Brazilian Troops and Airmen in WWII Italy
Royal Marines vs. North Korean Trains
An Iraqi army T-72 burns after a portable antitank missile set off its fuel and ammunition, 2003.
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Turning the Tide in Hudson Bay, 1697 Charles de Gaulle in the Crosshairs
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2 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 24
The FromBoysBrazil vs. Grunts
Recent decades have witnessed an escalating technological duel between tanks and the heretofore hapless foot soldier. By Jon Guttman 14 FiguresSabinInterviewHowardofWar 18 ThreeValor Cheers! Letters 6 Dispatches 8WINTER 2023 DepartmentsFeatures MIHP-230100-CONTENTS.indd 2 9/6/22 2:22 PM
South America’s largest nation played a vital, if underappreciated, combat role in World War II Italy. By Jerome A. Long 34 Armor
By of Asia de Gaulle!
Turning the Tide in Hudson Bay
3 48 The Train Wreckers Answering the Allied call for amphibious raiders during the Korean War, the Royal Marines of 41 Commando wreaked havoc behind enemy lines.
Mark Simner 20 What 326–325Campaign,TheLearnedWeFrom...Mallian bc 22 ThunderboltRepublicHardwareP-47D 76 GermanyRhaetianUpperGroundHallowedGermanic-Limes, On the cover: An Iraqi T-72 tank burns after being knocked out during the opening battles of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Modern armored vehicles are increasingly vulnerable to man-portable weapons. (Andy Cross/Denver Post/Getty Images) 62 The Master
Minor When strategists praise the military prowess of the Roman general Lucullus, many others wonder, Who? By Matthew T. Beazley 40 Kill
In 1962 a team of would-be assassins—some of them Algerian War veterans—lay in wait for the president’s convoy in suburban Paris. By Ron Soodalter 56
In the fall of 1697 a minor action in the subarctic shifted the balance of power in colonial North America. By Jon Bradley and Sam Allison Reviews 70 War Games 78 Captured! 80 MIHP-230100-CONTENTS.indd 3 9/6/22 2:22 PM
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List Rental Inquiries: Belkys Reyes, Lake Group Media, Inc. 914-925-2406; belkys.reyes@lakegroupmedia.com Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519 Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001 The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of HistoryNet, LLC PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN Chairman & Publisher WINTER 2023 VOL. 39, NO. 3 Sign up for our FREE weekly e-newsletter at historynet.com/newsletters HISTORYNET VISIT HISTORYNET.COMPLUS! Today in History What happened today, yesterday or any day you care to search. Daily Quiz Test your historical acumen every day! What If? Consider the fallout of historical events had they gone the ‘other’ way. Weapons & Gear The gadgetry of war—new and old, effective and not so effective. During the bitter winter of 1951 an outnumbered regimental combat team turned the tide of the Korean War at Chipyong-ni. By Daniel Ramos Historynet.com/Chipyong-ni When Push Came to Shove at Chipyong-ni TRENDING NOW MIHP-230100-MASTHEAD.indd 4 9/7/22 1:27 PM
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“Seconds of Silence,” by Ron Soodalter, in the March 2022 issue, immediately brought to mind the V-1 on display at the courthouse square in Greencastle, Ind. I thought your readers would like to know about this unique World War II memorial. Tanks and field artillery can be found in several locations across our nation to honor our veterans, but this is one of a few sur viving V-1 buzz bombs for the public to see.
ships—similar armament, but much better armor. Prime example: HMS Hood (battle cruiser) and HMS Prince of Wales (battleship) together took on Bismarck (battleship). Prince of Wales was knocked about some, but Hood was blown out of the water. A good design idea can be defeated by unwise utilization.
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In “Last Shot of Glory” [March 2021] Dave Kindy errone ously states that the patrol boat USS Eagle 56 was “the last American warship sunk in the Atlantic.” In fact the de stroyer escort Frederick C. Davis (DE-136) was sunk on April 24, 1945 the day after Eagle was lost. Davis was sunk by U-546 while conducting anti-submarine maneuvers during Operation Teardrop. My father, Seaman Clarence H. Wolff, was aboard Davis’ sister ship Herbert C. Jones (DE-137) during the incident.
EditorOttawa,LegaultOntarioresponds:No disrespect intended. In our list of World War I casualties of Allied pow ers we combined the statistics of Commonwealth casualties under the erroneous heading “Britain.” Other nations fall ing under the Commonwealth category and deserving of in dividual recognition include Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland (today a province of Canada) and South Africa. Unintention ally dropped from the list was Romania (with upward of 250,000 military deaths).
Same Idea, But...
Pierre
‘Buzz Bomb’ Memorial
Dan Batesville,Goris Ind.
Please include name, address and phone number
New Freedom, Pa.
Editor responds: Thanks for correcting the record. Davis (“The Fightin’ Freddie”) sank in the North Atlantic with the loss of 115 members of its 209man complement. For more information visit the memorial website ussfrederickdavis.com.
Oops War
MIHP-230100-LETTERS.indd 6 9/6/22 2:25 PM
Wayne W. Wolff
6 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 PHOTO)STOCK(ALAMYGALANROBERTO Letters
Last Ship Down
Gary DrexelSalkindHill,Pa.
V (for “victory”) pedestal, which features a plaque bear ing the names of all Putnam County men killed in the war. The monument was unveiled on Nov. 11, 1948, Armistice Day (renamed Veterans Day in 1954). Before his 2011 death Durham endowed a fund for the upkeep of the memorial.
Editor responds: Thanks to the efforts of Greencastle resident and naval reservist J. Frank Durham, Greencastle boasts one of 10 known surviving V-1s on display in the United States. In 1947 Durham, while helping to dispose of captured enemy ordnance, came across the flying bomb (see photo) and pressed for its donation to the Greencastle chapter of the Vet erans of Foreign Wars. Local businesses donated funds to ward a memorial, and Indiana State Sen. William B. Hoadley, who’d lost his only son in World War II, donated its limestone
Jones and other ships as signed to the task force at tacked the U-boat with depth charges, eventually forcing it to surface and capturing survivors. The sub’s crew were subsequently interrogated at Naval Station Argentia [Newfoundland] to deter mine if any U-boats were out fitted with V-1 or V-2 rockets to bombard the East Coast.
I enjoyed Dan McEwen’s “The ‘Oops’ War,” in the March 2022 edition. However, I was disappointed (and dismayed) that he didn’t mention Can ada’s contribution to World War I in terms of its war dead (67,000 out of an expedition ary force of 620,000). Canada punched above its weight in World War I, and its contribu tion was significant. McEwen includes all combatants in his numbers, including Japan (fewer than 1,000 war dead). So why leave out Canada?
In the Autumn 2022 issue’s Hardware column Jon Gutt man writes that the U.S. Navy heavy frigates (specifically Constitution) were “designed to…outrun whatever they couldn’t outgun and outgun anything they could not out run.” A century later similar thinking led to the develop ment of the battle cruisers. The American heavy frig ates are considered to have been a great success. Battle cruisers, on the other hand, were a disaster. Why? The design concept was the same, but the ships were used dif ferently. Heavy frigates were mainly commerce raiders— they could defeat any reason able convoy escort. The battle cruisers were misused by sending them against battle
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On Jan. 31, 1968, the first day of the Tet Offensive, enemy forces attacked Birdwell’s armored unit at an airbase near Saigon. He fired his tank’s cannon and machine gun until running out of ammunition. Despite being wounded, he kept fighting with an M-16 and grenades and aided the injured until ordered to evacuate.
Former U.S. Army Spc. 5 Dennis Fujii was among those to receive a Medal of Honor from President Joe Biden. One of the four awards was posthumous.
On Feb. 18, 1971, Fujii’s medevac helicopter was downed at a South Vietnamese base in Laos. Though his crew was evacuated, he remained on the ground to rally defenders, aid the wounded and direct gunship fire. On February 20 a rescue helicopter carrying Fujii crashed at another South Vietnamese base, where he remained for two more days before being airlifted out for medical care.
Kaneshiro was one of four Army veterans of the Vietnam War so honored with their nation’s highest award for valor. U.S. Army Maj. John J. Duffy, Spc. 5 Dwight W. Birdwell and Spc. 5 Dennis M. Fujii received their medals in person from President Joe Biden.
On April 12, 1972, when North Vietnamese overran his battalion command post, Duffy was twice wounded but refused evacuation. On April 14–15, despite being wounded a third time, he rallied defenders at a landing zone, directing air strikes against enemy forces and ensuring all others had been evacuated before boarding a rescue helicopter.
By Dave Kindy
8 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 SYSTEM)HEALTH(MILITARYBIVERAJOHNNYLEFT:ARMY);(U.S.VILLARAMAHENRYSGT.TOP: ASSOCIATIONMEMORIALSTORMDESERTNATIONALBOTTOM:NAVY);(U.S.CRENSHAWTAYLORCLASS3RDSPECIALISTCOMMUNICATIONMASSTOP:
Dispatches
HONORS MIHP-230100-DISPATCHES-BW.indd 8 9/8/22 3:21 PM
Medals of Honor to Four Vietnam Veterans
SOUND OFF
‘Moral courage—doing what has to be done, because it is the right thing to do—is the mark of a true hero’
I
n the Kim Son Valley of South Vietnam on Dec. 1, 1966, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed ward N. Kaneshiro jumped into an enemy trench alone to confront attacking North Vietnamese, enabling his platoon’s withdrawal. After Kaneshiro’s combat death on March 6, 1967, his grieving widow, Mitsuko, seldom discussed his service with their five children. She died on April 10, 2022. On July 5 their son John stepped up to receive his father’s posthumous Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.
—Capt. Thomas G. Kelley, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Medal of Honor recipient for valor in Vietnam
WAR RECORD
REMEMBRANCE
Then Lt. Charles de Gaulle (P. 40) receives the Croix de guerre for leading intelligencegathering missions into German trenches during World War I. De Gaulle led Free French forces during World War II, was elected French president in 1958 and survived several assassination attempts in the wake of the 1954–62 Algerian War fiasco.
France launches the fourthrate ship of the line Pélican Beating the odds, Capt. Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville helmed the 44-gun warship to victory against three British ships at the Sept. 5, 1697, Battle of Hudson Bay (P. 56)—a major leap for French ambitions in North America.
January 1693
On orders from his mentor Sulla, Lucius Lucinius Lucullus (P. 62) leads Roman warships against a rebel Pontic fleet during the First Mithridatic War. Rising to become one of Rome’s most respected gen erals, Lucullus led legions to the brink of victory in the 73–63 bc Third Mithridatic War.
Gulf VeteransWar to Get Their Due MEMORIAL MIHP-230100-DISPATCHES-BW.indd 9 9/7/22 11:41 AM
Midwinter 87–86 bc
Jan. 18, 1915
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The last M10 Wolverine tank destroyer rolls off the assembly line at the Fisher Tank Arsenal in Grand Blanc, Mich. The M10’s 3-inch gun was mounted in a fully rotating tur ret atop a modified M4 Sher man tank chassis. Our portfolio this issue is devoted to less sophisticated, albeit equally lethal, tank destroyers (P. 34).
Task Force Drysdale breaks through to Hagaru-ri during the Battle of the Chosin Reser voir in Korea. The task force is named for Lt. Col. Douglas B. Drysdale, head of 41 (Inde pendent) Commando (P. 48), a unit of Royal Marines whose daring raids on enemy rail lines earned them the nickname the “Train Wreckers.”
December 1943
On June 4, 2022, eight decades after the battle that turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific, survivors of the Battle of Midway gathered to honor those who’ve gone before them. Only two of three invitees attended the 80th anniversary commemoration. Ervin Wendt, 106, and Charles Monroe, 99, both veterans of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron 8, sat beside each other in wheelchairs during ceremonies aboard the decommissioned USS Midway, the longest serving carrier in the 20th century, now a museum ship in San Diego.
Veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf War, dignitaries and guests recently gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to break ground for the forthcoming National Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial. Slated to open in 2023, the monument will honor the 700,000 Americans who spearheaded coalition forces from 35 nations to liberate Kuwait from occupying Iraqi forces. Nearly 300 U.S. service members died during the seven-month campaign.
Last of the Midway Veterans Gather to Recall Pivotal Battle
Nov. 29, 1950
Vice Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, commander of Naval Air Forces, spoke about the June 4–7, 1942, clash, in which carrier-based U.S. warplanes destroyed four Japanese carriers, a heavy cruiser and 248 planes. “Eighty years ago the U.S. Navy entered into what would become the pivotal battle in the Pacific during World War II,” he said. “Not only did the U.S. Navy win that battle in Midway atoll, but it established its naval dominance.”
man “broomhandle” pistol were future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in Sudan and southern Africa, and British army Col. Thomas Edward Lawrence (“of Arabia”), during World War I’s Arab Revolt. C96 Mausers pop up in other films, including the Western Joe Kidd (1972), starring Clint Eastwood. The one used in Star Wars was modified with a vintage Hensoldt scope and a flash hider from a wartime Mauser MG 81 machine gun.
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Congress also presented the medal to U.S. Army Rangers for their World War II service. The specialoperations unit of some 7,000 men fought with notable distinction at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, on D-Day and during the Jan. 30, 1945, raid on the Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan in the Phil ippines. A dozen wartime Rangers remain alive.
FLAG DAY
10 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 PRESS)(ASSOCIATEDCLARKBILLRIGHT:AUCTIONS;ISLANDROCKLEFT:(2);PARKFREEDOMOFFLAGPOLETOP:
Stars and Stripes to Soar to New Heights
If not for steady shipments of equipment and supplies such as ammo, food and fuel worldwide aboard vessels staffed by civilian sailors of the U.S. Merchant Marine the Allies might not have prevailed in World War II. This spring lawmakers honored their service with the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest expression of “national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions.” From 1941 to ’45 more than 215,000 Americans served as merchant mariners.
Congress Honors Merchant Marines, Army Rangers
SOLD
Plans are underway to unfurl a monumental American flag atop the world’s tallest flagpole in time for the nation’s 250th birthday. The Worcester family of Wreaths Across America fame is behind the forthcoming Flagpole of Freedom Park in Columbia Falls, Maine. The park is a natural outreach of Wreaths Across America, which around Christmastime each year arranges to garland vet erans’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery and more than 2,500 other locations in all 50 states, at sea and abroad. Scheduled to open on July 4, 2026, the 2,500-acre park will center on a 1,461-foot flagpole—taller than the Empire State Building and boasting an elevator to observation decks with soaring views. The flag itself will be larger than a football field, at 360 feet long by 208 feet wide.
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The U.S. Army is working to preserve a mural painted in 1943 on a hospital wall at Fort Bliss, Texas, by storied Austrian-born American artist Rudolph von Ripper. A prewar survivor of a German concentration camp, von Ripper moved stateside in 1938, where he rendered anti-Nazi artwork before serving in the Army and OSS. He went on to fight in Italy, earning two Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts. The faded mural depicts a sailor and a soldier flanking a cross-section of Ameri cans holding a map of the United States. The work is captioned, “Our country’s freedom and its people’s way of life the sailor and soldier protects.”
Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams, 98, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient of World War II, died in Huntington, W.Va., on June 29, 2022, his casket lying in state at the U.S. Capitol rotunda (see photo). The Marine Corps veteran’s MOH action came at Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945, when he knocked out a series of Japanese pillboxes with a flamethrower while under heavy fire.
A Ripper of a Mural
Blue Angels Sign Female Flier
Robert E. Simanek, 92, a Korean War recipient of the Medal of Honor, died in Novi, Mich., on Aug. 1, 2022. On Aug. 17, 1952, in battle north of Seoul, South Korea, the Marine Corps private booted away one grenade, which exploded and left shrapnel in his legs, then jumped on a second. He spent nearly a year recovering from his wounds.
MIHP-230100-DISPATCHES-BW.indd 12 9/7/22 12:23 PM
TAPS
For the first time in its 76-year his tory the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron has welcomed a female jet pilot into its elite ranks. Lieutenant Amanda Lee (call sign “Stalin”), an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot with the “Gladia tors” of Strike Fighter Squadron 106 (VFA-106) out of Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., is among six officers who will join the Blue Angels this fall with an eye toward performing next year. In 2015 Marine Maj. Katie Cook was the first woman to join the squadron, as the pilot of a KC-130 Hercules logistics aircraft.
ART OF WAR
Harold Billow, 99—the last known survivor of the infamous 1944 German massacre of U.S. troops outside Malmedy, Belgium—died in Mount Joy, Pa., on May 17, 2022. Billow was attached to the Army’s 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion when cap tured during the Battle of the Bulge. On Dec. 17, 1944, Waffen-SS soldiers machinegunned more than 80 unarmed American POWs. Billow was among 43 men who survived the massacre.
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Bradford C. Freeman, 97, died in Columbus, Miss., on July 3, 2022. During World War II the young soldier served in Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division—the “Band of Brothers” honored in the epon ymous Stephen Ambrose book and HBO miniseries. Freeman parachuted into combat at Normandy and fought in some of the war’s biggest battles.
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Approaching Burano Island off of northern Venice was like being swept away in a dream. Known for its brightly-painted fisherman houses that line the canals, I was greeted with every color of the rainbow. Since before the Venetian Republic, Burano was home to fishermen and legend says that the houses were painted in bright hues so they could see their way home when fog blanketed the Inspirationlagoon.
Send Her Over The Rainbow
I look at elements of the head, like around the mouth and the eyes and the skull, and think how to portray specific feelings. When we move our facial muscles over the bones, those muscles explain emo tions because of how we move our fea tures to express our feelings. Also, I think about how the head is pitched over the rib cage, how the rib cage is angled, how the shoulders or the shoulder girdles are pitched. I learned how the body is as sembled through a proportional and ana tomical system that is very scientific. You do not arrive at your art form as an acci dent. You look at what you see, and you deduce. Then you can pose the model as you wish to bring out a specific story.
It is the first time, absolutely. It’s not the concept of doing violence in art. When I was posing models in the beginning in my studio, dressing them in uniform and coming up with the story line it be came emotional, because I realized how tragic this war was. If you look at the millions of people who were killed, it is such a number outside our human con cept of what is possible. If millions died, then how many people were affected?
Sabin Howard
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What is your design concept, and how are you expressing it?
The overall design was huge and epic, almost like a voyage. I was given almost carte blanche, which is amazing. Edwin Fountain, former vice chair of the World War I Centennial Commission, wanted something very similar to what you see in front of the U.S. Capitol building, the [Henry] Shrady sculptures. I came up with 12,000 pictures of models over nine months—all different iterations of in dividual poses. Those individual poses then fit into 18 full-length iterations. I learned a tremendous amount about how to compose. I’ve never done this
Yes. It’s so important. The models I used in the beginning were actors, but they did not carry the gravitas. A British friend came to me, and I asked him, “Why do you want to be one of the models for me?” He said his great-grandfather and great-uncle had been in World War I. My daughter Madeleine Howard is the first and last figure. My daughter Julia, a doctor, portrayed a nurse and appears holding a gassed soldier. I also have com bat veterans as my models.
By Zita Ballinger Fletcher
I don’t draw inspiration from them only. I use the same methodology in my cre ative process. I’m working from life. I’m using similar tools to what they used. I’m using the concept of how light falls over form to explain form. I use technol ogy like photogrammetry and milling of foam as my armature, but then I go back and work traditionally the same way that they did. That’s the difference. A lot of artists today work from a com puter screen and photographs, which are flat images and already a translation from nature. I’m working directly from nature. It’s very important.
before. I used all my drawing, anatomi cal and sculptural skills to come up with these compositions that finally evolved into A Soldier’s Journey
14 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 STUDIOGLASSRANDY HOWARDSABINBYPHOTO
Interview Figures of War
What goes through your mind when you are creating the emotions on their faces?
Yes and no. This is a difficult question. Every time I jump onto a new figure,
Have works from Renaissance or ancient artists inspired you?
Sabin Howard is a master figurative sculptor and authority on modern classicism. Raised in New York and Torino, Italy, he studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, earned an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and taught undergraduate- and graduate-level art for 20 years. In 2016 the World War I Centennial Commis sion (created by an act of Congress in 2013) chose Howard to sculpt a bronze relief for the National World War I Memorial under construction in Persh ing Square in Washington, D.C. On track to be completed by late 2023, his larger-than-life sculpture is 58 feet long, 10 feet high and comprises 38 bronze figures. Howard [sabinhoward.com] began sculpting the figures in August 2019 and continues work on the project at his studio in Englewood, N.J. He spoke with Military History about his methods, vision for the work and ap proach as an artist to the theme of war.
Have any of the figures proved personally meaningful to you?
Do you use live models for all the figures?
Is this the first time you have depicted human figures at war, and have you found it challenging to capture violent conflict in art?
of the artist.
They gave me a deeper conceptual un derstanding of the human beings that went through this experience. I did not use pictures to come up with the poses. The poses came from a dialogue with the client and my own ideas. I would pose the models and come up with props that would hold them in positions they couldn’t hold. It was a huge amount of effort. It came from just studio prac tice. The photographs of World War I
What has been the most challenging aspect of the project?
What do you want visitors to the memorial to take away from the figures?
I want them to have a visceral reaction to all the emotions we carry and experience as human beings. That’s what this story is about. A lot of memorials are very true and faithful to the military garb and the gear, and that’s very important. But to
Howard’s goal in creating the figures for A Soldier’s Journey is to focus on the human experience, specifically the ways in which war—and healing—transform people.
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15 STUDIOGLASSRANDY HOWARDSABINBYPHOTO
‘Every time I jump onto a new figure, I enter into the same level of doing my best. Every single thing I touch, I’m in it’
How do you ensure that weapons, uniforms and other historical details are accurate?
There are two. One was learning to main tain focus and stay at peak potential for four years on a daily basis. The other was learning how to lead this crew, because we have to accomplish the mission. We have to come in on time and stay at the highest level possible. There is no alter
That’s pretty simple. I bought World War I guns and have a whole assem bly of actual World War I uniforms. The models wear those uniforms, and we trash those uniforms. They use the same uniforms day after day, because the tex ture of the cloth is so important. I have the nurses’ uniforms as well.
best. Every single thing I touch, I’m in it. I’m not treating it less than the last one. I might spend a little bit more time on a face here and there—for example the shell shock figure is very important and the central figure of the whole panel, and the screaming soldier in the very middle of the whole composition is also a critical figure.
native. This is too sacred and too impor tant for too many people.
How have photos from World War I influenced your creative decisions?
I have 75,000 hours under my belt of working with life models. That’s an average of 2,000 hours a year from life. I’ve been looking at human beings for that many hours. And my wife, Traci Slatton, knows a lot about humanity as well. My wife is half the team. She runs the administrative aspect of putting this projectThere’stogether.alotof depth to figurative art. It’s not just the nuts and bolts of how
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I’m in service of the tradition that I’m following, and I’m also in service of all the people who will come and see the sculpture. This is not about my ego. It’s about being in service of oth ers. There’s a problem in our society called “the disease of me.” There’s no room for that in this project or in this studio. It’s all about us as a team and how we play this forward and reach the end zone. MH
16 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 (6)HOWARDSABINBYPHOTOS
you put a figure together. It runs into, What do you have to say? How do you make a form that is a visual narrative of that story?
me as an artist those are just cerebral matters. What I am dealing with is what happens to the heart, feelings and mind when they are passed through battle and butchery. It’s like a meat grinder that these soldiers passed through.
What it means to be human is so strong in how this thing has been put together, how it’s run and how it’s created. It’s made by human beings. Then it goes to
a foundry, and the people at the foundry [Pangolin Editions] also have 20-plus years of experience.
Top, from left: The soldier leaving home is among the first of the cast bronzes to emerge from Pangolin Editions. A gassed soldier appears in a scene entitled “The Cost of War.”
Is there anything else you would like people to know about the memorial or the artistic process?
For a longer, more in-depth version of this interview visit sabin-howard-interview.www.historynet.com/
Middle: The monument will include 38 bronze figures. Bottom, from left: Howard captures emotions in fine detail; models wear period uniforms; Howard uses traditional methods.
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While the force was bivouacked near Leliefontein farm that night, Smith-Dorien determined that stiff Boer resistance rendered further action futile and decided to withdraw at dawn on the 7th. He directed Canadian Lt. Col. François-Louis Lessard to form a rear guard comprising nearly 100 dragoons, a horse-drawn Colt-Browning M1895 machine gun and two 12-pounder guns from D Battery. They alone stood between the Boers and Smith-Dorien’s main force, the latter’s baggage train lumbering along. Lessard estimated it would take at least four hours for the slow-moving procession to clear the first ridge before the rear guard could fall back. When Boer commanders realized the enemy force was withdrawing, they dispatched two maneu ver units, the Ermelo and Carolina commandos, to harass and isolate the rear guard.
Lt. Hampden Cockburn Lt. Richard Turner Sgt. Edward Holland Canadian Army Victoria Cross South Africa 7,
Nov.
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The Boer War Memorial in Montreal honors Canadians’ courageous fight at Leliefontein, Transvaal, in 1900.
Boers, who today number some 1.5 million souls, are the descendants of predominantly Dutch-speaking settlers who arrived in southern Africa beginning in the 17th century. In the wake of the Napoléonic wars Britain exerted increasing control over the region, sparking conflict with the remaining Boer republics. The Second Boer War broke out in October 1899 when Boer irregulars and militia launched raids into the British Cape Colony and Natal. British troops and contingents from Canada, Australia and New Zealand counterattacked north along existing railways, capturing Bloemfontein (capital of the Boer Orange Free State), Johannesburg and Pretoria (capital of the Boer Transvaal) by June 1900. They then wheeled east across Transvaal and by fall had advanced more than 100 miles to Belfast.
Lieutenant Hampden Z.C. Cockburn was not as fortunate. He and his troops on the left flank absorbed withering Boer fire that by day’s end had killed or wounded most every man in his com mand. Yet the wounded officer rallied his troops, repeatedly repulsing the Boers until his men were overrun and captured.
By Bob Gordon
Valor1900 Three Cheers!
Threatened with encirclement and peppered by Boer sniper fire from both flanks and their front, the men of the rear guard fought on throughout the day,
The collective actions of Cockburn (a 32-year-old barrister from Toronto), Turner (a 29-year-old grocer and lum berman from Quebec) and Holland (a 22-year-old graduate of Ottawa Col legiate Institute) had safeguarded the guns that in turn spared Smith-Dorien’s main column from capture or destruc tion. All three were awarded the Vic toria Cross, Britain’s highest award for combat valor, and each survived the Battle of Leliefontein. Cockburn was freed in a prisoner exchange and re turned to his legal practice, Holland fought in—and survived—World War I as a major in the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, and Turner participated in the same conflict, rising to the rank of lieutenant general. MH
On Nov. 6, 1900, Maj. Gen. Horace Smith-Dorien, commander of the 19th Brigade, 9th Division, led elements of the Royal Canadian Dragoons and Canadian Mounted Rifles, D Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery and various British infantry units on a sweep for a Boer laager (base camp) along the north bank of the Komati River some 20 miles south of Belfast.
all the while falling back. The two 12pounders “leapfrogged” each other, one gun providing covering fire while gunners limbered up the other and with drew. The dragoons and their machine gun moved under the 12-pounders’ covering fire.
Though twice wounded, Lt. Richard E.W. Turner remained in the fight, di recting his men to hold off repeated Boer attacks aimed at capturing both the machine gun and the 12-pounders. They engaged the enemy at point-blank range before finally falling back.
18 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 MUSEUM)WAR(CANADIANARCHERPETER
In command of the machine gun, Sgt. Edward J.G. Holland engaged every threat till the overheated gun jammed. Desperate to keep the weapon out of Boer hands, and with the horse too ex hausted to pull its carriage, Holland pulled the M1895 from its mount and rode off with it tucked beneath an arm.
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The survivors retreated within Malli’s formidable citadel. While some of Alex ander’s men began undermining the citadel walls, others brought up scaling ladders. The impatient warrior-king went up one ladder with a pair of bodyguards. Spotting Alexander on the ramparts, a host of Greco-Macedonians fearing for his safety crowded the ladders, which broke under their weight. Cut off and tar geted by the Mallians, Alexander leaped down into the citadel, fighting for his life. Many of his men scaled the walls while others bodily broke down the gates. They soon reached Alexander, who’d taken an arrow through the lung. As rescuers bore him away, his troops began to slaughter every Mallian they could find. Order was only restored when Alexander had re covered enough to emerge from his tent.
Having crossed the desert, Alexander moved against the northernmost Mallian cities. The Mallians were so ill prepared that some were surprised outside their walls. The Macedonian cavalry cordoned off the region by occupying a city to the southeast and sealing off escape routes to the north and west. Alexander then took the city of Atari, opening the road to the capital of Malli (possibly present-day Multan, Punjab). As Alexander approached Malli, enemy forces assembled on the river’s far (west) bank. Realizing how the Mallians feared his army, Alexander sent just his cavalry on the attack. Although the Mallians initially broke and fled, they turned and fought when they saw how few Macedonians they faced. By utilizing their greater skill and mobility,
DoLessons:theunexpected.
What We Learned From... The Mallian Campaign, 326–325 BC
By Robert Holmes
hen Alexander the Great’s homesick soldiers mutinied on the banks of India’s Hyphasis (present-day Beas) River in 326 bc, he had to abandon his eastward march. Then, to define the eastern boundary of his empire, the Macedonian warrior-king led his army south along the Hydaspes (Jhelum) River. Allied Mallian and Oxydracian tribes field ing 90,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry and 900 chariots—an army twice the size of Alexander’s—sought to deny the invaders passage through their territory.
The Greco-Macedonian army that prevailed at the Hydaspes River soon faced a MallianOxydracian coalition with twice as many men.
W
Look for innovative ways to seize the strategic initiative and keep the enemy off-balance so they cannot respond effectively. Be everywhere. Alexander divided his forces and tasked subordinates with missions designed to keep pres sure on the enemy. Such tactics made it impossible for the Mallians to effec tively concentrate their forces.
As it was the rainy season, however, the Mallians and Oxydracians had yet to com bine forces, since they usually didn’t campaign in such conditions. The Greco-Mace donians, on the other hand, were willing and able to fight year-round. Alexander led his army into Mallian territory, along the Acesinea and Hydratois (Chenab and Ravi) rivers. Establishing a camp at the confluence of the Hydaspes and the Acesinea, Alex ander first secured his lines of communication and then marched down the Acesinea to establish a base at its confluence with the Hydratois. Next, he led a large force east across the desert between the rivers, while a smaller force followed behind to sweep up any Mallians who managed to avoid the main Greco-Macedonian column or attempted to escape north. That threw the Mallians further off-balance. Alexander was now well positioned for a drive south. Unable to choose a leader or coordinate with the Oxydracians, the Mallians retreated behind the walls of their various settlements.
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the Macedonian cavalry hung on until infantry arrived, the Mallians ultimately losing heart and fleeing.
20 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 PHOTO)STOCK(ALAMYLTDPARTNERSHIPIMAGEHERITAGE
Alexander’s victory over the Mallians compelled the Oxydracians to surrender and secured the region for the Macedo nian empire. The campaign also daunted other Indian tribes and rulers, many of whom hastened to offer their submission.
Know when to be patient. Alexander’s hasty decision to lead from the front at Malli almost got him killed and threat ened to derail a brilliant campaign. MH
ANDREW JACKSON SURVIVED AN ASSASSINATION ATEMPT WHILE ATTENDING A FUNERAL AT THE U.S. CAPITOL. UNEMPLOYED HOUSE PAINTER RICHARD LAWRENCE TWICE TOOK AIM AT JACKSON, MISFIRING BOTH TIMES. IN RESPONSE JACKSON THRASHED HIM WITH HIS CANE. THE CROWD, WHICH INCLUDED U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DAVID CROCKETT, SUBDUED LAWRENCE. TODAY HISTORYIN For more, visit HISTORYNET.COM/TODAY-IN-HISTORY JANUARY 30, 1835 TODAY-JACKSON.indd 22 8/25/22 6:04 PM
he genesis of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber stemmed from efforts by ex patriate Russian aircraft designer Alexander Kartveli, chief engineer for Republic Aviation Corp., to satisfy a U.S. Army Air Corps require ment for a lightweight fighter. Improving on the P-35, designed in partnership with his onetime boss and fellow Georgian Alexander P. de Seversky, Kartveli devel oped a series of fighters, including the P-43 Lancer and the AP-10, that evolved in size and scope into the P-47 “Jug,” the heaviest single-seat fighter of World War II—a problem compensated for by its Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp 18-cylinder radial engine.
T
22 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 INSTITUTIONSMITHSONIANMUSEUM,SPACEANDAIRNATIONALFORCEAIRTWELFTHTHEOFUNITSTHUNDERBOLTP-4792,COMFROMABOVE:BY PUBLISHING)PRESSBLOOMSBURYPUBLISHING,(OSPREYBERNSTEINJONATHAN
The P-47’s power plant could take a lot of punishment, while its eight wing-mounted .50-caliber machine guns could dish it out. Midway through the war, as longer-range North American P-51 Mustangs replaced P-47s as bomber escorts in Europe, the Jugs were reassigned to bombing,
Among other storied Thunderbolt pilots was 2nd Lt. Al berto Martins Torres, the Brazilian pilot of a P-47D-25-RE. He was already a combat veteran by the time he shipped to Italy in 1944 with the Primeiro Grupo de Aviaçao de Caça though not in a Jug. On July 31, 1943, he’d piloted a Consoli dated PBY Catalina that sank the German submarine U-199 with depth charges off Rio de Janeiro (see related story, P. 24). Between Nov. 6, 1944, and May 1, 1945, Torres flew 99 combat sorties in the P-47D-25-RE depicted above. MH
By Jon IllustrationGuttmanbyChris Davey
RepublicHardwareP-47D Thunderbolt
strafing and ground-support operations. Even then, the first and second ranking American aces over Europe, Francis S. “Gabby” Gabreski (28 victories) and Robert S. Johnson (27) scored all their victories in P-47s.
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Although the P-47 suffered from a limited range, the P-47N variant had a range of 2,000 miles when fitted with drop tanks and could escort Boeing B-29s from Iwo Jima to Japan. The total of 15,636 P-47s produced represented the most of any American single-seat fighter before or since.
Wing area: 300 square feet
Crew: Power:OnePratt & Whitney Double Wasp 2,000
Maximum takeoff weight: 17,500 pounds
R-2800-59
18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine delivering
Wingspan:Specifications:40feet 9 inches
23 INSTITUTIONSMITHSONIANMUSEUM,SPACEANDAIRNATIONALFORCEAIRTWELFTHTHEOFUNITSTHUNDERBOLTP-4792,COMFROMABOVE:BY PUBLISHING)PRESSBLOOMSBURYPUBLISHING,(OSPREYBERNSTEINJONATHAN 1. P ratt & Whitney R-2800-59 Double Wasp 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine with 13-foot-wide, four-bladed propeller 2. P itot tube 3. B ubble canopy 4 P ilot’s headrest with 2/3-inch armor 5 R adio aerial mast 6. Vertical stabilizer extension
hp at takeoff and 2,300 hp at altitude using bombswings,AN/M2Armament:MaximumServiceClimbCruise30,000Maximumwithturbo-superchargerexhaust-drivenandWEPwaterinjectionspeed:429mphatfeetspeed:350mphrate:1,575feetperminuteceiling:42,000feetrange:1,260milesEight.50-caliberBrowningmachinegunsinplusuptotwo1,000-poundand10HVAR5-inchrockets Master Sergeant Robson Saldanha poses by the cockpit of his P-47D of the Brazilian 1st Fighter Group in northern Italy in late 1944. The group insignia bears a slang cock-fighting motto: “Fight With a Spur.” 7. Vertical stabilizer 8. Rudder 9. Rudder trim tab 10. Elevator 11. Horizontal stabilizer 12. Exhaust-driven turbosupercharger in belly 13. A ileron 14. Wing-mounted pylon for fuel or bombs 11 6 9 10 7 12 8 5 MIHP-230100-HARDWARE.indd 23 9/6/22 2:41 PM
Empty weight: 10,000 pounds
Length: 36 feet 1 inch
Height: 14 feet 2 inches
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24
Taking a break from combat against German forces in Italy, members of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira pose for a commemorative photo on Sept. 7, 1944, their nation’s independence day. By war’s end more than 25,000 Brazilian military personnel would serve in Italy. MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023
South America’s largest nation played an integral, if underappreciated, combat role in Italy in World War II
THE
25 MIHP-230100-BRAZIL.indd 25 9/7/22 9:52 AM
By Jerome A. Long FROMBOYSBRAZIL
unfounded: British naval forces had commandeered Brazil ian ships both during World War I and in the early months World War II. Yet Vargas knew his nation’s best interests lay with the Allies.
The German officers in Respiccio detained Cavalli for three hours, questioning him exhaustively about Brazilian troop strength, unit dispositions, armaments and so forth. Their curiosity was understandable. After all, no one, not even fellow Allies, had expected much of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira (Brazilian Expeditionary Force), or FEB. Yet the division of seemingly rank amateurs had managed to bottle up an experienced, battle-hardened German infantry division. Like Cavalli, the Germans also must have wondered why Brazil had sent troops to Italy when all other Latin American nations, except Mexico, had avoided combat with the Axis.
26 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023
ARCHIVESNATIONALPAGE:THISBRAZIL;NACIONAL,ARQUIVOSPREAD:PREVIOUS (2)BRASILDOFEDERALGOVERNOBRAZIL;NACIONAL,ARQUIVOLEFT:FROM
U.S. Navy Martin PBM-3 Mariner patrol bombers cruise over the naval yard at Rio de Janeiro in December 1943. Brazil-based aircraft kept a close watch on German naval activity in the Atlantic, while combat aircraft bound for Europe staged through Brazilian airfields.
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F
ather Alessandro Cavalli, the parish priest of Neviano de’ Rossi, strode west with purpose toward the Nazi-occupied village of Respiccio, along the Taro River southwest of Parma, Italy. Shoving his hands into the shabby coat that had served him for too many winters to remember, he grasped perhaps the most important document he would carry in his life—a dispatch demanding the unconditional surrender of the German and Italian divisions in the region. Yet its senders struck Cavalli as unusual. The priest had encountered American, British and German troops, but those who’d entrusted him with the surrender demand were new to him—Brazilians. How odd, he mused, that a nation so distant would send troops to Europe. At least they were Catholic.
Having run out of questions—and options—the German officers had the Italian priest deliver a reply to the Brazilian commander, seeking terms of surrender.
Following the 1939 outbreak of war in Europe, Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas—recognizing his country was poor and militarily weak—walked a diplomatic fine line between the Germany and the Allies. His caution was not
Though the surrounded Wehrmacht troops in Respiccio didn’t know it, Germany had only itself to blame for the presence of Brazilian forces in Italy.
In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the United States had sought to recruit Latin Amer ican countries to the Allied cause, with limited success.
At the outset of World War II Brazil’s armed forces were pitiful. A chronic shortage of hard currency and resources hobbled efforts to modernize the army and navy. The former numbered no more than 100,000 officers and men, while the latter was laugh ably small, comprising primarily antiquated ships from World War I or earlier. The coun try didn’t have a separate air force until 1941.
Snakes Smoke
27
Resolving to upgrade its navy, Brazil con tracted with British firms to build a half dozen destroyers, only to look on as the British gov ernment appropriated the vessels. Fortunately, the United States stepped in to provide the necessary ships, and the Brazilian navy soon became an effective antisubmarine and con voy escort force. When antisubmarine tactics in the North Atlantic made things too hot for U-boats, Ger man naval commander Adm. Karl Dönitz diverted much of his nation’s submarine activity to the South Atlantic to attack shipping along the coast of Brazil. The Brazilian navy responded by sinking nine U-boats Dönitz could ill afford
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Both nations recognized that Brazil’s most important asset was its proximity to Africa. The distance between the two continents was a mere 1,800 miles. Thus, the African coast was well within range of American B-17 and B-24 bombers flying out of Brazil. For the Allies that bridgeable gap between continents represented a route by which to transport troops and matériel from North America to Europe whenever weather conditions closed the Canada–Iceland–Britain route. The 1,800-mile gap also represented a choke point in which to inhibit German transit of the South Atlantic. Indeed, the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was trapped and forced to scuttle off Montevideo, Uruguay, in December 1939 largely because the British Royal Navy dominated the choke point.
VargasGetúlio
Members of the 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division parade through Rio before shipping out for Italy. Initially unprepared for war, the unit was completely restructured along the lines of a U.S. Army infantry division and ultimately provided with advanced American weapons.
Rio de Janeiro’s foreign policy began to favor Washington in 1940, though different interests motivated each. Brazil could not afford to lose the United States as a trading part ner, while the Americans needed air bases for their bombers and transport aircraft and raw materials for their factories. Brazil also wanted recognition as a world power and ex ploited its friendship with the United States as a counter balance against its Spanish-speaking neighbors.
Moreover, Brazil had no domestic weapons industry, instead equipping its troops with armaments purchased from foreign coun tries, including Germany. Ironically, before the Vargas administration declared war on Germany, U.S. President Franklin D. Roo sevelt had to convince Britain to allow the continued shipment of German-manufac tured weapons to Brazilian ports.
The FEB shoulder patch depicts a cobra fumante (“smoking snake”). The unit nickname may have derived from its nation’s hesitation to enter the war, which prompted the expression “when snakes smoke” (akin to “when pigs fly”).
Although Brazil broke off diplomatic relations with Germany following that nation’s declaration of war against the United States, federal officials in Rio did not immedi ately declare war on the Nazi regime in Berlin. Adolf Hitler initially waffled over a plan to attack shipping along the Brazilian coast, fearing Brazil, Argentina and Chile would ally with the United States. Ultimately, however, the Führer did order his submarine force on the offensive. The U-boats sank at least a half dozen Brazilian ships, galvanizing its populace, which demanded vengeance. Thus Brazil de clared war on Germany on Aug. 22, 1942.
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Declaring war is one thing. Being able to wage it is quite another.
After intensive training in the United States and Panama, the Brazilian air contingent, the Primeiro Grupo de Aviaçao de Caça (1st Fighter Aviation Group), arrived in Italy in October 1944. Later that month the group, comprising 42 pilots and some 300 mechanics and ground crew, began flying combat missions as part of the U.S. 350th Fighter Group. By then the Luftwaffe could offer no effective resis tance, so the Brazilian squadron was tasked with close air support, interdiction, reconnaissance and occasional bomber-escort duties. By year’s end the unit had flown more than 800 sorties over 134 missions, destroying rail and road bridges, transport vehicles, buildings and other targets.
Like its sister services, the Brazilian army was initially unprepared for war. Poorly equipped and untrained in modern tactics, its four divisions of some 100,000 men were modeled on the World War I French army. Regard less, when Vargas met with Roosevelt in January 1943 and suggested Brazil play a combat role in Europe, the Ameri can president accepted the idea in principle. Unspoken was Vargas’ hope his nation’s participation would secure its dominance in South America, its prestige abroad and a prominent position in the postwar world. From Roosevelt’s perspective, having South America’s largest country play a combat role in Europe alongside American troops would enhance the United States’ image as the pre-eminent re gional power in the Western Hemisphere.
Initial Brazilian plans called for the deployment of its four combat divisions to Europe under Maj. Gen. João Baptista Mascarenhas de Moraes. However, the FEB ulti mately fielded just one division, the 1st Expeditionary
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to lose. To assist Allied antisubmarine efforts, the Brazilian government reluctantly agreed to station three squadrons of U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats on Brazilian soil.
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Top: German U-boats operating off Brazil’s Atlantic coast fell prey to both Brazilian and American patrol aircraft. On July 30, 1943, U-604 was severely damaged off Bahia, but it managed to flee. Above: FEB Brig. Gen. Euclydes Zenóbio da Costa (center) points out German positions in Tuscany in 1944.
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As the group lacked any mechanism to replace combat casualties, its members faced increasing mental and physi cal strain. By February 1945 it was down to 28 pilots and thus forced to reduce the number of missions it under took. At war’s end only 22 pilots remained, each of whom had flown an average 70 missions. By then the Brazilian air contingent had earned deserved high praise from Allied leaders. “They had few replacements compared to our squadrons, and yet their courage and tirelessness were dauntless,” recalled Lt. Gen. John K. Cannon, commander of the U.S. Twelfth Air Force.
At first the Brazilian air force consisted of hand-medowns from the air wings of its army and navy. By the time it deployed units to Europe, however, its pilots were flying U.S.-built Republic P-47D Thunderbolts. At home Brazil ian aircraft eventually assumed the duties of the U.S. Navy maritime patrols. By year’s end 1944 the Brazilians, flying American-made bombers and patrol planes, had assumed full responsibility for the South Atlantic maritime patrol. In one notable incident, on July 31, 1943, Brazilian pilots flying a PBY Catalina surprised the German submarine U-199 on the surface off Rio and sank it with depth charges. The U.S. Navy awarded pilot 2nd Lt. Alberto Martins Torres the Distinguished Flying Cross and bombardier 1st Lt. Carlos de Miranda Corra the Air Medal for the successful attack.
In one harrowing attack, on Dec. 23, 1944, heavy anti aircraft fire hit 1st Lt. Ismael de Mota Paes’ P-47D as he strafed a train. As he pulled out of his dive, the Thunder bolt’s engine died. He popped the canopy to bail out, but just then the engine restarted, he gained altitude, and the smoke in the cockpit cleared. Escorted by friend and wing man 1st Lt. Luiz Lopes Dorneles, Paes attempted to fly the stricken aircraft back to base. But the P-47’s engine died a second time, forcing him to bail out over enemy-held terri tory. The Wehrmacht captured Paes, who spent the dura tion of the war as a POW till liberated by the Russians in May 1945. Sadly, Dorneles was killed while attacking a train just five days before the end of the war.
Forming an infantry division and making it battle-ready are two different things. The 1st EID had to be completely restructured along the lines of a U.S. infantry division, and its officers needed training in modern tactical warfare. The entire force had to be re-equipped and trained with updated weapons. In mid-September 1944 a regimental combat team (RCT) formed from the 1st EID’s 6th Infantry Regi ment and led by Brig. Gen. Euclydes Zenóbio da Costa went into the front lines near Pisa under the operational control of the U.S. Fifth Army. On September 18 the RCT captured a German communications center, forcing the enemy to abandon a strategic position on Monte Prano.
376,637 TOTAL 119,200 UNITED STATES 89,440 UNITED KINGDOM 35,000 ITALIAN RESISTANCE 2,300
aware of the strategic value of the ridge, the Germans had placed nearly 100 artillery pieces on and around it. Allied attacks on Novem ber 24 and 29 and December 12 all failed. On Feb. 21, 1945, the 1st EID and the newly ar rived U.S. 10th Mountain Division launched a fourth attack against the Germans. Supported by Brazilian-piloted Thunderbolts, the Allied force overwhelmed the Germans and captured Monte Castello. Had either the 1st EID or the 10th Mountain Division faltered, the Allies’ spring offensive would have stalled, giving the Germans time to slip away. Even the enemy couldn’t help but admire the Brazilians’ tenac ity. “Frankly, you Brazilians are either crazy or very brave,” one German officer told a captured Brazilian. “I never saw anyone advance against machine guns and well-defended positions with such disregard for life.…You are devils.”
On October 30 elements of the FEB launched an offen sive against another German communications center, at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, driving the Italian Axis 4th “Monterosa” Alpine Division from its advance positions. However, the Germans counterattacked the next day and caught the Brazilians by surprise, forcing them to fall back after a 10-hour fight.
29 Infantry Division (1st EID). By war’s end more than 25,000 Brazilians would serve in Italy.
But it was the Battle of Collecchio-Fornovo that ensured the FEB’s fame.
FREE FRANCE: 30,000; CANADA: 25,890; INDIA: 20,000; POLAND: 11,000; NEW ZEALAND: 8,668; ITALY: 5,927; SOUTH AFRICA: 3,860; GREECE: 452
The first real test for the Brazilians came at Monte Cas tello, in the Reno River Valley southwest of Bologna. The dug-in Germans held a strong position on the mountain, part of a broader ridgeline that dominated the valley. Acutely
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The confidence gained at Monte Castello served the FEB well in April amid a fight for the town of Montese, which the 1st EID seized after a fierce four-day battle.
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CasualtiesAllied ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, JULY 1943–MAY 1945 From behind a garden wall in Tuscany Brazilian artillerymen stand ready to engage enemy armor with their U.S.-supplied 57 mm M1 anti-tank gun. MIHP-230100-BRAZIL.indd 29 9/7/22 9:53 AM
Brazil’s Role in World War II
What made Brazil a desirable ally was its relative proximity to coastal Africa— 1,800 miles, well within the 3,700-mile ferry range of American B-17 and B-24 bombers. That gap also represented a strategic chokepoint in the South Atlantic. Thus, with U.S.-supplied ships and patrol planes, the Brazilian navy and air force made things very hot for German U-boats off the Brazilian coast.
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Bridging the Atlantic
The rank and file among the latecomer’s army—the Força Ex pedicionária Brasileira (Brazilian Expeditionary Force), or FEB —referred to themselves tongue in cheek as the cobras fumantes (“smoking snakes”), a corollary to the expression “when pigs fly.”
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MAP
t the outset of World War II, due largely to the state of unpreparedness within his nation’s military branches, President Getúlio Vargas was reluctant to commit Brazil to either the Axis or the Allies. Bowing to inevitable hemispheric pressures, however, by February 1942 Brazil had severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Japan and Italy. In retaliation, Adolf Hitler expanded submarine warfare to attack Brazilian shipping in the South Atlantic. The resulting public uproar finally prompted Brazil to declare war against the Axis nations, on Aug. 22, 1942.
BY GENE THORP (CARTOGRAPHIC CONCEPTS, INC.)
A
Though late to the game, the Brazilians made up for their tardi ness with proven tenacity in combat. Their sole division, the 1st Expeditionary Infantry, with support from Brazil’s tiny air con tingent—the 42 pilots and 300 ground crewmen of the 1st Fighter Aviation Group—made an impact in Italy, while Brazilian airmen and sailors helped thwart U-boat attacks in the South Atlantic. MH
On Feb. 21, 1945, the Brazilians and the U.S. 10th Mountain Division, supported by Brazilianpiloted Republic P-47D Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, made a concerted push on the position and captured Monte Castello.
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As the FEB drove inland under the operational control of the U.S. Fifth Army, it came up against dug-in German forces atop this prominence in the Reno River Valley southwest of Bologna. Allied attacks in late November and mid-December 1944 had failed to dislodge the enemy.
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Italian Campaign
Nearly 26,000 Brazilians of the 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division served in Italy. The first unit to see action, north of Pisa in September 1944, was a regimental combat team under Brig. Gen. Euclydes Zenóbio da Costa. Notable actions followed at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Monte Castello and Collecchio-Fornovo.
Monte Castello
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That April 28 Father Cavalli delivered Mascarenhas’ ulti matum to Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico, commander of the 148th. Fretter-Pico in turn ordered his chief of staff, Maj. W. Kuhn, to draft a letter to Mascarenhas, asking for terms of surrender. In the meantime Fretter-Pico ordered a last-ditch attempt to break out and flee to Parma. The Brazilians held firm.
Ordered to pursue and head off the German 148th Infan try Division, remnants of the 90th Panzergrenadier Divi sion and the 1st Bersaglieri Division “Italia,” the FEB faced a problem. The Axis units had a head start and were retreat
ing headlong to safety. It was the 148th that had bloodied the FEB the previous fall. Realizing that speed was impera tive, but that Allied headquarters was unlikely to provide additional vehicles, Mascarenhas instead stripped all but two of his artillery batteries of their vehicles for use in trans porting troops. Utilizing more than 1,200 jeeps and trucks, the FEB cornered the 148th near Fornovo di Taro, 14 miles south of Parma. The FEB’s regimental combat team, sup ported by American armored units, attacked and sur rounded the German positions, making escape impossible.
The upstart FEB received many plaudits for its discipline, tenacity and courage under fire
Around 10 p.m. Kuhn and two other German officers crossed Brazilian lines under a white flag. Taken to Brazilian headquarters, Kuhn advised he was authorized to enter into negotiations. A fed up Mascarenhas refused to make any
In late 1943 Field Marshal Albert Kesselring ordered a tactical withdrawal of German forces from Italy to support German armies in northern Europe. Seeing an opportunity, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower sought the destruction of remaining Axis forces on the Italian
Peninsula so they could not aid the Wehrmacht in the north. Kesselring planned to withdraw Axis forces in an orderly manner, fighting as they went. Preventing a German break out into southern France was therefore an Allied imperative.
Brazilian infantrymen take cover from German fire while clearing a village in northern Italy in the autumn of 1944.
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Bowing to the inevitable, Fretter-Pico agreed to un conditionally surrender his entire command, a process that took some 20 hours. Finally, at 6 p.m. on April 30 the German commander presented himself to Mascarenhas, completing the surrender. The FEB had taken almost 15,000 German and Italian prisoners, as well as more than 4,000 horses, 1,500 vehicles and 80 guns. It marked the only time amid combat during the Italian campaign a German division surrendered intact.
BRAZILNACIONAL,ARQUIVO PRESSASSOCIATED
concessions and insisted the surrender be unconditional. As discussions were underway, an envoy from U.S. Fifth Army commander Lt. Gen. Lucian Truscott arrived to assure Mas carenhas he had “complete latitude…in deciding whether to destroy or take prisoner the 148th Infantry Division.”
Despite the Brazilians’ military successes, the inter national cachet President Vargas had hoped to garner by committing troops to the European theater never ma
TakeawaysTactical
Preparation is vital. Brazil’s military forces were not prepared for modern war and needed lengthy training and reorganization before they could play any significant role in the Allied war effort.
Have generous friends. Nearly all the modern weapons, aircraft and ships used by Brazil both at home and in Italy, were provided by the other Allied nations. Learn fast and well. Brazilian soldiers and airmen deployed to Italy with virtually no combat experience but quickly proved equal to the task.
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The upstart FEB continued combat operations in Italy through war’s end, receiving many plaudits for its disci pline, tenacity and courage under fire. The Brazilians, wrote Truscott, “covered themselves with glory.” Mascar enhas became a national hero. In 1946 the National Con gress of Brazil promoted him to the rank of field marshal and later declared him to be on active duty for life, with all attendant privileges. He died in Rio de Janeiro at age 84 in 1968. Released as a POW in 1958, Fretter-Pico retired to Switzerland, where he died at age 73 in 1966.
terialized. Brazilian-American relations soured shortly before war’s end when the Roosevelt administration informed Vargas it expected him to hold free elections, as Washington was no longer comfortable with his de facto dic tatorship. (Ousted in 1945, he returned to the presidency in 1950 before committing suicide at age 72 in 1954 amid a brewing political scandal.) Diplomatic relations only deterio rated with the Truman administration. Nei ther did Brazil earn a desired place at the peace table nor a promised permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Slighted by the perceived failure to recognize its contributions to the war effort, Brazil to this day does not wholly trust U.S. foreign policy. Time will tell whether that trust will ever be restored. MH
On July 6, 1945, men of the Brazilian 6th Infantry Regiment—the FEB unit longest in combat—cheer before boarding a homeward-bound ship in Naples.
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Jerome Long is a former instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officers’ Course who taught classes on such topics as military intelligence, operational warfare and military history. For further reading he rec ommends The Brazilian Expeditionary Force by Its Commander, by Marshal J.B. Mascarenhas de Moraes; and “Brazil, the United States and World War II: A Commentary,” published in Diplomatic History 3, No. 3 (Summer 1979), by Frank D. McCann.
Struck by a rocket armed with a shaped explosive charge fired by a Libyan rebel fighter, a burned-out Soviet-made T-72 of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalist army lies abandoned near Ajdabiya on March 26, 2011.
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Recent decades have witnessed an escalating technological duel between tanks and the heretofore hapless foot soldier By Jon Guttman ARMOR GRUNTSVS. 35 MIHP-230100-TANKS-PORTFOLIO.indd 35 9/7/22 11:02 AM
hroughout the history of human warfare the backbone of any army has been the common soldier, who has had to endure terrifying inventions—from the chariot to the mounted cavalryman to the motorized armored fighting vehicle—an enemy develops to gain an edge over him. Against every such juggernaut, however, the infantryman hasn’t been entirely helpless—not as long as his own mad scientists have applied their ingenuity to develop countermeasures and increase his odds of survival.
A British Mark IV tanks spearhead a British advance through a barrage of German artillery in 1917.
On Sept. 15, 1916, Britain introduced its Mark I tank at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, amid the Somme campaign, with modest success. It wasn’t long before the Germans tried to counter it with the steel-cored K (Kern, or “core”) bullet, a 7.92x57 mm round able to pierce tank armor when fired from a standard Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle. In 1918, as the Allies rolled out tanks with thicker armor, Mauser introduced the specialized T-Gewehr rifle, firing a 13.2x92 mm TuF (Tank und Flieger, or “tank and plane”) round. Thereafter, the arms race was on, as opponents rushed to counter newer, deadlier armored vehicles with more sophisticated “equalizers” intended to give the infantryman a chance of holding his ground. Tanks have since acquired their share of enhanced protection. But aided by such pivotal creations as rocket propulsion, the shaped charge and computer ized guidance systems, the current species of “ground pounder” carries his own means to pound back. MH
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B Judging its 7.92x57 mm K round inadequate, Mauser was inspired by elephant guns to develop the first specialized antitank rifle, the 13.2x92 mm T- Gewehr. The gun entered production in May 1918, and Mauser made 16,900 by war’s end.
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C A Soviet soldier fires a PTRS-41 semiautomatic antitank rifle in early 1944, by which time its primary use was against brick and other hardened strongpoints, not armor. That said, it could penetrate armor plate up to 40 mm thick at 100 meters. D Hungarian 38M Toldi light tanks advance into the Soviet Union in the fall of 1941. Thinly armored and armed with 20 mm Solothurn cannons, these were typical fodder for Russian antitank rifles. E A British Mark IV Cromwell medium tank enters a battered German town in 1945. F The Panzerfaust had limited range and accuracy, but proved well suited for defense in urban environments. G German troops meet oncoming Soviet forces with a Panzerschreck, a larger, more powerful version of the American bazooka antitank rocket launcher, near Narva in August 1944.
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ARMOR VS. GRUNTS
H Caught by counterattacking U.S. tanks (in the background), a North Korean T-34/85 brews up north of Yongsan on Sept. 9, 1950. Korea’s terrain made tank-versus-tank duels a rarity. I American troops examine a North Korean T-34/85 knocked out by a 3.5-inch rocket from an M20 “super bazooka.” J U.S. Army troops train on the M20 on July 18, 1950. Introduced early that year, the M20 had a shaped charge that could penetrate 11 inches of armor and was a dramatic improvement over the 2.36-inch bazooka of World War II. K An M48A3 Patton advances through a Vietnamese forest, its crew vigilant for possible Viet Cong ambush, which may well involve a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), the tank’s principal nemesis. L In a communist propaganda photo set during the January 1968 Tet Offensive, a female Viet Cong spearheads an assault in the Mekong Delta using an RPG-7.
M A Syrian rebel fires a BGM-71 TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided) antitank missile at Hafez al-Assad’s government forces in northern Aleppo on July 17, 2016. Entering service in 1970, the American TOW remains a staple in worldwide conflicts. N Disabled by an antitank missile, a Syrian government T-72 tank lies abandoned in al-Khalidiyah, near Homs, on July 28, 2013. O Disabled Russian tanks go on display like trophies in Mariupol on May 4, 2022. The reactive armor applied over the hull and turret plating was not enough to fend off Ukrainian missiles. P A Ukrainian soldier practices on an NLAW (next generation light antitank weapon) on Jan. 28, 2022—less than a month before Ukrainians would be forced to put that training into practice. Q Struck by a Ukrainian antitank weapon on Feb. 26, 2022, a T-90, the first tank produced by Russia since the Cold War, burns on the road from Luhansk to Kyiv—an inauspicious start for Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation.”
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In 1962 a team of would-be assassins, including disaffected veterans of the Algerian War, waited by a roadside in suburban Paris for a convoy carrying the French president By Ron Soodalter 40 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 MIHP-230100-DEGAULLE.indd 40 9/7/22 10:31 AM
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In a reconstruction staged after the August 1962 assassination attempt, the car standing in for Charles de Gaulle’s Citroën DS 19 accelerates away from ambushing gunmen.
Nine years later, inspired by France’s defeat in Indochina, Algerian Muslim guerrillas calling themselves the Front de libération nationale (National Liberation Front), or FLN, launched a wave of attacks against military and civilian targets throughout the colony, hoping to force diplomatic recognition of Algeria as a sovereign state. Again, the French army in-country—which reached a peak strength of 470,000 troops—responded, engaging the rebels in a war that lasted more than seven years and claimed upward of a half million lives. The heaviest fighting took place in and around Algiers. Both sides employed torture and terror tactics.
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In November 1958, buoyed by the combined support of the pieds-noirs and army officers who had staged a proFrench coup that spring in Algiers, Charles de Gaulle re turned to office as president of France in the expectation
The widespread dissatisfaction with de Gaulle that swept France after World War II was rooted in the nation’s history of colonialism and, more specifically, in the presi dent’s response to French-held Algeria’s bid for indepen dence. France had not been alone in its centuries-long acquisition of foreign “properties,” of course—throughout history every major nation in the world, including the United States, practiced colonialism. But as France had recently learned in the jungles of Indochina, there came a time in which colonialism was no longer viable.
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France had occupied Algeria since 1830. In the wake of World War I increasing calls for independence by national ist Muslims of the North African colony were answered by Paris’ promises of greater autonomy. For decades the promise
n a rainy summer evening in late August 1962 a group of 13 French and foreign conspirators attempted to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. Dubbed the Petit-Clamart attack for the suburban Paris commune in which it occurred, it was one of 31 such attacks on the polarizing French leader during his lifetime. As in the past, de Gaulle emerged unscathed from this latest and deadliest bid—then he commanded it was time to root out and punish the perpetrators.
went unfulfilled. Then, on V-E Day, May 8, 1945, a group of Algerian Muslim protesters organized a demonstration in the provincial capital of Sétif, demanding Algerian indepen dence. The protesters turned violent, exchanging gunfire with police and killing more than 100 Algerian-born European colonists, known as pieds-noirs. The French military imme diately responded, killing upward of 1,500 Algerian Muslims.
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On a June 1958 visit to Algeria then Prime Minister de Gaulle was ambiguous regarding the colony’s independence, raising the hopes of both sides in the increasingly violent conflict.
he would handily put down the ongoing Algerian revolt. Indeed, he virtually swore to maintain France’s hold on the colony. It was, therefore, a stunning blow to pro-French Algerians, as well as many citizens of metropolitan France, when de Gaulle reversed himself in September 1959 and declared for Algerian “self-determination.” True to form, he was being less idealistic than practical. Keenly aware of France’s debacle in Indochina, and unwilling to travel the same road in Algeria, de Gaulle chose to risk the enmity of his officer corps, the pieds-noirs and many of his own citizens by promoting independence for the colony.
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In February 1961 a group of high-ranking army officers went underground to form the Organisation de l’armée secrète (Secret Army Organization), or OAS, which began a campaign of terror against Algerian Muslims, hoping to spark violence that would lead to French army interven tion. That April the OAS launched an unsuccessful coup in Algiers, hoping to persuade de Gaulle not to abandon the colony. In its wake of that debacle the OAS committed acts of sabotage and assassination in both Algeria and metropolitan France aimed at thwarting the promised turnover. Heading its target list was the French president.
Regardless, on July 1, 1962, Algerians overwhelmingly approved the terms of their independence from France, and two days later de Gaulle pronounced the nation’s sov ereignty. The turn of events engendered bitterness and a sense of betrayal among many French citizens, both in Algeria and at home. Most of the million or so pieds-noirs immediately left Algiers, while the cadre of disgruntled army officers continued to plot mayhem. A month later the Petit-Clamart conspirators sprang their ambush on de Gaulle, coming closer to killing the president than had any previous attempts.
Not surprising, the leader of the cell plotting to assas sinate de Gaulle was a military officer. A lieutenant colonel
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Lost Cause
in the French air force, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was an attractive, affable family man of 34. Referred to in the press as the “French von Braun,” the brilliant Bastien-Thiry was then serving as his service’s principal avia tion weaponry Bastien-Thiryengineer.hadexcelled at France’s most prestigious schools of higher learning before joining the air force. Ironically, his father had known and been a political sup porter of de Gaulle since the 1930s. The son, however, had come to nurse a deep-seated hatred of the president, whom he believed had betrayed not only his country, but also those Algerian Muslims who had faithfully fought for France only to have been aban doned to the dubious mercies of the FLN. “This is truly a genocide,” he declared at his subsequent trial, “perpetrated against Moslems [sic] who had trusted France. This genocide claimed the lives of several tens or hundreds of thousands of victims, killed after having been horribly tortured.” Bastien-Thiry’s lieutenant was 35-yearold Alain de Bougrenet de la Tocnaye. The scion of a noble Breton family, he too was a career military officer—in his case, a French army lieutenant and Algerian War veteran. According to a 1973 New York Times profile of and interview with de la Tocnaye, the disaffected lieutenant was the model for Fred erick Forsyth’s title character in the best-selling 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal. But while both the real man and the
Formed in 1961 in response to de Gaulle’s referendum on Algerian independence, the French dissident paramilitary OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète) comprised army officers and pieds-noirs committed to maintaining Algeria’s status as a French colony.
Above left: De Gaulle’s eventual support of Algerian independence prompted the French dissident OAS to launch a terror campaign in both Algeria and France. Above: Not wishing to seem intimidated, the French president often chose to travel with few bodyguards.
fictional character shared the objective of assassinating the president of France, the similarity ends there. Where Forsyth’s antihero is “a tall, blond Englishman with opaque gray eyes—a killer at the top of his grisly profession,” de la Tocnaye was “a short, bespectacled, baldish Frenchman with clear blue eyes and the can did, pink‐cheeked face of an aging choirboy.”
French newspapers ran mug shots of the would-be assassins after their arrests.
And where the “Jackal” of fiction was scrupu lously secretive, de la Tocnaye was openly verbal in his commitment to kill de Gaulle. De la Tocnaye had earlier deserted the army and affiliated himself with the OAS in Algiers. Firm in the belief that “political assassination is perfectly normal,” he wrote to de Gaulle, stating in part, “Now that you have betrayed the army and the French people and given away Algeria, the only solution I see left is to kill you, and that is what I propose to do.”
The plot to kill de Gaulle was given the dramatic code name Opération Charlotte Corday, after the French revolu tionary who had murdered Jacobin radical Jean-Paul Marat in 1793. While the would-be assassins’ plan seemed feasible, the logistics proved increasingly bedeviling. The OAS failed to provide them the full cooperation they had expected. Promised money somehow never appeared, and in one instance a rival OAS faction stole four automatic weapons earmarked for the operation. Ultimately, most funding came from Bastien‐Thiry’s and de la Tocnaye’s own pockets. The cost of car rentals climbed so high that the conspirators decided to steal the necessary vehicles before the attack.
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Finally, all was ready. The plan called for men armed with submachine guns and riding in the backs of two vans to cut off and attack de Gaulle’s convoy in Paris itself. In May and June 1962 the group made 12 attempts to carry out the plan, but either they missed the link-up with the convoy, or there proved to be too many bystanders in the street. Subsequent attempts also fizzled. On one occasion BastienThiry stationed his men along the road leading to a wedding
The
Bastien-Thiry, for his part, was not a fighting man. He had never been in combat, led troops or fired a weapon, other than at a practice range, nor would he bear arms in the attempted assassination. De la Tocnaye later recalled his
The two recruited a dozen or so vol unteers. While most were members of the OAS, joining them were three Hungarians who had fought in their nation’s 1956 uprising against the Soviet occupation and were convinced the assassination of the French president would somehow constitute a blow against international communism. One of the French recruits, a hulking brute of a pied-noir named Georges Watin, had collected the ears of Algerian Muslim rebels he had killed in a glass jar. According to de la Tocnaye, “[Watin’s] fondest wish was to add de Gaulle’s ears to his collection.”
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Top row, from left: Jean-Marie BastienThiry, Alphonse Constantin and Étienne Ducasse. Bottom row, from left: JacquesCharles Prévost, Alain de Bougrenet de la Tocnaye and Pierre-Henri Magade.
Captured and jailed for desertion in June 1961, the young officer staged a dramatic escape in January 1962. Considering himself something of a romantic hero, he penned a tongue-in-cheek letter to the prison warden that read, “I regret that I could not salute you before leaving, but since my doctor rec ommended a change of air, I took the first opportunity that came along.”
Published in 1971, Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal opens with an accurate account of the 1962 Petit-Clamart attack on de Gaulle, then relates the fictional tale of an English assassin— “the Jackal”—hired by the OAS to eliminate the French president. Jackal
first impression of his co-leader: “When I met him, I was surprised. He didn’t look like a colonel, he looked like a librar ian. His face was puffy. I wondered what that type of fellow was doing in our type of action.”Despite their differences, the pair shared the same goals: remove de Gaulle from power, install a military junta in Algiers and restore Algeria as a French possession. Together they set about deter mining the best method of accomplish ing their objectives in one bold stroke. They ultimately decided to ambush de Gaulle’s convoy with automatic weapons.
Bastien-Thiry and de la Tocnaye (code-named “Didier” and “Max,” respectively) set up their ambush in PetitClamart, along the road between Paris and Villacoublay. Driving four stolen cars, the would-be assassins were to sta tion themselves at intervals along the road. A source within the Élysée Palace was to phone word of the president’s departure to Bastien-Thiry, who would be waiting in a road side café. Two primary routes led from the palace to the airport, and de Gaulle never let the chosen one be known until he was underway. Therefore, a member of the cell was to wait for the president’s convoy at a crucial junction, then phone Bastien-Thiry with its chosen path. “Didier” would then emerge from the café and, as the president’s car passed, wave a newspaper to signal “Max” and the other gunmen. As de Gaulle’s convoy approached, the conspirators would block its passage and open fire with automatic weapons.
Their 18th attempt hinged on the rigid itinerary de Gaulle had established when traveling from his country villa in northeast France to the Élysée Palace in Paris in order to attend cabinet meetings. Since escaping an earlier bombing attack against his car, the president had followed a routine to minimize his time spent on the road. From his Colombeyles-Deux-Églises villa he traveled the 40 miles north by car to a waiting military helicopter at the Saint-Dizier air base. It flew him the 150 miles to the air base in the Parisian commune of Villacoublay, from which a convoy trans ported him the final 8 miles to the palace.
On spotting the convoy, the driver shouted, “Open up!” to the two armed men in his car. They did so, unleashing a torrent of automatic weapons fire toward the president’s car, pouring rounds into the vehicle’s side and tires, as well as
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Top: Policemen stand guard beside a yellow Renault van gunmen used in the assassination attempt. The vehicle’s windows were blacked out, and inside were firearms and plastic explosives. Middle: Investigators examine the site of the attack the following day. Above: A diagram of the ambush.
into the facades of roadside buildings. De la Tocnaye, tasked with blocking the president’s car with his vehicle, floored the accelerator pedal but was too late to cut off the lead Citroën. As de Gaulle’s vehicle sped off down the road, de la Tocnaye’s passenger, Georges Watin, fired at the rear window of the president’s car, shattering the glass.
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de Gaulle was to attend, only to watch the president arrive by helicopter. In all the conspirators staged 17 unsuccessful “dress rehearsals” in a campaign that resembled more a Keystone Cops routine than a Mission Impossible operation.
The cabinet meeting on that dank and drizzly August 22 ran long, and de Gaulle did not leave the Élysée Palace until 7:35 p.m. He was seated beside his wife in the rear of the first of two Citroën DS 19 sedans. His son-in-law and aidede-camp, Col. Alain de Boissieu, sat up front beside the policeman assigned as their driver. Following in the second vehicle were two high-ranking police officials, one of de Gaule’s bodyguards and a military doctor. Escorting the unmarked sedans were two patrolmen on motorcycles. As anticipated, “Didier’s” informant called to let him know of de Gaulle’s departure. Five minutes later the second call came. Emerging from the café, Bastien-Thiry alerted his associates, and the four vehicles drove into position.
As arranged, on catching sight of the president’s car, Bastien-Thiry waved a newspaper. But the conspirators hadn’t anticipated the fading light of dusk. Visibility was poor, and the driver slated to relay the signal, stationed some 200 yards down the road from Bastien-Thiry, failed to see it. The Citroëns’ sudden appearance surprised them all.
Warned by son-in-law Boissieu, de Gaulle and his wife had slumped down in their seats. De la Tocnaye, believing
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TakeawaysTactical
Bastien-Thiry took a more aggressive stance, attacking de Gaulle’s government and justifying the act of assassination
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Among those on the run was gunman Pierre-Henri Magade, a 22-year-old air force deserter. Stopped at a police checkpoint in early September, he was arrested. Affronted at his contemptuous treatment, he foolishly boasted of his part in the Petit-Clamart attack. Under a promise of partial immunity he then gave up his fellow conspirators, and within two weeks authorities had captured Bastien-Thiry, de la Tocnaye and seven others. Six remained at large, including Watin, the cold-blooded killer who collected ears in a jar and had come the closest to accomplishing the would-be assassins’ objective. (Ultimately fleeing to Paraguay, he died there of a heart attack at age 71 in 1994.)
Pick your transport. De Gaulle preferred the DS 19 for its style, ability to maneuver at high speed and rugged construction.
On Jan. 28, 1963, the nine captured conspirators ap peared before the Military Court of Justice in Paris, while the others were tried in absentia. In an emotional trial that captivated France, the defendants called more than 100 witnesses. When de la Tocnaye testified, he took full advantage of his moment in the spotlight, quoting centu ries-old writers and delivering a windy diatribe on the current status of France, Algeria and their respective places in Western civilization. De la Tocnaye’s lawyers argued their client’s actions were impelled by honor, as he saw the liberation of Algeria as a betrayal of his military vows to keep the colony a part of France.
As the presidential convoy roared away the conspirators scat tered, having agreed each would make his own way across the border into Spain. Inexplicably, however, most chose to dally in Paris.
Technique matters.
Despite having military backgrounds, BastienThiry and his inept colleagues were more Keystone Cops than professional assassins. Be ready to move.
Top left: De Gaulle’s 1960 Citroën DS 19 sits in a police car park after the attack. Middle left: A police officer points to the entry hole of one of several bullets that hit the vehicle. Bottom left: The DS 19’s hydropneumatic suspension system enabled the driver to maintain control despite damage to two of its tires.
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Gunning the engine of the lead Citroën, which bore 14 bullet holes in its sides and two tires, the presi dent’s driver sped out of Petit-Clamart and conveyed de Gaulle and his wife safely to the Villacoublay air base. On arrival de Gaulle remarked to those gathered, “Cette fois c’était tangent” (“This time it was close”).
Because de la Tocnaye was late moving his vehicle into the proper blocking position, the gunmen only got off glancing shots at de Gaulle’s Citroën.
Watin had succeeded, shouted, “You got him!” In fact, none of the presi dent’s party had been hit, nor had any of the townspeople. Considering that investigators recovered 187 shell cas ings from the scene, it was miracu lous that no one had been injured.
• The defendant had directed his subordinates to fire on a car in which an innocent woman, Madame de Gaulle, was present;
• And, finally, there was Bastien-Thiry’s unpardonable “glasses and suspenders” jibe.
• He had endangered civilians traveling in a car near the president’s vehicle;
In 1968 de la Tocnaye and the other conspirators were included in a general political amnesty and released from prison or pardoned in absentia. (De Gaulle himself retired a year later and died at home of an aneurysm on Nov. 9, 1970, two weeks before his 80th birthday.) After being granted his pardon, de la Tocnaye authored a book whim sically titled Comment je n’ai pas tué de Gaulle (How I Didn’t Kill de Gaulle). When asked during a promotional press conference, “Did you consider when you carried out your operation that Madame de Gaulle was also in the car?” he replied, “She married him for better or for worse, didn’t she?”
Ron Soodalter is a frequent contributor to HistoryNet pub lications. For further reading he recommends De Gaulle: The Ruler, 1945–1970, by Jean Lacouture, and The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth.
Top: His death sentence commuted to life in prison, de la Tocnaye was granted amnesty in 1968. Pictured here publicizing his 1969 book How I Didn’t Kill de Gaulle, he died in 2009. Above: A memorial to de Gaulle in his hometown of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, France, centers on a soaring Cross of Lorraine.
Yet the young air force officer vigorously insisted his intention all along had been merely to kidnap the presi dent. When the prosecutor asked what he would have done had de Gaulle resisted capture, Bastien-Thiry flippantly replied he would have confiscated the president’s glasses and suspenders. The courtroom was greatly amused; de Gaulle was not. Apparently, the president could pardon an assassin, but he would not tolerate a public insult. BastienThiry’s defense attorney was heard to mutter, “He has just signed his own death warrant,” while one of the military judges later remarked, “He talked too much.”
De Gaulle later commuted five of the death sentences to life imprisonment. There, however, his leniency ended. There would be no mercy for the disgraced air force colonel. Boissieu later listed his father-in-law’s reasons for having refused clemency for Bastien-Thiry:
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• He had brought foreigners—the three Hungarians —into the plot;
Early on the morning of March 11, a week after the pronouncement of sentence, Bastien-Thiry was awakened in his cell at Fresnes Prison and informed he was about to die. Fearing a riot or a rescue attempt, the government had lined the road from the prison to Fort D’Ivry, the Parisian stronghold at which the execution was to take place, with 2,000 policemen. At 6:42 a.m., as he clutched a rosary, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was bound to a post and shot. His was France’s last execution by firing squad.
According to biographer Jean Lacouture, de Gaulle gave a dinner that night for the presidents of the special courts, including the one who had condemned Bastien-Thiry. “The French need martyrs,” he remarked to an old Free French companion. “I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They’ll be able to make a martyr of him. He deserves it.”
De la Tocnaye lived another four decades, dying at age 82 in 2009. As he’d told a New York Times interviewer 36 years earlier, his only regret was “not to have killed de Gaulle.” MH
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• While the other conspirators had done the actual shooting, thus exposing themselves to possible re turn fire, Bastien-Thiry had merely directed events from a safe distance. De Gaulle, the old soldier, saw this as an act of unpardonable cowardice;
The trial ran until March 4. Bastien-Thiry was found guilty and sentenced to death, as were five other conspira tors, including de la Tocnaye.
as a permissible means of deposing a tyrant. He accused de Gaulle of having abandoned to FLN slaughter those Algerian Muslims who had been loyal to France. “The dictator,” he stated, “revealed his monstrous nature in displaying only indifference toward these unspeakable sufferings.”
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By
Mark Simner The Royal Marines’ 41 (Independent)Commando went into combat inKorea just two months after itsAugust 1950 formation in Britain. 49 WRECKERSTHETRAIN MIHP-230100-TRAINWRECKERS.indd 49 9/7/22 11:13 AM
Answering the call for amphibious raiders during the Korean War, the Royal Marines of 41 Commando wreaked havoc on the enemy
All three marine groups eventually gathered in Japan at Camp McGill, a U.S. Army training facility near the sprawl ing American naval base at Yokosuka. As 41 Commando would be under U.S. naval operational command, the Brit ish troops were issued American uniforms, weapons and equipment, though they retained their boots and distinctive green berets. Accents aside, there was little to distinguish them from their American counterparts. After familiariz ing themselves with the weapons, the marines underwent rigorous training on raiding techniques. By late September elements of 41 Commando were ready for operations.
Detonated as planned, the explosives destroyed a long section of railway, and the raiders made it back to Perch in the predawn darkness. They returned with the body of Peter R. Jones, the first Royal Marine casualty of the war, who’d been killed during a firefight with North Korean troops. Despite that loss—and others to come—the successful raid marked the beginning of a highly effective covert war carried out by Britain’s famed “green berets.”
Developed by two British police officers in Shanghai in the 1930s, the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife was a favorite of commandos.
O
The first members of 41 Commando to see action belonged to Poundforce, a 14-man team under the com mand of Lt. Edgar Pounds. Attached to a U.S. Army Ranger battalion, Poundforce supported the Inchon landings by conducting a diversionary raid along the Korean west coast on the night of September 12/13. Following the raid, Pound
Assembling the Fleet Volunteers and Devonshire men in Japan was easy enough. Deploying those at Bickleigh Barracks was more complicated. The British-based marines ultimately flew to Japan via a chartered civilian flight. So as not to attract attention during fueling stops in neutral countries, they traveled in civilian clothes. Their weak disguise likely fooled few onlookers, however, given that most of the men wore their combat boots.
The Royal Marines’ participation in the Korean War officially began just two months before the rail line attack with the Aug. 16, 1950, formation of 41 (Independent) Com mando at Bickleigh Barracks, on the outskirts of Plymouth in southwest England. The unit’s hasty creation stemmed from a request by Vice Adm. C. Turner Joy, commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Far East, for a raiding force to disrupt enemy supply lines on North Korea’s east coast. Amphibious
The commandos busied themselves retrieving a 24-foot motorboat, dubbed the “skimmer,” and inflat able rafts from an airtight 36-foot-long cylindrical cargo hangar welded to the submarine’s aft deck —a feature that led the marines to dub the vessel the “Pregnant Perch.” With the boats in the water, the skimmer towed the rafts toward the beach while Perch waited on the surface. Once ashore the raiders planted explosives along the tracks in tunnels and an adjoining culvert, though the latter presented an unexpected challenge. “The plan was to crawl to the center [of the culvert], then pack in as much explosives as possible,” commando Fred Hayhurst recalled. “The culvert, however, housed years and years of rotting, smelly rubbish. The first task was to clear some of the obstacles, then crawl through the slimy mess with packs of explosives.”
The raiders detonated 4 tons of explosives beneath bridges and in tunnels on the rail line
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The only problem was that 3 Commando Brigade— the Royal Marines’ primary field formation—was already battling communist guerrillas in Malaya. The marines were thus forced to recruit volunteers (though few former members of 41 Commando recall “volunteering”) from three different groups. The first were marines under Drys dale from the commando school at Bickleigh Barracks. The second comprised sailors and marines of the British Pacific Fleet, who became known as the “Fleet Volunteers.” The
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final volunteers were marines en route to Malaya aboard the troopship Devonshire who were diverted to Japan.
raiding was exactly the type of operation at which the British commandos excelled, and Royal Navy Vice Adm. Sir Patrick Brind offered such a force to the United Nations Command.
n the evening of Oct. 1, 1950, the submarine USS surfaced 4 miles off the east coast of North Korea. A veteran of World War II combat against Japan, the warship had been converted into a troop transport and in place of torpedo tubes carried troops—67 members of Britain’s 41 (Independent) Commando, Royal Marines. Led by Lt. Col. Douglas B. Drysdale, the men were among the first members of their service to go into action behind enemy lines in the Korean War. Their target that night was a rail line used by the North Koreans to transport supplies and personnel south.
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Following the October 1/2 raid from Perch, Drysdale’s second-in-command, Maj. Dennis Aldridge, led two separate raids on October 5 and 6 by 125 men of the com mandos’ C and D Troops. Put ashore by landing craft from the U.S. high-speed transports Bass and Wantuck, the raiders detonated 4 tons of explosives beneath bridges and culverts and in tunnels along the same key rail line. Another commando was killed, but that operation was also successful. It and further raids on the North Korean rail system led 41 Commando to be widely referred to as the “Train Wreckers.”
Top: Members of 41 Commando line the decks of USS Perch, the U.S. Navy transport submarine that put the Royal Marines ashore in North Korea in October 1950. Above left: The unit’s founding commander was Lt. Col. Douglas B. Drysdale. Above: Members of 41 Commando pose for a group shot before shipping out for Korea.
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After enjoying Thanksgiving with their American brothers-in-arms at Hungnam, the men of 41 Commando boarded twenty-two 2½-ton trucks and, accompanied by a weapons carrier and Drysdale’s jeep, traveled north through Funchilin Pass to Koto-ri. On their arrival famed World War II U.S. Marine combat leader Col. Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller, commander of the 1st Marine Regiment, informed Drysdale that upward of 120,000 Chinese troops had attacked the U.S. X Corps along a broad front west and south of the Chosin Reservoir, blocking the road to the north.
As part of a plan for the 1st MARDIV to fight its way through to Hagaru-ri, at the southern tip of the reservoir, the Royal Marines formed the nucleus of Task Force Drysdale, which included Company G, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines;
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force was attached to the U.S. 1st Marine Division (1st MARDIV), which by month’s end helped liberate Seoul.
As U.N. forces rapidly advanced northward up the Ko rean Peninsula, opportunities for coastal raiding tapered off, and 41 Commando was put under the command of 1st MARDIV, the latter having transferred east following the liberation of Seoul. Numbering just 235 men, 41 Com mando was to serve as a reconnaissance company on the division’s left flank as it advanced north from Yudam-ni.
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“The trucks jerked to a halt,” Royal Marine Dave Brady recalled, “and as they did so, there was some fairly intensive firing from the hills alongside.” Tumbling over the side of his truck, Brady heard someone shout, “Get off the road and up the hill!” He did as told and sought cover. “I rolled onto my side and drew my bayonet and, with trembling fingers, after many attempts attached it to my stupidly small carbine.
FUNCHILIN PASS 38TH NORTHKOREA
Unknown to the defenders of Hagaru-ri, the Chinese had suffered some 5,000 casualties. Such horrific losses didn’t prevent the enemy from pressing their offensive and rolling back U.N. forces. Farther west Eighth Army had been compelled to withdraw, and three U.S. Army battalions east of the Chosin Reservoir had suffered up to 75 percent casualties. The situation for U.N. forces looked bleak.
PARALLELMILES040 INCHON SONGJIN PACIFICOCEAN
Part of Britain’s Royal Navy, the Royal Marines trace their lineage to the 17th century, and as their cap badge indicates, they have served in conflicts worldwide. An elite, amphibiouscapable force, their motto, Per Mare, Per Terram, means “By Sea, By Land.”
from the command group, led by Capt. Patrick Ovens, narrowly avoided capture by withdrawing to Koto-ri. Mean while, the lead half of the column pressed on under intense Chinese fire until halted by mortar fire less than a mile from Hagaru-ri. Three Royal Marines were killed and several others, including Drysdale, wounded during that stage of the advance. Rallying, the men fought through into town. The advance had cost Task Force Drysdale 321 casualties and 75 vehicles. Scarcely 100 members of 41 Commando made it to Hagaru-ri, while 60 fell as casualties. Those in the column managing to reach town were given food and wel come shelter from temperatures that plunged to -24°F. Placed under the command of the U.S. 5th Marines’ Regimental Combat Team (RCT), the surviving Royal Marines were des ignated as “garrison reserve.” Yet before long they were in ac tion again, launching a counterattack to retake Company G’s left flank on East Hill, a crucial feature in Hagaru-ri’s defenses.
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but 17 tanks pushed up the line drove back the Chinese. The task force resumed its ad vance at 1:50 p.m. and continued until Drys dale called a halt at 4:15 to confer with 1st MARDIV headquarters. Increasingly con cerned the Chinese might capture Hagaru-ri, division commander Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith ordered Drysdale to press on. As soon as the tanks had refueled, the task force re sumed its advance. When Drysdale asked the commander of the armored element to dis perse his vehicles throughout the convoy, the latter refused, fearing individual tanks would be easier for the Chinese to pick off. His deci sion proved disastrous. Halfway to Hagaru-ri the convoy entered a defile and came under ambush by the Chinese, who hit a truck with a mortar round, splitting the column.
Company B, 3rd Battalion, 31st U.S. Infantry; and 1st MARDIV support elements. The task force—922 men and 141 vehicles under Drysdale’s command—began its ad
Sea and Land
HAGARU-RIWONSAN HUNGNAM SEOUL
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Men of 41 Commando place dummy demolition charges beneath railroad tracks during training in Japan before their first raid into North Korea.
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Smith’s plan to “advance” south called for the besieged garrison at Hagaru-ri to break through to Koto-ri. The 7th Marine RCT was to lead the way with the 5th RCT and 41 Commando acting as a rear guard. The move would be dangerous, though U.S. and British troops would receive air support from carrier-based U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. The withdrawal began on December 6, with 10,000 men and 1,000 vehicles setting out under constant threat
The move toward Hungnam ran into a delay, as the Chinese had destroyed a section of bridge at a hydroelectric plant spillway in Funchilin Pass. U.S. engineers rushed to span the gap using steel trackway parachuted into the pass. With repairs completed, 41 Commando moved out of Kotori amid a snowstorm on the evening of December 8, tasked with holding high ground along the road ahead to guard against Chinese attack. The next morning the marines turned back to Koto-ri to relieve 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, in defense of the perimeter. Finally, 41 Commando left Koto-ri with the 5th RCT, marching the 23 miles to Hung-
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Putting their training into practice, members of 41 Commando look on from cover as their charges blow the rail lines near Songjin, North Korea.
During a high-level briefing at Hagaru-ri the commander of X Corps authorized 1st MARDIV commander Smith to destroy his heavy equipment before retiring to Hungnam. But Smith said the division would fight its way out and take its equipment with it. The general also made it clear “with drawal” was not a word in the Marine Corps vocabulary. The coming move would represent an “advance” to the south.
of Chinese attack. “The whole column moved at a very slow pace,” one Royal Marine recalled. “All except the drivers were walking. This was to prevent the enemy getting close enough to toss grenades at the vehicles. It was also to pre vent people freezing to death in the backs of trucks.”
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The U.S. 5th and 7th Marine RCTs at Yudam-ni were first withdrawn south to Hagaru-ri, arriving on December 4 in subzero temperatures to a warm welcome by members of 41 Commando. The next day the Royal Marines tried to recover nine 155 mm howitzers that had earlier been abandoned. The attempt failed, though they later destroyed the guns. On the positive side, U.N. aircraft managed to fly in 537 reinforcements to Hagaru-ri and evacuate a number of casualties—including 25 Royal Marines.
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high-speed transport USS Begor to mount another demo lition raid. Their target was the coastal rail line near Soryedong, North Korea, which the enemy was using to transport men and materiel from Manchuria to Hungnam. The U.S. Navy provided both air and naval gunfire support.
Delayed by thick fog, the raid began just after dawn on April 7. After a two-hour naval bombardment D Troop landed at 8:05 a.m., followed an hour later by the engineers. After blasting out 16 boreholes along a load-bearing railway embankment, the raiders packed each cavity with 80-pound TNT charges. After detonating the initial charges, the team repeated the process, the subsequent explosions opening a gap in the embankment some 100 feet wide and 16 feet deep. Finally, the commandos salted the craters with dozens of anti-personnel mines to hinder North Korean repair efforts. Eight hours after landing the Royal Marines boarded landing craft and returned to the waiting ships. The raid had been a smashing success, and no casualties were incurred, despite a brief firefight between members of C Troop and the enemy.
On December 11 the remaining elements of 1st MARDIV arrived at Koto-ri. As promised, Smith and his Marines had fought their way out and managed to bring most of their equipment with them. After greeting the battered but un bowed Americans, the men of 41 Commando embarked on transports waiting off the coast at Hungnam, bound first for Pusan and then Masan. All told during the Chosin Reservoir campaign 41 Commando suffered 93 casualties, including most of the assault engineers, signal men and NCOs of the heavy weapons sections. Thus the unit was withdrawn to Japan. After a period of R&R at Ebisu Camp in suburban Tokyo 41 Commando were sent to HMAS Commonwealth, the Australian naval base at Kure, where they received replacement personnel and equip ment. The commando also undertook additional training, for their combat role in Korea was only just beginning.
Members of 41 Commando and the U.S. 5th Marines’ RCT were the last to leave Koto-ri, marching the 23 miles to Hungnam in awful weather conditions.
The next target for 41 Commando was Yo-do, an island in Wonsan Harbor, some 60 miles behind enemy lines. Secured in early July and established as a forward base from which to mount further raids, the island was initially gar risoned by South Korean marines. Through that autumn the commandos established forward bases on the neighboring
On April 2, 1951, the reconstituted 41 Commando em barked on the dock landing ship USS Fort Marion and
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nam in awful weather conditions. On arrival Drysdale’s men were loaded onto trucks and taken to a tented assembly area. Their ordeal of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir was over.
On October 15 Drysdale was appointed the Royal Marine representative at the U.S. Marine Corps Schools in Quan tico, Va. Succeeding him as commander of 41 Commando was Lt. Col. Ferris N. Grant. Meanwhile, the raids against North Korean targets continued, with B Troop landing mid way between Songjin and Hungnam on December 2. The commandos returned the following evening, landing a half mile farther north, but again were compelled to withdraw.
British military historian Mark Simner is a regular con tributor to several international history magazines. For fur ther reading he recommends Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950, by Andrew Salmon; Green Berets in Korea: The Story of 41 Indepen dent Commando, Royal Marines, by Fred Hayhurst; and One of the Chosin Few: A Royal Marine Commando’s Fight for Survival Behind Enemy Lines in Korea, by Dave Brady.
The Royal Marines intended to keep raiding that winter, hoping to tie down enemy troops that otherwise would be deployed against U.N. forces elsewhere. But by year’s end 41 Commando received an order to withdraw. Before leav ing they mounted a final raid, dubbed Operation Swansong, during which D Troop destroyed enemy vessels at Chang guok-hang, on the west coast of Ho-do Pan-do. Finally,
TakeawaysTactical
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On September 27 Drysdale and B Troop embarked on the high-speed transport Wantuck for a raid on Songjin (present-day Kimchaek), a port city on North Korea’s north east coast. The intention was to ambush enemy reinforce ments in the area. Two parties landed, one tasked with creating a diversion while the second carried out the am bush. Though one of their own was wounded during the raid, the marines managed to place mines on the main road and heard several detonate as they withdrew.
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Retreat isn’t defeat. On orderly withdrawal can save troops and materiel for later fights.
In its 18 months of existence 41 Com mando had conducted 18 amphibious land ings, most targeting enemy rail and road supply routes. Their actions forced the North Koreans and Chinese to divert considerable resources to the coast to guard against attack. During its raiding operations and participation in the Chosin campaign, 41 Commando lost 21 killed and 28 captured, 10 of whom died in captivity, bringing the total number of fatalities to 31. Several unit members received medals from both the British and U.S. governments, and the commando itself received a U.S. Presidential Unit Citation. Perhaps more important are the lasting bonds formed between the Royal Marines and U.S. Marine Corps.
On Feb. 2, 1952, 41 (Independent) Com mando, Royal Marines, formally disbanded. Re-formed in 1960, the unit saw action in East Africa, Northern Ireland and other trouble spots until again disbanded in 1981. MH
55 islands of Mo-do, Tae-do and Hwangto-do, from which several raids were mounted. During one August 30 raid against enemy artillery batteries on Ho-do Pan-do island B Troop lost two marines in a clash with enemy soldiers, and five other members of the commando were captured when their landing craft ran aground on nearby Kalma-gak.
On October 3/4 the commando targeted the railway south of Chongjin, though they withdrew on finding it heavily guarded. Two days later the marines attempted an other landing near Sorye-dong, but their canoes came under fire as they reached shore, forcing another withdrawal.
on December 22/23 they returned by ship to Sasebo, Japan. Those who’d served a year in Korea returned home to England, while those with time remaining in service joined 3 Com mando Brigade in Malaya.
Move fast, hit hard. Whether raiding behind enemy lines or maneuvering on the battlefield, speed and massed combat power usually increase the possibility of victory. Sever supply lines. Forces that can’t be resupplied must inevitably reduce their operational tempo to conserve food, fuel, ammo and personnel, so hit the enemy’s supply whenevernetworkspossible.
In December 1950 the Royal Marines bid farewell to their U.S. counterparts before heading to Japan to re-equip for further action in Korea. Right: Royal Marines commandant Lt. Gen. Sir Leslie Hollis reviews 41 Commando after the unit’s return from Korea in 1952.
By Jon Bradley and Sam Allison
(at left) exchanges
In the fall of 1697 a minor action in the subarctic reaches of North America shifted the balance of colonial power in the New World—for a time
The Royal Navy fourth-rate Hampshire broadsides
HUDSONTHETURNINGTIDEINBAY
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with the French fourth-rate ship of the line Pélican (at center) as two other English vessels seek to intervene on Sept. 5, 1697.
frigate
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Hudson Bay was named after English explorer Sir Henry Hudson, who first probed its reaches in 1610–11 at the behest of the Dutch East India Co., only to be set adrift by mutineers and left to an unknown fate. It is the second largest bay in the world (after the Bay of Bengal), with a surface area of some 470,000 square miles. If measured by shoreline, however, Hudson Bay is the world’s larg est. Unlike many other large bodies of water, it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of only 330 Hydrographicallyfeet. an extension of the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay extends from 62 degrees north latitude at its south ern limit to 66 degrees north, just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle.
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T
During the last few decades of the 17th century the quest for dominance over the Hudson Bay region inflamed tensions between France and England. In corporated by English royal charter in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) began trading with the various Amerindian groups in the northern settlements, while the French had the lands to the south firmly in their grasp, with control of the St. Law rence River anchored on their citadel at Quebec City.
Geographically part of the Precam brian Canadian Shield, the shoreline is generally rocky, with shallow vege tation typically classified as boreal forest trending to tundra in its northern reaches.
The shorelines of both James Bay and southern Hud son Bay are festooned with numerous smaller bays, in lets, marshes and floodplains, though hundreds of shoals and rocky bars make inshore navigation treacherous. The overall catchment area of the Hudson Bay region is
SirHudsonHenry
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For much of the late 1600s, as English and French ad venturers traded with local Inuits and Amerindians, posts regularly changed hands and names depending on who had more armed men on hand. For example, York Factory, just inside the mouth of the Hayes River on the western shore of Hudson Bay, was known at various times as Fort York, Fort Bourbon and Kischewaskaheegan (Cree for “Big House”). As newcomers were unfamiliar with the topography and weather, they often had to relocate their posts due to high
Chartered by the English Crown in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Co. began as a fur-trading concern before becoming something of an independent power with its own flag, ships and armed troops.
Such “forts” were rarely manned by trained troops, as it proved logistically problematic to de ploy soldiers to remote locations and even harder to pro vide them with the necessary support, especially when waterways froze over during the region’s harsh winters.
hree hundred twenty-five years ago—on Sept. 5, 1697—wooden warships from England and France waged a bitter, hours-long battle in Hudson Bay. Though long since forgotten, the clash marked the largest naval action ever fought off what today is far northeastern Canada.
vast—nearly 1,500,000 square miles—extending across present-day central Canada into the Northern Plains of the United States.
James Bay, extending from the south east end of Hudson Bay, is often viewed as an appendage of the larger body of water. Named after Welsh explorer Thomas James, who reconnoitered its shoreline and islands in the early 1630s, it is the outlet for scores of freshwater rivers that drain in a northerly direction and flow through Hudson Bay toward the Arctic Ocean, becoming saltier as the waters mingle. James Bay is some 275 miles long by 135 miles wide and also quite shallow, with an average depth of 200 feet.
In colonial North America the ini tial trading settlements (often given names like fort, factory, house and post) comprised little more than wood-andstone buildings staffed by a few traders, adventurers and the odd administrator.
What historian Peter C. Newman called “the greatest Arctic sea battle in North American history” pitted the French fourth-rate ship of the line Pélican, commanded by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, against English Capt. John Fletcher’s fourth-rate frigate HMS Hampshire and two armed merchant ships. The brutal fight epitomized the struggle between the rival European powers to control the newly discovered, largely unknown and potentially lucrative lands just south of the Arctic Circle and led to the largest transfer of territory in the New World to date.
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The seesaw fight for York factory augured a far more serious clash in the fall of 1697
Separated from the supply vessels by the weather and drift ice, Pélican was the first to arrive in Hudson Bay. D’Iberville immediately sailed to the west coast. Anchor ing at the mouth of the Hayes River on September 3, he
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had been badly battered by heavy seas during the Atlantic crossing.
In 1694 d’Iberville returned by sea with two warships and captured the holdout English post, renaming it Fort Bourbon. A year later a trio of English frigates recaptured York Factory. The seesaw fight for the post augured a far more serious clash in the fall of 1697, one involving French and English flotillas sent to contest the disputed region.
By sheer coincidence HBC’s annual fleet—that year comprising HMS Hampshire (captained by Fletcher) and the company ships Dering (under Michael Grimmington) and Royal Hudson’s Bay (helmed by Richard Smithsend)—
landed a party of soldiers to scout out York Factory and made siege preparations while awaiting the other French ships. On the morning of September 5 Pélican’s lookouts spotted sails on the horizon.
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In 1682 Quebec-based financiers seeking to counter the growing economic reach of the HBC formed the Compagnie du Nord, with the goal of running the English out of Hudson Bay. Its traders subsequently mounted a series of overland expeditions, following a water route blazed a decade earlier by Jesuit priest and explorer Charles Albanel. In 1686 an armed incursion led by d’Iberville managed to wrest control of all the HBC posts except York Factory.
On April 8, 1697, Pélican and the supply ships Profond, Palmier and Wesp sailed from France, stopping briefly in Placentia Harbor, Newfoundland, to refit and reorganize. Damaged during the Atlantic crossing, Wesp did not join the other vessels when they left Placentia bound north along the Newfoundland/Labrador coast. It was a challenging voyage. The French flotilla encountered foul weather, thick fog, fields of ice and rough seas as they sailed west.
The Battle of Hudson Bay was a mere sideshow of the Nine Years’ War (aka War of the Grand Alliance or War of the League of Augsburg). That 1688–97 conflict pitted King Louis XIV’s France against a small European coali tion that included William III’s England. Though fought
At the climax of what became known as the Battle of Hudson Bay both Pélican and Hampshire adhered to such textbook tactics, pounding one another with round shot and small-arms fire for more than an hour, each attempting to disable the other. At the height of the action Fletcher report edly yelled across the yards of water separating the warships, demanding d’Iberville surrender. The French commander refused, and Fletcher is reported to have raised a glass of wine in salute to his worthy foe. Hampshire’s captain did not have long to admire his foe, for as he tacked away from a Pélican broadside, the English frigate struck an uncharted shoal, broke up and sank with the loss of all hands.
The 44-gun Pélican was at a distinct disadvantage, given that shire carried 56 guns, Dering 36 and Royal Hudson’s Bay 32. Yet d’Iberville elected fight over flight. What en sued was an epic battle that would test the sea manship, wits and sheer mettle of the outnum bered and outgunned French captain.
Pélican and Hampshire pounded each other with round shot and small arms for more than an hour
With his victories at sea and on land d’Iberville had not only defeated a superior English naval force and cap tured York Factory, but also secured French primacy in Hudson Bay. The reach of the French empire in the New World now extended from the St. Lawrence River in the south to Hudson Bay in the north and east to the un claimed lands of Labrador.
Pierre
Pélican immediately went on the offensive, engaging the English ships in a two-and-a-half-hour running sea battle. With superior tactics—and a healthy dose of luck—d’Iberville managed to not only escape initial destruction, but also inflict damage on the HBC ships. At the outset of the battle his gunners dis abled Dering ’s mainsail, and when Royal Hudson’s Bay came to the aid of its sister ship, Pélican similarly crippled the second company vessel. Having neutralized two enemy ships, d’Iberville was thus able to turn the engagement from a lopsided fight into a single-ship action.
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Naval warfare in the late 17th century was a haphazard venture. A captain’s seamanship, the prevailing condi tions and, yes, luck were all contributing factors to victory
At the sudden and unexpected destruction of Hampshire, the disabled Royal Hudson’s Bay lowered its flag and surrendered to Pélican even as Dering crowded on all sail and fled. As Pélican itself had been holed below the waterline in the exchange with Hampshire, d’Iberville was in no position to give chase.
In his three volume Histoire du Canada (1845–48) French-Canadian writer François-Xavier Garneau judged that Pélican ’s “splendid victory ensured the mastery on Hudson’s Bay to the French.” Unfortunately for his country men, d’Iberville’s triumph was ultimately overshadowed by the realities of a broader European conflict.
at sea. Ships’ guns of the era were crude, inaccurate, prone to misfire and tended to inflict little damage at long range. Conventional naval tactics of the time thus dictated a war ship first close on an opponent, raking the target vessel’s rigging and decks with cannon and musket fire, then use grappling hooks to draw it alongside. Armed boarding par ties would then cross over and subdue the enemy crew in
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hand-to-hand combat. Captured vessels proved a source of additional supplies and, in some cases, replacement sailors.
489 TONS BURTHEN 118 FT. LENGTH 30 FT. 2 IN. BEAM 11 FT. 8 IN. DEPTH OF HOLD FULL-RIGGED SAIL PLAN 56 GUNS ARMAMENT HampshireHMS FOURTH-RATE FRIGATE, LAUNCHED 1653
had reached Hudson Bay in the immediate wake of the French flotilla. The English had also had a difficult Atlantic crossing, with one of its vessels, the HBC ship Owner’s Love, presumed lost at sea. Unknown to d’Iberville, days earlier the English ships had traded shots to little effect with Profond, Palmier and Wesp, the latter of which had caught up with its sister vessels. D’Iberville initially assumed the approaching sails propelled his own strag gling ships. Only as they drew closer and their markings became distinct did the French commander realize his enemy was at hand.
With the immediate English threat neutralized and foul weather closing in, d’Iberville concentrated on saving his surviving crew. Ordering Pélican run aground, he was able lead his men ashore through neck-deep icy water, though 18 died of exposure. Royal Hudson’s Bay also ran aground, its French prize crew and captive English sailors managing to wade ashore. Those English able to elude their captors made their way to the fort. Over the next few days d’Iberville and his men stripped Pélican of all useful items and awaited the French supply ships. Their arrival on September 8 pro vided d’Iberville sufficient men and materiel to besiege York Factory, which surrendered five days later.
FOURTH-RATE SHIP OF THE LINE, LAUNCHED 1693
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Louis XIV
With the 1713 signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, capping British victory in the followon Queen Anne’s War in North America, a defeated France recognized British sover eignty over Hudson Bay and its vast drainage and refocused its aspirations in Canada around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River basin. Shortly after signing the treaty, France resettled its displaced colonists on Île Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island), bridging the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean between British-held Acadia to the west and Newfoundland to the east. In 1719 the French founded the fishing port of Louisbourg, which by the 1740s had grown into one of the largest and most expensive fortified cities in Canada.
William III
500 TONS BURTHEN 118 FT. LENGTH 32.5 FT. BEAM 12.5 FT. DEPTH OF HOLD 3 MASTS SAIL PLAN 44 GUNS ARMAMENT
The ultimate fall of New France came amid the 1754–63 French and Indian War—a mere half century after the Treaty of Utrecht—with British Maj. Gen. James Wolfe’s masterful 1758 capture of Fortress Louisbourg and 1759 defeat of French Lt. Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. The latter cost both generals their lives and prompted the French evacuation of Quebec. With that, Britain became the dominant regional power, and the hard-won advances of d’Iberville and other French adven turers were consigned to the dustbin of history. Yet, for a short time France did legitimately hold vast swaths of the continent, and one cannot help but wonder how North American history might have evolved had France anchored and expanded its northern Canadian empire—fairly won by the gallant actions of d’Iberville and Pélican. MH
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Jon Bradley is a retired associate professor with the faculty of education at Montreal’s McGill University. Sam Allison is a former high school history teacher and seasonal lec turer at McGill. For further reading they recommend Lemoyne d’Iberville: Soldier of New France, by Nellis M. Crouse; History of Canada, From the Time of Its Discovery Till the Union Year 1840–41, by FrançoisXavier Garneau; and The Royal Navy: A History From the Earliest Times to the Present, by William Laird Clowes.
mainly in continental Europe, the war spilled over to other contested regions, including North America and India. Some historians consider it the first truly global conflict. Complicating the terminology, the conflict that played out between English and French settlers and their respective Indian allies in the North American theater is commonly known as King William’s War.
Left: In the wake of his victory in Hudson Bay d’Iberville commanded other French warships during King William’s War (the North American theater of the 1688–97 Nine Years’ War) and explored what today is Louisiana. Bottom: Initially established by the Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1670, York Factory remains a historic site in Manitoba, Canada.
Pélican
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THE MASTER OF ASIA MINOR
By Matthew T. Beazley
When strategists praise the military prowess of Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus, most students of ancient history wonder, Who?
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Lucullus exhorts his legionaries before the decisive 69 bc battle against Armenian King Tigranes’ much larger army at Tigranocerta.
The acquisitive king surreptitiously stockpiled weapons and supplies, and built numerous ships in preparation for
In the Second Mithridatic War (83–81 bc) Lucius Licinius Murena, Sulla’s legate in Asia Minor, had waged an unauthor ized pre-emptive campaign against Mithridates that ended with Murena’s recall to Rome and a return to the status quo.
One such Roman was Lucius Licinius Lucullus. The grandson of a consul and son of a praetor, he descended from a family of nobles accustomed to power. Lucullus was expected to do great things.
Galatia, Lycia, Phrygia and Pontus. Neighboring Armenia would also play a role in the coming war.
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In truth, Rome was partly to blame, having mismanaged its provinces in the region. For years corrupt senators had allowed unscrupulous moneylenders and tax collectors to burden the local populace with high taxes and interest rates. Local sentiment against Rome had reached such depths that when Mithridates invaded, most provinces welcomed him with open arms. Exploiting that discontent, and recognizing Rome was preoccupied with ongoing efforts to rid Spain of Sertorian rebels, Mithridates decided to invade Bithynia.
The ever ambitious Mithridates, who claimed descent from both Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, never passed up an opportunity to expand his territory. Some times referred to as the “Poison King,” he reportedly became so suspicious of betrayal that he self-administered small doses of every known poison until building up immunity to them. The latest war Mithridates was planning—known to history as the Third Mithridatic War—would not mark the first time warring in was the clear choice for the job in Asia Minor
A
ncient Rome was blessed with many great military leaders over its long, tumultuous and often glorious history. In the 1st century bc in particular the republic had more than its fair share of praiseworthy commanders. In the shadow of such giants as Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, however, other notable Romans and their accomplishments vanished from popular memory.
he’d grappled with the Romans in Asia Minor. During the First Mithridatic War (89–85 bc) the covetous king had invaded neighboring realms and sought to inflame Athens and most other Greek city-states against Roman rule before Sulla forced him to abandon his gains and return to Pontus.
A small kingdom on the southern shore of the Black Sea, Pontus varied greatly in size depending on its opportunistic ruler’s fortunes. At the height of his power Mithridates briefly controlled most of Asia Minor and much of the sea coast. But he was never able to consolidate his gains, as the Romans kept shoving him back into his box in Pontus.
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Though he delivered on those expectations, his life was ultimately overshadowed by other, greater contemporaries. Among them was general and statesman Lucius Cornelius Sulla, whom Lucullus loyally served over the first half of his political career. Sulla in turn held his young protégé in such high esteem that he dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus. Yet, only after Sulla’s death did Lucullus have a brief period in the sun before being cast aside by scheming Senators in Rome.
In late 74 bc the Senate learned that Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, was planning to war against Rome in Asia Minor (encompassing most of present-day Turkey). That year Mithridates’ long-standing nemesis Nicomedes IV of neighboring Bithynia died without an heir. In a last act of defiance Nicomedes had bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, the Senate quickly voting it as a new province. Other con tested realms in the region included Cappadocia, Cilicia,
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thePompeyGreat VIMithridatesEupator With Pompey busy
Spain, Lucullus
As depicted in this map from a 1901 atlas, by the 63 bc end of the Third Mithridatic War Rome’s imperial borders stretched from Spain east to Syria and northern Italy to coastal North Africa.
Tasked with helping Lucullus wage war against Mithri dates was Marcus Aurelius Cotta, his fellow consul of 74 bc. The Senate sent Cotta with a fleet to Bithynia, straddling the Black Sea and the Propontis (present-day Sea of Marmara) west of Pontus, while Lucullus was sent to govern Cilicia, south of Pontus. Cotta stationed the fleet at the fortified port city of Chalcedon, at the mouth of the Bosporus Strait, to block Mithridates’ fleet. With their enemy ostensibly pinned in place, Lucullus was to march north against Pontus. Arriv ing in Cilicia with but one legion, he quickly augmented his army with two legions from Cilicia and two others from Asia Minor. The latter had been stationed in the region since the First Mithridatic War and had a deplorable reputation— regarded at best as undisciplined, they had mutinied against and slain their founding commander, also a consul. Thus, while Lucullus marched to war at the head of five legions and various auxiliary units (some 30,000 soldiers and 1,600
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his showdown with Rome. According to the Greco-Roman historian Appian, Mithridates recruited approximately 140,000 infantry and 16,000 horse, while Appian’s con temporary Plutarch recorded a similar estimate of 120,000 infantry (armed with broad swords and large shields in Roman fashion), 16,000 horse and some 100 scythed chari ots (fitted with blades extending from each wheel hub). Though Mithridates was justly famed for his great wealth, his ability to raise, equip and feed such a massive army seems implausible. Regardless of exact numbers, however, Mithridates doubtless fielded a far larger army than the forces Lucullus was able to muster.
Recognizing the threat posed by the Roman pinning force at Chalcedon, Mithridates made the first move, marching his army west into Bithynia and sending his fleet through the Bosporus to besiege the fortified port city. Plutarch described the reception he received: “Not only did the cities there re ceive him again with gladness, but all Asia suffered a relapse into its former distempered condition, afflicted, as it was, past bearing by Roman moneylenders and tax gatherers.”
Convinced he could easily defeat Mithridates, and per haps loath to share the glory of victory with Lucullus, Cotta
For two decades Bithynia (a region in present-day Turkey’s northern Anatolia) was ruled by Nicomedes, a longtime friend of Rome who had often been at odds with Pontus’ King Mithridates VI. Nicomedes’ 74 bc bequeathment of his kingdom to Rome sparked the Third Mithridatic War.
Meanwhile, the sudden death of the Cilician governor left a proconsular vacancy to fill in Asia Minor. With an eye to the brewing war with Mithridates, the Senate sought someone with military experience. With Pompey busy warring against Sertorius in Spain, Lucullus was the clear choice for the job.
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Acutely aware of Rome’s public relations problem, Lucullus devoted significant time to driving out or admonishing such agents of corruption. While that proved an effec tive strategy for fostering local goodwill, it made enemies of powerful men in Rome who would eventually destroy Lucullus politically.
Another directive Lucullus employed to earn trust, one that made him enemies within his own ranks, was to forbid his soldiers from plundering cities they marched past. Obvi ously, for anyone trying to win over a local populace, allowing one’s soldiers to loot, pil lage and rape their way cross-country is decidedly unwise. Yet many of Lucullus’ legionaries grew to despise him for keeping them from enhancing their personal wealth. While Lucullus was thus occupied seeking to retain lo cals’ trust and restrain his own men, his fellow proconsul, Cotta, met with a military disaster in Bithynia.
Nicomedes IV
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horse), scarcely half his force was reliable, and Mithridates’ army outnumbered the Romans upward of 4-to-1.
Realizing the futility of direct confrontation, but hoping to compel Mithridates to lift his siege, Lucullus resolved to disrupt his enemy’s supply lines. Encamping his army on a high point overlooking Cyzicus, the Roman commander de ployed his legions at strategic chokepoints to deny the Pontic army food and resupply. Mithridates tried to convince the besieged Cyzicans the newly arrived army was his own reserve force, but a Roman messenger was able to swim around the siege lines, relate the truth and give defenders a ray of hope.
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Despite Mithridates’ best efforts, the defenders held out long enough for Lucullus to arrive at the head of his legions. Their commander’s decision to relieve his besieged country men alienated his own rank and file, who bemoaned the lost opportunity to plunder undefended Pontus and feared they were marching to their own deaths. The odds were certainly not in their favor. Yet on first catching sight of the Pontic army at Cyzicus, Lucullus remained undeterred. He had a plan.
Meanwhile, Mithridates left Chalcedon under siege and marched the bulk of his army west along the Propontis coast. It was then the true cost of Cotta’s recklessness became ap parent, as each of the Bithynian coastal cities in turn either fell or capitulated to Mithridates. The lone holdout, far to the west, was Cyzicus. According to Appian, in the spring of 73 bc Mithridates encircled the fortified port with earth works and blockaded the harbor with his fleet. He then had his men construct numerous siege engines, including a unique mechanical bridge that projected from two lashedtogether quinqueremes (oar-driven galleys).
Faced with dwindling supplies, Mithridates decided to send his sick and wounded with the Pontic cavalry, whose horses
Lucullus was presented with two options, and his choice illumines his character. With the Pontic army fo cused on its siege of Chalcedon, Roman officers pleaded with Lucullus to advance north into Pontus and con quer that rich kingdom. But he refused to abandon his fellow legionaries to a probable fate of death or slavery— or as Plutarch aptly put it, “He would not give the wild beasts the slip and stalk their empty lairs.”
The curved, oblong shield was characteristic of Roman troops from the 4th century bc until well into the 3rd century ad Made of wood, leather and canvas with a brass central boss, it provided decent protection from arrows and glancing blows from swords and spears.
The Scutum
rushed his own meager military force into combat with the vast Pontic army bearing down on him—a rash decision that ended with the utter rout of Roman forces at the Battle of Chalcedon. According to Plutarch, Cotta lost some 4,000 infantrymen and 60 ships and their crews before holing up with sur vivors in the fortified city. As the Pontic army and navy enveloped and besieged Chalcedon, Cotta could do little but look on impotently and send messen gers to Lucullus, begging for relief.
In the spring of 72 bc Lucullus descended from the mountains into the Lycus river valley, where Mithridates and his troops were encamped. As the opposing armies maneuvered for position in the confines of the valley, they engaged in several inconclusive skirmishes. The stalemate
their baggage. In the ensuing chaos Mithridates barely managed to escape the onrushing Romans, who might have overtaken him had they not stopped to plunder his royal baggage train. Having lost two armies and his king dom, Mithridates sought sanctuary in nearby Armenia, the kingdom of his son-in-law, Tigranes II—but not before sending a trusted eunuch back to Pontus to have his sisters, wives and concubines put to death.
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were suffering, east to safety in Bithynia. Learning of their withdrawal, Lucullus led 10 cohorts (3,000–5,000 legion aries) in pursuit and ambushed the enemy column as it crossed the river Rhyndacus some 40 miles to the south east. The slaughter was great, and the Romans captured some 15,000 men, 6,000 horses and the large baggage train. That dire loss, combined with the coming of winter and exhausted supplies, finally compelled Mithridates to aban don his siege. He returned home by sea, leaving his troops to make their way as best as they could west to their supply base at Lampsacus. Leaderless and weak from want of food, the remnant of the Pontic army fell prey to Lucullus at the con fluence of the Aesepus and Granicus rivers, the Romans kill ing some 20,000 men and capturing many thousands more.
In addition to their scuta, Lucullus’ legionaries bore javelins known as pila (above and at far left) and short swords called gladii
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The Pontic army fell prey to Lucullus, the Romans killing some 20,000 men
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ended after Pontic forces attacked an enemy foraging col umn only to suffer disastrous losses that emboldened the Romans. Correctly guessing Lucullus would follow up on this victory and assault the main Pontic camp, a panicked Mithridates began to evacuate his baggage and told his officers to do the same. Witnessing the evacuation of the officers and their baggage, the betrayed Pontic rank and file pounced on the fleeing officers, killing many and looting
With the Pontic army utterly defeated, Lucullus slowly made his way east to Pontus, besieging and capturing cities en route. Meanwhile, Mithridates managed to raise another significant army. According to Appian, it numbered around 40,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.
Replaced by Pompey, Lucullus returned to Rome frustrated that total victory had been denied him
Lucullus knew the war with Pontus would grind on as long as Mithridates lived, and he demanded Tigranes hand over his fugitive father-in-law. When Tigranes refused, Lucullus made plans to invade Armenia. While Appian claimed Lucullus conducted the invasion with just two
legions and 500 horse, many modern historians believe his army must have been significantly larger—possibly three or four legions with several thousand auxiliaries.
On spotting the charging Armenian horse (including heavily armored cataphracts), Lucullus advanced his far smaller cavalry in front of his infantry to draw the atten tion of the enemy horsemen, then ordered them to feign a retreat up an intervening hill. Encouraged by their “rout” of the enemy, the Armenian cavalry pursued the Roman horsemen uphill, in the process wearying their mounts and losing unit cohesion. With the enemy cavalry dis tracted, Lucullus led his infantry around the hill to come at the Armenians from behind. Exhausted and surprised, the enemy horse came under attack from all sides. The surviving Armenian horsemen retreated through their own infantry, which in turn panicked and fled.
Legend has it Mithridates had made himself immune to poison though small doses, so on deciding to kill himself, he needed a guard’s help.
What happened next can only be described as a massacre, as the Romans pursued the remnant of the Armenian army for a dozen miles, killing every man they could catch. Exact losses at the battle of Tigranocerta are unknown, but esti mates of Armenian casualties range between 10,000 and 100,000 men, while Roman losses may have only numbered in the hundreds. On learning of the lopsided outcome, the Greek inhabitants within Tigranocerta revolted against the Armenian garrison and opened the city gates to the Romans.
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With Mithridates cowering in Armenia, Lucullus was free to subdue Pontus—which he did in short order. He was careful, however, to ingratiate himself with its populace by granting key municipalities free city (self-governing) status.
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Accompanying Tigranes on the offensive, Mithridates cautioned against a direct attack. Instead, taking a page from Lucullus, Mithridates advised Tigranes to disrupt the enemy supply lines, as the Romans had done at Cyzicus. But Tigranes, the self-proclaimed “King of Kings,” brushed off Mithridates’ advice and ordered his cavalry to assault the Roman position.
Leading his army east into Armenia in the spring of 69 bc, Lucullus crossed the Euphrates river and advanced on the capital of Tigranocerta. Taken by surprise, Tigranes sent a cavalry force to slow the Romans’ progress while he
fell back to gather his army. Brushing aside the Armenian cavalry, Lucullus’ army encircled Tigranocerta and set about undermining its 80-foot-high walls. With the Romans thus occupied, Tigranes closed in on them with a large army. According to Appian, when the Armenian king sighted the Roman army, he said dismissively, “If they are here as ambas sadors, they are too many; if as enemies, altogether too few.”
After the debacle at Tigranocerta, Tigranes and Mithri dates fled north, gathering men to their cause. According to Appian, they managed to raise another army of some 70,000 infantry and half that many cavalry. In the summer of 68 bc Lucullus finally caught up to the defiant kings near Artaxata.
The Armenians had chosen a strong position. The in fantry and some of the horse under Mithridates stood atop a hill, while Tigranes waited in ambush with the bulk of the cavalry. As Lucullus’ army approached, Tigranes attacked their foraging parties. After a sharp contest, the Romans routed the Armenian cavalry. Lucullus then ad vanced on Mithridates’ position, but the fugitive king fled to Pontus and reclaimed power before his adversary could come to grips with him. Meanwhile, Tigranes retreated into the Armenian interior and also resumed his throne.
It was at that inconclusive juncture Lucullus received disappointing news from Rome. Having accused him in absentia of prolonging the war for his own personal gain,
Unlike many of his more famous ofliveretireLuculluscontemporaries,wasabletotohisestatesandalong,peacefullifepleasureandease.
eralship. In 73 bc Mithridates and Tigranes were the two most powerful kings in Asia Minor. Yet by 68 bc Lucullus, despite being outnumbered in every engagement, managed to dominate both powerful men. While Lucullus was in many ways similar to other great military leaders of his day, what distinguished him was his lack of desire for unbridled po liticalGivenpower.thebreadth of the opposition arrayed against him at home, Lucullus chose to re tire from public life and spent his remaining days living high off the immense wealth he’d amassed during his Asian campaigns. Wellread and educated, Lucullus arrogantly be lieved himself the smartest man in the room in most company. Perhaps he was right, as he died at peace in one of his luxurious villas, while the leading Roman commanders of his age—Crassus, Pompey and Caesar—all died violent, ghastly deaths. MH
his political enemies in the Senate had ordered the immedi ate disbandment of his army. On hearing of the Senate’s demands, many of his men—tired of the endless marching and fighting—deserted, claiming the senatorial decree had released them from service. In fact, they had never really cared for their commander’s strictness and his prohibitions against pillage and plunder.
Matthew T. Beazley is a Georgia-based ar chaeologist and lifelong student of military history. For further reading he recommends The Foreign Wars, by Appian, and Parallel Lives, by Plutarch.
Goodwill helps. Lucullus earned the support of local people by helping eliminate the onerous corruption under which they lived. Size matters, but... Despite being massively outnumbered virtually every time he went into battle, Lucullus outthought and outfought his opponents at nearly every turn, mitigating their numerical strength. Discipline is essential. Before he could take on Mithridates’ larger army, Lucullus had to whip his legionaries into shape after their years of dull occupation duty.
TakeawaysTactical
The Mithridatic wars might have persisted for decades had it not been for Lucullus’ consistent, excellent gen
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The final blow for Lucullus came in 66 bc when Pompey arrived in Asia Minor with senatorial authority to take command of the legions, all of which duly swore allegiance to their new commander. Lucullus returned to Rome that year undoubtedly frustrated that total victory had been denied him just when it seemed within his grasp.
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It didn’t take long for Pompey to finish what Lucullus had worked so hard to accomplish. Before the year was out he’d advanced into Armenia and compelled Tigranes to become a client king to Rome. Routed by Pompey that same year, Mithridates fled north across the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea, where he resumed his political machinations. After having one of his sons slain and facing a rebellion led by another, the exiled king of Pontus committed suicide in 63 bc. Having failed to poison himself due to his built-up immunity, he had a bodyguard dispatch him by sword.
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In Coffee With Hitler Spicer depicts the efforts of Tennant, Conwell-Evans and Christie to form an effective alliance with key German
Coffee With Hitler: The Story of the Amateur Spies Who Tried to Civilize the Nazis, by Charles Spicer, Pegasus Books, New York, 2022, $29.95
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Before a 1938 soccer match against the German national team in Berlin, members of the England squad (in white) render a Nazi salute at the insistence of British diplomats hoping to mollify Adolf Hitler.
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—S.L. Hoffman
As the result of multiple restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Germany’s economy suffered during the 1920s and ’30s, creating resentment among Ger man citizens and fertile ground for the rise of Nazism. Well aware of the vast toll another war would wreak upon society, three perceptive Englishmen—Ernest Tennant, Philip ConwellEvans and Grahame Christie—sought to avert another world war through the formation of the exclusive Anglo-German Fellowship (AGF) and its German sister organization, the Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft (DEG). AGF’s intent was to develop civilized friendships and political and economic connections with German leaders, including Nazi Party mem bers such as Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess and even Adolf Hitler.
leaders, despite ever-increasing evidence of Nazi treachery and a British government firmly entrenched in an appeasement mindset. Spicer also describes how AGF connections quietly gathered valuable intelligence from Germany’s resistance leaders before World War II, care fully noting the AGF was not a pro-Nazi group, but rather a well-meaning, pro-Germany or ganization. In addition, Spicer reveals the eventual deterioration of the Anglo-German relationship and how Nazi leaders’ ambitions and obsession with Lebensraum (“living space”) led to the inevitable outbreak of war.
Coffee With Hitler is an insightful and de tailed examination of a well-intentioned attempt to avert war. It also clearly demonstrates the hazards of failing to quickly heed intelligence reports to make political decisions and em ploying inexperienced political favorites to carry out foreign policy initiatives.
ReviewsCivilizing Nazis?
prey’s Combat series—au thor Bob Cashner appraises the title adversaries from the June 25, 1950, invasion of South Korea through their respective performance in three actions related to the subsequent defense of Pusan: Hill 342, in which the U.S. Marines and North Korean People’s Army first met headon; the fight for Obong-ni
As with the first Army contingents in Korea, the Marines paid a heavy price for underestimating what they expected to be a mob of barefoot peasants, only to face tough, motivated oppo nents well trained in the use of modern Soviet weapons.
Toward the close of her excellently researched and written book Fitzharris quotes one of those Gillies helped: “I can never forget your wonderful kindness to me and all that you have
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Lindsey Fitzharris’ The Facemaker examines the clinical care and compassion rendered by a man widely considered the father of modern plastic surgery. Gil lies and an international team of surgeons worked tirelessly during World War I to provide men who had shattered—and even miss ing—faces with facsimiles on which society would not turn its back. In the process he re stored his patients’ emotional well-being and self-worth.
tal. “Wounds to the face could be especially trau matic,” Fitzharris writes. “Noses were blown off, jaws were shattered, tongues were torn out and eyeballs were dislodged. In some cases entire faces were obliterated.”
Lebensraum (“living space”) in Russia.
of thousands of soldiers. A visionary surgeon, Dr. Har old Gillies of New Zealand, sought to repair that damage with a revolution in recon structive surgical techniques.
Os
The Nazi Menace: Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and the Road to War, by Benjamin Carter Hett, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2020, anoffasAdolfelectorates.tionspressiondevastationWorldandsiswidefacingdrawalized,unpredictableeventsDescribingancedtothisandthefore.toexaminedprofessorHarvard-educated$29.99historyBenjaminHetthasthechallengesinterwardemocracybeHislatestwork,withinclusionofGermanRussiansources,makesstudyintothebuildupWorldWarIIamorebalapproachthanmost.thetraumaticofthe1930sasmorethanfirstretheauthorseekstoparallelstopressuresdemocraciesworldinthe21stcentury.FeedingtheinterwarcriwerelingeringhumanmaterialcostsfromWarI,theeconomicoftheGreatDeandhighexpectafromhugelyexpandedInGermanyHitler’sNazisemergedadvocatesofbothaclosed-economy(autarky)andexpansionist
Repairing such destruc tion was beyond the scope of medical science at the time. Through painstaking efforts over countless sur geries Gillies developed new ways to fix smashed faces and help horribly disfig ured men achieve some sem blance of normalcy in their shattered lives. The inno vative surgeon and his team worked—often around the clock—to restore faces with then-untried techniques still in use today. They found new ways to restore bone, regrow appendages, realign teeth and transplant tissue. Gillies became expert at harvesting cartilage and tendons from other parts of the body to use in the facial reconstruc tion of countless men.
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There is little doubt Gil lies was a technical wizard with plastic surgery (plastic in the old sense of being pli able). Accompanying beforeand-after photos of soldiers he restored bear witness to that. He was more than just a gifted surgeon, however. Gillies was a compassionate and caring doctor who truly wanted to heal broken souls. His efforts helped many of his patients return to their loved ones and life in general with an intact sense of self.
The principal handicaps faced by the NKPA were a paucity in communication equipment (hampering their ability to coordinate efforts or concentrate forces where needed) and a general in feriority in marksmanship compared to the Marines (in which everyone, regardless of specialty, was trained to be a rifleman).
U.S. Marine vs. North Korean Soldier: Korea, 1950, by Bob Cashner, Osprey InNewing,BloomsburyPublishing/Publish-Oxford,U.K.,andYork,2022,$22thisstudy—No.64of
The technological inno vations that made World War I so deadly also caused horrible wounds. While legs and arms could be replaced, damage to the head was bru
done to make my life worth living. I am looking so well that people are beginning not to believe it when I tell them I was nearly burnt to death 11 years ago.”
Under Joseph Stalin’s iron fist Soviet Russia was a paranoid police state hostile to both Germany and the Western
—Jon Guttman
The Facemaker: A Vision ary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I, by Lindsey Fitzharris, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022, $30
—Dave Kindy
With high-explosive artillery and sweeping machine gun fire, World War I changed
Note, for example, Hor sted’s choice of represen tative soldiers, comparing a Celtic warrior dressed in nothing more than woad with a sword and shield against a Roman auxiliary, wielding similar weapons but more
Alternately viewed as either a patriot or a murderer, a buffoon or an evil master mind, Marshal of Italy and Viceroy of Ethiopia Rodolfo Graziani was one of dictator Benito Mussolini’s top gener als. Italian journalist Cova draws on private letters and secret communications to reveal the life of glaring con tradictions led by this highprofile fascist leader.
thought-provoking book in cludes a glossary of interna tional wartime figures, period photographs (many from the German Bundesarchiv) and extensive endnotes, though it lacks a bibliography.
The author’s unsung he roes are German officers Helmuth Groscurth, Hans Oster, Werner von Fritsch, Werner von Blomberg and Johannes Blaskowitz, among those who bravely, if un successfully, resisted Hitler. Contrary to other contem porary academics, Hett ar gues for Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt as the most familiar and deserving protagonists. While confront ing totalitarianism, they de fended democratic ideals, as outlined by the British prime minister in the 1941 Atlantic Charter. “Churchill demon strated beyond any doubt his profound understanding of world affairs, his fully intact moral compass and, with all this, his powerful claim on
British Celtic Warrior vs. Roman Soldier, Britannia, ad 43–105, by William Horsted, onstratesuateAsandinwhetheropposeoftheonagriculturalandinterestedthemodestoner,witnessedRome,portedlyratacusWhilearrivedlegionsInsometobesttanniaJuliusWhenandPublishing,Publishing/BloomsburyOspreyOxford,U.K.,NewYork,2022,$22RomangeneralGaiusCaesarinvadedBriin55and54bchecouldmanagewasestablishallianceswithoftheCelticchieftains.ad43,however,theRomanofEmperorClaudiusdeterminedtostay.theSilurianchiefCa-(Caradoc)wasrebaffledastowhatwhosesplendorshefirsthandasaprissawinconqueringthehutsofhispeople,Romanswereprimarilyinsecuringsilverironoremines,andrichlands.AswiththeGallictribestheEuropeanmainland,RomanssoonfoundmanytheBritonsdeterminedtoRomandomination,byguerrillawarfarethemountains,marchesforestsorinopenbattle.UniversityofBristolgradWilliamHorsteddeminNo.65ofOsprey’s
,
—Jon Guttman
The Greatest Saint-Nazaire,Raid:1942
ibility in a skirmish (in which they soon learned the longer cavalryman’s spatha was more effective than the gladius fa vored by the legionaries in pitched battle). The author assesses the combatants’ re spective strategies and tactics at Caratacus’ last stand in 50, the Roman assault on Mona Island in 60 and the climactic battle of Mons Graupius in 83.
—William John Shepherd
by Giles Whittell, Oxford University Press, New York, 2022, $29.20
Allies. Under Neville Cham berlain Britain vainly led efforts to preserve the peace and contain the expansionist powers, including fascist Italy and imperial Japan. Hett notes that while Hitler was able to exploit Chamberlain’s desire for peace, the prime minister nevertheless wisely rearmed Britain. The resulting intro duction of the Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane and radar technology in particu lar enabled Britain to resist Hitler’s strong-arm tactics.
Recommended
By Alessandro Cova
The Cactus Air Force
By Eric Hammel & Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
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72 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 202
After the fall of Singapore and other early Allied losses
by any means necessary and readiness to adapt to the situ ation at hand, using the right tool—or soldier—for the job.
With illustrations by Adam Hook and images of rediscov ered relics from both sides, this book will appeal to any one with an interest in Ro mano-British history.
This narrative draws from diaries, interviews and first hand accounts to document the air war over Guadalcanal from August to November 1942. The authors inter viewed some 150 American participants, providing a comprehensive collection of firsthand accounts of the campaign. Code-named “Cactus,” the fight for the island sapped Japanese air and naval power at a critical juncture in the Pacific War.
Rodolfo Graziani
Combat series, British Celtic Warrior vs. Roman Soldier, Britannia, ad 43–105, neither strategy succeeded in the end, simply because of the Ro mans’ determination to ulti mately achieve their objectives
Pin-Ups For Vets raises funds to better the lives and boost morale for the entire military community! When you make a purchase at our online store or make a donation, you’ll contribute to Veterans’ healthcare, helping provide VA hospitals across the U.S. with funds for medical equipment and programs. We support volunteerism at VA hospitals, including personal bedside visits to deliver gifts, and we provide makeovers and new clothing for military wives and female Veterans. All that plus we send care packages to our deployed troops.
Alicia, Army Veteran
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The success of Operation Chariot despite consider able odds not only deprived Hitler of a convenient naval repair facility on the Atlantic seaboard, but also provided a much-needed boost to Brit ish public morale. Further more, Chariot demonstrated Britain’s will to continue fighting and is proof that even “a plan so audacious the enemy would consider it madness” can be successful.
In The Greatest Raid au thor Whittell provides an absorbing account of the Saint-Nazaire raid, from its meticulous planning and hazards to its execu
examineversity,relationssciencepard,byfoughtmilitarytiesstrugglegreaterCrown.whoandtobetweenragedathelutionaryfoughtandington’sWhileandPublishing,Publishing/BloomsburyOspreyOxford,U.K.,NewYork,2022,$22Gen.GeorgeWashContinentalArmyitsBritishoppositestheAmericanRevoWaraccordingtoconventionsofthetime,parallelideologicalconflictwithinthecolonies,PatriotscommittedthecauseofindependenceLoyalists,or“Tories,”remainedloyaltotheInapreludetoacivilwartocome,thisdividedstates,counandfamiliesasparaforcesformedandinastrugglemarkedatrocitiesandreprisals.London-bornSiShepaprofessorofpoliticalandinternationalatLongIslandUniiswellqualifiedtobothcampsin
Mountain, S.C. Despite its compact size, Sheppard’s study is a comprehensive, useful examination of the complex parallel conflict within the broader War of Independence.
74 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023
Narvik 1940: The Battle for Northern Norway, by David Greentree, Osprey Publishing, New York, 2022, $24
—Jon Guttman
On April 9, 1940, German land, sea and air forces in vaded Norway, quickly over running the country and experiencing only token resistance. At least, that is the impression one gets from most accounts of World War II. The real story, how ever, was more complicated. A great deal of fighting went on in Norway, and assist ing the relatively small, illequipped Norwegian army were British and French con tingents and even a Polish brigade attached to the latter. While not quite the walk over it is generally depicted as having been, Norway was ultimately a decided defeat for the Allies. Moreover, the Allies failed in Norway for many of the same reasons
—Robert Guttman
Patriot vs. Loyalist: Amer ican Revolution, 1775–83, by Si Sheppard, Pa
Narvik 1940 demonstrates in detail just how complex and how fierce the fighting in Norway was. It also il lustrates the weaknesses of Allied strategic and tactical planning in the early days of World War II, as contrasted with that of the Germans.
as pertained to their defeats in Poland and France.
nerability and slow reaction, coupled with the attackers’ guile and local weather con ditions, proved decisive. The author also analyzes Char iot’s shortfalls, including the commandos’ lack of experi ence with motor launches and the boat crews’ lack of combat experience.
in World War II, Britain was determined to show Ameri can and Russian leaders it was still a viable partner in defeating the Axis powers. To accomplish this goal, the British government con ceived a daring and risky plan known as Operation Chariot—a virtually sui cidal nighttime attack by commandos and motor launch crews on the wellfortified, German-occupied French port of Saint-Nazaire. Planners intended to force enemy warships requiring repairs to instead return to their home waters, thus risk ing destruction by sailing through the dangerous Eng lish Channel or North Sea.
triot vs. Loyalist , No. 62 of Osprey’s Combat series. After describing their mo tives, methods and makeup, the author analyzes their performance in three dis tinct engagements: raids in
contingents. In fact, just as in Poland and France, from the very beginning the Allies were constantly on the back foot, reacting to German initiative. Regardless, it is interesting to note that Allied failings displayed in Norway in 1940 had been rectified, and the situation reversed, by the time Normandy was invaded in 1944.
—S.L. Hoffman
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Narvik, in northern Nor way, was of vital importance to Germany as a year-round, ice-free port of access to iron ore exported from Sweden. Though it was clearly one of Germany’s principal strategic objectives, the Allies chose to disperse their military re sources to other regions in Norway, notably Trondheim. From that misstep Narvik 1940 shows how the entire Allied effort in Norway was
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. Military History 2. (ISSN: 08897328) 3. Filing date: 10/1/22. 4. Issue frequency: Quarterly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 4. 6. The annual subscription price is $39.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, Michael A. Reinstein, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203, Editor, Stephen Harding, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203 , Editor in Chief, Dana Shoaf, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 10. Owner: HistoryNet; 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent of more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publisher title: Military History. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: Autumn 2022. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 39,854. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 36,996. B. Paid circulation. 1. Mailed outside-county paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 21,070. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 19,878. 2. Mailed in-county paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 5,140. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 5,400. 4. Paid distribution through other classes mailed through the USPS. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. C. Total paid distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 26,210. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date; 25,278. D. Free or nominal rate distribution (by mail and outside mail). 1. Free or nominal Outside-County. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 2. Free or nominal rate in-county copies. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 3. Free or nominal rate copies mailed at other Classes through the USPS. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 4. Free or nominal rate distribution outside the mail. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 582. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 407. E. Total free or nominal rate distribu tion. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 582. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 407. F. Total free distribution (sum of 15c and 15e). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 26,792. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 25,685. G. Copies not Distributed. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 13,062. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 11,310. H. Total (sum of 15f and 15g). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 39,854. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing: 36,995. I. Percent paid. Average percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 97.8% Actual percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 98.4% 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: A. Paid Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. B. Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 26,210. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 25,278. C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 26,792. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 25,685. D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 97.8%. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 98.4%. I certify that 50% of all distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above nominal price: Yes. Report circulation on PS Form 3526-X worksheet 17. Publication of statement of ownership will be printed in the Winter 2022 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Kelly Facer, SVP, Revenue Operations. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or mislead ing information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanction and civil actions. THE
Veteran's Cemetery KnightMuseum& SandhillsCenter & SallowsMilitary Museum Dobby's Frontier MIHP-221011-01 Alliance Tourism 1-2H.indd 1 9/3/22 11:00 PM
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‘DIVINE THEENGULFEDWIND’U.S.NAVY MIHP-230100-REVIEWS.indd 75 9/9/22 12:46 PM
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Not until the late 19th century did historians and archeolo gists start paying serious attention to the ancient fortification. As recently as 40 years ago there wasn’t much to see, but things have changed substantially since then. In 2005 the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since then, archeological activity has been non stop. Under the supervision of the German Limes Commis sion, it has grown into the largest archeological monument in Europe, its footprint hosting some 85 museums and ar cheological sites. Some of the fort excavations are extensive, and watchtowers have been reconstructed at various points. Most of the sites have information signs in German with English translations. Two museums in particular stand out.
Adjacent to the museum in Osterbruken is an excavated Roman bath. Nearby Kastell Osterbruken, featuring partially excavated Roman ruins and a reconstructed watchtower, was the encampment of the 500-man Cohors III Aquitanorum. The museum in Aalen is the largest on the German Limes Road. Adjacent is partially excavated Kastell Aalen, which hosted the largest Roman cavalry garrison north of the Alps. The 1,000man Ala II Flavia was not in the direct chain of command for control of the limes. Rather, its mission was communications and long-range reconnaissance patrols into German territory. The prefect of Ala II Flavia answered directly to the emperor.
Such stories are part of the rich historic tapestry of the limes, any museum or archeological site of which is well worth a full-day visit. MH
83 the Romans advanced in force back into the Rhine-Danube corner of southwest Germany, ultimately build ing a fortified border that followed natural contours from just north of Koblenz on the Rhine to just shy of Regensburg on the Danube. Known today as the Upper(pronouncedGermanic-Rhae“Lee-
Originally, the limes was intended to regulate commercial traffic with Germany and provide observation points and bases for long-range reconnaissance patrols into the region.
Hallowed Ground Upper Limes,Germanic-RhaetianGermany
By the third century, however, the legions had fought a num ber of significant military actions along the boundary. In 213 Emperor Caracalla launched a campaign against the Alemanni, allied Germanic tribes north of the limes. The departure portal for the expedition was the monumental Dalkingen Gate, com pleted that same year. In 233 the Alemanni launched a series of major attacks against various sections of the limes, result ing in the destruction of Dalkingen Gate. In 234–235 Emperor Severus Alexander launched a punitive campaign against the Germans, while from 240 to 250 the Alemanni launched con stant raids against the limes. The Romans finally abandoned the limes in 260 and pulled back to the Rhine and the Dan ube. The German tribes followed, especially the Alemanni, many of whose descendants live in modern-day Baden.
GERMANY
mus”) being Latin for “boundary line”
—the defensive work was similar to Hadri an’s Wall in Britain but more than four times as long. Running 341 miles, the limes boasted 120 forts and 900 interspersed watchtowers with controlled access gates at various points.
he year ad 9 did not go well for the Roman empire. Three legions, six auxiliary cohorts and attached cavalry—roughly 20,000 troops—under Publius Quinctilius Varus sought to extend Roman control deep into Germany. In the Teutoburg Forest, near present-day Osnabrück, allied Germanic tribes under Arminius ambushed and annihilated the legions. The empire struck back hard between ad 14 and 16. Operating from bases west of the Rhine River, legions under Germani cus Julius Caesar, a nephew of Emperor Tiberius, waged three successful campaigns against the Germanic tribes. But despite various follow-on Roman incursions into Germany, the eastwest border of the empire remained the Rhine, the north-south border the Danube, effectively containing most of Germany.
By David T. Zabecki GERMANIC-UPPERRHAETIANLIMES
The second century Roman army comprised some 400,000 troops. The 170,000 troops in the legions were Roman citi zens; the 230,000 troops in the auxiliary cohorts were not. The limes was manned entirely by auxiliaries. Each fort on the line was garrisoned by a cohort of about 500 men, while some cohorts had 1,000. Cavalry patrolled between the forts. The stra tegic reserve comprised three legions garrisoned behind the two at Mogontiacum (presentday Mainz), Legio VIII Augusta at Argentoratum (Strasbourg) and Legio III Italica at Castra Regina (Regensburg).
76 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 (AKG-IMAGES)STIFFENSBILDARCHIV3.0;BY-SACCWEINANDT,HOLGERIMAGES);(GETTYAGOSTINIBORCHI/DEM.4.0;BY-SACCZUID-HOLLAND,ERFGOEDHUISTOP:FROMCLOCKWISEOPPOSITE,WALKER;BRIANBYMAP
An artist's impression of the Roman castellum Nigrum Pullum, in Zwammerdam, Netherlands, illustrates the general layout of the forts built along the Rhine to contain the Germanic tribes.
(AKG-IMAGES)STIFFENSBILDARCHIV3.0;BY-SACCWEINANDT,HOLGERIMAGES);(GETTYAGOSTINIBORCHI/DEM.4.0;BY-SACCZUID-HOLLAND,ERFGOEDHUISTOP:FROMCLOCKWISEOPPOSITE,WALKER;BRIANBYMAP
77
Kleinkastell Rheinbrohl, on the east bank of the Rhine northwest of Koblenz, centers on this reconstructed Roman watchtower. Middle left: A palisade rings this reconstructed Roman fort north of Wiesbaden. Below left: Far more complete is the reconstructed Kastell Saalburg, northwest of Bad Homburg.
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de (Netherlands)Ruyter 52 4 1 39 7 8 6 10 MIHP-230100-GAMES.indd 78 9/6/22 7:50 PM
D.
H.
National Naval Icons Artemisia of Caria (Persian empire) Miguel Grau Seminario (Peru) Khayr ad-Din “Barbarossa” (Ottoman empire) George Dewey Themistocles Heihachiro Togo (Japan) Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (Austria) Yi Sun-sin (Korea) Horatio Nelson (Britain) Michiel
(Athens) Jean-Baptiste Kléber F.
G.
B.
78 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 (ALAMYBILDERUBERSTAR,EASYREALLYCOLLECTION,HISTORYIMAGOAGEFOTOSTOCK,10:6,5,2,BRAUNSCHWEIG;MUSEUM,ULRICHANTONHERZOG1:VERSAILLES;DECHATEAULEFT: COLLECTIONPHOTOLIFE9:RIJKSMUSEUM;8:GREENWICH;MUSEUM,MARITIMENATIONAL7:CONGRESS;OFLIBRARY4:MILAN;PEZZOLI,POLDIMUSEO3:4);PHOTO,STOCK JANEIRODERIOERNESTO,PEDROPALÁCIO War Games
...or Be Killed
(United States) E.
C.
How many of these scrapping sea dogs can you identify? A.
Can you match each of the following prominent military figures with the person or people who killed him? 1. Pancho Villa (1923) 2. Conrad of Montferrat (1192) 3. Jean-Baptiste Kléber (1800) 4. Reinhard Heydrich (1942) 5. Pompey the Great (48 bc) 6. W illiam “Bull” Nelson (1862) 7. Nikolai F. Vatutin (1944) 8. John Comyn the Red (1306) 9. François Darlan (1942) 10. Julius Caesar (44 bc) A. Ukrainian Insurgent Army members B. Seven riflemen C. A mob of Roman senators D. Knife-bearing Assassins E Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle F. Lucius Septimius, Achillas and Savius G. Jefferson C. Davis H. Suleiman al-Halabi I. Czech resistance operatives J. Robert the Bruce Answers:A3,B2,C1,D4,E9,F5,G6,H10,I7,J8Answers:A7,B1,C10,D2,E9,F5,G6,H3,I4,J8
J.
C. Uruguay D. Paraguay
C. Francisco Saveiro Baldisseri
MIHP-221011-03
RiachueloofBattlethe Sign up for our free weekly E-NEWSLETTER at historynet.com/newsletters HISTORYNET
1. W hich nation was the first to recognize Brazil’s independence from Portugal, in 1823?
Ship Index.indd 1 MIHP-230100-GAMES.indd 79 9/6/22 7:51 PM
Brazilians have in of often pitted against another. What do you recall?
Answers:1D,2C,3B,4A,5B
(ALAMYBILDERUBERSTAR,EASYREALLYCOLLECTION,HISTORYIMAGOAGEFOTOSTOCK,10:6,5,2,BRAUNSCHWEIG;MUSEUM,ULRICHANTONHERZOG1:VERSAILLES;DECHATEAULEFT: COLLECTIONPHOTOLIFE9:RIJKSMUSEUM;8:GREENWICH;MUSEUM,MARITIMENATIONAL7:CONGRESS;OFLIBRARY4:MILAN;PEZZOLI,POLDIMUSEO3:4);PHOTO,STOCK JANEIRODERIOERNESTO,PEDROPALÁCIO
Battles
conflicts—more
A. Umberto Merlino
B. Remo Arioni
Brazilian
scores
fought
A. Pinguin B. Stier
C. Britain D. Argentina
A. Alabama B. Sumter
C. Cormoran D. Michel
4. W hich Brazilian pilot earned a Medaglia di bronzo flying Caproni Ca. 3s for the Italians in World War I?
C. Florida D. Nashville
2. W hich Confederate cruiser was illegally seized in Brazilian waters by a Union warship in 1864?
5. O n Oct. 27, 1942, 15 survivors of the Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins landed in Brazil a month after their ship had been sunk by—and sunk— which German commerce raider?
D. Alberto Santos-Dumont
one
A. France B. Bolivia
3. Brazil’s last war against a foreign invader was fought from 1899 to 1903. Which nation was its opponent?
A. Spain B. United States
Wearing a regulation armor crewman’s boilersuit, Diana, Princess of Wales, lowers herself through the driver’s hatch of a British army FV101 Scorpion reconnaissance vehicle during a visit to the Royal Hampshire Regiment (of which she was honorary colonel in chief) at Tidworth Camp in Wiltshire, England, in June 1988.
Captured!
Down the Hatch
80 MILITARY HISTORY WINTER 2023 IMAGES)(GETTYFINCHER/STRINGERJAYNE MIHP-230100-CAPTURED-DIANA.indd 80 9/6/22 2:21 PM
“[Piezo timepieces]...it would shake the Swiss watch industry to its very foundations.”
In the history of timepieces, few moments are more important than the creation of the world’s first Piezo timepiece. First released to the public in 1969, the watch turned the entire industry on its head, ushering in a new era of timekeeping. It’s this legacy that we’re honoring with the Timemaster Watch, available only through Stauer at a price only we can offer.
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Spend some time with this engineering masterpiece for one month. If you’re not convinced you got excellence for less, simply send it back within 30 days for a refund of the item price. But we’re betting this timekeeping pioneer is a keeper. Southcross Dept. Minnesota
TPW334-04 Burnsville,
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Prior to Piezo watches, gravity-driven Swiss watches were the standard bearer of precision timekeeping. But all that changed when the first commercially available Piezo watch came onto the market.
The result of ten years of research and development by some of the world’s top engineers, they discovered that when you squeeze a certain type of crystal, it generates a tiny electric current. And, if you pass electricity through the crystal, it vibrates at a precise frequency–exactly 32,768 times each second. When it came on the market, the Piezo watch was the most dependable timepiece available, accurate to 0.2 seconds per day. Today, it’s still considered a spectacular advance in electrical engineering.
Foundation For Economic Education
Call today to secure your own marvel of timekeeping history. Because we work directly with our own craftsman we’re able to offer the Timemaster at a fraction of the price that many Piezo watches cost. But a watch like this doesn’t come along every day. Call today before time runs out and they’re gone.
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A watch that revolutionized timekeeping at a price equally as radical.
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