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Mythos revisited: American Historians and German Fighting Power in WWII
by Thomas E. Nutter
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Chapter Three
RUSSELL WEIGLEY, EISENHOWER'S LIEUTENANTS
Another historian pilloried by his critics for having "trumpeted the tactical
superiority of the Wehrmacht at the expense of the American army" is
Russell Weigley, one of the most prominent American military historians of the
post-World War II era. The work for which Weigley is criticized in this respect
is his Eisenhower's Lieutenants, a study of the U.S. Army and its
performance in Western Europe from June 6, 1944 to the end of the war.(26)
Mansoor opines that "Weigley gave the American army faint praise" in Eisenhower's
Lieutenants. In particular, Mansoor complains that Weigley
mischaracterized the U.S. army as lacking "the staying power to fight a war of
attrition against their German opponents." He is also unhappy with Weigley's
argument that in the American army "the quality of …infantry units was so poor
that they could not routinely close with and destroy the enemy" and that the
"pedestrian tactical abilities" of American generals led them to wage a war of
attrition for which their army was ill suited. From Mansoor's point of view,
however, Weigley's greatest failing was his conclusion that the material
resources of the U.S. Army enabled it to "rumble to victory" in spite of its
combat ineffectiveness against the Wehrmacht.(27) Michael Doubler
makes the same criticism of Weigley, noting especially the author's contention
that the war dragged on longer than it should have owing to the paucity of
American military skills. Both Mansoor and Doubler agree that Eisenhower's
Lieutenants played an essential role in promoting the "popular
argument…that the German army was the ultimate paradigm of operational and
tactical success in World War II, while its American opponents muddled through
to victory by the application of overwhelming resources and awesome
firepower."(28)
Does Russell Weigley assert that the U.S. Army lacked the staying power
necessary to fight its German opponents, that the quality of American infantry
was so poor that it could not come to grips with the enemy, that American
generals were "pedestrian"? Does he claim that the Americans were able to
"muddle through to victory" solely because of their possession of superior
resources and firepower? The record manifestly does not support these
contentions. The meat of Eisenhower's Lieutenants begins with
Weigley's description of the U.S. Army's first harrowing day on the European
continent at Omaha Beach. Here Weigley addresses the contention, advanced by
Chester Wilmot(29), that the near disaster on Omaha Beach demonstrated that the
U.S. Army was unequal to the task assigned to it, especially when the American
experience is compared to that of their British allies on the beaches farther
to the north. Weigley recounts how Gen. Omar Bradley, the American officer
responsible for Omaha Beach, contemplated abandonment of that assault as his
troops sustained mounting losses under the withering fire of the German
defenders. The valor and initiative of the American soldiers ashore removed the
necessity for such an unpleasant decision.
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The officers and NCOs and natural leaders among the
privates on the beach spared Bradley a final decision. Perhaps without a
combat-experienced division, the 1st, as the core of its landing force, Omaha
Beach could not have been taken. In late morning, by example and by
exhortation, the bravest of the leaders began to gather growing clusters of
followers around them, and to urge the men forward into the hills bordering the
exits. Colonel George A. Taylor of the 16th Infantry enjoined the men around
him: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are
going to die---now let's get the hell out of here."….Company C of the 116th
Infantry, urged on by the regimental commander, Colonel Charles D.W. Canham,
and by the assistant commander of the 29th Division, Brigadier General Norman
D. Cota, moved up west of the Les Moulins draw and worked its way to the crest
of the bluffs, to permit General Cota to open his command post there. The 5th
Ranger Battalion followed closely. Canham persuaded men to advance by pointing
out that they were being murdered as long as they remained on the beach---they
might as well move up and take their chances of being murdered inland. Cota
found a bulldozer abandoned just where it could have broken the antitank wall
at the exit from the beach. "Who drives this thing?" he asked. No one answered.
"Hasn't anyone got guts enough to drive the damn thing?" he demanded again. A
soldier slowly rose and deliberately approached the bulldozer, saying, "I'll do
it." Cota responded, "That's the stuff. Now let's get off the beach," and other
men began to rise, too. Both Canham and Cota thus won the Distinguished Service
Cross….Yet the initiative, the bravery, and the tactical skill in the indirect
approach among the soldiers on the beach had between midday and darkness turned
General Bradley's thoughts from withdrawal to reinforcement. The casualties on
Omaha had been high…But mainly, the casualties reflected the toughness of the
German resistance. Significantly, the British to the east, who did not have to
face cliffs and steep bluffs like those at Omaha, had an easier time of
it---everywhere but on their extreme right, around the village of Le Hamel,
where their 50th Northumbrian Division collided with the right of the same
enemy 352d Division that defended Omaha. There, the British fared scarcely
better than the V Corps.(30)
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The foregoing passage not only typifies Weigley's overall approach to the valor
and resourcefulness of the American soldier, but also illustrates his own
sensitivity to a truly unfair criticism offered by Wilmot. In fact, Eisenhower's
Lieutenants is replete with praise for the American fighting man and his
leaders. Thus he describes Major General Manton Eddy, commander of the Regular
Army 9th Infantry Division in both Tunisia and Normandy, as leading his unit
with "conspicuous boldness and skill". Likewise he depicts General "Lightning
Joe" Collins, commanding the U.S. VII Corps, as commanding his units with
"peppery vigor" and the "ruthless intolerance of a Philip H. Sheridan toward
leaders less impatient than himself for success" so that unlike the Army of the
Potomac, the U.S. First Army in Europe was "fortunate enough to have found its
Sheridan at the very outset of its campaigns." Weigley characterizes the
successive commanders of the 2nd Armored Division, General Lucian Truscott and
Major General Edward H. Brooks, as "bold" and "solidly competent"
respectively.(31)
The works of Weigley's critics are filled with praise for the skills of the
American fighting man, as well they should be, and descriptions of the
advantages possessed by their German foes. Contrary to what Weigley's critics
would like us to infer, however, Eisenhower's Lieutenants contains the
same sort of approach. Relating the assault of the VII Corps on the Cherbourg
defenses, Weigley recounts how its troops were having to fight "for every
pillbox…advancing under artillery cover to within 300 or 400 meters of these
emplacements, machine guns and antitank guns firing into the embrasures while
demolition squads worked around to the rear doors, the demolition teams finally
blowing up the doors and thrusting pole-charges and phosphorous grenades
inside."(32) Likewise he sounds even more like his detractors, praising the
American infantrymen for their resourcefulness in the bocage, where they
struggled against "tough and stubborn German defenders…shielded by the
hedgerows and armed with a formidable array" of weapons.(33)
Weigley tells exactly the same story as his critics regarding the development
of the "Rhino" tank as an answer to the problems presented to armor by the
hedgerows. Thus, he describes how on July 14, General Bradley visited the 2nd
Infantry Division to see the Rhino, invented by Sergeant Curtis G. Culin of the
102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. The Rhino featured long frontal
projections of heavy steel construction, allowing the Sherman tank to engage
the hedgerow and drive through it without exposing its underside to enemy fire.
Bradley saw the beauty of this idea, ordering even tanks yet to be shipped from
England to be equipped with the devices, so that by the beginning of Operation
Cobra, sixty percent of First Army's tanks were provided with this unique
earthmoving structure. Both Mansoor and Doubler recount this same story. How is
it, then, that Weigley's work is pro-German, and theirs is not?(34)
Weigley's picture of the American advance across the Seine rivals anything
found in the writings of his critics. It was led by VII Corps, comprising 1st
Infantry Division ("General Huebner's North Africa, Sicily, and D-Day
veterans"), 9th Infantry Division ("so well brought up and well commanded so
long by General Eddy") and the 3rd Armored Division, transformed by Maurice
Rose "into a marvelous thing".(35)
It is indeed true that Weigley is critical of American conduct of operations,
but this fact does no more than highlight the fact that Weigley's analysis of
the Allied campaign in Europe is even-handed, while those of his detractors are
not. For example, both Mansoor and Doubler are at some pains to describe the
valor, resourcefulness and determination of the American soldiers in assaulting
and taking the port of Brest.(36) Weigley does no less. His analysis of the
incident, however, reveals not only these qualities, but also the shortcomings
of the approach taken by the American leadership. He points out, for example,
that the VIII Corps suffered 9,831 casualties in taking Brest and 38,000
prisoners. This involved a commitment of 80,000 troops, whose commander General
Troy Middleton was given first priority in supply by General Bradley, even
ahead of the Allied troops who were forging on toward Germany. In addition, for
the better part of a month Bradley diverted "a considerable part of the AAF's
European strength" to aid Middleton. Bradley told General Patton that the
reason for this was that "we must take Brest in order to maintain the illusion
of the fact that the U.S. Army cannot be beaten", a view with which Patton
readily concurred. Bradley's postwar explanation of the affair was that the
defenders, General der Fallschirmtruppe Bernhard Ramke and
2.Fallschirm-Jaeger-Division, left him and Eisenhower with no other choice, in
spite of the fact that in other circumstances, such as at Lorient and St.
Nazaire, the Americans had merely sealed off the defenders and left them to die
on the vine. The most critical element of the Brest affair, as Weigley points
out, and his detractors do not, is that it occurred at a time when everyone on
the American chain of command realized that a crisis of supply was developing
which would hinder the ability of the Allied forces east of the Seine to push
aggressively on into Germany. Weigley contends that this failure to seize the
initiative, thus forsaking a major strategic opportunity in favor of a sideshow
like Brest, reflected a persistent obsession on the part of the Allied
leadership with staying ashore instead of being prepared to take advantage of
promising opportunity. Weigley at least presents us with an important question
for examination; his critics utterly fail to do so.(37)
It is a hallmark of works such as those of Mansoor, Brown, Doubler and Bonn
that no quarter is given to the perceived enemy. All praise is given to the
Allies; their enemies are treated with contempt. Put another way, neither side
in the struggle is afforded unbiased treatment. Weigley, on the other hand, is
nothing if not fair minded. While the foregoing discussion illustrates his
trenchant criticism of the conduct of battle by the American generals, his work
is also replete with innumerable allusions to the formidable fighting qualities
of the GI. Thus, while describing the Battle of Arracourt in September, the
author of Eisenhower's Lieutenants recounts how the US "4th Armored
Division demonstrated that it was not to be pushed around easily by such stuff
as the 111th Panzer Brigade" and that it "stood up so stoutly [to the enemy
attack] that the Germans shifted their main effort northward the next day",
concluding that this unit "had proven itself as admirable a formation in hard
defensive fighting as on the racing pursuit."(38)
Both Doubler and Mansoor dwell at some length upon the American assault on the
city of Metz, holding it up as an example of Yankee ingenuity and persistence
in the face of an objective that favored the defender. Weigley does the same,
but his account is without the sanitization that characterizes those of his
critics. In this vein he describes the failed American attempt to take Fort
Driant, which from its position on the heights south of the city commanded its
approaches with heavy caliber cannon. After a week's heavy fighting, the
Americans dominated the German position but could not take it. Weigley quotes
Captain Jack S. Gerrie, commanding Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment, as
reporting on October 4 that "[T]he situation is critical. A couple more
barrages and another counterattack and we are sunk. We have no men, our
equipment is shot and we just can't go on. The troops in G are done, they are
just here, what is left of them…The enemy artillery is butchering these troops
until we have nothing left to hold with. We cannot get out our wounded…."
Weigley credits Patton with admitting that the frontal assault on this bastion
had been a mistake, in spite of his own determination to seize the objective
"if it took every man in the XX Corps, but he could not allow an attack by this
Army to fail." Because of Patton's intervention, the assault on Fort Driant was
called off, all of the Americans were withdrawn by the night of October 12-13,
and Patton and his staff concentrated on taking Metz by envelopment. Weigley
observes that the Americans learned well from their experience at Fort Driant.
A month later, still working at the reduction of Metz, the 90th Infantry
Division assaulted Fort Konigsmacker along the Maginot Line.
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"Driant had helped teach the Americans not to go
down into the tunnels of such works, but to persist in chipping away with
satchel charges, thermite grenades, TNT blocks, and dousings of gasoline from
above. Infantry and engineers stormed to the top of Fort Konigsmacker early on
the first day, got themselves well established on its west side by nightfall,
and with systematic blasting away at its ferro-concrete forced its surrender as
a gift to General Patton on his birthday…."(39)
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Noteworthy are Weigley's comments regarding the Vosges, about which Bonn has
written. He describes its unique natural characteristics and inherent
defensibility, but concludes that rather than rely simply upon these factors,
the Germans counted on two elements, namely the weakness of Devers' French army
and the Schwarzwald, which lies directly across the Rhine from the Vosges
chain. The interposition of the mountains of the Black Forest between the
Allies and any worthwhile strategic objective enabled the Germans to rely upon
a thin defensive line in the region.(40)
The author of Eisenhower's Lieutenants , like his detractors, makes a
point to eulogize the ingenuity of the U.S. army while under the strain of
combat. His account includes the story of General Terry Allen's 104th Infantry
Division in the Roer Plain. The General had made a special point to train his
units in the art of night fighting, in response to the predilection of the
Germans to make use of the nighttime hours for surprise attack. Allen used his
414th and 415th Infantry Regiments to attack and drive out the German defenders
of the town of Eschweiler by night. His 413th Infantry Regiment used the cover
of darkness to attack and hold Hill 154 and part of the town of Puzlohn, both
of which objectives had successfully resisted the regiments daylight
assaults.(41)
The famous confrontation at Bastogne provides Weigley with the opportunity to
praise his fellow Americans yet again. Weigley's critics insist that he helped
foster the "myth" of German combat effectiveness by holding the Wehrmacht
up as the epitome of operational professionalism. The story of Bastogne is only
one of many instances in which the Germans come up short in Weigley's analysis.
Here, he notes that the 2. Panzer-Division, 116.Panzer-Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division,
the Schwerpunkt of the 5.Panzerarmee, "dithered while the
Americans rushed to reinforce Bastogne". The reinforcement was done by the
501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived
in the town at midnight on December 18 after an eight-hour march through
darkness, fog, snow and rain.(42)
Weigley's description of the Battle of the Bulge illustrates clearly that he is
anything but an uncritical toady of the German army, as urged by his
detractors. Discussing the failure of the 2.Panzer-Division and its XLVII.Panzerkorps
to move on the Meuse without delay when the opportunity presented itself---on
December 21 little in the way of organized defense stood between the Germans
and the river---Weigley remarks upon the "sluggishness" of both the division
and the corps, accounted for to some degree by the fatigue of both the landsers
and their equipment. According to Weigley, however, "fatigue does not offer
sufficient explanation" for the "uncommendable hesitancy" of the two German
formations before the American roadblock at Bastogne, "which greater
aggressiveness might have brought promptly into German hands."(43)
Weigley's entire retelling of the story of the Bulge is so replete with
references to the combat prowess of the Americans as to represent a paean to
them. The inability of no less than four panzer divisions---Panzer-Lehr-Division,
2. Panzer-Division, 116.Panzer-Division and 2.SS
Panzer-Division "Das Reich"---to move forward with their accustomed dash
is attributed by the author to the "stubborn resistance to being pushed around"
exhibited by the "multiple scratch forces" of GIs in their path. He notes that
the "bravery and resourcefulness" of the Old Hickory Division, the 3rd Armored
and the 740th Tank Battalion, and their respective attachments "cut the heart
out of the 1st SS Panzer Division". He comments upon the public tendency to
lump together Bastogne and the Bulge, doing "an injustice to the resistance of
other American troops who were not at Bastogne" but whose fortitude irrevocably
turned the tide of the war in the west. He relates in detail the heroic
counterattack of the US 84th Infantry Division to retake the village of
Verdenne on Christmas Day, its hard-pressed men fighting house to house with
their German counterparts and confronting the panzers on their own until the
arrival of part of the 771st Tank Battalion enabled the Americans to retake the
village and destroy all of the enemy's tanks.(44)
It is also worth noting that Weigley, like his critics, bemoans the
inefficiencies of the American replacement system. On this subject he quotes
Patton, who told his diary that "we are forced to fight…with inadequate means",
the nature of which the General informed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson were
replacements and ammunition. In spite of these inadequacies, however, the
Allies prevailed in the Battle of the Bulge, a victory that "belonged
preeminently to the American soldier". It was the "stubbornness and bravery" of
those soldiers which enabled their generals to succeed in
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"wresting the momentum of battle away from the enemy
and in time restoring it to the Allied command. The history of American wars in
the twentieth century has mainly witnessed the American armed forces in
possession of enough material superiority that doubts can reasonably be raised
whether a duel with an equally well equipped enemy might not find the American
military a paper tiger, too dependent on material superiority to get along
without it. The Ardennes battle, like Guadalcanal but on an immensely larger
scale, is one of history's few means of reducing such doubts. With material
superiority nonexistent in the Ardennes or nullified by the weather against a
Wehrmacht that, if not in its high summer of 1940 or 1941 was still…in
the strength of its Indian summer---against these adversities and temporarily
abandoned by many of his generals to his own resources, the American soldier
won the battle. If the victory was less than complete, the fault lay mainly in
generalship's failure to seize fully the opportunities created by the valor of
the men at Lanzerath, Clerf, Stavelot, St. Vith, the Baraque de Fraiture, and
scores of other places besides the fabled Bastogne."(45)
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Reading such a passage, one must reasonably ask whether the criticism of
Weigley by Mansoor and his ilk amount to anything more than the creation of
another straw man to suit their purposes.
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A final occasion for plaudits to the American armed
forces is Weigley's description of the Saar-Palatinate campaign of 1945. In the
author's opinion, "the campaign was notable for its display of the American
army's sharpening instinct for the jugular. The campaign's two envelopments, of
the German 7 Armee by two columns of Patton's Third Army, and then of the
German 1.Armee by both Patton's Third and Patch's Seventh Armies, were models
of how not only to gain ground but to destroy enemy forces. And the extent of
the American victory cannot be attributed merely to German decay. Some of the
enemy's formations…retained much of the old German savvy and toughness; The
American victory was in large part the product of mastery at last of a
thoroughly mobile form of warfare genuinely aimed at the destruction of the
enemy forces."(46)
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The foregoing are but a few examples, in a volume over 700 pages in length, of
the author's persistent praise for the common American fighting man and his
leaders. They give the lie to the assertions of Weigley's critics that he
damned the U.S. army with faint praise, condemned the quality of American
infantry, found American generals "pedestrian" and attributed the American
victory solely to their superior resources and firepower.
Footnotes
(26) Weigley, Russell Frank, Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The
Campaign of France and Germany 1944-1945 (Indiana University Press,
1981).
(27) Mansoor, p.7.
(28) Doubler, p.6.
(29) Chester, The Struggle for Europe (New York: Harper, 1952).
(30) Weigley, pp.89-91.
(31) Ibid., pp. 99, 404.
(32) Ibid., p.105.
(33) Ibid., p.127.
(34) Ibid., p.149.
(35) Ibid., p.273.
(36) See, Mansoor, p. 172; Doubler, pp. 90-96.
(37) Weigley, pp. 285-6.
(38) Ibid., pp.339, 343.
(39) Ibid., pp.386-7, 393.
(40) Ibid., p.403.
(41) Ibid., pp.421-2.
(42) Ibid., pp. 483-4.
(43) Ibid., pp. 508-9.
(44) Ibid., pp. 511, 513-14, 537.
(45) Ibid., pp. 567, 574.
(46) Ibid., p. 639.
Copyright © 2004 by Thomas E. Nutter.
Please send comments to Thomas E. Nutter at: tenutter@gmail.com.
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