Mythos revisited: American Historians and German
Fighting Power in WWII
by Thomas E. Nutter
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Chapter Twelve
JOHN SLOAN BROWN
DRAFTEE DIVISION. THE 88TH INFANTRY DIVISION IN WORLD WAR II.
John Sloan Brown's Draftee Division had its origin in the author's
doctoral dissertation at Indiana University. The author's personal nexus with
his subject, however, is of much greater significance to his work than his
professional interest in it. Brown is a professional soldier; his father served
as a junior officer with the 88th Infantry Division, and his maternal
grandfather, Major General John E. Sloan, commanded the formation throughout
its career in the Second World War. This is an instance in which we may
truthfully say that the author's connection with his work is visceral.
The central theme of Draftee Division is training. In this sense, the
book has much in common with Mansoor's The GI Offensive in Europe .
Like Mansoor, Brown informs us that the Mobilization Training Program, later
the Army Training Program, provided that U.S. infantry divisions were to have
four major blocks of instruction before being certified combat-ready, viz.
basic and individual training (seventeen weeks), unit training (thirteen
weeks), combined arms training (fourteen weeks) and large-unit maneuvers (eight
weeks). At the end of each stage standardized proficiency tests were
administered by higher headquarters; if the unit failed such a test, it was
usually required to repeat the entire block of instruction. The 88th Infantry
Division did well on all of these "rigorous, demanding and instructive"
tests.(274)
While Brown points out that there were at least occasional problems with the
general mobilization that occurred in the U.S. following Pearl Harbor, he also
admits that with regard to certain fundamental issues, there were sufficient
systems in place even at the start of mobilization to ensure that the process
moved forward efficiently. While there were "logistical difficulties", the many
"draftee divisions" created during general mobilization "never were without
adequate food, clothing, fuel, ammunition, shelter, and equipment." He goes on
to say that
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"[R]ations never proved a serious problem for the fifteen million men America
ultimately put under arms. The Subsistence Branch, the most firmly entrenched
of all quartermaster sub-bureaucracies, had been a separate service until 1912
and had retained a tradition of autonomy through numerous administrative
realignments, including the wholesale quartermaster reorganization of March
1942. Stable bureaucracy produced stable procedure."(275)
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Equally lavish was the supply of wheeled vehicles thought necessary to meet the
needs of an American infantry division. In the case of the 88th Infantry
Division, although it did not receive its full complement of trucks and other
vehicles (more than 700 to support 14,000 men) until eleven months after its
activation, nevertheless "the division always had sufficient vehicles to meet
transportation requirements", both its own and those of "nondivisional
activities and facilities" at its principal training facility. Likewise, the
division never lacked for any sort of equipment, whether essential (weapons and
communications equipment) or otherwise, so that
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"…shortages of T.O. [table of organization] equipment did not much affect the
progress of the 88th Infantry Division through its training cycle. It was true
that equipment arrived later than mobilization planners had hoped, that
equipment shortages complicated scheduling, and that there was no real
substitute for the experience of operating at 100 percent of T.O. Nevertheless,
equipment on hand sufficed to meet actual needs, and equipment shortages never
forced major adjustments in the training program."(276)
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Indeed, so plentiful were vehicles that, like most draftee divisions, the 88th
Infantry Division left behind the vehicles with which it had trained upon
embarkation, and "then drew an entirely new issue of vehicles overseas." While
Brown admits that there were advantages to this procedure, he also asserts that
the training of American divisions was disadvantaged by it, in that the used
vehicles passed on to new owners became increasingly worn. He also claims that
training suffered because the divisions were without their vehicles "during the
months required to move overseas."(277) In this connection it seems prudent to
inquire whether it would have been profitable for the U.S. army to exchange
this problem for that of the German army—insufficient industrial capacity to
produce necessary vehicles for units in the field, let alone units in training,
a situation that in turn required recourse to the commandeering of all manner
of civilian vehicles, thereby compounding the army's supply and maintenance
problems—in order to avoid handicapping the training of the American soldier.
In December 1943 the 88th Infantry Division debarked about seventy-five miles
from Oran in North Africa. There it stayed for more than a month, a period that
General Sloan put to good use. Sloan was able to make use of a French Foreign
Legion base in the Atlas Mountains to retrain the division after three months
of inactivity while it moved from the U.S. to Oran. Some regarded this training
as "the finest training the division ever had." Very shortly after completing
this training period, the division moved to the combat zone. It did not move
into the battle line until the first week of March 1944, and it was May 11,
1944 before it undertook offensive operations.(278)
Even during the period between March and May 1944, General Sloan availed
himself of the opportunity to put the division through yet further training,
believing that time spent in defensive positions had deprived the men of their
offensive skills. The division therefore spent two weeks of intensive training;
this included forced marches over heavy terrain, maneuvers from squad to
battalion level, and special training on the reduction of fortified positions.
The men worked with new weapons, engaged in combined arms training with tanks
and learned to work with liaison officers from air units that would provide
close air support. There was marksmanship training for antitank crews and
individual infantrymen. The division's reconnaissance troop and combat
engineers honed their particular skills.(279)
In this heightened state of readiness the 88th Infantry Division undertook its
first offensive action as part of Operation Diadem a major Allied
undertaking that began May 11, 1944. Although Brown raises the same complaint
asserted by Mansoor, namely that the individual replacement system did not work
in combat, and for all the same reasons, still he refers to the enemy on the
receiving end of the offensive as the "ever wearier Germans" and
"[I]ncreasingly weary Germans" who faced not merely replacements taking the
place of fallen Americans, but fresh American companies moving to the assault.
Brown's verdict is that the 88th Infantry Division lived up to its magnificent
training during the first three days of Diadem . (280)
Over the next two weeks the 88th Infantry Division participated in the breach
of the Gustav Line, after which it pursued the retreating Germans and
"outmaneuvered and outfought" them "time and again." One reason for the
division's success was its superb physical conditioning, which left the
division "in better shape than the Germans of the 71st and 94th infantry
divisions, who had had little opportunity for exercise throughout the long
Italian winter." The Germans were also "fatigued and Americans were not"; and
whereas the 88th Infantry Division was able to frequently replace its leading
formations, "the Germans seldom enjoyed such a luxury." Other elements in the
division's success were an abundance of trucks and mule trains, which
guaranteed a steady flow of supplies of all kinds, and absolute control of the
airspace over the Allied forces.(281)
Following the capture of Rome in the first week of June 1944, the 88th Infantry
Division replenished its losses and commenced yet another period of exhaustive
training. Once again the division trained in maneuvers from squad to battalion
level. There were more marches of great length to improve conditioning, more
instruction in assaulting hardened positions, more close order drill. This
period of training lasted four weeks, in preparation for the division's next
tour of combat, which began on July 8. After seventeen days of fighting, during
which the division suffered almost 2,500 casualties, it again came out of the
line, this time for seven weeks of intensive retraining.(282)
The 88th Infantry Division went back on the offensive on September 21, 1944,
taking part in the U.S. Fifth Army's assault on the German "Gothic Line" in the
North Apennine Mountains. In seven weeks of fighting the division sustained
more than six thousand casualties. Brown asserts that the individual
replacement system failed the division, adding "more to lists of casualties
than to lists of accomplishments." Evidently because of this, "[F]or the first
time the division seems to have suffered more casualties than it inflicted."
"Well-executed German counterattacks" limited the division's gains; "a
masterful German counterattack" wiped out the division's lead company as it
strove to move into the Po Valley. Fifth Army called off the offensive;
throughout the winter the 88th Infantry Division retrained, so that when spring
returned, "the 88th was once again at a peak." It was in battle again for
barely two weeks time before the end came in Europe.(283)
With the end of the 88th Infantry Division's exploits in Italy, Brown moves on
to analyze the reasons for its success. Primary among these was its ability to
overcome the pernicious effects of the individual replacement system. It was
ironic, Brown points out, that the War Department considered the successes of
the 88th Infantry Division and the 85th Infantry Division during Operation
Diadem as vindication of the individual replacement system. This
"illusion that the system had succeeded" resulted in the near destruction of
the 88th Infantry Division in the fighting on the Gothic Line in the autumn of
1944. The only cure for such a problem would have been unit rotation.
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The rude fact was that only unit rotation could sustain prolonged combat, and
the United States had not raised a sufficient number of battalions, regiments,
or divisions to rotate them through a continuous major battle. War Department
planners excused American's relatively modest contribution of ground combat
units by extolling the virtues of an individual replacement system that was to
keep those units at full strength—even when in combat—indefinitely. The virtues
of that individual replacement system were more apparent than real.(284)
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The 88th Infantry Division "sustained its creditable reputation" by effectively
circumventing the individual replacement system by adopting a unit rotation
system. Under this unit rotation system, the division spent two to three weeks
in combat, followed by two to three weeks of rest and retraining. The 88th
Infantry Division was able to approximate this routine throughout the Italian
campaign, with the exception of the autumn of 1944, when it was nearly
destroyed by a prolonged period of combat.(285)
After discussing the need for unit rotation, and its role in the success of the
88th Infantry Division, Brown goes on to elaborate upon the necessity for a
period of gradual initiation to combat. Brown's comments on this point are
important enough to warrant quotation at some length.
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Of thirty-seven draftee infantry divisions, eleven spent a month or more in
England, then shipped to France; one stopped briefly in England, then had a
month in a quiet sector in France; twelve went directly to France and spent a
month in quiet sectors; three trained several weeks in North Africa, then spent
several weeks in quiet sectors in Italy; one went directly to Italy and spent
six weeks in quiet sectors; three went to the Pacific and trained several
months, although the training of one of three was badly broken up; and one went
to Hawaii and trained for the rest of the war without fighting at all. Of the
thirty-seven divisions, only five did not receive some kind of major retraining
experience overseas. These included the ill-starred 106th, sent to a
"quiet sector" that ended up in the path of the German Ardennes offensive of
late 1944; the 75th and 76th, whose retraining experiences were cut short when
they were hastily thrown against the shoulders of the Bulge; and the 92nd and
93rd, black units committed piecemeal rather than as divisions, with
predictable consequences.
The importance of a gradual initiation to combat—of a "warm-up"—should not be
underestimated. Divisions with both a retraining period overseas and a
tour in a quiet sector seem to have done the best of any during their first
major battles. Those with lengthy tours in quiet sectors but no retraining
program did almost as well, and those with neither retraining nor tours in
quiet sectors fared least well….
A comparison can be made, for example, between the 99th and the 106th infantry
divisions during the first days of the Ardennes offensive. By December 1944 the
99th had trained briefly in England, had had a month of combat experience in
low-casualty environments, and was considered prime for a major offensive
undertaking. Deployed alongside the 99th, the 106th had come almost directly
from the United States, without significant retraining in England, and was just
beginning to sort itself out in the quiet Ardennes. Both divisions found
themselves in the path of the German offensive. The 99th fell back on its
haunches, then very creditably held the northern shoulder of the Bulge until
help arrived; the 106th folded in a little more than a day. The 106th was more
exposed, to be sure. Among other differences between the two divisions,
however, one must number the previous combat experience of the 99th. (Emphasis
added)(286)
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The German army, Brown is frank to admit, not only lacked the ability to
retrain and acclimate its units to combat, but also suffered from more
fundamental problems that contributed mightily to its inability to defeat the
western Allies.
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Deprived of formidable defensive positions, German units of 1944 and 1945 were
generally inferior to their American counterparts. German soldiers were not
only less numerous, they were also less physically fit, less experienced as
marksmen, less thoroughly trained, less well equipped, less well supported, and
less able to make a combination of arms work for them. German counterattacks
often proved suicidal; the best the Germans could hope for from the mobile
battlefield was to escape from it with enough strength to man yet another line
of prepared defenses.(287)
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Having made these statements concerning the advantages possessed by the U.S.
army vis-à-vis the German army, Brown then descends into some of the
nonsensical theories espoused by his compatriots Bonn, Mansoor and Doubler. He
asserts, for example, that the German army in 1944-1945 fielded certain elite
formations—"panzer, panzer grenadier, and parachute divisions"—that "stood in
stark contrast to the infantry divisions that constituted the bulk of the
German army." This circumstance he ascribes to the "fact" that the German army
had a superior replacement system to that of the U.S. army, "and this muted
American superiorities that might otherwise have been more obvious." As has
been previously noted herein, the alleged "fact" that the German army possessed
a replacement system superior to that of the U.S. army has been very
effectively challenged by Robert Sterling Rush, whose pioneering work on the
battle of the Huertgen Forest has demonstrated, on the basis of very hard,
solid research, that the U.S. individual replacement system was not the failure
that Brown, et al have made it out to be, whatever the relative merits
of the German army's personnel system may have been. The present study has also
illustrated that the so-called elite formations of the German army in
1944-1945, while they may have been more mobile than the army's infantry
divisions, were not by any means the formidable juggernauts that Brown,
Doubler, Bonn and Mansoor have described. Most, in fact, even when prepared for
the Ardennes offensive, were undermanned and underequipped.(288)
Brown then moves on to take the same tack as Mansoor by asserting that the
Germans raised more than three hundred divisions during the war, "and did their
best to rotate units out of the line as a means to provide rest, retraining,
and replacement." As partial authority for this statement, he relies upon the
various reports and narratives compiled in the immediate post-war period by
former German officers at the behest of the U.S. army.(289) In this regard, it
would have been well if Brown had identified which of the three hundred German
divisions were rotated out of the line for rest, retraining and replacement.
This is not to suggest that there were no such divisions; politically favored
formations such as the premier Waffen SS panzer and panzergrenadier
divisions and the Fallschirm-Panzer Division "Hermann Goering", as
well as some similar Heer divisions, were indeed taken out of the line
at various times during the war. These formations, however, were not removed
from combat for "rest, retraining and replacement" in the sense that Brown
intends the phrase to mean. Rather, the German authorities invariably removed
these divisions from the battle zone only after they had been reduced to kampfgruppe
size. In these circumstances the divisions in question were not rested,
retrained and refilled by replacements; they were, instead, completely rebuilt
out of the shell that remained. As to the infantry divisions that carried the
greater burden of the fighting in both east and west, one looks in vain for one
that was rotated out of the battle line for the purposes claimed by Brown;
some, like the panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, were reconstructed from kampfgruppen
; many, perhaps most, of these divisions were totally destroyed in combat and
simply either never recreated, or totally reconstituted from formations whose
purpose was to supply cadre and troops specifically for the purpose.
Brown continues his theme—and Mansoor's—by claiming that even "severely
depleted" German units had "leadership and logistical cadres still intact, so
there were always experienced divisional bases to build upon." This is a rather
bald statement even for such a one as Brown to make; the present work has
demonstrated that this argument is fallacious in the extreme. To give but one
example of the errant nature of this theory, one need but look at the
consequences of the aforementioned Operation Bagration. In that case,
over a period of about twelve days the Red Army destroyed (in the
literal sense of the word) over thirty German divisions, with a concomitant
loss of 450,000 men. John Erickson opined that in this battle, the Red Army
"achieved [its] greatest single military success on the Eastern Front. For the
German army in the east it was a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions,
greater than that of Stalingrad…." While Erickson's remark in this regard does
not overstate the case, it should nevertheless be recalled that at Stalingrad,
a further twenty-two German divisions had been destroyed . If Brown,
Mansoor and others wish to make the case that these fifty-plus divisions were
reconstituted with intact leadership and logistical cadres, they should do so
in detail rather than in baseless generalities. Should they assay to do so,
they will find the going heavy indeed.(290)
Brown concludes his remarks on this thesis by stating that the German army
gained success by holding the line with depleted units, and "in the meantime
building others back up to acceptable levels of manning, training, and
capability. The reserve built up for the Ardennes offensive is the most
dramatic illustration of the process. Manteuffel's Fifth and Dietrich's Sixth
panzer armies were probably as good as any the Germans ever fielded." These
statements are palpable nonsense, particularly with regard to the German units
that the Western Allies confronted in Western Europe in 1944-1945. Brown must
take a truly dim view of the American training system if he is suggesting that
German divisional formations, composed of 10,000 to 12,000 poorly armed German
recruits and foreign "volunteers" who, if they were lucky, had trained together
for twelve weeks, were the equal of homogeneous American divisions that had
trained together for a minimum of twelve months . It is equally absurd
to argue that the panzer armies that took part in the Ardennes offensive were
"as good as any the Germans ever fielded," and for many of the same reasons.
The majority of the German soldiers who had comprised the panzer armies that
wreaked havoc in France and Russia in 1940 and 1941 had long since perished, to
be replaced by ill-trained youngsters. The quality of German weapons undeniably
had improved since 1942; those weapons were no longer wielded, however, by
soldiers so schooled in combined-arms warfare as to make efficient use of
them.(291)
Brown's motivation in mischaracterizing the composition and combat power of the
German army in the last year of the Second World War is manifest; such
dissimulation on the Wehrmacht allows him to make a colorable argument
that the U.S. army heroically overcame not only the German army but also the
insidious and ruinous American individual replacement system. Having thus
falsely inflated the composition and capabilities of the German army of
1944-1945, it is ironic that Brown then devotes his second appendix to
eradicating what he calls "The Mythos of Wehrmacht Superiority." The appendix
in question is a mere seven pages long; in it, however, Brown engages in
innuendo against the public at large as well as outrageous personal attacks on
other historians.(292) As we consider Brown's appendix in detail, the reader
should bear in mind that elsewhere in his narrative of the exploits of the 88th
Infantry Division Brown characterized the Germans as having "long since proven
themselves masters at improvisation;" as having "fought on tenaciously" in
spite of the general deterioration of their position in Italy in the spring of
1944; as conducting "well executed" and "masterful" counterattacks to halt the
Allied advance in the autumn of 1944; and last, but certainly not least, as
having possessed a personnel replacement system superior to that of the U.S
army.(293) Having in mind the tenor of Brown's second appendix, one would not
be remiss in concluding that these descriptions of the German army are totally
disingenuous, constituting mere puffery inserted by Brown to enhance the
achievements of the 88th Infantry Division.(294)
"The Mythos of Wehrmacht Superiority" begins with Brown's utterly
unsubstantiated assertion that the Wehrmacht is the object of
"pervasive adulation." Even at the time that Draftee Division was
first published (1986), and indeed well before that date, the Wehrmacht,
and particularly the German army, had been the object of widespread and
detailed criticism by military and other historians. Such criticism was founded
not only on moral grounds, but also upon analysis of the performance of the
German army, and particularly its officer corps, in battle. John Erickson's The
Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin were published in
1975 and 1983 respectively; Earl F. Ziemke's Stalingrad to Berlin: The German
Defeat in the East first appeared in 1968; Bryan Fugate published Operation
Barbarossa: Strategy and Tactics on the Eastern Front, 1941 in 1984;
George H. Stein's The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War 1939-1945
first appeared in 1966; the first American edition of History of the German
General Staff by Walter Goerlitz came out in 1953; Gerald Reitlinger's
The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 published first in 1957; Soldiers
of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 by
Charles W. Sydnor, Jr. published in 1977; and Omer Bartov's The Eastern
Front, 1941-45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare first
appeared in 1985. It may be stated without fear of contradiction that none of
these works treated the German army with "adulation." Moreover, this short list
does not include reference to either the official histories of the war
published in the United States or Great Britain or any of the myriad personal
memoirs of the conflict such as James M. Gavin's On to Berlin: Battles of an
Airborne Commander 1943-1946 (published 1978) and Charles B. MacDonald's
The Mighty Endeavor (published 1969), none of which can be characterized
as adulatory of the German army. The very premise of Brown's second appendix is
spurious. So too is the "logic" of his argument; for example, Brown invokes the
image of thousands of captured German soldiers being herded by G.I.s "after
every major European battle the American army fought" as "proof" of the
inferiority of the German army to its American counterpart. If Brown's
intention is to engage in a numbers game to prove his argument, he ought also
to take into account the wholesale surrender of the French and Belgian armies
to the Germans in 1940, the fortuitous escape of the British Army from Dunkirk
in the same year, the capture of thousands of British Commonwealth troops by
the Germans in Greece, Crete and North Africa, and the capture of millions of
Red Army soldiers by the Germans in 1941.
No one is safe from Brown's invective. Not only the French, but also the
British—America's staunchest ally, who stood alone against the German onslaught
until the invasion of the Soviet Union, and whose army turned the tide in the
West at the battle of El Alamein—are accused of inflating German capabilities
for the purpose of "explaining their own ineptitudes." The cartoonist and
author Bill Mauldin, who suffered the same privations as the American combat
soldier (as Brown did not) in order to tell his story to the American public,
is accused by Brown of having "portrayed the American soldier as a lovable
nincompoop without providing a similar service for the Germans."(295)
Brown's particular criticism, however, is reserved for historians and other
academics. In general, Brown asserts, an "historiographical bias" developed in
the immediate post-war era, one that favored the German army over its American
counterpart.(296) More specifically, says Brown, "[S]tudies appeared favoring
those who had a point to prove or an axe to grind."(297) First among the "axe
grinders" is S.L.A. Marshall, whose Men Against Fire Brown condemns
for "suggesting that most American infantrymen spent World War II cowering in
the bottom of their foxholes." As the present study has shown, and the reader
may see for himself by reading the book in question, Men Against Fire is
totally irrelevant to a discussion of the relative prowess of the German and
U.S. armies. Nowhere in Men Against Fire does Marshall compare the
U.S. army to any other armed force, much less the German army. Indeed, as has
been pointed out herein numerous times, Marshall never mentions the German army
in Men Against Fire. Marshall's work evidently struck a nerve with the
U.S. army, so much so that the authors studied in this work have contrived to
make him out as little more than a traitor. This is all the more shocking in
view of the fact that Marshall did no such thing as suggest that G.I.s cowered
before the enemy. Either Brown et al did not read Men Against Fire or,
much more likely, they have deliberately mischaracterized his work for the sole
purpose of giving weight to their flimsy argument.(298)
Brown goes on to suggest that B.H. Liddell Hart "vented his pique on Allied
leaders who did not share his elevated impression of himself." In support of
this claim, Brown does no more than make reference (not in text, where a reader
may easily access it, but in a footnote at the back of the book) to Liddell
Hart's The German Generals Talk. Bearing in mind that no graduate student would
be permitted to criticize an established scholar in this manner, the student
may reasonably ask at least three questions about Brown's impugning of Liddell
Hart; first, what precisely does Brown mean by the phrase in question; second,
where in The German Generals Talk did the alleged venting of pique
occur; and third, what relevance to the "mythos" of Wehrmacht superiority
does Liddell Hart's venting of pique have? Put another way, if Brown finds that
The German Generals Talk contributed to the "mythos", would it not be a
simple matter for him to enumerate the ways in which this was done?(299) Brown
next excoriates certain "behavioral scientists" who "simply by their choices of
subjects, created candid documents hazardous when quoted out of context."(300)
The offending behavioral scientists are identified, again in a footnote at the
back of the book, as Eli Ginzberg et.al., The Ineffective Soldier:
Lessons for Management and the Nation (New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1959); E.A. Shils and M. Janowitz, "Cohesion and Disintegration in the
Wehrmacht in World War II," Public Opinion Quarterly, 12 (1948); and
S.A. Stouffer et.al., Studies in Social Psychology in World War II (Princeton,
N.J., Princeton Univ. Press, 1947-1950). Brown opines that the cumulative
effect of the efforts of Marshall, Liddell Hart and the behavioral scientists
has been "relative images skewed to favor the German soldier over the
American." We have already considered Brown's mischaracterizations of Marshall
and Liddell Hart. Consider now Brown's assertions about "behavioral
scientists", in light of his subsequent comment that the effects of their work,
and that of Marshall and Liddell Hart were not "ameliorated by the fact that a
significant fraction of the public buying World War II books consists of
enthusiasts who collect Nazi memorabilia, construct plastic panzers, and
energetically seek to be the German player in hex-grid war games." It is simply
astounding that such remarks have been published in what purports to be a work
of scholarship. Does Colonel Brown mean to suggest that scholars such as Eli
Ginzberg and Morris Janowitz wrote their works for the purpose of enhancing the
image of the German soldier over that of the American? Does Colonel Brown have
any basis for implying that readers of World War II books, collectors of Nazi
memorabilia, constructors of model panzers, and players of commercial wargames
formed their opinions about the relative merits of German and American soldiers
by reading the works of Marshall and Liddell Hart, to say nothing of the much
more obscure works of Ginzberg, Shils and Janowitz and Stouffer relied upon by
Brown? Upon what scientific basis does Colonel Brown reach the conclusion that
a "significant fraction" of readers, memorabilia collectors, plastic model
constructors and wargamers believe, as he suggests, that the German soldier was
better than his American counterpart? What, precisely, is a "significant
fraction"? Finally, if Colonel Brown is so clairvoyant as to be able to divine
all of the motives of those who purchase World War II books, collect
memorabilia, construct plastic models, and participate in commercial wargames,
then mayhap he should consider another calling more beneficial to himself and
humanity than the writing of tendentious military history.
It is against this background of Brown's false inflation of the composition and
combat power of the German army in 1944-1945, his inaccurate portrayal of the
historical literature, his mischaracterization of the works of Marshall,
Liddell Hart and behavioral scientists such as Eli Ginzberg and Morris
Janowitz, and his utterly baseless assertions about the beliefs and preferences
of the general public that the reader should consider Brown's efforts to
discredit the work of Trevor N. Dupuy. Chapter Seven of the present work
represents an attempt, however incomplete, to shed light upon Brown's
fundamental criticism of Dupuy's Numbers, Prediction, and War, namely
that it "demonstrates the intellectual intimidation wrought when complex
calculations are unleashed upon a liberal arts community," and accordingly it
is not necessary to repeat that material here. The student, however, should not
rely upon the present author's efforts; instead, he or she should take the
trouble to read Numbers, Prediction, and War itself to see whether
Brown's argument warrants serious consideration. For a more authoritative
consideration of Brown's argument, the student should read Christopher A.
Lawrence's Response, which appears in Niklas Zetterling's Normandy
1944 .(301)
Nevertheless, a few specific remarks about Brown's argument need to be made.
First, Brown resorts to the old canard that in Dupuy's analysis the "run of the
mill" U.S. army is compared to "the best of the German army" on the theory that
German panzer and panzergrenadier divisions are overrepresented in Dupuy's
calculations. German panzer and panzergrenadier divisions may have been better
equipped than German infantry divisions in 1944-1945, although it must be said
that in making his criticism on this basis, Brown offers no evidence
whatever to show that the particular panzer and panzergrenadier
formations in Dupuy's analysis were in fact better equipped than the particular
German infantry divisions in the analysis. It goes without saying that Brown
also offers no evidence to show that the German divisions in question were
better equipped than the American divisions included in the analysis. In this
regard it should be reiterated that in writing Numbers, Prediction, and War
Dupuy did look at the historical data; in making his criticism, Brown
did not. More importantly, the present work has demonstrated that the
argument that Dupuy improperly compared the "best" of the German army with the
"ordinary" of the U.S. army, even if true, is of no consequence
whatever. Brown, as well as Doubler, Mansoor and Bonn, have pointed out that
the draftee divisions of the U.S. army could not be certified as combat-ready
without first undergoing a minimum of twelve months' training, and that the
testing regime upon which such certification was based was rigidly enforced. If
any of these four authors can proffer evidence to show a single German
division so situated in 1943-1944, let him do so. The reality is that during
the time period in question, German divisions, no matter what their nature,
were fortunate to have three months' training before being committed to combat,
were smaller than their Allied counterparts, were composed of raw recruits and
a motley assemblage of foreign "volunteers" and were chronically under-equipped
and short on such necessities as fuel and ammunition. Further, more recent and
more well-founded scholarship has shown that the American individual
replacement system was well up to the task of keeping American divisions
combat-worthy.
Brown also complains that Dupuy's analysis unfairly skews the results in favor
of the Germans because in most instances studied the Americans are the
attacker. In so doing, he falls back on the contention that "[T]raditional
rules of the thumb, verified by experience as planning factors and still taught
at command general staff colleges, assert that one needs a three-to-one
advantage in effective combat power—not necessarily numbers of troops—at the
point of decision to overcome a defender in prepared positions." In so doing,
Brown ignores the fact that in Numbers, Prediction, and War Dupuy
called into question this "rule of the thumb"; presumably, Brown ignores
Dupuy's criticism of this time honored theory simply because it was made by
Dupuy. In this connection it is also worth mentioning that both Bonn and
Mansoor, while eager to point out that the German army was on the defensive
during most of 1944-1945, ignore the fact that the U.S. army had the benefit of
being on the defensive when the German army scored successes during the
Ardennes offensive and the Operation Nordwind offensive. Brown's
"traditional rule of thumb" seems to be a rather malleable concept.
Finally, Brown concludes his book by opining that American G.I.s "won World War
II…because, man for man and unit for unit, they were tougher than their
adversaries."(302) Leaving aside the fact that this statement ignores the
contribution—in the case of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming
contribution—made by American's allies to the defeat of Nazism, this statement
remains unproven by Brown, Bonn, Mansoor and Doubler, and will remain unproven
until they or their followers desist from treating the German army and the U.S.
army as equally matched, and devote study to the men and units that made up
each of them.
Footnotes
(274) Brown, pp. 36-37.
(275) Ibid., pp. 50-51.
(276) Ibid., pp. 57-58.
(277) Ibid., p. 73.
(278) Ibid., pp. 78-84.
(279) Ibid., pp. 101-104.
(280) Ibid., pp. 120-121.
(281) Ibid., pp. 131-135.
(282) Ibid., pp. 140-145.
(283) Ibid., pp. 145-146.
(284) Ibid., p. 151.
(285) Ibid., pp. 152-153.
(286) Ibid., pp. 154-155.
(287) Ibid., p. 156.
(288) Parachute divisions, it should be noted, should not be characterized as
"elite" formations, if mobility is regarded as a necessary attribute of an
"elite" formation. Parachute divisions were no more mobile than run of
the mill infantry divisions, which is to say that they were not very mobile at
all.
(289) Brown's reliance upon the post-war reports of former German officers is
illustrative of an interesting phenomenon in which he and other professional
denigrators of the German army at one and the same time cite such sources as
evidence that the Wehrmacht was not hobbled by anything like the "90 division
gamble" or the American individual replacement system, and as proof that the
German officers who authored the reports were nothing more than self-serving
liars whose purpose in life was to exonerate themselves from any responsibility
for the miscarriage of the German cause by shoving the blame therefor onto
Hitler. In view of this phenomenon, how is the serious student of military
history to decide when the German officers in question are lying, and when they
are telling the truth? May such a student rely upon someone with so obvious a
bias as Brown for guidance in making such a decision?
(290) Brown, p. 157. On the subject of the German army's losses at Stalingrad
and in Operation Bagration, the reader may consult Erickson, John, The
Road to Berlin: Stalin's War with Germany (Yale University Press, 1999),
pp. 38, 228; and Glantz, David M. and House, Jonathan M., When Titans
Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas,
1995), pp. 214-215.
(291) Brown, p. 157.
(292) In using the phrase "other historians", the present author makes the
assumption, perhaps unwarranted, that Brown ought to be regarded as an
"historian" on the ground that he earned a professional degree in the field.
However that may be, it should be obvious that Brown's name cannot be uttered
in the same breath with that of B.H. Liddell Hart and Trevor N. Dupuy; Brown's
meager and shaky contribution to the historical literature is infinitesimal
when compared to the large body of work contributed by each of these men.
Brown's personal attack on S.L.A. Marshall is even more egregious, considering
that in the work complained of (Men Against Fire) the German army is
not mentioned even once.
(293) Brown, pp. 124, 130, 146, 157.
(294) The achievements of the 88th Infantry Division, it should be noted, are
not in need of false enhancement.
(295) Brown, p. 168.
(296) Ibid. On this point, Brown claims that "German sources available to
English-speaking authors were dominated by official records and the testimony,
and later memoirs, of captured German officers." The inference suggested by
Brown, namely that the only evidence available to the English-speaking
historian in the immediate post-war era consisted of the self-serving testimony
and memoirs of former German officers, is totally untrue. The Allies captured
nearly intact the wartime records of German divisions, corps and armies. These
documents, which do not bear the taint of post-war reminiscences intended to
exonerate their authors, have been available to historians at the National
Archives for half a century. Brown did not make use of these primary source
materials in writing Draftee Division. His ignorance of these
documents is not unique; until very recently most historians have not made use
of them.
(297) Parenthetically, it surpasses understanding that Brown could make such a
statement, or that such a statement could be published. There is no greater
exemplar of a person "who had a point to prove or an axe to grind" than John
Sloan Brown.
(298) Brown, pp. 168-169.
(299) Ibid., p. 169.
(300) Ibid. What, exactly, is a "candid document"?
(301) Christopher A. Lawrence is the current Director of the Dupuy Institute.
The full citation for Normandy 1944 is found elsewhere in the present
work. The Response appears at pp. 450-462 thereof. Parenthetically,
consider the arrogance of one who suggests that the "liberal arts community" is
intimidated by the complex calculations in Numbers, Prediction, and War.
Most liberal arts schools in the present author's experience require students
to demonstrate ability in mathematics and the sciences. Hence, such "liberal
arts communities" would include instructors capable of engaging in and teaching
"complex calculations" at the college/university level. Students in such
colleges/universities are even capable of learning about "complex
calculations". Indeed, college/university degrees in such subjects a
mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology are traditionally awarded under the
rubric "liberal arts."
(302) Brown, p. 175.
Copyright © 2004 by Thomas E. Nutter.
Please send comments to Thomas E. Nutter at: tenutter@gmail.com.
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