In Stahlgewittern

Mythos revisited: American Historians and German Fighting Power

in the Second World War

by Thomas E. Nutter

Introduction

This work endeavors to explore the historiography surrounding a controversial and emotionally charged subject, namely the comparative combat performance of the United States and German armies in the European Theatre in World War II. While the subject has been of interest to soldiers and military historians for over fifty years, and hence would seem to be a likely candidate for reasoned debate, nevertheless it continues to incite strong interest among partisans on both sides. Indeed, in recent years the topic has generated some rather heated work, particularly from those who advocate the view that the United States Army was more than a match for the Wehrmacht in that elusive quality known as "fighting power". One reading the literature on the subject published within the last ten years or so is in fact struck by the aggressively adversarial tone adopted by the authors. One might reasonably inquire why such a stridently partisan tenor has asserted itself in this area of military history.

The answer to this question lies, it may be reasonably argued, not with the performance of the U.S. Army in World War II, but with its experience in the Vietnam War. Anyone who experienced firsthand the passage of the United States through the long period during which that conflict progressed cannot fail to be aware of its profound effect upon nearly every aspect of American life and culture. Although it obviously was not the only historical force at work in the period, nonetheless it can be said to have contributed mightily to a number of significant negative phenomena with which Americans continue to struggle. These include such things as the diminution in value of higher education through grade inflation; the more or less permanent distortion of the American economy resulting from the consistent policies of succeeding presidential administrations in following a "guns and butter" economic policy throughout the course of the conflict; the degradation of moral authority in sexual and social relationships; and, not least of all, disrespect for and suspicion of all things governmental.

Perhaps nowhere were the pernicious effects of the Vietnam War felt more profoundly than in the U.S. military establishment. This can be observed not only in personal memory and the literature devoted to the subject, but also in the experiences of those who served. Delve into the subject with any officer or enlisted man who went through this crucible. You will find not only the horrific recollections common to those who have experienced combat, but also a litany of other horrors not previously associated with military service in the American experience. The examples are many and diverse. In perhaps the ultimate form of military disrespect, American soldiers "fragged" their officers in the combat zone. American soldiers perceived themselves as being pilloried by the American news media. Returning soldiers in uniform were humiliated by their fellow citizens. In the aftermath of the war, indeed even to the time of this writing, so-called "veterans" have debased the experiences of those who actually served by bogus claims not only to veteran status itself, but also to battle honors.

For the American military, however, the most significant fact about the Vietnam War was and is that, by any objective standard, from the American perspective it was not successfully concluded. It is true, of course, that the United States did not emerge from the war a defeated nation, in the manner of those countries on the losing side in the First and Second World Wars. In relative terms, the number of Americans who perished in the cause was small. American territory and industry were not ravaged. With few exceptions, American soldiers and politicians have never been charged with war crimes. The United States has not been compelled to pay reparations. On the other hand, unlike even in the case of the Korean War, there has been not even a pretext that the United States was the victor in Vietnam. The last Americans fled ignominiously from Saigon. And South Vietnam, the nation on whose behalf so much American blood and treasure were expended, has ceased to exist, having been absorbed into the body politic of its former foe.

The irony of this situation can only have been exacerbated for the American military by subsequent events. By 1990, the Cold War, the historical backdrop against which the Vietnam War had taken place, had ended, rendering the United States the sole great power in the world. Far from curing the ills engendered for the U.S. military by the Vietnam conflict, this event seemed only to magnify them. Not only did the successful conclusion of the Cold War fail to eradicate the negative public image of the Vietnam War and the military which had fought it, it also brought about a drastic reduction in military force. With the exception of those whose lives would be directly affected by base closings and the like, the American public greeted this reduction in force with indifference. Not even the hugely popular Gulf War could rectify this situation.

The increasingly fractious debate over the relative quality of the U.S. and German armies during the Second World War has its roots in this decline in the fortunes of the U.S. military establishment. It is a truism that human frustration in one area often expresses itself in another. As will be seen, this work focuses on four works published within the last fifteen years, each of which seeks, in strident tones, to lay to rest once and for all what they characterize as "the myth of German superiority". All four were written by (at the time of their writing) serving officers in the United States Army. Each officer was at least a Lieutenant Colonel in rank, and thus likely to have served at the time of the Vietnam War. What is certain is that each of them served in the U.S. Army in the aftermath of that war. Each of them thus matriculated through the Army's staff college and advanced schools at a time when those institutions attempted to come to terms with the "lessons learned" from that conflict. In that time and place rising officers were educated, at least in part, with a body of work written during the 1950's and 1960's by historians whom one prominent military historian of more recent vintage is pleased to call "German lovers".

A defeated army cannot hope to gain much capital by dwelling on the military deficiencies of its former foe, particularly when, in spite of its "lost victories", that army has subsequently emerged as THE dominant military force in the world. Unseemly though it might be to criticize the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, however, there is no likelihood of opprobrium attaching to one who criticizes the Wehrmacht, particularly when the fall of the Evil Empire has reduced to nil the likelihood that the U.S. Army might have to fight side by side with Germans to defend western Europe against the Red hordes. The Wehrmacht, indeed, is an easy target. The Nazi regime for which it fought ranks among the most vicious in the twentieth century. Some of the Wehrmacht's soldiers committed, or had complicity in, heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity. Finally, two generations of publicity, including written works, television shows and films, has succeeded in creating an image of the German soldier as a Nazi automaton, an image fostered and encouraged by such eminent historians as Gerhard Weinberg and Omer Bartov, as well as successful non-historians such as Daniel Goldhagen. [1]

There is more to the partisanship of the American officer corps and its adherents in this debate than mere opportunistic frustration. While the outcome of the Vietnam War deeply wounded the self-image of the American military, more recent events have had the opposite effect. The disappearance of the Soviet Union as a credible military threat, and the overwhelming victory of the United States-led coalition in the Gulf War have engendered in the U.S. military a tremendous sense of hubris. As against their contemporaries, whether friend or potential foe, this arrogance on the part of the American officer corps is somewhat understandable. The armed forces of many other countries contain elite elements, some of which may even be the equal in skill and bravery to members of the U.S. Marines, Navy Seals and Army Rangers. No other armed force in the world, however, has the resources to utterly crush an enemy. More difficult to understand is the intellectual process by which this pride of place has found its way into the historical literature dealing with America's enemies of the past. The motivating logic seems to be, however, that since no existing armed force can be considered a match for the American military, it must have always been so. A corollary to this principle is that the historical record needs must be "corrected" to reflect this elemental truth.

It is the purpose of this work to examine the literature of the apologists for the U.S. Army in World War II, and determine whether the authors of that literature have met their burden of proof.

Chapter One

The Historical and Historiographical Context

Few subjects have captured the interest of historians and the general public more completely than the history of the conflict in Western Europe between June 1944 and May 1945. In the popular press, in professional journals and on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, stories, articles and books on the subject have proliferated in the last half- century. Nearly every aspect of the last year of war between Nazi Germany and its western enemies has been examined and reexamined, from the commanders and private soldiers who fought, to the weapons, vehicles and aircraft they employed, and the clothes and equipment they wore. There are many reasons why this should be so; for many of the survivors of that war, both civilian and military, it was the defining moment in their lives. Similarly, the descendants and other surviving relatives of those Americans and western Europeans who shared the struggle live with its effects still. World War II captivates the interest of yet another group of persons, namely those whose personal connection with it is tenuous, but whose imagination and desire to know compel them to study its every aspect.

The initiation and course of the campaign in Western Europe in the last year of World War II owed much to the influence of the United States, whose entry into the conflict in December 1941 changed the balance of power in favor of the Allies. In spite of the outrage of the American public against Japan for its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the country's political and military leadership agreed with their new British allies that Germany represented the greater threat. Although there was agreement on this point, however, there remained serious controversy between the two English-speaking nations over where and when to best strike against Germany. The United States favored an early direct assault at the enemy heartland through Western Europe, while the British advocated a more deliberate and indirect approach through Italy and Southern Europe.

Britain's caution about a premature direct confrontation on land with Germany in Western Europe stemmed from a number of factors, not least of which were a healthy respect for the capacity of the enemy to resist, and a disinclination to become involved in a slugging match that might give rise to casualties on a scale comparable to those suffered in the First World War. Events, as well as English persistence, conspired to favor the pursuit of the indirect approach. The venue in which Britain most directly confronted the power of the German Wehrmacht was North Africa. This area was critical to the survival of the British Empire, not only because of the presence of the Suez Canal, vital to the ability of Britain to supply its home island and maneuver its navy, but also because of its proximity to rich reserves of petroleum in the Middle East. Here the British, Italians and Germans had struggled throughout most of 1941 in a seesaw battle ranging over hundreds of miles of desolate landscape. By early 1942, however, Britain had gained the upper hand and was forcing the Axis troops back into Tunisia. At the prodding of Winston Churchill, who urged that the United States must attack the Germans somewhere in 1942, American forces invaded North Africa in November of that year. By May the western Allies had driven all Axis forces from the continent of Africa.

The British now maneuvered their American colleagues into continuing to press the Axis from the south, rather than move more directly on the path to an invasion of Western Europe. Its ability to do so was facilitated by the inertia which resulted from the presence of such a large body of Allied forces in the theatre, and by a critical shortage in landing craft, the principal conveyance by which the Allies must perforce make their way onto the continent of Western Europe. In consequence, the Allies in the summer of 1943 assaulted and overcame the Axis forces on the island of Sicily. That autumn, they began the long and agonizingly painful conquest of the Italian peninsula.

The British, however, had purchased American cooperation in Sicily and Italy by committing themselves to an Allied invasion of Western Europe in the spring of 1944. The Allies began the planning and buildup for this undertaking in January of that year, when a planning staff took form in London, and the bulk of American and British land forces began slowly to assemble and train in England. In due course, overall command of the operation was placed in the hands of an American general, Dwight D. Eisenhower; his principal subordinates were the ground commander, General Bernard Law Montgomery, the naval commander, Admiral Earl Ramsay, and the air commander, Air Vice Marshal Arthur Tedder, all British officers. The Allies planned to undertake this greatest amphibious assault in history in May or June of 1944.

The Allied invasion began on 6 June 1944. Initial German resistance, though fierce in the American sector at Omaha Beach, was sporadic elsewhere, and the Allies affected a solid lodgment from which they were never displaced. The Normandy bridgehead, however, was strenuously contested for two months, as the Allies endeavored without success to break the German defensive line so that the superior capacity for maneuver of the British and American forces could be brought to bear against the enemy on more open ground. The Allies achieved this purpose by skirting the enemy's left flank and breaking out across western France. There followed a second invasion, this time of southern France, an event which caused the Germans to further disperse their already hard pressed forces. By autumn the German army had fallen back nearly all the way to the borders of its homeland.

The Allied offensive now ground to a halt, the victim of strained logistics, difficult terrain and stiffening enemy resistance. The U.S. army suffered a bloody repulse in the Huertgen Forest; American and British paratroopers did the same in Holland. Hard on the heels of these reverses came the so-called Battle of the Bulge, the product of a German offensive in the Ardennes Forest during whose early stages the German army sent the western Allies reeling. In the end, however, this ill-advised enterprise proved to be Germany's last throw in the west. While hard fighting remained, within four months the Third Reich was no more, pounded to scrap by the coalition of forces that it had brought down upon itself. What had been one of the most traumatic periods of all time was now relegated to the stuff of history.

The flood of written material about the Second World War first described above began almost immediately after its end. A compilation of all such works would far surpass this one in length; they cover every imaginable aspect of the war and its participants. One of the most popular subjects, for both professional historians and enthusiasts of various kinds, has been the German Wehrmacht. The amount of study and writing devoted to this topic has been truly colossal. In this subset of literature about the war, a great deal of energy has been spent studying the battles and campaigns of the German army, including the part played in those events by the Waffen SS . A consideration of some of the works that treat this subject constitutes a substantial portion of the present study.

In recent years, there has been what might be described as an academic backlash against the study of the Wehrmacht in the United States. Several significant works of military history reflect this development. Keith Bonn published the first of these works in 1994 under the title When the Odds Were Even.[2] Bonn, who was an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army at the time he published his work, focuses upon the encounter between the US and German armies in the Vosges Mountains of northeastern France between October 1944 and January 1945. Here, Bonn argues, the terrain and prevailing weather prevented the U.S. army units engaged there from enjoying the benefits of overwhelming armor and air support, elements that he admits rendered the struggle elsewhere in Europe between the Wehrmacht and the western Allies an unequal one. In the more pristine environment of the Vosges, however, combat was reduced to its more fundamental components; the skill and initiative of commanders, and the toughness, bravery and endurance of the individual soldier. Little wonder then, Bonn contends, that the U.S. army prevailed in this struggle, since even where the playing field was level, the GI was more than a match for the landser.

In 1986, John Sloan Brown published Draftee Division, a history of the US 88th Infantry Division in World War II.[3] Brown uses the history of the 88th Infantry Division as a sort of case study to illustrate how American divisions formed primarily of draftees trained for war and fared in combat in Europe. At the time he wrote Draftee Division, Brown was a serving officer in the U.S. army. His maternal grandfather commanded the 88th Infantry Division in World War II, and his father served as an officer in its ranks. With these visceral connections to his topic, Brown is able to render a well-grounded treatment of it. Like Bonn, he concludes that the 88th Infantry Division, and indeed the 5th U.S. army in which it served, were more than equal to the Wehrmacht at the height of its combat efficiency.

Michael D. Doubler, yet another U.S. Army officer then on active service, published Closing with the Enemy in 1994.[4] His purpose is to illustrate beyond doubt the superiority of the U.S. army over its German opponent. His thesis is that "[T]actical adaptation, technical innovation, the dissemination of lessons learned, and experience allowed the army to achieve unparalleled levels of professional competence" in the three and a half years that it spent establishing itself, training, and meeting the enemy. It was these characteristics of the U.S. army, and not its material superiority over the Germans (a notion that Doubler disputes in any case), that enabled it to prevail.

Peter R. Mansoor's The GI Offensive in Europe appeared in 1999, and is in some ways the most virulent of its genre.[5] Mansoor wrote his work while an active duty lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. In part, The GI Offensive in Europe is a ruthless attack on historians whom Mansoor portrays as critical of the performance of the U.S. army in the Second World War. Primarily, however, it is a tribute to American infantry divisions of that war. The great achievement of the U.S. army, Mansoor argues, was the creation of an effective fighting force from citizen soldiers in record breaking time. The real purpose of Mansoor's work is to refute the "flawed theory" perpetuated by "the defeated German army and its apologists" that "the Army of the United States had blundered its way to victory by throwing mountains of materiel at the superior but hopelessly outnumbered forces of the Wehrmacht ." It was the ability of the U.S. army to adapt to combat conditions and maintain combat effectiveness, not its logistic and material superiority, that gained the victory in World War II.

The works of Brown, Bonn, Mansoor and Doubler collectively express a new understanding about the relative capacities and proficiencies of the German and American armies in the Second World War. In their view, the outcome of that struggle between two very different armed forces was determined, in the final analysis, by superior practice of the soldier's art. This thesis runs contrary to what each of the authors characterizes as conventional wisdom, which holds that the German army represented the more technically skilled and proficient of the two forces, and that it was only prevented from prevailing by the numerical and material superiority of its foes, including the U.S. Army. A significant element in this new analysis, then, is the necessity to first undermine the prevailing wisdom, and this is done to a greater or lesser extent in each work, by attacking those whom the authors view as its chief proponents. It is to the works of those "proponents of conventional wisdom" that we must now turn.

Chapter Two

S.L.A. Marshall, Men Against Fire.

In the genre of works which forms the subject matter of this study, there is general agreement that the alleged myth of German military superiority in World War II has arisen not merely as a result of the pernicious effects of self-serving memoirs written by former German soldiers, but most especially from the gullibility of an influential group of historians. According to the argument, the scholars in question have sinned grievously by uncritically accepting the theory of the German memoirists that the Wehrmacht was defeated not by the military skill and persistence of the western Allies, but by the overwhelming mass of material available to them.

Several of the critics studied in the present work, namely Michael Doubler, Peter Mansoor and John Sloan Brown, view an American general officer, S.L.A. Marshall, as the font of error on the subject of the relative fighting qualities of the German and United States armies. Marshall, a combat veteran of the First World War, was a deputy chief historian for the U.S. Army in the European Theatre of Operations during World War II. As a result of his work during that conflict, Marshall published in 1947 a book entitled Men Against Fire .[6] In it, he described the results of his findings about the conduct of American troops in battle, in an effort to discover the root causes of the willingness, or unwillingness as the case may be, of soldiers to actively engage the enemy.

In The GI Offensive in Europe, Peter Mansoor is harshly critical of Marshall. According to Mansoor, Marshall began "an assault on the reputation of the American army", because his book "called into question the quality of American infantrymen".[7] Marshall's calumny against the U.S. Army consisted of his assertion that fewer than 25 percent of its soldiers fired their weapons at the enemy in any given engagement. Mansoor's chief indictment of Marshall is that, by reason of the latter's reputation, four decades of subsequent historians were misled into accepting his thesis as fact.[8] While his language is less strident, Michael Doubler, in Closing with the Enemy, likewise includes Marshall among the cast of historians responsible for having fostered the myth of German combat prowess.[9] Marshall's role as villain is also described by John Sloan Brown in Draftee Division .[10]

Although the amount of time devoted to Marshall in the works under review is comparatively small, relative to the time spent by his critics in dealing with the other so-called "German lovers", appreciating exactly what he said---and did not say---about the US and German armies is crucial to our understanding of those critics and their motives. To begin with, the stated purpose of Men Against Fire is not to compare the combat effectiveness of armies, but to win the opinion of the American people in the immediate post-World War II era "toward needed reform" in the U.S. army. While Marshall admits that he failed in this purpose, because the popular press utterly failed to respond to the book, nevertheless he claimed success, since within six months of its publication the US military, as well as others abroad, had taken it seriously. This had important results for the U.S. army. For while Marshall's evidence had shown that during World War II less than 25% of American infantry had employed hand weapons effectively while under fire, in the Korean War the number in question had risen (according to Marshall's data) to above 55%.[11]

Marshall argued that what the post-World War II U.S. army needed most was more and better fire. He advocated the position that the training methods, discipline and personnel policies of the army should conform to the single purpose of increasing the ratio of effective fire in combat. This could best be achieved by a system of man-to-man control on the battlefield, a system based on the knowledge and appreciation of why men fight, rather than upon the weapons to be used by the men.[12]

Marshall stated his central premise in a straightforward manner:

…the thing which enables an infantry soldier to keep going with his weapons is the near presence or the presumed presence of a comrade…so it is far more than a question of the soldier's need of physical support from other men. He must have at least some feeling of spiritual unity with them if he is to do an efficient job of moving and fighting.[13]

The results of Marshall's investigations during World War II convinced him that even among well-trained and combat-seasoned troops, 75% would not fire or persist in firing on the enemy, even in the face of danger. According to Marshall, this conclusion was based upon his post-combat interviews with approximately 400 infantry companies in the central Pacific and European theatres. He asserted that in all of those interviews, he had not found one battalion, company or platoon commander who had made an effort to determine how many of his men had actually engaged the enemy with a weapon. Marshall was at some pains to point out that his figure of 25% did not mean that during a given engagement, an average company maintained fire with an average of 25% of its weapons. Rather, in any engagement, out of an average of 100 men in an aggressive infantry company (in less aggressive units, the number was considerably lower), only 25 men would have taken any part with weapons. Furthermore, in such a company the men with heavier weapons, such as the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), the flamethrower or the bazooka, gave a creditable account of themselves, meaning that the majority of those who were present and armed but would not fight were infantrymen.

It does not logically follow, however, that because his evidence directed Marshall to these conclusions, he was motivated to or did assault the reputation of the American army. Indeed, the record indicates precisely the opposite to be true. First, it may be stated without fear of contravention that nowhere in Men Against Fire does Marshall engage in a malicious and negative comparison of the fighting performance of the U.S. army with that of the German army, or in fact with that of any other army in the world. Second, and perhaps more importantly from the point of view of his critics, Marshall's comments about the U.S. army are almost uniformly favorable, rather than the other way round.

A few references to Marshall's work will serve to amply substantiate this last assertion. Speaking of June 6, 1944 on Omaha Beach, Marshall observes that there were only five infantry companies that were tactically effective throughout that day, and that in those companies only 20% of the men fired their weapons during the day-long advance from the beach to the first tier of French villages inland. While his critics interpret these facts as a negative reflection on the American infantryman, Marshall's observations upon them are wholly different. He concludes that "had not this relatively small amount of fire been delivered by these men, the decisive companies would have made no advance in the separate sectors, the beachhead would not have begun to take form, and in all probability Normandy would have been lost."[14] One might reasonably ask how these words of praise about the actions of heroic men who, in Marshall's opinion, saved the Normandy invasion from being lost, can be interpreted as being critical of them.

Marshall also discusses an "incident at the Bourcy roadblock to the north of Bastogne on the morning of December 19, 1944." In this instance, twelve "very nervous" American infantrymen, firing in the darkness at what they thought was a reconnaissance formation, encountered instead the leading elements of the 2. Panzer-Division, and turned it back. So fierce was the American resistance that the German commander reported being attacked by superior forces. As a result, the German corps commander ordered 2. Panzer-Division to alter its planned movement and swing northward, "thereby wasting precious time and traversing unnecessary space." The results wrought by the bravery of these few American soldiers were profound.

Had the enemy made one good lunge against the Bourcy roadblock, he could have turned southward and entered Bastogne before the American forces had assembled. The whole body of evidence from our own and enemy sources supports the conclusion that had this happened, the Ardennes campaign would have run a far different course and the enemy would not have been checked short of the line of the Meuse.[15]

In a similar vein, Marshall describes the heroic resourcefulness of a group of American paratroopers dropped off course during the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. Because these few parachutists engaged the enemy with fire around Le Ham and Montebourg, the German high command concluded that the area of this firefight delineated the northern limit of the American assault. Having done so, the Germans held their troops north of Montebourg throughout that day. Marshall concludes that the release of those troops for an immediate southward attack might have broken the tenuous hold of the 82d Airborne Division on Ste. Mere Eglise, with serious consequences for the invading force.[16]

Marshall's prolonged discussion of the valor of one battalion of the 502d Parachute Infantry gives the lie to the contention that his book "called into question the quality of American infantrymen." Marshall began following this battalion during its attack along the Carentan causeway on the night of June 10, 1944. Marshall recounts the testimony of the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole, who reported that "not one man in twenty-five voluntarily used his weapon", in spite of the fact that the enemy was so close and the position so exposed that "their only protection was to continue a fire which would make the enemy keep his head down." Nevertheless, the battalion closed with the enemy early the next morning and drove him back from his firing positions, inaugurating "a day-long battle marked by the closest kind of fighting, as the enemy came on five times in counterattack along the hedgerows, trying to regain the initial position." The sharpness of the fighting may be gauged from the fact that it began with an American bayonet charge, resulting in six Germans being killed with that weapon. At points of crisis during the day the two forces were no more than 40 feet apart, and machine gunners were encountering targets at less than 20 yards range. In this classic infantry struggle the result was a complete American victory, in spite of losses amounting to about 40% of the force.[17]

Marshall's analysis of this battalion of the 502d Parachute Infantry consistently supports his general conclusion that no more than 25-30% of American infantrymen used their weapons in combat. It is a total mischaracterization, however, to suggest that Marshall was therefore critical of these men. His concluding remarks about the battalion are worth recounting in detail.

I followed this same battalion through the airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944, and through the winter fighting in the Ardennes, and I doubt that there has ever been a finer fighting unit in the army of the United States. It never tasted defeat nor was it ever given an easy assignment. At least three of its engagements are historically noteworthy examples of heroically successful achievement against great odds. It was tested over marshland and through hedgerow country. In Holland, west of Zon and near the Wilhelmina canal, its hardest engagement was fought through a checkered pine forest on flat ground; the enemy had enfiladed every forest trail with machineguns and from the other flank and from the front his artillery kept the woods under a point-blank fire. Perhaps the battalion's finest hour was had on the rolling hills northwest of Bastogne during the early stage of the defense of that town in December 1944.[18]

Nor is the foregoing atypical of the praise heaped on the American soldier by Marshall. He describes the story of Lt. Col. H.W.C. Kinnard, commanding first battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry, to advocate the position that a soldier must control his situation, rather than let the situation control him. During Operation MARKET , Kinnard's formation had as its task the defense of the corridor west of the town of Veghel. The Germans pressed hard against Kinnard's men as soon as they began to touch the ground. Kinnard decided that the best means of defending the corridor was to attack the enemy, and during a three-day march of 360 degrees through enemy-held territory, his unit destroyed German forces three times their strength. This caused the Germans to alert an entire corps to meet the danger. Marshall's concluding observation about Kinnard was that "he weighed the hazard that he would be moving at all times with at least one flank exposed, then accepted this risk in view of the prospect for proportionate reward. I know of no better illustration in the book of war of the quality of mind needed in the combat officer."[19]

Marshall also recounts the story of Company M, 116th Infantry Regiment, a weapons company that landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. It had been planned that Company M would land in support of units already in control of the beach. In the event, they were the first troops to land on the particular sector of the beach in question. Under heavy German fire, officers and men dragged every piece of the unit's equipment across the beach, making it the only force on Omaha Beach that day, according to Marshall, to achieve this feat. Company M moved up the steep escarpment, again under strong enemy fire, and then moved inland, "hitting hard and traveling far." The survivors of the Company M fought all through the Normandy campaign, through St. Lo and the siege of Brest, "still not knowing that on D-Day they had done anything exceptional….If this incident were unique it would scarce be worth mention. But it is typical."[20]

Finally, Marshall describes "one of the finest river crossings in our army during World War II", namely the crossing of the Elbe near Magdebourg on April 13, 1945 by the 331st Infantry Regiment. The Germans here were resisting fiercely, having reduced a bridgehead further upstream and forced the American unit engaged there to retire to the west bank of the river. Col. George B. Crabill, commanding the 331st Infantry Regiment, hit the ground running, getting his lead battalion in the water on boats within thirty minutes of arriving at the river. So quick were the regiment's movements that they encountered no enemy fire, and during the following night the main body of the regiment and a platoon of tanks were brought to the new bridgehead. In the face of a strong German counterattack with infantry, armor and artillery, Crabill's bridgehead held out for three days until the enemy attacks died away.[21]

It is quite evident from the foregoing that Marshall did not assault the reputation of the U.S. army, or question the quality of American infantrymen, as asserted by Mansoor, or suggest that American soldiers spent all their time cowering in foxholes, as claimed by John Sloan Brown. It does not take a particularly rigorous reading of Men Against Fire to realize that it was written for the purpose of enhancing the future combat effectiveness of the U.S. army, at a time when a new and powerful foe seemed to be on the horizon, or that it contains absolutely nothing in the way of a comparison as between the fighting power of the U.S. army and that of any other fighting force in the world. Critics of Marshall either do not know his work, or willfully misrepresent it. In either case, the historical profession is ill served.

It is particularly noteworthy that Peter Mansoor is at some pains to discredit Marshall's work. After spending a good deal of time and energy describing the thesis behind Men Against Fire , he moves on to point out that while some historians, including John Keegan and Max Hastings, "quoted Marshall's statistics as historical truth", others "have examined Marshall's evidence and found it wanting." He alludes to The Men of Company K, written by Harold P. Leinbaugh and John D. Campbell, both veterans of the unit in question, which was a part of the 84th Infantry Division. The authors asserted that there was no basis for Marshall's claims that their unit was among those in which the majority of soldiers did not bring their weapons to bear on the enemy, opining also that the experience of Company K was no different than that of any other company in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO). Moreover, Leinbaugh purportedly showed that Marshall had "lied about his own experience in the 90th Division during World War I."[22]

After posing the question whether "Marshall had also fabricated his statistics", Mansoor goes on to answer in the affirmative. On this point he relies in part upon the work of Roger J. Spiller, who sought unsuccessfully for a record of the "over four hundred company-level after-action interviews" that Marshall claimed to have undertaken and which purportedly formed the basis for Men Against Fire . After having interviewed at least one of Marshall's colleagues and reviewed the General's personal papers, and in each case finding that there was "no evidence that he [Marshall] was collecting statistics", Spiller concluded that Marshall's "systematic collection of data" had been "an invention." Mansoor goes on to buttress Spiller's conclusions by noting that the National Archives "bear no traces of Marshall's quest for firing ratio statistics in Europe" and that no such documents exist at the University of Texas at El Paso, where the S.L.A. Marshall Military History Collection is housed. On the basis of the foregoing, Mansoor concludes that "there is no way [Marshall] could have determined the percentage of soldiers who fired their rifles in a given engagement." It is but a small step for Mansoor to go from having undermined Marshall's evidence to eviscerating the General's argument as well. Here Mansoor relies primarily upon the evidence provided by a questionnaire given graduates of West Point who served in the ETO between 1943 and 1945. This subjective source (which Mansoor construes to be contrary to Marshall's thesis) counterbalances Marshall's statistically-based argument, in Mansoor's view, since Marshall never really had any legitimate statistics to rely on in the first place.[23]

Michael Doubler also accepts the Spiller view that "Marshall's findings resulted from intuitive and subjective means rather than quantitative methods", as a result of which "his conclusions can be neither proven nor disproven." Doubler's criticisms of Marshall, however, are more guarded than those of Mansoor. For example, while Doubler disagrees with Marshall's suggestion that only 15-25% of American infantrymen fired their weapons at the enemy, he nevertheless admits that "[A] close survey of after-action reports and training memoranda from the ETO does reveal that volume of fire was a problem in many units." Interestingly, however, Doubler opines that "[W]hile many soldiers probably never did fire their weapons, the problem was perhaps not as great as Marshall believed." Indeed, Doubler suggests that "[I]f Americans did not fire their weapons, it was because of training inadequacies rather than some innate inability or lack of courage." Doubler therefore blames these inadequate training methods, as well as "the impersonal replacement system", for the problems that manifested themselves in the form of a reluctance to fire on the enemy. Doubler concludes his remarks on the subject of Men Against Fire by admonishing those who have sought to discredit Marshall's integrity as well as his arguments against throwing "the baby out with the bath water." In fact, Doubler finishes by stating that "[O]n balance, it appears as though Marshall's writings about the broad experience of men under fire are much more often right than wrong."[24]

Thus is Marshall's Men Against Fire dispensed with. The question remains, why do the authors of this genre insist that Men Against Fire be held up to the general gaze, to be recognized for the tissue of lies that it purportedly represents? It will be recalled that Doubler, Mansoor, Brown and Bonn all have as their stated purpose the destruction of the "myth of German superiority". As has been pointed out numerous times above, there is nowhere in Men Against Fire a comparison between the U.S. Army and the German army of World War II, and indeed there is no comparison as between the U.S. Army and any of the forces engaged in that conflict. And contrary to what Doubler implies, there is not a shred of evidence in Men Against Fire that Marshall believed that American infantrymen suffered from a lack of courage. In addition, as far as is known, none of the other authors excoriated by Bonn, et al relies upon Marshall as an authority upon the issue of the combat effectiveness of the U.S. Army. Some of the arguments against Marshall are entirely ad hominem in nature---what possible relevance, for example, does Marshall's alleged disingenuousness about his own career in the First World War have to do with his thesis on the aggressiveness of the American infantryman in the Second World War? Marshall's argument should stand or fall on its own merits; his personal life should not come into the question. The fact that Marshall's critics see fit to indict his character suggests that they consider their own case on the merits against him to be a weak one. It is perhaps for this reason that Mansoor treats the issue as though it is settled, when obviously it is not. Much more important than the tawdry treatment of Marshall by some authors, however, is the simple fact that there is no nexus whatever between Men Against Fire and the relative combat effectiveness of the German and American armies in World War II. In short, in the genre in question, S.L.A. Marshall is nothing more than a straw man whose specter is raised in order to provide its conjurers with something to knock down.

There is, finally, a point made by Marshall that is of particular relevance to the arguments made by both Mansoor and Doubler about the prolonged failure of the Allies to adequately deal with German resistance in the bocage country of Normandy. Both of these authors assert that a fundamental failure of Allied generalship was its deplorable lack of preparation, for themselves as well as for their men, with respect to the peculiar problems they would encounter in this terrain. The argument advanced by Mansoor and Doubler is that the Allies took three months to drive the Germans out of the bocage at least in part because of the nearly criminal failure of the Allied leadership to prepare their troops to fight in it. Marshall's revelation on this issue is telling:

"Once in discussing with Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith (Eisenhower's chief of staff) certain of the tactical difficulties of the Normandy campaign, I asked whether some of our faults there could be traced to lack of advance information about the bocage country and a consequent pinching of the tactical preparation….He answered: ‘Not at all! That wasn't the source of the trouble. The information which we had from the French was more than adequate. Moreover, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan had both come out that way in 1940. They told us about the country, describing it quite accurately. They were very pessimistic about our chances of coping with it. But we couldn't believe what we heard. It was beyond our imagination. The fact was that we had to get into the country and be bruised by it before we could really take a measure of it.'"[25]

Chapter Three

Russell Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants

Another historian pilloried by his critics for having "trumpeted the tactical superiority of the Wehrmacht at the expense of the American army" is Russell Weigley, one of the most prominent American military historians of the post-World War II era. The work for which Weigley is criticized in this respect is his Eisenhower's Lieutenants, a study of the U.S. Army and its performance in Western Europe from June 6, 1944 to the end of the war.[26] Mansoor opines that "Weigley gave the American army faint praise" in Eisenhower's Lieutenants. In particular, Mansoor complains that Weigley mischaracterized the U.S. army as lacking "the staying power to fight a war of attrition against their German opponents." He is also unhappy with Weigley's argument that in the American army "the quality of …infantry units was so poor that they could not routinely close with and destroy the enemy" and that the "pedestrian tactical abilities" of American generals led them to wage a war of attrition for which their army was ill suited. From Mansoor's point of view, however, Weigley's greatest failing was his conclusion that the material resources of the U.S. Army enabled it to "rumble to victory" in spite of its combat ineffectiveness against the Wehrmacht.[27] Michael Doubler makes the same criticism of Weigley, noting especially the author's contention that the war dragged on longer than it should have owing to the paucity of American military skills. Both Mansoor and Doubler agree that Eisenhower's Lieutenants played an essential role in promoting the "popular argument…that the German army was the ultimate paradigm of operational and tactical success in World War II, while its American opponents muddled through to victory by the application of overwhelming resources and awesome firepower."[28]

Does Russell Weigley assert that the U.S. Army lacked the staying power necessary to fight its German opponents, that the quality of American infantry was so poor that it could not come to grips with the enemy, that American generals were "pedestrian"? Does he claim that the Americans were able to "muddle through to victory" solely because of their possession of superior resources and firepower? The record manifestly does not support these contentions. The meat of Eisenhower's Lieutenants begins with Weigley's description of the U.S. Army's first harrowing day on the European continent at Omaha Beach. Here Weigley addresses the contention, advanced by Chester Wilmot[29], that the near disaster on Omaha Beach demonstrated that the U.S. Army was unequal to the task assigned to it, especially when the American experience is compared to that of their British allies on the beaches farther to the north. Weigley recounts how Gen. Omar Bradley, the American officer responsible for Omaha Beach, contemplated abandonment of that assault as his troops sustained mounting losses under the withering fire of the German defenders. The valor and initiative of the American soldiers ashore removed the necessity for such an unpleasant decision.

The officers and NCOs and natural leaders among the privates on the beach spared Bradley a final decision. Perhaps without a combat-experienced

division, the 1st, as the core of its landing force, Omaha Beach could not have been taken. In late morning, by example and by exhortation, the bravest of the leaders began to gather growing clusters of followers around them, and to urge the men forward into the hills bordering the exits. Colonel George A. Taylor of the 16th Infantry enjoined the men around him: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die---now let's get the hell out of here."….Company C of the 116th Infantry, urged on by the regimental commander, Colonel Charles D.W. Canham, and by the assistant commander of the 29th Division, Brigadier General Norman D. Cota, moved up west of the Les Moulins draw and worked its way to the crest of the bluffs, to permit General Cota to open his command post there. The 5th Ranger Battalion followed closely. Canham persuaded men to advance by pointing out that they were being murdered as long as they remained on the beach---they might as well move up and take their chances of being murdered inland. Cota found a bulldozer abandoned just where it could have broken the antitank wall at the exit from the beach. "Who drives this thing?" he asked. No one answered. "Hasn't anyone got guts enough to drive the damn thing?" he demanded again. A soldier slowly rose and deliberately approached the bulldozer, saying, "I'll do it." Cota responded, "That's the stuff. Now let's get off the beach," and other men began to rise, too. Both Canham and Cota thus won the Distinguished Service Cross….Yet the initiative, the bravery, and the tactical skill in the indirect approach among the soldiers on the beach had between midday and darkness turned General Bradley's thoughts from withdrawal to reinforcement. The casualties on Omaha had been high…But mainly, the casualties reflected the toughness of the German resistance. Significantly, the British to the east, who did not have to face cliffs and steep bluffs like those at Omaha, had an easier time of it---everywhere but on their extreme right, around the village of Le Hamel, where their 50th Northumbrian Division collided with the right of the same enemy 352d Division that defended Omaha. There, the British fared scarcely better than the V Corps.[30]

The foregoing passage not only typifies Weigley's overall approach to the valor and resourcefulness of the American soldier, but also illustrates his own sensitivity to a truly unfair criticism offered by Wilmot. In fact, Eisenhower's Lieutenants is replete with praise for the American fighting man and his leaders. Thus he describes Major General Manton Eddy, commander of the Regular Army 9th Infantry Division in both Tunisia and Normandy, as leading his unit with "conspicuous boldness and skill". Likewise he depicts General "Lightning Joe" Collins, commanding the U.S. VII Corps, as commanding his units with "peppery vigor" and the "ruthless intolerance of a Philip H. Sheridan toward leaders less impatient than himself for success" so that unlike the Army of the Potomac, the U.S. First Army in Europe was "fortunate enough to have found its Sheridan at the very outset of its campaigns." Weigley characterizes the successive commanders of the 2nd Armored Division, General Lucian Truscott and Major General Edward H. Brooks, as "bold" and "solidly competent" respectively.[31]

The works of Weigley's critics are filled with praise for the skills of the American fighting man, as well they should be, and descriptions of the advantages possessed by their German foes. Contrary to what Weigley's critics would like us to infer, however, Eisenhower's Lieutenants contains the same sort of approach. Relating the assault of the VII Corps on the Cherbourg defenses, Weigley recounts how its troops were having to fight "for every pillbox…advancing under artillery cover to within 300 or 400 meters of these emplacements, machine guns and antitank guns firing into the embrasures while demolition squads worked around to the rear doors, the demolition teams finally blowing up the doors and thrusting pole-charges and phosphorous grenades inside."[32] Likewise he sounds even more like his detractors, praising the American infantrymen for their resourcefulness in the bocage, where they struggled against "tough and stubborn German defenders…shielded by the hedgerows and armed with a formidable array" of weapons.[33]

Weigley tells exactly the same story as his critics regarding the development of the "Rhino" tank as an answer to the problems presented to armor by the hedgerows. Thus, he describes how on July 14, General Bradley visited the 2nd Infantry Division to see the Rhino, invented by Sergeant Curtis G. Culin of the 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. The Rhino featured long frontal projections of heavy steel construction, allowing the Sherman tank to engage the hedgerow and drive through it without exposing its underside to enemy fire. Bradley saw the beauty of this idea, ordering even tanks yet to be shipped from England to be equipped with the devices, so that by the beginning of Operation Cobra, sixty percent of First Army's tanks were provided with this unique earthmoving structure. Both Mansoor and Doubler recount this same story. How is it, then, that Weigley's work is pro-German, and theirs is not?[34]

Weigley's picture of the American advance across the Seine rivals anything found in the writings of his critics. It was led by VII Corps, comprising 1st Infantry Division ("General Huebner's North Africa, Sicily, and D-Day veterans"), 9th Infantry Division ("so well brought up and well commanded so long by General Eddy") and the 3rd Armored Division, transformed by Maurice Rose "into a marvelous thing".[35]

It is indeed true that Weigley is critical of American conduct of operations, but this fact does no more than highlight the fact that Weigley's analysis of the Allied campaign in Europe is even-handed, while those of his detractors are not. For example, both Mansoor and Doubler are at some pains to describe the valor, resourcefulness and determination of the American soldiers in assaulting and taking the port of Brest.[36] Weigley does no less. His analysis of the incident, however, reveals not only these qualities, but also the shortcomings of the approach taken by the American leadership. He points out, for example, that the VIII Corps suffered 9,831 casualties in taking Brest and 38,000 prisoners. This involved a commitment of 80,000 troops, whose commander General Troy Middleton was given first priority in supply by General Bradley, even ahead of the Allied troops who were forging on toward Germany. In addition, for the better part of a month Bradley diverted "a considerable part of the AAF's European strength" to aid Middleton. Bradley told General Patton that the reason for this was that "we must take Brest in order to maintain the illusion of the fact that the U.S. Army cannot be beaten", a view with which Patton readily concurred. Bradley's postwar explanation of the affair was that the defenders, General der Fallschirmtruppe Bernhard Ramke and 2.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division, left him and Eisenhower with no other choice, in spite of the fact that in other circumstances, such as at Lorient and St. Nazaire, the Americans had merely sealed off the defenders and left them to die on the vine. The most critical element of the Brest affair, as Weigley points out, and his detractors do not, is that it occurred at a time when everyone on the American chain of command realized that a crisis of supply was developing which would hinder the ability of the Allied forces east of the Seine to push aggressively on into Germany. Weigley contends that this failure to seize the initiative, thus forsaking a major strategic opportunity in favor of a sideshow like Brest, reflected a persistent obsession on the part of the Allied leadership with staying ashore instead of being prepared to take advantage of promising opportunity. Weigley at least presents us with an important question for examination; his critics utterly fail to do so.[37]

It is a hallmark of works such as those of Mansoor, Brown, Doubler and Bonn that no quarter is given to the perceived enemy. All praise is given to the Allies; their enemies are treated with contempt. Put another way, neither side in the struggle is afforded unbiased treatment. Weigley, on the other hand, is nothing if not fair minded. While the foregoing discussion illustrates his trenchant criticism of the conduct of battle by the American generals, his work is also replete with innumerable allusions to the formidable fighting qualities of the GI. Thus, while describing the Battle of Arracourt in September, the author of Eisenhower's Lieutenants recounts how the US "4th Armored Division demonstrated that it was not to be pushed around easily by such stuff as the 111th Panzer Brigade" and that it "stood up so stoutly [to the enemy attack] that the Germans shifted their main effort northward the next day", concluding that this unit "had proven itself as admirable a formation in hard defensive fighting as on the racing pursuit."[38]

Both Doubler and Mansoor dwell at some length upon the American assault on the city of Metz, holding it up as an example of Yankee ingenuity and persistence in the face of an objective that favored the defender. Weigley does the same, but his account is without the sanitization that characterizes those of his critics. In this vein he describes the failed American attempt to take Fort Driant, which from its position on the heights south of the city commanded its approaches with heavy caliber cannon. After a week's heavy fighting, the Americans dominated the German position but could not take it. Weigley quotes Captain Jack S. Gerrie, commanding Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment, as reporting on October 4 that "[T]he situation is critical. A couple more barrages and another counterattack and we are sunk. We have no men, our equipment is shot and we just can't go on. The troops in G are done, they are just here, what is left of them…The enemy artillery is butchering these troops until we have nothing left to hold with. We cannot get out our wounded…." Weigley credits Patton with admitting that the frontal assault on this bastion had been a mistake, in spite of his own determination to seize the objective "if it took every man in the XX Corps, but he could not allow an attack by this Army to fail." Because of Patton's intervention, the assault on Fort Driant was called off, all of the Americans were withdrawn by the night of October 12-13, and Patton and his staff concentrated on taking Metz by envelopment. Weigley observes that the Americans learned well from their experience at Fort Driant. A month later, still working at the reduction of Metz, the 90th Infantry Division assaulted Fort Konigsmacker along the Maginot Line.

"Driant had helped teach the Americans not to go down into the tunnels of such works, but to persist in chipping away with satchel charges, thermite grenades, TNT blocks, and dousings of gasoline from above. Infantry and engineers stormed to the top of Fort Konigsmacker early on the first day, got themselves well established on its west side by nightfall, and with systematic blasting away at its ferro-concrete forced its surrender as a gift to General Patton on his birthday…."[39]

Noteworthy are Weigley's comments regarding the Vosges, about which Bonn has written. He describes its unique natural characteristics and inherent defensibility, but concludes that rather than rely simply upon these factors, the Germans counted on two elements, namely the weakness of Devers' French army and the Schwarzwald, which lies directly across the Rhine from the Vosges chain. The interposition of the mountains of the Black Forest between the Allies and any worthwhile strategic objective enabled the Germans to rely upon a thin defensive line in the region.[40]

The author of Eisenhower's Lieutenants , like his detractors, makes a point to eulogize the ingenuity of the U.S. army while under the strain of combat. His account includes the story of General Terry Allen's 104th Infantry Division in the Roer Plain. The General had made a special point to train his units in the art of night fighting, in response to the predilection of the Germans to make use of the nighttime hours for surprise attack. Allen used his 414th and 415th Infantry Regiments to attack and drive out the German defenders of the town of Eschweiler by night. His 413th Infantry Regiment used the cover of darkness to attack and hold Hill 154 and part of the town of Puzlohn, both of which objectives had successfully resisted the regiments daylight assaults.[41]

The famous confrontation at Bastogne provides Weigley with the opportunity to praise his fellow Americans yet again. Weigley's critics insist that he helped foster the "myth" of German combat effectiveness by holding the Wehrmacht up as the epitome of operational professionalism. The story of Bastogne is only one of many instances in which the Germans come up short in Weigley's analysis. Here, he notes that the 2. Panzer-Division, 116.Panzer-Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division, the Schwerpunkt of the 5.Panzerarmee, "dithered while the Americans rushed to reinforce Bastogne". The reinforcement was done by the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived in the town at midnight on December 18 after an eight-hour march through darkness, fog, snow and rain.[42]

Weigley's description of the Battle of the Bulge illustrates clearly that he is anything but an uncritical toady of the German army, as urged by his detractors. Discussing the failure of the 2.Panzer-Division and its XLVII.Panzerkorps to move on the Meuse without delay when the opportunity presented itself---on December 21 little in the way of organized defense stood between the Germans and the river---Weigley remarks upon the "sluggishness" of both the division and the corps, accounted for to some degree by the fatigue of both the landsers and their equipment. According to Weigley, however, "fatigue does not offer sufficient explanation" for the "uncommendable hesitancy" of the two German formations before the American roadblock at Bastogne, "which greater aggressiveness might have brought promptly into German hands."[43]

Weigley's entire retelling of the story of the Bulge is so replete with references to the combat prowess of the Americans as to represent a paean to them. The inability of no less than four panzer divisions---Panzer-Lehr-Division, 2. Panzer-Division, 116.Panzer-Division and 2.SS Panzer-Division "Das Reich"---to move forward with their accustomed dash is attributed by the author to the "stubborn resistance to being pushed around" exhibited by the "multiple scratch forces" of GIs in their path. He notes that the "bravery and resourcefulness" of the Old Hickory Division, the 3rd Armored and the 740th Tank Battalion, and their respective attachments "cut the heart out of the 1st SS Panzer Division". He comments upon the public tendency to lump together Bastogne and the Bulge, doing "an injustice to the resistance of other American troops who were not at Bastogne" but whose fortitude irrevocably turned the tide of the war in the west. He relates in detail the heroic counterattack of the US 84th Infantry Division to retake the village of Verdenne on Christmas Day, its hard-pressed men fighting house to house with their German counterparts and confronting the panzers on their own until the arrival of part of the 771st Tank Battalion enabled the Americans to retake the village and destroy all of the enemy's tanks.[44]

It is also worth noting that Weigley, like his critics, bemoans the inefficiencies of the American replacement system. On this subject he quotes Patton, who told his diary that "we are forced to fight…with inadequate means", the nature of which the General informed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson were replacements and ammunition. In spite of these inadequacies, however, the Allies prevailed in the Battle of the Bulge, a victory that "belonged preeminently to the American soldier". It was the "stubbornness and bravery" of those soldiers which enabled their generals to succeed in

"wresting the momentum of battle away from the enemy and in time restoring it to the Allied command. The history of American wars in the twentieth century has mainly witnessed the American armed forces in possession of enough material superiority that doubts can reasonably be raised whether a duel with an equally well equipped enemy might not find the American military a paper tiger, too dependent on material superiority to get along without it. The Ardennes battle, like Guadalcanal but on an immensely larger scale, is one of history's few means of reducing such doubts. With material superiority nonexistent in the Ardennes or nullified by the weather against a Wehrmacht that, if not in its high summer of 1940 or 1941 was still…in the strength of its Indian summer---against these adversities and temporarily abandoned by many of his generals to his own resources, the American soldier won the battle. If the victory was less than complete, the fault lay mainly in generalship's failure to seize fully the opportunities created by the valor of the men at Lanzerath, Clerf, Stavelot, St. Vith, the Baraque de Fraiture, and scores of other places besides the fabled Bastogne."[45]

Reading such a passage, one must reasonably ask whether the criticism of Weigley by Mansoor and his ilk amount to anything more than the creation of another straw man to suit their purposes.

A final occasion for plaudits to the American armed forces is Weigley's description of the Saar-Palatinate campaign of 1945. In the author's opinion, "the campaign was notable for its display of the American army's sharpening instinct for the jugular. The campaign's two envelopments, of the German 7 Armee by two columns of Patton's Third Army, and then of the German 1.Armee by both Patton's Third and Patch's Seventh Armies, were models of how not only to gain ground but to destroy enemy forces. And the extent of the American victory cannot be attributed merely to German decay. Some of the enemy's formations…retained much of the old German savvy and toughness; The American victory was in large part the product of mastery at last of a thoroughly mobile form of warfare genuinely aimed at the destruction of the enemy forces."[46]

The foregoing are but a few examples, in a volume over 700 pages in length, of the author's persistent praise for the common American fighting man and his leaders. They give the lie to the assertions of Weigley's critics that he damned the U.S. army with faint praise, condemned the quality of American infantry, found American generals "pedestrian" and attributed the American victory solely to their superior resources and firepower.

Chapter Four

Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power

Among those targeted by the self-appointed defenders of the honor of the U.S. army for their alleged bias in favor of the Wehrmacht, none has incurred more vilification than Martin van Creveld. Creveld is the author of several well-received works on the general subject of warfare.[47] He has also written, however, Fighting Power: German and U.S. army Performance, 1939-1945.[48] It is this latter work that has earned him the opprobrium of those historians who cannot abide anything, real or imagined, that smacks of criticism of the U.S. army. Doubler characterizes Creveld as arguing that the American army regarded war as a contest in which machines and firepower would largely determine the outcome; that it viewed its soldiers as subordinate to their machines, overlooked their most fundamental human needs, and favored bureaucratic efficiency over troop morale. According to Doubler, Creveld found American leadership mediocre at best.[49] Mansoor calls Fighting Power "the most extreme case for the combat superiority of the Wehrmacht" and "a damning indictment of the American army of World War II". His criticisms of Creveld's work are identical to those of Doubler.[50] The most virulent attack on Creveld, however, is mounted by Keith Bonn. Bonn calls Fighting Power "notorious", saying that it is "limited by …basic flaws", "contain(s) gross historical inaccuracies" and "represent(s) the worst kind of revisionist history". Of Creveld's work, Bonn comments that "[S]o many factual flaws regarding the U.S. Army exist in this book that it is impossible to list them all here." According to Bonn, Creveld's observations about the U.S. Army are "typically bizarre." Bonn recites the same litany of criticisms of Creveld's work listed by Mansoor and Doubler, but maintains that the "most dangerous of all" Creveld's assertions is "that the German doctrines for operations and tactics were so far superior to those of their bumbling Ami opponents that the contemporary U.S. Army should emulate the practices of the very foe their forebears so soundly defeated!" Bonn concludes that Creveld's book and others like it (not identified, it may be noted) "are actually most useful mainly for instruction in how NOT to write comparative history."[51]

It is no exaggeration to say that the criticisms leveled at Creveld, particularly those described in the foregoing paragraph, result from grotesquely shallow analyses of his work. They amount, in fact, to nothing more than total mischaracterizations of his work, designed to serve the agendas of his critics by setting up yet another straw man to be knocked down. The notion that Creveld sets up the German army as a model to be emulated is a palpable falsehood. Even the most cursory reading of Creveld shows this to be true. In his concluding chapter, for example, Creveld has this to say:

Precisely because its power rested almost solely on the excellence of its organization per se, the German army was capable both of fighting with the utmost stubbornness and of cold-bloodedly butchering untold numbers of innocent people. So strong was the grip in which the organization held its personnel that the latter simply did not care where they fought, against whom, and why. They were soldiers and did their duty, regardless of whether that duty involved carrying out an offensive in the south, a defensive in the north, or atrocities in the center.[52]

It is indeed true that Creveld refers to the American officer corps as "less than mediocre". The critics, however, have jerked this phrase totally out of context, for the purpose of serving their own agendas. The broad context of the phrase in question is that Creveld's work is an HISTORICAL comparison of the ways in which two nations, the United States and Germany, created their armies during the Second World War. The particular context is as follows:

If it is indeed true, as is so often said, that the officer corps counts for everything in war, then the American officer corps of World War II was less than mediocre. Owing partly no doubt to pressure of time, the methods used to select and train officers were none too successful. Far too many officers had soft jobs in the rear, far too few commanded at the front. Those who did command at the front were, as the official history frankly admits and the casualty figures confirm, often guilty of bad leadership. Between them and their German opposite numbers there simply is no comparison possible….Yet when all is said and done, the fact remains that the American GI did win World War II. He did so, moreover, without assaulting, raping and otherwise molesting too many people. Wherever he came---even within Germany itself---he was received with relief, or at any rate without fear. To him, no greater tribute than this is conceivable."[53]

Creveld's detractors purposely do not bring these comments to the fore, since they do not serve the purposes of the critics.

In point of fact, Creveld is not only highly critical of the German army, as noted above, but also makes clear that he does NOT hold it up as a paradigm to be followed by more modern armies. Creveld argues that modern technology requires more specialized human and material resources, with the result that it is critical to carefully employ those resources and make them mutually supportive. Taking into account the complexity of modern armies, it is no wonder that they rely to a large extent indeed on data control systems unheard of fifty years ago, but clearly anticipated, as Creveld points out consistently in his work, by the personnel methods of the U.S. army in the Second World War. The effect of this development is "to turn the Wehrmacht's entire loose and decentralized personnel management system into a historical curiosity", and to make "an organization as specialized for operations as was the German army…inconceivable under modern conditions…", comments hardly indicative of the slavish adulation of the German army of which Creveld is accused. Those attributes of the German army which Creveld does in fact advocate are, as he describes them, "eternal in the sense of being largely independent of technology". They include such things as the notion that officers should be leaders and teachers of their soldiers, a system of terminology and customs conducive at once to unity and distinction among officers and their men, a pay and promotions system that favors those on the sharp end, an equitable system of military justice and a respect for human rights. Surely no one could seriously contend that these are characteristics peculiar to the German army, and many would argue, Creveld among them, that certain of these elements were to a large degree absent from that force.[54]

The fact of the matter is that Fighting Power is not, as Creveld's critics would have it, a paean to the Wehrmacht. It is, rather, an attempt at careful comparative analysis of two important twentieth century fighting forces, and in particular an effort to understand why one of them, in spite of various serious obstacles, some of its own making, managed to persevere and fight effectively until the bitter end. The easy answer to this question---the one advocated by Josef Goebbels during the war and now adopted by an entire school of historians---is that the common soldier of the German army, who did the hard work of fighting, did so because he believed wholeheartedly in the ideology of Nazism.[55] This approach to the problem, which amounts to little more than the conversion of wartime propaganda and postwar caricature into an historical theory of facile answers, is not the one adopted by Creveld. Instead, he employs a thoughtful comparison of two fighting forces by looking at aspects of their makeup that had nothing to do with combat. Creveld's method is nothing if not mundane. It focuses on such manifestly unheroic topics such as the place of the armed forces in society, military doctrine, command principles, organization and personnel administration, rewards and punishments, troop indoctrination, rotation and medical treatment, and the role of leadership, as embodied in both commissioned and non-commissioned officers. His work includes a myriad tables and figures related to all of these subjects, and is grounded on published and unpublished primary sources, including those in the US National Archives and the Bundesarchive/Militararchiv. The result of all this focus on detail is that Fighting Power is frankly often heavy going, certainly not a bracing account of Teutonic military virtue, as one would expect from reading Creveld's critics.

The "problem" with Creveld's work, of course, is not with his methodology, but with his conclusions. Creveld concludes that the "German army was a superb fighting organization. In point of morale, elan, unit cohesion, and resilience, it probably had no equal among twentieth century armies." He attributes this conclusion principally to that army's internal organization, which he sees as "creating and maintaining fighting power." His view of the German soldier also makes him a marked man among historians, for he opines that the landser was motivated not by Nazi ideology, but by the reasons that men have always fought: because the German soldier saw himself as a member of a well-integrated, well-led team whose structure, administration and functioning were perceived by him as being generally equitable and just. In his view "the German army …[developed] a single-minded concentration on the operational aspects of war to the detriment, not to say neglect, of everything else." It sent its best men to the front; "its organization was designed to produce and reward fighting men." This, in Creveld's opinion, was the secret of its fighting power. Creveld concedes that even by the standards of the U.S. army in World War II, and indeed "by modern and even contemporary standards", the German army was a crude organization. Some of the reasons for this were negative: innate conservatism, lack of interest in innovation, and outright adherence to Nazi ideology. On the other hand, this crudeness reflected a positive element, namely "a conscious determination to maintain at all costs that which was believed to be decisive to the conduct of war: mutual trust, a willingness to assume responsibility, and the right and duty of subordinate commanders at all levels to make independent decisions and carry them out." In short, Creveld concludes, the German army "was built around the needs, social and psychological, of the individual fighting man. The crucial, indeed decisive, importance of the latter was fully recognized; and the army's doctrine, command technique, organization, and administration were shaped accordingly."[56]

Creveld is indeed critical of the U.S. army, as his critics charge. But as we have seen, he is equally critical, if not more so, of the German army, while at the same time full of high praise for the fundamental role played by the American soldier in defeating the Nazi regime, as well as for his high moral character. In his section entitled "Reflections on the U.S. Army", Creveld observes that "[B]etween 1940 and 1945 the U.S. Army grew from 243,000 officers and men into a force numbering over 8 million. With eighty-nine divisions, made up of men who had shortly before been civilians in one of the world's less militarized nations, it crossed the oceans and played a decisive role in the defeat of two of the most highly militarized powers the world has ever known. It is doubtful whether any other nation would have been capable of such feats: not for nothing, indeed, has General Marshall been called ‘the organizer of victory'." Nevertheless, there were problems with this magnificent fighting machine, some of which, Creveld concludes, resulted naturally from overrapid expansion and inexperience. In Creveld's view, the U.S. Army "was for the most part as good as, and often vastly superior to, the German one" in "mechanical performance", as evidenced, for example, by the fact that the U.S. Army developed logistical capabilities "that the Germans could only dream about", and by the fact that American divisions contained no more "fat" than those of their German enemies. Creveld's criticism lies not with the valor, resilience, or even fighting power of the U.S. army, but with what he perceives to be its reliance on firepower to defeat its foe at the expense of the psychological welfare of its soldiers.[57]

It may be stated categorically that nowhere in Fighting Power does Creveld assert that "German doctrines for operations and tactics were so far superior …that the contemporary U.S. Army should emulate" them, as Keith Bonn has claimed. What Creveld does, instead, is to suggest that latter day soldiers might learn from the German experience in a few areas. We have already discussed his view that certain aspects of manpower management "are eternal in the sense of being largely independent of technology." He argues also that "overemphasizing the role of technical and supporting services" to the detriment of focusing on the military's primary job, namely fighting, ought to be avoided. He advocates organization based on regional structures [e.g., U.S. national guard units) and the use of a regimental system based on the British model. He favors a delegation of important responsibilities, such as the selection of officers and NCOs, to regimental, battalion and company commanders. In opining thus, however, he issues the following warning:

"The German army had extremely high fighting power, it is true, but only at the cost of producing troops to whom an order, regardless of its nature, was an order and who could therefore be relied upon not only to fight hard but to commit any kind of atrocity as well. To produce fighting power without paying as high a price: that is the true challenge facing the armies of the West."[58]

Chapter Five

John Keegan, The Second World War

Peter Mansoor describes the works of John Keegan, Max Hastings and John Ellis as praising "the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht at the expense of the victors of World War II" and as having accepted "the arguments of Weigley and van Creveld without much alteration." According to Mansoor, all three of these men contend that the German army "was much more competent in combat effectiveness than its Allied counterparts. The Allies won through brute force by bringing to bear the full weight of their material resources against the German military forces, which fought skillfully but unsuccessfully against overwhelming odds.[59]

It is odd indeed to see the name of John Keegan on a list of historians characterized as (1) favoring Germany over the countries which defeated it in World War II and (2) mindlessly accepting the point of view of other historians. Keegan, be it noted, was born in 1934 and was thus a toddler when war came to Europe in 1939. Unlike many historians of the period, therefore, he had personal experience, at a vulnerable and impressionable age, living in a country besieged by a powerful and ruthless enemy. His was an early childhood spent, with innumerable others of similar tender years, either under the bombs or in the countryside to evade them, wondering when and where the invader would come. And indeed he did see his homeland invaded, not by men in field grey from Hannover, Leipzig and Munich, but by soldiers in khaki from places like Big Springs, Junction City, Vinegar Bend and Pilot Knob. This was an experience he has never forgotten. Since the appearance of his justifiably renowned volume entitled The Face of Battle in 1976, Keegan has published widely and highly successfully on the subject of military history. This success has led, in its turn, to a very high public profile for Keegan, with personal and media appearances around the globe. There are two fairly constant themes in Keegan's appearances: the first is a highly critical view of the Third Reich and its apologists; the second is an undying admiration, respect and appreciation for the United States and the brave, self-sacrificing American soldiers who fought the Nazi tyranny.

It is curious as well that Keegan's The Second World War is singled out for criticism. In this work of nearly six hundred pages there is no theme of praise for the Wehrmacht . There is, instead, an even-handed treatment of the prowess of all combatants, as indeed there must be in a narrative recounting the events of the greatest conflict in history. The notion that Keegan slavishly adheres to the alleged views of Creveld regarding the German army is doubly untrue; as we have seen, Creveld does not suggest that the German army represented the epitome of tactical and operational expertise, and Keegan does not mindlessly adhere to such a non-existent theory.

Keegan's description of the Normandy invasion begins, as it must, with a retelling of the harrowing experiences of the Allied airborne troops, among whom there were many Americans who drowned under their heavy packs after being dropped at sea or in flooded lowlands. Still more others, though widely scattered in the French countryside, "were to roam for days behind enemy lines, refusing to surrender while rations and ammunition lasted." Keegan points out that while this unwanted dispersal of the American paratroopers caused considerable discomfiture to their commanders at the time, in "retrospect it can be seen materially to have added to the confusion and disorientation the invasion was inflicting on their German opposite numbers."[60]

Keegan, however, does not focus merely on the resourcefulness and opportunism of the American parachutists. He also speaks of the relative quality of the Allied and German units in the invasion landing zone. Two German divisions, 709. and 716.Infanterie-Divisionen , were poised to meet the invaders on the American Utah and the British/Canadian Gold, Juno and Sword beaches respectively. Neither of these units, according to Keegan, was of good quality, and both lacked means to maneuver. 709.Infanterie-Division, says Keegan, undertook the "almost impossible mission" of defending not only Utah Beach, where the US 4th Infantry Division ("an excellent formation") was landing from the sea, but also the area where the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions ("the cream of the American army, trained to a knife-edge and prepared for battle") descended from the heavens. 709.Infanterie-Division was unequal to the task; its component units put up a token resistance, and then surrendered. 716.Infanterie-Division faced the British 50th (Gold), Canadian 3rd (Juno) and British 3rd (Sword) Divisions, as well as the British 6th Airborne Division and did little better than 709.Infanterie-Division. Keegan compares unfavorably the performance of 709. and 716. Infanterie-Divisionen with that of 352.Infanterie-Division, the ("well trained and resolute") German unit that wreaked such havoc among the American troops landing on Omaha Beach. He opines that the potential for catastrophic results was present, in the event that all the German defenders of Normandy had been of the same quality as 352.Infanterie-Division . Fortunately for the attackers, however, they were not.[61]

Keegan points out that one of the reasons that the German army was not up to the task of repelling the Allied invasion in Normandy was that unlike its western opponents, "the German army belonged to a previous generation of military development." Excluding its panzer and motorized divisions, the German army relied on rail, where available, to move over long distances; for tactical movement, the primary motive power came in the form of human and horse muscle. When the French railway system was laid waste by Allied bombers to isolate the Normandy battlefield, the result was that the Westheer lost "its ability not only to maneuver but even to fight at all".[62]

Keegan does take the view that the German army was innovative, aggressive and resourceful in defense, and that its panzer arm was without peer in the practice of mobile warfare. He shares these perceptions with a considerable number of historians, most of whom are not cited by Doubler, Mansoor, et al as having undermined the reputation of American arms. To suggest, however, that in recognizing these attributes of the Wehrmacht , he slavishly adopts the pro-German viewpoint attributed to Creveld by the latter's detractors is little short of preposterous.

The Second World War is a big book that surveys a worldwide conflict, and in it Keegan discusses, among other things, not only the inability or unwillingness of the Wehrmacht to modernize, but also its abject failure to master its foes in the Battle of the Bulge. Far from representing a groveling paean to the German army, Keegan's work is a balanced assessment of the qualities of the participants in the greatest war in history.

Chapter Six

Max Hastings, Overlord

Max Hastings is another English historian who has been accused of swallowing whole a theory that the German army was in every respect superior to its Western opponents, and that it was defeated only by the grinding of sheer numbers. Like the rest of the charges examined in the present work, this one is without foundation. For example, discussing the lack of aggression displayed by most German commanders on the morning of 6 June 1944, Hastings observes that while the "balance of probability remains that the Allies could have gained their beachhead against any German reaction on D-Day", nevertheless "the early release of the armor would have made matters incomparably more dangerous for them." He therefore concludes that "[I]t was fortunate that the senior staff officers of all the major German formations behaved with a lassitude that verged upon utter incompetence." One exception to this rule was Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter of 716.Infanterie-Division , who ordered one of his battalions forward to recapture the Orne and Caen Canal bridges from British paratroopers early in the morning. When this unit encountered stiff resistance from the enemy, however, it desisted from its attack and accepted a stalemate. Hastings observes that "716th Division's operations were conducted with nothing like the determination that could have been expected from a top-class formation."[63]

Hastings' praise for the martial qualities of the American soldier is continuous. In his discussion of the near fiasco on Omaha beach, he pays special tribute to the Ranger battalions that carried the day for the Americans. "It was a tribute to the quality of the Rangers that despite losses on a scale that stopped many infantry units in their tracks on Omaha that morning, the survivors of C Company pressed on to climb the cliffs west of the beach with bayonets and toggle ropes, clearing German positions one by one in a succession of fierce close-quarter actions with tommy guns and phosphorus grenades." It was these men, and their brothers in arms from the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, "a handful of courageous leaders and small groups of men" who "forced a path for the American army off Omaha beach." It is in this context that Hastings makes reference to "Chester Wilmot and others" who "seized upon the example of Omaha to demonstrate the supposed shortcomings of the American soldier." Hastings rejects such an evaluation, noting that on D-Day, there were "sufficient outstanding individual American soldiers and enough elite units such as the Rangers and Airborne to gain the day."[64]

Hastings is effusive in his praise for American leadership. For example, he extols in detail the virtues of General Lawton Collins, commander of the US VII Corps. As a result of Collins' leadership, his force showed "speed and energy" in reaching the port of Cherbourg . Hastings refers to Collins as "one of the outstanding personalities of the campaign", a professional soldier who endured long years of stagnation between the wars in preparation for the role he was to play in this critical campaign. A man of "catholic" tastes, Collins was "a ruthless driver of men" who unhesitatingly removed from command officers of all ranks who failed to meet his standards. Far from being critical of his subject, the author praises Collins for having "a superb eye for an opportunity on the battlefield: American ---and British---forces in Normandy sorely needed more commanders out of his mould."[65]

As noted above, Hastings is clearly not in the camp of those who maintain that the German army was the epitome of professionalism. He refers, for example, to the "crushing tactical surprise" the western Allies inflicted upon the Germans on 6 June 1944, a boggle exceeded only by the fact that the Allies' Operation FORTITUDE, a massive strategic deception which convinced the Germans that General Patton was poised to invade northern France with still another American army, "imprisoned almost the entire Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais until late July." He points out that the most senior German commanders failed to reach a consensus about how best to respond to the invasion during its critical first days and hours. Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, the oft-belittled toady of the Fuhrer, quickly perceived that there would be no second invasion, while Generalfeldmarshall Erwin Rommel, the cagey veteran of innumerable battles with these same opponents, was persuaded that 15.Armee should remain intact and in place, thereby depriving himself and his men of reinforcements that might have had an incalculable effect upon the battle and perhaps the war itself. Equally deleterious to the German effort in Normandy, according to Hastings, was the morbid state of their intelligence. "Almost totally devoid of air reconnaissance, with every agent in Britain under British control, lacking any breakthrough in Allied codes and aided only by the fruits of low-grade wireless interception and prisoner interrogation on the battlefield, Rommel, von Rundstedt and von Kluge knew pathetically little of their enemies' potential strength or plans." It should be noted that these characteristics, namely poor leadership and faulty intelligence, are also cited by Hastings' critics as explanations for German defeat in the West.[66]

Chapter Seven

Trevor N. Dupuy, Numbers, Predictions & War

Sharing with Martin van Creveld the unenviable distinction of being the historian most despised by Mansoor, Bonn and their cohorts is a retired United States Army Colonel, Trevor N. Dupuy. Dupuy was a graduate of the United States Military Academy and well-known student of military affairs, and the author, by himself and with others, of literally dozens of books on various aspects of the topic, from ancient to modern times. In the post-World War II era, Dupuy became a consultant to the defense establishment in the United States. He worked with a network of former military officers, academics and other defense consultants to supply the needs of the American military as it strove to prepare to fight the next global war. Dupuy's affiliation with the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO) resulted in, among other things, the study that led to the publication of Numbers, Predictions & War in 1979. Numbers represented Dupuy's effort to express to a wider audience the analytical systems he and his colleagues at HERO had developed for use in attempting to understand combat.

The language used by Dupuy's critics betrays the virulence of their reactions to some of the conclusions set forth in Numbers. Peter Mansoor refers to Dupuy's "assertion of the inferiority of American combat units on the European battlefields of World War II" and avers that he "concluded that German units were on the average 20 percent more effective than their British and American counterparts." Mansoor says that the factors found by Dupuy to be responsible for this outcome included "better utilization of manpower, more experience, greater mobility, better doctrine, more effective battle drill, superior leadership, and inherent national characteristics." He calls Dupuy "the vanguard of a group of historians who trumpeted the tactical superiority of the Wehrmacht at the expense of the American army" and comments favorably on the criticism of Dupuy set forth in John Sloan Brown's Draftee Division .[67]

In When the Odds Were Even , Keith Bonn excoriates Dupuy on two bases. He argues first that the "incredibly complicated series of parameters" (the availability of ammunition and fuel, the effects of weapons and morale, the quantities of troops available, "et cetera ad infinitum") utilized by Dupuy to analyze ground combat did not exist "as such during the period when the battles being analyzed were fought." Consequently, in Bonn's view, those parameters "are artificial and ex post facto at best, irrelevant at worst." The second basis upon which Bonn criticizes Dupuy is that the latter included in his analysis intangible variables not easily amenable to assessment. For these reasons, Bonn pronounces "[T]he usefulness of [Dupuy's] work as anything more than an interesting collection of conceptual ideas for commercial war games …extremely limited." Some preliminary comments on Bonn's conclusions are worth mentioning at this point. First, the notion that factors such as ammunition and fuel, weapons and morale, and the number of troops available to a commander did not exist during World War II, but are instead the artificial construct of Dupuy, is so absurd that it would not merit comment but for the fact it is asserted by a professional officer in the U.S. Army, and is therefore leant a certain degree of credence. How anyone, let alone a graduate of the United States Military Academy, could maintain that a person analyzing a particular engagement should not take into account that one of the forces involved was understrength, had been repeatedly pummeled by its adversary, was low on ammunition and fuel and operated with weapons inferior to those of its opponents is so fundamentally ridiculous as to be beyond comprehension. Second, had Dupuy ignored the "intangible variables" of combat (the so-called "fudge factors") in his analysis, he would have been guilty of the grossest distortion, and would therefore have merited even more stringent criticism than that offered up by the likes of Bonn.[68]

Michael Doubler evidently has so little regard for Dupuy that he mentions neither him nor his work. A critique of Dupuy, however, is essential to John Sloan Brown's Draftee Division, so much, indeed, that he devotes an entire appendix (captivatingly entitled The Mythos of Wehrmacht Superiority: Colonel Dupuy Reconsidered) to a supposed refutation of Dupuy's work. In fact, however, Brown's appendix represents little more than an opportunity for him to vent his spleen about a number of real or imagined slights that Brown perceives to have been heaped upon the reputation of the American fighting man. Most of these slights have little or no relation to Colonel Dupuy. For example, in the very first paragraph of the appendix in question, Brown begins by remarking upon the "pervasive adulation of the Wehrmacht " which he claims to have infected the history of World War II, and ends by asking rhetorically whether American soldiers, having captured thousands upon thousands of German soldiers, believed that the latter were "better than themselves." Neither of these points of view form any part of Dupuy's analysis. In turn, Brown blames the exaggerations of German combat prowess by the British and French, made for the purpose of explaining away their own defeats, German bombast, and cartoonists such as Bill Mauldin for having laid the groundwork for the "inflated" perception of German arms. Added to these elements were the availability of German sources, the postwar disinterest of Americans in military history, and the availability of Hitler as a scapegoat for German failures, all of which tended to unfairly support the notion of German martial superiority. There are, finally, certain prominent military historians, such as S.L.A. Marshall ("suggesting that most American infantrymen spent World War II cowering in the bottom of their foxholes") and B.H. Liddell Hart ("vent[ing] his pique on Allied leaders who did not share his elevated impression of himself"), as well as a number of unidentified behavioral scientists, whose work had the effect of creating "images skewed to favor the German soldier over the American". Brown's truly childish vitriol on the subject of these alleged slights is best illustrated, however, by his conclusion that the unfair skewing of history in favor of the German soldier at the expense of his American counterpart "is not at all ameliorated by the fact that a significant fraction of the public buying World War II books consists of enthusiasts who collect Nazi memorabilia, construct plastic panzers, and energetically seek to be the German player in hex-grid war games." This work has already shown that Brown's characterization of Marshall is totally without foundation. One also wonders what scientific investigation formed the basis of Brown's conclusions about the character of the "significant fraction" of purchasers of books about the Second World War he describes. And even if his statements about these so-called "enthusiasts" were true, one would want to know precisely what such "facts" have to do with the issue at hand in any case. In fact, there is little to support the "thesis" urged by Brown's "analysis" of Dupuy's work other than the author's own venomous bias.[69]

What is it about Numbers, Predictions & War that so inflames the critics of its author? In order to answer this question, it is necessary for one to consider the work in some detail. Dupuy says that the purpose of the book "is to describe the Quantified Judgment Method of Analysis of Historical Combat Data" or QJMA, a major component of which "is a long but simple mathematical equation" known as the Quantified Judgment Model ("QJM"). Of this simple mathematical equation Brown concludes that it "simply demonstrates the intellectual intimidation wrought when complex calculations are unleashed upon a liberal arts community." On this point Dupuy opines in a rather different tone than Brown. " Let me hasten to reassure those who feel at all uncomfortable when faced with pages of complex mathematical equations; I feel exactly the same way….I am not a mathematician, and all of the formulae which appear in this book are merely means for organizing numbers or quantities, and can be understood by anyone who is able to add, subtract, divide, and multiply."[70]

Dupuy begins by pointing out that there are two principal problems in the quantitative analysis of "war data", namely the reliability of the numbers, and the interpretation of them. The first involves that which none of Dupuy's critics has done---"time-consuming, frustrating, tedious, and expensive research, with frequent comparison of differing data sources, different engagements, and different campaigns." The second calls for a rejection of the view that military history is irrelevant, embracing instead its opposite, taking into account the significant impact upon modern warfare of new weapons and technology, particularly those relating to transportation, observation and communications. Dupuy then discusses at length the pratfalls attendant to the use of "war data", describing in some detail a list of ten commonly presented propositions often depicted as being based upon military experience. Among these are the notion that as weapons have become more lethal, changes in warfare have become correspondingly more radical. Dupuy rebuts this proposition by showing that the technological change that has most influenced modern ground warfare was the introduction of the muzzle-loading rifle musket, firing an elongated bullet, a change that occurred in the decade between 1850 and 1860. This change reversed the relation of lethal capability between artillery and infantry weapons that had previously obtained, so that during the American Civil War, small arms accounted for over 85% of the casualties, as opposed to the 10% caused by cannon fire.[71]

Dupuy also disputes other commonly accepted maxims about military history. Notable among these are the proposition that an attacker should have a three-to-one superiority over the defender, that the numerically inferior force is usually successful, and that modern technology permits faster advance rates in combat. In each case, Dupuy marshals data to show the contrary of the axiom. Dupuy engages in this exercise in order to "illustrate the problems of trying to analyze trends in ground combat by making sense out of the anarchical masses of data that lie in the dark and musty records of warfare", and to show why, in view of the general inaccessibility of data, military historians and analysts regularly engage in guesswork, assumptions and generalizations. In contrast, Dupuy says, the purpose of Numbers is to translate the numbers of military history into a coherent, consistent, quantitative theory of combat and combat relationships.[72]

The first step taken by Dupuy in this regard is to analyze the effects of weapons lethality upon combat. This comparison of weapons to casualties is not, Dupuy points out, a simple matter of matching numbers to numbers; instead, the analysis requires knowledge not only of the numbers of weapons, but also of their various types and respective lethality. This latter Dupuy and his colleagues define as the ability of a weapon to kill personnel and render equipment ineffective in a given time period, where the capability of the weapon depends upon weapon range, rate of fire, accuracy, radius of effects and battlefield mobility. Since it was not possible to give precise values to the effects of these variables, it was necessary to "postulate a standard, theoretical, laboratory-like environment which could be common for all weapons." This standard Dupuy calls the Theoretical Lethality Index (TLI), a composite of thirteen variables common to all weapons, from the Roman short sword to a nuclear warhead. The TLI of an individual weapon, however, had to be converted into an Operational Lethality Index (OLI), which is done by applying to the TLI the "Dispersion Factor", the area in square kilometers occupied by a tactically deployed military force of 100,000 soldiers. Both the TLI and OLI are values that assume "proving ground" circumstances; in order to find the actual battlefield value of an individual weapon, it was necessary for Dupuy to account for such variables as weather, terrain, season, mobility characteristics and vulnerability, and to determine how these factors affected weapon effectiveness.[73]

The "concept of variables…is the essence of the Quantified Judgment Model, and of the Quantified Judgment Method of Analysis of Historical Combat Data." What are the variables that form this essence, that define the battlefield values of weapons? They fall into three categories, namely (a) environmental (affecting weapon effectiveness) and operational (affecting employment of weapons and forces) variables, (b) tabular (represented in simple tables) and formular (represented in formulae) variables, and © tangible (representing specific, quantifiable factors of practical effect on weapons) and intangible (qualitative factors that resist quantification) variables. Dupuy and his colleagues isolated seventy-three variables; among these are a number of fairly obvious tangible, quantifiable factors such as the effects of terrain, weather, season and air superiority, as well as offensive/defensive posture, all of which are amenable to tabularization. Two other tangible variables, mobility and vulnerability, involve the interaction of several variables, and must therefore be expressed in formulae. More intangible, but no less significant variables, include the concepts of leadership, training and morale, logistics, time and space, momentum, intelligence, relative technological development and initiative. A final intangible, combat effectiveness, represents an amalgam of all or most of the others, among which the most important seem to be leadership, training/experience, morale and logistics. As Dupuy points out clearly, however, comparisons of combat effectiveness as between opposing military forces represents "an oversimplified statement of a complex relationship."[74]

From this point, Dupuy moves to the difficult task of constructing a model within which the variables could be seen to operate. The notion that a model might be useful was suggested to Dupuy and his colleagues during the course of performing various investigations into historical data for, among other clients, the United States Air Force. In large measure, however, the decision to seek a model was taken because it was felt that members of the operations research community, which included many who either doubted or rejected the idea that history could teach anything meaningful on the subject of modern warfare, could be appealed to best by resort to quantitative facts marshaled in support of qualitative observation. This they would do by using the OLI to quantify the total weapons firepower of opposing forces in a given engagement, and applying to this figure reasonable factors for identifiable and quantifiable variables. The first effort to do this was in connection with a study done for the British Ministry of Defence, which inquired about the relationship between tactical air support and land combat. In this particular study, Dupuy's group studied 60 division-sized engagements between September 1943 and June 1944 in the area of operations of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy. It is worth noting that the analysts selected Italy because the ground and air operations of Fifth Army were confined by the terrain to a narrow space, thus allowing more confident assumptions about weapons interactions. The result of this study was the QJMA, "a method of comparing the relative combat effectiveness of two opposing forces in historical combat". In Dupuy's view, the QJMA resulted from a comparison of (1) the Quantified Judgment Model formula for ascertaining the theoretical winner of an engagement, in which historical data for the weapons inventories of each side of an engagement are used to arrive at a figure for the Power or Power Potential of a each force; the force enjoying a resulting ratio of 1 or more would be regarded as the likely "winner"; and (2) the Result Model formula for quantifying the actual outcome of the engagement; this model would in turn take into account (a) the degree to which the respective sides achieved their mission goals; (b) the ability of the respective sides to gain or hold ground, taking into account their relative weapons inventories; and © the relative "casualty effectiveness" of the two sides, arrived at by comparing casualties to the starting strengths of the respective sides.[75]

The QJMA is ultimately based on three comparisons. In the first, the combat power potentials of two opposing forces in a given engagement are compared. These combat power potentials are derived by applying the effects of all of the environmental and operational variables that can be identified to the Operational Lethality Index (OLI) values for the total weapons inventories of each combatant. As previously indicated, a ratio of greater than 1.0 is regarded as predictive of success. In the second comparison, the actual battlefield performance of the combatants is compared in the Result Model as described above. The three performance criteria in the Result Model are analyzed, and each side is assigned a resultant R value; the R values are subtracted, and the side with the larger value is determined to be the actual "winner" in the engagement. The final comparison is between the calculated results of the two models. If the QJM ratio is greater than 1, then the Result Model ratio should be positive; for example, when the ratio of power potential between forces A and B is greater than 1 in favor of A, the ratio of AR minus BR should be positive. Dupuy's analysis shows that this comparison is consistent throughout; when it is not, it is "certain that the inconsistency is due to some exceptional combat phenomenon, which is usually explicable after further study and analysis. In fact, it has been through the exploration of the causes of such inconsistencies that the value of the QJMA as an analytical tool has been the greatest."[76]

Of particular importance to Dupuy's critics is his analysis of combat in World War II. Criticism, in fact, formed a background for the development of the QJM almost from the start, and found its focus on the subject of Dupuy's study of the conflict in Italy in 1943-44. Foremost among the early criticism was the notion that HERO's consideration of the 60 engagements involved amounted to what Dupuy calls a "curve fitting" exercise. In this case, the term in question supposes that if one employs as many variables as equations, the values of the variables can be mathematically adjusted "to fit", thus potentially rendering the variables meaningless for "equations" (or battles) fought under different circumstances. Dupuy and his colleagues began to address this issue by expanding their database. They first added data on eighteen engagements between US and German formations in France between August and November 1944; they added a further three engagements (at Kursk in July, 1943, in Italy in late 1944, and in the Battle of the Bulge) by studying the use of obstacles and barriers in World War II. Dupuy refers to these twenty-one engagements as the "Validating Data Base" (in contrast to the "Development Data Base", a term used to describe the original 60 engagements); nearly identical results were achieved by the application of the same formulae, procedures and variables to both databases.[77]

The problem with Dupuy's analysis, from the point of view of his critics, is that it demonstrates an average German combat effectiveness superiority factor of about 23 percent. More importantly, the study results indicate that this superiority was manifest not only in the conditions prevalent in Italy, but also in the very different situations presented by the Allied pursuit of the German army in France during the summer and autumn of 1944, and in the Ardennes in December of that year. Yet while the focus Dupuy's critics has been upon the alleged unfairness of the study results, the author and his associates directed their attention instead to the "problems" that the analysis uncovered. One of these "problems" concerned the role of Allied airpower. On the one hand, it was apparent that most deviations from the norm (of German combat superiority) established by the overall study occurred where Allied airpower was either unemployed or inconsequential; on the other, the study results showed that Allied success was only assured (with some exceptions) where their overall power superiority was very great. In cases where the power ratio favored the Allies only marginally, the Germans were usually successful. In situations where the power ratio suggested an indeterminate outcome, the Germans were invariably the "winner", just as they were when the ratio was in their favor.[78]

Dupuy and his associates had begun their investigations of the campaign in Italy with an assumption that the Germans possessed a 10 percent advantage in combat effectiveness over their American and British counterparts at the time of the Salerno landings, based upon relative experience. They also believed, however, that the Allies would erase this gap by the middle of 1944, an estimate not proven by the study. Analyzing this problem, and the issue described in the preceding paragraph, the Dupuy group found that the consistency of most of their results involved a balance struck between their underestimation, on the one hand, of German combat effectiveness, and on the other of the effect of greater Allied air strength. As a result, the group began applying a 1.2 relative combat effectiveness value to show German superiority, as well a doubling of the values they had been applying for the effects of air weapons.[79]

Dupuy's findings about German combat effectiveness in the Developmental Data Base were confirmed in the analysis of the Validating Data Base. In an effort to investigate the reason for consistent findings of German combat superiority, the group made a comparison of fighting strength versus overhead for German and American infantry divisions, based on tables of organization for 1943-44. This comparison showed that in a German infantry division, 59.83 of the personnel strength was involved in serving or manning weapons in a normal combat situation. The relative number in an American infantry division was 50.26 percent. This comparison "suggests" that "part" of the finding of overall German superiority "probably" was the result of better utilization of manpower.[80]

A third "problem" encountered by the Dupuy group in their initial evaluation of World War II data was the "perturbation" in results created by combat surprise. On this subject, Dupuy discusses in particular the very poor showing of the British 56th Division against an understrength German 65.Infanterie-Division in an engagement along the Moletta River between 16-19 February 1944. The Dupuy group concluded that the factor contributing substantially to the unanticipated outcome was the surprise achieved by the Germans. This led the group to theorize that three major effects proceed from tactical surprise. These effects, which the group then incorporated into the QJM model, are (i) that the mobility of the surprising force is enhanced because of its ability to position its troops for optimum effect before the attack; (ii) that the vulnerability of the surprised force is made worse by its opponent's ability to place fire unexpectedly and accurately; and (iii) that the vulnerability of the surprising force is reduced through its ability to more effectively plan and position its troops. Although Dupuy observes that the general validity of this thesis was confirmed for several other engagements in World War II, as well as in the Arab-Israeli Wars, he cautions that "[T]here are, however, undoubtedly other effects of surprise, and further research should be undertaken to attempt to ascertain these."[81]

Of special significance with regard to the criticism leveled at Dupuy is his conclusion about the probable outcome of the struggle in northwest Europe in the summer of 1944. On the basis of their analyses of the engagements examined in the Validating Data Base, the group concluded that "had the Allies made a concentrated thrust on a relatively narrow single army front, the Germans would have been unable to withstand it. I am now convinced that had this been done the Allies could have at least reached the Rhine by September 1944. Beyond that, of course, one can only speculate, but certainly under such circumstances a German Ardennes offensive in December would have been impossible." Such conclusions are manifestly not those of a person intent on denigrating the combat prowess of the United States Army.[82]

Dupuy also addresses the issue of accounting for the effects upon a land battle of air power. He identifies two conceptual problems in this regard. First, there is the fact that aircraft "loiter" over a battlefield for only a fraction of the engagement. Second, even when aircraft are in the area of the ground battle, they may be assigned tasks other than ground support. The real conundrum, however, is presented by the fact that even when not directly engaged in ground support roles, aircraft may profoundly affect the ground battle indirectly by, for example, interdicting the enemy's supplies away from the battlefield. The issue presented by this latter phenomenon is how to take into account such indirect ground support missions in the QJM, while at the same time not including the weapons possessed by aircraft on such missions in the battlefield inventory.[83]

The Dupuy group's assumptions concerning air interdiction were threefold: (1) that the supply capability of the interdicted force is reduced through both the destruction of supplies and the difficulties created for moving such supplies; (2) that the ability of the interdicted force to move reinforcements as well as troops actually engaged is impaired; and (3) that the damage done to the interdicted force's communications impairs its command and control function. Dupuy and his colleagues were only able to investigate the effect of interdiction upon the supply function. When this element was considered in connection with the Developmental Data Base (the original 60 engagements studied), it was found that it was decisive in 25% of the engagements in which interdiction effects were discernible. But whereas it was somewhat difficult for the group to evaluate the effects of interdiction, the effects of direct interaction between air and ground weapons were much more susceptible to evaluation. The group identified eight different ways in which airpower affects ground action; most of these effects increase the combat power of the side with air superiority. The group applied the eight air superiority elements to the Developmental Data Base, in which there were 38 instances of Allied success, as well as seven in which the outcome was inconclusive. Dupuy and his colleagues found that if the air component had been removed from these 45 engagements, a German success would have been either predictable or very likely in 20-24 of them. Put another way, in this subset of 45 engagements, "airpower provided the margin which provided victory or prevented defeat" in at least 44% (perhaps as high as 53%) of Allied successes and inconclusive engagements.[84]

Dupuy is frank to observe that his group's use of data related to the influence of airpower on the ground battle has relevance to the conflict in Italy in 1944, because of the peculiar nature of that particular situation, viz., the relative and absolute superiority of Allied airpower, and the methodical manner in which it was brought to bear on the enemy. Accounting for the effects of airpower is one of the areas upon which Dupuy's critics dwell. Others are what Dupuy refers to as "fudge factors". These are principally the behavioral variables of surprise and combat effectiveness, the significance of which "cannot be perceived or appreciated unless the observer sees what the combat power ratio would be without the factors." The attitude of Dupuy's critics is that the HERO staff resorts to the use of these factors only when they are needed to make the formulae work correctly. In fact, however, Dupuy points out that the relevance of these factors was discovered only when they were ignored in particular instances, with the result that peculiar outcomes developed. Because of this, Dupuy and his colleagues automatically include a factor for surprise when they are aware that it was achieved by one or the other side in an engagement. Surprise as a verifiable phenomenon of significance in combat has been illustrated by the Dupuy group in both Italy and France.[85]

The finding of superior German combat effectiveness, and its application in the QJM, is the "fudge factor" that most infuriates critics of Dupuy and his work. The group therefore had to address the question whether this was truly a measureable factor, rather than an arbitrary "fudge factor" used to make the use of the QJM and the results of that usage believable. They confirmed German combat effectiveness by assessing casualty-inflicting capability, a measure that first became apparent to them through a study of the American Civil War. Dupuy and his group applied the same assessment method to both the First and Second World Wars. In both of these struggles, German combat effectiveness was superior to that of its western European and American opponents by nearly identical figures. In the same manner, German combat effectiveness superiority with respect to that of the Russians was nearly consistent over both World Wars.[86]

Dupuy was quite aware of the criticisms leveled against his analysis. As he observes, the most common critique of his work is that such an historical approach is scientifically invalid. Dupuy points out, however, that while the scientific techniques and experience of his technically-oriented critics (or those who purport to rely upon such techniques and experience) are reliable in dealing with scientific questions, they are less so when applied to human behavior in the historical context. History, Dupuy argues, is the most reliable guide to evaluating or indeed predicting human behavior. This, in his view, gets at the crux of the matter. At the time Numbers, Predictions & War was published, the most vehement critics came from the so-called OR (Operations Research) community, a group composed of mathematicians and scientists whose careers as analysts of current military affairs and supposed predictors of the nature and outcome of future wars not only made them suspicious of professionals with credentials other than their own, but also biased them against the value of historical analysis and its applicability to the present and future. Dupuy counters the OR critics by observing that (1) the comparative analyses of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War by the OR community and the HERO group showed that the real world validity of the mathematical models of the former were no more realistic that the OLI representation of the QJM; (2) the imprecision and unreliability of modern OR models has been pointed out by a member of the OR community, Dr. J.A. Stockfish of the Rand Corporation, who contended that modern mathematical models lack reliability at least in part due to a failure to enlist empirical data; and (3) whereas the OR community was unable to reproduce or represent modern war with modern weapons (as in the case of the 1973 October War), the QJM model proved itself capable of doing so. Dupuy also addresses criticisms of the QJM with particularity, with special reference to the oft-repeated claim that the good results of the QJM can be explained by the use of "manipulated data". There are, Dupuy says, three different ways in which numbers could be manipulated: (a) weapons and other variable values could be specifically selected to fit the circumstances of a given engagement; (b) the results themselves could be made to fit the preconceived notions harbored by the analyst, should the formulae not yield the desired results; and © , in a case where the QJM and Result formulae had been applied, one of the two truly judgmental inputs to the Result formula (assessed mission accomplishment or the distance-advanced figure) could be changed. Dupuy's response to these arguments is a simple one: All of the numbers, formulae, values, tables and the like utilized in the QJM are fully substantiated and justified in the historical record, "[A]nd that record is there…for the review and scrutiny of anyone else who wishes to check on either the data or the process."[87]

Numbers, Predictions & War is an affront to its critics not because its methodology is faulty, as those critics would have us believe, but because its conclusions about the relative combat effectiveness of the German army and its Allied counterparts are unpalatable to them. The solution to the critics' conundrum---the supposed invalidity of Dupuy's findings, resulting from the application of flawed statistical analysis to suspect data---is for the critics to correct the record by conducting their own statistical analysis of the same (or "better") data, and publish the results for the profession to scrutinize. This they have regrettably and unaccountably failed to do.

Chapter Eight

John Ellis, Brute Force. Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War

Peter Mansoor lumps together John Keegan, Max Hastings and John Ellis, contending that they "round out the field of authors who praise the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht at the expense of the victors of World War II." Mansoor asserts that Ellis, like his two fellow Englishmen, has swallowed uncritically the alleged contentions of Russell Weigley and Martin van Creveld that the German army was more competent and combat effective than those of its opposition. While Ellis apparently remains unknown to Bonn, Brown and Doubler, nevertheless it is worth dealing, however briefly, with Mansoor's charge.

John Ellis is neither a soldier nor an academic historian, thus differentiating him from the authors whose work is the principal focus of this work. He is, nevertheless, an accomplished author whose works include, among others, The Sharp End of War, a paean to the individual fighting man. As the title Brute Force suggests, however, the book of which Mansoor is so critical takes a broader view of war (in this instance, the Second World War), focusing on the relative ability of the opposing forces to marshal military resources and apply them to their respective foes. As he indicates in his preface, his first major theme is that the stupendous collective industrial potential of the Allies gave them such a preponderance of the means for warmaking---weapons and soldiers---that it was incumbent upon the Axis to force a quick negotiated peace in their favor, and when they did not, their inevitable defeat was assured by the "prosaic arithmetic of natural resources, generating capacity, industrial plant and productivity." His second theme is that in applying this overwhelming force, "American, Russian and British commanders made considerably less than optimum use of the resources at their disposal and in almost every theatre serious mistakes were made." The result was that Allied "commanders seemed unable to impose their will upon the enemy except by slowly and persistently battering him to death with a blunt instrument." These are the lines of argument of which Mansoor is so directly critical, a criticism shared by Bonn, Brown and Doubler, though in the case of the latter three, the criticism is not particularized to Ellis.[88]

It should be observed, as Mansoor does not, that Ellis does not take the view that the Allied victory over the Axis was simply a numbers game. Ellis makes this clear in the preface to his work.

This book, then, is highly critical of Allied operations throughout the war, but I would like to make it quite clear that there is absolutely no intention of casting a slur upon the bravery (or competence) of millions of ordinary men and women, in uniform and out, who gave mightily that Western democracy might survive. If it is easy for me, comfortable at my desk, to pontificate about eventual victory being certain, about such and such an Army moving unconscionably slowly, this Fleet being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that aircrew dying in vain, I do not mean to minimize the suffering or in any way demean the memory of those who perished amidst the nightmare of Huertgen Forest, Cassino, Stalingrad, Okinawa or Imphal, who burnt to death in the skies above Germany, or choked in oil in the freezing Atlantic.

When this commentary is taken into account, along with the fact that Ellis has devoted an entire work to the sacrifices of the ordinary soldier in wartime, it must be plain that Mansoor's complaint is ill founded.[89]

It is not too much to say, indeed, that Mansoor's criticism of Ellis is entirely off the mark. The principal assertion, that Ellis favors the prowess of the Wehrmacht over that of its enemies, is in fact totally without foundation. To the extent that Ellis credits the abilities of Germany's soldiers and their leaders, he does so by raising the question, quite properly asked it would seem, of how it was that such a force, miserably led as it was by the Nazi regime and its toadies, chronically under and poorly equipped, and pressed on all sides by lavishly supplied soldiers in overwhelming numbers, was able to "stay in the game" for as long as it did. Ellis' answer is not, as Mansoor would suggest, that the Wehrmacht was a superior fighting machine, but that the Allies failed to use their preponderance of resources to the best effect. That this occurred was not the result of cowardice or incompetence on the part of the men in the field, but of a want of determined and aggressive leadership at the highest levels in the Allied camp.

Moreover, there is no lack of criticism of the Wehrmacht in Ellis' work. The very first section of Brute Force is devoted to a consideration to that greatest of German follies in the Second World War, Operation Barbarossa and its aftermath. In a passage reminiscent of more recent scholarship on failure of German leadership to manage the war, Ellis observes that the speed and totality of the Allied collapse in the West in 1940 led Hitler and his high command to the wrongheaded conclusion that war was a psychological contest in which the side with superior tactics and an "inflexible will to win" would prove victorious. The Germans ignored the Wehrmacht's shortcomings, namely its reliance upon aircraft with limited payloads, undergunned and underarmored tanks, and infantry formations that moved at the same pace as Caesar and Napoleon. More importantly, and again in a vein consistent with the views expressed by more recent scholars, Hitler and his generals willfully ignored the logistics of modern warfare. Typical of this lack of foresight was the Marcks plan for the invasion of Russia, in which the plan's author, then Generalleutnant Erich Marcks, opined that the Red Army "will soon succumb to the superiority of the German troops and leadership." Likewise, the OKH Deployment Directive of 31 January 1941 blithely asserted that the Russian armies would be separated and destroyed by the Wehrmacht. As Ellis observes, these assumptions were made less upon the basis of detailed analysis, of which there was little or none, than upon simple wishful thinking.[90]

Ellis points out, furthermore, that the ultimate failure of the Ostheer was the result not merely of an almost criminal level of overoptimism on the part of the German high command, but also of the inherent incapacity of the German war economy to match the industrial capacity of even this single opponent, a factor compounded by totally irrational policy decisions made by the German leadership. The conviction that the war in the East would be quickly won at relatively little cost meant that the Germans failed to appreciate the strain that the new campaign would place on the personnel replacement system. The result of this miscalculation was immediate. In the first two months of the eastern campaign the German army sustained approximately 440,000 battle casualties; in the same period, German replacements totaled only 217,000. Over time this disparity only grew worse, and the German army never recovered from it. Of equal importance were two decisions made by Hitler, one in September 1940, and the second in late July 1941, when the eastern campaign was little more than a month old. In the first, Hitler ordered a reduction in aircraft production, so that by February of 1941 it had been cut by 40%. The second involved cutbacks in the production of fundamental weapons systems---infantry weapons of all kinds as well as field and anti-aircraft guns---so that the production of field artillery, to give one example, was reduced by nearly 70%. Added to all of this was the logistical problem already mentioned. The Germans unaccountably failed to appreciate the rate of expenditure of ammunition and fuel that would be required by the eastern campaign. Equally disastrous was their failure to understand the kind of strain that the new war would place upon motor and rail transport. This lack of understanding was equally criminal, given the fact that it was well known to the military leadership that the Russian rail system operated on a different gauge, a fact that would require either the complete rebuilding of the rail net as the German forces advanced, or reliance upon a time consuming system of offloading and reloading of supplies and equipment at the point where the two systems intersected.[91]

If Ellis were in fact the apologist for the German army that Mansoor says he is, it is reasonable to assume that he would not have concluded that for all of the above described reasons, as well as the fighting qualities of the Russians and their ability to learn from their foes, "the Wehrmacht was simply not powerful enough to conquer Russia." Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with the field knows that this is decidedly not the view of the Wehrmacht's champions, who raise a variety of excuses---the Balkan campaign and the rainy spring of 1941, the meddling of Hitler, the perfidy of the Italians, Romanians and Hungarians---to explain the victory of the Red Army. Indeed, Ellis is at some pains to refute these contentions out of the mouths of German officers who were there. He relies, for example, upon the words of SS Gruppenfuhrer Max Simon, who admitted that the German failure before Moscow was due not to the vastness of the terrain, but to the resistance of the Red Army; upon Generalfeldmarshall Fedor von Bock's chief of staff, then Generalmajor Hans von Greiffenberg, who denied that the German defeat at the Russian capitol was due to weather conditions, assigning the blame upon the German command's misjudgment of the relative combat strength and efficiency of their own and the Russian troops; and upon Generalfeldmarshall von Bock himself, who gave it as his opinion that the German failure resulted from their underestimation of the strength and resilience of the Russian enemy.[92]

As previously noted, Mansoor takes the position that Ellis denigrates the fighting qualities and competence of the "victors of World War II" in favor of those of the Wehrmacht. Yet, in the second chapter of his work, Ellis details the tremendous contribution to Germany's defeat made by the Soviet Union. Leaving aside the investment in productive capacity and human blood made by the Russians, the author points out that from the beginning of the Russo-German war until November, 1942, when the western Allies invaded North Africa, the Red Army consistently confronted 70 percent of German combat formations, and an even higher percentage of German panzer and panzergrenadier units. Even after the invasion of France, and until the end of 1944, the Russians still faced 70 percent of German armored and motorized formations. When only German combat units are considered, these figures rise to even more embarrassing heights, from a high in June, 1941of 98.5 percent to a low in May, 1944 of 87.1 percent. And as is well known, over the course of the war the Red Army inflicted 90 percent of the casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht, namely 4,900,000 German dead and wounded in the east, as against 580,000 suffered in North-West Europe, Italy and Africa. It is worth noting that one searches in vain in the works of Mansoor, Bonn, Brown and Doubler for such a bloody accounting.[93]

Ellis focuses on other German failures as well. In his prologue, for example, Ellis discusses the critical shortcomings, both quantitative and qualitative, of the Luftwaffe in 1940-41, and the consequent German defeat in the Battle of Britain. Ellis demonstrates that far from being outnumbered, the Royal Air Force benefited from an advantage of 15.5 per cent in total fighter production in 1940, a figure that rose to 49.3 per cent in the following year. When the relative production of single engined fighters during the same period is considered, the British advantage was 130 per cent and 150 per cent respectively. Total production of single engined fighters between June 1940 and April 1941 was 5,249 for Britain, and 2,500 for Germany. The Germans were faced, however, not merely with a disparity in production of aircraft, but also with a qualitative deficit in the aircraft with which it fought the battle. Practically the only aircraft the Germans possessed that was comparable to the Spitfires and Hurricanes fielded by the RAF was the Messerschmidt Bf 109, and even this plane was inadequate to the task of protecting German bombers because its limited fuel capacity rendered it capable of "loitering" in British airspace for only a relatively short period of time, with the result that the German bombers they were detailed to escort were rendered virtually defenseless against RAF fighters. This was an unenviable situation for the German bomber force, since every single one of its aircraft---the Ju 87, Ju 88, He 111 and Do 217---was woefully inadequate to the task set for it, being equally deficient in the critical characteristics of speed, bombload and defensive armament.[94]

Equally disastrous for Germany was its inability to conduct a successful naval campaign against Britain. In this campaign the Germans were forced to rely, as they had in the Great War, upon the submarine rather than a surface fleet. And whereas then Kommodor (later Grossadmiral) Karl Doenitz, the commander of the U-Bootwaffe, had opined in August 1939 that a force of 300 submarines would be necessary to conduct a successful offensive against British shipping, when the war began the following month, only 57 boats were on hand for the task. In addition, no particular emphasis was placed upon the manufacture of U-boats in the early stages of the war, so that for the first 16 months of the war the number of boats at sea averaged well below 20, month in and month out. This chronic shortage of boats meant that their tactical deployment in groups, the so-called Rudeltaktik (in Allied parlance, the "wolf pack"), was seriously undermined. That the German submariners enjoyed significant success during the period in question, sinking almost 3 million tons of shipping in the Atlantic up to the Spring of 1941, was due, as Ellis points out, more to the shortcomings in resources deployed by the British in countering the German offensive. Ellis argues, indeed, that had the Germans employed any foresight whatever in 1938 and 1939, and produced a U-boat fleet anywhere near the size envisioned by its commander, the inability of Coastal Command to provide anti-submarine aircraft, and the failure of the Royal Navy to deploy adequate escort ships, might well have so wrecked the British merchant marine in the first 18 months of the conflict that Britain would have been unable to continue the struggle. In fact, however, Ellis demonstrates that Britain was never in any danger of being strangled by the Kriegsmarine. First, in 1942, the first year of American participation in the war, combined US and UK merchant shipbuilding was only just exceeded by the tonnage sank by the U-boats. Yet, although this was the period of greatest relative German success, it was precisely during this period that the U-Bootwaffe suffered its greatest weakness in numbers of boats available for sea duty. Having failed to gain victory in this period, the German campaign at sea was now doomed to failure. Second, and perhaps more significantly, Ellis demonstrates that the British merchant fleet remained steady in size throughout the entire war, including its period of most dire travail between 1940-42. The British merchant marine, Ellis concludes, was never close to extinction. Comparative figures for the Atlantic and Pacific wars are telling. Between 1942 and 1945, the Japanese merchant fleet lost 8,616,000 tons of shipping, reducing it at the end of the war to a mere 1.5 million tons afloat. During the same period, the Allies lost a total of 12,590,000 tons of shipping; yet the size of their fleet rose from 32 million tons to 54 million tons. The inadequacy of the German naval campaign could hardly be more well demonstrated.[95]

Nor is Ellis particularly "anti-American" in assigning blame for the failure of the Allies to crush Nazism with more dispatch. The principal targets for his criticism, in fact, are Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris and Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. His criticism of these individuals, moreover, is just that---a finding of fault with Allied leadership, rather than praise for the martial qualities of the Germans, as Mansoor suggests. Indeed, the contrary is actually the case, since part of Ellis' criticism of Harris, for example, is directed to that officer's failure to appreciate and exploit not only the inherent weaknesses in the German economy, but also the disadvantages placed upon the Luftwaffe through the lack of foresight and poor management by its leaders, both military and political. It will be recalled that at the Casablanca Conference in 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff directed the U.S. Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force to undertake a combined bomber offensive against the Third Reich. The principal targets for this offensive were submarine construction yards, the aircraft industry, the transportation system, and oil production facilities. Obtaining the compliance of Harris, in charge of the RAF's Bomber Command, with these directives was less than successful. Ellis points out that Harris was convinced of the ability of the bomber alone to bring Germany to its knees, and that he never ceased to urge this point of view on his colleagues. More important still, Harris was the champion of so-called "area bombing", a tactic distinguished from the concept of "strategic bombing" long favored by the U.S. Army Air Force by the former's assumption that the most efficacious way of destroying a specific target was to saturate the entire vicinity with bombs, thereby assuring that not only the strategic target but all of its supporting infrastructure, notably the living quarters of its labor force, would be annihilated. From the point of view of Harris and his supporters, such a policy had several advantages over precision strategic bombing; it could be employed at night and without the need for either tight bomber formations or a sophisticated bombsight, all of which were consistent with the approach adopted by Bomber Command early in the war. In addition, night area bombing was not dependent upon the provision of fighter cover. Finally, area bombing had the distinct attribute, greatly desired by Harris and its other advocates, of generating widespread terror among the German civilian population.[96]

Ellis argues that Harris alone was not at fault. Culpable too were his senior officers in the RAF, principally his superior Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, who failed to bring him to heel. The result was that while the USAAF devoted its attention to attacking nearly 65% of the targets designated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, RAF Bomber Command attacked only 31% of such targets. Among the targets studiously ignored by Bomber Command were the enemy's oil manufacturing facilities and transportation network, target sets whose vigorous pursuit by both Allied air forces would likely have measurably shortened the war. Meanwhile, although in spite of everything the Germans had managed to greatly increase their production of fighters in the last two years of the war, in the same period of time the Allied production of such weapons at least quadrupled that of the Reich. In addition, not only was the US Eighth Air Force steadily reducing the number of German fighter pilots by its relentless bombing campaign in daylight, but the Germans were proving wholly incapable of replacing their pilots, owing to their pitiful lack of foresight and mismanagement of the pilot training system. It is the failure of Harris to exploit these weaknesses in the German economy and defense capability that Ellis finds so inexplicable, and for which he is particularly critical. There is nothing in his analysis amounting to praise of the Luftwaffe .[97]

As to the Western Allies' war on the ground against the Reich, Ellis reserves his strongest criticism for General (later Field Marshal) Bernard Law Montgomery, Viscount Alamein. Ellis refers to Montgomery's tactical handling of armor in North Africa, where the opportunity for a truly dynamic and successful war of maneuver presented itself as a result of Rommel's weakness and the possession by the British of Ultra wireless intercepts detailing the German commander's condition and military intentions, as "execrable". In North West Europe as well, Montgomery and his adherents failed to "finish off a distinctly groggy opponent" at the Falaise Gap, Antwerp and the Seine, when according to Ellis more "dash" might have rolled up the German line and forced an early collapse. Ellis' conclusions about Montgomery are telling:

Even in North Africa Montgomery's plans for his corps de chasse and for his armoured hooks and end-runs have a curiously half-hearted feel about them, and one constantly has the impression that it was in the frontal infantry assault, with lots of artillery and a generous lead time, that Montgomery felt most at ease. Whilst I do not suggest that Montgomery was careless of the lives of his men, the fact remains that his style of generalship was more appropriate to the Western Front in 1914-18. This impression is not dispelled by Montgomery's record in Europe, where Operations Charnwood, Goodwood and Totalise smack of naked attrition, where the failures at the Breskens Pocket and Arnhem suggest a complete inability to conduct mobile operations, and where the deliberation with which the Rhine Crossings and the subsequent advance to Lubeck were planned and conducted seem to indicate a quite debilitating lack of verve or even self-confidence.

Nothing like this sort of criticism is made of any American commander by Ellis.[98]

What is particularly disquieting about Mansoor's criticism of Ellis, and likewise of the criticisms of his theses offered by Bonn, Brown and Doubler, is that in the mountain of books that have been written about the Second World War, the same arguments---that Allied commanders lacked aggressiveness, and that the Allies prevailed because of their capacity to swamp the Axis forces with their productive resources---have been made by many historians whose works have found widespread favor. It would be possible to identify many of them here, but only two will suffice. In 1983, Carlo D'Este published his Decision in Normandy, a study of Montgomery's so-called "master plan" for the Normandy campaign and its implementation. It would be fair to say that D'Este is both objective and critical of Montgomery; his work focuses on the unraveling of the "master plan", and on the Allied ground commander's subsequent efforts to explain away its fundamental failure. In D'Este's analysis the key element in that failure was Montgomery's inflexibility in the face of sustained and vigorous German resistance, the effects of which were compounded by such factors as the ineffectual efforts of some British troops and commanders and serious shortages in British manpower. Critical though he was of one of the "victors of World War II", D'Este is not among those routinely vilified for denigrating Allied military prowess in relation to that of their German adversaries. Likewise, Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers , first published in 1987, was not only a best selling book, but one widely acclaimed by academic historians as well, among them the renowned English military historian Sir Michael Howard. As the title of this work suggests, it is broad in scope, covering the expansion and decline of imperialist powers from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. Because of the breadth and depth of the subject, and because of the truly fleeting histories of the Japanese and German empires of the mid-twentieth centuries, Kennedy devotes only a small portion of his book to that particular subject. It is nonetheless significant that Kennedy entitled that portion "The Proper Application of Overwhelming Force", a phrase taken from Winston Churchill's recollection of his reaction to the news of America's entry into the Second World War following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kennedy quotes Churchill as saying that "Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force." While Kennedy concedes that there was obviously much hard fighting in the offing before the Axis succumbed,

Churchill's basic assumption was correct. The conversion of the conflict from a European war to a truly global war…totally altered the overall balance of forces once the newer belligerents were properly mobilized. In the meantime, the German and Japanese war machines could still continue their conquests; yet the further they extended themselves the less capable they were of meeting the counteroffensives which the Allies were steadily preparing.

Kennedy asks whether the success of the Allies, in the final analysis, was merely the result of their capacity to overwhelm the Axis with material resources. Like Ellis, he concludes that much more was at work than a mere numbers game.

[T]here were far too many examples of where the German and Japanese leadership made grievous political or strategical errors after 1941 which were to cost them dear. In the German case, this ranged from relatively small-scale decisions, like pouring reinforcements into North Africa in early 1943, just in time for them to be captured, to the appallingly stupid as well as criminal treatment of the Ukrainian and other non-Russian minorities in the USSR, who were happy to escape from the Stalinist embrace until checked by Nazi atrocities. It ran from the arrogance of assuming that the Enigma codes could never be broken to the ideological prejudice against employing German women in munitions factories, whereas all Germany's foes willingly exploited that largely untapped labor pool. It was compounded by rivalries within the higher echelons of the army itself, which made it ineffective in resisting Hitler's manic urge for overambitious offensives like Stalingrad and Kursk. Above all, there was what scholars refer to as the ‘polycratic chaos' of rivaling ministries and subempires (the army, the SS, the Gauleiter, the economics ministry), which prevented any coherent assessment and allocation of resources, let alone the hammering-out of what elsewhere would be termed a ‘grand strategy'. This was not a serious way to run a war.

Yet, Kennedy's conclusion is identical to that reached by Ellis:

No matter how cleverly the Wehrmacht mounted its tactical counterattacks on both the western and eastern fronts until almost the last months of the war, it was to be ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Allied firepower. By 1945, the thousands of Anglo-American bombers pounding the Reich each day and the hundreds of Red Army divisions poised to blast through to Berlin and Vienna were all different manifestations of the same blunt fact. Once again, in a protracted and full-scale coalition war, the countries with the deepest purse had prevailed in the end.[99]

It is perhaps not too much to say that the principal theme binding together the works of Bonn, Mansoor, Doubler and Brown is the argument, forcefully made in each case, that the victory of the Allies over the Axis was not dependent upon the overwhelming industrial capacity of Germany's enemies. Such an argument, in turn, provokes at least two important questions. First, how can such a contention be advanced by professionally trained historians, in the face of the unchallenged (and indeed unassailable) evidence to the contrary documented by Ellis, Kennedy and others. Second, and perhaps more importantly, why do Mansoor and the others perceive such evidence to constitute a negative reflection upon the courage and fighting qualities of Allied (particularly American) soldiers. In the first place, the Allied powers certainly had nothing to be ashamed of from the fact that they were capable of swamping the Axis nations with their industrial might. Indeed, in any other context the advocates of the American point of view would willingly acknowledge their justifiable pride in their country's industrial might. Moreover, it is readily apparent that the relative productive capacity of the combatants is an entirely different question from the bravery and fighting qualities of the soldiers who benefited from that industrial capacity. To put it another way, there is no inverse relationship between the level of courage and skill of American soldiers and the industrial capacity of their homeland, in spite of the efforts of Mansoor and his colleagues to demonstrate the existence of such a relationship.

Chapter Nine

Keith Bonn and the Level Playing Field

In 1994 Keith E. Bonn published his tendentiously titled work, When the Odds Were Even.[100] Bonn is a 1978 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and at the time his book was published, was serving as an infantry officer at Fort Lewis, Washington. When the Odds Were Even grew out of Bonn's doctoral dissertation in history at the University of Chicago. While it would appear from Bonn's Acknowledgments that he had access to original German documents in both the U.S. National Archives and the Bundesmilitargeschichtliches Forschungsamt in Freiburg, Germany, in fact he relies upon primarily American sources to tell the German side of the story. His Acknowledgment also reveals that he interviewed only American veterans in the preparation of his work.[101]

In his Introduction, Bonn sets the tone for When the Odds Were Even , and indeed for the entire genre of which it is a part. In the process of decrying the "selective" use of history, Bonn states that

[O]ne of the most recent and unquestionably most alarming trends in the historiography of World War II in the ETO [European Theatre of Operations] is the use of the events of this era by certain military reformers to justify recommendations that the contemporary U.S. Army should discard its own uniquely evolved institutions and doctrines and instead simply imitate the Wehrmacht.[102]

Particularly offensive to Bonn in this regard are works which "inaccurately represent the facts bearing on the respective combat accomplishments of the American and German armies" or compare those accomplishments unfairly.[103]

Bonn must at least be credited with admitting that the Unites States Army enjoyed certain critical advantages over the Wehrmacht in the ETO, namely (i) tactical air superiority, if not supremacy; (ii) a gradually improving logistical situation; and (iii) a relatively favorable manpower situation, advantages which "colored the outcome of very campaign, every battle, and every engagement in which they (the Americans) participated".[104] Because of these significant disparities, a "truly fair and accurate comparison" of the two armies is difficult to construct. Bonn finds his ideal field for comparison, however, in the Vosges campaign of the Fall-Winter, 1944/1945. Having reached this conclusion, however, Bonn immediately moves to debunk it. In the early portion of the campaign, for example, the Germans not only enjoyed the benefits of prepared positions in terrain naturally suited to defense, but also disposed of veteran troops who, though "sometimes outnumbered…still had their full complement of mortars and machine guns", weapons the author describes as the most important under the circumstances.[105] On the other hand, the American units involved are described as either totally green or burned out from campaigning in Italy. In spite of these disadvantages, the "mixed bag of American units" succeeded in prevailing over their opponents in the first phase of the battle, as well as its succeeding phases.

Bonn begins his work with a brief discussion of the then existing historical literature touching on his subject, with regard to much of which he is very skeptical. Bonn is highly critical of Martin van Creveld, whom he describes as "notorious". After condescendingly referring to Creveld's "admirers" as "well-intentioned but uninformed", he decries the latter's work as historically inaccurate and "the worst kind of revisionist history". Bonn claims that Creveld's work is shot through with historical inaccuracies about the U.S. Army. To illustrate this, he claims that Creveld represents that U.S. combat divisions used such things as pigs, bees, monkeys, centipedes, and belligerent dogs for their unit insignia, and that these "whimsical" designs embarrassed American troops and adversely affected their morale.[106] In fact, the passage in Creveld's work to which Bonn alludes reads as follows:

Like their German counterparts, American units were known by either roman or Arabic numbers. Most also had nicknames, though the enormous variety of whimsical designs---belligerent dogs, ducks, centipedes, spiders, bees, bulls, birds, monkeys, wolves, bears, horses, pigs and cats, among others---that accompanied American units into combat suggests that these meant little to the troops. Except for Meril's Marauders, an outfit operating against the Japanese, I know of no case in which an American formation was known after its commander.[107]

At least two things are evident from the foregoing passage. First, Creveld does not refer to U.S. combat divisions, as Bonn claims, but to "units", a fact which is evident from not only the paragraph in question, but from the surrounding context as well. Such "units" could include something as small as an armored company or platoon, or a fighter or bomber squadron, or even an individual aircraft. Second, at least one of the animals referred to by Creveld---"birds"---was in fact used as a divisional symbol by at least two

U.S. combat formations---the 45th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division---and at least as far as is known, the soldiers in those formations were not "embarrassed" by those symbols. Moreover, one need only consult any one of a number of works on the Eighth Air Force to determine that many of its units bore symbols such as belligerent dogs, bees and hornets, ruptured ducks, bulls and the like.

Bonn's flawed methodology in approaching his topic is apparent very early in the book. For example, he asserts that the personnel strength of German units (which he claims are not available from German sources) may be gleaned from American sources. This can be done, according to Bonn, by "meticulously screening available U.S. intelligence reports" and comparing these to the estimates provided by German veterans of the Vosges campaign in the manuscripts they wrote for the U.S. Army in the immediate postwar era. The numbers thus yielded are then cross-referenced with German tables of organization and equipment to give "accurate hard quantities or numbers". There are at least two serious drawbacks to this method. First, as Niklas Zetterling has shown, while numbers of personnel and weapons may not be available from the records of a large German formation (such as Heeresgruppe G), those numbers are often available, either directly or by "patching together" from subordinate formations such as divisions or army corps.[108] Second, no one with anything more than a passing familiarity with the German army would suggest that cross-checking against a German table of organization and equipment in 1944 would be a meaningful exercise. The fact of the matter is that such tables were fanciful characterizations of what the OKW and OKH would have liked for their formations to look like. For example, on 1 August 1944 Panzer Divisions underwent a complete reorganization, into the so-called "Type 44 Panzer Division". A Panzer Division included one Panzer regiment of two battalions; the first battalion included four companies of 17-22 Panther tanks each, while the second battalion possessed four companies of 17-22 Mk IV tanks each.[109] 21.Panzer-Division engaged the Allies during the Normandy fighting. On 8 August 1944 its Panzer-Regiment 22 fielded a total of 20 combat ready Mk IV tanks, over sixty fewer than its maximum authorized strength. More interesting still is the makeup of 21.Panzer-Division on the eve of the Normandy campaign, at which time it was organized as a "Type 43 Panzer Division". According to this organizational structure, it should have had two Panzer battalions, the first consisting of four companies of 22 Mk IVs each, and the second comprising four companies of 22 Panthers each. In fact, on 1 June 1944 the first battalion of Panzer-Regiment 22 had four companies of 17 Mk IVs each, while the Regiment's second battalion broke down as follows: 5 Kompanie, 5 Mk IV (long barrel), 9 French Somua; 6 Kompanie, 5 Mk IV (long barrel), 13 French Somua, 2 British Hotchkiss; 7 Kompanie, 5 Mk IV (long barrel), 13 French Somua; 8 Kompanie, 6 Mk IV (short barrel).[112] These discrepancies between the nominal strength of the 21.Panzer-Division and its actual makeup are typical of the distinctions between ideal and reality which characterized all formations in the German army at this stage of the war.

It is indeed on this fundamental issue of German combat organization that Bonn runs aground very early. In his section entitled "German army Organization", Bonn discusses the makeup of German infantry, panzer, mountain and panzergrenadier divisions, suggesting that the organization of these various formations did not change from 1939 onward.[113] Of the reorganization of panzer divisions in 1943 and 1944 he gives no inkling whatever. Likewise, he indicates that German infantry divisions included three infantry regiments of three battalions each. In fact, since at least the middle of 1943 many German infantry divisions, including those taking part in the critical battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front, fielded only six infantry battalions.[114] This structure was formalized in 1944 by the organization of the "Type 44 Division".[115] For example, on 18 October 1944 198.Infanterie-Division, which took part in the Vosges campaign, included Grenadier-Regiment 305, 308 and 326, each having two battalions.[116] Formations such as 198.Infanterie-Division therefore had much the same character as the Volks-Grenadier divisions created by the German army in late 1944, the character of which Bonn adequately describes.[117]

In the introductory portion of his work, Bonn acknowledges several facts concerning the condition of the Wehrmacht in 1944, which facts evidently elude him later in the book. Describing the coastal defense divisions (Kustenverteidigungsdivision) guarding the French coast, he observes that they were composed of "older troops, convalescing wounded, or somehow otherwise physically disabled soldiers of little value in a field environment." He notes further that they had no transport capability. Referring to the Volks-Grenadier divisions, he points out that they possessed diminished reconnaissance capability and severely reduced artillery assets, and that normally they trained for only ten weeks before being deployed in combat. He comments also upon the fact that the reduced strength of German divisions, particularly their reduction from three to two battalions per regiment, meant that such units could not be relied upon to accomplish the sort of tasks called for by German doctrine, namely counterattacks. These changes, and others, resulted in "a loss of operational flexibility and increased friction in battle."[118]

In a brief passage, Bonn also recognizes shortcomings in the German training regime brought about by the exigencies of war, and in particular by the losses sustained since the beginning of the Russian campaign in 1941. He notes, for example, that the traditional reliance upon the regimental Erzatzbataillon to train recruits had been undermined by the pressure to replace losses as quickly as possible from any sources available, so that the "feeling of belonging to a specific unit from the outset of a soldier's military service was diminished if not altogether lost." The same stresses led, as the war continued, to wholesale conversion of Luftwaffe personnel into field combat troops, in many cases comprising what came to be known as Luftwaffen-Feld-Divisionen. Likewise, extraneous naval personnel became replacements for army formations. In both situations, Bonn recognizes, there could be no expectation that training in infantry combat techniques would be sufficient. Bonn also acknowledges the increasing German reliance on Volksdeutsche, the growing tendency to commit training units to combat, and the resort to draconian techniques of discipline, all of which contrived to reduce the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht .[119]

It is noteworthy that in his brief remarks on the deficiencies of the German army in the autumn of 1944, Bonn focuses upon symptoms instead of causes. This, it will become plain, is a characteristic of the genre. A reader lacking sufficient historical background, upon being confronted with Bonn's evidence, might well conclude that the German army and its leadership had simply lost contact with reality, and wantonly reconstituted their field formations in ways that would render them incapable of fulfilling the tasks called upon them by German doctrine. The root cause of the disconnect between the war the Germans were fighting and their ability to fight it, namely the fundamental destruction of the German army by the war in the East, is only alluded to. There are, of course, scattered references to the fact that the German army had been at war continuously since the autumn of 1939, and indeed even that it had been engaged against the Red Army for three years before Allied troops ever set foot on Western Europe. In fact, however, there is no recognition that the Red Army had simply gutted the Wehrmacht in those three years of bitter fighting. Indeed, the reverse is true---Bonn and his cohorts purposefully lead the reader to the inference that the United States and German armies were somehow fighting on equal terms from June 1944 to the end of the war. Conveniently left out of the story is the fact, for example, that since the beginning of 1942 the German army had never been capable of replenishing the personnel losses sustained in the East, that its mobility, which had never been great in the first place, had been severely reduced by attrition over five years of warfare, that its combat units were persistently short of manpower, weapons and munitions, and that it had been forced to rely upon foreign conscripts whose loyalty and combat effectiveness were both highly suspect.

Bonn begins his narrative with a description of the so-called Battle for the High Vosges. While the premise of Bonn's work is that the Vosges campaign was fought on equal terms, a detailed reading of his own description of it shows that it was not. For example, he admits that the defensive positions constructed in the area of the German LXIV.Armeekorps, built by, among others, Russian prisoners, members of the Hitler Jugend and RAD, and the Organization Todt, were ill suited to German doctrine. In particular, they were not constructed in a manner which would facilitate mutual fire support. Likewise, the condition of the German units comprising 19.Armee was not good. The premier unit, 21.Panzer-Division, "was in the best shape it had been in since the Normandy campaign."[120] As has been noted previously about this formation, such a statement does not say much. Compared to the other German units involved, however, it may in fact have been of noteworthy quality. While Bonn is at some pains to describe these other German units, and does so with some frankness as to their shortcomings, he hardly does them justice. He describes the tactical organization of 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division as "chaotic", pointing out that it had been created out of troops from destroyed and disbanded units. In fact, the division's Grenadier-Regiment 221, 223 and 225 each disposed of only one battalion of troops. As Bonn notes, the division included security, fortress and jaeger troops; it also, however, included a motley array of Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and army training formations. All in all, 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division did not hold promise for high combat effectiveness.[121]

As has been previously observed, an essential part of Bonn's methodology is to rely not upon German records, but upon contemporary U.S. Army intelligence reports, for evidence about the constitution of German units in the Vosges campaign. This is well demonstrated by his treatment of the so-called 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division, also purportedly subordinate to LXIV.Armeekorps. Noting that it included remnants of a variety of units, including men from the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, Bonn observes that its major subordinate units were Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 726 and 736. In fact, there is no evidence that 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division ever existed. There was, instead, a 716.Infanterie-Division in the German order of battle during the Vosges campaign, whose principal maneuver elements were Grenadier-Regiment 726 and 736. 716.Infanterie-Division had been formed as an occupation division in 1941, and was virtually annihilated in the Normandy fighting. It was reorganized in August 1944. At that time, the companies of Grenadier-Regiment 726 possessed a total of 14 machine guns and no infantry support or anti-tank guns. At the same time, the companies of Grenadier-Regiment 736 managed 12 machine guns, no infantry support guns, and a single 75mm PAK 40 anti-tank weapon. Likewise, the division's Artillerie-Regiment 1716 had no guns. At the beginning of November 1944, 716.Infanterie-Division absorbed troops from no less than 17 different battalions and 9 different regiments and companies. It is no wonder that American intelligence officers, upon whose reports Bonn relies for his information, produced incorrect information about 716.Infanterie-Division, since most of the captured Germans interviewed by them probably had no real idea of the identity of the division to which they belonged. Even Bonn admits that this disparate collection of Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and over-aged troops "received only rudimentary infantry combat training", an evaluation that is probably generous in the extreme.[122]

Bonn describes 198.Infanterie-Division, also part of LXIV.Armeekorps, as being in "a difficult personnel predicament", even though it supposedly fielded some 3800 infantrymen at the start of the campaign. He avers that the division had two infantry regiments (Grenadier-Regiment 305 and 308) composed mainly of Reichsdeutsche, but that many of the soldiers "had been previously adjudged unfit for combat duty". 198.Infanterie-Division had been destroyed in Russia and rebuilt in southern France at the beginning of June 1944. It actually fielded three infantry regiments (Grenadier-Regiment 305, 308 and 326), each containing two battalions, as well as Artillerie- Regiment 235, Fusilier-Bataillon 235 and Feldersatz-Bataillon 198. In a fashion similar to 716.Infanterie-Division, on the eve of the Vosges campaign 198.Infanterie-Division absorbed troops from six different battalions and five regiments and companies, including men from two Kriegsmarine units, 8.Schiffs-Stamm-Abteilung and leichte Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 687 . A less worthy opponent for the U.S. Army can scarcely be imagined.[123]

Bonn includes several situation maps for specific dates during the Vosges campaign. Each of these situation maps is associated with an order of battle for the same period, in which the American and German units involved are set out. The first of these situation maps covers the period 15 October-21 October 1944. The German portion of the order of battle includes, under Heeresgruppe G, 19.Armee (IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps, LXIV. Armeekorps) and 1.Armee (LXXXIX.Armeekorps, LVIII.Panzerkorps). The further breakdown depicts IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps controlling 338.Volks-Grenadier-Division; LXIV.Armeekorps directing 198.Infanterie-Division (reinforced with (Kosaken-) Festungs-Grenadier-Regiment 360) and 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division; LXXXIX. Armeekorps including 21.Panzer-Division and 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division; and LVIII. Panzerkorps commanding 11.Panzer-Division (committed primarily against U.S. XII Corps), 15.Panzer-Grenadier-Division (withdrawn 16 October) and 553.Volks- Grenadier-Division. This work has previously outlined the structure of 198.Infanterie- Division on 16 October 1944. We have also discussed the composition of 16.Volks- Grenadier-Division, as well as that of the nonexistent 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division (in fact 716.Infanterie-Division ).[124]

There is certainly a discrepancy between the order of battle set forth by Bonn for the German forces on the date in question and that shown in the Kriegsgliederung dated October 13, 1944. The latter shows LVIII.Panzerkorps (subordinate to 5.Panzerarmee, not 1.Armee) including 11.Panzer-Division and 15.Panzer-Grenadier-Division (and not 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division); LXIV.Armeekorps having 198.Infanterie-Division and 716.Infanterie-Division; and IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps including 338.Infanterie-Division. The Kriegsgliederung does show 21.Panzer-Division and 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division to be part of Heeresgruppe G's order of battle, but as part of 5.Panzerarmee's XXXXVII. Panzerkorps. On the date in question, LXXXIX.Armeekorps belonged to Heeresgruppe B's 15.Armee .[125]

What German forces, then, did the troops of the U.S. 7th Army's VIth and XVth Corps actually encounter between 15 and 21 October 1944? According to the Kriegsgliederung for 13 October 1944, the German 1.Armee consisted of LXXXII. Armeekorps (416.Infanterie-Division, 462.Infanterie-Division and 19.Volks-Grenadier- Division) and XIII.SS-Armeekorps [17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen", 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 48.Infanterie-Division, along with the remnant of 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division). On the same date, the Kriegsgliederung shows 19.Armee as having had LXIV.Armeekorps (716.Infanterie-Division [bodenstadig] and 198.Infanterie-Division), IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps (338.Infanterie- Division) and LXXXV.Armeekorps z.b.V. (159.Infanterie-Division, 189.Infanterie-Division and Panzer-Brigade 106). A detailed consideration of these German units is warranted, in order to properly evaluate Bonn's thesis that the Vosges campaign represented one in which the opposing forces were equally matched.[126]

LXXXII.Armeekorp's 19.Volks-Grenadier-Division was two weeks old when the Vosges campaign began, having been constituted on 1 October 1944 from 19.Grenadier-Division (formed 8 August 1944) along with Ersatz und Ausbildungs Bataillon 463. It included the remnants of 19.Luftwaffe-Sturm-Division, which had been destroyed in Italy. Its three regiments (Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 59, Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 73 and Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 74) each fielded two battalions of four companies each. The division also included Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 119 and Artillerie-Regiment 719, as well as Pionier-Bataillon 119, signals and support units. Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 119 was noteworthy for having not only 12 towed 75mm antitank guns, but also the services of Sturmgeschutz-Abteilung 1119.[127]

LXXXII.Armeekorp's 416.Infanterie-Division had been on garrison duty in Denmark before the Allied invasion. It included Grenadier-Regiment 712, 713 and 774 with a total of six battalions, Artillerie-Regiment 416, Panzer-Jaeger-Abteilung 416 and pioneer, signals and support units. 416.Infanterie-Division was composed of men whose average age was thirty-eight. It had been nicknamed the "whipped cream division" as a reflection upon the special diets that many of its soldiers required. When it encountered the U.S. 7th Army in the Vosges at the beginning of October, it possessed roughly 8500 troops and little in the way of artillery. 462.Infanterie-Division was composed of Grenadier-Regiment 1215, 1216 and 1217 and Artillerie-Regiment 1462. It had no organic panzerjaeger unit. While this division (redesignated in November 1944 as 462. Volks-Grenadier-Division) was listed on the order of battle of LXXII.Armeekorp, in fact it was engaged in the defense of Metz, where it was destroyed.[128]

XIII.SS Armeekorp's 48.Infanterie-Division fielded Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 126, 127 and 128, each with two battalions of infantry. The division also had Panzer-Jaeger-Abteilung 148, which consisted of two companies. The division's Artillerie- Regiment 148 had three batteries of light and medium howitzers. 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division was created on 9 October 1944 by renaming 553.Grenadier-Division, which itself had been created on 11 July 1944. There were a total of five battalions in the division's Grenadier-Regiment 1119 and 1120, along with four battalions in its Artillerie-Regiment 1553. The reason that the Kreigsgliederung shows this formation as a "remnant" is that its core element, 553.Grenadier-Division, had been destroyed near Nancy. Whatever was left of 553.Grenadier-Division was reinforced with an amalgam of formations including Festungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 1416, Festungs-MG-Bataillon 51, Festungs-MG-Bataillon 56, Sicherheits-Bataillon 960, Grenadier Ersatz und Ausbildungs Bataillon 110 and Pionier-Bataillon 243. It is far from likely that 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division was a cohesive force when it was encountered in the Vosges Mountains. Likewise, 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division had been formed on 9 October 1944 by renaming its core formation, 559.Grenadier-Division (formed 11 July 1944). 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division had six battalions in Grenadier-Regiment 1125, 1126 and 1127 as well as four in Artillerie-Regiment 1559. 17. SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen" had been formed as an elite division in October 1943. It had been virtually destroyed in Normandy and was withdrawn and reformed, absorbing SS Panzer-Grenadier-Brigade 49 and 51 from Denmark. In October 1944 it had not completed the process of reformation.[129]

German 19.Armee included LXIIII.Armeekorps, whose constituent units (716.Infanterie-Division and 198.Infanterie-Division) have previously been described. It is worth mentioning, however, that the Kriegsgliederung denotes 716.Infanterie-Division as "bodenstadig" (static) the military implication of which is that the unit had no organic means of transportation. 19.Armee's IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps had only one division, 338.Infanterie-Division. It had been created in November 1942 as a coastal defense unit. There were six battalions in its Grenadier-Regiment 757, 758 and 759 and three in its Artillerie-Regiment 338. It had suffered considerably in the retreat across France, and was reformed in October from a number of battalion-sized formations from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, as well as Landeschutzen and fortress troops. LXXXV.Armeekorps' 159.Infanterie-Division had also been formed less than a week before the U.S. 7th Army encountered it in the Vosges. There were six battalions in its Grenadier-Regiment 1209, 1210 and 1211 and four in Artillerie-Regiment 1059. It also had Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 1059. Also less than a week old on its first contact with the Americans was 189.Infanterie-Division, comprised of Grenadier-Regiment 1212, 1213 and 1214 with a total of six battalions, Artillerie-Regiment 1089 of four battalions and Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 1089, as well as support troops. Grenadier-Regiment 1212 had been reformed from Sicherheits-Regiment 1000; Grenadier-Regiment 1213 was constituted of ad hoc units including the so-called Jung, Hollermeier and Muller Bataillonen; Grenadier-Regiment 1214 was as well created from an ad hoc unit, the so-called Menke Regiment. The Armeekorps' last unit, Panzer-Brigade 106, had been formed at the end of August 1944 and contained Panzer-Abteilung 2106 (four companies) and Panzer-Grenadier-Bataillon 2106 (five companies). On 12 September 1944 its armored element consisted of 11 Jagdpanzer IV and 36 Panther tanks.[130]

The forces encountered by the U.S. Vlth and XVth Corps between 15 and 21 October 1944, therefore, included units typical of those found throughout the German army in this last six months of war. 716.Infanterie-Division was one of the Army's weakest formations, having been totally destroyed in the Normandy battles, and by Bonn's own admission consisted of, among others, former Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel who were overage and without adequate infantry training. Its sister formation in LXIV.Armeekorps, 198.Infanterie-Division, was a similar amalgam of inexperienced and untrained personnel, again by Bonn's own admission previously adjudged unfit for combat duty. None of the infantry formations on the German side fielded more than six battalions of infantry. Four of the German formations (553. and 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 159. and 189.Infanterie- Division) had been in being less than a week before the American campaign began, while another (19.Volks-Grenadier-Division) had been created two weeks before the start of the American effort in the Vosges. One German unit (416.Infanterie-Division) consisted of less than robust soldiers whose average age exceeded thirty-eight years, while at least one other (48.Infanterie-Division) was composed of a large number of foreign nationals with no personal loyalty to the Third Reich.

Not even Keith Bonn would assert that, faced with such opposition, the American soldiers carrying out the assault between 15 and 21 October were at a quantitative or qualitative disadvantage. He does assert, however, that obvious disparities between these German forces and the Allied troops involved (3rd, 36th, 45th and 79th U.S. Infantry Divisions, 106th U.S. Combat Command and 2nd French Armored Division) were leavened by two principal elements, namely the higher rate of fire of the German machine guns, and the advantages offered by the terrain to the German defenders. Nevertheless, he admits that the Americans outnumbered their opponents in both men and weapons. The outcome of this struggle, as Bonn describes it, was a draw---the Americans achieved their objectives, while the Germans traded space and troops for three weeks' time---"time to further prepare the positions that constituted the last barrier before the Vosges passes and the Alsatian Plain, time that would bring the winter snows and fog to completely stymie American air support and superior quantities of armor, and time that would bring relief as a result of the Germans' December Ardennes counteroffensive."[131]

Bonn goes on to describe the so-called "fight for the Vosges winter line" between 5 November 1944 and the end of the month. According to Bonn, on 5 November 19.Armee included IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps (198.Infanterie-Division) and LXIV.Armeekorps (21.Panzer-Division and Panzer-Brigade 106, 716. and 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division), while 1.Armee had LXXXIX.Armeekorps (361. and 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division). The Kriegsgliederung, however, shows that 1.Armee on this date disposed of three corps, namely LXXXII.Armeekorps (416. and 49. [bodenstadig] Infanterie-Division, 19.and 462.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen" ), XIII.SS Armeekorps (48.Infanterie-Division and 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division), and LXXXI.Armeekorps (361. and 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division). On the same date the Kriegsgliederung shows 19.Armee as including LXIV.Armeekorps (716.Infanterie-Division [bodenstadig] and 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 21.Panzer-Division and Panzer-Brigade 106), IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps (198. and 269.Infanterie-Division) and LXXXV.Armeekorps (159., 189.and 338.Infanterie-Division).[132]

Bonn includes another order of battle for the German forces for the period between 12 and 26 November, in which the only change from that of 5 November is the exchange of 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division for 21.Panzer-Division in LXIV.Armeekorps. His narrative, however, sets forth yet another order of battle for 26 November in which 19.Armee has lost IV.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps, but retains LXIV.Armeekorps, now consisting of 708., 716.and 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division. According to this order of battle, the character of 1.Armee has changed completely. Its XIII.SS Armeekorps is shown to command 11.Panzer-Division and 17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen". The Armee's other corps is identified as "Hoehe Kommando der Vogesen", possessed of Panzer-Lehr-Division, 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division, and 256. and 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division.[133]

The Kriegsgliederung for 26 November 1944 reflects a different picture of the German forces involved than does Bonn's narrative. 19.Armee possessed three corps, LXIV.Armeekorps (708.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 716.Infanterie-Division [bodenstadig]), LXXXX.Armeekorps (16.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 269.Infanterie- Division) and LXIII.Armeekorps (159., 189., 338. and 198.Infanterie-Division; Panzer-Brigade 106 and 30.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Russische #2). 1.Armee's subordinate units were LXXXII.Armeekorps (416.Infanterie-Division, 19.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 21.Panzer-Division), XIII.SS Armeekorps (48.Infanterie-Division and 347.Infanterie-Division [bodenstadig]; 559. and 36.Volks-Grenadier-Division; 17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen" and 11.Panzer- Division) and LXXXIX. Armeekorps (245. Infanterie-Division [bodenstadig]; 553. and 256.Volks-Grenadier-Division). 1.Armee also had attached to it Hohere Kommando Voges, commanding 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division, Panzer-Lehr-Division (which together constituted Gruppe Bayerlein) and a Kampfgruppe of 25. Panzer-Grenadier-Division.[134]

In November 1944, therefore, a number of different formations appeared in the German order of battle, particularly in 1.Armee. 48.Infanterie-Division had been formed as a static infantry division in February 1944. It was destroyed in the retreat across France. Its ranks included a battalion of Armenians, a regiment of former Luftwaffe trainees and troops from replacement and fortress units. It had six battalions of infantry, three of artillery and a panzerjaeger battalion.[135]

36.Volks-Grenadier-Division came into being on 9 October 1944, created from 36. Grenadier-Division, a unit which in turn had not become operational until 15 September and traced its lineage to an infantry division bearing the same number that had been destroyed by the Red Army in Operation Bagration. 36.Volks-Grenadier-Division had six infantry battalions in Grenadier-Regiment 87, 118 and 165, and four battalions in Artillerie-Regiment 268.[136]

Another unit that formed as a bodenstadig division was 245.Infanterie-Division. It was unusual in that it contained nine battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 935, 936 and 937), as well as three battalions of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 245). It lacked, however, organic transport facilities, as well as organic pioneer, signals and other support units. A similarly immobile unit was 256.Volks-Grenadier-Division, which had been formed on 17 September 1944 by the redesignation of 568.Volks-Grenadier-Division. Like 245.Infanterie-Division, 256.Volks-Grenadier-Division had no pioneer, signals or other support units common to most German infantry divisions. It did, however, have six battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 456, 476 and 481) and four of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 256).[137]

361.Volks-Grenadier-Division was formed on 21 September 1944 from 569.Volks-Grenadier-Division. It was another unit of six infantry battalions (Grenadier-Regiment 951, 952 and 953) and four artillery battalions (Artillerie-Regiment 361). Like others of its kind, it lacked any organic pioneer, signals or panzerjaeger units. Its core formation, 361.Infanterie-Division, had been one of those destroyed in June 1944 while forming part of Heeresgruppe Centre in Russia. It had fought in the Arnhem battles before being posted to the Vosges region. A similar unit was 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division (Grenadier-Regiment 728, 748 and 760; Artillerie-Regiment 658), formed on 4 September 1944 by merging 573.Volks-Grenadier-Division with the remnants of 708.Infanterie-Division, which had been destroyed at Falaise by the French 2nd Armored Division. The parent formation had been formed for coastal defense, and had included, at the time of the Allied invasion, (Kossacken) Grenadier-Regiment 360.[138]

We have already spoken at length about the condition of 21.Panzer-Division on the eve of the Vosges campaign. It is worth mentioning, however, that during the Normandy campaign 21.Panzer-Division took about 8000 casualties, or about 50% of its authorized strength. By the end of August, it had a total of ten combat ready tanks. The division was destroyed in the Falaise encirclement and reformed in September by incorporating Panzer-Brigade 112. Another formation to make its first appearance in the field was 30.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Russische #2). This formation had its roots in occupied Belorussia, and included a large portion of Russian, Ukrainian and White Ruthenian Schutzmannschaften, locals recruited by the Germans for so-called "police" duty, in which capacity they were employed against Russian partisans in the German rear. The division was activated in the summer of 1944, but was considered (for good reason) unreliable as a fighting force. Its order of battle comprised Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment der SS 75, 76 and 77, Waffen-Artillerie-Regiment der SS 30, an anti-tank battalion, pioneer battalion and an anti-aircraft battalion. In August it absorbed 2300 mutineers. In September its Artillery regiment comprised only a staff and a staff battery, two batteries of 122mm Russian guns, and a nebelwerfer battery. On November 2 Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment der SS 77 was disbanded.[139]

11.Panzer-Division was a veteran unit that had spent a considerable portion of its active life fighting on the Eastern Front. Its order of battle included Panzer-Regiment 15, Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 110 and 111, Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 11 and Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 119. In February 1944, after having been decimated in the Cherkassy pocket, it was reorganized and rebuilt by troops from 273.Reserve-Panzer-Division. It was severely battered during the Normandy fighting. In August it had possessed 79 Panthers; by the first of September its armored component consisted of 30 Panthers, 16 MkIVs and 4 MkIIIs. In September it was rebuilt again, this time by absorbing Panzer-Brigade 113. This may have added a maximum of 10 Panthers and 3 MkIVs to the tank inventory of Panzer-Regiment 15, thus providing the regiment with a total of 40 Panthers, 19 MkIVs and 4 MkIIIs. Even with these additional vehicles the division's tank park was far below its authorized strength of 91 MkIVs, 79 Panthers and 21 StugIIIs. In November 1944 1.Armee's Hohere Kommando Voges had under its command a Kampfgruppe of 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division, which also had been destroyed on the Eastern Front. Indeed, so decimated had 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division been that it was reduced to the status of a Kampfgruppe.[140]

At the time of the Allied invasion of Normandy, Panzer-Lehr-Division was perhaps the strongest formation in the German army. Its principal units comprised Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130, Panzer-Grenadier-Lehr-Regiment 901 and 902 and Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 130. It possessed 237 tanks and assault guns, among them 99 long-barreled Panzer Mk IVs, 89 Panthers and 10 StugIIIs, as well as more exotic weapons such as 31 Jagdpanzer IVs and 8 Tigers (including 5 Tiger IIs). Moreover, unlike any other panzer division in the German army, all four of its panzergrenadier battalions were mounted on half-tracks, as was its pioneer battalion. At the beginning of June, it mustered 14,699 soldiers. By August, however, over 50% of these men had become casualties, and its complement of combat ready armored vehicles had been reduced to a dozen Mk IVs and 5 Panthers. It was withdrawn from the invasion front and reformed in October. Whereas previously the division had included two panzer battalions, now it was reduced to only one, with a nominal establishment of 28 Panthers and 28 Mk IVs. In November, on the eve of its commitment against the US 7th Army, the division's tank inventory included 34 Mk IVs and 38 Panthers.[141]

19.Armee's 269.Infanterie-Division had been formed in 1939 and had Infanterie-Regiment 469, 489 and 490, each of three battalions, as well as Artillerie-Regiment 269 of four battalions. It participated in the invasion of France in 1940, and was on occupation duty in Denmark until the advent of the campaign in Russia. It fought with XL.Panzerkorps through the autumn of 1941, and in the Battle of the Vokhov in early 1942. The division was decimated by these battles on the Northern Front, and in December 1942 what was left of the division was reformed from various units and went to Norway, where it remained until November 1944. On November 6, 1944 the Division included Infanterie-Regiment 469 and 489 (six battalions) and Artillerie-Regiment 269 (three battalions), as well as divisional service units, including a company of Russian "volunteers". It had been planned to reform Infanterie-Regiment 490, but this was never done.[142]

347.Infanterie-Division (bodenstadig) had been formed in late 1942 for garrison duty in Holland. In April 1944 it had received (Nordkaukasische) Infanterie-Bataillon 803 and (Turkestanische) Infanterie-Bataillon 787, which made up the fourth battalion of Festungs-Infanterie-Regiment 860 and 861 respectively. It was committed to the fighting in the Normandy campaign and destroyed. On October 21, 1944 it had been reorganized to include three regiments of two battalions each. Grenadier-Regiment 860 was formed from Erganzung und Ausbildungs Bataillon 77 and 412; Grenadier-Regiment 861 from the staff of Erganzung und Ausbildungs Regiment 536, Erganzung und Ausbildungs Bataillon 454 and Landwehr-Festungs-Bataillon VII; and Grenadier-Regiment 880 from the staff of Reserve-Grenadier-Regiment 36, as well as Reserve-Grenadier-Bataillon 80 and 107. The division's Artillerie-Regiment 347 had four battalions.[143]

Bonn's orders of battle for the German formations confronting the Americans in the High Vosges are, therefore, wrong. This, of course, can be attributed to his failure to rely on any original German source for his information. More importantly, however, as this detailed review of the units involved shows, the motley assemblage of German forces arrayed against the Americans was not equal to the task presented it by its commanders. As was the case in the struggle for the Low Vosges, the German formations engaged can best be described as "ragtag". Among all of the German infantry and Volks-Grenadier divisions assembled by 1.Armee and 19.Armee for the defense of the High Vosges, only one (269.Infanterie-Division) had been in existence for more than two months; most had been formed for half that period of time. Again with the exception of 269.Infanterie-Division (and possibly 245.Infanterie-Division, a static formation), all of the German infantry formations were reformed from units that had been destroyed in combat, and included hodgepodge collections of reserve, replacement, fortress and Landwehr troops, as well as sizeable numbers of foreign nationals. Most were virtually immobile, and lacked even a pretense of the TO&E called for by the operative Wehrmacht regulations. The few panzer units under the command of 1.Armee and 19.Armee were panzer in name only. All had recently been destroyed either in the Normandy fighting or on the Eastern Front. None had even a semblance of its authorized strength.

The irony of Bonn's discussion of the battle for the High Vosges is that he is aware of most of the foregoing, yet clings to the fiction that the match he describes is one among equals. He admits that "many of the First and Nineteenth Army combat units in the Vosges were made up largely of soldiers who had received only four to six weeks of infantry training prior to being committed to battle." He makes similar, but more detailed comments, about 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division, one of the principal units in his story.

Much of the division had been wrecked while fighting Third Army units in September, and the entire division had been pulled back to Czechoslovakia to refit, receive new personnel, and train for six weeks prior to being deployed in the Vosges. Although the cadre consisted largely of experienced Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe noncommissioned officers, few of them had much experience in ground combat. The greater bulk of the ranks were filled by recruits varying in age from eighteen to forty-five. The infantry companies of this division had about 125 men each, so, including the divisional Fusilier company, 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division could field about 3,200 men in its combat infantry units.

Of this division Bonn also avers that "[A]lthough well equipped and close to authorized strength for a division of its type, the 708th's training period was hardly adequate for the development of the cohesion so important for success in rigorous mountain warfare." Bonn also remarks that 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division "was so weak from the pummeling its troops had taken that it was hardly able to do more than defend strongpoints along the Vosges line…with its thousand or so remaining infantrymen" and that 16.Volks-Grenadier-Division "defended an even smaller sector, in recognition of its strength of barely more than a reinforced battalion." He also admits that even though the German troops were fighting at the borders of their homeland, many of them now believed the war to be lost. Further, he notes the fact that the Germans were forced to rely upon polyglot formations of Germans, foreign nationals and German speaking foreigners "contributed significantly to the weakening of the social bonds between unit members in pressure situations. Similarly, lacking extensive unit training and missing the cohesive bonds born of shared hardships and living experiences with their comrades prior to commitment to combat…many German soldiers felt no particular loyalty to their units or comrades." Indeed, he recounts that the U.S. 103rd Infantry Division captured Russian and Polish nationals in German uniform who confessed to having murdered their German officers in order to surrender.[144]

Bonn continues to set the stage for his story by providing details concerning two American units engaged, the 100th and 103rd Infantry Divisions. The so-called "Century Division" had been activated in November 1942 and took part in the Second Army maneuvers in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee in the winter of 1943-1944, "during which its soldiers received superb preparation for their eventual commitment to the Vosges winter campaign." Although it lost 3000 of its infantrymen, taken as replacements for units already in action, the 100th Infantry Division had received nearly six months' supplementary training at Fort Bragg before embarking for Europe. The 103rd Infantry Division ("Cactus Division") had also been activated in November 1942, and participated in Third Army maneuvers in Louisiana in the fall of 1943. It received supplementary training in Texas between November 1943 and September 1944, in part for the purpose of acclimating replacements for infantrymen taken out as replacements for units in combat. Bonn points out that these two divisions, in addition to Combat Command A of the fresh 14th Armored Division, helped give the attacking US VI Corps an infantry force ratio of 2.9 to 1 against the enemy, as well as greater unit cohesion as compared to the Germans.[145]

Having laid out all of these facts about the strengths and condition of the opposing forces, however, Bonn then descends into the realm of fantasy. In the area of the US VI Corps, he explains, the disparities he has been at pains to outline are rendered meaningless---"the odds in the battle for the High Vosges and the German winter line were much closer than the force ratios indicated"---because, inter alia, the Germans were on the defensive, on ground well suited for it, Allied airpower was nullified by fog, and Americans were forced to suffer in the open while the Germans enjoyed the comforts of fortifications and buildings. The American infantrymen, says Bonn, lived a terrible existence, exposed to the elements, subsisting on cold C rations and K rations, never able to build a fire, always cold and wet. It is in this context that Bonn recounts the clash between the 100th Infantry Division and 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division, which he characterizes as important because it describes a conflict between two equally "green" formations. In that clash, says the author, the "odds were virtually even, although the Germans held the advantages of terrain and position." In it, as well, he argues that "[T]raining and the tactical proficiency and cohesion borne of ‘community of experience' would make the difference in the outcome."[146]

Bonn's comments on the outcome of the struggle are revealing. He observes, for example, that "[A]lthough the Americans…had gained overall numerical superiority, they did not need it; battalion on battalion, company on company, they were outfighting the Germans and overrunning them." For the first time in history, he notes, an army defending the Vosges had failed in its task. Despite being free of interference from Allied aircraft, German "forces of often comparable---and always adequate---size failed to halt their adversaries." Finally, "[I]n the best possible weather for defense, fighting on the doorstep of their homeland, against an enemy far from his, the commanders of the German army organized and trained their soldiers so poorly and provided such impoverished leadership that their units could not accomplish a mission in which no army had ever before failed." In spite of these successes, however, Bonn has to admit that the German LXIV.Armeekorps, or at least parts of it, including 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division, were able to fight off their American assailants and retreat into the Alsatian plain to fight again another day.[147]

What is truly striking about Bonn's narrative is the contrast between what he knows, or seems to know (or perhaps ought to know), about the opposing forces, and his conclusions about the combat in which they engaged. This is well demonstrated by his retelling of the following incident:

"Outside Ville, a small incident occurred that illustrates the difference between the opposing sides' success in integrating noninfantry replacements into their combat formations. On or about 27 November, Pfc. Will Alpern, a nineteen-year-old automatic rifleman in Company I, 410th Infantry, was speaking with a just-captured German prisoner. The German complained that he was not supposed to be fighting in infantry combat, because he had originally been a ground crewman in the Luftwaffe. He went on to say that he was sure the Americans would never do anything so stupid or desperate as reassign such troops to the infantry. Private Alpern informed the prisoner that he had been brought into the army through the ASTP and had been assigned to an Army Air Forces unit before his assignment to the Cactus Division at Camp Howze, Texas, for duty as an infantryman."

The fundamental problem with this comparison is that Private Alpern, like everyone else in the U.S. army during World War II, began his career with sixteen weeks training as an infantryman regardless of the fact that he was assigned, after his training as an infantryman, to the Army Air Force. Had Pfc. Alpern been a sailor (as many German "infantrymen" were at this stage of the war), the story would, of course, have been different. But Pfc. Alpern was not a sailor; he was a member of the U.S. army. In the Wehrmacht, the same was not the case. Luftwaffe personnel were not trained as infantrymen. Theirs was a service entirely separate from the German army (as the US Air Force would someday become), and with the exception of those members of Luftwaffe Fallschirmjaeger and panzer formations (as apparently the captured German in this instance was not), Luftwaffe personnel did not receive basic training as infantrymen. That was one of the reasons why Luftwaffen-Felddivisionen, those sops to Reichmarschal Goering's ego formed of extraneous Luftwaffe personnel when the war turned against Germany, were so often literally blown to bits when thrown into combat with their adversaries.[148]

The story of Pfc. Alpern and the captured German is but one example of the strain of unreality that pervades Bonn's work, as well as that of others of this genre, in his effort to invidiously compare the US and German armies in the time and place in question. For example, Bonn describes the encounter of the US 100th Infantry Division with 708. Volks-Grenadier-Division as one between equals, taking particular note of their common status as units "green" to combat. How, one might reasonably inquire, can such a comparison be made? 100th Infantry Division, Bonn has told us, trained as a unit for almost two years before being committed to action in the Vosges, including six months supplemental training to enable it to acclimate new soldiers. In addition, Bonn has observed, the division had received "superb preparation" for its combat in the Vosges, by virtue of having participated in maneuvers in the Cumberland Mountains. Much the same was true of the 103rd Infantry Division, another "green" American unit in its first combat. On the other hand, 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division, the 100th Infantry Division's principal opponent in the battle and a unit typical of German infantry divisions at this juncture of the war, was immobile, rebuilt from a wrecked division and contained a hodgepodge of personnel and units. 708.Volks-Grenadier-Division had trained as a unit for four-six weeks before being committed to battle. Its NCO cadre consisted of many former NCOs from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, whom Bonn observes lacked experience in ground combat. Its training was inadequate to establish unit cohesion and loyalty, and it contained a significant number of foreign nationals. Can one really assert that combat between these two units can be described as an equal one? A unit whose personnel, many of whom had difficulty communicating with one another, and who had received at the most six weeks infantry training from NCOs with no experience as infantrymen themselves, against another that had trained together for two years, and whose personnel were so homogeneous in nature that not even men with common backgrounds and a common language were permitted to serve with them because of the color of their skin?

Bonn seems to realize that his comparison is an absurd one, because he goes on to explain away to failure of the American forces to utterly annihilate their opponents by arguing that whatever distinctions between the forces may have favored the Americans were rendered meaningless by other factors beyond their control, such as the fact that the Germans were on the defensive, were in prepared positions while their adversaries were exposed to the elements, and were free from air attack because of the weather. These, unfortunately, are nothing but excuses, and not very good ones at that. Lack of air cover, of course, is a two way street---the Germans did not suffer from air attack during the Vosges campaign, but neither did the Americans. Indeed, the Americans had virtually never been harassed by German aircraft since first setting foot on the continent six months earlier, because the Eighth Air Force had driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.

The argument that the Germans were favored by being on the defensive is equally unavailing---defensive positions, no matter how formidable, are of little practical consequence if, as in this case, they are manned by untrained, irresolute troops, many of whom are incapable of communicating with one another, some of whom have no commitment to the army or the regime that put them in harm's way, and most of whom already believe their cause to be lost. Finally, there is not in fact much to choose between being exposed in the open to foul weather in the dead of winter and being in prepared positions in the same ground. It is highly doubtful, for example, that the Germans in such positions, any more than their American adversaries, made fires to warm themselves or cook hot meals, since to do so would have obviously drawn down upon them the unwanted attention of American artillery. Nor would the Germans have been much better off for simply having roofs over their heads, so long as they had mud under their feet. No one who has ever read anything about trench warfare, either in the First or Second World Wars, would conclude that a soldier in a wet, cold, stinking hole in the ground, whose position is well targeted by enemy artillery, holds an advantage great enough to make him the assured victor in a struggle of the kind that ensued in the Vosges.

Finally, there is the suggestion, made by Bonn, that one notable failure of the Germans in general, as compared with the Americans, is that the former chose to rebuild divisions from the burnt out hulks of others, and did so with amalgams of disjointed personnel whom they gave six weeks training and then committed to combat. Anyone with the least knowledge of the position in which the Germans found themselves in during the latter stages of World War II knows that the measures they resorted to, as exemplified by the sort of units encountered by the Americans in the Vosges, were forced upon them by the exigencies of a war long lost. The German army had no recourse but to throw together whatever formations it could, as fast as it could, and get them into the field as fast as possible, in order to stem the tide of Allied advance. The idea that it chose to field so-called infantry units made up from the detritus of a lost war is so silly as to hardly warrant comment.[149]

The balance of Bonn's book is devoted to the Battle for the Low Vosges, which extended from late November 1944 to mid-January 1945. It included a period of movement warfare in the Low Vosges between the last week of November and 20 December; an attack by the Americans against the Maginot Line at Bitche, contemporaneous with a battle in the Siegfried Line; and the repulse by the Americans of the German Nordwind counteroffensive. At the beginning of this period, according to Bonn, 1.Armee consisted of LXXXIX.Armeekorps, including 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 245.Infanterie-Division; and XIII.SS Armeekorps, with 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division and 11.Panzer-Division, later replaced by 257.Volks-Grenadier- Division. We have previously described all of these units, with the sole exception of 257. Volks-Grenadier-Division. This formation was created on 13 October 1944 by the redesignation of 587.Volks-Grenadier-Division (the so-called Gross-Goerschen Schatten- Division). It had Grenadier-Regiment 457, 466 and 477 each of two battalions, Artillerie-Regiment 257 of four battalions, and divisional support units, including Fusilier Kompanie 257. It was of the same ramshackle quality as others of its ilk. It should be noted that, as related above, Bonn's reference to 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division as being in action at this point is incorrect; only a truncated Kampfgruppe of 25. Panzer-Grenadier-Division existed. Likewise, the Kriegsgliederung for 26 November 1944 describes a different order of battle than that recited by Bonn. The Kampfgruppe of 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division was under the command of Hohere Kommando Vogensen, as were 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division (which constituted Gruppe Bayerlein). LXXXIX.Armeekorps controlled 245.Infanterie-Division (bodenstadig) as well as 553.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 256 Volks-Grenadier-Division. XIII.SS Armeekorps was composed of 48.Infanterie-Division, 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 347.Infanterie-Division (bodenstadig), 36.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 11.Panzer-Division and 17. SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen". LXXXII.Armeekorp consisted of 416.Infanterie-Division, 21.Panzer-Division and 19.Volks-Grenadier-Division.[150]

Bonn's description of the various stages of the Battle for the Low Vosges is somewhat less partisan than the first part of his work. He does concede, for example, that the German forces there were significantly outnumbered, but that nevertheless they "gave ground grudgingly" during the first two weeks of December. He also admits that 1.Armee "displayed similar proficiency" to that shown by 19.Armee in defending the High Vosges, using proper doctrine, tenaciously defending, vigorously counterattacking and showing an ability "even…to inflict significant reverses" on the Americans. Indeed, the Germans inflicted high casualties on their opposite numbers. Significant resistance by the Kampfgruppe of 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division and other German troops in little villages like Ratzwiller in the area of the 324th Infantry Regiment and Enchenberg in that of the 114th Infantry Regiment effectively neutralized support for the American infantry by the 749th Tank Battalion and 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion, so that the footsoldiers were forced to rely upon themselves alone to wear down the enemy. More success was had in the area of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division, reinforced by elements of the 103rd Infantry Division, where the Americans attacked the "heavily outnumbered" German 245.Infanterie-Division. The 245.Infanterie-Division, bereft of armored support, was "ripped open" by the attackers[151]

A measure of the ferocity of the fighting in the Low Vosges, and the relative ability of the antagonists to tolerate its results, is revealed in Bonn's discussion of the impact of the struggle on the combat power of the German and American forces involved. In a chart depicting the average strength of American infantry rifle companies before and after the pursuit in the Low Vosges, he shows that the numerical strength of these units "had been protected to a significant degree", although he does not explain how this result was obtained. Moreover, "[N]ot only had the strengths of the rifle companies been largely preserved, but those of the heavy-weapons companies and supporting units were almost completely intact." For the defending Germans, however, this was not the case. 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division, for example, had scoured its rear echelon for troops, many of whom then became casualties, so that by mid-December its infantry battalions had dwindled to an average strength of 675 men. The infantry component of the Kampfgruppe of 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division suffered similarly. 245.Infanterie- Division, which had started off at a disadvantage, "had ceased to exist as a coherent formation" by the middle of December. For all of this, however, Bonn concludes that in these so-called "Battles of Movement" in the Low Vosges during the first two weeks of December, both sides accomplished their assigned missions concurrently. "First and most indisputable", Bonn says, the German forces accomplished their mission of delay, preventing a breakthrough into the Palatinate, and allowing the German command to retain its mobile reserve for the Ardennes counteroffensive. The Americans, on the other hand, are said to have accomplished their mission of relentless pursuit of the enemy, while at the same time preserving their forces for the ultimate mission of penetrating the German frontier defenses.[152]

Whereas Bonn is even-handed in his treatment of the "Battles of Movement" in the Low Vosges, his discussion of the attack of the U.S. XV Corps' 44th and 100th Infantry Divisions upon the Maginot Line bastions of Fort Simserhof and Fort Schiesseck respectively descends to the realm of the absurd. As with others of his ilk, Bonn attempts to set up an invidious comparison between the assaults of these American formations on these positions and the attack of the German 257.Infanterie-Division on the same position in 1940. Simply put, Bonn contends that the superiority of American over German arms is proven by the fact that the U.S. 44th and 100th Infantry Divisions were successful in their attacks, while the German 257.Infanterie-Division failed in its efforts. Bonn's comparison, however, begins with a faulty premise, one that leads him to a false conclusion.

Bonn begins his description of this interlude by asserting that 257.Infanterie- Division had the opportunity to attack all of the fortifications of the so-called Ensemble de Bitche, including the two Forts described above, from the same direction as that followed by the 44th and 100th Infantry in 1944, namely from France toward Germany. 257.Infanterie-Division's Infanterie-Regiment 457, says Bonn, did the attacking, first on 21 June 1940 in the abri d'intervalle on the Grand Kindelberg near Bitche, and then on the following day on the casemates and blockhouses under the control of Fort Grand Hohekirkel east of Bitche. Both assaults were without avail; thereafter all attacks were suspended, and the Germans waited out the acceptance of the armistice by the garrison of the Ensemble de Bitche on June 30. Bonn concludes that "[T]he Germans were unable to penetrate the outer rear defenses of these massive fortifications, and they never progressed against them to the extent necessary for an assault on the fortresses proper." A brief look at the facts about 1940 explains the actions of the Germans, and undermines completely Bonn's attempt to disparage German arms. On 21 June 1940, the day on which Bonn claims Infanterie-Regiment 457 first attacked the Ensemble de Bitche, the French surrendered to the Germans in a formal ceremony in the Forest of Compiegne. On 24 June, French troops holding out in the Vosges Mountains laid down their arms. On 25 June all fighting in France ended. Given these facts, one must question Bonn's assertions and conclusions. Bonn is a professional soldier, and presumably therefore recognizes that one of the guiding precepts of all career soldiers is to preserve the lives and general welfare of the soldiers under their command. The German officers commanding 257.Infanterie-Division and Infanterie-Regiment 457 in 1940 were also professional soldiers, recognizing the same precept. Why, then, would they have behaved in the manner Bonn evidently suggests that they should have done, namely thrown away the lives of their soldiers in a war already won? The very low casualties alleged by Bonn to have been sustained by the Germans in their two attacks (15 killed and 63 wounded), and their suspension of attacks after 22 June, suggest that the German officers commanding were indeed aware of their obligations to their troops. How, in light of these facts, can Bonn reasonably argue that the Germans failed in an effort they never made, and had no reason to make?[153]

The absurdity of Bonn's position on this case is further emphasized by his description of the attacks on the Maginot forts in question by the 44th and 100th Infantry Divisions beginning on 14 December. The fortresses, says Bonn, were defended by 1.Armee fortress troops and 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division. Here it must be noted once again that when Bonn asserts that 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division was involved in the defense, he is incorrect, for only a Kampfgruppe of that unit was involved, and by Bonn's own admission (p. 163) the Kampfgruppe mustered only 800 infantrymen and 13 armored vehicles in the wake of the fighting in the Low Vosges. On the other hand, the attacking American units, the 71st and 398th Infantry Regiments, again according to Bonn's own figures, had in their respective infantry companies average strengths of 146 (81% of authorized strength) and 127 (71% of authorized strength) soldiers each, thus giving them an overwhelming superiority in manpower alone. In addition, while the 71st and 398th Infantry Regiments made their frontal assaults on the fortresses, their sister regiments (the 44th Infantry Division's 324th Infantry Regiment and the 100th Infantry Division's 397th and 399th Infantry Regiments) made supporting attacks to fix the enemy in position and prevent counterattacks.[154]

The Americans began their assault on 14 December with a massed artillery barrage from the guns of the 44th and 100th Infantry Divisions' own organic 105mm and 155mm howitzers, along with the fire of five battalions of XV Corps artillery, including 8 inch howitzers, 4.5 inch and 155mm guns and 240mm howitzers, "largely to no avail." Over the next two days, the works were subjected to 78 P-47 fighter-bomber sorties, dropping 500lb bombs, "also with little effect." The hard work of reducing the fortresses thus fell to the infantrymen. The 398th Infantry Regiment took six hard days of fighting to silence the guns of Fort Schiessek. In this they were assisted by their combat engineers, who expended five thousand pounds of dynamite destroying the works and its artillery, and by the attached 781st Tank Battalion, one of whose bulldozers buried the defenders under tons of earth and rock. The 71st Infantry Regiment also took six days to reduce Fort Simserhof, using the same combination of engineers and armor.[155]

Again, what is noteworthy about Bonn's account of these struggles, and indicative of the tendentious nature of his work in general, is the negative comparison he makes about the relative performance of the U.S. army in 1944 and the German army in 1940. He avers that the 71st Infantry Regiment suffered casualties that "were roughly the same as those" taken by the 398th Infantry Regiment in attaining its objective. As to the latter, Bonn claims that 16 men were killed and 120 wounded in suppressing Fort Schiesseck, numbers that he asserts are "especially significant" because roughly the equivalent (although 57 more Americans were wounded) to the casualties suffered by the German Infanterie-Regiment 457 in its failed attempts to take the same objective in 1940. His verdict is that "a regiment that was a product of the U.S. Army Mobilization Training Plan, without special training or experience, accomplished what a regiment of the vaunted 1940 German army had utterly failed to do: penetrate the Ensemble de Bitche. Moreover, they accomplished it without the months of training and minute intelligence that had been available to the Germans in 1940." As the foregoing discussion has demonstrated, however, this comparison may most charitably be described as silly. The Germans had no need to waste the lives of their troops in reducing the Maginot forts in 1940, and did not do so. The valor and skill of American troops in destroying those forts in 1944 require no enhancement through false comparisons.[156]

Bonn's last significant topic is the German Nordwind offensive that occurred in late December 1944 and early January 1945. This operation was intended to assist the contemporaneously ongoing German offensive in the Ardennes by tying down, and destroying if possible, potential American reinforcements for the Allied troops defending there. The German order of battle, according to Bonn, included Attack Group #1 consisting of XIII.SS Armeekorps (17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Gotz von Berlichingen", 36.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 19.Volks-Grenadier-Division) and Attack Group #2 comprising XC.Armeekorps (257.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division) and LXXXIX.Armeekorps (256.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 6.SS Gebirgs-Division "Nord"). 1.Armee operational reserve included the Kampfgruppe of 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division and 21.Panzer- Division.[157]

Bonn characterizes 17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division as having been brought to full strength shortly before the commencement of Nordwind, so that its SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 37 and 38 fielded a total of slightly over 4000 men, many of whom were apparently Volksdeutsche, namely soldiers of German descent, but not German nationals. Bonn also alleges that this division included a heavily reinforced panzer battalion with about 70 assault guns, as well as a company of 21.Panzer-Division's Panther tanks. It should be noted that if SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 38 was indeed present for Nordwind, it was in considerable disarray at best, having been destroyed near Metz on or about November 22, 1944. It was apparently reconstituted only on January 1, 1945 by the simple expediency of renaming three battalions from the SS Panzer-Grenadier-Ausbildungs-Regiment, along with the remnants of the division's heavy panzerjaeger company, flak company and pioneer company. Bonn's figures for the division's panzer battalion also appear exaggerated; it appears actually to have had no more than 34 assault guns in its inventory for the beginning of Nordwind, along with 10 Flakpanzer. If a company of Panthers from Panzer-Regiment 22 (21.Panzer-Division) was indeed attached to 17.SS Panzer-Grenadier-Division, that company consisted of no more than 19 armored vehicles.[158]

We have previously described most of the German divisions involved in Nordwind, but it is worth mentioning some of the admissions Bonn makes about them. Of 19.Volks-Grenadier-Division, Bonn estimates its infantry strength at a paltry 1800, and describes it as "clearly the weakest of the units taking part in the western thrust of Nordwind." Bonn mentions that 559.Volks-Grenadier-Division's infantry strength was approximately 2600 men, although he says that one of its regiments (Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 1125) was "practically nonexistent". According to Bonn, the division had sustained heavy losses in the previous two months in battles against the U.S. Third Army in Lorraine and along the Westwall; furthermore, it had trained as a unit for only one week, and its organic engineer unit was especially poorly trained in the critical skill of mine clearance. Bonn describes 257.Volks-Grenadier-Division as having been "battered to unimportant remnants" in Russia before being reorganized in late October 1944. It had been filled to authorized strength, Bonn says, "from a variety of sources" including veterans returning from convalescent leave (40% of the total) and former Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel, and went into the attack with about four weeks of actual training. 361.Volks-Grenadier-Division was "still smarting" from its losses during the first two weeks of the month; its 2000 infantrymen lacked experience and training as a team. Bonn describes the condition of 256.Volks-Grenadier-Division as even worse than that of 361.Volks-Grenadier Division, having been ground down by combat earlier in the month so that it fielded about 1655 infantrymen; its soldiers were principally former Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel, as well as men who had previously been exempt from military service because of the significance of their civilian occupations. Overall, the division was fit only for defensive operations, although its role in Nordwind was an important offensive one. [159]

In Bonn's view, the only truly battle-worthy unit in the German attack force for Nordwind was 6. SS Gebirgs-Division "Nord", which Bonn characterizes as "probably the best German infantry formation on the entire western front in early January 1945." Bonn is fairly effusive in his description of this division, calling it a full-strength, fully equipped mountain division "perfectly suited for the upcoming attack in the Low Vosges." He mentions that its two infantry regiments, SS Gebirgs-Infanterie-Regiment 11 "Reinhard Heydrich" and SS Gebirgs-Infanterie-Regiment 12 "Michael Gaissmair" included "at least 5,700 highly motivated, well-trained, superbly equipped infantrymen." Bonn's estimates of the strength and motivation of the Nord division are based upon the post-war reminiscences of its commander during Nordwind, SS Gruppenfuhrer Karl Brenner. In this connection it is worth mentioning that, while mountain divisions were generally considered elite formations within the German army, it is striking that when elite divisions of the Waffen SS are discussed in the relevant literature, the Nord division is not one of those listed. Indeed, it had performed rather poorly early in the course of Barbarossa, unlike the other Waffen SS units that partook in the early stages of the campaign, and had suffered from a negative reputation thereafter. Thus, while it may have been of a higher quality than the other German infantry formations taking part in Nordwind (a status not particularly difficult to achieve), it was not by any means representative of the cream of the Wehrmacht.[160]

Bonn's description of the ensuing conflict, and his conclusions about it, are another exercise in fantasy. It begins with his recitation of the comparative infantry strengths of the opponents at the beginning of the assault. While the overall numbers (29,102 American, 29,930 German) are roughly even, Bonn argues that there was actually a German advantage of 1.21 to 1 because the initial attack would come from 25,430 Germans against 21,002 Americans; in addition, he contends that at the main point of German effort the attackers would enjoy a superiority of 4.25 to 1, soon to be drastically increased by the commitment of the Nord division to the fray at this critical juncture. By Bonn's own admission, however, these raw numbers are largely without meaning, since almost without exception the German units were composed of new troops who were not only per se lacking in training as infantrymen, but also lacked anything more than infinitesimal training with their units as a whole. Moreover, and again by Bonn's own admission, "the Seventh Army's units in the area greatly outnumbered their adversaries in quantities of tanks." The units supporting 44th (749th Tank and 776th Tank Destroyer battalions) and 100th Infantry Divisions (781st Tank and 824th Tank Destroyer battalions) contributed at least 180 tanks and tank destroyers, while the tanks available with the 12th and 14th Armored Divisions and the 2nd French Armored Division totaled at least another 250 more, giving the American defenders what Bonn describes as "overwhelming odds" in terms of available armored fighting vehicles. Further, Bonn points out, the Americans would be supported by overwhelming Allied air superiority in the event the weather turned fair during the course of the battle.[161]

Based upon Bonn's description of the condition of the opposing forces, one would expect the battle to have miscarried from the German point of view, and of course it did so. The "spin" that Bonn places on this situation, however, is most interesting. While admitting that the operation "proceeded with tired and inadequately trained troops", Bonn criticizes the German command for having gone forward "without doctrinally mandated reconnaissance or mid-and low-level planning." Exactly why "doctrinally mandated" planning and reconnaissance would have altered the situation from the German point of view, when the attack was the result of a Fuhrerbefehl and would have been pressed forward in any case and under any circumstances, is not clear. In any event, having recognized the obstacles confronting the attacking force, Bonn is at pains to reiterate as often as possible the alleged numerical superiority of the Germans at various points in the struggle. Perhaps this is done to take the "edge" off of some of the more uncomfortable facts about the contest. For example, Bonn describes the thwarting of German "limited objective attacks" against Rimling and Gros Rederching by "dozens" (precisely how many "dozens" is unclear) of armored vehicles through the intervention of the 2nd French Armored Division. One might reasonably ask how this particular struggle could have ended otherwise, taking into account Bonn's previous description of the French 2nd Armored Division as including a large number of tanks, and the fact that this unit had been deliberately held in readiness for just such a contingency. There were, in addition, successful attacks by 256.Volks-Grenadier-Division at Philippsbourg and by the "Michael Gaismair" regiment at Wingen, where the latter unit drove the 179th Infantry Regiment back 3500 meters and captured over 100 American prisoners.[162]

More striking still are Bonn's conclusions about the overall Battle for the Low Vosges. He begins with acknowledging the prowess of the forces in Heeresgruppe G in delaying the advance of their numerically superior adversaries, but goes on to denigrate them by repeating his mischaracterization of the respective German and American assaults on the Maginot defenses in 1940 and 1944, claiming that the Seventh Army "penetrate[d] the same fortified positions their opponents had failed to dent four and a half years earlier." The deliberate twisting of fact continues, as Bonn sums up Nordwind by claiming that "[W]hen provided with an opportunity to exert the advantages of numerical superiority themselves, the soldiers of Army Group B failed utterly", as reflected in the fact that "[P]oorly trained and organized units conducted attacks in amateurish and wildly wasteful manners, sustaining such heavy casualties that they exhausted themselves in two or three days of combat." The American forces, on the other hand, are described in glowing terms.

"American units, made up in part of ex-Army Air Forces, antiaircraft artillery, and technical services' troops, led by officers and noncommissioned officers with little combat experience (less than seventy-five days for the 44th Division, forty-seven in the 100th), stonewalled attacks by numerically superior formations of soldiers of similarly mixed background, led by veteran combat leaders. The difference, obviously, was training and the cohesion born of it. Even highly seasoned, previously undefeated SS mountain troops could not defeat like numbers of similarly experienced Americans…The ersatz ‘American Volksturm Grenadiers' threw back the best that the Landsers of the genuine article could offer. Few more telling comparisons could be made."[163]

If the relative performance of the German and American forces engaged in the Battle for the Low Vosges constitutes a "telling comparison", as Bonn suggests that it does, then some serious questions about the fighting power of the American units need to be addressed. Bonn's work is replete with references to the fact that the Vosges Mountains represent "some of the most eminently defensible terrain in all of Western Europe." Since for the most part the Germans were on the defensive throughout the period covered by his book, the obvious inference that Bonn wishes the reader to draw is that German army was a good deal less competent than its reputation would suggest, because it could not successfully defend the territory in question against its American adversaries. Yet during the Nordwind offensive the Americans were on the defensive against an ineptly led, poorly trained German force, and were nevertheless forced to give ground and depend upon their overwhelming superiority in armored fighting vehicles to withstand the onslaught. This is contrary to Bonn's own suggestion, made with reference to the Germans, that the successful defense of such "eminently defensible" terrain should have been a foregone conclusion, no matter what the odds.

As has been previously discussed, the suggestion made by Bonn that the forces engaged were on an equal footing because both were composed of men recently converted from other military formations is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As far as is known, there were no ex-U.S. Navy personnel converted into infantrymen in the ranks of the Seventh Army, as there were large numbers of former Kriegsmarine sailors throughout the German formations engaged. Likewise, in the U.S. army, antiaircraft artillery, technical service troops, and indeed even Army Air Force soldiers were fundamentally trained as infantrymen; the same was not true for former members of the Luftwaffe, who made up large numbers of the so-called infantrymen in the German forces in the Vosges.

And Bonn's characterization of the Nord division as "highly seasoned, previously undefeated SS mountain troops" is wholly inaccurate. In fact, the division had its origins in the SS Kampfgruppe "Nord", formed from two Totenkopfstandarten (police) units, and had its baptism of fire in July 1941 on the Northern sector of the Eastern Front, where it assaulted a Russian stronghold at Salla along with a Finnish and a German army division. On that occasion, the Russians turned back two assaults by Nord, inflicting heavy losses on the attackers, and then counterattacked to throw them back beyond their start lines. Nord disintegrated; its soldiers threw away their weapons and ran in terror through their own artillery lines. The Kampfgruppe was saved from annihilation by the successful assaults of their Finnish and German army comrades. In the end, Nord's infantry battalions were broken up and distributed among its rescuers. A measure of its poor reputation may be gleaned from the fact that in the subsequent years, it remained on the Northern front, and was not committed where other Waffen SS formations of elite status were sent.

The final bit of silliness is Bonn's effort to explain away the poor performance of certain Seventh Army units (Task Force Hudelson ["bastardized"] 63rd and 70th Infantry Divisions ["erratically trained"]), which he says sustained the highest casualties and came the closest to failing of all the Army's units engaged. The reason cited by Bonn for the inability of these formations to perform up to the standard set by other American units is that they "were not organized with attention paid to cohesion and extensive training." One needs must simply ask how American units can be exonerated for their failures on this basis when German units suffering from the same (and worse) maladies cannot.[164]

In the Introduction to When the Odds Were Even, Keith Bonn condemns Martin van Creveld's Fighting Power as a work "most useful mainly for instruction in how not to write comparative history." (emphasis in original). Such a sentiment takes on a charitable quality when applied to Bonn's own work. Throughout, Bonn persists in advancing arguments which, if subjected to the least bit of thoughtful consideration, rapidly reveal their ethereal nature. Bonn concludes, for example, that toward the end of the war, "both sides were forced to commit as replacements soldiers whose initial training and military experience suited them primarily for other roles. The American system was far superior in retraining such personnel and welding them into effective fighting forces, however." This argument is fallacious for at least three reasons: first, because no American soldiers converted from such sources as the Army Air Force, antiaircraft artillery or service troops had anything less that at least 12-16 weeks training as an infantryman; second, because no American units in the ETO were replenished by mass levees from the U.S. Navy; and third, all of the sort of basic training received by American soldiers "converted" to infantrymen occurred either in the U.S. or some other secure location where interference from the enemy during the initial training period would not be encountered. None of this was true of the German formations encountered in the Vosges campaign.

Bonn also suggests that unlike their German counterparts, the Americans recognized the importance of morale; it was for this reason, he argues, that with few exceptions Americans avoided situations in which combat formations were ground down so that less than 50% of their soldiers remained, while in contrast the Germans made a regular practice of so doing. This contention ignores the fact that the oft-maligned U.S. replacement system was capable of meeting the needs of the forces in the field while the German system was neither capable of nor designed to do the same thing. As has been amply demonstrated in the historical literature, after 1941 Germany was totally incapable of meeting the manpower needs of its fighting forces. If this were not the case, why would a regime dedicated to the principle of racial purity have enlisted for its defense the likes of such non-Germanic folk as Italians, French, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins and Russians, to mention just a few, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Germanic "volunteers" (Norwegians, Danes, Finns, Walloons) and Volksdeutsche dragooned into German service to make up for the manpower shortfall.

What is particularly curious is that Bonn recognizes all of this to be true. He notes that the training of the German units involved in the Vosges campaign was vastly inferior to that of the Americans; while Volks-Grenadier units typically received four to six weeks collective unit training ("Some Volksgrenadier units didn't even get that much") new American divisions received a minimum of thirty-five weeks such training. He also observes that German units were filled with replacements of foreign extraction, among whom even the Volksdeutsche often lacked the ability to speak or understand German. It is interesting to note that, having taken cognizance of all of this, Bonn nevertheless takes the view that all of these German difficulties stemmed from the continuous pressure exerted on their forces by the Americans. Like others of his ilk, Bonn seems to have forgotten both that when the first U.S. forces stepped on the European continent, the Germans had already been at war for nearly five years, and that the Red Army, to its own great cost, had long since ground up the cream of the Wehrmacht, reducing it to the shell that now confronted the western Allies.[165]

Equally disturbing are Bonn's other conclusions. Speaking of the combined arms operations undertaken by the U.S. army in Western Europe, Bonn concludes that "[B]y the time of the Vosges Mountains campaign, the Americans had developed tactical organizations that facilitated the fighting of modern wars to an extent far superior to their adversaries." It is unclear upon what theory Bonn makes this quite remarkable statement. As far as is known (perhaps Bonn has better evidence not shared in his work), German panzer divisions were in the field long before any American units of a like composition. From the start of the war, the panzer division was a combined arms organization, comprising an armor element, an infantry element, an artillery element and support units such as an organic engineer battalion. During the course of the war these combined arms formations enjoyed what might be described as a modicum of success against a variety of opponents, including even the U.S. army. More generally, Bonn criticizes the German army for having a "chaotic" organization at both the tactical and operational levels, contrasting this with the more stable American command and control system. His basis for doing so is the use of foreign troops, the constant reorganization of TO&E for German divisions and the frequent changes in command at the level of division and above. As to the root causes of these developments, namely the effects upon the German army of nearly six years of war, and the deleterious influence upon that army by the German political leadership, Bonn says not a word.[166]

There is much else that one could criticize in When the Odds Were Even, but two final points will suffice. First, the underlying premise of the work is fundamentally flawed. Not to put too fine a point on it, the notion that the terrain and prevailing weather in the Vosges Mountains in the winter of 1944-1945 made the contest (or "odds") between the Germans and Americans "even" is totally without foundation. Bonn is certainly correct to admit, as he does early in the book, that the Allied preponderance in armored fighting vehicles, and its complete air superiority over the battlefield, stacked the odds heavily against the German defenders. It is quite illogical, however, for Bonn to argue that the neutralization of these two elements by terrain and weather somehow turned the struggle in Western Europe into one between evenly matched foes. There are many reasons why this is so, indeed perhaps too many to adequately enumerate. Some of them are, however, patently obvious. First, while it has become fashionable for military historians to discount the pernicious effect of Adolf Hitler's influence on the conduct of the war as mere whining and excuse-making by members of the German officer corps, the fact of the matter is that at least after the failed attempt on the Fuhrer's life on 20 July 1944, German officers of all ranks lived in mortal fear that their leader's fury would be turned against them personally, an emotion well grounded in fact. To cite only one example, the film that Hitler ordered taken of the death throes of his would-be assassins as they hung from piano wire was widely shown to his troops in order to discourage even the thought of "treasonous" activity. The effect of such terror was not merely that German officers were influenced to obey orders from OKH/OKW (i.e., Hitler) without question, but also that they anticipated his orders, as well as his response if such orders were not obeyed.

It is in this context that one must view what Bonn interprets as the failure of the Germans to follow their own military doctrine in the Vosges campaign. As Bonn points out, many of the German divisional commanders in the Vosges were veterans of long service in both World Wars. Bonn's reason for highlighting this point, however, seems to be to persuade the reader that these officers were not really as good as their reputations suggest; in fact, the inference that Bonn would like us to draw from their alleged failure to follow German tactical and operational doctrine is that they were really incompetent, and certainly in no wise as competent as their American counterparts. This myopic view of the situation ignores the record of these same officers over five long years of warfare, much of it under very difficult circumstances. It also ignores the fact that in the winter of 1944-1945 those officers knew that in order to survive, they needed to follow, and if necessary intuit, Hitler's orders to the letter, even when it meant they were required to ignore their own doctrine.

Finally, Bonn (and others of his ilk) seems blissfully unaware of the effect that the loss of the Great War had upon Germans in general, and the officer corps in particular. It was, after all, the German defeat in World War I that contributed in no small way to the popularity of the Nazis and Hitler, who ruthlessly exploited the alleged treason of the "November criminals" in order to seize power in Germany. Throughout the interwar period, Hitler and the Nazis, (and others on the political Right as well) had excoriated those Germans whom they considered to have betrayed Germany. Many, perhaps most, senior German officers had served in the Great War and experienced its aftermath. Is it conceivable that such men would willingly have failed to do their duty to the utmost?

Other reasons why Bonn's premise is unfounded abound. There is, for one thing, the manpower problem, and the concomitant training issue, both of which we have explored at some length already. In addition, a significant point that Bonn and his ilk ignore is the effect of the Allied strategic bombing campaign on the ability of the Germans to make war. That campaign had continued in earnest for over two years, and its effects upon the Germans, particularly those fighting in the west, was profound. By the time of the Vosges campaign the Luftwaffe had been virtually annihilated, so that the Allies had command of the air not only over the battle zone, but deep into the Reich as well. In short, it was of no importance whatever that Allied airpower was neutralized by weather during the Vosges campaign. Not only did the same situation obtain on the German side (but for a different reason----there were no clouds of German fighter-bombers to darken the skies, even if the weather had been fine), but Allied airpower had affected and was affecting the ability of the Germans to defend the Vosges in locales remote from the battlefield.

By the winter of 1944-1945 the principal source of German oil, the fields in Romania, had been destroyed by Allied airpower and in fact were in Russian hands. The effect of this need not be imagined, for it was fact---the Germans had little fuel to operate such vehicles, armored or otherwise, as now remained in their inventories, to say nothing of rendering them virtually incapable of training new vehicle drivers and pilots. Nor was this the only effect of the Allied strategic and tactical air campaign against the Reich. As the Allies soon learned, nearly every bridge over every stream, large and small, throughout Germany had been dropped, making the movement of troops and vehicles to the battle zone difficult and dangerous, regardless of the presence or absence of Allied fighter-bombers. Added to this was the almost total collapse of the German rail network, the system upon which the mobility of the German army so much depended. The effects of the Allied strategic bombing campaign also explain why the expansion of German production, which by the time of the Vosges campaign had been largely driven underground, in 1944 was of no practical consequence for the reasons just stated---there was no fuel to operate the new equipment so produced, and no means by which it could have been brought to bear against the Allies, even if the fuel had been available. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while the Vosges campaign and the Battle of the Bulge raged in the West, Germany continued to wage a desperate struggle against the Red Army in the East. Bonn ignores all of this in his so-called analysis of the Vosges campaign.

The second major flaw in Bonn's work is methodology. As has been noted above, Bonn relies upon American records for evidence of the condition of German forces. This approach is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is inaccuracy. For example, for the makeup of the German forces confronting the U.S. Army in the Vosges, Bonn relies principally on two sources, the U.S. War Department's Handbook on German Military Forces and the series of short monographs written for the U.S. Army in the immediate postwar era by former German officers, the so-called U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) Historical Series. While both of these sources are valuable, they are not so for the purpose of providing accurate information as to the manpower and weapon strength of particular German units, the former because it recounts the ideal composition of units as mandated by the organizational schemes promulgated by OKH/OKW, the latter because based upon the memories and personal notes of the authors, and not upon the actual records of the units with which they served. The consequence is that when Bonn cites figures for available manpower and weapons for a given German unit in the Vosges campaign, those figures are quite simply unreliable and not likely to portray an accurate picture. In addition to these sources, Bonn relies upon the contemporaneous German strength estimates made by the G-2 section of the U.S. Seventh Army. Such estimates are just that, and are therefore likewise unreliable as indicators of German strength. Furthermore, Bonn repeatedly resorts to assumptions about German casualties and strength---hardly the stuff of reliable historical interpretation.[167]

Chapter Ten

Michael Doubler, Closing with the Enemy

At the time Michael Doubler published Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945, in 1994, he was a serving Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. Doubler characterized his book as having a purpose similar to that of Infantry in Battle , a volume published by the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1934 for the purpose of reintroducing the experience of battle to an officer corps then suffering from a steady decline in active duty veterans of the First World War. Referring to the "drawdown" of the American armed forces in the aftermath of the Cold War, the author draws the reader's attention to the evidently incompatible facts that while soldiers with combat experience would be disappearing from the armed services as a result of the "drawdown", threats from regional powers to the national security of the United States would remain. Doubler's stated purpose, then, is to use military history to stimulate "disciplined thinking" about the challenges of the future battlefield, while promoting "the viewpoint of the veteran" among officers trained in peacetime.(168]

While at some level Doubler may have had in mind the didactic purpose discussed above when he wrote Closing with the Enemy , it is clear that he had another and perhaps more significant motive. This can be seen literally from the very beginning of the book, in the third page of the Introduction, in which Doubler comments as follows:

"The notion that the American army achieved victory in World War II only because of its employment of overwhelming numbers of lavishly supplied troops against an exhausted Wehrmacht is untrue. American combat power had definite limits imposed by constraints on resources and time. The decision to limit the size of the army to ninety divisions, the soldier replacement system, and the organization of some combat formations reduced the army's effectiveness. Inexperience blunted the fighting ability of many units, and some commands had much more difficulty than others in making the transition from novice to veteran. Senior American commanders were adept at operational maneuver and concentrating firepower, but inadequate numbers of combat formations and occasional manpower and logistical shortages hampered operations."

It is no exaggeration, in fact, to say that these themes, much more than "lessons learned", lie at the core of Doubler's work.[169]

Doubler turns immediately to the theme of the apparently unique difficulties besetting the U.S. Army in the ETO. Among these were "combat exhaustion", a condition that bedeviled the Americans in Europe because of a lack of experience in evaluating and treating this malady, as well as more fundamental difficulties stemming from inadequate schooling in mine clearance, the maintenance and use of weapons, and intelligence gathering. More grievous still were shortcomings in the quality and supply of personnel replacements, both officers and enlisted men. By the autumn of 1943, American divisional commanders were complaining that the officer replacements they were receiving were "lacking in aggressive leadership, self-reliance, and the ability to meet emergencies." Doubler observes that one most aggravating aspect of this problem was that personnel policies prevented the reclassification of officers who failed in combat, with the result that men who were relieved of duty in one command often were reassigned to identical leadership positions in another combat formation. An even greater difficulty was the poor quality of replacements among enlisted soldiers. An apparently universal complaint was that these men required remedial training at the front, because they "did not hate the enemy enough, lacked the killer instinct, and tended to fraternize with enemy prisoners of war…". Doubler identifies several reasons for this lamentable situation. The first was that because of policies embraced early in the war, "ground combat units failed to receive their proportionate share of high quality volunteers and draftees" because the Navy, Marine Corps and Army Air Force were receiving a far greater number of such personnel. The second reason cited by Doubler was the "excessive transit time within the replacement system". This meant that the average replacement spent five months traveling to his new unit, losing morale, discipline, training and physical conditioning along the way. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that it often could not be cured; many replacements found their way into units heavily engaged with the enemy and consequently unable to invest the time and resources necessary to recover the soldier's fighting edge. The frequent result was that the replacement became a nearly instant casualty. By the spring of 1944, Doubler contends, it was unclear whether the American replacement system would be adequate to the challenge that would surely confront it when the Allies invaded continental Europe.[170]

Doubler's work is a tribute to the qualities of the American soldier demonstrated by his ability to overcome these difficulties. The first occasion on which this might be observed was in the bocage country of Normandy. Here the U.S. First Army encountered the German 7.Armee, which Doubler characterizes as consisting of "three fresh infantry divisions, the remnants of four more infantry divisions that had suffered heavy casualties during the early fighting in Normandy, a parachute regiment, and three regimental-sized combat teams known in the German army as kampfgruppen." This force, says Doubler, included 35,000 troops supported by "a wide assortment of heavy weapons and approximately eighty tanks." It was ordered and prepared to take advantage of the benefits offered by the hedgerows, and to make the Americans "die for every inch of ground".[171]

Doubler's thesis is perhaps best expressed in his final chapter, entitled The Schoolhouse of War. The essence of it is set forth in the following passage:

"The many tactical and technical adaptations that occurred in the ETO invalidates the popular notion that the army won battles because of overwhelming material superiority. If the army had been able to crush the Germans with an abundance of resources alone, there would have been no need for changes in battle techniques. Clearly, the materiel advantages the army possessed did not mean much during close combat in the Normandy hedgerows, in the Huertgen Forest, or during urban battles. The army was adequately equipped, but in many cases a variety of shortages hampered operations. In early 1945 General Patton complained that he was being forced to fight with ‘inadequate means' and told the War Department that shortages in replacements, ammunition, and the number of combat divisions were hindering the war effort. Huge expenditures of firepower and munitions during certain large, key operations are usually held up as examples of American logistical superiority and the heavy reliance on firepower. But to create stockpiles for firepower extravaganzas in support of critical battles, air and artillery units had to husband their ammunition. Most of the time, artillery units fired under very strict ammunition rationing plans, and manpower and gasoline shortages hampered several operations….Innovations in tactics and the use of weapons were the main reasons American forces were able to turn their limited advantages in materiel into good effect against the Germans."[172]

In addition to the foregoing, Doubler enumerates several other impediments overcome by the U.S. Army in defeating the Wehrmacht. For example, he dismisses the notion that the Americans possessed an advantage in mobility. "Historians and military analysts," Doubler maintains, "have put too much emphasis on the army's mobility, believing that the use of tracked and wheeled vehicles gave the army a degree of mobility that was inappropriate for the heavy fighting in Europe. Trucks did give the army operational mobility, but motorized movement had no influence on the battlefield." In this vein, Doubler argues that in the ETO, American trucks were used to move supplies and replacements from Normandy to the front, and to move units laterally between corps and army sectors, but not to enhance the tactical mobility of the infantry in battle. For these reasons, Doubler concludes, "[I]n reality, the army's means of logistical and operational mobility had no direct influence on combat." Likewise, the author endorses Eisenhower's broad front strategy as "the best way to defeat Germany while reducing unnecessary risks to Allied troops", thereby solving the dilemma plaguing American commanders, namely the need to stay on the offensive, while at the same time minimizing casualties.[173]

In addition to these political constraints on the aggressiveness of the American military leadership, there were logistical and terrain impediments upon them. While Doubler concedes that the army was "adequately supplied and sustained", he also argues that the American campaign in western Europe was beset by personnel, ammunition and fuel shortages from beginning to end. In addition to these problems, the ability of American forces to conduct maneuver warfare was hindered by such factors as "rain, mud, swollen rivers, thick forests, broken and compartmentalized ground, and urbanized terrain…". The most serious difficulty for the Americans, however, was the shortage in replacement personnel for combat units, a problem so critical that it motivates Doubler to conclude that "Creveld's critical views on the army's soldier replacement system [as expressed in Fighting Power] are more than justified."[174]

There are a number of problems with the logic employed by Doubler. There can be no doubt whatever that the U.S. Army successfully modified its training and doctrine in coming to grips with its German adversary in Western Europe. That this is so, however, is not necessarily indicative either of the superiority of Yankee ingenuity or of the invalidity of the argument that the Wehrmacht was overcome in the West by the overwhelming materiel and personnel superiority of its Allied adversaries, particularly the U.S. Army. It is a truism, it would seem, that military establishments which shun innovation in training and doctrine often do not survive life and death struggles with adversaries of a less conservative bent. For example, for reasons of political orthodoxy, western historians long cherished the notion that the Red Army of the Great Patriotic War prevailed over the Wehrmacht solely because of its apparently inexhaustible human and materiel resources, coupled with a callous indifference to the fate of either. It is safe to say that the more recent scholarship of John Erickson and David Glantz has laid to rest prejudiced view of the Soviet war machine. Again, innovation marked the efforts of both the British and German armies during the closing stages of the Great War, as each side sought, with varying degrees of success, to institute tactical changes that would enable them to break the deadlock on the western front. In the case of the German army, at least, these changes eventually led to the combined arms mode of combat that so enhanced its combat power in the Second World War. Indeed, significant incidents of innovation in the history of war and military science are too numerous to mention.[175]

In addition to the fact that the American army, like any other successful force, must perforce have engaged in a purposeful course of self-examination and change in order to deal with the realities of combat, it is beyond doubt that it and its British and other western allies enjoyed substantial advantages over the Wehrmacht in terms of human and materiel resources. Contrary to the inference that Doubler and others would have us draw, these advantages made a difference. They did so because they were both numerical and, at least with regard to personnel, qualitative as well. By late July 1944, after nearly two months of fighting in the Normandy lodgment area, there were nearly 1.5 million US and British combat troops in France. At that time, German effectives in the area totaled not more than 380,000, thus providing the western allies with a numerical advantage of almost 4:1. There can be no doubt of the numerical superiority enjoyed by the western allies in terms of equipment. On D-Day alone, for example, the U.S. army landed six tank battalions and a battalion of tank destroyers; on the same day, the British placed on French soil 900 tanks and other armored vehicles. Within striking distance of the beachhead on that day were only four battalions of German tanks capable of successfully engaging the Allied mobile forces.[176]

Nor were the advantages enjoyed by the western allies numerical only. Taking the Normandy campaign as an example (and the German situation can only be characterized as deteriorating thereafter), the details about the German divisions confronting the invaders illustrate this point. 5.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division, supposedly an elite formation, was pitifully weak. Less than 10% of its soldiers had received parachute training by the time of the invasion; no more than 20% of its officers had received infantry training or had combat experience. It had an authorized strength of 17,455, but possessed only 12,253 effectives; overall it lacked 50% of such basic weapons as machine guns and antitank guns. Its Pionier battalion had 38 rifles, 700 less than it was authorized; the antitank battalion had 3 75mm. antitank weapons when it was supposed to have 36. One of its regiments lacked 1800 of its authorized rifles. The division had virtually no motor vehicles. 77.Infanterie-Division, which moved to the invasion front beginning on June 8, 1944, possessed on that date 9,095 officers and men and 1,410 Russian "volunteers". It had two infantry regiments of three battalions each. All of the infantry battalions fielded 40 machine guns and 7-8 81mm. mortars. There was one heavy weapons company in each regiment; together, they possessed a total of 8 Russian infantry guns. The division's artillery regiment had 16 105mm. howitzers and 12 88mm. antitank guns. By the end of June it had suffered about 2000 casualties; much of the remainder of the division went into captivity at St. Malo in August. The division was disbanded on 15 September. A unit that was immediately engaged on D-Day, counterattacking American paratroopers on the Cotentin Peninsula, was 91.Luftlande-Division. It possessed no more than about 8,000 men; its three artillery battalions were equipped with a mountain howitzer, the 105mm. Gebergs-Haubitze 40, whose ammunition was not interchangeable with that of the standard 105mm. field howitzer. Between 6-24 June, the division lost 85% of its infantry, 21% of its artillery personnel, 76% of its engineers and 48% of its antitank personnel. It was then reduced to five Kampfgruppen; of these, one was composed of Russians and another of Turks. By August, the division had suffered 5000 casualties.[177]

The German forces described above were typical of those which met the Allied invasion. By no stretch of the imagination can they be considered comparable to the British, American and other Allied forces that engaged them. Likewise, Doubler's attempt to discount the other advantages enjoyed by the U.S. army are unavailing. For example, his assertion that "motorized movement had no influence on the battlefield" is patently absurd, as is his corollary statement that "the [US] army's means of logistical and operational mobility had no direct influence on combat". The U.S. army employed a superabundance of wheeled vehicles to supply its combat forces at the front, and to move those combat forces from one point to another, as Doubler freely admits. At the same time, the German army was virtually without mobility, and thus was without the capacity either to adequately supply its combat forces, or to move them about the battlefield for tactical purposes. Would Doubler exchange the mobility possessed by the U.S. army, as evidenced by its employment of copious numbers of trucks and the like, for the virtually static character of the Wehrmacht, dependent as it was upon horse transport and a polyglot collection of wheeled vehicles of dubious origin and quality?

Unavailing too are the other reasons Doubler offers for the performance of the U.S. army. He asserts that the ability of the U.S. army to bring into play its overwhelming capacity to engage in maneuver warfare was constrained by terrain and weather conditions, such as rain, mud, thick forests, swollen rivers and other natural impediments. Apart from the fact that the German forces faced exactly the same obstacles to their employment, since when have military forces of any origin not been trained and equipped to deal with such conditions? Yet further, Doubler complains that the U.S. army was bedeviled throughout its campaign in Western Europe by chronic personnel shortages, particularly among its infantry forces. More recent scholarship has shown, however, that the U.S. army was fully capable of taking remedial action to successfully address such shortages, even in such a notorious contest as that in the Huertgen Forest in 1944-1945. As this work has made clear, however, German efforts to rectify personnel shortages at the same time involved them in resorting to the use of convalescents, foreigners, the ill-trained and the ill-equipped.[178]

To give examples of the prowess of the U.S. army, and particularly its ability to successfully adapt to various combat conditions, Doubler turns his focus on individual incidents. To illustrate the army's ability to deal with the difficulties of urban combat, for example, the author refers to the battles of Brest and Aachen. These are worth examining in some detail. The port of Brest, at the tip of the Brittany peninsula, was of strategic importance to the Allies, because of its excellent deep-water port. The Allied scheme called for the capture of the city as quickly as possible, and the army assigned the task of doing so to the US VII Corps under Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton. VII Corps consisted of the 2d, 8th and 29th Infantry Divisions, whose total strength for the operation, including supporting troops, Doubler puts at 50,000 soldiers. Middleton's plan was to surround the city and crush its garrison. The Germans assigned command of the Brest defense to Generalleutnant Herman B. Ramcke, an experienced and resolute parachute officer who had fought with distinction in, among other places, Crete and North Africa. The German forces consisted of 343.Infanterie-Division and 2.Fallshirm-Jaeger-Division. According to Doubler, Hitler had instructed Ramcke to defend Brest to the last man.[179]

Doubler estimates the size of the German garrison force at Brest at 30,000 men. This figure appears to be significantly inflated; at the end of July 1944, 2.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division mustered 162 officers and 7,389 other ranks; the strength of 343. Infanterie-Division on 1 June 1944 was 11,021. Moreover, even these figures are deceiving, since they do not account for the troops not attached to these units when the Americans moved to reduce the fortress on 21 August. Parts of 343.Infanterie-Division, including two infantry battalions (III./Infanterie-Regiment 898 and III./Infanterie-Regiment 897), an engineer company (1./Pionier-Bataillon 343), an artillery battery (7./Artillerie-Regiment 343) and part of 14./Infanterie-Regiment 898 with two 75mm. antitank guns, had been detached for service with 352.Infanterie Division.

Similarly, 2.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division lacked its Fallschirm-Jaeger-Regiment 6, which was serving with 91.Infanterie-Division. It was also without II. and III./Fallschirm-Artillerie-Regiment 6, both of which were at the artillery school at Luneville, as well as its Flak-Abteilung, then serving with II.Fallschirmkorps. Also missing were I./Fallschirmjager-Regiment 2 and a mortar battalion, Fallschirm-Granatwerfer-Bataillon 2. Further details on these formations are also illuminating. One reason for the weakened condition of 2. Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division was that at the time of the Normandy invasion it was recovering from a severe mauling recently received on the Eastern Front. On 1 July its engineer battalion was reported at 42% of its authorized strength. The Division was far below its authorized strength in heavy antitank guns (4 out of 60), mortars (28 out of 108), machine guns (497 out of 739) and motor vehicles of all kinds. As noted by Doubler, 343.Infanterie-Division was a static formation, and consequently had only a limited number of motor vehicles and about 1200 horses. Its ability to defend itself against tanks was extremely limited, for it possessed only two 75mm. and six 50mm. antitank guns. Its static artillery weapons included a variety of captured French and Russian guns.[180]

Another important contest recounted by Doubler is the American assault on Metz between September and December 1944. The principal American forces involved the US XX Corps from Patton's Third Army, particularly the US 7th Armored and 5th and 90th Infantry Divisions. The defense of the Metz "fortress" fell to Division Nr. 462, which Doubler estimates to have been 14,000 strong and composed of "fortress troops and students, staff, and faculty members of the numerous military schools located in Metz. Many of these soldiers were among the best the German army had to offer, having been selected for additional schooling based on their exemplary performance on the battlefield." Doubler also characterizes the division as "experienced".

While it may be accurate to describe as "experienced" some of the soldiers who comprised Division Nr. 462, this term is clearly inappropriate when applied to the division as a whole. The unit was formed in October 1942 as a replacement formation. In December, 1943, it was composed of the following units: Grenadier-Ersatz-Regiment 246; Grenadier-Ersatz-Regiment 552; Grenadier-Ersatz-Regiment 572; MG-Ersatz-Bataillon 14; Artillerie-Ersatz-Regiment 35; Bruckenbau-Ersatz und Ausbildungs Bataillon 3. All of these units, as their names imply, were replacement formations only. During September and October 1944, there was a continuous interchange of units between Division Nr. 462 and other units; some units of the division were sent as replacements to units in the field; at the same time, new replacement formations from other locations were amalgamated in to the division. On October 19, 1944, in the midst of the American assault on Metz (which began September 7 and concluded with the capture of the city on November 28) the division was renamed 462.Infanterie-Division, and still later, 462.Volks-Grenadier-Division. At the time of its reorganization in October, it comprised Grenadier-Regiment 1215, Grenadier-Regiment 1216, Grenadier-Regiment 1217, Artillerie-Regiment 1462, Division Fusilier Kompanie 462, Pionier-Bataillon 1462, Nachrichten-Abteilung 1462, Feldersatz Bataillon 1462 and divisional service troops. The division was destroyed at Metz and not reformed.[181]

As the foregoing demonstrates, the attachment of the moniker "experienced" to Division Nr. 462 and its progeny is a misnomer. The division was never in combat before or after its ordeal at Metz. Its table of organization changed almost continuously for the two years of its existence. The units which moved in and through it were, from beginning to end, intended to be replacement formations. Nevertheless, this force managed to frustrate its opponents for the better part of two months, and to exact a heavy toll in American casualties. Doubler admits that the American commanders misused their troops and acted unwisely by essentially attacking frontally a heavily reinforced position, thereby throwing away the advantages they possessed in airpower and artillery. He credits them, however, for adapting to the situation and devising a more practical, if not less costly, method for eventually overpowering the defenders. Precisely how this fits with the author's thesis that the U.S. army destroyed its German opponents by something else than overwhelming force is unclear. As observed elsewhere, successful armies do adapt to their enemies and the conditions in which they fight. If the American commanders had not changed their approach to this particular situation, what would be our judgment of them? And, in fact Doubler's account of the reduction of Fort St. Julien, the last major stronghold in the complex of defenses at Metz, by the Americans is a tribute to their use of the largest weapon available (a 155 mm. howitzer) to fire thirty rounds at a range of less than 50 yards to breach the enemy defenses once and for all. Fort St. Julien was taken by elements of the US 95th Infantry Division on 18 November; this division was "fresh", according to Doubler, when it became involved in the fighting at Metz little more than a month earlier on 16 October. Its commanders had learned much from the mistakes of the formation that it had relieved, the US 5th Infantry Division, which had been ground up in its efforts to subjugate Fort Driant, another portion of the Metz complex. The evidence is that the American victories at Brest and Metz were the product of the employment of overpowering force against enemy formations of unequal size and firepower. The Americans should have prevailed and did, and it would be only appropriate to regard them critically if they had not.

Doubler devotes a single chapter to a description of the methods adopted by the American forces to cross rivers against enemy opposition. As the author observes, "[T]o win the war, American forces had to master the skills required to cross rivers in the face of enemy fire, often under the most trying weather conditions." Doubler's work shows how well the Americans succeeded in mastering those skills time after time as they fought their way to the heart of the Reich in a series of river crossings, the most notable of which was the celebrated Rhine crossing at Remagen. It must be observed, of course, that successful western armies had learned this art repeatedly, from the time of Caesar onward. The German army, for one, had crossed innumerable rivers under fire during its years of conquest from 1940-1942; in the summer of 1944 the Red Army was in the process of crossing the same rivers in reverse, in most cases against fierce opposition. One of the crossings particularly described by Doubler was that of the Moselle by the US 80th Infantry Division and 4th Armored Division in early September 1944. Between 4-16 September, these formations attacked 3.Panzer-Grenadier-Division between the villages of Pont-a-Mousson and Dieulouard, ultimately forcing the enemy to retreat to the east and give up the bridgehead to the Americans. The Americans purchased the victory at considerable cost to themselves, against one of the better armored formations in the Wehrmacht. Though comparatively strong, however, 3.Panzer-Grenadier-Division still suffered from a number of critical deficiencies. Its armored elements were noteworthy for their relative strength. On 1 September the division's Panzer-Abteilung 103 possessed 37 Stug III assault guns and three tanks; Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 3 included an additional 31 Jagdpanzer IVs, thereby giving the division a total of 71armored fighting vehicles, of which 13 were in either short or long-term repair. The division's Artillerie-Regiment 3 was also quite formidable, although it possessed no self-propelled guns. It had three battalions with a total of 24 105mm. howitzers, 8 150mm. howitzers and 3 100mm. cannon. The division's Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 103 was also a powerful formation, liberally equipped with armored personnel carriers. There were, nevertheless, substantial deficiencies in the division. In the previous month, it had suffered 841 casualties. Thus, while its Grenadier-Regiment 8 was at 87% strength, its sister regiment, Grenadier-Regiment 29, was only at 67% of its manpower strength; its second battalion was particularly weak and in urgent need of a refit. The division's total manpower shortage as of 9 September totaled 1390 NCOs and other ranks. The division was short 724 pistols, 2450 rifles, 829 light machine guns, 523 heavy machine guns and 814 vehicles of all types. The panzergrenadiers were transported in a mixture of light and medium cars and trucks. Most of these were civilian vehicles of mixed Italian, French and German origin, and most (75%) lacked cross-country ability, so that the division's infantry was confined largely to the roads when in action.[182]

Doubler also recounts the historic struggle mounted by the U.S. army in the Huertgen Forest in the winter of 1944-45. His point of view is that the American army was in no way prepared to conduct such a struggle, being ill-fitted either by training or doctrine, while its German adversaries, schooled in such fighting by the bitter war it had fought in the East, enjoyed not only this advantage but also the benefits granted by favorable terrain. Added to this, as Doubler is at pains to point out, was the disadvantage suffered by the Americans from the inefficiencies of their replacement system. All of these factors, along with the appalling weather conditions, combined to produce for the Americans what Doubler refers to as "some of the most gruesome fighting in the European campaigns."

Doubler recounts the ordeal of the 9th Infantry Division's 39th Infantry Regiment and 60th Infantry Regiment in the Huertgen during the first two weeks of October 1944. During this period, the division managed to advance some 3000 yards at a cost of 4500 men. 60th Infantry Regiment suffered a 100% turnover in combat troops in a struggle that ended in stalemate. Determined to capture the key village of Schmidt, First Army commander General Courtney Hodges assigned the task to his V Corps, commanded by General Gerow. The latter, in turn, selected for the job his most rested unit, 28th Infantry Division. Hodges assigned to this unit the objective of Vossenack; the division's 112th Infantry Regiment attacked in the middle of the line, with its sister 109th Infantry Regiment and 110th Infantry Regiment on the left and right flanks respectively. These units were to cross the Kall River gorge and capture the village of Kommerscheidt, preparatory to advancing on Schmidt. Doubler argues that General Norman Cota, the commander of the 28th Infantry Division, was not only deprived of initiative by the constraints placed upon him by First Army and V Corps, but was forced to divide rather than concentrate its effort by advancing its three regiments over three diverging axes of attack. The result was a fiasco of the first magnitude.[183]

Doubler identifies the three German units arrayed against 28th Infantry Division as 275.Infanterie-Division, 89.Infanterie-Division and 116.Panzer-Division. This latter formation he characterizes as "one of the Wehrmacht's stalwart units in the west". On 1 October 1944, 116.Panzer-Division rated a Kampfwert (combat value) of II, in a system where the values ranged from the highest (I) to the lowest (V) in combat value. While the division therefore was not regarded as ready for any mission, it was nevertheless considered to be in relatively good condition. It was not, however, particularly powerful in tanks, having on hand a total of 28 Panthers (authorized strength 73) and 19 Mk IVs (authorized strength 78), along with 11 Stug III assault guns in its Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 228. In September the division had suffered 1176 casualties, and now had 11,373 men out of an authorized strength of 12,467. The division was deficient in armored vehicles of all types. Its Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 60 and 156 were nearly at full personnel strength, as was its Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 146. 89.Infanterie-Division had been formed in January 1944 and included Grenadier-Regiment 1055 and 1056, each of three battalions, in addition to Artillerie-Regiment 189. The division had been destroyed in the Falaise pocket and was rebuilt with troops from Grenadier-Regiment 1063 and men from various fortress and replacement battalions. It was once again nearly destroyed in September, and was in very weak condition by October. 275.Infanterie-Division had been formed in November 1943, and in the next month was constituted from four battalions of Reserve-Division 158. At the time of its formation it included Grenadier-Regiment 983, Grenadier-Regiment 984 and Grenadier-Regiment 985, each of two battalions, Fusilier-Bataillon 275, Artillerie-Regiment 275 of three battalions, and divisional support units. The division had been demolished in the Cobra offensive in July 1944 and was caught in the Falaise pocket in August, where its remnants were practically annihilated. What was left of it fought again at Aachen in September; by the beginning of October its strength was listed at five thousand men, with few heavy weapons. It was this depleted unit that saw action in the Huertgen forest.[184]

Doubler points out that in contemplation of the assault, Major General Leonard G. Gerow reinforced 28th Infantry Division with "considerable added brawn", including the three battalions of 1171st Engineer Combat Group, 707th Tank Battalion, two tank destroyer battalions, as well as eight battalions of artillery from V and VII Corps. The assault would also have support from six fighter-bomber groups and forty-seven "weasel" cargo carriers. Doubler describes the battle which ensued between the regiments of 28th Infantry Division and the German defenders between 2 November and 7 November. This was a brutal slugging match that centered around the villages of Vossenack, Schmidt and Kommerscheidt; each of these hamlets changed hands either partially or completely during the battle, and at its end the Americans were forced to retreat in disarray, having suffered substantial casualties. Doubler credits a number of factors for the American failure: a conceptually flawed plan of attack that led to dispersal, rather than concentration, of forces; a tenuous resupply line through the forest; terrible weather that grounded American air support and turned the ground to little more than a swamp, resulting in an explosion of cases of trench foot. Most importantly, however, the Americans suffered from two significant detriments: a high number of inexperienced, untrained replacements, and an absence of air support, which allowed the Germans to "concentrate remarkable strength against Schmidt and Kommerscheidt." [185]

Doubler's explanation for the disaster absorbed by the 28th Infantry Division lacks substance. The difficult terrain and terrible weather affected both attacker and defender equally. It is questionable, to say the least, whether the feet of the American infantrymen suffered worse from the cold and wet than those of their German counterparts, shod as they were in their hobnail boots so well known for conducting the cold. The notion that the American force was burdened by a high proportion of inexperienced and untrained replacements also fails to resonate. As noted above, neither 89.Infanterie-Division nor 275.Infanterie-Division was composed of trained and experienced soldiers. Both units had been virtually destroyed in the Falaise pocket, and had nonetheless been in more or less continuous combat since then. By the time they were committed to battle in the Huertgen, they were divisions in name only, having been scratched together from fortress and replacement units of dubious quality. Even the vaunted 116.Panzer-Division was of little value to the defenders; its troops were being husbanded for the coming Ardennes offensive, and its depleted armored element was committed only partially and piecemeal to the battle. Like the Americans, the Germans lacked air support; even if the weather had been fine, however, the Luftwaffe would not have been there to assist the defenders. Doubler's assertion that the Germans "were free to concentrate remarkable strength" to the battle, therefore, is on truly shaky ground.

Doubler goes on to describe the ordeal endured by other American formations, notably the 1st Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division and 8th Infantry Division, in the holocaust of the Huertgen forest. They ultimately prevailed, of course, but at an appalling cost---24,000 American battle casualties, with another 9,000 men down with a mixture of battle fatigue, trench foot and sickness. Doubler finds a number of reasons for this apparent failure of American arms. The Americans had no opportunity to train adequately for fighting in dense forests. Their combat engineer units were not up to the tasks of clearing minefields and keeping supply lines open. Because the American formations were committed seriatim and under dangerous and difficult conditions, they were unable to learn from one another. The army's leadership was wanting, both at the higher and lower levels of command. Most importantly, the army suffered from the manifold deleterious effects of its inadequate replacement system. Ultimately, however, Doubler's verdict is that the battle in the Huertgen forest was one that should never have been fought. This was so for two principal reasons. First, the Germans possessed an almost decisive advantage in fighting on terrain of their choosing in an environment that gave every advantage to the defender." Second, the battle showed

"that weather and terrain alone can force an army to search for new tactics and combat techniques. More than anything else, thick trees, difficult ground, and atrocious weather determined the torturous course of events….Close-quarters combat and poor observation prevented American units from bringing artillery and CAS [close air support] to bear. The dense forest made it difficult for units to maintain proper direction and orientation. Poor trails and a lack of roads made resupply and medical evacuation difficult. Rain transformed the entire forest into a slippery morass, and fog and early morning mists reduced visibility. Mud and snow concealed mines and booby traps while adding frostbite and trench foot to the other discomforts troops had to withstand. In addition to losses from enemy fire, the stress of combat, bad weather, horrid living conditions, and gloomy surroundings inflicted psychological and physical casualties at alarming rates." [186]

The problem with Doubler's analysis of the Huertgen Forest battle is that nearly all of the difficulties described by him plagued both attacker and defender alike. As has already been mentioned, the weather does not play favorites among combatants. If the

Americans suffered physically from the effects of mud, fog and snow, and the associated conditions of trench foot and frostbite, so too did the German defenders; both sides were engaged in a running battle for key villages and hamlets, in which first one side and then the other advanced and then retreated over the same exposed ground. Both sides were equally affected by close combat in deep forests; both struggled over the same forest paths to revictual themselves and carry off their wounded. Each army suffered from a lack of air support; the Americans because of the weather conditions, the Germans as a result of the total suppression of the Luftwaffe. Lastly, as Doubler himself admits, the fact that this battle took place at all was the result of decision-making on the part of the Allies, not the Germans. It can hardly be argued, then, that the fight was conducted over ground of the Germans' choosing. In this tragedy, both parties did the best they could with the hand dealt them.

Doubler's last substantive chapter deals with the Battle of the Bulge, a struggle that will ever be regarded as one of the most sterling moments in the military history of the United States. "The ultimate outcome of the titanic struggle in the Ardennes," says Doubler, "lay in the skill and determination of the opposing forces. The Germans managed to mass the equivalent of twenty-nine infantry divisions and twelve panzer divisions organized into four separate armies….Compared to the huge German forces massing for the offensive, American units in the Ardennes were spread thin." As Doubler notes, the driving forces behind the German offensive were 5.Panzerarmee and 6.Panzerarmee; 7.Armee and 15.Armee protected the southern and northern flanks of the attack respectively. [187]

How were the "twenty-nine infantry divisions and twelve panzer divisions" that comprised the "huge German forces massing" for the Ardennes offensive composed? 5. Panzerarmee had under its command XXXXVII.Panzerkorps, LXXXI.Armeekorps and XII.SS Armeekorps. The latter formation included 59.Infanterie-Division, 176.Infanterie- Division, 183.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 9.Panzer-Division and 15.Panzer-Grenadier-Division. 59.Infanterie-Division was a static division consisting of Grenadier-Regiment 1034, 1035 and 1036, each of two battalions, Fusilier-Bataillon 59, Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 59 and Artillerie-Regiment 159 of three battalions. It had fought in the withdrawal from France, and by September 1944 its strength amounted to less than fifty anti-tank guns and howitzers and 1000 infantrymen. Nevertheless, it continued to fight against the Americans and British in Operation Market-Garden until November, when it was placed in Heeresgruppe B reserve. 176.Infanterie-Division had been formed on 31 October 1944, and included Grenadier-Regiment 1218, 1219 and 1220, totaling six battalions, Fusilier-Bataillon 176, Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 176 and Artillerie-Regiment 1178 of four battalions. In September 1944 the division had a strength of seven thousand men, most of whom were of poor quality; one battalion consisted of men with serious hearing maladies, two comprised Luftwaffe personnel, while many others in the ranks were convalescents and semiinvalids. In spite of this, the division fought in the Battle of Maastricht, at Arnhem during Operation Market-Garden, and along the Roer River. It was actually refitting and reequipping during the Battle of the Bulge. 183.Infanterie-Division had come into existence on 15 September 1944, having been formed from the so-called Dollersheim-Schatten-Division of the 31st Wave, and included Grenadier-Regiment 330, 343 and 351, each of two battalions, as well as Artillerie-Regiment 219 of four battalions. The composition of the division was enhanced on 19 October 1944 by the absorption of XVI.Landwehr-Festungs-Bataillon and Festungs-MG-Bataillon 42. Much of the division was made up of raw and ill-trained Austrians; it was engaged in the Siegfried Line battles and at Aachen, and near the end of November Grenadier-Regiment 330 was annihilated at Geilenkirchen.[188]

The two armored formations under the control of XII.SS Armeekorps were in poor condition for the Ardennes offensive. 9.Panzer-Division was rated a kampfwert II as of 1 November 1944. Although its authorized personnel strength was 13495, its actual strength amounted to 12364 men; likewise, while its authorized strength of Mk IV tanks was 78, it had none of these vehicles in its inventory, and it had only 45 Panthers out of an authorized strength of 73. On that date, it also possessed 17 Panzerjaeger IV tank destroyers. Its Panzer-Regiment 33 was at 97% of authorized personnel strength; comparable figures for its Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 10 and Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 50 were 74% and 86% respectively. On 14 December 1944 the first battalion of Panzer-Regiment 33 had three companies of Mk IV tanks (total 28 vehicles) and one company of Stug IIIs (14), while its second battalion fielded four companies of Panthers (57 vehicles). On 1 November 1944, 15.Panzer-Grenadier-Division was also rated a kampfwert II, with 12956 men out of an authorized strength of 14818. While the division's Panzer-Abteilung 115 was not actually authorized to have any Mk IV tanks, on that date it possessed 29 of these vehicles; conversely, the battalion was authorized to have 42 Stug IIIs, but had only 5. This situation was somewhat compensated for by the fact that the battalion had 36 Panzerjaeger IVs, 5 more than its authorized strength. On 9 December 1944 the battalion possessed 14 Mk IV tanks, as a result of combat losses, and 30 Stug IIIs. The division's manpower, as a percentage of authorized strength, stood at 98% for Panzer-Abteilung 115, 77% and 70% respectively for Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 104 and 115, and 92% for Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 33. Both divisions, therefore, were understrength in terms of manpower, and while 15.Panzer-Grenadier-Division had its full complement of armored vehicles, 9.Panzer-Division was well below its nominal authorized strength in tanks and assault guns.[189]

LXXXI.Armeekorps of 5.Panzerarmee included 340.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 12.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 47.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 3.Panzer-Grenadier- Division. 340.Volks-Grenadier-Division was constituted on 15 September 1944 from 572.Volks-Grenadier-Division, a unit raised in the 32nd Wave. It comprised Grenadier-Regiment 694, 695 and 696, each of two battalions, along with four battalions in Artillerie-Regiment 340. 12.Volks-Grenadier-Division was created on 9 October 1944 by the redesignation of the former 12.Infanterie-Division. The division included Fusilier- Regiment 12, Grenadier-Regiment 48 and Grenadier-Regiment 89, totaling six battalions of infantry, and Artillerie-Regiment 12 of four battalions. On 19 October it absorbed Erganzung und Ausbildungs Bataillon 473; two weeks later, on 3 November, it absorbed VIII.Landwehr-Festungs-Bataillon. It was virtually at full strength, with approximately 14800 men, and fully equipped. 47.Volks-Grenadier-Division, on the other hand, had been created on 17 September 1944 by redesignation of 577.Grenadier-Division, a division of raw recruits from the 32nd Wave. This unit was composed of Grenadier-Regiment 103, 104 and 115, each with two battalions, and the four battalions of Artillerie-Regiment 147. The Armeekorp's remaining formation, 3.Panzer-Grenadier-Division, was rated at a kampfwert III on 1 November 1944. It possessed 12185 men out of an authorized strength of 13938. On this date, it had in its inventory 27 Stug IIIs out of an authorized strength of 42, as well as 12 Panzerjaeger IVs out of an authorized strength of 31. The division's Panzer-Abteilung 103 stood at 89% of its authorized personnel strength. Its infantry components, Grenadier-Regiment 8 and 29, were at 82% and 89% respectively of their authorized strength, and its Artillerie-Regiment 3 was at 85% authorized strength. On 10 December 1944, the eve of the Ardennes offensive, Panzer- Abteilung 103 was nearly at full authorized strength, with 41 Stug IIIs in three companies.[190]

5.Panzerarmee also controlled three additional units on 26 November 1944, as final preparations for the Ardennes offensive began. These were 246.Volks-Grenadier- Division, 10.SS Panzer-Division "Frundsburg", and Division Nummer 526. The first of these, 246.Volks-Grenadier-Division, had formed on 15 September 1944 by redesignation of 565.Volks-Grenadier-Division, a formation of the 32nd Wave. Its composition at that time was Grenadier-Regiment 352, 404 and 689 (six battalions); Artillerie-Regiment 246 (four battalions) and Fusilier-Bataillon 246. On 3 November the division absorbed additional infantry in the form of Festungs-MG-Bataillon 54 and Schnelle-Bataillon 503, 504 and 506 (these three units now comprising Grenadier-Regiment 404), as well as Reserve-Grenadier-Bataillon 453 and Trier-Volkssturm-Bataillon. These replacements, and others, were necessitated by substantial losses sustained by the division while in action during the battles around Aachen.[191]

Division Nummer 526, also denominated as 526.Aachen-Division, was an Amalgam of replacement units totaling some 12,711 men. Its principal units were Grenadier Ersatz und Ausbildungs Regiment 211 (3 battalions of 12 companies), Grenadier Ersatz und Ausbildungs Regiment 536 (4 battalions of 16 companies, a pioneer company, a panzerjaeger company and a Flak company), Grenadier Ersatz und Ausbildungs Regiment 253 (4 battalions of 16 companies), Artillerie Ersatz und Ausbildungs Regiment 16 (1 battalion of 4 companies of infantry and 1 detachment of 4 batteries of artillery) and Pionier Ersatz und Ausbildungs Battalion 253 (3 companies). By far the most formidable unit of the three was 10.SS Panzer-Division "Frundsberg". On 1 November 1944 this formation was rated as kampfwert III, possessing 15329 men out of an authorized strength of 17425. Relative manpower strengths of the division's principal units stood at 83% of authorized strength for its SS Panzer-Regiment 10, 75% for SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 21, 71% for SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 22, 44% for SS Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 10 and 60% for SS Panzer-Jaeger-Abteilung 10. The division was woefully understrength in terms of armored fighting vehicles; out of an authorized strength of 101 Mk IV tanks, it possessed only 4; it also possessed only 14 Panthers out of an authorized strength of 79. By 10 December this position had deteriorated further; there were 10 Panthers and 2 Mk IVs in the division's inventory, with 25 Panthers and 34 Mk IVs in transit.[192]

The second primary striking force for the Ardennes offensive was 6.Panzerarmee, which on 26 November 1944 was designated Panzer Armeeoberkommando 6, and controlled only four formations, namely 1.SS Panzer-Division "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler", 2.SS Panzer-Division "Das Reich", 9.SS Panzer-Division "Hohenstauffen" and 12.SS Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend". The senior Waffen SS formation was 2.SS Panzer-Division "Das Reich", a unit with a formidable reputation for combat prowess and ferocity. By the autumn of 1944, however, it was in rather diminished circumstances; on 1 November it rated a kampfwert III, even though its then total manpower strength of 18499 was higher than its authorized strength of 17797. In weaponry, however, it was in woeful condition. It was without tank destroyers of any kind, and possessed only 2 tanks out of an authorized complement of 180. Both SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 3 and 4 stood at 50% of authorized strength; the figures for SS Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 2 and SS Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 2 were 65% and 88% respectively. By 10 December the division's weapons situation had improved somewhat; it then had 58 Panthers (authorized strength 79) and 28 Mk IVs. Of these latter vehicles the division was authorized to have 101; the shortfall was partially compensated for by the presence of an additional 28 Stug IIIs.[193]

1.SS Panzer-Division "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler" was in rather better condition than its sister formation, although it too rated only a kampfwert III on 4 November. Its manpower situation was favorable; overall, with 20500 men it was nearly 2000 men over its authorized strength, so that each of its subordinate combat units stood at nearly full strength. While it remained deficient in armored fighting vehicles, it still possessed 32 Panthers, 25 Mk IVs and 21 Panzerjaeger IVs. By 3 December the number of tanks available to the division's organic units had not increased to authorized strength levels (it now had 42 Panthers and 37 Mk IVs out of a total authorized strength of 180 tanks). However, the division now had attached to it SS Schwerer-Panzer-Abteilung 501 with 45 Tiger tanks. While this division was therefore still well below its authorized levels of armored fighting vehicles, it still possessed a formidable armored component.[194]

On 1 November 1944, 9.SS Panzer-Division "Hohenstauffen" was rated at kampfwert IV; with 14861 men it was well below its authorized strength of 17817. Although its armored element, SS Panzer-Regiment 9, was at 100% of authorized personnel strength, other combat units were debilitated. SS Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 20, for example, stood at only 65% of authorized strength, and while SS Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 9 had 88% of its authorized manpower, it was without any vehicles. Of its full complement of 180 tanks, the division possessed only 5; it also had only one tank destroyer. By 8 December the division was still not at full strength in terms of armored fighting vehicles; although authorized to have 79 Panthers, it still had only 33 (with 25 in transit), and of its authorized 101 Mk IVs it possessed only 32, the deficiency being only partially corrected by the presence of 28 Stug IIIs in the division's inventory.[195]

One flank of the German attack formation for the Ardennes offensive was to be held by 15.Armee, composed of XXX.Armeekorps z.b.V. and LXXXVIII.Armeekorps, as well as certain other units. On 26 November 1944, XXX.Armeekorps z.b.V. comprised only one unit, a kampfgruppe of 346.Infanterie-Division. This was another of the static infantry divisions employed by the Germans in the west, and included Grenadier- Regiment 857 and 858, Artillerie-Regiment 346, Fusilier-Bataillon 346, Panzer-Jaeger-Bataillon 346, Pionier-Bataillon 346 and Nachrichten-Bataillon 346. Although it had been formed in the fall of 1942, the division had first seen action near Caen during the Normandy fighting, where its ranks had been considerably thinned. It was involved in the battle of the Falaise Pocket, and retreated across France and Belgium into Holland, where it was engaged, with a few howitzers and twenty-five hundred men, in the Battle of the Scheldt. It was for this reason that it was characterized as a kampfgruppe only at the end of November. Indeed, in December 1944, the division was reformed, so decrepit had it become. It now included Grenadier-Regiment 857 and 858, as well as Grenadier- Regiment 1018, Fusilier-Bataillon 346 and Artillerie-Regiment 346. With the exception of Grenadier-Regiment 858, which came from the old 346.Infanterie-Division, all of these units were created from portions of other units.[196]

LXXXVIII.Armeekorps controlled 6.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division, along with two additional static formations, 711.Infanterie-Division and 712.Infanterie-Division. 6. Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division had been formed in June 1944. Its table of organization was robust; Fallschirm-Jaeger-Regiment 16, 17 and 18, each of three battalions; Fallschirm-Panzerjaeger-Bataillon 6 (3 companies); Fallschirm-Granatwerfer-Bataillon 6 (3 companies); Fallschirm-Artillerie-Regiment 6 with three battalions; Fallschirm-Flak- Bataillon 6, with 5 batteries; Fallschirm-Pionier-Bataillon 6 of 4 companies, Fallschirm-Nachrichten-Bataillon 6, and divisional support units. All of this, however, was grossly misleading. Fallschirm-Jaeger-Regiment 16 did not in fact join the division, but was instead sent to the eastern front. In addition, formation of Fallschirm-Jaeger-Regiment 17 and 18 was never completed, because both units immediately went into action in the Normandy battles. These regiments, and the remainder of the division in kampfgruppe form, were nearly destroyed in the invasion front. The remnants of the division, along with elements from XXIX., XXXI., XXXVIII. and XL. Luftwaffen-Festungs-Bataillon, were reformed on 15 October 1944 in Meppel, Holland. Reference to this unit's "divisional" status in the German order of battle, therefore, is a matter of convention only. In fact, it had never been anything more than a kampfgruppe, and by the eve of the Ardennes offensive it was a very battered one indeed.[197]

The other two units in LXXXVIII.Armeekorps were 711.Infanterie-Division and 712.Infanterie-Division. Both were static formations which came into being in 1941. 711.Infanterie-Division, including among its soldiers "volunteer" Turks and Caucasians, had been decimated in the Normandy battles and subsequently removed to Holland for reconstitution. Its Grenadier-Regiment 731, 744 and 763 were of two battalions each, and were supplemented by Fusilier-Bataillon 1711. The division's Artillerie-Regiment 1177 had three battalions. The division also had panzerjaeger, pioneer and signals battalions. 712.Infanterie-Division was even more thinly populated than its sister unit. It possessed two infantry regiments, (Grenadier-Regiment 732 and 745) with a total of six battalions, Artillerie-Regiment 652 (one battalion only) a signals battalion, a pioneer battalion and a single panzerjaeger company. The division had been badly mauled in Walcheren prior to the Ardennes battle.[198]

The other shoulder of the offensive was to be supported by 7.Armee. On 26 November 1944 this formation nominally had seven army corps under its command; however, two of these, LIII.Armeekorps and LXXXV.Armeekorps z.b.V., were staff organizations only. Two of the corps commands were at least apparently formidable, having under their command five divisions each. One of these was LXXIV.Armeekorps, which controlled 275.Infanterie-Division, 344.Infanterie-Division and 89.Infanterie-Division as well as 272.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 277.Volks-Grenadier-Division. 272.Volks-Grenadier-Division was of recent vintage, having been created on 17 September 1944 by redesignation of 575.Grenadier-Division. The division had three regiments (Grenadier-Regiment 980, 981 and 982) of two battalions each, and four battalions of artillery under the command of Artillerie-Regiment 272. 277.Volks-Grenadier-Division was a mirror image of its cohort 272.Volks-Grenadier-Division. It had come into being on 4 September 1944 in Hungary, having been formed from 574.Volks-Grenadier-Division, a unit of the 32nd Wave. There were a total of six infantry battalions in its Grenadier-Regiment 989, 990 and 991, and four of artillery in Artillerie-Regiment 277.[199]

Although the Kriegsgliedierung for 26 November 1944 lists both 275.Infanterie- Division and 344.Infanterie-Division as under the command of LXXIV.Armeekorps, neither of these units actually took part in the Battle of the Bulge. Indeed, 275.Infanterie- Division had been so battered in the Huertgen Forest battles that its remnants were simply absorbed into 344.Infanterie-Division. The latter formation was sent to the Eastern Front before the commencement of the Battle of the Bulge.[200] 89.Infanterie-Division, however, did stay on to fight in the battle. This division had been formed in January, 1944, was heavily engaged in the Normandy battles, and destroyed in the Falaise pocket. It was rebuilt thereafter, and nominally included Grenadier-Regiment 1055 and 1056 of three battalions each, and Grenadier-Regiment 1063 of two battalions. During September and October it absorbed a variety of Landwehr, Luftwaffe, fortress and replacement battalions. It was with this conglomeration of troops that the division prepared to confront its opponents in the Ardennes.[201]

Also under the command of 7.Armee on the eve of the Ardennes offensive was LXXX.Armeekorps, comprising 353.Infanterie-Division and 212.Volks-Grenadier-Division. The latter formation had been created in September, 1944 and consisted of Grenadier-Regiment 316, 320 and 423 totaling six battalions, four battalions of artillery in Artillerie-Regiment 212, and a Fusilier company. 353.Infanterie-Division had been destroyed in the West, having fought continuously in Normandy, the Falaise pocket and along the Siegfried Line. It was reformed in November 1944 with a hodgepodge of troops. Its Grenadier-Regiment 941 had been formed of men from a security regiment whose average age was 38. The division's Grenadier-Regiment 942 was made up of troops from replacement battalions and other units in the Trier vicinity; the men were equipped with a variety of Dutch, French, Belgian and Czech rifles.[202]

Two more infantry formations, 18.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 26.Volks-Grenadier-Division, made up the body of LXVI.Armeekorps, another detachment under command of 7.Armee. 18.Volks-Grenadier-Division was a new unit, formed in Denmark on 2 September 1944 from a 32nd Wave formation, 571.Volks-Grenadier-Division. It had six battalions of infantry in Grenadier-Regiment 293, 294 and 295, four battalions of artillery in Artillerie-Regiment 1818, and divisional support troops. 26.Volks-Grenadier- Division formed in Posen on 17 September 1944, also from a 32nd Wave formation, 582.Volks-Grenadier-Division, along with a cadre from the former 26.Infanterie-Division, recently destroyed in Russia. It had three regiments of two battalions each in Fusilier-Regiment 39, Grenadier-Regiment 77 and Grenadier-Regiment 78, Artillerie-Regiment 26 (four battalions), an additional Fusilier company, and Panzer-Jaeger-Abteilung 26, which included Sturmgeschutz-Abteilung 1026. In addition to the raw recruits that each of them absorbed from the 32nd Wave formations from which they sprang, both 18.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 26.Volks-Grenadier-Division seem to have had substantial numbers of naval and Luftwaffe personnel in their ranks. Indeed, 18.Volks-Grenadier-Division had been created to replace 18.Luftwaffen-Feld-Division, a unit destroyed in the Mons pocket. The remnants of 18.Luftwaffen-Feld-Division had been folded into 18.Volks-Grenadier-Division.[203]

The last formation under the umbrella of 7.Armee was LVIII.Panzerkorps, comprising two armored units (2.Panzer-Division and 116.Panzer-Division) and three infantry divisions (352.Volks-Grenadier-Division, 276.Volks-Grenadier-Division and 326.Volks-Grenadier-Division). 276.Volks-Grenadier-Division had come into being on 4 September 1944 from the remnants of 276.Infanterie-Division, a unit destroyed in the Normandy fighting in August. It had six battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 986, 987 and 988) and four of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 276). 326.Volks-Grenadier- Division, like several other formations in 7.Armee, had been created on 4 September 1944 from a 32nd Wave unit, 579.Volks-Grenadier-Division. It was an unusual formation, with three battalions of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 326) and nine of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 751, 752 and 753). It was equipped, however, almost entirely from captured French, Russian and Polish weapons of an incredible variety of calibres. Yet another of these units was 352.Volks-Grenadier-Division, which came into being on 21 September 1944 from 581.Volks-Grenadier-Division of the 32nd Wave. It too was unusual, having six battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 914, 915 and 916), four battalions of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 1352), a Fusilier company, Pionier-Abteilung 352 and a motorized anti-tank battalion.[204]

2. Panzer-Division was in quite a weakened condition as it prepared for the Ardennes offensive. On 1 November 1944 it rated a kampfwert III; out of an authorized strength of 14,716 men, it had 9,884. It was authorized to have 78 MkIV tanks and had 10; of its authorized strength of 73 Panthers it had 9. Only its Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 38 had its full complement of troops. Panzer-Regiment 3, Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 2 and Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 304 were at 67%, 60% and 42% of authorized personnel strength respectively. By 14 December the position of Panzer-Regiment 3 had improved; its first battalion had 64 Panthers in its inventory, but its second battalion had only 28 MkIVs, with the remaining balance of the regiment's authorized tank strength less than compensated for by 24 Stug IIIs.[205]

The condition of 116.Panzer-Division was not much better than that of 2.Panzer-Division. It rated a kampfwert II on 8 November 1944. It was understrength by 2500 men; it possessed 12 MkIVs (authorized 78) and a single Panther (authorized 73), although the division had attached to it an additional Panzer battalion with 43 Panthers in its inventory. Conditions were not greatly improved for the division's Panzer-Regiment 16 by 16 December, when the great offensive began. On that date, the regiment had a total of 41 Panthers (with 23 en route) and 21 MkIVs (with 5 en route, along with 14 Stug IIIs). An additional 30 armored fighting vehicles were to be found in the division's Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 228. Manpower strengths ranged from 93% of authorized in Panzer-Regiment 16 to 72% in Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 156.[206]

During the course of the Battle of the Bulge, twelve more German formations joined their order of battle. These are reflected in the Kriegsgliederung for 31 December 1944. In the 15.Armee, the ranks of LXXIV.Armeekorps were expanded by the addition of 85.Infanterie-Division. This unit was a 25th Wave formation created in early February 1944. As originally constituted, it had three battalions of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 185) and six of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 1053, 1054 and 1064). By December 1944, however, it was a shell, having been in combat since the invasion almost continuously, and virtually destroyed in the battle around Aachen. The second unit added to 15.Armee was 3.Falschirm-Jaeger-Division, which joined LXVII.Armeekorps. It also was present only in kampfgruppe form, having been heavily engaged in Normandy, partially destroyed in the Falaise pocket, and withdrawn for rebuilding in September. At that time, its ranks were filled out from seven different Landwehr fortress battalions, as well as with men from Luftwaffe formations. The last formation to join 15.Armee was 363.Volks-Grenadier-Division, in LXXXI.Armeekorps. This was another 32nd Wave unit, formed September 17, 1944 from 566.Volks-Grenadier-Division. It included six battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 957, 958 and 959), four of artillery (Artillerie- Regiment 363.) and Fusilier-Kompanie 363.[207]

Two infantry units joined 6.Panzerarmee. 62.Volks-Grenadier-Division, which increased the ranks of LXVI.Armeekorps, had been created on 22 September 1944 to replace the former 62.Infanterie-Division, which had been destroyed in Bessarabia and disbanded. It had ten battalions of troops; four in Artillerie-Regiment 162, and six in the division's infantry regiments (Grenadier-Regiment 164, 183 and 190). 560.Volks-Grenadier-Division was added to II.SS Panzerkorps. It was created in August 1944 from miscellaneous army and Luftwaffe units in Norway and Denmark. In addition to a pioneer battalion and a motorized anti-tank battalion, the division had three regiments of infantry with six battalions total (Grenadier-Regiment 1128, 1129 and 1130) and four battalions of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 1560).[208]

Two armored units joined 5.Panzerarmee's XXXXVII.Panzerkorps. Panzer-Lehr- Division had only the second battalion of its Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130 available, with 40 Panthers and 37 MkIVs. This regiment was at full strength (indeed, it had an excess of armored vehicles); the division's two infantry regiments, however. (Panzer-Grenadier-Lehr-Regiment 901 and 902) were only at about 80% of authorized personnel strength. The Fuhrer-Begleit-Brigade entered the battle at full strength in manpower, and with 67 MkIVs in its second battalion, Panzer-Regiment-Grossdeutschland. While both of these formations had formidable numbers of armored vehicles, they suffered from the same manpower issues that beset the rest of the German army at this stage of the war.[209]

Two additional armored units joined 7.Armee. Under the army's direct command was 11.Panzer-Division, one of the stronger formations in the battle. It rated a kampfwert II on 1 November 1944, and was nearly at full strength. On the very eve of the battle it had in its inventory 31 MkIVs (30 en route) and 47 Panthers (37 en route). Although still technically understrength (it was 36 vehicles short of its authorized strength) it was in much better condition than many of its cohorts. Another strong formation, joining LIIIl.Armeekorps, was Fuhrer-Grenadier-Brigade. It was somewhat in excess of its manpower authorization, and had 67 armored vehicles (11 Stug III, 19 MkIVs and 37 Panthers).[210]

Three infantry divisions also joined 7.Armee. 5.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division and 9.Volks-Grenadier-Division joined LIII.Armeekorps. The condition of 5.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division was unenviable. It had been severely mauled in the Normandy battles, where it was reduced to mere remnants. In October it was reformed in Holland from Flieger-Regiment 22, 51 and 53. 9.Volks-Grenadier-Division was created on October 13, 1944 in Denmark from the so-called Schatten-Division-Dennewitz, a 32nd Wave unit. The last unit to join the order of battle was 79.Volks-Grenadier-Division, which had come into being on 27 October 1944 from the Katzbach (586.) Volks-Grenadier-Division. It was typical of the type of division formed by the Germans at this stage of the war----six battalions of infantry (Grenadier-Regiment 208, 212 and 226) and four of artillery (Artillerie-Regiment 179.). It is reputed to have been at about half-strength for the battle, with little in the way of artillery, but nevertheless seems to have given a good account of itself.[211]

One of the more renowned units to take part in the Ardennes offensive was 12.SS Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend". This formation, which had experienced its baptism of fire in Normandy, and then been virtually annihilated in the Falaise pocket, had been reformed. As of November 1, 1944 it rated a kampfwert IV, with a total manpower of almost 3,000 in excess of its prescribed maximum of 18,548. In respect of armored fighting vehicles, however, it was well below establishment, having 31 MkIVs out of the standard 103, and only 23 Panthers, well below the 79 that it was supposed to have. On the eve of the offensive, December 8, 1944, its condition had improved only slightly; it had gained 10 MkIVs and 14 Panthers. It was also able to field 22 Panzerjaeger IVs.[212]

At this juncture, it is useful to consider the system by which the Wehrmacht filled the ranks of its field armies. Over the course of the war, Wehrmacht infantry formations, or rather the individual soldiers that made them up, were called up in thirty-five "waves" (Welle). In general, it can be said that the higher the wave number, the more reduced in size was the division, and the lower the quality of the equipment, troops and weapons. There were four basic incarnations of the German infantry division. Waves 1 through 20 were "M1939" divisions; these were built along the model of the 1918 German infantry division, with three infantry regiments totaling nine battalions, and an artillery regiment, with support troops. The main differences between the 1918 version of the German infantry division and its 1939 counterpart were brought about by technological advances. Over time, the number of men in a division steadily dwindled from nearly 18,000 to about 11,000. Beginning in the autumn of 1943, German infantry divisions began to be formed as "Type 44" or "neuer Art" divisions. Waves 21 through 28 were formed along this pattern, which was constructed around three infantry regiments totaling six battalions and an artillery regiment of four battalions. The nominal strength of a Type 44 division was 12,772 men. After the failed attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944, a third iteration of the German infantry division came into being, in the form of the Volks-Grenadier-Division. These formations (waves 29-32) had a nominal strength of 10,072 men in three regiments of two battalions each, and an artillery regiment of four battalions. An effort was made to compensate for the shortfall in manpower by a greater use of automatic weapons and personal anti-tank weapons, namely the panzerschreck and the panzerfaust. The artillery battalions, however, were of greatly reduced strength, with three of the twelve batteries consisting of outmoded 75mm light field guns in place of three batteries equipped with 105mm howitzers. In December 1944 the "Type 45" division was instituted. Waves 33-35 were to be organized as Type 45 divisions, which were very like the makeup of the Volks-Grenadier-Divisionen. Very few such formations took the field before the end of hostilities.

The steady erosion in the size and strength of the German infantry division, first as a result of necessity, and then as a matter of official policy, had its roots in the Nazi regime's ill-conceived war against the Soviet Union. Great as were the Wehrmacht early successes against the Red Army, the true result of the war in the East was the evisceration of the German army, both in manpower and equipment. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the Heer never recovered from the strain placed upon it in 1941-42; the next three years of war against the Stalinist regime merely caused the German army's condition to go from bad to worse. The result of this could be seen in the German infantry divisions that squared up to face the Allies in the Ardennes offensive. Twenty-three German infantry divisions took part in the Ardennes offensive. Thirteen (56%) of these formations (9., 18., 26., 47., 79., 212., 246., 272., 277., 326., 340., 352. and 363.Volks-Grenadier-Divisionen) were from the 32nd wave. 560.Volks-Grenadier-Division was from the 30th wave, and 183.Volks-Grenadier-Division was from the 31st wave. 59.Infanterie-Division was a 27th wave static division. The remaining formations (85., 89., and 176.Infanterie-Divisionen and 12., 62., 276., and 353.Volks-Grenadier-Divisionen) had been without exception created from the remnants of divisions that had been destroyed recently in either the West or the East, their ranks filled or supplemented with Luftwaffe, foreign and Landwehr personnel, ill-trained and armed with motley collections of assorted obsolescent and exotic weapons. Some idea of the level of training of these units may be gained from considering that the 30th and 31st waves had been called up in August 1944, while units in the 32nd wave were called up the following month. The thirteen divisions in the 32nd wave, therefore, went into battle with at most four months training; the two formations from the 30th and 31st waves had the luxury of an additional month's instruction. Of the rest, 85.and 89.Infanterie-Divisionen had been reformed in October 1944 after being mauled in Aachen and Falaise, respectively; 176.Infanterie-Division had been constituted in November 1944; 62. and 276.Volks-Grenadier-Divisionen were created in September 1944, and 12.Volks-Grenadier-Division the following month; and 353.Volks-Grenadier-Division in November 1944. The last-named formation is worth describing in detail, as an extreme (although not particularly unusual) example of depths to which the Heer had fallen in its final six months of existence. 353.Infanterie-Division, from which 353.Volks-Grenadier-Division sprang, had been destroyed at Falaise. The core of the new division came from local defense units and remnants of formations escaping from France. The "cadre" of Grenadier-Regiment 941 consisted of old men from Sicherungs-Regiment 1, a security unit that had garrisoned Paris for two years prior to the Allied invasion. This regiment had virtually no heavy weapons, and the average age of its personnel was between 40 and 48; this brought the average age of Grenadier-Regiment 941 to around 38. Grenadier-Regiment 942 was based on the former Feld-Ersatz-Bataillon 353, which consisted of alarm and replacement units from Trier, and was armed with a mixture of Dutch, French, Belgian and Czech rifles.[213]

It is against this background that we must evaluate Michael Doubler's comments on the Battle of the Bulge. Doubler is silent as to the quality of the German formations that opposed the Americans in the Bulge; he says literally nothing on the subject. His analysis of the battle is also bereft of any mention that the Americans enjoyed the benefit of being on the defensive, a topic to which he, Keith Bonn and Peter Mansoor warm easily when explaining the apparently otherwise inexplicable ability of the German army to defend such places as the Normandy beachhead and the Huertgen Forest. On the other hand, he is frank to admit that the Americans enjoyed two supremely important advantages over their German foes, namely artillery and air supremacy. Of the former, he states:

The artillery's ability to concentrate and shift vast quantities of firepower was extraordinary: by 21 December artillery commanders had assembled twenty-three battalions behind the Elsenborn Ridge. The four infantry divisions defending the northern shoulder of the Bulge received continuous support from the 348 guns massed around Eisenborn. This unanticipated gathering of howitzers and cannons was probably the greatest concentration of artillery firepower in the ETO, if not in all of U.S. military history.[214]

Of the profound effect of American air power on the Germans, Doubler has the following comments:

Air operations around Bastogne were only a small part of the total air effort during the Battle of the Bulge. When the weather cleared on 23 December, fighter-bombers flew 696 sorties to establish air superiority[215], to interdict German L[ines]O[f]C[ommunication]s, and to assist ground units…On Christmas Eve, Ninth Air Force P-47s flew 1,100 sorties. By 26 December American air power was taking a toll on the enemy, as aircraft cratered and cut highways and railroads, destroyed bridges, rubbled villages that choked German supply lines, and demolished vast quantities of enemy vehicles and rolling stock…During 23-31 December Ninth Air Force fighter-bombers and medium bombers flew 10,305 sorties and dropped 6,969 tons of bombs while losing 158 aircraft. The Ninth claimed the destruction of 2,323 enemy trucks, 207 armored vehicles, 173 gun positions, 620 railroad cars, 45 locomotives, 333 buildings, and 7 bridges.[216]

Doubler's work is thus significant for both what it says and does not say about the great winter battle of 1944-45. Having mentioned the powerful artillery and air power advantage that the United States' forces possessed in the battle, he neglects to mention that the Germans lacked adequate resources with regard to either of these key combat elements. Instead, he returns to his theme of American superiority---not in terms of materiel, but in terms of doctrine, ingenuity and adaptability, to say nothing of plain old fighting resolve. On the subject of improvisation and adaptability, for example, Doubler has the following comments:

Infantrymen discovered several ways to ensure their combat effectiveness. Olive drab uniforms stood out in the snow, so riflemen rummaged through Belgian homes and tore up white sheets to use as improvised snowsuits…The lack of overshoes prompted troops to wrap their feet in burlap bags to prevent trench foot and frostbite…Despite their heavy weight, armored vehicles slid and spun on icy roads, so tankers and mechanics improvised two methods to give their steel monsters better traction. Maintenance sections welded a short piece of angle iron to every fifth or sixth track block that acted like a cleat, gripping snow and chopping through ice. Other crewmen removed several rubber pads from their tracks, so the track's steel frame clawed into the ground…Tankers mixed their own homemade whitewash to camouflage their vehicles. A lack of antifreeze was a problem throughout the winter, so mechanics learned to add alcohol or kerosene to cooling systems to keep engines from freezing.[217]

Without doubt, the ability of the American soldier to improvise, stay alive and fight under such harsh conditions in the manner described by Doubler is a powerful tribute to the native ingenuity and toughness of the GI. However, reading Doubler's description of these incidents, and others like them, gives anyone with a fair knowledge of the Wehrmacht a sense of déjà vu. In the terrible winter of 1941-1942 in Russia, the landsers also used bed sheets as makeshift snowsmocks to provide them with camouflage in the deep snow.[218] In that first winter in Russia, German soldiers also lacked overshoes, and suffered from an additional disadvantage never experienced by the GI—the hobnailed jackboot, footwear without peer in conducting the cold. German soldiers sought oversized boots and packed them with newsprint to act as insulation; when this was not possible, they too resorted to wrapping their boots in whatever material might come to hand.[219] The Germans addressed the problems which confronted heavy armored vehicles in deep snow and ice by copying the solution developed by the Russians, namely the wide tank tread used on the Panther and Tiger tanks and their variants. For use with older-model vehicles still in production---the MkIV tank and the Sturmgeschutze, both of which were issued with a tread much narrower than that found on the Panther or Tiger---the Germans created the so-called Ostkette, a tank tread with a flexible extension on each link, designed to emulate the performance of wider tank treads. The first winter in Russia also saw German troops using makeshift camouflage, in the form of whitewash made from whatever was available, to cover tanks and other vehicles and thereby reduce their vulnerability. The Germans too struggled with shortages of antifreeze in 1941-1942, although in their case the substance was virtually nonexistent rather than merely in short supply. In Russia, however, the cold was so severe that it froze engine oil—and thus the engines themselves—absolutely solid. German tankers adapted to this circumstance by either leaving tank engines running constantly, or building small fires under the engine crankcase to thaw the oil and the engine.

The present work has already discussed the concluding chapter of Doubler's book, entitled The Schoolhouse of War. That chapter is a paean to the American way of making war, standing for the proposition that the decisive defeat of the Heer by the U.S. Army in western Europe during 1944-1945 may be attributed to a number of factors, not including materiel superiority. It is also an example of nonsense substituted for analysis, as well as a classic example of the application of the double standard.

In his last chapter, for example, Doubler speaks to the failure of the U.S. army to exploit its advantage in mobility, referring particularly to the battles in Normandy and the Huertgen Forest, in which the army was unable to deploy its vast armada of armored vehicles to good advantage. On this point he remarks that "[R]oad networks are needed to support the logistical infrastructure required by mechanized forces" and that "[B]ad weather restricts cross-country maneuver, keeps vehicles roadbound, and adds to soldiers' miseries." These conclusory statements would seem to be self-evident; for Doubler, however, they assist in explaining the failure of the western Allies to decisively thrash the German army before the end of 1944. Yet, the German army had somehow managed to successfully use the selfsame roadnet in its defeat of the French in 1940. And if adequate road networks are essential to support mechanized forces, how do we explain the German army's victories in Russia in 1941 and 1942 (and those of the Red Army in 1943 and 1944) over road networks that were not only inadequate, but quite nonexistent in any meaningful sense?[220]

Doubler's final chapter also includes some quite astounding assertions. He states, for example:

Historians and military analysts have put too much emphasis on the army's mobility, believing that the use of tracked and wheeled vehicles gave the army a degree of mobility that was inappropriate for the heavy fighting in Europe. Trucks did give the army operational mobility, but motorized movement had no influence on the battlefield…In reality, the army's means of logistical and operational mobility had no direct influence on combat.[221]

One can be forgiven for goggling in disbelief at such statements. Can Doubler really mean that "motorized movement had no influence on the battlefield" or that "logistical and operational mobility had no direct influence on combat"? If he is serious, and correct, then modern armies would be well advised to embrace the model imposed on the German army by the inability of German industry to produce sufficient wheeled and tracked transport vehicles, and rely upon literal horsepower for "logistical and operational mobility". Even if Doubler is correct in asserting that the mobility of the U.S. army, with its innumerable trucks, "had no direct influence on combat", it is nevertheless clear that the indirect influence of the army's incomparable mobility on combat operations was staggering. It is no exaggeration to say that the ability of the U.S. army in World War II to supply its logistical needs and move its troops where they were most needed was without precedent in military history. That such a capacity was vital to the ability of that army to successfully prosecute its war cannot be gainsaid by any reasonable student of that conflict, whether the effect of that capacity was indirect or not. For an example of what it meant for a modern army to be unable to avail itself of the benefits of such mobility one need look no further than the German army. In the final analysis, such assertions, and many others like them in Closing with the Enemy, cannot be taken seriously.

Chapter Eleven

Peter R. Mansoor, The GI Offensive In Europe

A fashionable argument in the past two decades has been that the Allies won World War II only through the sheer weight of materiel they threw at the Wehrmacht in a relatively unskilled manner. This argument is actually a restatement of the theory put forward by German officers to explain their defeat, as evidenced by wartime interrogations and postwar manuscripts prepared by the defeated.[222]

So begins Peter Mansoor's The GI Offensive in Europe. The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945. The sympathies expressed in this passage infuse Mansoor's work; indeed, it is not too much to say that the evisceration of the "fashionable argument" is the raison d'etre of The GI Offensive in Europe . The present study has already dealt at some length with Mansoor's "analysis" of the purveyors of the "fashionable argument" and their respective works. His "Introduction" lays waste, in a bare two and a half pages, the reputations of S. L. A. Marshall, Trevor N. Dupuy, Russell Weigley, Martin van Creveld, John Keegan, Max Hastings and John Ellis, whom he collectively characterizes as "revisionist historians" [223]

The "Introduction" to Mansoor's work is so informative of the author's thesis that it is worth considering it in some detail. Commenting favorably upon John Sloan Brown's "critique" of Trevor Dupuy and his work, Mansoor highlights Brown's contention that Dupuy's selection of engagements to study "is skewed toward those battles in which the more elite German panzer and panzer grenadier divisions, which constituted only a small percentage of the Wehrmacht, participated. Dupuy thus compared the American army against the cream of the Wehrmacht." Brown's opinion in this regard, which Mansoor obviously shares, raises two interesting questions. First, Brown and Mansoor both take the view that the American GI was qualitatively superior to the German landser; this being the case, it should matter not one whit which German unit (elite or otherwise) is compared to which American unit. Conversely, if Mansoor and Brown believe that the U.S. army is unfairly prejudiced by Dupuy's comparison of it with "elite" German units, then how is it that neither of them takes into account the decrepit condition of the "run of the mill" German formations most often encountered by the Allies in Western Europe in 1944-1945? Similarly, in his brief commentary on Keith Bonn's When the Odds Were Even, Mansoor emphasizes the author's contention that the U.S. Seventh Army prevailed in the Vosges Mountains in the absence of its customary advantages in logistics and close air support "and in terrain and weather conditions that clearly favored a defensive stand by the numerically superior German forces." (emphasis added). Yet, an essential element of the thesis advanced by Mansoor, Bonn, et al is that numerical advantages (whether in terms of ammunition, guns, trucks, tanks or aircraft) were irrelevant to the success of the U.S. army in Western Europe.[224]

In moving on to outline his own thesis, Mansoor suggests that two factors, namely the so-called "ninety-division gamble" and the simultaneous commitment of American resources to active prosecution of the war in both Europe and the Pacific, produced a situation in which "systematic unit rotation was impossible in the ETO. American soldiers paid the price for the ninety-division gamble from Italy to Normandy, across France, along the West Wall, through the Ardennes, and into Germany." Although Mansoor does not ask it, this statement implicitly raises the issue of whether such a policy constituted a shortcoming in "the American way of war" comparable to the oft-maligned German decision to fight a two-front war by attacking the Soviet Union before it had secured victory against Britain. Mansoor then asserts that the pernicious effects of the "ninety-division gamble" were compounded by an American personnel policy that sent the highest quality draftees to the Army Air Force and the Army Service Forces. "The result of this system", says Mansoor "was the siphoning off of the most qualified inductees into almost any type of organization other than infantry, armor, and field artillery." If such a policy was detrimental to the quality of combat units in the U.S. army, as it surely must have been, what must we conclude about the quality of German combat units encountered by American forces in 1944-1945? Were those German formations composed of "the most qualified inductees", made up as they were with under-aged boys, over-aged men, unwilling and uncomprehending volksdeutsche , and unreliable, unmotivated foreigners?[225]

Mansoor goes on to lament the "lack of personnel stability" that evidently pervaded many divisions in the U.S. army. This resulted from the War Department policy of stripping out trainees to use them as replacements for units in the field. "Lack of personnel stability," Mansoor argues, "complicated the training of these divisions before their entry into combat, often forcing them to repeat basic training for new inductees at the expense of more advanced collective training for battalion and regimental combat teams." As this study has already shown, however, in 1944 there was no such thing as "personnel stability" in the Wehrmacht; German inductees were fortunate indeed if they received as much as four to six weeks basic training, and advanced tactical, combined-arms training at the battalion and regimental levels was virtually nonexistent. While complaining of the absence of "personnel stability" in the U.S. army, Mansoor nevertheless concedes that "[F]acilities and training improved as mobilization progressed" and that "[H]uge maneuver areas located across the United States allowed the army to conduct sustained large-scale, multidivision maneuvers for the first time in its history." It goes without saying that all such training occurred in a secure environment, in which there was not the remotest possibility of interference from enemy aircraft. It would be interesting to know whether Mansoor could identify a single instance, subsequent to the first half of 1942, in which the German army was able to engage in "sustained large-scale, multidivision maneuvers."[226]

The most persistent theme in Mansoor's "Introduction", and throughout the balance of his work as well, is that the U.S. army rose to the pinnacle of professional competence by 1945 in spite of having been burdened during the period 1941-1943 by innumerable obstacles. In addition to the "lack of personnel stability" previously discussed, Mansoor points out that the rapid expansion of the army after Pearl Harbor resulted in a shortage of competent leadership, especially at the level of junior officers and noncommissioned officers. There was also, according to Mansoor, a shortage of equipment until 1943, so that troops trained with weapons different from those with which they would actually fight. These factors combined to reduce the effectiveness of the army's training regimen; the problems caused by inadequate training were compounded by two additional factors, namely the army's lack of combat experience and its policy of scavenging training units in order to provide formations in the field with replacements.

It was with the poorly trained troops fostered by the system Mansoor describes that the U.S. army assaulted Festung Europa in the summer of 1944. Mansoor characterizes the Normandy campaign as one of "fierce battles of attrition" in which the inexperienced Allies, possessed of "a healthy superiority of artillery and airpower", contested with a German force which, though understrength, enjoyed the benefits of experienced leadership and "many technologically superior weapons." He concludes that the Allies ultimately defeated their foe in Normandy by wearing it down and bursting through its weakened line. Mansoor laments the fact, however, that the bloody battle of attrition in Normandy has led to "revisionist thinking" about the comparative abilities of the German and American armies in 1944. Mansoor calls such comparisons "misleading", and it is in his discussion of this point that his argument begins to stretch credulity to the breaking point.

Mansoor begins by stating that during the period 1933-1939 (a "luxurious time interval") the German army had every opportunity to, and did, expand itself from the one-hundred thousand-man Reichswehr to the juggernaut that conquered Poland and Western Europe in 1939-1940. Mansoor follows this observation with the following remarks:

The Wehrmacht seasoned its divisions in campaigns in Poland, Norway, France, the Balkans, Africa, and Russia prior to D-Day. The Germans suffered many casualties, but by June 1944 the Wehrmacht had combat veterans in command of the vast majority of its units. The Germans had an established, combat-tested tactical doctrine. Most German units had solid non-commissioned officer leaders and well-trained soldiers, kept in line through ideological indoctrination and rigid (and often brutal) discipline. German equipment was among the most technologically advanced in the world, especially their tanks and machine guns.[227]

The present author admits to having reacted to this passage with astonishment and, frankly, incomprehension. It did not seem credible that one who had earned a doctorate in history could be capable of such utterances. Recourse to a decent dictionary did not alleviate the situation. Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (Portland House, 1989) includes among its definitions of the verb transitive form of the word season the following: "to accustom or harden: troops seasoned by battle." This, presumably, was the definition of the term season that Mansoor had in mind when he wrote the passage referred to above. Leaving aside any consideration of the other theatres mentioned by Mansoor, to characterize what happened to the German army in Russia during the three years immediately preceding the invasion of Western Europe as seasoning positively beggars the imagination. Perhaps some details will help put the matter in perspective.

During the whole of the United States' involvement in World War II (roughly three and a half years) a total of 16,353,659 military personnel were drafted or volunteered for service. The number of men killed in action totaled 292,131 (Army/Army Air Force 234,874; Navy 36,950; Marines 19,733; Coast Guard 574); 671,278 men (Army/Army Air Force 565,861; Navy 37,778; Marines 67,207; Coast Guard 432) were wounded in action. American forces thus suffered 963,409 total casualties against the Axis.[228] During the six-month period July through December 1941, the German Ostheer suffered 767,938 casualties, including 167,354 men killed in action, and 600,584 men wounded.[229] In this six-month period, then, the German Ostheer alone suffered 0.797% of the total casualties incurred by all United States armed forces in over three and a half years of war. Breaking the numbers down still further, German dead for the period in question amounted to 0.573% of the total American dead for the entire war; the number of German wounded represented 0.895% of the total number of American wounded in all of World War II .

Numbers such as these, it would seem, speak for themselves. Is an armed force that suffers 167,354 irretrievable losses in a six-month period "accustomed", in any conceivable definition of that term, by such casualties? How many of the 600,584 landsers wounded between July and December 1941 were"hardened" by that experience so as to make them more formidable soldiers? Do we count among such "hardened" soldiers those who were, though not dead, so maimed as to be unfit for further military service? These figures, be it recalled, do not include the hundreds of thousands of German dead and wounded suffered by the Ostheer alone over the next two and a half years preceding the Normandy invasion. Was the German army "accustomed" and "hardened" in proportion to the amount of such further casualties, according to the tenets of some remarkable calculus? If so, then surely Mansoor and his acolytes are correct in their generous estimation of the fighting qualities of the U.S. army, for the extent of the casualties suffered by the German army between June, 1941 and June, 1944 must certainly have rendered it so "accustomed" and "hardened " as to be almost invincible---to any foe, that is, save the American GI. The German army did indeed, as Mansoor puts it, suffer "many casualties".

Mansoor puts the case that the German army encountered in Western Europe in 1944-1945 "had combat veterans in command of the vast majority of its units". Such a statement needs must be at least plausible, given the fact that, taking into account the time period of which Mansoor is speaking, the German army had been engaged in combat operations consistently for the better part of the previous five years. The important question, of course, has to do with the background, experience and training of the "combat veterans" to whom Mansoor refers. This question, in turn, raises the entire issue of the effect that the four and a half years of war that preceded 6 June 1944 had upon the German army. Looking again at only the first six months of the campaign in Russia, the Ostheer sustained a total of 11,335 officers killed in action, including 3,888 regular officers and 7447 reserve officers.[231] Between October 1942 and September 1943, the German army as a whole (excluding the Waffen SS ) suffered a total of 33,157 officers killed (5,971), wounded (16,615) and missing (10,571).[232] On October 18, 1944 German radio announced to the nation that 50,000 German officers, including 138 General officers, had been killed since the outset of the war.[233] Over the course of the war, in an effort to address such losses, the German army promoted 238,283 men to officer rank.[234]

While these numbers relating to losses of German army officers are indicative of the crisis that confronted the Allies' principal enemy in Western Europe, they do not really begin to describe that crisis in any meaningful way. During the nine-month period 22 June 1941 to 31 March 1942, the Ostheer absorbed 567,461 casualties from sickness and frostbite, and 1,082,690 casualties from fighting, for a total of 1,650,151 casualties. Over the same period, the army in the East received a total of 814,600 replacements and recuperated soldiers. For this period, then, the Ostheer suffered 835,551 losses that were not replaced. The personnel situation of the Ostheer improved somewhat over the next two months; in April 1942 it took 108,450 casualties (including 60,291 killed), and received 121,400 replacements, while in the following month it absorbed 134,230 casualties (including 74,700 killed) as against 158,900 replacements received.[236] The effects of such losses on the army were, as one might expect, deleterious and not long in coming. Whereas in June 1941, 134 out of 209 divisions (64%) were classified as fit for any offensive action, at the end of March 1942 only 8 out of 162 divisions (5%) were ranked in this category.[237] The situation for the army only worsened with the coming of the Kursk offensive and its aftermath. In July 1943 it suffered 215,100 casualties, as against 92,100 replacements; in August 1943, 262,300 losses against 79,000 replacements; in September 1943, 231,700 losses against 127,000 replacements; in October 1943, 198,400 losses against 121,000 replacements; and in November 1943, 87,800 losses against 100,400 replacements.[238] Overall, the strength of the Ostheer decreased from 3,300,000 men in June 1941 to 2,200,000 men in July 1944.[239]

Mansoor's claims that the German army faced by the Western Allies in Normandy had combat veterans (including "solid non-commissioned officers") in command of the majority of its units beg the question, as those assertions fail to take into account the decimation of the force that had brought about such a "seasoned" officer corps. His argument that the German army facing the Allies in the West was armed with "technologically advanced" weaponry is also deceptive. In 1944 Germany produced 19,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. In that year the United States alone produced 17,565 such vehicles; the figures for that year for Britain and the USSR were 4,600 and 28,963 respectively. Over the entire course of the war Germany produced a total of 674,280 machine-guns, as against 4,744,484 such weapons turned out by the Allies.[240] Mansoor (like Bonn, Doubler and Brown) may contend that the defeat of the German army in the West was due more to the skill, tenacity and bravery of the common American soldier than it was to the ability of the Allies to utterly swamp their foe with men and materiel; such an argument, however, fails utterly to comprehend the reality of the Second World War in Europe.

Finally, Mansoor's "seasoning" argument asserts that the German army in the West overcome by the Allies in 1944-1945 enjoyed "an established, combat-tested tactical doctrine" and "well-trained soldiers", both of which characteristics were insufficient to prevent its defeat. If the present study has shown anything, it is that the German army confronted by the Western Allies between June 1944 and May 1945 was comprised of troops who could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as "well trained". Indeed, the very antithesis is true: from Normandy, to the Vosges Mountains, to the Ardennes, the German army was composed of an ill-trained rabble, particularly when compared with the highly-trained, cohesive force that was the United States Army. As to the "established, combat-tested tactical doctrine" available to the German army in its struggle with the Western Allies, is not the entire point of Mansoor's work (and those of Bonn, Brown and Doubler) that the tactical doctrine employed by the German army was inferior to that of the United States Army, and further that whatever the tactical doctrine of the German army may have been, that force was inept in its application of the doctrine in any case?

As silly as the above-described arguments of Mansoor are, his subsequent remarks are equally incomprehensible. His Introduction, for example, concludes with the following statements:

The Army of the United States lacked most of these advantages [namely, those ascribed to the German army in his "seasoning" argument] when compared with the Wehrmacht. American rearmament began in June 1940 after the fall of France, and within two and a half years the first American divisions engaged in combat in North Africa against an experienced enemy. One wonders how the German army would have fared if forced into combat against the French in the Rhineland in 1936 under similar circumstances. Indeed, historian Williamson Murray concludes that "in nearly every respect, the Wehrmacht was not ready" to fight a major war even as late as 1938, five years after the beginning of rearmament…A more balanced comparison of German and American forces would compare each organization at its zenith, say, the German army in June 1941 and the American army in April 1945. I submit that one would be hard-pressed to choose between the two forces on the basis of technical or tactical proficiency at the division level…The Army of the United States reached its zenith of combat effectiveness without the extensive ideological indoctrination and fear-based discipline that infused many German units with their will to fight.[241]

If the German army can be said to have been "advantaged" vis-à-vis the United States Army in 1944 (or even in 1943, for that matter, after the catastrophic losses suffered at Stalingrad and Alamein), having suffered literally millions of casualties, including tens of thousands of officers killed in action, dependent upon an industrial base wholly incapable of matching the output of its adversaries, incapable of adequately training its soldiers, and exposed to the untrammeled operations of the enemy's overwhelming airpower, then surely, as Mansoor suggests, the United States Army was unfairly disadvantaged in its struggle with the Wehrmacht.

The quotation from Mansoor cited above gives real insight into the dilemma facing him and others like him in their effort to "rehabilitate" the image of the United States Army in World War II.[242] That dilemma consists of explaining how the United States armed forces, and particularly the United States Army, blessed as Mansoor and others freely admit with the ability to train under absolutely optimum conditions for a minimum of two and half years before engaging its enemy, supplied with an historically unprecedented bounty in weapons and supplies, possessed of near-absolute control of the airspace above it, and at the time period in issue in essentially unfettered control of its supply lines, was unable to bring down with dispatch a foe having no such advantages, one indeed literally at the end of its tether and fighting for its life. Mansoor's "resolution" of this dilemma, as can be seen in the foregoing passage, is to resort to nonsensical arguments that cannot bear scrutiny.[243]

For example, Mansoor argues that the United States Army, after "only" two and a half years training, engaged an "experienced enemy" in North Africa, wishing the reader to draw the inference that if ever there were a military mismatch, this was it. For the purposes of the present work, it will suffice to state that the German army that the Allies confronted in North Africa after November 1942 was indeed "experienced"---it had experienced all of the effects of war heretofore mentioned in this chapter, as well as two resounding defeats, at Stalingrad and Alamein. The Afrika Korps, or what was left of it, was quite literally "on the run", bereft of adequate supplies, at the mercy of Allied airpower, and overwhelmed by a healthy Allied preponderance in men and war materiel. The Allied invasion of Sicily, hard on the heels of the total eradication of Axis power in North Africa, was another instance in which the Allies were to successfully bring to bear, against a truly miniscule Axis contingent, an accumulation of force exceeded in the Normandy invasion only by the number of follow-on forces employed.

Seen in the foregoing light, Mansoor's rhetorical question concerning the ability of the German army to fight the French in the Rhineland in 1936, or "to fight a major war even as late as 1938, five years after the beginning of rearmament" hardly resonates.

The notion that the German army was not prepared for war when it reoccupied the Rhineland without French resistance in 1936 is not a new one. The Germans themselves, including Hitler, knew at the time that the undertaking was filled with risk. According to the testimony of former German officers given after the war, the status of the German army at the time in question was such that armed resistance by the French would likely have led to an ignominious German rout and the elimination of Hitler and the Nazis as a political force in Germany. These facts were well known long before Williamson Murray, according to Mansoor, vouchsafed to edify us with them.

It is and has been equally well known that the other bloodless conquests of the Nazi era, namely the Austrian anschluss and the incorporation of the Sudetenland (and later the remainder of the Czech republic) into the Reich, both of which occurred in 1938, also were undertaken by a German army that was unprepared for a general war. Mansoor's attempt, however, to compare the German army of the pre-war era with the United States army of 1944 (or even of 1943) is inapposite. For while Mansoor's intent is obviously to cast the German army in a negative light, the fact of the matter is that while the United States army, with all of its advantages, struggled mightily to bring down a severely depleted foe, the early record of the German army was one of nearly unmitigated success against a number of different enemies, all of whom enjoyed the "advantage" (as Mansoor, Bonn, et al are wont to describe the situation) of being on the defensive, and none of whom had suffered the ill effects of years of warfare.

It is also manifest that the comparison promoted by Mansoor involves facts that are not amenable to the usage he attempts to make of them. Put another way, it is pointless to suggest, as does Mansoor, that the German army would not have stood up to the French army in the Rhineland in 1936 (or alternatively, to the French and British combined in 1938), thereby implying that the United States army was "better" than its German counterpart because it went to battle after a shorter period of rearmament. This is so because of the patently obvious fact that not only had the us war economy been growing rapidly during 1940, and would quickly surpass the industrial capacity of Germany once the war actually came, but the German war economy was not ready for war in 1936, 1938, 1939 or even in 1941 and 1942, when the war was literally going full blast, and not ready for war even in 1944, after the Nazi regime had declared "total war".

The entire line of argument that the German army enjoyed a "luxurious" period of rearmament, as compared with shorter period available to the United States army, bears closer examination. To begin with, Mansoor's work takes the view that German rearmament began on January 30, 1933, the date on which Hitler and the Nazis assumed power over the German state. This is not true. In fact, both Hitler and the officers commanding the German army realized that a policy of rapid rearmament would not be feasible, in light of the precarious position of the German state, both domestically and internationally, in 1933.[245] A plan for the expansion of the peacetime army was not enunciated until December 1933. The army was to expand to a force of twenty-one divisions totaling 300,000 men by the end of 1938. The plan promulgated by the army high command, however, dealt only with personnel matters, and even in this regard was inadequate to the task. For example, the chief of the Truppenamt (predecessor to the general staff), General Ludwig beck, was of the opinion that the build-up of the peacetime army could be conducted with an officer corps totaling only three percent of the force. Yet even these 9000 officers were not available during the period 1934-1935, the first phase of rearmament.[246]

If for no other reason than political reality, General Beck and his colleagues realized quite clearly that the pace and even the purpose of German rearmament must be regarded as tentative. This is reflected in the position espoused by the Truppenamt on the question of the aim of the wartime army, which was pronounced to be the conduct of "a defensive war on several fronts with some prospects of success ." (Emphasis added).[247] In this statement can be seen the caution created by the fact that at the time in question, Germany was the master of neither the Rhine valley nor the Ruhr, both of which were recognized to be essential to the defense of Germany. The tentative nature of German rearmament after 1933 was the product of a persistent tension between the ability of the army to satisfy its personnel requirements (which were satisfied first through voluntarism and then via conscription) and its inability to adequately equip the troops so inducted.[248]

German rearmament policy was also affected by a fundamental conflict among the very officers who were to formulate and carry out the means for realizing the policy. General Beck favored a long-term, public policy of rearmament, one that was based on solid fundamental training for both officers and men, training that would take as its standard the exigencies of actual warfare. Beck and his supporters in the Truppenamt lobbied for the reintroduction of general conscription as soon as possible. In contrast to this view, a group of officers centered on Oberst Fromm considered that all twenty-one divisions of the new peacetime army should be deployed, at least in a basic organizational sense, by the autumn of 1934. It was the opinion of this group that the expansion of the army could be managed much more efficiently by thus establishing the essential framework, into which troops and their officers could be funneled as quickly as might be desired.[249]

While there was thus disagreement at the apex of the German officer corps over the speed and manner of personnel expansion, there was an apparent unanimity of ignorance as to the economics of such expansion. On may 9, 1934, Generalmajor Liese, chief of the Heereswaffenamt (army ordnance office) informed the commanders of the Reichswehr that within six months' time the best that the army of twenty-one divisions could expect in terms of essential equipment (including ammunition) would be an initial issue and six weeks worth of replacement stocks. After that period, material replacements would be totally inadequate, with ammunition supplies equaling only a tiny percentage of what would be required. Should the army be expanded still further, for example to the level of sixty-three divisions then being proposed, it would be 1938 before similar provisions of material (i.e., an initial issue and six weeks of replacement stocks) could be made available. The prognostication proffered by Liese did not even address the issue of fuel supplies, and furthermore was based on an assumption that the Reich's production capabilities would be fully utilized and would be unfettered by either financial considerations or the availability of raw materials.[250] Liese's admonitions, however, were ignored, and henceforth there was in fact "no co-ordination among the organizers of material rearmament, the personnel build-up, and the plans to actually use the army…".[251]

On March 16, 1935 Hitler declared the restoration of German military sovereignty. The strength of the army was set at thirty-six divisions, and it was announced that general conscription with a one-year period of service would be introduced on October 1 of that year. The proposition that the army should be established at thirty-six divisions was easier made than implemented. In fact, it was almost immediately decided by the Truppenamt that the October deadline would only permit the organizational formation of twenty-four infantry divisions. Even this reduced number of formations was in jeopardy from the beginning; although in March 1935 there were twenty-one infantry divisions in organizational existence, of the 189 infantry battalions to be encompassed by these divisions, only 109 had actually been formed. It was anticipated that the remaining 80 battalions could not be formed and trained before the spring of 1938. This situation was addressed by the simple expedient of absorbing into the Reichswehr 56,000 men of the landespolizei quartered in barracks in Baden, Bavaria, Hamburg, Prussia, Saxony and Wurttemberg, a step that was formally concluded on August 1, 1935. This raised the strength of the army to a force of 400,000 men in twenty-four infantry, three armored and two cavalry divisions, one cavalry and one mountain brigade.[252]

In June and July 1935, the Reichswehr became redesignated as the Wehrmacht, and the Truppenamt assumed the denomination "general staff". The general staff began to formulate new plans for expansion that assumed the establishment of a wartime army of thirty-five divisions in 1937, forty-two in 1938, forty-nine in 1939, fifty-six in 1940 and sixty-three by 1941. This was in contrast to the planning which had occurred in December 1933, when the wartime army of sixty-three divisions was contemplated for completion by the spring of 1938. The formulation of these new plans, however, was undertaken without consultation with the army ordnance office. Moreover, the plans for expansion immediately confronted a very real problem with regard to the availability of suitable personnel. The head of the army personnel office, General von Schwedler, categorically rejected any notion of further expansion of the army during 1936, on the ground that there could "no longer be any talk of an officer corps in the true sense of the word." Schwedler's view was that the expansion of the army which had heretofore occurred, based as it was upon the use of non-commissioned, inactive reserve, and police officers, had resulted in a decline in the quality of the officer corps of such a magnitude that its effect upon the troops had gone beyond the point of acceptability. On this point Schwedler was undoubtedly correct. In December 1933 General Beck had opined that the officer corps should constitute not less than 7 percent of the army's strength, but had been willing to accept a level of 3 percent during the first phase of expansion. By the autumn of 1935, however, the level of active officers had fallen to 1.7 percent, a figure that could be raised only to 2.4 percent if supplementary reserve officers were included in the equation.[253]

The successful reoccupation of the Rhineland in March 1936 completely altered German plans for rearmament. This event not only provided the Reich with an additional and substantial reserve of manpower, but also gave it a tangible security for its industrial base that it had not possessed since 1919. In consequence of these developments, the general staff began to formulate plans for the expansion of the army that were, measured against the standards set in 1933, little short of fantastic. In June 1936 the general staff submitted a plan for the establishment of both a peace-time and a wartime army. According to this plan, the wartime army, which would be considered to be fully mobilized by 1940-1941, would include a total strength of 3,612,673 men in seventy-two infantry, three armored, three light and twenty-one militia divisions, as well as one cavalry and two mountain brigades. It was now accepted that the proportion of officers to enlisted men in the wartime army would remain at the levels pertaining in 1936, namely 1.7 percent, raised to 2.6 percent with the inclusion of supplementary reserve officers.

The fact that such expansive plans were enunciated, however, did not mean that their realization was a matter of routine. The nature of the task may be may be at least partially understood by considering that in 1914 the strength of the German army, which was the culmination of four decades of growth, stood at eighty-seven divisions and forty-four militia brigades, with a total manpower of 2,147,000, a number now to be exceeded by 1,500,000 men in 1940.[254] With regard to the officer corps, such unprecedented expansion would mean that its authorized strength in 1941 would be 33,950 officers, while the actual effective strength was now calculated to be 20,800, with the assumption that there would be no discharges. The shortfall of 13,150 officers would be rectified only by 1950. The general staff therefore began to think in terms of addressing this problem by four means, namely promoting more NCOs to officer rank, substantially increasing the yearly quota of officer cadets, recalling to active duty more reserve officers, and reactivating more retired officers.[255]

The inevitable degrading of the quality of the officer corps that would result from these measures was only one of the problems engendered by the extraordinary plans for expansion of the army now contemplated. For example, the problem of equipping such a large force, apart from the strains that it would place upon the German economy, would require substantial amounts of foreign exchange and raw materials. Of these considerations the general staff seems, for reasons that are not apparent, to have been blissfully unaware. More fundamentally, the vision of a dramatically expanded army immediately came adrift on the issue of available manpower. The most expedient solution to this difficulty was expressed in Hitler's decision of August 24, 1936, increasing the service period under general conscription from one to two years. The fifty percent increase in the number of infantry divisions, from twenty-four to thirty-six, along with the strains attendant upon the mechanization of a portion of the force, were the ostensible reasons for the Fuhrer's decision. In fact, however, it was the decline in the quality of the army, rather than the necessity for greater numbers of men to fill the ranks, that motivated the change in the service period. Much like the United States army during its period of great expansion after Pearl Harbor, the German army simply could not grow so rapidly without a precipitous decline in quality.[256]

In fact, the difficulties alluded to above, and particularly the lack of adequate supplies of raw materials, slowed the pace of rearmament in 1937. It was not until 1938, with the Austrian anschluss and the occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the resulting expansion of both the manpower pool and the Reich's industrial base, that German rearmament achieved a more solid footing. The substantive benefits to the German army derived from these foreign policy successes, viz., the integration of the Austrian army and co-option of Czech industry into the German war economy, were nevertheless illusory. Continuing shortages of essential raw materials meant that supplies of steel and iron had to be allocated among the various services. The army persistently suffered from such allocations. For example, on April 15, 1939, as a result of the diversion of raw materials to the Luftwaffe and for the construction of the Westwall, "the field army was without supplies of weapons and equipment, thirty-four infantry divisions were only partially provided with necessary weapons and equipment, the replacement army had only 10 percent of the necessary rifles and machine-guns, and total stocks of ammunition fell to a level sufficient for fifteen days of fighting." The net result of these manpower and industrial problems was that on the very eve of war, the German army was hardly in a condition to fight it.

The infantry divisions in the field army were divided into four different categories ("waves", Wellen). The thirty-five divisions of the first category had in peacetime 78 per cent active-duty personnel and very few reservists. In contrast, the sixteen divisions of the second category had only 6 per cent active-duty personnel; 83 per cent of their soldiers were Wehrmacht reservists with at least nine months of training. The twenty divisions of the third category were composed primarily of reservists from the supplementary reserve units of the army and of men required to serve in the militia, some of whom had completed their training before 1918. Finally, the fourteen divisions of the fourth category had 21 per cent Wehrmacht reservists, but contained primarily supplementary units and reservists from such units. (Emphasis added).[257]

The foregoing makes clear that Mansoor's effort to draw an invidious comparison between the capabilities of the United States army, which went to war after (according to Mansoor) only two and a half years of rearmament, and the German army which did not go to war after three and a half years of rearmament, is not only speculative but simply nonsensical. Mansoor, be it remembered, wonders "how the German army would have fared if forced into combat against the French in the Rhineland in 1936 under similar circumstances . (Emphasis added) The fact of the matter, as we have seen, is that the prevailing circumstances in the respective cases were anything but similar. Can Mansoor demonstrate, for example, that German industry had already begun to produce, or gear up to produce, large quantities of weapons and ammunition in 1932, as U.S. industry did in 1940? Would he suggest that the full-scale rearmament that began in the U.S. after December 7, 1941 was impeded in any way by the exigencies of international politics, as was German rearmament until at least 1935, or that American rearmament plans and policy had to overcome the fact that a foreign power occupied the nation's most significant industrial center, in a manner analogous to the problem presented to the Germans by foreign occupation of the Ruhr valley? Could Mansoor show that rearmament in the U.S. was hindered during its first two and a half years by an inability to draw upon all of the nation's manpower resources, in a manner comparable to Germany's inability to make use of the manpower available in the Rhineland until after 1936?

No responsible historian would suggest that armed French resistance to the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 would have had other than catastrophic results for the German army. Such a circumstance, however, whether speculative or real, would say nothing about the capacity of the U.S. army to make war in 1943 or later. The German army was not prepared for war in 1936, or indeed in 1939, as we have seen. This situation was the result, however, of demographic, political, industrial and economic reasons that had no parallel in the United States as that nation prepared for war. And once the war began, those same factors worked inexorably against Germany and in favor of the Allies. In light of these facts, the really meaningful historical inquiry concerns the roots of the German army's offensive and defensive success in the Second World War, not the comparatively poor performance of the United States army in that conflict.

As noted above, one of the final points that Mansoor makes in his introduction is that "a more balanced comparison" of the forces in question would be one in which the German army of June, 1941 is compared with the U.S. army of April, 1945. This comment is telling, since it serves as an acknowledgement that Mansoor's own work is skewed by a false comparison, in much the same way that Trevor Dupuy is alleged by Mansoor, Brown, Bonn and Doubler to have unfairly compared "ordinary" American units with "elite" German units. For it is just such a "more balanced comparison" that Mansoor does not make, for the very good reason that the making of such a comparison would be impossible in any case. What one would like to see, given that the comparison of which Mansoor speaks cannot in truth be made, is a comparison that at least takes into account the shredding of the German army that occurred at the hands of the Red Army between 1941 and 1944. It is regrettable that Mansoor and those who share his views have not made such a comparison.

Two final comments concerning Mansoor's introduction are in order, bearing in mind that the views expressed in it so inform the rest of the work. Mansoor opines that if the idealized comparison between the U.S. army of April 1945 and the German army of June 1941 were made, there would be little to choose between the two forces with regard to "technical or tactical proficiency at the division level." The veracity of this statement cannot be doubted, and indeed the authors of whom Mansoor, Bonn, Brown and Doubler are so critical are at one with him on the point. On the other hand, Mansoor states that the United States "produced an army of citizen soldiers" in contrast to the (for lack of a better word) "militarist" German army, which had its problems with rearmament "eased" by the fact that German culture included a "tradition of compulsory military service and obedience to the state." In a similar vein, Mansoor asserts that the U.S. army achieved all that it did without the "extensive ideological indoctrination and fear-based discipline that infused many German units with their will to fight."

With regard to Mansoor's argument that culture favored the German soldier over his American counterpart, one is reminded of a passage in George Orwell's 1984 in which the novel's protagonist, Winston Smith, reflects upon the convoluted political theories and doctrines promulgated by the Party in defense of its existence and power. Among the incongruities most confounding to Smith is that the same argument is often used by both the Party and the resistance for their own particular ends; each side recognizes that the same argument is made by its opponent, and yet each praises the argument when made by itself, and condemns it when made by its opponent. Something of the same thing goes on with Mansoor's work. If a culture that favored compulsory military service and obedience to the state is to be passed off as the explanation for German military success in the Second World War, and the absence of such a culture seized upon as the reason why the United States army did not perform with greater proficiency, then what is to be said about the military performance of Britain and France, especially early in the war? The cultural impact of a military tradition in Germany must be viewed as pitifully small when compared with the impact of the military tradition in Great Britain. The latter country had at the time of the Second World War, and still has, the most illustrious military history of any nation on the planet. In 1940 that history stretched back for at least 250 years, and was responsible, in large part, for the creation of the greatest empire in world history. The French as well had an illustrious military past, rivaling that of Britain. French soldiers had conquered all of Europe under Napoleon Bonaparte, and would have extended their conquests further but for those self same Britons. Compared with such military traditions, those of Germany paled, as indeed they must have done, since the German state itself had existed for but seventy years in 1940.

The idea that the will to combat of German units derived from "extensive ideological indoctrination and fear-based discipline" while that of American units did not, and that this helps to explain the disparate performance of the two armies, is one that also smacks of Orwellian "doublespeak". It may be stated with some degree of certitude that no meaningful and successful military force has ever existed that has not based its discipline upon fear. Indeed, during the Second World War, the United States army also based its system of discipline upon a fear of retribution. This is demonstrated by the provisions of federal statutes in effect during wartime, as detailed in the 1943 edition of The Officer's Guide: A Ready Reference on Customs and Correct Procedures Which Pertain to Commissioned Officers of the Army of the United States:[258]

Desertion from the Army is punishable by death in time of war.
Advising, persuading or assisting desertion from the Army in time of war is punishable by death. Misbehavior before the enemy is punishable by death.
Compelling commander to surrender is punishable by death.
Forcing a safeguard in time of war is punishable by death.
Betraying a countersign in time of war is punishable by death.
Aiding the enemy is punishable by death.
Acting as a spy in time of war is punishable by death.
Sentinels found drunk or sleeping on post or leaving their posts in time of war shall be punished by death.

The rejoinder to this sort of data, at least the one given by Gerhard Weinberg and others who have made a career criticizing the German army, is that the Germans alone were guilty of executing their own soldiers in great numbers, evidently in an attempt to enforce discipline. This argument rests on very shaky ground, since it fails to take into account not only the avowed policies of the Allies, including in particular the United States, but also the fact that no accurate data on military executions is available from one of the principal Allied combatants, namely the former Soviet Union. Both the Red Army and the German army were in the hands of criminal regimes, each of whose principal aim in life was self-preservation. This was manifestly not the case with regard to other Allied combatants. Neither were the western Allies faced with national annihilation, as were both the Soviet Union and Germany at different stages of the war. It also will not do to suggest that only the Germans subjected their troops to "extensive ideological indoctrination" in a manner unparalleled in the Allied camp. During the Second World War, the American cinema industry produced not only the "Why we Fight" film series, but a steady stream of pro-war propaganda films as well. Tb imply that these films did not have a didactic purpose, or that they were not intended for both troops in service and the general population, would be a gross misrepresentation of fact. Finally, as to the suggestion that the German will to fight was a function of harsh discipline and propaganda, such an assertion fails to take into account the stream of German military victories between the autumn of 1939 and the end of 1941. During this period, harsh discipline (as reflected in military executions) was not practiced on the scale that would be in effect in the latter half of 1944.

Mansoor's first substantive chapter after his introduction, entitled The Mobilization of the Army, lays the groundwork for his argument that the U.S. army triumphed over the Wehrmacht in spite of innumerable disadvantages by detailing the manifold problems created by rapid expansion and mismanagement. Under the War Department's Mobilization Training Program, each new division was to be combat ready within ten to twelve months of activation. After two weeks of organizational activity, the new division would spend seventeen weeks in basic and advanced individual training, culminating in testing conducting by army or army corps staffs. The division would then spend the next thirteen weeks in unit training, with training moving progressively from company to battalion to regimental levels. The following fourteen weeks would be spent in combined-arms training, with large-scale exercises for regimental combat teams and the division itself. After additional testing, the last eight weeks of training would focus on coordinated operations with aircraft and mechanized forces. If the level of training for a particular area of concentration were found wanting, that training was repeated. The final step, after a year of training, was for the division to participate in multi-division maneuvers, after which it would be certified as combat ready.[259]

Training of the kind just described would have been the envy of any general officer commanding a German division during the second half of the Second World War, and as we have seen, was unheard of among the German divisions confronting the U.S. army in Western Europe in 1944-1945. Mansoor, however, moves quickly to dispel any notion that American soldiers subjected to such training were thereby prepared to face their country's enemies. As a general proposition, Mansoor says, "[D]ivisions rarely met the optimistic timetable of the Mobilization Training Program…". Large scale exercises "focused on training senior leaders and their staffs at the expense of the combat soldier." The U.S. army was inept at training small units, so that the individual soldier lacked "an appreciation for small-unit tactics and the disastrous consequences that awaited those who failed to master them." The American training system lacked "a highly trained opposing force to replicate the enemy, dedicated observer-controllers to facilitate training and conduct after-action reviews, and an instrumentation system capable of simulating combat outcomes."[260]

Lamentable as these conditions were, they were not the only, or even the worst, negative influences upon the preparation of the U.S. army for war. At least until 1943, insufficient supplies of equipment and ammunition frustrated adequate training. Shortages of ammunition were especially significant, because they limited live-fire training. But by far the most insidious element affecting the training of American soldiers was the army's ill-conceived personnel policy. That policy, as Mansoor characterizes it, was to have divisional organizations, rather than replacement centers, train draftees in basic skills. Among other things, this meant, again according to Mansoor, that the best of the new recruits were invariably siphoned off in the middle of the division's training cycle to attend special schools, transfer to the Army Air Force, or become officer candidates. The consequences of this pattern were egregious. The affected division lost its primary source of noncommissioned officers; new recruits arrived spasmodically or not at all; divisions deployed for action "with a significant percentage of men who had not trained with their comrades, who did not recognize their leaders, and who did not identify with their new unit."[261]

Other and equally serious problems beset the U.S. army as it readied itself for its confrontation with the Wehrmacht . Mansoor seems to concede to the much despised S.L.A. Marshall ("[T]he assault on the reputation of the American army began early and came from an unexpected source") the point that "some American infantrymen lacked initiative in combat or failed to execute aggressive fire-and-maneuver when faced with opposition in battle." He attributes this malady to the "problem of personnel turnover" described above, which led to the matriculation of recruits who were ignorant of tactics and unaccustomed to firearms. Another factor that led to the "lack of aggressiveness in American infantrymen" was that there simply were not enough American combat formations. This was the result of incautious planning, ultimately leading to an army without strategic reserves.

Divisions were so scarce that American commanders routinely employed them at the front long after they should have been withdrawn to retain and integrate new replacements. The lack of divisions meant that units had to accomplish these tasks at or near the front, which resulted in a high rate of casualties among the new personnel. Some divisions literally fought themselves out in constant operations; even the best American divisions, such as the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions, experienced collective exhaustion when they had been in the line too long.[262]

As a practical matter, all of this meant that by the time the Allies did invade Western Europe, they did so, according to Mansoor, with only a 1:1 ratio of combat divisions vis-a-vis the German army. In fact, Mansoor points out, the War Department resorted to the expedient of reducing the authorized strength of divisions in order to multiply their number. Because of the shortfall in manpower, the infantry divisions "needed many attachments to function effectively in combat." American infantry divisions were forced to make do with non-divisional tank battalions, tank-destroyer battalions, artillery battalions and the like. In the end, however, it was the U.S. army's flawed replacement system that placed it at such a disadvantage with regard to its German foes. According to Mansoor, the American divisions that fought in Western Europe in 1944-1945 were populated by a "very much picked-over lot" of men who amounted to little else than "warm bodies" scraped together to fill the ranks. These replacements, who by the time of the Normandy invasion were receiving a minimum of seventeen weeks of basic and specialized training, often lost their fighting edge while waiting to be posted to a fighting unit. Such men, in consequence, often quickly became casualties.

The Mobilization of the Army contains one passage particularly worthy of remark, since it places Mansoor into a position that is the polar opposite to that of Michael Doubler on the same subject, viz., trucks. It will be recalled that Doubler, who opines (on the dust cover of The GI Offensive in Europe ) that "Mansoor provides compelling arguments, supported by exceptional research and analysis, for the ultimate superiority of American infantry divisions in World War II", has the following to say about trucks:

Historians and military analysts have put too much emphasis on the army's mobility…Trucks did give the army operational mobility, but motorized movement had no influence on the battlefield…In reality, the army's means of logistical and operational mobility had no direct influence on combat.

In contrast, Mansoor states the following:

The large number of vehicles enabled American infantry divisions to dispense with horses, which the German army still used in great numbers. American infantry divisions could conduct rapid, mobile operations when necessary through the attachment of only six truck companies. Even without attachments, infantry divisions could move quickly by shuttling their infantry forward in trucks taken from within the division organization (usually from the artillery).[263]

The reader will appreciate that in spite of what is doubtless regarded in certain quarters as a regrettable lapse by Mansoor (what was he thinking), he and Doubler are of one mind on the relative merits of the United States and German armies in the Second World War. Both of them suffer, however, from the same malady, namely an apparently irrepressible urge to "have it both ways". Put another way, each of them is at considerable pains to bring to light the manifold difficulties that undermined the ability of the United States army to prosecute the war in Europe more effectively, while at the same time completely ignoring the effect that similar difficulties had upon the capacity of the German army to resist. A perfect example of this tendency is Mansoor's long discourse, previously discussed herein, on the twelve-month long training cycle that the American infantry division had to complete in order to be certified as combat ready. Mansoor's "exceptional research and analysis" on this point, so gushingly praised by Doubler, unaccountably fails to acknowledge (for reasons about which we may only speculate) that virtually none of the German divisions encountered by the U.S. army in Africa, Sicily, Italy and Western Europe had benefited from such a training cycle, to say nothing of the multi-division training also undergone by American formations after their initial training.

In the same vein, the litany of problems advanced by Mansoor in an effort to discount the extent and quality of training afforded American infantry divisions totally ignores the fact that German infantry divisions suffered from the same sorts of problems. The training of the combat soldier, Mansoor tells us, was rendered little short of retrograde by large scale exercises that benefited only commanders and their staffs, and a palpable ineptitude at educating soldiers in the vital skills necessary for successful small-unit actions, the latter difficulty arising from such shortcomings as the absence of "a highly trained opposing force to replicate the enemy" and "an instrumentation system capable of simulating combat outcomes." It has been mentioned here before, but it bears repeating, that from about 1942 onwards there were virtually no large-scale training exercises conducted by the German army; while Mansoor might, and probably would, contend that such a state of affairs actually benefited the German army, since it avoided the evident negative effects that such training had on the U.S. army, no serious student would accept such an argument. As to the subject of small-unit actions, the most sophisticated "instrumentation systems" available to the German army for "simulating combat outcomes" were the sand table and the map. Similarly, at what point during the German soldier's four to six weeks of training was he exposed to "a highly trained opposing force" replicating the enemy?

German forces in training also lacked equipment and live ammunition, such items being deemed, under the circumstances, more useful at the front than at training stations. Mansoor avers that because of the War Department's ill-considered personnel policies, American divisions lost untold numbers of non-commissioned officers as likely candidates for such ranks transferred to specialty schools, became officer candidates, or otherwise disappeared from the ranks. Ultimately, of course, the U.S. army had ample numbers of competent and well-trained NCOs, else the field force would never have fared so well against the Wehrmacht as Mansoor claims that it did. As we have previously seen, however, the German army in extremis was repeatedly compelled to rely upon redundant NCOs from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine to fill out the ranks of non-commissioned officers in new divisions cobbled together to confront the Allies in Western Europe. Still on the subject of the iniquitous American personnel system, Mansoor bemoans the fact that many American divisions considered ready for deployment were populated by men who had not trained with the other men in the unit, did not recognize their leaders, and were not mentally and emotionally identified with the unit to which they belonged. Such circumstances call to mind the innumerable German units in which the identical problems were present. Consider, for example, whether many of the German divisions engaged against the Allies in Western Europe (described in detail in the section of the present work devoted to Michael Doubler) could be described as more favored than their American counterparts, composed as they were of German draftees, volksdeutsche impressed into service from places like Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary, as well as a hodgepodge of foreign "volunteers" from, among other places, Armenia, Turkestan, Ukraine and Croatia. Is it likely that such men, many of whom could not speak or understand German, recognized their leaders or identified with either their units or the cause for which they were fighting?

Mansoor makes much of the pernicious effects of the so-called "90-division gamble", asserting that this policy resulted in divisions being left too long at the front, so that they "fought themselves out" to "collective exhaustion". The "gamble" also compelled the U.S. army to resort to the expedient of reducing the authorized manpower of divisions in order to increase their number.[264] As we have seen, the German army faced precisely the same problems, a situation about which Mansoor (and Doubler, Bonn and Brown) is either unaware or reticent to discuss. The list of German divisions that were left in the front line too long, thereby rendered divisions in name only, would fill this page. Likewise, as has been previously discussed herein, the German army repeatedly reduced the authorized strength of its divisional formations in order to have more of them. Mansoor also complains that American divisions, once in action, were compelled to rely upon "attachments" (i.e., independent tank and artillery units or other specialized formations, seconded to a particular division for a certain purpose) in order to perform their allotted tasks, as if to suggest that the American divisions were, by their very nature, inadequately equipped. In fact, however, independent or specialized units, such as panzer and artillery battalions, nebelwerfer abteilungen , "storm brigades" and other such formations were routinely "attached" to German divisions as a means of bolstering them on the eve of any new undertaking. Finally, with regard to Mansoor's lamentations about the poor quality of the men who filled out the ranks of American infantry divisions (the aforesaid "picked over" soldiers, little more than "warm bodies"), it seems reasonable to ask whether Mansoor would, could he have done so, exchanged these men for the rabble of overage men and underage boys, volksdeutsche , invalids, recuperating wounded and foreigners who composed so many German divisions in 1944.

The argument that the U.S. army was seriously disadvantaged, vis-à-vis the German army, by its personnel policies, must be viewed with considerable skepticism. It is ironic indeed that Mansoor and others should make this argument, since it mimics in its essentials the position taken by the apostate Martin van Creveld, so much maligned by Bonn, Mansoor, Brown and Doubler for having allegedly misled the historical profession and the public in general into the heretical view that the German army might have done something right. Creveld, it will be recalled, was imprudent enough to suggest that the German system, in which battalions, regiments and divisions, the essential building blocks of the larger army, as well as the conscripts that made up and replenished these units, were created and administered on a local basis under the various Wehrkreise into which the Reich was divided, seemed to be more well-adapted to fostering cohesive fighting units than the American system, which placed no such emphasis upon the maintenance of local connections for its soldiers. As we have seen, Mansoor is perhaps the harshest critic of Creveld among the authors considered in the present work. Mansoor concludes that Creveld is an extremist; Creveld's critical view of the American personnel system is essential to that conclusion. More ironic still is the fact that the more recent scholarship of Robert Sterling Rush, in his Hell in Huertgen Forest , suggests a very different conclusion about the effectiveness of the American personnel system, showing as it does that in this battle, perhaps the bloodiest in the Western Allies' experience in the European theatre, the personnel system of which Mansoor is so critical succeeded in maintaining the battleworthiness of the American formations there engaged.

The GI Offensive in Europe, as the foregoing indicates, is a mass of contradictions. Nowhere is this more evident than in its final chapter, The Combat Effectiveness of Infantry Divisions . For here, after two hundred-fifty pages in which the flawed American personnel system is continuously held up to the reader as the handicap so gloriously overcome by the valor and self-sacrifice of the American infantryman, Mansoor tells us that the system not so bad after all.

The United States was the only nation able to maintain its fighting forces near full strength throughout the war, a fact that greatly impressed German commanders. The individual replacement system had its flaws, but these flaws stemmed from poor administration of the system rather than an inherent flaw in the concept. Given the determination to limit the number of divisions mobilized, the decision to keep them at full strength through the infusion of individual replacements was the correct one . The task for division commanders was to take these replacements and integrate them in such a manner as to maintain the combat effectiveness of their organizations. By doing so, American commanders were able to maintain the combat effectiveness of their organizations even as the Wehrmacht slowly disintegrated. (Emphasis added).[265]

Should the serious student of military history accept Mansoor's contention that the American personnel system that exacted a price in blood from the American soldier "from Italy to Normandy, across France, along the West Wall, through the Ardennes, and into Germany", and therefore explains any shortcomings in the effectiveness of the U.S. army in Western Europe, was at the same time without "an inherent flaw" and "the correct" personnel policy? Surely Mansoor's desire to "have it both ways" must be troubling to someone in the historical profession? From ought that appears in any of the work that has succeeded Mansoor's, however, this does not seem the case.

Alas, one cannot reasonably expect the situation to be otherwise. In all of the work that has heretofore appeared on the subject of the U.S. army in World War II, there is only one of which the present writer is aware in which the author cares to look at the condition of both the American and German forces that encountered each other on the European continent after the Normandy invasion. Instead, Mansoor and his colleagues consider the U.S. army as though it fought in a vacuum. In his final chapter, for example, Mansoor returns to his criticism of Russell Weigley, who argued, according to Mansoor, that "the Army of the United States in World War II formed divisions with too little staying power for the battles of attrition in France and Germany in 1944 and 1945." Mansoor dismisses Weigley's argument as "attractive but superficial", going on to point out that "American infantry divisions in World War II routinely operated with numerous attachments in combat—to include artillery, tank, tank destroyer, engineer, and antiaircraft units—which gave them much greater power than one would surmise from a look at their tables of organization."[266] In so delivering his coup de grace to Weigley, Mansoor for the first time indicates that it is useful to go beyond the table of organization of a formation---but only for the purpose of striking down a rival, not for the purpose of analysis. It is manifest why Mansoor avoids studiously any consideration in depth of the opposing forces about which he writes, for to do so would have led him—perhaps—into revealing more about the condition of the German army than would have suited his purposes.

In the end, the failure to delve more deeply into the facts undermining the "fashionable" myth—if it is a myth—of German combat superiority is Mansoor's undoing, as it is the undoing of those who write in the same school. Mansoor says that "[W]hile American divisions had a uniform organization and a baseline level of proficiency, the same was not true of the German army."[267] How does such a statement advance Mansoor's argument, when he fails to consider whether the German army "had a uniform organization and a baseline level of proficiency" when it was at the height of its power in 1940-1941 (as the U.S. army was in 1944-1945), or why the German army, in the last nine months of the war, was unable to field "robust, balanced, and capable divisions" as was the U.S. army.[268] Mansoor takes up the cudgel once again against Martin van Creveld by asserting the obvious, namely that American officers would not agree with Creveld that the German army was "more effective" than its American counterpart. This statement adds nothing to Mansoor's argument, as well as it misconstrues what Creveld's work is about. In manhandling Creveld for one last time, Mansoor returns to his unbalanced theme.

While the cream of the Wehrmacht, the panzer and panzer grenadier divisions, were combat-effective organizations and a match for the divisions of the Army of the United States, the bulk of the German army was not composed of these units. The average German infantry division could not defeat an American infantry division in battle…In terms of mechanization and their ability to conduct mobile warfare, American infantry divisions were in a class by themselves. Nor could the German army consistently sustain its fighting power. The Wehrmacht could field superb formations equipped with technologically advanced weapons, but its failure to provide adequate means for support and sustainment led to their undoing. Historians may criticize the American emphasis on logistics, but that emphasis helped lead the Army of the United States to victory in Europe.[269]

Mansoor's comments on the relative mechanization of the U.S. and German armies, and on the logistical superiority of the Americans over the Germans are certainly true, although they surely land him in hot water with the likes of Michael Doubler, who baldly asserts that these factors had no effect upon the fighting power of the U.S. army. The problem is that Mansoor, and he is not alone, seems to assume that the German army chose to have a low level of mechanization as well as a ramshackle logistics system. Even if we accept the theory that the German officer corps was so hidebound that it actually preferred that its infantry divisions move at the same speed as the Roman legions, or that, if given the choice, it would have rejected the idea of replacing horse-drawn supply with the vast fleets of trucks available to both the Western Allies and the Red Army, what would that prove? Whether the condition of the German army in these respects was the result of informed choice or not, the fact of the matter is that the German economy, as Ellis and others have demonstrated beyond cavil, was not capable of bringing the German army up to the standards of its foes with regard to either mechanization or logistics. To deny this fact, or to deny its impact upon the army in the field, is simply nonsense. Nonsensical as well, and for the same reasons, are Mansoor's comments about the "cream of the Wehrmacht" and the "average German infantry division." Anyone who has read the present work carefully will realize that the U.S. army did not encounter either the "cream of the Wehrmacht " or the "average German infantry division" in Western Europe in 1944-1945. Both the "cream" of the German army and its "average" divisions were buried in Russia, where the Red Army had been hard at work grinding them up for three years before a single American soldier set foot on European soil. It is, nevertheless, true that the Western Allies encountered formidable resistance from many German formations, which fought well and bravely almost to the end.

Had Mansoor cared to consider it, he had available to him a veritable mountain of evidence and scholarship to elucidate the steady decline in the quality of the German army since the beginning of its sojourn in the east. As that army prepared for its second summer of campaigning in the Soviet Union, it was clear to everyone (except Hitler) conversant with its condition that it would be incapable of conducting operations comparable to those of the previous year. The army had lost 35% (over 1 million men) of its average strength between the beginning of the campaign and April, 1942, when the preparations for the second campaign began in earnest. It had also lost almost 75,000 vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, tractors) since October, 90 percent of which remained unreplaced as spring approached. In the panzer divisions, over 2,000 tanks had been lost and never replaced. In a force still largely dependent upon the horse for its mobility, over 180,000 animals had been lost during the winter; only 10 per cent of these had been replaced by the following spring. The effect of these losses upon the mobility of the eastern army may be readily surmised; Army Groups Center and North, their supply echelons, mobile troops and infantry stripped of vehicles and horses in favor of Army Group South, were not capable of major offensive operations. Yet, even in spite of the sacrifices of its sister formations, Army Group South was reckoned to be at only 85 per cent of its original mobility.[270]

In addition to its shortcomings in the area of mobility, the eastern army on the eve of its second campaign also suffered from substantial shortages in weapons and ammunition. Whereas Hitler had called for a six-month reserve of ammunition before the outset of the new campaign, in fact the OKH advised as late as April, 1942 that even if "makeshift expedients" were employed, from about August onward there would be "bottlenecks" in the ammunition supply, because production would not be able to compensate when existing supplies had been used up. The army also had experienced such substantial losses in small arms—rifles, machine-guns, trench mortars—as well as artillery of all kinds, and German industry was so incapabl

In Stahlgewittern

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Review: Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East, by Stephen G. Fritz

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Mythos Revisited: American Historians and German Fighting Power in the Second World War