Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

December 20-26, 2009

Four hostile newspapers are to be more feared than a thousand bayonets.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Dead General Quote of the Week

Singing His Praises.

This Dead General Quote of the Week comes from the only general we've covered in the past two weeks or so, Ulysses S. Grant. While Grant proved himself to be one of the most capable general officers in American history, music aficionado he was not:

I know two tunes. One of them is Yankee Doodle. The other isn't.

December 17, 1862

Dear Readers,

We beg your pardon for the lapse in production we've suffered these past few weeks. Our old friend capitalism has put a lot on our table recently, and while we are thankful, perhaps you could click on the links of our sponsors in the spirit of commerce (wink wink).

In that light, our editors did want to take the time today to briefly mention a moldy old skeleton from the closet of one of the highest ranking American soldiers ever, Ulysses S. Grant. At the end of 1862, cotton export from the Confederacy was conducted solely on the black market, and apparently the Union Army in the Department of Tennessee had few doubts as to who was responsible. On December 17, 1862, Grant signed General Order #11, banning Jews from his district.

Not surprisingly, many were outraged. Union community leaders, Jew and Gentile alike, howled in protest, and the issue reached the floor of a Congress about to break for the Christmas holiday. The Army of the Tennessee claimed the order was curtail the rash of under-the-table cotton dealing to Northern mills. Grant, for his part, claimed the order was drawn up by a subordinate and he had signed it without reading it. Either way, the storm reached the desk of President Lincoln, who quickly had the order rescinded.

Just another lovely chapter in the ever-growing catalog of terrible things about warfare.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

December 13-19, 2009

I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to 40,000 men in the balance.

The Duke of Wellington

Dead General Quote of the Week

On the Field and In the Field.

In honor of the Army-Navy game being played in Philadelphia today, for this Dead General Quote of the Week we turn to General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army during World War II:

I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football player.

Go Navy. Beat Army.

December 7, 1949

Nanking No More: Or a Date Which Will Rent an Apartment in Infamy.

The new week begins with a historic date, a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. It was a lazy Sunday morning in 1941, at a time when most Americans were still more impressed by the bat-waving of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams than the sword-rattling of Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo. Once the last Japanese planes vacated the skies above Pearl Harbor, America grew from sleepy, isolated giant into a world super power. The events of that day are well chronicled, so instead we here at Lies Agreed Upon turn our attention to an event that occurred seven years later, but was no less influential in shaping the 20th Century.

The Japanese war machine that attacked Pearl Harbor was in fact primarily engaged in mainland China in late 1941. For a decade prior to the invasion in 1937, the army of General Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China had been hard at work suppressing a communist insurrection led by Mao Zedong. Once the Japanese landed, Chiang's main focus shifted to the foreign enemy, but the communists still harassed the fringes of his army for the duration of the Second World War. As soon as the Japanese were defeated, the two old enemies saw the internal conflict erupt into the Chinese Civil War.








Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.







With American backing, Chiang and the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, tried to fend off the communists from his war ravaged nation. Exhausted by their battles with the Japanese, KMT forces needed American troops and supplies to carry out the fight. Likewise, Mao's forces were being supplied by the Soviet Union, who maintained a large troop presence in Manchuria, to the north, even after World War II ended.

By the middle of 1946, the guerrilla attacks popularized by Mao before the Japanese invasion had evolved into a full scale conventional war. The KMT suffered setback after setback, and the communists supplied themselves with Nationalist stores following each victory. With Soviet backing in Manchuria, Mao's forces had a strong hold on Northern China by 1948, and began operations south of the Great Wall soon after. Nanking, Chaing's capital, fell in April, 1949, and later that year Mao founded the People's Republic of China with its capital in Beijing.

Chairman Mao Zedong declaring the foundation of the PRC in 1949.


On December 7, 1949, after escaping mainland China, Chiang's government fled to the island of Taiwan, and declared Tapei the new capital of the Republic of China. To this day, no formal agreement has been signed by either side to end the war, and for many years following his exile, Chiang planned on retaking the mainland. While relationships between the communist government and Tapei have improved recently, no president of the KMT has ever spoken with a chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

While some may feel we did our audience a disservice by looking over the attack on Pearl Harbor, our editors felt this topic deserved some press as well. It was surely one of the first times of the Cold War where the U.S. and Soviet Union went at each other through satellite states. Furthermore, the conditions and borders affected by Chiang's flea to Taiwan still exist today. While it may now seem ludicrous for tiny Chinese Taipei to challenge mainland China, it was a mess that for many years consumed American foreign policy.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

December 6-12, 2009

He who can control the English Channel for six hours can control the world.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Dead Admiral Quote of the Week

Out of His Way.

After hoisting the first Grand Union Flag above the USS Alfred, John Paul Jones established himself as one of the most famous American navy men of all time. His famous words "I have not yet begun to fight!" have endured to this day, even outside the realm of military history. He never rose higher than Captain in the United States Navy, but served as an Admiral in the Imperial Russian Fleet under Catherine the Great. His fighting spirit was summed up when he was first given command of a ship in 1776.

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."

John Paul Jones monument, Washington, D.C.

December 3, 1775

Hoist and Let Fly: Or Oh Say Does That Banner Yet Wave?

The Grand Union Flag, the first flag to be flown above an American Naval vessel.

In one of our earliest posts, the editors at Lies Agreed Upon let slip some of their favorite topics to cover (you may know a certain Corsican who gets a little press here). Besides their obvious man-crush on the Little Dictator, they've also been known to fawn over the trusty old United States Marine Corps. Their leatherneck-loving is so plain, however, that at times they often forget to give credit where credit is due. We've covered the Corps here several times, and not once have we mentioned its larger (and cleaner) cousin: the United States Navy.

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress decided the other colonies would back Massachusetts after tensions finally erupted at Lexington and Concord in April. After the battle of Bunker Hill, with the British garrison in Boston under siege, the merchant ship Black Prince made port in Philadelphia with news that the British were floating a pair of unarmed supply ships into the harbor. Congress, in attempt to secure those supplies for newly minted General Washington, immediately commandeered the merchantman.

Rechristened the USS Alfred, the ship was fitted out as a man-of-war and logged into the Continental Navy, established just two months before. On the windy morning of December 3, 1775, before she departed for Boston, a peculiar piece of cloth was hoisted above her decks and unfurled into the breeze. Onlookers that day may have been confused, as the flag looked a lot like that of the old British East India Company. But what they were seeing was the Grand Union Flag, one of the nation's earliest banners, and the very first flag of the United States Navy.

This tiny drop in the ocean of naval history gives us a chance to cover a topic most of us civilians never even think twice about. There are two things navy men know cold. They know their coffee, and they know their flags. Military ships often do not fly their country's traditional flag, but instead sail under special naval banners. Some of these flags, (ensigns or jacks, now that this blog has gone to sea) are commonly known, even if we don't always realize it. For fun today, instead of a typical post lets look at some ensigns you may or may not recognize.

United States:
For over 200 years after independence, through big wars and small, the U.S. Navy sailed into battle under this ensign, identical to the canton (or corner) of the national flag.

Following the attacks of 9/11, the Navy switched to this awesome flag, harkening back to one flown during the Revolution, after the Grand Union Flag. It seems the Navy is good for something other than giving Marines a lift.

While some may recognize this as the national flag of the Confederate States of America, this flag never stood for the Confederacy as a whole. It became synonymous with the South after its generals copied this design for their battle flags. It was originally the the Confederate Navy jack.

United Kingdom:
Sure, everyone knows the Union Jack, a form of which has flown over British possessions since the 15th Century. Yet British shipping, the lifeline of her empire, flies this flag...

...and the Royal Navy, whose ships ruled the waves for hundreds of years and intimidated the world, sails under this ensign.

Japan:
War movies will tell you that this flag was the symbol of the Japanese empire during World War II. Yet the Japanese national flag has not changed in almost 140 years. The Rising Sun flag was not the country's flag, but you guessed it, the naval jack. It is still in use today.

Spain:
The national flag of Spain is less than 30 years old. On the other hand, their ships, which for generations surpassed even those of the British, have sailed under a jack similar to this since the Spanish Armada. Armada Espanola, after all, translates into Spanish Navy in English.

We thought we'd mix it up a little today and try something new, and it gave us a chance to kill two birds with one stone. We gave the Navy some coverage for once, and we got to look at a little living history. Nations are represented around the world by their ships, and the flags they fly are often the first thing another ship would look for in international waters. As it happens, the naval rank of ensign was originally given to the officer charged with, not surprisingly, holding the flags. So we finally gave the navy some credit and we suppose they deserve it. After all, as any sailor worth his salt knows, all "Marines" really stands for is My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment, Sir!

December 2, 1899

The Philippine Thermopylae: Or Starring the United States as "The Bad Guy."

Tirad Pass, Northern Luzon, Philippines.

Today we look at a sad and embarrassing chapter in the military history of the United States, a nation that has long trumpeted itself as the world's defender of liberty and democracy. Following the Spanish-American war at the close of the 19th Century, the U.S. took control of the Philippine Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. After the defeat of Spanish forces at the Battle of Manila Bay during the war, the Philippines declared themselves independent, expecting support from the western power which had once done the same for itself. The United States, however, refused to recognize the Philippines, instead planning to annex the island chain.

Filipinos had revolted against Spanish rule at the start of the 1890's then had thrown their full support behind the Americans to finally break Spain's hold on their homeland. Feeling betrayed by their former saviors, and not wishing to trade Spanish speaking imperialists for English speaking ones, tensions quickly arose between Americans and Filipinos. When U.S. troops were accused of firing on Filipinos in Manila in 1899, the simmering mood heated into a boil.

Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, who had commanded them against the Spanish, the Filipinos severed all friendly ties with the United States. The war that erupted thereafter was little more than a sanctioned slaughter. American racism, combined with superior firepower, not only defeated Filipino forces on the battlefield, but killed ordinary civilians wholesale. Filipinos were rounded into concentration camps, tortured, and murdered outright. A call went up to American troops to "Kill Everyone Over Ten," implying that any Filipino born before the ten years of American involvement began was a war criminal.

This engraving, published in U.S. newspapers, summed up American feelings toward Filipinos.

Nevertheless, the Filipinos fought on. Aguinaldo's forces fled Manila and cut their way through the jungles and hills of Northern Luzon. With an American column hot on his heels, Aguinaldo needed to buy time to allow his men to escape to fight another day. He ordered his trusted friend, the youthful General Gregorio del Pilar, to take the rear guard of the army and look for a place to delay the advancing invaders. Del Pilar remembered passing a natural bottleneck in Tirad Pass, and took a small band of Filipinos to try and stave off the Americans.

On December 2, 1899, the lead American units came within sight of the Pass. Advancing toward it, they were immediately met by a well-aimed volley from del Pilar's men. The Filipinos held them off for a few hours, as the Americans wisely decided a frontal assault on the position would be suicide. Just as a handful of Greek warriors beat back hundreds of thousands of Persians at the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, so too were the Filipinos delaying the Americans. Their solid defensive position neutralized the Yanks' advantages in numbers and fire power, and del Pilar believed he could hold off the Americans for as long as he needed.









General Gregorio del Pilar.









Unfortunately for del Pilar, the same misfortune that befell the Greeks thousands of years before would be his undoing, as well. A local villager named Januario Galut, playing the modern day role of Ephialtes, came to the Americans during the battle and offered to show them a path around Tirad Pass. Galut led a regiment of Texas volunteer sharp-shooters around the Filipino position, pointing out the places where they could outflank the enemy. Del Pilar had only 60 men at his disposal, and after five hours of battle the Texans found that 52 of them had been killed, including del Pilar himself.

With Galut's help, the Americans eventually prevailed at Tirad Pass but Aguinaldo and the main body of Filipino troops were able to escape. The war continued for three more years, and the insurrection and slaughter for another ten. Unable to overcome the loss of del Pilar and evade American forces for much longer, Aguinaldo's forces were eventually defeated. The Philippines did not receive full independence from the United States until after the end of the Second World War.

After the Battle of Tirad Pass, del Pilar's body was left to rot in the hot tropical sun. The Texans had looted his body and those of his men, stripping them of their uniforms, medals, and weapons. Del Pilar's diary was later found, in which he confided that the charge of defending the pass was the most glorious task of his life. He was eventually buried by an American officer, Lieutenant Dennis P. Quinlan, who in recognition of a worthy adversary inscribed "An officer and a gentleman," on del Pilar's grave.

Filipino dead during the Philippine-American War.

While the numbers engaged were far less than the ancient battle, and the fame not as well-preserved for posterity, the action at Tirad Pass would come to be known as "The Philippine Thermopylae." The American involvement in the Philippine Islands is surely a dark chapter in the nation's lengthy military history. Although most sources differ, it is widely agreed that during the years 1899-1913 over a million Filipinos were killed, both in uniform and out. Men, women and children, whether they supported the insurrection or not, were slaughtered indiscriminately in actions no different than genocides the United States condemned, both earlier and in the century to come.

December 1, 1826

Feta and Brie: Or A Chaud Time in the Old Town Tonight.

We start off the chilly month of December with a hot battle in the history of Athens, one of the world's oldest cities. After the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in the 15th Century, much of the old Eastern Roman Empire, including all of Greece, fell under Ottoman control. Three centuries of Islamic rule began in the ancient land, but not without obvious resentment from the native Greeks. While the Turks were enamored with the antiquated beauty of Athens, the city's population had less than cordial feelings toward their new rulers.

Despite the fact that Turkish forces were ordered to leave the ancient ruins of Athens in peace, most inhabitants had fled the city by the start of the 19th Century. In the coming years, constant conflict with the west meant many of the city's buildings, even on the famed Acropolis, were turned into fortresses, and the Turks went as far as burning most of the city to stop a Venetian attack in 1688. By 1814, a secret society of Greek patriots known as the Filiki Eteria, or "Society of Friends", felt it was time to restore the nation to its rightful owners.

For the most part, Europe was unsure of how to view the Greek nationalists. While any swipe at the Ottomans was seen as beneficial, western rulers were nervous that uprisings against an established empire could incite similar movements at home. Some Europeans, however, knew exactly where they stood. Enter our honorary over-zealous Frenchman of the day, Charles Nicolas Fabvier. As you might imagine, Fabvier had very different ideas about European involvement in Greece.






Charles Nicolas Fabvier, in traditional Greek dress.








A well-schooled engineer and expert in all types of cannon, he once served as an artillery major under the indomitable Michel Ney. After joining the army in 1804 Fabvier was wounded in several major engagements during the Napoleonic wars. He was the representative from France who signed the peace treaty after Bonaparte was exiled the first time, then reenlisted and followed his emperor to Waterloo. In 1823, Fabvier was under investigation by the French government for aiding Bonapartists when he decided to join the Greek Independence movement.

After rebuilding the coastal fortifications in Navarino Bay, on the western coast of Greece, Fabvier was given command of the newly formed Greek Army. His men made their way to Athens, which had briefly been held by the Greeks before being retaken by the Ottomans, to lay siege to the Turkish forces occupying the Acropolis. There, on December 1, 1826, Fabvier's men succeeded in breaking through enemy lines and seizing the ancient monument to Western Civilization.

Unfortunately for the Greeks, and for Fabvier's legacy, the capture of the Acropolis was not the end of the war. Two more years of fighting and more than three more years of negotiations still lay ahead for the troubled crossroads between east and west. Following his battle in Athens, Fabvier returned to France to drum up further support for Greek independence. He made his way back to Greece to participate in the final battles of the war in 1828.

Following the War of Independence, King Othon of Greece makes his way to the foot of the Parthenon on the Acropolis after entering Athens in 1833.

Perhaps because he was a foreigner, Fabvier does not get the same credit as other heroes of the Greek War of Independence, most notably Alexander Ypsilantis and Theodoros Kolokotronis. In spite of this, his contributions cannot be overlooked. A soldier through and through, Fabvier was eventually promoted to Lieutenant General by the French government and later served in parliament. In keeping with our goals at Lies Agreed Upon, we felt the tale of this fighting Frenchie was too good to pass up.

November 30, 1939

A Bad Dress Rehearsal: Or is the Enemy of My Enemy My Friend?

Today we start the new week and end the month of November with one of those small, sometimes forgotten dances that opened up the waltz of the Second World War. By 1945, Anglo-American troops had linked up with the Soviet Red Army, cutting Germany in half and linking the great Allies of east and west. History remembers these two forces combining to rid the world of the Third Reich, but some neglect that at the start of hostilities, the two sides almost became enemies.

Before the first German blitzkriegs were launched across Poland, Nazi and Soviet leaders had signed a mutual non-aggression pact that freed the two distrusting states of the immediate fear of a conflict with each other. This allowed both sides to pursue engagements elsewhere, even though each viewed the other as their main threat. While Hitler turned his eyes to the Western Allies that had shamed Germany after World War I, Stalin sought to reclaim Soviet territory lost to Finland during the Bolshevik Revolution a generation before.

His prime concern was with the city of Leningrad, in the extreme western reaches of the new communist empire. Stalin felt the namesake of his mentor could only be properly defended by reacquiring the lost territory. Also, while the Soviets and Finns had a non-aggression pact of their own, Stalin had noticed that almost none of the rapidly growing Finnish foreign commerce was coming across the border to the Soviet Union. Citing the potential conflict with Germany, he demanded that neutral Finland cede former Russian territory back to its rightful owner. The Finns flatly refused.

In late November, 1939, the Soviets claimed some of their troops had been shelled by Finnish forces near the border town of Mainila. When the Finns suggested the two countries investigate the incident, the Soviets feigned outrage and renounced the peace treaty between the two nations. On November 30, 1939, Red Army troops stormed across the border and Soviet planes bombed Helsinki, the Finnish capital. The short but ill-fated Winter War had begun.

Finnish ski troops man a trench during the brief but intense Winter War. While the Finns' clothing camouflaged them in the snow, many Red Army units began the war without cold weather gear.

Stalin, in all his paranoid wisdom, had quite successfully rid the Red Army of almost all its most experienced officers during the Great Purge the year before. Nevertheless, he felt his enormous army could easily beat back the outnumbered Finns and reclaim the territory he sought. The fact that Stalin was launching his invasion at the start of the Finnish winter and his men were attacking an enemy defending its homeland seemed lost on the dictator. As usual the lives of Red Army troops would foot the bill for Stalin's dreams of conquest.

The Soviets were woefully unprepared to fight such a campaign. With their best generals either dead or in Siberian gulags, the senior leadership in the Red Army was in shambles. Furthermore, the winter of 1939-40 was one of the coldest in Scandinavian records. All that, combined with the relentless determination of Finland's sons meant the easy war envisioned by the Red Army was far from the reality. By the end of the four month conflict, nearly 400,000 Russians had become casualties.

The West, for its part, was just as shocked at Stalin as it had been at Hitler earlier in the decade. This time, however, they planned to stop a hungry dictator before he took too healthy a serving for his plate. Aid poured in from many western nations, including Nazi Germany. Russia was booted from the League of Nations, and thousands of foreign volunteers made their way to Finland. The French and British, hoping to simultaneously cut Hitler's access to Scandinavian iron ore and to keep the fighting far from home soil, both planned to send troops to aid the smaller nation's cause.

The dogged Finnish defenders, however, could not hold back the Russian steamroller indefinitely. By the time spring had broken, the Red Army had secured the land Stalin felt was necessary to defend Leningrad. A fragile peace was arranged, but the Soviets could not escape the double indemnity of being viewed as both the aggressors and militarily incompetent. The Winter War would usher in more wholesale changes to the Red Army command structure, not all of which would be completed by the time the Germans invaded in 1941.

Broken Russian bodies and equipment litter Raate Road, the only line of escape for Red Army units trapped deep in Finnish territory during the Winter War.

Despite its brevity, the Winter War had lasting effects on the newly begun Second World War. Finland would not forget Russia's transgressions, and joined with Hitler once Operation Barbarossa was launched. Tensions between the west and the Soviet Union would remain until the Germans made them allies out of necessity. The Red Army would eventually regain its footing to throw back the Nazi invaders and emerge as the West's menace during the Cold War. Nevertheless, its first preparations for the rapidly approaching war nearly ended in disaster.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

November 29- December 5, 2009

God is on the side with the best artillery.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Dead General Quote of the Week

Bold Predictions

After leading the successful but costly invasion of Tarawa, General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith would find himself commanding at another bloody stop on the island hopping campaign. Waiting off the coast of Iwo Jima in February, 1945, Navy commanders asked Smith to appraise how his men would fare on the island:

This will be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history. We'll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches, and that will be just the beginning. The fighting will be fierce, and the casualties will be awful, but my Marines will take the damned island.

November 27, 1095

God Wills It: Or the Start of Something Big.

The holiday week closes out here at Lies Agreed Upon with a topic we have left untouched during the short life of this blog. Toward the end of the 11th Century AD, Islam had spread throughout the Mid-East and over most of North Africa. Christians had begun the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, but Islamic rulers were threatening Europe in modern day Turkey. In 1095, Envoys from Constantinople were sent by Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who plead to Pope Urban II to help defend Christendom in the east.

The Pope had a meeting with bishops and abbots scheduled for November, and Urban told many of them to bring the powerful lords from their respective regions. During the week-long Council of Clermont, Urban covered a wide range of topics, never mentioning the trouble brewing far to the east. Then, on November 27, 1095, the last full day of the meeting, Urban urged the clerics and the lords to send Christian fighters to reclaim the land of Christ from the advancing Muslim menace. This was their divine duty, for history remembers Urban famously proclaiming "Deus lo vult!" Medieval Latin for "God wills it."

In reality, no one is exactly sure what Urban said to the convened members at Clermont. There are several accounts of his speech, but each differs widely in both letter and spirit. Some claim that Urban asked Western Christians to defend their Eastern counterparts, but said nothing about recapturing the Holy Land. Others say Urban did claim it was God, not he, that was calling for this "Crusade" into the Holy Land. Either way, most agree that Urban put no limits on who could join, young or old, rich or poor, knight or peasant.




Pope Urban II addresses assembled clerics at the Council of Clermont, 1095 AD.













Regardless, nearly 35,000 men set off from Europe for Constantinople the next summer. What would become known as the First Crusade would successfully beat back Islamic forces from Turkey. In 1099, they laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually capturing the city. The holiest place in Christendom would remain under western rule for nearly a century, before eventually being recaptured by Islamic lords. In all there would be at least nine Crusades, launched over the course of three centuries.

Surely many would love to know what Pope Urban II said to the gathered clerics on that November day in 1095. Nearly three hundred years of savage warfare was launched at his behest, and there is no shortage of resentment between Muslims and the west to this day. No matter what he said during the Council of Clermont, Urban nevertheless added more to the endless tally of men killed by wars in the name of God.

Thanksgiving Day, 1967

875 Meters to Hell: Or Why There Will Always be Infantry.

The holiday we are enjoying today was surely no cause for celebration for the men of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade, fighting in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in the fall of 1967. American ground units had struggled for control of the region since first arriving in country two years earlier, and commanders speculated it was a staging area for People's Army of Vietnam troops arriving from the north. Throughout November, fighting had intensified around the hamlet of Dak To, and would culminate on a wooded hill on the Cambodian border.

Hill 875, designated by its height in meters, was found by the men of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry. It's height and strategic position overlooking the Ho Chi Minh Trail made it a prime target for the paratroopers. On Sunday, November 19 they began to probe the slopes of the heavily forested hill. Almost immediately after reaching the top, they ran head long into a complex bunker line and were pinned down. It soon became clear to the paratroopers that this was no ordinary hill.

Paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade assault up the slopes of Hill 875, Central Highlands, Vietnam.

After units of Delta Company were halted in front of the bunkers, men from Alpha Company began working their way back down the hill to cut a landing zone for helicopter support. With fighting still raging near the crest, the chilling sound of bugles reached the ears of the men of Alpha. Bugles were often used by the PAVN to coordinate attacks, and at times were a normal sound in big engagements early in the war. These bugles, however, were coming from in front of Alpha, at the base of the hill. The battalion was surrounded.

Still in contact with the bunker line and cut off from any additional ground help, the battalion desperately tried to hack an LZ out of the jungle. But the close proximity of the enemy positions made landing a chopper nearly impossible. One ship made it in and evacuated some wounded. Ten others were disabled while trying to land. Not only could ammunition and water not be flown in, but the mounting number of wounded men would be forced to wait on the hill side for death or victory, whichever came first.

Aid was administered to the wounded wherever possible during the fight for Hill 875. Many took days to be evacuated and were killed or re-wounded while awaiting the helicopters.

The problems were exacerbated on Sunday evening, when the men of Delta Company called for close air support near their position. After the sorties, a lone fighter remained with a single 500lb bomb still to be dropped. It swept in low over the trees, and some soldiers noticed this strike came in on a north-south approach, along the crest of the ridge line and not across it as others had all day. It was the first sign that something was amiss.

The men who had been fighting all day below watched with a clear view as the plane descended and loosed its deadly payload smack into the middle of Delta's position. The slopes of the hill were silenced for a few moments as the paratroopers struggled to comprehend what had happened. Then came the screams. Delta's CO was badly wounded, and the battalion chaplain was killed. In all nearly 40 paratroopers were killed by the bomb with more than as many wounded. Among the dead were dozens of men who were already wounded and had been waiting for evacuation. It was the worst friendly fire incident of the Vietnam War.

The battle was far from over. For the next four days, the paratroopers tried to maintain their position, clear whatever bunkers they could, and stay alive. From as close as 25 meters, the heavy mortar and rocket fire of the PAVN kept helicopters, the lifeline of most American units in Vietnam, from landing anywhere. The line of wounded stretched down the hill, and makeshift aid stations became targets for the the enemy. By Wednesday, all the officers in the rifle companies were casualties, and 11 of the 13 medics in the battalion had been killed. A reporter who witnessed the fight later wrote that the only way to tell the living from the dead was to see who moved when the incoming mortar rounds landed.

A relief column was sent to take the pressure off the men of the 2nd Battalion, but brought no extra food, water, ammo, or medical supplies. Hill 875 had been the base camp for several PAVN regiments, and the paratroopers had blindly stumbled right into the thick of it. Further air strikes and artillery barrages had little effect on the well entrenched enemy regulars. By late Wednesday afternoon an LZ was finally cut, and the line of wounded men slowly made their way to the helicopters.

Revitalized by seeing their wounded comrades taken to safety and finally resupplied by the tenuous LZ, the men of the relief column swept the last of resistance from the hill on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, 1967. The paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion were not able to contribute much to the final assaults. Of the 570 men of the unit who went into action on Sunday, more than half were casualties by the middle of the week.

The fighting on Hill 875 and around Dak To in general was some of the savagest seen during the entire American involvement. The PAVN proved that by maintaining close contact with their Western enemies they could negate their overwhelming fire power and air support. The dense jungle and tangle of hills and ridges also proved how valuable the helicopter was to the American style of fighting. Without the aircraft to resupply them and evacuate the wounded, the paratroopers lost all their advantages over the North Vietnamese.

In the end, it would be the dogged determination of the American infantryman that won through. Facing an experienced and capable enemy, each bunker had to be cleared by hand grenades and small arms fire. No matter how many advantages in fire power and aircraft a nation has, the individual grunt will always be needed to physically clear the enemy away from the battlefield. Infantry is the backbone of any military, and no matter how far technology progresses, always will be. When they were finally pulled off the hill on Thursday afternoon, the men of the 173rd surely had a lot to be thankful for.

November 24, 1944

The End of an Era: Or How Do You Say Wild Blue Yonder in Chinese?
















Yesterday we covered the bloody invasion of Tarawa, the first stepping stone in the island hopping campaign aimed at the heart of Japan. As we discussed, the ultimate goal of creeping closer to Tokyo island by island was to secure airbases and jump off points close to the Japanese mainland. By late 1944, the Marines had finally captured airfields that brought the home islands into the range of the B-29 Superfortress, America's new heavy bomber. Soon after, relentless air attacks would hit Japan from over the ocean, dealing death on daily basis after racing down out of the rising sun.

Before that, however, the task of bombing Japan was the charge of the United States Twentieth Army Air Force, stationed at a far off series of airbases near Chengtu in central China. On the far side of the world, 10,000 miles from Washington, D.C., the Twentieth Air Force had been taking the war to the Japanese homeland since the start of 1944. Using four groups of B-29s, the Twentieth Air Force was personally commanded by General Henry H."Hap" Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces.


Kumming Air Base, China, in 1944. B-29s from the XX Bomber Command, Twentieth Air Force took off from this field and others like it before bases opened in the Marianas.

Supplies to the base had to be airlifted via "The Hump", the high altitude supply line from India over the Himalayas, and not all the equipment the Twentieth needed always arrived. With Arnold at the helm, the Twentieth developed a knack for resourcefulness, ingenuity and inventiveness. That, combined with the distance from home and the dangerous nature of their mission meant that a unique attitude developed on the airbases near Chengtu. Perhaps the farthest flung of all American troops across the globe, the airmen developed a cocky, colorful yet workmanlike demeanor.

On November 24, 1944, the first B-29s took off for Tokyo from the island of Guam in the central Pacific. For the Twentieth, still launching raids on Japan in Operation Matterhorn, it was the beginning of the end of the flyboy haven on the other side of the world. With island airfields large enough to handle the giant bombers, the daunting logistics that came with raiding the enemy's home were eased. The lifeline of a B-29 over Japan no longer had to stretch from China, over Everest, through India and across two oceans. With bases in the Marianas, planes, pilots and munitions could all be delivered by the United States Navy who now controlled the Pacific.

When most think of the bombings of Japan, familiar images include formations of B-29s taking off from airfields on the widespread islands of the Pacific. To be sure, most of the destruction suffered by Japanese cities was yet to come, hand delivered by American boys who had launched from places like Guam, Tinian and Saipan. The Twentieth Air Force itself would even transfer to the Marianas to continue their work for the rest of the war. But lost to the deathly efficiency of these raids is another story of men fighting on the far side of the world.

B-29s drop incendiary bombs on Japan, 1945.

Deep in the Asian mainland, with the entire Japanese war machine between themselves and their homes, they paved the way for the bombing campaign that would eventually bring the war to a close. All the while, they bred a unique environment, where skill and initiative and guts trumped dogma and spit and polish. True, they were far more effective later from the Marianas, and their huge requisitions dogged the overburdened airlift, but the story of the Twentieth Air Force in China is not to be forgotten.

November 25, 1864

The Confederate Army of Manhattan: Or the Day the Flames Went Out on Broadway.

Today we turn back the clock to the American Civil War, and cross the bridge to Manhattan during the rainy November of 1864. At the time, tensions in the North's grandest city were just as volatile as in any field in Georgia or Tennessee. Two summers before, after President Lincoln signed the first conscription act, the city had erupted in riots that took Union troops (fresh from the Battle of Gettysburg) to suppress. Most of New York's immigrant population was more interested in working than fighting, especially if the dying was to be done to aid a potential rival in the workforce.

Since the beginning of the war, there had even been talk of New York City seceding from the Union and declaring Manhattan a free entity. The boiling mood on the island made it a juicy target for Confederate espionage, and they hoped the fires from the draft riots still raged in New Yorkers' hearts. While Billy Sherman was burning his way toward Savannah, Jacob Thompson, former Secretary of the Interior of the United States, hoped to fan a few flames of his own. Thompson had returned to his home in Mississippi after secession and after serving as Inspector General of the Confederate Army, began building a spy cell in Canada.

Jacob Thompson

Late in November, Thompson put his men into action. He had formed a group of eight men that called themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan, who each snuck into the Union and checked himself into a different New York City hotel. At about 8:45pm on November 25, 1864, the city's fledgling fire department began receiving near simultaneous calls at over 20 locations all over town. The Confederate spies had each set fire to their rooms, then hit the streets to start fires at targets throughout the city.

The plan was to start more fires than the department could handle, and the Southerners would of course had been pleased to see the city burned to the ground. But the real hope was that the panic and blame that would ensue would incite New York's population to rebel against city officials. While seemingly an effective plot in theory, Thompson failed to take into account three things: the wet weather; the considerably more calmed mood that had overtaken Manhattan in the last year; and the men who had recently begun calling themselves the New York City Fire Department.

When the calls of fire began streaming in, coordinated teams of units began to each tackle a fire. Soon, all were contained or had burned out before spreading far enough to cause much damage. Thompson had remained in Canada, but all eight members of the Confederate Army of Manhattan were captured. Seven were later executed, the last of which, Captain Robert Cobb Kennedy, was the last solider hanged by either side during the Civil War.







Harper's Weekly published this depiction of a member of the Confederate Army of Manhattan setting a fire.





Sadly, it turned out it was Thompson who the Union really needed to get its hands on. Operating in Canada for the remainder of the war, Thompson continued his efforts against the Federal war effort. Clearly, he had few qualms about burning down New York, and perhaps the plot was a sign of worse things to come. There are some who speculate, and the editors of Lies Agreed Upon are in that camp, that Jacob Thompson should be counted among the conspirators of the assassination of President Lincoln.

Union troops burned Thompson's estate in Oxford, Mississippi in 1864, and after the war the former congressman and cabinet member lived abroad in exile. He was pardoned in 1869, but never returned to public life. Terrorism has always been an unfortunate extension of the horrors of war, whether in 1864 New York or the Middle East today. Fortunately for the City that Never Sleeps, then just as now, her bravest constitute a fire department that doesn't sleep either.

November 23, 1943

Blood on the Coral: Or the Most Expensive Square Mile in the Pacific.

We start the new week at Lies Agreed Upon with one of the more infamous battles in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The tiny atoll of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Island chain nearly 2,400 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, was seen by American commanders as a vital step in the island hopping campaign across the Central Pacific. Planners had their sights set on the Marianas Islands, another 2,000 miles further west, to establish the airbases needed to take the war to the Japanese home islands. Standing in the way was the heavily armed garrison on Tarawa's Betio Island, a spit of rock with an area less than a square mile.

Landing troops on a hostile shore, protecting them while they unload equipment and then keeping them supplied is often considered the most difficult operation a force can attempt. These challenges were compounded at Tarawa for several reasons. First, the beaches of the island are only accessible from the shallow lagoon the atoll surrounds. Approaching from the sea is impossible. Furthermore, the tides around the Gilberts are notoriously fickle, and at times hide jagged coral reefs that can rip the bottoms right out of landing craft.

Marines storm an enemy pillbox on Tarawa.

In addition, Tarawa was occupied by 5,000 men of a special naval detachment, essentially Japanese marines. These elite troops spent over a year creating an interwoven web of trenches, bunkers and pillboxes. The difficult task of assaulting Tarawa fell to the men of the 2nd Marine Division. During the inter-war period, the United States Marine Corps had pioneered the art of amphibious landings on beaches all over the Caribbean. The few offensive landings undertaken since the start of the war had not been contested on the beaches by the Japanese. The landings on Tarawa in late November, however, would put the Americans to the ultimate test.

The first wave of Marines was met at the water's edge by heavy machine gun and mortar fire. They would be forced to fight their way onto the island, but they were ashore and organizing at the base of a seawall on the beach. As the second wave approached, the predicted tides failed to change and landing craft had to dump their men and equipment nearly a hundred yards out to sea. Men laden with nearly half their body weight in gear were forced to wade through chest-high water under fire. By the time the third wave arrived, the distance was nearly five times that. The first wave was hit hard; the second decimated; the third nearly destroyed.

The problems did not end once the Marines got off the beach. The well planned defensive network proved its worth over the course of the next three days, exacting a bitter price for each yard the Americans advanced. Nevertheless, the typical marine bravado was evident throughout the battle. During the fighting, a report by Colonel David. M. Shoup, who would eventually become the Commandant of the Marine Corps, summed up both the combat and the attitude of the Marines: "Casualites: many; Percentage of dead: not known; Combat efficiency: we are winning."



Colonel David M. Shoup, shown here with his trademark cigar, won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Tarawa.



By November 23, 1943, through incredible bravery, overwhelming firepower and sheer grit, the Marines had cleared the island. Afterward, for one of the first times ever, the American public was allowed access to the gruesome details of the savage war in the Pacific. The "butcher's bill" at Tarawa would be shocking, as in just three days of fighting casualties in many units topped 50 percent. Up to that point, it was the costliest battle in the history of the Marine Corps. A short documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, was released the next year, and Americans found themselves aghast at the deadly carnage their sons faced on a daily basis. Of the 5,000 Japanese on the island, only about 150 were taken alive.

After the battle, the huge casualty numbers caused many to question not only the necessity of the fight, but the conduct of the war as a whole. Marine General "Howlin' Mad" Holland Smith later wrote "Was Tarawa worth it? My answer: an unqualified No." Smith blamed the casualties on poor planning and a lack of understanding of tides in the Gilberts. He felt Tarawa could have been bypassed and the Japanese defenders left to "wither on the vine." Nevertheless, the Marines proved that any island could be taken by an amphibious assault, regardless of the number of defenders or the extent of their fortifications. The lessons learned at Tarawa would prove invaluable on the long road to Tokyo.

This grisly scene was repeated all along the shores of Tarawa in late November, 1943. It was the first time the Japanese had contested an American landing at the water's edge.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

November 22-28, 2009

Some people can move, and some people can shoot. But when you can move and you can shoot, you and Napoleon are pissin' in the same puddle.

George S. Patton

Dead General Quote of the Week

A Cold Day in Hell.

A Note from the Editors:
On Wednesday night, we promised to cover Operation Uranus for the next day, November 19th. We backed out on that, collectively opting to go with a more personal story rather than just discussing a battle that would result in a post too cluttered with background.

Every good journalist (and we think every writer, really) knows its a sin to abuse the reader's trust, however slight the transgression. We promise we won't do it again. To atone for that we are announcing the installment of a new feature here at Lies Agreed Upon, Dead General Quote of the Week.

To make up for our wrongs, the inaugural Dead General Quote of the Week comes from Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. After Paulus was cut off by Operation Uranus, Hitler refused to allow him to break out and reunite with German forces. Instead, Sixth Army was forced to stay, and suffered through one of the most desperate battles in history. Hitler later promoted Paulus to Field Marshal, a not-so-subtle way of telling him to win or fall on his sword. After the surrender at Stalingrad, Paulus, who became the highest ranking German ever to become a prisoner, had this to say:

"I have no intention of shooting myself for that Austrian Corporal."

November 20, 1917

Landships: Or the Day the Cavalry Died.

At the beginning of the week, we briefly discussed the reluctance early flight faced from conservative military minds. Today the calender offers us the opportunity to examine another aspect of modern warfare we take for granted, but was met with the same skepticism as aviation. As is our goal with most of the topics we attempt to cover at Lies Agreed Upon, today we look at an event that had a far reaching affect on the conduct of war as a whole.

Despite continual evidence to the contrary, many leaders during the First World War believed the key to breaking the stalemate in the trenches lied with mounted troops exploiting gaps in the enemy front. In battle after battle, commanders envisioned their horse cavalry galloping through breaches in the line and rolling up the enemy's flanks. Cavalry charges, along with chivalrous images of mounted medieval knights, had been the norm on battlefields for thousands of years. But the tangles of barbed wire and the deathly efficiency of machine guns on the Western Front had relegated most cavalrymen to fighting in dismounted roles by 1917.


Dead horses often littered the battlefields of the Western Front during World War I.






Both sides had experimented with alternatives to mounted cavalry since the beginning of the war. Oddly enough, it was the Royal Navy who first proposed the idea of a "landship", a heavily armored moving gunship that used tracks instead of wheels to roll over any obstacles. These supposedly impregnable fortresses were intended to do the job of both the infantry and the cavalry; blasting a hole in the enemy line and then using mobility to exploit its own gains. Commanders believed the answer to their prayers had arrived.

The first modern tanks that appeared at the front during the Battle of the Somme, however, found little success. The tracked chassis often stalled in the mud, the armored interiors were hot and smokey, and troops found the art of moving and shooting difficult to master. The first tanks were little more than armored deathtraps. Nevertheless, tank advocates insisted that if the right number of vehicles was used on the right battlefield, the long awaited breakthrough on the Western Front could be achieved.

On November 20, 1917, in front of the French town of Cambrai, the plan was put into action. For the first time in history, tanks were massed on one sector of the line and featured in the main assault. In the early morning mist, 378 British Mark IV tanks slipped the cover of Havrincourt Wood and made their way toward the German line. Just the sight of the slow, loud, smoke-spitting beats caused most of the enemy to flee from their trenches, and the British we able to penetrate five miles in just 10 hours (a huge gain by Western Front standards).




A British Mark IV tank during a training exercise, 1917.

The battle is important for several reasons, some more obvious than others. The tank was not the only new innovation on display at Cambrai. After the initial British gains, the nature of the German defensive line allowed them to reform in positions to the rear and eventually halt the attack, a practice that is seen in most modern day defensive plans. Furthermore, in the ensuing counterattack the Germans unveiled their new stormtrooper tactics to push back the British. This approach had been developed on the Russian front, and proved to be extremely effective at breaking through trenches during the German Spring Offensives the next year.

The British attack lasted less than ten days, and within a month, the front line punctured by the tanks had been restored. Nevertheless, the tank had arrived. Working in teams of three, the tanks had covered each other, plowed through barbed wire, and bridged trenches so the infantry could follow behind. The Allies would not attempt another large-scale tank assault during the war, but the Battle of Cambrai was one of, if not the first combined arms operations in history. Today, most conventional military tactics are based on the combination of tanks and supporting infantry.

As usual, such military progress was not immediately recognized. In fact, during the battle stubborn British leaders had horse cavalry waiting behind the lines to be deployed should the tanks fail. The new German tactics in the counter attack were seen as more important, since it now seemed possible for the enemy to breach Allied trenches, even without tanks of their own. Stormtroopers, teams of shock troops using grenades and automatic weapons, indeed became a force to be reckoned with for the remainder of the war. The notion of combined arms would take another generation to prove its worth, when German stormtroopers, following behind tanks, launched the first blitzkrieg across Poland in World War II.

Military minds are traditionally very slow to react. Nevertheless, it was clear modern weaponry had rendered horse cavalry obsolete. Furthermore, the time and money it took to train, feed, and care for the animals used by an ineffective branch of service soon became an obvious excess. While the horse was used to move supplies and the wounded during the Second World War, its days as a weapon were numbered. The Battle of Cambrai, while doing little to decide the outcome of the war, still shaped the face of all ensuing conflicts. Cavalry was gradually phased out and replaced by tanks. Even today in the United States Army, many modern tank outfits are designated as "Armored Cavalry."



The shoulder patch of the armored US 1st Cavalry Division still bears the horsehead insignia. Yellow is the traditional cavalry color.

November 19, 1941

A Long Way From Home: Or Why They Call It a World War.

We've got good news and we've got bad news. We went to bed last night making a promise to our readers about a few irritated communists and maybe a T-34 or two. We hate to do it, but we're backing out on that. We woke up this morning realizing we had just done pissed-off Russians two days ago, and would thus be luring our reader into the same trap as yesterday's. Fortunately, (for us more than our audience) we have come across another one of those little stories that end up serving as a microcosm for war as whole.

Captain Theodor Detmers, a twenty year veteran of the German Kriegsmarine, must have thought his luck had run out early in the evening of November 19, 1941. He was skippering the auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, a blue water commerce raider that had been at sea for nearly a year. In the bountiful eastern Atlantic, his ship had executed a impressive run of successful raids. But as they passed the Cape of Good Hope and neared the coast of western Australia, their haul had dried up.



Captain Theodor Detmers, skipper of the Kormoran.









The Kormoran was struggling with a malfunctioning engine, and had not made contact with any enemy ship for months. Detmers planned to deploy a complement of sea mines before leaving the Pacific and returning home for repairs. He barely avoided an Australian convoy off Cape Leeuwin, but then on the evening of the 19th, sailed right past the light cruiser HMAS Sydney. Intercepted by the faster and better armed Sydney, Detmers disguised his vessel as a Dutch merchant ship. Now, the Sydney was so close, he could see Australian sailors moving around on her decks.

Detmers was puzzled, too. This warship, which easily out-gunned his disguised raider, was bearing down on him just off his starboard beam. Now, she had hoisted the letters IK, warning him to prepare his ship for a hurricane. In the serene waters off of western Australia, Detmers had no idea what the signal meant and had no idea how to answer it. After fifteen minutes of nerve-shattering tension, the Sydney signaled "Show your secret sign", and Detmers knew his ship was in trouble.

The Kormoran in 1940, pictured here from the deck of a German U-Boat.

The fact that Detmers was even in this situation is what we'd like our readers to pause and think about today. At this point in the war, Germany had tasted very little defeat practically anywhere. With France overrun, England stood alone in the west, and Hitler had bailed out his ally Mussolini in Greece. Russia was on its heels, although the Germans were running into stiff resistance in front of Moscow. In North Africa, they were pushing on Tobruk. In the Pacific, a secret Japanese task force was just a week away from sailing for Pearl Harbor.

Still in its infancy, the Second World War had truly earned its name. Take Detemers' stand-off, for example. A German commerce raider, nearly 8,000 miles from its home port, was staring down the barrels of an Australian cruiser, on its way home from a tour of duty in the Mediterranean. Elsewhere, Japanese boys were in China; Americans were in the Philippines and on Wake Island; Italian soldiers were stuck in the Libyan sand dunes, and the young men of the British Isles were in places as far flung as India and New Guinea, while fending off the Luftwaffe in the skies over Europe.

It is hard to imagine such a scenario today, most of the world at war in all corners of the globe, with more nations and more territory soon to be thrown in. By 1945 there had been at least some fighting on six of seven continents and on all four of the oceans. The sheer number of people involved and the size of the military machines required to sustain that effort is something we cannot comprehend today. There were times when it seemed no one, no where, could escape the war.

Certainly, Captain Detmers could not escape it, and by 5:30 pm on the 19th he had a decision to make. Obviously, the Sydney was challenging him with some sort of code. Unable to produce the correct response, Detmers had only one choice. What happened next was later pieced together with accounts from the survivors of the Kormoran.

Detmers ordered his men to run up the German colors and open fire on the Sydney. The Australian ship, finally realizing who she was along side, fired almost simultaneously. But the cruiser had come in too close, or her guns were still sighted for a warning salvo. Her first volley mostly flew over the smaller German craft. The Kormoran, however, didn't miss. Her salvos were raking the enemy fore to aft. The Sydney fired away for nearly half an hour, eventually damaging the raider, but was struck by a German torpedo and forced to retire.

Detmers' craft had fended off the bigger vessel, but with no safe port anywhere in reach, the Captain ordered his men to abandon their burning ship. 318 of the 399 German sailors would await rescue in lifeboats for days. On the night of November 19, the sky above them was lit by the fires aboard the Sydney, slowly dying somewhere beyond the horizon. The cruiser sunk sometime after that, and none of the 645 Australian sailors was ever found.



Crew of the HMAS Sydney before the war.

Afterward, the Australian government would launch inquiries into the case of the Sydney, trying to determine what events had caused such a superior ship to be sunk by an inferior enemy. Few clear conclusions were drawn, and some accused Detmers of firing before revealing his German colors. Survivor accounts refute that, and it is most likely the damage from the enemy torpedo did in the Sydney and her crew. Either way, Detmers was an Australian prisoner, and sat out the greatest conflict in human history far from home on the other side of the world.