RyanCrierie
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quote:
Band of Brothers was propaganda , USMC grabbing glory in the post WWII media ……….
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As for Ryan C's comments, he apparently has a Eurocentric viewpoint of WWII.
Actually, the airborne divisions were the most egregious offenders in the ETO; they spent large parts of the war undergoing "training/rest/refitting" at regular intervals.
To give you an example; the One Oh Worst arrived on the night of 5 June in Normandy and after a mere 38 days in the line, pulled out on 13 July to England, where they spent 66 days doing well, nothing, until they dropped at Arnheim. Arnheim was a bit more dicey, as the Bridge too Far Campaign required 72 days in the line for the One Oh Worst to fix up, before being sent to France for a 20 day vacation, which was interrupted by the Battle of the Bulge.
Third Armored is a much better representative unit; they entered combat on 29 June in Normandy, and with only occasional breaks of a few days rest, fought all the way from the Hedgerows into the Ruhr, and established the following records:
First artillery fired into Germany by 991st Field Artillery Bn. on 9/10/44 at 13:00 hrs. in vicinity of Eupen, Belgium, with 155mm M-12 self-propelled guns.
First to advance across the German border by Task Force Lovelady under Lt. Col. William B. Lovelady, east of Eupen and south of Aachen, on 9/12/44 at 14:41 hrs.
First to capture a German town, Roetgen, west of Bonn, by Task Force Lovelady, with first actual entry into the town by 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Bn., 9/12/44.
First to breach the Siegfried Line by Task Force "X" under Lt. Col. Leander L. Doan in the vicinity of Scheidmuchle, Germany, on 9/13/44.
First to advance across the Siegfried Line by Combat Command "A" on 9/15/44 under Brig. Gen. Doyle O. Hickey.
First to shoot down a German plane [FW-190 fighter-bomber] from German soil by M-16 halftrack crew from Battery C, 486th AAA Bn on 9/18/44. T/5 Russ Eick, quad-.50 gunner.
First to capture a major German city, Cologne, west side of Rhine River, during March 5-6, 1945.
First ground invasion of Germany by foreign force since 1810, the final year of Napoloen's expeditions into then Prussia.
Record Holder: Longest one-day advance in history by lead elements of the 3AD in the northward drive toward Paderborn, Germany, 3/29/45, 101 miles, as part of U.S. First Army operation to encircle the Ruhr Pocket.
Same thing occured in the Pacific.
While the Marines got the headlines, the Army did a lot of dying, unremarked by the headlines.
The Japanese never had any operational depth, or firepower worth speaking of in all the various Marine landings in WWII except for Okiwana; you only need to look at the land area of the various places they had to seize:
Gavutu-Tanambogo: 24~ acres (0.0375 Square Miles)
Betio (Tarawa): 0.45 Square Miles
Tulagi: 1 Square Mile
Peleliu: 5 Square Miles
Iwo Jima: 8 Square Miles
Saipan: 46.5 Square Miles
Okiwana: 463 Square Miles
Even the "famous" land battles of the Corps aren't that impressive.
Guadalcanal, for all it's hype was nothing more than the Marines landing a force into a random nowhere island, and overrunning existing Japanese facilities that were weakly defended by construction troops; and then holding the resultant Lunga Beachhead; a mere 22.5~ square miles for several months against attacks by weakly supplied Japanese forces who could come ashore relatively easy from the Tokyo Express, but couldn't bring any heavy weapons ashore in large numbers, resulting in the awesome tactical brillance of Banzai charges against dug in Marine positions; resulting in such great battles as the October 23-26 battle for Henderson Field which ended with 2,200 to 3,000 Jap KIA and only 80 Marine KIA.
Sure, a Banzai Charge is dicey if they get close enough to your perimeter, but in such battles the kill rate is so outrageously in your favor you win anyway as they'll have expended all of their men in them, for no effect at all. By the way, the largest Banzai charge ever, on Attu Island, was defeated by US Army troops.
As a bonus, actually clearing Guadalcanal of Japanese needed a whole Army Corps who landed after the Marines left. As an even further bonus, MacArthur's forces conducted 52 (!) amphibious operations between the invasion of Leyte and the end of the Pacific War.
A while back I surveyed "To Foreign Shores : U.S. Amphibious Operations in World War II", by John A Lorelli.
It's a very revealing read; and reveals some things I did not know; such as the Army having contact with Higgins of Higgins Boat fame before the war; regarding landing craft; which does rebut the Marine claim of "we were the only ones farsighted enough to talk to Higgins!", and it makes the Marine/Army philosophical differences regarding amphibious landings clear.
Marine Amphibious doctrine was a direct evolution of what the Marines throughout the Corps' history, small local operations centered around very little opposition to seize small strips of land; and was carried forth into it's doctrine during WWII; seizing isolated outposts where reinforcements were not likely to arrive.
The Army's doctrine on the other hand, was a direct evolution of it's Mexican-American and Civil War experience with Amphibious operations, and was centered around invading large continental land masses where immediate and strong enemy reinforcements and counterattacks would be quickly coming.
This carried out into basic loading doctrine during WWII; the USMC wanted a 5 day basic loadout as the minimum for invading an island, while the Army wanted a 10 day basic ammunition load out along with a host of other things minimal. Also, beachhead doctrines were totally different; the Marines wanted as little supplies to be unloaded onto the beaches to keep them clear, so that they could be rapidly moved off of.
The Army on the other hand preferred to unload as much as they could as fast as possible onto the beaches and to hell with congestion.
This did not make them very popular with Navy Quartermasters; because the Army liked to overload whenever possible; which meant that usually the first LVTs off a ship would sink due to overloading, and stuffing 600 men onto a LST that the Navy says can only hold 400 men.
The Army's amphibious doctrine is superior as evidenced by two events during WWII:
Sicily 1943: When the beachhead was counterattacked nearly immediately by full fledged Panzer Divisions with a weight of equipment the Japanese never had, and it was held.
Biak 1944: The US Army lands with 12,000 troops to take out an island whose garrison is estimated to be 2,000. Only after the battle begins do we find out that there actually are 11,000 Japanese troops on the island, and as an added bonus, the major landing beach on Biak overlooked a cliff full of Japanese. As a bonus, the Japanese contested Biak with major air and sea forces, for example Yamato and her sister sortied to attack the landings at Biak, but were called off because of the landings on Saipan.
It comes down to this:
Biak: 12,000 Army troops vs 11,000 Japanese; 1.09 to 1 ratio; 474 KIA and 2,400 WIA.
Tarawa: 35,000 USMC troops vs 3,000 Japanese; 11 to 1 ratio; 1,000 KIA, 2,296 WIA.
The difference?
Marine doctrine called for advances at all costs, Tarawa was taken in about 3 days, while the Army's doctrine called for methodical advances, Biak took about a month.
This doctrinal difference came to a head on Saipan, when Howlin Mad Smith USMC, relieved the commander of the US Army's 27th Division, because he felt that the division was moving too slowly, instead of the mad-dash craziness of Marine Doctrine.
< Message edited by RyanCrierie -- 1/10/2009 4:01:45 AM >
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