this article I shall attempt to outline some aspects of a comparative study of resource mobilization for war. These include war preparations and mobilization needs (section I), political leadership and the central coordination of resources (section II), and the intensity of resource mobilization (section III). Addressing these issues on the basis of materials available today, even in narrowly quantitative terms, proved an unexpectedly complex task. The complications arose only partly from the need to establish comparability of the Soviet record with better known materials for other countries. It soon became clear that another task was involved as well – the need to eliminate distortions of concept and measurement from the comparative statistical record already established for the United States, Britain, and Germany. I How did the different powers prepare for war, and what were the economic implications of their policies? The most extensive economic burdens of war preparation were borne by Germany and the Soviet Union; British rearmament was run on an altogether smaller scale, and in the United States war preparations were almost nonexistent. By the late 1930s Germany was in a position to deploy formidable military assets. These assets depended only partly on her economy. A crucial ingredient in her military successes up to 1942 was her aggressive strategy of surprise and preemption in combined arms operations. The Blitzkrieg strategy helps to explain how Germany was able to overrun half of Europe without major military loss.5 How cheap was Germany’s early military success? Germany’s prewar economic preparations were very substantial. Table 1 shows that in the years 1935-9 Germany had procured a volume of combat munitions far greater than any other power, and equal in real terms to the munitions production of all her future adversaries combined. Already in the last “peacetime” year of 1938 Germany’s military expenditures were costing her one-sixth of her national income.6 Only the Soviet Union had applied resources to rearmament on anything approaching the German order of magnitude. Thus Germany had to devote major resources to her war effort, even while she was still beginning her trail of victories. Nonetheless her successes were cheap in at least two senses: first, because rearmament was initiated in an underemployed economy, so that increases in military spending merely took up slack and did not require the resources employed for war to be first withdrawn from other commitments;7 second, because the resources devoted to war were employed with relative efficiency, and Germany’s conquests brought major economic returns. Germany’s opponents could not expect to deter or defeat her so inexpensively in war, for Germany wielded the crucial advantages of the offensive. To deter German aggression or (which may have come to the same thing) to be sure of denying victory to Germany without major expenditure of resources in war, they would have had to rearm in peacetime on a far larger scale than Germany herself. In fact, the opposite was the case. The British rearmament process began in 1935, in the wake of abandonment of the “ten-year rule” (that there would be no major conflict within a rolling ten-year horizon) which since 1919 had dominated British strategic planning, and with the naming of Japan and Germany as potential aggressors. The main effort was devoted to naval and air rearmament; as a whole, the defence budget remained tightly constrained by both strategic and economic doctrines. Regardless of the domestic background of widespread unemployment, official fears of financial instability still exceeded the fear H401ORB-77 of external aggression. Until March 1938 British defence preparations had to be carried on within the limits of the doctrine that “the course of normal trade should not be impeded”. Strict financial constraints were soon rationalized in military policy, in the theory of a “war of limited liability”, ruling out the need for any major reconditioning of the ground forces. The perspective of a limited war outlived the financial limitation of defence spending by one year, being abandoned only in March 1939 with the fall of Prague.8 Thus, before 1939, Britain rearmed only at a low level, seeking to regulate Germany’s behaviour primarily through negotiation; in 1938 defence spending still claimed only 7 percent of the national income. French preparations were similarly limited, both in absolute terms and in relation to the size of the French economy. The United States abstained altogether from the rearmament process, defence allocations remaining insignificant in proportion to her national income as late as 1940.9 The only country to attempt the building of a true military counterweight to German dispositions was the Soviet Union. Throughout the interwar years Soviet military-economic doctrines had emphasized the permanent dangers of external aggression (although Soviet leaders had also been slow to recognize the Nazi threat). In Soviet rearmament was mirrored Germany’s drive toward a mass army possessing military-technical superiority, backed up by the mass production facilities of modernized and specialized defence industries. As a result, only in the Soviet Union did defence production in the 1930s approach the same order of magnitude as that of Germany, and of all Germany’s adversaries the Soviet economy devoted the highest peacetime proportion of national income to defence—perhaps 20 percent in 1940, more than the proportional burden on Germany’s national economy in 1938. The Soviet economy, however, had to find resources for defence in a very different context. The Soviet industrial base was at a much lower technical level; moreover, by the late 1930s its resources were already strained by overfull employment.10 As a result, accelerated rearmament could only be financed by subtracting resources from the civilian sector, especially from household consumption. This meant that after gaining a head start over Germany at the beginning of the 1930s the scale of the Soviet effort tended to lag behind. Independently of the sheer physical scale of rearmament, there were important differences between the rearmament processes of the different powers. The most important difference lay in the time horizon of the economic plans. German rearmament tended to emphasize the maximization of specific kinds of short-term military power, reflected in the acquisition of particular weapons and combat stocks for immediate campaigns. Her adversaries, unable to choose the time or place of battle or the direction of the attack, were forced to plan for a more protracted conflict and to prepare their forces to fight under all conditions. Whether they rearmed at a low or a high level, their rearmament tended to display an all-round, long-range character in which an immediate increase of munitions production was combined with a military-industrial build-up aimed at maximizing military power across a wide range in some future year. This also meant that the pattern of rearmament differed between the powers in terms of the balance of munitions and manpower. This balance is estimated in table 2, which is divided into two parts. Part (A) is based on budgetary or national income accounts in domestic prices of each country (current prices for the U.K. and Germany, constant prices for the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R.), and shows the relative priority accorded by each country to munitions and military pay. Part (B) shows Goldsmith’s estimates of the real munitions production of each country in proportion to the size of its armed forces; based on the common value standard of 1944 U.S. munitions prices, it removes the influence of differing national relativities of munitions prices and military salaries (for example, the high munitions costs and low conscript pay of the capital-scarce economy of the Soviet Union in comparison with the others), and shows the extent to which different national priorities were successfully carried into practice. Table 2 (A) shows clearly that, already on the verge of war, the common policy of the United States, United Kingdom, and U.S.S.R. was to follow a much more “intensive” rearmament pattern than that adopted by Germany, stressing a relatively high level of allocations to mechanization and re- H401ORB-78 equipment, compared with the German policy of creating a large fighting force based on only limited military stockbuilding.11 Thereafter (at least, as late as 1942), the divergence between Allied and German policy crystallized. After 1942 a fluctuation in the Allied pattern becomes noticeable; the Soviet emphasis on munitions spending remained pronounced, while that of the United States and United Kingdom was tending to diminish. Table 2. Munitions and men: the U.S.A, U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany (A) The ratio of spending on munitions to spending on military pay, 1939-45a U.S.A. U.K. U.S.S.R. Germany 1939 … 3.6 ... 1.9 1940 4.2 4.1 3.3 1.0 1941 3.7 3.4 ... 0.8 1942 3.9 2.7 2.6 0.9 1943 3.0 2.3 3.3 ... 1944 2.4 1.9 3.6 … 1945 1.8 1.4 ... … (B) Volume of combat munitions production compared to numbers of military personnel (U.S. 1944 dollars per man), 1940-44b U.S.A. U.K. U.S.S.R. Germany 1940 2,800 1,500 1,200 1,100 1941 2,800 1,900 ... 800 1942 5,400 2,200 1,100 900 1943 4,200 2,300 1,300 1,200 1944 3,700 2,200 1,400 1,400 Notes and sources: a Calculated or estimated from budgetary, national expenditure or output data in Smith, Army, p. 5; Statistical digest, p. 200 and Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 75, 347; Bergson, Real national income, pp. 70, 99-100, 130, and Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 119, 138, 259; Klein, Germany’s preparations, p. 91. The U.S. and Soviet ratios are calculated at constant 1945 domestic prices and 1937 factor costs respectively; the British and German ratios are calculated at current domestic prices. A degree of uncertainty surrounds the Soviet data, but caution must also be exercised with regard to the British estimates. (For further detail and discussion, please apply to the author for appendix B.) b Real munitions production, estimated in table t, is divided by series for armed forces personnel from American industry, P. 34; Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 203, 351; Harrison, Soviet planning, p. 138 (for 1943 a figure of 11 million is interpolated); Michalka, ed., Weltmachtanspruch, p. 389. To what extent were policy and priority carried into practice? Table 2 (B) shows a slightly different rank ordering of the powers by “intensity” of rearmament measured in real terms per soldier. Again, already in 1940 the Anglo-American pattern was quite distinct from the German, a substantial advantage of munitions re-equipment per soldier accruing to the Western Allies. This gap subsequently widened into a deep chasm—at least until 1944, when the German acceleration of war production narrowed it slightly. However, by this measure there was much less of an advantage to the Soviet soldier. In terms of policy and priority, Soviet rearmament and wartime military spending had shared the general Allied pattern of “intensive” rearmament. However, it was much more difficult for the Soviets to match the physical results of U.S. and U K military spending, given the low- productivity, capital-scarce Soviet industrial base. The outcome of the Soviet expenditure pattern was therefore nearer to German proportions (although there was still a degree of Soviet advantage, at least until 1944) than to the Allied pattern. The explanation for this difference between Soviet priorities and results was surely the relatively high rouble costs of Soviet weaponry and low rouble pay of conscripts. H401ORB-79 The low proportion of German military stockbuilding to armed forces personnel reflected an essential weakness of Germany’s war preparations. Up to 1940 Germany led the world in the production of munitions. But at the same time her rising military commitments of conquest and occupation, combined with limits on her industrial mobilization, were forcing her military effort to rely more and more upon personnel recruitment for additional resources. After 1940 German munitions production rose only slowly whereas Allied production multiplied. As a result, when German production finally accelerated in 1943-4, it was already too late to close the gap. The Allied pattern of preparation for a protracted war of productive effort and economic mobilization yielded many benefits in wartime, in continuity of programmes of weapons development and production, and of industrial construction, mobilization, and dispersal. This was especially evident in the Soviet case. Although the Soviets faced a bitter struggle to translate rearmament policies into effective output, the more intensive character of their prewar military-economic priorities gave rise to a more resilient, more mobilized wartime economic system. Behind the Soviet emphasis on the industrial supply of defence requirements lay the buildup of defence capacity not only in specialized plant but also, by means of widespread subcontracting of defence orders, throughout civilian industry; much of the latter comprised a reserve available for immediate conversion to war production in the event of war.12 And here was one of the keys to the Soviet wartime economic mobilization, which was achieved in spite of the unanticipated character and crushing weight of the German military blow to the Soviet economy.13 II The success of the German Blitzkrieg depended primarily upon military factors. Success in sustaining a war of more protracted effort, however, depended ultimately upon resources-their availability, the ability to mobilize them speedily and fully, and their coordination in correct proportions between the front and rear and between the military and civilian sectors of the rear. The Blitzkrieg was aimed primarily at securing victory before such a resource mobilization could be effected by the adversary. German failure in the Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union in 1941-2 was decisive in the conversion of the war from a series of lightning campaigns to a prolonged war of productive effort and economic mobilization. Beforehand, Hitler’s Wehrmacht had blazed an unbroken trail of victories through Europe. Afterwards, the defeat of Germany’s war aims was guaranteed (although its scale remained to be determined). Why did Hitler fail? Circumstantial factors played a certain part, of course. Among the underlying reasons for German failure in 1941-2, however, are included the counter-actions and initiatives of the Soviet government and people. German military success in 1941-2 depended on stunning and paralyzing the Soviet military-economic machine with a colossal blow. Soviet resilience stemmed partly from the reactions and initiatives of Soviet leaders from above, partly from those of Soviet people at a lower, less discernible level. At the highest level the Soviet military-economic machine was only partially and momentarily stunned. The Kremlin’s first clearsighted responses to the economic emergency can be found in the campaign for industrial evacuation. It was this programme which saved Soviet specialized defence plant and provided the essential context for the economy-wide mobilization of war production. Such early high-level initiatives to grapple seriously with the threatened economic catastrophe depended heavily on the qualities of leading individuals. The individualization of authority and responsibility, reinforced by dictatorial powers, rapidly became a leading principle of wartime administration in the first eighteen months.14 It was reflected in the division of labour within Stalin’s war cabinet where, for example, Beriya was responsible for armament and ammunition procurement, Malenkov for the aircraft industry, Molotov for tank building, Kaganovich for railway transport. This adaptation of the Soviet political system to new tasks had peacetime precedents in previous emergencies of confrontation with the peasantry and food shortage, of international tension, and of H401ORB-80 industrial and defence mobilization. However, in 1941-2 it was carried to a new extreme. Thus in 1941 the central functions of the Soviet military-economic apparatus were neither fully stunned nor paralyzed. Nor were people paralyzed at lower levels. Even in the first, comparatively leaderless, days the conversion and mobilization of the economy for war production were carried on in full swing. People knew what they were supposed to do and did it without having to be told directly. This was a fact of colossal significance. The evacuation process, too, did not rely exclusively on controls superimposed from above; much of it was carried through on the basis of low-level initiative, without permission from Moscow or Moscow’s representatives.15 In summary, there were two elements in Soviet economic resilience in 1941-2. One was the capacity of Soviet leadership for high-level initiative and individual improvisation, enforced by decrees and dictatorial powers, in the face of emergency. The other was the popular response from below. This combined response was sufficient for survival in the short term, when everything depended upon munitions production for immediate combat. It did not, however, add up to a fully centralized and coordinated war economy. Rather, in the first period of the war control was exercised from the centre over a few fundamentals, and the rest of the economy was instructed to show initiative and rely on “local resources”; the key sectors controlled from the centre were not systematically coordinated with each other or with the supporting civilian infrastructure, because of the system of divided personal responsibilities. Coordination was a matter of crash programmes and emergency measures to rectify imbalances only at the point where they became intolerable. Individual initiative based on rule by decree was not, however, sufficient for a prolonged resource mobilization. This is convincingly demonstrated by the state of the Soviet economy at the end of 1941. Defence plant had been saved and defence output multiplied. But everything else was in an utter shambles. The resulting imbalances soon became a vital threat to continuation of the war effort. Steel, coal, electricity, machinery and transport capacities, workers to staff these industries, housing and food for the workers, all became priorities of equal weight to war production. The resulting complex allocation problem could only be resolved by reassertion of bureaucratic order; “rule by decree” had to give way to law-governed administration.16 By the end of 1942 this transition had been achieved. Victory at Stalingrad was in sight. Within the crisis-torn economy a working balance had been roughly restored. Within the war cabinet the responsibility for economic priorities formerly divided between leading individuals had been centralized in a new Operations Bureau.17 From now on the role of political leadership was no longer crucial to Soviet survival, for the system as a whole was now fully mobilized for a war which it could no longer lose. How did Soviet political leadership compare with that of other war economies? The U.K. economy also went through a phase of rapid reorientation for war. It differed from the Soviet experience both in starting point (less than full employment of both labour and fixed assets) and process (there was no invasion of British territory and the national product expanded). The result, however, was not dissimilar a resource-constrained, “shortage” economy subject to non-price regulation of the working population (its participation and distribution), of productive capacity and investment goods, of intermediate goods and raw materials, and of most retail and all foreign trade. While the British transition was marked by indispensable political change at the top (the collapse of the Chamberlain administration and its replacement by Churchill’s coalition in May 1940), personal leadership was relatively unimportant in managing the economic conversion process. As far as the U.K. economy was concerned, the rule was to fight the war by committee. The outstanding example of individual leadership based on personal responsibility in the economy was that of Beaverbrook. Churchill’s friend and ally over many years, Beaverbrook was Minister of Aircraft Production from 1940-1, then Minister of Supply (responsible for tank-building) and briefly Minister of Production in 1942. Strenuously opposed to formal hierarchies and programmes, his watchwords were “Committees take the punch out of war” and “Organization is the enemy of improvisation”. He was credited with “magical” success in mobilizing resources, first for fighter H401ORB-81 output in the Battle of Britain, then for the production of tank and antitank weaponry in mid-1941 as the economy passed from full employment to intense shortage on every front. Dispassionate analysis has suggested, however, that Beaverbrook’s influence on the dynamic of aircraft production may have been less important than other impersonal factors—the administrative programmes, production capacities and aircraft types created under his predecessors, the shock of defeat in France, the threat of invasion and the political crisis which provided the context for his appointment. His influence on the supply of resources to other sectors may also have been negative and disruptive.18 Moreover, Beaverbrook’s example does not find a parallel in other sectors of the British economy. With the exception of the aircraft industry, the coordination of British resources for war was exercised from within a bureaucratic system of centralized controls presided over by Sir John Anderson, Lord President and then Chancellor of the Exchequer.19 Germany’s war economy presents the opposite case, where personal authority (the Führerprinzip) and divided responsibility were the rule, reinforced by traditional Gauleiter resistance to centralization of priorities. For example, Göring was responsible for the aircraft industry and for import substitution capacities formed under the Four Year Plan of 1936-40, Funk for the civilian economy under the Economics Ministry, Thomas for military procurement under the Wehrmacht high command and Todt, then Speer for the Ministry of Armaments. This system sufficed—as long as the industrial requirements of Germany’s Blitzkrieg fell short of full-scale mobilization of her economy, and while Germany could draw readily on the resources and slave labour of her occupied territories. After 1941 German economic leaders like Speer, the Minister of Armaments, understood that this was no longer enough, and began to try to persuade Hitler of the need for full centralization of controls on resource allocation.20 Ultimately, however, they were unable to secure it; in particular, Speer could not extend his influence over German labour, under the protection of Nazi traditionalists like Sauckel (the protégé of Hitler’s personal secretary, Bormann) of the Reich Labour Office. At the height of Germany’s economic mobilization the principle of divided responsibilities meant that her economy remained full of untouched reserves—of industrial capacity, of female labour, of Himmler’s SS resources.21 Comparison of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia as convergent systems, whether “totalitarian” or “shapeless”, fails to throw light on differences in their styles of wartime resource mobilization. German leaders failed to secure centralized coordination of resources for a protracted war; Soviet leaders were not finally frustrated by similar ideological and institutional barriers to productive effort. The Soviet path to a fully centralized and coordinated war economy was not a straight line and took eighteen months to negotiate, but local traditions and bureaucratic interests did not prevail against it.22 The Soviet and German paths did not converge. The U.S. economy followed its own path of wartime mobilization. The huge increase of war production which marked the first year of the war was almost entirely unregulated. Multiple high- level agencies with overlapping responsibilities competed with each other and with the private sector for access to industrial resources. By mid-1942 war contracts had been issued to a sum exceeding the value of the 1941 gross national product. It took eighteen months for a coherent pattern of specialization of war agencies to emerge, based on controls over war contracts, producer goods, wage and price controls, and consumer rationing. Central oversight of policy also had to be secured, in May 1943, in the Office of War Mobilization under Byrnes.23 Whether this amounted to a recipe for centralization by committee on the British model was never really put to the test. Such was the increase in participation, production, and productivity that the United States never experienced a “shortage” economy. Household consumption continued to rise. Investment continued to be regulated through financial criteria rather than on the British pattern of administrative controls on labour allocation and a recoupment period governed by the expected duration of the war.24 Full employment was restored, and manpower became “the most critical factor in war production today”—the judgement of War Production Board chairman Nelson in 1944; but he H401ORB-82 also wrote that there was “never an actual over-all shortage of manpower” only “localized manpower shortages”.25 Alone of the major Allies, the United States never had to resort to direction of industrial labour or a universal compulsory service law. The qualities of Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Hitler also bear upon this issue. Churchill, Stalin, and Hitler shared a taste for strategy and enthusiasm for interference in operational decisions; each was often dictatorial towards subordinates and intolerant of correction by them. Roosevelt disliked delegating unified authority to subordinates, and preferred the rivalry of competing individuals and agencies to the emergence of dominant centres of authority. The consequences were quite different for their respective countries. For Hitler to make a single false step was a disaster for Germany, since everything depended on Germany’s securing military victory before the potential anti-German coalition could mobilize its full resources. Much smaller risks were attached to the quality of judgement of Churchill or Roosevelt—after the Battle of Britain and Pearl Harbor, anyway. For the Soviet Union, Stalin’s mistakes were of diminishing importance after 1941; after the battle of Stalingrad, they could no longer affect critically the outcome of the war, which from now on depended mainly on superior Allied resources.26 III The attempt to compare each nation’s war effort, as a proportion of its national economy, has been characterized by many sources of confusion. Most obvious is the problem of ensuring comparability of national income and war spending measures. Consider the traditional view, which holds that the U.S. economy was less fully mobilized at the wartime peak than the British economy.27 In relation to uses of the national income this view was first advanced in detail by Carroll in her comparative study of national income shares.28 Such national income shares are commonly measured in the current domestic prices of each country; they indicate the ability of each country to commit available resources to its war effort, and the sacrifice of non-war uses of national income implied by wartime commitments. By this measure, each country’s share of national income allocated to military spending may change through time for two reasons: because of changes in the proportions of real war and non-war spending, and because of changes in the relative prices of war and non-war products. Quantification of relative price effects is lacking for the four powers in wartime, except in the case of the United States for which they are known to have been small.29 Underlying Carroll’s argument was the proposition that already by 1942 the U.K. had committed no less than 64 percent of her national income to the war effort, compared to a maximum of 42 percent in 1943-4 for the United States.30 This finding is seriously misleading. Thus, for the United Kingdom Carroll’s national income measure was net national product (NNP) at factor cost; for the United States, gross national product (GNP) at market prices. In wartime, the difference between American GNP at market prices and NNP at factor cost (capital consumption and net indirect taxes) amounted to more than one-fifth of GNP. Moreover, Carroll’s measure of U.K. military spending up to 1942 is inflated by inclusion of “capital” items (repayment of pre-war defence loans). Her NNP data for the U.K. are reported by calendar year, defence spending on a fiscal year basis. Additionally, since publication of Carroll’s work, historical national income estimates for the U.K. have been revised, with major effect. When the distortions are eliminated and new estimates taken into account it transpires that, at the wartime peak (which now falls in 1943 or 1944 for each country), the two countries allocated similar shares of national income to reported spending on goods and services for the war effort. Carroll’s conclusion that Germany matched the U.K. peak of national income mobilization for war only in 1944 is also mistaken; it is based on comparing German military spending with “total available output” (GNP plus net imports, not GNP as claimed), which significantly understates German war expenditures in proportion to national income. Removal of this distortion shows that, by national income share, by 1943 Germany was the most highly mobilized of the powers. Now there arises a further complication—how to account correctly for the role of wartime H401ORB-83 international transfers. Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Germany all relied on external resources to finance a significant share of their domestic war expenditures. For Germany the source of these transfers was her conquered territories in both western and eastern Europe; for the U.K. and the U.S.S.R. the source was North American supply, especially from the United States (in addition, the net imports of the U.K. were also financed in part out of overseas investment incomes). When British and Soviet military expenditures are compared with those of the United States, we find that U.S. Lend-Lease transfers were double counted. United States military goods supplied to the other Allies were counted once by the United States as federal spending on national security (not as exports);31 then they were counted a second time by the recipient nations in their own budget revenues and spending on the war. Thus, all the wartime partners claimed simultaneous credit for allocating U.S. transfers to the common cause. Table 3 shows measures of national income mobilization for the four powers on a uniform basis. For comparability, military spending is shown in proportion to the national product net of capital depreciation; the Soviet national income measure is converted to a western basis. Whether the national or domestic product is used is immaterial except for the U.K. where investment income from overseas was significant; in the latter case overseas investment income is also netted out, leaving net domestic product. All national income measures are at current factor cost, except for the U.S.S.R. for which constant factor costs of 1937 are used. What this means in principle is that the Soviet series give a more accurate impression of relative changes in real magnitudes of war and non-war production, but do not reflect the current sacrifice of non-war uses of national income with the same accuracy as would calculations at current factor cost. For each nation, two measures of the mobilization of its national income are derived. Measure (I) shows the national utilization of resources supplied to the war effort, irrespective of origin, in proportion to the national product. This is the measure appropriate to the study of national priorities. For the U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany it is the traditional measure: the ratio of officially reported or estimated defence expenditures to national income; for these countries it constitutes the upper bound on national income mobilization. For the U.S.A. it means deducting those federal expenditures which supplied the war effort of other nations, and is the lower bound on measured mobilization of national income. Table 3. The mobilization of net national product for war: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S .S .R., and Germany, 1938-45 (percent of national income) U.S.A.a UKb U.S.S.R.c Germanyc (I) (II) (I) (II) (I) (II) (I) (II) 1938 … … 7 2 … … 17 18 1939 1 2 16 8 … … 25 24 1940 1 3 48 31 20 20 44 36 1941 13 14 55 41 … … 56 44 1942 36 40 54 43 75 66 69 52 1943 47 53 57 47 76 58 76 60 1944 47 54 56 47 69 52 … … 1945 … 44 47 36 … … … … Key: (I) National utilization of resources supplied to the war effort, regardless of origin: military spending (for the United States, less net exports) as share of national product. (II) Domestic finance of resources supplied to the war effort, irrespective of utilization: military spending (for the U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, less net imports) as share of national product. Notes and sources: a. For NNP at factor cost and federal military spending see Historical statistics, pp. 139, 142 (series F7 and F83). Net exports, including military transfers, are given for 1939-44 in American industry, p. 52. b. NDP at factor cost and net imports of goods and services from Feinstein, National income, tables and 2. Military spending from Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 75, 347. H401ORB-84 c. NNP at constant (1937) factor cost from Moorsteen and Powell, Capital stock, table T-47 (pp. 361-2), and Powell, “War years”, table T-47-X (p. 25). Military spending and net imports, also at 1937 factor cost, derived primarily from Bergson, Real national income, pp. 70, 99-100, and 130 by various means. d. Klein, Germany’s preparations, p. 256. GNP at market prices is adjusted to NNP at factor cost by a deduction representing the share of capital depreciation and indirect taxes in 1938 GNP within pre-1939 boundaries (see p. 251). (For further detail and discussion, please apply to the author for appendix C.) Measure (II) shows the domestic finance of resources supplied to the war effort, irrespective of utilization, in proportion to the national product. This is the measure appropriate to the study of domestic mobilization. It is assumed that domestic supply of military spending was eased by the full amount of net imports (for the United States it means crediting her domestic war effort in full with U.S. resources transferred to her allies’ fighting strength). For the United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and Germany net imports are deducted from reported or estimated military spending, resulting in a lower bound of measured national income mobilization. For the U.S.A. the traditional measure of reported defence expenditure is used, resulting in an upper bound. The economic war efforts of the main allied nations, in proportion to their national incomes, peaked at different times in 1942, 1943, or 1944. Table 3 shows that the peak percentages of net national income mobilized for war by the United States and the United Kingdom differed. On a national utilization basis, the U.K. allocated more resources (irrespective of origin) to the war (57 versus 47 percent of national income). When consideration is restricted to domestically financed supply of the war effort, however, the balance of mobilization changes in favour of the U.S. economy, which devoted 53-4 percent of NNP to the war effort in 1943-4 compared to the U.K. maximum of 47 percent. The U.S.S.R. showed a higher level of economic mobilization than either of her allies at the peak. By 1942, after discounting the (as yet minor) role of external supply, up to two-thirds of the Soviet national income was being allocated to the war effort. When external resources are included, the proportion rises to three- quarters. In 1943, on a national utilization basis, the 1942 record was perhaps even exceeded with 76 percent of Soviet NNP allocated to the war. From the standpoint of domestic finance, however, the peak had already passed. The passing of the maximum of Soviet domestic resource mobilization was associated with military victory at Stalingrad, with recovery of national output, rising priority being attached to restoration of the steel, energy, and transport sectors, and with increasing access to imported military and civilian supplies under Lend Lease. Table 4. Real national product of the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1937-45 U.S.A. GNPa U.K. NDPb U.S.S.R. NNPc Germany GNPd (1939 = 100) (1938 = 100) (1937 = 100) (1939 =100) 1937 … … 100 … 1938 … 100 101 … 1939 100 103 107 100 1940 108 120 117 100 1941 125 127 94 102 1942 137 128 66 105 1943 149 131 77 116 1944 152 124 93 … 1945 … 115 92 … Notes and sources: a. GNP at 1939 market prices from American industry, p. 27. b. NDP at 1938 factor cost, calculated from Feinstein, National income, table 5. c. NNP at 1937 factor cost, derived from Moorsteen and Powell, Capital stock, table T-47 (pp. 361-2), and Powell, H401ORB-85 “War years”, table T-47-X (p. 25). d. GNP at 1939 market prices, calculated from Klein, Germany’s preparations, p. 257. In the case of the United Kingdom and United States the mobilization of outputs was assisted by a significant increase in the real national product in wartime. Table 4 shows that, between the outbreak of war and the peak of her war effort, U.S. national income grew by about one-half in real terms; the increase was sufficient to supply all but one-third of the increase in domestically financed war outlays. The U.K. position was only slightly less favourable. Between 1939 and 1943 U.K. national income grew by more than a quarter, and this supplied just over half the domestic finance required for supply of resources for combat. Very different, and far worse, was the position faced by the Soviet Union; the real national income of the U.S.S.R. fell by more than two-fifths in 1940-2 under the impact of invasion and territorial loss. Table 5 shows that the intensity of mobilization of labour also differed significantly between the three Allies. On the British definition of fighting strength plus war-related (“Group I”) employment, by 1943 the United States had diverted one-third of its working population to the common war effort. Table 5. Mobilization of the workforce for war: U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1939/40 and 1943 (percent of working population) Group Ia industry Armed forces Total war-related U.S.A.b 1940 8.4 1.0 9.4 1943 19.0 16.4 35.4 U.K.c 1939 15.8 2.8 18.6 1943 23.0 22.3 45.3 U.S.S.R.d 1940 8 5.9 14 1943 31 23 54 Germanyc 1939 14.1 4.2 18.3 1943 14.2 23.4 37.6 Notes and sources: a. Group I industry on the British definition comprised mainly the armament, shipbuilding, engineering, metalworking, and chemical industries. b. Derived from American industry, pp. 34-5; employment in Group I industries on the British definition was only slightly less than war employment by the U.S. War Production Board classification (ibid., p. 36). c. Derived from Klein, Germany’s preparations, p. 144. Klein’s estimate of Wehrmacht personnel differs slightly from that underlying the German series in table 2 (B) above. d. Derived from series for military personnel and the total working population for 1940 and years adjacent to 1943 (Harrison, Soviet planning, p. 138), sectoral employment shares for 1940 (Promyshlennost’, p. 24), national income shares of domestic supply of expenditure on munitions and other military procurement, and various assumptions about labour productivity in war and non-war production. For details see appendix 3, note to table C- 3, available from the author on request. The U.K. had achieved a higher degree of mobilization—45 percent either in uniform or in war work. An important difference between the United States and United Kingdom was that, given the large-scale diversion of U.S. war goods to supply British and Soviet soldiers, proportionally fewer Americans served in uniform. But a somewhat smaller proportion of Americans also served in war production; as long as relative price effects for war and non-war products were small, this must reflect the high productivity and efficient organization of American defence plant at the height of the war.32 The most intensive workforce mobilization among the Allies, however, was that of the U.S.S.R., with nearly one-quarter of its workforce in uniform and a further one-third engaged in war work by 1943. The course of German wartime economic mobilization was different from any of these. Table 3 shows that the mobilization of Germany’s national product for war mounted steadily until 1943 (after which national accounts are no longer reliable), when the requirements of domestically financed H401ORB-86 resource mobilization had already claimed 60 percent of her national income. On a national utilization basis, when externally financed war expenditures are included, the proportion rises to three-quarters. Here the German record was a close match for the Soviet mobilization of national income in the same year. In contrast to the Soviet case, supply for the German war effort was eased by the fact that the years 1939-43 saw significant national income growth (although it was less substantial than in either the U.K. or the U.S.A); up to one-third of the increase in German military spending was financed in this way. Another sharp contrast with the Soviet record-and with that of the Allies generally-is shown in table 5. Here we find that, while Germany’s commitment of national income to the war effort mounted, the industrial mobilization of labour remained at a relatively low leve1.33 Paradoxically, when Germany devoted such a large proportion of her national income to war, the composition of her industrial workforce remained largely untouched at this aggregate level and its measured mobilization remained far less than that of other countries. Part of the explanation for the paradox is surely statistical: as in other countries, the years 1939-43 saw a substantial switch from civilian to war employment within Germany’s Group I industrial classification. But the German failure to expand Group I employment as a whole is in striking contrast to other countries’ success, and also to Germany’s outstanding record of mobilization of her national income. This paradox must correspond to the fact that increasingly the bulk of Germany’s war finance was going to finance a privileged and bloated contingent of military personnel, at the expense of its equipment and industrial supply (above, table 2). Behind the high index of German national income mobilization lay a disproportion between soldiers, industrial war workers and civilian employment which was ultimately unsustainable.34 All the major combatants of World War II faced difficult problems of balancing the input requirements of the armed forces and military supply against civilian needs. For the U.K. and U.S.S.R. the war took the form of a constant struggle to avoid excessive mobilization of labour and other inputs for war. The threatened excessive mobilization was a consequence of the drive to divert resources from the supply of the economy to the immediate requirements of combat. In the Soviet case this threat was particularly acute in the frontline regions in 1941-2, where unrestricted mobilization of industrial workers and even skilled workers in the defence industries into both regular forces and the home guard militia was practised at critical moments.35 Indeed, it seems likely that the domestic mobilization of Soviet resources recorded for 1942 could not have been sustained for any longer than a year, and that relaxation of the war’s claims on domestic output (although not on employment) in 1943 was a necessary condition for continuation of the war effort. In the United Kingdom the maximum degree of mobilization consistent with sustained effort seems to have been reached with each soldier matched roughly by one worker in the defence industries and two more workers retained in the civilian economy producing food, clothing, and other necessities for the war worker and soldier. Any further recruitment for fighting threatened to leave the war worker without necessities or the soldier without the means of combat. In the British case the threat was averted by rapid implementation of a complex, centralized system of rationing labour between economic priorities, and by Churchill’s imposition of a ceiling of two million on the size of the ground forces in March 1941.36 In the Soviet case similar institutional controls, and limits on military mobilization, had been imposed by November 1942, but the process of establishing them was more costly, complex, and pragmatic.37 The other threat of excessive input mobilization arose from the temptation to aim too far into the future in expanding the country’s defence plant capacity. In both the U.K. and U.S. economies this temptation was reflected in the wartime establishment of new defence plant which, upon commissioning, could not be operated because of unforeseen shortages of labour or materials. A Soviet equivalent was the evacuation of defence plant which, upon relocation, could not be operated for the same reasons. In each case, the effort of capital formation or capital evacuation and relocation had been wasted; had it been redirected into current production, more means of national survival and H401ORB-87 defence would have been created.38 The evidence for the U.K. and Soviet economies suggests, however, that these cases were not typical. In each country wartime investment was successfully restricted and redirected to match defence priorities. In Germany, in contrast, the private interests of capital goods producers ensured a relatively high commitment of resources to capital formation despite the intensified struggle. United States resources, and their wartime expansion, were such that the point of excessive mobilization of labour and other inputs was never approached. The German economy, in contrast, passed almost directly from undermobilization of labour to overmobilization in 1944. Until D-Day the Reich Labour Office successfully resisted all pressures to impose centralized controls and national service obligations on German workers, preferring the option of importation of slave labour from Germany’s occupied territories; after D-Day Wehrmacht conscription of German armament workers began.39 Thereafter, until Hitler’s March 1945 order to destroy remaining economic installations the unwinding of German economic mobilization was virtually predetermined. How important were external resources to the different war economies? In fact, all except the United States relied heavily on external supply, and the degree of each country’s dependence at its peak was strikingly similar to the others. Table 6 shows that Britain relied most heavily on the foreign sector in 1941 when overseas supply equaled nearly one-sixth of her national income; in 1942-5 her reliance was reduced to around one-tenth, but by 1944 almost 40 percent of Britain’s armaments came from overseas.40 Over the war years as a whole, Britain imported net resources valued at more than one year’s pre-war national income. Her main source of credit was, of course, the U.S. Lend-Lease programme which amounted to about 15 percent of U.S. military spending and up to 6 percent of her national income during the war years. Table 6. The supply of external resources: net imports of the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-45 (percent of national income) U.S.A. U.K. U.S.S.R. Germany 1938 -2 5 … -1 1939 -1 8 … 1 1940 -2 17 … 7 1941 -2 14 … 12 1942 -4 11 9 17 1943 -6 10 18 16 1944 -6 9 17 … 1945 … 11 … … Sources: See table 3. The U.S.S.R. was also heavily dependent on Lend-Lease, which may have supplied resources equal to one-sixth of Soviet NNP at 1937 factor cost in 1943-4. While an overall measure of the role of external supply in Soviet arms availability is not possible, it is estimated that overseas sources contributed up to one-quarter of Soviet aircraft supplies (this was the peak recorded in late 1943) and up to one-fifth of tank supplies (in 1942); throughout the war the Soviets were able to meet their own armament and shell needs but, later on, American shipments of trucks, tractors, and tinned food provided the Red Army with decisive mobility in its westward pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht.41 Thus at their respective peaks British and Soviet dependence upon external supplies were roughly comparable. Germany, too, imported major resources from abroad. These mounted rapidly as German control spread through Europe, and by 1942-3 represented supplies worth (again) nearly one-sixth of her national income. Not counted in the net balance of resource transfers is another way in which Germany relied upon her conquests, by the presence of millions of prisoners of war and labourers imported by force from France and from Eastern Europe—7.5 million by 1944. (The Soviet economy, H401ORB-88 too, benefited from the forced labour of up to 4.3 million German and Japanese prisoners of war.)42 IV Comparison of national economies at war cannot escape the fact that, in time of war as in peace time, economic performance is multi-faceted. As far as wartime economics are concerned, two aspects are of primary significance: the efficiency and the intensity of resource use.43 Neither is sufficient on its own—a nation may be highly efficient at transforming inputs into outputs, yet fall down because of the high proportion of inputs and capacities left idle or devoted to non-war tasks; on the other hand a nation may pour resources into its war effort, yet fail because the effort does not produce results in terms of the means to resist or overcome the enemy. In this paper I have addressed only the dimension of resource mobilization—intensity, rather than efficiency in the use of resources for warfare. By this standard, Soviet wartime economic performance was clearly superior to that of Nazi Germany. The Soviet mobilization of industry and labour was more intense. The Soviet mobilization of the national product was probably excessive in 1942; it was stabilized in 1943 and, matching Germany’s peak, proved now to be more balanced and sustained. And this was in spite of the major demographic and territorial loss imposed by Germany upon the Soviet Union; under comparable circumstances (in 1944-5) German resources swiftly became over- mobilized and military-economic collapse followed. The Soviet mobilization of resources may also be compared with that of its wartime allies. In terms of domestic production and employment the mobilizations of both the United States and United Kingdom rated lower in intensity than that of the Soviet Union. Against historians’ conventional expectation, of the two western Allies the output mobilization of the United States was greater in proportion to her resources. To secure it, the Americans had to direct a significantly smaller proportion of the U.S. working population into war work than did the British. (Moreover, proportionally fewer Americans served in uniform.) The more limited British output mobilization required a degree of workforce mobilization higher than that of the United States, although still much less than that of the Soviet Union. At the same time the burdens imposed by the war upon the U.S., British, and Soviet economies were not the same; those faced by the U.S.S.R were much more severe. Both the western allies started from a relatively high-level economic base, and with spare capacity which allowed substantial expansion of economic activity when war broke out. In contrast, the Soviet starting point was a lower- level economic base and resources which were already fully employed; when war broke out, a catastrophic decline in national economic activity was forced on the U.S.S.R. by the loss of territory, assets and of population on a huge scale. The U.K. suffered only aerial bombardment and attempted blockade, and the continental United States encountered neither of these. The Soviet Union was, after all, the only country of World War II to survive invasion as a nation state. In measuring the intensity of resource mobilization for war, the share of resources devoted to war is insufficient on its own. Also of relevance is the intensity of use of the resources produced in combat. According to Goldsmith’s postwar estimate the Germans produced over $50 billion of weaponry for use on the eastern front, compared to Soviet supply (including external resources) totaling about $60 billion. On the western front, in contrast, the Allies disposed of well over $100 billion worth of munitions (excluding those supplied to the U.S.S.R.) for use against Germany and Italy which, in their turn, disposed of only about $40 billion of munitions in the western theatres.44 This corresponds to well-known data on the balance of personnel along the two fronts, showing that from June 1941 to January 1944 the Soviet armed forces always faced at least 90 percent of Germany’s frontline ground forces, as well as about half of the (much less significant) frontline ground forces of Germany’s allies.45 Thus, in the years from mid-1941 to mid-1944 Soviet resources were employed in the cause of Germany’s military defeat with far greater intensity than those of the United Kingdom or North America. H401ORB-89 References Allen, R. G. D., “Mutual aid between the U.S. and the British Empire, 1941-1945”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 109 (1946), reprinted as appendix III of R. S. Sayers, Financial policy, 1939-1945 (1956), pp. 518-56. American industry in war and transition, 1940-1950, part II, The effect of the war on the industrial economy (U.S. War Production Board: Washington, D.C., 1945). Bergson, A., The real national income of Soviet Russia since 1928 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961). Bialer, S., ed., Stalin and his generals: Soviet military memoirs of World War II (1970). Calder, A., The people’s war: Britain, 1939-1945 (1969). Carroll, B. A., Design for total war: arms and economics in the Third Reich (The Hague-Paris, 1968). Cooper, J. M., “Defence production and the Soviet economy, 1929-1941”, Soviet Industrialization Project series no. 3 (Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1976). Fearon, P., War, prosperity and depression: the U.S. economy, 1917-45 (Oxford, 1987). Feinstein, C. H., National income, expenditure and output of the United Kingdom, 1855-1965 (Cambridge, 1972). Goldsmith, R. W., “The power of victory: munitions output in World War II”, Military Affairs, 10 (1946), pp. 69-80. Hall, H. D., North American supply (1955). Hancock, W. K. and Gowing, M. M., The British war economy (1949). Hanson, P., “East-West comparisons and comparative economic systems,” Soviet Stud., 22 (1971), pp. 327-43. Harrison, M. Soviet planning in peace and war, 1938-1945 (Cambridge, 1985). Historical statistics of the United States: colonial times to 1957 (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census: Washington, D.C., 1960). Istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941-1945, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1961-5). Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi voiny, 1939-1945, 12 vols. (Moscow, 1973-82). Kaldor, N., “The German war economy”, Review of Economic Studies, 13 (1946), pp. 33-52. Klein, B. H., Germany’s economic preparations for war (Cambridge, Mass., 1959). Lieberman, S. R., “The evacuation of industry in the Soviet Union during World War II”, Soviet Studies, 35 (1983), pp. 90-102. Lieberman, S. R., “Crisis management in the U.S.S.R.: the wartime system of administration and control”, in S. J. Linz, ed., The impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (Totowa, N. J., 1985), pp. 59-76. Michalka, W., ed., Das Dritte Reich: Dokumente zur Innen- und Aussenpolitik, vol. 2: Weltmachtanspruch und nationaler Zusammenbruch, 1939-45 (Munich, 1985). Milward, A. S., The German economy at war (1965). Milward, A. S., War, economy and society, 1939-1945 (1977). Moorsteen, R. and Powell, R. P., The Soviet capital stock, 1928-1962 (Homewood, Ill., 1962). Overy, R. J., “Hitler’s war and the German economy: a reinterpretation”, Economic History Review, 35 (1982), pp. 272-91. Overy, R. J., The Nazi economic recovery, 1932-1938 (1982). Postan, M. M., British war production (1952). Powell, R. P., “The Soviet capital stock and related statistical series for the war years”, in “Two supplements to R. Moorsteen and R. P. Powell, The Soviet capital stock, 1928-1962” (The Economic Growth Center, Yale University: New Haven, Conn., 1969), pp. 1-39. Promyshlennost’ SSSR (Moscow, 1961). Robertson, A. J., “Lord Beaverbrook and the supply of aircraft, 1940-1941”, in A. Slaven and D. H. Aldcroft, eds., Business, banking and urban history: essays in honour of S. G. Checkland H401ORB-90 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 80-100. Robinson, E. A. G., “The overall allocation of resources”, in D. N. Chester, ed., Lessons of the British war economy (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 34-57. Shoup, C. S., Principles of national income analysis (Cambridge, Mass., 1947). Smith, R. E., The army and economic mobilization (Washington, D. C., 1959). Speer, A., Inside the Third Reich (1970). Statistical digest of the war (1951). Swianiewicz, S., Forced labour and economic development: an enquiry into the experience of Soviet industrialization (Oxford, 1965). Tupper, S. M., “The Red Army and Soviet defence industry, 1934-1941” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1982). United States president’s twentieth report to Congress on Lend-Lease operations (Washington, D.C., 1945). Vatter, H. G., The U.S. economy in World War II (New York, 1985). Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941-1945, 3rd edn. (Moscow, 1984). Voznesensky, N. A., Voennaya ekonomika SSSR v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Moscow, 1947). Weeks, H., “Anglo-American supply relationships”, in D. N. Chester, ed., Lessons of the British war economy (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 69-82. Notes 1 Goldsmith, “Power of victory”, p. 69. 2 The main contributors to the comparative history of the U.S., British, and German war economies have been Kaldor, “German war economy”; Hancock and Gowing, British war economy; Klein, Germany’s preparations; Carroll, Design for total war; Milward, War, economy and society. 3 At the end of the war, apart from Goldsmith at the War Production Board, U.S. researchers made at least one other attempt to incorporate the U.S.S.R. into an overall picture; see materials cited in U.S. president’s twentieth report, p. 41. Such comparisons were picked up and commented on by British official historians: see Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 369-70 and Hall, North American supply, pp. 420-1. More recently Milward, War, economy and society (mainly chs. 2, 3) introduced the Soviet economy into a comparative perspective, but on the basis of very limited information. An attempted comparison of Soviet, British, and German workforce controls and measures of resource mobilization can be found in Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 153-4, 185-91, but this should now be considered preliminary–superseded by findings of the present article. 4 In 1947 a sparse account was published in Moscow by Voznesensky, the wartime planning chief, as Voennaya ekonomika. (An official translation appeared in 1948, entitled War economy of the U.S.S.R. in the period of the patriotic war.) After this nothing much happened until the revival of scholarly research on the wartime period was authorized under Khrushchev’s thaw. The main significant events to follow were publication of the 6-volume Istoriya VO voiny (History of the great patriotic war of the Soviet Union, 1941-5) (1961-5) and the still more detailed, but ideologically somewhat more conservative 12-volume Istoriya VM voiny (History of the Second World War, 1939- 45) (1973-82). For a short account of the phases of Soviet historiography up to 1982 see Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 235-42. At the present time a new official history, a 10-volume Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina Sovetskogo naroda, 1941-1945 (The great patriotic war of the Soviet people) is being commissioned; in line with today’s trends towards “openness” and “new thinking”, it is promised to be more interesting and less dry than its predecessors. 5 On the political economy of the Blitzkrieg, see Kaldor, “German war economy”; Klein, Germany’s preparations; Milward, German economy; Carroll, Design for total war. Whether or not Germany’s Blitzkrieg strategy was a deliberately chosen design or one forced upon her by circumstances is discussed by Overy, “Hitler’s war”. 6 For this and other national income shares cited in this section, see table 3 below. H401ORB-91 7 Not until 1938 did unemployment of the German working population fall below 4 percent, and over 1932-8 the increase in Germany’s GNP was almost three times the increase in military spending. See data cited by Overy, Nazi recovery, pp. 29, 50. 8 Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 62-72. 9 Milward, War, economy and society, pp. 38-44, 48. 10 “Overfull employment” means that the economy was under strain at a macro- economic level. Microeconomic responses to permanent shortage, especially the hoarding of inputs, meant the maintenance of a considerable degree of slack within enterprises. But the nature of this slack was such that the resources it represented were normally inaccessible to planners and policy makers. 11 In both parts of table 2, some of the differences between Anglo-American and German expenditure patterns must be attributed to the differing importance attached by the various powers to ground, air, and naval forces and the different technical proportions characterizing the three armed services. Thus, the U.S.A. and U.K. spent more on munitions relative to pay, and produced a greater dollar value of armament relative to personnel, partly because of their greater stress on acquisition of the means of strategic naval and air power compared to re-equipment of the ground forces. But this cannot explain the full range of variation, especially when the Soviet advantage over Germany is noted, for the Soviet Union aspired to strategic power neither on the sea nor in the air yet still spent more on munitions relative to personnel than did Germany. 12 See Cooper, “Defence production”; Tupper, “Red Army”. 13 On Soviet prewar contingency planning in relation to the economy, see Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 59-62. 14 Lieberman, “Evacuation of industry”, and “Crisis management”; Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 93-100. 15 Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 74-5, 85-6. 16 Ibid., pp. 165-75. 17 Ibid., pp. 175-85. 18 Robertson, “Beaverbrook”. In connection with his appointment as Minister of Supply, it is recorded drily that Beaverbrook “set about the task with his habitual hustle. If, in spite of his endeavours, the Army’s demands for tanks still remained unsatisfied and British tank production did not come up to what was needed, this was not due to any lack of attention on the part of the Ministry or any lack of effort on the part of the industry.” See Postan, War production, p. 118. 19 Robinson, “Overall allocation”. Calder, People’s war, p. 119 has written: “Before the computer was perfected, Anderson made a tolerable substitute.” 20 Speer’s attempt to centralize controls over input allocations should not be confused with his policy (inherited from Fritz Todt) of decentralization of management of the procurement process from military administrators to industry- based production committees. See Milward, German economy, pp. 59-63; Speer, Third Reich, ch. 15 (“Organisational improvisation”), pp. 204-13. 21 See especially Klein, Germany’s preparations, chs. V, VI; Milward, German economy, chs. IV, VI; Carroll, Design for total war, chs. XI-XIII. 22 Thus, unlike Himmler’s SS, Beriya’s NKVD resources were coordinated with the requirements of the war economy and were not held apart as a “state within a state”; see Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 590-1. 23 Vatter, U.S. economy, chs. 3, 4 (“Wartime administration”, “Stabilization and the OPA”), pp. 67-101. 24 Robinson, “Overall allocation”, p. 53. 25 Cited in Vatter, U.S. economy, p. 173n. 26 For the comparison of Stalin, Churchill, and Hitler, see Bialer, ed., Stalin, pp. 42-4. On Roosevelt see Vatter, U.S. economy, p. 69 and Fearon, War, prosperity and depression, p. 276. 27 Weeks, “Anglo-American supply”, p. 71: “There were differences of opinion on the method of calculation and on the precise answer, but there was no doubt that a larger proportion of the British economy was devoted to warlike purposes than in the United States-and, of course, for a longer period.” 28 The proposition had previously been advanced by economists of the U.S. Foreign Economic Administration in a graph appended to U.S. president’s twentieth report, p. 41, but sources, methods, H401ORB-92 and quantitative details were never made public. Allen, “Mutual aid”, p. 542 provided further estimates based on preliminary wartime national income and budget accounts, with somewhat greater foundation. 29 United States war outlays are estimated in proportion to GNP at current prices at 41.9 per cent in 1944 (U.S. Department of Commerce data cited in Historical statistics, pp. 139, 142, series Fl and F83), or 39.9 per cent of GNP at constant 1939 prices (Department of Commerce data deflated by the U.S. War Production Board, cited in American industry, p. 27). 30 Carroll, Design for total war, pp. 184-5; see also her statistical appendix (pp. 262-7). 31 Shoup, Principles, p. 188. 32 On a broader definition of war-related employment, by June 1944, 40 per cent of the U.S. workforce had been absorbed into the armed forces and war work compared to 55 per cent for the United Kingdom at the same time: see Allen, “Mutual aid”, p. 525. According to Allen’s estimate, most of the difference between U.S. and U.K. workforce mobilization lay in war employment (20.5 against 33 per cent respectively), not military recruitment. Discrepancies of coverage and definition mean that the workforce shares given in table 5 cannot be compared too closely with national income shares given previously in table 3. 33 Moreover, the hours of work of German workers, and the participation in work of German women, remained virtually unchanged in 1942 compared to 1939-a striking contrast to the British and Soviet records of labour mobilization. Overy in the Times Literary Supplement (11 April 1986), p. 393 has pointed out that the share of women in the German working population on the eve of war was already higher (36 per cent) than Britain’s wartime peak (33 per cent). It remains true, however, that employment of German women, both in the economy as a whole and in industry in particular, barely rose between 1939 and 1943; women contributed a mere fifth of the one million increase in the German working population between those years (see Michalka, ed., Weltmachtanspruch, pp. 389- 90). In Great Britain, in contrast, between 1939 and 1943 the increase in female employment (2.2 million) was almost six times the increase in the total working population (Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, p. 78). 34Overy, “Hitler’s war”, p. 283 has argued that the high national income share of German military spending achieved by 1943 shows the consistent character of the German military-industrial mobilization, which resulted in more significant consumption losses to the German population than are conventionally accepted. In fact, with a rising share of German males being fed, clothed, and housed out of the military budget rather than out of household wage incomes, such consumption losses are not necessarily implied. On the other hand, the imbalance of military- industrial supply (table 2 above) was perfectly real. 35 Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 143-4. 36 Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, p. 289 call this “a landmark of manpower history”. Later the ceiling was raised slightly to 2.4 million. See also pp. 57-9, 300-54. 37 Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 185-91. 38 On British and American investment controls and results see Robinson, “Overall allocation”, pp. 42, 53-4; Vatter, U.S. economy, P. 73. On the Soviet record see Harrison, Soviet planning, pp. 133-5. 39 Milward, German economy, pp. 178-81 40 Hancock and Gowing, British war economy, pp. 357-78 41 Harrison, Soviet planning, appendix 3 42 Mikhalka, ed., Weltmachtanspruch, p. 389; Swianiewicz, Forced labour, pp. 42-3. Swianiewicz suggests that a global figure for Soviet-held prisoners of war of all nationalities might rise to 5-6 million. 43 See Hanson, “East-West comparisons”, pp. 332-3. 44 Goldsmith, “Power of victory”, pp. 76-7. 45 Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina, p. 502. Lesson H402 LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines and the Tyranny of Distance (Guadalcanal) AY 2021–22 H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-93 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H402 LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance (Guadalcanal) LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Richard S. Faulkner 1. SCOPE This two-hour lesson builds on the theoretic, historical, and strategic context established in H100 and H401. It examines the challenges that the joint forces of the United States and Japan faced in power projection and sustainment during the campaign to hold and clear the island of Guadalcanal from August 1942 to February 1943. Part of the American Way of War as discussed by strategist Colin Gray centers on this very issue—America fights “large scale” with “logistical excellence” due to the unique geography of the United States as a continental island that fights its modern wars overseas.1 Time, distance, limited resources and a tenacious enemy with peer capabilities severely tested the United States’ ability to employ these aspects of the American Way of War during the six-month long attritional struggle for Guadalcanal. It also offers an opportunity to examine the challenges of the anti-access and area denial (A2AD) activities of both sides and the difficulties that they faced in gaining and maintaining the initiative and superiority in the air, land and sea domains. The lesson further studies the theory and application of sea power and maritime power projection by exploring how well the Japanese and American Navies and the U.S. Marine Corps’ pre-war doctrines prepared them for what they faced at Guadalcanal, and how well they adapted to the “subjective character” of the campaign. 2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess (UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US Army sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s operational environment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as listed in the H400 Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are: ELO-AOC-1.6 Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale combat operations. Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products and H400 historical readings. 1. See Colin Gray, “The American Way of War,” in Rethinking the Principles of War, ed. Anthony D. McIvor (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), 30-33. H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-94 August 2021 ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes: 1. Examine historical battles and campaigns. 2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context. 3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action. 4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-5.4 Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness. Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products. ELO Standards: The analysis includes: 1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness. 2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO. 3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater. 4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context. 5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of 20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-8.1 Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.2 Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.3 Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-95 August 2021 ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. 4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential contemporary competitors. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-9.1 Action: Write effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Write effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Proper grammar and correct spelling Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.2 Action: Speak effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation 6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience 7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.3 Action: Listen effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes: 1. Listens, reads, and watches intently. 2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others. 3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention. 4. Reflects on new information before expressing views. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis PLO Attributes Supported: 1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information. 1b. Comprehend context of the situation. H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-96 August 2021 1c. Create meaning from information and data. 1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas. 1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms. 1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments. 1g. Apply critical and creative thinking. 2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life- long learners. 3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war. 3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition. 3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power. 3d. Understand the generation of military power through force management. 4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment. 4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks. 4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other competitive forces. 5e. Consider risk and resource limitations inherent in planning. 6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions. 6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context. Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported: 3. The Return of Great Power Competition 5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century 8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations 3. ISSUE MATERIAL a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022 b. During Class: None. WiFi is available. 4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT a. Study Requirements: (1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in full text in the H400 Book of Readings): Required: H402RA Shaw, Henry I. Jr. First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal (Excerpts). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History Center, 1992. [34 pages] H402RB Mahnken, Thomas G. “Asymmetric Warfare at Sea: The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal, 1942–1943,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Winter 2011): 95- 121 [26 pages] Student Purchased: H402RC Millett, Allan R. “Assault from the Sea.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, pages 50-59, 70-78, 82-88. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [23 pages] [Student Purchase] H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-97 August 2021 Optional: H402ORA Tanaka, Raizo. “Japan's Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” (Excerpts). Proceedings, edited by Roger Pineau, Part 1-Vol. 82, No. 7 (July 1956) and Part II-Vol. 82, No. 8 (August 1956). [29 pages] H402ORB Buell, Thomas B. “Guadalcanal: Neither Side Would Quit.” Proceedings, Vol. 106, No. 4 (April 1980): 60–65. [5 pages] H402ORC Genda, Minoru. “Tactical Planning in the Imperial Japanese Navy.” Naval War College Review, Vol. 22, No. 8 (October 1969): 45–50. [5 pages] H402ORD Twining, Merrill B. “An Unhandsome Quitting.” Proceedings Vol. 118, No. 11 (November 1992): 83–87. [5 pages] H402ORE Anderson, Charles R. CMH Pub 72-8 Guadalcanal. Center of Military History, 2004. https://history.army.mil/html/books/072/72-8/CMH_Pub_72-8 . [27 pages] H402ORF Till, Geoffrey. “Adopting the Aircraft.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, 191-226. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [35 pages] [Student Purchase] Further Professional Development: Miller, John. Guadalcanal: The First Offensive. Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1995. Frank, Richard B. Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Hornfischer, James D. Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal. New York: Bantam Books, 2011 Evans, David C. and Mark Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999. (2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class: 1. How did the Japanese and American Navies and the U.S. Marines envision fighting “the next great war” during the Interwar period? What were their assumptions and how did they alter their training, organization, doctrine and technology to fight the war they envisioned? 2. Why did the war in the Pacific, in the first year of the war, not turn out to be how the Japanese and Americans had envisioned it in their pre-war planning? 3. How did Guadalcanal and the fight for the Solomon Islands fit within the strategic plans of the combatants? 4. What strategic, operational and tactical challenges did both sides face during the Guadalcanal campaign and how did these challenges shape the nature of the battle? 5. Why did Vice Admirals Richard L. Ghormley and Frank J. Fletcher order most of the Navy’s ships to withdraw from Guadalcanal on 8 August 1942, and what were the implications of their decision? Given what the admirals knew at the time, was their decision the right one? 6. What insights do the air and naval battles of Guadalcanal offer into the inherent difficulties in gaining and maintaining the initiative and asymmetric advantages in peer LSCO conflicts? https://history.army.mil/html/books/072/72-8/CMH_Pub_72-8 H402 Advance Sheet H402AS-98 August 2021 7. In what ways did the Guadalcanal Campaign reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the American Way of War? b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to): H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022 5. ASSESSMENT See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A. H402 Chronology H402AS-99 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H402 LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance (Guadalcanal) Chronology 1942 14 June 1st Marine Division (1st MARDIV) arrived in Wellington, New Zealand and two weeks later it received WARNO from CNO Admiral Ernest King to prepare for a landing in the Solomon Islands. 7 July Joint Chiefs of Staff approved plan for an offense in the Solomon Islands to capture Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavuttu, and Tanambogo. 11 July Last units of the 1st MARDIV arrived in Wellington, New Zealand for the Solomon offensive. 7 August 1st MARDIV landed on Guadalcanal and 1st Marine Raider Battalion captured Tulagi, other Marine units captured Gavuttu, but the attack on Tanambogo failed. 9 August Australian-American naval forces mauled in night battle of Savo Island. U.S. Navy pulled forces from Guadalcanal before 1st MARDIV unloaded. This also left Marines with no resupply until 20 August. 13 August Japanese 17th Army ordered to force the Americans from Guadalcanal. 18 August Henderson Field opened on Guadalcanal. Two days later, 19 Wildcat fighters and and 12 Dauntless dive bombers arrived from MAG-23. 21 August Ichiki Detachment destroyed at the Battle of the llu (Tenaru) River. 22 August Guadalcanal’s “Cactus Air Force” reinforced by 19 Aircobra fighters from the U.S. Army Air Force 67th Fighter Squadron. The Cactus Air Force ultimately grew to contain 20 USMC squadrons, two USAAF squadrons, an Australian squadron, and several USN squadrons that temporally flew out of Guadalcanal. 24–25 August Naval Battle of the Eastern Solomons: Carrier USS Enterprise damaged and forced to return to Pearl Harbor, but the action disrupted Japanese efforts to recapture Guadalcanal. 3 September USMC BG Roy Geiger arrived to take command of Cactus Air Force. 12–13 September Battle of Bloody (or Edson’s) Ridge thwarted Japanese attack to capture Henderson Field. H402 Chronology H402AS-100 August 2021 23-27 September Marine attempt to flank Japanese positions on Guadalcanal with a landing at Mantanikau met stiff resistance and was forced to withdraw. 12 October Naval Battle of Cape Esperance 13 October U.S. Army 164th Infantry Regiment landed on Guadalcanal and attached to 1st MARDIV. 20–26 October Battle of Henderson Field: Japanese launched a series of attacks by the Sendai Division to capture Henderson Field and forced the Americans from the island. 26 October Naval Battle of Santa Cruz: Carrier USS Hornet sunk. 1 November Americans launched attacks to push the Japanese out of artillery range of Henderson Field. 9-12 November Americans surrounded and destroyed 1,500 manned Japanese detachment that landed at Koli Point. 12–15 November Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: While costly to the US, the battle ended any major Japanese offensives to recapture Guadalcanal. US Army 182nd Infantry Regiment landed to reinforce forces on Guadalcanal, the remainder of the U.S. Army Americal Division landed in the following weeks. 14-16 November American air attacks against “Tokyo Express” destroyed most of the transports carrying the Japanese 38th Division to Guadalcanal. 9 December 1st MARDIV relieved on Guadalcanal by the U.S. Army Americal Division. 31 December Japanese Imperial HQ ordered the evacuation of Guadalcanal. 1943 2 January Army MG Alexander Patch assumed command of the XIV Corps, consisting of the Army Americal, 25th Divisions and the 2nd MARDIV, and gave order to clear remaining Japanese from Guadalcanal. 10 January US Army 25th Division began its attack on Galloping Horse Ridge. 13 January- 8 February American XIV Corps launched continual attacks against retreating Japanese. 9 February Patch declared Guadalcanal secure. Shaw Jr., Henry I. Excerpt from First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History Center, 1992. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0512 E H402RA-101 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402RA “First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal”1 by Henry I. Shaw, Jr. In the early summer of 1942, intelligence reports of the construction of a Japanese airfield near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands triggered a demand for offensive action in the South Pacific. The leading offensive advocate in Washington was Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). In the Pacific, his view was shared by Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), who had already proposed sending the 1st Marine Raider Battalion to Tulagi, an island 20 miles north of Guadalcanal across Sealark Channel, to destroy a Japanese seaplane base there. Although the Battle of the Coral Sea had forestalled a Japanese amphibious assault on Port Moresby, the Allied base of supply in eastern New Guinea, completion of the Guadalcanal airfield might signal the beginning of a renewed enemy advance to the south and an increased threat to the lifeline of American aid to New Zealand and Australia. On 23 July 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington agreed that the line of communications in the South Pacific had to be secured. The Japanese advance had to be stopped. Thus, Operation Watchtower, the seizure of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, came into being. The islands of the Solomons lie nestled in the backwaters of the South Pacific. Spanish fortune- hunters discovered them in the mid-sixteenth century, but no European power foresaw any value in the islands until Germany sought to expand its budding colonial empire more than two centuries later. In 1884, Germany proclaimed a protectorate over northern New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomons. Great Britain countered by establishing a protectorate over the southern Solomons and by annexing the remainder of New Guinea. In 1905, the British crown passed administrative control over all its territories in the region to Australia, and the Territory of Papua, with its capital at Port Moresby, came into being. Germany’s holdings in the region fell under the administrative control of the League of Nations following World War I, with the seat of the colonial government located at Rabaul on New Britain. The Solomons lay 10 degrees below the Equator—hot, humid, and buffeted by torrential rains. The celebrated adventure novelist, Jack London, supposedly muttered: “If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflict on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons.” On 23 January 1942, Japanese forces seized Rabaul and fortified it extensively. The site provided excellent harbor and numerous positions for airfields. The devastating enemy carrier and plane losses of the Battle of Midway (3-6 June 1942) had caused Imperial General Headquarters to cancel orders for the invasion of Midway, New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, but plans to construct a major seaplane base at Tulagi went forward. The location offered one of the best anchorages in the South Pacific and it was strategically located: 560 miles from the New Hebrides, 800 miles from New Caledonia, and 1,000 miles from Fiji. 1. Edited for length by the lesson author. H402RA-102 The outposts at Tulagi and Guadalcanal were the forward evidences of a sizeable Japanese force in the region, beginning with the Seventeenth Army, headquartered at Rabaul. The enemy’s Eighth Fleet, Eleventh Air Fleet, and 1st, 7th, 8th, and 14th Naval Base Forces also were on New Britain. Beginning on 5 August 1942, Japanese signal intelligence units began to pick up transmissions between Noumea on New Caledonia and Melbourne, Australia. Enemy analysts concluded that Vice Admiral Richard L. Ghormley, commanding the South Pacific Area (ComSoPac), was signaling a British or Australian force in preparation for an offensive in the Solomons or at New Guinea. The warnings were passed to Japanese headquarters at Rabaul and Truk, but were ignored. The invasion force was indeed on its way to its targets, Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and the tiny islets of Gavutu and Tanambogo close by Tulagi’s shore. The landing force was composed of Marines; the covering force and transport force were U.S. Navy with a reinforcement of Australian warships. There was not much mystery to the selection of the 1st Marine Division to make the landings. Five U.S. Army divisions were located in the South and Southwest Pacific: three in Australia, the 37th Infantry in Fiji, and the Americal Division on New Caledonia. None was amphibiously trained and all were considered vital parts of defensive garrisons. The 1st Marine Division, minus one of its infantry regiments, had begun arriving in New Zealand in mid-June when the division headquarters and the 5th Marines reached Wellington. At that time, the rest of the reinforced division’s major units were getting ready to embark. The 1st Marines were at San Francisco, the 1st Raider Battalion was on New Caledonia, and the 3d Defense Battalion was at Pearl Harbor. The 2d Marines of the 2d Marine Division, a unit which would replace the 1st Division’s 7th Marines stationed in British Samoa, was loading out from San Diego. All three infantry regiments of the landing force had battalions of artillery attached, from the 11th Marines, in the case of the 5th and 1st; the 2d Marines drew its reinforcing 75mm howitzers from the 2d Division’s 10th Marines. The news that his division would be the landing force for Watchtower came as a surprise to Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, who had anticipated that the 1st Division would have six months of training in the South Pacific before it saw action. The changeover from administrative loading of the various units’ supplies to combat loading, where first-needed equipment, weapons, ammunition, and rations were positioned to come off ships first with the assault troops, occasioned a never-to-be-forgotten scene on Wellington’s docks. The combat troops took the place of civilian stevedores and unloaded and reloaded the cargo and passenger vessels in an increasing round of working parties, often during rainstorms which hampered the task, but the job was done. Succeeding echelons of the division’s forces all got their share of labor on the docks as various shipping groups arrived and the time grew shorter. General Vandegrift was able to convince Admiral Ghormley and the Joint Chiefs that he would not be able to meet a proposed D-Day of 1 August, but the extended landing date, 7 August, did little to improve the situation. An amphibious operation is a vastly complicated affair, particularly when the forces involved are assembled on short notice from all over the Pacific. The pressure that Vandegrift felt was not unique to the landing force commander. The U.S. Navy’s ships were the key to success and they were scarce and invaluable. Although the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway had badly damaged the Japanese fleet’s offensive capabilities and crippled its carrier forces, enemy naval aircraft could fight as well ashore as afloat and enemy warships were still numerous and lethal. American losses at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway were considerable, and Navy admirals were well aware that the ships they commanded were in short supply. The day was coming when America’s shipyards and factories would fill the seas with warships of all types, but that day had not arrived in 1942. Calculated risk was the name of the game where the Navy was concerned, and if the risk seemed too great, the Watchtower landing force might be a casualty. As it happened, the Navy never ceased to risk its ships in the waters of the Solomons, but the naval lifeline to the troops ashore stretched mighty thin at times. H402RA-103 Tactical command of the invasion force approaching Guadalcanal in early August was vested in Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher as Expeditionary Force Commander (Task Force 61). His force consisted of the amphibious shipping carrying the 1st Marine Division, under Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, and the Air Support Force led by Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes. Admiral Ghormley contributed land-based air forces commanded by Rear Admiral John S. McCain. Fletcher’s support force consisted of three fleet carriers, the Saratoga (CV-3), Enterprise (CV-6), and Wasp (CV-7); the battleship North Carolina (BB- 55), 6 cruisers, 16 destroyers, and 3 oilers. Admiral Turner’s covering force included five cruisers and nine destroyers. The Landing and August Battles On board the transports approaching the Solomons, the Marines were looking for a tough fight. They knew little about the targets, even less about their opponents. Those maps that were available were poor, constructions based upon outdated hydrographic charts and information provided by former island residents. While maps based on aerial photographs had been prepared they were misplaced by the Navy in Auckland, New Zealand, and never got to the Marines at Wellington. On 17 July, a couple of division staff officers, Lieutenant Colonel Merrill B. Twining and Major William McKean, had been able to join the crew of a B-17 flying from Port Moresby on a reconnaissance mission over Guadalcanal. They reported what they had seen, and their analysis, coupled with aerial photographs, indicated no extensive defenses along the beaches of Guadalcanal’s north shore. H402RA-104 This news was indeed welcome. The division intelligence officer (G-2), Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Goettge, had concluded that about 8,400 Japanese occupied Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Admiral Turner’s staff figured that the Japanese amounted to 7,125 men. Admiral Ghormley’s intelligence officer pegged the enemy strength at 3,100—closest to the 3,457 actual total of Japanese troops; 2,571 of these were stationed on Guadalcanal and were mostly laborers working on the airfield. To oppose the Japanese, the Marines had an overwhelming superiority of men. At the time, the tables of organization for a Marine Corps division indicated a total of 19,514 officers and enlisted men, including naval medical and engineer (Seabee) units. Infantry regiments numbered 3,168 and consisted of a headquarters company, a weapons company, and three battalions. Each infantry battalion (933 Marines) was organized into a headquarters company (89), a weapons company (273), and three rifle companies (183). The artillery regiment had 2,581 officers and men organized into three 75mm pack howitzer battalions and one 105mm howitzer battalion. A light tank battalion, a special weapons battalion of antiaircraft and antitank guns, and a parachute battalion added combat power. An engineer regiment (2,452 Marines) with battalions of engineers, pioneers, and Seabees, provided a hefty combat and service element. The total was rounded out by division headquarters battalion’s headquarters, signal, and military police companies and the division’s service troops—service, motor transport, amphibian tractor, and medical battalions. For Watchtower, the 1st Raider Battalion and the 3d Defense Battalion had been added to Vandegrift’s command to provide more infantrymen and much needed coast defense and antiaircraft guns and crews. Unfortunately, the division’s heaviest ordnance had been left behind in New Zealand. Limited ships’ space and time meant that the division’s big guns, a 155mm howitzer battalion, and all the motor transport battalion’s two-and-a-half-ton trucks were not loaded. Colonel Pedro A. del Valle, commanding the 11th Marines, was unhappy at the loss of his heavy howitzers and equally distressed that essential H402RA-105 sound and flash-ranging equipment necessary for effective counterbattery fire was left behind. Also failing to make the cut in the battle for shipping space, were all spare clothing, bedding rolls, and supplies necessary to support the reinforced division beyond 60 days of combat. Ten days supply of ammunition for each of the division’s weapons remained in New Zealand. In the opinion of the 1st Division’s historian and a veteran of the landing, the men on the approaching transports “thought they’d have a bad time getting ashore.” They were confident, certainly, and sure that they could not be defeated, but most of the men were entering combat for the first time. There were combat veteran officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) throughout the division, but the majority of the men were going into their initial battle. The commanding officer of the 1st Marines, Colonel Clifton B. Cates, estimated that 90 percent of his men had enlisted after Pearl Harbor. The fabled 1st Marine Division of later World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War fame, the most highly decorated division in the U.S. Armed Forces, had not yet established its reputation. The convoy of ships, with its outriding protective screen of carriers, reached Koro in the Fiji Islands on 26 July. Practice landings did little more than exercise the transports’ landing craft, since reefs precluded an actual beach landing. The rendezvous at Koro did give the senior commanders a chance to have a face-to-face meeting. Fletcher, McCain, Turner, and Vandegrift got together with Ghormley’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Callaghan, who notified the conferees that ComSoPac had ordered the 7th Marines on Samoa to be prepared to embark on four days notice as a reinforcement for Watchtower. To this decidedly good news, Admiral Fletcher added some bad news. In view of the threat from enemy land- based air, he could not “keep the carriers in the area for more than 48 hours after the landing.” Vandegrift protested that he needed at least four days to get the division’s gear ashore, and Fletcher reluctantly agreed to keep his carriers at risk another day. On the 28th the ships sailed from the Fijis, proceeding as if they were headed for Australia. At noon on 5 August, the convoy and its escorts turned north for the Solomons. Undetected by the Japanese, the assault force reached its target during the night of 6-7 August and split into two landing groups, Transport Division X-Ray, 15 transports heading for the north shore of Guadalcanal east of Lunga Point, and Transport Division Yoke, eight transports headed for Tulagi, Gavutu, Tanambogo, and the nearby Florida Island, which loomed over the smaller islands. Vandegrift’s plans for the landings would put two of his infantry regiments (Colonel LeRoy P. Hunt’s 5th Marines and Colonel Cates’ 1st Marines) ashore on both sides of the Lunga River prepared to attack inland to seize the airfield. The 11th Marines, the 3d Defense Battalion, and most of the division’s supporting units would also land near the Lung, prepared to exploit the beachhead. Across the 20 miles of Sealark Channel, the division’s assistant commander, Brigadier General William H. Rupertus, led the assault forces slated to take Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo: the 1st Raider Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson); the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines (Lieutenant Colonel Harold E. Rosecrans); and the 1st Parachute Battalion (Major Robert H. Williams). Company A of the 2d Marines would reconnoiter the nearby shores of Florida Island and the rest of Colonel John A. Arthur’s regiment would stand by in reserve to land where needed. As the ships slipped through the channels on either side of rugged Savo Island, which split Sealark near its western end, heavy clouds and dense rain blanketed the task force. Later the moon came out and silhouetted the islands. On board his command ship, Vandegrift wrote to his wife: “Tomorrow morning at dawn we land in our first major offensive of the war. Our plans have been made and God grant that our judgment has been sound . . . whatever happens you’ll know I did my best. Let us hope that best will be good enough.” H402RA-106 At 0641 on 7 August, Turner signaled his ships to “land the landing force.” Just 28 minutes before, the heavy cruiser Quincy (CA-39) had begun shelling the landing beaches at Guadalcanal. The sun came up that fateful Friday at 0650, and the first landing craft carrying assault troops of the 5th Marines touched down at 0909 on Red Beach. To the men’s surprise (and relief), no Japanese appeared to resist the landing. Hunt immediately moved his assault troops off the beach and into the surrounding jungle, waded the steep-banked Ilu River, and headed for the enemy airfield. The following 1st Marines were able to cross the Ilu on a bridge the engineers had hastily thrown up with an amphibian tractor bracing its middle. The silence was eerie and the absence of opposition was worrisome to the riflemen. The Japanese troops, most of whom were Korean laborers, had fled to the west, spooked by a week’s B-17 bombardment, the pre-assault naval gunfire, and the sight of the ships offshore. The situation was not the same across Sealark. The Marines on Guadalcanal could hear faint rumbles of a firefight across the waters. The Japanese on Tulagi were special naval landing force sailors and they had no intention of giving up what they held without a vicious, no-surrender battle. Edson’s men landed first, followed by Rosecrans’ battalion, hitting Tulagi’s south coast and moving inland towards the ridge which ran lengthwise through the island. The battalions encountered pockets of resistance in the undergrowth of the island’s thick vegetation and maneuvered to outflank and overrun the opposition. The advance of the Marines was steady but casualties were frequent. By nightfall, Edson had reached the former British residency overlooking Tulagi’s harbor and dug in for the night across a hill that overlooked the Japanese final position, a ravine on the island’s southern tip. The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, had driven through to the northern shore, cleaning its sector of enemy; Rosecrans moved into position to back up the raiders. By the end of its first day ashore, 2d Battalion had lost 56 men killed and wounded; 1st Raider Battalion casualties were 99 Marines. H402RA-107 Throughout the night, the Japanese swarmed from hillside caves in four separate attacks, trying to penetrate the raider lines. They were unsuccessful and most died in the attempts. At dawn, the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, landed to reinforce the attackers and by the afternoon of 8 August, the mop-up was completed and the battle for Tulagi was over. The fight for tiny Gavutu and Tanambogo, both little more than small hills rising out of the sea, connected by a hundred-yard causeway, was every bit as intense as that on Tulagi. The area of combat was much smaller and the opportunities for fire support from offshore ships and carrier planes was severely limited once the Marines had landed. After naval gunfire from the light cruiser San Juan (CL-54) and two destroyers, and a strike by F4F Wildcats flying from the Wasp, the 1st Parachute Battalion landed near noon in three waves, 395 men in all, on Gavutu. The Japanese, secure in cave positions, opened fire on the second and third waves, pinning down the first Marines ashore on the beach. Major Williams took a bullet in the lungs and was evacuated; 32 Marines were killed in the withering enemy fire. This time, 2d Marines reinforcements were really needed; the 1st Battalion’s Company B landed on Gavutu and attempted to take Tanambogo; the attackers were driven to ground and had to pull back to Gavutu. After a rough night of close-in fighting with the defenders of both islands, the 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, reinforced the men already ashore and mopped up on each island. The toll of Marines dead on the three islands was 144; the wounded numbered 194. The few Japanese who survived the battles fled to Florida Island, which had been scouted by the 2d Marines on D-Day and found clear of the enemy. The Marines’ landings and the concentration of shipping in Guadalcanal waters acted as a magnet to the Japanese at Rabaul. At Admiral Ghormley’s headquarters, Tulagi’s radio was heard on D-Day “frantically calling for [the] dispatch of surface forces to the scene” and designating transports and carriers as targets for heavy bombing. The messages were sent in plain language, emphasizing the plight of the threatened garrison. And the enemy response was prompt and characteristic of the months of naval air and surface attack to come. At 1030 on 7 August, an Australian coastwatcher hidden in the hills of the islands north of Guadalcanal signaled that a Japanese air strike composed of heavy bombers, light bombers, and fighters was headed for the island. Fletcher’s pilots, whose carriers were positioned 100 miles south of Guadalcanal, jumped the approaching planes 20 miles northwest of the landing areas before they could disrupt the operation. But the Japanese were not daunted by the setback; other planes and ships were en route to the inviting target. On 8 August, the Marines consolidated their positions ashore, seizing the airfield on Guadalcanal and establishing a beachhead. Supplies were being unloaded as fast as landing craft could make the turnaround from ship to shore, but the shore party was woefully inadequate to handle the influx of ammunition, rations, tents, aviation gas, vehicles—all gear necessary to sustain the Marines. The beach itself became a dumpsite. And almost as soon as the initial supplies were landed, they had to be moved to positions nearer Kukum village and Lunga Point within the planned perimeter. Fortunately, the lack of Japanese ground opposition enabled Vandegrift to shift the supply beaches west to a new beachhead. Japanese bombers did penetrate the American fighter screen on 8 August. Dropping their bombs from 20,000 feet or more to escape antiaircraft fire, the enemy planes were not very accurate. They concentrated on the ships in the channel, hitting and damaging a number of them and sinking the destroyer Jarvis (DD-393). In their battles to turn back the attacking planes, the carrier fighter squadrons lost 21 Wildcats on 7-8 August. The primary Japanese targets were the Allied ships. At this time, and for a thankfully and unbelievably long time to come, the Japanese commanders at Rabaul grossly underestimated the strength H402RA-108 of Vandegrift’s forces. They thought the Marine landings constituted a reconnaissance in force, perhaps 2,000 men, on Guadalcanal. By the evening of 8 August, Vandegrift had 10,900 troops ashore on Guadalcanal and another 6,075 on Tulagi. Three infantry regiments had landed and each had a supporting 75mm pack howitzer battalion—the 2d and 3d Battalions, 11th Marines on Guadalcanal, and the 3d Battalion, 10th Marines on Tulagi. The 5th Battalion, 11th Marines’ 105mm howitzers were in general support. That night a cruiser-destroyer force of the Imperial Japanese Navy reacted to the American invasion with a stinging response. Admiral Turner had positioned three cruiser-destroyer groups to bar the Tulagi- Guadalcanal approaches. At the Battle of Savo, the Japanese demonstrated their superiority in night fighting at this stage of the war, shattering two of Turner’s covering forces without loss to themselves. Four heavy cruisers went to the bottom—three American, one Australian—and another lost her bow. As the sun came up over what soon would be called “Ironbottom Sound,” Marines watched grimly as Higgins boats swarmed out to rescue survivors. Approximately 1,300 sailors died that night and another 700 suffered wounds or were badly burned. Japanese casualties numbered less than 200 men. The Japanese suffered damage to only one ship in the encounter, the cruiser Chokai. The American cruisers Vincennes (CA-44), Astoria (CA-34), and Quincy (CA-39) went to the bottom, as did the Australian Navy’s HMAS Canberra, so critically damaged that she had to be sunk by American torpedoes. Both the cruiser Chicago (CA-29) and destroyer Talbot (DD-114) were badly damaged. Fortunately for the Marines ashore, the Japanese force—five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and a destroyer—departed before dawn without attempting to disrupt the landing further. When the attack-force leader, Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, returned to Rabaul, he expected to receive the accolades of his superiors. He did get those, but he also found himself the subject of criticism. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese fleet commander, chided his subordinate for failing to attack the transports. Mikawa could only reply, somewhat lamely, that he did not know Fletcher’s aircraft carriers were so far away from Guadalcanal. Of equal significance to the Marines on the beach, the Japanese naval victory caused celebrating superiors in Tokyo to allow the event to overshadow the importance of the amphibious operation. The disaster prompted the American admirals to reconsider Navy support for operations ashore. Fletcher feared for the safety of his carriers; he had already lost about a quarter of his fighter aircraft. The commander of the expeditionary force had lost a carrier at Coral Sea and another at Midway. He felt he could not risk the loss of a third, even if it meant leaving the Marines on their own. Before the Japanese cruiser attack, he obtained Admiral Ghormley’s permission to withdraw from the area. At a conference on board Turner’s flagship transport, the McCawley, on the night of 8 August, the admiral told General Vandegrift that Fletcher’s impending withdrawal meant that he would have to pull out the amphibious force’s ships. The Battle of Savo Island reinforced the decision to get away before enemy aircraft, unchecked by American interceptors, struck. On 9 August, the transports withdrew to Noumea. The unloading of supplies ended abruptly, and ships still half-full steamed away. The forces ashore had 17 days’ rations—after counting captured Japanese food—and only four days’ supply of ammunition for all weapons. Not only did the ships take away the rest of the supplies, they also took the Marines still on board, including the 2d Marines’ headquarters element. Dropped off at the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, the infantry Marines and their commander, Colonel Arthur, were most unhappy and remained so until they finally reached Guadalcanal on 29 October. Ashore in the Marine beachheads, General Vandegrift ordered rations reduced to two meals a day. The reduced food intake would last for six weeks, and the Marines would become very familiar with Japanese canned fish and rice. Most of the Marines smoked and they were soon disgustedly smoking Japanese-issue brands. They found that the separate paper filters that came with the cigarettes were H402RA-109 necessary to keep the fast-burning tobacco from scorching their lips. The retreating ships had also hauled away empty sand bags and valuable engineer tools. So the Marines used Japanese shovels to fill Japanese rice bags with sand to strengthen their defensive positions. The Marines dug in along the beaches between the Tenaru and the ridges west of Kukum. A Japanese counter-landing was a distinct possibility. Inland of the beaches, defensive gun pits and foxholes lined the west bank of the Tenaru and crowned the hills that faced west toward the Matanikau River and Point Cruz. South of the airfield where densely jungled ridges and ravines abounded, the beachhead perimeter was guarded by outposts and these were manned in large part by combat support troops. The engineer, pioneer, and amphibious tractor battalion all had their positions on the front line. In fact, any Marine with a rifle, and that was virtually every Marine, stood night defensive duty. There was no place within the perimeter that could be counted safe from enemy infiltration. Almost as Turner’s transports sailed away, the Japanese began a pattern of harassing air attacks on the beachhead. Sometimes the raids came during the day, but the 3d Defense Battalion’s 90mm antiaircraft guns forced the bombers to fly too high for effective bombing. The erratic pattern of bombs, however, meant that no place was safe near the airfield, the preferred target, and no place could claim it was bomb- free. The most disturbing aspect of Japanese air attacks soon became the nightly harassment by Japanese aircraft which singly, it seemed, roamed over the perimeter, dropping bombs and flares indiscriminately. The nightly visitors, whose planes’ engines were soon well known sounds, won the singular title “Washing machine Charlie,” at first, and later, “Louie the Louse,” when their presence heralded Japanese shore bombardment. Technically, “Charlie” was a twin-engine night bomber from Rabaul. “Louie” was a cruiser float plane that signaled the harassed Marines used the names interchangeably. Even though most of the division’s heavy engineering equipment had disappeared with the Navy’s transports, the resourceful Marines soon completed the airfield’s runway with captured Japanese gear. On 12 August Admiral McCain’s aide piloted a PBY-5 Catalina flying boat and bumped to a halt on what was now officially Henderson Field, named for a Marine pilot, Major Lofton R. Henderson, lost at Midway. The Navy officer pronounced the airfield fit for fighter use and took off with a load of wounded Marines, the first of 2,879 to be evacuated. Henderson Field was the centerpiece of Vandegrift’s strategy; he would hold it at all costs. Although it was only 2,000 feet long and lacked a taxiway and adequate drainage, the tiny airstrip, often riddled with potholes and rendered unusable because of frequent, torrential downpours, was essential to the success of the landing force. With it operational, supplies could be flown in and wounded flown out. At least in the Marines’ minds, Navy ships ceased to be the only lifeline for the defenders. While Vandegrift’s Marines dug in east and west of Henderson Field, Japanese headquarters in Rabaul planned what it considered an effective response to the American offensive. Misled by intelligence estimates that the Marines numbered perhaps 2,000 men, Japanese staff officers believed that a modest force quickly sent could overwhelm the invaders. On 12 August, CinCPac determined that a sizable Japanese force was massing at Truk to steam to the Solomons and attempt to eject the Americans. Ominously, the group included the heavy carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku and the light carrier Ryujo. Despite the painful losses at Savo Island, the only significant increases to American naval forces in the Solomons was the assignment of a new battleship, the South Dakota (BB-57). Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo had ordered Lieutenant General Haruyoshi Hyakutake’s Seventeenth Army to attack the Marine perimeter. For his assault force, Hyakutake chose the 35th Infantry Brigade (Reinforced), commanded by Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi. At the time, Kawaguchi’s H402RA-110 main force was in the Palaus. Hyakutake selected a crack infantry regiment—the 28th—commanded by Colonel Kiyono Ichiki to land first. Alerted for its mission while it was at Guam, the Ichiki Detachment assault echelon, one battalion of 900 men, was transported to the Solomons on the only shipping available, six destroyers. As a result the troops carried just small amounts of ordnance and supplies. A follow-on echelon of 1,200 of Ichiki’s troops was to join the assault battalion on Guadalcanal. While the Japanese landing force was headed for Guadalcanal, the Japanese already on the island provided an unpleasant reminder that they, too, were full of fight. A captured enemy naval rating, taken in the constant patrolling to the west of the perimeter, indicated that a Japanese group wanted to surrender near the village of Kokumbona, seven miles west of the Matanikau. This was the area that Lieutenant Colonel Goettge considered held most of the enemy troops who had fled the airfield. On the night of 12 August, a reconnaissance patrol of 25 men led by Goettge himself left the perimeter by landing craft. The patrol landed near its objective, was ambushed, and virtually wiped out. Only three men managed to swim and wade back to the Marine lines. The bodies of the other members of the patrol were never found. To this day, the fate of the Goettge patrol continues to intrigue researchers. After the loss of Goettge and his men, vigilance increased on the perimeter. On the 14th, a fabled character, the coastwatcher Martin Clemens, came strolling out of the jungle into the Marine lines. He had watched the landing from the hills south of the airfield and now brought his bodyguard of native policemen with him. A retired sergeant major of the British Solomon Islands Constabulary, Jacob C. Vouza, volunteered about this time to search out Japanese to the east of the perimeter, where patrol sightings and contacts had indicated the Japanese might have effected a landing. The ominous news of Japanese sightings to the east and west of the perimeter were balanced out by the joyous word that more Marines had landed. This time the Marines were aviators. On 20 August, two squadrons of Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 23 were launched from the escort carrier Long Island (CVE- 1) located 200 miles southeast of Guadalcanal. Captain John L. Smith led 19 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats of Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF) 223 onto Henderson’s narrow runway. Smith’s fighters were followed by Major Richard C. Mangrum’s Marine Scout-Bombing Squadron (VMSB) 232 with 12 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers. From this point of the campaign, the radio identification for Guadalcanal, Cactus, became increasingly synonymous with the island. The Marine planes became the first elements of what would informally be known as Cactus Air Force. Wasting no time, the Marine pilots were soon in action against the Japanese naval aircraft which frequently attacked Guadalcanal. Smith shot down his first enemy Zero fighter on 21 August; three days later VMF-223’s Wildcats intercepted a strong Japanese aerial attack force and downed 16 enemy planes. In this action, Captain Marion E. Carl, a veteran of Midway, shot down three planes. On the 22nd, coastwatchers alerted Cactus to an approaching air attack and 13 of 16 enemy bombers were destroyed. At the same time, Mangrum’s dive bombers damaged three enemy destroyer-transports attempting to reach Guadalcanal. On 24 August, the American attacking aircraft, which now included Navy scout- bombers from the Saratoga’s Scouting Squadron (VS) 5, succeeded in turning back a Japanese reinforcement convoy of warships and destroyers. On 22 August, five Bell P-400 Air Cobras of the Army’s 67th Fighter Squadron had landed at Henderson, followed within a week by nine more Air Cobras. The Army planes, which had serious altitude and climb-rate deficiencies, were destined to see most action in ground combat support roles. The frenzied action in what became known as the Battle of the Eastern Solomons was matched ashore. Japanese destroyers had delivered the vanguard of the Ichiki force at Taivu Point, 25 miles east of H402RA-111 the Marine perimeter. A long-range patrol of Marines from Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines ambushed a sizable Japanese force near Taivu on 19 August. The Japanese dead were readily identified as Army troops and the debris of their defeat included fresh uniforms and a large amount of communication gear. Clearly, a new phase of the fighting had begun. All Japanese encountered to this point had been naval troops. Alerted by patrols, the Marines now dug in along the Ilu River, often misnamed the Tenaru on Marine maps, were ready for Colonel Ichiki. The Japanese commander’s orders directed him to “quickly recapture and maintain the airfield at Guadalcanal,” and his own directive to his troops emphasized that they would fight “to the last breath of the last man.” And they did. Too full of his mission to wait for the rest of his regiment and sure that he faced only a few thousand men overall, Ichiki marched from Taivu to the Marines’ lines. Before he attacked on the night of the 20th, a bloody figure stumbled out of the jungle with a warning that the Japanese were coming. It was Sergeant Major Vouza. Captured by the Japanese, who found a small American flag secreted in his loincloth, he was tortured in a failed attempt to gain information on the invasion force. Tied to a tree, bayoneted twice through the chest, and beaten with rifle butts, the resolute Vouza chewed through his bindings to escape. Taken to Lieutenant Colonel Edwin A. Pollock, whose 2d Battalion, 1st Marines held the Ilu mouth’s defenses, he gasped a warning that an estimated 250-500 Japanese soldiers were coming behind him. The resolute Vouza, rushed immediately to an aid station and then to the division hospital, miraculously survived his ordeal and was awarded a Silver Star for his heroism by General Vandegrift, and later a Legion of Merit. Vandegrift also made Vouza an honorary sergeant major of U.S. Marines. At 0130 on 21 August, Ichiki’s troops stormed the Marines’ lines in a screaming, frenzied display of the “spiritual strength” which they had been assured would sweep aside their American enemy. As the Japanese charged across the sand bar astride the Ilu’s mouth, Pollock’s Marines cut them down. After a mortar preparation, the Japanese tried again to storm past the sand bar. A section of 37mm guns sprayed the enemy force with deadly canister. Lieutenant Colonel Lenard B. Cresswell’s 1st Battalion, 1st Marines moved upstream on the Ilu at daybreak, waded across the sluggish, 50-foot-wide stream, and moved on the flank of the Japanese. Wildcats from VMF-223 strafed the beleaguered enemy force. Five light tanks blasted the retreating Japanese. By 1700, as the sun was setting, the battle ended. Colonel Ichiki, disgraced in his own mind by his defeat, burned his regimental colors and shot himself. Close to 800 of his men joined him in death. The few survivors fled eastward towards Taivu Point. Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, whose reinforcement force of transports and destroyers was largely responsible for the subsequent Japanese troop build-up on Guadalcanal, recognized that the unsupported Japanese attack was sheer folly and reflected that “this tragedy should have taught us the hopelessness of bamboo spear tactics.” Fortunately for the Marines, Ichiki’s overconfidence was not unique among Japanese commanders. Following the 1st Marines’ tangle with the Ichiki detachment, General Vandegrift was inspired to write the Marine Commandant, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, and report: “These youngsters are the darndest people when they get started you ever saw.” And all the Marines on the island, young and old, tyro and veteran, were becoming accomplished jungle fighters. They were no longer “trigger happy” as many had been in their first days ashore, shooting at shadows and imagined enemy. They were waiting for targets, patrolling with enthusiasm, sure of themselves. The misnamed Battle of the Tenaru had cost Colonel Hunt’s regiment 34 killed in action and 75 wounded. All the division’s Marines now felt they were bloodied. What the men on Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo and those of the Ilu had done was prove that the 1st Marine Division would hold fast to what it had won. H402RA-112 While the division’s Marines and sailors had earned a breathing spell as the Japanese regrouped for another onslaught, the action in the air over the Solomons intensified. Almost every day, Japanese aircraft arrived around noon to bomb the perimeter. Marine fighter pilots found the twin-engine Betty bombers easy targets; Zero fighters were another story. Although the Wildcats were a much sturdier aircraft, the Japanese Zeros’ superior speed and better maneuverability gave them a distinct edge in a dogfight. The American planes, however, when warned by the coastwatchers of Japanese attacks, had time to climb above the oncoming enemy and preferably attacked by making firing runs during high speed dives. Their tactics made the air space over the Solomons dangerous for the Japanese. On 29 August, the carrier Ryujo launched aircraft for a strike against the airstrip. Smith’s Wildcats shot down 16, with a loss of four of their own. Still, the Japanese continued to strike at Henderson Field without letup. Two days after the Ryujo raid, enemy bombers inflicted heavy damage on the airfield, setting aviation fuel ablaze and incinerating parked aircraft. VMF-223’s retaliation was a further bag of 13 attackers. On 30 August, two more MAG-23 squadrons, VMF-224 and VMSB-231, flew in to Henderson. The air reinforcements were more than welcome. Steady combat attrition, frequent damage in the air and on the ground, and scant repair facilities and parts kept the number of aircraft available a dwindling resource. Plainly, General Vandegrift needed infantry reinforcements as much as he did additional aircraft. He brought the now-combined raider and parachute battalions, both under Edson’s command, and the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, over to Guadalcanal from Tulagi. This gave the division commander a chance to order out larger reconnaissance patrols to probe for the Japanese. On 27 August, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, made a shore-to-shore landing near Kokumbona and marched back to the beachhead without any measurable results. If the Japanese were out there beyond the Matanikau—and they were—they watched the Marines and waited for a better opportunity to attack. September and the Ridge Admiral McCain visited Guadalcanal at the end of August, arriving in time to greet the aerial reinforcements he had ordered forward, and also in time for a taste of Japanese nightly bombing. He got to experience, too, what was becoming another unwanted feature of Cactus nights: bombardment by Japanese cruisers and destroyers. General Vandegrift noted that McCain had gotten a dose of the “normal ration of shells.” The admiral saw enough to signal his superiors that increased support for Guadalcanal operations was imperative and that the “situation admits no delay whatsoever.” He also sent a prophetic message to Admirals King and Nimitz: “Cactus can be sinkhole for enemy air power and can be consolidated, expanded, and exploited to the enemy’s mortal hurt.” On 3 September, the Commanding General, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Brigadier General Roy S. Geiger, and his assistant wing commander, Colonel Louis Woods, moved forward to Guadalcanal to take charge of air operations. The arrival of the veteran Marine aviators provided an instant lift to the morale of the pilots and ground crews. It reinforced their belief that they were at the leading edge of air combat, that they were setting the pace for the rest of Marine aviation. Vandegrift could thankfully turn over the day-to-day management of the aerial defenses of Cactus to the able and experienced Geiger. There was no shortage of targets for the mixed air force of Marine, Army, and Navy flyers. Daily air attacks by the Japanese, coupled with steady reinforcement attempts by Tanaka’s destroyers and transports, meant that every type of plane that could lift off Henderson’s runway was airborne as often as possible. Seabees had begun work on a second airstrip, Fighter One, which could relieve some of the pressure on the primary airfield. Most of General Kawaguchi’s brigade had reached Guadalcanal. Those who hadn’t, missed their land-fall forever as a result of American air attacks. Kawaguchi had in mind a surprise attack on the heart of the Marine position, a thrust from the jungle directly at the airfield. To reach his jump-off position, the H402RA-113 Japanese general would have to move through difficult terrain unobserved, carving his way through the dense vegetation out of sight of Marine patrols. The rugged approach route would lead him to a prominent ridge topped by Kunai grass which wove snake-like through the jungle to within a mile of Henderson’s runway. Unknown to the Japanese, General Vandegrift planned on moving his headquarters to the shelter of a spot at the inland base of this ridge, a site better protected, it was hoped, from enemy bombing and shellfire. The success of Kawaguchi’s plan depended upon the Marines keeping the inland perimeter thinly manned while they concentrated their forces on the east and west flanks. This was not to be. Available intelligence, including a captured enemy map, pointed to the likelihood of an attack on the airfield and Vandegrift moved his combined raider-parachute battalion to the most obvious enemy approach route, the ridge. Colonel Edson’s men, who scouted Savo Island after moving to Guadalcanal and destroyed a Japanese supply base at Tasimboko in another shore-to-shore raid, took up positions on the forward slopes of the ridge at the edge of the encroaching jungle on 10 September. Their commander later said that he “was firmly convinced that we were in the path of the next Jap attack.” Earlier patrols had spotted a sizable Japanese force approaching. Accordingly, Edson patrolled extensively as his men dug in on the ridge and in the flanking jungle. On the 12th, the Marines made contact with enemy patrols confirming the fact the Japanese troops were definitely “out front.” Kawaguchi had about 2,000 of his men with him, enough he thought to punch through to the airfield. Japanese planes had dropped 500-pound bombs along the ridge on the 11th and enemy ships began shelling the area after nightfall on the 12th, once the threat of American air attacks subsided. The first Japanese thrust came at 2100 against Edson’s left flank. Boiling out of the jungle, the enemy soldiers attacked fearlessly into the face of rifle and machine gun fire, closing to bayonet range. They were thrown back. They came again, this time against the right flank, penetrating the Marines’ positions. Again they were thrown back. A third attack closed out the night’s action. Again it was a close affair, but by 0230 Edson told Vandegrift his men could hold. And they did. On the morning of 13 September, Edson called his company commanders together and told them: “They were just testing, just testing. They’ll be back.” He ordered all positions improved and defenses consolidated and pulled his lines towards the airfield along the ridge’s center spine. The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, his backup on Tulagi, moved into position to reinforce again. The next night’s attacks were as fierce as any man had seen. The Japanese were everywhere, fighting hand-to-hand in the Marines’ foxholes and gun pits and filtering past forward positions to attack from the rear. Division Sergeant Major Sheffield Banta shot one in the new command post. Colonel Edson appeared wherever the fighting was toughest, encouraging his men to their utmost efforts. The man-to- man battles lapped over into the jungle on either flank of the ridge, and engineer and pioneer positions were attacked. The reserve from the 5th Marines was fed into the fight. Artillerymen from the 5th Battalion, 11th Marines, as they had on the previous night, fired their 105mm howitzers at any called target. The range grew as short as 1,600 yards from tube to impact. The Japanese finally could take no more. They pulled back as dawn approached. On the slopes of the ridge and in the surrounding jungle they left more than 600 bodies; another 600 men were wounded. The remnants of the Kawaguchi force staggered back toward their lines to the west, a grueling, hellish eight-day march that saw many more of the enemy perish. The cost to Edson’s force for its epic defense was also heavy. Fifty-nine men were dead, 10 were missing in action, and 194 were wounded. These losses, coupled with the casualties of Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, meant the end of the 1st Parachute Battalion as an effective fighting unit. Only 89 men of the parachutists’ original strength could walk off the ridge, soon in legend to become “Bloody Ridge” H402RA-114 or “Edson’s Ridge.” Both Colonel Edson and Captain Kenneth D. Bailey, commanding the Raider’s Company C, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic and inspirational actions. On 13 and 14 September, the Japanese attempted to support Kawaguchi’s attack on the ridge with thrusts against the flanks of the Marine perimeter. On the east, enemy troops attempting to penetrate the lines of the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, were caught in the open on a grass plain and smothered by artillery fire; at least 200 died. On the west, the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, holding ridge positions covering the coastal road, fought off a determined attacking force that reached its front lines. The victory at the ridge gave a great boost to Allied homefront morale, and reinforced the opinion of the men ashore on Guadalcanal that they could take on anything the enemy could send against them. At upper command echelons, the leaders were not so sure that the ground Marines and their motley air force could hold. Intercepted Japanese dispatches revealed that the myth of the 2,000-man defending force had been completely dispelled. Sizable naval forces and two divisions of Japanese troops were now committed to conquer the Americans on Guadalcanal. Cactus Air Force, augmented frequently by Navy carrier squadrons, made the planned reinforcement effort a high-risk venture. But it was a risk the Japanese were prepared to take. On 18 September, the long-awaited 7th Marines, reinforced by the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, and other division troops, arrived at Guadalcanal. As the men from Samoa landed they were greeted with friendly derision by Marines already on the island. The 7th had been the first regiment of the 1st Division to go overseas; its men, many thought then, were likely to be the first to see combat. The division had been careful to send some of its best men to Samoa and now had them back. One of the new and salty combat veterans of the 5th Marines remarked to a friend in the 7th that he had waited a long time “to see our first team get into the game.” Providentially, a separate supply convoy reached the island at the same H402RA-115 time as the 7th’s arrival, bringing with it badly needed aviation gas and the first resupply of ammunition since D-Day. The Navy covering force for the reinforcement and supply convoys was hit hard by Japanese submarines. The carrier Wasp was torpedoed and sunk, the battleship North Carolina (BB-55) was damaged, and the destroyer O’Brien (DD-415) was hit so badly it broke up and sank on its way to dry- dock. The Navy had accomplished its mission, the 7th Marines had landed, but at a terrible cost. About the only good result of the devastating Japanese torpedo attacks was that the Wasp’s surviving aircraft joined Cactus Air Force, as the planes of the Saratoga and Enterprise had done when their carriers required combat repairs. Now, the Hornet (CV-8) was the only whole fleet carrier left in the South Pacific. As the ships that brought the 7th Marines withdrew, they took with them the survivors of the 1st Parachute Battalion and sick bays full of badly wounded men. General Vandegrift now had 10 infantry battalions, one under strength raider battalion, and five artillery battalions ashore; the 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, had come over from Tulagi also. He reorganized the defensive perimeter into 10 sectors for better control, giving the engineer, pioneer, and amphibian tractor battalions sectors along the beach. Infantry battalions manned the other sectors, including the inland perimeter in the jungle. Each infantry regiment had two battalions on line and one in reserve. Vandegrift also had the use of a select group of infantrymen who were training to be scouts and snipers under the leadership of Colonel William J. “Wild Bill” Whaling, an experienced jungle hand, marksman, and hunter, whom he had appointed to run a school to sharpen the division’s fighting skills. As men finished their training under Whaling and went back to their outfits, others took their place and the Whaling group was available to scout and spearhead operations. Vandegrift now had enough men ashore on Guadalcanal, 19,200, to expand his defensive scheme. He decided to seize a forward position along the east bank of the Matanikau River, in effect strongly outposting his west flank defenses against the probability of string enemy attacks from the area where most Japanese troops were landing. First, however, he was going to test the Japanese reaction with a strong probing force. He chose the fresh 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, to move inland along the slopes of Mt. Austen and patrol north towards the coast and the Japanese-held area. Puller’s battalion ran into Japanese troops bivouacked on the slopes of Austen on the 24th and in a sharp firefight had seven men killed and 25 wounded. Vandegrift sent the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, forward to reinforce Puller and help provide the men needed to carry the casualties out of the jungle. Now reinforced, Puller continued his advance, moving down the east bank of the Matanikau. He reached the coast on the 26th as planned, where he drew intensive fire from enemy positions on the ridges west of the river. An attempt by the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, to cross was beaten back. About the time, the 1st Raider Battalion, its original mission one of establishing a patrol base west of the Matanikau, reached the vicinity of the firefight, and joined in. Vandegrift sent Colonel Edson, now the commander of the 5th Marines, forward to take charge of the expanded force. He was directed to attack on the 27th and decided to send the raiders inland to outflank the Japanese defenders. The battalion, commanded by Edson’s former executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel B. Griffith II, ran into a hornet’s nest of Japanese who had crossed the Matanikau during the night. A garbled message led Edson to believe that Griffith’s men were advancing according to plan, so he decided to land the companies of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, behind the enemy’s Matanikau position and strike the Japanese from the rear while Rosecrans’s men attacked across the river. H402RA-116 The landing was made without incident and the 7th Marines’ companies moved inland only to be ambushed and cut off from the sea by the Japanese. A rescue force of landing craft moved with difficulty through Japanese fire, urged on by Puller who accompanied the boats on the destroyer Ballard (DD-267). The Marines were evacuated after fighting their way to the beach covered by the destroyer’s fire and the machine guns of a Marine SBD overhead. Once the 7th Marines companies got back to the perimeter, landing near Kukum, the raider and 5th Marines battalions pulled back from the Matanikau. The confirmation that the Japanese would strongly contest any westward advance cost the Marines 60 men killed and 100 wounded. The Japanese the Marines had encountered were mainly men for the 4th Regiment of the 2d (Sendai) Division; prisoners confirmed that the division was landing on the island. Included in the enemy reinforcements were 150mm howitzers, guns capable of shelling the airfield from positions near Kokumbona. Clearly, a new and stronger enemy attack was pending. As September drew to a close, a flood of promotions had reached the division, nine lieutenant colonels put on their colonel’s eagles and there were 14 new lieutenant colonels also. Vandegrift made Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, his former operations officer, the new division chief of staff, and had a short time earlier given Edson the 5th Marines. Many of the older, senior officers, picked for the most part in the order they had joined the division, were now sent back to the States. There they would provide a new level of combat expertise in the training and organization of the many Marine units that were forming. The air wing was not quite ready yet to return its experienced pilots to rear areas, but the vital combat knowledge they possessed was much needed in the training pipeline. They, too—the survivors—would soon be rotating back to rear areas, some for a much-needed break before returning to combat and others to lead new squadrons into the fray. October and the Japanese Offensive On 30 September, unexpectedly, a B-17 carrying Admiral Nimitz made an emergency landing at Henderson Field. The CinCPac made the most of the opportunity. He visited the front lines, saw Edson’s Ridge, and talked to a number of Marines. He reaffirmed to Vandegrift that his overriding mission was to hold the airfield. He promised all the support he could give and after awarding Navy Crosses to a number of Marines, including Vandegrift, left the next day visibly encouraged by what he had seen. The next Marine move involved a punishing return to the Matanikau, this time with five infantry battalions and the Whaling group. Whaling commanded his men and the 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, in a thrust inland to clear the way for two battalions of the 7th Marines, the 1st and 2d, to drive through and hook toward the coast, hitting the Japanese holding along the Matanikau. Edson’s 2d and 3d Battalions would attack across the river mouth. All the division’s artillery was positioned to fire in support. On the 7th, Whaling’s force moved into the jungle about 2,000 yards upstream on the Matanikau, encountering Japanese troops that harassed his forward elements, but not in enough strength to stop the advance. He bypassed the enemy positions and dug in for the night. Behind him the 7th Marines followed suit, prepared to move through his lines, cross the river, and attack north toward the Japanese on the 8th. The 5th Marines’ assault battalions moving toward the Matanikau on the 7th ran into Japanese in strength about 400 yards from the river. Unwittingly, the Marines had run into strong advance elements of the Japanese 4th Regiment, which had crossed the Matanikau in order to establish a base from which artillery could fire into the Marine perimeter. The fighting was intense and the 3d Battalion, 5th, could make little progress, although the 2d Battalion encountered slight opposition and won through to the river bank. It then turned north to hit the inland flank of the enemy troops. Vandegrift sent forward a company of raiders to reinforce the 5th, and it took a holding position on the right, towards the beach. H402RA-117 Rain poured down on the 8th, all day long, virtually stopping all forward progress, but not halting the close-in fighting around the Japanese pocket. The enemy troops finally retreated, attempting to escape the gradually encircling Marines. They smashed into the raider’s position nearest to their escape route. A wild hand-to-hand battle ensued and a few Japanese broke through to reach and cross the river. The rest died fighting. On the 9th, Whaling’s force, flanked by the 2d and then the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, crossed the Matanikau and then turned and followed ridge lines to the sea. Puller’s battalion discovered a number of Japanese in a raving to his front, fired his mortars, and called in artillery, while his men used rifles and machine guns to pick off enemy troops trying to escape what proved to be a death trap. When his mortar ammunition began to run short, Puller moved on toward the beach, joining the rest of Whaling’s force, which had encountered no opposition. The Marines then recrossed the Matanikau, joined Edson’s troops, and marched back to the perimeter, leaving a strong combat outpost at the Matanikau, now cleared of Japanese. General Vandegrift, apprised by intelligence sources that a major Japanese attack was coming from the west, decided to consolidate his positions, leaving no sizable Marine force more than a day’s march from the perimeter. The Marine advance on 7-9 October had thwarted Japanese plans for an early attack and cost the enemy more than 700 men. The Marines paid a price too, 65 dead and 125 wounded. There was another price that Guadalcanal was exacting from both sides. Disease was beginning to fell men in numbers that equaled the battle casualties. In addition to gastroenteritis, which greatly weakened those who suffered its crippling stomach cramps, there were all kinds of tropical fungus infections, collectively known as “jungle rot,” which produced uncomfortable rashes on men’s feet, armpits, elbows, and crotches, a product of seldom being dry. If it didn’t rain, sweat provided the moisture. On top of this came hundreds of cases of malaria. Atabrine tablets provided some relief, besides turning the skin yellow, but they were not effective enough to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne infection. Malaria attacks were so pervasive that nothing sort of complete prostration, becoming a litter case, could earn a respite in the hospital. Naturally enough, all these diseases affected most strongly the men who had been on the island the longest, particularly those who experienced the early days of short rations. Vandegrift had already argued with his superiors that when his men eventually got relieved they should not be sent to another tropical island hospital, but rather to a place where there was a real change of atmosphere and climate. He asked that Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand, be considered. For the present, however, there was to be no relief for men starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would not abandon their plan to seize back Guadalcanal and gave painful evidence of their intentions near mid-October. General Hyakutake himself landed on Guadalcanal on 7 October to oversee the coming offensive. Elements of Major General Masao Maruyama’s Sendai Division, already a factor in the fighting near the Matanikau, landed with him. More men were coming. And the Japanese, taking advantage of the fact that Cactus flyers had no night attack capability, planned to ensure that no planes at all would rise from Guadalcanal to meet them. On 11 October, U.S. Navy surface ships took a hand in stopping the “Tokyo Express,” the nickname that had been given to Admiral Tanaka’s almost nightly reinforcement forays. A covering force of five cruisers and five destroyers, located near Rennell Island and commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott, got word that many ships were approaching Guadalcanal. Scott’s mission was to protect an approaching reinforcement convoy and he steamed toward Cactus at flank speed eager to engage. He encountered more ships than he had expected, a bombardment group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, as well as six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal’s western tip, and ran head-on into the bombardment group. Alerted by a scout plane from his flagship, San Francisco (CA-38), spottings later confirmed by radar contacts on the Helena (CL-50), the Americans opened fire before the Japanese, who had no radar, knew H402RA-118 of their presence. One enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were badly damaged, one, the Furutaka, later foundered, and the remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the inferno of American fire. Scott’s own force was punished by enemy return fire which damaged two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the Duncan (DD-485), sank the following day. On the 12th too, Cactus flyers spotted two of the reinforcement destroyer escorts retiring and sank them both. The Battle of Cape Esperance could be counted an American naval victory, one sorely needed at the time. Its way cleared by Scott’s encounter with the Japanese, a really welcome reinforcement convoy arrived at the island on 13 October when the 164th Infantry of the Americal Division arrived. The soldiers, members of a National Guard outfit originally from North Dakota, were equipped with Garand M-1 rifles, a weapon of which most overseas Marines had only heard. In rate of fire, the semiautomatic Garand could easily outperform the single-shot, bolt-action Springfields the Marines carried and the bolt- action rifles the Japanese carried, but most 1st Division Marines of necessity touted the Springfield as inherently more accurate and a better weapon. This did not prevent some light-fingered Marines from acquiring Garands when the occasion presented itself. And such an occasion did present itself while the soldiers were landing and their supplies were being moved to dumps. Several flights of Japanese bombers arrived over Henderson Field, relatively unscathed by the defending fighters, and began dropping their bombs. The soldiers headed for cover and alert Marines, inured to the bombing, used the interval to “liberate” interesting cartons and crates. The news that the Army had arrived spread across the island like wildfire, for it meant to all marines that they eventually would be relieved. There was hope. As if the bombing was not enough grief, the Japanese opened on the airfield with their 150mm howitzers also. Altogether the men of the 164th got a rude welcome to Guadalcanal. And on that night, 13-14 October, they shared a terrifying experience with the Marines that no one would ever forget. Determined to knock out Henderson Field and protect their soldiers landing in strength west of Koli Point, the enemy commanders sent the battleships Kongo and Haruna into Ironbottom Sound to bombard the Marine positions. The usual Japanese flare planes heralded the bombardment, 80 minutes of sheer hell which had 14-inch shells exploding with such effect that the accompanying cruiser fire was scarcely noticed. No one was safe; no place was safe. No dugout had been built to withstand 14-inch shells. One witness, a seasoned veteran demonstrably cool under enemy fire, opined that there was nothing worse in war than helplessly being on the receiving end of naval gunfire. He remembered “huge trees being cut apart and flying about like toothpicks.” And he was on the front lines, not the prime enemy target. The airfield and its environs were shambles when dawn broke. The naval shelling, together with the night’s artillery fire and bombing, had left Cactus Air Force’s commander, General Geiger, with a handful of aircraft still flyable, and airfield thickly cratered by shells and bombs, and a death toll of 41. Still, from Henderson or Fighter One, which now became the main airstrip, the Cactus Flyers had to attack, for the morning also revealed a shore and sea full of inviting targets. The expected enemy convoy had gotten through and Japanese transports and landing craft were everywhere near Tassafaronga. At sea the escorting cruisers and destroyers provided a formidable antiaircraft screen. Every American plane that could fly did. General Geiger’s aide, Major Jack Cram, took off in the general’s PBY, hastily rigged to carry two torpedoes, and put one of them into the side of an enemy transport as it was unloading. He landed the lumbering flying boat with enemy aircraft hot on his tail. A new squadron of F4Fs, VMF-212, commanded by Major Harold W. Bauer, flew in during the day’s action, landed, refueled, and took off to join the fighting. An hour later, Bauer landed again, this time with four enemy bombers to his credit. Bauer, who added to his score of Japanese aircraft kills in later air battles, was subsequently lost in action. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, as were four other Marine pilots of the early Cactus Air Force: Captain Jefferson J. DeBlank (VMF-112); Captain Joseph J. Foss (VMF-121); Major Robert E. Galer (VMF-224); and Major John L. Smith (VMF-223). H402RA-119 The Japanese had landed more than enough troops to destroy the Marine beachhead and seize the airfield. At least General Hyakutake thought so, and he heartily approved General Maruyama’s plan to move most of the Sendai Division through the jungle, out of sight and out of contact with the Marines, to strike from the south in the vicinity of Edson’s Ridge. Roughly 7,000 men, each carrying a mortar or artillery shell, started along the Maruyama Trail which had been partially hacked out of the jungle well inland from the Marine positions. Maruyama, who had approved the trail’s name to indicate his confidence, intended to support this attack with heavy mortars and infantry guns (70mm pack howitzers). The men who had to lug, push, and drag these supporting arms over the miles of broken ground, across two major streams, the Matanikau and the Lunga, and through heavy underbrush, might have had another name for their commander’s path to supposed glory. General Vandegrift knew the Japanese were going to attack. Patrols and reconnaissance flights had clearly indicated the push would be from the west, where the enemy reinforcements had landed. The American commander changed his dispositions accordingly. There were Japanese troops east of the perimeter, too, but not in any significant strength. The new infantry regiment, the 164th, reinforced by Marine special weapons units, was put into the line to hold the eastern flank along 6,600 yards, curving inland to join up with the 7th Marines near Edson’s Ridge. The 7th held 2,500 yards from the ridge to the Lunga. From the Lunga, the 1st Marines had a 3,500-yard sector of jungle running west to the point where the line curved back to the beach again in the 5th Marines’ sector. Since the attack was expected from the west, the 3d Battalions of each of the 1st and 7th Marines held a strong outpost position forward of the 5th Marines’ lines along the east bank of the Matanikau. In the lull before the attack, if a time of patrol clashes, Japanese cruiser-destroyer bombardments, bomber attacks, and artillery harassment could properly be called a lull, Vandegrift was visited by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb. The Commandant flew in on 21 October to see for himself how his Marines were faring. It also proved to be an occasion for both senior Marines to meet the new ComSoPac, Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. Admiral Nimitz had announced Halsey’s appointment on 18 October and the news was welcome in Navy and Marine ranks throughout the Pacific. Halsey’s deserved reputation for élan and aggressiveness promised renewed attention to the situation on Guadalcanal. On the 22nd, Holcomb and Vandegrift flew to Noumea to meet with Halsey and to receive and give a round of briefings on the Allied situation. After Vandegrift had described his position, he argued strongly against the diversion of reinforcements intended for Cactus to any other South Pacific venue, a sometime factor of Admiral Turner’s strategic vision. He insisted that he needed all of the Americal Division and another 2d Marine Division regiment to beef up his forces, and that more than half of his veterans were worn out by three months’ fighting and the ravages of jungle- incurred diseases. Admiral Halsey told the Marine general: “You go back there, Vandegrift. I promise to get you everything I have.” When Vandegrift returned to Guadalcanal, Holcomb moved on to Pearl Harbor to meet with Nimitz, carrying Halsey’s recommendation that, in the future, landing force commanders once established ashore, would have equal command status with Navy amphibious force commanders. At Pearl, Nimitz approved Halsey’s recommendation—which Holcomb had drafted—and in Washington so did King. In effect, the command status of all future Pacific amphibious operations was determined by the events of Guadalcanal. Another piece of news Vandegrift received from Holcomb also boded well for the future of the Marine Corps. Holcomb indicated that if President Roosevelt did not reappoint him, unlikely in view of his age and two terms in office, he would recommend that Vandegrift be appointed the next Commandant. This news of future events had little chance of diverting Vandegrift’s attention when he flew back to Guadalcanal, for the Japanese were in the midst of their planned offensive. On the 20th, an enemy patrol accompanied by two tanks tried to find a way through the line held by Lieutenant Colonel William N. McKelvy, Jr.’s 3d Battalion, 1st Marines. A sharpshooting 37mm gun crew knocked out one tank and the H402RA-120 enemy force fell back, meanwhile shelling the Marine positions with artillery. Near sunset the next day, the Japanese tried again, this time with more artillery fire and more tanks in the fore, but again a 37mm gun knocked out a lead tank and discouraged the attack. On 22 October, the enemy paused, waiting for Maruyama’s force to get into position inland. On the 23rd, planned as the day of the Sendai’s main attack, the Japanese dropped a heavy rain of artillery and mortar fire on McKelvy’s positions near the Matanikau River mouth. Near dusk, nine 18-ton medium tanks clanked out of the trees onto the river’s sandbar and just as quickly eight of them were riddled by the 37s. One tank got across the river, a marine blasted a track off with a grenade, and a 75mm half-track finished it off in the ocean’s surf. The following enemy infantry was smothered by Marine artillery fire as all battalions of the augmented 11th Marines rained shells on the massed attackers. Hundreds of Japanese were casualties and three more tanks were destroyed. Later, an inland thrust further upstream was easily beaten back. The abortive coastal attack did almost nothing to aid Maruyama’s inland offensive, but did cause Vandegrift to shift one battalion, the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, out of the line to the east and into the 4,000-yard gap between the Matanikau position and the perimeter. This move proved providential since one of Maruyama’s planned attacks was headed right for this area. Although patrols had encountered no Japanese east or south of the jungled perimeter up to the 24th, the Matanikau attempts had alerted everyone. When General Maruyama finally was satisfied that his men had struggled through to appropriate assault positions, after delaying his day of attack three times, he was ready on 24 October. The Marines were waiting. An observer from the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, spotted an enemy officer surveying Edson’s Ridge on the 24th, and scout-snipers reported smoke from numerous rice fires rising from a valley about two miles south of Lieutenant Colonel Puller’s positions. Six battalions of the Sendai Division were poised to attack, and near midnight the first elements of the enemy hit and bypassed a platoon-sized outpost forward of Puller’s barbed-wire entanglements. Warned by the outpost, Puller’s men waited, straining to see through a dark night and a driving rain. Suddenly, the Japanese charged out of the jungle, attacking in Puller’s area near the ridge and the flat ground to the east. The Marines replied with everything they had, calling in artillery, firing mortars, relying heavily on crossing fields of machine gun fire to cut down the enemy infantrymen. Thankfully, the enemy’s artillery, mortars, and other supporting arms were scattered back along the Maruyama Trail; they had proved too much of a burden for the infantrymen to carry forward. A wedge was driven into the Marine lines, but eventually straightened out with repeated counterattacks. Puller soon realized his battalion was being hit by a strong Japanese force capable of repeated attacks. He called for reinforcements and the Army’s 3d Battalion, 164th Infantry (Lieutenant Colonel Robert K. Hall), was ordered forward, its men sliding and slipping in the rain as they trudged a mile south along Edson’s Ridge. Puller met Hall at the head of his column, and the two officers walked down the length of the Marine lines, peeling off an Army squad at a time to feed into the lines. When the Japanese attacked again as they did all night long, the soldiers and Marines fought back together. By 0330, the Army battalion was completely integrated into the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines’ lines and the enemy attacks were getting weaker and weaker. The American return fire—including flanking fire from machine guns and Weapons Company, 7th Marines’ 37mm guns remaining in the positions held by 2d Battalion, 164th Infantry, on Puller’s left—was just too much to take. Near dawn, Maruyama pulled his men back to regroup and prepare to attack again. With daylight, Puller and Hall reordered the lines, putting the 3d Battalion, 164th, into its own positions on Puller’s left, tying in with the rest of the Army regiment. The driving rains had turned Fighter One into a quagmire, effectively grounding Cactus flyers. Japanese planes used the “free ride” to bomb Marine positions. Their artillery fired incessantly and a pair of Japanese destroyers added their gunfire to the bombardment until they got too close to the shore and the 3d Defense Battalion’s 5-inch H402RA-121 guns drove them off. As the sun bore down, the runways dried and afternoon enemy attacks were met by Cactus fighters, who downed 22 Japanese planes with a loss of three of their own. As night came on again, Maruyama tried more of the same, with the same result. The Army-Marine lines held and the Japanese were cut down in droves by rifle, machine gun, mortar, 37mm, and artillery fire. To the west, an enemy battalion mounted three determined attacks against the positions held by Lieutenant Colonel Herman H. Hanneken’s 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, thinly tied in with Puller’s battalion on the left and the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, on the right. The enemy finally penetrated the positions held by Company F, but a counterattack led by Major Odell M. Conoley, the battalion’s executive officer, drove off the Japanese. Again at daylight the American positions were secure and the enemy had retreated. They would not come back; the grand Japanese offensive of the Sendai Division was over. About 3,500 enemy troops had died during the attacks. General Maruyama’s proud boast that he “would exterminate the enemy around the airfield in one blow” proved an empty one. What was left of his force now straggled back over the Maruyama Trail, losing, as had the Kawaguchi force in the same situation, most of its seriously wounded men. The Americans, Marines and soldiers together, probably lost 300 men killed and wounded; existing records are sketchy and incomplete. One result of the battle, however, was a warm welcome to the 164th Infantry from the 1st Marine Division. Vandegrift particularly commended Lieutenant Colonel Hall’s battalion, stating the “division was proud to have serving with it another unit which had stood the test of battle.” And Colonel Cates sent a message to the 164th’s Colonel Bryant Moore saying that the 1st Marines “were proud to serve with a unit such as yours.” Amidst all the heroics of the two nights’ fighting there were many men who were singled out for recognition and an equally large number who performed great deeds that were never recognized. Two men stood out above all others, and on succeeding nights, Sergeant John Basilone of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and Platoon Sergeant Mitchell Paige of the 2d Battalion, both machine gun section heads, were recognized as having performed “above and beyond the call of duty” in the inspiring words of their Medal of Honor citations. November and the Continuing Buildup While the soldiers and Marines were battling the Japanese ashore, a patrol plane sighted a large Japanese fleet near the Santa Cruz Islands to the east of the Solomons. The enemy force was formidable, 4 carriers and 4 battleships, 8 cruisers and 28 destroyers, all poised for a victorious attack when Maruyama’s capture of Henderson Field was signaled. Admiral Halsey’s reaction to the inviting targets was characteristic, he signaled Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, with the Hornet and Enterprise carrier groups located north of the New Hebrides: “Attack Repeat Attack.” Early on 26 October, American SBDs located the Japanese carriers at about the same time Japanese scout planes spotted the American carriers. The Japanese Zuiho’s flight deck was holed by the scout bombers, cancelling flight operations, but the other three enemy carriers launched strikes. The two air armadas tangled as each strove to reach the other’s carriers. The Hornet was hit repeatedly by bombs and torpedoes; two Japanese pilots also crashed their planes on board. The damage to the ship was so extensive, the Hornet was abandoned and sunk. The Enterprise, the battleship South Dakota, the light cruiser San Juan (CL-54), and the destroyer Porter (DD-356) were sunk. On the Japanese side, no ships were sunk, but three carriers and two destroyers were damaged. One hundred Japanese planes were lost; 74 U.S. planes went down. Taken together, the results of the Battle of Santa Cruz were a standoff. The Japanese naval leaders might have continued their attacks, but instead, disheartened by the defeat of their ground forces on Guadalcanal, withdrew to attack another day. H402RA-122 The departure of the enemy naval force marked a period in which substantial reinforcements reached the island. The headquarters of the 2d Marines had finally found transport space to come up from Espiritu Santo and on 29 and 30 October, Colonel Arthur moved his regiment from Tulagi to Guadalcanal, exchanging his 1st and 2d Battalions for the well-blooded 3d, which took up the Tulagi duties. The 2d Marines’ battalions at Tulagi had performed the very necessary task of scouting and securing all the small islands of the Florida group while they had camped, frustrated, watching the battles across Sealark Channel. The men now would no longer be spectators at the big show. On 2 November, planes from VMSB-132 and VMF-211 flew into the Cactus fields from New Caledonia. MAG-11 squadrons moved forward from New Caledonia to Espiritu Santo to be closer to the battle scene; the flight echelons now could operate forward to Guadalcanal and with relative ease. On the ground side, two batteries of 155mm guns, one Army and one Marine, landed on 2 November, providing Vandegrift with his first artillery units capable of matching the enemy’s long-range 150mm guns. On the 4th and 5th, the 8th Marines (Colonel Richard H.J. Jeschke) arrived from American Samoa. The full- strength regiment, reinforced by the 75mm howitzers of the 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, added another 4,000 men to the defending forces. All the fresh troops reflected a renewed emphasis at all levels of command on making sure Guadalcanal would be held. The reinforcement-replacement pipeline was being filled. In the offing as part of the Guadalcanal defending force were the rest of the Americal Division, the remainder of the 2d Marine Division, and the Army’s 25th Infantry Division, then in Hawaii. More planes of every type and from Allied as well as American sources were slated to reinforce and replace the battered and battle-weary Cactus veterans. The impetus for the heightened pace of reinforcement had been provided by President Roosevelt. Cutting through the myriad demands for American forces worldwide, he had told each of the Joint Chiefs on 24 October that Guadalcanal must be reinforced, and without delay. On the island, the pace of operations did not slacken after the Maruyama offensive was beaten back. General Vandegrift wanted to clear the area immediately west of the Matanikau of all Japanese troops, forestalling, if he could, another buildup of attacking forces. Admiral Tanaka’s Tokyo Express was still operating and despite punishing attacks by Cactus aircraft and new and deadly opponents, American motor torpedo boats, now based at Tulagi. On 1 November, the 5th Marines, backed up by the newly arrived 2d Marines, attacked across bridges engineers had laid over the Matanikau during the previous night. Inland, Colonel Whaling led his scout- snipers and the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, in a screening movement to protect the flank of the main attack. Opposition was fierce in the shore area where the 1st Battalion, 5th, drove forward toward Point Cruz, but inland the 2d Battalion and Whaling’s group encountered slight opposition. By nightfall, when the Marines dug in, it was clear that the only sizable enemy force was in the Point Cruz area. In the day’s bitter fighting, Corporal Anthony Casamento, a badly wounded machine gun squad leader in Edson’s 1st Battalion, had so distinguished himself that he was recommended for a Navy Cross; many years later, in August 1980, President Jimmy Carter approved the award of the Medal of Honor in its stead. On the 2nd, the attack continued with the reserve 3d Battalion moving into the fight and all three 5th Marines units moving to surround the enemy defenders. On 3 November, the Japanese pocket just west of the base at Point Cruz was eliminated; well over 300 enemy had been killed. Elsewhere, the attacking Marines had encountered spotty resistance and advanced slowly across difficult terrain to a point about 1,000 yards beyond the 5th Marines’ action. There, just as the offensive’s objectives seemed well in hand, the advance was halted. Again, the intelligence that a massive enemy reinforcement attempt was pending forced Vandegrift to pull back most of his men to safeguard the all-important airfield perimeter. This H402RA-123 time, however, he left a regiment to outpost the ground that had been gained, Colonel Arthur’s 2d Marines, reinforced by the Army’s 1st Battalion, 164th Infantry. Emphasizing the need for caution in Vandegrift’s mind was the fact that the Japanese were again discovered in strength east of the perimeter. On 3 November, Lieutenant Colonel Hanneken’s 23d Battalion, 7th Marines, on a reconnaissance in force towards Kili Point, could see the Japanese ships clustered near Tetere, eight miles from the perimeter. His Marines encountered strong Japanese resistance from obviously fresh troops and he began to pull back. A regiment of the enemy’s 38th Division had landed, as Hyakutake experimented with a Japanese Navy-promoted scheme of attacking the perimeter from both flanks. As Hanneken’s battalion executed a fighting withdrawal along the beach, it began to receive fire from the jungle inland, too. A rescue force was soon put together under General Rupertus: two tank companies, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and the 2d and 3d Battalions of the 164th. The Japanese troops, members of the 38th Division regiment and remnants of Kawaguchi’s brigade, fought doggedly to hold their ground as the Marines drove forward along the coast and the soldiers attempted to outflank the enemy in the jungle. The running battle continued for days, supported by Cactus air, naval gunfire, and the newly landed 155mm guns. The enemy commander received new orders as he was struggling to hold off the Americans. He was to break off the action, move inland, and march to rejoin the main Japanese forces west of the perimeter, a tall order to fulfill. The two-pronged attack scheme had been abandoned. The Japanese managed the first part; on the 11th, the enemy force found a gap in the 164th’s line and broke through along a meandering jungle stream. Behind they left 450 dead over the course of a seven-day battle; the Marines and soldiers had lost 40 dead and 120 wounded. Essentially, the Japanese who broke out of the encircling Americans escaped from the frying pan only to fall into the fire. Admiral Turner finally had been able to effect one of his several schemes for alternative landings and beachheads, all of which General Vandegrift vehemently opposed. At Aola Bay, 40 miles east of the main perimeter, the Navy put an airfield construction and defense force ashore on 4 November. Then, while the Japanese were still battling the Marines near Tetere, Vandegrift was able to persuade Turner to detach part of this landing force, the 2d Raider Battalion, to sweep west, to discover and destroy any enemy forces it encountered. In its march from Aola Bay, the 2d Raider Battalion encountered the Japanese who were attempting to retreat to the west. On 12 November, the raiders beat off attacks by two enemy companies and they relentlessly pursued the Japanese, fighting a series of small actions over the next five days before they contacted the main Japanese body. From 17 November to 4 December, when the raiders finally came down out of the jungled ridges into the perimeter, Carlson’s men harried the retreating enemy. They killed nearly 500 Japanese. Their own losses were 16 killed and 18 wounded. The Aola Bay venture, which had provided the 2d Raider Battalion a starting point for its month-long jungle campaign, proved a bust. The site chosen for a new airfield was unsuitable, too wet and unstable, and the whole force moved to Koli Point in early December, where another airfield eventually was constructed. The buildup on Guadalcanal continued, by both sides. On 11 November, guarded by a cruiser- destroyer covering force, a convoy ran in carrying the 182d Infantry, another regiment of the Americal Division. The ships were pounded by enemy bombers and three transports were hit, but the men landed. General Vandegrift needed the new men badly. His veterans were truly ready for replacement; more than a thousand new cases of malaria and related diseases were reported each week. The Japanese who had H402RA-124 been on the island any length of time were no better off; they were, in fact, in worse shape. Medical supplies and rations were in short supply. The whole thrust of the Japanese reinforcement effort continued to be to get troops and combat equipment ashore. The idea prevailed in Tokyo, despite all evidence to the contrary, that one overwhelming coordinated assault would crush the American resistance. The enemy drive to take Port Moresby on New Guinea was put on hold to concentrate all efforts on driving the Americans off of Guadalcanal. On 12 November, a multifaceted Japanese naval force converged on Guadalcanal to cover the landing of the main body of the 38th Division. Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan’s cruisers and destroyers, the close-in protection for the 182d’s transports, moved to stop the enemy. Coastwatcher and scout plane sightings and radio traffic intercepts had identified two battleships, two carriers, four cruisers, and a host of destroyers all headed toward Guadalcanal. A bombardment group led by the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, with the light cruiser Nagura, and 15 destroyers spearheaded the attack. Shortly after midnight, near Savo Island, Callaghan’s cruisers picked up the Japanese on radar and continued to close. The battle was joined at such short range that each side fired at times on their own ships. Callaghan’s flagship, the San Francisco, was hit 15 times, Callaghan was killed, and the ship had to limp away. The cruiser Atlanta (CL-104) was also hit and set afire. Rear Admiral Norman Scott, who was on board, was killed. Despite the hammering by Japanese fire, the Americans held and continued fighting. The battleship Hiei, hit by more than 80 shells, retired and with it went the rest of the bombardment force. Three destroyers were sunk and four others damaged. The Americans had accomplished their purpose; they had forced the Japanese to turn back. The cost was high. Two antiaircraft cruisers, the Atlanta and the Juneau (CL-52), were sunk; four destroyers, the Barton (DD-599), Cushing (DD-376), Monssen (DD-436), and Laffey (DD-459), also went to the bottom. In addition to the San Francisco, the heavy cruiser Portland and the destroyers Sterret (DD-407), and Aaron Ward (DD-483) were damaged. One destroyer of the 13 American ships engaged, the Fletcher (DD-445), was unscathed when the survivors retired to the New Hebrides. With daylight came the Cactus bombers and fighters; they found the crippled Hiei and pounded it mercilessly. On the 14th, the Japanese were forced to scuttle it. Admiral Halsey ordered his only surviving carrier, the Enterprise, out of the Guadalcanal area to get it out of reach of Japanese aircraft and sent his battleships Washington (BB-56) and South Dakota with four escorting destroyers north to meet the Japanese. Some of the Enterprise’s planes flew in to Henderson Field to help even the odds. On 14 November Cactus and Enterprise flyers found a Japanese cruiser-destroyer force that had pounded the island on the night of 13 November. They damaged four cruisers and a destroyer. After refueling and rearming they went after the approaching Japanese troop convoy. They hit several transports in one attack and sank one when they came back again. Army B-17s up from Espiritu Santo scored one hit and several near misses, bombing from 17,000 feet. Moving in a continuous pattern of attack, return, refuel, rearm, and attack again, the planes from Guadalcanal hit nine transports, sinking seven. Many of the 5,000 troops on the stricken ships were rescued by Tanaka’s destroyers, which were firing furiously and laying smoke screens in an attempt to protect the transports. The admiral later recalled that day as indelible in his mind, with memories of “bombs wobbling down from high-flying B-17s; of carrier bombers roaring towards targets as though to plunge full into the water, releasing bombs and pulling out barely in time, each miss sending up towering clouds of mist and spray, every hit raising clouds of smoke and fire.” Despite the intensive aerial attack, Tanaka continued on to Guadalcanal with four destroyers and four transports. Japanese intelligence had picked up the approaching American battleship force and warned Tanaka of its advent. In turn, the enemy admirals sent their own battleship-cruiser force to intercept. The Americans, H402RA-125 led by Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee in the Washington, reached Sealark Channel about 2100 on the 14th. An hour later, a Japanese cruiser was picked up north of Savo. Battleship fire soon turned it away. The Japanese now learned that their opponents would not be the cruisers they expected. The resulting clash, fought in the glare of gunfire and Japanese searchlights, was perhaps the most significant fought at sea for Guadalcanal. When the melee was over, the American battleships’ 16-inch guns had more than matched the Japanese. Both the South Dakota and the Washington were damaged badly enough to force their retirement, but the Kirishima was punished to its abandonment and death. One Japanese and three American destroyers, the Benham (DD-796), the Walke (DD-416), and the Preston (DD-379), were sunk. When the Japanese attack force retired, Admiral Tanaka ran his four transports onto the beach, knowing they would be sitting targets at daylight. Most of the men on board, however, did manage to get ashore before the inevitable pounding by American planes, warships, and artillery. Ten thousand troops of the 38th Division had landed, but the Japanese were in no shape to ever again attempt a massive reinforcement. The horrific losses in the frequent naval clashes, which seemed at times to favor the Japanese, did not really represent a standoff. Every American ship lost or damaged could and would be replaced; every Japanese ship lost meant a steadily diminishing fleet. In the air, the losses on both sides were daunting, but the enemy naval air arm would never recover from its losses of experienced carrier pilots. Two years later, the Battle of the Philippine Sea between American and Japanese carriers would aptly be called the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” because of the ineptitude of the Japanese trainee pilots. The enemy troops who had been fortunate enough to reach land were not immediately ready to assault the American positions. The 38th Division and the remnants of the various Japanese units that had previously tried to penetrate the Marine lines needed to be shaped into a coherent attack force before General Hyakutake could again attempt to take Henderson Field. General Vandegrift now had enough fresh units to begin to replace his veteran troops along the front lines. The decision to replace the 1st Marine Division with the Army’s 25th Infantry Division had been made. Admiral Turner had told Vandegrift to leave all of his heavy equipment on the island when he did pull out “in hopes of getting your units re-equipped when you come out.” He also told the Marine general that the Army would command the final phases of the Guadalcanal operation since it would provide the majority of the combat forces once the 1st Division departed. Major General Alexander M. Patch, commander of the Americal Division would relieve Vandegrift as senior American officer ashore. His air support would continue to be Marine-dominated as General Geiger, now located on Espiritu Santo with 1st Wing headquarters, fed his squadrons forward to maintain the offensive. And the air command on Guadalcanal itself would continue to be a mixed bag of Army, Navy, Marine, and Allied squadrons. The sick list of the 1st Marine Division in November included more than 3,200 men with malaria. The men of the 1st still manning the frontline foxholes and the rear areas—if anyplace within Guadalcanal’s perimeter could properly be called a rear area—were plain worn out. They had done their part and they knew it. On 29 November, General Vandegrift was handed a message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The crux of it read: “1st MarDiv is to be relived without delay . . . and will proceed to Australia for rehabilitation and employment.” The word soon spread that the 1st was leaving and where it was going. Australia was not yet the cherished place it would become in the division’s future, but any place was preferable to Guadalcanal. H402RA-126 December and the Final Stages On 7 December, one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, General Vandegrift sent a message to all men under his command in the Guadalcanal area thanking them for their courage and steadfastness, commending particularly the pilots and “all who labored and sweated within the lines in all manner of prodigious and vital tasks.” He reminded them all that their “unbelievable achievements had made ‘Guadalcanal’ a synonym for death and disaster in the language of our enemy.” On 9 December, he handed over his command to General Patch and flew out to Australia at the same time the first elements of the 5th Marines were boarding ship. The 1st, 11th, and 7th Marines would soon follow together with all the division’s supporting units. The men who were leaving were thin, tired, hollow-eyed, and apathetic; they were young men who had grown old in four months’ time. They left behind 681 dead in the island’s cemetery. The final regiment of the Americal Division, the 132d Infantry, landed on 8 December as the 5th Marines was preparing to leave. The 2d Marine Division’s regiments already on the island, the 2d, 8th, and part of the 10th, knew that the 6th Marines was on its way to rejoin. It seemed to many of the men of the 2d Marines, who had landed on D-Day, 7 August, that they, too, should be leaving. They took slim comfort in the thought that they, by all rights, should be the first of the 2d to depart the island whenever that hoped-for day came. General Patch received a steady stream of ground reinforcements and replacements in December. He was not ready yet to undertake a full-scale offensive until the 25th Division and the rest of the 2d Marine Division arrived, but he kept all frontline units active in combat and reconnaissance patrols, particularly toward the western flank. The island commander’s air defense capabilities also grew substantially. Cactus Air Force, organized into a fighter command and a strike (bomber) command, now operated from a newly redesignated Marine Corps Air Base. The Henderson Field complex included a new airstrip, Fighter Two, which replaced Fighter One, which had severe drainage problems. Brigadier General Louis Woods, who had taken over as senior aviator when Geiger returned to Espiritu Santo, was relieved on 26 December by Brigadier General Francis P. Mulcahy, Commanding General, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. New fighter and bomber squadrons from both the 1st and 2d Wings sent their flight echelons forward on a regular basis. The Army added three fighter squadrons and a medium bomber squadron of B-26s. The Royal New Zealand Air Force flew in a reconnaissance squadron of Lockheed Hudsons. And the U.S. Navy sent forward a squadron of Consolidated PBY Catalina patrol planes which had a much needed night-flying capability. The aerial buildup forced the Japanese to curtail all air attacks and made daylight naval reinforcement attempts an event of the past. The nighttime visits of the Tokyo Express destroyers now brought only supplies encased in metal drums which were rolled over the ships’ sides in hope they would float into shore. The men ashore desperately needed everything that could be sent, even by this method, but most of the drums never reached the beaches. Still, however desperate the enemy situation was becoming, he was prepared to fight. General Hyakutake continued to plan the seizure of the airfield. General Hitoshi Immamura, commander of the Eighth Area Army, arrived in Rabaul on 2 December with orders to continue the offensive. He had 50,000 men to add to the embattled Japanese troops on Guadalcanal. Before these new enemy units could be employed, the Americans were prepared to move out from the perimeter in their own offensive. Conscious that the Mt. Austen area was a continuing threat to his inland flank in any drive to the west, Patch committed the Americal’s 132d Infantry to the task of clearing the mountain’s wooded slopes on 17 December. The Army regiment succeeded in isolating the major H402RA-127 Japanese force in the area by early January. The 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, took up hill positions to the southeast of the 132d to increase flank protection. By this time, the 25th Infantry Division (Major General J. Lawton Collins) had arrived and so had the 6th Marines (6 January) and the rest of the 2d Division’s headquarters and support troops. Brigadier General Alphonse De Carre, the Marine division’s assistant commander, took charge of all Marine ground forces on the island. The 2d Division’s commander, Major General John Marston, remained in New Zealand because he was senior to General Patch. With three divisions under his command, General Patch was designated Commanding General, XIV Corps, on 2 January. His corps headquarters numbered less than a score of officers and men, almost all taken from the Americal’s staff. Brigadier General Edmund B. Sebree, who had already led both Army and Marine units in attacks on the Japanese, took command of the Americal Division. On 10 January, Patch gave the signal to start the strongest American offensive yet in the Guadalcanal campaign. The mission of the troops was simple and to the point: “Attack and destroy the Japanese forces remaining on Guadalcanal.” The initial objective of the corps’ attack was a line about 1,000 to 1,500 yards west of jump-off positions. These ran inland from Point Cruz to the vicinity of Hill 66, about 3,000 yards from the beach. In order to reach Hill 66, the 25th Infantry Division attacked first with the 35th and 27th Infantry driving west and southwest across a scrambled series of ridges. The going was rough and the dug-in enemy, elements of two regiments of the 38th Division, gave way reluctantly and slowly. By the 13th, however, the American soldiers, aided by Marines of the 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, had won through to positions on the southern flank of the 2d Marine Division. On 12 January, the Marines began their advance with the 8th Marines along the shore and 2d Marines inland. At the base of Point Cruz, in the 3d Battalion, 8th Marines’ sector, regimental weapons company half-tracks ran over seven enemy machine gun nests. The attack was then held up by an extensive emplacement until the weapons company commander, Captain Henry P. “Jim” Crowe, took charge of a half-dozen Marine infantrymen taking cover from enemy fire with the classic remarks: “You’ll never get a Purple Heart hiding in a fox hole. Follow me!” The men did and they destroyed the emplacement. All along the front of the advancing assault companies the going was rough. The Japanese, remnants of the Sendai Division, were dug into the sides of a series of cross compartments and their fire took the Marines in the flank as they advanced. Progress was slow despite massive artillery support and naval gunfire from four destroyers offshore. In two days of heavy fighting, flamethrowers were employed for the first time and tanks were brought into play. The 2d Marines was now relieved and the 6th Marines moved into the attack along the coast while the 8th Marines took up the advance inland. Naval gunfire support, spotted by naval officers ashore, improved measurably. On the 15th, the Americans, both Army and Marine, reached the initial corps objective. In the Marine attack zone, 600 Japanese were dead. The battle-weary 2d Marines had seen its last infantry action of Guadalcanal. A new unit now came into being, a composite Army-Marine division, or CAM division, formed from units of the Americal and 2d Marine Divisions. The directing staff was from the 2d Division, since the Americal had responsibility for the main perimeter. Two of its regiments, the 147th and the 182d Infantry, moved up to attack in line with the 6th Marines still along the coast. The 8th Marines was essentially pinched out of the front lines by a narrowing attack corridor as the inland mountains and hills pressed closer to the coastal trail. The 25th Division, which was advancing across this rugged terrain, had the mission of outflanking the Japanese in the vicinity of Kokumbona, while the CAM Division drove west. On the 23rd, as the CAM troops approached Kokumbona, the 1st Battalion of the 27th Infantry struck north out of the hills and H402RA-128 overran the village site and Japanese base. There was only slight but steady opposition to the American advance as the enemy withdrew west toward Cape Esperance. The Japanese had decided, reluctantly, to give up the attempt to retake Guadalcanal. The orders were sent in the name of the Emperor and senior staff officers were sent to Guadalcanal to ensure their acceptance. The Navy would make the final runs of the Tokyo Express, only this time in reverse, to evacuate the garrison so it could fight again in later battles to hold the Solomons. Receiving intelligence that enemy ships were massing again to the northwest, General Patch took steps, as Vandegrift had before him on many occasions, to guard against overextending his forces in the face of what appeared to be another enemy attempt at reinforcement. He pulled the 25th Division back to bolster the main perimeter defenses and ordered the CAM Division to continue its attack. When the Marines and soldiers moved out on 26 January, they had a surprisingly easy time of it, gaining 1,000 yards the first day and 2,000 the following day. The Japanese were still contesting every attack, but not in strength. By 30 January, the sole frontline unit in the American advance was the 147th Infantry; the 6th Marines held positions to its left rear. The Japanese destroyer transports made their first run to the island on the night of 1-2 February, taking out 2,300 men from evacuation positions near Cape Esperance. On the night of 4-5 February, they H402RA-129 returned and took out most of the Sendai survivors and General Hyakutake and his Seventeenth Army staff. The final evacuation operation was carried out on the night of 7-8 February, when a 3,000-man rear guard was embarked. In all, the Japanese withdrew about 11,000 men in those three nights and evacuated about 13,000 soldiers from Guadalcanal overall. The Americans would meet many of these men again in later battles, but not the 600 evacuees who died, too worn and sick to survive their rescue. On 9 February, American soldiers advancing from east and west met at Tenaro village on Cape Esperance. The only Marine ground unit still in action was the 3d Battalion, 10th Marines, supporting the advance. General Patch could happily report the “complete and total defeat of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal.” Nor organized Japanese units remained. On 31 January, the 2d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. As was true with the 1st Marine Division, some of these men were so debilitated by malaria they had to be carried on board. All of them struck observers again as young men grown old “with their skins cracked and furrowed and wrinkled.” On 9 February, the rest of the 8th Marines and a good part of the division supporting units boarded transports. The 6th Marines, thankfully only six weeks on the island, left on the 19th. All were headed for Wellington, New Zealand, the 2d Marines for the first time. Left behind on the island as a legacy of the 2d Marine Division were 263 dead. The total cost of the Guadalcanal campaign to the American ground combat forces was 1,598 officers and men killed, 1,152 of them Marines. The wounded totaled 4,709, and 2,799 of these were Marines. Marine aviation casualties were 147 killed and 127 wounded. The Japanese in their turn lost close to 25,000 men on Guadalcanal, about half of whom were killed in action. The rest succumbed to illness, wounds, and starvation. At sea, the comparative losses were about equal, with each side losing about the same number of fighting ships. The enemy loss of 2 battleships, 3 carriers, 12 cruisers, and 25 destroyers, was irreplaceable. The Allied ships losses, though costly, were not fatal; in essence, all ships lost were replaced. In the air, at least 600 Japanese planes were shot down; even more costly was the death of 2,300 experienced pilots and aircrewmen. The Allied plane losses were less than half the enemy’s number and the pilot and aircrew losses substantially lower. President Roosevelt, reflecting the thanks of a grateful nation, awarded General Vandegrift the Medal of Honor for “outstanding and heroic accomplishment” in his leadership of American forces on Guadalcanal from 7 August to 9 December 1942. And for the same period, he awarded the Presidential Unit Citation to the 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) for “outstanding gallantry” reflecting “courage and determination . . . of an inspiring order.” Included in the division’s citation and award, besides the organic units of the 1st Division, were the 2d and 8th Marines and attached units of the 2d Marine Division, all of the Americal Division, the 1st Parachute and 1st and 2d Raider Battalions, elements of the 3d, 5th, and 14th Defense Battalions, the 1st Aviation Engineer Battalion, the 6th Naval Construction Battalion, and two motor torpedo boat squadrons. The indispensable Cactus Air Force was included, also represented by 7 Marine headquarters and service squadrons, 16 Marine flying squadrons, 16 Navy flying squadrons, and 5 Army flying squadrons. The victory at Guadalcanal marked a crucial turning point in the Pacific War. No longer were the Japanese on the offensive. Some of the Japanese Emperor’s best infantrymen, pilots, and seamen had been bested in close combat by the Americans and their Allies. There were years of fierce fighting ahead, but there was now no question of its outcome. Mahnken, Thomas G. “Asymmetric Warfare at Sea: The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal, 1942-1943.” Naval War College Review, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Winter 2011): 95-121. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0464 E H402RB-130 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402RB Asymmetric Warfare at Sea: The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal, 1942-1943 by Thomas G. Mahnken During the six months between August 1942 and February 1943, the waters around the island of Guadalcanal witnessed an almost constant struggle between the Japanese and American navies. The campaign included more than a half-dozen major battles, many of which occurred at night. Although the U.S. Navy enjoyed a technological advantage over the Imperial Japanese Navy, including its widespread adoption of radar; it lost all but one of the campaign’s major engagements. The Guadalcanal campaign demonstrates that technology alone is no guarantor of victory. In order to exploit advanced technology, military organizations must first develop appropriate operational concepts and organizations. The Japanese navy possessed a coherent tactical system for night fighting, a system that gave it a tremendous advantage over the U.S. Navy despite the latter’s widespread use of radar. Both sides suffered from faulty intelligence and poor communication throughout the campaign, yet Japanese forces prevailed in battle after battle, because their concepts gave them a superior awareness of the tactical situation. The Guadalcanal campaign is highly relevant today, as the U.S. Navy once again focuses its attention on the western Pacific. First, the service believed before the start of the Pacific War, as it apparently does today in planning a strategy to influence China, that it enjoyed a decisive advantage. In the event, it was surprised by an adversary who was at least as skillful in sea battles as it was during all of 1942. Second, the campaign demonstrates that tactical competence and technology are both key constituents of competence in battle. THE PREWAR MILITARY BALANCE The American and Japanese navies that clashed during World War II were similar in a number of important respects. Because the United States and Japan saw each other as their most probable adversaries in the years leading up to the war, their navies came to resemble each other. Each planned to fight a war at sea that would culminate in a decisive fleet engagement between battleships. Such similarities, however, masked important differences in the tactics and technology of the two forces. Whereas the U.S. Navy planned to conduct daylight battles, the Imperial Japanese Navy emphasized the tactics and weapons needed to conduct night surface engagements. This approach would give the Japanese a considerable advantage over the Americans during the Guadalcanal campaign. Geography dictated that any war between Japan and the United States would primarily be maritime. The length of sea lines of communications in the Pacific meant that the side operating nearer its home waters would enjoy a considerable advantage. Although the expanse of the Pacific would render a Japanese attempt to seize Hawaii or attack the west coast of the United States untenable, it would also H402RB-131 complicate American efforts to cross the Pacific. The award of Germany’s territories in the Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana Islands to Japan at Versailles and Washington’s agreement not to fortify its island possessions further as part of the Washington Naval Agreement compounded the difficulty of the task. Japan thus enjoyed a significant geographic advantage in the Central and western Pacific. In the words of the U.S. Joint Army and Navy Board, The position of Japan is such as to form a continuous strategic barrier of great strength covering almost the entire coast of Eastern Siberia and of China, while the position of its Mandate forms a barrier of considerable depth between the United States and the Philippines. The geographic strength of Japan is its interior position as regards to its outlying possessions, its interior position with regards to Eastern Asia, and its insularity.1 Although Japan enjoyed a considerable geographic advantage, the economic balance favored the United States, which possessed an economy nine times larger than Japan’s.2 Moreover, while the United States enjoyed a diverse and robust industrial infrastructure, Japan’s was much more limited. In 1940, for example, the United States produced sixty-one million metric tons of ingot steel, compared to 7.5 million tons for Japan.3 Whereas the United States was largely self-sufficient in key resources, Japan depended heavily on foreign sources of raw materials. Tokyo imported 55 percent of its steel, 45 percent of its iron, and all of its rubber and nickel.4 Indeed, approximately 80 percent of its crude and refined oil stocks came from the United States.5 Whereas Japan received much of its war-supporting materials from the United States, America had no such dependence on Japan. As the Joint Board put it, “The United States is economically strong and well able to prosecute war against Japan, while Japan is exposed to precarious economic conditions in such a war through her vulnerability to economic disruption of her industrial life.”6 Several sectors of Japanese industry made considerable strides between 1918 and 1941. By 1937, for example, Japanese dockyards were building more than 20 percent of the world’s ships, second only to Great Britain’s.7 Tokyo also developed a substantial aircraft industry, first through licensed production of foreign engines and airframes and then by manufacturing a number of increasingly capable indigenous designs.8 By the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan was producing military aircraft as good as or better than those of its Western counterparts.9 Although the Japanese economy was much smaller than that of the United States, Japan’s armed forces enjoyed much greater access to their nation’s resources than did the American armed forces. Japanese defense expenditures rose steadily throughout the 1930s.10 In 1934, for example, defense spending accounted for nearly 44 percent of the national budget, compared to nearly 18 percent for the United States. Arms procurement accounted for nearly two-thirds of the Japanese government’s spending on durable goods during the 1930s.11 The interwar naval arms-limitation regime constrained the size and shaped the composition of both the American and Japanese navies. The 1922 Washington Naval Agreement limited the United States to eighteen battleships and battle cruisers totaling 525,000 tons and allowed Japan ten battleships and battle cruisers totaling 315,000 tons. The treaty was designed to give Japan sufficient strength to defend itself without threatening U.S. possessions in the Pacific. It forbade the construction of capital ships displacing more than thirty-five thousand tons and mounting guns in excess of sixteen inches. It allowed the United States to possess carriers totaling 135,000 tons and Japan eighty-one thousand tons and either to convert two ships displacing thirty-three thousand tons or less to carriers. While the agreement did not constrain overall tonnage of cruisers, it limited their displacement to ten thousand tons and main armament to eight- inch guns.12 The United States would retain enough naval power to protect its possessions in the Pacific but not enough to challenge Japan in its home waters. H402RB-132 The 1930 London Naval Agreement completed the Washington treaty’s arms-limitation framework, establishing tonnage limits for cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. It allowed Japan to build 70 percent of the cruiser and destroyer tonnage of the United States, and accorded it parity in submarines. It limited light cruisers to six-inch armament, destroyers to 1,850 tons and 5.1-inch armament, and submarines to two thousand tons.13 The possibility of a war with Japan dominated U.S. naval planning during the interwar period.14 Planners expected that Japan would seize America’s possessions in the Far East at the outset of a war, forcing the United States to fight its way across six thousand miles of ocean to reclaim them. The U.S. Navy spent the interwar period trying to solve the operational problems associated with a transpacific naval campaign. As early as 1928, war games at the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island, showed the balance in a war between the United States and Japan shifting in Tokyo’s favor. Over time, the growth of Japanese naval power forced the U.S. Navy to modify its plans: originally envisioning a rapid transpacific lunge as the best way to relieve the Philippines, in 1935 it had adopted a strategy that foresaw the need to wage a long and incremental campaign through the Japanese-held islands of Micronesia.15 U.S. naval doctrine emphasized the need to win command of the sea by defeating an enemy fleet in a decisive battle. The battleship was the centerpiece of the interwar navy. In part, this was a by-product of the dominance of the “gun club” of battleship admirals and captains. It was also a reflection of the fact that the battleship was the best way to transport firepower across the Pacific and bring it to bear upon the Japanese fleet. Battleships were able to strike their targets with greater accuracy and at longer range than smaller surface combatants or submarines firing torpedoes. Aircraft of the day lacked the payload to do serious damage to capital ships. As a result, the U.S. Navy judged that its battleships had the greatest opportunity to sink the battleships that formed the core of the Japanese fleet.16 Other surface combatants supported the battle line: cruisers acted as scouts and protected it against air and surface attack, while destroyers guarded it against submarines and torpedoes. Submarines conducted reconnaissance and attacked enemy combatants.17 The U.S. Navy initially used aircraft carriers as scouts and spotters for the battle fleet. It also looked to them to protect the battle line against air attack. Beginning in the late 1920s, however, it began to experiment with using aircraft carriers as the core of an independent striking force. In Fleet Problem IX, of 1929, the carrier Saratoga launched two successful strikes against the locks of the Panama Canal. During Fleet Problem X the following year, independent carrier groups operated against battleships.18 It was not until the destruction of much of the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor, however, that the U.S. Navy as a whole reluctantly accepted the independent use of carrier air power. American naval tactics emphasized daylight gunnery battles between capital ships. Navy regulations called on units to deploy in a single tightly spaced column, which would gain a tactical advantage over an adversary by bringing all of its guns to bear across the enemy’s axis of approach, “crossing his T.” Ships would open fire at ten thousand yards, a distance that the navy judged to be outside the range of enemy torpedoes and optimum for its own guns.19 The U.S. Navy possessed some of the world’s best warships. Its battleships were fast and well protected. American cruisers sacrificed speed and armor protection to stay within the ten-thousand-ton limit prescribed by the Washington Naval Agreement while maintaining the ability to wage a transpacific campaign.20 U.S. submarines were among the best in the world but were armed with torpedoes with defective detonators and with speeds, ranges, and warheads markedly inferior to those of the Japanese.21 Funds for naval research and development were scarce before World War II. Research on new technology took second place to maintaining and improving existing equipment.22 Despite funding H402RB-133 limitations, the Naval Research Laboratory designed, and American companies produced, a family of capable surface-search and fire-control radar models in the years before World War II. 23 The Navy’s first surface-search radar was installed on the destroyer Leary in 1937. The next year, the navy installed the XAF search-radar prototype on the battleship New York for operational testing during its 1939 fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean.24 The XAF became the prototype for a family of long-range air-search sets deployed aboard U.S. warships beginning in 1941 and used throughout much of the war. Over the next two years, the navy installed an improved version of the XAF, the CXAM, on all American carriers, six battleships, five heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers.25 The navy also deployed fire-control radar that allowed surface combatants to attack targets at night.26 The service fielded the CXAS prototype, followed by the FC and FD continuous-tracking radars designed to control both main-battery and antiaircraft fire. By Pearl Harbor, the navy had taken delivery of ten FC and one FD systems.27 As a result, the United States had operational radar systems that allowed its ships to identify approaching enemy air and surface forces and to direct fire against them at night and in all weather. The Japanese navy, for its part, placed supreme faith in the decisive fleet encounter as the ultimate arbiter of naval power. The Washington Naval Agreement’s ban on new battleship construction forced it to reconsider its heavy emphasis on capital ships and seek ways to offset the U.S. Navy’s quantitative advantage. As a result, it adopted a tactical system that emphasized the contribution of cruisers and destroyers. Because the U.S. Navy enjoyed a 30 percent advantage in tonnage, Japan formulated a strategy of “interception-attrition operations” (yogeki zengen sakusen) to wear down the American battle fleet before annihilating it in a decisive battle. At the outset of hostilities, the Japanese navy would destroy the U.S. Asiatic Fleet and occupy the Philippine Islands and Guam. It would then sortie submarines into the eastern Pacific to monitor the movements of the relief force and harass it on its voyage westward to recover the American possessions. Naval aircraft based in the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline Islands would join the battle as soon as U.S. ships steamed into range. When the Japanese fleet had reduced the Americans to parity or less, it would seek a decisive battle near Japanese home waters. An advance body of cruisers and destroyers supported by fast battleships would conduct a night attack using salvos of long- range torpedoes to weaken and confuse the enemy. At daybreak, the Japanese commander would throw the full weight of his battle line against the American fleet in a bid to annihilate it.28 The Japanese navy sought to improve the quality of its fighting forces to offset the U.S. Navy’s quantitative superiority. The navy leadership believed that the toughness, morale, and fighting spirit of the Japanese fighting man would give a marked advantage in a war with the United States.29 To hone their skills, Japanese forces trained ten months out of the year in exercises that were arduous and sometimes fatal.30 Because exercises emphasized combat at night and in poor weather, crews learned to operate effectively under even the harshest of conditions. A second way the Japanese navy sought to negate the U.S. Navy’s quantitative and technological advantage was by developing a unique tactical system emphasizing long-range gunnery, torpedo firing, and night operations. The Japanese naval staff believed that its ability to defeat the American fleet required ships that could outrange opponents. Striking U.S. ships from beyond their capability to return fire would allow the Japanese force to inflict damage without taking losses of its own. The navy therefore expended considerable effort to increase the range and accuracy of its gunnery, culminating in the design of the Yamato-class battleships.31 By the mid-1930s, for example, the Japanese navy believed that its main-force units had a range advantage of between four and five thousand meters over their American counterparts. With the advent of Yamato, the Japanese Naval Staff College estimated that Japan’s H402RB-134 battleships could track the American fleet at forty thousand meters (21.5 miles) and open fire at approximately thirty-four thousand meters, more than three times the preferred U.S. combat range.32 The navy also developed the Type 93 oxygen-propelled torpedo, also known as the Long Lance, a weapon with a larger warhead, greater speed, and longer range than contemporary American and British models. The weapon was very large, with a weight of 2,700 kilograms (nearly three tons), a diameter of sixty-one centimeters (twenty-four inches), a length of some nine meters, and a payload of nearly five hundred kilograms (over a thousand pounds) of explosive. The torpedo was capable of speeds up to forty- eight knots and ranges up to forty thousand meters. Fueled by high-pressure oxygen, it left virtually no wake.33 In the mid-1930s, the navy equipped all eighteen of its heavy cruisers, some light cruisers, and destroyers from the Hatsuharu class on with launchers for the Long Lance. Beginning in 1938, it reconstructed the light cruisers Oi and Kitakami as “torpedo cruisers,” carrying forty and thirty-two torpedo launchers, respectively.34 The Japanese navy also perfected a tactical system for night fighting.35 In 1924, it began to form dedicated night-attack units composed of destroyer squadrons led by light cruisers. In 1929, the Combined Fleet created a night-battle force under the control of a heavy-cruiser-squadron commander.36 In contrast to American tactics, which called for ships to deploy in a single column, Japanese ships formed multiple short columns, often with destroyers positioned ahead of the main force to prevent ambush. On detecting the enemy, the Japanese destroyers would close, pivot, fire torpedoes, and then turn away.37 To exploit the characteristics of the Long Lance, the Japanese navy developed the tactic of long- distance concealed firing (enkyori ommitsu hassha), which called for cruisers to launch between 120 and two hundred of the torpedoes at a distance of at least twenty thousand meters from the enemy battle line.38 Only after the torpedoes had been launched would ships resort to gunfire, and when they did, they would minimize use of searchlights, to prevent enemy ships from spotting them.39 Such tactics could be extremely effective. During the battle of the Java Sea, Japanese torpedo attacks dealt Allied forces a severe defeat.40 During the Solomons campaign, Japanese torpedo barrages hit their targets as much as 20 percent of the time.41 The Japanese navy’s doctrine and training produced a cadre of officers and enlisted men who were skilled in night torpedo combat. The navy trained sailors with superior night vision to be lookouts. Equipped with powerful specialized binoculars, they could detect a ship at eight thousand meters on a dark night.42 Many of the navy’s top officers were torpedo experts, including admirals Nagumo Chuichi and Ozawa Jisaburo. At the outbreak of the war, most torpedo craft were under the command of qualified experts. As Rear Admiral Tanaka Raizo later wrote, “My division commanders and skippers were brilliant torpedo experts, and from top to bottom the training and discipline of crews was flawless. Operational orders could be conveyed by the simplest of signals, and they were never misunderstood.”43 U.S. naval intelligence understood the Imperial Japanese Navy’s emphasis upon night combat. The Office of Naval Intelligence’s monograph on Japan noted that the Japanese Navy places great emphasis on training for night operations. The Japanese are of the opinion that, at night, many of the disadvantages of having inferior materiel disappear and that spirit and morale—in which they believe they excel— combined with training and the ability to cooperate and coordinate will give them a decided advantage over an enemy fleet.44 Moreover, war games held at the Naval War College demonstrated the devastating effect of night torpedo attacks. During one such game, two ORANGE (Japanese) night attacks resulted in the loss of a BLUE (American) battleship and aircraft carrier, damage to two more battleships, and loss of or damage to twelve heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and thirty-one destroyers.45 Despite these warnings, the U.S. Navy remained largely unprepared for night combat. Its 1934 War Instructions warned, “At night the superior or equal force risks forfeiture of its superiority or equality of its most valuable asset, its coordinated hitting power.”46 However, the navy lacked the doctrine and H402RB-135 organization necessary to conduct operations at night. It concentrated upon defensive combat at night, in stark contrast to the Japanese navy’s emphasis upon offensive operations.47 During the 1920s, the Japanese navy, like its American counterpart, planned to employ carrier aircraft for air defense of the battle fleet, for reconnaissance, and as a means of wearing down the U.S. fleet in preparation for a major surface engagement. In the 1930s, however, naval air doctrine began to shift away from aerial scouting and reconnaissance and toward the idea of using aircraft to attack enemy fleet units. By the middle of the decade, a preemptive strike upon the enemy carrier force had become the focus of naval air exercises.48 In April 1941, the Japanese formed the First Air Fleet, to centralize control of the carrier force and to separate carrier aviation from land-based naval air force.49 Japan’s naval shipbuilding industry grew to maturity in the decades before World War II. Before 1915, British yards built most of the Japanese navy’s ships. By the late 1920s, however, Japanese shipyards began to launch a series of innovative ship designs.50 Faced with the Washington Naval Agreement’s ban on capital-ship construction, the Japanese devoted considerable effort to achieving qualitative superiority over the United States. As one former naval constructor noted, Japan “labored to produce vessels that would, type for type, be individually superior to those of the hypothetical enemy, even if by a single gun or torpedo tube or by a single knot of speed.”51 Japan built cruisers that were fast and heavily armed. They were designed to be all-purpose ships, a substitute for the battleships the Washington Naval Agreement limited. Unlike their counterparts in the U.S. Navy, for example, Japanese cruisers mounted torpedo tubes. The seven-thousand-ton Furutaka class, for example, was armed with six eight-inch guns and twelve twenty-four-inch torpedo tubes. Japanese destroyers were the largest and most powerful in the world. The units of the Fubuki class, built between 1926 and 1931, were the most advanced of their day. With a 390-foot length and official displacement of 1,680 standard tons, they were considerably larger than their American and British counterparts. Moreover, they were armed with six five-inch guns mounted in weatherproof housings and eighteen twenty-four-inch torpedoes arranged to allow rapid salvo fire.52 Whereas American destroyers were designed to perform a mixture of defensive and offensive missions, Japanese ships were optimized for attack. Destroyer flotillas, positioned ahead of the van or abaft the rear of the main fleet, were to break through an enemy screen and attack the main body of the fleet to sink, cripple, or confuse as many capital ships as possible. Japanese designs tended to pack too much armament, speed, and protection into small hulls. Cruiser and destroyer designs often suffered problems with structural integrity. Indeed, the navy had to reconstruct the ships of several classes to improve their seaworthiness. Limited technological resources and fiscal stringency forced the Japanese navy to focus its research and development efforts upon technologies associated with its concepts of operations. These fields included optics, illumination, and torpedoes, where Japan led the United States. However, it trailed in others. Communication among aircraft was one shortfall: Japanese airborne radio was unreliable and prone to interference. As a result, fighter pilots often relied upon hand semaphore or prearranged signal flares to coordinate their action. Radar was another weakness. Japan conducted little research or development on radar before the outbreak of the Pacific War. Official indifference, haphazard mobilization of scientific talent, and an absence of inter-service cooperation further delayed its introduction. As a result, the navy had no search or fire-control radar at the outset of the war.53 It produced radar sets during the war, but they were relatively unsophisticated and suffered from low power.54 H402RB-136 High-quality manpower was essential if Japan was to offset the quantitative superiority of the U.S. Navy. The armed forces were a respected part of society, and military service was popular. The navy was manned mostly by volunteers, and reenlistment rates were high. As a result, the navy maintained a cadre of seasoned veterans.55 It also trained hard, following a seven-day workweek. 56 On the other hand, the Japanese naval officer corps displayed a number of serious weaknesses, including the absence of independent judgment in the average officer, lack of assertiveness, and a promotion system that emphasized seniority over capability.57 THE GUADALCANAL CAMPAIGN The Guadalcanal campaign was the first sustained series of battles between the American and Japanese navies. Beginning one month after the United States turned back Japan’s attempt to invade Midway, the invasion of Guadalcanal was the first American effort to reoccupy Japanese territory. The campaign represented a clash between fleets trained and equipped to execute very different tactical systems. U.S. commanders were often unable to translate their advantage in radar technology into an understanding of the tactical situation. Japanese units, by contrast, repeatedly achieved a high level of tactical situational awareness—not because they possessed superior technology but because they had a coherent system of night-fighting tactics. The campaign began with the Japanese occupation of Tulagi, near the southeast corner of the Solomon island chain, on 2 May 1942, for use as a seaplane base. In mid-June, the Japanese dispatched a force of some two thousand engineers and laborers to neighboring Guadalcanal to build an airfield.58 By occupying the islands, they would be able to disrupt the sea lines of communications connecting the United States and Australia. The island also represented a steppingstone toward Australia. The Americans learned of the Japanese occupation of Tulagi and Guadalcanal, and on 2 July the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to launch Operation WATCHTOWER to recover the islands. Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, commander of the South Pacific Area (COMSOPAC), was given command of the effort. Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher led an expeditionary force that included three of the navy’s four aircraft carriers, the battleship North Carolina, and a force of cruisers and destroyers. Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner commanded the amphibious force, which included Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift’s 1st Marine Division, and embarked upon fifteen transports.59 On 7 August, eleven thousand Marines landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, taking the Japanese defenders by surprise. By evening the Guadalcanal invasion force had overrun the defenders and occupied the unfinished airfield. Two days later the Marines wrested control of Tulagi from the Japanese. Although Fletcher had promised to remain in the area for forty-eight hours, he withdrew to the southeast on the afternoon of 8 August due to concern over the possibility of an air attack. Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, commander in chief of the newly formed Eighth Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Outer South Seas Force, at Rabaul, was responsible for dislodging the U.S. force. Mikawa’s fleet consisted of the heavy cruisers Chokai, Aoba, Kako, Kinugasa, and Furutaka; the light cruisers Tenryu and Yubari; and the destroyer Yunagi. Mikawa planned to launch a night attack on the Guadalcanal invasion force, breaking through the enemy screen and sinking Turner’s transports.60 Suspecting a Japanese response to the assault, on 8 August American and Australian patrol aircraft reconnoitered the waters around Guadalcanal. An Australian aircraft spotted Mikawa’s force but incorrectly reported that the column included three cruisers, three destroyers, and two seaplane tenders. Another sighted the force as it headed south through the Bougainville Strait but incorrectly identified it. No aircraft patrolled New Georgia Sound, the avenue through which Mikawa’s force advanced. American radio intelligence intercepted a message from Mikawa stating that he was planning to attack an enemy convoy near Guadalcanal, but analysts did not decrypt the message until 23 August.61 Possessing H402RB-137 inaccurate and conflicting intelligence, therefore, Turner concluded that a Japanese seaplane-tender force was somewhere to the north. He assumed—reasonably, though incorrectly—that such a force would not make a night attack. Three groups of ships patrolled the western entrance of the sound between Florida and Guadalcanal Islands, where Turner’s transports lay at anchor. The Northern Force, composed of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, blocked the western approaches of the sound. The Southern Force, consisting of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, was stationed to prevent the Japanese from entering the sound between Cape Esperance and Savo Island. The Eastern Force, of two light cruisers and two destroyers, covered the eastern approach to the sound. Two destroyers equipped with radar, Blue and Ralph Talbot, formed a picket line to the northwest. None of these vessels spotted Mikawa’s column as it steamed southeast through intermittent squalls on a dark, humid night. The Japanese ships passed unseen through the radar picket and entered the sound south of Savo Island. Mikawa, aboard Chokai, spotted the silhouettes of the American cruiser Chicago and the Australian cruiser Canberra of the Southern Force and opened fire, first with torpedoes and then with guns. The ships, illuminated by flares dropped from Mikawa’s floatplanes, took heavy fire. Two torpedoes and more than twenty-four shells struck Canberra, which was barely able to fire two torpedoes and several shells before stopping dead in the water, aflame and sinking. A torpedo severed part of Chicago’s bow, and a shell knocked off part of its foremast. The ship’s commanding officer completely miscalculated the location of Mikawa’s force, steering his ship away from the battle, and failed to alert the Northern Force. Mikawa’s column next swung left around Savo Island and headed for the Northern Force. Although the engagement had been going on more than five minutes, the Northern Force was completely unaware that it was under attack until the heavy cruiser Aoba illuminated the cruiser Quincy with its searchlights. The cruiser Astoria, hit amidships by one of Chokai’s eight-inch shells, burst into flames. Quincy and Vincennes also sustained heavy damage. With burning ships silhouetting the American force, the Japanese turned off their searchlights, making it difficult for the Americans to locate them. The Northern Force’s screening destroyer, Wilson, chased what appeared to be an enemy ship for some time, only to discover it was the destroyer Bagley of the Southern Force. The force’s other destroyer, Helm, never sighted any enemy ships. After savaging the Northern and Southern Forces, Mikawa elected to retire rather than attacking Turner’s exposed transports. His ships had expended their torpedoes and were scattered. He was also concerned about exposing his force to daylight air attack, unaware that Fletcher’s carriers were too far to the south to strike his ships. As Mikawa withdrew, his ships encountered and damaged Ralph Talbot. He left behind four Allied cruisers, sunk or sinking, and two destroyers and one cruiser damaged. The U.S. Navy’s losses included 1,023 killed and 709 wounded, its worst defeat since the War of 1812. The occupation of Guadalcanal marked only the beginning of the campaign. The battle for the island went on for almost half a year, exacting heavy tolls upon both sides. Neither the Americans nor the Japanese proved willing to give up Guadalcanal, nor was either strong enough to defeat the other. The Japanese believed that the island had to be reinforced and held, while the Americans had to eliminate the Japanese army units there and supply and reinforce the Marine garrison. In this campaign the U.S. forces, although they enjoyed technological superiority, lacked continuity of leadership. No American officer ever commanded the same force in more than two battles. As a result, there were few opportunities to incorporate lessons into operations. Indeed, the navy repeatedly employed tactics that put it at a considerable disadvantage in night engagements. The Japanese navy not only possessed a coherent tactical system for night combat but also enjoyed much greater continuity of H402RB-138 command. As a result, it was able to use combat experience to modify and improve upon its prewar doctrine. The Japanese began launching frequent air raids on Guadalcanal from Rabaul. Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters, operating at the very edge of their performance envelopes, escorted long-range bombers on missions against the island’s airstrip, dubbed Henderson Field by the Americans. Rear Admiral Tanaka’s 2nd Destroyer Squadron also began making nighttime runs down “the Slot,” the channel between Santa Isabel and New Georgia Islands, to land small detachments and bombard the airfield. These missions, known as the “Tokyo Express,” were a constant feature of the Guadalcanal campaign. During one of these runs, on the night of 21–22 August, a torpedo from the destroyer Kawakaze struck the destroyer Blue, which had to be scuttled. Although Blue possessed an SC surface-search radar, the Japanese lookouts spotted the American destroyer first.62 At his fleet’s anchorage at Truk, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku began to prepare for a major battle against the U.S. Navy. His plan called for the Combined Fleet to escort a convoy carrying General Kawaguchi Kiyotake’s 35th Brigade to Guadalcanal. It would also attempt to engage and defeat Allied naval forces so as to remove the threat to future reinforcement attempts. Yamamoto’s plan called for Admiral Nagumo’s carrier force, under the protection of Rear Admiral Abe Hiroaki’s Vanguard Force, to strike Allied surface combatants. Nagumo’s aircraft, together with the Vanguard Force and Vice Admiral Kondo Nobutake’s Support Force, would then mop up any survivors. On 23 August, the Combined Fleet sortied from Truk. The next day, it met Fletcher’s Task Force 61 in the battle of the Eastern Solomons.63 Fletcher had received reports indicating that Japanese carriers were nearby, but he had not believed them. Moreover, atmospheric conditions hampered radio reception throughout the battle, complicating his ability to control his task force. The battle opened when aircraft from the small carrier Ryujo struck Henderson Field. Warned by coast watchers, the Marines decimated the attackers. Aircraft from Enterprise and Saratoga located and struck Ryujo, which sank that evening. Meanwhile, the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku launched a counterstrike against the American carrier force. Although Enterprise sustained three bomb hits, it suffered no hull damage. A second Japanese attack failed to locate the task force, due to a pilot’s plotting error. Spared further damage, Fletcher withdrew to the south with his carriers. An American PBY flying boat spotted Rear Admiral Tanaka’s convoy carrying the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force in the early morning hours of 25 August.64 Aircraft from Guadalcanal and B-17 bombers from the island of Espiritu Santo surprised the convoy, damaging the light cruiser Jintsu and the transport Kinryu Maru. A second wave of B-17s bombed the destroyer Mutsuki as it attempted to rescue troops from the damaged transport. Tanaka found the air attack so intense that he withdrew his remaining ships to their anchorage in the Shortland Islands. Over the next two months, each side tried to reinforce its garrison on Guadalcanal. The Japanese army brought in troops from China, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, for its part, decided to commit a regiment of the Americal Division to defend the island. At night, Tanaka’s Tokyo Express brought in supplies, bombarded Henderson Field, and attacked U.S. naval forces. During daylight hours, aircraft from Guadalcanal dominated the sea around the island. Nonetheless, Japanese planes from Rabaul launched bombing raids on the island almost daily; during September, for example, they flew an average of twenty-nine missions per day.65 U.S. Marine F4F Wildcats and Army Air Forces P-40 Warhawks were no match for the Zeros. Moreover, the army was reluctant to allocate P-38 Lightnings to the South Pacific. Marine aviators, often cued by coast watchers, employed hit-and-run tactics to inflict heavy casualties on the Japanese. H402RB-139 On the night of 11–12 October, Japanese and American reinforcement convoys clashed in the battle of Cape Esperance.66 The Japanese force, commanded by Rear Admiral Goto Aritomo, consisted of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers escorting two seaplane carriers and six destroyers with a considerable part of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 2nd Division embarked. Goto planned to bombard Henderson Field with the guns of his cruisers and destroyers while also landing the 2nd Division to reinforce the Japanese garrison on the island. Lying in wait was Rear Admiral Norman Scott, who sought to derail the Tokyo Express while delivering the 164th Regiment of the Americal Division to Guadalcanal. Scott’s force included the aircraft carrier Hornet, the new battleship Washington, and a force of cruisers and destroyers. Scott had studied previous engagements with the Japanese and had carefully trained his force in night- fighting tactics. His preparations paid off in the ensuing battle. Goto was unaware of the presence of the American fleet as he steamed toward Guadalcanal. By contrast, long-range air reconnaissance gave Scott accurate intelligence regarding the position and advance of the Japanese force. He did not, however, fully exploit its advantage. The light cruiser Helena detected Goto’s force with its SG surface-search radar at a range of fourteen nautical miles but failed to report its location for nearly twenty minutes, until it was within six nautical miles of Scott’s ships. As the fleets closed to two and a half miles, Helena’s commanding officer asked permission to open fire. Scott misinterpreted the request and unknowingly gave the go-ahead. Helena’s fire took both the Japanese and the rest of the American force by surprise. During the ensuing engagement, Scott’s force sank the cruiser Fubuki and badly damaged Furutaka and Aoba. One shell struck Aoba’s bridge, killing Goto and most of his staff. The Japanese force withdrew, covering its retreat by pouring heavy fire on the cruiser Boise. Both the Japanese and the American convoys landed their troops on Guadalcanal. The battle was one of the few night engagements the Japanese lost. Only confused communications among Scott’s ships kept the battle from becoming a Japanese disaster. With its 2nd Division on Guadalcanal, the Japanese high command determined to recapture the island. Beginning 13 October, the army and navy launched a coordinated attack on Henderson Field. During the day the field was attacked by bombers and shelled by howitzers that had been landed during the battle of Cape Esperance. That night, the battleships Kongo and Haruna fired some nine hundred shells on the airfield. The next night Mikawa’s cruisers joined the fray, firing 752 eight-inch rounds onto the island, followed by 926 heavy-caliber rounds the following evening.67 Although the situation at the airfield was desperate, the Marines held. Indeed, the few aircraft that survived the bombardment, backed by B-17s flying from rear bases, sank six of Tanaka’s supply ships. On 22 October, the Japanese launched a ground offensive designed to envelop the airfield. After four days of bitter fighting, it halted without having dislodged the Marines. With the army’s failure to recapture Guadalcanal, Yamamoto made another attempt to destroy U.S. naval forces supporting the island. He dispatched several task forces from Truk, including a battleship force and the carriers Shokaku, Zuikaku, Zuiho, Junyo, and Hiyo.68 Yamamoto faced a new group of American commanders. Admiral Chester Nimitz had found Ghormley wanting and replaced him with Vice Admiral William F. Halsey as COMSOPAC; Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid took Fletcher’s place as carrier commander. Kinkaid’s Task Force 16 included the carrier Enterprise and a support force composed of the battleship South Dakota, heavy cruiser Portland, antiaircraft cruiser San Juan, and eight destroyers. Rear Admiral George D. Murray’s Task Force 17 included the carrier Hornet, heavy cruisers Northampton and Pensacola, antiaircraft cruisers San Diego and Juneau, and six destroyers. The Japanese outnumbered the Americans in warships, tonnage, and aircraft, but the Americans possessed the advantages of Henderson Field and superior intelligence information. H402RB-140 Allied aircraft first sighted the Combined Fleet at sea on 13 October. These flights located four different forces, three of which were a carrier group, a scouting force of cruisers and destroyers, and a battleship force sent to bombard Henderson Field. Aircraft spotted the task force again on 15, 22, and 24 October. As a result, the Americans possessed an accurate view of the basic tactical disposition of the Japanese force.69 The two fleets met in the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October.70 The engagement began when two pilots from Enterprise located and attacked the unsuspecting light carrier Zuiho. One bomb penetrated its flight deck, forcing it to return to Truk for repairs. The Japanese, however, had learned some of the lessons of Midway. Although the Americans struck first, the Japanese this time were able to launch two waves of planes in the time it took the Americans to launch one. The first Japanese attack wave concentrated upon Hornet, causing damage that left the carrier dead in the water; subsequent attacks sank it. The second wave struck Enterprise. That carrier, however, equipped with newly installed antiaircraft guns, took only two hits and remained in service. The Japanese did not escape Hornet’s air group, which discovered and attacked Shokaku, hitting its flight deck with four thousand-pound bombs. Such damage had been sufficient to sink carriers at Midway, but the Japanese had now learned to secure ordnance, drain gasoline lines, and keep fire hoses at the ready. As a result, while the carrier’s flight deck was disabled and communications were lost, its engines remained functional and its hull intact. Hornet’s second attack struck the Vanguard Force, crippling the heavy cruiser Chikuma and damaging the destroyer Teruzuki. The U.S. Navy sustained heavy damage, with a carrier and a destroyer sunk and another carrier, battleship, heavy cruiser, and antiaircraft light cruiser damaged. With the loss of Hornet, Enterprise became the only carrier capable of staging aircraft bound for Guadalcanal. The Japanese had also suffered extensive losses, with three carriers damaged and a heavy cruiser and two destroyers damaged. During the battle, the Americans had been handicapped by poor communication: they had possessed all the information they needed to make a successful strike, but the right people had not received it. On the other hand, the growing antiaircraft defenses of U.S. combatants had prevented further damage. In the months to come, the navy would further increase the antiaircraft armament of its ships. Between August and November, the two sides carried out massive troop buildups on Guadalcanal. On 7 August there were ten thousand Americans and 2,200 Japanese troops on the island. By 12 November, twenty-nine thousand Americans faced thirty thousand Japanese.71 In early November, U.S. intelligence began detecting preparations for another Japanese attack. The Japanese planned to launch heavy aircraft strikes and a naval bombardment before landing reinforcements on the island. On 9 November, American intelligence intercepted and decrypted Yamamoto’s operations order for the attack.72 Halsey dispatched Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan’s Support Group of five cruisers and eight destroyers to meet the Japanese. On 13–15 November, the two fleets met in the naval battle of Guadalcanal.73 The Bombardment Force, under Abe (now a vice admiral) had passed through an intense tropical storm as it steamed south toward Guadalcanal on the night of 12–13 November. His force included the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, a light cruiser, and six destroyers. The ships’ guns were loaded with antipersonnel high- explosive shells, with which to bombard Henderson Field; their armor-piercing shells for surface engagements were stored at the back of the magazines. When the destroyer Yudachi spotted the American force, Abe ordered his ships to reload their guns with armor-piercing rounds, a process that took eight minutes.74 Soon after, the light cruiser Helena’s surface-search radar detected the Japanese force. The cruiser sent Callaghan continuous contact reports, but these were only partially intelligible, because the group’s voice circuits were congested. As a result, the Japanese managed to fire the first shot. Shell fire and torpedoes from Hiei and the destroyer Akasuki knocked out the cruiser Atlanta and killed Admiral H402RB-141 Scott. As the battle continued, the American force took heavy gun and torpedo fire at close range. The stern of the cruiser Portland was almost blown off, San Francisco was badly damaged, and Callaghan was killed. Hiei soon attracted the attention of the American ships, however; gunfire riddled the battleship’s topside, and fires broke out across its deck. Blinded by his flagship’s fires and unable to determine the disposition of his forces, Abe ordered his ships to withdraw. The Japanese lost two destroyers during the battle. Hiei, lacking a working rudder, sank the next day after sustaining heavy damage from U.S. aircraft from Guadalcanal and Enterprise. Despite the loss of Hiei, Yamamoto was determined to land the 38th Division on Guadalcanal. To support the landing, Mikawa sortied a bombardment force containing the heavy cruisers Suzuya and Maya from the Shortlands anchorage. On the night of 13–14 November, the ships poured 1,370 rounds onto Henderson Field but failed to knock it out.75 The next morning, American planes struck the force, sinking the cruiser Kinugasa and damaging three other cruisers and a destroyer. Yamamoto planned to bombard Henderson Field one more time before landing the 38th Division. He ordered Admiral Kondo’s Strike Force, reinforced by Abe’s surviving ships, to shell the airfield. Radio intelligence warned the Americans in sufficient time for Kinkaid to detach Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee’s battleship force, which included Washington and South Dakota, to meet the Japanese. The final phase of the battle of Guadalcanal was the first battleship action of the Pacific War. Expecting opposition, Kondo had deployed a screen of cruisers and destroyers around his bombardment force. The screen spotted the American battle line and began stalking it. Washington’s radar detected the Japanese screen and opened fire, forcing the Japanese to withdraw. Washington and South Dakota then engaged the Japanese task force. South Dakota, however, soon experienced a power failure that knocked out its tactical radios and radar and separated it from the rest of the force. Despite sustaining forty-two large-caliber hits, it continued steaming at full speed. Washington, in turn, locked onto the battleship Kirishima and smothered it with gunfire from its sixteen-inch main battery. Kirishima burst into flames and began to sink. The cruisers Takao and Atako and the light cruiser Nagara also sustained damage that forced them to return to Japan for repairs. Besides the badly damaged South Dakota, Lee lost three destroyers in the melee. The surface battle over, every American air group within range pounced upon Tanaka’s convoy. Land-based aircraft from Guadalcanal and Espiritu Santo and Enterprise’s air wing sank all but four of the transports. Those ships that survived caught fire and beached. Aircraft from Henderson Field continued to bomb and strafe the remnants of two regiments and one battalion of infantry and a regiment of engineers—some two thousand men out of ten thousand that had embarked.76 In the weeks that followed, the ships of Tanaka’s 2nd Destroyer Squadron continued to make runs to Guadalcanal at night, with supplies in rubberized metal containers lashed to their sterns. The crews cut the supplies free off Tassafaronga Point, where they drifted ashore or were brought in by swimming soldiers. The navy also used submarines to resupply Guadalcanal. Despite these efforts, the condition of the Japanese army continued to worsen; disease and malnutrition took their toll. Virtually everyone was on the verge of starvation. The sick rolls grew, and even the healthy were exhausted. The American situation, by contrast, improved in December as fresh Marine and army units relieved the original Marine detachments after four months of duty. By 9 December, twenty-five thousand Japanese faced forty thousand soldiers on the island. The Marines enlarged Henderson Field, and the navy built a torpedo-boat base on Tulagi.77 In late November, Halsey received intelligence indicating that Yamamoto was preparing to launch another attempt to reinforce Guadalcanal. Halsey dispatched Rear Admiral Carleton H. Wright with a force of cruisers and destroyers to stop him. Wright was determined not to repeat the mistakes American H402RB-142 commanders had committed in past engagements. To ensure that his forces would spot the enemy before they themselves were sighted, he placed a ship equipped with improved surface-search radar in each cruiser group. To avoid confusion in the heat of battle, he reserved the use of communication circuits for orders and established a set of unambiguous commands. He also abandoned the standard single-column attack formation in favor of tactics better suited to night combat. Upon engaging the enemy, Wright’s destroyers would launch a massive torpedo attack and then peel off to allow his cruisers to fire on the enemy ships. Instead of using searchlights, which would betray their locations, his ships would rely upon flares dropped from floatplanes to illuminate their quarry.78 As it turned out, Wright faced not another force attempting to land more troops on Guadalcanal but Tanaka’s flotilla on one of its runs to bring food and ammunition to the existing Japanese garrison. The two met on 30 November, in the battle of Tassafaronga.79 The SG radar aboard the cruiser Minneapolis detected Tanaka’s screen at a range of thirteen miles, but Wright waited four minutes before approving a torpedo attack. By the time his destroyers launched their torpedoes, they were firing on the Japanese from astern. The veteran Tanaka would not allow the American force to ambush him. Indeed, he had trained his crews to wheel and fire torpedoes if surprised. The destroyer Takanami, closest to the U.S. force, launched a salvo of torpedoes but immediately drew fire from Wright’s force and sustained fatal damage. The remainder of Tanaka’s destroyers released their cargo containers and paralleled the American ships. The Japanese launched nearly fifty torpedoes, some of which tore into the U.S. cruiser line, sinking the cruiser Northampton and battering Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Pensacola. To make things worse, Wright’s two rear-guard destroyers took friendly fire because they lacked the task force’s recognition code. Tassafaronga was the most successful torpedo attack of the war and a textbook example of night fighting. Tanaka not only delivered supplies to the troops on Guadalcanal but dealt a crushing blow to a superior American force. By avoiding the use of searchlights and employing torpedoes instead of guns, his force made itself difficult for the Americans to locate and engage. Even after the battle, the U.S. Navy was unsure of the size and composition of the Japanese force.80 The battle also exposed American weaknesses. For one thing, Wright’s force had been thrown together under inexperienced leadership. Nor could the U.S. Navy’s technological advantage compensate for poor night-fighting skills. Indeed, the use of radar caused U.S. ships to train all their heavy guns on the closest Japanese ship, Takanami, leaving the others untouched. Despite Japanese victories at sea, however, the condition of the fifteen thousand Japanese troops on Guadalcanal continued to worsen. Much of the force was at the point of starvation, and malaria was rampant. Even the healthy were practically ineffective due to exhaustion. On 31 December, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters decided to evacuate Guadalcanal. U.S. intelligence detected the buildup for the operation but misinterpreted it as preparations for another offensive.81 The evacuation occurred over three different nights between 2 and 8 February, but the American forces on Guadalcanal were unaware that no Japanese remained on the island until the afternoon of 9 February.82 The Guadalcanal campaign marked a turning point in the Pacific War. It improved the strategic position of the United States in the southwest Pacific. By occupying Guadalcanal and its airfield, the United States could control the sea lines of communications to Australia. The campaign also exacted a considerable toll upon the Japanese. By its end, Japan had lost two-thirds of its 31,400 troops on the island. The United States, by contrast, had lost fewer than two thousand of the approximately sixty thousand Marines and soldiers it had deployed. While the Japanese navy was the clear victor in many of these battles, it could not afford to pay the price in ships that the United States could. The campaign also decimated the strength of Japan’s elite corps of naval aviators. In trying to hold Guadalcanal, Japan H402RB-143 considerably diminished the fighting power of its fleet. By the time it was decided to withdraw from Guadalcanal, Japan’s naval strength had been so eroded that it was unable to stop the subsequent American advance north toward the home islands. TRANSLATING INFORMATION ADVANTAGE INTO TACTICAL SUCCESS The Guadalcanal campaign shows that technological superiority does not inevitably yield victory. Instead, the weapon systems, doctrine, and organization of opposing forces interact, in ways that are often complex. The campaign also demonstrates the importance of situational awareness and friction in warfare. Finally, the case shows that technology may be employed under operational conditions previously unforeseen by its developers. Victory lies with the force that is better able to adapt its weapon systems to local conditions. Throughout the campaign, American forces enjoyed a marked tactical advantage over the Japanese during daylight hours. Because the United States controlled Henderson Field, American aircraft were able to dominate the seas around the island. Moreover, radar gave U.S. commanders an advantage in carrier battles in open waters. During the battle of the Eastern Solomons, U.S. air-search radar detected the approaching Japanese air strike at a distance of eighty-eight miles, giving Fletcher sufficient time to launch fifty-three fighters with full fuel tanks to meet the incoming attack. It also allowed American air controllers to vector fighters to attack the Japanese force without fear of being ambushed by Japanese fighters.83 Rather than contesting U.S. superiority during the day, the Japanese navy chose to conduct the majority of its operations at night. Indeed, it saw night combat as an asymmetrical strategy to circumvent the strength of the U.S. Navy. It possessed a coherent tactical system for night fighting as well as weapon systems optimized for such operations, and it had conducted decades of realistic training to hone its skills. Radar gave U.S. forces the means to detect, track, and target Japanese surface forces before they spotted the Americans. Yet the United States proved unable to exploit its advantage in radar technology during the campaign. First, radar technology had yet to mature.84 The sets deployed aboard U.S. ships had limited range and resolution. Moreover, interpreting radar returns took considerable skill. Early sets could provide a general view of objects in the vicinity of the observing ship or an accurate range and bearing to any one object but not both simultaneously. As a result, it was easy for a commander to lose sight of a rapidly changing tactical situation. Second, the navy had not developed techniques to exploit the potential of radar. Instead, it treated radar as an overlay to operational concepts designed for daylight engagements between capital ships. Nor did the navy possess adequate tactics for torpedo defense. In battle after battle, U.S. forces deployed in lines that offered little protection against Japanese torpedo barrages. The navy was also slow to learn from its mistakes, a trend magnified by the frequency with which it replaced its tactical commanders. Finally, the geography of the theater limited the effectiveness of radar. The U.S. Navy had developed radar in anticipation of battle on the high seas. Because many of the Guadalcanal campaign’s battles took place in confined waters surrounded by mountainous islands, American radar operators often had limited warning of the approach of enemy ships. Islands or heavy rain squalls often obscured returns from surface ships. Indeed, surface-search radar routinely failed to detect destroyers in confined waters beyond five thousand yards.85 In each of the campaign’s battles, the side that possessed a superior awareness of the tactical situation prevailed. It was, in other words, the ability to collect, interpret, and act upon information rather than technology that marked the difference between victory and defeat. Japanese naval commanders were H402RB-144 usually able to discern the location and disposition of U.S. forces faster and more accurately than their adversaries. They also acted upon that information more rapidly and effectively than their American counterparts. Because the Japanese navy had developed and regularly practiced concepts for night combat, its commanders and their crews possessed a common frame of reference. This tactical system usually gave the Japanese a considerable advantage in situational awareness over the Americans, while long-range weaponry like the Long Lance torpedo gave them the ability to translate their information advantage into tactical success. During the battle of Savo Island, for example, Mikawa Gunichi managed to identify and engage Kelly Turner’s warships before they spotted his force. Moreover, because Turner had divided his forces, Mikawa was able to defeat them piecemeal. The commanders of the American and Australian ships, by contrast, had little understanding of the battle as it unfolded. In the few instances where U.S. forces obtained superior situational awareness, they were victorious. At Cape Esperance, Norman Scott’s ships mauled Goto’s reinforcement force, largely because the American commander was able to achieve surprise and prevent the Japanese from employing their preferred concept of battle. Still, though the U.S. force had a tremendous information advantage over the Japanese, Scott used his radar and radio poorly. As a result, he failed to achieve what should have been a complete victory. Never again in the campaign would the Americans catch the Japanese so unprepared. Just as the campaign illustrates the value of situational awareness, it also demonstrates the enduring importance of “friction.” In his masterwork of strategic theory, On War, Carl von Clausewitz developed the concept of friction to encompass the multitude of “factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.”86 These include the effects of danger, combat’s demands for physical exertion, imperfect or uncertain information, chance, surprise, the physical and political limits of force, and unpredictability stemming from interaction with the enemy. By and large, there is an inverse relationship between friction and situational awareness: the higher the level of general friction one side experiences, the lower its situational awareness.87 Friction influenced the outcome of nearly every battle in this campaign. The terrain and weather of the theater of operations affected the course of many of the clashes. Both sides were plagued by imperfect and inaccurate intelligence throughout the campaign, increasing the potential for surprise. Moreover, both experienced communication problems that multiplied the opportunity for misunderstanding. American forces in particular often overloaded tactical voice circuits, degrading communication between ships. Because the Japanese generally did a better job of mitigating the effects of friction, they nearly always prevailed in battle. In the months that followed the campaign, the U.S. Navy began to learn from its defeats. Studying the battles off Guadalcanal closely, Commander Arleigh Burke blamed American losses on insufficient drill in night combat. In the spring of 1943, Rear Admiral A. Stanton Merrill began to train his destroyers in that discipline. At first, they trained during the day, simulating night operations. As his force became more skilled, he shifted to training at night, under harsh conditions.88 The navy also developed more effective operational concepts and organizational arrangements for night combat. It began detaching destroyers from cruisers to allow them to employ to full effect the offensive power of their torpedoes and guns. At the same time, Burke developed new tactics for destroyer combat. He split his destroyer squadron into two mutually supporting divisions. Instead of deploying in long lines, as they had during the Guadalcanal campaign, they began to operate in compact divisions of three to four ships each. Upon making contact with the enemy, one division would close, fire its torpedoes, and turn away. When the first salvo of torpedoes hit and the Japanese began returning fire, the second division would attack from another direction. Burke believed that the tactic would be well suited to the Solomons, because the islands themselves would prevent the Japanese from detecting his destroyers H402RB-145 before they opened fire.89 It was a brilliant innovation, one that capitalized upon the geography of the theater—as the Japanese had been doing all along. Finally, the navy developed methods to use radar more effectively. Over time, the radar plot—the room that contained the scope displaying contacts from the ship’s radar—became the location where information from radio and lookouts was correlated. The combat information center (CIC), as it was to be known, thus became the hub of tactical decision making aboard ship. The combination of improved tactics and organization came together when American and Japanese destroyers met in the battle of Vella Gulf on 6–7 August 1943. During the battle, the six destroyers that constituted Frederick Moosbrugger’s Task Group 31.2 used Burke’s tactics to deadly effect. Moosbrugger’s surface-search radar detected the Japanese before they became aware of the presence of U.S. combatants. Indeed, U.S. destroyers launched torpedoes three minutes before the Japanese force sighted the Americans. Moosbrugger’s force sank three Japanese destroyers and escaped unscathed.90 American forces also enjoyed considerable success at the battle of Empress Augusta Bay.91 The setting for the battle was in many ways reminiscent of that before Savo Island: Merrill’s cruisers and destroyers had been assigned to protect the Marine landing at Cape Torokina on Bougainville, much as Kelly Turner’s force had been responsible for protecting that on Guadalcanal. This time, however, U.S. scout aircraft provided extremely accurate reports on the approach of Vice Admiral Omori Sentaro’s cruiser and destroyer force. The Japanese, by contrast, operating in poor visibility and with no radar, had no idea of the size and composition of the force they faced. Merrill used his situational-awareness advantage to fire a salvo of torpedoes before the Japanese force knew it was under attack. As a result, Merrill sank one light cruiser and damaged another, while sinking one destroyer and damaging two others. The U.S. Navy repeated its success at the battle of Cape Saint George, which was to be the last surface battle in the Solomons.92 During the battle, Burke’s two destroyer divisions won a decisive victory over five destroyers attempting to reinforce the Japanese garrison on Buka. Burke’s force spotted the Japanese force first and launched its first torpedo salvo before the Japanese knew they were under attack. Employing the same tactics that had yielded victory at Vella Gulf, Burke’s force sank three destroyers while sustaining no casualties. The naval battles off Guadalcanal illustrate vividly that technological superiority does not guarantee victory. At the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese navy lacked surface-search and fire-control radar. It had, however, developed and practiced a coherent tactical system for night combat. The United States, by contrast, possessed radar but had yet to develop concepts and organizations to exploit its potential fully. As a result, the Japanese won victory after victory against the Americans. It was not until after the campaign that the U.S. Navy learned how to combine radar with new concepts and organizations; when it finally did, the result was deadly for the Japanese. The U.S. Navy preferred engagements between opposing battle lines in the open sea. There, radar would allow the American fleet to spot its opponent at long range and smother him with precise—and lethal—gunfire. During the Guadalcanal campaign, however, the navy found itself operating in conditions markedly different from those envisioned by prewar strategists. Radar was of little use in battles waged in confined waters bounded by mountainous islands. It was not until Arleigh Burke and Stanton Merrill developed concepts and organizations that suited local conditions that the navy began to take advantage of the possibilities of radar. H402RB-146 Notes 1 Joint Board to Secretary of the Navy, “Blue-Orange Joint Estimate of the Situation,” 11 January 1929, JB 325, ser. 280, Joint Board Records, Record Group [hereafter RG] 225, National Archives [hereafter NA], p. 5. 2 David Kahn, “The United States Views Germany and Japan in 1941,” in Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars, ed. Ernest R. May (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), p. 476. 3 David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1997), p. 18. 4 Carl Boyd, “Japanese Military Effectiveness: The Interwar Period,” in Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, The Interwar Years, ed. Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988), p. 143. 5 Alvin D. Coox, “The Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment in the Second World War,” in Military Effectiveness, vol. 3, The Second World War, ed. Millett and Murray (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988), p. 19. 6 Joint Board, “Blue-Orange Joint Estimate of the Situation,” p. 10. 7 Richard J. Samuels, “Rich Nation, Strong Army”: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994), p. 97. 8 See Robert C. Mikesh and Shorzoe Abe, Japanese Aircraft: 1910–1941 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990). 9 The Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter was superior to any U.S. fighter at the outbreak of the war, and the Nakajima B5N Kate torpedo bomber was generally superior to contemporary American designs. 10 Boyd, “Japanese Military Effectiveness,” p. 137. 11 Samuels, “Rich Nation, Strong Army,” pp. 97–98. 12 Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, Toward a New Order of Sea Power: American Naval Power and the World Scene, 1918–1922 (New York: Greenwood, 1969), pp. 302–11. 13 Stephen E. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 2–3. 14 The best accounts of U.S. planning for a war with Japan are Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), and Louis Morton, “War Plan Orange: Evolution of a Strategy,” World Politics 11, no. 2 (January 1959). 15 Michael Vlahos, “War Gaming, an Enforcer of Strategic Realism: 1919–1942,” Naval War College Review 39, no. 2 (March–April 1986), pp. 10, 13. 16 George W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890–1990 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1994), p. 136. 17 War Instructions, United States Navy, FTP 143 (1934) [hereafter FTP 143], World War II Command File, Chief of Naval Operations, box 108, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center [hereafter OA/NHC], pp. 11–13. 18 Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power, pp. 140–43. For a recent examination of the fleet-problem program, see Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2010). 19 Wayne P. Hughes, Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986), p. 119. 20 Ronald H. Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Random House, 1985), p. 20 21 Torpedo testing was unrealistic and evaluation inadequate. Moreover, torpedo production was geared toward small-scale manufacture, not mass production. See Buford Rowland and William B. Boyd, H402RB-147 U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office [hereafter GPO], 1953), pp. 90–91. 22 Ibid., pp. 20–21 23 On the development of radar in the U.S. Navy, see David Kite Allison, “The Origin of Radar at the Naval Research Laboratory: A Case Study of Mission-Oriented Research and Development” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1980); Louis A. Gebhard, Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Laboratory (Washington, D.C.: Naval Research Laboratory, 1979), chap. 4; and Rowland and Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II, chap. 17. 24 During the exercise, the equipment detected aircraft at nearly fifty miles and the splashes caused by surface-fired projectiles at up to eight miles. See James L. McVoy, Virgil Rinehart, and Prescott Palmer, “The Roosevelt Resurgence (1933–1941),” in Naval Engineering and American Seapower, ed. Randolph W. King (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation, 1989), pp. 192–95. 25 Gebhard, Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Laboratory, p. 183. 26 Rowland and Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II, pp. 413–14, 422–23. 27 Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 394. 28 Rear Adm. Yoichi Hirama, JMSDF (Ret.), “Japanese Naval Preparations for World War II,” Naval War College Review 44, no. 2 (Spring 1991), p. 64. 29 Arthur J. Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies: The Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, vol. 1, Strategic Illusions, 1936–1941 (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1981), p. 294. 30 Spector, Eagle against the Sun, p. 46. 31 Hirama, “Japanese Naval Preparations for World War II,” p. 72. 32 Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 262. The U.S. Navy believed that it would be at a disadvantage in engagements beyond twenty-one thousand yards. See General Tactical Instructions, United States Navy, FTP 142 (1934) [hereafter FTP 142], World War II Command File, Chief of Naval Operations, box 108, OA/NHC, p. 239. 33 A subsurface version of the weapon, the Type 95, was adopted in 1935. An aerial version of the weapon, the Type 94, was also developed. In 1940, an improved version began to be installed on Japanese destroyers. Jiro Itani, Hans Lengerer, and Tomoko Rehm-Takahara, “Japanese Oxygen Torpedoes and Fire Control Systems,” in Warship 1991, ed. Robert Gardiner (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), pp. 121–33. See also John Bullen, “The Japanese ‘Long Lance’ Torpedo and Its Place in Naval History,” Imperial War Museum Review, no. 3 (1988), pp. 69–79. 34 Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945, trans. Antony Preston and J. D. Brown (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1992), p. 106. 35 For an overview of Japanese night-fighting tactics, see Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, pp. 273–81. 36 Hirama, “Japanese Naval Preparations for World War II,” p. 67. 37 Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 119. 38 Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 270. 39 Paul S. Dull, A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941–1945) (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1978), p. 60. 40 Ibid., pp. 76–88. 41 Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 120. 42 Dennis Warner and Peggy Warner, with Sadao Seno, Disaster in the Pacific: New Light on the Battle of Savo Island (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1992), p. 55. 43 Vice Adm. Raizo Tanaka, with Roger Pineau, “Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” part 1, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 82, no. 7 (July 1956), p. 698. Japanese names are given with surname first. 44 “Night Training and Operations,” ONI Re- port 261, 18 October 1934, 907-3000, box 77, ONI Monograph Files, RG 38, NA. H402RB-148 45 Capt. R. B. Coffey, “Tactical Problem V-1933-SR (Operations Problem IV-1933- SR),” 16 January 1934, RG 4, Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., p. 25. 46 FTP 143, p. 37. 47 The U.S. Navy’s 1934 General Tactical Instructions, for example, described evasion as the primary form of night torpedo warfare. If evasion proved unsuccessful, the American commander would employ destroyers, cruisers, and—if necessary—battleships to destroy enemy destroyers before they closed to firing range. FTP 142, pp. 143–44. 48 See Minoru Genda, “Evolution of Aircraft Carrier Tactics of the Imperial Japanese Navy,” in Air Raid: Pearl Harbor! Recollections of a Day of Infamy, ed. Paul Stillwell (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1981), pp. 23–27. 49 Hirama, “Japanese Naval Preparations for World War II,” p. 70. Despite these changes, the Japanese navy did not consider the carrier as the prime combat element of the fleet. It was not until March 1944 that the Japanese navy would create the First Mobile Fleet, a true carrier task force, to which all other fleet units, including battleships, were considered subordinate. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 501. 50 Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies, p. 296. 51 Quoted in ibid., pp. 296–97. 52 Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 228. 53 The first air-search set was installed on board the battleship Ise in May 1942. The navy was unable to produce an effective fire-control radar during the first two years of the war. Ibid., pp. 414–15. 54 Norman Friedman, Naval Radar (Greenwich, U.K.: Conway Maritime, 1981), pp. 96–97. 55 Boyd, “Japanese Military Effectiveness,” p. 139. 56 Hirama, “Japanese Naval Preparations for World War II,” pp. 66–67. 57 Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies, pp. 285– 87. 58 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, p. 182. 59 Vice Adm. George Carroll Dyer, USN (Ret.), The Amphibians Came to Conquer: The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner (Washing- ton, D.C.: GPO, 1971), vol. 1, pp. 290–93. 60 This account of the battle of Savo Island is taken from Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 187–96, and Bruce Loxton and Chris Coulthard-Clark, The Shame of Savo: Anatomy of a Naval Disaster (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1994). 61 Spector, Eagle against the Sun, p. 193. 62 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, p. 196. 63 Ibid., pp. 197–208. 64 Tanaka, “Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” part 1, pp. 693–94. 65 John Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 375. 66 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 215–21. 67 Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded, p. 379; Vice Adm. Raizo Tanaka, with Roger Pineau, “Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” part 2, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 82, no. 8 (August 1956), pp. 815–16. 68 Hiyo suffered a fire in its engine room shortly thereafter and had to withdraw. 69 Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded, p. 382. 70 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 227–35. 71 Ibid., p. 238. 72 Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded, p. 391. 73 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 237–49; Tanaka, “Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” part 2, pp. 820–22. 74 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, p. 239. 75 Ibid., p. 243. 76 Ibid., p. 247. 77 Ibid., p. 254. H402RB-149 78 Russell Crenshaw, The Battle of Tassafaronga (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation, 1995), pp. 25–29. 79 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 255–60; Tanaka, “Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” part 2, pp. 825–27. 80 Crenshaw, Battle of Tassafaronga, p. 88. 81 Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded, p. 395. 82 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, p. 259. 83 Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 116. 84 See Crenshaw, Battle of Tassafaronga, chap. 10. 85 Warner and Warner, Disaster in the Pacific, pp. 103–104. 86 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), p. 119. 87 Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, McNair Paper 52 (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 32, 94–95 88 E. B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke (New York: Random House, 1990), pp. 63, 75. 89 Ibid., pp. 83–84. 90 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 278–79. 91 Ibid., pp. 288–90; Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke, pp. 95–98. 92 Dull, Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, pp. 294–95; Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke, pp. 103–106. Tanaka, Raizo. “Japan's Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal,” (Excerpts). Proceedings, edited by Roger Pineau, Part 1-Vol. 82, No. 7 (July 1956) and Part II-Vol. 82, No. 8 (August 1956). CGSC Copyright Registration # 21-0514 E H402ORA-150 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402ORA “Japan's Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal”* by Vice Admiral Raizo Tanaka It came as a surprise to me in mid-August 1942, to learn that, as Commander Destroyer Squadron 2, I had been chosen to assume command of a force to bring troops and supplies to Guadalcanal. The impact of this new responsibility may be appreciated when I say in all candor that neither I nor any of my staff had the slightest knowledge or experience in the Solomon Islands. Of Guadalcanal itself we knew no more than its location on a chart. We had much to learn, in little time, of the plan and scope of the operations to be carried out. As an escort force commander I had, since the beginning of the war, participated in landing operations in the Philippines and Celebes, at Ambon and Timor. These experiences had taught me that the seizure of a strategic point is no simple matter. Detailed preliminary study of the target area and close liaison between the landing forces and their escorts are vital factors. And to insure success, the landing operation must either take the enemy by surprise, or it must be preceded by powerful naval and air bombardment to neutralize enemy defenses. Knowing that neither of these possibilities would be available to me, I foresaw grave difficulties in my task and knew that we would suffer heavy losses. I resolved, nevertheless, to do everything in my power to succeed. Japan’s string of victories in the five months following the attack on Pearl Harbor gave her control over a vast expanse of territory reaching from the homeland through southeast Asia, the Netherlands Indies, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Her first failure to attain an objective in World War II was occasioned by the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, 1942. This was followed a month later by her disastrous defeat in the Battle of Midway. Among the naval forces which limped shamefully from this historic battle was my Destroyer Squadron 2. . . . By July my squadron was ordered by Second Fleet to Tokyo Bay. . . . During this time Japan’s naval activities in the Solomon Islands were intensified with the aim of intercepting the line of communication between the United States and Australia. For this purpose the Eighth Fleet was organized on July 14, 1942, to operate in the southeast area. . . . This fleet advanced to Rabaul in late July where it took over command of the area from Fourth Fleet. In addition to these surface forces, the 25th Air Flotilla was sent to Rabaul to conduct air operations under the Eleventh Air Fleet. In May 1942, a few Special Naval Landing Forces and Airfield Construction Units had been sent to the southeastern part of New Guinea and the Solomons. They had succeeded in building a seaplane base * Originally published in two parts: Part 1 in Volume 82, No. 7 (July 1956) and Part II in Vol. 82, No. 8 (August 1956). The H402 lesson author combined the two parts for this reading and edited the original for length. H402ORA-151 at Tulagi by the end of July and were making slow progress on an airfield at Guadalcanal. The latter was scheduled to be occupied by land-based planes of the 25th Air Flotilla from Rabaul, but the enemy had already reconnoitered the southern Solomons, and he was aware of our intended advance to these new bases. Accordingly, United States forces, whose morale had been lifted by the victory at Midway, ventured their first full-scale invasion of the war by sending the 1st Marine Division to Guadalcanal. Carried in some forty transports and escorted by powerful U. S. and Australian naval forces, 11,000 Marines successfully landed (August 7) on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, where they overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese garrisons and took possession of the seaplane base and the partially completed airfield. Several days of bad flying weather which preceded the American landings had prevented any reconnaissance activities by our Tulagi-based flying boats, and we were taken completely by surprise. Shocked by news of this enemy success, Admiral Mikawa hastily assembled seven cruisers and a destroyer and sped southward to deliver a surprise attack on the enemy at Guadalcanal in the early morning of August 9th. This was the famous First Sea Battle of the Solomons and considerable results were achieved. Despite the heavy damage inflicted on the enemy’s warships, his unmolested transports were able to unload all troops and munitions. Thus the enemy landing succeeded, and his foothold in the southern Solomons was established. . . . As a result of the enemy’s invasion of Guadalcanal, the Japanese Second (Advance Force) and Third (Carrier Task Force) Fleets were ordered to Truk. At the same time I also received orders to rush to Truk and there await further instructions. We departed Yokosuka on August 11th with only my flagship and destroyer Kagero, Desdiv 24 [Destroyer Division 24] having been called to Hiroshima Bay to augment the escorts of the Second Fleet. Even before reaching Truk, however, I was informed that my two ships had been incorporated into the Eighth Fleet and that I had been designated by Combined Fleet order as Commander of the Guadalcanal Reinforcement Force. On the evening of August 15th, while my ships were loading supplies at Truk, I received an important and detailed order from the Eighth Fleet Commander at Rabaul. The gist of this order follows: a. Desdiv 4 (2 DD) plus Desdiv 17 (3 DD) and Patrol Boats No. 1, 2, 34, 35 will be assigned to the Reinforcement Force. b. The first landing force will consist of 900 officers and men of the Army’s Ichiki Detachment. c. In the early morning of August 16th, six destroyers carrying the landing force will advance to Guadalcanal where the troops will be unloaded on the night of the 18th in the vicinity of Cape Taivu, to the east of Lunga Roads. Each soldier will carry a light pack of seven days’ supply. d. Jintsu and Patrol Boats No. 34 and 35 will escort two slow (9-knot) transports carrying the remainder of the landing forces, consisting mainly of service units. These transports will also carry additional supplies and munitions for use by the earlier landing forces. Patrol Boats No. 1 and 2 will escort fast (13-knot) transport Kinryu Maru, carrying the Yokosuka 5th Special Naval Landing Force, and join with the above group. All will unload in the vicinity of Cape Taivu’on the night of the 23rd. With no regard for my opinion, as commander of the Reinforcement Force, this order called for the most difficult operation in war—landing in the face of the enemy— to be carried out by mixed units which had no opportunity for rehearsal or even preliminary study. It must be clear to anyone with knowledge of military operations that such an undertaking could never succeed. In military strategy expedience sometimes takes precedence over prudence, but this order was utterly unreasonable. I could H402ORA-152 see that there must be great confusion in the headquarters of Eighth Fleet. Yet the operation was ordained and underway, and so there was no time to argue about it. There was not a moment to lose. During the night of August 15th, ships had to be supplied, troops loaded on destroyers, operation orders prepared, and all forces ready to sortie early next morning. Every member of my headquarters worked through the night to complete the complicated and endless details which precede a naval sortie. Somehow, at 0500, the designated hour, six destroyers embarking the Ichiki Detachment put bravely to sea under the command of Captain Yasuo Sato. Next out of the anchorage were Army transports Boston Maru and Daifuku Maru, escorted by Patrol Boats No. 34 and 35. In Jintsu, I sortied from the south channel and moved eastward to take command of the entire force. My advance force of six destroyers encountered no enemy submarines as it steamed southward at 22 knots. The other ships followed along on a zigzag course at 8 knots. A radio message from Eighth Fleet on the 17th announced that Crudiv 6 [Cruiser Division 6] would operate as an indirect escort and that Desdiv 24 would be added to my command. Accordingly, around noon of the following day, three more destroyers caught up with and joined the convoy. . . . Early in the morning of the 19th, although there were as yet no enemy planes operating from the field on Guadalcanal, Hagikaze was hit by bombs from a B-17. She was damaged enough so that I ordered her withdrawal to Truk in escort of Yamakaze, leaving Kagero alone in the vicinity of the landing. Since there was no Japanese reconnaissance of the waters south of Guadalcanal, we were totally unaware of what forces might be there. Early on the morning of the 20th Kagero was bombed by carrier- based planes. She was not damaged, but the appearance of these planes was clear evidence of an enemy striking force nearby. This was confirmed when one of our Shortland-based flying boats reported one carrier, two cruisers, and nine destroyers about 250 miles southeast of Guadalcanal. The crack troops of the Ichiki Detachment, after making their bloodless landing on Guadalcanal, attempted a night assault of the enemy’s defenses at midnight of August 20th to recapture the airfield. This reckless attack by infantrymen without artillery support against an enemy division in fortified positions was like a housefly’s attacking a giant tortoise. The odds were all against it. Most of our men met a violent death assaulting the enemy lines. The only survivors were some twenty men of the signal unit who had remained near the landing point. They made a radio report of the defeat, then managed to cross the island through almost impenetrable jungle and join with some of our Army forces which landed later. Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki himself committed suicide after burning the regimental colors. Thus our first landing operation ended in tragic failure. I knew Colonel Ichiki from the Midway operation and was well aware of his magnificent leadership and indomitable fighting spirit. But this episode made it abundantly clear that infantrymen armed with rifles and bayonets have no chance against an enemy equipped with modern heavy arms. This tragedy should have taught us the hopelessness of “bamboo-spear” tactics. Upon receipt of the report that there was an enemy task force southeast of Guadalcanal, Vice Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara, Commander Southeast Area, ordered my slow convoy to turn about immediately and come north. This order was followed shortly by one from Commander Eighth Fleet directing that my ships turn to course 250°, that is, twenty degrees south of west! Thus I had orders from the area commander and from my own immediate superior, but they were contradictory! Considering the situation, I decided to change to course 320°. Unfortunately, radio conditions went bad about that time and created an additional problem in that I could not communicate with either headquarters ashore. That afternoon, August 20th, I sent Kawakaze ahead to relieve Kagero at Guadalcanal. H402ORA-153 Around 1420 I got news that twenty enemy carrier planes had landed on the field at Guadalcanal. This meant that they had succeeded in capturing and completing the airfield in less than two weeks, and it was now operational. This would make our landing operation all the more difficult. It was welcome news, however, on the night of the 21st to learn from Eighth Fleet headquarters that Second Fleet (the advance force) and Third Fleet (the carrier force) would move to the waters east of the Solomons on the 23rd to support our operations and destroy the enemy task force. This message designated the position to be taken by our convoy at 1600 on the 23rd, and our landing on Guadalcanal was postponed to the next night. Highly encouraged by the prospect that we would finally be given support by Combined Fleet’s main body, we again steamed southward while I sent the four patrol boats to fuel at the Shortland Island anchorage. The enemy task force was sighted on the 21st by another of our reconnaissance planes. It was still in about the same position where it had been sighted the day before. Another scout plane reported two enemy transports and a light cruiser about 160 miles south of Guadalcanal. I sent Kawakaze and Yunagi south to get this latter group, but the destroyers found nothing. Kawakaze returned to the waters off Lunga on the 22nd, where early in the morning she torpedoed and sank an enemy destroyer.] She then came under attack by carrier planes whose strafing injured some of her crew but did no damage to the ship. My slow convoy advanced southward to within 200 miles of Guadalcanal on the 23rd. As expected there were one or two U. S. “Consolidated” flying boats shadowing us continually in spite of a steady rain. We continued toward our designated point, anticipating that there would be fierce raids by carrier planes the next day. An urgent dispatch came from Commander Eighth Fleet at about 0830 directing the convoy to turn northward and keep out of danger for the time being. We complied hastily, but knew that this would delay our landing until the 25th. Hence, we were startled at 1430 to receive the following order from Commander Eleventh Air Fleet, “The convoy will carry out the landing on the 24th.” I replied that this would be impossible because some of our ships were so slow. Our uneasiness at the impending battle situation, the difficulties of our assignment, and this second set of conflicting orders was heightened by atmospheric disturbances which again disrupted our radio communications and greatly delayed the receipt and sending of vital messages. On the 24th, too, enemy flying boats shadowed us from dawn to dusk. At 0800 we had a radio warning that 36 planes had taken off from the field at Guadalcanal. We continued to operate according to plan, expecting a mass attack which never came. At 1230 we spotted a heavy cruiser speeding southward on the eastern horizon, closely followed by an aircraft carrier. These were Tone and Ryujo who, with two destroyers, were serving as indirect escort to my reinforcement group. Also, Ryujo’s planes were to attack the airfield at Guadalcanal, and 21 of them were launched about this time. Two hours later we saw signs of an air attack on these warships to the southeast, diving enemy planes, smoke screens being laid, and most fatefully a gigantic pillar of smoke and flame which proved to be the funeral pyre of Ryujo. She was fatally hit with bombs and torpedoes from enemy carrier-based planes and sank in the early evening. Ryujo’s planes, returning from the Guadalcanal strike and finding no carrier to land on, patrolled briefly over my ships and then flew off to the northwest to land at Buka, on the northern tip of Bougainville. They reported success in having bombed the Guadalcanal airfield and shot down more than ten enemy planes. News of Ryujo's sinking was not received in the various headquarters until the 25th. It seemed to us, in fact, that every time a battle situation became critical our radio communications would hit a snag, file://usnida01/Archive/Proceedings%20Digital%20Index/Word%20Documents/1956/Uncorrected/Tanaka,%20Raizo%20-%201956,%2082-7-641 x#_ftn4 H402ORA-154 causing delay in important dispatches. This instance was typical, but it seemed to hold no lesson for us since communications failures continued to plague us throughout the war. At about 1400 hours on the 24th, a radio message from Combined Fleet headquarters announced that the group of enemy ships located east of Malaita was steaming southeastward. This was a powerful force consisting of three aircraft carriers, a battleship, seven cruisers, and a number of destroyers. Bomber squadrons from our carrier group (Shokaku, Zuikaku) attacked this force some twenty to thirty miles south of Stewart Island. There they found the enemy split into two units, each centered on an aircraft carrier, and took them under attack, setting two ships on fire. Our night fighter forces pursued, but the eastbound enemy had too much of a start in his withdrawal. The chase was abandoned as all Japanese ships reversed course and headed northward. Thus ended the second naval battle of the Solomon Islands, or Battle of the Eastern Solomons. My reinforcement convoy, meanwhile, had been ordered to withdraw temporarily to the northeast, but, on hearing that two enemy carriers were on fire, we turned again toward Guadalcanal. Considering the battle situation and the movement of the enemy, I had grave doubts about this slow convoy’s chances of reaching its goal, but it was my duty to make the attempt at any cost. I had a feeling that the next day would be fateful for my ships. By 0600 on the 25th, we were within 150 miles of the Guadalcanal airfield. Five of our destroyers, which had shelled enemy positions there during the night, had afterward raced north as planned to join my warships in direct escort of the transports. These additions were aged Mutsuki and Yayoi of Desdiv 30, plus Kagero, Kawakaze, and Isokaze. Upon their joining, my signal order was issued concerning our movements, formations, and alert disposition for entering the anchorage that night. And just as my order was being sent, six carrier bombers broke out from the clouds and came at my flagship. We were caught napping, and there was no chance to ready our guns for return fire. The dive bombing was followed by strafing attacks. Bombs hit the forward sections of the flagship with terrific explosions while near misses raised huge columns of water. The last bomb struck the forecastle between guns No. 1 and 2 with a frightful blast which scattered fire and splinters and spread havoc throughout the bridge. I was knocked unconscious but came to, happy to find myself uninjured. The smoke was so thick that it was impossible to keep one’s eyes open. Severely shaken, I stumbled clear of the smoke and saw that the forecastle was badly damaged and afire. There were many dead and injured about. Strangely, however, Jintsu did not list, and she seemed in no danger of sinking. Such emergency measures as flooding the forward magazine, fighting the fire, and caring for the injured were carried out in good order. Luckily the magazines did not explode, watertight bulkheads held, and the engines remained in running condition. The cruiser was still seaworthy, but bow damage precluded her running at high speed, and so she was no longer fit to serve as flagship. Meanwhile the attacking enemy had not ignored the transports. Kinryu Maru, the largest and carrying about 1,000 troops of the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force, was set afire by a bomb hit. Induced explosions of stored ammunition rendered her unable to navigate and near sinking. Seeing this, I ordered Desdiv 30 and two patrol boats to go alongside and take off her troops and crew. At the same time I sent the other ships northwestward at full speed to avoid further attacks. Transferring my headquarters and flag to destroyer Kagero, I ordered Jintsu to return to Truk by herself for repairs. She was still able to make 12 knots. Now enemy B-17s appeared and bombed Mulsuki as she engaged in rescue work alongside Kinryu Maru. With no headway on, the destroyer took direct bomb hits and sank instantly. Consort Yayoi rescued her crew while the two patrol boats continued to rescue men from Kinryu Maru just before she sank. I ordered all rescue ships to proceed at once to Rabaul. H402ORA-155 My worst fears for this operation had come to be realized. Without the main combat unit, the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force, it was clear that the remaining auxiliary unit of about 300 men would be of no use even if it did reach Guadalcanal without further mishap. To complete the dismal picture, flagship Jintsu had to be withdrawn because of heavy damage, Kinryu Maru and Mulsuki were sunk, and three of my other escort ships had to withdraw with rescuees. It would be folly to land the remainder of this battered force on Guadalcanal. I reported my opinion to headquarters and began a northward withdrawal toward the Shortland. My decision was affirmed by messages from Combined Fleet and Eighth Fleet, and the operation was suspended, ending in complete failure of the effort of this convoy to reinforce our Guadalcanal garrisons. Even as we headed for the Shortland Islands, however, I received an Eleventh Air Fleet order directing that the remaining 300-odd troops be transported to Guadalcanal on the night of the 27th in fast warships. I could not help but feel that this was a hasty decision not based on careful planning. . . . As soon as we had entered Shortland anchorage on the night of the 26th, I summoned the Army commander and advised him of my plans. The entire night was then spent in transferring troops and munitions to the destroyers. Early next morning the three destroyers were on their way. They had been gone but a few hours when I received an Eighth Fleet dispatch saying that the landing operation at Guadalcanal should take place on the 28th! To my immediate reply that the destroyers had already departed, Eighth Fleet responded, “Recall destroyers at once. Am sending Desdiv 20 to Shortland where it will be under Comdesron 2.” It was inconceivable that no liaison existed between the headquarters of Eleventh Air Fleet and Eighth Fleet, since both were located at Rabaul, and yet such seemed to be the case. I had again received contradictory and conflicting orders from the area commander and my immediate superior and was at a loss as to what to do. If such circumstances continue, I thought, how can we possibly win a battle? It occurred to me again that this operation gave no evidence of careful, deliberate study; everything seemed to be completely haphazard. As commander of the Reinforcement Force, this put me in a very difficult position. I was compelled to recall the destroyers immediately, and they returned that evening. While they refueled and took on supplies I summoned the commanding officers and made arrangements for the operation to be conducted on the 28th. . . . From successive dispatches I finally learned why four Desdiv 20 destroyers had been temporarily assigned to my command. It had been planned that they would load an advance force of the Kawaguchi Detachment from Borneo and bring it to Guadalcanal to be landed in the vicinity of Cape Taivu on the night of the 28th with the remaining troops of the Ichiki Detachment as second-wave reinforcements. When this became clear, I ordered Captain Yonosuke Murakami, Comdesdiv 24, to take his own destroyers, together with Isokaze and four ships of Desdiv 20, to make that landing on the night of the 28th. A hitch in this plan developed, however, when I received word from Desdiv 20 that, because of fuel shortage, it could not stop at Shortland but would go on south and, staying east of the Solomons, operate independently of Isokaze and Desdiv 24. This further served to increase my pessimism about the success of the landing operation. H402ORA-156 A subsequent urgent dispatch from Desdiv 20 confirmed my fears with a report that it had been bombed for two hours in the afternoon of the 28th by enemy planes at a point about 80 miles north of the Guadalcanal airfield. The division commander, Captain Yuzo Arita, was killed, Asagiri sunk, Shirakumo damaged badly, and Yugiri moderately. As a consequence, their advance on Guadalcanal had to be abandoned and the surviving ships returned to Shortland. Another operational plan had come to nought. This made it more obvious than ever what sheer recklessness it was to attempt a landing operation against strong resistance without preliminary neutralization of enemy air power. If the present operation plan for Guadalcanal was not altered, we were certain to suffer further humiliating and fruitless casualties. We were in the midst of a midnight conference called to discuss the unfavorable situation when Desdiv 24 reported that it was also returning to Shortland. In this decision the commander acted independently, without orders, on grounds that the battle situation had taken an unfavorable turn. Such conduct was inexcusable. Yet, if I now ordered these destroyers to turn about and head for Guadalcanal, they could not make it before dawn and would then fall easy prey to enemy planes. Repressing my fury and disappointment, I had no choice but to concur with the decision of Comdesdiv 24, but he got a severe reprimand when he returned next morning. And I, in turn, received strong messages from Combined Fleet and Eighth Fleet expressing their regret at our setback. . . . Meanwhile, transport Sado Maru arrived at Shortland carrying the main force of an Army detachment under Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi, which had been selected to reinforce Guadalcanal. I invited General Kawaguchi and several of his senior officers to come on board Kinugasa so that we could make plans and arrangements. The Kawaguchi Detachment had earlier achieved notable success in landing operations on the southwest coast of Borneo, after a passage of 500 miles in large landing barges. It was disturbing to me, however, when General Kawaguchi now insisted that his force should continue southward in transport Sado Maru as far as Gizo Harbor, which was just beyond the range of the enemy’s land-based planes at that time. From there they would proceed to Guadalcanal using all available landing barges. The General was supported by all the other Army officers in rejecting my proposal to transport their troops by naval vessels. This presented a serious handicap to the whole operation, and I was lost for a solution since I had no knowledge of what orders the Kawaguchi Force had been given about transportation. I reported the situation to my superiors at Rabaul and advised General Kawaguchi to inform Commander Seventeenth Army of what had come up and see if his intentions would be approved. The conference closed with our agreement to hold further meetings concerning the reinforcement operations. With the present unfavorable war situation, it was the Navy’s hope that all reinforcements could be transported without a moment’s delay, and we were willing to exert every effort for this purpose. Any delay was regrettable, and this one was even worse since it was caused by a conflict of opinion between our own Army and Navy forces at the front. I was in an extremely difficult position. On the night of August 29th, Captain Murakami’s four destroyers landed troops in the vicinity of Cape Taivu, as did three ships of Desdiv 11. A radio message from Guadalcanal during that day indicated that there was an enemy force of two transports, one cruiser, and two destroyers near Lunga Point. Accordingly, Commander Eighth Fleet Mikawa sent an order direct to Comdesron 24 for Murakami to attack that enemy force as soon as the landing of troops had been completed. To my great astonishment Murakami ignored this order and, as soon as the troops had landed, set course for Shortland. This was a flagrant violation of a direct order, and on his return I summoned Captain Murakami to demand an explanation of his action. He had not made the attack because the night was clear and lighted by a full moon, and many enemy planes had been seen overhead. So dumbfounding was this statement that I could H402ORA-157 not even think of words to reprove him. Blame attached to me, of course, for having such a man in my command, and I was conscience stricken. He was transferred shortly [thereafter] to the homeland. In the morning of August 30th, Amagiri and Kagero entered the anchorage at Shortland carrying the advance force of the Kawaguchi Detachment and towing the badly damaged Shirakumo. I ordered undamaged Amagiri, Kagero, and Yudachi (Isokaze’s replacement) to load the main force of the Kawaguchi Detachment and rush to Guadalcanal. The warships hastily completed all preparations for departure, but General Kawaguchi and his officers were still strongly opposed to warship transportation since they had received no orders from Seventeenth Army and they were not disposed to comply with our naval order. At 1000 hours I was compelled to have the remaining troops of the Ichiki Detachment depart in Yudachi for Guadalcanal. I thereupon reported to Eighth Fleet, requesting that Seventeenth Army headquarters be consulted at once and asked to issue necessary instructions to General Kawaguchi. That night Mikawa’s chief of staff sent a dispatch criticizing me bitterly because Amagiri and Kagero had not also departed for Guadalcanal. It was lamentable, to be sure, but could hardly be attributed to anything but the narrowness of General Kawaguchi and his officers. Patrol Boats No. 1 and 34, which had departed the previous day, were twice attacked by enemy planes but sustained no damage. They radioed asking instructions for their run-in to Guadalcanal, and I directed them to follow close on the heels of Yudachi when she dashed in to land reinforcements. I was greatly relieved and gratified when the report came in that all three had successfully landed their Army troops before midnight of August 30th. I treated with General Kawaguchi again on the 30th about the transportation of his troops, but he stubbornly refused my proposal on the ground that he had still received no instructions from his superiors. As commander of the Reinforcement Force I could brook no further delay. Thereupon, I ordered eight destroyers—Kagaro and Amagiri, and Desdivs 11 and 24 each supplying three—to make preparations for departure early the next morning. Around 2000 hours a message came from Eighth Fleet saying, “Under our agreement with Commander Seventeenth Army, the bulk of the Kawaguchi Detachment will be transported to Guadalcanal by destroyers, the remainder by large landing barges.” I lost no time in resuming discussions with the General and his officers, but they were not easily convinced. Contending that the order was not directed to them, they held out until Kawaguchi himself finally gave way; the commander of the regiment never did agree. The ponderous task of getting the troops on board the destroyers was begun at once. It was noon of the 31st when eight destroyers sortied for Guadalcanal carrying General Kawaguchi and some 1,000 of his officers and men. All troops were landed successfully at midnight, and the ships returned without meeting any opposition. This was the third time that a complete Army unit had landed successfully from destroyers. On August 30th, I had received the following message from Eighth Fleet: “Comdesron 3 will depart Rabaul for Shortland early in the morning of the 30th. Upon the arrival of Comdesron 3, Comdesron 2 will relinquish his command and proceed to Truk on board Yugiri.” My first reaction to this unexpected transfer order was a feeling of indignation because I had spared no effort to fill this assignment successfully. On second thought, however, I realized that much had happened during my few short weeks in this command. I had lost many ships and men in difficult battle situations, one of my subordinate commanders had proven inadequate to his assignment, and there had been delay in one reinforcement operation because of my conflict with the stubborn Army commander. I was not free of responsibility in these matters, but there were other considerations. I had had to change flagship three times in as many weeks and, with the exception of Kagero which had been with me since the start of the war, every unit of my command had been added by improvisation with no chance to train H402ORA-158 or practice together. All these factors contributed toward my difficulties of achieving a unified command. To make matters worse, I was so exhausted—mentally and physically—that I could hardly keep going. Under these circumstances it was only proper that I be given relief from the strain of this command. I was especially gratified to learn that my close friend of Naval Academy days, Rear Admiral Shintaro Hashimoto, would be taking my place. . . . PART II The first essential of a successful amphibious operation is to deprive the enemy of control of the surrounding air. At Guadalcanal this meant the destruction of planes on the enemy's airfield. But the enemy had more planes in the area than we did, and so some other means had to be used. In consequence, it was planned to use battleships in a heavy night bombardment of the field to destroy the enemy planes. A new bombardment shell had just arrived from the homeland—designated Type Zero, these had a firecracker-like shrapnel burst—and there were enough for battleships Kongo and Haruna to have 500 rounds each for their 36-cm. guns. These two big ships were scheduled to make the bombardment on the night of October 13th. Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita (Combatdiv 3) commanded the force which consisted of light cruiser Isuzu and three ships of Desdiv 31 as screen, a rear guard of four Desdiv 15 ships, and the two battleships with my Desron 2 as direct escort. The 25-knot advance toward Guadalcanal brought us to a point west of Savo Island shortly before midnight, encountering neither planes nor ships of the enemy on the way. Speed was dropped to eighteen knots, and the sixteen big guns of the two battleships open fire simultaneously at a range of 16,000 meters. The ensuing scene baffled description as the fires and explosions from the 36-cm. shell hits on the airfield set off enemy planes, fuel dumps, and ammunition storage places. The scene was topped off by flare bombs from our observation planes flying over the field, the whole spectacle making the Ryogoku fireworks display seem like mere child's play. The night's pitch dark was transformed by fire into the brightness of day. Spontaneous cries and shouts of excitement ran throughout our ships. The attack seemed to take the enemy by complete surprise, and his radio could be heard sending emergency messages such as, “Intensive bombardment by enemy ships. Damage tremendous.” Enemy shore batteries at Tulagi and Lunga Point turned searchlights seaward, probing frantically and fruitlessly for our ships. Star shell and gunfire also fell short of our location. Isuzu returned some fire against a coastal battery on Tulagi, but the main show was the battleships' bombardment which continued for an hour and a half after which all ships withdrew safely and on schedule to the east of Savo Island. At about this time several motor torpedo boats of the enemy came out to pursue our rear guard ships, but destroyer Naganami drove them away. We anticipated attacks by enemy planes the next morning, but not a single plane appeared even to threaten us, testimony indeed to the effectiveness of the night's bombardment. On the night of October 14th, Eighth Fleet cruisers Chokai and Kinugasa unleashed a similar bombardment with their 20-cm. guns while six transports carrying General Maruyama's 2nd Division arrived off Guadalcanal to unload passengers and cargo in escort of Desron 4. The unloading was still going on early next morning when enemy carrier planes from a task force to the south descended upon us. A few troops and weapons had been landed during the night, but three loaded transports had to be run aground when they were bombed and set afire. The other three transports got away, but this attempt to land a completely equipped army force ended in failure. Myoko and Maya of Crudiv 5 bombarded the airfield with their 20-cm. guns during the night of October 15th. Desron 2 again served as escort, divided between van and rear. We parted from the main force shortly after noon and headed for Guadalcanal at high speed. We arrived east of Savo Island at 2100, reduced speed to twenty knots, and commenced firing. Cruiser guns were not nearly so effective as the battleships', and only a few fires broke out at the airfield. Each cruiser fired some 400 shells during H402ORA-159 the one-hour bombardment, and two destroyers sent about 300 shells into the coastal battery, but there was no return fire. Their work done, all ships withdrew to the north. Our aerial reconnaissance on the 16th spotted bomber planes being dispatched to Guadalcanal from carriers sixty miles southeast of the island, and a powerful enemy force which included four battleships was sighted to the south of San Cristobal Island. It seemed certain that the enemy must have a strong carrier force near the Solomons, but we could not find it. We conjectured that the enemy was planning to decoy our carriers toward his battleship force and himself conduct carrier-based raids from the southeast. Our main force spent the 17th and 18th in refueling just north of the equator, and then headed southerly with the hope and objective of engaging enemy carriers since General Maruyama's troops on Guadalcanal were scheduled to launch a general attack on the night of the 22nd. Hampered by the jungle, however, the advance of our land forces was unduly delayed, and the general attack had to be postponed to the 24th. Meanwhile, submarine I-175 had torpedoed and destroyed an enemy warship southeast of Guadalcanal. It was our opinion that we could recapture the airfield, the enemy would be forced to withdraw from Guadalcanal. In accordance with this notion a plan was mapped out whereby the Eighth Fleet would advance to a point 150 miles northwest of Guadalcanal and the Second Fleet take position a like distance to the northeast while Desron 4 (Rear Admiral Tamotsu Takama) rushed directly toward the island. Upon receipt of a message during the night of the 24th that our troops had occupied the field (it later proved to have been incorrect), Desron 4 advanced toward its destination as planned. Next morning the squadron was attacked by enemy planes. Light cruiser Yura was damaged so badly that she had to be sunk, and flagship Akizuki was also damaged. The general attack launched by Maruyama's division had, in reality, failed. (This was the third time that a general attack had not succeeded.) Here, again, was a pitiful example of a lack of cooperation between the Army and the Navy. On October 26th, the Second and Third Fleets sent planes to the south on dawn reconnaissance. At 0530 a plane from cruiser Tone, flying the easternmost search leg, sighted an enemy force 200 miles north of Santa Cruz. This force was promptly reported as consisting of three carriers, two battleships, five cruisers, and twelve destroyers. Our carrier force, cruising some 200 miles to the northwest, dispatched two groups of attack planes which struck Enterprise and Hornet, damaging both. The latter was abandoned by her crew and finally sunk early the next morning by torpedoes from destroyers Makigumo and Akigztmo. Our pilots claimed a third carrier set afire and the sinking of a battleship, two cruisers, and a destroyer, as well as the shooting down of a number of enemy planes. American planes also made successful attacks this day scoring bomb hits on carriers Shokaku and Zuiho, setting them afire, and rendering their flight decks unusable. Both ships were forced to withdraw without recovering their strike aircraft. A few of these planes were recovered by Zuikaku and Junyo, but most of them were forced down at sea. Cruiser Chikuma was jumped by about twenty planes which scored many near misses and enough direct hits to send her limping northward. The rest of our ships under Admiral Kondo sped toward the location where our carrier planes had scored such successes through their offensive initiative, seeking to engage the enemy fleet. They found only the burning carrier which was dispatched by two of our destroyers. The rest of the enemy ships fled southeastward at high speed, pursued unsuccessfully by Desron 2. Search operations were continued through the 27th, but there was no further sign of the enemy. Admiral Yamamoto then recalled the fleet to Truk, and all ships reached there safely by the end of October. As commander of one of the naval forces involved in Guadalcanal operations I wish to present my own view of the general situation prevailing at the end of October 1942. Failure of the Ichiki and Kawaguchi Detachments had led to the mounting of a full-scale amphibious operation, to be conducted H402ORA-160 jointly by the Army and Navy, in which high-speed transports carried Maruyama's 2nd Division whose goal was to recapture the airfields at Guadalcanal. This effort was supported by all surface and air strength available in the Solomons, but it ended in failure. Many reasons may be cited for the failure, but primarily it is attributable to the enemy's aerial superiority. Our pre-landing bombardments by surface ships had destroyed many planes on the ground. These losses were quickly replenished, however, thanks to the fantastic mass-production techniques of the United States. An auxiliary airfield was prepared in an amazingly short time, and the enemy's air strength could then be greatly increased. Enemy carriers kept station near Guadalcanal while our nearest plane bases were at Truk and Rabaul. Our movements were watched so closely that the enemy could unleash intercepting operation at a moment's notice. Although we sank or damaged his carriers in the Santa Cruz battle and elsewhere, the enemy was able to repair or replace his ships with speed which astonished us. Thus did the United States not only maintain its aerial strength in the Pacific despite our successful assaults against it, but also managed to exceed by leaps and bounds our strenuous efforts to achieve superiority in the air. Because surface ships are no match against strong aerial assault, it seemed to me imperative that Guadalcanal reinforcement operations be suspended while Rabaul was built up as a rear base and an advanced base was established in the vicinity of Buin. In this way we could have built up fighting forces which might have been able to deal effectively with the enemy. To our regret, however, the Supreme Command stuck persistently to reinforcing Guadalcanal and never modified this goal until the time came when the island had to be abandoned. We could not but doubt that this judgment was right. The success or failure of a military operation often hinges on whether the people at the fighting front have been consulted. If our views had been considered with an open mind, the way could have been paved for unity and coordination at all levels of command which might have brought us success. But this was not done. Needless to say, although a war cannot be won without risk, there is a limit to adventure and recklessness. Men who direct military operations must keep this always under consideration. While my Desron 2 was engaged with the fleet in the South Pacific, Desrons 3 and 4 continued to escort reinforcement convoys to Guadalcanal. Both of these squadrons sustained heavy losses as a result of aerial bombardments and surface engagements. Many of their ships had been sunk, most of the rest damaged, and the few that escaped actual injury were in no condition for further operational assignments. Still the Supreme Command clung to the idea of seizing the Guadalcanal airfields, and Seventeenth Army formulated a plan to achieve this end. After being reinforced by the 38th Division, it would make a frontal attack against enemy positions. It was decided to transport these troops in high-speed Army vessels, although really serviceable ones were very scarce at this time, and Desron 2 was assigned as escort. Immediately upon our return to Truk on October 30th, maintenance and replenishment of ships were undertaken with all possible speed. Accordingly my ships were able to sortie November 3rd. With light cruiser Isuzu as flagship, my squadron consisted of eight destroyers of Divisions 15, 24, and 31. We were accompanied by Crudiv 7 (Suzuya, Maya) and two ships of Desdiv 10. Unlike some previous assignments, this mission would be successful, I believed, because the force was adequate and my subordinates were all experienced. Two days out of Truk we arrived at Shortland, where I called on Vice Admiral Mikawa whose Eighth Fleet flagship Chokai had entered the anchorage just ahead of us. He informed me that Desron 2 would replace Squadrons 3 and 4 in reinforcement operations and that I would command the entire force. The Shortland Islands were very important at this time as they constituted a vital point in the reinforcement of Guadalcanal, hence there was always considerable activity in the anchorage. Yet there were surprisingly few land-based fighters to fly cover for direct air defense and patrol over this territory. H402ORA-161 The only airstrip—700 meters long and 25 wide—was located on the coast near Buin at the southern tip of Bougainville. There were some seaplanes based in the mouth of a bay on the eastern end of Bougainville. They patrolled the anchorage entrance and provided the only direct cover for vessels shuttling to Guadalcanal. Soon after we had anchored, Admiral Mikawa directed that Desron 2 plus two ships of Desdiv 10 would escort a convoy of six Army transports to Guadalcanal on November 7th. I laid out details for the operation and summoned my ship captains for a briefing. Next day, however, the original plan was altered so that, instead of transports, destroyers were to be used to lift the troops. Furthermore, it was announced that on the 13th, the main body of the 38th Division would be carried in eleven high-speed Army ships escorted by Desron 2. Indirect cover would be provided by Eighth Fleet and the Second Fleet main body operating to the east and west of the Solomons respectively. I had planned to take direct command of the destroyers leaving on the 7th, with my flag in Hayaslzio, but was specifically ordered to remain in Shortland. Therefore, I appointed Captain Torajiro Sato (Comdesdiv 15) to lead the eleven destroyers carrying the advance unit of 1,300 troops and directed him to take the northern route to Guadalcanal. The ships departed on schedule on the morning of the 7th. In mid-afternoon they were attacked by about thirty ship-based bombers. Six escorting fighters which were providing air cover put up such a brave defense (in which all were destroyed) and the destroyers maneuvered so skillfully that they escaped without damage. The force arrived at Tassafaronga, west of Lunga Point, shortly after midnight and landed the troops without incident. We welcomed the safe return of the destroyers to Shortland in mid- morning of the 8th. That same day Army transports arrived carrying the main body of the 38th Division. Two days later 600 of these troops under Lieutenant General Tadayoshi Sano were embarked in destroyers Makinami, Suzukaze, and three ships of Desdiv 10, and headed south by the central route. Some twenty enemy planes attacked in mid-afternoon with bombs and torpedoes, but the ships were not damaged. Near the debarkation point, a nighttime attack by four torpedo boats was repulsed and the division commander and his troops landed safely. The ships were back at Shortland on the 11th. Our reconnaissance planes sighted an enemy carrier task force bearing 130° distant 180 miles from Tulagi on the 11th. That night several enemy planes raided Shortland and bombed shipping in the harbor but did no damage. It was evident that the enemy was aware of our plan and was making an all-out effort to disrupt it by concentrating his sea and air forces around Guadalcanal. Consequently, we had good reason to expect that the landing of the 38th Division main body at Guadalcanal would be extremely difficult. Enemy planes raided Shortland again at dawn on the 12th and tried to bomb the transports, but no damage was sustained. At 1800 the eleven Army transports moved southward the anchorage, escorted by twelve destroyers. In flagship Hayashio, I led the formation and wondered how many of our ships would survive this operation. That night Hiei and Kirishima, of Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe's Batdiv 11, escorted by Desrons 4 and 10 approached Guadalcanal to shell the airfield, as Batdiv 3 had done previously. But this time the enemy was aware of our plan and had made preparations to disrupt it. Contact was made with an enemy cruiser and destroyer force just as Abe's ships passed to the south of Savo Island on a SE course, preparatory to making their bombardment. Flagship Hiei got off only two salvoes in the ensuing battle before being hit by shells from an enemy cruiser, with the result that both her steering rooms and her fire-control system were put out of service, and she cruised in circles quite out of control. Destroyers Akatsuki and Yudachi H402ORA-162 were sunk, Amatsukaze and Ikazuchi damaged. Suffering these heavy losses, the force was compelled to give up its intended shelling. In this night battle our ships claimed two heavy cruisers and several destroyers sunk, and the fray was thought to be a draw. Dawn of the 13th saw the start of a series of intensive attacks against Hiei by enemy planes. As a result of successive direct hits, fires broke out in all sections of the battleship. When fire-fighting proved useless, the order was given to abandon ship, and the crew was transferred to destroyers. Despite an order from Combined Fleet directing Kirishima to take Hiei in tow, this effort was not made, and instead, the flaming battleship was intentionally sunk. With surviving destroyers, Kirishima cleared out of the arena and joined the main force of the Second Fleet in waters north of Guadalcanal. My escort force and our charges had turned back to Shortland around midnight on the 12th after receiving a Combined Fleet order that our debarkation had been postponed until the 14th. We returned shortly after noon on the 13th and one hour later were on our way again toward Guadalcanal. I had a premonition that an ill fate was in store for us. While we headed southward Maya and Suzuya of Crudiv 7 prepared the way by shelling the Guadalcanal airfield. The transports in my convoy sailed in a four-column formation at eleven knots. My flagship led the escorting destroyers which were spread out in front and to either side. We were subjected to attack at dawn of the 14th by two B-17s and four carrier-based bombers, but they did no damage, and three of the latter were shot down by fighters which were serving as our combat air patrol. An hour later two more carrier bombers came at the convoy, but they were both shot down. At this time we also sighted a large formation of enemy planes to the southwest. I ordered all destroyers to make smoke and each column of transports to take separate evasive action. Instead of attacking my ships, however, these planes struck some fifty miles to the west at warships of the Eighth Fleet which were providing our indirect cover. Kinugasa was sunk, Isuzu damaged heavily, Chokai and Maya lightly, with the result that Eighth Fleet had to give up its indirect cover mission and return to Shortland. Later in the morning we were attacked by a total of 41 planes. There were eight each of B-17s, torpedo bombers, and fighters, and the rest carrier-based bombers. Under cover of a smoke screen the transports tried to withdraw on zigzag courses, but enemy torpedoes sank Canberra Maru and Nagara Maru while Sado Maru (carrying the Army commander) was crippled by bombs. When the enemy planes had withdrawn, survivors from the transports were picked up, and Sado Maru headed back toward Shortland escorted by destroyers Amagiri and Mochizuki. Less than two hours later we were again under air attack, this time by eight B-17s and two dozen carrier bombers. Brisbane Maru was hit, set afire, and sunk. Her survivors were picked up by destroyer Kawakaze. The next attack was on us within an hour when eight B-17s and five carrier bombers bombed and sank Shinanogawa Maru and Arizona Maru. Survivors were rescued by destroyers Naganami and Makinami. A respite of half an hour was broken by three carrier bombers which attacked assiduously but without success. Any conjecture on our part that our troubles for the day were over proved illusory, however, when 21 planes struck half an hour before sunset. Four were B-17s, the rest carrier bombers. Nako Maru was their only victim, and she burned brightly from bomb hits. Destroyer Suzukaze managed to come alongside and take off survivors before this 7,000-ton transport's fires were quenched in the ocean depths. H402ORA-163 And before the sun could set, three more carrier bombers came to plague our force, but all their bombs missed. In six attacks this day on my immediate force the enemy had sent more than 100 planes. These had sunk six transports with bombs and torpedoes, killing a total of about 400 men. Amazingly, some 5,000 men of the embarked troops and crews had been rescued by destroyers. The toll on my force was extremely heavy. Steaming at high speed the destroyers had laid smoke screens almost continuously and delivered a tremendous volume of antiaircraft fire. Crews were near exhaustion. The remaining transports had spent most of the day in evasive action, zigzagging at high speed, and were now scattered in all directions. In detail the picture is now vague, but the general effect is indelible in my mind of bombs wobbling down from high-flying B-17s, of carrier bombers roaring toward targets as though to plunge full into the water, releasing bombs and pulling out barely in time; each miss sending up towering columns of mist and spray; every hit raising clouds of smoke and fire as transports burst into flame and take the sickening list that spells their doom. Attackers depart, smoke screens lift and reveal the tragic scene of men jumping overboard from burning, sinking ships. Ships regrouped each time the enemy withdrew, but precious time was wasted and the advance delayed. But the four remaining transports, escorted by Hayaslzio and three ships of Desdiv 15, still steamed doggedly and boldly toward Guadalcanal. These were a sorry remnant of the force that had sortied from Shortland. With seven transports sunk and as many destroyers withdrawn to rescue survivors, prospects looked poor for the operation. It was evident by evening, to make matters worse, that the transports could not possibly reach the unloading position at the appointed time. Even steaming at thirteen knots they could not arrive until almost sunup of the 15th. By mid-afternoon of the 14th, a friendly search plane had reported the presence of four enemy cruisers and four destroyers steaming northward at high speed in the waters east of Guadalcanal. There was no doubt that they were after our transports. It was estimated that on their present course our transports would meet these warships off Cape Esperance. Our Eighth Fleet, which was supposed to have provided indirect escort, had now withdrawn to the north and was unavailable. Furthermore, it was unknown if the Second Fleet main body would be in a position to counterattack. It was difficult, therefore, to decide whether to risk the transports against the enemy now or withdraw to await a more favorable opportunity. My indecision was resolved by a late afternoon dispatch from Commander in Chief Combined Fleet ordering that we continue directly toward Guadalcanal. Unusually successful radio communications at this time provided information that Second Fleet was advancing at full speed to attack the reported enemy fleet. This meant that fleet flagship Atago, battleship Kirishima, two ships of Crudiv 4, and several destroyers would be supporting our effort. Thus it was with a feeling of relief that I gave the order to proceed with the operation. By sunset I was further heartened by the sight of several of my rescue destroyers, filled to capacity with army troops, catching up with my depleted force. Shortly before midnight, with visibility at seven kilometers, we were greatly encouraged to sight our Second Fleet main body dead ahead. With these stalwart guardians leading the way, we continued the advance. Approaching from east of Savo Island our van destroyers were first to engage the enemy, opposing several heavy cruisers. Heavy gunfire ensued, and the entire vicinity was kindled by flare bombs. We could see individual ships set afire—friend and foe alike. Atago's searchlights soon played on enemy vessels which we were surprised to find were not cruisers, but Washington-class battleships! This then was the first battleship night action of the war! H402ORA-164 Atago, Takao, and Kirishima loosed their guns in rapid succession, and the enemy opened return fire. I chose this moment to order a northward withdrawal of the transports, feeling that for them to continue into the battle area would only add to the confusion. At the same time I called for the three ships of Desdiv 15, under Captain Torajiro Sato, to advance and attack the enemy. As the three destroyers dashed forward a weather front closed in, reducing visibility to three kilometers. My earlier judgment was confirmed by the next radio message from Combined Fleet which now ordered a northward withdrawal of the transports. It was already in progress. An hour past midnight this battle, which had started and ended in darkness, was over. It was believed that the enemy had lost two heavy cruisers and one destroyer sunk, one heavy cruiser and one destroyer seriously damaged. When my ships reached Guadalcanal a burning heavy cruiser of the enemy was observed. We were of the opinion that two enemy battleships were damaged by torpedoes from Desdiv 11 and Oyashio of Desdiv 15. We suffered the loss of battleship Kirishima (her crew was rescued by destroyers) and destroyer Ayanami but felt that this Third Battle of the Solomons (or Naval Battle of Guadalcanal) battle had ended in our favor. From a vantage point to the rear I anxiously watched the progress of this heroic night battle. My mission was still to get the transports unloaded, their troops ashore. Of my command, only flagship Hayashio and the four transports remained. We headed at full speed for Tassafaronga. The plan had been for unloading to begin around midnight and be completed within two hours, allowing for safe withdrawal of the ships. Strenuous activities of the preceding day and night had so delayed our schedule, however, that unloading at the debarkation point could not possibly be commenced until after break of day. There was no question but that the usual method of landing the troops would subject the ships to fierce aerial attacks, as on the previous day. It would be more than tragic to lose so many men after coming thus far through the perils of enemy attacks. I resolved, accordingly, to effect the unloading by running the transports aground. The concept of running aground four of our best transports was, to say the least, unprecedented, and I realized full well that their loss would be regrettable. But I could see no other solution. This recommendation was made to the Commanders of the Eighth and Second Fleets and was met by flat rejection from the former. Commander Second Fleet was directly responsible for this operation, and his reply was, “Run aground and unload troops!” This resolute approval was gratefully received. As we approached Tassafaronga by the early light of dawn I gave the fateful order which sent the four transports hard aground almost simultaneously. Assembling my destroyers, I ordered immediate withdrawal northward, and we passed through the waters to the east of Savo Island. Daylight brought the expected aerial assaults on our grounded transports which were soon in flames from direct bomb hits. I learned later that all troops, light arms, ammunition, and part of the provisions were landed successfully. The last large-scale effort to reinforce Guadalcanal had ended. My concern and trepidation about the entire venture had been proven well founded. As convoy commander I felt a heavy responsibility. The superiority of Japan's pre-war Navy in night-battle tactics is, I believe, generally acknowledged. Long training and practice in this field paid off in early actions of the war such as the battles off Java and Surabaya when our ships scored heavily against enemy forces. But by the time of the battles of Cape Esperance and of Guadalcanal, the U.S. Navy was beginning to overcome our initial advantages, and these actions resulted in fairly equal losses to each side. American progress in naval night actions is directly attributable to the installation of radar in warships, which was begun in early June of 1942—about the time of the Battle of Midway—in our H402ORA-165 opinion. At that time our radar program was still in the research stage and our warships were not generally radar-equipped until well into the following year. Radar permitted detection of targets in the dark of night and provided accurate control of gunfire. This worked an obvious and drastic change in nighttime operations. Flares were still used by both sides to illuminate targets, but radar equipped ships of the United States Navy were able to fight night battles without the use of searchlights. The slight advantage accruing to the United States through the use of radar in the naval battles of mid-1942 became increasingly pronounced as the war continued. An absolute prerequisite of victory is to know the enemy situation. American Intelligence, radio communication (including radar and interception), and submarine search were far superior to Japan's efforts in these fields. Carelessness in our communications, and a corollary astuteness in that of the enemy, resulted in the untimely death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief Combined Fleet, and several members of his staff. The careful planning and execution of this accomplishment must stand as a tribute to the skill of the enemy. Search operations in the front-line Solomons area was conducted mainly by planes. From Shortland to Guadalcanal there are three possible routes of surface transit running along the north or south, or through the center of these islands. Our ships moving to and from Guadalcanal had to follow one or another of these routes, hoping always to evade the enemy. But the enemy search net, without exception, always thwarted this hope, and his ships and attack planes were always alerted, fully prepared for interception. In these circumstances it is understandable that we were unable to achieve surprise attacks. Even at Shortland our assembled vessels came to be attacked by big bombers such as the B-17s. Enemy planes attacked by day and by night, and when they were not attacking they were reconnoitering our situation. Our only counter to these attacks and searches was to keep our ships at Shortland on constant alert during the day and anchor them at various points along the coast during the night. Guadalcanal Supply Operations The end of the effort to reinforce Guadalcanal found more than 10,000 Japanese troops on the island, without any regular means of supply. None of the usual methods had been successful, and our losses in destroyers were proving prohibitive. Provisions and medical supplies were needed so desperately that daring expedients were called for to provide them. Supply by air would have been tried if we had been able to claim air superiority, but this we could not even claim. The first novel method of supply to be tried was what may be called the drum method. Large metal cans or drums were sterilized and then filled with medical supplies or basic foodstuffs such as cereals, leaving air space enough to insure buoyancy. Loaded on destroyers, these drums were linked together with strong rope during the passage to Guadalcanal. On arrival all drums were pushed overboard simultaneously while the destroyer continued on its way. A power boat would pick up the buoyed end of the rope and bring it to the beach where troops would haul it and the drums ashore. By this means unloading time was cut to a minimum, and destroyers returned to base with practically no delay. Transport was also attempted by submarines which would be loaded with supplies, brought to the landing point, and cruise there submerged during the day to avoid air attacks. Surfacing near the friendly base at night, the supplies would be carried ashore by motor boats. Submarine transport, however, was not new, as it had been conducted by Germany during World War I. Yet both of these were makeshift measures and, even when successful, resulted in the provision of only a few tons—enough for a day or two—of supplies. Almost daily came radio messages reporting the critical situation on the island and requesting immediate supplies. It was indicated that by the end of H402ORA-166 November the entire food supply would be gone, and by the latter part of the month we learned that all staple supplies had been consumed. The men were now down to eating wild plants and animals. Everyone was on the verge of starvation, sick lists increased, and even the healthy were exhausted. Realizing these circumstances, every effort was directed to relieve the situation. On November 27, two destroyers from each of Desdivs 15 and 24, which had been on transport duty to Buna, moved from Rabaul to Shortland loaded with drums of food and medical supplies. After conferences, preparations, and a trial run, the Fleet Commander issued orders for the first supply effort by the drum method to take place on November 30th. Of eight destroyers that were to take part, six were to be loaded with 200 to 240 drums. To accomplish this, reserve torpedoes were removed from these six ships, leaving in each only eight torpedoes one for each tube—cutting their fighting effectiveness in half. No drums were loaded on board flagship Naganami nor destroyer leader Takanami, which carried the commander of Desdiv 31. Preparations were completed on November 29th, and I led the ships from Shortland that night. In an attempt to conceal our intentions from the enemy we sailed eastward during the next morning. Nevertheless, we were shadowed constantly by his alert search planes. Around noon we increased speed to 24 knots and shaped a southward course to Guadalcanal. Three hours later, in spite of heavy rain, speed was upped to thirty knots. About this time we received word that a friendly reconnaissance plane had sighted “twelve enemy destroyers and nine transports.” Immediate preparations were made for action. But our main mission was to deliver supplies and, with no reserve torpedoes, it would be impossible to win a decisive battle. Nevertheless, I exhorted all ships under my command, “There is great possibility of an encounter with the enemy tonight. In such an event, utmost efforts will be made to destroy the enemy without regard for the unloading of supplies.” By sunset heavy rain began to fall, and it became very dark. This caused confusion in our formation and speed was temporarily reduced. But the rain did not last long and with its passing, visibility improved. An hour before midnight we passed westward of Savo Island and then swung southeastward in attack formation. Visibility was about seven kilometers. Minutes later three enemy planes with lighted navigation lights were observed forward of our course circling at low altitude. Still we continued toward designated unloading points off Tassafaronga (Takanami and three ships of Desdiv 15) and Segilau (Naganami and three ships of Desdiv 24). Since no aerial flares had been observed, and in view of the enemy practice of dropping them upon sighting our ships at night, we concluded that these planes were yet unaware of us. The tense silence was broken by a sudden radio blast from lead ship Takanami, “Sighted what appear to be enemy ships, bearing 100 degrees.” And this was followed immediately by, “Seven enemy destroyers sighted.” My destroyers had already broken formation, and those carrying supplies were on the point of tossing overboard the joined drums. But hearing these reports I abruptly ordered, “Stop unloading. Take battle stations.” With this order each destroyer prepared for action and immediately increased speed, but with no time to assume battle formation, each had to take independent action. Within minutes flagship Naganami's lookouts sighted the enemy bearing 90°, distant 8 kilometers and, raising my binoculars, I could easily distinguish individual enemy ships. In a moment it was clear that we had been recognized, for the circling search planes dropped dazzling flares. The moment these parachute flares burst into light, enemy ships opened fire on the nearest ship which was Takanami. The brilliance of the flares enabled the enemy to fire without even using his searchlights. H402ORA-167 With all possible baste I issued a general order, “Close and Attack!” Our destroyers opened fire, but numerous illuminating shells and parachute flares suddenly set off by the enemy brightened our vicinity so that it was extremely difficult to make out the formation of the enemy fleet. Takanami scored a direct hit with her first salvo and after five more salvoes had set afire the second and third ships of the enemy formation, and made recognition of enemy ships easier for our other destroyers. Concentrated enemy fire, however, inflicted many casualties in Takanami including her skipper, Commander Masami Ogura, and the ship was burning and crippled. Flagship Naganami now caught an enemy cruiser in her searchlight and opened fire. Because she was on an opposite course from her target, Naganami turned hard to starboard and came about to run abreast of the enemy ship. Continuing her salvo firing Naganami approached the cruiser and launched eight torpedoes at a range of four kilometers, all the while a target herself of a tremendous concentration of enemy gunfire. There were deafening explosions as shells fell all around my flagship, sending up columns of water. Naganami was showered by fragments from near misses but, miraculously, sustained no direct hits. I have always felt that our good luck was accountable to the high speed (45 knots) at which Naganami was traveling, and that enemy shells missed us because of deflection error. Oyashio and Kuroshio of Desdiv 15 fired ten torpedoes at cruisers, and Kawakaze of Desdiv 24 fired eight after reversing course and coming abreast of the enemy line. Meanwhile, enemy torpedoes were not inactive. Two deadly tracks passed directly in front of Naganami. Suzukaze, the second ship of Desdiv 24, was so busy avoiding enemy torpedoes that she was unable to loose any of her own. Both sides exchanged gunfire as well as torpedoes, in the glare of parachute flares and illuminating shells, and there were countless explosions. In the ensuing minutes, torpedoes from our destroyers were observed to hit a cruiser, setting it afire, and it was believed to sink immediately. We shouted with joy to see another enemy cruiser set afire and on the point of sinking as a result of our attack. It seemed that the enemy force was thrown into complete confusion. During a sudden cessation in firing by both sides we sighted what appeared to be two destroyers which had been set ablaze by Takanami's gunfire. Kuroshio and Kagero, each still having four torpedoes, sent the last underwater-missile attack against the enemy. And Kagero, using searchlights for spotting her targets, got off several rounds of gunfire. Thus did more than thirty minutes of heavy naval night action come to an end as both fleets withdrew and the quiet of the night returned. I was anxious to know what had happened to damaged Takanami. When repeated calls brought no response, and after checking the location of each of my other ships, I ordered Oyashio and Kuroshio back to find and help her. These ships, under Comdesdiv 15, Captain Torijiro Sato, found Takanami southeast of Cape Esperance, crippled and unnavigable, and started rescue work. Oyashio had lowered life boats and Kuroshio was about to moor alongside the stricken ship when an enemy group of two cruisers and three destroyers appeared at such close range that neither side dared fire. Our two destroyers were forced to withdraw, leaving many Takanami survivors who made their way in cutters and rafts to friendly shore positions on Guadalcanal. When the battle was over, my scattered ships were ordered to assemble near the flagship. Since all torpedoes had been expended it was impossible to effect any further naval action. I decided to withdraw and return to Shortland by way of the central route, spelling an end to the night naval action of November 30, 1942, which is known in Japan as the Night Battle off Lunga, and in the United States as the Battle of Tassafaronga. H402ORA-168 We did not know what losses the United States Navy had sustained in this battle but judged, on the basis of destroyer reports that two cruisers and one destroyer had been sunk, and two destroyers heavily damaged. Our loss of Takanami, with a large number of men including the division commander, Captain Toshio Shimizu, and her skipper, Commander Masami Ogura, was a matter of deep regret. On the other hand it was amazing good fortune that all seven of my other destroyers had escaped damage in this close encounter against a numerically superior enemy, and it added to the glory of our squadron. The problem of getting supplies to starving troops on Guadalcanal remained. Returning to Shortland by noon on December 1st, I set to work at once on plans and preparations for another attempt to bring stores to that island. Three more ship were added to my command when Desdiv 4's Arashi and Nowaki arrived at Shortland next day, and Yugure of Desdiv 9 came in during the morning of the 3rd. Preparations were completed by early afternoon of December 3rd, and I departed for Guadalcanal by the central route with ten destroyers. Makinami, Yugure, and flagship Naganami served as escorts to the other seven ships which were loaded with drums of supplies. When, soon after our departure, we were sighted by B-17s, speed was increased to thirty knots and the advance continued though we expected that a large-scale air attack would soon be upon us. By late afternoon there came a formation of fourteen bombers, seven torpedo bombers, and nine fighters. Twelve Shortland-based Zero seaplanes which were flying patrol for our force bravely challenged the enemy. On board the destroyers we watched with fascination to observe a total of five planes friendly and enemy-plunge flaming in to the sea. The thought occurred to me, why should our fast destroyers with well trained crews fall prey to air attack? Our antiaircraft fire was concentrated against carrier dive bombers and low-flying torpedo planes which came in at very close range as we avoided them by rapid and frequent turns to right and left. The only damage to us was caused by a near miss on Makinami, last destroyer in the formation, resulting in a few casualties, but this did not affect the squadron's advance. Arriving southwest of Savo Island on schedule, we approached the coast near Tassafaronga and Segilau in formation to unload. This was accomplished soon after midnight when all seven supply-laden destroyers dumped drums overboard, hauled rope ends to the shore, hoisted boats back on board, and pulled away. They were unmolested by the enemy whose only action was with PT boats which were easily repelled by Naganami, Makinami, and Yugure. Knowing of our plan, it is strange that the enemy fleet did not oppose this transportation, but it was probably still recovering from damage sustained in our last night engagement. Unloading completed, all destroyers assembled around flagship Naganami and started back to base. Of 1,500 drums unloaded that night it was most regrettable that only 310 were picked up by the following day. The loss of four-fifths of this precious material was intolerable when it had been transported at such great risk and cost, and when it was so badly needed by the starving troops on the island. I ordered an immediate investigation into the causes for the failure. It was attributed to the lack of shore personnel to haul in the lines, the physical exhaustion of the men who were available, and the fact that many of the ropes parted when drums got stuck on obstacles in the water. Furthermore, any drums that were not picked up by the next morning were sunk by machinegun fire from enemy fighter planes. Our troubles were still with us. We returned to base on December 4th without further loss and began preparations at once for a third supply effort. That evening Eighth Fleet flagship Chokai arrived at Shortland with the commander in chief on board. I called on Admiral Mikawa directly to report the battle situation and confer about future operations. I told him frankly that a continuation of these operations was hopeless and would only lead to further losses and complete demoralization and, since the situation was becoming steadily worse, strongly recommended that the starving troops be evacuated from Guadalcanal as soon as possible. It was my further suggestion that efforts be concentrated on building up a strong base in the vicinity of Shortland. H402ORA-169 Next day my force was increased to thirteen ships with the arrival of Tanikaze and Urakaze of Desdiv 17 and Ariake of Desdiv 9, which were added to my command. Another welcome addition came with the arrival of newly-built Teruzuki on the 7th. She was 2,500 tons and capable of 39 knots, and my flag was shifted to her. Early in the afternoon of that day ten destroyers were dispatched on a third drum transportation effort led by Captain Torajiro Sato, Comdesdiv 15. At nightfall an urgent radio message from Captain Sato reported that his force had been attacked by fourteen carrier-based bombers and fighters. The planes had been driven off but not before they had scored bomb hits on Nowaki making her unnavigable. She was on her way back to base under tow of Naganami and escorted by Yamakaze and Ariake. I started for the scene in my new flagship. On the way I learned that the rest of the force which had continued toward Guadalcanal had fought off six torpedo boats west of Savo Island. It was prevented from conducting unloading operations, however, by the presence of enemy planes and more torpedo boats. Accordingly, it was on its way back to base without having made delivery. Under the circumstances I was forced to agree with the decision. Another attempt had failed. All destroyers returned to base on the 8th while endless plans and preparations went on for our next attempt. Eleven B-17s and six fighters raided the Shortland anchorage on the 10th and hit tankers Toa Maru and Fujisan Maru. The latter was set afire by a bomb hit in its after section. Minelayer Tsugaru came alongside and was able to extinguish the flames with the help of all firefighting units in the port. Both tankers escaped sinking. In the afternoon of December 11th, eleven destroyers departed for Guadalcanal on another transportation mission. Led by Teruzuki the force consisted of three ships of Desdiv 15, two each from Desdivs 17 and 24, plus Arashi, Ariake, and Yugure. We advanced without incident until sunset when we were suddenly attacked by 21 bombers and six fighters. Our escort planes had already withdrawn, but we succeeded in downing two of the enemy with antiaircraft fire. We also managed to dodge their repeated dive bombings and continued on our way without damage. We rounded Savo Island shortly after midnight and sighted a group of torpedo boats immediately to the south. Kawakaze and Suzukaze, protecting our flanks, engaged this enemy and sank three of these small boats. While this was going on, seven of our transport destroyers approached Cape Esperance, dropped some 1,200 drums of supplies, and started their withdrawal. Patrolling the inner harbor at twelve knots, my flagship sighted a few torpedo boats nearby. We took course to maneuver around them and attacked but took an unexpected torpedo hit on the port side aft, causing a heavy explosion. The ship caught fire and became unnavigable almost at once. Leaking fuel was set ablaze, turning the sea into a mass of flames. When fire reached the after powder magazine there was a huge explosion, and the ship began to sink. Directing operations of my force on the bridge when the torpedo struck, I was thrown to the deck unconscious by the initial explosion. I regained consciousness to find that Naganami had come alongside to take off survivors. With the help of my staff the flag was transferred to this ship. I received treatment for shoulder and hip injuries and was ordered to rest. Most of the crew was rescued by Naganami and Arashi, which had also come alongside, but both ships were forced to leave suddenly when torpedo boats came to make another attack. Lifeboats were dropped for the remaining survivors, most of whom managed to reach Guadalcanal. H402ORA-170 The loss of my flagship, our newest and best destroyer, to such inferior enemy strength was a serious responsibility. I have often thought that it would have been easier for me to have been killed in that first explosion. Forced to remain in bed because of my injuries, I reported by radio the fact that the flag had been shifted to Naganami. I withheld any mention of my being hurt for fear of the demoralizing effect it might have on the force. On November 12th, I returned to Shortland and received the fleet order, “Guadalcanal reinforcements will be discontinued temporarily because of moonlit nights. The reinforcement unit will proceed to Rabaul and engage in transportation operations to Munda for the present.” I sent damaged Nowaki to Truk under tow from Maikaze, escorted by Arashi. With my remaining eight destroyers I arrived at Rabaul on the 14th. The pain from my wounds made it extremely difficult for me to move about, but I continued in command of the force. The New Georgia Group in the Central Solomons consists principally of the islands of Vella Lavella, Kolombangara, New Georgia itself, and Vangunu stretching in that order from northwest to southeast. Iunda is located under the southwestern tip of New Georgia, the largest of these four islands, and it was there that the high command decided to establish a stronghold. On December 15th, I sailed for Munda in flagship Naganami with six other destroyers (four of them carrying troops). The following evening our destination was reached, and troops began to debark. Frequent squalls made visibility so poor that several enemy planes which came searching for us had to fly extremely low to make their sightings. Spotting us, they came in to make persistent attacks. About the same time an enemy submarine crept up on us and fired four torpedoes which did no damage. Our patrol boats counterattacked the submarine with depth charges whose effect was unknown. These attacks made it clear that the enemy was aware of our transportation intentions to Munda, and thereafter his attacks in this vicinity became increasingly intense. Our force returned safely to Rabaul on the 18th. In the next seven days our group of ten destroyers, minelayer Tsugaru, and a few transports completed five runs to New Georgia. One of these moves was carried out by six destroyers carrying Army personnel to construct a base at Wickham on the southwest coast of Vangunu. On Christmas Day, during the last of these transportations to Munda, transport Nankai Maru took a torpedo from an American submarine. Destroyer Uzuki, in trying to retaliate against the submarine, collided with the transport and became unnavigable when two firerooms were flooded. I proceeded at once with four destroyers to the rescue of the damaged ships. The crew of Nankai Maru were taken on board our destroyers, and we returned to base with Uzuki in tow. On Guadalcanal more than 15,000 officers and men of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were on the point of starvation. Such of their number and strength as had not been tapped by hunger were suffering from malaria, so that their fighting power was practically gone. An unfortunate situation had become desperate. All efforts to bring in adequate supplies had failed. To leave these men on the island any longer meant only to lose them to death and capture. As this inevitability became obvious to the Supreme Command, the decision was finally made for a general withdrawal, and orders to this effect were issued to the local headquarters of both services. Joint conferences were held at Rabaul in utmost secrecy. Plans were discussed and adopted, and methods for carrying out the plans were worked out in fine detail. The evacuation operation was scheduled for early January, 1943; the withdrawal point was to be Cape Esperance on the northwest tip of Guadalcanal. It was further decided that, instead of transport ships, every available destroyer of the reinforcement unit would be used to conduct the evacuation. Tardy as it was, my staff and I, fully realizing and understanding the forlorn situation, were glad that the operation was finally going to be carried out. H402ORA-171 Full plans and preparations for the evacuation of Guadalcanal had just been completed when I received orders of transfer to the Naval General Staff, effective December 27th. My successor, Rear Admiral Tomiji Koyanagi, Chief of Staff to the Second Fleet, arrived at Rabaul on December 29th. We discussed in detail his new assignment, and I turned over the command. There were sad farewells to my staff and friends who had for so long shared, fought, and suffered the fates of war with me. In the late afternoon of that day, pained and weary, I boarded a plane and left Rabaul for the homeland. A simple statement of the facts makes it clear that the Japanese attempt to reinforce Guadalcanal ended in failure. The causes of this failure, however, are probably as diverse as the people who may offer them. From my position as commander of the Reinforcement Force, I submit that our efforts were unsuccessful because of the following factors: Command complications. At one and the same time I was subject to orders from Combined Fleet, Eleventh Air Fleet, and Eighth Fleet. This was confusing at best; and, when their orders were conflicting and incompatible, it was embarrassing at least, and utterly confounding at its worst. Force composition. In almost every instance the reinforcement of Guadalcanal was attempted by forces hastily thrown together, without specially trained crews, and without previous opportunity to practice or operate together. Various types of ships of widely varying capabilities were placed under my command one after the other, creating unimaginable difficulties and foreordaining the failure of their effort. Inconsistent operation plans. There never was any consistent operation plan. Vessels, troops, and supplies were assembled piecemeal to suit the occasion of the moment without overall long-range plan or purpose. This was a frailty our Army and Navy should have recognized soon after the outbreak of the China Incident. It was a fatal Japanese weakness that continued through the attempts to reinforce Guadalcanal and even after. Communication failures. Our communication system was seldom good, and during the fall and winter of 1942, it was almost consistently terrible. In wide theaters of operations and under difficult battle situations it is indispensable for a tactical commander to have perfect communication with his headquarters and with his subordinate units. The consequence of poor communications is failure. Army-Navy coordination. This situation was generally unendurable. It did little good for the Army or the Navy to work out their own plans independently, no matter how well founded, if they were not coordinated. Time and time again in these operations their coordination left much to be desired. Underestimation of the enemy. In belittling the fighting power of the enemy lay a basic cause of Japan's setback and defeat in every operation of the Pacific War. Enemy successes were deprecated and alibied in every instance. It was standard practice to inflate our own capabilities to the consequent underestimation of the enemy's. This was fine for the ego but poor for winning victories. Inferiority in the air. Our ships, without strong air support, were employed in an attempt to recapture a tactical area where the enemy had aerial superiority. This recklessness resulted only in adding to our loss of ships and personnel. The greatest pity was that every Japanese commander was aware of all these factors, yet no one seemed to do anything about any of them. Our first fruitless attempt to recapture Guadalcanal was made with a lightly equipped infantry regiment. The key points of the island had already been strongly fortified by United States Marines under cover of a strong naval force. The next Japanese general offensive was made with one lightly equipped brigade against the same points, and it also failed. Meanwhile the enemy H402ORA-172 had increased and strengthened his defenses by bringing up more sea and land fighting units. Japan's only response was to bring forward a full division in a direct landing operation. Ignoring the tremendous difference in air strength between ourselves and the enemy, this landing operation was attempted directly in front of the enemy-held airfield. As a result, officers and men were able to disembark, but there was no chance to unload our heavy guns and ammunition. We stumbled along from one error to another while the enemy grew wise, profited by his wisdom, and advanced until our efforts at Guadalcanal reached their unquestionable and inevitable end—in failure. It was certainly regrettable that the Supreme Command did not profit or learn from repeated attempts to reinforce the island. In vain they expended valuable and scarce transports and the strength of at least one full division. I believe that Japan's operational and planning errors at Guadalcanal will stand forever as classic examples of how not to conduct a campaign. Operations to reinforce Guadalcanal extended over a period of more than five months. They amounted to a losing war of attrition in which Japan suffered heavily in and around that island. The losses of our Navy alone amounted to two battleships, three cruisers, twelve destroyers, sixteen transports, well over one hundred planes, thousands of officers and men, and prodigious amounts of munitions and supplies. There is no question that Japan's doom was sealed with the closing of the struggle for Guadalcanal. Just as it betokened the military character and strength of her opponent, so it presaged Japan's weakness and lack of planning that would spell her defeat. Buell, Thomas B. “Guadalcanal: Neither Side Would Quit.” Proceedings Vol. 106, No. 4 (April 1980): 60–65. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0462 E H402ORB-173 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402ORB “Guadalcanal: Neither Side Would Quit” by Commander Thomas B. Buell, U.S. Navy (Retired) Ernie King, realizing how badly the Japanese had been beaten at Midway, wanted to strike at the Solomons while Japan was momentarily stunned. George Marshall wanted to crush the Germans first. Their armchair battles were almost as fierce and unyielding as those that would be fought on Guadalcanal itself. American long-range strategic planning was erratic throughout the spring and early summer of 1942. There were many reasons, starting with logistics. The shortages of men and materiel would not be alleviated until the United States was fully mobilized. That would take months. The machinations preceding the July decision to invade North Africa had also disrupted orderly planning. The battles of Coral Sea and Midway were similarly distracting. Army planners consistently gave the European theater top priority in troops, aircraft, and materiel. The Pacific, in the Army view, rated only enough for a passive defense. Naval planners, reflecting King’s way of thinking, demanded adequate numbers of combat forces in the Pacific for a limited offensive. A passive defense would permit the Japanese to consolidate their gains by default and to exploit and develop their conquests of raw materials and natural resources. If the Allies left the Japanese alone until they had defeated Germany, the eventual counteroffensive in the Pacific would become more costly as time went on. As the Battle of the Coral Sea had grown near, King had begun to fear that the Japanese spring offensive would be too strong for him to handle. His concern had shifted from mounting a limited offensive to avoiding further losses. On 4 May the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had met, hoping to find a way to distribute their inadequate forces between the two theaters. King had assured Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall that he supported BOLERO, but not at the expense of dangerously reducing American Pacific forces.1 First priority should go to holding what the United States had in the Pacific, argued King, rather than diverting resources to BOLERO for an indeterminate offensive in the future. Marshall disagreed. BOLERO had to come first. Apparently he was willing to concede additional territory to the Japanese if that was what it took to keep resources flowing to England. Given their all-or-nothing attitude, there did not seem to be any middle ground for King and Marshall. For one of the few times during the war they bucked their dispute to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for resolution. Roosevelt decided in favor of Marshall and BOLERO. King had been preoccupied with Coral Sea and Midway throughout the spring of 1942. Once those battles were over, King had a breathing spell, and his thoughts again turned to the offense. When he 1BOLERO was the code name for the accumulation of forces in England for an eventual cross-Channel invasion. H402ORB-174 realized how badly the Japanese had been beaten at Midway, King’s instinctive response was to hit back while the Japanese were momentarily stunned. The American victory had to be exploited immediately, King insisted, before the Japanese recovered their offensive momentum. Plans once dormant were revived, both in Washington and in the Pacific. General Douglas MacArthur was the first to be heard. On 8 June he proposed a grandiose offensive to seize Rabaul with himself in command (as he had been assured by Marshall). King studied MacArthur’s proposal and warned Marshall that any amphibious assault in the South Pacific would have to be a naval operation under naval command—not under MacArthur. But Marshall was not listening. On 12 June he endorsed MacArthur’s Rabaul plan on the mistaken assumption that King would provide whatever ships and Marines MacArthur needed. Mesmerized by MacArthur’s optimism, Marshall was edging away from his concept of a passive defense in the Pacific. Some two weeks were frittered away in mid-June while Navy planners studied the MacArthur- Marshall proposal and made plans of their own. Finally, on 23 June, King and his chief planner, Rear Admiral Charles M. (“Savvy”) Cooke, rebutted MacArthur’s scheme as too ambitious because Rabaul was too heavily defended. The Navy’s alternative was an indirect approach through the eastern Solomons, where the Japanese were weaker. In any event, said King, he would never allow MacArthur to command any major naval forces. A naval officer under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific, would have to command whatever amphibious assault was finally agreed upon. Impatient with further delay, King brazenly forced the issue. Not even allowing Marshall time to reply, King ordered Nimitz to prepare to seize Tulagi in the Solomons by amphibious assault, using naval and Marine forces. King’s audacity was astounding. He intended that Nimitz intrude into MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area with a major offensive with the approval of neither the President nor the JCS. King’s order also defied the President’s decision not to increase American strength in the Pacific. Once American forces had been committed under Nimitz, a call for reinforcements was inevitable. King was too shrewd a sea lawyer to have acted without some semblance of legal justification, and he used to his advantage Roosevelt’s ambiguity in dealing with the JCS. In early March Roosevelt had approved King’s memorandum for a limited offensive into the Solomons, and it had never been canceled. Nimitz’s CINCPOA charter (drafted by the Navy and approved by the JCS and the President) could be interpreted as authorizing Nimitz to conduct amphibious assaults in MacArthur’s area. Finally, the President had not specifically forbidden King to attack in the Pacific when he had adjudicated the King- Marshall dispute over theater priorities. Indeed, King very carefully had not ordered Nimitz in the strict sense to carry out the assault, but rather to prepare for such an assault in contemplation of eventual JCS approval. In any event, the President’s executive order had authorized King to command the Navy and Marine Corps, and, by God, King was doing just that. On 25 June King presented the JCS with the fait accompli, then boldly asked for concurrence that Nimitz should attack Tulagi. Having promised the command to MacArthur, Marshall was in a bind. MacArthur added to the confusion by scrubbing his earlier plan of a bold, direct assault against Rabaul, now concurring with King’s plan for an indirect approach via Tulagi and the Solomons. Whatever the objective, Marshall still wanted MacArthur in command. King was unsympathetic with Marshall’s dilemma in dealing with the imperious MacArthur, who had been a prewar Chief of Staff of the Army when Marshall had still been a colonel. Marshall, he believed, “would do anything rather than disagree with MacArthur.” (Nimitz was unquestionably an obedient subordinate to King, but MacArthur’s association with Marshall would be tenuous and tempestuous throughout the war.) King also suspected that Secretary of War Henry Stimson uncritically supported H402ORB-175 MacArthur and pressured Marshall to appease the Southwest Pacific commander. This made King dislike Stimson even more. Marshall left his element and began foundering in uncharted waters when he argued that MacArthur should control fleet movements in his own area. Marshall’s ignorance of naval communication procedures, for example, was glaringly exposed in a memorandum to King. “His basic trouble,” King later said, “was that like all Army officers he knew nothing about sea power and very little about air power.” The squabble over who was to command of what in the Pacific went on. King argued that speed was essential; further delay would allow the Japanese to recover from their Midway defeat and to resume their offensive in the Solomons. Reminding Marshall of their earlier agreement that the Army would exercise supreme command in Europe, King expected a quid pro quo in the Pacific. But with or without Army support, King intended to invade the Solomons. He instructed Nimitz to proceed with his invasion plans even though “there would probably be some delay in reaching a decision on the extent of the Army’s participation.” Marshall pondered King’s ultimatum for three days. His mood worsened when he received an agitated dispatch from MacArthur, who was furious, almost paranoid, at King’s presumptuousness in ordering Nimitz into MacArthur’s area. The Navy, said MacArthur, was conspiring to reduce the Army in the Pacific to no more than an occupation force. Marshall finally suggested on 29 June that he and King talk about who would command the operation. (Incredibly, the two men up to this point had only exchanged memoranda.) King readily agreed. By 30 June they had fashioned a clever compromise. MacArthur’s insistence that he command all operations in his area became irrelevant by the simple expedient of moving Nimitz’s western boundary line into MacArthur’s territory. The result was that Nimitz’s South Pacific Area was enlarged to include the eastern Solomons, including Tulagi. Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley would command the eastern Solomons assault, identified as Task I. Subsequent assaults, referred to as Tasks II and III, would follow in the western Solomons, eastern New Guinea, and the Bismarck Archipelago. As these latter areas were still in MacArthur’s domain, the General would be in command. After nearly a month of haggling, King and Marshall were finally able to agree on their Pacific strategy on 2 July. The eastern Solomons landings would begin on 1 August 1942. The American counteroffensive in the Pacific was almost underway. In retrospect, King’s advocacy of WATCHTOWER (the code name for the eastern Solomons assault) could have been a disaster. An amphibious assault is the most dangerous of all major military operations. The risks of failure are so great that the attacker needs every possible advantage in his favor: control of the sea and the air, superior combat power to overwhelm the defending enemy, and secure lines of communication. The understrength and inexperienced forces King intended to employ enjoyed none of these advantages. Everything was done in haste. Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, for example, was unable to take command of the assault forces until less than three weeks before they landed on Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Undeterred, King demanded that the operations carry on, regardless of the confusion and cries of alarm from the local commanders. Vice Admiral Ghormley had gone from London to the South Pacific to act as the supreme commander of all forces (including Turner’s) engaged in WATCHTOWER. After talking to a pessimistic MacArthur on 8 July, Ghormley doubted the wisdom of carrying out WATCHTOWER in early August. Enemy activity in the Solomons and New Guinea was increasing, and MacArthur and Ghormley felt— rightly so—that their forces were inadequate for Tasks I, II, and III. Together they urged the JCS to delay the South Pacific offensive until they got reinforcements. Ghormley’s ready acceptance of MacArthur’s H402ORB-176 views would be the first of many times that senior naval officers would succumb to the General’s power of persuasion. When their joint message hit Washington, King was furious. MacArthur, he said, was vacillating and fainthearted. “Three weeks ago MacArthur stated that, if he would be furnished amphibious forces and two carriers, he could push right through to Rabaul,” King told Marshall. “He now feels that he not only cannot undertake this extended operation but not even the Tulagi operation.” Privately, King suspected that MacArthur was sulking because he had been denied supreme command in the South Pacific. “He could not understand that he was not to manage everything,” King later said. “He couldn’t believe that. Of course he was absolutely against going into Guadalcanal, and he said so.” Yet King could not summarily dismiss their warnings. MacArthur and Ghormley were the commanders responsible for the operation’s success, and it was their prerogative to express a legitimate concern. A classic military problem was facing them: an enemy force was growing progressively stronger, and the longer the American attack was delayed, the more formidable the enemy would become. On the other hand, a delay would also strengthen the American forces. Should the Americans attack at once, or later? Might it not be better to wait and take time to prepare properly? The latter, said King, was MacArthur’s philosophy, “to have everything ready before advancing.” 2 As a student of military history, King knew that many commanders of the past had lost opportunities for victory by waiting. (McClellan at Richmond in 1862 is a classic example.) Although one’s own forces may not be entirely ready, the enemy may be even less ready, King believed he still had an edge on the Japanese in the eastern Solomons, but the advantage could turn in favor of the Japanese if the Americans did not attack immediately. King also had another crucial reason for urging an immediate attack. He could not count on help from Marshall, so there was no reason to wait for Army reinforcements which might never appear. On the other hand, once the Americans were ashore and fighting in the eastern Solomons, Marshall might be persuaded to support the operation to avoid a potential American defeat. The objections of Ghormley and MacArthur notwithstanding, King told Marshall that the assault was more urgent than ever. Marshall, too, wanted to move along. On 10 July they jointly ordered Ghormley and MacArthur to press on. They were not to worry about Tasks II and III, said King and Marshall, but rather they were to do what was “absolutely essential” for Operation WATCHTOWER alone, Ghormley, perhaps realizing that his hesitancy was unwelcome in Washington, replied the following day that he had sufficient forces for Task I if he could count upon air support from MacArthur.3 King’s mood began to change by mid-July. He finally began to worry openly about the perils of WATCHTOWER. Ghormley probably had enough forces to get ashore, King reasoned, but could he withstand counterattacks? And what about plans to drive westward after WATCHTOWER was completed? Where were these forces to come from? Although King once had told Marshall that he was ready to go it alone in the South Pacific, King now had second thoughts. He began to besiege Marshall and Arnold for men, guns, and aircraft to support Ghormley. King’s pleas were futile. After King, presidential adviser Harry Hopkins, and Marshall, had returned from their mid-July trip to Great Britain to nail down European strategy, Marshall had lost interest in a speck of an island in the far Pacific called Guadalcanal. His attention had become focused on the North African landing scheduled for that fall. Marshall naturally wanted all his available strength for that theater alone. General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, had always been reluctant to send his aircraft to the Pacific; now more than ever he was determined to concentrate his air power in the 2 It was not MacArthur’s philosophy later in the war. Realizing that he would never get the forces he wanted, he became a master of improvisation and expediency. 3It was wishful thinking. MacArthur subsequently did not provide air support to Ghormley. H402ORB-177 European and Mediterranean theaters. MacArthur would become entangled in the Papua peninsula in eastern New Guinea and would have nothing to spare for WATCHTOWER. King’s Navy and Marine Corps would be very much alone. “At last we have started,” Nimitz reported to King on 7 August 1942. The attack on Guadalcanal and Tulagi was underway. The Japanese had been caught by surprise. Several hours passed. “No report yet from Ghormley,” wired Nimitz. The only indication of activity was through intercepted Japanese radio messages. “No direct report from the south,” wired Nimitz again, twenty-four hours after the attack had begun. A frustrating pattern had been set. For the next severa1 days the reports from the South Pacific were garbled and confusing, because of what Nimitz reported as “extreme communication difficulties.” King’s duty officer, Commander George L. Russell, entered King’s bedroom on the flagship-yacht Dauntless in the early morning hours of 12 August. Something was up. One rarely disturbed King after he had turned in. It would be a long war, King needed his sleep, and there was nothing he could do in the middle of the night that would have any immediate effect on a distant battle. Bad news normally waited until morning. But this time Russell woke King and turned on the light. “Admiral, you’ve got to see this,” said Russell. “It isn’t good.” It was a long-delayed report from Turner. A Japanese naval force at Savo Island near Guadalcanal had sunk four cruisers, damaged another, and had damaged two destroyers, “Heavy casualties, majority saved,” reported Turner. The transports supporting the Marines ashore were not attacked, but they were retiring from Guadalcanal because of “impending heavy attacks.” None of the Japanese ships had apparently been sunk or damaged. King read the message in disbelief several times before returning it to Russell. “I can’t thank you for bringing me this one,” said King. His mind raced for some explanation of what might have happened. “They must have decoded the dispatch wrong,” King finally said. “Tell them to decode it again.” King was crushed. “That, as far as I am concerned, was the blackest day of the war,” he later said. “The whole future then became unpredictable.” King slumped back into bed after Russell left the room. He knew he had suffered a terrible setback to his policy of attack, attack, attack. Savo Island had matured him at age sixty-four. The campaign for Guadalcanal became a six-month battle of attrition. Neither side would quit, yet neither side could muster the strength for a decisive victory. King never had enough ships because losses, the demands of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the invasion of North Africa. The Pacific Fleet suffered grievously, twenty-four ships lost, including two carriers and eight cruisers, as well as many others damaged. At one time in the fall of 1942, King had but one operational aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Nor were there ever enough combat troops or aircraft on Guadalcanal during the desperate months of the fall of 1942. North Africa still came first. Thus the greatest defect of the Guadalcanal campaign was that there were neither plans nor forces available for an extended struggle. King knew this; knew that his burning desire to become involved on Guadalcanal was a calculated risk. Perhaps he thought he could get away with it if Marshall and Arnold would send reinforcements to avoid defeat. Yet both were ready to sacrifice Guadalcanal rather than to H402ORB-178 divert forces from TORCH (the North Africa invasion) even though Roosevelt in late October had ordered Guadalcanal held at all costs. King was undeservedly lucky when Rear Admiral Gunichi Mikawa decided to retire from Guadalcanal after winning the Battle of Savo Island. The Japanese admiral could have destroyed every American transport at Guadalcanal, still filled with food, ammunition, and supplies for the Marines ashore. Had they been sunk, King’s hopes for Guadalcanal would have been doomed. Critics have charged that King had used poor judgment in choosing Ghormley to command the South Pacific Area, but that is hindsight. Nimitz had agreed on Ghormley’s assignment, and there was no reason in the beginning to suspect that Ghormley would falter. Performance in war is unpredictable when it is based solely upon peacetime reputation. There were both happy surprises and shocking disappointments. Some excelled, others failed. King later believed that Ghormley’s problem was his bad teeth, which caused him intense pain and discomfort, an ailment King had been unaware of until Ghormley returned to Washington from the Pacific. Perhaps this experience influenced King to insist upon regular physical examinations for all his flag officers. In the end, the Americans won because of their own tenacity as well as the Japanese tactics of committing their forces piecemeal rather than massing for a coordinated attack. King and Nimitz were committed irrevocably to winning Guadalcanal. When Ghormley became defeatist, they fired him. Substituting Halsey for Ghormley invigorated the Americans on Guadalcanal and led ultimately to the American victory. It was Halsey’s finest hour. Genda, Minoru. “Tactical Planning in the Imperial Japanese Navy.” Naval War College Review, Vol. 22, No. 8 (October 1969): 45–50. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0463 E H402ORC-179 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402ORC “Tactical Planning in the Imperial Japanese Navy” A lecture delivered at the Naval War College on 7 March 1969 by General Minoru Genda, JSDF (Ret.) Tactical planning for the Imperial Japanese Navy evolved during the interwar period from a concept of decisive battle with dreadnoughts to one of carrier airstrikes at ranges far exceeding those of naval gunnery. The story of this evolution is aptly told by Gen. Minoru Genda, who was one of the early proponents of carrier aviation. The tactical concepts of the Imperial Japanese Navy went through many changes and transitions during the 20 years which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Pacific War in December of 1941. Beginning with the traditional concept of decisive battle, the Imperial Navy altered its planning to include the “diminution operation.” Carrier striking forces played an increasing ro1e in this operation until finally, they became central in tactical planning. Lessons can be learned and many reflections can be made by examining the evolution of these concepts. Until shortly after World War I, the Japanese Navy ascribed to the “Principles of Naval Warfare,” of which “Decisive Battle” was most important. Admiral Togo and his success in the battle of Tsushima can be considered as exemplary in this regard. Ideas such as “Be sure to fight wherever you meet an enemy” are derived from this concept, a concept which formed the basis for the tactical bible of the Imperial Navy at this time. In the year in which I entered the Naval Academy, some events occurred which altered this conception. As a result of the Washington Conference in 1921, Japan accepted a ratio of capital ships which allotted her 60 percent of the tonnage of Britain and the United States. The London Conference of 1930 confirmed this ratio, and Japan was forced to modify her planning to allow for this new factor. In our review of naval history, we could hardly find an example in which a navy with 60 percent of the tonnage of its opponents had emerged victorious in decisive battle. Therefore, our navy modified its strategic policy from one of the “decisive battle” to one of the “diminution operation.” This operation involved the adoption of a policy of “offensive defense.” Our major units were to remain on the defensive strategically, making every effort to improve their spiritual and material war potentials. Meanwhile, our forces of submarines, destroyers and aircraft were to go into action and inflict such damage upon the enemy as to bring about parity between the two main forces. At this point the “decisive battle” would be fought. The force of battleships, however, was still expected to play the major part in the decisive battle. In this “diminution operation” the main features were surprise attacks by submarines, night attacks by destroyers, and air attacks by land and carrier-based planes. To accomplish their part in the operation, the H402ORC-180 Japanese aircraft were to operate mainly with torpedo planes and dive bombers. Only a few fighters were required. The carrier was thus assigned a subsidiary role. The continued increase of air technology brought with it the idea that mastery of the air would be crucial to the outcome of any naval battle. This increasing appreciation of the potency of the air arm suggested that the destruction of enemy aircraft carriers should have first priority with our own carrier- based aircraft. Beginning around 1935 our naval air force trained extensively with this conception in mind. The importance of the carrier relative to the battleship increased in the thinking of the Imperial Navy until both occupied an approximately equal position. Despite the fact that Japanese strategic planning was predicated upon reducing the American Fleet to parity by a process of attrition, the yearly exercises of the combined fleet and the innumerable war games held at the War College were still based on the assumption that an inferior Japanese Fleet would meet a superior American Fleet in a decisive “fleet versus fleet battle.” In these games and exercises the forces would be divided into elements of similar composition but of varying size, and each one would be commanded by a Japanese naval officer schooled in current tactical policies. Various elaborate plans were tried, but the results generally proved that in forces of similar composition, superior numbers gained the victory. While the Japanese Navy was dissatisfied with these unfavorable results, it at first could propose only an effort to outmatch the Americans qualitatively in firing technique and skill, torpedo attack, bombing, and the proper tactical use of the various elements. These studies and exercises provided much useful information for the combined fleet on fleet formations, deployment, and attack methods. They failed, however, to provide sufficient training in the areas of offensive and defensive operations and the protection of vital sea communications. These were considered to be secondary problems, and this failure to explore them later brought many disadvantages upon the Japanese Navy when the tide of war turned against us in the Pacific. The results of these exercises caused the postulation of a new tactical theory. Since superior numbers won the day in forces of similar composition, it was suggested that the Imperial Fleet be given a characteristic force composition different from that of its opponents. Aircraft carriers protected by lighter ships would comprise the main elements of the fleet, and battleships would be abolished. This idea was suggested almost simultaneously in 1936 by three different sources. Capt. Takijiro Oonishi, the Vice Commander of the Yokosuka Naval Air Force, was one of those who proposed it. The Yokosuka Naval Air Force was the nucleus of our naval air forces and was responsible for studies of naval air strategy and tactics, experiments for new air weapons and armaments, and guidance in the field of air training and education. (Captain Oonishi was later promoted to Vice Admiral and Vice Chief of the Naval Staff. He committed suicide at the end of the war.) Several pilots assigned to the combined fleet also proposed this idea, and I, at the time a student at the Naval War College, did likewise. The proposals of Captain Oonishi and the pilots of the fleet were to the effect that airpower was to be the fleet’s main strength, but they did not specify how this was to be accomplished. I made the proposal that battleships should be abolished and replaced by aircraft carriers, land-based air units, and submarines. Ships smaller than cruisers were to be kept as auxiliary forces. I had two justifications for this suggestion. First, it had been proved in the annual naval exercise that battleship forces could be easily destroyed by aircraft alone and that the antiaircraft power of the fleet could not check the air attack. This was the result of increased skill in delivering bombing and torpedo attacks which had been acquired by the pilots of the combined fleet. Accordingly, if we could gain command of the air with our superior airpower, we would be able to destroy the enemy main force with air attack. I also reasoned that if we engaged the enemy with only light ships and aircraft, he would find H402ORC-181 no worthwhile targets for his 14- and 16-inch naval guns which formed the main battery of battleships and battle cruisers. Similarly, our own battleships would become useless targets when faced with major enemy air strength. This proposal met with severe criticism from the War college. It was argued that air operations depend largely upon the weather and hence were unreliable. It was also asserted that both friendly and enemy air strength suffered great attrition in the initial stages of a conflict, and this weakened the ability of air forces to deliver a decisive blow. These alleviating factors so limited the value of airstrikes that they would remain of marginal importance, while the final decision would result from an engagement of capital ships. I replied to the first of these arguments by pointing out that aircraft operations were not the only ones that were hindered by weather operations. When the weather was so unfavorable as to hinder air operations, the activities of surface ships were restricted also. They were, in fact, just floating pieces of wood and could not engage in effective action. I was also not impressed by the claims that air action would be made ineffective by combat attrition. The idea of “mutual-kill” is applicable not only to aircraft but to any other type of weapon, including the battleship. If the efficiency of air operations was deemed to be threatened by combat losses, the proper action to take would be to increase the number of aircraft available, even though this might entail a reduction in the numbers of other ships. Thus, there would still be sufficient planes to destroy the enemy main forces even after allowance had been made for the casualties inherent in gaining air superiority. I also challenged the contention that the battleship remained central to the outcome of the “decisive battle.” Since combat aircraft had a range far greater than that of 16-inch shells and since the speed of aircraft carriers was greater than that of battleships, the carrier forces would always have freedom of choice on whether to challenge or evade a battle. The battleship could not be decisive because its big guns would never come within range of the enemy. These arguments were not accepted by the brains of the Navy Department, but did motivate the creation of a study committee on air effectiveness. This committee was authorized to investigate the effectiveness of air attack by using armed bombs and torpedoes. This was the sole fruit of the debate over our proposals, but it was an important one. The data of these experiments provided us with useful information that was later used in drafting the plan of attack against Pearl Harbor. The training and study theme of the combined fleet in their 1939 and 1940 exercises was established with the purpose of examining the effectiveness of coordinated air attack. These exercises involved simultaneous attacks with 80 to 100 aircraft in order to investigate the results of a concentrated attack. Dive bombers, torpedo planes, bombers, and combat air patrols were all evaluated in these exercises, and much was learned about attack methods. During these exercises a problem became apparent. The Navy regarded it as common sense that aircraft carriers had to be dispersed when used, for they were quite vulnerable to enemy attack. Any concentration of these vessels was considered to be extremely dangerous. When this was done, however, it was difficult to rendezvous the various air groups in midocean in preparation for the coordinated attack. It was, of course, no problem to keep together the elements of one carrier’s strike force, but when an attempt was made to rendezvous strike forces from several different carriers at a predetermined point in midocean, the results were often unfavorable. Since radio guidance was impossible due to radio silence, only dead reckoning could be used for air navigation. It was indeed a very difficult problem to make dispersal disposition of aircraft carriers compatible with a simultaneous and coordinated attack by many air squadrons. H402ORC-182 When I returned to Japan from Britain in October of 1940, I was assigned to be a member of the staff of the First Carrier Squadron. The above problem was one of the most important difficulties for which I had to find a solution. For several weeks I was unable to arrive at any answer. Then, one day, while watching a newsreel, I saw four American aircraft carriers steaming in a column formation. This suggested to me the idea of concentric use of aircraft carriers. According to this method there, of course, would be no problem in the rendezvous of air squadrons launched from each aircraft carrier, but there still remained the possibility of each aircraft carrier being simultaneously exposed to attack by enemy aircraft. On the other hand, there was the advantage that combat air patrol and antiaircraft fire could be concentrated against attacking aircraft. This concept was repeatedly tested in 1941 by the fleet and was put into practical use in such operations as Pearl Harbor, Indian Ocean, and Midway. If the general conduct of the war offered us the opportunity to utilize these new tactics, there was a good chance that we would be able to draw the enemy towards us and destroy him. Thus, by the middle of 1941 the First Carrier Squadron had decided on two tactical principles in connection with basic use of its aircraft carriers: 1. In case of attacking land bases, all carriers should be concentrically used. 2. In case of the air-to-air battle between friendly and enemy carriers, the aircraft carriers of each squadron should be concentrated, but each carrier squadron should be dispersed and deployed in order to encircle the enemy force. These two methods were employed with varying degrees of success during the early war years. Up to the time of the Midway operation, the first method was used exclusively due to the fact that our carriers were unchallenged by large enemy naval air forces. At Midway we should logically have used the second method, but due to faulty intelligence we had no knowledge of the proximity of the American carrier forces. When they were at last discovered, it was too late to shift to the second method. The second method was used, however, in the battles in the South Pacific and the Marianas. During this period we put forth our utmost effort in training exercises in order that we might compensate to some degree for our inferior ratio of capital ships. While we were engaged in these training exercises, many new ideas were conceived. The Fleet Air Force, especially, acquired increased skill and obtained excellent results. Just before the outbreak of the war, the pilots of the First Carrier Air Squadron, which later carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor, attained the following levels of proficiency: Horizontal Bombing: Altitude: 3,000 meters Target: BB Settsu (old type battleship) Target Speed: 16–18 knots (free evasive maneuver) Target Acquisition: 50 percent (with a formation of five aircraft) Percentage of Hits: 10 percent Dive Bombing: Against a battleship with high speed and free evasive maneuver Percentage of Hits: 40 percent Torpedo Attack: Against a battleship with high speed and free evasive maneuver Percentage of Hits: Daytime: more than 80 percent Night: 70 percent H402ORC-183 It is impossible to demonstrate with figures the level of skill of our fighter squadrons, but we were quite confident of their ability. Many of them had had actual fighting experience through the China incident, and they were flying our new zero fighter of superb capability. They were especially proficient in fighter-versus-fighter combat. In the light of the lessons derived from the China incident, our fighters began to be concerned more and more with offensive operations. Up until this time fighters were used almost exclusively for the defense of shore installations or ships of the fleet, but it slowly became apparent that they could also be profitably employed as long-range escorts or in fighter sweeps. Thus our fighters moved away from a solely defensive role. Our fighter forces, however, were not without their defects. This became apparent when they were called upon to combat the B-17. In these encounters our fighters were handicapped by several shortcomings, including insufficient defensive armor. These weaknesses were due to a great extent to our failure to incorporate the lessons learned from the air warfare in Europe. Throughout the course of the Pacific War, I learned many lessons; and the most important of these was that there are no miracles in war. Success in battle is due to careful planning and preparation. The psychological factor is an essential element of any operation, but it should never be regarded as the central element in military strategy. It is, on the contrary, a so-called “plus factor” alongside material preparation. The idea of covering material shortages with spiritual power should never be seriously considered by military planners. Sun-tzu, a famous Chinese military writer, wrote in his book on strategy: The prospect of a war must be made prior to the start of a war. Victory or defeat depends upon its prospect. If one has [a] sure prospect for victory, he will win. If one has [an] uncertain prospect for it, he will have little chance of victory. If one does not even make [a] prospect, he will have much less chance of victory. Therefore, in [sic] so doing one can foretell the result of the war even without fighting. This evaluation of war preparations is quite true. Our own navy had an accurate prospect of the Pacific War, but they failed to act upon it in good time. It was clearly understood before the outbreak of the war that the leading role in naval warfare had shifted from ship to airplane. The numerical results obtained from our war games and fleet exercises closely corresponded with actual battle results. The navy, however, was hesitant to carry out what was revealed by them. A second lesson I learned during the war was the necessity of exhibiting boldness when favorable results appear possible. In deciding the policy of an entire nation, one must take into account the possibility of a temporary retreat or change in plans, for certainly the fate of a nation should not depend upon a game of chance. However, the first-line forces should be willing to take chances and even attack an enemy who outnumbers them if they see a reasonable prospect of victory. It is not always possible to win every battle, but by holding back one may miss an important chance of victory. The idea of the “diminution operation” unfortunately had the effect of discouraging our units from participating in any naval engagement until the main forces were ready for the decisive battle. By failing to attack the enemy audaciously when he first appeared, the navy no doubt missed many opportunities. A military force which conforms to the traditional spirit and boldness can always make a contribution to the security and advancement of the nation in the long run. My third lesson was that wars should always be short. By 1945 Japan had been at war for 14 years. Her armies had been in conflict from the Manchurian incident of 1931 until the final surrender, and they H402ORC-184 were physically and emotionally exhausted. The use of military forces over a long period of time detracts from their morale and their efficiency. When it is necessary from a standpoint of national policy to resort to arms, the force used must be used quickly and decisively, like an arrow shot from a strong bow. Sun-tzu also wrote: A prolonged war never benefit[s] a country. Those who can not realize how harmful a war is do not know how to profit from war. . . . Remain composed like a big mountain when [you desire] not to move but move like lightning when [you desire] to move. Gen. Minoru Genda is a graduate of the Japanese Imperial Naval Academy, class of 1924, and the Imperial Naval Staff College. Earlier in his career he served on the carriers Adagi and Ryujo, and from 1938 to 1940 he was Assistant Naval Attache for Air at the Japanese Embassy in London. As Air Operations Officer of the First Carrier Squadron and First Fleet he did the air planning for the Pearl Harbor strike. He later participated in the Coral Sea battle as Air Group Commander on the carrier Zinkaku, and from 1942 to 1944 he was assigned to Air Operations Section of the Naval General Staff and Imperial Headquarters, Tokyo. As a captain in the Imperial Navy, he was transferred to the reserve in 1945 but was recalled for duty with the Japanese Self-Defense Force in 1954 where he subsequently served as Commander of the First Fighter Wing, Commander of Japan’s Air Defense Command, and Chief of Staff of the Self-Defense Force. General Genda retired from the Self-Defense Force in 1962 and is now serving his second 6-year term in Japan’s upper legislation body, the House of Councilors. Twining, General Merrill B. “An Unhandsome Quitting.” Proceedings, Vol. 118, No. 11 (November 1992): 83–87. CGSC Copyright Registration # 21-0513 E H402ORD-185 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H402: LSCO/MDO Sea Power: Carriers, Marines, and the Tyranny of Distance Reading H402ORD “An Unhandsome Quitting” by General Merrill B. Twining, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) Prior planning between Rear Admiral R. K. Turner and Major General A. A. Vandegrift went out the window on 8 August 1942, when Turner’s task force withdrew suddenly—abandoning a few of its small boats and more than a few Marines to the Japanese and to the elements on Guadalcanal. Frank Goettge and I crossed the beach and took a short swim in the warm water to get rid of two days’ accumulated grime. Off to our left we could see the cruisers of the covering force assigned to guard the western approaches to the transport area. One entrance lay north of, the other south of Savo Island, which lies between Guadalcanal and Florida islands. These were not narrow channels but broad reaches of deep water. Three cruisers with accompanying destroyers were assigned to guard each approach; the Vincennes (CA-44), the Quincy (CA-39), and the Astoria (CA-34) to the north, and HMAS Australia, HMAS Canberra, and the Chicago (CA-29) to the south. In the gathering dusk each group was moving back and forth across its assigned approach patrolling in column, the northern group in a rectangular pattern. As we both left the water Frank stopped for one last look and said, “I guess they’re not going to close up for the night.” I had almost forgotten that ships in column used to do that. My memory harked back to long night watches spent as a midshipman in the Delaware (BB-28) on the wing of the bridge taking continuous readings on our next ship ahead with a stadimeter. I dismissed his remark, thinking they probably had some modern electronic recognition device that made closing up unnecessary. I had also forgotten, if I ever knew, that the last time a divided U.S. fleet entered battle it was defeated decisively in detail by a single ship—the CSS Virginia, the former USS Merrimac, turned ironclad by the Confederates in the Civil War. It was a soft tropical evening. Looking across at Tulagi, it seemed unfathomable that over there men should be fighting and killing each other in the midst of such beauty. At about 2000, Jerry Thomas told me to take over the command post. General Archer Vandegrift had been summoned aboard the McCawley (AP-10), and he was to accompany the general. There was going to be a conference with Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner and Admiral Victor A. Crutchley, the British flag officer who commanded the screening force. The general seemed pleased to go; it would probably give him a chance to get over to Tulagi for a visit with Brigadier General William B. Rupertus mailto:Copyright@1992 H402ORD-186 commanding Marine forces engaged there—a diverse assortment of small units especially adapted to the close combat expected on the small fortress-like island. On board the McCawley Turner gave his visitors the bad news: Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher had pulled out of the fight, taking with him all the carriers and half the total surface forces; also that he had received a much-delayed message from Australia that a Japanese force of five cruisers and two seaplane tenders was moving eastward from Rabaul. Turner then treated his listeners to a Naval-War-College-type lecture, complete with chart and dividers on what the Japs were up to. They would go to Rekata Bay to our north, set up, and launch another air attack against him here in Lunga Roads tomorrow. He, Turner, would have to clear the area by noon tomorrow. From afar he had read Admiral Gunichi Mikawa’s mind. In every text book on military intelligence, one little paragraph always states, in substance: Take note of all enemy capabilities to damage or destroy your own forces. Pursue a course of action which will best enable you to deal with those enemy capabilities most dangerous to you. Do not attempt to discern his intentions. The Naval War College version, however, is gravely suspect. In part, it says: The enemy’s capabilities as well as his intentions must be considered. You cannot know your opponent’s intentions, but you can determine with reasonable certainty what his capabilities are. The amphibian forces under Turner’s command had, in the past two days, turned back repeated enemy air attacks, inflicting great losses but suffering little damage in return. The presence of two “sea plane tenders” (which proved to be destroyers) suggested at worst a last-ditch attack by a handful of patrol planes with a limited torpedo capability. This was something the commander of Task Force 62 could brush off with ease. The presence of five cruisers, however, indicated a strong enemy capability for a night surface attack, a real threat to our dispersed covering forces. But Turner opted for the minor capability and ignored the major threat, entirely failing even to pass the word to his captains. But many of them had a good idea of what portended anyway. Some call it “osmosis.” I prefer to call it “pidgin radio.” In the days of the Yangtze Patrol we always talked of “pidgin cargo,” the illicit movement of cargo up and down the river by the crews of cargo carriers without the formality of paying freight. This sub-rosa practice, strictly forbidden but unstoppable, had been going on for centuries and had come to be regarded simply as part of the cost of doing business on the river. So it was with pidgin radio. The people who manned the communications system of the Navy were highly intelligent, highly skilled, and deeply involved in their arcane profession. They understood the ins and outs and inside workings of their systems better than anyone else. They recognized the “fists” of Morse Code operators on ships they had never even seen. They could spot an interesting dispatch in a dozen different ways out of a maze of routine traffic. After all, they wanted to know what was going on. Their lives were hanging on the line, too. By mid-afternoon word was out. The carriers knew it, and crew chiefs readied up their planes. The transport people had it and passed the word to the Marines down at Red Beach. It was bandied about around every scuttlebutt in the fleet: “The Japs are coming, and there’s going to be a helluva fight.” H402ORD-187 That night, the captain of one of the cruisers patrolling off Savo Island wrote in his Night Order Book, “The enemy can reach this position at any time during the mid-watch,” and turned in.1 Neither Turner nor Crutchley displayed the slightest apprehension, and when the conference ended, Crutchley insisted on taking Vandegrift to the USS Southard (DMS-207) for his trip over to Tulagi before returning to his own vessel—the Australia, which was awaiting his return at a point near the McCawley’s position north of Red Beach, 20 miles from Savo—and the forces there under his command. He had little more than reached his flagship, when all hell broke loose. At the division command post ashore, the night was passing uneventfully, although our radios still could not penetrate the jungle, and our wire lines were constantly being cut by troop movement along the government track. Ship-to-shore communication was perfect. It was a mixed blessing. It had been a clear tropical evening, but shortly after midnight a high, thin mist moved in. At about 0100 we heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft. Major Kenny Weir, our air officer, was with me. “Cruiser float planes,” he said, “and not ours.” A moment later he added, “Where there are cruiser planes, there are cruisers.” The planes, two or three of them, circled overhead and began illuminating the transport area. The flares lit up the entire Lunga Roads with a vivid greenish light of amazing intensity, surpassing anything either of us had ever seen before. At this moment I was to come face to face with my first hands-on lesson of the war: distinct changes of light intensity produce a plethora of erroneous reports. It happens after every sunset, before every dawn. Familiar offshore rocks or islets suddenly become hostile ships. Waving kunai grass takes on the form of advancing infantry. “Purple-shadow reports,” we came to call them. We immediately became the recipients of a series of excited messages from the McCawley. They came in faster than we could reply. “Japanese attacking Red Beach. Enemy landing on Red Beach,” came across the water from our flagship. Although we had no communication link with Red Beach at the moment, it was apparent that nothing was going on down there. I tried to frame soothing replies. After all, it’s hard for a lieutenant colonel to tell a rear admiral that he’s talking through his hat.2 What had happened was this: When the Japs lit up the roads, many of our ships’ boats plying to and from Red Beach in the dark saw each other for the first time. Many boats were armed and some excited boats’ crews opened fire starting an “intramural” as we came to call them in “Old George.” We were to suffer some of these misencounters ourselves during the next few days, good ones too. They are as old as war itself—a natural phenomenon of growing up on the battlefield, mumps and measles on the road to military maturity. Events quickly overtook this mini-crisis. The horizon south of Savo lit up with gun flashes, searchlights stabbed the darkness, 20-mm. trajectories arched across the sky, their red and green tracers 1 Information given to Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, USMC, and the author in Brisbane, Australia, by an officer of the USS Chicago (CA-29), 26 December 1942. 2Turner denies sending any such messages, according to Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume V, The Struggle for Guadalcanal (Boston: Atlantic Little, Brown, 1962), p. 64. Nevertheless, at least two such messages were logged in and recorded in full, together with our replies, in the D-3 Journal for the night of 8–9 August, appearing in Phase II of the final report of the 1st Marine Division. H402ORD-188 adding a startling rainbow of color as they searched for targets. They found them soon enough. Huge fires blazed up momentarily like some mammoth box of wooden matches ignited by a spark. “Magazines,” I thought out loud. From the darkness Weir answered, “No. Those are our own cruiser planes. Still on deck and full of gas. They should have been flown off.” So intense were these flames that on some ships, men could not even reach their general quarters stations. The firing died down. Several minutes later it flared up again, this time north of Savo, where our other cruisers were engaged. The same horrifying spectacle recurred. Then—silence. The nightmare battle of Savo Island was over. In less than a half-hour an inferior Japanese force had destroyed four of our five cruisers. In return we had scored only one damaging hit on one enemy cruiser. It had been a bad night for us. Defying all logic, we tried to tell ourselves that we had come out on top—only Weir was unconvinced. It began to rain, a warm rain. I sat down and leaned against a palm, taking such shelter as my helmet afforded, and fell asleep. We received no more messages from the fleet. General Vandegrift and Jerry Thomas returned shortly after daybreak. They said we had lost some ships but were uncertain as to details. They brought good news, too. Tulagi was now entirely under Marine control. The fighting was over, and the troops could clear the beaches in full force and expedite unloading, which had been going very badly over there because of the intransigence of the commander of Transport Group Yoke. Someone started a fire. We warmed ourselves. Colonel Hawley Waterman collected a lot of instant coffee envelopes discarded from “C” rations and made coffee in a metal ammo box for all hands. I drank mine from an empty hash can. Delicious. The rain stopped. Heavy mist shrouded our view to seaward. A single heavy gun fired intermittently. The impact of each explosion shook the foliage above us and scattered a shower of dislodged droplets. Colonel Pedro DelValle, commanding the 11th Marines, our artillery regiment, said quietly, “That firing is one of our ships sinking the Canberra.” Silence engulfed us. A solemn requiem for that brave and dying ship continued. The general appeared, and Jerry Thomas gave the oral order for defense: Commander Naval Forces South Pacific reports large enemy forces gathering at Rabaul. We may expect an attack on this beachhead within 96 hours. First Marine Division will organize the Lunga Point beaches for defense against an attack from the sea in two sectors. First Marines, less lst Battalion division reserve plus attached units, will on the right organize and defend landing beaches from the Lunga River, inclusive, to the mouth of the Tenaru with its right flank refused for a distance of 400 yards along the left (west) bank of that river. H402ORD-189 Fifth Marines, less 2d Battalion, plus attached units will on the left organize and defend landing beaches from the Lunga River (exclusive) with its left flank resting on the high ground 1,000 yards south of Kukum. Eleventh Marines will provide general support from firing positions in rear of the beach areas. First Engineer Battalion proceed immediately with completion of the airfield as a matter of highest priority. All units provide own local security. No ground will be given up under any circumstances without the express order of the Division Commander. It was that simple, and it worked—the first combat order ever issued to a Marine division in the presence of the enemy. I went over to the new command post specified in Jerry’s order, located at the airfield only a few yards from the partially completed strip. It abutted an ancient coral reef that provided limited protection from naval gunfire. A small adjacent knoll allowed observation to the north and west, covering most of Iron Bottom Bay. It was, for all intents and purposes, a part of the airfield that obviously would become an inviting target for enemy aircraft and naval forces. The place had been thoroughly worked over by Navy dive bombers. Near the east end stood what remained of a Japanese blacksmith shop, crudely constructed of native materials. Butch Morgan, the general’s cook, was already inside boiling beans on the blacksmith’s forge, which, strangely, was still intact. Butch had inherited the former owner’s belongings and was already wearing a pair of the deceased blacksmith’s pants. Shorty Mantay, Butch’s striker, was busy filling empty bamboo-matting rice bags with dirt to build a parapet around the new galley. When I came back several hours later, the boiled beans were done, and the blacksmith had been interred nearby. With Mantay still filling rice bags, Butch and his pal, Sergeant “Hook” Moran, drank coffee in the general’s galley. The situation was well in hand. I went down to Red Beach. No ship-to-shore activity was in progress. The beach itself was hopelessly blocked. Without authority, Lawrence F. Reifsnider, the commodore of Transport Group X-Ray, had on the afternoon of 8 August ordered “general unloading” to begin. This was the prerogative of the amphibious force commander, and then only upon recommendation of the landing force commander, based on his ability to receive the increased volume of supply flowing to the beach. No such authorization was ever given, and Reifsnider is solely responsible for the logistical breakdown that followed. Additional manpower was indeed imperative. Turner had wrongfully withheld 1,400 Marines on the ships. He could have put them ashore to assist in the task. Likewise, Reifsnider had available in the Hunter Liggett (AP- 27) all survivors of the sunken George F. Elliott (AP-13) and had authority to land the Marine ship’s platoon that had been left behind on each transport. This would have provided ample manpower. On Tulagi, they were engaged in a stiff fight. On Guadalcanal, matters were even worse. Vandegrift faced the most critical situation imaginable—inability to “find, fix, and fight” the large enemy force that Turner had told him was waiting for him on Guadalcanal. As we now know, Turner’s estimate of enemy strength was wide of the mark, based on unrealistic appraisals made at General Douglas MacArthur’s Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. But this had not yet been established when Reifsnider gave his devastating order. The torrent of cargo flowing to the beach quickly overwhelmed the resources available there to receive it. Confusion led to disorder, which extended back to the transport group itself. Very little unloading was actually accomplished after the enemy torpedo plane attack on the afternoon of 8 August, according to Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Pate, Division D-4 (Logistics). H402ORD-190 I met General Vandegrift on the beach. He gave me a full accounting of our losses in the previous night’s fleet action, which I found almost unbelievable. We looked out across Red Beach to the transport area. All the ships were under way, maneuvering individually at flank speed. To what end I did not know. They were not dropping depth bombs—Japanese records indicate two submarines reached the area sometime on 9 August but made no attack.3 The sight reminded me of the old Mariner’s rhyme: When in danger or in doubt Steam in circles scream and shout. But I pass no judgments; recalling the ancient admonition of Roman General Lucius Paulus: Let him not, on land, Assume the office of a pilot.4 From his remote observation post on Guadalcanal, Coastwatcher Martin Clemens remarked on the same scene at the same hour.5 Gazing out at the scene off Red Beach, General Vandegrift asked in a soft voice, “Bill, what has happened to your Navy?” I could think of no better reply than, “I don’t believe the first team is on the field yet, General.” Scarcely more than a pretext followed. Some ships failed even to retrieve some of their own boats and their crewmen. They proved a welcome addition to our small boat pool, until we were able to return them to Nouméa. In addition to about 1,400 officers and men of the 2d Marines, the ships pulled out with some 500 Marines belonging to the 1st Division. These were the ship’s platoons, one customarily assigned to each transport and cargo vessel, to assist in the unloading during the early stages before general unloading begins. At that point these services were no longer required. In the disorder of the pullout, these men never got ashore to rejoin their combat units. This in itself represented a severe loss—more Marines than the battle casualties already suffered by the division. The ships straggled out one by one through Sealark Channel to form on the McCawley for the trip back to Nouméa. At nightfall, Admiral Turner sent a somewhat misleading dispatch to Admiral Robert Ghormley, reporting his departure and our situation ashore. That brought the operation to a somewhat inglorious end. It was, to quote Charles I, “an unhandsome quitting.”6 We were left without exterior communications or support of any kind—and no promises that any help would be forthcoming. We had no source of information or observation, except such as we could derive from the 24-foot observation tower, constructed of palm logs, that we had inherited from the Emperor. We were on half rations, had little ammunition, no construction equipment or defensive materials whatsoever, and no one would talk to us when we improvised a long-distance transmitter out of captured Japanese equipment. Outside of that, we were in great shape. The sorrow of our parting, however, did not increase too greatly upon the realization that Turner would not be here, after all, to occupy that tent we 3Richard F. Newcomb, Savo: The Incredible Naval Debacle off Guadalcanal (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1961), p. 146. 4Martin Clemens, “A Coastwatcher’s Diary,” American Heritage, December 1967. 5Ibid. 6Referring to Rupert’s abandonment of Bristol to the forces of Cromwell. 7lbid. H402ORD-191 had prepared for him when he had proposed to come with us into Macedonia. We would thereafter be forced to depend solely upon “councils but such as shall be framed within our camp.” General Twining served as operations officer, 1st Marine Division, during the Guadalcanal campaign. He later designed the 1st Division shoulder patch, commemorating the U.S. victory there. Lesson H403 LSCO/MDO: Airpower Theory, Doctrine, and Practice AY 2021–22 H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-192 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for Lesson H403 LSCO/MDO: Air Power Theory, Doctrine, and Practice (Combined Bomber Offensive) Lesson Author: Dr. Sean N. Kalic 1. SCOPE The emergence of air power theory and doctrine in the interwar period provides keen insights into how nations thought about fighting in the multi-domain battlespace of the period 1920-1945. Furthermore, this two-hour lesson evaluates the claims and promises of air power theory and doctrine versus the performance of individual air forces, specifically the United States, during the Second World War. During the First World War, the use of aircraft evolved from reconnaissance and artillery spotting to close air support, air-to-air, and strategic bombardment. In the immediate interwar period, generals, theorists, and politicians vigorously debated the future role of aircraft. Moving beyond the discussions of organization, role, and technology of aviation forces, Giulio Douhet established a theory that strategic bombardment, if applied properly, could break the stalemate experienced on the battlefields of the First World War. Outlined in his book Command of the Air in 1922, Douhet theorized that bombers could provide decisive victory by breaking the will of the people through terror bombing. A main controversial tenet with Douhet’s theory was the belief that the traditional line between combatant and non-combatant had disappeared in modern warfare. Though other air power theorists (mainly Hugh Trenchard, founder of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Great Britain and Billy Mitchell of the United States Army) had some ethical concerns with Douhet’s assumptions about bombing civilians, his theory greatly influenced the way nations thought about using the air domain as a means to, once again, strive for decisive offensive victory. Using Douhet’s theory, air power advocates in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany strove to build strategic air power doctrine with an objective of delivering a decisive blow to an enemy. Though the tenets of Douhet drove these doctrinal developments, the individual nations selectively incorporated and interpreted Douhet’s ideas to develop separate and distinct doctrines on how strategic air power could re-establish decisiveness to the battlefield. Moving from doctrine to application, the second part of the lesson focuses on the development of strategic bombardment doctrine and its practice during the combined bomber offense as conducted by the RAF and the US Army Air Forces during the Second World War in Operation POINTBLANK. An examination of the POINTBLANK campaign highlights the challenges of implementing doctrine within the dynamic operational environment of the Second World War. 2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess (UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-3, Examine how staffs conduct the operations process using the framework of plan, prepare, and execute; TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-193 August 2021 Army sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s operational environment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as listed in the H400 Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are: ELO-AOC-1.6 Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale combat operations. Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products and H400 historical readings. ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes: 1. Examine historical battles and campaigns. 2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context. 3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action. 4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-3.4 Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key theorists. Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products. ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes: 1. Examine the causes of conflict. 2. Examine historical theory. 3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine. 4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations. 5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment. 6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century. 7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-5.4 Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness. Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products. ELO Standards: The analysis includes: 1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness. 2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO. 3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater. 4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context. 5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of 20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-194 August 2021 ELO-AOC-8.1 Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.2 Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.3 Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. 4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential contemporary competitors. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-9.1 Action: Write effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Write effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Proper grammar and correct spelling Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-195 August 2021 ELO-AOC-9.2 Action: Speak effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation 6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience 7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.3 Action: Listen effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes: 1. Listens, reads, and watches intently. 2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others. 3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention. 4. Reflects on new information before expressing views. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis PLO Attributes Supported: 1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information. 1b. Comprehend context of the situation. 1c. Create meaning from information and data. 1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas. 1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms. 1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments. 1g. Apply critical and creative thinking. 2a. Apply ethics, norms, and laws of the profession. 2d. Meet organizational-level challenges. 2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life- long learners. 3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war. 3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition. 3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power. 4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment. 4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks. 4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other competitive forces. 5e. Consider risk and resource limitations inherent in planning. 6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions. 6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context. Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported: 3. The Return of Great Power Competition H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-196 August 2021 5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century 8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations 3. ISSUE MATERIAL a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022. b. During Class: None. WiFi is available. 4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT a. Study Requirements: (1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in full text in the H400 Book of Readings): Required: H403RA Douhet, Giulio. “Aerial Warfare,” in The Command of the Air, translated by Dino Ferrari, 49-62. Washington D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998. [13 pages]https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0160_DOUHET_T HE_COMMAND_OF_THE_AIR H403RB Futrell, Robert Frank. Chapter 4 “Air Force Thinking in World War II,” in Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907-1960, 147-158. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1989. [11 pages] https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a588326 Optional: H403ORA Glover, Jonathan, “Bombing,” in Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, 69-88. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3421050 [20 pages] H403ORB Mclean, L. “Bomber Offensive,” in Naval War College Information Service for Officers, Vol 1 No 8 (May 1949), 21-37. [16 pages] https://www.jstor.org/stable/44792496 Student Purchased Text: H403ORC Murray, Williamson A. “Strategic Bombing: The British, American, and German Experience,” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, edited by Williamson A. Murray and Allan R. Millett, 96-143. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [47 pages] [Student Purchase] Further Professional Development: Brodie, Bernard and Fawn F. From Crossbow to H-Bomb: The Evolution of the Weapons and Tactics of Warfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. Fabyanic, Thomas A. “Strategic Attack in the United States Air Force: A Case Study.” Maxwell AFB, AL: Air War College Report No. 5899, April 1976. Flugel, Raymond R. United States Air Power Doctrine: A Study of the Influence of William Mitchell and Giulio Douhet at the Air Corps Tactical School, 1921–1935. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1985. Futrell, Robert Frank. Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1964. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1971. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0160_DOUHET_THE_COMMAND_OF_THE_AIR https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0160_DOUHET_THE_COMMAND_OF_THE_AIR https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a588326 https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3421050 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44792496 H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-197 August 2021 Holley, I. B. Ideas and Weapons. Washington, DC: Air Force History & Museums Program, 1997. First published 1953 by Yale University Press. Lambeth, Benjamin S. The Transformation of American Air Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. MacIsaac, David. Strategic Bombing in World War Two: The Story of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. New York: Garland Publishing, 1976. McFarland, Stephen L. America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910–1945. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. Robertson, Scot. The Development of RAF Strategic Bombing Doctrine, 1919–1939. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. Wells, Mark K. Courage and Air Warfare: The Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War. London: Frank Cass, 1997. Resident Course Elective Alignment: A691, World War II: Europe, A692, World War II: Pacific, and A699, Evolution of Military Thought (1) Second Requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class: 1. What is Douhet’s thesis in The Command of the Air? 2. In The Command of the Air, Douhet wrote, “The selection of objectives, the grouping of zones, and determining the order in which they are to be destroyed is the most difficult and delicate task in aerial warfare, constituting what may be defined as aerial strategy.” To what degree, then, is targeting a strategy? 3. How did the nations of Great Britian, the United States, and Germany translate Douhet’s theory into doctrine during the interwar period? 4. Ethically speaking, what is the dilemma with Douhet’s theory of strategic air power? 5. In what ways did Operation POINTBLANK differ from Douhet’s concept of strategic bombing? 6. What effect did bombing have on German morale and production? 7. What elements were erroneous or missing from the prewar US Army Air Corps doctrine? 8. What metrics did Eighth Air Force use to measure its progress in Operation POINTBLANK? 9. How did the the American way of war contribute to the Allies’ victory the air war over Europe? 10. Why did the Allies embrace firebombing of cities after they rejected the concept in the interwar period based on ethical principles? b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to): H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022 Military Innovation in the Interwar Period H403 Advance Sheet H403AS-198 August 2021 5. ASSESSMENT See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A. H403 Chronology H403AS-199 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for Lesson H403 H403: LSCO/MDO Air Power: Theory, Doctrine, and Practice (Combined Bomber Offensive) Chronology 1899 29 July 1899 Hague Conference outlawed bombardment from balloons. 1903 17 December 1903 First flight of heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. 1911 23 October 1911 First aerial armed reconnaissance flight (Italy against Libya) 11 November 1911 First use of airplane in battle; first bombardment from airplane (Italy against Libya) ca. November First aerial photoreconnaissance flight (Italy against Libya) ca. November First aircraft lost in combat, shot down by Turkish ground fire (Italy against Libya). 1912 ca. 1912 Giulio Douhet assumed command of Italy’s aviation battalion. 1913 ca. 1913 Douhet published “Rules for the Use of Airplanes in War.” 1914 18 July 1914 Aviation Section of US Army Signal Corps created. 5 October 1914 First air-to-air kill (victorious aircraft survived) November 1914 Beginning of Fokker Scourge 1915 29 January 1915 First zeppelin raids over Great Britain. ca. 1915 Maj. William (Billy) Mitchell became pilot at own expense. 31 May 1915 Zeppelins bombed London. 1916 ca. March 1916 1st Aero Squadron joined Mexican Punitive Expedition 20 March 1916 Escadrille Americaine (Squadron N. 124) formed in France ca. summer 1916 Hauptmann Oswald Boelcke wrote his rules (a.k.a. the Dicta Boelcke) on basic fighter tactics 1917 25 May 1917 First German Gotha bomber raid on Britain. 20 November 1917 First combined arms offensive to include aircraft (Cambrai). H403 Chronology H403AS-200 August 2021 1918 1 April 1918 British Royal Air Force (RAF) created. 8 April 1918 Air Service (US Army Signal Corps) arrived in France (1st Aero Squadron). 21 April 1918 Rittmeister Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen killed in action. 24 May 1918 US Army Air Service formed. 6 June 1918 RAF established first strategic bombardment wing (41st). 19 July 1918 First aircraft carrier-launched air strike (British). 1920 1 August 1920 Carl L. Norden contracted by US Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance to produce a high-altitude bombsight. 1921 10 February 1921 US Army Air Service School founded. 13–21 July 1921 Ostfriesland bombing experiment conducted. ca. 1921 Douhet published The Command of the Air. 1922 20 March 1922 USS Langley recommissioned as aircraft carrier (CV-1), formerly USS Jupiter. 1925 17 December 1925 Billy Mitchell convicted by court-martial. 1926 18 August 1926 Air Service School redesignated Air Corps Tactical School. 2 July 1926 US Army Air Corps formed. 1927 27 May 1927 Charles Lindbergh made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. 1937 26 April 1937 Condor Legion bombed Guernica, Spain. 1939 25 September 1939 Luftwaffe bombed Warsaw. 1940 10 May 1940 RAF (Royal Air Force) sorties against German military in France 20–21 May 1940 RAF evacuates France. 10 July 1940 Battle of Britain began. 15 August 1940 Battle of Britain ended. First RAF raid on Berlin. 1941 August 1941 Surveys indicated that less than one bomb in ten hit within five miles of target. 7 December 1941 Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. 24 December 1941 Avro Lancaster bomber entered service with RAF. H403 Chronology H403AS-201 August 2021 1942 14 February 1942 RAF adopted an area bombing strategy. 22 February 1942 Air Marshal Arthur Travers Harris appointed commander in chief of RAF Bomber Command. 18 April 1942 Doolittle raided Tokyo. 30–31 May 1942 First 1,000-plane RAF raid on Germany 1–2 June 1942 Second 1,000-plane RAF raid on Germany 4 July 1942 First Eighth Air Force crews (flying RAF aircraft) attack Europe. 4 July 1942 Eighth Air Force began air operations over Europe. 1943 16 January 1943 Royal Air Force (RAF) bombed Berlin. 5–6 March 1943 RAF Bomber Command commenced Battle of the Ruhr attacks against German industry. 16–17 May 1943 RAF Bomber Command successfully attacked the Ruhr Dams in famous “Dambuster Raid”. 18 May 1943 Combined Bomber Offensive officially approved; German fighter production became priority. 28 July 1943 P-47s first used expendable long-range fuel tanks. 28–29 July 1943 RAF Bomber Command attacked residential areas of Hamburg resulting in a firestorm—killed 40,000 people and caused 1.2 million to flee the city. 17 August 1943 Eighth Air Force raided Regensburg and Schweinfurt, suffering 20 percent attrition. 27 September 1943 Eighth Air Force first attacked a city using airborne ground-scanning H2S radar; first time that P-47s provided escort the entire way to a target in Germany. 14 October 1943 Second raid on Schweinfurt resulted in 26 percent loss. 18–19 November 1943 RAF Bomber Command began systematic attacks against Berlin; in four months, sixteen major attacks resulted in 492 aircraft lost. 5 December 1943 First P-51 escort mission from the United Kingdom 1944 21 January 1944 Eighth Air Force directive allowed fighter aircraft to pursue German fighters away from bomber formations. 22–26 February 1944 “Big Week” bombing campaign (Operation ARGUMENT) 30–31 March 1944 RAF Bomber Command suffered its heaviest losses of the war during a night raid on Nuremberg—it lost 95 of 795 aircraft. 8 June 1944 Eighth Air Force began targeting German oil production. August 1944 Germans produced 3,020 fighter aircraft—second highest monthly production of the war; produced only 15,000 tons of aviation gas. September 1944 Due to fuel shortages, the Luftwaffe prohibited all flying except for combat. 14 October 1944 RAF Bomber Command flew its highest number of sorties of the war— 1,576. 1945 13 February 1945 Dresden bombed. 9–10 March 1945 Tokyo firebombed with over 80,000 people killed (Operation MEETINGHOUSE). 13 March 1945 Osaka firebombed—approximately 100,000–150,000 houses razed. 16 March 1945 Kobe firebombed—approximately 66,000 houses razed. H403 Chronology H403AS-202 August 2021 19 March 1945 Nagoya firebombed with a mix of high explosives (targeted at first responders) and incendiary bombs. 2–3 May 1945 RAF Bomber Command executed its last mission of the war. 6 August 1945 First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 9 August 1945 Second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki; Soviet Union invaded Manchuria the same day. Lesson H404 LSCO/MDO: Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe AY 2021–22 H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-203 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H404 LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe LESSON AUTHOR: LTC William S. Nance, PhD 1. SCOPE This two-hour lesson covers one of the largest campaigns, in terms of manpower and forces committed, that the United States ever embarked upon—the liberation of Northwest Europe, 1944- 1945. This joint and multi-national operation would eventually grow to encompass 90 divisions (American, British, Canadian, French, and Polish) spread across three army groups, eight armies, and 19 corps. This force does not count the tens of thousands of tactical and strategic aircraft that flew in support of the armies. It has come to embody high intensity warfare supplemented by lavish use of firepower. When the modern US military thinks about LSCO, this campaign is the first that springs to mind. In point of fact, this nearly year-long series of offensives certainly helped frame both Russell Weigley and Colin Gray’s definitions of the American Way of War. This campaign should be looked at as a series of pulses. The first entailed the invasion of France and the subsequent building of combat power in Normandy. The second was the breakout from Normandy and the assault across France, culminating near the German border (or the Moselle in Alsace). The third was a series of actions throughout September into October where the Allies fought for limited gains (mostly) while building logistical capability. The fourth occurred in November, when the Allies went back onto the offensive across the front, in a series of attacks that lasted until the opening of the German counteroffensives in the Ardennes and Alsace. After defeating these offensives (the fifth pulse), the Allies paused through February, and then launched another massive attack first to the Rhine, and then rapidly over it. The exploitation across Germany was the last phase of this battle. As can be seen above, the size and scope of the fighting in Northwest Europe are far too wide to cover even broadly in a single class. Thus, this lesson will focus on four facets of the American Way of War as discussed by Colin Gray—large scale, logistically excellent, technologically dependent, and firepower focused. It is not intended to be a full accounting of the fighting from June 1944 to May 1945, but rather a taste of this defining campaign for the US Army. In H401, students evaluated the challenges of the expeditionary army and mobilizing the force that would be used in Europe. This lesson offers the opportunity to expand that study by analyzing the impacts of logistics on operations, as well as the actual application of that force. It also provides the chance to evaluate the character of American warfighting through a focused reading upon a portion of the nearly yearlong campaign. Students may even find themselves comparing and contrasting the American approach to ground warfare with their approach to the Combined Bomber Offensive (as seen in H403). Students should leave this lesson with an appreciation of the challenges and impacts of operational logistics, as well as having a greater understanding of how the US Army has fought LSCO in the 20th century. H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-204 August 2021 2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess (UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US Army sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s operational environment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as listed in the H400 Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are: ELO-AOC-1.6 Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale combat operations. Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products and H400 historical readings. ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes: 1. Examine historical battles and campaigns. 2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context. 3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action. 4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-5.4 Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness. Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products. ELO Standards: The analysis includes: 1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness. 2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO. 3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater. 4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context. 5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of 20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis ELO-AOC-8.1 Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-205 August 2021 ELO-AOC-8.2 Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945. 2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-8.3 Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940. Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and written assignments. ELO Standards: The assessment includes: 1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940. 3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences our understanding of today’s operational environment. 4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential contemporary competitors. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation ELO-AOC-9.1 Action: Write effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Write effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Proper grammar and correct spelling Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.2 Action: Speak effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes: 1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment 2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience 3. Proper format and organization 4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points 5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation 6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-206 August 2021 7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis ELO-AOC-9.3 Action: Listen effectively Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources. ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes: 1. Listens, reads, and watches intently. 2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others. 3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention. 4. Reflects on new information before expressing views. Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis PLO Attributes Supported: 1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information. 1b. Comprehend context of the situation. 1c. Create meaning from information and data. 1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas. 1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms. 1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments. 1g. Apply critical and creative thinking. 2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life- long learners. 3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war. 3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition. 3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power. 3d. Understand the generation of military power through force management. 4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment. 4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks. 4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other competitive forces. 5e. Consider risk and resource limitations inherent in planning. 6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions. 6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context. Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported: 3. The Return of Great Power Competition 5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century 8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations 3. ISSUE MATERIAL a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022. b. During Class: None. WiFi is available. 4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT a. Study Requirements: H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-207 August 2021 (1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in full text in the H400 Book of Readings): Required: H404RA Weigley, Russell. “The Strategic Tradition of U.S. Grant,” The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Excerpt). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973: 344-350 [7 pages] H404RB Ruppenthal, Roland G. Logistical Support of the Armies: Volume II, September 1944-May 1945. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1994, 3-21. Accessed 20 November 2020. https://history.army.mil/html/books/007/7-3-1/index.html [19 pages] H404RC Hogan, David W. Northern France: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II, CMH Pub 72-30, 1-31. Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 2000. [32 pages] Optional: H404ORA Ballard, Ted. Rhineland: 15 September 1944-21 March 1945. Washington, D.C.: United States Army, Center of Military History, 2019. Accessed 20 November 2020. https://history.army.mil/html/books/072/72-25/CMH_Pub_72-25(75th-Anniversary) [36 pages] H404ORB Andidora, Ronald. “The Autumn of 1944: Boldness is Not Enough.” Parameters. December 1987: 71-80. [10 pages] H404ORC Gabel, Christopher R. The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September- December 1944, 14-37. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College, 1985. [37 pages] H404ORD Bolger, Daniel P. “Zero Defects: Command Climate in First US Army, 1944- 1945.” Military Review Vol LXXI May 1991, 61-73 [13 pages]. https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p124201coll1/id/488/ Further Professional Development: Army University Press Videos [France ’44: Wet Gap Crossings at Nancy; France ’44: The Encirclement of Nancy; The Red Ball Express] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9G3c6jkROVZ0tXr4gvUKQ Blumenson, Martin. The Battle of the Generals: The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket – the Campaign that Should Have Won World War II. New York, NY: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1993. Buckley, John. Monty’s Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. Bradley, Omar. A Soldier’s Story. New York, NY: The Modern Library, 1999. Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow & Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Citino, Robert M. The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017. Doubler, Michael D. Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944- 1945. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994. English, John A. Patton’s Peers: The Forgotten Allied Field Army Commanders of the Western Front 1944-45. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2009. Hamilton, Nigel. Monty: Master of the Battlefield, 1942-1944. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1983. Mansoor, Peter R. The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999. Morelock, Jerry D. Generals of the Bulge: Leadership in the U.S. Army’s Greatest Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2015. https://history.army.mil/html/books/007/7-3-1/index.html https://history.army.mil/html/books/072/72-25/CMH_Pub_72-25(75th-Anniversary) https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p124201coll1/id/488/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9G3c6jkROVZ0tXr4gvUKQ H404 Advance Sheet H404AS-208 August 2021 Murray, Williamson and Alan R. Millett. A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Overy, Richard. Why the Allies Won. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Co., 1997. Winton, Harold R. Corps Commanders of the Bulge: Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Yeide, Harry and Mark Stout. First to the Rhine: The 6th Army Group in World War II. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2007. Resident Course Elective Alignment: A691, World War II in Europe; A627, World War II in the East: Barbarossa to Berlin; A650, The Korean War (2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class: 1. How well does Colin Gray’s assertion that the American Way of War is casualty adverse match the realities of LSCO that the Allies faced while fighting in Western Europe? 2. How did logistics drive operational planning and maneuver in 1944 and 1945? What happens when opportunity exceeds planning expectations? 3. Evaluate the decision by Eisenhower to advance past the Seine in late August. 4. What were the ramifications of Eisenhower’s broad front operational approach? Were there other methods available? 5. Why did the Allies, despite having air supremacy and a massive material advantage over the Germans, struggle in the Fall and Winter of 1944-1945? 6. Evaluate the Allied conduct at the operational level during this campaign. 7. What are the challenges of commanding a multinational coalition in LSCO? 8. What are the implications of the fact that the American Way of War as demonstrated in the Second World War, tends to attritional warfare as opposed to battles of annihilation? b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to): H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022 5. ASSESSMENT See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A. H404 Chronology H404AS-209 August 2021 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power Advance Sheet for H404 LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe Chronology 1944 6 June Invasion of Normandy by Allies 9 June Work on Mulberries (artificial harbors begins) 19 June Omaha Mulberry destroyed by storm. 29 June Cherbourg fell. 16 July First supplies landed through Cherbourg. 25-31 July Operation COBRA 1 August US Third Army operational 12-21 August Battle of the Falaise Pocket: destruction of major parts of the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army 15 August Operation DRAGOON (invasion of Southern France) 20 August Seine River crossed by US Third Army. 25 August Paris liberated. 28 August Liberation of the port of Marseille (Southern France) 4 September Antwerp liberated, and Scheldt Estuary closed. 5-15 September Battle of Nancy 12 September Le Havre liberated, and port closed due to damage. 17-25 September Operation MARKET GARDEN 21 September Cherbourg basins cleared for cargo. 29 September Liberation of Calais: Port closed due to damage. 2-21 October Battle of Aachen H404 Chronology H404AS-210 August 2021 6-16 October First Battle of Schmidt (Hürtgen Forest) 9 October Port of Le Havre opened to supply convoys. November Port of Calais opened. 8 November Scheldt Estuary cleared of German defenders. 9 November US XX Corps crossed Moselle River to encircle Metz. 15 November – 7 December US First and Ninth Armies launched offensive to Roer River. 29 November Antwerp received first convoys. 13-15 December US V Corps attacked towards Roer River Dams. 16 December – 25 January Battle of the Bulge 1945 1 January – 7 February Operation NORDWIND 23 February Operation GRENADE: US 9th Army attacked to Rhine. 1 March Operation LUMBERJACK: US 1st and 3rd Armies attacked to Rhine. 7 March Remagen bridge captured. 15 March Operation UNDERTONE: Allied 6th Army Group and US 3rd Army attacked to Rhine. 22 March US Third Army crossed Rhine. 23 March Operation PLUNDER: Commonwealth 21st Army Group with US 9th Army crossed Rhine. 1 April Ruhr encircled by US 1st and 9th Armies. 12 April US 9th Army reached Elbe River. 23 April – 2 May Soviet forces fought Battle of Berlin. 25 April US and Soviet forces linked up on Elbe River. 30 April Adolf Hitler commited suicide. 7 May German forces unconditionally surrendered. Weigley, Russel F. “The Strategic Tradition of U.S. Grant,” The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy, 1977, pp. 342-51. CGSC Copyright #21-0672 E H404RA-211 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H404: LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe Reading H404RA The Strategic Tradition of U.S. Grant by Russell F. Weigley Whatever the eventual outcome of the strategic bomber offensive, without Allied air power the losses likely in an invasion of northern France could scarcely have been contemplated, and if the Allies had nerved themselves to accept staggering casualties, the outcome nevertheless might well have been disaster. The battle for command of the air over the German homeland drew the Luftwaffe away from support of the German ground forces and the defenses of northern France. In the spring of 1944 all Allied air power in Britain was placed temporarily under the direction of General Eisenhower, and he instructed it to isolate the proposed invasion beaches―and for purposes of security and deception, ocher beaches where the Germans might expect landings―from assistance from the interior of France and Europe, by ruining the transportation systems. American precision bombing had proven to be not so precise as had been hoped, and experience after as well as during World War II was to demonstrate the limitations of even the strongest air power in attempting to interdict land communications. But for a brief period of time, as in the weeks just before and after the OVERLORD invasion, and against the sophisticated and therefore delicate transport network of an industrialized country such as France, air power could do much to strangle movement. To give it an additional month to accomplish its work, as well as to provide additional time for training troops and accumulating landing craft, Eisenhower postponed the target date for invasion, D-day, from May I to the beginning of June.54 To defend an area as large as the coast of northern France against amphibious invasion, the best method historically had not been the method used by the Japanese on a tiny atoll such as Tarawa. The defender should not attempt more than a delaying action against the initial assault waves, because the beaches of a long coastline could not be made strong everywhere. The classic method of defense rather was to maintain a strong mobile reserve ready and able to fall upon a landing wherever it might develop, bringing superior strength against it before the beachhead could be expanded adequately and thus pushing the invader back into the sea. In the nineteenth-century defense plans of the United States, this method was the one contemplated should an invader ever set foot on American shores. The coastal fortresses were to keep an invader away from the most sensitive points, and the Army supported by a mobilization of citizen soldiers would eject him from any lodgement elsewhere. With mobile reserves rather than an effort to hold all the beaches, the Turks had turned back the British from Gallipoli. In 1943, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, German Commander in Chief in the West, planned a similar defense for the coast of France, based upon counterattacks by a mobile reserve. But even before Eisenhower set Allied air power to its intensified pre-invasion offensive, air power threw this classic defense plan into question. In late 1943, Hitler gave Field Marshal Erwin Rommel command of Army Group B, the headquarters which was to control the German strategic reserve for western Europe. Rommel decided that Rundstedt's plan for the defense of France against invasion would not work. Allied aviation would prevent a mobile reserve from counterattacking against a beachhead until H404RA-212 it was too late, if the reserve could run the gauntlet of aerial attacks at all. Whatever the disadvantages, the only hope for the defense of the channel coast lay in defending the beaches themselves so stoutly that the Allies could never secure their beachhead. In January, 1944, Rommel asked for and received command of Fifteenth and Seventh Armies in northern France. His Army Group B headquarters would be nominally subordinate to Rundstedt, but he would have the right to report directly to OKW, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Rommel set out to transform the defenses into a thick crust directly along the beaches, with underwater mines, underwater and beach obstacles, and well-emplaced artillery. Air power impelled him to it, and under the threat of air power his strategy was probably the best one possible. But Rommel did not have enough time remaining to do what he wanted with all the possible invasion beaches, and he and most of the rest of the Germans, except Hitler, expected the invasion to strike the Pas de Calais, so they devoted their best efforts to the wrong place. Of the five beaches in Normandy where the Allies landed on June 6, 1944, only at Omaha Beach in the American sector were the German defenses complete enough to make the landing a difficult amphibious assault. Elsewhere the British and Americans secured their beaches relatively easily, and Rommel’s plan failed.55 Allied air power accomplished all that could reasonably have been hoped for toward isolating the beaches on D-day, and it also contributed airborne landings in both the British and American sectors. The dropping of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions was especially valuable, because they helped prevent the Germans from blocking the causeways which led inland from Utah Beach, at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, toward Cherbourg, on which the Allies counted as the first developed seaport they could seize.56 Thanks to Allied air power and the disagreement between Rundstedt and Rommel over basic strategy, the major German counterattack which the Allies feared never materialized. Nevertheless, almost complete command of the air could not prevent the Germans from bringing to bear four Panzer divisions against the British on the Allied left flank within a few days of the invasion, and additional enemy armored divisions soon followed. It was fortunate for the Allies that Rommel threw his reinforcements into action piecemeal, instead of husbanding them for a major stroke. Fortunately, too, Allied deceptions helped lead the Germans into holding their Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais until July, in expectation of additional landing.57 "In all the campaigns, and particularly in western Europe," said General Eisenhower, "our guiding principle was to avoid at any cost the freezing of battle lines that might bog down our troops in a pattern similar to the trench warfare of World War I"―or in a pattern similar to that of the Italian campaign, he might have added.58 Everyone knew that a period of static warfare would have to follow D-day, until enough troops and equipment could be accumulated to accomplish and sustain a breakthrough. The buildup progressed remarkably well despite having to rely on two artificial harbors, called "mulberries," and after a fierce channel storm struck on June 19, on only one. Not any failure in the buildup but stout German resistance abetted by the difficult hedgerow country of Normandy made the initial fighting more static, and Allied efforts more frustrating, than had been foreseen. At length, the concentration of German Panzers against the British in the better tank country around Caen, and the battering of that armor by General Montgomery's British forces, permitted Lieutenant General Omar Bradley's American First Army to break through the German defenses around St. Lô toward the end of July and initiate a mobile campaign. But when the breakthrough began on D-day plus fifty, it was from a line the Allies had hoped to occupy by D plus five.59 Once the breakthrough occurred, the campaign became highly mobile. Hitler judged both Rommel and Rundstedt failures and put the new C-in-C West, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, under the Führer's customary orders to give up nothing. Following Hitler's directions, Kluge threw away whatever H404RA-213 chance the Germans might have had to halt the Allied advance at the line of the Seine by expending the German Seventh Army in futile counterattacks against the Allied breakthrough columns. These counterattacks permitted the newly committed American Third Army of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., nearly to encircle the Germans between Patton's advancing spearheads on the Allied right and Montgomery's British moving toward a junction with Patton between Argentan and Falaise. Only after the Seventh Army was nearly ruined and in headlong retreat did the Germans belatedly commit their Fifteenth Army to the battle. Even then, the Allies had picked up so much momentum and the Germans were so unbalanced that the Allies pressed forward without pause across the old battlefields of the static warfare of a quarter century before.60 The DRAGOON landings on August 15 precipitated a hasty collapse of whatever German strength remained on the southern flank of the Allied advance. Not until almost all of France was liberated and the Allies had penetrated into the Low Countries and at several points into Germany itself did the pursuit of the fleeing Germans cease and the lines stabilize themselves again. By that time the Allies had outrun their logistical support, still funneled in through excessively few usable ports (German garrisons were hanging tenaciously though isolated in the ports of Brittany). So again as in 1940, the campaign in France had brought no repetition of Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The American strategy of concentration and mass against the main German armies vindicated itself by producing decisive effects with only limited casualties, wrecking at least one German field army in the process. As in 1940, however, the rapid thrust of armored spearheads across France could not be taken as a sure indication that decisiveness had returned to warfare. Too many special circumstances favored the Allies. The Normandy landings and a successful buildup on the beachheads would almost certainly have been impossible if the bulk of the German army had not been committed in Russia. Allied planning for the Normandy invasion predicated its success on the presence of only twelve mobile German divisions in France. If without the existence of the Russian front the Allies somehow had been able to lodge themselves upon the European continent at all, surely their battles would have resembled those of World War I in cost and indecisiveness despite the presence of armor and air power. Such was the pattern of war on the Russian front itself, until the last battles when Germany suffered pressure from west and east alike and tottered at the limit of her resources. Even after the battle of Stalingrad in the fall winter of 1942-43 ended the seesawing of the Eastern Front and brought in a Russian tide, the advances of the Soviet armies became repetitive processes of grinding down German defenses at the price of heavy casualties, only to have the Germans fall back to additional prepared positions, the Russian advance soon expend its momentum, and the expensive grinding efforts begin all over again.61 By D-day in Normandy, the Russians' grinding down of the German army had already gone far toward ruining the mighty war machine of 1940 and 1941. The air battles over Germany had stripped the German ground forces in France of all but minimal support from the Luftwaffe. All through the battle for France, the Germans maintained a superiority over the Anglo-American armies in numbers of men; but Allied air superiority was so overwhelming in what Eisenhower rightly called the “air-ground battle” (and in Major General Elwood R. Quesada the IX Tactical Air Command had an AAF officer who actually believed in tactical air support), while Allied armor was so superior not in quality but in quantity of tanks, that the German resistance cannot be compared with what might have been accomplished by an enemy confronting the Allies with approximately equal strength. At that, the Germans prolonged static warfare in Normandy beyond the time the Allies had expected, and they might well have reestablished themselves along the Seine had not Hitler's faulty strategy expended their Seventh Army uselessly. Once that expenditure occurred and the Germans had to retreat all the way to the Low Countries, the immensely greater mechanization of the Allied armies―despite the Germans' pioneering of the Blitzkrieg, their ordinary divisions remained dependent on horse transport and walking infantry, and even H404RA-214 their armored divisions mostly were not completely motorized like the American-made movement across France much more exhausting for the Germans than for the Allies, apart from the demoralizing effects of defeat. Nevertheless, when Montgomery attempted to leap across the lower Rhine with the combined airborne and armored stroke of Operation MARKET-GARDEN in September, German resistance proved to have consolidated itself again with amazing rapidity and completeness. MARKET-GARDEN failed to hold a bridgehead across the Rhine, and the autumn fighting settled down to a prolonged British struggle for the islands of the Scheldt estuary, so the port of Antwerp might be opened, while the Americans jabbed at the ramparts of the Siegfried Line. Eisenhower believed the Allies would need Antwerp to sustain a new advance across Germany. While he waited for its opening, he also busied himself with the accumulation of supplies all along his line from the North Sea to Switzerland, hoping that this effort plus Antwerp would ensure that it would not be logistical problems that would stop him again.62 The enforced return to static warfare embittered a new strategic debate between the Americans and the British, this one involving British contentions that the Americans had brought on the stalemate by violating their own cherished principle of concentration and mass. While the Allies were yet moving in headlong pursuit across France, Montgomery had asserted that if Eisenhower's strained and limited logistical resources were concentrated in support of Montgomery's Twenty-first Army Group, he would be able to plunge all the way to Berlin, by using his concentration of supplies and troops to keep the Germans on the run without respite. Only on the Allies' northern flank, Montgomery believed, across the north European plain, would such a thrust be possible, because the Siegfried Line and broken country precluded a similar quick stroke by Bradley's Twelfth Army Group or Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers's Sixth Army Group to the south. Montgomery and his proponents have continued to assert that static warfare would never have returned to the Western Front and Allied victory would have been won in the fall of 1944, if Eisenhower had concentrated his logistical support behind Montgomery and thus allowed the Twenty-first Army Group to drive on to Berlin without pause. In his explanations of his strategy at the time and after the war, the amiable Eisenhower became unduly defensive in replying to tactless and supercilious Montgomery, and somehow the tone set by General Eisenhower has persisted through much of the subsequent debate among military critics and historians. Eisenhower then later defended the principle of advancing to the Rhine and into Germany on a broad front. If Montgomery had attempted to push on across the Rhine and across Germany on a narrow front, Eisenhower believed, the Twenty-first Army Group would have had to drop off so many flank guards that it would soon have lost its punch. Once that happened, and the concentration of logistical support in Montgomery's favor had deprived the American armies farther south of their power of moving to help him, Montgomery's advanced position could have become disastrous. Apart from the merits of this argument, however, the fact is that Eisenhower gave Montgomery his chance, as much as he reasonably could have. He did concentrate his logistical support behind Montgomery as much as he dared to do. He could not imperil his southern armies immobilizing them completely in Montgomery's favor, but he came close to it. In late August, the American First Army, which Montgomery wanted to keep moving apace with him to shield his right flank, received an average of 5,000 tons of supply per day. Patton’s Third Army on the right of the First was restricted to 2,000 tons a day. On August 30 Patton's army received 32,000 gallons of gasoline, of its normal daily requirement of 400,000 gallons. The speed of advance from Normandy had carried the Allied armies so far beyond their ports of entry and their depots and so overstrained the intervening transportation that for any of the armies to have advanced into Germany was probably impossible. In these circumstances, Eisenhower favored Montgomery with a more than generous proportion of the supplies that could be hurried to the front. If with such a share of the available support, any general could have dealt the Germans a knockout blow, the man to do it was not Montgomery. He H404RA-215 squandered Eisenhower's logistical generosity in listless failure to push on across the Albert Canal and to the Rhine with the first momentum of his advance into Antwerp, and then he blamed Eisenhower for the failures implicit in the whole logistical situation and aggravated by his own insufficiently aggressive generalship. 63 Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans' opportunity to pause and regroup and the consequent resurgence of their power to resist misled Hitler into another desperate strategical gamble, which restored mobile warfare but ultimately not in the direction the Führer desired. Hoping to keep the Western Allies stalled and thus possibly to split the coalition opposed to him by playing upon American and British fears of excessive Russian success, Hitler concentrated his best remaining armored strength in the west during the fall respite of 1944. The Sixth SS Panzer Army and the Fifth Panzer Army were to strike against a lightly held portion of the Allied front in the Ardennes, where the Germans could muster three-to-one numerical superiority in the sector and six-to-one superiority at key points, to break through to the Allied supply depot across the Meuse River at Liége and beyond that, Hitler extravagantly hoped, to Antwerp. The Ardennes was the same area where the Germans had mounted their principal thrust in the spring of 1940, while the French had neglected it because the east-west roads there were few and poor and the country much broken. Knowing that, the Allied command in 1944 again counted on the difficulty of the Ardennes to make a German counterattack there unlikely, and after their race through France they still did not believe the Germans had enough strength left for a strong counterattack at all. Eisenhower did not have enough men to be secure all along his front and still mount even limited offensives, as he had been doing through the autumn. He had to be weak somewhere, and the Ardennes seemed the best place. He believed that in the unlikely event of a German counterstroke there, he could contain it within acceptable limits.64 The Germans moved forward on December 16 and achieved surprise, partly because bad weather had limited Allied aerial reconnaissance for several days. Persistence of the bad weather kept Allied planes grounded until a temporary clearing on December 23, and this good fortune for the Germans helped them advance their spearhead some fifty miles behind the original American positions. Ultimately, however, Eisenhower's calculations proved good enough. Aided by desperate fighting by various outnumbered American formations to hold key road junctions, the Americans held the Germans far short of Liége or any other significant objective. The American First Army in the north and the Third Army in the south wheeled to press in the flanks of the bulge created by the German advance. In the "Battle of the Bulge" the Americans suffered about 77,000 casualties, but the Germans later admitted losing 90,000, and the Allies estimated a German loss of 120,000, along with hundreds of now irreplaceable tanks and airplanes and thousands of other vehicles. Like so many past offensive adventures by armies whose basic strategy had to be defensive, the Ardennes attack bled away energies and resources the Germans could not spare.65 With the Germans exhausted by their own exertions, the Allies were able to pry them out of the Siegfried Line and close up to the Rhine River in March. At that point the windfall of capturing the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on March 7 permitted the American First Army to cross the river immediately. By April I, the Allies were over the Rhine at a multitude of places from Philippsburg almost to Arnhem, including a large-scale crossing of the wide lower river on March 23-24 by Montgomery’s forces, assisted by airborne landings, in what was practically an amphibious assault. These Rhine crossings involved the final debate of the long series between British and Americans over the proper application of the principle of concentration and mass. All parties in the Anglo-American forces agreed that a major offensive directly into the Ruhr Valley should not be attempted. The Germans would fight hard in defense of that primary industrial area, and fighting in so congested an urban region H404RA-216 was bound to degenerate into house-to-house struggles in which Allied mobility could not be used to best advantage. Therefore the question was whether to make a major effort on only the northern or the southern flank of the Ruhr, or on both flanks simultaneously. Montgomery and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke contended that the principle of concentration required Eisenhower mass the largest possible force for a single blow against the most critical area, namely, the north German plain downriver from the Ruhr, earlier the proposed scene of Montgomery's projected autumn offensive. Eisenhower, now wielding power to spare and characteristically concerned lest he be trammeled by excessively narrow logistical channels, decided to go around both sides of the Ruhr.66 Notes 54 Ambrose, op. cit., pp. 363-76, 395; Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story ( New York: Holt, 1951), pp. 244-46; Chandler, op. cit., III, 1690-92, 1776; Craven and Cate, op. cit., II, chap. XII; III, chaps. III- VII; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 230-31, 232-34, 237, 244; Harrison, op. cit., pp. 207-30, 265-67, 334-35; Pogue, Supreme Command, chap. VII; Hilary St. George Saunders, The Fight Is Won (Vol. III, Royal Air Force, 1939-1945, London: her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954), chaps. IV-V; Webster and Frankland, op. cit., III, 9-41. 55 Ambrose, op. cit., pp. 394-95 and Book Two, chap. VI; Harrison, op. cit., chaps. IV, VII; MacDonald, op. cit., pp. 257-62; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 175-80; Wilmot, op. cit., chap. VII; Lieutenant General Bodo Zimmerman, “France, 1944,” in Seymour Freidin and William Richardson, eds., The Fatal Decisions (New York: Sloane, 1956), pp. 200-13. 56 Bradley, op. cit., pp. 232-36, 275-76; Chandler, op. cit., Ill, 1673-74, 1715, 1717, 1728, 1881-82, 1894-95, 1915-17; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 240, 245-47, 253; Harrison, op. cit., pp. 75, 183-86, 269, 278- 300, 345-48; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 111, 118-22, 171-73; Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway (New York: Harper, 1956), pp. 1-36, 100-103; Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 135, 175, 213, 219-20, 233-48, 261-62, 277-80, 292. 57 Ambrose, op. cit., pp. 401, 420, 460; Bradley, op. cit., pp. 286-88; Chandler, op. cit., III, 1949, 1989-90; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 231 , 257-58, 288; Harrison, op. cit., pp. 330-35, 348-51, 369-79, 442- 49; MacDonald, op. cit., pp. 281-82; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 180, 193-96; Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 318-20, 324-27, 332-35; Zimmerman, loc. cit., pp. 212-23. 58 Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 449. 59 Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1961), chaps. I-XIII; Bradley, op. cit., pp. 278-358; Chandler, op. cit., III, chaps. XIX-XX; IV, chap. XXI; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 255- 75, Harrison, op. cit., chaps. IX-X; MacDonald, op. cit., pp. 282-310; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 171-75, 183-201; Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies (2 vols., United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington: Office of the Chief of Military of History, 1953-59), I, chap. XI; Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 294-365, 383-95. 60 Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit, chaps. XIV-XXIII; Bradley, op. cit., pp. 358-406; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 275-304; John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods (New York: Putnam, 1969), pp. 46-78; MacDonald, op. cit., pp. 310-31,. Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 201-17, 227-30, 244-49, 261-78; Ruppenthal, op. cit., I, chaps. XII-XIV. 61 For the Russian campaign, see especially Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian- German Conflict, 1941-45 (New York: Morrow, 1965); Liddell Hart, op. cit., chaps. XII-XIII, XVIII, XXVIII, XXXII, XXXVI; General Gunther Blumentritt, "The State and Performance of the Red Army, 1941," chap. XII, and Field-Marshal Erich von Manstein, "The Development of the Red Army, 1942-1945," chap. XIII, in B. H. Liddell Hart, ed., The Red Army (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), pp. 134-52; Alexander Werth, Russia at War. 1941-1945 (New York: Dutton, 1964). H404RA-217 62 Bradley, op. cit., pp. 407-26; Chandler, op. cit., IV, 2126, 2133-35, 2158, 2160, 2169, and chap. XXIII; Craven and Cate, op. cit., III, 598-612; D. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 288-93, 302-12, 315-16, 321-23; J. S. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 75-84; Charles B. MacDonald, "The Decision to Launch Operation MARKET-GARDEN ( 1944)," in Greenfield, Command Decisions, pp. 329-41 ; Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington: Office of the Chief Military History, 1963), pp. 14-19 and chaps. VI-IX; Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (Cleveland: World, 1958), chap. XVI; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 250-56, 278-88, 296-301; Ruppenthal, op. cit., II, 104-10; Wilmot, op. cit., 487-92, 498-533. 63 Stephen E. Ambrose, "Eisenhower as Commander: Single Thrust Versus Broad Front,” in Chandler, op. cit., V, 39-48; Ambrose, Supreme Commander, pp. 492-97, 506-35; Bradley, op. cit., 418- 47; Bryant, Triumph in the West, chap. VIII; Chandler, op. cit., IV, 2090-94, 2100-2101, 2115-28, 2133- 38, 2143-49, 2152- 55, 2164-69, 2175-76, 2323-32, 2341-42, 2444-45; Hugh M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign (United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington: Historical Division, U.S. Army, 1950), pp. 6-13; D. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 284-94, 298-341; J. S. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 72-75, 88-98; Francis Wilfred de Guingand, Operation Victory (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947), pp. 329-30; Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, pp. 557-67; MacDonald, Mighty Endeavor, chaps. XX-XXI; MacDonald, Siegfried Line Campaign, pp. 4-14, 207-15, 377-403, 616-22; Montgomery, Memoirs, chaps. XV-XVII; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 249-60, 279-81, 288- 98, 302-18; Ruppenthal, op. cit., II, chaps. I-II; Roland G. Ruppenthal, “Logistics and the Broad-Front Strategy (1944),” in Greenfield, Command Decisions, pp. 320-28; Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s Six Great Decisions: Europe 1944-1945 (New York: Longmans, Green 1956), pp. 121-32; Wilmot, op. cit., chaps. XXIV-XXV, XXVII-XXIX. 64 Ambrose, Supreme Commander, pp. 553-56; Bradley, op. cit., pp. 441-64; Chandler, op. cit., IV, 2331, 2335-36, 2346-48, 2446-47; Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1965), chaps. I-IV; Craven and Cate, op. cit., III, 672-82; D. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 337-41; J. S. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 99-176; Charles P. von Luttichau, "The German Counteroffensive in the Ardennes," in Greenfield, Command Decisions, pp. 342-57; MacDonald, Mighty Endeavor, pp. 356-67; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 359-72; Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 573-82. Maurice Matloff, "The 90-Division Gamble," in Greenfield, Command Decisions (Second Edition, Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1900), pp. 365-81, is relevant to the question of the adequacy of American troop reserves. 65 Bradley, op. cit., pp. 455-95; Chandler, op. cit., IV, chap. XXV and chap. XXVI to p. 2483; Cole, The Ardennes, chaps. V-XXV; Craven and Cate, op. cit., III, 682-711; D. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., chap. XVIII; J. S. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., chaps. X-XVII, XIX; MacDonald, Mighty Endeavor, pp. 367-405; Montgomery, Memoirs, chap. XVIII; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 372-97, 404; Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 580-614. 66 Ambrose, Supreme Commander, pp. 571-76, 579-89, 606-12; Chandler, op. cit., IV, 2450-54, 2510- 11, 2537, 2539-42, 2551-53, 2557-58; D. D. Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 370, 395-96. Hogan, David. “Northern France 25 July-14 September,” In The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II, 1-31. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, Pub. 72-30. H404RC-218 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H404: LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe Reading H404RC Northern France: 25 July-14 September 1944 by David Hogan Introduction World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us from that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge. While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and military implications of a war that, more than any other, united us as a people with a common purpose. Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the nation’s 50th anniversary commemoration of World War II. The commemoration will include the publication of various materials to help educate Americans about that war. The works produced will provide great opportunities to learn about and renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been called “the mighty endeavor.” World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are designed to introduce you to one of the Army’s significant military feats from that war. This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by David W. Hogan. I hope this absorbing account of that period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II. GORDON R. SULLIVAN General, United States Army Chief of Staff Northern France 25 July–14 September 1944 As July 1944 entered its final week, Allied forces in Normandy faced, at least on the surface, a most discouraging situation. In the east, near Caen, the British and Canadians were making little progress H404RC-219 against fierce German resistance. In the west, American troops were bogged down in the Norman hedgerows. These massive, square walls of earth, five feet high and topped by hedges, had been used by local farmers over the centuries to divide their fields and protect their crops and cattle from strong ocean winds. The Germans had turned these embankments into fortresses, canalizing the American advance into narrow channels, which were easily covered by antitank weapons and machine guns. The stubborn defenders were also aided by some of the worst weather seen in Normandy since the turn of the century, as incessant downpours turned country lanes into rivers of mud. By 25 July, the size of the Allied beachhead had not even come close to the dimensions that pre–D-day planners had anticipated, and the slow progress revived fears in the Allied camp of a return to the static warfare of World War I. Few would have believed that, in the space of a month and a half, Allied armies would stand triumphant at the German border. Strategic Setting The Allied assault on the German-held Continent had begun a month and a half earlier with the D- day landings on the Normandy beaches. Under the direction of General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s 21 Army Group, British and Canadian troops had consolidated their beachhead west of the Orne River, while First U.S. Army’s V and VII Corps linked up at the small port of Carentan. Both forces then pre- pared to meet the anticipated German effort to drive the invaders into the sea. Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans still expected a second landing near Calais, so they held back reserves for a major counterattack in that sector. Moreover, the few troops that the German High Command sent to Normandy were hampered by air and partisan raids on the French transportation system. Once the beachhead was secure, columns of infantry, tanks, and paratroopers under the U.S. VII Corps sealed the base of the Cotentin Peninsula and then turned north toward Cherbourg, where the Allies hoped to seize docks, warehouses, and other port facilities critical to the buildup of their forces. Cherbourg fell on 26 June, but the Germans had carried out such a thorough demolition of harbor installations that many months would pass before the port could contribute much to the Allied effort. Relying on the invasion beaches and a few minor coastal ports for the buildup of manpower and supplies, the Allies slowly expanded their lodgment southward during July. The British finally took Caen on 9 July, but Operation GOODWOOD, their much-anticipated attempt to break out into the tank country to the south, fell short of its goal. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s First Army, after a reorganiza- tion following the fall of Cherbourg, had begun a slow advance south through the marshes and hedgerows across the base of the Cotentin. In the west, Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton’s VIII Corps made scant head- way moving south through the marshes along the coast, while, further inland, VII Corps could do little better despite the exhortations of its vigorous chief, Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins. To the east, Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow’s V Corps held the Caumont sector, next to the British, while, between V and VII Corps, Maj. Gen. Charles H. Corlett’s XIX Corps converged on St. Lo, a key transportation center and site of a German corps headquarters. Little more than rubble remained of St. Lo by 18 July, the day the 29th Infantry Division entered the city and placed the flag-draped body of Maj. Thomas D. Howie, who had been killed in the attack, at the debris-choked entrance to a church in memory of those who had fallen during the struggle. For all the sacrifices of Major Howie and 40,000 fallen comrades, twelve American divisions had advanced only seven miles during the previous seventeen days of combat. By 20 July, Bradley’s First Army had reached a line running roughly from Lessay on the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula east along the Periers–St. Lo road to Caumont, a distance of about forty miles. South of the road, First Army faced more of the hedgerows and small woods which had already hindered its advance, but the terrain rose in a series of east-west ridges to a more open, rolling plateau of dry ground, pastoral hillsides, and better, more plentiful roads. If Bradley’s forces could break through the crust of the German defenses, they would reach terrain suitable for the kind of mobile warfare which the Americans preferred. H404RC-220 Under the OVERLORD plan, the Allies had hoped to hold all of Normandy west of the Seine and Brittany within ninety days of the invasion, but, as of 25 July, they were well short of that goal. Given the condition of Cherbourg and the lack of other major ports in the beachhead, possession of the Breton ports appeared critical to the ongoing buildup. Although the capacity of the invasion beaches had exceeded expectations, a major storm had wreaked havoc on ship-to-shore operations in late June, underlining the risk of relying on over-the-beach supply for too long. H404RC-221 Within the relatively narrow lodgment, the one million American troops—including thirteen infantry and four armored divisions with their equipment and supplies—were encountering severe problems of congestion, and a serious shortage of artillery ammunition existed. Nevertheless, enemy resistance showed no signs of weakening on the battlefield. Actually, the enemy situation was deteriorating, as the top Allied commanders knew from ULTRA intercepts of German radio traffic. Since D-day, the Germans had lost 250 tanks, 200 assault and antitank guns, and over 200,000 men in Normandy. Few of the lost men and equipment could be replaced quickly. Nor could the Germans match the Allied buildup in gasoline, ammunition, and other materiel, and the German Air Force, the famed Luftwaffe, had become almost invisible. Finally, unrest had shaken the German High Command. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the able theater commander, had already resigned, and the charismatic Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, head of Army Group B, had been seriously injured when his staff car was strafed by an Allied plane. Having narrowly survived a coup attempt on 20 July, Adolf Hitler directed Rundstedt’s successor, Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge, to stand firm, and Kluge had done his best to strengthen his lines, especially in the Caen area. Hitler wanted to continue to take advantage of the favorable defensive terrain in Normandy and avoid a disheartening retreat across an area with few defensible positions. Yet, as Kluge well knew, his troops would face a serious predicament in the event of a breakthrough, for they could not match Allied mobility. He and his chief subordinates—General Heinrich Eberbach, whose Panzer Group West faced the British, and General Paul Hausser, whose Seventh Army opposed the Americans—could only hope that the Allied will would finally begin to weaken in the face of the stubborn German defense. Operations In the command truck and an adjacent tent at First Army headquarters, Generals Bradley and Collins drew boundaries, set objectives, allotted troops, and otherwise prepared a plan to break through the German defenses. The Allies had already considered airborne or amphibious landings in Brittany but had rejected the notion as too risky and a distraction from the main effort. Instead, Bradley turned to Operation COBRA, a major thrust south by Collins’ VII Corps in the American center immediately following a heavy air bombardment to destroy the German defenses. Using the Periers-St. Lo road as a starting point, the 83d and 9th Infantry Divisions in the west, the 4th Infantry Division in the center, and the 30th Infantry Division in the east would seal the flanks of the penetration. After that, the motorized 1st Infantry Division, with an attached combat command from the 3d Armored Division, would then drive four miles south through the penetration to Marigny and then turn west ten miles to Coutances, cutting off most of the German LXXXIV Corps. The 3d Armored would guard the southern flank of this drive, while the 2d Armored Division, after exploiting through the gap, would establish more blocking positions to the southeast. Further east, XIX Corps, under Corlett, and V Corps, under Gerow, would launch smaller offensives to tie down German forces in their areas and prevent them from interfering with the main thrust. First Army would rely heavily on preliminary strikes by the heavy and medium bombers of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces to destroy defenses, disrupt communications and reserves, and reduce the enemy’s will to fight. Although the “heavies” usually did not perform in a tactical role, Bradley wanted the overwhelming force which they could provide, and on 19 July he flew to Great Britain to work out the details with the air chiefs. To provide a margin of safety, the assembled generals agreed that the ground troops, just before the air strikes, would withdraw about 1,200 yards from their positions along the Periers–St. Lo road, which would represent a dividing line between friend and foe. They disagreed, however, over the attack route that the aircraft would use. The air chiefs wanted a perpendicular approach, less exposed to antiaircraft fire and better able to hit simultaneously all the objectives in the target area. Bradley, however, favored a parallel approach to minimize the danger of bombs accidentally hitting his troops. Both parties apparently thought the other had accepted their views—a misunderstanding that would have dire consequences. H404RC-222 While the generals conferred, their subordinates were making their own preparations for the coming attack. After over a month in the hedgerows, American troops had become more aggressive, combat-wise, and skillful in their use of combined arms. One cavalry sergeant, using steel from German beach obstacles, welded prongs onto the nose of a tank, enabling the “rhinoceros” tank to plow straight through a hedgerow rather than climb the embankment and thereby expose its underbelly to German antitank weapons. An impressed Bradley directed the installment of the device on as many tanks as possible before COBRA. American soldiers and airmen were also working to improve coordination and communication among infantry, tanks, and planes. Maj. Gen. Elwood R. Quesada, the affable chief of IX Tactical Air Command, which provided close air support to First Army, had taken a personal interest in air support of ground troops. He encouraged close cooperation between his staff and Bradley’s, experimented with heavier bombloads for his fighter-bombers, and positioned airfields as close as 400 yards behind the front lines. At Quesada’s suggestion, First Army had its armored units install high- frequency Air Forces radios in selected tanks, enabling direct contact between tank teams and planes flying overhead. Despite the general progress, air-ground cooperation at the start of Operation COBRA proved tragically inadequate. After a week-long wait for the weather to clear, six groups of fighter-bombers and three bombardment divisions of heavies took off from bases in Great Britain on the morning of 24 July. Thick clouds over the target area caused the Allied air commander, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh- Mallory, to call off the attack, but word did not reach the heavy B–17s and B–24s. Approaching perpendicular to the front, over 300 planes dropped about 700 tons of bombs. Some of the bombs landed on the 30th Infantry Division when a faulty release mechanism caused a bomber to drop its load prematurely. The resulting 150 casualties shocked and angered Bradley and his generals, but, not wishing to give the alerted Germans any time to respond, they approved an attack for the next day with only a few changes in procedures. Once again, disaster struck. The 1,500 heavy bombers, 380 medium bombers, and 550 fighter-bombers could barely see the Periers–St. Lo road due to dust, and bombardiers again experienced difficulty in spotting targets and judging release points. “Short bombings” killed 111 American soldiers, including the visiting chief of Army Ground Forces, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, who had done so much to organize and train the Army prior to its deployment overseas. Stunned by the short bombings, American troops made little initial progress. The westernmost unit in the attack, the 330th Infantry of the 83d Infantry Division, encountered fierce opposition from German paratroopers dug into the hedgerows. In the center, despite the saturation bombing, scattered groups of enemy soldiers fought hard against the 9th Infantry Division, and the lead regiment of the 4th Infantry Division found its advance delayed by German defenders in an orchard. To the east, the 30th Infantry Division recovered enough from the short bombing to advance one mile to the town of Hebecrevon. Still, overall progress toward the close of the first day was disappointing, with many ground commanders believing that the air strikes had done as much damage to their own soldiers as to the enemy. At VII Corps headquarters, Collins faced a decision whether or not to commit his exploitation force. If a penetration existed, he would not want to give the Germans time to recover. If the German line remained unbroken, however, commitment of his armor and motorized infantry would be premature, create congestion and confusion, and leave the Americans open for a counterblow. Noting an absence of coordination in the German defense, he decided to gamble. On the afternoon of 25 July, Collins directed his mechanized reserves to attack the following morning. He had made the right decision. As American infantry and armor advanced on the morning of 26 July, the extent of damage to the Germans became clear. The air strikes had thoroughly demoralized several units and so disrupted communications that the German High Command lacked a clear picture of the H404RC-223 situation. At the center of the penetration, the Panzer Lehr Division had virtually ceased to exist as a fighting force. While the 330th Infantry was still encountering stiff resistance, the 9th, 4th, and 30th Infantry Divisions reported impressive gains through the morning of the 26th, and American armor had moved through the gap and headed south. At Marigny, the 1st Infantry Division had a tough fight with the 353d Infantry Division. By the afternoon of 27 July, though, 1st Division had cleared the town and, along with Combat Command B of the 3d Armored Division, driven five miles west toward Coutances in an effort to trap the German LXXXIV Corps along the west coast of the Cotentin. The rest of the 3d Armored managed to push south and west through bomb craters, wrecked vehicles, and traffic to cover the flank of the 1st Division’s drive, while, on VII Corps’ eastern flank, the 2d Armored Division advanced through weak opposition to reach its COBRA objectives by the morning of 28 July. Despite VIII Corps’ efforts to pin down the Germans in the western Cotentin, most of LXXXIV Corps escaped the closing trap, but it left behind a vast store of equipment. Notwithstanding the escape by LXXXIV Corps, the magnitude of First Army’s breakthrough created opportunities unforeseen in the original COBRA plan—opportunities which Bradley moved quickly to exploit. On the evening of 27 July, he turned the attack to the south in the direction of Avranches, the gateway to Brittany. He ordered his corps chiefs to maintain unrelenting pressure, allowing the enemy no time to regroup his forces. Given the rapid pace of operations, Bradley phrased his orders in rather general terms, specifying only that Corlett’s XIX Corps take Vire, an old, fortified town and critical transportation center slightly over twenty miles southeast of St. Lo. Corlett would require ten days of hard fighting to take Vire, but the tough battle waged by his XIX Corps freed VII and VIII Corps to exploit the breakthrough. Moving west of the Vire River and then heading south toward Vire, XIX Corps ran into two panzer divisions which Kluge had rushed into the breach as the nucleus of a counterattack force. For the next four days, the two sides battled around the small crossroads town of Tessy-sur-Vire, which finally fell to Combat Command A of the 2d Armored on 1 August. Although the XIX Corps had not yet reached Vire, it had blocked German efforts to reestablish a defensive line. Freed from concern for its flank, the VII Corps continued its drive south, while the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions of VIII Corps rolled down the coastal road into Coutances on 28 July and then to the picturesque, seaside city of Avranches on 30 July. The capture of Avranches opened the way for an advance west to the critical Breton ports. As July turned to August, changes in the American command structure brought a dynamic new figure to the stage. Overbearing, often profane, yet also sensitive and deeply religious, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., had already earned a reputation as an outstanding field general, as well as a frequently difficult subordinate, in North Africa and Sicily. Few, if any, commanders in World War II could match his talent for mobile warfare, his ability to grasp an opportunity in a rapidly changing situation, and his relentless, ruthless drive in the pursuit. The buildup and expansion of the Allied lodgment had now reached the point where Bradley could bring the Third Army headquarters and its flamboyant leader into the field. He himself assumed command of the new 12th Army Group, and Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges, a modest and competent professional, took his place at First Army. Third Army would command VIII Corps and the new XV, XX, and XII Corps, while First Army retained control of the V, XIX, and VII Corps. Although introduction of an American army group was supposed to be followed by the assumption of overall command in the field by the Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower deferred this step until he could physically establish his headquarters on the Continent. In the meantime, he allowed Montgomery to coordinate both army groups in the field. H404RC-224 Turning the corner at Avranches, Patton’s Third Army raced west into Brittany. Hitler had ordered his troops to hold the ports “to the last man,” tying down American units and keeping the ports out of Allied hands as long as possible. However, German disarray enabled the Allies to send only VIII Corps into Brittany, rather than the entire Third Army as earlier planned. At Patton’s direction, Middleton flung the 4th Armored Division toward Quiberon Bay to cut off the peninsula at its base, while the 6th Armored Division drove from Avranches west toward Brest at the extreme tip of Brittany, bypassing strong-points along the coast in an effort to seize the port before the Germans could react. Eager to finish its work and join the main drive farther east, the 4th Armored seized Rennes and encircled Lorient, on the southern coast of Brittany. The 6th Armored covered the 200 miles to Brest in five days, but the tankers found the city’s defenses too strong to take by a quick thrust. Not until 18 September did VIII Corps units finally batter their way into Brest and force the garrison’s surrender. To the east, it took a rugged, house-by- house fight by the 83d Infantry Division to occupy the ancient Breton port of St. Malo. By the time the Breton harbors came under Allied control, demolitions had rendered them useless, but events to the east had already reduced them to minor importance. The Allies had moved quickly to take advantage of the dangling German flank east of Avranches. By 3 August, Montgomery and Bradley had decided to send just one corps into Brittany and turn the rest of 12th Army Group east in an effort to destroy the German Seventh Army west of the Seine. Under Patton’s Third Army, Maj. Gen. Wade H. Haislip’s XV Corps, which had been acting as a shield for the VIII Corps’ move into Brittany, drove east to Mayenne, Fougeres, and Laval, scattering the few German units in its path. To the north, Hodges’ First Army ran into tougher opposition, particularly on the V Corps and H404RC-225 XIX Corps fronts, where Gerow and Corlett were encountering stubborn resistance in their advance toward Vire. Collins’ VII Corps enjoyed easier going on First Army’s right, capturing the key road center of Mortain and racing south to link up with the XV Corps at Mayenne. American troops were moving rapidly, but Bradley viewed with great unease the narrow Mortain-Avranches corridor which connected his far-flung units. Bradley’s unease was well founded. Faced with a choice between attempting to reconstruct a defensive line in Normandy and withdrawing, Hitler opted for the former alternative. On 2 August, he directed Kluge to counterattack from the Vire area west to the sea, cutting off Third Army and restoring the German front. As so often happened in the Normandy Campaign, German efforts to prepare the blow were marked by a lack of coordination and communication, a problem only enhanced by the mutual distrust between Hitler and his generals following the July coup attempt. Confronted with a desperate situation, Kluge lacked the time to prepare the massive stroke that Hitler had in mind, and his buildup was hurried and disjointed. By the time the Germans launched their attack in the early morning darkness of 7 August, Kluge had been able to assemble only three panzer divisions with a fourth panzer division ready for exploitation, a far cry from the full panzer army that Hitler had envisioned. Nevertheless, the attack gave the Americans plenty of trouble. Achieving surprise, the Germans drove as much as six miles into the American front, particularly in the Mortain area where the 2d SS Panzer Division overran positions that had only just been occupied by the 30th Infantry Division. By daylight, however, the German thrust was already faltering. Disorganized in the attack, the 2d SS Panzer Division in the center had been able to employ only a single column in the early stages, and the 116th Panzer Division in the north had not attacked at all. On the 2d SS Panzer Division’s front, a battalion of the 30th Division dominated the battle area from Hill 317 just outside Mortain, beating off every attack sent against it. Supplied by air drops, the unit held for four days until its relief, calling down artillery fire on German formations in the surrounding area and earning for its division the title “Rock of Mortain.” Meanwhile, as Allied aircraft pummeled the Germans, Bradley, Hodges, and Collins sent the 4th Infantry Division into the northern flank of the penetration while the 2d Armored and 35th Infantry Divisions struck from the south. By late afternoon, Kluge was convinced that the offensive had failed, but at Hitler’s direction he continued to press the attack. H404RC-226 H404RC-227 Hitler’s obstinacy created a golden opportunity for the Allies. Assured by Hodges that First Army could hold at Mortain, Bradley presented Montgomery with a proposal on 8 August. From the eastern end of the crescent, which represented the Allied front, First Canadian Army had started an offensive toward Falaise, and Bradley now proposed that Patton’s Third Army, on the extreme southwest, drive across the German rear to link up with the Canadians and trap the Germans in a gigantic pocket. While Montgomery had set his eye on an even deeper envelopment to the Seine, he accepted Bradley’s plan and issued orders providing for a linkup between the Canadians and the Americans just south of the town of Argentan. From Le Mans, which it had reached on 8 August, Haislip’s XV Corps drove toward Argentan. A 25-mile gap lay between Haislip’s forces and VII Corps’ flank at Mayenne, but the Germans were too widely dispersed to take advantage of XV Corps’ exposed position. On 12 August, XV Corps troops seized Alencon, about twenty-five miles south of Argentan, and Patton authorized a drive north toward Argentan and Falaise to meet the Canadians, who, slowed by fierce opposition and command inexperience, were still far north of Falaise. At this point, Bradley halted Third Army short of Argentan, despite Patton’s vigorous protests and jovial offers to “drive the British into the sea for another Dunkirk.” The order remains the subject of considerable controversy, with many arguing that Bradley should have crossed the army group boundary line and completed the encirclement. Bradley himself later criticized Montgomery for failing to act more vigorously to close the gap, although he had never recommended to Montgomery an adjustment of the army group boundary to permit the Americans to advance farther north. The American commander later recalled his concern about the potential for misunderstanding as Canadian and American units approached one another, but he also admitted that the army groups could have designated a landmark or tried to form a strong double shoulder to minimize accidents. A more probable consideration in Bradley’s decision was his anxiety, possibly based on secret ULTRA intercepts, that American forces were becoming overextended and vulnerable to an attack by the German divisions believed to be fleeing through the gap. In his memoirs, Bradley stated he was willing to settle for a “solid shoulder” at Argentan in place of a “broken neck” at Falaise. Actually, as of 13 August, few German units had left the pocket. Kluge wanted to form a protective line on each salient shoulder to cover the withdrawal of his forces to the Seine, but Hitler, still planning a drive to the sea, refused to approve it. On 11 August, the Fuehrer had authorized a withdrawal from the Mortain area to counter the growing threat to Seventh Army’s rear, but only as a temporary measure prior to a renewal of the offensive to the west. The troops in the pocket, however, were unable to mount a major, coordinated blow in any direction. Lacking resources, especially fuel and ammunition, and under pressure from the repeated Allied blows, they could do little more than fight a series of delaying actions around the fringes of their perimeter. On 15 August, Kluge’s staff car was strafed by Allied planes, and the field marshal was left stranded for twenty-four hours, arousing Hitler’s suspicions that he was trying to broker a deal with the Allies. When Kluge finally reappeared, he recommended an immediate withdrawal from the pocket. A sullen Hitler agreed but replaced Kluge with Field Marshal Walther Model, whose loyalties were beyond question. During his return to Germany, the despondent Kluge committed suicide. H404RC-228 H404RC-229 Behind him, Kluge left a Seventh Army that, for all practical purposes, had ceased to exist as a fighting force. Under constant pounding from Allied air and artillery, lacking ammunition and supplies, and exhausted from endless marches on clogged roads, some German units panicked or mutinied, but others managed to maintain discipline and fought grimly to keep escape routes open through the narrowing gap. Observing the area after the battle, an American officer saw “a picture of destruction so great that it cannot be described. It was as if an avenging angel had swept the area bent on destroying all things German . . . As far as my eye could reach (about 200 yards) on every line of sight, there were . . . vehicles, wagons, tanks, guns, prime movers, sedans, rolling kitchens, etc., in various stages of destruction.” Despite Allied efforts, a surprising number of German troops had escaped by the time the Americans, Canadians, and Polish armor serving with the Canadians finally sealed the pocket on 19 August. They had left behind, though, most of their artillery, tanks, and heavy equipment as well as 50,000 comrades. H404RC-230 By then, the Allies had already turned their columns east to catch German formations trying to escape over the Seine. Still believing that most of Seventh Army had already escaped the pocket, Bradley on 14 August directed Haislip’s freewheeling XV Corps to head east for the river. Encountering little resistance, Haislip’s columns quickly covered the sixty miles to the city of Dreux and then turned northeast to establish a Seine bridgehead at Mantes Gassicourt on the night of 19–20 August. To fill the gap between XV Corps and V Corps, which had taken over the sector at Argentan, Bradley and Hodges moved Corlett’s XIX Corps from the tip of the Falaise pocket, where it had been pinched out by the British advance, to the gap. They directed Corlett to strike northeast for Elbeuf on the Seine, cutting off the retreat of German forces resisting the British and Canadian advance to the river. Starting its attack on 20 August, the XIX Corps moved rapidly, scattering or capturing German units in its path. On 25 August it battered its way into Elbeuf, leaving only a narrow, exposed sector near the mouth of the Seine for the Germans to use as an escape route. Farther south, Third Army was encountering even less opposition in its drive through the open plains north of the Loire Valley. Whether exhorting his troops at the front or scanning maps at his command post, alternately exultant in victory and raging over delays, Patton relentlessly pressed his advance to the Seine. He left only scattered detachments, reconnaissance aircraft, and French partisans to watch his long flank along the Loire. On the left, Maj. Gen. Walton H. Walker’s XX Corps, with the 7th Armored Division in the lead, reached the ancient city of Chartres, with its famous cathedral, on 18 August, while on the right the XII Corps, initially under Maj. Gen. Gilbert R. Cook and later under Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, occupied Orleans on 16 August, dashing German hopes for a defense of the Paris-Orleans gap. Bradley had initially planned to halt Third Army at those two points to permit his logistics to catch up with his advance, but, at Patton’s urging, he agreed to a further advance to the upper Seine. Walker’s XX Corps advanced through Fontainebleau to establish a bridgehead on the Seine at Melun, while the XII Corps seized a bridgehead farther upstream at Sens. By 25 August, Third Army possessed four footholds on the upper Seine. As American columns rolled through French towns during those hot, dusty days in August, they were met by a jubilant populace aware that their arrival signified the end of German occupation. In some cases, appreciative French audiences watched GIs fight their way into a town, refusing to take cover even as bullets spattered the pavement around them. Most American arrivals were not so dramatic. The Germans often departed before American troops made their appearance, as their lines of retreat were threatened by the rapid advance. This withdrawal contributed to the impression in some quarters that the Resistance, not the Allies, had liberated France. In most cases, the arrival of the Americans consisted of a few reconnaissance vehicles being met by a delegation on the outskirts of town. Then the celebrations would begin as church bells rang and townspeople cheered, sang, danced, and produced bottles of wine hoarded for the occasion. The American liberators were serenaded, hugged, kissed, and showered with food and drink. Not surprisingly, it was a reception that most would remember with great fondness. The celebration most anticipated by American soldiers, and by the Allies in general, was the one expected to follow the liberation of Paris. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had told Eisenhower before D-day that, if the Allies could free “beautiful Paris” by winter, he would consider it the greatest victory of modern times. As Allied columns neared the French capital in late August, however, Eisenhower appeared in no great haste to enter the city. Allied planners feared that their troops would bog down in street fighting, which would cause considerable destruction. They also were leery of becoming involved in French political disputes, which would inevitably follow liberation of the capital. Furthermore, Eisenhower’s headquarters was not eager to assume the burden of feeding the millions of people in Paris. Despite the pleadings of French officers under them, Eisenhower and Bradley much H404RC-231 preferred to bypass the city and use the supply tonnage saved to maintain the advance to the German border. Events and French pressure soon changed Eisenhower’s mind. To Frenchmen, Paris represented not just the political but also the spiritual capital of France, a symbol which must be redeemed from the occupier at the earliest possible moment. General Charles de Gaulle, head of the French Committee of National Liberation, needed Paris to solidify his position for the postwar French political struggle. Within the capital, Gaullists, Communists, and other political factions were already jockeying for position, clashing with each other and with the German garrison, which was under orders from Hitler to destroy the city before letting it fall to the Allies. Matters came to a head on 19 August, when the Resistance seized government and newspaper buildings and the city hall. The partisans lacked enough strength to expel the Germans from Paris on their own, so they agreed to a truce which would permit the garrison to use sectors of Paris in return for a German promise to release political prisoners and to treat some areas of the city as safe havens for the urban maquis. On 22 August, Resistance emissaries informed the Allied high command that the end of the truce was imminent and pleaded for help. Under pressure from de Gaulle and assured by the emissaries that the Germans were only waiting for the arrival of Allied troops to surrender, Eisenhower reconsidered his decision to bypass Paris. He now agreed to send a relief force, in part as a reward for partisan assistance during the campaign. To spearhead the drive into Paris, Eisenhower and Bradley had earlier decided to use the 2d French Armored Division, a free French unit whose commander, Maj. Gen. Jacques P. LeClerc, had been agitating for permission to liberate Paris. According to the plan prepared by Gerow’s V Corps, the French would go into Paris from the west, while the American 4th Infantry Division attacked from the south. When the French began their drive on the morning of 23 August, however, they made little initial progress. The Germans were fighting hard along the roads leading into the capital, and Americans wryly noted delays caused by crowds of Frenchmen who lined the roads bestowing flowers, kisses, and wine on their heroes. Not realizing the extent of German opposition, the American generals perceived that LeClerc’s division was “dancing its way into Paris,” and Bradley directed Hodges and Gerow to spur on the 4th Division. Irked by the prospect of the Americans beating him into Paris, LeClerc sent a special detachment of tanks into the city by back routes. By midnight of 24 August, the tankers had fought their way into the heart of the capital, and on the following day LeClerc took the surrender of the German commander in the name of the Provisional Government of France. Paris went wild with joy. Although several pockets of German soldiers still held out in various parts of the city, including 2,600 troops in the Bois de Boulogne, cheering crowds welcomed the French and American troops pouring into the capital. Entering Paris unannounced on 25 August, de Gaulle the next day made his official entry from the Place de l’Etoile to the Place de la Concorde amid thunderous acclaim, despite scattered shots from snipers. From the viewpoint of many Americans, the French were too busy celebrating to play their full part in the considerable fighting that remained in the city and its suburbs, while others believed that the French had forgotten all too quickly who had played the major role in their liberation. Gerow and his subordinates repeatedly clashed with de Gaulle and his officers over jurisdiction and the use of the 2d French Armored Division to mop the Germans still in the city. Eisenhower remained serene above the fray, telling one associate, “We shouldn’t blame them [the French] for being a bit hysterical.” He did, however, parade the 28th Infantry Division through Paris on 29 August. Eisenhower did this partly to get the division through the city quickly and to provide de Gaulle with a show of support but also to drive home to Parisians that their city had been liberated not by the Resistance but by Allied arms. H404RC-232 Whatever the importance of coalition relations in Paris, Eisenhower’s attention was diverted by other issues, including one of the major strategic disputes of the war. The Supreme Commander had already decided to continue the advance east and maintain the pressure on the retreating Germans, rather than stop at the Seine and build up his logistics as called for in the original OVERLORD plan. The question lay in how to carry out this advance east in such a way as to ensure the quickest possible termination of the war. Montgomery wanted to make the main effort in the north, using a massive drive by 21 Army Group and most of 12th Army Group into Belgium and the Netherlands and, thence, east to the Ruhr. Bradley favored a dual thrust, with 21 Army Group driving through the Low Countries on its own, while 12th Army Group, except for a single corps, attacked east to Metz and the Saar. Aware of the supply problems involved, Eisenhower viewed Montgomery’s more extravagant arguments of the advantages of a single thrust with skepticism. He could not deny, however, the benefits of such an advance, which would utilize the best invasion terrain and the most direct route to the key German industrial area of the Ruhr. The advance would also open critical channel ports and overrun launch sites of German V–1 and V–2 missiles. For the moment, he opted for the single thrust, but he would repeatedly qualify this commitment in the weeks ahead. Eisenhower’s changing decisions on strategy permitted Bradley to allot enough resources to maintain Patton’s drive on Metz. The old fortress city, a critical point in past wars, had long held a special fascination for Third Army’s commander. To reach Metz, Patton’s troops had to pass a series of river barriers made famous by World War I, including the Marne, Vescle, Aisne, Meuse, and Moselle Rivers. Fortunately for Third Army’s troops, the scattered Germans in their path lacked the strength to do much more than buy time through a series of rearguard actions. For the Americans, the ensuing pursuit in the last days of August thus proved an exhilarating experience. Reconnaissance units and cavalry fanned out over wide areas to locate river crossings and capture isolated parties of Germans, most of whom were only trying to return to the Reich as quickly as possible. Crossing the Marne, the XII Corps seized Chalons on 29 August and raced to establish a bridgehead over the Meuse on 31 August. On the left, the XX Corps passed the old World War I battlefields at Verdun and the Argonne before crossing the Meuse on 1 September. Once at the Meuse, Third Army halted temporarily to bring up supplies. To the north, advancing on the flank of 21 Army Group, Hodges’ First Army was encountering more, but still relatively unsubstantial, opposition. When the Normandy front had collapsed in late July, Hitler had realized that he might need to make a stand between the Seine and the German frontier, and he had, accordingly, ordered the construction of field works along the Somme and Marne Rivers. By the time the jumbled remnants of his western armies reached the Somme line in late August, however, they were too exhausted, disorganized, and demoralized to hold the position. First Army soon cracked the defenses, forcing the Germans to withdraw to the West Wall, a system of fortifications along the German border. As fragments of German formations passed across First Army’s front, Bradley saw a chance to cut off their retreat, and he ordered Hodges to turn his direction of advance from northeast to north. Near Mons, in a pocket formed by its three corps, First Army bagged 25,000 prisoners, demolishing what little remained of the German Seventh Army. The coup at Mons cleared the way to the West Wall, and a jubilant Hodges told his staff on 6 September that, with ten more days of good weather, the war would be over. At this point, the supply crisis, which had been looming on the horizon for weeks, reached critical proportions. Eager to maintain pressure on the Germans, the Allies had repeatedly disregarded long-term logistical considerations for immediate combat benefits, and they were beginning to pay the price. By the end of August, neither First nor Third Army had any appreciable ration or ammunition reserves. Equipment and vehicles were wearing out, and gasoline stocks were being consumed as soon as they H404RC-233 arrived. Although the Allies still lacked port capacity, the problem lay less in the amount of supplies on the Continent than in their transportation to the front. West of the Seine, the railroads had been ruined by pre–D-day bombing and sabotage, forcing the Allies to rely heavily on scarce trucks, which themselves consumed large quantities of petroleum. Furthermore, the unanticipated speed of the advance had left supply planners with little time to develop a system of intermediate depots to cover the 300 miles from the beaches to the front. Consequently, Allied logisticians had to resort to considerable improvisation, such as pressing chemical warfare and artillery trucks into service to haul supplies, using air transport and captured stocks, and instituting the Red Ball Express, two one-way truck routes to bring critical supplies forward as quickly as possible. In some places, supply officers hijacked convoys meant for other units. As supply shortages slowed the Allied advance, the Germans rushed to build up their defenses along the West Wall, which stretched from the Dutch border near Kleve to Switzerland. Begun in 1938, this line of pillboxes, troop shelters, command posts, and concrete antitank obstacles known as “dragon’s teeth” had never been completed and had fallen into disrepair over the years. Nevertheless, it at least gave the Germans a point on which to rally for the final battle for Germany. In response to the crisis, the German High Command directed the transfer of divisions from Italy and the Balkans to the West, the conversion of fortress units into replacement battalions for the front, and the organization and training of additional panzer brigades, Volksgrenadier divisions, and shadow divisions of convalescents recalled from hospitals. It also conscripted local labor to improve existing defenses, which had fallen into disrepair, and to construct new ones. As German commanders struggled to create order from chaos among the units assembling along the West Wall, Hitler brought back the veteran Rundstedt to replace Model as Commander-in-Chief, West. The return of the old campaigner boosted the morale of his dispirited troops, but he would need all of his considerable skills and, above all, time to achieve what the Germans later called the “Miracle of the West.” In the end, he would have time. As the Americans approached the West Wall and the German border, the pace of their advance was slowing and, in some cases, stopping due to the lack of gasoline. To the north, First Army’s XIX Corps paused for a few days to replenish its stocks of gasoline before continuing its advance across Belgium to the Albert Canal. To the south, First Army’s VII and V Corps crossed the German border and penetrated part of the West Wall south of Aachen before Hodges, on 10 September, halted their drive to bring up more artillery ammunition. Farther south, Patton’s Third Army had resumed the offensive on 5 September but was encountering tough resistance in its attempts to establish bridgeheads near Metz and Nancy. Logistical shortages, rugged terrain, and stiffened German resistance at the border were taking a toll on the Allied advance. Although optimism still reigned supreme in Allied councils, to the point that Bradley designated objectives on the Rhine, the heady days of the pursuit were over. Hard fighting lay ahead for the Allies in their efforts to enter the “heart of Germany” and complete the destruction of Hitler’s Third Reich. H404RC-234 H404RC-235 H404RC-236 Analysis After the war, German generals found it fashionable to blame Allied numerical and materiel superiority, as well as Hitler’s questionable conduct of the battle, for their crushing defeat in northern France. As with many such apologias, their argument is overstated but contains a grain of truth. Thanks in large part to Allied air power, partisan warfare, and their own miscalculations, due largely to skillful Allied deception plans, the Germans by late July were losing the battle of the buildup in Normandy. While they could still muster fourteen divisions to face fourteen British divisions near Caen, only a hodgepodge of nine German divisions opposed seventeen American divisions in the hedgerows. In numbers of tanks, guns, aircraft, and materiel, the Germans were operating under a greater disadvantage. The debate over the comparative quality of German and American troops remains a heated one. By late July, however, several formerly green American divisions had acquired considerable combat experience, while the German armies, which contained a sizable proportion of static divisions and non-German elements, had suffered heavy losses. Under Montgomery’s skillful, if methodical, direction, the Allies had ground down the German defense to such an extent that, by late July, it represented only a thin cordon liable to be broken at some point. Once they made the breakthrough near St. Lo, the oft-maligned American units proved much superior to their German counterparts in mobile warfare. Chester Wilmot’s comments on the natural affinity of Americans for machines and mobility may seem overly romanticized, but the speed with which the U.S. Army rolled across France in August 1944 did, indeed, inspire admiration among the other combatants. American doctrine emphasized mobility and relentless pursuit, principles which American generals, eager to avoid a return to static warfare, closely followed. Their units contained a relatively high proportion of trucks, and their tanks, while inferior in firepower and armor to comparable German models, proved more maneuverable and reliable over long distances. Thanks largely to the rapport between ground and air commanders, American aircraft worked closely with armor throughout the campaign; indeed, given the chronic shortage of artillery ammunition, air power consistently proved to be the American ace in the hole. To be sure, the U.S. Army did not solve many of the problems of logistics and command involved in mobile warfare, but the Army proved adept at improvisation. Against this highly mobile array, the largely horse-drawn Wehrmacht operated at a distinct disadvantage. Under such circumstances, Hitler’s opposition to a retreat across the open terrain north of the Loire and his efforts to restore a front in rugged Normandy become more understandable, even if they led to disaster in the Falaise pocket. Ever since Bradley’s order of 13 August, the Allied failure to close the Argentan-Falaise gap has been the source of controversy. Bradley’s later account of the action, taking full responsibility for the decision to halt XV Corps but criticizing Montgomery for not doing more to seal the gap, indicates the passions aroused by the affair. Yet despite the presence of an obsolete boundary, Bradley was under no real restriction which prevented him from sending XV Corps north toward Falaise. Of the reasons which he gave for halting Haislip, the only one that rings true was his concern that an advance toward Falaise would leave XV Corps’ flank exposed to a massive thrust by German troops within the pocket. This vulnerability may well have been reported by ULTRA and was decreasing by the hour with VII Corps’ advance northeast from Mayenne. While one can be understanding of Bradley’s decision, given the “fog of war” in the rapidly evolving situation, the attractive option of a long envelopment toward the Seine, and the fact that it was the Canadians who were supposed to meet the Americans at Argentan, he can be chided for overcaution. Bradley himself later indicated his true feelings on the subject when, facing another opportunity for an envelopment later in the war, he indicated to an aide that he would not make the same mistake twice. H404RC-237 At least in part, the failure to close the Argentan-Falaise gap can be blamed on lack of communication that resulted from growing jealousies within the coalition. In Normandy, the Montgomery-Bradley relationship had been characterized by mutual respect and deference, but friction between the two staffs had increased with Bradley’s rise to army group command and the corresponding growth in stature of the American effort within the Allied command structure. Given their successes, the Americans were less willing to accept a role subordinate to a British officer, especially one they viewed as arrogant and overly cautious. Montgomery had to defer to this growing independence while continuing to exercise responsibility for coordinating Allied movements until Eisenhower formally assumed command on the Continent. To complicate matters further, the French were already showing a dismaying tendency to go their own way on matters they considered vital to their national interest. In the cases of the Falaise gap, the liberation of Paris, the long envelopment to the Seine, establishment of boundaries, and debate over the single versus broad front, it is not surprising that coalition politics hampered the efficient exercise of command. Eisenhower’s political skills as supreme commander have often been taken for granted, but they were certainly tested during the campaign for northern France. For all the recent interest in the ULTRA secret, it does not appear that Allied access to high-level German radio traffic played a decisive role in the Northern France Campaign. When British Group Capt. F. W. Winterbotham first revealed to an astonished world in 1974 that the British had broken the German ENIGMA code early in the war and that Allied commanders had regular access to deciphered German radio intercepts, many observers called for a revision of the history of World War II. At least with regard to the campaign in northern France, this does not appear to be necessary. In the case of the German attack at Mortain, Winterbotham and Ronald Lewin have claimed that ULTRA alerted Bradley four days prior to the attack. However, in a more recent work which cites directly from the documents, Ralph Bennett argues convincingly that the Allies did not receive word from ULTRA until practically the eve of the attack. The evidence on ULTRA’s role during the action at the Falaise gap is more inconclusive, but it does appear that ULTRA, at the least, provided much useful data and, at the most, may well have caused Bradley to halt XV Corps near Argentan. In general, ULTRA appears now to have been a valuable tool, particularly in confirming data from other sources, but it did not win the campaign in northern France. For the U.S. Army, the campaign represented one of its most memorable moments during World War II. The pursuit across France showed the Army at its slashing, driving best, using its mobility to the fullest to encircle German formations and precluding any German defensive stand short of their own frontier. American troops would long cherish memories of triumphant passages through towns, basking in the cheers of a grateful, adoring populace. More informed observers would point to D-day as the point at which German defeat became inevitable, but the Northern France Campaign drove home to almost all that Germany had lost the war. While Hitler could still hope that secret weapons or a surprise counteroffensive would retrieve his fortunes, and while destruction of the Nazi regime would in the end take a longer, harder fight than seemed likely to jubilant Allied troops in mid-September, the Allies in northern France had taken a giant step toward ultimate victory. H404RC-238 Further Readings The primary work on the U.S. Army’s campaign in northern France during the late summer of 1944 remains Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (1961) from the Army’s official series, U.S. Army in World War II. From the same series, Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command (1954) and volume 1 of Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies (1953), cover respectively grand strategy and logistical prob-lems. General studies which cover the campaign include Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944–1945 (1981); Carlo D’Este, Decision in Normandy (1983); Nigel Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield: Monty’s War Years, 1942-1944 (1983); and Chester Wilmot’s classic and controversial The Struggle for Europe (1952). See also Martin Blumenson’s, The Battle of the Generals (1993) and The Duel for France (1963), Eddy Florentin, The Battle of the Falaise Gap (1967), David Mason, Breakout: Drive to the Seine (1968), James Lucas and James Barker, The Battle of Normandy: The Falaise Gap (1978), and Richard Rohmer’s polemical Patton’s Gap (1981). Focusing on the controversial order to halt Third Army short of Argentan is Martin Blumenson, “General Bradley’s Decision at Argentan (13 August 1944),” in Kent R. Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions (1959). For more on ULTRA, see Ralph Bennett, ULTRA in the West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944–1945 (1979), and Ronald Lewin, ULTRA Goes to War (1978). Some of the more prominent reminiscences of American generals associated with the campaign include Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story (1951), Martin Blumenson, ed., The Patton Papers (1974), and J. Lawton Collins, Lightning Joe (1979). For more on the short bombing preceding COBRA, see John J. Sullivan, “The Botched Air Support of Operation COBRA,” Parameters 18 (March 1988): 97–110. A popular work on the liberation of Paris is Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Is Paris Burning? (1965). CMH Pub 72–30 Cover: The Arc de Triomphe forms a backdrop for U.S. troops on parade in Paris. (National Archives) PIN : 072926–000 Andidora, Ronald. “The Autumn of 1944: Boldness is Not Enough.” Parameters (1987): 71-80. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0671 E H404ORB-239 US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010 Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power H404: LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe Reading H404ORB The Autumn of 1944: Boldness is Not Enough by Ronald Andidora* When the Western Allies planned the campaign that would liberate France from the Nazis, they envisioned a steady, methodical advance from Normandy to the German frontier. Instead, the campaign developed into two distinctly different types of fighting. From 6 June until 25 July 1944, the Western Front was a virtual stalemate in which each Allied offensive gained little ground at great cost in men and equipment. But the campaign thereafter became a war of movement which quickly caught up with and then exceeded the pre-invasion timetable. On 25 July the Americans launched Operation Cobra, the offensive that would end the stalemate in Normandy. Previous British offensives had been largely unsuccessful. However, whether by design or circumstance, these British efforts had caused the Germans to concentrate the bulk of their armored strength on their right flank. Thus, when the Americans attacked against the German left, they were finally able to achieve the decisive breakthrough that had eluded their British allies. The initial success of Operation Cobra was exploited by simultaneous advances west into Brittany and east into the heart of France. The effort in Brittany was intended to secure ports through which supplies could be transported to the combat divisions. The eastward advance was aimed at enveloping the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army, which included most of the German mechanized units in France. Adolf Hitler inadvertently aided Allied strategy by ordering a counterattack at Mortain on 7 August. This had the effect of driving German forces deeper into the pocket that the Allied envelopment was creating. Once the counterattack had been blunted, the Germans began a frantic retreat to avoid encirclement. Most German divisions were able to escape before the pocket was closed at Falaise on 21 August, but these divisions were hollow formations nearly devoid of their combat elements. The envelopment that culminated at Falaise resulted in the collapse of German resistance in northern and central France. Because of the magnitude of the German collapse, General Eisenhower chose to abandon plans to halt and consolidate at the Seine, and instead continued the pursuit without pause. Eisenhower's subordinates welcomed this opportunity to destroy the German army before it could catch its breath. However, there soon developed among them distinctly different views as to how the pursuit should be conducted. The original plan called for entrance into Germany on two complementary, self-supporting axes, one north of the Ardennes, one to its south. This has since become known as the "broad front." To guarantee *Ronald W. Andidora is an attorney for the Pennsylvania Senate. He is a graduate of the University of Scranton (Pa.) and the Dickinson School of Law, Carlisle, Pa. Mr. Andidora was in the Army in 1970-1972, serving a tour in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. H404ORB-240 mutual supportability, a continuous front had to be maintained between the two axes. However, the strategy did not require an equal dispersal of forces along the entire front. Both General Patton, commanding the American Third Army, and General Montgomery, commanding the British ground forces, soon concocted their own alternative approaches. Each would forsake the other's advance and throw all available resources into his own "single thrust" into Germany and on to early victory. Patton's thrust in the south would proceed through Lorraine, penetrate the West Wall fortifications (Siegfried Line) and capture the Saar. Montgomery's northern thrust would advance through Holland, flank the West Wall, cross the Rhine and seize the Ruhr. Each would eventually move on to Berlin. Eisenhower chose to stay with the broad front, although in a modified form, which placed greater emphasis on the axis north of the Ardennes. The wisdom of this decision is still a subject of some controversy. However, an examination of the options available in the autumn of I 944 shows that the single thrust was a product of self-delusion, with more prospects for disaster than for success. Its proponents attributed too much value to boldness. The strongest factor supporting the southern thrust by Patton was his position in the vanguard of the Allied advance. When the British were just beginning to cross the Seine with infantry units, Patton had armored spearheads advancing 90 miles beyond the river. But the Saar was only a secondary objective. The Ruhr was the main prize and had already been designated as the focal point for the initial Allied advance into Germany.1 Patton was not geographically situated to effect its early capture. Geography opposed the southern thrust in other ways. The Lorraine plateau was not good tank country and lacked adequate airfields. The terrain of central Germany was not conducive to further advances out of the Saar. ...._.. Thrust by US 12th Atmy Group t:::::::C> Thrnst by British 21st Army Gtoup

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H404ORB-241

It may be argued that Patton’s abilities as commander best suited him to lead any lightning
stroke into Germany. More than any other general, Patton had put his personal stamp on the Allies’
whirlwind advance through France. However, Patton’s abilities as commander could not inflate the
relatively low importance of the Saar. The value of the Ruhr alone would have swung the balance to
the northern approach.

Further, the circumstances which had highlighted Patton’s abilities over the previous weeks were
rapidly changing. Patton’s success in France had been based on maneuver, not hard fighting. His
victories were measured in captured territory rather than destroyed enemy forces. 2 Soon, the terrain
over which his troops would advance would be more restrictive. The Third Army would be confronted
with the fortress complex at Metz and the forts of the West Wall. Although the West Wall was not
fully manned, its existence was still an impediment to mobile operations. Metz would prove to be an
even greater impediment. Too large to be ignored and requiring too many troops to be satisfactorily
contained, Metz would have to be taken before any major attempt could be made to pierce the West
Wall. This required direct assault and was not actually accomplished until November. Patton’s
genius, while brilliantly matched to mobile pursuit, added nothing to his ability to overcome the
obstacles that would soon face him. Therefore, even his generalship could not be counted as a factor
supporting his proposed offensive.

The strongest argument in support of Montgomery was the importance of his objective. The Ruhr
was Germany’s greatest industrial region and was essential to the German war effort. In addition,
geography supported Montgomery’s plan. Proximity to England and the Channel ports, the abundant
airfields of the Low Countries, and the prospects for exploitation across the North German Plain all
enhanced the likelihood of its success. The northern thrust was clearly the more desirable of the proposed
alternatives to the broad front.

Montgomery originally intended to send “a solid mass of some forty divisions” into the Ruhr. He
later clarified his destination as “Berlin via the Ruhr.”3 This was quite simply impossible, however, in the
autumn of 1944. The reason is found in that unglamorous but essential component of warfare: logistics.

By September 1944, the Allies were supporting more divisions at greater distances than had been
anticipated in pre-invasion planning. American planning called for the support of 12 divisions on the
Seine by 4 September, and no action beyond the river until October. In actuality, the US Army was
attempting to sustain an eastward advance of 16 divisions with some elements operating 150 miles
beyond the Seine. This had to be done without the use of Brittany’s ports which, contrary to pre-invasion
projections, were not yet discharging supplies.4

The major problem confronting Allied logisticians was not the transportation of supplies to the
Continent, but rather their delivery to the battlefront. This resulted not so much from the number of
divisions or their location as it did from the circumstances of their advance. The rapid pace of the
advance in July and August had given the Allies insufficient time to develop the depot system that was
necessary to leapfrog supplies to the front. Furthermore, resources that were needed to establish the depot
system were instead diverted directly to the divisions to sustain their advance. Thus, on 1 September over
90 percent of all supplies in France were in base depots near the invasion beaches.5 These supplies had to
be delivered directly to the divisions at the front. This meant a one-way trip of 300 miles for the British
and an even longer one for the Americans. The French railway system was no help, owing largely to the
skill of the Allied airmen who had destroyed it. This left truck transport as the principal means of supply,
supplemented somewhat by airlift. This was not satisfactory; the truck companies had never been
intended to deliver so much cargo over such long distances.

H404ORB-242
Under these circumstances, Allied planners calculated they had the ability to support three British
and two American corps into the Ruhr, and two British and one American corps all the way to Berlin. To
accomplish even this, the Allies had to maintain an airlift of 2000 tons per day and the Americans had to
remove truck transport from their remaining divisions. The diversion of transport would effectively result
in immobilizing the American Third Army as well as replacement divisions which had landed in
Normandy but had not yet reached the front.6

These calculations were based on a division’s average daily supply consumption of 650 tons. Yet
Allied divisions had actually been consuming 300 to 350 tons per day during their advance through
France.7 It might seem that the planners’ estimates were too pessimistic and constituted an unwarranted
impediment to sending a much larger force into Germany. However, the 350-ton figure had resulted from
a pursuit through a friendly country in the summer months. An advance into Germany would be a battle
on hostile soil in the fall and winter. Each difference would aggravate the supply situation.

Further, the reduced consumption during the pursuit through France was more a matter of necessity
than one of choice. It had been achieved by cheating on non-essential supplies and deferring required
maintenance on vehicles. This policy had been stretched to its limit by September. The situation with
regard to medium tanks is indicative of the problem. Although most armored units were near their
authorized strength, many of their machines were on the verge of breakdown. For example, by mid-
September the 3rd Armored Division was averaging less than 75 medium tanks in front-line condition out
of an authorized strength of 232.8

Finally, it is necessary to consider the increased amounts of food, fuel, and clothing which would
be needed to sustain each soldier in colder weather. The logisticians thus showed good judgment by
adhering to their “pessimistic” estimate.

An army corps normally contained three divisions at that time, so logistical planners projected a
northern thrust of 15 divisions. Montgomery, now a field marshal, also realized that logistical
constraints would severely dilute the composition of his proposed offensive into Germany.
Accordingly, he reduced its size to the 18 divisions constituting the British Second Army and the
American First Army. An examination of Allied truck assets and an assumption that projections for
air supply were correct shows that it was just barely possible to support 18 divisions into the Ruhr.9
This left no margin for error and still required the immobilization of the Third Army and the newly
arrived American divisions. Thus, even Montgomery’s more optimistic logistical assessment yielded
him only three additional divisions. Of course, not all of these 18 divisions could be supported all the
way to Berlin. This situation was profoundly different from the “forty division mass” Montgomery
had initially envisioned. Originally, the northern thrust would have employed all the Allied divisions
then available in northern and central France. Now, by his own admission, the Field Marshal’s
offensive could employ less than half of this force.

Yet, Montgomery continued to champion the reduced northern thrust with undiminished
expectations. It seems the height of optimism to believe that a force of between 15 and 18 divisions could
force the Rhine, take the Ruhr and Berlin, and in the process end all German resistance. But optimism
had reached euphoric proportions in the Allied camp, bolstered by an almost universal belief that German
morale was ready to crack.

A great portion of the Allied leadership and their staffs did not believe that the German army could
recover its ability to offer cohesive resistance on a broad scale. Even the loyalty of the German military
leadership was in question, as evidenced by the 20 July attempt on Hitler’s life. The intelligence section
of the American First Army went so far as to predict civil uprisings within Germany itself.10 Dissenters,
such as Patton’s G-2 Colonel Koch, were admonished not to worry about “imaginary dangers.”11 This

H404ORB-243
view, though understandably appealing, was entirely incorrect. The German army had emerged from
Falaise with emaciated combat elements, but with its corps and divisional headquarters largely intact.
These headquarters were able to organize a very effective resistance once they were fleshed out with
replacements. The pool of German manpower was far from expended. Eighty “fortress” infantry
battalions were moved from the German interior to the Western Front. More troops were garnered by
reducing the number of civil administrators, transferring trainees from the navy and air force, calling up
soldiers on leave, and utilizing convalescents. The German people responded to the emergency with
determination and sacrifice, not revolt and insurrection. Their will to resist was only strengthened by
Allied bombing and demands for unconditional surrender.12

An invading force would meet this toughening resistance with its own declining ability to fight.
Vehicle attrition and the necessity to allocate forces to secure the invasion’s flanks and supply lines
would dilute its combat power. Its air support would be diminished because forward airfields would be
preoccupied with the airlift of supplies.

The experience of Operation Market-Garden, Montgomery’s less-ambitious offensive launched on 17
September, is illustrative of the Allies’ inability to advance in the face of increasing German resistance.
The British Second Army, with priority of supply and the use of three airborne divisions, was able to
advance only 60 miles in six days. The flanks of the salient that it carved out were subject to heavy
counterattack even as its spearhead moved forward. The offensive was not able to achieve its objective of
a Rhine crossing at Arnhem, which was merely the first step of any advance into Germany. This force
contained three of the six corps which were supposed to take the Ruhr and Berlin and end the war. It is
hard to imagine how the additional US divisions would have so drastically increased the capabilities of
this force, especially since German resistance was bound to be even tougher within Germany itself.

Also, the power of Montgomery’s northern thrust would not even amount to “Market-Garden
plus the American First Army.” Since his larger operation required a portion of air transport just
to supply the ground forces, it could not have employed the airborne divisions and the entire First
Army simultaneously.

It can be argued that Montgomery did not get all he had asked for in Market-Garden and did not
launch it as soon as he would have liked. But that misses the point completely. The relevant fact is
that the whole conception of the single thrust was based on a faulty premise. The German nation had
no intention of surrendering merely because an Allied army made an appearance on its soil. German
resistance would have coalesced somewhere within Germany. The logical place for this was the
Ruhr. Essential to Germany, it was also an ideal defensive position. The Ruhr contained 20 major
cities and a maze of industrial complexes. Furthermore, it was traversed by three canal systems.
Realistically, the Allied effort could not have been expected to accomplish more than the capture of
the Ruhr. Yet, if the Ruhr was such a crucial asset, wouldn’t its prospective capture justify the
northern thrust? It would not, for the following reasons.

First, in light of the increasing German ability and disposition to fight, the speedy capture of the
Ruhr was not a foregone conclusion. An envelopment would have been the preferred approach. But
the lack of Allied activity elsewhere would have allowed the Germans to concentrate all available
resources against the perimeter of the encirclement. Troops still inside the Ruhr could attack
outward against the same perimeter. Any attempt to clear the Ruhr of these troops would likely
develop into an urban slugging match in which the Allied trump cards of artillery and air power
could not be employed to their maximum effectiveness.

H404ORB-244
Second, in order to undertake the effort, the Allies would have had to forsake other valid objectives.
These included cutting off the German troops who were retreating from southern France and clearing
German troops from the approaches to Antwerp. The latter was necessary before the port could be used
to break the logistical logjam. Canadian troops were poised to open Antwerp simultaneously with the
thrust into Germany; however, their initial attempts failed and they were unable to accomplish their task
until they received the support of an American division and an entire British corps. This support would
not have been available if the northern thrust had been launched, since the British would have been in
Germany and the American division would have been grounded for lack of fuel and transport.

Third, the lack of logistical support would have exposed Patton to possible counterattack. This
counterattack did come later in September, with disastrous results for the Germans. The outcome might
have been different had the Third Army been rendered immobile. The ability to maneuver was especially
crucial to American tanks because their inadequate armament usually forced them to engage their
German counterparts from the flank or rear.

Fourth, and most important, the forces comprising the northern thrust would themselves have been
exposed to counterattack. They would have been tangled in an urban complex, at the end of a shaky
supply line, with weak flank protection, and with diminishing air support. The German army had faced a
similar situation two years earlier in a place called Stalingrad.

A major German counteroffensive was launched in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944. A British
historian called this the “penalty” Eisenhower paid for his broad-front strategy.13 This is perhaps the
cruelest myth that has arisen from the broad front versus single thrust controversy. It implies that
Eisenhower’s decisions in September were somehow responsible for adverse consequences in December.
This myth is founded on the fallacy that there were adverse consequences to the Ardennes
counteroffensive that were avoidable. The Battle of the Bulge did result in heavy American casualties.
But these were avoidable only in the minds of wishful thinkers who believe the German nation could
have been defeated without additional heavy fighting. Its other consequences were hardly adverse to the
Allies. The American were able to shift forces from both north and south of the threatened area in order
to contain, blunt, and destroy the counterthrust. German spearheads ran out of fuel at Stoumont and
Celles. The counteroffensive failed completely, resulting in the destruction of German mobile
reserves on the Western Front.

The Allied victory can be traced to two factors: the mutually supporting Allied disposition of
forces, and the German inability to support their counteroffensive logistically. Both of these factors
are directly attributable to Eisenhower’s decision to retain the broad front as the means of advancing
into Germany. Mutual supportability was one of the broad front’s foundations. After the failure of
Market-Garden, the desire to preserve this condition required a halt west of the Rhine. This
positioning limited German options to either passive defense or offensive operations west of the
Rhine, with their accompanying logistical difficulties. Hitler followed his custom of opting for bold
offensive initiatives and chose to attack despite those difficulties.

If the Allies had pursued the strategy of the single thrust, Hitler would have had the opportunity
to launch his counterattack against an exposed salient east of the Rhine. Neither of the Allied
conditions of victory in the Ardennes would have been present under these circumstances. The force
in the Ruhr could have expected little support from the grounded American divisions. The Third
Army would have been over 100 miles away, with empty fuel tanks. The Germans could have further
insured against a relief effort by using the Rhine as a buffer for their left flank.

Also, the logistical shoe would have been on the other foot, easing the German burdens and
increasing those of the Allies. Finally, Allied airpower, which was instrumental in the Ardennes

H404ORB-245
victory once the weather allowed its employment, would have been less effective over the Ruhr.
Conversely, the Luftwaffe would have been more active over its own territory. Considering all of
these factors, the “penalty” for use of the northern thrust could have been much greater than that
incurred in the Ardennes. It could have yielded even greater losses of men and material; it could have
yielded disaster rather than victory.

Eisenhower was, on his part, overly optimistic in early September, but not to the point of
relinquishing his hold on a realistic perception of German strength within the Reich. He supported
Montgomery’s attempt to gain a quick bridgehead across the Rhine. However, Eisenhower intended
no further advance into Germany until the Rhine also had been crossed on a wide front and the Allied
armies had paused for what he considered inevitable regrouping and refitting. 14 The failure of
Market-Garden determined that the preparations would take place west of the Rhine.

None of this is meant to imply that Eisenhower retained the broad front because of any
precognition about the Ardennes. He certainly did not anticipate Hitler’s winter counteroffensive. But
Eisenhower’s choice of strategies, made in part to avoid a debacle inside Germany, helped to avoid a
similar debacle in Belgium. It mitigated the adverse effects of the German counteroffensive and
enhanced the ability of the Allies to turn the counteroffensive to their own advantage.

The events of the last four months of 1944 thus reveal that boldness is not always a virtue in
warfare. Military decisions, as those of other disciplines, should be based on a balancing of an
objective’s value, its likelihood of attainment, and the severity of the penalty that would accompany
failure. Boldness is an asset when used to implement decisions founded on this process. It is pure
folly when cited as justification for pursuing illusory prospects for success while ignoring more
concrete prospects for disaster.

It is not surprising that the illusion of the single bold thrust has found proponents among postwar
historians. The seductive lure of the audacious masterstroke is especially potent in Western
democracies. Nations grown accustomed to instant gratification have little tolerance for a long
struggle, military or otherwise. The tendency to embrace the idea of a single thrust, with its speedy
shortcut to victory, is probably stronger today than ever before.

A close examination of the facts surrounding this particular controversy, however, reveals the
almost nonexistent foundation upon which the strategy of the single thrust was constructed. It shows
that a determined enemy is not defeated until his material ability to wage war is eliminated. Such an
examination also reaffirms that logistics is the mistress of all military operations. The commander
who forgets this runs the risk of finding himself in a position similar to that of Montgomery,
professing 40-division aspiration, but possessing 18-division resources.

Notes

1 L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1962), I, 82.
2 Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (New York: Dell, 1970), pp. 529-30; Russell F. Weigley,
Eisenhower’s Lieutenants (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1981), pp. 244-45.
3 Weigley, pp. 261, 277-78.
4 Ellis, II, 2. For an interesting insider’s account of US logistical problems, see Harold L. Mack, The Critical
Error of World War II, National Security Affairs Issue Paper 81-1 (Washington: National Defense University,
1981).
5 Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies {Washington: Dept. of the Army, 1953), I, 491. For a
compressed treatment by Ruppenthal of the concerns of the present article, see his chapter titled ”Logistics and the
Broad-Front Strategy,” in Command Decisions, ed. Kent R. Greenfield (Washington: Dept. of the Army, 1960).
6 Ibid., II, 10-11.

H404ORB-246

7 Martin van Creveld, Supplying War (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977), p. 215.
8 Weigley, p. 271.
9 Van Creveld, pp. 225-27; Weigley, pp. 280-83.
10 Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command (Washington: Dept. of the Army, 1954), p. 244.
11 Farago, p. 552.
12 H. Essame, The Battle for Germany (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 196,9), pp. 19, 22-23 .
13 Alexander McKee, The Race for the Rhine Bridges (New York: Stein and Day, 1971), p. 314.
14 Alfred D. Chandler, ed., The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), pp.
2120, 2143-44.

Gabel, Christopher R. The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944, 14-37. Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College, 1985.

H404ORC-247
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module I and Module II: Train, Deploy, and Project Power

H404: LSCO/MDO Ground Warfare: D-Day to the Elbe
Reading H404ORC

The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944

by Christopher R. Gabel

On 6 June 1944, Allied troops landed in Normandy, and the liberation of German-occupied France
was underway. Throughout June and July, Allied soldiers expanded their beachhead against stiff
resistance while building up strength for the breakout. On 25 July, American forces under the command
of LTG Omar Bradley ruptured the German defenses on the western end of the beachhead and broke into
the clear. The U.S. Third Army, under the command of LTG George S. Patton, Jr., became operational on
1 August and poured through the gap.

Thus began one of the most sensational campaigns in the annals of American military history.
Patton’s Third Army raced through a narrow corridor between the German Seventh Army and the sea,
turned the flank of the entire German line in Normandy, and tore into the German rear. Third Army
advanced in all four directions at once, with elements advancing south to the Loire River, west into the
Brittany peninsula, north to a junction with the British near Falaise, and east towards the Seine River and
Paris. (See Map 1.)

The German forces in Normandy collapsed and, barely escaping total encirclement, streamed back
toward Germany with crippling losses in men and equipment. Patton’s army pursued ruthlessly and
recklessly deep into France. Armored spearheads led the way, with infantry riding the backs of the tanks.
Overhead, fighter-bombers patrolled the flanks, reported on conditions toward the front, and attacked any
German unit that took to the roads in daylight. Al1ied forces invaded southern France on 15 August and
joined in the pursuit. With the remnants of two German army groups in full retreat, the Supreme Allied
Commander, GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower, noted in his diary on 5 September, “The defeat of the German
Army is complete.”

As Third Army neared the French border province of Lorraine, Third Army’s intelligence sources
seemed to confirm that the war was virtually over. The top-secret interceptions known as Ultra revealed
that the Franco-German border was virtually undefended and would remain so until mid-September. A
corps reconnaissance squadron reported that the Moselle River, the last major water barrier in France, was
also undefended. Patton issued orders to his corps to seize Metz and Nancy, sweep through Lorraine, and
cross the Rhine River at Mannheim and Mainz.

H404ORC-248

Soldiers and generals alike assumed that Lorraine would fall quickly, and unless the war ended first,
Patton’s tanks would take the war into Germany by summer’s end. But Lorraine was not to be overrun in
a lightning campaign. Instead, the battle for Lorraine would drag on for more than three months. Why did
the rosy predictions of August go unfulfilled? And how did it come to pass that Lorraine would be the
scene of Third Army’s bloodiest campaign?

The province of Lorraine is the most direct route between France and Germany. Bounded on the west
by the Moselle River, on the east by the Saar River, with Luxembourg and the Ardennes to the north, and
the Vosges Mountains to the south, Lorraine has been a traditional invasion route between east and west
for centuries. The province has changed hands many times. Considered a part of France since 1766,
Lorraine fell under German possession between 1870 and 1914, and again in the period 1940-44, when
Hitler proclaimed it a part of Germany proper.

Despite its proximity to Germany, Lorraine was not the Allies’ preferred invasion route in 1944.
Except for its two principal cities, Metz and Nancy, the province contained few significant military
objectives. After the campaign, a frustrated General Patton sent the following message to the War
Department:

I hope that in the final settlement of the war, you insist that the Germans retain Lorraine,
because I can imagine no greater burden than to be the owner of this nasty country where
it rains every day and where the whole wealth of the people consists in assorted manure
piles.

Map 1: European Theater

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Moreover, once Third Army penetrated the province and entered Germany, there would still be no
first-rate military objectives within its grasp. The Saar industrial region, while significant, was of
secondary importance when compared to the great Ruhr industrial complex farther north. The ancient
trading cities of the upper Rhine that had tempted conquerors for centuries were no longer of primary
rank in modern, industrialized Germany. Viewed in this light, it is understandable that the basic plan for
the European campaign called for the main effort to be made farther north, in the 21st Army Group’s
zone, where the vital military and industrial objectives lay. (See Map 2.)

Not only did Lorraine hold out few enticements, but it would prove to be a difficult battlefield as
well. The rolling farmland was broken by tangled woods and numerous towns and villages, some of
which were fortified. Because the ground rises gently from west to east, the Americans would frequently
find themselves attacking uphill. Third Army would have to cross numerous rivers and streams that ran
generally south to north and would have to penetrate two fortified lines to reach Germany—the French-
built Maginot Line and the so-called Siegfried Line, or Westwall, which stood just inside of Germany
itself. The Americans would not even be able to count on the unqualified support of Lorraine’s
inhabitants, for the Germans had deliberately colonized the province during their periods of control.

With so little going for it, why did Patton bother with Lorraine at all? The reason was that
Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, made up his mind to destroy as many German forces as
possible west of the Rhine.

Map 2: Geography of Lorraine

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Omar Bradley, Patton’s immediate superior as commander of 12th Army Group, concurred. All Allied
armies were ordered to press ahead on a broad front. In late August 1944, with the Lorraine gateway so
invitingly open, it was unthinkable to Patton that Third Army should be halted in midstride.

Unfortunately, on final fact of geography was to disappoint Patton’s hopes for the rapid dash into
Germany. Lorrain lies some 500 miles from the Normandy beaches over which Third Army still drew
much of its supply. During the August Pursuit across France, Third Army consumed 350,000 gallons of
gasoline every day. To fulfill this requirement and to meet similar demands from First Army,
Communications Zone organized the famous Red Ball Express, a nonstop conveyor belt of trucks
connecting the Normandy depots with the field armies.

At its peak, Red Ball employed 6,000 trucks that ran day and night in an operation that became more
difficult with every mile the armies advanced. To meet the demands of logistics, three newly arrived
infantry divisions were completely stripped of their trucks and left immobile in Normandy. The use of the
Red Ball Express represented a calculated gamble that the war would end before the trucks broke down,
for the vehicles were grossly overloaded and preventive maintenance was all but ignored. The Red Ball
Express itself consumed 300,000 gallons of precious gasoline every day—nearly as much as a field army.
(See Map 3.)

Thus, it was not surprising that on 28 August, with Patton’s spearheads in the vicinity of Reims, Third
Army’s gasoline allocation fell 100,000 gallons short of requirements; and since all reserves had been
burned up in the course of the pursuit, the pace of Patton’s advance began to suffer almost at once. The
simple truth was that although gasoline was plentiful in Normandy, there was no way to transport it in

Map 3: Route of the Red Ball Express

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sufficient quantities to the leading elements. On 31 August, Third Army received no gasoline at all. With
fuel tanks running dry, Patton’s spearheads captured Verdun and crossed the Meuse River.

For the next five days, Third Army was virtually immobilized. Eisenhower granted logistical priority
to the British and American armies farther north, leaving Third Army with about one-quarter of its
required daily gasoline allotments. Patton’s troops captured some gasoline from the Germans, hijacked
some from First Army depots, and received some gasoline by air, but when gasoline receipts finally
increased to the point that the advance could be resumed, the opportunity of sweeping through Lorraine
unopposed had passed. (See Map 4.)

The gasoline shortage was followed by a shortage of ammunition, particularly in the larger artillery
calibers that had not been in great demand during the fluid pursuit. When operations became more static
along the Lorraine border, there was no way to build up ammunition stocks because all available trucks
were carrying gasoline. By 10 September, Third Army’s artillery batteries received only one-third of a
unit of fire per day. Other shortages would crop up as the campaign progressed. At one time or another,
rations, clothing, mattress covers, coffee, tires, tobacco, antifreeze, winter clothing, and overshoes would
all be in critically short supply.

Third Army’s intelligence sources began to run dry at the same time as its gas tanks. Ultra intercepts
had proved invaluable during the pursuit when fleeing German units relied heavily on the radio for
communication. Ultra would continue to produce intelligence of significant strategic value, but as Third
Army approached Lorraine, Ultra provided less and less information of an operational and tactical nature.

Map 4: Third Army Positions, 1 September 1944, Lorraine

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Free French sources had cooperated actively with Third Army during the pursuit, but Lorraine, with its
partially hostile population and its swelling German garrison, was not a favorable setting for Resistance
activities. Military intelligence interpreter teams found fewer knowledgeable natives willing to be
interviewed, and the barrier posed by the Moselle River prevented the easy flow of both civilian agents
and combat patrols. Moreover, the corps commanders did not receive Ultra at all. Their corps intelligence
assets could, at best, see only 15,000 yards behind the enemy’s front.

Significantly, the American gasoline crisis and lapse in intelligence coincided with a major German
buildup in Lorraine. When Patton’s tanks sputtered to a halt, the German forces defending Lorraine
totaled only nine infantry battalions, two artillery batteries, and ten tanks. During the first week in
September, while Third Army was immobilized, German forces flowed into Lorraine from the northern
sector of the front, from southern France, and from Italy. The headquarters charged with the defense of
Lorraine was Army Group G, under the command of GEN Johannes Blaskowitz. First Army, Nineteenth
Army, and later Fifth Panzer Army were Blaskowitz’s major forces, although all were badly depleted.
Responsibility for the entire Western Front devolved upon Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had
held that post during the Normandy campaign until he told Hitler’s headquarters, “Make peace, you
fools!” Hitler restored von Rundstedt to command on 1 September and ordered the field marshal to keep
Patton out of Lorraine until the defenses along the German frontier could be built up. Von Rundstedt also
began amassing forces for a counterattack in the Ardennes that would eventually take place in December.

Few of the Germans defending Lorraine could be considered first-rate troops. Third Army
encountered whole battalions made up of deaf men, others of cooks, and still others consisting entirely of
soldiers with stomach ulcers. The G2 also identified a new series of German formations designated
Volksgrenadier divisions. (See Figure 1.) These hastily constituted divisions numbered only 10,000 men
each and possessed only six rifle battalions; in theory they were to be provided with extra artillery and
assault guns to compensate for the quantitative and qualitative inferiority of their infantry. Two or three
panzer divisions faced Third Army in a mobile reserve role, but these units had managed to bring only
five to ten tanks apiece out of the retreat across France. (See Figure 2.) Instead of rebuilding the depleted
panzer divisions, Hitler preferred to devote tank production to the creation of ad hoc formations,
designated panzer brigades, that were controlled at the corps or army level. Other formations that Third
Army would face in Lorraine included panzer grenadier (mechanized infantry divisions) and elements of
the elite Waffen SS. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 1: German Volksgrenadier Division, 1944

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Figure 2: German Panzer Division, 1944

Figure 3: German Panzer Grenadier Division, 1944

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On the eve of the autumn battles along the German frontier, von Rundstedt’s Western Front forces
were outnumbered 2 to 1 in effective manpower, 25 to 1 in artillery tubes, and 20 to 1 in tanks. But
despite its tattered appearance, the army that rose up to protect the borders of the Fatherland was not a
beaten force. When Patton’s troops received enough gasoline to resume their advance towards the
Moselle on 5 September, after a delay of nearly a week, the troops quickly discovered that the great
pursuit was over. Instead of running down the fleeing fragments of shattered German units, soldiers all
along Third Army’s front encountered enemy soldiers who contested every foot of ground and who
counterattacked viciously to recover lost positions. Third Army intelligence clearly indicated that the
Germans were no longer in headlong retreat, yet some time would pass before Patton and his corps
commanders accepted the fact that the pursuit had ended.

At the same time that Army Group G received reinforcements, Patton’s Third army was being
trimmed down. In the pursuit across France, Third Army had controlled four far-flung corps, but during
September two of those corps were detached from Patton’s command. For most of the Lorraine campaign,
Third Army would consist of two corps, the XX and the XII. Four to six infantry divisions and two or
three armored divisions would carry the bulk of the burden for the next three months. In addition to these
major combat elements, Third Army controlled two quartermaster groups totaling 60 companies, two
ordnance groups comprising 11 battalions, and six groups of engineers. An antiaircraft artillery brigade
and a tank destroyer brigade provided administrative support to their respective battalions, most of which
were attached to lower echelons. (See Figure 4.)

Each of Third Army’s two corps possessed as organic troops a headquarters with support elements
and a corps artillery headquarters. In the Lorraine campaign, two or three infantry and one or two armored
divisions were usually attached to each corps. One or two cavalry groups of two squadrons each provided
corps reconnaissance. (See Figure 5.)

Figure 4: Third Army in the Lorraine Campaign

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Corps artillery consisted of four to five field artillery groups controlled by a corps fire direction center
(FDC), which could allocate its assets to the divisions or control them itself. Corps artillery also tied into
the divisional artillery, making it possible to coordinate every field artillery tube within that corps. In the
Lorraine campaign, the corps zones became so wide that one FDC could not control all of the corps
artillery. A field artillery brigade headquarters frequently served as a second FDC, splitting the corps zone
with the corps artillery FDC.

The corps FDC system was highly efficient at massing artillery fires and proved to be extremely
responsive and flexible. On one occasion during the Lorraine campaign, an infantry unit about to make an
assault contacted XX Corps FEC with a request for artillery support. The FDC plotted the target and
issued orders to the appropriate artillery battalion. The battalion in turn assigned the mission to a battery
which delivered 67 rounds on the target. The total elapsed time from receipt of request to completion of
the mission was six minutes. At the other extreme, XII Corps artillery, aided by the 33d Field Artillery
Brigade, organized a program of fires in support of the November offensive that involved 380
concentrations over a 4-hour period.

The American infantry division in World War II was the 15,000-man triangular division, so called
because it possessed three infantry regiments, each of which consisted of three battalions, and so on. Four
battalions made up the divisional artillery, whose primary weapons were the 105-mm howitzers.
Typically, the triangular division, which was originally designed to be a “light division,” also included
plug-in components such as quartermaster trucks, extra artillery, and extra engineers. For example,
although the division could motorize only one regiment with organic truck assets, by attaching six
quartermaster truck companies, it could be made 100 percent vehicle mobile. Most infantry divisions
controlled a tank battalion and a tank destroyer battalion which was usually equipped with tank-like
vehicles. The division was capable of breaking down into regimental combat teams, each with its own
complement of artillery, engineers, armor, and tank destroyers. Regimental combat teams, however, were
not provided with support elements. The infantry division had to fight as a division. (See Figure 6.)

Figure 5: U.S. Corps, 1944

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Figure 6: U.S. Infantry Division with Attachments and Typical Task Organization

Figure 7: U.S. Armored Division with Attachments and Typical Task Organization

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The 1944 armored division was a relatively small organization of 11,000 men and 263 tanks. It
possessed three tank battalions, three battalions of armored infantry, and three battalions of self-propelled
artillery. Three task force headquarters, designated Combat Commands A, B, and R, controlled any mix
of fighting elements in battle. According to doctrine, the armored division was primarily a weapon of
exploitation to be committed after the infantry division had created a penetration. The M-4 Sherman tank
reflected this doctrine. It was mobile, reliable, and mounted a general purpose 75-mm gun in most of its
variants. In keeping with doctrine, tank destroyers and not tanks carried the high-velocity antitank guns.
(See Figure 7.)

The relationship among field army, corps, and division was prescribed by LTG Lesley J. McNair,
head of Army Ground Forces in Washington. Divisions were to be lean and simple, offensive in
orientation, with attachments made as necessary. The corps was designed to be a purely tactical
headquarters that could handle any mix of infantry and armored divisions. The field army allocated
divisions to the corps and assigned supplemental combat support and service support elements where
needed.

Logistics flowed from Communications Zone through the field army to the divisions, theoretically
bypassing the corps echelon. In actual practice, the corps did become involved in logistics, at least to the
extent of designating truck heads and allocating service support units. The typical division slice in the
European theater was 40,000 troops, of which 15,000 were organic to the division, 15,000 were corps and
army troops, and 10,000 were Communications Zone personnel.

Rounding out the weapons in Patton’s arsenal for the Lorraine campaign was the XIX Tactical Air
Command (TAC), which had cooperated with Third Army throughout the pursuit across France. Fighter-
bombers from the XIX TAC flew 12,000 sorties in support of Third Army during August, but in
September, TAC’s efforts would be divided between the Lorraine front and, the battles being waged to
reduce the German fortresses still holding out along the French coast. As the autumn wore on, XIX TAC
would be increasingly frustrated by poor weather. By this stage in the war, however, the German air force
was capable only of sporadic operations.

Thus, at the outset of the Lorraine campaign, Third Army was logistically starved, depleted in
strength, and denied the full use of its air assets. In spite of this, Patton and his superiors remained
convinced that the war could be ended in 1944. On 10 September, 12th Army Group ordered Third Army
to advance on a broad front and seize crossings over the Rhine River at Mannheim and Mainz. Patton’s
forces were already on the move.

The focus of attention in September was on XII Corps, commanded by MG Manton S. Eddy. The XII
Corps was the southern of Third Army’s two permanent corps. Its principal components were the 35th
and 80th Infantry Divisions and the 4th Armored Division. Later in the month, the 6th Armored Division
would join the corps. Eddy’s immediate objective was Nancy, one of two major cities in Lorraine.
Although unfortified, Nancy was protected by the terrain and, most important, by the Moselle River. (See
Map 5.)

The XII Corps’ first attempt to capture Nancy began on 5 September, the day that Third Army
received just enough gasoline to resume its advance. Eddy ordered 35th Division to attack Nancy from
the west. Simultaneously, the 4th Armored Division, passing through a bridgehead across the Moselle (to
be secured by 80th Division), would attack the city from the east. The plan was foiled when 80th Division
failed to obtain its bridgehead. The crossing attempt, staged at Pont-à-Mousson, was made straight off the
march, without reconnaissance, secrecy, or adequate artillery support. Such improvised operations had
worked during the pursuit, but when the 80th Division pushed a battalion across the Moselle, it collided

H404ORC-258
with the 3d Panzer Grenadier Division, just arrived from Italy. The Germans held dominating ground and
could not be dislodged. The American bridgehead collapsed, and the survivors returned to the west bank.

Following this reverse, Eddy took five days to regroup his corps and prepare a more deliberate
operation. On 11 September, a regiment of 35th Division, supported by corps artillery, established a
bridgehead across the Moselle south of Nancy and fought its way toward the city. North of Nancy, 80th
Division made a successful crossing on the following day at Dieulouard. This time secrecy and a careful
deception plan paid off. The Dieulouard bridgehead was established against little opposition and pontoon
bridges were quickly emplaced. However, once the initial surprise wore off. German reaction to the
Dieulouard bridgehead was savage. Heavy artillery fire and repeated counterattacks by 3d Panzer
Grenadier Division threatened to erase 80th Division’s bridgehead across the Moselle. (See Map 6.)

Early on the morning of 13 September, Combat Command A of 4th Armored Division began to cross
into the threatened bridgehead. The leading armored elements routed a German counterattack then in
progress and broke through the German forces containing the bridgehead. Spearheaded by 37th Tank
Battalion, under the command of LTC Creighton Abrams, and reinforced by a battalion of truck-mounted
infantry from 80th Infantry Division, Combat Command A punched into the enemy rear, overrunning
German positions with all guns firing. Operating on a front equal to the width of the lead tank and with its
supply trains accompanying the combat elements, Combat Command A covered 45 miles in 37 hours,
overran the German headquarters responsible for the defense of Nancy, and established a position
blocking the escape routes from the city. Combat Command B, which had passed through the bridgehead
south of Nancy, linked up with Combat Command A between Arracourt and Lunéville. Nancy itself fell
to the 35th Division on 15 September.

Map 6: Capture of Nancy by XII Corps, 11-16 September 1944

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With XII Corps established on the east bank of the Moselle, LTG Patton hoped to resume the war of
movement in which Third Army excelled. He ordered MG Eddy to attack eastward with divisions in
column. The objective of XII Corps was still to cross the Rhine. The Germans, who had no reserves in the
area, feared that XII Corps was on the verge of a breakthrough. But before he resumed the eastward
advance, Eddy chose to clear out pockets of resistance around Nancy, giving the Germans three days to
bring reinforcements to the sector. Army Group G received orders to drive in XII Corps’ right flank and
throw Patton’s forces back across the Moselle. To carry out this mission, the Germans recreated Fifth
Panzer Army, a hastily scraped together force commanded by General Hasso von Manteuffel, an armor
expert imported from the Russian Front. From 19 to 25 September, two panzer brigades of the LVIII
Panzer Corps hammered at Combat Command A’s exposed position around Arracourt. Although
outgunned by the German Panther tanks, the American Shermans and self-propelled tank destroyers
enjoyed superior mobility and received overwhelming air support when the weather permitted. The fogs
which interfered with American air strikes also neutralized the superior range of German tank armament.
At the end of the week-long battle, Combat Command A reported 25 tanks and 7 tank destroyers lost but
claimed 285 German tanks destroyed. (See Map 7.)

To the north of Fifth Panzer Army, the German First Army attempted to eliminate XII Corps’
bridgehead across the Seille River. The 559th Volksgrenadier Division launched a series of attacks
against 35th Division in the Grémecey Forest that lasted from 26 to 30 September. In contrast to the tank
battle at Arracourt, 35th Division’s engagement at Grémecey was a swirling infantry battle fought out at
close quarters among thick woods and entrenchments left over from World War I. After three days of
chaotic, seesaw fighting, Eddy ordered the 35th to withdraw across the Seille, an order which Patton
promptly countermanded. The arrival of 6th Armored Division from Army reserve restored the situation
with a double envelopment of the hotly contested forest. However, Eddy’s status as corps commander
suffered badly. His relationship with the division commanders never fully recovered, and Patton seriously
contemplated relieving him. (See Map 7.)

Map 7: German Counterattacks Against XII Corps, 19-30 September 1944,

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Hitler responded to the loss of Nancy and the failed German counterattacks by relieving Blaskowitz
from command of Army Group A. To replace him, Hitler chose General Hermann Balck, an experienced
corps commander from the Russian Front.

In the northern sector of Third Army’s front, MG Walton Walker’s XX Corps also established a
bridgehead across the Moselle during September. Walker’s orders were to capture Metz and sweep to the
Rhine, a task far beyond the capabilities of a corps that held a 40-mile front with three divisions, the 5th,
90th, and 7th Armored. Moreover, Metz, unlike Nancy, was thoroughly fortified. Forty-three
intercommunicating forts on both sides of the Moselle ringed the city. Although some of the older
fortifications dated from the nineteenth century, the more modern ones could house garrisons of up to
2,000 men and were armed with heavy artillery mounted in steel and concrete turrets. Designed to hold an
entire field army, the Metz fortifications were manned by 14,000 troops of the 462d Division. A this point
in the campaign, XX Corps was using Michelin road maps and thus had virtually no knowledge of the
Metz fortifications. (See Map 8.)

On 7 September, 5th Infantry Division opened assault on Metz, ignorant of the fact that it was
attacking the most strongly fortified city in Western Europe. For a week, one of its regiments was chewed
to pieces among the forts west of the Moselle, which were manned by students of an officer candidate
school. Even when reinforced by a combat command of the 7th Armored Division, the American attack
made little progress. Incidentally, this action took place on the same ground upon which two German field
armies were mauled in equally unsuccessful assaults during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Map 8: XX Corps at Metz, 5-25 September 1944

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In an attempt to encircle Metz, MG Walker also ordered 5th Division to establish a bridgehead across
the Moselle south of the city. The 5th Division’s first crossing, made at Dornot, was a makeshift frontal
assault against a prepared enemy, which included elements of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division.
The crossing operation was marked by great confusion. It lacked adequate artillery support, and it was
subjected to hostile fire coming from both banks of the river. Four companies established a tiny
bridgehead on the east bank which was bombarded continuously by artillery and mortars. For two days
the bridgehead forces turned back repeated counterattacks, while German fire disrupted ferrying
operations and prevented the building of a bridge. Finally, the survivors in the bridgehead were
withdrawn without their equipment.

A more carefully planned crossing operation succeeded nearby at Arnaville on 10 September. Under
the covering fire of 13 artillery battalions, plus air support and a generated smoke screen, 5th Division
established a permanent bridgehead over the Moselle that became the main divisional effort. The artillery
of XX Corps and the P-47s of XIX Tactical Air Command helped break up counterattacks mounted by
the 3d and the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Divisions. Although the 5th Division had successfully crossed
the Moselle, the ring of fortifications protecting Metz was still virtually intact. The 7th Armored Division
crossed into the Arnaville bridgehead with orders from MG Walker to hook behind Metz while 5th
Division captured the city itself. However, the terrain was unsuited to armored operations, and 5th
Division was bled white—by the end of the month the 5th required 5,000 fillers to bring it up to strength.
Meanwhile, a stalemate ensued along XX Corps’ front.

On 25 September, Third Army operations came to an abrupt halt. Even with the Red Ball Express
running at full capacity, logistical support was inadequate to sustain operations by all of the Allied forces
on the Continent. Accordingly, GEN Eisenhower decreed that the main Allied effort would come from
the British 21st Army Group, including Third Army, was to hold its present positions until the logistical
crisis receded. LTG Patton was unwilling to yield the initiative to the enemy, so he ordered Third Army
not to dig in, but rather to establish outpost lines and maintain active, mobile reserves. (See Map 9.)

Map 9: Third Army Dispositions, 25 September 1944, Lorraine

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Third Army was relatively dormant from 25 September to 8 November. Patton’s forces utilized the time to
carefully husband resources and build up reserves for future operations. Stringent gasoline rationing went
into effect on 3 October, and although gasoline receipts for the month were only 67 percent of requested
amounts, Third Army managed to amass a small reserve. The larger calibers of ammunition were also
strictly rationed. To take the place of silent artillery tubes, tanks, tank destroyers, and mortars were
surveyed in for use as artillery. Extensive use was also made of captured German ordnance. One time on
target (TOT) fired in XX Corps’ zone was executed with captured German 105-mm howitzers, Russian-
made 76.2-mm guns and French 155-mm howitzers (also captured from the Germans), and German 88-
mm antitank guns. Eighty percent of the artillery ammunition expended by XX Corps in the last week of
October was of German origin.

A number of factors facilitated Third Army’s logistical recovery. One of these was the speed with
which the French railroad system was rehabilitated and put to military use. Although the railroads in
Normandy had been thoroughly interdicted prior to and during the invasion, those in central and eastern
France were relatively undamaged by Allied aircraft and had been abandoned almost intact by the
retreating Germans. During the October lull, Third Army brought its railheads as far forward as Nancy.
For a time, Third Army personnel actually operated the trains themselves. The French civilian sector
provided rolling stock and trained personnel to supplement Third Army’s quartermasters.

The French civilian economy, by providing what we today call “host nation support,” helped ease Third
Army’s logistical burdens in other ways as well. The Gnome-Rhone engine works in Paris were retooled
to repair American tank engines. Other manufacturers produced tank escape hatches and track extenders
that greatly facilitated mobility in the Lorraine mud. When colder weather precipitated a critical shortage
of antifreeze, French industry supplied thousands of gallons of alcohol in lieu of Prestone. Local sources
also produced fan belts, and when tires became so scarce that all spares were removed from their racks
and put into use, French tire manufacturers turned their production over to the U.S. Army. With Patton’s
permission, Third Army’s ordnance units moved inside existing French facilities with the result that
ordnance productivity increased 50 percent. In fact, Third Army utilized everything from local coal mines
to dry-cleaning plants.

Captured German supplies were another important source of materiel during the October lull. In
addition to the weapons and ammunition mentioned earlier, Third Army used captured gasoline
transported in captured jerricans, spark plugs rethreaded for American engines, and thousands of tons of
food that fed both soldiers and local civilians.

By the time full-scale operations resumed in November, Third Army’s program of rationing and local
procurement had resulted in the establishment of substantial reserves. On the average, each division held
four days of Class I and five days of Class III supplies when the eastward advance was resumed. Except
for heavy artillery shells, the ammunition shortage was no longer critical.

Third Army’s intelligence picture also improved during the October lull. Through Ultra and other
sources, the German order of battle was well known to Third Army’s G2 and would remain so throughout
the campaign. Ultra revealed that the Germans, too, were rationing gasoline. Even the panzer divisions
were partially dependent on horse-drawn transportation. The XX Corps received detailed plans of the
Metz fortifications obtained from archives in Paris and supplemented by French officers who had built
and manned the citadel. The most encouraging intelligence received in October revealed that the Germans
were withdrawing many of their best units from Lorraine, including Fifth Panzer Army. Intelligence did
not disclose, however, that these forces were being amassed for the Ardennes counteroffensive which
came in December.

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The quality and quantity of Patton’s forces improved while the German defenders in Lorraine
declined in effectiveness. During October and the first week in November, American units were rotated
out of the line to rest, refit, and absorb replacements. The XX Corps gave up the 7th Armored Division
but acquired the 95th Infantry and 10th Armored Divisions in return. In addition, XII Corps obtained the
26th Division, raising Third Army’s strength to six infantry and three armored divisions.

Although ordered by 12th Army Group to hold its position, Third Army conducted several limited
operations during the October lull. The XII Corps closed in on the Seille River, giving its new units some
exposure to combat and securing jump-off positions for future operations. Meanwhile, XX Corps
prepared for a systematic reduction of Metz. An extensive and highly integrated artillery observation
system was established that tied together 70 ground observation posts and 62 airborne observers. All XX
Corps divisions rotated out of the line for training in the reduction of fortifications. The 90th Division
patiently cleared the Germans out of Maizières-lès-Metz in a carefully controlled operation that
simultaneously opened the only unfortified approach to Metz and provided the division with experience in
urban combat. (See Map 10.)

On 3 October, XX Corps’ battle-scarred 5th Division mounted an ill-advised attack on Fort Driant,
one of the fortress complexes protecting Metz from the south and west. With the support of 23 artillery
battalions, one rifle battalion reinforced by tanks and tank destroyers managed to occupy Driant’s surface,
but the American infantrymen were unable to penetrate the underground galleries. American artillery was
disappointingly ineffective against Driant’s five batteries. An American 8-inch gun scored eight direct hits
on one of Driant’s artillery turrets, silencing the German piece for 15 minutes, after which it resumed
operation. Following ten days of fighting in which 50 percent of the assaulting infantry were killed or
wounded, American forces withdrew from Fort Driant. (See Map 10.)

Map 10: XX Corps Operations, October 1944, Metz

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On 21 October, Third Army received orders to resume full-scale offensive operations on or about 10
November. Patton’s objective was still the Rhine River. By this time Third Army outnumbered the
Germans in Lorraine by 250,000 to 86,000. However, the Germans were about to obtain a valuable ally in
the form of weather. Seven inches of rain fell in November, about twice the normal amount. Twenty days
that month had rain. Lorraine suffered from its worst floods in 35 years. On two different occasions,
floodwaters washed out the Moselle bridges behind the Third Army in the midst of heavy fighting.
Almost all operations were limited to the hard roads, a circumstance that the Germans exploited through
the maximum use of demolitions. Third Army engineers build over 130 bridges during November.

The weather virtually negated American air superiority. The XIX Tactical Air Command, which had
flown 12,000 sorties in the golden days of August, flew only 3,500 in November. There was no air
activity at all for 12 days out of the month.

Third Army’s offensive began on 8 November in weather so bad that MG Eddy, XII Corps
commander, asked Patton to postpone the attack. Patton told Eddy to attack as scheduled or else name his
successor. Despite the total lack of air support. Eddy attacked on the 8th and thoroughly surprised the
defending Germans, who believed that the weather was too bad to allow offensive operations. The most
massive artillery preparation in Third Army history preceded XII Corps’ attack. All of XII Corps’ artillery
plus 5 battalions borrowed from XX Corps—for a total of 42 battalions and 540 guns—poured 22,000
rounds on the stunned Germans. At 0600, XII Corps jumped off with three infantry divisions abreast and
two armored divisions in corps reserve. Instead of waiting for a decisive opportunity in which to commit
his reserve, Eddy broke the armored divisions up into combat commands and sent them into the line on D
plus 2, thus relegating Third Army’s most powerful concentration of armor to an infantry-support role.
With the American armor dispersed, the defending German 11th Panzer Division was able to restrict XII
Corps’ rate of advance with a relatively thin delaying screen and local counterattacks. (See Map 11.)

Map 11: XII Corps Attack, 8 November 1944, Nancy

H404ORC-265
General Walker’s XX Corps made its main attack across the Moselle in the Metz sector on 9
November, one day after XII Corps. It, too, achieved surprise. The 90th Division and 10th Armored
Division had shifted to assembly areas north of Thionville in great secrecy. A detachment of special
troops maintained radio traffic and manned dummy guns in the vacated zone. There was no artillery
preparation so as not to disclose the imminent attack. The Moselle flooded out of its banks, which
complicated the crossing operation but had the side benefit of inundating the German minefields on the
east bank and lulling the defenders into a false sense of security. Finally, 95th Division staged a
demonstration south of Thionville that involved crossing a battalion to the east bank, thus drawing
attention away from the main effort farther north. General Balck, commander of German Army Group G,
had ordered his units to hold the front with a minimum of strength until the anticipated artillery barrage
had passed, whereupon they were to rush forward in force to meet the American assault waves. Since
there was no artillery barrage, and since the Germans otherwise failed to predict the attack, Balck’s
defensive scheme was unhinged at the outset of the operation. (See Map 12.)

The 90th Division crossed the swirling waters of the Moselle at Koenigsmacker early on 9 November
and established a secure bridgehead. The 10th Armored Division moved up to the west bank, ready to
cross into the bridge as soon as the engineers were able to build a bridge. Due to the high, fast waters, five
days would pass before armor crossed the Moselle in force. The Moselle crossings taxed Third Army’s
engineers to the utmost. An infantry support bridge put in behind 90th Division was swept away, and the
approaches were flooded. When the waters finally subsided, bridges were established for the 90th and
95th Divisions, only to be inundated by a second flood even greater than the first. The bridges themselves
were saved, but their approaches were completely underwater rendering them useless until the Moselle
once more receded. Meanwhile, liaison aircraft and amphibious trucks helped keep the bridgehead

Map 12: XX Corps Capture of Metz, 8-21 November 1944

H404ORC-266
supplied, and concentrated artillery fire from the west bank helped break up the repeated German
counterattacks mounted against 90th Division until armor could cross the Moselle.

The XX Corps’ artillery also saw to it that the Germans suffered as much as possible from the
atrocious weather. The 17 artillery battalions supporting 90th Division shelled all buildings in the assault
area, driving the defenders out into the rain and mud. The U.S. Eighth Air Force contributed to this effort
by sending over 1,000 four-engine bombers to conduct saturation bombing of the towns and villages in
the assault area. The poor weather forced the airmen to bomb by radar, which detracted significantly from
the accuracy of the attack.

With 90th Division established at Koenigsmacker, 5th Division pushing north from the Arnaville
bridgehead, and 95th Division advancing across the old Franco-Prussian War battlefield west of the city,
XX Corps had three divisions poised to close on Metz. Then, XX Corps created another threat by
converting 95th Division’s demonstration at Uckange into a major effort and reinforcing it with armor.
Given the designation Task Force Bacon, this battle group fought its way toward Metz in mobile columns
led by tanks and tank destroyers that shot up all possible centers of resistance, to the extent of using 3-
inch antitank guns to knock out individual snipers. All of the forces closing on Metz employed new
techniques in dealing with fortified areas. Frontal assaults were avoided. Instead, strongpoints and forts
were surrounded, bypassed, and systematically reduced with high explosives and gasoline. Task Force
Bacon entered Metz from the north on 17 November, the same day 5th Division reached the city from the
south and 95th Division neared the Moselle bridges to the west. As street fighting ensued in Metz itself,
XX Corps’ artillery laid interdiction fire on all German escape routes east of the city. (See Map 12.)

Although Hitler had declared that Metz was officially a fortress, meaning that it would hold out to the
last man, General Balck decided to make no further sacrifices for the city. He abandoned the second-rate
division fighting in downtown Metz and broke contact, withdrawing to the east. On 19 November, 90th
Division and 5th Division linked up east of Metz, completing the encirclement of the city. Although some
of the forts held out for two more weeks, the commander of the German garrison in Metz surrendered on
21 November. Thus, XX Corps was the first military force to capture Metz by storm since 451 A.D.

The XX Corps left some elements at Metz to reduce the holdout forts and regrouped the remainder of
its forces to join XII Corps in Third Army’s eastward advance. The next obstacle confronting Patton’s
troops was the Westwall, known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line, that lay just within Germany proper.
The 10th Armored Division had finally crossed the Moselle on 14 November with orders to exploit east
and north to the Saar River. The American tanks made some progress to the east against the determined
resistance of the 21st Panzer Division, but the push to the north came to a halt along an east-west
extension of the Westwall. There would be no clean breakthrough in XX Corps’ sector, just as there had
been none for XII Corps. (See Map 13.)

The German defenders were critical of, but grateful for, Patton’s decision to advance on a broad front
of nine divisions spread out over 60 miles. In particular, they felt that the Americans made a grave error
in not concentrating their three armored divisions into one corps for a knockout blow. The three panzer
divisions in Lorraine were down to 13, 7, and 4 tanks respectively, a fact that Patton was well aware of,
thanks to Ultra. On paper, there were 12 German divisions facing Third Army’s nine, but in reality, the
defenders possessed just one battalion for each 4 miles of front. Therefore, Patton’s decision to tie his
armored divisions to the infantry enabled the Germans to delay the Third Army with a thin screen and
pull the bulk of their forces back into the Westwall.

H404ORC-267

Facilitating the German delaying action were the fortifications of the Maginot Line, numerous
streams, and of course, the weather. Noncombat casualties, for the month of November. Moreover, 95
percent of the trench foot cases would be out of action, at least until spring. Part of the blame for the high
rate of noncombat casualties must go to the Quartermaster, European Theater of Operations, who had
refused to order a newly developed winter uniform for the troops because he believed that the war would
end before cold weather came. Not until January was there an adequate supply of jackets, raincoats,
overshoes, blankets, and sweaters. As a result, 46,000 troops throughout the European theater were
hospitalized, the equivalent of three infantry divisions.

Weather and enemy action took their greatest toll among the infantry, which sustained 89 percent of
Third Army’s casualties. By the end of November, Patton could no longer obtain enough infantry fillers to
replace the losses among his rifle units. Manpower planners in the Pentagon had failed to foresee that the
battle along the German frontier would be a hard-fought affair conducted in terrible weather and had thus
failed to allocate enough manpower to infantry training. Back in the States, tank destroyer and antiaircraft
battalions were broken up and sent to infantry training centers. In Lorraine, General Patton “drafted” 5
percent of army and corps troops for retraining as infantry, and when bloody fighting along the Westwall
sent infantry losses soaring, he “drafted” an additional 5 percent.

In early December, Third Army’s leading elements had pushed across the German border at several
places along its front as the Germans withdrew into the Westwall. The 95th Division captured an intact
bridge across the Saar River at Saarlautern in XX Corps’ zone and encountered some of the stiffest
resistance yet experienced, as the German troops fought to defend their own soil. The Americans
discovered that the town of Saarlautern itself was part of the Westwall. Unlike the Maginot Line or the
Metz fortifications, the Westwall did not consist of gigantic underground fortresses and heavy artillery
emplacements. Instead, it was a belt of tank obstacles, barbed wire, pillboxes, and fortified buildings.

Map 13: Third Army Operations, 19 November-19 December 1944, Lorraine

H404ORC-268
Although the Germans considered the Westwall to be antiquated, shallow, and poorly equipped, it
nonetheless constituted a formidable military obstacle. In Saarlautern the fighting was literally house-to-
house and pillbox-to-pillbox. To facilitate the slow infantry advance, XX Corps’ artillery fired in direct
support of small units. The 8-inch and 240-mm pieces adjusted their fire on individual buildings on one
side of the street, while American infantrymen on the opposite side of the street prepared to advance. The
90th Division forced a crossing of the Saar at Dillingen and encountered similar resistance. Casualties
mounted as the Germans brought to bear the heaviest artillery fire that Third Army had yet experienced.
(See Map 13.)

With toeholds established in the Westwall, LTG Patton initiated planning for a new offensive
scheduled to jump off on 19 December. Veteran units such as the long-suffering 5th Division were pulled
out of the action for reorganization and training. Patton received another corps headquarters, III Corps,
and some fresh units, including 87th Division. Third Army’s objectives for the December offensive were
the same as they had been in August—bridgeheads across the Rhine in the vicinity of Mannheim and
Mainz.

Preparations for the attack were well under way when, on 16 December, Third Army received
fragmentary indications of trouble in First Army’s sector to the north. It rapidly became apparent that a
full-scale German counteroffensive was under way in the Ardennes. Patton quickly canceled the
December offensive and implemented a contingency plan drawn up some days previously. The XX Corps
abandoned its dearly bought bridgeheads over the Saar and assumed defensive positions on the west bank.
On 20 December, XII Corps and III Corps, which had supervised the retraining of infantry fillers,
shuffled divisions and turned north to strike the flank of the German penetration in the Ardennes. Third
Army eventually assumed control of one other corps fighting in the Ardennes. The reorientation of a field
army from east to north involved routing 12,000 vehicles along four roads, establishing a completely new
set of supply points, and restructuring Third Army’s entire signals network to support a new army
headquarters in Luxembourg. Third Army troops entered the Battle of the Bulge on 22 December, and
four days later LTC Creighton Abrams of Arracourt fame led his battalion of the 4th Armored Division to
the relief of Bastogne. (See Map 14.)

Map 14: Third Army Redeployment, 20-26 December 1944

H404ORC-269
The Lorraine campaign, which began in September with the promise of imminent victory, ended in
December with Third Army rushing north to help avert disaster in the Ardennes. What conclusions can be
drawn from this costly and frustrating campaign?

Historians and analysts have often criticized the American commanders in the Lorraine campaign.
One shortcoming that they have identified was a tendency toward overoptimism, an understandable
development given the great victories won in July and August and the information generated by Ultra.
The successful conduct of the operational level of war requires the commander to look beyond the
immediate battlefield and project himself forward in space and time, but this trait was carried to excess in
Lorraine at the echelons above corps. From September to December, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton
had their sights set firmly beyond the Rhine. Consequently, they underestimated the obstacles and
opposition that their soldiers would have to overcome along the way. Thus, a difference in outlook arose
between the higher commanders who drew large arrows on maps and the tactical units fighting for yards
of muddy ground.

General Patton can also be faulted for neglecting to practice economy of force. We have noted several
instances in which Third Army’s forces were spread out on a broad front in an attempt to be strong
everywhere with the result that they were decisively strong nowhere. In retrospect, the important battle in
September was XII Corps’ fight around Nancy, and in November, the main effort was XX Corps’ assault
against Metz. And yet Patton failed to concentrate Third Army’s resources in reinforcement of the corps
engaged in decisive operations. Furthermore, Patton never made an attempt to punch through the German
defenses with divisions in column, even though he received approval for such an operation from his
superior, LTG Bradley. One rule of thumb for mechanized forces that emerged from World War II was to
march dispersed but concentrate to fight. In Lorraine, Third Army fought dispersed. (See Map 15.)

A similar criticism can be made of Patton’s corps commanders. Walker and Eddy tended repeatedly to
disperse their divisions and assign them missions beyond their means. We have seen several examples of

Map 15: Third Army Operations in Lorraine

H404ORC-270
important operations undertaken by divisions or parts of divisions without adequate planning or support,
even though other forces could have been obtained to augment the effort by practicing economy of force.
The corps commanders were trapped between Patton, who continually urged aggressive action, and the
grim realities of terrain, weather, and a determined enemy. Perhaps it is not surprising that at times
Walker and Eddy became preoccupied with local problems and lost sight of the broader issues. As a
result, at the corps level the Lorraine campaign was a disjointed affair, with little cooperation between
corps, and a little continuity from one operation to the next. However, such operations as the tank battle
leading to Arracourt and the 90th Division crossing of the Moselle at Koenigsmacker demonstrated that
the American corps commanders were not incapable of applying force in a flexible and decisive manner.

The Lorraine campaign taught us some lessons in combined arms warfare. The tank and the airplane,
two weapons which were commonly believed to have revolutionized warfare, were an unbeatable
combination during the pursuit leading up to Lorraine. But when the enemy dug in and the weather turned
bad, infantry, artillery, and engineers reemerged as the dominant arms. The critical shortage of infantry
fillers demonstrated that the American high command had failed to anticipate this development.

This campaign also demonstrated some of the drawbacks associated with the concept of a relatively
light division reinforced by corps attachments. The triangular division embodied the characteristics of
mobility and maneuver, but in Lorraine it was repeatedly employed in direct assaults against an emplaced
enemy. The heavy casualties that occurred in such operations were more than the triangular division could
sustain, with the result that the entire division was often rendered virtually combat ineffective and had to
be withdrawn from the line to rebuild. Perhaps the division, corps, and army commanders should be
faulted for failing to utilize a greater degree of maneuver for which the triangular division was much
better suited. The concept of plugging in temporary reinforcements from corps was seldom practiced as
prescribed by doctrine. Instead, corps tended to assign combat and support elements to the division on a
semi-permanent basis, thus making up for some of the muscle that the triangular division lacked
organically.

The American armored elements were not at their best in Lorraine either. Much of this can be
attributed to the weather, but some of the blame must be given to the army commander for binding his
armored divisions into infantry-heavy corps. Patton’s reluctance to mass his armor came as a pleasant
surprise to the Germans, who believed that their panzer divisions were just as useful in creating
breakthroughs as they were in exploiting them. At a lower level, the combat command concept provided
great tactical flexibility through decentralized control, but it also tempted Patton’s corps commanders to
break up the armored division and parcel it out by combat commands, a policy that further diluted Third
Army’s armored punch. Organizationally, the Armored Division of 1944 proved to be weak in infantry, a
shortcoming often made good by detaching battalions from infantry divisions and assigning them to
armored combat commands.

In addition, American tank crews repeatedly paid a heavy price for a doctrinal decision made before
the war that declared tanks to be offensive weapons not intended for defensive combat against other
tanks. As a result of this official policy, the M-4 Sherman tanks in Lorraine were badly outgunned by
German panzers that mounted superb antitank pieces. The tank-stopping task was officially assigned to
the tank destroyers, which were supposed to be thinly armored, highly mobile, heavily armed antitank
specialists. Doctrine called for the majority of tank destroyers to be pooled in special corps and army
antitank reserves, which could rush to the scene of an armored attack anywhere along the front. But Third
Army didn’t need an antitank reserve in Lorraine because German tanks usually appeared a few at a time.
Consequently, the tank destroyer concept was discarded after the war, when the U.S. Army decided that
the best weapon to stop a tank was another adequately armed tank.

H404ORC-271
Finally, the Lorraine campaign demonstrated that logistics often drive operations, no matter how
forceful and aggressive the commanding general may be. In the August pursuit that brought Third Army
to Lorraine, General Patton daringly violated tactical principles and conducted improvised operations
with great success. He discovered, however, that the violation of logistical principles is an unforgiving
and cumulative matter. Sooner or later, every improvisation and shortcut taken must be repaid. Third
Army’s logistical shortcuts included burning up gasoline reserves to keep an advance going and then
neglecting ammunition supply to bring up gasoline. The slowdown that affected all of the Allied forces in
September and October was the inevitable price to be paid for gambling logistically that the war could be
ended in August. Moreover, in spite of the logistical mobility afforded by motorization, remember that the
trucks running the Red Ball Express consumed a greater and greater proportion of their cargoes as the
advance progressed, forcing Third Army to turn to two time-honored methods of supply—railroad
transport and local requisition.

The lessons of the Lorraine campaign were not all negative. The American soldier proved himself
capable of carrying the fight to a determined enemy under adverse conditions, a lesson that would be
demonstrated even more conclusively in the Battle of the Bulge. Armored troops more than held their
own against an enemy possessing superior equipment. Infantry formations endured trench foot and
debilitating casualty rates. The artillery’s ability to mass its fire at critical points was tactically decisive
time after time. Engineers performed miracles in their efforts to keep Third Army moving in spite of
demolitions and floods. Support troops overcame logistical nightmares through ingenuity and sheer hard
work. When the weather permitted, the Army Air Force blasted out enemy strongpoints in close
cooperation with the ground elements, denied the enemy the use of the roads in daylight, and forced him
to abandon tactics that had worked against every other opponent.

Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army
claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a
problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over three months
and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in
the entire European war. (See Map 16.)

Map 16: Third Army Gains, September-December 1944, Lorraine

H404ORC-272
Ironically, Third Army never used Lorraine as a springboard for an advance into Germany after all.
Patton turned most of the sector over to Seventh Army during the Ardennes crisis, and when the eastward
advance resumed after the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army based its operations on Luxembourg, not
Lorraine. The Lorraine campaign will always remain a controversial episode in American military
history.

Lesson H405

Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited
Warfare in the Nuclear Age

AY 2021–22

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-273 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

Advance Sheet for H405
Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age

LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Sean N. Kalic

1. SCOPE

With the use of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the
United States ushered the world into a new military and political epoch. This two-hour lesson’s
objective is to provide insights into the international, political, and military changes resulting from the
onset of the Cold War as the United States military services wrestled with the concept of limited war
in the nuclear age.

In the midst of the immediate postwar period, diplomat George F. Kennan penned what became
known as the “long telegram,” outlining the expansionist tendencies of the Soviet Union’s
Communist system. While expanding upon his basic ideas in an anonymous article in Foreign Affairs
entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Kennan advocated a strategy of containment to hedge
against the Soviet Union’s quest to expand its sphere of influence. While Kennan laid the foundations
for the theory of containment in early 1950, Paul H. Nitze, head of the State Department’s Policy
Planning Staff, began drafting the tenets of what became NSC 68. Nitze and his staff identified three
foundations in NSC 68 to guide the United States in the Cold War. First, Communism and the Soviet
Union were the primary threats to the United States. Second, the United States needed to rebuild its
military. Third, the United States needed to maintain an active interest in the adoption of nuclear
weapons into the US arsenal.

In a parallel planning process, the US military also began adjusting to the new warfighting
environment. NSC 68 cemented nuclear weapons into the US military arsenal and drove an
evolutionary process by which successive US presidents, military leaders, and strategic thinkers
constantly assessed the nuclear strategy and weapons procurement programs of the United States. The
strategic priority given to nuclear weapons overshadowed the development of other strategies and
doctrine, and forced the United States to accept a new period of limited war. The concept of limited
war in turn demanded that the US military, the US Army specifically, think about how to build a land
force that could fight and win large scale combat operations within the context of the new global
security environment. The Korean War became the first challenge for the US military in the new era
of limited warfare.

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations
process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess
(UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-3, Examine how staffs conduct the operations process using the
framework of plan, prepare, and execute; TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US
Army sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the
historical context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-274 August 2021
operational environment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as
listed in the H400 Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are:

ELO-AOC-1.6
Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale
combat operations.
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational
environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products
and H400 historical readings.
ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes:
1. Examine historical battles and campaigns.
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-5.4
Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis includes:
1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness.
2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO.
3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater.
4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context.
5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of
20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-275 August 2021
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT
STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of
today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.3
Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II,
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences
our understanding of today’s operational environment.
4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential
contemporary competitors.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-9.2

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-276 August 2021
Action: Speak effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation
6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience
7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

ELO-AOC-9.3
Action: Listen effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes:
1. Listens, reads, and watches intently.
2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others.
3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention.
4. Reflects on new information before expressing views.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

PLO Attributes Supported:
1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information.
1b. Comprehend context of the situation.
1c. Create meaning from information and data.
1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas.
1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms.
1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments.
1g. Apply critical and creative thinking.
2a. Apply ethics, norms, and laws of the profession.
2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life-
long learners.
3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war.
3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition.
3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power.
3e. Understand the relationship of the military instrument of power to the other instruments of
national power.
4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment.
4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks.
4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other
competitive forces.
6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions.
6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context.
6c. Integrate and synchronize the Army warfighting functions with joint, multinational
capabilities, with other instruments of national power.

Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported:
3. The Return of Great Power Competition

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-277 August 2021
5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century
8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations

3. ISSUE MATERIAL

a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022.

b. During Class: None. WiFi is available.

4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

a. Study Requirements:

(1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in
full text in the H400 Book of Readings):

Required:
H405RA Melcher, David F. and John C. Siemer. “How to Build the Wrong Army.” Military
Review, no. 9 (September 1992): 66–76. [9 pages]
H405RB Cannon, Michael W. “The Development of the American Theory of Limited War,
1945–63.” Armed Forces & Society, 19, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 71–104. [18 pages]

Student Purchased Text:
H405RD Carver, Michael. “Conventional Warfare in the Nuclear Age.” In Makers of Modern
Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986: 779–89. [11 pages] [Student Purchase]
H405RE Freedman, Lawrence. “The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists.” In
Makers of Modern Strategy, edited by Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1986: 735–49. [15 pages] [Student Purchase]

Optional:
H405ORA “Our Future Course in Korea,” Memorandum Dean Acheson to Paul Nitze, July
12, 1950, Harry S. Truman Presidentail Library, Secretary of State Series, The Korean
War and Its Origins, Folder: Dean Acheson to Paul Nitze, Accessed July 27, 2019,
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/dean-acheson-paul-
nitze?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1 [PRIMARY SOURCE]
H405ORB Kennan, George F. “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by X. Foreign Affairs, 25
(July 1947): 566–82. [10 pages]
H405ORC Brodie, Bernard. “The Anatomy of Deterrence.” World Politics, 11 (January
1959): 173–91. Accessed 2 July 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2009527. [19 pages]
[CARL (JSTOR)]
H405ORD Gaddis, John Lewis, and Paul H. Nitze. “NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat
Reconsidered.” International Security 4 (Spring 1980): 164–76. Accessed 2 July 2018.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2626672. [13 pages] [CARL (JSTOR)]
H405ORE Jervis, Robert. “The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War.” The Journal of
Conflict Resolution 24, no. 4 (December 1980): 563-92. Accessed 2 July 2018.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/173775. [28 pages] [CARL (JSTOR)]
H405ORF Morgenthau, Hans J. “The Four Paradoxes of Nuclear Strategy.” The American
Political Science Review 58 (March 1964): 23–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952752
[13 pages] [CARL (JSTOR)] Accessed 2 July 2018.

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/dean-acheson-paul-nitze?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2009527

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2626672

http://www.jstor.org/stable/173775

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952752

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-278 August 2021
Further Professional Development:
Brodie, Bernard, and Frederick S. Dunn. The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World
Order. New Haven, CT: Yale University, Institute of International Studies, 1946.
Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1981.
Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American
National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Hanson, Thomas E. Combat Ready?: The Eighth U.S. Army on the Eve of the Korean War,
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010.
House, Jonathan. A Military History of the Cold War, 1944-1962, Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2012.
Kahn, Herman. On Thermonuclear War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.
Leffler, Melvyn P. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the
Cold War, New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
Linn, Brian McAllister. Elvis’s Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2016.
Millett, Allan R. The War for Korea, 1950–1951: They Came From the North. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2010.
Trauschweizer, Ingo. The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War,
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 2007.
Zubok, Vladislav, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to
Gorbachev, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Resident Course Elective Alignment: A650, The Korean War; A687, The Cold War: Roots
of Today’s Security Environment in Europe; A650, The Korean War; A653, East Asian
Military Studies; A694, Russian and Eurasian History

(2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class:

1. Reflecting on the American way of war, how did the development of atomic weapons
affect military theory in the years immediately after World War II?

2. What was the perceived problem with conventional military forces following World
War II as it pertained to expeditionary deterrence?

3. How did nuclear strategy evolve in the early Cold War?

4. What is the essence of George F. Kennan’s article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct”?
Why did the Truman administration embrace the concept?

5. How does limited war in the nuclear age compare to limited war in the age of
Frederick the Great?

6. How did the Korean War affect US understanding of the international security
environment?

7. Did the introduction of atomic weapons change the ethical considerations of warfare?

8. Considering expeditionary deterrence, how did the Korean War challenge assumptions
about war in the nuclear age?

H405 Advance Sheet H405AS-279 August 2021
b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to):

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022
Makers of Modern Strategy

5. ASSESSMENT

See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A.

H405 Chronology H405AS-280 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

Advance Sheet for H405
Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age

Chronology

1945
4 February 1945 Yalta Conference began.
11 February 1945 Yalta Conference ended.
25 April 1945 San Francisco Conference began.
8 May 1945 Germany surrendered.
25 June 1945 San Francisco Conference ended.
16 July 1945 Potsdam Conference began.
Trinity Explosions (first atomic detonation)
2 August 1945 Potsdam Conference ended.
6 August 1945 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
9 August 1945 Soviet Union invaded Manchuria.
9 August 1945 Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
14 August 1945 Japan accepted surrender terms.
16 August 1945 Korea divided at 38th parallel.
18 August 1945 Japan transferred power in Indochina to Vietminh.
18 August 1945 Red Army landed troops on Kuril Islands.
21 August 1945 President Harry S. Truman ended lend-lease.
26 August 1945 Soviet forces occupied northern Korea to 38th parallel.
2 September 1945 Japan formally surrendered.
4 September 1945 American troops landed at Kimpo, Korea.
5 September 1945 Soviet Union captured all of Sakhalin Island.
24 October 1945 United Nations (UN) formally established.
16–26 December 1945 Moscow Conference reached agreement for joint Soviet-American commission
to oversee establishment of Korean independence.

1946
22 February 1946 George Kennan’s “long telegram” dispatched.
5 March 1946 Winston Churchill delivered “iron curtain” speech.
9 March 1946 Soviet Union pulled troops out of Iran.
29 July 1946 North Korean Workers’ Party established.
22 October 1946 Elections for South Korean Interim Assembly concluded.
28 October 1946 Greek civil war started.

1947
12 March 1947 Truman Doctrine announced.
26 June 1947 Marshall Plan announced.
1 July 1947 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by “X” published.
26 July 1947 National Security Act of 1947 passed.
14 November 1947 United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) formed.

H405 Chronology H405AS-281 August 2021
1948
1 February 1948 Communists took over governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
17 March 1948 Treaty of Brussels signed.
10 May 1948 Elections held in South Korea.
23 June 1948 Berlin blockade began.
15 August 1948 Republic of Korea established.
9 September 1948 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) established.
19 October 1948 Yosu Rebellion began.
15 December 1948 Soviet troops withdrew from Korea.

1949
4 April 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed.
12 May 1949 Berlin blockade ended.
23 May 1949 German Republic created.
30 June 1949 US troops withdrew from Korea.
28 August 1949 Greek civil war ended.
29 August 1949 Soviet Union tested atomic bomb.
1 October 1949 Chinese Communists drove Nationalists from mainland.

1950
14 April 1950 National Security Council Report 68 (NSC 68) submitted to Truman.
8 May 1950 Dean Acheson made statement about US defense perimeter.
25 June 1950 North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) attacked South Korea.
27 June 1950 Truman ordered US forces to Korea.
29 June 1950 NKPA seized Seoul.
2 July 1950 Task Force SMITH arrived in Pusan.
5 July 1950 NKPA overran Task Force SMITH.
7 July 1950 General Douglas MacArthur named supreme UN commander in Korea.
4 August–
18 September 1950 Battle of Pusan Perimeter
15 September 1950 Landing at Inchon
26 September 1950 Seoul recaptured.
30 September 1950 Truman signed NSC 68.
1 October 1950 UN troops crossed 38th parallel into North Korea.
15 October 1950 Truman and MacArthur met on Wake Island.
19 October 1950 UN forces occupied Pyongyang.
25 October 1950 UN troops engaged Chinese forces south of Yalu River.
2 November 1950 Chinese troops overran 8th Cavalry.
21 November 1950 UN troops reached Yalu River.
25 November 1950 Chinese offensive against Eighth Army initiated.
11 December 1950 Battle at Changjin Reservoir
31 December 1950 Chinese People’s Army crossed 38th parallel.

1951
25 January 1951 UN troops counterattacked.
15 March 1951 UN troops recaptured Seoul.
5 April 1951 MacArthur’s congressional correspondence made public.
11 April 1951 Truman relieved MacArthur.
22 April 1951 Chinese spring offensive in Korea
20 May 1951 UN counterattacked.

H405 Chronology H405AS-282 August 2021
8 June 1951 Peace talks began between UN and North.

1952
1 November 1952 United States exploded first hydrogen bomb.
4 November 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president of the United States.

1953
5 March 1953 Joseph Stalin died.
27 June 1953 Truce reached in Korea.
12 August 1953 First Soviet prototype hydrogen bomb tested.

1954
12 January 1954 John Foster Dulles gave “massive retaliation” speech.
13 March 1954 Battle at Dien Bien Phu began.
7 May 1954 Battle at Dien Bien Phu ended.
26 January 1954 US Senate ratified US-ROK mutual defense treaty.

1955
14 May 1955 Warsaw Security Pact signed.

1956
25 February 1956 Nikita Khrushchev gave secret speech on Stalin and his crimes.
23 October 1956 Hungarian Revolution began.
4 November 1956 Soviet Union declared Hungarian rebellion suppressed.

1957
5 January 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine announced before US Congress.
25 March 1957 Treaty of Rome established European Community (Common Market).
4 October 1957 Soviet Union launched Sputnik satellite.

Melcher, David F. and John C. Siemer. “How to Build the Wrong Army.” Military Review, no. 9 (September 1992): 66–76. CGSC Copyright
Registration #21-0468 E

H405RA-283
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

H405: Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age
Reading H405RA

How to Build the Wrong Army

by Lieutenant Colonel David F. Melcher, US Army,
and Lieutenant Colonel John C. Siemer, US Army

Today, the US Army is at another watershed period in its history—a time of dynamic
change and tough choices. The authors look at one postwar experience in our history,
with a number of interesting parallels to illustrate the difficulty of this task. They review
the efforts of Generals Matthew Ridgway and Maxwell Taylor made to build the right
Army for the Cold War. Finally, the authors offer their views on how the Army can
succeed in reshaping the force for the post-Cold-War era.

The US Army’s greatest military leaders of this century—John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, J.
Lawton Collins, Omar N. Bradley, Matthew B. Ridgway and Maxwell D. Taylor, to name a few—all
tried to reshape postwar armies for future battles. They all had a vision for the Army and a capacity to
execute that vision, yet despite their patriotism, energy and creative attempts to “break the historical
mold,” they experienced great difficulty in achieving their objectives.1 While every postwar era is
different, our past allows us to draw lessons that provide insight into the dynamics of change that can help
us as we endeavor to succeed in one of the most difficult challenges facing any army in victory—
preparing for the next war.

Before the victory celebrations of World War II had ended, the nation began precipitously
dismantling its great war machine. This dismantling was not the result of malice toward the soldiers who
had fought and won, nor contempt for the military-industrial complex that had supplied the victory. It was
the act of a nation weary of war and of Americans anxious to spend the peace dividend they felt they so
richly deserved. The growth in the gross national product (GNP) during the war far exceeded anything
most economists ever dreamed of in the Great Depression, but it was fueled by debt. By 1945, the
national debt had risen from $50.7 billion in 1940 to an astounding $260.1 billion, or 110.7 percent of the
nation’s GNP.2 As the nation focused on the impact of a 1.7 percent decline in the GNP in 1945 and
another 11.9 percent decrease in 1946, domestic concerns dominated the political agenda of America’s
leadership. Few recognized the correlation between defense spending and readiness or the potential cost
to American lives in the next battle. Defense outlays fell from $82 billion in 1945 to just $13 billion in
1947.3 The newly formed Department of Defense (DoD) and its military services struggled to keep pace
with the cuts. Reductions in training, readiness, force structure and modernization paid the bills and,
despite some important work within the military, the dramatic reductions made it impossible to prepare
for an uncertain threat. The gravity of these rapid cuts became evident a few short years later in 1950 on a
peninsula in Northeast Asia. Task Force Smith, the first American unit to engage North Korean forces,
took the brunt of the North Korean army’s fury—forcing American soldiers to pay with their blood for
the military unpreparedness the nation’s leadership had allowed in the post-World War II years.4

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Eisenhower’s New Look

In the two years that followed, Americans fought and died in Korea, while the Army labored to
achieve its World War II effectiveness. By the 1952 elections, many Americans viewed the war as a
bloody stalemate and looked for a candidate who could lead the nation out of its malaise and into a better
future. They voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower, a candidate who promised to rapidly end the war and
renew domestic growth. Upon his election, Eisenhower was true to his word. He ended the war within six
months of his inauguration and quickly began to refocus government spending on domestic issues.

Understanding the need to cut military expenditures but wishing to avoid the disastrous effects of
post-World War II, Eisenhower began a complete review of the national security strategy, which he called
the “New Look.”5 The heart of this strategy was the exploitation of the technological advantage that
nuclear weapons had demonstrated in the decisive victory over Japan. Reliance on nuclear weaponry
allowed Eisenhower to significantly reduce defense spending and provided the United States a strategy
designed to avoid costly attrition warfare in the next conflict. Eisenhower and others viewed US nuclear
superiority as the deciding factor in deterring potential enemies and, if deterrence failed, to win the next
war.6

In light of this new strategy, Eisenhower discounted the value of conventional forces that had become
mired down in an attrition war on the Korean peninsula. This view put him at odds with the new Army
chief of staff, General Matthew Ridgway. Unlike his Air Force counterpart, who was quick to recognize
and market the Air Force’s inherent advantage in this new technology, Ridgway saw the continued value
of conventional forces in this new era and argued that the Army’s end strength should not be cut
haphazardly.7 The secretary of the Army, in his June 1953 Semiannual Report to Congress, clearly
recognized the changed world, but he was unable to articulate the compelling arguments for its
conventional force structure in this new strategy. The secretary wrote:

“We face a defense problem with space, time, and power factors unlike any previously encountered in
all our history. . . . In this age of long-range assault capabilities, atomic weapons, and war by satellite and
subversion, our defense frontiers are no longer geographical boundaries. . . .”8

To better define and present its requirements in this new environment, the Army began an extensive
review of its doctrine, organization and equipment based on its wartime experiences. However, before the
Army could finish its review, the administration pressured Ridgway into agreement on National Security
Council (NSC) Memorandum 162/2, which was approved by the president late in 1953, directing the
Army to reduce from 20 to 14 divisions and from 1,405,000 to 870,000 active end strength by 1957.9
Shortly after the president approved this NSC memorandum, the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles,
made his now famous remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, and the concept of “Massive
Retaliation” emerged as the nation’s security strategy.10

Ironically, the Army was unable to capitalize on a short reprieve from its force structure cuts when
the French experience in Vietnam provided a brief glimpse into America’s future. Events in French
Indochina in mid-1954 temporarily delayed the military drawdown. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) asked
for budget increases for each service and temporarily reversed the dismantling of Army divisions. But
when the French left Indochina, the reductions continued.11 Afterward, the Army was well on the road to
building the wrong force in a vain attempt to preserve its force structure and share of the budget. The
Army had lost its flexibility to reshape itself for this new era in warfare and was now restructuring based
on the president’s and DoD’s initiatives for nuclear investiture.

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This restructuring effort is well documented in the secretary of the Army’s June 1954 Report to
Congress, [in] which he outlined the characteristics of a force structure that eventually became the
standard in every division. The report states:

“The Army’s reexamination of its basic tactical doctrine . . . involves the development of smaller,
highly mobile battle groups of combined arms, semi-independent and self-contained. . . . There must be
depth to our military structure, depth in terms of reserve forces, reserve stocks, a production base, a
mobilization base, and an efficient active Army with a degree of strategic, as well as tactical mobility.”12
Although the Army had progressed down the nuclear road, Ridgway continued to argue vehemently for
the preservation of conventional forces. His insistence on the importance of these forces, often at the
embarrassment of the administration, led to his forced retirement in 1955.13

Spokesman for Change

General Maxwell D. Taylor became the 20th chief of staff of the Army on 30 June 1955, hoping to
successfully argue the Army’s cause with the nation’s highest level decision makers. Prior to his
appointment, Taylor was asked to meet with Eisenhower to assure him that he supported Eisenhower’s
and the JCS position.14 This was a precaution Eisenhower took following some distaste for public
comments by Ridgway that had gone against the grain of the new look.15 Taylor gave these assurances
believing that the strategy of massive retaliation was slowly being reevaluated to align with his own ideas
on a flexible force for countering enemy threats—a force that emphasized the importance of well-
equipped and reorganized Army divisions.

Eisenhower and the secretary of defense had other ideas, however. The New Look was a fiscal
success, the chairman of the JCS, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, fully supported the president’s position,
and organizational changes in the national security bureaucracy increased the secretary of defense’s
authority while lessening the chief of staff’s and Army secretary’s prominence in decision making. The
confluence of these factors proved to be a formidable obstacle to a constructive dialogue on the proper
role of the Army in the strategy itself. Taylor tried to promote his own “national military program,” an
alternative strategy that resisted the idea of massive retaliation, suggested that mutual deterrence would
result from a growing Soviet nuclear stockpile and advocated “Flexible Response” as the US strategy for
conducting limited war.16 He presented his views to the JCS in March 1956, received no support or
interest whatsoever and, in fact, received a proposal from the chairman to reduce the Army to a strength
of 575,000 four months later. This proposal was defeated, largely due to a deliberate campaign of leaks to
the press and sympathetic politicians.17 To many in the Army, including Taylor, this lack of support
warranted a more aggressive approach in the future.

An Army in Transition

In an attempt to harness change and focus effort, the Army’s role in deterrence soon became the
linchpin of the Army’s marketing strategy and the focus for evolving doctrine, structure and equipment.
To facilitate this and its new image, the Army adopted the new green uniform, energized the officer corps,
used the emerging mass media technologies to inform the American public and encouraged the
Association of the United States Army (AUSA) to tell the Army’s story. Within the Army, the evolution
of doctrine turned to a debate on the proper role of firepower and maneuver. The lessons of Korea heavily
influenced this debate and the Army’s doctrine writers at the Continental Army Command (CONARC),
who ultimately emphasized firepower over maneuver. In this context, tactical nuclear weapons became an
integral part of doctrine, structure and modernization efforts.

To support its idea of nuclear warfighting, the Army adopted three imperatives—dispersion,
flexibility and mobility. Dispersion required the capability to quickly mass at the critical time and place,

H405RA-286
rapidly achieve a decisive victory and then disperse to prevent the enemy’s ability to concentrate
firepower. Flexibility provided the command and control necessary to properly mass and disperse.
Mobility referred to the strategic and tactical capacity to move force to and around the battlefield. These
imperatives became the foundation for the doctrine and organization of the new division. The visionaries
at CONARC and the Army staff saw the future battlefield characterized by its depth and fluidity. In this
environment, they believed, units could not count on flank units or higher echelons. Under these
conditions, the capacity to be self-contained and self-sustaining was critical to successful operations.
Simply adding combat support or combat service support to the regimental organization would not
provide the needed flexibility and mobility.

To solve this problem, the Army developed the battle group, which modified the traditional battalion
organization and provided the robustness to survive on the nonlinear battlefield of the future. The battle
group was organized in units of five. Each battle group had five companies with five platoons. Its
headquarters and service company supported the unit’s reconnaissance, mortar, maintenance, medical and
communications requirements. Artillery was maintained at division level, but it was also divided into
fives to support the division’s five battle groups.

The new division became known as the Pentomic Division, after the basic organization in fives and
its adaptation for the Atomic Age.18 It was built, both doctrinally and structurally, to emphasize its dual
capabilities—both atomic and nonatomic. The division design maintained the traditional types of
divisions—airborne, armored and infantry; but troop strength in a typical division was reduced from
about 17,000 to less than 12,000. The Army tested this new concept during the 1955 SAGEBRUSH
exercise in Louisiana, where 130,000 soldiers with their Air Force counterparts tested the doctrine and
design of the division.19 With the apparent success of this exercise, the Army began conversion of the
101st Airborne Division to the Pentomic organization in September 1956 and completed its conversion by
the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 1958.

This new organization by itself, however, did not satisfy the operational requirements of a
superpower for flexible response in the fiscally constrained environment of the late 1950s. To meet this
need, the Army required the capacity to fight across the operational continuum anywhere in the world, but
it had to balance its own concept with the new look strategy. This balance gave birth to the Strategic
Army Corps (STRAC), which combined the duality of the Pentomic Division and, thereby, met the new
look requirements with a limited, rapid and flexible response capability.20 STRAC also allowed the Army
to concentrate its limited resources on specific units—an early version of the tiered readiness concept.

A Turn to Advocacy

Taylor recognized the importance of political support from the Army secretariat and Congress.
Fortunately, he had friendly support from both. Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker was a staunch
advocate of the Army, despite being appointed from the ranks of Secretary of Defense Charles E.
Wilson’s top-level staff.21 Brucker, a former governor of Michigan, relentlessly worked the halls of
Congress to take the Army’s message to those who could affect its future and found many who would
listen to his arguments. Taylor kept a lower profile with Congress, to avoid appearing too politically
entrenched, but maintained a working relationship with many of its most influential members. Brucker
also enlisted the support of AUSA to promote the need for a strong Army and changed the focus of Army
publications to be more advocate in nature.22 Each of these efforts was valuable, but Taylor and Brucker
were not successful in forming the alliances they required the most—with the JCS chairman, secretary of
defense, secretary of state and the president. One of Taylor’s stated goals when he became Army chief of
staff was to “meet regularly with the president to warm him up” to the Army’s views. He did not, in fact,
ever meet the president one-on-one during Taylor’s four-year tenure.23

H405RA-287
Taylor recognized the need to market the Army’s role in the new look to preserve funding essential
for the Army to survive as an institution and as a viable ground force. In a commercial sense, marketing is
the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to
consumer in order to satisfy customers and achieve the company’s objective.24 The Air Force had quickly
mastered the art of marketing its concepts and requirements in the era of massive retaliation. The image of
the Strategic Air Command as world policeman, using “Peace is Our Profession” as its slogan, gave the
Eisenhower administration what it wanted.25 In turn, the Air Force garnered the lion’s share of a declining
defense budget. The Army’s challenge was much more difficult. Taylor had to reestablish the Army’s
position in the national military strategy by adapting its role to accommodate anything from
unconventional to atomic warfare, with emphasis on the latter under the new look strategy.

The Pentomic Division and STRAC, with their “Madison Avenue” sound and mainstream appeal,
fulfilled this requirement and provided Taylor the platform he needed. As chief of staff, he used the
prestige of his position to make public expressions of his views whenever possible, while trying to ensure
that he did not step beyond the bounds of propriety with Eisenhower. As chief of staff, he understood his
role as spokesman for the Army, but lacked an appropriate vehicle to widely express the Army positions
that he and Brucker had established in their public statements. He wanted Army leaders at all levels to
understand where the Army was headed, what it needed to get there and how the Army had to change in
the process.

Army Philosophy

In 1958, Brucker and Taylor combined efforts to publish a comprehensive Guide to Army Philosophy,
a single, coherent expression of Army thinking on numerous issues.26 This document, published as a
Department of the Army (DA) pamphlet, received wide distribution within the Army. Its purpose, as
clearly stated in the foreword, was “to aid in the dissemination of Army views on current military subjects
of professional interest to Army personnel.”27 It was, in essence, Taylor’s vision for the Army.

Army Philosophy’s focal point was the first chapter, titled the “National Military Program.” This was
Taylor’s alternative national military strategy that was in his briefcase when he assumed his duties as
chief of staff and the same paper that had been previously ignored by the JCS in 1956.28 The decision to
publish it in an official Army publication was a bold stroke, considering its variance with the new look
military strategy. Taylor was careful enough in his wording to acknowledge the role nuclear weaponry
played but clearly advocated a military program “suitable for flexible application to unforeseen
situations” (that is, “flexible response”). It also raised the question of “how much is enough?” to
accomplish the strategic deterrence objective and explicitly questioned the notion of attaching our hopes
to a single weapon system or concept of war. It was also an aggressive statement on the Army’s role in
atomic warfare, the threat that future land battle posed, programs that would support the Army’s needs
and commentary on the budget as a driver for military strategy. While it was general in nature on many of
these points, it clearly represented four things:

• A departure from “The New Look” and the position of the JCS chairman on defense issues.
• A top-to-bottom review of Army missions, programs, modernization and training requirements.
• A visionary guidepost for every Army leader to follow.
• An expression of the need to create awareness of the Army and the worth of the American soldier
in the public eye.

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Death Knell

Despite these deliberate and apparently sound measures, the Army experienced a series of problems
with its force structure, funding and doctrine that continued to reduce readiness and the Army’s ability to
“break the mold.” Even before the last Pentomic Division was fielded, the debate on the flaws in the
doctrine and organization began. The initial concern was that the Army had traded its soldierly values for
the promise of glossy high-tech equipment. The preeminence of firepower over maneuver was also
questioned. In the field, budgetary constraints slowed the development and fielding of the technology that
was essential to the restructuring effort. As units gained experience with the design and available
equipment, the Army came to realize that the Pentomic Division lacked the essential elements to effect its
mission. The design proved to be cumbersome and operationally unwieldy. Although it was intended to
increase foxhole strength, the design actually decreased the division’s conventional combat power. This
problem was further compounded by the lack of combat service support and the field commanders’
decisions to use combat troops to meet critical support requirements. The fixed structure of the division
reduced the commander’s flexibility to task organize and accomplish his mission. Finally, the design
lacked the mobility and logistic depth to sustain itself.29 Of the two concepts, STRAC, which most closely
represented Taylor’s ideas on flexible response, was most successful. Despite a lack of resources to fully
implement STRAC and its failure when later tested, this concept helped gain acceptance of Taylor’s
doctrine of flexible response by Senator John F. Kennedy and led to the resurgence of the conventional
Army during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations.30

What Went Wrong?

In hindsight, the Army’s endeavors to reverse the decline in its budget, incorporate the lessons of the
Korean War and adapt to the Atomic Era were doomed to failure. The primary reason was the Army’s
inability to define its role in the national military strategy and gain the administration’s acceptance of the
capabilities and resource requirements for that role. The new look and the national strategy of massive
retaliation that it embodied lacked the necessary strategic and operational depth for a superpower, but
they were totally consistent with a nation weary of war and focused on fortress America. The Army’s
flexible response strategy, while probably the right national military strategy for a superpower, was
inconsistent with the goals of the administration and the resources available. This inconsistency forced the
Army to divide its focus and funding in an attempt to fulfill roles it could not reasonably perform, thus
exacerbating its declining role in the development of national strategy and within the DoD.

Although the Army undertook an extensive effort to effect change and achieve some success with
Congress, it failed to understand the intricacies of the developing DoD and Washington politics. As such,
the debate turned to interservice bickering and was directly responsible for the Defense Reorganization
Act of 1958. Frustrated in its attempt to gain acceptance and resources for its perceived role in the
national military strategy within DoD, the Army compromised both its vision of future warfare and
position within JCS for only marginal funding success. Its confrontations with the administration and
back-door maneuvering with Congress played a role in the retirement of one chief of staff, the limiting of
another chief’s freedom of action and a presidential warning to the nation of the dangerous influence of
the military-industrial complex. This environment continued until 1960 [1961], when the Kennedy
administration took office and adopted a stance that was more favorable to the Army. Only then did many
of the seeds planted in the late 1950s take root with a president who was more inclined to favor the
flexible response strategy and the global responsibilities associated with it.

Changing an institution like the Army is both an exogenous and endogenous process. The Army was
unable to influence the external forces of change and, therefore, was limited in its ability to effect internal
change. While both Ridgway and Taylor understood the potential future battlefield and the importance of
conventional forces in maintaining political and military flexibility, they were forced to make concessions

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to the new look strategy. In accommodating the administration’s strategy, the Army structured its forces
based on dual capability for nuclear and nonnuclear warfare. The Army leadership focused its most
talented personnel on developing the doctrine, force structure and equipment to support this concept. It
adopted a Madison Avenue approach to market its transition and changed its image to a modern, high-
tech Army of the future. Despite its best efforts, however, the Army failed to gain the required resources
to accomplish its reshaping for the Cold War Era and misunderstood the complexity of effecting this
fundamental change to its essence.

With inadequate resources to complete its plan for dual-capable forces, the Army failed to make
significant adjustments to its programs and, in fact, it maintained an end strength above the 1953 JCS
directive. In 1957, the Army had about 998,000 personnel, or approximately 128,000 soldiers above the
JCS guidance and spent almost $4 billion, or around 40 percent of its limited budget on manpower.31
Despite its ambitious plans for restructuring and modernizing its forces, the Army would not sacrifice
sufficient force structure or its flexible response requirements for program balance and appropriate levels
of modernization. This decision relegated its marketing effort to a public relations campaign with slogans
and logos that had insufficient substantive basis. The quality of this marketing endeavor created a
momentum that at times was confused with success. This phenomenon was particularly evident in the
validation of the Pentomic concept during Exercise SAGEBRUSH in 1956. The Army failed to evaluate
its product objectively and overlooked deficiencies that later proved to be fatal to the concept. The
doctrine had the right ring, but it was not successfully translated into practical applications. The design
depended heavily on future equipment that never came and became a lightning rod for arguments on the
preeminence of firepower over maneuver. As the Army transitioned to this new design, it overestimated
its ability to assimilate change and underestimated the weaknesses in its plan.

Taylor’s Impact in Retrospect

In the narrowest sense, Taylor failed to achieve many of the goals he set for himself during his tenure
as chief of staff. He did not successfully change the national security policies that led to an inappropriate
contraction of the Army, nor did he develop a force structure supported by doctrinal, logistic and
modernization requirements to sustain it in the long run. He was forced to resort to “negative
campaigning” shortly before his departure as Chief of Staff.32 He expressed his discontent with the
budgetary factors and concepts that had reduced the Army to a strength of 862,000 in 1959 and relegated
it to a secondary role.33 As a private citizen, he immediately wrote The Uncertain Trumpet, a complete
expression of his discontent with massive retaliation and a promotional vehicle for flexible response. The
concepts espoused in the book were quickly supported by Democratic Senators Lyndon Johnson and
Kennedy, who accepted the role of the Army across the spectrum of conflict and, more important, sought
to find faults with the Eisenhower administration’s defense policy.34

Many of these adverse outcomes were due to the political opposition Taylor faced and the budgetary
restrictions that precluded more than a marketing solution to the Army’s dilemma. But he did lay the
groundwork for a national military strategy that would more completely address the range of conflict the
Army would face in the future, and he cultivated a dialogue with Congress, the academic community and
the American people that would ultimately lead them to reject “massive retaliation.”35

In terms of unit readiness, the Army of the 1950s was probably an improvement over the Army that
entered the Korean War, although that hypothesis was not tested in combat. It is clear that the Army was
unprepared for combat at the beginning of the Korean War. Task Force Smith’s failure typified the post-
World War II mentality that allowed units to become ineffective and readiness to fall. In the 1950s,
readiness once again suffered due to reductions in appropriations and manpower, but more so from an
unbalanced approach to modernization that favored tactical nuclear weapons at the expense of
conventional warfighting equipment. If one can levy criticism at the Army leadership of the 1950s, it is

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that efforts to change force structure, doctrine and modernization did not occur fast enough or with
sufficient flexibility for response across the spectrum of conflict. Rather than go to 14 divisions by 1957
as planned, the Army still had 16 divisions in 1959, even though funding and manpower were insufficient
to man these units.36 As for the Pentomic Division, it was obsolete by 1960 because the doctrine and
control problems it posed could not transcend a shift in national military strategy.

Beyond 1959 and into the Kennedy administration, the contributions of Taylor are well known. His
appointment as military assistant to the president and later chairman of the JCS (positions he did not seek)
marked the fulfillment of his goal for a national military strategy of flexible response and a course for the
Army that was more in line with the needs of the nation. In retrospect, his marketing plan was effective in
the long run for several reasons:

• He persevered in his views, even when they were contrary to political opinion.
• He formed a strong alliance with the secretariat and Congress, which paid dividends later.37
• He took his views to the Army to keep it informed on positions at the highest levels.
• He did try to adjust the force structure and doctrine to changing requirements and the new look
strategy.

Taylor’s courage, conviction and patriotism in these efforts are unquestioned. But despite his best
efforts, the Army of the 1950s ultimately failed in its effort to influence the decision makers in JCS and
the White House and allowed readiness to suffer at the expense of maintaining force structure.

Contemporary Lessons

In many respects, the 1990s hold many similarities to the situation faced by chiefs of staff in the
1950s. President George Bush announced major changes in US national security strategy in his Aspen
speech of August 1990, emphasizing smaller overseas commitments and greater reliance on rapid
response to crises. For exactly the opposite reasons as in the 1950s (cessation of the Cold War in the
1990s versus start-up of the Cold War and the principle of massive retaliation in the 1950s), the results
have been the same for the Army—reduced budgets and pressures to reduce force structure. And while
the president acknowledges the need for forces to deal with conflict at all ends of the spectrum, there is a
growing propensity among political strategists and Congress to accept the notion that “high-technology”
warfare obviates the need for extensive numbers of ground forces in future warfare. There are those who
believe that “assault-breaker munitions,” “deep-penetrating munitions” and “smart bombs” can win the
war without ground combat. This notion is one of the dangerous byproducts of technological innovation
and smacks of the 1950’s belief that massive retaliation was the way to fight all future wars. The
advocacy that Taylor practiced in his speeches and writing is every bit as relevant today to ensure that the
chairman of the JCS, the president and the Congress understand the missions and requirements of the
Army to meet its responsibilities as outlined by the national strategy.

Bush also faces intense budgetary pressures to reduce the deficit and provide a peace dividend. The
bipartisan budget agreement that caps federal spending through 1995 limits discretionary spending on
defense. This cap is already jeopardized by projected shortfalls in outlays for FY 94 and FY 95 that will
increase pressure on the defense budget. This has created a situation in which it can be argued that
defense budget numbers through 1995 are not a product of the strategy, but in fact are driving the
strategy. Taylor laments in the 1958 Army Philosophy pamphlet that “few responsible people will argue
against the need for a stable military policy, but few know where to look to verify that we have one. . . . In
a sense, through the budget we rewrite our military policy once a year.”38 The Army of the 1990s must
clearly outline the doctrine, force structure and equipment it needs to provide the capabilities required by
the strategy, and must ensure that funding levels are adequate to meet the need. This requires a marketing

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strategy that will effectively influence the constituencies that make budget and force structure decisions—
the president through the JCS and the Office of Management and Budget, secretary of defense, Army
secretary and Congress.

The Army of today is changing in significant ways to accommodate the reality of a changed security
environment, reduced funding levels and a new range of threats. Current efforts to reshape the force,
provide resources for the force, fully integrate the Total Force and, above all, to maintain the edge are part
of a larger strategy to allow the Army to win decisively in the next war. To the extent we can learn from
the past, we are better prepared to do what those before us could not—break the mold and build the right
Army.

Notes

1. GEN Gordon R. Sullivan, Chief of Staff, Army, in a letter to Army leaders titled “The Army’s
Strategic
Issues,” dated 19 July 1991.
2. Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, FY 1989, 17 and 39.
3. Ibid.
4. Roy K. Flint, “Task Force Smith and the 24th Division: Delay and Withdrawal, 5–19 July 1950,”
America’s First
Battles: 1776–1965 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1986), 266–67.
5. Chester Pach and Elmo Richardson, The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Lawrence, KS:
University Press of
Kansas, 1991), 75.
6. Douglas Kinnard, “Civil-Military Relations: The President and the General,” Parameters (Summer,
1985): 20.
7. A. J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army Between Korea and Vietnam (Washington, DC:
National
Defense University Press, 1986), 38.
8. DoD Semiannual Report to Congress, June 1953, 95.
9. Kinnard, 21.
10. Paul Peeters, Massive Retaliation: The Politics and its Critics (Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Co.,
1959), x.
11. Steve Lofgren, Information Paper, Subject: “Nonconcurrence by U.S. Army Chiefs of Staff with
National
Military Strategy: GEN Matthew Ridgway and GEN Maxwell Taylor,” 5 Dec 90, 20.
12. DoD Semiannual Report to Congress, June 1954, 78.
13. Mark E. Clark, “General Maxwell Taylor and His Successful Campaign Against the Strategy of
Massive
Retaliation,” Army History (Fall 1990): 8.
14. Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1959,
1960), 29.
15. Kinnard, 22.
16. Ibid.
17. Lofgren, 2.
18. DoD Semiannual Report to Congress, June 1957, 94.
19. Ibid., 126.
20. Lofgren, 10.
21. Ibid., 3.
22. Ibid.

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23. Bacevich, 24.
24. Clark, 9.
25. Ibid.
26. Vincent Demma, Working Paper, Subject: “Demobilization After WWII and Korea,” 10.
27. US Department of the Army Pamphlet (DA PAM) 20-1, A Guide to Army Philosophy
(Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office), 10.
28. Taylor, 29–30.
29. Bacevich, 134–35.
30. Clark, 10.
31. DoD National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 1992, March 1991, 110.
32. Clark, 12.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 13.
36. Demma, 11.
37. Ibid.
38. DA PAM 20-1, 1958, 55.

Cannon, Michael W. “The Development of the American Theory of Limited War, 1945–63.” Armed Forces & Society 19, no. 1
(Fall 1992): 71–104. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0466 E

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US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

H405: Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age
Reading H405RB

The Development of the American Theory of Limited War, 1945–63

by Michael W. Cannon

. . . as a test of war-fighting theories, an actual armed conflict is likely to be as
inconclusive or misleading as the absence of war, since every war is the result of a
multiplicity of factors combined in ways that are unique to that conflict and since the
strategy that may or may not have worked under one set of circumstances might produce
a different outcome under other circumstances.
—Robert Osgood1

I. Historical Antecedents

William Kaufmann once wrote that “attitudes toward war are . . . heavily mortgaged to tradition.”2
This is true of the theory of limited war as well. It did not spring full-grown from the head of Mars (to
mix mythological metaphors) but has its roots deeply imbedded in American historical tradition. The saga
of those who wrote about the theory of limited war is as much a story of their struggles against those
tendencies as it is a recounting of their innovations. My purpose here is to analyze what modem writers
offer in light of the writings of some of the classical theorists. In order to do this, it is first necessary to
develop a framework of what the American theory of limited war embraced during the period 1946 to
1961, roughly the era of its gestation, birth, and maturation. This will take place generally in a
chronological sequence with attention being paid to those events, writers, and actors that illuminate or
reinforce the major elements of the theory. Following this, an analysis of the theory will be conducted
within the context of the time. It is to the roots of the theory that we now briefly turn.

Robert Osgood, in his book, Limited War, discussed several aspects of the American way of war.
Perhaps two of the most important tendencies were the view that war and peace were distinct and separate
entities and that Americans traditionally gave the military its head in the conduct of wars.3 Moreover,
there was the tendency to allow the “great idealistic goals, once put to the test of force, [to] become the
rationalization of purely military objectives, governed only by the blind impulse of destruction.”4

Another scholar described the American style as “the use of force in a great moral crusade in which
there is no room for the deliberate hobbling of American power.”5 This all-or-nothing approach was
reinforced by American isolationism, leading to what has been referred to as a confusing “confluence of
pacifism and pugnacity.”6 WWII, and our rapid demobilization in its aftermath, confirmed the existence
of this particularly American style of conflict.

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II. Our Bomb and Implacable Foes

In the late 1940s, several problems rapidly rose to challenge our traditional attitudes concerning war.
The first came from an attempt to rationalize the nation’s defense efforts and bring them under more
efficient, centralized, civilian control. Although the National Security Act of 1947 created a Department
of Defense to oversee three coequal services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), the Secretary of Defense
received only limited authority over them. Thus, when the Congress and administration found it necessary
to reduce revenues and expenditures, the stage was set “for a bitter interservice debate about roles,
strategy, and finance.”7 This debate was made even more vociferous by America’s outlook on war. The
consensus was that wars of the future would be total in nature.

The atomic bomb was seen as the “sovereign remedy for all military ailments,” allowing the United
States to achieve success through “annihilative victories.”8 It was a time when it was still “our bomb” and
the Soviets had no means for atomic attack.9 The Air Force thus “held the master card” as its bombers
were the most evident means of delivery of atomic weapons of annihilation.10

Reductions in the budget and a de facto adoption of a policy of total war caused the services to argue
over how to divide limited resources and determine what means were to be developed. So, at a time when
the services should have focused on a newly defined responsibility to advise the civilian decision makers
on ways and ends, they became involved in an increasingly acrimonious debate over means, one that was
to continue throughout the 1950s. Others, therefore, were to develop the concepts that were to become the
basis of limited war theory.

While the services attempted to come to grips with the ramifications of the National Security Act, the
Truman administration grappled with a growing Communist threat. Ultimately, policy makers decided
there would be no more concessions to the Soviet Union and the United States “would, in effect, ‘draw
the line,’ defending all future targets of Soviet expansion. . . .”11 Thus, our period of isolationism came to
a close. The superpower conflict slowly emerged as one between two ways of life—totalitarianism and
democracy.12 This meant an “open-ended commitment to resist Soviet expansionism . . . at a time when
the means to do so had entirely disappeared.”13 Moreover, it viewed all interests as being of the same
level of importance. Previously we defended only our possessions; now we were guarantors of the Free
World’s security.

The problem lay in reconciling this end with the means available, for “the country had only limited
resources with which to fight it.”14 It became apparent that drastic measures would be necessary to cope
with the situation. Since it was unlikely that available means would be expanded, “interests would have to
be contracted to fit means.”15

Gradually, two lines of argument arose concerning a possible solution. One was similar to the
geopolitics of Sir Halford Mackinder and found support in one of the first papers drafted by the National
Security Council (NSC) in March of 1948. This document stressed that the Eurasian “heartland”
contained areas of potential strength that, if added to Soviet holdings, would make them vastly superior to
the West in manpower and resources. Eight months later, this philosophy was formally expressed in NSC
20/4.16 The assumption that Europe was the most critical link in the chain of American defenses was to
remain at the heart of American security debates throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

The second line of argument centered around how to protect interests of the free world. One view
held that the Communists should be resisted at every step, resulting in a “perimeter defense.” The other
view stressed that the free world needed to distinguish between vital and peripheral interests,
strongpointing those crucial to survival. The latter concept emphasized that non-military elements of
power were to play the dominant role, a traditional perception of means available to the United States.

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The “strongpoint” concept retained a Eurocentric orientation. The controversy over which to adopt was to
shape much of the discussion of national security issues over the next two decades.17

As the Truman administration was in the process of refining and choosing between these two
concepts, several events took place that caused a shift in the debate over national security. The 1949 fall
of Nationalist China narrowed the concept of the struggle between totalitarianism and democracy to one
of communism with democracy. The implication of the fall of China was that adversaries were indivisible
and that “when any nation went communist American security was lessened.”18

The most threatening event, however, was the Soviets’ early development of an atomic bomb. This
set off a discussion in Washington over whether or not to respond by building the hydrogen bomb, a more
powerful implement of destruction.19 Secretary of State Dean Acheson suggested a reevaluation of the
nation’s military and foreign policy within the context of this question. The product of this reexamination
became known as NSC-68, a landmark document in American security policy.

The basis of American defense policy had been established, however. Containment was the goal,
Europe the key. Due to the pressures of the time and of our traditional outlook on war, we began to view
the Communist threat as one that was coalescing throughout the world and something that should be
resisted everywhere with whatever means available. Means to be employed were perceived to be limited,
however, due to economic reasons and the traditional American distaste for a large military. This was
reflected further in a desire to use our technological advantage to the fullest, exploiting the edge that the
atomic bomb gave us. It became, in fact, the centerpiece of American military strategy.

III. NSC-68 and the Great Catalyst

NSC-68 reflected the administration’s attitudes about the world and, in a logical fashion, laid out the
assumptions underlying the framers’ world view. At the same time, it described a course of action for the
government to follow to meet the challenges it faced. Due to the events described above, it became
evident that both the postwar military-political doctrine and the efforts made in support of that doctrine
were grossly inadequate.20 More importantly, “there was a [general] feeling that the United States was
losing the peace.”21 The detailed reevaluation of basic American defense policy thus took place in an
atmosphere of crisis. Since the drafting of NSC-68 was kept free of particulars (in terms of costs and
force requirements) “the drafters were . . . able to concentrate on general considerations of strategy”
instead of being “overwhelmed with details about means, to the complete exclusion of any systematic
treatment of ends and their relationship to means.”22

Crucial to NSC-68’s conclusions were the assumptions underlying the administration’s analysis of the
Communist threat. Although the Kremlin was viewed as the source of the principal challenge and
danger,23 NSC-68 shifted “perceptions of the threat from the Soviet Union to the international communist
movement. . . .”24 The framers of the document foresaw a danger of limited Communist military
adventures to expand Communist holdings, ensuring that an American atomic riposte would be
disproportionate.25 The Soviet atomic challenge thus threatened to upset a balance of power that was
delicately poised and to create a nuclear stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union by
1954.26 What the United States required, therefore, was an expansion of means.27 In order to accomplish
this NSC-68 had to “systematize containment, and . . . find the means to make it work.”28

Although the most important debate focused on whether to build a hydrogen bomb, the underlying
question was: “What should the United States do to avoid complete reliance upon nuclear weapons?”29
The conclusion was that the United States must,

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by means of a rapid and sustained buildup of the political, economic, and military
strength of the free world, and by means of an affirmative program intended to wrest the
initiative from the Soviet Union confront it with convincing evidence of the
determination and ability of the free world to frustrate the Kremlin
design. . . .30

One of the major aspects of this buildup was to be an increase in the variety of military means
available to decision makers. Yet the “disagreements holding back NSC-68’s chances of acceptance were
not with its premises but with the conclusion that containment of Communism necessarily entailed a
diversified and expensive military program.”31 Given this unresolved major issue, the effects of NSC-68
were predicted to be slight. Fortuitously for the framers of the document, the North Koreans invaded
South Korea only a few months after the NSC had completed its work, rescuing NSC-68 from oblivion
and making it the foundation of American strategy.32 This limited conflict appeared to validate NSC-68’s
most important conclusions: existing U.S. forces were inadequate, atomic weapons alone would not deter
limited aggression, and Washington lacked the conventional means necessary to cover all contingencies.33

For the first time, statesmen, the military, and the general public found themselves obliged to effect a
re-examination of strategy.34 The war “brought home dramatically the possibility of engaging in military
clashes with the Soviet bloc which would not resemble World War II . . . [and] the American people were
presented with their first full-scale debate as to the acceptability of limiting warfare.”35

One of the most fundamental assumptions about the conduct of a war with American involvement
was now brought into question. Until 1951, most people had taken it for granted that all wars would be
fought without restraint or limitation.36 Since “the Korean War did not turn out that way . . . it seemed to
baffle us completely.”37 However, the energies of the decision-makers involved turned to different
activities based on their positions: the divisive debate within the military concerning means to be
employed continued, the Administration attempted to devise policies that would avoid our involvement in
such conflicts, and the theorists focused on the ways to conduct limited war.

There was a widespread perception among military circles that the effort at unification had failed.
Instead of cohesion and efficiency the result was “triplification,” not the clear-cut decisions on major
interservice differences required to weld the three services into a single establishment working toward
defined objectives.38 The services, therefore, continued unabated the debate on means—and to a limited
extent, ways—to the exclusion of ends.

The results of the Korean War also energized the strategy intellectuals. Even so, the true “catalyst”
that stimulated thought on limited war was the controversial speech given by Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles in January of 1954 in which he announced the strategy of massive retaliation. “In criticizing
the doctrine . . . analysts were forced to spell out their objections . . . and to grope for an alternative
strategy.
. . .”39 Thus began the questioning of our most cherished assumptions about war.

What were the lessons drawn from Korea that remain a part of our intellectual baggage?40 Perhaps
the most important, and the most difficult to cope with, was the identification of what William Kaufmann
referred to as “constraints upon . . . accustomed behavior. . . .” In his view:

All the emotions traditionally associated with war must be inhibited. We are flung into a
strait jacket of rationality which prevents us from lashing out at the enemy. We are asked
to make sacrifices and then to cheer lustily for a tie in a game that we did not even ask to
play. On the military side, the emotional cost can be minimized somewhat by the practice
of rotating troops. On the civilian side, avoidance of unnecessary dislocation to the

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domestic society combined with careful and authoritative explanations of the alternatives
to limited war are perhaps the only resources available. That they will by no means
eliminate dissatisfaction with so unorthodox a war may, however, redound to our benefit.
For it will be just as well for the enemy to realize that, despite our best efforts at control,
our patience is not inexhaustible.41

Another, and more dubious lesson, was that “still thinking in terms of total victories or total defeats . .
. the United States thought that stalemate was the only alternative to total war.”42 The Korean War also
demonstrated some of the major constraints necessary to keep a war limited. In particular, these included
a willingness to settle for goals representing a considerable degree of compromise with the enemy, and
thus readiness to keep contact with him and to enter into and maintain negotiations with him.43

One issue highlighted by the war was hotly debated until the late 1950s. Russell Weigley wrote that
“the Korean experience suggested that it was not capacity for mobilization that counted most, but rather
the state of readiness” and, even more important, “for conventional surface strength in readiness.”44 By
1960, however, one lesson learned was reflected by Herman Kahn in a RAND report. His contention was
that it “is important to understand that we have this asset: the ability to spend large sums of money
rapidly.”45 Our ability to mobilize large forces rapidly thus appeared to be a strength.

Yet the question of how much conventional force strength in being was required remained
unanswered. Although there was a great deal of discussion concerning how to correct the deficiencies in
our mobilization structure, the government gradually turned away from the strategy of fighting a
prolonged war. The “new look” was thought to be the answer strategists were seeking, one that
accommodated the “new realities.”

Although America had dabbled in the realm of limited war theory, it had not done so to any great
depth. Glacial, yet important, changes had occurred in the space of four years, however. Isolationism was
consigned to the past as the United States realized it must follow a different path. The Free World, of
which the United States was the de facto leader, was perceived to be engaged in a life-or-death struggle,
albeit a nontraditional one, with a monolithic communism as an antagonist. Yet the question of what
means could best be used to contain this beast was still unresolved.

IV. The New Look—A Draconian Solution?

Containment remained the national policy under the incoming Eisenhower Administration. The
country’s national strategy changed to one referred to as the “New Look.”46 Unfortunately, the military
strategy component of the new look received the most attention, not only from historians but from
contemporary critics as well. This was the strategy of massive retaliation, a strategy shaped by pressures
in the political, domestic, and economic spheres.

Eisenhower came into office with many fixed ideas. Ingrained within him was Clausewitz’s argument
that the military should be the servant of politics and the idea that means had to be subordinated to ends.47
Moreover, Eisenhower believed that the means available to secure our national objectives were limited.
He firmly believed “that the national economy could not support indefinite military expenditures at levels
necessary to contain conventional forces.” Based on these predispositions, the possible options open to
the United States were limited to “economic and military assistance to local [indigenous] forces, and
[reliance] upon the deterrent threat of American air and naval power . . . to achieve objectives. . . .”48

More crucial were some of Eisenhower’s assumptions concerning the world order. In a traditionally
American fashion, Eisenhower adopted the slogan, “there is no alternative to peace.”49 War and peace
were things apart—the country was either engaged in a struggle in which all of its resources were to be

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committed, or it was not. This was “an impractical policy,” and, along with massive retaliation, contained
“all or none statements inapplicable to the real world. . . .”50

Eisenhower also perceived American interests to be of a global nature. Like the authors of NSC-68,
Eisenhower “believed the world balance of power to be so delicately poised that no further victories for
communism anywhere could be tolerated without upsetting it.” In his words, “as there is no weapon too
small, no arena too remote, to be ignored, there is no free nation too humble to be forgotten.”51 Any
nation, therefore, but particularly those butting against the Communist world, should be protected. The
concept of a “perimeter,” as opposed to the “strongpoint” method of containment, was thus adopted.

Public attitudes toward the war in Korea also limited the actions Eisenhower could take. Voter
discontent with the conduct of the war put the Republicans into office and the new administration
intended both to extricate the country from the Korean entanglement and to ensure against similar
involvements.52 The major components of the new look would enable Eisenhower to work around this
distaste for ground combat as it was to combine “nuclear deterrence, alliances, psychological warfare, co-
vert actions, and negotiations,” all of which promised to be cheaper in dollar and human cost than did the
prescriptions of NSC-68.53

Within this national strategy, “the central idea was that of asymmetrical response—of reacting to
adversary challenges in ways calculated to apply one’s own strengths against the other sides’
weaknesses.”54 This would, it was hoped, “open up a range of possible responses so wide that the
adversary would not be able to count on retaining the initiative; lacking that, it was thought, he would
come to see the risks of aggression as outweighing the benefits.”55 Moreover, it “implied a willingness to
shift the nature and location of competition from the site of the original provocation. . . .”56 In order to
accomplish this at a tolerable cost (for the economic capability of the nation was the over-riding
consideration), nuclear weaponry would form the basis of our military strategy.57 The Air Force,
therefore, remained Eisenhower’s “big stick.”

All of these disparate threads came together to form the military strategy known as massive
retaliation. This term came to life in a speech given by Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster
Dulles, on January
12, 1954. At this time he stated that “no local defense . . . will alone contain the mighty manpower of the
Communist world . . . [it] must be reinforced by . . . massive retaliatory power.”58 What was implied was
not a rejection of that aspect of the new look that stressed these local defense forces. “Rather the
Administration was saying that it was not prepared to support local-war forces large enough to deal with
all possible aggressive acts of the Sino-Soviet bloc. Therefore local ground defense had to be reinforced
by the threat to use America’s strategic nuclear power.”59

The hue and cry over this pronouncement was immediate and extensive. One commentator wrote that

It seemed almost inconceivable that at the very moment when the loss of our atomic
monopoly . . . was becoming an actuality, Mr. Dulles should announce in blatant and
offensive terms what he claimed was a new doctrine, the doctrine of depending
“primarily upon a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our
choosing.”60

To many, this was “placing the cart before the horse. . . . Military strategy and force structure should
be designed to support the defense needs of the nation—not vice versa. The development should proceed
from theater appraisal to strategy to forces. A reverse progression could end in chaos.”61 The result, as
manifested in the form of massive retaliation, appeared to be “a single draconian solution.”62

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The next several years saw the development of a great debate on military doctrine. Massive retaliation
came under fire for a variety of reasons, but the most vehemently attacked aspects of it were an underly-
ing (and unstated) assumption that it posed great danger to the nation, and that it lacked flexibility.
Perhaps one of the most erudite critics was Bernard Brodie. To him, the “American official attitude . . .
[seemed] to be one of ignoring Soviet nuclear capabilities as a reality to be contended with in planning.”
That part of the New Look “which stresses our retaliatory power is based on an assumption that is
questionable . . . and . . . is bound to be ephemeral—the assumption that we have a unique capability of
destroying an opponent by strategic use of nuclear weapons.”63 In the age of nuclear parity, “an
unrestricted general war” meant “a catastrophe to which there are no predictable limits.”64

Another disadvantage of massive retaliation was its lack of flexibility. As early as 1956, the
consensus among intellectuals was that American military policy would “have to deal in some way with
the possibility of small-scale wars launched in the manner of the Korean attack of 1950 or developing out
of guerrilla operations as in Indo-China.”65 Massive retaliation could not cope with this style of war.
Most writers at the time felt that the solution lay in the creation of a capability to fight limited wars.

V. The Birth of the Theory of Limited War

Robert Osgood once suggested that “the western definition of limited war, like the theory, reflected
not some universal reality but the interests of the western allies, especially the United States, in a
particular period of international conflict.”66Yet the difficulties faced by the theorists were complex and
defied simple solutions. The public and classified literature of the period attacked a dilemma that
appeared at the time “to be roughly this: to renounce war altogether as an instrument of policy, or to
devise a strategy that employs select means of force (nuclear) yet skirts the contingency of mutual
thermonuclear annihilation.”67 The main problem of the theorists in the mid-1950s, given the declared
policy that nuclear weapons were to remain the basis of American military strategy, was initially to
convince decision-makers and the public of the need to consciously consider how to limit war.

The introduction of the thermonuclear device posed perhaps the greatest threat to existing perceptions
of the world order. The scale of destruction that could be wrought in a war based on massive retaliation
against opponents armed with hydrogen bombs was far beyond that which had occurred using the
conventional means of WWII. The significance of the new weapons was, however, not readily apparent to
all. The theorists of the time were thus “faced with the necessity of exploring the effects of the new type”
when they had “not yet succeeded in comprehending the implications of the old.”68

As one perceptive commentator described it, the potential for a global catastrophe was real. “Given
the will, the ability seems to exist, at least on the part of the Soviet Union and the United States, to pound
each other to dust.” It was obvious that “any effort to restrict conflict must therefore provide a workable
policy for keeping this extraordinary capability within the desired bounds.”69 This point was not debated
until nuclear parity had been achieved, however. By then a growing number of intellectuals had joined in
the fray, with Bernard Brodie wielding perhaps the weightiest cudgel. To Brodie, the United States
military was “tensed and coiled for total nuclear war.” What was needed was “to rethink some of the
basic principles (which have become hazy since Clausewitz) connecting the waging of war with the
political ends,
thereof. . . .”70

Initially this reexamination was directed at one of the theoretical concepts underlying massive
retaliation: that of weapons to be employed. The Korean experience was constantly used as an example of
what a limited war might be like. Based on the western experience in this arena, Raymond Aron
suggested that one of the first questions that should be asked was “what kind of weapons can be used in a
limited conflict without provoking a general nuclear war?”71 Up until the mid-1950s, the nuclear weapon

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had not posed an escalatory threat. The numbers of weapons stockpiled were so few that there was “no
available alternative to a Douhet-type strategy.” The thermonuclear bomb, however, “no sooner appeared
than it began to be spewed forth in such numbers and began to wax so great in size” that it threatened “to
go far beyond the stage that would redeem him [Douhet] from his errors.”72 The development of truly
strategic air power in the form of long-range aircraft, coupled with the destructiveness of atomic weapons,
meant that instead of being devoted to an action strategy, air power had to be relegated to a deterrent role.
The challenge for the West, therefore, was “to assess how little effort must be put into it to keep global
war abolished.”73 Decision makers gradually came to support such a position. This was reflected in 1957
when Secretary of State Dulles wrote an article “in which he seemed to retreat from massive retaliation at
least partway . . . [and] argued . . . for more emphasis on tactical nuclear capabilities.”74

The logical question to follow the slowly developing consensus that an all-out total war would be an
unmitigated global disaster was how to conduct a war in a fashion required to keep it limited. The
theorists again used the Korean experience as a starting point, and the “new theory of limited war owe[d]
much . . . to the miscellaneous collection of lessons abstracted from the history of the Korean conflict.”75
The theory that arose was not one that can be traced by a straight-line progression of concepts, however.
It was more a collection of nuggets that were washed from the intellectual stream of ideas that poured
forth following Dulles’ massive retaliation speech. In conceptual terms, the discussion of limits focused
on both ways and ends, with the latter being by far the most difficult to deal with in a manner that would
provide a guide to practitioners.

VI. Tentative Elements of the Theory

One of the first issues that needed to be explored was how to fight a limited war given the
possibilities offered not only by thermonuclear weapons but also by the rapid increase in the availability
of smaller weapons. Two concepts were to emerge that addressed other possible uses for nuclear
weapons. The first traced its roots directly to massive retaliation and bore the name “graduated
deterrence.”

Paul Nitze once offered a conceptual device that is useful here for a study of the nation’s policies. He
claimed that there is a distinction between the “action policy” of a nation and its “declaratory policy.”
Although massive retaliation was trumpeted as the latter by American policymakers, in actuality its action
policy was something different—graduated deterrence.76 This concept involved tailoring the projected
application of nuclear weapons to the importance of the objective to be achieved. The hope was that by
guaranteeing an upper limit along a vertical scale of weapons used, an explosion to total nuclear war
would be avoided.77 The question that needed to be answered, however, was “which areas of the world
must be protected by the threat of atomic bombing, and which are the areas that must be defended by
conventional weapons?” It was a matter of adjusting “the deterrent to the importance of the stake.”78

Hand in hand with graduated deterrence came the concept of limited nuclear warfare. Bernard Brodie
had been one of the first to see the potential for using nuclear weapons tactically “in order to redress
what . . . [was] otherwise a hopelessly inferior position for the defense of Western Europe.”79 If a war in
Europe using tactical nuclear weapons was carried out with restraint, theorists felt that retaliation on a
broader front could be avoided. Using this as an implicit assumption, the discussion turned to a
consideration of the means needed to fight such a war and what would be required to keep such a war
limited.

Some of the possibilities were so evident as to require only a minimal amount of elucidation.
Geographical limits were perhaps the simplest. Within a European context, this devolved into attempting
to limit the types of targets to be attacked. The Douhet style concept of “city-busting” was replaced by a

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more abstract treatment of strategic targets suggesting that perhaps within Europe there were gradations
that could be successfully targeted to limit the escalations of violence.

More recent limited wars yielded other lessons. Areas involved in these wars were limited and
definable, the contestants did not commit the total military resources available to them, sovereignty was
not an issue, and political factors influenced military decisions.80 Gradually, however, the assumption
that there was no longer a serious danger of total war gained wider currency.81

Theorists argued that “only a war between a free or would-be free nation on one side and a member of
the Soviet bloc or one of its stooges . . . remains . . . a type of limited war vital to our interests. . . .”82 The
concept of limited war thus grew in importance in the American public debate “as an alternative to
massive retaliation for the defense of third [world] areas; and the term . . . [became] associated with the
use of limited military force in local areas . . . [and] was coopted to refer to . . . war ostensibly between
the forces of the free world and those of Communism in a restricted area for less than total goals.”83
Further debate on limited war initially took place with this as a major assumption.

In 1957, two books were released that supposedly “set the terms of discussion” for the debate during
the period 1957 to 1960 on limited war.84 These were Robert Osgood’s Limited War and what was
perhaps the first strategic study in American history to approach becoming a bestseller, Henry Kissinger’s
Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.

Osgood highlighted in his discussion many of the points about the nation’s approach to war brought
out by earlier writers: the traditional American distaste for war, our tendency to allow wars to grow in
violence due to our dissociation of war and politics, and our acceptance of the policy of containment on a
global scale.85 Osgood asked two key questions: how could the United States keep war limited, and how
could the United States fight limited wars successfully?86 He used the majority of his work to address the
first question, stressing that political objectives would determine practical limits. It was up to Henry
Kissinger to develop an answer to the second.

Much like other critics of the Eisenhower administration, Kissinger argued for a different approach to
policy and strategy. The major assumption underlying his work was that “for better or for worse, strategy
must henceforth be charted against the ominous assumption that any war is likely to be a nuclear war.”
With this in mind, the conduct of a limited war in the nuclear age had “two prerequisites: a doctrine and a
capability.”87 Much of Kissinger’s book was concerned with laying out a tentative doctrine for the
conduct of a nuclear war based on the development of small yield nuclear weapons.88 His main concern,
however, was that policy and strategy find a place for the use of force in a manner less than absolute, that
is, that means and ways had to be tailored to political ends. Limited nuclear warfare, particularly in a
European context, offered a way out.

Osgood and Kissinger apparently shared a set of assumptions. Both saw the existence of an
international and unified Communist threat that was aggressively attempting to expand its influence.
Although dangerous enough in a conventional environment, in a nuclear one, the possible consequences
of conflict were frightening. The consensus was that the first priority of those analyzing strategic issues
should be to develop the concepts needed to preclude a nuclear Armageddon and then to develop the
wherewithal to conduct wars on a much lower scale of violence. What is most significant about these two
writers is that, to a large degree, they represented the mainstream of the intellectual currents of thought on
limited war.

Shortly after the publication of these influential books, Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict
was released. Schelling amplified a number of thoughts that were then in vogue, particularly on the
limiting process. He was more concerned, however, with the role of bargaining and negotiation in limited

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conflicts. Although to some his argument was an extremely sophisticated development of concepts
striving to expand the frontiers of knowledge, to others it was a somewhat esoteric discussion of isolated
aspects of limited war theory open to misinterpretation.

One critic has claimed that Schelling argued that “the study of limited war in no way depended on
any actual knowledge of war . . . [and that the] strategy of conflict is about bargaining, about conditioning
someone else’s behavior to one’s own.”89 Much of the problem in interpreting Schelling’s work centered
around the fact that Schelling was not using the term “strategy” as it was used in military circles.
Schelling defined strategy as the search for the optimal behavior that should be adopted by a player based
on the interdependence of adversaries and on their expectations about others’ behavior.90 By his time,
however, the theoretical consensus held that the theory of limited war was part of a view of “a ‘strategy of
conflict’ in which adversaries would bargain with each other through the mechanism of graduated
military responses . . . in order . . . to achieve a negotiated settlement. . . .91 Military actions could thus be
placed from least to most violent along a spectrum from which civilian policymakers could pick and
choose at will.

Schelling argued that it appeared to be generally accepted that “there is a rather continuous gradation
in the possible sizes of atomic weapons effects, in the forms they can be used, in the means of
conveyance, in the targets they can be used on, and so forth.”92 He was not, however, a supporter of the
use of nuclear weapons. Instead, he stressed that “what makes atomic weapons different is a powerful
tradition that they are different,”93 and he recognized that there was, “a worldwide revulsion against
nuclear weapons as a political fact.” Thus the only break along the scale of nuclear options was between
use and non-use, not a flexible, sliding point somewhere along the scale as postulated by Kissinger.94

The discussions of limited war during this explosion of creative thought focused on the strategic uses
of power. The major concern was how to arrive at limits and only secondarily on how to achieve war
aims. Even so, the treatises on war limitation left “much to be desired in our understanding of limits and
the limiting process, especially in relation to the political setting of a local war.”95 Schelling was the only
one who even attempted to develop a practical approach to conflict termination in a form that could be
used by decision makers.

The sole writer to approach the problems found on the battlefield was William Kaufmann. In Military
Policy and National Security, Kaufmann argued that there appeared to be three preconditions that were
required before the enemy had to be blocked and held on the battlefield; the second, that the cost of the
“blocking action” had to weigh more heavily upon him than us; the third, that whatever the mode of
combat our antagonist chose, he would perceive the results of continued combat to be the same.96

Kaufmann also offered “several general principles” for battlefield action. The United States had to
aim for efficient resistance as quickly as possible while avoiding expanding either the theater of
operations or the types of weapons employed. Furthermore, military actions should “symbolize the
intention of the United States to confine both the conflict and the issues” to “the narrowest limits
commensurate with the security and tactical initiative of our forces.” The military objective appeared,
therefore, to be “to inflict heavy and continuing costs upon the enemy’s forces” with attrition rather than
annihilation being the goa1.97 Thus, “any decision to end the war is likely to result more from a sense of
futility than from minor losses of territory. . . .”98

This sounds like Korea in a nutshell. Perhaps more important than the above, however, was
Kaufmann’s contention that the United States must “place our military establishment in symmetry with
that of the Communist bloc . . . [to] enhance our bargaining power whether over substantive issues or over
problems of disarmament.”99 These suggestions were to fall on receptive ears late in the decade, but prior
to that, a new crisis had to be overcome.

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VII. Limited War Theory Diverted

From a distance of almost thirty years it is difficult to comprehend how the 1957 launching of the
Sputnik jolted the American psyche. From the ebullient tone of Henry Kissinger’s theories of possible
limited nuclear war, the country was unceremoniously shoved face to face with the specter of nuclear
annihilation.100 By 1959, those dealing with national security issues turned once again to the problems of
deterring a global catastrophe.

Two writers came to the fore in presenting the unpalatable to U.S. citizens—Oskar Morgenstern and
Albert Wohlstetter. Morgenstern trumpeted the fact that the Soviet nuclear accomplishments were “so
formidable” that in 1959 the United States “was approaching a peak of danger the like of which has never
been experienced by a great nation.” His contention, however, was that with the proper developments in
technology and strategy, this danger could be overcome. In particular he favored a further development
and broadening of America’s strategic nuclear arsenal.101

Wohlstetter was more pessimistic. In a RAND report (and its unclassified variant that made its way to
the public forum), Wohlstetter attacked the commonly held assumption that the nuclear balance was
stable.102 Due to the capability implied by Sputnik, nuclear deterrence of a general war was no longer
considered automatic.103 Since thermonuclear weapons could give an aggressor an enormous advantage,
deterrence would require “urgent and continuing effort,” since “this technology itself is changing with
fantastic speed.”104 Thus, even though it appeared by mid-1957 that the voices of those arguing for a
limited war capability were finally being heard, Sputnik “dramatically [turned] . . . the attention of
American policymakers and strategists to the new problems of global war in the missile age.”105

In a move typical of the Eisenhower administration, a civilian committee was formed to look into a
number of problems facing the country. Concerning defense, the Gaither Committee report stressed that
“first priority must be given to maintaining the stability of the strategic balance. Thus, just as the
government was shifting to the view that the strategic balance was inherently stable and the problem was
maintaining adequate limited war forces, the administration turned back to the belief that no major shift . .
. in defense spending was desirable.”106

Concurrently with this, “the attention of most analysts turned more and more to problems of general
war.” As Kissinger’s arguments were dissected in this new strategic context, it became apparent that they
were severely flawed.107 Complicating matters even further was the Soviet view that “if nuclear weapons
are present, any ‘small’ war will inevitably grow into a ‘big’ war . . .”108 Thus, “by the end of the 1950s .
. . the possibilities and perplexities of strategic nuclear warfare seemed endless . . . in the short space of
little more than ten years, the planners and their technical collaborators had invented an essentially new
mode of warfare [emphasis added].”109

The outcome of the debate on limited war theory remained inconclusive. Not only were “the
dynamics of escalation” hardly better understood than in the early 1950s, it was not at all clear what was
meant by the term “limited war,” either in a nuclear or non-nuclear sense.110 By 1960, the consensus
among strategic thinkers was that wars could no longer be deterred by nuclear means and policies at hand.
However, strategy “could not be adapted to nuclear weapons leisurely, or through trial and error.”111 One
generally accepted doctrine for nuclear use that offered a possible solution came to be known (at least
initially) as “flexible response.”

Under Eisenhower, war with the Soviet Union called for a general release of all U.S. nuclear weapons
in a single “spasm.”112 The incoming Kennedy administration saw the need to provide for a potential “so

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designed and controlled” that it could attack a wide range of targets in order to give the United States at
least the ability to fight a nuclear war while limiting worldwide damage.113

The need for conventional forces gradually came to the forefront of security debates as well. Under
Eisenhower, this arm of the military had been allowed to atrophy. Only eleven of the Army’s fourteen
divisions were rated as combat-effective (and were organized for nuclear conditions under the Pentomic
structure). The strategic reserve, formed from the divisions that were not in Korea or Germany, consisted
of one division in Hawaii and three in the continental United States.114 Numerous smaller crises requiring
the possible deployment of conventional forces abounded in the late 1950s, undermining the ideas of
massive retaliation and deterrence through nuclear superiority at tactical levels.115 The 1958 Lebanon
crisis was perhaps the most visible evidence of the military’s conventional impotence.116 It was apparent
that our capabilities did not match strategic realities.

Later, as the means available to decision makers grew, some began to see the role of conventional
forces in a new strategic light. While the debate continued, the concepts of graduated deterrence and the
spectrum of conflict were brought together to form the “strategy of escalation,” a concept that gave
conventional forces an important role.

The idea bore some similarity to a poker game. Presumably, the non-nuclear chips were
the easiest ones to play; NATO therefore should have a sufficient supply of them to make
a substantial ante in the event the Soviets started the game. Not only would this be a
believable step; it would also commit the United States irrevocably to the play. As such,
it might well act as a deterrent to Soviet action. If not, it might suffice to cause a Soviet
withdrawal from the game. However, if the Soviets persisted, the United States would
then have to resort to nuclear weapons, at first on the tactical level; and if that did not
work, on the strategic level. The threat of a graduated use of force, in which non-nuclear
capabilities would be the leading elements, thus was the only technique that seemed
applicable to the threat in Europe.117

Although never formally adopted by the Kennedy administration, this concept offered the potential
for meeting Communist threats at levels below that of nuclear war. Thus, as the Kennedy administration
came into office, backers of three capabilities clamored for funds and the attention of policy makers and
strategic thinkers: strategic nuclear warfare, tactical nuclear warfare, and limited non-nuclear warfare.118
Unfortunately, the arena for the interplay of funds, ideas, and policies remained stable for only a brief
period before yet another form of warfare burst upon the world scene.

John F. Kennedy entered office through a campaign that had pledged to restore America’s flawed
defense policies. He had promised to reduce the “missile gap,” restore America’s conventional forces, and
provide for greater nuclear options. In 1961, however, Nikita Krushchev gave a speech that was to have
grave repercussions for the American theory of limited war. Krushchev declared that there were three
possible categories of wars: world wars, local wars, and liberation wars or popular uprisings. The USSR,
Krushchev trumpeted, had the capability and wherewithal to fight, and thus forestall, conflicts of the first
two types. Wars against imperialism (the third type) were likely to break out in every continent, however,
and Krushchev announced that the Soviet Union would support such conflicts wherever possible.119

This was a bombshell for the new President. Although similar wars had been fought before (in
Algeria and Indochina), Russia’s support for them had been previously tepid at best. Now, however, there
appeared a “new and particularly dangerous form” of warfare. Backed by an aggressive Communist bloc
and fueled by revolutionary ardor, this “para-war” or “sub-limited war” presented the United States “with
a completely new challenge.”120

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The President addressed this threat immediately and put “a great drive” behind a program to develop
concepts and techniques to cope with it.121 To a large degree, the problems of wars of national liberation
supplanted the concerns of limited war theorists. Moreover, Kennedy’s attention was firmly fixed to the
former as he declared, “How we fight that kind of problem which is going to be with us all through this
decade seems to me to be one of the greatest problems now before the United States.”122 As John L.
Gaddis wrote, the ‘struggle had been switched from Europe to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, from
nuclear and conventional weaponry to irregular warfare, insurrection, and subversion. . . .”123 Once again,
the theory of limited war was derailed.

VIII. The Theory of Limited War—An Analysis

There are a number of pitfalls threatening anyone who attempts to reconstruct a theory as it evolves
over time. The benefits of hindsight allow an analyst to neatly build a model that supports the major
tenets of an argument instead of seeing a problem in all its complexity. This often leads to portraying a
line of thought as either black or white, omitting the subtle shades of grey that so often are vital
qualifications. Keeping this in mind, I have attempted to trace general trends and identify common
threads that were gradually woven into the fabric of limited war. The result is the tapestry shown in
Figure 1.

A number of assumptions were critical to the development of this theory. Perhaps the most important
and widest in its implications was the concept of a monolithic Communist bloc within a bipolar world.
This implies several terms of reference from which the theory cannot escape.

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The need to contain the influence of the Soviet Union in order to promote its disintegration led to the
adoption of a concept of perimeter defense. Within this context, any gain by the Communist bloc would
be a loss for the Free World, and “salami-slice” tactics, the nibbling away of Western interests, had to be
prevented. Since the number of influential actors was relatively small, the conflict gradually came to be
seen as essentially a form of poker between two players. This, in turn, took place along a spectrum of
conflict in which the adversarial players would confront one another and gain or lose chips in the context
of a “global game.”

Given these assumptions, the ends, ways, and means of the American theory as listed were
predictable. Although a general, wide ranging nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union
was considered to be unlikely, it was not viewed as impossible. How to avoid an “explosion” from a
“local” conflict into a worldwide one was thus a weighty consideration and an important end, second only
to “containment.” Yet without the ability to apply all elements of a nation’s power flexibly, these consid-
erations would be meaningless.

This theory, like all theories, has its weaknesses. Clausewitz offers a number of illuminating thoughts
about theory and its role that are applicable to this situation. The “primarily purpose of any theory is to
clarify concepts and ideas that have become, as it were, confused and entangled. Not until terms and
concepts have been defined can one hope to make any progress in examining the question. . . .”124
Moreover, the “task of theory . . . [is] to study the nature of ends and means.”125 Yet there are definite
limits to what theory can accomplish. “Theory is not meant to provide . . . positive doctrines and systems
to be used as intellectual tools.”126 As Clausewitz’s acerbic contemporary, Jomini, points out, “theories
cannot teach men with mathematical precision what they should do in every case; but it is certain that
they will always point out the errors which should be avoided.”127 The problems, however, arise when
theory meets reality, for “theory conflicts with practice.”128

Clausewitz divides “activities characteristic of war” into two categories, “those that are merely
preparations for war, and war proper.” Theory can be applied to both categories, yet “the theory of war,
proper, is concerned with the use of these means, once they have been developed, for the purpose of
war.”129 It is easier, however, “to use theory to plan, organize, and conduct an engagement than it is to
use it in determining an engagement’s purpose.”130 It was in this translation of the means available to
achieve the ends desired that the supporters of the theory of limited war ran into difficulty.

It is easier, however, to criticize than to praise, to destroy than to create. With this injunction in mind,
it is necessary to dwell on the positive aspects of the theory first, before they are overwhelmed by subse-
quent criticism. The development of the theory of limited war was a broadly based, interdisciplinary
effort that was the subject of much heated debate. The result was an intellectual construct that imposed
order upon disorder and set the terms for national security concepts that are still in use today. It addressed
wide-ranging numbers and types of threats, thus providing policy makers with the ability to do what
Clausewitz claimed to be the first and foremost task of the statesman, “to establish . . . the kind of war on
which they are embarking. . . .131 Thus the concepts and their subsequent development satisfy the
“primary purpose” of a theory.

The theorists were at great pains to address the strategic uses of power. Their main concern was how
to integrate military force into what had become a more deadly and far less forgiving international
environment. The focus therefore was on war as a continuation of politics with other means. Moreover,
they understood that the term “political war” was not an oxymoron. How to establish limits and use force
in a manner that would not eclipse their goals was a crucial consideration and worthy of attention, for if
war was “a matter of vital importance to the State . . . it is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.”132
They understood that wars have a dynamic all their own, and if left uncontrolled, have a tendency to
escalate in terms of the amount of violence employed and the goals to be obtained. Limiting means and

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ways thus became a central focus of this theory, and rightly so, for as Jomini points out, “although
originating in religious or political dogmas, these wars [of opinion] are most deplorable; for . . . they
enlist the worst passions, and become vindictive, cruel, and terrible.”133

The recognition of the existence of Clausewitz’s “paradoxical trinity” in the form of political control,
primordial violence, and chance is also evident in the theory. Domestic issues were not neglected, as
some later critics charged, but instead addressed within this context. The traditional American approach to
war as something akin to a crusade was understood, and theorists contended that it could be changed with
the adoption of appropriate measures.134 The emphasis merely needed to be placed on the aspect of
political control to promote success. Thus, if given a “Clausewitzian litmus test,” it would appear that the
theory would pass. Unfortunately, with the administering of other tests, it does not.

Perhaps one of the weakest aspects was apparent in an area where the theory received high marks—
the political use of force. Although the existence of a unified Communist threat is debatable within the
context of the time, the theory was based on the assumption that rational actors operate within the
international political system. Greatly contributing to the problems of the practical application of the
theory was “the Russians’ own inconsistency: at no point during the Cold War did their behavior oscillate
more between extremes of belligerence and conciliation than during Kennedy’s years in office.”135

The definition of conflict as bargaining between two blocks was also flawed. Bargaining “implies the
ability to control precisely the combination of pressures and inducements to be applied, but that in turn
implies central direction, something not easy to come by in a democracy in the best of circumstances, and
certainly not during the first year of an inexperienced and badly organized administration.”136 It also
implies the ability to identify a single threat or single actor against whom one can direct those pressures.
Although the existence of a Sino-Soviet split was in evidence as early as 1960,137 the concept of a
monolithic communism retained some credence well into the politics of the 1980s. Moreover, as the
perception of a threat changes over a period of time, how does a government orchestrate the “calibration,”
the measured and incremental use, of incentives and pressure?138 American involvement in Vietnam
lasted close to twenty years. During this period the war changed in nature from an insurgency to a
conventional invasion from the north. How and where are pressures to be applied when the threat does not
remain constant? Finally, given the possibility that the threat can change, how can limits be imposed that
will restrain the war within acceptable bounds? In Vietnam, were pressures to be applied against the
North Vietnamese, Chinese, or Soviets or against the South Vietnamese government? With an increase in
the number of actors, the permutations and combinations of successful and unsuccessful inducements
interlock in such a way as to be mind boggling; yet this is characteristic of limited wars.

The role of the military in the theory is unclear as well. Although Kennedy proclaimed that the
strategy of flexible response was “to deter all wars, general or limited, nuclear or conventional, large or
small—to convince all potential aggressors that any attack would be futile—to provide backing for the
diplomatic settlement of disputes—to insure the adequacy of our bargaining power for an end to the arms
race,” what military forces were to do in combat remained uncertain.139

Most of the possible uses for the military were couched in euphemistic terms, such as “successful
blocking actions,” or “blocking the enemy,” and so on. What is missing is an understanding of Sun-Tzu’s
contention that “what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.”140 It is almost as if, in a
peculiarly deadly form of hubris, the theorists felt that the military aspects were self-explanatory. Take,
for instance, the comments in a speech made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in November of
1963.

In Greece, in Berlin, and in Cuba, Communists have probed for military and political
weakness but when they have encountered resistance, they have held back. Not only

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Communist doctrine has counselled this caution, but respect for the danger that any
sizable, overt conflict would lead to nuclear war. It would follow that no deterrent would
be more effective against these lesser and intermediate levels of challenge than the
assurance that such moves would certainly meet prompt, effective military response by the
West.141

To some extent, this is a confirmation of the contention that “in its search for a way to keep a nuclear
conflict within acceptable limits of damage the Kennedy administration called upon the skills of the
commander, but to restrain rather than to expand battlefield violence.”142 Although this neglect of the
roles of the military may appear to be a glaring oversight, the question that should be asked is who was to
bring up military considerations and the peculiarities of battlefield problems. A large number of the
limited war theorists had some prior military service on which to base their arguments. Yet only a very
few military men attempted to discuss, address, correct, or analyze the theory in the public domain. There
was a great deal of discussion of defense policy and how to cope with exigencies on the nuclear
battlefield, but the question of what military end states were required to secure political objectives rarely
saw light in print. The services demonstrated a myopic concern with means (tools available) over ways
(manner of employment) and ends.

A final weakness of the theory was the generally accepted concept of a spectrum of conflict. This
retains force even today, as evidenced by the following quote from AFM 1-1; Basic Aerospace Doctrine
of the USAF.

Our military forces must be capable of achieving victory across a wide spectrum of
conflicts of crises. This spectrum is a continuum defined primarily by the magnitude of
the declared objectives.143

Although the spectrum is a useful tool, its greatest value is in the activity Clausewitz called
“preparation for war.”144 This is a neat, orderly device for illuminating the wide variety of roles that the
armed forces are required to fill and graphically highlights problems that are critical in developing
budgets and force structures. It fails, however, to show the complexities and chaos of warfare and gives a
mistaken impression of how differing types of warfare are interrelated.

Applying the strategy of escalation to this continuum has led to the concept of “escalation
dominance,” the idea that superiority at the highest level of force in use along the scale is the most
important aspect of a conflict. Although this concept recognizes that other types of conflict may be going
on, it holds that the crucial battles will take place at the highest levels of violence. Perhaps a better
representation of warfare is shown in Figure 2, the idea of “spectrum-less conflict.” From this vantage
point, wars can be interpreted as being multifaceted, with conflicts moving and changing character with
bewildering frequency as the means employed and ends sought change. The implication of escalation
dominance is that victory can be achieved through raising the level of violence to an extreme the enemy
cannot match. The suggestion of this spectrum-less conflict is that differing categories of conflict can be
going on independently from or in conjunction with one another. Although one may not lose by
escalating, one certainly may not win if other facets of the conflict are ignored.

Yet another implication of the spectrum of conflict is that the military capabilities of the United States
must be placed in what John Gaddis referred to as “symmetry” with the USSR. This implies that “you
neglect no capability whatsoever . . . [and] with respect to each capability you’re almost driven to
outspend the enemy appreciably because, by definition, this doctrine concedes him the strategic
initiative.”145 The result is that “perceptions of means have played a larger role than perceptions of threats
in shaping U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union.”146

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Given the rather harsh criticism that has been heaped upon the altar of limited war theory, the
question remains—what is the bottom line? The theory is a product of its era, shaped by pressures and
demands of the time that were often beyond the control of the framers. It has a number of glaring flaws
that leap out under analysis (admittedly at the distance of some thirty years). Yet the tendency to reject it
out of hand, to throw out the baby with the bathwater, needs to be restrained. There are a number of
positive elements that can be used in discussions of security issues today.

The first is the recognition that there is a multiplicity of means available to policy makers at all levels
of government that can be used in the formulation of strategies. Too often the military solution is
trumpeted as the key, too often as nonapplicable. When viewed as merely one aspect of an integrated
approach, the benefits of the use of the military element of power can complement the effects of the
others. Used alone, it may create far more problems than it solves. More importantly, the military must
remain responsive to civilian control, but also retain the ability to adjust the manner of the application of
force to enhance the attainment of political objectives.

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The second is that containment as an element of policy has withstood the test of time. This is not a
new doctrine, however, for as Jomini points out, during the French Revolution of the late 1700s, the
proper actions for the European monarchies would have been to merely “contain” the revolution within
France. Active intervention was not the answer, for “time is the remedy for all bad passions and for all
anarchical doctrines. A civilized nation may bear the yoke of a factious and unrestrained multitude for a
short interval; but these storms soon pass away, and reason resumes her sway.”147 What has not remained
valid is the concept of perimeter defense. More selectivity should be exercised in the selection of U.S.
goals and interests, and, just as important, what sacrifices are within reason to secure them. This is
especially crucial now that regional conflicts are the focus of defense strategy. Ways and means must be
subordinated to ends and constantly studied in the light of the dynamics of changing situations.

Finally, the process of limiting wars and their effects should still be regarded as complex processes
that at times can defy solution. There are no set methods to go about limiting wars, although some are
more readily applicable than others. Geographic scale and scope are perhaps the easiest to maintain and
the clearest to demonstrate. Levels of force and types of forces employed are perhaps the most probable
limits that will be in use, but these are the ones that are least susceptible to clear and communicable
definitions.

It is apparent that the theory of limited war as developed prior to Vietnam had its limitations. Yet it
set terms, developed concepts, and established the framework of the debate on security issues that
continues even today. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to it and its intellectual “fathers,”
however, is that it helped to keep us from a Third World War.

Notes

1. Robert Osgood, Limited War Revisited (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 8.
2. William Kaufmann, “Limited Warfare,” in Military Policy and National Security, ed. William
Kaufmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 134.
3. Robert Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1957), 29.
4. Ibid., 15.
5. Morton Halperin, Limited War in the Nuclear Age (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1963), 19.
6. Gordon Craig, “The Problem of Limited War,” Commentary, xxv (February 1958), 173.
7. Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 373. See also Russell
Weigley, History of the United States Army (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967), 495.
8. Weigley, Way of War, 382.
9. Albert Wohlstetter, The Delicate Balance of Terror (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
1958), 32, RAND P-1472.
10. Weigley, Way of War, 372.
11. John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 21.
12. Ibid., 65–66.
13. Ibid., 23.
14. Ibid., 58.
15. Ibid., 21.
16. Ibid., 59. Halford Mackinder was an English geographer who developed, around the turn of the
century, the concept of the “heartland.” Mackinder felt that the end of exploration was creating a closed
political system in the world. Due to the changes in the relative strength of land and sea power, he
claimed that the power that controlled the Eurasian land mass could possibly dominate world events,
because the heartland was “an ample base for land power, potentially the greatest on earth.” Derwent

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Whittlesey, “Haushofer: The Geopoliticians,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from
Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton University Press, 1973), 401 and 405. NSC 20/4
stated that “Soviet domination of the potential power of Eurasia . . . would be strategically and politically
unacceptable to the United States.”
17. Ibid., 57 and 59.
18. Ibid., 137.
19. Gaddis, Strategies, 79.
20. Paul Nitze, “Limited Wars or Massive Retaliation,” The Reporter (September 5, 1957), 40.
21. John L. Gaddis and Paul Nitze, “NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat Reconsidered,” International
Security 4, 4 (Spring 1980), 170. Paul Nitze was the Director of the Policy Planning Staff on the NSC and
the individual who chaired the ad hoc committee of State and Defense representatives who drafted NSC-
68.
22. Glenn H. Snyder, “The ‘New Look’ of 1953,” in Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets, ed.
Warner Schilling, Paul Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962),
366.
23. Gaddis and Nitze, “NSC 68,” 171.
24. Gaddis, Strategies, 239.
25. Weigley, Way of War, 382.
26. William Kaufmann, Planning Conventional Forces, 1950–80 (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings
Institution, 1982), 2.
27. Gaddis and Nitze, “NSC 68,” 170. George Kennan had argued that “two high-quality Marine
divisions . . . would be sufficient to support the military requirement of containment.”
28. Gaddis, Strategies, 90–91.
29. Nitze, “Limited Wars,” 172 and 176.
30. NSC-68, April 14, 1950, 3–69, from “United States Objectives and Programs For National
Security” in National Security Documents (USACGSC; Ft. Leavenworth, KS 66027).
31. Weigley, Way of War, 379. Although some have stated that NSC-68 “put no limit” upon
recommended U.S. policies and “paid no attention” to the limitations of budgetary means “this was not
the case.” The framers of the document “were fully aware . . . of the limitations of means.” The conflicts
that arose were over the scale of means that were thought to be necessary. Gaddis and Nitze, 174.
32. Weigley, Way of War, 398.
33. Gaddis, Strategies, 109–110.
34. Raymond Aron, “NATO and the Bomb,” Western World (June 1957), 11.
35. Halperin, Limited War, 22.
36. Arnold Wolfers, “Could a War in Europe be Limited,” The Yale Review XLV, 2 (December
1955), 214.
37. Bernard Brodie, “Some Notes on the Evolution of Air Doctrine,” World Politics VII, 3 (April
1955), 368–69.
38. “Memorandum, Subject: Review of the Uncertain Trumpet.” A study prepared by the staff and
faculty of the Command and General Staff College, 29 March 1960.
39. Halperin, Limited War, 2–3.
40. Osgood, Limited War Revisited, 6.
41. William Kaufmann, “Limited Warfare,” 129.
42. Weigley, Way of War, 415.
43. Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973), 114.
44. Weigley, Way of War, 396–97.
45. Herman Kahn, The Nature and Feasibility of Deterrence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
1960), 35 and 37, RAND P-1888-RC.
46. This term was “first rather narrowly applied to a review of strategic plans and force requirements
by the new Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . it later came to denote the substance of the whole grand strategy

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evolved by the administration in all its aspects. . . . The New Look was both a doctrine . . . and set of
actual changes and planned changes in the military establishment.” Snyder, 383.
47. Eisenhower. Quoted in Gaddis, Strategies, 135.
48. John L. Gaddis, “Commentary,” The Second Indochina War ed. John Schlight (Washington, D.C.:
Office of the Chief of Military History, 1986), 95.
49. P.M.S. Blackett, Atomic Weapons and East-West Relations (Oxford: Cambridge University Press,
1956), 19–20.
50. Ibid.
51. Gaddis, Strategies, 130.
52. Weigley, Way of War, 399.
53. Gaddis, Strategies, 161.
54. Ibid., 147–48.
55. Ibid., 151.
56. Ibid., 161. This sounds remarkably similar to the tenets of the now-popular “Competitive
Strategies” which many pundits are heralding as a “new” and “innovative” strategy and the older notion
of horizontal escalation.
57. Trumpet Review.
58. Dulles, quoted in Halperin, Limited War, 22.
59. Ibid., 22. The use of the terms tactical and strategy together indicates a problem that plagued the
national security debates. Although concepts appear to have been important, rigor in developing and
holding to definitions to establish the parameters of the debate does not. This was a major problem with
the concept of massive retaliation. Rather than being perceived as a military strategy that was part of the
new look [a policy that John Lewis Gaddis says “was an integrated and reasonably efficient adaption of
resources to objectives, of means to ends” (Gaddis, Strategies, 161)] it took on a life of its own and was
perceived as the only option the United States had available.
60. Nitze, “Limited Wars,” 40.
61. LTC Gerald Post, The Strategic Thinking of General Maxwell D. Taylor (Carlisle Barracks, PA:
U.S. Army War College, March 3, 1967), 10–11.
62. Gaddis, Strategies, 172.
63. Bernard Brodie, “Unlimited Weapons and Limited War,” The Reporter, Nov. 18, 1954, 17 and 19.
64. Ibid., 16.
65. William Kaufmann, “Force and Foreign Policy,” in Military Policy and National Security, ed.
William Kaufmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 103.
66. Osgood, Limited War Revisited, 3.
67. Robert Strausz-Hupé, “The Limits of Limited War,” The Reporter, Nov. 28, 1957, 31.
68. Bernard Brodie, “Nuclear Weapons: Strategic or Tactical,” Foreign Affairs 32, 2 (January 1954),
229.
69. Kaufmann, “Limited Warfare,” 111.
70. Brodie, “Nuclear Weapons,” 229.
71. Raymond Aron, “A Half-Century of Limited War,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists XII, 4 (April
1956), 102.
72. Brodie, “Some Notes,” 367.
73. Blackett, Atomic Weapons, 32.
74. Weigley, Way of War, 420.
75. Strausz-Hupé, “The Limits of Limited War,” 31. Bernard Brodie wrote that Korea “has made it
possible for many of us to think and talk about limited war who would otherwise have considered such
talk utterly absurd . . . .,” Brassey’s Annual, 146.
76. Blackett, Atomic Weapons, 11.
77. The term “explosion” was normally used to describe an uncontrollable escalation of a small
conflict into a central war. The term “central war” was at times used interchangeably with the term
“general war.” Although the most common use for the latter was in describing a total war between the

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Soviet Union and United States in which nuclear strikes on each other’s homelands were part and parcel
of a global conflict, the former was normally restricted to mean a war between the two antagonists that
was limited but might not have involved their homelands.
78. Aron, “A Half-Century,” 102.
79. Brodie, “Nuclear Weapons,” 224–28.
80. (Col.) Thomas L. Fisher, “Limited War—What Is It,” Air University Quarterly Review IX (Winter
1957–8), 131.
81. Halperin, Limited War, 6–7.
82. Fisher, “Limited War,” 129.
83. Halperin, Limited War, 2.
84. Stanley Peter Rosen, “Vietnam and the American Theory of Limited War,” International Security
7, 2 (Fall 1982), 83.
85. Weigley, Way of War, 412. Osgood, Limited War, 28–30.
86. Osgood, Limited War, 8.
87. Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper, 1957), 123.
88. Halperin, Limited War, 5–6. Weigley, Way of War, 416.
89. Rosen, “Vietnam,” 86.
90. Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 3 and
footnote.
91. Osgood quoted in Rosen, “Vietnam,” 86.
92. Thomas Schelling, Nuclear Weapons and Limited War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
February 20, 1959), 1, RAND, P-1620.
93. Ibid., 6.
94. Ibid., 1.
95. Halperin, Limited War, 11.
96. Kaufmann, “Force,” 244.
97. Ibid., 116–17.
98. Ibid., 246.
99. Ibid., 256.
100. Weigley, Way of War, 426–27.
101. Morgenstern summarized from Weigley, Way of War, 430–32.
102. Wohlstetter, RAND, P-1472, 1.
103. Ibid., 10.
104. Ibid.
105. Halperin, Limited War, 7.
106. Ibid., 8.
107. Ibid., 7.
108. Leon Gouré, translator, Soviet Commentary on the Doctrine of Limited Nuclear Wars (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1958), 8, T-82.
109. William Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 12.
110. Ibid., 16.
111. Michael Mandelbaum, The United States and Nuclear Weapons 1946-76 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979), viii.
112. Ibid., 108.
113. Kaufmann, McNamara, 51–52.
114. Kaufmann, Planning, 3.
115. Charles De Vallon Dugas Bolles, “The Search for an American Strategy: The Origins of the
Kennedy Doctrine, 1936–61,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1985), 535–539.
116. Peter Braestrup, “Limited Wars and the Lessons of Lebanon,” The Reporter XX, April 30, 1959,
25–27. Braestrup claims the “top-secret” studies were “much less reassuring about our ability to stomp
out brushfires.” He interviewed 50 top staff and operational officers in the Pentagon and found a number

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of shocking problems. Eighty percent of the Navy’s ships were of WWII vintage or prior and manned at
eighty percent strength. Four major ships en route to Lebanon had breakdowns and one Marine battalion
had to transfer to another transport while underway. The Tactical Air Force was as bad off. It received
only 6 percent of the total Air Force budget and had less than 58,000 of the service’s 850,000 men. Its
Transports were so committed to support the Strategic Air Command that only 1200 Army troops were
able to be airlifted overseas. The Civilian Reserve Air Fleet was no help either as the “Lebanon crisis
came during the height of the summer tourist season.”
117. Kaufmann, McNamara, 66–67.
118. Ibid., 14–16.
119. Halperin, Limited War, 16–17.
120. Maxwell Taylor in a speech given on March 15, 1962 entitled “Our Changing Military Policy:
Greater Flexibility,” in Vital Speeches, 28, 11, 347–49.
121. Robert S. Gallagher, “Memories of Peace and War: An Exclusive Interview With General
Maxwell D. Taylor,” American Heritage 32 (1981), 13. Kaufmann, McNamara, 17.
122. Henry Farlie, “We Knew What We Were Doing When We Went Into Vietnam,” Washington
Monthly 5, 3 (May 1973), 11.
123. Gaddis, Strategies, 208.
124. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984), 132.
125. Ibid., 142.
126. Ibid., 168.
127. Baron Antoine Henri Jomini, The Art of War, trans. Capt. G.H. Mendell and Lt. W.P. Craighill
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publisher, 1962), 295.
128. Clausewitz, On War, 140. Emphasis in the original.
129. Ibid., 131–32.
130. Ibid., 140.
131. Ibid., 88.
132. Sun-Tzu, The Art of War trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982),
63.
133. Jomini, The Art of War, 22.
134. Gouré, Commentary, 3.
135. Gaddis, Strategies, 206–7.
136. Ibid., 18.
137. Gaddis, “Commentary,” 92.
138. Gaddis, Strategies, 243.
139. Ibid., 214–15.
140. Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, 76.
141. Kaufmann, McNamara, 311.
142. Mandelbaum, The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 106.
143. AFM 1-1: Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the USAF (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 16 March 1984), 1-2 to 1-3.
144. Clausewitz, On War, 131.
145. Malcolm Hoag, On Local War Doctrine (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, August 1961),
13, P-2433.
146. John L. Gaddis, “Containment: Its Past and Future,” International Security 5, 4 (Spring 1981),
83.
147. Jomini, The Art of War, 23.

Lesson Author’s Note: The author known as “X” is George F. Kennan. George Kennan had been an American diplomat on the Soviet front,
beginning his career as an observer of the aftermath of the Russian Civil War. He witnessed collectivization and the terror from close range and
sent his telegram after another two years’ service in Moscow from 1944 to 1946 as chief of mission and Ambassador Averell Harriman’s
consultant. In 1946, Kennan was 44 years old, fluent in the Russian language and its affairs, and decidedly anti-communist. The essence of
Kennan’s telegram was published in Foreign Affairs in 1947 as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” and circulated everywhere. The article was
signed by “X” although its authorship was commonly known to be that of George Kennan.

Kennan, George F. “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by X. Foreign Affairs (July 1947): 566–82. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0467 E

H405ORB-316
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges
Module III: Defense, Transistion to the Offense

H405: Expeditionary Deterrence and Limited Warfare in the Nuclear Age
Reading H405ORB

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

by “X”

The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and
circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had
their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three
decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the
interaction of these two forces and the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct.
Yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered.

It is difficult to summarize the set of ideological concepts with which the Soviet leaders came into
power. Marxian ideology, in its Russian-Communist projection, has always been in process of subtle
evolution. The materials on which it bases itself are extensive and complex. But the outstanding features
of Communist thought as it existed in 1916 may perhaps be summarized as follows: (a) that the central
factor in the life of man, the factor which determines the character of public life and the “physiognomy of
society,” is the system by which material goods are produced and exchanged; (b) that the capitalist system
of production is a nefarious one which inevitably leads to the exploitation of the working class by the
capital-owning class and is incapable of developing adequately the economic resources of society or of
distributing fairly the material goods produced by human labor; (c) that capitalism contains the seeds of
its own destruction and must, in view of the inability of the capital-owning class to adjust itself to
economic change, result eventually and inescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working
class; and (d) that imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads directly to war and revolution.

The rest may be outlined in Lenin’s own words: “Unevenness of economic and political development
is the inflexible law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of Socialism may come originally
in a few capitalist countries or even in a single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that
country, having expropriated the capitalists and having organized Socialist production at home, would
rise against the remaining capitalist world, drawing to itself in the process the oppressed classes of other
countries.”1 It must be noted that there was no assumption that capitalism would perish without
proletarian revolution. A final push was needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip
over the tottering structure. But it was regarded as inevitable that sooner or later that push be given.

1. “Concerning the slogans of the United States of Europe,” August 1915. Official Soviet edition of Lenin’s works.

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For 50 years prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, this pattern of thought had exercised great
fascination for the members of the Russian revolutionary movement. Frustrated, discontented, hopeless of
finding self-expression—or too impatient to seek it—in the confining limits of the Tsarist political
system, yet lacking wide popular support for their choice of bloody revolution as a means of social
betterment, these revolutionists found in Marxist theory a highly convenient rationalization for their own
instinctive desires. It afforded pseudo-scientific justification for their impatience, for their categoric denial
of all value in the Tsarist system, for their yearning for power and revenge and for their inclination to cut
corners in the pursuit of it. It is therefore no wonder that they had come to believe implicitly in the truth
and soundness of the Marxian-Leninist teachings, so congenial to their own impulses and emotions. Their
sincerity need not be impugned. This is a phenomenon as old as human nature itself. It has never been
more aptly described than by Edward Gibbon, who wrote in “The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire”: “From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords
a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how
the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.” And
it was with this set of conceptions that the members of the Bolshevik Party entered into power.

Now it must be noted that through all the years of preparation for revolution, the attention of these
men, as indeed of Marx himself, had been centered less on the future form which Socialism2 would take
than on the necessary overthrow of rival power which, in their view, had to precede the introduction of
Socialism. Their views, therefore, on the positive program to be put into effect, once power was attained,
were for the most part nebulous, visionary and impractical. Beyond the nationalization of industry and the
expropriation of large private capital holdings there was no agreed program. The treatment of the
peasantry, which according to the Marxist formulation was not of the proletariat, had always been a vague
spot in the pattern of Communist thought; and it remained an object of controversy and vacillation for the
first ten years of Communist power.

The circumstances of the immediate post-revolution period—the existence in Russia of civil war and
foreign intervention, together with the obvious fact that the Communists represented only a tiny minority
of the Russian people—made the establishment of dictatorial power a necessity. The experiment with
“war Communism” and the abrupt attempt to eliminate private production and trade had unfortunate
economic consequences and caused further bitterness against the new revolutionary régime. While the
temporary relaxation of the effort to communize Russia, represented by the New Economic Policy,
alleviated some of this economic distress and thereby served its purpose, it also made it evident that the
“capitalistic sector of society” was still prepared to profit at once from any relaxation of governmental
pressure, and would, if permitted to continue to exist, always constitute a powerful opposing element to
the Soviet régime and a serious rival for influence in the country. Somewhat the same situation prevailed
with respect to the individual peasant who, in his own small way, was also a private producer.

Lenin, had he lived, might have proved a great enough man to reconcile these conflicting forces to the
ultimate benefit of Russian society, though this is questionable. But be that as it may, Stalin, and those
whom he led in the struggle for succession to Lenin’s position of leadership, were not the men to tolerate
rival political forces in the sphere of power which they coveted. Their sense of insecurity was too great.
Their particular brand of fanaticism, unmodified by any of the Anglo-Saxon traditions of compromise,
was too fierce and too jealous to envisage any permanent sharing of power. From the Russian-Asiatic
world out of which they had emerged they carried with them skepticism as to the possibilities of
permanent and peaceful coexistence of rival forces. Easily persuaded of their own doctrinaire “rightness,”
they insisted on the submission or destruction of all competing power. Outside of the Communist Party,
Russian society was to have no rigidity. There were to be no forms of collective human activity or

2. Here and elsewhere in this paper “Socialism” refers to Marxist or Leninist Communism, not to liberal Socialism of the Second
International variety.

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association which would not be dominated by the Party. No other force in Russian society was to be
permitted to achieve vitality or integrity. Only the Party was to have structure. All else was to be an
amorphous mass.

And within the Party the same principle was to apply. The mass of Party members might go through
the motions of election, deliberation, decision and action; but in these motions they were to be animated
not by their own individual wills but by the awesome breath [sic] of the Party leadership and the
overbrooding presence of “the word.”

Let it be stressed again that subjectively these men probably did not seek absolutism for its own sake.
They doubtless believed—and found it easy to believe—that they alone knew what was good for society
and that they would accomplish that good once their power was secure and unchallengeable. But in
seeking that security of their own rule they were prepared to recognize no restrictions, either of God or
man, on the character of their methods. And until such time as that security might be achieved, they
placed far down on their scale of operational priorities the comforts and happiness of the peoples
entrusted to their care.

Now the outstanding circumstance concerning the Soviet régime is that down to the present day this
process of political consolidation has never been completed and the men in the Kremlin have continued to
be predominantly absorbed with the struggle to secure and make absolute the power which they seized in
November 1917. They have endeavored to secure it primarily against forces at home, within Soviet
society itself. But they have also endeavored to secure it against the outside world. For ideology, as we
have seen, taught them that the outside world was hostile and that it was their duty eventually to
overthrow the political forces beyond their borders. The powerful hands of Russian history and tradition
reached up to sustain them in this feeling. Finally, their own aggressive intransigence with respect to the
outside world began to find its own reaction; and they were soon forced, to use another Gibbonesque
phrase, “to chastise the contumacy” which they themselves had provoked. It is an undeniable privilege of
every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently
enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.

Now it lies in the nature of the mental world of the Soviet leaders, as well as in the character of their
ideology, that no opposition to them can be officially recognized as having any merit or justification
whatsoever. Such opposition can flow, in theory, only from the hostile and incorrigible forces of dying
capitalism. As long as remnants of capitalism were officially recognized as existing in Russia, it was
possible to place on them, as an internal element, part of the blame for the maintenance of a dictatorial
form of society. But as these remnants were liquidated, little by little, this justification fell away; and
when it was indicated officially that they had been finally destroyed, it disappeared altogether. And this
fact created one of the most basic of the compulsions which came to act upon the Soviet régime: since
capitalism no longer existed in Russia and since it could not be admitted that there could be serious or
widespread opposition to the Kremlin springing spontaneously from the liberated masses under its
authority, it became necessary to justify the retention of the dictatorship by stressing the menace of
capitalism abroad.

This began at an early date. In 1924 Stalin specifically defended the retention of the “organs of
suppression,” meaning, among others, the army and the secret police, on the ground that “as long as there
is a capitalist encirclement there will be danger of intervention with all the consequences that flow from
that danger.” In accordance with that theory, and from that time on, all internal opposition forces in
Russia have consistently been portrayed as the agents of foreign forces of reaction antagonistic to Soviet
power.

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By the same token, tremendous emphasis has been placed on the original Communist thesis of a basic
antagonism between the capitalist and Socialist worlds. It is clear, from many indications, that this
emphasis is not founded in reality. The real facts concerning it have been confused by the existence
abroad of genuine resentment provoked by Soviet philosophy and tactics and occasionally by the
existence of great centers of military power, notably the Nazi régime in Germany and the Japanese
Government of the late 1930’s, which did indeed have aggressive designs against the Soviet Union. But
there is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the
world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of
explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home.

Now the maintenance of this pattern of Soviet power, namely, the pursuit of unlimited authority
domestically, accompanied by the cultivation of the semi-myth of implacable foreign hostility, has gone
far to shape the actual machinery of Soviet power as we know it today. Internal organs of administration
which did not serve this purpose withered on the vine. Organs which did serve this purpose became vastly
swollen. The security of Soviet power came to rest on the iron discipline of the Party, on the severity and
ubiquity of the secret police, and on the uncompromising economic monopolism of the state. The “organs
of suppression,” in which the Soviet leaders had sought security from rival forces, became in large
measure the masters of those whom they were designed to serve. Today the major part of the structure of
Soviet power is committed to the perfection of the dictatorship and to the maintenance of the concept of
Russia as in a state of siege, with the enemy lowering beyond the walls. And the millions of human
beings who form that part of the structure of power must defend at all costs this concept of Russia’s
position, for without it they are themselves superfluous.

As things stand today, the rulers can no longer dream of parting with these organs of suppression. The
quest for absolute power, pursued now for nearly three decades with ruthlessness unparalleled (in scope at
least) in modern times, has again produced internally, as it did externally, its own reaction. The excesses
of the police apparatus have fanned the potential opposition to the régime into something far greater and
more dangerous than it could have been before those excesses began.

But least of all can the rulers dispense with the fiction by which the maintenance of dictatorial power
has been defended. For this fiction has been canonized in Soviet philosophy by the excesses already
committed in its name; and it is now anchored in the Soviet structure of thought by bonds far greater than
those of mere ideology.

So much for the historical background. What does it spell in terms of the political personality of
Soviet power as we know it today?

Of the original ideology, nothing has been officially junked. Belief is maintained in the basic badness
of capitalism, in the inevitability of its destruction, in the obligation of the proletariat to assist in that
destruction and to take power into its own hands. But stress has come to be laid primarily on those
concepts which relate most specifically to the Soviet régime itself: to its position as the sole truly Socialist
régime in a dark and misguided world, and to the relationships of power within it.

The first of these concepts is that of the innate antagonism between capitalism and Socialism. We
have seen how deeply that concept has become imbedded in foundations of Soviet power. It has profound
implications for Russia’s conduct as a member of international society. It means that there can never be
on Moscow’s side any sincere assumption of a community of aims between the Soviet Union and powers
which are regarded as capitalist. It must invariably be assumed in Moscow that the aims of the capitalist
world are antagonistic to the Soviet régime, and therefore to the interests of the peoples it controls. If the

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Soviet Government occasionally sets its signature to documents which would indicate the contrary, this is
to be regarded as a tactical manoeuver permissible in dealing with the enemy (who is without honor) and
should be taken in the spirit of caveat emptor. Basically, the antagonism remains. It is postulated. And
from it flow many of the phenomena which we find disturbing in the Kremlin’s conduct of foreign policy:
the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic
unfriendliness of purpose. These phenomena are there to stay, for the foreseeable future. There can be
variations of degree and of emphasis. When there is something the Russians want from us, one or the
other of these features of their policy may be thrust temporarily into the background; and when that
happens there will always be Americans who will leap forward with gleeful announcements that “the
Russians have changed,” and some who will even try to take credit for having brought about such
“changes.” But we should not be misled by tactical manoeuvers. These characteristics of Soviet policy,
like the postulate from which they flow, are basic to the internal nature of Soviet power, and will be with
us, whether in the foreground or the background, until the internal nature of Soviet power is changed.

This means that we are going to continue for a long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with. It
does not mean that they should be considered as embarked upon a do-or-die program to overthrow our
society by a given date. The theory of the inevitability of the eventual fall of capitalism has the fortunate
connotation that there is no hurry about it. The forces of progress can take their time in preparing the final
coup de grâce. Meanwhile, what is vital is that the “Socialist fatherland”—that oasis of power which has
been already won for Socialism in the person of the Soviet Union—should be cherished and defended by
all good Communists at home and abroad, its fortunes promoted, its enemies badgered and confounded.
The promotion of premature, “adventuristic” revolutionary projects abroad which might embarrass Soviet
power in any way would be an inexcusable, even a counter-revolutionary act. The cause of Socialism is
the support and promotion of Soviet power, as defined in Moscow.

This brings us to the second of the concepts important to contemporary Soviet outlook. That is the
infallibility of the Kremlin. The Soviet concept of power, which permits no focal points of organization
outside the Party itself, requires that the Party leadership remain in theory the sole repository of truth. For
if truth were to be found elsewhere, there would be justification for its expression in organized activity.
But it is precisely that which the Kremlin cannot and will not permit.

The leadership of the Communist Party is therefore always right, and has been always right ever since
in 1929 Stalin formalized his personal power by announcing that decisions of the Politburo were being
taken unanimously.

On the principle of infallibility there rests the iron discipline of the Communist Party. In fact, the two
concepts are mutually self-supporting. Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility
requires the observance of discipline. And the two together go far to determine the behaviorism of the
entire Soviet apparatus of power. But their effect cannot be understood unless a third factor be taken into
account: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular
thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment and to require the faithful and
unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the members of the movement as a whole. This means that
truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet leaders
themselves. It may vary from week to week, from month to month. It is nothing absolute and
immutable—nothing which flows from objective reality. It is only the most recent manifestation of the
wisdom of those in whom the ultimate wisdom is supposed to reside, because they represent the logic of
history.

The accumulative effect of these factors is to give to the whole subordinate apparatus of Soviet power
an unshakeable stubbornness and steadfastness in its orientation. This orientation can be changed at will
by the Kremlin but by no other power. Once a given party line has been laid down on a given issue of

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current policy, the whole Soviet governmental machine, including the mechanism of diplomacy, moves
inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given
direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force. The individuals who are the
components of this machine are unamenable to argument or reason which comes to them from outside
sources. Their whole training has taught them to mistrust and discount the glib persuasiveness of the
outside world. Like the white dog before the phonograph, they hear only the “master’s voice.” And if they
are to be called off from the purposes last dictated to them, it is the master who must call them off. Thus
the foreign representative cannot hope that his words will make any impression on them. The most that he
can hope is that they will be transmitted to those at the top, who are capable of changing the party line.
But even those are not likely to be swayed by any normal logic in the words of the bourgeois
representative. Since there can be no appeal to common purposes, there can be no appeal to common
mental approaches. For this reason, facts speak louder than words to the ears of the Kremlin; and words
carry the greatest weight when they have the ring of reflecting, or being backed up by, facts of
unchallengeable validity.

But we have seen that the Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a
hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of long-term validity, and it can
afford to be patient. It has no right to risk the existing achievements of the revolution for the sake of vain
baubles of the future. The very teachings of Lenin himself require great caution and flexibility in the
pursuit of Communist purposes. Again, these precepts are fortified by the lessons of Russian history: of
centuries of obscure battles between nomadic forces over the stretches of a vast unfortified plain. Here
caution, circumspection, flexibility and deception are the valuable qualities; and their value finds natural
appreciation in the Russian or the oriental mind. Thus the Kremlin has no compunction about retreating in
the face of superior force. And being under the compulsion of no timetable, it does not get panicky under
the necessity for such retreat. Its political action is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is
permitted to move, toward a given goal. Its main concern is to make sure that it has filled every nook and
cranny available to it in the basin of world power. But if it finds unassailable barriers in its path, it accepts
these philosophically and accommodates itself to them. The main thing is that there should always be
pressure, unceasing constant pressure, toward the desired goal. There is no trace of any feeling in Soviet
psychology that that goal must be reached at any given time.

These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with than the
diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. On the one hand it is more sensitive
to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force is felt
to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power. On the other hand it cannot be
easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents. And the patient persistence
by which it is animated means that it can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the
momentary whims of democratic opinion but only by intelligent long-range policies on the part of
Russia’s adversaries—policies no less steady in their purpose, and no less variegated and resourceful in
their application, than those of the Soviet Union itself.

In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet
Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive
tendencies. It is important to note, however, that such a policy has nothing to do with outward histrionics:
with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward “toughness.” While the Kremlin is basically
flexible in its reaction to political realities, it is by no means unamenable to considerations of prestige.
Like almost any other government, it can be placed by tactless and threatening gestures in a position
where it cannot afford to yield even though this might be dictated by its sense of realism. The Russian
leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper
and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs. They are quick to exploit such
evidences of weakness. For these reasons, it is a sine quo non of successful dealing with Russia that the

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foreign government in question should remain at all times cool and collected and that its demands on
Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too
detrimental to Russian prestige.

III

In the light of the above, it will be clearly seen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of
the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-
force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and
manoeuvres of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence. The Russians look
forward to a duel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored great successes. It must
be borne in mind that there was a time when the Communist Party represented far more of a minority in
the sphere of Russian national life than Soviet power today represents in the world community.

But if ideology convinces the rulers of Russia that truth is on their side and that they can therefore
afford to wait, those of us on whom that ideology has no claim are free to examine objectively the validity
of that premise. The Soviet thesis not only implies complete lack of control by the west over its own
economic destiny, it likewise assumes Russian unity, discipline and patience over an infinite period. Let
us bring this apocalyptic vision down to earth, and suppose that the western world finds the strength and
resourcefulness to contain Soviet power over a period of ten to fifteen years. What does that spell for
Russia itself?

The Soviet leaders, taking advantage of the contributions of modern technique to the arts of
despotism, have solved the question of obedience within the confines of their power. Few challenge their
authority; and even those who do are unable to make that challenge valid as against the organs of
suppression of the state.

The Kremlin has also proved able to accomplish its purpose of building up in Russia, regardless of
the interests of the inhabitants, an industrial foundation of heavy metallurgy, which is, to be sure, not yet
complete but which is nevertheless continuing to grow and is approaching those of the other major
industrial countries. All of this, however, both the maintenance of internal political security and the
building of heavy industry, has been carried out at a terrible cost in human life and in human hopes and
energies. It has necessitated the use of forced labor on a scale unprecedented in modern times under
conditions of peace. It has involved the neglect or abuse of other phases of Soviet economic life,
particularly agriculture, consumers’ goods production, housing and transportation.

To all that, the war has added its tremendous toll of destruction, death and human exhaustion. In
consequence of this, we have in Russia today a population which is physically and spiritually tired. The
mass of the people are disillusioned, skeptical and no longer as accessible as they once were to the
magical attraction which Soviet power still radiates to its followers abroad. The avidity with which people
seized upon the slight respite accorded to the Church for tactical reasons during the war was eloquent
testimony to the fact that their capacity for faith and devotion found little expression in the purposes of
the régime.

In these circumstances, there are limits to the physical and nervous strength of people themselves.
These limits are absolute ones, and are binding even for the cruelest dictatorship, because beyond them
people cannot be driven. The forced labor camps and the other agencies of constraint provide temporary
means of compelling people to work longer hours than their own volition or mere economic pressure
would dictate; but if people survive them at all they become old before their time and must be considered
as human casualties to the demands of dictatorship. In either case their best powers are no longer
available to society and can no longer be enlisted in the service of the state.

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Here only the younger generation can help. The younger generation, despite all vicissitudes and
sufferings, is numerous and vigorous; and the Russians are a talented people. But it still remains to be
seen what will be the effects on mature performance of the abnormal emotional strains of childhood
which Soviet dictatorship created and which were enormously increased by the war. Such things as
normal security and placidity of home environment have practically ceased to exist in the Soviet Union
outside of the most remote farms and villages. And observers are not yet sure whether that is not going to
leave its mark on the over-all capacity of the generation now coming into maturity.

In addition to this, we have the fact that Soviet economic development, while it can list certain
formidable achievements, has been precariously spotty and uneven. Russian Communists who speak of
the “uneven development of capitalism” should blush at the contemplation of their own national
economy. Here certain branches of economic life, such as the metallurgical and machine industries, have
been pushed out of all proportion to other sectors of economy. Here is a nation striving to become in a
short period one of the great industrial nations of the world while it still has no highway network worthy
of the name and only a relatively primitive network of railways. Much has been done to increase
efficiency of labor and to teach primitive peasants something about the operation of machines. But
maintenance is still a crying deficiency of all Soviet economy. Construction is hasty and poor in quality.
Depreciation must be enormous. And in vast sectors of economic life it has not yet been possible to instill
into labor anything like that general culture of production and technical self-respect which characterizes
the skilled worker of the west.

It is difficult to see how these deficiencies can be corrected at an early date by a tired and dispirited
population working largely under the shadow of fear and compulsion. And as long as they are not
overcome, Russia will remain economically a vulnerable, and in a certain sense an impotent, nation,
capable of exporting its enthusiasms and of radiating the strange charm of its primitive political vitality
but unable to back up those articles of export by the real evidences of material power and prosperity.

Meanwhile, a great uncertainty hangs over the political life of the Soviet Union. That is the
uncertainty involved in the transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to others.

This is, of course, outstandingly the problem of the personal position of Stalin. We must remember
that his succession to Lenin’s pinnacle of preëminence in the Communist movement was the only such
transfer of individual authority which the Soviet Union has experienced. That transfer took 12 years to
consolidate. It cost the lives of millions of people and shook the state to its foundations. The attendant
tremors were felt all through the international revolutionary movement, to the disadvantage of the
Kremlin itself.

It is always possible that another transfer of preëminent power may take place quietly and
inconspicuously, with no repercussions anywhere. But again, it is possible that the questions involved
may unleash, to use some of Lenin’s words, one of those “incredibly swift transitions” from “delicate
deceit” to “wild violence” which characterize Russian history, and may shake Soviet power to its
foundations.

But this is not only a question of Stalin himself. There has been, since 1938, a dangerous congealment
of political life in the higher circles of Soviet power. The All-Union Congress of Soviets, in theory the
supreme body of the Party, is supposed to meet not less often than once in three years. It will soon be
eight full years since its last meeting. During this period membership in the Party has numerically
doubled. Party mortality during the war was enormous; and today well over half of the Party members are
persons who have entered since the last Party congress was held. Meanwhile, the same small group of
men has carried on at the top through an amazing series of national vicissitudes. Surely there is some
reason why the experiences of the war brought basic political changes to every one of the great

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governments of the west. Surely the causes of that phenomenon are basic enough to be present
somewhere in the obscurity of Soviet political life, as well. And yet no recognition has been given to
these causes in Russia.

It must be surmised from this that even within so highly disciplined an organization as the
Communist Party there must be a growing divergence in age, outlook and interest between the great mass
of Party members, only so recently recruited into the movement, and the little self-perpetuating clique of
men at the top, whom most of these Party members have never met, with whom they have never
conversed, and with whom they can have no political intimacy.

Who can say whether, in these circumstances, the eventual rejuvenation of the higher spheres of
authority (which can only be a matter of time) can take place smoothly and peacefully, or whether rivals
in the quest for higher power will not eventually reach down into these politically immature and
inexperienced masses in order to find support for their respective claims? If this were ever to happen,
strange consequences could flow for the Communist Party: for the membership at large has been
exercised only in the practices of iron discipline and obedience and not in the arts of compromise and
accommodation. And if disunity were ever to seize and paralyze the Party, the chaos and weakness of
Russian society would be revealed in forms beyond description. For we have seen that Soviet power is
only a crust concealing an amorphous mass of human beings among whom no independent organizational
structure is tolerated. In Russia there is not even such a thing as local government. The present generation
of Russians have never known spontaneity of collective action. If, consequently, anything were ever to
occur to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet Russia might be
changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies.

Thus the future of Soviet power may not be by any means as secure as Russian capacity for self-
delusion would make it appear to the men in the Kremlin. That they can keep power themselves, they
have demonstrated. That they can quietly and easily turn it over to others remains to be proved.
Meanwhile, the hardships of their rule and the vicissitudes of international life have taken a heavy toll of
the strength and hopes of the great people on whom their power rests. It is curious to note that the
ideological power of Soviet authority is strongest today in areas beyond the frontiers of Russia, beyond
the reach of its police power. This phenomenon brings to mind a comparison used by Thomas Mann in
his great novel “Buddenbrooks.” Observing that human institutions often show the greatest outward
brilliance at a moment when inner decay is in reality farthest advanced, he compared the Buddenbrook
family, in the days of its greatest glamour, to one of those stars whose light shines most brightly on this
world when in reality it has long since ceased to exist. And who can say with assurance that the strong
light still cast by the Kremlin on the dissatisfied peoples of the western world is not the powerful
afterglow of a constellation which is in actuality on the wane? This cannot be proved. And it cannot be
disproved. But the possibility remains (and in the opinion of this writer it is a strong one) that Soviet
power, like the capitalist world of its conception, bears within it the seeds of its own decay, and that the
sprouting of these seeds is well advanced.

It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy
with the Soviet régime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the
political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and
stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist
worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and weakening of all rival
influence and rival power.

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Balanced against this are the facts that Russia, as opposed to the western world in general, is still by
far the weaker party, that Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain
deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential. This would of itself warrant the United
States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the
Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the
interests of a peaceful and stable world.

But in actuality the possibilities for American policy are by no means limited to holding the line and
hoping for the best. It is entirely possible for the United States to influence by its actions the internal
developments, both within Russia and throughout the international Communist movement, by which
Russian policy is largely determined. This is not only a question of the modest measure of informational
activity which this government can conduct in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, although that, too, is
important. It is rather a question of the degree to which the United States can create among the peoples of
the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully
with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a
spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time. To the
extent that such an impression can be created and maintained, the aims of Russian Communism must
appear sterile and quixotic, the hopes and enthusiasm of Moscow’s supporters must wane, and added
strain must be imposed on the Kremlin’s foreign policies. For the palsied decrepitude of the capitalist
world is the keystone of Communist philosophy. Even the failure of the United States to experience the
early economic depression which the ravens of the Red Square have been predicting with such
complacent confidence since hostilities ceased would have deep and important repercussions throughout
the Communist world.

By the same token, exhibitions of indecision, disunity and internal disintegration within this country
have an exhilarating effect on the whole Communist movement. At each evidence of these tendencies, a
thrill of hope and excitement goes through the Communist world; a new jauntiness can be noted in the
Moscow tread; new groups of foreign supporters climb on to what they can only view as the band wagon
of international politics; and Russian pressure increases all along the line in international affairs.

It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone could exercise a
power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in
Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet
policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection
than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually
find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power. For no mystical,
Messianic movement—and particularly not that of the Kremlin—can face frustration indefinitely without
eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.

Thus the decision will really fall in large measure in this country itself. The issue of Soviet-American
relations is in essence a test of the over-all worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid
destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of
preservation as a great nation.

Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances,
the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin’s
challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by
providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation
dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political
leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Lesson H406

The Chinese Way of War

AY 2021–22

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-326 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

Advance Sheet for H406
The Chinese Way of War

LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Geoff Babb

1. SCOPE

This two-hour lesson addresses the concept of a Chinese Way of War through an examination of the
writings of Sun Tzu (Sunzi) and Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong). Sunzi’s Art of War is arguably “the
world’s oldest treatise on war,” a translation of which was available in France at the time of
Napoleon. Master Sun’s thirteen chapters provide the foundation for the study of a distinct Chinese
way of thinking about war. The Mao readings for this lesson were written in the 1930s during a pause
in the Chinese Civil War. In 1936, Mao’s Communists and the Nationalists under Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) formed a temporary 2nd United Front to oppose further Japanese
territorial encroachments from Manchuria. In July 1937, the 2nd Sino-Japanese War began two years
before Hitler’s attack into Poland. The Chinese fought alone for more than three years against the
Japanese until December of 1941, when the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and Hong Kong
brought the United States and Great Britain into World War II in Asia. With the allied victory over
the Japanese in 1945, and despite attempts by the United States to unify the two Chinese factions, the
civil war began anew. After four more years of war, Mao and the Communists prevailed and
established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). By October of 1949, the Nationalist forces had
retreated to Taiwan and several smaller offshore islands to re-establish the Republic of China (ROC).
In 1950, Mao’s ongoing consolidation of Communist China was interrupted by the outbreak of
hostilities on the Korean peninsula leading to a direct military confrontation with the United States.

This lesson serves as a backdrop and transition to the clash of the American and Chinese Ways of
War in the Korean conflict discussed in lesson H407. The Chinese Way of War examined in H406
also provides an alternative to Geoffrey Parker’s Western Way of War covered in H100. That block
traces the Western Way of War from Maurice of Nassau in the early 17th century and the rise of the
nation state with Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 through the middle of World War II (WWII). This
lesson’s discussion of the Chinese Way of War begins in the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE) of
the Ancient Era (5000 BCE to 221 BCE), skips over the long Dynastic Era (221 BCE to 1911 AD),
and then picks up again in the middle of the Chinese Civil War period (1921-1949) of the Modern
Era. What emerges in China over its long span of history is not synonymous with the Western nation-
state, but rather a long standing empire expanding, fracturing, and contracting with warfare against
both internal and external enemies. The beginning of the last Chinese Dynasty, the foreign-led Qing
(Manchu), begins in 1644—four years prior to the Treaty of Westphalia and ends in 1911, three years
before the start of WWI. The first four of the five military revolutions in the Western Way of War
occurred nearly simultaneously within the period of only one Chinese Dynasty (1644-1911). The
Chinese Way of War, has evolved over nearly 5000 years of unique social, economic, and political
developments, and military history. While H406 only discusses two Chinese military theorists,
separated by 2,500 years, they are certainly the most well-known and influential. This examination of
Sunzi and Mao looks for both continuities within a distinct Chinese Way of War over time and
similarities and differences to the Western and American Ways of War.

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-327 August 2021
Sunzi emerged at the end of the Spring and Autumn period (772-476 BC) of Chinese history, at about
the same time as that country’s most famous philosopher Kongzi (Confucius). Sun’s Art of War is a
unique distillation of military theory, doctrine, and best practices during a long period of internecine
warfare among the many feudal states of the collapsing Zhou Dynasty (1056-256 BC). His thirteen
chapters cover the warfighting functions, civil-military relations, and techniques of both successful
and unsuccessful leaders. The Art of War was written as a guide for feudal kings in the conduct of
wars, campaigns, and battles, and the selection and evaluation of their generals. This era of Chinese
history overlaps with the Warring States period (475-221 BC). By this time, the wars among the
many separate feudatories had coalesced into large-scale conflict involving seven major states (Yan,
Qi, Zhao, Wei, Han, Chu, and Qin) that vied to unify China under one ruler, a hegemonic king. A
single China eventually emerged with the victory of Qin Shi Huang and the establishment of a unitary
state in 221 BCE. Two thousand years of Chinese empire under dynastic rule ensued. The power and
influence of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), established by the Mongols, reached well beyond Asia
into Europe and the Middle East. In 1911, the era of dynastic rule in China ended with the birth of the
Republic of China under the Western trained Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian). The once powerful and
expansive foreign-led Manchu Qing Dynasty collapsed unprepared and unable to deal with the
myriad internal and external challenges to its rule. This was in part the result of the military,
diplomatic, economic, and religious pressures of the European powers and eventually Japan and the
United States. At the end of the Qing, China was weakened by both internal conflicts and beset by
technologically superior and advanced Western trained and equipped military forces.

Beginning in 1912, the Republic of China began a nearly four decade long period of continued
foreign encroachment (the carving up of the melon), warlord rule, and civil unrest. In 1921, the
Communist Party of China (CPC) was formed, working initially in concert with the Nationalists
during the 1st United Front. However, in 1927, Chiang Kai-shek purged the Communist wing of the
party and began his two decades of Nationalist rule in China, variously opposed by warlords,
surviving Communist factions, and the Japanese in Manchuria. Among the Communists, Mao was the
rising star in a revolutionary movement Chiang was determined to exterminate. Mao rose to power
over the Communist Party and the Red Army during the Long March (1934-1935). This forced
retrograde from guerrilla sanctuaries in southeast China was the result of Chiang’s successful fifth
encirclement campaign. Mao and the survivors of the 9,000 kilometer fighting retreat sought
sanctuary in north central China. In Yenan (Yan’an), Mao led the effort to chronicle and practice his
theory of revolutionary protracted people’s war. While planning the sixth anti-communist
extermination campaign near Sian (Xian), Chiang was kidnapped by his own generals. After a period
of negotiation, an accommodation, the 2nd United Front, was reached with the Communists in nearby
Yan’an to jointly fight the Japanese using both guerilla and conventional forces.

This lesson’s readings from Mao’s Selected Military Writings and On Guerrilla War provide an
opportunity to examine an updated Chinese Way of War fully steeped in a long tradition of Chinese
military theory and doctrine. The lesson does not cover the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945, nor
the allied fight against the Japanese across the Asiatic-Pacific theater from 1941-1945. There are
readings that cover these events included in this advance sheet’s Further Professional Development
section. These conflicts significantly impacted the course of the Chinese Civil War that reemerged
after August 1945, and the end of the 2nd World War in Asia. In October of 1949, the People’s
Republic of China was established by Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. A year later, this new,
not fully consolidated state, initiated hostilities in support of their North Korean allies against the
forces of the United States and the United Nations as they attacked north of the 38th Parallel to reunite
the peninsula. In October of 1950, along the Yalu River north of Pyongyang, the American and
Chinese forces, and their ways of war, collided. This long military history in China and these two
important theorists provide insights into potential enemies specifically mentioned in current American
national strategic documents—the PRC and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-328 August 2021

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

ELO-AOC-1.6
Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale
combat operations.
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational
environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products
and H400 historical readings.
ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes:
1. Examine historical battles and campaigns.
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT
STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-329 August 2021
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of
today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-330 August 2021
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation
6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience
7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

3. ISSUE MATERIAL

a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022.

b. During Class: None. WiFi is available.

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-331 August 2021
3. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

a. Study Requirements:

(1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in
full text in the H400 Book of Readings):

Required:
H406RA Giles, Lionel. Sun Tzu on the Art of War. Translation Extract. [25 Pages]
H406RB Tse-tung, Mao. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung. Excerpts from CSI
A699, (Reprint). H400 SBR AY22: 365-380. [16 pages]

Student Purchased Texts:
H406RC Shy, John, and Thomas Collier. “Revolutionary War.” In Makers of Modern
Strategy. Edited by Peter Paret, 817-823, 838–51. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1986. [19 pages] [Student Purchase]

Review:
H401RA Gray, Colin S. “The American Way of War: Critique and Implications”: “The 12
elements of the American Way of War.”
E-book: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363

Optional:
H406ORA Tse-tung, Mao. “What is Guerrilla Warfare.” Excerpt from Mao Tse-tung on
Guerrilla Warfare, translated by Samuel B. Griffith, 41-50. USMC FMFRP 12-18, 5
April 1989 (Originally published in 1961). [9 pages]
https:/www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/FMFRP%2012-18%20%20Mao%20Tse-
tung%20on%20Guerrilla%20Warfare
H406ORB Tse-tung, Mao. “Guerrilla Warfare in History.” Excerpt from Mao Tse-tung on
Guerrilla Warfare. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, 58-65. USMC FMFRP 12-18, 5
April 1989 (Originally published in 1961). [9 pages]
https:/www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/FMFRP%2012-18%20%20Mao%20Tse-
tung%20on%20Guerrilla%20Warfare

Student Online Lesson References:
Griffith, Samuel B. USMC FMFRP 12-18, 5 April 1989.
https:/www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/FMFRP%2012-18%20%20Mao%20Tse-
tung%20on%20Guerrilla%20Warfare
Tse-tung, Mao. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/military-
writings/index.htm

Further Professional Development:
Cohen, Warren I. East Asia at the Center, Columbia University Press, 2000.
Defense Intelligence Agency. China Military Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win,
2019.
https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/China_
Military_Power_FINAL_5MB_20190103
Department of Defense Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 2019.
https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jul/01/2002152311/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-DEFENSE-
INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-2019.PDF

https://auls.insigniails.com/Library/ItemDetail?l=0013&i=1510782&ti=0

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/carl-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1059363

https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/FMFRP%2012-18%20%20Mao%20Tse-tung%20on%20Guerrilla%20Warfare

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/military-writings/index.htm

https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/China_Military_Power_FINAL_5MB_20190103

https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jul/01/2002152311/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-DEFENSE-INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-2019.PDF

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-332 August 2021
Graff, David A., and Robin Higham, eds. A Military History of China. University
Press of Kentucky, 2012.
Mitter, Rana, Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-1945, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2013.
Paine, S. C. M. The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Sawyer, Ralph D. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1993.

Resident Course Elective Alignment: A650, The Korean War; A651, The Chinese Way of
War; A653, East Asian Military Studies (The Modern Military History of the US
INDOPACOM Theater); and A692, World War II in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater

(2) Second Requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class:

1. What are the key tenets of the Chinese Way of War outlined in the assigned chapters of
Sunzi’s Art of War? How do they relate to the Western or American Ways of War?
Are they alike or different?

2. Relate Sunzi’s Art of War to US Army doctrine and the Elements of Combat Power.

3. According to Collier and Shy, what is revolutionary war? Do you agree with their
definition, why or why not?

4. According to Mao Zedong, how must you study war? Is this how the United States
Army studied and prepared for Iraq and Afghanistan?

5. What is Mao’s view of strategy, and the relationships of war to campaigns and tactics?
Are these relationships similar to current US doctrine?

6. What are the four characteristics of the Chinese Revolution? How does this relate to
Mao’s strategy of conducting China’s revolutionary war?

7. What are the three stages of Protracted War? How does Mao’s discussion of Protracted
War relate to Sunzi’s dictum, “There is no instance of a country having benefited from
prolonged warfare?”

8. To what extent do Sunzi and Mao address the diplomatic, informational, and
economic, as well as the military factors in developing strategy and planning for war?

9. How might the Chinese Way of War be relevant today if the United States and China
were to engage in a military conflict over Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or the South China
Sea? Is it also relevant to the the overarching effort of competition with a rising
China?

b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to):

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings
Makers of Modern Strategy

4. ASSESSMENT

H406 Advance Sheet H406AS-333 August 2021

See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A.

H406 Chronology H406AS-334 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

Advance Sheet for H406
The Chinese Way of War

Chronology of Major Events in China

ca. 1750−ca. 1122 BC
Shang Dynasty—the Bronze Age began in China.

ca. 1122−ca. 221 BC
Zhou Dynasty—due to the rise of aristocratic family states not under the control of
the Zhou ruler, the power and prestige of the Zhou ruling house declined as the
centuries passed.

841 BC
Dated history began.

722−481 BC
Spring and Autumn Period—some 170 aristocratic family states flourished and
competed during this period.

513 BC
Casting iron first mentioned.

403−221 BC
Warring States Period—the 170 states of three centuries before reduced to seven
major states competing for dominance within the Chinese cultural area.

400−320 BC
Sun Zi’s The Art of War likely written during this period.

221 BC
King Zheng of the Qin state defeated the last of Qin’s rival states and established the
Qin Dynasty. For the first time, China united under an imperial system. From this
time until 1911, a series of dynasties ruled China.

1644 AD
Manchu invaders from the area northeast of China (Manchuria) captured Beijing and
established the Qing Dynasty. This dynasty flourished until the nineteenth century
when wars with the European imperialist powers and internal rebellions weakened it.

1885−1911
Several movements sought reform or overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. In 1895, Sun
Yat-sen organized the Revive China Society and began to advocate a political, social,
and economic revolution in China. Sun, educated to be a medical doctor, sought to

H406 Chronology H406AS-335 August 2021
save China with his Three People’s Principles (Nationalism, People’s Rights, and
People’s Livelihood). In 1905, most revolutionary organizations joined to form the
Revolutionary Alliance. This new organization elected Sun chairman.

1911
10 October 1911 Army unit in Wuchang sympathetic to the anti-Manchu cause rebelled. The Manchu
government was unable to respond effectively, and its governmental authority
collapsed.

1912
1 January 1912 Provisional government of Republic of China established in Nanjing. Sun Yat-sen
installed as provisional president.

April 1912 Sun Yat-sen resigned as provisional president in favor of Yuan Shikai, a powerful
general who sided with the revolutionaries against the Manchu government and
thereby gave the revolutionaries their victory. The capital moved to Beijing.

August 1912 The Revolutionary Alliance became the Guomindang (GMD) or Nationalist Party.

1913−15
Yuan Shikai established a military dictatorship and suppressed the GMD. In late
1915, Yuan announced reestablishment of imperial rule with himself as emperor.

1916
Uprisings against Yuan’s plan to become emperor forced him to renounce his dream.
In June, he died. After Yuan’s death, various regional military commanders took
independent control of their areas and began to compete between themselves for
greater power. This started the decade (1916−27) of the warlords.

1918
The military government in Guangzhou (Canton) forced Sun Yat-sen to flee to
Shanghai. From there, Sun worked to reestablish influence in Guangzhou.

1919
4 May 1919 Thousands of students in Beijing demonstrated against the decision of the Versailles
peace conference to give Germany’s pre-World War I colonial rights in China to
Japan. This incident initiated a great upsurge in Chinese nationalism.

1921
Sun Yat-sen’s military supporters occupied Guangzhou. A republican government
with Sun as president established itself as a rival to the warlord government in
Peking. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was established. Interest in Marxism-
Leninism rose dramatically among Chinese intellectuals due to the success of the
Russian Revolution and the actions of the Western powers at the Versailles
conference giving German rights in China to Japan. In addition, the apparently
friendly policy of the newly established Soviet Union toward China appealed to
many people. By 1921, a growing number of intellectuals believed that Communism
held the answer for solving China’s ills.

1922
The Comintern, believing that the GMD represented the mainstream of Chinese

H406 Chronology H406AS-336 August 2021
nationalism and could foment revolution in China, sent an agent, Adolf Joffe, to
China to work out a basis for CCP-GMD cooperation. He met with Sun Yat-sen, and
Sun agreed to a policy of “alliance with the Soviets; admission of the Communists.”

1923
Sun’s supporters drove warlord Chen Jiongming from Guangzhou. In February, Sun
arrived in Guangzhou from Shanghai and established a new government with him as
the leader. A formal GMD-CCP alliance was established. Soviet advisers arrived in
Guangzhou to help Sun reorganize the GMD and establish a party army. Sun sent
Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] to the Soviet Union to study the Soviet military
system.

1924
The Soviet Union helped the GMD establish a military academy at Huangpu
(Whampoa) near Guangzhou to train an officer corps for a GMD army. Many Soviet
officers were on the faculty. The GMD appointed CCP members to important
administrative positions within the Huangpu Military Academy, where CCP
members attended as students.

1925
Sun Yat-sen died. Wang Jingwei became the new president of the GMD government
in Guangzhou. Jiang Jieshi, founder and superintendent of the Huangpu Military
Academy, wielded military control.

1926
Jiang Jieshi became commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army, a force
of nearly one hundred thousand troops. In July, he led this army northward (the
Northern Expedition) to attack the northern warlords. In the fall, the Nationalists
captured several major cities in the Yangzi River valley.

1927
Jiang Jieshi’s forces captured Shanghai in late March. In April, Jiang ordered a purge
of Communists in areas under his control. The CCP-GMD alliance began to crumble.

On 1 August, Communist-led units at Nanchang revolted and fighting between
Communists and Nationalists spread across southern China. In September, Mao
Zedong led an unsuccessful peasant uprising in Hunan province. In December, the
Communists seized Guangzhou, but only held it for three days. The year ended with
Mao and other Communists seeking refuge in remote mountain areas.

1928
Early in the year, Mao Zedong and Zhu De [Chu Teh] combined forces and
established a base area in the Jinggang (Chingkang) Mountains of Jiangxi province.
They formed the Fourth Red Army, with Zhu as commander and Mao as political
adviser. In July, the CCP held its Sixth Party Congress in Moscow. The Congress
recognized Mao’s organizational work among the peasants and his rural, base-
building efforts, but emphasized the importance of organizing the urban proletariat.
The CCP headquarters remained underground in Shanghai. On 10 October, a new
national government headed by Jiang Jieshi and dominated by the GMD formed in
Nanjing (Nan [south] jing [capital]). Bei (north) jing (capital) was renamed Bei

H406 Chronology H406AS-337 August 2021
(north) ping (peace) as it remained until 1949 when it became Beijing again as the
capital of the People’s Republic of China.

1929
Mao and Zhu fought to defend and expand their bases against Nationalist attacks.
They moved most of their forces into southern Jiangxi.

1930
Li Lisan emerged as the leader of the CCP in Shanghai. Acting on the advice of the
Comintern, Li prepared plans for armed insurrections in key Chinese cities to
advance the development of the Chinese Revolution. He regarded Mao’s strategy of
gradually organizing the peasantry and creating rural base areas to encircle the cities
as “extremely erroneous . . . localism and conservatism characteristic of the peasant
mentality.” The Li Lisan policy of using the Red Army to support urban uprisings
proved disastrous and, late in 1930, Li lost his leadership position. Mao characterized
Li’s ideas as “leftist adventurism.” Mao and Zhu established a Soviet government in
southern Jiangxi with Ruijin as the capital.

1930–32
Jiang Jieshi carried out four “encircle and exterminate” campaigns to try to destroy
the Communist base area in Jiangxi. All failed with heavy losses. In September 1931,
Japan invaded northeastern China (Manchuria).

1933
October 1933 Jiang Jieshi began his fifth campaign to exterminate the Communists.

1934
October 1933 The Communists forced to abandon their Jiangxi base. About one hundred thousand
troops and government officials began what became known as the Long March, a six
thousand-mile trek that ended a year later in northern China. A small number of
troops, including some commanded by Chen Yi and Su Yu, stayed behind to divert
GMD attention from the main body. Mao was out of favor within the CCP.

1935
January 1935 Mao and his supporters regained control of the CCP at an expanded session of the
CCP Political Bureau held while the retreating Communists were pausing in Zunyi, a
small city in Guizhou province. From this point, Mao was the party’s leader in setting
political and military strategy.

October 1935 The Long March ended as the survivors reached northern Shaanxi province. The
Japanese extended their control farther into northern China.

1936
Jiang Jieshi continued to adhere to a policy of defeating the Communists before
dealing with the Japanese threat. In December, he flew to Xi’an, the capital of
Shaanxi, to push his field commanders to attack the Communists with greater vigor.
The generals in Xi’an wanted to fight the Japanese instead of their fellow Chinese so
they arrested Jiang and forced him to agree to a united front with the Communists
against the Japanese. After Jiang agreed, the generals allowed him to return to
Nanjing.
1937

H406 Chronology H406AS-338 August 2021
In February, a Communist delegation arrived in Nanjing and formal negotiations on
Communist-Nationalist military collaboration began. Negotiations proceeded slowly
until the Japanese attacked Chinese forces outside Beiping on 8 July (the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident) and the fighting escalated into full-scale war with Japan.

22 August 1937 The Nationalists and Communists agreed to bring the main Communist forces in
Shaanxi into the organization of the national army under the name Eighth Route
Army.

12 October 1937 The Nationalist government reorganized all Communist army units and guerrillas in
the provinces of Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, and
Anhui as the New Fourth Army of the national army, which would operate along the
Yangzi River. Japanese forces captured large areas during the latter part of the year,
including Shanghai and the capital city of Nanjing.

1938
Japanese advances continued. They captured China’s main ports and most major
cities in eastern China.

1939–40
Attrition warfare fought between the Chinese and Japanese with little change in
positions on the ground.

The Communists focused on self-development and expansion and established local
governments that were not subservient to the Nationalist government, which had
moved deep into China’s interior at Chongqing (Chungking). Nationalist suspicion of
Communist intentions grew. Scattered fighting broke out between GMD and CCP
forces. In May 1939, the Nationalists instituted a blockade of the Communist-
controlled area in Shaanxi.

1941
4 January 1941 Nationalist units attacked the New Fourth Army headquarters force (nine thousand
soldiers) and destroyed it.

17 January 1941 Nationalists announced the dissolution of the New Fourth Army due to its failure to
follow orders—the GMD-CCP united front was shattered.

7 December 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

1942–45
Mao Zedong and Jiang Jieshi believed that the United States would defeat Japan.
Both men prepared for a postwar CCP-GMD struggle for power.

The Communists emphasized organizing resistance to Japanese occupation and
eliminating Nationalist government influence behind Japanese lines in eastern and
northern China. They established many base areas and dramatically increased the size
of their military forces.

1945
8 August 1945 The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan.
9 August 1945 Mao announced that the time was right for a general CCP offensive.

H406 Chronology H406AS-339 August 2021

10 August 1945 Zhu De, as commander in chief of Communist forces, ordered Communist units to
seize Japanese-occupied towns and cities.

11 August 1945 Jiang Jieshi ordered Communist forces to remain in their current positions and await
further orders.

The Communists ignored Jiang’s order to stay in place. Lin Biao (Lin Piao) led the
first elements of what became a one hundred thousand-man force into northeast
China. The Russians quickly overran Japanese forces in the area and facilitated
Communist movements. They also turned over large quantities of captured Japanese
arms to the Communists.

14 August 1945 Japan surrendered.

15 August 1945 Jiang Jieshi ordered the commander, Japanese forces in China, to hold his current
positions and await further instructions.

23 August 1945 Jiang Jieshi ordered Japanese army units in China to defend their positions, keep
lines of communication open, and await the arrival of Nationalist troops.

September–
December 1945 The Soviet Union refused permission for Nationalist forces to enter northeast China.
This gave the Communists time to establish control of the area and increase armed
strength there; soon after, the Japanese surrendered. The United States landed fifty
thousand Marines in Japanese-occupied areas. During the autumn, the United States
helped move one-half million Nationalist troops from southwest China to eastern and
northern China. Fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces occurred across
China as both sides strived to gain control of areas the Japanese had occupied.

In November, President Harry S. Truman appointed General George C. Marshall as a
special presidential ambassador to China. His mission was to help negotiate a
peaceful political solution to the CCP-GMD conflict. Marshall arrived in China in
late December.

1946
January 1946 The Soviet Union finally allowed Nationalist units to enter northeast China. US
officers were concerned about an overextension of Nationalist forces as Jiang Jieshi
deployed nearly five hundred thousand of his best troops to the area.

April 1946 Heavy fighting between Nationalist and Communist troops broke out in northeastern
China.

July 1946 Jiang Jieshi launched a major offensive against Communist forces and a countrywide
civil war began.

Summer
and Fall 1946 Nationalist forces pushed Communists out of many of their base areas that were
established during the war against Japan in Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, and Shandong
provinces. Communists were on the strategic defensive trying to destroy isolated
Nationalist units when the tactical situation was favorable.

H406 Chronology H406AS-340 August 2021

1947
6 January 1947 President Truman recalled Marshall.

March 1947 Nationalists captured the Communist capital of Yan’an.

By the end of the first year of the civil war, the Communists lost control of more than
120,000 square miles and eighteen million people. However, the Nationalists
overextended themselves while the Communists built up their forces.

In late June, the Communists launched a major counterstrike in central China. Liu
Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping led four corps through the Nationalist defense line
along the Yellow River northeast of Kaifeng. In August, this force marched three
hundred miles to the south and began establishing base areas in the Dabie Mountains.
This caused the Nationalists to redeploy forces, relieving pressure against Communist
forces in Shandong and elsewhere. Despite a major Nationalist effort to destroy the
Liu-Deng forces, the Communists retained a foothold in the Dabie Mountains. This
thrust to the Dabie Mountains marked a shift in the war’s strategic balance, with the
Communists beginning to assume the strategic offensive.

1948
Communist forces won several important battles in Henan and other areas of central
and eastern China during the spring and summer. As the civil war entered its third
year, the Communists clearly held the initiative. In late 1948 and early 1949, the
Communists won three decisive campaigns, of which the Huai Hai Campaign was the
largest.

1949
Communist forces continued to defeat Nationalist armies. Jiang Jieshi and his
supporters fled to the island of Taiwan.

1 October 1949 Mao Zedong declared the establishment of The People’s Republic of China.

*Giles without the commentary; translated by Lionel Giles, extracted by Dr. Geoff Babb.
Giles, Lionel. Sun Tzu on the Art of War. Translation Extract. http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

H406RA-341
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

H406: The Chinese Way of War
Reading H406RA

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu*

I. Laying Plans

1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.

2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which
can on no account be neglected.

3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s
deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.

5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow
him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the
chances of life and death.

9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness.

10. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions,
the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the
army, and the control of military expenditure.

11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who
knows them not will fail.

12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made
the basis of a comparison, in this wise:

13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? (2) Which of the two generals has
most ability? (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth? (4) On which side is
discipline most rigorously enforced? (5) Which army is stronger? (6) On which side are officers and men
more highly trained? (7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment?

http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

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14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.

15. The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in
command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat: let such a one
be dismissed!

16. While heading the profit of my counsel, avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances over and
beyond the ordinary rules.

17. According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans.

18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive;
when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him
believe we are near.

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.

22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow
arrogant.

23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

25. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

26. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The
general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to
victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point
that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

II. Waging War

1. Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many
heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a
thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such
as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver
per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.

2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull
and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

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4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure
spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise,
will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long
delays.

6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the
profitable way of carrying it on.

8. The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice.

9. Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy. Thus the army will have food
enough for its needs.

10. Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance.
Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.

11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people’s
substance to be drained away.

12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.

13,14. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped
bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots,
worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles,
draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.

15. Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy’s provisions
is equivalent to twenty of one’s own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty
from one’s own store.

16. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from
defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards.

17. Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded
who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled
and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.

18. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one’s own strength.

19. In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

20. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people’s fate, the man on whom it
depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril.

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III. Attack by Stratagem

1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and
intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to
destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in
breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the
junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; and the worst
policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets,
movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of
mounds over against the walls will take three months more.

5. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with
the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous
effects of a siege.

6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities
without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his
triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack
him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite
unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the
larger force.

11. Now the general is the bulwark of the State; if the bulwark is complete at all points; the State will be
strong; if the bulwark is defective, the State will be weak.

12. There are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army:

13. (1) By commanding the army to advance or to retreat, being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey.
This is called hobbling the army.

14. (2) By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of
the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier’s minds.

15. (3) By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military
principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers.

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16. But when the army is restless and distrustful, trouble is sure to come from the other feudal princes.
This is simply bringing anarchy into the army, and flinging victory away.

17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1) He will win who knows when to fight
and when not to fight. (2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. (3) He
will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. (4) He will win who,
prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. (5) He will win who has military capacity and is
not interfered with by the sovereign.

18. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a
hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a
defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

IV. Tactical Dispositions

1. Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then
waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is
provided by the enemy himself.

3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the
enemy.

4. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.

5. Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the
offensive.

6. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.

7. The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in
attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven. Thus on the one hand we have ability to protect
ourselves; on the other, a victory that is complete.

8. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

9. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, “Well done!”

10. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to
hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.

11. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

12. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage.

13. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of
victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

14. Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not
miss the moment for defeating the enemy.

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15. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas
he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

16. The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it
is in his power to control success.

17. In respect of military method, we have, first, Measurement; second, Estimation of quantity; third,
Calculation; fourth, Balancing of chances; fifth, Victory.

18. Measurement owes its existence to Earth; Estimation of quantity to Measurement; Calculation to
Estimation of quantity; Balancing of chances to Calculation; and Victory to Balancing of chances.

19. A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound’s weight placed in the scale against a single
grain.

20. The onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm a thousand
fathoms deep.

V. Energy

1. Sun Tzu said: The control of a large force is the same principle as the control of a few men: it is merely
a question of dividing up their numbers.

2. Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one: it
is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.

3. To ensure that your whole host may withstand the brunt of the enemy’s attack and remain unshaken–
this is effected by maneuvers direct and indirect.

4. That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg–this is effected by the
science of weak points and strong.

5. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in
order to secure victory.

6. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of
rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass
away to return once more.

7. There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more
melodies than can ever be heard.

8. There are not more than five primary colors (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination
they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

9. There are not more than five cardinal tastes (sour, acrid, salt, sweet, bitter), yet combinations of them
yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.

10. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in
combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.

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11. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle–you never come
to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?

12. The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent which will even roll stones along in its course.

13. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy
its victim.

14. Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.

15. Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger.

16. Amid the turmoil and tumult of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all;
amid confusion and chaos, your array may be without head or tail, yet it will be proof against defeat.

17. Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline, simulated fear postulates courage; simulated
weakness postulates strength.

18. Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage
under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be
effected by tactical dispositions.

19. Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances,
according to which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something, that the enemy may snatch at it.

20. By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for
him.

21. The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from
individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and utilize combined energy.

22. When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or
stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a
slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped, to go rolling down.

23. Thus the energy developed by good fighting men is as the momentum of a round stone rolled down a
mountain thousands of feet in height. So much on the subject of energy.

VI. Weak Points and Strong

1. Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the
fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.

2. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to
be imposed on him.

3. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or, by
inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.

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4. If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him; if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if
quietly encamped, he can force him to move.

5. Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not
expected.

6. An army may march great distances without distress, if it marches through country where the enemy is
not.

7. You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended. You can
ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.

8. Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful
in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

9. O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and
hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.

10. You may advance and be absolutely irresistible, if you make for the enemy’s weak points; you may
retire and be safe from pursuit if your movements are more rapid than those of the enemy.

11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a
high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.

12. If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our
encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and
unaccountable in his way.

13. By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces
concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided.

14. We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence there will be a
whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy’s few.

15. And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire
straits.

16. The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known; for then the enemy will have to prepare
against a possible attack at several different points; and his forces being thus distributed in many
directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.

17. For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he
will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right,
he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

18. Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from
compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.

19. Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances
in order to fight.

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20. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left wing will be impotent to succor the right, the
right equally impotent to succor the left, the van unable to relieve the rear, or the rear to support the van.
How much more so if the furthest portions of the army are anything under a hundred LI apart, and even
the nearest are separated by several LI!

21. Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yueh exceed our own in number, that shall
advantage them nothing in the matter of victory. I say then that victory can be achieved.

22. Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to
discover his plans and the likelihood of their success.

23. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to
find out his vulnerable spots.

24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is
superabundant and where it is deficient.

25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your
dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the
wisest brains.

26. How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude
cannot comprehend.

27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which
victory is evolved.

28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the
infinite variety of circumstances.

29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and
hastens downwards.

30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.

31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works
out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.

32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be
called a heaven-born captain.

34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are not always equally predominant; the four
seasons make way for each other in turn. There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of
waning and waxing.

VII. Maneuvering

1. Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign.

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2. Having collected an army and concentrated his forces, he must blend and harmonize the different
elements thereof before pitching his camp.

3. After that, comes tactical maneuvering, than which there is nothing more difficult. The difficulty of
tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.

4. Thus, to take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting
after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation.

5. Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.

6. If you set a fully equipped army in march in order to snatch an advantage, the chances are that you will
be too late. On the other hand, to detach a flying column for the purpose involves the sacrifice of its
baggage and stores.

7. Thus, if you order your men to roll up their buff-coats, and make forced marches without halting day or
night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch, doing a hundred LI in order to wrest an advantage,
the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into the hands of the enemy.

8. The stronger men will be in front, the jaded ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one-tenth of
your army will reach its destination.

9. If you march fifty LI in order to outmaneuver the enemy, you will lose the leader of your first division,
and only half your force will reach the goal.

10. If you march thirty LI with the same object, two-thirds of your army will arrive.

11. We may take it then that an army without its baggage-train is lost; without provisions it is lost;
without bases of supply it is lost.

12. We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.

13. We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country–its
mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps.

14. We shall be unable to turn natural advantage to account unless we make use of local guides.

15. In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.

16. Whether to concentrate or to divide your troops, must be decided by circumstances.

17. Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest.

18. In raiding and plundering be like fire, is immovability like a mountain.

19. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

20. When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be divided amongst your men; when you capture new
territory, cut it up into allotments for the benefit of the soldiery.

21. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

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22. He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of deviation. Such is the art of maneuvering.

23. The Book of Army Management says: On the field of battle, the spoken word does not carry far
enough: hence the institution of gongs and drums. Nor can ordinary objects be seen clearly enough: hence
the institution of banners and flags.

24. Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused
on one particular point.

25. The host thus forming a single united body, is it impossible either for the brave to advance alone, or
for the cowardly to retreat alone. This is the art of handling large masses of men.

26. In night-fighting, then, make much use of signal-fires and drums, and in fighting by day, of flags and
banners, as a means of influencing the ears and eyes of your army.

27. A whole army may be robbed of its spirit; a commander-in-chief may be robbed of his presence of
mind.

28. Now a soldier’s spirit is keenest in the morning; by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening,
his mind is bent only on returning to camp.

29. A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish
and inclined to return. This is the art of studying moods.

30. Disciplined and calm, to await the appearance of disorder and hubbub amongst the enemy: this is the
art of retaining self-possession.

31. To be near the goal while the enemy is still far from it, to wait at ease while the enemy is toiling and
struggling, to be well-fed while the enemy is famished: this is the art of husbanding one’s strength.

32. To refrain from intercepting an enemy whose banners are in perfect order, to refrain from attacking an
army drawn up in calm and confident array: this is the art of studying circumstances.

33. It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes
downhill.

34. Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight; do not attack soldiers whose temper is keen.

35. Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy. Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.

36. When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

37. Such is the art of warfare.

VIII. Variation in Tactics

1. Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and
concentrates his forces

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2. When in difficult country, do not encamp. In country where high roads intersect, join hands with your
allies. Do not linger in dangerously isolated positions. In hemmed-in situations, you must resort to
stratagem. In desperate position, you must fight.

3. There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must be
besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.

4. The general who thoroughly understands the advantages that accompany variation of tactics knows
how to handle his troops.

5. The general who does not understand these, may be well acquainted with the configuration of the
country, yet he will not be able to turn his knowledge to practical account.

6. So, the student of war who is unversed in the art of war of varying his plans, even though he be
acquainted with the Five Advantages, will fail to make the best use of his men.

7. Hence in the wise leader’s plans, considerations of advantage and of disadvantage will be blended
together.

8. If our expectation of advantage be tempered in this way, we may succeed in accomplishing the
essential part of our schemes.

9. If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may
extricate ourselves from misfortune.

10. Reduce the hostile chiefs by inflicting damage on them; and make trouble for them, and keep them
constantly engaged; hold out specious allurements, and make them rush to any given point.

11. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own
readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made
our position unassailable.

12. There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: (1) Recklessness, which leads to
destruction; (2) cowardice, which leads to capture; (3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame; (5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to
worry and trouble.

13. These are the five besetting sins of a general, ruinous to the conduct of war.

14. When an army is overthrown and its leader slain, the cause will surely be found among these five
dangerous faults. Let them be a subject of meditation.

IX. The Army on the March

1. Sun Tzu said: We come now to the question of encamping the army, and observing signs of the enemy.
Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys.

2. Camp in high places, facing the sun. Do not climb heights in order to fight. So much for mountain
warfare.

3. After crossing a river, you should get far away from it.

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4. When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream. It
will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.

5. If you are anxious to fight, you should not go to meet the invader near a river which he has to cross.

6. Moor your craft higher up than the enemy, and facing the sun. Do not move up-stream to meet the
enemy. So much for river warfare.

7. In crossing salt-marshes, your sole concern should be to get over them quickly, without any delay.

8. If forced to fight in a salt-marsh, you should have water and grass near you, and get your back to a
clump of trees. So much for operations in salt-marches.

9. In dry, level country, take up an easily accessible position with rising ground to your right and on your
rear, so that the danger may be in front, and safety lie behind. So much for campaigning in flat country.

10. These are the four useful branches of military knowledge which enabled the Yellow Emperor to
vanquish four sovereigns.

11. All armies prefer high ground to low and sunny places to dark.

12. If you are careful of your men, and camp on hard ground, the army will be free from disease of every
kind, and this will spell victory.

13. When you come to a hill or a bank, occupy the sunny side, with the slope on your right rear. Thus you
will at once act for the benefit of your soldiers and utilize the natural advantages of the ground.

14. When, in consequence of heavy rains up-country, a river which you wish to ford is swollen and
flecked with foam, you must wait until it subsides.

15. Country in which there are precipitous cliffs with torrents running between, deep natural hollows,
confined places, tangled thickets, quagmires and crevasses, should be left with all possible speed and not
approached.

16. While we keep away from such places, we should get the enemy to approach them; while we face
them, we should let the enemy have them on his rear.

17. If in the neighborhood of your camp there should be any hilly country, ponds surrounded by aquatic
grass, hollow basins filled with reeds, or woods with thick undergrowth, they must be carefully routed out
and searched; for these are places where men in ambush or insidious spies are likely to be lurking.

18. When the enemy is close at hand and remains quiet, he is relying on the natural strength of his
position.

19. When he keeps aloof and tries to provoke a battle, he is anxious for the other side to advance.

20. If his place of encampment is easy of access, he is tendering a bait.

21. Movement amongst the trees of a forest shows that the enemy is advancing. The appearance of a
number of screens in the midst of thick grass means that the enemy wants to make us suspicious.

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22. The rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambuscade. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden
attack is coming.

23. When there is dust rising in a high column, it is the sign of chariots advancing; when the dust is low,
but spread over a wide area, it betokens the approach of infantry. When it branches out in different
directions, it shows that parties have been sent to collect firewood. A few clouds of dust moving to and
fro signify that the army is encamping.

24. Humble words and increased preparations are signs that the enemy is about to advance. Violent
language and driving forward as if to the attack are signs that he will retreat.

25. When the light chariots come out first and take up a position on the wings, it is a sign that the enemy
is forming for battle.

26. Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.

27. When there is much running about and the soldiers fall into rank, it means that the critical moment has
come.

28. When some are seen advancing and some retreating, it is a lure.

29. When the soldiers stand leaning on their spears, they are faint from want of food.

30. If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst.

31. If the enemy sees an advantage to be gained and makes no effort to secure it, the soldiers are
exhausted.

32. If birds gather on any spot, it is unoccupied. Clamor by night betokens nervousness.

33. If there is disturbance in the camp, the general’s authority is weak. If the banners and flags are shifted
about, sedition is afoot. If the officers are angry, it means that the men are weary.

34. When an army feeds its horses with grain and kills its cattle for food, and when the men do not hang
their cooking-pots over the camp-fires, showing that they will not return to their tents, you may know that
they are determined to fight to the death.

35. The sight of men whispering together in small knots or speaking in subdued tones points to
disaffection amongst the rank and file.

36. Too frequent rewards signify that the enemy is at the end of his resources; too many punishments
betray a condition of dire distress.

37. To begin by bluster, but afterwards to take fright at the enemy’s numbers, shows a supreme lack of
intelligence.

38. When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce.

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39. If the enemy’s troops march up angrily and remain facing ours for a long time without either joining
battle or taking themselves off again, the situation is one that demands great vigilance and
circumspection.

40. If our troops are no more in number than the enemy, that is amply sufficient; it only means that no
direct attack can be made. What we can do is simply to concentrate all our available strength, keep a close
watch on the enemy, and obtain reinforcements.

41. He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.

42. If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and,
unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you,
punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless.

43. Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means
of iron discipline. This is a certain road to victory.

44. If in training soldiers, commands are habitually enforced, the army will be well-disciplined; if not, its
discipline will be bad.

45. If a general shows confidence in his men but always insists on his orders being obeyed, the gain will
be mutual.

X. Terrain

1. Sun Tzu said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling
ground; (3) temporizing ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great
distance from the enemy.

2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called accessible.

3. With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and
carefully guard your line of supplies. Then you will be able to fight with advantage.

4. Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is called entangling.

5. From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the
enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will
ensue.

6. When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called temporizing
ground.

7. In a position of this sort, even though the enemy should offer us an attractive bait, it will be advisable
not to stir forth, but rather to retreat, thus enticing the enemy in his turn; then, when part of his army has
come out, we may deliver our attack with advantage.

8. With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await
the advent of the enemy.

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9. Should the army forestall you in occupying a pass, do not go after him if the pass is fully garrisoned,
but only if it is weakly garrisoned.

10. With regard to precipitous heights, if you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the
raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him to come up.

11. If the enemy has occupied them before you, do not follow him, but retreat and try to entice him away.

12. If you are situated at a great distance from the enemy, and the strength of the two armies is equal, it is
not easy to provoke a battle, and fighting will be to your disadvantage.

13. These six are the principles connected with Earth. The general who has attained a responsible post
must be careful to study them.

14. Now an army is exposed to six calamities, not arising from natural causes, but from faults for which
the general is responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3) collapse; (4) ruin; (5)
disorganization; (6) rout.

15. Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be
the flight of the former.

16. When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination.
When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is collapse.

17. When the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, and on meeting the enemy give battle on their
own account from a feeling of resentment, before the commander-in-chief can tell whether or no he is in a
position to fight, the result is ruin.

18. When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when
there are no fixes duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard
manner, the result is utter disorganization.

19. When a general, unable to estimate the enemy’s strength, allows an inferior force to engage a larger
one, or hurls a weak detachment against a powerful one, and neglects to place picked soldiers in the front
rank, the result must be rout.

20. These are six ways of courting defeat, which must be carefully noted by the general who has attained
a responsible post.

21. The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary,
of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances,
constitutes the test of a great general.

22. He who knows these things, and in fighting puts his knowledge into practice, will win his battles. He
who knows them not, nor practices them, will surely be defeated.

23. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting
will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.

24. The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only
thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.

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25. Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon
them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

26. If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to
enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder: then your soldiers must be
likened to spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purpose.

27. If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open
to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

28. If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition
to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

29. If we know that the enemy is open to attack, and also know that our men are in a condition to attack,
but are unaware that the nature of the ground makes fighting impracticable, we have still gone only
halfway towards victory.

30. Hence the experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is
never at a loss.

31. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if
you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.

XI. The Nine Situations

1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: (1) Dispersive ground; (2) facile
ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground;
(7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.

2. When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, it is dispersive ground.

3. When he has penetrated into hostile territory, but to no great distance, it is facile ground.

4. Ground the possession of which imports great advantage to either side, is contentious ground.

5. Ground on which each side has liberty of movement is open ground.

6. Ground which forms the key to three contiguous states, so that he who occupies it first has most of the
Empire at his command, is a ground of intersecting highways.

7. When an army has penetrated into the heart of a hostile country, leaving a number of fortified cities in
its rear, it is serious ground.

8. Mountain forests, rugged steeps, marshes and fens–all country that is hard to traverse: this is difficult
ground.

9. Ground which is reached through narrow gorges, and from which we can only retire by tortuous paths,
so that a small number of the enemy would suffice to crush a large body of our men: this is hemmed in
ground.

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10. Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay is desperate
ground.

11. On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not. On facile ground, halt not. On contentious ground, attack
not.

12. On open ground, do not try to block the enemy’s way. On the ground of intersecting highways, join
hands with your allies.

13. On serious ground, gather in plunder. In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.

14. On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem. On desperate ground, fight.

15. Those who were called skillful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy’s front
and rear; to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from
rescuing the bad, the officers from rallying their men.

16. When the enemy’s men were united, they managed to keep them in disorder.

17. When it was to their advantage, they made a forward move; when otherwise, they stopped still.

18. If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to
the attack, I should say: “Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be
amenable to your will.”

19. Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by
unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.

20. The following are the principles to be observed by an invading force: the further you penetrate into a
country, the greater will be the solidarity of your troops, and thus the defenders will not prevail against
you.

21. Make forays in fertile country in order to supply your army with food.

22. Carefully study the well-being of your men, and do not overtax them. Concentrate your energy and
hoard your strength. Keep your army continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans.

23. Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If
they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Officers and men alike will put forth their
uttermost strength.

24. Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand
firm. If they are in hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will
fight hard.

25. Thus, without waiting to be marshaled, the soldiers will be constantly on the move; without waiting to
be asked, they will do your will; without restrictions, they will be faithful; without giving orders, they can
be trusted.

26. Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes,
no calamity need be feared.

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27. If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if
their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.

28. On the day they are ordered out to battle, your soldiers may weep, those sitting up bedewing their
garments, and those lying down letting the tears run down their cheeks. But let them once be brought to
bay, and they will display the courage of a Chu or a Kuei.

29. The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the
ChUng Mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be
attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.

30. Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan, I should answer, yes. For the men of Wu and
the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm,
they will come to each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.

31. Hence it is not enough to put one’s trust in the tethering of horses and the burying of chariot wheels in
the ground.

32. The principle on which to manage an army is to set up one standard of courage which all must reach.

33. How to make the best of both strong and weak–that is a question involving the proper use of ground.

34. Thus the skillful general conducts his army just as though he were leading a single man, willy-nilly,
by the hand.

35. It is the business of a general to be quiet and thus ensure secrecy; upright and just, and thus maintain
order.

36. He must be able to mystify his officers and men by false reports and appearances, and thus keep them
in total ignorance.

37. By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, he keeps the enemy without definite knowledge.
By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose.

38. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks
away the ladder behind him. He carries his men deep into hostile territory before he shows his hand.

39. He burns his boats and breaks his cooking-pots; like a shepherd driving a flock of sheep, he drives his
men this way and that, and nothing knows whither he is going.

40. To muster his host and bring it into danger: this may be termed the business of the general.

41. The different measures suited to the nine varieties of ground; the expediency of aggressive or
defensive tactics; and the fundamental laws of human nature: these are things that must most certainly be
studied.

42. When invading hostile territory, the general principle is, that penetrating deeply brings cohesion;
penetrating but a short way means dispersion.

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43. When you leave your own country behind, and take your army across neighborhood territory, you find
yourself on critical ground. When there are means of communication on all four sides, the ground is one
of intersecting highways.

44. When you penetrate deeply into a country, it is serious ground. When you penetrate but a little way, it
is facile ground.

45. When you have the enemy’s strongholds on your rear, and narrow passes in front, it is hemmed-in
ground. When there is no place of refuge at all, it is desperate ground.

46. Therefore, on dispersive ground, I would inspire my men with unity of purpose. On facile ground, I
would see that there is close connection between all parts of my army.

47. On contentious ground, I would hurry up my rear.

48. On open ground, I would keep a vigilant eye on my defenses. On ground of intersecting highways, I
would consolidate my alliances.

49. On serious ground, I would try to ensure a continuous stream of supplies. On difficult ground, I would
keep pushing on along the road.

50. On hemmed-in ground, I would block any way of retreat. On desperate ground, I would proclaim to
my soldiers the hopelessness of saving their lives.

51. For it is the soldier’s disposition to offer an obstinate resistance when surrounded, to fight hard when
he cannot help himself, and to obey promptly when he has fallen into danger.

52. We cannot enter into alliance with neighboring princes until we are acquainted with their designs. We
are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country—its mountains
and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps. We shall be unable to turn natural
advantages to account unless we make use of local guides.

53. To be ignored of any one of the following four or five principles does not befit a warlike prince.

54. When a warlike prince attacks a powerful state, his generalship shows itself in preventing the
concentration of the enemy’s forces. He overawes his opponents, and their allies are prevented from
joining against him.

55. Hence he does not strive to ally himself with all and sundry, nor does he foster the power of other
states. He carries out his own secret designs, keeping his antagonists in awe. Thus he is able to capture
their cities and overthrow their kingdoms.

56. Bestow rewards without regard to rule, issue orders without regard to previous arrangements; and you
will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to do with but a single man.

57. Confront your soldiers with the deed itself; never let them know your design. When the outlook is
bright, bring it before their eyes; but tell them nothing when the situation is gloomy.

58. Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come
off in safety.

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59. For it is precisely when a force has fallen into harm’s way that is capable of striking a blow for
victory.

60. Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.

61. By persistently hanging on the enemy’s flank, we shall succeed in the long run in killing the
commander-in-chief.

62. This is called ability to accomplish a thing by sheer cunning.

63. On the day that you take up your command, block the frontier passes, destroy the official tallies, and
stop the passage of all emissaries.

64. Be stern in the council-chamber, so that you may control the situation.

65. If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in.

66. Forestall your opponent by seizing what he holds dear, and subtly contrive to time his arrival on the
ground.

67. Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself to the enemy until you can fight a
decisive battle.

68. At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards
emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.

XII. The Attack by Fire

1. Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp; the
second is to burn stores; the third is to burn baggage trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines;
the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.

2. In order to carry out an attack, we must have means available. The material for raising fire should
always be kept in readiness.

3. There is a proper season for making attacks with fire, and special days for starting a conflagration.

4. The proper season is when the weather is very dry; the special days are those when the moon is in the
constellations of the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing or the Cross-bar; for these four are all days of rising wind.

5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared to meet five possible developments:

6. (1) When fire breaks out inside to enemy’s camp, respond at once with an attack from without.

7. (2) If there is an outbreak of fire, but the enemy’s soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not
attack.

8. (3) When the force of the flames has reached its height, follow it up with an attack, if that is
practicable; if not, stay where you are.

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9. (4) If it is possible to make an assault with fire from without, do not wait for it to break out within, but
deliver your attack at a favorable moment.

10. (5) When you start a fire, be to windward of it. Do not attack from the leeward.

11. A wind that rises in the daytime lasts long, but a night breeze soon falls.

12. In every army, the five developments connected with fire must be known, the movements of the stars
calculated, and a watch kept for the proper days.

13. Hence those who use fire as an aid to the attack show intelligence; those who use water as an aid to
the attack gain an accession of strength.

14. By means of water, an enemy may be intercepted, but not robbed of all his belongings.

15. Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating
the spirit of enterprise; for the result is waste of time and general stagnation.

16. Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his
resources.

17. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained;
fight not unless the position is critical.

18. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a
battle simply out of pique.

19. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.

20. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.

21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever
be brought back to life.

22. Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a
country at peace and an army intact.

XIII. The Use of Spies

1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails
heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a
thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down
exhausted on the highways. As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor.

2. Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day.
This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a
hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.

3. One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory.

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4. Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things
beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.

5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from
experience, nor by any deductive calculation.

6. Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.

7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted
spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.

8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called “divine
manipulation of the threads.” It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty.

9. Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district.

10. Having inward spies, making use of officials of the enemy.

11. Having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy’s spies and using them for our own purposes.

12. Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies
to know of them and report them to the enemy.

13. Surviving spies, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy’s camp.

14. Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with
spies. None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved.

15. Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.

16. They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.

17. Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports.

18. Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.

19. If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together
with the man to whom the secret was told.

20. Whether the object be to crush an army, to storm a city, or to assassinate an individual, it is always
necessary to begin by finding out the names of the attendants, the aides-de-camp, and door-keepers and
sentries of the general in command. Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain these.

21. The enemy’s spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and
comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.

22. It is through the information brought by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ
local and inward spies.

23. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the
enemy.

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24. Last, it is by his information that the surviving spy can be used on appointed occasions.

25. The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can
only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy
be treated with the utmost liberality.

26. Of old, the rise of the Yin dynasty was due to I Chih, who had served under the Hsia. Likewise, the
rise of the Chou dynasty was due to Lu Ya who had served under the Yin.

27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the
army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Spies are a most important element in
water, because on them depends an army’s ability to move.

Mao Tse-tung. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung.77–84, 92-98 and 210-222. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0469 E

H406RB-365
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

H406: The Chinese Way of War
Reading H406RB

Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung

by Mao Tse-tung

PROBLEMS OF STRATEGY IN CHINA’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR
December 1936

CHAPTER 1: HOW TO STUDY WAR

1. THE LAWS OF WAR ARE DEVELOPMENTAL

The laws of war are a problem which anyone directing a war must study and solve.

The laws of a revolutionary war are a problem which anyone directing a revolutionary war must
study and solve.

The laws of China’s revolutionary war are a problem which anyone directing China’s revolutionary
war must study and solve.

We are now engaged in a war; our war is a revolutionary war; and our revolutionary war is being
waged in this semi-feudal and semi-colonial country of China. Therefore, we must not only study the laws
of war in general, but the specific laws of revolutionary war, and the even more specific laws of
revolutionary war in China.

It is well known that when you do anything, unless you understand its actual circumstances, its nature
and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws governing it, or know how to do it, or be able
to do it well.

War is the highest form of struggle, or resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a
certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the
emergence of private property and of classes. Unless you understand the actual circumstances of war, its
nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws of war, or know how to direct war, or
be able to win victory.

Revolutionary war, whether a revolutionary class war or a revolutionary national war, has its own
specific circumstances and nature, in addition to the circumstances and nature of war in general.
Therefore, besides the general laws of war, it has specific laws of its own. Unless you understand its
specific circumstances and nature, unless you understand its specific laws, you will not be able to direct a
revolutionary war and wage it successfully.

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China’s revolutionary war, whether a civil war or a national war, is waged in the specific
environment of China and so has its own specific circumstances and nature distinguishing it both from
war in general and from revolutionary war in general. Therefore, besides the laws of war in general and of
revolutionary war in general, it has specific laws of its own. Unless you understand them, you will not be
able to win in China’s revolutionary war.

Therefore, we must study the laws of war in general, we must also study the laws of revolutionary
war, and, finally, we must study the laws of China’s revolutionary war.

Some people hold a wrong view, which we refuted long ago. They say that it is enough merely to
study the laws of war in general, or, to put it more concretely, that it is enough merely to follow the
military manuals published by the reactionary Chinese government or the reactionary military academies
in China. They do not see that these manuals give merely the laws of war in general and moreover are
wholly copied from abroad, and that if we copy and apply them exactly without the slightest change in
form or content, we shall be “cutting the feet to fit the shoes” and be defeated. Their argument is: why
should knowledge which has been acquired at the cost of blood be of no use? They fail to see that
although we must cherish the earlier experience thus acquired, we must also cherish experience acquired
at the cost of our own blood.

Others hold a second wrong view, which we also refuted long ago. They say that it is enough merely
to study the experience of revolutionary war in Russia, or, to put it more concretely, that it is enough
merely to follow the laws by which the civil war in the Soviet Union was directed and the military
manuals published by Soviet military organizations. They do not see that these laws and manuals embody
the specific characteristics of the, civil war and the Red Army in the Soviet Union, and that if we copy
and apply them without allowing any change, we shall also be “cutting the feet to fit the shoes” and be
defeated. Their argument is: since our war, like the war in the Soviet Union, is a revolutionary war, and
since the Soviet Union won victory, how then can there be any alternative but to follow the Soviet
example? They fail to see that while we should set special store by the war experience of the Soviet
Union, because it is the most recent experience of revolutionary war and was acquired under the guidance
of Lenin and Stalin, we should likewise cherish the experience of China’s revolutionary war, because
there are many factors that are specific to the Chinese revolution and the Chinese Red Army.

Still others hold a third wrong view, which we likewise refuted long ago. They say that the most
valuable experience is that of the Northern Expedition of 1926-27 and that we must learn from it, or, to
put it more concretely, that we must imitate the Northern Expedition in driving straight ahead to seize the
big cities. They fail to see that while the experience of the Northern Expedition should be studied, it
should not be copied and applied mechanically, because the circumstances of our present war arc
different. We should take from the Northern Expedition only what still applies today, and work out
something of our own in the light of present conditions.

Thus the different laws for directing different wars are determined by the different circumstances of
those wars—differences in their time, place and nature. As regards the time factor, both war and the laws
for directing wars develop; each historical stage has its special characteristics, and hence the laws of war
in each historical stage have their special characteristics and cannot be mechanically applied in another
stage. As for the nature of war, since revolutionary war and counter-revolutionary war both have their
special characteristics, the laws governing them also have their own characteristics, and those applying to
one cannot be mechanically transferred to the other. As for the factor of place, since each country or
nation, especially a large country or nation, has its own characteristics, the laws of war for each country
or nation also have their own characteristics, and here, too, those applying to one cannot be mechanically
transferred to the other. In studying the laws for directing wars that occur at different historical stages,
that differ in nature and that are waged in different places· and by different nations, we must fix our

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attention on the characteristics and development of each, and must oppose a mechanical approach to the
problem of war.

Nor is this all. It signifies progress and development in a commander who is initially capable of
commanding only a small formation, if he becomes capable of commanding a big one. There is also a
difference between operating in one locality and in many. It likewise signifies progress and development
in a commander who is initially capable of operating only in a locality he knows well, if he becomes
capable of operating in many other localities. Owing to technical, tactical and strategic developments on
the enemy side and on our own, the circumstances also differ from stage to stage within a given war. It
signifies still more progress and development in a commander who is capable of exercising command in a
war at its lower stages, if he becomes capable of exercising command in its higher stages. A commander
who remains capable of commanding only a formation of a certain size, only in a certain locality and at a
certain stage in the development of a war shows that he has made no progress and has not developed.
There are some people who, contented with a single skill or a peep-hole view, never make any progress;
they may play some role in the revolution at a given place and time, but not a significant one. We need
directors of war who can play a significant role. All the laws for directing war develop as history develops
and as war develops; nothing is changeless.

2. THE AIM OF WAR IS TO ELIMINATE WAR

War, this monster of mutual slaughter among men, will be finally eliminated by the progress of
human society, and in the not too distant future too. But there is only one way to eliminate it and that is to
oppose war with war, to oppose counter-revolutionary war with revolutionary war, to oppose national
counter-revolutionary war with national revolutionary war, and to oppose counter-revolutionary class war
with revolutionary class war. History knows only two kinds of war, just and unjust. We support just wars
and oppose unjust wars. All counter-revolutionary wars are unjust, all revolutionary wars are just.
Mankind’s era of wars will be brought to an end by our own efforts, and beyond doubt the war we wage is
part of the final battle. But also beyond doubt the war we face will be part of the biggest and most ruthless
of all wars. The biggest and most ruthless of unjust counter-revolutionary wars is hanging over us, and the
vast majority of mankind will be ravaged unless we raise the banner of a just war. The banner of
mankind’s just war is the banner of mankind’s salvation. The banner of China’s just war is the banner of
China’s salvation. A war waged by the great majority of mankind and of the Chinese people is beyond
doubt a just war, a most lofty and glorious undertaking for the salvation of mankind and China, and a
bridge to a new era in world history. When human society advances to the point where classes and .states
are eliminated, there will be no more wars, counter-revolutionary or revolutionary, unjust or just; that will
be the era of perpetual peace for mankind. Our study of the laws of revolutionary war springs from the
desire to eliminate all wars; herein lies the distinction between us Communists and all the exploiting
classes.

3. STRATEGY IS THE STUDY OF THE LAWS OF A WAR SITUATION AS A WHOLE

Wherever there is war, there is a war situation as a whole. The war situation as a whole may cover the
entire world, may cover an entire country, or may cover an independent guerrilla zone or an independent
major operational front. Any war situation which acquires a comprehensive consideration of its various
aspects and stages forms a war situation as a whole.

The task of the science of strategy is to study those laws for directing a war that govern a war
situation as a whole. The task of the science of campaigns and the science of tactics is to study those laws
for directing a war that govern a partial situation.

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Why is it necessary for the commander of a campaign or a tactical operation to understand the laws of
strategy to some degree? Because an understanding of the whole facilitates the handling of the part, and
because the part is subordinate to the whole. The view that strategic victory is determined by tactical
successes alone is wrong because it overlooks the fact that victory or defeat in a war is first and foremost
a question of whether the situation as a whole and its various stages are properly taken into account. If
there are serious defects or mistakes in taking the situation as a whole and its various stages into account,
the war is sure to be lost. “One careless move loses the whole game” refers to a move affecting the
situation as a whole, a move decisive for the whole situation, and not to a move of a partial nature, a move
which is not decisive for the whole situation. As in chess, so in war.

But the situation as a whole cannot be detached from its parts and become independent of them, for it
is made up of all its parts. Sometimes certain parts may suffer destruction or defeat without seriously
affecting the situation as a whole, because they are not decisive for it. Some defeats or failures in tactical
operations or campaigns do not lead to deterioration in the war situation as a whole, because they are not
of decisive significance. But the loss of most of the campaigns making up the war situation as a whole, or
of one or two decisive campaigns, immediately changes the whole situation. Here, “most of the
campaigns” or “one or two campaigns” are decisive. In the history of war, there are instances where
defeat in a single battle nullified all the advantages of a series of victories, and there are also instances
where victory in a single battle after many defeats opened up a new situation. In those instances the
“series of victories” and the “many defeats” were partial in nature and not decisive for the situation as a
whole, while “defeat in a single battle” or “victory in a single battle” played the decisive role. All this
explains the importance of taking into account the situation as a whole. What is most important for the
person in overall command is to concentrate on attending to the war situation as a whole. The main point
is that, according to the circumstances, he should concern himself with the problems of the grouping of
his military units and formations, the relations between campaigns, the relations between various
operational stages, and the relations between our activities as a whole and the enemy’s activities as a
whole—all these problems demand his greatest care and effort, and if he ignores them and immerses
himself in secondary problems, he can hardly avoid setbacks.

The relationship between the whole and the part holds not only for the relationship between strategy
and campaign but also for that between campaign and tactics. Examples are to be found in the relation
between the operations of a division and those of its regiments and battalions, and in the relation between
the operations of a company and those of its platoons and squads. The commanding officer at any level
should centre his attention on the most important and decisive problem or action in the whole situation he
is handling, and not on other problems or actions.

What is important or decisive should be determined not by general or abstract considerations, but
according to the concrete circumstances. In a military operation the direction and point of assault should
be selected according to the actual situation of the enemy, the terrain, and the strength of our own forces
at the moment. One must see to it that the soldiers do not overeat when supplies are abundant, and take
care that they do not go hungry when supplies are short. In the White areas the’ mere leakage of a piece of
information may cause defeat in a subsequent engagement, but in the Red areas such leakage is often not
a very serious matter. It is necessary for the high commanders to participate personally in certain battles
but not in others. For a military school, the most important question is the selection of a director and
instructors and the adoption of a training programme. For a mass meeting, the main thing is mobilizing
the masses to attend and putting forward suitable slogans. And so on and so forth. In a word, the principle
is to centre our attention on the important links that have a bearing on the situation as a whole.

The only way to study the laws governing a war situation as a whole is to do some hard thinking. For
what pertains to the situation as a whole is not visible to the eye, and we can understand it only by hard
thinking; there is no other way. But because the situation as a whole is made up of parts, people with

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experience of the parts, experience of campaigns and tactics, can understand matters of a higher order
provided they are willing to think hard. The problems of strategy include the following:

Giving proper consideration to the relation between the enemy and ourselves.

Giving proper consideration to the relation between various campaigns or between various
operational stages.

Giving proper consideration to those parts which have a bearing on (are decisive for) the situation
as a whole.

Giving proper consideration to the special features contained in the general situation.

Giving proper consideration to the relation between the front and the rear.

Giving proper consideration to the distinction as well as the connection between losses and
replacements, between fighting and resting, between concentration and dispersion, between attack
and defence, between advance and retreat, between concealment and exposure, between the main
attack and supplementary attacks, between assault and containing action, between centralized
command and decentralized command, between protracted war and war of quick decision, between
positional war and mobile war, between our own forces and friendly forces, between one military arm
and another, between higher and lower levels, between cadres and the rank and file, between old and
new soldiers, between senior and junior cadres, between old and new cadres, between Red areas and
White areas, between old Red areas and new ones, between the central district and the borders of a
given base area, between the warm season and the cold season, between victory and defeat, between
large and small troop formations, between the regular army and the guerrilla forces, between
destroying the enemy and winning over the masses, between expanding the Red Army and
consolidating it, between military work and political work, between past and present tasks, between
present and future tasks, between tasks arising from one set of circumstances and tasks arising from
another, between fixed fronts and fluid fronts, between civil war and national war, between one
historical stage and another, etc., etc.

None of these problems of strategy is visible to the eye, and yet, if we think hard, we can comprehend,
grasp and master them all, that is, we can raise the important problems concerning a war or concerning
military operations to the higher plane of principle and solve them. Our task in studying the problems of
strategy is to attain this goal.

CHAPTER III: CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINA’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT

People who do not admit, do not know, or do not want to know that China’s revolutionary war has its
own characteristics have equated the war waged by the Red Army against the Kuomintang forces with
war in general or with the civil war in the Soviet Union. The experience of the civil war in the Soviet
Union directed by Lenin and Stalin has a worldwide significance. All Communist Parties, including the
Chinese Communist Party, regard this experience and its theoretical summing-up by Lenin and Stalin as
their guide. But this does not mean that we should apply it mechanically to our own conditions. In many
of its aspects China’s revolutionary war has characteristics distinguishing it from the civil war in the
Soviet Union. Of course it is wrong to take no account of these characteristics or deny their existence.

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This point has been fully borne out in our ten years of war.

Our enemy has made similar mistakes. He did not recognize that fighting against the Red Army
required a different strategy and different tactics from those used in fighting other forces. Relying on his
superiority in various respects, he took us lightly and stuck to his old methods of warfare. This was the
case both before and during his fourth “encirclement and suppression” campaign in 1933, with the result
that he suffered a series of defeats. In the Kuomintang army a new approach to the problem was
suggested first by the reactionary Kuomintang general Liu Wei-yuan and then by Tai Yueh. Their idea
was eventually accepted by Chiang Kai-shek. That was how Chiang Kai-shek’s Officers’ Training Corps
at Lushan came into being and how the new reactionary military principles applied in the fifth campaign
of “encirclement and suppression” were evolved.

But when the enemy changed his military principles to suit operations against the Red Army, there
appeared in our ranks a group of people who reverted to the “old ways”. They urged a return to ways
suited to the general run of things, refused to go into the specific circumstances of each case, rejected the
experience gained in the Red Army’s history of sanguinary battles, belittled the strength of imperialism
and the Kuomintang as well as that of the Kuomin-tang army, and turned a blind eye to the new
reactionary principles adopted by the enemy. As a result, all the revolutionary bases except the Shensi-
Kansu border area were lost, the Red Army was reduced from 300,000 to a few tens of thousands, the
membership of the Chinese Communist Party fell from 300,000 to a few tens of thousands, and the Party
organizations in the Kuomintang areas were almost all destroyed. In short, we paid a severe penalty,
which was historic in its significance. This group of people called themselves Marxist-Leninists, but
actually they had not learned an iota of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin said that the most essential thing in
Marxism, the living soul of Marxism, is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. That was precisely
the point these comrades of ours forgot.

Hence one can see that, without an understanding of the characteristics of China’s revolutionary war,
it is impossible to direct it and lead it to victory.

2. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF
CHINA’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR?

What then are the characteristics of China’s revolutionary war?

I think there are four principal ones.

The first is that China is a vast, semi-colonial country which is unevenly developed politically and
economically and which has gone through the revolution of 1924-27.

This characteristic indicates that it is possible for China’s revolutionary war to develop and attain
victory. We already pointed this out (at the First Party Congress of the Hunan-Kiangsi Border Area) when
in late 1927 and early 1928, soon after guerrilla warfare was started in China, some comrades in the
Chingkang Mountains in the Hunan-Kiangsi border area raised the question, “How long can we keep the
Red Flag flying?” For this was a most fundamental question. Without answering this question of whether
China’s revolutionary base areas and the Chinese Red Army could survive and develop, we could not
have advanced a single step. The Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1928 again
gave the answer to the question. Since then the Chinese revolutionary movement has had a correct
theoretical basis.

Let us now analyse this characteristic.

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China’s political and economic development is uneven—a weak capitalist economy coexists with a
preponderant semi-feudal economy; a few modern industrial and commercial cities coexist with a vast
stagnant countryside; several million industrial workers coexist with several hundred millions of peasants
and handicraftsmen labouring under the old system; big warlords controlling the central government
coexist with small warlords controlling the provinces; two kinds of reactionary armies, the so-called
Central Army under Chiang Kai-shek and “miscellaneous troops” under the warlords in the provinces,
exist side by side; a few railways, steamship lines and motor roads exist side by side with a vast number
of wheelbarrow paths and foot-paths many of which are difficult to negotiate even on foot.

China is a semi-colonial country—disunity among the imperialist powers makes for disunity among
the ruling groups in China. There is a difference between a semi-colonial country controlled by several
countries and a colony controlled by a single country.

China is a vast country—”When it is dark in the east, it is light in the west; when things are dark in
the south, there is still light in the north.” Hence one need not worry about lack of room for manoeuvre.

China has gone through a great revolution—this has provided the seeds from which the Red Army
has grown, provided the leader of the Red Army, namely, the Chinese Communist Party, and provided the
masses with experience of participation in a revolution.

We say, therefore, that the first characteristic of China’s revolutionary war is that it is waged in a vast
semi-colonial country which is unevenly developed politically and economically and which has gone
through a revolution. This characteristic basically determines our military strategy and tactics as well as
our political strategy and tactics.

The second characteristic is that our enemy is big and powerful.

How do matters stand with the Kuomintang, the enemy of the Red Army? It is a party that has seized
political power and has more or less stabilized its power. It has gained the support of the world’s principal
imperialist states. It has remodeled its army which has thus become different from any other army in
Chinese history and on the whole similar to the armies of modern states; this army is much better supplied
with weapons and materiel than the Red Army, and is larger than any army in Chinese history, or for that
matter than the standing army of any other country. There is a world of difference between the
Kuomintang army and the Red Army. The Kuomintang controls the key positions or lifelines in the
politics, economy, communications and culture of China; its political power is nationwide.

The Chinese Red Army is thus confronted with a big and powerful enemy. This is the second
characteristic of China’s revolutionary war. It necessarily makes the military operations of the Red Army
different in many ways from those of wars in general and from those of the civil war in the Soviet Union
or of the Northern Expedition.

The third characteristic is that the Red Army is small and weak.

The Chinese Red Army, starting as guerrilla units, came into being after the defeat of the First Great
Revolution: This occurred in a period of relative political and economic stability in the reactionary
capitalist countries of the world as well as in a period of reaction in China.

Our political power exists in scattered and isolated mountainous or remote regions and receives no
outside help whatsoever. Economic and cultural conditions in the revolutionary base areas are backward
compared with those in the Kuomintang areas. The revolutionary base areas embrace only rural districts
and small towns. These areas were extremely small in the beginning and have not grown much larger

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since. Moreover, they are fluid and not stationary, and the Red Army has no really consolidated bases.

The Red Army is numerically small, its arms are poor, and it has great difficulty in obtaining supplies
such as food, bedding and clothing.
This characteristic presents a sharp contrast to the preceding one. From this sharp contrast have arisen
the strategy and tactics of the Red Army.

The fourth characteristic is Communist Party leadership and the agrarian revolution.

This characteristic is the inevitable consequence of the first one. It has given rise to two features. On
the one hand, despite the fact that China’s revolutionary war is taking place in a period of reaction in
China and throughout the capitalist world, victory is possible because it is under the leadership of the
Communist Party and has the support of the peasantry. Thanks to this support, our base areas, small as
they are, are politically very powerful and stand firmly opposed to the enormous Kuomintang regime,
while militarily they place great difficulties in the way of the Kuomintang attacks. Small as it is, the Red
Army has great fighting capacity, because its members, led by the Communist Party, are born of the
agrarian revolution and are fighting for their own interests, and because its commanders and fighters are
politically united.

The Kuomintang, on the other hand, presents a sharp contrast. It opposes the agrarian revolution and
therefore has no support from the peasantry. Though it has a large army, the Kuomintang cannot make its
soldiers and the many lower-ranking officers, who were originally small producers, risk their lives
willingly for it. Its officers and men are politically divided, which reduces its fighting capacity.

3. OUR STRATEGY AND TACTICS ENSUING FROM THESE CHARACTERISTICS

Thus the four principal characteristics of China’s revolutionary war are: a vast semi-colonial country
which is unevenly developed politically and economically and which has gone through a great revolution;
a big and powerful enemy; a small and weak Red Army; and the agrarian revolution. These characteristics
determine the line for guiding China’s revolutionary war as well as many of its strategic and tactical
principles. It follows from the first and fourth characteristics that it is possible for the Chinese Red Army
to grow and defeat its enemy. It follows from the second and third characteristics that it is impossible for
the Chinese Red Army to grow very rapidly or defeat its enemy quickly; in other words, the war will be
protracted and may even be lost if it is mishandled.

These are the two aspects of China’s revolutionary war. They exist simultaneously, that is, there are
favourable factors and there are difficulties. This is the fundamental law of China’s revolutionary war,
from which many other laws ensue. The history of our ten years of war has proved the validity of this law.
He who has eyes but fails to see this fundamental law cannot direct China’s revolutionary war, cannot
lead the Red Army to victories.

It is clear that we must correctly settle all the following matters of principle:

Determine our strategic orientation correctly, oppose adventurism when on the offensive, oppose
conservatism when on the defensive, and oppose flightism when shifting from one place to
another.

Oppose guerrillaism in the Red Army, while recognizing the guerrilla character of its operations.

Oppose protracted campaigns and a strategy of quick decision, and uphold the strategy of
protracted war and campaigns of quick decision.

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Oppose fixed battle lines and positional warfare, and favour fluid battle lines and mobile warfare.

Oppose fighting merely to rout the enemy, and uphold fighting to annihilate the enemy.

Oppose the strategy of striking with two “fists” in two directions at the same time, and uphold the
strategy of striking with one “fist” in one direction at one time.

Oppose the principle of maintaining a large rear service organization, and uphold the principle of
small ones.

Oppose an absolutely centralized command, and favour a relatively centralized command.

Oppose the purely military viewpoint and the ways of roving rebels, and recognize that the Red
Army is a propagandist and organizer of the Chinese revolution.

Oppose bandit ways, and uphold strict political discipline.

Oppose warlord ways, and favour both democracy within proper limits and an authoritative
discipline in the army.

Oppose an incorrect, sectarian policy on cadres, and uphold the correct policy on cadres.

Oppose the policy of isolation, and affirm the policy of winning over all possible allies.

Oppose keeping the Red Army at its old stage, and strive to develop it to a new stage.

Our present discussion of the problems of strategy is intended to elucidate these matters carefully in the
light of the historical experience gained in China’s ten years of bloody revolutionary war.

THE THREE STAGES OF THE PROTRACTED WAR

35. Since the Sino-Japanese war is a protracted one and final victory will belong to China, it can
reasonably be assumed that this protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the
period of the enemy’s strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period
of the enemy’s strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counteroffensive. The third stage will be
the period of our strategic counteroffensive and the enemy’s strategic retreat. It is impossible to predict the
concrete situa-tion in the three stages, but certain main trends in the war may be pointed out in the light of
present conditions. The objective course of events will be exceedingly rich and varied, with many twists
and turns, and nobody can cast a horoscope for the Sino-Japanese war; nevertheless it is necessary for the
strategic direction of the war to make a rough sketch of its trends. Although our sketch may not be in full
accord with the subsequent facts and will be amended by them, it is still necessary to make it in order to
give firm and purposeful strategic direction to the protracted war.

36. The first stage has not yet ended. The enemy’s design is to occupy Canton, Wuhan arid Lanchow
and link up these three points. To accomplish this aim the enemy will have to use at least fifty divisions,
or about one and a half million men, spend from one and a half to two years, and expend more than ten
thousand million yen. In penetrating so deeply, he will encounter immense difficulties, with consequences
disastrous beyond imagination. As for attempting to occupy the entire length of the Canton-Hankow

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Railway and the Sian-Lanchow Highway, he will have to fight perilous battles and even so may not fully
accomplish his design. But in drawing up our operational plan we should base ourselves on the
assumption that the enemy may occupy the three points and even certain additional areas, as well as link
them up, and we should make dispositions for a protracted war, so that even if he does so, we shall be
able to cope with him. In this stage the form of fighting we should adopt is primarily mobile warfare,
supplemented by guerrilla and positional warfare. Through the subjective errors of the Kuomintang
military authorities, positional warfare was assigned the primary role in the first phase of this stage, but it
is nevertheless supplementary from the point of view of the stage as a whole. In this stage, China has
already built up abroad united front and achieved unprecedented unity. Although the enemy has used and
will continue to use base and shameless means to induce China to capitulate in the attempt to realize his
plan for a quick decision and to conquer the whole country without much effort, he has failed so far, nor
is he likely to succeed in the future. In this stage; in spite of considerable losses, China will make
consider-able progress, which will become the main basis for her continued resistance in the second stage.
In the present stage the Soviet Union has already given substantial aid to China. On the enemy side, there
are already signs of flagging morale, and his army’s momentum of attack is less in the middle phase of
this stage than it was in the initial phase, and it will diminish still further in the concluding phase. Signs of
exhaustion are beginning to appear in his finances and economy; war-weariness is beginning to set in
among his people and troops; and within the clique at the helm of the war, “war frustrations” are
beginning to manifest themselves and pessimism about the prospects of the war is growing.

37. The second stage may be termed one of strategic stalemate. At the tail end of the first stage, the
enemy will be forced to fix certain terminal points to his strategic offensive owing to his shortage of
troops and our firm resistance, and upon reaching them he will stop his strategic offensive and enter the
stage of safeguarding his occupied areas. In the second stage, the enemy will attempt to safeguard these
areas and to make them his own by the fraudulent method of setting up puppet governments, while
plundering the Chinese people to the limit; but again he will be confronted with stubborn guerrilla
warfare. Taking advantage of the fact that the enemy’s rear is unguarded, our guerrilla warfare will
develop extensively in the first stage, and many base areas will be established, seriously threatening the
enemy’s consolidation of the occupied areas, and so in the second stage there will still be widespread
fighting. In this stage, our form of fighting will be primarily guerrilla warfare, supplemented by mobile
warfare. China will still retain a large regular army, but she will find it difficult to launch the strategic
counteroffensive immediately because, on the one hand, the enemy will adopt a strategically defensive
position in the big cities and along the main lines of communication under his occupation and, on the
other hand, China will not yet be adequately equipped technically. Except for the troops engaged in
frontal defence against the enemy, our forces will be switched in large numbers to the enemy’s rear in
comparatively dispersed dispositions, and, basing themselves on all the areas not actually occupied by the
enemy and coordinating with the people’s local armed forces, they will launch extensive, fierce guerrilla
warfare against enemy-occupied areas, keeping the enemy on the move as far as possible in order to
destroy him in mobile warfare, as is now being done in Shansi Province. The fighting in the second stage
will be ruthless, and the country will suffer serious devastation. But the guerrilla warfare will be
successful, and if it is well conducted the enemy may be able to retain only about one-third of his
occupied territory, with the remaining two-thirds in our hands, and this will constitute a great defeat for
the enemy and a great victory for China. By then the enemy-occupied territory as a whole will fall into
three categories: first, the enemy base areas; second, our base areas for guerrilla warfare; and, third, the
guerrilla areas contested by both sides. The duration of this stage will depend on the degree of change in
the balance of forces between us and the enemy and on the changes in the international situation;
generally speaking, we should be prepared to see this stage last a comparatively long time and to weather
its hardships. It will be a very painful period for China; the two big problems will be economic difficulties
and the disruptive activities of the traitors. The enemy will go all out to wreck China’s united front, and
the traitor organizations in all the occupied areas will merge into a so-called “unified government”.
Owing to the loss of big cities and the hardships of war, vacillating elements within our ranks will clamor

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for compromise, and pessimism will grow to a serious extent. Our tasks will then be to mobilize the
whole people to unite as one man and carry on the war with unflinching perseverance, to broaden and
consolidate the united front, sweep away all pessimism and ideas of compromise, promote the will to hard
struggle and apply new wartime policies, and so to weather the hardships. In the second stage, we will
have to call upon the whole country resolutely to maintain a united government, we will have to oppose
splits and systematically improve fighting techniques, reform the armed forces, mobilize the entire people
and prepare for the counteroffensive. The international situation will become still more unfavourable to
Japan and the main international forces will incline towards giving more help to China, even though there
may be talk of “realism” of the Chamberlain type which accommodates itself to faits accomplis. Japan’s
threat to Southeast Asia and Siberia will become greater, and there may even be another war. As regards
Japan, scores of her divisions will be inextricably bogged down in China. Widespread guerrilla warfare
and the people’s anti-Japanese movement will wear down this big Japanese force, greatly reducing it and
also disintegrating its morale by stimulating the growth of homesickness, war weariness and even anti-
war sentiment. Though it would be wrong to say that Japan will achieve no results at all in her plunder of
China, yet, being short of capital and harassed by guerrilla warfare, she cannot possibly achieve rapid or
substantial results. This second stage will be the transitional stage of the entire war; it will be the most
trying period but also the pivotal one. Whether China becomes an independent country or is reduced to a
colony will be determined not by the retention or loss of the big cities in the first stage but by the extent to
which the whole nation exerts itself in the second. If we can persevere in the War of Resistance, in the
united front and in the protracted war, China will in that stage gain the power to change from weakness to
strength. It will be the second act in the three-act drama of China’s War of Resistance. And through the
efforts of the entire cast it will become possible to perform a most brilliant last act.

38. The third stage will be the stage of the counteroffensive to recover our lost territories. Their
recovery will depend mainly upon the strength which China has built up in the preceding stage and which
will continue to grow in the third stage. But China’s strength alone will not be sufficient, and we shall also
have to rely on the support of international forces and on the changes that will take place inside Japan, or
otherwise we shall not be able to win; this adds to China’s tasks in international propaganda and
diplomacy. In the third stage, our war will no longer be one of strategic defensive, but will turn into a
strategic counteroffensive manifesting itself in strategic offensives; and it will no longer be fought on
strategically interior lines, but will shift gradually to strategically exterior lines. Not until we fight our
way to the Yalu River can this war be considered over. The third stage will be the last in the protracted
war, and when we talk of persevering in the war to the end, we mean going all the way through this stage.
Our primary form of fighting will still be mobile warfare, but positional warfare will rise to importance.
While positional defence cannot be regarded as important in the first stage because of the prevailing
circumstances, positional attack will become quite important in the third stage because of the changed
conditions and the requirements of the task. In the third stage guerrilla warfare will again provide
strategic support by supplementing mobile and positional warfare, but it will not be the primary form as in
the second stage.

39. It is thus obvious that the war is protracted and consequently ruthless in nature. The enemy will
not be able to gobble up the whole of China but will be able to occupy many places for a considerable
time. China will not be able to oust the Japanese quickly, but the greater part of her territory will remain
in her hands. Ultimately the enemy will lose and we will win, but we shall have a hard stretch of road to
travel.

40. The Chinese people will become tempered in the course of this long and ruthless war. The
political parties taking part in the war will also be steeled and tested. The united front must be persevered
in; only by persevering in the united front can we persevere in the war; and only by persevering in the
united front and in the war can we win final victory. Only thus can all difficulties be overcome. After
travelling the hard stretch of road we shall reach the highway to victory. This is the natural logic of the

H406RB-376
war.

41. In the three stages the changes in relative strength will proceed along the following lines. In the
first stage, the enemy is superior and we are inferior in strength. With regard to our inferiority we must
reckon on changes of two different kinds from the eve of the War of Resistance to the end of this stage.
The first kind is a change for the worse. China’s original inferiority will be aggravated by war losses,
namely, decreases in territory, population, economic strength, military strength and cultural institutions.
Towards the end of the first stage, the decrease will probably be considerable, especially on the economic
side. This point will be exploited by some people as a basis for their theories of national subjugation and
of compromise. But the second kind of change, the change for the better, must also be noted. It includes
the experience gained in the war, the progress made by the armed forces, the political progress, the
mobilization of the people, the development of culture in a new direction, the emergence of guerrilla
warfare, the increase in international support, etc. What is on the downgrade in the first stage is the old
quantity and the old quality, the manifestations being mainly quantitative. What is on the upgrade is the
new quantity and the new quality, the manifestations being mainly qualitative. It is the second kind of
change that provides a basis for our ability to fight a protracted war and win final victory.

42. In the first stage, changes of two kinds are also occurring on the enemy’s side. The first kind is a
change for the worse and manifests itself in hundreds of thousands of casualties, the drain on arms and
ammunition, deterioration of troop morale, popular discontent at home, shrinkage of trade, the
expenditure of over ten thousand million yen, condemnation by world opinion, etc. This trend also
provides a basis for our ability to fight a protracted war and win final victory. But we must likewise
reckon with the second kind of change on the enemy’s side, a change for the better, that is, his expansion
in territory, population and resources. This too is a basis for the protracted nature of our War of
Resistance and the impossibility of quick victory, but at the same time certain people will use it as a basis
for their theories of national subjugation and of compromise. However, we must take into account the
transitory and partial character of this change for the better on the enemy’s side. Japan is an imperialist
power heading for collapse, and her occupation of China’s territory is temporary. The vigorous growth of
guerrilla warfare in China will restrict her actual occupation to narrow zones. Moreover, her occupation
of Chinese territory has created and intensified contradictions between Japan and other foreign countries.
Besides, generally speaking, such occupation involves a considerable period in which Japan will make
capital outlays without drawing any profits, as is shown by the experience in the three northeastern
provinces. All of which again gives us a basis for demolishing the theories of national subjugation and of
compromise and for establishing the theories of protracted war and of final victory.

43. In the second stage, the above changes on both sides will continue to develop. While the situation
cannot be predicted in detail, on the whole Japan will continue on the downgrade and China on the
upgrade. For example, Japan’s military and financial resources will be seriously drained by China’s
guerrilla warfare, popular discontent will grow in Japan, the morale of her troops will deteriorate further,
and she will become more isolated internationally. As for China, she will make further progress in the
political, military and cultural spheres and in the mobilization of the people; guerrilla warfare will
develop further; there will be some new economic growth on the basis of the small industries and the
widespread agriculture in the interior; international support will gradually increase; and the whole picture
will be quite different from what it is now. This second stage may last quite a long time, during which
there will be a great reversal in the balance of forces, with China gradually rising and Japan gradually
declining. China will emerge from her inferior position, and Japan will lose her superior position; first the
two countries will become evenly matched, and then their relative positions will be reversed. Thereupon,
China will in general have completed her preparations for the strategic counteroffensive and will enter the
stage of the counteroffensive and the expulsion of the enemy. It should be reiterated that the change from
inferiority to superiority and the completion of preparations for the counteroffensive will involve three
things, namely, an increase in China’s own strength, an increase in Japan’s difficulties, and an increase in

H406RB-377
international support; it is the combination of all these forces that will bring about China’s superiority and
the completion of her preparations for the counteroffensive.

44. Because of the unevenness in China’s political and economic development, the strategic
counteroffensive of the third stage will not present a uniform and even picture throughout the country in
its initial phase but will be regional in character, rising here and subsiding there. During this stage, the
enemy will not relax his divisive tricks to break China’s united front, hence the task of maintaining
internal unity in China will become still more important, and we shall have to ensure that the strategic
counteroffensive does not collapse halfway through internal dissension. In this period the international
situation will become very favourable to China. China’s task will be to take advantage of it in order to
attain complete liberation and establish an independent democratic state, which at the same time will
mean helping the world anti-fascist movement.

45. China moving from inferiority to parity and then to superiority, Japan moving from superiority to
parity and then to inferiority; China moving from the defensive to stalemate and then to the
counteroffensive, Japan moving from the offensive to the safeguarding of her gains and then to retreat—
such will be the course of the Sino-Japanese war and its inevitable trend.

46. Hence the questions and the conclusions are as follows: Will China be subjugated? The answer is,
No, she will not be subjugated, but will win final victory. Can China win quickly? The answer is, No, she
cannot win quickly, and the war must be a protracted one. Are these conclusions correct? I think they are.

47. At this point, the exponents of national subjugation and of compromise will again rush in and say,
“To move from inferiority to parity China needs a military and economic power equal to Japan’s, and to
move from parity to superiority she will need a military and economic power greater than Japan’s. But
this is impossible, hence the above conclusions are not correct.”

48. This is the so-called theory that “weapons decide everything”, which constitutes a mechanical
approach to the question of war and a subjective and one-sided view. Our view is opposed to this; we see
not only weapons but also people. Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it
is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and
economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is
necessarily wielded by people. If the great majority of the Chinese, of the Japanese and of the people of
other countries are on the side of our War of Resistance Against Japan, how can Japan’s military and
economic power, wielded as it is by a small minority through coercion, count as superiority? And if not,
then does not China, though wielding relatively inferior military and economic power, become the
superior? There is no doubt that China will gradually grow in military and economic power, provided she
perseveres in the War of Resistance and in the united front. As for our enemy, weakened as he will be by
the long war and by internal and external contradictions, his military and economic power is bound to
change in the reverse direction. In these circumstances, is there any reason why China cannot become the
superior? And that is not all. Although we cannot as yet count the military and economic power of other
countries as being openly and to any great extent on our side, is there any reason why we will not be able
to do so in the future? If Japan’s enemy is not just China, if in future one or more other countries make
open use of their considerable military and economic power defensively or offensively against Japan and
openly help us, then will not our superiority be still greater? Japan is a small country, her war is
reactionary and barbarous, and she will become more and more isolated internationally; China is a large
country, her war is progressive and just, and she will enjoy more and more support internationally. Is
there any reason why the long-term development of these factors should not definitely change the relative
position between the enemy and ourselves?

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49. The exponents of quick victory, however, do not realize that war is a contest of strength, and that
before a certain change has taken place in the relative strength of the belligerents, there is no basis for
trying to fight strategically decisive battles and shorten the road to liberation. Were their ideas to be put
into practice, we should inevitably run our heads into a brick wall. Or perhaps they are just talking for
their own pleasure without really intending to put their ideas into practice. In the end Mr. Reality will
come and pour a bucket of cold water over these chatterers, showing them up as mere windbags who want
to get things on the cheap, to have gains without pains. We have had this kind of idle chatter before and
we have it now, though not very much so far; but there may be more as the war develops into the stage of
stalemate and then of counteroffensive. But in the meantime, if China’s losses in the first stage are fairly
heavy and the second stage drags on very long, the theories of national subjugation and of compromise
will gain great currency. Therefore, our fire should be directed mainly against them and only secondarily
against the idle chatter about quick victory.

50. That the war will be protracted is certain, but nobody can predict exactly how many months or
years it will last, as this depends entirely upon the degree of the change in the balance of forces. All those
who wish to shorten the war have no alternative but to work hard to increase our own strength and reduce
that of the enemy. Specifically, the only way is to strive to win more battles and wear down the enemy’s
forces, develop guerrilla warfare to reduce enemy-occupied territory to a minimum, consolidate and
expand the united front to rally the forces of the whole nation, build up new armies and develop new war
industries, promote political, economic and cultural progress, mobilize’ the workers, peasants,
businessmen, intellectuals and other sections of the people, disintegrate the enemy forces and win over
their soldiers, carry on international propaganda to secure foreign support, and win the support of the
Japanese people and other oppressed peoples. Only by doing all this can we reduce the duration of the
war. There is no magic short-cut.

A WAR OF JIG-SAW PATTERN

51. We can say with certainty that the protracted War of Resistance Against Japan will write a
splendid page unique in the war history of mankind. One of the special features of this war is the
interlocking “jig-saw” pattern which arises from such contradictory factors as the barbarity of Japan and
her shortage of troops on the one hand, and the progressiveness of China and the extensiveness of her
territory on the other. There have been other wars of jig-saw pattern in history, the three years’ civil war in
Russia after the October Revolution being a case in point. But what distinguishes this war in China is its
especially protracted and extensive character, which will set a record in history. Its jig-saw pattern
manifests itself as follows.

52. Interior and exterior lines. The anti-Japanese war as a whole is being fought on interior lines; but
as far as the relation between the main forces and the guerrilla units is concerned, the former are on the
interior lines while the latter are on the exterior lines, presenting a remarkable spectacle of pincers around
the enemy. The same can be said of the relationship between the various guerrilla areas. From its own
viewpoint each guerrilla area is on interior lines and the other areas are on exterior lines; together they
form many battle fronts, which hold the enemy in pincers. In the first stage of the war, the regular army
operating strategically on interior lines is withdrawing, but the guerrilla units operating strategically on
exterior lines will advance with great strides over wide areas to the rear of the enemy—they will advance
even more fiercely in the second stage—thereby presenting a remarkable picture of both withdrawal and
advance.

53. Possession and non-possession of a rear area. The main forces, which extend the front lines to
the outer limits of the enemy’s occupied areas, are operating from the rear area of the country as a whole.
The guerrilla units, which extend the battle lines into the enemy rear, are separated from the rear area of
the country as a whole. But each guerrilla area has a small rear of its own, upon which it relies to establish

H406RB-379
its fluid battle lines. The case is different with the guerrilla detachments which are dispatched by a
guerrilla area for short-term operations in the rear of the enemy in the same area; such detachments have
no rear, nor do they have a battle line. “Operating without a rear area” is a special feature of revolutionary
war in the new era, wherever a vast territory, a progressive people, and an advanced political party and
army are to be found; there is nothing to fear but much to gain from it, and far from having doubts about
it we should promote it.
54. Encirclement and counter-encirclement. Taking the war as a whole, there is no doubt that we are
strategically encircled by the enemy because he is on the strategic offensive and operating on exterior
lines while we are on the strategic defensive and operating on interior lines. This is the first form of
enemy encirclement. We on our part can encircle one or more of the enemy columns advancing on us
along separate routes, because we apply the policy of fighting campaigns and battles from tactically
exterior lines by using numerically preponderant forces against these enemy columns advancing on us
from strategically exterior lines. This is the first form of our counter-encirclement of the enemy. Next, if
we consider the guerrilla base areas in the enemy’s rear, each area taken singly is surrounded by the
enemy on all sides, like the Wutai Mountains, or on three sides, like the northwestern Shansi area. This is
the second form of enemy encirclement. However, if one considers all the guerrilla base areas together
and in their relation to the positions of the regular forces, one can see that we in turn surround a great
many enemy forces. In Shansi Province, for instance, we have surrounded the Tatung-Puchow Railway
on three sides (the east and west flanks and the southern end) and the city of Taiyuan on all sides; and
there are many similar instances in Hopci and Shantung Provinces. This is the second form of our
counter-encirclement of the enemy. Thus there are two forms of encirclement by the enemy forces and
two forms of encirclement by our own—rather like a game of weichi. Campaigns and battles fought by
the two sides resemble the capturing of each other’s pieces, and the establishment of enemy strongholds
(such as Taiyuan) and our guerrilla base areas (such as the Wutai Mountains) resembles moves to
dominate spaces on the board. If the game of weichi is extended to include the world, there is yet a third
form of encirclement as between us and the enemy, namely, the interrelation between the front of
aggression and the front of peace. The enemy encircles China, the Soviet Union, France and
Czechoslovakia with his front of aggression, while we counter-encircle Germany, Japan and Italy with
our front of peace. But our encirclement, like the hand of Buddha, will turn into the Mountain of Five
Elements lying athwart the Universe, and the modern Sun Wu-kungs—the fascist aggressors—will finally
be buried underneath it, never to rise again. Therefore, if on the international plane we can create an anti-
Japanese front in the Pacific region, with China as one strategic unit, with the Soviet Union and other
countries which may join it as other strategic units, and with the Japanese people’s movement as still
another strategic unit, and thus form a gigantic net from which the fascist Sun Wu-kungs can find no
escape, then that will be our enemy’s day of doom. Indeed, the day when this gigantic net is formed will
undoubtedly be the day of the complete overthrow of Japanese imperialism. We are not jesting; this is the
inevitable trend of the war.
55. Big areas and little areas. There is a possibility that the enemy will occupy the greater part of
Chinese territory south of the Great Wall, and only the smaller part will be kept intact. That is one aspect
of the situation. But within this greater part, which does not include the three northeastern provinces, the
enemy can actually hold only the big cities, the main lines of communication and some of the plains—
which may rank first in importance, but will probably constitute only the smaller part of the occupied
territory in size and population, while the greater part will be taken up by the guerrilla areas that will grow
up everywhere. That is another aspect of the situation. If we go beyond the provinces south of the Great
Wall and include Mongolia, Sinkiang, Chinghai and Tibet, then the unoccupied area will constitute the
greater part of China’s territory, and the enemy-occupied area will become the smaller part, even with the
three northeastern provinces. That is yet another aspect of the situation. The area kept intact is
undoubtedly important, and we should devote great efforts to developing it, not only politically, militarily
and economically but, what is also important, culturally. The enemy has transformed our former cultural

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centres into culturally backward areas, and we on our part must transform the former culturally backward
areas into cultural centres. At the same time, the work of developing extensive guerrilla areas behind the
enemy lines is also extremely important, and we should attend to every aspect of this work, including the
cultural. All in all, big pieces of China’s territory, namely, the rural areas, will be transformed into regions
of progress and light, while the small pieces, namely, the enemy-occupied areas and especially the big
cities, will temporarily become regions of backwardness and darkness.

56. Thus it can be seen that the protracted and far-flung War of Resistance Against Japan is a war of a
jig-saw pattern militarily, politically, economically and culturally. It is a marvelous spectacle in the annals
of war, a heroic undertaking by the Chinese nation, a magnificent and earth-shaking feat. This war will
not only affect China and Japan, strongly impelling both to advance, but will also affect the whole world,
impelling all nations, especially the oppressed nations such as India, to march forward. Every Chinese
should consciously throw himself into this war of a jig-saw pattern, for this is the form of war by which
the Chinese nation is liberating itself, the special form of war of liberation waged by a big semi-colonial
country in the Nineteen Thirties and the Nineteen Forties.

Lesson H407

Limited War and LSCO:
Korea 1950-1953

AY 2021–22

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-381 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense
Advance Sheet for H407
Limited War and LSCO: Korea 1950-1953
LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Scott Stephenson
1. SCOPE
On the morning of 25 June 1950, North Korean forces launched a surprise attack across the 38th
Parallel into South Korea. Within days, President Harry Truman had commited US military forces to
a war that the United States had not expected and was not prepared to fight.
The strategic context of this unexpected war was a worldwide struggle between the Soviet-led
Communist bloc and the US-led “Free World.” However, for both sides, the conflict in Korea would
be an intentionally limited one. The original goal of American intervention was modest, the defense
of a small ally, South Korea. The war’s limited goals were matched by a limited geographic scope;
the fighting was limited to the Korean peninsula (a place most Americans could not find on a map).
However, because losing in Korea meant a victory for world Communism, the stakes seemed to be far
higher than just the fate of the Korean peninsula.
In 1950, the recent military experience of the United States was the most total war in human history,
the Second World War. That war saw the United States and its allies mobilize their entire societies to
achieve a complete overthrow of its enemies, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. But the war in
Korea was different; it seemed to demand a new strategic approach and that would prove a challenge.
In particular, maintaining public support for such the war would be a nearly intractable problem for
the Truman administration.
In his list of characteristics of the “American way of war,” Colin Gray put “astrategic” near the top.
In doing so, Gray suggested that the United States has had difficulty in aligning its political goals
with its military ways and means. Too often in our recent history, he wrote, we lacked a workable
strategy to link military power with desired political outcomes. If one agrees with Gray, then the
Korean War seems a useful case study to analyze that point. Throughout the early years of the war,
the Truman administration struggled to reconcile its desire to keep the war limited with its strategic
goal of stopping Communist aggression. Indeed, this struggle over “ends, ways, and means” would
lead to the most controversial relief of a general officer in United States military history—Harry
Truman’s firing of Douglas MacArthur in April 1951.
In this two-hour lesson, the first reading, by Spencer Tucker, describes the strategic background of
the war and the struggle to keep the war confined to the Korean peninsula. In particular, consider his
discussion of the surprise of Douglas MacArthur’s UN command when the Communist Chinese
intervented in the winter of 1950-1951. Chinese intervention overturned the strategic environment
and forced the United States into a painful recalculation of “ends, ways and means.” The readings by
Carter Malkasian and Edward Bruce suggest the results of that recalculation. Attrition, not
annihilation, would provide the “way” to our strategic ends. Two generals, Matthew Ridgway and his
subordinate, James Van Fleet, would be charged with making it work. In doing so, they would
incorporate other elements of Gray’s list including a “firepower focus,” a “sensitivity to casualties,”

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-382 August 2021
and “logistical excellence.” What followed forced both the American people and their leaders to
reconsider what a limited conflict meant for the “American way of war.”

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

ELO-AOC-1.6
Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale
combat operations.
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational
environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products
and H400 historical readings.
ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes:
1. Examine historical battles and campaigns.
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-383 August 2021
ELO Standards: The analysis includes:
1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness.
2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO.
3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater.
4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context.
5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of
20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis
ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT
STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of
today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation
ELO-AOC-8.2
Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our
understanding of today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation
ELO-AOC-8.3
Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II,
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences
our understanding of today’s operational environment.
4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential
contemporary competitors.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation
ELO-AOC-9.1
Action: Write effectively

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-384 August 2021
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Write effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Proper grammar and correct spelling
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis
ELO-AOC-9.2
Action: Speak effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation
6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience
7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis
ELO-AOC-9.3
Action: Listen effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the
Universal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes:
1. Listens, reads, and watches intently.
2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others.
3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention.
4. Reflects on new information before expressing views.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis
PLO Attributes Supported:
1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information.
1b. Comprehend context of the situation.
1c. Create meaning from information and data.
1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas.
1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms.
1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments.
1g. Apply critical and creative thinking.
2a. Apply ethics, norms, and laws of the profession.
2d. Meet organizational-level challenges.
2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life-
long learners.
3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war.
3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition.
3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power.
3d. Understand the generation of military power through force management.

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-385 August 2021
4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment.
4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks.
4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other
competitive forces.
6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions.
6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context.
6c. Integrate and synchronize the Army warfighting functions with joint, multinational
capabilities, with other instruments of national power.
Special Areas of Emphasis (SAE) Supported:
3. The Return of Great Power Competition
5. Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century
8. Ability to write clear and concise Military Advice Recommendations
3. ISSUE MATERIAL
a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022.
b. During Class: None. WiFi is available.
4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
a. Study Requirements:
(1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in
full text in the H400 Book of Readings):
Required:
H407RA Tucker, Spencer C. “The Korean War, 1950-53: from maneuver to stalemate,” The
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Dec. 2010, 421-433 [13 pages]
http://lumen.cgsccarl.com/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=poh&AN=55748643&site=ehost-live&scope=site
H407RB Malkasian, Carter. “New Roots, Korea 1950-1951.” In A History of Modern Wars
of Attrition, 119-139. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. [21 pages]
H407RC Bruce, Robert. “Tethered Eagle: Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet and the Quest for
Military Victory in the Korean War, April-June 1951.” Army History, Winter 2012, 6-29.
Accessed 15 June 2020: https://history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH82(W) . [23 pages]
H407RD Millett, Alan, “Epilogue: Korea and the American Way of War,” Joint Force
Quarterly, Spring/Summer 2001, 86-87. Accessed 15 June 2020:
https://ndupress.ndu.edu/portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-28 . [2 pages]
Optional:
H407ORA Donelly, William M. “A Damn Hard Job: James A. Van Fleet and the Combat
Effectiveness of U.S. Army Infantry, July 1951-February 1953.” The Journal of Military
History, 82 (January 2018): 147-179. Accessed 15 June 2020.
http://lumen.cgsccarl.com/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=31h&AN=126972953&site=ehost-live&scope=site [32 pages]

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.lumen.cgsccarl.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=14&sid=0427f5d2-010a-4030-94aa%2042610c8b697%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=55748643&db=poh

https://history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH82(W)

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.lumen.cgsccarl.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=3f9daf71-8acd-4274-8f8b-e16249445156%40sdc-v-sessmgr02

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-386 August 2021
H407ORB Crane, Conrad. “Raiding the Beggar’s Pantry: The Search for Airpower Strategy
in the Korean War,” The Journal of Military History, 63 (October 1999): 885-929.
Accessed 9 November 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/120555 [35 pages]
H407ORC Wright, James. “What We Learned from the Korean War.” The Atlantic (July, 23,
2013). Accessed 15 June 2020.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/what-we-learned-from-the-
korean-war/278016/
H407ORD Pearlman, Michael. “Truman and MacArthur: The Winding Road to Dismissal.”
Korean War Anthology, 1-22. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2003.
Accessed 18 June 2020. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-
institute/csi-books/pearlman2 [22 pages]
H407ORE Fehrenbach, T. R., This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness. New York:
MacMillan, 1963, “Task Force Smith,” 97-107, [11 pages] and “Proud Legions, 426-443.
Accessed 25 May 2021. [18 pages]
Further Professional Development:
Hanson, Thomas E. Combat Ready?: The Eighth U.S. Army on the Eve of the Korean War.
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010.
Haruki, Wada. The Korean War: An International History. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers, 2018.
Heller, Charles E. and William A. Stofft. America’s First Battles, 1776-1965. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1986.
Millett, Allan R. The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2005.
Millett, Allan R. The War for Korea, 1950–1951: They Came From the North. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2010.
Schnabel, James F. Policy and Direction: The First Year. Washington, DC: Center of
Military History, United States Army, 1992.
Stueck, William. The Korean War: An International History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1997.
Resident Course Elective Alignment: A650, The Korean War; A653, East Asian Military
Studies; A694, Russian and Eurasian History
(2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class:
1. Why did the North Koreans invade South Korea in June, 1950?
2. How did the United States’ response to the North Korean attack on South Korea reflect
post-World War II geostrategic thinking?
3. What did the initial deployment of the Eighth Army to Korea and the subsequent
retreat to Pusan say about the combat readiness of U.S. forces?
4. Why were UN forces surprised by Chinese intervention into the war?
5. Why did Truman fire MacArthur?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/120555

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/what-we-learned-from-the-korean-war/278016/

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/pearlman2

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.lumen.cgsccarl.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=6eb1bc5a-e96d-444f-a3e3-d4ee0455c04c%40pdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=82122&db=nlebk

H407 Advance Sheet H407AS-387 August 2021

6. What were the advantages and disadvantages of executing an attrition strategy against
the Communist Chinese on the Korean Peninsula?

7. What are the key principles of the attrition approach that Ridgway implemented
against the Communist Chinese? How was it linked to the strategic guidance from
Washington?

8. Why did Van Fleet seek to expand the scope of his counteroffensive operations in May
of 1951? What were his objectives?

9. Why did Ridgway restrict the scope of Van Fleet’s offensive plans in the summer of
1951? Were the restrictions justified?

10. What are the challenges of conducting limited war within the framework of the
“American Way of War”?

b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to):

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022

4. ASSESSMENT

See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A.

H407 Chronology H407AS-388 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

Advance Sheet for H407
Limited War and LSCO: Korea 1950-1953

Chronology

1950
14 April National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) submitted to Truman.

8 May Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s statement to National Press Club omitted South
Korea from US strategic defense perimeter.

15-24 June North Korea assembled forces in preparation for attack on South Korea.

25 June 0400: North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) attacked the 95,000 man Republic of
Korea Army (ROKA) from coast to coast.

27 June Truman ordered US forces to Korea.

28 June NKPA seized Seoul, capital of South Korea.

29 June MacArthur recommended immediate American commitment to the peninsula.

30 June MacArthur ordered Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, commander Eighth US Army, to
send the 24th Infantry Division to South Korea immediately.

24th Infantry Division commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, ordered to send a
delaying force to South Korea.

1 July Task Force SMITH, approximately 500 men commanded by Lt. Col. Charles B.
Smith, arrived in Pusan.

5 July Task Force SMITH attempted to stop the advance of the North Korea 4th Division and
was brushed aside losing half of its men—killed or missing. In subsequent days,
elements of the 24th attempted to delay the North Korean advance with little success.

29 July Battles along Pusan perimeter began.

4 August Pusan Perimeter established. Defending forces included the US Eighth Army (1st
Cavalry, 24th, 2d and 25th Infantry Divisions), the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade and
the ROK Army.

15-20 August Elements of 23d and 27th Infantry Regiments and ROK 1st Division successfully
defended Pusan Perimeter in the Battle of the Bowling Alley (west of Taegu).

H407 Chronology H407AS-389 August 2021
15 September U.S. X Corps conducted a successful amphibious landing at the port of Inchon. The
landing was intended to reduce the pressure on Eighth Army, allowing it to break out
of the perimeter, block the NKPA retreat into North Korea, and allowed United
Nations forces to retake Seoul.

16 September Eighth Army began its breakout of the Pusan Perimeter.

27 September U.S. and Republic of Korea forces captured Seoul.

9 October U.S. Eighth Army forces crossed 38th Parallel north of Kaesong and attacked
northward toward Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

25 October Communist Chinese Forces (CCF) offensive operations began north of Unsan with
fighting between CCF and ROK forces; first Chinese soldier captured.

26-29 October X Corps, 1st MARDIV and 7th Infantry Division landed at Wonsan and Iwon.

1-2 November First US battle with CCF near Unsan

25 November CCF attacked Eighth Army center and right, precipating a general retreat of UN
forces.

11-24 December X Corps evacuated Hungnam.

23 December LTG Walker killed in jeep accident.

26 December LTG Ridgeway arrived in Korea as new Eighth Army commander.

1951
1-15 January Third Phase of the Chinese offensive: Approximately 500,000 troops from
the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pushed UN forces south of the
38th parallel.

4 January Seoul fell to CCF.

25 January UN troops began counterattacking the CCF.

1 February Battle of the Twin Tunnels between US units and the French Batallion de Coree, and
several PLA regiments

11 February Battle of Wonju, the center of Eighth Army’s front; the third in a series of attacks by
the PLA aimed at weakening UNC lines; The PLA pushed two US divisions back,
leaving the 23d Regimental Combat Team behind enemy lines.

13-15 February Battle of Chipyong-Ni saw successful defense by the 23rd RCT.

21 February Operation KILLER, spearheaded by IX and X Corps, began. The intent was to
eliminate enemy forces south of the Han River.

21-24 February Unseasonably warm and wet weather slowed UN offensive operations.

H407 Chronology H407AS-390 August 2021
28 February CCF resistance south of Han River collapsed.

7 March Operation RIPPER began with the objective of destroying as many enemy forces as
possible surrounding Seoul and recapturing the capital. It was also intended to
advance all UN forces to the 38th parallel.

14-15 March During the night, elements of the ROK 1st Division and the US 3rd Infantry Division
recaptured Seoul.

31 March Eighth Army positions along the Idaho Line, end of Operation RIPPER

11 April President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur as UNC commander, and
Commanding General, US Army, Far East, replacing him with LTG Matthew B.
Ridgway.

14 April LTG Van Fleet assumed command of the Eighth Army. He continued Ridgway’s
policy of attrition.

22-30April The Communists began their spring offensive and are stopped just north of Seoul.

15-20 May The Chinese and North Koreans resumed offensive operations in their Fifth Phase
Offensive; LTG Van Fleet began counterattack. Van Fleet saw an opportunity to
annihilate the Communist forces in Korea but was restrained by Ridgway.

31 May-1 Jun The Eighth Army reached the Kansas Line (defensible terrain north of the 38th
Parallel) and pushed forward to the Wyoming Line. This line stabilized in place for
the remainder of the conflict.

3 June The Soviet Union called for armistice talks.

10 July Armistice talk began at Kaesong. The Communists broke off negotiations on 23
Aug over purported UN attacks on the negotiation site.

5 Sep-13 Oct 2nd ID seized first Bloody Ridge, then Heartbreak Ridge in bloody fighting near the
“Punchbowl” on the western end of the UN line. These battles were designed to
coerce the Communists and improve the UN bargaining position.

3-19 Oct Operation Jamestown saw a limited UN attack north of the Wyoming Line.

25 Oct Armistice talks resumed at Panmunjom. Sticking points included the status of POWs
and the unwillingness of Synghman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung to accept Korea’s divided
status.

12 Nov Ridgway ordered Van Fleet to take up “active defense.” This was the posture of the
UN forces for the remainder of the war.

1952
12 May 1952 GEN Mark Clark replaced Ridgway as UN commander.

8 Oct Lack of progress caused UN delegation to seek an indefinite recess to peace talks.

H407 Chronology H407AS-391 August 2021

1953
11 Feb 1953 LTG Maxwell Taylor took command of Eighth Army.

26 April Armistice talks resumed.

6-11 July The Battle of Pork Chop Hill saw eventual US abandonment of symbolic objective to
Chinese attacks.

13-20 July Final Chinese attack drove UN forces south of the Kumsong River; UN counterattack
regained river line.

27 July Armistice signed at 1000; all fighting ceased twelve hours later. Demilitarized Zone
created when both sides withdrew two kilometers from cease-fire line.

Malkasian, Carter. “New Roots, Korea 1950-1951” from A History of Modern Wars of Attrition, Studies in Military History and
International Affairs, 2002: 119-139. Westport, CT: Praeger. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0508 E

H407RB-392
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module III: Defense, Transition to the Offense

H407: Limited War and LSCO: Korea 1950-1953
Reading H407RB

New Roots, Korea 1950-1951

by Carter Malkasian

The end of the Second World War in 1945 marked the beginning of a revolution in the nature of
warfare. Total war between the great powers, or in this case the superpowers, was becoming prohibitively
costly. As the Cold War progressed, the complete destruction of one superpower increasingly entailed
exorbitant losses to, if not the destruction of, the other. Therefore, avoiding clashes that could lead to total
war became a priority for both superpowers. This was particularly important in military conflicts
involving their strategic interests, like the Korean War.

My dissertation takes the revolution in warfare after 1945 as given and does not explain its causes in
detail. Briefly, there were three major reasons for the revolution in warfare. First, the destructive power of
nuclear weapons multiplied the costs of total war exponentially.1 Furthermore, new means of delivering
explosives, particularly missiles, precluded an effective defense against nuclear weapons.2 The revolution
was augmented by the growth of nuclear arsenals, which made it increasingly likely that both
superpowers would be able to absorb and respond to nuclear strikes. By the late 1950s, such “second-
strike capabilities” were expected to create a situation in which total nuclear war would lead to the utter
annihilation of both combatants, known as mutually assured destruction (MAD).3 Second, conventional
warfare itself was appearing increasingly costly and unrewarding, especially in light of the experience of
the First and Second World Wars. In particular, most countries in the early 1950s, such as the Soviet
Union and Great Britain, were still in economic recovery and could not easily afford another world war.
Third, the bipolar nature of the international system created a tendency for the superpowers to view the
entire world as a region of competition. One superpower’s gain was the other’s loss. Therefore, a
superpower’s involvement in any region of the world was likely to be contested by the other.4 This created
a high state of tension regarding the loss and gain of strategic interests, raising the possibility of escalation
in almost any conflict in which a superpower was even peripherally concerned.

The Korean War was the first conflict that directly involved the superpowers after the 1945 revolution
in warfare. For the United States and the United Nations Command (UNC), the disastrous defeat of
MacArthur’s advance to the Yalu and the entry of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the war
made maneuver warfare, seeking the annihilation of the Communist armies, excessively dangerous. The
US Department of State and Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) introduced attrition as an ad hoc response to the
crisis. Shortly thereafter, General Matthew Ridgway institutionalized attrition as the operational doctrine
of the Eighth US Army. As operations met growing success, attrition was applied to the historically new
role of compelling the Communists to negotiate a compromise peace. Before 1945, attrition had often
been used to annihilate an enemy directly or as a preliminary to a war of annihilation. Total aims had
usually precluded the successful negotiation of a resolution to a war of attrition. In the Cold War,
however, negotiating the end to conflicts involving the superpowers was of paramount importance.

H407RB-393
Because the PRC had far greater manpower resources than the West and was more willing to use
them, UNC victories could not entail heavy casualties. Ridgway’s conception of attrition was based upon
maximizing enemy casualties while minimizing those of the UNC and Eighth Army. In-depth defensives
and retreats prevented the Communists from encircling or overwhelming Eighth Army formations.
Artillery and airborne firepower reduced the Communist’s numerical advantage. Carefully planned phased
advances, known as limited objective attacks, destroyed Communist positions without overextending the
Eighth Army. All of these means of attrition were essentially limited. They could not annihilate the
Communists. Thus, attrition, as applied by the UNC, was indecisive, prolonged, and piecemeal.

By June 1951, attrition had successfully compelled the Communists to initiate cease-fire negotiations
with the UNC. Thus, this period in the Korean War witnessed a marked increase in the usefulness and
effectiveness of attrition as a method of warfare. The revolution in warfare had created a context in which
the Korean War was defined by limited aims; attrition was well suited to attaining them.

ADDRESSING A STRATEGIC DILEMMA

In the first five months of the Korean War, the UNC and the United States, under the tutelage of
MacArthur (now the Supreme Commander of the UNC), implemented a strategy of annihilation.
Maneuver warfare was used on the operational level, exemplified by MacArthur’s landings at Inchon and
on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula and the subsequent drive into North Korea. The war of
annihilation took a disastrous turn when forces of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, calling
themselves the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV), intervened in late November 1950 and nearly
destroyed the UNC. The Eighth US Army fell into a panicked retreat across the 38th Parallel, suffering
perhaps the worst defeat in US military history. The sudden defeat forced the decision makers in
Washington, D.C., to seek a new method of warfare that would stabilize the situation without escalating
the war.

In reaction to the Chinese offensive, the US National Security Council (NSC) met on 28 November
1950. George C. Marshall, now Secretary of Defense, outlined limitations on military action in the
Korean War. Avoiding a general war with the Soviet Union (USSR) or PRC was his paramount concern.
He suggested that the UNC hold a defensive line in South Korea and not return to a strategy of
annihilation. Marshall opposed violating Communist Chinese territory or using Nationalist Chinese troops
because of the risk of escalation. The JCS, chaired by General Omar Bradley, and Dean Acheson,
Secretary of State, agreed that it was necessary for the United States to avoid being pulled into a larger
war with the PRC.5 Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, drafted his own set of
limitations a few days later. Rusk’s goals were to increase the security of the UNC forces, avoid a general
war, localize the current action to the Korean Peninsula, end the conflict and disengage the fighting forces
quickly, and maintain a solid front with US allies.6 Marshall’s and Rusk’s stipulations established the
rough basis for the limitation of the war in Korea.

The decision to conduct a war of limited aim was solidified at the Truman-Attlee meeting in early
December. President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee agreed on the need to fight
a limited war and to hold the UNC position in Korea as long as possible rather than withdraw.
Furthermore, the resulting Truman-Attlee communiqué called for negotiations with the Communists.7
Nevertheless, debates over the suitability of a strategy of limited aims to the Korean War continued.

How to attain these limited aims remained in question. The JCS did not want to fight a war of attrition
that involved sacrificing large numbers of American lives. Supported by the Central Intelligence Agency,
the JCS feared that the Communist goal in Korea was to contain US forces in order to weaken the defense
of Western Europe.8 MacArthur echoed these fears when he wrote to the JCS, “The small command
actually under present conditions is facing the entire Chinese nation in an undeclared war and unless some

H407RB-394
positive and immediate action is taken, hope for success cannot be justified and steady attrition leading to
final destruction can reasonably be contemplated.”9

Actually, despite that statement, MacArthur was one of the first people to consider fighting a war of
attrition in Korea. On 8 December, he suggested that, despite defeat, his forces could wear down the
Communists. MacArthur wrote to General Lawton Collins, the US Army Chief of Staff: “The command
despite the overwhelming superiority in enemy numbers is now in no serious immediate danger and in
position, even with the existing limitations on military action, to deliver massive blows against the
enemy, thereby causing progressive and severe attrition to his resources for waging war.”10 There is no
evidence that MacArthur’s ideas on attrition were adopted in Washington, where his panicked reaction to
the Chinese offensive reduced his credibility. Moreover, MacArthur’s pragmatic advocacy of attrition in
Korea was soon lost in his calls for a heightened and widened war.

Meanwhile, within the State Department, Dean Rusk’s Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs also proposed
waging a war of attrition. Taking into account the limitations on the Korean War, Edmund Clubb,
Director of the Office of the Chinese Affairs, wrote to Rusk:

The military action itself, as carried out against the UN forces, will constitute an attritive
drain upon the resources of the Chinese nation. If it be argued that the Chinese are readily
able to meet drains on their manpower whereas the Occidental UN Member States
supporting the operation are not, it is on the other hand to be noted that the Chinese
nation lacks anything approaching the same capacity to meet drains on its material
resources.11

In this initial consideration of attrition, Clubb clearly emphasized the greater material resources of the
United States than of the Chinese, underestimating the value of superior Communist manpower.

As discussions in Washington over strategy persisted, the US government supported a cease-fire
resolution that passed in the UN General Assembly on 14 December. US support for this resolution had
only been possible because it focused on encouragement of a cease-fire, not the important political issues.
Marshall, the JCS, and Acheson opposed any concessions while the UNC was in retreat. Moreover,
Acheson was convinced that the PRC would reject any proposals for a cease-fire. Indeed, sensing total
victory in Korea, Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Foreign Minister, did so on 22 December.12

On 21 December 1950, Rusk wrote a memorandum that outlined a framework for securing the limited
aims of the war. Militarily, MacArthur was to be instructed to hold his position as long as losses were not
too great. Politically, a cease-fire would be sought in the vicinity of the 38th Parallel.13 Rusk pressed this
strategy at a meeting with Truman, the JCS, Acheson, and Marshall in late December. There, Rusk,
connected gaining a cease-fire with wearing down the Chinese. Alluding to Clubb s idea of attrition, he
said that the point of military operations was “’to make it in the interest of the Chinese Communists to
accept some stabilization by making it so costly for them that they could not afford not to accept.”14 Rusk
believed that this was the best alternative to seeking a military victory, which was beyond US capabilities,
or withdrawing. Rusk’s proposals would be developed and enhanced over the next six months, but they
provided the general framework for the strategy and operations of the remainder of the Korean War.

Despite some misgivings, Rusk’s proposals became de facto policy, although the primacy of political
negotiations remained contentious and was not yet endorsed. The JCS emphasized, in various
memoranda, that the object of fighting was to delay a general war while continuing resistance as long as
possible in order to make Chinese operations more costly.15 Similarly, Marshall told Acheson that the
strategic aim was to force the Chinese to take such losses that they would decide to stop fighting.16

H407RB-395
Finally, Marshall and Truman agreed that causing attrition to the PRC was an important component in
how the war would be fought.17

On 29 December 1950, the JCS gave MacArthur instructions, deriving from Rusk’s framework, on
US policy in Korea. They told MacArthur that Korea was not the place for a major war and that the
United States was not capable of winning a decisive victory. Instead, repelling the Communist attack was
the major US national interest. They instructed, ”You are now directed to defend in successive positions,
as generally outlined in your CX50635 [a JCS instruction], inflicting such damage to hostile forces in
Korea as is possible, subject to the primary consideration of the safety of your troops.”18 In a JCS
message on 12 January 1951, Truman personally instructed MacArthur to attain these basic objects,
especially avoiding a general war.19

One day later, the UN General Assembly passed a second cease-fire resolution, drafted by the British
Commonwealth Prime Ministers and tentatively supported by the United States. Nevertheless, Beijing
again rejected a cease-fire. This ended US attempts at a cease-fire until late spring 195 l. The improving
military situation and opposition to any concessions in the US Congress removed the impetus to attempt a
cease-fire immediately.

RIDGWAY’S CONCEPTION OF ATTRITION

General Matthew Ridgway took command of the Eighth Army on 26 December 1950, after the death
of its former commander, General Walton Walker. In the Second World War, Ridgway had been a
prominent airborne officer. In that capacity, he had already shown himself to have an insightful mind and
ability to adapt to new and difficult circumstances. Thus, he was particularly suited to confronting the
strategic dilemma facing the United States in Korea. Ridgway took the JCS-State Department framework
for attrition and developed it into his own conception of attrition, which he implemented as the Eighth
Army operational doctrine. Ridgway was faced with the dilemma of identifying means of attrition that
would inflict significant casualties on the Communists yet avoid escalation and heavy UNC losses. In
particular, he needed to compensate for the massive numerical superiority of the Communists, which
enabled them to sustain far greater absolute losses than the UNC.

Ridgway was faced with the daunting task of institutionalizing limited warfare and attrition in an
army that was trained only for fighting a war of annihilation. He stated after the war: “I don’t think at that
time American doctrine . . . contemplated limited war. The concept had always been all-out war, where
everything is used in order to achieve victory.”20 Ridgway understood that Truman and the JCS
categorically did not want to risk starting World War III. Personally, Ridgway quickly embraced limited
aims. Indeed, it became Ridgway’s opinion that, because of nuclear weapons, every war would now be a
limited war, with much greater focus on political aims and civil-military relations. He also opposed the
use of the atomic bomb. Of MacArthur’s several measures for broadening the war, Ridgway only
supported the use of the Nationalist Chinese.21

On 26 December 1950, Ridgway met with MacArthur to discuss the situation. MacArthur, presaging
future developments, suggested that a military success would strengthen US diplomacy. Moreover,
MacArthur gave Ridgway permission to use the Eighth Army as he pleased, which Ridgway readily
utilized.22

From the outset, Ridgway called for fighting a war of attrition. He immediately emphasized
maximizing enemy casualties while minimizing those of the Eighth Army in orders to his corps
commanders and instructions to all troops. This phrase later became the hallmark of Ridgway’s
conception of attrition.23 At a conference with his staff and the corps commanders on 5 January, Ridgway
outlined the defensive aspects of his conception of attrition. The Eighth Army comprised the I, IX, and X

H407RB-396
US Corps plus three Republic of Korea (ROK) corps. Expecting another Communist offensive, Ridgway,
rather than fighting in forward positions, planned to withdraw behind the Han River, abandoning Seoul.
In his withdrawal, Ridgway wanted the maximum delay and casualties inflicted upon the Communists.
Ridgway wrote in his memoirs: “I had known that if the Chinese came in strength we could not hold for
long. Our job, therefore, was to fight a stubborn delaying action—to kill as many of them as we could,
and then under pressure to break off action quickly, and fall back swiftly across the Han to a new
defensive line that had already been prepared, fifteen miles to the rear.”24 There was to be no sacrifice or
abandonment of troops. On 20 January 1951, Ridgway emphatically wrote to Major General John
Coulter, commanding the IX US Corps, that not a single battalion or company was to be destroyed.25 No
positions were to be held at all costs unless a corps commander personally saw the situation and gave the
order.26 Additionally, tactical opportunities for counteroffensives were to be exploited: “Seek occasions
where enemy may be drawn into a trap where strong forces on flanks may counterattack and cut him
up.”27 Extending Communist supply lines through withdrawing was also a component of causing
attrition.28 Lengthy supply lines gave the US Air Force and Navy a vulnerable and lucrative target for air
strikes.

When the Communists attacked on 31 December 1950 (the Third Phase Offensive), Ridgway’s
withdrawal and careful defensive were largely successful, although the Han River line had to be
abandoned. In particular, supply problems burdened the depleted and tired Communist formations.29
However, the Eighth Army failed to inflict serious losses on the Communists and suffered substantial
casualties fighting over unimportant terrain. Ridgway was irate. For example, he was displeased with the
commander of the 2nd US Division for suffering 1,921 casualties, compared to an estimated 1,980
Communist, in futile counterattacks.30 Additionally, the I and IX US Corps prematurely broke contact
with the Communists. Ridgway told the two corps commanders, Lieutenant General Frank Milburn and
Major General Coulter, that there were two possible types of Communist advances: a time-consuming and
cautious advance, which would be difficult to counterattack; or a reckless and uncoordinated advance,
which would be vulnerable to a counterattack. The Communist attack had been the latter, and Ridgway
expected that local counterattacks would exploit such opportunities to inflict casualties on unsupported
enemy forces.31 Through delaying actions and counterattacks, Ridgway believed that an Eighth Army
withdrawal could greatly injure the Communists. A few days later, he formalized this defensive
conception of attrition in an operational directive to his corps commanders.32

The Status Quo Ante

In mid-January, Truman sent General Hoyt Vandenberg, the US Air Force Chief of Staff, and Collins
to Korea to determine the status of Eighth Army morale. Their report of Ridgway’s success quelled
misgivings about the effectiveness of attrition and limited war. Morale was improving greatly and
Ridgway was creating a strong in-depth defensive. They predicted that there would be no need for
evacuation for at least three months. Furthermore, contrary to MacArthur’s claims, Vandenberg and
Collins reported that the constraints on military action were not limiting success.33

In Washington, Ridgway’s operational strategy of attrition was quickly endorsed. A National
Intelligence Estimate considered Korea an optimal position to wage a war of attrition against the
Communists. The geography of the peninsula would confine attrition to the battle area and allow large
numbers of Chinese troops to be tied down. Superior naval and air power would mitigate the constant
exposure of UN forces to attrition.34 Rusk wrote, adopting Ridgway’s ideas, that until a cease-fire
occurred, “U.N. forces [should] concentrate upon inflicting maximum punishment upon the enemy with
minimum loss to ourselves.”35 He also endorsed exploiting the military potential of the ROK, maximizing
the use of air and naval firepower, and not risking lives for terrain.

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Although a temporary objective of defending South Korea had been established, there still was
confusion in Washington over the long-term objectives of the war. Outside of holding the line in Korea,
what was the point of attrition, or of any fighting in Korea? Rusk had serious doubts about continued
attrition over the long term and feared a military stalemate, which would divert US resources to Korea
from more vital interests. Additionally, human and material losses would lack a clearly defined purpose
while producing increasing tensions that could “explode into general war.”36 With high losses and no
victory, the war would lose the support of the American people. As a solution, Rusk wanted to seek a
cease-fire along the status quo ante, the 38th Parallel, as soon as possible. When the Eighth Army reached
the 38th Parallel, he thought there should be a pause in operations to consolidate its defensive positions
and probe the Communists on cease-fire negotiations.

On 13 February 1951, a State Department-JCS meeting discussed the long-term objectives of the war.
Rusk suggested that the objective should be to punish the enemy severely until they agreed to a cease-fire
and then to reestablish the status quo ante. The participants, including Bradley, Admiral Forrest Sherman
(US Chief of Naval Operations), Vandenberg, Collins, and Paul Nitze (Head of the State Department
Policy Planning Staff), agreed on the necessity of establishing a cease-fire based on the status quo ante.
However, disagreement could not be overcome regarding how much punishment would be required
before the Communists would concede. Collins and Bradley stated that retaliatory action against targets in
China itself would be an excessively risky means of causing attrition. But Vandenberg believed that there
would not be enough targets remaining in North Korea to sustain attrition through bombing while on the
ground attrition would trade valuable American lives for expendable Chinese. Furthermore, Collins
emphasized that there were few military advantages in advancing to the 38th Parallel, as defensive
positions there would not be as strong as on the Han River.37 At the end of the meeting, the issue of long-
term objectives was left unresolved, but attention was now focused upon using attrition to compel cease-
fire negotiations.

On 23 February 1951, Acheson composed a draft memorandum for Truman, stating that the minimal
acceptable peace agreement would be the status quo ante. He wrote that the prospect of increasingly
heavy losses could cause Moscow and Beijing to accept the status quo ante. UNC military action in
pursuit of this end had to remain limited. A UNC advance across the 38th Parallel would be greatly
damaging to the Communists but would reduce the probability of a negotiated settlement.38 Marshall and
the JCS rejected Acheson’s memo. The JCS stated that Acheson’s plans both prevented a military decision
and lacked an actual political solution. Using military force to compel the Communists to negotiate was
only an interim goal. In particular, the JCS wanted permission to advance past the 38th Parallel to exploit
any opportunities to destroy the Communists.39 Thus, as of the end of February, the long-term objectives
for US strategy still had not been determined.

Limited Objective Attacks

After defeating the Communist Third Phase Offensive, the Eighth Army counterattacked and seized
the high ground overlooking the Han River, wearing down the overextended Communists. With this
success, Ridgway began outlining ends and means for the offensive use of attrition. MacArthur described
Ridgway’s offensive plans to the press as follows:

Our strategic plan involving constant movement to keep the enemy off balance with a
corresponding limitation upon his initiative remains unaltered. Our selection of the battle
area, furthermore, has forced him into the military disadvantage of fighting far from his
base, and permitted greater employment of our air and sea arms against which he has
little defense. There has been a resultant continuing and exhausting attrition upon his
manpower and supply.40

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At a corps commanders’ conference on 8 February, Ridgway stated that there was now one great object—
the destruction of Communist forces while conserving UNC forces. Capturing terrain for its own sake
was immaterial. Moreover, he implied that the role of the Eighth Army was largely to support American
diplomacy. Indeed, he sought the initiation of negotiations by May.41 Ridgway’s decision explicitly to
seek negotiations preceded endorsement of this goal in Washington.

Ridgway outlined his plans for the immediate future to MacArthur in early February. Ridgway
believed that the 38th Parallel was indefensible and holding it would result in heavy losses for the Eighth
Army. Furthermore, at this stage, retaking Seoul was an unsound proposition due to the difficulties of
crossing the nearly unfordable Han River. Instead, the I and IX US Corps were to conduct a coordinated
and phased advance to discern the enemy situation at the front, wear down his forces, and enable
exploitation to the Han River, where the Eighth Army would hold. Ridgway believed that an advance to
the Han was a sound military consideration as long as losses were not excessive. Advancing beyond the
Han, at this point though, did not offer gains commensurate with the risks involved. Additionally,
Ridgway planned a coordinated operation between the X US, I ROK, and II ROK Corps to advance and
hold the line Yongp’yong-Kangnung. All attacks were contingent upon enemy resistance appearing weak
enough for positions to be taken without undue losses. These two attacks (Operations Thunderbolt and
Roundup) were the prototypes for the limited objective attack, a carefully phased offensive meant to incur
the minimum losses to the Eighth Army but effect attrition of the Communists.42

In February 1951, Ridgway fully outlined the limited objective attack, which became a foremost
characteristic of his conception of attrition. Limited objective attacks sought to kill Communists.43 Terrain
and capturing of ground were important only as they related to the tactical strength of Eighth Army
positions. Ridgway wanted dominating ridges seized to bolster the Eighth Army’s defensive strength and
to multiply the number of casualties inflicted on the Communists.44 Cities would be recaptured as a by-
product of destroying enemy armies.

Limited objective attacks were not to be made in risky or potentially costly circumstances. Ridgway
tried to strike a balance between cautiously conserving casualties and mounting bold attacks to inflict
losses on the Communists. He wrote to his corps commanders in March:

The measure of our success will be the degree to which each senior commander is able to
strike a balance between boldness in the conduct of operations designed to destroy enemy
forces, and caution in the conservation of our own. There will be occasions calling for
rapid exploitation of sudden opportunities to the maximum extent possible, there should
be anticipated thus forward, imaginative thinking. Likewise, we should anticipate and be
prepared to meet those situations wherein enemy action and weather confront us with
threats and even serious dangers.45

Local numerical and materiel superiority was a prerequisite for any limited objective attack. Tactically,
superior forces would encircle and destroy the enemy. Methodical mass use of firepower would soften
enemy positions and reduce UNC personnel losses.46 Ridgway sought to replace frontal assaults with an
indirect approach, emphasizing flanking movements and encirclements. He told his corps commanders
not to attack any positions that could resist strongly.47 “Battles of attrition,” pitched and costly tactical
actions, were to be avoided when gains did not compensate for losses.48 Pursuits were to be cautious and
careful, not reckless and chaotic. Unconstrained exploitation would overextend supply lines. Ridgway
told MacArthur that logistics was a major factor affecting his plans for offensives: “My logistics
capabilities have been the controlling factor in my operations and all advances planned . . . would be
made only when ability to support them was clear beyond any reasonable doubt.”49

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Operation Killer is a good example of a limited objective attack. After the success of Operations
Thunderbolt and Roundup, Ridgway personally planned Operation Killer.50 The objective of the
operation was to cross the Han River and trap and destroy as many enemy formations as possible in the
Wonju area. The enemy forces had moved into this area during their abortive Fourth Phase Offensive in
mid-February.51 The attacking divisions were to coordinate their attacks to preclude going into action
piecemeal.52 Although a small amount of ground was taken and most of the Communists escaped,
Operation Killer was successful in destroying enemy forces. The UNC general headquarters (GHQ UNC)
Command Report for February 1951 read: “His forces depleted by the abnormal attrition effected by UN
firepower, bitter weather, and disease, the enemy was in no position to sustain any major attacks along his
front.”53 Ridgway himself wrote in The Korean War:

The Eighth Army spent a good deal of blood in fighting its way back to and across the
Han, and in reinvesting the capital of Seoul . . . But it spent far less than it might have,
had we not stuck to our precepts of inflicting maximum casualties at minimum cost and
of avoiding all reckless, unphased advances that might lead to entrapment by a
numerically superior foe. Actually some of the actions were remarkable for their low
casualty figure. One or two advances, in battalion strength or better, were made with no
casualties at all, thanks to good planning, well-timed execution, close cooperation among
units, and above all to old-fashioned coordination of infantry, artillery, and air power.54

Killer was followed on 7 March by Operation Ripper. All territorial objectives, including Seoul, were
taken. However, the terrain and the cautious nature of the attack prevented a large number of Communists
from being killed, displeasing Ridgway.55 Another reason for the lack of success of Operation Ripper was
that the Chinese had adopted a new operational technique. Previously the goal of Mao and Peng Dehuai,
commander of the CPV, had been to decisively defeat and drive the UNC from Korea. The recent defeats
caused Peng to adopt a mobile defensive, which involved retreating from Eighth Army attacks and
avoiding its firepower until reinforcements could arrive.56

Ridgway’s success caused the JCS to reappraise their earlier assessment that the punishment inflicted
upon the Communists was insufficient to force a cease-fire soon. MacArthur reported in early March to
the JCS that there had been “continuing and exhausting attrition upon both his [Communist] manpower
and supplies.”57 Collins described the recent damage to the Chinese: “They have been dumb enough to
fight us with their best troops and to take a terrible beating. It will be very hard for them to replace their
losses. They have filled up their hospitals.”58 Disagreement could not be overcome, though, regarding
whether or not to pursue the Communists past the 38th Parallel. Sherman and Collins supported
advancing far into North Korea, to Pyongyang and the waist of the Korean Peninsula. This was weighed
against the effects of extending UNC while shortening Communist lines of communication.

At the end of March, disagreement in Washington over long-term objectives in Korea and the degree
of attrition permissible to attain them was finally overcome. The State Department prepared a presidential
announcement that declared that the United States was willing to negotiate on the basis of the status quo
ante. In this context, on 27 March, Marshall, the State Department, and the JCS settled certain major
issues regarding strategy and the long-term objectives of the war. It was now accepted that a major long-
term objective was, by using attrition, to bring the Communists to the negotiating table. The JCS felt that
heavy Communist losses had increased the likelihood of negotiations. Additionally, permission was given
to cross the 38th Parallel if tactically necessary but not in pursuit of the total annihilation of the
Communists.59

Thus, by the end of March 1951, Rusk’s sparse framework of attrition had grown into a coherent
strategy and comprehensive operational doctrine. Ridgway’s conception of attrition and the success of his
operations were key. First, Ridgway had provided a basis for Eighth Army operations: inflicting the

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maximum casualties for the minimum loss. Second, he had found means, in-depth defensives and limited
objective attacks that inflicted losses on the Communists and prevented them from taking advantage of
their numerical superiority. Third, Ridgway had made stabilization of the UNC position in Korea and the
attainment of cease-fire negotiations the clear goals of operations, even when the JCS had remained
undecided on the matter. Overall, Ridgway understood the need to prevent escalation and accepted the
necessity of a strategy of limited aim. His innovative operational strategy and personal leadership meant
that these limitations did not impede effectiveness.

THE FIFTH PHASE OFFENSIVE

By the middle of March 1951, Ridgway believed that the war in Korea had entered a new stage, in
which the tide of battle would ebb and flow because the Communists, with shortening supply lines, were
increasingly able to launch effective offensives. To conform to the new situation, he endorsed a flexible
“offensive-defensive” approach. He told John Muccio (US Ambassador to South Korea) and Major
General Coulter that he was playing a dangerous game with the numerically superior Chinese. In order to
preserve his forces, he would have to withdraw when necessary while exploiting periodic opportunities to
press the Communists back.60 Ridgway’s ideas for an offensive-defensive approach guided Eighth Anny
operations for the next months.

On 27 March, Ridgway held an important conference with all US corps and divisional commanders.
This was the only time in the entire Korean War when so many high-level Eighth Army and ROK Army
officers met together. Ridgway informed them that operations were about to enter a new phase in which
there would be the possibility of forward movement, retreat, or static warfare. Throughout, Ridgway
wanted the Eighth Army to retain the initiative. Immediately, he called for forward movement through
limited objective attacks, subject to limitation by logistical considerations and the enemy reaction. He
predicted at the beginning of static warfare when a line that was acceptable for a cease-fire was reached.
He wrote, “I characterize this course as undesirable because in my view the moment a force adopts any
static defense, particularly a force opposed by a numerically stronger enemy, that force is inviting
ultimate defeat.”61 Therefore, Ridgway’s defensive plans remained centered on a careful withdrawal. In
all types of movement, the basic directive of inflicting maximum casualties on the Communists for
minimum losses to the Eighth Army remained the same.

Ridgway’s major objective was to capture the Kansas Line, which later became the basis of Eighth
Army positions in Korea. The Kansas Line ran along the Imjin River in the west to the Hwachon
Reservoir in the center to Taepo-ri on the east coast. The terrain on the Kansas Line offered very strong
defensive positions. Ridgway instructed his staff: “I wanted it clearly understood in the G-3 Section that
the basis of our tactical thinking for the immediate future was the retention of the strong ground along the
general Kansas Line.”62 The Kansas Line was reached in April in a carefully managed and phased
advance (Operation Rugged).

In the midst of these operations, a major change in the UNC command occurred. Truman relieved
MacArthur for repeatedly calling for total victory and disparaging the limited aims being sought in Korea.
On 11 April 1951, Ridgway replaced MacArthur as the Supreme Commander of the United Nations
Command. General James Van Fleet, who had fought the Communists in Greece, succeeded Ridgway as
commander of Eighth Army.

Despite the changes in command structure, the operational doctrine of the Eighth Army remained the
same. Ridgway directed Van Fleet to continue to implement his operational strategy of attrition:

You will direct the efforts of your forces toward inflicting maximum personnel casualties
and material losses on hostile forces in Korea, consistent with the maintenance intact of

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all your major units and the safety of your troops. The continued piecemeal destruction of
the offensive potential of the Chinese Communist and North Korean Armies contributes
materially to this objective, while concurrently destroying Communist China’s military
prestige.63

Van Fleet would receive no reinforcements and the duration of operations could not be predicted. The
Eighth Army might be forced to hold the Communists indefinitely in a defensive war.

Furthermore, Ridgway, unlike MacArthur, emphasized the need to avoid escalation. He directed Van
Fleet and Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer, commander of the Far East Air Force (FEAF), to
employ attrition cautiously in order to reduce the risk of escalation, which was inherent in their
operations. Their subordinates were also to understand that they were not to take any actions that might
escalate the conflict.64

After Ridgway issued these orders, the JCS set physical limitations on UNC operations. Ridgway’s
basic mission was to repel aggression and restore peace through destroying Communist forces within the
geographical boundaries of Korea. Air attacks were limited to within the Korean Peninsula (including the
Yalu River power installations). No strikes were allowed within fifteen miles of the Soviet Union.
Moreover, there could be no general advance without JCS approval. Instead, limited objective attacks
would ensure the UNC forces’ safety, maintain contact with the enemy, and keep the Communists off
balance. Although Ridgway never endorsed MacArthur’s demands for an all-out war, he often sought
greater latitude in punishing the Communists. For example, he asked for permission to make air strikes
across the Yalu if the Communists conducted a major air strike against his own forces, which the JCS
authorized.65 Ridgway also assured the JCS that he would follow their instructions regardless of his
feelings that the Nationalist Chinese should be used to relieve pressure on South Korea.66

Meanwhile, there were increasing indications that the Chinese were preparing a major offensive. As
specified in his plans from March, Ridgway maintained his offensive-defensive approach in anticipation
of the change in the tide of battle. Under his supervision, Van Fleet prepared a phased withdrawal plan
and defensive line, north of Seoul. GHQ UNC hoped that defensive actions on this line would indirectly
exert great pressure on the enemy by inflicting casualties on their attacking forces.67

The Chinese launched their Fifth Phase Offensive on 22 April. With Mao’s support, Peng sought to
annihilate the Eighth Army. The offensive consisted of two stages. In the first stage, the CPV attacked the
Eighth Army, concentrating on the I US Corps in the west. Van Fleet implemented his withdrawal plan.
He told his subordinates that the opportunity existed to inflict “telling blows” on the enemy.68 A twelve-
mile penetration of the 6th ROK Division’s front by the CPV Nineteenth Army Group, cutting the
Chorwom-Seoul Road, was blunted by the staunchness of the flanking divisions, strong in-depth
defensive positions, superior UNC firepower, and the presence of mobile reserves. According to Shu
Guang Zhang in Mao’s Military Romanticism, the Chinese found the Australian defensive of Kapyong, a
strategic positon behind the 6th ROK Division, particularly costly.69 To the west, the 29th British Brigade
mounted a steadfast defense of the Imjin River that crippled the advance of the 63rd and 65th CPV
Armies (CPV armies were the equivalent of a US corps) but sacrificed the 1st Battalion, the
Gloucestershire Regiment. Ridgway was outraged at the loss of the Gloucesters, which he felt was
needless and due to negligence at the divisional and corps levels.70

On 28 April, with the withdrawal complete, Van Fleet notified his commanders that he intended to
hold the line. He did not want to withdraw unless under extreme pressure that would imperil the Eighth
Army’s positions. If necessary, he would fall back to successive positions until the Eighth Army reached
the Han River.71 However, the 3rd, 24th, and 25th US Divisions halted the Communist advance and held
Seoul.

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As the I US Corps counterattacked, Van Fleet held a conference on 30 April, with his three corps
commanders to outline future operations. He expected a renewed Communist offensive in May on the
eastern portion of his front. He told his corps commanders that this would be an optimal opportunity to
inflict defeat on the enemy.72 Every corps was to have a regimental combat team (RCT) in reserve
prepared for counteroffensive action. To overextend the expected Communist advance, the X US and III
ROK Corps in the east were instructed to conduct an in-depth withdrawal to the No Name Line.

In the second stage of the Fifth Phase Offensive, the Communists shifted their weight and launched
massive assaults, relying on their superior manpower, against the X US and III ROK Corps. The corps
withdrew, as planned. Nevertheless, the Chinese breached the No Name Line by attacking the 5th and 7th
ROK Divisions. Luckily, the Chinese suffered heavily and their advance ran out of steam as the X US and
III ROK Corps fell back.73 Lengthening supply lines caused the communists great difficulties in feeding
their troops.

Initiating Negotiations

While Van Fleet halted the Fifth Phase Offensive, the JCS and Ridgway focused on compelling
cease-fire negotiations. As the tide of battle again shifted, Ridgway capitalized on the Communist
weakness and pressed the Eighth Army forward.

NSC 48/5 of 17 May 1951 formally specified the US and UNC strategy deriving from the intra-
governmental debates of February and March. There were four general objectives: to terminate hostilities
under acceptable armistice conditions, to establish the authority of the Republic of Korea to at least the
38th Parallel, to withdraw non-Korean forces from the peninsula, and to permit South Korea to build the
strength to repel future aggression. The means of attaining these objectives would remain limited.
Because there was no acceptable alternative means of waging a war of limited aim in Korea, attrition
would continue unabated until an armistice was obtained. Heavy losses would make the Chinese and
North Koreans amenable to a cessation of hostilities.74

Given the recent Communist losses the JCS and State Department assessed the UNC operational
position in Korea in a meeting on 29 May. Bradley was not yet satisfied with the level of attrition. The
enemy had only been pushed back; there had been no wholesale surrenders. He expected stiff opposition
once the enemy could return to their supply depots. Regarding negotiations, Ridgway’s advance to an
east-west line through the Hwachon Reservoir, such as the Kansas Line, would provide an acceptable
cease-fire line. Supported by Rusk, Bradley refused to consider a line farther north, such at the waist of
the Korean peninsula, because it would increase the risk of Soviet intervention. Rusk also stated that if the
Communists were uncooperative about a settlement, further limited offensives should be launched,
particularly against Hwachon, Chorwon, and Kumwha-the “Iron Triangle,” a major logistical center.75 On
31 May, the JCS gave Ridgway instructions in accordance with NSC 48/5 and the preceding discussion.
Ridgway was not to conduct a general offensive north of the Hwachon Reservoir without JCS approval.76

Ridgway’s plans to compel negotiations echoed the JCS-State Department discussions. He reported to
the JCS that the Eighth Army was in excellent condition. On 30 May, he told them that the Eighth Army
would attack toward the Kansas Line to cause the maximum attrition to the Communists. Given their
weakened state, Ridgway expected that after the Eighth Army counteroffensive the Communists would
never again be able to launch an offensive on the scale of the Fifth Phase Offensive. Ridgway emphasized
how this offensive would compel negotiations: “I therefore believe that for the next sixty days the United
States government should be able to count with reasonable assurance upon a military situation in Korea
offering optimum advantages in support of its diplomatic negotiations.”77

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Van Fleet wanted to augment Ridgway’s counteroffensive to the Kansas Line (Operation Detonate)
with an amphibious assault by the 1st Marine Division. Ridgway would not allow an amphibious attack
because it would thin the front line, creating a bridgehead on the coast of North Korea, and inflict few
casualties on the Communists. Furthermore, the risk that an amphibious landing would cause escalation
was too great. Instead, Ridgway emphasized the importance of selecting a position that the Eighth Army
could hold without heavy losses, preferably the Kansas-Wyoming Line.78

All corps counterattacked as planned. Lieutenant General Edward Almond’s X US Corps advanced
carefully and methodically but still maintained contact with the Communists. After each forward
movement, positions were organized and defended, with careful attention to artillery support.79
Meanwhile, the I and IX US Corps, respectively, recaptured Chorwon and the Hwachon Reservoir. The
CPV Nineteenth Army Group was forced to withdraw from the area of the Iron Triangle to reorganize
after suffering heavy losses.80 On 15 June, the Eighth Army returned to the Kansas Line.

In June, Operation Piledriver was launched to secure the Wyoming Line and the Iron Triangle.81 As
per NSC 48/5 and Ridgway’s instructions from the JCS, the new line could be the cease-fire line.
Therefore, it had to be on strong defensive ground. Ridgway wrote, “Successive main lines of resistance
should be selected with a suitable outpost line, and when and if negotiations appear imminent, every
effort should be made to make contact with the enemy 10 miles ahead of the outpost line of resistance.”82
Ridgway halted the Eighth Army advance when these objectives had been secured. There were two
reasons for the halt. First, a further advance would only stretch the Eighth Army lines of communication.
Second, the terrain around the Kansas Line was excellent for a prolonged defensive and for the launching
of limited offensives.

The Fifth Phase Offensive had not been cheap for the Eighth Army. In all, the UNC suffered 25,000
casualties during the battle itself plus another 14,700 in the counteroffensives in June. US battle casualties
totaled 13,700 for April, May, and June.83 The ROK losses were thus quite heavy. Indeed, the III ROK
Corps, the victim of the Communist assaults in May, was deactivated after the battle.

Nevertheless, the Chinese were feeling the full brunt of attrition by May 1951. The Fifth Phase
Offensive had crippled several Chinese armies and heavy UNC firepower had caused grave casualties. In
his memoirs, Peng stated that the losses in the Fifth Phase Offensive were the greatest of the entire war.84
After the Fifth Phase Offensive, an entire division of the 16th CPV Army had to be broken apart to
provide replacements. Several armies were withdrawn from the battle line to be rehabilitated.85 The 180th
Division of the 60th CPV Army was entirely wiped out.86 Ridgway reported to the JCS that 8,500
prisoners of war (POWs) had been captured in May; a whole company had surrendered in one instance.
Additionally, enemy weapons and supplies were being captured at an increasing rate.87 Shu Guang Zhang
quoted Chinese sources as citing 85,000 Chinese losses in the offensive. Even if low, this figure still
places Chinese losses substantially higher than UNC losses.88

The success of Operations Detonate and Piledriver coincided with the initiation of serious discussions
between the United States and UNC and the Communists about negotiations. Chapter 8 discusses Chinese
strategy in detail. However, since their entry into the war, the Chinese strategic aim had been the
annihilation of the UNC in Korea. By late May, Mao realized that trying to annihilate the UNC was futile.
The decision to conduct negotiations signaled the end of that strategy. The Chinese losses in the first half
of 1951, especially in the Fifth Phase Offensive, showed that the UNC forces could not be decisively
defeated. Instead, a less aggressive method of warfare was needed.89 Mao told Stalin that continued
fighting at the front would quickly weaken the Communist forces relative to those of the UNC.90 In June,
Kim Il Sung and Gao Gang, the Chinese Communist Party Northeast Party Secretary, went to Moscow
and discussed the military balance in Korea with Stalin. Stalin agreed that an armistice was now
advisable.91

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Agreeing to negotiations did not mean that the Communists were immediately seeking peace. Indeed,
Mao and Peng decided to engage in a protracted war of attrition before agreeing to a cease-fire. Stalin
wanted to use negotiations as a lull to bolster the CPV’s position and prevent a UNC advance.92
Additionally, George Kennan, as a special representative of the US government, had been furtively
discussing the possibility of negotiations with Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, since 31
May. These preliminary discussions, which demonstrated a mutual interest in negotiations, probably
made accepting cease-fire negotiations much easier for the Communists. Subsequently, on 23 June 1951,
Malik made an address on the UN radio program, the “Price of Peace.” In it, he implied that the
Communists were ready for negotiations in Korea. The US and UNC use of attrition had played a key role
in compelling the Communists to seek negotiations and abandon total for limited aims.

THE NEW USEFULNESS OF ATTRITION

Ridgway’s operational strategy of attrition had proved effective in the first half of 1951. Ridgway had
taken a sparse strategic framework from the JCS and the State Department and created a successful
operational doctrine. First, his use of attrition made the defense of South Korea sustainable. Second, while
Washington wavered over making negotiations the object of operations, Ridgway aggressively and
explicitly used attrition to attain that end. He defeated two powerful Communist offensives and carefully
gained a strong defensive position mostly north of the 38th Parallel, upon which the future cease-fire line
was established. In the process, the Communist armies were severely worn down, permitting the initiation
of cease-fire negotiations. Thus, attrition effectively attained the limited aims set by Ridgway and the JCS
and preserved the fighting strength of the Eighth Army.

Like all attrition, Ridgway’s conception had limited potential. It could not reach a decision quickly or
annihilate the Communist forces. Six months was required just to make the Communists talk about
negotiations. Furthermore, attrition did not seek to compel the Communists to surrender or submit to
harsh negotiating terms. Due to the overwhelming Chinese numerical superiority, Ridgway’s idea of
attrition was based upon avoiding situations in which the Eighth Army could suffer heavy casualties even
if heavier casualties could thereby be inflicted on the Communists. However, the relative numerical
weakness of the UNC was irrelevant to the success of attrition. Limited objective attacks, in-depth
defensives, and superior firepower engaged and weakened the Communists, without incurring relatively
greater UNC personnel losses.

Moreover, Ridgway’s conception of attrition was accepted in Washington because of its limited
nature. Clearly, the JCS, Marshall, the State Department, and Truman did not want the Korean War to
escalate into a general war with the PRC or USSR. Rusk and Ridgway managed to define attrition in a
manner that minimized the risk of escalation. Attrition could observe the clear political guidelines of not
attacking China or not annihilating the Communist forces in Korea yet still coerce the Communists
sufficiently to result in negotiations. By inflicting heavy losses without completely defeating the enemy,
attrition reduced the risk of escalation. The gradual and piecemeal nature of attrition, one of the causes of
its ineffectiveness before 1945, had now become the basis of its usefulness.

Notes

1 Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959),
150-158.
2 Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 2nd ed. (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1989),
22.

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3 Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), 18-34.
Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Power,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 37, (October 1958): 211-213.
Solid second-strike capabilities, and hence MAD, were not actually developed until the mid-l 960s.
4 Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 171.
5 NSC Meeting, 28 November 1950, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, United States
Policy in the Korean Crisis. Korea, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1976),
1243, 1246. Cited hereafter as FRUS 1950.
6 Conversation of Lucius Battle and Dean Acheson, 1 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1301.
7 Truman-Attlee Communique, 8 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1477.
8 JCS Meeting, 1 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1246. CIA Memo, 2 December 1950, FRUS 1950,
1309.
9 General Douglas MacArthur to the JCS, 3 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1321.
10 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 16, MacArthur to Department of the Army, 8 December 1950.
11 Director Edmund Clubb to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 7 December 1950, FRUS 1950,
1444.
12 Rosemary Foot, A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice
Talks (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 31-32.
13 Dean Rusk, “Courses of Action in Korea,” 21 December, FRUS 1950, 1588.
14 Memorandum of Conversation, 27 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1600.
15 JCS to George Marshall, 12 January 1951, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951. United
States Policy in the Korean Conflict, Part 1, vol. 7 (Washington,D.C.: US Government Printing Office,
1977) 71. Cited hereafter as FRUS 1951.
16 Phone conversation between Secretary of Defense George Marshall and Secretary of State Dean
Acheson, 10 January 1950, FRUS 1951, 57.
17 . Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between President Harry Truman and Marshall, 11
January 1951, FRUS 1951, 41.
18 JCS to MacArthur, 29 December 1950, FRUS 1950, 1625.
19 JCS to MacArthur, 12 January 1951, FRUS 1951, 71, 77.
20 USAMHI: Maurice Matloff, Ridgway Oral History, 19 April 1984, undated, 14-17.
21 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, General Matthew Ridgway to General Lawton Collins, 29
December 1950.
22 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Record of Conference between Ridgway and MacArthur, 26
December 1950.
23 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 22, Daily Historical Report, 3 January 1951.
24 Matthew Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press Publishers, 1956), 211.
25 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway to Major General John Coulter, 20 January 1951.
26 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway Conversation with Colonel Bullock and Colonel
Clarke (G-3 EUSAK), 21 February 1951.
27 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Memorandum of Conference with EUSAK Staff and Corps
Commanders, 5 January 1951.
28 NARA: RG500, Chief of Staff, Eighth Army Correspondence, Matthew Ridgway, Memorandum,
February 1951.
29 Peng Dehuai, Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal: The autobiographical notes of Peng Dehuai (1898-
1974), trans. Zheng Longpu (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), 478.
30 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 17, Memorandum on 2nd US Division Casualties, 25 March
1951.
31 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 17, Ridgway to I and IX US Corps Commanders, 7 January 1951.
32 USAMID: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, EUSAK Conference, 11 January 1951.
33 Secretary of State Meeting, 19 January 1951, FRUS 1951, 102.

H407RB-406

34 National Intelligence Estimate, “International Implications of Maintaining a Beachhead in South
Korea,” 11 January 1951, FRUS 1951, 57.
35 Dean Rusk, “Outline of Action Regarding Korea,” 11 February 1951, FRUS 1951, 167.
36 Ibid., 166.
37 Memorandum for the Record of a Department of State-Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, 13 February
1951, FRUS 1951, 174-177.
38 Secretary of State Dean Acheson Draft Memorandum to President Harry Truman, 23 February
1951, FRUS 1951, 190.
39 Marshall to Acheson, l March 1951, FRUS 1951, 200; JCS Memorandum, 27 February 1951,
FRUS 1951, 201.
40 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 17, Text of MacArthur Speech to Press, February 1951.
41 USAMHI: Almond Papers, Minutes of Conference with Corps Commanders, 8 February 1951.
42 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway to MacArthur, 3 February 1951.
43 USAMID: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway Conversation with MacArthur, 13 February 1951.
44 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 22, Historical Record, 4 February 1951.
45 USAMHI: Almond Papers, Ridgway to Corps Commanders, 27 March 1951.
46 USAMHI: Almond Papers, Edward Almond, Conference on UN Military Operations in Korea, 29
June 1950-31 December 1951, undated.
47 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway meeting with MacArthur, 8 March 1951.
48 USAMHI: Ridgway, Wire Transfer, 23 February 1951.
49 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway to MacArthur, 22 March 1951.
50 USAMHI: Colonel Blair, Ridgway Oral History, Interview 3, undated. 79.
51 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, EUSAK Conference, 19 February 1951.
52 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway to Corps Commanders, 20 February 1951.
53 NARA: RG407, 270: 66/02/01, GHQ UNC Command Report, February 1951.
54 Matthew Ridgway, The Korean War (New York: Da Capo, 1967), 111.
55 NARA: RG407, 270: 66/17/6, Eighth Army Command Report, March 1951.
56 Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 1995), 143.
57 LHCMA: Records of the JCS, UNC Report to the JCS, 1-15 March 1951, undated.
58 Memorandum on the Substance of Discussions at a Department of State-Joint Chiefs of Staff
Meeting, 15 March 1951, FRUS 1951, 232.
59 JCS to Marshall, 27 March 1951, FRUS 1951, 285.
60 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Matthew Ridgway, Memorandum on Meeting with
Ambassador John Muccio and Coulter, 15 March 1951.
61 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box· 20, Matthew Ridgway, Outline for Command Conference, 27
March 1951.
62 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Matthew Ridgway, Memorandum of Conversation with
MacArthur, 3 April 1951.
63 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 21, Ridgway to General James Van Fleet, Letter of Instructions,
25 April 1951.
64 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 21, Ridgway to Van Fleet, 25 April 1951. Ridgway Papers, Box
21, Ridgway to Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer, 25 April 1951.
65 JCS to Ridgway, 28 April 1951, FRUS 1951, 386, 394.
66 USAMI-Il: Ridgway Papers, Box 20, Ridgway to Collins, 26 April 1951.
67 NARA: RG407, 270: 66/02/06, GHQ UNC Command Report, April 1951.
68 NARA: RG407, 270: 66/05/01, GHQ UNC Command Report, April 1951.
69 Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 147-153.
70 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 19, Ridgway to Van Fleet, 7 May 1951.
71 NARA: RG407, 270: 66/05/01, GHQ UNC Command Report, April 1951.
72 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 19, Memorandum of Conference between Van Fleet and Corps
Commanders, 30 April 1951.

H407RB-407

73 USAMHI: Almond Papers, Conference on UN Military Operations in Korea, 29 June 1950-31
December 1951, undated.
74 “Memorandum Containing Sections Dealing with Korea from NSC 48/5,” 17 May 1951, FRUS
1951, 439-441.
75 Memorandum of JCS-State Conversation, 29 May 1951, FRUS 1951, 470-472.
76 JCS Directive to Ridgway, 31 May 1951, FRUS 1951, 481.
77 NARA: RG407: 270:66/03/01, Ridgway to JCS, 30 May 1951 in GHQ UNC Command Report,
May 1951.
78 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 1, Conference between Ridgway and Van Fleet, 31 May 1951.
79 USAMHI: Almond Papers, X US Corps command Report, June 1951.
80 William Whitson and Chen-Hsia Huang, The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist
Military Politics, 1927-71 (London: Macmillan, 1973), 355.
81 Frank Reister, Battle Casualties and Medical Statistics: US Army Experience in the Korean War
(Washington, D.C.: The Surgeon General, Department of the Army, undated), 23.
82 USAMHI: Ridgway Papers, Box 21, Ridgway to Van Fleet, Vice Admiral Turner C Joy, and
Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer, 19 June 1951.
83 USAMHI: Library Handout on Casualties from DA, AGO. Statistics and Accounting Board,
“Battle Casualties in the Army,” 30 September 1954.
84 Peng, Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal, 480-481.
85 Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 Office, CCF Army Histories, 1 March 1955.
86 Chen Jian, “China’s Changing Aims during the Korean War, 1950-1951,” The Journal of
American-East Asian Relations, vol. 1 no. 1 (Spring 1992): 38.
87 NARA: RG407: 270:66/03/01, Ridgway to JCS, 30 May 1951, GHQ UNC Command Report, May
1951.
88 Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 152.
89 Ibid., 144-156.
90 Mao to Stalin, 13 June 1951, trans. Kathryn Weathersby, Cold War International History Project
Bulletin, Issues 6-7 (Winter 1995/1996): 60.
91 Ibid.
92 Kathryn Weathersby, “Stalin, Mao, and the End of the Cold War,” in Brothers in Arms: The Rise
and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963, ed. Odd Arne Westad (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1998), 97.

Lesson H408

Vietnam: The Challenge of
Hybrid Warfare

AY 2021–22

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-408 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

Advance Sheet for H408
Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare

LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Gates M. Brown

1. SCOPE

War is difficult and even when the enemy conforms to the plan, chance and friction can derail an
operation and lead to failure. Hybrid warfare offers a different complication for the commander to
face. In combining conventional and unconventional threats, those facing a hybrid enemy have to
develop an operational approach that can counter a wide range of military capabilities. Given the
unconventional aspect of hybrid warfare, there will also be a strong political component at the tactical
and operational levels as well. It is not enough to focus only on the conventional enemy and fall for
the illusion that defeating the conventional force will solve the unconventional threats of the war.
These are just some of the reasons why hybrid warfare is so difficult.

Hybrid warfare is not new. Napoleon faced this type of warfare in his Peninsular campaign with the
British and Spanish armies providing the conventional forces to supplement the unconventional
Spanish guerillas. In this two-hour lesson, we will look at the Viet Minh and their fight against the US
and South Vietnamese to gain a better appreciation of the problems associated with countering hybrid
warfare. This example will allow investigation of the broad range of capabilities that the Viet Minh
were able to bring to bear on their adversaries. There will also be a challenge to think about how
leaders like US General William Westmoreland faced this type of war and the implications of their
decisions.

After World War II, France attempted again to impose its colonial authority on the people in
Indochina, which was the colonial name of the area that today contains the countries of Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam. There was a long history of Vietnamese fighters taking up arms against colonial
powers like China, Japan, and France. In the post-WWII era, Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Viet
Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist group, organized to fight against the French. Although the Viet Minh
was not an overtly communist organization, Ho Chi Minh saw communism as a model ideology for
an independent Vietnam.

The ideological aspect of this conflict made it strategically important in the early Cold War era both
for the French and the United States. Ho Chi Minh’s embrace of communism allowed the Viet Minh
to leverage the Soviet Union and the newly victorious communist government in China for support.
Indochina and Vietnam were not the only Asian theaters of war where democratic and communist
forces clashed. The Korean War was a constant reminder for the French and, then, US commanders
about the risks they ran fighting communism. In October 1950, Chinese forces flowed into the war
and pushed the United Nations’ forces away from the Yalu River back to south of Seoul in a matter of
weeks. Commanders and policy-makers contemplating military operations in Vietnam worried about
limiting the escalation of the military campaign to prevent Chinese overt involvement and having to
fight another Korea-type war.

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-409 August 2021
Communist support of the Viet Minh allowed the Peoples Army of Vietnam, the military of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Viet Cong, the pejorative name given to the armed wing of
the National Liberation Front, in the Republic of Vietnam to reconstitute and gain battlefield
capabilities that they would not be able to afford on their own. That is what makes hybrid war so
difficult, the commander must understand where the enemy forces gain their support and what the
implications for the operational and campaign plans are of pressuring or attacking these operational
enablers. US commanders found that there was little they could do to stop the flow of supplies and
technical support into the theater of operations, because to do so required directly targeting Chinese
or Soviet naval vessels or territories and this incurred an unacceptable escalation risk.

The Viet Minh operational approach fit the context of war from both a political and economic
perspective. The same cannot be said about the US operational approach. US policy makers and
commanders struggled to understand the historic context of the war. The influence of the Cold War
simplified the US view of the enemy, the North Vietnamese were simply doing the bidding of their
communist benefactors. This was an example of what Colin Gray called the ahistoric aspect of the
“American Way of War”. US policy makers and commanders also overlooked the historic and
cultural aspects of the war because of their faith in the power projection of the US military. During
the war, senior commanders and strategic leaders assumed that victory was a function of punishing
the enemy enough to make them admit defeat. Few in the Johnson administration or MACV thought
that the North Vietnamese and Viet Minh could successfully resist US combat power. This faith in
firepower is also an aspect of the “American Way of War” and, similar to the lack of understanding
the historic and social contexts of the war, contributed to the failure of US forces in the Vietnam War.

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This lesson supports CGSOC TLO-AOC-1, Examine how commanders drive the operations
process using the framework of understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess
(UVDDLA); TLO-AOC-3, Examine how staffs conduct the operations process using the frame-
work of plan, prepare, and execute; TLO-AOC-5, Examine how the joint force and US Army
sets an operational area for large scale combat operations; TLO-AOC-8, Assess the historical
context of the American way of war and its continued influence on today’s operational environ-
ment; and TLO-AOC-9, Incorporate effective communications skills, as listed in the H400
Block Advance Sheet. The lesson goals are:

ELO-AOC-1.6
Action: Analyze how historical context influences the planning and the execution of large-scale com-
bat operations.
Condition: In an educational setting, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in the
conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational
environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of products
and H400 historical readings.
ELO Standards: The analysis of historical context includes:
1. Examine historical battles and campaigns.
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key theo-
rists.

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-410 August 2021
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multina-
tional environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of
products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-5.4
Action: Analyze the historical context of operational readiness.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multina-
tional environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK family of
products.
ELO Standards: The analysis includes:
1. Analyze historical examples of the importance of maintaining peace time readiness.
2. Analyze the challenges in historical case studies of preparing for LSCO.
3. Analyze, using historical context, the process of deploying units to a combat theater.
4. Analyze the JRSOI process through the lens of historical context.
5. Analyze the importance of operational readiness by investigating the historical context of
20th and 21st centuries U.S. combat operations.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and writ-
ten assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT
STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of
today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.2
Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and writ-
ten assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in Korea, Vi-
etnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI
FREEDOM.

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-411 August 2021
3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our under-
standing of today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.3
Action: Assess challenges to the American Way of war since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and writ-
ten assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the enemies’ ability to challenge the American way of war during World War II,
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Opera-
tion IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s ability to adapt to military operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess contemporary challenge to the American way of war since 1991 and how it influences
our understanding of today’s operational environment.
4. Assess how the American way of war has influenced the strategy and doctrine of potential
contemporary competitors.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-9.1
Action: Write effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Uni-
versal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Write effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Proper grammar and correct spelling
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

ELO-AOC-9.2
Action: Speak effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Uni-
versal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Speak effectively includes:
1. Clear statement of the purpose, hypothesis, or topic, as directed in the assignment
2. Appropriate syntax and word usage for the audience
3. Proper format and organization
4. Factual and accurate evidence to support points
5. Clear oral articulation and pronunciation
6. Appropriate use of body language for the topic, briefing style, and audience
7. Appropriate use of props, visual aids, or other products related to the presentation
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

ELO-AOC-9.3
Action: Listen effectively
Condition: Given adequate time in an academic course, a requirement to communicate using the Uni-
versal Intellectual Standards, and access to graduate level resources.
ELO Standards: Listen effectively includes:
1. Listens, reads, and watches intently.

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-412 August 2021
2. Recognizes significant content, emotion, and urgency in others.
3. Uses verbal and nonverbal means to reinforce with the speaker that you are paying attention.
4. Reflects on new information before expressing views.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Synthesis

3. ISSUE MATERIAL

a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022.

b. During Class: None. WiFi is available.

4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

a. Study Requirements:

(1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in
full text in the H400 Book of Readings):

Required:
H408RA Pike, Douglas. “Conduct of the Vietnam War: Strategic Factors, 1965–1968.” In
The Second Indochina War: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at Airlie, Virginia, 7–9
November 1984. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1986: 99–119.
[12 pages]
H408RB Andrade, Dale. “Westmoreland was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the
Vietnam War.” In Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2:145-75. [31 pages]

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-413 August 2021
H408RC Asselin, Pierre. “Hanoi and Americanization of the War in Vietnam: New
Evidence from Vietnam.” Pacific Historical Review, 74:3 (August 2005), pp. 427-439.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2005.74.3.427 [15 pages]
Optional:
H408ORA Draft Memorandum from McNaughton to Robert McNamara, “Proposed Course
of Action re: Vietnam,” (Draft) 24 March 1965.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon3/doc253.htm. [10 pages] [PRIMARY
SOURCE]
H408ORB Shore, Zachary. “Provoking America: Le Duan and the Origins of the Vietnam
War”, Journal of Cold War Studies, 17:4 Fall 2015, pp 86-108, http://
lumen.cgsccarl.com/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=112138350&site=ehost-
live&scope=site [24 pages]
H408ORC Shy, John and Thomas W. Collier. “Revolutionary War.” In Makers of Modern
Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986: 815-862. [47 pages] [Student Purchase]
Further Professional Development:
Duiker, William J. Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.
Herring, George. America’s Longest War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.
Krepinevich, Andrew. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1988.
Peterson, Michael E. The Combined Action Platoons. New York: Praeger, 1989.
Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Da Capo Press, 1991.
Pribbenow, Merle. Victory in Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
Sorley, Lewis. A Better War. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999.
Summers, Harry. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio,
1995.
Tucker, Spencer. Vietnam. London: UCL Press, 1999.
Resident Course Elective Alignment: A695, The American Experience in Vietnam; A668,
Three Centuries of Full Spectrum Operations: French Military History Since 1700
(2) Second requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class:
1. What are the challenges that commanders face in countering or prosecuting a hybrid
war?
2. How can commanders balance their operational approach to gain and maintain the
initiative in this type of conflict?
3. What were the benefits and problems with Westmoreland’s operational approach to the
Vietnam War?
4. How did the Viet Minh and the North Vietnamese combine the elements of the DIME
in their operational approach?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2005.74.3.427

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon3/doc253.htm

http://lumen.cgsccarl.com/login?url=Caution-http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=112138350&site=ehost-live&scope=site

http://lumen.cgsccarl.com/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=112138350&site=ehost-live&scope=site

H408 Advance Sheet H408AS-414 August 2021
5. Which force, the US, the South Vietnamese, or the Viet Minh best utilized the
characteristics of the offense?

6. How did American military approach in Vietnam reflect the strengths and weaknesses
of the American Way of War?

b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to):

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022
Makers of Modern Strategy

5. ASSESSMENT

See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A.

H408 Chronology H408AS-415 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

Advance Sheet for H408
Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare

Chronology

1859–1946
February 1859 French captured Saigon.
1860 Cochin China fell to French.
1863 Cambodia annexed by French.
1874 Tu Duc signed Treaty of Saigon, recognizing French sovereignty over
all of Cochin China.
1884 Treaty of Hue confirmed French protectorate over Annam-Tonkin.
1897 French Governor-General Paul Doumer reorganized and centralized
the colony.
May–June 1940 France fell to Germany; Japanese landed in Indochina.
March 1945 Japanese seized direct control from French administration throughout
Indochina.
2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnamese Declaration of Independence.
12 September 1945 British troops arrived to accept Japanese surrender.
22 September 1945 French troops returned to Indochina.
19 December 1945 Vietminh attacked French in the north.
December 1946 Battle of Hanoi

1947
7 October 1947 The French Far East Expeditionary Corps launched Operation Lea
against the Viet Minh.

1949
8 March 1949 The French recognized the independent state of Vietnam with emperor
Bao Dai as the head of state.
July 1949 Creation of the Vietnamese National Army to counter the Viet Minh
October 1949 Chinese Communist Party obtained victory in China.

1950
January 1950 Both China and the USSR recognized Ho Chi Minh’s government of
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. China started sending military
advisers, artillery, and materiel to support the Viet Minh.
February 1950 Britain and the United States recognized Bao Dai’s government as the
official government of Vietnam.
8 May 1950 The United States began to support the pro-French governments of
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
June 1950 Communists invaded South Korea.
July 1950 Melby-Erskine Mission to Vietnam
September 1950 Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Indochina established.

H408 Chronology H408AS-416 August 2021
1951
January–June 1951 Vietminh General Offensive

1953
April 1953 Viet Minh troops invaded Laos.
May 1953 General Navarre appointed commander of French forces in Indo China.
September 1952–May 1953 Vietminh Winter-Spring Campaign
20 November 1953 French paratroops occupied Dien Bien Phu.

1954
7 April 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower espoused the domino theory.
7 May 1954 French surrendered at Dien Bien Phu.
21 July 1954 Geneva Accords signed.
24 October 1954 Eisenhower decided to back Diem government with $100 million.

1955–63
October 1957 Communists established Field Unit 250 in the south (20 companies).
22 October 1957 Viet Cong (VC) attacked US MAAG and US Information Services
(USIS) installations in Saigon.
May 1959 15th Lao Dong Party Plenum in Hanoi ordered armed dau tranh in the
south.
1960 National Liberation Front (NLF) formed in the south.
16–17 April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion failed in Cuba.
19 April 1961 MAAG Laos established.
9 June 1961 Ngo Dinh Diem requested additional US military advisers.
6 February 1962 US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (USMACV) created with
headquarters in Saigon.
2 January 1963 Battle of Ap Bac
1–2 November 1963 Diem assassinated during coup.
22 November 1963 President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas.
31 December 1963 US troops in Vietnam numbered 16,300.

1964
30 January 1964 Nguyen Khan overthrew Duong Van “Big” Minh.
17 March 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson approved National Security Action
Memorandum (NSAM) 288.
2 and 4 August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident
5 August 1964 Operation PIERCE ARROW retaliatory strikes began.
10 August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by Congress.
15 August 1964 North Vietnamese Politburo decided to send main force People’s Army
of Vietnam (PAVN) units south.
24 December 1964 Operation BARREL ROLL (air strikes in Laos) began.

1965
2 March 1965 Operation ROLLING THUNDER began.
8–9 March 1965 3d Bn, 9th Marine Expeditionary Bde, 3d Marine Division landed near
Da Nang.
3–12 May 1965 3,500 men of the 173d Airborne Bde arrived in Vietnam.
23 October–2 November 1965 1st Cavalry Div battled North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in Ia Drang
Valley.
November 1965 Widespread antiwar demonstrations in United States

H408 Chronology H408AS-417 August 2021
31 December 1965 Total US strength in South Vietnam: 181,000

1966
24 January–6 March 1966 Operation MASHER/WHITEWING—largest search and destroy
operation to date
12 April 1966 B-52s bombed targets in North Vietnam for the first time.
14 September–
24 November 1966 Operation ATTLEBORO
31 December 1966 Total US strength in South Vietnam: 385,000

1967
8–26 January 1967 Operation CEDAR FALLS
22 February–14 May 1967 Operation JUNCTION CITY—largest US operation to date (22
battalions)
4 May 1967 Robert W. Komer became William C. Westmoreland’s deputy for Civil
Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS).
3 September 1967 Nguyen Van Thieu elected president of South Vietnam.
3–22 November 1967 Battle of Dak To
31 December 1967 Total US military strength in South Vietnam: 488,000

Pike, Douglas, “Conduct of the Vietnam War: Strategic Factors, 1965–1968.” The Second Indochina War: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at
Airlie, Virginia, 7–9 November 1984, edited by John Schlight, 99–119. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1986.
CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0489 E

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US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H408: Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare
Reading H408RA

Conduct of the Vietnam War: Strategic Factors, 1965–1968

by Douglas Pike

This paper is a reexamination of the early years of “big unit” warfare in the Vietnam War, the mid-
1960s.1 It sets down in some detail the major military events of the period, adding to the existing account
that which we have learned in postwar years.2 Primarily it concerns itself with what might be called the
strategic environment of the time. It is not a paper about military strategy as such, although it deals with
the strategic thinking on both sides and with strategic analysis efforts (or lack of them). This is an
important subject that has received little attention from historians to date. The initial strategic
environment—at the onset of deep American involvement in Vietnam—shaped and conditioned war
planning on both sides throughout the remainder of the war and, to a considerable extent, dictated its
outcome.3

Historians love to periodize history, to chop it up into time frames. There is always something
artificial about attempts to reduce the chaos of history by dividing and confining it, because in truth
history is a single great river of events. However, periodization does contribute to the management of
history writing and to making it more comprehensible. And unarguably there are landmark moments of
history that do have seminal quality, later seen as a beginning/end and therefore worthy of special
attention. The fivefold periodization employed here, in keeping with our interest in the strategic
environment as viewed by Hanoi, reflects distinguishable changes in the basic Hanoi strategy. The five
are: Early 1958–late 1960: Incipient revolutionary war period (preparatory); 1961–late 1964:
Revolutionary guerrilla war period; early 1965–mid-1968: Regular force strategy period; late 1968–Easter
1972: Neo-revolutionary guerrilla war period; and summer 1972–end of war: High technology regular
force strategy period.4

Our primary attention is paid to the third period, the regular force strategy period. It is not a time slice
of exceptional significance, although certainly it was an important link connecting that which went before
to everything that followed. It begins with the arrival of American ground troops in 1965 (the decision for
which was taken in February 1965) and continues into 1966. It ends with the Communists’ 1967–1968
winter-spring campaign.

The paper is divided into three parts following this introduction. First comes an examination of the
conflicting strategic perceptions that existed early in the war, within each of the two camps and between
the two camps. While such a survey might seem a digression, it is necessary to set down the variety of
strategic concepts existing at the time so as to provide a base for the subsequent discussion, indeed even
to make what follows intelligible. The second part discusses strategic thinking in terms of unfolding
events, concentrating on the Communist side. Finally there is a discussion of U.S. perspective and the
meaning to us in retrospective terms.

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Perceptional Prisons

The Vietnam War from the earliest days, and increasingly after the U.S. fully committed itself to
combat, was marked by an astounding range of interpretation of unfolding events and explanation of what
each side was doing, and why it was doing it. This condition, of vast disparity in interpretation, continues
to this day in the form of newly produced histories of the war. Much of this interpretation is permeated by
stereotype, factual error, social myth, gross oversimplification, historical fictions, and hyperbolic
exaggeration. One root cause undoubtedly is the sheer complexity of the war, exacerbated by the passions
which it generated; another, in no small measure, is the debasement of language that characterizes much
writing of history in the last half of this century.

Essentially, however, the great variation in interpretation was and is the result of differing
perspectives held by the participants and onlookers. The problem was, and still is, an entrenched
condition of competing perceptions.5 These existed between the two contending camps and within each
camp, particularly within the American camp.

During the war neither side perceived the conflict in general or in most details as did the other side.
Neither viewed the other as it saw itself. Neither at the beginning of the war took accurate measure [of]
the other. Neither anticipated the other’s major moves during the struggle or often assessed correctly the
other’s probable response to any given development, proposal, or other stimulus. Neither saw in advance
the course the war would take, the magnitude it would assume, or its duration. Each clung tenaciously to
its own orientation, unwilling or unable—even momentarily for the sake of assessment purposes—to alter
its view.

The Vietnam War then was a prison of competing perceptions.6 That fact, perhaps, is the main
heritage of the war for us today.

These differing perceptions existed simultaneously on several levels. First there were the differing
perceptions of the nature of the war itself—that is, how it was seen in broad overall terms. There were
three such major perceptions in the early years and they can be fairly easily delineated:

—The war seen as a more or less orthodox limited-scale, small-size, Korean-type conflict. It was to
be fought by the standard application of mass and movement—incremental increases in force with
firepower being central to all—and adapted as necessary to local terrain and conditions. There could
be no substitute for victory; bomb ’em back to the Stone Age if necessary because once you are in a
war you either win or lose.

—The war seen as a revolutionary guerrilla war, meaning it was revolutionary and thus broader in
scope than ordinary wars (seeking fundamental social change for instance); it was conducted by
guerrillas, meaning different strategy and tactics employed and an enemy of differing mentality than
regular military.7 Some held this revolutionary guerrilla war as having a third characteristic, that it
was imported from North Vietnam (or from China) while others asserted it was essentially
indigenous. It was a war fought for territory, but also for population, for resources, for “hearts and
minds,” and one requiring external support.

—The war seen as something new in history. Generally termed People’s War (although it had other
names) and described as the product of Mao Tse-tung and Vo Nguyen Giap’s experience (not original
with them as much as the refinement and ultimate extension of a developmental process that had
begun with Napoleon), it erased the line between military and civilian, between war and politics,
between combatant and noncombatant. Its essence was a trinity of organization, mobilization, and

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motivation in the context of protracted conflict. It was not revolutionary in the orthodox sense (being
a strategy, not an ideology), could be fought with guerrillas or a regular army, and, in fact, resembled
a small-scale war of maneuver.

The second cluster of perceptions had to do with the purposes of the war. Why was it being fought
and what did each side expect to get out of it? This is more difficult to delineate because a larger and
more complex group of perceptions was involved.

In terms of purpose, the war could be and was perceived on two levels. One level was the moral
imperative. Both sides (or all sides) defined the war in moral terms:

—To preserve the right of self-determination and to establish the freedom of the South Vietnamese
people. The war is seen here as a contest between the open and the closed society, between freedom
and tyranny in which the U.S. has an obligation—as part of its global interest in and commitment to
the cause of individual liberty—to make a contribution. Most in this group agreed that South Vietnam
was not a democracy but argued that if it could remain non-Communist and be given peace, a
representative government might emerge, whereas total loss of personal liberty is certain and
irreversible when a country goes Communist. This perception was held by most South Vietnamese
and, at least in the early years, by most Americans.

—To unite North and South Vietnam under the Communist banner. For the North Vietnamese and
the southern Communists, unification was no mere political goal—it was a holy crusade. Indigenous
southern Vietnamese within the NLF ranks interpreted unification as a federated arrangement with
the North in which the NLF would hold a monopoly of political power in the South. Thus they
perceived the moral purpose of war in terms of justice, economic opportunity, absence of foreign
influence, and similar values. Some in the South and some outsiders (particularly the French)
perceived Hanoi willing to accept a federated arrangement with the South, but, as events proved, for
the Northerners unification meant amalgamation.

Beneath the level of perception of the purposes of the war in moral terms was a second level viewing
the struggle less abstractly and geared to national interests. Here the division between the U.S. and Hanoi
was fairly stark. The official American perception, shared by all administrations from Franklin Roosevelt
onwards saw the preservation of a non-Communist South Vietnam as important if not vital to U.S.
interests in the Pacific. This was the realpolitik basis for U.S. involvement. Over the years, it was
variously perceived as the Munich syndrome (stop aggression early or stop it later at a higher price); as
the lesson learned in the Korean War (discourage Communist piecemeal detachment of free Asia); and
still later, as the equilibrium thesis, the so-called ideological balance of power (that an equilibrium exists
in Asia, that it is in the interest of all that no single ideological construct—not capitalism, not socialism,
not neutralism—dominate the scene), which largely explains the presence in Vietnam of troops from
Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea. The North Vietnamese obviously
saw it in their national interest that Hanoi control all of Vietnam.

Depending on one’s view of the nature and purposes of the war, the course of battle was also
perceived variously. One view, apparent even in the 1966–1967 period but more prominent later, was the
perception that the Communist forces could not be militarily defeated in Vietnam—using guerrilla tactics
of being everywhere and nowhere, they provided few targets for the enemy’s vaunted firepower.
Communist forces were particularly effective against the South Vietnamese armed forces; and when the
Communists chose to stand and fight, as in the 1968 Tet offensive, they won decisively, as Lyndon
Johnson acknowledged by in effect resigning his presidency. This perception has continued on in a
postwar form, which is that in a broader sense the war demonstrated the failure of mass weapons when

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ranged against the human spirit. Regardless of the massive firepower which the U.S. could muster, in the
end it proved ineffective. In any event, the U.S. converted the war into a high-technology war (having
taught the South Vietnamese to fight a style of combat so technically advanced it was beyond their
capability) and then walked out, unable to guarantee the South Vietnamese defenders even adequate
future logistical support.

Standing against this, as the most common competing perception, was the view of overwhelming
American military prowess. The American armed forces lost no important battles (a record maintained
throughout the war). The South Vietnamese Army, after training and equipping efforts were completed,
was successful in suppressing the guerrilla forces, which is the main reason why the entire North
Vietnamese Army eventually was dispatched to the South. The 1968 Tet offensive, whatever it might
have done to Lyndon Johnson’s career, was a major military victory for South Vietnam. In the postwar
years this perception has said that it is inaccurate to portray use of mass weapons and firepower in
Vietnam in terms of totality. Use actually was highly restricted, especially in North Vietnam, where
bombings and air strikes were almost entirely confined to the transportation and communication matrix.
The one test of full use of mass weapons was the so-called 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi, which
almost overnight forced a reversal of the Communist position at the Paris talks. Also, it is said that
incremental buildup of U.S. force was an error, part of a broader mistake which was to try to win a
defensive war. Rather the U.S. should have struck the North or prepared the South Vietnamese Army to
do so.

Varied perceptions of the course of battle also extended to the war’s outcome, if it was to be short of
outright military victory or defeat, that is, some form of negotiated settlement. One prominent perception,
widespread among influential Americans, was that the Communists always wanted and actively sought a
negotiated settlement, through peace talks or by other means. Only U.S. and GVN intransigence kept the
war going. The agreement of 1973 could have been reached years earlier. When the peace settlement
finally was achieved it was at once sabotaged by the South Vietnamese government, aided and abetted by
the U.S., all of which is part of the long history of negotiations in Indochina. In a similar manner, the
1954 Geneva Conference worked out a peaceful settlement, only to see it destroyed by the South
Vietnamese and the Americans.

The main competing perception was that the Communist objective from the start of the war was
unification of Vietnam under its banner. The Communists looked on negotiations with the single
criterion: will it move us closer to unification? A South Vietnam which remained independent (or even
one run by the Provisional Revolutionary Government [PRG]) obviously did not fulfill the objective.
Hence, from the Hanoi standpoint there was little to negotiate because what it wanted the other side
regarded as total surrender. Further, the 1973 Paris Agreement was not a peace treaty or a negotiated
settlement, only a cease-fire arrangement and a poor one at that, for it left the North Vietnamese Army in
the South and called for an unworkable power-sharing arrangement among the contending forces. As a
matter of record, the 1954 Geneva Conference did not produce a master plan for Indochina. It merely
extricated the French and swept all serious political decisions under the rug, thus becoming a major
contributor to the subsequent advent of the Vietnam War.

Finally there were competing perceptions of the other side. Some Americans, including a few
officials, held the perception of the Vietnamese Communists as basically honorable, uncorrupted,
idealistic people fighting a just cause. They also were nationalists. They were implacable in their
devotion, certain of victory because they believed they monopolized virtue. In dealing with outsiders, as
for example in negotiations with the U.S., they were forthright and scrupulous in adhering to any
agreement reached. They were perhaps authoritarian, but enlightened and seldom bloody handed. Further,
they embraced the principle of independence, fighting their own battles, self-contained, dependent on no
outsiders.

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Standing against this, and more commonly held, was the view that the North Vietnamese, in terms of
personality and behavior, differed little from the South Vietnamese and if they appeared more attractive,
this was simply ignorance on the part of the viewer. If their performance was more determined, it was
because they were better mobilized. Corruption in the North was only of a different kind which did not
make Northerners more virtuous. Dealing with the U.S., they often lied or dissembled. In fact, the history
of the war from the Communist side was an unrelieved record of duplicity and deceit. Vietnamese
Communists used terror judiciously and selectively, but such a rational approach makes it more rather
than less of an atrocity. Hanoi might proclaim its independence, but there were no arms factories in North
Vietnam and the Vietnamese Communists were totally dependent on their Soviet and Chinese allies for
military hardware.

Within American decision-making circles the disparity of perceptions was not as great as in the
general population, but still was great enough. In combing through the records and documentation of the
war, one is struck by the self-contained, insular quality of perceptions of the war as held in Washington
among major governmental elements—the Pentagon, White House, State Department, and Capitol Hill. In
Saigon there was, of course, an enormous disparity of view between the Americans and their Vietnamese
allies and to a considerable extent among the other allied forces in the war.

This general American condition of competing perceptions meant that the U.S. was deprived of a
unity of purpose and of consensus on war policy that would have been possible given a common
perception. The result was that we never got past the point of disputation on the nature of the enemy and
his strategy—never got to the point where true strategic analysis was possible. Debate on strategy
devolved to the technical level and assessment to how best to deal with the enemy at the tactical level.
This was particularly true of the period under examination here, the years 1966–1967, in which the U.S.
concentrated on finding ways to integrate itself into the struggle, the means whereby it could translate its
admitted military prowess—much of it measured in terms of thermonuclear strength—into something that
had relevance for Vietnam. This became largely a technological exercise.

As the war dragged on, perceptions changed, of course, influenced by what might be called the
temporal syndrome. Changing circumstances changed perceptions; mostly it polarized them and drove
them to the outer limits.

The end of the war did not alter this condition appreciably. Most of the wartime perceptions remain
and now appear in postwar writings, retrospective accounts, and particularly in memoirs. The task of
sorting out these competing perceptions and establishing truth remains still ahead for historians of the
war.

Strategic Environment

We now proceed to explore the history of the war during the years of Hanoi’s regular force strategy.

As the year 1965 dawned, the ruling Politburo in Hanoi made the assessment that victory in the South
was very close, perhaps only weeks away. The U.S. announcement the following month—that it was
sending ground troops to Vietnam and inaugurating air strikes in the North—did not alter this assessment
at first. The Politburo reasoned that the American decision had come too late, that the rot in South
Vietnam was too far gone and that as the North Vietnamese slogan of the moment put it: “The greater the
American intervention, the greater the American defeat.” It was not an unrealistic assessment.

Yet victory did not come in the next few weeks, and why this is so remains something of a mystery.
February 1965 saw the Communists in Vietnam at the gates of victory. Neither the government forces of
South Vietnam nor the U.S. forces were able in those first months to alter the hard strategic situation

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faced in South Vietnam; logically the PLAF should have been victorious. America’s major contribution to
the war in the spring of 1965 was to launch air strikes against North Vietnam’s transportation/
communication matrix, but this action can hardly be credited with preventing defeat of the Republic of
Vietnam. U.S. efforts in the South meantime were largely confined to the desperate task of quick military
buildup. Some military hardware, most importantly helicopters, began arriving in mid-year, but the full
flow through the pipeline did not come until the following year. American combat troops arrived in
significant numbers only late in 1965, although by the end of the year their numbers had reached 183,000
as opposed to 23,000 at the end of 1964.

In the field, PLAF forces had been decimating ARVN battalions one after the other, and by early
1965 few reserve battalions were left. Had General Giap continued to press the war with the strategy he
employed before the arrival of American ground troops he might well have triggered the kind of total
confusion and collapse that marked ARVN at the end of the war, with the result that the war would have
been over sometime in early 1965 before American forces could arrive in sufficient numbers to stem the
tide. Instead, the ever-cautious Giap cut back his campaign so as to reassess the changed scene and devise
a new strategy to deal with the Americans.

The change of strategy, however, was not due simply to the fact of the arriving Americans. Another
major reason for the switch from revolutionary guerrilla war to regular force strategy was Hanoi politics
in which various military doctrines served as political weapons; there was a particularly acute and long-
lasting struggle between Le Duan and the big-unit war strategists versus Truong Chinh and the advocates
of protracted conflict warfare. As became apparent later, moreover, strong doubts had developed among
DRV and NLF military theoreticians as to whether actual victory could be achieved by revolutionary
guerrilla war. That such warfare engendered social disruption there could be no dispute; but social
disintegration in the South was not necessarily equatable with victory, defined as unification. Hence the
belief grew that the time had come to shift to more orthodox warfare which would deliver the coup de
grace. Finally, and most importantly, there was growing suspicion in the Politburo concerning the
ultimate ambitions of indigenous NLF leaders, many of whom were regarded as “bourgeois”
revolutionaries. The Politburo felt uncomfortable with a strategy which granted autonomy and freedom of
action to unreliable Southerners. Thus with some urgency the order went out to select, train, and send
south large units of PAVN. The motive behind this order was not military; rather, it was the Politburo’s
intention to have a completely loyal military force on the scene in the South when the end came. This
force would ensure that the war was not won and the peace lost through NLF defection, i.e., through some
settlement with the residual elements of the South Vietnamese government and the Americans which
would have the net effect, as in 1954, of betraying the cause of unification.

For these reasons and perhaps others, a new doctrine was devised, here termed regular force strategy.
It developed slowly and in piecemeal fashion, and while it was on the drafting boards or being tested in
the field from the spring of 1965 onwards and dominated PAVN-PLAF battlefield activities in 1966, it
became fully operational only in the last half of 1967, with the 1967–1968 winter-spring campaign. Its
chief architect was PAVN commander General Vo Nguyen Giap.8

Before discussing the strategy devised by General Giap for use against the Americans, it is necessary
to put his thinking into context. His strategy rests on a broad set of military principles devised during the
Viet Minh War (and owing much to Chinese thinking), then honed and developed in the Vietnam War.
These principles are complex and difficult to deal with in abbreviated form. They are treated in full in the
hundred page “Chapter V–Strategy” of my forthcoming work PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Very
briefly, and in oversimplified terms, this basic PAVN military doctrine can be described thus: Its essence
is dau tranh (struggle) of which there are two types: dau tranh vu trang (armed struggle: military action,
violence programs) and dau tranh chinh tri (political struggle: politics with guns). PAVN cadres in
conducting training use the metaphor of the enemy smashed by the hammer of armed struggle on the

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anvil of political struggle. The point is that dau tranh always is dualistic, the bedrock doctrine being that
neither form of struggle can defeat the enemy alone. Only together—in the marriage of violence to
politics—can victory be achieved. The political dau tranh consists of three van or action programs: dan
van or action among the people; dich van or action among the enemy; binh van or action among the
military. Collectively these three van programs comprise the entire matrix of political struggle, which,
combined with armed struggle, encompasses the entire realm of warfare as the Vietnamese Communists
seek to practice it. The doctrinal cement holding it all together is called khoi nghia (general uprising), a
social myth.

With this brief introduction to basic PAVN military science thinking, we are now ready to turn to
General Giap’s mid-1960s efforts to devise a strategic response to the arriving Americans. He faced an
enemy with three advantages, all of them the result of the fact that American military technological
development in the years since the end of the Viet Minh War had virtually revolutionized warfare. What
had worked against the French no longer would work against the Americans. The three advantages of the
enemy were greater use of heavy long-range weapons (naval shelling); increased use of air power (B-52
raids); and greater mobility. These were purely military problems. The mass ranged against Giap’s forces
was superior both in terms of mass of men and mass of firepower. His enemy’s mobility, provided chiefly
by the ubiquitous helicopter—which in Vietnam revolutionized warfare—also was superior. The
U.S./GVN had greater firepower—sheer ability to throw lead. American First Cavalry troops went into
battle carrying 500 rounds of ammunition versus 30 to 50 shells by the PLAF-PAVN. Behind the
Americans were recoilless rifles, artillery, air strikes, B–52s. Allied mobility permitted the sudden arrival
of troops in areas previously valuable to Giap for their inaccessibility. It also permitted doubling up of
troops; I talked to one U.S. Marine captain who, by accident, fought three skirmishes in three provinces
between the rising and setting of one sun—he had been “tripled” by the helicopter.

Superior allied mass and movement had seriously concerned Giap since the arrival of the first U.S.
ground troops, a concern that grew steadily more depressing from his viewpoint. Consider his situation in
the summer of 1967. His troops in the South had not won a single battle of significance in nearly two
years, when two years before they had been at the gates of victory. Now American firepower was eating
deeply into PLAF/PAVN reserves of men and supplies. The desertion rate in the PLAF was doubling
every six months. Logistics, always the ever-hungry monsters, were a nightmare as supplies were
discovered and destroyed by the enemy. Morale was growing steadily worse, especially among the PLAF
troops. The “liberation association” structure in the South was in disarray. The NLF financial system was
under great stress. Most of all, the dogmas of the past were questioned openly by the true believers as
being inadequate for the stormy present. A kind of doctrinal bankruptcy had developed and this was
leading to a serious condition of cadre confusion and demoralization.

Giap’s initial strategic response was twofold. First, he sought to match, as far as possible, allied mass
of men and firepower. He sent troops down the Ho Chi Minh Trail as fast as logistics permitted. And he
vastly increased his firepower. The PAVN and PLAF in South Vietnam by 1966 were fighting with B–40
barrage rockets, 152-mm. artillery pieces, antiaircraft guns, flame throwers, tanks, and a whole family of
automatic weapons including the AK–47 assault rifle.

At the same time General Giap augmented North Vietnam’s air defense system with the most
advanced and sophisticated weapons the world has even seen in action, infinitely superior to anything
employed by either side in World War II. The notion of a North Vietnam under American planes lying as
helpless as Ethiopia in 1936 was as inaccurate as the picture of the Communist forces in South Vietnam
armed only with crude homemade weapons or those captured from the enemy. In North and South
Vietnam the Communist forces had the best weapons that the socialist camp could manufacture.

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Essentially the regular force strategy devised and used in the 1965–1968 period held that victory—
defined as unification—could best be achieved by altered forms of armed dau tranh, that is, military
pressure applied intensively and quickly. This has been called the Quick Victory doctrine or Go-For-
Broke strategy. In allocation of resources top priority goes to weaponry and logistic needs, to the fielding
of the largest number of troops possible in the shortest time. Although new, doctrinally it was regarded as
an extension of previous strategy of revolutionary guerrilla war. The chief difference between the two was
that the ratio of armed to political dau tranh was reversed and the temporal dimension was redefined.
Greater emphasis was put on armed struggle, and rather than a long war of attrition, proponents sought to
compress events in time and press for a quicker outcome.

The most innovative elements of this strategy, and its essence, are what Giap calls “fighting methods”
or basic tactics. There are two of these: the “coordinated fighting method” and the “independent fighting
method.”

The coordinated fighting method (cach danh hop dong) was the chief assignment of PAVN troops
and PLAF main force units. It involved attacks by fairly large units against fairly important targets, but
never so large an attack as to make the battle strategically decisive and always in favorable terrain.
Ideally, the target would be in some wild, inaccessible region that would reduce the maneuverability of
troops brought in as reinforcement. Also the initial assault was designed to bring the attackers under the
umbrella of the no-strike zone over the installation, thus eliminating the danger from enemy air power.
Then the target would be overrun and the attackers would vanish. Examples of coordinated fighting
methods were the PAVN-inaugurated battles at Con Thien (September–October 1967), Loc Ninh
(October 1967) and Dak To (November 1967).

The independent fighting method (cach danh doc lap) based on “the principle of using a small
number of troops to defeat a large number of troops who possess modern equipment,” owes much to
earlier guerrilla war tactics. It was normally the task of the PLAF regional and territorial guerrilla units,
but on occasion could be assigned to PLAF main force or PAVN units. This tactic reduced to the
minimum the enemy’s superiority in manpower, firepower, and mobility. Its disadvantage was that in
itself it could never become decisive. The classic example of the independent fighting method was the Tet
offensive of 1968.

To achieve decisiveness, therefore, under regular force strategy, the two fighting methods were to be
combined into what General Giap termed the comprehensive offensive. No comprehensive offensive as
he envisioned it developed during the Vietnam War, since it could come only as a culmination of
momentum generated by the independent and coordinated fighting methods. Sufficient momentum never
developed.

The strategy’s climax, and decisive test, came with the PAVN winter-spring campaign of 1967–1968.
In all probability General Giap sold the campaign to the Politburo on the grounds that it would be
decisive. Phase one of the campaign (October–December 1967) was marked by the coordinated fighting
method battles noted above. DRV casualties were heavy in these—5,000 men were killed or permanently
injured at Dak To alone—but the phase ended inconclusively. Phase two was marked by increased use of
the independent fighting method. Its crescendo was the Tet offensive of 1968 in which thirty-two of
South Vietnam’s major population centers were attacked simultaneously by 70,000 of General Giap’s best
forces. While the Tet offensive had enormous psychological impact abroad, particularly in the United
States where it was a major factor in President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection, it was a
disaster for General Giap. He had begun his winter-spring campaign with 195,000 men. At its conclusion
he had lost (killed or permanently disabled) 85,000 of his best troops with virtually nothing militarily to
show for it.

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At this point the Politburo began a series of moves that had the net effect of changing grand strategy
from the doctrine employed for the past three years to something resembling the pre-1965 days, here
termed neo-revolutionary guerrilla war strategy. It too was destined to fail and would then, once again,
late in the war, give General Giap a second opportunity to return to the fray with a revised version of his
regular force strategy.

Retrospective Meanings

Never between the two adversaries in the Vietnam War was there what could be called a transactional
strategic great debate, and we were the poorer for it. The result was there never did emerge between the
high command in Hanoi and its counterparts in the Pentagon and in Saigon any sort of a tacit agreement
as to what exactly constituted the war between them, no consensus on a clear definition of victory and
defeat. In this the Vietnam War was unique and quite unlike past wars—say, World War II in which the
Allies and the Axis proceeded on the basis of a common assumption (either the Allies would succeed in
invading and subduing Germany, Italy, and Japan in the name of unconditional surrender or would fall
short of that goal). Both sides clearly understood the parameters of their struggle. In Vietnam strategic
ambiguity existed from the earliest days and continued throughout the war.

The most important point to make about the U.S. in this respect probably is that we first committed
ourselves to the war and then began to think about it comprehensively. The highest level leadership did
not initially sit down and address in detailed and extended fashion its strategic position, did not discuss
and analyze enemy strengths, weaknesses, and probable strategies, did not wrangle and argue and finally
hammer out a fully articulated strategy.9

There was in this behavior a sense of enormous self-confidence, indeed a kind of unconscious
arrogance on the part of the Americans. It was abundantly evident in Vietnam during the early period of
the arriving American ground troops—particularly those American civilians who had been present in
Vietnam in earlier years. It was manifested mainly toward ARVN, a syndrome of superior
professionalism: step aside and let the big boys do it.

The second most important point to make in this respect is that we entered the war without fully
appreciating the enemy’s strategy. Worse, we never made a serious effort to correct this shortcoming. The
highest leadership never devoted itself to systematically learning about Hanoi’s strategic thinking and
doctrine. Indeed there is not even today clear knowledge in the U.S. government as to what exactly was
the strategy employed by the Communist military forces in Vietnam.

We suffered from the worst kind of ignorance—what Aldous Huxley calls vincible ignorance: that
which one does not know and realizes it, but does not regard as necessary to know. This vincible
ignorance was worse in Washington than in Saigon, more common among civilians than military leaders,
and at its worst in the White House under Lyndon Johnson.10

Much of this can be put down to the individual mindset of the principals involved—in the White
House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

Of course there was expertise—individuals and governmental elements both in Washington and in
Saigon, both military and civilian apparat—devoted to strategic analysis. Effort was mounted, as is noted
below, but it failed, not because of ignorance (vincible or otherwise) but because it was so disparate and
fragmented that no analytical consensus was ever possible. The villain in the piece thus was not
individuals but the system, which was never able to address itself in a meaningful way to the enemy, to
his thinking, to his leadership, to his strengths, weaknesses, and choices.

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It is difficult to substantiate this charge in objective fashion because it is always hard to prove a
negative. However, an examination of the documents of this period makes clear our sin of omission with
respect to strategic analysis of the Vietnamese Communist war effort. No high-level permanent institution
was created to analyze enemy strategic thinking—only ISA-level task forces, some defector interview
programs by RAND in Vietnam, and a few ARPA studies.11 No one, in or out of government, ever
produced a history of PAVN, a PAVN guide, or any other full-scale study of PAVN and PLAF. No
significant biographical studies of enemy leaders were done. We had 470,000 Americans in Vietnam at
the height of the war, and one sociologist in the villages doing research on social organization. The
number of analysts working on the Viet Cong (NLF) could be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and
they started years after the organization was formed. One can search the voluminous Pentagon Papers in
vain for extended discussion of the other side, any discussion at all. Unlike earlier wars in which research
and analysis were both extensive and esoteric (Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, or
analysis of Hitler’s astrological beliefs, for example), in Vietnam we allocated hardly any resources.
Much tactical intelligence was generated that could have been exploited, but wasn’t. Work on order of
battle generally was good; politics of the Politburo was hardly touched.

It was, it appears, a manifestation of unconscious arrogance. When a high-level official—such as
Robert McNamara—wanted to know what Ho Chi Minh would think about a matter (prolonged heavy air
strikes, for instance) he would interview himself, asking what he would think if he were Ho Chi Minh.
Having answered the question, he would proceed on that basis, only later to discover that Ho Chi Minh,
being Ho Chi Minh, had not shared his opinion (i.e., did not respond to the air strikes as assumed).

Nor was this shortcoming confined to the U.S. government. Equally scandalous, if not more so, was
the total failure of the American academic community to contribute to knowledge and understanding of
the enemy and his strategy. Scholars and academics energetically opposed the war, but did so in
ignorance. With no basis of knowledge, their counsel was rooted in error; in the field their advice was
dismissed, as it should have been, as worthless. During the Vietnam War, virtually nothing was produced
by the American academic community on the strategic thinking of the Vietnamese Communists. There
should have been a flood of such studies.

The reasons for this vincible ignorance are manifold. First and most obviously, we did not attend to
Hanoi’s strategic thinking in any serious analytical way because we saw no pressing requirement to do so.
We did not know what General Giap thought and we didn’t really care—we would call the tune. To the
extent we did examine the matter, we did not think that General Giap and his high command possessed
anything amounting to a full-scale strategy worthy of deep consideration. North Vietnamese military
writings seemed only froth—hyperbolic verbiage with strange terms such as dau tranh (struggle) that
were mere abstractions. We convinced ourselves that the enemy was all tactics, that there was no strategy
there to analyze.

A second reason is that, at least during the period under examination here, we tended to believe (even
though we insisted the opposite publicly) that Hanoi’s involvement in the war in the South was confined
largely to logistics. The war had a highly indigenous cast to it, and we assumed we were dealing with
guerrilla mentality in which Hanoi’s strategic thinking was only marginal. (One of the major postwar
revelations has been just how extensive was Hanoi’s involvement in strategic terms from the earliest days,
extending back even into the mid-1950s.)

A third reason, self-imposed, was that we suffered from what might be called institutional
compartmentalization. The enemy’s strategy, by design, was total, a seamless web. It encompassed the
entire range of military and nonmilitary action and was structured and directed as a single organ. We had
no comparable institution (combining military and civilian elements) to deal with this opposing apparat.
Our response was compartmentalized into orthodox military activities, diplomatic representation,

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manipulation of internal Vietnamese politics, and external mass communication efforts. Research and
analysis were equally compartmentalized; our agencies independently analyzed the order of battle, world
public opinion, political settlement efforts in Paris, U.S.-GVN relations, and the antiwar movement in the
U.S. We met the enemy’s single strategic assault with a clutch of uncoordinated strategic responses, in
some instances with none at all. For the U.S., especially in its relations with the GVN, it was a problem of
bureaucratic impasse. Much of the enemy’s day-to-day activity, in consonance with his grand strategy,
was what we considered nonmilitary and beyond the domain either of the U.S. military in Vietnam or
ARVN. Presumably it would be met by some other institution—the U.S. embassy, AID, the CIA, GVN
“nation-building” civil servants, or private Vietnamese institutions (such as trade unions, farm
cooperatives, women’s and youth organizations). The needed response, to use the parlance of the day, fell
between the stools. The U.S./GVN had enormous difficulty in coping with this problem and never did
solve it to the satisfaction of all. During the period under review here, 1965–1968, response was almost
nonexistent. Not until later, with the advent of the CORDS concept, did any institutional mechanism at all
exist to deal with the broadness of the enemy’s strategy.

Finally we were deliberately misled, presented by the enemy with a strategy that was not what it
seemed to be nor as officially portrayed. More correctly perhaps, we allowed ourselves to be misled;
deception has been an integral part of all Vietnamese strategies for a thousand years. Hanoi worked long
and hard during the war to camouflage its strategy, its nature, and its objective. This effort—intricately
complex and of many dimensions—is beyond the scope of this paper. Briefly, it consisted of employing
various communicational techniques to nullify the enemy’s military, sociopolitical, and psychic strengths.
It sought to debilitate the South Vietnamese war effort and to force the U.S. to impose upon itself military
limitations. It sought to engender a crisis in perception in the enemy camp as a means of confounding the
enemy’s strategic response. It was central to Vietnamese Communist strategy, both in the Viet Minh and
Vietnam Wars.

This obfuscation of the nature and purpose of the war, on Hanoi’s part, not only updated the long
effective rule of divide and conquer, but also employed a judo principle and turned the weight of the
enemy’s philosophic system against him. It is a strategy that works best against a democracy of fair-
minded people and least against barbarians or messianic fanatics. It agrees victory will go to the just
because justice must triumph. But it does not claim that the enemy is unjust in a way that tars all in the
enemy camp. Rather, the enemy is an abstraction, consisting of the unjust and misled leadership, perhaps
a few other selected individuals. Normal wartime polarization is denied. Again and again it asserts to the
opposite camp, particularly to the vast civilian population at home, we are not your enemy. The enemy is
the unjust person who wishes to pursue an unjust war and surely you are not among these. Hanoi stands
not for victory but for justice. The struggle then becomes a test of virtue. The outsider, looking on, is
presented, on the one hand, with the Communist’s own idealized picture of himself (and denied objective
inspection of the Communist camp); and on the other hand, he sees the errors, shortcomings, and follies
of his own, very human side. Reality seldom stands a chance against image. The more distant the
onlooker, or the less knowledge he has about the struggle (and such knowledge in the United States was
generally close to nonexistent), the more apparently odious becomes the comparison.

Each side in every war in history, of course, has attempted to influence the thinking and morale of the
other side or has sought external moral support. But until the Vietnam War this psychological dimension
was considered adjunct. Earlier, as if by common agreement, it was acknowledged that victory would be
decided by combat. The battle would be the payoff. The Vietnamese Communists were the first really to
break with this idea that the ultimate test must be military. First dimly and then with increased clarity,
they realized that it might be possible to achieve an entire change of venue and make the primary test take
place away from the battlefield.

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The strategy was not entirely successful in the sense of effecting a full change of venue. But it did
succeed in subverting American war support at home, ruining much American diplomacy abroad, and
delimiting and inhibiting American military response in Vietnam itself.

Finally, there is retrospective meaning. If further evidence is needed of our ignorance of Hanoi’s
grand strategy and the ambiguity of the outcome of the war, it is to be found in the perceived heritage of
the war, the meaning that has come down to us, the lessons learned.

Here, once again, are a variety of perceptions. Some argue that a great global epidemic of violence
was spawned by the Vietnam War, partly from the how-to-do-it dau tranh demonstrations by the Viet
Cong of the success that could be achieved by these techniques. Unleashed is the notion that shooting,
kneecapping, kidnapping, blackmail, armed robbery, anything is acceptable if it promises political
change. Now such an ethic is almost taken for granted. This bodes ill for democracies. Personal freedom
in a democracy is not a consequence of institutions, but an attitude of mind which respects the right of
personal security for others. We now face the grim prospect that the price for defense against this political
fanaticism must be loss of some of our own freedom.

A second perception of the meaning of the Vietnam War is that aggression pays, if it can be
protracted. The genius of the Vietnamese Communist example is how to manipulate external perception
by drawing events out in time, so that what is done is not seen as aggression but necessary social change.
The Vietnamese Communists and others would agree to this statement but only in meaning, not the
language used to describe it. Rather, they would say the meaning of the war was inducing great social
progress, advancing the progressive forces and weakening the reactionaries; also that it demonstrated a
powerful means for achieving still further victories for socialism. A concurrent meaning here is that a
democracy probably cannot fight a protracted conflict. It can fight a quick war, even a dirty one, but not
one that appears endless. A society facing a hostile force either internally or externally—a force
sufficiently implacable to demonstrate its determination to prevail regardless of cost—will eventually
surrender. There is enormous efficacy and potency in this fifty-year-war notion, if for no other reason
than that no counterstrategy is known.

A third perception is that the war ruined the conduct of proper American foreign affairs. It poisoned
the American world position in Asia, undercut American credibility with both friend and adversary. It
generated a new force of isolationism in America. It eliminated the ability of the White House to deal
with the world adequately, yet substituted no other mechanism.

A contrary perception holds that the war bought valuable time for non-Communist Asia—for
instance, that Indonesia today would be Communist had it not been for the Vietnam War. This perception
also holds that the war discredited the notion of revolutionary guerrilla war by stripping it of its
romanticism, thus making it less appealing throughout the world.

Finally, there is the view that the Vietnam War had only limited meaning for the world and the future.
It was a one-of-a-kind situation which will never develop again or repeat itself. Southern Africa, Central
America, the insurgency in the Philippines bear no important parallel to Vietnam. It is a mistake to treat
new or developing problems in terms of what was learned in Vietnam.

Hence we come full circle. The task of historians then is to determine what actually happened in the
Vietnam War, and what is the true heritage for us today.

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Notes

1. Works consulted in the preparation for this paper include the writings of General Vo Nguyen Giap,
principally Big Victory, Great Task; The MiIitary Art of People’s War and Arm the Revolutionary
Masses; Gen Van Tien Dung’s Our Great Spring Victory; Gen Tran van Tra’s Vietnam: History of the
Bulwark B2 Theater, Vol 5: Concluding the 30-Years War, JPRS 82783, 2 February 1983 (Southeast Asia
Report No. 1247); and Vietnam: The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation 1954–1975:
Military Events produced by the PAVN Publishing House (Hanoi) in 1980 and translated by JPRS 80968,
3 June 1982. Others are Summons of the Trumpet by David Richard Palmer; Vietnam, A History by
Stanley Karnow; Not With Guns Alone by Denis Warner; Tet by Don Oberdorfer; Strategy for Defeat by
U.S.G. Sharp; and Strange War, Stranger Strategy by Lewis W. Walt.
2. In the last ten years there has been a flood of material out of Hanoi dealing with all phases of the
early history of North Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist movement, and the war. See particularly the
party journal Tap Chi Cong San, almost every issue of which contains articles that acknowledge what
once was denied in Communist circles and debated outside of them concerning the conduct of the war,
foreign relations, and the nature of the North Vietnamese armed forces.
3. This strategic environment is discussed in full in my forthcoming work, PAVN: People’s Army of
Vietnam.
4. For full detailing of these categories, see the Vietnam War entry in the comparative encyclopedia
Marxism, Communism and Western Society (Bonn, 1972).
5. Perception in psychological terms exists on two levels. The first is to take cognizance of
something, to “see” it. The second is a structuring process, the organizing of phenomena into a single
unified meaning, that is, a “way” of looking at something. Truth or error exist on the first level, termed
misperception, but have little meaning on the second level, unless ignoring relevant information.
6. Another perceptional dimension is what might be called the parochial perception; that is, one’s
view of the war depended on where you were: in Vietnam or in the US.; if in the U.S., in Washington or
elsewhere in the country; in college; or in Asia, Europe, or some other part of the world.
7. As a concept, this kind of war was largely unknown in America, and the description here may
strike the reader as esoteric abstraction, due to lack of familiarity. The concept is real, vital, and entirely
familiar to every Vietnamese Communist cadre, as well as to serious American students of the Vietnam
War.
8. Outlined most clearly in General Giap’s Big Victory, Great Task.
9. This is not to say that the other side had a very clear understanding of its enemy’s concept of the
nature of the war either, nor a clear understanding of the overall nature of the war. Rather, the Hanoi
leadership had blind, implacable faith in its cause, to which it clung tenaciously. In other words, Hanoi
officials did not see the course of the war in advance any more than anyone else did.
10. We had great capability on the battlefield, which came to obsess us. Indeed, one of the great traps
in counterinsurgency warfare is the tendency to do what you are able to do and are prepared to do, rather
than what needs to be done. Much U.S. activity in the Vietnam War was justified by the argument that we
had the capability to accomplish it.
11. The first “roles and missions” task force was formed in August 1966; it was however a low-level
effort rather than what it should have been, at least at the deputy undersecretary level. Operation BIG
MACK circa 1968 was the first serious effort to gather data about the other side in a comprehensive
manner. It was part of what was called the census grievance cadre system (which included the Phoenix
program) and generated a good deal of valuable tactical intelligence but little strategic intelligence.

Andrade, Dale. “Westmoreland was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Vietnam War,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2,
2008: 145-75. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0473 E

H408RB-431
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H408: Vietnam: The Challenge of Hybrid Warfare
Reading H408RB

Westmoreland was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Vietnam War

by Dale Andrade

The US Army prides itself on learning from history. General Peter J. Schoomaker, the former Army
Chief of Staff, wrote that our ‘failures in Vietnam had grave implications for both the Army and the
nation.’ Failure is often the best teacher, he argued, and the US Army has become ‘an adaptive and
learning organization’ capable of studying the past so it can plan for the future.0F1
For better or for worse, the Vietnam War continues to cast a long shadow over how the United States
makes policy and fights wars. It is the standard everyone wants to avoid. Yet after Vietnam, the Army
turned its back on its experience there, ignoring lessons in the mistaken belief that counterinsurgency was
a thing of the past. ‘No more Vietnams’ became the mantra for a generation of policymakers, pundits, and
military planners. The irony is that there probably never will be another war like Vietnam – not because
the United States now knows how to avoid such wars, but because the situation there was unique.
Still, there are many lessons to be learned from Vietnam – tactical, operational, and strategic – and
the Army erred in waiting so long to look back on the wealth of experience in Southeast Asia. As the Iraq
war continues unabated, there is a scramble to look back at past US counterinsurgency experiences, and
Vietnam is high on the list. But good lessons can only come from good history, and the Vietnam War is
not an easy study.
Since insurgency took hold in Iraq scores of articles and editorials have warned against repeating the
‘mistakes’ of Vietnam. Many display a significant lack of knowledge of the war. Military analyst Max
Boot, for example, wrote, ‘The biggest error the armed forces made in Vietnam was trying to fight a
guerrilla foe the same way they had fought the Wehrmacht.’1F2
This is a misleading caricature of the war, but the image of a big army stumbling around after agile
guerrillas has come to dominate the ‘lessons’ that are supposedly being learned about Vietnam. If General
Schoomaker’s characterization of the Army as a learning institution is to be taken seriously, there needs
to be a re-examination of what the Army thinks it knows about the Vietnam War.
Flawed history
The misunderstandings began immediately after the war. Since the United States lost, historians
concentrated on what went wrong and who was to blame. There were two basic schools of thought, both
arguing that the United States failed to identify the true nature of the war. In an insightful
historiographical essay entitled ‘The Unending Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War,’ Gary Hess
called them ‘Clausewitzians’ and ‘Hearts-and-Minders.’2F3

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Clausewitzians argued that the real center of gravity was in Hanoi, and that the war was really an invasion
by North Vietnam. Therefore, goes the theory, Washington erred in asking the military to wage a
counterinsurgency, since the insurgency was largely a sideshow.
The leading proponent of this point of view was Harry Summers, whose book On Strategy: A Critical
Analysis of the Vietnam War argued that, since the insurgency in the south was controlled from the north,
the center of gravity lay in Hanoi, not in the population of South Vietnam. The Viet Cong guerrillas were
secondary, he wrote, and their presence ‘harassed and distracted both the United States and South
Vietnam so that North Vietnamese regular forces could reach a decision in conventional battles.’3F4
During the 1980s, the Army largely accepted this interpretation, because it took much of the blame
off the military, arguing instead that restrictions – such as off-limits enemy base areas in Laos and
Cambodia and a secure home front in North Vietnam – prevented a decisive victory. If the US military
had been allowed to attack these centers of gravity, went the thought process, it could have defeated
North Vietnam, cutting off its support to the Viet Cong and allowing the South Vietnamese to defeat the
insurgency piecemeal. In this view the guerrillas were merely an extension of the main forces.
The Hearts-and-Minders argued just the opposite. According to this school of thought, the war was
fought by a conventionally minded military that ignored counterinsurgency. Andrew Krepinevich, the
author of The Army and Vietnam, was the most articulate proponent of the position that the military failed
to understand that the guerrillas were the center of gravity, and the Army’s failure to emphasize sound
counterinsurgency principles doomed the effort. Krepinevich argued that what few steps the military did
take were mere window dressing, a ‘fad’ left over from the Kennedy administration’s love affair with
Special Forces.
Instead of actually implementing counterinsurgency in Vietnam, Krepinevich wrote, the ‘Army
prescribed no changes in organization nor any scaling down of the firepower to be used in fighting an
insurgency.’ The strategy used by the US commander, General William C. Westmoreland, was to blame:
‘In focusing on attrition of enemy forces rather than on defeating the enemy through denial of his access
to the population, MACV [Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] missed whatever opportunity it had
to deal the insurgents a crippling blow at a low enough cost to permit a continued US military presence in
Vietnam in the event of external, overt aggression.’ There were still the North Vietnamese main forces to
deal with, but Krepinevich believed that they were secondary.4F5
While Krepinevitch was correct to argue that ‘winning the big battles is not decisive unless you can
proceed to defeat the enemy at the lower levels of insurgency operations as well,’ he never explained how
any counterinsurgency plan could ultimately prevail if the main forces were allowed to lurk in the
shadows, waiting to attack and sweep away all the gains made by pacification. Krepinevitch believed that
the huge enemy offensives of 1972 and 1975 were the ‘ironic result of this misplaced strategic emphasis,’
though his argument that a better counterinsurgency plan would have, in itself, prevented the North
Vietnamese onslaughts is unconvincing.5F6
The reality is that the Communists were able to employ simultaneously both main forces and a potent
guerrilla structure throughout South Vietnam, and any strategy that ignored one or the other was doomed
to failure. Yet only a few historians make this point. One of them, Michael Hennessy, wrote in his history
of US Marine Corps strategy in Vietnam that the arguments represented by Summers and Krepinevich are
both wrong. Their ‘theorizings do not adequately account for’ the simultaneous guerrilla and main force
war. ‘But if neither the large unit nor guerrilla threats were adequately countered,’ wrote Hennessy, ‘it
must be argued that the criticisms of Krepinevich and Summers indicate that US forces were not only

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poorly employed, but were employed in numbers far from sufficient to tackle the problems of Vietnam.
Can it be that instead of too many men America failed to commit enough?’6F7
It would seem so. The Communists’ ability to harness military and political capabilities all along the
spectrum of Maoist revolutionary warfare doctrine was unprecedented. A vast and deeply rooted political
infrastructure formed a permanent presence in South Vietnam’s villages while increasingly large military
formations could challenge South Vietnamese forces on their own terms. It was the perfect insurgency –
an ideal melding of guerrilla and main force capabilities – yet the adherents of both the ‘Clausewitzian’
and ‘Hearts-and-Minders’ school of history virtually ignored this big picture, instead making assumptions
about its structure and capabilities that were untrue. Both portrayals appear compelling because they offer
a simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam: there was a strategic ‘choice’ – a right way and a wrong
way to fight – and the wrong choice was made.
General Westmoreland, the MACV commander, usually gets the blame for making that choice. A
leading proponent of this view is Lewis Sorley, whose book A Better War, argued that Westmoreland
foolishly used a search and destroy strategy that could not possibly catch guerrillas dispersed throughout
the countryside. His successor, General Creighton W. Abrams, Sorley wrote, switched to
counterinsurgency to thwart the guerrillas in the villages rather than fruitlessly chasing them in the jungle.
A Better War proposed that, upon taking command of MACV in June 1968, Abrams halted
Westmoreland’s ‘single-minded concentration on the Main Force war,’ because he ‘understood that the
war was a complex of interrelated contests on several levels, and that dealing with the enemy effectively
meant meeting and countering him on each of those levels.’7F8
Sorley is unswerving in his belief that Abrams was right and Westmoreland wrong. ‘Abrams brought
to the post a markedly different outlook on the conflict and how it ought to be conducted,’ wrote Sorley.
‘Pronouncing it “One War” in which combat operations, improvement of South Vietnamese forces, and
pacification were of equal importance and priority, Abrams switched from “search and destroy” to “clear
and hold” … .’ In his admiring portrait of Abrams, Sorley presents a hero who should have been listened
to earlier because he understood the ‘correct’ way to fight such a war.8F9
Yet Sorley makes no attempt to explain the vast operational differences faced by the two MACV
commanders during their respective command tenures. Between 1965 and 1967 the war was very much
about the enemy main forces, which threatened to overwhelm Saigon and were directly responsible for
the US decision to intervene with ground forces. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, when Abrams assumed
command, the enemy had suffered severe setbacks which forced them to scale back their main force
operations, allowing the Americans and South Vietnamese to place a greater emphasis on pacification.
But the North Vietnamese big units would be back, and in the end Abrams could not stop them. When it
counted – as American troops left Vietnam – the South Vietnamese were no closer to pacifying the
countryside than they had been on the eve of the American troop buildup. And this failure stemmed from
the same cause that had prompted US intervention in the first place: in addition to a wide-ranging
guerrilla presence, enemy main forces were on the loose in large numbers. Abrams’s strategy proved no
more successful in containing or destroying them than Westmoreland’s had been.
Another work with a great deal of credibility within the Army is Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife:
Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, by John A. Nagl, a serving Army officer. Like
Sorley’s book, Nagl’s work is making the rounds among Army officers. According to one report, General
Schoomaker so liked the book that he made it required reading for all four-star generals, and General
George Casey, the former commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, gave Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld a copy during a visit.9F10

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Nagl attempted to fit the Vietnamese model of revolutionary warfare into a Maoist structure, but the
Vietnamese, in the strategy and operational art they adopted, did not really subscribe to that model. While
the Chinese Communists had a large amount of control over the outcome of their civil war – which was
basically a local conflict – the Vietnamese Communists faced much more powerful enemies in the French
and later the Americans. A high-level North Vietnamese analysis of the war made clear that the
leadership was well aware of this: ‘The revolution in the South will not follow the path of protracted
armed struggle, surrounding the cities by the countryside and advancing to the liberation of the entire
country by using military forces as China did, but will follow a Vietnamese path.’10F11
Nagl’s view of America’s role in Vietnam is equally skewed. His portrayal leaves the impression of
Viet Cong guerrillas sneaking from the jungle into villages and melting back again whenever confronted.
This war existed, but Nagl completely ignores the enemy main forces. By December 1965, four months
after the first influx of US Army troops in South Vietnam, intelligence counted about 160 Communist
main force battalions (55 of them were North Vietnamese) in South Vietnam and the border regions of
Laos and Cambodia.11F12 Had the Americans split up into small counterinsurgency teams spread throughout
the countryside, the increasing numbers of North Vietnamese troops would have faced no resistance as
they built up along South Vietnam’s western border during late 1965 and early 1966. This would have
been disastrous for South Vietnam. As one US official noted, ‘You just can’t conduct pacification in the
face of an NVA division.’12F13 The reality is that US forces reacted to the enemy on the ground – not the
other way around.
Interestingly, the Army’s embrace of the interpretations put forth by Sorley and Nagl comes in spite
of its own official history, which provides a balanced and detailed account of the war. In the volume on
combat operations during 1965–66, entitled Stemming the Tide, author John Carland concisely sums up
the situation faced by Westmoreland: ‘Without military security, none of the other political, social, and
economic programs sponsored by Saigon and Washington would make much headway. In that respect,
how [Westmoreland] waged the war would change with the nature of the threat and how the situation was
developing.’13F14
In another official Army volume, a history of MACV from 1962 through 1967, author Graham
Cosmas traces the complex history of the command and its struggle to craft a strategy that combined
military and political realities. The even-handed account concludes, ‘General Westmoreland’s disposition
of his forces and conduct of operations were sound within the strategic limitations under which he had to
work [and he had] no alternative to waging what amounted to a defensive war of attrition while trying to
rebuild the Saigon government and restart pacification . . . . However, nothing that he could do in the
south would affect the will and capacity of the North Vietnamese to continue the war. Hence, he was
unable to bring the conflict to an end.’14F15
Despite such clear analysis, the current belief about strategy in Vietnam is apparent: Westmoreland
was wrong and Abrams was right. Therefore, if the Army looks to the strategy used by Abrams and
rejects that employed by Westmoreland, the ‘mistakes’ of Vietnam might be avoided in the future.
Indeed, this thinking is now deeply entrenched within the military. In an article in the influential
Army War College journal Parameters, author Robert M. Cassidy (also a serving Army officer), cites
Sorley when he concludes that Abrams put the war back on course after Westmoreland had fumbled it.
Unfortunately, he claims, this ‘came too late to regain the political support for the war that was
irrevocably squandered during the Westmoreland years . . . .’ Like Sorley, Cassidy wonders what might
have happened with ‘Abrams at the helm, back in 1964.’15F16

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All of these interpretations suffer from two fundamental problems. First, they make no attempt to
examine what the Vietnamese Communists were actually thinking and doing. What was their strategy?
How were they organized? None of the authors cited above make any attempt to define or explain the
enemy faced by the Americans in Vietnam, instead treating it as an amorphous and two-dimensional
entity. Nagl’s book, for example, mentions the North Vietnamese Army only once, leaving readers with
the impression that it was shadowy guerrillas doing the fighting. Second, the authors discussed above
assume that Westmoreland misunderstood the enemy he was facing and that he made poor choices in how
to fight them. Had he done things differently, they argue, the war might have been won. These
conclusions are inaccurate.
The enemy
The popular conception of the enemy in Vietnam is that it was a grassroots insurgency sprung from
the population’s discontent with an illegitimate government in Saigon and the presence of a foreign
invader. There is some accuracy to this image. South Vietnam was plagued by an insurgency and there
was much popular support for it – neither of which can be understated – but the key ingredient throughout
the entire war was North Vietnam. Hanoi controlled the insurgency’s leadership, Hanoi mustered the bulk
of the main force units, and Hanoi sent the supplies south to keep the war going.
Certainly the classic building blocks of a successful insurgency were there. The government of Ngo
Dinh Diem, established in South Vietnam following the Peace Accords of 1955, spent precious years
consolidating power while the Communists laid down roots in the countryside. Despite Diem’s attempts
to attack the Communist political movement, it continued to grow; and in 1960 Hanoi formed the
National Liberation Front to control and cultivate the evolution of the insurgency, adding to the already
potent political infrastructure a burgeoning guerrilla force called the People’s Liberation Armed Forces
(PLAF, called the Viet Cong by both Americans and the South Vietnamese) which quickly moved from
small bands to increasingly large and deadly units. Within two years the insurgency was capable of
launching attacks against government outposts and small military formations. By 1963 the guerrillas were
formed into even larger units – main forces, mostly battalions and regiments – which were a serious threat
to South Vietnam.
Making the situation even worse, Hanoi began adding its own main forces to the mix. By 1963 North
Vietnam’s army (the People’s Army of Vietnam–PAVN) was already beginning to infiltrate units
southward to bolster the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. And it was the combined Northern and Southern
Communist main force units, operating in battalion size or larger, that were threatening the Saigon
government with collapse and precipitated America’s commitment of ground troops.
Very few insurgencies make it to the stage where they can use what Mao called ‘mobile warfare’
(also ‘maneuver warfare,’ frequently called ‘main force warfare’), wherein the guerrillas become main
forces and can engage and defeat the government troops on their own terms. Indeed, the Chinese
Communists used their main forces to drive the Nationalists from the mainland, but the Vietnamese
Communists took it one step further, employing both guerrilla and main force warfare simultaneously
almost from the beginning of their war against the Americans.
Even during the war against the French, the Communists strove to build a large and modern army. By
mid-1950, Communist strength stood at about 250,000 men organized into regular forces, regional forces,
and guerrilla forces. Almost half of them―120,000 men―were in the regular forces, which consisted of
divisions, each with an order of battle that included three regiments of infantry, plus artillery, antiaircraft,
and support units. This was very much an offensive organization, and the Communists strove to make it

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increasingly modern and powerful, a process which would continue right up until their final victory in
1975.16F17
Although the Chinese and the Soviets convinced Hanoi to accept a diplomatic settlement that divided
Vietnam into north and south in July 1954, North Vietnam’s leaders knew that military power was the
key to reunification. Beginning in September 1954 the Party Central Committee decided to ‘build the
People’s Army’ spurred on by Party Chairman Ho Chi Minh’s admonition that ‘The current duty of the
armed forces is to strive to become a regular army.’
By mid-1954 the PAVN was 330,000 strong, organized into an increasingly conventional order of
battle. Modernization became the primary objective, and two years later, according to an official
Communist history, North Vietnam’s army was ‘concentrated into 14 infantry divisions and five
independent infantry regiments, four artillery and anti-aircraft divisions, and a number of regiments and
battalions of engineers, signal troops, and transportation troops with a relatively uniform table of
organization and equipment.’17F18
Changing course
Even at the earliest stages of the war, three crucial factors allowed Hanoi to pursue its goal of
building a modern army and using it in South Vietnam. The first was international military support from
China and later from the Soviet Union. Despite several rifts that pushed the North Vietnamese and
Chinese apart, Beijing continued to send military aid. Chinese sources show that between 1964 and 1975
Hanoi received more than 1.9 million ‘guns’ (small arms) and almost 64,000 artillery pieces, plus
ammunition, as well as almost 600 tanks and 200 aircraft. These figures alone should make it clear that
these were not mere ‘guerrillas’18F19
The second factor, secure base areas in North Vietnam as well as neighboring Laos and Cambodia,
gave the Communists the ability to move troops and supplies to the southern battlefield with virtual
impunity – and to do so with little fear of having to fight on their own home ground. These were
advantages that very few insurgencies ever realize, and Hanoi played them well.
The third factor was the combination of guerrilla and main forces. During the period between 1960
and 1965 Hanoi, acting through the National Liberation Front, built increasingly large Viet Cong units in
South Vietnam aimed at battling the South Vietnamese military on its own terms. The building process
was slow, however. Small battles, aimed at weak points within the South Vietnamese rural defenses, were
the norm, but in some cases the fighting became more intense.
In December 1962, a Viet Cong main force company from the 261st Battalion joined local force
guerrillas and occupied the village of Ap Bac, 65 kilometers southwest of Saigon in the Mekong Delta.
For two weeks the Communists held sway over the village, then on 2 January 1963 the South Vietnamese
sent elements of the 7th Division to push the Viet Cong out. Although the Viet Cong were finally pushed
out of Ap Bac, poor decision making and a lack of aggressiveness by South Vietnamese commanders
highlighted many of the problems that would continue to plague the ARVN (Army of the Republic of
Vietnam) for the rest of the war. Eighty South Vietnamese soldiers and three US advisers were killed
while only eighteen Viet Cong died.19F20
Hanoi continued to escalate the war. In December 1963, the Communist Party Central Committee
held its ninth Plenum, during which it ‘affirmed that the formula for the revolutionary liberation required
a combination of political and military strategies’ but noted that ‘the armed struggle would be the direct
deciding factor in the annihilation of the armed forces of the enemy.’ In addition, concluded the Plenum,

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‘[W]e should strive to take advantage of opportunities to secure a decisive victory in a relatively short
period of time.’20F21 The best way to win, according to another Communist history, was for the North
Vietnamese to ‘send individual regular main force units (battalions and regiments) from the North into
South Vietnam and to form large main force armies on the battlefields of South Vietnam.’21F22 The use of
these new and ‘very large and powerful military forces [would] create a fundamental change in the
balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy.’22F23
North Vietnamese troops moved into South Vietnam almost immediately. According to an official
history of the PAVN 312th Division, ‘In the spring of 1963, the first battalion of the division was sent
South, 600 cadre and enlisted men, crossed the Ben Hai River [the Demilitarized Zone],’ where they
engaged a South Vietnamese Army company. In the spring of 1964 a second battalion went south, this
time to the coastal region of central South Vietnam. These units would form the core of the burgeoning
North Vietnamese main force presence in the South, in particular the PAVN 325th Division, which
moved south in March 1964.23F24
In September 1964, the Party Central Committee reinforced its previous decisions on main force war
with a decision ‘to mobilize … the entire armed forces to concentrate all our capabilities to bring about a
massive change in the direction and pace of expansion of our main force army on the battlefield, to launch
strong massed combat operations at the campaign level, and to seek to win a decisive victory within the
next few years.’24F25 During a meeting held from 25 to 29 September 1964, the Politburo ordered the
Central Military Party Committee and the PAVN General Staff to prepare a strategic plan and ‘to conduct
battles of annihilation to shatter a significant portion of the enemy’s regular army.’ Communist leaders
were particularly anxious ‘to completely defeat the puppet army before the US armed forces had time to
intervene.’25F26
To reinforce the decision, that same month Hanoi sent General Nguyen Chi Thanh to South Vietnam
to oversee personally the main force expansion and to direct the coming campaign as the leader of the
Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), Hanoi’s political headquarters and military theater command
for the southern half of South Vietnam. Thanh was a conventional soldier, not a guerrilla leader, and he
brought with him ‘many high-level cadre with experience in building up main force units and in leading
and directing massed combat operations.’26F27 Thanh’s orders from the Central Military Party Committee
were to ‘launch a campaign during the 1964–1965 winter-spring period aimed at destroying a significant
number of puppet regular army units and [to expand] our liberated zones,’27F28 which he planned to
accomplish with ‘powerful main force “fists”.’28F29
The fighting escalated immediately. Beginning in late 1964 a series of multi-battalion battles
punctuated the Communists’ main force emphasis and showed clearly that South Vietnam was going to
lose the war without US intervention. The Communists claimed victory, calling the battles ‘the first full-
fledged campaign to be conducted by COSVN main force units’ in southern South Vietnam.29F30 The PAVN
history notes that by the end of January 1965, main force units (both North Vietnamese and Viet Cong)
‘had fought five regiment-level and two battalion-level battles’ in a little over one month.’ By February
Hanoi believed that the South Vietnamese Army ‘was in danger of annihilation.’30F31
To stave off defeat, American Marines landed at Danang in March 1965, followed in May by the
173rd Airborne Brigade and the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division in July. By the end of the year
the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Infantry Division were also deployed, bringing the total of US Army
personnel in country to 116,800.31F32
The Communists’ emphasis would remain on main force warfare, despite the fact that such a strategy
would certainly bring their troops face-to-face with the fearsome force of American firepower. However,

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argued historian and North Vietnamese specialist William Duiker, to do anything else would have been
‘unpalatable’ to Hanoi. ‘To downgrade the level of insurgency and retreat to the stage of guerrilla warfare
would be to lose the initiative on the battlefield.’32F33
The scene was set for the next round of fighting – the ‘American war.’ Clearly, events show that
‘classic’ guerrilla war was not the Communists’ main vehicle for victory. As the United States was
building up its ground forces in South Vietnam, Hanoi was also adding more units to the battlefield.
During the spring of 1965 Hanoi sent seven new regiments to South Vietnam, along with ‘scores of
sapper, artillery, and other specialty branch battalions [which] poured down the Annamite Mountain
chain, marching to the battlefront.’33F34
Communist histories leave no doubt that building and using Hanoi’s main forces was the primary
strategy during 1964 and 1965. Guerrilla war, though important, was secondary at this point. ‘In practical
terms,’ concluded one official Communist history, ‘it was impossible to use a protracted guerrilla war to
gain victory through a general insurrection. Instead, we had to advance “in the direction of securing
incremental victories, pushing the enemy back step by step, and progressing toward a general offensive
insurrection,” using political struggle and armed struggle side by side, but the armed struggle had to
follow the laws of war, which are to destroy the enemy’s combat strength.’34F35
Westmoreland’s dilemma
The Communist emphasis on main force combat changed everything in South Vietnam. What had
been primarily a guerrilla war in 1961 evolved into the use of increasingly formidable units in 1963, and
two years later it was moving toward even larger armed confrontations with the introduction of North
Vietnamese units. Concentrating on counterinsurgency during those first few years did little to hinder Viet
Cong recruitment―and it did absolutely nothing to stop the North Vietnamese buildup. Therefore,
General Westmoreland, who took command of MACV in June 1964, would have been foolish to view the
situation as purely an insurgency. As he wrote in his memoirs, ‘The enemy had committed big units and I
ignored them at my peril.’35F36
Westmoreland understood the dual nature of the threat he faced, yet he believed that the enemy main
forces were the most immediate problem. By way of analogy, he referred to them as ‘bully boys with
crowbars’ who were trying to tear down the house that was South Vietnam. The guerrillas and political
cadre –which he called ‘termites’ – could also destroy everything, but it would take them much longer to
do it. So while he clearly understood the need for pacification, his attention turned first to the ‘bully boys,’
whom he wanted to drive away from the ‘house.’36F37
This thinking did not come so much from a ‘conventional mindset’ on the part of Westmoreland but
rather from watching the situation on the ground in South Vietnam. On 6 March 1965, two days before
the first US Marines waded ashore near Danang, Westmoreland sent a report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
outlining the situation as he saw it. Much of the country ‘has been steadily deteriorating since mid-1964,’
he wrote, and in some parts of South Vietnam the ‘deterioration process must be regarded as critical.’
Throughout the country ‘the Viet Cong hold the initiative,’ and they ‘are implanting a sense of the
inevitability of [Communist] success.’ South Vietnamese forces were ‘on the defensive and pacification
efforts have stopped.’37F38
Within a few months, these observations were borne out. On 7 June Westmoreland reported that the
war ‘is in the process of moving to a higher level. Some PAVN forces have entered SVN and more may
well be on the way.’ In the near term, he predicted, things would get even worse. The Viet Cong ‘have not
employed their full capabilities,’ and only a handful of regiments had been committed by the

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Communists. ‘In most engagements, VC main force units have displayed improved training and
discipline, heavier firepower from a new family of weapons … and a willingness to take heavy losses in
order to achieve objectives.’38F39
The South Vietnamese, on the other hand, were continuing to disintegrate. ‘The Viet Cong are
destroying [ARVN] battalions faster than they can be reconstituted,’ warned Westmoreland.39F40 In addition,
the South Vietnamese ‘are beginning to show signs of reluctance to assume the offensive and in some
cases their steadfastness under fire is coming into doubt.’ Westmoreland concluded that the situation
would only get worse. ‘I believe that the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam] will
commit whatever forces it deems necessary to tip the balance and that the GVN [government of Vietnam,
or South Vietnam] cannot stand up successfully to this kind of pressure without reinforcement.’40F41
The only solution was increased American intervention in order to stave off South Vietnam’s
inevitable defeat. Westmoreland asked for 44 maneuver battalions, 10 of them from third countries, such
as South Korea and Australia. Within six months total US strength in country was 184,300. Although
Westmoreland believed that he could ‘reestablish the military balance’ by the end of 1965, he cautioned
General Earle G. Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that reaching Washington’s objective of
‘convincing the DRV/VC they cannot win’ was out of the question. The Communists are ‘too deeply
committed to be influenced by anything but application of overpowering force.’ The MACV commander
believed that the ‘infusion’ of allied ground forces ‘will not per se cause the enemy to back off.’41F42
Despite the obvious need for immediate action to correct the dangerous course of events,
Westmoreland understood that the war was not going to be a conventional one. He knew full well that this
was a new kind of conflict, one which would be ‘focused upon the population―that is, upon the people.’
He realized that after the initial danger to South Vietnam was past the focus of the conflict would change.
‘There is no doubt whatsoever that the insurgency in South Vietnam must eventually be defeated among
the people in the hamlets and towns,’ he wrote in one of his planning documents. ‘However, in order to
defeat the insurgency among the people, they must be provided security,’ which he believed would be
twin-faceted. The first was to keep the enemy main forces away from the population, the second was to
prevent ‘the guerrilla, the assassin, the terrorist, the informer’ from undermining the South Vietnamese
government by worming their way into the countryside. American engagement of the ‘hardcore’ enemy
main forces would ‘permit the concentration of Vietnamese troops in the heavily populated areas around
the coast, around Saigon and in the Delta.’42F43
This became the accepted course of action at the highest levels. During a meeting in Saigon during
July 1965, which included South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu and US Secretary of Defense
Robert S. McNamara, the allies set forth the division of labor. The Americans would ‘stop and destroy
units coming from DRV into South Vietnam’ and ‘destroy all major VC main force units’ in South
Vietnam. The South Vietnamese job was ‘to engage in pacification programs and to protect the
population.’43F44
It is difficult to see why this plan has come to be regarded as controversial by so many historians.
Those who argue that there was a choice between an approach that first sought to neutralize the enemy
main forces and one that would have instead emphasized pacification and counterinsurgency ignore the
stark realities on the ground. South Vietnam was on the verge of outright defeat. Once the decision was
made in Washington to commit US forces to the survival of South Vietnam, there was no other way to
approach the issue. Westmoreland did the only thing he could. It is logical to place the strongest
forces―the Americans―in a position to tackle enemy main force units, while the South
Vietnamese―who had failed to deal with those very same main forces―turned their attention instead

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toward area security―in areas populated with their own people, with whom they shared language and
culture.
Alternatives
Was there another way forward? Two major issues arose at the time, but neither really provided
solutions. The first was the so-called enclave strategy, first put forth by Ambassador to South Vietnam
Maxwell Taylor and later endorsed by Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson, which proposed
confining US forces to zones centered in base areas around populated coastal cities in order to minimize
the number of US troops. The South Vietnamese Army would do the fighting in the countryside while the
Americans protected the population.
This was unworkable for two reasons. First, if the South Vietnamese military was on the ropes―as all
reports clearly indicated―there was little likelihood that they would suddenly rally and defeat the
Communists simply because the Americans were watching their backs. Second, it was naïve to assume
that, as foreigners, Americans could pacify towns and villages.
In addition, Westmoreland believed that enclaves were, in the words of one observer, an ‘inglorious,
static use of US forces in overpopulated areas’ and that leaving them in vulnerable enclaves along the
coast ceded the initiative to the enemy. In an interview after the war he pointed out that an enclave
strategy ‘in effect turned over the major portion of Vietnam to the enemy, where he had free rein, and we
would just be holed up in small enclaves . . . . I didn’t feel that from enclaves you could hurt the enemy.’
President Johnson, who at first approved the cautious idea, finally rejected enclaves after deciding that
‘We can’t hunker down like a jackass in a hailstorm.’44F45
Some historians also point to a second issue, a plan which might have provided an alternative:
PROVN, ‘A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam,’ a study published in
March 1966. The study purported to be a nation-building blueprint that ‘stressed that pacification should
be designated as a major American-South Vietnamese effort.’ Lewis Sorley has portrayed PROVN as the
corrective to Westmoreland’s strategy, and because of this, he has written, it was doomed from the start.
MACV, Sorley wrote, ‘was obligated to reject out-of-hand the PROVN findings, because they of course
repudiated everything Westmoreland was doing.’45F46
Westmoreland did reject some of the findings, though he agreed with most of study’s core principles.
In a memo to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral U.S.G. Sharp, Westmoreland called the study
‘an excellent overall approach in developing organization, concepts, and policies to defeat communist
insurgency in South Vietnam.’46F47
But PROVN was no solution to the war, nor was it really an alternative to Westmoreland’s strategy.
What did the PROVN Study actually say? First, it outlined several ‘obstacles’ to an allied victory in
South Vietnam, the first of which was a ‘well-led and adequately supported communist political-military
machine’ that threatened South Vietnam. The second obstacle was ‘an inefficient and largely ineffective
[South Vietnamese] government’ that was ‘neither representative of nor responsive to the people.’ These
were, of course, the two major reasons why the United States had intervened with its own main forces in
Vietnam in the first place.47F48
The study conceded that the all-important first step was the elimination of enemy main forces.
According to the study’s ‘Concept of National Operations,’ the prerequisite to pacification was: ‘The
deployment of US and FWMAF [Free World Military Assistance Forces] to destroy PAVN and Main
Force VC units and base areas and to reduce external support.’ This was precisely what Westmoreland

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sought with his ‘big unit war.’ PROVN acknowledged, ‘Rural Construction can progress significantly
only in conjunction with the effective neutralization of major forces. The bulk of US-FWMAF and
designated ARVN units must be directed against base areas and against lines of communication in SVN,
Laos and Cambodia.’ Until the main forces were out of the way, according to the study, pacification
would be ‘a secondary mission.’48F49
In the final analysis, the PROVN study was unsatisfactory and unrealistic. The Defense Department’s
voluminous study of the war―the so-called Pentagon Papers―concluded that there were ‘some major
gaps’ in the study’s evidence and many of its recommendations were ‘vague and hortatory.’ One of its
most blatant weaknesses was PROVN’s ‘unstated assumption that our commitment in Vietnam had no
implicit time limits [and] it proposed a strategy which it admitted would take years―perhaps well into the
1970s―to carry out.’ In the end, claimed the Pentagon Papers, ‘the report did little to prove that Vietnam
was ready for pacification.’49F50
Critics also point to a program already in place in Vietnam as one which could have borne fruit―if
Westmoreland had allowed it to do so. Beginning in 1965 the US Marines began joining rifle squads with
South Vietnamese territorial force militia platoons into Combined Action Platoons (CAP). These
combined teams lived, worked, and fought side by side in villages throughout I Corps as they prepared
the South Vietnamese to fight on their own. One account has claimed that the Marine Corps CAPs ‘just
might have been a viable alternative to MACV’s “big battalions” strategy.’50F51
Westmoreland agreed that the program was effective, but he did not encourage Army units to
participate because he believed that the main forces were too big a threat to warrant such a dispersal of
manpower. The MACV commander also feared that breaking units into such small groups risked their
being defeated by bigger Communist formations. Indeed, by 1966, increasingly large North Vietnamese
units were entering I Corps, causing the Marines to devote 35% of their time to operations using larger
units – a marked increase from the 11% the year before―and by 1967 Marine operations in support of
pacification ‘fell seriously behind its goals,’ concluded Andrew Birtle in his study of Army
counterinsurgency doctrine. ‘By the end of 1968 not a single CAP village had progressed to the point
where the marines could withdraw their men.’51F52
This was not necessarily because the program was inadequate, but rather because the enemy held the
initiative – and no single pacification program was going to change that. As one important study
concluded, by 1967 the increasing numbers of North Vietnamese forces in I Corps meant that ‘in the
experience of the Marines the purely counter-guerrilla and counterinsurgency operations played less and
less a part in their war’ as the North Vietnamese turned up the operational heat in I Corps. ‘In fact, even
against their will [the Marines] were compelled to reorient themselves against the PAVN. It was not
counter-insurgency doctrine that skewed America’s strategy; rather, the basic parameters of limited war
are what stayed a full response to the northern threat.’52F53
The CAP program did experience increasing gains between 1968 and 1970 (the year of the CAP
program’s end), but the reality was that the situation on the ground―not simply a matter of
‘choice’―meant the Marine effort was always small. CAPs never amounted to more than 3% of total
Marine manpower in South Vietnam, and only 90 villages (less than 20% of the total number in the
region) in the Marines’ area of operations ever saw a CAP team.53F54
Westmoreland and pacification
According to many accounts, pacification was all but ignored during the first three years of the war. It
certainly could have received more attention than it did, but MACV strategy was not the main reason that

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it did not. Indeed, it was Westmoreland who implemented many pacification programs and presided over
ultimate reform in the effort. The term the ‘other war’ is often used to describe the secondary role
pacification played in the US strategy, but the record shows something quite different.
Pacification was always at the center of South Vietnamese planning, though the outcome rarely lived
up to expectations. The Strategic Hamlet program in 1962–63 failed because the government forced
peasants to relocate from their ancestral villages. Later programs avoided that shortsighted pitfall, but
they were no more successful. In early 1964, the Chien Thang (‘Victory’) program envisioned an ‘oil
spot’ strategy, with police and paramilitary forces moving from secure areas and spreading out to
contested villages as they grew stronger. American advisers were involved, but the South Vietnamese
military still did not give it much support, leaving civilian agencies to do most of the work. General
Westmoreland enthusiastically supported such programs, but was frustrated by the lack of a balanced
civil–military effort. By February 1965 he had concluded that pacification had so many problems that, in
itself, it could not take back the initiative from the Communists.54F55
As American troops arrived in Vietnam in mid-1965, Westmoreland turned back toward pacification.
In September he wrote in a key directive that ‘the war in Vietnam is a political as well as a military war . .
. . [T]he ultimate goal is to regain the loyalty and cooperation of the people, and to create conditions
which permit the people to go about their normal lives in peace and security ….’ The trick was to find a
way to do this – and accomplish it in the face of increasing pressure from enemy main forces.55F56
Integration of military operations and pacification was always one of Westmoreland’s goals, despite
the popular belief that he was single-mindedly wedded to a conventional war approach. In January 1966,
Westmoreland wrote, ‘It is abundantly clear that all political, military, economic and security (police)
programs must be completely integrated in order to attain any kind of success.’ He believed it was a
‘misconception’ to regard pacification as ‘a function which can be set aside and handled by some single
mission element or agency. Almost every aspect of US activity in South Vietnam bears directly on
pacification.’ Westmoreland wanted pacification plans at the provincial level to be based ‘upon the
integration of the military and civilian effort,’ and he looked to the Communists as an example, noting,
‘The Viet Cong have learned this lesson well. Their integration of effort surpasses ours by a large order of
magnitude.’56F57
This attitude was reflected in MACV’s campaign planning for 1966 (submitted in the fall of 1965),
which, in addition to chasing enemy main forces, also called for ‘clearing operations on a systematic basis
to purge specific areas of Viet Cong elements as a prelude to pacification.’ It was not enough simply to
drive the main forces (or even destroy them), concluded the directive: ‘[A]n area cannot be considered
pacified until these Viet Cong activities have been identified and either destroyed or removed, and until
the services and activities of the Government of Vietnam have been fully reinstated.’57F58
Of course, strategic thinking was one thing, battlefield realities another. While Westmoreland wanted
to combine both pacification and the main force fight, it was not to be. In a message up the chain of
command, he confessed, ‘The threat of the enemy main forces has been of such magnitude that fewer
friendly troops could be devoted to general area security and support of [pacification] than visualized at
the time our plans were prepared for the period.’58F59
While Westmoreland believed that pacification was crucial―and that it had to be primarily a South
Vietnamese task―Saigon did not always agree. Vietnamese officials often balked at using their troops to
secure the countryside, arguing that such a job was ‘secondary.’ Historian Richard Hunt wrote,
‘Americans could not serve as surrogates for South Vietnamese officials or government-run programs.

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The critical variable in pacification was the ability of the South Vietnamese themselves. To be effective,
the government had to follow up military operations with reliable services and dependable security.’59F60
Westmoreland continued to urge the South Vietnamese to take responsibility for pacification, using
his senior commanders to ‘intensify’ pressure on Saigon officials to support pacification and to convince
them that the new mission should not be regarded as a ‘backseat of military operations,’ but rather the
most important mission they could fulfill.60F61
In addition to South Vietnamese indifference, pacification languished under a disjointed and
ineffective administrative system run through the US Embassy. This needed to be changed, and when
President Johnson in 1966 demanded a revamping of the moribund pacification system, sending his
envoy, Robert W. Komer, to get the job done, Westmoreland fully supported the undertaking. Despite
objections from his staff, the MACV commander said, ‘I’m not asking for the responsibility, but I believe
that my headquarters could take it in stride and perhaps carry out this important function more
economically and efficiently than the present complex arrangement.’61F62
In May 1967, with extensive personal support from Westmoreland, the basic building block of the
pacification program – the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) organization –
was formed. Under MACV, the military would take over what had been a divided and ineffective
program run by the civilian agencies in Saigon. While CORDS did not take off until after the 1968 Tet
Offensive decimated the Communists’ hold over much of the countryside, all of the programs used to
good effect then were begun under Westmoreland.62F63
Stalemate
Westmoreland’s strategy worked in the sense that it saved South Vietnam from immediate defeat,
pushed the enemy main forces away from the populated areas, and temporarily took the initiative away
from the Communists. South Vietnam was preserved in the short term, but there was much more to be
done. In addition to operations aimed at trying to bring the North Vietnamese into pitched battles,
Westmoreland also struck at base areas inside South Vietnam that were crucial to the enemy’s logistical
pipeline.
These operations badly hurt the Communists. According to one analysis, ‘American search-and-
destroy missions disrupted the planned operations of the Viet Cong and thus made it more difficult for the
Communists to seize the initiative. This became increasingly obvious to Hanoi in late 1965 and early
1966.’63F64 Another concluded, ‘If we look at the battlefield in January 1967 [according to the three phases
of Maoist warfare], the communists had been pushed back from the offensive to at best the equilibrium
phase and in many areas to the initial or defensive stage.’64F65
Communist histories make it clear that their troops were suffering from the constant search and
destroy missions, especially those that targeted logistical base areas inside South Vietnam, such as
Operations JUNCTION CITY in January 1967 and CEDAR FALLS the following month – both in the
region north and west of Saigon. According to one account, the ‘many logistics bases of the region …
were subject to very fierce enemy attacks’ that decimated their supply lines. North Vietnamese soldiers
were reduced to eating ‘bamboo shoots, wild leaves, and roots.’ The result was increased Communist
reliance on the Cambodian base areas – which remained off-limits to US attacks.65F66
In addition to a lack of food, Westmoreland’s attacks against the enemy’s internal bases hampered the
infiltration of new North Vietnamese troops, though not enough to have a decisive effect. A Communist
resolution published in May 1967 admitted that ‘we are still encountering problems in obtaining

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replacements and reinforcements’ inside South Vietnam, which allowed the Americans and South
Vietnamese ‘to seize a number of areas and gain control over a larger portion of the population.’66F67
By spring 1967, the consensus among the Communist leadership was that the high intensity main
force campaign was unsuccessful, and thus the North Vietnamese shifted their strategy. Military planners
turned away from General Nguyen Chi Thanh and his main force emphasis (Thanh died in Hanoi in July
1967), opting instead for a standoff strategy. North Vietnamese units now rarely sought out battles with
the Americans, and main force units either split up or faded into the jungles to await new developments.
During 1967, US intelligence statistics counted 1,484 attacks by ‘small units’―usually defined as
company size or smaller―up by more than 80% over the previous year. It was the largest such increase of
any year during the war. The years 1965 and 1966 saw the largest percentage of attacks by battalion-size
units or larger―even greater than in 1968 and 1972, the years of the two biggest offensives of the war.67F68
Despite the change in enemy strategy, Westmoreland continued to seek out the enemy main forces,
though by mid-1967 they were even less likely to stand and fight. This was the high-water mark of US
intervention. The Americans had stemmed the tide, but could not do enough to turn it back. The
Communists, though battered and bloodied, still maintained the initiative, able to attack at will and retreat
across the border if unsuccessful.
Westmoreland had failed. Despite succeeding early in the war against the enemy main forces, he did
not see that, in a way, he had been lucky. For almost two years the North Vietnamese chose to fight a war
that often played to the American advantages of technology, mobility, and firepower. Once Hanoi realized
its error and backed off from main force attacks, they were more successful. Of course, the main forces
were still there―they were just more dispersed―and the Communists could use them again when the
appropriate time came.
On the other hand, Westmoreland should not receive all the blame. The roots of the attrition strategy
lay in Washington, not Saigon, and they were misguided from the start. That Westmoreland was
ultimately unable to do more than temporarily keep the enemy main forces away from the South
Vietnamese population was a result of the White House decision to declare major Communist base areas
in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam off-limits to attack. The result was that the allies would always be
on the strategic defensive in South Vietnam, awaiting attacks from the North Vietnamese, who could limp
back cross the border to recover whenever they were bloodied. In June 1968, as he was leaving his post in
Saigon, General Westmoreland completed a lengthy review of the war, ‘Report on the War in Vietnam,’
in which he (along with Admiral U.S.G. Sharp, the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific) argued that US policy
preventing an invasion of North Vietnam or any meaningful attacks against Communist base areas in
Laos and Cambodia ‘made it impossible to destroy the enemy’s main forces in a traditional or classic
sense.’68F69
Hanoi could not have agreed more. According to the official PAVN history, this was crucial to their
ultimate victory: ‘A solid rear area was a factor of decisive strategic importance to the victory of the
resistance and was of decisive importance for our army to mature and win victory,’ it concluded. By
making those base areas off-limits to attack, the United States gave North Vietnam an unbeatable
advantage.69F70
Another problem was the way attrition came to be defined in Vietnam. Killing enough soldiers to
curtail his capacity to fight on is a basic tenet of warfare through the ages. However, in Vietnam it
sometimes became an end unto itself. There was much talk about a ‘crossover point’ where the number of
enemy soldiers being killed would outstrip the ability to replace them. Westmoreland was quoted as
saying in 1967, ‘We’ll just go on bleeding them until Hanoi wakes up to the fact that they have bled their

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country to the point of national disaster for generations.’70F71 This was an unrealistic hope. As British
counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson observed, ‘all the people of North Vietnam had to do
between 1965 and 1968 was to exist and breed’ in order to thwart the attrition strategy.71F72
Indeed, various studies showed that there was no way to kill enough enemy soldiers to prevent them
from continuing to fight. A joint CIA–Defense Intelligence Agency report showed that in a ‘worst case
scenario’ the enemy was losing about 300,000 men per year. With local recruitment in South Vietnam
running at about 85,000, Hanoi had to make up 220,000 men per year. But more than 120,000 young men
in North Vietnam reached draft age each year, more than enough to supplement other men already in the
draft pool. Other intelligence reports were more pessimistic, predicting that North Vietnam would have
more than enough draft-age men for the foreseeable future.72F73
A major statistical study published just after the war concluded, ‘It was becoming apparent as early as
late 1966 that the US military strategy of attrition was in trouble.’ After more than two years of American
operations, the number of North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam amounted to less than 2% of North
Vietnam’s male labor force. At the current rate of loss, Hanoi could continue fighting at the same rate for
about 30 years.73F74
Reports such as these finally led Secretary of Defense McNamara, one of the architects of the
numbers game, to conclude in November 1966, ‘We have no prospects of attriting the enemy force at a
rate equal to or greater than his ability to infiltrate or recruit.’74F75
The other kind of attrition was one of will: kill enough soldiers to show the leaders in Hanoi that they
could not win. This was a pillar of US strategy from the early 1960s, and it culminated in the ‘gradual
escalation’ policy used both in troop increases as well as bombing North Vietnam. The Johnson
administration hoped to ‘convince’ Hanoi that it could not succeed in the South, but from the beginning it
was clear that this would not work.
While Washington had been hoping Hanoi would back off, Westmorland believed such an approach
was futile. In a report to Washington in October 1966, he wrote that the enemy ‘believes that his will and
resolve are greater than ours. He expects that he will be the victor in a war of attrition in which our
interest will eventually wane.’75F76
However, it would be another year before it was clear to everyone that Hanoi was never going to back
down. McNamara said it best. ‘Nothing can be expected to break [the Communists’] will other than the
conviction that they cannot succeed,’ he wrote to President Johnson just before his resignation in
November 1967. ‘This conviction will not be created unless and until they come to the conclusion that the
US is prepared to remain in Vietnam for whatever period of time is necessary.’ It was ironic that one of
the men most responsible for attrition strategy was now backing away from it.76F77
So what was left? The two cornerstones of US strategy―applying military force sufficient to
convince Hanoi to cease fighting, and destroying more enemy troops than he could replace―had failed,
despite the American battlefield successes in 1965 and 1966. Pacification would have made little
difference in these early years―even if the South Vietnamese had been willing to make it a priority―
because the security situation in the countryside was still not stabilized.
But the ultimate symbol of American strategic failure was still to come―the Tet Offensive. In
January 1968, the Viet Cong (relatively few North Vietnamese units were involved) attacked almost
every major city and town; and, though all were pushed back and as many as 50,000 enemy soldiers and
guerrillas were killed, the offensive proved to be a political victory for the Communists. Despite more

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than two years of fighting by allied forces, they could not take and hold the initiative, and now the United
States was running out of time.
A different war?
In July 1968 General Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland’s deputy, took command of MACV.
Historian Lewis Sorley argued that Abrams ‘brought to the post a radically different understanding of the
nature of the war and how it ought to be prosecuted’ and that he executed a ‘dramatic shift in concept of
the nature and conduct’ of operations that ‘differed in almost all important respects’ from that of his
predecessor.77F78
There is little evidence to support this. Sorley quotes former officers claiming that Abrams intended
to use a new strategy,78F79 but no record has emerged of any disagreements raised by Abrams as the deputy
MACV commander over Westmoreland’s conduct of the war. In fact, General Phillip B. Davidson, the
MACV intelligence chief between 1967 and 1969, wrote, ‘Abrams never spoke of any new strategy nor
did he voice any dissatisfaction with large-unit search and destroy operations.’79F80 Westmoreland himself
recalled no disagreements over strategy. ‘He [Abrams] and I consulted about almost every tactical action,’
Westmoreland claimed. ‘I considered his views in great depth because I had admiration for him and I’d
known him for many years. And I do not remember a single instance where our views and the courses of
action we thought were proper differed in any way.’80F81
In the end, it is a meaningless debate because both MACV commanders could only do so much. The
ultimate advantages held by the Communists―off-limits base areas, a plentiful manpower pool in the
North, and a relatively weak South Vietnamese government and military―were perhaps too formidable to
overcome.
But Abrams had one advantage. The post-Tet Offensive environment allowed him to do things that
Westmoreland could not do. The enemy main forces that faced the Americans in 1969 were, for the most
part, well away from the population, and the guerrilla cadres in the villages had been decimated during
the Tet attacks. The war was now much more a ‘classic’ insurgency, though the enemy main forces were
still very dangerous. As Robert Komer, the first chief of CORDS, observed, ‘It was the enemy’s losses,
perhaps, as much as CORDS and Vietnamese government efforts which led to the striking pacification
expansion between 1969 and 1972.’81F82
Although he was under no illusions about his new job, Abrams had plenty of optimism for the future.
The Communists had lost upwards of 35,000 soldiers and guerrillas during the Tet Offensive, including a
large percentage of their covert political underground cadre, the glue that held the insurgency together in
the villages. The enemy’s weakness (however temporary) meant that allied operations could move
forward with much less resistance than had been the case only eight months earlier. In October Abrams
reported, ‘There’s more freedom of movement throughout Vietnam today than there’s been since the start
of the US build up.’ He credited stepped-up allied operations as well as the weakened state of the enemy.
‘This situation presents an opportunity for further offensives operations.’82F83
Attrition remained a goal, and Abrams – like Westmoreland before him –intended to chase the enemy
wherever he could. ‘[I]s there a practical way to cause significant attrition [to the enemy] while he’s in
this condition?’ the MACV commander asked his subordinates on 4 July 1968. ‘Because … the payoff is
getting a hold of [the enemy] and killing as many of them as you can.’83F84 His deputy, General Frederick
W. Weyand, reflected this thinking. During a meeting a few weeks later he said, ‘I think the biggest thing
we can do [now] is just to kill VC, and I mean these main units.’84F85

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In order to do this, Abrams used most of his units in large operations aimed at denying the enemy
access to the population – much as Westmoreland had done. In the fall of 1968, he moved the 1st Cavalry
Division to the region west of Saigon, using the unit’s airmobility to run constant offensive operations
along the border where it would ‘be in a good posture for pouncing on any new [enemy] units coming
over from Cambodia.’85F86 In I Corps he used the 101st Airborne Division in the controversial A Shau
Valley campaign in an attempt to prevent the North Vietnamese from moving men and materiel from the
Laotian base areas and into the populated coastal regions. In the Central Highlands, the 4th Infantry
Division continued its wide-ranging operations aimed at keeping the enemy back over the border. Indeed,
many of Abrams’s operations could be called ‘search and destroy’―such as the large-unit sweep in May
1969 that included the controversial battle on ‘Hamburger Hill’ in the A Shau Valley. As Westmoreland
pointed out, ‘There was no alternative to ‘search and destroy’ type operations, except, of course, a
different name for them.’86F87
These operations paid off, and throughout the summer and fall of 1968, the enemy remained on the
ropes, giving General Abrams some breathing room. ‘The enemy has made a major decision to shift his
emphasis from the military to the political,’ Abrams reported. ‘This decision was forced upon him by the
enemy’s own recognition of his rapidly deteriorating military posture; and as a result, there will be a
decided change in his ground tactical activity and deployment.’ The enemy’s ‘reduced military
capabilities’ gave the allies the perfect chance to ‘pull the rug’ from under Communist attempts to reassert
control over the population.87F88
In October 1968, Abrams outlined his operational concept up the chain of command. ‘Another point
evident in the enemy’s operational pattern is his understanding that this is just one, repeat, one, war,’ he
wrote to Admiral John S. McCain, the new Commander-in-Chief, Pacific. ‘He knows there’s no such
thing as a war of big battalions, a war of pacification, or a war of territorial security, Friendly forces have
got to recognize and understand the one war concept and carry the battle to the enemy, simultaneously, in
all areas of conflict. In the employment of forces, all elements are to be brought together in a single plan –
all assets brought to bear against the enemy in every area, in accordance with the way the enemy does
business.’88F89
This was really a change in name only. It is clear that Westmoreland had also wanted to accomplish
all these things in concert but found it impossible to do so. Indeed, MACV’s goals for 1969―submitted
less than two weeks after the ‘one war’ pronouncement―remained broad and strikingly familiar. ‘All
elements’ of allied forces were to be involved in a ‘campaign to destroy the VC infrastructure, guerrillas,
local forces, main forces, and remaining NVA in-country,’ reported Abrams, goals that differed little from
Westmoreland’s. Abrams also understood that it would remain a primary focus of US forces to ‘maintain
an adequate posture against the NVA forces,’ both in South Vietnam and lurking in Cambodia.89F90 Once
again, US forces would be required to deal with enemy main forces, which really meant that whenever
they showed up, pacification would become secondary. ‘One war’ did nothing to change the battlefield
calculus.90F91
Communist retrenchment
Clearly the Tet Offensive was a military setback for the Communists. By mid 1968, ‘our offensive
posture began to weaken and our … armed forces suffered attrition,’ admitted the official PAVN history.
‘[M]ost of our main force troops were forced back to the border or to bases in the mountains.’ Many of
those still in South Vietnam ‘were forced to disperse down to the company and platoon level, and some
regiments were even forced to disperse down to the squad level.’91F92

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In April the North Vietnamese issued COSVN Directive 55, part of which stressed the need to alter
the old strategy. One passage read: ‘Never again, and under no circumstances are we going to risk our
entire military force for just an offensive. On the contrary, we should endeavor to preserve our military
potential for future campaigns.’92F93
Three months later, the Communists published a document that would define the shape of the war for
the next few years. Called Resolution 9, it lauded the ‘victories’ of the Tet Offensive, observing, ‘We
gained very great successes under extremely difficult, harsh, and complicated conditions [that] forced the
enemy to go from a policy of escalation to one of gradual de-escalation and to sink deeper into a
defensive and deadlocked position.’ However, heavy losses among the Communist forces (not admitted to
in the resolution) and the allied strategy of ‘vigorously push[ing] forward the rural pacification program’
made it necessary to alter course. Resolution 9 ordered, ‘We must urgently step up guerrilla warfare,
forcing the enemy to stretch thin his forces . . . . We must firmly grasp and more properly apply the
combat method which combines small-scale attacks’ with the larger-scale attacks emphasized in previous
years. Particular emphasis would be placed on rebuilding the political infrastructure lost during the Tet
Offensive.93F94
It was clear, however, that the guerrilla war phase was meant to be temporary. In December 1969,
General Giap wrote ‘Only through regular war in which the main force troops fight in a concentrated
manner’ could the Communists ‘create conditions for great strides in the war.’94F95
Accelerated pacification
In November 1968, the allies launched the Accelerated Pacification Campaign (APC), a three-month
blitz to regain control of many of the villages lost during Tet. Such a plan, had it been tried in 1966,
would have been impossible in the face of enemy main forces; but Abrams concluded that by late 1968
that the Communists were weak enough that allied forces needed to use only a small percentage of their
forces as a screen against large enemy attacks, using the rest to support pacification. ‘The order of the day
is to intensify your offensive against the infrastructure, guerrillas and local force units, while maintaining
unrelenting pressure on the VC/NVA main force units,’ Abrams told his subordinate commanders.95F96
Unquestionably, the degree of American attention to pacification rose considerably during the APC.
Before the campaign, concluded one Defense Department study, the US military supported pacification
with a mere 0.5% of its operations. By the end of January 1969, fully half of all US ground operations
were pacification related.96F97
When the APC concluded at the end of January 1969 the allies had achieved their stated goal of
moving at least 1,000 ‘contested’ hamlets to the ‘relatively secure’ category (on the official statistical
scale, called the Hamlet Evaluation System, or HES). Out of 1,317 targeted hamlets, 195 of them – less
than 15% –remained on the ‘contested’ list at the end of the APC. Overall, Communist control throughout
South Vietnam dropped from 17% to 12%. About half of the upgraded hamlets were in the Mekong
Delta, South Vietnam’s most populous region.97F98
Communist sources back up MACV’s optimistic reports. One North Vietnamese official candidly
acknowledged that, in their weakened state, the Communists were unable to halt the gains made by the
government’s ‘very fierce and sweeping pacification operations.’98F99 By the spring of 1969, according to
the official PAVN history, the population living within ‘liberated areas’ of III Corps (the region in central
South Vietnam that included the capital, Saigon) had shrunk to 840,000, a net loss of 460,000 people that
the South Vietnamese government had ‘gained control over.’ In southern III Corps south of Saigon and in
the Mekong Delta region, in the southernmost part of the country, allied military operations and

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pacification ‘gained control over an additional one million people’ and resulted in a sharp decrease in
local recruitment of guerrillas.99F100
In order to compensate for their losing situation, the Communists struck back with a greater emphasis
on terrorism. The number of people assassinated in hamlets targeted by the APC rose by 86% over
incidents in October and November 1968.100F101
However, American officials remained skeptical of pacification’s ultimate success. Analysis from
virtually all US government departments concluded that the pacification campaign’s gains were ‘inflated
and fragile’ and speculated that it would not take much for the enemy to erase government progress.101F102
According to historian Richard Hunt, there was concern that the pacification campaign’s success was
‘based on unique circumstances: heavy dependence on US Army operations to keep the enemy at bay and
the absence of a strong challenge from the enemy.’102F103
MACV was saying much the same thing, concluding that pacification progress was tenuous and that
the South Vietnamese were not capable of making additional gains on their own. In response to a wide-
ranging query from the White House on the situation in Vietnam, General Abrams had responded that,
despite improvements in the South Vietnamese Army, continued US support ‘would be required
indefinitely to maintain an effective force’ because it was ‘not capable of attaining the level of self-
sufficiency and overwhelming force superiority that would be required to counter combined Viet Cong
insurgency and North Vietnamese main force offensives.’103F104
This did not mean that pacification was pointless, only that it was likely to be fleeting. For the
moment, though, government gains in the countryside continued to come. After 1968 security within
South Vietnam grew steadily. By late 1971, more than 11,000 hamlets were considered under government
control – or 96%of the South Vietnamese population.104F105
Pacification operations also had an effect on the Communist guerrillas. According to a MACV
intelligence study, Viet Cong local force strength fell from 80,000 guerrillas in December 1967 to about
43,800 in January 1970. During the same time frame enemy local force militia numbers dropped from
37,700 to 20,300. The Viet Cong were caught in a deadly cycle: years of hard fighting followed by heavy
casualties during the Tet Offensive had eroded their strength, allowing the allies to regain security in large
parts of the countryside. This pacification success in turn cut off the Communists’ main source of recruits
needed to recoup their losses, ensuring that their total numbers would continue to decline. Ironically, this
success was the essence of attrition, something which both the new administration and the American
public was fed up with. As a RAND Corporation study noted, ‘Attrition is pushing pacification, not vice-
versa.’105F106
But in the end Abrams – like Westmoreland – could not prevent the enemy main forces from
returning, and no amount of pacification could change that. A Communist history said it best. ‘[N]o
matter what efforts they [the allies] made, they could not reverse their strategically passive posture or
overcome their basic political weaknesses and morale problems, but in the short term at least they were
able to achieve concrete successes.’106F107
Washington’s war
A new president, Richard M. Nixon, entered the White House in January 1969, bringing with him
new priorities, in particular a promise to extricate the nation from Vietnam ‘with honor.’ Negotiations
with Hanoi were ongoing – if not productive – and the new administration quickly established a priority
on training the South Vietnamese Army to stand alone while preparing to withdraw US troops.

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By the spring of 1969, it was clear that General Abrams would have a much narrower mission than
did Westmoreland before him. Withdrawal of American troops was at center stage, while Vietnamization
and negotiations with the Communists formed the twin backdrops. In addition, Abrams was ordered by
his superiors ‘to conduct the war with a minimum of American casualties.’107F108 As National Security
Adviser Henry Kissinger pointed out, Abrams was ‘doomed to a rearguard action,’ and ‘the purpose of his
command would increasingly become logistic redeployment and not success in battle.’ The MACV
commander ‘could not possibly achieve the victory that had eluded us at full strength while the [US]
forces were constantly dwindling.’108F109
Good soldier that he was, Abrams accepted the role, though he naturally had misgivings. Told in
April by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Wheeler, that the White House was determined to
push for early withdrawal of US combat units, Abrams tactfully responded that while he understood ‘the
pressure for U.S. troop reductions and Vietnamizing the war, my impression was that it would be
reasonably deliberate so that U.S. objectives here would have a reasonable chance of attainment.’109F110
However, Abrams was warned by his superiors that, while MACV would continue to ‘call the shots,’ he
should realize that Washington might overrule any decisions made in Saigon.110F111
American troops were steadily withdrawn from Vietnam, beginning in July 1969 with the 3rd Marine
Division in northern South Vietnam and two brigades of the US Army 9th Infantry Division in the
Mekong Delta. Further redeployments followed quickly, and by mid 1971 more than 138,000 US Army
soldiers had departed Vietnam.111F112
As Abrams adapted to the realities of fighting a war with diminishing manpower, he altered his
tactics. This has been interpreted by some historians as a sea change in the war. ‘Tactically, the large-
scale operations that typified earlier years now gave way to numerous smaller operations,’ wrote Lewis
Sorley. ‘[I]nstead of a smaller number of operations by large, and therefore somewhat unwieldy, units,
current operations featured fuller coverage by widely deployed and more agile smaller units.’ Sorley
argued that this allowed the Americans to find the enemy and then bring in ‘larger and more powerful
forces . . . at the critical point.’ Behind this American forward deployment, the South Vietnamese were
‘positioned to block access to the population, [forcing the enemy] to either fight on unfavorable ground or
allow pacification to proceed unimpeded.’ Simultaneously, according to Sorley, Abrams ‘discovered’ that
the enemy relied on a logistical ‘nose’ for its offensives, pushing supplies from the cross-border base
areas into South Vietnam to support North Vietnamese units. 112F113
In reality, US operations differed little between Westmoreland and Abrams. As a long list of after-
action reports makes clear, under both commanders the basic operating unit was the battalion, which was
split into companies and platoons to patrol and search, coming together when contact with the enemy was
made. Both commanders targeted enemy base areas inside South Vietnam in an attempt to disrupt their
forward deployment of supplies (some of the largest operations during 1966 and 1967 were aimed at these
logistical supply areas), and both commanders relied on the South Vietnamese to provide security for the
population while US troops were searching for the enemy and screening against infiltration.
Sorley’s contention that Abrams emphasized small unit operations implies that Westmoreland did not.
This is untrue. During the last quarter of 1965, the 1st Infantry Division, which operated north and west of
Saigon in one of the most dangerous main force environments in the country, conducted 2,919 operations
with units smaller than a battalion and only 59 with larger forces.113F114 Most other units recorded similar
statistics. One study showed that between 1966 and 1968 there were ‘nearly 2 million Allied small unit
operations’ nationwide. Obviously, they made up the largest proportion of the total number of troop
sweeps and other military missions. Yet the preponderance of small patrols made no significant difference

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in the enemy’s overall ability to operate freely. Concluded the study: ‘Three-fourths of the battles are at
the enemy’s choice of time, place, and duration.’114F115 That was true for Abrams as well as Westmoreland.
In the final analysis, the biggest difference Abrams faced was Vietnamization. Under the Nixon
administration, the war was to be turned over to the South Vietnamese―to win or lose on their own.
However, it was difficult to see how Saigon could maintain a steady emphasis on pacification and take on
the mission of fighting Communist main forces. This was the same problem that had confronted the
United States in 1964 on the eve of its entrance into the ground war, and it remained largely unresolved
fours [sic] years later. An official US Army history concluded, ‘When the United States finally
relinquished the conduct of the war to South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese armed forces would find
themselves so preoccupied with providing security for the people that they would find it almost
impossible to carry on the fight against the enemy’s conventional forces, a task thus far borne by
Americans.’115F116
Main force resurgence
As the United States was withdrawing from Vietnam, the North Vietnamese were rebuilding. In
keeping with the long-standing tradition of emphasizing a modern military, the Communists again took
great strides to bring their main forces back to combat readiness.
Despite US and South Vietnamese successes while the Communists were on the ropes, the continued
existence of base areas in the rugged mountains and jungles of western South Vietnam, as well as in Laos
and Cambodia, allowed them to rest and rebuild. ‘Our main force units in the base areas firmly held their
positions and consolidated their forces,’ continued the Communist history. ‘By the beginning of 1970,
although we still faced many difficulties, our army was able to maintain our main forces on the battlefield.
This was a very important victory.’116F117
In January 1970, the Party Central Committee held its 18th Plenum in Hanoi and called for a ‘new’
phase of the conflict and that again ‘stressed the role of our main force troops.’117F118The Communist
leadership concluded that a pure guerrilla strategy would be no more successful now than it had been
earlier in the war. Historian William Duiker observed that ‘in an implicit recognition that the Americans
could not be defeated unless the revolutionary forces could achieve military parity on the battlefield,
influential military planners called for a heightened effort to modernize the PAVN.’ The way forward
would be ‘long and complicated,’ but Communist planners predicted a decisive period arriving in late
1970 or early 1971.118F119
The military leadership met in February 1970 to discuss the plans. Four infantry divisions were to be
increased in ‘combat power and mobility,’ while two others that were in use as reinforcement and training
were to be ‘converted’ into full-fledged combat units. In addition, PAVN’s Artillery Branch ‘formed a
number of new field artillery units’ that were to be assigned to infantry divisions – just as modern
Western armies would do. Their armament included 122 mm and 130 mm guns, among the most
powerful artillery pieces in the Communist arsenal and on a par with US equipment. Armor, which had
seen almost no use in the war up to this point, was also upgraded. PAVN had two armored
regiments―both with Soviet-made T-34 and T-54 tanks―and the North Vietnamese command sent them
to Laos, where they would be close to the battlefield.119F120
PAVN grew steadily, and by the end of 1971 had an overall strength of 433,000 men – up from about
390,000 in 1968. Forty-six percent of these troops were ‘technical specialty branch troops’ (such as
communications, sapper, artillery, and armor), up from 30% in 1965. This was a much more sophisticated
and well-trained fighting organization than that faced by General Westmoreland.

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As always, the Communists could remain just outside South Vietnam in order to rebuild and bide
their time. But President Nixon was a much different war leader than his predecessor, and in 1970 he
agreed to allow US troops to invade the enemy base areas in Cambodia―something for which both
Westmoreland and Abrams had argued. In late April 1970, MACV received permission to launch a
limited incursion into Cambodia, which resulted in the razing of North Vietnamese base areas. Although
the Communists had a chance to move much of their most sophisticated weapons before that attack, the
loss of supply lines through Cambodia was a blow to their war effort.120F121
A less successful incursion followed in early 1971, this time into Laos. The idea came from President
Nixon, who ordered MACV to plan for an invasion of the base areas across the border, just southwest of
the Demilitarized Zone in northernmost South Vietnam. Abrams liked the idea, but there were several
problems to be overcome, including a new law – the Cooper-Church Amendment, passed by Congress
following the Cambodian incursion, which prohibited American troops from entering either Cambodia or
Laos. Abrams planned to use US helicopters to lift the South Vietnamese into Laos, but the advisers
would have to remain behind.
The invasion, launched in February 1971, succeeded in striking deep into the base areas but was
ultimately driven out by North Vietnamese forces. Although the South Vietnamese failure was not
complete (they did reach their objective deep in Laos before turning back), images of soldiers clinging to
the skids of American helicopters gave the US public an impression of defeat.121F122
President Nixon publicly said the operation proved that ‘Vietnamization has succeeded,’ but in
private he was angry. The White House sent its military adviser, Brigadier General Alexander M. Haig, to
Saigon to find out what had happened. Haig concluded that ‘it is obvious this is not a defeat’ for the South
Vietnamese, but he also believed that Abrams had been ‘slow in reporting, in taking the initiative to
correct the situation.’122F123
In reality, Vietnamization was not seriously tested by either the Cambodian or Laotian operations. In both
cases, heavy US support bolstered the South Vietnamese, making up for weaknesses in planning and
execution. But in the spring of 1972, when US advisory strength had sunk to about 1,000 (down from a
high of 9,400 in 1968), Hanoi launched its biggest offensive of the war, a conventional combined arms
assault against several targets throughout South Vietnam. More than nine divisions of infantry and armor
thrust at major South Vietnamese cities from the Demilitarized Zone southward to Saigon. Although they
captured only one provincial capital, they succeeded in rendering several South Vietnamese units combat
ineffective – including the entire 3rd Infantry Division.123F124
This was a purely conventional assault. North Vietnam made no attempt to provoke a ‘popular
uprising’ of the sort the Communists hoped for during Tet 1968. According to a State Department
assessment, ‘One of Hanoi’s objectives was to force the GVN to deploy all of its combat resources to
meet the major main force thrusts.’ This, the study continued, would permit the guerrillas to ‘return to
former strongholds in the South Vietnamese countryside.’ Although damaging the pacification program
was not Hanoi’s main objective, this main force thrust managed to turn back many of the gains made
during years of pacification efforts.124F125 During the months preceding the offensive, statistics showed that
only 3.7% of the population lived under Communist control, but by the end of July the number had risen
to 9.7%. More than 25,000 civilians died in the fighting and almost a million became refugees. These
figures paled in comparison to those of the 1968 Tet Offensive, but that was because in 1972 the North
Vietnamese were less concerned with taking over villages, concentrating instead on destroying South
Vietnamese military units.125F126

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Abrams marginalized
Despite General Abrams’s desire to break the war down into small units fighting to maintain
population security, the reality was that he presided over three of the biggest conventional operations of
the war. While the Cambodian incursion was successful, the invasion of Laos was not, and the defense
against the 1972 Communist offensive, though a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, highlighted
continuing deficiencies in the South Vietnamese military. As the Americans were leaving, the South
Vietnamese were only partly rising to the task of their own defense, calling into question
Vietnamization’s success.
President Nixon blamed Abrams for much of the problem, and his displeasure stemmed from the
1971 operation into Laos. On 23 March, presidential adviser H.R. Haldeman recorded in his diary that
Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, ‘feel that they were misled by Abrams’ as to
what the incursion could actually accomplish, and once it became clear that it was ‘basically a disaster,’
they wanted to ‘pull Abrams out.’ He remained only because it was considered more trouble than it was
worth to change commanders in midstream.126F127
Nixon never again trusted the MACV commander. He called Abrams ‘incompetent’ and continued to
think about relieving him. Historian Stephen Randolph’s research into newly declassified records shows
that from 1971 on, Nixon’s ‘mistrust and disrespect’ for the MACV commander ran deep, and it would
‘remain a constant theme until General Abrams’s change of command’ in 1972. Kissinger believed,
‘Abrams doesn’t understand, he’s proven totally insensitive to the political environment . . . . Abrams has
done nothing―he’s not taken care of the South Vietnamese.’ But by this late date, firing the MACV
commander and appointing a new one would have only confused things. When the North Vietnamese
launched their 1972 offensive, the president told Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer
to keep a tight rein on Abrams, because ‘he’s not gonna screw this one up.’127F128 He told the 7th Air Force
commander, General John W. Vogt, ‘to bypass Abrams’ in the bombing campaign that stepped up during
the offensive.128F129
Nixon’s displeasure should not be seen as a negation of Abrams’s accomplishments in Vietnam, but it
does highlight just how different the situation had become. General Abrams left Vietnam in June 1972,
following his old boss General Westmoreland into the job of Army Chief of Staff. Both commanders had
faced very different challenges and circumstances, but both had failed in the end.
The legacy
The debate over US strategy in Vietnam, in particular the notion that there was a right way to fight
and a wrong way, obscures the fact that throughout the struggle, the United States was really only
reacting to Hanoi’s strategy. Today, the debate has often become ideological, skewing the facts and
ignoring the realities. War is a two-sided affair, and to argue that Vietnam was America’s to win or lose
makes no sense. After the American Civil War, a gathering of former Confederate officers argued about
the cause of their defeat, blaming everything from the performance of General Robert E. Lee and other
officers to the fecklessness of the political leadership. When asked his opinion, General George Picket
answered, ‘Gentlemen, I have always thought that the Yankees had something to do with it.’129F130
In Vietnam, the North Vietnamese ‘had something to do with it.’ America’s failure was partly a
consequence of policy decisions – in particular allowing the enemy to maintain huge base areas in Laos
and Cambodia (not to mention North Vietnam itself) – and South Vietnam’s ultimate flaws, but the rest
stemmed from the Communists’ flexibility and their ability to hold the military and political initiative
throughout most of the war. The strategy conducted by the North Vietnamese was arguably like no other

H408RB-454
in history. It was the epitome of insurgencies: a combination of large main force units, a well-entrenched
guerrilla movement with deep roots in the South Vietnamese countryside, and the support of two
powerful sponsors – China and the Soviet Union. All of this, combined with the ability to attack South
Vietnam over and over again, with no threat of a serious retaliation, was an unprecedented advantage.
To simply argue that the US military ignored pacification does not begin to address the problem of
countering such a threat. Both Westmoreland and Abrams found themselves in a quandary: unless a
significant part of their forces sought out the enemy main forces, there could be no security in South
Vietnam. Therefore, the key to either general’s plan had to be the ability to keep the main forces away
from the population – whether the operational method was called ‘search and destroy’ or ‘one war’ made
little difference.
What did matter, however, was the ability to stop the North Vietnamese from bolstering the
insurgency with manpower and supplies – the single greatest danger facing the allies. Judged by that
standard, both generals failed. Despite the progress made by pacification in the years 1967 through 1972,
it could not have made a significant difference in the end. As historian Hennessy wrote, ‘The numerous
calls made during the war to end search and destroy reveal a failure on the part of the critics to
comprehend the tremendous operational flexibility afforded the local Viet Cong by the presence of their
large-scale regimental and divisional-fighting units. These large units had to be denied free maneuver and
the ability to mass prior to attacking targets they selected.’130F131
Indeed, both MACV commanders were caught on the horns of the same dilemma. While
Westmoreland concentrated on the main forces and failed to prevent a guerrilla offensive in 1968,
Abrams placed great emphasis on pacification and failed to prevent a conventional buildup in 1972. In the
end neither commander had the resources or the opportunity to handle both threats simultaneously.
Counterinsurgency is not only about good planning, it is also about numbers. Without sufficient forces to
dominate the operational area on a constant basis, there is simply no way to disrupt the guerrillas and at
the same time foster pacification programs. This is as true today as it was then.
As the Vietnam War fades further into history, it continues to influence the Army, and there can be no
doubt that it will continue to have a lasting effect. General David H. Petraeus, the current commander of
the Multi-National Force, Iraq, wrote in his doctoral dissertation, ‘The American Military and the Lessons
of Vietnam,’ that the war ‘cost the military dearly. It left America’s military leaders confounded,
dismayed, and discouraged.’ Perhaps even more importantly, Petraeus concluded, ‘Vietnam planted in the
minds of many in the military doubts about the ability of US forces to conduct successful large-scale
counterinsurgencies.’131F132
But that is exactly what the United States again finds itself fighting, and the comparison with Vietnam
is inevitable. Unfortunately, the decades-old debate over that war has only muddied the historical waters
at time when clarity is very much needed. No matter how the war in Iraq ends, it seems likely that it will
soon replace Vietnam as the military’s new touchstone for lessons learned. Taking the wrong lessons
from Vietnam―indeed failing even to correctly recall what really happened there―will surely color how
and what we learn from Iraq.
Notes

1 Gen. Schoomaker’s foreword in Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, ix.
2 Boot, ‘The Lessons of a Quagmire.’
3 Hess, ‘The Unending Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War.’

H408RB-455

4 Summers, On Strategy, 76.
5 Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, 259.
6 Ibid., 268.
7 Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, 186–87.
8 Sorley, A Better War, 8, 18.
9 Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, xix.
10 Jaffe, ‘As Iraq War Rages, Army Re-Examines Lessons of Vietnam.’
11 Le Duan, Letters to the South, introduction, xv. It is worth reiterating that all guerrillas prefer to
fight a ‘conventional’ war, and they will if they can – or if they are allowed to do so.
12 Thayer, ‘How to Analyze a War Without Fronts: Vietnam, 1965–72,’ 789.
13 MACV Weekly Intelligence meeting, 17 February 1970, Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, 376.
14 Carland, US Army in Vietnam, Combat Operations, Stemming the Tide, 357.
15 Cosmas, US Army in Vietnam, MACV, 489–90.
16 Cassidy, ‘Back to the Street Without Joy,’ 75, 78.
17 Viet Minh Armed Forces Order of Battle and High Command, 6 Feb 51, ID File #643165, Army
Intelligence Document File, ACOS G-2, box 4132, Entry 85, RG 319, NARA.
18 Victory in Vietnam, 5, 8–14, 431.
19 Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 136.
20 See Toczek, The Battle of Ap Bac.
21 Victory in Vietnam, 124.
22 Col. Gen. Tran Van Quang (Chief Drafter), Editorial Direction, Sen. Gen. Doan Khue, Sen. Gen.
Van Tien Dung, Col. Gen. Tran Van Quang, Review of the Resistance War Against the Americans, 52.
This report was published under the auspices of the ‘Guidance Committee for Reviewing the War,
Directly Subordinate to the Politburo’ [Ban Chi Dao Tong Kiet Chien Tranh Truc Thuoc Bo Chinh Tri]
and is labeled ‘Internal Distribution Only’ [Luu Hanh Noi Bo].
23 Lt. Gen. Pham Hong Son, The Vietnamese National Art of Fighting to Defend the Nation, 69.
24 Tran The Long et al., The Victory Division, 28. See also the memoirs of the 312th Division’s
commander, Col. Gen. Hoang Cam, The Ten Thousand Day Journey, 73-74; Long, The Victory Division,
27-28. Also see Pham Gia Duc, 325th Division, Volume II, 40.
25 Victory in Vietnam, 137.
26 Military Region 8, 515-516.
27 Victory in Vietnam, 137.
28 Ibid., 137-38.
29 Lt. Gen. Le Van Tuong, ‘The Keen Strategic Vision … of General Nguyen Chi Thanh,’ 148.
30 Victory in Vietnam, 141.
31 Ibid., 141, 143.
32 Army Build-Up Progress Rpt., 21 Dec 1965, 13, Center of Military History (hereafter referred to as
CMH).
33 Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 260.
34 Victory in Vietnam, 144.
35 Pham Hong Son, The Vietnamese National Art of Fighting to Defend the Nation, 75.
36 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 149.
37 Ibid., 175.
38 Telegram, Commander, MACV to JCS, 6 March 1965, Foreign Relations of the United States:
Vietnam, January-June 1965 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1996), 400-01.
Hereafter referred to as FRUS.
39 Telegram, Commander, MACV to JCS, 7 June 1965, FRUS, Vietnam January-June 1965, 733.
40 Westmoreland Cable COMUSMACV 20055, 14 June 65, sub: Concept of Operations-Force
Requirements and Deployments, South Vietnam, 6, Historians files, CMH.
41 Telegram, Commander, MACV to JCS, 7 June 1965, FRUS, Vietnam January-June 1965, 734.
42 Telegram, Commander, MACV to Chairman, JCS, 30 June 1965, FRUS, June-December 1965, 76.
43 Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 21 June 65, sub: Concept of Operations-Force Requirements
and Deployments, South Vietnam, 1-3.
44 Memo of Conversation, 16 July 1965, sub: Meeting with GVN, FRUS, June-December 1965, 159.
45 Hay, Tactical and Material Innovations, 142 (first quote); Kutler, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam
War, 191 (second and third quotes).

H408RB-456

46 Lewis Sorley, ‘To Change a War,’ 102.
47 Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, May 27 1966, sub: PROVN Study, 1, Historians files, CMH.
48 ‘A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (Short Title:
PROVN),’ 20 May 1966, vol. 1, 3, Historians files, CMH. Hereafter referred to as PROVN Study.
49 PROVN Study, vol. 1, 5 (first and second quotes), 112 (third quote).
50 The Pentagon Papers, vol. 2, 577-78.
51 For example, see Donovan, ‘Combined Action Program.’
52 Birtle, U.S. Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942-1976, 399-400.
53 Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, 181.
54 Hunt, Pacification, 108; Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 146.
55 See Hunt, Pacification, 29-30.
56 MACV Directive 525-4, 17 September 1965, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US
Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, 1-2, Historians files, CMH.
57 Msg, Westmoreland to Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, 7 Jan 66, Westmoreland Papers, CMH.
58 MACV Directive 525-4, 17 Sep 1965, sub: Tactics and techniques for employment of US Forces in
the Republic of Vietnam 3 (first quote), 8, 13 (second quote).
59 Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 26 Aug 66, sub: Concept of Military Operations in SVN,
Historians files, CMH.
60 Hunt, Pacification, 61-62.
61 For example, see Memo for the Record, Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson, 25 November 1966, sub:
Commander in Chief Meeting, Westmoreland Papers, CMH.
62 Westmoreland Historical Briefing, 17 October 1966, quoted in Scoville, Reorganizing for
Pacification Support, 38.
63 Westmoreland Historical Briefing, 17 October 1966, quoted in Scoville, Reorganizing for
Pacification Support, 38.
64 McGarvey, Visions of Victory, 5.
65 Kennedy, ‘Hanoi’s Leaders and Their South Vietnamese Policies, 1954-968,’ 273.
66 Su Doan 9, 96.
67 Tran Tinh, Collected Party Documents, vol. 28, 490.
68 Thayer, ‘How to Analyze a War Without Fronts,’ Table 5.3, 801.
69 Sharp and Westmoreland, Report on the War in Vietnam, 292.
70 Victory in Vietnam, 444.
71 Quoted in Lewy, America in Vietnam, 73.
72 Thompson, No Exit From Vietnam, 60.
73 CIA-DIA rpt, 30 Mar 68, sub: The Attrition of Vietnamese Communist Forces, 1968-69, quoted in
Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, chapter 11, note no. 6, 411.
74 Thayer, ‘How to Analyze a War Without Fronts,’ 835.
75 Pentagon Papers, vol. 4, 370.
76 Memo for the Record, Westmoreland, 23 October 1966, sub: Assessment of the Situation in South
Vietnam, October 1966, 3, Historians files, CMH.
77 Quoted in Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 94.
78 Sorley, ‘The Conduct of the War,’ first two quotes 180, third quote, 174.
79 For example, see Sorley’s quotation from General Bruce Palmer that although Abrams might
‘privately agree’ that Westmoreland’s strategy was wrong, ‘I’ve got to be loyal to him.’ Ibid., 178.
80 Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 1945-1975, 571.
81 William C. Westmoreland Interview, 4 Apr 1983, 7, 19, US Marine Corps Oral History Collection.
Also see Smith, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, footnote 10.
82 Komer, ‘Commentary,’ 163.
83 Msg, Abrams MAC 13840 to McCain, 13 Oct 68, Abrams Papers, CMH.
84 Weekly Intelligence meeting, 4 July 1968, Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, 12.
85 Weekly Intelligence meeting, 20 July 1968, Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, 21.
86 Msg, Abrams MAC 14472 to McCain, 28 Oct 1968, Abrams Papers, CMH.
87 Westmorland, ‘A Military War of Attribution,’ 65.
88 Msg, COMUSMACV to Cmdrs I FFV, II FFV, XXIV Corps, IV Corps, 24 Nov 68, Historians
files, CMH.

H408RB-457

89 Msg, Abrams MAC 13840 to McCain, 13 Oct 1968, subj: Operational Guidance, Abrams Papers,
CMH.
90 Msg, Abrams MAC 14329 to Wheeler, 24 Oct 68, Abrams Papers, CMH.
91 An official MACV history of the ‘One War’ concept read more like a publicity broadside than a
historical narrative. ‘Through his strategic planning General Abrams developed the theme for the “one
war” symphony, orchestrating it to blend combat operations with pacification in a new harmony,’ it
gushed. ‘To thwart the offensive, he instructed his commanders to accommodate the enemy as he sought
to do battle, to anticipate enemy moves, and to destroy him before he reached vital objectives. Through an
aggressive free-world effort the Allies would be afforded an excellent opportunity to strike a crushing
blow ….’ See ‘One War,’ MACV Command Overview, 1968-1972, undated (circa May/June 1972), 14-
15, 32, Historians files, CMH.
92 Victory in Vietnam, 249-50 (first quote), 237 (second quote).
93 COSVN Resolution 55, quoted in Hoang Ngoc Lung, The General Offensives of 1968-69, 18.
94 COSVN Resolution 9, July 1969, 17, 29, 31, Historians files, CMH.
95 Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 306.
96 Msg, Abrams MAC 14143 to subordinate commanders, 20 Oct 1968, sub: Operational Guidance-
Adjusting to Enemy Current Operations, Abrams Papers, CMH.
97 ‘Southeast Asia Analysis Report,’ Feb 1969, 40, CMH.
98 Rpt, Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 1 Oct 1968-31 Jan 1969, sub: A Statistical Study of APC
Results as Reported in the Hamlet Evaluation System, 31 Mar 1969, CMH.
99 Tran Van Tra, History of the Bulwark B-2 Theater, vol 5, Concluding the 30-Years War, Foreign
Broadcast Information Service translation, JPRS 82783, 2 Feb 1983, 37.
100 Victory in Vietnam, 246-47.
101 See Office of the Asst Sec of Def (Comptroller) ‘Southeast Asia Statistical Summary,’ table 2, 11
Apr 1973.
102 Summary of Interagency Responses to NSSM 1, 22 Mar 1969, FRUS, Vietnam, January 1969-July
1970, 131. See also Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam, 336.
103 Hunt, Pacification, 202-203.
104 Quoted in Clarke, The U.S. Army in Vietnam, Advice and Support, 345.
105 Out of a total South Vietnamese population of 17.9 million, 11.3 million lived ‘under GVN
control.’ The Communists had outright control of 3.6% of the population. Brig. Gen. Tran Dinh Tho,
Pacification (Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 1984), 165.
106 See Graham A. Cosmas, ‘MACV History, 1968-1972,’ draft chap. 20, 31, quoted words 33-34,
Historians files, CMH.
107The Resistance War in Eastern Cochin China (1945-1975), Vol 2, 395.
108 Msg, JCS 3957 to CINCPAC and COMUSMACV, 3 Jul 1969, MACV J-3 Force Planning
Synopsis for Gen. Abrams, vol. 2, Historians files, CMH.
109 Kissinger, White House Years, 272-73.
110 Msg, Abrams MAC 4967 to Wheeler, 19 Apr 1969, Abrams Papers, CMH.
111 Msg, Wheeler JCS 5988 to Abrams, 16 May 1969, Abrams Papers, CMH.
112 Army Activities Rpt, 8 Nov 1972, 3. US Army strength reached a high of 365,600 (total military:
542,400) men in April 1969; two years later it stood at 227,600 (total military: 301,900).
113 Sorley, ‘The Conduct of the War,’ 183–84.
114 Quarterly Command Rpt, 1st Inf Div, 31 Dec 1965, Historians files, CMH.
115 ‘A Comparison of Allied and VC/NVA Offensive Manpower in South Vietnam,’ Southeast Asia
Analysis Rpt, Oct 1968, 33–38.
116 Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973, 348.
117 Victory in Vietnam, 251–52.
118 Ibid., 253.
119 Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 307.
120 Victory in Vietnam, 265–66.

H408RB-458

121 For an account of the Cambodian incursion, see Shaw, The Cambodian Campaign; Andrade,
Breakthrough Cambodia.
122 For an account of the Lam Son 719 see Davidson, Vietnam at War, 637–73.
123 Handwritten memo, Haig to Kissinger, undated, sub: Lam Son 719, Haig files, National Archives.
124 For a complete account of the offensive see Andrade, America’s Last Vietnam Battle.
125 US State Dept. Research Study, 17 Jul 1972, sub: Vietnam: The July Balance Sheet on Hanoi’s
Offensive, 4, Historians files, CMH.
126 MACCORDS Study, 16 Sep 1972, sub: Impact of Enemy Offensive on Pacification, 2.
127 Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 259.
128 Randolph, ‘A Bigger Game: Nixon, Kissinger, and the 1972 Easter Offensive,’ 184 (first quote),
351–52 (second quote), 183 (third quote).
129 Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 436.
130 Quoted in Gilbert, Why the North Won the Vietnam War, 1.
131 Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, 182.
132 Quoted in ‘Petraeus on Vietnam’s Legacy,’ Washington Post, 14 Jan 2007.

Lesson H409

The Limits of Military Power –
Tet and Vietnamization

AY 2021–22

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-459 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

Advance Sheet for H409
The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam

LESSON AUTHOR: Dr. Louis A. DiMarco

1. SCOPE

Compound warfare, or Hybrid war, is the war of the future. A Hybrid war environment, where threat
forces consist of conventional and unconventional capabilities, is extremely complex, full of
ambiguity and requires innovative problem solving and adaptive leaders and organizations. In twenty-
first century warfare, the hybrid environment will most likely be laid over an equally complex and
dynamic urban warfare environment. U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General John Milley stated:

… the world is “rapidly urbanizing,” Milley said. Today, between 50 percent and 60
percent of the world’s population live in urban areas, he said. By 2050, Milley predicts that
will jump to 80 percent to 90 percent.
“You’re seeing a massive growth right now, as we speak, of megacities,” Milley said.
“Today, an example of a megacity is Seoul, South Korea, with 27 million people, that has
urban sprawl essentially from the [demilitarized zone] all the way south of Seoul, and it is
this massive urban belt and complex.”
The Army has been designed, manned, trained and equipped for the last 241 years to
operate primarily in rural areas, Milley said.
“In the future, I can say with very high degrees of confidence, the American Army is
probably going to be fighting in urban areas,” he said. “We need to man, organize, train and
equip the force for operations in urban areas, highly dense urban areas, and that’s a different
construct. We’re not organized like that right now.”1
Another critical aspect of warfare in the 21st Century is coalition warfare. The relatively small
professional Army of the United States must be able to fight with its allies as part of a coalition, in
order to be successful in future war. Ironically, as the U.S. Army focuses on large scale combat
operations in the 21st Century, these three characteristics of 21st Century warfare, hybrid, urban
coalition warfare, were all intregal to the American experience in Vietnam.
The critical year of 1968 saw U.S. ground forces simultaneously, decisively engaged with both Viet
Cong (VC) insurgents and the regular forces of the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The Tet
Offensive, which was a strategic effort of Communist forces to win the war in 1968, combined the
diverse capabilities of these two forces against the ground forces of the U.S. military and the Army of
the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Additionally, the objective of the Communist forces was to

1. GEN John Milley, AUSA Conference speech, as quoted by Michelle Tan, “Army Chief: Soldiers Must Be
Ready To Fight in ‘Megacities,” Defense News, 5 October 2016. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-
dailies/ausa/2016/10/05/army-chief-soldiers-must-be-ready-to-fight-in-megacities/ Accessed 18 July 2018.

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2016/10/05/army-chief-soldiers-must-be-ready-to-fight-in-megacities/

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-460 August 2021
capture or achieve decisive effects in the urban centers of South Vietnam, including the political and
economic capital of Saigon and the cultural capital of Hue. This illustrates many of the possible
challenges and dynamics of future hybrid warfare in an urban combat environment.
After 1969, success in Vietnam, at both the strategic and tactical level came to rely on the capabilities
and ability of the U.S. strategic partner, the ARVN. The post Tet U.S. strategy of Vietnamization
sought to retrain, re-equip, and refocus the ARVN into a regular military force capable of assuming
the burden of the ground war from the U.S. military. To do this required that U.S. advice and
assistance transform the ARVN into a force that could successfully combat both the VC insurgency
and the main forces of the PAVN. Thus, U.S. strategic success was reliant on its strategic coalition
partner.
All aspects of the Vietnam experience were a challenge to the concept of the American Way of War.
Hybrid warfare required that the regular war oriented the U.S. military to deal with a complex and
deeply embedded insurgency. Urban warfare required the U.S. military restrain its effusive use of
firepower and make careful consideration of collaterial damage. It also illustrated the close
relationship between the strategic political situation in Vietnamese cities, towns and hamlets, and
battlefield tactics. After the Tet Offensive the war in Vietnam became the subject of intense and
acrimonious political debate in the U.S. This debate, because the U.S. military was composed
primarily of draftees, quickly required American military leaders at all levels with their apolitical
bent, to be very cognizant of the local, national, international and domestic politics.

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge to the American Way of War posed by the Vietnam War was
one on which the entire latter war strategy rested. This challenge was the strategy of Vietnamization.
It required that the ARVN be capable of waging war in the American way. In other words, could the
U.S. military transfer their way of war to their coalition partner?

Fundamentally, the success of Vietnamization rested on how the end state was defined. As a strategy
to achieve stability and security, Vietnamization was certainly flawed—but it can be argued that as a
strategy to politically extract the U.S. government and the U.S. military from the Vietnam conflict,
with the least amount of national security damage, that the strategy was successful.

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-461 August 2021
2. Use operational variables (PMESII-PT) to describe historical context.
3. Use mission variables (METT-TC) to describe a historical action.
4. Examine decisions made by historical leaders.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-3.4
Action: Analyze the evolution of large-scale combat operations using major concepts of key
theorists.
Condition: In an educational environment, serving in the capacity of a division level staff officer in
the conduct of large-scale combat operations in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and
multinational environment—and given a tactical problem described in the BALTIC BULWARK
family of products.
ELO Standards: The analysis of the evolution of LSCO includes:
1. Examine the causes of conflict.
2. Examine historical theory.
3. Examine the evolution of US Army doctrine.
4. Describe the evolution of US Army organizations.
5. Describe the evolution of US Army equipment.
6. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 20th Century.
7. Examine evolution of large-scale combat operations during the 21st Century.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of Learning: Analysis

ELO-AOC-8.1
Action: Assess the American experience in wars since 1940.
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the American experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT
STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations in wars since 1940.
3. Assess American experience in wars since 1940 and how it influences our understanding of
today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

ELO-AOC-8.2
Action: Assess America’s waging of limited war since 1945.

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-462 August 2021
Condition: In an educational environment, using classroom discussions, directed readings, and
written assignments.
ELO Standards: The assessment includes:
1. Summarize the social, political, and military underpinnings of limited war since 1945.
2. Critique America’s performance and operations during the limited wars in
Korea, Vietnam, Operation DESERT STORM, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, and
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
3. Assess American’s experience in limited wars since 1945 and how it influences our
understanding of today’s operational environment.
Learning Domain: Cognitive Level of learning: Evaluation

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-463 August 2021

PLO Attributes Supported:
1a. Independently research and critically evaluate information.
1b. Comprehend context of the situation.
1c. Create meaning from information and data.
1d. Creatively design or revise concepts and ideas.
1e. Communicate concepts with clarity and precision in written, graphical, and oral forms.
1f. Compose complete and well-supported arguments.
1g. Apply critical and creative thinking.
2a. Apply ethics, norms, and laws of the profession.
2e. Demonstrate commitment to develop further expertise in the art and science of war as life-
long learners.
3a. Apply knowledge of the nature and character of war.
3b. Apply the principles of war, conflict, and competition.
3c. Understand the utility of the military instrument of power.
3e. Understand the relationship of the military instrument of power to the other instruments of
national power.
4a. Analyze the security implications of the current and future operational environment.
4b. Apply appropriate inter-disciplinary analytical frameworks.
4c. Evaluate historical, cultural, political, military, economic, innovative, technological, and other
competitive forces.
6a. Adapt to rapidly changing operational conditions.
6b. Plan and/or execute Army Operations in a joint environment within a unified action context.

3. ISSUE MATERIAL

a. Advance Issue: See H400 Book of Readings 2021-2022.

b. During Class: None. WiFi is available.

4. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

a. Study Requirements:

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-464 August 2021
(1) First Requirement: Read the following before class (bold numbered readings included in
full text in the H400 Book of Readings):

Required:
H409RA Willbanks, James H. “The 1968 Tet Offensive: Turning Point in the Vietnam War.”
[7 pages]
H409RB Willbanks, James H. “Vietnamization: An Incomplete Exit Strategy.” In Turning
Victory Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, edited by Brian M.
DeToy, 135–67. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004. [19 pages]
H409RC Petraeus, David H. “Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam.” Parameters XVI,
no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 43–53. [9 pages]

Optional:
H409ORA DiMarco, Louis. “Complex Urban Operations: The Battle for Hue, 1968.”
Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare from Stalingrad to Iraq. London: Osprey Publishing,
2012: 81-102. [22 pages]
H409ORB United States Marine Corps, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. “Command Chronology
for period 1 February 1968 to 29 February 1968,” (Declassified), 4 March 1968: 8-14. [7
pages] [PRIMARY SOURCE]
H409ORC Hammond, William M. “The Tet Offensive and the News Media.” Army History
70 (Winter 2009): 6–16. [9 pages]
H409ORD Andrade, Dale. “Westmoreland was right: learning the wrong lessons from the
Vietnam War.” In Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2: 145–75. Accessed 22 June 2017.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310802061349. (If document does not open, use a
different browser.) [31 pages] [CARL]
H409ORE Birtle, Andrew J. “Doctrine Applied: The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965–1973.” In
U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976.
Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2006: 361–407. Accessed 6
November 2020.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/us_army_counterinsurgency/CMH_70-98-
1_US%20Army_Counterinsurgency_WQ . [47 pages]
H409ORF Cosmas, Graham A. “Conclusion: The Years of Escalation.” In The US Army in
Vietnam: MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967.
Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2006: 477–93. . Accessed 15
October 2018. https://history.army.mil/html/books/091/91-6/CMH_Pub_91-6 [12
pages]
H409ORG Shy, John, and Thomas Collier. “Revolutionary War.” In Makers of Modern
Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986: 845–56. [12 pages] [Student Purchase]

Further Professional Development:
Bowden, Mark. Hue, 1968. A Turning Point in the American War in Vietnam. New York:
Grove Press, 2018.
Hammel, Eric. Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet, 1968. Pacifica, CA: Pacifica
Military History, 1991.
Hammond, William M. Reporting Vietnam: The Media and Military at War. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Herring, George. America’s Longest War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.
Krepinevich, Andrew. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310802061349

https://history.army.mil/html/books/us_army_counterinsurgency/CMH_70-98-1_US%20Army_Counterinsurgency_WQ

https://history.army.mil/html/books/091/91-6/CMH_Pub_91-6

H409 Advance Sheet H409AS-465 August 2021
1988.
Lind, Michael. Vietnam, The Necessary War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
Nolan, Keith William. Battle for Hue, Tet, 1968. Novato, CA: Presido Press, 1983.
Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Da Capo Press, 1991.
Summers, Harry. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio,
1995.

Resident Course Elective Alignment: A695, The American Experience in Vietnam; A620,
The History of Modern Urban Warfare

(2) Second Requirement: Be prepared to discuss the following questions in class:

1. How did the strategic objectives of major participants in the Vietnam War change
during the war?

2. How was the insurgency in Vietnam (Communist North Vietnamese Polit Bureau,
PAVN, and National Liberation Front forces) integrated into the Tet Offensive?

3. Analyze and rate the success of the PAVN’s success in Tet. What prevented the U.S.
and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) from turning Tet into a strategic victory?

4. What were the “ends, ways, and means” components of the Vietnamization strategy?

5. What ethical issues are associated with the U.S. strategy of Vietnamization?

6. In what ways did the American approach to Vietnam reflect the Western Way of War
and/or An American Way of War?

7. Is it possible to train other armies with different histories and cultures to operate in a
manner similar to the American Way of War?

b. Bring to Class (or have electronic access to):

H400 Syllabus and Book of Readings 2021-2022
Makers of Modern Strategy

5. ASSESSMENT

See H400 Block Advance Sheet, Appendix A.

H409 Chronology H409AS-466 August 2021
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

Advance Sheet for H409
The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam

Chronology

1968

10 January GEN Westmoreland ordered United States forces to reposition to meet
the emerging threats.
20 January–14 April Battle of Khe Sanh
29 January Tet holiday ceasefire began for Allies.
30 January–26 February Tet Offensive
February In the ancient imperial capital of Hue, Communist forces executed at
least 2,800 people, mostly South Vietnamese civilians.
16 March Civilians massacred at My Lai.
31 March President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a partial bombing halt
and that he would not run for re-election.
27 February CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, who has just returned from
Vietnam, tells viewers, “It seems now more certain than ever that the
bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are
closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the
optimists who have been wrong in the past.” U.S. Pres. Lyndon Johnson
said.
5 November Nixon was elected president, promising to end the war in Vietnam.

1969

15 October The first Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a series of mass
demonstrations across the United States, took place; a second happened
on 15 November.

1970

4 May Members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed college
students at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine.

1971

25 March The South Vietnamese launched operation Lam Son 719 against North
Vietnamese forces in Laos, which ended in their hasty retreat and defeat.

1972

30 March– 22 October The Easter Offensive invasion by North Vietnamese forces was
successfully repelled by South Vietnamese.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kent-State-University

H409 Chronology H409AS-467 August 2021

1973

27 January Representatives of South Vietnamese Communist forces, North Vietnam,
South Vietnam, and the United States concluded the Agreement on
Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam in Paris.
29 March The last U.S. military unit left Vietnam. In over a decade of fighting,
some 58,000 U.S. troops were killed. Vietnamese casualties
included more than 200,000 South Vietnamese troops and more than
1,000,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong irregulars. Civilian
deaths totaled as many as 2,000,000.

1974

9 August Nixon left office.

1975

29 April Shortly before 11:00AM, the American Radio Service network began to
broadcast the prerecorded message that the temperature in Saigon is “105
degrees and rising” followed by a 30-second excerpt from the song
“White Christmas.” This signals the start of Operation Frequent Wind,
the emergency evacuation of Saigon. American personnel begin
converging on more than a dozen assembly points throughout the city.
Over the next 24 hours, some 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese
are flown to safety. The following morning, North Vietnamese troops
enter downtown Saigon and the South Vietnamese government
surrendered unconditionally.

1982

13 November Opening of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Wall.

1995

July Under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. normalized relations with
Vietnam.

Willbanks, James H. “The 1968 Tet Offensive: Turning Point in the Vietnam War.” An earlier version of this paper appeared as
“Reconsidering the 1968 Tet Offensive,” Australian Army Journal, vol. V, no. 1, Autumn 2008, 7–18. CGSC Copyright
Registration #21-0477 E

H409RA-468
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H409: The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam
Reading H409RA

The 1968 Tet Offensive: Turning Point in the Vietnam War

by James H. Willbanks

The 1968 Tet Offensive proved to be the turning point of the Vietnam War and its effects were far-
reaching. Despite the fact that the Communists were soundly defeated at the tactical level, the Tet
Offensive resulted in a great psychological victory for the other side at the strategic level that set into
motion the events that would lead to Richard Nixon’s election, the long and bloody US withdrawal from
Southeast Asia, and ultimately to the fall of South Vietnam.

To understand how and why this happened, one must first go back to the previous year. After more
than two years of bitter fighting, many Americans believed that the war had degenerated into a bloody
stalemate. General William Westmoreland, senior US commander in Vietnam, did not see it that way and
by his primary metric—the body count—the US and allied forces were making significant headway
against the enemy on the battlefield. Based on Westmoreland’s optimistic assessments and beset by the
growing antiwar movement at home, President Lyndon Johnson initiated what would now be called an
information campaign to convince the American people that the war was being won and that
administration policies were succeeding. As part of this effort, he brought Westmoreland home in mid-
November 1967 to make the administration’s case. In a number of venues, the general did just that; upon
his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Westmoreland told waiting reporters that he was “very, very
encouraged” by recent events. Two days later, at a press conference, he said that he thought American
troops could begin to withdraw “within two years or less.”0F1 During an address at the National Press Club,
he claimed that “we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.”1F2
Westmoreland later said that he was concerned at the time about fulfilling the public relations task, but he
nevertheless gave a positive, upbeat account of how things were going in the war, clearly believing that a
corner had been turned.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, even as Westmoreland spoke, the Communists were finalizing preparations
for a countrywide offensive designed to break the stalemate and “liberate” South Vietnam. The decision to
launch the general offensive was the result of years of internal struggle and heated debates over both
policy and military strategy within the Communist camp. These struggles were principally over the
timing involved in shifting from a protracted war toward a more decisive approach to winning the war,
but, in the end, the more cautious proponents of protracted war were defeated by those who advocated a
nationwide general offensive.2F3

With the new offensive, the Communists hoped to gain a decisive victory. The plan for the offensive,
dubbed Tong Cong Kich-Tong Khoi Nghia, was designed to ignite a general uprising among the people of
South Vietnam, shatter the South Vietnamese armed forces, topple the Saigon regime, and convince the
Americans that the war was unwinnable. At the very least, the decision makers in Hanoi hoped to position

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themselves for any follow-on negotiations, which conformed to their “fighting while negotiating”
strategy.3F4

The planning for the offensive began in the summer months of 1967; the target date for launching the
offensive was the beginning of Tet, the lunar New Year. During the second half of 1967, in what would
be called shaping operations today, the Communists launched a number of attacks to draw US and allied
attention away from the population centers, which would be the ultimate objectives for the offensive in
early 1968. Communist attacks on US Marine positions in the hills around Khe Sanh, near the Laotian
border in I Corps Tactical Zone (I CTZ), and the siege of the Marine base at Con Thien just south of the
Demilitarized Zone, also in I CTZ, coupled with additional enemy attacks at Loc Ninh, Song Be, and Dak
To served to divert allied forces to the remote border areas. While these battles raged, additional
Communist forces made preparations for the coming offensive and began infiltrating into the urban areas.

US military intelligence analysts knew that the Communists were planning some kind of large-scale
attack, but did not believe it would come during Tet or that it would be nationwide. Still, there were many
indicators that the enemy was planning to make a major shift in its strategy to win the war. In late
November, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station in Saigon compiled all the various intelligence
indicators and published a report called “The Big Gamble.”4F5 This was not really a formal intelligence
estimate or even a prediction, but rather “a collection of scraps” that concluded that the Communists were
preparing to escalate the fighting. This report also put enemy strength at a much higher level than
previously supposed. Military intelligence analysts at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)
strongly disagreed with the CIA’s estimate, because at the time, the command was changing the way it was
accounting for the enemy and was reducing its estimate of enemy capabilities.

Nevertheless, as more intelligence poured in, Westmoreland and his staff came to the conclusion that a
major enemy effort was probable. All the signs pointed to a new offensive. Still, most of the increased
enemy activity had been along the DMZ and in the remote border areas. In late December 1967,
additional signals intelligence revealed that there was a significant enemy buildup in the Khe Sanh area.
Deciding that this was where the main enemy threat lay, General Westmoreland focused much of his
attention on the northernmost provinces.

Concerned with the situation developing at Khe Sanh and a new round of intelligence indicators,
Westmoreland requested that the South Vietnamese cancel the coming countrywide Tet ceasefire. On 8
January 1968, the chief of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff (JGS), General Cao Van Vien, told
Westmoreland that he would try to limit the truce to twenty-four hours. However, South Vietnamese
President Nguyen Van Thieu argued that to cancel the forty-eight-hour truce would adversely affect the
morale of his troops and the South Vietnamese people. Nevertheless, he agreed to limit the cease-fire to
thirty-six hours, beginning on the evening of 29 January. Traditionally, South Vietnamese soldiers returned
to their homes for the Tet holiday and this fact would play a major role in the desperate fighting to come.

On 21 January, the North Vietnamese began the first large-scale shelling of the Marine base at Khe
Sanh, which was followed by renewed sharp fights between the enemy troops and the Marines in the hills
surrounding the base. Westmoreland was sure that this was the opening of the long anticipated general
offensive. The fact that the Khe Sanh situation looked similar to that which the French had faced when
they were decisively defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 only added increased urgency to the unfolding
events there.

Accordingly, Westmoreland ordered the commencement of Operation Niagara II, a massive bombing
campaign focused on suspected enemy positions around Khe Sanh.5F6 He also ordered the 1st Cavalry
Division from the Central Highlands to Phu Bai just south of Hue. Additionally, he sent one brigade of the
101st Airborne Division to I Corps to strengthen the defenses of the two northernmost provinces. By the

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end of January, more than half of all US combat maneuver battalions were located in the I Corps area,
ready to meet any new threat.

Essentially, the Allied forces were preparing for the wrong battle. The Tet Offensive represented, in
the words of National Security Council staff member William Jorden, writing in a February 1968 cable to
presidential advisor Walt Rostow, “the worst intelligence failure of the war.”6F7 Many historians and other
observers have endeavored to understand how the Communists were able to achieve such a stunning level
of surprise. There are a number of possible explanations. First, allied estimates of enemy strengths and
intentions were flawed. Part of the problem was that MACV had changed the way that it computed enemy
order of battle and downgraded the intelligence estimates about Viet Cong (VC)/People’s Army of
Vietnam (PAVN) strength, no longer counting the National Liberation Front local militias in the enemy
order of battle. CIA analyst Sam Adams later charged that MACV actually falsified intelligence reports to
show progress in the war.7F8 Whether this accusation was true is subject to debate, but it is a fact that
MACV revised enemy strength downward from almost 300,000 to 235,000 in December 1967. US
military intelligence analysts apparently believed their own revised estimates and largely disregarded the
mounting evidence that the Communists not only retained a significant combat capability but also
planned to use that capability in a dramatic fashion.

Given those grossly flawed intelligence estimates, senior allied military leaders and most of their
intelligence analysts greatly underestimated the capabilities of the enemy and dismissed new intelligence
indicators because they too greatly contradicted prevailing assumptions about the enemy’s strength and
capabilities. It was thought that enemy capabilities were insufficient to support a nationwide campaign.
One analyst later admitted that he and his colleagues had become “mesmerized by statistic of known
doubtful validity . . . choosing to place our faith in the ones that showed progress.”8F9 These entrenched
beliefs about the enemy served as blinders to the facts, coloring the perceptions of senior allied
commanders and intelligence officers when they were presented with intelligence that differed so
drastically with their preconceived notions.

Another problem that had an impact on the intelligence failures in Tet deals with what is known today
as “fusion.” Given the large number of indicators drawn from a number of sources operating around South
Vietnam, the data collected was difficult to assemble into a complete and cohesive picture of what the
Communists were doing. The analysts often failed to integrate cumulative information, even though they
were charged with the production of estimates that should have facilitated the combination of different
indicators into an overall analysis. Part of this problem can be traced to the lack of coordination between
allied intelligence agencies. Most of these organizations operated independently and rarely shared their
information with each other. This lack of coordination and failure to share information impeded the
synthesis of all the intelligence that was available and precluded the fusion necessary to predict enemy
intentions and prevent the surprise of the enemy offensive when it came.

Even if the allied intelligence apparatus had been better at fusion, it would still have had to deal with
widely conflicting reports that further clouded the issue. While the aforementioned intelligence indicated
that a general offensive was in the offing, there were a number of other intelligence reports indicating that
the enemy was facing extreme hardships in the field and that his morale had declined markedly. It was
difficult to determine which reports to believe. Additionally, some indicators that should have caused
alarm among intelligence analysts got lost in the noise of developments related to more obvious and more
widely expected adversary threats. Faced with evidence of increasing enemy activity near urban areas and
along the borders of the country, the allies were forced to decide where, when, and how the main blow
would fall. They failed in this effort, choosing to focus on the increasing intensity of activity and
engagements at Khe Sanh and in the other remote areas.

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Westmoreland and his analysts failed to foresee a countrywide offensive, thinking that there would be
perhaps a “show of force,” but otherwise the enemy’s main effort would be directed at the northern
provinces. When indications that North Vietnamese Army units were massing near Khe Sanh were
confirmed by the attack on the Marine base on 21 January, this fit well with what Westmoreland and his
analysts already expected. Thus, they evaluated the intelligence in light of what they already believed,
focusing on Khe Sanh and discounting most of the rest of the indicators that did not “fit” with their
preconceived notions about enemy capabilities and intentions.

For these reasons, the Tet Offensive achieved almost total surprise. This is true even though a number
of attacks were launched prematurely against five provincial capitals in II Corps Tactical Zone and Da
Nang in I Corps Tactical Zone in the early morning hours of 30 January. These early attacks, now credited
to enemy coordination problems, provided at least some warning, but many in Saigon continued to believe
that these attacks were only meant to divert attention away from Khe Sanh. The next night, the situation
became clearer when the bulk of the Communist forces struck with a fury that was breathtaking in both its
scope and suddenness. More than 84,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers launched coordinated,
nearly simultaneous attacks against major cities, towns, and military installations that ranged from the
Demilitarized Zone in the north far to the Ca Mau Peninsula on the southernmost-tip of South Vietnam.
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops attacked thirty-nine of South Vietnam’s forty-four provincial
capitals, five of six largest cities to include Saigon, seventy-one of 242 district capitals, some fifty
hamlets, virtually every allied airfield, and many other key military targets, including all four military
region headquarters. An American general remarked that the situation map depicting enemy attacks “lit up
like a pinball machine.”

In Saigon, the Communists attacked every major installation, including Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the
presidential palace, and the headquarters of South Vietnam’s general staff. In one of the most spectacular
attacks of the entire offensive, nineteen Viet Cong sappers conducted a daring raid on the new US
Embassy, which had just been occupied in September. Far to the north, 7,500 NLF and North Vietnamese
overran and occupied Hue, the ancient imperial capital that had been the home of the emperors of the
Kingdom of Annam.

The spectacular attacks, unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity, were completely unexpected,
because they contradicted both the key assumptions made by the military and the optimistic reports that
came out of the Johnson administration in the closing months of 1967. Television news anchor Walter
Cronkite perhaps said it best when he asked, no doubt voicing the sentiment of many Americans, “What
the hell is going on: I thought we were winning the war.”9F10

In truth, the Tet Offensive turned out to be a disaster for the Communists, at least at the tactical level.
While the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong enjoyed initial successes with their surprise attacks, allied
forces recovered their balance and responded quickly, containing and driving back the attackers in most
areas. The first surge of the offensive was over by the second week of February and most of the battles
were over in a few days, but heavy fighting continued for a while in Kontum and Ban Me Thuot in the
Central Highlands, Can Tho and Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, and the Marines were still under siege at
Khe Sanh. Protracted battles would also rage for several weeks in Saigon and Hue, but in the end, allied
forces used superior mobility and firepower to rout the Communists, who failed to hold any of their
military objectives. As for the much anticipated general uprising of the South Vietnamese people, it never
materialized. The Communists had planned the offensive, counting on the general uprising to reinforce
their attacks; when it didn’t happen, they lost the initiative and were forced to withdraw or die in the face
of allied response.

During the bitter fighting, the Communists sustained staggering casualties. Conservative estimates put
Communist losses in 1968 at around 45,000 killed with an additional 7,000 captured. The estimate of

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enemy killed has been disputed, but it is clear that their losses were huge and the numbers continued to
grow as subsequent fighting extended into the autumn months. By September, when the offensive had run
its course, the Viet Cong, who bore the brunt of much of the heaviest fighting in the cities, had been dealt
a significant blow from which they never completely recovered; the major fighting for the rest of the war
was done by the North Vietnamese Army.

The offensive resulted in an overwhelming defeat of the Communist forces at the tactical level, but the
fact that the enemy had pulled off such a widespread offensive and caught the allies by surprise ultimately
contributed to victory for the Communists at the strategic level. Although the US and allied casualties
were much lower than those of the enemy, they were still very high; on 18 February 1968, Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam posted the highest US casualty figure for a single week during the entire
war—543 killed and over 2,500 wounded. Altogether for the offensive, US, Australian, New Zealand,
South Korean and Thai forces suffered over 1,500 killed and some 7,000 wounded in action. The South
Vietnamese had about 2,800 killed and over 8,000 wounded. These casualty figures combined with the
sheer scope and ferocity of the offensive and the vivid images of the savage fighting on the nightly
television news stunned the American people, who were astonished that the enemy was capable of such
an effort (the charges about biased reporting and its impact on public perceptions will not be addressed
here). They were unprepared for the intense and disturbing scenes they saw on television because
Westmoreland and the administration had told them that the United States was winning and that the enemy
was on its last legs.

Although there was a brief upturn in the support for the administration in the days immediately
following the launching of the offensive, this was short-lived and subsequently the president’s approval
rating plummeted. Having accepted the optimistic reports of military and government officials in late
1967, it now appeared to many Americans that there was no end to the war in sight. The Tet Offensive
severely strained the administration’s credibility with the American people and increased public
discontent with the war.

The Tet Offensive also had a major impact on the White House. It profoundly shook the confidence of
the president and his advisors. Despite Westmoreland’s claims that the Tet Offensive had been a great
victory for the allied forces, Johnson, like the American people, was stunned by the ability of the
Communists to launch such widespread attacks. One advisor later commented that an “air of gloom” hung
over the White House. When Westmoreland, urged on by General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, asked for an additional 206,000 troops to “take advantage of the situation,” the president balked
and ordered a detailed review of US policy in Vietnam by Clark Clifford, who was to replace Robert
McNamara as Secretary of Defense. According to the Pentagon Papers, “A fork in the road had been
reached and the alternatives stood out in stark reality.”10F11

The Tet Offensive fractured the administration’s consensus on the conduct of the war and Clifford’s
reassessment permitted the airing of those alternatives. The civilians in the Pentagon recommended that
allied efforts focus on population security and that the South Vietnamese be forced to assume more
responsibility for the fighting while the United States pursued a negotiated settlement. The Joint Chiefs
naturally took exception to this approach and recommended that Westmoreland be given the troop increase
he had requested and be permitted to pursue enemy forces into Laos and Cambodia. Completing his study,
Clifford recommended that Johnson reject the military’s request and shift effort toward de-escalation.11F12
Although publicly optimistic, Johnson had concluded that the current course in Vietnam was not working.
He was further convinced that a change in policy was needed after the “Wise Men,” a group of senior
statesmen whom he had earlier turned to for counsel and who had previously been very supportive of
administration Vietnam policies, advised that de-escalation should begin immediately.

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With these debates ongoing in the White House, Congress got into the act on 11 March when the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee began hearings on the war. The House of Representatives initiated
their own review of Vietnam policy the following week.

Meanwhile, public opinion polls revealed the continuing downward trend in the president’s approval
rating and his handling of the war. This situation manifested itself in the Democratic Party presidential
primary in New Hampshire, where the president barely defeated challenger Senator Eugene McCarthy, a
situation which convinced Senator Robert Kennedy to enter the presidential race as an antiwar candidate.

Beset politically by challengers from within his own party and seemingly still in shock from the
spectacular Tet attacks, Johnson went on national television on the evening of 31 March 1968, and
announced a partial suspension of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam and called for
negotiations. He then stunned the television audience by announcing that he would not run for reelection;
the Tet Offensive had claimed its final victim. The following November, Richard Nixon won the
presidential election and began the long US withdrawal from Vietnam.

Historians are reluctant to draw “lessons learned” from historical events. History never repeats itself;
there are just too many variables involved in situations that are separated in time. This is particularly true
when comparing the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. There are more differences than similarities between the
two wars and because they differ in so many significant ways, attempting to apply any lessons from
Vietnam to the situation in Iraq is fraught with peril. That being said, however, there are some broad,
general lessons learned in Vietnam that can inform US actions, not only in Iraq, but in any contemporary
situation in which the government of the United States, or any national government for that matter,
contemplates intervention and the use of military force; this is particularly true with regard to the 1968
Tet Offensive.

There are two very important and closely related lessons that can be gleaned from the Tet Offensive.
The first has to do with the importance of objectivity in intelligence. Westmoreland and other senior
officials were blinded to the indications that a countrywide offensive was imminent because they did not
conform to their own preconceived notions about the enemy capabilities and allied progress in the war.
Even when the offensive was launched, the initial reaction at Westmoreland’s headquarters was to place
the attacks within the framework of those notions, seeing them as diversionary actions meant to focus
attention away from what was seen as the main objective at Khe Sanh. Military planners must remain
open-minded with regard to enemy capabilities and intentions, particularly when indicators run in the face
of previous assessments. In the case of the Tet Offensive, intelligence became an extension of
Westmoreland’s optimism and not an accurate reflection of the enemy’s capabilities. This gross failure of
intelligence set the stage for the spectacular impact of the Tet attacks.

The second lesson drawn from the Tet Offensive is closely intertwined with the intelligence issue.
Senior military commanders and policy makers must recognize the importance of building realistic
expectations while resisting the inclination to put the best face on the military situation for political or
public relations reasons. Johnson and Westmoreland built a set of, as it turned out, false expectations about
the situation in Vietnam in order to win support for the administration’s handling of the war and dampen
the antiwar sentiment. These expectations, based on a severely flawed (or manipulated if one believes Sam
Adams) intelligence picture, played a major role in the impact of the Tet Offensive. The images and news
stories of the bitter fighting seemed to put the lie to the administration’s claims of progress in the war and
stretched the credibility gap to the breaking point. The tactical victory quickly became a strategic defeat
for the United States and led to the virtual abdication of the president. North Vietnamese General Tran
Do, perhaps said it best when he acknowledged that the offensive failed to achieve its major tactical
objectives, but said, “As for making an impact in the United States, it had not been our intention—but it
turned out to be a fortunate result.”12F13 That result occurred because Westmoreland and the Johnson

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administration let political considerations overwhelm an objective appraisal of the military situation. In
doing so, they used flawed intelligence to portray an image of enemy capabilities in order to garner public
support. When this was revealed by the vivid images of the Tet fighting, the resulting loss of credibility for
the president and the military high command in Saigon was devastating both to the Johnson administration
and the allied war effort.

The Tet Offensive and its aftermath significantly altered the nature of the war in Vietnam. The
resounding tactical victory was seen as a defeat in the United States. It proved to many Americans that the
war was unwinnable, effectively toppled a president, convinced the new president to “Vietnamize” the
war, and paved the way for the ultimate triumph of the Communist forces in 1975. In assessing the Tet
Offensive and the lessons to be learned from it, perhaps journalist Don Oberdorfer said it best when he
wrote, “The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong lost a battle. The United States Government lost something
even more important—the confidence of its people at home.”13F14 That is a lesson that is just as critical
today as it was over forty-five years ago.

Notes

1. Time, 27 Nov 1967, 22. Quoted in Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 104.
2. Quoted in Spencer Tucker, Vietnam (London: UCL Press, 1999), 136.
3. For best discussion of the contentious debate that led to the launching of the Tet Offensive, see
Lien-Hang Nguyen, Hanoi’s War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 87–108.
4. In Vietnamese, the stratagem, danh vu dan means “talking while fighting.”
5. Oberdorfer, Tet!, 120; William C. Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, 4 vols.
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985–1995), vol. 4, 942–43.
6. The initial Operation Niagara was an intelligence gathering effort to determine the nature of the
North Vietnamese buildup around Khe Sanh earlier in Janurary 1968.
7. Quoted in David F. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 84.
8. Sam Adams, a CIA analyst, charged that MACV had falsified enemy strength figures in order to
show progress in the war. These charges led to a CBS News TV documentary entitled “The Uncounted
Enemy: A Vietnam Deception.” General Westmoreland subsequently sued the television network for $120
million for defaming his honor, naming Adams as one of the codefendants. Westmoreland withdrew his
suit before it went to trial. See Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir (South Royalton,
VT: Steerforth, 1994) and Don Kowet, A Matter of Honor (New York: Macmillan, 1984).
9. Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States
Decision Making on Vietnam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), IV: 556–58.
10. Quoted in Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 262.
11. Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, IV: 549.
12. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 2d ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 567–70.
13. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 547.
14. Oberdorfer, Tet!, 329.

Willbanks, James H. “Vietnamization: An Incomplete Exit Strategy.” In Turning Victory Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign,
as presented at the Second Annual TRADOC/CSI Historical Symposium conducted at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 13–14 September 2004,
edited by Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Brian M. De Toy, 135–67. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004.
CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0510 E

H409RB-475
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Adanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H409: The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam
Reading H409RB

Vietnamization: An Incomplete Exit Strategy

by James H. Willbanks

By the fall of 1968, US involvement in Southeast Asia had reached a pivotal point. The Communist
forces had been defeated decisively on the battlefield during the Tet Offensive earlier that year, but in the
process they had reaped a tremendous psychological victory. Although US troop levels were at an all-time
high and much had been said about the “light at the end of the tunnel,” the sheer scope and ferocity of the
Communist attacks had been startling, and the cries to get out of Vietnam reached a new intensity. A
shaken Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election. Hubert Humphrey and Richard
Nixon squared off in a fight for the soon-to-be-vacated White House.

During his campaign, Nixon made the war in Vietnam a major element of his platform, promising
“new leadership that will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific.”0F1 He proclaimed: “The nation’s
objective should be to help the South Vietnamese fight the war and not fight it for them. . . . If they do not
assume the majority of the burden in their own defense, they cannot be saved.”1F2 Despite his later
protestations to the contrary, such pronouncements gave many voters the impression that Nixon had a
“secret plan” for ending the war, and this no doubt was a factor in his victory at the polls in November.

On 20 January 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon was inaugurated as the 37th president of the United
States. Once elected, Nixon faced the same problems in Vietnam that had confronted Lyndon Johnson.
Escalation and commitment of increased numbers of American troops had not worked; the Tet offensive
had demonstrated that fact only too clearly. The resultant stalemate was unacceptable not only for those
clamoring for a US pull-out, but also for an ever-increasing sector of the American people who would no
longer tolerate a long-term commitment to what appeared to be an unwinnable war. The only answer was
to get out of Vietnam, but the problem was how to devise an exit strategy that would allow the United
States to withdraw gracefully without abandoning South Vietnam to the Communists.

On his first day in office, Nixon immediately set about to find a solution, issuing National Security
Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM 1), titled “Situation in Vietnam,” which was sent to selected members of
the new administration, requesting responses to 29 major questions and 50 subsidiary queries covering six
broad categories: negotiations, the enemy situation, the state of the armed forces of South Vietnam, the
status of the pacification effort, the political situation in South Vietnam, and American objectives.2F3 The
memorandum was sent to, among others, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Embassy in Saigon, and Headquarters Military
Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). The memorandum, according to Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s
national security adviser at the time, was designed “to sharpen any disagreements so that we
could pinpoint the controversial questions and the different points of view.”3F4 Chief among the new
president’s concerns were the viability of the Thieu government and the capability of the South

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Vietnamese to continue the fight after any U.S. withdrawal.4F5 If Nixon wanted divergent views and
opinions on the war, he certainly found them in the wide range of responses to what became known as the
“29 questions.” Kissinger and his staff summarized the responses to NSSM 1 in a 44-page report, which
revealed that there was general agreement among most respondents that the Republic of Vietnam (RVN)
could not in the foreseeable future defend against both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (or
more accurately, PAVN, the Peoples Army of Vietnam).5F6 In the same vein, most respondents agreed that
the Government of Vietnam (GVN) probably could not stand up to serious political competition from the
National Liberation Front (NLF) and that the enemy, although seriously weakened by losses during the
Tet Offensive, was still an effective force capable of being refurbished and reinforced from North
Vietnam.

Despite agreeing on these points, there was disagreement among the respondents about the progress
achieved to that point and the long-range prognosis for the situation in Southeast Asia. There were two
opposing schools of thought in this matter. The more optimistic group, best represented by the MACV
response and shared by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker in Saigon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral
John S. McCain, Jr. (commander in chief, US Pacific Forces), held that the North Vietnamese had agreed
to peace talks in Paris because of their military weakness, that pacification gains were real and “should
hold up,” and that the “tides are favorable.”

Although the MACV opinion emphasized that significant progress was being made in modernizing
the ARVN, it warned that the South Vietnamese could not yet stand alone against a combined assault,
stating that “the RVNAF simply are not capable of attaining the level of self-sufficiency and
overwhelming force superiority that would be required to counter combined Viet Cong insurgency and
North Vietnamese Army main force offensives.”6F7 Accordingly, General Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.,
MACV commander, stressed in his response that any proposed American troop withdrawal had to be
accompanied by a concurrent North Vietnamese withdrawal.

Differing strongly with the MACV report and definitely representing a decidedly more pessimistic
view were the responses from the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and civilians in the
Defense Department, all of which were highly critical of Saigon’s military capabilities and US progress to
date. The Defense Department went so far as to say that the South Vietnamese could not be expected to
contain even the Viet Cong, let alone a combined enemy threat, without continued and full American
support. These respondents agreed that pacification gains were “inflated and fragile” and that the
Communists were not dealing from a position of weakness on the battlefield and had gone to Paris only
for political and strategic reasons—to cut costs and to pursue their aims through negotiation—rather than
because they faced defeat on the battlefield.

Thus, there existed two divergent opinions about the long-term projection for the future of South
Vietnam and its military forces. What had been designed as a means to clear the air on the Vietnam
situation and assist in developing a viable strategy had only served to obfuscate things further for the new
president. Henry Kissinger wrote, “The answers [to NSSM 1] made clear that there was no consensus as
to facts, much less as to policy.”7F8 Thus, Nixon faced a serious dilemma. He had promised to end the war
and bring the troops home, but he could not, as Kissinger later observed in his memoirs: “Simply walk
away from an entire enterprise involving two administrations, five allied countries, and thirty-one
thousand dead as if we were switching a television channel.”8F9 The new president had to devise an exit
strategy to get the United States out of Vietnam, without “simply walk[ing] away.” While the survival of
South Vietnam remained an objective, it manifestly was not the prime goal, which was to get the United
States out of Vietnam. Nixon and his advisers began to consider how the US could disengage itself from
the conflict and at the same time give the South Vietnamese at least a chance of survival after the
American departure. It was acknowledged that this would not be easy and might even prove impossible in
the long run.

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Despite the uncertainty involved in trying to strengthen the South Vietnamese armed forces, the
president and his closest advisers, particularly Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird and Secretary of
State William P. Rogers, agreed that this was the only feasible course of action if the United States was
ever to escape from Vietnam. Nixon ordered American representatives to take a “highly forceful
approach” to cause President Thieu and the South Vietnamese government to assume greater
responsibility for the war.9F10 Unspoken, but still clear to all involved, was the implication that an
assumption of greater combat responsibility by the RVNAF would precede a resultant withdrawal of
American forces, which by this time totaled 543,000.

To get a better sensing for the situation on the ground in Southeast Asia, Nixon directed Laird to go to
South Vietnam to conduct a firsthand assessment. On 5 March 1969, the secretary of defense,
accompanied by General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, arrived in Saigon. There they were
briefed by senior MACV officers, who emphasized the view that significant improvements were being
made in the South Vietnamese armed forces. Laird instructed General Abrams to speed up the effort so
that the bulk of the war effort could be turned over to the Saigon forces as soon as possible. Abrams
repeated his earlier warning that the South Vietnamese were not prepared to stand alone against a
combined threat. Nevertheless, Laird, citing political pressures at home, directed Abrams to improve the
RVNAF and turn over the war to them “before the time given the new administration runs out.”10F11 As
historian Lewis Sorley points out, this was not a new mission for Abrams; he had been working on this
effort since his days as Westmoreland’s deputy in Saigon.11F12 However, the urgency was a new factor.

Despite Abrams’ warning, Laird returned to Washington convinced that the South Vietnamese could
eventually take over prosecution of the entire war, thus permitting a complete US withdrawal. A former
Republican Congressman with 17 years in the House, Laird was anxious to end the war because he
realized the traditional grace period afforded a new president by the public, the press, and Congress
following his election victory would be short-lived. Anti-war sentiment on Capitol Hill was growing, and
Laird knew that Nixon would feel the brunt of it if he did not end the war quickly. Moreover, if the war in
Vietnam continued much longer, Laird reasoned that it would weaken American strength and credibility
around the world in places far more important to US security than Southeast Asia. He believed that any
effort to prolong the conflict would lead to such strife and controversy that it would seriously damage
Nixon’s ability to achieve an honorable settlement. Therefore, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense Jerry Friedheim, Laird was “more interested in ending the war in Vietnam rather than winning
it.”12F13

Laird told Nixon that he believed the president had no choice but to turn the entire war over to the
South Vietnamese in order to extricate US forces and placate both the resurgent anti-war movement, as
well as the ever-growing segment of the American population who just wanted the war to go away. He
proposed a plan designed to make the South Vietnamese armed forces capable of dealing not only with
the ongoing insurgency, but also with a continuing North Vietnamese presence in the south. Laird argued
that the large US presence in country stifled South Vietnamese initiative and prevented them from getting
on with taking over the war effort. He told Nixon that he believed the “orientation” of American senior
commanders in Vietnam “seemed to be more on operations than on assisting the South Vietnamese to
acquire the means to defend themselves.”13F14 Laird wanted the senior US military leaders in South Vietnam
to get to work on shifting their focus from fighting the war to preparing the South Vietnamese to stand on
their own. Accordingly, he recommended withdrawing 50,000–70,000 American troops in 1969.

In a National Security Council meeting on 28 March, the president and his advisers discussed Laird’s
recommendations. In attendance was General Andrew Goodpaster, then serving as General Abrams’
deputy in Saigon. He reported to the president that substantial improvement in the South Vietnamese
forces had already been made and that MACV was in fact close to “de-Americanizing” the war.
According to Henry Kissinger, Laird took exception to Goodpaster’s choice of words and suggested that

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what was needed was a term like “Vietnamization” to put the emphasis on the right issues. In very short
time, this term was adopted as the embodiment of Nixon’s efforts to turn over the war to the South
Vietnamese.14F15

Laird later described the objective of the new program before the House Armed Services Committee
as “the effective assumption by the RVNAF of a larger share of combat operations from American
forces” so that “US forces can be in fact withdrawn in substantial numbers.”15F16 Such statements were
clearly aimed at selling the new policy to Congress and the American public. Alexander M. Haig, then a
member of Nixon’s National Security staff, later described Laird’s plan as a “stroke of public relations
genius” but pointed out that it was “a program designed to mollify American critics of the war, not a
policy for the effective defense of South Vietnam.”16F17 Nevertheless, Laird, according to Henry Kissinger,
had convinced himself that Vietnamization would work and it became his top priority.17F18

Nixon was quickly won over by Laird’s arguments, later writing, “It was on the basis of Laird’s
enthusiastic advocacy that we undertook the policy of Vietnamization.”18F19 It may not have taken very
much to convince the president to endorse this approach; Haig maintains that Nixon had begun talking
about troop withdrawals shortly after his inauguration and Laird’s Vietnamization plan provided the
rationale he was looking for.19F20 It would enable the president to initiate a phase-down of combat
operations by US troops with the ultimate goal of complete withdrawal. However, Nixon realized that
American forces could not be pulled out precipitously. Although the situation was improving in South
Vietnam, there was still a significant level of fighting. Time was needed to make the RVNAF sufficiently
strong enough to continue the war alone. Thus, American forces would have to continue combat
operations to gain the necessary time to build up the South Vietnamese forces.

In early April 1969, Nixon issued planning guidance for the new policy in National Security Study
Memorandum 36 (NSSM 36), which directed “the preparation of a specific timetable for Vietnamizing
the war” that would address “all aspects of US military, para-military, and civilian involvement in
Vietnam, including combat and combat support forces, advisory personnel, and all forms of
equipment.”20F21 The stated objective of the requested plan was “the progressive transfer . . . of the fighting
effort” from American to South Vietnamese forces.

Nixon’s directive was based on a number of assumptions. First, it was assumed that, lacking progress
in the Paris peace talks, any US withdrawal would be unilateral and that there would not be any
comparable NVA reductions. This was a significant change from previous assumptions, because it meant
that the South Vietnamese would have to take on both the NVA and the VC. Second, the US withdrawals
would be on a “cut and try” basis, and General Abrams would make periodic assessments of their effects
before launching the next phase of troop reductions. Third, it was assumed that the South Vietnamese
forces would willingly assume more military responsibility for the war. Based on these three assumptions,
the American troop presence in South Vietnam was to be drawn down eventually to the point where only
a small residual support and advisory mission remained.

Thus, the Nixon administration, despite assessments from a wide range of government agencies that
agreed that the RVNAF could never combat a combined VC-NVA threat, devised a program to prepare
the South Vietnamese to do just that, instructing the American command in Saigon to develop plans for
turning over the entire war effort to Saigon. All that was left to institute the new strategy was a public
announcement.

On 8 June 1969, President Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu at
Midway and publicly proclaimed for the first time the new American policy of “Vietnamization.” Nixon
stated that there would be a steady buildup and improvement of South Vietnamese forces and institutions,
accompanied by increased military pressure on the enemy, while American troops were gradually

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withdrawn. He emphasized that the ultimate objective was to strengthen RVNAF capabilities and bolster
the Thieu government such that the South Vietnamese could stand on their own against the Communists.
Before closing, Nixon announced that he was pulling out 25,000 troops and that at “regular intervals”
thereafter, he would pull out more. According to the president, this withdrawal of US forces was
contingent on three factors: 1) the progress in training and equipping the South Vietnamese forces, 2)
progress in the Paris negotiations, and 3) the level of enemy activity.21F22

Privately, President Thieu was not pleased with the American president’s announcement. According
to Nixon, Thieu, realizing what the end state of US withdrawals meant, was “deeply troubled,” but Nixon
later claimed he “privately assured him [Thieu] through Ambassador [Ellsworth] Bunker that our support
for him was steadfast.”22F23 Thieu and many of his generals were upset with another aspect of
“Vietnamization” and that was the word itself. The South Vietnamese leaders took exception to the whole
concept and the connotation that the ARVN were “finally” stepping up to assume responsibility for the
war. To the South Vietnamese who had been fighting the Communists since the 1950s, the idea that the
war would now be “Vietnamized” was insulting. As one former ARVN general wrote after the war, “It
was after all our own war, and we were determined to fight it, with or without American troops. In my
opinion, Vietnamization was not a proper term to be used in Vietnam, especially when propaganda was an
important enemy weapon.”23F24

Despite the sensitivities of the South Vietnamese, Henry Kissinger recorded that “Nixon was jubilant.
He considered the announcement a political triumph. He thought that it would buy him the time necessary
for developing our strategy.”24F25 A later memorandum revealed that Nixon hoped that his new policy of
Vietnamizing the war would demonstrate to the American people that he “had ruled out a purely US
solution to the problem in South Vietnam and indeed had a plan to end the war.”25F26

To solidify the new strategy, Nixon met with Laird and General Wheeler upon his return from
Midway. The purpose was to discuss a mission change for General Abrams. The current mission
statement, which had been issued by President Johnson, charged MACV to “defeat” the enemy and
“force” his withdrawal to North Vietnam. As a result of the discussions following the Midway
announcement, a new order to Abrams that would go into effect on 15 August directed him to provide
“maximum assistance” to strengthen the armed forces of South Vietnam, to increase the support to the
pacification effort, and to reduce the flow of supplies to the enemy down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. With
this order, the effort that had begun by General Abrams when he assumed command of MACV became
official White House policy. Nixon’s new strategy hinged on transferring the responsibility for fighting
the war to the South Vietnamese, while Henry Kissinger worked behind the scenes in Paris in an attempt
to forge a cease-fire and subsequent peace agreement. Thus, Nixon hoped to extricate the United States
from Southeast Asia and achieve “peace with honor.”

The Vietnamization effort would be implemented in three phases. In the first phase, responsibility for
the bulk of ground combat against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces would be turned over
gradually to the RVNAF. During this phase, the United States would continue to provide air, naval, and
logistic support. The second phase consisted of developing capabilities in the RVNAF to help them
achieve self-reliance through an increase in artillery, air, naval assets and other support activities. The
second phase proceeded simultaneously with the first phase, but it would require more time. Even after
the bulk of US combat forces were withdrawn, US forces would continue to provide support, security,
and training personnel. The third phase involved the reduction of the American presence to strictly a
military advisory role with a small security element remaining for protection. It was assumed that the
advisory and assistance presence would be gradually reduced as South Vietnam grew in strength, but the
new strategy, at least as it was described initially, always included leaving a small residual force in South
Vietnam “for some time to come,” as Laird told a House subcommittee in February 1970.26F27

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The South Vietnamese took statements such as this and many more like it as evidence of a promise
that the United States would not desert them. As the cries for complete US withdrawal increased in
volume, the idea of a residual US force in Vietnam would eventually be abandoned and this change would
have a devastating impact on the fortunes of South Vietnam.

While the United States continued to conduct combat operations with American forces, the new
Vietnamization policy focused initially on modernizing and developing the South Vietnamese armed
forces. This effort was not a new initiative, but during the earlier years of US involvement in Vietnam,
particularly during the period of American buildup (1965–1967), it had been of secondary importance as
US military leaders focused on the conduct of operations by American units in the field. With the election
of Richard Nixon and his subsequent emphasis on Vietnamization, the effort to strengthen and modernize
the South Vietnamese forces became a top priority for MACV.27F28

When Nixon met with President Thieu at Midway in June 1969 and announced the initiation of the
Vietnamization policy, Thieu expressed significant concerns about the capabilities of his forces in light of
the inevitable US troop withdrawals. Abrams was told to work with the South Vietnamese to develop a
recommendation on how to further improve the force structure and fighting capability of the RVNAF.
The subsequent improvement program, which became known collectively as the “Midway increase,” was
approved by Laird on 18 August 1969. At the same time, Laird directed MACV and the Joint Staff to
review all ongoing and projected programs for improving the RVNAF, telling them to consider not just
force structure and equipment improvements, but also to look at new ways to improve leadership,
training, and to develop new strategy and tactics best suited to South Vietnamese capabilities.

On 2 September, Abrams responded to Laird’s guidance, pointing out in very clear terms that, in his
opinion, proposed modernization and improvement programs, even with the Midway increase, would not
permit the South Vietnamese to handle the current combined threat. Citing poor leadership, high desertion
rates, and corruption in the upper ranks of the RVNAF, Abrams reported that he thought that the South
Vietnamese forces could not be improved either quantitatively or qualitatively to the extent necessary to
deal with a combined threat; he clearly stated that he thought what the secretary of defense wanted simply
could not be done in the timeframe expected and with the resources allocated.28F29

Laird could not accept Abrams’ assessment, because if he did, it meant that he would have to admit
that the United States could never gracefully exit South Vietnam, particularly in light of the increasingly
obvious fact that the North Vietnamese were not going to agree to a bilateral withdrawal of US and
PAVN troops from South Vietnam. On 10 November, he directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to come up
with a new plan that would, one way or the other, create a South Vietnamese military force that could
“maintain at least current levels of security.”29F30 He told the military planners to assume unilateral US
withdrawals that would reduce American military strength first to a “support force” of 190,000–260,000
troops by July 1971 and then to a much smaller advisory force by July 1973. He was effectively telling
the planners for a third time to come up with a viable Vietnamization program but with the new caveat
that they were not to assume a significant residual US support force.

It appears that Abrams and his staff, realizing that despite their great misgivings, the die was cast with
regard to eventual US withdrawal and they attempted to devise the best plan possible given Laird’s
adamant directives. To comply with the secretary’s orders, the military planners assumed a reduced Viet
Cong threat and a declining PAVN presence in South Vietnam, while virtually ignoring Hanoi’s forces
based just outside the borders of South Vietnam. Based on these somewhat questionable assumptions,
MACV submitted its new recommendations at the end of December.30F31 In January 1970, the Joint Chiefs
included them in the Phase III RVNAF Improvement and Modernization Plan, which called for an
increase in RVNAF strength to 1,061,505 over a three-year period (mid-1970 to mid-1973) and the

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activation and equipping of 10 new artillery battalions, 24 truck companies, and six more helicopter
squadrons.

Laird and his staff thought this plan was finally a step in the right direction, but they were concerned
that MACV planners still had not accepted that there would be no large residual American support force
and suspected that the military was trying to stall the withdrawal process. Accordingly, in mid-February
1970, Laird flew to Saigon to meet with Abrams and Thieu to impress upon them the urgency of the
situation. He voiced disappointment about what he perceived as the lack of any new or fresh approaches
from MACV regarding the implementation of the Vietnamization program. While in Saigon, he met
separately with senior South Vietnamese generals who expressed concern with the Phase III plan and
reiterated earlier requests for additional artillery, to include long-range 175-mm artillery pieces and air
defense artillery, and again asked for financial assistance to improve the lot of their soldiers.

When Laird got back to Washington, he ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to reevaluate the proposed
Phase III plan in light of the South Vietnamese requests and to come up with a more comprehensive plan.
Two months later, the Joint Chiefs submitted the revised plan, which became known as the Consolidated
RVNAF Improvement and Modernization Plan, or CRIMP. This plan, which covered the 1970–1972
fiscal years, raised the total supported South Vietnamese military force structure to an even 1.1 million.31F32

CRIMP had a significant impact on the entire RVNAF. As in the past, the ARVN got the largest share
of the improvements, eventually receiving 155-mm and 175-mm long-range artillery pieces, M-42 and M-
55 antiaircraft weapons, M-48 tanks, and a host of other sophisticated weapon systems and equipment. By
the end of 1969, the US had supplied 1,200 tanks and armored vehicles, 30,000 machine guns, 4,000
mortars, 20,000 radios, and 25,000 jeeps and trucks. The new equipment and weapons received in the two
years following the approval of CRIMP enabled the ARVN to activate an additional division (3d Infantry
Division), as well as a number of smaller units, to include 25 border ranger battalions, numerous artillery
battalions, four armored cavalry squadrons, three tank battalions, two armored brigade headquarters, and
three antiaircraft battalions. By the beginning of 1972, the South Vietnamese army strength would
increase to 450,000 and consist of 171 infantry battalions, 22 armored cavalry and tank squadrons, and 64
artillery battalions.32F33

The territorial Regional and Popular Forces (RF/PF) also benefited greatly from CRIMP. As
Vietnamization gained momentum, MACV and Washington planned to fill the gaps left by departing US
divisions with an expansion of the RF/PF, which would hopefully be able to take over the major share of
territorial security and support of the pacification program. This expansion effort involved a significant
increase in numbers and improved equipment. Under CRIMP, the RF and PF received newer, more
modern weapons, including M-16 rifles, M-60 machine guns, and M-79 grenade launchers; all were vast
improvements over the hodgepodge of older cast-off weapons with which they previously had been
armed. The influx of new 105-mm howitzers enabled the Joint General Staff to activate eventually a total
of 174 territorial artillery sections to provide support for the RF, PF, and border ranger forces, thus vastly
improving the fire support available to the territorial forces while reducing the burden on the regular
artillery forces, who could then focus on supporting the regular maneuver battalions in their combat
operations.33F34 In addition to the new equipment, the manpower strength of the Regional and Popular
Forces was increased to get more government troops into the countryside to support the pacification
effort. The command structure of the Regional Forces was improved and several RF group commands
were formed.

The ground forces were not the only beneficiaries of CRIMP. The Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF)
also received a windfall, growing from 17,000 in late 1968 to 37,000 by the end of 1969, and ultimately
to 64,000 by 1973. Along with this increase in the number of personnel, there were also significant
upgrades in aircraft and command-and control-capability. The VNAF’s older propeller-driven aircraft

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began to be replaced by A-37 and F-5A jet fighter-bombers, thus vastly increasing ground-support
capability. VNAF’s cargo hauling capability was also improved with the upgrading of the C-47 fleet to
C-119 aircraft initially, and eventually to C-123 and C-7 aircraft. The helicopter fleet (unlike the US
arrangement, where most of the troop-carrying and attack helicopters belonged to the Army, VNAF
controlled all the helicopters in the South Vietnamese inventory) was greatly enlarged and improved as
US Army aviation units began to redeploy, turning over their aircraft and equipment to newly activated
Vietnamese helicopter squadrons. Late in 1972, as the United States prepared for total withdrawal,
VNAF, under the provisions of a special program called Enhance Plus, received 32 C-130A four-engine
cargo planes and additional C-7 cargo planes, F-5A fighter-bombers, and helicopters.

During this period, the Vietnamese Air Force grew to six times its 1964 strength and, by 1973,
operated a total of 1,700 aircraft, including over 500 helicopters. By then it had six air divisions, which
included a total of 10 A-37 fighter-bomber squadrons, three A-1H attack helicopter squadrons, three F-5E
fighter-bomber squadrons, 17 UH-1 helicopter squadrons, four CH-47 helicopter squadrons, 10 liaison
and observation squadrons, three C-7 squadrons, four AC-47, AC-119, and EC-47 squadrons, and other
additional training units. In terms of equipment, VNAF, by the time of the US withdrawal in 1973, would
be one of the most powerful air forces in Southeast Asia.

The Vietnamese Navy (VNN) also underwent significant expansion during the Vietnamization
period. The navy numbered only 17,000 in 1968, but it would reach 40,000 by 1972. To increase the
capability of the VNN and to meet the goals of the Vietnamization program, MACV instituted two new
programs in 1969. The first was called the Accelerated Turnover of Assets (ACTOV), which was
designed to rapidly increase naval strength and training and, at the same time, accelerate turnover of ships
and combat responsibility from the US Navy to the South Vietnamese Navy. The second program was
called the Accelerated Turnover of Logistics (ACTOVLOG), which was aimed at increasing naval
logistical support capabilities.

The VNN received two small cruisers in May 1969. Shortly thereafter, the US Navy Riverine Force
began to turn over its vessels and river-patrol responsibilities to the VNN. By mid-1970, over 500 US
brown-water navy boats had been transferred to the South Vietnamese. In September of that year, the
VNN took over the ships and mission of the Market Time coastal interdiction program. By 1972, the
Vietnamese Navy operated a fleet of over 1,700 ships and boats of all types, to include sea patrol craft,
large cargo ships, coastal- and river-patrol craft, and amphibious ships.

In terms of the sheer volume of materiel and modern equipment, Vietnamization worked. By 1970,
South Vietnam had made a quantum leap in terms of modernization and was one of the largest and
best-equipped military forces in the world. Unfortunately, however, equipment and sheer numbers were
not the only answers to the problems facing South Vietnam as it prepared to assume ultimate
responsibility for the war. The fighting ability of the South Vietnamese armed forces had to be improved.
To do this, MACV increasingly placed more emphasis on training and the advisory effort, which had been
ongoing since the earliest days of US involvement in Southeast Asia. US advisers were found in
essentially three areas: they advised South Vietnamese combat units, served in the training base, and
worked in the province pacification programs.

MACV Headquarters provided the advisory function to the Joint General Staff (JGS), the senior
headquarters of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. However, only a part of MACV Headquarters
staff personnel actually served in a true advisory capacity. In 1970, only 397 out of 1,668 authorized
spaces in MACV’s 15 staff agencies were designated officially as “advisers” to the GVN and the JGS.34F35
Nevertheless, as the war continued and more US forces were withdrawn, the MACV staff agencies
became increasingly more involved in purely advisory functions.

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Just below the JGS level were four South Vietnamese corps commanders who were responsible for
the four corps tactical zones (later, military regions) that South Vietnam comprised. Initially, their US
counterparts were the senior US field force commanders in each of the corps tactical zones.35F36 In this
capacity, the senior US commander was assisted by two deputies who worked directly with the South
Vietnamese forces. His deputy for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS)
was the principal adviser to the ARVN corps commander in the area of pacification and development.
Additionally, the senior US commander had another deputy, who served as the senior adviser to the corps
commander and was actually the chief of the US Army Advisory Group attached to the ARVN corps
headquarters. As such, he and his staff provided assistance, advice, and support to the corps commander
and his staff in command, administration, training, combat operations, intelligence, logistics, political
warfare, and civil affairs.

Later, as additional US units and the senior American field-force headquarters were withdrawn, the
advisory structure changed. During 1971–1972, four regional assistance commands were established. The
regional assistance commander, usually a US Army major general, replaced the departing field-force
commander as the senior adviser to the South Vietnamese corps commander in the respective military
regions.36F37 The mission of the Regional Assistance Commander was to provide assistance to the ARVN
corps commander in developing and maintaining an effective military capability by advising and
supporting RVNAF military and paramilitary commanders and staffs at all levels in the corps in military
operations, training, intelligence, personnel management, and combat support and combat service support
activities. To accomplish this, the Regional Assistance Commander had a staff that worked directly with
the ARVN corps staff. He also exercised operational control over the subordinate US Army advisory
groups and the pacification advisory organizations in the military region. As such, he and his personnel
provided advice, assistance, and support at each echelon of South Vietnamese command in planning and
executing both combat operations and pacification programs within the military region.

Below the senior US adviser in each military region, there were two types of advisory teams:
province advisory teams and division advisory teams. Each of the 44 provinces in South Vietnam was
headed by a province chief, usually a South Vietnamese Army or Marine colonel, who supervised the
provincial government apparatus and also commanded the provincial Regional and Popular Forces.
Under the CORDS program initiated in 1967, an advisory system was established to assist the province
chiefs in administering the pacification program. The province chief’s American counterpart was the
province senior adviser, who was either military or civilian, depending on the security situation of the
respective province. The province senior advisor and his staff were responsible for advising the province
chief in civil and military aspects of the South Vietnamese pacification and development programs. The
province senior adviser’s staff, which was made up of both US military and civilian personnel, was
divided into two parts. The first part dealt with area and community development, to include public health
and administration, civil affairs, education, agriculture, psychological operations, and logistics. The other
part of the staff dealt with plans and operations, and focused on preparing plans and assisting with the
direction of military operations by the territorial forces within the province.

The province chief exercised his authority through district chiefs. To provide advice and support to
the district chiefs, the province senior adviser supervised the district senior advisers, who each had a staff
of about eight members (although the actual size in each case depended on the particular situation in that
district). The district level advisory teams assisted the District Chief in the military and civil aspects of the
pacification and development program. Additionally, the district team (and/or assigned mobile assistance
training teams) advised and trained the RF/PFs located in the district. By the end of 1967, a total of 4,000
US military and civilian personnel were involved in the CORDS advisory effort. When Vietnamization
was officially declared in 1969, total US Army advisory strength stood at about 13,500, half of which
were assigned to CORDS organizations.37F38 This increase was due to the expansion of the pacification

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program following the 1968 Tet Offensive. In addition to CORDS advisory teams, there were also
advisory teams with RVNAF regular forces. In January 1969, MACV, in an attempt to upgrade the
capability of the regular ARVN divisions, initiated the Combat Assistance Team (CAT) concept. Under
this plan, the emphasis was on reducing the number of tactical advisers in the field and changing their
mission from “advising to combat support coordination” at the ARVN division level. The Division
Combat Assistance Team’s mission was to advise and assist the ARVN division commander and his staff
in command and control, administration, training, tactical operations, intelligence, security, logistics, and
certain elements of political warfare. The division senior adviser was usually a US Army colonel, who
exercised control over the regimental and battalion advisory teams.

Each ARVN division usually had three infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, and several
separate battalions, such as the cavalry squadron and the engineer battalion. The regimental advisory
teams were normally composed of from eight to 12 US Army personnel (they were eventually reduced in
strength as the drawdown of US forces in country gradually reduced the number of advisers assigned) and
were usually headed by a US Army lieutenant colonel and included various mixes of officers and
noncommissioned officers. The separate battalion advisory teams usually consisted of one or two
specialists who advised the South Vietnamese in their respective functional areas; for example: cavalry,
intelligence, engineering, etc.

Elite ARVN troops, such as the airborne and ranger units, were organized generally along the same
lines as regular ARVN units, but the highest echelon of command in these units was the regiment.38F39 Each
of these regiments was accompanied by an American advisory team, which was headed by a colonel and
was similar, but somewhat larger than those found with the regular ARVN regiments. The advisory
structure for the Vietnamese Marine Corps was similar to the ARVN, but the advisers were US Marine
Corps personnel.

US advisers did not command, nor did they exercise any operational control over any part of the
South Vietnamese forces. Their mission was to provide professional military advice and assistance to
their counterpart commanders and staffs. The idea was that these advisory teams would work themselves
out of a job over time as the ARVN and VNMC began to assume more responsibility for planning and
executing their own operations.

In addition to the US advisers assigned to the CORDS effort and those serving with South
Vietnamese combat units in the field, there were also a significant number of advisers assigned to support
the RVNAF training base in an effort to increase the training of the South Vietnamese forces. By the end
of 1972, South Vietnam would have one of the largest and most modern military forces in Southeast Asia,
but even vast amounts of the best equipment in the world were meaningless if the soldiers, sailors, and
airmen did not know how to use it or did not have the leadership and motivation to put it to good use in
the field against the enemy. Training the Vietnamese had, in theory, received high priority throughout the
war, but in practice too little attention had been given this critical function before the initiation of
Vietnamization. Even with the new policy in place, improving South Vietnamese training proved to be an
uphill battle.

The ARVN training system consisted of 56 training centers of various types and sizes. There were
nine national training centers (not including the airborne and marine divisions, which had their own
training centers) and 37 provincial training centers. This extensive system of schools and training
facilities was under the control of the RVNAF Central Training Command (CTC), which had first been
established in 1966. This command was advised and supported by the MACV Training Directorate,
which was responsible for providing advice and assistance in the development of an effective military
training system for the RVNAF. As such the training directorate provided US advisers at the RVNAF

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schools and training centers, where they assisted RVNAF commandants in the preparation and conduct of
training programs.

At first glance, the RVNAF training system of schools and training centers in 1968 was an impressive
arrangement, but deeper investigation revealed that it was less than effective in producing the leaders and
soldiers necessary to successfully prosecute the war. MACV had made numerous proposals to the
Vietnamese Joint General Staff and Central Training Command for improving the personnel capacity and
effectiveness of the South Vietnamese training facilities, but these recommendations received little
attention from the RVNAF high command. As the MACV Command Overview stated, “Despite CTC and
MACV efforts, little progress was made in 1969 in these areas due to the complex personnel changes
required, JGS reluctance to give the program a high priority, and refusal by RVN field commanders to
release experienced officers and NCOs [noncommissioned officers] from operational responsibilities.”39F40

By early 1970, the US authorities were so disturbed by this situation that the Army chief of staff
dispatched a fact-finding team to Vietnam led by Brigadier General Donnelly Bolton, to tour RVNAF
training facilities, to provide an objective assessment of the training capabilities of the South Vietnamese,
and to examine the state of US training assistance. This team found the efforts of both South Vietnamese
and the US military training advisers in Vietnam to be less than adequate. The MACV Training
Directorate, responsible for providing advisers to RVNAF training facilities, was at only 70 percent of
assigned strength, and all the US training advisory detachments in the field were likewise under strength.
The quality of advisory personnel assigned to train the South Vietnamese at the RVNAF schools was also
an issue, since it appeared to the team that often those deemed unfit to serve in more prestigious
operational and staff positions were placed in the RVNAF training billets. Colonel (later Major General)
Stan L. McClellan, a member of the Bolton team, wrote, “It was clear that top professionals were not
being assigned to training advisory duties.”40F41

General Abrams agreed with the findings of the Bolton team and urged Bolton to recommend to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff upon his return to the Pentagon that they send more and better training advisers to
Vietnam. He was very concerned with filling the ranks of his advisory teams with personnel at their
authorized grade level (for instance, lieutenant colonels in positions authorized lieutenant colonels, and so
forth), thereby reducing the number of low-ranking advisers with little or no combat experience. Abrams
told Bolton, “It’s time that they [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] recognize in Washington that the day of the US
fighting force involvement in South Vietnam is at an end. All we have time for now is to complete the
preparation of South Vietnam to carry on the task.”41F42

At the same time Abrams was trying to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the critical
importance of the advisory mission in South Vietnam, he was bringing pressure on the RVNAF high
command to make improvements to their training system. In a March 1970 letter to General Cao Van
Vien, chief of the Joint General Staff, Abrams urged senior South Vietnamese commanders to get behind
the training effort. He wrote, “Arrangements for support of CTC activities must be widened and
accelerated. As a first order of effort it is essential to enlist the personal interest and assistance of corps,
divisional tactical area, and sector commanders each of whom . . . is a user of the product of the training
system, and should contribute to improving the quality of the product.”42F43

Due in large part to Abrams’ urging and the realization that US forces were in fact going to be
withdrawn, the RVNAF high command began to put more emphasis on improving their training system.
The fact that the United States contributed $28 million to expanding and improving the South Vietnamese
facilities also helped. Eventually there would be a total of 33 major military and service schools, 13
national and regional training centers, and 14 division training centers. By 1970, the South Vietnamese
leaders began to transfer experienced officers and NCOs to the training centers. Although field
commanders only reluctantly gave up their veteran small-unit leaders, by the end of 1971 nearly half of

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the South Vietnamese training instructors were men with combat experience. Also by this time the
number of US training advisory personnel was increased and by the end of 1971 there were more than
3,500 US advisers directly involved in training at most of the training centers and major RVNAF
schools.43F44

Even as the South Vietnamese began to realize the necessity of upgrading their training programs, the
quality and quantity of US advisers remained an issue. This was true of not just the advisers in the
training centers, but also the advisory personnel at all levels, both with field units and with CORDS
advisory teams. In December 1969, as the Vietnamization policy began to gather momentum and the
above-cited changes in force structure, equipment, and training were instituted, Secretary Laird, realizing
the criticality of the advisory effort to the Vietnamization process, asked the service secretaries to look at
what could be done to upgrade the overall advisory effort.44F45 Before this time, service as an adviser was
seen by many in the US Army as much less desirable than field command with a US unit, and many
officers and NCOs avoided advisory duty. More often than not, the selection process for determining who
would become an adviser was largely due to who was available for overseas duty when advisory billets
became vacant due to rotation or casualties.45F46

For those selected to become advisers, the training program was limited to a six-week course at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, followed by eight weeks of Vietnamese language training at the Defense
Language Institute. Thus, many assigned as advisers had neither the experience, the training, or the
inclination to be an adviser. Laird set out to change the situation; he wanted to put the best people in as
advisers. He did not get much help initially from the Army; Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor said he
would continue to study the problem but did not offer any useful solutions.46F47 The Army was trying to deal
with severe personnel problems. The demands of the war resulted in Army officers and noncommissioned
officers returning to Vietnam for multiple tours, some separated by less than a year and the demand for
advisers only exacerbated the strain on the personnel system. Nevertheless, Abrams continued to urge that
more emphasis be placed on assigning qualified combat experienced officers to adviser duty. He
demanded “guys who can lead/influence . . . the business of pacification,” officers who “feel empathy
toward the Vietnamese . . . appreciate their good points and understand their weaknesses;” he wanted
advisers who “can pull ideas and actions out of the Vietnamese” in pursuit of two major goals:
“pacification and upgrading the RVNAF.”47F48

Laird agreed with Abrams in demanding that the advisory posts be filled and ordering the service
secretaries to send “only the most highly qualified” personnel to be advisers. Eventually the message got
through to the services and by the end of 1970, there was “an infusion of top-flight military professionals
into South Vietnam’s training advisory effort.”48F49 The advisory effort also benefited from the US troop
drawdown because as more American units departed, the number of available combat assignments
declined, thus freeing up for advisory duty large numbers of those officers who would have gone to US
units. During 1969, the overall strength of the field advisory teams increased from about 7,000 to 11,900
and then to 14,332 in 1970.

While Abrams focused on improving the advisory effort, President Nixon and Secretary Laird
continued to push for more and faster troop reductions. Nixon had announced the first US troop
withdrawal at Midway, but he and Laird were given new motivation to expand their withdrawal plans by
former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford. In June 1969, he published an article in Foreign Affairs that
urged the unilateral withdrawal of 100,000 troops by the end of the year, and of all other personnel by the
end of 1970, leaving only logistics and Air Force personnel.49F50 Nixon, never one to shrink from a
challenge, stated at a press conference that he could improve upon Clifford’s schedule. This statement
received a lot of attention in the press and effectively committed the United States to a unilateral
withdrawal from South Vietnam, thus removing the promise of troop reductions (or the pace thereof) as a

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bargaining chip for Kissinger in his dealings with the North Vietnamese in Paris. This would have serious
consequences for peace negotiations and the efficacy of the eventual cease-fire agreement.

The first redeployment of 25,000 US troops promised by President Nixon was accomplished by 27
August 1969 when the last troops from the 1st and 2d Brigades of the 9th Infantry Division departed the
Mekong Delta. In the months following the Midway announcement, there were continuing discussions
about the size and pace of the US withdrawal. Laird had come up with several options for the rest of 1969
that ranged from withdrawing a total of 50,000 troops, at the low end, to 100,000 at the high end; in
between were a number of different combinations of numbers and forces. In a memorandum to the
president, Laird cautioned him to be careful about withdrawing too many troops too quickly as this would
have serious consequences for the pacification program.50F51 Laird’s warning proved timely. On 6 August,
as soldiers from the 9th Infantry Division prepared to depart South Vietnam, there was a Communist
attack on Cam Ranh Bay. Five days later, the Communists attacked more than 100 cities, towns, and
bases across South Vietnam. An official North Vietnamese history of the war revealed that the politburo
in Hanoi had concluded after the Midway announcement that the United States had “lost its will to fight
in Vietnam” and thus the Communists, believing they were in a position to dictate the degree and
intensity of combat, launched the new round of attacks.51F52

When Nixon had made his announcement in June about the initial US troop withdrawal, he
emphasized that one of the criteria for further reductions would be the level of enemy activity. These new
Communist attacks clearly went against Nixon’s conditions, and accordingly, he announced that he was
delaying a decision about additional troop withdrawals. This caused an uproar in Congress and the media.
On 12 September, the National Security Council met to discuss the situation. Kissinger reported that “a
very natural response from us would have been to stop bringing soldiers home, but by now withdrawal
had gained its own momentum.”52F53 Kissinger had sent the president a memorandum two days before the
meeting, expressing concern about the administration’s “present course” in South Vietnam. He warned
that “Withdrawals of US troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more US
troops come home, the more will be demanded. This could eventually result, in effect, in demands for a
unilateral withdrawal . . . The more troops are withdrawn, the more Hanoi will be encouraged.”53F54
Kissinger would be proven right, but during the NSC meeting, he was the only dissenter to the decision to
go ahead with the scheduled troop reductions. On 16 September, Nixon ordered a second increment of
35,000 American troops to be redeployed by December. According to Kissinger, the withdrawals became
“inexorable . . . [and] the President never again permitted the end of a withdrawal period to pass without
announcing a new increment for the next.”54F55

On 15 December, Nixon ordered a third increment of 50,000 to be redeployed before April 1970. On
20 April 1970, he announced that even though 110,000 US troops had been scheduled to be redeployed
during the first three increments, a total of 115,000 had actually departed Vietnam. The second phase of
the withdrawal, from April 1970 to April 1971, would reduce the total US strength by a further 150,000.
By the end of 1970, only about 344,000 US troops remained in South Vietnam; the 9th Infantry Division,
the 3d Brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, the 1st Infantry Division, the 3d Marine Division, two
brigades of the 25th Infantry Division and the entire 4th Infantry Division had been redeployed. As these
US forces prepared to depart, they suspended combat operations and the RVNAF took over responsibility
for their respective operational areas.

From the initial announcement of US troop withdrawals in June 1969 to the end of November 1972,
the United States brought home 14 increments, reducing total US strength in Vietnam from a peak of
543,400 to a residual force of 27,000. Once the initial departure of US forces began, the RVNAF was
forced to assume more responsibility for the war, regardless of the progress of Vietnamization and
pacification. This was the situation that confronted General Abrams. Faced with a war that continued to

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rage, he had to increase the efforts to prepare the RVNAF to fill the void on the battlefield left by the
redeploying US forces. He was essentially fighting for time.

When Abrams assumed command of MACV in 1968, he knew that something had to be done to
improve the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese armed forces. Even before President Nixon had
announced Vietnamization as the new US policy in South Vietnam, General Abrams had taken measures
to increase the effectiveness of the RVNAF training base. However, this had not historically been the
focus of MACV’s efforts. Abrams had inherited the long-standing US mission of closing with and
defeating the Communists to force them to withdraw from South Vietnam. With Nixon’s announcement
of the Vietnamization policy and the receipt of the new mission statement, Abrams was directed “to assist
the Republic of Vietnam Armed forces to take over an increasing share of combat operations” and focus
on (1) providing “maximum assistance” to the South Vietnamese to strengthen their forces, (2) supporting
the pacification effort, and (3) reducing the flow of supplies to the enemy.55F56

General Abrams, although continuing to have serious misgivings about the accelerated US troop
withdrawals, understood his marching orders and stepped up measures to improve the combat capabilities
of the South Vietnamese units. This was not a new problem for Abrams; since his assumption of
command, he had been concerned that the United States and South Vietnamese forces were essentially
fighting two different wars. Abrams had sought to end the division of roles and missions between
American and South Vietnamese combat forces by the adoption of a single combined allied strategy, thus
eliminating “the tacit existence of two separate strategies, attrition and pacification.”56F57 Abrams described
this “one war” concept as “a strategy focused upon protecting the population so that the civil government
can establish its authority as opposed to an earlier conception of the purpose of the war—destruction of
the enemy’s forces.”57F58 This approach had already effectively been instituted by Abrams, but was
formalized in the MACV Objectives Plan approved in March 1969 and was eventually adopted jointly by
the US and Saigon as the Combined Strategic Objectives Plan, which specified that the “RVNAF must
participate fully within its capabilities in all types of operations . . . to prepare for the time when it must
assume the entire responsibility.”58F59

As soon as the new plan was signed, Abrams set out to make sure that MACV forces fully accepted
his “one war” concept, forever eliminating the division of labor that too often had fragmented allied
efforts. Thus, Abrams was already shifting the focus of MACV when he received the official change of
mission from President Nixon. Armed with the new “one war” combined strategy and urged by his
commander in chief to Vietnamize the war, Abrams hoped to bring the combat situation under control
while at the same time shifting the preponderance of the responsibility for the war to the South
Vietnamese as American troop withdrawals increased in size and frequency. One way that he wanted to
do this was to have the ARVN fight side by side with the American troops in the field in combined
operations.

American and South Vietnamese units had conducted combined operations prior to the adoption of
the “one war” policy, but during earlier operations, the South Vietnamese troops usually filled a
secondary, supporting role on the periphery of the main action. Many American combat commanders
were reluctant to operate with South Vietnamese units and typically regarded the ARVN as no more than
“an additional burden” that had to be taken in tow, more “apt to cause problems . . . than be helpful.”59F60
Although this situation changed somewhat for the better after the 1968 Tet offensive, Abrams, faced with
the urgent task of Vietnamizing the war, ordered closer cooperation between the American and South
Vietnamese forces. The hope was that American units would serve as models for Saigon’s soldiers by
integrating the operations of the two national forces more closely together. This had worked very well in
South Korea and had eventually improved the fighting abilities of the Republic of Korea armed forces.
Abrams and his advisers manifestly hoped that the Korean model would also work with the South
Vietnamese.

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Although the effort to integrate the South Vietnamese troops into the main battle effort would prove
to be uneven and varied from corps tactical zone to corps tactical zone, several new programs were
instituted in accordance with Abrams’ directives. In I Corps Tactical Zone, Lieutenant General Richard
G. Stillwell, the US XXIV Corps Commander, worked very closely with the ARVN commander, Major
General (later Lieutenant General) Ngo Quang Truong, integrating the South Vietnamese units into
operational plans as a full partner. Under what was essentially a US/ARVN combined command, the
South Vietnamese forces operated closely with the US 3d Marine Division, the 101st Airborne Division
(Airmobile), and the 1st Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Quang Tri and Thua Thien
Provinces.60F61 After Stillwell was replaced by Major General Melvin Zais later in 1969, the new
commander continued Stillwell’s emphasis on combined operations and other US forces in I Corps
stepped up their cooperative efforts with the ARVN. Abrams was extremely pleased with the performance
of the ARVN forces in I Corps; and later in 1969, he ordered the US 1st Cavalry Division south,
reoriented remaining American combat forces in the region toward area security, and eventually sent
home one of the two American marine divisions there.

In II Corps Tactical Zone, US commanders also pursued combined operations but with less success.
General William R. Peers, commander of I Field Force and his counterpart, Lieutenant General Lu Lan,
commander of ARVN II Corps, jointly established the “Pair Off” program, which called for each ARVN
unit to be closely and continually affiliated with a US counterpart unit. Operations were to be conducted
jointly, regardless of the size unit each force could commit, and coordination and cooperation were
effected from corps to battalion and districts. Under this program, the US 4th Infantry Division and the
US 173d Airborne Brigade joined forces with the ARVN 22d and 23d Infantry Divisions. During the
period following the initiation of the Pair Off program, three significant combined operations were
conducted in II Corps, and each achieved a modest level of success. However, this approach did not work
as well as the combined operations in I Corps for a number of reasons. First, the two corps-level
headquarters, unlike those in I Corps, were not co-located, and this made coordination more difficult.
Additionally, the ARVN field commanders in II Corps were not as enthusiastic about working with US
forces as were Major General Truong and his fellow ARVN commanders in I Corps. Consequently, the
motivation to learn from the Americans was not present, and this affected coordination and cooperation
between the two national forces.

In III Corps Tactical Zone, US II Field Force Commander Lieutenant General Julian Ewell and his
counterpart, Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri, commander of ARVN III Corps, instituted a program called
“Dong Tien” (Progress Together). The three major goals of this program were: (1) to increase the quantity
and quality of combined and coordinated joint operations; (2) to materially advance the three major
ARVN missions of pacification support, improvement of combat effectiveness, and intensification of
combat operations; and (3) to effect a significant increase in the efficiency of utilizing critical combat and
combat support elements, particularly army aviation assets.61F62 This program called for the close
association of ARVN III Corps and US II Field Force units on a continuing basis. Under this concept, as
an ARVN battalion reached a satisfactory level of combat effectiveness, it was to be phased out of the
program and returned to independent operations. The Dong Tien program had a positive effect on ARVN
units throughout III Corps. The 1st US and 5th ARVN Infantry Divisions worked very closely together,
and the repetitive combined operations prepared the ARVN division to assume the American unit’s area
of operation when it was redeployed in 1970. When the 5th ARVN Division moved its command post to
Binh Long Province and assumed control of the old “Big Red One” area, a major milestone in the
Vietnamization process had been passed.

Although these combined operations were not all successful, they were instrumental in most cases in
increasing the battlefield proficiency of the RVNAF units. Thus, they helped pave the way for the South
Vietnamese commanders and troops to assume new responsibilities as more US forces began to withdraw.
Unfortunately, however, these programs could not eliminate many of the long-standing problems that

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haunted the RVNAF and would ultimately be one of the contributing factors to the downfall of the South
Vietnamese regime. The expanding RVNAF suffered from a lack of technical competence, weak staff
officers, inexperience at planning and executing large-scale combined arms operations, and a number of
other serious maladies. Leadership, particularly at the senior levels, lay at the root of all RVNAF
weakness. This problem greatly concerned General Abrams and his senior commanders as they tried to
prepare the South Vietnamese to assume responsibility for the war. Programs such as Pair Off and Dong
Tien were designed to help bolster RVNAF leadership and combat skills, but they could not fully repair
long-term ills in the South Vietnamese system.

By the end of 1969, Vietnamization had made progress in several areas. The modernization effort had
resulted in the equipping of all ARVN units with modern equipment. The advisory effort had received
new emphasis and the RVNAF training system was improving. The redeployment of US troops had
forced the RVNAF to assume more responsibility for the war, as the number of battalion-size operations
conducted by the South Vietnamese almost doubled between 1968 and 1969. Still, combat performance of
the South Vietnamese was uneven at best. Some units, such as the 51st ARVN Infantry Battalion, did
very well against their Communist opponents, while others, like the 22d ARVN Infantry Division, were
largely ineffective in the field (the 22d had conducted 1,800 ambushes during the summer months of 1969
and netted only six enemy killed).62F63

The MACV Office of Information publicized the increased participation of RVNAF emphasizing
that, in time, the South Vietnamese forces would be able to stand on their own.63F64 Despite these claims,
many advisers felt that the South Vietnamese were still too dependent on US forces for support and
worried about their ability to carry on the war by themselves after the United States withdrew. The
MACV public relations statements were correct in one sense—it was clear that time would be necessary
before the South Vietnamese could stand on their own against the North Vietnamese. The key question
for many was whether there was enough time left before all US units were withdrawn.

Vietnamization received its first test in the spring of 1970 when Nixon ordered an attack into the
North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. This was a combined attack which involved 32,000
American soldiers and 48,000 South Vietnamese troops. The main attack into the “Fishhook” region was
made by elements of the 1st Cavalry Division, 25th Infantry Division, and the 11th Armored Cavalry
Regiment. At the same time, South Vietnamese forces conducted an attack into the “Parrot’s Beak”
region. Both attacks went very well, and the allied forces located and destroyed numerous large
Communist base camps, capturing an impressive array of supplies and material, to include 16 million
rounds of various caliber ammunition; 143,000 rockets; 22,892 individual weapons; 5,487 land mines;
62,000 grenades; 14 million pounds of rice; and 435 vehicles.64F65

The South Vietnamese forces, most of which were under the command of Lieutenant General Do Cao
Tri, supported by US artillery, tactical air, and helicopter gunships, performed well, accomplishing all
assigned missions. Nixon announced that the South Vietnamese performance in Cambodia was “visible
proof of the success of Vietnamization.”65F66

The truth of the situation was somewhat less than Nixon wanted to believe. Many of the South
Vietnamese units that had participated in the incursion were mostly from elite units, rather than the
mainstream of South Vietnamese troops. In addition, there had been no intense fighting in the ARVN
sector because most of the Communist soldiers there fled when the allied forces launched the invasion.
Nevertheless, South Vietnamese artillery continued to demonstrate an inability to provide support for
their own troops, so the ARVN commanders continued to rely heavily on US fire support. Therefore, the
picture of South Vietnamese capabilities that Nixon attempted to paint was somewhat misleading.

H409RB-491
The significant shortcomings that still existed in the RVNAF were amply demonstrated the
following year when operation LAM SON 719 was launched as part of a continuing effort to cut the Ho
Chi Minh Trail and deny the North Vietnamese sanctuaries; the specific objective of the attack was a
series of base areas along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos just adjacent to Military Region I. This time,
although US air support would participate in the operation, American ground troops were prohibited from
crossing the border, so the South Vietnamese forces would attack by themselves without US units or
American advisers. The attack along Highway 9 into Laos kicked off at 0700 on 8 February and went
reasonably well at first. The South Vietnamese secured their initial objectives, but then became bogged
down along the highway. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese had rushed reinforcements to the area, and a
major battle ensued that lasted for another month. While some South Vietnamese soldiers fought
valiantly, many more fought poorly or fled in panic. The operation ended with ARVN units fleeing back
across the border in disarray. US sources listed South Vietnamese losses as 3,800 killed in action, 5,200
wounded, and 775 missing. Nixon tried to put the best face on the situation, but the truth was that the
South Vietnamese had performed very poorly on their own. With no US support on the ground and
without their American advisers, the South Vietnamese were not able to handle the North Vietnamese
regulars in pitched battle.66F67

LAM SON 719 demonstrated that Vietnamization had not been the success that Nixon had previously
proclaimed. US and South Vietnamese military officials worked hard to bolster the morale and
confidence of the ARVN after the debacle in Laos. Training programs were intensified and new
equipment was issued to replace that which had been lost during the LAM SON operation. At the same
time, the US troop withdrawals continued unabated. By January 1972, only 158,000 Americans remained
in South Vietnam, the lowest number since 1965.

The North Vietnamese watched the US withdrawals closely and decided that it was time to put
Vietnamization to the final test. Acknowledging that Nixon’s Vietnamization policy had begun to
increase the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese, they nevertheless believed that the US did not
have enough combat power left in South Vietnam to prevent a South Vietnamese defeat if Hanoi launched
a new offensive. Accordingly, the politburo in Hanoi ordered a massive invasion of South Vietnam. The
North Vietnamese attack began on 30 March 1972 when three divisions attacked south across the
Demilitarized Zone that separated North and South Vietnam toward Quang Tri and Hue. Three days later,
three more divisions moved from sanctuaries in Cambodia and pushed into Binh Long Province, the
capital city that was only 65 miles from Saigon. Additional North Vietnamese forces attacked across the
Cambodian border in the Central Highlands toward Kontum. A total of 14 NVA infantry divisions and 26
separate regiments (including 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles)
participated in the offensive, which was characterized by large-scale conventional infantry tactics,
supported by tanks and massive amounts of artillery fire and rockets. This was a scale of warfare that the
South Vietnamese had seldom experienced. At first, they were almost totally overwhelmed. South
Vietnamese forces in Quang Tri fled in the face of the North onslaught, abandoning the city and fleeing
south. At An Loc and Kontum, the ARVN soldiers fared better but suffered horrendous casualties during
the North Vietnamese attacks. The battles raged all over South Vietnam into the summer months. US
advisers and American air power enabled the South Vietnamese to hold on and eventually prevail, even
retaking Quang Tri in September.

Nixon declared Vietnamization a resounding success. There were all kinds of evidence to the
contrary. The South Vietnamese had indeed withstood the North Vietnamese onslaught, but it had been a
near thing that could have gone either way. The South Vietnamese had fought well in many cases, but in
others they had not. General Abrams stated that “American airpower and not South Vietnamese arms”
had caused the North Vietnamese defeat.67F68 Nevertheless, Nixon and his advisers trumpeted the idea that
the South Vietnamese victory demonstrated that Vietnamization had been a success. Jeffrey Kimball

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writes, Nixon “needed Vietnamization to succeed, and because he did, he wanted to believe it could.”68F69
Thus, for better or worse, Vietnamization was officially validated and the South Vietnamese victory
became one of the underlying rationales for complete US withdrawal and Nixon’s “peace with honor.”

While the fighting continued in South Vietnam, Henry Kissinger had been striving to hammer out a
peace agreement in Paris. By the fall of 1972, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the lead North Vietnamese
negotiator, were close to an agreement but by December were at an impasse again. When the North
Vietnamese walked out on the talks, Nixon launched what became known as the “Christmas bombing.”
Beginning on 18 December and for the next 11 days, US B-52s, F-105s, F-4s, F-111s, and A-6s struck
targets all over North Vietnam, dropping over 40,000 tons of bombs. Shortly thereafter, the North
Vietnamese negotiators returned to the table in Paris. Kissinger and Tho finally reached an agreement and
at 0800 Sunday Saigon time on 28 January, the cease-fire went into effect.

Under the terms of the cease-fire agreement, the United States agreed to “. . . stop all its military
activities against the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” and remove remaining American
troops, including advisers, from South Vietnam within 60 days.69F70 US forces departed South Vietnam as
agreed, with the last troops leaving Saigon on 29 March 1973. That day, the last 61 American POWs
known to be held by the North Vietnamese were released. Vietnamization was over once and for all.
America was out of Vietnam.

Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, the Paris Accords did not address an estimated 150,000
North Vietnamese troops inside the borders of South Vietnam. The cease-fire was short-lived and combat
returned as both sides tried to grab as much territory as possible. For the rest of 1973 and most of 1974,
the North and South Vietnamese fought each other all over South Vietnam.

Nixon had coerced Thieu into acquiescing to the Paris Accords, promising that the United States
would come to the aid of the South Vietnamese if North Vietnam tried another major offensive. With this
in mind and using weapons and equipment stockpiled during 1972, the South Vietnamese initially held
their own against the North Vietnamese. However, as these stocks began to wane, Thieu had no one to
turn to for support. Nixon, reeling from the impact of the Watergate investigation, was fighting for his
political life and was unable to generate any interest in the plight of the South Vietnamese. On 9 August
1974, Nixon resigned from the Presidency. Thieu and his countrymen had always relied on Nixon’s
promises to intervene if the North Vietnamese violated the cease-fire. Now Nixon was gone. Nixon’s
successor, Gerald Ford, promised that “the existing commitments this nation has made in the past are still
valid and will be fully honored in my administration.”70F71

This was a commitment that Ford could not keep given the prevailing sentiment in Congress. When
the North Vietnamese decided to test the South Vietnamese with a limited attack against Phuoc Long
Province, the ARVN fought poorly and the North Vietnamese routed the defenders, killing or capturing
3,000 soldiers, took control of vast quantities of war materiel, and “liberated” the entire province. The
United States did nothing.

Both Saigon and Hanoi were shocked. Thieu finally realized that his forces had been relegated to
fighting a “poor man’s war” while the North Vietnamese, still being resupplied by China and the Soviet
Union, got stronger every day. The North Vietnamese decided that the time was ripe for a knockout blow.
Believing the United States would not or could not intervene, they planned a two-year strategy that called
for large-scale offensives in 1975 to create conditions for a “general offensive, general uprising” in
1976.71F72

The North Vietnamese launched their offensive on 10 March 1975 with an attack on Ban Me Thuot in
the Central Highlands. They overran the city in two days and then turned their attention on Pleiku and

H409RB-493
Kontum. The South Vietnamese, realizing they were on their own without any hope of US support, fell
back in panic. When Thieu decided to shorten his lines by withdrawing his forces out of the Highlands,
supposedly to concentrate his forces for a major effort to retake Ban Me Thuot, the retreat rapidly turned
into a rout. While the Communist forces in the Highlands attacked toward the sea, additional Communist
troops in the northern provinces drove southward from Quang Tri. One by one, the coastal cities and
bases fell. The Communists drove rapidly down the coast and on 30 April 1975, their tanks crashed
through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and the war was over. The demoralized South
Vietnamese forces had collapsed in less than 55 days; Vietnamization had failed its ultimate test.

In the final analysis, Vietnamization provided a suitable (at least from the American perspective)
cover for the withdrawal of the United States from South Vietnam, but it was an incomplete strategy that
failed in its stated objective, which was to prepare the South Vietnamese to defend themselves after the
departure of US troops. That objective had always been predicated on continued US support, and
America’s failure to honor that commitment led to the downfall of South Vietnam.

Whether Nixon and Laird were only looking for a “decent interval” as some have suggested or really
thought that Vietnamization would actually succeed in preparing the South Vietnamese to defend
themselves is subject to debate. Both Nixon and Kissinger have written after the fact that they believed
the strategy would have worked had not Congress cut off aid to the South Vietnamese. Jeffrey Kimball
challenges such pronouncements and writes that Nixon’s policies “unnecessarily prolonged the war, with
all of the baneful consequences of death, destruction, and division for Vietnam and America.”7372F73

When one contemplates what could have been, there are, as Lewis Sorley suggests, “too many what
ifs.”73F74 However, it is clear the performance of the South Vietnamese forces in 1975 demonstrated that
Nixon’s exit strategy had been tragically flawed, at least in its execution. Once the North Vietnamese
began their attack in December 1974, the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, which had wavered but
ultimately held under tremendous pressure with US support in 1972, found themselves abandoned by the
United States and performed abysmally in a fight that turned out to be for the very life of their nation.
The war was clearly lost on the battlefield by the South Vietnamese, but that does not absolve the United
States of its large share of the responsibility for the debacle. Despite gains made in preparing the South
Vietnamese to assume responsibility for the war, the United States rushed to sign the Paris Peace
Accords, which left more than 150,000 North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. Later, when the
North Vietnamese attacked and the United States failed to live up to the commitment made by Nixon, this
doomed the armed forces of South Vietnam.

The army that had become so dependent on US firepower and support lost its will and was unable to
fight on its own when the promised support was denied it. Despite all the time and treasure expended in
getting them ready to defend themselves, they proved woefully inadequate for the task when abandoned
by the United States. Arguably, the situation may have been different had the United States demanded
that North Vietnamese forces be withdrawn from South Vietnam in 1973 and continued to provide the
promised long-term support as it had to the Republic of Korea forces, but such was not the case. And in
the end, Vietnamization, when coupled with the flawed Peace Accords and the failure of the United States
to honor promises made by two presidents, proved to be an incomplete exit strategy. It extricated the
United States from Vietnam but failed to ensure the continued viability of its ally in Saigon. In the end,
Nixon’s strategy achieved neither peace for the South Vietnamese nor honor for the United States. The
final result was that the United States lost the first war in its history, and the Republic of South Vietnam
ceased to exist as a sovereign nation.

H409RB-494
Notes

1. Robert B. Semple, “Nixon Vows to End War With a ‘New Leadership,’” The New York Times, 6 Mar 1968.
2. Semple, “Nixon Withholds His Peace Ideas,” The New York Times, 11 Mar 1968.
3. National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 1, Henry A. Kissinger, Special Assistant for National
Security, for the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence, 21 Jan 1969, DepCORDS
Papers, US Army Center of Military History, Washington, DC.
4. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), 238.
5. In December, Nixon had seen an intelligence assessment made by the CIA that was very critical of the Thieu
government and the capabilities of the RVNAF. This assessment is contained in Message, Wheeler JCS 14581 to
Abrams 12217 Dec 68, subject: RVNAF capabilities, Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military History,
Washington, DC.
6. Memo, Henry A. Kissinger for Members of the National Security Council Review Group, 14 Mar 69,
Subject: Summary of Responses to NSSM 1 Vietnam Questions, DepCORDS Papers, US Army Center of Military
History. Actual agency responses are found in the Thomas C. Thayer Papers, Folders 13, 20, 134, and 136, US
Army Center of Military History.
7. Ibid.
8. Kissinger, White House Years, 239.
9. Ibid., 227–28.
10. George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1996), 198.
11. Interview (transcribed) of General Andrew J. Goodpaster, by Colonel William D. Johnson and Lieutenant
Colonel James C. Ferguson, 1976, Andrew J. Goodpaster Papers, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle
Barracks, Pennsylvania.
12. Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt, From the Battle of the Bulge to Vietnam and Beyond: Creighton Abrams and the
Army of His Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 254–56.
13. Interview of Jerry Friedheim, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, 1969–1973, by William H. Hammond,
3 Oct 86, US Army Center of Military History.
14. Memo, Laird to the President, 13 Mar 69, subj: Trip to Vietnam, Nixon Presidential Materials, National
Archives and Records Administration.
15. Kissinger, White House Years, 272. By all accounts, “Vietnamization” became the accepted term for
Nixon’s new policy at this meeting. However, Abrams biographer Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt, 254–56, maintains
that Abrams started the process of helping the South Vietnamese armed forces become more capable when he
assumed command from General Westmoreland in 1968 and that Nixon and Laird merely adopted the
“Vietnamization” label and formalized it as administration policy (accompanied by US troop withdrawals). Nixon
said virtually the same thing earlier in No More Vietnams (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 105.
16. US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on Military Posture, Part
I , 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 1970, 7023–7024.
17. Alexander M. Haig, Jr. with Charles McCarry, Inner Circles: How America Changed the World, A Memoir
(New York: Warner Books, 1992), 226.
18. Kissinger, White House Years, 262.
19. Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Warner Books, 1978), 392.
20. Haig, Inner Circles, 225–29.
21. National Security Study Memorandum 36, Kissinger to SecState, SecDef, and DCI, 10 Apr 69, subject:
Vietnamizing the War, US Army Center of Military History; Nixon, Memoirs, 392; Kissinger, White House Years,
272.
22. Richard M. Nixon, Public Papers of the President, 1969 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
1971), 443. The assessment of RVNAF progress and level of enemy activity would be left to Abrams’ on-site
evaluation.
23. Ibid.
24. Nguyen Duy Hinh, Indochina Monographs: Vietnamization and the Cease-Fire (Washington, DC: US
Army Center of Military History, 1980), 18.
25. Kissinger, White House Years, 274.

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26. Talking Paper, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, 3 Oct 69, subject: US Objectives in Southeast
Asia, Thomas C. Thayer Papers, US Army Center of Military History.
27. US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Department of
Defense, Hearings on Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971, Part I, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 1970, 311.
28. Even before Nixon assumed office, plans had been developed to increase the size of the RVNAF. Under
what became known as the May-68 Plan, MACV had instituted a program to increase and modernize the South
Vietnamese armed forces. This program focused on developing the RVNAF into a balanced force with command,
administration, and self-support capabilities to continue the fighting successfully after the withdrawal of US and
NVA troops. However, it is important to note that at no time during the discussion and implementation of the May-
68 Plan did anyone, including MACV, ever consider the “prospect of a unilateral American withdrawal that would
leave South Vietnam facing a combined Viet Cong and North Vietnamese threat.” This was to change under Nixon
and Laird.
29. Jeffrey C. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, The U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, DC: US
Army Center of Military History, 1987), 354.
30. Memo, Laird to Chairman, JCS, 10 Nov 69, subject: Vietnamization—RVNAF Improvement and
Modernization Aspects and Related US Planning, Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military History.
31. Clarke, Advice and Support, 355.
32. Ibid, 356; Military History Branch, Headquarters, USMACV, “Command History, 1970,” 2:VII- 4–16.
33. Nguyen Duy Hinh, Vietnamization and the Cease-Fire, 39.
34. Ibid., 42.
35. Cao Van Vien, Ngo Quang Truong, Dong Van Khuyen, Nguyen Duy Hinh, Tran Dinh Tho, Hoang Ngoc
Lung, and Chu Xuan Vien, Indochina Monographs: The U.S. Adviser (Washington, DC: US Army Center of
Military History, 1980), 10.
36. This was not true in IV Corps, where there was never a corps-level US headquarters; in that region, a
designated US major general served as the senior adviser. In I Corps, the III Marine Amphibious Force commander
served as the senior adviser.
37. The exception to this was Military Region II, where John Paul Vann, a civilian, was in charge. He could not
technically command, so his headquarters was designated Second Regional Assistance Group, rather than a
command. His military deputy, an Army brigadier general, exercised command on behalf of Vann.
38. Ibid., 7–8, 10.
39. Eventually however, the airborne brigades and marine regiments would form an airborne and marine
division respectively.
40. David Fulghum and Terrence Maitland, The Vietnam Experience: South Vietnam on Trial, Mid-1970 to
1972 (Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1984), 55.
41. Ibid., 54.
42. Clarke, Advice and Support, 317; Fulghum and Maitland, South Vietnam on Trial, 56–57.
43. Fulghum and Maitland, South Vietnam on Trial, 56.
44. Vien, Truong, Khuyen, Hinh, Tho, Lung, and Vien, The U.S. Adviser, 175.
45. Memo, Laird to Service Secretaries, 16 Dec 69, subject: Quantity and Quality of US Advisers in Vietnam,
Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military History.
46. This was the author’s personal experience; advisory duty was not seen as “career enhancing.” The author, as
a newly promoted captain with two years in the Army and not even having commanded a company, was assigned in
late 1971 as an adviser to a South Vietnamese infantry regimental commander. Before departing for Vietnam, I
attended the Military Assistance Training Advisor course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, followed by a Vietnamese
Language course at the Defense Language Institute (Southwest Branch) at Fort Bliss, Texas.
47. Memo, Resor to Secretary of Defense, 2 Feb 70, subject: Quantity and Quality of US Advisers in Vietnam,
Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military History.
48. Memorandum for Record, Brigadier General Albert H. Smith, Jr., MACV J-1, 15 Dec 69, subject: General
Abrams’ Guidance on Selecting Advisers, Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military History.
49. Fulghum and Maitland, South Vietnam on Trial, 56.
50. Clark Clifford, “A Viet Nam Reappraisal,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 47, no. 4 (July 1969), 610.
51. Kissinger, White House Years, 275.
52. Military History Institute of Vietnam, Report to General Vo Nguyen Giap, A Consolidated Report on the
Fight Against the United States for the Salvation of Vietnam by Our People, Hanoi, 1987, 26. The North Vietnamese
found that they could not sustain the August attacks because they had not fully recovered from the losses incurred
during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

H409RB-496

53. Kissinger, White House Years, 283.
54. Memorandum, Kissinger to Nixon, Subject: Our Course in Vietnam, 10 Sep 1969, reprinted in White House
Years, 1480–1482.
55. Ibid.
56. Message, Wheeler JCS to McCain and Abrams, 6 Aug 1969, Abrams Papers, US Army Center of Military
History.
57. Clarke, Advice and Support, 362.
58. Samuel Lipsman and Edward Doyle, The Vietnam Experience: Fighting for Time (Boston: Boston
Publishing Company, 1983), 53.
59. JGS-MACV Combined Campaign Plan 1969, 30 Sep 1968, Southeast Asia Branch Files, US Army Center
of Military History.
60. Ngo Quang Truong, Indochina Monographs: RVNAF and US Operational Cooperation and Coordination
(Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1980), 162.
61. Ibid., 117.
62. II FFORCEV Circular Number 525–1, 26 June 1969, subject: The Dong Tien (Progress Together) Program,
Long Binh, South Vietnam.
63. Lipsman and Doyle, Fighting for Time, 70.
64. Message, Wheeler to Abrams, 4 Jul 1969, subject: Publicizing ARVN Performance; Message, Abrams to
Wheeler, 8 Aug 1969, subject: Publicizing ARVN Achievements, both in Abrams Papers, US Army Center of
Military History.
65. William H. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973 (Washington, DC: US Army
Center of Military History, 1996), 401–492.
66. Nixon, Public Papers, 1970, 536. In a memo from Nixon to Haldeman, on 11 May 1970, the president said
that he wanted him to devise “…a positive, coordinated administration program for getting across the fact that this
mission has been enormously successful.”
67. The North Vietnamese did not come off unscathed and suffered heavy casualties, many of them inflicted by
the US air support. It would take the North Vietnamese another year to crank up the next offensive.
68. Clarke, Advice and Support, 482.
69. Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 182.
70. The entire agreement, including the Protocols on the Cease-Fire and the Joint Military Commission,
Prisoners and Detainees, the International Commission of Control and Supervision, and Mine Clearing in North
Vietnam is found in Walter S. Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973
(Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1982), 187–225.
71. Letter, Ford to Thieu, 10 August 1974, White House Central Files, Gerald R. Ford Library.
72. Van Tien Dung, Our Great Spring Victory: An Account of the Liberation of South Vietnam (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1977), 19–20.
73. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, 371.
74. Sorley, A Better War, 384.

Petraeus, David H. “Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam.” Parameters XVI, no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 43–53. CGSC
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H409RC-497
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H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H409: The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam
Reading H409RC

Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam

by David H. Petraeus

One of the few unequivocally sound lessons of history is that the lessons we should learn
are usually learned imperfectly if at all.
—Bernard Brodie0F1

Trying to use the lessons of the past correctly poses two dilemmas. One is the problem of
balance: knowing how much to rely on the past as a guide and how much to ignore it.
The other is the problem of selection: certain lessons drawn from experience contradict
others.
—Richard Betts1F2

Of all the disasters of Vietnam, the worst may be the “lessons” that we’ll draw from
it. . . . Lessons from such complex events require much reflection to be of more than
negative worth. But reactions to Vietnam . . . tend to be visceral rather than reflective.
—Albert Wohlstetter2F3

Of all the disasters of Vietnam the worst could be our unwillingness to learn enough from
them.
—Stanley Hoffman3F4

In seeking solutions to problems, occupants of high office frequently turn to the past for help. This
tendency is understandable; potentially, history is an enormously rich resource. What was done before in
seemingly similar situations and what the results were can be of great assistance to policymakers. As this
article contends, however, it is important to recognize that history can mislead and obfuscate as well as
guide and illuminate. Lessons of the past, in general, and the lessons of Vietnam, in particular, contain not
only policy-relevant analogies, but also ambiguities and paradoxes. Despite such problems, however,
there is mounting evidence that lessons and analogies drawn from history often play an important part in
policy decisions.4F5

Political scientists, organizational psychologists, and historians have assembled considerable evidence
suggesting that one reason decision-makers behave as they do is that they are influenced by lessons they
have derived from certain events in the past, especially traumatic events during their lifetimes. “Hardly
anything is more important in international affairs,” writes Paul Kattenburg, “than the historical images
and perceptions that men carry in their heads.”5F6 These images constitute an important part of the
“intellectual baggage” that policymakers carry into office and draw on when making decisions.

H409RC-498
Use of history in this way is virtually universal. As diplomatic historian Ernest May has pointed out,
“Eagerness to profit from the lessons of history is the one common characteristic in the statecraft of such
diverse types as Stanley Baldwin, Adolf Hitler, Charles de Gaulle, and John F. Kennedy.” Each was
“determined to hear the voices of history, to avoid repeating the presumed mistakes of the past.”6F7
President Reagan appears to be similarly influenced by the past. His “ideas about the world flow from his
life,” The New York Times’ Leslie Gelb contends, “from personal history . . . a set of convictions lodged
in his mind as maxims.”7F8

Perceived lessons of the past have been found to be especially important during crises. When a
sudden international development threatens national security interests and requires a quick response,
leaders are prone to draw on historical analogies in deciding how to proceed. Indeed, several studies have
concluded that “the greater the crisis, the greater the propensity for decision-makers to supplement
information about the objective state of affairs with information drawn from their own past experiences.”8F9

The use of historical analogies by statesmen, however, frequently is flawed. Many scholars concur
with Ernest May’s judgment that “policy-makers ordinarily use history badly.”9F10 Numerous pitfalls await
those who seek guidance from the past, and policymakers have seemed adept at finding them. Those who
employ history, therefore, should be aware of the common fallacies to which they may fall victim. As
Alexis de Tocqueville warned, misapplied lessons of history may be more dangerous than ignorance of
the past.10F11

The first error that policymakers frequently commit when employing history is to focus unduly on a
particularly dramatic or traumatic event which they experienced personally.11F12 The last war or the most
recent crisis assumes unwarranted importance in the mind of the decision-maker seeking historical
precedents to illuminate the present. This inclination often is unfounded. There is little reason why those
events that occurred during the lifetime of a particular leader and thus provide ready analogies should in
fact be the best guides to the present or future. Just because the decision-maker happened to experience
the last war is no reason that it, rather than earlier wars, should provide guidance for the contemporary
situation.12F13

The fallacy of viewing personal historical experience as most relevant to the present—without
carefully considering alternative sources of comparison—is compounded by a tendency to remove
analogies from their unique contextual circumstances. Having seized on the first analogy that comes to
mind, in too many instances policymakers do not search more widely. Nor, contends Ernest May, “do
they pause to analyze the case, test its fitness, or even ask in what ways it might be misleading.”13F14
Historical outcomes are thus absorbed without paying careful attention to the details of their causation,
and the result is lessons that are superficial and overgeneralized, analogies applied to a wide range of
events with little sensitivity to variations in the situation.14F15 The result is policy made, in Arthur
Schlesinger’s words, through “historical generalization wrenched illegitimately out of the past and
imposed mechanically on the future.”15F16

Finally, once persuaded that a particular event or phenomenon is repeating itself, policymakers are
prone to narrow their thinking, seeing only those facts that conform to the image they have chosen as
applicable. Contradictory information is filtered out. “As new information is received,” observes Lloyd
Jensen, “an effort is made to interpret that information so that it will be compatible with existing images
and beliefs.”16F17

In sum, lessons of the past are not always used wisely. Proper employment of history has been the
exception rather than the rule. Historical analogies often are poorly chosen and overgeneralized. Their
contextual circumstances frequently are overlooked. Traumatic personal experiences often exercise
unwarranted tyranny over the minds of decision-makers. History is so often misused by policymakers, in

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fact, that many historians agree with Arthur Schlesinger’s inversion of Santayana: “Those who can
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”17F18

THE LESSONS OF VIETNAM

It is not surprising that lessons taken from America’s experience in Indochina have influenced the
views and advice of US military leaders on virtually all post-Vietnam security crises in which the use of
force was considered. This has been particularly evident in those cases where the similarities to US
involvement in Indochina have been perceived to be most striking, such as the debate over American
policy toward Central America.18F19

The frustrating experience of Vietnam is indelibly etched in the minds of America’s senior military
officers, and from it they seem to have taken three general lessons. First, the military has drawn from
Vietnam a reminder of the finite limits of American public support for US involvement in a protracted
conflict. This awareness was not, of course, a complete revelation to all in the military. Among the
20th-century wars the United States entered, only World War II enjoyed overwhelming support.19F20 As
early as the 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville had observed that democracies—America’s in particular-
—were better suited for “a sudden effort of remarkable vigor, than for the prolonged endurance of the
great storms that beset the political existence of nations.” Democracies, he noted, do not await the
consequences of important undertakings with patience.20F21

After World War II, General George C. Marshall echoed that judgment, warning that “a democracy
cannot fight a Seven Years War.”21F22 Yet such prescient observations as de Tocqueville’s and Marshall’s
were temporarily overlooked; and, for those in the military, Vietnam was an extremely painful
reaffirmation that when it comes to intervention, time and patience are not American virtues in abundant
supply.

Second, the military has taken from Vietnam (and the concomitant repercussions in the Pentagon) a
heightened awareness that civilian officials are responsive to influences other than the objective
conditions on the battlefield.22F23 A consequence has been an increase in traditional military suspicions
about politicians and political appointees. This generalization, admittedly, does not hold true across the
board and has diminished somewhat in the past few years. Nonetheless, while the military still accepts
emphatically the constitutional provision for civilian control of the armed forces,23F24 there remain from the
Vietnam era nagging doubts about the abilities and motivations of politicians. The military came away
from Vietnam feeling, in particular, that the civilian leadership had not understood the conduct of military
operations, had lacked the willingness to see things through, and frequently had held different perceptions
about what was really important.24F25 Vietnam was also a painful reminder that the military, not the transient
occupants of high office, generally bears the heaviest burden during armed conflict. Vietnam gave new
impetus to what Samuel Huntington described in the 1950s as the military’s pacifist attitude. The military
man, he wrote, “tends to see himself as the perennial victim of civilian warmongering. It is the people and
the politicians, public opinion and governments who start wars. It is the military who have to fight
them.”25F26 As retired General William A. Knowlton told members of the Army War College class of 1985:
“Remember one lesson from the Vietnam era: Those who ordered the meal were not there when the
waiter brought the check.”26F27

Finally, the military took from Vietnam a new recognition of the limits of military power in solving
certain types of problems in world affairs. In particular, Vietnam planted doubts in many military minds
about the ability of US forces to conduct successful large-scale counterinsurgencies. These misgivings do
not in all cases spring from doubts about the capabilities of American troops and units per se; even in
Vietnam, military leaders recall, US units never lost a battle. Rather, the doubts that are part of the
Vietnam legacy spring from a number of interrelated factors: worries about a lack of popular support for

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what the public might perceive as ambiguous conflicts;27F28 the previously mentioned suspicions about the
willingness of politicians—not just those in the executive branch—to stay the course;28F29 and lurking fears
that the respective services have yet to come to grips with the difficult tasks of developing the doctrine,
equipment, and forces suitable for nasty little wars.29F30

These lessons have had a chastening effect on military thinking. A more skeptical attitude is brought
to the analysis of possible missions. “We’ve thrown over the old ‘can-do’ idea,” an Army Colonel at Fort
Hood told The New York Times’ Drew Middleton. “Now we want to know exactly what they want us to
do and how they think we can accomplish it.” Henceforth, senior military officers seem to feel, the United
States should not engage in war unless it has a clear idea why it is fighting and is prepared to see the war
through to a successful conclusion.30F31

Vietnam also increased the military inclination toward the “all or nothing” type of advice that
characterized military views during the Eisenhower Administration’s deliberations in 1954 over
intervention in Dien Bien Phu and the Kennedy Administration’s discussions over intervention in Laos in
1961. There is a conviction that when it comes to the use of force, America should either bite the bullet or
duck, but not nibble.31F32 “Once we commit force,” cautions Army Chief of Staff General John Wickham,
“we must be prepared to back it up as opposed to just sending soldiers into operations for limited
goals.”32F33 Furthermore, noted Wickham’s predecessor, General Edward C. Meyer, before his retirement in
1983, commanders must be “given a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam.”33F34 In this view,
if the United States is to intervene, it should do so in strength, accomplish its objectives rapidly, and
withdraw as soon as conditions allow.

Additionally, the public must be made aware of the costs up front. Force must be committed only
when there is a consensus of understanding among the American people that the effort is in the best
interests of the United States.34F35 There is a belief that “Congress should declare war whenever large
numbers of U.S. troops engage in sustained combat,” and that the American people must be mobilized
because “a nation cannot fight in cold blood.”35F36 Since time is crucial, furthermore, sufficient force must
be used at the outset to ensure that the conflict can be resolved before the American people withdraw their
support for it.36F37

Finally, Vietnam has led the senior military to believe that in the future, political leaders must better
define objectives before putting soldiers at risk. “Don’t send military forces off to do anything unless you
know what it is clearly that you want done,” warned then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General John
Vessey in 1983. “I am absolutely, unalterably opposed to risking American lives for some sort of military
and political objectives that we don’t understand.”37F38

In short, rather than preparing to fight the last war, as generals and admirals are often accused of
doing, contemporary military leaders seem far more inclined to avoid any involvement overseas that
could become another Vietnam. The lessons taken from Vietnam work to that end; military support for
the use of force abroad is contingent on the presence of specific preconditions chosen with an eye to
avoiding a repetition of the US experience in Southeast Asia.

USING THE LESSONS OF VIETNAM

The lessons of Vietnam as drawn by American military leaders do, however, have their limitations.
While they represent the distillation of considerable wisdom from America’s experience in Indochina,
they nonetheless give rise to certain paradoxical prescriptions and should not be pushed beyond their
limits. As this section will show, total resolution of the paradoxes that reside in the lessons of Vietnam is
not possible, nor should it be expected given the nature of world events and domestic politics.

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Nonetheless, awareness of the limitations of the lessons of Vietnam is necessary if they are to be
employed with sound judgment.

Users of the lessons of Vietnam should, first of all, recognize and strive to avoid the general pitfalls
that await anyone who seeks useful analogies in the past. Most important, the fact that Vietnam was
America’s most recent major military engagement is no reason that it, rather than earlier conflicts, should
be most relevant to future conflicts. Senior officials should remember the contextual circumstances of
American involvement in Vietnam—the social fragmentation there, the leadership void, the difficult
political situation, the geostrategic position, and so forth. They would be wise to recall Stanley Karnow’s
reminder that each foreign event “has its own singularities, which must be confronted individually and
creatively. To see every crisis as another Vietnam is myopic, just as overlaying the Munich debacle on
Vietnam was a distortion.”38F39 Hence specific guidelines for the use of force that draw on Vietnam, such as
those discussed earlier and those announced by Secretary of Defense Weinberger,39F40 should be applied
with discrimination to specific cases and their circumstances, rather than in the rote manner that one-line
principles of war are sometimes employed.

Policymakers employing the lessons of Vietnam, or the lessons of any other past event, should resist
the American tendency for over-generalization.40F41 For if nothing else, Vietnam should teach that global,
holistic approaches do not work.41F42 In short, when drawing on the lessons of Vietnam, senior officers
would do well to recall the advice of Mark Twain:

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop
there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a
hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one.42F43

Beyond recognizing such general pitfalls that can snare users of historical analogies, military leaders
also should be aware of the paradoxes that reside in certain of the prescriptions derived from the lessons
of Vietnam. In particular, the guidelines taken from America’s experience in Vietnam contain a
significant dilemma about when to use force, appear to embody a potentially counterproductive approach
to civil-military relations, and create a quandary over counterinsurgency doctrine and force structuring.

As explained earlier, many military leaders have concluded on the basis of the Vietnam experience
that the United States should not intervene abroad militarily unless: there is support at home; there are
clear political and military objectives; success appears achievable within a reasonable time; and military
commanders will be given the freedom to do what they believe is necessary to achieve that success. The
problem with such guidelines, as Robert Osgood has observed, is that “acting upon them presupposes
advance knowledge about a complicated interaction of military and political factors that no one can
predict or guarantee.”43F44

Still, making judgments about such factors has always been part of decisions to use military force.
Statesmen and soldiers have always had to assess the time and force required for success, the likelihood
of public support, and the potential gains and losses associated with any particular intervention or
escalation. Eliminating the uncertainty inherent in such determinations has never been completely
possible. But Vietnam and the relative decline in US power (and hence America’s margin for error in
international politics) over the past two decades have heightened the importance of these judgments and
made them more problematic. The normal response to this kind of uncertainty is—and has been—caution
and restraint.

Restraint rests uneasily, however, alongside another lesson of Vietnam: that if the United States is
going to intervene it should do so quickly and massively in order to arrive in force while the patient still
has strong vital signs.44F45 But getting there faster next time implies making the decision to intervene in

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force early on. It requires overwhelming commitment from the outset so that, as George Fielding Eliot
prescribes, “we shall . . . look like military winners from the start of hostilities” and thereby “win popular
support at home and confidence abroad.” The American effort, therefore, should be designed to raise
immediate doubt that the United States will permit a war to become protracted.45F46

Eliot does not specify, however, how long the appearance of winning will satisfy the American public
in the absence of actual victory. Furthermore, getting there earlier next time is more easily said than done.
Several post-Vietnam (and post-Watergate) developments—the 1973 War Powers Act, the decline of the
“imperial presidency,” increased congressional involvement in national security policy, and public
wariness over involvement in another quagmire—pose obstacles to swift American action. Coupled with
the short-term focus of political leaders and the constitutional separation of powers, these new phenomena
(at least in post-World War II terms) make it difficult for the United States to decide early to intervene in
any but the most clear-cut of circumstances. It usually takes what can be presented as a crisis before the
United States is able to swing into action. The result is the oft-heard judgment that America is good at
fighting only crusades.

Military leaders are, of course, well aware of the obstacles to early intervention. They realize that
these obstacles, together with America’s general inclination against involvement in situations that pose
only an indirect threat to US interests, have the potential for incomplete public backing. As a result, senior
military officers tend toward caution rather than haste, all the while cognizant of the dilemma confronting
them: the country that hesitates may miss the opportune moment for effective action, while the country
that acts in haste may become involved in a conflict that it may wish later it had avoided.

Another difficulty posed by the lessons drawn from the Vietnam experience centers on the issue of
civil-military relations. During the Vietnam era, the traditional military suspicions of civilians hardened
into more acute misgivings about civilian officials. This feeling lingers despite the apparently close
philosophical ties on the use of force between the incumbent Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger,
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.46F47

Yet such misgivings pose potential risks. Two post-World War II developments at either end of the
so-called “spectrum of conflict,” the advent of nuclear weapons and the rise of insurgencies, have made
close civil-military integration more essential than ever before.

Counterinsurgency operations, in particular, require close civil-military cooperation. Unfortunately,
this requirement runs counter to the traditional military desire, reaffirmed in the lessons of Vietnam, to
operate autonomously and resist political meddling and micromanagement in operational concerns.
Military officers are of course intimately aware of Clausewitz’s dictum that war is a continuation of
politics by other means; many, however, do not appear to accept fully the implications of Clausewitzian
logic. This can cause problems, for while military resistance to political micromanagement is often well
founded, it can, if carried to excess, be counterproductive. As Eliot Cohen has noted:

Small war almost always involves political interference in the affairs of the country in
which it is waged; it is in the very nature of such wars that the military problems are
difficult to distinguish from the political ones. The skills of manipulation which
successful coalition warfare in such circumstances requires are not only scarce, but in
some measure anathema to the American military. The desire of the American military to
handle only pure “military” problems is . . . understandable in light of its Vietnam
experience, but unrealistic nonetheless.47F48

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Hence, particularly in such “small wars,” military leaders should not allow the experience of Vietnam
to reinforce the traditional military desire for autonomy in a way that impedes the crucial integration of
political and military strategies. The organizational desire to be left alone must not lead those who bear
the sword to lose their appreciation for the political and economic context in which it is wielded. For
while military force may be necessary in certain cases, it is seldom sufficient.48F49

Another paradox posed by the lessons of Vietnam concerns preparations for counterinsurgency
warfare. The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against
involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain.
Committing US units to such contingencies appears a starkly problematic step—difficult to conclude
before domestic support erodes and potentially so costly as to threaten the well-being of all of America’s
military forces (and hence the country’s national security), not just those involved in the actual
counterinsurgency. Senior military officers remember that Vietnam cost not only tens of thousands of
lives, but also a generation of investment in new weapons and other equipment.49F50 Morale plummeted
throughout the military, and relations between the military and society were soured for nearly a decade.

A logical extension of this reasoning is that forces designed specifically for counterinsurgencies
should not be given high priority, since if there are no sizable forces suitable for counterinsurgencies it
will be easier to avoid involvement in that type of conflict.50F51 An American president cannot commit what
is not available. Similarly, along this line of thinking, plans for such contingencies should not be pursued
with too much vigor.51F52

There are two problems with such reasoning, however. First, presidents may commit the United
States to a conflict whether optimum forces exist or not. President Truman’s decision to commit
American ground troops to the defense of South Korea in 1950, for example, came as a surprise to
military officers, who expected to execute a previously approved contingency plan that called for
withdrawal of all American troops from the Korean peninsula in the event of an invasion. The early
reverses in the ensuing conflict resulted in large measure from inadequate military readiness for such a
mission.52F53 So, prudence requires a certain flexibility in forces, especially if the overall national strategy
opens the possibility of involvement in operations throughout the spectrum of conflict (as it presently
appears to do). If commitment to counterinsurgency operations is possible, the military should be
prepared for it.

The second problem posed by such reasoning is that American involvement in counterinsurgencies is
almost universally regarded as more likely than involvement in most other types of combat—more likely,
for example, than involvement in high-intensity conflict on the plains of NATO’s Central Region
(though, of course, conflict in Europe potentially would have more significant consequences).53F54 Indeed,
the United States is already involved in counterinsurgencies, albeit not with US combat troops. American
military trainers in El Salvador are assisting an ally combating an insurgency, and, depending on one’s
definitions, US military elements are also providing assistance to a number of other countries fighting
insurgents, among them, Chad, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, Sudan,
and Thailand.

The senior military is thus in a dilemma. The lessons taken from Vietnam would indicate that, in
general, involvement in a counterinsurgency should be avoided. But prudent preparation for a likely
contingency (and a general inclination against limiting a president’s options) lead the military to
recognize that significant emphasis should be given to counterinsurgency forces, equipment, and doctrine.
Military leaders are thereby in the difficult position of arguing for the creation of more forces suitable for
such conflicts, while simultaneously realizing they may advise against the use of those forces unless very
specific circumstances hold.54F55

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Until recently the inclination against involvement in counterinsurgencies seemed to outweigh the
need for a sufficient counterinsurgent capability. Relatively little emphasis was given to preparation for
this form of conflict, either in assisting other governments to help themselves or in developing American
capabilities for more direct involvement.

There has been developing, however, gradual recognition that involvement in small wars is not only
likely, it is upon us. It would seem wise, therefore, to come to grips with what appears to be an emerging
fact for the US military, that American involvement in low-intensity conflict is unavoidable given the
more assertive US foreign policy of recent years and the developments in many Third World countries,
particularly those in our own hemisphere. It would be timely to seek ways to assist allies in
counterinsurgency operations, ways consistent with the constraints of the American political culture and
system, as well as with the institutional agendas of the military services.55F56 One conclusion may be that in
some cases, contrary to the lessons of Vietnam, it would be better to use American soldiers in small
numbers than in strength to help a foreign government counter insurgents. Indeed, given the example of
congressional limits on the number of trainers in El Salvador, the Army in particular should be figuring
out how best to assist others within what might be anticipated as similar limits in other situations, while
always remembering that it is the host country’s war to win or lose.

Given that conclusion, the military should look beyond critiques of American involvement in
Vietnam that focus exclusively on alternative conventional military strategies that might have been
pursued. For all their value, such studies seldom address important unconventional elements of struggles
such as Vietnam (although, of course, what eventually defeated South Vietnam was a massive invasion by
North Vietnam forces) and several contemporary theaters. As Professor John Gates wrote in a 1984
Parameters article,

Any analysis that denies the important revolutionary dimension of the Vietnam conflict is
misleading, leaving the American people, their leaders, and their professionals
inadequately prepared to deal with similar problems in the future. . . . Instead of forcing
the military to come to grips with the problems of revolutionary warfare that now exist in
nations such as Guatemala or El Salvador, [such an] analysis leads officers back into the
conventional war model that provided so little preparation for solving the problems faced
in Indochina by the French, the Americans, and their Vietnamese allies. Such a business-
as-usual approach is much too complacent in a world plagued by the unconventional
warfare associated with revolution and attempts to counter it.56F57

The most serious charge leveled at the lessons of Vietnam is made by those who perceive them as
promising national paralysis in the face of international provocation. This contention is also the most
difficult to contend with because of its generality. The argument is that insistence upon domestic
consensus before employing US forces is too demanding a requirement—that if it were rigorously applied
it would, in the words of former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, “virtually assure other powers
that they can count on not facing American forces.” Schlesinger goes on to explain:

The likeliest physical challenges to the United States come in the third world—not in
Europe or North America. If the more predatory states in the third world are given
assurance that they can employ, directly or indirectly, physical force against American
interests with impunity, they will feel far less restraint in acting against our interests.
Americans historically have embraced crusades—such as World War II—as well as
glorious little wars. The difficulty is that the most likely conflicts of the future fall bet-
ween crusades and such brief encounters as Grenada and Mayaguez. Yet these in-
between conflicts have weak public support. Even . . . with national unity and at the
height of our power public enthusiasm for Korea and Vietnam evaporated in just a year

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or two. The problem is that virtually no opportunity exists for future crusades—and those
glorious wars are likely to occur infrequently. The role of the United States in the world
is such that it must be prepared for, be prepared to threaten, and even be prepared to fight
those intermediate conflicts—that are likely to fare poorly on television.57F58

As Schlesinger was quick to acknowledge, however, there is no ready solution to the perplexities he
described. Nor are there clear-cut solutions to the other ambiguities that reside in the lessons of Vietnam.
The only certainty seems to be that searching reflection about what ought to be taken from America’s
experience in Vietnam should continue, for only with further examination will thoughtful understanding
replace visceral revulsion when we think about America’s difficulties in Vietnam.

CONCLUSIONS

History in general, and the American experience in Vietnam in particular, have much to teach us, but
both must be used with discretion and neither should be pushed too far.58F59 In particular, the Vietnam
analogy, for all its value as the most recent large-scale use of American force abroad, has limits. The
applicability of the lessons drawn from Vietnam, just like the applicability of lessons taken from any
other past event, always will depend on the contextual circumstances. We should avoid the trap of
considering only the Vietnam analogy, and not allow it to overshadow unduly other historical events that
appear to offer insight and perspective.

Nor should Vietnam be permitted to become such a dominant influence in the minds of decision-
makers that it inhibits the discussion of specific events on their own merits. It would be more profitable to
address the central issues of any particular case that arises than to debate endlessly whether the situation
could evolve into “another Vietnam.” In their use of history politicians and military planners alike would
do well to recall David Fischer’s finding that “the utility of historical knowledge consists . . . in the
enlargement of substantive contexts within which decisions are made, . . . in the refinement of a thought
structure which is indispensible to purposeful decisionmaking.”59F60

Thus we should beware literal application of lessons extracted from Vietnam, or any other past event,
to present or future problems without due regard for the specific circumstances that surround those
problems. Study of Vietnam—and of other historical occurrences—should endeavor to gain perspective
and understanding, rather than hard and fast lessons that might be applied too easily without proper
reflection and sufficiently rigorous analysis. “Each historical situation is unique,” George Herring has
warned, “and the use of analogy is at best misleading, at worst, dangerous.”60F61

Notes

1. Quoted in Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau, American Leadership in World Affairs (Boston:
Allen and Unwin, 1984), p. 25.
2. Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press,
1977), p. 164.
3. Quoted in No More Vietnams? ed. by Richard M. Pfeffer (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 4.
4. Ibid., p. 6.
5. The best of the works that establish the influence of history on decision-makers is Ernest R. May’s
“Lessons” of the Past (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978). Others include: Richard E. Neustadt and
Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time (New York: Free Press, 1986); Robert Jervis, Perceptions and
Misperceptions in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), especially chapter six,
“How Decision-Makers Learn From History”; Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in
Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980), pp.

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42–53, 60–61; Stanley Karnow, “Vietnam As an Analogy,” The New York Times, 4 October 1983, p.
A27; and Holsti and Rosenau, pp. 3–10.
6. Paul M. Kattenburg, The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy, 1945–1975 (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1980), p. 317.
7. Quoted in George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy, p. 45.
8. Leslie H. Gelb, “The Mind of the President,” The New York Times Magazine, 6 October 1985, p.
28.
9. Glenn D. Paige, “Comparative Case Analysis of Crisis Decisions: Korea and Cuba,” in
International Crises: Insights From Behavioral Research, ed. Charles F. Hermann (New York: The Free
Press, 1972), p. 48. Paige’s finding was confirmed in Michael Brecher, with Benjamin Geist, Decisions in
Crisis (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1980), p. 343.
10. May, “Lessons” of the Past, p. xi.
11. Cited in Holsti and Rosenau, American Leadership in World Affairs, p. 8.
12. See, for example, Abraham Lowenthal, The Dominican Intervention (Cambridge: Harvard Univ.
Press, 1972), p. 161.
13. Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, p. 281.
14. May, “Lessons” of the Past, p. xi.
15. Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, p. 281.
16. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy, 1941–1946
(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Crest, 1967), p. 98.
17. Lloyd Jensen, Explaining Foreign Policy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982), p. 39. See
also May, “Lessons” of the Past, p. xi; Lowenthal, The Dominican Intervention, p. 162; and John D.
Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 65–71.
18. George Santayana, The Life of Reason (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, one-volume edition,
1953), p. 82. Schlesinger, The Bitter Heritage, p. 102.
19. See William J. Taylor and David H. Petraeus, “The Legacy of Vietnam for the American
Military,” in Vietnam: Did It Make A Difference? ed. George Osborn et al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Univ. Press, forthcoming in 1986). See also: Richard Halloran, “Vietnam Consequences: Quiet From the
Military,” The New York Times, 2 May 1983, p. A16; Drew Middleton, “U.S. Generals Are Leery of
Latin Intervention,” The New York Times, 21 June 1983, p. A9; Walter S. Mossberg, “The Army Resists a
Salvadoran Vietnam,” The Wall Street Journal, 24 June 1983, p. 22; Joanne Omang, “New Army Chief
Doesn’t See Widening Latin Involvement,” The Washington Post, 9 August 1983, p. A10; Philip
Taubman, “General Doubts G.I. Role in Salvador,” The New York Times, 2 August 1984, p. A3; Richard
Halloran, “General Opposes Nicaragua Attacks,” The New York Times, 30 June 1985, p. A3; and George
C. Wilson, “Generals Who Contradict the Contras,” The Washington Post, 13 April 1986, p. C2.
Military advice on the Marine peacekeeping mission in Lebanon also appeared to be influenced by
the experience in Vietnam. See, for example, Steven V. Roberts, “War Powers Debate Reflects Its
Origin,” The New York Times, 2 October 1983, p. E4; Bill Keller, “Military Reportedly Opposed Use of
U.S. Marines in Beirut,” The New York Times, 22 August 1985, p. A6; Patrick J. Sloyan, “Lebanon:
Anatomy of a Foreign Policy Failure,” Newsday, 8 April 1984, pp. 4-5, 3439; Roy Gutman, “Division at
the Top Meant HalfMeasures,” Newsday, 8 April 1984, pp. 36–37; and William Greider, “Retreat From
Beirut,” an episode in the Public Broadcasting System series Frontline, shown on 26 February 1985.
20. See John E. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion (New York: John Wiley, 1973), pp.
42–65, 168–75.
21. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1945), I, 237.
22. Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944 (Washington: Department
of the Army, 1959), p. 5.
23. See, for example, Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “Past As Prologue: Counterinsurgency and the U.S.
Army’s Vietnam Experience in Force Structuring and Doctrine,” in Vietnam: Did It Make A Difference?
24. The overwhelming acceptance of civilian control is illustrated in “A Newsweek Poll: The Military
Mind,” Newsweek, 9 July 1984, p. 37.

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25. See, for example, Victor H. Krulak, Organization for National Security (Washington: US
Strategic Institute, 1983), pp. 81–102; Stephan P. Rosen, “Vietnam and the American Theory of Limited
War,” International Security, 7 (Fall 1982), 100–03; Krepinevich, “Past As Prologue”; and Frank A.
Burdick, “Vietnam Revisioned: The Military Campaign Against Civilian Control,” Democracy, 2
(January 1982), 36–52.
26. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1957), pp.
69–70.
27. William A. Knowlton, “Ethics and Decision-Making,” address delivered at the US Army War
College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 22 October 1984, p. 28 of transcript (cited with permission of General
Knowlton). Similarly, a “senior officer” told The New York Times’ Richard Halloran: “We were the
scapegoats of that conflict. We’re the ones pulling back on the reins on [Central America].” Halloran,
“Vietnam Consequences: Quiet From the Military,” The New York Times, 2 May 1983, p. A16.
28. Thus retired General Maxwell Taylor described the “great difficulty in rallying this country
behind a foreign issue involving the use of armed force, which does not provide an identified enemy
posing a clear threat to our homeland or the vital interests of long time friends.” See his “Post-Vietnam
Role of the Military in Foreign Policy,” in Contemporary American Foreign and Military Policy, ed.
Burton M. Sapin (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1970), pp. 36–43. For similar views expressed by
General John Vessey before his recent retirement from the post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
see Richard Halloran, “Reflections on 46 Years of Army Service,” The New York Times, 3 September
1985, p. A18.
29. As former Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff, chastened by
Vietnam . . . resisted a major commitment in [Central America]. I sensed, and understood, a doubt on the
part of the military in the political will of the civilians at the top to follow through to the end on such a
commitment.” See Haig’s Caveat (New York: MacMillan, 1984), p. 128.
30. There appears to be a muted debate under way, particularly within the Army, over whether
American forces should be used in counterinsurgency operations at all, and if so, how they should be
structured. Some officers feel that US forces are not well suited for such operations. As one senior officer
who commanded a battalion in Vietnam advised: “Remember, we’re watchdogs you unchain to eat the
burglar. Don’t ask us to be mayors or sociologists worrying about hearts and minds. Let us eat up the
burglar in our own way and then put us back on the leash.” Quoted in George C. Wilson, “War’s Lessons
Struck Home,” The Washington Post, 16 April 1985, p. A9. Similar sentiments were expressed by a Navy
Admiral who advised the US Military Academy’s 1985 Senior Conference that the primary task of the
military is to put “ordnance on target.” See John D. Morrocco, “Vietnam’s Legacy: U.S. More Cautious
In Using Force,” Army Times, 1 July 1985, p. 42. See also, the letter to the editor of Military Review by
Francisco J. Pedrozo, 66 (January 1986), 81–82. Others worry that the American people will not support
extended US involvement in a “small war.” Lastly, there remain a few military officers who cling to the
notion that no special capability is needed because big units can invariably handle small wars—that, in
the words of General Curtis LeMay (Air Force Chief of Staff in the early 1960s), “If you can lick the cat,
you can lick the kitten” (attributed to LeMay in William W. Kaufmann, “Force Planning and Vietnam,” in
Vietnam: Did 11 Make a Difference?).
31. Drew Middleton, “Vietnam and the Military Mind,” The New York Times, 10 January 1982, p. 90.
See also Richard Halloran, “For Military Leaders, the Shadow of Vietnam,” The New York Times, 20
March 1984, p. B10.
One may ask whether American military leaders have not always held such views, and question,
therefore, whether the so-called lessons of Vietnam are really anything new. This was the reaction of
retired General Edward C. Meyer, former Army Chief of Staff, to a draft paper that discussed the lessons
of Vietnam in a similar vein (Taylor and Petraeus, “The Legacy of Vietnam for the American Military”).
Other senior officers have expressed similar sentiments when queried by journalists about the impact of
Vietnam. General John Vessey on several occasions maintained that “his attitudes toward the use of
military force were largely unaffected by the U.S. experience in Vietnam.” See P. J. Budahn, “Vessey
Sees Need to Ease Up-or-Out Policy,” Army Times, 16 September 1985, pp. 4, 26; and Harry G.

H409RC-508

Summers, Jr., “American Military in ‘A Race to Prevent War,’” U.S. News and World Report, 21 October
1985, p. 40.
32. Paraphrased from Richard K. Betts, “Misadventure Revisited,” The Wilson Quarterly, 7 (Summer
1983), 99.
33. George C. Wilson, “War’s Lessons Struck Home,” The Washington Post, 16 April 1985, p. A9.
34. George C. Wilson, “Top U.S. Brass Wary on Central America,” The Washington Post, 24 June
1983, p. A20.
35. Bruce Palmer, The 25-Year War (Lexington, Ky.: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 19840, p. 204. See
also the quotation of General Frederick C. Weyand in Harry G. Summers. Jr., On Strategy: The Vietnam
War in Context (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: US Army War College, 1981), p. 25.
36. Palmer, The 25-Year War, p. 194; and Wilson, “Top U.S. Brass Wary on Central America.” In
fact, it appears that senior Army leaders since Vietnam have sought an active component force that
makes, in the words of former Army Chief of Staff Meyer, “except for the most modest contingency, a
callup of Reserves . . . an absolute necessity.” See the collection of General Meyer’s speeches and articles
published by the Department of the Army in 1983, p. 314. On this see also Michael R. Gordon, “The
Charge of the Light Infantry—Army Plans Forces for Third World Conflict,” National Journal, 19 May
1984, p. 972; and Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context, p. 113.
37. Richard Halloran, “Reflections on 46 Years of Army Service,” The New York Times, 3 September
1985, p. A18.
38. Richard Halloran, “A Commanding Voice for the Military,” The New York Times Magazine, 15
July 1984, p. 52.
39. Stanley Karnow, “Vietnam As An Analogy,” The New York Times, 4 October 1983, p. A27. On
this point, see Hans Morgenthau, A New Foreign Policy for the United States (New York: Praeger, 1968),
p. 144. For an illustrative, though now somewhat dated, analysis of the differences between El Salvador
and Vietnam, see George C. Herring, “Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Uses of History,” in The Central
American Crisis, ed. Kenneth M. Coleman and George C. Herring (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly
Resources, 1985), pp. 97–110.
40. In a November 1984 speech titled “The Uses of Military Power,” Secretary of Defense
Weinberger outlined six tests that he said would apply when deciding whether to send military forces into
combat abroad. His six tests are very similar to the lessons drawn by the military from Vietnam. See
“Excerpts From Address of Weinberger,” The New York Times, 29 November 1984, p. A5; and Richard
Halloran, “U.S. Will Not Drift Into A Latin War, Weinberger Says,” The New York Times, 29 November
1984, pp. AI, A4.
41. A recent article by George F. Kennan contained a similar admonishment. See his “Morality and
Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, 64 (Winter 1985/86), 205-18.
42. Paul Kattenburg makes a particularly good case for this in The Vietnam Trauma in American
Foreign Policy, 1945–1975 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1980), p. 321.
43. Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1899), p. 125.
44. Robert E. Osgood, Limited War Revisited (Boulder,Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), p. 50.
45. See, for example, George Fielding Eliot, “Next Time We’ll Have to Get There Faster,” Army, 20
(April 1970), 32–36.
46. Ibid., pp. 32–33.
47. The best example of these close philosophical ties is Secretary Weinberger’s November 1984
speech, “The Uses of Military Power.” See note 40.
48. Eliot A. Cohen, “Constraints on America’s Conduct of Small Wars,” International Security, 9
(Fall 1984), 170. Richard Betts has observed that American military leaders in Vietnam “recognized the
political complexity of the war but insisted on dividing the labor, leaving the politics to the civilians and
concentrating themselves on actual combat.” See his Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises
(Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977), p. 138.
49. Phrase suggested by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel J. Kaufman.

H409RC-509

50. This sentiment is clearly evident, for example, in Halloran, “Vietnam Consequences: Quiet From
the Military.”
51. There is some evidence of such feelings. A recent article by Tom Donnelly in Army Times (1 July
1985, pp. 41–43), for example, was descriptively titled “Special Operations Still a Military Stepchild.”
See also “A Warrior Elite For the Dirty Jobs,” Time, 13 January 1986, p. 18.
52. Some journalists reported that the military was slow in planning for contingencies in Central
America. See George C. Wilson, “U.S. Urged to Meet Honduran Requests,” The Washington Post, 20
June 1983, p. A4; and Doyle McManus, “U.S. Draws Contingency Plans for Air Strikes in El Salvador,”
The Washington Post, 13 July 1984, p. A27.
53. Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War (New York: Times Books, 1982), pp.
57–58; and T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study of Unpreparedness (New York: MacMillan,
1963). Senior military men took from Korea the necessity to have a force structure flexible enough to
respond to such unanticipated decisions. See the comments of Lieutenant General Vernon Walters on this
in Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context, p. 120.
54. Among the many sources that make this point, see Robert H. Kupperman and William J. Taylor,
eds. Strategic Requirements for the Army to the Year 2000 (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1984),
esp. pp. 51–69, 125–42, and 171–86; Fred K. Mahaffey, “Structuring Forces to Need,” Army, 34 (October
1984), 204–16; and Richard H. Shultz, Jr., and Alan N. Sabrosky, “Policy and Strategy for the 1980s:
Preparing for Low Intensity Conflict,” in Lessons From an Unconventional War, ed. Richard A. Hunt and
Richard H. Shultz, Jr. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), pp. 191–227.
55. These tensions are well described in Tom Donnelly, “Special Operations Still a Military
Stepchild,” Army Times, I July 1985, pp. 41–43.
56. As this article was being completed several steps in this direction were taken. The most
significant were: a high-level conference on low-intensity conflict conducted 14–15 January 1986 at Fort
McNair, Washington, D.C.; a joint study of low-intensity conflict undertaken by the US Army’s Training
and Doctrine Command; announcement of Army and Navy plans to build up their special operations
capabilities over the next five years; and announcement of a joint Air Force and Army examination of
their ability to deal with low-intensity conflict. See Daniel Greene, “Conferees Face Challenges of Low-
Level Wars,” Army Times, 27 January 1986, pp. 2, 26; Larry Carney, “Army Plans 5-Year Expansion of
Special Operations Forces,” Army Times, 30 December 1985, p. 4; “Navy’s SEAL Force to Grow to
2,700 by 1990,” Army Times, 2 December 1985, p. 50; and Leonard Famiglietti, “Army-Air Force Team
to Study Low-Intensity Conflict,” Army Times, 9 December 1985, pp. 59, 60.
57. John M. Gates, “Vietnam: The Debate Goes On,” Parameters, 14 (Spring 1984), 24–25.
58. “Excerpts from Schlesinger’s Senate Testimony,” The New York Times, 7 February 1985, p. A14.
59. George Herring advanced a similar conclusion in “Vietnam, El Salvador, and Uses of History,” p.
108.
60. David H. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 157.
61. Herring, “Vietnam, El Salvador, and Uses of History,” p. 110.

Dimarco, Louis A. “Complex Urban Operations: The Battle for Hue, 1968.” Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare from Stalingrad to
Iraq. London: Osprey Publishing, 2012: 81-102. CGSC Copyright Registration #21-0474 E

H409ORA-510
US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE
US Army Command and General Staff School
Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Advanced Operations Course
H400: The American Way of War and its Challenges: 1940-2010
Module IV: Offense

H409: The Limits of Military Power – Tet and Vietnam
Reading H409ORA

Complex Urban Operations: The Battle for Hue, 1968

by Louis A. Dimarco

Almost twenty years would pass before American military forces found themselves involved in a
situation where urban combat skills were again important. Ironically, the next major city fight involving
US forces came during the Vietnam War, a war known for its sharp conflicts in the mountains, jungles,
and rice paddies. Vietnam was not a war generally associated with urban fighting, but in the winter of
1968, when the North Vietnamese launched the famous Tet Offensive, one of the major objectives of the
offensive was to bring the war into the major urban centers of South Vietnam. One of the most decisive,
hard fought, and dramatic of the 1968 battles was the battle for the city of Hue which began on the night
of January 30, 1968.

Hue was one of the oldest and most revered cities of Vietnam, North and South. It was the ancient
imperial capital of Vietnam, and also the center of the Catholic church of Vietnam. It remained, under the
government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), the capital of Thua Thien Province. It was South
Vietnam’s second largest city, covering an area of 67km2 (26 square miles), and home to a population of
approximately 280,000 people. Hue was a coastal city, positioned where the Perfume River empties into
the East China Sea. The river bisected Hue from east to west, dividing it into a northern and southern half.
The northern portion of the city was the older, and was dominated by the 18th-century Imperial Palace
and citadel. The southern portion of the city was more modern and consisted of the main government
buildings as well as Hue University. The Perfume River was crossed north to south by two important
bridges. One was a railway bridge located in the western portions of the city and the other was a highway
bridge supporting Highway One, the primary north–south roadway. Though not a major port, Hue also
included a US Navy facility that permitted the offloading of supplies. Because of the bridges, highway,
and port, Hue was an important transportation center along the logistics line that connected the major
military logistics bases further south and the important military positions such as Kha Shan, north of Hue
along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam. Though there was no doubt that
Hue was an important urban area to the South Vietnamese government because of its size, history,
military significance, and governmental role, an agreement between the two opposing governments, the
southern Republic of Vietnam and the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), declared Hue an
open city that would not be used for military purposes by either side. For this reason, despite some
warning that a major North Vietnamese offensive might be looming, the South Vietnamese and American
militaries were not overly concerned with defending Hue itself.

The Tet Offensive

Prior to the launching of the Tet Offensive, the American command in South Vietnam, under US
Army General William Westmoreland, was satisfied with the progress of the war. The year 1967, the
second full year of the major American military commitment to Vietnam had been a year full of battles.

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American casualties were high, but intelligence estimates were that the North Vietnamese Army and the
Viet Cong, had suffered significantly worse. As the year ended the US commander traveled back to the
United States to give President Johnson a personal, upbeat assessment. It was thus in December 1967 that
General Westmoreland declared that he “could see the light at the end of the tunnel,” implying that the
end of the war was not far off. Because of this assessment, the Tet Offensive came as a complete strategic
surprise to the US and South Vietnam, despite some military indicators of an impending attack.

North Vietnam also recognized that South Vietnamese and American military operations were
generally achieving success in their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese military from South Vietnam,
and subdue the Viet Cong. Because of this, the DRV determined that the situation in the South would
continue to deteriorate unless they made a bold move. General Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of the
People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), received permission from the DRV government to launch a general
offensive in the South in 1968, supported by a general uprising of South Vietnamese communists. The
PAVN scheduled the offensive to begin during the Tet holiday, a time when much of the South
Vietnamese army would be on home leave. The objective was to use a combination of PAVN regular
troops, in conjunction with the Viet Cong, to strike at key targets, mostly urban areas, throughout the
South. American and South Vietnamese army forces would be destroyed as they counterattacked.
Simultaneously, a spontaneous general uprising of the South Vietnamese population against the RVN’s
government would ensure the destruction of the South Vietnamese government.

The city of Hue was assigned as the objective of the Tri Thien Hue Front command. The North
Vietnamese plan to take the city was relatively simple. Viet Cong guerrillas, in civilian garb, would
infiltrate the city in the days before the attack. They would observe targets and position themselves for the
attack. On the night of the attack, the Viet Cong would spearhead the attack on the civilian targets and
join with two battalions of PAVN sappers to attack military and government positions in the city. Two
full regiments of PAVN infantry would then flow into the city to prepare it for defense against the
inevitable counterattack. A third PAVN infantry regiment had the task of ensuring that the PAVN line of
communications into Hue remained secure.

A Battle in Four Phases

The Viet Cong and PAVN launched their attack in the early, dark hours of January 31, 1968. It was
timed to coincide with hundreds of other attacks all over South Vietnam, and achieved complete surprise.
The initial attacking force, numbering perhaps as many as 10,000 PAVN and Viet Cong troops, captured
most of the city with virtually no resistance. The PAVN 6th Regiment entered and secured the Citadel
area north of the river aided by Viet Cong in South Vietnamese army uniforms who overwhelmed the
Citadel’s west gate guard detail. The PAVN 4th Regiment quickly secured the south side of the river. The
PAVN troops had received special training in urban fighting and immediately began to dig in and prepare
defenses. Outside of the city, the PAVN 5th Regiment set up defensive positions to protect the attackers’
line of communications and supply into the city. At the same time that regular troops prepared for the
inevitable counterattack, a special cadre of political officers moved through the city with a list of several
thousand individuals to be placed under arrest.

Though the attack to capture Hue was a remarkable feat of arms that used stealth, intelligence, and
boldness to seize the city with almost no fight, the execution of the assault was not flawless. The North
Vietnamese had identified literally hundreds of large and small objectives inside the city, but the three
most important were the headquarters of the 1st Army of Vietnam (ARVN) Infantry Division in the
northeast corner of the Citadel; Tay Loc airfield, also in the citadel just to the north of the Imperial
Palace; and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) compound, which housed the 1st
ARVN Division’s American advisors, located on the south side of the river. The commander of the South
Vietnamese division, Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong, had had several indicators of an impending

H409ORA-512
attack and therefore had his division on full alert. His headquarters was fully manned and operating, as
were all of his units, although over half of the division’s strength had been released on leave for the Tet
holiday. General Truong was mistaken in his assumption that the North Vietnamese attack would not be
directed at Hue itself, because of the city’s unique status and importance. Nonetheless, when the PAVN
attack came, Truong’s division was alert and ready to respond.

The PAVN 6th Regiment’s attack through the Citadel moved rapidly from the southwest to the
northeast. Little resistance was met until the North Vietnamese attacked Tay Loc Airfield. The airfield
was defended by the 1st ARVN Division’s reconnaissance company, an all-volunteer elite unit that,
though outnumbered, held the airfield against repeated PAVN attacks. The 6th Regiment’s assault did not
slow at the airfield but rather flowed around it and ran into Truong’s alert 1st ARVN headquarters. Like
at the airfield, Truong’s headquarters troops resisted fiercely inside their walled compound. The PAVN
attack had been preceded by a rocket bombardment of the entire city. That bombardment alerted the
personnel of the MACV compound on the south side of the city. Thus, when sappers and troops of the
PAVN 4th Regiment assaulted the MACV position they were met by a hail of fire from the first of the
compound’s defenders to get to their positions. A machine gun on top of a 20-ft tower, manned by a US
Army advisor, mowed down the first wave of attackers. Similarly, a key bunker occupied by several US
Marine advisors was manned and firing to stave off the first assaults on the compound gate. Though both
positions were rapidly silenced by the PAVN, they delayed the attack just long enough that the remaining
garrison was able to man defensive positions, beat back the attack and inflict severe casualties. Thus,
though the PAVN attack was very successful in capturing 95 percent of the city, it failed to capture the
three most important military objectives in the city. Although the airfield and two compounds were small
failures compared to the wide success of the PAVN almost everywhere else, they were to prove decisive
as these positions became the basis of the counterattack to retake the city.

By the morning of January 31, the PAVN was firmly in control of Hue and PAVN soldiers openly
patrolled the streets of South Vietnam’s second largest city. Fighting raged at the airfield, while the
PAVN were content to bombard the 1st ARVN headquarters and MACV compound with rockets. The
ARVN and MACV radioed for reinforcements but all over South Vietnam chaos dominated on the first
full day of the Tet Offensive. The requests for assistance were lost in the avalanche of reports that
deluged all major headquarters across the country. Slowly, however, a response was formed and the
outline of the battle for Hue emerged. The remaining battle would occur in three distinct areas which were
related, but generally independent of each other. One battle occurred on the north side of the river
between the ARVN and the PAVN 6th Regiment. A second battle occurred on the south side of the river
between the PAVN 4th Regiment and US Marines. A third and final battle integral to the operation to
recapture the city occurred to the west and north of the city between the PAVN 5th Regiment and
elements of the US 1st Cavalry Division.

The Initial American Counterattack

Marine Lieutenant General Robert Cushman III was responsible for American forces in the vicinity of
Hue. He was not sure of the situation in Hue but was aware early on January 31 that there was a need for
reinforcements in the city. He ordered that Task Force (TF) X-Ray – located at the large US Marine base
at Phu Bai, the closest US headquarters to the city – reinforce US forces in the city and relieve the
besieged MACV compound. Brigadier General Foster LaHue, the assistant division commander of the 1st
Marine Division and commander of TF X-Ray, was unaware of the scale of the attack in Hue, and thus
responded by dispatching A Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (A/1/1) to relieve the MACV
compound.

A Company, with no other guidance than to relieve the MACV compound, and no real intelligence as
to the situation in Hue, loaded into trucks and moved up Highway One toward Hue, about 10 miles away.

H409ORA-513
On the march to Hue the infantry company was joined by four M-48 tanks of the 3rd Marine Tank
Battalion. Together the small task force moved toward Hue, encountering significant sniper fire, and
occasionally stopping to clear enemy-occupied buildings along the road. As the company crossed the Phu
Cam Canal and entered the southern part of Hue it was caught in a hail of rifle, rocket, and machine-gun
fire. Advancing slowly and carefully the Marines dismounted and, working with the tanks, moved slowly
against increasing resistance toward the MACV compound. Just short of the compound the company was
pinned down by intense fire and the company commander was wounded. The company radioed Phu Bai
for support.

Task Force X-Ray responded to the call for help from the Marine company in Hue by dispatching
Lieutenant Colonel Marcus J. Gravel, commander of 1/1 Marines, his battalion headquarters, and G
Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (G/2/5) to reinforce A/1/1. Gravel, still with no specific
knowledge of the situation in Hue, loaded up his Marines in trucks, and along with two Army M-42
“Duster” self-propelled dual 40mm antiaircraft guns, made the run to Hue. The Marine reinforcements
linked up with A/1/1 and together the two infantry companies, supported by tanks and antiaircraft guns,
pushed on to the MACV compound which they successfully relieved late in the afternoon. Upon reporting
to X-Ray the success of the mission, Colonel Gravel was ordered to continue to attack north across the
Perfume River bridge and link up with the ARVN forces fighting on the north side of the river. As
medical evacuation helicopters arrived to remove the MACV and Marine wounded, Gravel ordered the
relatively unscathed G/2/5 to continue while A/1/1, which had incurred significant casualties including all
of its officers, was left to secure the MACV headquarters compound and the helicopter landing zone.

Gravel had gained an appreciation of the PAVN strength in Hue during his move to the MACV
compound. Upon receipt of the new orders he protested, but was told to “proceed,” clearly indicating that
the true situation in Hue was still not understood in Phu Bai. The company moved north from the MACV
compound, fighting through enemy snipers until it reached the southern bank of the Perfume River. There
G/2/5 encountered the Nguyen Hoang Bridge over which Highway One connected the old city on the
north bank with modern Hue on the south bank. The Marine tanks, now joined by several M-41 light
tanks of the ARVN 7th Armored Cavalry Squadron, deployed on the south bank and supported the rush
of infantry across the bridge.

The Marines of G/2/5 proceeded across the bridge cautiously and were halfway across when the
opposite bank erupted with fire directed at the exposed infantry. In the initial volley 10 Marines were
killed or wounded on the bridge as the allied tanks returned fire, desperate to suppress the PAVN machine
guns which covered the bridge. With the aid of the suppressive fires, Gulf Company pushed forward
across the bridge while gathering its dead and wounded. On the far side of the bridge the Marines
encountered the closely packed housing that surrounded the massive Citadel walls. PAVN fire increased
as the Marines entered the labyrinth of buildings. Enemy fire came from all directions, front, flanks and
even from the rear as the company attempted to advance. To Colonel Gravel it was obvious that a single
infantry company was grossly insufficient for the task of attacking into northern Hue, and there was the
very real danger that the company might be cut off and surrounded. On his own initiative he ordered the
company to withdraw back to the south bank, itself a very difficult task to accomplish under constant and
intense enemy fire. By 8pm the Marines were again consolidated on the south bank of the river. Gulf
Company had managed to bring all of their dead and wounded back to the south bank in their withdrawal,
but the attempt to cross the bridge was costly: 50 Marines had been killed or wounded on and around the
bridge, a third of the company’s strength. As night fell at the end of the first day of fighting in Hue, the
Marines were engaged, but they were outnumbered and the situation was in doubt on the south side of the
river. Meanwhile, demonstrating the lack of understanding of the situation at higher headquarters, that
same night General Westmoreland, commander of all US forces in Vietnam, reported that the PAVN only
had three companies fighting in Hue and that the Marines would soon have them cleared out.

H409ORA-514
On February 1, the 1/1 Marines’ new mission was to attack west to secure the Thua Thien Provincial
Headquarters and the province prison, six blocks from the MACV compound. The mission was assigned
to G/2/5, commanded by Captain Chuck Meadows. The company, which had taken significant casualties
in the failed foray across the bridge, now took on what appeared to be a simple six-block movement to
rescue South Vietnamese forces still holding out in the provincial headquarters. However, the attack
stalled immediately. Depleted by casualties from the day before, it took all the company’s resources to
advance, one building at a time. Each building and each room in each building was defended by the
enemy. A long, hard day of fighting, aided by the M-48 tanks, resulted in an advance of less than one
block, and further casualties. That evening a third Marine company, Fox Company, 2/5 Marines, entered
the battle and took over the advance from Gulf. In its first combat, Fox suffered 15 casualties and four
dead in its lead platoon. As darkness fell Gravel ordered the attack to pause for the night. The Marines’
first full day in Hue ended in frustration.

On February 2, the third day of the battle, Hotel Company of the 2/5 Marines (H/2/5) arrived by
convoy and was immediately assigned to join A/1/1 securing the university. Later, all three companies,
including F/2/5 and G/2/5, expanded the secure base around the MACV and attempted to attack to relieve
the Prison. The attack failed when one of the lead platoons was immediately pinned down. That night the
PAVN 6th Regiment counterattacked but was easily repulsed.

With four Marine companies in Hue, the headquarters of 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines (2/5), was
ordered to the city. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie C. Cheathum, and his staff,
researched and attempted to acquire any and all types of munitions and equipment the battalion might
need in urban warfare, having been previously engaged in jungle warfare. Cheathum found and read
several field manuals which offered suggestions for conducting operations in cities. The night before
moving to Hue the battalion acquired CS riot-control gas and protective gas masks for the battalion,
loaded up its 106mm recoilless rifles and an abundance of ammunition, and the battalion’s 81mm
mortars. The battalion also located large numbers of 3.5in. rocket launchers, known during World War II
as bazookas. The weapons had been shipped to Vietnam but had seen little use and had recently been
replaced by the lighter but less powerful Light Antitank Weapon (LAW). Cheathum’s officers picked up
numerous rocket launchers and ammunition because the manuals indicated that it was an ideal weapon for
busting through building walls.

On February 3, the 1st Marine Regiment Headquarters, under Colonel Stan Hughes arrived in Hue to
take over the battle, bringing with it Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Cheatham and the headquarters of 2/5
Marines. The 2/5 Marines took over the attack from 1/1 with orders to clear the city south of the river.
Cheatham attacked west with two companies leading; H/2/5 on the right with its right flank on the river,
and F/2/5 on the left sharing a boundary with A/1/1. The attack, however, made no progress. The attacks
failed due to huge volume of fire aimed at two lead companies. The entire attack was further hindered by
the requirement to keep the attacking companies on line. If H Company was successful in its attack but F
was not, as occurred on afternoon of February 3, then H Company had to withdraw because it had
insufficient troops to both attack and cover its exposed flank.

On the fifth day of the battle, February 4, the Marines south of the river began to make progress, and
were achieving local superiority. At 7am the 2/5 Marines resumed the attack with H and F companies.
The objective of the attack remained the provincial headquarters and prison, but the major obstacle in
front of 2/5 was the government treasury building facing F Company. The treasury was a strong concrete
structure with limited access, specifically designed to keep thieves out. Several attempts by F Company to
get into the building on the previous day had failed. The renewed attack however, made use of CS gas.
The Marines positioned an M-38 gas launcher, capable of rapidly firing 64 30mm CS gas pellets, in front
of the building and then doused the building with a barrage of CS. Tank and 106mm recoilless rifle fire
then pounded into the building followed by a close assault by a platoon of Marine infantry wearing gas

H409ORA-515
masks. Using fragmentation grenades and automatic rifle fire, the Marine infantry smashed through the
front door and systematically cleared the large three-story building. Most of the enemy withdrew as the
CS, against which they had no protection, wafted through the building. A few stragglers were killed by
the Marines and the building was quickly secured. F Company’s success facilitated the advance of H
Company, which captured the French Consulate where almost 200 friendly civilians were taking cover.

Simultaneous with the 2/5 attack, A/1/1 attacked with support of tanks and captured the Saint Joan
D’Arc school and church buildings. Late that afternoon, B/1/1 arrived by convoy in Hue, along with the
last platoon of A/1/1 giving Colonel Gravel’s 1/1 Marines two reasonably fit companies (A and B) and
the ability to attack alongside 2/5 and protect that battalion’s southern flank. In the course of the afternoon
1/1 consolidated its position around the school and church complex and in the process killed almost 50
PAVN troops. No-one in the unit had ever heard of inflicting 50 casualties on an enemy unit in a few
hours; let alone be surrounded by the bodies of the enemy strewn around their position as evidence. A
Company also took two PAVN officers prisoner during the day.

The Marines continued the attack on February 5. In the previous four days they had covered two of
the six blocks to their objective. Now several new factors came into play in favor of the Marines.
Restrictions on the use of artillery and close air support fire were lifted as the higher headquarters gained
a better understanding of the significant threat inside the city. The US Navy destroyer USS Lynde
McCormic arrived offshore to provide naval gunfire support to the Marines. Most important however, the
Marines, who had no urban warfare training or experience, developed effective tactical techniques for
fighting successfully from one building position to another heavily defended building position. Marine
commanders were now adept at coordinating company and battalion mortar fires, suppressive small-arms
and machine-gun fire, CS gas, 3.5-inch rocket launchers, recoilless rifle and tank fire, and assaulting
infantry into a carefully choreographed assault sequence that could systematically capture buildings and
blocks of buildings with the fewest casualties.

On February 5, 2/5 Marines moved G Company into line on the right, setting up a three-company
frontage that increased the combat power available to each company as it attacked. The attack began early
and quickly captured a city block of ground in front of the battalion with little resistance. This brought the
battalion in front of the Hue City Hospital complex of buildings, which civilians reported had been turned
into a fortified position as well as serving as the regimental hospital for the 4th PAVN Regiment.
Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham determined that, despite 1/1 Marines on his left flank not being able to keep
up, he would continue the attack into the hospital. Cheatham’s men used all the techniques they had
learned in Hue to systematically take down one hospital building after another. Now that the battalion had
three full companies in the attack, it also had the capability of maneuvering within the blocks of
buildings. Thus, the right flank company, Gulf, attacked first straight ahead, and then, once it had
advanced forward of H Company, it turned left and attacked across the front of H Company. This not only
took the enemy buildings from the flank, but it also cut off PAVN troops still in defensive positions
facing H Company. F Company advanced slowly and bent its line backwards to deny the battalion left
flank and remain linked to the 1/1 Marines. By the end of the day, 2/5 Marines was one block from its
objective, the Provincial Headquarters Building and Prison, and had all three of its rifle companies on line
prepared to attack.

The morning of February 6 began with the companies of 2/5 Marines clearing and consolidating the
buildings of the hospital complex which they had secured the previous day. Their objective – the block
occupied by the provincial capital – had three major features: the provincial capital in the northern
portion, the provincial prison in the middle, and more hospital buildings at the southern end of the block.
The 2/5 companies were arrayed north to south: H, G, and F; with H and G having traded positions in the
line as a result of the previous day’s cross-front attack. The penetration of the objective block began with
F Company, which attacked the hospital building at the southern edge of the block as an extension of

H409ORA-516
consolidating its positions. The southern portion of the block was not heavily defended but the company
took several casualties from PAVN troops firing from the high prison walls which bordered the
company’s right flank. With F Company set, G Company in the center bombarded the prison with mortars
for over two hours, then breached the walls of the prison early in the afternoon and quickly overran the
defenders. The final assault of the day was H Company’s attack directly through the front door of the
provincial headquarters. The company preceded the attack with a hundred-round mortar bombardment of
the building and 60 rounds of 106mm rifle fire. Then the building was liberally bombarded with CS gas.
The lead Marine platoon then assaulted the building through the gas clouds wearing gas masks as the
mortar and rifle fire ceased. Boards were used to cross over concertina wire strung around the building.
Once inside the front door, the Marines quickly cleared the building using fragmentation grenades and
rifles.

Following the assault on the provincial headquarters, the Marines tore down the Viet Cong flag flying
above the building and replaced it with the stars and stripes. However, though the Marines would realize
later that the day’s assault had broken the back of the 4th PAVN Regiment’s defense of southern Hue, it
would require several days of dangerous clearing operations to confirm that the PAVN had given up the
southern part of the city. By February 10, the southern part of the city was considered secured: the
Marines had cleared the last of the PAVN snipers and rearguard, and recovered hundreds of discarded
weapons, and tons of equipment. Thousands of Vietnamese civilians came out of hiding and a civil affairs
collection and assistance point was set up by the US and South Vietnamese military to handle them.
However, the battle for Hue was far from over, and attention shifted to operations north of the river.

The Battle in the Old City

While the US Marines fought systematically against the PAVN 4th Regiment for control of southern
Hue, the ancient old city north of the river was the subject of an even more desperate contest between the
ARVN 1st Division and the PAVN 6th Regiment. Like the PAVN 4th Regiment, the 6th was very
successfully seizing most of its objectives in the early morning of January 31, but also like the 4th
Regiment, the 6th failed to take the key military objective in the old Citadel part of the city, the
headquarters compound of the ARVN 1st Division. This compound, like the MACV compound in the
south, became the base of the ARVN counterattack.

General Truong was a shrewd military leader, who unlike many ARVN generals had made his rank
and reputation in the ARVN through combat success and competence. He recognized that the most
important terrain in the Citadel was his headquarters and immediately after beating back the initial PAVN
attempts to capture it, he took steps to secure it completely against future PAVN attack. Toward this end
he ordered that the division reconnaissance company and the division ordinance company, which were
successfully defending Tay Loc airfield and the ordinance compound respectively, abandon their
defensive battles and withdraw to reinforce the division headquarters position. He also immediately
ordered his closest subordinate units, elements of the ARVN 7th Armored Cavalry Squadron, and the
ARVN 3rd Regiment, to counterattack into the city. Further, he informed ARVN I Corps of the situation
in Hue, and obtained operational control of the ARVN 1st Airborne Task Force, a group of three ARVN
paratroop battalions. He immediately ordered these units to counterattack into Hue as well.

General Truong’s forces were a mixed lot of some of the best and some of the average ARVN
military. The airborne units, and later the ARVN Marines who came under his command, were
exceptional units. His own reconnaissance company and the armored cavalry squadrons were also very
capable military units. However, his regular ARVN infantry battalions were modestly capable at best. At
least one of his battalions was made up almost exclusively of new conscripts who were not completely
trained. Though of comparable size to their US equivalents, the ARVN units were not nearly as robustly
equipped and supplied. For example, the ARVN armored units were equipped with the M-41 light tank.

H409ORA-517
The tank’s 76mm cannon and exposed .50cal. machine gun were not nearly as capable as the 90mm
cannon and the protected cupola machine gun of the US Marine M-48 tank. More importantly, the US
tanks could take numerous hits from virtually all weapons in the PAVN arsenal and continue to operate,
while the M-41 was easily knocked out by the PAVN’s lightest anti-armor weapons. Thus, though
individually very competent, and numerically sufficient, a lack of training, leadership, and equipment,
meant that the fight to retake Hue was much more difficult for the ARVN division than for the US
Marines.

Beginning on February 2, the ARVN 1st Division began to call battalions and regiments back to Hue
to begin to organize the counterattack to recapture the city and destroy the 6th PAVN Regiment. The
geographic objective of the ARVN attack was the Imperial Palace, located virtually in the center of the
old Citadel. The first objective of General Truong was to secure the division compound area, which was
the vital communications link inside the Citadel, and which they would use as a base for the assault to
retake the city. On February 3, the ARVN began to attack to liberate northern Hue from the PAVN 6th
Regiment. The first objective was the Tay Loc airfield which elements of the ARVN 3rd Infantry
Regiment and the 7th Armored Cavalry Squadron were able to secure after difficult fighting. General
Truong made clear to the ARVN I Corps, his immediate headquarters, that without reinforcements he
would be unable to recapture the city. In response General Truong was reinforced with the ARVN
Airborne Task Force, an elite unit which was the ARVN’s strategic reserve. The task force consisted of
three small airborne infantry battalions, and General Throng assigned them to attack southeast from the
ARVN 1st Division compound, along the old city’s northeast wall. Simultaneously, the ARVN infantry
began to attack west and southwest from the vicinity of the Tay Loc airfield. The ARVN units in the north
and west of the city were unable to make much progress, but the ARVN airborne infantry, the best of the
ARVN, fighting against the more vulnerable elements of the PAVN 6th Regiment in the eastern portion
of the city were able to make fair progress at heavy cost. By February 13, the Airborne Task Force had
advanced about half the distance from ARVN 1st Division compound in the northeast corner of the city to
the southeast corner of the city.

By February 12, almost two weeks since the initial attacks, the ARVN had recaptured about 45
percent of the Citadel. The ARVN battalions of the ARVN 1st Division were, however, exhausted, and
severely depleted by casualties. The ARVN Airborne Task Force had likewise expended a significant
amount of its strength. Both the South Vietnamese and the US commands agreed to provide
reinforcements, particularly because the decisive fighting on the south side of the river appeared to be
over.

The American command choose the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment (1/5 Marines) to
reinforce the ARVN in the old Citadel portion of Hue. On the ARVN side, three battalions of Vietnamese
Marines (VNMC) were identified to reinforce Hue. It took two days to move the 1/5 Marines under Major
Robert H. Thompson from positions in the field south of Ben Hua to northern Hue. The battalion had to
cross the Perfume River on US Navy landing craft. The plan was for the US Marines to attack along the
northeastern wall of the Citadel, relieving the Vietnamese Airborne Task Force, while the VNMC
attacked along the southwestern wall. The wall itself was an ancient fortification that was up to 20 feet
thick and flat on top. In places, the city had mounted the walls and buildings occupied the top of the wall.
The objective of both attacking forces was the walled Imperial Palace compound located in the center of
the southeastern wall just north of the river.

The 1/5 Marines began their attack on the morning of February 13 and were immediately surprised
when they were engaged by enemy firing down from the top of the Citadel wall as they marched
southeast to relieve the ARVN airborne infantry. The Marines took casualties and immediately deployed
into tactical formations and the lead elements of A Company attacked the wall. Subsequent to the
successful, but costly attack by A Company, the Marines determined that the ARVN had pulled out of

H409ORA-518
city during the night without coordinating, and the ARVN positions had been reoccupied by the PAVN
6th Regiment.

The beginning of the attack demonstrated the difficulty that the Marine battalion would experience in
its attack. The old city presented more difficult tactical problems to the Marines than those encountered in
the newer, southern part of the city. Buildings in the north were smaller, more numerous, and closer
together. The streets were also much narrower. These conditions increased the cover for the PAVN,
decreased the Marines’ options for maneuver, and made employing tanks and the Ontos recoilless rifle
vehicles much more difficult. It took the Marines the entire first day of the attack to secure the original
positions given up by the withdrawing ARVN paratroopers.

The casualties of the first day of the attack hit A Company the hardest, and as the attack began again
on February 14, the battalion attacked with B Company on the left, wrestling with the dominating Citadel
northeastern wall, and C Company on the right fighting along the outside wall of the Imperial Palace; A
Company became the battalion reserve. From February 14–17, B Company and C Company fought
doggedly forward, achieving one hard-fought block a day. After four days of continuous fighting, the
battalion was two-thirds of the way to the southwestern wall of the Citadel, only two blocks away. But the
advance was costly. The battalion suffered tremendous casualties and the battalion, with the commander
of Task Force X-Ray’s permission, stood down to rest, replenish supplies and bring forward
replacements.

The attack resumed on the night of February 20 with a large patrol from A Company infiltrating
PAVN lines to occupy positions two blocks south along the southwestern wall. From there they directed
artillery, mortars, and air strikes as the battalion attacked on the morning of February 21 with three
companies abreast, D Company having reinforced the battalion during the pause in the attack.

The new attack was as slow, methodical, and fiercely fought as the previous week’s attack. The
Marines continued to call on all the tools in their arsenal – tanks, Ontos, recoilless rifles, CS gas, artillery
and close air support – and advanced one block a day. On February 23, the battalion achieved the
southern wall and the northern bank of the Perfume River. The battalion then immediately turned right
(west) and secured the gate to the palace. At that point the battalion halted as higher command insisted
that ARVN forces be permitted to attack into the palace grounds. For the US Marines, the battle of Hue
ended on February 23.

On the opposite side of the city, the VNMC attacked parallel to 1/5 Marines with the objective of
securing the western portion of the Citadel and the Imperial Palace. However, the VNMC were having a
hard time. Of the three VNMC battalions in Hue, one entire battalion was committed to securing the
northwestern corner of the city where there were significant numbers of bypassed PAVN and Viet Cong
units threatening the line of communications for the units attacking south. The three VNMC units had
been moved to Hue directly from two weeks of hard fighting in the heart of the South Vietnamese capital
city Saigon. En route to Hue they had replenished their supplies and received replacements, including
hundreds of conscripts fresh from basic training. Thus, the VNMC units were much less experienced than
the Americans. Like similar ARVN units, they lacked many of the heavy weapons employed by their
American counterparts. Further, the VNMC units were supported by ARVN M-41 light tanks. The ARVN
tank guns could not penetrate the concrete building structures of Hue and were easily destroyed by the
standard PAVN B-40 rocket – of which the PAVN seemed to have an endless supply. Finally, in the
VNMC zone of attack was the Chu Huu city gate, in the southwest corner of the city. This was the PAVN
6th Regiment’s line of communications and supply and therefore the regiment was determined to hold it
against the VNMC attacks at all costs. The result was that, similar to the 1/5 Marines to the east, the
VNMC battalions were unable to advance rapidly. Finally, as the 1/5 Marines achieved the banks of the
Perfume River on February 23, the PAVN and Viet Cong began to abandon the city. The VNMC quickly

H409ORA-519
broke through the PAVN defenses and captured Chu Huu gate on February 24, sealing the escape routes
of the remaining Communist forces. On February 25, the VNMC battalions secured the southwest corner
of the palace walls and linked up with the 1/5 Marines and ARVN units along the river.

Operations North of the City

The sudden collapse of the PAVN defense of Hue on February 23 and 24 was strongly influenced by
the efforts of the 3rd Brigade of the US Army 1st Cavalry Division operating northwest of Hue along
National Highway One. The Vietnamese and US high commands were slow to understand the situation in
Hue and slow to react in a comprehensive way. Finally, several days into the battle, the magnitude of the
PAVN attack was recognized and the higher command took steps to isolate the PAVN forces in Hue. The
ideal force to isolate the PAVN in Hue was the airmobile units of the US Army, but in the midst of the
nationwide Tet Offensive the highly mobile helicopter infantry were in high demand. The mission
eventually given to the Cavalry was to not only isolate Hue, but also to ensure that Highway One north of
Hue was clear. The Cavalry assigned the mission to one battalion: 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 3rd
Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, (2/12 Cavalry).

The 2/12 Cavalry airmobiled into a landing zone about six miles north of Hue. From there the
battalion began moving south toward Hue parallel to Highway One. It had not gone very far when it
began to take fire from a small village. The battalion quickly organized what it assumed would be a
routine attack on the hamlet but when that attack was vigorously repulsed the American soldiers realized
that they were encountering a large, well-organized enemy force. As the cavalrymen organized a hasty
defense in an exposed rice paddy, only their firepower prevented them from being overrun. What the
cavalry troopers had uncovered was the PAVN 5th Regiment, which was defending the Truong Front
headquarters as well as guarding the supply route to PAVN forces in Hue.

Thus began a hard fight for dominance over the northwestern approaches into Hue. Initially, the
numerically superior and well dug-in PAVN had the advantage, and the 2/12 Cavalry almost didn’t
survive the early part of the battle. However, the 2/12 was able to establish a defendable position and then
slowly the 3rd Brigade built up its combat power in the area. Eventually the brigade had five airmobile
battalions deployed in a ring around the PAVN 5th Regiment and the Front headquarters. On February
23, the US Army began closing the ring only to find many of the positions completely abandoned. The
Truong Front and the PAVN 5th Regiment had escaped the trap that the Americans were building, but in
the process of making good that escape they abandoned the PAVN 6th Regiment and its attachments in
Hue to their fate. Not coincidentally, on February 23 the Marines and South Vietnamese troops in Hue
began making progress in attacks to secure the Citadel. Part of the reason for the collapse of the Hue city
defenses was the cutting of their supply lines when the 3rd Brigade forced the retreat of the PAVN 5th
Regiment.

New Maneuver Techniques

Both the US forces and the PAVN demonstrated unique maneuver capabilities in the urban battle for
Hue. The PAVN used a tried and true technique – stealth – on an unprecedented scale, while the US
introduced a new maneuver technology: the helicopter. The initial success of the PAVN attack on the city
was largely the result of surprise. The PAVN was incredibly effective at moving the equivalent of an
entire infantry division through what was essentially hostile territory virtually onto the urban objective
without being detected. This phenomenal achievement was the result of detailed planning, outstanding
intelligence, effective tactical security to avoid detection, and patience. The result was that the PAVN was
able to seize one of the most important urban centers in South Vietnam, almost without opposition,
despite the close proximity of large ARVN and US military formations. The seizure of Hue by the PAVN

H409ORA-520
is one of the great achievements in the history of urban warfare and demonstrates well the lesson that the
best way to seize a city is to do so before it can be defended.

The most unique aspect of the American response was the employment of helicopters in the battle.
Helicopters played numerous roles in the battle. The most important role did not occur until late in the
battle with the airmobile maneuver of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd Brigade into the area north of the
city, completing the isolation of the PAVN forces in Hue itself. This capability, utilized late in the battle
but achieving decisive results, represented a new way of introducing forces into an urban battle, and a
quick way of achieving isolation of a city area. However, it is a technique that can incur significant risk.
The 3rd Brigade almost suffered the loss of the 2/12 Cavalry because the initial airmobile operation was
conducted without sufficient intelligence regarding the situation on the ground.

Tactical Victory, Strategic Defeat

The battle for Hue was not an inconsequential battle. It was an important battle in the Vietnam War in
that it represented the strategic success of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive. Like the larger offensive,
the PAVN’s defense of Hue, though tactically unsuccessful, represented a strategic victory. The PAVN
demonstrated, after three years of US intervention in the conflict, that it had the capability to capture
South Vietnam’s third largest city and hold that city for more than three weeks against the best troops
possessed by the United States and South Vietnam. That demonstrated the North’s capabilities, and also
the ineffectiveness of US strategy to that point in the war. After the Tet Offensive, US strategic thinking
increasingly focused on how to end the war, rather than how to win the war.

The battle for Hue also represented continuity in the nature of urban combat and perhaps signaled an
increased importance for battle in cities. More important than any tactical lesson, Hue again demonstrated
that at the operational level of war the most important aspect of urban warfare was isolating the city. Until
the 1st Cavalry Division accomplished the isolation of Hue, the PAVN defenses remained strong. The
battle for Hue also demonstrated that the tried and true conventional military approach to urban combat
remained the same. City combat required aggressive small-unit leadership, an application of a wide
variety of weapons types and techniques, and patient persistence. The US Marines, and to a lesser extent
the ARVN and VNMC, systematically recaptured the city, block by difficult block. Urban combat in Hue
also demonstrated that indirect fire and air support were important, and that armored firepower in the
form of the main battle tank was essential to attacking in an urban environment.

The important political lessons of urban combat were as important as the tactical and operational
military lessons of the battle. Like Stalingrad, Aachen, and Seoul, the battle for Hue was dominated by
strategic political considerations. The North Vietnamese understood the political strategic situation
perhaps better than their opponents. The PAVN would not allow the 6th Regiment to withdraw from the
city even after the expected uprising failed to occur and after it became apparent that US and South
Vietnamese forces would destroy the regiment if it remained. The PAVN high command understood the
immense psychological and propaganda value of the Viet Cong flag flying over the Citadel, the cultural
center of both Vietnams, for weeks. The ARVN and US forces in the city began the battle at a tactical
disadvantage because the city’s cultural value initially curtailed the use of air and artillery firepower. In
the latter stages of the battle the US Marines were prohibited from finishing the battle due to the political
need to demonstrate that victory was achieved by ARVN force of arms.

Hue was a turning point in Vietnam War despite being a tactical defeat for the PAVN. The battle was
an indicator of an important trend in city fighting: strategic victory in urban combat may not be directly
related to tactical victory on the street. In Hue the US Marines and ARVN won the battle on the streets,
but the strategic battle of perceptions was won by the PAVN. Hue demonstrated that controlling a major
population center, a city, for any significant period of time can be strategically decisive for a weak

H409ORA-521
adversary and may be a lead to strategic victory even when combat power is insufficient toward achieving
that end.

DECLASSIFIED
InliDq m!H.Tr:.lS
2nd natt&lion~ 5th Narlnes
1st Hartne Division (hein) FHF
FPO San Francisco, California, 96602
\ njf !I’ 0r\rr1rl’ ~. \~-~.p ‘lfi;n ~Rli.
Ii \!:!J~ \,~!;_.”iJ\l;0i.0l1 lilkl.1J:
tL .. 3’ .==” .~~”-h””‘= ,:
‘”‘-‘-‘~
From: Corm~ja.nding Officer
To: Coronnanding Officer, 5th Harine Hegilnent
3/TLY/jds
5750
4 Narch 1968
Subj: Connnand Chronology for period 1 February 1968 to 29 February 1968
Ref: (a) DivO 57,O.2B
.Enc1:j~) 2nd Battalion, 5th N~ines Command ChronolofY
1. In accordance with the provisions of reference (a), enclosure (1) is
submitted.
,. /
{ /.’ ,” (‘ /- ,. ! f_i ~- ! U .
E. C. C!EATHA.lvl JR •
.’
,DOWNGRADED AT 3 YEAR IN~ERVALSi
DECLASSln~ D }U’i’ER 12 Y~ARS.
DOD Dr”, S:c.00.l0
DECLASSIFIED
5TH MfHl S&’C filES
COpy Nit! Cf5
.~ H409ORB-522

DECLASSIFIED
fM~· • “. ..
……-‘ “._”…. . par”ticipa tion in Operation HUE CITY 3-29 February 1968 •
. 7. Second Batto.1ion, . Fifth 1larines’ Chopped OPCON ot
Companios Fil G and H from Is t Battalion, 1st Marines at
031300H February 1968, for participfltion in Operat ion HUE
CITY.
8., Sec.ond Batt[;.liol1, Fifth Iv’iarinesChopped OPCON of
Company D .. 1st Battaliion, 5th t-1arines for pa.rticipation
iri Operation HUE CITY 12-14 Fopruary 1968.
. , .
4· .
9. Second Batta.ll.on; Fifth Marines conducted house to
houso .combut and covep.tionulground warfare against WAIVe
forcos in und ar.oundth.e city. of H’UE, nVN 3-29 February 1968,.
G.~~cle!:\r, Bii-?,logi’cd1, Chemr~al ~I/Ilri’c,re and Defense.
1. Tho 2nd Battalion, 5t!1.·11o.rines carried M~12 and OS-l
Gas Grenad’es for use in Clt;)IlI’ing en0l!1Y bunkcl:’s and fortified
positions during Operation HUE CITY.. To facilitate rapid
search of objectives, protective masks were carried by every
man in the coroI,lUrid.
2. The 35MI.vI cartridge I 16 Tube, E-8 CS Gas Launcher was
effecti vely usod in the city of HUE I HVN. It wes employed.
ns an o.r:fensive wotlJpm during tho seizure of the Treasury
.E3ui1ding, ?rovinc€: Hetldquarters, c.nd building complex in
the vicinity of (YD76602164). . .
H. Colnmn.nd and Control. I.tGo1 E. C. CH&T!L:U1 JR. commanded
.the 2nd Battalion,’ 5th 118.rines during the month of February.
The .BD.ttalionremained· under the administrative control of the
5th He.rfne Regiment dU!’ing tho month, and on 3 February 1968,
was Chopped to thE.; OPCON .of 1st Marine Regirflent.
I. Close…Qonlbat~
1. Tho Second Battalion, Fifth Marines participated in
Operation BUE CITY from 3~29 February 1961. During this
. time the Bnttnlicn wns constantly engaged with n tenacious
nndprofessicnaly competent enemy. Closo combat consisted
of combat’ in u”built up area und conventional land warfare.
a. On ,3 Fepruary , contuct wns as follows: j~t 031545H,
CompaniQsF and H corr~encod thG rirst attack for the
2n~ Buttcl·ion, 5th MurinQs in Operation HUE CITY.
Compnny F located at (YD76972193) oorr.menced tho attack
on the Tr·cD.’sury Building (#70) (YD7697218,3). Company
. H, located on tha .sQutlu-rest side of the HUE University
Bu~lding (#187);J conIDtenced the utt[;ck on the Public
-9-
. ,,,-‘, .
DECLASSIFIED
H409ORB-523

DECLASSIFIED
• • rij_it~~~f® j
i.:UU~ HE)olth Building Complex (#52) (YD769021951. Company
F received’ intense automatic/small arms fi;ro and 4
B-40 rocket rounds frora their direct front land heavy
automatic/sIi1all arms fire from the loft flank in the
LI LOI ?rirnary Schoo]; (#192) (YD77052180).. In o.ddi tion
Ccmpany F received 20 I’O’l.L’1ds 60ml11 Inortur during, ‘
the afternoon. Twc tanks in D/S of Company F rece~ved
2 B-40 rocket rounds each and .one 8,lso received 1 R~G
round rondering both tanks inoperable and destroying
tho XEON light on ono. In the attack COloIJf:l ny F firo’d
35 3.5 rounds, 15 Lfd,,’i-JS, 50 M-79, 3000 rounds M-60,
5000 rounds 1’1-16, 20 rounds 90mm, 400 rounds .50 Cal
&.TId 20 rounds fiE 8lram 1,lCrt8r. at 031956H, ComprulY F
Inovod back to their original position to set in a night
defense and prElpare for tho next days assault on the
SElme objElctivo.. Compc.ny H received hoavy automatic/
small arms fire and 3 B-40 rocket rounds from their
cbjoctivo. By 03l758H, 1st Platoon of Company H had
roachod its objective by the effective cmp2.0YIrlont of
automatic/small arms, 3 .. 5 rocket launchers; l.06rr.m RS ..
ana 81mm mortars. RGsul t s were: 13 USl1C WIA, 11
NVj;’/VC KIb. (CONF), and the capture of 1 13-40 rockot
launcher w/firing de~ice.
b. On tI. February, c~ntiCt was as fo11<...v1s; .. it 040700H, Company H moved out ib ~ho attack ot: the jJublic Heelth Building Complex from the HUE Univorsity Buildingu Company H recoi vod intense automatic weapons m d machino-gun grazing f~re ,from the LI LOI rrimary School and sniper fire from (YD76852200) and (YD768l2l99). Company G provided suprossive f'ire with 3.5, N-60 and small aHns from their position on the southeast corner of the HUE University ';Building. Company F, located (YD76952196), callod in 20 rounds 8lnun mortar HE on Building #192. Tho l06mrn RR was employed at (YD7695219a for direct fire~n the enemy machino-gun position. ~ hcsul t Hore 2 USI1C WIld ' at 041030H, Company F received small arms sniper fire i'rom their left flank during their o.ttack on the Troasury Building. Under a heavy volume of supressive fire a squad from Company F successf'u11y assaulted the position. Results w~re: 2 NVA/VC KIA(CONF, and the capture of 1 AK-47 and 1 B-40 rocket launcher .. ht 041l41H, Company HJ lecated (YD768~2l9~), commenced the attack un a building at (YD7b802195) 'and started receiving small arms fire and 7 rifle grenades. Returned 18 106nw BR rounds, 12 3.5 rounds, and a heavy volumo cf small arms and muchine-gun fire causing the enemy to flec the building. Results: 1 USHC KI1;)', ...~i;::\:~ USl·le· .;.: : ~d 5 NV:~:: KTIBP1l DECLASSIFIED H409ORB-524 , ... , DECLASSIFIED • 041200.H,'CC~l!pany F roceivod small &I'IrlS rlrec.ncl' 2'" B-40 rocke't rcunds from their objectiv(;l ('I'r;;;.a.sury Building). C,ompany 'F roturmd small arIilS, N-60 and 3.5 I'oll.nds; }'irod 4E-Bcs GI;!S Launchers and soized, tho building untier, tho coval' of gus.' The left flunk W[tS prc,tectod' by JIHE rounds of 8lIilm mortur firo. Once elements of COlupany' F entered the heavily 'defended buildinG, Harine occupants recei.vedlO ChiCom grenades in close cO!ilba't ~ Two NVA/V,C wore kille~ by r'ic..rines inside tho building ut cl0s~ range l.,dth .4.5 Cal t'istols" The building was sccured c.t U41345H. Rosul ts; B USi1C WL'.l, 6 NV~/VCKI.:~(CONF), und. the capture of'LAK-47, 1 SKS, I B-40rockot 1a.uncl1er, 11'1-1 Carbine, 7 ft?G rounds and 400 I"ounds .50 Cnl ~il!no plus ruill:,lO for the captured: ,weapons., at 0417.55h" cO:l:ilpnnj H, located '(YD76782166), received intense ,uutcf~ati-c/small. [.rltlS fiI'O from (YD76742l83). Returned a. ; heavy: ,volru.!lcof small llrms/a.·utOlrlO.tic weapons fire and 3.5 rocket rounds. One pla.toon secured build- ing ,at (YD76792l82) ~. Company G secure,da building , locllte,d (YD76722188) and provided supressive fires from the. right flunk •. Under' the cover of 'supressive firo, one platoon of COJ1lj.'Jany H seo'urod the objective ;tt ("YD76742l83). , Approximately 175 civilians were I1berlited from the building includinG 2 mule Americans. Results were': 5 lWA!VC KIA (COl~F) and ,the capture of 1 BAR,13 Bi.Rmagazines, 200 rounds 'cf .50 Cal UllUllO, L~ pc.cks, 3 cartridge belts, (md' 1 PI' of 'kha.ki shorts. At 041825R,Conlpany H, located (YD76732182). observed (;lnelUY with· weo.pons at (YD76722181), cro,ssing the street. Fired 20 rounds of smull arms fire. Result s : 1 INA/ VC KIA(CONF). At' 04i90~q, Company F, locatod (YD77952l79), roceived small arms fire from a protection type bunker at (1'D77002180). Returned stilall an-fls"S rounds of 3.5, and 2 CS ens grenndes. One enemy came out with his hands up. (Lnter learned from 8-2 that the individual ,was a NVA WaI'rant Officer) .Colilpany F tried to take the l"Olilaining occupants' as l-'Ow' awi thout 'success. As ,the enemy opened the ,door of the shelter to fire a Company F Barine firf.;d I LAAi~ into the bunker resulting in numerou8socondary explosions and a fire. Results: -22 11VA/VC inA (CONF)" 1 POW and the capture of 5 AK-47" 2 SKS, 2 l>i-l Carbines” 1 ChiOom LHG, 5′ 8-40 rocket
launchers and 3,sutchel charges. Tile enemy being in
, a shelter type bu.nker, in lieu or a fighting type was
,believed tabe caused by the heavy volw.le of Olzlllil
mortar fire delisvor’ed by, the 2nd Battnl’ion, th Marines
L10rtur Platoon. ‘
– …. ,~. … .
-11″;’ tUJOO©~~$$~W~’~~ , ‘
•
DECLASSIFIED
H409ORB-525

DECLASSIFIED
-, •
c. On.’ S February at OS0532H, CQl”tiplmy F heard movement
in a concrete bunk0I’ in the vicinity of the previoua nj:’
contact , (YD77002180 ) •. ‘rHO CS gas grenades V’i.;, .. ‘9 thrown
in an effort to bring the enemy out.. \-lhen this failed
(in addi tional two 1’1-26 fr[~t;r(lentG.tion grenades were
thrown resulting in 3 enemy killed. Results: 3 NVA/VC
KI1\.{CONF) and the· captur’e of 1 SKS rifle s.nd 6 ChiCom
srenl.ldes.
— At 050855H, Cor,lpanies G and H seized and secured their
respective objectives, CO£llpany G – HUB Sports Club
and Company H – HU~ University Library, both located
vicinity (YD765217). After securing their objectives,
Companies G end H begun moving southwest towards their
next objectives, the hospital cOlilplex in the vicinity
of building #8,3. COlilpany G received three 60mm mortar
rounds, and Company H received a heavy volume of small
arms/automatic weapons fire and five B-40 rocket rounds .. _
Companies G and H returned fire and requested un urtill~'”
Iilission. Under the cover of artillery J they assaulted
the enemy positions, vicinity (YD7642l6). Results:
1,3 uSl’lC WIA and 6 l’NA/VC KIA(Co.NF) •
……….., At 05l0)OH, Company G, vicini ty (YD76612181)” ilnd Compa!:··
H, vicinity (“YD76672l75) i received an intense volume
of fire und B-40 rockets frma enemy positions, vicinity
(YD76682l68). Co.rJpo.ny H called in artillery and 6lmm
mortar missions on the Hospital Complex. Company H,
under the cover of supressive fire by Company G,
assaulted across the street into a building at (YD7664-
2165). Results: 8 UShC WIA t.md 2 nVA!VC KIA(CONF).
At 05124oH~ Com;Jany G, vicinity (YD7661218l), received
five B-40 rocket rounds ro1d machine-gun fire from ~
enemy bunkers, vicinity (YD76622168). Company G .,
employed 3.5 rocket fire and small arms, ussaulted
and s~ized the enemy bunkers resulting in 6 NVA/VC
KIA (CONF) •
.At 05l245H, Co.mpany H seized a building, vicinity (YD
76642165), and received intensive automatic weapons
fire and eight .6-40 rocket rounds from bunkers. to the
southwest of the building. COlilpany H returned small
arms e.nd 3.5 rockets into the bunkers and seized the
srune .. Results: 10 NVA/VC KIA(CONF).
At 051251H, company F, vicinity (YD76802l48), received
200 rounds of automatic weapons fire and two 8-40
rocket rounds. Company F returned fire and brought ONTC’.
– -t.o .. assist . .iJ.1. seizing the enemy position. Company F
. netur~li ~O;d the enemy fire an •
,Results:’ ,llVA/VC lUA(COl!F).
-12-
DECLASSIFIED
H409ORB-526

./
DECLASSIFIED
At 05l600H, COlnpanyH. vicinity (YD76602i65), received
small arms and, B-40 rocket rounds from un enerny force
in building across the street. “Vnder th’e cover of fire
by ,106inm “RR ,and 3 .. 5 rockets” COl:.!lpany F Iviarines assaul tee”
the enemy k~~lJnB eight~ Results: ‘7 USl”1C WIA, 8 WAf
vc ,KIA,(CONF) and the capture.of 2 AK~47″ ‘3 carbines,
2 B-40 rocket launchers, and 1.1WA.i?OW.
At. 0$1600H,’company F,vicinity ‘(YD76721$), received
small arms/automatic weapons fire from an enemy force
in a building at (YD76742l46). ONTOS, 3.5 rockets,
and 8lmfIJ. ,li101″tar fires were employed to supress the
enemy fire, at which time Company F assaulted and
secured. the building. ftesul ts: 2 USI1C WIA and 7 NVA/
V C KIA ( C Ol~F ).. “‘” ….
At O,16)2H, Company G assaulted the nortbern end of
the hospital complex,’ vicini ty (YD76722l64), under
heavy enem.y fire, employing tanks, I061~ RR, 3.5 rocket~
and small arms/automatic weapons fire to secure entrance
to the hospital. Once inside Company G found 4 enelllY
dead and 30 enemy wounded. Results: 5 USHC WIA,
4 NVAIVe KIA (CONF) and 30 NVA/VC row. .
At O$1645H, Company H gained entrance to a building,
vicinity (YD76652l68)1 end found it to be a. main
defensive position, being encircled by dunkel’s on thre~
sides. COfl1pany H 1l1arines methodically threW’ ‘CS gas
and 11-26 fragmentation grenades into each bunker. The
tWA/VC tried to flee thel’l.rea and were kj.lled by small
arms II 90mrll and .50 eal machine-gun fire from a tank
u.s they attempted to cross a street at (YD76482165) ..
. Besults:. 3 O’Si·1C WIA, 25 NVAIVc KIA(CO~F)J and the
capture of numerous ‘toleapons •
. At 051816H, the 2nd Platoon from Company F entered
the southern portion,of’a b~ildingll vicinity (YD7673-
2154), killing S enemy und liberating LtCol .KE.OA, TH\JA
THIEN irovince Chief and ¥myor ot HUh, and his
body guard. Results: 5 NVA(VC KIA(CONF).
d. On 6 February, Corllpany F Command Yost, located
at (YD168214> J received 9 rounds ot U..:40 rockets from
(YD767214).Results: lUSHC ·wIA. :
At 06014lH, Company H und COlupany G moved in the attack
to seize the Hospital Complex at (YD7672l6)o Friendly
units begun ‘receiving automatic’ weapons fire from an
enemy force ltt (YD167216). The l’1.arines returned fire
,’·wi.th tAA\,~S,’ 3.5 rockets ~~’ ~~.&!i~~:su:1t.Q,
DECLASSIFIED
H409ORB-527

DECLASSIFIED
tw.~[!!l· ,
“-. around the right flunk to a position
be e~~loyed. The battle resulted in
10 NVA!VC .KIA (CONF).
~, ~t
where CS gas could
2 liS.LVlC WIA and
At 060950B, Company H was temporaily halted by intensive
automatic lrleapons/small arms fire while trying to seize
the 2rovinical Headquarters. TanKs, l06mm RR and ON’l’OS
lv-ere called in to break the enemy dei’enses. One tank
moving into a i’iring posi tion recei ve.d. two 3-40 rocket
rounds with minor damage. The attack’ continued ·a.nd
met with heavy enemy resistance from the front and
flanks & fosl tions “fere consolidated and an Slmm mortar
mission in conju.nction with H.-8 CS Gas Launchers were’
fired, silenci~g the enemy weapons and allowing the
Narines to enter the complex. Results: 4 US.i\1C KIA,
9 LiSNC WIA and 6 J51VA/VC .inA (CONF).
On the afternoon of 6 February at 06l305H, Company P:-
.moving in the 5.ttack, vicinity of CYD765211), recei yeti e
heavy small arms/automatic weapons fire from an ene!ll:t;
force located at (YD7642l3).. An Blmm mortar mission
was called in directly on the enemy positions with
outstandine; coverage. Results: 5 liSHC WIA and 15
NVAIVC KIA (CONF).
At 06l4l5H, COrf!.tJany G launched an attack on the prison
complex located in the vicinity of (YD7652l4). The
l”iarines employed 8lrnm mortars, l061iiIil RR, ONTOS, llnd
satchel charges to break a hole in the three walls
surrot~nding the complex. A sea.rch of the ;;lrea revealed
36 enemy dead. Results: 1 VSHC WIA, 36 NVA/VC KIA(CQ1IF’
the capture of nurrlAl”OUS weapons, individual and crew
served, grenades and 2 NVA/VC iOW. Also 5 ARVI~ lnilitary
prisoners and 2 prison officials were liberated.
e. On 7 Feb’t’uary at 070930H, Company H seized BUilding;;;e
#179 and’:/f22l, located vicinity of CYD76402l31), with
negative contact, however a search of the area revealed
numerous grnves and weapons indicating the enemy had
taken he&vy casulties.
At 071158H, Company H, located in the vicinity of
(YD756208), received sniper fire from an enemy force
located at (YD756209). ‘1’he IlfJ.arines returned small arms/
automatic weapons fire, silencing the enemy fire.
Results: .3 NVA/VC KI.&(CONF).
At 071)15H, Company G, located vicinity (l’D759221),
received 4 6CJ£i1l11 mortar rounds. The Harines continued
on to their objective. Rcsu~~ __ ~~~ .. ~~-,
…………. Iq~ PREPARING THE
“INTEGRATED OUTLINE”
An important step in writing the “long,” H400 (10-12 pp.) history paper.)

AGENDA
Review: Outlining Basics
Why an “Integrated Outline”?
Examine the parts
Practical exercise
Useful sources

What is an outline?
“An outline is a map of your essay. It shows what information each section or paragraph will contain, and in what order. Most outlines use numbers and/or bullet points to arrange information and convey points.”*

*George Mason University Writing Center

Why outline?
“Why create an outline? There are many reasons, but in general, it may be helpful to create an outline when you want to show the hierarchical relationship or logical ordering of information. For research papers, an outline may help you keep track of large amounts of information. For creative writing, an outline may help organize the various plot threads and help keep track of character traits. Many people find that organizing an oral report or presentation in outline form helps them speak more effectively in front of a crowd.”*
*Purdue Owl

What does the outline do?
Aids in the process of writing
Helps you organize your ideas
Presents your material in a logical form
Shows the relationships among ideas in your writing
Constructs an ordered overview of your writing
Defines boundaries and groups*
Plus: Ensures you have the sources for your argument
*Purdue Owl

OUTLINE EXAMPLE:
Alphanumeric, sentence outline (FROM Wikipedia)
Thesis statement: E-mail and internet monitoring, as currently practiced, is an invasion of employees’ rights in the workplace.
I. The situation: Over 80% of today’s companies monitor their employees.
A. To prevent fraudulent activities, theft, and other workplace related violations.
B. To more efficiently monitor employee productivity.
C. To prevent any legal liabilities due to harassing or offensive communications.
II. What are employees’ privacy rights when it comes to electronic monitoring and surveillance in the workplace?
A. American employees have basically no legal protection from mean and snooping bosses.
1. There are no federal or State laws protecting employees.
2. Employees may assert privacy protection for their own personal effects.
B. Most managers believe that there is no right to privacy in the workplace.
1. Workplace communications should be about work; anything else is a misuse of company equipment and company time
2. Employers have a right to prevent misuse by monitoring employee communications

The dilemma: You have a plan but, sitting down to write your first draft, you realize you don’t know where to find the evidence for your argument.
The solution: the “integrated outline.”

What is an “integrated outline”?
“An integrated outline is a helpful step in the process of organizing and writing a scholarly paper . . .. When completed the integrated outline contains the relevant scholarly sources (author’s last name, publication year, page number if quote) for each section in the outline. An integrated outline is generally prepared after the scholar has collected, read and mastered the literature that will be used in the research paper.”*
Shields, Patricia and Rangarjan, N. 2013. A Playbook for Research Methods: Integrating Conceptual Frameworks and Project Management. (Quoted in Wikipedia)

Why do an “integrated outline”?
It allows you to combine two requirements (outline and annotated bibliography) into one.
It enables you to see if you have the appropriate evidence for the points you plan to make.
It provides you a well-developed start point for writing your first draft.

Example of an Integrated Outline#1

Example of an Integrated Outline#2

Format for your integrated outline:
Alphanumeric: Roman numerals for main points, capital letters for supporting points, cardinal numbers for subordinate information
Sentence: Every entry is a complete sentence (and, ideally, serves as a topic sentence for your first draft).
“Integrated”: Each subordinate point gives a reference, a source for the evidence you are providing.
1-2 pages, double-spaced, due 7 Feb.

THE ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. How well suited was the American Way of War for fighting the limited wars that the nation has fought since 1945? What are the implications of your answer for today’s military professionals?
2. Despite the United States’ economic, technological and military advantages, why did it have an uneven record of victory since 1941? What are the implications of your answer for today’s military professionals?
3. How successful has the US military been at learning from history since 1945?

PRACTICAL EXERCISE
The (notional) essay question: “Since 1941, what has been the most significant aspect of the “American Way of War”?

PRACTICAL EXERCISE
The (notional) essay question: “Since 1941, what has been the most significant aspect of the “American Way of War”?
Your tentative thesis: “Since 1941, air power has been the most important characteristic of the American Way of War.”
Your main points:
I. World War II saw the emergence of air power as a central feature of US strategy and operations.
II. US reliance on nuclear deterrence made airpower the most important aspect of US military strategy in the early Cold War.
III. Wars in Korea and Vietnam saw air power adapt to a limited war environment.
IV. Operation Desert Storm was a conclusive demonstration of air power’s decisive role.

Task: Using your H400 Homework Matrix, take the first main point (World War II) and add subordinate points with references.
“I. World War II saw the emergence of air power as a central feature of US military strategy and operations.”

Where are the sources?
(Which of these lessons deal with air power?)

Task: Using your H400 Homework Matrix, take the first main point and add subordinate points with references.
“I. World War II saw the emergence of air power as a central feature of US military strategy and operations.”
A. President Roosevelt saw US air power as a principal method for winning World War II. (H401)
B. Air power—in the form of carrier aviation and the “Cactus Air Force”– was key to winning the first US offensive campaign at Guadalcanal. (H402)
C. The USAAF’s bombing campaign enabled the Allies to dominate the skies over Europe. (H403/H404)

“I. World War II saw the emergence of air power as a central feature of US military strategy and operations.”
A. President Roosevelt saw US air power as a principal method for winning World War II. (M401RE Pearlman, “Force Structure, Mobilization, and American Strategy for Global Coalition Warfare”)
B. Air power—in the form of carrier aviation and the “Cactus Air Force” was key to winning the US’ first offensive campaign at Guadalcanal. (H402RA Shaw, “First Offensive” and H402RB Mahnken, “Asymetric Warfare at Sea”)
C. The USAAF’s bombing campaign enabled the Allies to dominate the skies over Europe. (Murray, “Strategic Bombing” and H404RA Weigley, “The Strategic Tradition of U.S. Grant”)

A Q&A note on sources:
Q: Can you use sources from outside the H400 course readings?
A: Yes, the course advance sheet says you are “encouraged” to use CARL library?
Q: Can you get an “A” on the H400 paper without using outside sources?
A: Yes.

Once more on format:
Alphanumeric: Roman numerals for main points, capital letters for supporting points, cardinal numbers for subordinate information
Sentence: Every entry is a complete sentence (and, ideally, serves as a topic sentence for your first draft).
“Integrated”: Each subordinate point gives a reference, a source for the evidence you are providing.
1-2 pages, double-spaced, due 7 Feb.

QUESTIONS?

Outline

Student Name

Institution Affiliation

Outline

. Introduction: A. The current US military performances and successes has proved that war

experiences over the years promote better skills and advancement in technology for a quality

military services. B. The history about world was and the current Cold war has transformed

because of the changes and improvement of US military in terms of equipment and also nuclear

after 1945, where soldiers had significantly better experiences. C. The military history of the

United States is well-documented, but World War I and World War II receive the bulk of the

attention (Hindley, 2017). 1. A.US military successes following World War II include the decision

to abolish enlistment and particularly during the Vietnam War, in the 1960’s and ’70s and challenge

of hybrid warfare emerged (Stavrids, 2021). B. B. During the 1960s and 1970s, the draft was a

frequently discussed issue in American society due to the Vietnam War (Serafino, 2017). C. The

transformation that include eliminating enlisting of US military and promote more of voluntary to

services has improved the performance of the military over the years and the availability of modern

equipment like advent of Abrams makes it deliver better (Stavrids, 2021). 2 A. There is little doubt

that all-out battles, regardless of how disparate the capabilities of the competing parties or

adversaries are in terms of human, economic, social and political losses, can be extremely costly.

B. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq has been in existence for a long period of time but the nature

of the war is dynamically changing (Bilal, 2021). C. The current status of the war is that

Afghanistan and Iraq is using the hybrid warfare against the United States that include

misinformation putting US in a tough position where the world judge the decisions made in the

war resulting to recent US withdrawing their military from Afghanistan (Bilal, 2021). 3.

Throughout the decades following World War II, the scientific and technological legacy of the

conflict was profound and the main developed war technology is nuclear (Hindley, 2017). A.

Nuclear technology from World War II was repurposed in the decades following the end of the

war when it caused serious damage and deaths in Nagasaki and Hiroshima (Hindley, 2017). B.

The wartime technology advances has transformed the world today including the US military

contributing to their success because there are countries that have invested in nuclear but

understand the damage it causes limiting the use of it. C. The US military successes is associated

with better innovations and technology in different sectors including information and research that

promote better emergencies and treatment during war injuries (Hindley, 2017). 4. Today, the US

military benefits from radar, a meteorological technology developed during World War II and

further developed to meet military weather requirements, which has boosted the military’s ability

to plan operations. A. There has been a rise in the usage of radar in the study of the weather

(Hindley, 2017). During World War II, radar was first utilized in weather research. B. Forecasters

were able to better comprehend and anticipate future weather conditions thanks in part to radar

technology. C. By the 1950s, radar had established itself as a critical tool for meteorologists to

monitor rainfall and storm systems, allowing them to better watch and prepare for daily weather

changes helping their decisions to handle bush and land operations (Hindley, 2017). 5. As

technology advances, the United States’ military has shown an immense change and the continuity

of warfare where more effort has moved to cybercrimes and demands for better skills for US

military (Serafino, 2017). A. Multipurpose computers, developed since 1945 and used to combat

cyber terrorism, have helped make the cyber force a resounding accomplishment (Serafino,

2017).B. Based on the changes and transformation, various training techniques has been

introduced to meet the demands and this include the rifle combat tactics that is critical for US

current military equipment and information technology training to meet cybersecurity aspects

(Serafino, 2017). C. The technology advances is doing good for the US military in improving their

quality of service delivery and handle the dynamic crime and terrorism activities in the globe. 6

A. Korean War of 1950-1953 and the influence of US military has resulted to the success of the

US military in handling wars like being an allies of other states. B. The US military learned another

strategy of handling war in the better advanced manner including employing diplomacy and the

intention of the 1950 war was to spread communism that US was against it (Bilal, 2021). C. The

struggle to stop communism spread forced US to counter. US military learned on ways of engaging

with allies that would be beneficial during war by supporting peace missions to build friendship.

In conclusion, the advancement of the technology in terms of information access, GPS for location

purposes, training and having better combat gear and equipment led to the success of the US

military after 1945. The US military had better experience after 1945 that was advancing and better

results is achieved after every improvement. The advancement of technology and military

experience are making the US military a better force handling more complex situations.

References

Bilal, A. (2021). NATO Review – Hybrid Warfare – New Threats, Complexity, and ‘Trust’ as the

Antidote. NATO Review. Retrieved 2 February 2022, from

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-

complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html

, J. (2015). The Tragedy of the American Military. The Atlantic. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-

military/383516/.

Hindley, M. (2017). World War I Changed America and Transformed Its Role in International

Relat. The National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/summer/feature/world-war-i-changed-america-

and-transformed-its-role-in-international-relations.

Serafino, J. (2017). 11 Weapons That Won World War II. Mentalfloss.com. Retrieved 31 January

2022, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92176/11-weapons-won-world-war-ii.

Stavrids, J. (2021). I Was Deeply Involved in War in Afghanistan for More Than a Decade. Here’s

What We Must Learn. Time. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://time.com/6090623/afghanistan-us-military-lessons/

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/summer/feature/world-war-i-changed-america-and-transformed-its-role-in-international-relations

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92176/11-weapons-won-world-war-ii

https://time.com/6090623/afghanistan-us-military-lessons/

Outline

Student

Name

Institution Affiliation

Outline
The military history of the United States is well-documented, but World War I and World War II receive the bulk of the attention (Hindley, 2017). The history about world was and the current Cold war has transformed because of the changes and improvement of US military in terms of equipment and also nuclear after 1945, where soldiers had significantly better experiences. The current US military performances and successes has proved that war experiences over the years promote better skills and advancement in technology for a quality military services. Introduction: US military successes following World War II include the decision to abolish enlistment and particularly during the Vietnam War, in the 1960’s and ’70s (Stavrids, 2021).

A. Military conscription has arguably been the most significant shift in the recent half-century. B. During the 1960s and 1970s, the draft was a frequently discussed issue in American society due to the Vietnam War (Serafino, 2017). C. The transformation that include eliminating enlisting of US military and promote more of voluntary to services has improved the performance of the military over the years and the availability of modern equipment like advent of Abrams makes it deliver better (Stavrids, 2021). 2 A. There is little doubt that all-out battles, regardless of how disparate the capabilities of the competing parties or adversaries are in terms of human, economic, social and political losses, can be extremely costly. B. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq has been in existence for a long period of time but the nature of the war is dynamically changing (Bilal, 2021). C. The current status of the war is that Afghanistan and Iraq is using the hybrid warfare against the United States that include misinformation putting US in a tough position where the world judge the decisions made in the war resulting to recent US withdrawing their military from Afghanistan (Bilal, 2021). 3. Throughout the decades following World War II, the scientific and technological legacy of the conflict was profound and the main developed war technology is nuclear (Hindley, 2017). A. Nuclear technology from World War II was repurposed in the decades following the end of the war when it caused serious damage and deaths in Nagasaki and Hiroshima (Hindley, 2017). B. The wartime technology advances has transformed the world today including the US military contributing to their success because there are countries that have invested in nuclear but understand the damage it causes limiting the use of it. C. The US military successes is associated with better innovations and technology in different sectors including information and research that promote better emergencies and treatment during war injuries (Hindley, 2017). 4. Today, the US military benefits from radar, a meteorological technology developed during World War II and further developed to meet military weather requirements, which has boosted the military’s ability to plan operations. A. There has been a rise in the usage of radar in the study of the weather (Hindley, 2017). During World War II, radar was first utilized in weather research. B. Forecasters were able to better comprehend and anticipate future weather conditions thanks in part to radar technology. C. By the 1950s, radar had established itself as a critical tool for meteorologists to monitor rainfall and storm systems, allowing them to better watch and prepare for daily weather changes helping their decisions to handle bush and land operations (Hindley, 2017). 5. As technology advances, the United States’ military has shown an immense change and the continuity of warfare where more effort has moved to cybercrimes and demands for better skills for US military (Serafino, 2017). A. Multipurpose computers, developed since 1945 and used to combat cyber terrorism, have helped make the cyber force a resounding accomplishment (Serafino, 2017).B. Based on the changes and transformation, various training techniques has been introduced to meet the demands and this include the rifle combat tactics that is critical for US current military equipment and information technology training to meet cybersecurity aspects (Serafino, 2017). C. The technology advances is doing good for the US military in improving their quality of service delivery and handle the dynamic crime and terrorism activities in the globe.

6 A. Korean War of 1950-1953 and the influence of US military has resulted to the success of the US military in handling wars like being an allies of other states. B. The US military learned another strategy of handling war in the better advanced manner including employing diplomacy and the intention of the 1950 war was to spread communism that US was against it (Bilal, 2021). C. The struggle to stop communism spread forced US to counter. US military learned on ways of engaging with allies that would be beneficial during war by supporting peace missions to build friendship. In conclusion, the advancement of the technology in terms of information access, GPS for location purposes, training and having better combat gear and equipment led to the success of the US military after 1945. The US military had better experience after 1945 that was advancing and better results is achieved after every improvement. The advancement of technology and military experience are making the US military a better force handling more complex situations.

References

Bilal, A. (2021). NATO Review – Hybrid Warfare – New Threats, Complexity, and ‘Trust’ as the Antidote. NATO Review. Retrieved 2 February 2022, from

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html

, J. (2015). The Tragedy of the American Military. The Atlantic. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

Hindley, M. (2017). World War I Changed America and Transformed Its Role in International Relat. The National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/summer/feature/world-war-i-changed-america-and-transformed-its-role-in-international-relations

Serafino, J. (2017). 11 Weapons That Won World War II. Mentalfloss.com. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92176/11-weapons-won-world-war-ii

Stavrids, J. (2021). I Was Deeply Involved in War in Afghanistan for More Than a Decade. Here’s What We Must Learn. Time. Retrieved 31 January 2022, from

https://time.com/6090623/afghanistan-us-military-lessons/

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H400 OUTLINE

Essay Outline

(See example in Syllabus: Military History AOC Annex E-791-2)

I. Introduction.

A. WRITE ONE SENTENCE THESIS STATEMENT HERE. (Answer the question, use the wording in the question)

B. SUMMERIZE YOUR MAJOR POINTS HERE

II. WRITE ONE SENTENCE DECLARING YOUR FIRST SUPPORTING POINT HERE

A. IDEA THAT SUPPORTS YOUR FIRST POINT HERE.