The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 9

Destruction of
Army Group Center
Tarawa Eyewitness
Fifteenth Air Force
Orde Wingate:
Master of Spec Ops

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 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 9
Dec/Jan 2010

Features
6 Field Marshal Ernst Busch & the 6
Destruction of Army Group Center
He was one of Hitler’s favorites, and, because of that, he
ended his career presiding over a disaster worse than
Stalingrad.
by Blaine Taylor

18 Orde Wingate: Pioneer of Spec Ops

Fighting in Ethiopia, Palestine & Burma, Wingate created
a new form of warfare. 18
by William Stroock

38 Southern Bomber Command:

Features

Fifteenth Air Force in Action

The US Fifteenth Air Force struck deep into the heart
of the Third Reich.
by Kelly Bell 38

48 I Remember: Tarawa from the Ground Up

A veteran of one of the bloodiest island battles of the
Pacific War tells his tale.
by Nick Cariello

48
4 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 4 8/27/10 3:58:20 PM

 columns
16 Design Corner:
Destruction of Army Group Center
Joseph Miranda

28 Game preview: Publisher: Christopher Cummins

AfrikaKorps Editor: Ty Bomba
Assistant Editor: Joseph Miranda
29 Observation Post Copy Editors: Jason Burnett, Jon Cecil
and Eric Harvey.
Behind the Lines: Design • Graphics • Layout:
The Civil Air Patrol in Callie Cummins & Chris Cummins
World War II Map Graphics: Meridian Mapping
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58 media reviews www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com.

Game edition
Rules
Destruction of Army
Group Center
by Ty Bomba
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World at War 5

WaW 9 Issue.indd 5 8/27/10 3:58:22 PM

 Field Marshal Ernst Busch
& the Destruction of Army
Group Center
By Blaine Taylor
The
first day of February 1943 was to
prove ill-fated for Adolf Hitler,
for on that date he bestowed the
coveted field marshal’s baton on two men who—one
much sooner than the other­—came to bitterly disap-
point him.
The first was Friedrich Paulus (1890-1957), who
surrendered his entire 6th Army command in besieged
Stalingrad the very next day, thus losing (by conser-
vative estimate) some 230,000 German troops. The
second man promoted that day would lose even more
men in mid-1944—some 300,000 in the campaign that
came to be known as the “Destruction of Army Group
6 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 6
Center.” His name was Ernst Busch, and in his career
he went from being one of the Fuehrer’s paladins to a
disgraced scapegoat.
Busch was born on 6 July 1885, in the Ruhr indus-
trial city of Essen-Steele. Like Hermann Goering after
him, he graduated from the Gross Lichterfeld Cadet
Academy in Berlin, and immediately afterward joined
the army of Kaiser Wilhelm II as an officer-candidate
in the Westphalian 13th Infantry Regiment, stationed at
Munster. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1908,
he didn’t make first lieutenant until 1913, when he was
posted to the War Academy at Kassel for more train-
ing.
8/27/10 3:58:25 PM
 Busch served almost all of World War I as a combat
infantryman on the Western Front, starting as a com-
pany commander and gaining promotion to captain in
1915. He next commanded a battalion in the 56th In-
fantry Regiment, and fought at Namur, Reims, Artois,
La Basse and Verdun, before being sent to the Cham-
pagne sector in 1918. Like Goering and Erwin Rom-
mel, Busch was awarded the coveted Pour le Me’rite
“Blue Max” medal, then Germany’s highest award,
given under the kaiser’s hand for bravery under fire.
After the end of the war, Busch served in a series of
staff and command positions in the 100,000-man army
of the Weimar Republic. On 1 April 1925, he became
WaW 9 Issue.indd 7
inspector of transport troops, and five years later was
promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1932 he was cho-
sen to become regimental commander of the Potsdam
garrison, the spiritual home of Prussian militarism and
site of Frederick the Great’s palace.
Promoted to full colonel in 1933, Busch—already
a stalwart Nazi by that time—was raised yet again, to
major general and commander of the 23rd Infantry Di-
vision. In 1937 he was promoted once more, to lieu-
tenant general, and on 2 February 1938, in the midst of
the Blomberg-Fitsch crisis, he was named full general
of infantry at the age of 53. That same year he was
picked to succeed Ewald von Kleist as commander of
World at War 7
8/27/10 3:58:28 PM
 Military District (Weh- mored assault during the first phase of the campaign
rkreis) VIII. against France. After the Compiegne armistice, Hitler
What had given promoted him to colonel general (full general in US
his career such a me- terms) on 19 July—part of a wave of armed forces
teoric boost was his promotions given that day. Busch then served on oc-
growing bond with cupation duty in France until the spring of 1941, when
Hitler. In particular, the he led 16th Army back to Poland, to its assigned jump-
Fuehrer had appreci- off line for the coming invasion of the USSR.
ated Busch’s staunch Positioned on the southern flank of Army Group
support for his plans to North, his command included seven infantry divisions
invade Czechoslovakia that advanced as far east as the town of Staraya Rus-
in 1938. That support sa, taking it in mid-August following intense house-
was given, moreover, to-house fighting. Having to hold against Red Army
when most of Busch’s counterattacks starting immediately thereafter, he was
brother officers—sev- sent reinforcements with which he stabilized the situa-
eral of them more se- tion—effectively destroying the Soviet 34th Rifle Army
nior—had voiced doubt in the process—by 23 August.
about the scheme. (Lat- On 9 January 1942, Busch’s command was again
er, following the failure attacked in force, this time in freezing winter weather.
of the July 1944 bomb Having no reserves with which to recoup the situa-
plot against Hitler, tion, Busch simply ordered his men to stand and fight
Busch would take great where they were—the tactic that became the Fuehrer-
pleasure—as a member of the directed watchword of the entire campaign. Busch
“People’s Court” before which saved Staraya Russa—an important road center in that
the suspects were hauled—in region—from recapture by the Soviets only by ex-
voting for the death penalty for many of those same pending the last of his command’s strength in another
officers.) round of hand-to-hand street fighting. Once more his
Busch became a corps commander for the German ruthlessness further endeared him to a Fuehrer in-
invasion of Poland in 1939, leading the VIII Army creasingly frustrated with many of his other marshals
(infantry) Corps into action. His command consisted and generals.
of three infantry divisions, a panzer division, and SS During 1942-43, the Soviet Northern Front armies
Regiment Germania, deployed along the left flank of concentrated on lifting the siege of Leningrad, leaving
14th Army in Army Group South. His command took Busch, just off to the south of that area, to face only
the Polish city of Krakow, continued its advance along lighter attacks. Despite losing the Battle of Nevel in
the Vistula River, and was near Lvov when the fighting October 1942, Busch was still awarded a field mar-
concluded. shal’s baton on 1 February 1943. In so doing, Hitler
In the spring of 1940, Busch had command of 16th was trying to camouflage what would’ve otherwise
Army (13 infantry divisions), which was deployed to been the ironic uniqueness of awarding the other baton
shadow the left flank of Gen. Heinz Guderian’s ar- on the eve of Germany’s greatest military fiasco—the
catastrophic surrender at Stalingrad.
Busch soon found his new baton cast a long shadow
over his reputation in the field as well as his relation-
ship with Hitler. He obeyed every Fuehrer directive
given to him without the slightest question, and he also
deferred to all ‘suggestions’ made to him by Hitler. On
29 October 1943, Army Group Center’s commander,
Field Marshal Hans von Kluge, was seriously injured
in an automobile accident. Hitler replaced him in that
position with Busch.
Busch’s newest command at that time encompassed
64 division equivalents of all categories: 48 infantry,
eight Luftwaffe field, six panzer, one panzer grenadier
and a rear-area security formation. All were under-
strength, though, which led to several unit-consolida-
tions.
Over the top: Red Army troops on the assault.
continues on page 12
8 #9

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 World at War 9

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 Data File: German Divisions Destroyed in the East, Summer 1944

Division Army Group Fate

1 Infantry
st
North Ukraine Reformed 8/44
4th Luftwaffe Field Center Disbanded
6th Infantry Center Reformed 8/44
6 Luftwaffe Field
th
Center Disbanded
9th Infantry South Ukraine Reformed 11/44
10 Panzer Grenadier
th
South Ukraine Reformed 11/44
12 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 9/44
13 Panzer
th
South Ukraine Reformed 11/44
14th Infantry Center Reformed 8/44
15 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Reformed 10/44
18 Panzer Grenadier
th
Center Reformed 11/44
20th Panzer Grenadier North Ukraine Reformed 1/45
23 Infantry
rd
North Reformed 9/44
25 Panzer Grenadier
th
Center Reformed 12/44
26th Infantry North Ukraine Reformed 11/44
31 Infantry
st
Center Reformed 9/44
35 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 9/44
36th Infantry Center Reformed 9/44
45 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 10/44
57 Infantry
th
Center Remnants to Corps Detachment “H” 7/44
60th Panzer Grenadier Center Reformed 10/44
62 Infantry
nd
South Ukraine Reformed 11/44
68 Infantry
th
North Ukraine Reformed 8/44
78 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 10/44
79th Infantry South Ukraine Reformed 11/44
83 Infantry
rd
North Reformed 7/44
95 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 10/44
102nd Infantry Center Fought as Remnants until End of War
106 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Reformed 4/45
110 Infantry
th
Center Remnants to Corps Detachment “H” 7/44
129th Infantry Center Disbanded
134th Infantry Center Disbanded

10 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 10 8/27/10 3:58:33 PM

 Division Army Group Fate
161 Infantry
st
South Ukraine Disbanded
183 Infantry
rd
North Ukraine Reformed 9/44
197th Infantry Center Disbanded
201st Security Center Remnants to Army Group North
206 Infantry
th
Center Disbanded
246th Infantry Center Reformed 9/44
252 Infantry
nd
Center Reformed 8/44
256 Infantry
th
Center Reformed 9/44
257th Infantry South Ukraine Reformed 12/44
258 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
260 Infantry
th
Center Remnants to Corps Detachment “H” 7/44
267th Infantry Center Disbanded
282 Infantry
nd
South Ukraine Disbanded
285 Security
th
North Disbanded
286 Security
th
Center Reformed 4/45
292nd Infantry Center Fought as Remnants until End of War
294 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
296 Infantry
th
Center Disbanded
299th Infantry Center Reformed 10/44
302 Infantry
nd
South Ukraine Disbanded
306 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
320th Infantry South Ukraine Reformed 12/44
335 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
337 Infantry
th
Center Remnants to Corps Detachment “H” 7/44
340th Infantry North Ukraine Reformed 11/44
349 Infantry
th
North Ukraine Reformed 10/44
370 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
376th Infantry South Ukraine Disbanded
383 Infantry
rd
Center Disbanded
384 Infantry
th
South Ukraine Disbanded
391 Security
st
Center Reformed 10/44

World at War 11

WaW 9 Issue.indd 11 8/27/10 3:58:34 PM

 During the autumn and winter battles of 1943-44,
the new field marshal won several of what passed for
“victories” at Fuehrer Headquarters in those days. He
held onto the towns of Vitebsk and Orsha in fierce de-
fensive fighting, and maintained German control over
the 50-mile-wide “land bridge” between the Dvina and
Dnepr Rivers. Those were all positions Hitler defined
as crucial to the maintenance of the overall situation in
the east. Disasters were occurring along other sectors
of the German front, however; and though Busch had
no control over them, their outcomes would neverthe-
less soon come to impact his fortunes. Those events
included the raising of the siege of Leningrad in mid-
January 1944, and the loss of the Ukraine that spring.
By May 1944 the Red Army outnumbered the Ger-
mans by an overall ratio of 2.7:1. That is, 6,077,000
Soviets versus 2,242,649 Germans—which was the
worst mathematics the latter had faced since launch-
ing their invasion in 1941. Further, the Luftwaffe had
lost air superiority to the Red Air Force.
12 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 12
Even so, Busch commanded the numerically stron-
gest German army group in the east, with 792,196
men (compared to Army Group North’s 540, 965;
Army Group North Ukraine’s 400, 542; and Army
Group South Ukraine’s 508, 946). His command was
also recognized as the most important army group in
the strategic sense, since it sat astride the main Soviet
route toward the German heartland and Berlin. At the
time, Busch’s forward outposts were only 290 miles
from Moscow, while those of the nearest Soviets were
still 550 miles from the German capital.
Stalin then overturned that situation by concentrat-
ing 2.5 million soldiers in four “fronts” (army groups)
against Army Group Center, launching them into a
massive offensive on 21 June. True to his nature, Busch
insisted his forces react to the onslaught by obeying to
the letter Hitler’s “hold-at-all-costs” order. That led to
the virtually complete annihilation-in-place of three
armies: 4th, 9th and 3rd Panzer. Those futile tactics cost
the Germans some 300,000 men in 34 divisions. (For
8/27/10 3:58:35 PM
 World at War 13

WaW 9 Issue.indd 13 8/27/10 3:58:38 PM

 Combined arms: Soviet tanks and infantry attack.
perspective, an equivalent loss would’ve been the en-
tire US Army in South Vietnam at the end of 1965.)
Hitler turned on his former favorite, firing him on
28 June and replacing him with Field Marshal Walter
Model, known as the “Fuehrer’s Fireman” because
of his trouble-shooting abilities in such crises. Even
so, the Red Army offensive carried it some 435 miles
to Memel and the banks of the Vistula River, thereby
menacing the eastern border of Germany itself.
14 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 14
Busch was recalled to duty on 20 March 1945,
to the newly created post of “Commander in Chief
Northwest.” That put him in charge of the crumbling
situation along Germany’s North Sea coast, the prov-
ince of Schleswig-Holstein and what was left of occu-
pied Holland. On 4 May—five days after Hitler’s sui-
cide—Busch surrendered himself and his command to
British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery.
Busch died—of unstated causes—while a prisoner
of war in England, on 17 July 1945. He was buried at
Cannock Chase War Cemetery, Staffordshire. He was
60-years-old.
at
8/27/10 3:58:39 PM
 Fight for the East.

The Destruction of Army Group Center

This new version of DAGC is a thorough redesign, by Ty
Bomba, of the game originally published by old-SPI in the
early 1970s. The campaign under examination is “Operation
Bagration,” the Red Army’s summer offensive of 1944 during
which they destroyed more German manpower and equipment
than had been lost at Stalingrad.
Without question a one-sided affair in terms of which side
is ‘shaping the battlefield’ and ‘controlling the tempo,’ we’ve
managed to make things more interesting for both players by
broadening the map to cover not only Byelorussia, but all of
the Baltic republics as well as northwest Ukraine. That expan-
sion gives both players more interesting options and strategies
in terms of how to pursue victory.
Each hex on the 34x22” large-hex map equals 16 miles
(26 kilometers). Each of the nine game turns equals one week,
from IV June through IV August. Units of maneuver are
corps (and static “fortified localities”) for the Germans and
armies for the Soviets. The latter’s great airpower advantage
is represented in the form of 10 “air armies.” There are 176
large-size unit-counters included, most done in NATO-style,
but also with iconic markers. The system is an adaptation of
the one used in issue number three’s Bulge, which means two
experienced players can finish a match in about three to four
hours.
The historical scenario provides exact set ups for both
sides, but there are also free-deployment options. The “Bold
Stroke” scenario allows the Soviet player to try the approach
the Germans were expecting: putting the weight of the of-
fensive in the western Pripyat Marshes and driving straight
for Koenigsberg. Other options allow for the investigation of
such historical “what ifs” as the failure of the Western Allies’
D-Day landings or no July bomb plot against Hitler.

To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in

this issue send your name and address along with:
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Bakersfield CA 93390
World at War 15

WaW 9 Issue.indd 15 8/27/10 3:58:42 PM

 Destruction of Army
Group Center
By Joseph Miranda

Veteran wargame designer Ty Bomba tackled a dif-

ficult subject when he set about to do the re-design of
Destruction of Army Group Center (DAGC). There were
a couple of reasons for that. One was that it called for
upgrading a venerable Strategy & Tactics wargame of
the same title that originally appeared in issue 36. That
in turn meant the re-design had to be on essentially the
same level of complexity as the original. Often, it’s easy
to make things more complicated rather than craft an
elegant system that simulates the historical conflict.
Another issue lay in showing the nature of the armies
on the eastern front in 1944. By that time in the war the
Soviet military had come a long way, both geographically
(from the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad) and doctrin-
ally. In Operation Bagration, as the campaign was termed The Germans appear to be in a bad position on the
by the Soviet high command, the Red Army put into map and, in fact, they are. They’re overextended, without
effect its full operational doctrine, including deception reserves, and lack air support. Yet they still have some
measures, deep battle and powerful combat air support. powerful capabilities. One of them is their battlegroups.
The Germans showed a genius for throwing together ad hoc
One subtle design technique is the use of multiple units—at all levels—in even the most desperate situations.
“steps” for certain units. Units with more than one step In play, the efficient use of battlegroups can mean the dif-
are formations that had better cohesion and could there- ference between winning or losing the game, as they give
fore sustain more losses without falling apart. That put a the German player the ability to try to salvage otherwise
qualitative factor into the game’s order of battle by giving catastrophic situations.
one side or the other more resiliency.
Another thing that can be experimented with is the
The sequence of play, which allows players to attack, ‘idiocy factor.’ It’s become common to blame the historic
move, then attack again, reflects a range of operational destruction of Army Group Center on Hitler’s insistence the
Design Corner

conditions. Chief among them is the advantage, at least Wehrmacht hold all terrain at all costs. The DAGC game
as it was demonstrated historically in this campaign, to allows you to experiment with mobile defense and strategic
be had from units well prepared for a major assault. The withdrawal. One thing you will find that mitigates against a
designer could’ve added rules to model the necessity to German mobile defense is the enhanced mobility of Soviet
build up supplies, do pre-battle reconnaissance, register ground and air forces. That is, by 1944 the Soviets could
fires, and so forth. The same effects are much more sim- out-blitz the Germans. Historically, when the Germans did
ply achieved, though, by allowing units that are in place try to break out of fortified cities, they were often over-
at the start of a turn to break a hole in the enemy line that run by more mobile Soviet mechanized forces. So perhaps
can then be immediately exploited. holding at all costs was a viable strategy.
Then there’s the intelligence situation. The Soviet There is also the bigger picture; Soviet deception opera-
player can examine enemy stacks while the German tions convinced the German high command the offensive
player may not. That’s due to a range of factors: Soviet was going to fall in the Ukraine. German reserves were
airpower allows for that side’s unhindered aerial recon- therefore elsewhere when the blow fell in Belorussia. The
naissance, partisans operating behind German lines optional reinforcements and deployments let you experi-
provide information, and the general shock effect of the ment with several different “what if” situations. It’s one of
powerful offensive against the Germans. the things wargames do well—letting you see what might
Airpower was especially critical to blitzkrieg warfare. have happened.
When the Germans lost air superiority on the eastern
front, the ‘game’ really was up for them. You can see this
in DAGC, where airpower provides the Soviets with the
ability to provide ground support, interdiction and, indi-
rectly, aerial recon. Airpower, however, is also something
of a fragile weapon. A high operational tempo brings
a declining sortie rate from combat losses, accidents,
accelerated wear and tear, as well as aircrew fatigue. In
DAGC, that’s all represented by the air fatigue rule. You
only have so many turns in which you can exploit your
air force.
16 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 16 8/27/10 3:58:43 PM

 AVAILABLE
Available
NOW!
Fall 2009

$70 0000
$80

World at War 17

WaW 9 Issue.indd 17 8/27/10 3:58:45 PM

 Orde
Wingate:
Pioneer of
Spec Ops
By William Stroock

18 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 18 8/27/10 3:58:47 PM

 P
alestine had been given to the British Empire
as a mandate territory following World War I,
and it proved difficult to govern. When Orde
Wingate arrived in Palestine in 1936, the mandate was
embroiled in a low-level insurgency that pitted Arab
nationalists against some 400,000 Jewish settlers.
Wingate was assigned to 5th Division headquarters in
Haifa, where he served as a staff intelligence officer.
He soon became favorably impressed with the Jews
in Palestine, unlike many other officers who tended
to be pro-Arab. Indeed, Wingate was a distant cousin
of Lawrence of Arabia, one of the leaders of World
War I’s Arab Revolt against the Turks. To the deeply
religious Wingate, the Jews were the “People of the
WaW 9 Issue.indd 19
Book,” the descendants of Moses, Joshua and David.
He also admired their work ethic, their organization and
their belief in the right of return to what had once been
the kingdoms of Judea and Israel. He saw them as the
underdog in an epic struggle for the Holy Land.
He came to enjoy mingling with the leaders of the
Zionist establishment, including men such as Chaim
Weizmann and the future Israeli general, Moshe Dayan,
whose trust he gained. Wingate also passed on intel-
ligence to the Jewish Agency, which was the de facto
underground government of the Zionists. Even more
provocatively, he was soon delivering weapons and am-
munition to Jewish kibbutzim (collective farms), whose
residents lived in constant fear of Arab attack.
World at War 19
8/27/10 3:58:48 PM
 As Arab attacks increased in the late 1930s, Wing-
ate, on his own initiative, led small Haganah patrols
(the Jewish Agency’s militia) against the raiders. Those
operations were conducted from Hannita Kibbutz,
near the Lebanese border, and they gave the Haganah
valuable field experience. They also helped the Jewish
militia break out of its defensive mentality and take on
the offensive mindset which would later become the
hallmark of Israeli strategy.
Wingate had the support of Palestine’s new British
commander, Gen. Archibald Wavell, who welcomed
the additional help against the Arab rebels. He sup-
ported Wingate, beginning a relationship that would
last until his death in 1944.
Emboldened by Wavell’s support, Wingate trans-
formed his ad hoc patrols into the “Special Night
Squads.” They were mixed units of British soldiers
and Haganah militia tasked with finding, ambushing
and eliminating Arab gangs, especially those sabotag-
ing the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline. Wingate’s force was
organized into three detachments totaling about 140
20 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 20
men, 75 of them Jews. One detachment was stationed
at Ayyelet Hashahar, near the Syrian border; one was
at Ein Harod, in the Jezreel valley, and the third was at
Hanita.
Wingate emphasized physical fitness, fire dis-
cipline and planning. His tactics centered on quick
movement, ambush and pursuit of the defeated enemy.
His Special Night Squads moved fast and engaged in
dozens of sharp fire-fights with Arab rebels, raiding
their safe havens and generally maintaining a strong
“British” presence across the region. By the summer
of 1938 the Arabs avoided skirmishes with the SNS
and turned to emplacing mines and explosives as their
primary tactic. Wingate’s operations had also reduced
their raids on the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline as well as on
Jewish settlements in Palestine.
Gideon Force
Wingate next saw action in the British campaign
to liberate Ethiopia. In 1935, Mussolini invaded that
country and turned it into an Italian colony. That in-
vasion was, among other things, a threat to British
dominance of the Red Sea and the Arabian littoral. On
Wavell’s suggestion, Wingate was sent to Khartoum
in 1940 and was there placed under command of Col.
Dan Sandford, head of Britain’s Mission 101, a clan-
destine group set up to foment an uprising in Italian
occupied Ethiopia. Wingate was made liaison between
Sanford and Emperor Haile Selassie, who’d been ex-
iled in Khartoum since 1936. In addition to being a
liaison to the emperor, Wingate was ordered to raise
an Ethiopian force for operations behind Italian lines.
In 1941 the British commander in Khartoum,
Gen. William Platt, planned to invade Ethiopia from
the Sudan with a force of two divisions. At the same
time, Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham was to advance up
the coast from Kenya with three divisions. Wingate’s
task was to divert Italian forces from the main front
by striking in the Gojjam, a high plain sandwiched be-
tween Lake Tana in the north and the Blue Nile in the
east and south.
Wingate would personally lead his force into battle.
He planned to cross into Ethiopia and set up a forward
base atop Mt. Belaiya, near the border. From there, he
would enter the Gojjam, cut the road to Addis Ababa
and raid Italian positions. Wingate’s small army, des-
ignated Gideon Force after the Hebrew warriors of
the Old Testament, numbered about 2,000 Sudanese
and Ethiopians, and some 20,000 camels. Opposing
them were 13 colonial and three Italian battalions,
about 15,000 men, under command of Gen. Guglielmo
Nasi.
Unfortunately for Wingate, the advance into Ethi-
opia was chaotic. The Ethiopians had no experience
with the temperamental camels, and those animals
proved unsuitable to the high mountainous terrain.
They died by the hundreds before arriving at Belaiya.
8/27/10 3:58:49 PM
 After building an airstrip at Belaiya in mid-Febru-
ary, Gideon Force ascended the plateau into Gojjam.
The primary area of operations was the road leading to
Addis Ababa and the forts along it. Important strong
points, from south to north, were Dembecha, Debra
Markos and Burye.
Wingate first detached a force of about 100 Suda-
nese, British and Commonwealth officers and NCOs,
all under command of Capt. Tony Simonds, to protect
his northern flank and cut the Italians’ retreat. With his
main force, Wingate then began raiding Italian out-
posts up and down the road to Addis Ababa. Coupled
with the tremendous amount of noise his undisciplined
column made, Wingate soon convinced the Italians his
force was much larger than two battalions.
Gideon Force’s first attempt to overrun an Italian
position was at Mankusa, a fort south of Burye. Plac-
ing his headquarters atop a nearby hill, Wingate lay
siege to the place. Three days later he received word
the Italians had pulled out of Burye and a column
5,000 strong would soon be retreating south through
his position. He was inclined to withdraw from the
siege and let the Italians pass by, but when the emper-
or’s personal representative pointed out that would be
interpreted as a sign of weakness by the populace, he
instead chose to stay and fight.
Wingate sent the bulk of Gideon Force south, but
remained atop the hill with two Sudanese platoons and
a machinegun section. When the Italians approached,
he traded artillery and machinegun fire for a few hours
before withdrawing. The rest of the Sudanese were
supposed to strike the Italian column as it moved on,
but their commander, Lt. Col. Hugh Bousted, decided
the enemy was too strong. When Wingate found out,
he was furious and openly accused him of cowardice.
In the meantime, the retreating Italian column ran
into the Ethiopians who were operating in the vicin-
ity of Dembecha. Taken unaware by the arrival of the
column, their commander, Maj. Ted Boyle, quickly
deployed his men on the south bank of the river. The
Italians tried to force a crossing, beginning a day-long
battle in which the Ethiopians repelled a trio of Ital-
ian attacks before being outflanked and compelled to
withdraw, but not before killing 120 of the enemy.
The Italian column then continued south, taking the
Dembecha garrison with it. Wingate’s forces occupied
the fort the next day and built a landing strip for aer-
ial re-supply. He then pressed forward against Debra
Markos, raiding the forts in the hills overlooking that
town. After several days of harassment, the Italians
pulled out of Debra Markos as well. Wanting to keep
up the pressure, Wingate sent the Sudanese battalion
after them, resulting in several small skirmishes. The
same day Gideon Force entered Debra Markos, Platt
entered Addis Ababa, all but ending the Italian occu-
pation of Ethiopia. A few days later, with Wingate’s
Gideon Force leading the way, Haile Selassie trium-
WaW 9 Issue.indd 21
The Special Night Squads in Palestine
Among the troops in Wingate’s SNS were future Israeli Chief of
Staff Yigal Allon, and military legend Moshe Dayan. British soldiers
and non-commissioned officers in the SNS hailed from the Manches-
ter, Royal West Kent and Royal Ulster Rifle Regiments.
Wingate’s SNS force engaged in dozens of sharp firefights with
Arab rebels, raided their safe havens and maintaining a strong pres-
ence at night, exploiting the darkness for surprise as well as its psy-
chological effect. The SNS proved effective, and by 1938 the threat
from Arab raids had largely ended. The SNS was also a training
ground for the first generation of leaders in the Israeli Defense Force
when that country became independent a decade later.
phantly marched back into his capital.
On to Burma
After a period of rest in England (which included
a malaria-induced suicide attempt), Wingate was sent
to Burma, once more at the request of Wavell, who by
then commanded British forces in the Far East, where
Japanese were on the offensive. In early 1942, Singa-
pore was under siege while half of Burma, including
Rangoon and Mandalay, had already fallen, with the
rest of the country about to go as well. When the Japa-
nese offensive was finished, they occupied the whole
of Burma and they had cut the Burma Road which
linked up to China, and were threatening India.
Wingate was sent to the Bush Warfare School in
New Delhi with orders to plan and carry out guerilla
operations behind Japanese lines. Ever a man of ac-
tion, he toured the front lines and talked to command-
ers in the field to get a sense of who the Japanese were
and what they could do. It was during that tour Wing-
ate formulated his ideas regarding Burma. Recogniz-
ing the Japanese front was thinly held (there were
little more than four divisions in the whole of Burma),
Wingate postulated that an elite force could punch
through and operate behind their lines. He proposed
that force, which he termed a “Long Range Penetra-
tion Group,” be kept supplied by air, thereby turning
British troops in southeast Asia.
World at War 21
8/27/10 3:58:50 PM
 them into a permanent second front behind enemy
lines rather than a mere guerilla action.
Wingate received approval for his idea from
Wavell and was given command of a conglomera-
tion of units initially designated as 77th Indian In-
fantry Brigade. His immediate superior was Gen.
William Slim, commander of British Fourteenth
Army, who he’d met when the latter commanded
the 10th Indian Brigade, part of the 5th Indian Di-
vision, during the Ethiopian campaign. “Wingate
was a strange, excitable, moody creature, but he
had fire in him,” Slim wrote of him.
For most of 1942 the brigade trained in India,
learning the intricacies of jungle warfare and how
to operate as independent but cooperating columns.
During the training period, Wingate conceived the
name “Chindit,” a corruption of the Burmese word
for a mythical lion, as the name for his force.
Operation Long Cloth
Wingate’s force was originally supposed
to go into the field in support of a Chinese thrust
from the north, but that effort was called off due
to Chang Kai-Shek’s unwillingness to attack. So it
was decided to send Wingate across the Chindwin
on his own. The Chindits crossed that river on 13
February 1943, with vague orders to split into two
columns and harass the Japanese, sabotage the rail-
way to Mandalay and generally make a nuisance
of themselves. Both groups initially advanced as
planned and were successfully re-supplied by air.
Their area of operations was bracketed by the
Chindwin River on the west and the Irrawaddy on
the east. Just off the west bank of the Irrawaddy
was the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway, which the
Japanese garrisoned at several points. The overall
area was the responsibility of the Japanese 18th Di-
vision, veterans of the conquest of Burma. There

Orde Wingate
Wingate was born on 23 February 1903 in Naini Tal, India. The son of Protestant missionaries (members of a small
sect called the Plymouth Brethren), his childhood was dominated by hard work and prayer. In 1923, having made an
indifferent record in the Woolwich Military Academy, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery. He saw his first duty
with the constabulary in Sudan, which was a British protectorate at the time.
Wingate was in every way stubborn. He came to reject much of his
religious upbringing and for a time flirted with communism. As an officer
he was determined to do things as he saw fit, and couldn’t understand how
others could see things differently. Necessarily, he was difficult to get along
with. Wingate was also eccentric; he sometimes attended meetings in his un-
derwear or less. At times he sported a bushy beard, like those preferred by
Orthodox Jews, giving him a deliberate Biblical look. He was prone to de-
pression, and once tried to commit suicide.
Nonetheless, he did much to pioneer various aspects of modern special
operations warfare, including deep penetration missions and training indig-
enous forces as guerillas. On 24 March 1944 while flying out of Imphal after
having visited the various Chindit strongholds, his plane crashed in the jungle
killing all aboard.
Rendezvous with destiny: Gen.Wingate boards an air transport.

22 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 22 8/27/10 3:58:52 PM

 were a few minor skirmishes with Japanese forces in
the closing weeks of February, but there wasn’t a ma-
jor clash until 2 March, when 2 Column attacked the
railway south of Wuntho. The Japanese had warning
of that attack and easily repelled it, forcing its com-
mander to retreat west. In the north, meanwhile, 4 Col-
umn was marching south in an effort to link with Col-
umns 7 and 8. Near Aunggon, 4 Column encountered
a superior Japanese force and was overwhelmed and
dispersed. With their offensive capability smashed, the
column’s commander ordered his troops to make for
the Chindwin as best they could.
Other columns met with more success. Column
3 blew up a pair of railway bridges while 5 Column
destroyed a bridge and severed the railway in several
places. Column 6 was able to do damage to the railway
as well. After those actions the Chindits pushed deeper
into Burma, with the southern group crossing the Ir-
rawaddy on 10 March, and the northern group doing
the same on the 18th. There, the main effort was by
5 Column against the Gokteik Viaduct bridge, which
spanned a gorge along the Mandalay-Lashio road.
There were strong Japanese forces present, however,
not only protecting the viaduct but actively searching
Chindit Order of Battle
Operation Long Cloth
77 Indian Infantry Brigade
13th Battalion The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment
3/2nd Gurkha Rifles
142 Commando Company
2nd Burma Rifles
Eight RAF sections
Brigade Signal Section
Mule transport company
Northern Group: Columns 3,4,5,7,8 (2,000 men)
Southern Group: HQ, Columns 1,2 (850 men)
Column Composition: Infantry company reconnaissance platoon,
heavy weapons squad (two mortars, two machineguns), RAF
liaison and radio, medical, mule transport platoon (120 mules).
for the Chindit columns, and Wingate, realizing he’d
done all the damage he was going to do, ordered his
force to fall back to the west.
It was no simple retreat, for the Japanese stayed in
pursuit and deployed in three lines from the Irrawaddy
to the Chindwin. On 23 March, 3 Column was able to
World at War 23

WaW 9 Issue.indd 23 8/27/10 3:58:54 PM

 Bush warriors: casual uniforms in jungle heat.
spring an ambush on one Japanese company, killing
over 100 enemy for the loss of only one man. On 22
March, 8 Column got caught up in a fight for the vil-
lage of Baw, in an effort to cover a supply drop. As 7
Column tried to cross the Irrawaddy, the Japanese were
waiting in force, ambushing them while they were in
the water. Realizing the Japanese had discovered his
line of march, Wingate decided to break up his com-
mand. The Chindits made their way back to India in
small groups.
Wingate returned to much acclaim, garnering head-
lines in the British press like: “British Jungle Force
Kept Japanese on the Run,” in the London Telegraph.
In reality, though, it was Wingate’s force that ran from
the Japanese and, while the damage inflicted made for
great press, the skirmishes and severed rail lines had
little effect on the enemy. That being said, the expedi-
tion had generated the first good news the Allies had
on that front since the war in Asia had started. Most
important, it broke the spell of invincibility that had
been cast around the Japanese. Even Slim, who dis-
liked Wingate’s enigmatic and difficult personality,
wrote: “Whatever the actual facts, to the troops in
Burma it seemed the first ripple showing the turning
of the tide. For this reason alone, Wingate’s raid was
worth all the hardship and sacrifice his men endured.”
The raid also showed that, while neither Wingate
nor Slim were satisfied with the rate of re-supply, large
bodies of men could be sustained from the air.
Churchill, who was always attracted to the idea of
a band of daring men fighting against the odds, be-
came enamored with Wingate, taking him along to
the Quadrant Conference in Quebec for consultations
with the Americans. During that trip, Wingate further
tinkered with the idea of the Long Range Penetration
24 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 24
Group (LRPG), deciding the force should be expanded
and then inserted into the battle area from the air. Once
established on the ground, the brigades composing the
group would form strongholds, holding against all
Japanese counterattacks while being re-supplied from
the air. Taking advantage of his new and privileged
position with the prime minister, he soon gained ap-
proval for that ambitious idea.
Slim also became amenable to Wingate’s idea, and
he fully integrated the LRPG, newly dubbed Special
Force, into his plans for 1944. He envisioned a three-
pronged assault into northern Burma, with the objec-
tive of opening a road via Ledo to China. In the north,
Chinese forces under US China-Burma-India (CBI)
commander “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell would strike to-
ward Mytikina, while in the south British forces would
cross the Chindwin and move on Arakan. Wingate’s
force would support Stillwell’s advance by harassing
the Japanese rear area and sowing chaos across the
area.
Operation Thursday
Wingate was given six brigades, his original 77th,
plus 3rd Brigade and the four brigades comprising 70th
British Division. Each brigade was divided into col-
umns of about 400 men, each centered on an infantry
company and supported by heavy weapons, recon and
sapper platoons. To airlift, provide air support and re-
supply for Special Force, Wingate had at his command
a formidable air armada. Dubbed 1st Air Commando, it
boasted over 300 aircraft and gliders, including some
of the first military helicopters.
Wingate’s six brigades were going up against the
Japanese 18th and 53rd Divisions, which were garrison-
ing the railroad from Myitkyina in the north to the rail-
head at Indaw in the south. (The latter location also had
8/27/10 3:58:55 PM
 two airfields). The plan was for 77th and 111th Brigades
to first be airlifted into three landing zones east of the
Irrawaddy: Picccadilly, Broadway and Chowringhee.
The 3rd, 14th, and 23rd Brigades would follow them by
air, while the 16th Brigade marched into the battle area.
The 23rd Brigade ended up being withdrawn for the
defense of Imphal, which came under Japanese attack
during the time of this operation.
When a last-minute reconnaissance revealed sev-
eral tree trunks had been placed in Piccadilly, thereby
blocking aircraft landings, a panicked Wingate nearly
called off the whole operation. He continued only on
Slim’s insistence. Piccadilly was abandoned, but on
the night of 5 March units of Brig. Michael Calvert’s
77th Brigade flew into Broadway via glider. They had a
full airstrip up and running by morning. Soon a steady
flow of men and materiel was flying into the landing
zone. In all, over the course of the next five days, some
WaW 9 Issue.indd 25
Chindit Order of Battle: Operation Thursday
77 Brigade: 1st King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, 1st Lancashire
Fusiliers, 1st South Staffordshire, 3/6 Gurkha Rifles, 3/9 Gurkha
Rifles.
16 Brigade: 51/69 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery; 2nd Queen’s Royal,
2nd Leicestershire, 45th Reconnaissance Regiment.
111 Brigade: 2nd King’s Own Royal, 1st Cameronians, 3/4 Gurkha
Rifles, 4/9 Gurkha Rifles.
14 Brigade: 1st Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire, 7th Leicestershire, 2nd
Black Watch, 2nd York & Lancaster.
3 Brigade: 6th Nigeria Regiment, 7th Nigerian Regiment, 12th Nigerian
Regiment.
23 Brigade: 60th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery; 2nd Duke of
Wellington’s, 4th Border Regiment, 1st Essex Regiment.
1st Air Commando
Gliders (CG-4A) 150 Training Gliders 25
Fighters (P-51A) 30 Bombers (B-25H) 12
Light Planes (L-1/L-5) 100 Helicopters (YR-4) 6
Large Transports (C-47) 13, (UC-64) 12
World at War 25
8/27/10 3:58:56 PM
 600 sorties delivered 9,000 men, 1,400 mules and 250
tons of weapons and ammunition. The Chindits had
landed.
The 77th Brigade marched west from Broadway
to attack the railway garrison at Mawlu. From there
they moved to build a stronghold, White City, 25
miles southwest of Broadway. That position blocking
the railway was then re-supplied and reinforced by the
arrival of the 6th Nigerian Regiment (3rd Brigade). Be-
ginning 6 April, White City was subject to concerted
attack by the Japanese 24th Independent Mixed Bri-
gade. The 77th managed to repel that Japanese effort
through a combination of stout defense and aggressive
night patrols. After that action, the rest of 3rd Brigade
flew in, releasing 77th Brigade for an attack on the vil-
lage of Sepien. That attack failed, however, and Cal-
vert was forced to pull back. Later he was ordered to
abandon Broadway and White City in favor of a new
stronghold, Blackpool, farther up the rail line about 50
miles south of Myitkyina.
At the same time, 16th Brigade, commanded by
Brig. Bernard Ferguson, made its way overland to-
ward the railhead at Indaw, establishing a stronghold
codenamed Aberdeen about 20 miles northwest. As
14th Brigade flew into Aberdeen on 24 March, the 16th
continued toward Indaw, linking with elements of 111th
Brigade, which had meanwhile flown into Chowring-
hee. Indaw had been reinforced with a Japanese bri-
gade, but Ferguson probed its defenses and engaged in
several skirmishes around the town. Overall, though,
he had no impact beyond delaying Japanese reinforce-
ments to Mytikina and the destruction of several am-
munition dumps.
Jungle logistics: Allied airborne drop.
26 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 26
North of White City, four columns of 111th Brigade
flew into Broadway and marched to Blackpool. (That
brigade’s commander, Brig. W.D. Letaigne, was lat-
er tapped to take over Special Force after Wingate’s
death on 24 March.) Manned by two battalions of 111th
Brigade (Kings Own and Cameronians), that strong-
hold lay to the west of the line. Beginning on 6 May,
the Japanese probed Blackpool’s defenses for five
consecutive nights without success. On the 17th, ele-
ments of their 53rd Division launched an all-out assault
on Blackpool, but it was also repelled. Another large-
scale attack was unleashed on the 24th. Despite the ar-
rival of half the 4/9 Gurkhas, the Japanese breached
Blackpool, compelling the brigade to abandon the post
and retreat west, where they met up with elements
of 3rd Brigade that had just flown into the Aberdeen
stronghold.
The Chindits’ greatest achievement in Operation
Thursday was their seizure of Mogaung, a town about
20 miles down the rail line from Myitkyina, on the
south bank of the Mogaung River. East of the village
was a small stream and, beyond that, a ridge. The vil-
lage of Pinhimi lay on that stream along the road to
Mogaung. The job fell to 77th Brigade, which moved
against Pinhimi in stages. On 31 May the 3/6 Gurkhas
seized the heights overlooking the place. From there
the Lancashire Fusiliers and South Staffords took Pin-
himi on the plain below, finally clearing out the Japa-
nese positions in the village with flamethrowers. After
a Chinese regiment reinforced 77th Brigade, the final
assault on Mogaung was launched on 26 June. Push-
ing their way along the riverbank, the Gurkhas and
Chinese fought their way inside the town by noon. Af-
ter two more days of heavy fighting, in which flame-
throwers were again used extensively, 77th Brigade
reported Mogaung was in Allied hands.
The fall of Mogaung sealed the fate of the Japa-
nese in Myitkyina, where their garrison withdrew
during the first week of August. The way was then
open for the construction of a road through Burma to
Chang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces. There were still
the remnants of the Japanese 18th and 53rd Divisions
to deal with, though, and they’d taken possession of a
pair of hills near Blackpool. The 77th Brigade moved
against one of those hills, 2171, in a lethargic assault,
but had to abandon the effort due to exhaustion. The
two hills didn’t fall until 9 August, to a joint attack by
3rd and 14th Brigades.
8/27/10 3:58:57 PM
 One more river: fording a stream.
Summing Up
In death, Wingate has become something of a cult
hero, the leader of a brave band who wreaked havoc
behind enemy lines. The reality is more mixed. With-
out doubt, he had a talent for organization, building
the Special Night Squads, Gideon Force and then the
Special Force. Nor was he afraid to aggressively seek
battle. That was especially true in Palestine, where the
SNS were taught to continually ambush and close with
the enemy. He wasn’t afraid to fight in Ethiopia either,
but it should be remembered there Wingate was en-
gaging an army already in retreat and that had little
interest in conducting battles.
The Japanese proved a more tenacious foe than ei-
ther the Arabs or the Italians, and it’s through his Bur-
ma operations Wingate must finally be judged. Opera-
tion Long Cloth was a success, regardless of the little
damage it actually did to the enemy, simply because
the Chindits proved an Allied force could walk in and
out of Burma. The record on Operation Thursday is
more muddled.
WaW 9 Issue.indd 27
Slim should have streamlined Special Force down
to three brigades and concentrated them against
Mogaung, one walking in, one airlifted to the east to
assist the attack, and the other landing to the south
to block Japanese reinforcements. That having been
said, three brigades were successfully flown into Japa-
nese-held Burma while a fourth walked in. Ferguson
failed to take Indaw, while Calvert had to abandon
his stronghold at White City; though it should also be
noted both brigades inflicted heavy casualties on the
Japanese and prevented reinforcements from reaching
Myitkyina. Calvert enjoyed the greatest success of the
incursion by taking Magaung in a well planned and
executed attack.
Even so, when assessing Operation Thursday and
special forces in general, Slim came to believe such ef-
forts consumed too many resources, and generally also
worked to reduce the quality of other units by drawing
off too many of the best men into those special efforts.
He damningly said: “[T]he success of this northern of-
fensive was in the main due to the Ledo Chinese Divi-
sions—and that was Stillwell.”
at
World at War 27
8/27/10 3:58:58 PM
 World at War No. 11:
Afrikakorps: Decision in the Desert

The game that will be appearing in issue 11 uses

our much-liked They Died With Their Boots On
(“boots” for short) system to simulate what might
appear to be otherwise hopeless campaigns in World
War II. Afrikakorps: Decision in the Desert, 1941-42
(AK), uses that system to simulate the campaigns in
North Africa’s Western Desert, in which Italo-Ger-
man forces under the command of Erwin Rommel
Game Preview
AK is a two-player game of intermediate complex-
ity. The rules contain about 15,000 words, meaning
experienced players can finish the short scenario in
about four hours. Solitaire play is doable.
Rules cover such things as: high command bulle-
tins, unit refits, supply, fog of war, pursuit and pursuit

took on the British Commonwealth.

The game map shows the Egyptian/Libyan
western desert as it was in 1941-42. Each game turn
represents one month. Each hexagon on the map
represents 12.5 miles (20 km). There are two sce-
narios, short (May-November 1941) and long (May
1941 to November 1942). Units are regiments and
brigades. The game uses a command control system
which simulates the chaos of desert warfare.
combat, fortified boxes, airpower, naval bombard-
ment and transport, unit upgrades, off-map bases, ma-
jor operations, special forces and tactics, coastal ship-
ping, battlefield salvage, appeals to Berlin, capture of
the Western Desert Force headquarters, amphibious
landings, the Qattara Depression, port interdiction,
anti-aircraft fire, air transport, aerial supply, airborne
assault, oases, reconnaissance, heavy armor, 88s, and
Malta.

Issue # Month Game Topic & Lead Article

10 Feb 10 Coral Sea Solitaire
11 Apr 10 Afrikakorps: Decision in the Desert
12 Jun 10 1940: What If?
13 Aug 10 East Front Battles: Guards Tanks
14 Oct 09 Invasion Pearl Harbor
15 Dec 09 Soft Underbelly

28 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 28 8/27/10 3:58:59 PM

 Behind the Lines
The Civil Air Patrol in World War II
The US Civil Air Patrol (CAP)
may have been the most anomalous
organization of World War II. It flew
combat missions before it became a
part of the military and, despite being
civilians, its flyers were legitimate
combatants protected by the Ge-
neva Convention. Then, shortly after
becoming an auxiliary of the Army
Air Force—becoming part of the
military—its combat role ceased.
The CAP was created on 1
December 1941, by executive order.
That document placed it within the
Office of Civil Defense, part of the
executive office of the president.
Roosevelt’s action that day was the
result of a multi-year effort by the
man he tasked to head the new orga-
nization: Gill Robb Wilson.
Wilson, who’d flown with the
Lafayette Escadrille in World War
I, was a civil aviation promoter in
the 1920s and 30s, and had helped
found the Aircraft Owners and Pilot
Association (AOPA). By 1940 he was
aviation correspondent for the New
York Herald Tribune.
After visiting Germany in 1938,
Wilson became convinced war was
inevitable. Returning home, he sought
ways for civilian pilots to aid the US
war effort once we became involved.
He soon persuaded the government of
his home state, New Jersey, and then
several others, to form “air militias.”
They would use light aircraft flown
by civilians for any missions judged
to be of use to those polities. The ef-
fort was then federalized and nation-
alized with the creation of the CAP.
Wilson intended the organiza-
tion to be a flying version of civilian
coastal guards or air raid wardens.
Aircraft would patrol America’s
borders and coastlines watching for
saboteurs or spies sneaking into the
country. They could also perform
courier services and provide primary
flight training—anything to allow
civilian pilots to help their country
while flying their aircraft. No one saw
WaW 9 Issue.indd 29
a combat role for the new organiza- they were given a per diem to cover
tion. living expenses. Pilots received USD
Barely a week after the CAP’s eight ($104.57), observers and
creation, the US was plunged into aircraft mechanics got USD seven
World War II. The first inclination of ($91.50), while all others pulled
many American military leaders was USD six ($78.43) per day. While that
to ground all civil aviation, except far exceeded the $21.00 per month
scheduled airline service, as every ($274.49) that new Army privates
other combatant nation had done. Yet earned, CAP personnel were expected
the scope of the emergency worked to to pay all their living expenses from
give the CAP an opportunity. that money, including the cost of uni-
forms and transportation to and from
In January 1941 the US military
their patrol base.
lacked the resources to fully patrol
coastal waters. There were too many To join CAP, new members need-
square miles of ocean for the limited ed skills valuable to a flying organiza-
number of patrol boats and aircraft tion, either as pilots, mechanics or by
possessed by the Army Air Force and providing essential services needed
the Navy. German U-boats proved by airports. They had to have been
adept at finding gaps in the coverage, citizens for at least 10 years, be of
and were sinking shipping—espe- “good character and proven loyalty”
cially tankers bringing petroleum to to the US, and be able to pass an FBI
east coast refineries—in alarming background check.
numbers. Response to the call for volunteers
In desperation, the military turned was enthusiastic. By 28 February
to the CAP. They had aircraft and 1942, both the Atlantic City and
pilots, both of which were in short Rehoboth patrols were activated. The
supply. Instead of patrolling the coast- Florida patrol became active on 11
line, the CAP was asked to conduct March. Each base started with about
ocean patrols, watching for enemy 100 volunteers: 30 pilots, 30 observ-
submarines, ships in distress and ers and 40 ground support personnel.
shipwrecked survivors. A 90-day trial
period was authorized, along with
$18,000 ($236,000 in today’s dollars)
to fund the effort.
Three bases were established in
Atlantic City, New Jersey; Rehoboth,
Delaware; and West Palm Beach,
Florida. CAP squadrons were as-
signed a civilian airfield for their use,
and told to get to work.
The units were to be filled by
volunteer personnel and their own
aircraft. Only aircraft with engines
greater than 90 horsepower were to
be used, since the long over-water
missions were unsuitable for smaller
planes. Owners were compensated via
an hourly rate for flying. If an aircraft
was lost while on a mission, its owner
would be reimbursed.
The volunteers were otherwise
unpaid, but while actually on duty
World at War 29
8/27/10 3:59:01 PM
 At first the CAP aircraft flew only
search patrols. Two private aircraft,
each with a pilot and observer, flew
together; so, if one plane went down,
the other could direct aid to it. Patrols
were typically flown at or below 500
feet; much higher and a periscope
wake could be missed.
The patrols immediately proved
useful. The very first one spotted a
sinking ship, and was able to direct a
rescue to the distressed seamen. Then,
on 10 March, the first patrol out of At-
lantic City spotted a surfaced U-boat
as it was lining up for a surface attack
on a tanker. The Germans aborted
their attack and dived when they saw
the planes.
Often just the presence of CAP
aircraft made a difference, since the
U-boat captains disliked operating
surfaced or at periscope depth in their
presence. The CAP therefore soon
switched from searches to escorting
coastal merchant vessels. Losses to
submarines plunged when the light
airplanes were around.
Despite their quick success,
however, the CAP almost folded
before the end of the trial period. The
authorized federal money was slow
in arriving. Per diems weren’t being
paid, and many CAP personnel were
in danger of being kicked out of their
rooming houses for non-payment.
The CAP also lacked the money to
purchase aviation gasoline and pay
hanger fees. At one point the only
thing that kept the patrols flying was
a $1,000 contribution by the Sun Oil
Company. Eight other oil companies
then kicked in $40,000 as part of a
hastily established “Tanker Protection
Fund.”
Eventually the government fixed
the money problem, and the Army
Air Force expanded CAP patrols.
30 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 30
By September 1942 there were 21
CAP bases, ranging from Bar Harbor,
Maine, to Brownsville, Texas. More,
the patrolling aircraft were not left
unarmed for long.
Originally, CAP pilots were sup-
posed to radio for military assistance
when a submarine was spotted, then
vector the Army or Navy anti-subma-
rine units to the scene. In 1942, one
CAP plane spotted a U-boat loitering
near the mouth of the Banana River,
near Cape Canaveral, Florida. When
the plane was in turn spotted, the
submarine fled, only to run aground
on a mudflat. The CAP plane circled
the grounded sub for 42 minutes but,
before reinforcements arrived, the
submarine freed itself and escaped
out to sea.
As a result of that missed op-
portunity, CAP aircraft were given
permission to carry bombs. Smaller
airplanes were fitted to carry 100 lb.
demolition charges, while bigger craft
were armed with 325 lb. depth charg-
es. The CAP drew first blood against
a submarine in July 1942, when one
of their planes landed a depth charge
atop a surfacing submarine.
While U-boats rarely shot at CAP
aircraft, engine failure during long
over-water flights meant a forced
landing. Survival then depended on
being found quickly. Some patrols fit-
ted aircraft with floatation devices, so
a wreck would remain afloat, serving
as its own beacon.
There was also a risk of capture.
So, to ensure patrol crew would be
treated as prisoners-of-war, and not
illegal combatants, military protocols
were followed. CAP members wore
Army uniforms modified with red
shoulder bands. The uniforms had a
brass “US” insignia on them, which
officially marked the wearer as a
combatant. The CAP was the only
civilian organization allowed to wear
“US” on their uniforms.
CAP units were also organized
along military lines, with formal
ranks. Despite all of that, however,
until 30 April 1943, when it was
formally made a “civilian auxiliary”
of the Army Air Force, the CAP was
actually a civilian organization. That
mixed heritage is highlighted in the
CAP emblem still used today: a red
three-bladed propeller in a white
triangle on a blue disk. (The white tri-
angle on the blue disk was the symbol
of the civilian Civil Defense Corps.)
As the Army Air Force and Navy
grew, the need for CAP coastal
patrols diminished. Those purely
military services also began fielding
purpose-built anti-submarine craft
that were much more capable than
small civilian planes. The Army fully
discontinued CAP patrolling on 31
August 1943.
CAP continued flying, though its
missions were afterward more in line
with the founders’ original vision. It
flew border patrols, forest-fire spot-
ting and search and rescue missions.
It also made air courier flights, ex-
press-shipping small priority cargoes.
CAP units also flew towed aerial tar-
gets for anti-aircraft gunnery training,
and supported emergency services.
By the time of its final coastal
patrol, the CAP had logged 24 mil-
lion miles over the Atlantic Ocean
and Gulf of Mexico, spotted 173
U-boats, attacked 57 with bombs or
depth charges, and sunk or damaged
two. They also vectored Army and
Navy forces to targets. CAP personnel
located 363 survivors and 91 ships
requiring assistance, and also spotted
17 mines. That effort had a price. The
CAP suffered 26 killed and seven
seriously wounded, and lost 90 of its
aircraft. Eight more CAP members,
including two cadets, died while fly-
ing other missions.
The Air Force continued the CAP
after World War II, using it mainly for
search and rescue and aviation educa-
tion (especially its cadet program for
teenagers from 13 to 18). After the
terrorist attacks on 9-11, the CAP
conducted aerial surveillance over
installations in the US.
~Mark N. Lardas
8/27/10 3:59:01 PM
 Elite Beat
Czechoslovakian Units in World War II

On 30 September 1938, at full In September 1939, Germany (army group). Troops recruited for
mobilization, the army of Czecho- invaded Poland. By the 3rd of that the unit were actually a mixed group
slovakia had on hand 20 infantry month, a Czech and Slovak Legion of refugees of Hungarian, Czech,
divisions (each consisting of three had been formed by the Poles and Slovak, Ruthenian and Ukrainian
infantry brigades and either one or posted to the Tarnopol area, with an origins, but all were officially classed
two artillery regiments), two divisions approximate strength of 900 troops. as “Czechoslovak refugee citizens.”
designated as “motorized” (one was An anti-aircraft unit, with only 12 The battalion’s baptism of fire was at
fully truck mobile, the other was in machineguns and no uniforms (Pol- Sokolov in March 1943. Subsequent-
transition) and four “fast” divisions. ish uniforms were on order; civilian ly the unit was transferred to the 62nd
(Those latter were modeled on the clothes were worn by all troops), they Guards Rifle Division in the vicinity
French legeres de cavalerie divisions were soon surrounded at Racowiec of Kharkhov.
of the pre-war period, with one tank and captured by the Soviets advanc- The battalion was enlarged to
brigade and one cavalry brigade). ing from the east. Some 200 of them brigade size in May 1943, ultimately
In addition, another 138 battalions managed to escape to Romania. Of having two infantry battalions, a tank
were available to man the fortress and the captured Czechs, all were at first battalion and an artillery battalion.
Border Guard formations. They were interned but a majority managed to Averaging 3,500 troops in strength,
organized into 12 border sectors and leave the USSR by mid-1941, most the 1st Czechoslovak Independent
seven “defensive groups,” most of making their way to either France or Brigade operated as part of 1st Ukrai-
which manned the extensive frontier the Middle East. nian Front, being made subordinate
fortifications or served as line-of- Throughout 1940 and 1941, to various divisions as the opera-
communication troops. Czechs in the Soviet internment tional situation demanded. It fought
The government of Czechoslo- camps formed themselves into the significant actions around Kiev and
vakia capitulated to Germany on that “Eastern Group of the Czechoslovak Korsun. During that same period
day, and German forces entered the Army.” Less than a 100 remained in small parachute units were formed,
Sudeten border area on 1 November, the Soviet Union when, in Febru- in anticipation of inserting them into
occupying the entire region with hard- ary 1942, the Kremlin called for the Slovakia.
ly a shot being fired. (Only the men of formation of the 1st Czechoslovak In April 1944 the brigade was
the 3rd Battalion/8th Border Regiment Independent Field Battalion, which expanded to become the 1st Czecho-
briefly resisted an advancing SS unit was placed within the 25th Guards slovak Army Corps. It contained two
before laying down their weapons.) In Rifle Division in the Voronezh Front infantry brigades, one tank brigade
rapid succession, the Sudetenland was
ceded to Germany, while a third of
Slovakia was ceded to Hungary, and
Poland occupied the Zaolizie region.
Slovakia declared its independence
under a pro-Fascist government, and
Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia tried to
do the same. (Also called Carpatho-
Ukraine, it was immediately invaded
and occupied by Hungary.)
Finally, in March 1939, Ger-
many occupied the remaining Czech
regions of Bohemia and Moravia.
Though the Czechoslovak Army was
dissolved during that process, there
were Czechs and Slovaks who wanted
to resist. Many of those men fled,
mainly to Romania but some also
to Poland. Of the ones who went to
Poland nearly 1,160 then sailed west,
mainly to France, where 600 of them
joined the Foreign Legion.

World at War 31

WaW 9 Issue.indd 31 8/27/10 3:59:02 PM

 and a parachute brigade, for a total
strength of 16,170 troops. Interest-
ingly, approximately 11,000 of those
men were actually Ukrainians who’d
been rehabilitated after serving
sentences for various infractions in
Soviet concentration camps. The
corps saw significant action in the
ferocious fighting in Dukla Pass
during the failed Slovak uprising,
in the liberation of southern Poland,
operations in southern Silesia, and the
liberation of Slovakia and Moravia.
It was primarily subordinated to the
4th Ukrainian Front and, at the end
of the war, on Czechoslovak soil, it
was redesignated as 1st Czechoslovak
Army.
Of the forces that escaped to
the West, there were two different
streams. The first ended up in France,
while the second went to the Middle
East. As a result of the French-
Czechoslovak Treaty of October
1939, made between the French and
the Czechoslovak government-in-ex-
ile (London), January 1940 saw the
establishment of the 1st Czechoslovak
Infantry Division, which had two
infantry regiments. With a strength
of approximately 5,000 troops, it had
no artillery, only 11 medium mortars
(81mm) and just two 25mm anti-tank
guns. The personnel were largely
evacuated to Great Britain as France
Residents and defenders of the Prague Uprising barricades greet the Soviet
tankists and soldiers during the liberation of the city as part of the Prague
Offensive, May 1945.
32 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 32
was collapsing during June 1940.
The approximately 3,300
Czechoslovak troops were reformed
in July 1940 into the 1st Czechoslovak
Mixed Brigade Group. It contained
two infantry battalions, one artil-
lery battalion and various specialist
units. In September 1943 the division
received over 1,500 new troops from
the disbanded 200th Czechoslovak
Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, and
was then redesignated 1st Czechoslo-
vak Independent Armored Brigade
Group, with an operational strength
of approximately 4,000. That unit was
reorganized with two tank battalions,
a motorized infantry battalion, each of
two motorized infantry companies, an
artillery regiment of two battalions,
an anti-tank battalion and a reconnais-
sance battalion.
The new unit was transferred to
Normandy during the summer of
1944, where it was subordinated to
the First Canadian Army of 21st Army
Group. It was promptly assigned
as part of the force investing the
15,000+ German soldiers surrounded
in Dunkirk. The brigade remained
there until the German surrender in
May 1945. As other Czechoslovak
personnel were liberated in west-
ern Europe, the brigade’s strength
climbed to 5,900. The brigade mean-
while added a third tank battalion, a
third motorized infantry company to
its motorized infantry battalion, and a
third artillery battalion.
A special detachment of 140 men
was sent to Patton’s 3rd Army to par-
ticipate in the liberation of Czecho-
slovak soil, raising the Czechoslovak
flag at Cheb on 1 May 1945. After
the surrender of the German Dunkirk
garrison (the Czechoslovaks suffered
over 660 casualties in the fighting at
Dunkirk, one out of every seven of
their men), the entire brigade moved
to Prague, reaching it on 18 May,
eight days after the arrival of the
Soviet-sponsored 1st Czechoslovak
Army.
The second group of Czecho-
slovaks had a more exotic journey.
Originally a group of 206 who were
in Beirut, Lebanon, when France
surrendered in June 1940, they waited
for transfer to the 1st Czechoslovak
Infantry Division. When the com-
mander-in-chief of French Middle
East forces gave his allegiance to
Vichy, the Czechoslovaks moved to
Jerusalem in order to escape detention
and the possibility of being turned
over to the Germans. More Czecho-
slovak volunteers soon trickled in,
raising the group total to 280. The se-
nior Czechoslovak officer formed the
men into the 4th Free French Infantry
Regiment, consisting of a headquar-
ters, a support company, two infantry
companies and two cadre companies.
The unit was supposed to form the
third regiment of the 1st Czechoslo-
vak Infantry Division, which had
meanwhile evacuated from France to
Britain.
By August 1940, after a series
of discussions between the British
government and the Czechoslovak
government-in-exile, the British-
sponsored Czechoslovak Contin-
gent—Middle East was formed. The
under-strength 4th Infantry Regiment
was therefore disbanded, and the
Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion
was established in its place, with an
on-hand strength of approximately
430 of all ranks. Transferred to Egypt
and slowly reinforced, by December
1940 troop strength had climbed to
over 750. Organized into four infantry
8/27/10 3:59:03 PM
 companies and a headquarters and
support company, it was placed with-
in the British 23rd Infantry Brigade,
6th Infantry Division.
In June and July 1941 the 11th
Czechoslovak Infantry Battalion
participated in Operation Exporter,
the British campaign to liberate Vichy
French Syria and Lebanon. Once that
campaign was concluded, the battal-
ion was assigned, along with the 23rd
Infantry Brigade, to guard the Turk-
ish/Syrian border. In August 1941 a
Czechoslovak government request to
have the battalion transferred to Great
Britain to join the Czechoslovak
forces there was denied by the British.
The battalion was transferred from
Syria, though, and was reassigned and
then shipped by sea to reinforce the
Polish Independent Carpathian Infan-
try Brigade, then located inside the
besieged perimeter of Tobruk, Libya.
During its 23 weeks at Tobruk, the
11th Czechoslovak Infantry Battalion
engaged in 51 days of combat, suffer-
ing 95 casualties. It was meanwhile
transferred from the Polish Carpath-
ian Brigade to XIII Corps, and then
on to the 38th Indian Infantry Brigade.
Withdrawn from Tobruk in March
1942, the battalion was reinforced
to a strength of over 1,600 and then
redesignated the 200th Czechoslovak
Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment in April.
In the Air
The Fairey Swordfish
Many know the B-52 is a plane
that’s outlived its planned operational
history, and continues to fly as its
workhorse nature allows it to serve
beyond its initially planned service
life. Another aircraft with a similar
history was the Fairey Swordfish.
Already obsolete in 1939, the plane
would go on to legend and fame for
its role in the Taranto raid.
The Swordfish, or “Stringbag” as
it was known by its crews, was a tor-
pedo bomber designed by the Fairey
Aviation Company as a solution to
the Air Ministry’s need for a “spot-
ter reconnaissance plane.” Spotters
WaW 9 Issue.indd 33
It contained three anti-aircraft bat-
talions and was assigned in July to the
defense of the port of Haifa and its oil
refineries as well as the port of Beirut.
In December 1942 it was subordinat-
ed to the 17th Infantry Brigade until it
moved on.
The regiment remained in Tobruk
until May 1943, when the advance
of Allied forces across the Mediter-
ranean theater made the need for its
mission. The regiment was transferred
(with a personnel strength of 1,330)
to Britain to join the Czechoslovak
forces already there. Encamped
at Colchester, the regiment was
disbanded in August 1943 and the
bulk of its troops transferred to the 1st
Czechoslovak Mixed Brigade Group.
When that group was upgraded to an
armored unit, most of the Middle East
Czechoslovaks served in its motor
transport elements.
Czechoslovaks also served in air
units. Approximately 200 Czecho-
slovak pilots enlisted to serve with
the Polish air arm; then numerous
Czechoslovaks managed to integrate
themselves into several French air
squadrons until June 1940. The
British formed four Czechoslovak
squadrons, the first on September
1940, the next two in July 1940, and
the last in May 1941. The 310 Squad-
ron, a fighter unit that initially flew
were the pilots assigned to warships
to spot the fall of shot in action. The
nickname “Stringbag” came from a
type of purse popular in Britain at the
time. The plane was known for being
able to carry anything and everything,
just like those purses.
The first Swordfish flew on 17
April 1934, and was designated
“Torpedo-Spotter-Reconnaince II” or
TSR II. The aircraft was a biplane,
large and slow, with low wings that
mad it ideal for the carriers off of
which it would fly. It was powered by
a Bristol Pegasus III-M3 air-cooled,
nine-cylinder radial engine with 775
Hurricanes before being re-equipped
with Spitfires in October 1941, served
in the Battle of Britain and wasn’t dis-
banded until February 1946. The 311
Squadron was a bomber unit, flying
Wellingtons until June 1943, when it
was re-equipped with Liberators. It
also was disbanded in February 1946.
The 312 Squadron was a fighter unit
that flew Hurricanes until re-equipped
with Spitfires in October 1941. It
was transferred to the Czechoslovak
Air Force in February 1946. The last
squadron, 313, flew only Spitfires and
was transferred to the Czechoslovak
Air Force in August 1945.
On the Soviet side, the 1st Inde-
pendent Air Regiment was formed in
May 1944 as part of 1st Czechoslovak
Army Corps. It was later enlarged to a
composite air division, still subor-
dinate to the army corps. Its major
action was flying into Slovakia during
the failed uprising, where it suffered
heavy losses.
Other Czechoslovak forces should
also be noted. A company of Prague
Jews served with the International
Shanghai Volunteer Corps from 1939
to 1941. Canada formed a pure-Czech
platoon from immigrants, and Tito’s
Yugoslav Partisans fielded two bri-
gades composed of Czech and Slovak
“colonists.”
~Vernie Liebl
horsepower. The three-seat plane
was armed with a single 18-inch,
1,610 lb. anti-ship torpedo. In 1934,
it exceeded the ministry’s demands,
and an order for an initial 86 planes
was made. The first of them entered
service in 1936, replacing the Fairey
Seal in the Fleet Air Arm, which was
still part of the Royal Air Force at that
time.
Though not an advanced design,
the Swordfish proved an excellent
craft. It couldn’t go head to head
against enemy fighters; however,
its low stall speed and great stablity
allowed it to be easily lined up for
World at War 33
8/27/10 3:59:03 PM
 torpedo attacks, while giving it the
ability to fly under many flak guns.
Its simple design also allowed it to be
easily maintained.
With the start of hostilities in
1939 the Fleet Air Arm, returned to
Royal Navy control, which had 13
squadrons of Swordfish, the bulk of
them based on the five fleet carriers.
Another three flights were mounted
on warships, while others were based
at Gibraltar and Seletar. A plane as-
signed to HMS Warspite, spotting for
that battleship, helped sink U-boat
U-4 at the Second Battle of Narvik.
That was the first U-boat sunk with
the assistance of an aircraft in the war.
The most notable operation, of
course, came on 11 November 1940,
when 21 Swordfish of HMS Illustri-
ous three battleships of the Italian
Navy at its base in Taranto. Only two
craft were shot down in that opera-
tion.
In 1941, during the hunt for
the Bismarck, the HMS Ark Royal
launched a strike that helped cripple
the German battleship, setting it up
to finally be sunk by British battle-
ships. Later, in February 1942, the
planes would suffer dramatically
when the Germans “dashed” through
the English Channel with their ships:
all the Swordfish sent to attack them
were lost. Throughout the course of
the war, Swordfish stationed on Malta
sank over 1.5 million tons of Axis
shipping.
Fairey Swordfish dropping bombs.
34 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 34
New torpedo bombers were
introduced late in 1942, which led to
the Swordfish being switched to an
anti-submarine role. Those mod-
els were no longer equipped with
torpedoes, but had their armament
switched to depth charges or rockets.
A more powerful engine, the Pegasus
30, also replaced the older Bristol,
while the float undercarriage was re-
moved. Such units accounted for the
confirmed destruction of 14 U-boats.
In addition, a separate model
called the “Mark III” was built, which
had ASV Mk XI radar mounted
between their landing gear. That radar
had a range of 25 miles (40 km) when
used to detect enemy surface vessels,
but against snorkling U-Boats that
was reduced to only five miles (eight
km). Those planes were mostly sent
on night patrols when they would fly
anywhere from 25 to 90 miles (40-
145 km) in front of the convoys to
which they were assigned. Once they
found a target, they would drop flares
to aid escort vessels to fire on enemy
subs and raiders.
The Swordfish were then no
longer assigned to the fleet carriers,
instead operating from escort carri-
ers or “merchant aircraft carriers.”
The latter were converted merchant
vessels that could each carry four
Swordfish. At times, the slow speed
of the craft wasn’t enough to get the
planes in the air, and they were often
given rocket-assisted take offs.
The Swordfish, which had really
only been intended to be a stopgap
until a better plane could be built,
thus served through the end of the
war. The last of the nearly 2,400
planes built was delivered in August
1944, with the last operational squad-
ron disbanded on 21 May 1945.
~David March
Technology
Backdate
D-Day’s Mulberries
One of the lessons learned from
the disastrous Dieppe raid of August
1942 was that a well-defended port
couldn’t be taken by direct assault.
That meant one would have to be
captured by other means soon after
the D-Day invasion or, in the eloquent
phraseology of Winston Churchill:
“We must take one with us.”
Thus, the idea of the “Mul-
berry”—or artificial harbor—was
born. The exact origin of the use of
that term for Churchill’s artificial
harbor isn’t known for certain. Most
accounts attribute it to a reference
in the Gospel According to St. Luke:
“And the Lord said, if ye had faith
as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might
say unto this mulberry tree, be thou
plucked up by the root, and be thou
planted in the sea, and it shall obey
you.”
Regardless of its origin, historian
Stephen E. Ambrose would later refer
to the mulberries as “the invention
that won the war” in the west.
Five months before Eisenhower
was appointed supreme commander
for the Overlord operation, then,
Churchill and his aides watched a
presentation in miniature put on in a
bathtub by Prof. John D. Bernal, chief
scientific advisor to Lord Mountbat-
ten. It was convincing; just 18 days
later, at the Quebec Conference,
Churchill and Roosevelt officially
green-lighted the artificial harbor
concept.
There would be two of them built
in pieces and towed across the Chan-
nel. There they would be assembled
like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Mulberry
A was assigned to the Americans and
was to be located at St. Laurent. Mul-
berry B would be used by the British
at Arromanches.
From the beginning, the Mul-
berry project was conducted as a race
against time and some were skepti-
cal it could succeed. On 15 January
1944, Adm. Sir Bertram Ramsey
8/27/10 3:59:04 PM
 noted in his diary: “The making of
the artificial harbors is…in the realm
of fairyland and may or may not be a
practicable proposition.”
Labor was in short supply, espe-
cially skilled welders, scaffolders and
carpenters. Timber, steel and concrete
were also in short supply, as were
dry docks, and tugs powerful enough
to tow the Mulberries across the
Channel when the time came. Twenty
thousand workers were involved in
the beginning, only to have an ad-
ditional 25,000 more assigned at the
proverbial 11th hour.
The huge enterprise staggered the
imagination. Their giant caissons, Aerial view of the mulberry harbor.
dubbed “Phoenixes,” were 200 feet
long, 50 feet wide and 60 feet high.
The two Mulberries together would Cunningham was persuaded
enclose two square miles of water, enough to hand over 59 ancient ships.
which was larger than the port of By 4 June, the project was com-
Dover. In addition to the Phoenixes, pleted and more than 500 pieces of
there were 15 piers with 89-foot-long jigsaw were ready to be towed across
legs called “spuds.” Robert Lochner, the Channel. Then it was up to the
a navy lieutenant, experimented on a soldiers of Eisenhower’s armies.
pond near his home to design “Bom-
bardons,” 200-foot long, 25-foot-high Mulberry A was only in operation
inflatables that were then rendered for a short time before being de-
rigid with steel plating. Ninety-three stroyed by a storm on 19 June. Mul-
Bombardons were constructed as berry B suffered damage in that same
floating barriers to repel waves. The storm, but was put back into operation
Mulberries—together weighing 2 mil- by salvaging parts from the American
lion tons—would cost a staggering 40 Mulberry. The town of Arromanches
million pounds to build. (That’s 1944 was soon nicknamed “Port Winston”
pounds.) because of the presence of Mulberry
B. Though designed to last no more
As the cost of the project escalat- than three months, Port Winston
ed daily, a further problem arose with remained in full operation for five
building the breakwater necessary to months. It was finally shut down on
close the gap between the Phoenix 19 November, after the opening of the
caissons and the rocky reef. Rear huge port of Antwerp. The remants of
Adm. William Tennant, commanding Mulberry B can still be seen from the
Mulberry B, demanded the Admi- beaches of Arromanches to this day.
ralty turn over 65 merchant ships to
be used as sunken blockships. But All told, 2.5 million men, 500,000
Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham, First vehicles, and 4 million tons of sup-
Sea Lord, called that idea “damned plies were off-loaded through the
nonsense.” Mulberries.
In the end, Air Marshall Sir
Attention readers: We’re always looking
Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, ~Paul Koenig for authors for FYI for Strategy & Tactics
went at Cunningham with the argu-
and Observation Post for World at War.
ment: “Are we prepared to face the
If you’d like to try your hand at writing
country and say, ‘The invasion has
short (under 2,000 words), pithy articles
failed because we did not give the
for this column, on virtually any aspect of
Navy 65 old merchant ships’?”
WWII military history, contact Ty Bom-
ba, FYI editor, at: WhiteRook@att.net.

World at War 35

WaW 9 Issue.indd 35 8/27/10 3:59:06 PM

 available now!
China: The Middle Kingdom
China: The Middle Kingdom covers the full scope of
Chinese history, from its beginnings as a collection of warring
feudal states, to the current cold war between China and Taiwan.
In this epic game based on the classic Avalon Hill Britannia
system, four players each control several factions simultaneously,
with each faction having their own objectives and situations, such
as conquering certain provinces. The winner is the player who
scores the most points by the end of the game. This breathtaking
game unfolds on an illustrated map of China with 432 counters,
covering 50 separate countries and peoples, including all of the
major dynasties of Chinese history, the arrival of the European
powers, both World Wars and the Japanese invasion, right up
to the end of the civil war between the Communists and the
Nationalists. The game occurs over 24 turns, starting from 403 BC, during the
“Warring States” period as China begins to rise from its feudal age. The game
has two shorter campaign scenarios covering the first half and second half of
the full campaign game.
Battles between armies can be dramatically affected by the presence
of mountains, emperors, heroes, new inventions, and even the Great Wall.
Rebellions, barbarian invasions, and uprisings may spring up from anywhere,
and signal the end of one dynasty and the birth of a new dynasty. Diplomacy
is as important as military strength. Each player continually must defend
against multiple enemies on multiple fronts. $60

Highway to the Reich

Highway to the Reich is a tactical simulation of the largest airborne operation in
history. Over 35,000 men belonging to 1st Allied Airborne Army dropped from
the skies of Holland. Their objective: capture and hold a highway. The result:
a salient into German territory that lacked only the last objective, and was thus
a tragic defeat.
The 2,000-plus counters detail Gen. Brereton’s airborne corps of three divi-
sions, the units of 30th Corps, and Model’s scattered and disheveled forces at
company level for infantry; battery level for artillery, anti-tank and anti-air, and
troop-level for tanks and armored cars.
The four maps cover from the front along the Meuse-Escaut Canal to
the area, nearly 200 hexes away, surrounding Arnhem Highway Bridge.
Each map is positioned to cover the operational area of one airborne
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All the activities of each formation are completed before those of
another are begun. Attacks start with a preliminary barrage, followed
by fire attack by maneuver companies, and then close action with tanks
and assault troops. All activities involve comparisons of involved units’
capabilities. Optional rules focus on hidden movement and multi-player
variations, as well as giving the Allied player the opportunity to execute
his own operational plan. The revisions have made this classic game
easier and faster to play than ever before. $160

Contents:
Four 22” x 34” maps Player Aid Cards
2,520 die-cut counters Campaign Analysis
Rule & scenario books Six-sided Dice
6 Organization Charts

36 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 36 8/27/10 3:59:11 PM

 available now!
Flying Circus:
Aerial Combat in WWI
Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI depicts the fun and flavor of World War I aerial dogfight-
ing. You fly the colorful and agile aircraft of WWI as you make history in the world’s first use of
aircraft in a military role.
This is the basic game. You have everything you need to play single aircraft duels to multi-air-
craft dogfights. Each aircraft has its own unique characteristics reflected in its ratings and special
abilities. The basic game rules cover all the maneuvers that made WWI aerial combat: barrel rolls,
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guns and watch his planes go down in flames!
Gamers who have played the Down in Flames game series will find many similarities in game
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23

This is the deluxe game. You will need the basic game
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team play with multiple flights in swirling dogfights. This
deluxe game adds rules for altitude, pilot abilities—in- Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
cluding a deck of 25 pilot cards for historical campaigns— 1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
bombers, rear gunners, scouts and other optional rules. $12 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail add $5
This deluxe game also includes cards and rules for playing 24 3 Canada
multi-mission games of famous WWI campaigns such as
Cambrai and Meuse-Argonne, along with a “Campaign 34 3 Europe, South America, Asia

Analysis” article detailing the development of the aircraft, 36 5 Australia

their tactics and strategy. $40
QTY Title Price Total
Contents: China The Middle Kingdom $60
110 Deluxe deck cards (bombers, scouts, plus more fighters & action cards)
Deluxe Game rules booklet Highway to the Reich $160
6 Campaign Cards Flying Circus-Basic $23
Pilot Log
36 Pilot & altitude cards Flying Circus-Deluxe $40
Dice marker Shipping

Name
Address
City/State/Zip
Country
V/MC # Exp.
PO Box 21598 Signature
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com Phone #
World at War 37

WaW 9 Issue.indd 37 8/27/10 3:59:15 PM

 Southern Bomber Command:
Fifteenth Air Force in Action
by Kelly Bell

38 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 38 8/27/10 3:59:19 PM

 On the morning of 20 December 1944, while the
eyes of the Western world were fixed on the
fighting in the Ardennes forest, a silver B-24 named
the Dakota Queen, assigned to the US Fifteenth Air
Force’s 455th Bomb Group, took off from an airfield
in San Giovanni, Italy. Its target was the Skoda arma-
ments works in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. The trip was
uneventful until about an hour before reaching the tar-
get, when the number-two engine abruptly quit. The
pilot feathered the motor and continued on three en-
gines. About a minute before “bombs away,” the num-
ber-three engine was knocked out by flak. Kept aloft
by her outboard propellers, Dakota Queen dropped her
payload and tried to keep up with the rest of her forma-
tion, but it was hopeless.
The Queen and her men soon found themselves
alone in the air and losing altitude over the Adriatic’s
east coast. Throwing everything possible overboard,
the crew tried to lighten the ship enough to reach the
Italian mainland, but she was too shot-up to make it.
It looked like the end as flames exploded from num-
ber-three engine and set the wing ablaze, but suddenly
there was one last chance. Ahead lay the miniscule is-
land of Vis.
Vis’s short, rough landing strip was the most beau-
tiful sight in the world for untold numbers of crewmen
whose damaged planes would otherwise have crashed
at sea. Aiming for the patch of rocky land, the Da-
kota Queen’s pilot set his landing gear onto the leading
edge of the runway and managed to brake to a halt in
a cloud of smoke and dust just before running out of
room. The airmen emerged safely and were flown out
on a transport, leaving their plane to be patched up and
returned to San Giovanni by a repair crew.
The Dakota Queen’s pilot, a 22-year-old named Lt.
George McGovern (a future Democratic presidential
aspirant), received the Distinguished Flying Cross for
that flight.
Fifteenth Air Force
The US Army Air Force (USAAF) Fifteenth Air
Force’s role in World War II has been overshadowed
by the Eighth Air Force, which flew out of bases in
England. Yet the Fifteenth certainly had an important
part to play.
Allied planners hadn’t anticipated the severe losses
their bomber fleets would incur over northern Europe
during 1943. Luftwaffe interceptors proved effective in
shooting down both USAAF and RAF intruders. It be-
came evident the Eighth Air Force wouldn’t be able to
carry the burden alone of bringing the air war to Ger-
many. Additional armadas of heavy bombers needed
to be deployed to increase the pressure on the enemy
and dilute his fighter strength.
In October 1943, Gen. Hap Arnold proposed the
North Africa-based Twelfth Air Force be split in two—
one for the tactical support of ground forces and one
WaW 9 Issue.indd 39
for strategic bombing. The new Fifteenth Air Force
would be based on newly won Italian territory, and
was initially commanded by Gen. Jimmy Doolittle.
Doolittle was transferred to England on 3 January
1944, and Gen. Nathan Twining replaced him for the
duration.
The Fifteenth was based on the Foggia plain, at the
“spur” of the “boot.” With its mild winter weather, the
Foggia airfield complex could host a bomber fleet ca-
pable of flying twice as many missions as those operat-
ing out of fog-shrouded Britain. It was a priceless op-
portunity, and on 1 November 1943 the Joint Chiefs of
Staff approved Arnold’s idea. The Fifteenth’s 20,499
officers and enlisted personnel were eager to get into
the sky and earn themselves a reputation. They were
to concentrate on targets in southeastern Europe that
were out of range of planes based in England. Those
targets included attacking enemy aircraft factories,
ball bearing and rubber plants, communication cen-
ters, submarine pens and oil refineries.
No time was wasted as B-17 Flying Fortresses of
the Fifteenth’s 5th Bomb Wing hammered the railroad
bridge and naval base at La Spezia, Italy, on the first
day their air force officially became operational, 1
November. The Fifteenth was also meant to draw off
some of the German fighter swarms attacking Allied
bomber formations approaching from the west. The
Foggia plain put the new formation in position to at-
tack vital targets in northern Italy, Romania, Albania,
Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, as well as better-
known south German and Austrian destinations. Fog-
gia became the center of a 1,400-mile-diameter circle
covering parts of Germany and 11 other nations al-
lied with or occupied by them. Nearly 80 percent of
the enemy’s petroleum was refined within 800 miles
of Foggia, and it was against those refineries the Fif-
teenth would make its most devastating—and under-
publicized—impact.
First Blood
Starting out with 931 planes, the Fifteenth rapidly
grew as six more bomb groups, the 449th, 450th, 451st,
454th, 455th and 456th, each comprised of 62 B-24H
Liberators, arrived over the next several weeks. Be-
fore their installation at Foggia even began, the Fif-
teenth sent 74 B-17s and 38 B-24s, escorted by 72 P-38
Lightnings, against the Messerschmitt aircraft factory
at Wiener Neustadt in Austria. The airmen cratered the
plant during their 45 minute attack; however, between
120 and 160 Me-109s, FW-190s, Me-110s and Ju-88s
swarmed against the bombers. Afterward the US gun-
ners claimed to have downed 56 interceptors in that
first all-out attack by the Fifteenth.
For the remainder of the year and through the first
half of January, the newcomers pummeled targets in
Italy, Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and France.
Poor winter weather hampered operations far more
than had been expected. The first severe losses came
World at War 39
8/27/10 3:59:19 PM

on 28 December, when an attack against the Vincenza
marshalling yards met a powerful fighter force that
shot down 10 Liberators.
There was no time to weep. In January 1944 the Al-
lies landed at Anzio, behind the German lines in Italy.
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring launched a counter-
attack, trying to drive the invaders back into the sea.
Above the beachhead, Luftwaffe bombers were flying
in and striking the Allied landing forces. If the Anzio
invaders could break out of their perimeter and ad-
vance inland, Kesselring would be forced to withdraw
troops from his vital Gustav Line farther south. That
done, Gen. Mark Clark’s US Fifth Army would then
be able to breach the weakened defense and secure the
Lire Valley and the fiercely contested town of Cassino,
paving the way for an advance on Rome. First, though,
Allied air superiority in Italy had to be secured.
On 19 January, 27 of the 449th Bomb Group’s Lib-
erators dumped 65 tons of high explosives on the
40 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 40
Luftwaffe’s long-range reconnaissance
base at Perugia, leaving the enemy
blind for four days. Following a series
of smaller raids on the 23rd, strategists
at the Fifteenth devised another attack
for 30 January that worked to perfec-
tion.
A combined Liberator-Flying For-
tress force from the 449th and 450th
lifted off with standard P-38 escort and
headed directly for the German fighter
base at Udine, Italy. Droning along
conspicuously, the formations were
easily plotted by German radar. The
preoccupied Germans didn’t notice the
additional waves of P-47 Thunderbolt
fighters rising from Foggia after the
last bombers departed. Going north at
full speed, the “T-bolts” eluded radar
by flying at wave-top height over the
Adriatic until overtaking their bomb-
ers, then climbing as fast as possible on
reaching Udine. Unsuspecting German
interceptors were in the process of lift-
ing off when they were savaged from
above by those P-47s. Each Thunder-
bolt mounted eight 50-caliber machine-
guns, and the defenders had no time to
react to the storm of machinegun fire
that obliterated them. The high-flying
bombers then had an easy time of it as
they showered the Luftwaffe airfields
with 29,000 fragmentation bombs.
Against the Reich
After that semi-tactical assignment,
the Fifteenth was temporarily stopped
by more bad weather. On the 22nd the
Fifteenth was slated to attack the air-
craft component factory at Regensburg, Germany,
while the Eighth was to hit other aircraft facilities and
ball bearing works at Schweinfurt, Bernberg, Oscher-
sleben, Halberstadt, Aschersleben and Gotha. It was to
be a long mission and, when the Schweinfurt-bound
flight was forced to abort because of bad weather at
its English base, the Fifteenth’s formations heading for
Regensberg (100 miles southeast of Schweinfurt) got a
double dose of fighter opposition.
The American bombers were met by 120 intercep-
tors. The Germans shot down 19 bombers, despite
P-38 and P-47 escorts. The raid’s results were never-
theless deemed favorable by US analysts, as over 200
tons of explosives hit the targets. When the Eighth was
again grounded by weather the next day, the Fifteenth
went back to work alone.
On the morning of the 23rd, 102 bombers assaulted
the Waelzlagerwerk ball bearing plant at Steyr, Aus-
tria. They crippled those facilities with 214 tons of ex-
8/27/10 3:59:22 PM
 plosives at a cost of 17 bombers.
The next day another joint effort to the same target
proved expensive, as fighters using a new tactic raked
Eighth and Fifteenth formations. About 100 miles short
of Steyr the lead element, the Fifteenth’s 97th Bomb
Group, met 20 Me-109s and FW-190s. Those Ger-
man planes made what turned out to be an aggressive
feint to draw the escorting Lightnings and Thunder-
bolts away from the bombers. Minutes later, Me-110
fighters sliced into the trailing 2nd Bomb Group. At-
tacking the heavies in four-plane and six-plane units,
the twin-engine 110s made long-range rocket and can-
non attacks while single-engine interceptors raked the
bombers with cannon and machinegun fire.
During and after the bomb runs, more waves of in-
terceptors hit the 2nd and, as later-arriving escort flights
came into radio range, the leading 97th Group franti-
cally directed them to the rear of the formation. It was
too late. By then the Germans were breaking off their
attacks and the 2nd had lost 14 planes. Losses couldn’t
simply be counted in aircraft shot down, but also in
those written off to damage, as well as crew-members Intruders: B-17s on a bomb run.
killed and wounded.
In spite of those wrenching losses, the bombar-
fields. Their ongoing ground support of Kesselring’s
diers’ aim had been deadly and the factory no longer
troops and resistance to the Fifteenth’s strategic cam-
existed after the 261-ton plastering. Two bombs fell
paign were too much to ignore; so on the morning of
into a nearby warehouse and destroyed two months’
18 March a meticulously contrived and executed rem-
worth of finished product.
edy was applied.
It had been a hard two days for the Fifteenth. In all
At 7:20 a.m. 95 P-38s left Foggia and assembled
it lost 34 bombers, and that was a mere prelude to the
1,000 feet above San Severo. They then set off north at
next day’s visit to Regensberg-Prufening during which
just 75 feet above the Adriatic to avoid radar. As they
39 more would fall. The defending fighter pilots were
approached the coast east of Venice, they climbed to
learning the art of bomber-busting, but their growing
6,000 feet and split into two groups. One attacked the
expertise was being matched by the gunners opposing
railroad yards at Treviso, flew north as far as the Alps,
them. En route home on 25 February, a gunner aboard
then swept over Venice, continuing its distracting
Pistol Packin’ Mama, Sgt. Paul Biggart, was killed at
ground attacks. About that time 113 Fortresses, which
his post after downing four fighters. He was the only
had taken off later and flown north along the Yugo-
member of his crew not to survive the mission.
slav coast on what appeared to be a flight to southern
Bombing Effectiveness Germany, abruptly veered west (drawing with them
After the 25th the weather again closed in, tempo- enemy fighters that had taken off from their base at
rarily suspending operations and allowing time for Klagenfurt), and rained 20 lb. fragmentation bombs
rest, repairs and the arrival of scores of new aircraft onto the airfields at Villaorba and Udine while their
and hundreds of replacement crewmen. escorts torched nine interceptors.
At the same time, previous assumptions that the
enemy’s aircraft production and anti-friction indus-
tries had been destroyed proved too optimistic. By
rapid and efficient reorganization and dispersal of fac-
tories, the Germans saw to it that they continued to
turn out more planes and replacement parts than ever.
In the first half of March 1944, weather aborted all but
eight missions, but on the 18th a major effort was again
mounted against the Luftwaffe’s bases around Udine.
Following the 30 January raids the Nazis had swift-
ly rebuilt and replenished their airpower in the area
until there were 235 fighters stationed at the Udine,
Gorizia, Osoppo, Maniago, Lavariano and Aiello Interceptors: Luftwaffe Me-410 bomber-destroyers.
World at War 41

WaW 9 Issue.indd 41 8/27/10 3:59:23 PM

 By that time the Klagenfurt fighters were low on
fuel, but couldn’t land at the nearest bases because
of the just-completed raids. Instead they had to touch
down at other fields scattered throughout the region.
At 11:00 a.m. the landing strips at Maniago, La-
variano and Gorizia, along with their usual comple-
ment of planes and the just-landed Klagenfurt fighters,
were attacked by 260 B-24s from the Fifteenth. Those
bombers showered 32,370 20-pounders onto the dense
mass of Luftwaffe machines on the ground, destroying
or damaging 56. Just two were able to get aloft to fee-
bly oppose the raid. Bomber gunners accounted for 23
fighters while the second P-38 flight, which had pro-
vided escort, downed 33. Nazi air power over northern
Italy had been crippled, but the fighters guarding Ger-
man skies remained a lethal foe.
End-of-month forays over Klagenfurt and Graz,
Austria, were effective, but cost 16 bombers along with
two lost in a midair collision. With the new month pri-
ority was shifted from enemy air power and industry
to the oil fields of southeastern Europe. In 1939, Hitler
had only six months of fuel when he invaded Poland.
He was thereafter careful to maintain enough reserves
to keep his forces supplied as his armies overran the
Balkans. With friendly governments in oil-producing
Hungary and Romania, his ambitions seemed well fu-
eled. He was therefore aware of the threat posed by
the mass of US heavy bombers, and he encircled his
refineries with massive concentrations of anti-aircraft
guns.
When the Americans mounted their inaugural Au-
gust 1943 low-level bombing of the Ploesti oilfields
and refineries, the Romanian skies were thick with
black shell bursts as the German gunners, forewarned
by their intelligence operatives, were ready and wait-
ing. Fifty-three out of 179 B-24s went down in that
one raid—a rate of attrition far exceeding the Ameri-
Into the heart of the Reich: B-24s fly low.
42 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 42
cans’ ability to offset. With the training of crews be-
ing far more time-consuming than the construction of
their machines, the losses of men were serious.
By early 1944, then, the Germans’ oil supply
seemed to be stabilizing in their favor. Apart from the
2 million tons of crude they’d already received that
year from Hungary and Romania, their plants turning
out synthetic oil had provided 6 million tons. By May
1944 just one percent of all Allied bombs had been un-
loaded over refineries, which at least were conspicu-
ous targets with their sprawling, hard-to-camouflage
distillation equipment, smokestacks and tank farms.
The Fifteenth was the first large Allied air force to
have the Third Reich’s petroleum industry in range, so
the time had come for a showdown.
At noon on 5 April 1944, a strike force of 95 B-17s
and 135 B-24s began arriving over Ploesti, and they
were already encountering intense fighter opposition.
The main points of attack were the marshalling yards,
but the planners also intended for the bomb pattern to
stray into the refinery. All went according to plan, as
both were saturated with 587 tons of high explosives,
though between interceptors and blizzards of flak the
Americans lost 13 bombers. The results of the raid
were better than anyone had dared hope, as the suscep-
tibility of oil facilities to bombing was at last proven,
and the campaign was just beginning.
Following other Ploesti missions on 15 and 24
April, the Fifteenth also began raids on another major
oil target: Vienna. At that time, Ploesti was ranked the
third most heavily defended target in Europe; Vienna
was number two.
As spring turned into the summer of 1944, the Aus-
trian capital got increasing attention. Allied heavies
hit five of its oil factories on 16 June. A week later,
761 bombers again mauled Ploesti, bombing through
blinding clouds of smoke from smudge pots fired to
obscure the bombardiers’ vision. It was impossible
to be certain how much damage was done, since not
only was the ground invisible, but the fliers couldn’t
tell how much smoke came from the bombing and
how much from the pots. The next day the Fifteenth
returned and doubled the dosage for insurance.
With the Normandy invasion underway, the oil
campaign shifted west on 25 June as 150 bombers at-
tacked petroleum and fuel storage facilities in southern
France. Over the next three days the Fifteenth pound-
ed oil centers and aircraft plants throughout Austria,
Hungary and Yugoslavia.
It had to be a continuing process. German Arma-
ments Minister Albert Speer and his assistant Edmund
Geilenberg mercilessly drove their 350,000 slave la-
borers to repair bomb damage immediately after raids,
while also constructing new, smaller facilities in un-
expected locations. Allied intelligence couldn’t keep
track of the proliferation of new targets, and were
often baffled at how the Germans seemed to make
8/27/10 3:59:23 PM
 frequently hit targets more durable with each attack,
necessitating numerous raids on the same objectives.
Preparations for the assaults in northern and south-
ern France had started back in May, as the Fifteenth
raked the 14 most important marshalling yards in the
south of France. On the 29th the familiar aircraft plant
at Wiener Neustadt was finally finished off with the
application of another 220 tons of bombs. That same
day, 126 Liberators hit the Me-109 components fac-
tory at Atzgersdorf. A combined B-24/B-17 formation
simultaneously carpeted the Luftwaffe’s huge Wollers-
dorf base with 740 tons of high explosives.
It was a brilliantly executed feat carried out by men
distracted and demoralized by a directive just received
from London. From the beginning of their tours, Fif-
teenth aircrews had been told they would be rotated
WaW 9 Issue.indd 43
back to the States after completing 50 missions. In the
midst of their preparations for the D-Day invasion,
they were informed on 18 May there would no longer
be a mission quota for going home: all would fly until
they were killed, crippled, captured or the war ended,
whichever came first. Spirits plunged. Men discussed
going on strike after completion of their 50 missions,
and they had a legitimate gripe. They had volunteered
to serve in bombers with the promise of a reprieve
after surviving to a specific point, and suddenly the
Army Air Force was changing the rules in the middle
of the game.
Gen. Twining was as angry as anyone and, after a
great deal of politicking, including personal appeals
to the Allied supreme commander in Europe, Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, and to the joint chiefs of staff
World at War 43
8/27/10 3:59:29 PM

Going in Circles
It was normal practice in the USAAF to rotate crews home
after a set number of missions; however, that policy wasn’t
always applied in practice owing to the need for experienced
aircrews on the front. One example follows. At dawn on 5 May
1944, a B-24 of the 451st Bomb Group named Shilay Lee left
Castelluccia on another flight to the flak and fighter-filled skies
over Ploesti. It was the 31st mission for her and her men, and it
was no milk run. Indeed, they were one of the first planes as-
saulted by fighters upon entering Romanian airspace.
Shilay Lee’s gunners fought off the initial wave of German
interceptors, which soon broke off to concentrate on cripples and
stragglers and to avoid flying through their own flak. As bom-
bardier Julius Altwater peered through his sighting apparatus,
he could see little except clouds of a white smoke screen ignited
by the Germans, and black smoke from already burning oil and
fuel tanks hit by the lead planes. Releasing his bombs at what
he prayed was the aiming point, Altwater rose from his seat and
was shaken to find himself alone in the nose compartment. The
navigator and nose gunner had simply vanished while he was
preoccupied with the bomb run. Further, Shilay Lee was ablaze
from a shell that had struck the base of the starboard wing. The
landing gear was dangling as if hanging from a piece of string;
the number-two propeller wasn’t moving and number-one was
vibrating like a paint mixer.
Crawling to the cockpit, Altwater found the pilot wounded in
the left arm and the co-pilot dead from a chunk of shrapnel in the
back of his neck. By that time all the others in the front half of
the plane had already bailed out. Crawling aft, Altwater turned a
fire extinguisher on the spreading flames and shouted for the ball
turret and tail gunners to jump for their lives before clamber-
ing back to the flight deck to get his own parachute. Tugging it
onto his back he yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” into the
pilot’s ear an instant before being blown into space as the flames
reached the main fuel tanks and Shila Lee exploded.
Jerking the ripcord, Altwater almost lost his grip on the chute
since he had only had time to fasten two of the straps. Though
he landed heavily on his side, he survived the jump intact, and
was rescued by partisans and returned to Italy to complete his
tour aboard another airplane. It was the kind of lethal, valiant
adventure commonplace in the Fifteenth Air Force.
Fifty missions or bust: USAAF aircrew pose by their bomber.
44 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 44
in Washington, the 50-flight quota was re-instated and
the airmen again turned their full attention to the war.
Into the East
There was constantly something new going on in
the southern air force. On 2 June its men carried out
the first of their Russian shuttle missions. Code-named
“Frantic,” the flight began at 7:00 a.m. with 130 For-
tresses. Accompanied by 70 P-51 Mustangs from the
325th Fighter Group, the flight hammered the marshal-
ing yards in Debrecen, Hungary, at 9:00 a.m. without
encountering flak or interceptors, though one B-17
mysteriously exploded.
After unloading their 250 tons, they flew on to bas-
es at Poltava and Mirgorod in the Ukraine while the
escorts landed at nearby Piryatin. On the 6th that force
attacked Galati, Romania, then returned to their east-
ern bases. On the 11th the Americans left the Soviets
and returned to Foggia, striking the German airfield at
Foscani, Romania, en route.
For most of June, while the rest of the world fo-
cused on the Allied Overlord landings in Normandy,
the Fifteenth resumed raids on oil targets in southern
Europe, repeatedly pounding Ploesti and Vienna. As
summer progressed, they visited points throughout
southern Europe while their fighters scored 678 con-
firmed kills in June and July.
It all began to be productive. At one time in Sep-
tember no German oil-producing facilities of any kind
were operating, and by month’s end just three of 90
refineries were at full production, while 28 were going
at partial capacity. Still, German and Romanian air de-
fenses remained fierce and the Fifteenth’s losses kept
piling up.
The hated Ploesti missions ended 19 August 1944,
with the Fifteenth’s 20th mission over the sprawling
target complex. Sixty-five B-17s dropped 144 tons in
a blazing farewell. The installation’s production had
been cut to one-fifth of its original output, with less
than 150,000 tons of crude being processed monthly.
It was still a prize the Soviets were anxious to con-
fiscate and repair for their own use, and on the 20th
the Red Army poured into Romania and crushed what
Axis defenses remained. On 23 August 1944, young
King Michael surrendered his country to the com-
munist invaders. When the Soviets overran Bucharest
they freed the survivors of Allied aircraft that had been
downed over Romania. Thirty-eight Fortresses evacu-
ated those men, and by 3 September some 1,100 for-
mer POWs had been flown to Italy.
Battles Over the Danube
As soon as Ploesti was removed from the target list,
the Fifteenth’s crews were informed of another major
offensive against Vienna. As German forces were
pushed back on all fronts, flak was being concentrated
in a constantly shrinking area, and Vienna was by then
packed with 312 heavy guns.
8/27/10 3:59:30 PM
 On 22 August the bulk of the Fifteenth’s bombers
set out for the Austrian metropolis in whose streets and
flophouses Adolf Hitler had lived as a homeless young
man. Near Lake Balaton, the fleet was swarmed by
about 50 interceptors who shot down bombers named
Wet Dream, Scrappy, Toddlin’ Trollop, Con Job and
Old Taylor.
The objective was the Lorau oil plant, and the flak
curtain was so dense that A-Train had to be scrapped
after struggling back to Foggia. Most of the planes
were from the 451st Bomb Group, and on the following
day the same battered bunch were in the same smoky
heavens to strike the Markersdorf airdrome. Again en-
emy fighters waited, roaring from a cloudbank with
their cannons blazing as they attacked in rows of eight
abreast and shot down nine more heavies. The 451st
gunners, however, claimed to have downed 29 of the
interceptors in what turned out to be the last Fifteenth
mission to suffer consequential fighter opposition.
Ironically it had been a diversionary effort—the group
dropped 33.5 tons of fragmentation bombs on the air-
drome, drawing the attention of one of the Luftwaffe’s
most experienced fighter-interceptor groups, while
other elements of the Fifteenth hit other targets in the
vicinity.
The unexpectedly powerful and well executed op-
position moved the Fifteenth’s planners to organize
a major fighter operation of their own on the landing
fields outside Reghin, Romania. At 5:40 p.m. on 31
August, 48 P-51 Mustangs of the 52nd Fighter Group
lifted off from Madna, Italy, and set out east over the
Adriatic. After passing over Yugoslavia, they reached
Reghin where they took the Nazis by surprise. While
the 4th Squadron provided top cover, the 2nd and 5th
Squadrons raked the airfields with machineguns, de-
stroying 10 German bombers, 10 transports, six twin-
engine fighters, 29 single-engine fighters and five
additional aircraft of undetermined designation, all
caught exposed in the crowded parking areas. Nine
more Luftwaffe planes were downed in dogfights, for
a total of 60 Germans destroyed for the loss of three
Mustangs.
It was an important operation, paving the way for
the British invasion of Greece on 23 September. With-
in a month that country was cleared of Axis troops,
20,000 of whom, bereft of all air support, were taken
prisoner.
Also by that time, aided by the Fifteenth’s disrup-
tion of German supply routes and communications,
the Red Army had occupied almost all of Romania
and Bulgaria. In October the Soviets, again benefiting
from US air support, poured into Hungary and Yugo-
slavia.
Fifteenth bombers returned to the flak stronghold of
Vienna, as all groups were sent after the Ostereichische
motor works on Friday the 13th of October 1944. The
date and location lived up to their rueful reputation, as
WaW 9 Issue.indd 45
Some Irony
You must remember this, that flak won’t always miss,
Somebody’s got to die.
The fundamental things apply as flak goes by.
And when the fighters come, you pray you’re not the one,
To tumble from the sky.
You wish you had a quart of rye as flak goes by.
One-tenth and two-tenths, a’knocking at the gate,
The sky is full of tracers; I’ve got to kill my rate.
Open the bomb bays, salvo—don’t wait,
Target’s rushing by.
It’s still the same old story, the 8th gets all the glory,
While we go out and die.
The odds are always too damned high,
As flak goes by.
Sung to the tune of As Time Goes By, from Humphrey Bog-
art’s legendary movie Casablanca, that was a song penned by a
member of the Fifteenth whose identity has long since been lost.
Whoever he was, he obviously felt the hurt of being overlooked
and forgotten by those back home, as correspondents focused on
air fleets other than his.
eight bombers were blown from the sky by the mass of
88mm guns five miles below. Many more returned to
base with damage that kept them grounded for lengthy
periods.
The Fifteenth was achieving its best results as the
year and war were waning. On Christmas Day 1944
the marshalling yards at Wels, Austria, were smoth-
ered under a blizzard of bombs, 40 percent of which
fell within 1,000 feet of the aiming point. While that
flight was aloft, its chaplain, William O’Neil, was ear-
nestly praying for them during Yuletide services back
at their base. Every plane returned safely.
After so many months of sterling success, Janu-
ary 1945 turned out to be the Fifteenth’s worst-ever
operational month as weather suspended missions on
all but nine days. Come February, though, the heavens
cleared.
The previous April the first of a succession of new
gleaming silver Liberators had arrived from the States.
The very first was assigned to the 98th Bomb Group,
and her adoring crew christened their sparkling new
lady Silver Queen. They flew her to good effect over
the momentous next few months and into the new
year. In February they and their Queen had their great-
est adventure.
On the 19th they were part of yet another mission
into the skies over Vienna. It was a trip like too many
others, as the Queen wound up being one of just three
of their squadron’s complement of seven planes to
reach the target. By the time the bombs were gone,
the B-24’s interior was filled by hissing shrapnel that
somehow managed to miss the crew. Not one man
World at War 45
8/27/10 3:59:30 PM
 To the target: B24 fights its way through flak.
Over Axis Skies with Flak Shak III
A mission flown by a B-24 named Flak Shak III of the
485th Bomb Group on 24 August 1944 was typical of Fif-
teenth Air Force operations. Orderlies shook the crew awake
at 2:45 a.m. to begin their fourth consecutive day of combat
flying. After breakfasting in silence, the groggy men were
taken by truck to the briefing room where they slumped on
bomb crates and stared bleakly at the colored map of Europe
that outlined their route to refineries in Pardubice, Czecho-
slovakia.
Like most, that trip would be bumpy, the navigator took
care to distribute his crewmen’s escape kits containing maps,
compasses and 50 dollars apiece in fives and tens. Donning
parachutes, flight suits, life preservers, oxygen masks and
steel helmets, the men clambered back aboard the trucks and
bounced to the flight line where their plane waited.
The outbound flight was uneventful, as the flock of B-24s
rumbled across the Adriatic. The gunners fired a few rounds
to make sure their .50-calibers were operational, and the co-
pilot got on the intercom to remind the men to don their oxy-
gen masks and turn on their heated suits. No flak or fighters
molested the bombers as they approached Pardubice, and the
skies remained clear as they dropped their bombs.
The top turret gunner was reading a letter from home
over the intercom, and the tail gunner hungrily awaited
reaching lower altitude so he could remove his oxygen mask
and tear into his K-rations and canteen of lemonade. He no-
ticed a Liberator that had apparently developed mechanical
trouble and was unable to hold formation. Suddenly, he saw
two Me-109s on the straggler’s tail. They overshot their vic-
tim and passed close under Flak Shak III. He fired a burst at
them while shouting at the top turret gunner to get off the
intercom.
46 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 46
The lagging B-24 spiraled to earth as a swarm of about
50 FW-190s rose over the horizon, trying to reach the bomb-
ers before their Mustang escorts could intercept them. Split-
ting into three-plane groups, the enemy fighters latched onto
individual Liberators and came at them full speed from be-
hind.
With their wingtips almost touching, one Nazi trio ap-
proached Flak Shak III, the center plane strafing the fuselage
while the outside planes went after the wings and engines.
Drawing a bead on the middle plane, the top turret gunner
opened up at about 800 yards and fired continuously until
wreckage began flying off the 190 at 300 yards. It ceased fir-
ing, lost power and started a slow horizontal roll that took it
under its intended victim. By that time other guns had turned
on the fighter approaching the left wing. Yet another German
was attacking from above. A 20mm cannon shell hit the top
turret and blew the gunner into the bomber’s rear waist sec-
tion.
Flak Shak III’s port wing and command deck were
bathed in burning fuel, the flames spread by ruptured oxy-
gen bottles. That third fighter was then torched, but the big
bomber was still in bad shape. All the crewmen managed to
escape, but Flak Shak III executed a partial roll and spun into
the Czech countryside—shot down over a target few back
home even knew existed.
8/27/10 3:59:32 PM
 was hit, but the oxygen was knocked out and the pilot,
Lt. Robert E. Lee Caudle, had to descend to 12,000
feet so he and his men could breathe. When he spot-
ted three fighters headed his way, he ducked his plane
into a cloudbank and was able to lose them. Still, he
was low on fuel and bucking a strong headwind and
realized there was no way he could coax his machine
back to base at Lecce, Italy. Zara, Yugoslavia, was as
far as they got, landing at 120 miles per hour in a for-
est clearing and with a flat tire that sent them spinning.
The plane came to a halt relatively intact, but their ad-
venture was just beginning.
Over half a century later Silver Queen’s top tur-
ret gunner and assistant engineer Kenneth Curtis
Scroggins recounted how: “Almost immediately after
landing I was trying to remove the ship’s clock from
between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats when Caudle
shouted, ‘Get back up in your turret!,’ and at nose
gunner Calvin Coolidge Thomas, ‘Get back in the
nose!’”
All the plane’s guns were instantly trained on a
completely unexpected development. According to
Scroggins:
A couple horsemen had ridden up to about
100 yards from our aircraft. They wore leather
jackets and carried long rifles and bandoliers
of ammunition. The leader rode to about 20
yards in front of his men, pulled his feet out of
the stirrups and raised his hands to show he
wasn’t belligerent. At this point Caudle climbed
out of the plane onto the fuselage and walked
onto the wing. The horseman came closer still
and Caudle jumped to the ground.
The American fliers had encountered a band of
Marshal Josip Tito’s communist partisans, who took
them to their forest base where they stayed for a few
days. Caudle used the partisans’ radio to call a repair
depot in Italy to fly in spare parts, mechanics and fuel
via a couple of C-47 transports. Silver Queen was re-
paired and her men flew her out to continue their tour
of duty.
Scroggins recalled: “She had over 100 holes in
her, and my turret had to be replaced because of a flak
hole.” She was indeed a dedicated lady—by war’s end
she had flown 131 missions.
WaW 9 Issue.indd 47
Victory Through Airpower
As late as March 1945 the Fifteenth was in the thick
of heated action as, for example, on the 21st, 366 of
its Liberators struck Neuberg airfield and jet factory,
leaving the installation in ashes. Three days later 271
B-24s returned to finish anything that may have sur-
vived, destroying 25 of the revolutionary, lethal new
Messerschmitt-262 jet interceptors on the ground. The
same day, 150 Fortresses bombed the Daimler-Benz
tank engine plant in Berlin. Coupled with earlier raids
on Romanian targets, that made the Fifteenth the only
air force of the war to attack two Axis capitals.
On 20 April the Fifteenth gave Hitler a rueful gift
on his last birthday by pounding the highway bridge
at Luisa, Italy. The flight’s 1,000 lb. bombs, designed
specifically for the purpose, dropped every span into
the river. All of the 89.5 tons hit within 1,000 feet of
the aiming point. The Fifteenth gave the Fuehrer an-
other gift five days later by targeting his hometown of
Linz, Austria. Even after the Nazi surrender on 8 May,
the bombers kept busy dropping supplies to newly lib-
erated POW camps.
Initially thrown into action as rookies versus a sea-
soned and capable enemy, the men of the Fifteenth Air
Force learned on the job through bloody campaigns
and heartbreaking losses. Yet in its 18 operational
months, that air force destroyed half of the enemy’s
fuel production while also helping to cripple his trans-
portation system and warplane industry. They dropped
303,842 tons of explosives over 12 countries, while
their escort fighters shot down or wrecked on the
ground 1,496 Luftwaffe machines at a cost of 156 of
their own.
Overall, the Fifteenth lost 3,364 aircraft bringing
the war to the enemy. In the final analysis, the destruc-
tion of the Reich’s petroleum industry was a turning
point in the War in Europe.
at
Sources
Birdsall, Steve. Log of the Liberators. Double & Co., Inc., 1973.
Bowman, Mirtin W. Home by Christmas? The Story of the US 8th and
15th Air Force Airmen at War. Patrick Stephens, Ltd., 1987.
Hill, Michael. The Desert Rats: The 98th Bomb Group and the August
1943 Ploesti Raid, Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1990.
Hill, Michael & Sedgefield Hill, eds. The Fightin’ 451st Bomb Group
(H), Taylor Publishing Co., 1990.
Rust, Kenn C. The Fifteenth Air Force Story. Historical Aviation Album
Publications, 1976.
World at War 47
8/27/10 3:59:32 PM
 I Remember:
Tarawa from the Ground Up
by Nick Cariello

48 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 48 8/27/10 3:59:33 PM

 T
arawa is the name of an atoll in the Gilbert
Islands located in the Central Pacific. Its name
now signifies one of the most ferocious and
deadliest battles in US Marine Corps history. It oc-
curred 66 years ago on 20 November 1943. In three
days of stunning savagery, 997 Marines were killed
while 2,233 were wounded. Another 88 Marines went
missing and presumed dead. Also killed were 30 sail-
ors (mostly medical personnel), while another 59 sail-
ors were wounded. Total casualties: 3,407. The Japa-
nese garrison numbering 4,500 was wiped out almost
to the man.
The main American objective within the Tarawa
atoll was a tiny island called Betio. It contained an
improved bomber strip, and its capture was critical
because Japanese aircraft based there were a threat
to Allied shipping from Hawaii to Australia and New
Zealand. From the air, Betio looks like the tip of an
anchor on the curve of the Tarawa atoll, and it’s sur-
rounded by a formidable coral reef. The island is only
about 2.5 miles long, and is some 800 yards wide at its
widest and is virtually flat. New York’s Central Park is
about twice as large.
Tarawa was chosen to be the first target of the
US offensive in the Central Pacific in 1943. The 2nd
Marine Division, in which I served, was selected to
take it. That unit had been blooded in the Solomons’
battles for Tulagi and the hellish island of Guadalca-
nal—where we fought alongside the famed 1st Marine
Division.
After the Guadalcanal campaign our division went
to New Zealand for rehabilitation. The unit had been
decimated. The men were exhausted, sick and miser-
able with malaria, wracked and weakened by dysen-
tery, hobbled from jungle rot and poor diet. But soon
we fattened up on famous New Zealand milk, mutton,
lamb and steak, along with fresh vegetables and fruit.
Beer and booze were available in nearby Wellington
pubs. Our morale quickly improved with the help of
the grateful New Zealanders, who opened their homes
and their hearts to us.
Then we trained for months in amphibious land-
ings on the beaches of New Zealand’s North Island.
The division, plumped out with replacements, was
about 20,000 strong. It was considered battle-ready
and super-eager for confrontation. November 20, 1943
would be its “rendezvous with destiny.”
Island Assault
The night before the Tarawa landing we sat around
cleaning our already spotless weapons on the troop-
ship Zeilin. I looked around at the anxious faces of my
fellow Marines and thought: “Jeez, but we are a bunch
of young punks!”
Most of us were in our late teens or early 20s. I
had just turned 21. As a callow youth of only 19, I had
heeded the siren call of the Marine Corps for “a few
WaW 9 Issue.indd 49
good men” and marched smartly off to war with patri-
otic tunes such as “Remember Pearl Harbor” ringing
in my ears.
The tension aboard ship was palpable and nervous-
ness common. A few of the calmer Marines dozed,
but no one really slept. Some read tattered maga-
zines, while others wrote last-minute letters to loved
ones. I thought of home and family and wondered if
my mother was making one of her scrumptious pasta
dishes with spicy sausages and meatballs.
Bravado filled the air. We joked and smoked and
heckled and sweated on deck and in the holds. Many
of us chain-smoked in nervous apprehension, pulling
the comforting nicotine deep into our lungs. I noticed
the greenhorns were exceptionally quiet, while we vet-
erans of Tulagi and Guadalcanal were brash and oozed
with braggadocio. I suspected this was a transparent
mask the veterans wore to cover fear and uncertainty.
I recall one Marine, known as “Big Red from Ala-
bama,” who wondered in his Southern accent if there
were any gals on the island and “would they be cute
and co-operative?”
We laughed, punched the air with enthusiasm and
shouted: “Yes! Yes!”
One veteran of Guadalcanal, known as being rather
cynical, barked loudly: “Listen up, you greenhorns!
One thing they didn’t tell you at the recruiting office is
that combat is extremely hazardous to your health!”
Another Marine questioned if there would be any
Japanese left to kill after the heavy naval bombardment
and air attack prior to landing. One rowdy Marine in-
sisted he had “dibs” on any Japanese beer found, warm
or otherwise. Yet another veteran of the ‘Canal said in
a phony solemn voice: “Now listen up, you frigging
new arrivals. You had better have a tight sphincter
muscle or otherwise you’re going to crap your pants!
I’d let you use mine but I’ll need it!”
Even the greenhorns had to laugh as the veterans
cheered and hollered and stomped our feet in unison.
Then someone started to sing the Marine Corps Hymn.
We all joined in with more emotion than talent, and
some of our off-key voices cracked. Our spirits soared
as we soundly slapped each other’s backs, but the ner-
vousness persisted.
A number of us attended a non-denominational re-
ligious service. I recall the tall Navy chaplain holding
a Bible aloft and saying softly, but with much passion:
“Keep in mind that you may die in battle. If you do,
just be glad you were allowed to live as long as you
did. You will be rewarded.”
I pondered that assertion.
We had an early morning breakfast of steak and
eggs, potato wedges and red beans that tasted great
with gobs of ketchup. And, of course, hot coffee.
Many of us had seconds, which were eagerly served
by friendly Navy cooks. Best of all, we were astound-
World at War 49
8/27/10 3:59:34 PM

Command performance: briefing on Tarawa.
ed to be handed a rarity: a fresh orange, a real remind-
er of home! Laughing and joking, we held them and
smelled them and then devoured them.
About 3:00 a.m. came the call to prepare for debar-
kation. We gathered our weapons and shook sweaty
hands all around. Then we did what infantrymen have
done for centuries: we nervously waited and waited
and waited and then anxiously waited some more.
We were quiet. I could hear the steady breathing
of others and feel the rapid beat of my own heart. I
admitted to myself I was scared, really scared. Then I
thought: “Hey, man, that’s good. I’ll be more alert.”
Finally we were told to go over the ship’s side.
We made the dangerous descent down the cargo nets
into the bobbing amtracs (amphibious tractors). They
were slow but capable of moving ashore in shallow
surf. They were only lightly armored around the cab
to protect the driver from shell fragments and small
arms fire. Higgins boats were used in the later assault
waves, which proved disastrous when they stalled on
the reefs.
I made my way forward to one of the two .50-cali-
ber machineguns on board our amtrac. Though I was
only a young PFC, my squad leader had chosen me
for that position, and I was proud and knew others in
my squad were envious. We machinegunners had been
given extensive training aboard ship, firing round after
round in long practice sessions, especially in choppy
waters, to help us prepare for severe landing condi-
tions.
I carefully checked the machinegun, which had al-
ready been loaded. Its new black paint reflected dully
and menacingly in the sun. I stroked the weapon fond-
ly and said something inane like: “Don’t let me down,
pal.”
50 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 50
I felt peculiarly alone, though I was among many
friends. (Other combat veterans I’ve known have con-
fided to me that feeling isn’t unusual.)
As I looked around at the huge array of assault ve-
hicles backed up by a massive naval task force, I felt
puny. But I was determined to face my destiny despite
my intense fear and foreboding. As we chugged along,
the battleships Colorado and Maryland fired their
massive 16-inch guns, answering the Japanese naval
gun emplacements that had initiated the battle for Tar-
awa. We cheered as we saw our red-hot shells as they
howled through the air. Enormous fireballs erupted
from the island, perhaps indicating a large ammunition
dump had been struck. Plumes of heavy black smoke
began enveloping the beaches as air attacks went in
and the incredible noise began to build.
I looked in disbelief at the havoc being created by
the naval pounding, and I vividly recall becoming ex-
tremely apprehensive. The continuous cacophony of
shelling and shrieking bombs added to my concern.
I shuddered and felt a sharp sense of dread. The Tu-
lagi and Guadalcanal battles in which I’d participated
had taken place in a moist tropical setting just short of
Dante’s First Circle of Hell. But I knew what lay ahead
was going to be more horrible than those campaigns.
Unfortunately my hunch proved eerily correct.
I remember glancing at my fellow machinegunner
across the narrow width of the amtrac. He caught my
eye, and he had a grim look on his young and unshav-
en face. Nevertheless he managed a smile, flashed the
victory sign and then quickly turned back to his own
business. I felt my heart ratcheting up and the thump,
thump, thump of my pulse pounded in my ears. Time
seemed suspended as we circled for what seemed an
eternity. The blue-green ocean glistened, and oppres-
sive heat began to rise from the deep waves. Finally
came the order to head for the island, and it was appar-
ent it would be late morning before we would land.
The amtracs, after reaching their line of departure
about 6,000 yards from shore, had slowly but steadily
worked their way forward. They formed three long
waves at 300 yard intervals, followed by two waves of
Higgins boats. As our amtrac chugged toward shore, I
became more nervous and scared and my mouth felt
like I was chewing on dry cotton. I took a large gulp of
warm water from one of my two canteens, but it didn’t
help. So I took a hard candy from my pocket that had
been sent from home. It soothed my mouth and throat.
I silently thanked my mother.
Instructions to the amtrac machinegunners were to
hold fire until we thought it would be effective; oth-
erwise, we would just be wasting valuable ammuni-
tion. We were maybe 50 yards from shore. Then the
overwhelming sound of battle began in earnest. It was
piercing beyond belief, and I thought my eardrums
would shatter. The terrifying crescendo kept building
until it was almost paralyzing.
8/27/10 3:59:35 PM
 The din came from numerous US Navy dive-bomb-
ers laying their deadly eggs on the smoking island.
The engines of fighter craft screamed as the planes
lashed the beaches in relentless strafing. The battle-
ships, cruisers and destroyers added to the deafening
cacophony as they belched salvo after salvo along the
battered beaches and inland. Dozens of tall, splintered
palm trees with their tops blown off could be seen, ap-
pearing splayed against the vivid blue sky.
I and those around me were stunned as the unbe-
lievable naval and aerial bombardment continued un-
abated. I hoped the island’s defenses wouldn’t just be
softened, but obliterated. I naively thought that few if
any Japanese would be left alive after such a pound-
ing. The enemy, who must’ve been cowering in their
emplacements, were taking a horrible hammering. For
an instant I almost felt sorry for them, but I pushed
that irrational thought out of my mind. Overhead, en-
emy machinegun bullets zipped over the amtracs. Hot
fragments, probably from shore guns, also fell into our
amtrac, wounding several Marines. Then I noticed an
incredible sight to my left.
A destroyer had moved almost to our landing
beach, with its propellers furiously churning in reverse
to keep from grounding. Its 5-inch guns pounded the
shore in our support. I was spellbound as I watched
two sailors, one casually sitting and the other stand-
Hit the beach! US Marines wade ashore on Tarawa.
WaW 9 Issue.indd 51
ing, methodically firing automatic rifles into enemy
emplacements. I’ve often wondered about the audac-
ity of that ship’s commander in that maneuver. I later
learned the bold destroyer was either the Ringgold or
the Dashiell. The two warships had followed in two
daring minesweepers to give them close-in support.
The other machinegunner and I exchanged glances
and nodded, signifying it was time to get to work. I
began firing, but the amtrac was bouncing crazily in
the surf. The big gun kept bucking, and it was difficult
to control, but I raked the shoreline as best I could as
we closed. The beach was just a few yards ahead.
It was then I saw them. Out of the corner of my
left eye, I caught sight of eight or so Japanese in their
light brown uniforms sprinting toward a large bunker.
I quickly swung the machinegun around, aimed care-
fully and pulled the trigger: nothing happened. “Damn
it!” I shouted. The gun had jammed.
Hurriedly I tried to fix it, but couldn’t. I hit it sharp-
ly with my fist. Then I realized I was wasting time; so
I snatched up my rifle and snapped off three hurried
shots before the enemy all disappeared into the bun-
ker. I may have killed or wounded one or two, but I’ll
never know.
Suddenly our platoon leader Randy Johnson shout-
ed: “Everybody down! Down! Get your ass down!”
World at War 51
8/27/10 3:59:37 PM
 Everybody obeyed instantly, because heavy enemy
gunfire was whizzing all around the amtrac. Then I
noticed the guide for the amtrac driver was clutching
his abdomen and dark red blood oozed between his
fingers. His helmet had fallen off and his blond hair
contrasted with his face, which had become gray. I
realized he was suffering from shock. Later I learned
he’d survived. Finally we felt the amtrac crunch onto
the sand and it lumbered a few yards ashore.
The Beach
“Out, everybody out!” Johnson screamed.
Over the side we tumbled, hitting the soft wet sand
with Johnson bellowing hoarsely: “Damn it, every-
body spread out and move forward! Go, go, go!”
I lurched forward through the sticky sand, weighed
down by my ammo belt, two grenades, two canteens,
that accursed but precious three-pound helmet, en-
trenching tool, assorted paraphernalia in my pack and,
of course, the 9.5 lb. rifle, heavy but indispensable.
Sniper fire was intense, and many Japanese ma-
chineguns were rapidly going “chug-chug-chug-chug”
as enemy mortar shells smashed into the small beach-
head. There were many plaintive cries of “corpsman,
corpsman!”
Medics came to the assistance of the wounded. To
the right I saw a disabled Marine light tank with heavy
smoke pouring from its hatch. There were no Marine
tank personnel around, and I hoped they’d escaped
but, most likely, they were all dead inside.
I sprinted ahead with several others until we found
a large shell hole about 20 yards inland. We huddled
at its bottom, mindful of enemy machinegun bullets
zipping overhead. Finally it let up. I cautiously raised
my head and thought about hurling a hand grenade at
the gun emplacement I spotted behind a large log, but
the distance was too great. So I furiously fired my rifle
in the direction of the machinegun. Two other Marines
joined me, and one had a Browning Automatic Rifle.
The deep and rapid burp-burp-burp of the Browning,
with its 20-round magazine, was deafening but reas-
suring.
Then we heard a faint yelp. The operator of the
Browning nervously asked me: “Do you think we got
any?”
I answered: “Yeah, think so. Maybe they’ll stay
low for awhile.”
Smoke from our gunfire drifted over our position.
There was no return fire. We figured we either got
lucky or the machinegun crew had moved away.
Fear never left me. I had a constant metallic taste
in my mouth, which I found strange. I was exhausted
and noticed my muscles were tight. It was impossible
to relax. The morning dragged on amid never-ceasing
gunfire. The heat was awful. Tarawa is only 80 miles
north of the equator, and November there was like the
height of summer.
52 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 52
My face felt sunburned and my lips were starting
to crack. Sweat gathered in my armpits and then ran
onto my abdomen and down my legs. I was soaked
and sticky. I had the crazy thought all the sweating I
was doing acted as kind of a sun screen. I carefully
sipped water from a canteen, and had to resist the urge
to gulp down mouthfuls.
It was well into the afternoon, and the tremendous
gunfire continued all around us. Some of us started to
smoke until someone growled with irritation: “Hey,
you dummies, that’s stupid! It’ll give away our posi-
tion.”
We sheepishly stubbed out our cigarettes.
Suddenly a mortar shell came whistling in and
landed at the top of the shell hole a few feet away. We
ducked and cursed and cringed and prayed, but noth-
ing happened. It was a dud, and I can still see those
smoking fins sticking out of the hot sand. We were still
shaken when we decided it was time to press on. So
we crawled out of the hole and scurried forward. Then
that damn machinegun came alive and bullets were
chip-chip-chip-chipping the sand around my feet.
It was then I did something dangerous, but it prob-
ably saved me from injury or death from that machine-
gun. I saw a small opening, into what apparently was
a small enemy dugout, and dove into it. It was neatly
carved out of the earth and I noticed empty food cans
and equipment strewn about. The smell of strange
food penetrated the enclosure. No enemy was present,
or otherwise I could’ve died there.
As I crawled out again, I saw I’d become separated
from the others; so I bolted forward. The never-ending
sound of gunfire of all types was concentrated to my
rear and left. Ahead I saw another large shell crater
and fell into it. Four other Marines were there, none
of whom I recognized, but they knew each other. One
was a gunnery sergeant who’d been badly wounded
in the groin. There was a makeshift bandage over his
injury, and he moaned as his bloody hands kept clutch-
ing and opening around the wound.
Just then a Navy dive-bomber, apparently having
been called in for a strike against enemy fortifications,
dropped its load nearby. A large round piece of shrap-
nel, about the size of two basketballs, spun across the
top of the shell hole. It came to rest, smoking and siz-
zling, at the base of a shattered palm tree about 10 feet
away. “Jesus, Jesus, oh my God,” uttered one Marine
as the rest of us looked into each other’s frightened
faces in disbelief and relief.
We then turned our attention to the wounded Ma-
rine. “How you doing, Gunny, how you doing, man?”
a Marine asked.
The sergeant’s face was ashen as he shook his head
and continued to groan. We conferred and agreed he
needed immediate attention. Our location was about
40 yards from the beach, and two Marines volunteered
8/27/10 3:59:38 PM
 Tarawa: The Other Side of the Beach
According to Marine Corps historians, Betio was the most heavily defended island to
ever be invaded by Allied forces in the Pacific. Japanese Rear Adm. Meichi Shibasaki, the
commander on the island, boasted to his 4,800 troops that “a million Americans couldn’t take
Tarawa in 100 years.”
Among the Japanese force there were about 2,600 im-
perial marines; the rest were Japanese Army personnel and
conscripted Korean laborers. A US Marine officer declared
of those Japanese marines: “They were the best Tojo’s got.”
Only 17 Japanese survived the battle, many of them too
badly wounded to commit suicide. Also surviving were 129
Korean laborers.
The fortifications were awesome. Steel and concrete
barriers, along with minefields and extensive strings of
barbed wire, protected the three beaches. Nearly 500
pillboxes were scattered over the island, most covered with
steel plates, sand and logs. Also present were fearsome
8-inch guns mounted in turrets. In addition, there were
coastal defense guns, anti-aircraft and anti-boat weapons.
Many types of artillery were dug in, including howitzers.
Numerous heavy and light machineguns were prevalent,
along with scores of mortars. It was a rock in the middle of
the ocean, bristling with arms.

Island fortress: Tarawa from the air.

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 to go for a stretcher. “Good luck, good luck!” we
shouted as they disappeared over the rim of the shell
hole amid sniper fire.
Dusk was approaching as we anxiously awaited
the return of the Marines with the stretcher. The ser-
geant continued to moan. We could hear the unrelent-
ing sound of battle on all sides. Finally the two sweat-
ing Marines, hauling a stretcher, dashed back over the
rim of the shell hole. They were panting heavily as
we pounded their backs in congratulations. We waited
until they’d regained their breath.
Then we carefully loaded the wounded Marine onto
the stretcher. He was deathly white and kept gritting his
teeth to fight the pain, but he no longer moaned. One
Marine whispered, “Let’s go,” and we quickly moved
out of the hole. There had been gunfire all around, but
now it was strangely quiet in our immediate area.
First Night
It was almost dark. We moved cautiously toward
the beach, expecting more sniper fire, but none came.
Either the snipers had moved out or had been elimi-
nated. I had the crazy thought that maybe the snipers
were withholding their fire because of our mercy mis-
sion. Not likely, I concluded, but who knows?
We moved as fast as possible with our heavy load.
As we neared the beach other Marines in the area ap-
peared almost as shadows.
Suddenly there was a stunning explosion and I felt
like I’d been lifted up and then slammed to the ground
as if by a gigantic hand. My legs seemed seared, and
they burned with almost unbearable pain caused by
jagged pieces from an enemy hand grenade. Many
fragments had ripped deeply into my buttocks and up-
per thighs.
There were many cries of “corpsman, corpsman!”
and mine was among them shouting: “Are my legs
gone, are they gone?”
I thought surely I was dying. Confusion erupted
around me and there were frenzied yells of: “Get that
Jap bastard! Somebody get the damn bastard!”
We who’d carried the stretcher believed the other
Marines thought we might be enemies because it was
near dark. I shouted: “Hey, for Christ sakes, we’re Ma-
rines, we’re Marines!”
Others joined me in that frantic plea. Then I saw the
silhouette of a large Marine who yelled back: “Damn
it, I know it! I know it!”
He pulled the pin from a grenade and threw it into
a small spider hole nearby. There was a muffled explo-
sion, and he shouted triumphantly: “I got ‘em! I got
the dirty son of a bitch!”
Stretcher-bearers appeared out of the dark. Hands
loaded me onto a stretcher while a corpsman skillfully
gave me a hefty shot of morphine. The burning pain
began subsiding. As I was being carried to the first-aid
54 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 54
station on the beach, I recognized the voice of one of
the stretcher bearers. I said: “Hey, Tim, is that you?”
He said: “Yes, and who are you?”
I told him, and he said tearfully: “Oh, my God, the
guys from Fox Company I’ve picked up today!”
We reached the first-aid station and I was taken off
the stretcher. Two figures loomed above, one holding
a tiny flashlight. The one with the flashlight hurriedly
examined me, and then I heard him say the sweetest
four words I’ve ever heard: “There’s no hemorrhag-
ing, doctor.”
I spent the night on the beach in a drug-induced
fog. I awoke once, believing crabs were tearing at my
wounds, but that was impossible because they’d been
tightly bandaged. Then I fell asleep again as I won-
dered what had happened to the gunnery sergeant and
the other stretcher-bearers. I never found out.
The next morning I was still in a morphine daze,
but I saw Marine reinforcements wading waist-deep
through the shallow bay as if in slow motion. They
were easy targets for eager Japanese gunners, and doz-
ens upon dozens were killed. I was horrified to see so
many floating bodies. Some were half-submerged and
looked like big rag-dolls. Bodies were piled up in twos
and threes on the beach and appeared like driftwood.
Parts of the lagoon were streaked with long threads of
blood, causing the water to appear pink.
I learned later their Higgins boats had become
snagged on the coral reef because the tides had been
incorrectly calculated by the planners of the campaign.
The exposed Marines had to make their way ashore as
best they could. They must’ve felt they were wading
through Hell itself. Many drowned after being wound-
ed.
Land of the Dead
At mid-morning I was placed on a stretcher and
taken to a long wooden pier that had been built by the
Japanese. Along the way I saw, through foggy eyes,
incredible carnage and chaos. To call it a slaughter-
house would be understatement. Marine and Japanese
dead, some tangled together, were everywhere. Bloat-
ed bodies floated by, some face down, others face up.
There was a Higgins boat, cut in two and lying on its
side. It was rocked by gentle waves against the beach,
emitting a squeaking sound. All kinds of equipment
was strewn about. There were several knocked out US
tanks, along with numerous disabled amtracs. Japa-
nese gun emplacements were shattered and smoking.
At the pier I was placed on a large rubber raft along
with several other wounded. The rafts were pushed in
the shallow water along the pier by sweating corpsmen
and Marines. The pier stretched about 1,000 yards into
the lagoon. We soon ran into sniper fire from Japanese
who’d holed up inside the many crippled amtracs.
Several of the Marine wounded were re-injured and
had to be taken to the shelter of the pier. Other Marines
8/27/10 3:59:40 PM
 went ahead and cleaned out the snipers under the pier
so the rafts could continue to the end of the structure.
The sickening smell of decaying bodies in the heat
alone was penetrating and nauseating. Twice I almost
retched.
Finally I was transferred to a Higgins boat to be
taken to a troopship for medical treatment. The sym-
pathetic corpsman aboard the boat asked if I wanted
morphine. I was in a daze, but was able to shake my
head no. I’ve often thought additional morphine at that
time might have really harmed me.
I vaguely remember being winched aboard the
troopship and being swung through the air on my
stretcher like a big pendulum. I looked out and saw
battleships and cruisers circling warily in the choppy
blue-white waters. Destroyers patrolled around pon-
derous aircraft carriers as they sniffed for enemy
subs.
As I was being lowered to the deck I heard voic-
es shouting directions, and then I felt eager hands
grasping both ends of the stretcher. The hands gently
moved me across the hot deck and down a hatch. Off
in a corner near a bulkhead lay three lifeless forms,
all wrapped carefully in bright new American flags.
Our company had been in the first wave and had taken
severe losses. I wondered if I knew any of the flag-
draped dead. Then I heard a firm voice say, “Bring him Into the breach: Marines assault a Japanese position
in!”
The stretcher was lifted again and I was carefully canal campaigns. “Did you see ‘em, Nick?” he asked.
put down inside an emergency room loaded with shiny I said, “Sorry, Joey, but I saw neither and I’ve heard
medical equipment. My clothes were stripped off, and nothing about them.”
in the process a grenade fell out of my pocket and We learned later that both brothers had survived.
rolled on the floor. Panic ensued with medical person- Another wounded Marine, who I didn’t know, was
nel yelling: “Grenade! Grenade!” in the bunk to my right. He was brawny with big brown
I managed to mumble, “No, no, it’s OK; it’s OK! eyes and told me he was an Apache from Las Cru-
It’s harmless until the pin’s pulled.” ces, New Mexico. When corpsmen dressed his gaping
Nervous laughter flooded the emergency room, and wound in his upper left arm and shoulder, I noticed it
the tension was broken as the doctor and corpsmen be- looked exactly like a large red slab of hamburger. He
gan teasing and calling each other wimps. Then I was never complained or whimpered during his ordeal. In
turned over onto my stomach and the doctor went to fact, he once apologized to a corpsman when he asked
work on my legs. I could hear a steady plink, plink, for a painkiller. He was generally silent and his quiet
plink as grenade fragments were dropped into a metal courage encouraged me.
tray. I thought, with black humor, that the sound was I recall one sobering occasion when rumors swirled
almost musical. Finally it was over and I was taken in the stifling close quarters that a massive Japanese
deep into the bowels of the ship along with many other naval task force was sweeping in to retake Tarawa.
casualties. “Oh no,” I thought, “Was all this suffering and death
Conditions were appalling. It was extremely hot for nothing?”
and the area was filled with the strong smell of sweat We finally heard the good news the three-day battle
and unwashed bodies and antiseptics. The groans and for “Terrible Tarawa” was finished after “the issue be-
moans of the wounded were loud as I was placed in a ing in doubt” during its first few hours. The 7,000 Ma-
bunk. I looked around and recognized several of the rines who’d stormed ashore had engaged in a titanic
injured. One, who was called Joey and was from my struggle to eliminate the Japanese who fought valiantly
company, had a cast on his right arm and told me he’d and just wouldn’t quit. They had to be bombed, blasted
lost a testicle. He was concerned about his two broth- and burned out of their strongholds and individual bur-
ers, Tom and Archie. The three had enlisted together in rows. We also heard a staggering number of our casu-
Reno, and had made it through the Tulagi and Guadal- alties had resulted from Higgins boats being hung up

World at War 55

WaW 9 Issue.indd 55 8/27/10 3:59:41 PM

 Voyage home: Marines evacuate wounded from Tarawa.
on the reefs. The grim lessons learned at Tarawa were
applied during future Marine and Army landings and
saved numerous lives.
Another fact I learned was the beachhead to which
I’d been evacuated had extended only a few yards in-
land. A night attack by the enemy had been expected
but never came. Neither did the anticipated mortar bar-
rages for which the Japanese were noted. Military in-
telligence later determined that Adm. Shibasaki, com-
mander of the Japanese forces on the island, had been
killed by naval gunfire. Had he lived and been able
to organize a counterattack, I and the other wounded
probably wouldn’t have survived.
Homeward Bound
Everybody settled in for the long and boring trip
to Hawaii and the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital. The
journey was often interrupted by “general alarms” be-
cause Japanese subs were trailing us. The overworked
corpsmen kept us quiet and sedated with the drug of
the day: morphine. Anyone who wanted it easily ob-
tained it, and most of us did. Finally, after about two
grueling weeks at sea, we reached Pearl Harbor. What
a glorious day it was to be winched out of the ship on
a stretcher and onto the main deck!
With tear-dimmed eyes I saw magnificent sway-
ing palm trees framed against a turquoise sky. A slight
breeze with the strong scent of salt blew in from the
sea and drifted over me. The sun, high in the sky,
bathed my sallow upturned face. It was one of those
unforgettable moments that’s etched indelibly into my
memory.
We were taken by ambulance to the hospital. Soon
we fell into the routine of meals, playing cards, chang-
ing of bandages, swapping exaggerated stories and
writing letters home.
We also learned about many tales of heroism that
56 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 56
occurred on Tarawa. One was the exploit of 1st Lt.
William Deane Hawkins of Texas, who’d led a special
Scout and Sniper Platoon against that long and heav-
ily fortified pier just before H-hour. Hawkins and his
men wiped out many machinegun nests and pillboxes
while eliminating numerous snipers. Though wound-
ed, Hawkins disdained treatment and kept leading his
men until he was killed by an enemy shell. He was
credited with personally knocking out four pillboxes.
The Medal of Honor was awarded to him posthumous-
ly. Three other Marines also earned the medal for valor
on Tarawa.
One night, when I was feeling wretched and de-
pressed, I routinely asked a nurse for morphine. She
checked my medical record hanging on the bed. Look-
ing at me intently for a moment she said with author-
ity: “No, you don’t need it, sir.”
“What?” I complained. “I do need it! I really do!”
Again she said in a strong voice: “No, you don’t
need it, and you’re not getting any. So forget it and go
to sleep.”
The nurse walked away, leaving me speechless.
Then came the horrifying realization she was right.
I, like so many others, was becoming addicted to the
stuff. The next day I apologized to the nurse, who was
probably in her early 30s and reminded me of my old-
er sister Mary. She smiled, patted my arm and said:
“That’s OK, son. I understand. And don’t think you’re
the only one.”
From then on the only painkiller I would ask for
was aspirin.
Then came great news. The following day we were
to be taken aboard the US Solace, a hospital ship.
More good news: the ship was expected to arrive in
San Diego two days before Christmas.
The journey to San Diego was uneventful. When
8/27/10 3:59:41 PM
 we docked there was a line of gray-clad women from
a civic group who were there to welcome the wound-
ed being unloaded. As I was being carried down the
gangplank on a stretcher, I noticed all the women were
cheerful and smiling except one. She was middle-aged
and stared at me with a frown as I went by. Did I re-
mind her of someone, I wondered, almost irrationally,
did I remind her of her son who perhaps had been
killed in action, and what business did I have being
alive though seriously wounded? The incident still
haunts me.
We were taken to the Naval Hospital, where I was
placed in a ward with five other Marines. One was
a strikingly handsome blonde boy and very young,
perhaps 18, whose right eye had been lost in combat.
Every day as twilight approached, one of the nurses
would sit with him and murmur comforting words.
The boy had told the sympathetic nurses he was ter-
rified of losing his other eye in an accident or to some
disease. He was almost paralyzed by fear of the dark.
Sometimes in the long night we would hear him qui- The author as a private.
etly sobbing. He was soon transferred to a specialty
zona, where I now live. That occurred 42 years after
ward set up for the blind.
being wounded. And the latest hospitalization was for
The medical care at the hospital was fantastic, and a week in 2003 again due to infecting shrapnel. That
we gorged on the outstanding food, including steaks was almost 60 years after I was wounded! And doctors
and malted milks. Surgery was performed to remove have told me the remaining shrapnel can cause another
even more shrapnel from my battered legs. infection at any time.
I was encouraged to walk on crutches and the reha- But I’m not complaining. How can I, when others
bilitation went smoothly. Before long I was able to put suffered more horrendous wounds, such as double or
the crutches aside as I healed rapidly. Then I was over- triple amputations, or the crying kid I saw with half
joyed to learn I would be granted medical leave, and I his jaw blown away. At least I’m alive, unlike those
left on the ever-so-long train trip to my hometown of courageous young Marines whose lives were snapped
Racine, Wisconsin. off while still in their prime.
The memorable reunion with my family was Over the years I’ve occasionally pondered why
marked by tears and backslaps and kisses. Bottles of I survived and why all those others perished. Some
red wine flowed during one of my mother’s incompa- people probably would credit God, others a guardian
rable pasta dinners, followed by chicken cacciatore, angel or serendipity, still others might say “peculiar
zesty cheeses and a cornucopia of fresh fruits. Neigh- circumstances” or just plain luck. I’m baffled and am
bors had brought over delectable desserts such as not afraid to say I don’t know.
cakes, cookies and pies. The night stretched into early
Sixty-six years has sped by since the awfulness of
morning and was filled with love, joy, story telling and
Tarawa, and I am now 87, and I still have questions
memories of our great family life.
about my personal Battle of Tarawa. For instance,
After I returned to the hospital I was discharged what if one of the Japanese I didn’t kill because my
as a patient and I returned to the Marine base in San machinegun jammed was the one who later threw the
Diego. Several months later I was given a medical grenade that wounded me? Or what if I’d survived the
discharge, and then I was warmly welcomed home all battle intact and gone on to fight in later campaigns
over again. and then was killed? Something else: the US had sold
Aftermath scrap metal to Japan before the war. Could the many
I graduated from college with a journalism degree fragments still in my body be some of that metal?
due to the much-appreciated help of the GI Bill and That’s not likely, but life is strange. Those and other
had a successful career in the newspaper field. philosophical questions can’t be answered.
Many of us veterans are still paying a prolonged I’ve given my Purple Heart and other campaign
and painful price for World War II service. I’ve had medals to my 18-year-old grandson, Nickie. I fervent-
several hospital stays and surgeries since my dis- ly hope Nickie never has to earn any war medals of his
charge. One was in 1985, when I was hospitalized for own.
two weeks with a shrapnel-infected leg in Tucson, Ari- at

World at War 57

WaW 9 Issue.indd 57 8/27/10 3:59:42 PM

 Winston Churchill; The Flawed Genius of
World War II, by Christopher Catherwood (Berke-
ley Caliber, 2009). Reviewed by Chris Perello.
Description: You’d think there wasn’t much left to
say about one of the towering figures of the 20th cen-
tury, but like Abraham Lincoln, Churchill continues
to inspire reappraisal. This volume reviews some of
Churchill’s major policies and decisions—in particu-
lar, the Munich Crisis, Greece 1941, and the push for
a Mediterranean strategy for 1943—on the road to
forging the eventual partnership with the US.
Good Stuff: Each of those major decisions is covered
in detail. Though not much of the material is entirely
new, the context is. Catherwood takes great pains to
point out what the course of events would likely have
Media Reviews
been without Churchill’s input. The writing style is
informal and highly readable.
Bad Stuff: The author presumes the reader is already
familiar with some of the major campaigns of the war
and with some of the arguments over strategy, par-
ticularly those revolving around the Allied choice of
campaigns in 1943. Aside from a few generic photos
of Churchill, there are no illustrations; a map or two
would not have been amiss.
Overall: Definitely not for the World War II novice,
but an excellent review of the grand strategy of the
Anglo-Allies and how it might have been different, as
well as a fresh look at an old warrior.
58 #9
WaW 9 Issue.indd 58
Execute Against Japan: The US Decision to
Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, by
Joel Ira Holwitt (Texas A&M University Press, 2009).
Reviewed by Chris Perello.
Description: It’s become part of the received wis-
dom of World War II that the US submarine campaign
against Japan was decisive, in that it undermined the
Japanese war effort and all but crippled her navy in
the last 18 months of the war. In other words, the US
achieved against Japan precisely what Germany twice
failed to achieve against Britain. Nevertheless, there’s
a shortage of coverage on this campaign. This book
deals with the submarine war at the highest level:
the discussion within political and military circles in
Washington of the legality and advisability of waging
that kind of unrestricted warfare. Next to that discus-
sion, the actual course of the campaign is covered only
briefly, except to point out its nearly complete suc-
cess.
Good Stuff: This is a full volume covering one of the
most ignored aspects of war: the legal justifications for
war in general and specific actions within it. (That re-
mains an immensely important subject in our day, as
the Pax Americana has put us in the position of lead-
ership in the nebulous world of “international” law.)
Holwitt does a good job comparing the positions of
combatants (including the US) in World War I—the
US held unrestricted submarine warfare it to be ille-
gal in 1917—with those adopted in the Second World
War. There’s also a superb table showing the timing of
the decision to initiate unrestricted warfare juxtaposed
with the chronology of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bad Stuff: There’s little action in the book, which
isn’t really a negative given the author’s approach,
but a few numerical presentations would have helped,
especially a comparison of US sinkings with German
numbers from both wars.
Overall: A good introduction to the law of war and an
interesting side of one of the least-covered campaigns
of World War II.
8/27/10 3:59:42 PM
 Now Available.
Overlord (film), (Joswend/Janus 1975). Reviewed
by Chris Perello.

I chanced on this gem of a movie during the

observances surrounding the 65th Anniversary of the
D-Day landings. It tells the story of a single Brit-
ish soldier from his induction into the army through
his training and finally his experience during the
invasion. The film is notable for excellent acting, a
touching personal story, and an emphatically worm’s
eye view of great events. The real star of the movie,
though, is the seamless interweaving of actual histori-
cal film with new scenes shot for the story (shot on
1945-era cameras to ensure the same look). This is a
far cry from extravaganzas like The Longest Day or
Saving Private Ryan, but an engrossing film nonethe-
less.
The Holy Grail sought by American Civil War generals was the
decisive Napoleonic battle, yet it happened only rarely. This
book analyzes the mechanics of battle, from raising and train-
ing armies to planning the campaign to fighting the battle. Each
chapter looks at one part of the process with a detailed account
of a particular battle or campaign, liberally illustrated with maps
and diagrams. By Christopher Perello. $35.00

Next book: Crowns in the Gutter.

3 easy ways to order

Attention readers: We’re looking for media review-
ers for Strategy & Tactics and World at War. Any
media will do: book, magazine, film, website, etc.
Absolute max is 500 words. We want it to be a critical
analysis, not just a description. Contact Chris Perello
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Post: Strategy & Tactics Press
PO Box 21598, Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598

World at War 59

WaW 9 Issue.indd 59 8/27/10 3:59:44 PM

 New Games for 2009!
D-Day at Omaha
Beach
6 June 1944
D-Day at Omaha Beach recreates America’s most bloody
and heroic day of World War II. In this solitaire game from the
designer of the solo classics RAF and Ambush, you control the
forces of the US 1st and 29th Divisions landing under fire on the
Normandy shore, and struggling desperately to establish a vi-
able beachhead. The game is also great for two players playing
cooperatively, each controlling one US division.
US units include assault infantry, amphibious tanks, artil-
lery, engineers and HQs. The game system controls the hidden
German defenders in Widerstandsnest resistance points on the
bluffs overlooking the beaches. US forces that manage to break
through the deadly coastal defenses and reach the high ground
must then contend with German mobile reinforcements in the
bewildering hedgerows of Normandy’s bocage. An innovative
diceless combat system highlights unknown enemy deployments
and the importance of utilizing the right weapons and tactics.
Event cards keep the action flowing and the rules simple,
while controlling German strategy and introducing extensive
historical detail. The game includes amphibious landings, Ger-
man artillery and rocket barrages, US naval bombardment, tides,
engineer operations, and intangibles such as US leadership under
fire and the initiative of the American GIs.
Scenarios: The First Waves (two to three hour playtime) intro-
duces the basics of the game in a recreation of the initial assault.
Beyond the Beach (four to five hours) picks up on the high ground
at 10:00 a.m. and adds rules for German tactics. D-Day at Omaha
Beach (seven hours) covers the entire day, from 6:15 a.m. to 6:00
p.m. Optional rules explore what-ifs, such as more pre-invasion
bombardment or the arrival of German armor.

Game Contents:
• 352 5/8” Counters
• One 34x22” Full-Color Game Map
• 55 Event Cards
• Rules Booklet
• Historical Study Booklet
• Player Aid Cards.
Game Scale
Time: each turn equals 15 minutes in the basic game,
30 in the extended game.
Units: companies for both sides.
Map: each hex equals 275 yards (250 meters).
Players: one or two.
60 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 60 8/27/10 3:59:46 PM

 :
Ed i tion
ayer
RAF
N e w
o- P l
The Battle of Britain, 1940
A l l
& Tw
France has fallen. England stands alone against the might of a triumphant Germany,
r e
tai
defended only by the Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons of the Royal Air Force. Hitler
l i
So orders his mighty Luftwaffe to destroy the RAF in preparation for Operation Sealion—the
invasion of England. German fighters and bombers fill the English skies and the RAF
responds.
Now you command the RAF or the Luftwaffe in history’s greatest air campaign—the
Battle of Britain. Improving on his award winning solitaire classic, designer John Butterfield
ramps up the historical accuracy, tension and play options with three complete games.
RAF: Lion puts you in control of British Fighter Command, responding to German raids.
The game’s unique card system generates targets and forces, which may remain hidden
until after you commit your squadrons. Your foe is no mindless system: the Luftwaffe
has priorities and a strategy. Scenarios range from one raid day, taking an hour to
complete, to the full campaign, playable in 12 hours.
RAF: Eagle puts you in control of the Luftwaffe forces raiding England. You schedule raids
and assign missions to your bombers and fighters, attempting to deliver the knockout
blow. Can you take out the British radar system and cripple their aircraft production?
The game controls the RAF response to your strategies. How does a foe so close to
defeat keep coming back?
RAF: 2-Player pits you against a live opponent, one controlling Fighter Command and the
other the raiding Luftwaffe forces. Historical features include: German high command
priorities, close escort, free hunt, the Channel Patrol, Jabos, day and night bombing,
radar, the Observer Corps, weather, ULTRA intercepts, squadron patrols, “big wings,”
altitude advantage, ace squadrons and flak.
Game Scale
Time: each game turn equals a “raid day” with six two-hour segments.
Units: British squadrons and German Gruppen.
Map: one inch equals 20 miles (32 kilometers). Contents:
• 176 Die cut counters
• 165 Cards
• 3 34” x 22” Map
• Rule booklets
• Player Aid cards & display
• 2 Dice
• Storage bags

QTY Title Price Total

RAF: Lion vs Eagle $75
D-Day at Omaha Beach $55

Shipping
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
Name 661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Address
City/State/Zip Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
Country
$12 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail add $5
V/MC # Exp.
24 3 Canada
Signature 34 3 Europe, South America, Asia
Phone # 36 5 Australia
World at War 61

WaW 9 Issue.indd 61 8/27/10 3:59:49 PM

 Decision Games…
Games
publisher of military history magazines & games

Here is the Pacific Theater like never before. Advanced Pacific

Theater of Operations is the most comprehensive game ever pub-
lished on this topic, encompassing the entirety of the war in the
Pacific. From the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 to the end of
the war, the entire conflict is portrayed.
Like Advanced ETO, the forces in APTO are exactingly accurate
and have been exhaustively researched. There’s no guesswork;
every piece is based on the most thorough study ever devoted to
a wargame. It even features all the Soviet and Japanese forces
that engaged in the “Nomonhan Incident,” along with the units of
every nationality that fielded a military in the war. Indeed, this is
actually a division-level game, and is even more detailed than the
acclaimed Advanced ETO.
APTO and AETO can be linked to simulate the entire Second
World War more accurately than any other game ever produced.
This is more than an AETO supplement; though, in that it features
special rules for: elite pilots, atomic bombs, midget submarines,
coast-watchers, tropical disease and more.
Advanced PTO is the most realistic yet playable game on the
subject; it includes admirals and generals, every type of aircraft
and every capital ship that existed in the Pacific Theater, and even
some refits. APTO represents the ultimate blend of playability and
detail. In conjunction with AETO and also Africa Orientale Itali-
ana (the East African expansion for AETO and APTO), no World
War II strategic series has ever been so all-encompassing, detailed,
playable and realistic.

Contents:
• 1,680 Die cut counters
• 2 34” x 22” Map
• 2 Rule booklets & 1 Scenario booklet
• Player Aid cards & display
• 3 Dice
• Storage bags

62 #9

WaW 9 Issue.indd 62 8/27/10 3:59:51 PM

 Available Now
Africa Orientale
Italiana—AETO
Expansion
The first game to cover the entire East African
Theater of Operations during World War II, Africa
Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa or AOI) is
designed to expand Advanced European Theater of
Operations into Africa and the Middle East, as well
as presage the general war in Europe, beginning with
the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and continu-
ing into the Second World War as British and Italian
forces fight for control of the vital Red Sea region.
AOI also includes an entire map of India and the
Indian Ocean that will link to Advanced Pacific
Theater of Operations, thus being the only corps-
level World War II game ever published that connects
every front of the war via uninterrupted hexagonal
maps. Further, a Global Administrative Map is also
included that allows you to manage off-map move-
ment.
AOI also includes a full counter sheet (280 units)
that features the Ethiopian order-of-battle, all the such as: combat veterans, naval night movement, mountain pass movement,
Italian and British forces that operated in East Africa, fire bombing, German Flak, Manstein and more.
as well as a complete AETO upgrade that includes
AOI also includes a map of Spain that adds additional Atlantic Ocean sea
40 new types of aircraft, such as the Me-163 Comet,
areas to AETO, and incorporates an entire Spanish Civil War scenario with
the Mig-3, the PBY Catalina, and the Gloster Meteor.
a complete order-of-battle of Nationalist and Republican land, air and naval
AOI also includes new rules specifically for AETO,
units. With AOI, AETO and APTO players can experience all of World War
II. AOI has been designed to link with the AETO and APTO maps, or to be
set-up alone as a scenario of the Ethiopian campaign.
This is an expansion kit for Advanced Theater of Operations.
You must own the base game to play this expansion.

Contents:
QTY Title Price Total • 280 Die cut counters
• 1 34” x 22” Map
Adv Pacfic Theater Op. $120
• 2 11” x 17” Maps
Africa Orientale Italia $40 • 1 Rule booklet
• Player Aid cards & display
Shipping • Storage bags
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
Name 661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Address
City/State/Zip Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
Country
$12 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail add $5
V/MC # Exp.
24 3 Canada
Signature 34 3 Europe, South America, Asia
Phone # 36 5 Australia
World at War 63

WaW 9 Issue.indd 63 8/27/10 3:59:54 PM

 Turning the Pages of History
Strategy & Tactics magazine covers all of military history and
its future possibilities. The articles focus on the ‘how’ and
‘why’ of war, and are richly illustrated with maps, diagrams
and photos. Use the subscription card or order online.
Don’t miss a single issue!

In-Depth Analysis

Detailed Maps

Orders of Battle

P.O. Box 21598

Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598
ph: (661) 587-9633 • Fax: (661) 587-5031
64 #9
www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com

WaW 9 Issue.indd 64 8/27/10 3:59:57 PM