The U.N. in Africa

The Campaign in the Hurtgen Forest

The Green Hell: The Hurtgen Campaign | PDF | 128 Pages | 30 Mb

The Green Hell (2e)

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In the summer of 1944, as the Allied armies swept out of Normandy and Western France, the end of the war seemed within their grasp. But then American troops from the First Army reached a little-charted forest at Hürtgen and a great opportunity arose. Breaching this would gain them the western banks of the Rhine River – the last natural obstacle into Nazi Germany. But almost immediately what started out as a promising advance became a brutal slog.

Ferocious fighting crippled three American divisions and mauled another. The fighting consumed so much that men didn’t even have the energy to bury the dead. Replacements came “bug-eyed, in small, frightened bunches,” many soon to join the casualty lists. One American general called it a dreadful place and “one of the most costly, most unproductive and most ill-advised battles that our army has ever fought.” Another eyewitness, Ernest Hemingway, wrote a novel on the events. But a myopic focus on other campaigns reduced the Hürtgen fighting to a dim memory. Today it is virtually forgotten, especially in America. But Hürtgen remains a landmark of war’s inhumanity, of heroism and the limits of human military endeavor.

Includes: 14 Maps, +80 photographs and illustrations, a detailed order of battle. For examples of pencil art accompanying the text, check post: “Hurtgen Forest Artwork.”

♦

This monograph is a result of the surprising number of people who have contacted me over the years asking for more information about this campaign or to relay that a dear family member had lost his life on this battlefield – all because of a study I had once done on a now-defunct website. This work would not have been possible without their interest.

Instead of publishing it for monetary gain, I have instead released it on this website in the hopes that it will add to the growing public awareness of this half-forgotten campaign and the men who fought it.

Peleliu 1944

(LEFT) The Palau Islands chain which contained Peleliu. (RIGHT) The Peleliu Island group on the day of the assault.

The impetus for this Peleliu section came out out of a recent talk with an interesting older fellow who had recently met Joseph Mazzello (of HBO’s The Pacific fame) on 49th Street in NYC. Somehow this fellow and I (the old guy, not Mazzello) went into a conversation, discussing of all things: the best places in NYC, The Pacific, Broadway, Mazzello, Spielberg, the Yankees and some other stuff I can’t even remember anymore.

After we said our goodbyes, I got to thinking of Mazzello. Aside from two or  three episodes, The Pacific was a God-awful disappointment. But I thought Mazzello did a tremendous job portraying  his real-life character, Eugene B. Sledge, a mild-mannered professor of biology at Auburn University in later life, a veteran marine during the Second World War whose androcentric last name was perfectly suited to that of a combat soldier – except that Sledge was no blowhard. He frowned upon the chest-thumping, jingoistic meatheads that seem to comprise a percentage of military forces everywhere. His book on the subject, a searing portrait of combat, becomes anti-war, like every great movie about war. The message, aptly recounted by Private Doll in another great war book, The Thin Red Line, is: “War don’t ennoble men, it turns ‘em into dogs.” Sledge repeated as much in Studs Terkel’s Pulitzer-winning non-fiction book, The Good War. The old Terkel foundation has offered Sledge’s complete interview on their website. They make for fascinating listening. Find them here:

http://www.studsterkel.org/gwar.php

I thought it would be really interesting to blend Sledge’s experiences and the narrative of another enlightened Marine, Robert Leckie, into a study of the Peleliu battle. This monograph will probably take some time to write because I can only work on it when I am not busy with other, critical things. Meantime, for those who think that the Pacific campaign is just another esoteric conflict in the sordid history of humankind, kindly regard the photos below. History, at its essence, is the personal, half-concealed story of men and women, a story that offers humanity a glimpse of itself.

 

(LEFT) An unknown Marine, the strain of fatigue and combat showing on his face, returns to a transport ship after the battle for Eniwetok. I have always wondered who this guy was and what happened to him. The National Archives tag offers no hint of a name or a unit. (National Archives NA 26-G-3394)

(RIGHT) Another photo from the Eniwetok battleground: Three Marines, smudged and weary from two days of continuous fighting recuperate on a troop ship.  PFC Faris M. “Bob” Tuohy, 19, holds the coffee cup.  The other men are sadly unknown. (National Archives NA 26-G-3345)

Eugene Sledge after the war, in front his microscope. Like many hardened combat veterans he gave up his pre-war hobby of hunting, disgusted by the act of frivolous killing.  His fervor instead turned to preservation. (Auburn University)

(LEFT) Japanese machine-gunner, with his Type 99 LMG slung over his shoulder. (RIGHT) US machine-gun team.

Update, 6 January 2012

It looks like I may never be able to complete this project because of personal commitments and other writing tasks. Therefore, I have decided to put up some of the material that I had collected, especially some photos. For those still interested in learning more on this hell of a campaign, I urge you to visit: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-Peleliu/index.html which contains the original USMC monograph on Peleliu written by Major Frank O. Hough in 1950. The 205-page document has a great deal of information and some excellent maps and photographs.

(click images for larger picture)

 

(LEFT) An aerial view of Peleliu taken some years after the battle. (USAF) (RIGHT) LCI (G) rocket-firing ships pound the beaches on D-Day. (USMC)

 

(LEFT) Despite the terrific American air and sea bombardment, when the smoke cleared, it was discovered that the Japanese artillery and mortar fire had knocked out dozens of American landing craft and DUKWs. (US Navy) (RIGHT) Marine Amtracks of the 3rd Armored Amphibian Tractor Battalion chug towards the shore. The closest vehicle is an LVT-1, indicated by its 37mm main cannon, while the others, equipped with short 75 mm guns are LVT-4s. (US Navy)

 

(LEFT) Smoke rises from disabled US amphibious craft seen from above “White” and “Orange” beaches. The white line of water is the reef edge. (US Navy) (RIGHT) On D-Day, Marines take cover around a LTV-4 numbered “B-6″ near “White beach 2.” (USMC)

 

(LEFT) Marines H.T. Backous (on left) and C.E. Schneider stand in front of Maj. Parker’s knocked-out command tank. Backous was the driver and Schneider was in the turret with Parker. (RIGHT) Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, the commander of the 1st Marine Regiment speaks with one his lieutenants. Before the war, Puller had served in the Caribbean, Haiti and Nicaragua. In 1930′s China, he had commanded a detachment of the famous Horse Marines at Shanghai in 1934, encountering his first Japanese here – who, suffice to say, did not afford a favorable impression. During the campaign on Guadalcanal, he won his 3rd Navy Cross and for his leadership on New Britain, was promoted to lead the 1st Marine in February 1944. (Both photos, USMC)

 

(LEFT) This fantastic shot of the deck of an LST (No. 202) shows it to be crammed with jeeps, trucks and supplies of all sorts, including rolls of barbed wire, tanks full of drinking water, food and munitions. An LST had a standard displacement of 1,780 tons and a complement of 8-10 officers and 100-115 men. It was ships like these that made America’s liberation of the Pacific possible. (RIGHT) A flamethrower-armed LVT-4 on Peleliu pummels a Japanese dug-out. (Both photos, USMC)

 

(LEFT) Two marines take a smoke break. In the background is an LVT. The man on the right is armed with a Browning .30cal M1919 Light machine-gun. (USMC) (RIGHT) Marines pose in front of a captured Japanese flag on Peleliu. Trophies like this were well sought after and frequently found. (National Archives)

 

(Both Photos) Marine wounded found themselves first extracted from the battlefield by stretcher and then evacuated by plane (first photo, National Archives; second, USMC)

 

(LEFT) A frightened-looking Marine captured on film. (National Archives 520616) (RIGHT) The ethnicity of this Marine is curious. He has been described as an African-American, although he may have been Puerto-Rican. (National Archives)

 

(LEFT) An all-black unit of Marine Stevedores shelters in the sand dunes at Peleliu during a break in combat. Despite their employment in a combat zone, it is uncertain how much combat black Marines experienced in the Pacific, owing to the segregated policies of the US Armed Forces during World War II. In this photo, the fact that these men hug the earth while other white marines stand calmly upright in the background seems to indicate that this unit had little prior exposure to battlefield conditions. (RIGHT) Two Marines wait for instructions during an assault.

 

(LEFT) A disabled Japanese Type 95 tank of the divisional tank company of the 14th Division sits dwarfed alongside a LVT-1 near the airfield in September 1944. (RIGHT) A photograph taken just after the Japanese tank counterattack was smashed. The photo looks out towards the Southeast.

 

(LEFT) Col. “Bucky” Harris (at center), the commander of the 5th Marine Regiment confers with a gravely-concerned Lt-General Roy S. Geiger (on left), the CO of the III Amphibious Corps and the egg-bald Maj-General William H. Rupertus, the incompetent, panicky chief of the 1st Marine Division. (RIGHT) Harris’ 5th Regiment gathers on its beach together with Shermans from B Company. (Both photos, USMC)

 

(LEFT) “Chesty” Puller, photographed on Guadalcanal. Despite popular myth built around Puller that he was a great leader and a true soldier’s soldier (a misconception not fed in the least by The Pacific), in reality few of Puller’s men trusted or respected his leadership. Even men from other regiments on Peleliu could be heard saying: “Thank God, we’re not under Chesty’s command.” (US Government) (RIGHT) When  an LVTA-4 nicknamed “Lucky lady,” found itself under siege from a lone Japanese heavy gun, it simply ran it down and although it became stuck in the dug-out, the Japanese obviously came off worse. (USMC)

 

(LEFT) A stretcher team under Sgt. T.D. Barnett rushes a wounded man to a forward aid post. (USMC) (RIGHT) In this famous photograph, a Marine, despite the chronic water shortage on the island, gives up his canteen to a fellow wounded Marine. (National Park Service)

 

A piece of war art that achieved global fame was this 1944 painting by the famous artist, Tom Lea III (pictured on right). Originally captioned “Down from Bloody Nose Ridge, he’s finished, washed-up, gone,” it has since become known as the “The Two-Thousand-Yard Stare.” Born in El Paso in 1903, Lea was an “embedded” LIFE magazine reporter with the 1st Marine Division in 1944 and witnessed first-hand the carnage on Peleliu. He later wrote that “my work there consisted of trying to keep from getting killed and trying to memorize what I saw and felt.” Lea died on 29 January 2001 at the place of his birth, El Paso. (print image, US Army Center for Military History; Tom Lea photo by the Tom Lea Institute)

Stalingrad

Stalingrad Pocket | PDF | 100 Pages | 15 Mb

Stalingrad Pocket

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In the summer of 1941, the might of German military adventurism rolled east into the Soviet Union, catching the Russians completely by surprise. Entire swathes of territory fell to the Nazis. The Russians lost 3,000 planes on the very first day of the invasion alone. By the summer of 1942, the Germans were deep in Russia but none of the important cities had fallen. Moscow and Leningrad, under siege, held on. In the south, Russia’s third city, Stalingrad, came under attack. A spectacular battle began here, epitomizing the most complicated of the human condition: betrayal, courage, sacrifice and stupidity. The fighting became a symbol of the titanic contest between Hitler and Stalin, committing nearly two million men and women in a struggle that would decide the future of the war on the Eastern Front.

Includes: 13 Maps/Aerial Photos, orders of battle for both sides and +50 photographs.

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Jan Baalsrud – The Strength of Human Will

A note on the process: The base 3D map was created in E-on Vue 9 CGI software with data from Google Maps. The rest of the image was completed in Adobe Photoshop. The dimensions of the ship on the upper left corner are obviously exaggerated for effect.

Baalsrud in the late-1950s, while serving as a consultant for the film about his life, “Ni Livs” (Nine Lives), which was in effect Norway’s first notable motion film. (Young, Vernon, A Condemned Man Escapes: Five Films on the Subject, The Hudson Review, Vol 12, No 4, Winter 1959-1960). Both Photos: Scanpix.

The Conquest of Mt. Everest

Some choice quotes from the returning heroes:

“  Well, George, we knocked the bastard off. ” - Edmund Hillary to friend, George Lowe, after coming down from the mountain.

“ It has been a long road … From a mountain coolie, a bearer of loads, to a wearer of a coat with rows of medals who is carried about in planes and worries about income tax.” - Tenzing Norgay in Man of Everest, 1955.