Category: Leadership of the highest kind
Editor’s Note: For today’s #ThrowbackThursday, we’re examining the lessons the Allied powers learned in World War II from one of America’s most formidable enemies at the time.
Arguably the greatest general that Germany produced during WWII was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), The Desert Fox. A career soldier, he fought during both World Wars, and became so revered for his tactical leadership skills and aggressive battlefield style that some Allied forces began to believe he was superhuman. To that point, the British Army Commander-in-Chief C.J. Auchinleck, issued the following order to his officers:
There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogey-man to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers. I wish you to dispel by all possible means the idea that Rommel represents something more than an ordinary German general. The important thing now is to see that we do not always talk of Rommel when we mean the enemy in Libya. We must refer to “the Germans” or “the Axis powers” or “the enemy” and not always keep harping on Rommel. Please ensure that this order is put into immediate effect, and impress up all commanders that, from a psychological point of view, it is a matter of highest importance.
No, Rommel was not superhuman, but he did have what the Germans called (big-word warning) Fingerspitzengefuhl, an innate sixth sense of what the enemy was about to do. For instance, a German general, Fritz Bayerlein, Rommel’s Chief-of-Staff at the time, relates the following two anecdotes.
“We were at the headquarters of the Afrika Korps…when suddenly Rommel turned to me and said, ‘Bayerlein, I would advise you to get out of this [location]: I don’t like it.’ An hour later the headquarters were unexpectedly attacked and overrun.”
Bayerlein continues, “That same afternoon, we were standing together when he [Rommel] said, ‘Let’s move a couple of hundred yards to a flank, I think we are going to get shelled here.’ One bit of desert was just the same as another, but five minutes after we had moved, the shells were falling exactly where we had been standing. Everyone…who fought with Rommel in either war will tell you similar stories.”
Rommel also had the ability to quickly size up a battle in progress, and the decision-making skills to then seize the opportunity to attack when one presented itself. Consequently, he earned a reputation for, at times, making rash decisions, but those decisions seemed to pay off for him and his armies more times than not.
A trait that endeared Rommel to his vanguard troops was that he “led from the front,” spending nearly as much time with the frontline, everyday soldier as he did with his officers back at headquarters. As a result, his soldiers were willing to follow him anywhere.
Another characteristic that helped make Rommel the military legend he became was that he was constantly learning, not only from his victories, but also his defeats—especially his defeats, which seemed to haunt him. And he was open to new ideas, new equipment, new weapons, anything that would make his armies more efficient and in turn, more successful.
For example, Rommel did not invent blitzkrieg—a highly mobile style of warfare employing armored, motorized forces—but he and his 7th Panzer Division of tanks certainly perfected it in France during 1940. Later in the war, his Afrika Korps then continued using the technique in the deserts of North Africa to win battle after battle.
Rommel had always been a prolific writer, and following his time in Africa he authored a paper titled The Rules of Desert Warfare, the small portions below being just a few of the more interesting excerpts from the six-page document.
- The tank force is the backbone of the motorized army. Everything turns on the tanks, the other formations are mere ancillaries. War of attrition against the enemy tank units must, therefore, be carried on as far as possible by one’s own tank destruction units…[they] must deal the last blow.
- Results of reconnaissance must reach the commander in the shortest possible time, and he must then make immediate decisions and put them into effect as quickly as possible. Speed of reaction in Command decisions decides the battle. It is, therefore, essential that commanders of motorized forces should be as near as possible to their troops and in the closest signal communication with them.
- It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. One must differentiate between operational and tactical boldness and a military gamble. A bold operation is one which has no more than a chance of success but which, in case of failure, leaves one with sufficient forces in hand to be able to cope with any situation. A gamble, on the other hand, is an operation which can lead either to victory or to the destruction of one’s own forces. Any compromise is bad.
- One of the first lessons which I drew from my experiences of motorized warfare was that speed of operation and quick reaction of the Command were the decisive factors. The troops must be able to operate at the highest speed and in complete coordination. One must not be satisfied here with any normal average but must always endeavor to obtain the maximum performance, for the side which makes the greater effort is the faster, and the faster wins the battle. Officers and NCOs must, therefore, constantly train their troops with this in view.
- In my opinion, the duties of the Commander-in-Chief are not limited to his staff work. He must also take an interest in the details of Command and frequently busy himself in the front line.
- The Commander-in-Chief must have contact with his troops. He must be able to feel and think with them. The soldier must have confidence in him. In this connection there is one cardinal principle to remember: one must never simulate a feeling for the troops which in fact one does not have. The ordinary soldier has a surprisingly good nose for what is genuine and what is fake.
In the WWII movie Patton, released in 1970, actor George C. Scott portrays the brash and flamboyant American General George S. Patton. Near the end of the movie, after Patton and his army have defeated Rommel and his troops, Patton shouts loudly across the battlefield in victory, “Rommel, you magnificent b______, I read your book!”
The book he was referring to was Rommel’s Infanterie Greift An (Infantry Attacks). Published in 1937, it chronicles his experiences during World War I. If you’d care to read it, the treatise will give you a look into the mind of one of the greatest tactical military geniuses of the 20th Century. The Rommel Papers, edited by B. H. Liddell Hart and published in 1953, is also highly recommended, relating Rommel’s WWII experiences in his own words.
Editor’s Note: For today’s #ThrowbackThursday, we’re examining the lessons the Allied powers learned in World War II from one of America’s most formidable enemies at the time.
Arguably the greatest general that Germany produced during WWII was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), The Desert Fox. A career soldier, he fought during both World Wars, and became so revered for his tactical leadership skills and aggressive battlefield style that some Allied forces began to believe he was superhuman. To that point, the British Army Commander-in-Chief C.J. Auchinleck, issued the following order to his officers:
There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogey-man to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers. I wish you to dispel by all possible means the idea that Rommel represents something more than an ordinary German general. The important thing now is to see that we do not always talk of Rommel when we mean the enemy in Libya. We must refer to “the Germans” or “the Axis powers” or “the enemy” and not always keep harping on Rommel. Please ensure that this order is put into immediate effect, and impress up all commanders that, from a psychological point of view, it is a matter of highest importance.
No, Rommel was not superhuman, but he did have what the Germans called (big-word warning) Fingerspitzengefuhl, an innate sixth sense of what the enemy was about to do. For instance, a German general, Fritz Bayerlein, Rommel’s Chief-of-Staff at the time, relates the following two anecdotes.
“We were at the headquarters of the Afrika Korps…when suddenly Rommel turned to me and said, ‘Bayerlein, I would advise you to get out of this [location]: I don’t like it.’ An hour later the headquarters were unexpectedly attacked and overrun.”
Bayerlein continues, “That same afternoon, we were standing together when he [Rommel] said, ‘Let’s move a couple of hundred yards to a flank, I think we are going to get shelled here.’ One bit of desert was just the same as another, but five minutes after we had moved, the shells were falling exactly where we had been standing. Everyone…who fought with Rommel in either war will tell you similar stories.”
Rommel also had the ability to quickly size up a battle in progress, and the decision-making skills to then seize the opportunity to attack when one presented itself. Consequently, he earned a reputation for, at times, making rash decisions, but those decisions seemed to pay off for him and his armies more times than not.
A trait that endeared Rommel to his vanguard troops was that he “led from the front,” spending nearly as much time with the frontline, everyday soldier as he did with his officers back at headquarters. As a result, his soldiers were willing to follow him anywhere.
Another characteristic that helped make Rommel the military legend he became was that he was constantly learning, not only from his victories, but also his defeats—especially his defeats, which seemed to haunt him. And he was open to new ideas, new equipment, new weapons, anything that would make his armies more efficient and in turn, more successful.
For example, Rommel did not invent blitzkrieg—a highly mobile style of warfare employing armored, motorized forces—but he and his 7th Panzer Division of tanks certainly perfected it in France during 1940. Later in the war, his Afrika Korps then continued using the technique in the deserts of North Africa to win battle after battle.
Rommel had always been a prolific writer, and following his time in Africa he authored a paper titled The Rules of Desert Warfare, the small portions below being just a few of the more interesting excerpts from the six-page document.
- The tank force is the backbone of the motorized army. Everything turns on the tanks, the other formations are mere ancillaries. War of attrition against the enemy tank units must, therefore, be carried on as far as possible by one’s own tank destruction units…[they] must deal the last blow.
- Results of reconnaissance must reach the commander in the shortest possible time, and he must then make immediate decisions and put them into effect as quickly as possible. Speed of reaction in Command decisions decides the battle. It is, therefore, essential that commanders of motorized forces should be as near as possible to their troops and in the closest signal communication with them.
- It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. One must differentiate between operational and tactical boldness and a military gamble. A bold operation is one which has no more than a chance of success but which, in case of failure, leaves one with sufficient forces in hand to be able to cope with any situation. A gamble, on the other hand, is an operation which can lead either to victory or to the destruction of one’s own forces. Any compromise is bad.
- One of the first lessons which I drew from my experiences of motorized warfare was that speed of operation and quick reaction of the Command were the decisive factors. The troops must be able to operate at the highest speed and in complete coordination. One must not be satisfied here with any normal average but must always endeavor to obtain the maximum performance, for the side which makes the greater effort is the faster, and the faster wins the battle. Officers and NCOs must, therefore, constantly train their troops with this in view.
- In my opinion, the duties of the Commander-in-Chief are not limited to his staff work. He must also take an interest in the details of Command and frequently busy himself in the front line.
- The Commander-in-Chief must have contact with his troops. He must be able to feel and think with them. The soldier must have confidence in him. In this connection there is one cardinal principle to remember: one must never simulate a feeling for the troops which in fact one does not have. The ordinary soldier has a surprisingly good nose for what is genuine and what is fake.
In the WWII movie Patton, released in 1970, actor George C. Scott portrays the brash and flamboyant American General George S. Patton. Near the end of the movie, after Patton and his army have defeated Rommel and his troops, Patton shouts loudly across the battlefield in victory, “Rommel, you magnificent b______, I read your book!”
The book he was referring to was Rommel’s Infanterie Greift An (Infantry Attacks). Published in 1937, it chronicles his experiences during World War I. If you’d care to read it, the treatise will give you a look into the mind of one of the greatest tactical military geniuses of the 20th Century. The Rommel Papers, edited by B. H. Liddell Hart and published in 1953, is also highly recommended, relating Rommel’s WWII experiences in his own words.
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Future president Theodore Roosevelt returned to the city of his birth in 1895 to take on a task that might have intimidated other people, the reform of the notoriously corrupt police department.
His appointment was front-page news and he obviously saw the job as chance to clean up New York City while reviving his own political career, which had stalled.
His appointment was front-page news and he obviously saw the job as chance to clean up New York City while reviving his own political career, which had stalled.
As the president of the police commission, Roosevelt, true to form, vigorously threw himself into the task. His trademark zeal, when applied to the complexities of urban politics, tended to generate a cascade of problems.
Roosevelt’s time at the top of the New York Police Department brought him into conflict with powerful factions, and he did not always emerge triumphant. In one notable example, his widely publicized crusade to close saloons on Sunday, the only day when many workingmen could socialize in them, provoked a lively public backlash.
When he left the police job, after only two years, the department had been changed for the better. But Roosevelt’s time as New York City’s top cop had been raucous, and the clashes he found himself in had nearly brought his political career to an end.
Roosevelt’s Patrician Background
Theodore Roosevelt was born into a wealthy New York City family on October 27, 1858. A sickly child who overcame illness through physical exertion, he went on to Harvard and entered New York politics by winning a seat in the state assembly at the age of 23.
In 1886 he lost an election for mayor of New York City. He then stayed out of government for three years until he was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to the United States Civil Service Commission. For six years Roosevelt served in Washington, D.C., overseeing the reform of the nation’s civil service, which had been tainted by decades of adherence to the spoils system.
Roosevelt was respected for his work reforming the federal civil service, but he wished to return to New York City and something more challenging. A new reform mayor of the city, William L. Strong, offered him the job of sanitation commissioner in early 1895. Roosevelt turned it down, thinking the job of literally cleaning up the city was beneath his dignity.
A few months later, after a series of public hearings exposed widespread graft in the New York Police Department, the mayor came to Roosevelt with a far more attractive offer: a post on the board of police commissioners. Enthused by the chance to bring much-needed reforms to his hometown, and in a very public post, Roosevelt took the job.
The Corruption of the New York Police
A crusade to clean up New York City, led by a reform-minded minister, Rev. Charles Parkhurst, had prompted the state legislature to create a commission to investigate corruption. Chaired by state senator Clarence Lexow, what became known as the Lexow Commission held public hearings which exposed the startling depth of police corruption.
In weeks of testimony, saloon owners and prostitutes detailed a system of payoffs to police officials. And it became apparent that the thousands of saloons in the city functioned as political clubs which perpetuated the corruption.
Mayor Strong’s solution was to replace the four-member board that oversaw the police. And by putting an energetic reformer like Roosevelt on the board as its president, there was cause for optimism.
Roosevelt took the oath of office on the morning of May 6,1895, at City Hall. The New York Times lauded Roosevelt the next morning, but expressed skepticism about the other three men named to the police board. They must have been named for “political considerations,” said an editorial. Problems were obvious at the outset of Roosevelt’s term at the top of the police department.
Roosevelt Made His Presence Known
In early June 1895 Roosevelt and a friend, the crusading newspaper reporter Jacob Riis, ventured out into the streets of New York late one night, just after midnight. For hours they wandered through the darkened Manhattan streets, observing the police, at least when and where they could actually find them.
The New York Times carried a story on June 8, 1895 with the headline, “Police Caught Napping.” The report referred to “President Roosevelt,” as he was president of the police board, and detailed how he had found policemen asleep on their posts or socializing in public when they should have been patrolling alone.
Several officers were ordered to report to police headquarters the day after Roosevelt’s late night tour. They received a strong personal reprimand from Roosevelt himself. The newspaper account noted: “The action of Mr. Roosevelt, when it became known, made a sensation throughout the department and as a consequence, more faithful patrol duty may be performed by the force for some time to come.”
Roosevelt also came into conflict with Thomas Byrnes, a legendary detective who had come to epitomize the New York Police Department. Byrnes had amassed a suspiciously large fortune, with the apparent help of Wall Street characters such as Jay Gould, but had managed to keep his job. Roosevelt forced Byrnes to resign, though no public reason for the ouster of Byrnes was ever disclosed.
Political Problems
Though Roosevelt was at heart a politician, he soon found himself in a political bind of his own making. He was determined to shut down saloons, which generally operated on Sundays in defiance of a local law.
The problem was that many New Yorkers worked a six-day week, and Sunday was the only day when they could gather in saloons and socialize. To the community of German immigrants, in particular, the Sunday saloon gatherings were considered an important facet of life. The saloons were not merely social, but often served as political clubs, frequented by an actively engaged citizenry.
Roosevelt’s crusade to shutter saloons on Sundays brought him into heated conflict with large segments of the population. He was denounced and viewed as being out of touch with the common people. The Germans in particular rallied against him, and Roosevelt’s campaign against saloons cost his Republican Party in the city-wide elections held in the fall of 1895.
The next summer, New York City was hit by a heat wave, and Roosevelt gained back some public support by his smart action in dealing with the crisis. He had made an effort to familiarize himself with slum neighborhoods, and he saw that the police distributed ice to people who desperately needed it.
By the end of 1896 Roosevelt was thoroughly tired of his police job. Republican William McKinley had won the election that fall, and Roosevelt began concentrating on finding a post within the new Republican administration. He was eventually appointed assistant secretary of the Navy, and left New York to return to Washington.
Impact of Roosevelt on New York’s Police
Theodore Roosevelt spent less than two years with the New York Police Department, and his tenure was marked with nearly constant controversy. While the job burnished his credentials as a reformer, most of what he tried to accomplish ended in frustration. The campaign against corruption proved essentially hopeless. New York City remained much the same after he left.
However, in later years Roosevelt’s time at police headquarters on Mulberry Street in lower Manhattan took on a legendary status. He would be remembered as a police commissioner who cleaned up New York, even though his accomplishments on the job didn’t live up to the legend.
In the winter of 2004 a joint US, Iraqi, and British operation kicked off in Iraq. Local forces called it Operation Al-Fajr. Allied troops titled it Operation Phantom Fury. The world came to know this simply epic scrap as the Second Battle of Fallujah.
Fallujah was a typical Middle Eastern craphole located in the Al Anbar Province some 43 miles West of Baghdad on the Euphrates River. The area has been occupied since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. By 2011 more than a quarter-million Iraqis called Fallujah home. Within Iraq, Fallujah was called the “City of Mosques” for its 500 houses of Islamic worship. In 2004 Fallujah was an understudy for hell.
The party started in April of that year during the aptly-named First Battle of Fallujah. In this fight, coalition forces moved into the city to kill or capture insurgents responsible for the violent deaths of an American Blackwater security team. Once Allied forces seized the city they turned over control to an Iraqi government security force.
It was tough to figure out who the Bad Guys really were in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Between April and November, enemy forces fortified the place. Insurgents and fanatical foreign Islamist fighters flowed toward Fallujah like zombies after fresh brains. The scene was set for Something Truly Horrible. The Second Battle of Fallujah was to be the first major engagement of the war fought solely against insurgents rather than the previous Iraqi Ba’athist government forces. The end result was to become the bloodiest fight of the Iraq War.
Strategic Details
The alpha villain in Fallujah was one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi was one serious piece of work. Originally born in Jordan, al-Zarqawi ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before moving his corporate headquarters to Iraq. His repertoire included suicide bombings, hostage takings, and the errant ritual beheading. His stated goal was to transform an insurgency against coalition forces into a full-blown Shia-Sunni civil war. His followers called him the ”Sheikh of Slaughterers.” Al-Zarqawi was the agent of chaos and a simply despicable human being.
Coalition forces established roadblocks around Fallujah that prevented insurgents from escaping while excluding fresh scum from infiltrating into the city. For the hard-core Islamists in the city, this was to be a come-as-you-are fight. The joint coalition force was comprised primarily of US Marines alongside some 1,500 US Army combat troops supported by extensive air and ground assets as well as Iraqi combat forces. The 1st Battalion of the British Black Watch assisted with the encirclement.
Entrenched within the city were between 1,500 and 3,000 hardline extremists. These freaking lunatics included Filipinos, Chechens, Saudis, Libyans, Syrians, and native Iraqis all united in their hatred of America. On November 7, 2004, Navy SEAL and Marine Force Recon snipers kicked off the party along with some 2,500 rounds of 155mm high explosive artillery. This was to be an old school fight.
Tactical Details
There was no shortage of valor to be found among coalition forces as they stormed into Fallujah. US forces ably employed M1 tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Air assets included AC130 gunships, B52’s, F15’s, F16’s, and A10’s. UAV’s and a U2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft kept an eye on things as the fight unfolded. However, this was a city. The only way to take a fortified built-up area is to get out of your vehicles and just go hunting.
One particularly bloody engagement has become known as Hell House. The dwelling was two stories built around a central atrium with a skylight and multi-tiered stairwell. Bedrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen surrounded this central space. In better times it would have been a nice place to raise a family. On this day the insurgents had transformed it into a deathtrap.
While the insurgents were little more than fanatical cavemen, they weren’t stupid. They had established firing points on the second-floor landing overlooking the interior of the building. Surrounding structures were too low to establish a viable overwatch for snipers or machine gunners. Their well-reasoned defenses had already pinned down eight Marines inside, six of whom were badly wounded.
1SG Brad Kasal and PFC Alex Nicoll moved into the house in an effort at extricating wounded US troops. Checking a doorway underneath the stairs Kasal discovered an insurgent hiding. The Islamist fighter fired a burst from a stubby cut-down AK and missed. Kasal shoved the muzzle of his M16A4 into the man’s chest and cut him down at contact range. Then the entire world exploded.
1SG Kasal was shot several times in the legs. His comrade was caught out in the open and wounded even more severely. 1SG Kasal dragged PFC Nicoll into a bathroom to get out of the line of fire.
One proper stud named Corporal RJ Mitchell was already in a 1st-floor bedroom tending to the wounded. He braved the kill zone in the atrium to reach the bathroom where Kasal and Nicoll were holed up. In the process, he was hit in the leg. The insurgents on the top floor dropped in grenades that liberally peppered the three Marines with shrapnel. 1SG Kasal caught the brunt of one when he threw his body over PFC Nicoll to shield him from the blast.
CPL Mitchell and his wounded comrades found themselves in a seriously bad situation. PFC Nicoll was bleeding out, and 1SG Kasal was struggling to remain conscious in the face of multiple wounds. Mitchell put a tourniquet on Nicoll’s shattered leg and improvised the same thing for 1SG Kasal out of his low-ride thigh holster. Holding his improvised tourniquet in one hand and his Beretta M9 service pistol in the other, 1SG Kasal directed CPL Mitchell to find a way out.
1LT Grapes, the local ground force commander, battered his way through a barred window with a sledgehammer to get into one of the bedrooms. The resulting opening was so small he had to remove his helmet and body armor to gain access. Replacing his gear once inside, Grapes and his men coordinated a proper rescue from within the structure.
Two of Grapes’ Marines ran the gauntlet through the atrium to reach the bathroom where Kasal, Nicoll, and Mitchell were trapped. They improvised a stretcher out of a poncho to retrieve Nicoll and took Kasal under the arms to get him out of the building. Mitchell hobbled out under his own power. Marines on the far side of the dwelling finally beat through the walls to rescue the remaining Marines trapped in other rooms.
An embedded reporter named Lucian Read shot a series of iconic photographs during the fight for Hell House that captured the powerful drama that had occurred there. His shot of 1SG Kasal being carried out of the building with his M9 became one of the most famous images of the war. Once his Marines were clear 1LT Grapes leveled the building with satchel charges.
Once the dust settled, Grapes and his men returned to retrieve any sensitive equipment that might have been lost during the fighting. When they approached the collapsed building an insurgent trapped inside deployed a grenade unexpectedly. The Marines leaped clear as the device exploded. 1LT Grapes then ran up to the wounded Islamist fighter and shot him fifteen times in the head. It had been a hard day for all involved.
The Gun
The Beretta M9 is the official designation of the Model 92FS handgun adopted in 1985 as a replacement for the original M1911A1 .45. A short-recoil semiautomatic single-action/double-action design, the M9 is typical of the so-called “wondernine” pistols of the day. The M9 feeds from a 15-round double-column, single-feed box magazine.
The M9 was known to suffer slide failures at extreme round counts, and the design was modified to prevent this after deployment. The M9 was the least respected weapon in the US small arms arsenal according to a post-combat survey conducted by the military. Most of the M9’s reliability problems could ultimately be traced to sketchy aftermarket magazines. The M9 is currently being replaced throughout the military by the SIG SAUER M17 and M18 handguns.
The Rest of the Story
1LT Grapes eventually left the Marine Corps to serve as headmaster for a Catholic High School for boys in Virginia. CPL Mitchell left the Marine Corps the following year to study Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State. He eventually took a job as a gas turbine engineer at a utility company. PFC Nicoll lost his left leg but survived. The image of a shattered 1SG Kasal emerging from the doorway to Hell House, his legs drenched in blood and his M9 safely gripped in his right hand, was eventually transformed into a bronze memorial.
By the time 1SG Kasal reached a medical facility, it was estimated that he had lost some 60% of his blood volume. 1SG Kasal caught seven 7.62x39mm rounds to his legs along with 44 pieces of shrapnel. He underwent 21 different surgeries and lost four inches’ worth of bone in his right leg. Nowadays he is said to walk with a limp.
1SG Kasal was promoted to Sergeant Major and served with distinction in a variety of combat roles for another eleven years. He retired after 34 years of service as Sergeant Major of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. According to his Linked-In page, he teaches Marine Corps Junior ROTC at the Basic Academy of International Studies in Los Angeles today. I suspect those kids get their money’s worth.
On June 7, 2006, two F16C fighter jets approached a safe house north of Baqubah, Iraq. The lead plane dropped a pair of guided 500-pound bombs and utterly flattened the structure. Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was blown straight to hell along with five of his reprobate associates. It was a fitting end for such an evil mob.
For anyone who grew up in the post-World War II era, his was a household name, one synonymous with “hero,” and “soldier.”
Audie Murphy was known as “the most decorated combat soldier of World War II.”A quintessential soldier, a master of the tools and tactics of ground warfare, he literally wrote the book on military valor—an autobiography entitled, “To Hell and Back.”
He starred in the movie adaptation, too.
This week, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, located in Cody, WY, announced that Murphy’s .45 caliber Colt Model 1905 Bisley flattop target revolver—a gift from western film legend Gary Cooper—is on display to the public in its Cody Firearms Museum. The single-action revolver features mother-of-pearl grips that Cooper had molded to perfectly fit Murphy’s hand. Dr. Jim and Marilyn Phillips of Bakersfield, CA, have loaned the firearm to the Center for a period of one year.
In 1942, Murphy lied about his age to join the infantry at 17, after the Marines and paratroopers denied his application due to his small stature. Rising to the rank of First Lieutenant, he fought in nine major campaigns throughout Europe. His gallantry is even more impressive given that victory in Europe was achieved before his 21st birthday.
On January 26, 1945, at the edge of a forest in France, Murphy’s company was pinned down, outnumbered and facing annihilation by a column of German tanks supported by infantry. Ordering his men to retreat into the forest, Murphy commandeered the .50 caliber machine gun on a burning tank destroyer. While directing American artillery over his field telephone, Lt. Murphy swept the German tanks with deadly fire. Shells bursting and bullets ricocheting all around him, and the tank destroyer threatening to explode at any moment, Audie Murphy continued to fire until the enemy force broke and ran.
For his incredible acts of bravery and valor, Audie Murphy received the Medal of Honor. The accompanying citation reported 50 German soldiers killed or wounded and stated, “Lieutenant Murphy’s indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction and enabled it to hold the woods, which had been the enemy’s objective.”
After the war, Murphy became a Hollywood star, albeit reluctantly, appearing in more than 40 films and receiving critical acclaim for his role in the 1951 movie version of Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel “The Red Badge of Courage.”
Murphy was known to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), known then as “combat fatigue,” sharing his struggles and bringing early awareness to the issue. His advocacy for increased government research and funding for veterans with PTSD was honored by the 1973 dedication of the Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital in San Antonio, TX.
Murphy was 45 when he died in a private plane crash near Roanoke, VA. On June 7, 1971, he was buried at Arlington, where his grave remains one of the most-visited at the National Cemetery.
One of my all time favorite Movies – Zulu, which tell the story of the Defense of Rourke’s Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.
If you are in the military, this can be a great primer also. If one wants to learn how to hold a position against great odds.
Plus it shows how great leadership is a force multiplier. For example Lt. Chard & Bromhead with the stout aid of Colour Sgt.Frank Edward Bourne . (Who later on rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel!!)
That and it shows a lot of the Martini Rifle and what it can do with a good man behind it. Which frankly is a lot!
Anyways – If you have not see the film. I most highly recommend either seeing it or get the DVD. Its just a real pity that you will not be able to see it on the Movie Screen. Since it is probably considered very UN-PC & Racist to boot. Pity!