Failures of the “Intelligence/Operations Communities”

  

   [In this contribution the expression “Intelligence/Operations Communities” (I/OC) has been used because it is the Operations branches which receive the raw intelligence, evaluate it and decide what action – or none – to recommend to Command.  A failure might occur in either branch.]

   It is an unfortunate fact of life that, when I/OC have a failure to predict an undesirable event this is soon well-known and they are universally vilified.  When they do penetrate an enemy’s design it may be countered, nothing bad happens and only a few people know about it. 

   Therefore, it is easy to list the failures of I/OC.  Some are given here just as a contribution towards understanding how people’s minds work, often under pressure and with all the difficulty of limited data.  There is one famous case where the prediction failure produced a very pleasant surprise!

Broad classification of failures

The list of failures provided here, each of which will be discussed below in more detail, has been sub-divided as follows:-

A.  Where it resulted in world-level reactions (in order of importance, not of chronology);

B.  Where it resulted in the loss of a battle;

C. Where it had serious results but they were containable.

A1.  The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

A2. The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941

A3.  “9/11” September 2001.

A4.  No Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq, March 2003.

A5. Fall of the Berlin Wall November 1989 and collapse of the Soviet Union (this was the pleasant surprise!)

A6.  Invasion of South Korea June 1950.

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B1.  The two Gefechtswendungs at Jutland May 1916.

B2.  Quality of Japanese aviation December 1941.

B3.  Rommel’s attack in the Western Desert March 1941.

B4.  Defeat of Operation Battleaxe June 1941.

B5.  Defeat (and success) of Operation Goodwood July 1944.

B6.  Quality of Japanese torpedoes February 1942.

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C1.  Battle of the Bulge December 1944.

C2.  Egyptian attack across the Suez Canal October 1973.

C3.  USN failure to convoy January 1942.

C4.  Argentinian invasion of the Falklands April 1982.

C5.  The “Alpine Redoubt” April 1945.

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A1.  The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962

The I/OC Estimates

   During 1962, at the special request of President Kennedy (JFK), the US I/OC provided 4 estimates of the situation regarding Cuba (Cu), the Soviet Union (SU) and the USA. (Ref.1).  These were dated 17 January, 21 March, 1 August and 19 September.  All four in various words dismissed the likelihood that the SU would use Cu as a base for potential offensive action against the USA.  The 19 September report, after noting that there was a SU build-up in Cu, including anti-aircraft rockets, saw it as defensive and wrote the following:-

“The establishment on Cuban soil of Soviet nuclear striking forces which could be used against the US would be incompatible with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it” (Refs. 1 & 2).

The U2 overflights and Soviet diplomatic deception

   The USA had means for direct check on the Cu/SU position via overflights by Lockheed U2 very-high-altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft (see Fig.1 at RHS).  Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) these made semi-monthly sorties.  Up to 5 September 1962 these had produced only evidence of defensive activity (not surprising in view of the failed “Bay of Pigs” attack by Cuban exiles on 17 April 1961).  There was then a gap of 39 days in the overflights (Ref. 3).  A day before the pause, the SU Ambassador had met Robert Kennedy (RFK), the Attorney General by office but JFK’s right-hand-man in practice, and had assured him on behalf of the SU Chairman, Nikita Khrushchev (Kc), that there would be no Ground-to-Ground missiles placed in Cu.  On the 11 September this was said publically and there was also a message given to JFK from Kc to the same effect (Ref. 1).  The 19 September I/OC prediction was therefore accepted.

The “Stunned surprise” (Ref. 1)

   As mentioned, there were no U2 overflights for 39 days after 5 September 1962, possibly because of a reorganisation which handed the aircraft over to the USAF.  When the latter made a first sortie on 14 October and the photos were examined (with the aid of general missile site data supplied previously by a mole in the SU I/OC, Oleg Penkovsky (Ref.4)) they showed a site under construction for medium-range surface-to-surface missiles.  This fact was reported to JFK and government seniors on 16 October.  RFK reported that it was met with “stunned surprise” (Ref. 1).  He added that “We had been deceived by Khrushchev, but we had also fooled ourselves”.  He meant that the US I/OC had fallen into a very common error, thinking, “If we were in the opposition’s situation, we would not do X”, with the result that, when they do ‘X’, there is a stunning surprise.

  The consequences have been reported many times and do not need repeating here.  An ad hoc group considered various ways of responding to the situation, granted that the nation could not let it pass unchallenged.  While these discussions were in progress the Foreign Minister of the SU met JFK by previous appointment and once again assured the President that the SU would never furnish offensive weapons to Cu (!).  JFK did not reveal what had been discovered.

   On 21 October JFK decided that a quarantine would be established around Cu to prevent any missiles being received by sea by that island.  He announced the U2 discovery and the US reaction to the nation and the world on 22 October.

   Both sides came to high alert.  Undoubtedly a factor considered by the SU was the presence under-sea of 7 invulnerable Polaris-armed nuclear submarines.  Serious incidents in the next week were the possibility of a Russian submarine commander firing a nuclear torpedo at the blockading USN;  and the shooting down of a U2 on 27 October by a Russian AA rocket, killing the pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson.  His death proved to be the only one caused by hostile action during the crisis.

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  The next day Kc accepted a deal by which he removed all offensive weapons from Cu and JFK promised not to invade.  A side deal had US Jupiter missiles removed from Turkey (Thor missiles in England were already scheduled for removal).  These were concessions of no cost to security of missiles vulnerable to a first strike because they were both made redundant by the growing Polaris programme.

References

1.  13 Days  R.F.Kennedy  Pan  1968.
2. www.hoover.org/research/cuban-missile-crisis-intelligence-failure.  Amy Zegart  2/10/12.
3. Air Force Magazine  J. Correll  August 2005.
4. Review in D/Tel by C. Andrew  21 August 1997  of book at 5.
5. One Hell of a Gamble  A. Fursenko & T. Naftali  J. Murray  1997.

A2.  The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

[In this note it is helpful to identify at the start that Ref. 6 is the following:-

Report of the Joint (Congressional) Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack.  1946]

   In April 1940 there was a forward move of 3,000 n. miles of the US Pacific Fleet from the West coast of the USA to Pearl Harbor in Oahu, an island of the Hawaiian chain.   The new commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (later designated CinCPac) was well aware that there might one day be a Japanese carrier aircraft attack on the new base.   In late 1941 as the diplomatic relations with Japan became more tense, Ref. 6 states:-

“Perhaps the most vital intelligence available to the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet indicating Pearl Harbor as a possible point of attack was that gathered from his own Radio Intelligence Unit at Hawaii” (by radio traffic analysis and radio direction finding of Japanese ships). “A similar unit was based in the Philippines.  Reports from both were incorporated in fortnightly bulletins from the Washington Office of Naval Intelligence” (ONI) “sent to Admiral Kimmel [inter alia]”.

   The ONI bulletin for 1 December 1941, from information gathered over the previous 2 weeks, included:-  “…the major capital ship strength remains in home waters, as well as the greatest portion of the carriers” (Ref. 6).  Ref. 6 then describes how the Fleet Intelligence Officer (FIO) reported to CinCPac that the Japanese had changed their radio call signs on 1 December, only 1 month after having made a usual 6-monthly routine change.  He stated “The fact that service calls lasted only one month indicates an additional progressive step in preparing for operations on a large scale”.  Kimmel noted this specially.  The following day the FIO conferred again with CinCPac and admitted that, while Japanese Carrier Divisions 3 and 4, totalling 4 CV, had been located near Formosa, he did not know where Divs 1 and 2 (another 4CV) were located, but he thought that they were in home waters.  Kimmel, jokingly, remarked that they could be steaming past Diamond Head (on Oahu.  He should taken himself seriously).  Over the next few days there was still no radio traffic from Divs 1 and 2 (Ref. 6).

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No long-distance air reconnaissance was carried out.

      Meanwhile, in Washington, President Roosevelt (FDR) and his top-level government members were engaged in fraught exchanges with the Japanese government.  This was aided on the US side by having an electronic de-coding system (“Magic”) to read the ciphered radio messages to the Japanese embassy.  Late on 6 December this enabled them to read a message sent specially in 13 parts with a 14^th to be sent on 7 December.  This caused FDR to remark “This means war”, but he felt he must let the Japanese strike the first blow (Ref. 7).  The Secretary for War (Henry L. Stimson) requested a brief from the Navy department to be provide early on 7 December giving the location of all nations’ men-of-war forces in the Pacific. This was done.  Ref. 6 included it as Exhibit 176 and Ref. 7 reproduces the comment which the Congressional Committee made on this report:-

“The bulk of the Japanese Navy was listed as in the two major Japanese naval stations at Kure and Sasebo on the main Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu.  Included among the Japanese ships listed by name as in those two Japanese naval stations that morning were all of the ships* which, it is now known, were at that very moment less than 300 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands.”

*Carrier Divisions:- 1 (Akagi, Kaga); 2(Soryu, Hiryu); 5 (Shokaku, Zuikaku).  Note that CarDiv 5, newly organised with 2 new CV, had not been mentioned by Pearl Harbor intelligence at all.  The strike force left their assembly point in the Kurile Islands on 26 November 1941, kept radio silence on a course approaching Oahu from the North and were not spotted by any ship.  They had scouts ahead to warn the fleet to alter course if necessary to ensure that.  The order to carry out the attack was received on 2 December.  It was scheduled for Sunday 7^th so as to catch the Pacific Fleet all in harbour as usual at a weekend.  Luckily the 2 available carriers were away ferrying aircraft to Wake and Midway Islands.

   The radio silence of the attacking fleet had worked well, deluding the I/OC.

   The 14^th part of the Japanese message, decoded, was in the hands of FDR at about the same time that the naval brief was being discussed in a meeting of Stimson, Cordell Hull (Secretary of State), and William F. Knox (Navy Secretary) at 10am on Sunday morning 7^th December 1941.  They also received it (Ref. 6).  It was not the declaration of war as had been thought possible, and the brief probably misled them over the urgency of the situation.  What did alert at least George C. Marshall (GCM;  Army Chief of Staff) was a slightly later message requiring the Japanese Ambassador to deliver the whole note to Hull at 1 pm Eastern Standard Time.  GCM decided it was vital to let the Pacific forces know of this and ordered it to be sent to them before this time.  Unfortunately, atmospheric conditions prevented this warning from being sent to Hawaii by army radio, so his signals people sent it to Oahu by commercial cable, with much delay (Ref. 6).  Admiral Harold R. Stark (Chief of Naval Operations), undoubtedly influenced by the location brief, did not send any warning (although the USN had a more powerful radio than the Army) (Ref.6).

  The air attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7.55 am local time, which was 12.55 pm EST.  The telegraph boy on his bicycle with the warning cable actually had to take cover in a ditch while on his way to deliver it to Army HQ.  A tragic farce.

One conclusion of the Joint Committee (Ref.6)

“Virtually every witness has testified he was surprised at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  This was essentially the result of the fact that just about everybody was blinded or rendered myopic by what seemed to be the self-evident purpose of Japan to attack towards the South – Thailand, Malaysia, the Kra peninsula and perhaps the Philippines or Guam”.

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   A Republican minority report (Ref. 6) made the important point which should have been taken into consideration that, if the Japanese did attack to the South, they would be sure to clear their Eastern flank first i.e. attack the US Pacific Fleet.  Nevertheless, the difference in distance of Pearl Harbor from Japan – about 3,500 n. miles, compared to that from Formosa to Manila – 550 n. miles – , must have influenced the US thinking with regard to the locality of a Japanese attack.  It is only knowing the fact of the event that the attack is passed over without properly appreciating its true daring and hence its surprise.

Pearl Harbor Sunday 7th December 1941

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who initiated the attack

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Lt. General Walter C. Short                Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

The officers who, inevitably, were “retired” shortly after the surprise attack.

Eventually (1999) the US Senate voted that they had not been derelict in duty.

P.S.

   Alas for the attention paid by the USA to the Philippines!  The Japanese intended an air attack from Formosa on military objectives around Manila to coincide with that on Pearl Harbor.  Bad weather delayed the departure of the striking force and it arrived 9 hours later.

   Lt. General Douglas MacArthur, in command of the Philippine ground and air forces, had taken the precaution several days earlier of ordering his new coastal defence group of 35 B-17 4-engined bombers to be re-located from Luzon to Mindanao, nearly 600 miles further south.  His new air commander disobeyed him and sent only half the fleet.

   Knowing of the Pearl attack at about 3 am local time on the 8^th December (over the date line) but apparently deceived by a feint Japanese attack at 8 am, the aircraft on Clark Field (50 miles NW of Manila) were scrambled, the P-40 fighters to intercept, the B-17s to orbit out of harm’s way.  No enemy appeared and the planes had to land before 11 am to refuel.  The main Japanese strike came at noon.  With no opposition in the air they destroyed all 18 B-17s and 55 of the 72 P-40s (Ref. 8).  This disaster cleared the way for the enemy amphibious landing on Luzon on the 22^nd December.  No inquiry was ever made into how the Philippines air defence was thus eliminated.

   This bad situation was made fatal by the failure of the available powerful submarine force of 23 boats to destroy the Japanese invading fleet.  This was because all their torpedoes had defective exploders (both new magnetic and standard contact) (Ref. 8).

References

6. Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack Government Printing Office  20 July 1946.
   • Accessing the Congressional Committee report: www.ibiblio.org/pha/congress/Vol40.pdf
   • Note that this inquiry was preceded by 7 others.

7. The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins  Vol.1  R. Sherwood  Eyre & Spottiswoode  1948.
8. MacArthur  C. Blair, Jr  Fortuna  1977.

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A3.  “9/11” September 2001

The end of the Cold War

   This came about because Mikhail Gorbachev, on becoming the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 11 March 1985, came to recognise two things:-

1. The Soviet Union could no longer afford to compete with the USA in arms as these were built up under President Ronald Reagan (1980 – 1988);
2. If the Soviet Union did not match the USA weapon-for-weapon the USA would not attack it.

 

Gorbachev’s policy of not keeping the members of the Warsaw Pact under rigid control led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.  Parts of the Soviet Union also began to split off.  Reactionaries in the Kremlin then attempted a coup against Gorbachev in August 1991.  When Boris Yeltsin on 21 August 1991 persuaded the tanks of the coup leaders to return to barracks from blockading the Soviet Parliament the coup failed. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came to an end on 25 December 1991 when Gorbachev resigned.

   After the end of the Cold War the size of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the USA was reduced as part of the “Peace dividend”.  Priorities were mixed over the next 10 years but gradually had to recognise the threat of fundamentalist Islamic attacks.    What was quite different from previous intelligence work was that the potential perpetrators of attacks were religious fanatics who were entirely ready to die to achieve their purpose.

A fictional assault on the US Government

   In 1994 the American novelist Tom Clancy wrote “Debt of honour”.  In this story a commercial airliner is crashed deliberately into the US Capitol, killing the President.

The genesis of “9/11”?

   It will probably never be known, but this fictional event could have led to the Al Quaeda group carrying out the real hi-jacked aircraft suicide attacks of 11^th September 2001.  These destroyed the twin 110-story towers of the New York Trade Center, damaged the Washington Pentagon and were intended to strike the White House.  This was saved by the heroism of hi-jacked passengers.    The death toll of 2,977, mostly of civilians, was nearly a quarter higher than that of Pearl Harbor.

   The CIA had given warnings in 2001 that a major plot was brewing.  In particular, the US National Security advisor (Condoleezza Rice) was briefed by the CIA Director (George J. Tenet) and his staff on 10^th July 2001 as follows:-

“There will be significant terrorist attacks against the United States in the coming weeks or months.  The attacks will be spectacular.  They may be multiple.” (Ref 9)

   Although it gave this general warning, nevertheless the I/OC failed because neither the CIA (with a mission to operate outside the USA) nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (operating inside the States) had been able to identify or apprehend potential attackers.  They entered the USA through the normal channels over a period from January 2000 to mid-2001.  After the event Ref.10 found errors in their applications but stated that no-one had informed the immigration authorities that Saudi citizens might be a security risk (15 of 19 attackers were Saudis).

Novelty of the attacks

   Once the potential attackers were in the USA, no-one could be blamed for not anticipating their use of hijacked airliners as suicide bombs.    Had one of the group been arrested, it might have been possible to obtain a clue to the form of the intended attack and take precautions against it.

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References

9. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353/ C.Whipple  13 November 2015.

10. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/staff_statements/staff_statement_1.pdf

A4.  No weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, March 2003

The Israeli attack on the Iraqi Nuclear reactor

   Saddam Hussein began to build a French-designed nuclear reactor in 1979.

   Alarmed in case this could lead to an atomic bomb for use against them, the Israeli government decide to take direct action to forestall this possibility on 7^th June 1981.  Using America-supplied aircraft and over-flying Saudi-Arabian territory without permission a raid was made on the reactor still under construction near Baghdad.

The US-led coalition to expel Iraq from Kuwait,

  Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait on 2^nd August 1990.

   A US-led multi nation coalition expelled the Iraqis by action commencing in the air on 16^th January 1991 followed by ground attacks from 24^th February.  Hussein’s forces were out of Kuwait 4 days later.  A potential drive by coalition forces on Baghdad was halted by US President H.W. Bush, possibly because he thought that the defeated Iraqi commanders would overthrow Hussein.  This did not happen.  Instead, Hussein was left free to crush internal revolts by Kurds in the North and marsh Arabs in the South.

The situation was regarded as un-finished business by some in the USA.

“9/11”

   After “9/11” President H. Bush, son of “H. W”, allowed himself to believe:-

• Hussein had some complicity in the attacks;
• Hussein had, or soon could have, “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD), particularly biological.

   Briefed by the I/OC the US Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell spoke of Iraqi WMD on 5 February 2003 to the UN Security Council.  It now seems certain that he embellished the information that he received (see Ref. 11).  The fault therefore lay more at the Command level than the I/OC.

   The USA, with the UK as a major partner, invaded Iraq on 19 March 2003.    Despite a prolonged search no WMD were discovered.    It seems that the son had really decided to finish the business which his father had not completed.

Reference

11.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/iraq-war-wmds-an-intelligence-failure-or-white-house-spin/.

A5.  Fall of the Berlin Wall November 1989 and collapse of the Soviet Union (this was the pleasant surprise!).

The origin of the “Cold War”

   The “Cold War” between the Western allies and its expedient ally in defeating Germany, the Soviet Union, effectively began when the Russian army re-entered Poland in June 1944. The ground to destroy an independent Poland had already been prepared after their 1939 invasion by the “liquidation” of likely upper-class resistance. It was further prepared for Communism by allowing the Germans to crush the underground Home Army in Warsaw in August 1944.  Despite promises made by Stalin at the February 1945 Yalta Conference it was soon apparent that he intended Poland to be firmly under Russian control via a puppet government.  Other East European countries were treated the same way as Russian troops “liberated” them.  There was nothing that the Western allies could do about this.  Chamberlain’s guarantee could not save Poland from Germany in 1939.  Churchill and Roosevelt could not save it from Russia in 1945.

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   Winston Churchill on 5 March 1946 spoke about the “Iron Curtain” which had descended between the West and East.

   When the democratic government of Czechoslovakia was overthrown by a Communist coup on 21 February 1948 this was a strong signal of Stalin’s further intentions

   The first overt act of the Soviet Union against the West was the attempt by blockade to force them from their WW2-agreed occupation zones in Berlin, beginning on 24 June 1948.  An air-lift lasting 323 days foiled this.

   The Western response to these acts was the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), signed on 4 April 1949.   The 12 founding members were:-

USA; UK; Canada; France; Italy; Norway; Belgium; Netherlands; Portugal; Denmark; Luxembourg; Iceland.

The NATO Treaty has as its Article 5:-

“ …an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all…”.

A proxy attack on the USA in South Korea, June 1950

   This will be described under A6.

The most dangerous point of the Cold War

   J.F. Kennedy met Chairman Khrushchev in Vienna on 4 June 1961, only 4 months into his Presidency and only 48 days after the failure of the “Bay of Pigs”, the US attempt to overthrow Castro in Cuba by force.  It is thought that Khrushchev assessed JFK as weak in resolution.  This was reinforced by no reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall (and fortification of the entire boundary with the West) commencing on 13 August 1961.  This led the Soviet Union into a gamble which was the most dangerous point of the whole Cold war, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, described in A1.

President Reagan’s Re-armament

   From 1963 to 1980 US Defense expenditure did not rise in real money.  On taking office President Reagan began a programme of re-armament.  In his 8 years the real annual spend rose by 50% (see Fig. 1).  As he also cut taxes the National Debt rose from 32% of GDP (on a downward path) to 50% (and still rising) (see Fig.2 on P.10). 

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   As already written in A3, Mikhail Gorbachev, on becoming the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 11 March 1985, came to recognise two things:-

1. The Soviet Union could no longer afford to compete with the USA in arms as these were built up under President Ronald Reagan (1980 – 1988);
2. If the Soviet Union did not match the USA weapon-for-weapon the USA would not attack it.

Possibly to show his more-peaceful intentions, Gorbachev relaxed the policy of using the threat of the Russian army to keep the members of the Warsaw Pact under rigid control.  Active interventions had occurred in 1953 in Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia and a threat in 1981 which led Poland to impose martial law to combat the Solidarity union.  Examples of the new policy were:- in Poland, which was allowed to elect the Solidarity union to power in June 1989; and in Hungary shortly afterwards, which was allowed to open its border to Austria and let many East Germans escape through it.  This led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.  Although there were still well over 300,000 Russian troops in East Germany at the time, they stayed in their barracks.  Ref. 14 reports the remarks of the last leader of the German Democratic Republic (Egon Krenz) on 7^th November 2019, just before the 30^th anniversary of the collapse:-

“Krenz, who thanks to his relative youth was the only member of the GDR’s senior ranks to have grown up under communism, says he was convinced the country could survive with open borders by engaging more with the West. “That was an illusion,” he says today. An even bigger misjudgement, though, was trusting Gorbachev, he now says. On November 1, as rumors circulated that the Soviet Union would drop its support for the GDR, Krenz visited Moscow, seeking reassurances from Gorbachev. “The GDR was a child of the Soviet Union,” Krenz, who studied in Moscow and speaks fluent Russian, said. “I asked him, ‘Tell me Mikhail Sergeyevich, do you stand by your paternity?’”

Krenz said Gorbachev told him he did and that there would be no reunification.”

Clearly, Gorbachev’s assurance to Krenz was not sincere.  He did not give orders to the Russian troops to back up the East German government.

   One thing led to another, as reported in A3, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came to an end on 25 December 1991 when Gorbachev resigned.

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Did the CIA predict the end of the USSR?

   In a word – No!.

   This is not surprising.  The CIA had been formed to watch the USSR.  It could hardly be expected to predict the end of its reason for existence!  The police might as well predict the disappearance of crime.

Afterwards – Illusion and Disillusion

   In 1992 a book by the American political scientist Francis Fukujama argued that the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy post the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union marked “the end of history”.

   This proved to be just wishful thinking.  In Russia the ex-secret policeman Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999 and has shown since that he intends to restore the old Russian ways.  Al Quaeda in 2001 carried out its devastating attack on the USA, as described in A3.  Xi Jinping, created effective boss of China in 2013, is clearly bent on taking that vast country to No.1 in the world – and he is not a “liberal democrat”.

References

11.  https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

12.  https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-y ear-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287.

13.  https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1913-

14.  https://www.politico.eu/article/last-east-german-egon-krenz-communism-berlin-wall-anniversary/

A6.  Invasion of South Korea June 1950.

   Korea, annexed by the Japanese in 1910, was split in two at the 38^th parallel after their defeat purely as a matter of convenience of its liberation by the victorious forces in August 1945.  Russian troops entered the North from their very short campaign in Manchukuo, Americans entered the South.

   Stalin already had a cadre of Korean exiles in hand to administer the North, including Kim Il Sung who had actually fought in the Soviet army at Stalingrad.  The US had another long-time Korean exile who had been educated in the States, Syngman Rhee.  Both of these two new leaders had an ambition to unify the peninsula.

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   The “Cold War” affected the two parts of Korea in different ways.  Although Russian troops left the North in December 1948, the USSR began to build up fully-armed forces there.  The US troops left in June 1949 and while they provided Rhee with surplus US weapons this did not include tanks, heavy guns or combat planes so that he could not invade the North

   On 1^st March 1949 General MacArthur, head of the American troops occupying Japan, while defining the US “line of defense” in the Far East left Korea out.  The US Secretary of State, Dean G Acheson on 12^th January 1950 did the same and said:- “So far as the military security of other areas in the Pacific is concerned, it must be clear that no person can guarantee these areas against military attack” (Ref.15).  He was much blamed for that later but Ref.17, written in 2012, states “However, Soviet documents have established that Acheson’s words had almost no impact on Communist invasion planning”. “Almost no” is not quite “No,”, of course.  In May 1950 the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that Russia could seize South Korea without US intervention because Korea was not “very greatly important” (Ref. 16).  That could hardly have been clearer.

   Kim il Sung had been pressing Stalin for permission to invade the South for some time.  Ref. 17 says that the Russian dictator gave him permission in April 1950 if Mao Zedong also approved.  Mao on 1^st October 1949 had been able to announce the victory of the Communists over Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang, which had by then retreated to Taiwan (Formosa).  In May 1950, possibly thinking that his Chinese Liberation Army might be needed to help, Mao gave Kim consent for the invasion.

   A factor in Stalin’s thinking will have been that Russia had just (29th August 1949) successfully tested an atomic bomb, cancelling out what he must have feared previously could be the ultimate decider in a conflict with the USA.

   The question is, while these Command decisions were being taken, did the I/OC in the West detect the coming event?.  Ref. 16 quotes from an estimate which MacArthur’s Intelligence chief passed to Washington on 25 March 1950, discounting the known build-up of Northern forces, writing:- “It is believed there will be no civil war in Korea this spring or summer”.

   The invasion of the South by Kim’s Russian-equipped army began early on 25^th June 1950.

   It is not intended to describe the up-and-down struggle in the Korean peninsula over the next 3 years, except to note that Mao Zedong in October 1950 sent ostensible “Chinese volunteer” troops to help the remnants of the North Korean army.  The end result was that the opposing forces finished up very nearly where they started, around the 38^th parallel.

   MacArthur in early 1951 openly advocated expanding the Korean war into China, against the policy of his government.  In consequence he was dismissed by President Truman, acting as Commander-in-Chief of the US military forces, on 11 April 1951.  The objections to MacArthur’s proposal were clarified to the Senate by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Omar N. Bradley, on 15 May 1951, as follows:-

   “Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy” (Ref.18). 

   He meant that the “right place” was Europe and the “right enemy” was Soviet Russia.  As to the “wrong war” and the “wrong time”, only 40 years more would tell if both could be avoided.

   It is estimated that deaths in the Korean war totalled nearly 5 million, over half being civilians (Ref.19).

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References

15.  MacArthur  C. Blair  Futura ed.  1978.                                                      

16.  Conflict  R. Leckie  Avon 1962.

17.  https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-korean-war-101-causes-course-and-conclusion-of-the-conflict/

18..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_wrong_war,_at_the_wrong_place,_at_the_wrong_time,_and_with_the_wrong_enemy

19.  https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war#

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B1.  The two Gefechtswendungs at Jutland May 1916.

   With weapons capable of damaging a target at a distance, the theoretical advantage of a Line over a Column has been explained in Contribution No. 1.

   Admiral Togo, C-in-C of the Japanese Combined Fleet, on 17^th May 1905 used a Line to defeat a Column of Russian battleships in the Tsushima Straight between Japan and Korea.  In naval parlance this was called “Crossing the Tee”.  It became a special study of all navies.

   Germany began to build up a Hochseeflotte (HSF) from 1900, knowing that it would never be allowed by Great Britain to gain superiority in battleship numbers, whatever the cost to the British tax-payer.  Accordingly, defensive tactics were examined.  An answer to “Having their Tee crossed” was found in a manoeuvre they dubbed the “Gefechtswendung” (GfW) (literally “Turn of the battle”).  On a given signal from the flagship every battleship in a column would simultaneously turn through180⁰  to escape from enemy fire.

   In the battle of Jutland on 31^st May 1916 the British C-in-C, Admiral Jellicoe, had deployed his Grand Fleet (GF) battleships so that at 18.35 he was about to “Cross the Tee” of the HSF battleships, commanded by Admiral Scheer, although at rather a long range of 6 ½ n. miles.  Scheer promptly executed a GfW and was quickly out of sight of the GF in mist.

   Scheer then made a bad mistake.  He was steaming West, away from Germany.  Having miscalculated the position of the British on their Southerly course he thought that by executing another GfW he could pass homeward behind them on an Easterly course.  Instead he ran straight towards the centre of the GF with his Tee well-and-truly Crossed!  Another GfW was signalled at 19.20 and executed and once more he escaped after 6 minutes firing at about 5 n. miles (Ref. 20).  Jellicoe, in fear of German Torpedo-Boats covering the battleships’ retreat, turned away instead of pursuing and that, as it turned out (see Contribution No.8), was the last that the opposing battleships saw of each other for the rest of the war – until the HSF was interned after the Armistice.

   This I/OC example shows the failure of pre-war RN Intelligence to discover the GfW manoeuvre, which must have been rehearsed assiduously in the Baltic and likely was a topic of talk by the fleet sailors.  There was a good spy reporting German naval technical matters to the British (Ref. 21).

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If known*, it could have been countered e.g. by deploying the Fast Division of 15’’gun battleships on the far side of the HSF (Ref. 20).  The Fast Division was the Admiralty’s 1912 conception of how to create a Tee Crossing.  By having an expected 5 knot advantage over an HSF line they could draw ahead of it and then steer to pass in front.  Jellicoe made no use of the 3 ships of that class he had in hand at 19.20.  The finest battleships in the world were suffered to trail at the back of the GF.

* Perhaps it was known but ignored as a defensive action of no interest to the fighting tradition of the Royal Navy!  But it would have been of great value to the Fast Division (5^th Battle Squadron) when earlier it found itself in front of the HSF battleships at 16.56 and was ordered to turn about in succession.  The Germans concentrated their fire on the turning point and inflicted wholly avoidable though not crippling damage.  One captain (of Malaya, last ship in the line) had the good sense to do his own “GfW” short of the enemy fire.

References

20.  The World Crisis 1911-1918.  W.S. Churchill  Odhams Press ed.  (Vol. III, with the account and analysis of the battle of Jutland, 1^st published 1927).

21.  The Secret History of MI6  K. Jeffery  Penguin  2010.

B2.  Quality of Japanese aviation December 1941.

   In the ‘30s the Imperial Japanese Navy had kept secret much of their aviation technology, in particular two aeroplanes developed for them by Mitsubishi:-  the1937 G3M long-range Bomber/Torpedo-bomber and the 1940 A6M Fighter (later coded by the US for reporting simplicity as “Nell” and “Zeke”, respectively,  but the fighter popularly known as “Zero”) (Ref.22).

   The characteristic feature of these Mitsubishi aircraft was their light weight for a given size, providing a high Power/Weight ratio with consequential high performance:-  long range for the bomber and rapid climb for the fighter.  Tables A below and B on P.15 compare the Mitsubishi designs with contemporary US and British ‘planes.

	Table A –	– Bombers –	– Source Reference 23
Date	1937	1937	1937
Make	Mitsubishi	Armstrong Whitworth	Douglas
Type	G3M2	Whitley III	B-18A
Wingspan Ft.	82	84	89.5
Take-off Power HP Weight Cwt	2000 157.5	1720 215.5	2000 247.1
	= 12.7	= 8	= 8.1
	Datum	-37%	-36%
Speed MPH	236	192	216
@ Ft.	13,700	14,300	10,000

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	Table B –	– Fighters –	– Source Ref. 24
Date	1940	1940	1940
Make	Mitsubishi	Curtiss	Grumman
Type	A6M2	P-40B	F4F-3
Wingspan Ft.	39.33	37.25	38
Take-Off Power HP Weight Cwt	950 46	1090 68.5	1200 62.5
	= 20.7	= 15.9	= 19.2
	Datum	-23%	-7%
Speed MPH	316	331	330
@ Ft.	16,400	15,500	21,100
Climb Rate, Ft/Min.	2,838	1,852	2,020
Average to 20,000 Ft.	Datum	-35%	-29%
“Agility” = 1/Wing Load	0.047	0.030	0.037
Sq.ft./Lb	Datum	-36%	-21%
Armament	2 x 7.7mm	2 x 0.5″	4 x 0.5″
	2 x 20mm	4 x 0.3″

  The Zero benefitted in weight by the use of an improved Al alloy developed in Japan in 1936, (and it can be assumed was also used in the 1937 bomber).  The fighter had integral wing + fuselage construction instead of the usual separate parts attached by bolts, saving weight.  Its all-glass cockpit, giving a good all-round view (at the cost of a little extra drag), was unique at the date.  In keeping with the Japanese war-fighting philosophy armour and self-sealing fuel tanks (just coming into Western designs) were not fitted so as to gain the extra Power/Weight advantage.  This did mean that if the opposition got in the first burst of fire, the A6M would probably lose.  Its agility meant that did not happen often until the American pilots learnt not to dog-fight it but use “dive/shoot/skoot” tactics.  That implied having somehow gained an altitude advantage despite the Japanese fighter’s better climb rate.  The Zero’s light construction restricted its diving speed well below that of the P-40 and F4F-3, so that it could not escape that way.

   Extraordinary range was another feature of the Zero, because the Japanese navy specified the capability of fitting “Drop Tanks” from the start.  With these 1,700 n. miles could be achieved at cruising speed.  Retired-US Army Major Chennault, air adviser to Chiang Kai-Shek, reported on the Zero to General Marshall (Chief of the Army Staff) in December 1940 from early experience of its use as bomber escorts in the Sino-Japanese war (Ref.25), during which they flew round trips of more than 1,000 n. miles (Ref.22).  It seems that little or no notice was taken of this advice

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The result was 42 out of 99 P-40s destroyed on the ground.  A few (and some P-36s) got into the air and inflicted some losses on the raiders.    Zeros accompanied the bombers in the 8^th December 1941 attack on the Philippines from Formosa, 550 n. miles away, (see A2. P.S.) and actually destroyed most of the US planes by ground-strafing.  Part of the reason for that surprise must have been this extraordinary range

   The currently fashionable epithet “Racist” would have applied to Western estimates of Japanese technical ability in 1941.  For a civilian example, which probably infected the I/OC also, the US magazine Aviation in September 1941 concluded a derisory article with the statement “American aviation experts can say without hesitation that the chief military airplanes of Japan are either outdated already, or are becoming outdated…” (Ref. 22).  Such writing unknowingly helped Japan very well.

   In time the availability of 2,000 HP (in Corsair and Hellcat fighters and up to 3,000 HP in Lightning) defeated the Zero, plus sheer weight of numbers.

References

22.  Zero!  M.Okumiya & J. Horikoshi with M. Caidin  Transworld  1958.

       Horikoshi was the Chief Designer of the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero”.        

23.  The Bomber Aircraft Pocketbook  R. Cross  Batsford  1964.

24.  The Fighter Aircraft Pocketbook..R. Cross  Batsford  1962.

25.  http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/h/Chennault_Claire_Lee.htm

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B3.  Rommel’s attack in the Western Desert March 1941.

“ULTRA SECRET”

   Since early-1940 German intentions and moves had become known to the British when signalled by radio using their “Enigma” electric enciphering machine.  Intercepted by the Y-Service and deciphered at the Secret Intelligence Service station at Bletchley Park the result (later classified as “Ultra Secret”) was made known to only a few people at the top of the war-fighting establishment.  General Archibald Wavell, C-in-C Middle East with HQ in Cairo, was one of them.  He knew, of course, that from mid-1940 the new Prime Minister Winston Churchill was reading the same messages.

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The attack by Lt. Gen. Erwin Rommel from Tripoli in March 1941 showed that Ultra – a triumph of the I/OC – could actually lead the British to defeat, when the response of the enemy commander receiving the orders was not “Jahwohl” but an unsignalled “Nein!”.
The start of the Western Desert campaign
When France surrendered to Germany and Italy on 22nd June 1940 one consequence of many (see Contribution No. 2 at P.28 Note 20) was that their army in Tunisia was no longer a threat to the rear of the Italian army in Libya. Mussolini therefore took advantage of this to mount an offensive into Egypt on 13 September 1940 aimed at driving out the small British force there and seizing the Suez Canal. The Italians only advanced a small distance before halting and entrenching. General Wavell launched a counter-attack on 7th December, spearheaded by Matilda tanks whose 3’’ frontal armour was impervious to the Italian 47 mm anti-tank/tank guns. An Italian retreat after a costly defeat was pushed so relentlessly that, by the 7th January 1941, Benghazi, 450 miles along the one coastal road into Libya, had been captured and most of the rest of the Italian army made POW by a daring flanking move.
By then events in the Balkans were such that a halt was called by Churchill to the North African campaign so that British Empire forces could be sent to Greece, which was threatened with a German invasion. That country had been given a “knee-jerk” guarantee by British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain*, on 13th April 1939 after Mussolini invaded Albania on 7th April 1939. Churchill wished to honour it and try to build up a Balkan Front of Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey.
Mussolini, during the headlong flight from the British forces, had appealed for help from Hitler. This resulted, firstly, in Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps X being transferred from Norway to Sicily where they soon made their formidable capability known; and secondly, the decision to send a “blocking force” of a light panzer division to Tripoli to prevent the British from seizing that place. Hitler chose Lt. Gen. Erwin Rommel to command that force, nominally under Italian orders.

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*In theory this was a Cabinet decision. In practice, Chamberlain’s Cabinet always did what he wanted, just as under Churchill his Cabinet did what he wanted. The semblance of democracy was maintained – it provided a useful shield if things went wrong! The method is sometimes used by powerful company chairmen with their board of directors .

5 July 1940  Roumania allied itself with Germany

28 October 1940  Mussolini invaded Greece

4 November 1940  Hitler ordered planning to start on invading Greece via Bulgaria, troops to be assembled in Roumania (Ref. 26).

ULTRA DECIPHERED THIS ORDER (REF. 27)

9 January 1941  Hitler decides to send a Light Panzer Division to Tripoli (Ref 29).

3 February 1941  15 Panzer Division ordered to follow later.  Rommel chosen as overall CO on  

6 February 1941 (Ref.29).  This was the start of the Deutsches Afrika Korps.

ULTRA DECIPHERED THE SCHEDULE AS:-  [5] LIGHT  IN APRIL;  15 PZ IN MAY (REF. 27).

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1 March 1941  Bulgaria joins the Axis.  German troops in Romania move into the country.

 7 March 1941  1st Commonwealth and British troops land in Greece.  [Two divisions + one armoured Brigade group.]

19 March 1941  Rommel visits Berlin and is discouraged from an early attack.

21 March 1941..German High Command instructs Rommel to hold his present line and prepare a strictly limited attack (Ref. 29).  Their intention was to wait until 15Pz was available, then advance to Agedabia (90 miles further East) and re-assess the situation (Ref. 32).

As “written” instructions it is presumed that they were signalled to Rommel and were deciphered by Ultra, but this is not certain.  He may have carried them back to Tripoli.

27 March 1941  Coup in Yugoslavia displaces pro-German government.  Hitler immediately orders an invasion.

6 April 1941.  Germans invade Greece and Yugoslavia.

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Summary

   In 21 days (from 24 March 1941 to 14 April) Rommel, against orders, had advanced about 700 miles (as the coast road, Via Balbia, runs – about 125 miles less through Mechili) to the Egyptian frontier.  He had driven the British and Commonwealth troops back to very-nearly where they had started their attack on the Italians on 7^th December 1940.

   What he had not succeeded in doing was to capture Tobruk.  A force of Australian infantry and British 25-Pounder field artillery had beaten off several assaults and would beat off several more. 

   Wavell had been placed in the impossible situation of holding his ground in Libya and simultaneously honouring a British government guarantee to Greece against German aggression – while also defeating the Italian forces in East Africa from November 1940 (a task completed by 18^th May 1941).  He had been deceived by the Ultra I/OC decryption in mid-February 1941 of the German intention to send troops to Tripoli which would only build up to two armoured divisions by the end of May.  He expected to bring up troops from East Africa by then.  So he did not worry that the forces available to defend Cyrenaica were weak in numbers, equipment and desert experience.

   What Ultra could not tell him was that Rommel would attack with only one Panzer regiment and, after he discovered the weakness of the defence, push it forward ruthlessly regardless of “Stand Fast” orders received ,– and known to Wavell by Ultra as a further contribution to his deception.

Conclusion

   Knowing the orders given to an enemy commander – the apparently priceless gift of Ultra – still needed the correct assessment of his character before the I/OC could make a useful estimate of his likely action.

References

26.  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich  W. Shirer  Book Club ed  1984.  [1^st published 1959.]

27.  The Ultra Secret  F. Winterbotham  Futura ed  1975.

        First publication in 1974 of the deciphering of Enigma.

28.  Wavell, Scholar and Soldier  J.Connell..Collins  1964.

29.  The Trail of the Fox; the life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel  D. Irving..Macmillan  1977.

30.  https://crusaderproject.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/tank-deliveries-up-to-march-1942.pdf

31.  The Second World War, Vol. III  W. Churchill  Cassell  1950

32.  Rommel’s War in Africa  W. Heckmann  Granada  1982.

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B4.  Defeat of Operation Battleaxe June 1941.

The 1940 battle of Arras  

   At 21^st May 1940 the spearheads of 7 German Panzer divisions of their Army Group A had cut across the L of C of the French 1^st and 7^th Armies and of the British Expeditionary force (BEF) which had advanced to the help of Belgium and Holland as they were attacked by Army Group B.  On that date the retreating British had forces North of Arras and Major General Rommel’s 7^th Panzer Division was South of that city.

   In accordance with a plan of General Weygand, newly appointed C-in-C of Allied forces, the British C-in-C ordered an attack astride Arras towards the South which Weygand promised initially would meet a French attack from the South and cut across the German drive to the West.

   The British attack with 2 Brigades of infantry – all that was available as the BEF struggled against Army Group B – was headed by 83 tanks:-  65 Infantry Mk I plus 18 Infantry Mk II Matilda (Ref. 33). The Mk I had a 2-man crew with a single 0.303’’ machine gun and 60 mm frontal armour;  the MkII was 4-man with a 40 mm gun firing only 2.5 lb solid shot at 2,800 ft/sec and 78 mm frontal armour. 

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Being designed to accompany infantry on foot they were only designed for slow speed across country.

   At first the attack prospered.  In particular the Matilda’s armour could not be penetrated by the standard German 37 mm anti-tank gun, firing 1.5 lb shot at 2,500 ft/sec.  These weapons were driven over.

   Rommel, seeing this, posted the 4 x 88 mm anti-aircraft guns attached to his Division (crewed by the Luftwaffe) in front of the British advance.  They would not have had solid shot at that date, but their 20 lb shells at 2,690 ft/sec (Wikipedia) were easily able to destroy the Matilda.

   The British attack was repulsed, with a loss of 60 tanks (72%).  The early fright may have had some psychological effect in leading to the Führer “Stop” order of 24^th May (a 2 days pause which was a great help to getting the BEF evacuated).

   The French attack never started.

The After-Action Report that probably never was

   There ought to have been an After-Action Report from the senior surviving tank officer, which should have emphasised the 88 mm Flak role in its defeat.  Probably, in the confusion of the retreat, that never got written.  However, after the evacuation and the initial sorting out of the returned units, someone in the War Office could have investigated what had happened at Arras – the first British tank attack since WW1.  If they did, the lesson was not communicated to the principal user of Matildas in the Middle East.

The reinforcement of the Middle East

   At B3 above a description is given of the way that the former commander of the 7^th Panzer Division, by now Lt. General Rommel, threw the British and Commonwealth troops out of Libya by 14 April 1941 (with the important exception of Tobruk).

   Prime Minister Churchill on 22^nd April took personal action to reinforce Wavell (C-in-C Middle East) to reverse the setback in the desert as soon as possible.  A convoy was about to sail around the safer Cape with tanks – he proposed that the tank-carrying ships should go through the Mediterranean, despite the Luftwaffe newly-established on Sicily, saving 40 days.  With the support of the 1^st Sea Lord (Sir Dudley Pound) this was agreed (Ref.31).  With the loss of one ship carrying 57 tanks the convoy reached Alexandria on 12th May 1941 with 217 gun-armed tanks:-  15 Cruiser Mk IVA (40 mm gun, 30 mm frontal armour) + 67 Cruiser Mk VI Crusaders (a new type with the same 40 mm gun but 40 mm armour) + 135 Matildas (Refs. 28 & 34). 

   As Wavell had signalled Churchill that he had plenty of trained tank men in Egypt the personnel had been sent round the Cape route.  So another chance to learn about Rommel’s use of 88 mm Flak against tanks from some Arras survivors was lost.

  The Germans had just brought up the 15^th Panzer Division which had the same initial major tank strength as that of the 5^th Light, i.e. 74 x Panzer III and 20 x Pz IV (Ref. 30).  The former had short 50 mm guns and 30 mm frontal armour (Ref. 35).  They already knew from the early fighting that their gun was superior to the British 40 mm (“2-pounder”) (Ref. 32).  The Pz IV mounted a very-short 75 mm, really an anti-infantry weapon, behind 30 mm armour.  The 5^th Light would have been well written-down by May 1941.  Rommel had 12 x 88 mm Flak and some new long 50 mm anti-tank guns*.

*It is relevant to mention here a humble item which made German supply of fuel so much more efficient than the British item – the 20 litre (4.4 Imperial gallon) strong steel multi-reusable can which has entered history as the “Jerrycan”.  The British used a very thin 4 gallons tin can which leaked easily when carted over the rough desert and was scarcely used twice – except cut down to provide the “Benghazi cooker”!  The British and Americans copied the Jerrycan in vast quantities.

   Churchill urged Wavell to use his tank reinforcements to attack immediately, but the C – in -C had to advise the PM that most of the tanks needed remedial work as well as “Desertification” (Ref. 28).

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Operation Battleaxe

   Operation Battleaxe began on the 15^th June.  Wavell’s plan was to have a column advance along the coastal road and climb the 600 feet high Halfaya Pass in the parallel escarpment so as to take in flank German forces opposing two other British columns attacking on the plateau.  Rommel, who now had 15th Panzer in front, with 5 Light back at the siege of Tobruk, disposed his Flak as follows:-

4 guns well-dug into the rocky ground, with tremendous labour, at the top of the Halfaya Pass;  4 more dug-in at the Hafid ridge on the plateau; the last 4 with 15th Panzer.  His new 50 mm anti-tank guns were placed at Point 206 (metres above sea level) in advance of the Hafid ridge (gun dispositions from Refs. 29 & 32).

   Without preliminary artillery preparation a dozen Matildas attacked at Halfaya, probably thinking that they were safe against the former-standard 37 mm guns of the Germans.  They were cruelly disappointed.  Their CO radioed “They are shooting my tanks to pieces” (Ref. 32).  His and 11 out of 12 Matildas were quickly destroyed.  A similar fate befell Cruisers attacking the Hafid ridge (Ref. 32).  Rommel kept the 15th Panzer tanks un-committed until late in the day, by which time the British had lost over half of their tanks.  On the second day things were more even.  On the 17^th June Rommel tried to encircle the British but an un-authorised withdrawal, later agreed by Wavell, saved the situation. 

   Figures vary, but starting with about 100 Matildas plus 90 Cruisers, tank losses from enemy action and breakdowns not recovered were about 100 (various sources).  Having possession of the battlefield the Germans were able to recover and repair most of their casualties so that their net loss was only 12 tanks (Ref. 32).  They even repaired some Matildas and took them into their service, suitably marked.

   Wavell had to signal London:-  “I regret to report the failure of ‘Battleaxe’ “ (Ref. 29).

   Wavell, who in the course of one year had had to fight Italians in Libya and East Africa, Germans in Libya, Greece and Crete, Iraqis and Vichy French in Syria, was relieved of his Middle East command by Churchill on 21 June 1941 (Ref. 31).  If the I/OC had not let him down over Rommel’s use of the 88 as an anti-tank weapon and it had been suppressed by preliminary bombardment so that Battleaxe had been a success with Churchill’s very-risky tank reinforcement, he might have survived.

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The 88 mm Flak in use as an anti-tank gun.

The shield was a field modification post Battleaxe.                                    Infantry Tank Mk II Matilda

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References

33.  The Second World War, Vol. II  W. Churchill  Cassell  1949.

34.  British Tanks 1915-1945 B. White Ian Allen 1963.

35.  German Tanks & armoured vehicles 1914-1945  B. White  Ian Allen 1966.

B5.  Defeat (and success) of Operation Goodwood July 1944.

[This ambiguous title will be explained below!]

   On the 21^st January 1944 General Bernard L. Montgomery (BLM), who was to command the land forces in Operation Overlord (OL), the re-entry into occupied France, explained to the Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE), his reasons for recommending an enlarged assault.  DDE accepted them and the existing plan was changed accordingly.  BLM at this meeting stated the overall strategy which he intended to follow after the landings.  This was minuted as follows:-

“It should be the task of the US forces to capture CHERBOURG and then make a drive for the LOIRE ports and BREST, while in the meantime the BRITISH-CANADIAN forces would deal with the enemy main body approaching from the EAST and South-East” (Ref. 36.

   On the 15^th May 1944 there was a “Final Presentation of Plans” for OL at a meeting attended by HM King George VI, PM Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Jan C. Smuts, the British Chiefs of Staff and the involved commanders and their staffs.  The seniors described their parts.  BLM, after reviewing the actions to secure and expand a beach-head, gave his strategy again.

   The US Lt. General Omar N. Bradley (ONB, who was to command the US 1^st Army in OL), in his 1951 memoirs recalled succinctly and very fairly – because later in the war he fell out with BLM – what was said:-

“During our battle for Normandy, the British and Canadian armies were to decoy the enemy reserves and draw them to their front on the extreme eastern edge of the Allied beach-head.  Thus while Monty taunted the enemy at Caen, we were to make our break on the long roundabout road towards Paris.  When reckoned in terms of national pride, this British decoy mission became a sacrificial one, for while we tramped round the outside flank,, the British were to sit in place and pin down Germans.  Yet strategically it fitted into a logical division of labors, for it was towards Caen that the enemy reserves would race once the alarm was sounded” (Ref. 37)..

  ONB therefore understood BLM’s strategy completely.  It was the classic “Fix and Flank” manoeuvre adapted to the Normandy circumstances.  DDE accepted it at the time but he “wobbled” in July.

Operation Goodwood

   Partly because of a bad Channel storm between 18^th and 22^nd June (which delayed the force build-up and delivery of ammunition), partly because Hitler on 29 June forbade his commanders from making a tactical withdrawal (Ref. 38) and for local reasons mentioned below, progress in expanding the beach-head was slower than “guesstimated” (Ref. 36) before the assault.

Place	To be taken by	Guesstimate	Captured on	Difference	Reason
Caen	British	D-Day	10th July D + 34	+ 34 Days	21 Panzer closer to Caen than expected
St Lo	US	D + 9	17th July D + 41	+ 32 days	Hard to advance through bocage (see sketch map below)

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   With St Lo at last in US hands the time was ripe on the 18^th July 1944 to launch the planned joint major operations Goodwood from the British sector and Cobra from the American 2 days later.

   Because the British manpower situation meant that infantry casualties might not be replaced (and some divisions later had to be broken up), Goodwood was to be mainly a battle of the 3 armoured divisions now in the beach-head.  They were concentrated in VIII Corps of Second Army, under Lt. Gen. Richard O’Connor (escaped in September 1943 from an Italian POW camp).  Although Caen to the R. Orne was now in Canadian hands it was not possible to launch the attack from there. It had to start from the bridgehead over the Orne taken by airborne troops from 6^th June.  To enter that bridgehead they had to defile in series over 2 sets of 5 bridges (originals plus Bailey suplementals) across the Orne Canal and the river.  They were led by 11^th Armoured (a Home-trained unit with a Mediterranean veteran commander) which had fought first on the West of Caen, then the Guards Armoured in its first battle, followed by 7^th Armoured (famous for its Western Desert achievements but with people who really needed some time out-of-battle).  The first two were equipped mainly with 75 mm Shermans but every 4^th tank a Firefly with a 17-pounder (3’’) gun, plus 75 mm Cromwells for reconnaissance; the 7^th was mainly75 mm Cromwells with some Fireflies.  The 17-pounder could defeat the German Panther and Tiger tanks, which mounted long-75 mm and 88 mm guns, respectively.

   These tanks were not “Break-through” types by any means.  Such tanks were prototyped by both Britain and the USA but reliance was placed instead on smaller types which could be more easily made and transported.  Nevertheless, if a regimental CO had been asked in Normandy what he really wanted he might have replied, after the exclamation of Galland in the Battle of Britain about Spitfires, “Give me a regiment of Tigers!”.

   Following the example of a previous attack to capture Caen, the heavy bomber forces were called in to drop a massive load onto the German positions.  Actually this caused a serious confidence problem later because a 15th July Second Army plan taken to show the RAF seniors (they needed encouragement to suspend their area raids on Germany) had referred to Bretteville (12 miles beyond the bridgehead) and Falaise (22 miles) as objectives, i.e. a complete break-through (Ref. 38).  It may be that Lt. General Miles Dempsey, GOC of 2^nd Army, did believe that he could achieve a break-through.  If so, he misunderstood BLM’s intentions.  Of course, the troops needed to think that their efforts were aimed at a break-out to ensure their best efforts.

   BLM, after seeing the 2^nd Army instruction, gave O’Connor directly the object of his attack:- as (slightly modified) it was to reach 3 designated areas which were 5 ½, 6 ½ and 7 ¼ miles from the start and there “write down” the German tank counter-attacks which would inevitably follow.  Meanwhile the Canadians were to take the suburb and factory districts South of Caen.

   Rommel, once again BLM’s opponent as commander of Army Group B, had not been idle. A standard German General Staff question in a defensive situation was:-

                                                          “Wo ist der SchwerPunkt?”

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                                           (Literally “Where is the heavy punch?”)

   Hitler and the German High Command had asked themselves this Question in 1943 about the forthcoming Allied landing in the Continent.  They had answered themselves:- “Near Calais”.

  The Allies in 1944, with the unconscious aid of the German Intelligence service grossly overstating the Allied strength (a failure of I/OC!), which exaggeration was known from ULTRA, had taken care to foster this decision (e.gs, with “Patton’s Army” in Eastern England and electronic spoofs on 6^th June 1944) so that the attack in Normandy was regarded as a feint and even as late as July Rommel was only just beginning to transfer infantry divisions from the Calais area to Normandy.

   Now, in Normandy, Rommel had asked himself the Question about an attempt by the Allies to break out from their beach-head and had answered himself:- Caen – and disposed his main forces accordingly.  BLM intended to confirm his decision with Goodwood while Cobra was being readied as the Schwerpunkt

   Rommel was aware that the British armour was assembling North of Caen and anticipated a thrust from the airborne bridgehead.  He therefore created a 6-layer, nearly 12 miles deep, defensive zone in the path of such an attack (Ref. 38 gives full details culled from German sources).  “Expendable” troops in front with some tanks, including 36 Tigers;  many fortified villages behind;  an 88 mm gun line on Bourguebus ridge at 6 ½ miles;  and 125 tanks in reserve 5 miles further on again.    All this was in open “good anti-tank country”.

   It was on his way back to his HQ on 17^th July, after settling all these preparations, that Rommel’s car was shot off the road by a British fighter and he was thrown out and badly injured.  He therefore took no part in the battle (and was forced later to commit suicide by Hitler for, somewhat distant, complicity in the attempt on the dictator’s life).

   It was in estimating the German defences that the 2^nd Army I/OC failed.  It was believed that most of the prepared resistance would only extend to the second railway running on an embankment South-East from Caen, 4 ½ miles from the start line (Ref. 38).  It was thought that enemy tank counter attacks would be weak.  The gun line at Bourguebus was known and that it would be beyond the range of field guns still the other side of the R. Orne.  There were not enough aircraft available to bomb it in the morning..  The Tactical air force offered to return in the afternoon to do this, but Lt. Gen. Miles Dempsey did not accept that.  He believed that he could storm the gun line.  Ref. 38 says he realised that this would be costly but quotes him as saying he was “prepared to lose two or three hundred tanks”.  This attitude is hard to understand, since the BLM objective was to “write down” the German armour, not “write down” the British tanks and let the Panzers shield behind the 88s and be free to launch counter-attacks against the Americans.  Dempsey had not fought in the Western Desert against Rommel so presumably did not appreciate how trying to storm his 88s was not really a cost-effective solution to overcoming them.

   At 5.45 am on the 18^th July 1944 the aircraft began a 2 hours programme of bombing to launch Goodwood.  At 7.45, the ground forces advanced.  Just who kept BLM in touch with the situation initially is not known but they misled him.  Late on the 18^th July 1944 BLM issued a special announcement to the Press, which began:-

“Early this morning British and Canadian troops of the Second Army attacked and broke through into the area east of the Orne and south-east of Caen” (Ref. 38).  As he remarked in his 1958 Memoirs “I was too exultant” (Ref. 40).  Maybe for just a short time he had thought that, despite his declared strategy, he was going to be able to boast about a direct British victory.  It has to be assumed that he had not waited for the reports from his famous Liaison Officers (young Majors sent out in the morning to the front to bring back in the evening directly to BLM the facts of the situations).

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   The fact was that despite the tons of bombs dropped on the Germans not all had been effective. Resolute defenders had got some guns into action on the flank of the tank columns, particularly further from the start line.  The armoured Brigades’ half-track borne infantry dismounted to clear villages early in the day and were not available later.  Rocket-firing Typhoon aircraft could not be called in to destroy these guns because the single tank-borne controller was put out of action early and there was no back-up.  Over 150 tanks were reported out of action by the end of the day (Ref. 39).  The operation was resumed on the 19^th.  Although not the point of the operation the results relative to the target areas were:-

Hubert at 5 ½ miles, captured;  Garcelles at 7¼ miles not reached by 1 ¼ miles;  Vimont at 6 ½ miles not reached by 2 ½ miles.

   On the 3^rd day rain turned the previously-inches thick dust into mud.  BLM halted the battle and withdrew the armoured divisions into reserve, the area gained taken over by infantry.

   Unfortunately for Allied harmony, Cobra, re-scheduled for 21st July near St Lo, could not be launched because the weather was unsuitable for the air bombardment with which it was to be launched.  This delay persisted until 25^th July, although an attempt on the 24^th led to short-bombing and American casualties.  This short-bombing happened again on the 25^th and actually killed a visiting 4-Star General.  The attack went in nevertheless and in one day it was possible to begin the armoured exploitation and break-out, with a further break-through attack near the coast (see map below).  The battle of Normandy was well on its way to being won.  BLM’s strategy was vindicated.

   The delay of 4 days unfortunately allowed time for recriminations from those in London who had never really understood BLM’s intentions, including DDE.  He “wobbled”.  Churchill visited BLM in Normandy on the 21st July during this time of doubt and was convinced that the British Land Commander knew what he was doing.  So it turned out five days later.

Relative strengths between sectors

   The table below and map shows how BLM’s strategy, – despite the tactical defeat of Goodwood – created the success of Cobra.

Estimated* Enemy strength

By sectors at 25^th July 1944 (launch of Operation Cobra)

Source Ref. 39.

Tanks	Infantry Battalions	Tanks	Infantry Battalions
190	85	645	92

   BLM could also have shown other very relevant data on sector strengths:-

Source Ref. 38.

	US	Canadian-British
Panzer Divisions	2 (2SS, Lehr)	7 (1SS, 2, 9SS, 10SS, 12SS, 21, 116)
Panzer Grenadier Division**	1 (17SS)
Tiger Tank Battalions		3 (101SS, 102SS, 503)
Nebelwerfer*** Brigades		2 (7, 9),
Flak Corps		1(III, ca. 27 x 4 x 88 mm Dual Purpose, formerly Normandy AA defence Ref. 41).

*Stated as “Estimated” in the source, probably to conceal in 1947 that figures were from ULTRA decodes of German signals giving strength returns to HQs.

**17SS Panzer Grenadier division had no tanks but an initial establishment of 45 x 75 mm Assault guns.  These were probably included in the 190 at their current strength.

***The Nebelwerfer Heavy Mortar had 6 x 150 mm barrels.

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The end of the pursuit

   In the planning for Overlord Montgomery had sketched some phase lines – “guesstimates” – of the advance of the Allied forces after D-Day.  The furthest drawn was for D + 90 days, touching the R. Seine and Paris (Ref. 36). 

   The actual result was that at D + 90, 4^th September 1944, the 11^th Armoured division in the lead of the British troops had reached the R. Scheldt, 216 miles further from Paris and liberated the port of Antwerp undamaged.

   American tanks reached the River Moselle on 5^th September 1944, just short of Metz, 206 miles from Paris.

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References

36.  Monty, master of the battle field, 1942 – 1944  N. Hamilton  Hamish Hamilton  1983.

37.  A Soldier’s Story of the Allied Campaigns from Tunis to the Elbe  O. N. Bradley        Eyre & Spottiswoode  1951.

38.  The Struggle for Europe. C. Wilmot  Reprint Society ed.  1956.

39.  Normandy to the Baltic  Viscount Montgomery..Hutchinson..1947

       [Actually written by D. Belchem, formerly of his 21 Army Group staff.]

40.  Memoirs  B.L. Montgomery  Collins  1958.

41.  https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=366

B6.  Quality of Japanese torpedoes February 1942.

   For the reason described in Contribution No. 2 at P. 28, Great Britain (GB) signed a treaty of mutual support with Japan in 1902.  While naval matters did not get mentioned in the treaty, in practice it led to considerable such activity.  Many warships were built in GB for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) as England taught Japan how to build them. Admiral Togo’s flagship at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, the Mikasa, was a Vicker’s derivative of the then-current Royal Navy battleship type.  This process of tuition continued up to 1913 when Vickers delivered the battlecruiser Kongo as a slightly more-powerful version of the RN’s ships.  By then the Japanese had learnt enough to build her 3 class-mates themselves.  The technical advance in eleven years (tabulated below from Wikipedia) should have sounded a warning of Japanese ability.

Ship                                               Displacement           Main Guns                 Belt Armour                  Max. Speed

                                                      Unloaded tons         Inches                        Inches                        Knots

Mikasa Battleship                      15,140                        4 x 12                         9                                  18

Kongo Battle-Cruiser                26,952                        8 x 14                         8                                  27.5

   Obviously, the learning had extended to equipment, such as torpedoes.  These were initially 18’’.  The RN moved on to 21’’ by 1914 (Ref. 45) and the IJN followed suit in 1919 (Ref. 46).  After WW1 a 24.5’’ torpedo was designed in GB for the G3 battlecruisers whose design was approved in August 1921 (Ref. 42).  These ships were cancelled before construction started as a result of the Washington Treaty of 1922, but by a special dispensation GB was allowed to build the Nelson battleships and the 24.5’’torpedo was carried forward to the that pair (Ref. 43).  Although the Anglo-Japan Treaty effectively came to an end in 1922, for a reason given in Contribution No.2 at P. 4, the IJN would have been able to learn something about the new British torpedo (e.g. its having Oxygen enrichment) before that happened.

   The IJN introduced a 61 cm (24.016’’) torpedo with conventional propulsion (Type 90) in the 1925 Mutsuki destroyer class and the two following classes (Ref. 46).  The adoption of Oxygen in the propulsion system came first in the Type 93 missiles equipping the Hatsuharu destroyer class in 1933 (Ref. 46).  Later destroyers and cruisers carried the same weapons or they were retrofitted.

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   The huge advance of the Type 93 over US and GB torpedoes of WW2 in Speed vs. Range is described in Ref. 44 and illustrated on the chart below.  The differences in warhead weight were as follows:-

British 21’’ Mk VIII*  805 lb;        US 21’’ Mk15  827 lb;

British 24.5’’ Mk I  743 lb;            Japanese 61 cm (24’’) Type 93  1,080 lb.

   As part of their intense effort to keep their war-like equipment secret* the Japanese did not disclose even the existence of their 24’’ torpedoes, let alone the superior performance of the Oxygen version.  In suppling data to the world-wide-acknowledged reference book “Jane’s Fighting Ships” in 1937 they reported all their torpedoes as 21”.  [The “Official” 24’’ data (Ref. 44) is presumably from a post-War source.  Its similarity to an extrapolation of the British 24.5’’ figures suggests that it referred to the Type 90].

_______________

*The classic case is the Yamato class of battleships.  Their 64,000 standard tons displacement with 9 x 46 cm (18.1’’) guns was concealed from the laying down of the lead ship in November 1937 until, probably, the ship was seen at sea after commissioning in December 1941.  That surprise did not lead to anything because neither Yamato nor her sister-ship Musashi ever fired their guns at a US battleship.  Both were sunk by multiple carrier aircraft strikes.

   This was where the US and British I/OC failed.  Of course, the difference in racial characteristics made it impossible to infiltrate agents.  If they had thought it worthwhile to be advised about what a potential enemy had in hand, they could perhaps have tried to suborn some disgruntled member of the IJN.  As Contribution B2 shows, the Western I/OC did not appreciate the advances that the Japanese had made in aviation, even where the performance had been demonstrated visibly in China.  A torpedo’s performance could only have been discovered by a mole.

The Type 23’s performance in WW2

   Ref. 44 gives full information on how the Type 93 24’’ Oxygen torpedo performed during the Japanese attacks in the Pacific.  A quote from this reference explains the unexpected advantage:-

“In the early surface battles of 1942–43, Japanese destroyers and cruisers were able to launch their torpedoes from about 20 km (22,000 yd) at the unsuspecting Allied warships attempting to close to gun range.  The Allied warships expected that, if torpedoes were used, they would be fired from not more than 10 km (11,000 yd), their own typical torpedo range.”.

   Details of these battles (particularly around Java) shows that shoals of torpedoes did not find a target, which is not surprising if used at such long range.  However, enough scored hits to make the Japanese victorious in several 1942 battles.  Ref. 44 reports 13 sinkings in which the torpedo made the fatal hit and 10 others where it had a share with gunfire and bombs in the Allied loss.  The total of 23 comprised:-

1 Fleet carrier (Hornet);  11 cruisers;  and 11 destroyers.  The total tonnage sunk was nearly 132,000.

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   Ref. 44 points out that the compressed Oxygen in the Type 93 could lead to explosion due to shock and describes how the heavy cruiser Suzuya was lost from that.

References

42.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G3_battlecruiser#General_characteristics

43.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_24.5-inch_torpedo

44.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo

45.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_21-inch_torpedo

46.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_destroyers_of_World_War_II#Evolution

C1.  Battle of the Bulge December 1944.

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   However, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE, an American appointed by President Roosevelt – see Contribution No. 7 at P.21) came over to Normandy on 20^th August to meet the Field Commanders.  BLM made the mistake of not attending personally but sending his Chief of Staff (Major General Frederick de Guingand (FdG)) to represent him.  It was decided at this conference that DDE would take over personal command of all Army Groups (including the 6^th US then exploiting Northwards from the landings in the South of France on the 15^th August in Operation Dragoon on which DDE had insisted) and that:-

“12 Army group to be directed towards Metz and the Saar, where it would link up with the Dragoon force.”  DDE’s decision is illustrated on the lower map on P. 30 above.  It came to be described as the “Broad Front” approach to post-Normandy operations.

   Note that BLM’s plan by-passed the Ardennes; DDE’s left it dividing the Allied forces.

   Up to the 10^th September BLM did his utmost to persuade DDE to adopt his big plan without success.  The fact that 21 Army Group could provide only 14 divisions for it (Ref. 36) and the fact that ONB changed his mind about it and supported DDE* (Ref. 40) did not help.  It was a purely military solution which took into account the weakness and chaos in the post-Normandy German situation.  Although DDE, in his later account of the disagreement (Ref. 42), listed only military objections to it and described it – inaccurately and unfairly – as a “pencil-like thrust” against a reserve in Germany which his own I/OC had told him was not significant (Ref. 38) – his actual reason he told BLM at the time was purely political.  The year was Presidential election year with voting in November and DDE told BLM that the American public would object to large US forces “marking time” and might blame Roosevelt (Ref. 40).

   BLM did get DDE’s agreement on 10^th September that 21 Army Group should try for a bridgehead over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem with a novel “Airborne carpet” and he was given 3 Divisions of the Allied Airborne Army champing at the bit in England for this attack.  This really was a “pencil-like thrust” and DDE was “Having it both ways” by allowing it:-  if it succeeded he would be praised for his support;  if it didn’t- and it did not – he could write (Ref. 42) that he had only wanted some additional ground as security for Antwerp!

   Hindsight suggests that BLM would probably have run ahead of any supplies still brought up from Normandy, whatever the priority given to him.  In Ref. 40 he wrote:-

“…I must admit a bad mistake on my part – I underestimated the difficulties of opening up the approaches to Antwerp so that we could get the free use of that port.  I reckoned that the Canadian Army could do it while we were going for the Ruhr.  I was wrong “.  The port was not available until the 28^th November, 12 weeks after it was captured un-damaged (Ref. 39 Map 28, showing the logistics of the NW Europe campaign, carefully omits that fact!).

*BLM never knew that Lt. General George S. Patton (GSP), while exploiting at great speed South of Paris towards the East on the 23^rd August, had proposed enthusiastically to ONB that he should swing round North of that city to cut off the Germans retreat (Ref. 36), in effect adding his troops to the BLM “40 Divisions”.  ONB turned his idea down without consulting DDE.

   Three things slowed the exploitation of the victory in Normandy:-

(1).  Too little transport to carry supplies from the beach-head, where there were sufficient (Ref.44).

That reference also states that Lt. General John C. Lee (JCL), of the US Service of Supplies, an organisation not under DDE’s command, had in the pre-D-Day planning cut down SHAEF’s request for 240 truck companies to 160.  Further, he used scarce transport to shift his 11,000 strong tented Communications Zone (ComZ) HQ from near Cherbourg to a great many hotels in Paris from 1^st to 15^th September (Ref. 43).

It also did not help that ONB gave high priority in supplies to the capture of Brest, besieged from 18^th September to 7^th August, as a matter of US Army prestige, although knowing that the Germans would make the port useless (Ref. 38, quoting GSP).

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(2).  The German Army recovered much more quickly than expected

The grip of Adolf Hitler, who was never going to “surrender unconditionally”, on the Wehrmacht had been made absolute after the failed 20^th August attempt on his life.  The outward sign of this was the abolition of the military salute, giving place to the Nazi “Heil Hitler”.  The soldiers had no option but to obey orders to fight on.  The German munition workers were in the same position, under Himmler’s grip.  All Germans would also naturally wish to defend their native soil as the Allies approached it.  To fight on was in any case the un-questioning intention of the fanatics of the Waffen SS.  An index of this was the way in which the 9^th SS Panzer Division which, well written-down had been struggling on 18^th August to get out of the closing encirclement near Chambois (Ref. 39 Map 23), had on 26^th September defeated the 1^st Airborne Division at Arnhem.

The German L of C were much shortened and this reduced the effect of aerial attack.

(3).  The deterioration of the weather as Autumn set in

This was a significant factor in the failure at Arnhem in September because it caused delays to the aerial build-up and prevented fighter-bomber support.  Ref. 38 says that the December weather was the worst for 50 years.  The delay of one month in D-Day, to obtain the extra landing craft for the needed stronger assault, led to a difficult winter campaign.

   The progress of the campaign, from “Break-in” to the beach-head through the “Dogfight” to the “Break-out” and “Pursuit”, is shown on the chart below.

   In the last 4 months of 1944, while the British-Canadian (plus Polish Armoured Division) 21st Army Group was attempting the Arnhem operation and then clearing the Scheldt estuary, the US 12^th and 6^th Army groups were engaged in the following operations:-

• Liberating Metz, which took from 27^th September to 22^nd November –  56 days (outlying forts did not all surrender until13th December).  This was the first serious battle which GSP had fought;
• Capturing Aachen – 2nd to 21^st October – 19 days;
• Launching a major offensive East of Aachen on the 17^th November, with massive air support, anticipating reaching the R. Rhine in 30 days, which in 2 weeks gained only 7 miles to the R. Roer.  Like Haig in WW1, ONB “estimated” the enemy under cover had greater losses than his troops advancing in the open (Ref. 37).

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• Attempting to reach the R. Roer dams via the Huertgen Forest, so as to prevent the Germans from flooding the valley beyond Aachen; – began 19^th September and still bogged down on 16^th December;
• Closing up to the R. Rhine beyond Strasbourg, which was liberated by the French Armoured Division on 23^rd November.

---

The situation at start of 16^th December 1944

   ONB’s Ref. 37 gives the case for thinning the Ardennes but does not include the last sentence.  If he thought it he was mis-informed.  Fuel dumps containing nearly 3 millions US gallons were hidden in the Ardennes forests (Ref. 45)*.  Significantly, there was the entire stock of “VT”-fused shells near Bastogne.**

*Actually Com Z, an independent outfit, would have made the ammo and fuel dumps.  The Ardennes was conveniently midway between the 1^st and 3^rd Armies.  Presumably no one told them of ONB’s “Calculated risk” of a German attack.  Most of the dumps were evacuated when they did (Ref. 45) but one fuel dump had to be set on fire when the Panzer spearhead came near it (Ref. 38).

**The top-secret VT =Variable-Time fuze was actuated by radar in the proximity of a hard target.  It had been developed for anti-aircraft use, first in combat January 1943 in the Pacific.  It was the perfect answer to the land warfare shrapnel shell problem – detonating the shell at a pre-set distance from the ground.  Because of the concern that if used on land against the Germans they might pick up a dud and duplicate it for their massive AA defences, it had only been released for ground use late in 1944.  It was first used in ground combat in the Ardennes with high praise from GSP (Ref. 47).

   US 1^st Army HQ was at Spa and 12^th Group HQ at Luxembourg, 59 miles South (marked on map).

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Two illustrations relevant to this date

What was the I/OC telling ONB on 15^th December 1944?

   It is necessary to remember that the existence of ULTRA to aid I/OC estimates was not disclosed until 1973.  The experts in I/OC had become accustomed to have it.  Without knowing that the Allies could decipher their radio signals nevertheless radio transmission of orders for the German attack was forbidden.  They had to be transmitted by courier.  This silence was an un-doubted factor in the surprise of all concerned when the German barrage opened at 5.00 on 16^th December 1944.  The bad weather, as relied upon in the German plan, had limited aerial reconnaissance, concealed the shift of enemy forces to the Ardennes, and continued for 7 days to prevent the massive Allied air power from flying, both to bomb and strafe them and to re-supply besieged Bastogne..

   First US Army G-2 (Intelligence), Col. Benjamin A Dickson, in November had identified the 6^th SS Panzer Army near Cologne [see above map] and the 5^th Panzer Army a little further North.

  “So conspicuous were these tell-tale signs of von Rundstedt’s apparent intent to nab us astride the Roer that we should probably have sifted them for evidence of deception” (Ref. 37).  The operation name “Wacht am Rhein” (“Watch on the Rhine”) was part of the deception in case it should leak out.

   Dickson provided a further estimate on 10^th December (Ref. 37):-

“…..Indications to this date point to the location of this focal point” [where an attack might be launched] “as being between Roermond and Schleiden…”.  ONB notes that this 45 mile stretch was from the Roer Dams North, i.e. nowhere near the Ardennes sector.  The 1^st Army G-2 continued

“It is to be expected…use will be made by the enemy of flooding of the Roer in conjunction with his counterattack”.  ONB accepted this conclusion (Ref. 37).

   Ref. 46 sums up the pre-16^th December evaluations:- “Allied intelligence officers had committed the most grievous sin of which a G-2 is capable”.  Quoting Ref. 48 they “…had looked in a mirror for the enemy and found there only the reflection of their own intentions.”

   The German strength had also been under-estimated.  When ONB on 17^th December saw the 12 Group situation map marked up with identified attacking units he exclaimed “…where in hell has this ***** gotten all his strength?” (Ref. 37).

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                                                                                                                              The shock of “Wacht am Rhein” (“Watch on the Rhine”)

   When the Germans attacked the Americans in the Ardennes at 5.00 on Saturday 16^th December 1944 it was to them a surprise and a shock.  The I/OC on which ONB relied had expected that the known assembly of the 6^th SS Panzer and 5^th Panzer Armies would be kept in hand to counter-attack the next US offensive across the R. Roer as soon as the upstream dams could be captured (bombing having failed to destroy them).  This is what ONB would have done if he had been a German.  The marked-up map above shows how the German armies had been assembled in areas which strengthened this US mind-set.  In 3 days preceding the 16^th December, under cover of weather too bad to mount US aerial reconnaissance, the two armies were then moved South to their jumping-off points.

   Hitler, who had made up his mind on this offensive on 16^th September, had convinced himself that he could collect sufficient force to attack from the Westwall and reach the newly-liberated Antwerp.  With the situation as it developed in the next 3 months none of his generals thought that was feasible but they had no choice but to try it.

   The battle, which lasted for 41 days (16^th December 1944 to 25^th January 1945) will not be described here.  The essential point, which is why this I/OC failure is rated as ‘C’, is that the shock was contained and the situation reversed.  ONB had depended, in what he called afterwards the “Calculated risk” of an attack in the Ardennes (Ref. 37), on the large highly-mobile US forces North and South of the Ardennes, and also the massive air strength available, to break up any German penetration.  At the cost to his amour propre of DDE having to place BLM in command of the Northern half of the split front, this general appreciation was fulfilled.

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   Ref. 50 quotes the US Department of Defence total casualty figures as 89,500 in this “Battle of the Bulge”, with this loss comprising:-

                                           Killed                   Wounded                         Missing

                                                                                                                   Most of these were POW (Ref. 49)

                                           19,000                 47,500                               23,000 (26%)

The German figures are variable.  Ref. 37 gives a POW figure of 36,000 which, as a counted number, may be presumed to be correct.  If the total was scaled from the US total by the POW ratio it would be 140,000, which is probably too high.  Casualty estimates in Refs. 37 and 42 are inaccurate for both sides.

Conclusion

   The Germans probably regretted in the next 2 months, as the Allies closed up to and then crossed the Rhine, that they had not used their reserves in the way which the US I/OC had expected.

---

DDE, ONB and GSP in Bastogne shortly after GSP’s 3^rd Army had raised the siege

BLM with “Lightning Joe” Collins who he had chosen to lead a Reserve corps in counter-attack.

Sherman of the 11^th Armored Division knocked out in action to relieve the siege of Bastogne (note the shot hole on side and Panzerfaust damage at back).  Four of crew survived as POW.

Now a Memorial in Place General McAuliffe.

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References

42.  Crusade in Europe..Dwight D Eisenhower..Heinemann..1948.

43.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_logistics_in_the_Northern_France_campaign

44.  Decision in Normandy..C. d’Este..Collins..1983.

45.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._H._Lee

46.  The Battle of the Bulge  C. MacDonald..Book Club  1984.

47.  Pieces of the Action..V. Bush..Cassell..1972.

48.  The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge  H. Cole  US Government Printing Office  1965.

49.  https://guestsofthethirdreich.org/capture/.

50.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge#Casualties

C2.  Egyptian attack across the Suez Canal October 1973

   Between 1948 and 1967 Israel fought 3 major (but short) wars with her Arab neighbours.  On the 3^rd occasion the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) occupied and retained increases in territory including the Sinai Peninsula down to the Suez Canal.  To protect this advanced position a unique layout was used.  Directly on the Canal’s East bank the Israelis raised a huge rampart of sand about 70 feet high at an angle of about 60⁰ , supported by a concrete wall at the water’s edge.  Apart from being a barrier in itself against a sudden attack launched from the water, it concealed from Egyptian observation a set of self-contained forts which made the main defence.  This was backed up by pre-dug pits for tanks to be occupied hull-down when mobilised and a further line of strongpoints behind them.  Begun in late 1968 this defence system was completed in early 1970 (Ref. 51).  It was named the “Bar-Lev Line”, after the then IDF Chief of General Staff (CGS) Haim Bar-Lev.

   Although the IDF considered the Line to be impregnable it really had the role of all fixed defences, to buy time while the reserve of soldiers trained by the national conscription policy (including women) was mobilised.  Like all pre-built fixed defences it had the drawback that the potential enemy could study them and either go round them or develop special means to overcome them.  In history there are two classic examples of defeating linear defences along the border between France and Germany:-

• In 1914 the Schlieffen Plan by-passed the forts built after 1871 along the new frontier created by the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by making their main thrust through Belgium.  This required dealing with Belgian forts at Liege and Namur and for that purpose the special means adopted was a battery of 42 cm (16.54’’) howitzers;
• 26 years later, with the Maginot underground line built to defend the re-gained provinces, the Germans repeated the “Go-round” strategy (with a new twist) and this time took out a new Belgian fort by the special means of landing a glider-borne force on its roof, armed with new hollow-charge explosives to destroy the gun turrets.

As will be described, since the Egyptians could not “Go-round” the Bar-Lev Line they found special means to go through it quickly.

   As no peace was obtained by the 1967 war, Israeli I/OC studied the probability of a further attack by Egypt.  Because the IDF air force – starting with a pre-emptive attack – had been a major cause of the Egyptian defeat, they formed a view that hostilities would not be renewed until a large and noticeable increase had been made in the Egyptian air force.  Backed as they were by supplies of Soviet Russian equipment a particular trigger point was seen in the expected delivery of an order for new fighter-bombers.  By late 1973 this had not taken place.  Following their logic the Israeli I/OC therefore did not take much notice of many signs otherwise that they would be attacked.  It was only the assurance of a simple spy in a position to know the fact, on the night of 5/6 October, that an attack would begin on the 6^th, that some action was taken to prepare for it.

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  The Israeli PM (Golda Meir), with the IDF CGS (David Elazar), then decided not to repeat the pre-emptive air-strike of 1967 (which they knew their main backer, the USA, would oppose), but to mobilise which would take 3 days to be completed.

   The Egyptian intention was to seize only a limited bridgehead over the canal, covered against the powerful IDF air force by Russian-supplied Surface-to-Air missile batteries (SAMs) on the West side of the Canal, beat off the inevitable Israeli counter-attacks and hope to negotiate a return of the whole of the Sinai Peninsula in return for a cease-fire (Ref. 52).  Syria would attack simultaneously in the North to try to recover their land which was lost in the 1967 war.  The Arab allies chose to attack on the Jewish holy Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, when the nation would be at prayer.

   The attack on the Canal opened at 14.05 on Saturday 6^th October 1973 with an intense artillery barrage and air strikes while infantry crossed the water in rubber dinghies.  As the rampart was not covered by fire and was not mined the troops had no difficulty in over-running it and starting to besiege the Israeli forts beyond.  Anti-tank squads prepared to beat off tanks with Russian man-portable rocket launchers.  The IDF had expected that the essential gaps in the rampart would take up to 2 days with normal equipment to allow tanks, guns and supply trucks to pass through after bridges had been built.  Actually, the “special means” used by the Egyptians was very much quicker, washing-out gaps with multiple portable fire-fighting water-cannon (see illustration below).  Many passages were made in a few hours (Ref. 53).

   However, although the planning and the combat ability of the Egyptians was far better than in previous wars and the surprise gained them early success, it did not avail them once the Israeli mobilisation was complete. The bridgehead was contained and a cross-Canal counter-attack led to the cutting of Egyptian L of C and a drive which took IDF tanks to within 60 miles of Cairo. 

   Both the Americans and the Russians, who had re-supplied the opposing sides, realised that any further successes by the Israelis (who had also thrown back the Syrians and invaded their country) could lead to a dangerous international escalation beyond this proxy war.  The shock and surprise having been contained and the situation reversed the super-powers brought about a cease-fire.  The Yom Kippur War was over on the 25^th October 1973 after 20 days.

Conclusion

   As so often has been noted in this Contribution No. 9, the I/OC had assessed the enemy attitude through their own logical approach to warfare and had not allowed for the opposing minds to act illogically.

Looking towards the East Canal bank, showing the height of the rampart and a gap washed out by the Egyptian water-cannon.

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The Agranat Commission (Ref. 54)

   The failure of the I/OC was examined from November 1973 by a Commission headed by Shimon Agranat, the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court.  It resulted in the dismissal of the I/OC officers who had been mistaken and also of the CGS.  The PM also resigned.

The remains of the rampart and a gap as seen today on Google Earth.

References

51.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Lev_Line

52.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War#War_objectives_and_areas_of_combat

53.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Badr_(1973)

54.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agranat_Commission

C3.  USN failure to convoy January 1942.

   This Contribution must start with an apology to the I/OC!

The heading above was the consequence of Command failures at the highest level, not incorrect advice from the I/OC.

   Although the USN in 1941, under the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO, Admiral Harold R. Stark), while not at war with Germany but in line with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policy, had helped the RN to protect merchant convoys across the Atlantic and taken losses as a consequence (see Contribution No. 7 at PP. 13 & 14), it had not foreseen early enough the need to build a large fleet of convoy escort ships against the day when they would become 100% involved.  A programme of 200 small (280 tons) Submarine Chasers was begun in late 1941 but only a few were delivered in the first 6 months of 1942.  A huge programme of new-type Destroyer-Escorts (DE, around 1,200 tons) only began to provide ships in late 1942.  It finally totalled 344 vessels (Ref. 55.)

   After Hitler declared war on the USA on 11^th December 1941, the German U-Boat chief Doenitz dispatched submarines to the US Eastern seaboard in Operation Paukenschlag (Operation Drum Roll).  There they found that sinking merchant ships, especially tankers bringing oil from the Gulf of Mexico, was so easy that they referred to the period as the “Zweite Gluckliche Zeit” (“Second Happy Time”, after the first in mid-late 1940).  Sailing singly for lack of escorts for convoys, against coast towns not blacked-out to provide back-lighting, then the situation was made worse when Admiral Ernest J. King (EJK) became CNO in March 1942 because he actually opposed convoying.  He thought like the RN Admirals in 1917 who had believed that convoy, by concentrating the targets, would increase losses.  They had to be forced to introduce convoy by a threat to over-rule them actually in the Admiralty Board Room by the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George.  This had turned the tide and naturally the RN had begun convoying from the start of WW2.

   EJK did have a point with the tactics which Doenitz, a WW1 U-boat captain, had introduced in WW2 – attack by packs of boats surfaced at night (see Contribution No. 2 at PP. 24 & 25).

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   The RN had begun to counter the U-Boat, not least because of ULTRA, and offered their help.  EJK, who did not like the British, did not accept it.

   The situation led the Chief of Staff of the US army, General George C. Marshall, to write to EJK on 19^th June 1942 (Ref. 56):-

“The losses by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean now threaten our entire war effort….I am fearful that another month or two of this will so cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to bring sufficient men and planes to bear against the enemy in critical theaters to exercise a determining influence on the war.”

EJK disliked the Army.  His reaction to that letter can only be imagined!

The numbers speak for themselves:-

              (A): Ships sunk January-June 1942 in US-protected areas = 397 (Ref. 56);

              (B): Total ships sunk by U-Boats in the same period = 628 (Ref. 57).

                                                          A/B = 63.2%

The extra losses brought about by the US failure in early 1942 is shown very well in the chart at P.25 of Contribution No. 2.  The mistakes were corrected by August 1942 and Doenitz redeployed his submarines and caused a lot more grief on the Atlantic.

Conclusion

   An “Unhappy Time” for the Allies, not due to the I/OC but to Command not looking far enough ahead and then compounding the error with obstinacy, was containable.

Harold R. Stark

Ernest J. King

References

55.  Jane’s Fighting Ships 1946-47..Ed. F. McMurtrie..Sampson Low, Marston.

56.  https://www.nps.gov/articles/wwii_caha_torpedo_junction.htm

57.  https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html

C4.  Argentinian invasion of the Falklands April 1982.

   The invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina (called by them the “Malvinas” and long claimed by them) was effectually decided in December 1981 when the head of the Argentinian army, General Leopoldo Galtieri, became head of the military junta ruling the nation.  He obtained the support of the head of the Argentinian navy, Admiral Jorge Anaya, who wanted to take that action.

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   A major encouragement to the invasion was that the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, seeking economies, had in a 1981 Defence White Paper listed for scrapping in April 1982 the South Atlantic ice patrol ship HMS Endurance.  As she guarded the sea around the Falkland Islands this was seen in Argentina as a lack of interest in the 1,800 British residents of the islands.  The Foreign Secretary did protest about the intention but this was despite previous Foreign Office suggestions that sovereignty might be shared with Argentina, vigorously opposed by the inhabitants – with good reason while that country was ruled by a ruthless military in a “Dirty War” of “disappeared” opponents.

   The other impetus to an invasion was to offset un-popularity in a bad economic situation by making a move which would garner great patriotic enthusiasm.

   Galtieri believed that a woman PM might protest seizing the islands but do nothing else at 8,000 miles from Great Britain and that the USA, which saw the junta as a bulwark against Communism in South America, would not object.

The invasion force (Ref. 58)

   By March 1982 the invasion plan was for about 600 Argentinian special forces to overcome the tiny Islands garrison after being transported there by a destroyer, a submarine, a large LST with amphibious tracked vehicles and an ice-breaker with helicopters.  This small fleet could be assembled and sailed with no particular notice taken by observers.  There was a single SIS officer in Buenos Aires who might have done that.  Whatever the source the British Ambassador in BA did signal to London 31 March 1982 that an invasion was imminent.

The critical meeting

   Mrs Thatcher’s reaction to the advice from BA she described to the post-conflict Franks review in January 1983 which was released under the 30 years rule in December 2012 (Ref.59):-

“I never, never expected the Argentines to invade the Falklands head-on. It was such a stupid thing to do, as events happened, such a stupid thing even to contemplate doing“.

She held a meeting immediately to evaluate the situation.  Apart from deciding to ask the United Nations to condemn Argentina there was uncertainty on the next step.  Then the PM was told that the First Sea lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, was in Parliament and wished to attend the meeting.  In an interview with Channel 4 News in 1992 he told what he had said to her (Ref. 60):-

“She was undoubtedly seeking positive factual data on which to make her own mind up. Could we do it, against all the risks we’d discussed? I said, yes we could and, in my judgment, we should – which was not my business. That was a political matter”.

“She was on to that in a flash. ‘Why do you say that?’ I said if we don’t, or if we do it half-heartedly and are not completely successful, we should be living in a different country which counts for very much less [in the world]”.

   That settled the action.  Mrs Thatcher accepted his counsel.  In very short order a multi-service task force was organised and 3 days after the Argentinian invasion took place on the 2^nd April 1982* the major warships sailed from Portsmouth for the South Atlantic**.  Nuclear submarines had been dispatched already which, with their high underwater speed, would arrive first (5 in all were deployed (Ref.  62).

*The Argentinian garrison was reinforced up to about 12,000 before a Maritime Exclusion Zone of 200 n. miles radius was imposed by Great Britain around the islands on 12 April, which could be enforced by nuclear submarines.

**This author has to confess that the sailing brought to his mind the unfortunate history of the Greek expedition to Sicily in 415BC and he hoped very much the result would not be the same.

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Responsibilities of I/OC and Command

   This example of an I/OC failure may be thought unfair.  The time interval between the change of the Argentinian junta on 22^nd December 1981 and their invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2^nd April 1982 was only 3 months.  Probably only a mole in Galtieri’s junta could have discovered their intentions in that period.  It has been suggested above that the visible signs of preparation were small and therefore hard to spot and report.  Nevertheless, that is what “our man in Buenos Aries” was there to do.  Had a warning been sent as late as one month before the day a nuclear submarine or two using 25 knots underwater speed could have reached the Islands two weeks beforehand.  With suitable warning to the junta that could have prevented the invasion being launched, as had happened in 1977.

  Command had to share the blame.  Not understanding that the proposed withdrawal of HMS Endurance would send a strong signal to encourage Argentinian ambitions was Mrs Thatcher’s mistake

The Franks report

   A review of the Falklands war by 5 Privy Counsellors of mixed party membership, set up in December 1982 under Lord Franks, in their agreed January 1983 report concluded that the invasion “could not be foreseen” (Ref. 61).  In a June 1983 General Election the nation agreed, or, at any rate, forgave her because she led the way to liberate the Islanders  They gave Mrs Thatcher a much larger majority.

   Of course, the potential cost saving of scrapping HMS Endurance was utterly negligible compared with the loss in blood and treasure of the liberation campaign.

Admiral Woodward’s view of the campaign

   In Ref. 63 Admiral Woodward gave his view of the liberation campaign:-

“British victory would have to be judged anyway as a fairly close-run thing….we fought our way along a knife edge.”

   His reason for writing that may have been the narrow escapes his ships had from Argentinian bombs which did not explode on contact.  Apart from the 3 escort ships which were sunk by bombing in or around the debarkation bay, 4 others escaped, although damaged, for that reason (Ref. 62).  The Argentinian pilots were so keen to score that they bore in too close for the safety features to unwind before the missiles struck.  Being good Catholics, however, they did not adopt Kamikaze tactics.

Leopoldo Galtieri

Margaret Thatcher

P.S.  As a consequence of the failure in the Falklands the Argentinian junta was forced from power in June 1982 and democracy was restored after 6 years of “Dirty War” against the people.  No-one in Buenos Aries proposed to set up a statue to Margaret Thatcher.

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The losses in the campaign

   The British lost 255 service lives in the undeclared war and 3 Falkland Island women were killed during a British bombardment.

   The Argentinian loss was 649*.

* This included 323 sailors lost when the cruiser Admiral Belgrano was sunk by a nuclear submarine on 2^nd May 1982.  Although critics of Mrs Thatcher made a noise about that event, since it was outside the Maritime Exclusion Zone, they overlooked that the zone was advised to the Argentinians as “without prejudice” to any action which might be taken if British security was endangered.  That criterion was judged to be valid.  Although the ship was steaming away this could have been reversed in very short order, as had occurred in historic sea fights such as Trafalgar, Jutland, and Leyte Gulf.  The ship’s captain stated in 2003 that he was in a tactical manoeuvre.

   Realising that they could not avail against the British submarines, the ships of the Argentinian navy retreated to home waters and took no further part in the conflict.  No doubt this was particularly galling for Admiral Anaya who had been the leader in launching the invasion.

References

58.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ground_forces_in_the_Falklands_War

59.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20800447

60.  https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/apr/26/admiral-of-the-fleet-sir-henry-leach-obituary

61.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks_Report_(1983)

62.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_naval_forces_in_the_Falklands_War#Royal_Navy

63.  One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander  J. Woodward    Harper Collins  1992.

C5.  The “Alpine Redoubt” April 1945.

   The first mention of the German “National (or Alpine) Redoubt” was when the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the WW2 forerunner of the CIA) reported it from their “listening post” in Switzerland in September 1944 (Ref. 64).  Over the next 6 months a variety of I/OC studies from SHAEF to 7th US Army commented on the subject, some sure, some skeptical.  An extract from a SHAEF 10^th March 1945 report read (Ref. 64):-

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   DDE and ONB took the proposal sufficiently seriously that it played a part in refusing to try to capture Berlin and in turning forces towards the South to pre-empt any attempt to occupy and fortify this “Redoubt”.  When it turned out that there was nothing there, in the author’s opinion a certain amount of embarrassment led DDE in his final report as Supreme Commander to describe in some detail what it might have been (Ref. 66).

   The map below shows the approximate area which was supposed to provide the “National Redoubt” .

   A very detailed review of how the I/OC influenced the belief in the “National Redoubt”, which in fact did not exist, is provided in Ref. 67

References

64.  Eisenhower’s Lieutenants  R. Weigley  Sidgwick & Jackson. 1981.

66.  Report by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force  D. Eisenhower  HM Stationery Office  1946.

67.  https://www.allworldwars.com/Ultra-and-The-Myth-of-the-National-Redoubt-by-Marvin-Meek.html