Military History November 2021 by HistoryNet

Picts vs. Angles Nazi to NATO Lepanto, 1571 Steinbeck at War Deadly da Vinci? Hero of Saipan HISTORYNET.com

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Cochrane’s diminutive brig HMS Speedy captures the larger and better armed Spanish frigate El Gamo on May 6, 1801.

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NOVEMBER 2021

Letters 6 News 8

Features

Bane of the ‘Sea Wolf’ Thomas Cochrane excelled at naval warfare but nearly scuttled his own career. By Jerome A. Long

From Wehrmacht to Bundeswehr As the Cold War heated up, NATO sought assistance from two former Third Reich generals. By David T. Zabecki

Departments

Interview Paul Morando Telling the Soldier’s Story

Valor The Pied Piper of Saipan

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Reviews 72 War Games 78 Captured! 80

Leonardo da Vinci rendered both fine art and futuristic designs of war machines. By Jon Guttman

In 1571 Christian and Muslim fleets rowed into the last great naval clash of oared warships. By Michael D. Hull

Twilight of the Galleys

Leonardo’s Arsenal

Blueprint for WWII Resistance John Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down inspired those fighting to free Nazi-occupied Europe. By Adam Nettina

King of the Hill In 685 a shrewd Pictish king led his brash Angle opponent into a hillside ambush in the realm that became Scotland. By Dana Benner

What We Learned From... Operation Chengiz Khan

Hardware War Galley

On the cover: On May 6, 1801, off Barcelona the British Royal Navy brig Speedy, helmed by future admiral Thomas Cochrane, captured the bigger, better-armed Spanish xebec-frigate El Gamo. (Antiqua Print Gallery/Alamy Stock Photo)

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Hallowed Ground Bladensburg, Maryland, 1814

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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

NOVEMBER 2021 VOL. 38, NO. 4

Join the discussion at militaryhistory.com

A Turn for the Worse In April 1775, as chastened Redcoats retreated to Boston, Patriots sprang an ambush at a bend in the road known since as the Bloody Angle By Douglas L. Gifford IN THE ARCHIV E S :

Arsenal of Venice The city-state became the maritime power of its day by mass producing war galleys from its primary shipyard By Roger Crowley

Interview Woody Williams, a Marine Corps veteran of World War II, is the last living recipient of the Medal of Honor from that conflict Tools The M109 self-propelled howitzer has seen combat in every American war since Vietnam and remains in active service

STEPHEN HARDING EDITOR DAVID LAUTERBORN MANAGING EDITOR ZITA BALLINGER FLETCHER SENIOR EDITOR JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR ALEX GRIFFITH PHOTO EDITOR C O R P O R AT E ROB WILKINS Director of Partnership Marketing TOM GRIFFITHS Corporate Development GRAYDON SHEINBERG Corporate Development SHAWN BYERS VP Audience Development JAMIE ELLIOTT Production Director ADVERTISING MORTON GREENBERG SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING MEDIA PEOPLE / NANCY FORMAN nforman@mediapeople.com © 2021 HISTORYNET, LLC

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Letters In your article on the five longest-serving firearms in military history [by James Elphick, online at Historynet. com] the Lee-Enfield is listed as serving until 1993. However, Canadian Rangers patrolling the Arctic used them until 2018 as self-defense against polar bears. This may not be in combat, but it was their main weapon. Mark Ward Brockville, Ontario Canada Editor responds: Sure enough, the Canadian Rangers used the .303-caliber Lee-Enfield No. 4 from the formation of the unit in 1947 through 2018. That year they began using the lighter, shorter Colt Canada C19, a 7.62x51 mm NATO/ .308 Winchester bolt-action rifle designed to operate in temperatures as low as -60 degrees Fahrenheit. It is fitted with a 10-round detachable box magazine—just the ticket in the event of a bear attack.

Rogers’ Rangers I found the story [“Rogers’ Remnant,” by Ron Soodalter, May 2021] about British Maj. Robert Rogers fascinating. Rogers’ Rangers faced guerrilla warfare as they went into Abenaki territory, something they never dealt with before. As they were used to civilized warfare, the French and Indian War was a new scenario.

The scalping done by Indians and Anglos shows the savagery of guerrilla warfare. Paul Dale Roberts Elk Grove, Calif.

Connected Two articles in the [March 2021] edition caught my attention, as I have a personal and professional involvement with both. The first was the article on Cedar Creek [What We Learned From…], by William John Shepherd. My involvement with that article concerning the key 1864 battle in the Shenandoah Valley is that I wrote my history master’s thesis at the University of Delaware in 1969 on Maj. Gen. Alfred T.A. Torbert from Delaware, the cavalry commander of Phil Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah. His CSA opponent was Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, whose common-law wife was my great-great-grandmother, Julia McNealy. Julia’s fifth child, Lilly, was my great-grandmother. The other interesting article was “Last Shot at Glory,” by Dave Kindy, on the famous German submarine U-853 and the story of its attack on the East Coast in the spring of 1945 and sinking off Block Island in early May. Few people know that Delaware businessman Mel Joseph, of Millsboro, got per-

mission from the German government in the late 1960s to not only send a dive team to locate the boat but also bring her up. Mel first had to agree to pay for reinterment of the remains of the German sailors back in Germany. Unfortunately, when the Joseph dive team got to the U-boat, they found it so damaged, with so many unexploded hedgehogs [antisubmarine weapons] around it and live torpedoes hanging from the tubes, they could not bring the boat up. They did, however, bring up the remaining Flak 38 gun tub, including both 20 mm guns and the entire mount including the armored shield (except the sights, which evidently had been blown off during the attack), and Mel brought it back to Delaware along with other objects from the several dives his team made. I found the Flak 38 in 2004 in the woods behind a local college (that’s another story), and our team at the Fort Miles Museum restored it. It’s now on permanent display in our museum at Fort Miles, in Cape Henlopen State Park. Dr. Gary D. Wray Lewes, Del.

Schmidt I found “What We Learned From the Battle of Schmidt, 1944” [by David T. Zabecki, January 2021] interesting

Charles Martel Patrick S. Baker’s cover story “Under the Hammer” in your January 2021 issue is superb. The Battle of Tours turned out more like a crossword puzzle than a matter of physics. The Immovable Object didn’t overpower the Irresistible Force; it outsmarted it— in straight battles, no less. Evan Dale Santos Adelanto, Calif.

Villain? The July 2021 Military History included a book review about Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia. Reviewer Mike Oppenheim used the word “villain” in the same sentence to describe Gen. Curtis LeMay. I vehemently disagree with that analogy to that great American hero. “Patriot” would be a more accurate description. “Villain” would definitely be more appropriate to describe Japan’s Hideki Tojo or Germany’s Hermann Göring, both contemporary enemies of LeMay. Edison Harris Los Angeles Send letters via e-mail to militaryhistory@historynet.com or to Editor, Military History HISTORYNET 901 N. Glebe Road, 5th Floor Arlington, VA 22203 Please include name, address and phone number

HERITAGE AUCTIONS

Polar Bore

and informative. I also found the lessons not to be learned by our military, in that six years later in Korea at Chosin we did everything you listed not to do. Everything. Dan Ingham Clarksburg, Pa.

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News By Dave Kindy

At 7:48 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the first of two waves of 353 Japanese planes crested the hills of Oahu, Hawaii, to launch a surprise attack on warships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Some 20 minutes later USS Arizona—already struck by several bombs—took a direct hit to its forward magazines. The resulting explosion effectively cut the battleship in half, sending a plume of flame and smoke into the morning sky and killing many of the 1,177 crewmen who died that day. Though most are entombed in the sunken vessel, the remains of 85 unknown Arizona sailors are buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (aka Punchbowl Cemetery) in Honolulu. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has announced plans to reinter the latter’s remains aboard Arizona without first identifying them, as the agency did for hundreds of unknowns killed aboard

USS Oklahoma on that “date which will live in infamy.” Families of the Arizona unknowns are outraged at the plan. DPAA Director Kelly McKeague insists it is not pragmatic to identify the remains, as the Navy has medical files for only half of the missing Arizona sailors, dental records for some 130 crewmen and DNA samples from only 1 percent of their families. “We must apply our limited resources in a manner that is equitable to all families and to do so as efficiently and effectively as possible,” he said. A group of family members is just as insistent the DPAA identify the 85 unknowns. Led by Randy Stratton, whose father, Seaman 1st Class Donald Stratton, survived the attack and lived to age 97, the group petitioned DPAA to reconsider and is working to collect DNA samples from descendants of the crew.

‘It is he who commands the respect I protect, his bravery that made us so proud’

—From “The Sentinel’s Creed,” taken by guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery

TECH. SGT. MICHAEL HOLZWORTH (U.S. AIR FORCE)

ARIZONA SAILORS’ FAMILIES PRESS FOR IDENTIFICATION

8 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2021

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FROM TOP: MC3 RANDY LEE ADAMS II (U.S. NAVY); CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP (GETTY IMAGES); PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS INDRA BEAUFORT (U.S. NAVY)

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, pays homage to the 1,177 crewmen killed on Dec. 7, 1941, some of whom were buried on land.

WAR RECORD

Russia Returns French General

FROM TOP: MC3 RANDY LEE ADAMS II (U.S. NAVY); CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP (GETTY IMAGES); PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS INDRA BEAUFORT (U.S. NAVY)

TECH. SGT. MICHAEL HOLZWORTH (U.S. AIR FORCE)

One of Napoléon Bonaparte’s trusted generals has finally come home. The remains of Charles-Étienne Gudin, who died at age 44 on Aug. 22, 1812, of wounds suffered near Smolensk, were recently repatriated to France by the Russian government. Gudin

commanded a division in the second Grande Armée and was killed amid the invasion of Russia. His coffin was accompanied by an honor guard of French soldiers dressed in period uniforms.

North Carolina Again Shipshape The battleship USS North Carolina has returned to full glory as a museum ship in Wilmington, N.C., after a four-year, $11 million restoration effort. Commissioned in 1941, the warship saw action off Guadalcanal, the Philippines and elsewhere in the Pacific and survived a torpedo attack in World War II. Restoration crews replaced brittle steel plates on North Carolina’s hull and repainted the battleship.

Oct. 1, 1578

NEW U.S. NAVY MUSEUM BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE The U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) has unveiled plans for a new National Museum of the United States Navy to replace the existing facility, which opened in 1963 at the Washington Navy Yard. “The new museum will be a state-of-the-art facility devoted to telling the storied history of the Navy’s past, present and future,” said Albert H. Konetzni Jr., board president of the Navy Museum Development Foundation and a retired vice admiral. Boasting a collection of several hundred thousand artifacts, photos and artwork, NHHC oversees 10 museums and two historic museum ships. Plans call for the new museum to open in 2025, coinciding with the Navy’s 250th anniversary.

BATTLE CONTINUES FOR 9/11 CUTTER ADAK Amid the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Adak paused from its routine maritime security and searchand-rescue duties to coordinate the evacuation of more than a half million people from lower Manhattan. The cutter later served in the Persian Gulf. Yet after Adak’s decommissioning in Bahrain on June 15, 2021, the State Department reaffirmed its intent to donate the historic cutter to Indonesia—despite the latter’s insistence it doesn’t want the ship and in the face of a nonprofit campaign [uscgcadak. com] to bring Adak to Tampa Bay as a museum ship. Given the vessel’s historic significance, congressional representatives have thrown bipartisan support behind plans to preserve it as a museum.

John of Austria, the illegitimate son of Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, dies of fever at 31. John led Pope Pius V’s Holy League fleet to victory against the Turks at the 1571 Battle of Lepanto (P. 40).

Oct. 1, 1942

John Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down (P. 56)— a novel relating the occupation of an unnamed European town by ostensibly German forces—is published in an acting edition after being produced on Broadway earlier that year.

Oct. 12, 633

Edwin, the first Angle king of Northumbria to embrace Christianity, dies. Successors embrace Roman Catholicism, alienating Celtic Christian Picts in what would become Scotland. The latter rebel, defeating the Angles at the 685 Battle of Dún Nechtain (P. 64).

November 1492

Bronze set aside for a monumental horse statue by Leonardo da Vinci is instead used to forge cannons to defend Milan from invaders. Ironically, Leonardo’s conceptual drawings of war machines (P. 50) have survived the centuries.

Nov. 6, 1854

Veteran of the British, Chilean and Brazilian navies Thomas Cochrane (P. 24) is appointed honorary rear admiral of the United Kingdom, completing his redemption from an early career disgrace.

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News ARMY TO UPGRADE ‘BLACK HAWK DOWN’ SOLDIERS’ MEDALS

Tucson Honors Buffalo Soldiers Officials in Tucson, Ariz., have dedicated Buffalo Soldiers Memorial Plaza in honor of black soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments and 24th and 25th Infantry regiments, all of which served for a time at nearby Fort Huachuca from the Indian wars through World War I. Better known as the Buffalo Soldiers, their ranks included 27 Medal of Honor recipients.

Another Iconic Red Cloud

The plan was straightforward. Supported by helicopter gunships, U.S. special operations teams would insert into the Somalian capital of Mogadishu to capture top lieutenants of the insurgent warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and a column of armored vehicles would then extract the teams and their prisoners. The reality was a nightmare. On Oct. 3, 1993, after insurgents downed two Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters with rocket-propelled grenades, the operation devolved into a firefight pitting 160 Army Rangers, Delta Force operators and special ops aviators against thousands of Somali insurgents. By the end of the subsequent overnight standoff and rescue mission 18 U.S. soldiers and two allies lay dead, and 82 others were wounded. Also killed in the Battle of Mogadishu were hundreds of insurgents and dozens of civilians. Among the dead were Delta Force snipers Master Sgt. Gary Gordon and Sgt. 1st Class Randy Shughart, who had volunteered to be inserted into the fight and received posthumous Medals of Honor for their efforts to protect the pilot and crew of a downed Black Hawk (the pilot, CW3 Michael Durant, survived the battle). Other Americans received medals ranging from the Purple Heart to the Silver Star—the U.S. armed forces’ third highest award for valor in combat. After a re-evaluation ordered by former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, the Army has announced it will upgrade lesser awards given to 60 of the special operators. Fifty-eight will receive Silver Stars, the other two Distinguished Flying Crosses. The mission was the subject of journalist Mark Bowden’s best-selling 1999 book Black Hawk Down, adapted into an Academy Award–winning 2001 war film.

‘There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself in acts of bravery and heroism’ —Alexander Hamilton

War II and an Army corporal in Korea, where he received a posthumous Medal of Honor. A new graphic novel [ausa.org/medal-honorgraphic-novels] from the Association of the U.S. Army relates the action in which Red Cloud laid down his life for fellow soldiers at Chonghyon, North Korea, on Nov. 5, 1950.

LEFT: JOHNNY SAUNDERSON (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); RIGHT: U.S. ARMY

The Oct. 3, 1993, mission took a downturn when Somali insurgents shot down two UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters, like the one above.

Ho-Chunk Indian Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. (no relation to the eponymous Sioux chief) was a Marine Raider during World

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News On Aug. 6, 2011, a U.S. Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter transporting 23 members of SEAL Team Six was shot down in Afghanistan, killing the 31 Americans and seven Afghan troops on board. Asking tough questions, the new documentary Fallen Angel—Call Sign: Extortion 17 [watch. salemnow.com/products/fallen-angel-callsign-extortion-17] seeks

to sort out what happened that day to cause the largest single-incident loss of U.S. lives amid the War in Afghanistan.

Magawa Leaves the ‘Rat Race’ Over his five years of hazardous duty in Cambodia he located 71 land mines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance…using his nose. Now Magawa the African giant pouched rat—the most successful rodent ever trained to detect explosives— is retiring. But not without due recognition. In 2020 a British nonprofit awarded Magawa the PDSA Gold Medal— the animal equivalent of the George Cross.

D-DAY STORY MUSEUM LANDS HISTORIC LCT

WARBIRDS Aviation aficionados around the world have restored or crafted replicas of historic military aircraft.

A Spitfire From Scrap

Hobbyist David Price built a full-scale replica of the iconic World War II Supermarine Spitfire fighter behind his home in Carlisle, England. He spent 3,000 hours constructing the aircraft from original parts and everyday materials.

The last surviving LCT (landing craft, tank) from the June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy has been restored and is on display at the D-Day Story museum in Portsmouth, England. LCT 7074, which was submerged at its mooring in Birkenhead when work began, underwent a meticulous seven-year, $10 million restoration. The D-Day Story museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy teamed up to return the LCT to the condition it was in when it ferried British troops and tanks to Gold Beach on D-Day. Their efforts garnered the partner organizations an industry Museums and Heritage Award as the restoration/conservation project of the year.

THEY WERE COMING HOME FROM THE WAR On July 9, 1946, a planeload of Coast Guard and Army Air Forces troops bound home after World War II went down on Mount Tom near Chicopee, Mass. All 25 Americans aboard the converted Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber were killed after it clipped trees, crashed into a rock outcrop and exploded. This July, 75 years after the accident, family members and local officials gathered at a granite memorial on Mount Tom in honor of the fallen. Etched with the men’s names and an image of the bomber, the memorial was dedicated on the 50th anniversary of the crash, but this year marked the first visit for many relatives.

Reconditioned Corsair

A restored A-7 Corsair II is back aboard the USS Midway museum ship in San Diego. Staff and volunteers spent 2,000 hours repairing the Vietnam-era aircraft, which had been exposed to the elements on the historic aircraft carrier’s deck since 2004.

Fortress for Sale

Care to own a rare B-17E Flying Fortress bomber dating from 1942? One of few surviving Flying Fortresses built by Boeing, the plane is about 80 percent restored. Platinum Fighter Sales is offering the silver-skinned beauty for $9 million.

Oh, Brother!

On June 6, 1944, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain That’s All, Brother led the 800 transports that dropped paratroopers into Normandy. In 2018 the Commemorative Air Force returned the historic transport to wartime flying condition. This summer pilot Doug Rozendaal flew the touring warplane to Mason City, Iowa, where in 1986 he first saw That’s All, Brother, then being used as a mail carrier.

FROM TOP: GARY B (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); SALEM MEDIA GROUP; MT. TOM B-17 MEMORIAL

Film Examines Team Six Crash

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Interview Telling the Soldier’s Story By Zita Ballinger Fletcher

Paul Morando is chief of exhibits at the National Museum of the United States Army. In development for decades, the 185,000square-foot museum on an 84-acre site at Fort Belvoir, Va., opened in 2020 but was temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The facility reopened to visitors on June 14, 2021—the Army’s 246th birthday. Morando gave Military History a behind-the-scenes look at the museum, sharing details about its cutting-edge design, interactive elements and impressive array of artifacts from the span of Army history.

Tell us about the Army and Society gallery. The separate, stand-alone gallery looks at the relationship between the Army and civilian society. You’ll explore many different themes, such as civilians supporting the Army, the Army support-

From where did you obtain artifacts, and which is the oldest? The majority were already in our collection. Others were purchased specifically for the museum. Our oldest object is a rapier discovered at Jamestown, Va., dating from 1607. Do you have a favorite artifact? My favorite piece is the sword that belonged to Capt. John Berry, an American artillery officer who served at Fort McHenry. At the 1814 Battle of Baltimore this sword was on [Berry’s] person while Francis Scott Key was writing our national anthem. So while it’s a significant Army artifact, it’s actually an American national artifact, and I really treasure that. Did families donate items to the museum? Before we opened, donations were limited. Once word got out the museum was opening, and more so after we opened, people started coming in droves to donate artifacts. It puts a lot of work on my team, because we have to figure out what would make sense to bring into the collection versus generic materials. It’s typical for a museum of this size to get that reaction. Explain the museum’s “Soldier’s Story” pylons. We have permanent “Soldier’s Story” pylons through the lobby and into the main exhibit wing. We wanted to showcase stories of individual sol-

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NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Paul Morando

What was the thought process behind the interactive elements? We knew we wanted to have interactive displays because of different learning styles. Those who like to watch and engage and interact have that ability. But the galleries are not dominated by interactive displays. We also have the more traditional approach of artifacts, labels and images. The key was trying to find the balance. What’s really neat is that some of the interactive displays allow you to compare tactics in different conflicts— like between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, or to World War II.

ing civilians and how the public views the Army.

RANDY GLASS STUDIO

Explain the design intent and layout of the museum. The artifacts and the way the galleries are laid out focus on individual soldier’s stories, while also connecting the collective history of each war and campaign in which American soldiers have fought. The artifacts complement those stories. But we didn’t want just random pieces. We wanted artifacts that had a connection to soldiers. That perspective allowed us to dictate how the galleries were going to be designed. Each gallery introduces certain themes and features color palettes and designs to invoke the time period.

The M4 Sherman Cobra King—the first tank to enter Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944 when U.S. forces broke the German siege— is among the iconic artifacts on display at the new National Museum of the U.S. Army.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

RANDY GLASS STUDIO

diers. On the back of the last six pylons we have a digital version, and it rotates. This gives us the ability to add multiple stories. About 60 extra stories on these screens look at a wide variety of soldiers and the diversity of our Army. We certainly can’t easily change the permanent exhibits in terms of adding stories, but we can do it this way. This has actually been very powerful in connecting with the public. I’ll see people stand for 20 minutes just looking at all the stories. How long did it take to select stories to showcase? It took years. This museum doesn’t necessarily just focus on medal recipients. You’ll see the stories of Audie Murphy and Sgt. [Alvin] York, and we have Sgt. York’s helmet—things like that. But we also want to focus on the everyday soldiers whose stories you may not know but are important. Visitors can connect more with those types

of stories, because they can see a reflection of themselves in that individual soldier’s story. What’s the story behind the tank in the Global War gallery? It came out of Germany and is an original [M4 Sherman]. This is the Cobra King—probably the most iconic artifact in the Army because of its story. At the Battle of the Bulge this particular tank was the first into Bastogne to break the German siege. It’s truly significant, whether you’re a tank aficionado or not. There are visitors who just come to this museum to see this tank. Describe the D-Day tableaux in the Global War gallery. It depicts a cargo net of soldiers coming down from a troopship into a Higgins boat. The whole display is a composite based on historical images. The size of the net and wooden beams used are all accurate based on images I looked at.

How the figures were essentially positioned on the net and the way they’re supposed to be holding their hands is extremely accurate. All the equipment you see on the figures is authentic in terms of what they carried. This is one of six original Higgins boats associated with the D-Day landings. We don’t know specifically what beach it landed on, but it was used during D-Day. It came here out of England. The D-Day tableaux is my favorite display. I personally directed where each of the cast figures sat on the [Higgins] boat and where they were placed. In fact, I remember climbing up the net, as a mock-up in the studio, to show how I wanted some of these soldiers’ positions to be cast. I wanted to get it right. Do you get feedback from veterans who visit? Veterans connect with all the galleries in the museum. Of course, Vietnam,

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Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are going to have a stronger connection to some degree with exhibits they are familiar with. What I find unique is that veterans do connect with stories other than their own—as with the exhibit of Col. Henry Knox’s trail. During the winter of 1775–76 Knox got about 60 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga for George Washington to emplace at Boston, and those guns helped drive the British out of the city. That mission was very important, especially early on in the war. The exhibit model conveys how difficult it was to move a cannon from upstate New York to Boston. I’ve seen veterans with their families circled around this piece explaining the logistics of war. Why is there a permanent Medal of Honor gallery? We wanted to give the public an understanding of how the medal came to be,

how its meaning has changed over time and, more important, to highlight specific stories of soldiers and their actions in different wars. We wanted to focus on the story of the medal itself —it’s really so symbolic, obviously representing bravery, service and the Army values we hold so dear. The interactive displays in the gallery allow visitors to explore a “What Would You Do?” scenario that brings them closer to the decisions made by a particular soldier—one of the best ways to tell a story. It’s very simple but also very engaging. Users are given options like, “Would you jump on that grenade,” or “move into the line of fire”? It’s quite powerful. How did you decide which Medals of Honor to showcase? There wasn’t a plan in terms of how many, what type or which soldiers who received the medal should go on display. First, it’s whether or not we have the medals. A lot of Medals of Honor stay with the family if the soldier has passed away. However, we do have a good number of Medals of Honor. We also have a Medal of Honor garden with a wall honoring all the Army recipients.

Will the museum present traveling exhibits? Yes. The plan is to bring in traveling exhibits and to develop temporary and special exhibits. We have a special gallery, with 5,000 square feet of exhibition space, meant to be used as a rotating gallery for new exhibits as they come in. Next year we’re going to receive a traveling exhibit on Bob Hope [“So Ready for Laughter”] from the National WWII Museum. Right now the space is occupied by “The Art of Soldiering,” an exhibit that looks at Army art over time. What do you hope people will take away from visits to the museum? Any type of visitor can connect with any type of story here. The idea is that after their visit they hopefully go on to learn more about that story, and, more important, they learn more not just about an individual, a battle or a war, but about the Army as a whole. Then they make the connection that the Army is an important part of how this country came to be. The Army has always been there—in every battle, in every campaign, in every significant moment of American history. MH

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY (3)

Above: Morando took a literal hands-on role in creating the D-Day display. Top right: “Soldier’s Story” profiles appear on pylons throughout the museum. Below right: Exhibits detail all manner of soldiers’ experiences over the centuries, such as the loading of a 12-pounder Napoléon gun.

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Valor The Pied Piper of Saipan In May 1944 he learned his regiment would be part of the Saipan invasion. More than 30,000 Japanese soldiers occupied the island, which was also home to tens of thousands of Japanese civilians. His first night on the island Gabaldon left camp without permission and snuck into enemy territory. Happening across a trio of Japanese soldiers, he ordered them to drop their weapons. One raised his rifle, but Gabaldon fired first. The surviving two surrendered. Gabaldon’s commander, Capt. John Schwabe, threatened him with a courtmartial if he left again. The next night, however, the headstrong private again slipped into enemy territory, returning with 52 prisoners. Schwabe reluctantly granted Gabaldon permission to continue his sorties. That July 8 Gabaldon relied on a capJapanese soldiers huddled in caves on the island of Guy Gabaldon Saipan. Having survived a 15-hour banzai attack tured Japanese to convey the surrenU.S. Marine Corps that left more than 4,000 of their fellow soldiers der offer to those hiding in the caves. Navy Cross dead, they had retreated underground and were con- Their commander accepted, and scores Saipan and Tinian templating suicide. Then someone called out in their of soldiers and civilians duly turned June–August 1944 language. The person explained that U.S. Marines themselves over to an outnumbered had surrounded them but offered safety, food and and overwhelmed Gabaldon. To buy water if they surrendered. The Japanese had no idea the enemy offering them life time, he ordered the soldiers and civilthat July 8, 1944, was a lone 18-year-old Mexican-American from East Los Angeles. ians to separate, then to further sepaBorn on March 22, 1926, Guy Gabaldon was the fourth of seven children. rate the sick and wounded from each From a young age he shined shoes in his neighborhood to help support the family. group. By the time backup arrived, the By age 12 he was spending most nights at the home of his best friends, Japanese- lone Marine had collected 800 prisAmerican twins Lyle and Lane Nakano. Widow Sumi Nakano and her five children oners. When his unit moved on to Tinbecame the young man’s foster family. Over the next few years Gabaldon attended ian, Gabaldon talked hundreds more Japanese language classes with Lyle and Lane, learning to speak it with proficiency. Japanese into surrendering. Posted Their close-knit family life was shattered after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack back to Saipan to help track down Japon Pearl Harbor. In February 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive anese holdouts, Gabaldon was seriOrder 9066 consigned Japanese-Americans to “relocation centers.” Forced to ously wounded amid an ambush and medically evacuated to Hawaii. leave home, the Nakanos were sent to a camp in Heart Mountain, Wyo. Gabaldon’s efforts on both Saipan Left on his own, 16-year-old Gabaldon sought to enlist but was refused for being underage. Undeterred, he tried to join the Navy on his 17th birthday and Tinian led to the surrender of some but was rejected for having a perforated eardrum. Learning the Marine Corps 1,500 enemy troops and civilians, for was looking for Japanese interpreters, Gabaldon convinced a recruiter to overlook which he received the Silver Star. Actor both his age and ear problem. He hoped to attend formal language training after Jeffrey Hunter portrayed the heroic boot camp, but a broken jaw from an off-base fight scuttled that plan. Following Marine in the 1960 film Hell to Eternity. his recovery he was assigned to an 81 mm mortar platoon and shipped to Hawaii. A month after its release Gabaldon’s Determined to be a translator, Gabaldon pestered superiors until they trans- Silver Star was upgraded to the Navy ferred him to the G-2 (Intelligence) Section of Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Cross. The “Pied Piper of Saipan” died on Aug. 31, 2006, at age 80. MH Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. He was trained as a scout and observer.

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What We Learned From... Operation Chengiz Khan By Jon Guttman

arch 26, 1971, brought a new twist to the hostilities that had persisted between India and Pakistan since achieving mutual independence in 1947. On that day East Pakistan declared its independence from the latter as Bangladesh, immediately sparking a war between its guerrilla army and Pakistani armed forces—primarily three army divisions and the 20 Canadair Sabre fighters of the Pakistan Air Force’s No. 14 Squadron. That India was aiding the rebels became manifest on November 22, when three Sabres strafing enemy positions were engaged by four Folland Gnats of the Indian Air Force’s No. 24 Squadron, resulting in two downed Sabres. The next day Pakistan declared a state of emergency. On November 30 Pakistani President Yahya Khan met with Chief of Army Staff Gen. Abdul Hamid Khan and Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Abdur Rahim Khan to work out their nation’s best—or perhaps least regrettable—recourse. Drawing from the pre-emptive strategy Israel had used to achieve air superiority in the 1967 Six-Day War, Operation Chengiz Khan called for pre-emptive strikes against nearly a dozen forward Indian air bases. After neutralizing the IAF, the PAF would support a ground offensive aimed at seizing as much territory as possible. The PAF would launch its attacks at 5:45 p.m. on a Friday, the Muslim sabbath, to coincide with shift changes at the IAF control centers. Having learned from the 1967 Israeli strikes, the IAF had dispersed its aircraft in concrete shelters and camouflaged its command centers, fuel depots and ammo dumps. Thus PAF pilots were to focus instead on taking out air defense radars and bombing runways. Around 5:45 p.m. on December 3 PAF Sabres struck the base at Pathankot, and Dassault Mirage IIIEPs attacked Amritsar. Within minutes Sabres hit Srinagar. Through 10:30 p.m. three waves of Pakistani aircraft also targeted Ambala, Agra, Awantipur, Bhuj, Bikaner, Faridkot, Halwara, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Sirsa, Sarsawa and Uttarlai, as well as railway stations and armored vehicle concentrations.

Lessons: Repeat recent military history at your own peril. Given the Royal Air Force origins of both subcontinental air arms, it was wishful thinking for the PAF to expect the IAF in 1971 to be as unaware and unprepared as the Egyptian air force had been in 1967. Fight to win or don’t fight. Having resolved to launch pre-emptive air strikes, Khan hedged his bets by committing only 30 percent of his aircraft. Runways are hard to eliminate. By the morning after the raid India had restored its runways, as well as its control centers and radar installations. MH

BETTMANN (GETTY IMAGES)

Pakistani forces surrendered in mid-December 1971 after their air force failed to keep India out of Bangladesh’s fight for independence.

The most damage was done at Amritsar, where Pakistani jets cratered the first 1,000 feet of runway and hit a radar site. At Sirsa Martin B-57B Canberras scattered bombs with time-delayed fuzes, which detonated at intervals all that night. At Faridkot a PAF fighter destroyed a parked light aircraft. Within 45 minutes of the first strikes Pakistani troops crossed the border into Jammu. All PAF aircraft returned to base. Regardless, the Pakistanis’ results fell far short of what the Israelis had achieved, partly because the Indians kept most of their air assets farther back, and partly because the PAF only committed 30 percent of its aircraft to the operation. By the next morning India had mobilized forces for the yet-to-be-declared war and repaired virtually all the damaged runways, enabling it to hurl its 1,025 warplanes against Pakistan’s 280. Over the next 13 days aerial combat raged over the opposing bases and embattled armies. The ultimate outcome was the one Yahya Khan had hoped to avert—defeat in both Pakistans and independence for Bangladesh.

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TODAY IN HISTORY AUGUST 8, 1974 PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON ANNOUNCED HIS RESIGNATION. UNDER SUBPOENA THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE RELEASED TAPES OF PHONE CONVERSATIONS TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON AUGUST 5, 1974. THE MOST DAMNING PIECE OF EVIDENCE OBTAINED WAS THE INFAMOUS “SMOKING GUN” TAPE, WHICH DOCUMENTED THE EARLY STAGES OF THE WATERGATE COVERUP. NIXON ACCEPTED BLAME FOR HIS ROLE IN THE COVERUP, CITING A MEMORY LAPSE REGARDING WHITE HOUSE INVOLVEMENT. For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

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Hardware War Galley By Jon Guttman Illustration by Tony Bryan

he galley—a large seagoing vessel propelled primarily by rows of oarsmen but supplemented by sails —dates from the third millennium bc. The war galley was fitted with a projecting beak at its prow, used for ramming. Rounding out its armament were archers, catapults and incendiary devices. If one couldn’t ram and sink or set afire an enemy ship, a last resort was boarding and capture. By the 16th century gunpowder had been added to the galley’s arsenal, though its design initially permitted only bow-mounted cannons. A later hybrid, the galleass, provided dedicated gun decks on which to carry more cannons, though it too relied primarily on its ram. The great galley fleets that gained fame at the 480 bc Battle of Salamis and amid the 264–41 bc First Punic War reached their zenith during the pivotal collision of the Holy League and Ottoman empire off Lepanto, Greece, in 1571 (see related feature, P. 40). The example shown here is a Spanish galley of the Holy League fleet. By then, however, Henry VIII had ordered the construction of sail-powered warships fitted with rows of cannons as the backbone of the English fleet. Galleys, whose shallow draft and crew logistics limited their oceangoing capabilities, occasionally turned up in combat as late as the 18th century, but almost always as coastal or riverine warships. The use of naval rams saw an unexpected revival amid the American Civil War when the Confederate navy introduced steam-powered casemate ironclads fitted with bow rams and rows of cannons. The modest success of these ironclads prompted the Western powers to roll out a generation of warships sporting such rams— that is, until the 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War made it clear even steam-powered armored rams were no match for high-explosive armor-piercing shells. With that, the ram concept went down for the last time. MH

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FROM REN

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Ram tip Spur Cathead Fighting platform Foremast (positioned off-center to allow full recoil of the center gun) 6. Rowing frame 7. Mainmast 8. Shot room 9. Galley 10. Rowing benches 11. Signaling halyard 12. Spanish standard

13. Poop deck 14. Helmsman’s position 15. Flag of the Holy Roman empire 16. Stern lantern (one of three) 17. Admiral’s quarters 18. Rudder 19. Officers’ cabins 20. Admiral’s fighting position 21. Oar 22. Tholepin (to hold oar) 23. Ballast stones 24. Water stores

25. Dry provisions store 26. Outrigger frame 27. Frame 28. Keel 29. Shipwright’s store 30. Deck beam 31. Fresh provisions store 32. Magazine 33. Weapons locker 34. Anchor

15 14

7 10 11

8 9

24 23 27

28 30 31

FROM RENAISSANCE WAR GALLEY, 1470–1590, BY ANGUS KONSTAM (OSPREY PUBLISHING, BLOOMSBURY PRESS PUBLISHING)

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BANE OF THE ‘SEA WOLF’ British Admiral Thomas Cochrane excelled in the navies of three nations, but his combative nature nearly made him a footnote in naval history By Jerome A. Long

Scion of a noble but impoverished Scottish family, Thomas Cochrane found his calling in the British Royal Navy, which he entered in 1793 as a 17-year-old midshipman.

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Cochrane’s overarching ambition was to wear the bicorne of a Royal Navy admiral—a goal he finally achieved in May 1832.

n May 6, 1801, sailing ships waged a maritime David and Goliath battle in the Mediterranean off Barcelona, Spain. The combatants were the diminutive British Royal Navy brig HMS Speedy and the vastly larger and much better armed Spanish xebec-frigate El Gamo. Described by its captain, Thomas, Lord Cochrane, as “a burlesque on a vessel of war,” Speedy was smaller than a rich man’s yacht at scarcely 78 feet in overall length and not quite 26 feet across the beam. Its armament was so light that Cochrane once strode the quarterdeck in jest with an entire broadside of shot in his coat pockets. That Speedy found itself engaged with a far superior opponent was not bad luck—it was intentional on Cochrane’s part. His superiors had ordered the captain to engage French and Spanish vessels operating in the western Mediterranean during the French Revolutionary wars. Cochrane and crew had proved so successful that the Spanish had resolved to set a trap for the British warship. Cochrane learned of the plot, and when several enemy gunboats sought to bait the brig toward Barcelona, he obligingly followed. The resulting battle was one of many that ultimately earned Cochrane the epithet “The Sea Wolf.”

Boarding Pistol Unlike many naval officers of his time, Cochrane did not shrink from leading his men when they boarded enemy ships. When joining the fight, Cochrane carried his sword and likely a brace of flintlock pistols—like this circa 1830 .75-caliber example from a popular London gunmaker.

naval career and secured him an army commission. The younger Cochrane obeyed his father’s wishes—but only for a time. Consequently, Thomas was older than his peers when he entered the Royal Navy as a 17-year-old midshipman in 1793 as Britain was pulled into the French Revolutionary wars. On his first vessel, the 28-gun frigate Hind, Cochrane learned the seaman’s trade from both the vessel’s captain —his uncle Alexander Cochrane—and the curmudgeonly 1st Lt. Jack Larmour, a former enlisted man promoted to officer for his seafaring skills. Cochrane proved an apt student, earning Larmour’s respect. Britain was fully at war by the time Cochrane went to sea. His first and only cruise on Hind took him to the Norwegian fjords looking for French privateers. As no enemies presented themselves, the six-month voyage served as more of a training cruise for the midshipman. Returning from Norway, Cochrane transferred with his uncle to the 38-gun frigate Thetis. He spent the next five years patrolling the waters off North America, stopping and searching U.S.-flagged vessels. By 1796 Spain and France had allied against Britain, while the United States remained neutral in the French Revolutionary wars. Regardless, the British considered any cargoes bound for Spain or France to be contraband and subject to seizure, while any British sailors found on American ships were also seized and impressed into service aboard Royal Navy ships. Cochrane was sympathetic to the U.S. government’s complaints about the latter practice, as impressment might leave a ship dangerously shorthanded.

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VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON

manders in the Age of Sail in spite of himself. He was by all accounts obstinate, self-righteous, self-promoting and irritating, even to friends. According to one writer, he lacked political subtlety, was impatient, intemperate in his language, paranoid and continually upsetting superiors. In short, it seemed Cochrane was his own worst enemy. Lord Cochrane was born on Dec. 14, 1775, in the council area of South Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of Archibald Cochrane, the ninth Earl of Dundonald (the term “Lord” was a courtesy title given to the heirs of peers). The title was virtually the only thing Cochrane inherited. His own father was impoverished, as over several generations the family lands had been squandered, foreclosed on or seized by the Crown. “I never inherited a foot,” Cochrane wrote of his ancestors’ once extensive holdings. Though lacking in wealth, the family’s long history of military service meant the young man did not lack influential contacts, including distinguished peers and senior officers. Having served in both the British army and Royal

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Cochrane became one of the most brilliant naval com- Navy, his father vigorously discouraged Thomas from a

In 1798 Cochrane was assigned to the Mediterranean as a lieutenant aboard the 90-gun second-rate Barfleur, helmed by Vice Adm. George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, second-in-command of the British Mediterranean Fleet. Serving under a despotic first lieutenant, Cochrane soon faced a court-martial for insubordination, an accusation he hotly disputed. The court was sympathetic, and Lord Keith privately told him to be more careful in the future. It was not the last time Cochrane would find himself in legal hot water. The accusation did not prevent his promotion to commander and appointment to Speedy in March 1800, with orders to harass the French and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean. That assignment, and his duel with El Gamo, set him on the path to maritime fame.

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON

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The 1801 capture of the Spanish frigate El Gamo by Cochrane’s HMS Speedy— depicted here in an 1845 oil by British maritime painter Clarkson Stanfield—was among the Sea Wolf’s celebrated victories.

Cochrane’s decision to follow Spanish “bait ships” toward Barcelona soon brought him face to face with the 32-gun El Gamo, which opened fire on Speedy and hoisted its colors as soon as it came within range. Realizing his ship’s 14 four-pounders were no match for the Spanish frigate’s mixture of 8- and 12-pounder guns and 24-pounder carronades in either range or hitting power, Cochrane fell back on a time-honored naval tactic—deception. He ordered the American flag hoisted atop Speedy’s aft mast, even while directing the helmsman to steer for the enemy frigate. Confounded by the appearance of the Stars and Stripes, the Spanish captain hesitated

just long enough for Cochrane to change tack, hoist British colors and evade El Gamo’s first broadside. Skirting a second broadside, the nimble British brig ran in close, so close that Speedy’s yardarms became entangled in the frigate’s rigging, as Cochrane intended. At such close range the enemy gunners were unable to depress their weapons low enough to bear on the British attacker. But Speedy’s guns, triple-loaded with shot and elevated, raked the

His contentious personality and arrogance did not endear Cochrane to those in power Spaniard’s main deck with terrible effect, killing both their captain and boatswain. The Spanish crew attempted to board the attacking vessel, but Cochrane sheered off just far enough to defeat that maneuver, having his gunners fire another broadside and his musketeers pick off enemy sailors. Twice more the Spanish crewmen sought to board Speedy, only to face the same punishment. Cochrane realized the seesaw fight could not last indefinitely. Although the Spaniards could not depress their guns to damage Speedy’s hull, their chain shot was ravaging the sloop’s rigging. Faced with the increasing danger

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Bernardo O’Higgins Pedro I

Admiral Bling

abruptly on July 3, 1801, when a trio of French warships gave chase and finally captured Speedy. The lead French captain acknowledged his admiration for Cochrane by refusing to accept the British officer’s sword. Treated well by their captors, Cochrane and his crew were exchanged within days for a similar number of French prisoners. The following spring Britain and France signed the Peace of Amiens, suspending hostilities.

Though Cochrane’s victories at sea made him hugely popular with the British public, his superiors at the Admiralty were not amused. They had to contend with the captain’s tirade of complaints, foremost that he was being cheated out of rightfully earned prize money. At the time whenever a Royal Navy warship captured an enemy vessel, a prize crew would take possession of the captured ship and sail it to a British-held port. In theory, agents would then sell the ship and its contents, the victorious captain and his crew receiving shares of the profits realized. Though Cochrane received many thousands of pounds sterling for ships he captured, he routinely complained of being cheated by corrupt agents, politicians and even senior naval officers. In frustration, he later stood for and was elected to Parliament, making the reform of the prize system a priority during his time in office. Cochrane’s contentious personality and arrogance did not endear him to those in power. The slights, insults and injustices he suffered—both real and imagined—made him less than polite in his dealings with superiors. His belligerent tendencies made an especially powerful enemy of First Lord of the Admiralty John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent. While many of Cochrane’s self-inflicted wounds healed in time, this one did not. The upstart captain so irritated Lord St. Vincent that Cochrane, on losing Speedy, found himself ashore with little prospect of getting another ship, at least until the resumption of war in 1803. By then Cochrane’s persistent apologies, coupled with pleas on his behalf from influential relatives and friends, had prompted St. Vincent to relent. Even then, however, Cochrane complained that

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BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

of being dismasted and captured—and knowing the Spanish would allow no quarter—Cochrane told Speedy’s crew they must reverse the tables and capture the enemy frigate. The bold British captain soon gave the order to board. El Gamo’s surviving crewmen were initially stunned so few enemy sailors would attempt a boarding in the face of overwhelming opposition. Their confusion only increased when, in the midst of the pitched battle for control of the frigate’s decks, Cochrane ordered the Spanish flag struck. Assuming their own officers had surrendered the vessel, the Spaniards lay down their arms, ending one of the most bizarre and unequal ship-to-ship battles of any war. (The action inspired a scene in the 2003 Napoléonic wars epic Master and Commander in which British Captain Jack Aubrey, played by Russell Crowe, similarly entangles his ship with that of a French opponent and boards it. The character of Aubrey is based on both Cochrane and fellow Royal Navy commander William Woolsey.) In the 13 months following the capture One of two gold-braided of El Gamo, Cochrane went on to seize, shoulder rank insignia burn or drive ashore upward of 50 enemy Cochrane purchased in ships. Deception remained a key part of his 1848 when appointed playbook. Once when pursued by a supecommander in chief of rior enemy frigate off the Spanish coast, he the North America and West Indies Station, this had Speedy painted in imitation of a known epaulet and its match Danish brig and hoisted the Danish colors. received a third star when To complete the ruse he had a Danish crewhe earned promotion to Admiral of the Blue in 1851. man appear on deck in his own nation’s uniform. When eventually hailed by a boarding party from the enemy vessel, the Dane hollered out that the plague was ravaging the crew. Naturally, the Spaniards thought better of boarding the “infected” ship, veered off and wished them a good voyage. It was none other than Napoléon, vexed by Cochrane’s exploits at the helm of Speedy, who nicknamed its captain Le Loup des Mers—“The Sea Wolf.” The cruise ended

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Lord St. Vincent

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Cochrane led a flotilla at the 1809 Battle of Basque Roads, later complaining that hesitation on the part of British commander Adm. James Gambier allowed the French fleet to escape. Gambier cleared his name, while Cochrane hindered his own advancement.

Arab, the 22-gun former French privateer given him to command, was small, slow, barely seaworthy and scarcely maneuverable. Cochrane compared it to a collier. To add insult to injury, St. Vincent had Arab dispatched northeast of the Orkney Islands to protect the fisheries—in waters where there were no fisheries to protect. In 1804 the incoming government forced St. Vincent to resign as first lord. His successor, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, was more sympathetic to Cochrane and gave him command of Pallas, a new 32-gun frigate. Over the next five years Cochrane resumed prowling the Mediterranean with astounding success, though in surprisingly changeable circumstances. In 1808 Napoléon invaded Spain and installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne. With that Britain’s longtime Spanish enemy became its ally in the resulting Peninsular War. Then in command of the 38-gun Imperieuse, a captured Spanish frigate, Cochrane planned and conducted amphibious operations to disrupt French communications and interdict troop movements. Amid the Battle of the Basque Roads in April 1809 he led a flotilla of fireships and bomb vessels against the anchored French fleet. Although the operation left all but two of the fleeing enemy vessels grounded, Adm. James Gambier squandered the opportunity to destroy the entire French fleet, seemingly out of professional jealousy. Then MP Cochrane, though knighted for his part in the battle, later refused to join in a motion expressing the country’s gratitude toward Lord Gambier. The admiral had failed in

his duty, Cochrane stated publicly of his superior, so no expression of thanks was required. Gambier demanded a court-martial to clear his name and was acquitted. For his part Cochrane continued to create implacable enemies both political and personal. He claimed such men conspired to publicly humiliate him, bankrupt him, strip him of his knighthood, expel him from Parliament, drum him out of the Royal Navy and imprison him. His

Cochrane continued to create implacable enemies both political and personal enemies got their chance to do just that amid the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814. Although charges that Cochrane had been involved in the scandal were weak, he was convicted, sentenced to a year in prison, fined £1,000 and ordered to stand in the pillory. True to his predictions, he was also expelled from Parliament, dismissed from the navy and stripped of his knighthood. But those who thought they had finally consigned a chastened Cochrane to a sad and broken life ashore were soon proved wrong.

A humiliated and unemployed Cochrane left Britain in 1818 and immigrated with his family to Chile, then em-

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broiled in a war of independence from Spain. He had come at the behest of revolutionary leader Bernardo O’Higgins, who granted Skills are portable. Cochrane citizenship and made him vice adCochrane’s knowledge miral of the newly formed Chilean navy. The of naval warfare stood admiral promptly reorganized the small force him in good stead in and undertook blockades and coastal raids the navies of three against Spanish-held ports and fortifications. nations against an array of adversaries. In 1820, with only three ships and 310 Fortune favors... men, Cochrane led an amphibious assault on ...bold commanders the port of Valdivia, a heavily fortified supwho underpin their ply depot vital to the Spanish army opposing courage with proper Chilean independence. Landing his small planning, good intelligence on the enemy force on the night of February 3, Cochrane and a motivational took the Spaniards by surprise, quickly capstyle of leadership. turing two forts and forcing the capitulation Personality counts. of two others. The next day the remaining Despite Cochrane’s Spanish forts surrendered. undoubted naval accomplishments, Assigned that summer to escort Chilean his career suffered Gen. José de San Martín’s expedition in supdue to his combative port of Peruvian independence, Cochrane nature and arrogance. and his squadron blockaded the port of Callao, in which a Spanish squadron lay at anchor. The enemy flagship was Esmeralda, a 44-gun frigate, supported by three smaller warships with 47 guns between them. Ringing the squadron were three dozen gunboats and armed merchant ships. A floating chain of logs obstructed the narrow harbor entrance, while heavy artillery in overlooking fortresses and batteries stood ready to defend the Spanish ships. Undeterred, the venturesome Cochrane resolved to capture or destroy the Spanish squadron. His meticulous plan centered on the stealthy nighttime boarding and seizure of Esmeralda. Handpicking a strike force of 240 sailors and marines, he drilled the troops relentlessly. By November 5 all was ready. That afternoon, to lull the Spaniards into believing the blockade had failed, he had

two of his ships visibly weigh anchor and sail off. Meanwhile, he anchored his flagship, the Russian-built 48-gun frigate O’Higgins, out of view behind an island. That night Cochrane led his flotilla of 14 small boats to the attack. Their oars wrapped in canvas, the men silently rowed up alongside Esmeralda, swarmed aboard and took its crew by surprise. The Spaniards regrouped, and a fierce and bloody fight ensued. Cochrane himself was shot in the thigh and had to direct the fight while seated. But the issue was never in doubt. When the firing ceased, Cochrane ordered Esmeralda’s new Chilean crew to sail home with their prize. O’Higgins considered the flagship’s capture indispensable to Chilean independence, as it effectively ended the Spanish presence in the Pacific. Despite accolades from the revolutionary leader, Cochrane’s acerbic personality led to difficulties with Chilean officials, particularly San Martín, whom the admiral accused of claiming credit for the capture of Esmeralda, as well as failing to pursue the fleeing Spanish and intending to establish Peru as his personal kingdom. The general, in turn, accused Cochrane of stealing $400,000 intended for San Martín’s army. Cochrane— who had indeed seized the money from a schooner dispatched from Peru by San Martín—claimed the amount taken was $283,000 and represented only a portion of the pay and prize money owed his Chilean crewmen. The hostility and distrust engendered by Cochrane forced him to leave Chile in search of new opportunities. That search led him to other nations and other navies.

In January 1823, accompanied by his long-suffering wife and children, Cochrane left Chile for Brazil, and on March 21 he took command of that nation’s fledgling navy. Also chafing under colonial rule, Brazilians were fighting for independence from Portugal. Spearheading the revolution was the recently coronated Emperor Pedro I —who, bizarrely enough, was prince regent of Portugal.

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Tactical Takeaways

LEFT: ARMADA DE CHILE; RIGHT: ALBUM (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

After being dismissed by the Royal Navy, Cochrane commanded Chile’s nascent navy amid its war of independence from Spain. Right: Among his notable victories in that conflict was his November 1820 capture of the Spanish flagship Esmeralda at Callao.

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LEFT: ARMADA DE CHILE; RIGHT: ALBUM (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

Near Salvador, Bahia, on May 4 Cochrane first confronted the Portuguese fleet. Blockading the enemy in port, he forced their evacuation and harassed their retreating ships all the way back to Europe. On returning to Brazil, Cochrane bluffed the Portuguese garrison at Maranhão into surrender by claiming a vast Brazilian invasion fleet was en route. The capture of Maranhão and Belem, using the same bluff, resulted in the de facto independence of Brazil. For his efforts Cochrane was proclaimed Marquess of Maranhão by Pedro I. As in Britain and Chile, however, Cochrane’s personality ultimately got him into trouble in Brazil. After a familiar dispute over pay and prize money, and accusations of theft of public funds, Cochrane returned to Britain in 1825. Ever restless, he soon made his way to Greece to assist that country’s rebellion against the Ottoman Turks. Two years later, when the British, French and Russians intervened to end the war, Cochrane again returned to Britain. On his father’s death in 1831, Cochrane became the 10th Earl of Dundonald. The following spring William IV —known as the “Sailor King” for his youthful service in the Royal Navy—pardoned the disgraced lord and restored him to the service as a rear admiral. The ever contentious Cochrane refused to take a command until his knighthood was restored. It took 15 years, but in 1847 Queen Victoria reappointed him to the Order of the Bath. A year later Cochrane returned to service in the Royal Navy as commander in chief of the North America and West Indies Station, where he had served as a young midshipman. During the 1853–56 Crimean War the Admiralty considered him for command of the Baltic Fleet, but ultimately passed him over for fear he would be too rash. In 1854 a fully redeemed Cochrane was appointed to the honorary office of rear admiral of the United Kingdom. By then he was in decline and suffering from depression. On Oct. 31, 1860, the 84-year-old veteran of three navies died following surgery for kidney stones. A half century earlier the prince regent (future King George IV) had had Cochrane’s knight’s banner publicly removed from Westminster Abbey. The banner was restored the day before the admiral’s funeral and interment in the abbey. Notwithstanding his acrimonious personality and frequent public and private confrontations, Cochrane was a brilliant naval tactician and gifted operational commander. He was also a technological innovator, having designed a better convoy lamp and a transportable gunboat for use in coastal raids, patented the first successful tunneling shield, supported steamship development, and proposed the combined use of fireships and poison gas when attacking enemy harbors. Though his two autobiographies—Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil From Spanish and Portuguese Domination (1859) and The Autobiography of a Seaman (1860)—are clearly self-serving and intended

A naval hero in both the New World and the Old, Cochrane is immortalized by a statue in Viña del Mar, Chile, and a bust in Culross, Scotland (below).

to even the score with his old enemies, the Sea Wolf was undeniably one of the most successful and extraordinary British seamen of his age. MH Jerome Long is a former military history instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. For further reading he recommends Cochrane: Britannia’s Sea Wolf, by Donald Thomas; and David Cordingly’s Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander and Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 1775–1860.

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FROM WEHRMACHT TO BUNDESWEHR Amid the Cold War two German generals were among the few NATO commanders with direct experience fighting the Soviets—not to mention the French, British and Americans By David T. Zabecki

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In 1955, to counter the Soviet threat in Europe, the Western Allies ended their occupation of West Germany, granted it membership in NATO and authorized establishment of the postwar German army, or Bundeswehr, on the march here in 1965.

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he Wehrmacht—Nazi Germany’s armed forces—surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies on May 7, 1945. Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, signed the instrument of surrender at the forward command post of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Reims, France. Two days later amid the Berlin ruins Jodl’s boss, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, signed an almost identical document in the presence of Soviet, American, British and French commanders. World War II was over for Jodl, Keitel and their countrymen. Unlike what happened at the end of World War I, the victors intended to wholly demilitarize Germany. The postwar Allied Control Council duly dissolved the Wehrmacht on Aug. 20, 1946. Within a decade, however, the world would look considerably different. In 1949, with the onset of the Cold War, the Western Allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with a unified military command structure. NATO’s primary mission was to deter an increasingly belligerent Soviet Union, which had liberated the countries of Eastern Europe only to occupy and enslave them as communist satellite states. By the mid-1950s NATO ground forces were vastly outnumbered in the heart of Europe. America, France and Britain begrudgingly concluded the only way they could restore some measure of military balance was to rearm their former German enemy, albeit under firm NATO operational control. Thus the Paris Accords of May 5, 1955, authorized the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.

mately, 61 Wehrmacht generals and admirals made it through, though by the fall of 1957 only 42 of them had joined the Bundeswehr. The most senior officers of the latter group were Hans Speidel and Adolf Heusinger, who on Oct. 10 and Nov. 12, 1955, respectively, were sworn in as the Bundeswehr’s first two lieutenant generals. Both turned 58 that year and were joining their fourth German army—starting with the Deutsches Heer of World War I, followed by the Weimar Republic’s interwar Reischswehr, then the Wehrmacht. Though Speidel and Heusinger had been lieutenant generals in the Wehrmacht, both were brought into the new German armed forces one level up. Prior to 1945 a German Generalleutnant had been the two-star equivalent of a British or American major general. The Bundeswehr changed the rank structure to make a new Generalleutnant the three-star equivalent of its NATO allies’ lieutenant generals.

Hans Speidel was born in Metzingen, Germany, on Oct. 28, 1897. Adolf Heusinger was born in Holzminden on Aug. 4, 1897. Speidel’s father was a civil servant, Heusinger’s a schoolteacher. In November 1914 Speidel enlisted as a Fahnenjunker (officer candidate) in the Württemberg army’s 123rd “King Karl” Grenadier Regiment. In June 1915 Heusinger volunteered for the 7th Thuringian Infantry Regiment. After being commissioned a second lieutenant, Speidel served as a company commander at the 1916 Battle of the Somme and spent the remainder of World War I as a battalion adjutant, or operations officer. After his commissioning, Heusinger was severely wounded during the 1916 Battle of Verdun. On returning to duty, he was assigned as a deputy battalion adjutant and then as an intelligence officer. In the fall of 1917 Heusinger was again badly wounded, during the Battle of Passchendaele.

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Rank-and-file soldiers can be brought in off the streets and trained to minimum effectiveness in about six months. But what about commanders? Where do you find leaders— particularly general officers—with the background and experience to Hans train, organize and lead an army Speidel built from scratch? In West Germany’s case the answer was obvious but complicated. Just 10 years earlier Germany, even in defeat, had one of the best armies in history. Yet the Wehrmacht had been corrupted into the servant of the odious and criminal Third Reich. Germany produced many great generals between 1933 and ’45, but by 1955 many of them were dead, too old or indelibly compromised by complicity in German war Adolf Heusinger crimes or unquestioning subservience to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The challenge was to find enough former Wehrmacht generals with relatively unblemished records who were willing to return to uniform late in life. Especially challenging was finding qualified officers who had served the Wehrmacht in the most senior positions and, therefore, had the background and experience to become the Bundeswehr’s senior commanders. The West German government subjected all former Wehrmacht soldiers volunteering for the Bundeswehr to a rigorous screening process. Initially, it permitted only Waffen-SS soldiers at the rank of captain and below to serve. Later it accepted officers up to the rank of lieuten-

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Armies cannot be created overnight. ant colonel, provided they passed the screening. Ulti-

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Russian troops manhandle a fallen Nazi Party eagle amid debris at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The Cold War struggle for Germany and the rest of Europe was only just beginning.

Captured by the British, he was held in a POW camp in Yorkshire, England, until December 1919. Following the war both Speidel and Heusinger entered university. The former studied history and economics at several universities, the latter law and political science at the University of Göttingen. Both were offered commissions in Germany’s small but elite Reichswehr, permitted under the Treaty of Versailles. Speidel’s assignments gave him the flexibility to pursue a civilian education, and he completed his doctorate in 1925. Meanwhile, both completed the Reichswehr’s covert General Staff officer training course, qualifying in 1929. From 1930 to ’34 Heusinger served in the Operations Department of the Truppenamt (Troop Office), the clandestine General Staff, also outlawed under the Versailles Treaty. Speidel undertook language training in France and then was assigned to the Truppenamt’s Foreign Armies West department. In 1933 he was posted to Paris as assistant military attaché. In 1934 and ’35 Heusinger was a company commander in the 18th Infantry Regiment at Paderborn. For the next two years he served in the 1st Infantry Division in Allenstein (present-day Olsztyn, Poland) as first General Staff officer. The “Ia” (Roman numeral I and “a”) as the position was known, was the division’s combined chief of staff and operations officer. Although the position was typically held, as in Heusinger’s case, by a captain, the Ia was the only fully qualified General Staff officer in a pre-1945 German division. Returning from Paris in 1935, Speidel also did a tour as a company commander, in the 56th Infantry

Regiment, and then as the Ia of the 33rd Infantry Division in Mannheim. Both officers were following standard career development paths for new members of the General Staff. After 1937 their professional paths branched out along more individualized channels.

In August 1937 then Maj. Heusinger returned to Berlin to the Operations Department of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH), the new name for the old Truppenamt. In October 1940 Heusinger became chief of the Operations Department as a colonel. Even at that relatively junior rank, he was the third most senior officer in the army planning The Bundesadler (“federal hierarchy, after Chief of the General Staff eagle”) on the German Gen. Franz Halder and his deputy, General- coat of arms is the oldest leutnant Friedrich Paulus. (It was Paulus national symbol in Europe, who would surrender the doomed German stretching back to the Sixth Army to the Soviets at Stalingrad in Holy Roman empire and inspired by ancient Rome’s January 1943.) eagle standard. At top is Heusinger played a key role in planning the Nazi-era version of the the invasion of Poland in 1939; operations coat of arms, below it the in Denmark, Norway, France and the Neth- version dating from 1950. erlands in 1940; and Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. At that point Hitler delegated to OKH primary responsibility for operations in Russia, while the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

Double Eagle

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(OKW), under Keitel and Jodl, took over operational planning for all other theaters of war. There was constant friction and in-fighting between OKH and OKW, which was exactly how the Führer wanted it. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in January 1939, Speidel was assigned as the Ia of the IX Army Corps. During the September 1939 campaign in Poland the IX Army Corps manned the Siegfried Line (aka Westwall) to screen Germany against a French invasion. When Germany invaded France in May 1940, Speidel was on the staff of the Sixth Army, part of Generaloberst Fedor von Bock’s Army Group B. After the Sixth Army crossed the Meuse River, Speidel was responsible for developing the plan to encircle Paris in a double envelopment, a classic Prussian Kesselschlacht (“cauldron battle”) maneuver. Speidel’s plan was never executed, as the French defenses simply collapsed. After the armistice Speidel was posted to Paris as chief of staff to Gen. Otto von Stülpnagel, the German military governor of France. Although Stülpnagel was a hard-core Nazi, his cousin, Gen. Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, was among the first of Its use by the German military dates from the Germany’s senior military leaders to become Teutonic knights of the disillusioned with Hitler and Nazism. 13th century. The bar Promoted to major general in December cross at top was used 1941, Heusinger was also beginning to de- from 1918 through World velop serious doubts about Hitler. A key plan- War II. The version above, introduced in 1956 by ner of Case Blue (Fall Blau), the summer 1942 the Bundeswehr, offers resumption of offensive operations in Russia, continuity without direct Heusinger and his superior, Halder, repeatedly parallels to the Nazi era.

Iron Cross

In March 1942 Speidel was appointed chief of staff of the V Army Corps in Russia. In January 1943, at the height of the Stalingrad crisis, Speidel was temporarily assigned as chief of staff to Gen. Kurt von Tippelskirch, the German liaison officer to and de facto commander of the Italian Eighth Army, then fighting to relieve the Sixth Army from the north. After Stalingrad fell, Speidel organized the staff of the ad hoc Army Detachment Kempf. In that position in early 1943 he played a significant role in stabilizing the German southeastern sector and laid the administrative and logistical groundwork for Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein’s masterful counterstroke at Kharkov that February. Five months later Speidel served as Gen. Werner Kempf’s chief of staff during the Battle of Kursk. Shortly thereafter Speidel was promoted to major general and appointed chief of staff of the Eighth Army under Gen. Otto Wöhler. Speidel received the Knight’s Cross

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clashed with the Führer over the conduct of the campaign. Both generals strongly favored a resumption of the push toward the Soviet capital, Moscow. Hitler instead insisted the Germans drive southeast, toward Stalingrad and the Caucasus. Simultaneously, Hitler insisted on a major drive in the north to eliminate the encircled city of Leningrad. Thus, the Wehrmacht extended its diminishing combat power along two widely diverging axes. Predictably, things quickly went downhill. In retaliation, Hitler sacked Halder in September 1942 and replaced him with General Kurt Zeitzler. Heusinger remained chief of the OKH Operations Department.

LEFT: PHOTO 12 (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); RIGHT: PICTURE ALLIANCE (GETTY IMAGES)

A circa 1960 recruiting poster for the German army presents a benign image of a once-feared force. Despite NATO reassurances to oversee the Bundeswehr, antiwar activists (above right) preached caution in 1956.

PICTURE ALLIANCE (GETTY IMAGES)

LEFT: PHOTO 12 (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); RIGHT: PICTURE ALLIANCE (GETTY IMAGES)

of the Iron Cross for his services in Russia and was promoted to lieutenant general in January 1944. By the time he was transferred to the Western Front in April 1944, Speidel had seen enough of Germany’s barbaric and genocidal extermination policies in Russia to become a staunch anti-Nazi. He was convinced Hitler had to go before he destroyed what was left of an already crumbling Germany. Legendary Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel had personally requested Speidel as his chief of staff at Army Group B in Normandy. The two were fellow Swabians, had met during World War I and had served in the same infantry regiment briefly during the interwar period. More important, Speidel was the kind of intuitive and independent-minded officer to whom Rommel could entrust the daily operations of his group headquarters while the action-oriented commander spent time with his forward units. Ironically, Speidel spent almost all of D-Day running Army Group B while Rommel raced back to Normandy from his home in Herrlingen (present-day Blaustein), where he had gone off on a jaunt to see his wife on her birthday. On returning to France, Speidel had reestablished contact with Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, who in February 1942 had succeeded cousin Otto as military governor. Speidel already had strong connections with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the civilian leader of the antiNazi faction. Through Stülpnagel, Speidel became one of the senior military members of the German opposition to Hitler. He was never an inner member of the cell led by Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg, but he knew of the

Bundeswehr volunteers, whose ranks included Wehrmacht veterans subjected to rigorous screening, march off to training camp in 1956.

Operation Valkyrie plot. Rommel met Stülpnagel through Speidel, though it remains unclear just how deeply Rommel became involved in the plot against Hitler. He certainly had some knowledge of what was transpiring, and the conspirators were eager to enlist Germany’s most high-profile field marshal in their cause. They had been in contact with Allen Dulles of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, but as late as May 16 they reported to the American spymaster that Rommel was not to be trusted. On July 17 Rommel was seriously wounded in Normandy when an RAF fighter strafed his command car. Three days later Stauffenberg carried a briefcase bomb into Hitler’s command bunker in East Prussia. Heusinger was standing directly beside Hitler when the bomb went off. On June 10 the Führer had sacked Zeitzler as chief of the General Staff and appointed Heusinger acting chief until Generaloberst Heinz Guderian could take over. While Heusinger knew about the military opposition and empathized with them, he had no knowledge of Operation Valkyrie. When the bomb went off, he suffered head, arm and leg injuries. Three days later, while still in the hospital, Heusinger was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. The fact he had been standing beside Hitler certainly weighed in the general’s favor, and the Gestapo was ultimately unable to connect him directly to the conspiracy. Released from custody in October 1944, Heusinger was assigned to the Führer-

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Berlin. As the Red Army closed in on the spring of 1945, the SS moved all prisoners to the Hersberg Castle in Immenstaad, on the opposite shore of Lake Constance from Switzerland. With the help of the prison commandant Speidel organized an escape and went into hiding. He was captured by French troops on April 29, 1945.

reserve, a holding pool for senior Wehrmacht officers. Not until March 1945 did he return to an active assignment, as chief of the Wehrmacht’s Mapping Department, a position far below the one he’d held as acting chief of the General Staff. In May 1945 American troops captured Heusinger. In the wake of Operation Valkyrie the Gestapo rounded up the lead conspirators. Stauffenberg was executed that very night. Recalled to Berlin, Stülpnagel failed to take his own life and was executed in late August. Sent to govern greater Paris in his stead was Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz. Speidel had eluded the Gestapo’s attention for a time. But he fell under suspicion again in late August after conspiring with Choltitz to circumvent Hitler’s direct order to reduce Paris to a “debris field” rather than surrender the French capital intact to the Allies. The Gestapo arrested Speidel

If war had broken out, Speidel would have been the senior NATO ground commander on September 7. Under torture he maintained neither he nor Rommel had ever been part of the conspiracy against Hitler, and Speidel never implicated other conspirators. The Wehrmacht court-martialed Speidel, if for no other reason than to keep him out of the dreaded Volksgerichthof (“People’s Court”) of Judge Roland Freisler, who condemned some 2,600 members of the political opposition. The military court found Speidel “not guilty, but not free from suspicion,” an odd verdict to be sure, but one that kept him under Wehrmacht jurisdiction. By then, despite Speidel’s denials, Hitler was convinced Rommel either must have been involved or must have known about the plot. Pressured by Hitler’s direct threat against his family, the field marshal committed suicide on Oct. 14, 1944. Speidel was imprisoned in the fortress of Küstrin east of

of modern history at the University of Tübingen. His 1950 book Invasion 1944 relates the Allies’ Normandy landings from the German perspective. Speidel also served the West German government as a defense consultant. As a key military adviser to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, he was among the principal authors of the 1950 Himmerod Memorandum, the republic’s classified internal study of the logistics of rearmament. In 1954 the republic appointed Speidel its chief negotiator on the question of German entry into NATO. Heusinger, a POW until 1948, testified as a witness for the defense at the U.S. Military Tribunal’s High Command Trial at Nuremberg. From 1948 to ’50, under the code name Adolf Horn, he was chief of evaluation for the Gehlen Organization, West Germany’s nascent intelligence agency. Established in 1946 by former Wehrmacht Generalleutnant Reinhard Gehlen, the organization transformed into the present-day Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German counterpart to the CIA. At the same time Heusinger served under his onetime superior, Halder, as deputy chief of German military studies for the U.S. Army Historical Division. In January 1951 Heusinger, Speidel and Chancellor Adenauer met to discuss German rearmament with U.S. High Commissioner John Jay McCloy and General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s supreme Allied commander in Europe. Heusinger and Speidel were appointed senior members of the Blank Office, which on June 7, 1955, became West Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense, with civil servant Theodor Blank as its first minister. Once commissioned as the Bundeswehr’s first two general officers, Speidel was assigned as chief of the Combined Forces Department at the Ministry of Defense, while Heusinger chaired the Military Leadership Council. In 1957 Speidel and Heusinger were promoted to become the Bundeswehr’s first four-star generals. That spring Heusinger succeeded Speidel as chief of Combined Forces when the latter was appointed commander in chief of Allied Land Forces in Central Europe (COMLANDCENT), becoming the first German officer to hold a NATO commander in chief position. Working from headquarters at France’s Fontainebleau Castle, Speidel managed the Bundeswehr’s integration into NATO. Although he had never commanded anything larger than a company, he was the senior operational commander of all German, American, French and British divisions assigned to NATO’s Central Region. If war had broken out

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In 1955 former Wehrmacht lieutenant generals Heusinger, left, and Speidel joined the Bundeswehr and West Germany’s nascent Ministry of Defense.

After the war Speidel returned to academia as a professor

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DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, Speidel would have been the senior NATO ground commander. That summer Heusinger was appointed the first inspector general of the Bundeswehr, becoming Germany’s senior serving military officer, the equivalent of the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Given the historical baggage connected with the title “chief of the German General Staff,” the government had opted for a new title. The early Bundeswehr also struggled to come to terms with Germany’s tainted military past and even the assassination attempt on Hitler. An ambivalent German public couldn’t decide whether Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators were heroes or traitors. The Bundeswehr made a conscientious decision to embrace the tradition of soldiers who had put their conscience above blind military obedience. “Their spirit and their attitude is our model,” Heusinger wrote to his subordinate commanders in 1959.

Heusinger served as inspector general until 1961, when appointed chairman of NATO’s Military Committee—the organization’s senior military officer and chief military adviser to the secretary general. Heusinger was the first German officer to hold that position and a central figure in the fierce debate over how NATO would fight any future wars. One school of thought held that nuclear weapons rendered conventional forces and operational techniques obsolete. Rejecting that position, Heusinger argued for the concept of a graduated response by NATO, combined with the concurrent strengthening of conventional forces. He saw his theories vindicated in the early 1960s when the Kennedy Administration adopted the doctrine of “flexible response.” Speidel retired in September 1963, Heusinger in April 1964. They died on Nov. 28, 1984, and Nov. 30, 1982,

East German troops were among the Soviet-aligned Warsaw Pact forces NATO sought to counteract by allowing West Germany to rearm in 1955. Below: The present-day Bundeswehr of a reunified Germany remains an important element of NATO forces, checking Russian ambitions in Europe.

respectively. They and the handful of former Wehrmacht general officers who had remained in uniform were the last of a breed. The shooting may have stopped in 1945, but the arc of World War II remained a living force in the armies of the world for years afterward. MH Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David T. Zabecki is Historynet’s chief military historian. For further reading he recommends The Myth and Reality of German Warfare: Operational Thinking From Moltke the Elder to Heusinger, by Gerhard P. Gross; and the chapter on Hans Speidel, by Russell Hart, in the book Chief of Staff: The Principal Officers Behind History’s Great Commanders, Vol. II, World War II to Korea and Vietnam, edited by Zabecki.

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TWILIGHT OF THE GALLEYS In 1571 Christian and Muslim fleets met off the coast of Greece, rowing into battle one last time By Michael D. Hull

Ottoman captain Uluç Ali attempts to tow the captured galley of the Knights of Malta away from the main battle at Lepanto, flying the knights’ flag from his mainmast in contempt.

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The yataghan, a short sword used by elite Turkish Janissaries, had a single-edged, recurved blade and a hilt with no guard.

gious divisions. With the dissolution of the Roman empire and the coming of the Reformation, Christendom—once centered on the Roman Catholic Church—had fractured into conflicting states and denominations. By contrast, the Islamic world was under the dominion of the Ottoman empire, then at the peak of its strength. Early that century the Turks probed Europe’s eastern frontiers. After ransacking much of the Balkans, the Muslims threatened Vienna and seized then separate Buda and Pest. Ottoman galleys raided the coasts of Italy, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, captured Rhodes, besieged Malta and invaded Cyprus. Finally, after an appeal by the Venetian Senate, Pius V started organizing resistance to the Muslim empire. On March 7, 1571, the pontiff sponsored creation of the Holy League, comprising the papal states, Spain, Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, Savoy, Urbino, Parma and the Knights of Malta. Though its formation came too late to forestall the Ottoman capture of Cyprus, that spring Pius ordered its combined fleet to sail for Greece and seek out the Turkish armada, reportedly holed up at Lepanto. In use by the Ottoman empire by the 16th Following up on Ottoman gains in the century and worn by Mediterranean, Sultan Selim II was assemTurkish participants in bling the men, ships and materiel necessary the Battle of Lepanto, to sack Rome. The Urbs Aeterna (“Eternal the çiçak (pronounced City”) was viewed as ripe for plunder. The chichak) featured a conical, spiked skull, pope feared that if Rome fell, the rest of Eucheekpieces (missing rope would surely follow. Regardless, Portufrom this example) and gal and the Holy Roman empire (Germany, a chain mail neck guard. Italy, Burgundy and Bohemia) shunned the pontiff ’s alliance, while distant England and France showed no interest in opposing the Turks. Though chronically at odds, Venice and Spain were the two leading Christian naval powers in the Mediterranean.

Turkish Çiçak

Answering the papal summons, the member states of the Holy League dispatched fleets, which assembled in the harbor at Messina, Sicily. The commander of the armada was 24-year-old John of Austria, the illegitimate son of Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and German singer Barbara Blomberg. At the time of the invasion John’s half-brother ruled Spain as Philip II. The pope had picked the blue-eyed, fair-haired “crownless prince” to lead the often fractious league because he sensed John was, as historian Jack Beeching put it, “someone who in council would rise above pettiness and envy, who in battle would lead without flinching.” A gallant campaigner on both land and sea, John had put down a bloody 1568–70 uprising by Christianized Moors in the Spanish Albujerras. That said, he now faced a far more formidable opponent. “Charles V gave you life,” Pius told John upon the latter’s commissioning. “I will give you honor and greatness.”

All that summer of 1571 the Christian fleet made its preparations at Messina. It mustered 206 galleys—long, flatbottomed craft each mounting a projecting bow spur designed to ride over and break an enemy vessel’s oars. The larger galleys carried cannons in their bows. Venice furnished 109 galleys, Spain 49, Genoa 27, the papal states seven, Tuscany five, and Savoy and the Knights of Malta three each. Privately owned ships in the Spanish service rounded out the galleys. The Venetians also provided six sluggish floating fortresses known as galleasses. Steep-sided, 160 feet long and powered by 50 oars, each carried a contingent of musketeers and/or bowmen and upward of 30 cannons. Venetian, Spanish, Genoese, Portuguese and papal crews manned 76 smaller vessels. John had about 80,000 men under his command, including nearly 50,000 seamen and oarsmen and 30,000 troops, two-thirds of whom were in Spanish service. The soldiers wore light armor and carried swords. Each was armed with a bow, a harquebus or the latter’s heavier variant, the musket. Manning the oars were merce-

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA; PRISMA ARCHIVO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); AGA KHAN MUSEUM

Late 16th century Europe was rent by political and reli-

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enturies before the great sea battles of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway and Leyte Gulf a momentous naval engagement temporarily united Christendom and ended Muslim domination of the Mediterranean Sea. A turning point in naval history, the 1571 Battle of Lepanto was waged across a 5-mile front in the Gulf of Patras, west of the Ottoman-held Greek port of Lepanto (present-day Nafpaktos). The furious and sanguineous encounter pitted the fleet of Pope Pius V’s Holy League against a superior Turkish armada under Ottoman Grand Admiral Ali Pasha. As decisive as it proved on a strategic level, Lepanto marked the swan song of the war galley, as the sailing vessels that fought alongside their oar-powered sisters were the wave of the future.

Marco Antonio Colonna

Ali Pasha Selim II

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA; PRISMA ARCHIVO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); AGA KHAN MUSEUM

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John of Austria

naries, Muslim captives and convicts promised release on victory. Ali Pasha’s larger Ottoman fleet comprised 222 galleys, more than 50 swift galliots (small oared vessels) and a number of smaller vessels. Aboard were some 50,000 seamen and oarsmen and more than 34,000 soldiers. Some 15,000 of the oarsmen were Christians captured at sea or during shore raids. They, too, had a chance at freedom— were John’s fleet victorious. Among the Turkish troops were elite contingents of plumed, booted slaves known as Janissaries. Selected in childhood from among Christian prisoners, these Islamic converts were armed with bows, short sabers and harquebuses. Established in the 14th century, the Janissary corps represented modern Europe’s first standing infantry. By mid-September the Holy League fleet was ready to sail from Messina. Pius V sent John a papal legate to bless the fleet and a standard to fly from the masthead of the admiral’s flagship, Real. Sporting a blue background, the woven ensign depicted the crucified Jesus Christ supported by the coats of arms of the Holy League members. The Spanish ships bore the coats of arms of Aragon and Castile, while the Venetian craft each displayed the winged Lion of St. Mark, symbolizing the patron saint of Venice. Assigned to the papal galleys were 30 cross-bearing Capuchin friars. The perceptive pontiff believed his seamen and soldiers would fight bravely if chaplains went into battle beside them. Leading the friars was Father

Sebastiano Venier

Anselm of Pietramolara, a venturesome former cavalryman. Other fleet padres included a half dozen Jesuits aboard the Spanish vessels and a scattering of Dominicans and Theatines. At dawn on September 16, despite the risk of seasonal storms, the fleet weighed anchor and eased out of Messina harbor, John’s flagship leading the way. Standing on the end of the jetty, surrounded by robed clergy, the papal legate blessed each passing vessel. By midmorning the

Sultan Selim II was assembling the men, ships and materiel necessary to sack Rome Strait of Messina was filled with billowing sails and fluttering pennants as the armada set a course to round the Calabrian “toe” of the Italian peninsula and continue on a northeasterly bearing. Three days later, while the fleet sheltered from a storm at the entrance to the Gulf of Taranto, its commanders received a disquieting report. It seemed the Turkish fleet was dispersing and might never confront them. That night, however, a meteor flashed across the sky, lighting up the surface of the sea before bursting into three fading trails. The Christian admirals took it as a hopeful portent.

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A 17th century painting by Jan Peeters the Elder depicts the opening clash at Lepanto, though his rendering of the galleys on both sides is incorrect.

The Muslim fleet stretched from coast to coast, with Ali Pasha’s flagship front and center soldiers discovered the Turks had plundered local villages and desecrated their churches. Before leaving harbor, the fleet commanders embarked 4,000 troops from the Corfu garrison and gathered in formal council one last time. Weighing anchor, the Christian armada sailed southward against strong headwinds toward the Gulf of Patras. At the back of the gulf lay a connecting strait to the Gulf of Lepanto guarded by the namesake fortified harbor of Lepanto. There, while the Turkish fleet rested and reprovisioned, Ali Pasha and his commanders debated the best course of action. Meanwhile, winds and heavy fog again forced John’s fleet to hole up, this time in a protected harbor just outside the Gulf of Patras. On the eve-

ning of October 5 a Turkish informant—likely a double agent—reported to Christian commanders that the Ottoman force had been reduced to 100 galleys, its sailors stricken by a plague. In fact, within 24 hours the enemy fleet would venture out from Lepanto in search of battle.

At 2 a.m. on Sunday morning October 7, the Holy League fleet weighed anchor once more and threaded its way south between the islets and shoals of western Greece. The sea was choppy, and a southwesterly wind blew in the faces of John’s seamen. As dawn broke and the Christian vanguard rounded the mouth of the Gulf of Patras, John asked that Mass be celebrated throughout the fleet. Before the priests had finished granting the sailors and soldiers absolution, watchmen in Real’s maintop sighted two distant sails, soon four, then eight. Within minutes the entire Turkish armada—hurried westward by a favorable wind—was visible on the horizon, bearing down on the Christian fleet. Clambering over the side of his flagship into a light galley, John sailed across the line of 64 ships in his center squadron to encourage his seamen and soldiers. “My children, you have come to fight the battle of the cross—to conquer or to die!” he cried out while holding aloft a crucifix. “But whether you are to die or conquer, do your duty this day, and you will secure a glorious immortality!” He then returned to Real. Powered by 70 oars and manned by 400 oarsmen and an equal number of troops, his flagship was at the heart of the Christian battle line. Kneeling at its bow, the commander prayed for victory, while officers and

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On September 24, after clearing the peninsular “heel” of Salento, John’s ships steered eastward across the churning mouth of the Adriatic Sea toward the Greek island of Corfu. New missives brought word the Ottoman fleet had not dispersed, but had raided Corfu and was headed back to port at Lepanto. Regardless, stormy weather forced the Christian fleet to shelter in the lee of the islands off northwestern Greece. When the skies cleared, they sailed into Corfu harbor. Going ashore to forage for food and water,

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men across the fleet did the same. Aboard the dozen papal galleys Capuchin friars moved among the tense oarsmen and soldiers, promising each man a plenary indulgence from the pope in exchange for fighting for the faith. Each Christian had been handed a rosary before leaving Messina. The Turkish battle line was 3,000 feet longer than that of the Christians and spanned the entrance to the gulf. John’s force faced a further disadvantage as it struggled through mist and stiff headwinds. The Turkish sailors and soldiers sought to intimidate their foe with defiant yells, shots and clashing gongs. Amid the clamor the Holy League vessels held their fire, and an ominous silence followed as the armadas closed on one another. Onetime cavalryman Father Anselm grew alarmed, realizing that in terms of strength and numbers he and his fellow Christians faced a real danger of defeat. Clutching his crucifix, he prayed to the Virgin Mary, beseeching her to intercede. According to the chronicler Boverius, the Madonna suddenly appeared in the sky above John’s fleet, gazed down with kindly eyes and blessed it. At that moment the wind shifted in the Christians’ favor. Both sides relied on the slave labor of galley oarsmen to keep their ships in motion. Chained to benches belowdecks in filthy, close-quarters conditions, they could expect slow death from either disease or beatings but faced immediate death were the galleys to sink. As the Muslim fleet lost momentum on a waning breeze, galley masters whipped their oarsmen into action. Meanwhile, John reportedly ordered galley slaves and convicts throughout the Christian fleet unshackled and issued swords or pikes to use in the anticipated ship-to-ship fighting. Along John’s battle line crewmen shook out lateen sails that quickly filled. On the Christian left were 53 galleys under Agostino Barbarigo, a soft-spoken and popular Venetian admiral. Leading from the center was John, supported by the able papal commander Marco Antonio Colonna and 75-year-old Venetian admiral Sebastiano Venier, a scarred veteran warrior. Following directly astern were the 38 galleys of the reserve squadron led by Spanish admiral Álvaro de Bazán, the Marquess of Santa Cruz. Commanding 53 galleys on the Christian right was Giovanni Andrea Doria, great-nephew of the legendary Genoese admiral Andrea Doria. Before them the Muslim fleet stretched from coast to coast, with Ali Pasha’s flagship Sultana front and center, directly opposite John’s Real. Each Ottoman squadron comprised some 60 galleys, while a smaller reserve brought up the rear. As at the 31 bc Battle of Actium—fought scarcely 50 miles to the north, albeit 16 centuries earlier—the opposing fleets were arrayed three squadrons abreast, the vessels in each group also in line abreast. Thus the armadas drew together. Although naval convention precluded flagships from engaging an enemy, Real and Sultana unflinchingly led

A map of the battle depicts the combatants’ initial disposition in the Gulf of Patras, the Christian fleet (at left) facing that of the Muslims.

from the center. While still several miles distant, the Turkish flagship fired a gun in salute, breaking the silence. A gun aboard Real answered. A second Turkish shot echoed, and another Christian cannon replied. The battle lines slowly rowed together until about 500 yards apart and then burst forward to engage.

At that very hour, period chroniclers write,

Tactical Takeaways

Pius V was conferring with financial advisers at the Vatican when suddenly the pontiff stopped, Weather is neutral. opened a window and stared at the sky. “This Contrary winds and rough seas bedeviled is no time for business,” he told his treasurer. both sides at Lepanto. “Go and give thanks to God, for our fleet is The best captains used about to meet the Turks, and God will give us the conditions to their tactical advantage. the victory.” Pius then knelt in prayer. Speed matters. More than 500 miles to the southeast in the The largest vessels Gulf of Patras the Christians hoped to shatter on both sides boasted the Ottoman line with their big galleasses, heavier guns and while the Turks, fearing their light galleys carried more troops, would be mauled in a head-on confrontation, but lighter and faster ships often posed the planned to outflank the Christian right and greatest threat. left, then fall on John’s fleet from the rear. Don’t waste victory. Bristling with guns but too heavy to maneu- The Holy League’s ver swiftly, four of the six Venetian galleasses failure to follow the win had been towed by galleys to fixed positions at Lepanto with coordinated land action left 1,000 yards forward of the Christian right and intact Muslim power center. The two on the right could not be de- in the Mediterranean. ployed in time for the opening cannonades, which resounded across the gulf around noon. Wherever the advancing Turks were forced to maneuver around the galleasses, they took severe losses from the big ships’

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The Last Great Galley Battle O n Sunday morning Oct. 7, 1571, nearly 500 ships crewed by 100,000 sailors and oarsmen and carrying more than 60,000 soldiers closed for battle in the Gulf of Patras on the west coast of Greece. The opposing combatants of the Christian Holy League and Muslim Ottoman empire had plenty of time to maneuver, as their respective fleets comprised almost entirely rowed galleys, dating from the earliest days of maritime warfare. Pope Pius V had sponsored formation of the Holy League to address Ottoman encroachment in Eastern Europe and throughout the Mediterranean by Sultan Selim II, who contemplated an attack on Rome itself. The Holy League fleet under John of Austria had sailed too late to forestall the fall of Cyprus, but waiting for the Christians just outside the Ottoman-held port of Lepanto was Ali Pasha’s Turkish fleet. MH

Big-gunned Galleasses vs. Flankers

John hoped to shatter the Ottoman line of 272 galleys and galliots using his six big Venetian galleasses, four of which were towed out ahead of the Holy League line of 206 galleys. Ali Pasha saw the danger and sent Uluç Ali, on the Turkish left, on a wide sweep to outflank the Christian right under Giovanni Andrea Doria. The Holy League reserve squadron under the Marquess of Santa Cruz plugged the gap between Doria and John. On the Christian left Agostino Barbarigo drove the Turks into the nearshore shallows.

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Grounded, Sunk and Captured

As the fleets closed on one another, and the opposing captains put their galleys’ rams to use, the battle devolved into a melee of ship-to-ship fights involving harquebusiers, musketeers and sword-wielding boarding parties. At the heart of the battle soldiers aboard John’s flagship Real fought off boarders from Ali Pasha’s flagship Sultana. Finally, Capitana, the flagship of papal commander Marco Antonio Colonna, rammed Sultana, and Colonna’s harquebusiers shot down Ali Pasha. All that remained was the mop-up.

MAPS BY STEVE WALKOWIAK, SWMAPS.COM

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broadsides. The floating bastions did break the enemy lines, but not decisively. Thirty minutes later ship-to-ship skirmishes erupted as the opposing fleets, each stretched out some 5 miles, swung together. On the right of the Christian line the overcautious Doria was nearly outflanked in the gap that had opened between his squadron and the center. But his galleys and those of the reserve combined to deliver devastating fire at the waterline of enemy vessels, sinking some with a single volley. Meanwhile, on the left Barbarigo’s galleys took the fight into the very shallows to thwart Turkish attempts to outflank them. On lifting his visor to be better heard, the Venetian commander was mortally wounded by an arrow to the left eye. By 1 p.m. the main bodies of the opposing armadas were fully engaged. Galley bow guns boomed, and the air filled with smoke, flame and the shouts and screams of fighting and dying men. The battle became a general melee as galleys rammed one another and boarding parties struggled with opposing crews on slippery, bloody decks. The confused action raged for hours. The Holy League ships poured cannon fire into the Turkish galleys at point-blank range. The accompanying volleys of the harquebusiers and musketeers were particularly devastating, clearing the fight-

ing decks of many an Ottoman vessel before they could be boarded. The hottest fighting raged between the opposing flagships as Sultana, carrying 300 Janissary harquebusiers and 100 archers, bore down on Real. Ottoman gunners shredded the Christian flagship’s rigging, and Turkish soldiers twice sought to board Real. The tide finally shifted when Colonna’s galley, Capitana, rammed Sultana, his harquebusiers raking the enemy flagship’s deck with murderous fire. Struck in the forehead by a round, Ali Pasha dropped where he stood. Moments later men from both Real and Capitana swarmed aboard the Turkish flagship and captured it, replacing the Muslim standard with the banner of Christ. The boarders soon subdued the rest of Sultana’s crew. One of John’s saltier sailors severed Ali Pasha’s head, jumped overboard and swam over to Real to present it to the admiral. The grisly trophy briefly sat atop a pike at the Christian flagship’s stern before some merciful soul tossed it into the sea. The Holy League chaplains were in the thick of the fighting—holding crucifixes high in encouragement, comforting the wounded and praying for the dying. One Italian friar clung to the pinnacle of a topmast jubilantly shouting, “Vittoria, Vittoria!” When a group of Turks boarded Father Anselm’s galley, the former cavalryman grabbed a sword from a fallen Muslim and started swinging. Before he realized what he was doing, seven enemy

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John of Austria (at top left, wearing a blue-plumed helmet) looks on as red-caped buglers signal troops to board a rammed Turkish galley.

Battle of Lepanto

soldiers lay dead at his feet. Inspired at the sight, Anselm’s Losses on either side were terrible. Sixty fellow Christians drove the rest of the Turks from the galley. Ottoman galleys went aground, 53 were sunk Among the many Christian heroes at Lepanto was a or destroyed, and 117 galleys and 20 galliots 24-year-old Spanish common soldier who would gain were captured. Some 30,000 Turks either fame as an author. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra served drowned or were killed in battle. The Holy HOLY LEAGUE on the Christian right aboard Doria’s Marchesa, which saw League fleet lost 13 galleys, 7,600 men killed 50,000 SEAMEN AND OARSMEN, much action. Although feverish with malaria, Cervantes and almost 8,000 wounded. Freed in the wake 30,000 SOLDIERS wielded a sword and was among the first of his squadron of the victory, however, were most of the to board one of the Turkish galleys. He suffered three gun- 15,000 Christian slaves who had manned the GALLEYS shot wounds, one of which maimed his left hand—“for the oars of the enemy galleys. PLUS SIX GALLEASSES glory of the right,” quipped the future Don Quixote novelist. When news of the victory reached Rome, it Another Spanish hero of the battle was a harquebusier was attributed to the intercession of the Virgin aboard the flagship Real who turned out to be a young Mary, and Pius V burst into tears of joy. Though KILLED woman in disguise. María la Bailadora (“The Dancer”) had his prestige soared, the pope gave all credit to 13 GALLEYS SUNK OR DESTROYED joined the expedition so as not to be parted from her officer his adept admiral. “There was a man sent from lover. As grappling irons held Real and Sultana fast, and God whose name was John,” he said, echoing a boarding party scrambled aboard the latter, María re- the scriptural reference to John the Baptist. OTTOMAN EMPIRE SEAMEN AND OARSMEN, portedly leaped nimbly to the deck of the enemy ship and For the first time in memory the Turks had 50,00034,000 SOLDIERS killed a Turk with a single sword thrust. She was rewarded been beaten decisively, and a wave of relief and by being allowed to remain in the pay of her regiment. renewed confidence surged across Christian Standing by Real’s mainmast beneath the Holy League Europe. Church bells pealed, bonfires blazed GALLEYS PLUS 50 GALLIOTS banner, John made a conspicuous target. Though aides in Venice, Christian poets churned out verses begged him to go belowdecks, he refused. Also fighting and mints struck commemorative coins. from the front was Venier, whose Capitana was also Lepanto, the last great battle of the last KILLED locked in combat with Sultana. As orders were pointless crusade, was both decisive and indecisive. 53 GALLEYS/GALLIOTS SUNK OR in the noise and confusion, Venier simply stood at his The Christians ended Turkish domination DESTROYED, 117 GALLEYS AND 20 GALLIOTS CAPTURED prow and fired into the enemy ranks with a blunderbuss of the Mediterranean, but Pius V died the while a servant reloaded his weapon. The venerable following spring, and his Holy League soon admiral “performed the feats of arms of a young man,” disintegrated, failing to follow its naval triumph with a reported a contemporary chronicler. coordinated resistance on land. The Turks By 2 p.m., with Ali Pasha dead and his flagheld on to Cyprus, Muslim warships conship gutted, the Ottoman fleet was reeling. tinued their depredations, and the Barbary Adding insult to injury, Christian boarders pirates of North Africa continued to prey on deep in Sultana’s hold discovered and conWestern shipping for centuries. fiscated the Turkish commander’s personal Lepanto marked the last major instance of fortune of 150,000 Venetian gold sequins, naval warfare as an extension of ground warwhich he’d unwisely chosen not to leave fare, with soldiers fighting on the high seas. in Constantinople. It also brought the Age of Sail to fruition. The The skill of John’s seamen and superior sailing vessels deployed in battle off Lepanto firepower of his soldiers put the Turks to were speedier than the galleys, boasted more flight, those trapped against the shore by offensive capacity and were more seaworthy. ships on the Christian left being put to death Combat at sea would never be the same. by the thousands. The few Ottoman galleys Cannons and sails steadily replaced swords still putting up a fight in the center were and oars, and a mere 17 years later Queen destroyed. After running out of cannon balls, Elizabeth’s Royal Navy defeated brother-inshot and arrows, their exhausted crews pelted law Philip II’s Spanish Armada. MH Pope Pius V ordered the Christians with oranges and lemons. various medals struck John’s men tossed them back with laughter. The late newspaperman and author Michael to commemorate the D. Hull was a longtime and frequent condefeat of the Muslims tributor to Historynet magazines. For furWhen the battle ended at 4 p.m., the Gulf of at Lepanto. This reproduction of one of those ther reading the editors recommend The Patras was red with blood and strewn with medals depicts the pope Venetians, by Colin Thubron; Lepanto, broken ships, bodies and debris. That night on the obverse and the 1571, by Angus Konstam; 100 Decisive the Holy League fleet retired to an anchorage battle on the reverse. Battles, by Paul K. Davis; and Sea Power, just outside the gulf, while a few burning Examples were struck in bronze and silver. edited by E.B. Potter. hulks flared on the darkened sea.

80,000 206

7,600

84,000 222

30,000

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To Victory!

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History’s ultimate polymath, Leonardo da Vinci created both high art and fantastic weaponry foreshadowing future warfare By Jon Guttman

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LEONARDO’S ARSENAL

Rendered around the turn of the 16th century, this putative self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci hangs in the Museo delle Antiche Genti di Lucania in Vaglio Basilicata, Italy.

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While there’s no evidence Leonardo saw any of his war machines built during his lifetime, his meticulous drawings have made it possible for curious souls to construct accurate reproductions, such as the scale model at top. Often described as a prototype of the modern tank, this wheeled, geared vehicle was designed to accommodate four crank operators and a crew of gunners. Alas, the vehicle would have been too heavy to move, and the gears are set such that they would rotate each set of wheels in opposite directions.

orn on April 15, 1452, in the hamlet of Anchiano, near Vinci in the Republic of Florence, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a successful notary and a lower-class woman. His father, perhaps discerning Leonardo’s nascent artistic talents, provided the boy a basic education. At age 14 Leonardo became a garzone (apprentice) to leading Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio, and by his mid-20s he had established his own studio. Artistic pursuits were simply not enough to contain Leonardo’s infinitely inquisitive mind, however. While studying geometry and anatomy to hone his paintings and sculpture, he also plunged into drafting, cartography, architecture, woodworking, engineering, metallurgy, botany, paleontology, chemistry and astronomy. Among Leonardo’s numerous inventions was a dazzling arsenal of weapons conceived both for the defense of Florence and for laying siege. If that seems contradictory for a gentle man who so loved animals that he would buy caged birds only to release them, it must be noted the Italian Renaissance was an era of nervous creativity. In an environment where art blossomed amid violent power struggles between city-states, Leonardo learned to adapt and thrive. Leonardo was residing in France at the invitation of King Francis I (who had acquired the Mona Lisa) when he died at age 67 at the Château du Clos Lucé on May 2, 1519. He is buried at the Chapel de SaintHubert in the Château d’Amboise. Along with his contemporary Michelangelo, Leonardo is justly considered the true embodiment of the Renaissance man. MH

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LEONARDO’S ARSENAL

A The ballista traces its origins to ancient Greece, but Leonardo was thinking big with his circa 1480 update, which boasts a bow 80 feet wide. This model is in the collection of Milan’s Museo Nazionale Scienzia e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci. B A variation on the ancient war chariot, Leonardo’s battle wagon featured fore and aft revolving scythes that might do as much damage to friends as enemies. C This version of the artist’s scythed chariot is ready for battle, though its driver would have to ride one of the horses.

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A: ERIC VANDEVILLE (AKG-IMAGES); B, C: FLORENT PEY (AKG-IMAGES, 2)

D A drawing of the two scythed chariots, in Turin’s Biblioteca Reale, shows Leonardo’s peculiar, lifelong method of encoding his notes by writing everything in mirror image. Whether this unique form of notation was meant to keep his secrets, or simply to keep the lefthanded artist from smudging his ink, remains a mystery. E The artist’s rendering of the “superballista” included details about loading and firing. F The trebuchet was another ancient weapon to which Leonardo applied his mechanical principals with mixed success.

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LEONARDO’S ARSENAL

G This model of Leonardo’s multibarreled ribauldequin (aka “organ gun”) is on display where he died, at the Château du Clos Lucé in France’s Loire Valley. The quest to produce practical multibarrelled, rapid-firing gunpowder weapons was in some respects the “arms race” of the artist’s time. H Leonardo’s ox-drawn siege tower featured a wide staircase and a roofed platform, enabling troops to quickly assault a castle wall. I This model of another of Leonardo’s ribauldequin variations is a Swiss design.

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M J The artist dreamed up at least three variations on the ribauldequin, all fitted with axles for wheeling the heavy artillery into battle. K Leonardo’s multiple sling was meant to build up centrifugal force before the operator released its ordnance—albeit from a safe distance. L This sketch of a leaf spring catapult is in the collection of Milan’s Museo Nazionale Scienzia e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci. M This example of Leonardo’s multibarreled weapons features rotating batteries and the ability to adjust the angle of fire.

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BLUEPRINT FOR WWII RESISTANCE

One of John Steinbeck’s lesser-known works, The Moon Is Down was among the most effective pieces of wartime propaganda ever written By Adam Nettina

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Demolition of railway lines was a favored tactic of anti-Nazi resistance groups throughout occupied Europe, one used by Steinbeck’s characters in his 1942 novel The Moon Is Down.

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John Steinbeck

“Wild Bill” Donovan

might have seemed a curious first choice as a government propagandist. Already hailed for his “Dustbowl trilogy” of novels—In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939)—the author and outspoken liberal had been a vocal critic of what he saw as the erosion of democratic values in California during the 1930s. In his estimation, with the introduction of corporate farming and a widening fear of communist influences, the state’s business leaders and politicians had begun to resemble the right-wing party bosses taking control across Europe. In 1938 Steinbeck elaborated on his position in a letter in Writers Take Sides, a literary pamphlet published by the Communist Party USA’s League of American Writers in

Ernest Hemingway and Upton Sinclair) voiced their objections to the Nationalist rebellion of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain. Steinbeck’s contribution to the volume was direct in its criticism of the situation in California: “We have our own fascist groups out here.” Perhaps it was that view which made Steinbeck especially sensitive to the Nazi threat. While working on film projects in Mexico as the Germans were pinning the British and French against the sea at Dunkirk, Steinbeck witnessed firsthand Nazi propaganda efforts in Latin America. While Steinbeck likely overreacted to any potential German invasion from the southern border (there were only some 8,000 Nazi Party members in Latin America combined, or 12,000 fewer than the number of

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In the eyes of Depression-era Americans John Steinbeck which prominent writers and social critics (among them

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he Wehrmacht invaded Norway with the swiftness of a spring wind and violence of an eagle rending its prey. German Fallschirmjägers, making the first opposed airborne assault in history, landed at desolate Sola Air Station just after dawn on April 9, 1940. Behind them in successive waves came more than 1,000 Luftwaffe aircraft, six army divisions and a Kriegsmarine armada that included two of Nazi Germany’s most powerful battleships. That same day Adolf Hitler’s military machine overran Denmark in a matter of hours, and by sunset it was well on its way toward securing a foothold in Scandinavia. The Norwegian army, only partially mobilized, was caught unprepared and overmatched in the mostly rural, mountainous countryside. Within days the survivors were marching with dejected stares, two abreast, on country roads. They were no longer free. Britain responded immediately, sending the battleship Warspite and a flotilla of destroyers to the northern port of Narvik and landing an Anglo-French expeditionary force farther south. But despite reinforcements and a delaying action by stubborn Norwegian forces, the invasion rapidly progressed. On April 26, less than two weeks after having landed troops, the British decided to abandon their crumbling position in the country. They’d fight on through May in a desperate struggle for Narvik, until the once bustling seaside community was reduced to smoldering ruins in the crossfire between British warships and land-based German heavy artillery. By June 10 it was all over. For Belgium, the Netherlands and France it had only begun. On May 10 the German blitzkrieg struck south, and Americans unfolding their morning papers were soon introduced to the likes of Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel. The summer of 1940 brought new emphasis and immediacy to the debate over the United States’ involvement in the widening war, and as voices grew louder on all sides of the political spectrum, an American literary icon was busy formulating his response.

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Americans who attended a 1939 Nazi rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden organized by the German American Bund), his concern for democracy was genuine. Before returning stateside, Steinbeck wrote his uncle Joseph Hamilton, head of information at the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C., declaring, “If [Nazi propaganda] continues, they will completely win Central and South America away from the United States.” The celebrated author wasn’t just blowing off steam to a family member. Two days after France signed an armistice with Germany, Steinbeck wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the need to employ “immediate, controlled, considered and directed” methods of propaganda. Two days after that, on June 26, 1940, Steinbeck had an appointment in the Oval Office. There is no evidence the meeting produced anything more than a sympathetic, nodding FDR, but Steinbeck wasn’t dissuaded. He proposed various propaganda efforts over the coming months and together with friend Ed Ricketts sought to market them to both the government and the public. While the government didn’t warm to Steinbeck’s scheme of flooding the German economy with counterfeit currency, officials did find a role for the best-selling author.

With the fall of France many Europeans felt resistance to the Germans was futile—a belief Steinbeck hoped to help dispel through his book.

Colonel William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan could not have been more the opposite of Steinbeck. Whereas Steinbeck was a Californian by birth, a liberal Democrat and a lapsed Episcopalian turned agnostic, Donovan was a wealthy New York attorney who had once aspired to be the first Roman Catholic president of the United States, on a Republican ticket. Donovan has also served in uniform. A World War I veteran, he had been wounded in action, awarded the Medal of Honor and been a feature character in the 1940 Warner Bros. war film The Fighting 69th. Despite their differences, the two shared many of the same views with regard to Europe, as well as innovative, unconventional ideas for combating the Nazis. Politically speaking, Donovan also had little in common with FDR, a former Columbia Law School classmate. But Wild Bill was a pragmatist, so much so that when the president was looking for a man to head a shadowy new intelligence and propaganda agency called the Office of the Coordinator of the Information (COI), he chose the decorated warrior-diplomat. As for when and where 59

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Published in 1942 to widely divergent reviews, The Moon Is Down was adapted into a 1943 dramatic feature that also met a mixed reception from critics.

Published in the shadow of the American retreat from the Philippines, as well as Rommel’s approach to the Egyptian border, the novella came under the scrutiny of reviewers still uncertain of the war’s outcome. While some domestic critics were positive, grateful for an uplifting work that showcased American ideals of individual freedom and small-town democracy, many took issue with Steinbeck’s themes. For one, he had portrayed the implicitly German invaders—particularly their commander, Col. Lanser—as fair-minded human beings. Others criticized the author’s Pollyannaish insistence that good always triumphs over evil. “[Steinbeck’s] form of spiritual patriotism is not only not enough but may even impede the war effort, because

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Steinbeck completed The Moon Is Down in early 1942.

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Donovan and Steinbeck met, the details are murky. The only reference to Steinbeck found in Wild Bill’s correspondence is a letter from the novelist to Donovan shortly after the latter became head of COI. The letter, proposing the United States air-drop grenades into occupied countries for partisan use against the Germans, apparently went unanswered. Nevertheless, Donovan employed all types of individuals in the COI, which in June 1942 ceded its intelligence functions to the new Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a predecessor of the CIA. New Dealers, labor activists and even communists were put to use (Donovan reportedly once said, “I’d put Stalin on the OSS payroll if I thought it would help defeat Hitler”), as were leading figures in politics, academia and literature. Among those with whom Donovan worked (and was often at odds) was liberal playwright and FDR speechwriter Robert E. Sherwood, who in his capacity as director of the Foreign Information Service (FIS) employed Steinbeck. It was probably through the FIS that Donovan encountered Steinbeck, who, according to biographer Lewis Gannett, suggested to the intelligence chief that the author draw attention to people in occupied countries by writing a story about the emerging resistance movements. It was apparently a project Steinbeck had been mulling over since his initial meeting with FDR, one that had taken on new life when the author came into contact with refugees pouring in from conquered nations. Gripped by the accounts of individuals who “refused to admit defeat even when Germans patrolled their streets,” Steinbeck made use of his penchant for exploring the psychology of the common man by shifting his focus to the international stage. What he found, especially in his discussions with Norwegian refugees, was a pattern of initial

confusion and collaboration, followed by restriction and sometimes brutal punishment that helped foment resistance movements. Drawing on a notion that people around the world shared certain “essentials” (as well as his lingering, and likely overblown, fear of the influence of the German American Bund), Steinbeck originally set his novella in the United States. But the FIS rejected the story out of concern it might demoralize the American public. Fortunately, Steinbeck didn’t have to go back to the drawing board, and with the encouragement of refugee contacts from Norway, Denmark, France and other nations under the Nazi boot, Steinbeck simply shifted the setting while retaining many of the same characters and themes. The resulting conquered nation, according to the author, was “an unnamed country, cold and stern like Norway, cunning and implacable like Denmark, reasonable like France.” By keeping the setting as vague as possible, Steinbeck hoped to create a work that could transcend borders and inspire resistance movements in multiple occupied nations. The title, pulled from the opening lines of Act II of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, encapsulated the novella’s theme: An invader (clearly Nazi Germany) had brought not only evil to a nation, but also a moral darkness across all of Europe. Yet before the novella clandestinely reached the hands of those it sought to inspire, its author would first have to defend his work against a barrage of criticism from reviewers who believed his unsettlingly reasonable “invaders” undermined the very purpose of propaganda.

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it fills us with a specious satisfaction,” critic Clifton Fadiman wrote in The New Yorker. “It seduces us to rest on the oars of our own moral superiority. Though an unabashed Steinbeck admirer, Fadiman couldn’t get past what he regarded as a fairy-tale treatment of the resistance movement in the novella, in which violence against the invaders is only alluded to in dialogue spoken by the principal characters, as if that were enough to bolster the spirits of the conquered. “We will, I fear, hardly be helped by the noble message in The Moon Is Down,” Fadiman concluded. “We can be helped only by the blood, toil, tears and sweat of which Mr. Churchill has spoken.” Admirers of the ardently anti-fascist Steinbeck (whom the FBI and Army intelligence suspected of communist sympathies arising from his writings for and membership in certain organizations, as well as his activism against the Nationalist cause during the Spanish Civil War) found his rendering of the German soldiers naïve and unrealistic. With such characters as Capt. Bentick, described as “a lover of dogs and pink children and Christmas,” as well as the ever apologetic and polite Lanser, who excuses the occupation as “more a business venture than anything else,” Steinbeck’s invaders were lambasted in the New Republic as “Hamletlike Nazis.” Critic James Thurber wrote that if real German soldiers were anything like those in the novella, the Allies “will be able to rout the pussycats merely by shouting, ‘Boo!’” Even Hans Olav, a consular member of the Norwegian government-in-exile in Washington, D.C., found Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Germans “wide of the mark” and wondered why the writer seemed unwilling to paint his villains with the same disdain he’d aimed at their moral equivalents in books like The Grapes of Wrath. Stung by such criticism, Steinbeck later explained he had rendered the invaders as regular men, “not supermen,” because that’s who they really were. Furthermore, rather than dwell on a portrait of evil, he wanted to focus the novella’s message on the durability of democracy and the concept of personal freedom when confronted with oppression. He refused to turn his villains into Hunlike caricatures, as so many other propaganda writers and directors had done. In many aspects Steinbeck’s rendering proved accurate—recent studies have shown the initial occupation of countries like Denmark and Norway was conducted with relative civility, including instructions for Wehrmacht troops to observe local customs and even pay for merchandise. Political exiles and the Allied press often exaggerated accounts of overt brutality, at least in the early months of Norway’s occupation. Though Steinbeck didn’t immediately realize it, a larger debate was brewing in both Washington and New York in which Donovan’s vision of propaganda—that it be used as a weapon of subversion—was clashing with Sherwood’s insistence on spotlighting the “American way of life.” Steinbeck wrote more toward the latter, emphasizing what turned out to be a far more realistic portrayal of the average

German troops initially faced little armed opposition in the nations they conquered, but training and supplies provided by SOE and OSS soon made the occupiers lives far more difficult (middle). Among the Allied-provided weapons was the Sten gun (bottom).

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German soldier in occupied Norway. But his views didn’t square with those who recognized the world to be in a state of total war. Yet as 1942 marched toward 1943, and the balance of power began to shift, The Moon Is Down would have an impact where it counted—in occupied Europe.

“I am a little man, and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into a flame.” Such are the words of Mayor Orden in the closing pages of The Moon Is Down. The story’s chief protagonist, mayor of the small “everytown” in Nazi-controlled Europe, Orden progresses from uncertainty over his response to the invaders at the start of the novella to a defiant, affirming embrace of resistance. Ordered by an indignant Col. Lanser to stop the spread of partisan attacks Established in May 1945, and logistical sabotage against the occupiers, the King Haakon VII Orden refuses on the basis of democratic Freedom Cross honored ideals. “Free men cannot start a war,” he reboth Norwegian and plies. “But once it is started, they can fight foreign civilians and on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, military personnel for decisive contributions they cannot do that.” As Orden and Dr. Winto the Norwegian cause ter, the town physician and historian, face in World War II. Haakon the threat of a firing squad in the final scene, so recognized Steinbeck they hear the echoes of dynamite in the disfor The Moon Is Down. tance, and Winter prophesies to their enemy, “The flies have conquered the flypaper.” Despite the initial criticism, The Moon Is Down resonated with readers, particularly in occupied Europe. In the summer of 1942 the text made its way to Sweden, where printers ran off several thousand Norwegian-

For Norway

language copies of the novella in thinly bound 7½-by-4½ softcover books bearing the title Natt uten mane (Night Without Moon). Borne east across the Norwegian border in clandestine rail shipments or by foot (the 1,000-mile border was nearly impossible for the Germans to patrol), the story was received with knowing recognition by Norwegian patriots. Given the unnamed country’s logistical importance, descriptions of the occupiers and allusions to the British bombing of the country and airdrops of explosives and other weapons, Norwegian resistance members may have thought they were reading nonfiction. While the novella’s influence on the Norwegian resistance over the last three years of the war is impossible to quantify, its widescale illicit distribution manifestly boosted the morale of resistance fighters. “The novel was something we all felt, and there you found the explanation of a lot of things that inspired us to fight against those who had the power,” wrote one Norwegian reviewer shortly after Germany’s surrender in 1945. Another deemed it “the epic of the underground.” Steinbeck himself must have felt a measure of professional vindication in 1945 when the Norwegian monarch presented him the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross for outstanding wartime achievement. The novella’s message resounded beyond Norway. In Denmark young bookseller Morgens Staffeldt, outraged at his nation’s quick capitulation, engaged in resistance activities from the outset of the occupation. Returning to Copenhagen from his honeymoon in 1942, he brought with him The Moon Is Down, of which he printed 15,000 translated copies out of his ground-floor bookshop. (Occupying the floors above him was, of all things, a Gestapo office.) Other Danish resistance members distributed excerpts from the novella that echoed their Nazi-aligned government’s stance toward the occupiers, drawing a parallel between Steinbeck’s fictional but loathed collaborationists and their own leaders. The

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Right: King Haakon VII returns to Oslo from Britain in June 1945. Soon after he awarded Steinbeck the Freedom Cross for wartime achievement.

LEFT: FRIHEDSMUSEET, COPENHAGEN; RIGHT: OSLO MUSEUM; BELOW: ARMÉMUSEUM, STOCKHOLM

Morgens Staffeldt

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LEFT: FRIHEDSMUSEET, COPENHAGEN; RIGHT: OSLO MUSEUM; BELOW: ARMÉMUSEUM, STOCKHOLM

book doubtless encouraged members of Denmark’s small but determined resistance movement. Sabotage incidents, which numbered a mere 14 in January 1943, rose to 198 by that August. Among the saboteurs was Staffeldt, who was arrested in February 1944 after the Gestapo learned of his illicit activities. After enduring weeks of interrogation, he was sent to a concentration camp and slated for execution. He managed to escape and make his way back to Copenhagen, where he and fellow saboteurs hid from the Germans. That fall, in a scene that could have been pulled from The Moon Is Down, Staffeldt and cohorts hid beneath crates of herring in a cargo boat as resistance agents whisked them to safety in Sweden. Finally, in France, where commandos of Britain’s Special Operations Executive had been aiding resistance fighters since 1941, the novella resonated for its accurate portrayal of the fight against the Germans. First published in Switzerland and smuggled into France in 1943, Nuits sans lune (Moonless Nights) had been heavily censored by authorities in neutral Zurich. Gone, for example, were references to Britain, as well as the occupation of Belgium by the invaders amid a war two decades earlier. But in early 1944—in a twist reminiscent of the novella’s nod to female resistance fighters—a French bookbinder named Yvonne Paraf (nom de guerre Desvignes) undertook a new translation of the novella, one that left no doubt regarding the story’s World War II setting and German occupation. Ironically, in a move to counter American propaganda as Allied armies threatened to break out of the Normandy hedgerows, the Germans released translated copies of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to point out social injustices in the United States. The French saw through the attempt, and together with other books in a vibrant underground canon, Paraf’s translation of The Moon Is Down helped inspire the resistance in the crucial year of 1944. In the novella one of the main efforts undertaken by the townspeople is to use air-dropped British dynamite to destroy railway infrastructure. The French had learned this arguably better than any other occupied nation. Between April and May 1944, just weeks after the release of Paraf’s translation of the novella, French resistance fighters destroyed some 1,800 locomotives and 6,000 railway cars, paving the way for the D-Day invasions.

Teachers in high school literature classes nationwide continue to assign students The Moon Is Down alongside such homegrown Steinbeck classics as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. In the decades since World War II the novella has been published in 92 editions worldwide. Its enduring appeal shouldn’t come as a surprise. Steinbeck’s themes regarding the endurance of democratic ideals and resistance in the face of repression resonate to the present. “It is probably best described as a work of literature that served as propaganda,” critic

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Above: War correspondent Steinbeck (at lower right) joined commando raids led by actor turned naval officer Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (at top right). The author received a Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize in 1962.

Donald Coers wrote in the introduction to a 1995 edition of the book. The Moon Is Down continues to bear testament to the struggle for freedom of millions of people during World War II, as well as ongoing worldwide struggles against authoritarianism and neofasciscm. MH Virginia-based freelancer Adam Nettina specializes in World War II and the Spanish Civil War. For further reading he recommends The Moon Is Down and Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team, by John Steinbeck; John Steinbeck Goes to War, by Donald V. Coers; Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War, by Henrik O. Lund; and Wild Bill Donovan, by Douglas Waller.

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KING OF THE HILL At the 685 Battle of Dún Nechtain a calculating Celtic king led his brash Angle opponent into a hillside ambush By Dana Benner

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The Picts were followers of Celtic Christianity and resented both the Angles’ territorial incursions and their attempts to impose Roman religious traditions.

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: ROBERT HARDING (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); OPPOSITE: LOOK AND LEARN (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); THIS PAGE: BRITISH MUSEUM

To keep the fearsome Picts in their northern realm, the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall, spanning from the North Sea west to the Irish Sea.

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Rusted by centuries in the earth, this iron spearhead would have proved lethal in Angle or Pict hands.

rom its beginnings the island known today as Great Britain has been the target of successive invaders. Before the Normans invaded in 1066, parts of the British Isles had been ravaged by Scandinavian raiders known as the Danes, Norsemen or Vikings. Before those raiders came Germanic invaders—mainly the Saxons, Angles and Jutes—and before them landed the legions of the Roman empire. There to meet each of these onslaughts was an ancient tribal people known today as the Celtic Britons, among the fiercest of whom were the Picts. In the second century the latter faced down the Romans, forcing the legions to stop short of what would become Scotland and build the defensive Hadrian’s Wall, spanning the width of the island from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. Half a millennium later the Picts clashed with Angles at the 685 Battle of Dún Nechtain, an engagement some historians believe forged the roots of present-day Scotland.

PREVIOUS SPREAD: ROBERT HARDING (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); OPPOSITE: LOOK AND LEARN (BRIDGEMAN IMAGES); THIS PAGE: BRITISH MUSEUM

The Picts inhabited the north and east of what today is were Christianized by the time of Columba’s death at his Scotland. While much of their history went unrecorded, many historians suggest they were not a homogenous people, but a confederation of Celtic tribes that banded together only when threatened by a common enemy. In most cases those enemies were carrying both crosses and swords. The Romans called these ferocious northern Britons “Picts,” from the Latin picti (“painted”), a possible reference to the tattoos worn by warriors the legions encountered. Unfortunately, there is no record of what they called themselves. Germanic invaders used the term “Pict” as a pejorative to describe any of the various clans north of the Forth–Clyde isthmus. Thrown into direct contact with the hostile clans were the Angles of Northumbria, a kingdom spanning present-day northeast England and southeast Scotland. Starting with the earliest Roman invasion, Christian missionaries ventured into the wilds of Pictland in an effort to convert the polytheistic people. Though they had some success, many early missions resulted not only in apostolic failure, but also in the death of the proselytizers. The legions’ efforts to subdue the Picts by force were equally unsuccessful. Christianity took hold among the southern Picts sometime during the 412–52 reign of Pictish King Drest (or Drust). Widespread conversion dates from the mission to Pictland of Irish abbot and evangelist Columba (or Colmcille) in 563. He arrived amid the c. 554–84 rule of Bruide mac Melcho (also known as Bridei I), who had united many of the northern and southern Picts. Columba was an apostle of Celtic Christianity, a form of Catholicism popular in Ireland and Wales, and may have personally converted Bruide. While many of the Picts

Inner Hebrides abbey of Iona in 597, many also, or still, followed their old beliefs. Despite their differences, the Picts remained united in times of trial and came together to face the ever-increasing encroachment onto their lands by the Northumbrians.

In 685 Britain remained far from united. What would become England largely comprised the Germanic kingdoms of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Among the largest was the Angle kingdom of Northumbria, which bordered Pictland on the north, the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde (or Alt Clut) on the west and the North Sea on the

The Picts came together to face the ever-increasing encroachment onto their lands east. South and east of Northumbria lay the Angle kingdom of East Anglia and the Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. West of them dwelled the Celtic Welsh. Pictland was home to the Picts and other Britons, as well as the Gaelic Scots. From its foundation as a unified kingdom under the reign of Aethelfrith (593–616) Northumbria often warred with the Mercians to the south, Britons to the west and Picts to the north. Its unification came at the edge of a sword as the Angles subdued the native Britons in one battle after another, culminating with the Battle of Catraeth in 600, a clash commemorated in Welsh verse. Cross-border raids continued under successive Angle

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Ecgfrith

Columba

The Picts exploited the transition to launch attacks aimed at retaking their land and lapsed or unsaved Picts to Celtic Christianity. A split came with the 664 Synod of Whitby, when Oswald’s brother and successor, Oswiu, committed his kingdom to following certain Roman Catholic traditions, adding a religious rift to the extant border tensions.

There were marked differences between the cultures of the Northumbrians and the Picts. The Picts, whose

society was based on distinct clans, traditionally came together only during times of crisis, dispersing once the danger had passed. Such major decisions as going to war were made in council, clan leaders mutually agreeing on what action to take and then leading their respective forces. Each was accountable to his own people. Like the Saxons, the Angles of Northumbria had forged a society in which one man, the king, made all military, political and religious decisions, usually without the input of his people. He could spend money and assemble an army at will. Given such sweeping authority, successive Angle monarchs had seized territory from the Mercians, Britons and southern Picts, taking on one group at a time and then subjugating the defeated populations. It is far easier to fight a war of attrition when one divides and conquers, subduing one clan at a time. To face the ever-increasing threat from Northumbria, the Picts adopted their enemy’s leadership structure and joined forces under a centralized monarchy. To thwart Angle ambitions, the northerners realized they had to present a united front, as well as a command structure in which one person could make instant decisions, rather than consult a host of often argumentative advisers. That

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kings, always with the goal of expanding the kingdom and enhancing their power. While Edwin (616–33) was the first of the Angle kings to be converted, Northumbria fully embraced Christianity under Oswald (634–42). Commissioned by the Irish apostle Aidan, monks went to all corners of the kingdom and north into Pictland to convert the pagan Angles

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Bede the Venerable

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As with many later depictions of Pictish warriors, these 16th century images portray the fighters as being painted blue— likely an exaggeration of the Picts’ affinity for body tattoos.

was the valuable lesson they had learned from the Northumbrians—a lesson that would soon come back to haunt their Angle nemesis. By 670 Northumbria had seized large swaths of southern Pictland. That same year Oswiu died, leaving his son Ecgfrith as his successor. Ecgfrith in turn gave his 9-yearold brother dominion over the southern half of the kingdom. The Picts exploited the transition to launch attacks aimed at retaking their land. The revolt was short-lived, as the following year a force of Northumbrian cavalry rode north, soundly defeated the Picts and re-established Angle rule. Adding insult to injury, Ecgfrith demanded tribute, dismissing the various Pictish leaders as puppets who would do his bidding. One of those supposedly subordinate chiefs was Bruide mac Beli, and underestimating him was something Ecgfrith would come to regret.

In the wake of their failed rebellion the Picts deposed their king, Drest mac Domnal, in favor of Bruide mac Beli (also known as Bridei III). The son and grandson of Pictish kings, Bruide didn’t consider himself subordinate to anyone. Indeed, within a decade of his accession to the throne he carried out energetic domestic military

campaigns against Scots along the west coast and in the northern Orkney Islands. As he flexed his muscles, the Pictish king chafed under the puppet role to which Ecgfrith had consigned him. Despite his objections, Bruide continued to send a token tribute to the Northumbrian king in the form of cattle and grain, but only to buy himself time to consolidate his power and unite the Picts. By 685 the tributes had stopped, and Pictish raids As the Picts left so few into Northumbria had increased. Pushed images of themselves, to the brink, Ecgfrith—against the ad- it’s difficult to say with certainty what sorts vice of his council—mobilized a force and of weapons and promarched into Pictland to quell the uprising tective gear they used. once and for all. His all-consuming desire It is likely, however, to put Bruide in his place clouded Ecgfrith’s their shields resembled in size and decojudgment, prompting him to launch his ration this 6th century campaign against the Pictish king with Anglo-Saxon example. what in hindsight seems a less than sufficient force. While the exact size of Ecgfrith’s army is unknown, chroniclers claim his cavalry numbered around 300, though he surely would have had infantry as well.

On Defense

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One possible source of information regarding the Dún Nechtain fight is a 7½-foot-tall carved standing stone in a small churchyard in Aberlemno, Scotland. One of five such Early Medieval stones in and around the namesake village, Aberlemno 2, as it’s designated, bears an ornately rendered Celtic cross on one side and what appears to be a battle scene on the reverse. Depicted in three rows, the warring figures, both on horseback and afoot, bear spears, swords and shields. Though weathered by time and nature, most of the horsemen appear to be wearing Anglo-Saxon helmets. Though evidence suggests helmets were uncommon at that early date, some scholars have hypothesized the helmeted figures represent

Ecgfrith’s cavalry. While debate continues over whether the scene depicts the Battle of Dún Nechtain, one argument in favor of such a conclusion is the stone’s proximity to present-day Dunnichen, just 4 miles to the south. Much of the evidence for Anglo-Saxon arms and armor has been recovered from period graves. Ecgfrith’s cavalrymen would have carried an assortment of weapons— including spears, swords and knives—and may have worn coats of mail. Each likely would have borne a round wooden shield made of alder, willow or poplar with a central iron boss. If the men did wear helmets, they would have been skullcaps made of iron and leather with long nose guards, like those depicted on Aberlemno 2. Foot soldiers would have been similarly outfitted and armed. There is some evidence Bruide had cavalry as well, though unlike the large warhorses ridden by the Northumbrians, the Picts would have been astride the smaller native ponies found up north. Mounted Picts and their infantry counterparts would have been armed much the same, with spears, swords, knives and axes. As mail was expensive, few, if any, of Bruide’s warriors would have worn it, preferring instead heavy overshirts or coats of boiled leather. Helmets were equally scarce. Bruide realized the Northumbrians were better armed, better trained and led by professional soldiers. His Pictish troops, while all experienced warriors, were not used to fighting as a cohesive unit under one commander. Fiercely independent, his men would need to hold together if they were to win. Fortunately, in Bruide they had a confident, shrewd and tactically savvy commander. The Pictish king knew his men would not prevail were they to go toe to toe with the Angles. Bruide needed to get Ecgfrith to fight on his terms, in an area where the North-

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Rough estimates place the number of Pictish forces in the thousands. Thanks to the English Benedictine PICTLAND monk and chronicler Bede the Venerable DÚN NECHTAIN (673–735), who wrote from a NorthSTRATHCLYDE umbrian monastery a half century after the decisive clash between Ecgfrith and Bruide, we know the exact date of what is known variously as the Battle of Dún Nechtain, Nechtansmere, Dunnichen or Llyn Garan. The Angles and the Picts crossed swords NORTHUMBRIA on May 20, 685. Beyond that, details are hard to come by. With no written records from the Picts and scant accounts from the Northumbrians, some sleuthing and inference is required to piece together the events of the battle.

TOP: JJ WALTERS (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

While the site of the battle is disputed, some argue for this hilltop near the present-day village of Dunnichen, on Scotland’s east-central coast.

Tactical Takeaways

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TOP: JJ WALTERS (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

umbrian cavalry would be of little use. He picked the high ground of Dún Nechtain to make his stand. Learn from the enemy. Bypassing the hill was a narrow By adopting their path flanked on either side by enemies’ king-led marshy Nechtain Mire—a natural leadership structure, bottleneck. Bruide’s challenge was the Picts were able to how to lure Ecgfrith into the trap. accelerate their combat decision-making. While keeping his main force Stay mission-focused. concealed behind the summit, the An all-consuming dePictish commander sent out skirsire to crush Bruide led mishers to harass the enemy and Ecgfrith to launch his then fall back. Ecgfrith, in his overcampaign with what seems to have been zealous desire for a quick kill, urged an insufficient force. his forces forward in pursuit. Time Beware the retreat. and again the Picts feigned retreat, A tactic likely used in every conflict since the drawing the Northumbrians ever deeper up the narrowing path. The dawn of time, feigned retreat is intended to ruse had worked. draw the careless and As the Northumbrians reached unwary into an ambush the base of the hill, Bruide struck, or fatal encirclement. trapping them between the Picts to the front and the marshes to either side. The only way out was the narrow path behind them. Too late Ecgfrith realized his mistake. With few options, he sent his cavalry on an uphill charge, hoping to break the Pictish line. Ranks of spearmen repulsed the charge, forcing the Northumbrians back downhill. Bruide then led a countercharge with his own mounted men. Reeling on their exhausted mounts and mired in the surrounding marsh, the Northumbrians were hard-pressed to defend themselves. By the time the fighting ended, Ecgfrith and most of his men lay dead, the overconfident king likely among the last slain. While some Northumbrians managed to escape, those falling into Pictish hands were either killed outright or sold into slavery.

The Battle of Dún Nechtain was more than just another clash in the seemingly endless cycle of war between the Anglo-Saxons and Celts. That single battle broke Northumbria’s grip on the region and secured the lands of the Picts, Britons and Scots—for a time. It also drove Roman Catholic missionaries and adherents from the north, allowing Celtic Christianity to flourish. Bruide reigned over a peaceful and secure Pictland until his death in 693. Through his boldness and with his gains he’d established roughly what constitutes the present-day border of Scotland and England. MH Dana Benner is a frequent contributor to Military History. For further reading he recommends The Makers of Scotland: Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings, by Tim Clarkson; Scotland: A History From Earliest Times, by Alistair Moffat; and The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, 400–1066, by Marc Morris.

Top: Aberlemno 2—one of five sculptured stones found in and around the eponymous village—stands in a churchyard. Above: Carvings on the rear of the stone are thought by some to depict the Battle of Dún Nechtain.

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Reviews British Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay masterminded both the evacuation of 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France (below), and naval operations on D-Day, yet he is little remembered.

Mastermind of Dunkirk and D-Day: The Vision of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, by Brian Izzard, Casemate, Oxford, U.K., and Havertown, Pa., 2020, $34.95

Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, who joined the Royal Navy in 1898 as a 15-yearold cadet, perhaps improbably went on to mastermind four seminal naval operations in the European theater of World War II. As author Brian Izzard reveals, Ramsay by 1914 had formed the trenchant opinions that peacetime training had been defective, while gunnery officers were ignorant of fleet tactics and many admirals lacked up-to-date views on war. His bluntly stated views prompted a peer to observe, “You are not on a very good wicket for being offered any further appointment.” Ramsay defied that expectation with his 1939 appointment as a flag officer at Dover. By early 1940 he recognized the imminent necessity of a large-scale evacuation of Allied troops from France, an operation that would require every available naval and merchant ship and a host of privately owned small craft. Operation Dynamo successfully rescued

338,000 soldiers from Dunkirk and was praised by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a “miracle of deliverance.” Ramsay was closely involved in the planning of the landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) in 1942 and Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943, both of which succeeded in large part due to his vision. It was thus no surprise when the able and experienced Ramsay was chosen to mastermind naval operations (Operation Neptune) during the June 1944 invasion of Normandy. Among the subsequent messages of congratulation came one from a former archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote, “I am glad to think that a task of such mingled inspiration and responsibility has been entrusted to you.” Izzard deftly guides the reader through the labyrinth of often conflicting opinions as invasion plans were drawn up, during which the admiral earned the moniker “Dynamo

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (GETTY IMAGES)

Dynamo Ramsay

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Ramsay.” Throughout the narrative the author inserts more personal aspects, for example describing the admiral’s wife as “a tall, graceful brunette with hazel eyes and a low, attractive voice.” In the wake of his hardearned D-Day success Ramsay was tasked with formulating defense plans for the forthcoming Battle of the Scheldt in Belgium and the Netherlands. Needing to confer with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the admiral boarded a plane on Jan. 2, 1945, which crashed in flames soon after takeoff. Ramsay, 61, was killed instantly. Izzard concludes by justly claiming that Ramsey’s achievements rank alongside those of Churchill, Montgomery and Dwight D. Eisenhower. This excellent biography goes a long way toward ensuring the admiral and his achievements are more widely known. —David Saunders

of Poitiers, the only direct encounter between the English prince and the French king. The impressive victory of the former, whose tactical brilliance with only 6,000 men enabled him to prevail against a force nearly twice as large, enshrined him as a legendary commander and relegated the latter to the ash heap of French royal history. Edward of Woodstock (1330–76)—known as the “Black Prince” likely due to the color of his armor—was the eldest son and heir to

The Black Prince and King Jean II of France: Generalship in the Hundred Years War, by Peter Hoskins, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley, U.K., and Havertown, Pa., 2020, $34.95

Edward III, one of England’s most gifted royal military commanders. The prince apprenticed under his father’s tutelage in such notable battles as Crécy (1346) and Winchelsea (1350), while his father, son of the French Princess Isabella (portrayed beautifully but inaccurately by Sophie Marceau in the 1995 film Braveheart), pressed his dynastic claims to France by initiating the Hundred Years’ War. Jean II (1319–64) was known as “the Good” for his courage, though he was notoriously bad-tempered and among the least regarded of French kings due to his defeat at Poitiers. Hoskins cites both Suntzu and modern British army

Author Peter Hoskins is a Royal Air Force veteran and reputable scholar with three previous books about the Hundred Years’ War. His latest work is a mix of monographic study and narrative account divided into three parts, examining the lives of rival generals Black Prince Edward and Jean II, their command principles and their military campaigns between 1346 and ’67. The linchpin of his narrative is the 1356 Battle

doctrine to argue that good leadership is a mix of example, persuasion and compulsion, “easy to recognize but much harder to define.” Edward and Jean each drew inspiration from 5th century Roman military theorist Vegetius, whose teachings promoted the infliction of destruction and famine as a means of goading an enemy into a risky battle. The English refined this doctrine under the Black Prince, an adept, practical commander, both when conducting devastating raids and in such fullscale battles as Poitiers and, later, Nájera in Spain. By contrast, Jean failed repeatedly due to poor planning, rash decisions and lack of control over his forces. Supporting this compelling study of medieval generalship are endnotes, a bibliography, an index, a useful appendix regarding the location of the Poitiers battlefield, excellent maps and nearly two dozen color images. —William John Shepherd Desperate Sunset: Japan’s Kamikazes Against Allied Ships, 1944–45, by Mike Yeo, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, U.K., 2019, $45 By the latter half of 1944 Japan’s military leaders were forced to recognize the increasingly desperate situation faced by their air forces. Its army and navy had lost large numbers of aircraft and, worse, irreplaceable experienced pilots. The Japanese navy had also suffered severe losses among its finest warships and crews—also impossible to replace fast enough to stem the Allied advance.

Recommended

The White Sniper

By Tapio A.M. Saarelainen Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, who logged more than 500 confirmed kills, became legendary for his exploits during the 1939–40 Winter War between Russia and Finland. Author Saarelainen explores Häyhä’s life and sniping methods, including details of his preferred M/2830 rifle and appendices on the basics of shooting and battles on the war’s Kollaa front.

Weapons of the Viking Warrior

By Gareth Williams Drawing on historical evidence, artifacts, experimentation, reconstructions and re-enactments, Williams— an expert on early medieval weaponry—provides an illustrated account of the weapons of the typical Viking warrior. The book dispels popular myths about Viking warfare while shedding light on the legendary raiders and their lesserknown weapons, including bows and arrows.

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Reviews Recommended

SAS With the Maquis

By Ian Wellsted A former member of the British army’s 1st Special Air Service Regiment who participated in secret operations to France in 1944 and ’45 recounts his mission to contact the French Resistance 400 miles behind German lines. Wellsted, whose nom de guerre was “Gremlin,” describes acts of daring and sabotage, including joint operations with the Maquis.

Armies of Julius Caesar, 52–44 bc

By Raffaele D’Amato and Francois Gilbert This fresh look at the legions led by Julius Caesar suggests his military force was more varied and cosmopolitan than previously realized. Drawing on a wide range of new research, the authors examine Caesar’s troops to establish a more detailed and accurate picture of how they lived and fought.

At the same time the strength of the corresponding Allied (especially American) military forces were rapidly expanding, both in size and effectiveness. Japan’s solution was to organize “special attack” aviation units to mount suicide attacks against enemy warships. Although pilots of stricken Japanese aircraft had previously been known to deliberately crash into Allied ships, only during the last year of the war did Japan create specialized units with the specific intent of carrying out such missions. From October 1944 through war’s end nearly 3,000 Japanese airmen

died in kamikaze (“divine wind”) attacks, of which 367 managed to damage or sink their intended targets. Written by an author from Singapore, Desperate Sunset draws largely on research into Japanese sources hitherto unavailable to Western historians. Mike Yeo presents the history of the kamikazes both from the Allied and Japanese perspectives, as contrasted with most previous works on the subject, written primarily from an Allied point of view. Well written and illustrated, this volume will undoubtedly

interest students and historians of the Pacific War. —Robert Guttman Asian American Spies: How Asian Americans Helped Win the Allied Victory, by Brian Masaru Hayashi, Oxford University Press, New York, 2021, $34.95 Asian Americans were hardpressed to maintain a normal life in the midst of World War II. Many faced racism in their personal and professional lives, while some 112,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry had to contend with the upheaval caused by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which directed their forced internment to “relocation centers” such as Manzanar, Poston and Tule Lake. Regardless, many Asian Americans ultimately chose to fight for their adoptive nation. In Asian American Spies author Brian Hayashi documents efforts by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, to recruit agents of Asian descent for valuable intelligence roles. OSS director William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan and his administrators sought trustworthy people who not only displayed intelligence and relevant skills, but also had the social connections and cultural knowledge to be able to seamlessly blend into society in wartime China, Japan and Korea, among other places. Hayashi describes how talented Asian Americans of

both genders worked as secretaries, stenographers, linguists, trainers, recruiters, espionage agents, radio operators, researchers, interpreters, cultural experts, local activity coordinators and informants. Despite fac-

ing racial segregation, sexism, internal family strife from divided loyalties and often the threat of physical harm from enemy forces, these individuals made a vital contribution to the war effort. They were also instrumental in detecting foreign spies, saving hundreds of lives by rescuing prisoners from camps and participating in the postwar investigation of war crimes. Asian American Spies is a powerful testament to the courage, resourcefulness and intelligence of Asian Americans who contributed to the Allied victory in World War II. Without their sacrifice and willingness to serve, the outcome could have been quite different. —S.L. Hoffman X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, by Leah Garrett, Houghton

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Mifflin Harcourt, Boston and New York, 2021, $28 While the World War II achievements of Britain’s various commando units are widely known, the exploits of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando were unique. It comprised expatriates and refugees from German-occupied Europe who were eager to take the fight back home. No. 1 Troop was French, No. 2 Troop was Dutch, and so on. The anomaly was No. 3 Troop, also known as the British Troop or X Troop. More than 90 percent of its personnel were Jewish, many having fled from Germany or Austria. Were they captured in occupied Europe, their fate was plain. Any apprehension they may have harbored was trumped by their desire to hit back at their

Nazi nemeses. All fought under false identities and English noms de guerre. While fully qualified in the range of commando skills—demolitions, unarmed combat and so on— they also possessed unique attributes that made them especially valuable. German

was their native language, and they were intimately familiar with German society and culture. After undergoing supplementary interrogation and intelligence training, they were often farmed out in small teams to other units requiring their special skills or sent on special missions behind enemy lines. Author Leah Garrett’s narrative of their exploits is a rollicking tale of derring-do, dumb luck and strange coincidences. It climaxes with a cross-country odyssey miles behind Russian lines during which Lt. Fred Gray (actually Manfred Gans) sought to rescue his parents from a concentration camp. Unfortunately, the fascinating story is not without its flaws. Garrett is not a military historian, and at times this is painfully obvious. For example, the terms LCT and LST are not interchangeable, and 41 Commando’s 1944 assault on the Douvres-laDélivrande radar complex occurred on June 17, not June 14. Barring these few cringeworthy errors, this is a well told tale. —Bob Gordon Victory at Gallipoli 1915, by Klaus Wolf, translated by Thomas P. Iredale, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley, U.K., and Havertown, Pa., 2020, $52.95 Author Klaus Wolf ’s military career in the Bundeswehr took him to Turkey on three NATO assignments, during which he researched the military cooperation between Turkey and Germany both

before and during World War I. First published in 2008 and translated into English by the Gallipoli Association, this volume is lavishly illustrated with maps and photographs. German involvement in the Ottoman empire dates from the mid–18th century, though its presence in the early 20th century proved key. Wolf profiles several pivotal figures from the period. Among the more complex was Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, who reached Constantinople in 1909 and whom Wolf describes as “half scholar, half military, half German, half Turk, half aristocrat, half democrat, half general, half boy scout.” Arriving in May 1913 was Lt. Gen. Otto Liman von Sanders, “adroit and versatile in the art of war,” his task to reorganize the Turkish army. While more recent Turkish sources have downplayed the role the German military played in Gallipoli, their involvement was undeniably significant, from tactics to training, leadership and munitions. The German ambassador to Constantinople, Hans

von Wangenheim, according to his American counterpart Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr., “linked the combination of a college student’s jovial enthusiasm with the diligence of a Prussian official.” Wangenheim’s intrigues and plotting succeeded once the German warships Goeb e n a n d B re s l a u p a s s e d through the Dardanelles in August 1914, prompting Turkey to ally with Germany. Ottoman forces were soon fighting a million Allied troops on several fronts, troops that may have made all the difference on the Western Front—a subject of endless debate. From April 1915 to January 1916 on the Gallipoli Peninsula upward of 2,500 Germans were directly or indirectly engaged in the fighting, of whom 530 were killed or died of wounds or sickness, while another 1,000 fell sick or were wounded. Always mindful the Allies might make another attack, the Germans maintained a significant presence in the Dardanelles through war’s end. In October 1917 Kaiser Wilhelm II personally inspected the fortifications and his troops. A particularly impressive addition to the book is an alphabetized list of German officers who served with Ottoman forces between 1914 and ’16, among them future Third Reich naval commander Karl Dönitz and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Adolf Hitler’s future foreign minister. —David Saunders

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Hallowed Ground Bladensburg, Maryland, 1814

he British victory at Bladensburg, Md., on Aug. 24, 1814—two years into the War of 1812—exposed the capital of the United States to invasion. In the wake of that humiliating defeat of U.S. forces vengeful Redcoats torched prominent buildings in Washington, D.C., including the Capitol and the Presidential Mansion (later rebuilt and renamed the White House). It proved a severe blow to American morale amid an unpopular war. It also marked the only time the capital suffered a foreign attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001. Though it was the Americans who declared war in 1812, they were woefully unprepared, while the British were preoccupied with their existential fight for survival against France. Circumstances changed in the spring of 1814 when a defeated Emperor Napoléon was sent into exile, freeing thousands of veteran British soldiers for service in BLADENSBURG North America. Their superiors planned to destroy U.S. trade DC and degrade morale by blockPOTOMAC ANACOSTIA RIVER ading the East Coast and ravagRIVER ing such coastal cities as Baltimore VA MD and Washington. Though recovering from wounds, Maj. Gen. Robert Ross—a disciple of legendary Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington—was sent to command British troops in North America. Supported by a Royal Navy fleet under Vice Adm. Alexander Cochrane and British marines and sailors led by Rear Adm. George Cockburn, Ross landed on August 19 with some 4,000 men at Benedict, Md., on the Patuxent River 30 miles southeast of Washington. Though small in number and lacking cavalry and artillery, the British force of three brigades included four infantry regiments, a Royal Marine battalion, naval detachments and former slaves recruited as Colonial Marines. Congreve rockets would serve as an effective terror weapon against the largely untried Americans. A small force under Cockburn continued up the Patuxent in boats, hoping to bottle up the 17 gunboats of Commodore Joshua Barney’s Chesapeake Bay Flotilla. Marching north along the west bank of the Patuxent, Ross reached Upper Marlboro by August 22. That same day Cockburn’s force caught sight of Barney’s flotilla off nearby Pig

Point. Barney ordered his trapped ships destroyed before withdrawing toward Bladensburg with his 300 sailors and 100-plus Marines. Joining forces with Ross at Upper Marlboro, Cockburn urged the British commander to press on. The U.S. commander, Brig. Gen. William Henry Winder, had deployed his 7,000-plus men—mostly local militia— in Bladensburg, 5 miles northeast of Washington, by a key bridge over the Anacostia River. As the British approached, however, the Americans withdrew west to a less defensible position opposite town. Entering Bladensburg on the 24th, the British attacked across the Anacostia around noon. Both fording the river and crossing the bridge, Ross’ men advanced in the face of artillery and rifle fire. Under pressure and unnerved by rocket fire, the first two U.S. lines crumbled. The third, anchored by Barney’s men with their ships’ guns, stood firm, inflicting heavy casualties on the attackers. But with Winder’s men in retreat and the British poised to outflank him, Barney ordered his men to withdraw. The British suffered 64 killed and 185 wounded, many succumbing to the extreme summer heat. The shattered Americans had fewer losses, with upward of a dozen killed, 40 wounded and 120 captured. Ross and Cockburn marched unopposed into Washington. Recalling the 1813 U.S. burning and looting of York (presentday Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, they exacted revenge by burning Washington’s public buildings and military sites. President James Madison and his cabinet, including Secretary of State James Monroe—who had scouted the British force on horseback—fled the city. First Lady Dolley Madison famously saved relics of the early republic, including a portrait of George Washington. The subsequent British attack on Baltimore failed, marked by the death of Ross and the defense of Fort McHenry commemorated by Francis Scott Key in “The Star Spangled Banner” (adopted as the national anthem in 1931). That and Andrew Jackson’s stunning victory at New Orleans the following January ended the otherwise inconclusive war on an up note for the Americans. Urban sprawl has made it all but impossible to preserve the battlefield at Bladensburg. Unmarked graves of the dead from both sides lie beneath residences lining the road to Washington. However, local officials have posted historical markers and offer a walking tour with a free downloadable audio guide [princegeorges1812.org]. MH

MAP BY BRIAN WALKER; OPPOSITE, TOP: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; BELOW: ALLEN C. BROWNE (HISTORICAL MARKERS DATABASE)

By William John Shepherd

76 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2021

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MAP BY BRIAN WALKER; OPPOSITE, TOP: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; BELOW: ALLEN C. BROWNE (HISTORICAL MARKERS DATABASE)

Top: The British assault across the Anacostia River from town overwhelmed the Americans, opening the road to Washington, D.C. Few memorials grace the urbanized battlefield.

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War Games 1

Heros von Borcke 5

Can you match these mercenary officers to the foreign country and time in which each served?

2. Harald Sigurdsson, Norway 3. Henry Bouquet, Switzerland 4. Roger Williams, Wales

5. Heros von Borcke, Prussia 6. C laire Lee Chennault, United States 7. Józef Bem, Kingdom of Galicia 8. B artolomeo Colleoni, Duchy of Milan 9. Patrick Sarsfield, Ireland

German Generals in Foreign Service

10. Eric von Rosen, Sweden

Can you match each Herr below to his respective portrait above?

____ A. Eastern Roman empire, 1034–41 ____ B. France, 1691–93

____ A. Götz von Berlichingen (Franconian in Holy Roman imperial army)

____ C. Confederate States of America, 1862–64

____ B. Wilhelm von Knyphausen (Hessian in British army)

____ D. Venice, 1453–75

____ C. Erich von Falkenhayn (Prussian in Ottoman army)

____ H. Carl August von Alten (Hanoverian in British army)

____ D. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (Prussian in Continental Army)

____ I. Johann de Kalb (Franconian in French army)

____ E. Levin August von Bennigsen (Brunswicker in Russian army)

____ J. Felix Salm-Salm (Westphalian in Mexican army)

____ F. Ottoman empire, 1849–50 ____ G. The Netherlands, 1580s ____ H. Paraguay, 1932–33 ____ I. China, 1937–42 ____ J. Britain, 1754–65

____ G. Frederick Salomon (Prussian in Union Army)

Answers: A7, B9, C5, D10, E1, F2, G3, H8, I6, J4

____ E. Finland, 1918

____ F. Hans Kundt (German in Bolivian army)

Answers: A2, B9, C5, D8, E10, F7, G4, H1, I6, J3

78 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2021

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LIBRARY & ARCHIVES CANADA

1. V icente Almandos Almonacid, Argentina

LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; 1: STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG; 2: ANTIQUARIAT WIEN; 3: ST. LOUIS JEWISH LIGHT; 4: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; 5: UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO; 6, 7: OLD PAPER STUDIOS, PICTURE ART COLLECTION (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO, 2); 8: BOMANN-MUSEUM, CELLE; 9: BRITISH LIBRARY; 10: YALE ART GALLERY

Soldiers of Fortune

War of 1812 Fails Bladensburg wasn’t the only fiasco to soil the second war of independence. Witness the following:

1. Which remains the only American city to have surrendered to a foreign invader? A. Albany B. Buffalo C. Plattsburg D. Detroit 2. Whose death at Queenston Heights was regarded by the British as a calamity? A. Phineas Riall B. Isaac Brock C. Robert Ross D. Tecumseh

LIBRARY & ARCHIVES CANADA

3. What killed Brig. Gen. Zebulon Pike and more than 200 other U.S. Army troops at York on April 27, 1813? A. British counterattack B. Indian attacks C. Magazine explosion D. Disease 4. Which repulse of 4,000 Americans by 500 British led to Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson’s being relieved of command? A. Lacolle Mills B. Beaver Dams C. Crysler’s Farm D. Fort Erie

CONVICTED OF TREASON AND BEHEADED ON HITLER’S ORDER, she was an American at the center of the resistance. So why is her story little known? —page 30

PluADVEs NTURES OF THE WAR’S

NE POW ONLY OFFICIAL CANI E THE SECRET LUFTDWAFF HAVE TOOL THAT COUL AIN DESTROYED BRIT

HISTORYNET.COM

ck, as Mildred Harna a 24-year-old grad sin. student in Wiscon

OCTOBER 2021

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7/29/21 8:27 AM

An American grad student becomes an enemy of Hitler, who demands her beheading in 1942. Read the gripping story in the latest issue of World War II. Plus: Luftwaffe secret weapon, canine prisoner, and more! Now available at

SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM and your local newsstand

Answers: 1D, 2B, 3C, 4A

Queenston Heights

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Captured!

A young Frenchwoman aims a farewell kick at a German prisoner of war following the August 1944 liberation of the port of Toulon by Gen. Edgard de Larminat’s Free French II Corps.

U.S. NAVY/FPG (GETTY IMAGES)

Kicked Out

80 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2021

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Tears From a Volcano

Uniquely American stone ignites romance

n May 18, 1980, the once-slumbering Mount St. Helens erupted in the Pacific Northwest. It was the most impressive display of nature’s power in North America’s recorded history. But even more impressive is what emerged from the chaos... a spectacular new creation born of ancient minerals named Helenite. Its lush, vivid color and amazing story instantly captured the attention of jewelry connoisseurs worldwide. You can now have four carats of the world’s newest stone for an absolutely unbelievable price. Known as America’s emerald, Helenite makes it possible to give her a stone that’s brighter and has more fire than any emerald without paying the exorbitant price. In fact, this many carats of an emerald that looks this perfect and glows this green would cost you upwards of $80,000. Your more beautiful and much more affordable option features a perfect teardrop of Helenite set in gold-covered sterling silver suspended from a chain accented with even more verdant Helenite. Limited Reserves. As one of the EXCLUSIVE largest gemstone dealers in the world, we buy more carats of Helenite than anyone, which lets us give you a great price. However, this much gorgeous Helenite Earrings green for this price won’t last long. Don’t miss out. Helenite is only -a found in one section of Washington with purchase of State, so call today! Helenite Necklace Romance guaranteed or your money back. Experience the scintillating beauty of the Helenite Teardrop Necklace for 30 days and if she isn’t completely in love with it send it back for a full refund of the item price. You can even keep the stud earrings as our thank you for giving us a try.

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Necklace enlarged to show luxurious color

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A Time of Freedom View the intricate workings through the exhibition back

here’s never been a better time to celebrate the freedom we have in the United States. In honor of those who fought bravely to preserve our freedoms we proudly present the most patriotic coin that’s ever existed in a classic timepiece that recalls a simpler era.

The dial features the obverse of a genuine Walking Liberty half-dollar –– the American Eagle –– that has been skillfully cut crosssectionally. Minted from 1916 to 1947, and made of 90% silver, art historian Cornelius Vermeule called it “one of the greatest coins of the United States — if not the world.” Every time you look at this timepiece you’ll see our nation’s bird with its wings spread wide with pride. Those wings represent the best of our nation, our open embrace of freedom, and our indomitable spirit.

Heirloom in the making... a piece of American history showcased in a classic pocket watch

The features on this timepiece are stunning, from the beautifully-etched, gold-covered stainless steel case and blue Breguet hands to an exhibition back revealing the genius and beauty of the 19-jewel movement. The heirloom “The best pocket watches are quality of these timepieces is garnering more than just timekeepers. top dollar, many selling for as much as They are living reminders of $16,000. However, after decades in the the fascinating tradition luxury watch industry, we know how to of horology and a longmake remarkable timepieces affordable. standing signal of 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. Try the Liberty Eagle Pocket Watch for 30 days. If for any reason you aren’t happy, just send it back for a refund of the item price.

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• 19-jewel manual; 14" gold-finished stainless steel chain • Obverse American Eagle side of Walking Liberty half dollar • Stainless steel case, caseback & crown; gold-finish • 44mm case diameter; Water resistant to 3 ATM

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