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Soft Underbelly:
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Soft Underbelly:
Allied & German Strategy
in the
1943 Italian Campaign
by Joseph Miranda

6 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

Strategic Debates
T
he Italian campaign started less
than auspiciously. Operation
Husky, the invasion of Sicily,
began on 9 July with two Allied armies
hitting the beaches: Gen. George S.
Patton’s US Seventh Army and Field
Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s
British Eighth Army. The Germans
fought a brilliant rearguard action with
a panzer corps under the command of
Gen. Hans Hube. He fell back on the port
of Messina and evacuated his divisions,
along with many Italian troops, to the
mainland, despite Allied naval and air
superiority. On 17 August the Allies took
Messina, the last Axis stronghold on the
island, but Hube had escaped cleanly.
Still, the Allies could claim a victory
as, among other things, the political
impact of Allied troops landing on
Italian soil had led to the overthrow
of Mussolini in a 24 July coup and
his replacement with Marshal Pietro
Badoglio. With Italian participation in the
Axis faltering, the question arose among
the Allied commanders: where next?
Immediately at issue was whether
there should even be another amphibi-
ous invasion in the Mediterranean. The
Allies were preparing for Overlord, the
invasion of northern France, which
would finally be executed in June
1944 in Normandy. That operation’s
required preparation called for the
concentration of Allied logistics and
amphibious craft in Britain. Continuing
the war in the Mediterranean meant
diversion of resources from Overlord.
While Winston Churchill saw the
Mediterranean theater as the Reich’s “soft
Gen. George S. Patton in Italy
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 7
underbelly,” the Americans were less
optimistic. Further large-scale opera-
tions there might lead to nothing more
than protracted combat with little in the
way of real strategic gain. The American
high command preferred the most direct
route to Germany, which was via a land-
ing in northwestern Europe followed by
a mechanized drive across the relatively
open terrain of France and Belgium.
Even so, further campaigning in
the Mediterranean was also seen as a
necessity. For one thing, the Anglo-Allies
needed to take some of the pressure off
the still-beleaguered Soviet Union. At
the start of Husky the Germans were in
the midst of their Citadel offensive, a
series of great tank battles around Kursk
(5-16 July), and the larger course of the
war on the eastern front remained in
doubt. Politically, then, it was necessary
to demonstrate to Moscow the Western
Allies were fully in the war, thereby
heading off any temptation Stalin
might otherwise have felt to make a
separate peace with Berlin (a possibility
that in retrospect was unlikely, but at
the time was of great concern).
Another factor motivating another
Mediterranean operation was, ironically
enough, logistics. That is, the Allied
divisions and air forces then based
in North Africa and Sicily couldn’t
be easily shifted elsewhere. Bases in
Britain were already filling up with the
forces dedicated for Overlord. While
Allied units in the Mediterranean
could certainly be shipped to Britain,
the added facilities needed to house
and maintain them didn’t yet exist.
Thus, for lack of any convenient
alternative if nothing else, campaigning
in the Mediterranean would continue.
The dilemma then became choosing the
specific target for the next operation.
The solution came as the result of
more debate among Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower, by then in command of
all US forces in Europe; Field Marshal
Harold Alexander, Allied commander
for the Mediterranean Theater; and Gen.
Charles de Gaulle of the Free French.
The British wanted to go for the
8 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
Balkans. An invasion of Greece or
Yugoslavia would lead the way toward
the Danube and from that river valley
into the heart of the Reich. Late in World
War I, the Allied breakout from the
Salonika beachhead had done much to
finally collapse the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and initiate the general Central
Powers in the closing months of the
war. In 1943 there were large partisan
forces across the area that could provide
the Allies with much in the way of local
support. An invasion of the Balkans, it
was argued, might also bring Turkey
into the war on the side of the Allies
and open a new route for sending
Western Allied aid to the USSR.
The Americans, however, advocated
an invasion of the Italian mainland.
Such an operation would knock out
Hitler’s major Axis partner in Europe.
Another reason was put forth by Gen.
Harold “Hap” Arnold, commander of
the US Army Air Force: the capture
of southern Italy could be exploited
to build up airpower for the strategic
bombing campaign against the Reich’s
war industry. Southern Italy, among
other things, contained the large
airfield complex at Foggia, and those
facilities could be used to stage heavy
bombers against targets in southern
Germany and the Danube valley.
The Free French also had an opinion.
They favored sequenced invasions into
Sardinia and Corsica, to be climaxed by
a landing in southern France. While the
Free French were a force subsidized by
the Americans and British in terms of
equipment and logistics, their interests
had to be taken as a matter of concern.
London and Washington needed to
maintain the coalition of the “United
Nations” (not yet the international orga-
nization of today, the term was already
in extensive use in Allied propaganda
by mid-war). Operating in such a way
as to facilitate the maintenance of good
postwar relations among the Western
powers was yet another consideration.
In the end, of course, the strategic
consensus came to be it was best to
invade the Italian mainland. Invading
the Balkans was deemed undesirable,
as that would shift the main power of
the Western Allies into in an entirely
new strategic direction, from western to
central Europe. There would also be diffi-
culties in providing invasion forces there
with air cover and logistics. Southern
France, while certainly a tempting target
by itself, was ultimately a strategic dead
end: an Allied invasion force there would
be unlikely to get far enough north to
reach critical objectives such as Paris or
the German border. Such a move might
also cause Hitler to fully shift his armed
forces’ strategic concentration from the
USSR to France, thereby endangering
the projected Overlord operation.
An invasion of mainland Italy had
several strategic advantages. It would
be sure to divert German attention
from France, thereby aiding Overlord’s
eventual success. Moreover, secret
negotiations being conducted with
Italy’s new government indicated such
an invasion would not only bring on
an Italian surrender, it might also lead
to that country committing its armed
forces against the Germans. At the
same time, southern Italy was within
easy range of Allied airpower based in
Sicily and North Africa. With mainland
Italy the objective, then, US, British
and Free French forces assembled for
their return to mainland Europe after
an absence of more than three years.
Operational Plans
With the strategic objective of
Italy settled, the operational planning
began. Several invasion beaches were
debated. Initially the Allies considered
landing directly at Naples and seizing
its port, vital for logistical support of
deeper operations. Naples, however,
was less than ideal in that it was out of
range of Allied single-engine aircraft.
There was some talk of using aircraft
carriers to provide air cover, but that
was deemed unfeasible because
those ships couldn’t provide sufficient
numbers of fighters to guarantee
air superiority, and their operations
were subject to the vagaries of the
weather. Later events of the campaign
would prove the wisdom of that
decision, as the Luftwaffe would
make a major effort in support of the
German counterattack at Salerno,
sinking and damaging numerous
ships even with Allied fighter cover.
The final Allied plan called for
a three-pronged assault. The main
attack would be at Salerno, south
of Naples, executed by the US Fifth
Army (including both an American
and a British corps), codenamed
Operation Avalanche. British Eighth
Army would cross the narrow Straits
of Massena to land in Calabria at the
“toe” of the Italian “boot” (Operation
Baytown). British 1st Airborne Division
would make an amphibious landing
at Taranto to secure the far right flank
Field Marshal Smuts (left) and Gen. Eisenhower
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 9
of the invasion (Operation Slapstick).
There was some argument over
the utilization of the US 82nd Airborne
Division. One idea — the plan originally
selected — was for that unit to make a
drop into Rome, thereby securing the
Italian capital and giving more impetus
to anti-German Italian forces to rally
to the Allies. This plan was scotched,
at literally the last minute, due to full
consideration of the impossibility of
effectively reinforcing, or even just
sustaining, the 82nd that far behind
enemy lines. If German resistance
prevented a breakout from the beach-
heads, the airborne would be cut off
and destroyed. As with Naples, Rome
was also out of range of easy air cover.
The 82nd therefore remained in reserve
for the initial phase of the operation.
Meanwhile, the Allies continued
to conduct secret negotiations with
Italian leaders to try to ensure their
country would surrender peacefully
and fully. Those talks involved no small
 The German Perspective
As the Allies debated their plans for invading Italy, the German
high command did the same concerning its own strategy for that
country. Erwin Rommel, of Afrikakorps fame, wanted to fall back
into north Italy and make a stand in the Po valley. That would keep
secure the vital industrial areas of Italy’s far north while also avoiding
having to operate within easy range of Allied sea power. Defending
in the south would be dangerous, Rommel argued, because the
long coastal flanks of the peninsula would be vulnerable to Allied
amphibious invasions that could cut off major German forces. There
was also the question of the Italian armed forces. If they defected
to the Allies, it would place large numbers of newly hostile troops
across the lengthy German line of communications to the far south.
Albert Kesselring, German commander in the Mediterranean
Theater (Oberkommando Sud, “High Command South”), believed
central and southern Italy could be held, or at least turned into a trap
for the Allies. Given past Allied patterns of operation, Kesselring
figured they would land only under solid air cover, which meant
southern Italy. By deploying mobile units in the south, and then
moving them forward quickly to counterattack the beachhead,
the Germans could pin down Allied invaders and perhaps even
throw them back into the sea. The Luftwaffe still had effective
strength remaining in the Mediterranean and, if concentrated over
one spot, German airpower could possibly cause critical damage
to Allied shipping, making any landing tenuous at best.
To deal with the Italians, Kesselring put together Operation
Axis, which had German divisions moving quickly to disarm the
erstwhile ally’s units. As for follow-on invasions along the seaward
flanks, they could also be dealt with by mobile reserves that
would contain any beachheads. Moreover, rough calculations of
Allied shipping capacities showed they had the tonnage on hand
for only one major invasion per year in the Mediterranean. In any
event, until the Allies seized southern Italy, they would be unable
to provide sufficient air cover to support invasions farther north.
Kesselring realized the critical nature of airpower to the entire
Allied campaign scheme, and he therefore planned accordingly.
Another factor in the balance was Benito Mussolini. In late July
the fascist dictator had been imprisoned by disgruntled Italians and
held at the mountain resort of Gran Sasso. A German commando
operation planned by Luftwaffe Gen. Kurt Student rescued Mussolini
on 12 September and returned him to the Reich. Otto Skorzeny, who’d
been appointed by Hitler to head up German special operations,
10 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
Field Marshal
Kesselring
(3rd from left)
inspects German
troops in the field
also got involved and did much to ensure the success of the raid.
Mussolini’s rescue was a morale booster for the Germans, who were
facing otherwise universally bad news that summer on both the
Mediterranean and the eastern fronts. It also did much to give Hitler
confidence that some kind of victory could be secured in southern Italy.
Hitler therefore ended up approving Kesselring’s approach
over that of Rommel, though it was conditional approval. Rommel
remained in command of numerous divisions in the Po valley as
a strategic reserve in the event of another Allied invasion behind
Tenth Army. Kesselring’s forces in southern Italy were restricted to
those of Tenth Army, commanded by Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff.
An examination of the order of battle reveals the German forces
in Italy at that stage of the campaign represented the single greatest
large-scale mobile striking force they’d ever assembled in World War
II. It had a higher proportion of mechanized to non-mechanized units
of any German army-level command of the war. It included numerous
panzer (armored), panzer grenadier (motorized) and Fallshirmjaeger
units. The latter were Luftwaffe paratroop units, though by that
time in the war actual jump-training had fallen off. Instead, their
mission had shifted to becoming rapid-reaction units that could
be air-transported anywhere on the Reich’s fronts to meet threats.
Throughout the Italian campaign, the parachute divisions proved
themselves some of the toughest defensive fighters of the war.  ★
amount of skullduggery, with Allied
representatives meeting with the
Italians as far afield as Lisbon, and even
a clandestine mission into German-
occupied Rome itself by Gen. Maxwell
Taylor to make final arrangements. In
the event, Italy would surrender and
declare itself an Ally, though that had
less effect than the Allies had hoped.
Course of the Campaign
The invasion of the Italian
mainland began on 3 September
with Eighth Army landing at
Calabria. On 8 September the Allies
announced the Italian armistice.
On 9 September, Fifth Army came
ashore at Salerno. Everything seemed
to be going according to plan.
Then, however, the German
commander in Italy, Luftwaffe
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring,
implemented his plan. (Kesselring had
begun his career in the German Army,
and thus was no stranger to ground
war strategy.) His units implemented
Operation Axis, swiftly moving to
occupy strategic points throughout
Italy, while also disarming Italian
troops to prevent their interfering.
German Tenth Army moved to contain
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 11
the Salerno landing, while units
farther south conducted delaying
actions, trading space for time and
keeping Eighth Army from linking up
with Fifth for several critical days.
Kesselring launched his divisions
against the Salerno beachhead, almost
throwing the Allies back into the sea
while, in the sky above, the Luftwaffe
hit Allied shipping and hit it hard. A
last-ditch defense of the beach, sup-
ported by naval gunfire, finally threw
back the Germans. Elements of the
82nd Airborne were also parachuted in
as emergency reinforcement, and the
beachhead held. Eighth Army linked
up on the 16th. Kesselring ordered
Tenth Army to fall back into a series
of defensive lines south of Rome.
The Luftwaffe proved to be
particularly effective. Its aircraft
attacked Allied shipping in the Gulf
of Salerno using, among other things,
new Fritz-X radio- controlled bombs
to inflict serious damage on Allied
vessels as well as Italian naval units
12 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
that attempted to sail to Malta to join
the Allies. The situation in the air,
however, would soon turn around.
On the 27th, Eighth Army took
Foggia while Fifth Army moved into
Naples on 2 October. The Germans,
though, didn’t attempt to make stands
in those places. Instead, they fought
only delaying actions aimed at slowing
the Allied advance. Allied armies
driving north found blown bridges,
mined ports and enemy ambushes.
Rome was the culminating point of
any campaign coming out of southern
Italy, and Kesselring was willing
to sacrifice territory to its south in
order to keep secure the main prize
itself. He would make his stand — or
rather, a series of them — in fortified
lines prepared in front of Rome.
Mid-October found the Allied
armies at the Volturno River, where
the Germans stood and fought. After
some difficult infantry actions, the
Allies crossed the Volturno — only to
find themselves faced by yet more
German defenses behind it, as well
as by ever more abominable terrain,
poor roads and worsening weather.
By the end of the year the Allies were
held up at the Gustav (or Winter) Line,
upper-left — British AA position at Mt. Cassino
lower-left — British troops go ashore at Salerno
below — British Churchill tank
 STORMING
still well south of Rome, with German actions kept Eighth Army in check.
1017 121
defenses centered on the formidable Kesselring’s counterattack almost
hilltop position of the abbey at Monte succeeded in the destruction of
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1018 121
held the Allies away from Rome, the
ultimate objective of the campaign.

REICH
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World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 13

Design Corner
Joseph Miranda
Soft Underbelly:
The War in Southern Italy, 1943
O
ne of the more initially promis-
ing campaigns of World War II
was the Allied invasion of Italy
in 1943. It followed on the victories in
North Africa and Sicily, which together
worked to strategically secure the
Mediterranean. The next logical move
was to invade the Italian mainland. An
invasion would knock Italy out of the
Axis politically, as well as penetrate the
southern edge of occupied mainland
Europe; however, the campaign bogged
down into a war of attrition. The Allies
spent the better part of two years
slogging up the peninsula in fighting
that was more reminiscent of the First
World War than the Second. Why that
was so is a fitting topic for wargaming.
Soft Underbelly explores the
potentials inherent in the initial stage
of the campaign. There was a possibility
for the Germans turning around the
situation and gaining a major victory.
Historically, they came close to defeating
the Allies at the Salerno beachhead
in September. In fact, in the opening
battles of the campaign, the Germans
deployed one of the most effective army-
level forces they would raise during
the entire war: 10th Army, consisting of
panzer, panzer grenadier and airborne
divisions, all of which were at peak
fighting efficiency. The Luftwaffe also
had an opportunity to contest Allied
air supremacy over the battlefield.
That wasn’t the whole story. The
Germans also maintained a strong force
in northern Italy, preparing for a stand
against the Allies there because
14 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
it was initially assumed they’d simply
sweep up the peninsula. Historically
those divisions — along with others
potentially available from elsewhere
in occupied Europe — weren’t released
to fight in the south owing to strategic
doubts on Hitler’s part. The game
allows players to explore both the
historic flow of the campaign as well
as the “what if” of a major German
counteroffensive late in 1943. By playing
the game you can see the difficult
alternative situation in which the Allies
might well have found themselves.
The system gives a good look at
campaign-level operations. Though
the primary units of maneuver for both
sides are divisions, there are also “corps
support units,” representing artillery
and other non-divisional assets. That’s
a convenient way to deal with those
kinds of formations. Many wargames
drop them out of their orders of battle,
or factor them into maneuver unit com-
bat strengths. Others take the extreme
approach of showing all non-divisional
units, overwhelming players in organi-
zational detail. What this game’s system
does is show things from the standpoint
of the theater commanders. An impor-
tant issue, therefore, is getting support
to the right place at the right time.
Units have three categories
of movement: mountain, non-
mechanized and mechanized. This
is critical because the Italian theater
had a wide range of terrain. Mountain-
qualified units had a real edge in
the Apennines. That’s a qualitative
distinction between units beyond
their numerical movement factors.
Both players use command points
(CP) to “activate” their forces. CP are
an abstraction of command and staff
capabilities as well as logistical support.
They easily model a lot of otherwise
complex factors into one rules sub-
system. They also easily show the
qualitative differences between armies.
One function of CP activation is
airpower. The Allies can get a consider-
able amount of air support, including
air supply, bombers and the use of
airborne units. If they fail to activate
airpower, the Luftwaffe can come in for
a counterattack. Again, that simulates
a lot of complex factors by showing
the overall impact on the ground
(literally and figuratively) of airpower.
Then there are the victory condi-
tions. According to the design param-
eters, the Germans won this campaign
as a result of their successful defense
of southern Italy, by keeping the Allies
from breaking out of there and into
the next strategic zone. Hitler didn’t
abandon the peninsula, and the Allies
ended up with two armies and lots of
logistics committed to a front on which
they’d expected to grab a quick victory.
Alternatively, if the Germans decide to
commit their strategic reserve to the
campaign — the “Watch on the Tiber”
option — they will then have to win an
offensive victory by taking critical cities.
There’s a tradeoff there in terms of
getting more resources, but then having
to accomplish more with them.   ✪
Soft Underbelly
Soft Underbelly: The War in Southern Italy, 1943 (SU). Designed
Ty Bomba. It’s an intermediate-complexity, two-player wargame simulating
that historic World War II campaign. It may also be used to explore the
“what ifs” inherent in the situation had the German high command chosen
to react to the Allied landings in a much different manner: making that
effort’s defeat Berlin’s main strategic goal for late 1943 (Operation Wacht
am Tiber). The design therefore combines factual historical detail with
studied counter-factual analysis to present players with a situation that will
be familiar to most of them, while at the same time allowing for an easy
and seamless transition into the less certain realm of alternative history.
Each extra-large-hex on the 34x22” mapsheet equals 11 miles (18 km)
when measured from side to opposite side. Each game turn represents
between two and 15 days, depending on the exact time of year of each one.
That is, as the autumn weather worsens, and attrition and the inevitable
declines in soldier morale and force-robustness take their tolls, each game
turn comes to represent a longer period of time. That approach allows for the
smooth building into the system of what would otherwise be burdensome
factors of weather, ground conditions, operational tempo, etc. Every ground
unit represents a division or division-equivalent (176 large-size NATO-style).
The game uses the well-liked system originally created by Ben
Knight for Victory in Normandy. There are approximately 14,500
words in the rules. A complete game of SU generally takes from
four to five hours to complete, and it’s suitable for solitaire play.
To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in
this issue send your name and address along with:
$30 US Customers
$36 Canadian Customers
$38 Overseas Customers
All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping.
CA residents add $1.98 sales tax. Send to:
Decision Games
ATTN: WaW Game Offer
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield, CA 93390
From this 1941 German poster, a black hulk of a spy, faceless and crude, whispers an international “pst,” hoping to loosen Germany’s tongue.

16 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

Double Cross:
The War between MI-5 & German Intelligence
Origin & Goals
A
fter the fall of France in June
1940, the United Kingdom was
cut off from the continent.
A unique set of circumstances soon
thereafter fell into place, causing the
system of counterintelligence known as
“Double Cross” to come into existence.
All of it took place at the time of the “Sea
Lion” invasion scare. The authorities in
Britain were hurriedly forming beach
defenses and undertaking numerous
other civil defense measures. That fear
of imminent invasion led to the public
accepting internal security measures
that would’ve been otherwise unthink-
able. Internal security was the traditional
purview of the government department
“MI-5” (Military Intelligence, section 5”).
MI-5, which had originally been set
up by act of Parliament in 1909 (during a
period of pre-World War I invasion para- Creating Double Cross
noia), established six objectives for a
program directed against German intel-
ligence penetration of the home island.
1. Control the German intelligence
service in the country. That, on the
face of it, seemed like an impossible
goal, but it was he best approach
for a number of reasons. That is,
it’s far better to control an enemy
intelligence network than it is to
continually be trying to suppress
it. It’s also better than suppressing
all enemy agents, as the enemy
will only get better at inserting new
ones into the country, and they
might be missed. By controlling
(“turning”) the enemy network,
they only see what they’re allowed
to and not what’s actually there.
2. To capture new enemy agents imme-
diately as they come into the country.
The already controlled agents can be
used to detect new agents. When new
agents arrived in the country, they
would have contact information; that
contact was almost always an agent
already controlled by Double Cross.
3. To learn about the methods and
abilities of the enemy intelligence
service. By capturing radio equip-
ment and agents, by interviewing
them and learning their cover
stories, Double Cross learned about
the personalities who controlled
the German intelligence service.
They also learned their methods
and agent training capabilities.
4. To gain information of the enemy’s
code and cipher capabilities.
5. To gain information about the
enemy’s intentions. By finding the
particulars of what captured agents
were hoping to learn, Double Cross
could determine what the Germans
were ultimately hoping to achieve.
6. To influence and change German
operational plans and intentions.
As the Double Cross operation
developed and expanded, it
was eventually able to influ-
ence the battlefield by feeding
misinformation to the Germans.
Those were all important goals, but
executing them was another matter.
Effectively, it meant creating a system of
double agents, and such agents couldn’t
be created out of whole cloth. They had
to be carefully recruited, which meant
capturing them and offering them an
incentive to “turn.” They would then
have to be monitored. Major resources
in time, money and, most importantly,
trained manpower had to be dedicated
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 17
by David March
to the support of each captured agent.
MI-5 and other British security
forces were lucky in several regards.
Their opponents in the Abwehr (German
military intelligence) had prepared
to fight an intelligence war based on
the conduct of the one that had taken
place during World War I. During the
interwar years, German intelligence
had therefore spent a great deal of effort
and energy on penetrating Denmark
and the Netherlands, both of which
had been neutral in the earlier war.
The Abwehr hoped to use those neutral
countries as cover for its activities
farther abroad; however, with the
sudden success of the Wehrmacht
in overrunning them in 1940, they
suddenly found themselves having to
build a new network from scratch.
Adm. Wilhelm Franz Canaris, head
of Abwehr, met with officers of the high
command during June 1940 and found
they wanted him to establish a network
of agents in the UK no later than 7
September. Canaris then met with sev-
eral of his own senior officers, who told
him it was impossible to build a network
in such a short time. He responded: “In
this case the impossible must be done.”
Accordingly, Abwehr implemented
a crash course of agent recruiting,
with many of the candidates coming
from adventurers and foreigners — not
the best of sources for such a delicate
operation. Moreover, given the quick
turnaround time demanded, those
recruits ended up poorly trained.
The Abwehr plan was to insert them
into the UK by parachute or small
boats running along the coast. Many
of those recruited were foreign-born
Nazi supporters from Sweden, Norway
and France, and their cover story was
they were refugees. Adding to the
confusion was the fact a mistress of a
high-ranking Abwehr officer was also
recruited — he’d decided he wanted
her out of the country, and recruitment
seemed the easiest way to get her to go.
The first German agents sent into
Britain were almost all immediately
intercepted and captured. They were
dropped in with wireless sets, but they
proved nearly useless. Many of the
sets broke on landing, or the agents
themselves hadn’t been sufficiently
trained to use them properly. They also
often lacked full practical knowledge
of English, had clothes that were
unsuitable for the cover they were
given, and their documents were out
of date; thus, they were easily spotted
and picked up by British security. They
were also given the task of making
contact with one primary agent
within England, codenamed Snow,
who’d already been turned by MI-5.
The British had a number of different
methods they used to ensnare spies.
One was through the work of the lesser-
known intelligence agency, MI-8, the
Signals Intelligence Service. MI-8 had
an early success in the summer of 1940
when one of its agents broke the pencil
and paper code the Abwehr used for
much of its early war correspondence.
It was also efficient in tracking down
agents via tracing their broadcasts.
The Abwehr relied on technological
innovations for secure communications,
including the “Enigma” cipher device.
British intelligence would eventually get
three such devices, one from the Poles
early in the war, one from a captured
submarine in 1941, and another from a
raid on the Lofoten Islands. By the end
of 1941, almost all German Intelligence
messages regarding the UK were being
Workers assemble equipment in the AVA radio-manufacturing firm in prewar Warsaw, where copies of the German Enigma machine were made
for Polish intelligence. By the time the Germans rolled into Poland in September 1939, at least 15 machines had been clandestinely built.
18 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
intercepted and decoded by MI-8.
Another method came from the fact
that when the Germans introduced
a new agent he would often contact
another agent already in place. That
other agent would be, unknown to
the newcomer, already under the
control of MI-5. Thus older agents were
used to get control of newer agents,
thereby perpetuating the system.
Meanwhile, far away in the Atlantic,
Bermuda became another hotspot for
British intelligence. German agents
operating in Britain used the mail to
communicate with their home base
by sending letters to neutral countries
that would then be relay-sent to
Germany. All mail with North and
South America was routed through
that tiny island. It therefore became
home to a special group of censors
who read the mail and, armed with
an ever-growing stock of information,
would check correspondence against
known codes and then report back to
MI-5 when suspect letters were found.
Finally, wartime conditions were
enough in themselves to create
difficulty for agents infiltrating into
Britain. The populace had been alerted
to report any suspicious activity to
the police and, when a strange person
would arrive at a train station and
ask for a schedule, it would often lead
to an interview with a constable. If
proper answers weren’t forthcoming,
the suspect was taken to MI-5’s Special
Branch for more questioning.
Once an enemy agent was captured,
he would be subjected to interrogations
for which the Abwehr hadn’t prepared
him. The German handlers believed
they would get fewer volunteers if they
warned them of the dangers inherent
in their task, and often told them in
training the risks were minimal. Those
who passed their interrogations were
then brought to a detention center
where they would be offered the choice
of joining Double Cross or being hanged
as spies. Most chose the former, and
those who did ended up living in secure
comfort near London, where they
were put to work against their former
employers. What Abwehr didn’t consider
when setting up the operation was
foreign nationals in its service might
be less patriotic than Germans, and
thus unwilling to die for the Reich.
Once in the Double Cross system,
each agent’s reputation and capabilities
had to be built up. They had to provide
a certain amount of trust, not just with
their MI-5 controllers, but also with their
Abwehr counterparts in Germany. The
Germans had to believe their agents
were performing assigned missions and
continued on page 20 »
 Cloak & Dagger
Those who operated Double Cross developed several key opera-
tional principles. While it was desirable to turn enemy agents to
the Allied side, it was next to impossible to create agents and place
them in German service. The Germans simply refused to accept
such agents, despite attempts to offer up plausible and relatively
realistic cover stories. The idea had been that, through a method
called “coat tailing,” the British would send a seemingly disgruntled
citizen to a neutral country, there to wait for the Germans to recruit
them. Often the agent was a cashiered military officer, a well-
known British fascist, or other seemingly suitable person; however,
the Abwehr was suspicious enough that it never took action in such
cases. That failure made the Double Cross system a true necessity.
Double Cross agents had to live normal lives as much as
possible, lest they reveal themselves when questioned. They
not only had to describe the information they’d gained, but also
the way they’d gained it and the region in which it was gained.
It was far easier to actually approach a target than it was to
make up a story that could be overturned later. For example,
Abwehr controllers might ask about topographical features
surrounding a target that an agent would have to know.
MI-5 case officers were therefore of vital importance. It was
soon found that every single Double Cross agent needed such a
supervisor to share his life. Those controllers had to handle the
daily needs of the agents, as well as to make sure no case was
left neglected. A case officer was often the one who could suggest
how to best use an agent to further the organization’s larger
goals, to understand how close a given agent was to “cracking”
(refusing to cooperate further or perhaps even revealing the
operation). The controller had to, in effect, “live the case” and, if
needed, take over for his agent. Agents were often found to be
mercurial in their moods and outlooks; so, without constant care
and management, they could become sullen, uncooperative or
otherwise dangerous. Of course, it also sometimes happened that
a case officer could become too involved in an individual case,
and then put that it in front of the needs of the larger objective.
A typical day for an agent would often consist of his case
officer arriving with instructions that had been intercepted when
transmitted from Germany. The case officer then explained
what was expected of the agent. They would then visit the
target, so the agent could better write up his report before
sending it back. The British would take the agent to the outside
of a base or other objective, show him around, and let him
see what conditions were so he could return information to
the Abwehr with the appearance of authenticity. They would
make sure to keep him isolated from the public, lest he give
himself away to other agents. (MI-5 was never entirely certain
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 19
there weren’t other German agents they hadn’t intercepted.)
Despite the creation of the Twenty Committee, the daily
operations of Double Cross fell to MI-5 because it was the only
agency that had the necessary experience. Thus MI-5 was put in
charge of day-to-day operations under the Twenty Committee.
The need for a department that would be dedicated to
supporting such work was of vital importance. Once an agent had
arrived in the country, he couldn’t be immediately put to work
operating a radio, sending messages back to Germany. A host of
issues first had to be addressed, starting with providing the agent
with an identity card, ration book and clothes. A team from MI-5
had to be assigned to watch the agent, to prevent his escaping or
revealing his identity to the public or press. A false life also had to
be created in order for the agent to fit into the civilian community.
Even a fully “turned” German agent required an exorbitant
amount of manpower to support: his MI-5 case officer, a
radio officer to watch him during the sending of messages
and swiftly replace the sender if he didn’t follow the script,
at least two to four guards to watch him 24 hours a day, a
driver to carry messages back and forth to headquarters,
and a cook/housekeeper to look after the entire group.
Even that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as at
any time two or three cases might collapse owing to the agents
suddenly cracking. Many cracked from the strain, and on occasion
the Abwehr simply stopped believing their reports; however,
it doesn’t seem the Abwehr suspected its operatives on many
occasions. Every time they did so, they still proved willing to wait
for the agent to resume feeding them better information. Their own
superiors wanted to hear good news and didn’t reward failures.
Abwehr case officers in Germany were therefore discouraged from
looking into things too closely lest they be blamed for such failure.
Other administrative challenges were faced when an MI-5
officer would be injured or die due to some unrelated circumstance,
or when a particular agent was revealed for short-term advantage.
Finally, a flurry of new captures required more resources to
be allocated quickly on a short-term basis. One benefit of the
Double Cross system was it could be supported not just on
government funds, but by the Abwehr, which went to great
lengths to send their agents money to continue operations. By the
conclusion of the war, MI-5 had taken in £85,000 in that way.
Abwehr funding also provided key intelligence to
Double Cross by allowing it to gauge the effectiveness of
an individual agent. If an agent received large amounts
of money, it meant his work was especially valued by the
Germans. It also provided a further clue to German intentions
and showed what information they particularly valued.  ★
Off the coast of
occupied Norway, three
Abwehr agents paddle
a dinghy toward the
shore from a seaplane
on a trial run for a
mission to Scotland.
» continued from page 18 dissemination of false information. to suspect the quality of their data. An
providing solid results. The longer an The sub-committee that came to operation that eventually became part
agent was in Britain, the more pertinent control Double Cross itself was formed of D-Day planning was codenamed
information they could acquire and in January 1941. It was drawn from the Fortitude North. It was meant to
send back to the Reich. It was a delicate W Board, and met weekly from that convince the Germans the Allies were
façade that had to be well maintained time until the end of the war against about to invade Norway, and it proved
to keep the Abwehr from growing Germany. The goal of the sub-com- successful, causing a redeployment of
suspicious. That meant the agents mittee was twofold. Its first purpose German forces to defend that coast.
had to be fed some real intelligence to was to decide which information In 1941 Gen. Archibald Wavell,
maintain their credibility in Berlin. could be passed on to the Abwehr and British Middle East commander, began
Someone therefore had to determine which had to be held back. The second to look into strategic deception, initiat-
what information was and wasn’t goal was to act as a clearinghouse to ing combined operations with MI-5.
vital. The early MI-5 directors weren’t compare and match all information While he was soon transferred to India,
the ones to make such decisions. For sent to the Abwehr. It was vital to avoid his successors decided to use Double
example, they lacked the technical sending mixed information that might Cross to implement a major strategic
knowledge to know what aspect of some compromise the agents involved. deception concerning Operation Torch,
new aircraft design could be revealed At that early stage, MI-5 feared the the Allied invasion of northwest Africa
without damage to the war effort. Germans might have multiple networks late in 1942. Several deception plans
No individual armed service could among which to compare notes. were initiated, with the Germans being
make such decisions either. If, say, the The committee consisted of fed misinformation landings were to
Royal Navy were given control of the 20 people. Some were traditional be expected anywhere from northern
operation, those officers would most intelligence and long-term service France to Dakar in Africa. Among other
likely be unwilling to risk losing a single professionals, but civilians with techni- things, an Allied buildup of shipping at
ship from an important convoy as a cal skills were also brought together Gibraltar was presented as an attempt
result of released information. Finally, under the “Twenty Committee.” (The to relieve the British island-fortress of
there were concerns about crossing fact the Roman numerals for 20 [X X] Malta. As a result, the Germans failed to
borders. MI-5 controlled the agents were also a “double cross” was an inside prepare for the landings that outflanked
within Britain; however, agents would joke.) The rule was no message could Panzerarmee Afrika from the west.
sometimes have to go to other countries be passed to the enemy that hadn’t first One lesson learned was it was best
to meet with their Abwehr controllers, been approved by the committee. to work to make the Germans believe in
which would put them under the the most likely false story, as opposed to
control of MI-6, the Secret Intelligence Finding Purpose the one that would seemingly best sup-
Service. An overall command group port actual operations. The theory was,
was therefore needed to make sure Both 1939 and 1940 were primarily if a cover story wasn’t believed it wasn’t
everyone had their say but also worked spent in unraveling infiltration attempts only useless but would also compromise
together to make the program function. and turning captured Germans into the integrity of Double Cross. That was
The “W Board,” or “W Committee” double agents. It wasn’t until 1941 the a concept that would work well in the
as it was also called, was formed in first true experimentation occurred biggest deception campaign of the war.
September 1940 and consisted of the using the turned network as a way to The Germans knew the Allies would
Service Directors of Intelligence, the send disinformation to the Abwehr. The be landing in France, but it was vital
Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Twenty Committee wanted to get the to know where they would land. That
Committee, “C” (codename for Germans to believe an Allied invasion could be anywhere from the Pas de
the head of MI-6), as well as a of Scandinavia was likely, but without Calais to Brittany. Thus 1943 became a
representative of M-I5. The purpose corresponding troop movements and year when the double agents spent most
of the group was to supervise the naval maneuvers they would quickly of their time feeding false information
overall use of double agents for the discover the hoax and in turn begin to the Abwehr about the invasion
site. Two major deception plans were
proposed, one for a landing at the Pas
MI-5 & MI-6 de Calais and the other in Norway. The
Norway story was successful, causing
In 1909 the British Parliament created the Secret Service Bureau. That organiza- the Germans to divert submarines
tion was founded as the result of a joint army and navy decision to work together from their primary job of disrupting
within a united intelligence gathering organization. The navy would take on foreign convoys in the Atlantic to cover the
intelligence while the army was responsible for counterintelligence. Those two North Sea approaches to Scandinavia.
specialized sub-groups went through numerous name changes until, by the start of As for Overlord, as the Allied com-
World War I, they were: the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 5 (or simply mand termed the coming invasion of
MI-5). Its counterpart was the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI-6). France, the deception plan included
 The “W Board” (a.k.a. the “W Committee”) was formed in September 1940, the creation of a fake army group,
and it consisted of the Service Directors of Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint commanded by the volatile Gen.
Intelligence Committee, the head of MI-6 (also known as “C”), and a representative George Patton. That army group was
of MI-5. The purpose of the group was to supervise the use of double agents supposed to be assembling in England
for the dissemination of false information. In January 1941 they in turn formed for a cross-Channel invasion against the
the Double Cross Sub-Committee to directly oversee the operation, and that Pas de Calais, while the real invasion
group met weekly until the end of the war with Germany in May 1945.  ★ was directed at the Normandy coast.
continued on page 22 »

20 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

 The Abwehr
The Abwehr was Germany’s military intelligence agency
responsible for foreign intelligence. It was divided into four
departments or Abteilungen: Abt. Z, which was the general
administrative branch; Abt. I, which dealt with espionage; Abt.
II, which was responsible for sabotage; and Abt. III, which dealt
with counterintelligence and internal security. Abt. I was further
divided into specific sections such as I Heer (army), I Marine
(navy), I Luft (air), I Technik Luftwaffe (air technology), and I
Wirtschaft (economics). Offices in certain German cities were made
responsible for a particular type of intelligence. For example, the
Hamburg office was initially responsible for aircraft matters, but
after the fall of France it also became responsible for all of the UK.
In order for an Abwehr agent to become a true German
spymaster, he had to develop and create his own agents. In
fact, any member of the Abwehr could and did create such
agents. That led to prestige, and more income was attached
to the success of one’s agents. So Abwehr officers went to a
lot of trouble to make sure their agents weren’t compromised,
lest they lose out in the bureaucratic fight in Berlin.
At one time Double Cross deliberately revealed an agent in
order to determine how long it would take the Abwehr to figure
it out. Despite increasing and ever more obvious attempts to
convince the Germans something was up, the control officer
refused to believe the agent in question was nothing less than
genuine. That was in part due to self-deception, insofar as
the loss of an agent meant a loss of prestige for his Abwehr
controller, as well as the effort it would require to replace him.
Another remarkable fact is the Abwehr never figured out
what was happening because of Double Cross. Abwehr officials
went to incredible lengths to convince themselves their agents
were anything but compromised. An agent reporting false
information was thought to have either been confused, misled
above — Adm. Wilhelm Franz Canaris, head of the Abwehr
right — Canaris pauses while on a stroll with dachshunds.
He was so fond of the dogs that on trips he used secret
radio codes to keep informed about them.
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 21
by enemy counterintelligence, or was just too greedy and was
therefore reporting information in an attempt to be paid more.
The Abwehr, for both political and military reasons, came
to be considered of little worth by those in control of the Third
Reich. It was, after all, part of the traditional armed forces and
not a Nazi Party organization. If, however, an Abwehr agent
reported something of special interest to someone in authority,
such as Hitler, there could be spectacular results. Due to Allied
disinformation efforts about a supposed invasion of German-
occupied Norway, Hitler needlessly redeployed submarines
from operations in the Atlantic to defend Scandinavia.
One of the Abwehr’s major deficiencies was due to pre-war
planning that didn’t take into account early war results. They
spent a great deal of time and effort setting up intelligence
networks in what they thought were going to be neutral
countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark. They’d hoped
those networks would be able to maintain contact with British
agents during the course of the war, as well as providing bases
to infiltrate agents into Allied countries. When the Wehrmacht
overran those neutrals in 1940, German intelligence suddenly
found its agents there were no longer in a position to travel
back and forth to Britain. Thus they found themselves having
to create an entirely new network from the ground up.
As the war progressed, the German high command lost
confidence in the Abwehr. Adm. Canaris had opposed Nazi policies
in the occupied territories, and was suspected of being involved in
anti-Hitler plots and of working with British intelligence. He ended
up spending much of his time in turf wars with the rest of the Nazi
hierarchy, especially the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi Party’s
own intelligence service, as well as with Ribbentrop’s Foreign
Service. Canaris was fired from his job as Abwehr chief in February
1944, and the service itself was then merged with the SD.  ★
» continued from page 20
D-Day to the Rhine
Operation Overlord would also see
the Double Cross agents “blown,” put
in situations where their discovery
as double agents was likely. That was
because the Germans would inevitably
figure out their agents had been
feeding them false information once
the real invasion site was revealed.
Allied deception policy for Overlord
was therefore set with three criteria:
first, to obscure the date of the attack;
second, to indicate the attack would
come at the Pas de Calais; and third,
after the actual landings had been
made in Normandy, to maintain the
idea they were just a feint and the real
invasion was still to come at Calais.
The key to the deception plan was
the creation of two army groups in
England. The one that actually would
hit the beaches was Twenty-First Army
Group. The false one was the First US
Army Group (FUSAG). FUSAG had
assigned to it divisions that didn’t actu-
ally exist other than as notional units
on the order of battle and in dummy
concentration areas. The FUSAG decep-
tion worked. The Germans constructed
a full order of battle that showed
Allied forces to be twice as strong as
they actually were. When Twenty-First
Army Group did indeed land in
Normandy on 6 June 1944, many in
the German high command believed
it was only a diversionary operation.
To give an example of what hap-
pened at that time within Double
Cross, agent Garbo sent a message
on D-Day +3, stating no FUSAG units
had participated in the Normandy
landing. His message was taken as
gospel by the German high command.
According to the reports they’d received
earlier from Garbo and other agents,
at least 25 more Allied divisions were
sitting in Britain, still ready to cross
the Channel to hit the beach at Pas

Notable Agents

Snow
Snow was the first intelligence coup for what later was to
become Double Cross. He was an electrical engineer who at one
time emigrated to Canada and, returning to Britain in the 1930s,
then became involved in intelligence operations for both M-I6
and the Germans owing to his frequent travel between the two
countries. In January 1939 he informed M-I6 he was to receive a
wireless transmitter from the Abwehr; in August he met his German
handler. By that time he was an operative of MI-5, fully under
their observation and control. Snow was briefed by the Germans,
who hoped to use him to bring in additional agents, along with
weapons and supplies for the Welsh Nationalist Party to use to
start an insurrection. He handed over those agents to MI-5, and
shortly thereafter they were also working for Double Cross.
A set of suspicious circumstances in 1941 led to Snow
being incarcerated. He spent the rest of the war in Dartmoor prison. He
later emigrated to Canada, where he took the name of Owen Brown.
He tried to get compensation from the British government for what he
called his unlawful arrest, but only when he tried to write his memoirs
did the government actually set up a secret pension for him. He eventu-
ally moved to Ireland and died there in 1976.
Tate
Tate was an agent who was parachuted into Britain during the
fall of 1940, only to be promptly captured by MI-5 after another
double agent codenamed Summer revealed his arrival. Tate went on
to become one of the most valued Double Cross agents, conducting
wireless transmissions starting in October 1940. He first made contact
with German controllers in Hamburg, and he continued transmitting
until the end of the war. The Abwehr were so convinced by Tate’s work
that it awarded him both first-class and second-class Iron Crosses. He
was instrumental in closing 3,600 square miles of ocean territory to
U-Boats by reporting non-existent minefields located in those waters.
Mutt & Jeff
These two Abwehr agents arrived in Britain in 1941, having first
flown by seaplane from Norway and then rowing ashore. Their orders
were to carry out a sabotage campaign against food depots while also
reporting on troop movements and air raid damage. The two were split
up by MI-5, with one being sent to Iceland and the other “recruited”
into the army. The Abwehr became suspicious and dropped com-
munications in October, but after an elaborate effort by Double Cross to
blow up a food depot, Mutt was once again working for the Germans.
Garbo
The agent known as Garbo was certainly one of the oddest
spy stories ever. He was a Spanish communist forced to hide in
his own country after the Nationalists won the civil war there.
Garbo first approached the British in January 1941 about working
for them, but they rejected his offer. He then went to the German
embassy in Madrid, with the idea of double-crossing the British,
and was set up as an agent. The Germans ordered him to Britain
with forged Spanish diplomatic documents, a large questionnaire,
secret ink, money, and a series of cover addresses for his stay.
Garbo didn’t go to Britain, however, but stayed in Lisbon for
the next nine months. He subsequently wrote long letters to the
Germans of his exploits while actually using only a map of Britain,
an outdated railway timetable, and a series of tourist guidebooks.
He created a network of three imaginary support agents in West
Country, Glasgow and Liverpool. In December 1941 he managed
to convince a neutral diplomat he was up to something, and was
soon placed in contact with the British intelligence community.
Double Cross determined Garbo’s network should expand, and
by the time of Operation Torch, he was running an entire network of
non-existent agents in the United Kingdom. That set up did a good
job deceiving the Abwehr. One of Garbo’s agents would’ve, had he
been real, been located in an excellent position to report on the forces
assembling for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.
Double Cross didn’t want Garbo to blow his cover by failing to report
on those preparations. It was then decided to “kill” that agent by hav-
ing him fall victim to an incurable malady. In his place Garbo created
four new agents and expanded the coverage of his network. Eventually
the Germans were receiving regular reports from Gibraltar, North
Africa and Canada — again, though, only from non-existent agents.
After the war, Garbo faked his own death and
emigrated to Venezuela where he tried to live a normal life.
In 1982 he resurfaced and reunited with old colleagues from
the war, then moved to a town inside Henri Pittier National
Park, by the Caribbean Sea, and died there in 1988.  ★

22 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

de Calais. At the end of the war, Gen.
Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s chief of staff,
confirmed that nearly 15 German
divisions were kept in that area in order
to protect against the expected attack.
Incredibly, D-Day wasn’t the end
of Double Cross. Many of the agents
who were thought to have been
“blown” continued to operate. After
the war, British intelligence recovered
numerous documents confirming that,
right up to V-E Day, the Germans had
been duped into thinking their agent
network in Britain was still in operation
and feeding them accurate information.
As a further measure of the success
of Double Cross, the British discovered
after the war that all German agents
who’d been infiltrated into the UK had
ended up in the employ of MI-5. That’s
a record that’s seen few parallels in the
annals of intelligence operations.  ✪

Sources

Campbell, John C. “A Retrospective on John Masterman’s

The Double Cross System,” International Journal of
Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 2005.
Farago, Ladislas.
The Game of the Foxes. Bantam Books, 1971
Hinsely, F.H. & C. A. G. Simpkins.
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol. 4,
Security and Counter-Intelligence.
London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1990.
Howard, Michael. British Intelligence in the
Second World War, Vol. 5, Strategic Deception.
London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1990.
Masterson, J.C. The Double Cross System.
London: Folio Society, 2007.
Von Der Porten, Edward P.
The German Navy in World War Two.
Ballantine Books, 1976.

above
Shielding himself with a newspaper, an Allied
spy strains to overhear what a soldier is telling
a civilian in this Italian poster intended to
remind civilians and military personnel
alike that « the enemy is listening. »

left
A British soldier’s careless words
— beginning as mere waves of sound —
end in a Nazi sword that skewers his comrades.

right
« Shame on you, bigmouth! »
reads this German poster depicting
a worker quacking away industrial secrets.
« The enemy is listening — silence is your duty! »

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 23

 The Battle
of
Sangshak:
Bloody Curtain-
Raiser in Burma
by James I. Marino

24 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

T
he Japanese campaign in
Southeast Asia reached its zenith
at Imphal and Kohima in 1944. At
those towns, the last Japanese strategic
offensive of the war met defeat and the
turning point was thus reached across
the entire China-India-Burma Theater
of Operations. Ironically, that ultimate
Allied victory was the result of a unit
not present at either of those climactic
battles. The 50th Indian Parachute
Brigade, the only Commonwealth
paratroopers east of Suez, fought
a small, unknown, but significant
engagement earlier at Sangshak. That
close-quarter fight between Indian,
Gurkha, Nepalese and Japanese troops
directly impacted the later outcome
at Kohima and Imphal. Isolated,
outnumbered and short of supplies, the
paratroopers stood their ground. The
bloody curtain raiser at Sangshak saved
Lt. Gen. William Slim’s entire Fourteenth
Army along the Indian frontier.
The Japanese had pushed the
British out of Burma in 1942. Gen.
Slim, commander of the Fourteenth
Army, responsible for that front, used
almost all of 1943 to stabilize his line,
rebuild and retrain. His Fourteenth
Army then launched a limited
offensive in the Arakan region, but
the Japanese threw back that British
effort. Both sides then worked to
improve their logistics, looking to 1944
as the decisive year for operations.
mander-in-chief of Japanese Southern
Army in Burma. On 7 January 1944,
Imperial General Headquarters issued
the following instruction to Kawabe:
“The Commander-in-Chief of the
Southern Army will break the enemy
on his front at the opportune time,
and will capture and secure strategic
areas near Imphal in northeastern
India, for the defense of Burma.”
The importance of the Imphal
border area in Japanese eyes was three-
fold. First, its capture would provide
a base from which to move into the
interior of India. Second, they wanted
to take the airfields in Assam, which
supported the “over the hump” air
traffic into China as well as commando
operations behind Japanese lines in
Burma. Last, if the British lost control
of northeast India, that loss would long
prevent any possible counter-invasion
of Japanese-occupied Burma.
Gen. Mutaguchi was given the
task of developing the specific plan
of operation. It came to consist of
two phases, both of which were
intended to split the British forces
then arrayed along the Indian border.
For the ambitious operation,
the Japanese assembled two armies
in Burma, each about the size of a
Western corps and totaling 200,000
men. In the first phase, Operation
Ha-Go, set for February 1944, the new
Twenty-Eighth Army would launch
a diversionary effort in the Arakan
region to lure south British reserves.
For the second part, Operation U-Go,
Fifteenth Army, with 100,000 men,
would cross the Chindwin River to
capture both Kohima and Imphal. The
Fifteenth Army’s troops were the best
then available to Japan, and had been
collected from other theaters of opera-
tion across Southeast and East Asia.
Fifteenth Army consisted of three
divisions. The 33rd Infantry Division,

Opposing Plans

Gen. Mutaguchi Renya commanded

Japanese Fifteenth Army, the force
charged with control of central and
northern Burma. He was subordinate
to Lt. Gen. Masakazu Kawabe, com-

Japanese troops in Burma view

a reclining Buddha

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 25

commanded by Lt. Gen. Yanagida Genzo, was to advance
on Imphal from the south, while the 15th Infantry Division,
commanded by Lt. Gen. Yamauchi Masabuni, moved
against it from the northeast. The 31st Infantry Division,
commanded by Lt. Gen. Sato Kotoku, was to capture
Kohima. Speed was essential, not only to beat the monsoon
rains that would start in May, but because the Japanese
troops, owing to poor logistics across that underdeveloped
portion of their empire, carried few provisions. They
faced starvation if early victory wasn’t achieved.
On the other side, Allied signals intercepts provided
Lt. Gen. Sir William Slim’s Fourteenth Army headquarters
accurate intelligence about the scale and direction of those
Japanese preparations. Fourteenth Army’s IV Corps, under
the command of Lt. Gen. Geoffrey Scoones, screened the
central part of the Burma front. Anticipating the Japanese
thrust onto the Imphal plain, both Slim and Scoones agreed
not to directly commit IV Corps in support of XV Corps, but
to move IV Corps to Imphal, where it would consolidate to
block the Japanese invasion, provide a reserve, and eventu-
ally be used as the leading force in a counteroffensive.
Scoones had led IV Corps since its creation in May 1942.
Fifty-one-years-old in 1944, he’d fought in the trenches
of the First World War, served on the Northwest Frontier
of India in the 1930s, and had been Director of Military
Operations and Intelligence at General Headquarters Delhi
since 1939. Given to fits of irascibility, Scoones had real
feeling and concern for the welfare of his soldiers. The three
divisions of IV Corps were spread along the border. The
17th Indian Division was dispersed south, down the road
to Tiddim; the 20th Indian Division was to the southeast,
in the lower Kabaw valley; the 23rd Indian Division was
26 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
positioned around Ukhrul, acting as corps reserve. The
corps was thus predominately to the south of Imphal.
The IV Corps assumed defensive positions in anticipa-
tion of the enemy advance at the end of February. Slim
left to Scoones the timing of the 17th and 20th Indian
Divisions’ withdrawal to Imphal. The result was a near
disaster. Scoones would face grave, often concurrent,
problems of tactics and administration in circumstances
of continual stress and forced improvisation — fighting
against an able, imaginative and experienced enemy general,
commanding some of the best infantry in the world.
On 8 March, Mutaguchi ordered 33rd Infantry Division
to advance. A week later 15th and 31st Infantry Divisions
also stepped off. Though the British had expected the
offensive, the Japanese started sooner and faster than
anticipated. The 33rd quickly got in behind 17th Indian
Division and threatened to cut it off. Scoones then
dispatched his only reserve, two infantry brigades of the
23rd Indian Division, to help the 17th. When he discovered
the Japanese 15th and 31st Infantry Divisions were also
across the border, he had nothing left to use against
them. So swift was the Japanese thrust that Mutaguchi
almost succeeded in his goal of achieving quick victory.
The 50th Forward
The 50th Indian Parachute Brigade, located in the
Sangshak-Ukhrul-Sheldon’s Corner area, was directly in the
path of the Japanese advance on Imphal and Kohima. On 18
March, Scoones ordered the brigade to form a “defensive box”
(meaning a position in which it would allow itself to be fully
surrounded) and hold fast. Incredibly, neither IV Corps nor
23rd Indian Division had as yet informed the paratroopers of
the advancing Japanese. As Harry Seamon, then a lieutenant
and soon to become a veteran of the battle, recalled: “50th
Brigade would remain in the dark for the next 36 hours, in
complete ignorance of the fact a substantial enemy force,
more than twice its strength, was speeding toward it.”
Brig. M.R.J. Hope-Thompson, commander of the
brigade, placed his Maharattas (see sidebar) in reserve
at Kidney Camp, just north of Sangshak. He deployed
forward the 152nd Battalion. One company was sent
to Point 7378, covering the approach to Ukhrul, while
another company manned Sheldon’s Corner, about
six miles from Sangshak. The machinegun company
moved into Ukhrul. The remainder of the brigade, still in
transit, was scheduled to reach the area the next day.
At 8:00 a.m. on 19 March the remainder of 50th
Brigade was scattered to the west of Sangshak. Farthest
away was B Company, 152nd Battalion, at Point 7000
southeast of Gamnom, while C Company, 152nd, was
positioned at Point 7378. Both battalion headquarters,
along with D Troop, 582nd Battery, were near Kidney
Camp. Brigade headquarters was at Finch’s Corner.
A patrol that morning counted around 200 Japanese mov-
ing toward Sangshak, but then a report came in from Sheldon’s
Corner judging the Japanese force to be a battalion of up to
900 men. Soon thereafter the 3rd Battalion, 58th Regiment, 31st
Infantry Division, employing rifles, light machineguns and
grenades, attacked C Company at Point 7378. Maj. John Fuller,
commanding C Company, had 163 men and seven officers,
two medium machineguns and a section of mortars. By 2:00
p.m. the Japanese had fully encircled his position. C Company
fought off three assaults during the remainder of that day and
night, losing Fuller, three other officers and 40 men. During
the evening, Hopkinson dispatched
152nd’s A Company, under Maj. Richard
Gillett, to assist C Company, but
those reinforcements were stopped
by a Japanese blocking force.
Japanese pressure had soon fully
engaged the two Indian battalions.
Hope-Thompson went to Sheldon’s
Corner to evaluate the situation himself.
He decided to concentrate the 152nd and
the Maharattas at that place, and then
returned to brigade headquarters. He
then further decided to concentrate the
entire brigade around Sangshak. In a
Gen. Mutaguchi Renya
masterful command performance, he The brigade’s greatest need was barbed
disentangled and regrouped his infantry, wire, of which IV Corps stores were full,
brought in the machinegun company but none was ever made available.
from the north, his mountain gunners Hope-Thompson ordered the
and field ambulance unit from the two battalions at Sheldon’s Corner to
south, and achieved the reattachment Sangshak. By 4:30 p.m. both arrived
of the 153rd by 21 March. All of that at that small village. On 21 March, 2nd
would’ve been impossible, though, Battalion, 53rd Regiment, 31st Infantry
without the valor and self-sacrifice of Division, drove the machinegun
the doomed company at Point 7378. company out of Ukhrul. Maj. Gen.
The Japanese overran C Company Miyazaki Shigesaburo, commander of
on the 20th. One officer and 20 soldiers 31st Infantry Group, based on the 58th
escaped to Sheldon’s Corner. Later Infantry Regiment, then ordered the
in the day all the companies of the commander of 2nd Battalion to turn
152nd and 4/5 Maharattas became
engaged at Khanoggoi, Badger Hill
and New Guinea. Also on that day,
the 153rd Gurkha Parachute Battalion
continued its move to Sangshak.
That battalion had already traveled
80 miles from Kohima to Imphal, from
where it immediately moved on to Litan,
20 miles farther east. Only 20 trucks
were available from IV Corps to trans-
port the unit to Sangshak. By 22 March
only three rifle companies, a mortar
section, half the field ambulance unit,
and a skeleton battalion headquarters,
a total of just 390 men, had reached
the main force. Left behind were some
200 men under Maj. Jack Newland.
The road from Litan remained open
until 22 March, but no food or supplies
reached 50th Brigade from the ample
stocks elsewhere on the Imphal plain. Lt. Gen. William Slim
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 27
 from his line of advance on Kohima to the south toward
Sangshak. The Japanese were then advancing on Sangshak
from the east and the north. Other Japanese elements cut
the road from Imphal to Sangshak during the night. The
50th Brigade was then cut off in the small Indian village.
The Sangshak position was on a small hill 600 yards
long and, at its widest, 300 yards wide. There was an empty
village at the end of the grassy, flower-covered hill overlooked
by an American missionary church at its northern end.
The village also overlooked several tracks to the west,
and thus was a block to the Japanese advance. Almost in
the center of the plateau there was an unusual feature.
Roughly circular in shape and 200 yards in diameter, there
was a gently raised bank, varying in height from three to
four feet, which gave the semblance of a barricade. When
the 153rd Gurkha Parachute Battalion reached Sangshak
on the evening of the 21st, Wills disposed his companies
behind the rampart and ordered the Gurkhas to dig in.
Unfortunately, the bank was found to be formed of obsid-
ian, and was therefore almost impervious to digging.
Because of the aforementioned lack of barbed wire,
Hope-Thompson was forced to tightly consolidate his
defense. He couldn’t incorporate West Hill into the perimeter,
which would’ve meant a larger drop zone for aerial resupply
while also providing a barrier against enemy attack from the
north and west. That tight consolidation also resulted in a
position so congested every shell landing in it was sure to
take a toll on men or equipment. Lt. Seamon believed the
lack of wire had a crucial impact on the conduct of he battle:
“Most important of all, the existence of an all-around wire
barrier would have enabled the garrison to relax enough
by day to get some sleep — a relief unknown in Sangshak
through four nightmare nights and five bitter days.”
Within Sangshak, at his chosen point of final resistance,
Hope-Thompson ultimately collected part of the 4th
Battalion of the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry, the 152nd and
153rd Parachute Battalions, two Nepalese companies, the 80th
Indian Parachute Field Ambulance company, D company
of he 582nd Jungle Mortar Battery of the 158th Field Artillery
Regiment, the 15th Battery of the Indian Mountain Artillery,
the 50th Medium Machinegun Company, the 50th Brigade
Signals Section, the 50th Brigade Defense Platoon, and his
own headquarters. Excluding the non-combatant field
ambulance unit, his force consisted of about 2,000 men.
The defensive perimeter was shaped somewhat like a
figure-eight on its side, but with angular corners and straight
lines. In the northwest corner was the 152nd Indian Battalion
stretching right halfway across the perimeter. Completing
the northern perimeter were the two companies of Nepalese
of the Kali Bahadur Regiment. The line moved in a southeast
direction from that corner. The 4/5 Mahratta Battalion
defended the entire length of the eastern perimeter, swinging
to the northwest halfway across the southern perimeter. The
small Defense Platoon was the bridge between the Mahrattas
and the 153rd Gurkha Battalion. The Gurkhas covered the
entire southwest corner of the perimeter and tied into
the 152nd Indian Battalion. The 152nd Battalion was on the
plateau facing West Hill; the 153rd faced the soccer field, and
the Mahrattas faced the road from Sheldon’s Corner. The
15th Mountain Battery, Indian Army, with its two howitzers,
was placed in the northwest corner just off the plateau. The
mortars of D Troop, 582nd Battery, 158th Field Regiment, Royal
Artillery, was in the north-center of the perimeter; directly
south was the field ambulance unit. The brigade headquarters
was in the inner southwest section of the perimeter.

28 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

Full Engagement
It was about noon on 22 March
that the garrison of Sangshak faced
its first full-on engagement with the
Japanese. They spotted 2nd Battalion,
58th Infantry Regiment moving south
from Ukhrul. The mountain battery
fired their howitzers into the extended
enemy ranks, succeeding in driving
off the Japanese battalion. The
Japanese then sent a company around
Sangshak to block the Imphal road.
At 1:30 a.m. on 23 March the
Japanese 8th, 5th and 6th Infantry
Companies, in that order, raced from
West Hill toward the position of C
Company of the 152nd Battalion. The
Indians held their fire until the last
moment, then cut loose all at once.
In the words of Capt. Eric Nield, the
battalion’s medical officer, the effect
was so devastating, “It seemed as if we
were watching a gory Hollywood epic.”
Lt. Hobstock, of C Company,
described the opening volley this
way: “Because of the mass downward
movement of 50 or 60 tumbling
Japanese bodies, the whole hill seemed
to be moving upward. As they fell,
still more enemy soldiers came into
view to be cut down by rifle fire.”
The machineguns sprayed West
Hill with spectacular bursts of trac-
ers, while the mortars lobbed their
three-inch bombs onto the Japanese
still behind that promontory. Lt. Naka,
commander of 8th Company, charged
forward brandishing his sword. He
hacked down four Indian soldiers and
was about to stab a fifth when he was
torn to pieces by machinegun rounds.
The Indian fire took a heavy toll, killing
90 out of 120 Japanese attackers from
8th Company. The Indians then also
Japanese infantry push their way along
jungle trails in an attempt to capture
the rich supply base at Imphal.
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 29
repulsed the 5th and 6th Companies.
The Japanese 2nd Battalion
launched another attack that night
against C Company of 153rd Battalion
across the soccer field. The Japanese
hurled grenades into the Gurkhas’
positions, and advanced while firing
machineguns from their hips. That
assault led to 20 more Japanese dead.
Random and scattered probing attacks
then continued for some hours, but
were broken off before dawn.
The Japanese also struck the
Mahrattas, at the eastern end of
the plateau, during the same night
with the lead company of their 15th
Infantry Division. Havilder (sergeant)
Sambhaji Bhuingde, in command
of two 3-inch mortars, drove off that
Japanese assault with accurate fire.
By dawn the fighting abated and
both sides took stock of their loses.
Aerial resupply of the garrison
began on the afternoon of the 23rd,
with depressingly consistent lack of
success as most of the supplies fell
into Japanese positions. The Japanese
soldiers eagerly seized what they called
“Churchill rations,” bundles of food,
water and ammunition. To recover
more of the air-dropped packages, the
Gurkhas attacked supported by the 15th
Mountain Battery’s two howitzers and
the fighter planes that had escorted the
transports. The Japanese repulsed the
attack, but in doing so lost the com-
manders of their 5th and 6th Companies.
Capt. Nagaya’s battalion, without
waiting for any artillery preparation,
next attacked in a three-company
assault. Lt. Col. J.H. Trim, commander
of the 4/5 Mahrattas, remembered
being “filled with fear as we heard
the Japanese yelling encourage-
ment to one another, with shrieks
that sounded barely human.”
The Japanese wave moved
forward until it was cut down by
the Indian artillery and mortars.
The slower-moving Japanese
force, which was originally tasked
with taking Sangshak, finally reached
the battlefield. The 3rd Battalion, 60th
Regiment, 15th Division, arriving east
of Sangshak, heard the sounds of
battle. The regimental commander,
Col. Matsumura Hiroshi, ordered the
battalion commander, Maj. Fukushima,
to immediately move to support
that ongoing engagement. Instead
of attacking immediately, though,
as the order directed, Fukushima
took his time. In fact, he told his
company commanders: “Reconnoiter
until you’re sure of your ground.”
Taking time to scout the area around
it, traveling through dense jungle,
and getting lost at night, that unit
ultimately wasn’t to launch its assault
30 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
until just before dawn on 26 March.
That same night, the Japanese began
using two particular tactics against
the paratroopers. First they began a
constant shelling, hoping to break the
garrison’s endurance. By then, however,
the defenders’ trenches had been roofed
over with cut logs, earth, leaves and
brushwood, which rendered the occu-
pants impervious to all but direct hits.
The other tactic was the use of
harassment raids. Six or so men would
rush the perimeter, hurling grenades
and firing machineguns. Such advances
never penetrated the perimeter;
however, in conjunction with the
shelling, they prevented the defenders
from getting any sleep; so they found
it increasingly difficult to stay alert.
The conditions across the battlefield
quickly became appalling. The
perimeter, especially the western end,
was ringed with decaying bodies of
Japanese dead, and the smell of decay
filled he air, stifling breathing. The
heat grew ever worse. The 24 March
airdrop failed to get in any water, and
Hope-Thompson therefore cut in
half each man’s daily water ration. As
casualties mounted, the wounded had
to be crammed into an 80x20 yard area.
The Japanese ruptured the perimeter
on 24 March, when their 6th Company,
2nd Battalion, again led by Capt. Nagaya,
broke through the southwest corner
early in the day. Two grenades landed
near Nagaya. His adjutant kicked one
away while Nagaya picked up the
other and hurled it back. He then began
shouting “Charge!” and moved with
his men farther inside the perimeter.
The Japanese were on the verge of
success; they threatened to overrun
the interior of the entire position.
The breakthrough also exposed the
4/5 Mahratta’s mortar detachment,
commanded by Havilder Bhuingdo.
He jumped from his emplacement,
ignoring the heavy fire, and got his
mortar men reorganized into an
all-around defense. Bhuingdo was then
hit in the chest. Despite the wound, he
continued to encourage the efforts of
his men while firing his rifle and hurling
grenades at the enemy. His effort saved
his mortars and staved off a debacle.
Nagaya’s 6th Company could advance
no farther, but did continue to hold
open the breech in the perimeter.
Nagaya regrouped his men and
tried again to exploit the opening. In
attack after attack the Japanese lost
more than 400 killed and wounded.
Their attacking battalion ceased to
exist as a combat-effective force. The
hillside was littered with fresh corpses.
After four days of fighting there
were nearly 300 Indian casualties
lying in the hospital area. The
Japanese brought in more artillery:
the mountain and field guns of the
55th Regiment along with four field
guns from 15th Infantry Division.
The Japanese battalion command-
ers prepared for a more ambitious
assault for early on the morning of
25 March. That force consisted of 10th
and 11th Companies, 3rd Battalion,
and 5th Company, 2nd Battalion. They
aimed for the Baptist Church in the
northwest corner of the perimeter,
moving forward at first light. The
daily log of the 58th Regiment recorded
that unit’s part in the assault:
Some of the men broke into the
position after savage hand-to-
hand fighting, but then came
under fire from the enemy’s posi-
tions on the left and right. Those
who entered the enemy’s position
were annihilated and the remain-
der withdrew with heavy losses
in killed and wounded, including
Lt. Nakamura, who was killed. So
this attack ended in failure again.
Turning Point
Lt. Seamon later described the
impact of that assault on the Japanese:
The failure of the Japanese attack
on the morning of the 25th
resulted in further damage to
the fighting capacity of their 3rd
Battalion; added to the devasta-
tion already suffered by the 2nd
Battalion, it now left Miyazaki
holding a broken sword. From
the two battalions, six of the eight
company commanders were out
of action, as were most of the
platoon commanders. At least 300
men were down in each battalion.
The fighting also affected the
parachute battalion. The 152nd’s two
companies were down to a handful
of men and, even with the support of
the Nepalese, the defenses along the
northwestern rim of the perimeter
were dangerously thin. Col. Hopkinson,
commander of the 152nd, conferred with
With the Japanese less than 800 yards away,
Gurkhas cut bamboo stakes to front their
position at Imphal. Cut off in the first week in
April, IV Corps held out against the Japanese
until relieved from Kohima late in June.
Hope-Thompson and received authori-
zation to reposition his men behind the
church, leaving an eight-man section
to hold the building itself. They com-
pleted the move during the night. The
Japanese immediately filtered forward
and shot their way into the church.
The cautious Maj. Fukushima, whose
3rd Battalion, 60th Regiment, was pinned
down 200 yards in front of the Indian
position, then contacted Gen. Miyazaki
for further instructions. Miyazaki
forbade Fukshima the right to enter
Sangshak, assigning the final assault
to the 58th Regiment in order to allow
it the opportunity to regain its honor.
The most intense combat occurred
on 26 March. The fighting lasted
from an hour before dawn until 3:00
p.m. — 11 and a half hours of continu-
ous mayhem. The toll of paratrooper
casualties for that day exceeded the
number suffered during the previous
week. Repeatedly throughout the day,
several points along the perimeter
seemed about to break, only to be
retrieved by courage and sacrifice.
During the morning the Japanese
fought hard to expand their toehold
on the plateau around the church. Col.
Hopkinson personally led a counterat-
tack to pinch out the threatening dent
in the line, but it failed and Hopkinson
was wounded. He fell after taking
shrapnel in his leg and foot from an
exploding grenade, and most of his men
fell with him, either wounded or killed.
An ad hoc Japanese group, about 120
strong, made up of men from the 6th and
11th Companies, 2nd and 3rd Battalions,
advanced into the interior. Sixty yards
in front of that Japanese assault, the
two guns of 15th Mountain Battery,
commanded by Maj. John Lock, went
in action, firing over open sites among
the infantry. A Japanese surge overran
Number 1 gun, and then spilled over
into the emplacement of Number 2
gun. Both battery commanders were
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 31
killed in the hand-to-hand fighting.
Then a gunner from Number 1 gun,
who’d been stunned by a grenade,
emerged from the bottom of the trench
and quickly killed eight of the Japanese
and helped recapture the position.
Over the next two hours the
paratroopers again attempted to
dislodge the Japanese. Hope-Thompson
committed his last reserve. The Brigade
Defense Platoon, led by Lt. Robert de
la Haye, launched a frontal assault
that failed. Two separate assault
groups from 153rd, each comprising
15 men and an officer, were likewise
repulsed with heavy casualties.
The Japanese, supported by cover-
ing fire from their guns on West Hill,
though unable to further exploit the
breach because of their heavy losses,
clung to the gap they’d created in the
perimeter. Sprawled singly in the
open, or heaped grotesquely near the
strongpoint and the church, and filling
all the forward trenches, the dead of
both sides carpeted the plateau.
Three companies of Gurkhas,
strung out along the western rim,
faced a Hobson’s choice: they would
either have to drive the enemy back
beyond the line of the church, no doubt
suffering heavy losses while doing
so; or they could save themselves by
withdrawing, but in so doing would lose
the plateau and thus the entire battle.
Lt. Col. Dick Wills, commander
of 153rd Gurkha Battalion, selected A
Company, led by Maj. Jimmy Roberts,
to do the job of driving back the
Japanese. Roberts’s company was
accepted as the best company of the
153rd, while Roberts himself was highly
regarded throughout the brigade.
Roberts moved one platoon to the
right and one to the left to provide
covering fire. The mortar section
maintained a steady fire beyond the
Japanese front in order to prevent
reinforcement. His final unit, 36 men
of Number 2 Platoon, commanded by he moved from one position to another tion in the battle, but the very fact they
Jemedar (senior sergeant) Dudhjang as if oblivious to the danger, a portrait were at Sangshak represented a bonus
Ghata, advanced in the center. of studied nonchalance that had an for IV Corps: according to the original
Warrant Officer Isamu Yamamoto incalculable effect on his men’s morale.” Japanese timetable, the 60th should’ve
of the 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, Both sides were locked in the bitter- been well onto the Imphal plain by then.
described the resultant action: est of death grips. The Gurkhas clinched By mid-afternoon the fighting died
the duel, with Number 2 Platoon recap- off. Eleven hours of constant noise of
The Gurkha soldiers, famous for turing the church. The price was heavy: battle gave way to the occasional crack
their courage, rushed on and on the platoon lost 18 killed, and had only of a Japanese sniper’s rile. With every
though many had fallen, scream- four unwounded from the original paratroop unit reduced in numbers
ing as they advanced despite their assault force. The Japanese force had and stretched thin to cover its section,
wounds. Hand-to-hand fighting only eight men left, all wounded. it was decided to again shorten the
was everywhere and hand gre- No sooner had that danger been defenses. Each company repositioned
nades flew everywhere. Our com- eliminated than another erupted in the within its own defensive circle, creating
rades encouraged us, the enemy southwest corner of Sangshak. There a group of self-contained defensive
screamed at us. Thus the top of Col. Fukushima launched his battalion “hedgehogs” loosely grouped inside
the hill turned to a hell on earth. at C Company, 153rd Battalion. Held the main perimeter. Officers and men
back earlier by his own order, Miyazaki accepted their fate, believing a final
On a field where the only chance had released Fukushima as soon as night attack was sure to come. The
of survival lay in hugging the ground he’d seen the 58th Regiment’s failure. He Japanese also expected their victory
wherever possible, Roberts presented hoped to catch the Gurkhas off-guard. was one final, bloody thrust away.
an unforgettable sight as he strode The Gurkhas cut down over 30 Japanese In the meantime, a radio message
about. Lt. Seamon recalled: “His hat in the first five minutes, and Fukushima, from Imphal arrived at the paratroop
tipped back of his head as usual, recognizing failure, pulled back his unit. brigade’s headquarters: “Fight your
binoculars tied up short under his chin, It was the 60th Regiment’s only interven- way out. Go south and then west; air
and transport on the lookout for you.
Good luck, our thoughts are with you.”
50th Indian Parachute Brigade Hope-Thompson’s major concern
was then with the plight of the
Sir Robert Cassels, Commander-in-Chief India, first suggested the concept wounded. There were some 450 of them,
of an Indian parachute formation in October 1940. A year later the 50th Indian about 150 being non-ambulatory. He
Parachute Brigade was actually formed with one British battalion (151st), one Indian decided those unfit to be moved were
battalion (152nd), and one Gurkha battalion (153rd), in addition to headquarters, to be made comfortable and sedated
pathfinder, signals, support weapons, sapper and medical sub-elements. while every man capable of walking
The British used the normal recruitment method for organizing such new units, was to withdraw. To catch the Japanese
first canvassing for volunteers among the infantry battalions in the theater. In that by surprise, the entire garrison was to
way the 151st came to be compromised of volunteers from all British battalions vacate the position en masse at 10:30
then in India; the 152nd drew its men from all 20 Indian infantry regiments (with the p.m. Hope-Thompson ordered all the
sole exception of the 11th Sikhs); and the 153rd was created with manpower from heavy weapons to open up a sustained
nine of the 10 Gurkha regiments (the 9th Gurkha Rifles being the exception). fire on West Hill as a diversion at 10
The 151st was detached in August 1942 and shipped to the Middle East. In September the o’clock. As ordered, a half-hour later the
rest of the brigade and all its associated air components graduated the Air Landing School remnants of the brigade silently moved
at Delhi and moved to Campbellpore. That was a small town in the northern Punjab about out. By midnight the men were about a
halfway between Rawalpandi and Peshwar. There the brigade received the commanding offi- mile from Sangshak when, looking back,
cer who would lead them into battle. Brigadier M.R.J. Hope-Thompson, at 31-years-old, was they could see the enemy beginning to
the youngest brigade commander in India. He’d won the Military Cross in Palestine in 1936. enter the abandoned positions. To the
In 1942 he was the only officer in India with any practical knowledge of airborne doctrine. relief of all, no rifle shots were heard as
The 154th Gurkha Parachute Battalion replaced the detached 151st, making the the Japanese captured the wounded.
front line element of the brigade heavily Gurkha. The 154th was formed from the 3rd
Battalion of the 7th Regiment, Gurkha Rifles, which had volunteered en bloc. Aftermath
During training, it was decided to increase the number of mortars within each
battalion, and to concentrate the machineguns into a separate machinegun com- The Japanese entering the final
pany at the disposal of the brigade headquarters. The 411 Squadron Bombay defensive area found an appalling
Sappers and Miners, a field unit of Indian engineers, completed the formation. sight. The white corpses of British
The battalion commanders were all British: Lt. Col. Paul Hopkins was with the officers lay among the brown and black
152nd; Lt. Col. H.R.E. Willis ran the 153rd; and Lt. Col. G.O. White had the 154th. bodies of the dead Indians, Gurkhas
The brigade moved to Assam at the start of 1944, minus only the 154th, which and Nepalese, exposed in the open
was still undergoing parachute training. Army headquarters then attached the brigade or lying in heaps in foxholes. Some
to the 23rd Indian Division of IV Corps. By the end of February the brigade had fully corpses had their bellies blown out
established itself at Kohima. On 10 March it received orders to replace 49th Brigade or were headless, many were swell-
of 23rd Division in the Ukhrul-Sheldon’s Corners-Sangshak area. Hopkinson’s 152nd ing and heaving with putrefaction.
Battalion, moving ahead of the main body, reached Sangshak on 14 March. The 49th Discarded weapons lay everywhere,
Brigade moved out, but left behind the 4/5 Maharatta Light Infantry, commanded by Lt. along with scattered shell fragments.
Col. J.H. Trim, and two companies from the Nepalese Army, the Kali Bahadurs.  ★ The Japanese tended the wounded
relatively well. They fed the captives,

32 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

gave them medical care, and set the
ambulatory ones to work on light
chores. Perhaps the Japanese, recogniz-
ing the bravery of the paratroopers,
caused them to treat the prisoners in
a manner unusual for them. Whatever
the reason, the Commonwealth
soldiers were spared. The Japanese
collected a little booty and moved
out the next day for Kohima.
The retreating Indians, Gurkhas,
Nepalese and British plodded through
the jungle for four days before reaching
a main road. Most of them survived
to reach Imphal from the northeast,
making contact with the newly arrived
123rd Brigade, 5th Indian Division. All
the units of the 50th Indian Parachute
Brigade had suffered terrible losses. The
152nd Battalion had lost 80 percent of
establishment, including 20 out of 31
officers. The 153rd Battalion lost 35 per-
cent. The artillerymen lost 25 percent.
The machinegun company and defense
platoon both lost 75 percent, while the
Mahrattas had over 100 captured. The
only Allied parachute brigade east of the
Suez had thus been effectively elimi-
nated from Slim’s order of battle. In the
course of its near destruction, however,
it also extracted a fearful toll from the
enemy. More importantly, the 50th threw
the Japanese invasion timetable askew,
thus setting the stage for the Allied
victories at Imphal and Kohima. “For
the want of a nail the battle was lost,”
was true for the Japanese at Kohima and
Imphal. The “nail” had been Sangshak.
For the British Commonwealth
forces in Burma, Sangshak was the
catalyst to victory. The 50th Brigade
arrested the advance of the bulk of the
Japanese 15th Division, along with the
left column of their 31st Division. In
being shattered, the 50th put back the
Japanese timetable by a week. That time
was invaluable, as it allowed Slim to
get a garrison into Kohima. It also gave
Scoones time to fly in the 5th Indian
Division to Imphal. Scoones was also
able to truck urgently needed supplies
to Imphal before the road was cut there.
Maybe the two best men to assess
the contribution 50th Brigade made to
the big picture in Burma would be the
two commanders who led their nation’s
forces in the key battles of Kohima and
Imphal, Gens. Slim and Miyazaki. In
Field Marshal Slim’s words that August:
“50 Indian Parachute Brigade bore the
brunt of the enemy’s powerful flanking
attack, and by their staunchness gave
the garrison of Imphal the vital time
required to adjust their defenses.”
In 1956, after a longer time to
discern the results, Slim elevated the
worth of the brigade’s contribution,
when he wrote in his book, Defeat Into
Victory: “The 10 day delay and the heavy
casualties this small force inflicted on
the enemy were of inestimable value
at this critical stage of the battle.”
More specifically, Lt. Col. Jackie
Trim explained how those gained days
were utilized: “Were it not for the epic
delay imposed on the Japanese 15th
Division … Field Marshall Slim would
not have been successful in landing
the 5th Indian Division by air at Imphal
to stall the Japanese onslaught.”
The heavy loses the paratroop-
ers inflicted on the Japanese also
left its impression on the Japanese
commander. Gen. Miyazaki, after
the war, admitted: “the loss of 1,500
first-class men  … greatly affected
the battles at Kohima and Imphal.”
Gen. Sato, commander of 31st
Division, agreed, stating in 1949: “The
58th Regiment’s defeat at Sangshak had
cost the 31st Division the complete
and early victory at Kohima that
Mutaguchi’s plan called for.”
Slim needed time to redress the
situation at Imphal and Kohima, and
he got what he needed from the stand
made by the 50th Parachute Brigade.
Those men, though most of them
weren’t British, held the “thin red line”
when called on to do so. Their stand
permitted the Allies to finally turn the
tide of war in India and Burma.  ✪
Sikh radio operator with the British Indian Army fighting the Japanese in the Imphal area, Spring 1944
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 33
Sources
Allen, Louis. Burma: The Longest War 1941-1945.
London: Phoenix press, 2000.
Calvoceressi, Peter & Guy Wint. Total War, Vol. 2:
The Greater East Asia and Pacific Conflict.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
Chappell, Mike. The Gurkhas, Elite Series #40.
Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1999.
Calvin, John. Not Ordinary Men. London: Leo Cooper, 1997.
Costello, John. The Pacific War, 1941-1945.
New York: Quill, 1991.
Dear, I. C. B., ed.
The Oxford Companion To The Second World War.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995.
Elliot, J. G. (Maj. Gen.). Unfading Honour:
The Story of the Indian Army 1939- 1945.
New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1985.
Evans, Lt. Gen. Sir Geoffrey. “Imphal: Crisis In Burma”
History of the Second World War, Part 61,1974, pp. 1881-
1891.
Mayashi, Sabuso & Alvin Cook.
Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War.
Quantico: The Marine Corps Association, 1959.
Humphreys, Ray. To Stop A Rising Sun.
Stroud: Allen Sutten Pub. Limited, 1996.
Keegan, John (ed.). The Times Atlas of the Second World War.
New York: Harper and Row, 1989.
Ready, J. Leo. World War Two: Nation by Nation.
London: Arms & Armour Press, 1995.
Regan, Geoffrey. Famous British Battles.
London: Michael O’Hare Books, 1997.
Skech, George F. “Shrinking Perimeter At Kohima.”
Great Battles March 1994, pp. 12-19.
Slim, Field Marshall Viscount. Defeat Into Victory.
London: Cassel & Co., 1956.
34 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
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Analysis: by Maciej Jonasz

The State of the Polish Military in1939

36 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

Background
T
he state of the Polish military
on the eve of the Second
World War, and its capability
to wage modern war, reflected more
than anything else that country’s
economy. When Poland had regained
its independence in 1918, its economy
wasn’t only underdeveloped, due to 123
years of foreign occupation, it was also
devastated by the recent war and the
fact its ex-occupiers had, upon with-
drawing, taken with them everything
they could steal. As a result, 60 percent
of Poland’s 1914 industrial base was
destroyed, 80 percent of its rail system
was disabled, and about half the
bridges were down. The country didn’t
even have a functioning commercial
port, as the medieval Polish city of
Gdansk was designated a “Free City” by
the League of Nations, thereby remain-
ing under de facto German control.
In order to remedy the situation, a
program to industrialize the country
was put in place and a shipyard and
deepwater harbor were constructed
at what had previously been the
fishing village of Gdynia. At the
same time many Polish emigrants
returned from around the world,
especially from the US, bringing with
them money and technical expertise.
France, Poland’s chief ally, provided
specialists in arms manufacture as well
as loans to finance it. An economic
boom slowly gathered momentum,
reaching 10 percent annual growth
rates by the second half of the 1930s,
which was the highest in Europe.
As new factories came on-line, a
process of replacing imported equip-
ment with items either license-built
or designed in Poland took place.
By the eve of the Second World War
the Polish armed forces, with the
exception of the navy, were almost
entirely equipped with Polish weapons
on a par with anything produced
in the industrialized world.
The growing automotive
industry — sales in 1935 were only 2,000
vehicles, but by 1938 that had increased
to 14,000, and 1940 projections were
for 20,000 — created a base for the
mechanization of the army. Plans called
for equipping each division with 2,000
vehicles by 1942. Armor production
plans for 1940-44 provided for the
modernization of the existing force.
In sum, by the late 1930s the Polish
military had begun a qualitative
and quantitative leap that would
prepare it to wage modern war.
Manpower war against the Soviets who, after
an initial offensive, were crushed at
The Polish military was a conscript the gates of Warsaw and then again
force with a cadre of officers and on the banks of the Niemen River.
professional non-commissioned officers The young conscripts underwent
among whom the senior leadership tough training on a par with any in
was composed of men who had combat the world, with emphasis placed on
experience. Many of them had served marksmanship and physical fitness.
in the forces of the occupying powers They were motivated to guard the
before independence and had fought independence of their homeland, so the
on the frontlines of the First World War. humiliating occupation their parents
Others had gotten their military training had endured wouldn’t be repeated.
in Polish paramilitary organizations,
and had first seen combat in ethnic- Infantry
Polish units formed by the occupiers
with the promise of an independent The primary combat arm was the
Poland after the war. In 1918 they infantry. Individual riflemen were armed
fought to secure the newly independent with Mauser-based 7.92mm wz.98 and
country’s borders against the Ukrainians wz.29 rifles. A 9mm submachinegun, the
in the east and the Germans in the wz.38 Mors, was also designed shortly
west. In 1920 they fought a victorious continued on page 39 »
The Soviet Threat
Poland’s ability to wage war in 1939 is best compared against that of the Germans,
who possessed a large and modern army and against whom the 1939 campaign was
primarily fought. For much of the inter-war period, however, the Polish government
saw the USSR as their country’s primary enemy. If fact, much of the inter-war Polish
military build-up was directed at confronting the threat of Soviet invasion.
The numerical disparity of force, especially in armor and aircraft, between Poland
and the Soviet Union was even greater than that between Poland and Germany. At the
same time, though, the strategic situation wasn’t nearly as bad. Unlike the Germans
who, after the annexation of Czechoslovakia, could invade Poland from three directions,
which forced the Poles to disperse their forces, the Soviets could only come from the
east. Further, while the economic landscape of Poland put its key industrial regions
close to the German borders, the wide expanse of the Kresy, the Polish eastern
frontier provinces, provided a buffer zone where an underdeveloped infrastructure
and the “inland sea” of the Pripyet Marsh would slow down any invading army.
More precisely, while the distance from East Prussia to Warsaw was only 75 miles
(120 km), the distance from the nearest Soviet territory was 250 miles (400 km).
The numerical disparity also wasn’t as much of an asset to the Soviets as it
looked to be on paper. While the Red Army had many men and relatively modern
equipment, the men were poorly trained and led, with their leadership decimated by
Stalin’s purges. Soviet equipment, while often modern, suffered from poor manufactur-
ing techniques that reduced its reliability and a logistical system that led to fuel
shortages or provided fuel of such poor quality that vehicles constantly stalled.
Similarly, after 20 years of the privations of communist rule, with its attendant food
shortages and gulag, Soviet soldiers in 1939 had little will to fight offensively for their
regime. Their morale was further undermined by a supply system that failed to provide
good food or quality uniforms, and a medical system that was primitive at best.
As a result of that overall poor situation, when the Soviets entered the fight
on 17 September their attacks lacked determination and their soldiers surrendered
willingly — some even going as far as defecting to the Polish side. In general, the
picture painted by the war diaries of the soldiers of the Polish Frontier Defense
Corps battalions that faced the 1939 Soviet invasion describe a weak enemy
capable of success only if employed with crushing numerical superiority.
Thus, given the actual state of the Red Army, it’s doubtful a Soviet invasion of
Poland — conducted on its own — could’ve succeeded. The Poles had defeated
the Red Army in 1920, and that was with Polish forces still in the process of being
formed — and the Soviet soldiers of that era still believing in the utopian future
promised by Bolshevik propaganda. In 1939, with the Polish Army well-established
and Soviet soldiers knowing exactly what they were fighting for, the end
result in such a repeat situation would probably have been similar.  ★
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 37
38 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

» continued from page 37
before the war, but only a small batch
was employed in combat. The 9mm
VIS pistol was a successful design, with
the Germans continuing its production
throughout the war. The infantry
squad-level automatic weapon was
the wz.28 light machinegun based on
the American Browning M1918, and at
higher levels the wz.14 (Hotchkiss) and
wz.30 (Browning) heavy machineguns
were employed. While those were
capable weapons, they didn’t have the
same mix of mobility and firepower
as the German MG34 they faced.
The infantry was equipped with two
types of anti-tank weapons: the wz.35
anti-tank rifle and the wz.36 anti-tank
gun. A Polish design, the wz.35 was
employed at the platoon-level. It was a
simple design whose secret lay in its long
barrel and tungsten-core bullets that
had enough kinetic energy to penetrate
the armor of any German tank in 1939.
(It was also known as the “kb.Ur.,” where
the “Ur” stood for Uruguay: in order to
maintain secrecy, the weapons were
moved about in containers marked
as equipment intended for export to
Uruguay.) The wz.36 anti-tank gun
was produced in Poland on a Bofors
license, and it proved to be a capable
weapon with a low silhouette, good
accuracy and excellent penetration.
Both of those were excellent weapons,
but the employment of the wz.35 anti-
tank rifle was handicapped by the secrecy
surrounding it. The Poles were so insis-
tent on keeping secret the capability of
their most numerous anti-tank weapon,
they were only distributed shortly before
the fighting started. Fortunately, since its
mechanism was like that of the standard
infantry rifle, the troops were quickly
able to learn to operate them. At the
same time, though, that late deployment
meant platoon and company command-
ers, for whom it was their principal anti-
tank weapon, didn’t have the opportunity
to practice employing them, and thus
were unable to do so in the optimal
manner when the fighting began.
Well trained and well equipped with
good weapons, the Polish infantryman
was equal to any other in the world on
a man-for-man basis; however, modern
war is an all-arms environment, and
there Polish infantry had its weakness.
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 39
Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle
Weight: 10 kg (loaded)
Length: 1760 mm (5.77 feet)
Barrel length: 1200 mm
Cartridge: 7.92x107mm DS
Rate of fire: 8 − 10 round/min
Muzzle velocity: 1275 m/s, 4180 f/s
Feed system: 4-round box magazine
Their tactical offensive capability was
handicapped by weak artillery support.
Further, insufficient anti-air assets
made them vulnerable to aerial attack,
while poor communications systems
weakened command-control.
Even more, the Poles’ almost total
reliance on horse-drawn transport
reduced the amount of ammunition
that could be carried while also making
resupply almost impossible once the
situation became fluid. Their long
columns of horse-drawn wagons became
easy targets for enemy air strikes while
also clogging the roads. Of course, the
Germans they faced also still relied on
horse transport to a large degree — 5,375
horses per German infantry division
as opposed to 6,937 for the Poles — but
the German horses were augmented
by over 900 motor vehicles per division
while the Poles had less than 100.
Thus, while a Polish infantry battalion
could face any other country’s infantry
battalion as an equal, a Polish infantry
division wasn’t capable of matching a
German division, which had a much
greater ability to draw on numerous
fire support and transport assets.
Cavalry
Poland, with wide-open eastern
provinces, had a long-standing tradition
of excellence in cavalry. Because of that, ness in field exercises; so further conver-
the Polish Army retained a large cavalry
component during the inter-war years.
Mobile and well trained, the cavalry
brigades were supposed to provide the
fast element of maneuver, both for
pursuit and flank protection, with one
or two brigades attached to every army.
Of course, the progression of military and were never deployed in combat),
technology made it clear the value of
horse cavalry was declining. Starting in
the early 1920s, there were more and
more voices in favor of motorizing the
cavalry; however, those officers met stiff to guard them reduced the number
opposition from the well-entrenched
cavalry lobby. The latter argued horses
would provide better mobility than trucks sions did they perform mounted charges
in a country with a poorly developed road when the tactical situation warranted it.
network. Even so, after studies proved the
upkeep of a motorized cavalry brigade
40 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
cost less than that of a horse cavalry bri-
gade, the first conversion (10th Motorized
Cavalry Brigade) was made in 1937. That
formation then demonstrated its useful-
sions were planned, the second of which
was in process when the war began.
The Polish cavalry, despite the passing
of the era of mounted combat, remained
a capable force. Though they retained
their sabers and lances (the latter
remained in garrison for ceremonial use
they were actually trained to fight as
infantry. At the same time, the horses
proved to be a tactical encumbrance
due to the fact the need to detach men
of soldiers who could take part in
dismounted combat. Only on two occa-
The combat performance of the
Polish cavalry in 1939 was good, with
Polish Lancers, 1939
the most spectacular example being the
Battle of Mokra, where the Wolynska
Cavalry Brigade, supported by an
armored train, held its position for a day
against determined assaults by 4th Panzer
Division. At the same time, though,
it must be admitted those brigades’
overall effect on the Polish armed force’s
combat power was negative, since the
cavalry lobby had effectively slowed
the process of motorization while, at
the same time, the maintenance of
the brigades consumed badly needed
funds that could’ve been better spent
purchasing modern equipment.
One legend that grew up around
the role of the Polish cavalry in the 1939
campaign was that of lancers charging
German tanks. It came about after an
incident that took place at the beginning
of the campaign in the northern sector
of the front. There, in an attempt to slow
the German advance, two squadrons of
the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade conducted
a raid into the enemy rear area.
Passing unnoticed through some
woods, the Poles reached a clearing
beside the road along which the Germans
were advancing. Dispersed nearby
was a German infantry battalion, its
men resting after a march. Using the
woods as cover, the lancers deployed
into combat formation, drew their
sabers and charged. Unprepared for
combat, and surprised by the speed
and ferocity of the assault, the infantry
failed to deploy the machineguns that
could’ve decimated the riders, and
within seconds the Poles were among
them. Striking with their sabers, the Poles
cut through the battalion by the time
German armored cars appeared on the
scene. Those vehicles’ fire then raked
through the lancers’ ranks, killing their
commander and about 20 men while
wounding others and forcing the Poles
to withdraw. Italian war correspondents
soon thereafter arrived on the scene
and wrote an exaggerated report that
eventually grew into the legend of Poles
charging German armor on horseback.
Armor
The use of armored vehicles by Polish
forces dated back to the First World War,
when Polish II Corps, serving with the
Czarist Russian forces, raised an armored
car unit. Armored cars, captured and
homemade, were used across Poland
in 1918 to secure the country’s borders
by both Polish regular and militia units.
During the Russo-Polish War of 1920, a
regiment of French-made Renault FT-17
tanks was employed successfully, losing
only six of its 120 machines in combat.
As the FT-17s became obsolete, efforts
were made to get rid of them by selling
them abroad and, while that effort was
partially successful, some 100 were still
in service in training units in 1939.
To replace the obsolete Renaults,
the Polish Army began developing
“tankettes” as a cheap alternative,
the relative affordability of which
would allow for the fastest possible
creation of a new armored force. Loosely
based on the Carden-Lloyd Mk.VI
tankette, Poland developed the TK
series of tankettes: TK-3 and TKS.
Armed with a single machinegun,
the two-man vehicles turned out to be
useful in reconnaissance, with their small
size making them difficult targets that
could find cover better than full-sized
tanks. At the same time, their weak
armament and thin armor limited their
combat capability, and their small size
made crossing obstacles difficult. The
tankettes were primarily employed in
company strength as reconnaissance
elements in infantry divisions and in the
armored squadrons of cavalry brigades.
In addition, platoons of the tankettes
were attached to armored trains to act
as scout vehicles. By mid-1939 a total
of 574 tankettes were with the army.
In the late 1930s attempts were made
to improve the tankettes’ combat capabil-
ity by replacing their machineguns with a
heavier weapon. Prototypes with 37mm
anti-tank guns, a 75mm infantry gun and
a 20mm cannon were tested, but only
the cannon-armed design was selected
for production. Several foreign models of
the cannon were evaluated, but finally a
Polish design, the wz.38 FK 20mm can-
non, was selected and conversions were
began just before the war. Only about 20
were converted, but their excellent com-
bat performance against German armor
showed the potential of the redesign.
At the same time the tankette force
was being developed, attempts were
made to equip the army with true tanks.
In 1931 Poland obtained 38 Vickers
E tanks in both the single (gun) and
double turret (machinegun armed)
versions, which were then used as a basis
for the development of the 7TP light
tank. Better armored than the Vickers,
it was equipped with a then novel 360
degree periscope, and it was one of
the first mass-produced tanks with a
diesel engine. Initially equipped with
two machinegun-armed turrets like the
Vickers, later models were armed with
the excellent 37mm Bofors gun, license-
produced in Poland, which could defeat
the armor of any German tank. In 1939
there were 130 7TP tanks in two battal-
ions and two companies, along with two
companies of the older Vickers model.
A third 7TP battalion could’ve been
fielded, but production was halted
in anticipation of the arrival of a new
model, the 10TP, which was based on the
American Christie tank. The 10TP was
armed with the same 37mm gun but it
had better armor than the 7TP; however,
the 10TP completed field trials only just
before the war began and therefore wasn’t
entered into mass-production in time.
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 41
Attempts were also made to increase
the size of the armored force via the
purchase of modern French tanks like
the Somua, but the French government
refused on the grounds its own army’s
requirements had to be met first. The
only large purchase that was finalized
was that of a battalion of Renault 35
tanks. Though original evaluation of
those tanks were negative because
of their two-man crew, poor off-road
performance and outdated low-velocity
37mm gun, the Poles acquired them
anyway, as they were desperate and
there were no better options. The
Renaults were all grouped in the 21st Tank
Battalion, which remained in the high
command reserve until the end of the
fighting in 1939, when it was evacuated
to Romania without having fired a shot.
Only six of the Renaults, formed into
an ad hoc “half-company,” saw combat
against the Soviets in eastern Poland.
Poland also fielded armored cars
deployed in squadrons attached to
cavalry brigades. The first major type
of armored car in Polish use was the
wz.28, based on the half-tracked Citroen-
Kegresse B.10. Despite its tracks, the
wz.28 had poor cross-country mobility
while also being expensive in use. In the
1930s they were therefore converted to
fully wheeled traction and renamed the
wz.34. Thinly armored and still suffering
from poor cross-country mobility, only 87
were put into service. Another type, bet-
ter armed but less mobile, the wz.29 was
also put into service, but only 14 were
produced due to its poor performance.
Overall, because of poor off-road mobil-
ity and their lack of radios, their effective-
ness in the reconnaissance task for which
they were intended was reduced and
they were a weak addition to the force.
The final element in the Polish
armored force was armored trains.
Built in the 1920s, only 10 were still
in service in 1939. Though they were
recognized as having become obsolete,
it was decided to retain them until they
were worn out. The restricted mobility
and large size of the trains made them
especially vulnerable to enemy aircraft,
but their firepower was impressive
and their timely arrival turned the
tactical tide of battle more than once.
Overall, then, though armed with
some good vehicles the Polish armored
Renault FT-17
42 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
force suffered from several significant
weaknesses. The most important was the
small number of the modern machines:
the 7TP tanks and the 20mm cannon-
equipped tankettes. Another, even
more significant weakness, came from
the doctrine in place for those vehicles’
use, coupled with the lack of inter-arms
training. Instead of choosing to group
armor in relatively heavy formations
that could operate in the manner of
German panzer divisions, the vehicles
were widely dispersed in line with the
doctrine their role was to support the
infantry. The two battalions of light tanks
that saw combat were never committed
in strength; rather, they were deployed as
separate companies, while the tankettes
and armored cars were fully dispersed
among the infantry and cavalry.
While some division and brigade
commanders managed to use their
attached armor to good effect, most
weren’t able to do so, often deploying
the vehicles on missions for which they
weren’t suited. The lack of combined-
arms training, together with the lack of
a suitable armor doctrine, explains the
failure to concentrate armored assets into
larger formations where their numbers
and psychological effect could’ve
overcome their technical weaknesses.
During the Polish counteroffensive at
Bzura for example, only half the armor
available to the Poles took part during the
advance through the disintegrating lines
of the German 30th Infantry Division.
Even though employed piecemeal, they
were still successful in that their speed
allowed them to break into the German
rear area, where they operated to good
effect. Had all the available vehicles been
used, that effect would’ve been much
greater. In the entire 1939 campaign,
only one army commander, that of the
Lublin Army, grouped all his armor
together into one force near the end of
the fighting. By then it was too late.
In all, due to its dispersal, Polish
armor played only a marginal role
Renault R-35
during the 1939 campaign. Individual effective through modernization pro- thus reducing situational awareness.
units scored local successes, but they grams. When combat began, all models Command-control was degraded by
were never numerous enough in any in service attained good results against the inability to rapidly push orders
given fight to obtain anything more. The both infantry and armored targets. down and receive back reports, which,
only large tank-on-tank engagement At the same time, however, Polish in fluid situations, meant such mes-
happened on 4 September, when 2nd artillery suffered from three key weak- sages were often out of date by the
Tank Battalion, with 7TP tanks, engaged nesses that reduced its effectiveness: time they reached their recipient.
elements of 1st and 4th Panzer Divisions poor communications, poor logistics Communications also failed at
during the bitter fighting for the town of and horse transport. Those were the the highest levels, which, given the
Piotrkow, where the Lodz Army blocked same factors that affected the rest of insistence on the centralized control of
the road to Warsaw. The presence of the Polish Army but, given the specific operational units by the high command,
Polish tanks in that large a number characteristics of artillery, the effect further degraded overall combat capa-
surprised the Germans, but the bat- was greater there than anywhere bilities. For example, urgent requests by
talion soon sustained heavy losses that else. The almost total dependence on Poznan Army for permission to begin a
eliminated it as a cohesive combat force. landline telephones instead of radios major attack into the flank of German
Another weakness was the poor orga- reduced the artillery’s capability in fluid 8th Army as it advanced on Warsaw — the
nization of the technical support, which situations. Insufficient transport assets operation that eventually coalesced
began to fail as soon as the retreat began. reduced the amount of ammunition into the Bzura counteroffensive — were
Replacement parts were lacking, and that could be carried and made resupply repeatedly put off by the high com-
not enough fuel was on hand. Support from depots almost impossible in mand in Warsaw. By the time the high
vehicles often got separated from their the face of enemy air superiority. command had clarified the situation
combat elements when they went And last, the fact the majority of artil- for itself and issued the authorization
searching for fuel. Some vehicles had to lery units were horse-drawn increased for the attack, the move came through
be cannibalized for parts, and others had their vulnerability to enemy air strikes. too late to save the situation, and the
to be abandoned due to the growing lack Thus, all too often Polish infantry had to road to Warsaw remained open.
of fuel. That latter particularly affected suffer heavy casualties due to lack of fire This failure of the Polish Army to
the 7TP units, as they were diesel-fueled support, and when that support did take sufficiently develop its communications
and diesel was even harder to find than place it was weaker than desired because is a mystery given the experience of its
gasoline. In fact, combat losses cost the the artillerymen had to conserve generals in the 1920 war against the
Poles 45 percent of their vehicles, with ammunition. That was in stark contrast Soviets. Poor communication was the
the rest falling victim to mechanical to the Germans; the Poles were shocked key reason the Soviet invading force
breakdown and fuel shortages. to find their enemy’s ammunition cases was unable to react swiftly to the Polish
On an individual level the stenciled with the slogan: “Nicht Sparen counterattack on its flanks at the gates
performance of the Polish crews was Munition!” — “Don’t Spare The Ammo!” of Warsaw. The victorious experience of
good, with their tanks and armored that war was the reason Polish doctrine
cars scoring a 1:1 kill ratio against Communications emphasized maneuver warfare at
German armor. Their strength lay in all levels, and yet that same doctrine
motivated and aggressive crews as well The single greatest weakness of the failed to call for the communication
as excellent gunnery skills, while their Polish military in 1939 was the poor equipment essential for it to succeed.
weakness was in combat co-ordination, state of its communications. In 1936
which was further adversely affected an infantry division was equipped Special Forces
by the lack of radios in their vehicles. with only 19 radios as compared to 140
in German divisions and 87 in Soviet The Polish Army began to
Artillery divisions. The modernization plan of develop a special forces capability
1937 aimed to increase that number early in 1939. It was composed of two
Other than the anti-tank and anti- to 56, which still wasn’t satisfactory, elements: sabotage and intel-
aircraft guns produced in Poland, the and even then the plan was only 30 ligence-gathering teams operating
majority of the artillery was composed of percent implemented by 1939. undercover in enemy occupied Polish
older models that were either imported That lack of radios impeded territory, and airborne platoons trained
or license-produced. None of them were operations at every level. For example, to operate in enemy rear areas.
old enough to be considered obsolete, it meant reconnaissance units, both That first type of unit was each com-
and the oldest models had been kept air and ground, made delayed reports, posed of three to five members, includ-

Fokker F-VIIb 3m

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 43

ing both men and women, recruited in
frontier regions that could be expected
to be quickly captured by the enemy.
About 1,000 were organized and trained
for those missions. Armed with small
arms and explosives, they were to
operate against enemy communications
and logistics as well as providing intel-
ligence on the invaders’ operations.
The second type of unit was each
composed of 20 men: eight infantry-
men, nine combat engineers and three
communication specialists. They were
equipped with automatic weapons and
radios, and were trained for parachute
deployment behind enemy lines. Eighty
men completed the training before
the war began, and were prepared for
operations in East Prussia using three
Fokker F-VIIb 3m transports as well as
civilian passenger planes mobilized with
their pilots from LOT Polish Airlines.
All those assets were supposed
to work in coordination with Polish
operational units, but the fast progress
of the German offensive disrupted that
plan. Even so, the effort put into creating
the special forces wasn’t wasted, as the
men and women of those units became
the cadre for armed resistance structures
after the country was occupied.
Navy
The Polish Navy was reborn after
the First World War when it received
several small German naval vessels
as compensation for war damages.
Throughout the inter-war years those
old vessels were progressively replaced
with modern ones. Of those the destroy-
ers and submarines were purchased
in Great Britain, France and Holland;
though, by the time of the outbreak of
the war, work had begun on two destroy-
ers at the Gdynia Shipyard. Thanks to
that modernization program, by 1939
most Polish warships were modern
Cant Z-506 B torpedo plane
44 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
vessels, and those that survived the
campaign remained capable of combat
operations, serving within the British
Royal Navy until the end of the war.
The Navy was based in Gdynia in
the Bay of Gdansk and at the tip of the
Hel Peninsula. Given the proximity
of German territory and the threat of
amphibious landings, the bases were
protected by infantry units, anti-aircraft
and coastal guns. The anti-aircraft bat-
teries were equipped with modern guns
and managed to shoot down several
German bombers, but they weren’t
numerous enough to provide effective
protection for the warships sheltered
there. Coastal artillery protecting the
Polish bases was limited, with most of
its guns outdated. There was only one
modern battery of 152mm Bofors at Hel;
however, that battery turned out to be
effective. Surviving numerous air strikes
and duels with the two battleships
(Schleswig-Holstein and Schliesien),
its fire prevented German warships
from providing effective support to
their ground force fighting for Gdynia.
Forcing the Germans to keep their dis-
tance, the coastal guns ensured Gdynia’s
defenders had one less threat to face. A
much heavier battery of 320mm guns
had been purchased in Italy, but it was
only scheduled to arrive early in 1940.
Beyond the blue water ships
destined for operations on the Baltic,
the Polish Navy also possessed a riverine
force. That unit, the Pinsk Flotilla, was
based in that town on the Pina River,
and was intended for operations on
Polish Naval Flag
the waterways of the Pripyet Marsh.
Armed with monitors and gunboats,
the flotilla’s mission was to operate
against any Soviet invasion, providing
fire support to ground forces in an area
where the mobility of artillery would be
reduced by deep woods and marshes.
Unlike the rest of the Navy, the Pinsk
Flotilla was an outdated force, with
its newest ships built in the 1920s. As
the area of operations of the flotilla
proved to be outside the area of the
main German and Soviet advances, it
didn’t take part in the fighting in 1939.
The ships were eventually scuttled by
their own crews, with the sailors joining
the Polesie Operational Group in the
final battle of the land campaign.
Naval airpower was composed
of the Naval Air Wing. As it was
only equipped with reconnaissance
seaplanes, the unit’s combat value
was nil. The only combat sortie it flew
was by a lone plane that attacked the
German victory parade held in Gdansk
after the capitulation of the Polish
garrison of Westerplatte fortress.
The plans to arm the navy with
true combat aircraft came too late
for the 1939 campaign, with a lone
Cant Z-506 B torpedo plane, out of
the 30 ordered from Italy, arriving just
prior to the war. Lack of torpedoes
for that plane led to its evacuation
inland and its eventual destruction in
a bombing raid in central Poland.
Following the 1920 war the Soviet
Union had been viewed as Poland’s
primary enemy; so the navy was
armed for a conflict against it. Hence
it was equipped with destroyers that
could escort arms shipments from
the Western Allies, along with long-
range minelayers — both surface and
submarine — which could operate
in the enemy waters. As it became
clear the next war would be with the
Germans, it also became obvious the
surface combatants couldn’t survive in
the enclosed space of the Baltic. They
would have to face a much stronger
enemy at sea, and one that dominated
the air. Even their bases, given the short
Polish shoreline, would be within easy
range of German airfields. Thus the most
modern destroyers were evacuated to
Great Britain just before the onset of
hostilities, while those warships that
remained were, predictably, destroyed
by German air strikes one after another.
During the 1939 campaign, then,
the Navy obtained only mixed results.
The submarines, which performed
admirably later throughout the war
(in particular the two operating in the
Mediterranean) didn’t score any kills.
The surface combatants did better,
even though the odds they faced were
worse due to enemy air superiority.
The two largest warships that remained
based in Poland, the destroyer Wicher
and the heavy minelayer Gryf, suc-
cessfully engaged a pair of German
destroyers, scoring hits that forced the
enemy to withdraw, while the small
minelayers supported Polish ground
forces fighting in Gdynia. First they
mined the approaches to the city that,
together with the Polish coastal guns,
kept German warships from providing
fire support to their attacking ground
force. Second, they made several
sorties to provide fire support to the
Polish troops defending the city. Those
efforts, despite the small caliber of the
minelayers’ guns, were effective thanks
to their accuracy and timeliness.
Fighting continued during the war of
1920 against the Soviets, after which the
country’s borders were finally stabilized.
During the inter-war years the air
force underwent continuous moderniza-
tion, first by purchasing aircraft abroad,
then through the license- production of
Czech designs, and finally via the devel-
opment of Polish aircraft. The first of
those, the open cockpit PWS-10, entered
production in 1931. An immediately
outdated design, only 80 were produced,
and in 1932 a much better design, the
all-metal PZL P‑7 entered production.
A further improved version, the PZL
P‑11, entered service in 1934 with its
most numerous variant, the PZP P‑11c
appearing in 1935 and remaining the
core fighter of the Polish Air Force until
the war. When they entered service, both
PZL designs were modern machines,
making Poland’s one of the first air
forces to field an all monoplane fighter
arm, but by 1939 they were outdated
and only the excellence of the pilots,
coupled with their machines’ superb
maneuverability, partially made up for
their low speed and weak armament.
An upgraded version of the P‑11c, the
PZL P‑24, with an enclosed cockpit and
better characteristics was developed,
but all produced units were sold abroad
because the Polish Air Force high
command preferred to wait for the
next generation fighter. Unfortunately,
the selected replacement, the PZL
P‑50, wasn’t scheduled to enter mass
production until the autumn of 1939.
Thus the fighter squadrons of the
Polish Air Force went into combat
with designs that were outdated by
1939 standards. Further, all of the
planes began the war already worn
out by several years of service, and
once combat began the ground crews
had to perform miracles to keep them
airborne. While the P‑11c could still
hold its own in a dogfight when well
handled, the older models stood no
chance against modern aircraft. A total
of 128 P‑11s were in combat units in
1939, with another 50 in reserve.
Two domestic model bombers
were also fielded in the late 1930s:
the PZL‑23B and the PZL P‑37B. The
PZL‑23B was a single-engine light
PZL P-37B

Air Force

The Polish Air Force was established

immediately after independence
at the end of the First World War.
There was a ready supply of trained
pilots — veterans of the air forces of
the occupying powers — and aircraft:
German and Austro-Hungarian
machines seized by the Polish authori-
ties as well as aircraft purchased from
France, Great Britain and Italy. Combat
sorties began immediately against the
Ukrainians during the fighting for the
city of Lwow, and against the Germans
as the western frontiers were secured.

Polish Air Force Flag

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 45

bomber with a three-man crew that, due
to its low speed, was outdated by 1939. A
total of 114 were deployed with another
70 in reserve in training schools and
maintenance units. On the other hand
the medium PZL P‑37B was a modern
machine with good speed and bomb
load, though its defensive armament of
only three machineguns made it vulner-
able to enemy fighters. Thirty-six were
deployed, with another 47 in reserve.
The Air Force was deployed with
most of its combat aircraft, including all
the medium bombers, organized into
two brigades (one fighter, one bomber),
all under the direct control of the high
command. The remaining aircraft
were dispersed as squadrons among
the field armies, with most of them
getting two fighter and three reconnais-
sance squadrons, the latter equipped
with the PZL‑23B light bombers.
The fighter brigade was tasked with
the aerial defense of Warsaw. In that
mission it was assisted by a network of
observation posts that provided advance
warning of German raids. As long as that
network remained intact, the brigade
had enough warning time to get its
aircraft aloft with enough of an altitude
advantage to engage the faster German
bombers. Once the observation network
was destroyed by the German ground
advance, the brigade’s effectiveness
dropped as, without advance warning,
its planes were too slow to intercept or
catch up with enemy formations. When
the German advance began to threaten
its airfields, the brigade was forced to
evacuate to the east of the country.
The bomber brigade was less
effectively used. It committed both its
light and medium bombers primarily
to conduct air strikes against German
mechanized columns advancing on
Warsaw. Because the brigade was
dispersed to unpaved airfields, the
bombers couldn’t carry their full
combat load and, with the aircraft used
piecemeal in small groups rather than
to carry out large concentrated strikes,
the damage they achieved, while it did
slow German progress, wasn’t as great
as it otherwise could’ve been. Further,
no action was taken against either
German airfields or logistical targets,
the destruction of which would’ve
been better suited for the bombers.
The air units deployed to the field
armies put up a gallant fight, but they
weren’t numerous enough to provide
proper air cover or close support to
the ground troops. As the campaign
progressed and the Poles were forced to
retreat, their logistical support became
46 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
disorganized and fuel shortages ensued.
All the squadrons were finally with-
drawn to the southeast of the country,
where they crossed the Romanian
border. From there the men were
evacuated west to continue the war from
France and Britain, while their aircraft
were put into Romanian service and
eventually saw combat on the eastern
front. Today only one Polish combat
plane, a PZL P‑11c, survives on display
in the aviation museum in Krakow.
An effective secret weapon the Polish
Air Force had was its network of hidden
airfields. The Poles were aware of the
weakness of their air force and just how
vulnerable its aircraft would be on the
ground given enemy air superiority.
Hence every combat unit had camou-
flaged airfields in its area of operations
to which it would redeploy just prior to
the start of hostilities. Though opera-
tions from those bases were logistically
more difficult, they were instrumental to
the Polish Air Force’s survival throughout
the campaign. German air strikes that
hit the Polish peacetime airfields at the
beginning of the war only succeeded
in destroying a handful of trainers.
Well hidden, the camouflaged airstrips
were the reason why, throughout the
entire campaign, only 24 Polish planes
were destroyed on the ground.
Despite having to face a better
equipped and more numerous enemy,
the Polish Air Force performed admi-
rably, with results better than could’ve
been expected. The air and ground
crews were motivated and superbly
trained. The pilots went up time after
time in aircraft in which battle damage
was patched up by field repair units.
They succeeded in shooting down 147
German aircraft for a corresponding
aerial combat loss of 118 (including
losses from anti-aircraft fire).
Conclusion
In 1939 the Polish armed forces
weren’t prepared for war against a large
modern army. Still recovering from
123 years of colonial exploitation and
a recent devastating war, they had to
start from next to nothing to create an
industrial economy capable of support-
ing modern armed forces. A massive
modernization program was put into
place, but it hadn’t gotten far enough to
produce sufficient numbers of modern
weapons. As part of that effort, some
unfortunate decisions were made when
the production of existing designs was
halted while waiting for the next genera-
tion of weapons. In the end the produc-
tion halts reduced the numbers of older
models available for combat while the
next generation models came too late.
Had the war begun a year later,
the situation would’ve been much
different, with the new 10TP reinforc-
ing the 7TP tanks and with modern
fighters replacing the outdated PZL P‑7
and P‑11 designs. Even the tankette
force would’ve become much more
capable with many re-equipped
with 20mm cannon. Within the
infantry the production plans for
anti-tank rifles and guns would’ve
been completed, thereby making
those units more resistant to armored
attack. Further, additional motorized
brigades were being readied and, as
demonstrated by the performance of the
10th Armored Cavalry Brigade in 1939,
they would’ve added significant combat
capability to the Polish ground force.
As it was, German losses in aircraft
and in armor reached 30 percent in
1939; so we can assume, with the Polish
modernization program completed,
they would’ve been much higher. Even
Hitler said that if Poland had more anti-
tank weapons the “victorious march
forward would not have been possible.”
Of course, given a one-year later start
to the war, German forces would’ve also
gone through further improvement;
so the increased number of modern
weapons in the Polish arsenal would
certainly not have closed the gap in
overall combat power between the
two countries’ armed forces, but
still this show how close the 1939
campaign could have been.  ✪
Sources
Cynk, Jerzy B.,
The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History.
Schiffer Military History. Atglen 1998.
Krolikiewicz, Tadeusz. Polski Samolot i Barwa.
Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej.
Warsaw, 1990.
Pawlak, Jerzy.
Polskie Eskadry w Wojnie Obronnej Wrzesien 1939.
Wydawnictwa Komunikacji i Lacznosci. Warsaw, 1991.
Pertek, Jerzy. Wielkie dni malej floty.
Wydawnictwo Poznanskie. Poznan,1987.
Szawlowski, Ryszard. Wojna Polsko-Soviecka 1939.
Wydawnictwo Neriton. Warsaw, 1995.
Szubanski, Rajmud. Polska Bron Pancerna 1939.
Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej.
Warsaw, 1982.
Zaloga, Steven. Poland 1939: Birth of Blitzkrieg.
Osprey Publishing, 2002.
 Land Without End
The Barbarossa Campaign
Land Without End:
The Barbarossa Campaign, 1941
is a two-player, low-to-intermediate
complexity, strategic-level
simulation of the German attempt
to conquer the Soviet Union
in 1941. The German player is
on the offensive, attempting to
win the game by rapidly seizing
key cities. The Soviet player
is primarily on the defensive,
but the situation also requires
he prosecute counterattacks
throughout much of the game.
Game play encompasses the
period that began with the Germans
launching their attack on 22 June
1941, and ends on 7 December of
the same year. By that time it had
become clear the invaders had
shot their bolt without achieving
their objectives. The game may end
sooner than the historic termination
time if the German player is able to
advance so quickly he causes the
overall political, socio-economic and
military collapse of the Soviet Union.
Each hexagon on the map
represents approximately 20 miles
(32 km) from side to opposite side.
The units of maneuver for both sides
are primarily divisions, along with
Axis-satellite and Soviet corps (and
one army) of various types. The
effects of the general air superiority
enjoyed by the Germans throughout
the campaign are built into the
movement and combat rules. Each
game turn represents one week.
Players familiar with other
strategic-level east front designs
will note the unique aspects of
LWE lie in its rules governing the
treatment of supply, the capture
of Moscow, and the Stalin line.

Contents:
One 22x34” Map,
700 Die-cut Counters,
Rule Book
Retail price: $50.00

P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 | (661) 587-9633 phone | (661) 587-5031 fax | decisiongames.com

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 47

Observation
Game PreviewPost

Leningrad ’41:
What If Manstein had Attacked?

L
eningrad ’41: What If Manstein Germans are mainly battalions, while of war, replacements, reinforcements,
had Attacked? (L’41), designed those for the Soviets range from bat- defensive fire, indirect fire, combat air
by Joseph Miranda, is a two- talions to regiments and brigades. Thus support, command control, leaders,
player alternative history wargame of each unit may represent anywhere from fanaticism, gunboats, the cruiser
intermediate complexity that simulates 100 to 5,000 men and their equipment. Aurora, the Komsomol, the metro, and
a hypothetical German attempt to Special rules cover such things as: fog optional German airborne assault.  ✪
seize the city of Leningrad in late July
through August 1941. The assumption
is Manstein, rather than pausing for
two weeks as he did historically, simply
charged ahead into the city immediately
upon crossing the Luga River.
To control complexity and present
an overall-force-commander’s-view of
the battle, the game uses a tactically
scaled map and units of maneuver
coupled with an operationally scaled
game turn length. The German player
is generally on the offensive, trying to
clear the Soviet defending force from the
city prior to the end of the game. L’41
uses the system originally created for
our earlier published Manila’45 game.
Each game turn equals three days.
Each hexagon on the map represents
0.3 miles (0.5 km) from side to opposite
side. The units of maneuver for the

48 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

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Observation Post
Historical
Perspective
Linz: Liberated or Occupied?
O
n the morning of 5 May 1945, at
11:30 a.m., Brig. Gen. Willard
A. Holbrook, Jr., commander
of Combat Command A (CCA) of 11th
Armored Division, rode across the
Nibelungenbruecke, the main bridge
over the Danube River into the Austrian
city of Linz. He was apprehensive. As he
crossed, he wasn’t sure if the Germans
would blow it up beneath him. Nor was
he certain if he would be shot at, or
hailed joyfully, by Linz’s citizens. He
had plenty of reason to doubt the city
official who, just a few days before, had
assured him the populace would wel-
come the Americans with open arms.
Linz’s citizens had wildly welcomed
the arrival of Hitler on 12 March 1938
with massed cheers and Nazi stiff-arm
salutes. After a prolonged welcome there,
he drove on to Vienna. Austria became
Ostmark, a province within the Third
Reich, and its military was quickly and
fully integrated into the Wehrmacht.
In Hitler’s plan for his Thousand
Year Reich, Linz was to have become a
monument town of elaborate grandeur.
He considered it his hometown,
having spent much of his youth there
between 1898 and 1907. He therefore
determined to transform the provincial
capital of Oberoesterreich (Upper Austria)
into a city with museums and huge
structures intended to exalt his concept
of what the Third Reich epitomized.
Before Linz could become the
realization of Hitler’s dream, however, its
environs assumed a deadlier function in
his plans for war. A large tank factory was
constructed on the outskirts of the city,
and the whole locale was soon thereafter
ringed with 162 fixed anti-aircraft artil-
lery sites along with several 105mm and
125mm guns mounted on railroad cars.
Those weapons were also able to offer a
defense against ground attack. The posi-
tions of the guns, coupled with the excel-
lent defensive terrain surrounding much
of Linz, gave the Germans the potential
50 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
to offer serious resistance to troops
advancing from the east, west and north.
When 11th Armored Division
approached Linz along the north bank
of the Danube in early May, as did 65th
Infantry Division from the south and
west, there were few solid indications
the local citizenry had lost their ardor
for Hitler and the Third Reich. In fact,
as 11th Armored had approached the
Austrian border via the German town of
Wegscheid, there was clear indication
the Americans wouldn’t be welcomed.
There was fierce fighting against SS
troops armed with anti-tank weapons,
automatic small arms and artillery,
which had required Task Force Hearn
(named after the commander of the
55th Armored Infantry Battalion), to
launch a dismounted attack into
the high ground west of that town.
Though a dozen German artillery and
anti-aircraft guns were destroyed, the
action cost the task force five tanks.
Adding to the resistance was the
wet spring weather and muddy ground,
which combined to limit cross-country
mobility and to force American airpower
to return to base without having given
any combat support to the ground
force. The terrain north of the Danube
near Austria doesn’t lend itself to
easy maneuvering in any weather.
The ground is undulating, with steep
cultivated hills that turn easily into
muddy quagmires. There is also a series
of streams that feed the Danube, and the
Grosse Muehl River, at Neufelden, is a
significant obstacle to vehicles. Indeed,
the lay of the land favored defense in
depth from west to east on both sides
of the Danube well into Austria.
Complicating the defense of
the region for the already shattered
Wehrmacht, however, were the forma-
tions of Hungarian troops fighting
along with them. They had no interest
in prolonging the war and, for example,
on 1 May 650 of them had dropped
their weapons and surrendered to
CCA units as soon as they saw them.
There was also the Soviet threat
coming from the east. The Germans in
the area therefore fought while looking
apprehensively over their shoulders.
To some — probably most — of the
defenders, then, it was obvious the
end of the war was near. To diehard
Nazis, however, it was a matter of
fighting to the death. It therefore wasn’t
easy for the advancing Americans
to determine who would capitulate
and who would have to be killed.
As it was, Troop C of 41st (Mechanized)
Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron
ran into a flak-supported roadblock
at the east end of the small town of
Kollerschlag, which took an hour to
reduce. Continuing its advance, the
cavalry moved to Peilstein, where it
encountered a roadblock they destroyed
by noon. Task Force Hearn then retook
the lead, and by 4:00 p.m. its dismounted
infantry had reached Diendorf, which
was defended by two 88mm anti-aircraft
guns belonging to Flaksturmregiment
28 (28th Flak Assault Regiment). Farther
down the road, at Oepping, there was
another battery position to be overcome
(and where the aforementioned
Hungarian mass-surrender took place).
On 2 May the advance was slowed
by more blown bridges, and CCA turned
south toward Rohrbach. After turning
south, another blown bridge, this one at
Puernstein, was encountered. The Grosse
Meuhle River bridge at Rohrbach was
also found to be down; so the Americans
had to ford the river, which further
slowed movement. Then it was on to
Maring, where more flak from the 28th
was encountered. As the advance closed
in on Linz, then, it could be seen the area
defense, mostly composed of reoriented
anti-aircraft guns, was becoming denser
to the point changes in direction were
required by the armored columns.
The next day, 3 May, CCA drove
through St. Martin, Lacken, and into
Rottenegg. At that location there was
another blown bridge, which caused
CCA to detour north and drive over
hilly terrain to Untergeng and Zwettl,
where operations ceased for the day.
That diversion had also been
motivated by increasing resistance from
fixed anti-aircraft gun sites aligned along
the outer perimeter of the Luftwaffe’s
Kommando Eggeling Air Defense Zone.
Within that anti-aircraft defense sector,
north of the Danube, there were 24 static
88mm guns and 24 quadruple-barrel
20mm guns assigned to the Flak Brigade
Oberdonau (Upper Danube) sub-com-
mand. At the same time, the 105mm and
125mm railroad guns, located just out-
side Linz and downriver at Pfenningberg,
remained mobile. Altogether those
weapons presented a potentially
formidable defense force. That is, if their
crews decided to stay by their guns.

World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 51

Observation Post
Within 11th Armored Division it was
more and more obvious combat was
about to end; so there was an increasing
tendency to let down one’s guard while,
at the same time, no one wanted to
be the last soldier killed in the war.
When approaching possible ambush
sites, therefore, caution became the
watchword. Often roadblocks were
encountered that weren’t defended, but
they would nevertheless slow down the
advance or lead to a detour being made.
May 4 began in a way that was
becoming typical, with CCA managing
to clear the villages of Gramastettin,
Eidenberg and Lichtenberg, where a rein-
forced anti-aircraft battery was stationed.
That afternoon, however, an emissary
from Linz appeared at the American lines
and asked for terms to surrender the city.
Given two hours to comply with uncon-
ditional surrender, however, the Germans
rejected the offer and vowed to continue
the fight. That afternoon CCA’s Task Force
Wingard ran into stiff resistance from
pillboxes outside Gramastettin. The posi-
tions were camouflaged and well sited to
cover the open ground in front of them.
That evening the task force withdrew
into Gramastettin and prepared to
continue its mission the next day.
The next morning, a little after 7:00, a
civilian policeman arrived at TF Hearn’s
command post with another surrender
request. While that further discussion
still didn’t result in a surrender, it was
learned most of the German defense
force in the area had evacuated Linz
and that the bridge over the Danube
between Urfahr and Linz was still intact.
TF Wingard’s mission was then
changed: it was to drive directly for the
Urfahr/Linz crossing site. By 10:00 a.m.
on 5 May, then, that TF’s tanks were in
Postlingberg, which overlooked Urfahr,
at which time division headquarters
ordered CCA to drive through Urfahr
and cross into Linz. That move began
at 11:00 a.m., putting Holbrook on
the bridge half an hour later.
For Holbrook the entrance into
Linz became an astonishing event.
He knew he could be driving into an
52 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
ambush; but earlier that morning he’d
spotted a multitude of white sheets
dangling from the windows of build-
ings in Urfahr. He therefore became
hopeful when he reached the far end
of the bridge and saw two policemen
standing there, waving white flags.
Then, in the distance, he saw crowds of
cheering and smiling people lining the
main street leading to the town square.
He and his advance party were soon
being pelted — with flowers. Escorted
into “Adolf Hitler Plaza” by the deputy
mayor, the American vehicles were soon
covered to overflowing with flowers.
People gleefully passed bottles
of wine and pitchers of hard cider to
the arriving US troops. They sang and
played accordions. One American news
correspondent on the scene likened it
to New Orleans at Mardi Gras. The only
people who weren’t openly rejoicing were
about 100 German soldiers, who huddled
around the statue in the center of the
square while waiting to be taken away
to a prisoner of war camp. To that same
American correspondent, even they
seemed to be somewhat happy. From the
other side of the city there came infantry-
men from the US 65th Infantry Division;
they were also relieved and happy.
Within a few hours of his arrival,
and before CCA moved on the next
day, Gen. Holbrook ordered everyone
off the streets. Suspected Nazis and
officials were taken into custody,
and US intelligence personnel began
interrogating all those with known or
suspected Nazi affiliations. Martial law
was placed in effect and rules of (sober)
conduct were posted around the city.
Confusion reigned as to the town’s status:
occupied Germany or liberated Austria.
On the whole, however, Linz’s
citizenry took things in stride. They’d
been spared the destruction other cities
had suffered both within and outside
Germany. Municipal services and public
utilities had never ceased functioning,
despite the fact the nearby tank factory
had been a prime target for aerial bomb-
ing. The de-Nazified city government was
soon allowed to resume normal function-
ing. At the same time, there didn’t turn
out to be any “Werewolf” Nazi insurgents
lurking about to ambush unsuspecting
American soldiers. A sense of normal-
ity soon returned, and the Americans
came to be viewed as true liberators.
Fifty years after Holbrook’s bridge
crossing, to the minute, his children
drove across the same span to com-
memorate that day with the population
of Linz. They were cordially greeted. By
that time there was no doubt in anyone’s
mind the Americans had truly come
to liberate, not to conquer or occupy.
— Raymond E. Bell, Jr.
Technology
Backdate
Radar Bombing in World War II
The US Army Air Force (AAF) concept
of precision bombing meant a specified
target, such as an individual building or
complex, was to be hit and destroyed by
a large percentage of the bombs dropped
on it. With few exceptions, precision
bombing wasn’t really achieved in World
War II by either the RAF or AAF. That
isn’t to say targets weren’t destroyed,
because they were; however, most targets
required many missions to destroy. Radar
bombing, a variant within precision
bombing (also called blind bombing and
bombing through overcast), also failed
to reliably drop a large percentage of
bombs precisely on target. In fact, as late
as January 1945, the AAF command staff
were concerned about radar bombing
test data that showed a two mile (3.25
km) “circular probable error,” meaning
half the dropped bombs landed within
a two mile radius and half didn’t.
The corresponding RAF
Bomber Command (RAF) concept
was area bombing: drop enough
bombs across an area and some
of them will fall on the target.
Overall, the AAF achieved better
bombing accuracy than the RAF, simply
because of the difference in policies.
The AAF bombed by day, and the RAF
bombed by night. AAF bombing doctrine
at first required visual identification of
targets, but that was impossible in the
poor weather common over central and
northern Europe. Since RAF bombing
was at night, targets were always dif-
ficult to identify visually. Thus the RAF
used pathfinder aircraft and various
target marking systems. The promise of
radar was it would help locate targets
both in bad weather and at night.
There’s no question British scientists
and engineers contributed significantly
to radar development, but they didn’t
invent it as is commonly thought. Radar
was conceived independently and almost
simultaneously in several countries, and
it was developed in increments during
the period just prior to World War II.
Once its military value was recognized
in the late 1930s, secrecy prevailed and
each country continued to develop
radar on its own. During World War II the
Americans and British shared technology
as Allies. Except for initial development
of a key component (magnetron), and
an airborne radar set in Britain (the H2S
and the equivalent US version, the H2X),
the Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab) of
MIT in the US developed practically
all Allied airborne radar systems.
Airborne radar technology in World
War II couldn’t resolve individual
buildings unless they were large and
sufficiently separated from other
structures. For example, airborne radar
sets developed during the war had
theoretical range resolutions of 250
to 1,000 feet. A resolution of 250 feet
meant two targets less than that distance
from each other would be displayed
as a single target, because such radar
returns ran together when displayed.
Ground clutter is another significant
problem with radar when it’s used to
scan the terrain below and ahead of
the airplane. Even though the radar
operator may be looking for reflections
from a specific target, the terrain and
objects surrounding it could also
reflect a significant amount of the
transmitted signal, cluttering the display
and thereby “masking” the target.
Mountains or hills between the airplane
and its target also caused masking.
above
Halifax V9977
upper-right
H2S radome on Halifax
lower-right
scanner on Halifax
left
H2X radar
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 53
The problems of range resolution and
clutter were technological limitations
that were made worse by the low-resolu-
tion quality of the radar displays used at
that time. Another significant limitation
was the poor signal processing capability
available in electronics of that time.
Airborne radar in bombing applica-
tions worked best where the displayed
contrast between different types of
reflective terrain, such as land and water,
allowed the radar operator/bombardier
to differentiate features and determine
the airplane’s location with respect to
the target. Over inland cities the radar
could resolve streets; however, in a
big city the bombardier had no way of
knowing which particular streets were
being displayed, as they all looked
similar on radar. Moreover, targets
weren’t always in or near big cities.
Another problem of radar bombing
was navigation to the target. The AAF
tried using ordinary navigation maps
with radar, but found them inadequate.
They didn’t give all the information
needed by the operator, while also
Observation Post
providing a mass of useless informa-
tion. As a result the Allies developed
special “radar-pilotage” maps. They
had scales of 1:1,000,000 or 1:500,000
and included detailed outlines of cities
based on radar display photographs.
(For reference, the thickness of a typical
pencil lead is equivalent to about a third
of a mile on a 1:500,000 scale map.)
Radar display maps still required
detailed prior reconnaissance of a target
and the route to it. Not only did the target
itself first need to be photographed
during clear weather, the radar display
also needed to be photographed all
the way from some easily recognized
checkpoint to the target. Operatively that
was a daunting and dangerous task, and
such reconnaissance could easily reveal
to the enemy not only the intended
target but the chosen route to it.
Other technical limitations also
prevented airborne radar from
consistently meeting precision bombing
objectives. For example, the equipment
was unreliable; it was a new and not
completely understood electronic
technology that involved high voltages at
high altitudes with rotating mechanical
components (a recipe for electrical
arcing between components). It also
required substantial training to operate
and maintain. Further, the radar wasn’t
initially coupled to the airplane’s bomb-
ing system and automatic pilot, which
would’ve better helped ensure a steadier
bombing platform. Using radar for wind
drift compensation (since the ground
was obscured by clouds or darkness)
was also difficult. Crude methods
were used to compensate for altitude,
which wasn’t always precisely known.
Because of that lack of automa-
tion, the radar operator set aircraft
speed and altitude in the “bombing
computer.” Assuming drift had been
compensated, when the target signal
centered on the displayed bombing
circle in the computer, the radar operator
instructed the bombardier to release
the bombs. Bombing under such
conditions could never be considered
a precision affair; at best it was a form
54 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
of supplemented area bombing.
To try to overcome those
limitations, the AAF, through its
contractors — Bell Laboratories, MIT
Rad Lab, Sperry Gyroscope Company
and RCA — expended a lot of effort to
couple radar to the Norden bombsight
and use it for radar bombing. That effort
started in mid-1943 and included the
formation of special radar-equipped
pathfinder units and special crew train-
ing. Even so, none of those efforts were
perfected before the end of the war.
The AN/APQ-5 radar set was used by
the US Army and Navy. In naval applica-
tions the problem of bombing an isolated
target at sea was simpler than bombing
industrial targets on land, partly because
of the lower altitudes generally used and
the contrast between a target and the
sea. Of course, sea conditions (clutter)
and the size of a target still greatly
affected the radar’s ability to detect and
track. In that application the system
automatically released bombs on an
isolated target selected and tracked on
the radar indicator by the bombardier.
Even with all the limitations
discussed above, airborne radar was
and still is an important military
technology. It allowed the Allies to bomb
regardless of weather conditions, in
that it allowed both the RAF and the
AAF to at least determine the area into
which they should drop their bombs
when the target wasn’t optically visible.
In the last two months of 1943, AAF
radar bombing accounted for almost
6,000 sorties and a little over 10,000
tons of bombs, whereas visual methods
accounted for around 2,900 sorties
and 7,300 tons. Through 1944 and 1945
the percentage of bombs dropped by
radar increased. The implication is,
without radar, many of those bombing
missions wouldn’t have taken place.
With Allied bombers over Germany
in almost all weather, the Luftwaffe also
had to be operational in those same
conditions. Thus, since radar enabled
all-weather bombing, it also helped
destroy the German Air Force. German
pilots generally weren’t trained to fly
in bad weather, and they had neither
the instrumentation nor navigation
aids to enable all-weather takeoffs,
intercepts and landings. At the same
time, though, the pressure from “higher
authority” to attempt intercept led to
many aircraft and pilot losses, thereby
accelerating the pilot attrition from
which the Germans never caught up.
— Whitham D. Reeve
Humor
The Golden Age of World War II TV
The decade of the 1960s was the
golden age of weekly World War II
television series. Those shows often
played fast and loose with historical facts,
and they almost never used genuine
vehicles or anything resembling them.
Along with their historical inaccura-
cies, the shows suffered from what media
critic Roger Ebert calls the “Principle of
Evil Marksmanship.” That is, however
many unnamed extras the bad guys
dispatch with the utmost efficiency, they
never manage to kill the main characters
no matter how many bullets they spray
around. The corollary was German
soldiers ultimtely fought in the open,
sometimes to the extent of carelessly
running out from cover to get a better
shot, where they made easy trgets for
the Allied soldiers who stayed safely
behind walls, trees, in ditches, etc.
The discussion of such shows
must begin with Combat! (Yes, the
exclamation point was part of the
name on the show’s logo, a stylized
bayonet.) It ran on ABC for five years,
from October 1962 to August 1967. Its
152 episodes featured a squad of US
soldiers in France in 1944. The lead actor,
playing the role of Sgt. Chip Saunders,
was Vic Morrow, who was later killed
in a horrific accident on the set of the
Twilight Zone movie in 1982. Of all World
War II series, Combat! was acclaimed
as the most realistic despite suffering
from the flaws common to its genre.
Running simultaneously with
Combat!, debuting just three days later
in the fall of 1962, was another ABC
offering called The Gallant Men, which
followed a company of US soldiers in
Italy. It didn’t fare as well as Combat! in
the eyes of the critics or viewing public,
and lasted just a year (26 episodes).
When Combat! ended in 1967,
Garrison’s Guerillas took over, though
not for long. In fact, its pilot episode was
originally supposed to be an episode
of Combat!, though it never actually
aired as such. The premise was inspired
by the movie The Dirty Dozen. The
convicts of Garrison’s Guerillas (there
were only four of them along with
their CO) earned a reprieve only until
the following March (26 episodes).
With the demise of The Gallant Men,
Combat! was left to share the war drama
genre with the second-longest running
show of the type, 12 O’Clock High,
which was based on the 1949 motion
picture of the same name. It lasted two
and half seasons (78 episodes) on ABC
from September 1964 to January 1967.
It followed the exploits of the fictional
918th Bomb Group based out of England.
Two Navy-oriented series set sail
two days apart in the fall of 1965. The
first was Convoy, one of the last NBC
shows to be filmed in black and white.
There was a reason for that, one that
afflicted most of the World War II dramas.
The shows often used real-life combat
footage in their programs that, of course,
weren’t available in color. The shows
themselves were therefore also shot
that way in order to allow them to make
seamless transitions between stock and
series footage. That was the downfall of
Convoy, because many NBC affiliates had
begun to refuse to air black and white
programming. Thus the voyages of the
destroyer escort DD-181 (it should have
been DE-181) and the merchant ship
USS Flagship lasted only 13 episodes.
Faring somewhat better was The
Wackiest Ship in the Army, based on the
earlier movie of the same name. It was
an odd duck, not really a sitcom (it was
an hour long), yet with too much humor
to be a real drama. Today it would be
called a “dramedy,” and in many ways
it was probably the best of the shows
that weren’t named Combat! Like the
movie, it was loosely based on a real-life
schooner on loan to the US Army from
the New Zealand government and
that had been used to support coast
watchers in the early years of the Pacific
war. The fictional USS Kiwi spent its
time in Japanese waters dropping off
supplies, spies, and picking up secret
“intel” from enemy held islands. Toward
the end of its one-year (29 episode)
run, it lost its focus and became almost
strictly a drama. Also of note is the fact
one of the Kiwi’s crew was portrayed
by Rudy Solari, who later popped up
again as one of Garrison’s Guerillas.
The following year, 1966, saw two
more World War II series debut, also
just three days apart like their earlier
counterparts. First was Rat Patrol, a
program that had to be pulled from
British TV because it created the
impression the North African campaign
had been fought almost exclusively by
Americans. Indeed, the only reason there
was one Brit on the four-man team was
one of the original Americans was killed
in the pilot episode’s first gun battle,
thus opening up a spot with the 111th
Armored Recon (as the unit was named).
The Brit’s arrival wasn’t met with great
enthusiasm by the Yanks and, to make
matters worse, one of the main American
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 55
characters wore an Australian bush
hat. To his credit, he explained it was in
tribute to the Australians who’d fought in
Greece. (The actor was of Greek descent).
The show also had a few other
quirks. Though a drama, it was only a
half hour long, and each episode’s title
had the word “Raid” at the end: “The
Fatal Reunion Raid,” and “The Violent
Truce Raid,” for instance. Despite
the historical inaccuracies, the show
lasted 58 episodes over two years.
The other show debuting that year
wasn’t actually a front line combat series,
but a spy show. It was called Jericho, and
was notable mostly for being the only
CBS drama set in that era. It last only 16
episodes. (It shouldn’t be confused with
the 2006 series of the same name, they’re
totally unrelated.) By the mid-1960s,
James Bond and spy shows had become
hugely popular, yet so were World War II
shows. So the reasoning was you couldn’t
go wrong by combining the two genres.
Thus Jericho was a show about a trio of
OSS agents who committed sabotage and
daring deeds in German-occupied terri-
tory; however, it was scheduled against
stiff competition for ratings: Batman.
The only other World War II spy
drama appeared on ABC a week before
Jericho disappeared. Despite starring the
popular singer/actor Robert Goulet, Blue
Light had hardly more success than its
above — McHale’s Navy (1962)
left — Hogan’s Heroes (1965)
Observation Post
counterpart, lasting just 17 episodes.
The networks also found inspira-
tion in WWII for a few laughs. The
first was ABC’s McHale’s Navy, which
aired in October 1962 and lasted 138
episodes to August 1966. It featured
veteran actor Ernst Borgnine in the
title role as the captain of PT-73, Lt.
Commander Quinton McHale. The
show was set in the South Pacific and,
for one season, also in Italy. He was ably
assisted onscreen by then unknown
Tim Conway and Gavin McLeod, who
later achieved fame as Murray Slaughter
on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and
as Capt. Steuben of The Love Boat.
McHale’s Navy hit at the height of
President John Kennedy’s popularity.
That timing was significant, as the story
of JFK’s own experience as captain of
the PT-109 became well known. In fact,
the series made occasional references
to a “young captain of the PT-109.”
McHale’s Navy was also unique in
that its pilot episode wasn’t a comedy,
but a 90-minute drama entitled “Seven
Against the Sea.” It aired on 3 April 1962.
McHale, the boat designation of PT-73,
and several lesser characters made it to
the reconfigured comedy series that fall.
The popularity of the show also
spawned a spin-off, Broadside, that
lasted a year from September 1964
to September 1965, for 32 episodes.
It was a kind of coed McHale’s Navy
about a group of WAVES who were
placed in charge of a motor pool in
the South Pacific. The jocularity of
the show was based on the idea they
were the only women on the island.
While CBS wasn’t much of a player in
the drama arena, they hit gold with the
iconic Hogan’s Heroes, about a group of
Allied POWs in a German prison camp.
Hogan’s men were incarcerated from
September 1965 to March 1971, longer
than America had been in the real World
War II. The show holds the record for
most episodes by a WWII series (168),
and until recently it was broadcast daily
on the TV Land cable network. It also
had its share of criticism for its portrayal
of German soldiers, particularly Nazis,
56 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
as being amiable buffoons at heart. Bob
Crane played Col. Robert Hogan, and
one of his underlings was a youthful
Richard Dawson, who later became
well known as the first emcee of the
daytime game show Family Feud.
The last World War II comedy was
Mr. Roberts, which aired 30 episodes
from September 1965 to April 1966
on NBC. It was based on the 1955 film
of the same name, which in turn was
based on the best selling 1946 novel.
By 1968 the country’s attention was
largely taken up by the war in Viet Nam,
and programs about World War II fell out
of favor as weekly body counts became
a staple on the nightly news. It remained
that way for eight years, until Baa Baa
Black Sheep, a show whose name was
changed to Black Sheep Squadron in its
second year, hit the airwaves in 1976.
Loosely based on the exploits of Pappy
Boyington’s famous outfit, it suffered
from a number of flaws, not the least
of which was its hopelessly inaccurate
portrayal of the famed unit and the
conditions under which they’d fought.
It was essentially a long buddy movie
with a war intervening every so often.
As the Washington Post put it, the show
was a “war-is-swell series [aimed] at
anyone who remembers World War II as a
rousing, blowzy, fraternity turkey-shoot.”
The series used stock footage
from the movie “Battle of Britain,”
and German markings can be seen
on many enemy aircraft. It muddled
its way through 37 episodes into
1978. Star Robert Conrad, who played
Boyington, had earlier become famous
for portraying the title character of the
series Wild Wild West, what would today
be called a “steam punk” western.
Black Sheep brought to a close World
War II as a backdrop for weekly TV
series, though there have since been
a number of excellent mini-series,
from Holocaust to Band of Brothers.
Ironically, technology has advanced
to the point where those shows are
now readily available again for another
generation. For example, a recent
trip to the mall found a year of Rat
Patrol episodes on sale for $13.00.
You could call it the digital rebirth
of the golden age of a lost genre.
— Lee Enderlin
I Remember
The Story of Richard Olsen
I was born in Kent in England
in 1919, and at the age of 16 began
working at a refinery on the Thames
River processing copra for margarine
and cattle cake. I spent four years
there, but when war began in 1939 the
government called up 20-year-olds
for service, and I was sent to France
after only three months training. I felt I
wasn’t really the army “type”; it was like
fitting a square peg into a round hole.
I became a truck driver in the Royal
Army Service Corps, and was responsible
for delivering supplies to front line units.
We had little to do during the “Phoney
War,” when we did little more than
stare at the Germans across the border.
That changed suddenly in May 1940.
When the Germans attacked it came
as a complete shock. The sky was black
with German planes, and their tanks
advanced so quickly we were thrown
into complete chaos. I was sleeping in
a barn at the time, and the initial attack
happened so fast I was forced to leave
all my belongings behind. I hitched a
ride in the back of a truck and fell asleep
near Ypres. I awoke when the truck ran
off the road and rolled. I was pinned
under ammunition caissons and I had
to be pulled out or I would’ve been left
there for the Germans to capture.
Our headlong retreat only
ended when we had our back against the
English Channel in the port of Dunkirk.
The lands all around were flooded,
and I had to walk the last five miles in
ankle-deep water. But it was a blessing,
because the flooded land slowed the
German tanks. I also think they were
too busy looting by that point to pay us
much attention. Thank God for that.
I ended up on the beach with
hundreds of thousands of other British
and French soldiers. There was no panic,
though, because we were sure we would
be rescued. I remember there were ships
that had been hit by the Luftwaffe burn-
ing just offshore. A burning destroyer
fired her torpedoes into the water so
they wouldn’t explode on deck, and I was
chased halfway up the beach by one.
I spent four days sleeping on the
cold, wet beach and scrounging for
food before it was my turn to board
a ship for transport to England. It
was a coal ship, and there was no
room in the hold to sit down. We were
jammed in like sardines. I was black
as the ace of spades when I got off.
I spent the remainder of 1940 in
England, guarding the coast against
the threatened German invasion. I
then volunteered for service in North
Africa. I was single and had no worries
or cares; so I thought it was the thing
to do. I was young and had no fear.
To get to Africa my ship went down
the east coast of the United States, then
across the Atlantic to Dakar, around the
Horn of Africa, past Madagascar, into the
Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and then
we finally disembarked in Egypt. There
I was assigned to the 19th Transport
Company, 7th Armoured Division.
People don’t realize how cold it gets at
night in the desert. It’s as cold as winter,
and you have to really bundle up to stay
warm. When it rains, it rains so much
the sand is turned into a sea of mud. We
were bogged down to our truck axles, but
so was the enemy; so the fighting would
stop for a while. Sometimes flash flood-
ing would turn a stretch of desert into a
swollen river in minutes and we’d lose
trucks that would have to be pulled out.
Navigating could be difficult
because of sandstorms and soft sands
the trucks would sink into. Most of the
roads were just tracks, and sometimes
we drove directly across the desert; our
road markers were sticks driven into
the ground topped with empty cans.
I started with a Bedford truck, but
most of our trucks were Chevrolets
that came new from Canada. The
sand was hard on their engines,
and unfortunately they didn’t come
with air conditioning, which made
them terribly uncomfortable.
I was lucky enough to see the
pyramids and the Sphinx, to swim in
the Mediterranean, and spend a few
weeks in Cairo, things most people
don’t get to do, but I also remember
how terribly poor the people were.
Tobruk stands out in my mind.
The Aussies had been trapped there
by the Germans for months and the
fighting was fierce. When we chased
the Germans off and drove in, the
devastation was terrible. There were
few buildings left standing, though a
church still stood, and buzzards were all
over the place because of all the death.
I saw service throughout 1941 and
1942, and participated in the victory at
El Alamein. The Germans were good
soldiers, but the Italians didn’t have their
hearts in the war and didn’t fight well.
At El Alamein we had a huge advantage
in artillery and a four-to-one advantage
in tanks. The battle lasted more than
a week, but in the end we beat the
Germans and they had to retreat. They
were starved of supplies, trucks and
equipment of all kinds, and it was only
heavy rains that slowed our follow up.
We chased the Germans through
Libya and into Tunisia, where the
sandy terrain turned into rocky desert
and mountains. It was a real change
after more than a year on wide-open
land. We then drove the Germans from
North Africa. Rommel was the best
they had, and we beat him. We gave
Montgomery at lot of credit for that.
In 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily and
then mainland Italy. My unit remained
in Tunisia on occupation duty until
1944 when it landed in Rome, which
had already been liberated. Rome
was a beautiful city, and I got to see
the Coliseum and posed with the
company in front of the Vatican. But
a lot of Italy had been damaged in the
war, and bombed out buildings were
everywhere. It was sad to see such
destruction in such a beautiful country.
The next year was spent driving
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 57
the Germans north in what was as a
slow, painful slog. The 88s in particular
made things difficult, since they played
murderous hell on our forces and
knocked out so many of our tanks. We
had to fight for every mile gained, and
we paid a heavy price in men lost.
They wanted to train me as a
mechanic at that time, but I said no way.
Spending days under a truck wasn’t for
me; so I spent the entire war as a truck
driver. I enjoyed what I did, so I didn’t
see any reason to change. Of course,
I did more than drive trucks. We had
to maintain our vehicles, and we also
took turns in the kitchens. Also, when
not on the front line we sometimes
had to work in the officers’ mess.
We went all the way up to Florence
by the time the war ended in May 1945.
My service wasn’t over yet, though. I
was sent to Germany for occupation
duty, where I witnessed the devastation
brought by the war. It was terrible seeing
entire cities destroyed. I was happy when
my time came to go home. I hitched a
ride in a Lancaster bomber and found
that an exciting experience. After six
years in the army, I was demobilized
and was a civilian once again.   ✪
— As told to Andrew Hind
top — The 19th Company workshop
above left — Egypt
above right — Standing in front of my truck
The Conquerors
The Macedonians
Alexander in Persia, 334-331 BC
In the Spring of 334 B.C., young king
Alexander of Macedon with an army
40,000 strong, set out to fulfill the
centuries old dream of his countrymen
by launching the invasion of the Persian
Empire, the largest and most powerful
empire in the Mediterranean world.
The Romans
Mediterranean Expansion, 200-189 BC
A century and a half later, the Roman
Republic was just emerging from its 2nd
and most debilitating conflict with the
Mediterranean trading power — Carthage.
Philip V was on the throne of Macedon,
and his interventions in Greek politics
would soon draw Rome’s response
and eventual advance to become an
Eastern Mediterranean power.
Even after several years of conflict with
Philip, Rome would not rest. Rome found
herself again involved in an immense con-
flict — this time in Asia. The great Seleucid
King, Antiochus, threatened the very exis-
tence of Rome’s two key allies — Rhodes
and Pergamum — and threatened to
march into Europe itself on a mission of
conquest. Thus began the Syrian War.
58 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011
The Conquerors is a double game
that covers both of these theatres of
conquest at a grand strategic level.
Each game in this Twin-Pack has its
own counters, rules and game map.
However, the rules of both games are
based upon the same system so that
having played one it is quite simple
to play the other. Also introduced is
an optional Tactical Battle System.
Game components include:
Two large rules books; two large
playing maps, 1,200 die-cut counters;
plus numerous player aids.
Battle for Stalingrad
In the autumn of 1942, 14 German
divisions of the Sixth Army and Fourth
Panzer Army were poised to attack
the vital city of Stalingrad. Facing the
German forces were dozens of divi-
sions and brigades of the Soviet 62nd
army. For seven weeks the Germans
would hammer at the city in a seesaw
conflict for control of the Volga River.
Battle for Stalingrad simulates the cam-
paign that would halt the German drive to
the east in the Soviet Union. The playing
map represents the terrain in and around
Stalingrad, and the colorful cardboard
playing pieces reflect the sizes and
strengths of the opposing military units.
Battle for Stalingrad is a classic game
design by noted game designer John Hill.
Game components include:
Two rule booklets (standard and optional),
600 die cut cardboard playing pieces, one
22 x 34 inch map and various player aids.

A Mighty Fortress
Between 1531 and 1555 the world
shook to the reverberations of a
struggle whose resolution was to
chart the course of Europe’s religious
and political alliances for centuries. It
was in these years that the conflicting
ideologies of Lutheran Reformation
and Catholic Counter-Reformation
inexorably drew the disparate empires,
nations, and leaders of Europe into a
maelstrom of religious war and dispute.
A Mighty Fortress simulates this major
historical conflict on a beautifully illustrat-
ed political map of Europe. Colorful card-
board playing pieces move, position. And
engage in battle upon this map through
a superimposed hexagonal grid, which
functions like a chessboard’s squares.
Game components include:
One rules booklet, 200 die cut
playing pieces, one 22 x 34 inch
map and various player aids.
Classic
History
Classic
Games
Ancient Conquest
Ancient Conquest is a classic and highly
rated multiplayer game covering at a
grand strategic level the rise and fall of
empires and peoples in the ancient near
east. Ancient Assyria, Egypt, Babylon
and the Hittites are all included, as
well as numerous other powers.
Historically, a highly accurate game,
while yet designed with elegantly
simple game mechanics; Ancient
Conquest is sure to be a favorite. A
must for any game enthusiast.
Game components include:
Full color rule booklet, one map and 200
die cut counters and numerous charts.
available from:
Decision Games
(661) 587-9633 | (661) 587-5031 fax
P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield CA 93390
decisiongames.com
World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 59
Media Reviews
Victoria II
The end and beginning of an era
www.paradoxplaza.com
V
ictoria II is a grand-strategic
computer game of political,
economic and military
confrontation during the 19th and early
20th century. Old empires are dying and
new ones are rising. New technologies
begin to emerge; new ideologies come
to the forefront, and the industrial rev-
olution is primed to change the world.
The player’s (or players’) main
interaction is as an autocratic overseer
of a single country over the course
of that era. You can choose to play
one of eight “great powers” (France,
Russia, Austria, Britain, Prussia, Spain,
the Ottoman Empire or the US) or,
impressively, one of over 100 “minor
powers” (what the game terms “second
rank powers”). Inasmuch as the game
encompasses the globe, you can opt
to play even obscure countries, and
you will then be tasked to cope with all
the unique challenges of that nation.
The level of detail and specificity is
amazing. Though you might think the
game would only be fun while playing
a great power, wielding all the strength
that comes with being a mighty empire;
however, the game is just as interesting
when playing a small countries. You
can take on the challenge of playing
60 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011 NK_sixthpageST.indd 1
Belgium, for example, and experience
the unique circumstances facing Attention WaW Readers:
that country. Playing as Belgium you
couldn’t hope to win a war against We’re always looking for media reviewers
France, for instance, but you could for Strategy & Tactics and World at War.
be faced with a war against the Any media will do: book, magazine, film,
Netherlands, or perhaps become an website, etc. Absolute maximum word count
ally of France in a war against Prussia, is 500. We want critical analysis, not just
or you could be challenged by having descriptions. Contact Chris Perello, at:
to cope with a myriad of internal chris@christopherperello.com
problems, everything from competing
political parties, trade imbalances,
cultural tensions, civil war, etc.
The scope of the game is intricate,
and it’s not merely a wargame. War
is simply one component of the geo-
strategic realities. You must also manage
production, the national budget, tender
to the needs of your people, balance
diplomatic considerations, officiate
trade, and orchestrate burgeoning
technologies. Winning the game is a
matter of becoming dominant in your
own nation’s sphere. A successful war
is certainly one way of doing that,
but it’s not the only way, and often
it’s not the best way (especially when
playing as a second rate rower).
Aesthetically and graphically,
Victoria II is stunning. The amount
of detail is immense, and it should
be regarded as complex. It requires
intricate management of every facet
of governance, more than would even
be possible for one person in reality.
Even so, a studious and detail-oriented
player will find the game enthralling,
especially because the level of control
over every aspect of a nation’s destiny
can be modified, adjusted and tuned.
The outcome of any game is thus
unpredictable, and is affected by the
extent of your involvement in every
aspect of your nation’s affairs. In fact,
the level of detail in Victoria II is unsur-
passed in any other computer game,
and its presentation of the dynamics
of the era it models surpasses what
would be presented in most college
classes on the topic. Indeed, Victoria II
is virtually a geo-strategic time capsule.
— Eric Harvey
6/08/10 12:28 PM
Enjoy Crowns in
the Gutter
these book A Strategic Analysis of World War I

Ted S. Raicer

titles from
Strategy &
Tactics Crowns in With
Press the Gutter
A Strategic Analysis
Custer
at the
of World War I

The Quest for
Annihilation
The Role & Mechanics of Battle
in the American Civil War
by Christopher Perello
Civil War came to the US when the first
shot was fired at Fort Sumter on 12 April
1861. Most, including the leaders of both
sides, thought it would be won or lost
quickly, with a great battlefield collision.
Instead, it ground on for four years.
Battles were frequent, but each one rarely
decided more than the control of a single
town or a few blood soaked fields.
The Quest for Annihilation examines
those battles and the reasons they failed to
produce a decision. The book is loaded with
detail, and is illustrated with more than
320 maps, diagrams, photographs, orders
of battle and data tables (320 pages).
Retail price: $ 35
(+ $ 6 US Shipping)
by Ted S. Raicer
Illustrated by Christopher Perello
World War I was the crucial event of
the 20th century, as the great European
powers — which until then dominated
the world economically, militarily and
politically — destroyed themselves. That led
to a second war a generation later, enabled
the ascendance of the United States and
Soviet Union, and unleashed the forces of
nationalism and self-determination around
the globe. On the battlefield the war ushered
in the age of the internal-combustion
engine and wireless communication,
making factories and science as important
as manpower and generalship.
In the midst of all that, politicians and
generals still had a war to win, and soldiers
a war to fight. Crowns in the Gutter provides
a concise analysis of the strategies and
tactics employed to to try to achieve those
goals. The chapters cover the entire war
chronologically. They weave together
the campaigns and battles with political
events, improvements in weapons and
changes in combat methodology, into one
seamless story. The narrative also has
dozens of maps and diagrams to further
illustrate all the action of the first total war.
Death
by Robert F. Burke
The fascination with Custer’s Last Stand
hasn’t diminished in the decades since
1876. He led his regiment well ahead
of the main body, only to run into an
unprecedented gathering of Indians. The
first accounts were pieced together by
other soldiers arriving on the scene in the
battle’s aftermath, and by archaeologists
in the generations since. To that
information was added the reminiscences
of the Indians who fought there.
Interleaving and cross-referencing all
those accounts provides a minute-by-
minute story of the fighting, as Custer
desperately and expertly maneuvered
his outnumbered troops to face repeated
and well-coordinated assaults by bands
of Indian warriors. The resultant narrative
is supported by dozens of detailed maps
and orders of battle for both sides.
Available in early November for $ 29.95.

Retail price: $ 35
(+ $ 6 US Shipping)

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rmor at
Gen.

Kursk, Junk:
William
GUArDS
KABUL 1979: Fatal

T. Sherman

ly 1943
Grant
tAnK: Battle
Cold War Victory

the Strategy

The
of
6−7 Ap
Wins

ril
at Shiloh
at Kursk
| AtomiC WAr

& tactics

Battl
Wilur
Sh
Pe
| Fulani
| HUrtGEn

of World

#263 JUL-AUG 2010

e zbur
oh omic:
186
g
nt
Jihad
Army: ForESt

War ii

2 That Never W
The Battle
| tHE
Davy Crockett
| mAnCHUr
& Elvis
BULGE

#264 SEP−OCT

as
Presley

2010

| Caesar’s Last
: Hitler’s
iA: Japan’s
Last Stand Battle
View
| russia
invade
s Georgi
a, 2008

#13 AUG−SEP
2010

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62 World at War 15 | DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

build an Empire . Govern a Nation . Forge a Society

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© 2010 p
paradox
aradox interactive. all rights reserved. victoria 2 is a trademark of p
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aradox interactive.
 Introducing the Decision Games
Folio Game Series
The Folio Game Series provides dozens of games using the same eight-page Standard rules
(Musket & Saber for 19th century battles, Fire & Movement for WWII and modern battles) with a short
Exclusive rules sheet for each individual game to capture the unique aspects of each battle. Each game can
be played in about 90 minutes allowing for multiple games to be played in an afternoon or evening.

Chalons: The Fate of Europe | Marengo: Morning Defeat, Afternoon Victory

Leipzig: Napoleon Encircled | Chickamauga: River of Death | Stones River: Turning Point in Tennessee
Frayser’s Farm: Wasted Opportunity | Shiloh: Grant Surprised | Arnhem: The Farthest Bridge
NEW
Cauldron: Battle for Gazala | Kasserine: Baptism of Fire (below) | Saipan: Conquest of the Marianas
RELEASES
Bastogne: A Desperate Defense | Aachen: First to Fall | Crusader: Battle for Tobruk AVAILABLE
Naktong Bulge: Breaking the Perimeter | Golan: The Last Syrian Offensive | DMZ: The Next Korean War
Showdown: The Coming Indo-Pakistani War

KASSER
INE
WORLD W
Baptism of AR II BATT
Fire LES
By February 1943
, much of the FOLIO GA
inexperienced
US II Corps had ME SERI
deployed along
a small canyo
the trails leadi
ng
been ES
n known as Kass through
Pass. The US erine
commander,
Fredendall, had Gen. Lloyd
overextended
units, dividing his lead
them into indiv
unsupported idual,

Kasserine
packets while
his flanks. Rom disregarded
mel was quick
the opportunit to
y to inflict a defea recognize
untested Ame t on the
ricans, and he
an offensive soon mounted
with two panze
r divisions.
Kasserine utilize
s the new Fire
combat syste & Movement
m that’s desig
can augment
their
ned so players
during the cours units with “support fire” Baptism of Fi
to dive bomb
to engage enem
e of the turn.
ers, units can
From artillery
receive support
re
y positions and
allowing comb formations,
at to develop
A single recon at all levels.
battalion, for
perhaps supp example —
orted by mort
be tasked to ars — could
assault a lone
regiment defen enemy infantry
ding a ridge.
gets underway As that attack
, however, the
battalion may recon
find
a minefield. More itself advancing through
to take the ridge support will be necessary
, but assets are
limited.
In Kasserine,
the attritional
new Combat design of the
Results Table
true nature of simulates the
the battles in
Units are typic North Africa.
ally two- sided
that can suffe form
r casualties, accu ations
replicating the rately
realities of comb
the high losse at and
s sustained by
during the actua both
l fighting at Kass sides
Pass. Winning erine
is thus a matt
firepower and er of
asset manageme maneuver,
nt.

Game Conten
ts:
• 17 x 22” (43 x 56
cm) terrain map
• 100 die-cut coun
ters
• One Standard
Rules booklet
• One Exclusive for this series
Rules booklet
for this title

Kasserine
PLAYERS
2

LEVEL II III X XX XXX

BATTALION
HEX SCALE
mi (536 m)
PLAYING TIME
Each counter repres
ents 1-2 hrs
formation from among an individual historical
other Allied forces the German, Italian
that , US and COMPLEXITY
Pass, including anti-ta fought around Kasserine •••••
LOW
1610 nk brigades, panze
battalions, range
rs, recon elements r grenadier
Minutes to lea
and more. SOLITAIRE ••••• rn. Quick to pla
HIGH
y. Historicall
A FOLIO SERIES
A product of
GAME
Decision Games
y Accurate.
Copyright © ,
2010. All Rights Inc.
Reserved.

1/6 th Actual Size Copyright ©

2010, Decisio
n Games, Inc.
www.decision
All Rights Reserve
d. Made & Printed
games.com in U.S.A.

Each game under $25 (most under $20)

P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 | (661) 587-9633 phone | (661) 587-5031 fax | decisiongames.com
Soft Underbelly: Italy 1943 | Cloak & Dagger in Britain | SANGSHAK | Polish Military in 1939

The Strategy & Tactics of World War II #15 DEC 2010 − JAN 2011

Soft Underbelly:
Italy 1943

US & CAN $ 29.99 with complete historical game