Into the Cauldron

How GIs beat back

SS tanks at Mortain
BY RICK ATKINSON

Uneasy
Bargain
U-boats
in Asia

The General
Who Died
a Winner at
Okinawa

Why No One Believed a

Shocking Soviet Discovery
Americans bound for Mortain
pass a wrecked Sherman tank
on August 3, 1944.

WHG
JULY/AUGUST 2013

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WORLD

July/August 2013

WAR II
FEATURES
C O V E R S T O RY

Battle for Hill 314

When a division of black-shirted SS tankers

encircled 700 GIs in France, the only way out
was to call in the heavy artillery
RICK ATKINSON

30

Beyond Belief
The Red Army discovered the Holocausts full
scopebut the West suspected a ploy
DAVID SHNEER

52

WEAPONS MANUAL

The Peacemaker

Germanys Type 127 Midget Sub

An American generals death in action on

Okinawa came as the campaign he brought
to fruition was achieving its goal

The undersized undersea Seehund

SHARON TOSI LACEY

40

PORTFOLIO

Dogfaces, and More

Certified or smuggled, animal mascots
worked their way into military life

48

JIM LAURIER

58

U-boats in Asia
Collaboration between Axis powers led to
an awkward long-haul sub exchange
NOAH ANDRE TRUDEAU

60

Endorsed by The National World War II Museum, Inc.

USMC
COVER PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

D E PA R T M E N T S
Weider Reader
Excerpts from our
sister publications

Mail

World War II Today

Nazis murder network far larger
than thought; honoring a lost B-24;
Hitlers food taster; a Reading List
of self-published books

12

Conversation
B-17 pilot Henry Supchak
on bailing out over Austria
and the burden of survival
GENE SANTORO

20

War Letters
Perspectives on Japans
surrender, from an airman
and an admiral
ANDREW CARROLL

Reviews
Rick Atkinsons finale;
revisit The Making of
the Atomic Bomb;
Ghost Army tricksters

Their Darkest Hour

A genial grandfathers fond
look back at his SS service

What If
the Japanese had won
the Battle of Midway?

LAURENCE REES

MARK GRIMSLEY

Time Travel
Germanys Colditz Castle

Challenge
What role did
this roll play?

23

25

ANDREW CURRY

26

69

76

79

Pinup

80

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Two Marines of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, pinpoint a Japanese sniper

during the advance on Okinawas Wana Ridge, May 18, 1945.

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Contributors

C U R RY

SHNEER

LACEY

WEISS

AT K I N S O N

TRUDEAU

Rick Atkinson (Danger Zone) won the

Sharon Tosi Lacey (The Peacemaker) is

2003 Pulitzer Prize for An Army at Dawn,

the first volume in his World War II
Liberation Trilogy. This article is excerpted
from the final installment, The Guns at
Last Light: The War in Western Europe,
19441945.

a lieutenant colonel currently serving at

the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
She is the author of the upcoming book
Pacific Blitzkrieg: World War II in the
Central Pacific, and is at work on a book
on the Battle of Okinawa.

Andrew Curry (Time Travel) is a free-

Noah Andre Trudeau (Torpedoes in

lance foreign correspondent based in

Germany. He covers science, culture, and
history for a variety of U.S. and European
magazines. He splits his time between
Leipzig and Berlin, and in warm weather
enjoys cycling to the town of Colditz.

Paradise) is the proud son of two World

War II veterans, and has a continuing
interest in military history. He is the
author of eight books on the American
Civil War; his articles cover a wider canvas,
including the Revolutionary War, the
Mexican-American War, the Spanish Civil
War, and the World Wars. Trudeaus next
book will be on Abraham Lincolns visit to
the war front in MarchApril 1865.

David Shneer (First Proof ) is a scholar

and author who has been teaching, working, and writing about the Soviet Union
for more than 20 years. In 2011 Shneer
published Through Soviet Jewish Eyes:
Photography, War, and the Holocaust, a
finalist for the National Jewish Book
Award. The research, which his article
draws from, took him to dusty basements,
dingy Soviet apartments, sleek modern
galleries, and the sites of some of the worst
atrocities of World War II.

Robert L. Weiss (View from the Hill)

served during the war as a reconnaissance

officer and forward observer with the 230th
Field Artillery Battalion, 30th Infantry
Division. He is a retired lawyer living in
Portland, Oregon, and the author of Fire
Mission! The Siege at Mortain, Normandy,
August 1944 (Burd Street Press, 2002).
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 01 3

WORLD

WEIDER READER

WAR II

A sampling of decisive moments, remarkable adventures, memorable characters,

surprising encounters, and great ideas from our sister publications

MILITARY HISTORY
QUARTERLY

WILD WEST

BRITISH HERITAGE

Courtly Killer

Bloodiest Kansas

Ghosts of Bosworth

Lieutenant General
Courtney H. Hodges,
commander of the U.S.
First Army in late
1944, was old school:
Undone by plebe
geometry he had
flunked out of West
Point, enlisted as a private in 1905, and
risen through the ranks.
THE SON OF A newspaper publisher
from southern Georgia, Hodges was of
average height but so erect that he appeared taller, with a domed forehead and
prominent ears. Army records labeled his
close-set eyes #10 blue.
God gave him a face that always
looked pessimistic, Dwight Eisenhower
observed, and even Hodges complained
that a Life magazine portrait made him
appear a little too sad.
A crack shot and big game hunter
caribou and moose in Canada, elephants
and tigers in IndochinaHodges earned
two Purple Heart citations after being
gassed in World War I, but tore them up
as excessively sissy. He smoked Old
Golds in a long holder, favored bourbon
and Dubonnet on ice with a dash of bitters, and messed formally every night, in
jacket, necktie, and combat boots. He
was seen weeping by the road as trucks
passed carrying wounded from the front.
I wish everybody could see them, he
said in his soft drawl. One division commander said of him: Unexcitable. A
killer. A gentleman. A reporter wrote
that even in battle he sounds like a
Georgia farmer leaning on the fence,
discussing his crops.
From The Worst Place of Any by Rick
Atkinson, in the Summer 2013 issue

WORLD WAR II

During the Civil War,

a group of rebel guerrillas led by William
Clarke Quantrill made
a brutal surprise attack
on pro-Union
Lawrence, Kansas.
WHEN QUANTRILL launched his raid
on August 20, 1863, disparate groups of
guerrillas streamed in to join him. By the
time he reached the outskirts of
Lawrence, his force exceeded 400each
man on a strong horse and carrying multiple revolvers, rifles, shotguns, swords,
and knives. Many had tied themselves
into their saddles to make the punishing
ride that had kept some awake for more
than 24 hours. The Bushwhackers
arrived as dawn was breaking. The guerrillas closed in. George Miller summed
up their mindset: Vengeance is in my
heart and death in my hand.
Quantrills raiders crashed into
Lawrence whooping and hollering and
firing in every direction. Sleepy townsfolk were taken entirely by surprise. Bent
on vengeance as well as plunder, Bushwhackers killed and burned in a fury,
sparing women but willing to kill husbands and sonsoften in front of wives
and mothers. More than one newly
minted widow was splashed with her late
husbands blood. German residents fared
especially badly. Nicht versteh! (I dont
understand!), one man told raiders.
God damn you, a guerrilla responded.
I will make you versteh! he shouted and
shot the man dead.
From When Bleeding Kansas Became
Bloodier by Frederick J. Chiaventone,
in the August 2013 issue

In 1934, Lord Raglan

observed, Harold
fell on the fields of
Hastings, Simon de
Montfort at Evesham,
Richard III at
Bosworth Field; their
deaths marked epochs
in our history, yet who knows the spot
where they fell?
RAGLAN HAD A particularly good
point about Bosworth Field. That battle
marked the start of the Tudor dynasty
and the end of the medieval era; yet not
only did no one know where Richard III
had fallen, no one could place Bosworth
Field within 50 milesuntil now.
British archeologists have located the
very point where Richard fell on August
22, 1485, taking with him the shards of
English feudalism. Sponsored by the Battlefields Trust and Leicestershire County
Councils Museum Services, digs in fields
below Ambion Hill, 15 miles west of
Leicester, have uncovered artifacts including a concentration of cannon balls
and lead shotunexpected at the site of
a battle once believed to have predated
the widespread use of gunpowder.
The previous best guess as to
Bosworth Fields location had been two
miles closer to that hill, where since 1974
Bosworth Battlefield Park has memorialized the engagement. Many scholars
disputed this, however, and when the
London Guardian announced the new
results in 2009, its reporter gleefully
noted that the site was surrounded by
school parties still studying at least four
wrong locations.
From Bosworths Battlefield: Then and
Now by Jim Hargan, in the July issue

WEIDER READER

AVIATION HISTORY

AMERICAN HISTORY

MILITARY HISTORY

Bombs on the Bounce

The Power of War

Noble Rot

On May 16, 1943,

Lancaster bombers of
the Royal Air Forces
617 Squadron set out
from Scampton with a
unique weapon, on a
mission so secret that
not even ground crews
loading the huge cylindrical objects under
the fuselages knew where they were going.

In the conduct of
war, Alexander
Hamilton wrote in The
Federalist No. 70,
the energy of the executive is the bulwark of
the national security.
But can the energy of
the executive also be the enemy of liberty?

Debuted by German
scientists in 1935, sulfa
drugsthe first effective antibacterials
were hailed as the
ultimate wonder
drugs. But they didnt
work well in combat
and an accidentally discovered mold
became the true battlefield lifesaver.

BARNES NEVILLE WALLIS faced the

longest night of his life. In his capacity as
a designer for armaments maker Vickers
Armstrong, he had conceived the plan.
The mission now under way targeted a
handful of Ruhr Valley dams that provided the thousands of tons of water
required to make a ton of steel. In
addition to that essential war materiel,
German industry relied on the water to
power cities, and coal and armament
production. The largest conventional
bombs would barely chip the concrete
dams, assuming bombardiers could hit
them from 20,000 feet. But, Wallis theorized, detonate enough high explosive in
contact with the dam wall and the surrounding water would magnify the force,
the way a torpedo with a relatively small
charge could sink a battleship.
The paper he sent to leading scientific,
government, and military personnel
produced either ridicule or indifference.
It also resulted in a visit from a Secret
Intelligence Service agent, who wanted
to know why Wallis was sharing vital
and very secret information. Is it?
Wallis replied. When I showed it to the
authorized people they said I was mad.
Im supposed to be a crackpot.
From The Dambusters by Nicholas
ODell, in the July 2013 issue

ONE OF THE sharpest clashes over executive-military overreach happened

during the Civil War, pitting prominent
Democrats against Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln first suspended habeas corpus
two weeks after the attack on Fort
Sumter to discourage saboteurs from attacking the crucial railroad line connecting Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.
In September 1862, he suspended habeas
corpus nationwide, chiefly so the Union
Army could arrest anyone interfering
with recruitment.
On May 1, 1863, Ohio Democrat
Clement Vallandigham gave a speech in
which he called the war wicked, cruel,
and unnecessary. It was being fought
for the freedom of the blacks and the
enslavement of the whites, and would
create a monarchy upon the ruins of
our free government. For good measure,
he called the president King Lincoln.
General Ambrose Burnside had
Vallandigham arrested, and a military
commission convicted him of weakening the power of the Government in its
efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion. Vallandigham was sentenced to
military prison for the duration.
From Weve Been Here Before
by Richard Brookhiser, in the
August 2013 issue

IN 1943, WINSTON CHURCHILL was

69, fat, a drinker, and a smoker when
pneumonia struck. It was touch and go
until he battled back. The British press
credited penicillin, inflating a legend:
When Winston was a boy, a man saved
him from drowning. His grateful father
sent the Samaritans son to medical
school. That son later discovered penicillin. But the boy Churchill never came
near to drowning, and what cured him
wasnt penicillin but a sulfa drug.
Penicillin bred myths. The drug had a
near-miraculous ability to prevent and
treat infections in wounded men. Even as
Churchill lay ill, one of his doctors published an article predicting a revolution
in treatment of wounds and that sepsis
[acute blood poisoning] as we know it
might almost disappear if sufficient
penicillin were available.
It was a big if.
From Penicillin: Wonder Drug of
World War II by Richard Conniff,
in the July 2013 issue

To subscribe to any Weider History

magazine, call 1 (800) 435-0715
or go to HistoryNet.com

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

WORLD

WAR II

Mail

Familiar Face

A COMMENT on the March/April cover:

The tank commander looks very much
like a young Robert Taylor to the point I
thought it was a movie shot! Just wondering if anyone else thinks so.
GREG VANDERZEE
LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y.
We do! The actors resemblance to our cover
subject is particularly striking in Miracle
of the White Stallions, in which he played
Colonel Alois Podhajsky, above.

Avengers Defender

ONE INTERESTING ITEM to add to

The Avengers (March/April) about how
Colonel Doolittle and his crew made their
way out of China:
John Birch was a missionary to China
who was also commissioned as an army
captain through an army base in the independent part of that country. Birch was at
a meeting place for the common Chinese
people, like a caf, when a Chinese man
came in and quietly motioned for him to
follow outside. The Chinese man led him
to a boat containing Lieutenant Colonel
Doolittle and his crew. Doolittle and Birch
conversed for a while, and Doolittle
commented on Birchs southern accent,
like one from home. Then Birch helped
Doolittle and his crew to find the pro-U.S.
8

WORLD WAR II

Chinese underground.
Birch was later killed by the Chinese
communists, which became the basis for
the anti-Communist John Birch society.
Its really a shame we didnt support
Chiang Kai-shek after World War II.
GARY VAN ANTWERP
BROKEN ARROW, OKLA.

commemorative postage stamp released

in 1946 [above].
Many American stamps (as well as
those of other countries) have been
issued and continue to be issued to honor
people and organizations and events
relating to the Second World War, and
most are available at a very low cost, even
in mint condition. A person with no
other interest in collecting stamps could
build an interesting collection just of
stamps relating to World War II.
STEVE WALRATH
CLEVELAND, OHIO

Nuclear Reactions

THANK YOU FOR putting out such a

wonderful magazine. I just wanted to
point out a minor issue with the Japaneselanguage leaflet pictured on page 58: the
bottom image is upside-down. It is also

Further Conversation

IN RESPONSE TO THE Conversation

with Abe Baum (Behind the Lines,
Between the Lines), I would like to
recommend a wonderful first-person
account, Pattons Best: an Informal History
of the Fourth Armored Division by Nat
Frankel and Larry Smith. Frankels free
prose makes you feel as if youre in a
corner bar, chatting with the former tank
sergeant. His chapter about the Hammelburg raid, Bauming Out, is a must-read.
In fact, the whole book is.
MARK GATTEY
BRANFORD, CONN.

Stamp of Approval

REGARDING THE LETTER from Don

Elwood in the March/April issue, there is
one branch of the federal government
that has honored our Merchant Marine:
the United States Postal Service, with a

The leaflet dropped over Japan after

Hiroshima, now right-side-up.

the front side of the leaflet, and so should

have been on top.
An interesting aspect of the leaflets
content is that after urging the reader
to lobby the government for surrender,
it concludes with the admonishion to
evacuate this city immediately! No consequences for failing to heed the warning
are described anywhere in the leaflet,

TOP LEFT: KOBAL COLLECTION; TOP RIGHT: BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101111-ZCHAECKEL-190-29 PHOTO FRIEDRICH ZSCHCKEL; BOTTOM: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Follow the Greatest Generation from

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Mail

though undoubtedly they would have

been painfully clear to the Japanese by
that time.
I have a BA degree in Japanese, lived
in Japan for 10 years, and worked as a
Japanese-to-English technical translator
for 20 years before becoming a technical
editor at a national laboratory, in case you
are wondering about my credentials.
PAUL KOTTA
LIVERMORE, CALIF.
I REALLY ENJOY READING this magazine cover to cover, and anticipate its
arrival every other month. My dad (now
deceased) served in France and my uncle
in the Philippines during World War II.
My dream was always to live on one of
the fought-over islands in the Pacific. In
1983, that dream came true. My wife and
I started a small private Christian school
on the island of Saipan and lived there for
the next eight years. I have explored nearly

every inch of Saipan, including underground, finding all kinds of artifacts,

unexploded ordinances, B-29 props, and
many, many other souvenirs our GIs
and the Japanese left behind. I have
explored Rota, Tinian, and even some of
the northern islands like Pagan, too.
So I noticed in Mark Wolvertons article
I am Destiny, William Laurence reached
Guam and his orders directed him 120
miles south to Tinian Island. I sure hope
the orders were changed (and glad they
did), as Tinian is north of Guam.
Keep up the good work on your publication. Truly these veterans are from the
greatest generation!
RON ABRAMS
SEQUATCHIE, TENN.
MY HUSBAND Richard L. Black died
on December 21, 2012one day shy of
his 93rd birthday. He was proud of his
involvement in World War II and being

World War II Test Kitchen

WHILE LOOKING THROUGH my
mothers mother-in-laws handwritten
cookbook we saw this card. I noticed the
date on the front, November 1943, and
the title, and thought I would send it on.
CHRIS NORTON
ALTON, ILL.

WORLD WAR II

The F Stands for Fascinating

HAVING READ EXTENSIVELY (in both

English and German) during the last
35 years about World War II in Europe, I
found Laurence Reess next to last paragraph in A Handle on How FDR Handled
People fascinating:
Because Roosevelt didnt ever take
people fully into his confidence, it left his
subordinates always uncertain of where
they stood. They had to be loyal to him,
but they didnt know how loyal he was
to them.
Rees also wrote of President Roosevelt
earlier in the piece: It was a trait of his
that he didnt want anyone else to know
the whole story on anything.
I have read over and over the same
type of traits used to describe Hitler, and
about his way of handling people. What
an interesting similarity between the
two leaders.
BILL MARKS
ATLANTA, GA.

Corrections

Thanks for sharing! We decided to

give the recipe a try (above), and though
the use of lard raised some eyebrows, the
cake was moist, tasty, and a hit with our
Weider History colleagues.
Also known as War Cake, Depression
Cake, and Boiled Raisin Cake, the recipe
dates at least to the Civil War, but was
revived during World War II due to the
rationing of some typical cake ingredients.
To try at home, bake at 325 degrees
in a greased and floured 8x8-inch pan.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the
center comes out clean (5060 minutes);
let cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn
out of the pan onto a serving plate.

10

able to help his country. I wish he could

have seen I Am Destiny by Mark Wolverton. We visited Oak Ridge several times.
We also visited Nagasaki.
JOY H. BLACK
LAUDERDALE BY THE SEA, FLA.

Due to an error in the Associated Press

digital archive, the photos from Italy
on page 4647 of the March/April issue
were mistakenly credited to Joe Rosenthal,
who did not cover the war there. The AP
has since corrected its files; the photographer is unknown, identified only as JR.
On page 25, the cannon is actually a 3.7inch antiaircraft gun. The Vestal repaired
Enterprise at Nouma, not the Vulcan as
stated in the January/February issue.
Please send letters to:

World War II
19300 Promenade Drive
Leesburg, VA 20176

or e-mail:

worldwar2@weiderhistorygroup.com

Please include your name, address,

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RECIPE: COURTESY OF CHRIS NORTON; PHOTO: GUY ACETO

Custo
Curio I m Wooden
nclu
Subscr ded with
iption
at the s
a
per-iss me low
ue pric
e

Intricately handcrafted
by Master Artisans under
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WORLD

W W I I TO DAY

WAR II

Third Reichs Infrastructure of Horror

Far More Widespread Than Thought

he Nazis built and

operated a far more
extensive mechanism
of debasement and death
than previously known, historians have found. When
researchers began in 2000 to
catalog places where the
Reported and written by

Paul Wiseman

Germans and their cohort

killed, detained, tortured, and
enslaved people sexually and
otherwise, they expected to
find 7,000 sites. Instead, they
identified 42,500 locations
across occupied Europe.
The findings dont change
the estimate of 1520 million
people imprisoned and killed.
But they provide new detail
on the breadth of the horror

and further call into question

claims that ordinary Germans
and Austrians did not know
what the Third Reich was
doing. It really was impossible for anybody not to have
known about the camp
system to some extent, says
Geoff Megargee, a scholar
with the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museums Center
for Advanced Holocaust

Studies. You couldnt swing

a cat without running into
these folks. The findings,
presented in January at the
German Historical Institute
in Washington D.C., will go
into the Holocaust museums
seven-volume Encyclopedia
of Camps and Ghettos,
19331945. Two volumes
have already been published.
The proliferation of

The 2,000-plus sites Holocaust museum researchers have mapped so far are a fraction of the 42,500 camps and ghettos recently tallied.

12

WORLD WAR II

W W I I TO DAY
German sites of detention,
persecution, and murder, as
Megargee calls them, eluded
detection because individual
researchers tended to focus
on specific geographic areas
and themes. No one was looking at the big picture.
Megargee says he often asks
audiences how many detention sites they think Nazi
Germany ran. Ill get answers
of 25, or 200, he says. Some
brave souls will get up to a
couple thousand. Nobody
gets how big this thing was.
To arrive at the astounding

MAP BY MERIDIAN MAPPING; PHOTOS COURTESY OF JIM LUX

new figure, researchers at the

museum pieced together
information from 650
sources. Catalogued facilities
range from the massive
Warsaw Ghetto and its
400,000 entrapped Jews to
industrial-scale death camps
like Auschwitz to small labor

camps and slave brothels

staffed by Polish and
French women for
Wehrmacht soldiers.
There were far more
forced labor sites than previously imagined, including
labor sites that were shortterm or seasonal, alongside

longer-term camps, says

David Silberklang, a senior
historian at Yad Vashem,
Israels official Holocaust
memorial. The research
team at the [American
Holocaust museum] should
be commended for their
excellent and reliable work.

Interest in B-24 Wreck Heats Up

oon after Consolidated

B-24 Liberator Hot Stuff
crashed into a mountain in
Iceland in bad weather on May
3, 1943, the crash was forgotten. But Jim Lux, a retiree in
Austin, Texas, is campaigning
to get Hot Stuff and crew the
recognition he says theyre due.
Luxs efforts are paying off.
Iceland scheduled a
ceremony marking
the crashs 70th anniversary and plans
to put up a monument near the site.
Dayton, Ohios U.S.
Air Force Museum
also is planning to
recognize Hot Stuff.
When it crashed, the plane
was carrying Lieutenant
General Frank Andrews, a
founder of the U.S. Army Air
Corps and namesake of Joint
Base Andrews in Maryland,
home to Air Force One. He
and 13 others died. Only the
tail gunner survived.
Before the war, Andrews
championed the B-17 bomber
against resistance from army
brass. He helped mobilize the
country for war as assistant
army chief of staff for operations. According to Time magazine, army wives considered
him the handsomest man in
that service. In February 1943,
Andrews got command of all
U.S. forces in the European

Clockwise from left: Hot Stuff

and crew, Andrews, advocate
Jim Lux at Iceland crash site.

Theater. General Henry Hap

Arnold, Army Air Forces chief
in World War II, noted in his
memoirs that had Andrews
lived he likely would have led
the Allied invasion of Europe.
In addition to the Andrews
connection, Lux has documented that Hot Stuff carried
out 25 missions three months
before famed B-17 Memphis
Belle, often credited for being
the first heavy bomber to reach
that milestone thanks to publicity from its war bonds tour
and a 1944 Hollywood documentary. According to military
records, the first plane to hit
the 25-mission mark was Hells
Angels, of the 358th Squadron,
303rd Bomb Group.

Lux learned about the B-24

from golf buddy and Hot
Stuff crewman Robert Jacobson, who was bumped from
the fatal flight to make way
for Andrewss entourage.
Jacobson gave Lux war-era
documents proving Hot Stuff
beat the Belle to 25 missions.
The Air Force museum in
Dayton is planning an exhibit
on the Memphis Belle that will
highlight several of the other
significant 25-mission aircraft
and crews in detail, including
B-24 Hot Stuff, says museum
spokesman Rob Bardua. Lux
has traveled to the site in
Iceland to recover Hot Stuff
wreckage for the exhibition,
which awaits scheduling.
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

13

W W I I TO DAY
THE READING LIST

Andrew Carroll

he author of World War IIs War Letters

column, which concludes this issue
after a six-year run, spotlights self-published
books deserving of greater attention:

after the war. The book contains

only a handful of letters, but they are
part of a powerful story that every
American should read.

An Alcove in the Heart

Beyond the War

Wounded

WWII Letters of Sidney Diamond

to Estelle Spero

A Legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom

Captain Ed Riv Hrivnak (2013)

Estelle Spero Lynch (2004)

Of the almost 100,000 war letters

Ive read, Sid Diamonds are among
the most poetic, humorous, and
poignant. Estelle, who was engaged
to Sid during World War II, has
done a wonderful job of assembling
and introducing Sids best letters,
and their love story is one that
readers will never forget.
Bedpan Commando
The Story of a Combat Nurse
During World War II

June Wandrey (1989)

This autobiography, told mostly

through Junes letters, is a tribute
not only to a true American hero, which
June most certainly was, but to
all wartime nurses. The book offers
an in-depth look at what these extraordinary individuals have done under
the most grueling and often
dangerous circumstances.

Of War & Weddings

A Legacy of Two Fathers

Jerry Yellin (1995)

Jerry was a combat pilot with the U.S.

Army Air Corps, and Of War &
Weddings is about his life during and

Andrew Carroll is the author of the New

York Times bestseller War Letters and Here
Is Where: Discovering Americas Great
Forgotten History, published in May by
Crown. In 1998 Carroll founded the
Legacy Project as way to encourage
Americans to preserve personal correspondence from all our nations wars. He is
donating his 90,000-letter collection to
Chapman University in California, where he
will direct the new Center for American War
Letters. Carroll will be a regular contributor
to our sister publication American History
beginning with its October 2013 issue.

Honoring a Civilian Tragedy

ne day, walking to
work, architect Harry
Paticas was approaching his
office near Bethnal Green in
London when he saw a small
plaque. Pausing to read the
inscription, Paticas learned
the corner by the adjoining
underground stop had been
the scene of Britains worst
civilian tragedy of World War
II: on March 3, 1943, air raid
sirens triggered a crush that
killed 173 people, including
62 children, as Londoners
sought safety in the tube.
14

WORLD WAR II

Feeling these war dead

deserved something more,
Paticas, a native of Greece,
put his design skills to work.
After six years, the first phase
of a new Bethnal Green
memorial went into place in
time to mark the events 70th
anniversary.
The initial segment of the
memorial consists of a concrete plinth studded with
bronze plaques listing the
dead and testimonials from
survivors, along with a small
light to recall the single 25-

A rendering of Bethnal Greens planned Stairway to Heaven.

watt bulb in the stations

blacked-out stairwell seven
decades ago. The next stage
will add an inverted staircase

suspended from the plinth

over the station entrancea
Stairway to Heaven, with a
light shaft for each victim.
ARBOREAL ARCHITECTURE

ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE CAPLANIS

Based on journals and e-mails that

Ed wrote during the hostilities, this
is one of the best books to come out of
the war. It brings attention to the
immeasurable sacrifices made by this
generation of troops, men and women
as brave and selfless as any who
have come before them. Ed himself
is proof of that.

The First
The Last
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W W I I TO DAY
SOUND BITE

ASK WWII

Q.

Theres not
one soldier
who ever died
saying, Long
Live the
Emperor!
I was with
hundreds of
men when
they died. The
dead lay with
grimaces on
their faces.

Was future baseball star Jackie Robinson really

court-martialed during the war?
Quentin Hambleton,
Rosendale, N.Y.

A.

On July 6, 1944, 25-year-old Second Lieu-

tenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson of the 761st

Black Panthers Tank Battalion left the hospital
at Fort Hood, Texas, after a check-up. Bound for
the colored officers club, he boarded an army
bus and sat with a fellow officers light-skinned
spouse. The driver, a white man, ordered Robinson to the back of the
bus. When Robinson balked, the driver called military policemen. MPs
arrested, handcuffed, and shackled Robinson, who subsequently
accused an army investigator of racist questioning. When Robinsons
commander refused to press charges, the army moved him to a unit
whose commander was willing to convene a court-martial, adding a
charge that the teetotaling tanker had been drunk in public to those

Nohara Teishin,
former Imperial
Army sergeant
major, in Japan at
War, an oral history
by Haruko Taya
Cook and
Theodore Cook

of disobedience and disrespect. By August, when his trial began, the

case against Robinson had withered to two counts of insubordination. The court acquitted him, but the trial kept Robinson stateside
while the 761st became the first African American tank unit to see
combat during the war. That fall Robinson received an honorable discharge. In April 1947, as a Brooklyn Dodger, Robinson desegregated
major-league baseball. He died in 1972. Michael Dolan
Send queries to: Ask World War II, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg,
VA 20176, or e-mail: worldwar2@weiderhistorygroup.com.

D I S PAT C H E S

served during World War II.

wounded and sick as the

Library in March, 69 years

They logged 750,000 hours

Japanese overran the

late, apologizing and offering

and 24 million air miles flying

Philippines in 1942. Manning

to pay a fine. He blamed his

along the eastern coasts

(then Lieutenant Dalton) and

tardiness partly on wartime

searching for German subs,

77 other Angels were cap-

bomb damage to the facility.

and lost 150 planes and 64

tured and held under brutally

people in the process.

harsh conditions at Manilas

Mildred

Santo Tomas and Los Baos

Camps until 1945.

Manning, last of

Estonian Ivika

the Angels of

Turkson has a his-

Bataan and
Corregidor,

toric excuse for

died March 8 at

being terribly late

age 98. She and

returning a library

legislation to authorize the

her colleagues

book: World War II.

issuance of the Congressional

were army and

Turkson returned

Gold Medal to 60,000 veterans

navy nurses

of the Civil Air Patrol who

who treated the

Congress is considering

16

WORLD WAR II

Mildred Manning

the volume (right) to

the Tallinn Central

TOP LEFT: MURRAY GARRETT/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; TOP RIGHT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; BOTTOM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; BOTTOM CENTER: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; BOTTOM RIGHT: TALLINN CENTRAL LIBRARY

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W W I I TO DAY
Hitlers Last Food Taster Tells All

he food was always deliciousfresh vegetables,

real butter, rich sauces. But
Margot Wlk couldnt enjoy
the wartime rarities. She
knew that every bite could
be her last. Wlk was one of
15 women assigned to tastetest Adolf Hitlers meals.
After she turned 95 last year,
Wlk decided to tell her
story to publications in
Germany and Britain.
At 24 Wlk was an odd
choice for so sensitive an
assignment. She had refused
to join the League of
German Girls, the female
equivalent of the Hitler
Youth. Her father had been
detained after declining to

Wlk, shown now

and then, says she
fit Hitlers demand
for good German
stock to serve as
his food tasters.

join the Nazi Party.

After the family
home was bombed
during winter 1941

she fled Berlin for her

mother-in-laws home in the
East Prussian village of
Gross-Partsch, now in
Poland. It was a beautiful,
quiet place with a big
garden, but less than two
miles away stood Hitlers
Wolf s Lair compound. Id
hardly arrived when the SS
showed up at the door and
demanded, Come with us!
Wlk told the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The men took her and
other young women to
nearby Krausendorf. In barracks there, chefs prepared
food for Hitler. The Fhrers
tasters sat at a big wooden

A Great Tale of War. A Greater Tale of Sacrifce.

All From Te Voice of Te Greatest Generation.

LE
AVAILAB

IN

E-BOOK

Bob Schiefer, CBS News

Cronkites War transports you back to an unforgettable timewhen

letter writing was an art and the only way soldiers, journalists, and
others could correspond with loved ones back home. Now, hear
the gripping World War II experiences of the most trusted man
in America through the scores of personal letters he wrote to his
young wife Betsy during the three years they were apart. Cronkites
evocative dispatches reveal an intimate portrait of one of the
greatest Americans of all time.
LOOK FOR CRONKITES WAR WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD.

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18

WORLD WAR II

What a treasure! If you like the news, if you like

a good adventure story or if youre just a sucker for a
good old fashioned love story, you will love this book.

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BZ/MARION HUNGER; INSET/BZ

W W I I TO DAY

table set with all sorts of foods but one:

There was never meat because Hitler
was a vegetarian, she said. Hitler would
refuse to eat a meal unless all 15 tasters
had sampled it and an hour had passed
without bad result to them. The dictator, Wlk told Britains Daily Express,
only wanted good German stock tastetesting his food. I felt like a laboratory
rabbit but if you learned one thing
about life in Nazi Germany it was you
didnt argue with the SS.

Couldnt put it down!*

Missing in Action since 1945
but their war began in 2011

Save 30%

Special to readers
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Hungry Hitler

hat did Hitlers tasters taste?

A 1943 U.S. Office of
Strategic Services memo describes
a sweet-toothed gourmand who
delayed lunch by any means necessary and, except for a raging case of
chocoholism, kept it bland:

*Read straight
through till 3 a.m.
stunning research!

Breakfast

Jim Wade,
former executive editor and VP,
Crown Publishers/
Random House

would get up
in the morning
around 9:30 and
breakfast on an apple,
hot milk or very weak coffee
with rolls, butter and marmalade.
Lunch

generally pea
soup or tomato
soup with parmesan,
followed by a special
dish of omelette with asparagus
tips or mushrooms, spinach or
cauliflower, and a green salad.
Cannot resist dissolving really
good chocolates in his coffee.
Afternoon Snack

coffee or tea
with rum of
medium strength
with baum-torte, linzer torte, nuss
torte, chokoladen-torte, or toast.
Supper

usually a
vegetable plate.

WEIDER ARCHIVE (ALL)

Lt. Art Suttons team of six US Rangers

parachute into Nazi Germanyand vanish.
They land, a few minutes later, in the next century.
Unaware of the passage of time, the valiant, misguided
soldiers begin to attack enemy targets.

What is good? What is evil?

Filled with detail as historically accurate
as its opening is fanciful, this complex
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surprising twist.

An outstanding military thriller of

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J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

19

WORLD

WAR II

Conversation with Henry Supchak

Hard Landing
By Gene Santoro

OR DECADES AFTER the

war, Henry Supchak, who
flew B-17 bombers as a

lieutenant in the Eighth Air

Force, had nightmares. He was a
successful executive with a loving family and a Distinguished
Flying Cross, but the memories
of being shot down and his
travails as a POW haunted him.
My wife kept pushing me to
do something about my PTSD,
he recalls fondly. In time, Supchak and his daughter wrote
The Final Mission (2012), about
his wartime experiences and
peacetime search for closure.
Here he revisits the ordeals that
seared him.

When was your

final mission?

July 31, 1944. I was a senior pilot

on my 33rd bombing mission. I
was 28,000 feet over the target, Munichs
railroad yards, when I got shot down
at 11:30 a.m.
Had you bombed Munich before?

That was my fourth mission to Munich,

which was one of the roughest targets
ever. During the approach, hundreds of
Me 109s attacked us from every direction.
Countless antiaircraft guns opened up.
This time, as the bombardier announced
bombs away, the starboard engines took
a hit. The AA shells were set to explode at
altitude, not on contact. Otherwise you
and I wouldnt be talking.
What happened?

My right thigh caught a piece of shrapnel.

I left it in to cork the blood flow. The
engines immediately began to smoke, and
the antiaircraft shells had destroyed the fire
extinguisher mechanism. That made it very
dangerous: the fuel tanks were directly
20

WORLD WAR II

behind the engines, separated by firewalls.

We were lucky those firewalls held.

chute was made of silk. Nylon would

have melted.

What were your options?

How did you feel?

It was six hours to England, so that was

out. I decided to fly directly to the
Austrian-Swiss border, only an hour and
20 minutes. At Innsbruck, six antiaircraft
guns opened up. We dodged them. When
we were out of range, I gave the order to
bail out. I had drilled my crew relentlessly, so that went off flawlessly.

I was absolutely relaxed, I guess because I

was alive. The saddest part was watching
my B-17, Priority Gal, explode into a huge
fireball and a zillion pieces of hot metal.
Ive had nightmares over that. This beautiful aircraft had gotten me through 32
missions safely, and now I had to watch
it die. When I looked down, there were
about 50 farmers and a couple of SS
troops with machine guns and dogs. Even
that didnt bother me. What did bother
me was the fields. They were freshly
plowed, with high furrows.

What about you?

I glanced out the windshieldto this day

I dont know whyand saw that the
plane was on course to hit a village. I had
to turn sharp left to avoid that. Since
everything was pulling to the right, I had
a helluva time. But it worked, and I
bailed. As soon as my parachute blossomed, my plane exploded. The heat was
so bad it was a damned good thing my

Did that make it hard to land?

It sure did. I twisted my left leg very

badly. As I hit the ground, a little old lady
dressed in black standing by herself said,
first in German, then in English, For
SAMUEL D. CORUM; OPPOSITE: COURTESY OF HENRY SUPCHAK

you, son, the war is over. Then the

guards chased her.
Could you stand up?

My left leg felt damn near broken

it took me about three months to get it
back in shapeand my right thigh had
the shrapnel, but the guards made me
pick up the chute and march a quarter
mile to the towns military outpost. They
shoved me into solitary. A couple days
later a small boy brought me food and
clean water. He and his aunt had seen me
bail out. The aunt, who turned out to
be a very attractive young woman, distracted the guards while the boy snuck
around to my tiny window.

The saddest part

was watching my
B-17, Priority Gal,
explode into a huge
fireball and a zillion
pieces of hot metal.

So 11,000 POWs marched for days

in deep winter.

We went as we were, during a blizzard,

minus 20 degrees, with 10 inches of snow
already on the ground. I was in loafers; my
feet were numb. Some of us had coats; some
had only blankets. None of it was adequate.
Most of us had no food. Everyone had frostbitten fingers and toes; some just fell off.
One night we had to sleep in a warehouse
with a flooded floor. I was at the rear of the
POW line. Behind us the only guard and a
chaplain, in a horse-drawn wagon, were
picking up frozen bodies.
Then you were loaded onto trains.

Cattle cars, with the souvenirs everybody

before us had left all over the floor. Forty
people could stand elbow to elbow in
there, and they forced in 50 of us, or more.
We were at the outskirts of Nuremberg
when B-17s began to bomb around us.
One explosion rocked our car so hard we
had trouble standing. All we could do was
hope and pray.

Did you get medical care?

The SS captain pulled the shrapnel out

with pliers, using benzene as an antiseptic. I thought Id go crazy. Hed been a
cabdriver in Chicago, and he talked like
one. Its all we have, he said. Take it or
leave it. He was gonna throw the shrapnel away, but Ive got it here, framed.

You made it to Stalag VII-A,

You and your crew reunited.

near Munich.

We were shipped out in a huge covered

truck with a tailgate four feet high. When
I couldnt make the climb, my friend,
bombardier Wilson Leahy, tried to help
me. The guard told him, Get away, let
him do it himself. Leahy boosted me
anyway. The guards rifle butt hit the right
side of his head; it sounded exactly like a
coconut dropped on the floor. After that,
Leahy shuffled and was glassy-eyed. His
head lolled to one side, he spoke only a
few garbled words. Im sure he had brain
damage. He died soon after getting back
to the States.

There were 60,000 POWs in buildings

meant to house 30,000. Imagine the conditions. Prisoners were barbecuing rats
and enjoying them.

Where did they take you?

To a small encampment outside Munich.

I was put in solitary for two weeks in
a cell about 6 by 10 with a window up
at the ceiling. The mattress was made
of straw; when I shook it, a copy of
Goodbye, Mr. Chips fell out. To preserve

my mental equilibrium, I began reading

it out loud and exercising rigorously. But
a sickening smell came in that still gives
me nightmares: our camp was a quartermile from Dachau, where they were
burning bodies.
You moved to Stalag Luft III. How
were conditions?

Tolerable. I was in the building next to

the one where the Great Escape happened. The movie has a lot of truth about
life in that camp. One evening in late
January, we had a performance of You
Cant Take It With You going when the
barracks chief ran in. He said that we
had half an hour to vacate the camp. The
Russians were moving straight at us.
Hitler wanted us as bargaining chips.

When were you liberated?

On April 29, 1945. I awoke to heavy

gunfire, explosions, and the rumbling
of tanks. The guards assembled to defend
the camp. We hid. A column of American
jeeps and tanks appeared in a cloud of
dust. We were screaming and gasping. A
jeep ripped through the barbed wire and
the rest followed. The guards surrendered,
and we came out. The officer in charge
said, Congratulations, men, youve won
the war! Youre free! They gave us clothing and medication. To go easy on our
systems, we got bland food: fresh bread,
steamed rice, bananas, and hot tea. It
wasnt much, but it was the best meal I
had ever eaten.
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

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WORLD

WAR II

War Letters

Closing Ceremonies
By Andrew Carroll

HIS ISSUES War Letters will be

the last, and, appropriately enough,
concludes with a pair of previously

unpublished accounts of events surrounding the ceremony that marked the end of
World War II. Captain Ed Clement, 25, navigator of the plane that carried General
Douglas MacArthur to Japan for surrender
formalities aboard the USS Missouri,
writes beforehand to his wife, Dorothy, in
Chicago. Rear Admiral John F. Shafroth Jr.,
58, writes just afterward to his brother in
Denver. Though far different in tone and
angle, each letter clearly conveys a sense
of awe at being present as history was

the newsreel if you look hard enough.

We had plenty of Jap trucks and civilian
cars for our use. All along the road were
Jap armed troops and they turned their
backs to us. We were armed and had our
45s ready but had no trouble.
When we came to the outskirts of the
town we were amazed at the destruction.
Practically the whole city was burned to
the ground. The roads and fireproof buildings were OK. There were a few streetcars
running. The General and his staff stayed
at the New Grand Hotel which compares
with a second rate hotel in the states. We
stay at the Helm House which has a private

bath with cold water only. I put your pictures all over the dressing table and I can
see you from any place in the room.
We eat all of our meals at the New
Grand which is three blocks away. Last
night we had Jap beer and some sort of
ground meat. There was no dessert other
than large blue grapes. When we finished
four bottles of beer and our dinner it was
dark and we walked to our hotel uneasy all
the time. At our hotel was a Jap interpreter
who told us that they moved 200 girls into
an apartment building across the street.
We didnt take him up on it but we could
see the girls and the rooms with grass mats

being made. (The letters have been edited

solely for length.)

Clockwise from left:

Clement, with wife

Yokohama,
August 31, 1945

Dorothy; Shafroth on the

USS Missouri; and the
ceremony that unites

Hello Honey,
I cant believe that Im in Japan. The
plane 9027-C-54E left Manila on the 29 of
August with General McArthur. I was
chosen as navigator. We left at 0900 and
arrived at Yontan field Okinawa at 1400.
The General signed two short snorter bills
for me. He was very friendly. He appears
slightly older than his pictures. He was
very restless and walked around on the
plane as this surrender treaty to be signed
on the 2nd Sunday was on his mind.
At Okinawa the crew stayed at Far East
Air Force and we drew four cokes and two
bottles of beer. We departed the next
morning at 0900 for Atsugi aerodrome
which is 17 miles from Tokyo.
I got several photographs of the general
and the aeroplane 9027 named Bataan.
We landed on Japan five hours later. The
weather was good on the whole trip.
When we landed the General stepped
out with sunglasses, braided cap and a long
corn cob pipe. He is really an actor. There
were all kinds of photographers and newsreel men and honey you might see me in
TOP: COURTESY OF THE CLEMENT FAMILY; MIDDLE: PHOTO BY JOHN FLOREA/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES; BOTTOM: AP PHOTO/C. P. GORRY

them, MacArthur at left.

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

23

War Letters

and hear the music. There are very few

troops here as yet but more damn brass
hats than you can shake a stick at. The bed
is a sort of a pallet with a pillow filled with
straw and shaped like a cylinder. We threw
them on the floor. It is very cool at night
with a strong wind which blew furiously.
We got up at 0630 and went over for
breakfast and passed the U.S. Embassy
building. The shield and the U.S.A. are still
there and it looked pretty good.
Lt. Col. [Weldon E.] Rhoades our pilot
told us wed have to go to the field this
noon and help park 2 C54s and bring the
big shots in town (Russian + Chinese). I
believe Ill be here for at least a week before
going back to Manila.
I may be pulled up here to start a briefing station or I may stay in Manila or I may
be returned to the states (I hope I hope).
I say goodby now Dotty and Ill write
again soon.
Love, Ed
Jack Shafroth, who on July 14, 1945, led an
eight-ship squadron that reduced military
targets on the Japanese home islands,
picks up the story the next day:

2 September 1945
Dear Morey,
Yesterday my Chief of Staff Joe Cronin
and I, with my Flag Lieutenant, Bill
Hussey, left on a destroyer for Tokyo to
witness the formalities.
We arrived in Tokyo Bay early and I
went over to the Missouri about 7:45
where I had a fine talk with Halsey. About
eight oclock the officers began to come
aboard and it was like an old home week.
Naturally we were all feeling very happy.
The surrender ceremonies took place on
the platform deck outside of the Captains
cabin where a table about 3 X 9 was set
up, with two chairs on opposite sides of it.
The representatives of the Allied Nations
took station facing forward and the
Japanese delegates took station facing
aft. The other officers, Army, Navy and
Marine, gathered in several lines facing
outward and to starboard. I myself was in
the front row well to the right next to
24

WORLD WAR II

MacArthur turned
and proceeded to his
quarters without any
further word to
the Japanese.
Lieutenant General Geiger, USMC, and
directly in front were Lieutenant General
Wainwright and General Percival who was
the British Commander at Singapore.
The Japanese party consisted of the
foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and
General Yoshi Jiro Umezo, with three representatives of the civil government, three
of the Army and three of the Navy, but
only the first two actually signed the surrender terms. General MacArthur kept
them waiting four or five minutes and
then came down with Admiral Nimitz
and made a brief address in which he
stated that he hoped the document which
was to be signed would commence an era
of peace that might continue for all time.
The Japanese foreign minister who was
somewhat lame and walked with a cane
then came forward, set himself at the table,
glanced over the terms of the agreement
and signed his name. He was followed by
General Umezo. They had brought forward certain documents.
Apparently they desired that the treaty
be signed in both English and Japanese,
but General MacArthur picked up the
Japanese documents, pushed them to the
side and then sat down and signed.
MacArthur called to his side General
Wainwright and General Percival, the
Commanders who had surrendered to
the Japanese at Corregidor and Singapore,
and he handed to each of them a pen
which had been used in signing one of
the duplicate texts. Admiral Nimitz then
came forward and called Halsey and
Forrest Sherman, his plans officer, to his
side while he affixed his signature.
The representatives of the other nations
then came forward: Australia, China,
France, Great Britain, The Netherlands,
New Zealand and Russia. Admiral Sir

Bruce Frasier signed for the British, and

they were in white shorts.
It was a time of great gravity. The
Japanese stood perfectly expressionless.
Their Lieutenant General Miyakazi who
represented the Army General Headquarters looked hardly human, but more like a
rat than a human being, and the others
were only slightly better.
When the ceremony was completed,
General MacArthur turned and proceeded
to his quarters without any further word to
the Japanese who stood there for a little
while and then were taken down and sent
over the side and set ashore. Neither
General MacArthur nor Admiral Nimitz
nor Admiral Halsey nor, so far as I know,
any Flag Officer saw them over the side.
I saw many of my Army friends, some
Marines and of course many of my Navy
compatriots. Tom Hill, also on Admiral
Nimitz staff, said he might go through
Denver enroute to the East Coast and I
told him that if he did to be sure and ring
you up and tell you that you had instructions from me to take him to lunch at the
Country Club.
With much love to you and all your
family, I am,
Your devoted brother, Jack
P.S. According to the press one of the
signed copies was in Japanese.
Ed Clement mustered out in 1946, got an
MBA, and in 1948 rejoined the U.S. Air
Force, serving until 1968. After, he worked
in the California Department of Finance. He
died in 1983. Jack Shafroth, a Navy Cross
recipient, retired in 1949 as Vice Admiral
and was president of the Naval Historical
Foundation from 196167. He died in 1967.

Andrew Carroll will continue to seek and preserve letters from all of Americas wars.
Photocopies of letters (or original letters, if
they do not need to be returned) can be sent
to: P.O. Box 53250, Washington, DC 20009.
Look for our new department From the
Footlocker next issue.

WORLD

WAR II

Their Darkest Hour

A Fond Look Back

By Laurence Rees

ICTURE A MANa
committed SS man
who invested years of
his life working at Auschwitz.
Who do you see?
Whatever you envision, I
doubt very much that the image
corresponds to Oskar Grning,
who I met nearly 10 years ago
in Germany. Grning, whose
service at Auschwitz started
in 1942, was in his early 80s.
He looked like a bank clerk
hardly surprising, since his first
job upon leaving school was
at a bank. In appearance and
manner he was as far removed
as you can imagine from the
stereotype of the SS ranks. He
wasnt some kind of slavering
insane creature. He didnt look
like the devil, but like the man
who organized your mortgage,
happily retired into the quiet life
of a grandparent.
However, it was certainly no
accident that Grning was a member of
the Schutzstaffel. He wanted to belong to
an elite group. He embraced Nazi ideology. He believed the Nazi propaganda that
said the Jews caused Germanys suffering,
even its defeat in World War I.
We were convinced by our worldview
that there was a great conspiracy of Jewishness against us, Grning smoothly
explained to me. And that was expressed
in Auschwitz in the idea that said, Here
the Jews are being exterminated. What
happened in the First World Warthat
the Jews put us into miserymust be
avoided. The Jews are our enemies. So we
exterminated nothing but enemies.
When Grning first arrived at Auschwitz the camps brutality shocked him and
he applied to transfer, but when he was
denied he overcame his revulsion and
went on with his assignment in the camps
CBW/ALAMY; INSET COURTESY OF LAURENCE REES

The Schutzstaffels heroic

posturing exerted a magnetic
pull on less-than-epic
Germans like Oskar Grning
(right), who unquestioningly
accepted the Reichs antiJewish propaganda.

economic department, sorting

cash stolen from new arrivals.
The fact that he worked at
one of the most appalling places ever
created did not torment Grning. In fact,
he found the headquarters at Auschwitz a
wonderful environment. A high jumper,
he joined a sports club for SS personnel,
which also offered access to a cinema and
a theater. Great fellowship marked his
days at the camp. Apart from the fact that
there are pigs who fulfill their personal
drivesthere were such people [among
the SS]the special situation [at Ausch-

witz] led to friendships which

Im still saying today I like to
think of with joy.
Grnings memories astonished me. I wanted to know
how he could possibly account
for the mindset that had rationalized the camps death toll of
1.1 million people, including
200,000 Jewish children. The
children are not the enemy at
the moment, the genial old
man said. The enemy is the
blood in themthe [capacity]
to grow up to be a Jew who
could become dangerous. And
because of that the children
were also affected.
After the war, Grning
who, like the vast majority of
Auschwitz SS veterans, escaped
prosecution for war crimes
achieved a successful career as
a personnel manager
for a glassworks in
northern Germany.
He said he agreed to
sit for an interview
because he wanted to
combat the phenomenon of Holocaust
denial. Grning confessed hes ashamed
that he believed all
the Nazi propaganda
about Jews back in
the old days, but added that he does
not believe he committed any crime by
working at Auschwitz. I find it terrible
what happened, he said, and the fact
that I had to be there disgusting. But
guilty? No.
Of hundreds of people I have met who
participated in the war, Oskar Grning
remains one of the most memorable. An
SS man from Auschwitz who looked like a
kindly grandfather. Terrifying, isnt it?
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

25

WORLD

WAR II

Time Travel

Escape to Colditz
Story and photos by Andrew Curry

OLDITZ CASTLE RISES high

above the surrounding countryside of Germanys eastern Saxony
region, its white walls and narrow windows
peering down at the Mulde River and the
small town of Colditz below. Designated
Oflag (officer camp) IV-C by the Wehrmacht in 1939, the 16th-century castle was
assumed to be escape proof. Its prisoners
spent the war proving otherwise.
On a bitterly cold, gray day in January
I took the steep, ice-slicked cobblestone
street that winds a few hundred yards
from the town square to the castles outer
wall. Following in the footsteps of hundreds of Allied POWs, I crossed a stone
bridge over a dry moat and went through
a narrow passageway into Colditz. The
passageway opens into a courtyard almost
as big as a football field, the part of the
castle occupied by the German guards.
Another vaulted arch leads to a second,
smaller courtyard not much bigger than a
volleyball court. This inner space was the
center of POW life.

Its also the first stop for visitors. Behind

a thick wooden door and up a flight of
stone stairs, the castles Escape Museum
provides an orientation to the castles
wartime history. Most of the artifacts
filling its numerous display cases were
preserved by the Wehrmacht, which saw
Colditz as a sort of training facility for
POW guards. In addition to high-ranking
officers and valuable aristocrats, the
camp received prisoners who had made
multiple break-out attempts. By studying
the best escape artists the Allies had to offer,
the German army hoped to gain insights
for running camps across the Reich.
Around 300 Germans would serve here
throughout the war, at times guarding
more than 500 officers from Poland,
Britain and the Commonwealth, France,
Belgium, Yugoslavia, the United States, and
the Netherlands, plus the officers orderlies.
While the German strategy had a certain
logic, putting all the bad eggs in one basket
produced near constant escape attempts, as
the most creative and daring Allied POWs

The Germans used Colditz Castle to

study POW escape efforts, while the
view from its cells (above) let prisoners
watch for opportunities to break out.

encouraged each other and pooled their

expertise. Polish officers were the first to
arrive in November 1939, and immediately
started casing the joint. Soon the prisoners
knew every inch of the building, often
better than their guards. Between 1941 and
1944 there were an estimated 300 escape
attempts from Colditz; 31 succeeded.

Would-be escapees were photographed

holding their crude tunneling tools or
wearing disguiseswhich were kept as
educational trophiesand punished with
solitary confinement.
The castles collection testifies to the
creativity and daring of the prisoners,
many of whom relied on sheer chutzpah:

several tried to simply walk out of the

castle. German uniforms were sewn by
hand out of blankets, and cardboard rifles
were realistic enough to pass one casual
glancebut not a second. Belt buckles and
insignia were cast from melted linoleum,
provided by the castle, and painted silver.
For decades after the war, Communist-era
renovations turned up everything from
handcrafted knives and shovels to cans of
food squirreled away under floorboards
and bricked up in walls. In 1993 a radio
station was found under the eaves, and
reconstructed in the castle museum.
The day I visited, guide Steffi Schubert
offered to show me around. Starting in the
courtyard, Schubert pointed out a narrow
tower originally built to house the weights
for the castles clock. French prisoners used
the narrow shaft as the entrance for an
escape tunnelone of seventhat started
Some prisoners attempted to walk out
of the castles front gate (below) in
counterfeit German uniforms (top right),
though one Frenchman tried to slip
away as a woman (top left). Dutch
ofcers bought time for escapees by
sculpting a dummy head (bottom left)
to stand in for them at roll call.

HISTORIC IMAGES,: MUSEUM SCHLOSS COLDITZ

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

27

Time Travel

several stories above the ground, wound its

way under the flagstones of the chapel, and
then cut down through solid bedrock.
Tunneling through stone meant heating
it, splashing it with water or snow to form
cracks, then slowly chipping it away. (Enthusiastic organists playing in the chapel
helped mask the noise.) When the entrance
to the tunnel was discovered in 1942, the
Germans made the diggers fill it in with
concrete. It must have been the worst
punishment, Schubert said, peering into
the narrow crack that remains.All the tunnels failedI think the digging was mainly
for morale.
Schubert led me through a gate and
down another cobbled trail. Behind the
castle, a walled-in parkonce used as a
hunting preservewas covered in snow.
Some of the most audacious escapes from
Colditz started here. Dutch POWs hid
under a loose manhole cover until dark,
then melted into the thick forest around
the castle. One French lieutenant got a
boost over the wall during an exercise break
and dodged bullets before safely making it
to the forest.
Escape efforts like these were highly
coordinated. To buy time for escaped comrades, prisoners raised two dummy heads
(nicknamed Max and Moritz) at the daily
roll calls while others answered present.
At one point two prisonersthe Colditz
Ghostsspent nine months hiding inside
the castle. Written off by their captors, they
covered for men busy with tunneling or
other escape work. They were found out in
the summer when their skin, pallid from
28

WORLD WAR II

months hiding in a compartment under

the chapels pulpit, gave them away.
In the castles larger courtyard, Schubert
unlocked a small gate and led me down
into a low chamber that was once a potato
cellar. Theres only one other exit: a narrow
ceiling vent leading to a barred window,
just wide enough for a mans torso. It was
enough for Pat Reid, a British officer whose
1952 memoir The Colditz Story was the first
popular account of the camp. In 1942, Reid
and three others wriggled out face-up, the
only way to get through without breaking
their knees at the top of the passage, and
made it to the Swiss border disguised as
Flemish workers.
On the third floor of the building,
Schubert led me down a hallway covered in
peeling paisley wallpaper left over from the
castles postwar use as a hospital. At the end
of the hall is a ballroom, complete with a
chandelier and a small stage. Prisoners
spent a lot of time hereboxing, fencing,
and organizing elaborately costumed plays
and musical revues. The shows were a
perfect cover for sewing counterfeit uniforms; the orchestra was instrumental in
signaling the approach of guards and
drowning out the sound of tunneling.
The antics at Colditz are an unexpected
change from the grim tenor of most German war sites, though the camp wasnt
immune to the deterioration of Germanys
situation. Guards caught accepting bribes
were executed. Escape attempts dropped
dramatically after the March 1944 Great
Escape from Stalag Luft III resulted in
dozens of executions. That September,
Michael Sinclair, veteran of nine failed
escapes, climbed the fence of the exercise
yard in full view of the guards and was
gunned down, the only prisoner to die
trying to escape from Colditz.
Still, the prisoners had one last stunt
planned. Schubert led me up a winding
staircase and unlocked a thick metal door
from the 16th century. We ascended to a
wide room with a peaked roof: the castles
attic. Taking up much of the center of the
space is a 20-foot-long glider fashioned
from blue-and-white checked tablecloths,
a replica of the most audacious plot to

WHEN YOU GO
Colditz is accessible by private car or via
public bus from the city of Leipzig, about
30 miles away. The museum is open yearround, though hours are reduced in winter
(schloss-colditz.com). Guided tours are
offered in English twice a day from April to
October; additional English-language tours
can be reserved in advance by contacting
Steffi Schubert (Schubert.steffi@t-online.de).

WHERE TO STAY AND EAT

The town has several small hotels, including
Zur alten Stadtmauer and Hotel Waldhaus,
and there are several restaurants and an ice
cream parlor in the square below the castle.
Leipzig has many more options.

WHAT ELSE TO SEE

If youre staying in Leipzig, the Museum in der
Runden Ecke in the center of town spans two
major periods of German history. The building
served as the headquarters of the U.S. VII
Corps for a few months in 1945, between the
citys liberation by the 2nd and 69th Infantry
Divisions and the transition to Soviet rule.
Then it became the local headquarters of the
Stasi, East Germanys loathed secret police.
The ground floor was preserved intact and
now serves as a museum documenting the
Stasis methods and crimes.

escape from Colditz Castle.

Over several months in 1944, 40 prisoners kept watch while a team of 16 built the
aircraft out of bed slats behind a false wall
in the attic, impregnating the lightweight
cloth covering with porridge to stiffen it.
The plan was to launch it from the roof,
soar across the river, and land in a field.
It was a desperate plan for desperate
times: In the chaotic final months of the
war in Europe, control of the town transferred to the SS. In April 1944, the 20-foot
glider was a few weeks from completion
when the SS moved out the high-value
prisoners; the rest were to be marched
eastward. But as American forces closed in
from the south, engaging with the SS and
Hitler Youth and shelling the town, the
camp commandant made a secret deal to
surrender to his British prisoners on April
14, 1945. Two days later the castle was
liberated. The glider never flew.
MAP BY KEVIN JOHNSON

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Danger
Zone

By Rick Atkinson

When the Germans fought back

at Mortain, the violence
pivoted around a patch of
high ground and the American
artillerymen trapped there

ar, as historian Bruce

Catton once wrote, sometimes went by a queer
script of its own, putting
a jackboot down on some
anonymous, unlikely place like Shiloh Church or
Kasserine or Anzio or Sainte-Mre-glise. Such a place
was the French village of Mortain, home to 1,300, 19
miles east of Avranches amid broken terrain dubbed the
Norman Switzerland in a triumph of tourist-bureau
ebullience over geography. The towns name was said to
derive from Maurus, a reference to Moors in the Roman
army. Renowned for cutlery, first of pewter and then of
stainless steel, Mortain in recent times also had become
a mining and market hub, linking inland communes with

Members of the U.S. 30th Infantry Division clear the streets

of Mortain, France, in August 1944 following a large-scale German
counterattack that took American forces by surprise.

30

WORLD WAR II

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

the coast. Since the Allied invasion of Normandy began

on June 6, 1944, thousands of refugees from the battered
invasion zone had shuffled through, among them children
wearing tags with the addresses of relatives to contact should
their mothers fall dead.
The last German occupier in Mortain had been gunned
down on August 3 by a French policeman armed with a 19thcentury rifle and one bullet. Hours later, the U.S. 1st Infantry
Division arrived, only to move along on August 6, supplanted
on that warm, luminous Sunday by the 30th Infantry
Division. Cheering civilians tossed flowers at the newcomers
in their grinding trucks as they rumbled past busy cafs and
hotels. Known as Old Hickory for its National Guard roots in
Tennessee and the Carolinas, the 30th Division still was licking wounds from the late-July offensive aimed at breaking
the Normandy stalemate, Operation Cobra, particularly the
fratricidal bombing by American aircraft in the first two days
that killed 136 GIs and wounded hundreds more, nearly all
in the 30th Division. Two of the divisions nine infantry
battalions had been dispatched elsewhere; the rest now bur32

WORLD WAR II

rowed in across a seven-mile front.

Of keen interest was a stony, steep hill called Montjoie,
looming over Mortain to the east and so named because from
here joyful pilgrims first caught sight of the soaring abbey at
Mont Saint-Michel, 27 miles distant. To GIs the mile-long
escarpment was simply Hill 314, after its height in meters; 700
men from the 2nd Battalion of the 120th Infantry chuffed to
the crest before scratching at the skimpy fieldworks left by the
1st Division.
With them was Second Lieutenant Robert L. Weiss, a tall,
strapping artillery forward observer who was wearing the
same wool serge shirt his father, a Jewish immigrant from
Hungary, had worn in World War I. In addition to binoculars
on a tripod, Weiss, 21, lugged a 35-pound SCR-610 radio in a
saddle-soaped leather case; the FM set had a five-mile range,
just enough to reach the howitzer batteries dug in to the west.
Main text excerpted from THE GUNS AT LAST LIGHT:
The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson.
Copyright 2013 by Rick Atkinson. Reprinted by arrangement
with Henry Holt and Company, LLC. All rights reserved.
MAP BY GENE THORP

Recently he had written his mother in Indiana to complain

that whenever youre in the fight you never know how it is
going; thats the way it always is, and noting, I hope I get a
chance to do a little shooting on my own the next few days.
His weary comrades hoped only for a little rest.
This they would not get. The assessment of British general
Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of Allied ground forces
in Normandy, that the enemy situation is far from good was
unarguable, and that very vulnerability made the Germans
desperate. From his East Prussian headquarters a thousand
miles to the east, Hitler detected a unique opportunity, which
will never return, to drive into an extremely exposed enemy
area. At his direction, a counterattack spearheaded by four
panzer divisions was to blast through Mortain to Avranches,
cleaving George S. Pattons Third Army from Courtney H.
Hodgess First Army and, if not cudgeling the invaders back
to their ships, at least re-imposing the static war of early
summer. In a message sent through high command, Hitler
added a directive for his commander in the west, Field
Marshal Gnther von Kluge: Tell Kluge that he should keep
his eyes riveted to the front and on the enemy without ever
looking backward.
Kluge, who had commanded an army group on the Eastern
Front for two years and brought to France a reputation as a
fearless and tenacious innovator, replied that such an attack if
not immediately successful would risk envelopment and annihilation. Even if the spearhead reached Avranches, the force
would be too weak to hold its gains against Allied air, artillery,
and armor. Eight German divisions had already been obliterated during July fighting in and below northwest Frances
Cotentin Peninsula, plus others written off in Brittany and the
isolated Channel Islands. Six replacement divisions had
recently arrived on the Norman front from southern France
and Pas-de-Calais, permitting a reorganization of sorts: Panzer
Group West was rechristened Fifth Panzer Army, with a dozen
divisions in four corps, and Seventh Army counted 16 divisions. Yet this host was fragile and dispirited.
Hitler waved away all caviling. The attack would go forward,
as ordered, recklessly to the sea, regardless of the risk.
wirling fog lifted and descended with stagecurtain melodrama in the balmy small hours
of August 7. Shortly after 1 a.m., American
pickets reported a spatter of rifle fire, followed
by the distinctive growl of panzers on the
hunt. Then the attack slammed against the 30th Division
front in scalding, scarlet gusts: 26,000 Germans in the first
echelon, with 120 tanks crewed by men in black uniforms
evocative of the old imperial cavalry. Machine guns cackled,
and the percussive boom of tank main guns rippled up and
down the line. American howitzers barked back, firing by
earshot at bent shadows barely 1,000 yards ahead. GIs scramBUNDESARCHIV BILD 183-2004-0524-500, PHOTO O. ANG

In a message sent through

high command, Hitler added a
directive for his commander in
the west, Field Marshal Gnther
von Kluge: Tell Kluge that he
should keep his eyes riveted
to the front and on the enemy
without ever looking backward.
bled among firing positions to simulate greater numbers;
pockets here and there were cut off in what one soldier
described as an all-gone feeling. Wounded men mewed in
the night.
Almost nothing went right in the German attack. A stricken
Allied fighter-bomber smashed into the lead tank of the 1st SS
Panzer Division, blocking the column for hours. Only three of

Field Marshal Gnther von Kluge carried out Hitlers order for
the counterattack despite deep reservations that such an
attack if not immediately successful would risk annihilation.
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

33

German forces, such as this Waffen SS mortar team, launched

a furious attackone the Allies deftly countered.

six enemy spearheads surged forward on time. The right wing,

anchored by the 116th Panzer Division, hardly budged; the
commander would be sacked for uninspired and negative
leadership. Of 300 Luftwaffe fighters promised for the battle,
not one reached the front.
The German weight fell heaviest on Saint-Barthlemy, a
crossroads two miles north of Mortain. Aiming at muzzle
flashes, American tank destroyer crews here demolished a
Panther with a 3-inch slug at 50 yards, then another at 30
yards; both slewed across the road, burning with white fury.
GIs at one roadblock let the panzers roll through, then
butchered the grenadiers trailing behind. The 1st Battalion of
the 117th Infantry suffered 350 casualties and retired to a hillside 1,000 yards west of Saint-Barthlemy, but the German
offensive had been delayed six hours, with 40 panzers soon
crippled. Meanwhile, at the Abbaye Blanche, a 12th-century
stone heap just north of Mortain, a platoon of 66 men with
bazookas and artillery repelled an SS regiment. GIs stood fast
against tanks, flamethrowers, and grenades. More than 60
enemy vehicles would be knocked out hub to hub to hub.
Dawn, that pitiless revealer of exigencies, unmasked the
German predicament. Four armored divisionsfrom north
34

WORLD WAR II

to south, the 116th Panzer, the 2nd Panzer, and the 1st and
2nd SS Panzerstood exposed and blinking in the brilliant
sunshine once the fog burned off. First really large concentration of enemy tanks seen since D-Day, a Royal Air Force
patrol reported. Typhoon fighter-bombers soon scalded the
German ranks with 2,000 60-pound rockets and 20mm
cannon rounds the size of tent pegs. Joined by formations of
Thunderbolts and Hurricanes, the planes attacked until dusk
in a shark frenzy.
Hundreds of German troops began spilling out into the
road to spring for the open fields and hedgerows, a Typhoon
pilot reported. Only a few dozen tanks and trucks were actually
demolished from the air, and more than a few sorties mistakenly hit American revetments. But scores of other vehicles were
abandoned under the onslaught or were wrecked by field
artillery: a dozen battalions144 tubesraked the two roads
leading west from Saint-Barthlemy. A panzer corps headquarters described the attacks as well-nigh unendurable, and the
German Seventh Army on August 7 conceded that the actual
attack has been at a standstill since 1300 hours.
The only exception to the exceptionally poor start, as
Seventh Army described the offensive, was a narrow advance
of four miles by the 2nd Panzer Division in the north, and the
successful seizure of Mortain by the 2nd SS Panzer Division.
Das Reich, as the 2nd SS Panzer was known, had struck at

A dead German soldier and disabled Wehrmacht vehicles,

including the camouflaged halftrack in the foreground, lie
exposed on a road outside Mortain.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE, BPK/ART RESOURCE

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

35

3 a.m. on Monday in three columns, overrunning a roadblock to the south, capturing antitank guns to the north, and
infiltrating through the 120th Infantry with help from two
local French collaborators. Wraiths in coal-scuttle helmets
darted down the village streets, kicking in doors and poking
through cellars.
Thirty officers and men from the 2nd Battalion command
post tiptoed out a back exit of the Htel de la Poste to hide in
a house 400 yards away. Most, including the battalion commander and a soldier armed only with an ax, would later be
captured by the Germans while trying to creep off, though half
a dozen escaped detection for a week, living on garden vegetables and food pilfered from the local hospital larder. A radioed
query from the 30th Division headquarters six miles to the
westWhat does your situation look like down there?
drew a spare reply: Looks like hell.
t also looked like hell from Hill 314, but at least the
view was majestic. Lieutenant Weiss, with his field
glasses and Signal Corps radio, had called in his first
fire mission at 6 a.m., shooting only by sound and by
map coordinates after sentries reported 400 enemy
troops scrabbling up the east slope. From a stone outcropping on the hills southern lip, among scrub pines and the
animal fragrance of summer pastures, Weiss soon saw
columns of German soldiers threading the plain below,
including bicycle troops with rifles slung across their shoulders. Again he murmured incantations into the radio handset. Moments later, rushing shells fell in splashes of fire and
the singing fragments that gunners called Big Iron. German
mortar and 88mm shells answered, pummeling Montjoies
rocky shoulders. The assault came from all sides. Late in the
afternoon Weiss radioed, Enemy N, S, E, W. During a rare
lull, one GI later wrote, No birds were singing. No leaves
were moving. No wind was blowing.
Nor were the Germans advancing. Artillery curtains
directed from Hill 314 paralyzed Das Reich, kept the 17th
SS Panzergrenadier Division from scaling the hill, and prevented a collapse of the U.S. 30th Divisions southern flank.
White phosphorus from American shells forced enemy troops
into the open, where they frantically brushed the burning
flakes from skin and uniform; high-explosive shells then cut
them to scraps. By nightfall, the German offensive had stalled
completely: five divisions had been unable to punch through
a single American division that had fewer than 6,000 infantrymen. If only the Germans will go on attacking at Mortain for
a few more days, Montgomery cabled the British Armys
ranking officer, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, that evening,
it seems that they might not be able to get away.
In this the enemy complied. Positions changed little on
Tuesday, August 8, another pellucid day for killing, both
on the wing and by observed artillery fire. Guns crashed and
36

WORLD WAR II

View from
the Hill

hat was it like to be a field artillery

forward observer with an American
infantry battalion surrounded for six
days by an elite SS panzer division?
Memories of that battle, part of a

massive German counteroffensive in Normandy following the

Allied breakout at Saint-L, still flicker through my mind.
My official position with B Battery, 230th Field Artillery
Battalion, 30th Infantry Division, was reconnaissance officer.
On occasion I did some reconnoiteringfor example, going in
advance of the battalion to select gun positions before we
crossed the Seine River on August 27, 1944, and ahead of
almost everybody doing that at Malmedy, Belgium, during the
Battle of the Bulge. I spent the balance of the time at the front
as a forward observer with the infantrymeaning that, supported by a small group under my command, I called in artillery
firepower to protect the infantry from attack and assist it in
achieving its mission.
My forward observer party usually included two or three
others: a radio operator, a driver if we had the luxury of a jeep,
and often a man to help carry the radio or the radios battery
pack, each of which weighed about 35 pounds.
When instructed to assemble an observer party near the little French town of Mortain, I did not know where we were
headed or what our mission was, although our battalion customarily supported the 120th Infantry Regiment. After getting
my men together, including a new replacement who had some
forward observer experience, I met with a liaison officer and
we studied a map. It showed a high point, 314 meters above
sea level, east of the town; troops of the 120th were supposed
to be there, so we headed out of Mortain up to Hill 314. We
didnt anticipate any trouble: there was no current action and,
with the enemy in retreat, none expected.
THE ATTACK BEGAN JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT on August 7,
1944, only hours after wed arrived at Hill 314; German artillery,
particularly the deadly 88, incessantly bombarded the quickly
surrounded battalion. By the third day, the enemy had pummeled the hill with high-explosive and armor-piercing shells,
and even white phosphorus, whose particles burn white-hot,
evoking fears of chemical warfare. My radio operator, Tech
Sergeant Armon Sasser, was hunkering below the hills rocky
crest. A gentle but tough man with a voice like the rustle of
leaves in a light breeze, he knew his job well and could think

around the devastated enemy battery. Next we hit six selfpropelled German guns and, after them, a tank and another
battery. About 14 enemy barrels and the tank were toast.
Shooting back did not end the fight. Each day brought no
relief, no hopeonly more destruction and more deaths. We
hung on desperately with no food, no medical supplies, and
little or no ammunition for the infantrys rifles, machine guns,
and mortar. Early on the seventh day, I left the foxhole Corn
and I shared and went to the radio, dug in 30 or 40 feet away.
Dust clouds churned by enemy trucks, guns, and horses
glowed like a golden haze in the eastern light. A terrific explosion jolted me from behind. Dan Garrott rushed up. Corns
been hit, he said.
A shell had exploded in our shared foxhole. Had I been there,
it would have taken my head off. Corns right leg was nearly
severed above the knee. He was bleeding from too many
places to count, but insisted on being moved; that foxhole
must have felt like an open grave. Men reluctantly gathered
and carried him to a spot by the radio, then laid him on a blanket, his leg gushing blood. We feared he might try to crawl out
on his own otherwise. Sasser and Garrott returned to their foxhole, shaken by what had happened.
As the day seemed to race forward, several infantrymen, all
of them strangers to us, gathered where Corn lay dying. Sasser
A party of artillery observers in Barenton, France, just east

and Garrott joined them. Corn gestured weakly to one of the

of Hill 314, calls in a fire mission on August 9, 1944. Inset: the

infantrymen, and gave him his prized pistol. To another he

author in February 1945, after the Battle of the Bulge.

handed his watch, and so on with all his valued possessions.

He offered nothing to Sasser or Garrott, his fellow artillerymen.

ahead. Lieutenant, look, look! he shouted. Sasser pointed at

our radio antenna, newly jagged at the top, where it had been
shot by an enemy round. They knew exactly where we were.
As I crouched just below the crest, feeling each bludgeon-

It was bewildering.
In the decades since I have thought of this often, and came
to realize his actions werent so peculiar. Corn had joined us
only a few days before. He had come onto the Hill with us as a

ing explosion, I made an estimate of the enemys firepower

replacement, a stranger. Was it so baffling that he should turn

and the risks of confronting it. I directed Staff Sergeant John

to other strangers as Death silently embraced him?

Corn, the new man, to take up a position a few feet below

me. Corn was a big fellow with clear, bright features who was

THE DARK STAIN OF CORNS BLOOD on the ground where

not given to idle conversation. I knew little about him save

he diedon what turned out to be the last day of the siege

that he hailed from Iowa and always carried a nickel-plated

has long since vanished. So have the rage and hate that then

pistol, but I felt I could trust him. Corns job was to be a relay

convulsed me.

between me and Sasser. (With nowhere else to go, my jeep

But sometimes I peer into that long-ago space. I see a soldier

driver, Corporal Dan Garrott, hunkered down with Sasser.) I

kneeling by a radio in days early light. He growls insistently

then slithered out onto the rocky summit. The enemy would

into a microphone, calling for artillery fire to blast retreating

have seen me. If artillery fire hit me, it would be between the

Germans. In between commands, he turns to the man dying by

eyes. I waited and watched, each moment endless. Shells

his side, one leg mostly blown off. The soldier tightens and

screeched overhead. I saw smoke from the muzzles of enemy

loosens a makeshift tourniquet, knowing that it is hopeless.

guns. I shouted a fire mission that Corn relayed to Sasser.

Then he looks through binoculars at the retreating enemy, picks

Who would fire next, them or us?

up the microphone, and again shouts into it, crying out for

Shells screamed the other way from my artillery battalions

12 105mm howitzers, five miles to the rear. Smoke erupted

NATIONAL ARCHIVES; INSET COURTESY OF ROBERT L. WEISS

more shells to smash the enemy. He wants to destroy them all.

He howls madly, Kill! Kill! Robert L. Weiss

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

37

Normandys hedgerows provide cover for infantrymen of the

30th Division firing on the enemy near Mortain.

heaved around the clock. Bruised them badly, Weiss radioed

after one fire mission left spiraling smoke columns visible
for miles.
Although convinced that the offensive had failed, Kluge told
his lieutenants, We have to risk everything. For four more
days, Hill 314 remained what a German officer called a thorn
in the flesh. Hitler again demanded on August 9 that the Allied
invasion front be rolled up with a renewed lunge toward
Avranches by an improvised strike force under the Fifth Panzer
Army commander, General Heinrich Eberbach. Arriving on the
battlefield with little more than a radio truck, Eberbach told
Kluge that the task was both impossible and very unpleasant.
At 6:20 p.m. that Wednesday, an SS officer scrambled up
Montjoie under a white flag to demand the Americans capitulate within 90 minutes or be blown to bits. Wounded GIs in
38

WORLD WAR II

slit trenches yelled, No, no,

dont surrender, and the
senior officer on the hill, First
Lieutenant Ralph A. Kerley, a
lanky Texan, sent the envoy
packing with a string of profanities. Five artillery battalions shattered a subsequent
attack by bellowing Germans
who fired machine guns and
flicked grenades. Kerley called
down one fire mission on his
own command post. The
field-gray tide receded.
Each night more slain soldiers on Hill 314 were tucked
into makeshift morgues between the rocks after their
bodies were searched for food
and ammunition. Officers
hoped that in removing the
dead from sight they would
bolster morale, but Montjoie
reeked of men transformed
into carrion. Each day a sergeant in Lieutenant Weisss
small forward observer party
set their precious radio batteries on a rocky shelf and let
the sun warm them to squeeze
out a bit more power. Foragers
filled canteens from a scummy cistern and found turnips,
cabbages, and a few rabbits in
a hutch. An effort to shoot medical supplies to the hilltop garrison in empty artillery smoke shells failed: G-forces shattered
morphine syrettes and plasma bottles, and even crushed surgical tape into flat disks. A dozen C-47s using blue and orange
parachutes sprinkled rations and other supplies over the hillcrest at 4:30 p.m. on August 10, but half the bundles drifted
beyond the American perimeter into no mans land. On the
night of August 11, the frustrated 30th Division chief of staff
declared, I want Mortain demolished. Burn it up so
nothing can live there. Artillery scourged the village
like brimstone.
nd then the battle ended. Even Hitler
acknowledged futility. The attack failed,
he said ominously, because Field Marshal
von Kluge wanted it to fail. Sitting at a
table in La Roche-Guyon with a map spread
before him, Kluge tapped Avranches with his finger and said,

This is where I lose my reputation as a soldier. Before dawn

on August 12, German columns skulked off to the north and
east. A relief regiment from the 35th Division hiked up Hill
314 to carry off 300 dead and wounded; another 370 men
walked down, including Lieutenants Weiss and Kerley. The
30th Division alone had suffered 1,800 casualties in the sixday brawl for Mortain, and other units together tallied
almost as many.
urvivors would be fed, decorated, and returned
to the fight. General J. Lawton Collins, whose
VII Corps served as the point of the spear in
Operation Cobra, later called the 30th Divisions performance at Hill 314 one of the
outstanding small-unit actions of World War II. They had
halted the left wing of the German counterattack and prevented a drive through to Avranches.
American artillery had once again displayed the killing
prowess that had made it the king of battle since the Boston
bookseller Henry Knox turned to gunnery in the Revolution.
Here too the U.S. Army had asserted a dominance on the battlefieldwith firepower, tenacity, and a credible display of
combined arms competencethat would only intensify over
the next eight months, as the campaign for Europe grew ever
more feverish.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (BOTH)

At 6:20 p.m. on Wednesday,

August 9, an SS officer scrambled
up Montjoie under a white flag
to demand the Americans
capitulate within 90 minutes or
be blown to bits. Wounded GIs
in slit trenches yelled, No, no,
dont surrender.

French civilians returning to wrecked Mortain stood

crying and rocking back and forth, as though in prayer, a witness reported. GIs made puns about whether yet another
town had been liberated or ob-liberated. Lieutenant Weiss,
ever the dutiful son, sat down on August 13, and scribbled a
letter. Not much to write home about from here, he wrote.
You know more about what goes on than we do.
GIs catch up on rest after days of bruising fighting; one
American general called the battle at Hill 314 one of
the outstanding small-unit actions of World War II.

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

39

The

PEACEMAKER
How Simon Bolivar
Buckner fought to keep the
services from fighting
each other
By Sharon Tosi Lacey
MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1945, dawned hot and steamy on
Okinawa. For 79 days, the American Tenth Army and
Japans 32nd Army had been struggling for the island in
a slow, bloody battle of attrition. Now the invading
Americans, victory in their sights, were readying a final
push at Okinawas southern tip, where Tenth Army commander Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.
climbed to an 8th Marine Regiment observation post.
The regiment had reached the endgame in a brutal clash
in the valley below. Buckner, who had admired the units
vigor as it trained for the assault, wanted to watch the
Marines eliminate enemy holdouts.
Buckners white hair and love of outdoor activity, particularly hiking rugged landscapes, inspired his troops to

40

WORLD WAR II

ALL PHOTOS: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Near Naha, Okinawa, Buckner

(holding camera) and 6th Marine
Division commander General
Lemuel C. Shepherd (binoculars)
observe the 1st Battalion of the
22nd Marines on May 14, 1945.

J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 13

41

call the large-framed, amiable West Pointer the Old Man of the
Mountain. Believing men at war needed to see their generals,
the 58-year-old Buckner made a point of roving even the most
remote corners of embattled Okinawa, often unannounced but
usually wearing a helmet decorated with three stars and riding
in a jeep with a flag to match. The display sometimes drew
enemy fire, but Buckner thought the morale boost worth the
risk. That Monday morning, he and his staff drove to the foot
of the hill where the 8th Marines had their observation post. At
the summit Buckner had just switched to a plain helmet when
a Japanese barrage sent all hands diving for shelter behind the
coral boulders that dotted the hilltop.
As quickly as it had struck, the enemy fire lifted. The rest
of the men on the crest scrambled to their feet unhurt, but
Buckner lay still. A sliver of coral had ripped into him, and
he was bleeding badly from his chest. Marines wrestled the
wounded officer onto a poncho and started for an aid station.
The general asked if anyone else was hurt, then fell silent
while his rescuers muscled him downhill.

But Buckner had run out of time. As a young Marine held his
hand and comforted him, he became the highest-ranking
American commander to die from enemy fire during the war.
Someone broke the silence by reciting the 23rd Psalm. The generals command went to Marine Major General Roy Geiger, who
three days later declared Okinawa secure and began mop-up
operations against its few remaining defenders. Not quite seven
weeks later, Japan surrendered.
Many combat commanders go on to write memoirs, but
death let others define Buckners legacy. He made an easy target
for Douglas MacArthur, Joseph Stilwell, and other ax-grinding
contemporaries, as well as debunkery-minded historians.
Skeptics maligned Buckner for his methodical style and for
what they derided as too cozy a relationship with the Marines
and the navy, and challenged his decision against making a
second landing on the southern end of Okinawa, a refusal some
said prolonged a battle that cost 62,000 American casualties.
In the afterlife of history, Buckners record did not help him.
From 1941 until he took over the Tenth Army, he commanded
ground troops in Alaska, where he tended to default to standard
army doctrine: make sure to have more men and materiel than
the foe, and deploy them to make steady, mechanistic progress.
That was the approach Buckner took overseeing the 194243
recapture of the Aleutian Islands and, two years later, the assault
on Okinawa, his first true combat command.
The assault on Okinawa dramatized the interdependence
and potential for frictionthat characterized the services
experience in the Pacic Theater. At left, army troops step
off on April 1, 1945, from landing craft usually associated
with the Marines. Below, soldiers and sailors on April 15
transfer 155mm rounds from LST-830 to DUKWs at Orange
Beach 2. Below left, an army crane operator and DUKW
crewmen prepare to hoist a load of supplies on July 10,
1945, 20 days after Allied troops secured Okinawa.

42

WORLD WAR II

No deep thinker, Buckner was hail-fellow-well-met,

an eloquent speaker who seemed much the man of
action, lending him an aura of dynamic leadership.
However, criticism of his performance on Okinawa obscures
the main asset Buckner brought to the wars last great island
battle: The Kentuckian was possibly the only senior officer able
to get along with his brothers in the other services in a Pacific
Theater where American forces had fallen to squabbling,
squalling, and sabotaging one another. With the Marines
dependent on the army for logistics and the army and the
Marines sharing both equipment and terrain and reliant on the
navy for transport, lack of cooperation could kill men. On the
run-up to the Okinawa invasion Buckners hard-working diplomacy helped still discord and, when singularity of military purpose was paramount, knit a unified force.

uckner was born in 1886, the only son of legendary Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner.
The senior Buckner, who after the war served as governor of Kentucky, was 62 when his namesake arrived, but lived
to see his boy share his alma mater, West Point, as a cadet boxer,
football player, wrestler, and graduate ranked firmly in the
middle of the Class of 1908.
The younger Buckner acquired a reputation as an educator.
He spent World War I training aviators. Afterward, back at West
Point, he and two other equally uncompromising majors oversaw plebe training and discipline. Subsequent stints at the
Command and General Staff College and the Army War College
landed Buckner on the faculties of each in turn. At the Staff
College, Buckner met Major Roy Geiger, U.S. Marine Corps,
who shared Buckners love of aviation and who became a lifelong friend. Besides having in common a blunt manner, the two
even looked aliketall and ruddy, with piercing blue eyes.
In 1932, Buckner returned to West Point, this time as a professor. He became commandant of cadets, a role to which he
brought a decidedly Spartan vivacity. Declaring cadets should
work and smell like men, he banned aftershave. Convinced
conditioning paid off on many levels, he drove himself on
hiking and hunting forays and pushed physical training for
subordinates. One parent grumbled, Buckner forgets that
cadets are born, not quarried.
Inherent in Brigadier General Buckners rigor was deep concern for the men he led, to the point that he personally tested
boots, sleeping bags, and other gear before approving it for his
soldiers use. No deep thinker, Buckner was hail-fellow-well-met
and an eloquent speaker who seemed much the man of action.
These attributes lent him an aura of dynamic leadership and led

army chief of staff General George C. Marshall to view him as

a very vigorous typeprecisely the sort Marshall planned to
assign higher command should the United States go to war.
In the summer of 1940, Marshall named Buckner to head the
Alaska Defense Command, with orders to shore up that remote
and vulnerable outpost. The First World War and its aftermath
had convinced Buckner that in vast and isolated regions, like
Alaska, air power would be a major defensive pillar. During his
first 18 months there he built 13 airfields, including two strips
on the Aleutian islands of Adak and Umnak. He also enlarged
his command to more than 30,000 soldiers. Even so, in June
1942 Buckner could not keep the Japanese from occupying two
other Aleutian islands: Attu and Kiska.
Development of a plan to take back the Aleutians collided
with a muddled command structure. As elsewhere in the
Pacific, the army, navy, and air forces overlapped. Ground forces
commander Buckner reported to Lieutenant General John
DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, in
California. Buckners navy counterpart, Rear Admiral Robert
Theobald, reported to Hawaii-based Admiral Chester Nimitz,
commander in chief of Pacific Ocean Areas. Buckner had his
headquarters in Fort Richardson, near Anchorage. Theobalds
was on Kodiak Island, 300 miles southwest, so the two had little
face-to-face contact. The maps each man used often gave the
same places different names. Theobald favored defense, while
Buckner wanted to go on the offense.
Theobald and Buckner soon were at loggerheads, particularly
over where to stage the operation to cleanse Attu and Kiska of
Japanese and who would control that assaults air support. Well
aware that Alaskan defenses were inadequate, Buckner peppered the War Department and Western Defense Command
with letters requesting more and better equipment to keep the
invaders from reinforcing their toehold. There are two ways of
dealing with a rattlesnake. One is to sit still and wait for the
snake to strike, Buckner wrote to DeWitt. The other is to bash
in the snakes head and put it out of commission. That is what
I favor. The more cautious Theobald advocated taking every
favorable opportunity to inflict strong attrition on the enemy,
although strictly with continuous bombardment.
When naval task force commander Rear Admiral William
Smith admitted that shelling would have limited value unless
combined with landings on Kiska and Attu, Buckner got the
nod to attack. Another man might have simply put on his helmet
and gone to war, but in his glee Buckner childishly composed
J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 13

43

and circulated among his own and Theobalds staffs a round of

mocking barracks doggerel, ostensibly in the admirals voice:
In far Alaskas ice spray, I stand beside my binnacle
And scan the waters through the fog for fear some rocky pinnacle
Projecting from unfathomed depths may break my hull asunder and
Place my name upon the list of those who made a blunder.
Volcanic peaks beneath the waves are likely any morning
To smash my ships to tiny bits without the slightest warning
I dread the toll from reef and shoal that rip off keel and rudder
And send our bones to Davey Jonesthe prospect makes me shudder.
The Bering Sea is not for me, nor my fleet headquarters
In moral dread I look ahead in wild Aleutian waters
Where hidden reefs and williwaws and terrifying critters
Unnerve me quite with woeful fright and give me fits and jitters.

Buckner claimed he meant the verse without personal

malice and with a view toward introducing a touch of levity.
The Japanese contested every inch of Okinawa, as in May
1945, where a company of the 2nd Battaion, 5th Marines
(below) fought for 48 hours to take a ridge outside Naha.

44

WORLD WAR II

Theobald, not amused, called the lines gratuitously insulting.

When Marshall learned of the spat, he contacted DeWitt
about relieving his man in Alaskapreferably without career
harm, since Marshall believed that, momentary puerility aside,
Buckner had done an overall splendid job. But Marshall stayed
his hand for lack of a suitable replacement and out of hope that
Nimitz would transfer Theobald.
Shaken by his brush with grave disciplinary action, Buckner
pulled in his horns and made nice with the admiral. They
endured each other until January 1943, when Theobald left for
the Boston Navy Yard. His replacement, Rear Admiral Thomas
Kinkaid, immediately hit it off with Buckner. The lack of friction between Kincaid and Buckner suggested that the earlier
animus had been personal, not institutionala reading borne
out during the Battle of Attu, where the navy man relieved an
army division commander without protest from Buckner or
DeWitt. But institutional animus was never far away.

nterservice rivalry is a fact of military life, with all services

constantly vying for better press and bigger shares of the
defense budget. During World War I, the army resented the
credit newspapers gave the Marines for the Allied victory at

Belleau Wood, where the army had far more soldiers fighting.
Knowing the men of Parris Island were always a blink away
from being absorbed into the army and navy, Marine leaders
relished and buffed their corps reputation. Army grousing
about the Marine Corps intensified during World War II, when,
in a canny public relations tactic, the secretary of the navy
granted reporters full access to Marine units and let correspondents file their copy using official channels, which led to the
Marines getting what the army felt was disproportionate coverage. Nor were Marines above thumbing their noses at the
army. Tensions broke out less often in Europe, which was almost
exclusively an army show, but in the Pacific Theater all services
operated in the sameoften crowdedspace. The resulting
friction fostered a rising gorge of internecine ill feeling.
As the army landed on Attu and Kiska in the spring and
summer of 1943, Buckner encountered Major General Holland
Smith, who had come north to observe the operation in his
capacity as lead amphibious trainer for the Marine Corps. An
Alabama-born lawyer turned career Devil Dog, Smith trusted
neither the army nor the navy. Nicknamed Howlin Mad in 1916
by his subordinates, he was an early and fierce advocate for
the amphibious role that the Marine Corps carved out. In

the Aleutians the Marine general generally praised the armys

7th Infantry Division. In private, however, Smith complained
that the landings dragged, and claimed Marines could have
completed them twice as quickly.
Smith went on to lead V Amphibious Corps, overseeing joint
operations in the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas, and on Iwo
Jima. Adamant about Marine superiority, he continued to harp
about the army being slow and undisciplined. He never called
army units he led my soldiers but referred to Marines as us
and soldiers as them, as if GIs were another foe.
Holland Smith had harbored special animosity for the armys
27th Infantry Division and its commander, Major General
Ralph Smith, ever since Howlin Mad had led the November
1943 recapture of Makin Island. Holland Smiths familiar theme
was that at Makin, a laggard army effort had kept the escort carrier Liscome Bay around a fatally long time; it was torpedoed,
costing 654 sailors their lives. Holland Smith never let up with
his complaints. Ralph Smith never responded to them. On June
Critics indict Buckner for some of Okinawas 62,000 Allied
casualties, such as the soldier being carried from Hacksaw
Ridge by men of the armys 96th Division on April 22, 1945.

J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 13

45

Buckner (right) observes the 8th Marines in action. Less than

ve minutes later an enemy artillery round would kill him.

24, 1944, the Smith-Smith pot boiled over when, on Saipan,

Holland Smith in his role as as corps commander relieved
Ralph Smith of his command (See Smith vs. Smith, May/June
2011). The Marine justified his punitive action by claiming that
the army man had issued orders to a battalion that was under
corps control, that Ralph Smith had contravened Holland
Smiths orders, and that Ralph Smith had been late in launching an attack, holding up Marine units on his flanks. As before,
Ralph Smith kept his own counsel, awaiting the armys decision
on his fate. But intramural sniping on the topic filtered down
to the individual level, with soldiers and Marines becoming suspicious of and even belligerent toward one another.
The festering conflict quickly reached Alaska, where Buckner,
now a lieutenant general, was holding down a better-fortified
territory; during 1943, after ejecting the Japanese, he had added
airfields on Kiska, Attu, and Shimya. Vexed by the persistent and
hurtful Smith matter, Lieutenant General Robert Richardson,
the Army Ground Forces commander in the Central Pacific,
decided to form an army commission. The board would resolve
the questions of whether Holland Smith had had grounds for
relieving Ralph Smith and whether Ralph Smith deserved
another command. Richardson, for reasons now lost, chose
Buckner to head the five-general panel.
The board meetings began on July 7, 1944, at Fort Shafter,
Hawaii. For three weeks members reviewed documents and
heard testimonyamid criticism that no Marine or navy commanders were testifying, only army commanders. Board
member Brigadier General Roy Blount, visiting Saipan to gather
information, came away convinced Holland Smith was a
stupid egomaniac! A perfect ass if ever one lived! In a bid to
influence the board, Richardson invited the five to a dinner,
46

WORLD WAR II

supposedly to celebrate the chairmans

57th birthday. Richardson used the
occasion to rail about Marine and navy
shortcomings, obviously hoping his
fellow army officers would take a hint.
Instead, the commissions two-inchthick assessment was a study in evenhandedness. Relying less on personal
witness than on memos, orders, and
other documents, the report avoided
controversy. Members concluded that
Holland Smith did have the authority
to relieve Ralph Smith, but found that
the facts did not substantiate the three
charges on which Holland Smith based
his decision. (Ralph Smith was given a
new command, of the 98th Division,
near the end of the war.)
The board recommended unanimously that Holland Smith
never again command army troops in combat, but otherwise
went so easy on the caustic Marine that Blount pondered filing
a minority report. In the end he decided against stirring the pot,
as did Marshall and King. If anything, it seemed that interservice ire in the Pacific flowed from Holland Smith alone.

ut rancor persisted, an evil augury considering that the

coming attack on Okinawa would interlace four army
divisions and three Marine divisions in the theaters
largest operation yetin effect, a stage rehearsal for the invasion of Japan, and no time for pettiness or backbiting.
Despite fallout from the Smith versus Smith affair, the
Okinawa operations naval commanders, Richmond Kelly
Turner and Raymond Spruance, still wanted Holland Smith in
charge on the ground. That was highly unlikely; most troops on
Okinawa would be soldiers, and many army officers had gone
vehemently public about not wanting Smith ever leading GIs
again. But the armys most experienced combat commanders
were booked elsewhere in the Pacific and in Europe. Surveying
his options, Marshall decided that Buckner, who had gone back
to watching the war pass him by from Alaska, was the logical
choice: senior enough, seemingly aggressive enough, and
other than that malarkey with Theobaldon good terms with
the navy and Marines.
After an August 1944 interview with Nimitz in which
Buckner pledged himself to interservice cooperation, the new
Tenth Army was his. Accompanied by much of his staff from
Alaskamen he was comfortable with but, like their boss, short
on combat experienceBuckner reported to Hawaii on September 4. He meant to prove his mettle and to forge a genuinely
joint force of army and Marine elements by including the
Marines in planning the operation, by balancing army and
Marine representation on his staff, and by making sure his army

On the run-up to Okinawa, Buckner helped still

discord and, when singularity of military purpose
was paramount, knit a unified force.
and Marine deputy chiefs of staff worked in lockstep. He also
had corps commanders he trusted: army Major General John
Hodge, a Smith commission member, and his old friend,
Marine Major General Roy Geiger. Hodge and Geiger, who had
served together on Bougainville and Guam, held one another in
high esteem and often conferred on training and other matters.
Brigadier General Oliver Smith, Buckners Marine deputy
chief of staff, quickly came to appreciate the professionalism
Buckner and staff displayed, although their dearth of combat
experience gave him pause. Fearing that in his push for staff
parity Buckner had been overly inclusive of the Marines
nearly 60 out of 120-some menSmith persuaded his boss to
reduce the Marine staff complement to 34.
Early on, Buckner toured the Tenth Armys divisions as they
trained, to see how his staff could help. The 2nd Marine
Divisions regimen, particularly an internal Japanese language
school, impressed him. Wary Marine commanders soon
warmed to the gregarious army general, especially after he
accepted combat-tested commanders advice on training.
Not everyone applauded Buckners commitment to a completely joint force on Okinawa. General Douglas MacArthur,
named supreme commander of U.S. Army Forces Pacific in
April 1945, viewed Buckners amity with the navy as selling
out the army. Two months into the fight, army general Joseph
Stilwellwho had long angled to lead an army onto mainland
Japanlabeled Buckner a turncoat for trying to harmonize
with the naval services. Stilwell, whose nickname of Vinegar Joe
was no accident, dismissed Buckner as a Pollyanna. In his diary
Stilwell wrote that, as far as the Tenth Armys leader was concerned, Nimitz is perfect. His staff is perfectly balanced.
Cooperation is magnificent. The marine divisions are wonderful. In fact everything is just dinky. His own staff is perfecthe
picked them himself. It is all rather nauseating.
Stilwell even scorned Buckners choice of replacement should
he be incapacitated as playing the navy. Protocol held that if
Buckner could not lead, command on Okinawa would pass to
garrison commander Major General Fred Wallacethe operations senior army officer after Buckner. Buckner instead named
Roy Geiger, less out of friendship than because the Marine had
a splendid record of interservice leadership, specifically of army
divisions on Bougainville and Guam. In addition, Geiger had
served or was friends with every army division commander
fighting on Okinawa.
As certain as he was that Geiger would not play favorites or

condone excessive interservice rivalry, Buckner also knew that

picking Geiger would rankle army types, notably Richardson,
who often carped that Marines had no business leading anything larger than a division. In his diary, Buckner wrote that
Richardsons reaction will be entertaining since he mortally
fears and distrusts Marines. Unfazed, Buckner sent Richardson
a memo designating Geiger, which Richardson was to endorse
and forward to Nimitz. Richardson balked. Rather than fight
his boss while fighting the Japanese, Buckner dropped the subject; once the battle began, Tenth Army would be out from
under Richardsons administrative control. However, Buckner
made sure Oliver Smith let Geiger know he had tapped him.
That informal alert would prove prescient. When shrapnel
kicked up by a 15cm Japanese howitzer claimed Buckner,
Geiger assumed command, becoming the lone Marine to lead
a field army in the war, albeit only briefly. MacArthur named
Stilwell, in Honolulu, as permanent commander of the Tenth
Army. However, by June 21, Japanese resistance on Okinawa
had collapsed. With the Americans on the threshold of the
Japanese headquarters and Stilwell en route to take over, Geiger
declared the island secure and raised the flag, thus reserving the
victory laurel for his late friend and comrade.

here is much in Simon Bolivar Buckner the combat

commander to debate. That conversation, however,
often neglects the fact that in modern warfare no service ever fights in a vacuum and that a commander who wants
to win must set aside ego and partisanship and work at collaborating with companion services, as Buckner did to laudatory
result. The Battle of Okinawa represented joint service cooperation at its finest, a Marine history of the operation says.
This was General Buckners greatest achievement, and General
Geiger continued the sense of teamwork after Buckners death.
Okinawa remains a model of interservice cooperation to succeeding generations of military professionals.
Another gauge of Buckners success is that throughout the
struggle for Okinawa, he had Nimitzs unstinting support. In a
June 17, 1945, press release, the admiral enthusiastically
endorsed the Tenth Army commander. A day later, a copy of
that statement reached Buckners command post, though after
he had left for the battlefield to watch a favorite unita Marine
Corps regimentin action. The press release was there when
Buckners soldiers and his Marines arrived from the front lines,
bearing their fallen leader.
J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 13

47

Animal
Attraction
Mascots brightened the
dark corners of war

ountless animals served as scouts,

messengers, guards, transportation,
and beasts of burden during the
war. Many more filled a vital role as
friends. Units in all branches of the
U.S. military adopted mascotsusually dogs,
although in exotic postings pets could tend toward
the unusualwho lived and sometimes died alongside their human companions. Official approval, if
any, was typically granted on a local basis by a units
commanding officer. As the photos on the following
pagesdrawn from the book Loyal Forces: The
American Animals of World War II (LSU Press, 2013),
by The National World War II Museums Toni M.
Kiser and Lindsey F. Barnessuggest, many of those
bosses said yes, or smilingly looked the other way.

48

WORLD WAR II

PORTFOLIO


OPPOSITE: A crewman from

LCT-1442 engages in a little
monkey business with the
transport vessels mascot.

TOP: A bright moment

aboard the USS Bismarck Sea.
The escort carrier fell victim
to kamikaze attacks during
the invasion of Iwo Jima;
Petty Officer First Class Brent
Kirkland Loring, who had sent
this photo home, was killed
along with 317 others.
FAR RIGHT: In the arms of

Private First Class Stanley J.

Tatara, the burro mascot of an
armored regiment in Italy
catches a ride on an M4 tank.

RIGHT: Lady, a Marine Corps

mascot, inspects sailors of the

battleship USS New York.

OPPOSITE: But Lady wasnt

an all-business kind of pooch:
here she poses with a bunch
of scallywags during a linecrossing ceremony.
BOTTOM RIGHT: First
Lieutenant Gordon Smith of
the 870th Aviation Engineering
Battalion cradles a newly
minted mascot in New Guinea.
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MUSEUM

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

49

PORTFOLIO

]

LEFT: Ishma, the
mascot of the 434th
Bomb Squadron, 12th
Bombardment Group,
peers from behind
sandbags in North
Africa. Ishma appeared
in many of the units
photographs from that
period, testimony to
how much he meant
to his caretakers.

RIGHT: The 73rd Bomb

Wings mascot catches a

catnap atop a cubby for
post-strike photographs.

FAR RIGHT: A pup

named Snafu sails in
October 1945s Navy Day
ceremony welcoming
the fleet home.
BELOW: The crew of

seaplane tender USS

Norton Sound, with Baby.

50

WORLD WAR II


LEFT: The cockatoo

mascot of a U.S. Army
medical unit based at
Camp Rockhampton in
Queensland, Australia,
finds a handy perch.
The support went both
ways: as Dwight D.
Eisenhower wrote
home from North
Africa in 1943 in praise
of his Scottish terrier,
Caacie, He is the
one person to whom
I can talk without the
conversation coming
back to the war.

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

51

Soviet soldiers found the

FIRST PROOF

of Germanys murder machine.

Nobody believed them
By David Shneer

oviet soldiers of the Third Belorussian Army could

be forgiven for thinking at first glance that what they
had just come across in the Polish city of Lublin was a
POW camp, given the rows of barracks that stretched
off into the distance. But even before entering the
site, everyone could see the chimney towering over
the facility. Chimneys standing in burned cities after
a Luftwaffe firebombing had become a common sight for soldiers on
the Eastern Front. But there was no evidence that Lublin had been
firebombed. This was more industrial smokestack than chimney,
suggesting that what they were approaching was a factory with housing for slave laborers.
Then, as the soldiers entered the camp, they saw rows of ovens with
piles of bones and other human remains spilling out, and it began to
dawn on them just what they had liberated: a death factory, with all
of the grim oxymoron that the name implies. It was the Allied worlds
first glimpse of the Nazis industrialized killing operationso horrific
that it surpassed everything the Red Army had seen before, and so
obscene that the western powers dismissed it as a Soviet ploy.
BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF THE CAMP at Lublin, called
Majdanek by locals, the mass murder of civilians was already too
familiar in the Soviet Union. During the wars first six months it
became routine for Soviet photojournalists to document the aftermath
German POWs display cans of Zyklon B for their Soviet
of mass hangings in town squares and the burning of entire villages.
captors. This photograph by Boris Tseitlin was one of
the first to document the pesticides use in genocide.
In January 1942, Soviet troops liberated the Ukrainian city of
Kerch and found something unprecedented: the bodies of 7,000 Jews
and others piled in an antitank trench. As photographer Dmitrii Baltermants recounted years later, The clothing on the corpses
suggested that they were civilians brought out to this field and shot en masse. It was the first of what would become mind-numbingly repetitive scenes of mass murder. Soviet photographers, who had been assigned from the first days of the war to record acts
of heroism and fortitude against the fascist beast, now added to their mandate the documentation of enemy atrocities.
The Soviet media splashed the photographs on the pages of the daily paper, in magazines, and even on broadsides posted
52

RIA NOVOSTI; OPPOSITE: CENTRAL STATE ARCHIVE FOR PHOTOS & FILMS, KIEV

WORLD WAR II II

Soviet officials examine a warehouse overflowing with shoes taken from prisoners killed at Majdanek and other extermination
sites in eastern Poland. At least 80,000 people died at the camp; 480 others, mostly POWs, were liberated by the Red Army.

throughout the nation for every passerby to see. A typical headline in Ogonyok, comparable to Life magazine, admonished
readers to Take Revenge, with large sans-serif letters looming
over an image of a smoldering pile of human remains.
Yet even after reading about these staggering German crimes
for two and a half years, the Soviet peopleand their western
allieswere not prepared for Majdanek.
AFTER SOVIET TROOPS LIBERATED LUBLIN ON July 24,
1944, it took researchers and journalists nearly three weeks to
make sense of what had occurred at the camp.
Constructed as a prisoner of war camp in 1941, Majdanek
eventually became part of the network of Nazi extermination
camps, all six of which were in German-occupied Poland. In the
winter of 194142, camp authorities began using Zyklon B gas in
a makeshift chamber to murder prisoners deemed too weak to
work. The camp continued to house POWs, but once permanent
gas chambers and crematoria were built, from October 1942 to
the end of 1943 Jews were deported en masse to Majdanek and
gassed. On November 3, 1943, special SS and police units shot
18,000 Jews just outside the camp in Operation Harvest Festival,
the Holocausts largest single-day, single-site massacre. The
bodies were buried or cremated inside Majdanek. After that, Jews

were no longer the majority of those imprisoned or killed there,

although the gas chambers continued to operate until early July
1944, shortly before the arrival of Soviet troops. Soviet investigators estimated that 400,000 Jews and 1.5 million others were
killed at Majdanek. (Recent research confirmed 59,000 Jews and
20,000 others were killed, though the records are incomplete and
its likely more were killed or died from harsh conditions.)
When Majdanek was liberated the concept of a facility
designed for industrial murder using a cyanide-based pesticide
was completely foreign, so Soviet journalists reported extensively on everything that made Majdanek horrifyingly unique.
The first photos and news reports, written by Konstantin
Simonov, were published on August 10 by Red Star, the army
newspaper. Two days later the daily state paper Izvestiia broke
the story to the public. On the front page, among photos of
human remains, it ran a shot of canisters imprinted with the
German words Giftgas (poison gas) and Zyklon. While readers were familiar with poison gas on the battlefield, they would
need to turn to Evgenii Krigers accompanying article to learn
that at Majdanek the SS had deployed it in extermination
chambers that were operated like slaughterhouses. As Kriger
entered a gas chamber, which the Germans had disguised as a
shower, he noted the graffiti scrawled on the walls and the
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

53

random drawings that were the last traces of lives extinguished.

On August 11 the Soviet filmmaker and occasional journalist Roman Karmen filed a story on the camp, translated as
Maidan in the English version sent over the wire that appeared
a few days later in the Daily Worker, the newspaper of Americas
Communist Party USA. In the course of all my travels into liberated territory, Karmen wrote, I have never seen a more
abominable sight than Maidan near Lublin, Hitlers notorious
Vernichtungslagerextermination campwhere more than
half a million European men, women, and children were massacred. Karmen recalled the notorious Babi Yar, a ravine in
Kiev where more than 100,000 people, mostly Jews, were shot
in September 1941, and dismissed it as a country cemetery
compared to Majdanek.
Karmens description must have been particularly chilling to
American Daily Worker readers. Under the subheading Huge
Crematorium, Karmen explained the killing process with details
based on three weeks of research at Majdanek: Groups of 100
people would be brought here to be burned almost alive. They
already had been stripped and then chlorinated in special gas
chambers adjoining. The gas chambers contained some 250 persons at one time. They were closely packed in a standing position so that after they suffocated from the chlorine, they still
remained standing. Executioners then would enter, remove the
suffocated victims, some of whom still stirred feebly and place
the bodies in special carts. The carts were dumped into a roaring furnace heated to 1,500 degrees centigrade. The whole thing
was organized with diabolical efficiency. He closed by telling
readers both in the Soviet Union and the United States,It is difficult to believe it myself but my eyes cannot deceive me.
Majdanek also revealed another grim facet of the Nazi death
camp system: processing victims belongings. The camp served
as the central storage facility for clothing and shoes from
the other eastern extermination centers, at Belzec, Sobibor,
and Treblinka. A ramshackle warehouse overflowing with a
mountain of footwear became the most important image of
Majdanekrepresenting the absence of thousands of people
who once stood in thousands of pairs of shoes. At the time it
was the most awful symbol of mass murder imaginable.
Soon after the camps liberation the Soviet army began taking
German POWs to Majdanek to face their countrys war crimes.
As Simonov wrote in his memoirs, A few thousand German
frontline soldiers, taken as prisoners in battle near Lublin, were
led through every inch of Majdanek on orders of the Soviet
military leadership. There was a singular goalto give the
POWs the opportunity to be convinced of what the SS had
done. I saw with my own eyes that even they could not have
imagined what was possible.
REPORTS OF A DEATH CAMP IN LUBLIN cropped up sporadically in the western media shortly after the Soviet press
broke the news. But the photographs languished while editors
54

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and government officials stared dumbly, unsure of what to do

with the shocking material. Western officials and media often
dismissed Soviet press reports about German atrocities as propaganda, and many newspaper editors found the descriptions of
Majdanek too monstrous to believe.
On August 13, 1944, the Los Angeles Times reprinted
Karmens article, but with a disclaimer: The only war correspondents permitted to accompany the Russian armies except

A news poster informs citizens in Kerch on a mass grave found outside their city, where Germans left "7,000 murdered, anddidn't
spare old people, women, or children." The headlines call on the people to "Get Revenge" and for "Death to the German Occupiers."

for occasional conducted tours of the front are Russian. One

of these Russian correspondents has written the following special dispatch on the German crematory at Lublin. Similarly,
New York Times Moscow correspondent Ralph Parker reported
how the Soviet press covered Majdanek, distancing himself
COURTESY OF EVGENII KHALDEI/FOTOSOYUZ AGENCY

from the actual news item. His August story Soviet Writer Tells
Horror of Lublin Camp was not a story on Majdanek but on the
way Simonov wrote about it for Red Star. Life magazine was
the only major press outlet to publish a series of Soviet photos,
with a page in the August 28 issue on the burial of the remains
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 13

55

Majdaneks administrators fled without

destroying the last traces of past massacres.
Photos of camp ovens, like this one by
Mikhail Trakhman, supplanted previous
icons of German brutality.

of Jews at the dead center of Europes horror.

It was not until late August that Soviet
occupation forces opened the camp to
Lublins residents and western journalists. If
Soviet photographs were not convincing,
perhaps eyewitness accounts would be.
Photographs of Lublin residents visiting
Majdanek show them in mourning, dressed in
their Sunday best. Perhaps they were searching for relatives or grieving other losses. Maybe
they came to see what had taken place in their
backyard, since Majdanek was right at the edge
of the city. In either case, Soviet authorities
wanted to make sure Poles saw Majdanek
as their victimization at the hands of the
Germans. They hoped the local population
would forgetor at least credit the Germans
foratrocities like the murder of thousands
of Polish officers and intellectuals at Katyn,
and see the Red Armys return to Poland as
liberation rather than re-occupation.
Local Poles, as well as former prisoners
who remained there, also participated in a
larger drama as they confronted German
POWs. Alexander Werth, a Moscow-based
BBC correspondent, reported one such
encounter: A crowd of German prisoners
had been taken through the camp. Around
stood crowds of Polish women and children,
and they screamed at the Germans, and there
was a half-insane old Jew who bellowed
frantically in a husky voice: Kindermrder,
Kindermrder! And the Germans went
through the camp, at first at an ordinary
pace, and then faster and faster, till they ran
in a frantic panicky stampede, and they were
green with terror, and their hands shook and
their teeth chattered. Mikhail Trakhmans
photos depicted the Poles more ambiguously:
yes, as angry mourners, but also as bystanders
who simply watch the passing Germans
as they might have watched the smoke rise
from Majdanek.
Western journalists struggled to convince
readersand their editorsthat the initial
accounts were true, verified by firsthand

Lublin residents pay their respects to the dead. Majdanek was the only suburban extermination facility, yet even eyewitnesses to
its gruesome operations could not convince the United States and Great Britain of Germanys industrialized system for murder.

reporting. The first major story published in America, by New

York Times correspondent William Lawrence, began,I have just
seen the most terrible place on the face of the earth. But doubt
remained. The British media would not publish the account by
the BBCs Werth. As he explains in his memoir, when he sent a
detailed report on Majdanek to his editors they refused to use
it; they thought it was a Russian propaganda stunt.
SOVIET TROOPS CONTINUED TO PUSH Axis forces westward. Budapest and Warsaw were liberated in late January 1945,
Vienna in April, and, after a searing battle that killed upwards
of 350,000 people, Berlin fell in early May. By that point Soviet
troops had reached the sites of all six extermination camps. The
swift Soviet advance in July 1944 had prompted Majdaneks
administration to flee before destroying evidence of its function, but the other camps liberated that JulyBelzec, Sobibor,
and Treblinkahad long since fulfilled their grim purpose and
been razed to leave little trace of what occurred there. On
January 20, 1945, the Red Army reached a fifth camp, Chelmno,
which had also been dismantled. The only other extermination
facilities found intact were at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz had something Majdanek mostly lacked: survivors. Where Majdanek had a few hundred, Auschwitz had
RIA NOVOSTI/ALAMY (ALL)

thousands. Prisoners deemed fit for labor were moved out

ahead of the Red Army on death marches to other concentration campsBuchenwald, Ravensbrck, or Bergen Belsen. At
Auschwitzs liberation on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops also
found an infirmary full of patients. Through their voices,
Auschwitznot Majdanekeventually became synonymous
with the fate of Jews and other undesirables under the Nazi
regime. The anniversary of Auschwitzs liberation is now
International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Yet the liberation of Auschwitz did not fully persuade westerners that Germany had built and operated facilities explicitly
for industrial-scale murder. As Werth had experienced with his
BBC editors, It was not until the discovery in the west of
Buchenwald, Dachau, and Belsen that they were convinced that
Majdanek and Auschwitz were also genuine.
Soviet journalists had no reason to question the evidence
discovered at Majdanek, but belief didnt come easily. Boris
Tseitlin, who had photographed the mass grave at Kerch,
described coming to Majdanek: In front of us lay a field of
cabbage, rich and luxuriant. What could be more innocent? No
one could imagine that the cabbage abundantly growing on
dozens of surrounding acres was nourished with the blood and
ashes of the tortured and dead.
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WEAPONS MANUAL by Jim Laurier

Teeny Terror

Germanys Type 127 Seehund midget submarine

Undersized undersea boats were mostly suicide
machines, but the Seehund (Seal) had the potential
to be more. Plans called for 1,000; delayed by Allied
bombs, a plant at Kiel built only 285. The Seehund,
based on a captured British sub, debuted on New
Years Day 1945. A flotilla out of the Netherlands
attacked a convoy and lost 15 of 17 Seals, sinking one
vessel. By May, at a loss of 20 more Seals, crews had
sunk another 8 ships for a total of 18,451 tons, and
Tangle-Free
To avoid harbor antisub nets Seals had
prop guards and no hydroplanes, so crews
could control depth only by filling and
emptying the ballast tanks.

damaged three others. Midget-hunting duties also

pulled 500-plus vessels and 1,000 planes off the
Allied offensive line. The final Seehund runs supplied garrisons besieged at Dunkirk, helping them
hold out until May 10, 1945. Of the 35 Seals lost,
20 were due to winter weather and inexperience.
Fortunately for us, said Royal Navy admiral
Charles Little, these damn things arrived
too late in the war to do any damage.

Dual Drive
A 6-cylinder, 100-horsepower diesel let
a Seal run at 8-plus miles an hour on
the surface and 3.5 miles submerged.
Using the 25-horsepower electric
motor, the sub crept in near silence.
Late-model Seals had a 500-mile range.

In Hamburg soon after Germanys surrender Royal Navy

personnel (below) examine a captured Seehund, their figures
highlighting the 39-foot, 17-ton Seals remarkably small size.

Explosive Intent
A Seal carried two G7e electric torpedoes. The same fish
that U-boats fired, they had 617-pound warheads and, on
later models, homing devices to keep them on target.

The Competition
Japanese
Type A
Ko-hyoteki
Length: 78 ft. Displacement: 47 tons Crew: 2 Power: 600-hp
electric Speed: 26 mph surface/22 mph below Depth: 338 ft.
Range: 118 mi. Armament: 2 torpedoes, 300-lb. scuttling
charge Carried by mother subs; may have sunk the USS
Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor, and did damage battleship HMS
Ramillies at Diego Suarez, Madagascar. Production: 101

Minimum Headroom
The conning bubble resisted pressure to the maximum
operating depth of 148 feet. Glints off the plastic tipped
enemy fliers to Seals.

Scope Always Up
The periscope, with which a commander
could scan the sea for targets and the
sky for foes, could not be lowered: there
was no room for it inside.

Cramped Quarters
A Seals two crewmen shoehorned
themselves for days on end into a
few cubic feet of space amidships.

Seal Trainer
Large white numbers denoted training boats.
The Seehund depicted here is based in part on
U-5075, now on display at the USS Salem
Museum in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Italian CB
Length: 49 ft.
Displacement: 44
tons Crew: 4 Power: 80-hp diesel, 50-hp electric Speed: 9
mph surface/8 mph below Range: 1,600 mi. Depth: 180 ft.
Armament: 2 torpedoes or 2 mines Beefier than the CA, which
frogmen hoped to launch against New York via mother sub until
Italy surrendered. Apart from successes in Egypt, Italian midgets
did little. Production: 12 before armistice, 9 after
PHOTOS: WEIDER ARCHIVES

A Seehund assembly line (above) shows the Reichs

capacity for turning out squadrons of the mighty midget,
which had Hitlers enthusiastic personal endorsement.

Hanging Out
Crane operators used brackets to move a
Seal or hoist it aloft to mount torpedoes,
the only way to arm the boat.

Silent Running
Quiet propulsion, low speed, and compact size
kept submerged Seals from attracting the notice
of Allied underwater detection systems.

British X-Craft
Length: 51 ft.
Displacement: 30
tons Crew: 4 Power: 42-hp diesel, 30-hp electric Speed: 7.5
mph surface/2.5 mph below Range: 578 mi. Depth: 300 ft.
Armament: 2 4,400-lb. mines X-Craft lost on the mission to
sink the battleship Tirpitz were recovered by Germany and
inspired the Seehund. Before D-Day the X-20 surveyed Omaha
Beach; during, it guided the invasion fleet Production: 20
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

59

Submariners from U-511 and

Japanese sailors (above) pause
during a joint training exercise
in a tropical setting. The German
sub would join the Imperial Navy
as RO-500. On a more formal
occasion (right), the German
crew of U-570 lunches with
Imperial Navy comrades,
probably in Osaka. This boat
remained in German hands and
returned to occupied France.

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WORLD WAR II

COURTESY OF PRIVATE SOURCE; INSET: AXEL DRENBACH/INFO@NIPPONCREW.COM

Torpedoes
in

Paradise

Yes, the Germans and the Japanese did

collaborate. No, it didnt do much good
By Noah Andre Trudeau

he USS Besugo was running submerged in the Java

Sea south of Borneo the afternoon of April 23, 1945.
The submarines skipper, Lieutenant Commander
Herman E. Miller, had come to trust the uncannily
accurate intelligence headquarters had been sending,
so as he pursued his latest intercept mission it did not surprise
him to see an enemy subas predictedon the surface. None of
Millers veteran crew recognized the silhouette, but they could
not mistake the vessels markings: a large red disc centered in
a white rectangle on either side of the conning tower, and an
enormous rising sun battle flag.
Miller spent 13 minutes maneuvering his sub into firing position.
From 1,500 yards he fanned a six-torpedo spread. At impact his
target vanished. When the Besugo surfaced, crewmen encountered
a constellation of bubbles, the beginnings of an oil slick, and one
man, badly injured but alivethough not at all who they expected.
The new prisoner of war identified himself as Obersteuermann
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Once the tide began to turn

Dnitz changed his mind about
working with the Japanese.

Karl Wisniewski, and said that the Americans had just sunk U-183.
The sequence that brought a U-boat to grief off Asia in the
last days of the Reich began as a collaboration between Germany
and Japana troubled arrangement that the Axis nations
approached less as allies sharing strategic objectives than as
criminals sharing burglars tools and booty. Japan sought
advanced German weapons to turn against the Americans;
Germany wanted raw materials Japan had looted. Neither
trusted the other. By the time this pact of steel burned out, all
that remained was a handful of U-boat sailors battling miserable odds far from homespear-carriers implementing a policy
that submarine warfare historian Allison W. Saville declared
misconceived, misdirected, and tragically wasteful.
GERMAN PROPAGANDA PORTRAYED THE AXIS as a front
united by treaties signed in 193637 and reinforced in 1942, but
the signatoriesGermany, Italy, and Japanhonored the terms
they set only when it suited them or when forced. Still, powerful figures in Tokyo and Berlin saw sufficient shared interests
a common destiny was how one put itto try to make the
partnership practical, especially once both main Axis war
economies were roaring in 1942. Japan was fencing off its conquests against the gathering American offensive; Germany was
not only fighting in the Soviet Union but facing the wane of
the Happy Time, as Reich submariners dubbed 194041, when
U-boats ravaged Allied convoys in the Atlantic.
At the wars start, the Japanese dismissed U-boats as puny,
while the Germans thought Japanese subs too large and clumsy
for combat. These opinions reflected contrasting underwater
doctrines. Japans combined fleet concept yoked subs to broader
Imperial Navy missions (see Sundown at Torpedo Junction,
January/February 2013), so Japanese submarines were generally
of massive displacement, designed to accommodate everything
from battle to resupply to launching exotic weapons, with disruption of enemy commerce a secondary target.
The German navys primary job was disrupting commerce,
and early on Admiral Karl Dnitz made tonnage sunk the sole
criterion for U-boat success. Destroy freighters and tankers faster
than the Allies could replace them, with acceptable U-boat
losses, and Germany would win, Dnitz reasoned. As long as
opportunity to sink ships in the Atlantic existed Irefrained
from accepting the Japanese offers [to collaborate], he wrote in
his 1958 memoir. But once the tide began to turn he changed his
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WORLD WAR II

mind about working with Japanthough not in public.

Dnitzs 500-page memoir devotes only 42 lines to the subject.
By the end of 1941, U-boats had sunk more than 4.8 million
tons of Allied shipping, but as 1942 advanced so did Allied defensive technology and tactics. Coupled with cracking German
codes, these improvements were making the North Atlantic
perilous for U-boats, forcing Dnitz to dispatch his submariners
farther afield. Once he replaced his 770-ton medium-range Type
VII boats with 1,050-ton Type IXs that could sail farther and stay
out longer, Dnitz began to see the Indian Ocean as a combat
arena in which Allied vessels supplying forces in Egypt, India,
and Burma offered tempting targets. In time the Kriegsmarine
extended its reach to the Pacific, where even Italy, by far the Axis
junior partner, would wind up placing a few subs.
In 1942 Germany and Japan set up a trade exchange the
Japanese called Yanagi (Willow). The Germans needed tin,
rubber, tungsten, manganese ore, and other materials scarce in
Europe but plentiful in regions Japan now ruled. Initially the
Japanese wanted mercury, aluminum, steel, lead, and other
highly refined materials to make versions of German technologies and homegrown weapons. As the fortunes of war changed,
the Japanese shopping list tilted away from raw materials and
toward ready-to-use munitions. In Willows first year some 18
surface vessels traveled between French ports along the Bay of
Biscay and the Far East. Of those, 15 ships eluded the AngloAmerican blockade to deliver approximately 65,000 tons of
goods, enough to call the exchange operation a success.
In June 1942, Japanese submarine I-30 was dispatched from
the Indian Ocean off Madagascar to the Kriegsmarine sub pens
at Lorient, France, a voyage of nearly 18,000 miles from Kure on
Japans southern coast. The crew brought news of impressive
scores off east Africa. There, with other Imperial subs stalking

The Besugo battle flag reflects the American boats unusual

status among the ranks of Allied underwater predators.
U.S. NAVY; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

ahead of an aircraft carrier raiding force, the I-30 had enjoyed

rare permission to go after Allied supply vessels. The Japanese
brought blueprints for an aerial torpedo and, for German
electrical systems, 3,300 pounds of mica and 1,452 pounds of
shellac. The visitors from the East enjoyed ample time to relax
in Lorient, where some Japanese and German submariners
autographed the roof beams in taverns.
THAT MONTH DNITZ DISPATCHED the first of two
U-boat packs to prowl off east Africa. The first, code-named
Eisbr (Polar Bear), sailed October to December 1942 and
destroyed 216,164 tons of shipping. The second, Seehund
(Seal), had more modest results in FebruaryMarch 1943.
These forays encouraged Dnitz to send more subs east, and
to expand beyond attacking. In February 1943, U-180 departed
Germany on a special mission. Aboard was Indian nationalist
Subhas Chandra Bose; he had broken out of jail in Calcutta, fled
overland to Germany, lived for two years in Berlin, and now
wanted Japan to help drive the British from India. Several hundred miles south of Madagascar, the U-boat met a Japanese
submarine carrying two Imperial Navy sub specialists. The vessels swapped passengers and cargoes. U-180 returned to France
on July 3 with the Japanese technicians and a load of Japanese
weapons including a gun barrel and ammunition, 1,000 pounds
of dispatches from the German embassy, and two tons of gold
ingots to fund Japanese diplomatic activities in Europe.

At a tavern in Lorient, sailors from both navies proudly left

evidence of their presence in the French port town.

After months of vexing negotiations, in April 1943 Japan

agreed to provide Germany with bases in the East. The Japanese
had not had an epiphany about Axis brotherhood: the Pacific
War was straining their navy, and they were happy to let the
Kriegsmarine set up shop if the Germans would take over Indian
Ocean patrols. Dnitz recognized those waters as a last unprotected hunting ground for his wolf packs. A force designated
Gruppe Monsun would operate from Japans westernmost
naval stationon the island of Penang, off northwest Malaysia.
A pier at George Town Harbor would become U-Sttzpunkt
Paul, the Kriegsmarines first and primary Pacific sub base. The
pier could dock five U-boats and was served by rail spurs leading to machine and maintenance shops. Eventually 26 work
sheds, including facilities with equipment to balance torpedoes
for accuracy, adjoined the pier. Safe from Allied attacks, U-boat
crews could dock their boats in the open airunlike at bases in
France, where the threat of Allied bombs forced subs to shelter
in concrete-roofed pens.
Another transfer began on May 10, 1943, when U-511 sailed
from Lorient carrying three German technicians plus mercury,
a 3,000-horsepower Daimler Benz engine, and blueprints for a
Type IX U-boat, which due to shortages was as close as the
Kriegsmarine would come to the standard Japanese I-boat in
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U-196s captain tied up his boat at the first available pier. But
to our surprise, an officer recorded, we saw a Japanese army
The two empires lacked any
soldier go calmly to the bollard and unhook the line. The
U-boat crew had made the unforgivable mistake of docking at
sympathy for one another, and
an army pier without permission.
cultural missteps abounded.
War had made the cautious Japanese even more wary, leading
to such constraints as prohibitions on the Germans at Penang
independently contacting Berlin. We could make our own
size and range. The sub itself was a gift from Adolf Hitler to
messages and encode them, but we still had to use their transHideki Tojo. U-511 stopped briefly on July 15 at Panang. From
mitters, recalled an officer who served aboard U-219. We
there, the U-boat sailed 3,000 miles to Kobe, Japan, to be recomreceived from Dnitz directly, but not the other way around.
missioned as the Imperial Japanese Navys RO-500. The crew of
Culture proved a constant stumbling block on both sides of
U-511 returned to Penang for duty as a standing reserve, along
the globe. German condescension toward Japanese gear led
with technicians from other arriving Monsun subs.
technicians to stick with their less reliable and shorter-range
Except for the conviviality between German and Japanese
torpedoes rather than learn from the sophisticated liquid
sailors at George Towns harbor bars, Axis interactions at
oxygenpowered Type 95, which could send an 890-pound
Penang tended to illustrate the old saw about twains not meetwarhead more than five miles. German and Japanese personnel
ing. The Japanese generally left administration of conquered
might fraternize, but U-boat crews usually kept foreigners off
regions to the victorious service, so the Germans often faced
their shipsa snub in Japanese sailors eyes. Japanese officers,
Imperial Army hostility toward the navyany navy. In one
accustomed to exchanging bows, bristled at receiving a standard
instance, after struggling into the harbor during a heavy storm,
service salute from a German. Dnitz worsened the muddle:
failing to grasp how much the Japanese prized
hierarchy, he let mid-grade German officers
flounder at Penang amid status-obsessed and
higher-ranking counterparts. How strange
these people were, observed an officer on
U-181. The two empires really had no great
sympathy for each other, wrote Kurt Freiwald,
who, after serving on Dnitzs staff, commanded a U-boat in the Indian Ocean.
In the East the dysfunction went beyond
the cultural to the practical. Japan could not
provide critical supplies, forcing eastbound
U-boats to dedicate scarce cargo space to spare
parts and munitions. Rarely did Japanese lubricants and fuels meet Kriegsmarine specs. The
viscosity of the Asian oil was low, engineer
Dietrich Hille of U-181 recalled, and compared
with thicker German mixtures it was so thin
you could easily check it with two fingers. The
long voyage took a toll on engines, Malayas climate played havoc with German torpedoes and
electronics, and Penang was short on skilled
laborers. Exhausted U-boat crews had to do
their own repairsif they could pry free tools
and parts. Everything must be begged in protracted discussions from Japanese stations, an
officer said. However, despite these aggravations and others like heat rash, skin infections,
and the risk of malaria, U-boat men lived better
than locals and the Japanese military, a pleasIn July 1943, after a two-month voyage, U-511 arrives at Penang, to be greeted
by Japanese sailors bearing fresh tropical fruit for the German crew.
ure that widened the divide.
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AXEL DREN BACH/INFO@NIPPONCREW.COM; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL ARCHIVES (BOTH)

Penang did have charms. The Japanese commandeered hotels

and other facilities for German submariners. Men could occupy
bungalows on palm-shaded streets dotted with soccer fields and
bordered by beaches. Gardens sprouted potatoes, cabbage, and
other European staples. Kriegsmariners frequented the Springtide and Elysee Hotels, the Penang Swimming Club, Mount
Pleasure, Sakura Park, and Frasers Hill. A funicular climbed
Penang Hill from George Town into the cooler highlands. At the
Shanghai Hotel ballroom, if girls merely wanted to dance, they
got a certain kind of flower to wear, U-861 commander Jrgen
Oesten recalled. But if they were willing to sleep with the boys
then they wore a different kind of flower as a signal.
With unlimited freedom, U-181 officer Otto Giese wrote,
German submariners at Penang felt as if they were in paradise.
BUT PARADISE WAITED AT THE END of a fraught voyage.
Simply to reach the eastern side of Africa, Monsun boats needed
to refuel in waters closely watched by the Allies. As the first wave
of 11 boats rolled out, their refueling tanker failed to break
through the Bay of Biscay; the Allies sank its replacement, followed by one of two U-boats diverted from patrol to share their
supply. Only five broke through to the Indian Ocean. There the
crews chalked up a paucity of targets and the loss of another boat
to bad luck, no more aware than the rest of the Kriegsmarine that
the Allies had broken Germanys naval codes. The inaugural
Monsun patrols sank a disappointing 49,600 tons of shipping.
U-boats were hunting off east Africa at the end of August 1943
when a second Japanese submarine, I-8, reached Brest with
manganese ore, other scarce metals, and sample Type 95 torpedoes. The I-8 also brought 50 Imperial Navy submariners for
training, leavened with time off in Paris and other tourist spots.
Following months of instruction and shakedown trials the
Japanese sailors were to sail back with a brand new Type IX
with Dnitzs grudging accession. He loathed parting with fresh
boats, but Hitler insisted because the U-511 had had three
patrols under its belt when given to Japan. Launched as U-1224
and designated RO-501 by the Imperial Navy, the new submarine departed Hamburg in March 1944. Allied watchers charted
the boats progress and dispatched a hunter-killer group that
sighted and sank it north of the Cape Verde Islands.
By the end of 1943, the Allies were sinking so many surface
vessels that the exchange voyages went fully underwater. That
November and December, Dnitz sent six more subs to join
Gruppe Monsun in the Indian Ocean, where they scarcely fared
better than his surface freighters. Only one U-boat reached the
pen at Penang. Hectored by the Allies, the retreating Japanese
were giving German submariners less grief. They agreed to set
up a second stopover base at Batavia (now Jakarta), and to allow
overhauls of German subs by Imperial Navy facilities at
Singapore and on Java. U-boats needing battery charges had to
sail to Kobe to join a queue at overburdened facilities at that
Japanese port. Access to these harbors, which had accommoda-

tions similar to those at Penang, would be even more critical

after March 1944, when Allied flyers sank the last German surface tanker in the Indian Ocean.
The Germans in Southeast Asia had been operating three fuelguzzling Italian cargo submarines when Italy surrendered in
September 1943. The Japanese warily allowed them to keep shuttling around Southeast Asia, but distrust intensified as the war
closed in on the Axis. As late as mid-April 1944 the Kriegsmarine

The underwater exchange brought Japan information critical

for building the Kikka (bottom), a copy of Germanys Me 262
jet fighter (top). The prototype flew once, on August 7, 1945.

was ordering U-boat captains approaching Penang to jettison

unused acoustic torpedoes at sea to keep the top-secret tin fish
away from Japanese eyes. The Imperial mission in Germany had
thoroughly briefed Japans navy on the acoustic weapons, so all
this precaution did was irk the Germans hosts.
France was the western terminus for most Axis sub exchanges,
but after the Allies liberated the coastal areas following D-Day
the operation moved to Kristiansand, a port in German-controlled Norway, extending the trip by several hundred miles.
To keep operating from Asian bases the persistent Dnitz had
to unsnarl supply line kinks and balance pressure from Berlin and
Tokyo to maintain the trade exchange, as well as endure punitive
attrition. Of 16 U-boats to reach Penang or Batavia between 1943
and 1944, eight went on war patrol; four were lost. Two of the
four surviving boats, along with the others already docked, were
emptied and reloaded with tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine, and
opium for the 90-day return trip and its perilous surface refuelings. Five boats made it to France past Allied sub-hunters along
the route and even near Penang. Two Royal Navy sub flotillas
based 1,300 miles away at Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) ranged at will,
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Bound for Penang on its first patrol, the U-848 sank a British
freighter in the South Atlantic, giving away its location to U.S.
pilots who sent the sub to the bottom using depth charges.

so unnerving U-boat skippers that on the final approach to

George Town they habitually mustered most crewmen on deck
wearing lifebelts, convinced a torpedo or mine would strike.
BY NOVEMBER 1944, JAPAN HAD CEASED offensive operations in the Indian Ocean. Many in the Kriegsmarine saw no
point in continuing there, but Dnitz saw no choice: Hitler kept
pushing the program, lobbied heavily by Ambassador Hiroshi
Oshima and other Japanese higher-ups. Dnitz added cargo
hauling to the U-boat mission, though a fighting sub could carry
but a fraction of a surface freighters cargo and to accomplish
even that had to be dismantled and reassembled in dry dock.
Compounding the lunacy, Dnitz insisted that these heavily
laden vessels hunt en route, inviting Allied attack.
In late 1944 Dnitz ordered an ambitious four-boat strike into
Australian and New Zealand shipping routes, 5,000 miles from
Batavia. To keep Japanese crews from attacking subs they might
not recognize, the Germans informed the Imperial Navy.
Regional commanders got word, encoded with ciphers the
American military had cracked. On October 4 a Dutch sub
ambushed U-168, on November 10 three American subs stalked
and sank U-537, and unknown causes claimed U-196.
Only U-862, skippered by Commander Heinrich Timm,
reached its hunting ground. Timm chased and lost a Greek
freighter, and eight days later got a Liberty ship in his crosshairs.
The SS Robert J. Walker fought back hardits deck gunners detonated an incoming torpedobut three fish hit, putting the
Walker into the books as the only vessel sunk by a U-boat in the
Pacific. Timm patrolled without further result until he received
66

WORLD WAR II

a recall order on January 17, 1945. En route back to Batavia he

torpedoed the Liberty ship SS Peter Sylvester, whose February 6
demise marked the final sinking in the Indian Ocean of an Allied
transport by the Axis.
By now B-29 crews based at Kharangpur, India, were bombing Penang. German subs shifted their base of operations to
Batavia. Despite poor returns and immense and growing operational woes, trade continued between Germany and Japan,
maintained by the increasingly desperate Japanese and the
prideful Dnitz, who waited until April 15, 1945, to tell Japans
senior military representative that further exchanges would be
a waste of time. That day, a last U-boat departed Norway for
the Far East with two Japanese aboard; when Germany surrendered on May 8, the U-234 was off Saint Johns, Newfoundland.
Its crew surrendered there to the USS Sutton; the Japanese passengers killed themselves. Across Asia, the Japanese politely
seized U-boats, absorbing them into the Imperial Navy but not
deploying them, and interned their crews, often at Batavia where
stores from the captured refrigerated steamer SS Nanking
allowed the boatless submariners to live in modest comfort.
KARL DNITZ MAY HAVE BELIEVED his Indian Ocean
adventure would tax the enemy and wound the Allies soft
underbelly, but patrols there accomplished little and cost dearly.
Dnitz sent 41 U-boats to join Gruppe Monsun: 22 were sunk
en route, and another 9 were lost on patrol31 U-boats sacrificed to sink 377,400 tons of Allied shipping.
The Japanese clearly came out ahead in the commodity trades.
Experts and expertise from the Reich jump-started work on
Japanese editions of the jet-propelled Me 262 and rocketpowered Me 163 fighters and other weapons such as integrated
antiaircraft systems, while Germany got no more than 700 tons
of raw materialsa fraction of the amount needed.
Through the treacherous voyages and patrols, discipline and
esprit de corps kept U-boat mariners going. Assigned by his
masters in Germany to refuel Japanese outposts, Captain Fritz
Schneewind of U-183 agreed to fill his ballast tanks with oil at
Batavia, making crash dives impossible. Schneewind could only
run on the surface. To avoid friendly fire from Japanese units, he
made sure his boat displayed clear Imperial markings. As always,
Schneewind communicated in codewhich Allied wizards read
like a book. U-183 was two days into its mission when a torpedo
from the USS Besugo killed Schneewind, his ship, and all of his
crew except Obersteuermann Wisniewski.
German submariners operating in the East enjoyed idyllic
interludes amid horrific times, but the supplies Japan provided
were never enough to sustain the Nazi war machine, and the
weapons and materiel Germany delivered were too few to make
a difference for Japan. The sailors who died gave their lives for a
policy born in the first rushes of victory, maintained for political
rather than military reasons, and continued to the grim end out
of desperation and hubris.
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WORLD

REVIEWS
[

BOOKS

WAR II

The Greatest Story Often Told

American Infantrymen
shelter beside a Sherman
on December 11, 1944, after
taking the village of Geich,
just east of Hrtgen Forest.

THE GUNS AT LAST LIGHT

The War in Western Europe, 19441945
By Rick Atkinson. 896 pp.
Henry Holt and Co., 2013. $40.

or almost 15 yearsthree times

longer than World War II lasted
Pulitzer winner Rick Atkinson has toiled
with Herculean devotion to trace the
American journey through hell to moral
and military victory in Europe: from
North Africa up the jagged and murderous spine of Italy, and now at last from
Normandy to the gates of Dachau.
Has it all been worth it? The question
inevitably arises when assessing yet
another sweeping account of Europes liberation: what can be added to the canon
that has not been covered before by so
many so well? In short, a great deal. To
use that well-worn but apt clich, it all
depends on how you tell it. Indeed, this
final installment of Atkinsons exhaustive
Liberation Trilogy is unlikely to win the
Pulitzer for originality. But it will gain
NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Atkinson his largest readership yet. Unlike

other heavyweight authors who penned
doorstopper tomes in recent years,
Atkinson does not resort to contrarian
posturing, blatant regurgitation, or
queasy mythmaking. Instead, with lyrical
lan, he accurately and objectively tells the greatest story of
our time, and does so with the
general reader always in mind.
(See our excerpt, Danger
Zone, on page 30.)
While the pacing is a little
too slow at the outset, once the
Allies land in France the narrative moves into high gear and
rarely falls back. It pulls us across
Hells Beach where young Americans were
butchered like a bunch of hogs, as one
dispatch put it on June 6, 1944, through
the Norman hedgerows, to sunlit avenues
during the liberation of Paris on August
25, 1944one of the greatest days of all
time, in the words of Ernie Pyle, whose
muscular and elegant prose Atkinsons

best writing often evokes. The

stalling of the Allies in fall 1944
along Germanys borders, the
British debacle at Arnhem, the
immense courage and suffering
of GIs throughout but particularly at the Battle of the Bulge,
the egomania of the Allied generals, the infighting that seemed
only to grow more rancorous
the closer the Allies got to
BerlinAtkinson covers all of
it with both judicious broad
strokes and vivid detail.
There is much to savor that
hasnt received full due from
others attempting to tell all in
one volume: the heady march
north from the Cote DAzur
after Dragoon, the wars most
successful amphibious invasion, the
unforgivable slaughter in Hrtgen Forest,
where so very many died for no good
reason, and the bitter winter fighting in
the Vosges. These episodes contain little
glory but more than enough tragedy, and
now have their proper place in
the greater story of the American odyssey in Europe.
Particularly effective are
Atkinsons crisp portraits of
the Allied generals. There is no
cheap sniping at Montgomery,
no over-inflation of Eisenhowers skills. Both legends are
fully realized humansflawed
but still possessed of aweinspiring devotion to duty. If I could get
home, a chain-smoking Ike wrote his
mother in July 1944, I could lie down on
the front lawn and stay there for a week
without moving. Patton too leaps from
these pages as a charismatic enigma.
Americas last great cavalryman, he was
crucially also the hard-driving maniac
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 013

69

REVIEWS

PRAEGER

ASSURED VICTORY
How Stalin the Great
Won the War,
but Lost the Peace

By Albert L. Weeks

even democracies need to win wars.

Hang up and keep going, bellowed
Old Blood-and-Guts to a subordinate
who called to report his position.
Finally, gloriously, the Rhine was
crossed, the unimaginable camps liberated, and Germanys surrender accepted
as spring flowers bloomed amid the
ruins where more people had died more
quickly than ever in history, including

135,576 Americans. For the 361,000

wounded GIs who returned home, forever
changed, there were further struggles. But
there was also profound consolation for
more than a few. The war had been the
most meaningful accomplishment of
their livesthe one great lyric passage,
as one officer called it. The same could be
said of Atkinsons richly rewarding and
beautifully crafted book. Alex Kershaw

CLASSICS REVISITED

the complex web of private and public

stories is what sets his masterwork apart.
He demonstrates the vital links between
By Richard Rhodes. 838 pp.
three components that ultiSimon & Schuster, 2012 (with
mately made the Manhattan
new forward by the author). $21.
Project a success: antiSemitism (and not just the
he great Danish physicist
Nazi variety), which sparked
Niels Bohr, writes jourvast movements of migr
nalist and historian Richard
geniuses to the United States;
Rhodes, liked to dream of
the intellectual pressure cookgreat interrelationships.
ers of research institutes
Rhodes shares that trait.
worldwide, which sharpened
For above all, this
nuclear research
books unparalleled
from speculation
delving inside the
to science; and
dawn of the nucthe vast, costly
lear age is a story of
engineering effort
connectionsbestretching from
tween people, their
Tennessee to
ideas, the arts, literWashington to
ature, political and
New Mexico,
social movements,
which finally put
and practical and
two atomic
theoretical physics.
weapons on
When it was first
Japanese targets.
The Enola Gay returns from Hiroshima.
published in 1986,
Inevitably, any
it received univer25-year-old
sal acclaim from reviewers who praised
history will show a few signs of age as
its deft characterizations and sweeping
scholarship presses on. Robert S. Norriss
narrative, and garnered both a Pulitzer
massive Racing for the Bomb (2003) on
Prize and a National Book Award. The
Manhattan Project manager General
New York Times noted that Rhodes has
Leslie Groves, Barton Bernsteins many
an uncanny ability to communicate the
excellent publications, and especially
essence of theoretical physics in an
Richard Franks Downfall (2001) have
engaging, comprehensible manner.
taken parts of this epic tale farther than
(Rhodess scientific education, by his
Rhodes was able to. But no one since
own admission, began and ended with
probably wiselyhas attempted
a Physics for Poets course.)
anything on the scale of his riveting,
True as that is, Rhodess ability to spin
panoramic account. Richard R. Muller
THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB
The 25th Anniversary of
the Classic History

This book documents dictator Joseph Stalins

brilliant tactics as well as missteps in taking
preemptive actions that guaranteed ultimate
victory over the German invaders. It also
covers the policies implemented after the
war that made the Soviet Union a menace
to world peace and led to collapse of
Soviet rule.
January 2011, 281 pp., 6 1/8x9 1/4
ISBN 978-0-313-39165-1, $44.95
eISBN 978-0-313-39166-8
Albert Weeks has taken on a very important
issue that still plagues Russian and Western
historiography of the war: Stalins political
objectives as they relate to the coming,
course, and outcome of the war. ...Those
interested in the coming, conduct, and
outcome of World War II will find much of
interest in this volume.

Dr. Jacob W. Kipp, Adjunct

Professor, University of Kansas
This striking new volume puts paid to current controversies regarding the greatness
of Josef Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet
Union before, during, and after the SovietGerman War (1941-1945). What results
is a sobering portrait of, arguably,
the Twentieth Centurys most accomplished
but brutal totalitarian ruler.

David M. Glantz, Colonel,

U.S. Army, retired
from the collections of
abc-clio.com | 1.800.368.6868

70

WORLD WAR II

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

(9

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20

LA

13

IN

BO

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AL D
LA A
TI Y
O
N!

its not just a brick.

its their story.

WITH A BRICK AT THE NATIONAL WWII MUSEUM, you can create a lasting tribute to loved ones who served
their country. These fathers and grandfathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors overcame a once-in-a-generation
challenge, and they deserve a memorial that will last for generations to come. To learn more, visit www.ww2brick4.org.
WWII History

BRICK TEXT

(Please Print Clearly) 18 characters per line including spaces

Mrs. Mr. Ms. __________________________________________________________________________________

Address __________________________________________________________________________________
City ______________________________________ State ________________ Zip _______________
Telephone (Day) _________________________ (Evening) ________________________
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The National WWII Museum reserves the right to refuse to engrave any message or material that it determines to be inappropriate, such as telephone numbers, political messages and suggestive wording.

REVIEWS

MODERN WAR STUDIES

Battalion Commanders at War

U.S. Army Tactical Leadership in the Mediterranean

Theater, 19421943
Steven Thomas Barry

Barrys book reverberates with the crack, boom,

and rattle of combat during the U.S. Armys first
battles in North Africa and Sicily during World
War II. Barry persuasively argues that heroic and
competent battalion commanders kept their
ground combat units moving forward despite a
determined enemy and a lack of support from
higher headquarters. . . . Essential reading for
students of World War II and all aspiring
military professionals.Michael D. Doubler,
author of Closing with the Enemy: How GIs
Fought the War in Europe, 19441945
272 pages, 5 photos, 6 maps, Cloth $34.95

M U LT I M E D I A

GHOST ARMY
Directed by Rick Beyer. 60 minutes, $24.99.
Also airing on PBS and playing at select
theaters; information at ghostarmy.org.

THE GHOST ARMY OF WORLD WAR II

Artists of Deception
By Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles. 48 pp.
Plate of Peas, 2011. $19.95.

n late June 1944, a unique U.S. Army

unit landed in France. Its aim: deceive
the Wehrmacht as the Allies finally closed
in on victory. Its personnel: 1,100 men of
the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops,

The Stalingrad Cauldron

Inside the Encirclement and
Destruction of the 6th Army
Frank Ellis

Characterized by sound scholarship, clarity,

and acute attention to detail, Elliss work adds
substantially to our understanding of the Battle
of Stalingrad and the travails of the troops who
fought, suffered, and often perished in the
fighting.David M. Glantz, author of The
Stalingrad Trilogy
544 pages, 44 photos, 50 tables, Cloth $39.95

The Hundred Day

Winter War

Finlands Gallant Stand against

the Soviet Army
Gordon F. Sander

An exciting, imaginative, and wide-ranging

account of the Winter War. Sanders gripping
study of this short but epic conflict is hard to
put down.Evan Mawdsley, general editor of
the Cambridge History of the Second World War
400 pages, 45 photos, 6 maps, Cloth $39.95

University Press of Kansas

Phone 785-864-4155 s Fax 785-864-4586 s www.kansaspress.ku.edu

72

WORLD WAR II

Ghost Army sonic halftracks blasted battle

noise at enemies as far away as 15 miles.

aka the Ghost Army, which recruited

from American arts schools and included
soon-to-be-famous characters like fashion designer Bill Blass, painter Ellsworth
Kelley, and photographer Art Kane. Its
methods: creating and manipulating
dummy tanks and airplanes and trucks,
simulating phantom unit broadcasts,
projecting painstakingly recorded noises
of units on the move via sound trucks,
leaving phony materiel poorly camouflaged so it could be discovered, even
hanging at watering holes where German
spies listened in while they reeled off
faked yarns about American plans.
Conceived by Hollywood star Douglas
Fairbanks Jr., famed magazine publisher
Ralph Ingersoll, and Amelia Earharts
mentor Colonel Hilton Howard Railey,
the Ghost Army delivered solid results.
Between the armys Normandy landing
and V-E Day, it staged 20 separate operations, often perilously near the front lines.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES

REVIEWS
In September, its men impersonated an armored division to plug a
perilous hole in Pattons line near
the German border. The surprise
enemy onslaught in December
nearly nabbed them at the Battle
of the Bulge. In March 1945, when
the U.S. Ninth Army was poised to
cross the Rhine, the Ghost Army
distracted the Germans by simulating two full divisions. These
extraordinary feats were kept topsecret for half a century.
Now, an eye-opening and entertaining film ushers us inside, using
interviews with 19 survivors, striking period footage, and rich and
evocative sketches and paintings
made during the units odyssey.
Dont miss it. And check out the
accompanying glossy paperback
well-written and profusely
illustrated. Gene Santoro

BRIEFS

ROOSEVELTS CENTURIONS
FDR and the Commanders He Led to
Victory in World War II
By Joseph E. Persico. 672 pp.
Random House, 2013. $35.
Well-paced, thoughtful, and
often shrewd, this leading
historians engaging look at
FDRs role as Americas chief
war strategist spotlights how
he chose and worked with
military leaders through the
wars twists and turns.

of Americas greatest field commanders.

It analyzes his unique leadership,
unveils his stormy private
life (including affairs with
actress Marlene Dietrich
and correspondent Martha
Gellhorn), and explores the
revolutionary advances in
warfare spearheaded by
his beloved 82nd Airborne.

PARATROOPER
The Life of General James M. Gavin

By Annegret Fauser. 368 pp.

Oxford, 2013. $39.95.
Argues that classical musics role in
mobilization and morale-building during
the war was vital but overlooked; marred
for general readership by academic style.

By T. Michael Booth and Duncan Spencer.

496 pp. Casemate, 2013. $32.95.
This 20-year-old biography, newly
reissued, offers a remarkable portrait of one

SOUNDS OF WAR
Music in the United States
during World War II

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 013

73

REVIEWS
[

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YOUNG TITAN
The Making of Winston Churchill
By Michael Shelden. 400 pp.
Simon & Schuster, 2013. $30.
Shelden, a Pulitzer finalist for his biography
Orwell, portrays young Churchill as an
irreverent, swashbuckling politician on the
make. Between his 26th and 40th birthdays,
Churchill broke with conservatives
to champion radical social
reform, survived assassination attempts, wooed Ethel
Barrymore, alienated more
powerful British figures
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First Lord of the Admiralty,
resigned in disrepute after
Gallipoli, then went into the
trenches. Shelden persuasively shows
how all that shaped the future wartime
leader of legend.

GENERAL MARK CLARK

Commander of Americas Fifth Army
in World War II and Liberator of Rome
By Jon Mikolashek. 272pp.
Casemate, 2013. $32.95.
Patton said of Clark, If you treat a
skunk nicely, he will not piss on you
as often. Mikolashek opens with this,
but reminds us that this hard man had a
very hard job: taking Europes mislabeled
soft underbelly. Was he a primadonna?
Could Patton have done better? Tune in.

MACARTHUR IN ASIA
The General and His Staff in the
Philippines, Japan, and Korea
By Hiroshi Masuda, translated by
Reiko Yamamoto. 334 pp.
Cornell, 2012. $35.
A respected Japanese diplomatic historian emphasizes
the importance of General
MacArthurs long-serving
staff (the Bataan Boys)
and how, for the Japanese,
wartime and occupation
were a single era of radical
changes amid traditional continuities.
Gene Santoro

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Natal, Brazil, 1943.

8th Gebirgsjaeger Division,

Bologna, 1945.

#HA9103 MSRP: $67.95

#HG3912 MSRP: $37.95

Hobby Master models are available at dealers nationwide, including:

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Petes Collectibles

The Drop Zone Diecast

Eads, TN 877-224-5367
www.aikensairplanes.com

Houston, TX 281-858-6847
www.petescollectibles.com

Whitewater, WI 888-923-9940
www.thedzd.com

The Flying Mule

The Diecast Junkie

Military Issue

Grass Valley, CA 888-359-6853

www.flyingmule.com

Elk Grove, CA 916-395-4460

www.thediecastjunkie.com

Minneapolis, MN 800-989-1945
www.militaryissue.com

For information on becoming a Hobby Master dealer in North or South America, call Historic Sales at 612-206-3263.

WORLD

WAR II

W h a t I f. . .

Japan Had Won

at Midway?
By Mark Grimsley

T IS JUNE 4, 1942.
Spearheaded by four
aircraft carriers, the
Japanese mobile task force
steams toward Midway
Atoll in the Central Pacific,
hoping to lure into battle
the remnants of the U.S.
Pacific Fleet. The Japanese
do not know that, thanks
to American code analysts,
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
knows they are coming and
has positioned his three
operational aircraft carriersEnterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown
to ambush the would-be ambushers.
The day opens with the Japanese carrier
force trading blows with American pilots
based on Midway. Japanese bombers
badly damage enemy facilities on the atoll;
Imperial Navy gunners and pilots shoot
most American attackers out of the sky.
At 7 a.m. carriers Enterprise and Hornet
launch planes against the Japanese carrier
force; an hour later so does Yorktown. The
attack is a fiasco. Squadrons of torpedo
planes from all three American carriers
locate the Japanese fleet but are shot down
without scoring a hit. Flying separately,
American dive-bombers take the wrong
course and never do find the foe.
Soon Japanese scout planes spot the
three American carriers and the Japanese
fling all their strength against the ships.
Japanese pilots sink Yorktown, then Enterprise and Hornet. By dusk America has
suffered a naval defeat to rival the disaster
that rocked Pearl Harbor and the nation
six months ago.
This scenario is historically accurate in
four respects. Midway did suffer major

76

WORLD WAR II

damage from a Japanese attack on the

morning of June 4. The atolls pilots lost
heavily in a fruitless attempt to bomb the
Japanese carrier force. The American
torpedo squadrons were nearly wiped out
without scoring a hit, and in the battle
the Yorktown was sunk. The scenario is
partially accurate in a fifth way: American
dive-bomber pilots did search unsuccessfully for the Japanese carriers. They might
have had to turn back had a squadron
commander not seen an enemy destroyers
wake, which, he deduced, indicated a path
to the Japanese carrier force.
The chief departures from history are,
of course, the destruction of Enterprise
and Hornet, and the survival of Japanese
carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu-, and So-ryu-.
Historically, Akagi, Kaga, and So-ryu- did
incur mortal damage when U.S. divebombers finally located them around
10:20 a.m. on June 4; Hiryu-, badly hit late
in the afternoon, sank early the next day.
What if the Japanese had won at
Midway? In Shattered Sword: The Untold
Story of the Battle of Midway (2005),
authors Jonathan Parshall and Anthony

Tully offer a response.

Win or lose, these historians argue, the Japanese
could never have seized the
Hawaiian Islands. By June
1942, Oahu, the chains key
element, was garrisoned by
100,000150,000 soldiers.
Japanese planners reasoned
that to capture Hawaii,
the Empire would need to
deploy at least 45,000 men
a grave underestimate
but even so, Parshall and
Tully point out, that figure
represented an invasion force 10 times
larger than they had ever landed amphibiously at one time.
A Japanese victory at Midway definitely
would have precluded the Americans
August 1942 counteroffensive at Guadalcanal. Japanese incursions would have
posed a more serious threat to Australia
and New Guinea because the U.S. could
not have stopped them. The Japanese
certainly would have moved into the
South Pacific largely unimpeded, occupying the New Hebrides, Fiji, Samoa, and
Tonga, Parshall and Tully maintain. This
would have placed Imperial forces
squarely athwart the main line of supply
between the United States and Australia.
The Japanese might conceivably have
invaded northern Australia.
But in the end, the authors contend,
none of this would have mattered. By
1942 Japans industrial capacity had
peaked, whereas the American war
machine was still growing. By mid-1943,
the U.S. was launching an Essex-class
carrier at the rate of one ship every two
months. By August 1945, 17 Essex-class

HOKUSAI WAVE AND AMERICAN FLAG: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GUY ACETO

W h a t I f. . .

flattops would enter service, to say nothing of 9 Independence-class light carriers

and dozens of small but useful escort
carriers. Since the day the battle was
fought, the American victory there has
been labeled as decisive, Parshall and
Tully observe. Butwin or lose at Midway, it was extremely unlikely that the
Japanese were going to win. How, then,
can such a battle be considered decisive?
This analysis, however, overlooks how
a putative Midway disaster would have
affected American planning and execution. Losing grievously at Midway would
have placed great pressure on the Roosevelt administration to forego the Allied
Germany First strategy in favor of
retrieving the situation in the Pacific.
For sound geopolitical reasons the U.S.
would have had to maintain the supply
line to Australia, and if the Japanese fol-

A Japanese victory
might not have
changed the result,
but the war would
have followed a far
different path.
lowed a triumph at Midway by seizing
islands straddling that route, the Americans would have had to capture those
bastions, demanding reallocation of troop
transport and landing vessels from the
European Theater to the Pacific.
This nearly happened anyway. In July
1942 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frustrated by
British resistance to undertaking an early

cross-Channel attack, recommended a

shift to the defensive in Europe and adoption of a Pacific First strategy. FDR vetoed
this approachenabled, in part, by the
American victory at Midway, which established that existing Allied forces in the
Pacific could take on Japan. Defeat at
Midway would have argued the opposite.
Abandonment of Germany First could
have no other effect but to prolong the
war in Europe by many months, perhaps
allowing the Soviet Union to gain control
of Western Europe. Certainly hostilities
would have ground on long enough for
the Manhattan Project to complete the
first atomic bombs, which the U.S. then
would have dropped not on Japan but on
targets in Germany. Victory at Midway
would not have won Japan the war, but
could well have given the Second World
War a very different turn.

Own a commemorative piece of

Coins shown not actual
size or in proportion.

Just released from the United States Mint! A limited

number of coins honoring the only 5-Star Gener als
during World War II.
George Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Henry Hap Arnold and Omar
Bradley were the greatest leaders of the greatest generation. They dedicated their lives to our
nation and now you can own the coins that are in honor of their legacies.
This ne collection also celebrates the 132nd anniversary of the founding of the United States
Army Command and General Sta College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. A portion of your
purchase is authorized to be paid to the CGSC Foundation to help nance the Command and
General Sta College where military leaders of the future are developed.
*Due to the volatility of the precious metals markets, please visit www.usmint.gov or call
for prcicing and to place your order. Sponsored by the CGSC Foundation.

How to Order
ONLINE: www.usmint.gov
PHONE: 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468)
TTY: 1-888-321-MINT (6468)

8 a.m. midnight (ET)

seven days a week

8:30 a.m. 5 p.m. (ET)

Monday Friday

Te United States Mint is committed to your complete satisfaction. Return the entire
product within seven (7) days for replacement or refund.
The 5-Star Generals Commemorative Coin Act (Public Law 111-262), signed into law on October 8, 2010, by the
President of the United States, requires the Secretary of the Treasury to mint and issue up to 100,000 $5 gold coins,
500,000 silver dollars and 750,000 clad half-dollars in recognition of five United States Army 5-Star Generals to coincide with the celebration of the 132nd anniversary of the founding of the United States Army Command and General
Staff College. The United States Mint will mint these coins in proof and uncirculated qualities. A surcharge for each coin
issued in the amount of $35 per gold coin, $10 per silver coin and $5 per clad coin is authorized to be paid to the Command and General Staff College Foundation to help finance its support of the Command and General Staff College.
Sales for the 2013 5-Star General Commemorative Coin Program began at noon Eastern Time (ET) on March 21,
2013. Introductory pricing ends on April 19, 2013, at 5 p.m. (ET).

To order online: USMINT.GOV
t 5P
MFBSO
NPSF
'*7&45"3(&/&3"-403(

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

77

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WORLD

WAR II

Challenge

Hollywood

Howlers

The Czechoslovak film Closely Watched

Trains (1966) chronicles coming of age
during German occupation. It won an
Oscarbut its depiction of the invasion
includes a massive goof. Whats amiss?

CRITERION COLLECTION

What the ...?!?

What operation featured
this supporting roll?

ANSWERS

to the MARCH/APRIL
Challenge
What the?!?

Enabled P-38s to
quickly move
wounded soldiers

Please send your answers

to all three questions, and your mailing address, to:
July/August Challenge
World War II
19300 Promenade Drive
Leesburg, VA 20176
or e-mail:

challenge@weiderhistorygroup.com

Three winners, chosen at random from all correct entries

submitted by August 15, will receive a copy of Ghost Army
on DVD. Answers will appear in the Nov/Dec 2013 issue.

The tank is an
Israeli Defense Force
Super Sherman

Name That Patch

Japanese submariners
who completed
specialized training

Name
That
Patch

Who wore
this badge?

Congratulations
to the winners:
David McChesney,
William Neimeier,
and Steve Calder

J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

TOP: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; MIDDLE: WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES; BOTTOM: WEIDER ARCHIVES

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM T 54; PATCH: WEIDER ARCHIVES

Hollywood Howlers

79

WORLD

WAR II

Pinup

Funny-Side Up
Actress Marie Wilson, born
Katherine Elizabeth Wilson in
Anaheim, California, aspired
to great dramatic roles.
Instead, as Life magazine
reported in the late 1930s
about her growing screen
fame, she was cast as a
dumb blonde who cooed
and gurgled so convincingly
that she promptly made a
hitbegetting the Marie
Wilson Fan Club and its
publication, The Wilsonette,
while establishing her as a
type that she could never
truly break away from.
Show business has been
very good to me and Im not
complaining, the actress
said, but some day I just
wish someone would offer

AF ARCHIVE/ALAMY

me a different kind of role.

80

WORLD WAR II

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