Ambrose

[dieseltaylor]

Again - I post it here as it is more likely to stand out amongst you guys.

"I am the only survivor off that landing craft and I have never, never told anybody that Captain Zappacosta pulled his gun on that coxswain and told him to take that boat in. It did not happen."

--Bob Sales, B Company, 116th Regiment, 29th Division

Article by Kevan Elsby, February 5, 2002.

Did Ambrose err in lifting dialogue from the work of S.L.A. Marshall? For more, on S.L.A.M. go to Marshall attacks! / The Marshall Problem / An Open Letter to the Airborne Community on the History of OPERATION NEPTUNE June 6, 1944 by Randy Hils, USAAF Troop Carrier Historian

Also see, 29th Division D-Day casualties

Stephen Ambrose and the British coxswains

Stephen Ambrose, in his book, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II, penned several unsubstantiated comments demeaning the performance of British sailors of Combined Operations, Royal Navy.

Especially galling and completely erroneous are his statements on pages 337 and 343. On Page 337 Ambrose wrote:

On the command boat for B Company, the CO, Capt. Ettore Zappacosta, heard the British coxswain cry out, "We can't go in there. We can't see the landmarks. We must pull off." Zappacosta pulled his colt .45 and ordered, "By god, you'll take this boat straight in."

The coxswain did. When the ramp dropped, Zappacosta was first off. He was immediately hit. Medic Thomas Kenser saw him bleeding from the hip and shoulder. Kenser, still on the ramp, shouted, "Try to make it in! I'm coming." But the captain was already dead. Before Kenser could jump off the boat he was shot dead. Every man on the boat save one (Pvt. Robert Sales) was either killed or wounded before reaching the beach.

In 1999, Bob Sales, the only survivor on D-Day from this landing craft (and radio operator for Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta) stated that the captain did not pull his gun on the British coxswain. Sales said (in a tape recording sent to Kevan Elsby):

I want to tell the story of what happened going in at Normandy concerning Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta. I was his radio operator. I know what I am telling you to be absolute facts. I am the only survivor off that landing craft and I have never, never told anybody that Captain Zappacosta pulled his gun on that coxswain and told him to take that boat in. It did not happen.

When we left the

Empire Javelin

and boarded the landing craft, Captain Zappacosta was the first man at the front. I was behind him, being his radio operator. He was very quiet going in. He was not a talkative man anyways, but he was very, very quiet on the trip in. About a thousand yards or so off the beach, the only words he spoke were, “Sales, step up there and see what's going on on the beach, if you can see anything.”

I looked over. I could not tell anything. I said, “A Company. I can't see 'em. It looks like bodies laying on the beach, but I cannot tell.” And I sat back down.

It wasn't but a brief while after that and the only words from the coxswain were: “I cannot go in any further. I'm going to drop the ramp.”

There was no argument about it. There were obstacles in the water. The water was up to my neck when I finally got my feet on the ground. He could not do any better.

We were headed into Vierville, where it was the most heavily fortified area on Omaha. Then the ramp went down and these were the only words I heard the coxswain speak, and I do not know to this day whether he got out alive or not, but when that ramp went down mortar shells were hitting on both sides of us. Machine guns were all over top of us, just like you were in a bees' nest.

The Captain was the first man to get off the boat and he was hit on the ramp and fell into the water. Sergeant Wright was next off, followed by the first aid man. I was fourth off the boat. The sea was rough, the ramp banged up and down, and I caught my heel and went over the side into the water.

When I got up, Captain Zappacosta was up and calling to me, "I'm hit!" He went down and I did not see him come up. His body was washed up on the beach later.

The first time I saw the Zappacosta incident about pulling his gun was back in the early sixties in a magazine called

Stag

. I think some writer just dreamed it up. According to your papers, S. L. A. Marshall said it, but I just don't see how Marshall could have said it. I did not tell him. I was the only survivor off that landing craft.

There is no way it happened. I did not tell it. There was nobody else living who could have told it and it could not have happened, and if there is one thing I want, it is for that British sailor, if he is alive or dead or whatever, I want him cleared of this. It did not happen.

In a more recent statement of February 4, 2002, Bob Sales stated:

I told Stephen Ambrose it was absolutely wrong. He just laughed it off and said, “I can't do everything.” I met him up there in Washington just a couple of years ago at a press conference. He just laughed it off.

Captain Zappacosta never moved out of his position all the way in. He was not the kind of man to pull a gun to the head of a sailor. If we had gone in any further, we would have hit the mines on the obstacle. I want this thing cleared up.

Stephen Ambrose not only ignored Bob Sales, Ambrose also ignored the account of Joseph Ewing in 29 Let’s Go! A History of the 29th Infantry Division in World War II (1948). On page 43, Ewing refers to the boat report of Zappacosta’s craft and quotes from it as follows:

About seventy-five yards from the beach the ramp was dropped, and the enemy automatic fire then beat a tattoo all over the boat front. Captain Ettore Zappacosta, the Company Commander, jumped from the boat and got ten yards through the water. Pfc Robert Sales saw him hit in the leg and shoulder. He yelled, "I'm hit." T/5 Kenser, a first-aid man, yelled: "Try to make it in!" Zappacosta went down and they did not see him come up again.

Ambrose relied upon the account of S.L.A. Marshall who wrote in “First Wave at Omaha Beach” (The Atlantic Monthly, November 1960):

A great cloud of smoke and dust raised by the mortar and machine-gun fire has almost closed a curtain around Able Company's ordeal. Outside the pall, nothing is to be seen but a line of corpses adrift, a few heads bobbing in the water and the crimson-running tide. But this is enough for the British coxswains. They raise the cry: “We can't go in there. We can't see the landmarks. We must pull off.”

In the command boat, Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta pulls a Colt .45 and says: "By god, you'll take this boat straight in."

Stephen Ambrose's text bears a distinct resemblance to S. L. A. Marshall's writing (a similar article appeared in the April 1961 issue of Stag), but discards earlier accounts and disregards the concerns expressed by Bob Sales, the only survivor from this landing craft.

The story of Captain Zappacosta and the coxswain is not the only one of its kind in Ambrose’s D-Day. On Page 343, Ambrose writes:

At 100 meters from the shore, the British coxswain said he had to lower the ramp and everyone should get out quickly. Sgt. Willard Northfleet told him to keep going: “These men have heavy equipment and you will take them all the way in.” The coxswain begged, “But we'll all be killed!” Northfleet unholstered his .45 Colt pistol, put it to the sailors head and ordered, “All the way in!” The coxswain proceeded.

The Account of D Company 116th Infantry Regiment from the 29th Infantry Division "Group Critique Notes" (interviews with 116th members less than two months after D-Day), states:

The first section put off from their ship, but the landing craft shipped water much more rapidly than the pumps could care for. The British coxswain applied to his ship for relief but was told to continue the mission.... Four hundred yards from the shore the British coxswain insisted that he could take the craft no further. He started to lower the ramp but the platoon sergeant Willard R. Northfleet blocked the mechanism and insisted that the boat was going in farther ....

Whilst there were obvious difficulties on this landing craft, there is no mention of a Colt .45 being pulled to the head of the British coxswain. It is a fact that D Company 116th Infantry Regiment was a heavy weapons company and, in the rough seas on the morning of D-Day, the landing craft were too heavily laden. Many soldiers carried more equipment and ammunition than on training exercises conducted in calmer seas. Each landing craft was equipped with two pumps, but there was a limit to their capacity to keep the landing craft high in the water.

It is also a fact that the average angle of slope of Omaha Beach was less than one degree to the horizontal, with the surf running at two to four feet and very strong tides. Two huge sandbars ran parallel to the beach, with deep tidal runnels also running parallel to the beach.

Veterans have described this particular landing craft of D Company 116th Infantry Regiment as rocking up and down with the ramp flapping violently in the air, with deeper water in front of the boat. The coxswains on all landing craft were trained and under orders to gun the engines and drop the ramp as soon as the landing craft grounded on the tidal flats of Omaha Beach.

In 29 Let’s Go! A History of the 29th Infantry Division in World War II (1948), Joseph Ewing writes on page 44:

Losses in D-Company, due in at 7:10 A.M., prevented their heavy weapons from contributing much to the fighting on the beach. One of the boats was abandoned far out to sea after shipping too much water. Another was sunk by a mine or an artillery shell a quarter mile from land. A third boat dropped its ramps 150 yards from the beach, and when the men saw others in front of them staying in the water, they followed their example.

Since the publication of D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II, American and British veterans from Omaha Beach have expressed their deep concerns about ineffectual research and the gross inaccuracy of accounts to Stephen Ambrose, but to no avail. Their objections have been laughed off and ignored.

Would General Eisenhower have expected US Army officers to pull a gun to the heads of British sailors on D-Day?

Should American officers be portrayed as thugs, and should British sailors be portrayed as cowards?

Are these the type of men who put their lives at risk on D-Day?

The reputation of Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta of B Company 116th Infantry Regiment has been besmirched.

British sailors from 551 Assault Flotilla, Combined Operations, Royal Navy have been dishonoured.

This bad reporting and blatantly poor research has caused great bitterness and resentment amongst American and British veterans.

Popular history it may be, but accurate certainly not!

As a world-wide recognized authority on World War II, historian Stephen Ambrose is morally obligated either to document from official sources the validity of his statements, or to correct them and publicly apologize to the veterans he has so shamefully defamed, before they go to their graves with bitter resentment towards what has been so falsely written about them and their comrades. Why should veterans allow any historian to desecrate the graves of their comrades in arms?

http://warchronicle.com/correcting_the_record/ambrose_coxswains.htm

[dieseltaylor]

And more from the same site

An Open Letter to the Airborne Community

on the History of OPERATION NEPTUNE

June 6, 1944

This letter was written by Randy Hils, USAAF Troop Carrier Historian. As he points out, the published record on OPERATION NEPTUNE is in urgent need of correction.

Of related interest, see Ambrose and the British coxswains / S.L.A. Marshall's Ratio of Fire

January, 17 2003

To: E. M. Flanagan, Lt. Gen. USA (Ret)

Re: An Open Letter to the Airborne Community on the History of OPERATION NEPTUNE June 6, 1944

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you regarding the history of OPERATION NEPTUNE, the airborne assault on Normandy, June 6, 1944. In reading your recent book, Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces, I noted a number of statements that seem to be transcribed from earlier inaccurate accounts of this mission.

It is noted on the jacket of your book that you are, "America's leading expert on airborne history." As such I thought that you would have an interest in reviewing some of the problems that seem to be endemic in airborne history related to NEPTUNE.

Although this letter is addressed to you personally it is an open letter to the airborne community and copies will be sent to a number of airborne and troop carrier historians. There needs to be a serious debate on the historicity of NEPTUNE. I hope that you will pass it on to the Army historians noted in the Acknowledgements section of your book. Perhaps it will challenge them to undertake a new study of NEPTUNE as some of the history the U.S. Army disseminates today on the subject is seriously flawed.

It was a little over three years ago that I began what has grown into continuous study of NEPTUNE. While collecting information on my father's service in WWII as a troop carrier radio operator I was introduced to, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of WWII, by Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose. I was already familiar with the history and some of the official records of dad's unit, the 440th Troop Carrier Group. My further interest in NEPTUNE was stimulated more I think by my military training and experience as a Marine Corps Airlift Planner. From that perspective much of what I had read about the NEPTUNE mission didn't make sense. Of particular note histories don't address the primary operational elements that comprise an airborne/airlift mission.

In reading your book I thought that your account, in so far as I am familiar with airborne history was quite good until I came to Chapter 13, Operation Neptune: Airborne Invasion of Normandy. It was surprising to read that you base most of your material on 9th Troop Carrier Command on Ambrose's D-Day. Over the past few years Ambrose's writing on troop carrier in NEPTUNE has been largely discredited by both airborne and troop carrier historians who engaged in dialog on the subject. Some have also published articles on the Ambrose errors. Using your text as a basis I will illuminate for you the problems with Ambrose's work and explore some of the research and material that has come to light through my work as well as the work of others I am associated with on the issue of NEPTUNE history.

To preface my analysis I must first point out that I believe the root cause of inaccurate history about NEPTUNE lies with General S.L.A. Marshall. Marshall and his historical team as you may be aware, were charged with recording the history of the Normandy Invasion. Teams collected information in the form of oral recollections from soldiers in the field. These reports and official airborne documents were later the basis for the Regimental Field Studies of the various parachute infantry regiments that participated in NEPTUNE as well as the basis for Marshall's own book, Night Drop.

In reading some of the field studies and Marshall's book what was noticeably absent from these root histories were any accounts by troop carrier aircrews or any reference to the records of 9th Troop Carrier Command. Most information regarding the performance of troop carrier on NEPTUNE comes from the paratroopers they carried. While I believe that these paratroopers gave what they believed to be honest accounts of the mission there is in some recollections related to troop carrier a point from which their knowledge of the facts departs into assumption. From their place with in the aircraft they would have limited knowledge that could be imparted regarding wounds to pilots, damage to the aircraft and its effect on control and finally the aeronautical problems the pilots faced in varying situations. Oral recollections have their place in historical study however they are often interpreted as absolute fact.

Marshall could have addressed accusations of evasive action, excess speed and low drops by simply referencing the chalk numbers of the paratroopers involved to the records of the pilots who carried them and conducting an interview with the aircrew of that aircraft. The result is, the actions of one fourth of the participants in NEPTUNE, are judged, by persons who really didn't have the facts or expertise to make those conclusions. I can well imagine the hue and cry that would arise should pilots from the point of an aircraft be the sole contributors to a historical study that would judge the performance of an infantry squad or platoon on the ground.

The failure of Marshall, to accurately report the NEPTUNE mission constitutes one of the major historical debacles of WWII. Marshall is the spring from which the river of misinformation on NEPTUNE continues to flow, even to this day. A historian seeking objective information regarding troop carrier operations at Normandy will find the regimental field studies of the parachute infantry of little value. They were ill conceived, inaccurate and they remain incomplete.

By examining your work, Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces, I will support most of my contentions regarding the history of NEPTUNE. As you did not cite either by endnote or footnote your specific sources, if I assume a particular source and I am wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Many of my citations will come from, Airborne Operations In WWII, European Theater, USAF Historical Studies: No. 97, by Dr. John C. Warren, September 1956. Heretofore I will refer to this monograph simply as (Warren). It is, I believe the first historical study to blend the combined official documents of the 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, and 9th Troop Carrier Command. It is meticulously footnoted to those documents as well as other sources.

To reference Stephen Ambrose's D-Day book, from here on I will reference it as (Ambrose).

Chapter 13 of your book, Operation Neptune: Airborne Invasion of Normandy. Beginning on page 179 paragraph 3, number of C-47s for paratroopers of the 82nd, 378. For the 101st you state 490 planes. Your total is, 868 planes for the paratroopers. From the official records we find, NEPTUNE ALBANY, the 101st including Pathfinders: dispatched 433. For NEPTUNE BOSTON, the 82nd including Pathfinders: dispatched 378 for a total of 821. (Warren page 224, Appendix 1). Another source for this information would be the after action reports of the individual troop carrier groups.

In paragraph three of the same page you contend that "The majority of the pilots were novices," "relatively inexperienced" and "each with only a few hundred flying hours." Do you have a document or statistical sampling to back these statements up? In three years of research and correspondence with troop carrier Aircraft Commanders, (First Pilots), I could find none with less than 450 hours going into Normandy. Col. Robert Gates, CO of the 88th Troop Carrier Squadron offered that his Aircraft Commanders were required a minimum of 800 hours. The threshold for an "experienced" pilot in aviation is 500 hours. Troop carrier pilots because of frequency of their missions, the C-47s being in high demand at all times, and the range of their aircraft, accumulated hours at a faster rate than fighter or bomber pilots.

From activation to the end of the war each troop carrier unit kept a daily diary, sometimes called a "war diary'" of daily activities, I have three of them at hand. They record the daily activity and training down to minute detail. The pilots came from the same Advanced Twin Engine schools as bomber pilots by which time they would have accumulated 200 hours of flight training. For TC there was an additional 25 hours of transition training into the C-47. Pilots then trained "day and night" for months in the unique requirements of TC operations.

Recorded are combined training cycles with airborne units at various airborne training centers before the groups undertook the long arduous transcontinental movements of their groups. The 440th TCG took the southern route through the Caribbean to Brazil, across the Atlantic to Ascension Island to North Africa and finally to England. There the groups participated in further joint training operations that culminated in OPERATION EAGLE, the final dress rehearsal for NEPTUNE.

Finally, you compare these "inexperienced" "novices" with the "superbly qualified "Blue Angels" types of later years." No, they were not Blue Angels. Conversely, would the Blue Angels be capable of, or qualified to, undertake a double glider tow, in an era, when weather analysis consisted of the Operations Officer, walking outside and, being able to see the other side of the airfield through the haze yelled, get them in the air!

You state that there were, "no guidance lights except a small blue light in the tail of the plane ahead." In actuality the formation lights consisted of three sets of three blue lights dimmed to the minimum. One set on each wing and another set down the top of the fuselage. They were shielded in such a way as to be only visible from directly behind or above. Reference the 2003 edition of, Airborne Troop Carrier: 3-1-5 Group, by William L. Brinson, page 111. I also have in my files identical descriptions of the formation lighting in correspondence with troop carrier veterans.

What is your basis for the last statement of this paragraph, "Their worst fear was a midair collision?" How many pilots did you interview to feel comfortable with this generalization? Troop carrier pilots had practiced separation procedures in the event of weather. If weather was anticipated flight leaders would assign various altitudes and headings for an allotted period of time and with the aid of the ADF, Automatic Direction Finder a group could reform after flying through weather. I believe their worst fears, like the rest of us, varied from man to man.

Page 181, last paragraph, the pathfinders, "most of the pathfinder plane pilots failed to find the proper DZs. One planeload from the 101st was lost; the men jumped early and were lost in the Channel". In Warren, pages 32-33, summarizing the work of the pathfinders, " though only two serials achieved the degree prescribed in the directives, all teams were put near enough their zones to perform their missions in spite of cloudy weather."

As for the troopers who you allege jumped to their deaths in the Channel, this statement of yours is a apparently a derivative of, "One team landed in the Channel", page 196, (Ambrose). Actually the aircraft was shot down and ditched, all aboard were rescued, page 33, paragraph two, (Warren). Also see, D-Day with the Screaming Eagles, George Koskimaki, pages 34 and 35 for a detailed account of the ditching. See Warren and Koskimaki for detailed accounts of the pathfinders set up of equipment. Your contention that most of the pathfinders did not activate their guidance equipment is in error.

Page 182, the last two paragraphs a citation of two paragraphs from, (Ambrose). "They could speed up which most of them did. They were supposed to throttle back to ninety miles per hour or less, to reduce the opening shock for the paratroopers, but ninety miles per hour at 600 feet made them easy targets for the Germans on the ground, so they pushed the throttle forward and sped up to 150 miles per hour, meanwhile either descending to 300 feet or climbing to 2000 feet or more. They twisted and turned, spilling their passengers and cargo." "They had no idea where they were, except that they were over the Cotentin."

This paragraph is one of many that were without citation in the D-Day book, (Ambrose). Of interest are Ambrose's conclusions of what "most" did. On June 2, 2000 Ambrose called troop carrier historian Lew Johnson and left a lengthy telephone message in which he admitted that he had not interviewed a single troop carrier pilot for his book, (copy in my files). The book does contain a couple of collected oral recollections from TC personnel. With that in mind, how could Ambrose know what "most" pilots did?

"Approaching the zones the formations would descend to 700 feet and slow down from the cruising speed of 140 miles per hour to 110 miles per hour" (Warren), page 35. Also verified to me in several correspondences with troop carrier pilots.

Of particular surprise to many of the 440th TCG pilots is the last sentence, "They had no idea where they were, except that they were over the Contentin." Reference page 38, of D-Day with the Screaming Eagles,

Captain Frank Lillyman's statement, "Credit should be given to the 440th and 441st Groups of Troop Carrier Command. Using radar only, and no lights because of the tenuous position, forty-seven aircraft delivered their personnel to the intended DZ this totaled more than the other two drop zones combined."

To read page 200 of D-Day, (Ambrose), one would think that troop carrier is taking a pretty good beating, "Virtually every plane got hit by something." This is a fabrication at odds with the official records that show 21 aircraft destroyed and 196 damaged, (Warren), page 224.

Another fabrication, "one suggestion was that every pilot of Troop Carrier Command be made to jump from a plane going 150 miles per hour." Page 223, (Ambrose), End note 61, 82nd Airborne Debriefing Conference, August 13, 1944, copy in EC, (Eisenhower Center). I obtained the full text of the referenced document and found that the statement does not exist in the text of that document.

These are just a few examples of many more errors in the Ambrose book on D-Day. Since 1995 veterans of the troop carrier have written to Ambrose, providing empirical evidence of the errors in his book. Some asked that the errors be corrected and called for a dialog on the subject. A number of those thoughtful letters are in my files. Twice, Ambrose promised to address these issues only to later renege on those promises. When stories appeared in the press in the beginning of 2002 regarding the accuracy issues the Ambrose organization opted instead to mount a misinformation campaign portraying the veterans as cranks.

John Keegan in Six Armies in Normandy concluded that the troop carrier pilots were the "least qualified" disgruntled, pilots in the AAF. Clay Blair in Ridgway's Paratroopers concluded that they were the, "bottom of the pile," "the least motivated." Utter hogwash! The most detailed account of pilot training and selection can be found in Federal Document, The Army Air Forces in WWII: Vol. Six, Men and Planes. This was a seven volume series on the wartime history of the AAF was initiated by the government. Civilian historians were utilized for the study, to preclude any bias by the U.S.A.F. My research on assignments per particular classes indicates that pilots were largely selected for a particular type of aircraft based on the needs of the service.

The commonality of Ambrose, Keegan, Blair and so many more historians on Normandy at least when it comes to troop carrier is that: they are wholly unfamiliar with their subject, few ever interviewed troop carrier personnel and fewer still ever examined the official records of the units involved.

Some heretofore unstudied aeronautical problems of the mission are the weights and balance of the aircraft, weather and the effect of control on the perception of speed and opening shock. The first and foremost mission consideration of an Airlift Planner is weights and balance, that is the loading related to the center of gravity of the plane around which the flight control is designed. An aircraft that is miss-loaded or overloaded is out of its weights and balance. Violation of performance design by overloading remains today a common cause of air crashes.

A random sampling of pilot records for Normandy indicated the troop carrier planes were overloaded from 1,000 to 4,000 pounds! The overloads seriously affected pilot control of the aircraft. The primary reason for upping the jump speed from 90 miles per hour to 110 miles per hour was to adjust for the anticipated excess loads of parachute skids and parapacks of equipment not normally carried on practice jumps. Further the paratroopers themselves had never been so heavily loaded. Even at 110 miles per hour some of the planes were at stall speed and some did stall in flight.

Troop Carrier formations flew with each flight stacked fifty feet higher than the preceding flight so that turbulence would be reduced on both the following aircraft and their parachutists. A serial with the leader at 700 feet would ideally have the tail end Charlies at 1200 feet. Unfortunately the cloud cover at Normandy was recorded as low as 300 feet to a high of 2500 feet. Formations, some recording the cloud cover as low as 500 feet flattened out and turbulence seriously affected both the following aircraft as well as the troopers that

jumped from them.

The cloud cover extended as much as fifteen miles inland on a peninsula about twenty miles wide. Some pilots with sometimes just minutes to identify a DZ often slowed suddenly, some also had to loose altitude as the clouds were encountered on the descent leg from 1500 feet. Many paratroopers swear that by the sound of the engines the pilots speeded up instead of slowing down and there is no doubt opening shock tore away the equipment of some. A couple of different control problems I believe contributed significantly to those perceptions.

First, according to troop carrier pilot, Lew Johnson, a very effective way to, "slow down and loose altitude in a C-47 is to pull the throttles back, and at the same time set the engine revolutions higher. The forward motion of the airplane makes the propellers windmill faster without power being applied, which acts as an airbrake to reduce forward speed. To the uninitiated, this sounds like power being applied."

Secondly, pilots who had to slow suddenly behind other aircraft were in danger of over running the leaders ahead as they slowed for the jump. The sudden drop in airspeed brought them to the point of stalling. As the troopers exited the aircraft pilots had to apply power to keep from stalling and troopers jumped into full prop blast to the sound of speeding engines experiencing terrific opening shock yet the aircraft were only going 110 miles per hour.

Third, normally in practice jumps pilots feathered the left prop to reduce to a minimum prop blast and resulting opening shock. Even under the best circumstances at Normandy given the extreme loading, feathering the prop wasn't an option. Close to stall speed the effect of feathering the prop would be the same as losing an engine. Loaded as these planes were losing an engine would cause them to immediately drop like a rock. Some severely overloaded planes would even require climb power to effect the tail high position required for troopers to clear the aircraft at 110 miles per hour. Again engines are straining as power is applied to maintain the weight of the moment.

Page 192, last paragraph you claim planes dropped their troopers at "175 miles per hour." Other histories vary between 150 to even 200 miles per hour yet all available information indicates a C-47 loaded in excess of 30,000 pounds gross tops out at about 150 miles per hour.

I undertook independent research with commercial pilots flying C-47s today to verify what troop carrier pilots related. Without indicating the circumstances or reasons for my questions the commercial pilots verified the control conditions that I just described to you.

Another little studied detail of Normandy was wind. According to General John Galvin author of Air Assault: The Development of Airmobile Warfare (1969) the wind speed gusted from 20-30 knots over the drop zones. Many paratroopers were injured hitting the ground more horizontally than vertically. Oral histories confirm this experience as well as being dragged for good distances in chutes. Correspondence with the 82nd Airborne Advanced Airborne Assault School brought to light some very interesting information. The safe limit for wind over the drop zone today is 13 knots.

Regarding Marshall and Ambrose their historical problems are not confined to NEPTUNE. Marshall's credibility has been severely damaged by the discovery of fabrications related to his accusations of cowardice by British coxswains at Omaha Beach. Colonel David Hackworth who worked with Marshall in Vietnam gives us another rather chilling insight into Marshall in his book, About Face. Ambrose was nailed to the wall by railroad historians who documented fifty pages of errors in his book, Nothing Like it in the World. Complete documentation of some of these incidents and others can be found at the History News Network web site of George Mason University at: http://hnn.us/articles/504.html titled, Ambrose, How the Story Developed, the articles are intermingled with articles on Ambrose plagiarism.

The material I have presented is just a partial sampling of the errors I have identified regarding the history of NEPTUNE. Historians and writers continue to crank out histories of D-Day compounding the errors I have cited and more.

General Ridgway and General Gavin wrote strong letters of commendation regarding troop carrier at Normandy, the troop carrier units earned the Distinguished Unit Citation for Normandy, many pilots earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery under fire, making multiple passes to get troopers into their drop zones. Other pilots sacrificed themselves and their crews for their troopers yet you will find little if any mention of these facts in histories on D-Day.

To many of the troop carrier men who served the airborne in major battles and on thousands of little known missions the history of NEPTUNE as it continues to be presented is an insult. An insult not only to their dedication and professionalism it is a desecration of the memory and sacrifices of their comrades who perished at Normandy. The unfortunate recipients of this flawed history will be future generations. Should you require any related documentation, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Randy Hils

[dieseltaylor]

The second week after the story broke the media criticism of Mr. Ambrose broadened to include new complaints. Several veterans groups alleged that he was careless with the facts and made many outright misstatements in his books about them. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the troop carrier pilots in the D Day invasion of Normandy are especially critical. Mr. Ambrose claimed in two books that the men hadn't been trained for the mission and were fearful. The vets insist they trained for a year in advance of the invasion and while some were fearful, many were not. (See the website <="" a="">.)

<="" a=""> Several veterans wrote HNN to complain that Mr. Ambrose rountinely refuses to correct mistakes in his books. His son, Hugh Ambrose, who helps do the research, told the Phildelphia Inquirer that"on occasion we receive letters from people that are so angry that we do not respond. The troop carriers are one example in particular. This is not a discussion, this is a diatribe."

http://hnn.us/articles/504.html

I am not generally in favour of censorship or book burning but Ambrose is a disgrace. I am tempted to see what my local libraries have and see what the Chief Librarians feel about a liar and a plagiarist being a beneficiary of people trust.

[Magpie_Oz]

Sad that Ambrose is considered the seminal work.

Did he BS because he was lazy or was he playing to an audience that wanted someone to blame?

Pommie bashing has been a popular method of selling in the US, The movie "A Bridge Too Far" for example. Laying it into the inglorious troop transport pilots is an easy way to explain away failures.

What impact does this have on "Band of Brothers" I wonder?

[JonS]

Who knows. I have read somewhere that the 'coward' from the Carentan episode (Ep.3?) who gets an 'epilogue' note at the end of the programme to the effect that - IIRC - died in the early 1950s from his wounds is actually still alive, or was as of a few years ago.

In a similar vein, it seems pretty clear that Ambrose, ah, gilded the lily with regards to his access to Eisenhower for the biography he wrote.

I never quite got the interest on Ambrose. I mean, apart from the rampant mistakes, the plagiarism, and the distortions, what really made me want to throw his books across the room was the tone of the damned things. They're just awful. I was astonished - and more than a little annoyed - when 'D-Day' turned up as required reading for a course I did. I swapped it for an Enid Blyton book at a second hand bookstore as soon as I could.

[Magpie_Oz]

Yes I know the one you mean it was that British actor and he played the part of a paratrooper who had gone deaf from shock.

They said he died in 1946 when actually he lived on for quite sometime.

Also the David Schwimmer character, the much maligned OC in training was later supported by comments from survivors of Easy company.

What course does one do where you have to read D-Day accounts?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Didn't Ambrose in BoB take a potshot at SLA Marshall for inventing his version of the Brecourt Manor engagement without having heard Winters or anyone else's account? Cheeky given his own practises.

[Bigduke6]

That's a great find Elmar thanks. I like to think I knew a good deal on this subject but now I know:

- The C-47s were going faster than normal basically because they were overloaded, so much so that no one had ever thought to practice dropping with a full combat load. So of course they dropped at higher power than the paratroopers were used to, kept their left prop on, etc. A C-47 that stalls and crashes with its load is no use to any one.

- C-47 pilots as a general thing were MORE experienced than fighter and bomber pilots, since they did transportation which is needed all the time that is perfectly logical. Why didn't I think of that?

- Wind over the drop zone was gusting 20 - 30 knots, which is about double what is normally considered safe to jump.

- Matt Ridgeway thought the troop carrier pilots did a good job. Two or three words of commendation from that guy is worth about three years' of historian ink.

Result: A very scattered drop. Because of quantifiable, empirically-sensible reasons - not the moral failure of people who didn't happen to be in the category of Officially Designated Hero.

The insidious thing about Ambrose as a historian is that he makes it seem like his accounts are real and accurate because he makes them personal and throws in lots of detail that makes for a really compelling story.

He wasn't really coy about what he was doing, you read his forwards and he usually says point blank that he thought the Americans that did the fighting in NW Europe were heroes. The entire point to all his writing, it seems to me, is to "document" that. Beyond that, he had personal priorities:

- Sell books and his "expert" opinion to the gullible public, which is willing to pay for spoon-fed stories about "heroes". The guy died a rich man.

- Propagandize his late 20th century college students about the sacrifices of the "great generation", particularly with the lesson that they do not have it in them to measure up to that generation. He spent almost his entire professional career teaching history at the University of New Orleans - that's a hell of a party school. I can definately see a tight-wrapped academic brought up in Wisconsin really getting irritated with the boozing and historical ignorance of his students at UNO, even to the point of being willing to twist history to hit them over the head with.

- I bet one million dollars he made his students buy his books for course work.

- Establish himself as a "reputable" historian by writing up controversial history and seeming to document it.

At the end of the day it's not Ambrose that is responsible for all this, but the people that let him get away with it. I never bought any of his books but I read about three, once out of curiosity, the second to confirm I really didn't like his rah-rah style of history, and the third because I happened to be caught without alternative reading and so it became a "find the next annoying whopper the fraud Ambrose wrote" kind of exercise.

What really irritates me about Ambrose is, according to him being assigned to a combat unit of a particular nationality in particular campaign of a very big war makes you a "hero" and ipso facto every one else in the same war (support troops, allies, civilians, enemies) is not a "hero".

This point of view may not make much sense, especially to most any one who has actually been in a war.

But then of course, Ambrose was never in a war.

Maybe that made it easier for him to pick and choose heroes based on citizenship and military specialty, rather than by the conventional yardsticks, which I would say are more situation and individual personality than anything else.

[JonS]

What course does one do where you have to read D-Day accounts?

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/programme-course-paper/paper.cfm?paper_code=149200&paper_offering_id=1168752&study_year=2011

[dieseltaylor]

Yeah thanks Elamar : )

BD6 Sheesh!

JonS - I have written to the course you mentioned offering to send all the links for the lying bastard so that they can explain why it is mandatory reading : )

This is a cracker:

Would Eisenhower ever have considered such a drastic step? He noted in his diary that he (like Dulles) believed that nuclear weapons should be “treated just as another weapon in the arsenal.” In January 1954, he officially affirmed that in “limited hostilities” he would consider using nuclear weapons, on a case-by-case basis. He allowed no blanket rejection of their use in Asia. In fact, French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault later said that he had rejected a U.S. offer of nuclear weapons for Indochina.

Yet the history books generally pass over Bidault’s claim (for which there is no evidence) and happily agree that Eisenhower never even considered using atomic bombs in Indochina. They generally agree that he found the very thought morally abhorrent and thus impossible. And they generally cite one source above all for this conclusion, Eisenhower's comment to his national security advisor Robert Cutler, who had apparently broached the idea: “You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against Asians for the second time in less than ten years. My God!"

The only problem is that there is just one source for this famous quotation, which is often used to sum up Eisenhower’s view not only of the Indochina crisis but of nuclear weapons in general. You guessed it: Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower, The President, page 184. Having read every relevant source document I could find in the published literature and at the Eisenhower Library, I found no other evidence to corroborate it. Nor did I find any other statement Ike ever made that expressed a similar view. Tom Wicker, in his brief Eisenhower biography, noted skeptically that such a statement was hardly typical of the president.

If anyone is interested I am going to collate all the info, and take copies in case of deceased sites, so that it can be an archive putting it together as much as possible.

and just in case you think he misremembered the actual three meetings that happened:

The fallout from Rives' discovery won't likely be confined to the "Supreme Commander." As Richard Rayner notes in the New Yorker, more than half of the books in Ambrose's 32-title roster of publications deal with Eisenhower-related material.

Shortly before his death, Ambrose was also accused of plagiarizing parts of a World War II history called "The Wild Blue" — a charge he conceded, and chalked up to a series of research errors. But as serious as the charge of plagiarism is, fabricating research materials is a far graver offense for a professional historian. When Michael Bellesiles was found to have made up sources for his 2001 book on the origins of American gun culture, "Arming America," Columbia University's Bancroft Committee, a body that awards an annual prize for the most distinguished work of U.S. history, stripped him of the honor; he later resigned his professorship at Emory University's history department.

The present charges are all the more odd, since Ambrose clearly regarded "Supreme Commander" as his own career touchstone, and made a frequent habit of describing his pilgrimages up to Pennsylvania to meet with the former president. "I'd walk in to interview him, and his eyes would lock on mine, and I would be there for three hours and they never left my eyes," was how Ambrose described the Eisenhower sessions to C-SPAN in a 1994 interview. "I was teaching at Johns Hopkins and going up two days a week to Gettysburg to work with him in his office."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1787

[dieseltaylor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9c9ez7HnXg

Point du Hoc 100 ft not 100metres something one might think you would remember if you had tried to climb it.

[JonS]

That was probably simple sloppyness, but to be fair vertical distances are very tricky things. I find they are, anyway. Personally, I have a great deal of difficulty relating 100m horizontally (not all that far) to 100m vertically (OMFG!).

Regarding Ambrose and the paper - I didn't read it, on principle, and it turns out it wasn't really referred to in the course materials anyway. I skimmed a few pages to confirm the 'multiple mistakes on every page' meme, and mined it for a single quote for an assignment, but otherwise just glowered at it.

[dieseltaylor]

JS- I would agree with you but he actually states he dropped a rope down and then started to climb up before deciding it was a bad idea. That is absolute crap.

From his book adapted to the Web

http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-Day/cliff.html

1] It was a nearly 100-meter-high cliff,

2] but also providing an eight-meter buildup at the base of the cliff that gave the rangers something of a head start in climbing the forty-meter cliff.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/smallunit/smallunit-pdh.htm

It helps that the army call it Pointe du Hoe to make it easier[!] to find. Nice photos where it seems much less than 100 ft. A lot less than 330 ft.

[dieseltaylor]

Robert, a.k.a. "Bob The Beast" Niland jumped near St Mere Eglise with D/505PIR, 82nd Airborne. Bob was killed in heavy fighting at Neuville au Plain on June 6th. Brother Preston was a lieutenant in the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, and landed on Utah Beach. On 7 June, 1944, he was also killed in the area NW of Utah Beach. When Fritz returned from his misdrop circa 11 June, he rejoined H/501 and was decorated for grenading a German m.g nest at Hill 30 on 12 June. After learning that Fritz was probably the sole surviving son in his family, Fr. Francis Sampson, Catholic Chaplain of the 501, started paperwork to have Fritz sent back to safer duty in the U.S. The paperwork took quite a while to go through, and didn't come back approved until the end of the summer.

Fritz was NOT pulled out of the front lines, as Ambrose asserts in his books. Fritz remained in Normandy with the 501 until they sailed back to England on an LST. The photo above was taken by Fritz's best buddy, Jack Breier in Southhampton, England in July, 1944. The troops had just debarked the LST and were loading on buses to ride back to their base camp at Lamborne, England. Cate, Fritz's daughter has verified that the trooper standing at left in the photo is Fritz Niland.

Fritz remained with H/501 through the summer of 1944, suiting-up for two missions which were canceled, before the orders came through for him to return to the Zone of Interior. Fritz protested the order-he wanted to return to battle and avenge his lost brothers. Against his objections, he was overruled and sent back for M.P. duty in N.Y. state until the war ended.

One of his brothers did survive-Eddie returned from his MIA status many months later, having been in a Japanese P.O.W. camp. Mrs Niland did NOT receive three telegrams in one day regarding the loss of her sons,(I still can't figure out where Ambrose conjured-up THAT particular fiction-it was good Hollywood stuff for the movie though.) Also two, not three of Fritz's brothers were in fact killed in action. The story of the Nilands wound-up in two of Ambrose's books, and Hollywood screenwriters used the basic scenario of a 101st paratrooper who had lost three brothers as the starting premise for the screenplay of 'Saving Private Ryan'.

As many lesser-known historians continue with their individual projects, the writing and research void left by Ambrose's passing WILL be filled. However it is unlikely that any individual history writer will receive the mass acclaim, sales, or accompanying wealth that Ambrose enjoyed. The Media and the publishing world touted him as an Icon, in a way that no other pop historian in our society has ever been.

Yes, many of us had issues with S.A., and I likened his mega success to the way Blockbuster Video puts many small, privately-owned video stores out of business. Many dedicated but obscure historians have continued their valuable research year in, year out, through the decades, only to have their work ignored by the mass public audience. Largely due to Ambrose's virtual monopoly on book sales in the popular history market, many lesser-known writers have not had a chance. This certainly has much to do with the resentment that many individuals have felt toward his huge success.

With great fame and repute comes great responsibility to convey the story as accurately as possible to the reading audience. Each individual military unit that Ambrose wrote about has complained about various inaccuracies in what he stated about them. Despite pleas to correct those mis-statements, Ambrose demonstrated a lack of willingness to make those errors right in subsequent editions of his work. As historians, we understand that all of us make mistakes, but this refusal to admit and correct errors also did little to endear Ambrose to many veterans or history writers. There was also a feeling that someone as big as he was in reputation, should never have made some of the more blatant errors he made. There was also, a perception that, with a team of knowledgable proofreaders, some of the more glaring mistakes would never have gotten into print in the first place.

http://www.101airborneww2.com/bandofbrothers2.html

[bruce90]

I watched a Military channel doc on Omaha recently where Stephen Ambrose asserted that the troops landing on Omaha faced 'the greatest concentration of firepower in the history of warfare'. I thought at the time that that statement must have took a hell of a lot of researching so in light of what I've just read here maybe he didn't.

[JonS]

I watched a Military channel doc on Omaha recently where Stephen Ambrose asserted that the troops landing on Omaha faced 'the greatest concentration of firepower in the history of warfare'.

Well, straight off the bat I'd counter with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Pak_43]

I suspect the German divisions defending the beaches on D-Day probably experienced a greater concentration of firepower than those of the troops assaulting it?

[JonS]

Can we summarise this thread with a paraphrase of that old saw about lawyers and politicians?

You can tell when Ambrose is making stuff up because there's ink on the page.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-9-2002/book-jokes

[Stalins Organ]

Not like it's really new - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Ambrose - the section on controversy notes at least some of the above

[JonS]

Not like it's really new

Sure. He has been dead for 9 years, after all.

[dieseltaylor]

I think the point is that liars must not be allowed to peddle crap/lies from the grave. Something that is called history that is lies and dubious should be rooted out. After all:

http://hnn.us/articles/541.html

What really points out the hypocrisy of this man is comparing what he writes with his own high standards for historians. In the fall of 2000 in Forbes he wrote about the importance of truth in writing history in an article titled,"Old Soldiers Never Lie." In his first paragraph he wrote,"Nothing is relative, what happened, happened. What didn't happen, didn't, and to assert it [did] is to lie." Ambrose added:"Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened; in quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words." Ambrose includes this warning to the media:"And if journalists don't encourage the truth, historians eventually will." A hypocritical statement to say the least.

I see it as a duty that all amateur and professional historians should have is to eradicate deliberate falsehoods otherwise we might aswell rely on Hollywood to re-write all history for the population. Bemoaning how gullible/stupid the general population then is becomes hypocritical on our part.

[JonS]

There's no gotcha there. In that interview he was just clearly flagging that he was NOT an historian

[Bigduke6]

Which ipso facto makes several tens of thousands of (almost totally) unarmed Japanese civilians the combat veterans of the worst firepower every directed against any one in a war.

Well, straight off the bat I'd counter with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Michael Emrys]

Several years ago I bought a copy of Citizen Soldiers just to see what all the fuss was all about. This was when Ambrose was at the height of of his popularity and before the controversy over his methods had reached the general public. I don't think I had gotten more than 20 pages in before I spotted three glaring inaccuracies. I mean these really stood out, and if an amateur like me notices them on the first reading, what's a professional doing leaving them in print after presumably proofreadings and redrafts? At that point I closed the book in disgust, refusing to waste more time on such a shoddy product.

Oh, I did look at the after word where he describes how in childhood he came to acquire his hero worship of the American GI. I wouldn't fault him for childhood hero worship. I suspect most went through that; I certainly did. But to deliberately distort history in service of that, especially in the face of criticism of some of those same GI's whom he claims to admire is criminally unprofessional.

Someone else has stated about "The Greatest Generation" that that title is a misnomer. They were just ordinary guys who, when the time came, found themselves doing extraordinary things. I think in that lies their true greatness. And I think that should have been enough for Ambrose too. By inflating their deeds with falsehoods, he casts their reputations into doubt, and they do not deserve that.

Michael