Military History 2005-09

MimYHISTOl

E D I T O R I A L

Onlineextras A peace treaty signed 100 years ago September 2005 You'll find much more about military histoiy on the Web's leadiiag histoiy resource:

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WWW. TheHistoryNet.com Discussion: Did leadership make the difference in the outcomes of the Battles of Bladensburg, North Point and Fort McHeniy? Did it make a similar difference for the Ethiopians at Magdala in 1868 and atAdowainl896?

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6 MILriAHY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

was resolved 60 years ago. VrmUALLY UNNOTICED AMID the pub-

licity afforded the 60th anniversary of World War II s formal conclusion on September 2, 1945, the centennial of the treaty ending another major war that ravaged the Far East is being commemorated by residents of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Begun with a Japanese torpedo attack on Russian-owned Port Arthur on February 8, 1904 (prior to declaring war, it might be noted), the Russo-Japanese War was as modem as it was epic. Barbed wire, trench warfare, machine guns, magazine-fed rifles, quick-firing artillery barrages, camouflage and primitive flamethrowers gave combatants a foretaste of the technological horrors of World War I. The climax—or rather anticlimax—of several mammoth confrontations in Manchuria, the Battle of Mukden in February-March 1905 (centennially recounted in Military History, February 2005) was the worlds largest land engagement until 1914, though it accomplished little in proportion to the tens of thousands of casualties it produced. Japans navy did better, bottling up Russia's First Pacific Squadron in Port Arthur and annihilating an intended relief force in Tsushima Strait on May 27,1905. Both sides were exhausted by the summer of 1905, but to end the conflict short of total victory for one side or the other required a mediator. All of the European imperialist powers had some attachment to either Russia or Japan, but the United States, whose recent seizures of the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii had made it a Pacific power, offered the necessary neutrality. On August 5, President Theodore Roosevelt hosted delegations from Russia, led by Minister Plenipotentiary Count Sergei Witte, and from Japan, headed by Foreign Minister Jutaro Komura, aboard the naval dispatch vessel Mayflower in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The talks then moved to the General Stores building in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which offered security, a good

telegraph cable service and elegant accommodations at the nearby Hotel Wentworth. Although from the sidelines Roosevelt pressured the two combatant nations to come to an agreement, he played no further direct role in the talks or in the final signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5,1905. As we now know, the peace achieved in 1905 5delded only a temporary pause in Japans ambitions, which included a shopping list of lands held by Western powers, whose imperialist holdings were slated to be added in their turn to Japan s erstwhile Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere— those of Germany in 1914, France in 1941, and Britain, the United States and the Netheriands in 1942. A 1939 border clash with the Soviet Union only convinced Japan that it was better off signing a nonaggression pact with Josef Stalin, at the same time drawing Stalin's attention toward a successful general out east named Georgi Zhukov. Japan's final great offensive of 1941-42 was certainly original in its wide-ranging scope and—initially, at least—successful beyond anyone's expectations. Even so, as seems to be the fate of all imperialist powers since time immemorial, Japan's ambitions overreached themselves. After Japan encountered its first stalling setbacks (story P. 54), Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's prediction about his country's inability to sustain a protracted war came true. In August 1945, the Japanese people pciid the ultimate price, as U.S. and Royal Navy CEirrier planes raided the Home Islands at will, Boeing B-29s devastated their cities—including two using the first and only nuclear weapons ever employed in war—and the Russians charged into Mcinchuria. In the Soviets' case, an Allied agreement made at Yalta the previous February had been the official reason for renouncing their nonaggression pact, but thoughts of business left unfinished 40 years before must have been on a lot of Russian minds as the Red Army stormed into Port Arthur. J.G.

LETTERS

plan was to continue down the coast FIDDLING DIXIE I wanted to send you a few words com- ldUing all white men in their path, but they My husband and I enjoy your magazine plimenting your magazine. I am into my were so elated at killing the governor that very much and took special note of C. second year as a subscriber and have they went to a native beer hall to brag. A Brian Kelly's piece in the "Best Little Stosaved every issue. Your articles are filled friendly native alerted a nearby planta- ries" department about the song "Dixie" with factual and necessary bits of history tion owner, a message was sent to Manila, in the June 2005 issue. The memoirs of that bring the particular period alive. The and Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood dispatched my grandmother's uncle, Edward OcJune 2005 issue is an excellent example 10,000 troops to Malita. They were quar- tavius Hall, describe the Confederate entry into Fort Sumter after the Union of why I will continue my subscrip- tered on my fathers plantation. tion. The article on the Battle of Front The Manobos went into hiding, but soldiers had evacuated in April 1861. Royal—"Lightning Strike in the Valley"— aided by Moro scouts my father and the "After [Major Robert] Anderson's surand "The Music of War" are tremen- troops followed a creek bed up to their render on the 13th our company was the dous. Thank you for living up to the name encampment. The attack was a surprise, first to enter the fort and it was truly in a of your magazine—Military History. I am and Mangalayan was killed. On the way deplorable condition," he wrote. "I had delighted I extended my subscription. back to the coast, an Army officer noticed me a violin and crept into a casemate Colonel Sherman R. Reed a lump in a bag that a Moro was carrying played 'Dixie' with a vim much to the surU.S. Army (ret.) and demanded to see what was in it. It prise and delight of our 'boys' who heard Lebanon, Tenn. was Mangalayan's head. In horror and it." There's proof that in 1861 the rousing disgust, the officer threw the head into a tune was known, played—apparently by ravine. That proved to be a mistake. The heart—and enjoyed by Southern soldiers. ACCEPTABLE BEHEADINGS Louisa M. Montgomery In the feature "Mayhem at Manila" in the operation was reported in giant headlines Mount Pleasant, S.C. June 2005 issue, David F. Marley states on the front page of the Dallas News, that in 1762 the British were appalled that saying "Mangalayan Dead, Dallas Man the Filipino irregulars beheaded British Involved." When the troops reached the GREEK OPPOSITION seamen and carried off their heads. coast, however, the native Filipinos would Barry Porter's article, "Xerxes' Greek In Mike Oppenheim s review of the book not believe that Mangalayan was dead— Campaign," in the July issue of Military A Proper Sense ofHonor, by Caroline Cox, with no head, there was no proof! History contains a few errors. First, due however, he states that General George A longtime Moro rite of manhood in- to delays caused by a religious holiday, Washington put a stop to the beheading volved a boy going into an enemy's terri- the Spartans did not fight at Marathon at of deserters and the displaying of their tory, hiding along a trail until an enemy all. They would prove their excellence (if heads. Sounds like a question of whose passed, then stepping behind him and any proof were needed) later, at Therox is being gored. cutting off his head and right arm with a mopylae. Also Porter writes as though the My father, Richard King Cole, served as two-handed sword. The arm was in- Hellenic League was an existing organia contract surgeon with the U.S. Army in cluded so that if one met that enemy in zation. It was not. It was created in the the Philippines from 1902 to 1905, then the afterlife, he would not have a right summer of 480 BC for the purpose of went into partnership with three Army of- arm with which to avenge himself. Being dealing with the impending Persian inficers and three civilians to manage a co- awarded "murder handkerchiefs" for vasion; it consisted of 31 Greek cityconut and hemp plcintation at Malita, 50 three such killings would earn a boy the states, and it fell apart a year later Finally, miles south of Davao on the island of right to be considered a man, and later the crew of a Greek trireme was not 18 Mindanao. One partner, a Lieutenant his wife might use them to make sleeves men, but consisted of a group of from a Bolton, was the governor of Davao for his shirt. I have a two-handed sword, dozen to as many as 30 hoplites and province, and as such settled a land dis- murder handkerchiefs and a shirt with archers, in addition to about 200 rowers pute between a coastal tribe and a moun- murder handkerchief sleeves that my who did not expect to fight but could be tain tribe in favor of the former. After that father brought back when he returned to called on to do so in an emergency. Jan Gabbert decision was made, in order to show that the States in 1907, as well as krises and Professor Emerita of Classics there were no hard feelings, the datto of barongs used by the Moros and other Wright State University the Manobos, Mangalayan, offered with tribes. his brothers to serve as bearers for Bolton Dayton, Ohio There was a report during World Wcir II and a civilian partner named Mr Christ- that the Moros were still using their traian, on a visit to the plantation. ditional tactics. They would hide until a Send letters to Military History Editor, PriAt the end of the second day of the jour- Japanese patrol passed by, go after the media History Group, 741 Miller Drive, ney, Mangalayan and his brothers got out rear man, then work their way up to the Suite D-2, Leesburg, VA 20175, or e-mail to [email protected]. Please their bolo knives, ostensibly to cut open head of the column. some coconuts, and suddenly killed my Edward F. Cole include your name, address and daytime fathers parmers with them. Their original Brooksville, Fla. telephone number. Letters may be edited. A DELIGHTED READER

8 MILHARY HISTORV SEPTEMBER 2005

P E R S O N A L I T Y King Friedrich Wilhelm I built Prussia a war machine, but it was his son who put it to use. By Brendan J. O'Shaughnessy

Tliis portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, by Antoine Pesne-one of the few Frenchmen the eccentric king tolerated-hangs in Chariottenburg Castle.

EUROPE AT THE BEGINNING of the 18th

century witnessed the rule of powerful but often strange monarchs who left their stamp on the countries they ruled. But even in an age of eccentric autocrats they didn't come any stranger than Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm was bom in 1688. His father was Elector Friedrich IU of Brandenburg, who in 1701 crowned himself King Friedrich I of Prussia. Sometimes referred to as Friedrich the Ostentatious, Friedrich I was strongly influenced by the monarchies around him, especially that of King Louis XIV of France, He adopted many of the trappings of the Sun King's court, even taking a mistress, although he greatly preferred the company of his wife. Unfortunately, his extravagances left the Prussian treasury bankrupt. 12 MILrrAKV HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

As a boy, his only son, Friedrich Wilhelm, was a bully, subject to terrible tantrums during which he was known to kick or hit his tutors and threaten them with beheading when he grew up to be king. Once he pushed a court official down a flight of stone steps, giving the man a sprained neck. His father specifically ordered that the prince be disciplined only by his mother, and she seldom punished him with i" more than a casual repriI mand. His grandmother i eventually had to end visits with his cousin in Hanover, the future George II of Britain, after Friedrich Wilhelm repeatedly beat him. Unlike all other Hohenzollem rulers, Friedrich Wilhelm obeyed his father without question, which would later influence his stonny relationship with his own son. When the king died in 1713, he was given an elaborate funeral, but Friedrich Wilhelm I had no intention of pursuing his fathers French-inspired lifestyle. What Prussia got instead was the Soldier King. Friedrich Wilhelm was as miserly as his father had been extravagant. He cut many of the government ministers' positions, taking on their jobs himself. He lowered the salaries of the remaining officials, dismissed most of the servants, sold many of the royal possessions and preferred military uniforms to what he

considered effeminate court dress. The money he saved financed the expansion of the Prussian army into the fourth largest in Europe. Friedrich Wilhelm has received a lot of the credit for modernizing the Prussian army, but in truth much of it belongs to his cousin, Field Marshal Leopold, Phnce of Anhalt-Dessau, popularly known as the "Old Dessauer." Friedrich Wilhelm standardized uniforms, mandating the exact cuts in the cloth and number and placement of buttons. He also drew up a comprehensive set of infantry regulations, which were not to be shared with foreigners, at the risk of life imprisonment. But it was Leopold who replaced wooden ramrods with iron ones, modified the bayonet, taught the men to walk in step and originated many of the commands still used in military drills to this day. Although much has been made of his reign's martial nature, Friedrich Wilhelm was not an outstanding military leader. His fearless conduct at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709, exposing himself to French fire, impressed Prince Eugene of Savoy among others, but as a monarch he only sent his army to war twice. One was a brief intervention in Denmark's quarrel with Sweden, and the other was an expedition to Poland, which was settled before the army arrived. It was said that he loved the army too much to use it. That did not stop him from saber rattling, however. He closed minor embassies, claiming that "fifty thousand soldiers can accomplish more than a hundred thousand ministers." Friedrich Wilhelm carried a wooden cane with him that he used on anyone who displeased him, often breaking noses or teeth. So common were these cowardly attacks—against which no one could fight back, since it was a capital crime to strike the king—that his evening walks around Berlin and Potsdam were

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known as tours de baton. Sometimes Friedrich Wilhelm wouldflyinto a rage for no apparent reason, except perhaps that someone had mentioned France. He once broke an entire dinner set when he discovered it was made in Meissen. When criminals were to be executed, he first had them dressed in French clothes. Intellectuals and scientists were arguably even higher on Friedrich Wiihelm's hate list than the French. Although he was persuaded to leave the Berlin Academy of Sciences open, so that army surgeons might be trained, he recorded the salaries paid under "expenses of the various royal buffoons." A favorite royal target was the academy's president, Jakob Gundling. Part historian and part court jester, he would often go into long, boring dissertations on the most obscure matters. Friedrich Wilhelm would meet with his advisers and soldiers in the evening to drink beer and smoke long pipes, in the German tradition of the tabagie, or smoking party. (Those who didn't smoke, such as the Old Dessauer, knew well enough to pretend.) At these daily male gatherings, Gundling would get intoxicated, and the sight of the short, drunk, pompous man reading to them and expounding on various trivial points greatly amused the king and his friends. Gundling became the butt of every practical joke their inebriated minds could come up with. On one occasion, his room was walled up with masonw and, after getting Gundling drunk, the king and his courtiers watched in His oi" laughter as he tried to find the door. On another occasion, they set him on fire. When he asked to resign, Friedrich Wilheim embraced him, told him how much he was needed and gave him more money and even the title of baron. Yet when he died, Gundling—dressed in a bright red outfit trimmed in blue and a wig of goat's hair— was laid out in a wine cask engraved with sarcastic verse. Although Friedrich Wilhelm could never be called a patron of the arts, he did enjoy the operas of George Frederic Handel, and knew several pieces by heart. That did not make him any more popular with the court musicians, who would often skip parts of the composition when they thought he had dozed off. As often as not, he would only be feigning sleep, and would jump up and order them to repeat the piece from the beginning. Another quirk in Friedrich Wilhelm's personality was his preoccupation with tall soldiers. As a boy, he replaced the

troops in the regiment his father gave him to drill with the tallest men he could find locally, carefully recording all his expenses in a ledger titled "My Ducats." After his accession to power, he scoured Prussia, and later Europe, looking for very tall men to be induced or impressed into his army. The tallest of these, some of whom approached 8 feet, were collected in his personal guard regiment, the Potsdam Giant Grenadiers. When ill or depressed, he marched hundreds of his "blue boys" through his room to cheer him up, and he became extremely despondent if even one of them ran away. When a military court sentenced a soldier of his regiment to death for theft, Friedrich Wilhelm caned the entire court. Ultimately the unit proved to be too costly, requiring funds enough to support eight regular infanti>' regiments. Following the king's death, his son dismissed many of the giants, reorganizing it as a standard regiment but incoiporating "FWR" in its colors, in tribute to Friedrich Wilhelm. PROBABLY THE MOST significant victim of Friedrich Wilhelm's terrible tirades was his son, Friedrich. Initially the king was close to him, giving him his own regiment of boys to train. Everything from his education to his daily routine was geared toward making him a perfect copy of his father. Typically, he was to awaken at 6 a.m., give thanks to God for having lived through the night, wash and have his hair combed, and drink tea or coffee. Prayers followed at 6:30, and lessons from 7 to 11 a.m. After washing, he spent time with the king, with more lessons following from 2 to 5 p.m. Bedtime was at 10:30. Friedrich Wilhelm was also very specific concerning the cuiriculum. The prince was to leam things of direct use to a king, such as theology to instill the fear of God, mathematics to understand artillen; and recent German histoi"y and geography lo undei^stand Prussia's future. He was not permitted to leam Latin, history before the 16th century, etiquette or anything else that might clutter up his brain. When one of Prince Friedrich's tutors violated those rules by reading the Golden Bull (the charter of the Geiman electors, wbich was in Latin), the king lost his temper, picked up his cane, and roared, "I'll Golden Bull you!" Fdedrich Wilhelm's idea of a compliant son to be molded in his own soldierly image inevitably led to conflict. The willful

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crown prince became more interested in music and the arts, and &iequentiy referred to his uniform as his shroud. On hunting trips, which he particularly detested, he was often found sitting in his mothers carriage or off by himself reading or playing the flute, to his fathers disgust. Prince Friedrich was beaten for offenses ranging from wearing gloves in the cold to jumping off a bolting horse. The king responded to a conciliatory' letter fi'om his son, saying: "I cannot bear an effeminate fellow who has no manly inclinations; who is shy, cannot ride or shoot, and is not neat in his person; who has his hair dt essed like a fool and does not have it cut. For all this I have reprimanded you, but in vain." Friedrich Wilhelm also told his son, "If my father had treated me the way that I treat you, 1 wouldn't have put up with it— I would have killed myself or run away." At age 18, young Friedrich did try to run away with a friend. Lieutenant Hans Heimann von Katte. They were captured, and although a military court sentenced the lieutenant to life imprisonment, the king overruled them, ordering von Katte's execution outside Friedrich's cell. A fainting spell spared the prince from seeing his friend beheaded, It was only after the prince married and moved away that relations between father and son became less strained. Friedrich Wilhelm's health deteriorated during the latter part of the 1730s, as he suffered from gout and dropsy. Analyzing his symptoms today, it seems likely he had a hereditary form of the painful metabolic disorder porphyria, which also afflicted King George III of Britain and other descendants of Mary Queen of Scots. As the king weakened and had to get around in a wheelchair, he would use his crutches instead of his customary cane to strike out at anyone who annoyed him. Toward the end, when he was largely confined to his bed, he threatened to shoot insubordinate servants. Although at times he expressed acceptance of his son, the king also said, "I am not at all sony that I am going to die, but what I regret is, that I shall have such a monster as my son to succeed me." He would laugh from the grave, he said, at the mess Friedrich II would make of Prussia. But he was off the mark. On May 31, 1740, when Friedrich Wilhelm died, Prussia traded a monarch who liked to play with soldiers for one who knew how to use them, under the name by which he is more widely known to history: Frederick the Great. MH

INTRIGUE In Algeria a cabal of French generals tried to overthrow Charles de Gaulle's government. By Edward L. Bimberg

IN 1958, WHEN CHARLES DE GAULLE

came out of his long retirement to once again become president of France, the bigge.st problem he had to face was Algeria. The French had iiiled that turbulent North African land for more than a centurv, but on November 1,1954, Muslim Algerian nationalists fomied their own government, the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), began a gueiTilla war against the French in the remote mountains of the interior and launched teirorist attacks against the European settlei"s, or colons, in the cities and outlying farms. The colons, also known as pieds noirs ("black feet") because of their devotion to Algeria's soil, responded with counterterrorist tactics. Someright-wingcolonists, called "ultras," fearful that politicians back in France would end their centuryold dominance by making concessions to the FLN, had been secretly plotting against the government in Paris since the

revolt began. By 1958, they were trving to persuade like-minded army officers to join them. The hard-core professional soldiers, particularly the tough, swaggering paratroopers in their distinctive camouflage battle dress and varicolored berets, were more than willing to oblige. They had been humiliated by the defeat in Indochina in 1954 and their forced withdrawal fix)m Suez in 1956, and they were as determined as the colons to keep this last bastion of empire under French control. Their sentiments, however, were not shared by the vast majority ofthe 400,000 soldiers stationed in Algeria—draftees and reservists who cared less about the empire than they did about serving their time and going home. When de Gaulle first stepped into this political bog, the colons were delighted. And when he visited Algiers and told an enthusiastic crowd of settlers "Je vous ai

From left, French Generals Marie-Andre Zeller, Edmond Jouhaud, Raoul Salan and Maurice Challe leave the govemment house in Algiers after their failed coup attempt on April 24,1961. 18 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

compris" ("I have understood you"), they roared "Vive de GauHel" If de Gaulle understood them, however, the pieds noirs and their friends in the army failed to understand de Gaulle—he was just playing for time. As he studied the delicate problem of making peace with the Muslim rebels, de Gaulle began a purge of dissident elements in the army, starting with General Raoul Salan, commander of all French forces in Algeria. De Gaulle disliked and distrusted Salan and arranged to have him sent back to France with a "promotion" to military governor of Paris, a sinecure the general deeply resented. De Gaulle's replacement for Salan was Maurice Challe, an air force general with a distinguished record. Challe almost immediately demonstrated his ability as a ground commander by inaugurating a new, vigorous campaign against the FLN bands in the mountains. Even while Chaile's offensive was showing signs of success, however, de Gaulle—armed with a new constitution that afforded more power to the pnssident—showed increasir^ intentions of making peace with the FLN. In September 1959, he came right out and offered the Arabs "self-determination." The settlers and their friends in the army exploded. Egged on by a coterie of dissident colonels, the commandant of ihe Algiers Military Sector, General Jacques Massu—a darling of the colons but also a longtime admirer of de Gaulle—gave a newspaper inteniew severely critical of the president and his policies. Now it was de Gaulle's turn to erupt. He summoned Massu to Paris, dressed him down and relegated him to command of the garrison of Metz, an unimportant post for such a distinguished officer. The colons were furious over Massu's removal. Using it as a pretext, they openly declared an insurgency, with the object of

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20 MILITARY HISTORV SEPTEMBER 2005

overthrowing de Gaulle and the govemment in Algiers. Under the leadership of Joseph Ortiz, a local bar owner, and Pierre Lagaillarde, a student leader who was a former paratrooper, the settlers' militia set up barricades in the center of Algiers. Armed, backed by a huge mob of pieds noirs and whipped up to a fever pitch of excitement, the ultras defied the authorities to expel them from their camps. While Ortiz organized the barricades in the heart of the city, Lagaillarde mobilized his group in the university, not far away. General Challe, realizing the gravity of the situation, called out all the local gendarmes as well as the Compagnies Republicaine de Securite (CRS), the hated riot police. He alsorecalledaregimentof colonial paratroopers and the 1 st Regiment Etranger Parachutiste (REP) from the field. A large part of the former unit had been recruited right in Algiers, while the 1st REP was part of the Foreign Legion, whose entire history v^-as wrapped up in Algeria. Both regiments, of course, were sympathetic to the settlers. Perhaps Challe did not realize how closely Colonel Joseph Broizat of the colonial paras and Colonel Henri Dufotir, commanding the legionnaires, were involved in the plotting of Ortiz and his ultras. Or perhaps, in light of later developments, he knew exactly what he was doing.

two crack regiments could not get through Lagaiilardes barricades at the university in time to help the gendarmes. After the battle General Jean Crepin, Massu's replacement as Algiers area commandant, declared that there was no way of breaking up the barricades without a massacre of the settlers, and the para colonels said openly that they wouldn't fire on the crowd. FT LOOKED AS IF ORTIZ had won the day.

That night the paras were seen fraternizing with the colons around the campfires of the barricades, and Colonel Antoine Argoud, who had been Massu's chief of staff, was talking of a militai^ putsch against de Gaulle—and trying to persuade Challe to lead it. That evening, however, marked the pieds noirs' high tide. It soon became evident that while the paras were sympathetic to their cause, they were not yet ready to act against the govemment. And then the two original regiments surrounding the barricades were replaced by less sympathetic army units. When the new troops tightened the perimeter, the settlers knew the revolt had failed. In the next few days, the rebels began to drift out of their encampments and go home. As it became known that only the ringleaders would be prosecuted, more and more of the rebel rank and file disThe govemment plan called for the appeared into the streets of Algiers. FiCRS gendarmes to advance directly nally, just a week after the affair began, against the rioters, push them back, pull Lagaillarde surrendered and was ardown the barricades and disperse the rested. Ortiz simply vanished. The "Week mob while the paras held back, ready to of the Barricades" was over. come to their aid as needed. Both forces De Gaulle, furious at the army's lack of were ordered not to fire on the crowd, decisive action, continued his purges, and their weapons were unloaded. sending Colonels Broizat, Argoud and At 6 p.m. on January 24, 1960, police Yves Godard, an intelligence expert with loudspeakers blared an order to disperse. known connections to the settlers, back The ultras at their barricades did not stir, to France. A few months later, in April, and the helmeted riot police moved for- General Challe himself left unwillingly to ward. Suddenly pistol shots rang out. The take command of North Atlantic Treaty settlers took it as a signal, and from Organization Forces, Central Europe. It behind the barricades came a fusillade of was a promotion of sorts, but he had e.xautomatic fire. At the same time, volley pected the more prestigious position of after volley poured down on the gen- chief of staff of the French armed forces. darmes from the windows of adjacent He hated to leave Algeria just when he apartments. Before the police could load thought the war in the mountains was their weapons and fire back, their ranks eliminating the last of the FLN rebels. were decimated. When the smoke In June 1960, de Gaulle began actual cleared, 14 gendarmes lay dead and 123 negotiations with the FLN, and the genwere wounded. Six settlers were also erals again blew up. In December there killed and 24 wounded in the return fire. was an attempted coup, but it barely Sporadic firing continued until dark. made it past the planning stage. General The paras did not come to the rescue Salan, now retired from the army and until it was all over They made excuses shadowed by de Gaulle's intelligence (met with extreme skepticism) that the agents, fled to Madrid, Spain, where he set

up a headquarters for fugitive pieds noirs and rebellious French officers. Another retired air force officer, General Edmond Jouhaud. himself a pied noir and active in the abortive December coup attempt, joined with General Marie-Andre Zeller, a former army chief of staff, in additional plots against the govemment. More significant, however, were the actions of the popular and efficient General Challe. In Januaiy 1961, he suddenly resigned fiom the armed forces. In April, after a period of tortured soul-searching, he arrived in Algiers, declaring himself in league with Jouhaud and Zeller (and Salan in Madrid). Challe now became the leader of the so-called "generals' putsch" and began detailed plotting of the revolt. The linchpin of the scheme to take over Algeria was the crack I st REP, which had been totally politicized by officers determined to keep its headquarters in Algeria, de Gaulle or no de Gauile. After Dufour had been recalled to Erance—absconding with the regimental colors as a defiant gesture—he had been replaced by Major Elie Denoix de Saint-Marc, who favored keeping Algeria French just as passionately as his former colonel. The 1 st REP was stationed at Zeralda, 20 miles west of Algiers. The generals' plan called for the legionnaires to move by tioick to the city and take over vital govemment buildings. Other para and Foreign Legion regiments would then join the revolt, placing the cities of Oran and Constantine in rebel hands. Shortly after midnight on April 22, the spearhead column of the 1 st REP started out fiom Zeralda. Early in the evening, however, someone had seen the tnjcks of a transport company headed for Zeralda and reported it to General Femand Gambiez, now in charge of all armed forces in Algeria. Gambiez was skeptical. He called Major Saint-Mare to ask what was going on. Sainl-Marc, lying, assured him that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Contrary' reports kept coming in, however, so Gambiez decided to see for himself. The general had barely departed for Zeralda when he ran head-on into the lead elements of the 1 st REP. A small bespectacled man with the appearance of a cleric but the heart of a lion, Gambiez tried to bar the way with his staff car, only to be grabbed and marched off to captivity by a large Geiman legionnaire. By moming, Algiei's was in the hands of the mutineers and the pieds noirs were out on the streets, congratulating the pa-

trolling legionnaires. Challe, delighted, was on the telephone to other army units, ui^ing them to join the revolt. Once again, that first day was the coup's high point. On the 23rd, de Gaulle made an impassioned radio and television speech, excoriating the mutineers and asking for public support. He also warned that any soldiers who supported the rebellious officers would be in dire straits. Throughout Algeria, the masses of draftees and reservists hstened on their ubiquitous transistor radios (a circumstance that caused the affair later to be dubbed "the battle of the transistors") and obeyed the president. Far from joining the mutineers, they did what they could to sabotage their efforts. That was bad news for Challe, who had expected most, if not all, of the army to join his cause. Worse, many senior officers throughout the countr\' who had declared their support for the revolt were backing out. The air force sent most of its transport planes back to Erance, while the na\'y kept its ships in Algerian ports with their sailors safely aboaj'd. Even Foreign Legion units in Sid i-Bel-Abbes and elsewhere refused to join their 1st REP comrades. That left only the Legion paras and a few other parachute regiments, about 10,000 men at most—and even some of them were wavering. BY APRIL 24, Challe knew the coup had failed and sadly acknowledged that to the pied noir crowds before turning himself over to the authorities. Jouhaud, Zeller and Salan (the latterfinallyarriving from Madrid) put on civilian clothes and disappeared into the streets of Algiers. Gambiez and other high-ranking captives the mutineers had taken were freed. The 1st REP retumed to Zeralda. Knowing the regiment was to be disbanded, the legionnaires blew up their barracks rather than let any other units live in them, and fired all their ammunition in the air Then, still in their camouflage battle dress and green berets, they were trucked to dispersal areas. On the way they were cheered by crowds of settlers, who pelted them with flowers and handed them bottles of wine and cognac. As the 1st REP passed, its troops could be heard singing "Le Boudin," the traditional Legion marching song—^and Edith Piaf s popular, defiant ballad "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" ("No, I regi'et nothing"). The Erench army mutiny was over. Charles de Gaulle had won. MH

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SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY 21

/NJtcr a century and a kail o\ rAon'^oi domination, in 138O Orand !" rince LJniitry o\ /Vloscovv set a course that cOLila only end in victory or death.

irana rrince umii Moscow orders his Grand Regiment forward to engage the Tatar warriors of Khan Mamai, in TJie Morning of Kulikovo Potye,p^L^ Aieksandr P. Biibnov (AKG-ImagesJ.

orae

BY VICTOR KA/VIENIR

EFORE T> ]l BRb'\K OF OAVv'N on September 8, 1380, Grand Prinee Dmiti>- Ivanovich of Moscow, accompanied by his general, Bobrok, made a personal reconnaissance of Kulikovo Field near the Don River, approximately 300 kilometers south of Moscow. The widefield,which got its name from the multitude of small swamp birds, or kulik, that inhabited it, was crisscrossed by many gulches, with small hillocks topped by copses of trees and swampy lowlands nestled between the hills. It was here that he would anTinge the 12,000 warriors from various Russian principalities who had agreed to fight for him and a cause that amounted to suicide. Approaching to engage him were some 18,000 Tatars of the Golden Horde, a branch ofthe Mongol empire that had dominated Russia for almost a century and a half. Russian princes and dukes had challenged the Tatai^s before. All had gone down in defeat—^foUowed by a terrible retribution from their Asiatic overlords. Russia's ordeal under the eastern invadei"s began in 1237, when a 130,000-strong army under the command of Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, thundered across its steppes and claimed them for This late 16thcentury illumination depicting the Battle of Kulikovo appears in the text on the life of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, now in the TroitseSergieva-Lavra Museum, Sergiyev Posad, Russia.

m A

24 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

the Mongol empire. One after another the small and disunited Russian principalities, engaged in constant wai^ against each other, fell under Mongol rule. The fall of Kiev in 1240 left almost all Russian territory, save for some of the northern lands around Novgorod, under Mongol domination. As tragic as those events were for the Russians, the Mongols regarded Russia as an area of little importance, merely a stopover on their way to conquer richer lands in Eastern Euiope and the Middle East. Unlike the conquered regions inhabited by nomadic Turkic tribes, the Russian lands were not incorporated into the Mongol empire, or khanate, but remained semi-independent vassals, paying an annutil tribute and providing troops for Mongol campaigns. After his campaigns in Russia and Eastern Europe, Batu Khan established the Kipchak Tatar khanate that became known as the Golden Horde, after the color of its wanioi^' tents. After Batu's death in 1255, the Golden Horde went into a gradual decline. By the mid-14th centmy, the empire Genghis Khan built had lost its Mongol identity. Its power base shifted to the Tatars, nomadic Turkic peoples inhabiting the vast steppes bordering southern Russia. When the ruling khan was assassinated in 1357, the Golden Horde entered a long period of internecine warfare. During a span of 20 years the Horde had almost as many rulers. By 1378, a Mongol general named Mamai, who was a longtime powerbroker behind the throne, finally emerged at the forefront and declared himself the khan of the Golden Horde. Mamai's political position remained tenuous. Since he was not of a Genghizid line, he was challenged for the supreme position by Tokhtamysh, khan of the Blue Horde, the eastern offshoot of the Mongol empire, who was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Sensing that Mamai's grasp on Russian lands was weakening. Grand Prince Dmitry increased the pace of unifying the many duchies and principalities around Moscow under his own control through astute politics, religion and marriage. Dmitry, who hailed fiom a line of decisive and capable princes, was one of those rare people in history who was the right man at the right place at the right time. He subjugated the principality of Tver by force of arms, then secured an alliance with Suzdal by manying the daughter of Suzdal's prince. Novgorod and its adjacent lands came under his control when Patriarch Sergei Radonezhsky, an ardent supporter of Dmitry, excommunicated the city's residents and closed its churches until they acknowledged the Muscovite prince's authority over them. In order to curb Dmitry's growing influence and reassert his own authority, Mamai demanded a lar^e tribute from Moscow in 1380. The prince sent gold and silver, but in what Mamai regarded as no more than a token quantity. The Tatar khan mobilized his army for a campaign to bring Dmitn- in line. The forces that Mamai assembled to oppose the

Moscovite prince were varied in character In addition to the khan's own Tatars there were contingents Irom vassal steppe nomads, such as Polovtsi, and Circassian and AiTnenian tribes living in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. Prince Oleg of Ryazan, chief among Dmiti^'s Russian rivals, also promised Mamai his support. Lithuanian King Jogaila may have also pledged to send his troops to support Mamai. (Jogaila, the son of King Olgerd and Russian Princess Ulyana of Tver, considered himself a rightful heir to some of the Russian lands,) Aid also came hom an unexpected qiiaiier: The Genoese merchants from colonies in the Crimean Peninsula wanted to minimize the disRiption of trade along the Great Silk Road, a portion of which ran through Mamai's teiritoiy. With that in mind, they hired more than 2,000 mercenary pikemen from all over the Eastera Mediterranean to support the Golden Horde.

idating sight of innumerable campfires stretching to the far horizon. After setting up an ambush, they succeeded in capturing a minor Tatar noble. In questioning him, the Russian scouts found out that Mamai was waiting for the w heat to mature a little more so that his warriors could live off the land while campaigning. The Tatars were also waiting for the arrival of King Jogaila, who was not expected earlier than September. That intelligence spurred Dmitry to hasten his mobilization effort. The troops who would not have time to gather in Moscow by the start of the cam-

I

N Tl IL LXRI.v SPRINO of 1380, Prince DmitiTreceivednews of the impending invasion from his ally Piince Gleb of Bryansk. At once Dmiti-y dispatched messengers to all the territories loyal to him, with requests for soldiers to come to his aid. At the same time he ordered the sti"engthening of fortifications in Kolomna and Tula, two border towns that would bear the first briint of the Tatar onslaught. Soon thereafter, Dmitry received word that Prince Oleg of Ryazan and King Jogaila had thrown in their lot with Mamai. Dmitry immediately called a council of nobles, or boyare, to decide on a course of action. Dmitiy backed up by the veteran general Bobrok and DmitiVs cousin. Prince Vladimir of Scipukhov, decided to immediately advance against Mamai before Oleg and Jogaila joined him. Not wasting any time, Dmitry sent out a strong cavalry detachment under the command of e.xperienced waniors Rodion Rzhevsky, Andi'ey Volosaty and Vasily Tupik. They were ordered to get as close as possible to the main encampments of the Golden Horde and take a prisoner for interrogation. This reconnaissance detachment took all the precautions to make its approach unobserved. The men wrapped their horses' hooves and all the metal horse equipment, as well as their pci^sonal weapons, with rags in order not to make noise. Each trooper, emulating the Tatai^' custom, bi"ought along a resei"ve horse for faster movement. Eive days later, the scouts reached the outer edges ot the Tatar camp, to be confronted with the intim-

paign were redirected to the border town of Kolomna. As his forces began to gather, Dmitry took stock of the situation. Only a small portion of his lorce was made up of seasoned soldiers fiom the household war bands of Russian nobles. Those troops were anned with swords, war axes and heavy spears, and wore chain or scale armor with highpeaked helmets. A heavy metal teardrop-shaped shield, traditionally painted deep red, rounded off their armor Only a fraction of them were mounted. The bulk of the Muscovite army was made up of peasants and city residents with limited military' experience at Ixist. Barely one in thi'ee of them had any armor, and even that was simply fashioned from sewing metal plates onto heavy clothing. This militia was mainly armed with wooden shields, bows and spears. The basic unit making up a Russian regiment was called a "banner," comprising "lances" of 10 warriors each. The strength of each banner generally varied from 20 to 100 men, based on recruiting efforts in each area and the wealth that each particular prince had to raise and equip his retinues.

In A.F. Maksimov's painting tn The Days ofthe Golden Horde, Russians pay tribute to their Tatar overlords-a fate imposed on them beginning in 1237 when Batu Khan first claimed suzerainty over their principalities.

SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY 25

In his preparations for the upcoming campaign Dmitr>' proved himself an experienced administrator He attended to myriad details, from gathering materials for wound dressing and finding people knowledgeable in treating wounds to planning routes of march for individual units. After leaving strong garrisons in Moscow and Serpukhov, Dmitrv's army left Moscow for Kolomna on August 20, 1380. In order to alleviate crowding on poor roads, the Russian forces moved along three different routes. Ten merchants who knew the route through the steppes as well as the location of watering holes and other water sources guided the columns. Reaching Kolomna on the 24th, Dmitry called a halt to rest his troops and give his latearriving detachments time to catch up. In order to

standing of the fact that Ryazan was one of the most geographically vulnerable Russian principalities, lying diiectly between Moscow and the Golden Hot de. Oleg had the unenviable job of trying to safeguard even a modicum of independence in the face of two voracious neighbors. And Dmitry's nonthreatening behavior paid off—although he was within easy reach of the Tatar army, Oleg did not hurry to join Mamai, but cautiously hung back, to see how the upcoming confrontation would play out. The Russian forces approaching the Don wer-e divided into four components. The main body, called the Grand Regiment, was under Dmitri's immediate command. This unit also included the vvai' bands of the Belozersk princes. The Right Regiment, as its name implied, was moving to the right of the Gr^nd Regiment, under the command of Prince Vladimir. This unit also included troops from the city of Yaroslavl. The Left Regiment was commanded by Prince Gleb. Marching in the van, in front of the Grand Regiment, the Forward Regiment's task was to scout out the route of march and receive the biTjnt of a Tatar offensive if necessary. In the beginning of September; the forward Russian detachments reached the Don. Prince Dmitiy ordered a halt to give all the troops who had fallen behind a chance to catch up, assemble and rest.

A Russian relief depicts Patriarch Sergei of Radonezh-later canonized as Saint Sergius-blessing Prince Dmitry and his army at the Monastery of the HolyTrini^ before they set out to challenge the Golden Horde.

facilitate the crossing of Oka River, he ordered his soldiers to improve the available fords by dumping large amounts of sand, gravel and diit in the river. Some of these aitificial sandbanks survive to the present day, and navigators on the Oka take careful measures to avoid them. Learning that Jogaila's forces were on the move as well, Dmitry led his army south along the left bank of the Oka. In choosing that route, Dmitry placed his forces between Mamai and his Lithuanian allies. Ever\' day mounted scouts brought news of Mamai's progress. They reported that the forward detachments of Tatar cavalry' were already approaching the Nepryadva River delta at the Don River. The main Russian force was rapidly advancing towai'd the Don as well, gaining several days' march ahead of Jogaila. Dmitry's route took his forces through the edge of Ryazan's territory. In spite of Prince Oleg's alliance with the Golden Horde, Dmitrv ordered his troops to leave the Ryazan lands unmolested. In so doing, the Muscovite prince displayed a canny under-

26 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

ILANWI IILE. T[ IE Russian scouts took another prisoner, who told them that Mamai was advancing slowly, waiting for Jogaila's and Oieg's annies to arrive. The Tatar forces, mostly composed of light cavalr\', did not have the siege train necessarv' for taking Russian cities and were relying on the Lithuanians to provide them with the needed equipment. Not yet aware that Dmitry had already reached the Don, Mamai was still under the impression that the Russian forces would not dare to make a major move against him, and he was preparing to cross the river in three days' time. Russian scouts also reported that King Jogaila's forces were making good time and were only two days away from joining Mamai. Prince Dmitiy called for another war council, in which several courses of action were discussed. Some princes favored not crossing the Don, but remaining on their side and attempting to prevent Mamai from crossing the river. Dmitry, supported by his hotheaded cousin Prince Vladimir and General Bobrok, were for cross-

ing the river and taking the war to Mamai. After much deliberation, Dmitiy decided to cross the river and meet the invader head-on. This decision did not come lightly. The Russian commander was well aware that should he fail and his anny be annihilated, and as had happened so often in the past century, the majority of the Russian lands would be wide open to the ravages of Tatar retribution.

O

a way as to anchor them on defensible terrain features. Their goal was to deny the Tatars mobility and channel them into a narrow field in order to negate their numerical superiority. The Russian forces were deployed in their traditional three-deep battle formation. The detached scout element formed the first line. Directly behind it, in the second line, was the Forward Regiment. The tbird Russian line consisted of the Right, Left and Grand regiments. The Right Regiment was deployed with its flank resting on the Lower Dubyak River. The shallow Smolka anchored the Left Regiment, under the command of two brothers, the princes of Belozersk. The Grand Regiment under Dmitry's personal command took up the center position, with a small reserve held behind it. An even smaller detachment guarded the several temporary bridges located behind the Left Regiment. Dmitry combined almost all of his available cavalry, consisting of the experienced war bands of various princes' household triaops, into a new unit. This so-called Ambush Regiment, placed under the joint command of Prince Vladimir and Bobrok, was hidden in the Dubrava Wood, on the extreme left of

N!SE1TH;\IBER7 the entire Russian army numbering about 12,000 men, gather ed on the banks of the Don, getting ready to cross this formidable obstacle. Numerous militia detachments were put to work felling trees to build temporaiy bridges. Cavalry detachments were sent out to search for fords, Dmitry wanted to be across before Mamai had time to join up with Oleg and Jogaila. Work on the bridges pr^oceeded at a good pace, and several fords were discovered as well. By nightfall , the whole of Dmitry's army had crossed over and halted in the swampy terrain near the confluence of the Don and Nepryadva rivers. Tension r"an high in the Russian camp that night. A strong wind picked up, and the river became shrouded with fog. Around midnight the wind finally died Kulikovo Field down and an uneasy calm fell over the encampment. Not many slept that night. Scouts reponed that Mamai. with his whole force of roughly 18,000 troops, was already approaching the expected battlefield. The for^u'ardmost Russian detachments had fought several running skirmishes with the advancing Tatars. Now only a tinyriver,the Smolka, divided the converging annies. So it was that Dmitiy and Bobrok surveyed Kulikovo Field and made their preparat ions for the battle to come on the moming of September 8, Knowing that the favorite Tatar tactic was to move around the flanks of an opposing force and take it from the rear, Dmitry and Bobrok deployed their forces in such

The armor, sword, spear and shield worn by Russian knights in the late 13th or 14th centuries displayed both Eastern and Western influences.

Dmitry's disposition of his forces, with his flanks anchored to rivers or marshland and regiments placed in reserve and ambush, reflected how much the Russians had learned about turning their Tatar enemies' tactics against them.

SEPTEMBER 2005 MaITARY HISTORY 27

The battle began with Russian warrior monk Aieksandr Peresvet fighting Tatar Temirmurza Chelubei, depicted in The Duel, by Mikhail Avilov. The champions killed each other, but Peresvet was declared the victor because his corpse remained in the saddle.

the Russian deployment. According to Rus.sian Orthodox Christian beliefs, September 8 coincided with the birthday of the Virgin Mother, and a priest walked up and down the Russian ranks imploring the troops to be worihy of the occasion. Shortly after 10 a.m., a solid wall of Tatar cavalry appeared on the field. Denied the opportunity to encircle the Russian deployment, the Golden Hor de also deployed in linear- formation. The center of the Tatar line was occupied by Genoese mercenary pikemen and dismounted tribesmen, Tatar cavalry coveied their flanks, and a strong detachment of cavalry was kept in reserve. Aixjund 11 a.m. following a ritualistic duel between two horsemen, the Tatars opened the battle by shooting a volley of an'ows that darkened the sky, then surged forward. The Russian scout force and Forward Regiment were severely pressed by the Genoese and their long pikes, supplemented by dismounted Tatars. After a short period of pushing and shoving, the Russians began to give way. Some Russian aixhcrs, however, managed to bting down several ofthe front-rank Genoese pikemen, and the Russian infantry got in among them. In the melee that ensued, the swords and war axes of the Russians began to exact a heavy toll on the Genoese, whose pikes became a liabilit>' in close combat. The Russian success did not last long, however, as fresh waves of Tatars swung the advantage back in iVlamais favor. After almost an hour of fighting, the survivors of the Forward and scout units were pushed back onto the Grand Regiment. The Tatar warriors charged headlong to close with the Russian main body, while

2B MILnAKV HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

their archers showered the tight Russian formations with an'ows. The fight became a vicious brawl. Fallen wounded were crushed underfoot, men slipped on grass slick with blood, and horses stumbled over piles of bodies.

A

TTI l-\T CRITICAL moment. Prince Dmitry himself went down under a fresh rush of Tatars. Instead of discouraging the Russian forces, however, this only strengthened their resolve. On the right flank. Prince Andrey of Ryazan, a noblemen w ho had renounced Prince Oieg's alliance to the Golden Horde, slowly began to gain giound. He personally led a small band of his mounted retainers in a mad charge that drove the enemy back. From his observation post on top of Krasny Hill, Mamai became eni^agcd to see some of his troops retreat. AiTJund 2 p.m., he sent in his last reserves in an attempt to overwhelm the Russian left wing and break into the Russian tear. As the fresh Tatar forces crashed into the exhausted Russians, the Left Regiment slowly began to give way. For- the first time in the cour-se ofthe battle, the Grand Regiment was in r^eal danger of being sun'ounded. At that time, both ofthe Belozer-sk princes fell in battle. The small Russian reserve detachment was brought forward but could not restore the situation. The fight continued, with the Russian left wing being slowly pushed back onto the Gr"and Regiment. As it often happens, the side that hoards the last reserves wins the day At that crucial time, the Russian Ambush Regiment attacked from its position in the Dubrava Wood, taking the Tatars in their right

flank and rear. The fresh Russian horsemen, bent on revenge for the carnage that had unfolded before their eyes, gave no quarter. The remnants of the Grand Regiment under Prince Gleb, who assumed command after Dmitr> fell, rushed forward, trapping fleeing Tatars between them and the cavalry. After another hour of savage fighting, the Tatars finally gave way and began to retreat in earnest. Some of them tried to rally and make a stand at Mamai's camp but wer-e quickly overrun by jubilant Russian troops. Mamai, screaming with rage, abandoned his camp and followed the survivor's in retreat. Back on the corpse-strewn battlefield. Prince Vladimir launched a desperate effort to find Dmitrv. Twice, fallen noblemen resembling the grand prince were discovered and word spread of his death. That feeling of despair ultimately turned to widespread joy, however, when Prince Dmitry was finally found alive. He was covered in blood fi'om a head wound, but his helmet bad absorbed the blow—he had been knocked unconscious rather than seriously wounded. Dmitry s personal standard with the image of Christ the Savior was hoisted high amid the exhausted but jubilant Rirssian troops. After a shoit pursuit, the Russian cavalry' retumed to the battlefield. It was a Pyrrhic victory, with more than 3,000 Russians lying dead and roughly the same number wounded. Because of the large number of casualties, seven days had to be spent at the battlefield resting, tending the wounded and burying the dead. Disproportionate to the overall Russian casualties was the butcher's bill of their leaders, who had fought at the forefront throughout the battle, with 15 princes killed. Tatar dead numbered roughly the same as the Russians, but the wounded they left on the field received no mercy from the victors. King Jogaila was still a day's march away when he received news of Mamai's defeat, at which point he lumed around and retired to Lithuania, laying waste to Russian lands as he passed. As Dmitry's detachments began returning to their homes, several small units were set upon and destroyed by retreating Lithuanians and Prince Oieg's forces, who until then had showed no activity. The biutai nature of the civil war was clearly demonstrated when at least two wagon trains of Dmitry's Russian wounded were

massacred by Oieg's Ryazanians and Jogaila's Kievan and Belorussian troops.

U

PON RETURNIN'G to his base of operations, Mamai began to gather another anny to take revenge on the upstart Russians. Significant number's of his troops who were dispereed after the Battle of Kulikovo rejoined him and provided the backbone of his new force. Before he had time to assemble his new horde, however, Mamai was attacked and defeated in 1381 by his Tatar rival. Khan Tokhtamysh. Accompanied by just a few followers, Mamai escaped to Crimea to seek shelter with his recent backers, the Genoese, Now carried in the liability portion of their ledger, Mamai was quietly murdered by his former allies in Kaffa, present-day Feodosiya. Dmitry died on May 19, 1389, nine years after the victory on the Don River, for whieh he forever became known as Dmitr\' Donskoi. While the immediate military-political gains of victory on Kulikovo Field were minimal, it gave a huge boost to Russian national pride and identity. Even though the Tatar yoke would not be thrown off for another century, the Russian people now r ecognized that their liberation was only a matter of time. MH

A 17th-century Russian depiction of Kulikovo. Although the Golden Horde, under Tokhtamysh, would sack Moscovk/ VMO years later, its first defeat in open battle against the Muscovites set a precedent for its decline and fall-and earned its victor the honorary sobriquet of Dmitry Donskoi.

Slierwood, Ore.-based writer Victor Kamenir specializes in Russian histoiy. For further reading, he recom-

mends The Mongols and Russia, by George Vemadsky: and Russia and the Golden Horde, by Charles Halperin. SEPTEMBER 2005 MrLITAKV HISTORY 29

7

1

Dougla5 MacArthur'5 Last Triumph Conducted against great odds, the September 1950 amphibious landings at Inchon rehabilitated the U.S. military's tarnished post-World War II image. BYJIMDORSCHNER

ouglas MacArthur's admirers and detractors alike admitted to his uncanny predilection for vietory, never so evident than at his landing at Inchon in the Korean War, code-named "Oper-ation Chromite." The Inchon landing offered the promise of relieving battered United Nations defenders on the Pusan Perimeter, soundly defeating the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) and rapidly ending the Korean War. Unfortunately for him, those hopes proved ephemeral during the brutal winter of 1950-51, as U.N. fortunes were reversed by a massive, elearly telegraphed Chinese inteii/ention, triggered in part by MaeArthur's single-minded pursuit of a final triumph at the Yalu River Instead of celebrating a solid victory in the late fall of 1950, U.N. forces found themselves once again desperately fighting for sumval. After MacAithur slipped from the stage, relieved of command, the bitter: unpopular war he might have won in 1950 dragged on in a grinding stalemate until July 1953, with the face-saving but inconclusive armistice that remains in effect today North Korea's invasion of the south on June 25, 1950, caught the United States ut-

Left: With Vought F4U-4S providing air support, the commander in chief of United Nations forces in Korea watches his troops land behind the bulk of the North Korean army, in Douglas MacArthur at Inchon, by Mike Gnatek. Right: Amphibious craft make their way toward the beach [©Corbis].

terly unprepared, and as a result its leaders did not develop clear war aims in the months of desperate combat that followed. From the time he first conceived of an amphibious landing to fall on the North Korean rear, however, MacArthur anticipated destroying the NKPA in the process, advancing into North Korea itself and reuniting the countrv under Syngman Rhee's government in a liberated Seoul. Those views were not shared by President Harry Truman's administration in Washington. The White House and Pentagon I'emained focused on the immediate threat in South Kor'ea and on marshaling sufficient resources to credibly combat North Kor'ea. Little thought was given to larger strategic goals and objectives, other than a recognized desire to extricate American forces from Korea as quickly and completely as possible. Even at MacArthur's own Far East Command headquarters in Tokyo, little thought was given to alms beyond halting the enemy advance and retaking Seoul. Consequently, he was left to do the strategic thinking largely unimpeded, and his views— and will—prevailed. Only on the question of advancing into North Korea and reuniting the peninsula was there any strong resistance or real debate among MacArthur's masters in Washington, and then only largely after the fact. As far as the supreme commander was concerned, there would be an amphibious landing in the vicinity of Inchon to slice off, halt, isolate and destroy the NKPA, coordinated with a breakout from the Pusan

Right: From left foreground. Brig. Gen. Courtney Whitney, General MacArthur and Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond observe the shore bombardment of Inchon from aboard the command ship Mt McKinley on September 15,1950. Below: Members of the 5th Marine Regiment climb out of their landing craft and onto the sea wall at Inchon.

Perimeter by its defender's. Seoul would be liberated and the South Korean govemment restored, followed by the invasion and occupation of North Korea. As the aggressor, North Korean premier Kim Il-Sung espoused war aims that were fairly simple and straightforward: Defeat the "puppet" Republic of Korea (ROK) forces before any tangible American combat power could be brought to beai*, and occupy the entire Korean Peninsula in order to legitimize Communist political control. Attaining those goals depended on swift militaiy success, followed by Soviet and Chinese political recognition and Western acquiescence. However, the Achilles' heel of the North Korean plan, the need to overpower South Korea quickly, became apparent to MacArthur very early on as the NKPA stalled on the Pusan Perimeter and exposed its vulnerable real" to a decisive counterblow.

The military forces that the United States expected to take on and defeat North Korea in 1950 were numerically a fraction of their size in 1945, but they were organized in the same way, equipped with the same weapons and employed the same doctrine. On paper both U.S. Army and Marine divisions consisted ol a core oi three infantn regiments of three battalions each, with supporting aililler>; armor, engineers and specialist trxiops. In reality, U.S. combat forces were drastically understrength and ill-equipped, and most Army soldiers were poorly trained draftees. Massive coordinated firepower and mechanization remained the centerpieces of American tactical doctrine. Indeed, throughout the summer of 1950, as mor-e American divisions were fed into the Pusan meat giinder, it was largely the brute force of artillery and air power that checked the North Koreans. The NKPA was purpose-built and bountifully equipped by the

Having secured the island of Wolmi-do, members of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, collect North Korean prisoners for transport to the mainland at Inchon for medical attention and interrogation (National Archives).

Soviet Union for the sole mission of presenting the West with a fait accompli. An armored shock attack was expected to quickly overwhelm the fledgling ROK army, followed by a drive to the southern tip of Korea. The NKPA's spearhead consisted of a btigade of T-34/85 lanks and massed artillery' led by experienced Korean veterans of World War II Red Ar-my campaigns. The NKPA was designed to caiTy out an inflexible plan with a limited objective and was generally successful until it lost the initiative outside Pusan. By late July, the NKPA was concentrated

aroirnd the Pusan Perimeter, fully engaged in desperate combat with Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker's Eighth Army. Never having planned to fight a protracted conflict, the NKPA was handicapped by a logistical tail that stretched all the way back to Manchuria, under regular U.N. air interdiction.

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^ eneral MacAithur conceived of a bold amphibious envelop1 ment through the western coastal port of Inchon in the first days after the Noith Korean invasion—even while his staff and Washington gloomily confronted the prospect of defeat. From the beginning he visualized a Marine assault force with a follow-on Anny division, and by eaiiy July he was requesting the specialized forces requir"ed fi"om the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington. The first hastily drafted Inchon plan. Operation Blueheart, was developed by the ad hoc Joint Strategic Plans and Operations Group (JSPOG) under Colonel Donald Galloway in Tokyo, but it was canceled on July 12 due to deteriorating conditions outside Pusan, MacArthur remained intent on the concept, however, and on August 15 he directed newly arrived Maj. Gen. Clark Ruffner to take charge of JSPOG planning for an invasion to occur in midSeptember The date was detennined by the prediction of acceptable tides at Inchon. As forces were identified to take part in the landing, they were hastily trained where possible. The ArTny's 7th Infantry Division was given rudimentar'y amphibious training, while in Japan, the land forxe headquarters, the instantly created X Corps conducted an inten.se three-day commandpost exercise of the invasion and breakout just days before embar king for Korea. Marines assembling from around the world or engaged in combat in Pusan had little or no opportunity for specific training for the new operation. Marshaling capable forces, particularly amphibious assault elements, was perhaps the most challenging aspect of Chromite. At the time, the entire Marine Corps strength was only 74,279 men on duty around the world, and while there were officially two Marine divisions, it required a herculean effort for the corps to muster even a partial one for Chromite. On July 2, MacArthur asked the JCS for a Marine regimental combat team (RCT). The next day he requested 1,200 landing craft operators, and on the 5th he requested an engineer amphibious special brigade. That same day the 1st Marine Pro\isional Brigade was formed around the 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif., which sailed for Japan on the 14th. During intense negotiations with Washington, MacArthur finally obtained comSEPTEMBER2005 MILITARY'HISTORY 33

Members ofthe 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, niop up on Wo!nii-do. Although the island's seizure secured the mouth of Inchon Harbor by 0750 hours, the main invasion force had to wait until late afternoon, when the tide was high enough to move toward the mainland.

mitments for the two regiments then available from the 1st Marine Division, with the addition ofthe 1st Marine Regiment and supporting arms. A full division was eventually authorized by stripping Marine security guards from American embassies and a battalion from the Mediterranean, and by calling up the entire Marine Reserves. Despite such efforts, the 1st Division's third regiment, the 7th Marines, arrived too late for Chromite. Initially the Army's 1st Cavalry Division was designated for Blueheart, but after that plan was scrapped the division was rushed into Pusan. The 2nd Infantiy Division was later pegged for Chromite before it too was thrown into Pusan. That left only the theater reserve, the 7th Infantry Division in Japan, which itself was denuded of officers, NCOs and specialists to fill out understrength divisions in Korea. After August 1, however, all Army combat replacements arriving from the United States were ordered diverted to the 7th, and these included highly qualified training cadre from the infanti"y and artilleiT schools with significant World War II experience. As a measure of the desperate need for manpower in 1950, though, MacArthur ordered on August 1 that the division befilledout with 8,000 untrained Koreans pressed into service from among thousands of refugees crowded into the Pusan Perimeter. Sealift was another significant hurdle. While the U.S. Navy had large number's of specialized amphibious vessels left over from World War IT, most were in mothballs, without crews and 34 MILrTARY HISTORV SEPTEMBER 2005

without the benefit of regular maintenance. To satisfy MacArthur's requirements the Navy hastily recommissioned ships with scratch crews, including reservists, civilian merchant sailors and even locally recruited Japanese. Of the 47 LSTs (landing ships, tank) that departed Kobe, Japan, on September 10 to support the operation, 37 were manned by Japanese crews. On many of the invasion ships essential equipment and machinery had been stripped out, including radios, electrical systems, pumps, hydraulics and even galleys. Along with all the other deficiencies facing the Far East Command, no headquarters existed that was capable of commanding the landing force. On August 21, MacArthur requested and received permission to activate the X Corps h'om among existing assets in the theater. He selected his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, to command the corps and Maj. Gen. Ruffner, from JSPOG, to serve as the corps chief of staff. The X Corps staff was formed out of the Far East Command staff and proved notably competent once on the ground in Korea. 'hile MacArthur was determined to execute the Inchon operation from early July 1950, he faced considerable opposition and dissension in Washington and from among his own staff and commanders in Tokyo and Korea. The JCS was skeptical about the operation's viability, partly over the choice of Inchon and the short timetable, but mostly due to the opera-

tion's voracious appetite for scarce resources and forces. During the release of his best combat formation. Finally, in a complex a long late-afternoon meeting at MacArthur's Tokyo headquar- arrangement that put a regiment hum the 7th Infantry Division ters on July 23, he tentatively prevailed over the concerns of aboard ships in Pusan Harbor as a floating reserve. Walker Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins and Chief of agreed to its release on September 6. On the 12th the troops fiNaval Operations Admiral Forrest Sherman, sent out by the JCS nally sailed from Pusan to join their division off Inchon. The 1 st to ascertain the state of affairs. While supporting the concept Marine Regiment and the rest of 1st Marine Division sailed in principle, they pressed for a landing at Kunsan, much far- from Kobe on the 12th, while the 7th Division, minus the regither south on the west coast. ment floating off Pusan, sailed from Yokohama the same day. While the invasion fleet muddled its way through the remains The next day MacArthur confronted the unanimous objections of his Navy and Marine commanders, who were anxious of two tropical storms, naval air and gunfire support ships preabout the extreme tides at Inchon, mudbanks along the ap- pared the Inchon landing site on September 13. As a deceptive proach, shipping inadequacies, the short timeline to train and prepar e, the hazards of conducting an amphibious assault into an urban area and the paucity of personnel to conduct the assault. Once again MacAithur prevailed, partly due to a strong show of support for his subordinates' needs and concerns. That evening, in a teleconference with Washington, MacArthur gained JCS approval for a two-regiment Marine division, and the 1st Marine Division was alerted to deploy from the American West Coast. MacArthur's problems with selling the operation's \iability and obtaining full authorization were far from over, however. On August 6, Averell Harriman anived in Tokyo as the personal envoy of President Truman, accompanied by Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, the Army deputy chief of staff for operations, and General Lauris Norstad, Air Force vice chief of staff, expressing further doubts from Washington. On Aitgust 23, General Collins and Admiral Sherman retLrrned to get yet another update. The next day Sherman met with Navy and Marine commanders to Soldiers of the Republic of Korea CROK] army prepare to disembark at hear their continuing concerns. Lieutenant General Inchon and join the march to liberate their capital of Seoul. Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., senior Marine in the Far East, then led them into a meeting with MacArthur to appeal for an alternate landing site. When MacArthur would tactic, the battleship USS Missouri bombarded likely invasion not waiver, his Navy and Marine commanders fully committed sites along the east coast before joining the main force off Inchon. themselves to the Inchon landing. On August 26, MacAithur assigned the name Chromite to the actual landing on September 15 seemed almost anticlioperation, and on the 28th he received JCS approval to pro•i mactic. As predicted by intelligence, Inchon proved only ceed—or so he thought. On September 7, the JCS balked again lightly defended. According to plan, at 0625 hours the 3rd Batin reaction to further deterioration in the situation around talion, 5th Marines, accompanied by nine M-46 Pershing tanks, Pusan and the possible necessity to reinforce Walker. They re- assaulted the island of Wolmi-do, a preliminary objective in minded MacArthur that Chromite required all his reserves, that Inchon Harbor. By 0750, the island had been secured. At that it would be another four months before recently activated Na- point, in a surreal intermission, the primary assault forces tional Guard divisions could arrive and that the dreaded Korean waited in their ships for the necessary high tides. winter loomed. After a suspenseful night, Tmman finally apFinally, at 1645 the landing craft carrying the 1 st Marines and proved the operation on the 8th, and the JCS concurred. the rest of the 5th Marines crossed their lines of departure. At Although it was now approved, MacArthur's prospects for a 1733 the 5th Marines assaulted the sea wall by charging up smooth execution of the operation remained dim all through bamboo ladder's hastily constructed by Japanese wor'kei^s prior the run-up to D-day, set for September 15. A major hirrdle was to their embarkation. By midnight, the key high ten"ain of the extraction of the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade from Cemetery Hill and Obseivation Hill were in Marine hands. By combat in the front lines outside Pusan. The brigade had been 0130, all D-day objectives had been met. As dawn broke at 0548 diverted directly into Pusan on July 29 after initially setting sail on the 16th, prowling Marine Vought F4U-4 Corsairs jumped to Japan to prepare for Inchon. Five weeks later the Marines six North Korean T-34 tanks on the Seoul highway and deremained in combat, and General Walker adamantly refused to stroyed three, for the loss of one Corsair. The remaining T-34s release them for fear of cr'eating a gap in his already weak de- were destroyed later that day by advancing Marine Pershings. fenses. MajorGeneralOliverP. Smith, the 1st Marine Division's By noon, the 1st Marine Division controlled all high ground commander; had been in Tokyo since August 22, pleading with east of the city, thus preventing North Korean artillery fire ftom whomever would listen, including MacArthur and Almond, for reaching the beachhead area, and the first 7th Division elements SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORV 35

ad hoc division for its primary mission, a strategic amphibious assault on a defended shore. The Navy was forced to hastily pull LSTs from mothballs and man them with Japanese crews, while the U.S. Air Force stripped the Air National Guard of World War II veteran North American F-51D Mustang fighters and pilots in order to provide basic close air support. Underlying those two factor's in Chromite's ultimate success was the less glamorous phenomenon of superb staff work behind the scenes at Far East Command, in JSPOG, within the scratch-built X Corps and particularly the dedicated Nav\' and Marine staffs of Admiral Doyle and General Smith. Finally, as with most successful military endeavors, there was a great deal of luck involved.

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or the North Koreans, Inchon was emblematic of the weakness behind its whole scheme to unify Korea. All their hopes of quick success were dashed on Marines take a breather amid the rubble resulting from the preliminary bdmljyrdment of the jur>'-rigged U.N. defense outside Pusan. Inchon sealed their fate. NonetheInchon, which was lightly defended by North Korean troops. When those soldiers were less, Norih Korea had nearly succeeded. taken by surprise, Inchon's swift fall to MacArthur's troops was almost anticlimactic. It bargained on a lack of will, interest and capability on the part of the United arrived in the harbor. By 1800, the 1st Marine Division tactical States. Given the signals emanating from Washington, and conheadquarters was established ashore and General Smith as- sidering the state of the U.S. military at the time, its analysis sumed command of operations from Rear Adm. James H. was justified. But North Korea underestimated U.S. prospects Doyle, the amphibious group commander By nightfall, the 5th for mounting so determined a reaction, and it could not have predicted a U.N.-sponsored Allied effort that ultimately involved Marines contr oiled the Seoul highway. At first light on the I7th, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, en- forces from 16 nations. North Korea gambled and lost. gaged and destroyed a further six T-34s. By that evening the 5th Oper^ation Chromite did not introduce any (imdamentally new Marines had seized the southern portion of Kimpo air-field, a aspects to the art of war. Rather, the operation served to r einfor ce major objective on the outskirts of Seoul. The next day, the third traditional lessons, such as the importance of maintaining trained since landing, the 5th Marines secured Kimpo and advanced to and ready forces to deter" aggression or confront a contingency, the Han River, seizing Hill 99 on the way. That afternoon the the priceless value of sure-footed staff work, and the tangible first Marine Corsair landed at Kimpo to begin close support op- benefits of innovation, Ilexibility and individual resourcefulerations. By nightfall on the 19th, the 5th Marines had joined ness—all qualities on which Americans pride themselves. with ROK marines for an assault crossing of the Han to begin MacArthur identified a strategic opportunity, managed to the attack on Seoul itself. cobble together forces to execute a plan and then permitted his Back in Inchon, the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Infantiy, 7th Divi- commanders and troops to pull it off. The Inchon invasion was sion, was ashore and relieved the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, undoubtedly the right course of action at that junctur"e in the along the Seoul highway. The landing and breakout phase was fighting and it opened up numerous options for how, when and effectively over; Next came the liberation of Seoul and the linkup where to actually end the war. That MacArthur and the adminwith the Eighth Army, which had broken out of Pusan and istration in Washington subsequently failed to secur*e the harddriven pell-mell north up the peninsula. Operation Chromite won victory illustrates the danger of military actions out of sync with broader political realities. MH was over: Mission accomplished. Two decisive and interrelated factors shaped the operation's outcome. Thefirstwas MacArthur's faith, persistence and talent Jim Dorschner is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. The in selling the concept, not only to Washington but also to the author oj several official Anny histories, he serx'ed as a special doubters within his own command. The second was the United correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly and has also authored States' ability to quickly marshal appropriate forces in a highly articles in a variety of publications. For further reading, try: Years constrained environment. By 1950, a single U.S. Army division of MacAithur, Vol. 3, by D. Clayton James; Inchon Landing, defended all of Europe from more than 100 Soviet divisions. by Michael Langley; and The Secrets of Inchon, by Eugene The Marine Corps had to scour the world to come up with an Franklin Clark. 36 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

c^isnce m the B^tfe of (Morth f ^ l on Se{«iem!^r n (Ansfe SX

After bungling their defense of Washington in August 1814, American militiamen showed their worth at North Point and Fort McHenry a month later. BY CHRISTOPHER! GEORGE

he militia riflemen of Captain Edward Aisquith's company wiped sweat from their eyes with the sleeves of their fuchsia-trimmed green uniforms as they scanned the road beyond the wooden bridge spanning the eastern branch of the Potomac River It was a blazing hot August 24, 1814, and Aisquith's men and some 6,000 other militiamen behind them had the awesome responsibility of defending their capital, Washington, fi'om a British invasion force that had landed at Benedict on Maryland's Patuxent River five days earlier. A cheer rose from the 5th Mainland Regiment in the orchard behind, and as the riflemen watched in horror. President James Madison and his entourage thundered past the forward skirmish line—and directly toward the soon-to-appear British. A scout yelled for the president to tum back, and Madison, looking somewhat ridiculous with a pair of pistols strapped to his waist, tumed his horse and galloped back up the hill to find the commander of the 10th District, Brig. Gen. William Winder. The 39-year-old Winder was a distinguished Maryland attorney in civilian life whose limited military experience included being captured during one of several unsuccessful American attempts to invade Canada, at Stony Creek, on June 5, 1813. Exchanged in the spring of 1814, the general owed his current command to Madison's desire to please his uncle. Levin Winder, the Federalist governor of Maryland. At about noon, a cloud of dust rose from the south, kicked up by columns of British soldiers tramping down the dirt road toward the bridge and beyond it the town of Bladensburg, Md.

Though their scarlet uniforms were stained with dust and sweat, the midday sun shone on their gleaming brass shako helmet plates, as well as on their muskets and bayonets. There were some 4,500 Redcoats in all, with the 85th Light Regiment in the lead, followed by the 44th, 4th and 21st regiments of foot, two battalions of Royal Marines, accompanied by sailors pulling one 6-pounder cannon and two 3-pounders, and Royal Marines forming a rocket brigade, armed with CongiTve rockets. The British commander, 48-year-old Dublin-bom Maj. Gen. Robert Ross, who had earned a reputation for courage leading the 20th Regiment at Maida in 1806 and more recently served as a brigade commander under Aithur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, on the Spanish Peninsula, studied the American dispositions through his telescope. He obser\'ed that the defenders were strongly posted on a high hill on the opposite side of the river, their right flank resting on the high road to Washington, with breastworks, a six-cannon battery in their center, a large wood with entrenchments on their left and a small, narrow bridge over the river, on which only three men abreast could pass at once. The Americans opened fire as the British descended the hill, and Colonel William Thornton of the 85th, another Irishman known for his dash and daring, led an attempt to storm the bridge. American cannon and rifle fire broke up the assault.

With most of Washington's defenders in full retreat Commodore Joshua Barney's U.S. Marine battery makes The Final Stand at Bladensburg, in Colonel Charles Waterhouse's painting.

however, farcing the British to take Colonel William Wood took over, but cover among the nearby houses, leavwas also severely wounded. General ing the bridge strewn with their dead Ross then took charge of the 85th, and and dying comrades. the pursuit continued. The Americans let out a loud cheer, Suddenlv a blast of grapeshot from but meanwhile the Royal Marine another batten' felled Redcoats like rocket brigade had set up their launchninepins, Commodore Joshua Barney ers near a warehouse. Loading sticks and his U.S. Marine battery of three with 3-foot-long warheads into the naval 18-pounders and three lighter angled tubes, the marines lit the fuses licldpieces had anived late for the and ran for cover. Moments later, the battle, but lost no time in taking up a rockets arced over the river in snaking position on the District line, supported swirls of smoke, as the inexperienced to the right and left by District of CoU.S. militia watched in awe. Some lumbia and Maryland militia units. Not showed panic. Winder assured them under Winder's orders to retreat, the that the new weapon was harmless, 120 Marines and 300 sailors held the but he also advised President Madison British at bay for neariy half an hour. to move back. Then Ross led the 85th off the road to the left and outflanked the Americans. For the fourth U.S. president, who A skiiTnisher shot Bamey's horse dead, had probably come to Bladensburg and Ross attacked a company of believing he would act as commander Brigadier General John Strieker led his 3rd Maryland militia on the commodore's in chief, as stated in the Constitution, "City" Brigade down Patapsco Neck to confront right. Bamey later lamented that those it must have been a humbling experi- the British at North Point militiamen "to my great mortification, ence. Madison was an intellectual with made no resistance, giving a fire or a subtle undei^tanding of the document in whose drafting he had played an instrumental role, but iwo and retiring." Charles Bali, an African-American cook he was no military leader. "Let us go and leave it to the com- acting as an artilleryman, recalled that the militia "ran like manding general," he told his entourage. The presidential party sheep chased by dogs." moved some distance back and let events unfold. Bamey's ammunition drivers fled, and a number of his offiAnd unfold they did. Led by Thomton, RedcoaLs of the 4th cers were killed or wounded, including the commodore himand 44th regiments charged over the bodies of their comrades self, severely wounded by a musket ball in his thigh. The Battle and across the bridge. Thornton's horse was knocked over by a of Bladensburg was over. round shot, bul ihe colonel picked himself up and waved his Taken prisoner, Bamey was introduced to General Ross and saber for his troops lo follow. Even as he did, the opposing mili- Rear Adm. George Cockbum, who pronounced his name "Cotia was breaking and running. The American artillery too had bum." "Oh," said Bamey, "cock-bum is what you're called herefallen silent as gun crews limbered their 6-pounders. Among the abouts. Well, Admiral, you've got me at last." officers who abandoned their positions was Francis Scott Key, The commodore was referring to months of cat-and-mouse a lawyer from Georgetown, Md., then serving in the Georgetown Light Field Ar^^ tillery. Key and Secretary of -^' La|or VJeneraJ ^omninnoolore ayoslti State (and future president) L e "was paroled an A e conveyeJ to any place James Monroe had altered troop positions, countercliose tlie tavern an JD! manding Winder's orders, moving the 5th Mainland behind the orchard, where its soldiers could not clearly see the onrushing enemy. action on the Patuxent between his brave little band of boats The 5th Maryland troops, in their blue uniforms with red and Cockbum's Royal Nav>' squadron, which had ended on trim, maintained continuous platoon fire, but the British ad- August 22 when Bamey ordered his trapped flotilla blown up. vancing through the orchard were firing with impunity on the "I regret to see you in this state. Commodore," Cockbum said. Americans. Winder issued the order for a general retreat, then After the two British commanders briefly conferred, Ross told scribbled a note to the president and his party, now some dis- Bamey he was paroled and would be conveyed to an\ place he tance to the rear, urging them to leave the battlefield. wished. Bamey chose the tavem in Bladensburg. Winder hoped to re-form his militia into a second line along Because they had no cavalry, the British were unable to follow the Washington road, pending the arrival of reinforcements, but up on the debacle that wags would later dub the "Bladensburg the Marylanders, unaware that any help was coming, mostly Races." Their casualties numbered 249, while the Americans lost fled down the Georgetown road, chased by the 44lh Regiment. only 50 dead and wounded. In consequence, however. President As he led the British along the road to Washington, Colonel Madison's worst fears would be realized. Ross and his troops enThomton fell with a musket ball in one thigh. Lieutenant tered Washington at 8 p.m. and, allegedly in retaliation for the

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SEPTEMBER 2D05 MILITARY HISTORV

American burning of York in British Upper Canada (now Toronto, Ontario) in April of the previous year, they bumed the city's public buildings, including the Capitol and the president's mansion. Inspired to overconfidence by the humiliation he had inflicted on the U.S. capital. General Ross now planned to move on Baltimore, which he and his comrades had labeled "a nest of pirates." The day-long occupation of Washington was a powerful gesture, but Baltimore offered the prospect of plunder if it capitulated. However, as the British reboarded their troop transports and headed up the bay to the city on the Patapsco River in the opening days of September, Ross and Cockbum failed to reckon on a better-organized militia and the resolve of two key men in Baltimore—Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith and U.S. Navy Commodore John Rodgers. Rodgei"s had just arrived from trying to harass the Royal Navy on the Potomac, while Smith had recently won a behind-the-scenes tussle with Winder, the defeated genei^al at Bladensburg, to command Baltimore's defenses. The Revolutionan' War veteran was backed both by new acting Secretary of War James Monroe and Maryland Governor Levin Winder. As the British fleet hove into sight off the Patapsco on Sunday,

to advance when the 21 st Regiment and four 6-pounders were on shore. It was another hot day Brooke recorded in his diary that men were falling "in their twenties" and had to be got under the shade of trees to prevent their suffering sunstroke. Ross and Cockbum enjoyed breakfast at the Goi^uch house, about five miles from the landing site. Asked by Robeit Gorsuch if they would be back for dinner, the general reporiedly remarked, "I'll sup in Baltimore tonight—or Hell!" While at the farm, Ross questioned three captured light dragoons who informed him that there were 20,000 men defending the city. The actual total was nearer 16,000, but neither statistic would have mattered to Ross, who remarked dismissively, "But they are mainly militia, 1 presume?" On being told that was the case, he snapped, "I don't care if it rains militia!" Because the prisoners only mentioned defenders in the Baltimore entrenchments some eight miles ahead, Ross apparently did not realize that Brig. Gen. John Strieker's 3rd "Cit\" Brigade was much closer, having advanced down Patapsco Neck fi'om Baltimore the previous evening. The misleading intelligence undoubtedly contributed to the incident that followed. Strieker had first learned of the British landings at 7 a.m. that day and obtained more intelligence from the 1st Baltimore Hussars. In his report to General Smith on September 15, Strieker stated that he had felt "insulted" that "the enemy in small force was enjoying himself at Gorsuch's farm," While lining up his 3,185-man brigade to engage the British, he pushed two companies of the 5th Maryland—the Independent Blues and the Mechanical Volunteers—as well as Captain Aisquith's rifle company, some cavalry and a 4-pounder gun forward toward the Gorsuch farm. At about 1:30 p.m., Ross was riding ahead with his light troops through an area that Colonel Brooke later described in his dispatch as "closely wooded" such that "the enemy's riflemen were enabled to conceal themselves." Suddenly firing broke out. Lieutenant G.G. MacDonald, an officer fiom HMS Dioniede. stated: "The General pulled up his horee for the puipose of ordering the Troops immediately into Battle airay and, whilst in this act, hereceivedarifleball in his bridle arm entering his body. He instantly fell, and I not being far off, happened to be called with 12 of my men to take the General down to [the] beach...." At 1:30 p.m. on September 12, Maj. Gen. Robert Ross was mortally wounded George Robert Gleig, a second lieutenant in the in a skirmish with members of the 5th Maryland Regiment an incident that had 85th Regiment, recorded in his diar\': "We saw the profound consequences for the entire British offensive. General lying by the side of the road. There were five English soldiers and three Yankees near him." The dead Americans were Henry Gough McComas and Daniel September 11, Rodgers ordered ships sunk in the channel beWells, aged 18 and 19, respectively, privates in Aisquith's rifle tween Fort McHenr\' and Lazaretto Point, thus blocking the passage into the city's harbor. At 4 a.m, on September 12, some company who had previously fought at Bladensburg, and 244,000 British troops and 300 Royal Navy sailors in a naval year-old Aquilla Randall of the Mechanical Volunteers. Any of brigade began to land at North Point, the southemmost point the soldiers nearby might have shot the British commander, ofthe Patapsco Neck peninsula, about 13 miles from Baltimore, although Baltimore legend later gave the credit to Wells and Mcon the grounds of what is now the Fort Howard Veterans Af- Comas, who were hailed as "The Boy Heroes of 1814." There refairs Medical Center. Ross advanced with his light infantry, leav- mains some doubt as to whether Ross was felled by a rifle bullet ing the Irish-bom commander of his 2nd Brigade, Colonel or by a musket ball and three buckshot. In any case, he died two Arthur Brooke, to superintend the disembarkation, with orders hours later, while MacDonald and his party were carrying him 42 MILITARY HISTOKV SEPTEMBER 2005

,

51st S£0t. retreats atkr 7 firing one voii^ at I Priiish tyoovs.

tofnaltt tine ert Z'30f>.m.

STKICKER

Taking command in Ross' absence, Colonel Arthur Brooke launched a flanking movement by the 4th Regiment of Foot that caused the American left wing to give way. Strieker, however, managed to fall back and regroup.

back to HMS Tonnanl. "I shall never forget the sight, the gloom to the collapse of his left flank but said he was able to rally his of such an appearance cast seeing so gallant an officer dying," remaining men for an hour more to withstand the advancing MacDonald wrote. "These Americans are not to be trifled with." British, musket volley for musket volley. Then, "finding my line, American and British accounts of the Battle of North Point, now 1,400 strong, was insufficient to withstand the superior which began in earnest shortly after Ross was shot, differ numbers ofthe enemy," he wrote, "I was constrained to order greatly. Brooke recorded in his diary that on taking command a movement back" to the reserve 6th Regiment. When the of the British force and finding himself faced with Strieker's British did not follow, Strieker then ordered his men to "fall brigade, "[I] had but little time for thought, knowing nothing of the intentions of the General, and without a single snail n e v e r orget- <, e giooni ol SMcn a n a p p e a r a n c e person to consult with, I seeing so gai ant an oilacer yiing, -wrote JL*aenitenant V]f. determined on an instant attack." The Americans, he to Ibe trifiecl wi 1 Ikese Ammericans are wi ote, were "strongly posted in a wood, and behind a strong paling.. .with SL\ or eight guns, and a flat of about five hundred yards between us." back to Worthington's mill," to which they withdrew "in good Brooke ordered the 1 st Brigade to wheel off the road to the order to receive the enemy on his nearer approach to the city." right and, after extending as far as it could, to form line. The A report published three months after the battle in the Niks' 4th Regiment, under Major Alured Faunce, was to advance Weekly Register claimed that only 24 Americans were killed, with across the swampy ground to theright,by the Back River, and 139 wounded and 50 taken prisoner (some of the wounded were tum the American left flank. prisoners who were exchanged two days after the battle). The The 4th's flanking movement led to confusion in Strieker's British official reports listed 46 troops killed and 295 wounded. 51 st Regiment, which gave way and retreated, along with a few Because his men were exhausted by the battle and the heat, troops of the 39th Regiment. In his report, Strieker admitted Brooke camped on the battlefield. Around midnight, heavy rain SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY A3

began to drench the British troops, who were camping with- tion two miles from Fort McHenry, commencing the bomout tents. The soldiers did what they could to protect the flint- bardment at dawn on September 13. The Americans returned locks of their muskets, wi^apping leather cases around the locks fire, but soon found their shots were falling frustratingly short, or keeping them dry under their elbows. Their greatest fear was while the British bomb ships' 13-inch sea mortars kept up what that the incessant rain would swell their musket stocks and pre- Armistead described as "a constant and tremendous shower of vent firing—a problem that would bedevil the British nine shells." The unequal exchange continued, with the British causmonths later at Waterloo. ing little real damage until 2 p.m., when a 13-inch bomb fell into It was still raining in torrents when the British rose before Bastion No. 3 in the southwest comer of the star-shaped fort, dawn on September 13 and prepared to march the rest of the dismounting a 24-pounder and killing Lieutenant Levi Claggett way to Baltimore. With their general dead, the Redcoats must and Sergeant John Clemm of Captain Joseph H. Nicholson's have faced a dispiriting trudge along the muddy and iTitted Baltimore Volunteer Aitilleiy This success apparently encourroads, especially since the retreating Americans had chopped aged three British bomb ships to close the range, but that only down trees at intervals to impede their progress. At 9 a.m. gave the Americans something easier to shoot at, and the brisk Brooke led his tnen to within two miles of the city trenches, cannon fire soon drove the British away again. before which lay a stretch of open farmland, almost entirely Fort McHenry's garrison hunkered down all day and night cleared of cover. "I then reconnoitered him [the enemy]," while Cochrane tried to reduce the obstinate obstacle. "Four or Brooke wrote in his diary, "and found his left was not so secure, five bombs were frequently in the air at a time," reported Niles' and that by making a night attack, I might gain his flank, and Weekly Register, "and, making a double explosion with the noise get into his rear, so came to a resolution of attacking him in two of the foolish rockets and the firings of the fort.. .created a horcolumns, whilst the third was to make a feint on his right." rible clatter" At 10 p.m. the British sent a picked force under The attack never took place, however, due to events unfold- Captain Charles Napier aboard barges to penetrate the Ferry ing nearby. The Royal Naxjy's bombardment of Fort McHeniy Branch of the river west of the foit. The purpose was to divert was not going as well as anticipated. The fort's commander, Vir- defenders from Hampstead Hill, but they were detected at midginia-bom Major George AiTnistead, had played an active role night by troops manning a battery west of Fori McHenry. In in the capture of Fort George in Upper Canada on May 18, 1813, consequence, the British came under withering fire from Fori and sei'ved at Fort Niagara, N.Y, before carrying British ilags McHenry and its smaller adjuncts. Forts Babcock and Covingcaptured in the campaign to President Madison, who rewarded ton, until 3 a.m., when Napier retired. him by ordering him to "take command of Fort McHenry." On The failure of Napier's operation was the turning point of the his arrival, AiTnistead ordered h'om local flag maker Mary Pick- battle, for it convinced Cochrane to suspend his entire attack. At ersgill "a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty in 4 a.m. Fort McHenry ceased fire, and after a final shelling at 7 a.m. seeing it from a distance." The ordered flag was 42 feet long by on September 14, the British fleet moved downriver while Armis30 feet wide, although during the rain of September 13, as the tead raised his giant flag to bid them a final defiant farewell. AlRoyal Navy approached, they would have seen the smaller though the British had fired between 1,500 and 1,800 projectiles, of which some 400 landed inside the fort, the damage though considerable was not Upon arrival at Fort MclHlenry, Alajor vJeorge Arimisteacl crippling, and American casualties were remarkably l o w orclerecl a flag so large tlkat me JDritiso will no only four killed and 24 injured m seemg it irona a distance. out of 1,000 defenders. Key, who had witnessed the whole spectacle from his truce ship, had been a pacifist storm flag—also ordered from Mrs. Pickersgill—of 25 feet by before the war but had nevertheless shown his patriotism— albeit none too effectively—at Bladensburg. "Then, in that hotir 17 feet, which would have flown during the battle. Eight miles below the fort, Francis Scott Key cooled his heels of deliverance, my heart spoke," he later said. "Does not such a aboard an American vessel under guard by a British wai"ship. country, and such defenders of their countiy, deserve a song?" His friend Dr. William Beanes had been taken prisoner shortly Before the British had fired their last shots, he was writing the after the British departuie from Washington, and Key had gone first lines of a poem that became "The Star-Spangled Banner," to Baltimore to see Colonel John Skinner, the U.S. government's and which, set to the tune of an English drinking song, would prisoner of war exchange agent, to airange for Beanes' release. become the national anthem of the United States in 1931. Sailing down to Chesapeake Bay aboard a truce ship. Skinner For the time being, however. Fort McHenry's stubborn defense and Key met with British commander in chief Vice Adm. Sir had more direct consequences on Baltimore's future. That night Ale.xander Cochrane and General Ross aboard HMS Tonnant Brooke received a note from Admiral Cochrane, indicating his inon September 7, and after some negotiation secured Beanes' re- ability' to offer any assistance. Cochrane ended by saying, "It is for lease. For security reasons, however, Cochrane detained Skin- Colonel Brooke to consider.. .whether he had force sufficient to ner and Key until his Baltimore operation was completed. defeat so large a number as it is said of the enemy have collected, Transferring his flag from Tounanl to the frigate Surprize in within say twenty thousand strong, and to take the town, without order to be closer to the action, Cochrane led 16 ships, including this can be done, it will only be throwing the men's lives away...." Recording his dilemma in his diary, Brooke wrote: "If I took five bomb ships and the rocket-armed sloop Erebus, into posi44 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

While Brooke waited for the fall of Fort McHenry, Rear Adm. George Cockbum was finding that objective a surprisingly tough nut to crack. In spite of the 1,500 to 1,800 projectiles fired at the fort, its defenders lost only four dead and 24 wounded.

the place, I should have been the greatest man in England. If I lost, my militarv character was gone for ever." He discussed the matter with Cockbum. and they decided to begin withdi~awing to the ships before daylight. Emplo\ing the same tactic they had used in their retreat from Washington, the British built fires and stole away into the night. General Smith was later criticized for not launching a full-scale attack on the retreating British. The only blow struck against them was a late harassing cavalry charge that netted a handful of prisoners. Lobbied by his officers to go after the invaders. Smith replied that there was an ancient saying. "Make a bridge for a retreating enemy," in which he found much wisdom. To pit citizens of ihe United States against the "hirelings of Britain," he said contemptuously, was like "staking dollars against cents." Smith, whose father had been an Ulster Presbyterian who had probably suffered under the British land policies in Ireland (which proscribed nonconformists in favor of pei"sons who belonged to the established Church of Ireland), had a low view of the British. He was an admirer of the French and had even named his country house Montebello after Marshal Jean Lannes' victorv' over the Austrians on June 9, 1800. The British departed, bloodied by the experience at Baltimore and hardly the victorious army that had captured Washington only three weeks earlier. General Ross' body was presen'ed in a barrel of mm and shipped to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was buried in St. Paul's graveyard on September 29. The British government subsequently erected a monument to the 30-year veteran of the Napoleonic wars in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Two more were erected in his native Rostrevor. in what is now Northern Ireland—a granite obelisk on the shore of Car-

lingford Lough and a monument in the local Protestant church, subscribed to by members of Ross' old 20th Regiment. Ross' widow requested that the prince regent award the name "Ross of Bladensburg" to the family, in memory of her husband's last victory. The new crest awarded to the family shows an arm rising from a castellated coronet, brandishing a Stars and Stripes with a broken staff. Despite this British crowing, it remains true that at North Point the American citizen-soldiei^s, once they got their act together after the debacle at Bladensburg, taught the British a strong lesson. Arguably no single unit had better shown the difference that experience and leadership could make than the 5th Maryland. Partly through no fault of its own, it had performed poorly at Bladensburg, but it more than redeemed itself at North Point. That unit would add to its laurels over the next 18 decades, and still serves its state and the nation as the 175th Regiment, 29th Infantry Division (Light), Mainland Arniy National Guard. MH A freelance writer from Baltimore, Christopher T. George is the author o/'Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay. He was featured in the recent History Channel special First Invasion: The War of 1812. George wishes to acknowledge Rosemary, Viscountess Brookeborough, and the deputy keeper of records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, for pennission to quote from Colonel Arthur Brooke's diary. For further reading, he recommends Anthony Pitch's The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814,- Walter Lord's The Dawn's Early Light; Neil H. Swanson's The Perilous Fight; and the Smithsonian Instilution Web site "Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 18}2" iwVi'w.si.eduJresourceJfaq/mnali/starflag.htm). SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARV HISTOKV 45

ntam s

46 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

T.o Tree European diplomats teing hela nostage ty Emperor Theodore 11, Sir Robert Napier would nave to take tne motmtain fortress of Magdala— nut getting tkere proved to be more than half the challenge. BY STEPHEN JARVIS

I

t was October 1867. and under the gaze of curious local tribesmen, a small British reconnaissance party disembarked in Annesley Bay, on Afiica's northeast coast. This half-ibrgotten place was to become the starting point for one of the first, and among the most bizarre, "little ware" of the Victorian era. The dispute that would eventually lead to the landing of some 13,000 combat troops, twice as many campfollowei"sand an even greater number of assorted animals centered on the eccentric behavior of Tewodros II, negus, or emperoi; of Abyssinia—known as "Theodore" to the British. Bom Dajazmach Kassa Heyku in 1818, he became provincial govemor of Kouara province and eventually emerged as Abyssinia's predominant feudal ruler. Fired by religious zeal—Abyssinia, or Ethiopia, was a solitary bastion of Coptic Chiistianity in a predominantly Muslim region—he also displayed a genuine desire to modernize a backward society. According to Walter Plowden, British consul to Abyssinia, "he has by his own example. . .discouraged polygamy and concubinage; he has forbidden the Slave Tmde, and has tranquilled the whole country." More ominously, Plowden also related that "he is pereuaded that he is destined to restore the glories of Ethiopian Empire, and to achieve great conquests." Unfortunately for all conccmed, a series of personal tragedies saw this already unstable figure descend steadily into madness. In 1864, when his letter to Queen Victoria seeking to forge closer lies between the two countries went unanswered, Theodore ordered the seizure of the new British representative in Abyssinia, Captain Charles Cameron, and accused Cameron of plotting against him with his Muslim neighbors. Cameron's staff and some 50 assorted Europeans were also rounded up. The king had tweaked the lion's tail. All diplomatic initiatives failed, and now. three years after the incarceration of its subjects and with a new Conservative administration seated in Westminster, Britainfinallytook the first steps toward a military solution to the crisis. On August 19, 1867. the Cabinet under Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, the 14th Earl of Derby, agreed to send an expedition to Abyssinia. That decision, called "a leap in the dark" by the London Times, was certainly not without opposition. Yet in spite of the enormity of the task, the govemment well knew that to back down to Theodore would set a dangerous precedent. Troops were raised from the Indian subcontinent. Geographically and militarily, Bombay was an obvious choice for a staging base—the largest naval station in India, it was situated on the west coast, providing a direct route across the Arabian Sea. The expedition was also fortunate in that the local commander of the Bombay Presidency's army was Sir Robert Comelis Napier, a hero of the 1857 Siege of Lucknow, veteran of the China war of 1860 and one ot the most experienced and able soldiers in the Army of India. Colonel George Lane Cockbum Merewether was dispatched as the govemment's political representative. Just one day after the decision was made to send an expedition, Napier was officially appointed commander in chief. On January 2, 1868, he arrived at Annesley Bay and inspected the base camp that had been established at Zuia, a small village on the bay's westem side. He realized very early on that the precipitous topogi-aphy and extreme climate of the region

Some of the 50 Europeans arrested and thrown in chains by Negus Theodore (Tewodros) II of Abyssinia in 1864, on charges of plotting with his Muslim neighbors against him, await release by either diplomatic or militaiy means. After three years of diplomacy, Britain resorted to force. SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY 47

With nis; ^reat j^uns ii

as if a whole nation had immigrated here, and were about to plant a great city on the fervid beach of Annesley Bay." The journey to Theodore s fortress stronghold at Magdala entailed a toituous march into the Abyssinian heartland. Heading south, the expedition would have to cross 14 miles of barren desert before negotiating a steep pass strewn with rocks and boulders of pure granite, some piled 200 feet high. They would then emerge onto the Abyssinian plateau that cut through the mountains, subjecting man and beast to more temperate days but much colder nights. This 400-mile trek, plus the freeing of the hostages and the trip back, would have to be completed before the heavy summer rains set in. A railway was constructed to ease the hi"st leg of the journey across the desert plain to Kumayli, at the foot of the mountains, where supplies had been steadily accumulating. Along the pass a staging post was set up at Soroo. On JanuaiT 25, Napier decreed that the time was right to advance. A shuttle system was set in motion whereby units leaving Zula were replaced with fresh troops from India. Napier himself set off for Senafe, the expeditions advance base, 8,000 feet high on the highland plateau. Sappers and miners had done a remarkable job in clearing a path through the A veteran of the Indian Mutiny and the 1860 Opium War in Soroo pass; the wide expanse of the open China, Sir Robert Cornelis Napier lent expertise bome of plain greeted his eyes, and the cool, clear experience to the Abyssinian expedition. mountain air came as a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the plain. The advance brigade pushed foi"ward meant that the key to a successful campaign lay in carefully to the next staging post at Guna Guna. thought-out logistics. From the outset Napier insisted on a force of no less than Units from Kumayli took their place. B\ 12,000 Anglo-Indian troops. Selecting them was no mean task— FebiTiary 14, the advance force was al regimental rivalries surfaced with furious behind-the-scenes Antalo and more than halfway to Maglobbying the order of the day. The Indian govemment also dala. On the 18th the main body of pushed for the inclusion of certain units, but Napier held finri, Napier's force set out to join it. As his drawing the main body of his troops from the Bombay Presi- troops began to concentrate, their progdency. This eventually comprised 10 Indian and four British ress inevitably slowed. He ordered a reinfantry battalions, four regiments of Indian cavaln, a squad- duction in the amount of baggage acron of British cavalry and five artillery batteries. Napier also companying each unit. commandeered a naval unit of no more than company strength, Reaching Antalo on March 2, Napier equipped with rockets, from HMS Dryad, anchored off Annes- divided his troops into two divisions, one ley Bay, as well as a company of Royal Engineers. to act as a garrison and to protect his Day by day an enormous supply depot built up. Among the supply lines, the other to press on. To lead large number of press representatives was none other than the vanguard he chose Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Morton Stanley, writing for the New York Herald, who Charles Staveley, who had been based at obsen ed: "Thousands of half-naked coolies were shouting and Zula and whose energy and organizachanting a barbaric song while they worked under as hot a sun tional skills had transformed the camp as ever blazed in the tropics, and hundreds of uniformed su- from a disease-ridden shambles into a perintendants, armed with long courbaches were co-ercing the hive of ordered, healthy activity by the laborers under their charge to work. The braying of hundreds time Napier had arrived in person. Staveof donkeys, the neighing of horses, the whinneying of mules, ley's command numbered about 5,000, and the lowing of thirsty kine, the shrill shriek of two anom- roughly half of which were British and alous locomotives, the noisy roll of rickety cars as they thun- half Indian. In spite of Staveley s best efdered to and fro, caused the scene to appear at first impression forts at trimming the mountains of bag48 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

lituateJ on tne nei^nts or Ma^oaia, Tneodore considered liis position inipre^name.

gage down, his force still comprised more mules than men. Muleteei^ and camp followers swelled the ranks to nearly 8,000. By March 12, troop columns were leaving Antalo at daily intei^als. The speed of advance accelerated on hearing the news that Theodore, who had been campaigning against his numerous local rivals, had returned lo Magdala—and that he had managed to transport his much-vaunted artillery up the steep approach to the fortress itself. Pride of place went to a huge 56-pounder that he quaintly iefened to as "Theodorus." Cannons were prized possessions in such a primitive land, and with his great guns imposingly situated on the heights of Magdala, Theodore considered his position impregnable. Having negotiated with Ras Kassai of Tigi^ to secure safe passage for his troops through that province, Napier made contact with Wagshum Gobazi, Prince of Lasta, at the end of

March. Like his great rival Kassai, Gobazi would have to be treated with the utmost courtesy, but as the princes party approached, nervous British sentries, believing the group was part of an enemy war band, opened fire, and two Abyssinians were killed. This was the sort of incident Napier dreaded, for Goba/i could call upon a vast number of waniors. Fortunately for the \'ulnei"able column, however, once his wrath was assuaged with the prompt payment of compensation Gobazi proved to be accommodating and the British advance continued. At that point, Napier sent a formal demand for surrender to Magdala. His letter went unanswered. Theodore organized his defenses, pi omising gi'eat riches for those who fought well and dire retribution for those who were found wanting. Estimates put his total force at around 10,000 fighting men. They were, according to Lieutenant Henry M. Hozier, equipped with 3,000

Theodore's imperial residence at Magdala. The negus managed to transport his artiilery up its formidable heights, which rose to 10,000 feet in some places.

SEPTEMBER Z005 MILITARY HISTORY 49

:, as now se

of Theodore's position, his "back door" exit, was effectively blocked by local Galla tribesmen eager to assist in the demise of their sworn enemy, Napier issued orders to General Staveley. The division's 1st Brigade under a Brig. Gen. Schneider was to establish a foothold on the spur of the Gumbaji plateau, followed by four companies of sappers who were to clear a path for the baggage train. Colonel Robert Phavre was to carry out a reconnaissance ahead of the main force in order to glean more detailed information on Theodore's position. The cavalry was kept in reserve with A French engraving from L'ltlustration depicts the British assault on Magdala on April 13,1868. the 2nd Brigade. After the time, planning and effort it had taken just to reach Theodore's capital, the climax of It was daybreak on Good Napier's campaign transpired with jarring swiftness. Friday, April 9,1868, when Phayi e set off with his infantry and engi"tolerably good" muzzleloaders and 1,000 matchlocks, along neers. Elements of the 1st Brigade were in close support, and with 28 cannons and nine brass mortars, the latter locally made after an arduous crossing of the Bashilo River they began to "with neat inscriptions in Amharic." Surprisingly, Hozier con- veer west, snaking their way up the Gumbaji spur as planned. sidered this ordnance "much superior" to that of the British. Phayre took one look at the ground, however, and decided that Those without firearms made do with curved swords and it would take far too long to make it passable for the baggage spears, and all ranks cartied the circular Abyssinian shield. On train. Instead he continued on up the Arogee ravine, disrethe heights around Magdala they waited for the English in- garding Napier's written orders, before leaving the baggage and branching off to the right, skiiiing the Gumbaji plateau. It was vaders. On April 9, Napier strode forward from his position on the a relieved Colonel Phayi'e who then dispatched a message back Delanta plateau and took his first look at the objective, 13 miles dovm the line to Staveley informing him that the King's Road distant, that his troops had marched for three months to reach: was free of enemy troops and that guns and supplies could the fortress at Magdala. His sharp militai^ brain told him im- safely be brought forward. He also assured his superior that the mediately that this would prove a verv hard nut to crack. "I was XTilnerable head of the Ai'ogee ravine had been secured. able with a good telescope to appreciate the formidable charNapier looked anxiously across the plain from his vantage acter of the whole position," he wrote, "and became aware that point atop Afijo and instantly recognized the dangerous situaI should require all the infantry I could possibly collect to make tion that had arisen. Far from being secure, the head of the the attack effective, and that evet^ cavalry soldier that I could ravine was completely undefended. His precious ariiller\' and bring forward would be necessary for the investment." He re- supply train was about to emerge onto the Arogee plateau withalized that a protracted siege was out of the question and that out any support and exposed to enemy guns, or more serious if, as now seemed certain, Theodore was going to fight, his only still, to a sudden attack by Theodore's troops. He swiftly ordered option was a direct frontal assault. the 23rd Pioneers to occupy the mouth of the ravine, and a courier galloped oft at breakneck speed with a message to the The area was basically a series of connecting heights forming a rough semicircle and rising to 10,000 feet in places. The 4th Kings Own Royal Regiment, ordering it forward as swiftly heights were also extremely precipitous, almost peipendicular as possible. No sooner had Napier issued his orders than the faat some points. At first glance the flat Arogee Valley, lying in their miliar boom of cannon fire echoed across the valley. From the shadow, seemed the obvious route to take and in fact was the heights of Fahla, which dominated Napier's position from the path Theodore's troops had trod just thiee weeks ago, earning south, telltale puffs of smoke betrayed the presence of it the inevitable title of the "King's Road." Unlike Theodore, Theodore's big guns. The fighting had finally begun. however, Napier had to traverse those last few miles in the presSeven pieces in all could be seen pouring fire down on the ence of the enemy. He decided upon the much more physically British position. A round shot fell uncomfortably close to where demanding but safer approach to his right, over the surround- Napier himself sat astride his horse. It soon became apparent, ing plateaus of Gumbaji, Afijo and Arogee. however, that it was no more than a lucky shot; most of the Armed with the reassuring knowledge that the southern end rounds overshot their targets, the downward trajectory required 50 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

lied certain, Tneodore was ^oin^ to fi^lit, Napier's only option was a direct frontal assanlt.

proving to be beyond the technical scope of Theodore's gunners. Theodore was quick to realize, however, that for the moment he held the initiative. No sooner had his guns opened up than he was gesturing his men forward in an attempt to engage the British at close quarters before their reinforcements could be brought to bear. Suddenly a teeming mass of wanioi-s was poui"ing down the hillside onto the Pioneers' position with great dash and dexterity. Simultaneously the King's Own was converging on the same point. The two opposing forces were in a deadly race to the Ai'ogee plateau. Discarding their knapsacks and rejuvenated by the prospect of at last seeing some action, the King's Own surged onto the plain below, with the 27th Beloochee Regiment, a detachment of Royal Engineers and some Indian sappers hastening to its support. The Abyssinians reached the foot of the Fahla slope, but the British had already deployed in two lines across their front. The Abyssinians hesitated for a moment, but the King's Own needn't have wonied that thev were about to tum tail. Thev were metelv

With even his most loyal troops deserting him, Theodore cried, "Sooner than fail into his hands I will kill myself," and shot himself with a pistol that had been presented to him by Queen Victoria.

extending their front, led by some 500 mounted tribal chiefs clad in scarlet tunics. To Napier they "almost bore the appearance of our tnxjps in the distance." He ordered the naval brigade to take a position overlooking the plain, and in no time its rockets were whizzing and whirring fire into the oncoming host. The Abyssinians had never encountered rockets before, but still they came forward at a steady jog, si.\ or seven deep and perhaps three-quarters of a mile across. To their right rear, men from Mount Selasse descended the slope to join in the attack. Estimates put their total number as high as 7,000. At that point, although the British were in position, there were still less than 300 of the Kings Own facing this onslaught, two companies having been detached to protect the baggage. The British, however, possessed one weapon for which their opponents were not prepared—the recently issued breechloading Sniderrifle,just seconds away from proving its worth in battle. As the Abyssinians closed to within 200 yards of their quarry. Colonel William Gordon Cameron, commanding the King's Own, bellowed across to his men to fire their opening volley. Capable of firing seven rounds a minute, the Snider-armed troops decimated the Abyssinian ranks. Men began to fall in the hundreds, but the warriors bravely pressed on. probably counting on a break in the firing while the British reloaded, in the belief that they were facing muzzleloaders much like their own. There was to be no such respite. Among the first to fall was the emperor's most experienced and loyal general, Fitaurari Gabri, Resplendent in a crimson robe laced profusely with gold, he was quickly singled out as a target; some ofthe British believed they had actually killed Theodore himself. Inevitably the attack wavered, and the King's Own began a measured counterattack, advancing steadily in line. Although many Abyssinians had quit the field, some of the hardier souls continued to resist from behind whatever rocks or bushes were available. A short exchange of skirmish fire ensued, but even the temporary advantage of cover couldn't make up for the enormous gulf in firepower. A small, tenacious group tried against all the odds to outflank the British formation, but the attempt was lutile. Although the first encounter had ended in swift victory, Napier, cautious as ever, ordered his troops to halt the advance. The rain that had threatened all morning began to fall, to the relief of the British, whose canteens were empty. The battle was not over yet. and it was now the tum of the Punjab Pioneers to show their mettle. Having taken up a position to the left and some way to the rear of the King's Ow n and the Beloochees and their baggage train, the Pioneers had attracted the attention of the Abyssinians, a large number of whom were now taking advantage of a ridge to the left ofthe main British position in order to skirt unnoticed around the King's Own. Momentarily isolated, the baggage train seemed to be easy pickings for Theodore's men, but they hadn't noticed the mountain guns of A Battery, Royal Artillery, obscured by the great mass of mules, carts and wagons. Those weapons were quickly wheeled into position and in no time were inflicting casualties. As the King's Own had found out just minutes earlier, however. these doughty warriors were determined to put up a brave fight SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY 51

Soldiers of the 4th King's Own Regiment pose by the Kokit-Bur gate at Magdala, which had been stormed on April 13 by the 33rd, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment

while their emperor watched from his vantage point from the heights of Fahla. The 23rd Regiment, Punjab Pioneere—Sikhs to a man and formidable in-fighters—exchanged fire with the Abyssinians, but having the same muzzleloaders as their adversaries, they were unable to gain a decisive advantage. This was potentially serious, as any headway made here could tum the British left flank. With Theodore's guns still dominating the surrounding heights, and with the prospect of any local success sure to inspire a resm-gence in Abyssinian morale, the battle was temporarily on a knife edge. The sound of rifle fire rolled across the valley floor. At regular inten'als the Royal Artilleiy's cannons boomed out their lethal discharge, cutting great swaths through thc Abyssinian ranks. Slowly they began to give way. The Pioneers, scenting blood, moved in for the coup de grace. After a brief but bixital hand-to-hand struggle the Abyssinians. unable to stand against these fearsome bearded wairiors, began a headlong retreat, seeking refuge in the surrounding hills. It was now 7 p.m., and the action at Arogee was over. The British spent a wet and miserable night in the field, forbidden to make campfires and war\' of a surprise attack. The following morning began with the grisly task of burying some 700 dead, only two of whom were British—or more precisely, Sikh. Most of the bodies were found where the Pioneers had wielded their bayonets to such deadly effect, by the Dam Wanz ravine. Its name in Amharic meant the "Valley of the Dead,' and on that wet Easter morning its morbid title seemed chillingly apt. Napier, ever mindful of the threat fi'om disease, considered the burials a necessity, although he may well have been equally motivated out of respect for his Abyssinian adversaries. Eighteen other British troops were recorded as wounded. High up in the mountains a roll call of Theodore's warrior 52 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

chiefs told its own sorry tale. Most had perished in the fighting. Although a man of fluctuating moods (and probably seriously mentally ill by that time), he was still, in quieter moments, capable of rational thought. He now had to face the grim reality that the last 24 hours had demonstrated: His wan ior tribes, though brave in the extreme, were no match for a modem, wellequipped and disciplined European amiy. Theodore offered to release his prisonei^, but he was not ready to surrender personally. That placed Napier in a difficult position. Theodore's terms would accomplish the expedition's main objective, but Napier knew that leaving the emperor in power would alienate the other tribal leaders who had aided him. If they were to tum against the British, the expedition could yet end in disaster. Napier therefore rejected Theodores peace offering and prepared for a final assault on his fortress. Napier considered Magdala one of the most formidable positions he had ever encountered, one that could only be taken at great cost. It was therefore with some relief that news began to filter through of desertions in the Abyssinian camp. In fact. the surrounding heights of Selasse and Fahla. which he had considered key attack objectives, had been voluntarily vacated during the night by Theodore's followers. Napier was able to simply move forward and txcupy the area unopposed. On the moming of April 13, the assault began. In the van this time was the 33rd, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, a tough unit whose rank and file were mainly Irishmen, a little miffed at missing out on the earlier fighting and eager for some action. Their orders were simply to storm the main gate, the Kokit-Bur entrance, with six companies while the remainder of the regiment gave covering fire. An artillerv bart^age preceded the advance that began in earnest at about 3:30 p.m. Resistance was Couiiuued on page 10

|ITH ALL THAT Admiral Noel Wake Island. The night before it sortied, A.M. Gayler did in the couree of wives of the crew—mostly officer's his 46-year career in the U.S. wives—were belting ammunition on the Navy, his status as a fighter ace hangar deck, and mechanics were inwould seem almost trivial— stalling armor in the planes. We hurried, were it not for the fact that he then we waited, and while the earner was scored his five victories in the earliest moving along at a slow speed near Wake, aerial actions fought by American carrierit was torpedoed by a Japanese sub, based aircraft pilots, climaxing with the which blew a big hole in the side." first canier-vei"sus-camerduel in history. Hit by 1-6 on January 11, 1942, SaraNoel Arthur Meix-dylh Gayler was bom toga lost six men killed. Three fire rooms in Birmingham, Ala., on December 25, wereflooded,forcing the carrier to return 1914—hence the choice for his first to the Navy yard at Bremerton, Wash., name. "Dad was a naval engineer," he Noel Gayler fought in the for repairs. VF-3 was transferred to said. "I lived in Haiti as a little child and Pacific War's earliest actions, Saratoga's sister ship, Lexington. later at the Navy yard at Puget Sound, In February Lexington, as the nucleus including Coral Sea, and Wash. I'd lived a Navy life and met mostly of a task group commanded by Vice Adm. line officer's, so when the time came 1 enlater saw Japan surrender. Wilson Brown Jr., set out to raid the tered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annewly established Japanese base at napolis, Md.^by enlisting in the Army! Rabaul in the Solomon Islands. The force Because Congress had three appointwas 350 miles east of Rabaul on the BYJONGUTTMAN ments per member in 1930 and Dad was moming of February 20, when Lexington no politician. But you could enlist in any received intelligence from Washington one of the services and then enter the that Japanese aircraft were on the way, academy if you could pass the exam, so I and Lt. Cmdr Thach led six Wildcats to enlisted in the Army as a private and transferred into the Navy investigate. They found a Kawanishi H6Kflyingboat of the Yokowhen I qualified for the academy, class of 1935." hama Kokutai (Air Group), 46 miles from the task group. Thach Upon getting his commission, Gayler said: "I spentfiveyears and Ensign Edward R. Sellstrom shot it down in flames. Lieuin thefleet,fii^stas 'proprietor' of two 16-inch guns on the battle- tenant junior grade Onia B. Stanley Jr. and Ensign Leon W ship Maryland until June 1938, and as junior officer on de- Haynes caught another H6K and sent it down to explode in the stroyers Maury and Craven. Then, in March 1940, as we were sea as well. The Japanese had radioed the Americans' presence moored in Coronado, Calif., I saw a Navy formation of aircraft to Rabaul, however, and Rear Adm. Eiji Goto, commander of the fly overhead. I thought, 'That's for me,' and immediately applied 24th Koku Sentai {Air Flotilla) at Rabaul, considered his options. At that time, Rabaul's fighter force consisted of Mitsubishi for flight training. I qualified as a naval aviator in November 1940, and after a month's leave I was assigned directly to 'Fight- A5M4 and some newly arrived A6M2 Zero fighters, but their auxiliary fuel tanks had not yet arrived, so they could not acing Three' on the carrier Saratoga." Squadron VF-3 was equipped with new Grumman F4F-3 company the bombers. The latter, twin-engine Mitsubishi G4Mls of the 4th Kokutai. had anived at Wildcats, and when Gayler joined it in Rabaul's Vunakanau airfield between December, Lieutenant John Smith February 13 and 17. The 4th had just been "Jimmy" Thach had just taken command. formed on February 10, but some of its "As executive officer of the squadron, I crews had seen previous service with the was the least qualified as a flier," Gayler Takao Kokutai in the December 10, 1941, said, "but Thach showed me the ropes. attacks on the British battleship Prince of He was just a marvelous guy—as the exWales and the battle cruiser Repulse, the pression goes, 'not quite the guy I'd die first capital ships to be sunk in battle exfor, but I'd come awful close.'" Gayler and clusively by aircraft. In spite of the fact Thach worked out the mutually supporting maneuver between leader and wingman called the "Thach weave," a tactic that would prove vei^y effective against Opposite: On February 20.1942, Japanese fighters during the war. Lieutenant Edward H. O'Hare sets the left "I was still learning my trade in Wildengine of Lt. Cmdr. Takuzo Ito's Mitsubishi cats when the Japanese attacked Pearl G4lVn ablaze, in Butch, by Jack Fellows. Harbor on December 7," Gayler said. Left: Lieutenant Noel A.M. Gayler shot "Saratoga was sent out for the relief of down three Japanese bombers that day.

(orrier Ace

SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARV HISTORV 55

Diving from 13,000 feet, Gayler and Ensign Dale W. Peterson drove the first G4M down in flames, but for subsequent attacks Gayler said he used "the 'high side' approach, in which you get well up ahead and then tum back and fire at him." Lieutenants Rolla S. Lemmon and Howard F. Clark used that technique to destroy their target. Ensign John W. Wilson dropped out with a rough-running engine, and his wingman. Ensign Willard E. Eder, was attacking a G4M from below and behind with only one gun working when Gayler made two passes from above and behind to help him finish it off. Meanwhile, at 1643, VF-3s remaining Wildcats, flown by Thach, Sellstrom and Lieutenants Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare and Marion W, Dufilho, had taken off, followed by the Dauntlesses. As the six remaining Japanese bombers made for Lexington, Peterson hit one—possibly Nakagawa's—and Lemmon downed another. Nakagawa's plane dived toward the carrier, but AA fire sent it crashing into the sea. Another G4M fell to the Wildcats, and the remaining three dropped their bombs and fled. During their race for home, one bomber's 20mm tail gunner disabled Lieutenant Howard L. Johnson's engine and wounded him in the leg. Johnson bailed out and was rescued by the destroyer Patterson. Leaving O'Hare and Dufilho to stay behind over Lexington, Back on Lexington, O'Hare (left] is congratulated by Lt Cmdr. John Thach and Sellstrom joined in the pursuit of the three 2nd Chutai survivors. Wilson approached one from dead astern, and S. 'Jimmy" Thach in front of LL j.g. Onia B. Stanley Jrs Gnjmman just as Thach was warning him of its rear-mounted 20mm F4F-3 WildcaL Stanley also downed a bomber in the action. cannon, a shell hit Wilson's cockpit and his Wildcat plunged into the sea. Thach attacked that G4M, blowing off an engine and a that they would have to go unescorted, these veterans were con- wing, and shared in the destruction of another. Thach's first fident and keen to add an aircraft carrier to their laurels as they victim may have been finished off by an SBD crewed by Lieutook off at 1420 houi-s. Heading the 1st Chutai (Squadron) of tenant Edward H. Allen and Armorer 1st Class Bruce Rouneight G4Ms, each carrying two 250-kilogram bombs, was the tree of VS-2. The last bomber escaped the Wildcats, but 80 miles groups overall commander, Lt. Cmdr. Takuzo Ito, aboard a west of the fleet it ran afoul of a VS-2 Dauntless flown by Lieuplane commanded by Lieutenant Yogoro Seto and piloted by tenant Walter F. Henry. Henry shot that plane dow n and on his Chief Petty Officer Chuzo Watanabe. Following that formation way back to Lexington saw another bomberfloatingin the water, were nine aircraft of the 2nd Chutai, under Lieutenant which he strafed until it blew up and sank. Masayoshi Nakagawa. FHILE VF-3 AND VS-2 were annihilating the 2nd Chutai, Realizing that he had lost the element of surprise. Admiral I Ito's 1 st Chutai spotted the task force and his eight planes Brown considered canceling the Rabaul raid, but on the recbegan diving in from 15,000 feet. The only Wildcats left ommendation of Lexington's Captain Frederick C. Sherman he to intercept them were O'Hare's and Dufilho's, and as they maintained course for the time being, in hopes of luring Japanese invasion forces away from the East Indies. At 1600, Gayler's attacked the bombers Dufilho discovered that due to shifting flight of six Wildcats was preparing to take off to relieve Lt. ammunition belts his guns would not fire. O'Hare, who as Cmdr. Donald A. Lovelaces combat air patrol (CAP). Soon af- Gayler noted, "had already proven himself the best shot in the terward, Lexington's radar picked up an approaching aircraft squadron," made a firing pass on two bombers, resulting, he beformation 75 miles to the west. Gayler's flight was scrambled. lieved, in the destmction of both. Petty Officer 2nd Class Tokito be followed by four more Wildcats and 11 Douglas SBD-3 haru Baba's plane in fact crashed, but Petty Officer 1 st Class Bin Dauntless dive bombers of scouting squadron VS-2. At 1635 Mori's, though hit in one engine and a fuel tank, headed back Gayler,flyingF4F-3 F-1—the same plane Thach had been flying to Rabaul. On his second pass, O'Hare set both Petty Officer 2nd that moming—spotted the nine bombers of Lieutenant Naka- Class Koji Maeda's and Petty Officer Susumu Uchiyama's aircraft afire, but Maeda's crew managed to extinguish the flames gawa's 2nd Chutai approaching. "Our intelligence was so good that we knew they were coming on his plane. O'Hare's third attack blew thc left engine off Ito's and when they were coming," Gayler recalled, "and here they G4M, but Watanabe regained control and, probably at Ito's were! Of course I was excited as hell, but truthfully, I was too order, tried to crash the plane into Lexington—only to be shot busy to be scared. For the first one I used one of the six ap- down by AA fire and explode in the ocean off the port bow. proaches we had been taught—somewhat foolishly, I led my Almost out of ammunition, O'Hare landed with one 7.7mm hit wingman to a position for an overhead run, which entailed get- on his plane, as well as some shrapnel fiTim Lexington's AA guns. ting up and turning back toward and running over the enemy, Credited withfivevictories, O'Hare became the U.S. Navy's fii"st firing almost vertically down. 1 say foolishly, because it took me ace of World War II and received the Medal of Honor. As the remaining Japanese headed back for Rabaul, Selltoo long to climb into the attack position." 56 MILnARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

Strom caught Lieutenant Aklra Mitani's G4M eight miles out and shot it down. Allen and Rountree were 30 miles from Lexington when they encountered three Japanese planes and shot up one of them. Gayler also spotted a retiring bomber. "1 remember chasing him for a long, long time, or so it seemed, until I was recalled by the ship," he said. "I took a 7.7mm hit in my 21^inch plate glass windshield. It starred the glass but did not go through, which was good for me, because it was lined up for my head. I shot down one of the bombers and aided in two others." In sum, VF-3 was credited with 15 bombers and Walter Henry of VS-2 with a 16th that afternoon, for the loss of two F4Fs and one pilot killed. Actual Japanese losses were Thach (foreground) and O'Hare fly near Naval Air Station Kaneohe. Hawaii, on April 10,1942. Gayler close—ofthe 17 that set out to pilotedThach's Wildcat F-1 to score his first victories on February 20, but F-13 was his usual fighter. attack Lexington, only two riddled G4Ms, Maeda's and Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryosuke Kogiku's, retumed to Vunakanau. their intended invasion of northern Australia." Petty Officer 1st Class Kosuka Ono, his plane holed by Gayler The surprise attack caught the Japanese with no air support or Allen or both, force-landed on Nugara Island, near New Ire- except for the eight two-seat float biplanes of the auxiliary sealand, with three crewmen dead. Mori made it as far as Rabaul's plane carder Kiyokawa Mam. SBDs and Douglas TBD-1 DevasSimpson Harbor before ditching his plane at 2010. A total of 88 tator torpedo bombers sank the armed merchant ciuiser Kongo Japanese air crewmen had lost their lives. Maru, auxiliao' minelayer Tenyo Mam and transport Yokohama Gayler. who was awarded the first of three Naw Crosses for Mam. They also damaged Kajioka's flagship, the light cruiser his role in the Febmai^ 20 air battle, got his next chance at Yubari, as well as the destroyers Yunagi, Asanagi, Oite, Asakaze aerial combat less than three weeks later. On March 8, a Japa- and Yakaze, minelayer Tsugaru, transport Kokai Mam and nese naval force commanded by Rear Adm. Sadomichi Kajioka minesweeper 7ama Maru, the latter of which sank on March 13. occupied Lae and Salamaua in northern New Guinea. Two days TBDs of Yorktown's VT-5 scored one bomb hit on Kiyokawa later, Admiral Brown's Task Force 11 joined Rear Adm. Frank Mam, Hooding a boiler Ofthe 104 carrierplanes involved in the Jack Fletcher's Task Force 17, with the caiiier Yorktown, to strike raid, only one SBD-2 fi om VS-2 was lost, to AA fire. "All the at the invasion lleet in the first American mid of the war by two ship's crews were on deck and counting," Gayler remarked. carriers against a common objective. One oi Kiyokawa Mam's Nakajima E8N2 floatplanes was air"To surprise the Japanese, we flew over New Guinea and borne, and though armed with only one forward synchronized across the Owen Stanley mountains," Gayler recalled. "I was and one flexibly rear-mounted 7.7mm machine gun, its crew leading the escorts and I r emember our torpedo bombers strug- gamely tried to defend the ships with what Lexington's log called gling to get over those mountains. We damaged their ships "determination and valor." First the Japanese attacked three of enough so the Japanese could not use them, and so stopped VT-5's TBDs south of Lae, riddling their tail surfaces until their gunners drove it down. Four SBDs of VS-2 went after the floatplane, but it managed to evade them all and then went at the escori tlight comprising Gayler, Peterson, Lieutenant Albert O. Vorse Jr and Lt. j.g. Robert J. Morgan. In the process of dodging Vorse's gunfire it flashed in front of Gayler's Wildcat. Gayler left his formation to deal with the audacious floatSeaplane tender Kiyokawa Maru is caught with its Mitsubishi Fl M2s and a Nakajima E8N2 iafi) still on deck-and only one E8N2 airbome-duhng the U.S. Navy strike on Lae on March 10, 1942. SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORY 57

Gayler led a four-plane division above the 12 TBDs of Lt. Cmdr. James H. Brett Jr.'s VT-2, the F4Fs flying at 105 knots to conserve fuel as much as to keep their eyes on the Devastators. The Wildcats split into two elements, with Gayler and Dale Peterson covering the torpedo bombers from one side and Lt. j.g. Howard F. Clark leading Ensign Richard M. Rowell on the other. Even as the Americans went after Shokaku and Zuikaku, however, aircraft from those ships were heading toward Lexington and Yorktown. When the Americans neared their targets, they got a hot reception from AA fire and fighters. Gayler's division was stilt proceeding at cruising speed when it was jumped by four Zeros from Zuikaku, led by Lieutenant Kiyokuma Okajima. "The Japanese were al! over us," Gayler recalled. "I ducked into a cloud myself, because I had one on my tail. When 1 came out Retuming from the attack on Japanese carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku on May 8,1942, a of that cloud, I caught one Zero, fired Douglas TBD-1 Devastator lands aboard the damaged Lexington, with a Wildcat close behind. on it and saw it dive away. I probably downed him. I tried to contact my division to bring us together, but everybody was screaming over plane, but found it a harder task than he had expected. "He was the radio. I entered a cloud again and broke out of the cloud over very good—he had an inferior plane, but he was a pretty good the carriers and their escorts. The escorts started shooting at pilot and he was outmaneuvering me all over the sky," he reme, but as an AA officer I had learned to watch the flash of their called. "But then he finally made a mistake. He seemed to get guns, count to six and then do something violent to not be there well up ahead of me and may have been thinking he was out of where their shells would explode. Then I went down to sea level, range, but he presented me with an opportunity. I hit him at exwhere the enemy AA could not depress. I saw both carriers and treme range and he blew up. He bailed out—I saw his parathey were not damaged—at least that was my impression." chute. He was down in the jungle, complete with cannibals, and I almost hoped he made his way back. He was a gutsy guy. I've Ironically, Gayler, who had helped develop the Thach weave, often wondered whether he was worshipped, or eaten—maybe never got to use it—Okajima's division scattered his wingmen. both!" Japanese records indicate that both of the E8N's intre- "We lost them all but myself," Gayler remarked, still saddened pid crewmen were rescued. at that recollection after more than 60 years. "They were good friends of mine." Peterson and Rowell were killed in the Zeroes' FTER THAT OPERATION, Gayler recalled he was "ashoT-e first pass. Clark, like Gayler, escaped into cloud cover but for some time," training in northern Australia, during which became disoriented. Last heard radioing that he had run out of he transferred to become VF-2's executive officer. He re- fue! and had to ditch, Clark was never found. tumed to combat in the Battle of the Coral Sea, as LexingWhile Gayler was making his way back to Lexington, dive ton and Yorktown intercepted a Japanese invasion attempt on bombers from Yorktown and Lexington, led by Commander Port Moresby, New Guinea, this time backed by the fleet carri- William B. Ault, scored three hits on Shokaku, holing its flight ers Shokaku and Zuikaku. Gayler did not participate in the pre- deck, starting fires and forcing it to tum north for repairs. Meanliminary action of May 7, 1942, in which the Americans sank while. Japanese planes had torpedoed and bombed Lexington the light carrier Shoho and tumed back the invasion fleet. "On and damaged Yorktown. the evening of May 7," he said, "there was an amusing incident, "It was a half-hour to 40-minute flight back to our task force," both real and funny. A Japanese, obviously lost, made a stan- Gayler continued. "I had a long way back, with no information dard carrier approach to land! A fool gunner shot at him and on where my carrier was. We had a primitive homing device he shoved off!" that transmitted Morse code signals emitted from the carrier's The next day saw the opposing carrier forces hit each other rotating transmitter in 15-degree segments. I remember my with all they had. "We had a new tactic," Gayler said. "Accord- Morse letter was 'YE'—it meant life," ing to the new theory, our fighters would take the initiative After flying south for 10 minutes, Gayler found a fellow against enemy defensive fighters, rather than fly as close escort orphan—Ensign Marvin M. Haschke of VS-2. whose four-plane to our bombers. The intention was to engage the Japanese of- formation of SBDs had been scattered by a flight of Shokakufensively before they could attack our own crowd. It didn't work based Zeroes led by Petty Officer 1st Class Kenji Okabe. As the out. The Japanese hit us first." two proceeded together, Gayler passed through a cloud for three

A

58 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

minutes,flyingon instalments, and suddenly encountered two of Shokaku's Aichi D3A1 dive bombei"s retuming from their strikes on Lexington. "They were in the overcast and I just found myself in the same cloud—they didn't know 1 was there," he said. "I came up fi-om astem and shot 'em both down in a very short space of time." At that point, as Gayler recalls it, he and Haschke became separated again. Both pilots spotted at least two other enemy foiTTiations, but Gayler was too low on fuel to do anything more. Finally he picked up the transmission "YE" and homed in on Lexington. Both he and Haschke landed at 1328 hours. Gayler was now an ace, but there was no time to celebrate. "As 1 landed aboard Lexington, I noticed something curious," he said. "Usually the deck crew would msh up and ask how I'd done, but this time nobody paid any attention to me. Then I saw the firefighting foam on the deck and realized she'd been hit. A little bit later I was up on deck when there was a tremendous explosion below; The forward plane elevatorflewup and landed with a loud clang, then a pillar of fire rose as high as the funnel of the ship. A rtiptured fuel tank fi-om the earlier attacks, the fiiel mixed with air, had caused this secondary explosion. Soon the canier was burning fiercely. On deck I saw Captain Sherman with Admiral Brown. They were not excited; they looked almost contemplative. 1 heard the admiral say, 'Ted, it's time to go.' and SheiTnan passed the word to abandon ship. "Abandoning ship is usually not something to be proud of," Gayler continued, "but iVe always been proud of that one. There

As Lexington burns, its crew abandons ship and is taken to waiting destroyers. Gayler was proud that no crewmen were lost during the evacuation CNational Archives).

were over 1,000 men, and we didn't lose a one in the abandonment. I jumped in the water—there weren't enough ladders— but then I realized I had not made my report on the Japanese to Captain Sherman, so I swam to a sea ladder and climbed back aboard to make my report. When you're in your mid-20s, you can do things like that. When somebody asked me later about why I did it, I said, just to be smart. 'There was nobody up there [on the resetting ship] I knew.' Destroyers picked us up. They dropped cargo nets over the side, and we clambered up the cargo nets."

T

HE BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA ended in a tactical victory for the Japanese, who had sunk Lexington, the destroyer Sims and the fleet oiler Neosho, for the loss of the light carrier Shoho. Strategically, however, the Americans had repulsed a Japanese invasion. Moreover, while Shokaku underwent repairs and Zuikaku replaced its losses, Yorktown's damage was repaired in time to join in the decisive U.S. Navy victon at Midway on June 4. Thach participated in that battle, but Gayler had been sent home to become a test pilot. "I missed Midway, and I'm disappointed in retrospect," Gayler said, "but I was under orders to come back to Washington and underway by slow boat. We flew from what is now Reagan National Airport, and then from a field by the Patuxent River, under Fred Trapnell—a wonderful guy, who showed me how to test airplanes." One of the most interesting aspects of Gayler's job was comparing Allied and captured enemy fighters, including a Zero.

"We were in a hell of a hurry to know w hat its flying character- me they had been instnacted to negotiate the terms of sun'enistics were, and I was a pilot in that.... It could make very sharp der before President Harry Truman gave the order to drop the tums and was still strong enough to pull a lot of Gs-—a handy atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. I airplane. Compared to my old F4F, it was much better as an air- saw the damage to Hiroshima—I borrowed a plane to take a plane, but the Wildcat was a better battle machine because of look and flew as low as I dared. The whole city was flattened, its armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. The Wildcat was tough, and all were killed. I never thought it was necessary to have and the Zero was not. 1 also got to lly Hawker Hurricanes and done that, and I still don't know why Truman did it. "When the Japanese surrendered on August 14, we were still Supermarine Spitfires in different models, and a couple of odd apprehensive that they might do ones. We also had an early model something treacherous," he added, "so Messerschmitt Me-109 that once flew I was temporarily transferred to an enover the White House. Another good tering batdeship, with my thumb figGennan plane I flew was the Focke uratively on the trigger. Aircraft flew Wulf Fw-190, with its 1,200-hp engine. 1.000 sorties over Tokyo from the fleet, They won't admit it. but the Grumman but all was over. At the end of the war F8F Bearcat was based on the Fw-190. we hadfivecarrier divisions with four The F8F, though, had a 3.000'hp carriers each—16 American, four engine. You didn't have to fly it, you British. Then, while I was sei^ving as just pointed it and opened the throttle! operations oflicer of the Pacific Fleet, "I got to fly the Vought F4U-1 CorSecretary of the Navy Thomas S. sair and was in on its development. Gates Jr lined me up to be his aide. Test-flying it at National, we had a Tom Gates was a great boss." vision problem—the Corsair's pilot sat far back down the fuselage, with a Gayler continued up the ranks in long nose ahead of him and his head the postwar years, serving as operadown under a confined, framed 'birdtions officer on the escort carrier cage' canopy. So I got John Ferguson Bairoko fium April 1948 to September and Johnny Hyland, and the three of 1949, and as commander of squadron us each sat in the ccx:kpit of the CorVX-3. he developed and demonstrated sair, while we took some stiff welding attack tactics for carrier-based aircraft, wire and bent it around the outline we as well as early radar-equipped hunterRear Admiral Noel Gayler in 1965. He attained wanted, tied it up with masking tape, killer aircraft, from June 1951 to Janthe rank of full admiral on September 28. 1972. photographed it, and told the conuary 1954. Promoted to captain on and retired four years later. tractor to build it that way. The Vought November 1.1953, he commanded the people screamed that they couldn't seaplane tender Greenwich Bay, "showing theflag"among Ai^ab ports from January 1956 to February 1957. Of his next assignment between May 1959 and June 1960, Gayler remarked, "My best sea job was as skipper of the carrier Ranger—a marvelous ship and a marvelous crew." On July I, 1961. Gayler was promoted to rear admiral and, after a year in London as American liaison to the Royal Navy, AYLER WAS PROMOTED TO lieutenant commander on he commanded Carrier Division 20 between August 1962 and May 1, 1943. and to commander on March 1.1944. "On July August 1963. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for service 20. I went out in command of VF-12 aboard the carrier from September 1963 to September 1967 as director. DevelopRandolph," he said. "It was an interesting thing—the cor- ment and Programs Division, and assistant deputy chief of nucopia of American production was in full bore by then. I was Naval Operations (Development). He was also responsible to to command 54 aiiplanes and 105 pilots. So 1. with the consent the chief of Naval Operations for Naval Aviation. As a vice adof my higher-ups, divided it into two parts and gave one to my miral, Gayler served as director of the National Security Agency exec, Ed Pauka. I flew a couple of combat missions with the from August 1969 to September 1972. On September 28, 1972, outfit, but at that point the Japanese were so weak they were he was made a full admiral and commander in chief. Pacific. Gayler finally retired in September 1976. Looking back, he hardly combatants. On February 9, 1945, 1 was suddenly detached and sent to San Diego, as operations officer on the staff said: "I started out as an Army private at age 16. and they 'threw of Vice Adm. John S. McCain, commander, 2nd Carrier Task me out' when I was 62. Obligatoiy retirement at that age is a Force, and later commander of Task Force 38. Captain Jimmy wise policy...except when it's applied to yourself." Afterward, Thach was his chief of staff. My job on McCain's staff was a hell Gayler sei-ved on a number of advisory boards, including the of a job for a commander In essence, it was to divide the empire American Committee on EastAVest Accord, with which he made of Japan into five parts for offensive operations, but they were trip to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. MH totally beaten before our use of atomic bombs. Blocked by our submarines, they were almost out of aviation fuel and were For further reading. Military History editor Jon Guttman recomtrying to use pine root oil. mends The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat From Pearl "I spoke to Japanese diplomats after the war, and they told Harbor to Midway, by John B. Lundstrom.

alter the plane like that in the middle of the war. that it would 'cost us the war effort' and take 10 knots off the speed. But we said. 'Just build it that way.' So they produced the F4U-1A with a blown-plexiglas design that gave the pilot more headroom and much better vision—and we couldn't find any speed difference."

G

60 MILITARY HrSTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

R EV I E The cultural strengths and weaknesses of 17th-century Japan resurfaced in the 20th century. By Alan Cate

TO PARAPHRASE Karl von Clausewitz, war is the continuation ol culture by other means. National beliefs, ideas and values infoiTn why nations go to war and how their militaries fight at least as much as considerations of politics and strategy. Two very different recent books allow us to gain some purchase on warfare's cultural aspects as regards Japan. The Lone Samurai: The Life oj Miyamoto Musashi, by William Scott Wilson (Kodansha America Inc., New York, 2004, $24), recounts the life and times of a legendaiy 17th-century swordsman. An enduring icon in his native land, Miyamoto Musashi won some 60 duels while wandering the violent landscape ol feudal Japan and challenging leading samurai. He ended this wanior's pilgi'image in his early 30s and passed the remainder of his days in the solitary pursuit of enlightenment. A man of considerable culture, he became a renowned artist whose survi\ing ink-wash paintings and sculptures are still venerated. Musashi spent his last years alone in a mountaintop cave, where he wrote The Book of Five Rings, a celebrated meditation on individual combat and strategy. Musashi looms large in Japan's folk mcmor>, not only due to his amazing record but also perhaps because he was in many ways an atypical samurai. While he exemplified the Bushido—or wanior's code—traits of self-discipline, singlemindedness and sacrilrce, he was also extremely independent. Both in his fighting career and his famous book, Musashi rejected the idea that accepting death was To see these reviews and hundreds more by leading authorities, go to our new book review section at www.thehistorynet.coni/reviews istoryNet.com 62 MILITARY HtSTOKV SEPTEMBER 2005

militan' buildup and imperial expansion. The military establishment disdained civilian authority on questions of national greatness. The most egregious instances octuned in Manchuria and later China, where manufactured incidents by commanders in the field led inexorably to Japan's ill-fated attempts to conquer that vast countiy. Japan's escalating involvement in China prior to 1941 revealed that while territory proved relathc wanior's sine qua non. While he did tively easy to occupy, people were hard to not fear death, he believed the whole subdue—a timeless truth rediscovered by point of battle was to win, not to die well. armies throughout history. The Japanese To that end, he was a master of suiprise, discounted any Asian nationalism other than their own, particularly that of the misdirection and subterfuge. As pail of the process of modernizing Chinese and other reluctant subjects of Japan, the Meiji Revolution of 1868 abol- their "Co-Prosperity Sphere." All of that reished the samurai as a caste, but the ethos flected a ciiltui^al blind spot or arrogance. Mired in China, starved for raw maoi Bushido—in its classical and Musashi variants—still pemieated society. In the terials and backed into a corner by course of tracing Japan's road to World clumsy American diplomacy, Japan War l\,A Gathering Darkness: Tlie Coming elected to widen the war into Southeast of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921- Asia and the Pacific. Its lightning series of 1942, by Hai-uo Tohmatsu and H.P. Will- campaigns against three European emmott (SR Books, Lanham, Md., 2004, pires, plus the Americans and the Aus$19.95), pereuasively demonstrates that its tralians, across thousands of miles beleaders had no rational basis, given their tween December 1941 and May 1942 resource and industrial limitations, to stands as a phenomenal feat of synchrothink victory was possible in a war with nization and economy of force. More the United States. Part of the answer to than that, this onslaught illustrates the why they tried must lie in cultural values. strategic application ofthe Bushido prinDomestically, during the i920s and eaiiy ciples of deception and keeping an enemy 1930s, Japan experimented with liberal off-balance, as well as the moral advandemocracy. That experiment foundered, tages conferred by an indomitable waras it did elsewhere in the world, on the rior spirit. Yet the concluding chapter of shoals of the Great Depression. At the A Gathering Darkness accui'ately captures same time, Japan's armed forces under- "The Japanese Dilemma," dealing with an went a revival of militant nationalism. overstretched empire after having ceded Harking to the notion of "righteous" duty the initiative to an enraged and immeaover obedience, the services, especially surably more powerful adversaiy. the army, imposed a "govemment by asBoth of these well-researched and sassination," in which fanatical officers gracefully written books offer keen in1 oLitinely murdered ministers opposed to Continued on page 68

P E R S P E C T I V E S Assyrian King Sargon II's Urartu campaign of 714 BC was as sensible as it was ruthless. By Brian Todd Carey

Saigon n inherited the Urartu problem when he came to power in 721. Twice, in 719 and 717, he sent troops north to the region near Lake Urmia to suppress local conflicts supported by Urartu troops. In 715 the Urartu became more aggressive, seizing 22 fortified cities from Ullusunu, an Assyrian vassal in Armenia. Sargon responded by quickly retaking the cities, then laying waste to Urartu's southem provinces. Realizing, however, that small punitive expeditions would not solve his strategic problem for long, the Assyrian monarch resolved to return the following year. It would be his eighth military campaign in seven years.

THOUGH HE WAS PROBABLY a usurper,

history remembers Sargon II as one of Assyria's greatest kings. Founder of the Sargonid dynasty that held sway in Mesopotamia for more than a century, he was a capable ruler, a patron of the arts and a prolific builder. His greatest project, the fortress city of Dur-Sharrukin ("Fort Sargon," later Khorsabad), was a city of 80,000 inhabitants situated about 10 miles north ofthe old capital of Nineveh. His palace there was a wonder of architecture, paneled in alabaster and adorned with sculpture and stone inscriptions recording his military campaigns. There were many to r e c o r d ^ n fact, nearly every year of his 17-year reign was marked with a campaign. In 721 BC, the same year in which he ascended the throne, Sargon attacked the kingdom of Israel and destroyed Samaria, carrying off over 27,000 inhabitants. He then subdued the Elamites, marched west to lay Hamath in ruins and defeated the combined forces of the Philistines and the Egyptians at Raphia. He captured the king of Gaza and enslaved several thousand inhabitants. Two years later he conquered the Hittite capital of Carchemish, capturing the king, his officers and treasures. He then tumed his attention toward the northern and northwestern tribes of Armenia, led by the powerful kingdom of Urartu. Centered on the three major cities of Nimrud, Nineveh and Ashur on the upper Tigris River, in what is now northwestern Iraq, Assyria was cursed with a dearth of natural resources and few natural barriers to keep out enemy invasions. If the kingdom was to survive, it needed to expand at the expense of its better-off neighbors. Beginning in the 14th century BC, the Assyrians successfully resisted Mitannian, Hittite and Babylonian expansion to finally emerge as a regional power 64 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

When Sargon set out for Armenia in 714 BC, he understood the logistical burdens involved. Sargon II. here portraytx; ••: ud;, .elief at his palace at The expedition would march Dur-ShaiTukin, Mesopotamia [now Iraq), was an east by northeast and travel oveh outstanding military leader even by Assyrian standards. the Zagros Mountains to the land of the Manna, just south of under Tiglath-Pileser 1(1115-1077 BC). A Lake Urmia. Sargon needed to reestabrenewed phase of expansion began in the lish contact with his vassal Ullusunu and 9th century under Shalmaneser III (858- establish a forward operating base, but 824 BC). By King Tiglath-Pileser Ill's reign crossing the Zagros would be no easy (744-727 BC), the Assyrians had expanded task. The road snaked through numerous into Syria and Babylonia, securing their passes and valleys, ascending to snowwestem and eastern frontiers. To the covered mountain passes and descending north, however, Urartu vied with Assyria into dense forests. According to Sargon's own correspondence, written in the form for regional dominance. Besides being Assyria's most powerful of a letter to his god Ashur, this terrain rival in the 8th century BC, Urartu en- was "too rough for chariots to mount, joyed a geographic advantage, nestled bad for horses, and too steep to march north of the Tigris River valley past the foot soldiers," forcing his engineers to Taurus Mountains in what is now Arme- clear obstacles and lay stone to make a nia, a land whose mgged topography has suitable road. In between these steep challenged foreign invaders for millennia. mountains ran swift rivers. Sargon noted Nineveh lay just 30 miles away from the that he forded one wandering stream no major mountain pass connecting the fewer than 26 times. Urartu with Assyria. Continued on page 70

ti

WEAPONRY The Enfield P1853 rifle sparked the Indian Mutiny and served in the American Civil War. By Gareth J. Prendergast

THE MORNING OF JULY 2,1862, dawned

foggy on the slopes of Malvem Hill, Virginia, but to U.S. Cavalry Colonel William W. Avei>', the place itself imparted its own special sense of horror. Writing 20 years later, he recalled: "Our ears were filled with agonizing cries from thousands before the fog lifted.... Over five thousand dead and wounded were on the ground... enough were alive and moving to give the

The Pattern 1856 Enfield, distinguished by its two barrel bands, featured a barrel 6 inches shorter than the Pi 853's, without any significant adverse effect on accuracy (The Military and Historical Image Bank, Southbuty, Conn.J.

ground a singular crawling effect." Scenes like this were repeated on every battlefield of the American Civil Wai; with more Americans fi"om both sides dying than in all the other wars in which their country' ha.s been involved. A major factor in the slaughter was Enfield or Springfield muzzJeloading rifles, whose hollowended, expanding Minie bullets allowed them to be loaded as fast as smoothbore muskets. Allied to that development was the refusal of certain elements of the military to realize that soldiers could no longer simply charge a fortified position and expect bayonets and courage to carry the day in the face of the new rifles' deadly accuracy One of the most important causes of this uncomfortable tactical transition was the British Pattern 1853 rifle musket, a radical departure from smoothbore mus66 MILnARV HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

kets, such as the famous "Brown Bess," that had dominated the battlefield since the 18th century. Smoothbore muskets were hopelessly inaccurate beyond about 80 yards. After receiving a volley from the enemy, an attacking force could cover the ground between them before the enemy had time to reload. With the rifle musket, however, it was possible for line infantrymen to kill their opponents at 300 yards

ing the use of a small wooden mallet with which to tap on the end of the ramrod to seat the ball against the powder charge. Plainly what was needed was a bullet that would drop easily past the grooves of the rifling but then expand to seat itself properly against those grooves when the rifle was fired, and in the late 1840s, Frenchman Claude-Etienne Minie invented one that did just that, His cylindroconoida! bullet had a hollow base with an iron plug. Firing caused the plug to smash into the base of the bullet, expanding but not deforming it and evenly engaging the grooves of the rifling. Minie's original bullet was complex to manufacture, although it impressed the management at Britain's Ordnance Factory at Enfield enough for them to proand to blast the charging ranks of their duce the .702-caliber 1851 Model Minie mates with a second and even a third rifle with which the British troops volley—which is what the British did to wrought such destruction during the the Russians in the Crimea in 1854 with Crimean War. A second important breaktheir new Enfield-produced Model 1851 through was the discovery, in the early Minie rifles. But employing such a 1850s, that if the side walls of the bullet weapon also meant that drilling a soldier were thin enough, the plug wasn't to load and fire his weapon three times needed. That led to the standardization every minute was no longer enough. He of the .577-caliber bullet that was used in needed to learn marksmanship, which the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle. took time—something that Civil War The P1853 EnBeld was 55 inches in generals often found they just didn't total length, with three bands holding the have. 39-inch-long barrel to the stock of AmeriRifles of various kinds had already can black walnut, instead of the earlier, been in use for years. The British army, weaker plug system. It also incorporated not famous even then for its love of in- George Lovell's design of percussion lock, novation, had had a specialist rifle corps the standard system for British military before the Napoleonic wars (1793-1815), long arms until the Snider conversion armed initially with the flintlock Baker made percussion-fired muzzleloaders and then with the inferior percussion obsolete. Originally, rifling consisted of Brunswick. The annies that used those three grooves of uniform depth (.014 rifles, however, tended to regard them as inches), making one turn in 78 inches, speciahst weapons because of loading with a simple leaf back sight graduated problems. Black powder left a lot of to 900 yards. residue after firing, which was no probTofirethe Enfield, the soldier dropped lem in the slick barrel of a smoothbore the rifle butt to the ground and bit the end musket, but which quickly fouled the of a paper-wrapped cartridge containing grooves of a rifle barrel, often necessitatContinued on page 72

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MILITARV HISTORV SEPTEMBER 2005

REVIEWS Continued from page 62

Werner Voss, but credit is due Barry Diggens for having made the effort. KirkLowry

GAME REVIEWS Armchair generals will find much to keep their interest in Cossacks II: The Napoleonic Wars ($39.99, requires a Pentium m 1500, 512MB RAM, 12x CD-ROM drive, 64MB VRAM video card, www.cossacks2. September Evening: The Life and Final de), sequel to the smash hit Cossacks: Combat ofthe German World War One European Wars. This time around the Ace Werner Voss, by Barry Diggens, game play centers on military strategies and tactics, enabling players to control and Grub Street, London, 2003, $29.95. Werner Voss is one of the most celebrated maneuver thousands of soldiers, cannons fighter pilots of World War I, yet until re- and cavalr>' across the battlefield. The cently no biography had been published game incorporates real-life battle factors of the great German airman who had such as morale, fatigue, terrain, combeen both friend and rival to the more manders' experience and weapons upwidely publicized Manfred Freiherr von grades that a player must closely manage Richthofen. A masterful pilot and remark- in order to succeed. In contrast to other able shot. Vossflewwithout any apparent real-time strategy games, such as Miconcem for his own safety. In less than a crosoft's Age of Empires II, where combat year he was credited with shooting down is fast-paced and hard to control, Cos48 Allied aircraft, and he spawned numer- sacks II has battles that are designed to ous legends before dyir^ in an epic combat be formal and deliberate. Opposing units with elements of No. 56 Squadron, Royal must engage close together to maximize their firepower Features such as square Flying Corps, on September 23, 1917. In September Evening, Barry Diggens formations (necessary to defend against does not claim to have written a definitive cavalry charges), revolving fire through study, but he has compiled what docu- the ranks and bayonet rushes all give the mentation exists into a fascinating ac- player the distinct feel of Napoleonic warcount of Voss' career. Much use is made fare. Additionally, excellent graphics porof records and memoirs by those who tray lush and varied landscapes upon faced him in combat, and descriptions of which such battlefield detritits as bombedaerial battles by celebrated airmen such out buildings, broken shards of tree limbs as Keith "Grid" Caldwell and James T.B. and shattered cannon carriages are renMcCudden as well as the pilot credited dered in painstaking detail—a marked with downing Voss, Arthur P.F. Rhys improvement on the original Cossacks' rather cartoonish units and structures. Davids, enliven the book. Diggens offers the reader a wealth of Still, not every change in Cossacks 11 is supporting material. Numerous pho- an improvement over the original. The first tographs culled from a wide range of Cossacks included many more playable sources depict Voss and his contempo- ci\'ilizations, offering such unique units raries, both friend and foe, and relevant as Russian strelets, Turkish janissaries, aircraft. Extensive appendices, which in- Polish winged hussars, Ukrainian Cosclude transcriptions of combat reports sacks and Algerian desert archers. This and detailed maps, prove the most useful lent the original an epic feel that the supplements to the text. sequel does not recapture. The exciting Controversy is common in the study of aspects of managing the economy and World War 1 airmen, and September building towns have been scrapped in Evening deals with several points of con- Cossacks II in favor of military aspects, tention. Among numerous issues of with fewer, less nationally distinctive debate is speculation as to the number of armies. One can't complain too much, Fokker triplanes actually in service in the however, with such a great battle interface autumn of 1917, as well as consideration and the inclusion of a board game-style of contradictory accounts of Voss' ulti- Battle for Europe mode that enables playmate fate. The authors conclusions on ers to control and move armies acixsss the those subjects and others are bound to whole of the Continent. Anyone with an provoke discussion among aficionados. appreciation for Napoleonic tactics and As is true of many World War 1 aces, strategy will enjoy this game. the last word may never be written about Stephen Mauro sights into the relationship between combat and culture. Taken individually or as complementar\' studies, they should appeal lo a wide array of readers.

ABYSSINIAN

PERSPECTIVES

like feet. With his eastern flank secure, Sargon backtracked west to Manna. Continued from page 52 Continued from page 64 The direct route between Mannean country and Urartu was a straight shot northwest from Lake Urmia to Tuspar already weakening at this stage, and Although no records exist document- (modem Van) on Lake Van. This route within minutes the 33rd had achieved its ing the size of Sargon's expedition, it was not only went through extremely difficult objective, scaling the wall and forcing the probably about 50.000 men. By the 8th terrain but also was guarded by a string defenders to retire behind the inner gate. century BC, the Assyrians had the largest of strong fortresses. Not wanting to The troops who got inside then forced standing military force in the Middle march into the waiting mouth of his open the main gate, and hundreds of East, totaling 150,000 to 200,000 men. An enemy, Sargon decided to take a more cirwildly cheering British flooded in Assyrian field army numbered approxi- cuitous route around the northern shore through the breach. mately 50,000 men—infantry, cavalry and of Lake Urmia near Tabriz and then Even the members of the small band of chariots—and when arrayed for battle straight west, bypassing the Urartu fortifaithful followers who had stood by had a frontage of 2,500 yards and a depth fications. But even this route brought the Assyrian expedition through rough and Theodore were now running for their of 100 yards. lives. Those within earshot heard the emWith the exception of an elite royal hostile territory. Checking his siege train, peror cry out: "It is finished! Sooner than bodyguard and foreign mercenaries, As- Sargon pushed west and took 12 fortified fall into his hands I will kill myself." With syrian kings relied on a levee en masse of cities and 84 villages, noting. "I destroyed that he put his pistol to his mouth and farmers as militia. By Sargon II's time, their walls. I set fire to the houses inside pulled the trigger. however, the Assyrian army was a com- them, I destroyed them like a flood, I batA small group of soldiers warily ap- bined-arms fighting force of heavy and tered them into heaps of ruins." proached the body. One picked up the light infantry, cavalry; chariots and siege Meanwhile, King Rusa I of Urartu was pistol and noticed an inscription on the machinery supported by units of scouts, rallying support from local princes to handle: "Presented by VICTORIA— engineers, spies and sappers. stop the Assyrian advance well short of its Oueen of Great Britain and Ireland—to On campaign Sargon's army moved in intended tai^et, his capital on Lake Van. THEODORUS—Emperor of Abyssinia as line of column, with scouts sent ahead to Rusa knew the direction of the Assyrian a slight token of her gratitude for his kind- reconnoiter the route. While in Oat terrain, advance, and he decided to intercept ness to her servant PLOWDEN—1864." the king personally led the column from Sargon on a flat valley in the mountains A few more gunshots were reported in the basket of his war chariot, surrounded southwest of Tabriz. Rusa's strategy was the confusion, but essentially this was to by the chariots of his commanders. These to draw the Assyrians through the defile be the final act of the Afiican melodrama. were followed by cavalry, infantry, engi- and into the valley and then smash them The Abyssinian king was dead, and the neers, scribes, diviners, interpreters, in- before they could deploy from column hostages were free and safe. After such a telligence officers and a baggage train into line of battle. Unknown to the Urartu long and arduous campaign, its climax consisting of camels and asses. The rear pickets, however, Sargon's scouts saw the of the column was guarded by light Urartu deployment in the valley. was swift and sudden. Choosing not to move his army pieceIn stark contrast to Theodore's fate, troops, most probably cavalry in open Napier retumed in triumph to England, country and infantry in rough terrain. Be- meal through the defile, Sargon did the his ascendant reputation evidenced by his cause of the Urartu's difficult terrain, the unexpected: He moved it directly over the newly conferred title—Lord Napier of Assyrian chariot arm was probably vet^ snow- and ice-covered ridge, descended Magdala. He died peacefully in 1890. As small, sen'ing only as personal trans- the other side and deployed in the valley. far as the British public was concemed, portation for Sargon and his senior com- But the forced march over the ridge took its toll on his soldiers, who were exthe ghosts of the Crimea and the Indian manders. hausted and operating on light rations. Mutiny had been exorcised. Its army could hold its head high again, having WHEN SARGON REACHED the land of Rusa's troops, on the other hand, were achieved a victory that much expert opin- the Manna, he ordered Ullusunu to pro- fully deployed and well rested, having arion had thought impossible. Its reputa- vide him with large numbers of horses. rived several days before. Sargon undertion, dearly won in the Napoleonic wars sheep, cattle and supplies. Using this for- stood his precarious tactical situation. and so abjectly frittered away 40 years ward base, Sargon first secured his east- With no line of retreat, no reinforcelater, had been fully restored. "In a little em flank by marching east and south of ments, and an enemy preparing to strike way it was a great campaign," wrote Lake Urmia into Median territory. at any moment, he chose to act quickly to Henry Morton Stanley. "The fame of it re- Cousins to the Persians (who would later gain the initiative. sounded with loud reverberations over conquer them), the Median governors "I could not relieve their fatigue, nor wide Asia and established England's pres- submitted to Sargon. providing him with strengthen the wall ofthe camp," Sargon tige on a firmer base than ever." MH the unique tribute of steppe peoples, in- wrote. "What was right or left could not cluding "prancing horses, swift mules, be brought to my side, I could not watch Stephen Jarvis writes from Hyde, Cheshire, camels native to their land, cattle and the rear....l plunged into [the enemy's] England. For further reading, he recom- sheep." Steppe camels were of the two- midst like a swift javelin...." mends: The Abyssinian Difficulty, by humped Bactrian variety and were supeRiding his war chariot at the head of his Darrell Bates; The March to Magdala, by rior to their southern cousins for cold bodyguard, Sargon personally led a conFrederick Myatt; and Victorian Military weather operations because of their thick tingent of 1,000 heavy cavalry straight into fur and underwool and large, snowshoe- one wing of the Urartu formation, shatterCampaigns, edited by Brian Bond. 70 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

ing it on impact. The rest ofthe Assyrians, seeing their king plunge into battle, quickly followed. Rusa's lines did not immediately collapse, however, and at some point during the battle his troops counterattacked. "The mainstay of his army, bearers of bow and lance, I slaughtered about his feet like lambs, I cut off their heads," Sargon wrote. "His noblemen, councilors who stand before him, I shattered their arms in battle; them and their horses I captured, 260 of his royal kin, who were his officei^s, governors and cavalry." In the ensuing chaos, Rusa retreated to his fortified encampment. Sargon pursued and suiTounded the king's camp, showering it with arrows and javelins from his light troops. Rusa eventually abandoned his chariot and escaped on horseback, leaving his routed army behind. In typical Assyrian fashion, Sargon ordered a ruthless pursuit that "filled the gullies and gorges with horses while they, like ants in distress, made their way over most difficult terrain. In the heat of my terrible weapons, I went after them, filling the ascents and descents with the corpses of their warriors." His enemy crushed, Sargon set off for the Urartu capital at Tuspar, systematically destroying every fortress, city and town in the path of his march and leaving thousands dead in his wake. When Sargon reached Tuspar, Rusa fled into the mountains. Sargon entered the city triumphant, then razed it to the ground like "a smashed pot." During this phase ofthe campaign, Sargon had conducted military operations in all seven of Urartu's provinces and captured or destroyed no fewer than 430 fortified cities, towns and villages. With the Urartufieldarmy defeated and its king hiding in the mountains, Sargon swung his army around the northern shore of Lake Van and headed south toward the ancient city of Khupushkia (modem Sairt). From there, he ordered his main arniy home to Dur-Sharrukin. Saigon stayed behind with 1,000 cavalry and sti-uck out for the Urartu cultural center of Musasir. lt was there, in the temple dedicated to Haldi, the Urartu war god, tbat monarchs were crowned and the national treasury was kept. Sargon led his elite striking force east over a seemingly impenetrable mountain pass and sacked the city, retuming home with 6,000 captives and Urartu's treasures. Sargon II, remembered as Sai-gon the Great, made the best of a difficult strategic situation when he attacked the

Urartu in 714 BC. His campaign was a textbook example of how to conduct a punitive expedition in hostile territory. He shored up his relationship with Ullusunu and made alliances with the Medes, gaining much-needed supplies and protecting his flank. By securing his lines of communication throughout his march, Sargon was able to operate in hostile territory more than 300 miles from his home base. Tactically, he used his combined army to great effect, altering its balance by reducing the number of chariots and increasing his cavalry and infantry to meet the needs of a campaign in rough terrain. Finally, by heading the assault against the Urartu, Sargon—like tbe pharaoh Ramses II before him and Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror after—led by example and endeared himself to his troops.

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AFTER PACIFYING HIS northem frontier,

Saigon set his attention to the west again. During the first 11 years of his reign, the Kingdom of Judah had remained peacefully subject to Assyria, paying the requii^d annual tribute. But in 711 BC the king of Judah, prompted by the Babylonians, rebelled against the Assyrtan monarch. The Israelites were joined by the Phoenicians, the Philistines, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Sargon acted quickly, collecting a powerful army and crushing the insurrection. He then tumed his attention to Babylon, routing its army and forcing its king, Merodach-Baladan, to abandon his capital for Beth-Yakin, his ancestral stronghold. Sargon entered Babylonia in triumph, and in the following year he pursued the fleeing king, stormed BethYakin, deported its people, and compelled all the Babylonians and Elamites to pay him tribute. But in 705 Sargon's reign was cut short when he was assassinated on the battlefield. He was succeeded by his son, Sennacherib (705 to 681 BC), a monarch of equal ability and rutblessness (see Military History, October 2001). In spite of the deadly efficiency of the Assyrian army, Sennacherib's successors were unable to hold onto their imperial possessions. Durtng the 7th century, Assyria faced rcbellions by Babylon, the loss of Egypt and the rise of the Medes. Babylon finally won its independence in 626 and, with the help of the Medes, took Ashur in 614 and Nineveh in 612. By 605, the Assyrian empire had ceased to exist, finally defeated by the next builders of imperium, the short-lived Chaldean dvnasty (625-539 BC) of Babvlon. MH

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Continued from page 66 both charge and bullet. The charge was poured into the muzzle, followed by the paper-wrapped ball, which was rammed firmly onto the powder. The hammer could then be set at half cock and a copper percussion cap pushed onto the nipple. Pulling the hammer back as far as it would go brought the weapon to full cock, making it ready to aim and fire. Experiments at Enfield soon showed that a 33-inch barrel didn't decrease the accuracy of the weapon significantly and resulted in the production of the Pattern 1856 Short Rifle. Interestingly, for the first time on a British military long aiTn, the furniture {butt plate, trigger guard, etc.) was of case-hardened iron instead of brass, because it was felt that glittering brass work was liable to give away the position of a concealed marksman. Apart from the difference in barrel length, the P1856 rifle can be instantly distinguished from the rifle musket by the presence of only two barrel bands. By the end of 1855, most of the British army's Redcoat regiments had been issued the newrifle.When it proved both effective and reliable, the Horse Guards (the army's center for administration) decided that its use should be extended to the British East India Company's native regiments. Rebellion had been quietly simmering in India for a long time, and it was the advent of the Enfield—or rather its greased cartridge—that brought Indian restiveness to a head. In 1857 rumors spread among the Hindu regiments that the new Enfield cartridges had been greased with cow fat, in an insidious British attempt to break the sepoys' caste, while Muslims believed that the cartridges were contaminated with pig fat. In May 1857, 85 Indian soldiers in Meerut were court-martialed and sentenced to hard labor for refusing to use the Enfield cartridge, and days later the sepoys rose in full revolt. There had been other causes underlying the Indian Mutiny, of course, but the rumors about the Enfield rifle that sparked it were utterly baseless. Its cartridges, like all ammunition issued by the British since 1847. were greased with a mixture of beeswax and linseed oil. Animal fat would have encouraged fungal growth, with subsequent irreparable damage to the ammunition. When the American Civil War broke

out in 1861, the Confederacy needed all the weapons it could get, and blockaderunning ships brought in British-made Enfields by the thousands. Even the North's vast industrial capacity was not enough to keep up with the Union Army's demands without a supplement of imported and license-produced Enfields. Civil War Enfields were most commonly the Third Model of the P1853, manufactured in England by contractors in both London, whose products went mostly to Eederal forces, and in Birmingham, which—perhaps understandably, given northern England's involvement with cotton—tended to export to the Confederacy, This rifle musket, still with a 39inch barrel, may be distinguished by its straight, thick-bodied "jag" head ramrod and screw-clamping banel bands. Some also had the leaf back sight graduated to 1,000 yards; they were all rifled with the usual three grooves, but this time of progressive depth (.015 inches deep at the breech, evenly diminishing to .005 inches at the muzzle). Gun makers from London and Birmingham produced well over a million P1853riflesfor the American market, and many also were manufactured under license in Belgium and America. P1856 types were also used, though they were much less common. Due to much-improved manufacturing processes, the P1853s produced by American firms, such as Springfield, had the advantage of completely interchangeable parts. The Enfield became the standard Confederate issue long arm and was second only to the Springfield rifle musket among the Union forces. Its unifonnity was an advantage. All Enfields fired the same Minie bullet, making logistics and supply vasdy less complicated for both the North and the South. Bayonets for the PI853 were always of the socket (or spike) type, while the P1856 generally had a sword bayonet, although North Carolina's Fayetteville Armory, with a view to saving metal, manufactured only socket bayonets for its PI856s after January 14, 1864. The Enfields service life didn't endure long after the Civil War ended in 1865. In Britain the breechloading Snider (basically a modified Enfield) soon replaced it, while Eederal forces had begun receiving breechloading rifies, such as the Sharps and the excellent Spencer and Henry repeaters, as early as 1863. For better or worse, the killing business of war had become vet more efficient. MH

BEST

L I T T L E

S T O R I E S

Still another saga from World War II, the story of the Cape Hatteras lifeboat Baby.' By C. Brian Kelly

WERE YOU BORN?" a job in-

terviewer once asked Jesse Roper Mohorovic, who happened—by no coincidence—to be named for a U.S. Navy destroyer of the World War II era. Where was he bom? In a lifeboat bobbing in heavy seas at 2:30 a.m., Mctrch 30, t942, off Cape Hatteras, N.C. The "Lifeboat Baby," the big-city tabloids called him. "The baby Hitler couldn't get," his neighbors in upper Manhattan chimed in while the worldwide war ground on and on. For some years, he continued to be fodder for the newspapers as they reported various milestones in his life. "They covered his baptism at Saint Patricks Cathedral [in Manhattan] in t943," wrote Bill Geroux in the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch in February 2005. "They noted his first and third birthdays. In 1953, the New York Daily News reported, 'Lifeboat Baby, Now 11, Loves the Ocean and the Dodgers,' who played in Brooklyn at the time." By 1959, however, the 17-year-old stumped the panelists of the popular television program I've Got a Secret. The great war was already receding in human memory, as was the story of the miracle baby who, with his mother, had survived a torpedoed ship just hours before his birth in the lifeboat. Gone from many a memory also is the agony of those days when German submarines prowled the Atlantic sea lanes, and the waters off the Virginia-Carolina coast were "the most dangerous on earth." Over six nights in early April 1942, Geroux reported, "U-boats had torpedoed seven tankers off the Outer Banks.... Dozens of merchant seamen had died." A similar fate had befallen the passenger freighter City of New York on March 29. Desanka Mohorovicic, &'A months pregnant and traveling with her 2-year-old daughter Vesna, was resting on her bunk 74 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005

when the first torpedo hit. "Furniture flew across the cabin," Geroux wrote. "Sulfurous smoke blew in through the open porthole." With her husband Joseph, a Yugoslav diplomat, already stationed in New York, she faced her disastrous situation on her own. Desanka threw herself at her badly jammed cabin door, bursting it open. She hurried Vesna to a ladder and began to chmb close behind the child, but she slipped and painfully banged up her legs in the fall. Reaching the main deck, they discovered the 450-foot vessel truly was sinking. Instead of breaking into a widespread panic, "crew members coolly loaded passengers intofivelifeboats," wrote Geroux. "The sulfur smellfilledthe air. Shells from a Navy gun crew on the upper deck screamed down at the U-boat, which circled around their stem at periscope depth." Meanwhile, both mother and child faced the peril without life vests. As they made their way to Lifeboat 4, a seaman stripped off his and gave it to Desanka. "He was young with blond hair," Geroux noted. "She never leamed his name, nor whether he survived the day." Fortunately for Desanka, the ship's doctor, Leonard H. Conly, was negotiating the rope ladder down to the lifeboat right behind her Still, nothing was going to be easy. As the doctor released his hold on the ropes and reached for the lifeboat, a wave rocked the ship. He fell heavily into the swinging boat and broke two ribs. Worse yet, as the lifeboat was being lowered, its chains snagged. "For a minute or so it hung suspended over the waves," wrote Geroux, "still chained to the ship." Just then, a second torpedo hit. The explosion knocked Lifeboat 4 loose, and it struck the water with a violent splash. Next a storm blew up and waves began breaking over the lifeboat. Luckily for the survivors, these were warm Gulf Stream

waters. But nightfall brought a cold rain. And for Desanka, warning cramps. By midnight, she was in labor. Her baby, a healthy boy, arrived at 2:30 a.m. "Desanka called out, 'Doctor, the baby is here,"' wrote Geroux. "He crawled to her and finished the delivery." Despite the chill and the roller-coaster effect of the 15to 20-foot waves, all was well. But only for the moment. They still had to be rescued. Two days after the sinking of City of New York, the U.S. Navy destroyer Jesse Roper came across the castaways and hauled them all aboard for a fast trip to the naval base at Norfolk, Va., and safety. Desanka insisted on naming her son for the ship that rescued him, and his overjoyed father, rushing down to Norfolk to greet his family, agreed. "THE LIFEBOAT BIRTH inspired Ameri-

cans and their allies at a bleak point in World War II," Geroux reported. "Mothers wrote admiring letters to Desanka. Newspapers heralded Jesse as living proof the Allies could not be defeated. The family arrived in New York to the popping of flashbulbs. One headline declared, 'Lifeboat Baby Gains Two Pounds.'" What happened to the Lifeboat Baby? Fittingly enough, Jesse Roper Mohorovic (dropping the last "ic" from the family sumame) took a job with the shipping company with which his pregnant mother had sailed. He married the company president's secretary, Joan Vroman, in 1967. ("Bom in Lifeboat in WWII, He Pipes Lifemate Aboard," headlined the New York Daily News.) Later in life, he became an executive with Sea-Land Service Inc., a subsidiary of the CSX railroad conglomerate. Before retiring in 2003, he was chief aide to CSX chairman John W. Snow, who is currently serving as secretary of the Treasury. MH