O n the evening of June 5, 1944, Louis Leroux, his wife, and their six children scrambled atop an embankment near their farm to investigate the sounds of distant explosions. Three miles south, Allied fighter-bombers were attacking bridges over the Douve River on France’s Cotentin Peninsula. In the fading twilight the family watched silhouetted warplanes peel away from the glowing tracers of German anti-aircraft fire that stabbed skyward. When the excitement ended, the Lerouxs returned home to bed, unaware that their farm would play a vital role in the Allied liberation of France. 

Their slumber was disturbed a few hours later by the droning of low-flying aircraft. Gazing out their windows, they were startled to see descending parachutes. “They looked like big falling mushrooms,” recalled Madame Leroux. “We didn’t know what they were but could see that they were landing in the marshes.” When shrapnel from German flak shells pelted the roof, Madame Leroux and her husband gathered their children to take shelter in the stone stairwell. 

The farmstead sat on the east bank of the Merderet River, which bisected the Cotentin Peninsula north to south. The farm overlooked one of just two crossing points: the La Fière Bridge on the road to the village of Sainte-Mère-Église. While on the high ground, the family home was closer to the riverbank than originally intended thanks to the German occupiers who, recognizing the defensive potential of the landscape, had manipulated locks to flood the area with seawater. Rivers and streams had overflowed their banks to turn wide swaths of bucolic fields into swampland and a shallow lake.

At dawn on June 6, a platoon of Germans arrived at the Leroux’s farm. They searched the stables and occupied the house while the family retreated upstairs to the main bedroom. When gunfire erupted outside, the Lerouxs again scrambled for cover. Bullets cracked through windows, splintering shutters and ricocheting off interior stone walls. The staccato of German Mausers, MP40s, and MG42s echoed through the house as the occupiers fired back at the attackers.

During a pause in the shooting, the family rushed downstairs, past wounded Germans sprawled in the kitchen, and into the wine cellar. Wanting to flee, they nudged open the external cellar door. Spotting a soldier—who they thought was British—they yelled, “Français! Français!”

He replied in French: “Stay where you are and close the door!” 

Several hours later the door opened, and the same soldier commanded them, again in French, “Get out!” 

The Lerouxs now realized the soldiers were American paratroopers. They questioned the French family to learn how many Germans were inside, and then the shooting resumed as the French family sought cover. “The noise took our breath away,” admitted Madame Leroux. The Americans were peppering the house with rifles and machine guns. The skirmish ended after a bazooka round exploded into the house and paratroopers sprinted in to herd the surrendering Germans out. In the lull that followed, the Lerouxs celebrated their violent liberation by gifting a bottle of Calvados brandy to the Americans. “They asked us to drink some first,” recalled Madame Leroux, “which we did. Then they all drank some.”

The paratroopers, there to seize the bridge and expecting a German counterattack, told the Lerouxs it was too dangerous for them to stay. The family packed food and blankets before walking to a neighbor’s home. During their exodus, they passed more American troopers heading to the bridge.

The La Fière bridge was the D-Day objective of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Capturing the bridge intact was critical to the Allies’ plans: first, they needed to prevent the Germans from using it to move reinforcements against the landings at Utah Beach and second, they wanted the bridge to serve later as an artery for armor and infantry to break out from the beachhead toward the ultimate objective: the port of Cherbourg.

A member of the 505th later described the nighttime parachute drop they had made into Normandy as “a model of precision flying and perfect execution.” Pilots of the 315th Troop Carrier Group—veterans of missions in Sicily and Italy—had dropped their passengers right on target. Under the command of Lieutenant John “Red Dog” Dolan, Able Company assembled 98 percent of its troopers within an hour. The 505th’s sister regiment, the 507th, was supposed to land on the opposite side of the Merderet, but it was not as fortunate. Weather, anti-aircraft fire, and hopelessly lost pilots scattered them across 60 square miles. 

With their drop zone just a half-mile from their objective, Dolan’s lead platoon pushed through the graying light of dawn and reached the Leroux’s farm in 30 minutes. The troopers immediately searched the bridge for demolition charges and put the German occupiers under siege. By mid-morning, with the help of paratroopers from the 508th PIR, the east side of the bridge was secure, but the scattered state of the 507th left the defense of the west side in a weakened state.

Major Frederick C.A. Kellam, the 1st Battalion commander, organized his men as well as troopers from other scattered units into a perimeter. The troopers of the 505th, most of whom had seen combat in Sicily and Italy, provided the backbone of his defense. As one of the veterans recalled, “We knew exactly what to expect on the upcoming mission: incoming mortar rounds, the terrifying German 88s, machine pistols, and one-on-one attacks against machinegun nests.” 

The road past the bridge cut across the swampy marshland via an elevated, tree-lined causeway almost 700 yards long. Kellam’s men dug in on a gentle slope facing the river. The position was less than ideal as it left them in the open and in view of any Germans on the far side, but defending from the protected reverse slope wasn’t an option. One positive, though, was that any attack from the opposite side could only come across the narrow causeway. 

“Red Dog” Dolan positioned Able Company closest to the bridge: a platoon on each side, plus another in reserve 400 yards to the rear. Dolan’s heavy firepower consisted of three .30-caliber belt-fed machine gun crews and two bazooka teams dug in to the left and right of the bridge. He also positioned a 57mm anti-tank gun 500 feet back, at a bend in the road where it had a direct line of fire down the causeway. A platoon of combat engineers stood by to blow the bridge in the event of an enemy breakthrough. To prevent that, troopers blocked the far side of the bridge with Hawkins mines. “We placed our anti-tank mines right on the top of the road where the Germans could see them,” recounted Sergeant William D. Owens, “but could not miss them with their tanks.” 

The troopers created an additional roadblock by pushing a German flatbed truck—disabled during the earlier firefight for the farmhouse—into the middle of the bridge. 

A reconnaissance of the far bank revealed it was occupied by only a handful of 507th troopers rather than the expected battalion. Without radio contact and the planned-for support, the men led by Kellam and Dolan were on their own.

The first sign of trouble came at 4:00 p.m. when scout Francis C. Buck came hightailing it back across the long causeway. He’d heard spurts of gunfire followed by the unmistakable clanking of tanks. Close behind him were a few men from the west bank who were fleeing the German advance. Buck paused briefly at the two bazooka positions to give them a heads-up before sprinting to Kellam’s command post. 

The enemy heralded their attack with an artillery barrage, which lifted as four tanks rolled across the causeway. Following them were an estimated 200 infantrymen. The Americans held their fire—the fleeting glimpses of field gray uniforms darting between the trees wasn’t yet worth wasting ammunition.

The first tank—a Panzer Mk III—paused 40 yards short of the bridge. The commander, apparently spotting the mines, opened his hatch and stood up for a better look. One of Dolan’s machine gun crews squeezed off a burst at the tempting target and killed him instantly. With that, the American line erupted with rifle and machine gun fire.

The two bazooka teams went to work. Gunners Lenold Peterson and Marcus Heim abandoned their foxhole so they could aim around a concrete telephone pole. To their right, Privates John D. Bolderson and Gordon C. Pryne did the same. Just a few hours earlier, Pryne had been a rifleman, “But on the jump, one of the guys on the bazooka team broke his ankle,” he said. “They gave that job to me. I didn’t want it, really, but they said, ‘You got it.’” 

The two teams pummeled the lead tank, which in turn fired a round at Peterson and Heim. It flew high, shattering the telephone pole. Dolan later admitted, “To this day, I’ll never be able to explain why all four of them were not killed. They fired and reloaded with the precision of well-oiled machinery.” 

The lead tank was hit by several 2.36-inch high-explosive rockets, one of which disabled a track while another briefly set it alight. Peterson and Heim advanced to get a better shot at the second tank—a captured French Renault R-35 painted Wehrmacht gray—which was some 20 yards behind the first. Heim later recalled, “We moved forward toward the second tank and fired at it as fast as I could load the rockets into the bazooka. We kept firing at the second tank, and we hit it in the turret where the body joins it, also in the tracks, and with another hit it also went up in flames.”

The 57mm gun fired as well and was subjected to heavy enemy retaliation. In the melee, two tank rounds punched through the glacis shield, and seven men were killed keeping it in operation.

A third tank now lumbered toward the bridge as German mortar shells pounded the American line. Although the first tank was disabled, the main gun and machine gun were still barking out shells. Rushing out from his foxhole, Private Joseph C. Fitt scrambled atop the first tank to toss a hand grenade into the open hatch and finish off the crew.

While the tank battle raged, the German infantry struggled to advance against the weight of American firepower. One paratrooper observed that the bunched-up enemy, seeking cover along the treelined causeway, “made a real nice target.”

With the German attack stalling, the two bazooka teams yelled for more ammo. Three men, including Major Kellam, scrambled forward with satchels of rockets. The trio was 15 yards from the bridge when another mortar and artillery barrage crashed in. Kellam was killed, and the other two men badly wounded, one mortally. Kellam’s death made Dolan the senior officer. His first action after taking command was to dispatch a runner to the regiment’s command post to advise them what happened.

Artillery continued to rain in. “They really clobbered us,” admitted Owens. “I don’t know how it was possible to live through it.”

Owens’ platoon was out front. When his radioman with the walkie-talkie took a direct shell hit, they lost contact with Dolan. “So, from then on, as far as we were concerned, we were a lost platoon,” said Owens. Anticipating another attack, Owens slithered from foxhole to foxhole collecting grenades and ammunition from the dead to redistribute to his men. “I knew we would need every round we could get our hands on.”

The enemy infantry rushed forward again, passing the knocked-out tanks and getting closer to Owens’ platoon, which poured fire into their ranks. “The machine gun I had was so hot it quit firing,” said Owens. He shouldered a dead man’s BAR, firing it until he ran out of ammo, then he switched to a second machine gun of a knocked-out crew. 

Owens could hear another machine gun stitching the German flank and the plonking belch of a 60mm mortar lobbing shells along the causeway. Riflemen squeezed off shot after shot. It was getting desperate. “We stopped them,” Owens recounted, “but they had gotten within twenty-five yards of us.” 

Just as the German attack failed, Colonel Mark J. Alexander, the regimental executive officer, arrived with 40-odd paratroopers he had managed to collect along the way. His inspection of the defenses confirmed they were set as well as could be expected. Shortly thereafter, the division’s second-in-command, Brigadier General James M. Gavin, arrived with men from the 507th. Gavin concurred with Alexander’s assessment, later recounting that Dolan’s troopers holding the bridge were “well organized and had the situation in hand.”

Alexander asked Gavin, “Do you want me on this side, the other side, or both sides of the river?” 

After glancing at the far bank, Gavin replied, “You better stay on this side because it looks like the Germans are getting pretty strong over there.” The two officers agreed that attacking across the bridge would divide their manpower and might cost them the bridge in the face of a strong counterattack.

German shells continued to pummel the American positions. One shell exploded on the edge of a foxhole, burying the two occupants. Alexander helped dig them out and then sent them back to the medics.

First Sergeant Robert M. Matterson, who was directing the wounded to the aid station, said they were coming back in such numbers that he “felt like a policeman directing traffic.” Indeed, as the day ended, dozens of men flowed past while dozens more of their comrades lay dead, strewn across the battlefield. 

Sunset gave way to darkness, with a bright moon that was occasionally obscured by scudding clouds. Throughout the night, the Germans periodically lobbed artillery shells at the Americans, while Alexander dispatched supply parties to scour the division’s drop zone for more ammunition.

At dawn, the rising sun released mist from the surrounding swamps and heralded the arrival of a squad of airborne engineers along with two more machine gun crews. Colonel Alexander warmly welcomed the men and directed them to dig in. 

The additional firepower was much needed, but Alexander was still concerned about his available arsenal: “We had no long-range firepower other than machine guns. Well, we had one 57mm gun with six rounds of ammunition and a limited supply of mortar rounds, but this all had to be held in reserve for any serious effort the Germans might make to cross the bridge.” 

Alexander’s mental inventory was interrupted when a group of paratroopers on the far side of the Merderet River attempted to wade across. He watched helplessly as German fire cut into the men sloshing through the water. A handful made it to safety, but most were killed and several of the wounded drowned.

The Germans preceded their next attack with intensified shelling, including tree bursts. Two more captured French Renault tanks were in the vanguard. Dolan’s 57mm crew held their fire—with only six rounds left they wanted a clear shot. But when the lead tank boldly geared onto the bridge, the 57mm crew cracked off a round. The shell struck the tank, sending it and its partner into retreat. Nestled in front of the anti-tank gun was Corporal Felix Ferrazzi, a radioman serving as a machine gunner. With a clear view down the causeway, he added to the mayhem with repeated bursts of fire into the advancing Germans. The gunners implored him to move due to the 57mm’s muzzle blast, but despite being wounded, Ferrazzi stayed put—until a mortar shell mangled his .30-caliber. The other Americans added to the wall of lead, especially Sergeant Oscar Queen, who estimated he fired 5,000 rounds from his belt-fed machine gun. 

Thirty minutes into their attack, the Germans floundered. They began their withdrawal as the paratroopers neared their breaking point. Dolan’s 1st Platoon was down to 15 men; one squad had just three troopers still standing. Owens sent a runner to report to Dolan: they were almost out of ammo and unable to repel the next attack; could they pull back? Dolan replied, “No, stay where you are.” He then scribbled a short message for the runner to relay to Owens: “We stay. There is no better place to die.” With his orders in hand, Owens organized what was left of his platoon.

But the Germans had had enough. They waved a Red Cross flag and requested a 30-minute truce to recover their wounded. Owens and his comrades used the time to bring up more ammo and determine who was still alive. Able Company had suffered 17 killed and 49 wounded; the battalion was down to 176 men. The exhausted Owens then sought a better view of the causeway. “I estimated I could see at least 200 dead or wounded Germans scattered about. I don’t know how many were in the river,” he said, “Then I sat down and cried.”

But the battle for La Fière Bridge wasn’t over. For the Allies to break out of the beachhead, the stalemate had to be broken. Later that evening, General Gavin relieved the battered 505th paratroopers with elements of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment. In a charge rivaling the Light Brigade, the glider men made a daylight assault across the causeway on June 9. Pushing through the pall of friendly artillery and withering enemy fire, they successfully occupied the far bank, while another group of 100 paratroopers swarmed in behind them to help secure the foothold. The road to Cherbourg was now open for Major General J. Lawton Collins’ VII Corps, but it came at a heavy cost. The 82nd Airborne had suffered 254 men killed and more than 500 wounded to seize, hold, and secure the vital bridge at La Fière. 

The Leroux family returned to find their home in ruins and most of their livestock victims of the crossfire. They lived in the stable—as it had suffered the least damage—rebuilding their farm over the next five years. They moved back into their home in time for Christmas 1949. 

“Our family celebrated,” recalled Madame Leroux, “happy, in spite of our misery, to all be back together without having suffered any dead or wounded, thanks to the American soldiers who fought to liberate and save us.”

The motor launch tied up at the small-boat pier in Seeadler Harbor in New Guinea to disembark a dozen men from the ammunition carrier USS Mount Hood. The date was November 10, 1944. Led by the ship’s communications officer, Lieutenant Lester Hull Wallace, the group had several errands to run on shore before returning to the ship. Wallace planned to take a couple of men with him to the fleet post office to pick up mail. Others were headed to headquarters to obtain charts and manuals. Two had dental appointments and two were on their way to the brig. The sailors were just splitting up when a tremendous blast knocked them off their feet. When they looked out into the harbor, they were stunned to realize that their ship was being wracked by explosion after explosion.

Seeadler Harbor was off the northeast coast of Manus Island, 250 miles north of mainland New Guinea. It was one of the finest anchorages in the Southwest Pacific Theater, measuring 15 miles long and four wide, with ample depth for capital ships. The army had taken the island from the Japanese in early March 1944 and within days U.S. Navy Seabees had begun to build a major advanced operating base capable of supplying and repairing the ships of Admiral William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet as it supported General Douglas MacArthur’s leap-frogging drive along New Guinea’s north coast to retake the Philippines. That same month a survey ship marked out more than 600 moorage sites throughout the vast harbor. The Manus base grew over the summer and became dotted with hundreds of buildings—mostly Quonset huts used as barracks for thousands of sailors and as warehouses for the vast amounts of materiel necessary to carry on the war.

On the morning of Friday, November 10, Mount Hood was one of some 200-odd ships in the harbor. The vessels ran the gamut from patrol boats to escort carriers and also included landing ships, tanks (LSTs), destroyers, and civilian-crewed freighters. Mount Hood was anchored at berth 380, near the harbor’s center, four miles from the entrance and 2½ miles from land. It was the first of eight AE class ammunition ships that had been converted for the U.S. Navy, with a length of 460 feet, a displacement of 14,000 tons, and a cargo capacity of 7,800 tons. Mount Hood’s keel was laid down in September 1943 and it began service as a cargo vessel named the SS Marco Polo. Once the navy took over, it converted the ship into an ammunition carrier. Commissioned in July 1944, the vessel was renamed after the dormant volcano that provides Oregon with its highest point. Its captain was Commander Harold A. Turner. 

Turner struggled to find qualified seamen for his crew and many of those he received were raw recruits with no experience at sea. After an unusually short fitting out and a shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay, Mount Hood stopped at Norfolk, Virginia, to load 5,000 tons of explosives and ammunition. On August 5, 1944, with its hold filled, Mount Hood departed Norfolk bound for the Admiralty Islands via the Panama Canal. The ship reached its final destination, Seeadler Harbor, on September 22. Its mission was two-fold: to dispense its cargo to other warships, and to take on any unused munitions from homeward-bound vessels.

On November 10 Mount Hood was ringed by nine landing ship, mechanized (LCM) boats and was the center of a humming hive of loading and unloading activity. The small-engine repair ship USS Mindanao was anchored off the ship’s port side just 350 yards away. USS Argonne, another repair ship that also served as the task force commander’s flagship, was 1,100 yards off.

Wallace and his going-ashore party piled aboard the captain’s 40-foot gig and at 8:25 a.m. they shoved off toward the beach. As he headed toward shore Wallace noted that aerial depth charges were being loaded aboard the Mount Hood from the landing craft moored alongside.

A lanky, bespectacled 29-year-old native of Georgia, Wallace had graduated from Atlanta Tech High School and earned his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 1941. Afterward he married Mildred Virginia French and went straight into the service of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, working in the estate and gift tax branch—but not before registering as an officer in the Naval Reserve. In 1942 the navy called him up and assigned him a place in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. After a year there the navy sent Wallace to its communications school at Harvard University, and then to the Sub Chaser Training Center at Miami, Florida. In the summer of 1944 the lieutenant was transferred to USS Mount Hood—his first at-sea deployment. He put his Ivy League training to good use when setting up the ship’s communications department.

Wallace and his crew landed at the pier and disembarked to carry out their various chores. Just as they were separating, one of the sailors loudly exclaimed, “Look!” The boat crew turned to see an eruption of smoke and fire rising above Mount Hood. In seconds a powerful explosive concussion threw them to the ground. It took a full 12 seconds for the horrible sound of the exploding ship to reach them. Even from two miles away they could see dark shapes being ejected from the explosion and curving high into the sky. The lieutenant reacted immediately. “Back to the boat!” he yelled. He told the coxswain to make all speed to return to the scene. It took more than a quarter of an hour for the motor launch to reach berth 380. They found no ship, no bodies. “There was nothing but debris all around,” Wallace later wrote. Mount Hood and her crew of 350 had simply vanished.

Wallace directed the boat to the nearest vessel, the Mindanao. He was shocked by what he saw—the port side had been pummeled by flying steel that punched 33 irregularly shaped holes into the hull, some as large as three by four feet. He later learned that everyone on the port deck—26 sailors—had been killed instantly by the blast. In all, 82 men died on Mindanao. There seemed nothing more Wallace and his men could do, so the lieutenant had the launch head back to the pier to await further orders. There he was told to stick around and that he’d be required as a witness for an about-to-be-convened official board of inquiry. He did not know then that he was the only surviving officer from Mount Hood. 

Out in the harbor ships were assessing the damage from the explosion. After the sky ceased raining metal fragments, the crew of the Argonne counted 221 pieces of the Mount Hood strewn across the deck. Said the ship’s captain, Commander T.H. Escott, “By the time we had recovered from the force of the explosion, Mount Hood was completely shrouded in a pall of dense black smoke. It was not possible to see anything worth reporting.”

Ships as far as 2,200 yards distant sustained various degrees of damage, among them the escort carriers USS Petrof Bay and Saginaw Bay, the destroyer USS Young, four destroyer escorts, and several cargo and repair vessels. Small boats like landing craft took the brunt of the blast. Many were sunk and more were damaged beyond repair. Many crewmen died. Fortunately, there were no major combat ships in the harbor that morning. 

When divers entered the harbor waters to inspect Mount Hood’s wreckage, they found none to speak of—only a few stray pieces of the hull, nothing bigger than 16 by 10 feet. They were astonished to see a trench in the sand 50 feet wide and 300 feet long that the explosion had excavated to a depth of 40 feet. USS Mount Hood had literally ceased to exist.

Within days the navy organized a board of investigation to discover the cause of a catastrophe that killed 432 men and wounded an additional 371 from surrounding ships. The members, headed by a captain and two commanders, were to review all the facts, study images taken at the scene, and interview personnel who, in some way, witnessed the events of November 10, 1944. The hearings took place aboard the destroyer tender USS Sierra. 

The first order of business was to define the scene at Seeadler Harbor and the role Mount Hood had played in activities there. It was noted that the ship was “the primary source for the issue of all types of ammunition,” and was taking on munitions from homebound vessels. The board noted that the harbor had four delineated anchorages for ammunition ships in the harbor’s western portion. But they were not used. After shifting the ship’s allocated place twice, the harbormaster settled it into berth 380, in the generally placid waters at the harbor’s center. That central location was more convenient for the landing craft and lighters that had to carry the ammunition back and forth. The ship was anchored in about 120 feet. At the time of the explosion Mount Hood was carrying about 3,800 tons of high explosives, including “quite a bit of damaged ammunition,” Lieutenant Wallace told the board. “Some of it was corroded and I myself remember seeing some pyrotechnics with dates as far back as 1915.”

Seaman First Class Lawrence Gaschler told the board that he should have been aboard Mount Hood that morning unloading side-by-side with his fellow crewmates from the amphibious boat pool. But he had been chosen to pilot a boat that carried an officer from the escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay to another ship in the harbor. “In my mind, we’d just passed the Hood when it blew up,” he testified. “There was this bright flash and I could feel the heat, then just a second later the concussion hit us. It knocked the officer down and knocked me out. When I came to, debris was falling in the water around.”

Motor Machinist’s Mate Lew Cowden was aboard the destroyer escort USS Whitehurst. He recalled that “we were headed toward the open sea when it exploded. They tell me we were much closer when taking on supplies and went right past [Mount Hood] on our way out. I had just started up the ladder to the fantail when the blast pushed me back. I ran forward and came up on deck amidships. The air was full of smoke and fine dust. I was told that we were far enough away to avoid damage from the blast and yet near enough that major debris blew over us.” 

Not all eyewitness testimony was credible. Aviation ordnanceman Edward L. Ponichtera, who was working on the beach near the Mount Hood, asserted that he saw a twin-engine Japanese bomber drop two bombs—“each a direct hit”—on the ship. “I clearly observed the Rising Sun painted on the plane,” he said. Carl Hughes, a sailor on the Liberty ship SS William H. McGuffey, averred that he saw an enemy midget submarine broach the water near Mount Hood and fire two torpedoes.

With help from the Mount Hood survivors on Wallace’s boat, the board’s investigators pieced together an accounting of the types of cargo aboard at the time of the explosion. Munitions included .30-caliber machine gun rounds, 14-inch shells for battleships, and everything in-between. There were dozens of 100-pound bombs stored away in the holds, or in the case of the 1,000-pound blockbusters, kept in a small shack on the main deck. Hold #5 contained rocket bodies and rocket motors, most of them damaged. The total was nearly 4,000 tons of munitions. 

The investigators then moved over to assess Mount Hood’s crew and their role in the inferno. They felt the sailors had an overall “lack of experience” and, perhaps even more crucial, a “lack of leadership among the twenty-two officers,” which led to poor discipline onboard. “This was reflected in the rough and careless handling of ammunition,” the board noted. 

In all, 133 witnesses gave testimony, supported by dozens of exhibits. Wallace was twice called to give evidence. It took the board a month to gather all of its evidence. 

On December 14, 1944, the board issued its findings. “The following unsafe conditions and practices were revealed in the investigation: ammunition was being roughly handled in all parts of the ship; boosters, fuzes and detonators were stowed together in one hold in a manner contrary to regulations governing transportation of military explosives; safety regulations for handling ammunition were not posted in conspicuous places and there was a general lack of instruction to the crew in safety measures; there was a lack of enforcing the prohibitions of smoking; there was evidence that ammunition was accepted on board which was definitely defective and should have been destroyed by dumping in deep water.”

The board’s final conclusion was that “The explosion was caused by a force or agency within the USS Mount Hood itself.” Had Captain Turner survived he and his senior officers would have been held responsible. The board had to admit that they had no clear idea of the exact cause of the disaster—they could only guess—which was frustrating for the three members.

Regarding the statements about a Japanese bomber or midget submarine, the board firmly stated there was no evidence that either of these attacks took place, and so discounted the accounts. 

In his endorsement of the report, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander of Pacific Ocean Areas and Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, wrote, “The question of negligence is not involved but rather that the technical mistakes made by the above named officers [Turner and others] were errors in judgement resulting from a keen desire to meet necessary military commitments and move on with the progress of the war.” The admiral noted, “The exigencies of war will always require the acceptance of certain operational hazards.”

While working on its conclusions the board took note of two other incidents involving explosions on ammunition-carrying vessels, one in May 1944 and the other in July. 

On May 21 an LST tied up at Pearl Harbor’s West Loch was loading mortar rounds for the upcoming invasion of the Mariana Islands when it was blown up after an errant shell fell into a stack of munitions in the hold. The resulting conflagration quickly spread to other nearby LSTs. Six of the craft were sunk and 160 men killed.

And on July 17 a blast at the naval magazine ammunition loading facility in Port Chicago, California, flipped and sank the freighter SS Quinault Victory and vaporized the Liberty ship SS E.A. Bryan. Three-hundred-twenty men died, two-thirds of them African American stevedores. Both ships were tied up at a finger pier loading ammunition from a string of railway boxcars. The official finding of facts produced by the board of inquiry noted that “no intent, fault, negligence, or inefficiency of any person in the naval service caused the explosions.” Among shortcomings that led to the disaster, the board wrote, “The officers had little stevedoring experience, none with handling enlisted personnel, and none with explosives.” They went on to describe the situation with the enlisted men, and the racism in the conclusions was only thinly veiled: “They were unreliable, and lacked capacity to understand instructions.” (When loading was ordered to resume weeks later, many of the sailors involved refused, leading to a mass court-martial. Those convicted of mutiny and sentenced to hard labor became known as the Port Chicago 50 and gained their release after the war and only following a public outcry.) 

So, in the space of seven months three eerily similar accidents wreaked havoc on the navy’s explosives supply lines. Nine ships were lost and more than 900 men died.

In March 1945 the navy’s Bureau of Ordnance issued a “circular” letter to relevant commands that emphasized how easy it was to explode “bomb type” ammunition accidentally “by impacts not severe enough to cause even slight rupture to container walls. Any idea that hazards due to ‘mere denting’ of containers must be thoroughly dispelled.” The letter went on to outline a series of revised loading practices intended to cut down on the risks of explosions, in particular how dangerous materials should be handled. After tightening up the rules the navy suffered no further cataclysms. 

Following his testimony to the board of investigation, Lieutenant Wallace returned to Arlington, Virginia, to reunite with his wife and son. For his next tour the navy sent him for duty in the communications unit of a carrier—exactly what he had sought all along. He spent the next ten months on station in the Pacific Theater, where he was promoted to commander. Wallace was discharged in late 1945 and when he returned home, he reclaimed his old post at the Bureau of Revenue (later renamed the Internal Revenue Service). He retired in 1974 and died in 2012 at the age of 97.

Mount Hood was not forgotten. In July 1968 a second ship named for the Oregon volcano was launched at Sparrows Point, Maryland. Designated AE-29, it was the fourth Kilauea-class ammunition ship to enter navy service. The second Mount Hood served in Vietnam in 1972, earning a campaign star, and served in the Gulf War in 1991. The ship was decommissioned in August 1999 and was sold for scrap in September 2013.

Odds are there isn’t a Civil War buff living who hasn’t seen a copy of this remarkable pencil sketch (above) by special artist Edwin Forbes, which Forbes labeled as “William J. Jackson, Sergt. Maj. 12th N.Y. Vol.—Sketched at Stoneman’s Switch, near Fredricksburg [sic], Va. Jan. 27th, 1863.” The young noncom has gazed back at us across the years from countless publications and exhibits. Rendered with camera-like honesty, it is arguably among the best drawings of a common soldier done during the Civil War. Writing about his work in general, Forbes assured viewers, “fidelity to fact is… the first thing to be aimed at.”

In fact, once Forbes completed his drawing of Jackson, the sketch went virtually unseen for more than 80 years. The drawing was among several hundred illustrations Forbes made while covering the Army of the Potomac for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from the spring of 1862 to the fall of 1864. Approximately 150 of Forbes’ wartime sketches were engraved and printed in the illustrated newspaper during that period, although his drawing of Jackson was not among them.

After the war, Forbes retained most of his original illustrations. Many he reworked into more polished drawings; some into oil paintings. He fashioned scores of them into award-winning etchings. Many appeared in his books, Life Studies of the Great Army (1876) and Thirty Years After: An Artist’s Story of the Great War (1890). Again, the poignant sketch of the beardless sergeant major from the 12th New York Infantry was not included.

Following Forbes’ death in March 1895, his wife, Ida, maintained his portfolio of original artwork, where the Jackson sketch was catalogued, “Study of an Infantry Soldier — The Sergeant Major.” She eventually sold the entire collection for $25,000 to financier J.P. Morgan in January 1901. Eighteen years later, on the heels of World War I, Morgan’s estate donated the collection to the Library of Congress, its current home. The sketch of William Jackson remained out of the public eye for another quarter-century until it resurfaced during World War II, thanks to the efforts of a U.S. Army private.

Private Lincoln Kirstein, however, was not your ordinary ground-pounder. Born into wealth, the Harvard educated Kirstein was well-connected socially, channeling his “energy, intellect, and organizational skills to serve the art world.” By age 36, when he was inducted into the Army in early 1943, Kirstein had already published several books, co-founded The Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, and later, The School of American Ballet in New York City with renown Russian choreographer George Balanchine.

Following his basic training at Fort Dix, N.J., Kirstein was posted at Fort Belvoir, Va., charged with writing training manuals. “I am an old man,” he confided to a friend, “and find the going very hard.” To fill his idle hours, he conceived an idea to collect and document American solider-art. “[M]uch of their work is interesting,” Kirstein wrote, “and some of it is beautiful.” He soon expanded his survey to include “U.S. battle art through time.” His plans included a “large-scale exhibit and a book.”

Aided by some influential friends, including Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and then Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish, Kirstein gathered material from various sources, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and, of course, the Library of Congress. Thanks to his efforts, Forbes’ sketch of “Sergt. Maj. William J. Jackson” emerged from obscurity.

The efforts culminated in the exhibition of American Battle Art at the Library of Congress staged from July 4 through November 1, 1944. Three years later, the Library of Congress issued the book that Kirstein had envisioned. Titled An Album of American Battle Art, 1755-1918, the heavily illustrated volume “took its origin” largely from the wartime exhibit. Forbes’ portrait of William J. Jackson appeared in print for the first time, captioned “a solemn lad with his arm resting on his rifle…toughened by campaigning.”​

A Perilous Start

Jackson may have been “toughened” early in life. The son of Irish immigrants, he was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village on June 8, 1841, the first of four boys. His father, also named William, worked as a mason. The family grew in time, and moved from tenement to tenement, though always remained in proximity to Washington Square. The surrounding web of narrow streets flanked by a tumble of brick and framed dwellings and small businesses was an Irish enclave in the city’s 9th Ward facing the Hudson River.

It was a tough neighborhood. “Boys were primitive in those days,” wrote one of Jackson’s contemporaries. “They were like the old time warring clans. Every avenue was arrayed against the other.” Tensions bubbled within the city’s growing Irish immigrant population where clashes were common.

One notorious encounter erupted within a stone’s throw of Jackson’s home when he was 12. On July 4, 1853, streets echoed “the popping, fizzing, whirring and banging sounds” of fireworks as crowds of green-clad Irish revelers celebrated Independence Day. They ended up battling one another. “At one time several hundred men were…hurling stones and other missiles…” trumpeted The New York Herald next day. Platoons of policemen from nearby precincts aided by two fire companies “succeeded in subduing the riot…” Nearly 40 Irishmen were arrested, reported the Herald, “all of whom bore the strong evidences of an impression made on their heads by a contact against the policemen’s clubs.”

Battles of another kind rocked William’s world when civil war erupted on April 12, 1861. The 19-year-old left his parents and his job as a clerk a week later, on April 19, to enlist in the 12th Regiment New York State Militia, Company F. A recruiting office was just blocks from his home.

Tendered for immediate service by its commander, Colonel Daniel Butterfield, the regiment also included in its ranks the future Maj. Gen. Francis C. Barlow when it sailed from New York on April 21, bound for Washington, D.C. Though fully armed, the unit lacked enough uniforms to go around. Raw recruits like Jackson wore “their ordinary clothing with military belts and equipment,” giving them, by one account, a “guerrilla like,” appearance. Appearances changed when a new Chasseur uniform was issued to the regiment at Camp Anderson in Washington early in May 1861. The militiamen were also mustered into Federal service for three months while there, and received a “severe course of drilling.” Barlow was mustered in as a first lieutenant in Company F.

One of their Camp Anderson instructors also distinguished himself later in the war. Emory Upton, fresh from graduation at West Point, would achieve the rank of Brevet Maj. Gen., and eventually become superintendent of U.S. Military Academy. Upton found that tutoring the 12th New Yorkers was tiresome. “I do not complain,” he wrote, “when I think how much harder the poor privates have to work.”

Their crash course in soldiering quickly paid off. Before dawn May 24, the 12th New York led Union forces over Long Bridge to occupy Alexandria, Va., and fortify Arlington Heights in the wake of that state’s secession from the Union the day before. Jackson was among the first Union infantrymen to set foot on Rebel soil.

Jackson continued his trek through enemy country when the regiment joined Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson’s army at Martinsburg, Va., on July 7, 1861. The men patrolled and picketed environs of the Lower Shenandoah Valley until their expiration of service on August 2, when the unit returned to New York. Following a march down Broadway and Fifth Avenues on Monday August 5, the regiment formally mustered out at Washington Square, near Jackson’s home.

Quick Return to the Fray

Jackson’s homecoming was brief. He reenlisted October 1, 1861, and mustered into Federal service for three years, a member of Co. F, 12th New York Volunteer Infantry. Dubbed the “Onondaga” Regiment, its ranks had originally been filled with short term volunteers from near Syracuse and Elmira, N.Y., in May 1861. After the Union debacle at First Bull Run in July 1861, the regiment recruited around the state including in New York City where Jackson signed on. Perhaps showing potential from his recent militia service, William was immediately appointed sergeant.

Recruits ferried over the Hudson River from Manhattan to Jersey City, N.J., and boarded trains for the trip south to join the regiment then on duty in defenses outside Washington, D.C. Recalled another New York volunteer who made the trip about the time Jackson did, “the cars were crowded and the ride was slow, cold and tedious.”

From Washington, the novice soldiers crossed Chain Bridge over the Potomac River into Virginia. Union Army engineers had fortified the landscape to defend the Capital. “Every mile is a fort,” marveled Private Van Rensselaer Evringham, Co. I, 12th New York. “There is thousands of acres here that have been cut down & left on the ground to prevent the Rebels coming by surprise…it would take 50 years to bring everything back to its former state.”

The 12th New York, given the moniker “the durty dozen,” according to Evringham, joined scores of other raw regiments manning fortifications throughout the fall and winter 1861–62, while they trained for combat ahead. Jackson’s Co. F, with four other companies from the 12th garrisoned Fort Ramsay, located on the crest of Upton’s Hill, about a half mile east of Falls Church, Va. They also furnished a daily guard “to protect the guns in Fort Buffalo” nearby. The regiment’s remaining companies manned Fort Craig, and Fort Tillinghast. They occasionally traded shots with Rebel forces, “but to little effect,” wrote a New York diarist.

On March 21, 1862, Jackson and tent-mates were ordered off Upton’s Hill to Alexandria, Va. Next morning, boarding the transport John A. Warner to the strains of Dixie, they steamed down the Potomac River to Chesapeake Bay. In a letter to his parents, Private Homer Case, of Co. I, confided: “We did not know where we was a going.”

After two days aboard ship, Jackson and “the durty dozen” landed at Hampton, Va., embarked on Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s offensive to take the Confederate capital at Richmond. Hard marching through steaming pine thickets and swampy bottom lands on narrow, crowded, often rain-mired roads marked the campaign. Private Sid Anderson, Co. H, quipped of “mud clear up to the seat of our unmentionables.” While Private Evringham claimed, “Virginnie is 2/3 woods or swamps.”

Under Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter’s command during the fruitless Union thrust up the Peninsula, the 12th New York saw action at the Siege of Yorktown, the battles of Gaines’s Mill and Malvern Hill, and numerous skirmishes in between. Afterward, the New Yorkers languished at Harrison’s Landing until mid-August when they trudged to Newport News. From here they traveled by steamer to Aquia Creek; then by railroad to Falmouth, and on by foot to join Maj. Gen. John Pope’s ill-fated Army of Virginia near Manassas, Va. “We marched thirteen days…with little rest,” wrote Private Robert Tilney, Co. F., “part of the time on half rations…”

At the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Onondagans engaged in bloody afternoon assaults on August 30, against Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s position astride the railroad cut. “We poured volley after volley into the concealed enemy,” recalled one New Yorker. Rebel return fire shredded the Union foot soldiers, “woefully thinning” their ranks. Nearly a third of the 12th New York became casualties.

Facing Lee’s army at Sharpsburg on September 17, Sergeant Jackson likely had mixed emotions while he and his regiment stood in reserve with Porter’s 5th Corps, mere spectators to the bloody Battle of Antietam. The Sharpsburg area remained Jackson’s home through the end of October 1862, when the regiment advanced via Snicker’s Gap and Warrenton, to the Rappahannock River where the Army of the Potomac arrayed opposite Fredericksburg. The boyish-looking sergeant would earn three more stripes during the ensuing battle.

Jackson’s regiment with Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin’s division occupied Stafford Heights when the Battle of Fredericksburg opened on December 13. They crossed the lower pontoon bridge in early afternoon, struggling through debris in Fredericksburg amid what one New Yorker described as “a shower of aimless bullets.” The regiment advanced to a shallow fold in the ground about 500 yards from Rebels posted at the stone wall on Marye’s Heights. “[T]his position,” reported brigade commander Colonel T.B.D. Stockton, “was much exposed to the cross-fire of the enemy’s guns…”

Stockton’s Brigade charged the stone wall just before sundown. The 12th New York missed the bugle signal to advance in the din of battle, though soon recovered, sweeping forward. They met a maelstrom of shot and shell “on both front and side,” wrote Stockton. The New Yorkers piled into the tangled mass of bluecoats already stalled at the foot of Marye’s Heights and went no farther. Ordered to hold their exposed position under enemy fire throughout the night Stockton’s men were bait for Rebel sharpshooters and artillery until relieved about 10 p.m. December 14. It was “all a person’s life is worth to go to or come from there,” wrote a newspaperman. Young Jackson suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg below the knee that day.

When Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside ordered his battered army back to its old camps north of the Rappahannock on December 16, Jackson returned as a sergeant major. He had been promoted the day before, likely to fill a vacancy caused by the battle.

Jackson saw little combat after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The 5th Corps wintered in a small metropolis of timber and canvas huts near Stoneman’s Switch, a supply depot along the railroad several miles north of Fredericksburg, where the 12th New York engaged in an “uneventful round of camp and picket duty.” It’s uncertain whether Jackson’s injured leg kept him from chores, or prevented him from joining Burnside’s inglorious “Mud March” in pitiless wind and rain storms January 20–24.

By January 27, however, the 21-year-old Jackson, with bayonetted rifle, his greatcoat tightly gathered at the waist, was able to stand still long enough for special artist Edwin Forbes to capture him on paper. The artist clearly shows that Jackson placed his weight on his right foot. No evidence has surfaced to indicate Jackson and Forbes knew each other, or ever met again after the drawing was completed, though Forbes remained in the area depicting numerous scenes around the Stoneman’s Switch camps that winter.

In late April 1863, the 12th New York was reduced to battalion-size when five “two-year companies” were mustered out of the army. Jackson and the remaining companies with the 5th Corps followed Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker to Chancellorsville, Va., in early May. During the battle there, the New Yorkers were employed “making rifle-pits and abatis” on the fringe of the fighting. “[I]n this position,” recalled a private in Company D, “we saw the fires in the woods which the artillery had kindled, and heard the cries of the wounded.”

Expiration of service further reduced ranks of the regiment after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Jackson and other “three-year” men were then consolidated in a two-company provost guard. The contingent moved with 5th Corps headquarters when the Army of the Potomac pursued Lee’s Rebels toward Pennsylvania. “Our troops had been on the march for many days,” wrote the Company D soldier, “bivouacking at night in the open air, and were dirty and travel-stained with the heat and sun of late June.” This ordeal ended abruptly for Jackson on June 30. On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, at a camp near Frederick, Md., Sgt. Maj. Jackson was granted an early discharge from the army “by reason of being rendered supernumerary…” (surplus due to the consolidation).

​​Battle With Postwar Bureaucracy

Jackson returned to New York City and married in 1865. Employed as a clerk/salesman, he and his wife, Maria, set up housekeeping in Brooklyn. Over time, they were blessed with three daughters. Elizabeth, their first child, born in 1866, suffered from an unspecified disability and likely remained homebound until her death in April 1891. Margaret, born in 1869, worked as a file clerk, remained single, and passed away in 1920. Ellen, or Nelly, Jackson, who was born in 1871, was also employed as a clerk, and unmarried. She lived well into the 20th Century, passing away in October 1945.

Outside his family and job, William Jackson had enrolled in the Old Guard Association of the Twelfth Regiment N.G.S.N.Y., and in “The Lafayette Fusileers,” antecedents of the units he served with during the war. The rigors of his army service eventually took a toll on Jackson’s health later in life.

At age 51, Jackson filed his first claim for an Invalid Pension in June 1892. The former sergeant major supplied a laundry list of disabilities on his application form: “[A]lmost constant superficial pain in right chest & some in legs…pain & violent beating in heart…weakness – can’t lift anything.” His “gunshot wound of left leg” was cited. In sum he was “Physically unable to earn a support by manual labor.” Military medical records also show Jackson had been treated for “Gonorrhoia” [sic] on November 13, 1861. (Perhaps the result from a visit to one of the hundreds of brothels around Washington, D.C., while his regiment was on garrisoned duty.)

Jackson’s claim was rejected, “on the ground of no pensionable disability…under Act of June 27, 1890.” It wasn’t until President Theodore Roosevelt had signed an Executive Order for Old Age Pensions declaring all veterans over the age of 62 to be eligible for a pension that Jackson was finally granted $6 per month beginning May 10, 1904.

The reward would be short-lived. On April 11, 1905, following Maria’s death that January, William J. Jackson died. He and his wife rest with their three daughters under a single headstone at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Flushing, N.Y.
​
​George Skoch, a longtime contributor, writes from Fairview Park, Ohio.

Rounding the bend past the guard gate, I catch my breath when I spy the Greenbrier resort’s main building. The Georgian-style structure, wedding-cake white and six stories high, looms above flower-speckled grounds that cover 7,000 acres and include cottages, five golf courses, tennis courts, and hiking and bridle trails. This posh estate was established in 1778 in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia (now West Virginia), around a natural hot spring (though the main building wasn’t built until 1858 and since has been expanded). Five presidents stayed here before the Civil War and famous guests since then have included President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, and a whole roster of industrial barons—including Vanderbilts, Fords, and du Ponts—who regularly spent their summers here.

But one chapter of this majestic hotel’s history is lesser known—during World War II, diplomats from enemy Axis countries were interned here. And after they left, the hotel became an active wartime military hospital. There aren’t tons of artifacts left behind from those years, but you can discover traces of this fascinating history and hear some interesting stories. I’m here to learn about it from Dr. Robert S. Conte, who served as the Greenbrier’s historian for nearly 40 years. 

“Remember, Pearl Harbor was a big surprise,” Conte says as we sit at a big wooden desk in the Victorian Writing Room off the dramatic main lobby. I study the room’s gleaming wood trim, ornate mantel, and red carpeting, wondering what’s original and what’s not (only the wood trim, I later learn). “So, on December 7, there were pretty much fully functioning embassies in Washington,” which included those of Japan, Germany, and Italy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded that these now-hostile diplomats and their families leave Washington within 48 hours for security reasons. The Greenbrier soon became a leading candidate to house the new adversaries. 

“The Greenbrier had several things going for it,” Conte explains. “It was on the railroad line—so get on a train in [D.C.’s] Union Station and you’re there within a few hours. It was isolated, and so could easily be guarded. And it was first-class,” which was imperative to ensure the reciprocal treatment of American diplomats being held overseas.

The State Department approached the Greenbrier’s management—it was owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad—on December 17, 1941, to propose a leasing plan. Within two days the resort closed to the public and the first group of 159 German and Hungarian diplomats and their families arrived on a secretly scheduled Pullman train from Washington. “They pulled up in the same train station that still exists across the street,” Conte says. Eventually 1,697 people from five different countries were interned here.

The plan was to keep the diplomats at the Greenbrier for up to eight weeks while prisoner negotiations between Washington and the enemy countries ensued. From the start, all internees were treated as regular guests (other than the presence of 50 U.S. Border Control guards keeping an eye on them), with the staff  of several hundred and quality of the resort’s service remaining unchanged. General Manager Loren Johnston ensured this, even though some employees may have wrestled with the idea of serving the enemy. “You may rest assured,” Johnston wrote his staff, “that our Government has a very good reason for everything they request us to do.… It is our duty to serve these people for the duration of their stay in the best possible manner.”

While the golf course and riding trails were off-limits for security reasons, the internees could roam the building and grounds, use the indoor swimming pool, play ping-pong in the main lobby, and shop in the lower-level stores. The Germans bought so much they needed two extra railcars when they left.

For the most part, the imprisoned guests were well-mannered, though one night the Germans celebrated Hitler’s birthday in the main dining room. “It got a little boisterous,” Conte says. “One of the staff said, ‘It’s a hell of a hail of heils.’” 

The Germans and Italians notoriously didn’t get along. “Of course, the Germans thought everyone was inferior,” Conte says. “There was tension.” So around April 1942, the Italians were moved to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, and Japanese diplomats, who had been interned at the nearby Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, were transferred to the Greenbrier.

But the Germans and Japanese got along even worse, leading to conflicts that tested the staff’s patience. In another note, GM Johnston appealed to his employees once again: “It must be remembered that this country is in a grievous war…and in order that we may properly perform our service we must…do our full duty.”

At long last, behind-the-scenes negotiations in Washington paid off with a prisoner exchange involving neutral countries, including Mozambique, Portugal, and Sweden. The last diplomat left the Greenbrier on July 9, 1942, and the resort reopened to the public.

Even before the last internee left, however, management was in negotiations for the Greenbrier’s next wartime duty. The U.S. Army wanted to use the main building as a hospital, and soon purchased the property for $3.3 million, well below the market value at the time. And so, on August 31, 1942, after a short, six-week summer season, the resort closed its heavy glass doors once again and began the challenging task of transforming itself from a resort–cum–internment–camp into a military hospital, to the tune of $2.2 million in renovation costs.

“This hospital is a major story,” Conte says. Originally, army officials planned to knock down all the interior walls, but former Greenbrier managers hired by the army reminded them that someday it would be a hotel again. “They figured out a plan where they could use the existing 500 guest rooms, converting them to hold 2,000 beds,” Conte says, though some walls needed to be razed to make room for a surgical area. The elegant lobby level remained more or less the same, except for an elevator shaft added off the ballroom for wheelchairs and gurneys.

Conte leads me through the richly decorated lobby-level rooms (courtesy of New York designer Dorothy Draper after the war), pointing out pieces of centuries-old furniture and vintage lithographs. The North Parlor was converted into a chapel, he says; the enormous crystal chandelier is original—and, according to one story, one of the Japanese internees left behind the gigantic Chinese screens that grace one wall. We walk onto the balcony just outside, overlooking the back of the hotel. A guard tower once rose above the fields in the distance.

The hospital’s first soldiers arrived on November 14, 1942, and over the next three years, more casualties came from Europe, North Africa, the Aleutian Islands, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the Pacific Theater. “For a lot of G.I.s, it was like, ‘Holy mackerel,’” Conte says of the soldiers’ response to their first view of the refined setting. “Clearly, when you see the building, you know it’s no army hospital. When you walked in, there was carpeting and wallpaper and, at the beginning, white tablecloths on the dining tables.” 

The hospital wasn’t formally dedicated until October 16, 1943, when it was given the official name Ashford General Hospital—after U.S. Army doctor Colonel Bailey K. Ashford, known for his early 20th-century malaria research. The press, however, dubbed it the “Shangri-La for Wounded Soldiers,” given the fact that G.I.s could use the resort’s championship golf course and other facilities. 

Between 1942 and 1946, 24,148 soldiers were admitted, and 11,346 operations performed. “They did vascular and neurosurgery here,” Conte says, “as well as rehabilitation.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower stayed twice at Ashford mid-war for some R&R, and was admitted as a patient once in late 1945 (for pneumonia, Conte believes). 

One big issue the military confronted was how to run such an enormous operation during a national labor shortage. Their solution? Build a prisoner-of-war camp at a nearby former Civilian Conservation Corps camp. Seventy-two Quonset huts housed 1,000 POWs, first Italians and then Germans, who had been captured overseas. They cooked meals, took care of the grounds, did laundry, and ran errands, among other tasks.

The last patients left in 1946, and so did the POWs. With the free labor gone, the military sold the Greenbrier back to the C&O. That, however, wasn’t the end of the Greenbrier’s military duties. Ten years later, the government was looking for a site for an emergency relocation center for the U.S. Congress in case of nuclear war.  “Another interesting story!” Dr. Conte says—but not one for today. 

“No action of the civil war has been so little understood as that of Seven Pines,” Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston would write in his 1874 memoir, Narrative of Military Operations. Ironic, as Johnston’s own actions during and after the critical Peninsula Campaign battle on May 31–June 1, 1862, are certainly a reason why this is so.     

Captain George W. Mindil of the 61st Pennsylvania Infantry, a staff officer in the Union Army of the Potomac that faced Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia during the battle, later observed that the enemy commander’s “plan was faultless….[H]ad this plan been fully executed…the left wing of McClellan’s army would have sustained irreparable disaster and the retreat of the whole [Union] army would have followed.”

Instead, the outcome of the two-day clash that resulted in more than 11,000 casualties (typically known to Northerners as Fair Oaks) was inconclusive. In addition, controversy and acrimony arose when both Johnston and one of his top subordinates, Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, audaciously asserted that despite a simple “misunderstanding” between the two, victory still would have been possible had it not been for the “incompetence” of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, a division commander in Longstreet’s Right Wing.

The word “misunderstanding” generally implies the commission of an honest mistake or perhaps a communication failure—usually indicating no ill-intent by the participants. The purported miscue at Seven Pines, however, was a well-crafted fabrication designed both to shield Longstreet’s poor decision-​making and insubordinate conduct during the battle and to deflect attention away from Johnston’s own leadership failures.

As Colonel Charles Marshall, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s aide-de-camp, would caustically point out, Johnston had the knack of compensating for his deficiencies through his use of the “certain ‘agility’ of explanation.” Regarding Johnston’s post–Seven Pines account, Marshall wrote that “a lie well adhered to & often repeated, will sometimes serve a man’s purpose as well as the truth & better.”

By late May 1862, Johnston’s relationship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis was so strained, had he acknowledged the truth about the battle, it would have tarnished both his and Longstreet’s reputations. That left the unfortunate Huger as the target of an unconscionable attack.

“Misunderstanding” first appeared in Johnston’s June 28, 1862, letter to Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith, his Left Wing commander, in response to Smith’s after-action report. “My Dear Gustavus,” Johnston wrote, “I inclose herewith the first three sheets of your report, to ask a modification, or omission rather. They contain two subjects which I intended never to make generally known. I refer to the misunderstanding [italics added by author] between Longstreet and myself in regard to the direction of his division.”

The relationship between Johnston and Smith had once been close. In August 1861, in fact, Johnston wrote to Davis that “Smith is an officer of high ability, fit to command in chief.” And the following February, Johnston informed Davis: “I regard Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith as absolutely necessary to this army.”

Johnston’s warm tone now belied their recent strain. In addition to sustaining the alleged misunderstanding, Johnston justified his request to omit portions of Smith’s report as “these matters concern Longstreet and myself alone. I have no hesitation in asking you to strike them from your report as they in no manner concern your operations.”

Although Smith complied with Johnston’s request “because of [his] great personal attachment” to his commander, he maintained a copy of his original and entered a note stating that Johnston “is mistaken in supposing that the misunderstanding between himself and General Longstreet did not affect the operations of my division.”

The suppression of Smith’s report would become the cornerstone of the burgeoning “misunderstanding” myth. Smith, however, wisely saved copies of all his communications. In 1884, he published his original report including those previously omitted references.

Plan of Attack

Seven Pines/Fair Oaks would be a definitive battle in Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign. On May 20, “Little Mac” had begun moving part of his army across the Chickahominy River, closing to within 10 miles of Richmond. The 12,500-man 4th Corps, under Brig. Gen. Erasmus Keyes, crossed the river near Bottom’s Bridge, followed by Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman’s 3rd Corps. Keyes would move his corps to Seven Pines; Heintzelman’s corps, with 15,000 men, remained near the Chickahominy—the two units largely deployed along the Williamsburg Road. Although White Oak Swamp provided protection to their left, their right flank was vulnerable, lacking a natural barrier.

Seven Pines lay approximately six miles east of Richmond at the intersection of the Williamsburg and Nine Mile roads. Approximately one mile north of Seven Pines, along Nine Mile Road and the Richmond & York River Railroad, sat a small depot called Fair Oaks Station. To protect his right flank, Keyes positioned a brigade at the depot.

The Confederate lines began at a point two miles north of the station along Nine Mile Road near an area known as Old Tavern. There were approximately 87,800 men in Johnston’s army, extending in an arc along the Chickahominy to the north down to Drewry’s Bluff.

Johnston fully recognized the vulnerability of the Federal position south of the Chickahominy; however, he also had learned that Brig. Gen. Irwin McDowell’s 1st Corps had left Fredericksburg, heading toward McClellan’s main lines. A strike on McClellan above the Chickahominy was essential before that could happen.

During a council of war on May 28, Johnston proposed an attack on the Union position at Mechanicsville, which would prevent McDowell from linking with Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter’s 5th Corps. When they learned McDowell’s corps had begun returning to Fredericksburg, Smith advocated calling off the attack. Johnston at first agreed, which infuriated Longstreet, still convinced a turning movement against the Federal position would yield certain victory. Johnston was swayed by his subordinate’s passion.

On May 30, Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill in Longstreet’s Right Wing reported that Keyes’ corps was arrayed in force along the Williamsburg Road but was vulnerable from the Charles City Road. Johnston promptly ordered an attack to take place the following day.

Without Smith in attendance, Johnston met with Longstreet the afternoon of May 30. After designating Longstreet as the commander of the assaulting force, consisting of three divisions, the generals weighed their options on how to best conduct the attack. They determined that at 8 a.m. Hill’s command would open the attack along the Williamsburg Road, striking the 4th Corps on its front.

Hill’s advance, however, required the inclusion of the 2,200-man brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert Rodes, presently posted along the Charles City Road. To address that need, Johnston ordered Huger, in Longstreet’s Wing, to march his 6,250-man division over from Drewry’s Bluff to relieve Rodes’ Brigade prior to the assault. Huger would then occupy a position opposite the 4th Corps’ left flank.

Longstreet would then move his 13,800-man division, commanded here by Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson, east along the Nine Mile Road to Old Tavern, putting it squarely on Keyes’ right flank.

One concern the generals had with this plan was how to bolster the overall strength of Hill’s attacking force. Johnston could move Longstreet’s Division (under Anderson) to support Hill, but complicated logistical factors ruled out that option. Not only would Anderson’s men have to move during the night, it would also necessitate coordination with Huger’s command, as each division would be required to occupy the same stretch of the Williamsburg Road, even if only temporarily.

Another option in supporting Hill was to reposition Gustavas Smith’s six-brigade division (with Brig. Gen. William H.C. Whiting in command). This appeared as the most logical choice, but it also posed an unavoidable complication. Because Smith outranked Longstreet, the movement would place Smith in command of the attack and not “Old Pete.” As Johnston had designated Longstreet as the overall commander of offensive operations, he decided against that option, choosing instead to advance Smith’s Division closer to Old Tavern in support of Longstreet. After considering his options, and with an intense rainstorm now unloading on the area, Johnston determined that rather than move Longstreet or any additional force to the Williamsburg Road, the attack would proceed as followed:

1) Before dawn, General Huger would proceed to the Charles City Road and relieve Rodes’ Brigade, enabling Rodes to join Hill.

2) With Rodes’ arrival, Hill would launch the attack along the Williamsburg Road.

3) Doing so would be the signal for Longstreet’s flank attack down the Nine Mile Road.

4) Smith’s Division would remain in reserve along the Nine Mile Road in support of Longstreet.

“There was…no reason why the orders for march should be misconstrued or misapplied,” Longstreet later wrote. “I was with General Johnston all of the time that he was engaged in planning and ordering the battle, heard every word and thought expressed by him of it, and received his verbal orders; Generals Huger and Smith received his written orders.”

Interestingly, Longstreet never identified or described in his report or postwar writing the specific orders he had received. Nor did Longstreet reveal his division’s own marching orders—although he did provide details of those he had issued Huger, Smith, and McLaws. Furthermore, Longstreet never divulged the subsequent orders he issued to his division, or to Hill.

What, therefore, went wrong? Simply put, Longstreet went rogue. Regardless of his full knowledge of Johnston’s intentions, he willingly altered the attack plans. No “honest mistake” or “failure to understand directions correctly” was involved:

1) Longstreet not only disregarded Johnston’s original order, he never communicated to his commander his movements, location, status, or progress once the attack began.

2) He somehow also ignored the weather, which he fully knew was dreadful, later writing, “While yet affairs were under consideration [on May 30], a terrific storm of vivid lightning, thunderbolts, and rain, as severe as ever known to any climate, burst upon us, and continued through the night more or less severe. In the first lull I rode from General Johnston’s to my head-quarters, and sent orders for [an] early march.”

3) He ignored the importance of Huger’s orders to relieve Rodes on the Charles City Road. 

Because Johnston and Longstreet conferred for some time, it is hard to believe Longstreet was not informed which road he was to use. Longstreet, of course, had long been hoping for an independent command. Choosing to follow the Williamsburg Road was clearly an opportunity for him to flout his orders for an attack plan of his own discretion.

All six of Longstreet’s brigades were positioned near the Nine Mile Road, which required only a short march east to reach Old Tavern. Had Longstreet’s brigades moved out at 3:30 a.m., they would have reached Old Tavern by 6 a.m.

“The tactical handling of the battle on the Williamsburg Road was left to my care, as well as the general conduct of affairs south of the York River Railroad,” Longstreet later wrote, but he never offered to explain why he altered Johnston’s plan or even why he did not communicate with his commander until late in the afternoon—undeniably insubordinate conduct.

As for the weather’s impact, Longstreet had held field commands from First Manassas through the Peninsula Campaign. His experience was extensive enough to realize a “terrific” and “severe” rainstorm would severely hamper the nighttime movement of a 13,800-man division. Had Longstreet followed orders and marched east along the Nine Mile Road, crossing the flooded Gillies Creek would not have been the roadblock it was.

A Disputed Crossing

The movement of Huger’s Division was the key to a successful attack. In relieving Rodes along the Charles City Road, Rodes could join Hill as ordered and the attack on Keyes’ position launched. But when the lead elements of Longstreet’s Division descended the steep bluffs toward Gillies Creek, they found it “bank full” and unfordable. To cross the swollen creek, Longstreet’s men placed a wagon in the stream as a trestle and laid planks to both banks, allowing a single-file crossing.

As that began, however, Huger appeared. Despite knowing what was at stake, Longstreet responded that “[a]s we were earlier at the creek, it gave us precedence over Huger’s division…” Hill’s attack would have to wait.

It is also mystifying that Longstreet later insisted he believed Huger had already crossed Gillies Creek. No doubt a division the size of Huger’s certainly would have left evidence of such a crossing.

Finding Longstreet already occupying the creek was just one of a day full of surprises for Huger, who also revealed it was “the first I knew” of a planned May 31 attack. Even if one accepts Longstreet’s “misunderstanding” of his orders, it doesn’t justify his rationale in preventing Huger’s Division from advancing to its assigned Charles City Road position.

Johnston’s responsibility for the attack’s implosion cannot be ignored either. After all, Huger received only two communications from him: one at 8:40 p.m. May 30; the other May 31, with no time indicated. Johnston was directing Huger to relieve Rodes, and that “if you find no strong body in your front, it will be well to aid General Hill.”

Huger interpreted that to mean he was moving to a new position and not into battle, as the only general named in either note was Hill. Neither mentioned Longstreet being in command of the wing, Hill’s expected attack, nor Huger’s role in that attack. He also described the communications from Johnston as being an “autograph note and not an official order.” 

The lack of clarity regarding Huger’s expected role in the upcoming battle is borne out in his statement, “If I would have been notified that Longstreet was to pass, I would have made another crossing.” When he met with Longstreet at Hill’s headquarters, Huger also fully realized: “He was moving to attack the enemy.”

Longstreet Crafts a Narrative

The only general who deserves absolution for the opening attack’s delay is Huger. By June 7, Longstreet had already put the “misunderstanding” myth and the character assassination of Huger in his letter to Johnston. The letter began friendly enough, with Longstreet expressing syrupy concern for the seriously wounded commander before segueing into claims that, despite his division’s heroics, he had been victimized by Huger’s lethargy:

“The failure of complete success [May 31] I attribute to the slow movements of General Huger’s command….I can’t but help think that the display of his forces on the left flank of the enemy…would have completed the affair.”

Longstreet asserted deceitfully that Huger’s ineffectiveness “threw perhaps the hardest part of the battle upon my own poor division. It is greatly cut up….Our ammunition was nearly exhausted when [General] Whiting moved.”      “Altogether,” he concluded, “it was very well, but I can’t help but regret it was not complete.”

On the battle’s first day, however, Longstreet had used only six of the 13 brigades available to him. Four of those belonged to Hill, with “Pete” sending only two more forward—those of Colonels James Kemper and Micah Jenkins—both at Hill’s request for more support. Of the 13,800 men he had present for duty in his division, nearly 9,500 of them never fired a shot.

Facts do not support Longstreet’s claim his division was “greatly cut up” and its “ammunition nearly exhausted.” Kemper’s and Jenkins’ losses were only 7 percent of the division’s overall casualties. By contrast, Hill engaged his entire 10,250-man division and reported nearly 3,000 casualties (29 percent). In fighting later that afternoon, Whiting (handling Smith’s Division) suffered 1,278 casualties (13.7 percent of the 10,590 men present).

The purpose of Longstreet’s letter to Johnston was twofold. First, it launched the narrative that all blame was to be squarely placed on Huger. Second, it signaled a measure Johnston could use in explaining why complete victory had not been not achieved, which would be particularly useful when offered to a increasingly critical President Davis and the Richmond press.

In his after-action report, prepared three days later, Longstreet asserted, “Agreeably to verbal instructions from the commanding general,” which indicates to an uninformed reader that what followed was in accordance with Johnston’s directive. Any “misunderstanding” of verbal instructions could thus be seen as a useful alibi instead of an admission of willful insubordination.

“The division of Maj. Gen. Huger was intended to make a strong flank movement around the left of the enemy’s position and attack him in the rear of that flank….,” Longstreet noted. “[T]his division did not get into position in time for any such attack.”

His brazen distortion of facts did not end there: “I have reason to believe that the affair would have been a complete success had the troops upon the right been put in position within eight hours of the proper time.” Longstreet followed with: “Some of the brigades of General Huger’s division took part in defending our position on Sunday [June 1], but…did not show the same steadiness and determination of Hill’s division and my own.”

This report, and Longstreet’s letter written June 7, put Johnston in an awkward position, as he was now compelled to support this narrative rather than supply a more accurate and truthful account.

Only three of six brigade commanders in Anderson’s ranks issued after-action reports—Colonel Micah Jenkins, Brig. Gen. George Pickett, and Brig. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox—and no officers in the unit’s 23 regiments did so. Plus, the three brigades with no reports issued were not engaged on May 31, and only minimally engaged on June 1, with no reported casualties.

Jenkins’ report detailed the extensive fighting by his portion of Anderson’s Brigade, but only for May 31, and Anderson did not complete a report. Pickett’s report was minimalist at best, with no insight on his initial marching orders or to any subsequent orders from Longstreet before 9 p.m. May 30.     

Only Wilcox mentioned any substantive content of Longstreet’s orders: “On the 30th ultimo[,] orders were received to be prepared with ammunition….for an early march the following morning. At 6:30 a.m. the brigade moved from its camp near the Mechanicsville Pike by by-paths across to the junction of the Charles City and Williamsburg Roads” [italics added by author].

Wilcox’s report clearly indicates no orders involving movement toward Old Tavern on the Nine Mile Road, as would have been Johnston’s expectation. One can presume that each of those in brigade command received similar orders, as the whole division wound up along the Williamsburg Road.

The orders described in Wilcox’s report would have been issued shortly after Longstreet left Johnston’s headquarters at approximately 9 p.m. May 30. In 1896, Longstreet wrote: “There was no reason why the orders for march should be misconstrued or misapplied”—a curious comment considering Longstreet’s June 10, 1862, report, which did not divulge the nature of his orders. It is interesting how Longstreet maintained there was “no reason” for misconstruing his orders, yet his report focuses on Hill and Huger while offering little data regarding his own division’s actions.

A common belief offered on Longstreet’s behalf is the lack of clarity of Johnston’s verbal orders. Johnston, however, clearly intended and expected Longstreet to operate as a commander of three divisions and to engage his division from Old Tavern upon hearing the opening of Hill’s attack. Longstreet failed to do either. Even if one accepts a “misunderstanding,” Longstreet’s battlefield conduct is hard to justify.

In 1877, Longstreet best described his lack of leadership when he wrote to Hill: “I do not remember giving an order on that field other than to send you my brigades as you called for them.” Hill later wrote that “Longstreet was not on the field at all on the 31st of May, and did not see any of the fighting.” And Longstreet’s poor battlefield leadership continued June 1, with Hill recalling he “received no orders from General Longstreet whatever.” Longstreet’s admission and Hill’s verifications certainly do not portray the actions of a wing commander responsible for actively directing and managing the operations of three divisions.

False Statements

By placing his affinity for Longstreet above the truth, Johnston shared equally in crafting the “misunderstanding” and in actively engaging in the character assassination of Huger.

After graduating from West Point in 1825, Benjamin Huger spent the next 35 years primarily as an ordnance officer in the U.S. Army. In 1861, he resigned from Federal service to join the Confederate Army but quickly ran afoul of an investigation conducted by the Confederate House of Representatives for failure to reinforce and supply troops at Roanoke Island, N.C., where he commanded. His reputation sullied, Huger became an easy target for further criticism, whether warranted or not.

Neither Johnston nor Longstreet respected Huger, and Johnston had publicly criticized Huger for abandoning the Norfolk Naval Yards in May 1862 and the subsequent demolition of the ironclad CSS Virginia, even though Huger had simply been following Johnston’s own orders.

Although Huger lacked experience as a field commander, his division was the only one conveniently placed to cover Hill’s flank along the Charles City Road in the attack and, given the overall simplicity of his plan, Johnston had no reason to expect anything but success.

Johnston’s report of June 24, 1862, took full advantage of Longstreet’s narrative and directly conflicted with Smith’s earlier report. Before evaluating Johnston’s report, however, it is important to turn to Smith’s notes and comments about what had transpired on May 31. (Smith entered handwritten comments on his original report while in Macon, Ga., in June 1865.) On the morning of May 31, and throughout much of the day, Smith was with Johnston. They interacted and communicated constantly, and both knew Longstreet had deviated from Johnston’s orders.

The request by Johnston for secrecy perplexed Smith:

“Johnston’s letter indicated a desire to keep back important facts. And he is mistaken in supposing that the misunderstanding between himself and General Longstreet did not affect the operations of my division. And he is mistaken that no one knew of this…

“General Johnston did not know where Longstreet was. But he explained his intentions freely & fully to the effect that the right wing under Longstreet composed of three divisions viz – His own [Anderson’s], D.H. Hill’s and Huger’s were to attack the enemy very early in the morning before eight o’clock. D.H. Hill by the Williamsburg Road…Huger on Hill’s right…and Longstreet’s own division on Hill’s left moving into position on the nine miles road….[All my] staff officers and Generals knew where Longstreet was supposed to be and they knew Genl. Johnston’s intentions and orders in regard to the troops they were to support. I gave them the information and certainly did not dream that there was any occasion for secrecy or ‘reticence’ then, nor do I perceive it now.”

Later in Smith’s 1865 endorsement, he addressed the so-called misinterpretation with: “So much for the misunderstanding between Johnston and Longstreet….My opinion is that it would have been better for both had Johnston stated and explained it.”

What Johnston’s official report had emphasized was that Longstreet’s Division supported Hill’s Division along the Williamsburg Road, and that Longstreet had “the direction of operations on the right.” Huger “was to attack in flank the troops who might engage with Hill and Longstreet,” and “General Smith was to be in position along the Nine Mile Road “to be in readiness either to fall on Keyes’ right flank or cover Longstreet’s left.”

The only factual statement here is that Longstreet possessed command of operations on the right (although he did little commanding). The other statements are all false. “[H]ad General Huger’s division been in position and ready for action…,” Johnston opined, “I am satisfied that Keyes’ Corps would have been destroyed rather than being merely defeated.”

Johnston knew the plan he described in his report is not the one he outlined to Smith and others on May 31. Rather than personally adapting and adjusting to the new situation when the plan unraveled, he became sullen and passive. At 10 a.m., hearing no sounds of musketry or distant cannon fire, Johnston asked a staff officer if there might be a mistake—that his ears had deceived him. When the officer confirmed the silence, the dejected Johnston sighed, “I wish the troops were back in their camps.”

Ironically, it was the success of Jenkins’ Brigade that demonstrated just how successful an attack down the Nine Mile Road could have been. Jenkins’ 1,900-men drove across a portion of the Federal right flank near Fair Oaks Station and then followed a path down and across the Nine Mile Road while cutting behind the Federal lines at Seven Pines.

Jenkins’ attack along a similar path to Longstreet’s, with six brigades, should have been launched from Old Tavern that morning. Given the success Jenkins demonstrated, one can only ponder the success Longstreet’s full division might have attained. An earlier attack down the Nine Mile Road would in all probability have convincingly won the day for Johnston’s army.

Wrote Keyes: “[T]he right was on ground so favorable to the approach of the enemy and so far from the Chickahominy that if Johnston had attacked there an hour or two earlier than he did, I could have made but a feeble defense…and every man of us would have been killed, captured or driven into the swamp or river before assistance could have reached us.

The specifics of Longstreet’s June 7 letter to Johnston remained unknown to Smith, Hill, and others until its publication in the Official Records. Smith and Hill were equally rattled, with Hill penning in a letter to Smith on May 18, 1885: “I cannot understand Longstreet’s motive in coming over to the Williamsburg Road, nor can I understand Johnston’s motive in shielding him.”

Hill and Smith were incensed at Longstreet’s claims that his division had endured “perhaps the hardest part of the battle” and that it had been “greatly cut up….[their] ammunition…nearly exhausted.”

“Longstreet was not on the field at all on the 31st of May and did not see any fighting,” Hill wrote. “He ought to have known that I got no assistance from him except for the brigade of RH Anderson [i.e., Jenkins]….I have not felt kindly to Longstreet since I read that letter of his to Joe Johnston. I can’t understand how he had the brass to write such a letter.”

In his Battle of Seven Pines, published in 1891, Smith expressed his sympathy for Huger, as “the erroneous statements of Generals Johnston and Longstreet, in regard to Huger’s instructions, have been incorporated into history.”

“Too Much Censured”

The only official support Huger received immediately after the battle came in Wilcox’s June 12 report. Wilcox had commanded three of Longstreet’s brigades along the Charles City Road on May 31 and had been in regular contact with Huger. He knew Huger was not at fault for the disruption at Gillies Creek.

An undated addendum in Wilcox’s report, presumably added after Johnston’s report appeared, states: “At Seven Pines, the successful part of it was Hill’s fight. I have thought that General Huger was a little too much censured for Seven Pines by the papers.”

Johnston continued the “blame Huger” theme in a post-war article he wrote for Century Magazine titled “Manassas to Seven Pines,” as did Longstreet in his 1896 account, “From Manassas to Appomattox.”

Huger did not see the critical reports by Longstreet and Johnston about his performance until August 1862 and immediately sought redress from both. Longstreet never responded, and Huger wrote directly to Johnston on September 20 after waiting more than a month for a reply, maintaining: “As you have indorsed his erroneous statements, to my injury, I must hold you responsible.”

Receiving no reply from Johnston either, Huger penned a letter to Davis, along with an extract of Johnston’s Seven Pines report, refuting what the commander had written. Davis referred the remarks to Johnston, receiving a supercilious response. He essentially blamed Huger for not raising the issue sooner and that an investigation was now impossible because Longstreet was unavailable, adding that “the passage in my report that he complains about was written to show that the delay in commencing the attack on May 31 was not by my fault.”

Huger attempted to right the wrong through the Confederate government itself—to no avail. He demanded Davis create a board of inquiry, and though the request was approved, that board never met.

Huger dropped the issue after the war. In 1867, he wrote: “[I]f our cause had been successful, I would have insisted on an investigation; I determined that it was now no time to redress wrongs; that I must continue to bear them and I would not mention a word about Gen. Johnston.” Thus, Huger’s name and character would continue to carry the blame for the failure of the May 31 Confederate attack at Seven Pines.

Mercifully, by late July 1862, Huger no longer held a field command, reassigned to the administrative role of inspector general for artillery and ordnance. Johnston, meanwhile, resumed leading Confederate armies in November.

Perhaps Gustavus Smith provided the best description as to how history should view Longstreet’s lack of ethical credibility when he wrote: “General Longstreet, in command of the three divisions which were to have crushed Keyes corps before it could be reinforced blundered badly from the beginning to the end of the battle; and to say the least, his writings in reference to Seven Pines are no more creditable than his conduct of operations on this field.”

Victor Vignola writes from Middletown, N.Y. This article is adapted from his book Contrasts in Command: The Battle of Fair Oaks, May 31–June 1, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2023).

In September 1861, while stationed in Paducah, Ky., Private John H. Page of the 1st Illinois Light Artillery received notice that he had been promoted to second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry and was to report for duty in Washington, D.C. After packing his belongings, Page caught a boat for Cairo, Ill., where he reported to the general in charge of the District of Southeast Missouri before obtaining transportation for the next leg of his journey.

Page immediately recognized Ulysses S. Grant perched behind a wire screen at a local bank where the general had set up his headquarters. “He looked at my commission and seemed buried in deep thought,” Page recalled. “He looked at me intently and repeated several times, Jno. Page,” apparently lost in reverie. It took a tap on the shoulder by a gray-haired officer in attendance to snap Grant out of his trance.

Assuredly, Grant had been reminiscing about the Mexican War, Page suspected, when he, then a 24-year-old second lieutenant, personally witnessed a Mexican cannonball mortally wound Page’s father, Captain John Page Sr., during the fierce Battle of Palo Alto. “No doubt,” Page concluded in observing Grant’s unusual reaction, “his thoughts, when looking at my commission were wandering back to his early days.”

Grant and Private Page had both lost something special during the U.S. victory at Palo Alto on May 8, 1846: Page ultimately his father, and Grant his innocence.

We, of course, will never know for sure what crossed Grant’s mind when the young private handed him his commission, but the now 39-year-old brigadier had perhaps revisited the senior Page’s disfiguring wound, him writhing in agony on the plains of Palo Alto…the comrade he had lost 15 years earlier.

For many of the more than 500 Mexican War veterans who became Confederate or Union generals during the Civil War, battle deaths evoked strong emotional reactions. Those traumatic experiences had introduced them to the dreadful lessons of war: that it was terrible, that loss and grief were normal, and how to cope with them. Inevitably, death in battle played a significant role in shaping their identities.

Dr. Nigel C. Hunt, who studies war trauma and memory, stresses that most individuals who go through such ordeals react with intense memories or emotions when recalling what they witnessed, although that doesn’t necessarily mean they will suffer from long-term or debilitating problems. Even with these memories indelibly etched into their minds, most continue to live normal lives. Grant and his comrades never forget what they saw or how they felt when confronted with death on the battlefield in Mexico.

“I cannot feel exultation”

Mexican War battles were bloody affairs, especially for U.S. Army officers. They made up 8 percent of the war’s battle deaths, which surpassed the mortality rate of other U.S. 19th-century conflicts. Renowned historian James M. McPherson says that in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, the proportion of officers killed in action was about 15 percent higher than that of enlisted men. During the Mexican War, the proportion of officers killed in action or who died of their wounds was more than 40 percent higher than the rank and file.

During Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott’s 1847 Mexico City Campaign, for instance, his army lost 61 officers killed to roughly 703 soldiers (8 percent). In comparison, during the Seven Days’ Battles in 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia lost 175 officers killed to 3,494 soldiers (5 percent). If the losses sustained among Confederate officers during the spring and summer of 1862 were staggering, as Dr. Joseph T. Glatthaar suggests, the mortality rate among Scott’s officers in Mexico was catastrophic.

Major Edmund Kirby, who lost many dear friends and cherished companions, including his nephew, during Scott’s campaign, wrote to his wife, Eliza: “Blood. Blood. Blood. Enough has been shed to excite the worst enthusiastic joy throughout our dear country. Enough to cause tears to flow sufficient to float a ship of war.”

The Mexican War was an emotionally taxing experience for its soldiers, especially its officers, who witnessed a disturbing proportion of their comrades die in battle. When Scott’s army seized Mexico City, 1st Lt. John Sedgwick wrote his sister, Olive, that “were it not for the loss of so many near and dear friends,—friends with whom we have enjoyed all the pleasures of a long peace, and with whom we have shoulder to shoulder encountered and vanquished the enemy…our situation would be pleasant.”

Captain Isaac I. Stevens, also with Scott’s army, told his wife, Margaret, that while he was alive and healthy, he could hardly celebrate. “I cannot feel exultation,” he admitted. “We have lost many brave officers and men, some my personal friends; streams of blood have in reality flowed over the battlefield.” Both generals were later killed while serving in the Union Army during the rebellion—Sedgwick at the Wilderness in May 1864, and Stevens at Chantilly (Ox Hill) in September 1862.

After the August 1847 Battle of Contreras, Captain Robert E. Lee, eventually the Confederacy’s most famous general, best captured the emotional distress it caused many when he declared: “It is the living for whom we should mourn, and not the dead.”

Studies that address Civil War generals and their role in the Mexican War typically concentrate on the military lessons they took away from their service and how they applied them on Civil War battlefields. That is important, but what is often overlooked is the emotional impact the war, especially battle deaths, had on them during the short but costly struggle. The sickening sights on battlefields or in hospitals, and the sudden and violent loss of comrades, friends, or relatives, evoked a flood of intense emotions such as grief, horror, shock, melancholy, guilt, loneliness, helplessness, and numbness. The deeper the bond with the deceased individual, the more emotionally impactful the loss. To better understand the individuals who fought in Mexico before the Civil War, we must begin to look beyond the war as merely a “training ground” or a jovial gathering of friends-turned-enemies and recognize the emotional impact battlefield deaths had on them.

Distress and Detachment

Second Lieutenant Henry M. Judah, a Union brigadier general who commanded a division during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, found it unsettling to recollect to his mother, Mary, what he had experienced at the Battle of Monterrey in September 1846.

“Their cries and groans, the terrible hissing of the cannon and musket balls, which filled the air, added to the roar of artillery in every direction, made an impression that I could never describe,” he wrote to her three days after Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor’s army captured the city.

During the battle, several musket balls had grazed his cheeks, and had his sword knocked from his hand by a cannonball. An 1843 West Point classmate and fellow lieutenant fell dead mere feet away from him. Dazed and dirtied, Judah hunkered down behind a mound of earth as a shower of artillery and musket fire passed just feet above his head. “[E]very face looked blank—all were exhausted—and the wounded and the dead were mixed with the living,” he recalled.

When Mexican soldiers began to advance on their position, a feeling of indifference overtook the young lieutenant. The emotional callousness alarmed him more than anything else he felt that day. “My feelings at this moment were more horrible than those of death,” he admitted to his mother. “I began to feel reckless, and cared not how soon it came.”

Within only a short period, Judah experienced a surge of fear, excitement, anxiety, horror, dread, and detachment.

The emotional highs and lows of combat, as Judah experienced, can be overwhelming for a soldier, but the battle’s aftermath can be equally—and arguably more so—distressing emotionally.

The first two battles fought during the Mexican War, on May 8-9, 1846, left both fields littered with death and destruction. Mutilated men and horses, abandoned wagons, discarded weapons, and everything of which an army is composed carpeted the landscapes at Palo Alto and, the following day, Resaca de la Palma. Steel, lead, and iron inflicted horrific wounds—mangling limbs, crushing heads, and severing bodies and trunks. Most Civil War generals who fought at these two battles were exposed to the butchery of war for the first time in their lives.

“Such a field of carnage never was before witnessed by any of us,” 1st Lt. William H.T. Brooks, who commanded a 6th Corps division during the Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville campaigns of 1862-63, wrote home after the battle.

Second Lieutenant John J. Peck, who for a time during the Civil War commanded all Union troops in Virginia south of the James River, told his father that while the two armies battled at Resaca de la Palma, the American soldiers paid little attention to the dead Mexican soldiers. “[B]ut after the excitement of battle has passed away,” he admitted, “our sympathies were aroused, and I felt keenly all the horrors of war.”

Judah, who provided his mother with a vivid account of his Monterrey ordeal, admitted that the mutilated bodies on the Resaca battlefield were a terrible vision. He couldn’t find the words to describe the horror.

A day later, he remained haunted by the experience, writing her: “The cries of the wounded still ring in my ears.”

Processing Trauma

Battlefield death left a lasting impression on the survivors. “I was somewhat affected by the sight,” said 1st Lt. Charles S. Hamilton, later a Union major general, after coming upon the mangled bodies of Mexican soldiers killed at Monterrey, “but ere the night of that day had closed I learned to look upon the dead with as little emotion as I would regard a stone.”

Consciously or subconsciously, Hamilton was using repression as a defensive mechanism. According to Dr. Dillon J. Carroll, who studied and wrote about mental illness during the Civil War, soldiers used emotional desensitization or “hardening” to cope with death—as did Mexican War soldiers.

In his memoirs, Hamilton confessed the sight of those dead Mexican soldiers at Monterrey “affected me more than any other scene during the entire war.”

When Hamilton arrived at Bishop’s Palace the morning after the battle, he witnessed additional horror, later providing a graphic account. He watched a Mexican soldier struck by a shell that had burst and obliterated him as it passed through his body. “If you imagine a human being ground by two avalanches crushing him between them,” Hamilton would write, “you would have a similar sight.”

The other soldier had been hit in the forehead by a musket ball. His brain oozed from a hole in the back of his head and dried foam clung to his lips as he had taken his last gasping breaths. “Enough of these descriptions,” Hamilton would note. “[Y]ou will little like them, while I have become callous to the most ghastly sights.”

Dr. Carol Acton, who has studied wartime grief, says that, for soldiers, writing about a traumatic experience offers them the means to express and cope with emotional distress and grief. Conceding that his loved ones might wince at his graphic descriptions, Hamilton shared what he saw and felt anyway, likely as a way to process the trauma.

Returning to a particular battlefield often triggered emotions many years later. Lew Wallace, a second lieutenant in Mexico who would hold important Civil War commands at both Shiloh (1862) and Monocacy (1864), said that, despite all his subsequent experiences in war, one section of the Buena Vista battlefield was the most horrible after-battle scene he had witnessed. “The dead lay in the pent space body on body, a blending and interlacement of parts of men as defiant of the imagination as of the pen,” the future author of the famed novel Ben-Hur would write.

Wallace made three pilgrimages to the Buena Vista battlefield over a seven-year-period. On one of his visits, he noticed a Mexican farmer with a hoe casually digging a path in the dirt and leading a stream of water to irrigate a wheatfield. It was the same field he had described above. Wallace wondered if the healthy-looking wheat had been nurtured by the blood of the American soldiers struck down there in February 1847.

Eternal Camaraderie

It is one thing for a soldier to observe the death of another with whom he had no intimate relationship than to watch a mentor, messmate, or close friend die in combat. The emotional bond formed among soldiers is distinct, as they suffer and face dangers together, risk their lives for one another, and rely on each other for emotional support and survival.

For many of the U.S. Army’s junior officers who served in the Mexican War, they had spent years together before the conflict, as West Point classmates or for long periods at isolated frontier outposts. When a comrade was killed in battle, this eternal camaraderie understandably brought forth intense emotions comparable to the loss of a family member.

Ulysses Grant became familiar with shattered friendships and loss in Mexico. Even though Palo Alto was Grant’s first battle, it was not the fear of death that most affected him, but the sight of a colleague (especially a friend) suffering a horrific wound.

For Grant, that had been “the ghastly hideousness of his visage” as Captain John Page, his face shot away by an enemy cannonball, “reared in convulsive agony from the grass.” As he wrote his friend John W. Lowe about Captain Page’s disfiguring wound: “The under jaw is gone to the wind pipe and the tongue hangs down upon the throat.”

In his memoirs, written nearly 40 years later, Grant relived the detail of that enemy cannonball that had decapitated one soldier and then mutilated Page, splattering nearby American soldiers with brain matter and bone fragments.

Page was the first of many of Grant’s comrades killed during the war, but he was the closest with 2nd Lt. Robert Hazlitt, a fellow Ohioan and graduate of West Point’s Class of 1843, one of 18 U.S. officers killed or mortally wounded at Monterrey. Hazlitt regularly accompanied Grant on his visits to the White Haven Plantation near St. Louis when he began courting Julia Dent.

Grant tended to internalize his emotions, but, having lost so many friends at Monterrey, finally broke down. “How very lonesome it is here with us now,” he wrote to Julia a month after the battle. “I have just been walking through camp and how many faces that were dear to the most of us are missing now.”

Three other lieutenants in the regiment had been struck down storming the city besides Hazlitt, and remained constantly on Grant’s mind: Charles Hoskins, Richard H. Graham, and James S. Woods.

Was Grant experiencing bereavement overload, survivor’s guilt, or both? To drive away “the Blues,” Grant retrieved some old letters and a journal he kept while stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and reminisced about happier times.

Grant expressed his close friendship with Hazlitt in a November letter to Hazlitt’s brother, James, assuring him that only his dear friend’s family could feel his death more deeply. Monterrey, Grant wrote, “will be remembered by all here present as one of the most melancholy of their lives.”

As Grant’s fame grew during the Civil War, he used his influence to assist the relatives of one of the officers he mourned in 1846. In late 1863, Charles Hoskins’ widow, Jennie, wrote to Grant from New Rochelle, N.Y., imploring him to help her 17-year-old son, John Deane Charles Hoskins, secure an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. Grant had lent the boy’s father his horse shortly before he was killed at Monterrey.

In January 1864, Grant had Illinois Rep. Elihu B. Washburne deliver a note to President Abraham Lincoln asking him to appoint the boy to West Point. On a military telegraph approving Hoskins’ appointment, Lincoln scribbled the words “Gen. Grant’s boy” next to the cadet’s name. A month after Grant was appointed to the rank of lieutenant general, Jennie Hoskins wrote him reporting that her son had received the appointment. (He would graduate in 1868, serve for 40 years, and retire as a brigadier general.)

Family Bonds

Captain Robert E. Lee’s eyes stayed glued on his older brother, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Sydney Smith Lee, when the American guns opened on the Mexican defenses at Vera Cruz in March 1847. Robert’s brotherly instinct kicked in, and he was determined to shield Sydney from danger, even though there was little he could do to protect him from the enemy’s shells. The thought of Sydney being wounded or killed, however, petrified him. As he would write his wife, Mary, afterward: “[W]hat would I have done had he been cut down before me!”

Fortunately for Lee, he did not have to find out. But there were a handful of other Civil War generals who experienced Lee’s worst fear and more when a blood relative was killed.

Difficult to comprehend perhaps, the subsequent U.S. assault at Molino del Rey would eclipse anything Grant and other U.S. soldiers had experienced at Monterrey. On September 8, 1847, General Scott ordered an attack on a cluster of stone buildings and earthworks to capture a foundry in which he believed the Mexicans were melting church bells to cast cannons. In only two hours, however, Brig. Gen. William Worth lost nearly 25 percent of his force, and 17 U.S. officers were either killed during the battle or would die of their wounds.

When Ethan Allen Hitchcock, acting inspector general to Scott, visited the field after the debacle, he came upon Captain William Chapman of the 5th U.S. Infantry. In a moment jarringly similar to the one Confederate Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett famously had on July 3, 1863, after Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, Chapman pointed to the regiment’s survivors—now reduced roughly to the size of a company—and exclaimed with tears rolling down his face: “There’s the Fifth.”

Among the mortally wounded was Captain Ephraim Kirby Smith of Chapman’s regiment. A musket ball had struck him in the face under the left eye and passed through his head, exiting near the left ear. Smith’s uncle, Major Edmund Kirby, had Ephraim (“Kirby” to family members) taken to his quarters in Tacubaya.

Second Lieutenant Edmund Kirby Smith, the fallen warrior’s brother, would become famous as a Confederate lieutenant general and commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department during the Civil War. Known by family members as “Ted,” he would visit his mortally wounded sibling several times, but when he arrived on September 11 to the hospital where “Kirby” had been moved, Ted learned his brother had died.

Having lost his father, Joseph Lee Smith, in May and now his older brother just four months apart was deeply distressing, and Ted also feared for his brother’s three young children—Joseph, Emma, and George—left to grow up without their father.

The young lieutenant was also pained by his sister-in-law’s financial welfare, as no pension system existed in the Army at the time for soldiers’ widows. How would she and her children cope? Among the eerie thoughts plunging through his anguished mind was that it would have been better had he been killed and not his brother.

“Burned into the Soul”

When Captain John W. Lowe arrived in Mexico City in the spring of 1848, he noted that his friend Ulysses Grant had undergone a transformation, writing to his wife: “[H]e is a short thick man with a beard reaching half way down his waist and I fear he drinks too much but don’t you say a word on that subject.”

While some writers believe that Lowe’s statement was an early indication of Grant’s alcoholism, they overlook what he might really have been trying to convey: that Grant was battling his traumatic war experiences.

The lieutenant had been in Mexico for two years, away from Julia for three, and had participated in nearly all the war’s major battles without an opportunity to take leave. He had witnessed much death and many close friends die. After the death of Sidney Smith, a friend and second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Infantry, in 1847, he told Julia that out of all the officers that left Jefferson Barracks with the 4th, only three, including himself, remained. In fact, 21 percent of the officers who started the war in Grant’s regiment were killed or died of their wounds, and 11 percent of the 4th’s battle deaths consisted of officers. The high fatality rate among officers in Grant’s regiment led to the nickname “the Bloody 4th.”

In 1884, the year before Grant died of throat cancer, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Grant retained vivid recollections of his pre-Civil War years: “[T]he Mexican War seems more distinct to him than the Rebellion,” the newspaper declared, and also maintained that the war’s battles were “burned into the soul of Grant as with a brand of fire.”

In his memoirs, Grant claimed that he greatly benefited from the “many practical lessons it taught,” but he omitted his more private experiences. As he was hesitant to openly express his inner feelings, particularly when he expected them to be published and shared with the public, it is not surprising Grant decided to omit the grief and loneliness he had experienced with the death of comrades in Mexico. Those emotions, however, are evident in his private letters.

Grant wasn’t alone in expressing this inner turmoil. Many Mexican War veterans who became Civil War generals likewise expressed their deepest feelings in private journals, letters home, and postwar memoirs. Certainly, both Union and Confederate generals gained valuable military experience in Mexico that they would apply in the Civil War. It is important, however, to recognize that the Mexican War also served as an emotional training ground for these leaders. The deaths they witnessed taught them harsh lessons about the realities of war, triggered powerful emotional responses, and left a lasting impact on their character and values long before the Civil War.

Frank Jastrzembski, a regular America’s Civil War contributor, writes from Hartford, Wis.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

Military use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, dates to World War I experiments with practice targets, and guided aerial weapons were operational by World War II. But it took advances in electronics and satellite technology to realize unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capable of being controlled from thousands of miles away. The first operational reconnaissance drone, the Predator, went on to assume a more aggressive role.  

Its inventor, engineer Abraham Karem, is an Assyrian Jew born in Baghdad—ironic, considering how much his invention would serve in Iraq. Karem’s family moved to Israel in 1951, and he built his first UAV for the Israeli Air Force during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Immigrating to the United States, he soon drew the attention of the CIA. Karem developed a series of prototypes, the Amber and Gnat 750, for General Atomics before test flying his ultimate design on July 3, 1994. A year later it entered service with the CIA and the U.S. Air Force as the RQ-1 (recon drone) Predator.  

Coinciding with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense was developing an operational drone capable of toting ordnance. The RQ-1 proved adaptable to carrying an AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface antitank missile under each wing. Accepted in 2002 and promptly deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, the armed Predator was designated the MQ-1 (multirole drone). On Dec. 23, 2002, over the no-fly zone in Iraq, an Iraqi Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 engaged an MQ-1 armed with AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles and shot it down, winning the first encounter between a conventional warplane and a UAV.  

In 2011 the 268th and last MQ-1 left the General Atomics plant. By then it had accumulated more than 1 million flight hours and truly earned its Predator moniker. On March 9, 2018, the Air Force retired the MQ-1, which had been supplanted by General Atomics’ improved MQ-9 Reaper.

This story appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

Ask any Marine about the service’s greatest snipers, and a flurry of references to the legendary Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock are sure to flood the conversation. Yet it was another sniper, Charles “Chuck” Mawhinney, who quietly surpassed Hathcock as the Marine Corps’ deadliest.

The Lakeview, Oregon, native recorded 103 confirmed kills in Vietnam over the span of 16 months in 1968 and 1969. By the time he returned home, he’d also been credited with another 216 “probable kills,” a classification for incidents in which the act of confirming a kill in an active war zone would jeopardize safety.

Mawhinney, whose prowess with a Remington M40 sniper rifle in Vietnam remained largely a secret until a chance mention in an obscure 1991 book, died Feb. 12 at his home in Baker City, Oregon. He was 75.

Though Sgt. Mawhinney’s deadeye shooting has cemented his place in the pantheon of great Marines, he almost never became one.

The hunter from backwoods Oregon first had designs on joining the Navy, but opted against it after a Marine recruiter promised that he could delay his enlistment until after deer hunting season.

Mawhinney signed on the dotted line.

Among the rigorous Marine training that ensued, few of the exercises came more naturally than marksmanship. It was Mawhinney’s father, who’d served in the Marine Corps during World War II, who taught his son how to use a rifle as soon as Chuck was old enough to hunt.

That upbringing paid dividends. Mawhinney eventually deployed to Vietnam and quickly adapted to life amid tumultuous combat in the wake of the Tet Offensive.

“It was the ultimate hunting trip: a man hunting another man who was hunting me,” Mawhinney told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “Don’t talk to me about hunting lions or elephants; they don’t fight back with rifles and scopes. I just loved it.”

Marines serving with Mawhinney lauded the Oregonian’s mastery of stalking the enemy. Concealed, he and his spotter would remain motionless, sometimes for hours at a time, tracking enemy movements from the thick brush of the Vietnam jungle.

“You get to the point where you start living like an animal. You act like an animal, you work like an animal, you are an animal. All you think about is killing,” he told the Times. “When you fire, your senses start going into overtime: eyes, ears, smell, everything. Your vision widens out so you see everything, and you can smell things like you can’t at other times. My rules of engagement were simple: If they had a weapon, they were going down.”

The number of enemies dispatched by Mawhinney swiftly climbed. Over the course of a single day near the An Hoa base outside Da Nang, Mawhinney registered 16 headshots.

He was a lethal titan among his Marines. But beyond those in his uniformed inner circle, very few — not even his closest friends back home — knew anything about his exploits in Vietnam. That all changed when Joseph Ward, a friend of Mawhinney’s who’d spent time as his spotter downrange, published a book in 1991 that briefly mentioned his friend’s surgical precision.

After more than two decades in the shadows, the Marine Corps’ deadliest — and most anonymous — sniper was suddenly thrust into the public eye. Yet his exposure did not come without its own controversy. In his book, Ward listed Mawhinney’s confirmed kill count as 101, a number that aggravated record-keepers who insisted Hathcock’s 93 confirmed kills were tops in the service.

The uncertainty of Ward’s claims led to the investigation of Marine Corps records that, by then, were nearly 25 years old.

Unearthed evidence confirmed the number of kills claimed by Ward was indeed incorrect: It was two shy of the real number.

Mawhinney gradually informed friends and family of his story following the circulation of his military record. Each recipient was equally flummoxed that their unassuming neighbor had, seemingly in another life, etched his name into the annals of U.S. military history.

“Chuck was one in a million,” Jim Lindsay, a longtime friend of Mawhinney, told the Baker City Herald this week. “Never one to gloat or brag about anything. … He was the kind of guy that you’d want to be around. But he didn’t try hard to be that. He’d listen to anybody else’s stories before telling his own.”

After much convincing, Chuck eventually acquiesced and told his full story to Lindsay, who, upon learning about Mawhinney’s skill with a rifle, wanted to author a book on his friend.“The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps’ Greatest Marksman of All Time” was released in March 2023.

Mawhinney spent 27 years working with the U.S. Forest Service after leaving the Marine Corps. He leaves behind his wife, Robin, and three sons, Dennis, Cody and Don.

Asked in 2000 about his status as one of the deadliest Marines in the service’s history, Mawhinney told the Los Angeles Times it was never prompted by any lust for combat.

Saving his Marines meant accomplishing the mission. And if killing one enemy could diminish the fighting spirit of 10 other combatants who watched him crumple to the ground, then Mawhinney was doing his job.

He just happened to be damned good at it.

Originally published by Military Times, our sister publication.

The “Greatest Generation” is renowned for military heroism during World War II. But before this famed demographic signed up to fight for Uncle Sam, many were shaped by a childhood spent amid World War I.

It’s not surprising, then, that the First World War instilled an entire generation with a brand of patriotism that could prompt risking everything to preserve the American dream. That exact experience is currently showcased in the National World War I Museum’s exhibit “The Little War,” an exploration of childhood between 1914 and 1918.

The exhibit’s items, according to Specialist Curator Natalie Walker, incited questions for museum staff about war’s impact on children, both during World War I and throughout subsequent conflicts.

“[It was] the literature that was being produced for children at the time, the toys, the games they were playing — Allies versus the Central Powers,” Walker told Military Times. “It made it that much easier to embrace the Second World War just 20 to 25 years later.”

Those who produced children’s literature, toys and costumes of the time presented the war in a way that would remove fear factors. In doing so, the lens through which World War I was viewed by children was one of adventure, where morally superior participants always emerged victorious.

It was natural, then, for young Americans raised in such an environment to not only be willing to serve if called upon, but do so excitedly — even subconsciously — as they deployed like the heroes they once read about.

“[The literature] beat it in in terms of good versus evil … to instill these ideas of patriotism, being a good citizen, and fighting for your country,” Walker noted. “But these kinds of things also trivialized violence and war. [Children are] playing from the safety of their backyards and all of this literature talks about a Boy Scout who goes overseas, and he escapes every battle and conflict unscathed. … They didn’t want to scare children. … At the same time, they’re not really telling the truth.”

Some of the most prominent items in the exhibit’s collection include illustrated literature, children’s soldier and nurse costumes, ration books and nighttime prayer missals. Much of the media at the time, meanwhile, dehumanized the enemy in the eyes of children.

“One of my favorite pieces is called ‘Nursery Rhymes for Fighting Times,’” Walker said. “It’s a book that was published in 1914 in Great Britain, and it takes popular nursery rhymes of the time and reworks them as a form of propaganda that really demonizes and dehumanizes Germany.

“There were no holds barred when they were creating this stuff. … If you’re a little kid, and you’re reading about the Kaiser, who’s going to come and bomb your town and hurt people you love, that’s a scary thing,” she added. “If you’re in middle school, maybe you’re reading this and getting angry. If you’re in high school, you’re probably ready to go enlist.”

The double-edge sword, however, is that many children were vital to the efforts of their countries during both world wars. Even simply by contributing to work around the house, Walker said, many were being molded for duty.

Given that these phenomena continue into today’s conflicts, Walker said she hopes the exhibit will spur conversations between children and adults.

“I want people to walk in this exhibit and get the sense that children had an active, vital role, and here’s what they did,” she said.

Originally published by Military Times, our sister publication.

Not so long ago, I had an extraordinary experience. I sat in the pilot’s seat of an Avro Lancaster, a British four-engine heavy bomber from World War II, gazing through the windshield at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, England. The four Merlin engines were whirring and, when I felt ready, I allowed my right hand to drop down to the four throttles, pushed them forward, and then, feeling the metal of the control column in my hands and breathing in deeply that curious smell of oil, metal, and rubber, I watched as the big bomber started to thunder down the runway.

I was there because of an email that pinged into my inbox one day. Had I met Andy Sturgess, the writer wanted to know? If not, I really should, because Andy had created an actual Lancaster cockpit and fuselage on his farm and turned it into a simulator. I simply had to see it to believe it, my correspondent said. Well, truth be told, I was busy writing a book at the time and, although the suggestion piqued my interest, I didn’t get around to following up on it until a few months later.

Andy and his family live on a small farm only a dozen miles from me here in southwest England. As I turned off the main road and down a narrow track to the farm, I started wondering if I were in the right place. I was, though, and after a chat and a mug of tea, Andy led me out of the back of the farmhouse and toward an unremarkable modern barn. The moment he opened the door, however, I was transported into a different world. Steps led up to a briefing room—an office in which every artifact, from desk to telephone to maps, radios, paint, and a hundred other items, was historically perfect for an office on a wartime RAF base. Next door was another room in which there was a fully functioning Link Trainer, a primitive but still surprisingly effective wartime RAF simulator for pilot training. 

These two rooms were remarkable enough, but nothing had quite prepared me for what followed as Andy took me out into the corridor and opened another door. This led straight into the fuselage of an actual Lancaster. I saw the wireless operator’s desk, then the navigator’s desk. Everything was perfect, down to the low red light over the navigator’s desk, as well as the map, instruments, and flashlight. Beyond was the flight engineer’s dickey seat and the cockpit, and beyond that the curved windshield, a screen so large that all one could see out of it is what a pilot would have seen. Incredibly, every one of the controls in the cockpit was linked to a computer and the screen in front. That included throttles, control column, and all the dials and switches. For a moment, I just sat, open-mouthed, in a state of complete wonderment. Of course, I’d known Andy had created some kind of Lancaster simulator but not in my wildest imaginings had I expected the Aladdin’s cave in which I now found myself. 

It has taken Andy some 20 years to create this. Almost every part of the Lancaster is original and the few things he could not source he has made himself. His simulation is 100 percent accurate and laid out as a wartime Lancaster, whereas the Lanc owned by Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF), the only one flying in the United Kingdom, is actually post-war. On the night of May 16-17, 2023, Andy, with the help of a former BBMF navigator, used his simulator to refly the Dam Buster’s Raid along the same timeline as the actual Operation Chastise from exactly 80 years earlier. “We got there to within two minutes of the original lead crews,” Andy told me. “It was a very special but humbling experience.” It was a very special and humbling experience for me, too, to sit at the controls of a real Lancaster. What an absolutely extraordinary thing Andy has created. It is, in the truest sense of the word, awesome.

What he has created allows anyone to get as close as humanly possible to experiencing what it was like to actually fly a wartime Lancaster, and that’s quite something. Half closing my eyes, I really was transported back to 1943. I think Andy Sturgess is something of a heritage hero. 

On Jan. 30, 1968, all U.S. combat units in Vietnam went to alert status when the Viet Cong violated the Tet Cease-fire by attacking Da Nang and eleven other cities in the center of the country. The 9th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry (Mechanized) deployed to overwatch positions around the sprawling American logistics base at Long Binh, which was also the headquarters of U.S. II Field Forces. Early the following morning, Jan. 31, the rest of the coordinated VC/NVA attacks erupted countrywide. The 2-47’s B Company, along with the Battalion Scout Platoon, led by 1st Lt. Brice Barnes, moved into the Long Binh base perimeter when it came under direct attack. Just after they arrived, VC sappers using satchel charges blew part of the American ammo dump.  

Widows’ Village, located directly across Highway 15 from II Field Forces headquarters, was a motley collection of shacks occupied by the widows and families of ARVN soldiers. When a company-sized VC unit attacked through the hamlet on their way to assault the II Field Forces compound, a platoon of four M-113 armored personnel carriers (APC) from B Company was sent across the road to block the attack. But the American platoon immediately ran into fierce resistance. The platoon lost two of its APCs and took heavy casualties, including the platoon leader. Ordered forward by the 2-47th’s battalion commander, Barnes left two of his APCs to provide security for the battalion command post and took his other eight M-113s across the road and into the village. Assuming command of all the American troops in Widows’ Village, he organized and led the counterattack.  

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

According to his Distinguished Service Cross citation: “Repeatedly disregarding his safety, [Barnes] braved withering fire to direct civilians in the battle area to safety. Bullets struck all around him, but he refused to take cover and led a house-to-house sweep, personally destroying a recoilless rifle and an automatic weapon position.” In the course of the battle the scouts rescued more than 50 civilians and led them to safety. At one point Barnes himself ran directly into enemy fire to rescue an old woman and two small children. As the heavy fighting progressed and the scouts were starting to run low on ammo, Barnes was able to attract the attention of two AH-1 Cobra gunships orbiting low overhead. Since he did not have the radio frequencies or call signs for the gunships, he had to stand exposed on top of one of his APCs and use hand-and-arm signals to direct the gunship fire against the dug-in VC positions.  

After Widows’ Village was secured and the Scout Platoon was resupplied with ammo, the platoon was ordered to proceed two miles west to Bien Hoa City, where the 2-47th’s C Company had been heavily engaged all day. But they never got there. The Scout Platoon ran into a heavy ambush while passing through the village of Ho Nai on Highway 1. The murderous crossfire by heavy machine guns and RPGs broke Barnes’ column of eight APCs into three groups. During the fighting Barnes was hit by fragmentation from an RPG round that struck close by. Meanwhile, he was able to call in support from two UH-1B gunships to finally clear the ambush.  

For the combined fights at Widows’ Village and Ho Nai, Brice Barnes was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Later during his first tour in Vietnam Barnes commanded Headquarters Company of the 2-47th. During his second tour in Vietnam he commanded Company A, 5th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Infantry Brigade. After he left active duty, Barnes continued to serve in the Texas Army National Guard, where in later years he commanded a mechanized infantry battalion. He finished his military career as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. From 2010 to 2012 he served as the Honorary Colonel of the 47th Infantry Regiment.  

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

historynet magazines

Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world.

subscribe today

Those who study warfare will inevitably run into the so-called “great man theory” of history. Simply put, it denotes the study of individual leaders and their abilities. In earlier times, scholars adhered to this school of thought as explaining the entirety of military history to the myopic exclusion of all other factors.

Over time the “great man theory” became less in vogue, and in the present day is looked upon by many scholars as nonsense; they choose to interpret military history purely through the lenses of more abstract factors such as society, technology, gender or economy, for example.

Give the ‘Great Men’ A Chance

While it goes without saying that military leaders can neither exist nor function in a void of social, technological or economic factors, I feel it is worth pointing out that the “great men of history”—notable male leaders, that is—deserve a fairer hearing.

Today, historical focus on notable men tends to be regarded in a dismissive manner, like something old-fashioned or awkward. It seems to me that this is partly due to the fact that the leaders being studied are men, and mostly because many people have apparently lost belief in the potency of individual human achievement. New trends in scholarship suggest that there has been too much focus on men in war history altogether. That is a gross oversimplification. While it is true that the roles of women have been overlooked, that does not make the achievements of men in military history any less deserving of attention.

Importance of Leadership

What is manifest in the lives of the “great men” is a quality universal to all human beings: the power of the individual to change world events. Social factors and technology make for interesting studies but these arenas do not shape themselves. People need leaders, and leaders don’t simply materialize out of nowhere. They come from among us. It is worth looking at who they were, what they did and how, and above all, whether we consider them to have been effective or not. Only by doing so can we educate ourselves.

Why is such an education important? The world is suffering from an acute leadership crisis. I believe there is currently a dearth of good male role models for young people. This deficit is real and troubling. However, there is another critical factor producing this discord. There is a complete lack of focus and discussion in society on the qualities that make good leaders and on the true potential of individuals.

Political and popular culture today encourage us to think in terms of groups with rigidly codified principles of belonging that seem to predestine our behavior, instead of encouraging us to recognize our individual ability to choose our own destiny and change the world around us. 

Need For Future Leaders

This magazine contains a diverse array of military leaders. They were and remain controversial. Whether we decide to admire or dislike them, their actions are worth studying. We at Military History Quarterly (MHQ) invest time in evaluating leadership. In my book “Bernard Montgomery’s Art of War,” and series about Erwin Rommel, I analyze these two battlefield captains. My colleague Jerry Morelock has delivered a masterful study of military leadership in his excellent book, “Generals of the Bulge: Leadership in the U.S. Army’s Greatest Battle,” which tackles competent and incompetent leadership in one of the U.S. Army’s most complex battles. We believe these studies will be of use to future leaders.

It is a fallacy to think that the destinies of “great men” of military history, or leaders of any kind, are written in the stars and that we who read about them are mere mortals who have no hope of ever changing the world for the better. I close with an excerpt from the poem, “The Man From the Crowd,” by Sam Walter Foss. The poem is worth reading in whole; in it, Foss illustrates how people tend to fall into set patterns of behavior, while a leader will show willingness to break the mold and stand out to meet a challenge or fulfill a call to action.

He reminds us that the world needs great men. So let us not hesitate to continue to study and reflect on the lives, strengths, weaknesses and decisions of notable men in military history. 

                     
“Men seem as alike as the leaves on the trees,
As alike as the bees in a swarming of bees;
And we look at the millions that make up the state
All equally little and equally great,
And the pride of our courage is cowed.
Then Fate calls for a man who is larger than men—
There’s a surge in the crowd—there’s a movement—and then
There arises a man that is larger than men—
And the man comes up from the crowd.…

And where is the man who comes up from the throng
Who does the new deed and who sings the new song,
And makes the old world as a world that is new?
And who is the man? It is you! It is you!” 

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, Muslim Sultan of Egypt and Syria, known to the west as Saladin, is certainly one of the most durably famous historical figures from the period of the Crusades. His political and military skills won him the admiration of the Muslim world. Unifying the forces of Islam, he struck the heaviest blows against the Crusader kingdoms, shattering a massive Christian army at Hattin and wresting Jerusalem from their control in 1187.

But he is also remarkable as an historical rarity—a champion on one side of a bitter contest who was also admired by his opponents. His ferocity in battle and generosity to his enemies secured him a great reputation in Europe as a chivalrous knight, an esteem that has largely endured in the Western mind. 

Saladin was born in the city of Tikrit in 1137, emerging into a world rife with divisions, both political and religious. Part of Saladin’s durability in historical memory can be attributed to the similarities between his world and our own, for some of the same divisions still fester. The Muslim world is still divided by the fundamental Sunni-Shia schism and a multiplicity of sects quarreling about both theological and worldly matters. Pope Urban II had issued the call for the First Crusade some 40 years before Saladin was born, and the arrival of Christian armies created the fundamental division that would shape his world. The First Crusade (1096-1099) captured Jerusalem and saw the creation of Christian states along the coast of Palestine. As resilient as they were, they remained outposts requiring continual support from Europe to be maintained.

They also clearly benefitted from the disunity of Muslim rule and the lack of unified a military opposition. After their initial success, the task of the crusaders became defensive—to hold what they had won. Saladin was to be their greatest challenge.

The Making of A Leader

Little is known about Saladin’s early years other than the lingering reputation of a studious and thoughtful nature tending to greater zeal for religious than military training. He was well-placed for advancement. His father, Ayyub, was Governor of Damascus, and his uncle, Shirkuh, commanded the armies of Nur-al-Din, the ruler of Syria. Positioned for close observation, Saladin conceived a great admiration for Nur-al-Din’s piety and capable rule and, in later years, would draw inspiration from his ambition to unite the Muslim peoples between the Nile and the Euphrates to create a united front against the Crusaders. But Saladin was not yet a warrior. In the wake of the Second Crusade’s (1145-1149) attempt upon Damascus, Nur-al-Din sought to stir up martial fervor among his people and asked for volunteers in the Holy War. Saladin did not respond. 

Saladin’s formal career began when he joined the staff of his uncle, Shirkuh, accompanying him on an expedition to Egypt, which would lay the foundations of his future success. In 1163, Shawar, the deposed Vizier of Egypt, appeared in Damascus promising one-third of the revenues of Egypt for Nur-Al-Din’s aid in restoring him. Though in theory subject to the Caliph, a vizier of Egypt was virtually a king. The potential benefits of intervening on his behalf were too good to pass by. Shirkuh was dispatched with an army, and he took a reluctant Saladin with him.

In the background lay complex rivalries between Muslims and Christians, and among Muslims themselves. While Syria recognized the religious authority of the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Egypt walked a different path. The origins of the split lay early in the history of Islam. In 655, the succession to the religious and political authority of the caliphate was contested over a dispute as to whether the leader of Islam must be a direct descendant of the Prophet. This view was advocated by Ali, who had married Muhammad’s daughter Fatima. Ali and Fatima lost the contest, but their supporters maintained their allegiance to their various descendants, giving rise to a distinctive form of Islam called Shi’ism—in contrast with the majority of Muslims, the Sunnis. In the tenth century, the Shi’ites established the Fatimid dynasty of caliphs in Cairo. To the orthodox Nur-al-Din, the heretical Egyptians were almost as contemptible as the infidels. But this distaste was tempered by the realization if the Christian Franks were able to dominate Egypt, Syria would be ruined and Islam seriously imperiled.       

To Egypt

But by the time the expedition had reached Egypt, the Vizier had recovered his office and had no use for Shirkuh’s army. He refused to pay them. When Shirkuh showed no inclination to leave without his compensation, Shawar appealed to Amalric, King of Jerusalem for aid. A complex three-way struggle then ensued in which Saladin gained valuable military experience. When the dust had settled, the Christians had been expelled, Shawar was dead, Shirkuh was the Vizier of Egypt—and Saladin was his executive officer. How precisely Shirkuh would have navigated the politically and religiously awkward position he now inhabited is not clear. Three months later he was dead, and the Fatimid caliph appointed Saladin as his successor.

Saladin now inhabited a position of power, but it was beset with difficulties. He was bound to three masters and two versions of Islam. He owed allegiance to Nur-Al-Din in Damascus, and through him the Sunni caliph in Baghdad, as well as Egypt’s Shia Fatimid Caliph. In addition, the quick, successive shifts in power had left Egypt unstable. Unhappy with the new regime, various groups plotted against Saladin, and internal divisions invited challenges from the Byzantines and the Crusaders. Saladin navigated the difficulties with great skill, gaining firm administrative and military control of the country while strengthening his army and navy. But his very successes caused problems of his own, for the stronger he became, the more Nur-al-Din worried about the reach of his ambitions.

In 1171, at the risk of rebellion, Saladin deposed the Fatimid caliph in favor of the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. Two days later Cairo’s caliph died, and Saladin was the master of Egypt. While Egypt’s return to orthodoxy pleased Nur-al-Din, Saladin’s increasingly successful empire building did not. Tensions between the two men continued to rise.

When Nur-al-Din died in 1174, Saladin was not only relieved of the burdens of a jealous superior, but the power vacuum in Syria also presented him with an opportunity for expansion. By this time Saladin was a determined holy warrior, but he knew he would first have to unite the Muslims as a foundation for war against the crusaders. Long years of struggle lay before him, but he captured Damascus, Aleppo, and Mosul from other Muslim rulers.

Facing the Crusaders

In May 1180, Saladin signed a treaty with Baldwin IV, who had become King of Jerusalem in 1174 at 13 years of age when his father, Amalric died. It made sense. After a period of draining and indecisive clashes, both sides were suffering from internal disorders that made a respite of peace agreeable. But the underlying conflict remained, as did the militant purposes of both sides, and provocations wore away at the agreement. One provocateur, Renaud de Châtillon, did more than any other to erode the peace.

The relentless raids he launched on Muslim caravans from his impregnable castle, Kerak of Moab, incited Saladin’s rage. He appealed to Baldwin, but the king, suffering from leprosy, did not have the strength to restrain the firebrand. Hostilities were renewed. Saladin took Aleppo in 1183 and besieged Kerak. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, weakened by a faltering king, internal quarrels, and a disputed succession felt the weight of Saladin’s growing power. 

By 1186, Saladin had united the Muslim territories of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt under his rule. Saladin’s dedication to jihad and singleness of purpose were in sharp contrast to the dissensions and rivalry that had hampered Muslim resistance to the Crusaders in the past. Saladin had forged a powerful weapon, and he was ready to wield it. In that same year, Guy de Lusignan, a man unsuited by temperament or skill to clash with Saladin, became King of Jerusalem. As the Crusaders faced their greatest threat, they were led by an improvident adventurer whose only claim to power lay in his marriage to Baldwin’s sister. Plagued by divided counsels and self-seeking ambition, they would soon pay a terrible price.

Having gathered a massive army of 30,000 troops, Saladin invaded Galilee and besieged the city of Tiberias, baiting a snare he hoped would lure the enemy onto ground of his choosing. Guy mustered his own army around Saphorie, fielding around 20,000 infantry and 2,000 knights, half of whom were members of the famous religious orders, Knights Templar and Hospitallers. Count Raymond III of Tripoli, whose own wife and children were confined within the city, counseled Guy not to march.

The Horns of Hattin

Between their position and Tiberias stretched an arid plain, sizzling in the July heat, where they would find little or no water. In such conditions, Saladin’s lightly armed cavalry would have the advantage, and he prophesied the destruction of the army if they walked into Saladin’s trap. But Guy was swayed by others, Renaud and Gérard de Ridefort, Master of the Templars, whose violent aggression was impervious to prudence.  

Leaving at dawn, the army marched across the plain in the sweltering heat up into the hills on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee. With no water-carts, the leather bottles they carried were fast depleted. The hot sun fell upon them like a hammer upon an anvil, and the knights sweltered in their armor. The miseries of the march were compounded by harassment by the enemy, who loosed clouds of arrows upon them before racing away far too swiftly for the weary and parched crusaders to respond. These tactics combined with attacks on the rear guard, only prolonged the miseries of the hellish march.

Exhausted, the army camped just below an outcrop above the Sea of Galilee, known as the Horns of Hattin. It was bad ground, a dried-up lava flow from an extinct volcano strewn with black basalt rocks hidden beneath scrub grass, dangerous to horses. They would spend a miserable night tormented by thirst, an experience made worse by the glimmering fresh water of the lake beneath them. But the way was barred by the stretching encampment of Saladin’s army.

With the morning of July 4, 1187, the Christian army would try to carve its way to the lake. But Saladin had advanced his men during the night, and they now set fire to the dry grass, sending choking clouds of smoke into the crusader camp. Maddened by thirst, the foot soldiers rushed ahead blindly, only to be thrown back. The knights charged, wheeled, charged again, but they could not pierce the Muslim lines. All that day the battle raged, the crusaders finding reserves of strength that impressed even their enemy. But to no avail. Raymond III of Tripoli did finally succeed in breaking through with some of his heavily-armored knights and, escaping the battlefield, proceeded to Tripoli. His withdrawal had been approved by the king, lest none survive to fight future battles. The next day, the remaining crusaders made a last stand, but, with the remnants of the Christian army strewn about the hills, exhaustion compelled the handful of survivors to surrender. 

The concept of chivalry involves a combination of fierceness and gentleness that can be difficult to grasp in theory, much less to achieve and maintain in practice. Saladin was to have a chivalrous reputation in the Christian West, but there was little gentleness toward the Christians he defeated at Hattin. The surviving infantrymen were all sold into slavery. Saladin killed Renaud with his own hands, as he had sworn to do, and had his head impaled on a lance as an ornament to embellish his triumphant return to Damascus. The remaining knights were executed by the mullahs and religious teachers accompanying his army. He also sent an order to Damascus condemning all of the knights held captive there to immediate death.

On the other hand, he did show compassion when he did not have to, offering the countess of Tripoli safe-passage with all her people and possessions to rejoin her husband and paroling Balian of Ibelin to return to Jerusalem to look after his wife, a former queen of Jerusalem. He spared Guy along with a handful of others, imprisoning them in Damascus. The medieval mind was not overly troubled by such stark contrasts, and many a Christian knight was deemed chivalrous who did not do as well. 

Securing the Coast

Desirous that his great victory at Hattin be used to its greatest potential, Saladin moved to secure the coast of Palestine against future incursions and isolate the inland castles. He moved first upon Acre which, inadequately defended, surrendered. From there his forces marched along the coast, as well as through Galilee and Samaria. Christian strongholds rapidly tumbled into his hands through surrender or after brief sieges. After Hattin, they had no strength to resist. Saladin displayed much of his customary mercy and forbearance with the conquered. By September, only Jerusalem and Tyre remained in Christian hands.

Tyre, with admirable defenses and under the command of the newly-arrived Conrad of Montferrat, a man of great ability and determination, held out against assault. Saladin left it unconquered. Strategically, this was a mistake, as it left his enemies a crucial foothold on the coast and a beachhead for another invasion. Even some contemporary Muslim commentators, while praising his many admirable qualities and achievements, reproached him for underestimating the danger. Nonetheless, leaving the prospect of months of grueling siege behind him, Saladin turned toward Jerusalem. The struggle for the Holy City was the source of the crusading movement and its possession the ultimate prize. Now, it lay within his grasp.

Balian of Ibelin took command of the Christian forces, such as they were, defending Jerusalem. As a prisoner on parole after Hattin, he wrote to Saladin, apologizing and asking him to spare the city. Saladin forgave Balian but would not give up Jerusalem. Balian had little to work with. While the city was strongly fortified, it was swollen with refugees, with one man to every 50 women and children, and had only 14 knights. Nonetheless, Balian girded for battle. He knighted every boy of noble descent and 30 common citizens. He seized all the treasure he could find, including silver from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hastily brought in provisions from the surrounding villages, shut the gates, and prepared to endure the storm.

Arriving on Sept. 20, Saladin’s siege engines bombarded the Tower of David and the surrounding walls for five days. Failing to make much of an impression on the fortifications, he then shifted northeast to the Mount of Olives, the location from which the Crusaders had launched their attack nearly a century before. While 40 mangonels battered the walls, torrents of arrows swept them clean of defenders, and sappers worked to undermine their foundations. After three days, the masonry crumbled, opening a breach. The city was doomed.

Officials from the city came to negotiate terms. But, remembering the bloodshed when the Christians took Jerusalem in 1099, Saladin would not negotiate. He had sworn he would take the city by the sword. On Sept. 30, Balian himself appeared in Saladin’s tent. He knew there was no chance of holding the city, but he presented Saladin with an apocalyptic vision: the Muslims would have the city, but it would be a city of ash. As a last resort he would set Jerusalem on fire, demolish all the holy places including the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, destroy all the treasure, and kill every living thing. He would reduce the Holy City to wreckage, scorched with flame and drowned in blood. His description must have been vivid, for Saladin relented, agreeing to accept ransom: 10 dinars for every man, 5 for every woman, and one for every child.

Richard the Lionheart

The capture of Jerusalem was not the end of Saladin’s struggles. His tremendous success caused the caliph to fear his ambition would reach to overturning the Abbasid dynasty. There were also those who doubted the wisdom of Saladin’s generosity toward the Christians. By allowing them to leave Acre, Ascalon, and Jerusalem, he only strengthened Tyre, fortifying a Christian outpost to be relieved by additional forces from Europe. Word of Jerusalem’s fall reached Europe quickly with appeals for aid. Pope Gregory VIII called for a new crusade. The response was enormous in volunteers and monetary contributions (not always voluntary), called in England the “Saladin Tithe.”

The Third Crusade (1189-1192) would be led by kings: Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) of Germany. Great armies mobilized and headed for Palestine. The Christians already there made trouble of their own. Though hampered by division between King Guy, who Saladin had released from prison in 1188 and Conrad of Montferrat, who desired the crown of Jerusalem, the crusaders besieged Acre. A stalemated double siege lasted for two years, with the besiegers themselves hemmed in by Saladin’s army, which was not strong enough to drive them off or destroy them.

In June of 1191, King Richard I of England arrived in the Holy Land. Richard stands out from the pages of history as a glamorous figure: tall, good-looking, fearless, and immensely strong, he was known as Richard Coeur de Lion (the Lionheart). Richard assumed leadership of the crusade after Frederick perished en route and Philip departed for Europe. The strategic duel between the two champions, Richard and Saladin, captured the medieval European imagination and solidified Saladin’s lasting reputation. Though their battle was bitter, they saw each other as worthy opponents. 

Richard fell upon the Holy Land like a thunderstroke, but did not have the power to retake Jerusalem. Saladin parried him with both blade and diplomacy. They agreed upon a truce under which the Christians retained the coastal zone from Jaffa to Tyre and were permitted to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The Holy City itself remained in Saladin’s hand. Richard departed, disappointed, to deal with troubles at home.  

Saladin did not live much longer. He died in March 1193 at 54 years old. He was Islam’s greatest champion, master of the east, bringing an unparalleled unity and wielding a victorious sword, honored by Muslim and Crusader alike. The unity he had forged collapsed after his death. The fame he won lives on.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!

 

Writing home in the early morning hours of July 2, 1863, it likely crossed John Wheeler’s mind that this might be the last letter he would ever write. Wary of the impending combat he and his men were about to face on Gettysburg’s second day, the 20th Indiana Infantry’s colonel could be forgiven for such somber reflection. Two years earlier, as war clouds loomed over the fractured nation, Wheeler had been editor (and co-founder) of his home state’s Crown Point Register, proclaiming on its masthead, “Independent in all things—Neutral in nothing.” It was a supplication he had also lived by as a soldier and commander.

Early in the war, Wheeler—a distant relative of eventual Confederate cavalry general Joseph Wheeler—raised a 100-man company and was elected captain. Among those to enlist were the sons of a family friend: Albert Luther and his brother John, vice president of a local bank.

Spearheading the region’s prolific recruitment effort was Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath, a lawyer and entrepreneur who before the war had helped bring a railroad to the county seat. For his energy and notoriety, he was named a lieutenant in the 20th Indiana.

The 20th’s first assignment was guarding railroads in Maryland. It was then sent to the North Carolina coast, and in January 1862 was stationed at Fort Monroe, Va., under Brig. Gen. Joseph King Fenno Mansfield, later mortally wounded at Antietam. On March 8, the Hoosiers were called to nearby Hampton Roads to help protect the stricken USS Congress from capture by CSS Virginia. Fire from the 20th wounded Virginia’s commander, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, and helped drive off Confederate boarding parties.

The 20th, an impressed Mansfield later remarked, “could do without food longer…eat more when they got it; could suffer more without being disabled; get in line quicker; stay there steadier and swear harder than any group of men.” On May 10, 1862, President Lincoln visited Fort Monroe, and while watching his fellow Midwesterners prepare for a move on Norfolk, reportedly cheered, “Bully for the Indiana 20th!”   

Joining the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign, the 20th was assigned to Maj. Gen. Phil Kearny’s 3rd Division in the 3rd Corps. Kearny raved about the 20th’s fighting ability at Oak Grove, Savage’s Station, and Glendale during the Seven Days’ Battles, labeling them “my 20th Indiana marksmen.”

“If I had 40,000 men like those of the 20th Indiana,” he declared, “I could fight and whip any army in the world.”

After fighting at Second Bull Run and then Ox Hill (where Kearny was killed), the 20th was assigned during the subsequent Antietam Campaign to the defenses of Washington, D.C., but returned to the Army of the Potomac before the Battle of Fredericksburg. On December 13, 1862—a day described by Captain Gilbreath as being of “almost September brightness and warmth”—the Hoosiers saved Captain George Randolph’s artillery in the 3rd Corps by bringing up ammunition and manning the pieces after the battery lost infantry support. A grateful Randolph remarked after the war that the 20th was “the best regiment, volunteer or regular, that I had the fortune to serve with….We were always glad to know [they were] near.”

Gilbreath suffered a severe right leg wound during the fighting that day but bravely spurned amputation—somehow surviving. The wound, however, would require corrective surgery in 1875. Despite having limited use of the leg for two years and suffering a permanent limp, he returned to duty in April 1863.

Intense Fighting at Gettysburg

In the spring of 1863, Wheeler was promoted to colonel and given command. John Luther was made lieutenant, becoming Wheeler’s adjutant. During the Chancellorsville Campaign, the 20th helped lead the 3rd Corps’ advance and captured a horde of prisoners of the 23rd Georgia Infantry in Brig. Gen. Alfred Colquitt’s Brigade, part of Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s Second Corps.

Later, the Hoosiers were involved in a night action and served in the rear guard for the retreat over the Rappahannock River. Brigadier General John Henry Hobart Ward, their brigade commander, praised the regiment’s “coolness and undaunted courage,” noting it “sustained its well-earned reputation gained on the Peninsula.” Wheeler was proud of how his men performed in “one of the most severe [battles]” and confidently wrote home that “western men are the thing. [The army] could do much more if we had…more men from Maine and the west….we are all well and ready for anything that comes along.”

What came along would prove a severe test. The 20th arrived in Gettysburg after dark on July 1, spending a tense night, sleeping with weapons ready, on the Union left on the south end of Cemetery Ridge. On July 2, the regiment was placed in the Rose Woods on Houck’s Ridge with most of Ward’s 2nd Brigade. With the launch of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s attack at 4 p.m., the Hoosiers (along with the 86th New York) soon found themselves hotly engaged with the 3rd Arkansas. The Union troops had initial success, driving back the Southerners and advancing as Ward had directed, only to be ordered back a short time later.

As he had ominously feared, Wheeler was an early casualty, shot from his horse and falling dead at the distinctive boulder across the road from what is now the 20th’s monument. He was quickly buried by the Luther brothers.

The firing was rapid and intense, and when John rejoined the fight using a discarded rifle, he was hit by a spent bullet and left dazed. Describing the action to his family, Albert wrote: “[We] had to fire slower because [the] gun barrels had got so hot…[we] could hardly hold them.”

Ward’s men resisted the Southern attack for more than an hour, but by 5:30 p.m., with Lafayette McLaws’ Georgians having joined the fight, the Confederates grabbed the upper hand. Gilbreath assumed command of the 20th when Lt. Col. William C.L. Taylor was wounded. Ward, aware his men were low on ammunition, ordered the 20th and his nearby regiments to pull back.

Bristling at how the Rebels laughed when the Hoosiers’ flag fell, Gilbreath took satisfaction in that those colors were immediately recovered and that the struggle had been anything but a rout. The 20th, according to the Official Records, “held the position assigned it until the brigade commenced to retire…[and] fell back in good order.”

Per one account, the 20th “moved three hundred yards to the rear where it halted and re-formed its ranks.” Official reports and recollections from the neighboring regiments, as well as the captured/missing numbers for Ward’s entire brigade, confirm that Ward was able to bring his men back in good order from Houck’s Ridge, contrary to the commonly made assumption that the 3rd Corps simply folded and ran when attacked.

On July 3, the 20th was sent to the center of the line for “clean-up” in the wake of Pickett’s Charge, and later was placed on burial duty.

Gettysburg had been a memorable battle for the Hoosiers. Dudley Chase, an Indiana judge who was wounded at the Rose Woods while serving in the 17th U.S. Regulars, later recalled they were “desperately fighting…out of the jaws of death and the gates of hell…” The cost was high. Of 401 men engaged, the 20th had 32 killed, 114 wounded, and 10 captured/missing. Those totals represented 25 percent of Ward’s deaths during the battle, and 20 percent of his total losses.

Despite the bloodshed, the mood of some of the men was buoyant. Writing home, one Hoosier reported 14 casualties in his company alone but threatened the Rebels with a “whailing [sic]” and a “sound thrashing” if the Southerners did not return to Virginia quickly.

Albert Luther boasted to his family that Lee’s men “got a sound whipping” and that “[w]e are ready and anxious to give them another battle.” The subsequent arduous pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia to the Potomac River rendered some of the Hoosiers shoeless, and the pace diminished Albert’s fervor; in fact, he felt “so tired at night I could hardly stand.” The anticipated showdown with Lee’s defeated army would not occur, as the Confederates were back in Virginia by July 14.

Last Left Standing

In August 1863, the 20th was one of the Western regiments handed the grueling task of keeping order in New York City after the July Draft Riots. Although Gilbreath chose to romanticize the famed metropolis (“Most of us had only dreamed of [this] city”), his regiment was unable to let up for even a moment, at one point meeting “with a howling mob” and “fixing bayonets, marched off, driving the crowd before us.”

As the Overland Campaign approached in the spring of 1864, John Luther expressed apprehension and optimism—“all are dreading the heavy campaign that is staring us in the face”—but he also appraised the Army of the Potomac as being never more formidable. The fighting that May and June left him despondent, however: “After the most hard battle ever fought, I am still alive and that is about all…” Expressing both resignation and relief, he wrote from Cold Harbor, Va.: “It seems a miracle that I am here, that it is my luck to be spared so far…”

In the later reorganization of the Army of the Potomac, the men of the 7th, 14th, and 19th Indiana were consolidated into the 20th, which was renamed the “20th Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry.” This was another source of pride for the men of the 20th. “No greater compliment could be paid you,” Chase opined at their 1888 reunion.

The other Indiana regiments, all with memorable service, became members of the 20th. The 20th was the Indiana infantry regiment “last left standing” in the Army of the Potomac. Active through the Petersburg and Appomattox campaigns, it fired its final guns on April 9, 1865. Back in Indianapolis, the 20th mustered out in July.

John Wheeler was buried on July 30, 1863, in Crown Point with nearly a thousand mourners in attendance, including both Luther brothers. To this day, the town has not forgotten the colonel, naming a new school in his honor in 2007, with his uniform and murals commemorating the 20th on display.

The Luther brothers survived the war, with John living until 1924 and fortunate to attend Gettysburg’s 50th anniversary reunion in 1913. Albert was not so blessed, dying before his 30th birthday. The two are buried within feet of Wheeler at Maplewood Cemetery.

Gilbreath made a career of the military and died in 1898 while on active duty. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery alongside his wife and daughter. A family heirloom was a handkerchief stained with Lincoln’s blood (his father-in-law was a friend of the slain president).

In 1889, at the ceremony inaugurating construction of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Indianapolis, the 20th was the only Indiana unit to have its flag placed in the cornerstone—its soldiers “the last men standing” at home, as well.

Charles J. Rebesco, a first-time contributor, writes from Munster, Ind.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

Thousands of Frenchmen served the Vichy government as part of the paramilitary Milice, which earned a terrible reputation for brutality, torturing and killing many French citizens in the Resistance. After the country’s liberation, were there reprisals against these men?  —Mark Peters, New York, N.Y.

Following the liberation there was what was called in France an “epuration,” or purge, of those who had worked for or collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. Some of these purges were unofficial, in other words people who had served in the Milice or otherwise collaborated were summarily executed, while women who had conducted relationships with Germans had their heads shaved and were ostracized from their communities.

In his 1997 seminal work, Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, British historian Ian Ousby says the most accurate number of such deaths was around 10,000. Most were members of the Milice, whose ranks were filled with young men of varying motivations: some were anti-Semites, others anti-capitalists or fascists. There was also a criminal element, along with a sizeable number who joined to avoid the STO (Compulsory Work Service) that sent French citizens to Germany to work in industries supporting the Nazi war effort. 

In September 1944 a special court was established to judge collaborators; among those convicted and executed for treason was the Milice’s leader, Joseph Darnand. These trials lasted until 1949 and although thousands were sentenced to varying punishments, many Miliciens escaped justice. One of the last high-profile figures of the Milice to appear in the dock was Paul Touvier, who, after decades of hiding from the authorities for his role in the execution of seven Jewish hostages in 1944, was convicted in 1994 of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment—but he died of cancer two years later.

British naval historian and geostrategist Sir Julian Corbett (1854–1922) was a contemporary of renowned American naval strategist Rear Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914). Unlike Mahan, Corbett had no personal military or naval experience, which prompted many senior officers in the Admiralty to view him and his theories with skepticism. A misconception persists that the ideas of Mahan and Corbett are in opposition, that one must accept one or the other. But that is an oversimplification. There is much to be learned by a comparison of the two.  

In developing a set of principles for naval warfare, Corbett drew from the theories of land warfare developed by Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. On the relationship between war and politics he echoed Clausewitz: “Military action must still be regarded only as a manifestation of policy. It must never supersede policy. The policy is always the object; war is only the means by which we obtain the object, and the means must always keep the end in view.”  

In defining essential differences between the respective physical operating environments of land and sea, however, Corbett departed from Clausewitz on key points, particularly the importance of concentration and the decisive battle. Control and security of communications, for example, is far more difficult at sea. Communications on land are largely limited to known roads, rail lines and rivers and channelized by mountains, forests and other no-go terrain. Predicting communications and movement on a vast, flat ocean is an entirely different matter. “At sea the communications are, for the most part, common to both belligerents,” Corbett noted, “whereas ashore each possess his own on his own territory.” Thus, he concluded, only relative command of the sea was possible at any given place and time.  

Corbett departed from both Mahan’s and Clausewitz’s argument for the primacy of destroying the enemy’s main force. Rather, the British strategist argued, controlling the lines of communications, both friendly and enemy, should be the main objective of naval warfare. Two ways to do that were through naval blockade or by capturing or sinking enemy warships and merchant ships. Corbett’s departure from the decisive battle principle prompted pushback from many of the Royal Navy’s more traditional admirals. Yet he enjoyed the backing of reform-minded First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet Sir John “Jacky” Fisher.  

In 1911 Corbett published Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. He wrote during a period of sweeping technological changes. Steam had already replaced wind and sail as the fleet’s primary motive power; steel hulls had replaced wooden ones; and naval guns were acquiring greater range, accuracy and hitting power. While there was no way Corbett could have foreseen certain technologies, he knew change was imminent and ongoing. That’s why he called his book Some Principles, rather than The Principles. His intent was to produce a living document to or from which future generations of naval thinkers could add or subtract.    

Lessons

Determine the mutual relations of your army and navy in a plan of war. Only when this is done can one develop a plan for the fleet to best execute its assigned mission.

Offense and defense are not mutually exclusive. All war and every form of it must include contingencies for both.

The object of naval warfare is the control of communications. Naval operations in both world wars proved Corbett right.

The most pressing problem to solve is not how to increase the power of a fleet for attack, but how to defend it. Though Corbett wrote long before the advent of naval aviation, this remains the central difficulty of the aircraft carrier.

For years, scientists have been poring over old ship logs, scouring weather reports for clues about changes in the Earth’s climate. But there was a World War II-sized hole in their research: the hostilities disrupted commercial shipping and reduced the number of weather reports sailors were producing. Trade between the United States and Asia, in particular, ground to a halt.

Of course, there were plenty of naval ships patrolling the Pacific from 1941-1945. And they were under orders to log their whereabouts and record the weather conditions every hour and to do so in a standardized way. However, the military classified this meteorological motherlode and made it off-limits to climate researchers. A breakthrough finally came in 2017 when the National Archives declassified 192,500 pages of U.S. Navy Command files, mostly from the Pacific and mostly from 1941 to 1946.  

Now researchers faced another hurdle. Since the records were mostly on paper, they needed to be scanned, photographed, and transcribed before scientists worldwide could analyze them—a labor-intensive project indeed. Fortunately, there already existed a group of citizen-researchers, working under the name Old Weather, who had years of experience crowdsourcing the work of transcribing old ship logs to help climate scientists.

So a team led by Praveen Teleti, a climate modeler at Britain’s University of Reading, started the Old Weather-WW2 project and asked the public for help. For a year and a half, 4,050 volunteers helped digitize 630,000 records from 19 ships—three battleships, an aircraft carrier, eight destroyers, six cruisers, and a gunboat. Teleti said the project was sped along by the COVID-19 pandemic, which kept people at home with time on their hands. 
 

The project doubled the number of weather observations available in some parts of the Pacific. The results were published in Geoscience Data Journal in September 2023. Now scientists can begin to use the data the citizen-researchers compiled to get a better understanding of changes in the climate.

Among other things, they hope to learn more about a mysterious uptick in wartime sea surface temperatures—the so-called “World War II warm anomaly”—that may, in fact, have more to do with the way sailors collected the data. And they hope to expand their understanding of Typhoon Cobra, a cyclone that hit the U.S. Pacific Fleet in December 1944, sinking three destroyers and killing nearly 800 men.

As Allan W. Ostar approaches his 100th birthday, he can look back with pride on a career as an academic administrator and education consultant. For many years, Allan was president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. But, as a teenager in 1944, he joined the U.S. Army’s storied 42nd “Rainbow” Infantry Division, which landed in Southern France in December 1944. Moving north through bitter winter conditions, the 42nd repulsed Nazi Germany’s “Operation Northwind” offensive, then attacked through the Hardt Forest, pierced the Siegfried Line, and crossed the Rhine River. In late April 1945, after battling hand-to-hand to conquer Schweinfurt, Rainbow G.I.s arrived at the gates of Dachau concentration camp.

You were born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1924 and were still in high school when World War II started. When did you graduate?

1942. After I graduated, I went to Penn State, a land-grant university where everybody took ROTC. I was in the ROTC band, on the saxophone. During World War I, my father was an army musician playing the cornet. He was in the band that toured with President Wilson when Wilson did war bond speeches.

How long did you stay at Penn State?

One year. I had joined the Enlisted Reserve Corps. I didn’t want to wait until I was drafted. There was an electrical engineering professor who said, “It’s going to be very helpful to you to take my course in radio.” I took his course and got the certificate. So, when I went on active duty, they sent me to Camp Crowder, Missouri, to become a radio operator. I learned to climb poles and operate switchboards, telephones, and radios.

Then they told me, “You’re going to have to be driving a communications jeep.” But, I said, “I never drove, my parents never had a car.” They said, “Ah, you’re just the guy we’re looking for. We’re going to teach you the army way.” So, I got an army driver’s license for the jeep. Learned how to drive on a 45-degree angle. Then one day they said, “We’re going to put you in the ASTP—Army Specialized Training Program—at the University of Denver to study engineering.”

So, you were back in college through 1943.

Until General [George C.] Marshall decided that they needed infantry much more than they needed college educations. They closed almost all the ASTP units and assigned us to combat divisions.

Where did you get assigned? 

The 42nd, the Rainbow Division, Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. Our division commander’s name was [Major General] Harry Collins. I was training as an infantryman, assigned to K company, a rifle company, when the personnel office discovered that I had this radio operator qualification. So, they reassigned me to communications in Headquarters Company, 242nd Infantry Regiment.

When and how did you travel overseas? 

Late November ’44 on a troop ship, a converted freighter. They needed troops in Europe, so they didn’t wait to send the whole division. They sent our three infantry regiments, without our artillery, support services, Signal Corps. Crossing the Atlantic was pretty bad. Three of us had to share the same bunk. So, we took turns sleeping, took turns eating. Almost everybody got seasick. Disembarked in Marseille. 

Where did you go then?

We had to go through the Vosges Mountains because they needed troops north. It was very icy. I’m driving along the side of a mountain with a big drop-off on the right. I went into a spin. I wouldn’t be talking today if the spin had taken me over the side. I’ll never forget this: The motor pool sergeant came roaring up. He just chewed me up and down because I had banged up his beautiful brand-new jeep.

The 42nd was part of Task Force Linden (under Brigadier General Henning Linden, the Rainbow’s assistant division commander), which entered combat in the vicinity of Strasbourg, France. What was your involvement in the fighting? 

Close-in artillery support. Within sight of German troops. The forward observers are right at the front lines or in front of the front lines calling in the artillery support. At first, I had a backpack radio which was not very reliable. So, we relied more on wire connections. I had a rack on the back of a jeep to hold the spool of wire. I would also carry a sound-powered phone plus the radio so we could communicate firing orders on troop concentrations, artillery positions, machine gun nests. We were almost always under fire.

What were weather conditions like?

Very, very bad. It was reported later that it was one of the worst winters they’d ever experienced in Europe. It was cold, wet snow, sleet. We were not well equipped. We had field jackets and a sweater and gloves. That was all you had in terms of the cold. Some of our heaviest casualties came from what they call trench foot. 

Did you ever have trench foot?

One reason I did not was a sergeant in our section who had been stationed in Alaska. He told us how to avoid trench foot. Always carry an extra pair of socks and, when they get wet, put ’em under your armpits to help dry them out. If you could change your socks, you could avoid trench foot.

In February 1945, Task Force Linden came under attack during the German “Operation Northwind” offensive.

My little piece of that was a railroad station in a little town called Rittershoffen. My buddy Kenneth Schultz and I were in the upper floor of the station to set up communications when the Germans attacked. We had a bird’s-eye view. We see these big Panthers [German tanks] coming at us. Kenny Schultz and I had to stay, relaying orders to direct fire to stop the tanks.

We finally got the order that we could leave. We grabbed the crystals out of our radio, ran downstairs, and jumped in the jeep. There were holes in the jeep, but it ran. It didn’t look like we were going to get away, but a platoon of tank destroyers saved our lives. I’ll never forget those Black soldiers who stayed at their posts in those tank destroyers and allowed us to escape. If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. 

After rest and refit, the Rainbow Division continued north. Describe what that was like for you. 

On almost the very first day we went back into combat, our company commander, Captain Kohler, was killed. He was out in front setting up observer posts. A German mortar managed to kill him. And that was a blow to our morale. He was a heck of a good guy. So, Dobson, our first sergeant, got a battlefield commission. Dobson helped me. In the [Vosges] mountains you could only go so far with the jeep. You had to carry everything. I’m a little guy carrying the radio, the wire, the phone. I may have even had an M-1. I got to the point where I just couldn’t move, and he grabbed some of the stuff I was carrying. One time there were mules, carrying supplies and equipment. And that helped a great deal.  

Tell me how your unit got across Rhine. 

On boats. We heard these trucks coming down the road and they were gray-painted navy trucks pulling trailers with landing boats on ’em. What the hell is the navy doing here? 

What was the going like once you crossed? 

Well, there were firefights, but we were moving pretty fast. At this point, the Germans were retreating. We were all headed for Munich. But before you get to Munich, there’s an airfield. I remember some of the soldiers were jumping on top of the Messerschmitts to get souvenirs. But I headed for the headquarters building in my jeep. I get to the building, and here is the base commandant. He was in no mood for fighting. He surrendered to me, a private first class. I don’t think I was a corporal yet. 

I know that it can be difficult to talk about, but what do you remember about reaching Dachau concentration camp?

Bodies stacked up like cordwood outside the gate. I saw these boxcars with all these bodies, and it was just horrible. You see these emaciated [bodies] not much more than a skeleton. I found a dead German soldier; it might have been one of the guards. He had a belt buckle [inscribed in German] “God is with us.” How could anybody who believed in a God believe they could treat human beings the way these people had been treated? 

On March 30, 1972, the aging revolutionaries in Hanoi’s Politburo abandoned the strategy of protracted struggle and launched an all-out conventional invasion of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). By mid-April, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) had committed its entire combat capability—14 divisions, 26 separate infantry regiments, and 1,200 tanks, plus all its artillery regiments and engineer battalions.

The NVA also introduced weapons heretofore not seen in Vietnam: large formations of T-54 tanks; AT-3 Sagger anti-tank missiles; and SA-7 shoulder-fired, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles. Fighting raged in Quang Tri province near the DMZ, in An Loc 60 miles from Saigon, and in the Central Highlands, threatening Kontum City. The U.S. press named it the Easter Offensive since it began on Holy Thursday, the first day of Easter celebrations for South Vietnam’s Catholic population.   

My Mentor in Vietnam

As in the early 1960s, the only Americans fighting on the ground were a handful of U.S. advisers with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). One of them was Lt. Col. Charles L. “Chuck” Butler, an adviser with the 31st ARVN Regiment, 21st ARVN Division, who I met the first week of May ’72.  

I was a major, just assigned as the adviser with the 6th Airborne Battalion, Vietnamese Airborne Division. The battalion was co-located with the 31st Regiment and was reconstituting after being decimated near An Loc, Binh Long’s provincial capital, 15 miles north. Although I had served a previous tour in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division, I had no advisory training. When I received my orders in January 1972 to return to Vietnam in late April, I requested attendance at an abbreviated Vietnamese language course and adviser training school at Fort Bragg. My assignment officer in Washington, D.C., denied both requests, stating I would be assigned to the MACV staff in Saigon. Little did he know!  

Chuck Butler was a seasoned combat veteran. He had been an adviser in Vietnam from 1963-64 and an infantry platoon leader during the Korean War. He was a true font of knowledge and had a great perspective on the war. His counsel proved to be invaluable to me as I was getting my feet on the ground. Because Chuck was a modest man, I didn’t learn of his heroism in Korea until years later.  

Chuck in Korea

Charles Lewis Butler was a member of the U.S. Military Academy’s class of 1950—670 men who graduated on June 6 that year. He and 197 of his classmates were commissioned in the infantry. Nineteen days later, North Korea invaded South Korea, drawing the United States into a war for which it was ill-prepared. The American defense establishment was gutted in the aftermath of World War II. Rapid demobilization, draconian budget cuts, and an inept management produced a hollow force. To stop the North Korean onslaught and fill the ranks, many members of the USMA class of 1950 were immediately sent to Korea, including Chuck Butler.  

Chuck said goodbye to his new bride, Joan, and on Aug. 20, 1950, was aboard a troop transport sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. He was assigned to F Company, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. The division was needed in Korea but was woefully understrength. Due to the severe shortage of infantry lieutenants, recent West Point graduates were sent into battle without any training other than what they received at the Military Academy.  

Chinese communist forces swarmed into North Korea in November 1950. Gen. Douglas MacArthur had discounted the possibility of Chinese intervention, but their appearance in large numbers prompted him to order the withdrawal of United Nations troops north of the 38th parallel. The 3rd Infantry Division was tasked to cover the evacuation of 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division as they left the Chosin Reservoir and moved to the port of Hungnam on North Korea’s east coast.  

On Dec. 15, Chuck’s platoon was given five tanks and the mission to assist a beleaguered U.S. unit. Then-Lt. Butler described what happened as he led his small force. “We suddenly came around an S-curve in the road and on both sides of us the hills crawled with Chinese. I was hit in the arm…then I was hit in the groin.”  

Unable to walk, he ordered his wounded men placed on the tanks, while he was lifted onto the lead tank. Although gravely injured, Chuck manned a turret-mounted machine gun and provided covering fire, allowing his task force to disengage from hundreds of Chinese and return to friendly lines. Butler was evacuated to Japan and hospitalized for three months. Upon returning to duty in Korea, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross—the Army’s second highest decoration for valor.  

To Vietnam

Twelve years later, in the fall of 1963, Maj. Chuck Butler was in Vietnam, assigned as an advisor with the 9th ARVN Division, operating in the Mekong Delta. The delta region was the agricultural heartland of the RVN; its provinces contained two-thirds of the nation’s population and produced the bulk of its rice crop.  

1963 was a period of great turmoil. President Ngo Dinh Diem failed to stem the growing communist insurgency or increase popular support for his government. Restrictions on religious freedoms ignited a crisis, resulting in Buddhist riots and self-immolations by monks. Diem’s refusal to initiate any liberal reforms in the face of mounting opposition caused President John F. Kennedy to lose all faith in him. It was the last straw for the Kennedy Administration and word was quietly relayed to Saigon that JFK was amenable to a regime change.  

The ARVN generals spent more time plotting coups and jockeying for positions than opposing the communists. The ARVN stayed in their cantonment areas while VC cadres took advantage of their apparent paralysis. Frustration mounted among advisers like Maj. Chuck Butler, who wanted to challenge the enemy. However, no amount of prodding could energize the ARVN. Meanwhile Diem’s government continued to accept U.S. economic and military aid at the rate of $1.5 million dollars per day ($14 million per day in today’s dollars).  

On Nov. 1, 1963, ARVN troops commanded by Gen. Duong Van Minh attacked the presidential residence in Saigon. Diem and his brother, Nhu, escaped and hid in the Chinese quarter of the city. The brothers surrendered the following day, assuming they would be sent into a comfortable exile. Gen. Minh had other ideas and ordered their execution.  

Diem’s death was followed three weeks later by President Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22. It created uncertainty in Vietnam over what the new U.S. policy might be. Immediately, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, issued a directive emphatically stating that he would stay the course in Southeast Asia. LBJ saw the political fallout in 1949 when Mao gained power in China and was determined not to be the president who “lost Vietnam.” ARVN military leaders breathed a sigh of relief.  

Aftermath of Assassinations

In the coup’s aftermath, Minh and his Military Revolutionary Council enjoyed widespread acclaim. The euphoria dissipated when the new rulers showed little aptitude for governing, squabbling over every issue. No progress was made against recent VC inroads or instituting needed reforms. Political instability was perpetuated when a bloodless coup on Jan. 30, 1964, ousted the Military Revolutionary Council.  

Chuck Butler noticed the turbulence created by the revolving door in Saigon. Political loyalties and family ties trumped military professionalism, so generals who were closely allied with the new leadership received choice assignments. They, in turn, brought their loyal subordinates with them to fill jobs throughout the ranks. Butler observed two rounds of leader changes, both of which degraded military effectiveness. When his tour concluded in September 1964, the downward spiral continued, resulting in the commitment of U.S. combat troops in the spring and summer of 1965.  

Opting for a second Vietnam tour rather than retirement, Lt. Col. Butler returned in September 1971. Again he was assigned as an adviser in the Mekong Delta, but this time with the 21st ARVN Division. The unit was responsible for the southernmost portion of the Delta, which contained the famous VC sanctuary, the U Minh Forest. The ARVN had been relatively successful subduing the insurgency throughout the region and pacifying the countryside. Butler was pleased to see the improvement.  

Helping Junior Officers in Vietnam

The senior adviser to the 21st ARVN Division was Col. J. Ross Franklin, a legendary warrior-scholar with multiple Vietnam tours and a doctorate in international relations from American University. He also spoke fluent French. Franklin and Butler were West Point classmates and held each other in high esteem. Both had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross during the Korean War and served together at Fort Benning’s Infantry School after the conflict. Franklin assigned Chuck as his deputy with a primary focus advising the division’s two principal staff officers, the G2 (Intelligence) and the G3 (Operations).  

Within the 21st ARVN Division combat assistance team, Butler gained a reputation for mentoring junior officers. Capt. Ed DeVos, on his first assignment in Vietnam as an assistant adviser with the 33rd ARVN Regiment, was a beneficiary of Butler’s insights. Arriving in December 1971, the captain sought out Chuck Butler and asked him many questions about the role of a junior officer “advising” men who had been fighting their entire adult lives. A recipient of two Silver Stars during the Easter Offensive, DeVos cited his admiration for Butler in his 2020 book, The Last 100 Yards.  

The 21st ARVN Division’s mission abruptly changed on April 7, 1972. President Nguyen Van Thieu convened a meeting of key officials to assess the military situation. The border town of Loc Ninh had just fallen to the communist juggernaut and Binh Long’s provincial seat, An Loc, was the NVA’s next objective. If An Loc fell, there were no forces to stop an enemy advance on Saigon, 60 miles away. Thieu made the unprecedented decision to move the 21st ARVN Division from the Delta to reinforce the defenders of Binh Long Province.  

Even in the face of the largest North Vietnamese offensive of the war, U.S. withdrawals mandated by the Vietnamization program continued. Personnel shortages in division and regimental assistance teams were the norm. Regimental teams were authorized a lieutenant colonel, three captains, and two sergeants but it was not unusual for only one or two Americans to be with an ARVN regiment; the U.S. Army replacement system simply could not keep pace with battle casualties, medical evacuations for sickness, and end-of-tour rotations.  

Rather than allow a key vacancy to remain unfilled, Butler volunteered to be the senior adviser with the 31st ARVN Regiment. Chuck Butler always went to “the sound of the guns.” Still, he remained Franklin’s “go-to” guy for most problems and was in charge of the division assistance team in the senior adviser’s absence.  

By April 12, the division was assembled in Lai Khe, the former base of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, and told to open QL (National Route) 13 to An Loc. The 7th NVA Division had cut the road, further isolating An Loc, now surrounded by two NVA divisions, the 5th and 9th. The 21st ARVN had never operated in the field as a combat division. In its former area, commanders only supervised regimental and battalion operations. Battle-tested SOPs were nonexistent and staff work was shoddy, often lacking clarity. Attacks often failed due to a lack of proper coordination. Commanders at all levels became overly reliant on U.S. airpower, especially B-52 strikes, and were hesitant to move without them.  

Facing Hardcore NVA Forces

Nor had the 21st ARVN previously encountered large formations of hardcore NVA forces that stood their ground and employed heavy artillery in quantities not previously seen. Indirect fire from 130mm and 152mm guns became the major killer of friendly troops. Consequently, ARVN soldiers developed a bunker mentality and literally “went to ground.” Such behavior was particularly prevalent among the leaders.

In a letter to his family, Butler said his ARVN counterpart, Lt. Col. Xuan, only left the regimental command bunker to answer the call of nature. By contrast, Butler regularly checked the troops, usually under fire. Butler’s bravery resulted in the award of the Silver Star, but his example had little effect. No amount of cajoling altered Xuan’s behavior. The commander’s abrogation of leadership responsibilities lowered morale and contributed to inaction.    

While the 21st Division struggled along highway QL 13, I was experiencing a problem establishing a modicum of rapport with the 6th Airborne Battalion commander, Lt. Col. Dinh. He viewed me as useful when we were in a fight because I was the link to U.S. airpower, yet at other times, I was just excess baggage. He was vocal about not needing any tactical input from Americans. Butler attributed this attitude to the impact of Vietnamization. Many Vietnamese, including Dinh, believed they would ultimately be left high and dry by the United States. They were more perceptive than most Americans then serving in Vietnam.  

The Division Fights On

Butler said the specter of our imminent departure and the reduction of our robust logistical system fostered anti-American attitudes. However, he was not overly critical of men who harbored those beliefs. If the intellectual elite in our country and students at Ivy League universities were unable to differentiate between U.S. policymakers and those responsible for implementation of those policies, we shouldn’t be surprised such viewpoints existed here. His observation gave me a new empathy for my Vietnamese counterpart.  

During a moment of levity, Chuck shared his opinion on advisers’ “can-do” attitude. He said it was part of our makeup—but was a blessing and a curse. We tried hard to make improvements, and then felt guilty when our efforts fell short. He left me with the following thought: “Regardless of how hard you try, sometimes you simply can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit!”  

The 6th Airborne Battalion completed rebuilding and retraining at the end of May and was committed back into the Binh Long battle. It fought through the 7th NVA Division’s defenses and linked up with defenders manning the southern portion of An Loc’s perimeter on June 8, 1972. The 6th was the first unit to break the siege and was cited in the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff history of the Vietnam conflict. My relationship with Dinh had vastly improved, thanks to Butler’s sage counsel and my ability to put U.S. bombs on target.  

On June 18, government officials declared the siege of An Loc broken and released the 1st Airborne Brigade (three ARVN airborne battalions, including the 6th) so the unit could join the fighting near the DMZ. Although the siege was officially lifted, the battle was not over. It took from June 18 to June 21 for the paratroopers to fight their way to Tan Khai, six miles south of An Loc. Tan Khai firebase was defended by the 31st ARVN Regiment and provided artillery support for An Loc. It was the furthest advance of the 21st Division and a thorn in the side of the NVA.  

U.S. helicopters were ordered to lift the 1st Airborne Brigade from Tan Khai to Lai Khe so preparations could begin for its air movement north. QL 13 was the designated pickup zone, although airmobile landings near the firebase would attract more NVA incoming artillery fire.  

The Last Time I Saw Chuck

During the lull preceding the arrival of helicopters, I made my way to the regimental command post to see Chuck Butler. Our short reunion was dampened by the news that Lt. Col. Burr Willey, adviser with the 32nd Regiment, had been killed by NVA fire on June 19. Chuck believed helicopters would energize NVA gunners who had forward observers seeded throughout the area.  

Ever concerned about others, Chuck told me to be careful and jokingly said: “The good Lord will look out for you but you have to help Him by not wandering around in artillery fire!” Our meeting was cut short when a radio call informed me the choppers were inbound. We shook hands. I wished him luck and said I hoped to see him again.  

It was a 15-minute flight from Tan Khai to Lai Khe, the 21st ARVN Division command post. When I arrived, Col. Ross Franklin met our flight. He was visibly shaken, with tears in his eyes. He told me that Chuck Butler had been killed when the bunker he was occupying took a direct hit, probably from a 130mm artillery round. I was in a state of disbelief. I told him I had just been with Lt. Col. Butler less than 30 minutes earlier. Ross Franklin said that I was the last American to see him.  

Charles Lewis Butler was 44 years old when he died. He had recently completed 22 years of Army service. He left behind his wife, Joan, and three children, a son and two daughters. He was laid to rest at West Point on July 5, 1972, where his commitment to the profession of arms began years before. Chuck Butler joined the legion of USMA graduates who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. He was one of 333 West Pointers who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Their service personified the academy’s motto: “Duty, Honor, Country.”  

Although five decades have passed since Lt. Col. Butler was killed on June 21, 1972, it seems like yesterday to me. Memories of him and those times are never far from my thoughts. He was very helpful during my initial days as an adviser and I meant to tell him so when we were together, but I missed the chance. It is a lifelong regret. I continue to mourn the passing of an outstanding soldier, a genuine war hero, and a friend.  

During the 1972 Easter Offensive, John Howard was an adviser with the Vietnamese Airborne Division, serving with the 6th Airborne Battalion and the 11th Airborne Battalion. He serves on the advisory board of Vietnam magazine.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

See more stories

SubscriBE NOW!

 

One of the most iconic paintings to depict the horrors of war is Francisco Goya’s The Third of May 1808, which depicts an incident during the Peninsular War against Napoleon in Spain.The nighttime scene of a group of Spanish civilians facing execution by a French firing squad was remarkable for its time, being utterly devoid of the patriotic glorification of war that characterized most contemporary war art. Goya based the painting on reprisals the French army carried out against citizens of Madrid in the wake of the Dos de Mayo Uprising against Napoleon’s occupation forces.

When French troops were attacked by supporters of the deposed Spanish royal family, the French commander Marshal Joachim Murat posted broadsides around the city proclaiming: “The population of Madrid, led astray, has given itself to revolt and murder. French blood has flowed. It demands vengeance. All those arrested in the uprising, arms in hand, will be shot.” Because “arms in hand” was interpreted to mean any person found with scissors, pocketknives, or shears, numerous innocent civilians were summarily shot without trial in the roundups that the French carried out in reprisal after the uprising. As many as 700 Spanish citizens were killed in the revolt and its aftermath.

Vengeance in War

Military reprisals against civilian populations have occurred throughout thousands of years of recorded history. Genghis Khan’s Mongols are said to have massacred the entire population of the Persian city of Nishapur in 1221 in reprisal for the killing of the Khan’s son-in-law during the siege. The death toll, according to contemporary chroniclers, may have been more than 1.5 million men, women, and children.

During the Peasants’ Revolt against Egyptian conscription policies in Palestine in 1834, Egyptian troops committed mass rapes and killed nearly 500 civilians when they captured the town of Hebron in their campaign to put down the uprising. When imperial Qing forces recaptured Guangdong province during the Taiping Rebellion in 1853, they massacred nearly 30,000 civilians a day. According to some histories, the total death toll from unrestrained reprisals in that province alone amounted to approximately a million people.

After the Prussian army invaded France during the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, territory under Prussian occupation quickly felt the harsh hand of military rule, and reprisals against the local population were part of the Germanic policy of military domination. When the regular formations of the French army went down in defeat, local citizen militias organized as francs-tireurs initiated a low-intensity guerrilla war against Prussian forces. In retaliation, the Prussians not only summarily executed any captured francs-tireurs, but also rounded up and executed numbers of civilians unfortunate enough to reside in the vicinity of those attacks.

20th Century Conflicts

With this experience in mind, at the onset of the First World War the German army was predisposed to harsh treatment of civilians in its area of operations. In 1914, German infantry burned the Belgian town of Leuven and shot 250 civilians of all ages in retaliation for attacks on German soldiers. Hundreds more Belgian citizens in the towns of Dinant, Tamines, Aarschot, and Andenne were killed in of the reprisals.

In military history of the 20th century, Nazi reprisal operations against civilians during the Second World War are frequently cited as extreme examples of reprisal as a war crime, to the point that the very word “reprisal” is almost inextricably linked to the German military in that conflict. However, it remains an undeniable fact that even nations usually regarded as being outspoken champions of lawful warfare have stubbornly resisted the idea of completely giving up the option of carrying out reprisals, even if they did not often resort to such action in practice.

Reprisal was long regarded as an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of a nation’s ability to wage and win wars; near universal condemnation of military reprisals as a legitimate tactic is a relatively recent development in international laws of war. Looking back at Nazi war crimes during the Second World War, it is important to distinguish between the types of war crimes. The Nazi effort to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population was perhaps the most horrific example of state-sponsored genocide. On the other hand, Nazi policies such as the Commissar Order of June 6, 1941, and the Commando Order issued a year later on Oct. 18, 1942, both ordered the summary execution of all enemy combatants of certain specific type and were criminal under international laws of war because they were illegal orders. When it came to reprisals, the German military took a longstanding concept of warfare accepted by most nations and transformed it into something that far transgressed the original idea of mutual restraint articulated in extant laws of war. The way in which German forces conducted military reprisals graphically illustrate the danger that faced any nation that clung to the idea that reprisal was a legitimate tactic of war.

Defining War Crimes

The reasons why reprisals continued to be defended in laws of war as long as they did, even if most nations were careful to describe them as a measure of last resort, was because they were believed to be necessary in two particular tactical situations: to respond to an enemy’s violation of the laws of war, a response in kind in order to force one’s foe back into lawful belligerency; and to retaliate against an elusive, irregular enemy who could not otherwise be engaged by conventional means of combat.       

These were exactly the arguments made in both American and British concepts of laws of war well into the 20th century. As the American Rules of Land Warfare on the eve of the Second World War stated “…commanding officers must assume responsibility for retaliative measures when an unscrupulous enemy leaves no other recourse against the repetition of barbarous outrages.” The British Manual of Military Law of the same era declared that reprisals “are by custom admissible as an indispensable means of securing legitimate warfare.”

What neither code stipulated, however, was any measure of proportionate response. As the German military demonstrated all too often between 1939 and 1945, any doctrine that allowed reprisal without explicitly linking its implementation to limited, proportionate response was a recipe for the worst kinds of atrocity. In 1948 the United Nations War Crimes Commission suggested that one reason why the Second World War saw such flagrant violations of previously existing laws of war was perhaps because “the institution of reprisals which, though designed to ensure the observance of rules of war, have systematically been used as a convenient cloak for disregarding the laws of war…” That accurately described the German use of reprisals during the Second World War. Almost immediately from the beginning of Nazi occupation of conquered territories during the war, it was clear that reasonable restraint and proportionate response would be completely ignored. In German reprisal operations, regardless of whether the action was carried out by the SS or Wehrmacht units, restraint was never in evidence.

When French Resistance operatives assassinated a German naval cadet in Paris in 1941, Nazi occupational authorities put up posters all over the city declaring an official policy stating that 10 French citizens would be executed for every German soldier killed. Even that arbitrary limit was meaningless, because when a senior German officer was killed a short time later, the Germans seized 50 French civilians at random and shot them all, warning that if the assassins were not identified another 50 Frenchmen would be executed. When the deadline passed, the Germans shot another 50 civilians. In that instance, regardless of the stated reprisal policy of ten to one, the ratio of lives destroyed was 100 to one, each an innocent civilian who had no connection to the act that precipitated the reprisal.

Reprisal on the notional scale of 10 to one occurred in other Third Reich reprisals. The same calculation was used after a partisan bomb in Rome on March 23, 1944 killed thirty-two people, most of them members of the SS Police Regiment Bozen. The local German commander, Luftwaffe Generalmajor Kurt Mälzer, ordered that 330 Italians were to be executed in reprisal for the attack, a number that represented 10 victims for every person killed in the bombing (even though five people killed in the incident were themselves Italian civilians). The day after the partisan attack, in an incident remembered as the Ardeatine Massacre, 335 Italian citizens were shot in groups of five by SS officers in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome. The youngest victim was 15; the oldest was 74. The disparity between Mälzer’s chosen number and the additional five people murdered in the operation was because when five prisoners in excess of the expected count were mistakenly delivered to the massacre site, the Germans simply shot them along with the others.

The International Military Tribunal

In an earlier incident that underscored the degree to which the German military could disregard even notional concepts of proportionality, the Germans perpetrated a more savage act of reprisal at Kragujevac, Serbia, in October 1941. After a partisan attack killed 10 German soldiers and wounded 26 others, soldiers of the 717th Infantry Division summarily shot 300 random civilians. Over the following five days a district-wide retaliation resulted in the executions of another 1,755 people, including 19 women. This brutality was possibly prompted by the issuance of the “Communist Armed Resistance Movements in the Occupied Areas” decree, signed a month earlier by Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, who was later tried for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. That order specified that on the Eastern Front, 100 hostages were to be shot for every German soldier killed and 50 were to be shot for every soldier wounded. The resulting Kragujevac massacre caused the deaths of nearly 2,800 Serbs, Macedonians, Slovenes, Romani, Jews, and Muslims. When the initial roundup of hostages did not turn up enough adult males, 144 high school students were seized and shot. German troops had carried out reprisals in earlier wars, but never occured on such a homicidal scale as under the Nazi regime. After 1914 the German word “Schrecklichkeit,” which can be understood as “terror,” entered the lexicon to describe these actions against civilians. The massacres of Lidice in Czechoslovakia, Oradour-sur-Glane and Maillé in France, Wola in Poland, and Sant’Anna di Stazzema in Italy, are only five on a long list of atrocities the Nazis carried out in the name of military reprisals.

The International Military Tribunal and other war crimes tribunals that took place following the Second World War represented a seismic shift in how reprisals were considered under international laws of war. Reprisal continued as an option in lawful warfare, but in much more carefully delineated form. As the Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law explains, “It is important to distinguish between reprisals, acts of revenge, and retaliation. Acts of revenge are never authorized under international law, while retaliation and reprisals are foreseen by humanitarian law.”

The essential distinction in that statement is that reprisals against civilians are now considered to be in the nature of revenge, and therefore never legal. “In times of conflict,” as current legal opinion holds, “reprisals are considered legal under certain conditions: they must be carried out in response to a previous attack, they must be proportionate to that attack, and they must be aimed only at combatants and military objectives.” Limited reprisals against soldiers, however, still remain in the realm of extreme possibility.

The U.S. Civil War

This is not a new idea. During the American Civil War, when the Confederate States threatened to not treat captured Union soldiers as legitimate combatants if they happened to be Black men, the United States issued the Retaliation Order of 1863. “The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy’s prisoners in our possession,” the Order stated. “It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.” The fact that the Retaliation Order specifically provided for reprisals against enemy prisoners, rather than enemy soldiers on the field of combat, is the only part of that order that would violate modern restrictions on military-vs.-military reprisals.

The U.S. Civil War was also the conflict during which the German American jurist Franz Lieber transformed American military law with his revolutionary work General Order 100. As Article 27 of Lieber’s Code stated, “The law of war can no more wholly dispense with retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch. Yet civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponent no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage.” The point of Lieber’s position was that retaliation was sometimes necessary to prevent greater violations of lawful warfare, but also that careful restraint was indispensable. “Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful,” Article 68 stated, a declaration that 80 years later could have been applied to Nazi practices of military reprisals. In the interim, the U.S. Army used General Order 100 to justify reprisals on the Island of Samar during the Philippine-American War. Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith ordered his troops to “kill everyone over the age of ten [and make the island] a howling wilderness.”  

Civilians and International Laws

A detailed examination of military history shows that reprisals against civilians always exacerbates conflict and heightens resistance rather than eliminating it. The German military never managed to stamp out resistance to its occupation forces during WWII, no matter how savage the reprisals it unleashed against civilian populations. Reprisals also present the risk of an unending cycle of violence as each opposing side responds to the hostile acts. In the words of the U.S. Naval Handbook, “there is always a risk that [reprisal] will trigger retaliatory escalation (counter-reprisals) by the enemy. The United States has historically been reluctant to resort to reprisal for just this reason.”  

Of course, reluctance to engage in an act is not nearly the same thing as an outright policy prohibiting it. As the International Committee of the Red Cross observes, although “favour of a specific ban on the use of reprisals against all civilians is widespread and representative, it is not yet uniform.” Even today, with all of the advances in international conventions on lawful warfare, the United States and Great Britain still have not unreservedly committed themselves to a total ban on the use of reprisals in war.   

The United States “has indicated on several occasions that it does not accept such a total ban, even though it voted in favour of Article 51 of Additional Protocol I and ratified Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons without making a reservation to the prohibition on reprisals against civilians contained therein.” Great Britain, for its part, “made a reservation to Article 51 which reproduces a list of stringent conditions for resorting to reprisals against an adversary’s civilians.” Both nations have preferred to hedge their bets and retain the option of a military tactic they might use only in the extreme but are not willing to completely forego.

Current conventions on international laws of war have made great strides in restricting the use of reprisals in war but have never succeeded in eliminating it in practice. It is doubtful that the practice will ever completely disappear from the world’s battlefields, though it is to be hoped that such actions will increasingly be regarded as war crimes rather than legitimate combat.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See more stories

subscribe now!