Counterattack at Carentan

[Enoch]

I was reading Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" last night and came to the section where he discusses E Company's defence against a German counterattack at Carentan on June 13th. According to what I've been able to find about this attack, it consisted of elements of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division and the 6th Parachute Regiment.

Ambrose says that at one point during the battle a german tank started to breach a hedgerow. An American bazooka team took two shots to knock out the tank.

Now there are two things that bother me about his description. First, he says that the German tank was turning its turret towards the bazooka team. Second it was trying to level it's "88mm cannon" on the team. The reason these descriptions bother me is beacause according to what I've been able to find the only "tanks" that the 17th divison had were assualt gun. So, they had neither a turret nor an 88mm gun. Other units in the area of Utah beach had some old French tanks but nothing with an 88mm gun.

I know this is somewhat nitpicky. I suppose the description could be simply due to what CM models where American solidiers are over anxious to identify every tank as a Tiger. I just want to see if anyone has any info that the 17th Division, or any other unit in the area, had Tigers? I'm not one to disagree with Ambrose but I just want to get my facts straight.

Other than that Band of Brothers is a great book that covers things on the scale of CM and I highly recommend it to all.

[ 04-13-2001: Message edited by: Enoch ]

[Feldgrau]

I suspect this is a case of a historian reporting verbatim what was conveyed to him...i.e. Lt. Welsh and Pvt. McGrath saying something to the effect that E Company was attacked by 'Tigers'. A quick check of my references does not indicate that there were any 'Tigers' operating in the area of the 17'th SSGvB where this action takes place.

This sort of thing is not totally uncommon. Chas. MacDonald, a quite respected historian, wrote in his book 'The Battle of the Heutergen Forest' of Panthers armed w/ "88mm cannons"; that and this were probably nothing more than simple mistakes in reference checking (and editorial support unfamiliar w/ the details about which their authors were writing).

OTOH, maybe there were some stray PzKw VI's of the sPz-Abt 501 detached to 17'th SSGvB, but I can't find any reference to it.

MSP

[pritzl]

I don't want to take anything away from the valuable contributions that Abrose has made to the study of events during the war, but his writing needs to be taken with a grain a salt.

Ambrose has a reputation for not bothering with facts if they conflict with telling a good story. He also has a very pro U.S. bias. His books tend to imply that the United States won World War II, while the British, Canadians, etc occasionally helped. Naturally, the Russian front was of no consequence at all and any help given to the Americans from allies was rarely needed because the American doughboy is about the finest example of intelligence, bravery, goodness, and humility that ever fought as a soldier. Of course the reason the help was rarely needed was because the Germans were the little more than automatons raised from youth by Hitler to do nothing but fight wars and were completely incapable of rational independant thought.

Well that ended up far more sarcastic than I intended, but serious historians all regard objectivity and factual accuracy as the cornerstones of the discipline.

[Mr. Johnson--]

A great example of "don't believe everything you read" Always question stuff your reading. Read between the lines, and try and read about your topic from other angles. Somewhere in the middle you might find a trickle of truth.

[MrSpkr]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pritzl:

[T]he American doughboy is about the finest example of intelligence, bravery, goodness, and humility that ever fought as a soldier.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And the inaccuracy in that is exactly, what?

MrSpkr

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pritzl:

I don't want to take anything away from the valuable contributions that Abrose has made to the study of events during the war, but his writing needs to be taken with a grain a salt.

Ambrose has a reputation for not bothering with facts if they conflict with telling a good story. He also has a very pro U.S. bias. His books tend to imply that the United States won World War II, while the British, Canadians, etc occasionally helped. Naturally, the Russian front was of no consequence at all and any help given to the Americans from allies was rarely needed because the American doughboy is about the finest example of intelligence, bravery, goodness, and humility that ever fought as a soldier. Of course the reason the help was rarely needed was because the Germans were the little more than automatons raised from youth by Hitler to do nothing but fight wars and were completely incapable of rational independant thought.

Well that ended up far more sarcastic than I intended, but serious historians all regard objectivity and factual accuracy as the cornerstones of the discipline.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with what you are saying about factual accuracy, but I think you are making a mistake about Ambrose, and I suspect it has to do with not considering all of his work. His RECENT stuff is mostly oral history of American units and the American role in the war.

It seems pretty reasonable to me to write that kind of thing -- people study US foreign policy or British units, or Soviet armies so a guy who wants to write about units in the American army doesn't seem all that unusual to me...

As to Ambrose not crediting the other allies with their share of the credit, its true he doesn't talk a lot about the Russian Front, but that's not really his specialty, anyway.

And as for the British, say, I think you are totally off base here. In his book Supreme Commander, which is a bio of Eisenhower's wartime years, he provides an extremely positive account of Monty's role and it gave me renewed respect for the British general's intelligence and guts.

As for other British folks, well, he obviously has great respect for the soldiers and the officers -- repeatedly makes the point that WW2 would have taken a lot longer to win without British generals. (Personally I would modify that to stress the Irish background of many British generals, but why split hairs?)

As to the favorable portrait of the US soldiers you see in his books, even Band of Brothers, which is entirely based on reminiscences, US soldiers who are anti-semitic, alcoholic, scared, and some who seem to be very fond of tormenting and executing German prisoners.

So while I have heard that Ambrose doesn't look after some of the facts as well as he should, we should distinguish between his facts and the facts that are passed on as truth by the sources of his oral histories. A good historian is careful with facts, sure, but doesn't fiddle with the quotes either...

Anyway, I like Ambrose and respect much (not all) of his work and think it well balanced and solid. Especially his earlier work on Eisenhower...

[M. Bates]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

As for other British folks, well, he obviously has great respect for the soldiers and the officers -- repeatedly makes the point that WW2 would have taken a lot longer to win without British generals. (Personally I would modify that to stress the Irish background of many British generals, but why split hairs?)

As to the favorable portrait of the US soldiers you see in his books, even Band of Brothers, which is entirely based on reminiscences, US soldiers who are anti-semitic, alcoholic, scared, and some who seem to be very fond of tormenting and executing German prisoners.

So while I have heard that Ambrose doesn't look after some of the facts as well as he should, we should distinguish between his facts and the facts that are passed on as truth by the sources of his oral histories. A good historian is careful with facts, sure, but doesn't fiddle with the quotes either...

Anyway, I like Ambrose and respect much (not all) of his work and think it well balanced and solid. Especially his earlier work on Eisenhower...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

People get the wrong end of the stick with Ambrose because he comes across as an aggressive so-and-so, but that's just his persona, he seems to get bashed as he's some kind of easy target. Interestingly, he looks like a hippy in his World At War presentation!!

Re the Generals, I think that Montgomery and Wellington were both Irishmen, ironically seen as England's or Britain's greatest soldiers. The Irish Guards also led the drive to Arnhem. Does anyone else agree with me that having lots of different cultures (i.e. New Zealanders) on the same side is good for friendly morale and bad for enemy morale? I'm sure it has some kind of effect... in the Desert War of WW2, NZ troops were renowned for good use of the bayonet, and the Germans kept NZ prisoners out in the sunshine while the other POWs could be in the shade!!

I love reading details like that.

[109 Gustav]

In "The Men of Company K," the author said that he and most others knew that many of the German guns were 75mm, but that not even the most experienced veterans could tell the difference by the size of the explosion, so they called them all 88s.

Besides, try shouting "Sarge, they've got eighty-eights everywhere!!!" and "Sarge, they've got seventy-fives everywhere!!!." You'll find that you need a lot less air to shout eighty-eights, and air is mighty important when you're trying to outrun an HE shell.

[Keith]

The only 'tanks' the 17th SS had were a battalion of StugIIIgs. With regard to Ambrose, although he has done a commendable job interviewing hundreds of American WWII veterans, he is a poor historian. Ambrose does a very poor job correlating sources and makes very little effort presenting the 'other side of the hill' perspective. His books are also loaded with technical errors. I look at Ambrose's books as a collection of interviews rather than a work of historical fact. Ambrose also has a screwy theory that the American democratic 'citizen soldier' was superior to the soldiers produced by the facist regimes.

[ 04-14-2001: Message edited by: Keith ]

[JasonC]

"we should distinguish between his facts and the facts that are passed on as truth by the sources of his oral histories. A good historian is careful with facts, sure, but doesn't fiddle with the quotes either"

Basically right. Ambrose does not correct anything he is told by the vets. But partially, this is because he believes what the vets tell him, thinks that is a more trustworthy source than all the known history stuff. And that is short-sighted. The result is that Ambrose does make errors, but they are exactly the errors that the participants made. And the participants make all kinds of errors. He also sometimes adds his own, going by vague impressions or the moral qualities he ascribes to a commander or what not.

On the particular case given, first it is obvious that the gun wasn't an 88, and as everyone has already pointed out, that is just the way most U.S. units talked. Any large caliber, flat trajectory cannon was "an 88"; it was a synonym for "heavy PAK-FLAK".

But it is also entirely possible the zook men shot a Sherman. LOL. I mean, it was pushing through a hedgerow, right? Kinda hard to see the blasted make. And the U.S. tanks were more likely to be pushing through hedgerows (though it is a bit early for all the later devices).

If anyone thinks that is impossible, read the official histories about what happened the first few times U.S. armor formations were assigned some of the same frontage of infantry formations. Whole battalions shot the hell out of each other for hours in some cases. Both U.S. I mean. And in this area, the base of the penisula, in particular.

The other possibility is that is was just a StuG, coming through just a hedge, and the vehicle as a whole was turning, not the turret. Or a stray Pz IV lost and wandering about the battlefield, commandeered by a kampgruppe in its area. Any of the three seems to me perfectly plausible. A Tiger there at that time, does not.

[JeffRaider]

I read an apology from Ambrose re: 88/75 mixups. He knows he made a mistake. In the same apology, he acknowledged that he mistakenly wrote "shank" mechanics, instead of "chancre" mechanics. I'm not sure where, but I seem to recall it being in Citizen Soldiers.

[JasonC]

Here is an example of battle confusion on July 9th in the sector of the 30th Infantry Division. A month later, that is. From the official history - "

When the leading elements of Task Force Y, Company I of the 33d Armored Regiment, finally got to the highway about 1630 after their painful progress across country, they became confused and turned north up the main road, advancing straight toward the 117th's lines and toward the division's supporting guns, both tank destroyers and antiaircraft batteries. With a real and dangerous German armored attack in progress just to the west, there was every reason for the fully-alerted antitank crews to swing into action. A fight instantly developed, the armor coming in with its 75-mm guns and machine guns blazing. The two leading tanks were knocked Out by friendly fire before Company I realized its mistake and turned south on a proper course.

The whole mix-up at the highway was "one of those things" that could happen to any unit, particularly troops that were still inexperienced. Perhaps the best commentary on the affair, and on the attitude of troops that went through it, is the report for 9 July of the 823d Tank Destroyer Battalion:

'There was lots of small-arms fire, shelling and mortar fire blanketed the area, everybody fired in every direction, rumors flooded the air, and when infantry units withdrew in disorder leaving some gun positions exposed, it became necessary to withdraw to successive positions. The exact movements of each platoon is at present obscured in the confusion of battle...Unit took two prisoners which were its first, suffered its first fatal casualties, was shot up by its own infantry and armored force and in turn shot up our own infantry and armored force, but under all circumstances came through their first critical engagement in fairly good shape...Combat efficiency satisfactory but mad as hell.'"

[BloodyBucket]

I wonder if the average GI in WWII knew as much about the hardware involved as the folks posting to this forum.

I suspect that your interest in what variation of what model tank is trying to kill you is near zero. It is funny, when talking to a infantry veteran I know, I catch myself all the time thinking "that is not technically correct", but I would not dare give voice to the thought. The man was there, I was not, and almost sixty years and the desire to forget unpleasant details would account for much of the "technical errors" of his recollections.

I can field strip a Garand with my eyes closed. He can barely lift one now, and can't remember how it comes apart. I am still not a pimple on his tail when it comes real knowledge of that rifle as a combat weapon, and just because I know a lot about Garands I do not look down my nose at the men who used them but couldn't tell one from a Springfield at this date.

Most folks reading Ambrose are probably trying to get an insight on what it was like to be there. If they want a hardware book they will buy one. If Ambrose tends to admire the men he has spent so many years interviewing and it shows in his writing, than I understand that. I admire them too, warts and all.

[LimShady]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JeffRaider:

I read an apology from Ambrose re: 88/75 mixups. He knows he made a mistake. In the same apology, he acknowledged that he mistakenly wrote "shank" mechanics, instead of "chancre" mechanics. I'm not sure where, but I seem to recall it being in Citizen Soldiers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's in the new afterword of the paperback edition of Citizen Soldiers

LimShady

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Keith:

Ambrose also has a screwy theory that the American democratic 'citizen soldier' was superior to the soldiers produced by the facist regimes.

[ 04-14-2001: Message edited by: Keith ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wrong.

Ambrose has no such theory and never, not once, in any of his books, says so.

He does say that the United States, Britain and the democracies who opposed the Nazis were capable of producing soldiers who were just as good as the German ones, and fought just as hard.

And I've never been convinced he is wrong about that.

[IPA]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

Wrong.

Ambrose has no such theory and never, not once, in any of his books, says so.

He does say that the United States, Britain and the democracies who opposed the Nazis were capable of producing soldiers who were just as good as the German ones, and fought just as hard.

And I've never been convinced he is wrong about that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've read "Pegasus Bridge" and "Band of Brothers" and thoroughly enjoyed both in the context of a collection of first person accounts. Ambrose has greatly contributed to bringing the US's role in World War 2 back to the masses. However, Keith's "screwy theory" comment seems valid. From "Band of Brothers" after the 101st's triumph at Bastogne, Ambrose concludes the following (P.224)

"It was a test of arms, and national systems, matching the best the Nazis had against the best the Americans had, with all the advantages on the German side........The Americans established a moral superiority over the Germans. It was based not on equipment or quantity of arms, but on team-work, coordination, leadership, and mutual trust in a line that ran straight from Ike's HQ right on down to E Company. The Germans had little in the way of such qualities. The moral superiority was based on better training methods, better selection methods for command positions, ultimately on a more open army reflecting a more open society. Democracy proved better able to produce young men who could be made into superb soldiers than Nazi Germany."

Now I found that a little hard to swallow. Such ascertions are at best gross generalizations and at worst baseless tripe. I'll go with the latter. Nuff said.

Peter

[M. Bates]

LOL yes we all knmow how the morally superior democracies stopped Hitler in 1940 with their democratically superb soldiers...

... or perhaps the Allies had sh*te tactics WHO KNOWS??

[Spook]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

And as for the British, say, I think you are totally off base here. In his book Supreme Commander, which is a bio of Eisenhower's wartime years, he provides an extremely positive account of Monty's role and it gave me renewed respect for the British general's intelligence and guts.

(snip)

Anyway, I like Ambrose and respect much (not all) of his work and think it well balanced and solid. Especially his earlier work on Eisenhower...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Out of curiosity, Terence, When was "Supreme Commander" printed? And was Ambrose's complimentary view of Monty in this book maintained through the book's events, or specific to certain campaigns and battles?

My reason for asking is that in "Citizen Soldiers," Ambrose seemed to do a 180-degree turn on Monty. Ambrose is sympathetic (though not overly complimentary) on Monty's role in the Normandy campaign, but for the rest of the book's events, Ambrose seemed to snipe at Monty not being the measure of even Bradley. Certainly there were no complimentary views offered on Monty's handling of the Ardennes or the 1945 battles in "Soldiers."

My own view of Ambrose in turn? He's an "anecdotal" historian that can help tell the "human" side of war, which is important. I think that Bill Mauldin & Ralph G. Martin, as WW2 wartime correspondents, did a better job on this though. And Ambrose is a bit limited in analyzing "big picture" WW2 military operations and strategy. His description of the air war in "Soldiers" was particularly lacking, IMO.

And in "Citizen Soldiers," Ambrose wasted too much ink to rag on Ernest Hemingway. All the more odd, in that no quotes or discussion from Ernie Pyle was seen by me in that book.

[sable-]

See "A Genius For War" by Dupuy. Sorta blows a big hole in the superior American soldier idea.

Sable

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spook:

Out of curiosity, Terence, When was "Supreme Commander" printed? And was Ambrose's complimentary view of Monty in this book maintained through the book's events, or specific to certain campaigns and battles?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well the reprint edition came out in 1999, but my copy of Supreme Commander would probably stop a tank shell, I had to read it sitting up since its far too heavy to hold over my head as I lie flat. By that, and the fact that I filched it from my father's shelf, I judge that it was probably printed in the 70s. I can check on this though.

As for Monty's portrayal in the book, nobody came out of the war looking great all the time. Monty said some pretty dumb stuff after the Bulge and Ambrose doesn't gloss over it. And of course even the most sympathetic analysis of Market Garden is going to have to mention the fact that it, well, failed.

But when you (as Ambrose does) examine the message traffic that went back and forth between Monty and Eisenhower and Churchill and Roosevelt, and see how the campaigns were planned and executed, and read who said what when, and what they predicted, you end up a very nuanced and interesting portrait of Monty, and you understand his decision making process much more clearly.

I finished Supreme Commander with a desire to learn more about Bradley, Marshall and Monty especially. My plan was to find two bios of Monty, one by a critic and one by a fan and compare them. Anyone got any suggestions?

As for the democracy stuff, I may stand corrected. That is kind of a loopy thing for Ambrose to say , and I guess I missed it when I read Band of Brothers.

His version of that paragraph in D-Day, is more measured and says that the Allied soldier was the equal of his German opponent, facism and democracy notwithstanding.

Serves me right for not checking.

Also, one author I have NEVER seen mentioned on this board, and one who deserves to be is the brilliant A.J. Liebling.

He covered WW2 for the New Yorker, and did a wonderful job. His view of the guys in the trenches, war in Africa D-Day, London during the Blitz was really really beautifully written and shows you a view that you don't see often.

If you ever see any reprints of his stuff, leap on it. Hard to find, though. Maybe though Bibliofind or Alibris you could turn some up.

[M. Bates]

Would it be correct to say that the USA has never had either the biggest army in the world / or the best trained army in the world at any one time in its history?

This question is quite apart from Navy and air forces of course, though the same might be true also for those services.

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M. Bates:

Would it be correct to say that the USA has never had either the biggest army in the world / or the best trained army in the world at any one time in its history?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am totally unqualified to comment.

I will merely observe that this looks like a tough question to answer. What does "best trained" mean?

For what? According to who? Proved by what criteria?

[M. Bates]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

I am totally unqualified to comment.

I will merely observe that this looks like a tough question to answer. What does "best trained" mean?

For what? According to who? Proved by what criteria?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hang on, this might clarify:

For argument's sake, Canada has the best trained individual infantryman.

And China has the biggest army.

The USA has neither of those things, but *overall* its army is the strongest and has the most military hitting power.

I've forgotten the point of my question now, but I thought I'd throw it up for discussion.

[scoop88]

As mentioned above, "best-trained" is impossible to answer because you can't define it. "Largest" is another matter. An educated guess is that the U.S. has never had the largest army in the world at any time ... the Russians and the Chinese probably outnumbered the U.S. Army at its largest, around the end of World War II. However, the U.S. Navy was the largest in the world at the end of WWII, I'm pretty sure. The number of ships the U.S. deployed in the Pacific in 1944 and 1945 were truly massive. In terms of aircraft carriers of all types (fleet, light and escort), the U.S. produced almost 100 during the war. (The number 96 sticks in my head, but I don't have my source material here.) I think the same can be said of the U.S. Army Air Forces being the world's largest by 1945. The U.S. aircraft production numbers during the war were staggering.

[JasonC]

[QB]Would it be correct to say that the USA has never had either the biggest army in the world / or the best trained army in the world at any one time in its history?

I don't think that is exact, but it is not misleading as a general statement. Most of the time, the U.S. army has been quite small. And most of the time, it has not been the best trained. It was big in 1865, though, probably bigger than the standing armies of anybody else, simply because we were at the end of a war and nobody else was in a hot one.

On the "trained" side, I think you might make a case from about the mid-80s to now the best trained probably goes to the U.S., or perhaps more realistically, for the early-middle portions of that period, say 1984-1992.

You might make a case in favor of much smaller armies, and those would certainly be true if you included U.S. national guard and such (reserves). Maybe Israel, although their training focus has shifted in modern times.

Most NATO countries do not have the kind of intensity that the national training center puts out (the Opfor guys out on the desert I mean). On the whole, NATO and Israeli training is as good as the U.S., but I don't think others do quite as much, large scale laser-tag type maneuvers. And there is no question such training helps, especially for the junior and field grade officers, who encounter realistic control and battle management problems, facing a tough enemy. Those are much harder skills to gain in peacetime than individual and small-unit abilities.

The NTC Opfor, incidentally, is probably the best trained unit of its size in the world, because it is on the other side of so many such exercises. Only the special forces units of the U.S, some NATO countries (e.g. British SAS), and maybe Israel (don't know) are in the same league, I'd think.

As for the other services, there it is much easier. The navy has been the biggest in the world since before WW II. It was about the same size as the British fleet then, and passed the Brits for good during the war. Japan was the only other power even close, and lost its whole fleet of course. Since then, the Russians have had a comparable fleet of submarines, without carriers and surface elements to fully match, but that's it.

In terms of training, the U.K., Japan, and the U.S. all had good training before the war, but probably in that order. Naval training and navy size tend to reinforce each other - big navies are at sea more, exericise against themselves more, etc. Post war, the U.S. was better in these respects than anyone else, clearly - the UK navy shrank as the colonies were given their independence, and the Russians got limited time at sea, only some of their submariners in the same league.

The air force was a WW II growth. Only the Russians were in the same league by size by the end of that - though Germany and Britain had important ones during the war, obviously. By the end of WW II and down to the present, the U.S. air force has been larger than all others, except the Russians at various times, and more capable by type for the whole period. In terms of training there is no comparison, U.S. to non-NATO air forces. NATO pilots do not get as much training and sim time, lack the specialized air combat schools, etc, but they are in the same general league in flight hours and such. Only the Israelis train as intensively. (NATO, U.S., and Israeli pilots as a group fly 10-50 times as much as Chinese, Russian, Syria pilots etc).

One man's opinion on an interesting question.