Texas Army site - 36th ID

[JasonC]

Here is the URL of a pretty good WW II history site, covering the US 36th infantry division (aka the "Texas Army"). It has a full narrative of the actions of the division, in rather more detail than you usually find.

It is also of some interest because this formation was involved in one of the lesser known, but to my mind rather interesting, passages of arms in the war. That being the campaign in the south of France, from mid August to mid September.

After the initial success of the landings, this became a pursuit battle. The Germans struggled to get their forces out and linked up with the rest of the army to the northeast. Simultaneously, another German formation was withdrawing from the Bay of Biscay area, while Patton was heading east to the Lorraine, and the famous actions around Nancy.

From the German point of view, the issue was holding off the pursuit long enough for both forces to reach safety by linking up with the rest of the German army, before either Patton cut across their northern flank, or the southern Allied forces (half French, half US) outstripped them to their east.

The 11th Panzer division, the only mobile division in either army grouping, fought impressively to secure the escape. (It had 50 Panthers, 25 Pz IVs, and some Jagdpanzers at the start of the campaign).

The Germans were still mauled in the process, losing perhaps half of the two armies involved. But many made good their escape. The pursuit involved the practice of "parallel pursuit", meaning racing the retreating enemy along an alternate route, and striving to get in front of him to cut off his continued escape. This nearly succeeded at one point, when a US task force (Butler) got astride the escape route up the Rhone valley. The division on this site them supported TF Butler, coming at the north-south German withdrawl route from the east. The Germans had to fight there way through to the north.

I've picked the page in the history about that fight. The next page is also of interest for this - it gives some clear position maps showing what was going on, at least on the US side (You'll want another, more detailed map for finer points of terrain, but it explains where the US forces were). I hope some find it interesting.

http://www.kwanah.com/txmilmus/36division/archives/montelim/montelim.htm

[JasonC]

Is no one interested in this sort of thing? Hmm. Perhaps the title was a poor choice. Would "the slashing brilliant rear guard razzle dazzle of the crack 11th Panzer division" have drawn more responses? It could not have drawn less - lol.

[Dirtweasle]

Thanks for posting the link!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Is no one interested in this sort of thing? Hmm. Perhaps the title was a poor choice. Would "the slashing brilliant rear guard razzle dazzle of the crack 11th Panzer division" have drawn more responses? It could not have drawn less - lol.

In actual fact, the page you linked to was shorter than most of your posts!

[Armdchair]

It's a good link. For a link to other US Army Combat Unit Histories:

http://www.grunts.net/army.html

[JasonC]

Uh, Michael, on that site hit "contents" at the bottom of the page. That is one page out of *ninety*. Even my posts aren't that long...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Uh, Michael, on that site hit "contents" at the bottom of the page. That is one page out of *ninety*. Even my posts aren't that long...

Ja, ja, Herr Crawley...ve vere chust haffing our fun mit du....and I do know the diff between a page and a site. FWIW, it's a neat little site.

[JasonC]

We seem to have lost a few posts, including one by John Salt, during site maintenance. No biggie, and I for one saw them anyway. So here is the one I was in the middle of posting before the maintenance took the site down for a spell.

It is certainly far prettier country than the other theaters Mr. Salt mentions - with the only possible exception being Italy. Go to Besacon, Vesoul, Luxeuil-les-Bains, Remiremont. The Rhone valley is pretty too, not to mention the Cote D'Azur. I can understand neglecting the flat polder fields of Holland. But not going to these places is just willfully perverse lol.

There are also bits of interest from the exotic troops involved. The new north African French army, by then veterans of the Italian campaign. Some less known tidbits, like French commando units serving in the British SAS performing special ops, like trying to grab bridges ahead of the advance. Cooperation with the Maquis right ahead of the push, too. One French general explains a novel means of military intelligence - he picked up the phone and called civilians in the next town down the road, and asked if the Germans were still there - lol. The Germans did not have time - or did not think of it - to cut phone lines. Elements of the Maquis incorporated into the French army "underway".

On the German side, there were a number of eastern units in the garrison infantry divisions assigned to the south and west coasts. Some of them had had quite a war. There was even the only case of a general mutiny by a non-German waffen SS unit, when a Ukranian SS formation proved unreliable. One full battalion went over to the Maquis as a body and continued to fight, but on the other side. In late August 1944, there were Ukranians fighting in France, as part of the waffen SS, but fighting for the French resistence - lol. There was also a reserve mountain infantry division, luftwaffe field division, a whole mix. Meanwhile the 11th Panzer was putting on its finest show.

The main attraction of the campaign, though, compared to Normandy, is that it is a rather more involved story than "attrition until odds then breakout". Not just the terrain or the troops involved. Oh, the initial invasion is simple enough (overwhelming force on a thin front), and it all happens quite quickly. But the doctrinal issues involved, and even what it says about other important actions (e.g. by Patton), are not nearly so simple.

For instance, there is the issue of parallel pursuit, i.e. the idea that the proper use of a breakthrough is to not let the enemy field forces get away. This was made much of by Russian operational doctrine. It lies close to the heart of the theoretical dispute between certain more extreme "maneuverists" theorists, and the more "attritionist" types who want to use maneuver multipliers purely to focus on destruction of the enemy army in the field.

Concretely, that issue arises as such questions as - should the Allies race straight for the Belfort gap or try to hook west and cut the German line of retreat up the Rhone valley? (They did the latter). Should Patton have pushed due west for the Lorraine and the Moselle crossings around Nancy, or sent a prong southward to prevent the withdrawl of the German forces in the Bay of Biscay area? (He did the former).

On the German side, there was a notable realism, quite unlike the hubristic folly of the Mortain attempt just before. Hitler called the day he learned of the southern France invasion "the worst day of my life", because the news from every sector of every front was unmitigated disaster, with "Dragoon" just one more straw. Mortain had failed and the Falaise pocket was forming, while no stable line had yet been re-established in the east after the loss of Army Group Center. He approved wholesale and immediate withdrawls from western and southern France, without the haggling and tantrums that sort of thing usually involved.

But still the southern army was rent to pieces by division of effort. Two divisions retreated east into Italy, to prevent the success along the Cote D'Azur from spilling over into the one theater were the front was still holding. Two more retired into the major ports, in keeping with Hitler's orders before the campaign to hold everything as isolated fortresses, "to the last man". Both were wiped out by the French component of the Allied invasion force in very short order, with huge bags of prisoners. Other elements were left behind in the ports along the Bay of Biscay, where they held out far longer but made little contribution.

As a result, a German force that originally was about as large as the Allied invasion force, in pure manpower terms - just scattered over too large a front, and so unable to stop the more concentrated Allies at first - was reduced to an effective force too small to stop the Allied drive northward. The western Biscay forces still made very good time eastward across France to safety, despite constant attacks by the Maquis. A few columns were cut up. The southern forces had to fight their way out as already described, and were also subjected to some of the most intense tac-air of the war up the narrow Rhone valley escape route, with only the Falaise gap being heavier.

Yet the 11th Panzer was able to keep enough tanks running to outpunch the leading recon elements of the Allied forces, which were thinned by gasoline supply issues. The Allies depended on captured gasoline stocks for important phases of the advance, and successfully seized several important dumps (a curious reverse of the Bulge situation). 11th Panzer also risked daylight moves along major roads, despite Allied tac air, to make it to the theater in time, to begin with. (It started far west of the invasion beaches, owing to a successful Allied intel operation that fed the Germans false reports about the invasion location).

The German operational job was quite a steep one. As difficult in many ways as Manstein's in southern Russian after Stalingrad. Get two non-mobilized armies out of encirclement, across a blasted rail and road net, with partisans cutting the rail lines and trying to seize the bridges, while motorized enemies race to cut you off from two directions. With only one "queen" (in chess terms) to manipulate to make the whole dance work - the 11th Panzer.

See, it is not just that few study the campaign. It is also one of the more interesting of the war, not in the sense of decisiveness or results, but purely in terms of the military art and coordination issues involved. In a way it is part of the "miracle of the west", since the forces that did make it out constituted much of the German southern wing.

The whole Nancy fight - much more extensively studied - also ties into it, since Patton did have enough gas to potentially stop the German withdrawl northwest, but didn't have enough to exploit his successes at Nancy and Arracourt, farther eastward. But he went for the deep objective (as the pure-bred maneuverists insist is correct), and was checked. Many have noticed the subsequent Metz campaign as Patton's worst, but this stuff might plausibly be argued to be how he got into it.

Anyway, I recommend the subject to the attention of students of the operational art. With particular focus on the importance of force preservation vs. holding terrain, parallel pursuit, cut-off hooks vs. deep exploitation objectives, rear guard actions, use of limited mobile reserves in patchwork defenses, breaking or maintaining contact, and realism about achievable objectives.

I hope this is interesting.

[ February 23, 2002, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]